“What is it?” she asked, with a sudden flutter of anxiety.
“Is it possible that all this ruin I have brought about you has not changed your feelings towards me—turned them, ever so little, to bitterness?”
His heart leapt at the quick radiance that came into her face.
“I have never felt till now, what our friendship really meant.”
He lay awake for some time that night, lost in a great wonder at the staunch steel of her nature. Here was one who had lost everything the world held dear, husband, home, good-repute, society, work, all through him, a once rejected lover, on whom she had bestowed her friendship for her husband’s sake, and a word of regret had never passed her lips—still less a word of reproach; her old loyal friendship had come bright through such a test as stains and fouls the fairest comradeship between man and woman. Did the earth elsewhere hold humanity so transcendent? The commoner needs of the bruised child of clay that might have suggested a solution, the man forgot in his adoration. Up till now she had been the great and hopeless love of his life, to which he had been ever loyal in thought and word. Henceforward she was to be the divinity of his impassioned worship.
The deified being, unconscious of her apotheosis, but only feeling a heart-broken, weary woman, cheered by a dear and loyal friend, reached her home and found two letters awaiting her. She took them to her bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed to read them. The first, a large packet, contained a collection of tracts and religious leaflets. She was about to throw them aside, when her eye caught a flaring title: “The Woman who Sinned and was Saved.” The other pamphlets bore analogous inscriptions. She flushed hot with wrath at the outrage—then rose and tore the insulting papers across and across in a frenzy of indignation, and threw them into the grate. The request of the committee had been a social necessity, to which she had bowed her head in resignation. The insult of this anonymous evangelist scorched her. Forgetting the other letter, she proceeded to undress, anxious to get into the darkness, and lay her burning cheek upon the pillow. She thought fiercely of Hugh, of the savage joy it would be if he could find out and horsewhip the offender. But before she extinguished her light, the second envelope caught her attention. She broke it open, setting her teeth against fresh humiliation. She read the letter. Then sat down on the bed and began to cry, like a foolish woman. It was only a little note from Mrs. Cahusac, urging, with delicate tact, the claims of a friend.
Hugh did not seek out Gerard. Days passed. At last they met one morning at Sunnington station. Hugh marched up straight to him.
“You are a pretty blackguard, Gerard Merriam.”
Gerard drew up his big frame and returned his old friend’s keen gaze with a stare.
“And you?”.