1. Long afterwards Sylvia told me about what happened between her husband and herself; how desperately she tried to avoid discussing the issue with him—out of her very sense of fairness to him. But he came to her room, in spite of her protest, and by his implacable persistence he made her hear what he had to say. When he had made up his mind to a certain course of action, he was no more to be resisted than a glacier.
“Sylvia,” he said, “I know that you are upset by what has happened. I make every allowance for your condition; but there are some statements that I must be permitted to make, and there are simply no two ways about it—you must get yourself together and hear me.”
“Let me see Mary Abbott!” she insisted, again and again. “It may not be what you want—but I demand to see her.”
So at last he said, “You cannot see Mrs. Abbott. She has gone back to New York.” And then, at her look of consternation: “That is one of the things I have to talk to you about.”
“Why has she gone back?” cried Sylvia.
“Because I was unwilling to have her here.”
“You mean you sent her away?”
“I mean that she understood she was no longer welcome.”
Sylvia drew a quick breath and turned away to the window.
He took advantage of the opportunity to come near, and draw up a chair for her. “Will you not pleased to be seated,” he said. And at last she turned, rigidly, and seated herself.
“The time has come,” he declared, “when we have to settle this question of Mrs. Abbott, and her influence upon your life. I have argued with you about such matters, but now what has happened makes further discussion impossible. You were brought up among people of refinement, and it has been incredible to me that you should be willing to admit to your home such a woman as this—not merely of the commonest birth, but without a trace of the refinement to which you have been accustomed. And now you see the consequences of your having brought such a person into our life!”
He paused. She made no sound, and her gaze was riveted upon the window-curtain.
“She happens to be here,” he went on, “at a time when a dreadful calamity befalls us—when we are in need of the utmost sympathy and consideration. Here is an obscure and terrible affliction, which has baffled the best physicians in the country; but this ignorant farmer’s wife considers that she knows all about it. She proceeds to discuss it with every one—sending your poor aunt almost into hysterics, setting the nurses to gossiping—God knows what else she has done, or what she will do, before she gets through. I don’t pretend to know her ultimate purpose—blackmail, possibly——”
“Oh, how can you!” she broke out, involuntarily. “How can you say such a thing about a friend of mine?”
“I might answer with another question—how can you have such a friend? A woman who has cast off every restraint, every consideration of decency—and yet is able to persuade a daughter of the Castlemans to make her an intimate! Possibly she is an honest fanatic. Dr. Perrin tells me she was the wife of a brutal farmer, who mistreated her. No doubt that has embittered her against men, and accounts for her mania. You see that her mind leaped at once to the most obscene and hideous explanation of this misfortune of ours—an explanation which pleased her because it blackened the honour of a man.”
He stopped again. Sylvia’s eyes had moved back to the window-curtain.
“I am not going to insult your ears,” he said, “with discussions of her ideas. The proper person to settle such matters is a physician, and if you wish Dr. Perrin to do so, he will tell you what he knows about the case. But I wish you to realize somehow what this thing has meant to me. I have managed to control myself——” He saw her shut her lips more tightly. “The doctors tell me that I must not excite you. But picture the situation. I come to my home, bowed down with grief for you and for my child. And this mad woman thrusts herself forward, shoves aside your aunt and your physicians, and comes in the launch to meet me at the station. And then she accuses me of being criminally guilty of the blindness of my child—of having wilfully deceived my wife! Think of it—that is my welcome to my home!”
“Douglas,” she cried, wildly, “Mary Abbott would not have done such a thing without reason——”
“I do not purpose to defend myself,” he said, coldly. “If you are bent upon filling your mind with such matters, go to Dr. Perrin. He will tell you that he, as a physician, knows that the charge against me is preposterous. He will tell you that even granting that the ............