Hours had gone by, and the clock hands pointed to twelve, ere Maddy
compelled herself to hear the story Guy had come to tell. She had
thrust him from her at first, speaking to him of Lucy, his wife, and
Guy had answered her back: "I have no wife--I never had one. Lucy is
in heaven," and that was all Maddy knew until the great shock had
spent itself in tears and sobs, which became almost convulsions as she
tried to realize the fact that Lucy Atherstone was dead; that the
bridal robe about which she had written, with girlish frankness,
proved to be her shroud, and that her head that night was not pillowed
on Guy's arm, but was resting under English turf and beneath an
English sky. She could listen at last, but her breath came in panting
gasps; while Guy told her how, on the very morning of the bridal, Lucy
had greeted him with her usual bright smile, appearing and looking
better than he had before seen her look since he reached her mother's
home; how for an hour they sat together alone in a little room sacred
to her, because years before it was there he confessed his love.
Seated on a low ottoman, with her golden head lying on his lap, she
had this morning told him, in her artless way, bow much she loved him,
and how hard it sometimes was to make her love for the creature second
to her love for the Creator; told him she was not faultless, and asked
that when he found how erring and weak she was, he would bear with her
frailties as she would bear with his; talked with him, too, of Maddy
Clyde, confessing in a soft, low tone, how once or twice a pang of
jealousy had wrung her heart when she read his praises of his pupil.
But she had conquered that; she had prayed it all away, and now, next
to her own sister, she loved Maddy Clyde. Other words, too, were
spoken--words of guileless, pure affection, too sacred even for Guy to
breathe to Maddy; and then Lucy had left him, her hart-bounding step
echoing through the hall and up the winding stairs, down which she
never came again alive, for when Guy next looked upon her she was
lying white as a water lily, her neck and dress and golden hair
stained with the pale red life current oozing from her livid lips. A
blood vessel had been suddenly ruptured, the physician said, and for
her, the fair, young bride, there was no hope. They told her she must
die, for the mother would have them tell her. Once, for a few moments,
there rested on her face a fearfully frightened look, such as a
harmless bird might wear when suddenly caught in a snare. But that
soon passed away as from beneath the closed eyelids the great tears
came gushing, and the stained lips whispered faintly: "God knows best
what's right. Poor Guy!--break it gently to him."