Dawn of the Morning. Grace Livingston Hill
a sword could not have penetrated.
Death had kindly erased the deep lines of suffering from Mary Montgomery's beautiful face, and told no tales of the broken heart; but to see what he had once loved, pure and lovely as it used to be, with no trace of the havoc he had wrought upon it, spoke louder to the conscience of the man than a sorrowful face could have done; for then he might have turned from her with a hardened heart, saying it was all her own fault and she had got only what she deserved. But to see her thus was as if God's finger had touched her and exonerated her from all blame. The sight shook the very foundations of his belief in her disgrace.
He was filled with conflicting emotions. He had not supposed that he could feel this way, for he had thought that his love for Mary was dead; yet it had raised its dishonored head and given him one piercing look, while it had seemed to say to his heart, "You are too late! You are too late!"
The sound of footsteps coming down the hall recalled him to himself. It came to him that this was what he had been brought here for, this dramatic effect of Mary's death, perhaps for revenge, perhaps to try to make him acknowledge that he had been in the wrong.
He stiffened visibly and turned toward the door. His heart, so accustomed to the hardening process, grew adamant again, and he was ready with a haughty word to greet the father, but the dignity of the white-haired man who entered the room held him in check.
Mr. Montgomery went over to the window, merely giving his visitor a grave bow in passing, and pushed up the heavy shades. The sunlight burst joyously in upon the solemnity of the room, unhindered by the sheer muslin curtains, and flung its golden glory about the sweet face in the coffin, making a halo of light above the soft, dark waves of hair.
The younger man's eyes were drawn irresistibly to look at her once more, and the sight startled him more than ever, for now she seemed like a crowned saint, whose irreproachable life was too sacred for him to come near.
The old man came over and stood in the pathway of light from the window, though not so as to hinder its falling on the dead face, and turned toward his former son-in-law.
Then and not till then did the visitor notice that the old man held in his arms a beautiful boy between two and three years old.
Proudly the grandfather stood with the chubby arm around his neck and the dimpled fingers patting his cheek. The sunlight fell in a broad illumination over the head and face of the child, kindling into flame the masses of tumbled curls which showed the same rich mahogany tint that had always made Hamilton Van Rensselaer's head a distinguished mark in any company. The baby's eyes were a wonderful gray, which even now held flashes of steel—albeit flashes of fun and not of passion. As the man looked, they mirrored back his own startlingly. In the round baby cheeks were two dimples strikingly placed, the counterpart of two that daring Nature had triflingly set in the otherwise stern countenance of the man. The likeness was marvellous.
In sheer astonishment the man gazed at the child, and then as he looked the baby frowned, and he saw his own face in miniature, identical even to the sternness which was the prevailing expression of his countenance.
Suddenly the man felt that he stood before God and was being judged and rebuked for his treatment of the dead. The awful remorse that stung his soul burst forth in a single sentence which was wrung from him by an unseen force:
"Why did you never tell me?"
He flashed the rebuke at the old man, but the dark eyes under the heavy white brows only looked at him the more steadily and did not flinch, as if they would tell him to look to himself for an answer to his question.
The steady gaze did its work. It was the Nemesis before which his pride and self-esteem fell. His glance went from the righteous face of the old man to the pure and beautiful eyes of the boy, now frowning with disapproval, and he dropped into a chair with a groan.
"I have been wrong!" he said, and bowed his head, the last atom of his pride rent away from him. There beside the dead, great scorching tears of bitterness found their way to his eyes, washing away the scales of blind conceit, and bringing clearer vision. Mary Montgomery was vindicated in the eyes of the man who had wronged her.
But the baby frowned and cried softly:
"Hush, bad man! You go away! You wake my pitty muvver! She's 's'eep!"
The strong man shrank from the child's words as from a blow, and looked up with almost a pleading on his usually cold face. But the old man watched him sternly.
"Yes, it is enough. You may go. There is nothing more to be said. Now you understand. This is why I sent for you. It was her right."
"But," said the stricken man, and looked toward the sleeping one in the coffin, "may I not wait until——"
"You have no right," the old man answered sternly, and the young man turned away with a strange wild feeling tearing his throat like a sob.
"No, I have no right."
Then with a sudden movement he turned toward the child as if he would claim something there, but the baby hid his face and clung to his grandfather's neck.
"I have no right," he said again. One last look he gave the sweet dead face, as though he would ask forgiveness, then turned and went unsteadily from the room.
The old father followed him silently, as though to complete some ceremony, and, closing the door softly behind him, spoke a few words of explanation, facts that had they been brought forth sooner might have made all things different. It was Mary's wish that no word should be spoken in her vindication while she lived. If her husband could not trust what she had told him when he first came home, it mattered not to her what he believed. The hope of her life was crushed. But now that she was beyond further pain, and for the boy's sake, her father had sent for him that he might know these things before the wife he had wronged was laid to rest.
Then Van Rensselaer felt himself dismissed, and with one last look at the huddled figure of his little son, who still kept his face hid, he went down the path again, his pride utterly crushed, his life a broken thing.
After him echoed the sound of a baby's voice, "Go away, bad man!" and then the great oak door closed quickly behind him for the last time.
He trod the streets of the village as in a nightmare, and knew not that there were those in his way who would have tarred and feathered him if it had not been for love of the honored dead and her family. Straight into the country he walked, to the next village, and knew not how far he had come. There he hired a horse and rode to the next stage route, and so, resting not even at night, he came to his home. But ever on the way he had been attended by a vision, on the left a sweet-faced figure in a coffin, with one white rose whose perfume stifled him, and on the right by a bright-haired boy with eyes that pierced his very soul. And whether on horseback or by stage, in the company of others or alone in a dreary woodland road, they were there on either hand, and he knew they would be so while life for him should last.
He reached home in the gray of a morning that was to become a gray day, and sent up word that his little daughter should come down to his study when her early tasks were finished.
He had not said a word to his wife as yet, though she had suspected where he was going when he told her that Mary Montgomery was dead. It lifted a great load from her shoulders to know that the other wife was no longer living. She had been going about these three days with almost a smile upon her hard countenance, and the little girl had had no easy time of it with her father away.
It was very still in the study after Dawn sat down in the straight-backed chair opposite her father. She could hear the old clock tick solemnly, slowly. It said, "Poor-child! Poor-child! Poor-child! Poor-child!" until the tears began to smart in her eyes.
Her father sat with his elbow on the desk, and his handsome head bowed upon his hand. He did not raise his head when she entered. She began to wonder if he was asleep, and her heart beat with awe and dread. Nothing good had ever come to her out of these interviews in the study. Perhaps he was going to send her away, too, as he had sent her mother. Her little face hardened. Well, she would be glad to go. What if he should send her to her mother! Oh, that would be joy!—but