Two hours later, when Edith was sleeping again, Mrs. Gray came into the room with a mute, haggard expression on her kind, homely face which Sylvia never forgot, and put her arms around the younger woman.

"Austin's askin' for you, dearie. It's been a hard day for him, too--I think you ought to go to him. I'll sit here until you come back."

Sylvia nodded, and stole silently out of the room. Austin was waiting for her at the foot of the stairs, his smile of welcome changing to an expression of stern solicitude as he looked at her.

"Have you been seeing ghosts? You're whiter than chalk--no wonder, shut up in that hot, dark room all day, without any rest and almost without any food! No matter if Edith does want you most, you'll have to take turns with mother after this. Come out with me where it's cool for a little while--and then you must have some supper, and a bath, and Sally's room to sleep in--if you won't go home, which is really the best place for you."

She allowed him to lead her, without saying a word, to the sheltered slope of the river, and sat down under a great elm, while he flung himself down beside her, laying his head in her lap.

"Sylvia--just think--less than three weeks now! It's been running through my head all day--I've almost got it down to hours, minutes, and seconds--What's the matter with Edith, anyway? Father and mother are as dumb as posts."

"The matter is--oh, my darling boy--I might as well tell you at once--we can't--I've got to go away with Edith. Austin, you must wait for me--another year--" And her courage giving out completely, she threw herself into his arms, and sobbed out the tragic story.

CHAPTER XIX

"Sylvia, I won't give you up--_I can't!"_

"Darling, it isn't giving me up--it's only waiting a little longer for me."

"Don't you think I've waited long enough already?"

"Yes, Austin, but--Perhaps I won't have to stay away a whole year--perhaps by spring--or we might be married now, just as we planned, and take Edith with us."

"No, no!" he cried; "you know I wouldn't do that--I want you all to myself!" Then, still more pa.s.sionately, "You're only twenty-two yourself--you shan't darken your own youth with--this--this horrible thing. You've seen sorrow and sin enough--far, far too much! You've a right to be happy now, to live your own life--and so have I."

"And hasn't Edith any right?"

"No--she's forfeited hers."

"Do you really think so? Do you believe that a young, innocent, sheltered girl, so pretty and so magnetic that she attracts immediate attention wherever she goes, who has starved for pretty things and a good time, and suddenly finds them within her reach, whose parents wilfully shut their eyes to the fact that she's growing up, and boast that 'they've kept everything from her'--and then let her go wherever she chooses, with that pitiful lack of armor, doesn't deserve another chance? And I think if you had stayed with her through last night--and seen the change that suffering--and shame--and hopelessness have wrought in that little gay, lovely, thoughtless creature, you'd feel that she had paid a pitifully large forfeit already--and realize that no matter how much we help her, she'll have to go on paying it as long as she lives."

Austin was silent for a moment; then he muttered:

"Well, why doesn't she marry Jack Weston? She admits that it was half her fault--and that he really does care for her."

"_Marry_ him!" Sylvia cried,--"_after that_! He cares for her as much as it is in him to care for anybody--but you know perfectly well what he is!

Do you want her to tie herself forever to an ignorant, intemperate, sensual man? Put herself where the nightmare of her folly would stare her perpetually in the face! Where he'd throw it in her teeth every time he was angry with her, that he married her out of charity--and probably tell the whole countryside the same thing the first time he went to Wallacetown on a Sat.u.r.day evening and began to 'celebrate'? How much chance for hope and salvation would be left for her then? Have you forgotten something you said to me once--something which wiped away in one instant all the bitterness and agony of three years, and sent me--straight into your arms? 'The best part of a decent man's love is not pa.s.sion, but reverence; his greatest desire, not possession, but protection; his ultimate aim, not gratification, but sacrifice.'"

"I didn't guess then what a beautiful and wonderful thing pa.s.sion could be--I'd only seen the other side of it."

Sylvia winced, but she only said, very gently: "Then can you, with that knowledge, wish Edith to keep on seeing it all her life? It's--it's pretty dreadful, I think--remember I've seen it too."

