Throckmorton, who was nothing if not prompt, had infused so much life and spirit into his love-affair that at the end of a week it was settled that the wedding should take place the last of February—only a month off. Jacqueline’s trousseau was not likely to be imposing, and the few, feeble reasons which Mrs. Temple urged for delay were swept away by Throckmorton’s impetuosity. It was not the custom in that part of the world for engagements to be formally announced; on the contrary, it was in order to deny them up to the very last moment, and to regard them as something surreptitious and to be hid under a bushel. General Temple had magniloquently given his consent, when Throckmorton went through the form of asking it. Mrs. Temple still shook her head gravely over the matter, particularly over the brief engagement, which was quite opposed to the leisurely way in which engagements were usually conducted in her experience; but Throckmorton seemed to have mastered everybody at Barn Elms. For himself that period was one of deep joy, and yet full of harassingdoubts. The more he studied Jacqueline under her new aspects, the stranger things became. It cut him to see how little real consequence either her mother or her father attached to her. Judith seemed to be the only person who was concerned to make Jacqueline love him; to regard the girl as a woman, and not as a child. For Jacqueline herself, she was as changeable as the weather. Had she been steadily indifferent to him, Throckmorton would have thought nothing necessary but a manly fight to win her; but sometimes she showed devoted fondness for him, and, without rhyme or reason, she would change into the coldest indifference or teasing irritability. Throckmorton told himself it was the coyness and fickleness of a young girl in love; but sometimes a hateful suspicion overcame him that there was in Jacqueline an innate levity and inconstancy that went to the root of her nature. The evident delight she took in the luxury and pleasures that were to be hers—the horses, carriages, pianos, and flowers at Millenbeck—was rather that of a child dazzled with the fineries of life. Her love for them was so unthinking and uncalculating that it did not shock Throckmorton; yet how could he, with his knowledge, his experience of men, women, and things, help seeing the differences between them—differences that, had his infatuation been less complete, would have appalled him? As it was, just as Judith had predicted to herself, he oftencame to her for sympathy and encouragement—not expressed in words, but in the subtile understanding between them. Judith always spoke in praise of Jacqueline; she artfully managed to show Throckmorton the best of her. But for Judith the marriage could never have been hastened on, as Throckmorton desired; for, as soon as she found out Throckmorton’s wish, she went to work on Jacqueline’s trousseau with a sort of desperate energy that carried things through. Jacqueline could have no fine silk gowns, but she was to have piles of the daintiest linen, of which the material cost little, but the beautiful handiwork lavished upon it by Judith was worth a little fortune. Jacqueline herself, spurred on by Judith’s industry, sewed steadily. As for Judith, the fever of working for Jacqueline seized her, and never abated. She even neglected her child for Jacqueline, until Mrs. Temple, with stern disapproval, took her to task about it. Judith, blushing and conscience-stricken, owned to her fault, although nobody could accuse her of lacking love for the child. But still she managed to sew for Jacqueline, sitting up secretly by night, and with a pale, fixed face—stitch, stitch, stitching! Jacqueline could not understand it at all; and when she asked Judith about it once, she was so suddenly and strangely agitated that Jacqueline, a little frightened, dropped the subject at once. But, in truth, this was to Judith a time of new, strange, andterrible grief and disappointment. How she had ever permitted Throckmorton to take up her whole heart and mind she did not know any more than she could fathom now how she ever came to mistake an early and immature fancy for a deep and abiding passion, and had suffered herself to be married to Beverley Temple. She endured agonies of remorse for that, and yet hourly excused herself to herself. “How could I know,” she asked herself in those long hours of the night when men and women come face to face with their sorrows. But all her remorse was for Beverley. As for the hatred she ought to feel for Throckmorton as the slayer of her husband, she had come to laugh it to scorn in her own mind. But, like all true women, she respected the world—the narrow circle which constituted her world—and she felt oppressed with shame at the idea that the whole story might all one day come out, and then what would they think of her? What would they do to her? She could not say, as she had once said, “I do not believe it.” She had heard it from Throckmorton’s own mouth. She would have to say, “I knew it, and went to his house, and continued to be friendly with him, and spoke no word when he wished to marry Beverley’s sister.” She could not divine the reason of Freke’s silence, but, torn and harassed and wearied with struggles of heart and conscience, she simply yielded to the fatalism of the wretched, and let things drift. Sometimesin her own room, after she had spent the evening with Throckmorton and Jacqueline, seeing clearly under his perfectly self-possessed exterior his infatuation for Jacqueline, she would be wroth with him. Judith, the most modest and unassuming of women, would say to herself, with scorn of Throckmorton: “How blind he is! To throw away on Jacqueline, who in her turn throws it to the wind, what would make me the proudest creature under heaven! And am I unworthy of his love, or less worthy than Jacqueline?” To which her keen perceptions would answer rebelliously, “No, I am more worthy in every way.” She would examine her face carefully in the glass, holding the candle first one side, then the other. “This, then, is the face that Throckmorton is indifferent to. It is not babyish, like Jacqueline’s; there are no dimples, but—” Then the grotesqueness of it all would strike her, and even make her laugh. The fiercest pain, the most devouring jealousy never wrung from her the faintest admission that there was anything to be ashamed of in cherishing silently a profound and sacred love for Throckmorton. He was worthy of it, she thought, proudly. Toward him her manner never changed—she was mistress of some of the nobler arts of deception—but sometimes, although working for Jacqueline, and tending her affectionately, she would be angry and disdainful because Jacqueline did not always render to Throckmorton hisdue. She almost laughed to herself when she compared this horror of pain and grief which she now endured with the shock and pity of Beverley’s death. She remembered that the joy her child gave her seemed almost wicked in its intensity at that time. What passions of happiness were hers when she would rise stealthily in the night and, taking him from his little crib, would hold him to her throbbing heart; and often, from the next room, she could hear Mrs. Temple pacing her floor, and could imagine the silent wringing of the hands and all the unspoken agonies the elder mother endured forherchild! Then she would swiftly and guiltily put the child back in his cradle, and, with remorse and self-denial, lie near him without touching him. Often in that long-past time, when she met him in his nurse’s arms, she would fly toward him with a merry, dancing step, laughing all the time—she was so happy, so proud to have him—and, looking up, would catch Mrs. Temple’s eyes fixed on her with a still reproach she understood well enough. Then she would turn away from him, and, sitting down by Mrs. Temple, would not even let her eyes wander to the child, and would remain silent and unanswering to his baby wail.
