On the day that the general and Mrs. Temple were to leave for home a letter arrived from Mrs. Temple. The general had been seized with an acute attack of gout, and it would probably take two or three days nursing to bring him around, so that they would not be home until the last of the week. Mrs. Temple had written to Jacqueline, and would write again in a day or two, notifying Judith when to send to the river landing for them. The delay was peculiarly inconvenient then, but it was God’s will. Mrs. Temple never had any trouble in reconciling herself to God’s will, except where Beverley was concerned.
Not a line had been received from Jacqueline. It did not surprise Judith, because Jacqueline hated letter-writing; but Throckmorton admitted, in an embarrassed way, that he had written to her, but she had not answered his letter.
During all this time Freke had not put in an appearance, for which Judith was devoutly thankful.
On the fifth evening that Throckmorton went his way to Barn Elms, it occurred to him that he went there oftener when Jacqueline was away than when she was there, and he was glad there were no gossiping tongues to wag about it. But luckily little Beverley, Delilah, and Simon Peter were the only three persons who knew where Throckmorton spent his evenings, and none of them were either carping or critical.
He found Judith as usual in the drawing-room, and as usual embroidering on the wedding-dress. But there was something strange about her appearance; she looked altogether different from what she usually did—more girlish, more unrestrained. Throckmorton could not make it out for a long time. Then he said, suddenly, “You have left off your widow’s cap.”
Judith let her hands fall into her lap, and looked at him with glittering eyes.
“Yes,” she said, calmly. “I grew intolerably tired of being a hypocrite, and to-night I determined for once to be my true self, so I laid aside my widow’s cap. I believe, if I had owned a white gown, I should have put it on.”
Throckmorton was so startled that he rose to his feet. Judith rose, too, letting the white silk fall in a heap on the floor.
“Are you surprised?” she asked, with suppressed excitement. “Well, so am I. But I will tell you—what I never dared breathe before—I am no true widow to Beverley Temple’s memory. I never loved him. I married him because—because I did not know any better, I suppose. I spent two miserable weeks as his wife. I was beginning to find out—and then he went away, and almost before I realized it, he was killed.” She hesitated for a moment; the picture of Throckmorton and Beverley in their life-and-death struggle came quickly before her eyes. Throckmorton was too dazed, astounded, confounded, to open his mouth. He only looked at her as she stood upright, trembling and red and pale by turns.