“Don’t, Howard, you break my heart. Oh, Howard, my husband, pity me, but don’t make it harder with words of love. Go away, please, and do not come again till I send for you; then you will want to go.”
He felt hurt and wounded, but did as she bade him, and left her with Gertie; nor did he see her again for one whole week, except when she was asleep, and could not be disturbed by his presence. Then he would go in, and bending over her kiss her face softly, and smooth the golden brown hair, and calling her his poor darling leave behind some little token to show that he had been there.
At last Edith asked for her mother suddenly, and in a way which admitted of no prevarication, and Gertie told her everything, as carefully as possible.
“Colonel Schuyler bade us do whatever we thought you would like to have done, and he ordered the casket from New York, and was down stairs during the services,” Gertie said, and then Edith’s heart seemed bursting with a storm of sobs and piteous cries, which Gertie could not understand.
“Oh, my husband, my noble husband, what will he say? what will he say?” she murmured to herself, while Gertie stood looking at her.
At last she grew quiet, and turning to Gertie, said:
“Now tell me how mother died, and who was with her, and what she said.”
And Gertie told her what had passed in the chamber of death, of the terrible remorse for something which was evidently weighing on Mrs. Barrett’s mind, the bitter repentance, the peace which came at last, and the message left for Mrs. Schuyler.
“She was very particular about that,” Gertie said; “for she thought you might be unhappy, perhaps, if you did not know it, and she said you would forgive her some time.”
“I may, I’ll try. I hope I do, but it is very hard,” Edith replied, and then for an hour or more she lay with her eyes closed, though she was not asleep, and when at last she opened them she asked where her husband was, and expressed a wish to see him.