In the silence of the half-darkened chamber she told her story--told it in the low, humbled tone of saintly penitence, rising sometimes into pa.s.sion and at others falling into an agonized whisper. She spoke of her girlhood, of the falsehood by which she had been cheated into a loveless marriage, and the utter misery which it had brought. Then she told her of her sin, committed in a moment of madness after her husband's brutal treatment, and so soon repented of. Lightly she touched upon her many years of solitary penance, her whole lifetime dedicated willingly and earnestly to the expiation of that dark stain, and of the coming to her quiet home of the awful news of Sir Geoffrey's murder. In her old age her sin had risen up against her, remorseless and unsatiated. Almost she had counted herself forgiven. Almost she had dared to hope that she might die in peace. But sin is everlasting, its punishment eternal.

Here her voice died away in a sudden fit of weakness, as though the fierce consuming pa.s.sion of her grief had eaten away all her strength.

But in a moment or two she continued.

"I thought my husband dead, and the sin my son's," she whispered. "They sent to me to come to his trial, that they might hear from my lips what they thought evidence against him. I would have died first. Then came a young man who told me all, and I came with him to England. I have seen and spoken with my husband. On his table he showed me signed papers. His confession was ready. 'This night,' he said, 'I take my leave of the world.' Thank G.o.d, he forgave me, and I him. We have stood hand-in-hand together, and the past between us is no more. He bade me come here, and I have come. I have seen the woman my son loves, and I am satisfied. Now I will go."

Her eyes rested for a moment upon Helen, full of an inexpressible yearning, and there had been a faint, sad wistfulness in her tone. But when she had finished, she drew her cloak around her, and turned toward the door.

Helen let her take a few steps, scarcely conscious of her intention.

Then she sprang up, and laid her hand upon Lady Beaumerville's shoulder.

"You are his mother," she said softly. "May I not be your daughter?"

"Helen, Helen, I have strange news for you!"

The room was in semi-darkness, for the fire had burnt low and the heavily shaded lamp gave out but little light. Side by side on the low sofa, two women, hand-in-hand, had been sobbing out their grief to one another. On the threshold, peering with strained eyes through the gloom, was Mr. Thurwell, his light overcoat, hastily thrown over his evening clothes, still unremoved.

She rose to her feet, and he saw the dim outline of her graceful figure, even a vision of her white, tear-stained face.

"The truth has come out," he said gravely. "To-morrow Bernard will be free. The man who killed Sir Geoffrey Kynaston has confessed."

"Confessed!" Helen repeated. "Where? To whom?"

"To the Home Secretary, to a party of us as we sat at supper, his guests at the club. Helen, be prepared for a great surprise. The murderer was Sir Allan Beaumerville."

"I know it," Helen whispered hoa.r.s.ely across the room. "Have they arrested Sir Allan?"

Mr. Thurwell's surprise at his daughter's knowledge was forgotten in the horror of the scene which her words had called up. Across the darkened air of the little chamber it seemed to float again before his shuddering memory, and he stretched out his hands for a moment before his face.

"Arrested him--no!" he answered in an agitated tone. "I have seen nothing so awful in all my life. He made his confession at the head of his table, the police were clamoring outside with a warrant, and while we all sat dazed and stupefied, he fell backward--dead."

A cry rang through the little chamber, a sudden wail, half of relief, half of anguish. Helen fell upon her knees by the side of the sofa. Mr.

Thurwell started, and moved forward.

"Who is that?" he asked quickly. "I thought you were alone."

"It is his wife," Helen answered, not without some fear. "See, she has fainted."

Mr. Thurwell hesitated only for a moment. Then his face filled with compa.s.sion.

"G.o.d help her;" he said solemnly. "I will send the women up to you, and a doctor. G.o.d help her!"

CHAPTER XLII

AT LAST

The morning sunlight lay upon that wonderful fair garden of the villa.

