CHAPTER VI.

In the few days that followed, Judith saw more plainly that Freke was deliberately casting his spell over Jacqueline, and, from the soft and seductive flattery he had tried on her, Judith, at first, he exchanged something like sarcasm. He would discuss constancy before her, Judith meanwhile keeping her seat resolutely, but she could not prevent the tell-tale color from rising into her face. But when, as Freke generally did, he surmised that all the so-called constancy in this world wasn't exactly what it purported to be, she grew pale beneath his gaze. He watched her intently whenever she was with Throckmorton, and the mere consciousness of being watched embarrassed while it angered her. Freke, whose perceptions were of the quickest, saw far into the future, and often repeated in his own mind the old, old truth that all the passions of human nature--love, hope, despair, jealousy, and revenge--could be found within the quietest and most peaceful circle.

The very next evening after Mrs. Sherrard's visit, Freke appeared in the dusky drawing-room, where Jacqueline sat crouched over the fire, and Judith, with her child in her arms, sang him quaint Mother Goose melodies. When Freke came within the fire's red circle of light, Judith observed that he had a violin and bow under his arm. Jacqueline jumped up delightedly.

"Oh, oh! do you know any music?"

"I can fiddle a little," answered Freke, smiling.

He settled himself, and, in the midst of the deep silence of twilight in the country, began a concerto of Brahms. The first movement, an _allegro_, he played with a dainty, soft trippingness that was fit for fairies dancing by moonlight. The next, a _scherzo_, was full of tender suggestiveness--a dream told in music. The third movement was deeper, more tragic, full of sorrow and wailing. As Freke drew the bow across the G-string, he would bring out tones as deep as the 'cello, while suddenly the sharp cry of the treble would cut into the somber depths of the basso like the shriek of a soul in torment. A melody like a wandering spirit appeared out of the deep harmonies, and lost, yet ever found, would make itself heard with a sweet insistence, only to be swallowed up in a tempest of sound, like a bird lost in a storm. And presently there was an abatement, then a calm, and the music died, literally, amid the twilight dusk and gloom.

As Freke, with strange eyes, and his bow suspended, tremblingly, as if waiting for the spirit to return, ceased, there was a perfect silence. Jacqueline, who had never heard anything like it in her life, and who, all unknown to herself, was singularly susceptible to music, gazed at Freke as the magician who had made her dream dreams, and after a while cried out:

"Why do you play like that? I never heard anybody play so before."

In answer, Freke again smiled, and played a wild Hungarian dance, fit for the dancing of bacchantes, so full of barbaric clash and rhythm, that Jacqueline suddenly sprang up and began to dance around the chairs and tables. Freke half turned to glance at her; he retarded the time, and softened the tones, when Jacqueline, too, danced slowly and dreamily--until presently, with a storm and a rush of music, _fortissimo_ and _prestissimo_, and a resounding blare of chords that sounded like the shouts of a victorious army, he stopped and lay back in his chair, still smiling.

But, although Judith had twice Jacqueline's knowledge of music, with all her feeling for it, Freke was piqued to see that she did not for a moment confound his music with his personality. She seemed to take a malicious pleasure in complimenting him glibly, which is the last snub to an artist. Freke was so vexed by her indifference, that he began to play cats mewing and dogs barking, on his fiddle, to frighten little Beverley, who looked at him with wide, scared eyes.

"Never mind, my darling," cried Judith, laughing. "Be a brave little boy--only girls are scared at such things."

Beverley, thus exhorted, summoned up his courage and proposed to get grandfather's sword to defend himself. Judith's laughter, the defiant light in her eyes, the passionate kiss she gave the boy as a reward for his bravery, annoyed Freke. His vanity as an artist, however, was consoled by hearing Simon Peter's voice, in an awed and solemn whisper from the door, through which his woolly head was just visible in the surrounding darkness:

"I 'clar' ter God, dat fiddle is got evils in it. I hear some on 'em hollerin' an' cryin' fur ter git out, an' some on 'em larfin' an' jumpin'. Marse Temple, dem is spirits in dat fiddle. I knows it."

"They are, indeed; and, if I go down to the grave-yard at midnight and play, all the dead and gone Temples will rise out of their graves and dance around in their grave-clothes. Do you hear that?" said Freke, gravely.

