A Terrible Secret, May Agnes Fleming [best book clubs .TXT] 📗

me to-morrow. Oh!" she breathed as she turned away, "if the elixir of life were only not a fable--if the days of miracles were not past, if he only might be restored to us, how happy we all could be!"

Lady Helena heard her, and shook her head.

"It is too late for that," she said; "when suffering is prolonged beyond a certain point there is but one remedy--death. If your miracle could take place and he be restored, he has undergone too much ever to live on and be happy and forget. There can only be one ending to such a year as he has passed, and that ending is very near."

Edith went to her room--one of the exquisite suite that had been prepared for her a year before. She was occupying it at last, but how differently from what she had ever thought. She remembered this night twelve months so well, the strange vigil in which she had spent in taking her farewell of those letters and that picture, and waiting for her wedding-day to dawn.

To-night she slept, deeply and soundly, and awoke to find the October sun shining brightly in. Was he still alive? It was her first thought. Death might have come at any moment. She arose--slipped on a dressing gown, and rang the bell.

It was Inez who answered in person.

"I heard your bell," she said as she kissed her good-morning, "and I knew what you wanted. Yes, he is still alive, but very weak and helpless this morning. The excitement and joy of last night were almost too much for him. And he remembers what anniversary this is."

Edith turned away--some of the bitterness, some of the pain of loss she knew he was enduring filling her own heart.

"If I had only known! if I had only known!" was again her cry.

"If you had--if he had told--I believe with you all would have been well. But it is too late to think of that--_he_ believed differently. The terrible secret of the father has wrought its terrible retribution upon the son. If he had told you when he returned from Poplar Lodge, you would have been happy together to-day. You are so strong--your mind so healthful--some of your strength and courage would have been imparted to him. But it is too late now--all is over--we have only to make him happy while he is left with us."

"Too late! too late!" Edith's heart echoed desolately. In those hours of his death she was nearer loving her husband than perhaps she could ever have been had he lived.

"I will send breakfast up here," said Inez, turning to go; "when you have breakfasted, go to him at once. He is awake and waiting for you."

Edith made her toilet. Breakfast came; and, despite remorse and grief, when one is nineteen one can eat. Then she hurried away to the sick-room.

He was lying much as she had left him, propped up among the pillows--his face whiter than the linen and lace, whiter than snow. By daylight she saw fully the ghastly change in him--saw that his fair hair was thickly strewn with gray, that the awful, indiscribable change that goes before was already on his face. His breathing was labored and panting--he had suffered intensely with spasms of the heart all night, sleeping none at all. This morning the paroxysms of pain had passed, but he lay utterly worn and exhausted, the cold damp of infinite misery on his brow, the chill of death already on hands and limbs. He lay before her, the total wreck of the gallant, hopeful, handsome gentleman, whom only one year ago she had married.

But the familiar smile she knew so well was on his lips and in his eyes as he saw her. She could not speak for a moment as she looked at him--in silence she took her place close by his side.

He was the first to break the silence, in a voice so faint as hardly to be more than a whisper. "How had she slept--how did she feel? She looked pale, he thought--surely she was not ill?"

"I?" she said bitterly. "O, no--I am never ill--nothing ever seems to hurt hard heartless people like me. It is the good and the generous who suffer. I have the happy knack of making all who love me miserable, but my own health never fails. I don't dare to ask you what sort of night you have had--I see it in your face. My coming brings, as it always does, more ill than good."

"No," he said, almost with energy; "a hundred times no! Ah, love! your coming has made me the happiest man on earth. I seem to have nothing left to wish for now. As to the night--the spasms _did_ trouble me, but I feel deliciously easy and at rest this morning, and uncommonly happy. Edith, I talked so much last evening I gave _you_ no chance. I want you to tell me now all about the year that has gone--all about yourself."

"There is so little to tell," she responded; "it was really humdrum and uneventful. Nothing much happened to me; I looked for work and got it. Oh, don't be distressed! it was easy, pleasant work enough, and I was much better busy. I begin to believe plenty of hard work is a real blessing to dissatisfied, restless people--you can't be very miserable when you are very busy--you haven't time for luxuries. I got along very well, and never was ill an hour."

