Part 75

The mother seemed to assent, for the child began--

'The robin has fled from the wood To the snug habitation of man.'

This performance apparently attracted but little attention from the child's companion, for the young voice suggested, as a new form of entertainment, 'Shall I say my prayers?'

'Yes,' replied one whom Swithin had begun to recognize.

'Who shall I pray for?'

No answer.

'Who shall I pray for?'

'Pray for father.'

'But he is gone to heaven?'

A sigh from Viviette was distinctly audible.

'You made a mistake, didn't you, mother?' continued the little one.

'I must have. The strangest mistake a woman ever made!'

Nothing more was said, and Swithin ascended, words from above indicating to him that his footsteps were heard. In another half-minute he rose through the hatchway. A lady in black was sitting in the sun, and the boy with the flaxen hair whom he had seen yesterday was at her feet.

'Viviette!' he said.

'Swithin!--at last!' she cried.

The words died upon her lips, and from very faintness she bent her head. For instead of rushing forward to her he had stood still; and there appeared upon his face a look which there was no mistaking.

Yes; he was shocked at her worn and faded aspect. The image he had mentally carried out with him to the Cape he had brought home again as that of the woman he was now to rejoin. But another woman sat before him, and not the original Viviette. Her cheeks had lost for ever that firm contour which had been drawn by the vigorous hand of youth, and the masses of hair that were once darkness visible had become touched here and there by a faint grey haze, like the Via Lactea in a midnight sky.

Yet to those who had eyes to understand as well as to see, the chastened pensiveness of her once handsome features revealed more promising material beneath than ever her youth had done. But Swithin was hopelessly her junior. Unhappily for her he had now just arrived at an age whose canon of faith it is that the silly period of woman's life is her only period of beauty. Viviette saw it all, and knew that Time had at last brought about his revenges. She had tremblingly watched and waited without sleep, ever since Swithin had re-entered Welland, and it was for this.

Swithin came forward, and took her by the hand, which she passively allowed him to do.

'Swithin, you don't love me,' she said simply.

'O Viviette!'

'You don't love me,' she repeated.

'Don't say it!'

'Yes, but I will! you have a right not to love me. You did once. But now I am an old woman, and you are still a young man; so how can you love me? I do not expect it. It is kind and charitable of you to come and see me here.'

'I have come all the way from the Cape,' he faltered, for her insistence took all power out of him to deny in mere politeness what she said.

'Yes; you have come from the Cape; but not for me,' she answered. 'It would be absurd if you had come for me. You have come because your work there is finished. . . . I like to sit here with my little boy--it is a pleasant spot. It was once something to us, was it not? but that was long ago. You scarcely knew me for the same woman, did you?'

'Knew you--yes, of course I knew you!'

'You looked as if you did not. But you must not be surprised at me. I belong to an earlier generation than you, remember.'