Part 65 (1/2)

[Ill.u.s.tration: DRINK TO ME ONLY WITH THINE EYES]

He bent over her with broken words of self-reproach. She stopped him with her hand against his lips. ”No, I am not all unhappy--no, you have not broken my heart--you have not ruined my life! Don't say it--don't think it! I love you as I loved you in the garden at Fontenoy, as I loved on our wedding eve, in the house on the Three-Notched Road! I love you more deeply now than then--”

”I have come,” he answered, ”to be sorry for almost all my life. Even to my father I might have been a better son. The best friend a young man ever had--that was Mr. Jefferson to me! and it all ended in the letter which he wrote last August. I was a leader in a party in whose principles I believed and still believe, and I betrayed my party.

To-night I think I could give my life for one imperilled field, for one green acre of this land--and yet I was willing to bring upon it strife and dissension. Ingrate and traitor--hard words and true, hard words and true! I might have had a friend--and always I knew he was the man I would have wished to be--but, instead, I thought of him as my foe and I killed him. I have brought trouble on many, and good to very few. I have wronged you in very much. But I never wronged you in my love--never, never, Jacqueline! That is my mountain peak--that is my cleansing sea--that is that in my life which needs no repenting, that is true, that is right! Oh, my wife, my wife!”

The night wind blew against them. Fireflies shone and grey moths went by to the lighted windows; above the treetops a bat wheeled and wheeled.

The clock struck again, then from far away a whippoorwill began to call.

They sat side by side upon the doorstone, her head against his shoulder, their hands locked.

”What will you do?” he said. ”What will you do? Day and night I think of that!”

”Could I stay on here? I would like to.”

”I have put all affairs in order. The place and the servants are yours.

I'vee paid every debt, I think. Mocket knows--he'll show you. But to live on here alone--”

”It will be the less alone. Don't fear for me--don't think for me. I will find courage. To-morrow!”

”It is best,” he said, ”that I should tell you that which others may think to comfort you with. It is possible, but I do not consider it probable, that the sentence will be death. It will be, I think, the Penitentiary. I had rather it was the other.”

After a time she spoke, though with difficulty. ”Yes--I had rather--for you. For myself, I feel to-night that just to know you were alive would be happiness enough. Either way--either way--to have loved you has been for me my crown of life!”

”I have written to Colonel Churchill, and a line to Fairfax Cary. There was much to do at the last. Now it is all done, and I will go early in the morning. You knew that it was drawing to this end--”

”Yes, I knew--I knew. Lewis, Lewis! what will you do yonder all the days the months--the--the years to come? Oh, unendurable! O G.o.d, have mercy!”