He said it like some great one. His wife soothed his hand again and repressed a sigh. She was a great-hearted lady, that brave wife and mother, who bore her own trouble without a word spoken to anyone; but she must sigh, at least, sometimes; it was such a relief to her pent-up feelings. “Who indeed?” she said, acquiescent. “Who indeed, if not you? And I love you best when you conquer so, Michael.”
Trevennack looked down upon her with a strange tender look on his face, in which gentleness and condescension were curiously mingled. “Yes,” he answered, musing; “for dear Cleer’s sake I will always keep my peace about it. I’ll say not a word. I’ll never tell anybody. And yet it’s hard to keep it in; very hard, indeed. I have to bind myself round, as it were, with bonds of iron. The secret will almost out of itself at times. As this morning, for example, when that young fellow wanted to know why St. Michael always clung to such airy pinnacles. How jauntily he talked about it, as if the reason for the selection were a matter of no moment! How little he seemed to think of the Prince of the Archangels!”
“But for Cleer’s sake, darling, you kept it in,” Mrs. Trevennack said, coaxingly; “and for Cleer’s sake you’ll keep it in still—I know you will; now won’t you?”
Trevennack looked the picture of embodied self-restraint. His back was rigid. “For Cleer’s sake I’ll keep it in,” he said, firmly. “I know how important it is for her. Never in this world have I breathed a word of it to any living soul but you; and never in this world I will. The rest wouldn’t understand. They’d say it was madness.”
“They would,” his wife assented very gravely and earnestly. “And that would be so bad for Cleer’s future prospects. People would think you were out of your mind; and you know how chary young men are nowadays of marrying a girl when they believe or even suspect there’s insanity in the family. You can talk of it as much and as often as you like to ME, dear Michael. I think that does you good. It acts as a safety-valve. It keeps you from bottling your secret up in your own heart too long, and brooding over it, and worrying yourself. I like you to talk to ME of it whenever you feel inclined. But for heaven’s sake, darling, to nobody else. Not a hint of it for worlds. The consequences might be terrible.”
Trevennack rose and stood at his full height, with his heels on the edge of the low cottage fender. “You can trust me, Lucy,” he said, in a very soft tone, with grave and conscious dignity. “You can trust me to hold my tongue. I know how much depends upon it.”
The beautiful lady with the silvery hair sat and gazed on him admiringly. She knew she could trust him; she knew he would keep it in. But she knew at the same time how desperate a struggle the effort cost him; and visionary though he was, she loved and admired him for it.
There was an eloquent silence. Then, after a while, Trevennack spoke again, more tenderly and regretfully. “That man did it!” he said, with slow emphasis. “I saw by his face at once he did it. He killed our poor boy. I could read it in his look. I’m sure it was he. And besides, I have news of it, certain news—from elsewhere,” and he looked up significantly.
“Michael!” Mrs. Trevennack said, drawing close to him with an appealing gesture, and gazing hard into his eyes; “it’s a long time since. He was a boy at the time. He did it carelessly, no doubt; but not guiltily, culpably. For Cleer’s sake, there, too—oh, forgive him, forgive him!” She clasped her hands tight; she looked up at him tearfully.
“It was the devil’s work,” her husband answered, with a faint frown on his high forehead, “and my task in life, Lucy, is to fight down the devil.”