"Lord God A'mighty!" yelled Simon Peter, "I gwi' sleep wid a sifter" (a sieve) "over my hade ev'y night arter dis. Sifters keeps away de evils, kase dey slips th'u de holes." And, sure enough, a sieve was hung up over Simon Peter's bed that very night, with a rabbit's foot as an additional safeguard, and a bunch of peacock's feathers over the fireplace was ruthlessly thrown into the fire to propitiate "de evils."

When Thursday evening came, General Temple was high and dry with the gout, and Mrs. Temple, of course, could not leave him alone to fight it out with Delilah.

"Ole marse, you gwi' keep on havin' de gout twell you w'yar a ole h'yar foot in yo' pocket. I done tole you so, an' I ain' feerd ter keep on tellin' you so," was Delilah's Job-like advice.

"That's true," snapped the general. "Gad, if I had had a thousand men in my brigade as little 'feerd' as you, I'll be damned if I ever would have surrendered at Appomattox! God forgive me for swearing."

"I hope and pray He will, my darling husband," responded Mrs. Temple, with calm piety.

Jacqueline was in a fever of delight, as she always was when there was any prospect of going from home. She danced up and down, romped with little Beverley, and, hugging him, told him in a laughing whisper that she would see "somebody" at Turkey Thicket, and "somebody had beautiful black eyes, and was only twenty-two years old."

Judith, too, felt that pleasurable excitement of which she began to be less and less ashamed. A few words dropped meaningly by Throckmorton, full of that sound sense which distinguished him, made her look differently at life. His philosophy was not Mrs. Temple's. He reminded Judith that we should accept peace and tranquillity thankfully, and that it was no sin to be happy; and everything that Throckmorton said commended itself to Judith. For the first time in her narrow and secluded life she enjoyed with him the pleasure of being as clever as she wanted to be. He was no timid soul, like Edmund Morford, to fear a rival in a woman. It never occurred to Throckmorton to feel jealous of any woman's wit. One of his greatest charms to Judith was that he was not in the least afraid of her. Her quick feminine humor, her natural acuteness, her knack of pretty expression in speech and writing, appeared in their true light, as mere accomplishments, contrasted with Throckmorton's firm and masculine mind. The conviction of his mental grasp, his will-power, all that goes to make a man fitted to command a woman, had in it a subtile attraction for Judith, like the spell that beauty casts over a man. He was the only man in all her surroundings whose calm superiority over her was perfectly plain to her. It was only necessary for him to express an opinion, that Judith did not at once see its force. She sometimes differed courteously with him; but it began soon to be a perilous pleasure to her to find that usually Throckmorton was infinitely wiser, more liberal, more just than herself.

When the Thursday evening came, only Judith, Jacqueline, and Freke were to go. It had turned bitterly cold. Simon Peter, sitting in solitary magnificence on the box, handled the ribbons over the Kentucky horses, who dashed along so briskly that the carriage, which was in the last stage of "befo' the war" decrepitude, threatened to tumble to pieces and drop them all in the road.

Going along, Jacqueline sat back in the carriage, very quiet and silent. Freke, with his back to the horses, talked to Judith. Occasionally in the darkness, by a passing gleam, he could see Jacqueline's eyes shining.

"What do you think of Major Throckmorton," he asked Judith.

Although not versed in knowledge of the world, Judith was not devoid of self-possession. The question, though, embarrassed her a little.

"I--I--think he is most interesting, kind--and--"

"Military men are, as a rule, rather narrow, don't you think?"

"I never saw enough to judge. I should think they ought to be the other way."

"Every time I see Throckmorton, the consciousness comes to me that I have seen him before--seen him under some tragical and unusual circumstances. If I didn't know that those who have good consciences, like myself, should be above superstition, I should say that in some previous state of being I had known him; however, I am too strictly orthodox in my beliefs to tolerate such notions. But some time or other--perhaps to-night--I intend to find out from Throckmorton himself if we haven't had the pleasure of meeting in another cycle or state of being. There is, by the way, an ineffable impudence in Throckmorton returning to this county now."

Judith suspected that Freke's peroration was made with the intention of provoking a reply.

