Mrs. Bogardus raised her head. “I know! I have been thinking all night. Am I to do that? Is that what you wish me to do? Don't hesitate—to spare me.”
“Mother! I could not imagine you doing such a thing. It was like insanity. I wanted to tell you how horrible, how unseemly it was, because I was sure you had been dwelling on some form—some outward”—
“No,” she said. “I know how I should face this if it were left to me. But you are my only earthly judge, my son. Judge now between us two. Ask of me anything you think is due to him. As to outsiders, what do they matter! I will do anything you say.”
“I say! Oh, mother! Every hand he loved was against him—bruising his gentle will. Each one of us has cast a stone upon his grave. But you took the brunt of it. You spoke out plain the denial that was in my coward's heart from the first. And I judged you! I—who uncovered my father's soul to ease my own conscience, and put him to shame and torture, and you to a trial worse than death. Now let us think of the whole of his life. I have much to tell you. You could not listen before; but now he is listening. I speak for him. This is how he loved us!”
In hard, brief words Paul told the story of his father's sin and self-judgment; his abdication in the flesh; what he esteemed the rights to be of a woman placed as he had placed his wife; how carefully he had guarded her in those rights, and perjured himself at the last to leave her free in peace and honor with her children. She listened, not weeping, but with her great eyes shining in her pallid face.
“All that came after,” said Paul, taking her cold hands in his—“after his last solemn recantation does not touch the true spirit of his sacrifice. It was finished. My father died to us then as he meant to die. The body remained—to serve out its time, as he said. But his brain was tired. I do not think he connected the past very clearly with the present. I think you should forget what has happened here. It was a hideous net of circumstance that did it.”
“There is no such thing as circumstance,” said Mrs. Bogardus with loftiness. Her face was calm and sweet in its exaltation. “I cannot say things as you can, but this is what I mean. I was the wife of his body—sworn flesh of his flesh. In the flesh that made us one I denied him, and caused his death. And if I could believe as I used to about punishment, I would lock myself in that room, and for every hour he suffered there, I would suffer two. And no one should prevent me, or hasten the end. And the feet of the young men that carried out my husband who lied to save me, should wait there for me who lied to save myself. All lies are death. But what is a made-up punishment to me! I shall take it as it comes—drop by drop—slowly.”
“Mother—my mother! The fashion of this world does not last; but one thing does. Is it nothing to you, mother?”
“Have I my son—after all?” she said as one dreaming.
The night lamp expired in smoke that tainted the cold air. Paul drew back the curtains one by one, and let in the new-born day.