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Her health was not good now, and there had come that ivory pallor into her face which he never noticed, and which afterwards he never forgot. She did not mention her own ill-health to him. After all, she thought, it was not much. "You are late!" she said, looking at him. His eyes were shining; his face seemed to glow. He smiled to her. "Yes; I've been down Clifton Grove with Clara."
"Nay, nay," he urged sarcastically, as she vainly struggled to free herself; "let the De Haldimar portion of your blood rise up in anger if it will; but that of Clara Beverley, at least ."
And they had quarrelled so fiercely over the colour of her hair, that for years each looked the other way when they met in the street. But as he looked at Clara again, something vibrated within him, and he was conscious of nothing but a desire to look at her and hear her speak. "My idea was to buy a piano, an' then yer could give Ray 'is lessons at 'ome," he said.
The lecturer did not start for another ten minutes, and Lettice occupied the interval by comparing notes with Clara Graham: for these two dearly loved a gossip in which they could dissect the characters of the men they knew, and the appearance of the women they did not know. It was a perfectly harmless practice as indulged in by them, for their criticism was not malicious.
Clara read the news which followed the heading in capital letters. Thus it ran: "The following intelligence, from St. Johns, Newfoundland, has reached us for publication. The whaling-vessel Blythewood is reported to have met with the surviving officers and men of the Expedition in Davis Strait. Many are stated to be dead, and some are supposed to be missing.
Clara also played at many concerts. Just before Christmas the artist pair returned to Düsseldorf. The hallucinations which had before obsessed him now returned with alarming force. He could no longer sleep he seemed to be lost in mental darkness. One day in February 1854, his physician made a noon call upon him. They sat chatting when suddenly Schumann left the room without a word.
They were up on the following morning at day-dawn, and, putting Billy in the cart, set off for the cottage of Clara.
In the early days of his marriage he had accustomed himself to a liberality of expenditure out of proportion to his income; the little store of savings allowed him to indulge his kindness to Clara and her relatives, and he kept putting off to the future that strict revision of outlay which his position of course demanded.
Clara turned towards her with terrified eyes. "I I do owe Major Bristow a little still," she admitted. "I seem to have been so unlucky. He told me that any time would do, that I should win it back again, and I had no idea what stakes we were playing. I don't touch a card now at all, but this was at Ellingham House. They insisted on my making a fourth at bridge."
Dawson married Emma when he was a sergeant of Marines, and I think that he has shown to her his uniform with the three captain's stars. To me she always spoke of him as "the Captain," though I could not be quite sure whether she meant a Captain of Marines or a Captain in the Army of Salvation. Dawson, his Emma, and Clara are very happy, very united, and I am glad that I saw them in their own home.
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