They were driving along an open piece of the road, and it was comparatively light in the carriage, although there was no moon. Freke glancing up to see the cause of Judith's silence, caught the gleam of her white teeth in a broad smile. She was laughing at him. It certainly was delicious to hear Temple Freke commenting on anybody's having impudence in returning to the county. Freke, who hated to be laughed at, promised himself he would be avenged. "I'll make you wince, my lady!" he thought to himself. Presently, though, Judith said, in a tone with a sharpness in it, like one who has been wounded:

"I can't imagine anybody applying the word impudence to Major Throckmorton. He is very reserved--very dignified."

"Throckmorton, I see, has an advocate.--And little Cousin Jacky, what do you think of the other Jacky--Jacky Throckmorton?"

"I think he's perfectly delightful," assented Jacqueline, after a pause.

Freke said no more about the Throckmortons. The women were evidently against him there; and soon they were driving up to the door at Turkey Thicket, and going up the hall stairs to take off their wraps, very much as on that last evening, when Mrs. Sherrard took occasion to rehabilitate Throckmorton in the good graces of the county people, as she was now trying to do with Freke.

When Judith and Jacqueline came down the stairs, Freke met them at the foot. Jacqueline had pleaded hard to wear a white dress, but Mrs. Temple was inexorable. She might catch cold; consequently, she wore a little prim, Quakerish gown of gray. Judith, as usual, was stately in black.

Throckmorton was standing on the rug before the drawing-room fire, talking gravely with Mrs. Sherrard. Edmund Morford was there and Dr. Wortley, who, with Jack Throckmorton, constituted the company. Mrs. Sherrard drew Judith into the conversation that she had been carrying on with Throckmorton. He said to Judith:

"I will continue what I was saying--but I assure you it is something I could speak of to but few people. It is this absolute barring out on the part of the county people toward me. Not a soul except Mrs. Sherrard and Mrs. Temple has asked me to break bread. I thought I knew Virginians--I thought them the kindest, easiest, least angular people in the world; but, upon my soul, anything like this cold and deliberate ostracism I never witnessed! Why, half the county is related to me--and I've been to school with every man in it--and yet, I am a pariah!"

"You don't look at it from their point of view," replied Mrs. Sherrard, with more patience than was her wont. "Think how these people have suffered. You see yourself, never was there such ruin wrought, and then remember that you are associated with that ruin. Can't you fancy the dull and silent resentment, the cold anger, with which they must regard all--"

"Blasted Yankees?" cheerfully remarked Throckmorton, recovering his spirits a little.

"But you know," said Mrs. Sherrard, whose ideas on some subjects were rudimentary, but speaking kindly though positively, "you mustn't wear your uniform down here."

Throckmorton laughed rather harshly.

"As I'm not going to be married or buried, I can't see what chance I would have to wear it. But what you say disposes me to put on my full-dress uniform, with sword and chapeau, and wear it to church on Sunday."

Then Mrs. Sherrard went off after her latest passion, Temple Freke, and left Judith and Throckmorton standing together.

"I think _I_ understand you," said Judith, with her pretty air of diffidence. "But, as you know, the people here have one principle which stands for honor, and you have another. You have got power and--and--victory out of _your_ principle, and we have got nothing but ruin and defeat and wretchedness out of _our_ principle. How can you hold us to a strict account?"

"I do not--God knows I do not!--but I want a little human kindness. I get it from a few. Dr. Wortley, who was my tutor at my grandfather's, and has licked me a hundred times--and Morford, and the families at Turkey Thicket and Barn Elms--but none of them, I think," continued Throckmorton, looking into Judith's eyes with admiration, "exactly understand how _I_ feel as well as you. What kept me in the army was, as you say, a principle of honor. It was like a knife in me, every Southern officer who resigned. I respected them, because I knew, as only the naval and military men knew, that they were giving up not only their future and their children's future, for what they thought right, but that they knew the overwhelming odds against them. I don't believe any one of them really expected success--they knew too much--it was a sacrifice most disinterested. I could not go with them; but I had to face as much obloquy among my people by staying in the army as they had to face in going out. But I swear I never gave one thought to the advantage to me of staying where I was! I stayed because I could not, as a man of honor, do otherwise, I thought my own people would recognize this--that by this time the bitterness would be over."

