"It is better as it is," she heard him saying, when she could hear at all, for the dull, rushing sound in her ears; "far better—far better. My life was torture—could never have been anything else, though I lived fifty years. I was so young—life looked so long, that there were times, yes, Edith, times when for hours I sat debating within myself a suicide's cowardly end. But Heaven has saved me from that. Death has mercifully come of itself to set all things straight, and oh, my darling! to bringyou."
She laid her face upon his wasted hand, nearer loving him in his death than she had ever been in his life.
"You have suffered," he said tenderly, looking at her. "I thought to shield you from every care, to make your life one long dream of pleasure and happiness, and see how I have done it! You have hated me—scorned me, and with justice; how could it be otherwise? Even when you hear all, you may not be able to forgive me, and yet, Heaven knows, I did it all for the best. If it were all to come over again, I could not act otherwise than as I have acted. But, my darling, it was very hard on you."
In death as in life his thoughts were not of himself and his own sufferings, but of her. As she looked at him, as she recalled what he had been only a year ago, in the flush and vigor and prime of manhood—it seemed almost too much to bear.
"Oh, Victor! hush," she cried, hiding her face again, "you break my heart!"
His feeble fingers closed over hers with all their dying strength—that faint, happy smile came over his lips. "I don't want to distress you," he said very gently; "you have suffered enough without that. Edith, I feel wonderfully happy to-night—it seems to me I have no wish left—as though I were sure of your forgiveness beforehand. It is joy enough to see you here—to feel your hand in mine once more, to know I am at liberty to tell you the truth at last. I have longed for this hour with a longing I can never describe. Only to be forgiven and die—I wanted no more. For what would life have been without you? My dearest, I wonder if in the dark days that are gone, whatever you may have doubted, my honor, my sanity, if you ever doubted my love for you?"
"I don't know," she answered, in a stifled voice. "My thoughts have been very dark—very desperate. There were times when there seemed no light on earth, no hope in Heaven. I dare not tell you—I dare not think—how wicked and reckless my heart has been."
"Poor child!" he said, with a touch of infinite compassion. "You were so young—it was all so sudden, so terrible, so incomprehensible. Draw up that hassock, Edith, and sit here by my side, and listen. No, you must let go my hand. How can I tell whether you will not shrink from it and me with horror when you know all."
Without a word, she drew the low seat close to the bed, and shading her face with her hand, listened, motionless as a statue, to the brief story of the secret that had held them apart so long.
"It all begins," Sir Victor's faint, low voice said, "with the night of my father's death, three weeks before our wedding-day. That night I learned the secret of my mother's murder, and learned to pity my unhappy father as I had never pitied him before. Do you remember, Edith, the words you spoke to Lady Helena the day before you ran away from Powyss Place? You said Inez Catheron was not the murderer, though she had been accused of it, nor Juan Catheron, though he had been suspected of it—that you believed Sir Victor Catheron had killed his own wife. Edith, you were right. Sir Victor Catheron murdered his own wife!
"I learned it that fatal night. Lady Helena and Inez had known it all along. Juan Catheron more than suspected it. Bad as he was, he kept that secret. My mother was stabbed by my father's hand.
"Why did he do it? you ask. I answer, because he was mad—mad for weeks before. And he knew it, though no one else did. With the cunning of insanity he kept his secret, not even his wife suspected that his reason was unsound. He was a monomaniac. Insanity, as you have heard, is hereditary in our family, in different phases; the phase it took with him was homicidal mania. On all other points he was sane—on this, almost from the first, he had been insane—the desire to take his wife's life.
"It is horrible, is it not—almost incredibly horrible? It is true, nevertheless. Before the honeymoon was ended, his homicidal mania developed itself—an almost insurmountable desire, whenever he was alone in her presence, to take her life. Out of the very depth and intensity of his passion for her his madness arose. He loved her with the whole strength of his heart and being, and—the mad longing was with him always, to end her life while she was all his own—in short, to kill her.
"He could not help it; he knew his madness—he shrank in horror from it—he battled with it—he prayed for help—and for over a year he controlled himself. But it was always there—always. How long it might have lain dormant—how long he would have been able to withstand his mad desire, no one can tell. But Juan Catheron came and claimed her as his wife, and jealousy finished what a dreadful hereditary insanity had begun.
"On that fatal evening he had seen them together somewhere in the grounds, and though he hid what he felt, the sight had goaded him almost to frenzy. Then came the summons from Lady Helena to go to Powyss Place. He set out, but before he had gone half-way, the demon of jealously whispered in his ear, 'Your wife is with Juan Catheron now—go back and surprise them.' He turned and went back—a madman—the last glimpse of reason and self-control gone. He saw his wife, not with Juan Catheron, but peacefully and innocently asleep by the open window of the room where he had left her. The dagger, used as a paper knife, lay on the table near. I say he was utterly mad for the time. In a moment the knife was up to the hilt in her heart, dealing death with that one strong blow! He drew it out and—she lay dead before him.
"Then a great, an awful horror, fell upon him. Not of the consequence of his crime; only of that which lay so still and white before him. He turned like the madman he was and fled. By some strange chance he met no one. In passing through the gates he flung the dagger among the fern, leaped on his horse, and was gone.
"He rode straight to Powyss Place. Before he reached it some of insanity's cunning returned to him. He must not let people knowhehad done it; they would find out he was mad; they would shut him up in a madhouse; they would shrink from him in loathing and horror. How he managed it, he told me with his dying breath, he never knew—he did somehow. No one suspected him, only Inez Catheron, returning to the nursery, had seen all—had seen the deadly blow struck, had seen his instant flight, and stood spell-bound, speechless and motionless as a stone. He remembered no more—the dark night of oblivion and total insanity closed about him only to open at briefest intervals from that to the hour of his death.
"That, Edith, was the awful story I was told that night—the story that has ruined and wrecked my whole life and yours. I listened to it all as you sit and listen now, still as a stone, frozen with a horror too intense for words. I can recall as clearly now as the moment I heard them the last words he ever spoke to me:
"'I tell you this partly because I am dying, and I think you ought to know, partly because I want to warn you. They tell me you are about to be married. Victor, beware what you do. The dreadful taint is in your blood as it was in mine—you love her as I loved the wife I murdered. Again I say take care—take care! Be warned by me; my fate may be yours, your mother's fate hers. It is my wish, I would say command, if I dared, that you never marry; that you let the name and the curse die out; that no more sons may be born to hear the ghastly story I have told you.'
"I could listen to no more, I rushed from the room, from the house, out into the darkness and the rain, as if the curse he spoke of had already come upon me—as though I were already going mad. How long I remained, what I did, I don't know. Soul and body seemed in a whirl. The next thing I knew was my aunt summoning me into the house. My most miserable father was dead.
"Then came the funeral. I would not,could notthink. I drove the last warning he had spoken out of my mind. I clenched my teeth—I swore that I wouldnotgive you up. Not for the raving of a thousand madmen, not for the warning of a thousand dying fathers. From that hour I was a changed man—from that hour my doom was sealed.