"Good G.o.d, Sylvia, do stop talking as if the cases were synonymous! _You were married_! It's revolting to me to hear you keep saying that you 'understand.' There's no more likeness between you and Edith than there is between a lily growing in a queen's garden and a sweet-brier rose springing up on a dusty highroad."

"I know how you feel, dear; but remember, the sweet-brier rose isn't a _weed_! They're both flowers--and fragrant--and--and fragile, aren't they?" Then, very softly: "Besides, the lily growing in the queen's garden, even though the wicked king may own it for a time, is usually picked in the end--by the fairy prince--to adorn his palace; while the little sweet-brier rose any tramp may pluck and stick in his hat--and fling away when it is faded. And if it was really the property of an honest woodman and his wife, and the highroad ran very close to the border of a sheltered wood, where their cottage was--wouldn't they feel very badly when they found their rose was gone?"

"You plead very well," said Austin almost roughly, "and you're pleading for every one _but me_--for Edith and father and mother, who've all done wrong--and now you want to take the burden of their wrongdoing on your own innocent shoulders, and make me help you--no matter how _I_ suffer!

_I've_ tried to do _right_--never so hard in all my life--and mostly--I 've succeeded. You've helped--I never could have done it without you--but a lot of it has been pulling myself up by my own bootstraps. Now I've reached the end of my rope--and I suppose, instead of thinking of that --the next thing you do will be to make excuses for Jack Weston."

"Yes," said Sylvia, very gently, "that's just what I'm going to do. I know how hard you've tried--I know how well you've succeeded. I know there aren't many men like you--_as good as you_--in the whole world. I'm not saying that because I'm in love with you--I'm not saying it to encourage you--I'm saying it because it's true. You've conquered--all along the line. It's so wonderful--and so glorious--that sometimes it almost takes my breath away. Darling--you know I've never reproached you--even in my own mind--for anything that may have happened before you knew me--and _I_ know, that much as you wish now it never had happened--still you can comfort yourself with the old plat.i.tudes of 'the double standard.' 'All men do this some time--or nearly all men. I haven't been any worse than lots of others--and I've always respected _good_ women'--oh, I've heard it all, hundreds of times! Some day I hope you'll feel differently about that, too--that you won't teach _your_ son to argue that way--not only because it's wrong, but because it's dangerous--and very much out of date, besides. This isn't the time to go into all that--but I wonder if you would be willing to tell me everything that went through your mind for five minutes--when I came to you the night of the Graduation Ball, and you took me in your arms?"

"_Sylvia!_" The cry came from the hidden depths of Austin's soul, wrung with grief and shame. "I thought you never guessed---Since you did--how could you go on loving me so--how can you say what you just have--about my--_goodness_?"

"Darling, _don't_! I never would have let you know that I guessed--if everything else I said hadn't failed! That wasn't a reproach! 'Go on loving you'--how could I help loving you a thousand times more than ever--when you won the greatest fight of all? It's no sin to be tempted--I'm glad you're strong enough--and human enough--for that. And I'm thankful from the bottom of my heart--that you're strong enough--and _divine_ enough--to resist temptation. But you know--even a man like you--what a sorceress plain human nature can be. What chance has a weakling like Jack Weston against her, when she leads him in the same path?"

For all answer, he buried his face in the folds of her dress, and lay with it hidden, while she stroked his hair with soft and soothing fingers; she knew that she had wounded him to the quick, knew that this battle was the hardest of all, knew most surely that it was his last one, and that he would win it. Meanwhile there was nothing for her to do but to wait, unable to help him, and forced to bear alone the burden of weariness and sacrifice which was nearly crushing her. Should Austin sense, even dimly, how the sight of Edith's suffering through the long, sleepless night had brought back her own, by its reawakened memories of agony which he had taught her to forget; should divine that she, too, had counted the days to their marriage, and rejoiced that the long waiting was over, she knew that Edith's cause would be lost. She counted on the strength of the belief that most men hold--they never guess how mistakenly--that fatigue and pain are matters of slight importance among the really big things of life, and that women do not feel as strongly as they do, that there is less pa.s.sion in the giving than in the taking, that mother-love is the greatest thing they ever know. Some day, she would convince him that he was wrong; but now--At last he looked up, with an expression in his eyes, dimly seen in the starlight, which brought fresh tears to hers, but new courage to her tired heart.