"Never mind," said Judith, with a heavenly smile, "it will come--it will come."

A little later, Mrs. Sherrard whispered to Throckmorton:

"Are not my two beauties from Barn Elms sweet creatures?"

"Very," answered Throckmorton, a dark flush showing under his tan and sunburn. "Little Jacqueline is a charming creature."

"Oh, pooh! Jacqueline. You mean Judith."

"Mrs. Beverley is most dignified, charming, and interesting; but little Miss Jacky--"

"I should think she would be a nice playmate for your Jack," remarked Mrs. Sherrard.

Throckmorton looked awkward, not to say foolish. Had he forgotten his forty-four years, his iron-gray hair, all the scars of life? Jacqueline and Jack were inseparable from the start, and their two heads were close together on the deep, old-fashioned sofa, at that very moment.

"The major stole a march on me the other day, going over to Barn Elms," remarked Jack, confidentially. "However, I'll get even with him yet."

"Oh, how can you talk so about your own father?"

"Why shouldn't I talk so about my own father?"

"Because it's not right."

"Look here, Miss Jacky. Nobody thinks as much of the major as I do--he's the kindest, noblest, gamest chap alive--but you see, I'm a man, and he's a man. When he got married at twenty-one, he took the risk of having a son in the field before he was ready to quit himself."

"Do you--do you remember your mother?" asked Jacqueline, in a low voice.

"No," answered Jack, fixing his dark eyes seriously on Jacqueline. "I have a miniature of her that my father gave me when I was twenty-one. He keeps her picture in his room, and on the anniversary of her death he spends the day alone. Once in a great while he has talked to me about her."

Jacqueline glanced at Throckmorton with a new interest. He was still talking to Judith. The pleased look on the major's face aroused the mischievous devil in Jack. In five minutes Jacqueline, to her disgust and disappointment, found herself talking to Dr. Wortley, while Jack had established himself on the other side of Judith. Neither Throckmorton nor Judith was pleased to see him.

"You ought to hear my father tell about some of his campaigns 'way back in the fifties," remarked Jack. "It's a good while ago, but the major isn't sensitive about his age like some men."

Perhaps the major was not, but Jack's observation was received in grim silence.

"I am sure Major Throckmorton can tell us a great many interesting things," answered Judith, smiling involuntarily--"particularly to us who lead such quiet lives, and who know so little. I sometimes wonder how I shall ever be able to bring up my boy; I have so few ideas, and they seem to be all rusting away."

"I thought you were a great reader," said Throckmorton.

"I like to read, but--"

"My father is a Trojan of a reader," continued Jack, "and his eyesight is really wonderful."

At this the major, with the cast in his eye very obvious, rose and walked over to where Jacqueline was sitting. Jack had accomplished his object, and ran his father out of the field. But Judith felt a sense of bitter disappointment. However, with the sweetness of her nature, she overcame her resentful feelings toward Jack, and, in spite of his boyish disposition to make people uncomfortable, really began to like him.

Throckmorton, though, was not ill pleased on the whole. It was by an effort that he had kept away from Jacqueline until then. But, after talking with her awhile, he was not quite so well satisfied. Her childishness was pretty, and the acuteness of her remarks sometimes surprised him, but there was nothing to her--she talked and thought about herself. Throckmorton tried once or twice to get her into the channel of rational conversation, but Jacqueline rebelled. She acknowledged with a pretty smile that she hated books, and that she was poor company for herself. Throckmorton felt a tinge of pity for her. What would become of her twenty years hence--so pretty, so charming, so inconsequent?

Freke had in the mean time completed his conquest of Mrs. Sherrard. Presently he went to the piano and trolled out songs in a rich barytone, playing his own accompaniments. This musical gift was a revelation to Mrs. Sherrard. It was not comparable, though, to his violin-playing. Nevertheless, it was enough to turn Jacqueline's head a little. Freke sang a sentimental song, with a tender refrain, and every time he sang this refrain he cast a glance at Jacqueline.