But in this first real passion of her life, the child, much as she adored him, was secondary. He was her comfort—she would not, if she could, have let himout of her sight or out of her arms—but he could no more make her forget Throckmorton than anything else; he could only soften the intolerable ache a little, when he leaned his curly head upon her breast; and as for that easy and conventional phrase, the goodness of God, and that ready consolation that had seemed so apt at the time of Beverley’s death, she began to substitute, for the mild and merciful Divinity, a merciless and relentless Jehovah, who had condemned her to suffer forever, and who would not be appeased.
At first, the secret of the engagement was well kept. Only Jack Throckmorton, who behaved beautifully about it, and Freke, knew of the impending wedding. Freke’s behavior was singular, not to say mysterious. He was so cool and unconcerned that Jacqueline was furiously piqued, and could scarcely keep her mind off her grievance against him for not taking her engagement more to heart, even when Throckmorton was with her. Freke’s congratulations were quite perfunctory—as unlike Jack Throckmorton’s whole-souled good wishes as could be imagined. One morning, soon after the news had been confided to Freke, he came into the dining-room, where Judith was sewing, with Jacqueline, also sewing, sitting demurely by her side.
“Making wedding finery, eh?” was Freke’s remark as he seated himself.
“Yes,” answered Judith, quietly, without laying down her work.
“I want to see how much Jacqueline will be changed by marriage—You mustn’t flirt with Jack, little Jacky.”
He said this quite good-humoredly, and Jacqueline turned a warm color.
“And don’t let me see you running after the chickens, as I saw you the other day. That wouldn’t be dignified, you know; it would make Major Throckmorton ridiculous. You must do all you can to keep the difference in your ages from becoming too obvious.”
Judith felt a rising indignation. Jacqueline’s head was bent lower. She dreaded and feared that people would tease her about Throckmorton’s age. Freke saw in a moment how it was with her, and kept it up.
“Throckmorton is sensible in one way. His hair is plentifully sprinkled with gray, but he doesn’t use art to conceal it.”
“I do not think forty-four is old,” said Judith, indignant at Jacqueline’s tame submission to this sort of talk. “I think, with most women, Major Throckmorton would have the advantage over younger men.”
As soon as she said this, she repented. Freke glanced at her with a look so amused and so exasperatingthat she could have burst into tears of shame on the spot.
“Come, Jacqueline,” cried Freke, rising, “let us go for a walk. I don’t know whether Throckmorton will permit this after you are married. Marriage, my dear little girl, is more of a yoke than a garland. I am well out of mine, thank Heaven!”
Judith cast a beseeching look at Jacqueline, but Freke had fixed his eyes commandingly on her. That was enough. Jacqueline rose and went out to get her hat.
Judith sat quite silent. She rarely spoke to Freke when she could help it.
“What do you think of this ridiculous marriage?” he asked.
“I, at least, don’t think it ridiculous. There are incongruities much worse than a difference in age.”
“Yes, I understand,” assented Freke, with meaning. “I have found it so. If I were as free as Throckmorton, though, I would be in no hurry to put my head in the noose.”
“You said just now you were free.”
“Did I? Well, in fact I am free in some States and not in others. You people down here seem to regard me as an escaped felon. That sort of thing doesn’t exist any longer in civilized communities.” Judith made no reply. She hated Freke with a kind of unreasoning hatred that put a guard upon her lips,lest she should be tempted to say something rash. And in a moment Jacqueline was back, and, with a defiant look at Judith, went off with Freke. Freke caught a glance from Judith’s eyes as they went out. The fact that it expressed great anger and contempt for him did not make him overlook that her eyes were remarkably full of fire and the turn of her head something beautiful.
“Judith is a thoroughbred—there’s no mistake about that,” he said to Jacqueline—and kept on talking about Judith until he reduced Jacqueline to a jealous silence, and almost to tears—when a few words of praise restored her to complete good humor. Throckmorton never played off on her like this—it was quite opposed to his directness and straightforwardness.
Freke was more constantly at Barn Elms than ever before. It often occurred to Judith that he took pains to keep secret from Throckmorton all the time he passed with Jacqueline. Sometimes she even suspected that Jacqueline had some share in keeping Throckmorton in the dark, so constant was Freke’s presence when Throckmorton was absent, and so unvarying was his absence when Throckmorton was present.
After a while, though, a hint of the engagement got abroad in the county, and the people generally, who had never relaxed in the slightest degree theirforbidding exterior to Throckmorton, now somewhat included the Temples in the ban. Throckmorton, engrossed with his own affairs, had ceased to care for himself, being quite content with the few people around him who took him into their homes. But he felt it acutely for Jacqueline, who told him, with childish cruelty, without thinking of the pang she inflicted, of the strange coolness that all at once seemed to have fallen between her and her acquaintances. And Judith was sure that Freke put notions of that kind and of every kind into the girl’s head. Once, after one of Freke’s daily visits—for, if anything, he came oftener than Throckmorton—Jacqueline said, quite disconsolately, to Judith:
“Freke says I shall never have any more girl friends after I am married. Throckmorton is too old; and, besides, the people in this county will never, never really recognize him.”
“This county is not all the world—and, Jacqueline, pray, pray don’t listen to anything Freke has to say.”
“I know you don’t like Freke.”
“I hate him.”
Judith, when she said this, looked so handsome and animated that Throckmorton, entering at that moment, paid her a pretty compliment, which she received first with so much confusion and then with so much haughtiness that Throckmorton was as completelypuzzled as the night he offered to kiss her hand, and concluded that Judith was as freakish as all women are.
Among the smaller irritations which Throckmorton had to bear, at this strange time, was Jack’s sly rallying. Jack assumed his father to be a love-sick octogenarian. Anything less love-sick than Throckmorton’s simple and manly affection, or less suggestive of age than his alert and vigorous maturity, would be hard to find. But Jack had always possessed the power of tormenting his father where women were concerned—the natural penalty, perhaps, of having a son so little younger than himself. Jack felt infinite respect for Jacqueline, and never once indulged in a joke calculated to really rouse Throckmorton; but some occasions were too good for him to spare the major. Such conversations as these were frequent:
“Major, are you going over to Barn Elms this evening?”
“No, I was there this morning.”
“I understand, sir, that two visits a day, when the young lady is in the immediate neighborhood, is the regulation thing.”
“You are at liberty to understand what you please. With youngsters like yourself, probably three visits would hardly be enough.”
“I have been told that these things affect all ages alike.”
Throckmorton scowled, but scowls were wasted on Jack, whose particular object was to put the major in a bad humor; in which design, however, he rarely succeeded.
In spite of the silence that had been maintained by the Barn Elms people regarding the engagement, Mrs. Sherrard, who had what is vulgarly called a nose for news, found it out by some occult means, and Throckmorton was held up in the road, as he was riding peacefully along, to answer her inquiries.
“I think you and Jacky Temple are going to be married soon, from what I hear,” was her first aggressive remark, putting her head out of the window of her ramshackly old carriage.
“Do you?” responded Throckmorton, with laughing eyes. “You must think me a deuced lucky fellow.”
Mrs. Sherrard did not speak for a moment or two, and a cold chill struck Throckmorton, while the laugh died out of his eyes.
“That’s as may be,” she replied, diplomatically; “but the idea of your marching about, thinking you are deceivingme!”
“I am young and bashful, you know, Mrs. Sherrard.”
“You are not young, but you are younger than you are bashful. You always were one of those quiet dare-devils—the worst kind, to my mind.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“And Jane Temple—ha! ha!”
Throckmorton joined in Mrs. Sherrard’s fine, ringing laugh.
“A Yankee son-in-law!” screamed Mrs. Sherrard, still laughing; then she became grave, and beckoned Throckmorton, sitting straight and square in his saddle, to come closer, so the black driver could not hear. “Jane, you know,” she said, confidentially, “was always daft about the war after Beverley’s death; and, let me tell you, Beverley was a fine, tall, handsome, brave, silly, commonplace fellow as ever lived. Judith has more brains and wit than all the Temple men put together, and most of the women. Hers was as clear a case of a winged thing that can soar married to a Muscovy drake as ever I saw. Luckily, she hadn’t an opportunity to wake up to it fully, before he was killed; and then, just like a hot-headed, romantic thing, she wrapped herself in crape, and has given up her whole life to Jane and General Temple, and Jacky.”
Throckmorton felt a certain restraint in speaking of Judith to Mrs. Sherrard, who had assumed that it was his duty to fall in love with Judith instead of Jacqueline. So he flicked a fly off his horse’s neck and remained silent.
“I do wish,” resumed Mrs. Sherrard, pettishly, “that Jane Temple would act like a woman of sense,and send for me over to Barn Elms, and show me Jacky’s wedding things.”
“Very inconsiderate of Jane, I am sure. If it would relieve your mind at all, you might come to Millenbeck, and I would be delighted to show you my coats and trousers. They are very few. I always have a plenty of shirts and stockings, but my outside wardrobe isn’t imposing.”
“I don’t take the slightest interest in your clothes. You don’t dress half as much as Jack does.”
“Of course not; I can’t afford it.”
“One thing is certain. If you have any sort of a wedding at Barn Elms, they’ll have to send over and borrow my teaspoons. There hasn’t been a party at Barn Elms for forty years, that they haven’t done it, and I always borrow Jane Temple’s salad-bowl and punch-ladles whenever I have company.”
“I don’t think there will be any wedding feast there,” answered Throckmorton.
“Jacky wants one,Iknow,” said Mrs. Sherrard, very knowingly. “Jacky loves a racket.”
“Quite naturally—at her age.”
“Oh, yes, of course—her age, as you say. I shall tell Edmund Morford to pay you a pastoral visit, as he always does upon the eve of marriages, to instruct you in the duties of the married state.”
“Then I shall tell Edmund Morford that I know considerably more about my duties in the premisesthan he does; and I’ll shut him up before he has opened his mouth, as Sweeney would say.”
“If anybodycouldshut my nephew up, I believe it is you, George Throckmorton. Has Jane Temple suggested that you should join the church yet?”
“She suggests it to me every time I go to Barn Elms, and whenever I go off for a lover’s stroll with Jacqueline, Mrs. Temple tells me I ought to go home and seek salvation.”
“And do you mind her?” asked Mrs. Sherrard, quite gravely; at which Throckmorton gave her a look that was dangerously near a wink.
Mrs. Sherrard drove off, triumphant. She had got at the whole thing, in spite of Jane Temple.
The wedding preparations went bravely along; carried on chiefly by Judith. Jacqueline had set her heart on a white silk wedding dress, which for a time eclipsed everything else on her horizon. Mrs. Temple declared that it was extravagant, but Judith, by keen persuasion, succeeded in getting the wedding-gown. She made it with her own hands, and across the front she designed a beautiful and intricate embroidery, to be worked by her.
“Judith, you will kill yourself over that wedding-gown,” Mrs. Temple once remarked. “You have drawn such an elaborate design upon it that you will have to work night and day to get it finished.”
“I shall simply have to be a little more industriousthan usual,” replied Judith, with the deep flush that now alternated with extreme paleness.
Jacqueline herself was deeply interested in this gown; more so than in any particular of the coming wedding. Judith had marked off for herself a certain task of work each day upon the embroidery of the gown. Every night, when she stopped at the end of her task, it was as if another stone were laid upon her heart. Throckmorton had noticed her industry, and had admired her handiwork, which she proudly showed him.
“But you are getting white and thin over it,” he said. “Wouldn’t it be better that Jacqueline should not have such a beautiful frock, than for you to work yourself ill over it? I have a great mind to speak to Mrs. Temple about it.”
“No, no, pray don’t!” cried Judith, with a kind of breathless eagerness. “It would break my heart not to finish it.”
Throckmorton looked at her closely. She was not given to that kind of talk. But suddenly she began telling him a funny story of Mrs. Sherrard coming over to pump Mrs. Temple about the coming event, and then she laughed and made him laugh too. Walking back home that night, he found himself speculating on this development of fun and merriment in Judith—a thing she had always suppressed and kept in abeyance until lately.
“Certainly she is in better spirits—more like what one can see her natural self is in the last month or two,” he thought; and then he began to think what a very sweet and natural woman she was, and to hope that, when Jacqueline was her age, she would have developed into something like Judith. But he never liked to look very far into the future with Jacqueline.
As the time drew nearer for the wedding, Freke’s continued presence at Barn Elms became more marked. He did not avoid Throckmorton any longer, who thought no more of it than he did of Jack’s frequent visits. Jack had quite got over any chagrin or disappointment he might have felt, and was kindness and attention itself to Jacqueline. Throckmorton sometimes felt annoyed and discouraged at seeing how much more Jacqueline had in common with Jack than with himself. They were on the terms of a brother and sister—Jack teasing and joking, yet unvaryingly kind to her, and Jacqueline always overflowing with talk to him, while with Throckmorton she was sometimes at a loss for words. But one glance from her dark eyes—that peculiar witching glance that had fixed Throckmorton’s attention on her that very first Sunday in church—could always make amends to him. As for Freke, he came and went with his violin under his arm, and nobody attached any importance to him except Judith, whohonored him with the same still, guarded ill-will that Freke perfectly recognized, and did not apparently trouble himself about. His eternal presence in the house was a nightmare to Judith. She wondered if he would keep on that way after Jacqueline was gone—when Jacqueline was mistress of Millenbeck; but she could not dwell on that without a tightening at her heart. At all events, it would soon be over.
