His wife looked sad that evening. He asked the reason.
“I saw you in the park to-day,” she said. “Are you going to see her? Don’t compromise her: it’s not worth while.”
He kissed her hand in its black mitten, and in a flash of pain saw the black funeral, when she should be carried from his house, and he be left free to marry Sylvia.
And now the days had dropped past; so even was their flow that it seemed rapid, and in another week it would be Christmas.
“And I must show you to the tenants,” said he.
“My poor boy,” she said—it was just as she had risen to bid him good night—“be brave. Perhaps it won’t be so bad as you think. Good night.”
He sat still after she had left him, gazing into the fire, and thinking thoughts in which now the estate and the fortune played but little part. At last he shrugged his shoulders.
“Well,” he said, “I have no lover, no wife; but I have a companion, a friend—one in a million.” And again the black funeral trailed its slow length before his eyes, and he shuddered.
I have not sought to deceive the reader. He knows as well as I do that at this moment the door opened, and a young and beautiful woman stood on the threshold. Her eyes were shining; round her neck were gleaming pearls. She was playing for a high stake, and being a true woman she had disdained no honest artifice that might help her. She wore shining white silk, severely plain, and her brown hair was dressed high on her head. A woman one shade less intuitive would have let the dusky masses fall over a lace-covered tea-gown.
“Michael,” she said, “I am your wife. Are you going to forgive me?”