The tall white lilies, the scarlet poppies, the cl.u.s.tering j.a.ponica, the purple hyacinths, and the untrimmed brilliantly-flowering shrubs, lifted their heads before its sweet, quickening warmth, and yielded up their perfume to the still clear air. The languorous hour of noon was still far off. It was the birth of a southern summer day, and everything was fresh and pure, untainted by the burning, enervating heat which was soon to dry up the sweetness from the earth, and the freshness from the slightly moving breeze. Away on the brown hills, fading into a transparent veil of blue, the bright dresses of the peasant women stooping at their toil, the purple glory of the vineyards, and the deep, quiet green of the olive groves--all these simple characteristics of the pastoral landscape were like brilliant patches of coloring upon a fitting background. Soon the haze of the noonday heat would hang upon the earth, deadening the purity of its color, and making the air heavy and oppressive with faint overladen perfumes. But as yet the sun lay low in the heavens, and the earth beneath was like a fair still picture.

The heavy lumbering coach which connected the little town with the outside world was drawn up at the gate of the villa, and twice the quaintly sounding horn had broken the morning stillness. It was a moment of farewell, a farewell not for days or for years, but forever.

Their words denied it, yet in their hearts was that certain conviction, and much of that peculiar sadness which it could not fail to bring. Yet she would not have them stay for the end. She had bidden them go, and the hour had come.

Too weak to walk, or even sit upright, they had laid her upon a sofa in front of the open windows, through which the perfume from the garden below stole sweetly in on the bosom of the slowly stirring south wind.

On one side of her stood a tall mild-faced priest from the brotherhood who had made their home in the valley below, on the other were Bernard and his wife, her son and daughter.

There was no doubt that she was dying, that she was indeed very near death. Yet she was sending them away from her. The brief while they three had lived there together had been like a late autumn to her life, which had blossomed forth with sweet moments of happiness such as she had never dreamed of. And now her summons had come, and she was ready.

In her last moments she must return once more to that absolute detachment from all save spiritual things in which for many years she had lived, a saintly, blessed woman. So she had bidden them go, even her son, even that fair sweet English girl who had been more than a daughter to her. She had bidden them go. The last words had been spoken, for the last time her trembling lips had been pressed to her son's. Yet they lingered.

And there came of a sudden, floating through the window, the sweet slow chiming of the matins bell from the monastery below. Almost it seemed as though the soft delicate air through which it pa.s.sed, the exquisite beauty of the sloping landscape and old garden over which it traveled, had had a rarefying influence upon the sound itself, and had mellowed its tones into a strain of the most perfect music throbbing with harmony and dying away in faint, delicious murmurs. They stood and listened to it, and a sudden light swept into the pale face upon the couch. They all looked at her in a sudden awe. The priest sank upon his knees by her side, and prayed. Long desired, it had come at last at this most fitting moment. The glory of death shone in her face, and the light of a coming release flashed across her features. She died as few can die, as one who sees descending from the clouds a long-promised happiness, and whose heart and soul go forth to meet it with joy.

They stayed and buried her under a cypress tree, in a sunny corner of the monastery churchyard, where a plain black cross marked her grave.

Then they turned their faces toward England.

And in England they were happy. For the first few years they chose to live almost in retirement at their stately home, for with no desire for notoriety, Sir Bernard Beaumerville found himself on his return from abroad the most famous man in London. To escape from the lionizing that threatened him, Helen and he shut themselves up at Beaumerville Court, and steadfastly refused all invitations. Of their life there little need be said, save that to each it was the perfect realization of dreams which had once seemed too sweet to be possible.

And in the midst of it all he found time to write. From the quaint oak library, where he had gone back into the old realms of thoughtland, he sent out into the world a great work. Once more the columns of the daily papers and the reviews were busy with his name, and for once all were unanimous. All bowed down before his genius, and his name was written into the history of his generation. Through a burning sea of trouble, of intellectual disquiet and mental agony, he had emerged strengthened at every point. Love had fulfilled upon him its great office. He was humanized. The impersonality, which is the student's bane, which deepens into misanthropy, cynicism, and pessimism, yielded before it. The voices of his own children became dearer to him than the written thoughts of dead men. It was the rea.s.sertion of nature, and it was well for him. So was he saved, so was his genius unfettered from the cloying weight of too much abstract thought, which at one time, save for his artistic instincts, would have plunged him into the mora.s.s of pedantry and turned his genius into a pillar of salt. A woman had saved him, and through the long years of their life together he never forgot it.

THE END