"When? When, Unity?"
Unity rose. "Now, if you will, darling—dearest—"
Jacqueline smiled. "Now? When you are married, you will find that you cannot leave home so easily." She crossed the bedroom floor to a window, and stood with her hands on either side of the casement, and with her face lifted to the pure blue heaven.
Unity waited with held breath. "She knows—she knows," said her beating heart.
Jacqueline came back to the middle of the room. "Thank them for me, Unity, and tell them that I cannot leave my husband now." Her touch, clay-cold and fluttering, fell upon her cousin's arm. "There are wisdom and goodness in the world, and they wish to see things rightly, if only they had the power. Tell them at Fontenoy, and tell Fairfax Cary, too, that they have not altogether understood! Even he—even the one who is dead—did not quite do that, though he came more nearly than any. It is my hope and my belief that now he understands, forgives, and sees—and sees the dawn in the land!"
She raised her head, and the expression of her face was exquisite. No longer wan, she stood as though the flush of dawn were upon her. It paled, and the air of tragedy enfolded her again, but the light had been there, and it left her majestic. The grace within her and the sweetness were unfailing. She came now to her cousin, put an arm around her, and kissed her on the cheek. "You love truly, too," she whispered. "When trouble comes, you'll understand—you'll understand!"
Unity held her to her and wept. "O Jacqueline!—O Jacqueline!"
"You put on the blue gown to remind me, didn't you?" asked Jacqueline. "I didn't need any reminding, dear. It is all with me, all the old, frank, happy days; all the time when I was a girl and we used to sit, just you and I, by my window and watch the stars come out between the fir branches! And I love you all, every one of you. And I do not blame Fairfax Cary. It is destiny, I think, with us all. But I want you to know—and you can tell them that, too,—that there is one whom I love beyond every one else, beyond life, death, fear, anguish, meeting, and parting. Loving him so, and not despairing of a life to come when we are all washed clean, my dear, when we are all washed clean—"
Her voice broke and she moved again to the window. The clock ticked, the sun came dazzling in, a fly buzzed against the pane. Jacqueline turned. "Tell them that they are all dear to me, but that my home is here with my husband. Tell them that Lewis Rand—that Lewis Rand"—She put her hands to her breast. "No. I have not power to tell you that—not yet, not yet! But this I say—my uncles were soldiers, and they fought bravely and witnessed much, but I have seen a battlefield"—She shuddered strongly and brought her hands together as if to wring them, then let them fall instead and turned upon her cousin a face colourless but almost smiling. "It is strange," she said, "what pain we grow to call Victory. Let's talk of it no more, Unity." She caressed the other's hand, raised it to her lips, and kissed it.
"I did not come to stay," said Unity brokenly. "You had rather be alone. The evening is falling and they look for me at home. When you call me, I will come again. Are you sure—are you sure, Jacqueline, that you understand what they—what they sent me to say?"