On he strolled through the rain, holding the umbrella vertically over the
exposed page to keep it dry while he read. Suddenly his eye was struck
by an article. It was the review of a pamphlet by an American
astronomer, in which the author announced a conclusive discovery with
regard to variable stars.
The discovery was precisely the discovery of Swithin St. Cleeve.
Another man had forestalled his fame by a period of about six weeks.
Then the youth found that the goddess Philosophy, to whom he had vowed to
dedicate his whole life, would not in return support him through a single
hour of despair. In truth, the impishness of circumstance was newer to
him than it would have been to a philosopher of threescore-and-ten. In a
wild wish for annihilation he flung himself down on a patch of heather
that lay a little removed from the road, and in this humid bed remained
motionless, while time passed by unheeded.
At last, from sheer misery and weariness, he fell asleep.
The March rain pelted him mercilessly, the beaded moisture from the
heavily charged locks of heath penetrated him through back and sides, and
clotted his hair to unsightly tags and tufts. When he awoke it was dark.
He thought of his grandmother, and of her possible alarm at missing him.
On attempting to rise, he found that he could hardly bend his joints, and
that his clothes were as heavy as lead from saturation. His teeth
chattering and his knees trembling he pursued his way home, where his
appearance excited great concern. He was obliged at once to retire to
bed, and the next day he was delirious from the chill.
It was about ten days after this unhappy occurrence that Lady Constantine
learnt the news, as above described, and hastened along to the homestead
in that state of anguish in which the heart is no longer under the
control of the judgment, and self-abandonment even to error, verges on
heroism.
On reaching the house in Welland Bottom the door was opened to her by old
Hannah, who wore an assiduously sorrowful look; and Lady Constantine was
shown into the large room,--so wide that the beams bent in the
middle,--where she took her seat in one of a methodic range of chairs,
beneath a portrait of the Reverend Mr. St. Cleeve, her astronomer's
erratic father.
The eight unwatered dying plants, in the row of eight flower-pots,
denoted that there was something wrong in the house. Mrs. Martin came
downstairs fretting, her wonder at beholding Lady Constantine not
altogether displacing the previous mood of grief.
'Here's a pretty kettle of fish, my lady!' she exclaimed.