CHAPTER LXIX.THE TRUTH.
Another ring brought a servant to the front door, where a gentleman with a package in his hand, stood waiting. The man reached out his hand for the parcel, but in its place, received a card, with directions to carry it at once to his mistress.
There was no question about Mrs. Lambert’s being at home; no seeming doubt that she might refuse herself; all of which was strange; but the servant did not think of that till long afterward, for obedience seemed natural to that voice of quiet command.
“My lady will see you in her own room—walk this way,” said the man, returning promptly, after delivering his message. He ushered the stranger up stairs with great deference, and opened the door with a bow, altogether forgetting the package which the man carried.
Mrs. Lambert was struggling to compose herself; but she had been greatly excited, and every nerve in her frame quivered. She tried to speak, but the effort only brought tears into her eyes.
Ross did not take the hand held out to him with such timid hesitation; but laid his bundle on a chair, then turned a sternly agitated face upon the trembling woman.
“Elizabeth, I have come to ask you a question.”
“I will answer it, Herman! There is nothing you can ask that I will not reply to. But first,—do not misunderstandme; I ask it for—for the sake of my step-son. Answer the one question that I asked you.—Is that girl, I mean Eva Laurence, anything to you?”
“Anything to me—and you ask this? Yes, everything!”
“You love her, then?”
“Yes, better than my own soul.”
“But—but you cannot marry her. It would be——”
The woman’s lips turned deadly white, and what she might have said died upon them.
“Marry her! Woman, I wonder the heart does not sicken in your bosom at the thought.”
“It does! it does! Then you never thought of it. I had not wronged you so deeply that you meditated that awful blow, that wicked, wicked crime.”
“I never thought of it, Elizabeth!”
The woman clasped her hands, and a wild sob heaved her bosom.
“Still you loved her! Ah, me! it was only the impediment! If I were dead, now!”
The woman held out her clasped hands, and her face was wet with a rain of tears. For the first time, a look of almost yearning tenderness filled the sad eyes bent upon her, and a touch of compassion quivered in the man’s voice.
“Sit down, Elizabeth. I have a few questions to ask, and for once you and I must have truth between us.”
Mrs. Lambert dropped to the sofa, near which she stood, and Ross drew his chair in front of it. The curtains hung low, and the light fell dimly around them, so dimly that they seemed like ghosts questioning each other.
“Elizabeth, when we first met, and I found you Lambert’s widow, there was too much of passion and reproach in our interview for a clear understanding of events, which seem to me vague and unsatisfactory. Quiet yourself, now; becalm, if that is possible, and let us thoroughly understand each other.”
The woman made a strong effort, and hushed her sobs.
“When we married, I was a wild, passionate youth, penniless, almost friendless; but I loved you, God only knows how dearly!”
“And, oh heavens! how I loved you!”
“Had I been older or wiser in this world’s wisdom, it would have been an act of treachery when I won you to that private marriage; but I was an enthusiast, possessed of some genius, and more wild hopes. Perhaps in the arrogance of these untried feelings, I held your father’s wealth in too much scorn. Certain it is, I never craved it, never wished for it.”
“I know that, Herman; yet it was this very wealth that drove us apart.”
“I asked you to go away, and share my fate——”
“I could not; remember how young I was. An only child, loving my father, whose forgiveness you refused to ask—loving you better than my own life, but afraid to follow the hopeless path you were resolved to tread. Why did you leave me then? Was I angry—was I unreasonable in that struggle, so hard upon a young girl, pampered, as I had been; did I say things which were altogether beyond forgiveness?”
“If I left you in anger, bitter and keen as it was, my great love conquered it, before I was half across the ocean,” said Ross. “But what came after? My letters were unanswered.”
“I never received them. Some one, my father, I think, kept them back. Oh, Herman! you will never know how I waited, how I longed for one line!”
“Elizabeth, give me your hands. On your life, on your honor—as you hope for salvation, did you never hear from me, never see a line of my writing after I left you?”
“As God shall be merciful to me, I never did!”
The woman felt the two strong hands that clasped hers shake like reeds.
“And you thought me dead?”
“I did! I did!”
“Then, and not till then you married this other man?”
“Oh, Herman! It was only my hand and wealth that I gave him. When love perished in my heart I had only ambition left.”
“Then all love for me had perished?”
“Herman! There never has been a time when the very memory of our love has not been dearer to me than the adoration of any living man.”
The hands which Ross still clasped were tightened painfully. For half a moment he was silent. When he did speak, it was almost in a whisper, and his voice was hoarse.
“Elizabeth! What have you done with our child?”
Mrs. Lambert wrenched her hands from the passionate grip fastened on them, and stood up in wild agony.
“Our child! Oh, Father of heaven! is there no mercy for me? Have I not suffered enough?”
The woman had no strength to stand. As grass goes down beneath the scythe, her limbs gave way, and her face fell forward on the cushions of the sofa.
Ross bent over her.
“Elizabeth!”
“Leave me! You have torn the vulture from my heart—let it bleed to death; for, in a little while, I, like my child, will be beyond human reach! God knows all that I have done, and all I have suffered.”
Ross knelt down by the woman, and laid his hand on her shoulder. Her suffering overpowered all sense of wrong in his bosom. The thing which she had done seemed less hideous when her grief filled the room, as with the wail of a mother bereft.
“Our child is not dead, Elizabeth! I come to tell you so!”
The woman lifted her face.
“Not dead!”
“Let that awful thought haunt you no longer. The child is alive. Not an hour ago I held her in my arms. God spared her life, and you, wretched woman, a great crime.”
The woman shuddered.
“God help me! God forgive me! I was sorely tempted.”