COLONEL ROYALL was sitting by the great fireplace in his library.
Daylight was failing fast at the windows, and the long bough of a
hemlock sweeping across the one toward the west was outlined against
the whitening sky. The colonel watched it as it swayed. Once and awhile
he turned and looked toward the door, his fine old hands tightening on
the carved arms of his chair.
Twenty years ago he had seen her last in this room, and he was to see
her again to-night. A singular feeling tightened about his heart. When
we have watched through a long vigil with a great and agonizing sorrow,
when we have rebelled against it, and battled and fought with the air,
in our vain outcry against its injustice, when we have longed and wept
and prayed for release in vain, and then, at last, have laid it in its
ashes and stood beside that open grave, which yawns sooner or later in
every past, then--the coming of its ghost is bitter with the bitterness
of death.
It was the coming of the ghost for which Colonel Royall waited in
the gathering dusk, the ghost who must walk over the white ashes of
his love and his outraged honor. For twenty years he had hidden
the mother’s sin from the daughter, he had made her memory sweet to
her child. And his requital? She had tried to rob him of that one
comfort of his life, to take his daughter away, to estrange them in
his hour of need. In that hour even that gentle and simple heart
knew its own bitterness. He recalled every incident of that unhappy
past, he recalled her beauty and her indifference; again and again
he had questioned himself, had the fault been his? He had loved much
and forgiven much, yet it might be that he had given her cause for
weariness. Had the narrow routine of life which made his happiness
fretted her? If he had let her spread her butterfly wings in other
and gayer climes, would she have been more content to return at last?
Perhaps,--he did not know.
Fallacious thought! No human being can hold captive another’s will
except by that one magic talisman, and love for David Royall had never
really lived in his wife’s heart. Marriage to some women is a brilliant
fête, and a preventive of the reproach which they fondly believe would
attach to them in single-blessedness; marriage is a poultice for the
ills of society, and the latch-key to the social front door, permitting
more freedom of entrance and exit. Yet it is a poultice which some are
exceedingly anxious to tear off after a short application. The young
and beautiful Letty had tried it twice and was still suffering from its
effects; she had found it, in both instances, grown cold and lumpy.
Yet, so adorable had been her youthful ways, so sweet and engaging her
manner, that this poor man, who had been the husband of her youth,
sat in the twilight, searching his heart again for reasons for her
discontent, no living man having really mastered the ways of woman.
Night had fallen in the room, but the hemlock bough was still outlined
against the pane, for the moon was rising. Presently, Kingdom-Come came
in softly and lit the tall old candelabrum on the mantel; he was going
on, with a noiseless step, to the other lights, but the colonel stopped
him.
“Has no one come yet?” he asked, as the negro, leaving the lamps,
arranged the fire.
“Not yet, Marse David.”
The colonel sighed inaudibly, and Kingdom retreated, not over pleased.
He, too, knew that some one was expected. He had been with the Royalls
from his birth.
A light step came down the hall, and the colonel held his breath. It
was Diana, but she did not come in; he heard her ascending the stairs.
Then, in the long silence, the hall clock chimed seven, the outer door
opened, and the colonel again heard steps come across the tessellated
floor of the old hall. His long white hands tightened on the arms of
his chair, the ghost of his happiness was coming! He had loved greatly,
he was to look again on the face of her who, loving him not, had
betrayed him. Kingdom opened the library door, stood aside for her,
and closed it behind her. After twenty years they stood here alone
together--face to face.
The colonel shaded his eyes and looked into the fire; the grave of
his love yawned deep, a shudder ran through him. Letitia had remained
standing by the door, the mature elegance of her figure, the slightly
bent head, recalled nothing when he finally looked up. She had left him
a mere girl; she returned a worn woman of the world; the suggestions of
her past, gay and unhappy, seemed to penetrate the classic mask of her
still beautiful face. He knew her even less than Dr. Cheyney. He made
an attempt to rise, failed and, sinking back, motioned her to a seat.
She took it without a word, turning her face aside to avoid the light
of that one tall candelabrum. In the old room, facing the man who had
aged so greatly in these heavy years, she was ashamed. She had planned
a dozen glib speeches, but her parched lips refused to utter them.
She put her ungloved hand to her throat with a gesture that was like
one who struggled for breath, and Colonel Royall noticed the flash of
the jewels that she wore on her slender fingers. A little thing will
sometimes turn the balance of thought, and the flash of Letty’s jewels
recalled her former husband to himself. He remembered the divorce and
her marriage. Between them the white ashes of the past fell thick as
snow. He could dimly see through them the outlines of her matured and
hardened beauty, and the suggestions of that life in which he had
played so small a part. He thanked God devoutly that now they were face
to face he saw no likeness to Diana.
To the woman, his silence, his wan age, the lines that suffering had
mapped on his proud face, were unendurable. She spoke at last, leaning
toward him, her clasped hands trembling on her knee. “David, I have
come to ask your forgiveness.”
The colonel returned her look with a new sad serenity. “It’s a long
time to wait,” he said.
She made a little involuntary movement, as if she wanted to go to him,
for she pitied him all at once, with the same sweep of emotion that
she had once abhorred him, loving another man. “I have wanted it for
twenty years,” she said, and then added impulsively: “I did not half
understand how much you loved me--until I heard how you had hidden
it all from Diana. At first I was angry, I thought you did it to
estrange her from the thought of her mother. Then I realized that you
were covering my disgrace, and--and it has broken down my pride!” She
stopped with a little sob. “David, will you forgive me?”
“I forgave you twenty years ago, Letitia,” he replied; “you are Diana’s
mother.”
The woman looked at him longingly. “She has been--she is much to you?”
“She is all I have,” said Colonel Royall.
The shamed tears welled up in her splendid eyes, her lip trembled like
a child’s. “I have nothing!” she sobbed wildly; “I am bankrupt!” and
she dropped her head on her hands.
He looked over at her with compassion, once he passed his hand lightly
across his eyes. He felt the absolute restraint that comes to one whose
love has been lightly prized; he was nothing to her, it was not for
him to comfort her, while Letitia, cowering in her chair, thought him
cold-hearted, unforgiving, a proud Royall to the core. Thus are we
misinterpreted by those who love us not.
“She cares nothing for me!” she sobbed, “you have taught her to love a
dead woman!”
“I would gladly have taught her to love her mother,” the colonel said
quietly, “but how could I begin the lesson? By telling her that you had
deserted her?”
She rose at that and stood looking at him, through her tears. “You have
had your revenge!” she said wildly, “you have had it a thousand times
over in that one reproach.”
“Letitia,” he said gently, “I never desired revenge. I would have
chastised the man who injured me and dishonored you, if I could have
done it without dragging your name before the world. Other revenge I
never sought.”
“You have it!” she cried again bitterly, “you have it; Diana despises
me, I read it in her clear eyes. You have brought her up to hate her
mother’s sin, so that when she knew it she would hate her mother.”
The fine old hands tightened convulsively on the carved arms of his
chair. “Would you have had me bring her up to condone such sins?” he
asked her sternly, his blue eyes kindling.
The shaft went home; its truth bit into her sore heart. “No,” she
breathed, hiding her face in her hands, shaking from head to foot.
There was a long silence and then her voice. “I can bear no more!”
He averted his eyes; her struggle hurt him deeply. Now and then he saw
her as she used to be; little reminders of her youth, her early beauty,
her gayety, crept through the change in her. His own vision was dimmed
with tears. After a while she grew more calm, and began to gather up
her belongings, her gloves, her purse, the boa that had slipped from
her shoulders, with those little familiar gestures that are a part
of a woman’s individuality, and yet all women share them. She was
gathering up the mantle of her worldliness, putting on the worn mask of
conventionality.
“I am going,” she said, in a low voice that thrilled with feeling, “I
shall never see you again. Will you forgive me, David? I sinned and--I
have suffered, I am suffering still.”
With an effort the old man rose and held out his hand. In the gesture
was all the stately courtesy of his race and his traditions. “I forgave
you long ago,” he said.
She took his hand a moment, looked into his face, and read there the
death warrant of every hope she had that the trouble might be bridged,
her daughter come back to her. Her lips quivered and her shoulders rose
and fell with her quick breathing.
“Thank you,” she said, and passed slowly down the room to the door.
A log fell on the hearth, and the blaze, shooting up a tongue of flame,
illumined the colonel’s gaunt figure and whitened his face. At the
door Letitia turned and looked her last upon the man she had wronged,
who had forgiven her and yet, through the love of his daughter, had so
deeply smitten her.
She went out weeping and alone.