Mrs. Meredith Has a Conscience

That was all; but the paper dropped from the trembling hands, and the
proud woman of the world bowed her head upon the cold marble of the
table and wept aloud. She was not Mrs. Meredith now. She was Julia
Ruthven again, and she stood with Edward Coleman out in the grassy
orchard, where the apple-blossoms were dropping from the trees and the
air was full of insects' hum and the song of matin birds. She was the
wealthy Mrs. Meredith now, and he was dead in Strasburgh. True to her
he had been to the last; for he had never married, and those who had
met him abroad had brought back the same report of "a white-haired
man, old before his time, with a tired, sad look upon his face." That
look she had written there, and she wept on as she recalled the past
and murmured softly: "Poor Edward! I loved you all the while, but I sold myself for gold,
and it turned your brown locks snowy-white, poor darling!" and her
hands moved up and down the folds of her cashmere robe, as if it were
the brown locks they were smoothing just as they used to do. Then came
a thought of Anna, whose face wore much the look which Edward's did
when he went slowly from the orchard and left her there alone, with
the apple-blossoms dropping on her head and the wild bees' hum in her
ear.

"I can at least do right in that respect," she said; "I can undo the
past to some extent and lessen the load of sin rolling upon my
shoulders. I will write to Arthur Leighton. I surely need tell no one
else; not yet, at least, lest he has outlived his love for Anna. I can
trust to his discretion and to his honor, too. He will not betray me
unless it is necessary, and then only to Anna. Edward would bid me do
it if he could speak. He was somewhat like Arthur Leighton."