But there was a sound at the door, the handle was being turned, and they fell apart guiltily. A maid entered to tell Madame her chamber was prepared, and without another word Felicita walked quickly from the salon, leaving him alone.
He caught a glimpse of her again the next morning as she came down-stairs and entered the little carriage which was to take her down to Stansstad in time to catch the boat to Lucerne. She was starting early, before it was fairly dawn, and he saw her only by the dim light of lamps, which burned but feebly in the chilly damp of the autumn atmosphere. For a little distance he followed the sound of the carriage wheels, but he arrested his own footsteps. For what good was it to pursue one whom he must never find again? She was gone from him forever.
He was a young man yet, and she still younger. But for his folly and crime a long and prosperous life might have stretched before them, each year knitting their hearts and souls more closely together; and he had forfeited all. He turned back up the valley broken-hearted.
Later in the day he stood beside the grave of the man who was bearing away his name from disgrace. The funeral had been hurried on, and the stranger was buried in a neglected part of the churchyard, being friendless and a heretic. It was quickly done, and when the few persons who had taken part in it were dispersed, Roland Sefton lingered alone beside the desolate grave.
CHAPTER XVII.
WAITING FOR THE NEWS.
Felicita hurried homeward night and day without stopping, as if she had been pursued by a deadly enemy. Madame and the children were not at Scarborough, but at a quiet little fishing village on the eastern coast; for Felicita had found Scarborough too gay in the month of August, and her cousins, the Riversfords, having appeared there, she retreated to the quietest spot that could be found. To this village she returned, after being absent little more than a week.
Madame knew nothing of her journey; but the mere fact that Felicita was going away alone had aroused in her the hope that it was connected in some way with Roland. In some vague manner this idea had been communicated to Felix, and both were expecting to see the long-lost father and son come back with her. Roland"s prolonged and mysterious absence had been a sore trial to his mother, though her placid and trustful nature had borne it patiently. Surely, she thought, the trial was coming to an end.
Felicita reached their lodgings utterly exhausted and worn out. She was a delicate woman, in no way inured to fatigue, and though she had been insensible to the overstrain of the unbroken journey as she was whirled along railways and pa.s.sed from station to station, a sense of complete prostration seized upon her as soon as she found herself at home. Day after day she lay in bed, in a darkened room, unwilling to lift her voice above a whisper, waiting in a kind of torpid dread for the intelligence that she knew must soon come.
She had been at home several days, and still there was no news. Was it possible, she asked herself, that this unknown traveller, and his calamitous fate, should pa.s.s on into perfect oblivion and leave matters as they were before? For a cloud would hang over her and her children as long as Roland was the object of pursuit. While he was a fugitive criminal, of interest to the police officers of all countries, there was no security for their future. The lie to which she had given a guilty consent was horrible to her, but her morbid dread of shame was more horrible. She had done evil that good might come; but if the good failed, the evil would still remain as a dark stain upon her soul, visible to herself, if to none else.
"I will get up to-day," she said at last, to Madame"s great delight. She never ventured to exert any authority over her beautiful and clever daughter-in-law--not even the authority of a mildly expressed wish. She was willing to be to Felicita anything that Felicita pleased--her servant and drudge, her fond mother, or her quiet, attentive companion.
Since her return from her mysterious journey she had been very tender to her, as tenderly and gently demonstrative as Felicita would ever permit her to be.
"Have you seen any newspapers lately?" asked Felicita.
"I never read the papers, my love," answered Madame.
"I should like to see to-day"s _Times_," said Felicita.
But it was impossible to get it in this village without ordering it beforehand, and Felicita gave up her wish with the listless indifference of an invalid. When the late sun of the November day had risen from behind a heavy bank of clouds she ventured down to the quiet sh.o.r.e.
There were no visitors left beside themselves, so there were no curious eyes to scan her white, sad face. For a short time Felix and Hilda played about her; but by and by Madame, thinking she was weary and worried, allured them away to a point where they were still in sight, though out of hearing. The low, cold sun shed its languid and watery rays upon the rocks and creeping tide, and, unnoticed, almost unseen, Felicita could sit there in stillness, gazing out over the chilly and mournful sea. There was something so unutterably sad about Felicita"s condition that it awed the simple, cheerful nature of Madame. It was more than illness and exhaustion. The white, unsmiling face, the drooping head, the languor of the thin, long hands, the fathomless sorrow lurking behind her dark eyes--all spoke of a heart-sickness such as Madame had never seen or dreamed of. The children did not cheer their mother. When she saw that, Madame felt that there was nothing to be done but to leave her in the cold solitude she loved.
But as Felicita sat alone on the sh.o.r.e, looking listlessly at the fleeting sails which were pa.s.sing to and fro upon the sea, she saw afar off the figure of a girl coming swiftly toward her from the village, and before many moments had pa.s.sed she recognized Phebe Marlowe"s face. A great throb of mingled relief and dread made her heart beat violently.
Nothing could have brought Phebe away, so far from home, except the news of Roland"s death.
The rosy color on Phebe"s face was gone, and the brightness of her blue eyes was faded; but there was the same out-looking of a strong, simple, unselfish soul shining through them. As she drew near to Felicita she stretched out her arms with the instinctive gesture of one who was come to comfort and support, and Felicita, with a strange, impulsive feeling that she brought consolation and help, threw herself into them.
