“Merciful?”
“Yes. Come to my room and I’ll tell you why.”
Straw was laid down before Paul’s cottage. Within, all was absolutely quiet; even little Jack had been sent away. He had been sent to Hollis, who was taking care of him so elaborately, with so many ingenious devices for his entertainment, that Porley was wildly idle; there was nothing for her to do.
Standing beside the white-pine table in Paul’s bare bedroom, the two men held their conference. Paul’s explanation lasted three minutes. “Ferdie was entangled with her long before he ever saw Cicely,” he concluded, “and he always liked her; that was her hold upon him—he liked her, and she knew it; he didn’t drop her even after he was married.”
From the rigid old face there came a hot imprecation.
“Let him alone—will you?—now he’s dead,” suggested Paul, curtly. “I don’t suppose that you yourself have been so immaculate all your life that you can afford to set up as a pattern?”
“But my wife, sir—Nothing ever touched her.”
“You mean that you arranged things so that she shouldn’t know. All decent men do that, I suppose, and Ferdie didn’t in the least intend that Cicely should know, either. He told her to stay here; if she had persisted in going down there against his wish, and against his arrangements also, fancy what she would have put her head into! I couldn’t let her do that, of course. But though I told her enough to give her some clew, she hadn’t the least suspicion of the whole truth, and now she need never know.”
“She won’t have time, she’s dying,” answered the grandfather.
Cicely’s state was alarming. A violent attack of brain-fever had been followed by the present condition of comparative quiet; she recognized no one; much of the time she sang to herself gayly. The doctor feared that the paroxysms would return. They had been terrible to witness; Paul had held her, and he had exerted all the force of his strong arms to keep her from injuring herself, her fragile little form had thrown itself about so wildly, like a bird beating its life out against the bars of its cage.