She had her counter question:--
"Did you see them married?"
"No, no, heavens, no! Why, I didn"t come on Tom in Paris until his illness. Tom never had any use for me. You know that. Meantime he"d been there a couple of years, into the mire and out again, and he"d had time to be married to Rose, and she"d had time to leave him."
"Ah, she left him! Why?"
"Why did you leave him, Electra, before he went over there? Why did you give up living in town, and simply retreat down here? You couldn"t stand it. n.o.body could. Tom was a bad egg, Electra. I don"t need to tell you that."
"It is certainly painful for me to hear it."
"But why, why, Electra? I can"t stultify myself to prove this poor girl an adventuress. I can"t canonize Tom Fulton, not even if you ask me."
"There are things we need not recur to. My brother is dead," said Electra, with dignity.
"Yes. That"s precisely why I am asking you to provide for his widow."
"Suppose, then, this were true. Suppose she is what you say,--don"t you feel she forfeited anything by leaving him?"
"Ah, but she went back, poor girl! She went back to him when he was pretty well spent with sickness and sheer fright. Tom didn"t die like a hero, Electra. Get that out of your mind."
She put up both hands in an unconsidered protest.
"Oh, what is the use!" she cried; and his heart smote him.
"None at all," he answered. "But I mean to show you that this girl didn"t walk back to any dead easy job when she undertook Tom."
"Why did she do it?"
"Why? From humanity, justice, honor, I suppose, the things that influence women when they stick to their bad bargains."
"Where had she been meantime?"
"With her father, in lodgings. That was where I met her."
"Was she known by my brother"s name?"
"No," he hesitated, "not then. I knew her as Miss MacLeod."
"Ah!"
"I can see why," Peter declared, with an eager emphasis. "I never thought of it before, but can"t you see? I should think a woman could, at least. The whole situation was probably so distasteful to her that she threw off even his name."
"And a.s.sumed it after his death!"
"No! no! She was called Madame Fulton at his apartment. I distinctly remember that."
They had been immovably facing each other, but now Electra turned away and walked back to the library table, where she stood resting one hand and waiting, pale and tired, yet unchanged. This seemed to her one of the times that try men"s souls, but wherein a New England conscience must abide by its traditions.
"How long does she propose remaining?" she asked, out of her desire to put some limit to the distasteful situation, though she had forbidden herself to enter it with even that human interest.
"Why, as long as we ask her to stay,--you, or, if she is not to expect anything from you, I. She has nothing of her own, poor girl."
"Has her father repudiated her? That ought to tell something."
Peter was silent for a moment. Then he said in an engaging honesty, bound as it was to hurt his own cause,--
"I don"t know. I don"t understand their relation altogether. Rose gives no opinions, but I fancy she is not in sympathy with him."
"Yes, I fancied so."
"But we mustn"t fancy so. We mustn"t get up an atmosphere and look through it till we see distorted facts."
"Those are what I want, Peter, facts. If Miss MacLeod--"
"Do you mean you won"t even give her your brother"s name?"
"Even, Peter! What could be more decisive?"
"Do you expect me to introduce her as Miss MacLeod? Do you expect me to call her so?"
"I fancied you called her Rose."
"I did. I do. I began it in those unspeakable days when Tom went out of his head with fright and fever and we held him down in bed. Electra!"
She was listening.
"Was that grandmother calling?" she asked, though grandmother never yet had summoned her for companionship or service. But Electra felt her high decorum failing her. She was tired with the impact of emotion, and it was a part of her creed never to confess to weakness. She had s.n.a.t.c.hed at the slight subterfuge as if it were a sustaining draught. "I am afraid I must go."
"Electra!" He placed himself before her with outstretched hands. Very simple emotions were talking in him. They told him that this was the second day of his return, that he was her lover, and he had not kissed her. And they told him also, to his sheer fright and bewilderment, that he did not want to kiss her. All he could ineffectually do was to reiterate, "We can"t go on like this. Nothing in the world is worth it."
Yet while he said it, he knew there was one thing at least infinitely worth while: to right the wrongs of a beautiful and misjudged lady. Only it was necessary, apparently, for the present, to keep the lady out of the question.
Electra was listening.
"It is grandmother," she said recklessly. "I must go."
There was a rustle up the staircase, and he was alone in the library, to take himself home as he might.
VI
After a week Electra had made no sign toward acceptance of the unbidden guest. She received Peter sweetly and kindly whenever he went to see her, but he felt they were very far apart. Something had been destroyed; the bubble of pleasure was broken and, as it seemed, for good and all.
He strove to find his way back into their lost dream and take her with him; but there was no visible path. Rose spared him questions. She stayed gratefully on, and grannie was delighted with her. Rose had such a way of fitting into circ.u.mstance that it seemed an entirely natural thing to have her there, and Peter forgot to wonder even at the pleasure of it. Twice she came in from a walk pale and inexplicably excited, and he knew she had been besieging the scornful lady in the other house. But she kept her counsel. She had never seen Osmond since her coming, though she knew he and Peter had long talks together at the plantation.
One night, a cold, unseasonable one, Osmond was alone in the shack, his room unlighted save by the flaring wood. The cabin had a couch, two chairs, and a big table, this covered with books. There were books on the wall, and the loft above, where he slept when he was not in his neighboring tent, made a balcony, taking half the room. He was in his long chair stretched among the shadows, his face lighted intermittently from the fire. He was thinking deeply, his black brows drawn together, his nervous hands gripped on the elbows of the chair. There was a slight tap at the door. He did not heed it, being used to mice among the logs and birds twittering overhead. Then the door opened, and a lady came in.
Osmond half rose from his chair, and leaning forward, looked at her. He knew her, and yet strangely he had no belief that she was real. It was Rose, a long cloak about her, the hood slipped back from her rich hair.