As he talked, Presley was looking at her intently. Her dignity was a new element in her character and the certain slender effect of her figure, emphasised now by the long folds of the black gown she wore, carried it almost superbly. She conveyed something of the impression of a queen in exile. But she had lost none of her womanliness; rather, the contrary. Adversity had softened her, as well as deepened her. Presley saw that very clearly. Hilma had arrived now at her perfect maturity; she had known great love and she had known great grief, and the woman that had awakened in her with her affection for Annixter had been strengthened and infinitely ennobled by his death.
What if things had been different? Thus, as he conversed with her, Presley found himself wondering. Her sweetness, her beautiful gentleness, and tenderness were almost like palpable presences. It was almost as if a caress had been laid softly upon his cheek, as if a gentle hand closed upon his. Here, he knew, was sympathy; here, he knew, was an infinite capacity for love.
Then suddenly all the tired heart of him went out towards her. A longing to give the best that was in him to the memory of her, to be strong and noble because of her, to reshape his purposeless, half-wasted life with her nobility and purity and gentleness for his inspiration leaped all at once within him, leaped and stood firm, hardening to a resolve stronger than any he had ever known.
For an instant he told himself that the suddenness of this new emotion must be evidence of its insincerity. He was perfectly well aware that his impulses were abrupt and of short duration. But he knew that this was not sudden. Without realising it, he had been from the first drawn to Hilma, and all through these last terrible days, since the time he had seen her at Los Muertos, just after the battle at the ditch, she had obtruded continually upon his thoughts. The sight of her today, more beautiful than ever, quiet, strong, reserved, had only brought matters to a culmination.
“Are you,” he asked her, “are you so unhappy, Hilma, that you can look forward to no more brightness in your life?”
“Unless I could forget—forget my husband,” she answered, “how can I be happy? I would rather be unhappy in remembering him than happy in forgetting him. He was my whole world, literally and truly. Nothing seemed to count before I knew him, and nothing can count for me now, after I have lost him.”
“You think now,” he answered, “that in being happy again you would be disloyal to him. But you will find after a while—years from now—that it need not be so. The part of you that belonged to your husband can always keep him sacred, that part of you belongs to him and he to it. But you are young; you have all your life to live yet. Your sorrow need not be a burden to you. If you consider it as you should—as you will some day, believe me—it will only be a great help to you. It will make you more noble, a truer woman, more generous.”
“I think I see,” she answered, “and I never thought about it in that light before.”
“I want to help you,” he answered, “as you have helped me. I want to be your friend, and above all things I do not want to see your life wasted. I am going away and it is quite possible I shall never see you again, but you will always be a help to me.”
“I do not understand,” she answered, “but I know you mean to be very, very kind to me. Yes, I hope when you come back—if you ever do—you will still be that. I do not know why you should want to be so kind, unless—yes, of course—you were my husband’s dearest friend.”
They talked a little longer, and at length Presley rose.
“I cannot bring myself to see Mrs. Derrick again,” he said. “It would only serve to make her very unhappy. Will you explain that to her? I think she will understand.”
“Yes,” answered Hilma. “Yes, I will.”
There was a pause. There seemed to be nothing more for either of them to say. Presley held out his hand.
“Goodbye,” she said, as she gave him hers.
He carried it to his lips.
“Goodbye,” he answered. “Goodbye and may God bless you.”
He turned away abruptly and left the room. But as he was quietly making his way out of the house, hoping to get to his horse unobserved, he came suddenly upon Mrs. Dyke and Sidney on the porch of the house. He had forgotten that since the affair at the ditch, Los Muertos had been a home to the engineer’s mother and daughter.
“And you, Mrs. Dyke,” he asked as he took her hand, “in this breakup of everything, where do you go?”
“To the city,” she answered, “to San Francisco. I have a sister there who will look after the little tad.”
“But you, how about yourself, Mrs. Dyke?”
She answered him in a quiet voice, monotonous, expressionless:
“I am going to die very soon, Mr. Presley. There is no reason why I should live any longer. My son is in prison for life, everything is over for me, and I am tired, worn out.”
“You mustn’t talk like that, Mrs. Dyke,” protested Presley, “nonsense; you will live long enough to see the little tad married.” He tried to be cheerful. But he knew his words lacked the ring of conviction. Death already overshadowed the face of the engineer’s mother. He felt that she spoke the truth, and as he stood there speaking to her for the last time, his arm about little Sidney’s shoulder, he knew that he was seeing the beginnings of the wreck of another family and that, like Hilda Hooven, another baby girl was to be started in life, through no fault of hers, fearfully handicapped, weighed down at the threshold of
