"Mrs. Falchion," said I, "between us there need be no delicate words. You appear to have neither imagination, nor idolatry, nor remembrances, nor common womanly kindness."
"Indeed!" she said. "Yet you might know me better." Here she touched my arm with the tips of her fingers, and, in spite of myself, I felt my pulse beat faster. It seemed to me that in her presence, even now, I could not quite trust myself. "Indeed!" she repeated. "And who made you omniscient, Dr. Marmion? You hardly do yourself justice. You hold a secret. You insist on reminding me of the fact. Is that in perfect gallantry? Do you know me altogether, from your knowledge of that one thing? You are vain. Or does the secret wear on you, and—Mr. Hungerford? Was it necessary to seek HIS help in keeping it?"
I told her then the true history of Hungerford's connection with Boyd Madras, and also begged her pardon for showing just now my knowledge of her secret. At this she said, "I suppose I should be grateful," and was there a slightly softer cadence to her voice?
"No, you need not be grateful," I said. "We are silent, first, because he wished it; then because you are a woman."
"You define your reasons with astonishing care and taste," she replied.
"Oh, as to taste!—" said I; but then I bit my tongue.
At that she said, her lips very firm and pale, "I could not pretend to a grief I did not feel. I acted no lie. He died as we had lived— estranged. I put up no memorials."
But I, thinking of my mother lying in her grave, a woman after God's own heart, who loved me more than I deserved, repeated almost unconsciously these lines (clipped from a magazine):
"Sacred the ring, the faded glove,
Once worn by one we used to love;
Dead warriors in their armour live,
And in their relics saints survive.
"Oh, Mother Earth, henceforth defend
All thou hast garnered of my friend,
From winter's wind and driving sleet,
From summer's sun and scorching heat.