She lifts her eyes to his, full of dumb, speechless agony. In that instant he knows the truth—knows that Edith loves him—that the heart he would once have laid down his life almost to win, is his wholly at last!
The revelation comes upon him like a flash—like a blow. He stands holding her hands, looking at her, at the mute, infinite misery in her eyes. Someone jostles them in passing, and turns and stares. It dawns upon him that they are in the public street, and making a scene.
"Good-by," he says hastily once more, and drops the hands, and turns and goes.
She stands like a statue where he has left her—he turns a corner, the last sound of his footsteps dies away, and Edith feels that he has gone out of her life—out of the whole world.
CHAPTER X.
THE SECOND BRIDAL.
Miss Nellie Seton came early next morning to see her friend, Mr. Charley Stuart, off. He is looking rather pale as he bids them good-by—the vision of Edith's eyes upturned to his, full of mute, impassionate appeal, have haunted him all night long. They haunt him now, long after the last good-by had been said, and the train is sweeping away Westward. Edith loves him at last. At last? there has never been a time when he doubted it, but now he knows he has but to say the word, and she will lay her hand in his, and toil, and parting, and separation will end between them forever. But he will never, say that word—what Edith Darrell in her ambition once refused, all Lady Catheron's wealth and beauty cannot win. He feels he could as easily leap from the car window and end it all, as ask Sir Victor Catheron's richly dowered widow to be his wife. She made her choice three years ago—she must abide by that choice her life long.
"And then," he thinks rather doggedly, "this fancy of mine may be only fancy. The leopard cannot change his spots, and an ambitious, mercenary woman cannot change her nature. And, as a rule, ladies of wealth and title don't throw themselves away on impecunious dry goods clerks. No! I made an egregious ass of myself once, and once is quite enough. We have turned over a new leaf, and are not going back at this late day to the old ones. With her youth, her fortune, and her beauty, Edith can return to England and make a brilliant second marriage."
And then Mr. Stuart sets his lips behind his brown mustache, and unfolds the morning paper, smelling damp and nasty of printer's ink, and immerses himself, fathoms deep, in mercantile news and the doings of the Stock Exchange.
He reaches St Louis in safety, and resumes the labor of his life. He has no time to think—no time to be sentimental, if he wished to be, which he doesn't.