Mrs. Temple had at last got interested in the wedding preparations, and everything was going on famously until about two weeks before the wedding, when one day General Temple got a letter. There was to be a reunion of Beverley’s old command at Richmond, and it was desired that the Temple family should attend.
Such a request was sacred in the eyes of General and Mrs. Temple. It was at once decided that General Temple must go, and he insisted that Mrs. Temple should go also. She was only too willing. Inconvenient as it might otherwise be to leave home, the idea of having Beverley talked of, eulogized, remembered, was too near the idolatrous mother’s heart to be foregone. The invitation also included Judith, but it was clearly impossible for both Judith and Mrs. Temple to leave Barn Elms at the same time just then; so it was quickly settled, to Judith’s infinite relief, that Mrs. Temple should be the one to go. Mrs. Temple was helped to a decision by the reflectionthat Judith, being young and handsome, it was not impossible that some miscreant might suggest the possibility of her marrying again; and, without uttering this impious thought, it had its influence upon her. So it was fixed that, within a day or two, they were to start, and would be gone probably four days. Throckmorton was vexed at the decision—vexed at the entire readiness to sacrifice Jacqueline’s convenience to that of the dead and gone Beverley. But he wisely said nothing; in a little while Jacqueline would have some one that would always consider her first. But suddenly Jacqueline raised a tempest by declaring that she wanted to go with her father and mother as far as a certain station on the railroad, near Richmond, and thence to pay a visit to her Aunt Susan Steptoe. Now, Jacqueline had never showed the slightest fondness for this Aunt Steptoe, and, in fact, was singularly lacking in family affection, after the Virginia pattern, which takes in a whole family connection. Consequently, the notion was the more remarkable. When it was first broached, it was simply pooh-poohed by the general, and calmly ignored by Mrs. Temple. Judith looked at her with reproachful eyes.
“You know, Jacqueline, there is no earthly reason for such a whim; and I am sure Major Throckmorton would not like it.”
“It’s of no consequence what Major Throckmortonthinks about it!” cried Jacqueline, unterrified by a warning light in Judith’s eye—it always made Judith angry when Jacqueline spoke slightingly of Throckmorton.
But Jacqueline held to her notion with the most singular and startling pertinacity. Usually a word or two from Judith would bring her back to the basis of common sense; but in this case, nothing Judith could say would alter Jacqueline’s determination. She was tired of wedding clothes—tired of Barn Elms—tired of everybody; in fact, she made no secret to Judith of being tired of Throckmorton, and wanting to escape from him for a time, if only for four days. She forced her mother to listen to her, and would take no denial. At last she hit upon the argument to move Mrs. Temple. It was the last request she had to make until she was married, and, if Mrs. Temple could do so much for the dead Beverley, she certainly could not refuse this trifling request from the living Jacqueline. Mrs. Temple turned pale at this; and she faltered out that, childish and unreasonable as the scheme was, she would agree—provided Throckmorton gave his consent.
That night, when Throckmorton came for his usual visit, Jacqueline met him at the hall-door with a tenderness that surprised and charmed him. It was so sweet, he could hardly believe it to be true. But, before the evening was over, Jacqueline demandedpayment in the shape of his consent that she should pay this little visit to her Aunt Susan.
“Damn Aunt Susan!” was Throckmorton’s inward remark at this; and he managed to convey practically the same idea to Jacqueline. But it did no good. Jacqueline had the scheme in her head, and it must be carried out. It was in vain that Throckmorton reasoned gently with her. He had often heard that weak women were the most intractable in the world, and the recollection made him wince when he saw how dense this lovely young creature was to common sense. But she was so ineffably pretty—she leaned her bright head on his shoulder and pleaded—and, of course, after a while, Throckmorton yielded, ostensibly because Jacqueline asked him so sweetly, but really because she was utterly impervious to reason.
When the consent was at last wheedled out of him, Throckmorton felt sore at heart and humiliated. He also felt, for a brave man, a little frightened. How often was this sort of thing going to happen? It was true that, after he was married, he could use his authority as Jacqueline’s husband to prevent her from doing anything particularly foolish, but it did not please him that he should rule his wife as if she were a child. Jacqueline saw nothing of Throckmorton’s secret dissatisfaction; but Judith, with the clairvoyance of love, saw it in an instant. For the first time in her life, she followed him out into the hall, where he wasgetting into his overcoat, with rather a black countenance.
“Don’t be troubled about it,” she said, in her charming way. “She is so young—she will learn so much from you!”
Throckmorton took Judith’s hand in his. She made no resistance this time—that quick inner sense told her instinctively that there was something comforting to him in her gentle and womanly clasp. He looked at her with a somber expression on his face that gradually lightened.
“Do you think she will ever be different?”
“Yes,” cried Judith, gayly. “How perfectly ignorant you are of love! I declare you are worse than Jacqueline. It’s the greatest reformer in the world—the most cunning teacher as well. It will teach Jacqueline all she ought to know; but it can’t do it at once.”
“But does she love me?” asked Throckmorton, smiling a little.
“How could she help it?” answered Judith, turning her head archly, and implying that Throckmorton considered himself a lady-killer—which made him laugh, and sent him off home in a little better humor with the world and himself.
Meanwhile, back in the drawing-room, Jacqueline was having a conversation with Simon Peter, who was raking down the fire for the night. General and Mrs.Temple had left the room. Usually Jacqueline slipped off to bed an hour before they did; but to-night she lingered, standing over the fire with one little foot on the brass fender.
“How does it look to-night, Uncle Simon?” she asked, meaning how did the sky look, and what were the chances for good weather.
“Hit looks mighty cu’rus to me, Miss Jacky,” answered Simon Peter, in a queer sort of a voice that made Jacqueline stare at him. “I seed two tuckey-buzzards flyin’ ober de house tog’er’r—and dat’s a sign—”
“A sign of what?”
“A sign ’tain’ gwi’ be no weddin’ at Barn Elms dis year.”
Jacqueline turned a little pale. It had not been a great many years since she had fully believed every one of Simon Peter’s signs and omens; and even now, his solemn prophecies sent a chill to her childish heart.
“An’,” continued Simon Peter, advancing and raising a prophetic forefinger, “dis heah night I done heah de owls hootin’ ‘Tu-whoo, tu-whoo, tu-whoo!’—three times, dat ar way—dat doan’ means nuttin’ but a funeral, when owls hoots dat away.”
