Part 59 (1/2)
”You were very kind to overlook our misfortunes.”
”Oh, no, do not call me kind; I acted only from a sense of duty, and because I pitied her.”
”You knew how deeply she had sinned?”
”Yes.”
”G.o.d knows I tried to save her, and if I did not my duty it was for lack of judgment, not charity.”
Scott knit his brow, and pa.s.sed his hand in an absent sort of a way through his auburn locks.
”That voice,” he said, ”where have I heard it?”
”I cannot tell you.”
”I must have seen you; I am sure I have heard that voice. Oh, I remember, you saved the life of an old woman, who would have been trampled to death by a span of fractious horses. Do you not remember it?”
”Yes, but how do you know that I was the one?”
”I was told that it was Miss Elsworth, the auth.o.r.ess.”
”I remember; you are the gentleman who came to my rescue. I never forget a face I have once seen.”
”You are fortunate, as a retentive memory is often very useful.”
”I have found it so in many cases, for my acquaintance has been so brief with very many whom I have met that I might have forgotten my old friends had not their faces been stamped upon my memory.”
”Your home is not in the city, I believe.”
”My home is anywhere. For a quiet place, in which to do my work I made a home of an old, almost ruined house at Roxbury, but there has been such a sad scene enacted there that I am glad to leave the place.”
”A death?”
”Yes, two at the same hour.”
”Ah.”
”Yes,” she said, raising her beautiful eyes to Scott's face, ”a victim of too much love. Bessie Graves, a beautiful, innocent, confiding girl, the pet of the house, made a hopeless maniac, and a suicide, by the false pretense of Max Brunswick's love.”
Scott started, and his compressed lips betrayed the storm within.
”That villain again,” he said, ”where is he now?”
”Be patient, and I will tell you. I am sorry to bring him again to your mind, but it is right that you should know the end. He is dead.”
”Dead!”
”Yes; died as he lived; murdered by the hand of the girl he had betrayed. They are lying side by side near the home of her childhood.”
Scott looked thoughtfully down at the grave of his wife. There was a hungry look in his eyes, as he raised them, again to Miss Elsworth's face.