But no:—she started up—the telegram! He had not read it! Had he read it?—she caught up the envelope and examined it feverishly.... It could not have been opened—it had not been opened! He had not read it—he did not know! He had not known of his defeat—he had not died of his defeat—and she had not helped to send him to his death! Oh the joy of this acquittal!—and she held the envelope as one under sentence might clasp a reprieve, and almost caressed it as she made sure of its testimony in her behalf.
When she had assured herself that the envelope had not been opened, the burden upon her heart would have been lifted entirely if the telegram had not confirmed the fact of his defeat. He had not died because of defeat, and she was acquitted therefore of his death, yet she was acutely sensible of the fact that he had gone to his grave in the shadow of defeat, and that death alone had saved him from the shameful actuality.
This was gall and wormwood to her, for his name could never be flung free of that shadow. The very time and manner of his going-out had fixed failure eternally upon him. Oh why, her heart cried, could he not have died before or lived beyond it? Why had he died then? Mr. Mackenzie might have been mistaken, or the sentiment might have changed with the balloting, victory have come out of defeat and his fame have been without a cloud upon it. Oh, why had he not lived?—lived to outlive that one reverse—lived to overwhelm his enemies in another trial, lived to put those hateful Southern delegates again under heel? Why had he died so inopportunely? ... Why had he died at all? ... Why had he died? ... How could death have taken him so quickly and so unawares? He had gone briskly out of her room with the promise on his lips to hurry back. He had kissed the baby and said it looked like her.... Yes, said it looked like her—the baby—
Hurriedly she snatched the Congressional Record out of the drawer into which she had angrily flung it! Breathlessly she turned the pages to see what comment he had made upon that last part of Rutledge's speech.
Mr. Phillips had put but one marginal note against all that fearful presentation. Opposite the words, "when the blood of your daughter ... is mixed with that of one of this race, however 'risen,' redolent of newly applied polish," etc., Helen saw the single written word, "unthinkable."
Unthinkable! Quickly she searched again that portion of the speech that had given supreme offence—and found nothing. Nothing beside the word "unthinkable." No denial had her father entered that "vile unknown ancestral impulses, the untamed passions of a barbarous blood would be planted in the Anglo-Saxon's very heart" by such unions as hers. No hint of his thought as to a "mongrel progeny." No answer to the question, "How shall sickly sentimentalities solace your shame if in the blood of your mulatto grandchild the vigorous red jungle corpuscles of some savage ancestor shall overmatch your more gentle endowment...?" A free expression, critical or approving, of the first half of the speech; but silence, an awful silence, when it comes to this part so pertinent to her situation. Silence!—for the reason that her situation is UNTHINKABLE!
In an illuminating flash she sees the Truth—sees all the minute incidents of the past months, the looks, the gestures, the things unsaid, which, unnoted by her at the time, were yet registered in her subconsciousness, and which make so plain, now that she reads them aright, all her father's thoughts and sufferings and sacrifice from the moment when he had cried, "But a negro, Helen! How could you!" until the time he had rushed away after kissing her negro baby—rushed away to die! .... She knew! ... Despoiled herself!—polluted her blood beyond cleansing!—brought to life a mongrel fright, and brought to death her father!—with a scream of horror she staggered to her feet.... At the door she met the nurse, who was hurrying to her, still holding in her arms the baby whom she had not tarried to put down.
"Take it away! Take it away!" shrieked Helen, pushing it from her so violently as to hurl it from the nurse's arms, and staggered on through the hall, out the door, and down the path toward the lake.
CHAPTER XXXIX
The candidates for the Senate were come to Spartanburg in their canvass of the State before the primary election. The campaign was about half finished and had already reached the very personal stage of discussion so dear and so interesting to the South Carolina heart. LaRoque, Rutledge, Preston and Darlington were all out after Mr. Killam's scalp, and that gentleman was making it sufficiently entertaining for the four of them and for the crowds who flocked to hear.