Jacqueline shuddered.
“O Uncle Simon, hush!”
“I tole you kase you arsk me,” replied SimonPeter, stolidly; and at that moment Delilah came in.
“O mammy,” cried Jacqueline, fairly bursting into tears, “you don’t know what awful signs and things Uncle Simon has been seeing—funerals, and buzzards, and no wedding!”
“He have, have he!” snapped Delilah, with wrath and menace. “Simon Peter, he su’t’ny is de foolishest nigger I ever seed. He ain’ never got ’ligion good; he allus wuz a blackslider, an’ heah he come skeerin’ my little missy ter def wid he buzzards an’ he things!”
Simon Peter, who bore this marital assault with meekness, copied from General Temple, only remarked sheepishly:
“I done see de signs; an’, Miss Jacky, she arsk me, an’ I done tole her ’bout de two buzzards.”
“Wid de tails tied tog’er’r, I reckon!” answered Delilah, with withering sarcasm; “an’ maybe dey wuz gwi’ fly ter Doc Wortley’s ter see ef anybody gwi’ die soon.—Doan’ you min’ Simon Peter, honey; jes’ come wid mammy up-sty’ars an’ she holp you to ondress an’ put you in yo’ bed.”
Jacqueline went off, and in half an hour was tucked snugly in the great four-poster. But she would not let Delilah leave her. She kept her pulling the window-curtains this way and that, then raking down the fire because the light from the blazing logshurt her eyes, and then stirring the flames into a blaze so that she might see the shadows on the wall. At last, however, Delilah got out, Jacqueline calling after her disconsolately:
“O mammy, do you believe in the two buzzards flying—”
“You jes’ shet dat little mouf, an’ go ter sleep, honey,” was Delilah’s sensible reply, as she went out.
The next day the whole party got off, General Temple leaving directions enough behind him to last if he were going to Turkey instead of to Richmond. Jacqueline at the last seemed loath to part from Judith. She said good-by half a dozen times, and wept a little at parting. There would be no need of letters, as they would only be gone four days. Jacqueline was to stop off at the station, and join her father and mother there on their return from Richmond, getting home ten days before the wedding. There was some talk of asking Mrs. Sherrard to come over and stay with Judith during the absence of General and Mrs. Temple, but Judith protested. With her child she would not suffer for company, and the work on Jacqueline’s wedding-dress would keep her busily employed, while Delilah and Simon Peter were protection enough for her at night. Besides this, Throckmorton and Jack would be over every day to look after her. When it was all arranged, Judith felt a sensation of gladness.She would have four days in which she would not be compelled to play her silent and desperate part. She could weep all night without the fear that Mrs. Temple’s clear eyes would notice how pale and worn she was in the morning; she could relax a little the continual tension on her nerves, her feelings, her expression. So, when they were gone, she came back into the lonely house, and, leaving Beverley with his mammy, went up to her own room, and taking out the white silk wedding-gown went to work on it with a pale, unhappy face; she had dared not show an unhappy face before.
The day passed quickly enough, and the short winter afternoon closed in. Judith would no longer take time for her usual afternoon walk; every moment must be devoted to Jacqueline’s gown. About eight o’clock, as she sat in the drawing-room, stitching away, while overhead in her own room Delilah watched the little Beverley as he slept, she heard Throckmorton’s step upon the porch. As she heard it, she gave a slight start, and put her hand on her heart—something she always felt an involuntary inclination to do, and which she had to watch herself to prevent. Throckmorton came in, and greeted her with his usual graceful kindness.
“I thought I would come over and see that nobody stole you and Beverley,” he said.
“There’s no danger for me,” answered Judith;“but for a beautiful boy like my boy—why, he’s always in danger of being stolen.”
Throckmorton scoffed at this.
In five minutes they were seated together, having the first realtête-à-têteof their lives. Judith sat under the mellow gleam of the tall, old-fashioned lamp, the light falling on her chestnut hair and black dress and the billowy expanse of white silk spread over her lap, making high white lights and rich shadows. Throckmorton had often admired her as she sewed. Sewing was a peculiarly gracious and feminine employment, he thought, and Judith’s sewing, when he saw it, was always something artistic like what she was now doing. Throckmorton lay back in one corner of the great sofa, his feet stretched out to the fire. They talked occasionally, but there were long stretches of silence when the only sound was the crackling of the wood-fire and the dropping of the embers. Yet the unity was complete; there is no companionship so real as that which admits of perfect silence. Throckmorton, on the whole, though, talked more than usual. Something in Judith always inspired him to speak of things that he rarely mentioned at all. They talked a little of Jacqueline, but there were innumerable subjects on which they found themselves in sympathy. The evening passed quickly for both. When Throckmorton had gone, and the house was shut up for the night, Judith felt that shehad passed the evening in a sort of shadowy happiness; it would have been happiness itself, except that in ten days more it would be wrong even to think of Throckmorton.
Two days more passed. Every evening Throckmorton found himself making his way toward Barn Elms. Each evening passed in the same quiet, simple fashion, but yet there was something different to Throckmorton from any evenings he had ever spent in his life. As for Judith, after the first one, she began to look forward with feverish eagerness to the evening. She lived all day in expectation of that two hours’ talk with Throckmorton. She dressed for him; she hurried little Beverley to bed that she might be ready for him. Her eyes assumed a new brilliancy, and she became handsomer day by day.
On the day that the general and Mrs. Temple were to leave for home a letter arrived from Mrs. Temple. The general had been seized with an acute attack of gout, and it would probably take two or three days nursing to bring him around, so that they would not be home until the last of the week. Mrs. Temple had written to Jacqueline, and would write again in a day or two, notifying Judith when to send to the river landing for them. The delay was peculiarly inconvenient then, but it was God’s will. Mrs. Temple never had any trouble in reconciling herself to God’s will, except where Beverley was concerned.
Not a line had been received from Jacqueline. It did not surprise Judith, because Jacqueline hated letter-writing; but Throckmorton admitted, in an embarrassed way, that he had written to her, but she had not answered his letter.
During all this time Freke had not put in an appearance, for which Judith was devoutly thankful.
On the fifth evening that Throckmorton went his way to Barn Elms, it occurred to him that he went there oftener when Jacqueline was away than when she was there, and he was glad there were no gossiping tongues to wag about it. But luckily little Beverley, Delilah, and Simon Peter were the only three persons who knew where Throckmorton spent his evenings, and none of them were either carping or critical.