"But, tell me," he persisted; "you don't know how I long to hear. Tell, me all about your life after--after--"

"Hush!" she interposed, holding his hands tight. "You were the sufferer, not I. O my poor boy! I never was half worthy such a heart as yours. I am only beginning to realize how selfish, and cruel and hard I have been. But, with Heaven's help, I will try and be different from this day."

She told him the story of her life, from the time of her flight from Powyss Place to the present, glossing over all that was dark, making the most of all that was bright. But he understood her--he knew how her pride had suffered and bled.

"I never thought of your going away," he said sadly. "I might have known you better, but I did not--I was so sure you would have stayed, if not with Lady Helena, then in some safe shelter; that you would have taken what was justly yours. I was stunned when I first heard of your flight. I searched for you everywhere--in America and all. Did you know I went to America, Edith?"

"Inez told me," she answered faintly.

"I could not find your father--I could not find the Stuarts. I must have been very stupid somehow--I could find no one. Then arrived that day when I saw you in the Oxford Street shop, when I tried to follow you home and could not. What an evening it was! Then came my last desperate hope when I sent Inez to you and failed. It seemed almost hardest to bear of all."

"If I had only known--if I had only known!" was still her cry.

"Yes, the trouble lay there. With your pride you could not act otherwise than as you did. For you are very proud, my darling," with a smile. "Do you know it?"

"Very proud--very heartless--very selfish," she answered brokenly. "Oh, no need to tell me how base I have been!"

"Yet, I think I like you the better for your pride; and I foresee--yes, I foresee, that one day you will be a happy woman, with as noble, and loving, and generous a heart as ever beat. I understand you, it seems to me now, better than you understand yourself. One day--it may be years from now--the happiness of your life will come to you. Don't let pride stand between you and it then, Edith. I hope that day may come--I pray for it. Lying in my grave, love, I think I shall rest easier if I know _you_ are happy on earth."

"Don't! don't!" she said; "I cannot bear it! Your goodness breaks my heart."

"There is one thing I must ask, Edith," he resumed after a pause; "a last favor. You will grant it, will you not?"

"Victor! is there anything I would _not_ grant?"

"It is this, then--that when I am gone, you will take what is your right and your due. This you must promise me; no more false pride--the widow of Sir Victor Catheron must take what is hers. Juan Catheron is married to a Creole lady, and living in the island of Martinique, a reformed man. He inherits the title and Catheron Royals, with its income, as heir-at-law. For the rest you have your jointure as my widow; and my grandmother's large fortune, which descended to me, I have bequeathed to you in my will. So that when I leave you, my dearest, I leave you safe from all pecuniary troubles. It is my last wish--nay, my last command, that you take all without hesitation. You promise me this, Edith?"

"I promise," she answered lowly. She could not look at him--it seemed like the Scriptural words, "heaping coals of fire on her head."

Then for a long time there was silence. He lay back among the pillows with closed eyes, utterly exhausted, but looking very happy. The bitterness of death was passed--a great peace had come. With the wife he loved beside him, her hand clasped in his, he could go forth in peace, knowing that in her heart there was nothing but affection and forgiveness--that one day, in the future, she would be happy. In his death as in his life he was thoroughly unselfish. It brought no pang to him now to feel that years after the grass grew over his grave she would be the happy wife of a happier man. He talked little more; he dozed at intervals during the day. Edith never left him for a moment. His aunt and cousin shared her watch off and on all day. They could all see that the last great change was near. Pain had left him--he was entirely at rest.

"Read to me, Edith," he said once as the day wore on. She took up a volume of sermons that Lady Helena was fond of. She opened it, haphazard, and read. And presently she came to this, reading of the crosses and trials and sorrows of life: "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death; neither sorrow nor crying; neither shall there be any more pain."

His eyes were fixed upon her with so radiant a light, so infinite a thankfulness, that she could read no more. Her voice choked--she laid the book down. Later, as the sunset came streaming in, he awoke from a long slumber, and looked at the glittering bars of light lying on the carpet.

"Open the window, Edith," he said; "I want to see the sun set once more."

She obeyed. All flushed with rose light, and gold and amythist splendor, the evening sky glowed like the very gates of paradise.

"It is beautiful," Edith said, but its untold beauty brought to her somehow a sharp pang of pain.

"Beautiful!" he repeated in an ecstatic whisper. "O love! if earth is so beautiful, what must Heaven be!"

Then she heard him softly repeat to himself the words she had read: "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death; neither sorrow