Camille had written from the dictation of the infamous French maid. She
had alternately implored and threatened, vowing that Norman’s little
protégée should serve her turn to point an infamous charge against him
if he persevered in his resolve to procure a divorce.
The delicate cheek of the matron flushed indignantly as her dark eyes
traveled over the paper. Meanwhile, the observant child had secured the
envelope, which had fluttered to the floor, and sitting down, she cut
it into bits with her tiny scissors. She waited silently but patiently
for the letter, turning her blue eyes with bird-like eagerness toward
the reader. When at last Mrs. de Vere finished and handed it back to
her son, and he crumpled it in his hand and flung it disdainfully from
him, Sweetheart pounced upon it unnoticed and sat down to destroy it
with the aid of her little scissors.
She spread out the pretty pink sheet, but the delicate fragrance
exhaling from it arrested her olfactories, and after holding it
pensively to her nose a moment, she concluded not to immolate it yet;
so, quite unobserved by her elders, she crossed the room to her box of
toys, and hid Camille’s letter among the leaves of a picture-book.
Mother and son stood looking at each other in wordless dismay,
unmindful of the child at her play. Neither could bear to speak.
At last the mother said, sadly:
“You see now that you must give it up, Norman. You can not drag our
proud old name through the mire. She will consent to a separation, she
says. Will not that content you?”
“No,” he replied, bitterly.
“But, Norman, this is horrible! Will you not think of me? How can I
bear it that this shame should fall on you and on the proud name that
was your father’s pride? Have pity on my gray hairs,” she faltered.
“Mother, you torture me,” he cried, for it seemed most cruel that she
should misjudge him--should deem him careless of her happiness. But he
could not tell her the truth. He must bear his pain in silence.
She went on, pleadingly:
“I am old. I should not live long to bear the burden of shame; but,
Norman, think of that sweet and lovely little child. The mystery that
surrounds her may never be penetrated, and this horrible scandal, if
promulgated, may cast an ineffaceable blight upon her future. Think of
all these things, Norman, before you proceed further.”
He was thinking of them. The white agony of his face showed it. In the
face of his despair he silently wished himself dead and at rest from
the war of emotions raging within him.
That he must break with Camille he knew. Her sin had placed an
insurmountable barrier between their lives.
He would gladly have parted with her without giving cause for scandal,
but it was impossible. The curious world must have reasons or it would
make them. Better they should say he was jealous--unreasonably jealous,
of Lord Stuart than that there was some guilty secret hidden behind the
death of Robert Lacy, who had carried flowers to Camille the last hour
of his life. Her safety hung in the balance. Between her two sins he
must choose the lesser for her own sake, for part they must. The mad,
feverish love he had borne Camille was dead and cold. It had fallen
down in ruins in the moment when his appalled ears had heard her own
lips admit her guilt.
He owed it to his mother’s gray hairs to save her from shame, and no
less to Sweetheart yonder in her innocent youth and helplessness. What
under heaven was he to do?
The sad, anxious voice of the mother broke in again:
“Norman, if you feel that you can not live longer with your wife,
why not consent to a separation, as she wishes? Put off the thought
of divorce. Who knows but that in the future you may learn she was
innocent? Then there may be a reconciliation.”
“Mother, you madden me!” he cried, hoarsely. He knew how vain was that
hope.
But he began to think seriously of her words. Might it not be best to
cut loose quietly as possible from his guilty wife for the sake of his
mother and Sweetheart?
His heavy eyes wandered to the child who was playing with her kitten
in sweet unconsciousness. A deep sense of his responsibility suddenly
overwhelmed him. He had saved her life, and it had been thrown on his
hands in all its sweet helplessness. He would be answerable for her
future.
He sat thinking, miserably, intently, his mother watching with anxious
eyes. Suddenly he spoke:
“Mother, you comprehend the cruel malignancy with which Camille means
to stain the name and future of this innocent child?”
“She will relent if you accede to her request, Norman.”
“I have come to a sudden but wise conclusion, mother. I know that the
child can expect no mercy from Camille’s cruel heart. I must send her
from me for her own good.”
“But where, Norman?”
“I will tell you, mother. In the wreck with me--indeed, the only person
saved with Sweetheart and myself--was a man, a commercial traveler,
named George Hinton. He took a strange fancy to my little protégée, and
begged to have her if her friends were not discovered. He was a married
man with a small family--two boys, and a girl of seven who longed for a
sister.”
“A good man, Norman?” anxiously.
“Rough, perhaps, but with a good heart, I am sure. He gave me his
address. His home is in a little Virginia town on the line of the
Chesapeake & Ohio Railway. Mother, what if you were to take Sweetheart
to him? Then you could satisfy yourself as to whether the Hintons would
be proper people with whom to leave the child. I would make them an
allowance for her support and education, of course. I should like it if
you could go very soon.”
“To-morrow?”
“Yes, if possible. We must go away from here for awhile, you know, dear
mother. You remember it was Camille’s money with which we improved
Verelands. Unless she decides to live here, the place must be rented
out until sufficient money is realized to repay the debt. Dearest
little mother, you know we are poor again, now. I shall have to work
for us both.”
“There is my little income. It is more than enough for me. All I can
spare shall go to help the Hintons if they take Sweetheart,” she said,
but her voice was hoarse with tears. How could she leave the dear old
home, and how could her son sit there and talk of it with that calm,
white face? It was cruel! He might have borne with Camille, if only for
his mother’s sake.
Hard thoughts of her son came to her for the first time in her life,
but she did not utter a single reproach. Perhaps it would all come
right soon, and she could come back to Verelands.
“You will want to answer your wife’s letter,” she said, looking around
for it; then she saw the fragments of the pink envelope strewing the
floor. “Naughty Little Sweetheart, you have cut it up with your toy
scissors!” she cried.
Sweetheart looked solemn and rueful over the detection of the mischief
she had wrought.