A Terrible Secret Part 64

She rang the bell, a chambermaid came. Lady Helena kissed the girl's pale cheek affectionately, and Edith was led away to the room she was to occupy for that night.

It was certainly a contrast in its size and luxurious appointments to that she had used for the last ten months. She smiled a little as she glanced around. And she was to spend the night under the same roof with Sir Victor Catheron. If anyone had predicted it this morning, how scornfully she would have refused to believe.

"Who can tell what a day may bring forth!" was Edith's last thought as she laid her head on her pillow. "I am glad--very glad, that the accident will not prove fatal. I don't want him or anyone else to come to his death through me."

She slept well and soundly, and awoke late. She sprang out of bed almost instantly and dressed. She could but ill afford to lose a day.

Before her toilet was quite completed there was a tap at the door. She opened it and saw Miss Catheron.

"I fancied you would be up early, and ordered breakfast accordingly.

Aunt Helena awaits you down stairs. How did you sleep?"

"Very well. And you--you were up all night I suppose?"

"Yes. I don't mind it at all, though--I am quite used to night watching. And I have the reward of knowing Victor is much better--entirely out of danger indeed. Edith," she laid her hands on the girl's shoulders and looked down into her eyes, "he knows you are here. Will you be merciful to a dying man and see him?"

She changed color and shrank a little, but she answered proudly and coldly:

"No good can come of it. It will be much better not, but for my own part I care little. If he wishes to urge what you came to urge, I warn you, I will not listen to a word; I will leave at once."

"He will not urge it. He knows how obdurate you are, how fruitless it would be. Ah, Edith! you are a terribly haughty, self-willed girl. He will not detain you a moment--he wishes to make but one parting request."

"I can grant nothing--nothing," Edith said with agitation.

"You will grant this, I think," the other answered sadly. "Come, dear child, let us go down; Lady Helena waits."

They descended to breakfast; Edith ate little. In spite of herself, in spite of her pride and self command, it shook her a little--the thought of speaking to _him_.

But how was she to refuse? She rose at last, very pale, very stern and resolute looking--the sooner it was over and she was gone, the better.

"Now," she said, "if you insist--"

"I do insist," answered Inez steadily. "Come."

She led her to a door down the corridor and rapped. How horribly thick and fast Edith's heart beat; she hated herself for it. The door opened, and the grave, professional face of Mr. Jamison looked out.

"Tell Sir Victor, Lady Catheron is here, and will see him."

The man bowed and departed. Another instant and he was again before them:

"Sir Victor begs my lady to enter at once."

Then Inez Catheron took her in her arms and kissed her. It was her farewell. She pointed forward and hurried away.

Edith went on. A door and curtain separated her from the inner room.

She opened one, lifted the other, and husband and wife were face to face.

He lay upon a low sofa--the room was partially darkened, but even in that semi-darkness she could see that he looked quite as ghastly and bloodless this morning as he had last night.

She paused about half way down the room and spoke: "You wished to see me, Sir Victor Catheron?"

Cold and calm the formal words fell.

"Edith!"

His answer was a cry--a cry wrung from a soul full of love and anguish untold. It struck home, even to _her_ heart, steeled against him and all feeling of pity.

"I am sorry to see you so ill. I am glad your accident is no worse."

Again she spoke, stiff, formal, commonplace words, that sounded horribly out of place, even to herself.

"Edith," he repeated, and again no words can tell the pathos, the despair of that cry, "forgive me--have pity on me. You hate me, and I deserve your hate, but oh! if you knew, even you would have mercy and relent!"

He touched her in spite of herself. Even a heart of stone might have softened at the sound of that despairing, heart-wrung voice--at sight of that death-like, tortured face. And Edith's, whatever she might say or think, was not a heart of stone.

"I do pity you," she said very gently; "I never thought to--but from my soul I do. But, forgive you! No, Sir Victor Catheron; I am only mortal. I have been wronged and humiliated as no girl was ever wronged and humiliated before. I can't do that."

He covered his face with his hands--she could hear the dry sobbing sound of his wordless misery.

"It would have been better if I had not come here," she said still gently. "You are ill, and this excitement will make you worse. But they insisted upon it--they said you had a request to make. I think you had better not make it--I can grant nothing--nothing."

"You will grant this," he answered, lifting his face and using the words Inez had used; "it is only that when I am dying, and send for you on my death-bed, you will come to me. Before I die I must tell you all--the terrible secret; I dare not tell you in life; and then, oh surely, surely you will pity and forgive! Edith, my love, my darling, leave me this one hope, give me this one promise before you go?"

"I promise to come," was her answer; "I promise to listen--I can promise no more. A week ago I thought I would have died sooner than pledge myself to that much--sooner than look in your face, or speak to you one word. And now, Sir Victor Catheron, farewell."

She turned to go without waiting for his reply. As she opened the door, she heard a wailing cry that struck chill with pity and terror to her inmost heart.

"Oh, my love! my bride! my wife!"--then the door closed behind her--she heard and saw no more.

So they had met and parted, and only death could bring them together again.

She pa.s.sed out into the suns.h.i.+ne and splendor of the summer morning, dazed and cold, her whole soul full of untold compa.s.sion for the man she had left.

CHAPTER V.

THE TELLING OF THE SECRET.

Edith went back to the work-room in Oxford Street, to the old treadmill life of ceaseless sewing, and once more a lull came into her disturbed existence--the lull preceding the last ending of this strange mystery that had wrecked two lives. It seemed to her as she sat down among madame's troop of noisy, chattering girls, as though last night and its events were a long way off and a figment of some strange dream. That she had stood face to face with Sir Victor Catheron, spent a night under the same roof, actually spoken to him, actually felt sorry for him, was too unreal to be true. They had said rightly when they told her death was pictured on his face. Whatever this secret of his might be, it was a secret that had cost him his life. A hundred times a day that pallid, tortured face, rose before her, that last agonized cry of a strong heart in strong agony rang in her ears. All her hatred, all her revengeful thoughts of him were gone--she understood no better than before, but she pitied him from the depths of her heart.

They disturbed her no more, neither by letters nor visits. Only as the weeks went by she noticed _this_--that as surely as evening came, a shadowy figure hovering aloof, followed her home. She knew who it was--at first she felt inclined to resent it, but as he never came near, never spoke, only followed her from that safe distance, she grew reconciled and accustomed to it at last. She understood his motive--to s.h.i.+eld her--to protect her from danger and insult, thinking himself un.o.bserved.

Once or twice she caught a fleeting glimpse of his face on these occasions.

What a corpse-like face it was--how utterly weak and worn-out he seemed--more fitted for a sick-bed than the role of protector. "Poor fellow," Edith thought often, her heart growing very gentle with pity and wonder, "how he loves me, how faithful he is after all. Oh, I wonder--I wonder, _what_ this secret is that took him from me a year ago. Will his mountain turn into a mole-hill when I hear it, if I ever do, or will it justify him? Is he sane or mad? And yet Lady Helena, who is in her right mind, surely, holds him justified in what he has done."

July--August pa.s.sed--the middle of September came. All this time, whatever the weather, she never once missed her "shadow" from his post. As we grow accustomed to all things, she grew accustomed to this watchful care, grew to look for him when the day's work was done. But in the middle of September she missed him. Evening after evening came, and she returned home unfollowed and alone. Something had happened.