MRS. MEREDITH HAS A CONSCIENCE.
She had one, years before, but, since the summer day when she sent
from her the white-faced man whose heart she had broken, it had been
hardening over with a stony crust which nothing, it seemed, could
break. And yet there were times when she was softened and wished that
much which she had done might be blotted out from the great book in
which she believed.
There was many a misdeed recorded there against her, she knew, and
occasionally there stole over her a strange disquietude as to how she
could confront them when they all came up against her.
Usually, she could cast such thoughts aside by a drive down gay
Broadway, or, at most, a call at Stewart's; but the sight of Anna's
white face and the knowing what made it so white was a constant
reproach, and conscience gradually wakened from its torpor enough to
whisper of the only restitution in her power--that of confession to
Arthur.
But from this she shrank nervously. She could not humble herself thus
to any one, and she would not either. Then came the fear lest by
another than herself her guilt should come to light. What if Thornton
Hastings should find her out? She was half afraid he suspected her
now, and that gave her the keenest pang of all, for she respected
Thornton highly, and it would cost her much to lose his good opinion.
She had lost him for her niece, but she could not spare him from
herself, and so, in sad perplexity, which wore upon her visibly, the
autumn days went on until at last she sat one morning in her
dressing-room and read in a foreign paper:
"Died, at Strasburgh, August 31st, Edward Coleman, aged 46."
That was all; but the paper dropped from the trembling hands, and the
proud woman of the world bowed her head upon the cold marble of the
table and wept aloud. She was not Mrs. Meredith now. She was Julia
Ruthven again, and she stood with Edward Coleman out in the grassy
orchard, where the apple-blossoms were dropping from the trees and the
air was full of insects' hum and the song of matin birds. She was the
wealthy Mrs. Meredith now, and he was dead in Strasburgh. True to her
he had been to the last; for he had never married, and those who had
met him abroad had brought back the same report of "a white-haired
man, old before his time, with a tired, sad look upon his face." That
look she had written there, and she wept on as she recalled the past
and murmured softly:
"Poor Edward! I loved you all the while, but I sold myself for gold,
and it turned your brown locks snowy-white, poor darling!" and her
hands moved up and down the folds of her cashmere robe, as if it were
the brown locks they were smoothing just as they used to do. Then came
a thought of Anna, whose face wore much the look which Edward's did
when he went slowly from the orchard and left her there alone, with
the apple-blossoms dropping on her head and the wild bees' hum in her
ear.
"I can at least do right in that respect," she said; "I can undo the
past to some extent and lessen the load of sin rolling upon my
shoulders. I will write to Arthur Leighton. I surely need tell no one
else; not yet, at least, lest he has outlived his love for Anna. I can
trust to his discretion and to his honor, too. He will not betray me
unless it is necessary, and then only to Anna. Edward would bid me do
it if he could speak. He was somewhat like Arthur Leighton."
And so, with the dead man in Strasburgh before her eyes, Mrs.
Meredith nerved herself to write to Arthur Leighton, confessing the
fraud imposed upon him, imploring his forgiveness and begging him to
spare her as much as possible.
"I know from Anna's own lips how much she has always loved you," she
wrote in conclusion; "but she does not know of the stolen letter, and
I leave you to make such use of the knowledge as you shall think
proper."
She did not put in a single plea for the poor, little Lucy, dancing
so gayly over the mine just ready to explode. She was purely selfish
still, with all her qualms of conscience, and thought only of Anna,
whom she would make happy at another's sacrifice. So she never hinted
that it was possible for Arthur to keep his word pledged to Lucy
Harcourt, and, as she finished her letter and placed it in an envelope
with the one which Arthur had sent to Anna, her thoughts leaped
forward to the wedding she would give her niece--a wedding not quite
like that she had designed for Mrs. Thornton Hastings, but a quiet,
elegant affair, just suited to a clergyman who was marrying a Ruthven.