"I returned to Powyss Place, but not as I had left. I was a haunted man. By day and night—all night long, all day through, the awful warning pursued me. 'My fate may be yours—your mother's fatehers!' It was my destiny, there was no escape; my mother's doom would be yours; on our wedding-day I was fated to kill you! It was written. Nothing could avert it.
"I don't know whether the family taint was always latent within me, or that it was continual brooding on what I had heard, but the fate certainly befell me. My father's homicidal mania became mine. Edith, I felt it, felt the dreadful whisper in my ear, the awful desire stirring in my heart, to lift my hand and take your life! Often and often have I fled from your presence when I felt the temptation growing stronger than I could withstand.
"And yet I would not give you up; that is where I can never forgive myself. I could not tell you; I could not draw back then. I hoped against hope; it seemed like tearing body and soul asunder, the thought of losing you. 'Come what may,' I cried, in my anguish, 'she shall be my wife!'
"Our wedding-day came; the day that should have been the most blessed of my life, that was the most miserable. All the night before, all that morning, the demon within me had been, battling for the victory. I could not exorcise it; it stood between us at the altar. Then came our silent, strange wedding-journey. I wonder sometimes, as I looked at you, so still, so pale, so beautiful, what you must think. I dare not look at you often, I dare not speak to you, dare not think of you. I felt if I did I should lose all control of myself, and slay you there and then.
"I wonder, as you sit and listen there, my love, my bride, whether it is pity or loathing that fills your heart. And yet I deserved pity; what I suffered no tongue can ever tell. I knew myself mad, knew that sooner or later my madness would be stronger than myself, and then it came upon me so forcibly when we reached Carnarvon, that I fled from you again and went wandering away by myself, where, I knew not. 'Sooner or later you will kill her;' that thought alone filled me; 'it is as certain as that you live and stand here. You will kill this girl who trusts you and who has married you, who does not dream she has married a demon athirst for her blood.'
"I went wild then. I fell down on my knees in the wet grass, and held up my hands to the sky. 'O God!' I cried out in despair, 'show me what to do. Don't let me kill my darling. Strike me dead where I kneel sooner than that!' And with the words the bitterness of death seemed to pass, and great calm fell. In that calm a voice spoke clearly, and said:
"Leave her! Leave your bride while there is yet time. It is the only way. Leave her! She does not love you—she will not care. Better that you should break your heart and die, than that you should harm a hair of her head.'
"I heard it as plainly, Edith, as I hear my own voice speaking now. I rose—my resolution taken—a great, unutterable peace filling my heart. In my exalted state it seemed easy—I alone would be the sufferer, not you—I would go.
"I went back. The first sight I saw was you, my darling, sitting by the open window, fast asleep. Fast asleep, as my mother had been that dreadful night. If anything had been wanting to confirm my resolution, that would have done it. I wrote the note of farewell; I came in and kissed your dear hands, and went away from you forever. O love! it seemed easy then, but my heart broke in that hour. I could not live without you; thank Heaven! the sacrifice is not asked. I have told you all—it lay between two things—I must leave you, or in my madness kill you. Edith, it would have happened. You have heard my story—you know all—the dreadful secret that has held us asunder. It is for you to say whether I can be forgiven or not."
She had all the time been sitting, her face hidden in her hands, never stirring or speaking. Now she arose and fell once more on her knees beside him, tears pouring from her eyes. She drew his head into her arms, she stooped down, and, for the first time in her life, kissed again and again the lips of the man she had married.
"Forgive you!" she said. "O my husband, my martyr! It is I who must be forgiven!Youare an angel, not a man!"
An hour later, when Lady Helena softly opened the door and came in, she found them still so, his weak head resting in her arms as she knelt, her bowed face hidden, her falling tears hardly yet dried. One look into his radiant eyes, into the unspeakable joy and peace of his face, told her the story. All had been revealed, all had been forgiven. On the anniversary of their most melancholy wedding-day husband and wife were reunited at last.
There was no need of words. She stooped over and silently kissed both.
"It is growing late, Edith," she said gently, "and you must be tired after your journey. You will go up to your room now. I will watch with Victor to-night."
But Edith only drew him closer, and looked up with dark, imploring eyes.
"No," she said, "no, no! I will never leave him again. I am not in the least tired, Lady Helena; I will stay and share your watch."
"But, my dear—"
"O Lady Helena—aunt—don't you see—I must do something—make reparation in some way. What a wretch—what a wretch I have been. Oh, why did I not know all sooner? Victor, why did I not knowyou? To remember what my thoughts of you have been, and all the time—all the time—it was for me. If you die I shall feel as though I were your murderess."
Her voice choked in a tearless sob. She had hated him—loathed him—almost wished, in her wickedness, for his death, and all the time he was yielding up his life in his love for her.
"You will let me stay with you, Victor?" she pleaded almost passionately; "don't ask me to go. We have been parted long enough; let me be with you until—" again her voice choked and died away.
With a great effort he lifted one of her hands to his lips—that radiant smile of great joy on his face.
"She talksalmostas if she loved me," he said.
"Love you! O Victor!—husband—if I had only known, if I had only known!"
"If you had known," he repeated, looking at her with wistful eyes. "Edith, if you really had known—if I had dared to tell you all I have told you to-night, would you not have shrunk from me in fear and horror, as a monster who pretended to love you and yet longed for your life? Sane on all other points—how would you have comprehended my strange madness on that? It is gone now—thank God—in my weakness and dying hour, and there is nothing but the love left. But my own, if I had told you, if you had known, would you not have feared and left me?"
She looked at him with brave, steadfast, shining eyes.
"If I had known," she answered, "how your father killed your mother, how his madness was yours, I would have pitied you with all my heart, and out of that pity I would have loved you. I would never have left you—never. I could never have feared you, Victor; and this I know—what you dreaded never would have come to pass. I am as sure of it as that I kneel here. You would never have lifted your hand against my life."
"You think so?" Still with that wistful, earnest gaze.
"Iknowso—I feel it—I am sure of it. You could not have done it—I should never have been afraid of it, and in time your delusion would have worn entirely away. You are naturally superstitious and excitable—morbid, even; the dreadful excitement of your father's story and warning, were too much for you to bear alone. That is all. If you could have told me—if I could have laughed at your hypochondrical terrors, your cure would have been half effected. No, Victor, I say it again—I would never have left you, and you would never have harmed a hair of my head."
Her tone of resolute, conviction seemed to bring conviction even to him. The sad, wistful light deepened in his blue eyes.
"Then it has all been in vain," he said very sadly; "the suffering and the sacrifice—all these miserable months of separation and pain."
Again Lady Helena advanced and interposed, this time with authority.
"It won't do," she said; "Edith youmustgo. All this talking and excitement may end fatally. If you won't leave him he won't sleep a wink to-night; and if he passes a sleepless night who is to answer for the consequences? For his sake you must go. Victor tell her to go—she will obey you."