"If you do love me, and I know you do," he said brokenly, "never speak to me about that again. You've forgiven it--you forgive everything--but I never shall forgive myself, or feel that I can atone, for what I meant--for that one moment--to do, as long as I live. On Christmas night, when there was no evil in my heart, you thought you saw it there, because your trust had been betrayed before; I vowed then that I would teach you at least that I was worthy of your confidence, and that most men were; and when I had taught you, not only to trust me, but to love me, so that you saw no evil even when it existed--I very nearly betrayed you. It wasn't my strength that saved us _both_--it was your wonderful love and faith. There's no desire in the world that would profane such an altar of holiness as you unveiled before me that night." He lifted her soft dress, and kissed the hem of her skirt. "I haven't forgiven myself about--what happened before I knew you, either," he whispered; "you're wrong there. I used those arguments, once, myself, but I can't any more.

We'll teach--_our son_--better, won't we, so that he'll have a cleaner heritage to offer his wife than I've got for mine--but he won't love her any more. Now, darling, go back to the house, and get some rest, if you can, but before you go to sleep, pray for me--that when Edith doesn't need you any more--I may have you for my own. And now, please, leave me--I've got to be alone--"

"Dat," said a voice out of the darkness, "is just vat she must nod do."

Austin sprang to his feet. It was too dark to see more than a few feet.

But there could be no doubt that the speaker was very near, and the accent was unmistakable. Austin's voice was heavy with anger.

"_Eavesdropping, Peter_?"

"No--pardon, missus; pardon, Mr. Gray. Frieda is sick. I been lookin'

ev'ywhere for Mr. Gray to tell him. At last I hear him speak out here, I come to find. Then I overhear--I cannot help it. I try--vat you say--interrupt--it vas my vish. Beliefe me, please. But somet'ing hold me--here." He put his hand to his throat. "I could not. I ver' sorry. But as it is so I haf heard--I haf also some few words to speak.

"Dere vas vonce a grade lady," he said, coming up closer to them, "who vas so good, and so lofly, and so sveet, that no vone who saw her could help lofing her; and she vas glad to help ev'y vone, and gif to ev'y vone, and she vas so rich and vise dat she could help and gif a great deal.

"And dere vas a poor boy who vas stupid and homely and poor, and he did nodings for any vone. But it happened vone time dat dis boy t'ought dat he and the grade lady could help the same person. So he vent to her and say--but ve'r respectful, like he alvays felt to her, 'Dis is my turn.

Please, missus, let me haf it.'"

"What do you mean, Peter?" asked Sylvia gently.

He came closer still. It was not too dark, as he did so, to see the furrows which fresh tears had made on his grimy face, to be conscious of his soiled and stained working clothes, and his clumsiness of manner and carriage; but the earnest voice went on, more doggedly than sadly:

"Vat I heard 'bout Edit' to-night, I guessed dis long time ago.

Missus--if you hear that Mr. Gray done som ver' vrong t'ing--even _dis_ ver' vrong t'ing--"

"I know," said Sylvia quickly; "it wouldn't make any difference now--I care too much. I'd want him--if he still wanted me--just the same. I'd be hurt--oh, dreadfully hurt--but I wouldn't feel angry--or revengeful--that's what you mean, isn't it, Peter?"

"Ya-as," said Peter gratefully, "dats yust it, missus, only, of course I couldn't say it like dat. I t'ank you, missus. Vell, den, I lof Edit'

ever since I come here last fall, ver' much, yust like you lof Mr.

Gray--only, of course, you can't believe dat, missus."

"Yes, I can," said Sylvia.

"So I say," went on Peter, looking only at Sylvia now, "Edit' need you, but Mr. Gray, he need you, too. No vone in t'e vorld need me but Edit'.

You shall say, 'Peter's fat'er haf sent for him, Peter go back to Holland ver' quick'--vat you say, suddenly. 'Let Edit' marry Peter and go mit.'

Ve stay all vinter mit my fat'er and moder--"