“I don’t give a continental for what people may say. I want you for myself. What is your decision, sweetheart?”
“Of course I will do as you wish, Andrew. I don’t care to dance a very great deal. What I have promised I can no doubt get excused from.”
“Then do. Are you promised for the next? Yes, I see you are. I will at once seek your partner and get a substitute in your place. Then I shall claim my rights. Do you know, sweet wife, that this will be our first dance together? Can you imagine how eager I am to try my step with yours?”
He pressed her hand to his lips and left her. She watched him treading his way among the crowd. Surely she had every reason to be proud of him, and she ought to love him. Such devotion was certainly worthy of a return. Then she thought of that other husband, asleep under the freshly cut flowers which Mary and herself had strewn upon his bed that morning. Every morning ere the sun was up she took Mary, and together they walked to the pines where Roger lay, and laid their tribute of affection over the quiet sleeper. Andrew knew of these early visits but he never objected as any other man might have done under the circumstances, and as she sat there thinking of his careful tenderness for her and their child; of his patient love which had grown instead of diminished during nearly eight years of married life; how he had bourne without any outward signs of how it hurt him, her days of lamentations for Roger, when she had shut her door against everybody including her beloved child, and refused to be comforted. As she thought of all these things she saw her selfishness in many ways, and she resolved to gradually drop those early visits, and by so doing remove one thorn from Andrew’s path, for it had been a thorn to him she well knew. This morbid love of hers for the dead who could never return. She welcomed him with a smile when he returned, and he saw that in her face which was new to him. He looked at her searchingly.
“Have you been communing with unseen spirits, Victoria?” he said, as he led her upon the floor, “your face is angelic.”
“Yes,” she replied, looking up to him with a strange light in her eyes. “I have seen a vision which I never expected to behold. A vision of love in which only you and I, and our child were the central figures.”
He understood, and for a moment, strong man that he was, he reeled under the exquisite meaning conveyed in her words. She was beginning to love him. She had put Roger away out of her thoughts. He placed his arm about her to begin the figure, and he pressed her to him with such passion as to crush the flowers at her bodice. “Don’t, Andrew,” she whispered, “you hurt me; besides, people about us are remarking your actions.”
“The whole world may see and comment,” he replied, as he strained her to him again. “I could shout it out from the house tops, I am so happy. I feel as if I were drunk, Victoria. Drunk with joy. Have I not waited for eight long weary years to hear the blessed words? Ah, if I had you alone, away from this gaping crowd, I would kneel before you and worship you as a divinity. My God! was ever woman so sweet as you? Was ever man so blessed as I? Will this ball ever come to an end?”
Indeed, Andrew in his ecstatic state of mind was nearer being a madman than a rational creature, and seemed to have thrown aside melancholy, and he entered into the sports of the ball with a zest equal to the youngest gallant there. Not until the revel was over, and he had sought his study for a few moments before retiring, as was his custom no matter how late the hour, did he remember the sword suspended by a single hair. Ah, yes, now it came back to him with cruel force after the sweet assurance held out to him by Victoria. With a maddening rush, all the simple events of the past ten years crowded upon his brain in a seething whirlpool, and beating his breast with his clenched hands, the strong man fell upon his knees, and for the first time in his life prayed God to forgive him his sins while he wept like a child. Ah, he was not without a conscience, which goaded and pricked him sharply. He had no need to wear a garment of hair next his flesh to remind him of a sin for which to do penance, and now—now that he knew Victoria was his; that in time she would give to him the sweet love for which he so craved, his sins looked more heinous than ever, yet he could not bring himself to confess them, for fear of losing both Victoria and his child; and he seemed to see written in letters of fire upon the study wall the words: “Be sure in time your sins will be discovered. Repent then, and confess.”
“I cannot! I cannot!” cried the miserable man, in answer to those unspoken words, yet which were visible to his eye. “If my soul goes to torment I cannot confess. God help me!”