The daughters and daughter-in-law let fall their veils and pulled on
their gloves, and Herbert Dorrance beckoned somewhat impatiently to
his wife from the parlor door. While she was on her way to join him,
she saw his complexion vary to a greenish sallow, his mouth work
spasmodically, and his eyes sink in anger or dismay.
Winston Aylett likewise noted and knew it, for the same look of
abject terror he had observed upon the hard Scotch face when Mabel
enumerated upon her fingers those she accused of having robbed her
of her babe.
The wife attributed it to displeasure at seeing Frederic Chilton
among the mourners. Her whilom guardian, never charitable overmuch,
inclined the more to the belief begotten within him by other
incidents, to wit: that his brother-in-law's talk was more doughty
than his deeds, and his real sentiment upon beholding the man he
boasted of having flogged as a libertine and coward, was physical
dread for his own safety. Watchful alike of the other party to the
ancient quarrel, he was rewarded by the sight of Chilton's
irrepressible start and frown, when Mabel put her hand within her
husband's arm, and stood awaiting the formation of the procession.
The discarded lover gazed steadfastly into Dorrance's countenance in
passing to his place, in recognition that scouted assimilarity with
salutation, but his eye did not waver or his color fade.
"I would not be afraid to wager that this is but another version of
the fable of the statue of the man rampant and the lion couchant,"
thought Mr. Aylett, following with his wife in the funeral train
down the grass-grown alley leading through the garden to the family
burying-ground. "It would be an entertaining study of human veracity
if I could hear Chilton's story, and compare the two. He is either
an audacious rascal, or there is something back of all that I have
heard which will not bear the light."
It was not remorse at the thought of the total alteration in his
sister's life and feelings that had grown out of this imperfect or
false evidence, but simple curiosity to inspect the lineaments and
note the actions of the cool rascal whose audacity commanded his
admiration, and note his bearing in the event of his coming into
closer contact with his former foe, that prompted him to single him
out for scrutiny among those whose relationship to the deceased
secured them places nearest the grave.
For a time the widower was gravely quiet, holding his child's hand
and looking down steadfastly into the pit at his feet, perhaps
remembering more vividly than anything else a certain sunny day in
March, many years back, when another fissure yawned close by, where
now a green mound--the ridged scar with which the earth had closed
the wound in her breast--and a stately shaft of white marble were
all that remained to the world of "Rosa, wife of Frederic Chilton."
But, while the mould was being heaped upon the coffin, he raised his
eyes, and let them rove aimlessly over the crowd, neither avoiding
nor courting observation--the cursory regard of a man who had no
strong interest in any person or group there. They changed
singularly in resting upon the family from Ridgeley. A stare of
stupefaction gave place to living fires of angry suspicion and
amazement--lurid flame that testified its violence in the reddening
of cheeks and brow, in the dilating nostril and quivering lips. Then
he passed his hand downward over his features, evidently conscious
of their distortion, and striving after a semblance of equanimity,
and looked again in stern fixity, not at her from whom he had been
parted in the early summer of his manhood, nor at his successful
rival, nor yet at the guardian who had offered him gratuitous insult
in addition to the injury of refusing to permit his ward's marriage
with a disgraced adventurer--but at Mrs. Aylett, the chatelaine of
Ridgeley, the wife whose serene purity had never been blemished by a
doubting breath; chaste and polished matron; the admired copy for
younger and less discreet, but not more beautiful women. He surveyed
her boldly--if the imagination had not seemed preposterous--Mr.
Aylett would have said scornfully, as he might study the face and
figure of some abandoned wretch who had accosted him in the public
thoroughfare as an acquaintance.