If she had been white before, she grew like marble now. Her slim fingers clutched the little cane till it rattled against the chair, and the lace at her throat shook with her breathing. “Yes—Monty.”
He lifted his hand with difficulty and put the key into hers. “The seal’s still unbroken, Judith,” he said, “but I’ve kept it these thirty years.”
She was holding the key in her hands, looking down upon it. There was a strained half-fearful wonder in her face. For an instant she seemed quite to have forgotten him in the grip of some swift and painful emotion.
“I loved you, Judith!” he stammered in anguished appeal. “From the time we were boy and girl together, I loved you. You never cared for me—Sassoon and Valiant had the inside track. You might have loved me; but I had no chance with either of them. Then came the duel. There was only Valiant then. I overheard his promise to you that night, Judith. He had broken that! If you cared more for him than for Sassoon, you might have forgiven him, and I should have lost you! I didn’t want you to call him back, Judith! I wanted my chance! And so—I took it. That’s—the reason, dear. It’s—it’s a bad one, isn’t it!”
A shiver went over her set face—like a breath of wind over tall grass, and she seemed to come back from an infinite distance to place and moment. Between the curtains a white butterfly hovered an instant, and in the yard she heard the sound of some winged thing fluttering. The thought darted to her that it was the sound of her own dead heart awaking. She looked at the key and all at once put a hand to her mouth as though to still words clamoring there.
“Judith,” he said tremulously, between short struggles for breath, “all these years, after I found there was no chance for me, I reckon I’ve—prayed only one prayer. ‘God, let it be Sassoon that she loved!’ And I’ve prayed that mighty near every day. The thought that maybe it was Valiant has haunted me like a ghost. You never told—and I never dared ask you. Judith—”
Her face was still averted, and when she did not speak he turned his head from her on the pillow, with a breath that was almost a moan. She started, looking at him an instant in piteous hesitation, then swiftly kissed the little key and closed her hand tight upon it. Truth? She saw only the pillow and the graying face upon it! She threw herself on her knees by the couch and laid her lips on the pallid forehead.
“It—it was Sassoon, Monty,” she said, and her voice broke on the first lie she had ever told.
“Thank God!” he gasped. He struggled to raise himself on his elbow, then suddenly the strength faded out and he settled back.
Her cry brought the doctor, but this time the restorative seemed of no avail, and after a time he came and touched her shoulder. With a last long look at the ash-pale face on the settee she followed him from the room. In the yellow parlor he put her into a chair.