Mrs. Meredith felt now that her secret was comparatively safe, and with her spirits lighter she kissed her niece lovingly and told her of a trip to Europe which she had in view, promising that Anna should go with her, and so not be at home when the marriage of Arthur and Lucy took place.
It was appointed for the 15th of January, that being the day when Lucy came of age, and the very afternoon succeeding Anna’s interview with Mr. Hastings the little lady came down to New York to direct about her bridal trousseau making, in the city. She was brimming over with happiness and her face was a perfect gleam of sunshine, when she came next day to Anna’s room, and throwing off her wrappings plunged at once into the subject uppermost in her thoughts, telling first how she and Arthur had quarrelled,—“not quarrelled as uncle and aunt Hetherton and lots of people do, but differed so seriously that I cried and had to give up, too,” she said. “I wanted you for bridesmaid, and do you think, he objected; not objected to you, but to bridesmaids generally, and he carried his point, so that we are just to stand up stiff and straight alone, except as you’ll all be round me in the aisle. You’ll be well by that time, and I want you very near to me,” Lucy said, squeezing the icy hand, whose coldness made her start and exclaim, “Why, Anna, how cold you are, and how pale you are looking. You have been so sick, and I am so well; it don’t seem quite right, does it? And Arthur, too, is so thin that I have coaxed him to raise whiskers to cover the hollows in his cheeks. He looks a heap better now, though he was always handsome. I do so wonder that you two never fell in love, and I tell him so most every time I see him, for I always think of you then.”
It was terrible to Anna to sit and hear all this, and the room grew dark as she listened, but she forced back her pain, and stroking the curly head almost resting on her lap, and said kindly, “You love him very much, don’t you, darling,—so much that it would be hard to give him up?”
“Yes, oh yes, I could not give him up now, except to God. I trust I could do that, though once I could not, I am sure,” and nestling closer to Anna, Lucy whispered to her of the hope that she was better than she used to be,—that daily intercourse with Arthur had not been without its effect, and now she believed she tried to do right from a higher motive than just to please him.
“God bless you, darling,” was Anna’s response, as she clasped the hand of the young girl, who was now far more worthy to be Arthur’s wife than once she had been.
If Anna had 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 a blessing, praying silently that she might never know a shadow of the pain which she was suffering.
CHAPTER X.
MRS. MEREDITH’S CONSCIENCE.
She had one years before, but since the summer day when she sent from her the white-faced man, whose heart she knew she had broken, it had been hardening,—searing over with a stiff crust which nothing, it seemed, could penetrate. 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 even 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 should confront them when they all came up before her. Usually she could cast such thoughts aside by a drive down gay Broadway, or at most by a call at Stewart’s, but the sight of Anna’s white face and the knowing what made it so white were 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, she said. 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 heaviest 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 Strasburg, Aug. 31st, Edward Coleman, Esq. aged 46.”