BURIED OUT OF SIGHT.
Lost and guilty as this woman was, there existed still one human virtue
in her soul--even in his rage Mellen could feel that she spoke the
truth--she was not asking mercy for herself--she was pleading for the
innocent girl whose future would be destroyed were it known how vile the
creature was with whom she had been the associate.
"Where will you go--what will you do?"
"Anything--anything! You shall never hear from me again."
"You are going with this man!"
"There is no life so horrible that I would not prefer it to his
presence," she said; "no death so shameful that it would not be heaven
compared to seeing his face again."
There was a brief pause then; Mellen grasped her by the arm.
She thought he was about to kill her. She sank on her knees and a broken
prayer rose to her lips. She would not have struggled; she would have
knelt there and received death patiently from his hands.
"Do you think me lost and vile as yourself?" he cried, reading her
thoughts in this gesture. "I do not want your life--do with it what you
will! For my innocent sister's sake I will spare you--but go--go where I
never can hear your name--let me have no reason to know that you exist!
If you cross my path again, nothing shall keep me from exposing you to
the whole world."
All at once, North came out from the shadows that had concealed his
face, and stood before the man he had so foully wronged.
"Grantley Mellen," he said, "for your own sake, believe me. If this
woman will not speak, I am not coward enough to keep silent."
Elizabeth stepped forward, her head raised, her eyes flashing.
"But I charge you--North or Ford, I charge you, make no defence for me.
At your hand, neither he or I, will accept it. There has been no murder,
there must be none. If this most wronged man grants us the mercy of
silence, it is enough."
"But I am not brute enough to----"
"Peace," said Elizabeth; "if you would serve me, obey him."
"Obey him," answered North, with a sneer. "I would do almost anything.
Yes, and I will do even that; but you are the only woman on earth for
whom I would so bend and creep to this man."
These words stung Mellen like vipers, but he would not allow those two
criminals to know how his heart writhed.
"It is well," he said; "there is more to be done. Go and finish your
work."
North took up the spade.
"Remember," he said. "It is for her sake."
Elizabeth made an effort to speak.
"Be still," said Mellen, "we need no more words."
North began throwing the earth back into the trench, Elizabeth sat still
and watched him.
It seemed to her that she did not suffer--there was nothing in her mind
save the blank feeling which one might experience sitting over the ruin
an earthquake had made, after burying home, love, everything the soul
clings to. North filled the chasm and smoothed the earth down over it
carefully. Then, without a pause, he straightened the lid of the
coffin--there was no haste, no recoiling--he drove back the nails that
had been loosened, into their place--then he raised the box in his arms,
saying, only:
"Come!"
Mellen walked forward, Elizabeth followed a little behind--she did not
ask a single question, but moved slowly down the avenue towards the
outer gates. They passed through, out into the high road, up the little
hill, Mellen walking sternly on, and the woman following, North marching
forward with long strides, bearing the coffin on his shoulder.
They reached the graveyard; the fence was broken in one place; Mellen
wrenched off the picket and forced a passage. He passed through, and
Elizabeth mechanically kept in his footsteps. At the lower end of the
yard was a single grave, with the earth still fresh around it; not a
tuft of grass had sprung on the torn soil, but dead leaves had drifted
over it, and the frost crusted it drearily, turning its moisture to ice.
Elizabeth might have recognised this grave as one that had been given to
a fair woman who had perished in the late shipwreck, had she found any
room for thought out of her great misery. But she only saw a
dreary-looking grave, at which North paused. He set down the coffin and
again raised his spade. Elizabeth stood by, silently turning to stone,
as it were. She watched him dig a deep cavity, saw him lower the box
down into it, then he began to fill up the gap.
"It is done, your sin is buried; we part, and forever," said Mellen.
"We part here!" echoed Elizabeth.
"I have no more to say," he went on; "if you can live, do so; but,
remember, death comes at last--death and the judgment. I think, had your
sin been other than it is, I could have promised you forgiveness in your
last hour. But the horror of your crime in choosing that man----"
"I never knew it," she broke in. "Oh, believe that--do believe that! I
ask nothing more--I have no right even to ask so much--but if you should
one day hear that I am dead, believe that I have now told you the
truth."
"You have the means of subsistence," he went on; "the stocks I settled
upon you will be sufficient for your support. If you ever see this
wretch again, it is because you are altogether bad."
"Only say that when I am dead you will pardon me--only say that,
Grantley Mellen, for I have great need of one kind word."
"You will be careful that your name never reaches my ear," he went on,
regardless of her appeal. "Hide yourself in some strange land, where no
tidings of you may ever come near my home. I warn you, for your own
sake."
"Give me your forgiveness in my dying hour; only that, Grantley, for I
have loved you so!"
"I will not promise it. This mockery is worse than your sin!" he
exclaimed. "If it were to keep your soul from eternal torture, I could
not speak a pardoning word."
She fell forward upon the ground.
"Only for my death-bed--your pardon for my death-bed?"
"Never! Never!"
His voice rang out clear and sharp, as steel striking steel. It was like
the sound of prison doors shutting out the last gleam of light and hope
from a condemned criminal.
"Don't be found here," he said; "nor be heard of again. We are parting
now forever. Take the shelter of my roof for the rest of this miserable
night. I will not send you forth in darkness--go, but we meet no more!"
He turned and walked away; she watched him threading his path among the
graves, and it seemed as if she must die when her eyes lost him.
He had reached the palings, he was passing through. She raised herself,
her last expiring energy went out in one agonized appeal:
"Your pardon--for my death-bed--Grantley--husband!"
He never turned, never paused--perhaps he did not hear--but walked
steadily and firmly on.
Elizabeth looked up at the cold sky; the moon was partially hidden, the
dawn was struggling up gray and chilled in the east, the wind moaned
faintly among the graves, and rustled her garments like the stirring of
a shroud; there she stood among the graves of her world, as utterly
helpless and lost as if eternity swept between her and the past, and
there she remained during some minutes that lengthened out like years,
with the wind moaning around her and dead leaves crackling under her
feet. She could see her old home through the naked trees, with the dull
smoke curling in clouds above the chimneys, and the great trees sweeping
their naked branches over it. Oh, how her heart yearned towards it, how
wistfully her eyes watched all those signs of her forfeited life through
the leafless grove and the drifting leaves!
"Can I help you, can I do anything?"
Elizabeth lifted her dreary eyes. It was North. The desolation of that
poor woman smote him with remorse, his voice trembled with human pity.
"The money--you shall have part of that."
Elizabeth shook her head; she had no strength for resentment. All pride
was crushed within her.
"Go," she said, "leave me here alone; I want nothing."
"But I cannot leave you so--I will not."
Elizabeth arose and stood upright among the graves.
"I am going somewhere--this way, I think. One cannot rest here, you
know," she said, with a wan and most pathetic smile. "You and I have
been too much in company--the world is wide--oh, misery, misery, how
wide--but you can go that way and I the other. No one will ask for me."
Was the woman dropping into piteous insanity?
North thought so, and made another effort to arouse her, but she only
entreated him to go away, and at last he went; afraid that the daylight
would find him there.