Mount Royal Volume Iii Part 26

"I suppose she is rather sorry for having driven away her husband," said Mrs. St. Aubyn, severely. "That has sobered her."

"There are depths in the human soul which only the confessor can sound,"

answered Mr. Faddie, who would not be betrayed into saying anything uncivil about his hostess. "Would that she might be led to pour her griefs into an ear attuned to every note in the diapason of sorrow."

"I don't approve of confession, and I never shall bring myself to like it," said Mrs. St. Aubyn, st.u.r.dily. "It is un-English!"

"But your Rubric, dear lady. Surely you stand by your Rubric?"

"If you mean the small print paragraphs in my prayer book, I never read 'em," answered the Squire's wife, bluntly. "I hope I know my way through the Church Service without any help of that kind."

Mr. Faddie sighed at this Boeotian ignorance, and went on with his luncheon. It might be long before he partook of so gracious a meal. A woman whose Church views were so barbarous as those of Mrs. St. Aubyn, might keep a table of primitive coa.r.s.eness. A Squire Westernish kind of fare might await him in the St. Aubyn mansion.

An hour later, he pressed Christabel's hand tenderly as he bade her good-bye. "A thousand thanks for your sweet hospitality," he murmured, gently. "This visit has been most precious to me. It has been a privilege to be brought nearer the lives of those blessed martyrs, Saint Sergius and Saint Bacchus; to renew my acquaintance with dear Saint Mertheriana, whose life I only dimly remembered; to kneel at the rustic shrines of Saint Ulette and Saint Piran. It has been a period of mental growth, the memory of which I shall ever value."

And then, with a grave uplifting of two fingers, and a blessing on the house, Mr. Faddie went off to his place beside Clara St. Aubyn, on the back seat of the landau which was to convey the departing guests to the Bodmin Road Station, a two-hours' drive through the brisk autumn air.

And thus, like the shadowy figures in a dissolving view, Christabel's guests melted away, and she and Jessie Bridgeman stood alone in the grand old hall which had been of late so perverted from its old sober air and quiet domestic uses. Her first act as the carriage drove away was to fling one of the cas.e.m.e.nts wide open.

"Open the other windows, Jessie," she said impetuously; "all of them."

"Do you know that the wind is in the east?"

"I know that it is pure and sweet, the breath of Heaven blowing over hill and sea, and that it is sweeping away the tainted atmosphere of the last month, the poison of scandal, and slang, and cigarettes, and billiard-marker talk, and all that is most unlovely in life. Oh, Jessie, thank G.o.d you and I are alone together, and the play is played out."

"Did you see your husband to-day before he left?

"No. Why should we meet any more? What can we two have to say to each other?"

"Then he left his home without a word from you," said Jessie, with a shade of wonder.

"His home," repeated Christabel; "the home in which his poor mother thought it would be my lot to make his life good and happy. If she could know--but no--thank G.o.d the dead are at peace. No, Jessie, he did not go without one word from me. I wrote a few lines of farewell. I told him I had prayed to my G.o.d for power to pity and forgive him, and that pity and pardon had come to me. I implored him to make his future life one long atonement for that fatal act last year. I who had sinned so deeply had no right to take a high tone. I spoke to him as a sinner to a sinner."

"I hope he does repent--that he will atone," said Miss Bridgeman, gloomily. "His life is in his own keeping. Thank G.o.d that you and I are rid of him, and can live the rest of our days in peace."

Very quietly flows the stream of life at Mount Royal now that these feverish scenes have pa.s.sed into the shadow of the days that are no more. Christabel devotes herself to the rearing of her boy, lives for him, thinks for him, finds joy in his boyish pleasures, grieves for his boyish griefs, teaches him, walks with him, rides with him, watches and nurses him in every childish illness, and wonders that her life is so full of peace and sunshine. The memory of a sorrowful past can never cease to be a part of her life. All those scenes she loves best in this world, the familiar places amidst which her quiet days are spent, are haunted by one mournful shadow; but she loves the hills and the sea-sh.o.r.e only the dearer for that spiritual presence, which follows her in the noontide and the gloaming, for ever reminding her, amidst the simple joys of the life she knows, of that unknown life where the veil shall be lifted, and the lost shall be found.

Major Bree is her devoted friend and adviser, idolizes the boy, and just manages to prevent his manliness deteriorating under the pressure of womanly indulgence and womanly fears. Jessie has refused that faithful admirer a second time, but Christabel has an idea that he means to tempt his fate again, and in the end must prevail, by sheer force of goodness and fidelity.

Kneeling by Angus Hamleigh's grave, little Leo hears from his mother's lips how the dead man loved him, and bequeathed his fortune to him. The mother endeavours to explain in simplest, clearest words how the wealth so entrusted to him should be a sacred charge, never to be turned to evil uses or squandered in self-indulgence.

"You will try to do good when you are a man, won't you, Leo?" she asks, smiling down at the bright young face, which shines like a sunbeam in its childish gladness.

"Yes," he answers confidently. "I'll give Uncle Jakes tobacco."

This is his widest idea of benevolence at the present stage of his developement.

THE END.