"She was English maid to Max's mother—a faithful soul, such a faithful soul. All our letters to one another passed through her hands. She took this house; she brought Max here; she sent for me; and then—the long strain told. She had borne so much; she could bear no more. It—was all very dreadful; she lost her reason; she went suddenly mad; and the doctors do not think she can ever be well again. She is quite happy now, quite peaceful, they tell me, like a little child, but her mind has gone."
"And you, Margaret, surely now you must regret," Sir Arthur began impetuously, the natural man asserting itself, in spite of all the doctor's warnings. But again his sister's low voice broke the thread of his speech.
"Regret?" she said. "Oh! no. It hurts me to think that I hurt our father and mother, but for myself—I cannot be sorry. I love him so, and for all our lives together, I had his love—he was always mine."
"But"—do what he would, Sir Arthur felt impelled to give voice to the flood of thought within him—"he was not worthy of you, Margaret. You can't pretend that he was worthy of your love?" A great rush of colour poured over her white face, her thin hands trembled.
"Worthiness or unworthiness do not seem to come into it at all," she answered, her voice all shaken and low. "When one loves, one loves in spite of everything—in spite of everything."
Something in her tone, and in the strange illumination of her eyes, momentarily silenced Sir Arthur; he dimly felt himself to be in the presence of a force infinitely greater than anything that had ever come into his own experience. He would not have owned that he had limitations—to a man of his type, the difficulty of owning to limitations is almost insuperable—but far down in the depths of his mind, he vaguely realised that Margaret had reached a height to which he had never attained.
"And—after all, Arthur—whatever you may feel," Margaret went on, more quietly, the colour ebbing from her face, "doesn't it still seem fairer to say—De mortuis——"
Sir Arthur bent his head; and before his mind rose the half-defaced letters of that other Latin proverb, which Margaret had traced with her finger on the sun-dial, out amongst the roses in the sunshine of June.
"Per incertas, certa amor."
And she was still certain of her love—in spite of—everything! Silence fell between them after those last words of hers; and it was she who presently broke it, speaking with an effort, and in more ordinary and matter-of-fact tones.