Sir Geoffry lay back in an easy-chair in front of the fire in his library. The end was near at hand now, but he was bearing up quite well to the last. Lady Chavasse, worn almost to a shadow with grief and uncertainty—for there were times yet when she actually entertained a sort of hope—sat away in the shade; her eyes watching every change in his countenance, her heart feeling ever its bitter repentance and despair.
Repentance? Yes, and plenty of it. For she saw too surely what might have been and what was—and knew that it was herself, herself only, who had worked out this state of things. Her self-reproach was terrible; her days and nights were one long dream of agony. Lady Rachel was not with them very much. She lay down more than ever in her own room; and Lady Chavasse had begun to learn that this almost continuous lying was not caused by inert idleness, but of necessity. The Grange was a sad homestead now.
The blaze from the fire flickered on Sir Geoffry’s wasted face. Hers was kept in the shadow, or it might have betrayed the bitterness of her aching heart. He had been speaking of things that touched her conscience.
“Yes, it was a sin, mother. But it might have been repaired; and, if it had been, I believe God would have blessed us all. As it is—well, we did not repair it, you and I; and so—and so, as I take it, there has not been much of real blessing given to us here; certainly not of heartfelt comfort. I seem to see all things clearly now—if it be not wrong to say it.”
Lady Chavasse saw them too—though perhaps not exactly in the way he meant. Never was the vision, of what might have been, more vividly before her than now as he spoke. She saw him, a hale happy man; his wife Mary, their children, a goodly flock, all at the Grange, and herself first amongst them, reigning paramount, rejoicing in her good and dutiful daughter-in-law. Oh, what a contrast between that vision and reality! A repressed groan escaped her lips; she coughed to smother it.
“Mother!”
“Well, Geoffry?”
“You need not have suppressed my last letter to Mary—the letter of explanation I wrote when I quitted her and the Grange. You might have been sure of me—that I would be true to my word to you.”
No answer. There was a great deal that she would not suppress, besides the letter, if the time had to come over again. The log sparkled and crackled and threw its jets of flame upwards; but no other noise disturbed the room’s stillness.