The girl as she stood there, all pale, yet glowing with the white light of her pain, was beautiful, noble, compelling. Mrs. Falchion now rose also. She was altogether in the sunlight now. From the piano in the next room came a quick change of accompaniment, and a voice was heard singing, as if to the singer's self, 'Il balen del suo sorris'. It is hard to tell how far such little incidents affected her in what she did that afternoon; but they had their influence. She said: "You are altruistic—or are you selfish, or both? . . . And should the woman —if it were a woman—yield, and spare the man, what would you do?"
"I would say that she had been merciful and kind, and that one in this world would pray for her when she needed prayers most."
"You mean when she was old,"—Mrs. Falchion shrank a little at the sound of her own words. Now her careless abandon was gone; she seemed to be following her emotions. "When she was old," she continued, "and came to die? It is horrible to grow old, except one has been a saint—and a mother. . . . And even then—have you ever seen them, the women of that Egypt of which we spoke—powdered, smirking over their champagne, because they feel for an instant a false pulse of their past?—See how eloquent your mountains make me!—I think that would make one hard and cruel; and one would need the prayers of a churchful of good women, even as good—as you."
She could not resist a touch of irony in the last words, and Ruth, who had been ready to take her hand impulsively, was stung. But she replied nothing; and the other, after waiting, added, with a sudden and wonderful kindness: "I say what is quite true. Women might dislike you—many of them would—though you could not understand why; but you are good, and that, I suppose, is the best thing in the world. Yes, you are good," she said musingly, and then she leaned forward and quickly kissed the girl's cheek. "Good-bye," she said, and then she turned her head resolutely away.
They stood there both in the sunlight, both very quiet, but their hearts were throbbing with new sensations. Ruth knew that she had conquered, and, with her eyes all tearful, she looked steadily, yearningly at the woman before her; but she knew it was better she should say little now, and, with a motion of the hand in good-bye,—she could do no more,—she slowly went to the door. There she paused and looked back, but the other was still turned away.
For a minute Mrs. Falchion stood looking at the door through which the girl had passed, then she caught close the curtains of the window, and threw herself upon the sofa with a sobbing laugh.
"To her—I played the game of mercy to her!" she cried. "And she has his love, the love which I rejected once, and which I want now—to my shame! A hateful and terrible love. I, who ought to say to him, as I so long determined: 'You shall be destroyed. You killed my sister, poor Alo; if not with a knife yourself you killed her heart, and that is just the same.' I never knew until now what a heart is when killed."
She caught her breast as though it hurt her, and, after a moment, continued: "Do hearts always ache so when they love? I was the wife of a good man oh! he WAS a good man, who sinned for me. I see it now!—and I let him die—die alone!" She shuddered. "Oh, now I see, and I know what love such as his can be! I am punished—punished! for my love is impossible, horrible."
There was a long silence, in which she sat looking at the floor, her face all grey with pain. At last the door of the room softly opened, and Justine entered.
"May I come in, madame?" she said.