"I swear to you by all I hold most sacred--by _my_ mother's memory and
_yours_--by yourself--that I never meant to take Ibbetson's life, or
even strike him; the miserable blow was dealt...."
"As if you need tell me that! As if I didn't know you of old, my poor
friend, kindest and gentlest of men! Why, I am holding your hands, and
see into the very depths of your heart!"
(I put down all she said as she said it. Of course I am not, and never
have been, what her old affectionate regard made me seem in her eyes,
any more than I am the bloodthirsty monster I passed for. Woman-like,
she was the slave of her predilections.)
"And now, Mr. Ibbetson," she went on, "let me first of all tell you, for
a certainty, that the sentence will be commuted. I saw the Home
Secretary three or four hours ago. The real cause of your deplorable
quarrel with your uncle is an open secret. His character is well known.
A Mrs. Gregory (whom you knew in Hopshire as Mrs. Deane) has been with
the Home Secretary this afternoon. Your chivalrous reticence at the
trial...."
"Oh," I interrupted, "I don't care to live any longer! Now that I have
met you once more, and that you have forgiven me and think well of me in
spite of everything, I am ready to die. There has never been anybody but
you in the world for _me_--never a ghost of a woman, never even a friend
since my mother died and yours. Between that time and the night I first
saw you at Lady Cray's concert, I can scarcely be said to have lived at
all. I fed on scraps of remembrance. You see I have no talent for making
new friends, but oh, such a genius for fidelity to old ones! I was
waiting for Mimsey to come back again, I suppose, the one survivor to me
of that sweet time, and when she came at last I was too stupid to
recognize her. She suddenly blazed and dazzled into my poor life like a
meteor, and filled it with a maddening love and pain. I don't know which
of the two has been the sweetest; both have been my life. You cannot
realize what it has been. Trust me, I have lived my fill. I am ready and
willing to die. It is the only perfect consummation I can think of.
Nothing can ever equal this moment--nothing on earth or in heaven. And
if I were free to-morrow, life would not be worth having without _you_.
I would not take it as a gift."
She sat down by me on the grass with her hands clasped across her knees,
close to the unconscious shadows of our kith and kin, within hearing of
their happy talk and laughter.