She looked at him beseechingly, but he saw that Lady Helena was right, and that Edith herself needed rest. It was easy to make one more sacrifice now, and send her away.
"I am afraid Aunt Helena is right," he said faintly. "I must confess to feeling exhausted, and I know you need a night's sleep, so that I may have you with me all day to-morrow. For a few hours, dear love, let me send you away."
She rose at once with a parting caress, and made him comfortable among his pillows.
"Good-night," she whispered. "Try to sleep, and be strong to talk to me to-morrow. Oh!" she breathed as she turned away, "if the elixir of life were only not a fable—if the days of miracles were not past, if he only might be restored to us, how happy we all could be!"
Lady Helena heard her, and shook her head.
"It is too late for that," she said; "when suffering is prolonged beyond a certain point there is but one remedy—death. If your miracle could take place and he be restored, he has undergone too much ever to live on and be happy and forget. There can only be one ending to such a year as he has passed, and that ending is very near."
Edith went to her room—one of the exquisite suite that had been prepared for her a year before. She was occupying it at last, but how differently from what she had ever thought. She remembered this night twelve months so well, the strange vigil in which she had spent in taking her farewell of those letters and that picture, and waiting for her wedding-day to dawn.
To-night she slept, deeply and soundly, and awoke to find the October sun shining brightly in. Was he still alive? It was her first thought. Death might have come at any moment. She arose—slipped on a dressing gown, and rang the bell.
It was Inez who answered in person.
"I heard your bell," she said as she kissed her good-morning, "and I knew what you wanted. Yes, he is still alive, but very weak and helpless this morning. The excitement and joy of last night were almost too much for him. And he remembers what anniversary this is."
Edith turned away—some of the bitterness, some of the pain of loss she knew he was enduring filling her own heart.
"If I had only known! if I had only known!" was again her cry.
"If you had—if he had told—I believe with you all would have been well. But it is too late to think of that—hebelieved differently. The terrible secret of the father has wrought its terrible retribution upon the son. If he had told you when he returned from Poplar Lodge, you would have been happy together to-day. You are so strong—your mind so healthful—some of your strength and courage would have been imparted to him. But it is too late now—all is over—we have only to make him happy while he is left with us."
"Too late! too late!" Edith's heart echoed desolately. In those hours of his death she was nearer loving her husband than perhaps she could ever have been had he lived.
"I will send breakfast up here," said Inez, turning to go; "when you have breakfasted, go to him at once. He is awake and waiting for you."
Edith made her toilet. Breakfast came; and, despite remorse and grief, when one is nineteen one can eat. Then she hurried away to the sick-room.
He was lying much as she had left him, propped up among the pillows—his face whiter than the linen and lace, whiter than snow. By daylight she saw fully the ghastly change in him—saw that his fair hair was thickly strewn with gray, that the awful, indiscribable change that goes before was already on his face. His breathing was labored and panting—he had suffered intensely with spasms of the heart all night, sleeping none at all. This morning the paroxysms of pain had passed, but he lay utterly worn and exhausted, the cold damp of infinite misery on his brow, the chill of death already on hands and limbs. He lay before her, the total wreck of the gallant, hopeful, handsome gentleman, whom only one year ago she had married.
But the familiar smile she knew so well was on his lips and in his eyes as he saw her. She could not speak for a moment as she looked at him—in silence she took her place close by his side.
He was the first to break the silence, in a voice so faint as hardly to be more than a whisper. "How had she slept—how did she feel? She looked pale, he thought—surely she was not ill?"
"I?" she said bitterly. "O, no—I am never ill—nothing ever seems to hurt hard heartless people like me. It is the good and the generous who suffer. I have the happy knack of making all who love me miserable, but my own health never fails. I don't dare to ask you what sort of night you have had—I see it in your face. My coming brings, as it always does, more ill than good."
"No," he said, almost with energy; "a hundred times no! Ah, love! your coming has made me the happiest man on earth. I seem to have nothing left to wish for now. As to the night—the spasmsdidtrouble me, but I feel deliciously easy and at rest this morning, and uncommonly happy. Edith, I talked so much last evening I gaveyouno chance. I want you to tell me now all about the year that has gone—all about yourself."
"There is so little to tell," she responded; "it was really humdrum and uneventful. Nothing much happened to me; I looked for work and got it. Oh, don't be distressed! it was easy, pleasant work enough, and I was much better busy. I begin to believe plenty of hard work is a real blessing to dissatisfied, restless people—you can't be very miserable when you are very busy—you haven't time for luxuries. I got along very well, and never was ill an hour."
"But, tell me," he persisted; "you don't know how I long to hear.Tell, me all about your life after—after—"
"Hush!" she interposed, holding his hands tight. "You were the sufferer, not I. O my poor boy! I never was half worthy such a heart as yours. I am only beginning to realize how selfish, and cruel and hard I have been. But, with Heaven's help, I will try and be different from this day."
She told him the story of her life, from the time of her flight from Powyss Place to the present, glossing over all that was dark, making the most of all that was bright. But he understood her—he knew how her pride had suffered and bled.
"I never thought of your going away," he said sadly. "I might have known you better, but I did not—I was so sure you would have stayed, if not with Lady Helena, then in some safe shelter; that you would have taken what was justly yours. I was stunned when I first heard of your flight. I searched for you everywhere—in America and all. Did you know I went to America, Edith?"
"Inez told me," she answered faintly.
"I could not find your father—I could not find the Stuarts. I must have been very stupid somehow—I could find no one. Then arrived that day when I saw you in the Oxford Street shop, when I tried to follow you home and could not. What an evening it was! Then came my last desperate hope when I sent Inez to you and failed. It seemed almost hardest to bear of all."
"If I had only known—if I had only known!" was still her cry.
"Yes, the trouble lay there. With your pride you could not act otherwise than as you did. For you are very proud, my darling," with a smile. "Do you know it?"
"Very proud—very heartless—very selfish," she answered brokenly."Oh, no need to tell me how base I have been!"
"Yet, I think I like you the better for your pride; and I foresee—yes, I foresee, that one day you will be a happy woman, with as noble, and loving, and generous a heart as ever beat. I understand you, it seems to me now, better than you understand yourself. One day—it may be years from now—the happiness of your life will come to you. Don't let pride stand between you and it then, Edith. I hope that day may come—I pray for it. Lying in my grave, love, I think I shall rest easier if I knowyouare happy on earth."
"Don't! don't!" she said; "I cannot bear it! Your goodness breaks my heart."
"There is one thing I must ask, Edith," he resumed after a pause; "a last favor. You will grant it, will you not?"
"Victor! is there anything I wouldnotgrant?"
