"Hush!" The feeling in that word was not for him. I felt it at once; it was for her secret, threatened every instant she lingered there by some move, by some word which might escape a thoughtless child. "You do not understand me, Justin. You talk with no comprehension of myself or of the event. Six months from now, if all goes well, you will see that I have been kind, not cruel. I can not say any more; I should not have said so much. Go back, dear friend, and let me take the train with Harry. The sea is not impassable. We shall meet again, and then—" Did she pause to look behind her down those steps—to make some gesture of caution to the uneasy child?—"you will forgive me for what seems cruelty to you now. I can not do differently. With all the world weeping over the doubtful fate of this little child, you can not expect me to—to make any promise conditional upon her death."
The man's cry drove the irony of the situation out of my mind.
"Puerilities! all puerilities. A man's life—soul—are worth some sacrifices. If you loved me—" A quick ingathering of his breath, then a low moan, then the irrepressible cry she vainly sought to hush, "O Valerie, you are silent! You do not love me! Two years of suffering! two years of repression, then this delirium of hope, of possibility, and you silent! I will trouble you no more. Gwendolen alive or Gwendolen dead, what is it to me! I—"
"Hush! there is no doubt on that topic; the child is dead. Let that be understood between us." This was whispered, and whispered very low, but the air seemed breathless at that moment and I heard her. "This is my last word to you. You will have your fortune, whether you have my love or not. Remember that, and—"
"Auntie, make Dinah move away; I want to see the man you are talking to."
Gwendolen had spoken.
XXIII
A CORAL BEAD
"What's that?"