She dropped her face between her hands with a low moan. It was horrible—horrible.
Then, afraid that Tim might hear her, she passed stumblingly into her own room at the end of the corridor, and there, in solitude and darkness, she fought out the battle between her desire still to preserve the secret she had guarded three-and-twenty years, and the impulse toward atonement which was struggling into life within her.
Like a scourge the knowledge of her debt to Garth drove her before it, beating her into the very depths of self-abasement, but, even so, her pride of name, and the mother-love which yearned to shield her son from all that it must involve if she should now confess the sin of her youth, urged her to let the present still keep the secrets of the past.
The habit of years, the very purpose for which she had worked, and lied, and fought, must be renounced if she were to make atonement. A tale that was unbelievably shameful must be revealed—and Tim would have to know all that there was to be known.
To Elisabeth, this was the most bitter thing she had to face—the fact that Tim, for whose sake she had so strenuously guarded her secret, must learn, not only what was written on that turned-down page of life, but also what kind of woman his mother had proved herself—how totally unlike the beautiful conception which his ardent boyish faith in her had formed.
Would he understand? Would he ever understand—and forgive?
CHAPTER XXXVIII
VINDICATION
Meanwhile, the Herricks and their guests—“Audrey's refugees,” as Molly elected to describe the latter, herself included—had gathered round the fire in the library, and were chatting desultorily while they awaited Elisabeth's return from her visit to Tim's sick-room.