"I know it all," said Phebe in a low voice. "Oh, what you must have suffered! He was going to Engelberg to meet you, and you never saw him alive! Oh, why did not G.o.d let you meet each other once again? But G.o.d loved him. I can never think that G.o.d had not forgiven him, for he was grieved because of his sin when I saw him the night he got away. And in all things else he was so good! Oh, how good he was!"
Phebe"s tears were falling fast, and her words were choked with sobs.
But Felicita"s face was hidden against her neck, and she could not see if she was weeping.
"Everybody is talking of him in Riversborough," she went on, "and now they all say how good he always was, and how unlikely it is that he was guilty. They will forget it soon. Those who remember him will think kindly of him, and be grieved for him. But oh, I would give worlds for him to have lived and made amends! If he could only have proved that he had repented! If he could only have outlived it all, and made everybody know that he was really a good man, one whom G.o.d had delivered out of sin!"
"It was impossible!" murmured Felicita.
"No, not impossible!" she cried earnestly; "it was not an unpardonable sin. Even if he had gone to prison, as he would, he might have faced the world when he came out again; and if he"d done all the good he could in it, it might have been hard to convince them he was good, but it would never be impossible. If G.o.d forgives us, sooner or later our fellow-creatures will forgive us, if we live a true life. I would have stood by him in the face of the world, and you would, and Madame and the children. He would not have been left alone, and it would have ended in every one else coming round to us. Oh, why should he die when you were just going to see each other again!"
Felicita had sunk down again into the chair which had been carried for her to the sh.o.r.e, and Phebe sat down on the sands at her feet. She looked up tearfully into Felicita"s wan and shrunken face.
"Did any one ever win back their good name?" asked Felicita with quivering lips.
"Among us they do sometimes," she answered. "I knew a working-man who had been in jail five years, and he became a Christian while he was there, and he came back home to his own village. He was one of the best men I ever knew, and when he died there was such a funeral as had never been seen in the parish church. Why should it not be so? If G.o.d is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, why shouldn"t we forgive? If we are faithful and just, we shall."
"It could never be," said Felicita; "it cannot be the same as if Roland had not been guilty. No one can blot out the past; it is eternal."
"Yes," she replied, covering Felicita"s hand with kisses and tears; "but oh, we love him more now than ever. He is gone into the land of thick darkness, and I cannot follow him in my thoughts. It is like a gulf between us and him. Even if he had been farthest away from us in the world--anywhere--we could imagine what he was doing; but we cannot see him or call across the gulf to him. It is all unknown. Only G.o.d knows!"
"G.o.d!" echoed Felicita; "if there is a G.o.d, let Him help me, for I am the most wretched woman on His earth to-day."
"G.o.d cannot keep from helping us all," answered Phebe. "He cannot rest while we are wretched. I understand it better than I used to do. I cannot rest myself while the poorest creature about me is in pain that I can help. It is impossible that He should not care. That would be an awful thing to think; that would make His love and pity less than ours.
This I know, that G.o.d loves every creature He has made. And oh, He must have loved him, though he was suffered to fall over that dreadful precipice, and die before you saw him. It happened before you reached Engelberg?"
"Yes," said Felicita, shivering.
"The papers were sent on to Mr. Clifford," continued Phebe, "and he sent for me to come with him, and see you before the news got into the papers. It will be in to-morrow. But I knew more than he did, and I came on here to speak to you. Shall you tell him you went there to meet him?"
"Oh, no, no!" cried Felicita; "it must never be known, dear Phebe."
"And his mother and the children--they, know nothing?" she said.
"Not a word, and it is you who must tell them, Phebe," she answered.
"How could I bear to tell them that he is dead? Never let them speak about it to me; never let his name be mentioned."
"How can I comfort you?" cried Phebe.
"I can never be comforted," she replied despairingly; "but it is like death to hear his name."
The voices of the children coming nearer reached their ears. They had seen from their distant playground another figure sitting close beside Felicita, and their curiosity had led them to approach. Now they recognized Phebe, and a glad shout rang through the air. She bent down hurriedly to kiss Felicita"s cold hand once again, and then she rose to meet them, and prevent them from seeing their mother"s deep grief.
"I will go and tell them, poor little things!" she said, "and Madame.
Oh, what can I do to help you all? Mr. Clifford is at your lodgings, waiting to see you as soon as you can meet him."
She did not stay for an answer, but ran to meet Felix and Hilda; while slowly, and with much guilty shrinking from the coming interview, Felicita went back to the village, where Mr. Clifford was awaiting her.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE DEAD ARE FORGIVEN.
Roland Sefton"s pocket-book, containing his pa.s.sport and the papers and photographs, had reached Mr. Clifford the day before, with an official intimation of his death from the consulate at Berne. The identification was complete, and the inquiry into the fatal accident had resulted in blame to no one, as the traveller had declined the services of a trustworthy guide from Meirengen to Engelberg. This was precisely what Roland would have done, the whole country being as familiar to him as to any native. No doubt crossed Mr. Clifford"s mind that his old friend"s son had met his untimely end while a fugitive from his country, from dread chiefly of his own implacable sense of justice.
Roland was dead, but justice was not satisfied. Mr. Clifford knew perfectly well that the news of his tragic fate would create an immediate and complete reaction in his favor among his fellow-townsmen.