Neither Ezra nor Uncle David had attempted to speak while Madame was pouring forth the torrent of her bitter words. Ezra felt too overwhelmed to say anything, for a moment, in the downfall of so many illusions and high hopes, he forgot even Olive. Uncle David was the first to recover himself.
“Dear child,” he said, for the first time in his life addressing her as one beneath him. “These are wild words you’ve been sayin’. I can’t find it in my heart to believe they’re true. You are disappointed, an’ you think wrong can be made right by turnin’ things upside down. Tain’t so. You’ll have to learn that right an’ wrong can’t change places, nohow you fix it. You have still your duty here in the City you’ve founded an’ the principles you’ve set up.”
Madame looked at him with glittering eyes.
“Will you hear the truth about Perfection City too? Then listen. It is not an experiment in new principles, it is an example of the oldest the world has seen—of the folly of a fond woman. I founded Perfection City so that he might love the founder. I staked my all on a throw of love’s dice, and lost. Women have done it before and will do it again. Some fools degrade their body to win a man, I degraded my mind. The foundation-stone of Perfection City was my heart, see what will happen when it is crushed! Ah, why can we not profit by the experience of our elders! My mother warned me, having tried it, never to stake my happiness on the love of man. I followed her advice for five-and-thirty happy years. Then I saw him, and the curse fell.”
She threw up her arms over her head and backed towards the door of her own apartment.
“The curse, the curse!” she exclaimed, as she passed through out of their sight.
Ezra had a confused feeling that he had just seen someone drowning who had reached appealing hands towards heaven as she went under.
CHAPTER XXII.
OLIVE’S SECOND HOME-COMING.
And where was Olive all this time? She and Cotterell rode out of Union Mills together, as we have seen, and as was seen by nearly all the men who had assembled there that morning in the expectation of seeing him hanged. They rode silently among “the boys” getting their horses ready, they silently passed among the trees to the south and crossed the ford of the Creek. Then Cotterell spoke, pouring forth his words of thanks and gratitude to her. He was not ashamed to show that he was deeply moved, now that none but Olive could see his emotion. She, on the other hand, seemed almost in an unconscious state so little heed did she give to his eager words.
“Speak to me, tell me what you wish,” he pleaded very gently, noticing her abstraction.