He found Judith as usual in the drawing-room, and as usual embroidering on the wedding-dress. But there was something strange about her appearance; she looked altogether different from what she usually did—more girlish, more unrestrained. Throckmorton could not make it out for a long time. Then he said, suddenly, “You have left off your widow’s cap.”
Judith let her hands fall into her lap, and looked at him with glittering eyes.
“Yes,” she said, calmly. “I grew intolerably tired of being a hypocrite, and to-night I determined foronce to be my true self, so I laid aside my widow’s cap. I believe, if I had owned a white gown, I should have put it on.”
Throckmorton was so startled that he rose to his feet. Judith rose, too, letting the white silk fall in a heap on the floor.
“Are you surprised?” she asked, with suppressed excitement. “Well, so am I. But I will tell you—what I never dared breathe before—I am no true widow to Beverley Temple’s memory. I never loved him. I married him because—because I did not know any better, I suppose. I spent two miserable weeks as his wife. I was beginning to find out—and then he went away, and almost before I realized it, he was killed.” She hesitated for a moment; the picture of Throckmorton and Beverley in their life-and-death struggle came quickly before her eyes. Throckmorton was too dazed, astounded, confounded, to open his mouth. He only looked at her as she stood upright, trembling and red and pale by turns.
“I had no friends but General and Mrs. Temple; he was my guardian. You know, I had neither father nor mother, brother nor sister. I felt the most acute remorse for Beverley, and the most intense pity for him, cut off as he was, and I fancied I felt the profoundest grief. One suffers in sympathy, you know, and, when I saw his mother’s pitiable sorrow, it made me feel sorry too. The world—myworld—saw me abroken-hearted widow—a widow while I was almost a bride. Don’t you think any woman of feeling would have done as I did—tried to atone to the man I had mistakenly married by being true to his memory? I determined to devote my life to his father and mother; and, in some way I can’t explain, except that you know how Mrs. Temple is, I pretended that my heart was broken; but I tell you, Beverley Temple never touched my heart, either in life or death, although I did not know it then. But for—for some time the deceit has lain heavy upon me. I am tired of pretending to be what I am not. I wish for life, for love, for happiness.”
She stopped and threw herself into a chair with anabandonthat Throckmorton had never seen before. Still, he did not utter a word. But Judith knew that he was keenly observing her, feeling for her, and even deeply moved by what she told him.
“So to-night the feeling was so strong upon me, I took off my widow’s cap and threw it on the floor; it was a sudden impulse, just as I was leaving my room, and I took Beverley’s picture from around my neck, and I didn’t have the courage to throw it in the fire as I wanted to; I only”—with a nervous laugh—“put it in my pocket.”
She took the picture from her dress and handed it him. Throckmorton received it mechanically, but, the instant his eyes fell upon it, his countenancechanged. In a moment or two he said, in an indescribable voice:
“I know this face well; he was killed on the 14th of April. I shall never forget that face to my dying day.”
“I know all about it,” responded Judith, rising and coming toward him; “Freke told me.”
Her excitement was no longer suppressed, and Throckmorton was deeply agitated. He took Judith’s hand.
“But did he tell you all?Idid not fire the shot that killed your husband; it was fired by one of his own men—probably aimed for me. I never succeeded in drawing my pistol at all. The first I knew, in those frightful moments, was when he shrieked and threw up his arms. I thought he would never breathe again.”
“But he lived some hours,” continued Judith, “and—and—I thought it was you, and I ought to have hated you for it, but I could not; I could not; and now, God is so good!”
She dropped into a chair. Throckmorton felt as if the world were coming to an end, his ideas about Judith were being so quickly and strangely transformed. He was too stupefied to speak, and for five minutes there was a dead silence between them. Then Throckmorton’s strong common sense awoke. He went to her and took her hand.
“For your own sake, for your child’s sake, be careful. Do not tell any one what you have told me. The penalty of deception is great, and your penalty will be to keep it up a little while longer. When I am married to Jacqueline, you will have a friend, a home. Then, if you want to take off those black garments, to be yourself, you may count on me; but, for the present, be prudent. You are so impulsive.”
But Judith now was weeping violently and accusing herself. The reaction had come. Throckmorton felt strangely thrilled by her emotion. He comforted her, he held her hands, and even pressed kisses on them. In a few minutes he had soothed her. The old habits of self-control came back to her. She rallied bravely, and in half an hour she was quite composed. But it was the composure of despair. She remembered, then, had Throckmorton but loved her, the only obstacle between them would have been shown to be imaginary.
Throckmorton stayed late. In spite of Judith’s quietness, he felt unhappy about her. She was too quiet, too deathly pale. He felt an intense pity for her, and he feared that she and her child would not much longer find a home under the roof of Barn Elms.
Three days more passed. There was still no word from Jacqueline, and Mrs. Temple wrote that the general’s gout bade fair to be a much more serious matterthan they had first anticipated. It might be that the wedding—which was to be of the quietest sort—might have to be postponed. But that was nothing to Mrs. Temple and the general, who reveled in the luxury of a meeting where Beverley was remembered, praised, and eulogized as can be done only by Southerners. Nor did it seem to matter to Jacqueline. In fact, Throckmorton and Judith appeared to be the only persons particularly interested in it. As for Freke, he had not been seen by either of them since the day the Barn Elms people left.
Throckmorton continued to spend his evenings at Barn Elms. The idea of Judith sitting solitary and alone in the drawing-room the whole long, dull evening, drew him irresistibly. Not one line had Jacqueline written, either to him or to Judith. Nor had Throckmorton written again to her. He was not the man to give a woman more than one opportunity to snub him. In his heart he was cruelly mortified; his pride, of which he had much, was hurt. He feared that it was a part of that arrogance which first youth shows to maturity.
On the eighth day after Jacqueline’s departure something like alarm began to possess Judith. She called it superstition, and tried to put it away from her. The day had been dull and gloomy—a fine, drizzling rain falling. The flat, monotonous landscape looked inexpressibly dreary in the gray mistthat hung low over the trees. It was dark long before six o’clock. The night had closed in, and Judith, sitting alone in the drawing-room, had risen to light the lamp, when she heard the front door open softly, and the next instant she recognized Jacqueline’s peculiar light step—so light that even Mrs. Temple’s keen ears could not always detect it when fits of restlessness seized the girl at night, and she would walk up and down her room over her mother’s head. And in a moment Jacqueline came into the room, and up to Judith, and looked at her with strange, agonized eyes.
The surprise, the shock of seeing her at that hour and in that way, was extreme; and Judith’s first words as her hands fell on Jacqueline’s shoulder were:
“Jacqueline, you are wet through.”
