The Heart

But when I entered the hall Madam Cavendish, having sent away the

slaves, even to the little wench who had been fanning her, with

verily I believe no more of consciousness as to what was going on

about her than a Jimson weed by the highway, called me to her in a

voice so tremulous that I scarce knew it for hers.

"Harry, Harry," she said, "I pray thee, come here." Then, when I

approached, hesitating, for I had a shrinking before some outburst

of feminine earnestness, which has always intimidated me by its fire

of helplessness and futility playing against some resolve of mine

which I could not, on account of my masculine understanding of the

requirements of circumstances, allow to melt, she reached up one

hand like a little nervous claw of ivory, and caught me by the

sleeve and pulled me down to a stool by her side. Then she looked at

me, and such love and even adoration were in her face as I never saw

surpassed in it, even when she regarded her granddaughter Mary, yet

withal a cruel distress and self-upbraiding and wrath at herself and

me. "Harry, Harry," she said, "I can bear no more of this." Then, to

my consternation, up went her silken apron with a fling to her old

face, and she was weeping under it as unrestrainedly as any child.

I did not know what to do nor say. "Madam," I ventured, finally, "if

you distress yourself in such wise for my sake, 'tis needless, I

assure, 'tis needless, and with as much truth as were you my own

mother."

"Oh, Harry, Harry," she sobbed out, "know you not that is why I

cannot bear it longer, because you yourself bear it with no

complaint?" Then she sobbed and even wailed with that piteousness of

the grief of age exceeding that of infancy, inasmuch as the weight

of all past griefs of a lifetime go to swell it, and it is enhanced

by memory as well as by the present and an unknown future. I knew

not what to do, but laid a hand somewhat timidly on one of her thin

silken arms, and strove to draw it gently from her face. "Madam

Cavendish," I said, "indeed you mistake if you weep for me. At this

moment I would change places with no man in Virginia."

"But I would have--I would have you!" she cried out, with the

ardour of a girl, and down went her apron, and her face, like an

aged mask of tragedy, not discoloured by her tears, as would have

happened with the tender skin of a maid, confronted me. "I would

have you the governor himself, Harry. I would have you--I would

have--" Then she stopped and looked at me with a red showing

through the yellow whiteness of her cheeks. "You know what I would

have, and I know what you would have, and all the rest of my old

life would I give could it be so, Harry," she said, and I saw that

she knew of my love for her granddaughter Mary. Then suddenly she

cried out, vehemently: "Not one word have I said to you about it

since that dreadful time, Harry Wingfield, for shame and that pride

as to my name, which is a fetter on the tongue, hath kept me still,

but at last I will speak, for I can bear it no longer. Harry, Harry,

I know that you are what you are, a convict and an exile, to shield

Catherine, to shield a granddaughter of mine, who should be in your

place. Harry Wingfield, I know that Catherine Cavendish is guilty of

the crime for which you are in punishment, and, woe is me, such is

my pride, such is my wicked pride, that I have let you suffer and

said never one word."