"Why, Garsington, is it you? What do you want at this hour?"
"Screw yourself up, Bingham, I've something to tell you," he answered in a thick voice.
"What is it? another disaster, I suppose. Is somebody else dead?"
"Yes; somebody is. Honoria's dead. Burnt to death at the ball."
"Great God! Honoria burnt to death. I had better go----"
"I advise you not, Bingham. I wouldn't go to the hospital if I were you. Screw yourself up, and if you can, give me something to drink--I'm about done--I must screw myself up."
And here we may leave this most fortunate and gifted man. Farewell to Geoffrey Bingham.
ENVOL Thus, then, did these human atoms work out their destinies, these little grains of animated dust, blown hither and thither by a breath which came they knew not whence.
If there be any malicious Principle among the Powers around us that deigns to find amusement in the futile vagaries of man, well might it laugh, and laugh again, at the great results of all this scheming, of all these desires, loves and hates; and if there be any pitiful Principle, well might it sigh over the infinite pathos of human helplessness. Owen Davies lost in his own passion; Geoffrey crowned with prosperity and haunted by undying sorrow; Honoria perishing wretchedly in her hour of satisfied ambition; Beatrice sacrificing herself in love and blindness, and thereby casting out her joy.
Oh, if she had been content to humbly trust in the Providence above her; if she had but left that deed undared for one short week!
But Geoffrey still lived, and the child recovered, after hanging for a while between life and death, and was left to comfort him. May she survive to be a happy wife and mother, living under conditions more favourable to her well-being than those which trampled out the life of that mistaken woman, the ill-starred, great-souled Beatrice, and broke her father's heart.
Say--what are we? We are but arrows winged with fears and shot from darkness into darkness; we are blind leaders of the blind, aimless beaters of this wintry air; lost travellers by many stony paths ending in one end. Tell us, you, who have outworn the common tragedy and passed the narrow way, what lies beyond its gate? You are dumb, or we cannot hear you speak.
But Beatrice knows to-day!