"It is this, then—that when I am gone, you will take what is your right and your due. This you must promise me; no more false pride—the widow of Sir Victor Catheron must take what is hers. Juan Catheron is married to a Creole lady, and living in the island of Martinique, a reformed man. He inherits the title and Catheron Royals, with its income, as heir-at-law. For the rest you have your jointure as my widow; and my grandmother's large fortune, which descended to me, I have bequeathed to you in my will. So that when I leave you, my dearest, I leave you safe from all pecuniary troubles. It is my last wish—nay, my last command, that you take all without hesitation. You promise me this, Edith?"
"I promise," she answered lowly. She could not look at him—it seemed like the Scriptural words, "heaping coals of fire on her head."
Then for a long time there was silence. He lay back among the pillows with closed eyes, utterly exhausted, but looking very happy. The bitterness of death was passed—a great peace had come. With the wife he loved beside him, her hand clasped in his, he could go forth in peace, knowing that in her heart there was nothing but affection and forgiveness—that one day, in the future, she would be happy. In his death as in his life he was thoroughly unselfish. It brought no pang to him now to feel that years after the grass grew over his grave she would be the happy wife of a happier man. He talked little more; he dozed at intervals during the day. Edith never left him for a moment. His aunt and cousin shared her watch off and on all day. They could all see that the last great change was near. Pain had left him—he was entirely at rest.
"Read to me, Edith," he said once as the day wore on. She took up a volume of sermons that Lady Helena was fond of. She opened it, haphazard, and read. And presently she came to this, reading of the crosses and trials and sorrows of life: "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death; neither sorrow nor crying; neither shall there be any more pain."
His eyes were fixed upon her with so radiant a light, so infinite a thankfulness, that she could read no more. Her voice choked—she laid the book down. Later, as the sunset came streaming in, he awoke from a long slumber, and looked at the glittering bars of light lying on the carpet.
"Open the window, Edith," he said; "I want to see the sun set once more."
She obeyed. All flushed with rose light, and gold and amythist splendor, the evening sky glowed like the very gates of paradise.
"It is beautiful," Edith said, but its untold beauty brought to her somehow a sharp pang of pain.
"Beautiful!" he repeated in an ecstatic whisper. "O love! if earth is so beautiful, what must Heaven be!"
Then she heard him softly repeat to himself the words she had read: "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death; neither sorrow nor crying; neither shall there be any more pain." He drew a long, long breath, like one who is very weary and sees rest near.
"Darling," he said, "how pale you are—white as a spirit. Go out for a little into the air—don't mind leaving me. I feel sleepy again."
She kissed him and went. All her after life she was glad to remember their last parting had been with a caress on her part, a happy smile on his. She descended the steps leading from the window with unquestioning obedience, and passed out into the rose and gold light of the sunset. She remained perhaps fifteen minutes—certainly not more. The red light of the October sky was fast paling to cold gray—the white October moon was rising. She went back. He still lay as she had left him—his eyes were closed—she thought he was asleep. She bent over him, close—closer—growing white almost as himself. And then she knew what it was.
"And there shall be no more death; neither sorrow nor crying; neither shall there be any more pain."
A cry rang through the room, the long, wailing cry of widowhood. She fell on her knees by the bed. An hour after, the passing bell tolled sombrely through the darkness from the steeple of Chesholm Church, telling all whom it might concern that Sir Victor Catheron had gone home.
One brilliant, August noonday a Cunard ship steamed gallantly down the Mersey and out into the open sea.
There were a great number of passengers on board—every cabin, every berth, was filled. Every country under Heaven, it seemed, was represented. After the first two or three days out, after the first three or four times assembling around the dinner-table and congregating on the sunny decks, people began to know all about one another, to learn each other's names and histories.
There was one lady passenger who from the first excited a great deal of talk and curiosity. A darkly handsome young lady in widow's weeds, who rather held herself aloof from everybody, and who seemed all sufficient unto herself. A young lady, pitifully young to wear that sombre dress and widow's cap, remarkable anywhere for her beauty, and dignity, and grace. Who was she? as with one voice all the gentlemen on board cried out that question the moment they saw her first.
She was a lady of rank and title, an English lady, travelling with her two servants—otherwise quite alone—the name on the passenger list was Lady Catheron.
For the first two days that was all that could be ascertained—just enough to whet curiosity to burning-point. Then in the solitude and seclusion of the ladies' cabin the maid servant became confidential with one of the stewardesses, and narrated, after the manner of maids, her mistress's history as far as she knew it. The stewardess retailed it to the lady passengers, and the lady passengers gave it at third hand to the gentlemen. This is what it was:
Lady Catheron, young as she looked and was, had nevertheless been a widow for two years. Her husband had been Sir Victor Catheron, of Cheshire, who had died after the first year of married felicity, leaving an immensely rich widow. Miserable Sir Victor! thought all the gentlemen. She—Sarah Betts, the maid—had not known her ladyship during the year of her married life, she had been engaged in London, some months after my lady's bereavement, to travel with her on the continent. My lady had travelled in company with her aunt, the Lady Helena Powyss, and her cousin, a "Mrs. Victor." They had spent the best part of two years wandering leisurely through every country in Europe, and now my lady was finishing her tour of the world by coming to America—why, Betts did not know. Not many ladies of rank came to America alone, Betts thought, but she had heard my lady was American by birth. Everywhere my lady went she had been greatly admired—gentlemen always raved about her, but she seemed as cold as marble, very high and haughty, utterly indifferent to them all. She did not go into society—she had been awfully fond of her late husband, and quite broken-hearted at losing him so soon. That was Miss Betts' story, and like Sam Weller's immortal valentine, was just enough to make them wish there was more.
For the man servant andavant courierof my lady, he was a genteel, dignified, taciturn gentleman, like an elderly duke in difficulties, with whom it was impossible to take liberties or ask questions—a sort of human oyster: who kept himself and his knowledge hermetically sealed up. He told nothing, and they had to be contented with Betts' version.
So Lady Catheron becamethelady of interest on board. Everybody saw her on deck, her railway rug spread in the sunshine, her low wicker-work chair placed upon it, a large umbrella unfurled over her head, reading or gazing over the sea toward the land they were nearing. She made no acquaintances, she was perfectly civil to everybody who spoke to her, friendly to a degree with the children, and her smile was bright and sweet as the sunshine itself. Her reticence could hardly be set down to pride. Before the voyage was over she was many times forward among the steerage passengers, leaving largesses behind her, and always followed by thanks and blessings when she came away. Not pride, surely—the great dark fathomless eyes were wondrously sweet and soft; the lips, that might once have been haughty and hard, tender and gentle now, and yet there was a vague, intangible something about her, that held all at arm's length, that let no one come one inch nearer than it was her will they should come. Lady Catheron had been their interest from the first—she was their mystery to the end.
Yes, it was Edith—Edith going home—home! well hardly that, perhaps; she was going to see her father, at his urgent request. He had returned once more to Sandypoint, he had been ailing lately, and he yearned to see his darling. His letter reached her in Paris, and Edith crossed over at once, and came.