“I know it,” answered Jacqueline, in a voice as unlike her own as her looks; “I have been out in the rain for hours and hours!”
“What is the matter with you?” cried Judith, taking hold of her. “Something dreadful has happened!”
“Dreadful enough for me!” replied Jacqueline, white and dry-eyed.
“What is it?” Judith was not easily frightened, but she trembled as she spoke.
“Everything!” answered Jacqueline. “In the first place, I have left Freke. That broke my heart!”
“Left Freke!”
“Yes. I didn’t go to Aunt Steptoe’s. I got off at the station and Freke was there. He took me to a minister’s and got him to marry us. The man could hardly read and write, and he said something about a license; but Freke gave him fifty dollars, and he performed the ceremony.”
Judith caught hold of her, to see if she were really in the flesh, talking in this way.
“Don’t hold me so hard, Judith. I will tell you all I can; but I feel as if I should die, I am so weak and ill—” and she suddenly began to cough violently. Judith ran and got her a glass of wine. The first idea in her mind was, not the poor, deluded child, but Throckmorton.
“But where is Freke—and your father and mother?—O Jacqueline, Jacqueline!”
“Don’t reproach me, Judith. But for you I would never have returned. My father and mother know nothing about it. Freke found out they were yet in Richmond. If they had been at Barn Elms, I don’t think I ever would have had the courage to come back. The feeling soon came to me that I had committed a great wrong in marrying Freke; and then—and then—he told me perhaps we weren’t married at all in Virginia, and so I would have to go with him out to the place—somewhere in the West—and be married to him straight and right.”
“If Freke had never committed any other wrong in his whole life, his telling you that made him deserve to be killed!” cried Judith.
“Don’t say a word against Freke,” said Jacqueline, a new anger blazing up in her eyes. “I love Freke; it almost kills me when I think I may never see him again, for I ran away from him. At first I thought all the time of the trouble I should bring upon you all. I could see my father’s gray head sink down in his hands. I could imagine how my mother would shut herself up in her room as she did when Beverley died. They had always thought so little of me that it gave me a kind of triumph when I remembered, ‘They’ll have to think about me now!’”
“And Throckmorton?”
“I never thought about him at all. As Freke said, he was entirely too old for me. But I will not speak of him. He knew I never loved him—or he ought to have known it. Then, when Freke found out that mamma and papa were still in Richmond, it came to me like a flash that I could get home, and I was sure of one friend, and only one in the world now—yourself. And I thought you were so clever you could manage to keep anybody from finding out where I had been. I seemed to hear your voice calling to me all the time, and every moment it seemed to crush me more and more that Freke was a divorced man, and that, however he might say he was free, hewas not. So, we were staying at a little town through which the railroad passed, and Freke had to go into Richmond yesterday to get some money, and my conscience suddenly rose up and tortured me, and I couldn’t stay another moment—and, mind you, Judith, I love Freke. So I took the train all alone, and made the boat, and landed at Oak Point about twelve o’clock. I pretended to be surprised that nobody was there to meet me, and said I would walk as far as Turkey Thicket—you know it is only a little way from the landing. But, of course, I did not. Then I was so afraid that some one would see me that, instead of taking the main road, I came through the fields and by-paths. I believe I have walked ten miles instead of six, from Oak Point—and it was raining, too. I was nearly frightened out of my life—frightened by negroes and stray dogs, and afraid that I should see Freke every moment before me, and, if he should overtake me, I knew I should go back with him. I can no more resist him when he is with me than I can stop breathing. Well, with weakness—for I felt ill from the moment I started—and with fear, and being so tired, and the rain, I thought I should die before I reached here. But now I am home—home!—” Jacqueline’s voice rose in a piteous cry. She had been weeping all the time, but now she burst into a perfect tempest of sobs and tears that shook her like a leaf.
In her quiet life Judith had never been brought face to face with any terrible emergency, and this one unnerved and horrified her so that for a time she was as helpless as Jacqueline. She walked the floor, struggling with the wild impulse to send for Throckmorton; that he alone could tell them what to do; and else she and the poor child would sink under the horror of the situation, for to her simple and straightforward mind both conscience and the social code were unalterably opposed to considering a divorced man as a single man. But some instinct of common sense saved her—saved her even from calling Delilah, and caused her to face the thing alone. She gave Jacqueline brandy, she rubbed her vigorously; she even got her up-stairs alone and into her bed. By that time the violence of her emotions was spent; Jacqueline lay in the large four-poster perfectly calm and white. After a while even a sense of physical well-being seemed to possess her; warmth and light and stimulation had their effect. She fell into a heavy sleep, but Judith was terrified to notice her pallor give place to a crimson flush on her face, and her icy hands grow burning hot. By that time Judith’s composure had partly returned. She called Delilah, who came in wondering, and told her briefly that Jacqueline had come home unexpectedly and was not well, without mentioning how she had come from the river-landing. Delilah, who was not of a curiousturn, saw for herself that part of Judith’s statement was true, for Jacqueline had a burning fever. It was impossible to get Dr. Wortley before morning, but, like most women who live in the country, Judith could cope with ordinary ailments, and, whenever the doctor was called in, he always found that the proper thing had been done beforehand.
But, besides Jacqueline’s undeniable illness, the thought that tormented Judith was how to keep the dreadful thing that had happened from Jacqueline’s father and mother and from the world. It must inevitably come out that she had not been near Mrs. Steptoe’s, and only the fact that Jacqueline was a poor correspondent had kept it from being known already. On the impulse of the moment, Judith sat down and wrote Mrs. Steptoe a letter, begging her, for General and Mrs. Temple’s sake, not to mention until she heard further from Barn Elms, that Jacqueline had not been with her; and as she wrote hurriedly and nervously, she could hear Jacqueline’s heavy and fitful breathing. Some simple remedies had been applied, but Judith knew that the best thing for her was to sleep, and so her troubled slumber was undisturbed except by her own feverish mutterings. All the time it hung like a sword over Judith. “What will Throckmorton say?” for, of course, he must be the first one to know it; there could be no mercy in deceiving him. Judith, sitting before thefire, gazing into it with troubled eyes and aching heart, began thinking, pitying, praying for Throckmorton. Yes, it would be a frightful blow to him. There would be no need for the wedding-gown now. As this thought occurred to her, Judith rose and, going softly toward the wardrobe where she kept her dainty work, took out the dress, and, unwrapping it from the white cloth in which she laid it away so carefully every night, spread it over her knees. How much love, despair, and torture had been worked into that embroidery! “It is so pretty, it is a pity it can’t be used,” she said to herself, absently, turning the silk about in her fingers; and at that moment she heard a choking, gurgling sound from the bed. Jacqueline was half sitting up, her head supported on her arm, and a thin stream of blood was trickling from her lips.
Judith, who for once lost her presence of mind, ran toward the bed, and, supporting Jacqueline’s head, called loudly for help. In her haste she had thrown the dress almost across Jacqueline, and a few drops of blood fell upon it.
“Look, look!” gasped Jacqueline; “my dress is being ruined!”
Judith heard Delilah running up the stairs in response to her frightened call, but Jacqueline’s eyes had such a strange expression in them that she asked her involuntarily, as she tremblingly supported her:
“Jacqueline, do you know me?”
“Perfectly,” answered Jacqueline. “I know everything about me.”
Delilah, who was a natural-born nurse, was as calm as Judith was agitated.
“’Tain’ nuttin’ tall, chile; ’scusin’ ’tis er leetle speck o’ blood fum yo’ th’oat. I kin stop it righter way”; and, sure enough, in ten minutes she had applied some simple remedy and the blood ceased to flow. Meanwhile Jacqueline, unable to speak, had motioned eagerly and violently to Judith to remove the white silk dress. Judith threw it on a chair. Jacqueline’s eyes filled with tears.
“It is such a pity to have it ruined—and one’s wedding-dress, too!”
“Hush-hush! you must not talk,” cried Judith.
The flow of blood apparently was a trifle, and in a little while Jacqueline lay back in the great, old-fashioned bed silent, deadly white, but composed.
Judith, with overflowing eyes, folded up the white dress, but she could not prevent some tears falling on it, and the dress, already stained with blood, was also stained with tears. The thought of Jacqueline, though, could not banish the thought of Throckmorton; the more so when Jacqueline, beckoning, brought Judith close to her. Judith thought she wanted something for her comfort.
“Youmust tell him; he will take it better from you.”
Jacqueline, lying wide awake in the bed, and Judith, sitting by her, holding her hand, were both expectant of Throckmorton. At last, about half-past eight, his firm step was heard on the porch. Judith’s heart leaped into her mouth; she did not exactly take in all the bearings of what Jacqueline had told her, or whether she was or was not married to Freke; and Throckmorton, with his knowledge of affairs, would know all.
She rose silently and went down-stairs, leaving Delilah with Jacqueline. Throckmorton was standing before the fire in the drawing-room. There was something in his determined eye and in his tone as he spoke to her that struck a chill to Judith’s heart.
“Jacqueline, has come, you know,” she said.
“Yes, Simon Peter told me so at the door. It does not surprise me.”
Judith remained silent for a few moments, when Throckmorton, suddenly wheeling toward her, and looking her straight in the face, said, curtly:
“What is all this? She never was near Mrs. Steptoe’s. I found out, by having my letter returned to me by Mrs. Steptoe herself. What has made her ill? Don’t tremble so, but tell me—you know I have a right to know it all.”
But Judith continued to be silent and to tremble. She even began to weep; but Throckmorton, taking her hand, said, firmly:
“There must be no concealments.”
His own stern composure controlled Judith’s agitation.
“All?” she asked, faintly.
“Yes—all!” he answered.
When Throckmorton used an authoritative tone with her, he could always compel her; and so, scarcely knowing how she did it, with tears and sobs, and faint deprecations for Jacqueline, she told him all. She noticed Throckmorton’s dark skin growing paler and paler; he began to gnaw his iron-gray mustache—always a sign of extreme agitation with him.
“Now, tell me this—collect your thoughts and don’t cry so—does she—does she love that—” He could not bring himself to utter Freke’s name.
Judith remained silent. Throckmorton, in his determination to make her answer, seized her arm. It hurt her so that she could have cried out, but she made no sound.
“Tell me!” he said, in a voice and manner so unlike his own gentle courtesy, that Judith could scarcely have recognized it. But Judith was obstinately silent. Nevertheless, she lifted her eyes to his with so eloquent a plea for mercy for Jacqueline, that he was unconsciously softened.
“You will not tell me!” he said, relaxing his fierce hold. “I can’t make you answer—you have a spirit like a soldier. But it makes no difference nowwhether she loves him or not. If she were free to-morrow, I could kill her with my own hands easier than I could marry her!—and yet—I loved her well.”
“But,” cried Judith, putting her hand on his arm in her eagerness, “something must be done. It must be managed so that people shall not know it, until her father and mother have decided what is to be done. It will almost kill them!”
“Yes. But if you can manage with Mrs. Steptoe—”
“I have already written to her.”
“I am no lawyer, but it seems to me that it rests with Jacqueline whether it is a marriage or not. But General and Mrs. Temple would rather see her in her grave than married to any divorced man—and to him!”
“And there is a good deal of doubt about his divorce, I believe,” added Judith.
“There is at present nothing to be done. General and Mrs. Temple will no doubt be here as soon as possible; it is hardly worth while to alarm them. Is she very ill, do you think?”
“I don’t know—Jacqueline was always delicate. And—what of him—of Freke?” continued Judith, in a trembling voice. “Is there to be no punishment for him?”
Like a woman, Judith could not look at the case in its practical light; but like a man, Throckmorton,in the midst of his horror, grief, and surprise, yet retained his balance.
“Any punishment of him would react on her—to have her name made public with his—Good God! But there is no power on earth to keep General Temple from committing some frightful folly when he knows of it.”
This was a new horror to Judith. A painful pause followed. Then Judith said:
“How like Freke it was—how perfectly reckless of consequences! He is unlike any man I ever saw or heard of. I believe, in his strange way, he loves Jacqueline; but what does any one know of such a man!”
The absence of vindictiveness toward Freke, on Throckmorton’s part, surprised Judith; but, in truth, he scarcely thought of Freke: a creature as weak and impressionable as Jacqueline was bound to succumb to the first overmastering influence. Throckmorton himself had never been able to get any real influence over her. Presently Judith said:
“One thing I do know—she wants your forgiveness.”
“She has it, poor child!”
Then there was another pause. Throckmorton, after a while, rose to go.
“If you want anything, send for me. I shall be over early in the morning.” He hesitated a moment,and then said: “This has been a strange experience for me; but it is over—” And then, as if checking a confession, went out of the room and out of the house.
When Judith went up-stairs, Jacqueline was still sleeping, but presently she wakened, and turned her lovely, troubled eyes on Judith.
“He is very sorry, Jacqueline, and he forgives you and will trouble you no more,” she whispered. A look of relief came into Jacqueline’s face. She closed her eyes as if to sleep.