Instructions had been given that my mother was to be shown up into Mrs. Teidelmann's boudoir. She was lying on a sofa near the fire when we entered, asleep, dressed in a loose lace robe that fell away, showing her thin but snow-white arms, her rich dark hair falling loose about her. In sleep she looked less beautiful: harder and with a suggestion of coarseness about the face, of which at other times it showed no trace. My mother said she would wait, perhaps Mrs. Teidelmann would awake; and the servant, closing the door softly, left us alone with her.
An old French clock standing on the mantelpiece, a heart supported by Cupids, ticked with a muffled, soothing sound. My mother, choosing a chair by the window, sat with her eyes fixed on the sleeping woman's face, and it seemed to me—though this may have been but my fancy born of after-thought—that a faint smile relaxed for a moment the sleeping woman's pained, pressed lips. Neither I nor my mother spoke, the only sound in the room being the hushed ticking of the great gilt clock. Until the other woman after a few slight movements of unrest began to talk in her sleep.
Only confused murmurs escaped her at first, and then I heard her whisper my father's name. Very low—hardly more than breathed—were the words, but upon the silence each syllable struck clear and distinct: “Ah no, we must not. Luke, my darling.”
My mother rose swiftly from her chair, but she spoke in quite matter-of-fact tones.
“Go, Paul,” she said, “wait for me downstairs;” and noiselessly opening the door, she pushed me gently out, and closed it again behind me.
It was half an hour or more before she came down, and at once we left the house, letting ourselves out. All the way home my mother never once spoke, but walked as one in a dream with eyes that saw not. With her hand upon the lock of our gate she came back to life.
“You must say nothing, Paul, do you understand?” she said. “When people are delirious they use strange words that have no meaning. Do you understand, Paul; you must never breathe a word—never.”
I promised, and we entered the house; and from that day my mother's whole manner changed. Not another angry word ever again escaped her lips, never an angry flash lighted up again her eyes. Mrs. Teidelmann remained away three months. My father, of course, wrote to her often, for he was managing all her affairs. But my mother wrote to her also—though this my father, I do not think, knew—long letters that she would go away by herself to pen, writing them always in the twilight, close to the window.
“Why do you choose this time, just when it's getting dark, to write your letters,” my father would expostulate, when by chance he happened to look into the room. “Let me ring for the lamp, you will strain your eyes.” But my mother would always excuse herself, saying she had only a few lines to finish.
“I can think better in this light,” she would explain.