Gradually the blood mounted to her face, until, when he stopped, she was as rosy as the morning. Then Freke sat down by her, and after that Jacqueline had no eyes for anybody else--not even Jack.

Throckmorton saw it, with a strong disgust for Freke, and with that same strange pang of jealousy he had felt before. Judith's angry disapproval burned within her, but she made no attempt to circumvent Freke until, looking around after a while, she missed him and Jacqueline both.

Judith, watching her opportunity, slipped out into the hall, and there found the culprits. Jacqueline made a little futile effort to pretend that they were looking at some prints by the light of a solitary kerosene-lamp; but Freke, who at least had no pretence about him, held on boldly to Jacqueline's hand, until she wrenched it away.

"Jacqueline, dear," said Judith, trying to speak naturally, "it is cold out here; come in!"

"I'm not cold," answered Jacqueline after a pause.

"But it is not polite to run away like this," urged Judith, casting an angry look at Freke, who, with folded arms, was whistling softly.

"I can't help that, Judith," answered Jacqueline, pettishly. "Why do you want me in that stiff drawing-room with old Dr. Wortley and Mrs. Sherrard, and--"

"But Jacqueline, _I_ want you!"

There was no mistaking that tone.

"Go along, Jacky," said Freke, with cheerful submission. "You'll be liable to catch some dreadful moral complaint if you breathe the same atmosphere with me too long. I am a sinner of high degree, I am."

Jacqueline turned and sullenly followed Judith back, while Freke, smiling and unruffled, walked by her side. And then supper was served, but Jacqueline was perfectly distrait and could not keep her eyes off Freke, who was the life and soul of the party. The supper was after the Virginia order--very good--and so profuse it could not all be got on the table.

On the drive home there was perfect silence. Freke made one or two observations to Judith, but her cold silence convinced him that it was useless. He was not afraid of her, but he saw no good in pretending to placate her. When they reached Barn Elms and were standing in the cold hall, Judith said to Jacqueline:

"Go on. I shall be up in a moment."

"I'll wait for you," replied Jacqueline, doggedly.

"You may wait, but I wish to speak to Freke privately. I shall take him into the drawing-room."

At this, Jacqueline went slowly and unwillingly up the stairs.

Judith picked up the lamp and went into the dark drawing-room. The fire still smoldered dimly in the great fireplace. Freke took up the tongs and made a vigorous attack on the fire, and in two minutes the flames were leaping around the brass firedogs. Then he settled himself comfortably in the corner of the sofa.

Judith, although her determination was made, yet felt timid, and her heart beat.

"What excuse can you give," she asked in an unsteady voice, "for your behavior with that child to-night?"

"None whatever," answered Freke, coolly. "I am not bound to justify myself to you, nor do I admit there was anything to be excused."

"You are right in saying you are not bound to justify yourself to me," said Judith; "but can you justify yourself to her father and mother? You see how she is. You know what they--what we all--think of you. You are a married man, remember."

"Am I?" asked Freke, laughing. "By Jove, I wish I knew whether I was or not!"

"What right have you to fill Jacqueline's head with dreams and notions? The child was well enough until you came. Why can't you go away and leave her in peace?"

Freke smiled at this. "I don't feel like going away," he said, "and particularly now that I see you wish me to go. I have rather different plans in view now that I have bought property here. It doesn't look well for a man to be cast off by his relations; and I intend to have, if I can, the backing of the Temples."

"But how long, think you, could you stay, if the child's mother knew of your behavior to-night?"

"That I don't know. But I wish to stay, Madam Judith; and, since you are so prudish, I will promise you not look at Jacqueline again. Will that satisfy you?"

"I will first see how you keep your promise. But I warn you, Freke, if you remain here much longer, I shall use all the influence in my power to get you out of this house. You are no advantage to the child. It would be better for her if you went away and never came back."

Freke had been sitting all this time, while Judith, standing up, pale and disdainful, spoke to him. But now he rose.

"Now," he said with sudden seriousness, "since you have expressed that hospitable intention concerning me, let me tell you something--something very interesting, that I have suspected for some time, but only found out to-night. You remember I told you of that death-struggle of Beverley's with an officer--how they rolled over and over and fought."

"Yes--yes--"

"And how the officer's horse, held by the bridle, I thought every moment would trample--"

"Yes--yes--yes!" cried Judith.

