"What?"
"And she is desperately in love with him"--she stopped and deliberately laughed again in his face--"and I have known it for weeks!"
Another step brought his trembling figure towering over her:
"I don"t believe you!" he hissed.
Cleo walked leisurely to the door and smiled:
"Ask the servants if you doubt my word." She finished with a sneer. "I begged you not to fight, major!"
He stood rooted to the spot and watched her slowly walk backward into the hall. It was a lie, of course. And yet the calm certainty with which she spoke chilled his soul as he recalled his own suspicions. He must know now without a moment"s delay and he must know the whole truth without reservation.
Before he approached either Tom or Helen there was one on whom he had always relied to tell the truth. Her honest black face had been the one comfort of his life through the years of shadow and deceit. If Minerva knew she would tell him.
He rushed to the door that led to the kitchen and called:
"Minerva!"
The answer came feebly:
"Ya.s.sah."
"Come here!"
He had controlled his emotions sufficiently to speak his last command with some degree of dignity.
He walked back to the table and waited for her coming. His brain was in a whirl of conflicting, stunning emotion. He simply couldn"t face at once the appalling possibilities such a statement involved. His mind refused to accept it. As yet it was a lie of Cleo"s fertile invention, and still his reason told him that such a lie could serve no sane purpose in such a crisis. He felt that he was choking. His hand involuntarily went to his neck and fumbled at his collar.
Minerva"s heavy footstep was heard and he turned sharply:
"Minerva!"
"Ya.s.sah"--she answered, glancing at him timidly. Never had she seen his face so ghastly or the look in his eye so desperate. She saw that he was making an effort at self-control and knew instinctively that the happiness of the lovers was at stake. It was too solemn a moment for anything save the naked truth and her heart sank in pity and sympathy for the girl she had promised to help.
"Minerva," he began evenly, "you are the only servant in this house who has never lied to me"--he took a step closer. "Are Tom and Miss Helen lovers?"
Minerva fumbled her ap.r.o.n, glanced at his drawn face, looked down on the floor and stammered:
"De Lordy, major----"
"Yes or no!" he thundered.
The black woman moistened her lips, hesitated, turned her honest face on his and said tremblingly:
"Ya.s.sah, dey is!"
His eyes burned into hers:
"And you, too, have known this for weeks?"
"Ya.s.sah. Mister Tom ax me not ter tell ye----"
Norton staggered to a seat and sank with a groan of despair, repeating over and over again in low gasps the exclamation that was a sob and a prayer:
"Great G.o.d!--Great G.o.d!"
Minerva drew near with tender sympathy. Her voice was full of simple, earnest pleading:
"De Lordy, major, what"s de use? Young folks is young folks, an" love"s love. What ye want ter break "em up fer--dey"s so happy! Yer know, sah, ye can"t mend er b.u.t.terfly"s wing er put er egg back in de sh.e.l.l. Miss Helen"s young, beautiful, sweet and good--won"t ye let me plead fer "em, sah?"
With a groan of anguish Norton sprang to his feet:
"Silence--silence!"
"Ya.s.sah!"
"Go--find Miss Helen--send her to me quickly. I don"t want to see Mr. Tom.
I want to see her alone first."
Minerva had backed out of his way and answered plaintively:
"Ya.s.sah."
She paused and extended her hand pleadingly:
"You"ll be easy wid "em, sah?"
He hadn"t heard. The tall figure slowly sank into the chair and his shoulders drooped in mortal weariness.
Minerva shook her head sadly and turned to do his bidding.
Norton"s eyes were set in agony, his face white, his breast scarcely moving to breathe, as he waited Helen"s coming. The nerves suddenly snapped--he bowed his face in his hands and sobbed aloud:
"Oh, dear G.o.d, give me strength! I can"t--I can"t confess to my boy!"
CHAPTER XXII
THE TEST OF LOVE
Norton made a desperate effort to pull himself together for his appeal to Helen. On its outcome hung the possibility of saving himself from the terror that haunted him. If he could tell the girl the truth and make her see that a marriage with Tom was utterly out of the question because her blood was stained with that of a negro, it might be possible to save himself the humiliation of the full confession of their relationship and of his bitter shame.
He had made a fearful mistake in not telling her this at their first interview, and a still more frightful mistake in rearing her in ignorance of the truth. No life built on a lie could endure. He was still trying desperately to hold his own on its shifting sands, but in his soul of souls he had begun to despair of the end. He was clutching at straws. In moments of sanity he realized it, but there was nothing else to do. The act was instinctive.
The girl"s sensitive mind was the key to a possible solution. He had felt instinctively on the day he told her the first fact about the disgrace of her birth, vague and shadowy as he had left it, that she could never adjust herself to the certainty that negro blood flowed in her veins. He had observed that her aversion to negroes was peculiarly acute. If her love for the boy were genuine, if it belonged to the big things of the soul, and were not the mere animal impulse she had inherited from her mother, he would have a ground of most powerful appeal. Love seeks not its own. If she really loved she would sink her own life to save his.