Was there in her heart any hope of seeing, as well, other friends? Hardly—and yet, as America drew near and nearer, her heart beat with a hope and a restlessness she could no more explain than I can. In Naples, six months ago, she had met a party of Americans, and among them Mrs. Featherbrain, of light-headed memory. Mrs. Featherbrain had recognized an old acquaintance in Lady Catheron, and hailed her with effusion.
For Edith, she shrank away with the old feeling of dislike and repulsion, and yet she listened to her chatter, too.
"How sad it was," said gay Mrs. Featherbrain, "about the poor, dearStuarts. That delightful Charley, too! ah! it was very sad. Did LadyCatheron correspond with them? But of course she did, being a relativeand everything."
"No," Edith answered, her pale face a shade paler than usual; "she had entirely lost sight of them lately. She would be very glad to hear of them, though. Did Mrs. Featherbrain know—"
"Oh, dear, no!" Mrs. Featherbrain answered; "I have lost sight of them too—every one has. When people become poor and drop out of the world, as it were, it is impossible to follow them up. Shehadheard, just before their party started, that Trixy was about to be married, and that Charley—poor Charley! was going to California to seek his fortune. But she knew nothing positively, only that they were certainly not to be seen in New York—that the places and people who had known them once, knew them no more." That was all.
It could not be, then, that the hope of meeting them was in Edith's mind, and yet, her whole soul yearned to meet them—to ask their forgiveness, if no more. To clasp Trixy's hand once again,—honest, loving, impulsive, warm-hearted Trixy,—to feel her arms about her as of old, it seemed to Edith Catheron, she could have given half her life. Of any other, she would not let herself think. He had passed out of her life forever and ever—nothing could alter that.
"Everywhere she went, she was admired," her servants had said, "but to all she was cold as marble." Yes, and it would always be so while life remained. There had been but one man in all the world for her from the first—she had given him up of her own free will; she must abide by her decision; but there never would be any other. One loveless marriage she had made; she never would make another. Charley Stuart might—would, beyond doubt—forget her and marry, but she would go to her grave, her whole heart his.
They reached New York; and there were many kindly partings and cordial farewells. Lady Catheron and her two servants drove away to an up-town hotel, where rooms had been engaged, and all the papers duly chronicled the distinguished arrival. One day to rest—then down to Sandypoint, leaving gossiping Betts and the silent elderly gentleman behind her. And in the twilight of an August day she entered Sandypoint, and walked slowly through the little town, home. Only three years since she had left, a happy, hopeful girl of eighteen—returning now a saddened; lonely woman of twenty-one. How strangely altered the old landmarks, and yet how familiar. Here were the stores to which she used to walk, sulky and discontented, through the rain, to do the family marketing. Here spread the wide sea, smiling and placid, whereon she and Charley used to sail. Yonder lay the marsh where, that winter night, she had saved his life. Would it have been as well, she thought with weary wonder, if they had both died that night? Here was the nook where he had come upon her that wet, dark morning with his mother's letter, when her life seemed to begin—here the gate where they had stood when he gave her his warning: "Whatever that future brings, Edith, don't blame me." No, she blamed nobody but herself; the happiness of her life had lain within her grasp, and she had stretched forth her hand and pushed it away. There was the open window where he used to sit, in the days of his convalesence, and amuse himself setting her inflammable temper alight. It was all associated with him. Then the house door opens, a tall, elderly man comes out, there is a great cry,—father and daughter meet, and for an hour or so, she can forget even Charley.
She remains a week—how oddly familiar and yet strange it all seems. The children noisier and ruder than ever, her father grown grayer and more wrinkled, her stepmother, shrill of tongue and acid of temper as of yore, but fawningly obsequious to her.
The people who used to know her, and who flock to see her, the young men who used to be in love with her, and who stare at her speechlessly and afar off now. It amuses her for a while, then she tires of it, she tires of everything of late, her old fever of restlessness comes back. This dull Sandypoint, with its inquisitive gapers and questioners, is not to be endured, even for her father's sake. She will return to New York.
In the bustling life there—the restless, ceaseless flow of humanity, she alone finds solitude and rest now. She goes, but she leaves behind her that which renders keeping boarders or teaching classics forever unnecessary to Frederick Darrell.
She goes back. What her plans are for the future she does not know. She has no plans, she cannot tell how long she may remain, or where she will eventually take up her abode. It seems to her she will be a sort of feminine Wandering Jew all her life. That life lacks something that renders her restless—she does not care to think what. She may stay all winter—she may pack up and start any day for England.
September passes, and she has not gone. A few of the acquaintances she made when here before with the Stuarts call upon her, but they can tell her nothing of them. If the Stuarts were all dead and buried they could not more completely have dropped out of the lives of their summer-time friends. It must be true, she thinks, what Mrs. Featherbrain told her. Trixy is married and settled somewhere with her mother, and Charley is thousands of miles away, "seeking his fortune."
Then, all at once, she resolves to go back to England. Her handsome jointure house awaits her, Lady Helena and Inez long for her, love her—she will go back to them—try to be at peace like other women, try to live her life out and forget. She has some purchases to make before she departs. She goes into a Broadway store one day, advances to a counter, and says:
"I wish to see some black Lyons velvet." Then she pauses, and looks at some black kid gloves lying before her.
"What is the number?" she asks, lifting a pair.
The young man behind the counter makes no reply.
She raises her eyes to his face for the first time, and sees—CharleyStuart!
Charley Stuart! The original of the pictured face that lies over her heart by night and day. Charley—unchanged, calm, handsome, eminently self-possessed as ever, looking at her with grave gray eyes.
She turns giddy, with the utter shock of the great surprise—she leans for a second heavily against the counter, and looks at him with eyes that cannot believe what they see.
"Charley!"
"Edith!"
Yes, it is his voice, his smile, and he stretches his hand across the counter and takes hers. Then she sinks into a seat, and for a moment the store, and the faces, swim about her in a hot mist. But her heart has given one great glad leap, and she knows she has found what all unconsciously she has been longing for, seeking for—Charley!
He is the first to recover himself—if indeed he has lost himself for an instant—and speaks:
"This is a staggerer," he says; "and yet I don't know why it should be either, since everybody, high and low, who visits New York drops in here for the necessaries of life, sooner or later. I began to think, however, that you must have gone away again."
She looks at him. He is in no way changed that she can see—the very same Charley of three years before. "You knew I was here!" she asks.
"Certainly, Lady Catheron. I read the morning papers, andalwayslook out for distinguished arrivals. Like the scent of the roses, my aristocratic tastes cling to me still. I thought you would hardly endure a month of Sandypoint—delightful, no doubt, as that thriving township is. I don't need to ask you how you have been—I can see for myself you never looked better."
He meets her steady, reproachful gaze with perfectsang-froid. "You knew I was here, and you would not come to see me," those dark luminous eyes say. His perfectly careless, indifferent manner stings her to the quick.
"Trixy knew I was here too, of course!" she says in a very low voice.
"No," Charley answers; "I don't think she did.Ididn't tell her, and I am pretty sure if she had found it out for herself her family circle would have heard of it. I greatly doubt even whether she would not have taken the liberty of calling upon you."
She lifts her eyes again, with a reproach her lips will not speak.
"I have deserved it," that dark, sad glance says, "but you might spare me."
"We were all very sorry to hear of Sir Victor Catheron's death,"Charley resumes gravely. "Hammond told us; he writes occasionally.Heart disease, wasn't it?—poor fellow! I hope Lady Helena Powyssis quite well?"
"She is quite well."
Then there is a pause—her heart is full, and he stands here so utterly unmoved, talking common-places, and looking as though even the memory of the past were dead and buried. As no doubt indeed it is. She handles the gloves she still holds nervously, for once in her life at a loss.
"Your mother and Trix are well?" she says after that pause.
"Quite well."
She looks up desperately:
"Charley," she exclaims; "mayn'tI see them? I have wanted to see them so much—to—" No, her voice breaks, she cannot finish the sentence.
"Certainly you can see them," Mr. Stuart answers promptly; "they will be delighted, I am sure. They might not feel at liberty to call upon you, Lady Catheron, of course, but all the same they will only be too happy if Lady Catheron will so far honorthem."
He says this in the old lazy, pleasant voice, but it is quite evident he does not mean to spare her—his half-sarcastic accent makes her wince as though in actual bodily pain.
"I'll give you the address if you like," he goes on; "it's not the most aristocratic neighborhood in the world, but it's perfectly quiet and safe." He scribbles something in pencil. "Here it is—due east you see. Trix won't be home until seven; she's at work in a fancy shop in Sixth avenue, you know—no, you don't know of course, but she is, and I generally call round for her at closing-up time. But you're safe to find her at home any evening you may name, Lady Catheron, after seven P.M."
She takes the slip of paper very humbly—very unlike the Edith he used to know—her lips quivering, as he can see.
"May I go at once?" she asks in that humble little voice; "I can't wait. I want to see your mother, and I will stay until Trixy comes."
"My mother will be there, and charmed to see you. Of course you can go at once—why should you hesitate—it's very kind of you and all that I would escort you there if I could, but unhappily I'm on duty. You'll have no trouble at all finding it."
He is perfectly cordial—perfectly indifferent. He looks at her as he might look at Mrs. Featherbrain herself. Edith, it is all over for you!
"I thought you were in California," she says as she rises to go; "and that Trixy was married."
"No, I have never left New York, and Trix is pining in single blessedness still. We are going to alter all that shortly though—for further particulars, apply to Trix. Are you going? good-by, for the present, Lady Catheron."
She is out in the bright sunshine, feeling as though she were in a dream.
She summons a hack, and is driven away eastward to the address he has given her. She finds it—a tall tenement house in a close street, smelling of breweries, and she ascends a long flight of carpetless stairs, and knocks at a door on the upper landing. It is opened, and the well-remembered face of Aunt Chatty looks out.
"Mrs. Stuart!"
A darkly, beautiful face is before her, two black gloved hands are outstretched, two brown brilliant eyes shine upon her through tears. And Mrs. Stuart recoils with a gasp.
"Oh, dear me!" she says, "itisEdith!"
Yes, it is Edith, with tears large and thick in her eyes, who kisses the familiar face, and who is sitting beside her, how, Mrs. Stuart never knows in her amaze and bewilderment, in the humble little front room.
How changed it all is from the splendor of that other house in FifthAvenue. How different this dingy black alpaca dress and rusty widow'scap from the heavy silks and French millinery of other days. But AuntChatty's good, easy, kindly face is the same.
A hundred questions are asked and answered. Edith tells her how long she has been in New York, of how only an hour ago she chanced upon Charley, and found out their whereabouts. And now, if Aunt Chatty pleases, she is going to take off her bonnet and wait until Beatrix comes home.
"Of course you will wait! take off your things right away. Dear me! and it is really our Edith; won't Trix be surprised and glad. It isn't much of a place this," says poor Mrs. Stuart, glancing about her ruefully; "not what you're used to, my dear, but such as it is—"
An impetuous kiss from Edith closes her lips.
"Ah hush!" she says; "youare in it—and glad to see me. I ask no more."
"And you are a widow too, dear child," Mrs. Stuart sighs, touching her black dress compassionately; "it is very hard—so young, and only one short year his wife. Captain Hammond told us—he writes to Trixy, you know. Poor Sir Victor! so nice as he was, and that good pleasant Lady Helena. We were all so sorry. And you, my dear—how have you been?"
"Perfectly well," Edith answers, but she will not talk of herself. Aunt Chatty must tell her all about their trouble. Aunt Chatty tells plaintively, only too glad to pour her sorrows into sympathizing ears.
"It was very hard at first—dreadfully hard. Poor Mr. Stuart died—it was too much for him. Everything was sold—everything—we were left beggars. Work was difficult to get—then I fell ill. Charley was in despair almost—he grew thin and hollow-eyed, the very ghost of himself. All our old friends seemed to drop off and only Providence sent Nellie Seton along, we might all have died or gone to the almshouse."
"Nellie Seton?" Edith inquired; "who is she? what did she do?"
"She was a school friend of Trixy's, in reduced circumstances like ourselves, who came to our succor like an angel in human form. She got Trix a situation in a fancy store, she nursed me, and kept me alive on wine and jellies when I could touch nothing else. She cheered up Charley and kept him from dying of despair. To Nellie Seton, under Heaven, we owe it that we are alive at all."
"She is a young lady—this good Miss Seton?" Edith asks, with a sharp contraction of the heart.
"Yes; about Trixy's age, and wonderfully clever. She writes poetry and gets paid for it, and the prettiest stories for the magazines, and is quite rich. She is one of the family now almost,—very likely she will be home presently with Charley and Trix—they're always together. And now, if you will excuse me Edith, I'll go and get tea."
She bustles away, and Edith sits in the little parlor alone. And she feels, with a heart like a stone, that what she has lost forever, this brave, good Nellie Seton has won. Well! she deserves it; she will try to like her, Edith thinks; but somehow even at the thought, her heart revolts. The old feeling for Mrs. Featherbrain, for Lady Gwendoline, tries to come back, in spite of her, for this unseen Miss Seton. She is an altered woman—a better woman, a more unselfish woman, but the old leaven of iniquity is not dead yet.
The moments drag on—it is drawing near seven. How will Trixy receive her, she wonders. Will she be generous, and forget the past, or will she make her feel it, as her brother has done? Seven. Mrs. Stuart has set the table. How odd, it seems to see Aunt Chatty working. The tea is sending its fragrance through the little rooms, the buttered toast is made, the cake is cut, the pink ham is sliced, everything looks nice and inviting. Suddenly there is the sound of footsteps on the stairs, of girls gay tones and sweet laughter—then the kitchen door flies open, and Trixy's well-remembered voice is animatedly exclaiming:
"Ma! is tea ready? I am famished and so is Nell. What! the table set in the parlor in state. Goodness!"