"Well," said Freke, coming up close to her, "Throckmorton was that officer!"

Freke had meant to give her one fierce pang; it was a delicious thing to him to strike her through Throckmorton; but he was quite unprepared for the result, for Judith, although young and strong, after standing for a moment gazing at Freke with wild eyes, swayed and without a sound dropped to the floor in a dead faint.

Freke, cursing his own folly, ran to her and called loudly. His voice echoed through the midnight silence of the house. It brought Mrs. Temple, frightened and half dressed, into the room, followed by Delilah, struggling into her petticoats, and Simon Peter, scratching his wool and but half awake.

Freke had raised Judith on his arm. Something strange, like pity, of which he knew but little, came to him as he looked at her pallid face.

"You git 'way, Marse Temple," said Delilah, with authority. "Me an' mistis kin manage dis heah.--Hi, Miss Judy! Open yo' eyes, honey, an' tell what de matter wid you."

Mrs. Temple, who never lost her head in emergencies, in five minutes had Judith in a fair way of coming to herself. Freke said truthfully that he never was so surprised in his life as when Judith fell over. Mrs. Temple could not account for it either, and proposed to leave the solution to Dr. Wortley when he should be sent for in the morning. In a few minutes more Judith came to and sat up. Almost her first conscious glance fell on Freke. She gazed at him steadily, and in an instant the conviction that what he had said was mere wanton cruelty came to her. Freke himself avoided her glance uneasily.

"Honey, tell yo' ole mammy wh'yar hu'ts you," pleaded Delilah, anxious to take charge of the case in advance of Dr. Wortley.

"Nowhere at all. I only want to get to bed.--Mother, I hope father wasn't waked."

"My dear, nothing short of an explosion would wake him."

Mrs. Temple wisely refrained from tormenting Judith with questions. Her fainting-fit was certainly unaccountable, but Mrs. Temple remembered once or twice in her own early days when she had done the same thing. So she merely gave Judith some brandy-and-water, and in a few minutes, with Delilah's help, got her on the old-fashioned sofa.

While Mrs. Temple and Delilah were stirring about the room, shutting up for the night and raking the fire down, Freke came up to Judith. Revenge was familiar to him, but not revenge on women, and remorse was altogether new to him.

"What I told you," he began, awkwardly, "the facts in the case--"

"Say no more about it; I don't believe you!" answered Judith in a low voice, but scornful beyond description.

Freke's rage blazed up under that tone.

"You don't believe me? Then I'll make Throckmorton tell you himself. I can find it out from him without his suspecting it, and I'll make him tell you how he killed your husband."

Judith drew back and gave him a look that was equivalent to a slap in the face. Just then Mrs. Temple and Delilah went out into the hall to make fast the door.

"Well, then, if by any accident you have told me the truth, it was the fortune of war--"

"Yes, but the hand that killed your husband! Ah! do you think I don't see it all--all--all--not only what has happened, but what is happening now?"

Judith rose slowly from her sofa, forgetting her weakness. At that moment Freke thought he had never seen her look so handsome. Her eyes, usually a soft, dark gray, were black with indignation; her cheeks burned; she looked capable of killing him where he stood. She opened her lips once or twice to speak, but no sound came. She had no words to express what she felt at that moment. Freke felt a sensation of triumph. At last he had brought this proud spirit to book; and Throckmorton--at least if she scorned himself, Freke--she was forever out of Throckmorton's reach. There was a gulf between them now that nothing on earth could bridge over. He stood in a calm and easy attitude, his face only less expressive than Judith's. Nobody who saw Freke then could say, as Mrs. Temple sometimes had said, "What is there so interesting in Freke's face?" It was full of power and passion.

It seemed an age to each as they stood there, but it was really only a few moments. Mrs. Temple and Delilah came back. Judith nodded to Freke, and walked off, disdaining Delilah's arm. She felt pride in showing him her strength and composure. She even glanced back at him, and gave him a smile from her pale lips.

"You have a spirit like a man!" he cried after her, involuntarily. Mrs. Temple thought he meant because Judith had rallied so quickly from her fainting-fit.

