If Anna ever had a thought of telling Arthur, it would have been put aside by that interview with Lucy. She could not harm that pure, loving, trusting girl, and she sent her from her with a kiss and blessing, praying silently that she might never know a shadow of the pain which she was suffering.
CHAPTER X.
MRS. MEREDITH HAS A CONSCIENCE.
She had one, years before, but, since the summer day when she sent from her the white-faced man whose heart she had broken, it had been hardening over with a stony crust which nothing, it seemed, could break. And yet there were times when she was softened and wished that much which she had done might be blotted out from the great book in which she believed.
There was many a misdeed recorded there against her, she knew, and occasionally there stole over her a strange disquietude as to how she could confront them when they all came up against her.
Usually, she could cast such thoughts aside by a drive down gay Broadway, or, at most, a call at Stewart's; but the sight of Anna's white face and the knowing what made it so white was a constant reproach, and conscience gradually wakened from its torpor enough to whisper of the only restitution in her power—that of confession to Arthur.
But from this she shrank nervously. She could not humble herself thus to any one, and she would not either. Then came the fear lest by another than herself her guilt should come to light. What if Thornton Hastings should find her out? She was half afraid he suspected her now, and that gave her the keenest pang of all, for she respected Thornton highly, and it would cost her much to lose his good opinion.
She had lost him for her niece, but she could not spare him from herself, and so, in sad perplexity, which wore upon her visibly, the autumn days went on until at last she sat one morning in her dressing-room and read in a foreign paper:
"Died, at Strasburgh, August 31st, Edward Coleman, aged 46."