“Mamma didn’t get me into the room. Ah, Judy, dear, why won’t they let us forget him—”
“Jacqueline!” cried Judith, turning a pale, shocked face on her.
“I say,” persisted Jacqueline, who had one of her sudden fits of courage, “why do they trouble us to remember him? I hardly knew him; he was always off at college, and then in the war; why won’t they let us mourn decently for him? And then—and then—everybody wants to forget griefs. I do.”
Judith rose and shook her off impatiently. “I wish Temple Freke had never come here,” she said.
“I do, too,” answered Jacqueline, getting up. “I am afraid of him. O Judith, what two poor creatures are we!”
“I know I am,” suddenly cried Judith, breaking into a storm of tears. “I know there is no peace for me anywhere!—” Judith stopped as suddenly as she had begun. How could she put it in words, the ghastliness of this perpetual reminder of that which in her heart she longed to forget—this feeling that had been growing on her for so long, that she ought to feel more remorse for marrying Beverley Temple than grief at losing him—that all this solemn mourning for him was like those state funerals, where there is a great service, a catafalque, a coffin, mourners—everything except a corpse? And to her candid soul how wicked, heartless, and unnatural it seemed! Jacqueline’s eyes, so full of meaning and fixed on her, troubled her. She got up after a minute and walked over to the window. The red glow of the fire and the dim candle-light did not prevent her from seeing clearly into the moonlight night. She drew the old-fashioned white curtains apart and looked out. The somber trees loomed large and black, but up on the hill, a quarter of a mile away, the light from Millenbeck gleamed cheerfully. From two windows on the lower floor and two on the upper, as well as the great fan- and side-lights of the hall-door, a ruddy glare streamed steadily. Presently Jacqueline came and stood by Judith, timidly.
“Do you know,” she said, “it seems queer that three strangers should come into our lonely lives—in this quiet life here? And the one I like—the one I like best—is Jack Throckmorton. I can’t talk to the others.”
Judith, who had got back a little of her composure, smiled at this.
“You talked away fast enough with Major Throckmorton.”