The tears rushed to Perior"s eyes. He could not speak. He rose, and stooping over her, he took her in his arms and kissed her.
"Ah!" she said quickly, "it is much better to die. I love you." She looked up at him from the circle of his arms. "How could I have lived?"
At the great change in her face he wondered if he had done well in yielding to the impulse of pure tenderness; but still supporting her fragile shoulders he said, stammering--
"Dear child--in dying--you have let us know you--and adore you."
The light ebbed softly from her eyes as she still looked up at him.
"Perhaps--I told you--hoping it----" she murmured. These words of victorious humility were Mary"s last. When Camelia came in a little while afterwards she saw that Mary"s smile knew, and drew her near; but standing beside her, holding her hand, she felt that Mary would not speak to her again. Through her tears she looked across the bed at Perior; his head was bowed on the hand he held; his shoulders shook with weeping. At the unaccustomed sight a half dull wonder filled her.
For a long time Mary smiled before her, as they held her hands; and Camelia only felt clearly that the smile was white and beautiful. She waited for it to turn to her again. Only on meeting Perior"s solemn look the sense of final awe smote upon her.
"She is dead," he said.
To Camelia the smile seemed still to live.
"Dead!" she repeated. Perior gently put the hand he held on Mary"s breast.
"Not dead!" said Camelia, "she had not said good-bye to me!"
Perior came to her; his silence, that could not comfort, answered her.
She fell upon her knees beside the bed, and her desperate sobs wailed uselessly against the irretrievable.
CHAPTER XXIX
It was many weeks afterwards that he told her what Mary had said. Her woe, not selfish, but inconsolable, made it impossible that during the first days of bereavement he should do more than help and sustain her by the fullness of a friendship now recognized as deep and unrestrained.
It was she herself who asked him one day if Mary had said anything that he could tell her, had spoken of her with a continuation of the forgiveness, her trust in which made life possible. Camelia, in her new devotion to her mother, its vehemence almost alarming Lady Paton, controlled for her sake all tears and lamentations, but lying on a sofa this afternoon, alone in the twilight, the tears had risen, and they were falling fast when Perior came in and sat down beside her. It was then that she asked him about Mary.
"She told me what you said to her the night before she died," Perior answered, and Camelia let him take her hand. She lay reflecting for some moments before saying--
"She wanted you to think as well of me as possible."
"She wanted to make me happy. She knew that you were mistaken."
"How mistaken?" Camelia asked from her pillow.
His voice had been unemphatic, but in the slight pause that followed her question she felt that his eyes dwelt upon her, and she looked up at him.
"You told her--that I did not love you." Camelia lay silent, her hand in his, her eyes on his eyes.
"You believed that, didn"t you?" he asked.
"How could I help believing it?"
"Ah! that shows a trust in me! Well, Mary did not believe it. Mary told me that I loved you."
"And do you?" cried Camelia. She took her hand away, sat upright, and faced him. Perior was forced to smile a little at the baldness of his answering, "I do, Camelia."
"You did not know till----"
"Oh, I knew all along," Perior confessed, interrupting her. Camelia"s eyes widened immensely as she took in the astounding revelation. He replied to their silent interrogations with "I have been a wretched hypocrite. How I convinced you of the lie I don"t know."
"And you told that to Mary." He saw now that her gaze pa.s.sed him, ignored him and his revelation in its personal bearing.
"I told her the truth. It did not hurt her. She was far above such hurts. You had showed her that you were worthy of any love. To share her secret made her happy."
"Happy! Oh, Mary! Mary!" Camelia murmured, looking away from him. "It must have hurt," she added. "Ah, it must have hurt."
"She was as capable of n.o.bility as you--that was all."
"As I!" It was a cry of bitterness.
"As you, indeed. I feel between you both what a poor creature I am. I suppose I did for a test. You proved yourselves on me."
There was silence for a little while. Camelia looked out of the window at the spring evening. It was here they had sat together on that day of their first meeting after her return. Her mind went back to it in all the sorrow of hopeless regret. What had Mary been to her then?
"What more did she say?" she asked at last in a voice of utter sadness.
She still looked out of the window, but when he answered, "She said that you loved me," she looked at him.
"Is that still true, Camelia?" he asked, smiling gravely and with a certain timidity.
"So you know, at last, how much."
"My darling." His tone brought the tears to her eyes; they rolled down her cheeks while she said brokenly, "And I told her; I gave her the weapon--and she smiled at us. Oh, that smile!"
"There was triumph in it. She asked me to marry you, Camelia, and I said I would--if you would have me. But, I must not ask you now--must I?" He sat down beside her on the sofa, and kissed her hand.
"Ah, no; don"t think of that. It would kill me, I think, if for one moment I forgot."
"You need not forget--yet you may be happy, and make me happy."
"Oh, you don"t know," said Camelia, clasping her hands and looking down at them, "you don"t know. Even you don"t know how wicked I have been."
"We all have such dark closets in our hearts. Don"t shut yourself in yours."
"I don"t shut myself. I am locked in. That is my punishment. Michael,"
and she looked round at him without turning her head, "I think of nothing else; that I made her miserable--that I made her glad to die. I must tell you. You don"t know how I treated her. I remember it all now--years and years--so plainly. I robbed her of everything. If a sunbeam fell on her path I stood between her and it."
Perior was silent, but putting his hand over hers he held it faithfully.
"Listen. Let me tell you a few--only a few--of the things I remember. I don"t know why you love me!--how you can love me! It hurts me to be loved!" she sobbed suddenly.
"If it will help you, tell me everything. And I must love you, even if it hurts you."