There is a mercy in the freezing silence of death which often hides that which would only rend the more hearts already strained to the snapping of the last chord.
Only those cheerful young club men, Messrs. Wiltshire, Rutherstone and Merriman, noted the proud eminence of Mrs. Volney McMorris as guide, companion and friend to the widowed ward of the dead Senator. The duenna was a skeleton key of society, fitting easily into every dead lock, and well oiled.
“The little woman will have a great fortune,” said Merriman. “I hear that Garston has left a half of his wealth to her. It comes in very handy now, for, poor Vreeland was struggling in the breakers.
“She will be a great catch in due time,” was the chorus, and, when they separated, each gilded youth had separately registered a vow to “make up” to Mrs. McMorris, and then to go in later for the golden prize, when that black crape had softened to lilac, and afterward in due time bleached out into cheerful white, with here and there a touch of returning color. And they all knew Katharine Norreys’ good points by a personal experience of the last fleeting twelve months.
Vae victis! The defeated suicide was borne away to an humble grave by a few of the men who had shared his brief prosperity. The three watchful club men, already secret rivals, were on hand, there to note, with surprise, the absence of the widow, who was reported to be “broken down by her guardian’s recent death” and “unable to appear.” And so, in the last mournful parade the star performer was absent. It was voted a dull affair.
No one ever knew in “society” of the secret visit made by Katharine Vreeland, under Hugh Conyers’ escort, to take a last look at the features of the man who had “failed along the whole line of life,” after all. The defeated “young Napoleon!” The Lochinvar of the West! But the peace which he had never known had settled upon Vreeland’s pallid face.
Conyers had gravely given Mrs. Vreeland a few words of caution as to the late “envied of all his set.”
“I thank you, sir,”
calmly said the marble-faced woman. “I have buried his past forever, and your protecting counsels are not in vain; for, I unfortunately, knew him as he was. I shall leave New York forever, for, penniless as I am, I will have now to earn my bitter daily bread, but at least in some other place than here.”
Conyers gazed wonderingly at her. “Did you not know that Senator Garston has left you half his fortune? You will be a rich woman. I have seen a certified copy of the will.” And then the pale-faced woman reeled at this last proof of a fidelity reaching beyond the grave. Garston had been game to the core!