Edith rises, white as the dainty Marie-Stuart widow's cap she wears—still and beautiful she stands. She sees Trixy's tall figure, a smaller, slighter young lady beside her, and Charley standing behind both. Half a minute later Trix sweeps in, sees the motionless figure, and recoils with a shriek.
"Trix!" Edith advances with the word that is almost a sob. And Trixy's face grows radiant.
"It is! itis! it IS!"
She screams, and rushes forward, and catches Edith in a perfect bear's hug, laughing, crying, and kissing, all in a breath.
No coldness about the welcome here, no ungracious remembrances of the past, no need ever to doubt Trixy's warm heart, and, generous, forgiving, impulsive nature.
All Edith's shortcomings were long ago forgotten and forgiven—it is in Edith's way to inspire ardent love. Trixy loves her as dearly, as warmly as she had ever done—she hugs, she kisses, she exclaims at sight of her, in a perfect rapture of joy:
"O darling!" she cries, "howgood it is to see you again! what a surprise is this! Charley, where are you? look here! Don't you know Edith?"
"Most undoubtedly I know Edith," Charley answers, advancing; "old age may have impaired my faculties, but still I recognize a familiar face when I see it. I told her I thought you would be glad to see her, but I didn't tell her you intended to eat her alive."
"You told her! Where? when?"
"In the store—this afternoon. She came in 'promiscuous' for black Lyon's velvet, wasn't it, Lady Catheron? You didn't get it, by the way. Permit me to inform you, in my professional capacity, that we have a very chaste and elegant assortment of the article always in stock. Trix, where's your manners? Here's Nellie hovering aloof in the background, waiting to be introduced. Allowmeto be master of the ceremonies—Lady Catheron, Miss Nellie Seton."
Both young ladies bowed—both looked each other full in the face—genuine admiration in Miss Seton's—keen, jealous scrutiny in Lady Catheron's. She saw a girl of two or three and twenty, under-sized and rather plump, with a face which in point of beauty would not for one instant compare with her own or Trixy's either. But it was such a thoroughlygoodface. And the blue, beaming eyes, the soft-cut smiling mouth, gentle, and strong, and sweet, were surely made to win all hearts at sight. Not a beauty—something infinitely better, and as a rival, something infinitely more dangerous.
"Lady Catheron's name is familiar to me as a household word," MissSeton said, with a frank little laugh, that subdued Edith at once."Trix wakes with your name on her lips, I believe, and goes to sleepmurmuring it at night. Lady Catheron doesn't know how madly jealousI have been of her before now."
Edith turns once more to Trix—faithful, friendly, loyal Trix—and stretches forth both hands, with a swift, graceful impulse, tears standing, large and bright, in her eyes.
"My own dear Trix!" is what she says.
"And now I'll run away," Miss Seton exclaims brightly; "auntie will expect me, and I know Trix has ten thousand things to tell and to hear. No, Trixy, not a word. Charley, what are you doing with your hat? put it down instantly—I don't want you. I would very much rather go home alone."
"Yes, it's so likely I'll let you. There's no earthly reason why you shouldn't stay; but if, with your usual obstinacy and strong-mindedness, you insist upon going—"
"I do insist upon going, and without an escort. You know you are rather a nuisance—in the way than otherwise—oh, I mean it I get home twice as fast when I go by myself."
He looks at her—Edith turns sick—sick, as she sees the look. He says something in too low a tone for the rest to hear. Miss Seton laughs, but her color rises and she objects no more. Edith sees it all. A gray-kidded hand is extended to her.
"Good-night, Lady Catheron," Miss Seton's bright, pleasant voice says, and Lady Catheron takes it, feeling in her heart that for once she cannot dislike a rival. This girl who will be Charley's wife—O blissful fate!—is worthy of him. They go out together, laughing as they go.
"Isn't she just the dearest darling!" cries Trix in her gushing way; "and O Edith! whatever would have become of us all without her, I shudder to think. In the dark days of our life, when friends were few and far between, she was our friend—our savior. She nursed mamma from the very jaws of death, she got me my place in the fancy-store, and I believe—she won't own it—but I do believe she saved Charley's life."
"Saved his life?" Edith falters.
"It was such an awful time," Trix says in sombre tones, "we were starving, Edith, literally starving. All our old friends had forsaken us; work we could not get, 'to beg we were ashamed.' If you had seen Charley in those days, gaunt, hollow-eyed, haggard, wretched. He looks and feels all right now," goes on Trix, brightening up a bit, "butthen! it used to break my heart to look at him. He tried for work, from morning until night, and day after day he came home, footsore, weary, despairing. He could not leave mother and me, and go elsewhere—she was sick, father was dead—poor pa!—and I was just crazy, or near it. And one dark, dreadful night he went out, and down to the river, and—Nellie followed, and found him there. Ah Edith, he wasn't so much to blame; I suppose he was mad that night. She came up to him, and put her arms around him, as he stood in the darkness and the rain, and—I don't know what she said or did—but she brought him back to us. And Providence sent him work next day—the situation in the store he has now. I don't know about his merits as a salesman," says Trix, laughing, with her eyes full of tears "but he is immensely popular with the ladies. Nellie says it isn't his eloquence—where the other clerks expatiate fluently on the merits of ribbons, and gloves, and laces, shades and textures, Charley stands silent and lets them talk, and smiles and looks handsome. I suppose it answers, for they seem to like him. So now you see we get on splendidly, and I've almost forgotten that we were ever rich, and wore purple and fine linen, and feasted sumptuously every day."
"You are happy?" Edith asks, with wonder and envy in her eyes.
"Perfectly happy," Trix replies cheerily; "I haven't a wish unsatisfied—oh well! now that you've come. I did want you, Dithy; it seems such ages and ages since we met, and I was troubled about you. I heard ofhim, you know, poor fellow."
She touches timidly Edith's widow's weeds. There is no answer—Edith's tears are falling. She is contrasting her own cowardice with Trixy's courage; her own hardness with Trixy's generosity.
"How do you know?" she asks at length.
"Captain Hammond. You remember Angus Hammond, I suppose?" Trix says, blushing and hesitating; "he wrote us about it, and"—a pause.
"Go on; what else did he write?"
"That there was trouble of some sort, a separation, I think—that you had parted on your very wedding-day. Of course we couldn't believe that."
"It is quite true," was the low reply.
Trixy's eyes opened.
"True! O Dithy! On your wedding-day!"
"On our wedding-day," Edith answered steadily; "to meet no more until we met at his death-bed. Some day, Trix, dear, I will tell you how it was—not now. Two years have passed, but even yet I don't care to think of it. Only this—hewas not to blame—he was the bravest, the noblest, the best of men, ten thousand times too good for me. I was a mercenary, ambitious wretch, and I received my just reward. We parted at the last friends, thank God! but I can never forgive myself—never!"
There was a pause—an uncomfortable one for Trix.
"How long since you came to New York?" she asked at length.
Edith told her—told her how she had been wandering over the world since her husband's death—how she had come to America to see her father—how she had tried to find them here in New York—how signally she had failed—and how to-day, by purest accident, she had come upon Charley in the Broadway store.
"How astonished he must have been," his sister said; "I think I see him, lifting his eyebrows to the middle of his forehead. Did he take you for a ghost?"
"By no means, and he was not in the least surprised. He knew I was here, from the first."
"Edith!"
"He told me so. He saw my arrival in the paper when I first landed."
"And he never toldme, and he never went to see you! The wretch!" cried Trix.
"I don't know that he is to blame," Edith responded quietly. "I deserved no better; and ah! Trixy, not many in this world are as generous asyou. So you are perfectly happy, darling? I wonder if Captain Hammond, now, has anything to do with it?"
"Well, yes," Tax admits blushingly again; "I may as well tell you.We are to be married at Christmas."
"Trix! Married!"
"Married at last. We were engaged before I left England, three years ago. He wanted to marry me then, foolish fellow!" says Trix with shining eyes, "but of course, we none of us would listen to so preposterous a thing. He had only his pay and his debts, and his expectations from a fairy godmother or grandmother, whowouldn'tdie. But she died last mail—I mean last mail brought a black bordered letter, saying she was gone to glory, and had left Angus everything. He is going to sell out of the army, and will be here by Christmas, and—and the wedding is to take place the very week he arrives. And, oh! Edith, he's just the dearest fellow, the best fellow, and I'm the happiest girl in all New York!"
Edith says nothing. She takes Trix, who is crying, suddenly, in her arms, and kisses her. Angus Hammond has been faithful in the hour when she deserted them—that is her thought. Her self-reproach never ceases—never for one hour.
"We go to Scotland of course," said Trix, wiping her eyes; "and ma—also, of course, stays with Charley. Nellie will be here to fill my place—don't you think she will make a charming sister?"
She laughs as she asks the question—it is the one little revenge she takes. Before Edith can reply she runs on:
"Nellie's rich—rich, I mean, as compared with us, and she has made it all herself. She's awfully clever, and writes for magazines, and papers, and things, and earns oceans of money.Oceans," says Trix, opening her eyes to the size of saucers; "and I don't know really which of us ma likes best, Nellie or me. That's my one comfort in going. Here comes Charley now—let's have tea at once. I forgot all about it, but nobody has the faintest idea of the pangs of hunger I am enduring."
Charley sauntered in, looking fresh and handsome, from the night air.
It was quite dark now. Trix lit the lamp and bustled about helping to get supper. "You told Nellie?" she asked her brother in a low tone, but Edith caught the words.
"Yes," Charley answered gravely, "I told her."
"What did she say?"
"Everything that was like Nellie—everything that was bright, and brave, and good. She will be here in the morning to say good-by. Now, Mrs. Stuart, if you have any compassion on a famished only son, hurry up, and let's have supper."
They sat down around the little table where the lamp shone brightly—Edith feeling cold and strange and out of place. Trixy and Aunt Chatty might, and did, forgive the past but she herself could not, and between her and Charley lay a gulf, to be spanned over on earth no more. And yet—how beautiful and stately she looked in her little white widow's cap, her sombre dress, and the frill of sheer white crape at her throat.
"Edith!" Trix said involuntarily, "how handsome you have grown! You were always pretty, but now—I don't mean to flatter—but you are splendid! It can't be that black becomes you, and yet—Charley, don't you see it? hasn't Edith grown lovely?"
"Trix!" Edith cried, and over her pale cheeks there rose a flush, and into her dark, brilliant eyes there came a light, that made her for the moment all Trixy said.
Charley looked at her across the table—the cool, clear, gray eyes, perfectly undazzled.
"I used to think it impossible for Edith to improve; I find out my mistake to-day, as I find out many others. As it is not permitted one to say what one thinks on these subjects, one had better say nothing at all."
The flush that has risen to Edith's cheeks remains there, and deepens. After tea, at Trixy's urgent request, she sits down at the little hired piano, and sings some of the old songs.
"Your very voice has improved," Trix says admiringly. "Edith, singCharley he's my darling, for Charley. It used to be a favorite of his."
She gives him a malicious sidelong glance. Charley, lying back in his mother's comfortable, cushioned rocking-chair, takes it calmly.
"It used to be, but it has ceased to be," he answers coolly. "Trix, go out like a good child, and get me the evening paper. Among my other staid, middle-aged habits, Lady Catheron, is that of reading thePostevery evening religiously, after tea."
Never Edith any more—always Lady Catheron—never the girl he loved three years ago—whom he had said he would love all his life, but the richly dowered widow of Sir Victor Catheron. He will not generously forget, even for an instant, that he is an impecunious dry goods clerk, she a lady of rank and riches.
She rises to go—it is growing almost more than she can bear. Trix presses her to stay longer, but in vain;henever utters a word.
"Shall Charley call a carriage, or will you prefer to walk?" Trix asks doubtfully.
"She will walk," says Charley, suddenly looking up and interfering; "the night is fine, and I will see her home."
For one instant, at the tone of his voice, at the look of his eyes, her heart bounds.
Her bonnet and mantle are brought—she kisses Trix and Aunt Chatty good-night—they have promised to dine with her to-morrow—and goes forth into the soft October night with Charley.
He draws her hand within his arm—the night is star-lit, lovely. The old time comes back, the old feeling of rest and content, the old comfortable feeling that it is Charley's arm upon which she leans, and that she asks no more of fate. To-morrow he may be Nellie Seton's—just now, he belongs to her.
"Oh!" she exclaims, with a long-drawn breath, "how familiar it all is! these gas-lit New York streets, the home-like look of the men and women, and—you. It seems as though I had left Sandypoint only yesterday, and you were showing me again the wonders of New York for the first time."
He looks down at the dusk, warm, lovely face, so near his own.
"Sandypoint," he repeats; "Edith, do you recall what I said to you there? Have you ever wished once, in those three years that are gone, that I had never come to Sandypoint to take you away?"
"I have never wished it," she answers truly; "never once. I have never blamed you, never blamed anyone but myself—how could I? The evil of my life I wrought with my own hand, and—if it were all to come over again—I would still go! I have suffered, but at least—I have lived."
"I am glad to hear that," he says after a little pause; "it has troubled me again and again. You see, Hammond wrote us all he ever knew of you, and though it was rather incomprehensible in part, it was clear enough your life was not entirely a bed of roses. All that, I hope, is over and done with—there can be no reason why all the rest of your life should not be entirely happy. This is partly why I wished to walk home with you to-night, that I might know from your own lips whether you held me blameless or not. And partly, also—" a second brief pause;—"to bid you good-by."