“She died at Nice?” repeated Miss Fausset, with an abstracted air, as if her power of attention, which had revived for a little just now, were beginning to flag.
“She died there, under the saddest circumstances. I am heart-broken when I think of her and that sad fate. My own dear Fay, how hard that your loving heart should be an instrument of self-torture! She was jealous of her husband—causelessly, unreasonably jealous—and she killed herself in a paroxysm of despair!”
The awfulness of this fact roused Miss Fausset from her apathy. She started up from amongst her cushions, staring at Mildred in mute horror, and her wasted hands trembled as they grasped the arm of her chair.
“Surely, surely that can’t be true!” she faltered. “It is too dreadful! People tell such lies—an accident, perhaps, exaggerated into a suicide. An overdose of an opiate!”
“No, no; it was nothing like that. There is no doubt. I heard it from those who knew. She flung herself over the edge of the cliff; she was walking with her husband—my husband, George Greswold—then George Ransome; they were walking together; they quarrelled; he said something that stung her to the quick, and she threw herself over the cliff. It was the wild impulse of a moment, for which an all-merciful God would not hold her accountable. She was in very delicate health, nervous, hysterical, and she fancied herself unloved, betrayed, perhaps. Ah, aunt, think how hardly she had been used—cast off, disowned, sent out alone into the world—by those who should have loved and protected her. Poor, poor Fay! My mother sent her away from The Hook where she was so happy. My mother’s jealousy drove her out—a young girl, so friendless, so lonely, so much in need of love. It was my mother’s doing; but my father ought not to have allowed it. If she was weak he was strong, and Fay was his daughter. It was his duty to protect her against all the world. You know how I loved my father; you know that I reverence his memory; but he played a coward’s part when he sent Fay out of his house to please my mother.”
She was carried away by her passionate regret for that ill-used girl whose image had never lost its hold upon her heart.
“Not a word against your father, Mildred. He was a good man. He never failed in affection or in duty. He acted for the best according to his lights in relation to that unhappy girl—unhappy—ill-used—yes, yes, yes. He did his best, Mildred. He must not be blamed. But it is dreadful to think that she killed herself.”
“Had you heard nothing of her fate, aunt? My father must have been told, surely. There must have been some means of communication. He must have kept himself informed about her fate, although she was banished, given over to the care of strangers. If he had owned a dog which other people took care of for him he would have been told when the dog died.”
Miss Fausset felt the unspeakable bitterness of this comparison.
“You must not speak like that of your father, Mildred. You ought to know that he was a good man. Yes, he knew, of course, when that poor girl died, but it was not his business to tell other people. I only heard incidentally that she had married, and that she died within a year of her marriage. I heard no more. It was the end of a sad story.”