“Curse him!” Everard said to himself. “He meant to ruin me. He could not have known what Josey was, but he knew it was not a fitting match for me, and no time or way for me to marry, if it were; but that was his revenge. I remember he asked me if I did not fear the man whom I had punished, and said people like him did not take cowhidings meekly; and he is Rossie’s half-brother; but if I can help it, she shall never know how he has injured me, the rascal. I’ll have a divorce now, at all hazards, even though it may do me no good, so far as Rossie is concerned. I’ll see that lawyer to-morrow and tell him the whole story.”
But before the morrow came, Everard received Mrs. Markham’s telegram, which startled him so much that he forgot everything in his haste to return home and see if aught had befallen Rosamond. It had something to do with her he was sure, but no thought that it had to do with Josephine entered his mind until he stepped from the car and heard that she was at the Forrest House. For an instant his brain reeled, and he felt and acted like a drunken man, as he went to claim his traveling-bag. Then, without a word to any one, he walked rapidly away in the darkness, with a face as white as the few snow-flakes which were just beginning to fall, and a feeling like death in his heart as he thought of Rossie left alone to confront Joe Fleming as his wife. And yet it did not seem very strange to him that Josephine was there. It was rather as if he had expected it, just as the murderer expects the day when his sin will find him out. Everard’s sin had found him out, and as he sped along the highway, half running in his haste to know the worst, he was almost glad that the thing he had dreaded so long had come at last, and to himself he said:
“I’ll face it like a man, whatever the result may be.”
From the windows of Rossie’s room a faint light was shining, but it told him nothing of the sick girl lying there, so nervous and excited that bright fever spots burned on her cheeks, and her hands and feet were like lumps of ice as she waited and listened for him, hearing him the moment he struck the gravel-walk beneath her window, for he purposely turned aside from the front piazza, choosing to enter the house in the rear, lest he should first encounter the woman, who, like Rossie, was waiting and watching for him, and feeling herself grow hot and cold alternately as she wondered what he would say. Like Rossie, she was sure he would come on that train, and had made herself as attractive as possible in her black cashmere and jet, with the white shawl around her shoulders, and her golden hair falling on her neck in heavy masses of curls. And then, with a French novel in her hand, she sat down to wait for the first sound of the carriage which was to bring him, for she did not dream of his walking that cold, wet night, and was not on the alert to see the tall figure which came so swiftly through the darkness, skulking like a thief behind the shrubbery till it reached the rear door, where it entered, and stood face to face with old Aunt Axie, who in her surprise almost dropped the bowl of gruel she had been preparing for Rosamond. She did spill it, she set it down so quickly, and putting both her hands on Everard’s shoulders she exclaimed:
“Oh, Mars’r Everard, praise de Lord you am come at last! I couldn’t b’ar it much longer, with Miss Rossie sick up sta’rs, and that woman below swashin’ round wid her long-tailed gowns, an’ her yaller ha’r hangin’ down her back, and sayin’ she is your wife. She isn’t your wife, Mas’r Everard,—she isn’t?” and Axie looked earnestly at the young man, who would have given more than half his life to have been able to say, “No, she is not.”
But he could not do that, and his voice shook as he replied:
“Yes, Aunt Axie, she is my wife.”
Axie did not cry out or say a word at first, but her black face quivered and her eyes filled with tears, as she took a rapid mental survey of the case as it stood now. Everard’s wife must of course be upheld for the credit of the family, and, though the old negress knew there was something wrong, it was not for her to inquire or to let others do so either; and when at last she spoke, she said:
“If she’s your wife, then I shall stan’ by her.”
He did not thank her or seem to care whether she stood by his wife or not, for his next question was: