Whether the chapel people to whose ranks the young preacher had belonged, were desirous of hushing up the evidence which might bring discredit upon them, or whether it were really believed that Mrs. Morgan had died of a heart-stroke brought on by grief did not transpire. They were buried together and given a very pious funeral with much preaching and psalm-singing.
The event made a profound impression upon Pamela; it revived the cruel emotions of her recent personal experience.
She had seen what love meant as never before; she understood its fearful supremacy, and how little anything else mattered beside it in life. There were times when she even envied Felicity Falcon; true, she had loved to desperation and death, but she had loved and been loved with a noble purity and faithfulness!
The memory of the young Welsh preacher’s dead face, radiantly innocent, and of the triumph, set in agony, of the actress’s countenance as she had last seen it, haunted her continually. Death had stamped on their mortal love the seal of eternity.
Mr. Jocelyn Bellairs had lain in wait, the whole warm June sunset hour, till Miss Pounce should emerge from the side-door of the shut-up shop; he followed the erect, briskly walking figure with due discretion, and only permitted himself to catch her up at the corner of Berkeley Square. Then he accosted her.
“Don’t, I do beseech you,” he cried, quickly forestalling the fierce repudiation in her eye, “don’t refuse to listen! I have not come after you to insult you, I haven’t, upon my honour! Pamela, I want to apologise. I want to ask your pardon.”
His tone was so imploring and respectful, he looked so eager, so gallant and handsome too, in the rosy amber light, as he bent towards her, bare-headed, that her weapon of pride seemed broken in her hand.
She tried to say with dignity: “There’s nothing more that I ever wish to hear from you, Mr. Bellairs,” but her voice faltered, and a sudden tear in each eye betrayed her.
“See,” he went on eagerly. “The gate of the garden there is open. Let us go in, and sit on that bench. Just for a little while! Five minutes! One minute!”