Cedersholm, in the agitation that his own words had produced in himself, and in his grief, did not notice that Fairfax murmured he had known Mrs. Cedersholm in Paris.
"My wife was very delicate," he said. "We travelled everywhere. She faded and my life stopped when she died. To-day, when I saw the 'Open Door,' it had a message for me that brought me the first solace." Again his hands sought Fairfax's. "Thank you, brother artist," he murmured; "you have suffered as I have. You understand."
From where he sat, Fairfax struck a match and lit the candle. Its pale light flickered up in the big dark room like a lily shining in a tomb. He said, with a great effort—
"I made a little bas-relief of Mrs. Cedersholm. Did she never speak of me?"
"Never," said Cedersholm thoughtfully. "She met so many people in France; she was so surrounded. She admired greatly the little figure I bought at the Exposition; it was always in our salon. We spoke of you as a coming power, but I do not recall that she ever mentioned having known you."
To Antony this was the greatest proof she could have given him of her love for him. That careful silence, the long silence, not once speaking his name. He had triumphed over Cedersholm. She had loved him. Cedersholm murmured
"And you did that bas-relief—a head silhouetted against a lattice? It never left her room, but she never mentioned it to me although I greatly admired it. It Was a perfect likeness." Fairfax saw Cedersholm peer at him through the candle light. "Curious," he continued, "curious."
And Antony knew that Cedersholm would never forget his cry of "Mary—Mary dead!" And her silence regarding his existence and his name, and that silence and that cry would go together in the husband's memory.
The door of the studio was opened by Dearborn, who came in calling—