“Of course it does,” said Clementina, and she wondered whether his masculine mind would ever be in a condition to grasp the extent of the sacrifice she was making.
That day the remains of Will Hammersley were laid to rest in the little Protestant cemetery. The consular chaplain read the service. Only the two elders stood by the graveside, thinking the ordeal too harrowing for the child. Clementina wept, for some of her wasted youth lay in the coffin. But Quixtus stood with dry eyes and set features. Now he was sane. Now he could view life calmly. He knew that his memory of the dead would always be bitter. Reason could not sweeten it. It were better to forget. Let the dead past bury its dead. The dead man’s child he would take to his heart for her own helpless, sweet sake. Should she, in years to come, turn round and repay him with treachery and ingratitude, it would be but the way of all flesh. In the meanwhile he would be loyal to his word.
After the service came to a close he stood for a few moments gazing into the grave. Clementina edged close to him and pointed down to the coffin.
“He may have wronged you, but he trusted you,” she said in a low voice.
“That’s true,” said Quixtus. And as they drove back in silence, he murmured once or twice to himself, half audibly:
“He wronged me, but he trusted me.”
That evening they started for Paris.
Undesirous of demonstrative welcome at half-past eight in the morning, Clementina had not informed Tommy and Etta of the time of her arrival, and Quixtus had not indulged in superfluous correspondence with Huckaby. The odd trio now so closely related stood lonely at the exit of the Lyons Station, while porters deposited their luggage in cabs. Each of the elders felt a curious reluctance to part—even for a few hours, for they had agreed to lunch together. Sheila shed a surprised tear. She had adjusted her small mind to the entrance of her Uncle Ephraim into her life. The sudden exit startled her. On his promising to see her very soon, she put her arms prettily round his neck and kissed him. He drove off feeling the flower-like pressure of the child’s lips to his, and it was very sweet.
It helped him to take up the threads of Paris where he had left them, a difficult task. Deep shame smote him. What could be henceforward his relations with Huckaby whom, with crazy, malevolent intent, he had promised to maintain in the path of clean living? With what self-respect could he look into the eyes of Mrs. Fontaine, innocent and irreproachable woman, whose friendship he had cultivated with such dastardly design? She had placed herself so frankly, so unsuspectingly in his hands. To him, now, it was as unimaginable to betray her trust as to betray that of the child whose kiss lingered on his lips. If ever a woman deserved compensation, full and plenteous, at the hands of man, that was the woman. An insult unrealised is none the less an insult; and he, Quixtus, had insulted a woman. If only to cleanse his own honour from the stain, he must make compensation to this sweet lady. But how? By faithful and loyal service.
When he solemnly reached this decision I think that more than one angel wept and at the same time wanted to shake him.