After a while she said to Eve, "I never have any letters, hardly."

"But you must have," Eve answered.

"No; almost never. I am going up-stairs for a moment, Eve. Don't come with me."

When she returned, more music was going on. As soon as she could, Eve said, inquiringly, "Well?"

"It was from Ferdie."

"Is he coming back?"

"Yes," responded Cicely, unmoved.

Eve's thoughts had flown to her own plans. But she found time to think, "What a cold little creature it is, after all!"

At that moment they could say no more.

About midnight, when Eve was in her own room, undressing, there was a tap at the door, and Cicely entered. She had taken off her dress; a forlorn little blue shawl was drawn tightly round her shoulders.

She walked to the dressing-table, where Eve was sitting, took up a brush, and looked at it vaguely. "I didn't mean to tell any one; but I have changed my mind, I am going to tell you." Putting down the brush, she let the shawl fall back. There across her white breast was a long purple scar, and a second one over her delicate little shoulder. "He did it," she said. Her eyes, fixed upon Eve's, were proud and brilliant.

"You don't mean--you don't mean that your _husband_--" stammered Eve, in horror.

"Yes, Ferdie. He did it."

"Is he mad?"

"Only after he has been drinking."

"Oh, you poor little thing!" said Eve, taking her in her arms protectingly. "I have been so hard to you, Cicely, so cruel! But I did not know--I did not know." Her tears flowed.

"I am telling you on account of baby," Cicely went on, in the same unmoved tone.

"Has he dared to touch baby?" said Eve, springing up.

"Yes, Eve; he broke poor baby's little arm; of course when he did not know what he was doing. When he gets that way he does not know us; he thinks we are enemies, and he thinks it is his duty to attack us. Once he put us out-of-doors--baby and me--in the middle of the night, with only our night-dresses on; fortunately it wasn't very cold. That time, and the time he broke baby's arm (he seized him by the arm and flung him out of his crib), we were not in Savannah; we were off by ourselves for a month, we three. Baby was so young that the bone was easily set.

n.o.body ever knew about it, I never told. But--but it must not happen again." She looked at Eve with the same unmoved gaze.

"I should rather think not! Give him to me, Cicely, and let me take him away--at least for the present. You know you said--"

"I said 'perhaps.' But I cannot let him go now--not just now. I am telling you what has happened because you really seem to care for him."

"I think I have showed that I care for him!"

"Well, I have let you."

"What are we to do, then, if you won't let me take him away?" said Eve, in despair. "Will that man come here?"

"He may. He will go to Savannah, and if he learns there that I am here, he may follow me. But he will never go to Romney, he doesn't like Romney; even in the beginning, when I begged him to go, he never would.

He--" She paused.

"Jealous, I suppose," suggested the sister, with a bitter laugh--"jealous of Jack's poor bones in the burying-ground. Your two ghosts will have a duel, Cicely."

"Oh, _Ferdie_ isn't dead!" said Cicely, with sudden terror. She grasped Eve's arm. "Have you heard anything? Tell me--tell me."

Eve looked at her.

"Yes, I love him," said Cicely, answering the look. "I have loved him ever since the first hour I saw him. It's more than love; it's adoration."

"You never said that of Jack."

"No; for it wouldn't have been true."

The two women faced each other--the tall Eve, the dark little wife.

"Oh, if I could only get away from this hideous country--this whole horrible South!" said Eve, walking up and down the room like a caged tigress.

"You would like him if you knew him," Cicely went on, gently. "It seldom happens--that other; and when it doesn't happen, Eve--"

Eve put out her hand with a repelling gesture. "Let me take baby and go."

"Not now. But he will be safe at Romney."

"In Heaven's name, then, let us get him back to Romney."

"Yes; to-morrow."

Little Jack was asleep in his crib by the side of Eve's bed, for she still kept him with her at night. Cicely went to the crib and looked at her child; Eve followed her.

The little boy's night-dress had fallen open, revealing one shoulder and arm. "It was just here," whispered Cicely, kneeling down and softly touching the baby-flesh. She looked up at Eve, her eyes thick with tears.

"Why, you care?" said Eve. "Care for him?--the baby, I mean." She spoke her thoughts aloud, unwittingly.

"Did you think I didn't care?" asked Cicely, with a smile.

It was the strangest smile Eve had ever seen.

VIII.

Early spring at Romney. The yellow jessamine was nearly gone, the other flowers were coming out; Atamasco lilies shone whitely everywhere; the long line of the islands and the opposite mainland were white with blossoms, the salt-marshes were freshly green; shoals, which had wallowed under water since Christmas, lifted their heads; the great river came back within its banks again.

Three weeks had pa.s.sed since their return to the island. They had made the journey without the judge, who had remained in South Carolina to give his aid to the widow of his old friend, Roland Pettigru, who had become involved in a lawsuit. The three weeks had been slow and anxious--anxious, that is, to Eve. Cicely had returned to her muteness.

Once, at the beginning, when Eve had pressed her with questions, she said, as general answer, "In any case, Ferdie will not come here." After that, when again--once or twice--Eve had asked, "Have you heard anything more?" Cicely had returned no reply whatever; she had let her pa.s.sive glance rest upon Eve and then glide to something else, as though she had not spoken. Eve was proud, she too remained silent. She knew that she had done nothing to win Cicely's confidence; women understand women, and Cicely had perceived from the first, of course, that Jack's sister did not like her.

But since that midnight revelation at Cousin Sarah Cray's, Eve no longer disliked Cicely; on the contrary, she was attracted towards her by a sort of unwilling surprise. Often, when they were with the others, she would look at her twenty times in a half-hour, endeavoring to fathom something of the real nature of this little girl (to Eve, Cicely always seemed a school-girl), who had borne a tragedy in silence, covering it with her jests, covering it also with her coldness. But was Cicely really cold to all the world but Ferdie? She was not so, at least, as regarded her child; no one who had seen her on her knees that night beside the crib could doubt her love for him. Yet she let Eve have him for hours at a time, she let her have him at night, without even Dilsey to look after him; she never interfered, constantly as Eve claimed him and kept him. In spite of her confidence in her own perceptions, in spite of her confidence, too, in her own will, which she believed could force a solution in almost every case, Eve Bruce was obliged to acknowledge to herself that she was puzzled.