The Ancient Law

by Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

SOME hours later when he sat alone in his room, he told himself that he could never forget the drive home from the cemetery in the closed carriage. Lydia had raised her veil slightly, as if in a desire for air, and as she sat with her head resting against the lowered blind, he could trace the delicate, pale lines of her mouth and chin, and a single wisp of her ash blond hair which lay heavily upon her forehead. Not once had she spoken, not once had she met his eyes of her own accord, and he had discovered that she leaned almost desperately upon the iron presence of Richard Ordway. Had his sin, indeed, crushed her until she had not power to lift her head? he asked passionately, with a sharper remorse than he had ever felt.

"I am glad that you were able to come in time," Richard Ordway remarked in his cold, even voice; and after this the rattle of the wheels on the cobblestones in the street was the only sound which broke the death-like stillness in which they sat. No, he could never forget it, nor could he forget the bewildering effect of the sunshine when they opened the carriage door. Beside the curbing a few idle Negroes were left of the crowd that had gathered to watch the coffin borne through the gate, and the pavement was thick with dust, as if many hurrying feet had tramped by since the funeral had passed. As they entered the house the scent of lilies struck him afresh with all the agony of its associations. The shutters were still closed, the chairs were still arranged in their solemn circle, the streamer of crape, hurriedly untied from the bell handle, still lay where it had been thrown on the library table; and as he crossed the threshold, he trod upon some fading lilies which had fallen, unnoticed, from a funeral wreath. Then, in the dining-room, Richard Ordway poured out a glass of whiskey, and in the very instant when he was about to raise it to his lips, he put it hurriedly down and pushed the decanter aside with an embarrassed and furtive movement.

"Do you feel the need of a cup of coffee, Daniel?" he asked in a pleasant, conciliatory tone, "or will you have only a glass of seltzer?"

"I am not thirsty, thank you," Daniel responded shortly, and the next moment he asked Alice to show him the room in which he would stay.

With laughing eagerness she led him up the great staircase to the chamber in which he had slept as a boy.

"It's just next to Dick's," she said, "and mother's and mine are directly across the hall. At first we thought of putting you in the red guest-room, but that's only for visitors, so we knew you would be sure to like this better."

"Yes, I'll like this better," he responded, and then as she would have moved away, he caught her, with a gesture of anguish, back to his arms.

"You remember me, Alice, my child? you have not forgotten me?"

She laughed merrily, biting her full red lips the moment afterward to check the sound.

"Why, how funny of you! I was quite a big girl—don't you remember?—when you went away. It was so dull afterwards that I cried for days, and that was why I was so overjoyed when mamma told me you would come back. It was never dull when you lived at home with us, because you would always take me to the park or the circus whenever I grew tired of dolls. Nobody did that after you went away and I used to cry and kick sometimes thinking that they would tell you and bring you back."