“And she was dead,” said Miss Amory, wringing her hands together on her lap; “dead—dead.”
She stopped suddenly and turned on him. “He killed himself,” she cried, “because he found out that it was you!”
“Yes. I was the one man he loved—he had told his secret to me—to me!—the black devil. Now—now I must go to his mother, day after day, and be her son—because I was his friend—and knew his love for Margery—and of her sweetness—and her happy, peaceful death. He used to talk to me for hours; she—poor, tender soul—will talk to me again—of Margery—Margery—Margery—and of Lucien, whose one happiness I was.”
“It will—almost—be—enough,” said Miss Amory, slowly.
“Yes,” he answered; “it will almost be enough—even for a black devil.”
And he turned on his chair and laid his face on his folded arms and sobbed like a woman.
CHAPTER XLII
The springtime sunshine had been smiling upon Talbot’s Cross-roads all the day. It was not hot, but warm, and its beauty was added to by the little soft winds which passed through the branches of the blossoming apple and pear trees and shook the fragrance from them. The brown earth was sweet and odorous, as it had been on the Sunday morning Sheba had knelt and kissed it, and the garden had covered itself, as then, with hyacinths and daffodils and white narcissus.