'Blessed are the merciful!' What strange ironic prescience had
led Prince Albert, in the simplicity of his heart, to choose that
motto for the Crimean brooch? The words hold a double lesson;
and, alas! when she brought herself to realise at length what was
indeed the fact and what there was no helping, it was not in
mercy that she turned upon her old friend.
'Beaten!' she exclaimed. 'Can't you see that you've simply thrown
away the game? And with all the winning cards in your hands! And
so noble a game! Sidney Herbert beaten! And beaten by Ben Hawes!
It is a worse disgrace...' her full rage burst out at last, '...a
worse disgrace than the hospitals at Scutari.'
He dragged himself away from her, dragged himself to Spa, hoping
vainly for a return to health, and then, despairing, back again
to England, to Wilton, to the majestic house standing there
resplendent in the summer sunshine, among the great cedars which
had lent their shade to Sir Philip Sidney, and all those
familiar, darling haunts of beauty which he loved, each one of
them, 'as if they were persons'; and at, Wilton he died. After
having received the Eucharist, he had become perfectly calm;
then, almost unconscious, his lips were seen to be moving. Those
about him bent down. 'Poor Florence! Poor Florence!' they just
caught. '...Our joint work .
Pages:
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234