He found it impossible to answer that question until he should have seen and talked with Dorothy Harcourt.
But of one other circumstance he was deeply glad and grateful—that Roma was free! Come what might to himself now, Roma was free!
He wondered whether Martha or any of the people at Lone Lodge or at Logwood knew anything about the motive of his mother’s sudden journey to Washington city, when she went to attend his hasty marriage, or whether any of them knew anything about the ceremony that had been performed at the little church at the dawn of day, or even anything about his engagement to Roma Fronde. He had been anxious to ascertain, but could not, even indirectly, ask the question; for if Martha knew nothing about the circumstances such inquiry would start speculation, if it did not give information.
He thought, on the whole, that no one in the neighborhood knew anything about the matter. His mother was proud and reserved, and would not be likely, under her circumstances, to speak of family affairs to any one there, and so she had gone to Washington city without telling any one why she went there.
On her return she might have told Martha, had not the exigent and exciting events that met her in the cabin delayed the communication until she was prostrated by the severe fever that burned all memory of recent events out of her brain.
True, the letters that he had received with partial news of his mother were all directed to Snowden, which would seem to prove that the writer, Margaret Wynthrop, had reason to suppose that he was at the Isle of Storms, where he was believed to have gone to spend his honeymoon with Roma Fronde. Yet no mention of Roma Fronde—no allusion to his supposed marriage, occurred in any of the letters. Possibly, Margaret Wynthrop had directed his letters there as to the place of the last address she knew of when he was clerk of the Crest House. Yes, that must have been the reason. And she knew nothing of his marriage; and his mother, in her happy delusion, had forgotten it, with everything else that had happened in the last few years. Still, he could not feel quite certain of his theories until he should have seen his mother and met the Wynthrops.
At least one thing seemed assured—that he would be asked no questions about his lost Roma, and that would relieve him from much dreaded embarrassment. He would have no bitter, grievous explanations to make, or invent, for the absence of his supposed bride; no deception, justifiable or otherwise, to practice upon his aged mother, no new sin, the necessary outcome of the old sin, to burden his conscience. His aged mother was happy in a paradise of illusions. Before long she would leave that for a heaven of realities. When that time should come, and she should be safe beyond the possibility of knowing or sharing his shame and agony, he would give himself up to justice for his share in the tragedy at the Crest House, and he would tell Roma of the dire need, the infernal scourge of fire, that had driven him to wrong her as he had done. She would forgive him, and he would meet his fate in State prison or on the scaffold, whichever it might be, with more patience and fortitude than he possessed now in bearing the weight of memory and remorse.
It would be a dark ending of all his bright aspirations for the honor of this world, but then he had done with this world—and there was another—a world free from temptation and sin, full of love and faith; there he should meet again all whom he had loved and lost, and best of all—Roma! And nothing would be between them.
While he walked slowly up and down the little, narrow space between the cabin and the stream, meditating on the troubled past and threatening future, the wind had gradually cleared the sky overhead and had sunk into rest. The pine trees stood still, the stars shone out, all was quiet.
“The storm clouds are breaking—a little, a little—even for me,” he said. “But it will never be clear in this world.”