Sergeant Zebedee sighed heavily, shook doleful head and going out, shut the door softly behind him.
"That it should be Effingham of all men, or one so hatefully like!"
The Major clenched his hands and began to pace restlessly back and forth. And now came Memory to haunt him—her sweet, soft voice, the droop of her black lashes, the way she had of pouting red lips sometimes when thoughtful, her eyes, her hands, her quick, light feet, and all the infinite allurement of her. And now——!
"That it should be—Effingham!"
Here again he was seized of faintness and nausea, fierce tremors shook him and sinking into his elbow-chair he sat crouched above the desk, his face bowed between clutching hands. Sitting thus, the great house so still and silent all about him, he must needs remember how she had called it a "desolate" house. And, in truth, so it was and must be for him now until the end. The end?
Once more he rose and took to his restless pacing. What end was there for him now but a succession of dreary days, while old age crept upon him bringing with it loneliness and solitude—a great, empty house and himself a solitary, loveless old man. And he had dreamed of others perchance to bear his name! God, what a life it might have been! And now, this was the end; he had walked in a "fool's paradise" indeed.
Pausing in his tramping he lifted haggard eyes to the pistols on the wall; with fumbling hands he opened a certain drawer in his desk, and, taking thence a brown wisp that once had been a fragrant rose, looked down at it awhile with eyes very tender, then let it fall and set his foot upon it, and leaning back in his chair stared down at all that remained. Long he sat thus, chin on breast, his drawn face half buried in the gay curls of his glossy peruke, but now his gaze had wandered back to the pistols on the wall. The candles, guttering in their sockets, burned low and lower, flickered and went out, but he sat on, motionless and very still; at last he sighed, stirred, rose from his chair, reached groping hand up to the wall and stood suddenly rigid.
"Major John, dear, some of your tenants are miserably poor, Major John!"
It was as if she had uttered these words again, the small room seemed to echo her soft voice, the darkness seemed full of her fragrant presence. The Major sank back in the chair and covered his face with twitching fingers; but, little by little, upon the gloom about him stole a faint glow, a tender radiance, an ever-brightening glory and lo, it was day. And presently, beholding this gladsome light, he lifted drooping head and glanced about him.
"Betty!" he whispered, "O sweet woman of my dream, though the dream vanish memory abideth and in my memory I will hold thee pure and sweet and fragrant everlastingly!"