"I cannot go—I shall not go until I see him," she is thinking; "it is only what I have richly earned, what my treachery of the past deserves, but it is none the less hard to bear. I cast off his love once, trampled his heart under my feet; he would be less than man to offer it again to one so treacherous and unworthy. And Nellie is an angel—who can wonder that he loves her? It is my just punishment when I have learned how good, how tender, how noble he is, to see her win him from me—when I have learned to love him with my whole heart, to see him give his to her—to lose him in my turn."
She rises with an impatient sigh and walks up and down the room, trying to crush out the bitter pain of loss—the envy and rebellion that will arise within her as she thinks of Helen Thorndyke the wife of Richard Gilbert.
For it has come to this—that society begins to whisper Helen will speedily doff the weeds of widowhood for the pale flowing robes of the bride.
It is the second May following Laurence Thorndyke's tragic death, one year and seven months have passed, and the most despairing of widows will not despair forever. For the last half-year, in a quiet way, Helen has been going out a good deal, and is very much admired. And yet no wife had ever grieved more deeply, passionately and truly than Helen Thorndyke in the first dark months following her husband's death. Remorse had added poignancy to her natural grief and horror of his dreadful end, and she had suffered how greatly, only Helen herself will ever know. But that is nearly two years ago, and Helen is but four-and-twenty, and
"Time, that blunts the edge of things,
Dries our tears and spoils our bliss."
Time had brought its balm to her, and she could eat, drink and be merry once more. A great peace has followed that tragic time, friends surround her, and foremost and warmest among them, Richard Gilbert.
In the little cottage, presented her by Norine, where Helen and her little ones dwelt, the lawyer was a very frequent visitor. When Mrs. Thorndyke's doors closed to all others they opened to him. And there Mrs. Darcy, a daily comer, met him at least two or three times each week. It had been her wish, after Laurence Thorndyke's death, that the stricken young widow should still make her home in her house, but this Helen had refused. She wanted to be alone, to hide herself somewhere away from all eyes, and Norine had understood the feeling, and gifted her with the pretty, vine-covered cottage outside the city's noise and turmoil. There, with her babies, Helen dragged through those first miserable months, and lived down her first bitter agony of remorseful despair.
When the summer, with its fierce, beating sunshine came they left the city's scorched streets and sun-bleached parks, for the cool breezes and country sweetness of Kent Hill. Thither Richard Gilbert, by invitation, followed. The close intimacy between him and Helen never waned. The children clung to him, and crowed with delight at his coming. He seemed never to weary of their small society. Was it altogether for all their own, or a little for their mother's sake, Norine wondered, feeling her first sharp, jealous pangs. He spent a month with them, then went back. And when September, cool and delicious, came refreshingly to New York, the two handsome young widows, with the two little children, followed. In society that winter, Mrs. Liston-Darcy, the millionaire's heiress, was admired enormously. Not alone, for her bank stock; for her own bonnie black eyes and rare piquant loveliness. Many men bowed down before her, younger, handsomer, more famous men than Richard Gilbert, but her answer was to one and all the same. None of these men touched her heart, to none of them was she inclined to tell the story of her own dark past. It was a bond between herself, and Helen, and Mr. Gilbert. In spite of herself she had learned to love him, to know him, to value him. She turned her wistful eyes to his face, but those dark, lustrous looks had fooled him once—he was not the man to make himself any woman's puppet, and dance as she pulled the strings. He saw nothing but that she was rich, far beyond all riches of his, more beautiful with every passing year, surrounded by young and handsome men, ready to marry her at any moment. She had flung him off, unable to love him years ago. Was it likely that old, and gray, and grim, she could care for him now? He laughed, in a dreary sort of mockery, at the bare thought. Love and marriage had gone out of his life forever; he must be content with Helen's trust and friendship, until some more favored man bore her off, too, with her children; until they also outgrew childish loves. That the world coupled his name with hers, in that way, he absolutely never dreamed.
Another May had come, and Norine, wearied of it all, and full of nameless restlessness, took a sudden resolution. She would go abroad. In travel she would find change and peace, and when Helen became his wife she, at least, would not be here to see it.
As she walked up and down, deep in her own somber thoughts, the boudoir door opened, and Helen herself came in—she was passing these last days with her friend—came in looking tall and stately, and very fair in her trailing black dress, and most becoming widow's cap.