"We said good-bye. We--this does not matter for me; it was over."
"For you and him?" asked Susannah softly.
"What could there have been?" The tears ran slowly down her cheeks, but
she smiled. "And what can it matter? He loved me, Susannah, he loved
me!"
Miss Chressham was silent.
Selina wiped away the tears, and fixed her poor scalded eyes on
Susannah.
"He came to tell me so again."
"I know; he told me that he was going to ask you to be his wife."
"We have always loved each other," said Selina simply, "and we have
been unfortunate. For me this does not matter, and for him----"
"He might have died more nobly."
Selina shook her head.
"We do not know; it was some worthy quarrel."
Again Miss Chressham was silent; she, like Selina, was ignorant how
exactly my lord had met his death--a flare-up of temper, a wanton
insult. Those who had seen him die had nothing more to say. No one knew
why he was in the churchyard of St. Ann's at that hour. Susannah, who
knew nothing of the flowers, guessed; Selina, who remembered them, did
not.
"I never thought to see him again," continued Selina, with trembling
lips; "but if it might have been I----"
"You must live to think of him," said Susannah tenderly. "Ah, my dear,
he did not die wholly miserably if he left you behind to mourn him."
She rose and went on her knees beside Selina's low chair, and both were
clasped tightly in each other's arms in an overwhelming impulse of sad
affection.
Miss Chressham kissed the bowed, delicate head resting on her shoulder,
saying in her soul: "She will never know, thank God! She will never
know!" She herself, who _did_ know the man for whom she grieved, she
who had given all her love to one who did not ever hear of it, she
who must guard her secret, uncomforted, to the end, could yet conceal
her deeper anguish to soothe with her strong sympathy the woman who
believed in her beloved.
"I think you must not weep for him," she said softly. "He lived his
life. There were no better years before him than those that he had
known. He died young and splendid; he did not have to face ruin, a
fallen position; he had rich tastes and lordly habits; he did not have
to feel the bitterness of inadequacy." And in her heart she added:
He did not break the dream of a woman who truly loved him by selling
himself a second time. He died while he was still, in one woman's
eyes, all she would have had him. And for that Susannah Chressham was
grateful.
"I do not weep for him," murmured Selina, "only I am tired."
She raised her head.
"Why should we mourn for him, Susannah? I do not think he could have
wished to live."
Miss Chressham kissed her hot cheek.
"You are very brave, sweet----"
There was a little pause, then Selina spoke.
"Will you come with me--to see him?"
Susannah turned her face away.
"I--I dare not speak of that."
"It is very terrible," shuddered Selina, clinging to her, "but I think
I must go."
"Do you know what they are doing?"
Miss Boyle closed her eyes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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