"Rather a spirit like a woman!" answered Judith, in a loud, clear voice, as she went up the stairs.

It was some little time before she could get rid of Mrs. Temple and Delilah. But presently the door was locked, and she was alone.

Some power beyond her will drew her steps to the window that looked toward Millenbeck. The moon had gone down, and a few clouds scurried across the pale immensity of the sky, whipped by the winds of night. There was enough of the ghastly half-light to distinguish the dark masses of the trees and even the outline of the Millenbeck house. From the window which she knew well enough belonged to Throckmorton's own den the cheerful light still streamed. He was sitting there, reading and smoking, no doubt. She could imagine exactly how he looked. His face, when he was silent, was rather stern, which made the charm of his smile and his words more captivating by contrast. And what horror she ought to feel of this man!--for, in spite of that first involuntary protest that she did not believe Freke, the heart-breaking conviction came to her every moment that he was telling the truth. But did she feel horror and hatred of Throckmorton? Ah! no. And when she tried to think of Beverley, the feeling that he was dead; that he would trouble her no more; that he was forever gone out of her life, filled her with something that was frightfully like joy.

But when she remembered that an open grave lay between her and Throckmorton, it was not something like anguish she felt--it was anguish itself. Here was a man she might have loved--a man infinitely worthy of love--this much she acknowledged to herself; and yet Fate had married her to a man she never could have loved. For at that moment she saw as by a flash of lightning the falseness of her marriage and her widowhood. She dared not think any longer; she could only throw herself on her bed, and try and stifle among the pillows her sobs and cries. And, remembering Beverley and Throckmorton and Freke, and his words to her that night, this gentle and soft-hearted creature sounded all the depths of grief, love, shame, hatred. She tried to pray, but her prayers--if prayers they could be called--were mere outcries against the inexorable and unpitying God. "Dear Lord, what have I done to thee that I should suffer so?"

The night wore on, the candles burned out, the fire was a mere red glow of embers. Anguish and despair, like other passions, spend themselves. Judith had ceased to weep, and lay on her bed with a sort of icy torpor upon her. Little Beverley, who rarely stirred in his sleep, waked up and called for his mother; but even the child's voice had no power to move her. The little boy, finding himself unnoticed, crawled out of his small bed and came to his mother's side. The sound of his baby voice, the touch of his little warm, moist hands, awakened something like remorse in her. She tried to help him up on the bed, but her arms fell helplessly--she, this strong young woman, was as weak as a child with the conflict of emotions. The boy, however--a sturdy little fellow--climbed up alone and nestled to her. She covered him up and held him close to her, and kissed him coldly once or twice. "My child, he killed your father," she said to him, thinking of Throckmorton, and that perhaps, for the child's sake, she might arouse some feeble spark of regret for the father--some dutiful hatred of Throckmorton. But she could do neither the one nor the other.

At last, as a wet, miserable, gloomy dawn approached, she fell into a wretched sleep. Judith's unexpected fainting-fit was a very good excuse for her keeping her room for a day or two--a merciful provision for her, as, along with other new experiences, she found for the first time that her soul was stronger than her body, and that grief had made her ill. She expected, in all those wretched hours that she lay in her darkened room, that every time the door opened it would be Mrs. Temple coming with a ghastly face to tell her the dreadful thing that Freke knew; and the mere apprehension made her heart stand still. She, this candid and sincere woman, rehearsed to herself the very words and tones that she would express a grief and horror she did not feel. But when several days passed, and the explosion did not come, she concluded that Freke, for his own reasons, meant to keep it to himself.

For Freke's part, he had no intention of telling anybody except Judith. He had no mind to bring about the storm that would follow his revelation. He meant to show Judith that gulf between Throckmorton and herself, and that was all. He would have been unfeignedly sorry had the hospitable doors of Millenbeck been no longer open to him.

When Judith came down-stairs, he felt a great curiosity to know how she would meet him. He himself was perfectly easy and natural in his manner to her; and she, to his enforced admiration, was equally self-possessed with him, although she could not always control the expression of her eyes. "What a Spartan she is!" thought Freke to himself. "She could die of grief and chagrin with a smile on her lips, and with her voice as smooth and musical as the velvet wind of summer."