Celeste turned her face to the girl above and stretched forth her hand.
"I love you, Justine," she sobbed, and their wet faces were pressed close together on the same pillow. After many minutes she asked abruptly: "What are you going to do, Justine?"
"Do?" asked the other, blankly. "I don't know. I haven't thought."
"You will not stay here, you cannot stay here where—where——"
"But where can I go? What do you mean?"
"I want to be with you always—I want to be near his—your boy," said the other. "Oh, Justine, I must have some one to love, I must have some one to love me. Don't you see, can't you see? I want you to love me and I want his boy to love me. You—you cannot stay here—you shall not stay here and suffer alone; you must not bear it all alone. We took the blow together, dearest Justine; let us bear it together, let us live through it together."
And so it was that the women Jud Sherrod had made happy and unhappy in his brief, misguided life, found a vacant place each in the heart of the other and filled that place with the love that could not be dishonored. It was a long time before Justine could fully comprehend the extent of the other's proposition and it was much longer before she was won over by almost abject pleading on the part of the wretched, lonely girl who had been wife in name only.
Celeste convinced Justine that she was entitled to all that Jud had left as a legacy; she deliberately classified herself as a part of his estate, an article among his goods and chattels, and as such she belonged to his widow and heir. The home in S—— Place was, by right of law, Justine's, argued the pleader, and all that Jud had died possessed of was in that house. So persistent was she in the desire to obtain her end that she triumphed over Justine's objections. It was settled that they were to live together, travel together so long as both found the union agreeable.
Celeste's plan included a long stay in Europe, a complete flight from all that had been laid bare and waste in the world they had known with him. In two weeks they were to sail and there was no time set for their return. Justine's most difficult task was to be performed in the interim. It was to be the rewarding of Eugene Crawley.
She had seen him at the grave-side, standing directly opposite her across the narrow opening in the ground. The pallor of his face was so marked that even she had observed it. He had not raised his eyes to look at her, but she had seen his chest rise and fall.