Yet now she did not think of this guilt, irrevocable as it was.
Mary—Mary—Mary. The horse’s hoofs seemed to beat out the cry! Mary and her fate. Camelia stood with Mary against that fate; but her attitude of rebellion was even fiercer, more determined than poor Mary’s flickering light could have sustained. Mary good—with nothing. Virtue not its own reward. Suffering, crushing, unmerited suffering, eating away the poor empty life. She herself bad, and the world at her feet. Camelia felt herself capable of taking the immoral universe by the throat and shaking it to death—herself along with it.
She was galloping for help, yes, to Perior. He must help her, he alone could help her, to clutch the malignant cruelty, tear it off Mary, and then give her some gleam of happiness before she died. Camelia straightened herself in the saddle at the thought. “She shall not die,” clenched her teeth on the determination. She might be saved. Who could tell? One heard of wonderful cures. And at least, at least, she should not die unhappy. Camelia would wrench happiness for her out of despair itself. She would fight the injustice of the gods until her last breath left her.
All the pitiful humanity in Camelia clung to the human hope of retribution and reward. Her mind fixed in this desperate hope, she could take no thought of the coming interview; that would have implied a retrospective glance at her last visit to the Grange, and Camelia could not think of herself, nor even of Perior.
The Grange was desolate on its background of leafless trees. Camelia, as she dismounted at the door, looked down at the whiteness which brimmed the valley; the tree-tops emerged from it as from a flood; but where she stood there was no mist—a clear, sad air, and a few faint patches of blue in a colorless sky above. She rang, holding the horse’s reins over her arm. Her habit was heavy with the wet, and her loosened hair clung damply about her throat and forehead. Old Lane, when he appeared, showed some alarm. She could infer from his expression what her own must be.
“Mr. Perior? Yes, Miss; in the laboratory with Job Masters. Just go up, Miss, and I’ll take the horse round to the stables.”
The laboratory was at the top of the house. Camelia found herself panting from the swiftness of her ascension when she reached the door. Entering, she faced the white light from the wide expanse of window, which overlooked on bright days miles of wooded, rolling country, to-day the sea of mist. Perior’s back was to her, and he was bending with an intent interest over a microscope; a collection of glass jars was on the table, and Job Masters, his elementary features lit by the intelligent gravity of close attention, was standing beside him. Perior was saying—
“Now, Job, take a look at it.” His gray head did not turn.
“It’s Miss Paton, sir,” Job volunteered. At that Perior rose hastily, and Camelia advancing, looked vaguely at Job, at the microscope, at the jars of infusoria.
A thought of the last visit had shot painfully through Perior on hearing her name, but, after one stare at her white face, his fear, freed from any selfish terror, took on a sympathetic acuteness.