CHAPTER XIII.
The next night at midnight there was a solemn stir, a painful andheart-breaking commotion, at Barn Elms. Throckmorton had come. He hadindeed missed the boat, and had driven seventy miles rather than wait aday. Mrs. Temple, as when Beverley died, had shut herself up in the"charmber" with General Temple. Most people thought it was to comfortGeneral Temple, but in those two dreadful tragedies of her life it wasGeneral Temple who comforted Mrs. Temple. Both parents felt somethinglike remorse in their grief. They had been good parents after theirlights, but the wayward, capricious Jacqueline, although their child,was outside of their experience. Her nature had eluded both of them.
"Ole marse," said Delilah, in a solemn whisper to Judith, sitting inJacqueline's peaceful room, "he set by mistis. He hole her han' an' heread de Bible ter her, an' he tell her she ain' got no reproachments furter make. Mistis, she jes' lay in the bed, ez white ez de wall, an' hereyes wide open, a-hole'in' ole marse like she wuz drowndin'. It seemlike ole marse ain' got no sort o' idee, 'cep 'tis ter comfort mistis.She do grieve so arter her chillen. She ain' got none now."
To Judith, whose grief was poignant and complex, was left the task ofwatching by Jacqueline. With tender superstition, she got out thewedding-gown--it could be put to no other use--and she and Delilah putit on Jacqueline, deftly hiding the blood-spots.
"My pretty little missy," said Delilah, smoothing down the frock withher hard black hand. "Arter all, you gwi' w'yar dis pretty little frockMiss Judy done wuk for you to git married in."
And to Judith also fell the task of showing Freke into the white anddarkened room.
As they looked into each other's eyes, and realized that, after all,they were the chiefest mourners, Judith's old enmity melted away.
"You and I have struggled for this child's soul," he said. "Had you butlet me see her--had she but gone with me--she would be alive this day."
"And wretched!" Judith could not help saying.
"No--most happy. I understood her better than anybody else. It was thatwhich gave me my power over her. She wanted nothing in this world exceptto be loved."
He went in and stayed so long that Judith opened the door softly two orthree times. Sometimes, by the dim light, he was kneeling by the bed,holding the cold little hand in his. Again, he sat on a chair, strokingthe bright hair that rippled over the forehead. Judith had not the heartto speak to him until midnight, when the sound of Throckmorton's step inthe hall told her he had come. She went in and said to Freke hurriedly,but not unkindly, "You must go--Throckmorton is here."
"Then I will go," he said. But with a queer sort of triumph in his voicehe added: "She never was Throckmorton's, living or dead. She was mine asfar as her heart and her soul and her will went." And so saying, he wentdown the stairs and out and away, without meeting Throckmorton.
Judith went down into the dining-room, where Throckmorton sat before thedecaying fire, with only the light of two tall candles to pierce thedarkness. He arose silently and followed her. At the door of the roomhis courage, which Judith had thought invincible, seemed suddenly toleave him. He, the strong man, turned pale, and clung to the weakwoman's arm. Something of the divine pity in Judith's face went to hissoul. He stayed only a few minutes. It came to Judith, like a flash,that his grief was not like Freke's. Throckmorton pitied Jacqueline.Freke pitied himself, for the sharp misery of life without her. WhenThrockmorton came out, Judith went in and resumed her watch.
The day of the funeral was as stormy as the day of Jacqueline's death.But for that, the whole county would have been at the funeral. Somethingof the truth had leaked out, and the people were conscience-stricken.Poor Jacqueline, who two weeks before had in vain asked for a littlehuman pity from them, now had her memory deluged with it. But the stormwas so violent that but few persons could be present. As Judith stood atthe head of the small grave in the wind and the rain, listening toEdmund Morford's rich voice, now touched with real feeling, she glancedtoward Freke, standing by himself, with his hands clasped behind hisback, his eyes fixed devouringly upon the coffin. As the first dampclods fell resounding on the lid, he said to himself: "Jacqueline!Jacqueline!"
Throckmorton, with folded arms and his iron jaw set, gave no sign of hisfeelings through his stern composure. Judith's heart was wrenched as ifshe were burying her own child. When they left the grave, Freke remainedstanding alone, his hat off, and the sleety rain pelting his bare head.At that sight Judith, for the first time, forgave him from her heart.