“It is a private paper of mine,” she said, after reading and giving it back; “and I have the right to say when it shall be read. I give it into your hands only on the condition that my directions shall be complied with.”
He bowed, understanding perfectly that the words were intended as a future shield for him.
“At the same time, you will open this also, which is yours,” she added, and gave him a paper roll sealed and tied, but without any direction.
F. Chevreuse shrank a little, took the roll, then let it drop from his trembling hand. The cold and business-like manner of his visitor and his sympathy for her had kept his thoughts fixed on her; but here was something which brought his mother's image up before him with a terrible distinctness. It was impossible for him not to know that this little package was what she had died in trying to save. Tears blinded his eyes. The last evening he had spent with her came back like a vision; he saw her face, heard her voice, saw her kneeling before him for his blessing.
Making an effort to control and hide his emotion, he stooped to take up the package he had dropped; and when he looked up again, his visitor had left the room, and was walking quickly to the street door. For one moment he stood irresolute; then he hurried after her. But she had already gone out, and either did not or would not hear him call her back.
The sight of her going away so, wrung all thought of selfish grief out of his mind. He went back into the room, and watched her as she walked swiftly up the street. So innocent, so generous, so brave as she was, yet of all the sufferers by this miserable tragedy, with one exception, the most unhappy! The grief that must fall upon the mother of the guilty one no one could [pg 253] fathom; but the mother of a criminal can never hold herself surely innocent of his crimes, since a greater holiness in her own life, a wiser care in his training, and a more constant prayerfulness in his behalf might have saved him; but the young wife was, of all people in the world, the most innocent and the most wronged.
How light and graceful her step was. Who would not think that it betokened a light heart? She met an acquaintance, and stopped for a word of greeting, and the friend came along afterward smiling, as though at some merry jest. Passing the house of another friend, she nodded and kissed her hand to a child in the window, with how bright a face the priest, who had seen her self-control, could well guess.
“Is there nothing I can do, nothing I can say, to help her?” he asked himself, turning away from the window. “It is cruel that one so young should bear alone such a burden! What can I do? What can I do?”
He searched in vain for some means of help. There was none. For what she should do her own wit or the advice of others must suffice; and for words of comfort, they were not for him to speak to her. Her manner had shown clearly the distance which she felt must lie between them, and there was no way but for him to accept that position. He could pray, and that was all.
By the time he had come to this conclusion, Annette Gerald had reached the convent, and was greeting Sister Cecilia.