He stooped for the letter.
“Peace! let him rest! God knoweth best!
And the flowing tide comes in!
And the flowing tide comes in!”
It was only his beloved stepmother on her nightly round of nursery and Gerald’s chamber, singing to her guileless self in passing her stepson’s door to prove her serenity of spirit; but Rex staggered back into his seat, put his elbows on his knees and covered his face with his hands.
He smelled the balsam-boughs slanting to the water, the trailing arbutus Salome wore in her belt; heard the waves lapping the prow and sides of the bounding boat. God’s glorious heaven was over them, and the sun was rising, after a long, long night, in his heart. The fresh, tender young voice told the tale of love and loss and patient submission....
Aye, and could not he, affluent in heaven’s best blessings, loving and beloved by the noble, true daughter of the Christian heroine who expected her “son” to stand fast by his plighted word—the almost husband of a pure, high-souled woman—afford to spare the miserable wretch whose own mind and memory must be a continual hell?
He pitied, he almost forgave him, as he took up the sheets from the floor, the scrap of paper from the table, and, averting his eyes lest the signature might leap out at him from the twisting flame, laid them under the forestick and did not look that way again until nothing was left of them but cinder and ashes.
