The next night at midnight there was a solemn stir, a painful and
heart-breaking commotion, at Barn Elms. Throckmorton had come. He had
indeed missed the boat, and had driven seventy miles rather than wait a
day. Mrs. Temple, as when Beverley died, had shut herself up in the
"charmber" with General Temple. Most people thought it was to comfort
General Temple, but in those two dreadful tragedies of her life it was
General Temple who comforted Mrs. Temple. Both parents felt something
like remorse in their grief. They had been good parents after their
lights, but the wayward, capricious Jacqueline, although their child,
was outside of their experience. Her nature had eluded both of them.
"Ole marse," said Delilah, in a solemn whisper to Judith, sitting in
Jacqueline's peaceful room, "he set by mistis. He hole her han' an' he
read de Bible ter her, an' he tell her she ain' got no reproachments fur
ter make. Mistis, she jes' lay in the bed, ez white ez de wall, an' her
eyes wide open, a-hole'in' ole marse like she wuz drowndin'. It seem
like ole marse ain' got no sort o' idee, 'cep 'tis ter comfort mistis.
She do grieve so arter her chillen. She ain' got none now."
To Judith, whose grief was poignant and complex, was left the task of
watching by Jacqueline. With tender superstition, she got out the
wedding-gown--it could be put to no other use--and she and Delilah put
it on Jacqueline, deftly hiding the blood-spots.
"My pretty little missy," said Delilah, smoothing down the frock with
her hard black hand. "Arter all, you gwi' w'yar dis pretty little frock
Miss Judy done wuk for you to git married in."
And to Judith also fell the task of showing Freke into the white and
darkened room.
As they looked into each other's eyes, and realized that, after all,
they were the chiefest mourners, Judith's old enmity melted away.
"You and I have struggled for this child's soul," he said. "Had you but
let me see her--had she but gone with me--she would be alive this day."
"And wretched!" Judith could not help saying.
"No--most happy. I understood her better than anybody else. It was that
which gave me my power over her. She wanted nothing in this world except
to be loved."
He went in and stayed so long that Judith opened the door softly two or
three times. Sometimes, by the dim light, he was kneeling by the bed,
holding the cold little hand in his. Again, he sat on a chair, stroking
the bright hair that rippled over the forehead. Judith had not the heart
to speak to him until midnight, when the sound of Throckmorton's step in
the hall told her he had come. She went in and said to Freke hurriedly,
but not unkindly, "You must go--Throckmorton is here."
"Then I will go," he said. But with a queer sort of triumph in his voice
he added: "She never was Throckmorton's, living or dead. She was mine as
far as her heart and her soul and her will went." And so saying, he went
down the stairs and out and away, without meeting Throckmorton.
Judith went down into the dining-room, where Throckmorton sat before the
decaying fire, with only the light of two tall candles to pierce the
darkness. He arose silently and followed her. At the door of the room
his courage, which Judith had thought invincible, seemed suddenly to
leave him. He, the strong man, turned pale, and clung to the weak
woman's arm. Something of the divine pity in Judith's face went to his
soul. He stayed only a few minutes. It came to Judith, like a flash,
that his grief was not like Freke's. Throckmorton pitied Jacqueline.
Freke pitied himself, for the sharp misery of life without her. When
Throckmorton came out, Judith went in and resumed her watch.
The day of the funeral was as stormy as the day of Jacqueline's death.
But for that, the whole county would have been at the funeral. Something
of the truth had leaked out, and the people were conscience-stricken.
Poor Jacqueline, who two weeks before had in vain asked for a little
human pity from them, now had her memory deluged with it. But the storm
was so violent that but few persons could be present. As Judith stood at
the head of the small grave in the wind and the rain, listening to
Edmund Morford's rich voice, now touched with real feeling, she glanced
toward Freke, standing by himself, with his hands clasped behind his
back, his eyes fixed devouringly upon the coffin. As the first damp
clods fell resounding on the lid, he said to himself: "Jacqueline!
Jacqueline!"
Throckmorton, with folded arms and his iron jaw set, gave no sign of his
feelings through his stern composure. Judith's heart was wrenched as if
she were burying her own child. When they left the grave, Freke remained
standing alone, his hat off, and the sleety rain pelting his bare head.
At that sight Judith, for the first time, forgave him from her heart.