CHAPTER XXVIII.
Verelands was looking its fairest that October morning when George Hinton’s letter to Norman de Vere came into it like a thunder-clap falling from a seemingly clear sky.
It was almost thirteen years ago that the De Veres had quitted their beautiful home, with something almost akin to the sorrow of Adam and Eve in leaving Eden, so dear was the old ancestral home to their hearts. Leaving Sweetheart with the Hintons, they had journeyed northward, the young man seeking a career in life, and the mother only wishing to be near her son.
A wealthy tenant was soon found for Verelands, and the rent was forwarded yearly to Camille’s lawyer to liquidate the amount she had spent in improving the estate immediately following her marriage with Norman.
At first there had come letters of protest from the banishedwife, but Norman had returned them to her without comment, and the rent continued to be forwarded to her lawyer.
Now and then, too, as he began to prosper in the profession of journalism, which he had chosen, he found means to add to the amount sent to Camille, for the weight of his indebtedness to her weighed sorely on his proud spirit.
“I shall never return to my old home until it is freed from that hateful debt,” he had said many times to his mother, and she, with a sigh, acquiesced. She had almost given up the hope now that Norman would ever be reconciled to his wife, he turned so impatiently from all her entreaties that he would pardon Camille, and more than once he had mystified her with the strange answer:
“Mother, you see only upon the surface. It is most unfortunate for both you and me. I see that you do not understand, and yet I can never explain.”
Mrs. de Vere brooded half her time over those strange words, but she could never see any reason in them.
“It is very true that I do not understand his hardness of heart toward Camille. No one could,” she often said to herself, impatiently, for it seemed to her that Camille had been sufficiently punished for her thoughtless flirtation. “No one could ever make me believe that there was any guilt in it. Camille was a pure woman,” she had said more than once to her son, but he always answered firmly:
“I will not argue the point with you, mother.” If she persisted he always left the room.
He did not know how often she was spurred on to fresh effort by the frequent letters she received from her banished daughter-in-law—letters whose passionate, piteous appeals brought tears into her kind eyes. She forgot Camille’s faults, her caprices, her jealousies, her arrogance of wealth, her thirst for admiration, in pity for her genuine despair at the separation from her husband. At first she begged Norman to read these letters. She thought they must surely soften his heart.
He refused her request. He expressed a stern displeasure at the correspondence.
“If you persist in keeping up communication with that wicked woman, be good enough not to force the fact upon my notice, mother,” he said, bitterly.
Camille stayed abroad three years with Finette, but to the amazement of the wily maid, her plot did not succeed. The indignant boy-husband did not relent, Camille remained unforgiven.
“There must be more than she confessed to me, or thatfoolish boy would have made it up with her long ago. I will watch closely. She has deceived me; she has not told me the whole truth,” she decided; but her keenest scrutiny, her most artful speeches, failed to make her acquainted with more than she knew already. Camille faithfully kept up the rôle of the true wife and wronged woman.