“I do choose. When it is over, it will be a relief. I want you to know. You will understand better, and I shall not pain you so much, dear, kind Evelyn, by my harsh ways. So all this time you have believed that I was a happy widow?”
The expression jarred. She saw the shrinking in my eyes, and smiled again, in the same wan, hopeless fashion.
“Oh, I mean it. Death comes like a sword, but in the end it is merciful, for it brings peace. The one who is left suffers many pangs, but in time—in time, learns to be thankful for all that the beloved is spared. It is the living troubles which sear the heart. I have envied the widows who could look up and say, ‘It is well with him. We shall meet again.’ With me it has been all bitterness, all rebellion.”
I sat silent, not daring to interrupt, and after a moment’s pause she began again, speaking in a still, level tone, with hardly any variety of expression.
“I am an orphan like you, Evelyn. Both my parents died before I was fourteen, and I was sent over to America to live with a grandmother aunt. I was an heiress, unfortunately—you know my views about riches!—and by my father’s will I came into my money at eighteen. My aunt was a wise woman, and even to her intimate friends she never gave a hint of my fortune. She was a wealthy woman herself, and had no daughter, only one son, so it seemed natural that she should give me a good time, dress me prettily, and take me about. She had a horror of fortune-hunters, and wanted me to be loved for myself, and be as happily married as she had been before me. When I came out she brought me over to London for a season, and I was presented; but that was my one and only visit to England in fifteen years. I was glad to go back to New York, for my real friends were there. We had grown up together, and had the associations of years. In England I had only acquaintances. Well! So it went on, the happiest of lives, till I was twenty-four. Several men wanted to marry me, but I never met anyone whom it was possible to think of as a husband until—”
“Your husband?”
“Yes. We were away for the summer—a whole party of us—camping in the most delicious spot. I wish you could join an American camping party some time, Evelyn. It’s just the happiest, freest, most ideal of lives! He came down as the guest of some other people. The daughter was one of my own friends. I thought at first that she cared for him herself, but he never paid her any attention—not the slightest; rather avoided her indeed, even before—”
“He cared for you. Did it begin—soon—Charmion?”
“I cared for him the first moment we met. I was sitting at a long tea-table set out in the open, and my friend brought him up to a seat right opposite to mine. She said, ‘Charmion, this is Phil—Phil, this is Charmion!’ It was one of the rules of the camp that we called each other by our Christian names. The life was so informal that ‘Mr’ and ‘Miss’ seemed out of place. I looked up and met his eyes, and—it was different from anything I had felt before.
“He came for a week, but he stayed on and on until it was nearly a month. I can’t talk about it, Evelyn. Such times can never last. Even at the best it is impossible that they can last. Perfect happiness is not for this world. It was all beautiful. The place where we camped was like another Garden of Eden; the weather was exquisite, such days, such mornings! Oh, Evelyn, such nights! The sky a dome of deepest blue, with the stars shining as you never saw them in this damp, misty atmosphere. And he and I—”