CHAPTER XXII.
Camille had written from the dictation of the infamous French maid. She had alternately implored and threatened, vowing that Norman’s little protégée should serve her turn to point an infamous charge against him if he persevered in his resolve to procure a divorce.
The delicate cheek of the matron flushed indignantly as her dark eyes traveled over the paper. Meanwhile, the observant child had secured the envelope, which had fluttered to the floor, and sitting down, she cut it into bits with her tiny scissors. She waited silently but patiently for the letter, turning her blue eyes with bird-like eagerness toward the reader. When at last Mrs. de Vere finished and handed it back to her son, and he crumpled it in his hand and flung it disdainfully from him, Sweetheart pounced upon it unnoticed and sat down to destroy it with the aid of her little scissors.
She spread out the pretty pink sheet, but the delicate fragrance exhaling from it arrested her olfactories, and after holding it pensively to her nose a moment, she concluded not to immolate it yet; so, quite unobserved by her elders, she crossed the room to her box of toys, and hid Camille’s letter among the leaves of a picture-book.
Mother and son stood looking at each other in wordless dismay, unmindful of the child at her play. Neither could bear to speak.
At last the mother said, sadly:
“You see now that you must give it up, Norman. You can not drag our proud old name through the mire. She will consent to a separation, she says. Will not that content you?”
“No,” he replied, bitterly.
“But, Norman, this is horrible! Will you not think of me? How can I bear it that this shame should fall on you and on the proud name that was your father’s pride? Have pity on my gray hairs,” she faltered.
“Mother, you torture me,” he cried, for it seemed most cruel that she should misjudge him—should deem him careless of her happiness. But he could not tell her the truth. He must bear his pain in silence.
She went on, pleadingly:
“I am old. I should not live long to bear the burden ofshame; but, Norman, think of that sweet and lovely little child. The mystery that surrounds her may never be penetrated, and this horrible scandal, if promulgated, may cast an ineffaceable blight upon her future. Think of all these things, Norman, before you proceed further.”
He was thinking of them. The white agony of his face showed it. In the face of his despair he silently wished himself dead and at rest from the war of emotions raging within him.
That he must break with Camille he knew. Her sin had placed an insurmountable barrier between their lives.
He would gladly have parted with her without giving cause for scandal, but it was impossible. The curious world must have reasons or it would make them. Better they should say he was jealous—unreasonably jealous, of Lord Stuart than that there was some guilty secret hidden behind the death of Robert Lacy, who had carried flowers to Camille the last hour of his life. Her safety hung in the balance. Between her two sins he must choose the lesser for her own sake, for part they must. The mad, feverish love he had borne Camille was dead and cold. It had fallen down in ruins in the moment when his appalled ears had heard her own lips admit her guilt.
He owed it to his mother’s gray hairs to save her from shame, and no less to Sweetheart yonder in her innocent youth and helplessness. What under heaven was he to do?
The sad, anxious voice of the mother broke in again:
“Norman, if you feel that you can not live longer with your wife, why not consent to a separation, as she wishes? Put off the thought of divorce. Who knows but that in the future you may learn she was innocent? Then there may be a reconciliation.”
“Mother, you madden me!” he cried, hoarsely. He knew how vain was that hope.
But he began to think seriously of her words. Might it not be best to cut loose quietly as possible from his guilty wife for the sake of his mother and Sweetheart?
His heavy eyes wandered to the child who was playing with her kitten in sweet unconsciousness. A deep sense of his responsibility suddenly overwhelmed him. He had saved her life, and it had been thrown on his hands in all its sweet helplessness. He would be answerable for her future.
He sat thinking, miserably, intently, his mother watching with anxious eyes. Suddenly he spoke:
“Mother, you comprehend the cruel malignancy with whichCamille means to stain the name and future of this innocent child?”
“She will relent if you accede to her request, Norman.”
“I have come to a sudden but wise conclusion, mother. I know that the child can expect no mercy from Camille’s cruel heart. I must send her from me for her own good.”
“But where, Norman?”
“I will tell you, mother. In the wreck with me—indeed, the only person saved with Sweetheart and myself—was a man, a commercial traveler, named George Hinton. He took a strange fancy to my little protégée, and begged to have her if her friends were not discovered. He was a married man with a small family—two boys, and a girl of seven who longed for a sister.”
“A good man, Norman?” anxiously.
“Rough, perhaps, but with a good heart, I am sure. He gave me his address. His home is in a little Virginia town on the line of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway. Mother, what if you were to take Sweetheart to him? Then you could satisfy yourself as to whether the Hintons would be proper people with whom to leave the child. I would make them an allowance for her support and education, of course. I should like it if you could go very soon.”
“To-morrow?”
“Yes, if possible. We must go away from here for awhile, you know, dear mother. You remember it was Camille’s money with which we improved Verelands. Unless she decides to live here, the place must be rented out until sufficient money is realized to repay the debt. Dearest little mother, you know we are poor again, now. I shall have to work for us both.”
“There is my little income. It is more than enough for me. All I can spare shall go to help the Hintons if they take Sweetheart,” she said, but her voice was hoarse with tears. How could she leave the dear old home, and how could her son sit there and talk of it with that calm, white face? It was cruel! He might have borne with Camille, if only for his mother’s sake.
Hard thoughts of her son came to her for the first time in her life, but she did not utter a single reproach. Perhaps it would all come right soon, and she could come back to Verelands.
“You will want to answer your wife’s letter,” she said, looking around for it; then she saw the fragments of the pinkenvelope strewing the floor. “Naughty Little Sweetheart, you have cut it up with your toy scissors!” she cried.
Sweetheart looked solemn and rueful over the detection of the mischief she had wrought.