CHAPTER XXVIII.
Verelands was looking its fairest that October morning when George Hinton’s letter to Norman de Vere came into it like a thunder-clap falling from a seemingly clear sky.
It was almost thirteen years ago that the De Veres had quitted their beautiful home, with something almost akin to the sorrow of Adam and Eve in leaving Eden, so dear was the old ancestral home to their hearts. Leaving Sweetheart with the Hintons, they had journeyed northward, the young man seeking a career in life, and the mother only wishing to be near her son.
A wealthy tenant was soon found for Verelands, and the rent was forwarded yearly to Camille’s lawyer to liquidate the amount she had spent in improving the estate immediately following her marriage with Norman.
At first there had come letters of protest from the banished wife, but Norman had returned them to her without comment, and the rent continued to be forwarded to her lawyer.
Now and then, too, as he began to prosper in the profession of journalism, which he had chosen, he found means to add to the amount sent to Camille, for the weight of his indebtedness to her weighed sorely on his proud spirit.
“I shall never return to my old home until it is freed from that hateful debt,” he had said many times to his mother, and she, with a sigh, acquiesced. She had almost given up the hope now that Norman would ever be reconciled to his wife, he turned so impatiently from all her entreaties that he would pardon Camille, and more than once he had mystified her with the strange answer:
“Mother, you see only upon the surface. It is most unfortunate for both you and me. I see that you do not understand, and yet I can never explain.”
Mrs. de Vere brooded half her time over those strange words, but she could never see any reason in them.
“It is very true that I do not understand his hardness of heart toward Camille. No one could,” she often said to herself, impatiently, for it seemed to her that Camille had been sufficiently punished for her thoughtless flirtation. “No one could ever make me believe that there was any guilt in it. Camille was a pure woman,” she had said more than once to her son, but he always answered firmly: