Verelands was looking its fairest that October morning when George
Hinton’s letter to Norman de Vere came into it like a thunder-clap
falling from a seemingly clear sky.
It was almost thirteen years ago that the De Veres had quitted their
beautiful home, with something almost akin to the sorrow of Adam and
Eve in leaving Eden, so dear was the old ancestral home to their
hearts. Leaving Sweetheart with the Hintons, they had journeyed
northward, the young man seeking a career in life, and the mother only
wishing to be near her son.
A wealthy tenant was soon found for Verelands, and the rent was
forwarded yearly to Camille’s lawyer to liquidate the amount she had
spent in improving the estate immediately following her marriage with
Norman.
At first there had come letters of protest from the banished wife, but
Norman had returned them to her without comment, and the rent continued
to be forwarded to her lawyer.
Now and then, too, as he began to prosper in the profession of
journalism, which he had chosen, he found means to add to the amount
sent to Camille, for the weight of his indebtedness to her weighed
sorely on his proud spirit.
“I shall never return to my old home until it is freed from that
hateful debt,” he had said many times to his mother, and she, with a
sigh, acquiesced. She had almost given up the hope now that Norman
would ever be reconciled to his wife, he turned so impatiently from all
her entreaties that he would pardon Camille, and more than once he had
mystified her with the strange answer:
“Mother, you see only upon the surface. It is most unfortunate for
both you and me. I see that you do not understand, and yet I can never
explain.”
Mrs. de Vere brooded half her time over those strange words, but she
could never see any reason in them.
“It is very true that I do not understand his hardness of heart toward
Camille. No one could,” she often said to herself, impatiently, for
it seemed to her that Camille had been sufficiently punished for her
thoughtless flirtation. “No one could ever make me believe that there
was any guilt in it. Camille was a pure woman,” she had said more than
once to her son, but he always answered firmly:
“I will not argue the point with you, mother.” If she persisted he
always left the room.
He did not know how often she was spurred on to fresh effort
by the frequent letters she received from her banished
daughter-in-law--letters whose passionate, piteous appeals brought
tears into her kind eyes. She forgot Camille’s faults, her caprices,
her jealousies, her arrogance of wealth, her thirst for admiration, in
pity for her genuine despair at the separation from her husband. At
first she begged Norman to read these letters. She thought they must
surely soften his heart.
He refused her request. He expressed a stern displeasure at the
correspondence.
“If you persist in keeping up communication with that wicked woman, be
good enough not to force the fact upon my notice, mother,” he said,
bitterly.
Camille stayed abroad three years with Finette, but to the amazement of
the wily maid, her plot did not succeed. The indignant boy-husband did
not relent, Camille remained unforgiven.
“There must be more than she confessed to me, or that foolish boy
would have made it up with her long ago. I will watch closely. She has
deceived me; she has not told me the whole truth,” she decided; but
her keenest scrutiny, her most artful speeches, failed to make her
acquainted with more than she knew already. Camille faithfully kept up
the rôle of the true wife and wronged woman.