The House of Armour

CHAPTER XLII

ACROSS THE SEA

Some weeks later Armour and his wife, with Judy and Mr. Delavigne, installed themselves in a suite of apartments in the principal hotel of a gray old English town. Outside Armour’s room ran a narrow iron balcony, and on this balcony he stood one evening, his hands behind his back, his face upturned to the sky.

“What star are your thoughts on?” asked Vivienne softly, as she came to the open window.

“One called Vivienne; won’t you come out?” he said. “It is very warm.”

“It seems to me that you think a very great deal about that star,” she said roguishly as she accepted the mute invitation of his arm to come and stand beside him.

He wrapped her white-furred dressing gown more closely about her and stowed her long hair in a hood at the back of it. “Now I can see your face. Why should I not think of you, Vivienne? You are a constant source of interest to me with your pretty feminine ways. I don’t think women understand how odd it is for a man who has always lived to himself to have some woman about him with her constant care of him, and her questions as to why he does this thing and that thing and what he is thinking about.”

Vivienne laughed merrily. “Is that why you watch me with such profound interest when I mend your gloves, and why you looked at me in such surprise when I went to your rescue the other day as you struggled with an obstinate necktie?”

“Yes; you are a very fearful and wonderful creation to me at all times; but when I think of you with all your attributes you are a mystery.”

“You are not a mystery to me,” said Vivienne. “I understand you and I am satisfied. Over there is a rookery, Stanton. In the morning you will hear such a cawing.”

“And yonder is the school where you used to sit and look over the trees toward Canada?”

“Yes, Stanton.”

“And read my brief, cold letters, darling? I wish I had known what I know now. How differently I should have written.”

“Yes, I used to read them there, but they did not worry me so very much.”

“And it was there,” he said, “that you, one year ago, put up the photograph to send to me that was to make such a change in my life.”

“Yes, my dear husband, it was. Madame Dubois and I were spending the summer here.”

“I have never told you of the day that I received it, Vivienne. I was exceedingly busy, and in the midst of my rush of work I unfastened the string on the cardboard, and there was your face looking serenely at me. I was completely upset by your surprising likeness to your father, and at once the project of having you come to Canada flashed into my mind. I thought, surely if my father were confronted with you, the daughter of a woman that he had virtually murdered—for I believe if it had not been for him your mother would be alive to-day—his toughened conscience would be touched.”

“What became of the photograph? You have never told me.”

Armour blushed slightly. “I am ashamed to say that I tore it up. I almost hated you in those days; for I thought if the Delavignes had never been born, my father would not have been tempted to commit the crime of his life. I would give a thousand dollars to have it again.”

“Five shillings will get you one,” said Vivienne lightly. “We will visit the photographer to-morrow, and I will order one like it.”

Armour was silent for a time. Then he said thoughtfully, “I wonder how affairs are going on at home.”

“We know that Stargarde goes to the cottage every day to weep and pray beside your father,” said Vivienne softly, “and Flora is happy with the housekeeping, and Valentine practises—ah, Stanton, that first Sunday he sang in church, when he stood beside the organ and raised his calm face to sing ‘Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden,’ I could not keep back the tears. How glad he will be to have us home again."

“How long do you wish to stay away, Vivienne?” asked Armour.

“Until you are happy in returning.”

“I could go back to-morrow.”

“Stanton!” and she looked up at his face which was illumined by the gaslight from the room behind.

“Yes,” he said firmly. “I see now that there is no place to retrieve a lost reputation like one’s own home. If acquaintances of long standing are more curious and critical than strangers they are also more compassionate. The people of Halifax are my people. My father has sinned among them and among them will I endeavor, God helping me, to make what amendment I can for his sins, and for my own sins of pride and obstinacy, and begin my new life where I lived the old.”

Vivienne surveyed him in passionate affection. “I thank heaven every day of my life that I have married a man who is strong enough to acknowledge his weakness, and who knows where to look for aid. Ah, the Divine guidance, Stanton, what should we do without it?” And standing with her hand in her husband’s, she repeated slowly the words of one of her beloved Canadian poets:

1

The following is a free translation [Ed.].