She turned with her customary quickness, and he caught sight of her ashy face.
“Madame—Madame de Salvières!” he cried. “What is it? Has worse happened? Is she hurt? Is sh....?”
His lips were trembling pitifully, and Tatiana rushed forward, threw her arms about him, and pressed his face against her breast as she would have done with Pavlo.
“Hush!” she murmured over him. “Hush! God knows what He does. It is best for her like this—for you—for all of us.”
Gently she knelt down, still holding him, and there was silence in the room. Far down below the cliffs the whistle of some sea-birds winging their way home cut the clear air that blew softly in at the windows, and Preston, who had never known a mother’s caress, suddenly burst into a passion of tears.
“It is not as if you had loved her,” she murmured, “as if it had been all your doing. You have many excuses. We cannot think altogether harshly of her—now, of course, but relationship does not exclude justice; and the blame is not all upon you, be assured of that.”
He drew slightly away from her and stared at her in amazement.
“How—how do you know it?” he stammered.
“That is my secret, and will remain so,” she consoled. “Suffice it that I do know, and—absolve you.”
“I—I wish it were I,” he whispered.