He was off down the court with a long stride peculiar to himself. I saw him step over a bunch of babies playing in the mud at the corner of the court. He turned that corner into the street. I went in and shut the door.

Delia Beaseley was out for the entire forenoon, but Jane, who had returned from her two weeks vacation, was upstairs. I had plenty of time to think, to feel. I must have sat there in the back room for an hour or more, then the front door bell rang again.

I answered it--and found Mr. Ewart.

IV

"Are you alone?"

"Yes."

"I wish to see you for a few minutes."

"Come into the back room."

I led the way. I heard him shut the front door.

There was no word of welcome on the part of either, no hand extended.

All I could see, as he stood there momentarily on the step, was the set face, the dark hollows beneath his eyes, the utter fatigue in his att.i.tude. He stood with his hand on the door jamb, bracing himself by it. So he must have stood long years before when he came to seek my mother. That was my thought.

He did not sit down; but I--I had to; I had not strength left to stand.

"I 'm going to ask you a few questions."

"Yes." My tongue was dry; my lips parched. It was with difficulty I could articulate.

"What did you think I promised you, even if without words, that last time I saw you in camp?"

"All."

"What did you promise me when you looked into my eyes, there on the sh.o.r.e of the cove?"

"All." I had no other word at my command.

"And what did 'all' mean to you?"

I could not answer.

"Did it mean that you were to be my wife, that I was to be your husband?"

"I thought so."

"And you came to think otherwise--"

"How could it be, oh, how could it be?" I cried out wildly, the dumb misery finding expression at last. "How could it be when you are my mother's husband--"

"Stop! Not here and now. I will not hear that--not here, where I found her dead in this bas.e.m.e.nt; not now, when I have come to find her child. Listen to me. Answer me, as if before the judgment seat of your truest womanhood and our common humanity. Is she a wife who never loves the man who loves her, and is married to her in the law? Answer me."

"No."

"Is he a husband who never receives the pledge of love from the woman he loves, and to whom he is married in the law? Answer me again."

"No."

"Can words merely, the 'I promise', the 'I take', make marriage in its truest sense? Tell me."

"No."

"Was the woman who never loved me, my wife in any true sense for all the spoken words?"

"No," I answered again, but my voice faltered.

"Was the man who loved her, her husband simply by reason of those few spoken words?"

"No--but--"

"Yes, I know what you would say; the words, at least, were spoken that made us before the world man and wife in the law--but how about the 'before G.o.d'?"

I could not answer. The man who was cross-questioning me was trying to get at the truth as I saw it.

"The law can be put aside, and I put it aside; I was divorced from her.

But what difference, except to you, does that make? Marcia Farrell, I was never your mother's husband. Had I been, had I taken her once in my arms as wife, can you think for one moment that I would have stayed in the manor, continued in your presence--watching, waiting, longing for some sign of love for me on your part? You cannot think it--it is not possible."

His voice shook with pa.s.sion, with indignation. He bent to me.

"Tell me, in mercy tell me, what stands between us two? Speak out now from the depths of your very soul. Lay aside fear; there is nothing to fear, believe me. I am fighting now not only for my life, but for yours which is dearer to me than my own. Speak."

I took courage. I looked up at him as he bent over me.

"I thought you loved my mother in me--I was afraid it was not I you loved, not Marcia Farrell, but Happy Morey."

"You thought _that_!--And I never knew." He spoke rapidly, with a catch in his voice which sounded like a half laugh or a sob.

He straightened himself suddenly, then, as suddenly, he bent over me again, took my face between his hands and looked into my eyes, as if by looking he could engrave his words on my brain.

"I swear to you by my manhood, that I have loved and love you for yourself, for what you are. I swear to you by my past life, a life that has never known the love of a woman, that the past no longer exists for me; that it no longer existed for me from the moment I saw you coming down stairs that first night at Lamoral. I waited this time to make sure that a woman loved me as I wanted to be loved, as I must be loved--and I waited too long. You are not like your mother, except in looks. You are you--the woman I want to make my wife, the woman I look to, to make life with me. Marcia! Let the past bury its dead--what do we care for it? We are living, you and I--living--loving--"

He drew me up to him--and life in its fulness began for me....

"And now put on your hat, give me your coat, and come with me," he said a half an hour afterwards.

"Where?"

"To the City Hall to get our marriage licence."