Justine had suffered enough—suffered deliberately and unstintingly, paying the full price of her error, not seeking to evade its least consequence. But no sane judgment could ask her to sit quiet under this last hallucination. What! This unreal woman, this phantom that Amherst's uneasy imagination had evoked, was to come between himself and her, to supplant her first as his wife, and then as his fellow-worker? Why should she not cry out the truth to him, defend herself against the dead who came back to rob her of such wedded peace as was hers? She had only to tell the true story of the plans to lay poor Bessy's ghost forever!
The confused throbbing impulses within her were stifled under a long burst of applause—then she saw Westy Gaines at her side again, and understood that he had come to lead Cicely to the platform. For a moment she clung jealously to the child's hand, hardly aware of what she did, feeling only that she was being thrust farther and farther into the background of the life she had helped to call out of chaos. Then a contrary impulse moved her. She gently freed Cicely's hand, and a moment later, as she sat with bent head and throbbing breast, she heard the child's treble piping out above her:
"In my mother's name, I give this house to Westmore."
Applause again—and then Justine found herself enveloped in a general murmur of compliment and congratulation. Mr. Amherst had spoken admirably—a "beautiful tribute—" ah, he had done poor Bessy justice! And to think that till now Hanaford had never fully known how she had the welfare of the mills at heart—how it was really only her work that he was carrying on there! Well, he had made that perfectly clear—and no doubt Cicely was being taught to follow in her mother's footsteps: everyone had noticed how her step-father was associating her with the work at the mills. And his little speech would, as it were, consecrate the child's relation to that work, make it appear to her as the continuance of a beautiful, a sacred tradition....
And now it was over. The building had been inspected, the operatives had dispersed, the Hanaford company had rolled off down the avenue, Cicely, among them, driving away tired and happy in Mrs. Dressel's victoria, and Amherst and his wife were alone.
Amherst, after bidding good-bye to his last guests, had gone back to the empty concert-room to fetch the blue-print lying on the platform. He came back with it, between the uneven rows of empty chairs, and joined Justine, who stood waiting in the hall. His face was slightly flushed, and his eyes had the light which in happy moments burned through their veil of thought.
He laid his hand on his wife's arm, and drawing her toward a table spread out the blueprint before her.
"You haven't seen this, have you?" he said.
She looked down at the plan without answering, reading in the left-hand corner the architect's conventional inscription: "Swimming-tank and gymnasium designed for Mrs. John Amherst."