She listened, motionless, though something of what that
narrative cost her I knew by the current of sympathy that ran now between
us. Unmarked, the day faded, a new light was spread over the waters, the
mist was spangled with silver points, the Spanish moss took on the
whiteness of lace against the black forest swamp, and on the yellow face
of the moon the star-shaped leaves of a gum were printed.
At length I paused. She neither spoke, nor moved--save for the rising
and falling of her shoulders. The hardest thing I had to say I saved for
the last, and I was near lacking the courage to continue.
"There is Mademoiselle Antoinette--" I began, and stopped,--she turned on
me so quickly and laid a hand on mine.
"Nick loves her!" she cried.
"You know it!" I exclaimed, wondering.
"Ah, David," she answered brokenly, "I foresaw it from the first. I,
too, love the girl. No human being has ever given me such care and such
affection. She--she is all that I have left. Must I give her up? Have
I not paid the price of my sins?"
I did not answer, knowing that she saw the full cruelty of the
predicament. What happiness remained to her now of a battered life stood
squarely in the way of her son's happiness. That was the issue, and no
advice or aid of mine could change it. There was another silence that
seemed to me an eternity as I watched, a helpless witness, the struggle
going on within her.
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