"When conscience sees clear, conscience need not budge:
But there are times it cannot clearly see
This way or that, and then it strives to stand,
Holding an even balance in its hand."
--ALFRED AUSTIN.
Sleep was impossible. All through the long hours of the night Philippa lay wide awake, every nerve, every faculty of her mind tuned to the highest point of tension, going over and over the story she had heard.
Her keen sympathy and ready imagination filled in the details which had been omitted, and she pictured the endless succession of weary days which lengthened into years--the mother's anguish as hope grew fainter and was at last extinguished, and, the central figure of the tragedy, the man who for all the years, day in, day out, had waited. "Just waited." The very simplicity of the doctor's words had only added to their pathos.
She thought of her father, and of what his feelings in the matter must have been. She knew well that to a man of his rigid integrity of mind and purpose his sister's action must have been beyond all possible excuse. The mere fact that she had broken her plighted word would have been hard to condone, for to him the violation of a promise once given was impossible, and against all the principles which ruled his life. He would have felt a personal shame that one of his own family should have been guilty of it, and more especially his dearly loved sister; and that in addition she should have acted with what could only be described as utter heartlessness towards the man who had been his dearest friend must have been a sorrow beyond all words.
That this had been literally so was proved to Philippa by the fact that, in spite of the intimacy of thought and speech which had existed between them, he had allowed her to remain in utter ignorance of the whole affair. She had enjoyed his fullest confidence; he had frequently spoken to her of old days, of his boyhood and early manhood, but never once had the names of either Francis Heathcote or his sister passed his lips. And yet, had he not, by his reticence, acted the kindest part? Was not silence the only tribute love could lay upon the grave of the woman who had failed? And he did not foresee, indeed how was it possible that he should, that by the mysterious working of that power which erring men call Chance, the whole sad happening would be brought to light again.
If he had for a moment deemed it possible that his daughter would come face to face with Francis Heathcote, he would surely have prepared her in some way for the meeting, have given her some notion of how he would wish her to act. But even if he had anticipated the possibility of a meeting he could never have imagined that it would come about under such extraordinary circumstances, or that his girl would be called upon to stand in the dead woman's place, and to assume her very personality. And if by some miracle he stood by her side now, what would he wish her to do? That was the question which seemed to dance before Philippa's tired eyes, limned in letters of flame against the black wall of doubt and difficulties which barred the way she was to take.