CHAPTER XXXVII.
A LATE REMORSE.
When the dreadful news was carried quickly to Paris, Lucile and Marie forgot all their pride and resentment and remembered only the love and pride they had once had in Charley, their beloved brother.
They set out quickly for the scene of the accident, accompanied by their father and husbands, and they took with them two of the most skillful physicians in the city, hoping they might render some service to the sufferers. When they reached the cottage they found the sufferers hovering between life and death.
The poor chauffeur had met death instantly, and as no one knew if he had any friends at all, preparations were already made to give him a respectable burial in hallowed ground.
When examinations had been duly made it was found that Charley was more seriously injured than his wife. He had an arm and some ribs broken, in addition to many bruises, while Berenice had no bones broken at all, and if she had no internal injuries she ought to recover, the physicians said.
She presently proved the correctness of their diagnosis by rallying under treatment and opening her eyes in a vacant stare that as yet had no light of reason in it; but as for Charley, he was too badly off to show any signs of life for twenty-four hours, save the faint throbbing of his heart. They feared concussion of the brain.
Marie and Lucile, overwhelmed with remorse, outdid themselves in devotion.
As for Senator Bonair, if ever a thought of his betrothed crossed his mind it was with poignant regret that he had given her a promise he could not, in honor, break.
When the patients began to show signs of improvement it only aggravated his chagrin against Rosalind; but for the wedding he could have taken these two dear ones with him to Washington, where Berenice would have made a lovely mistress for the grand new home he had built.
It was strange how quickly the young wife rallied and improved. She had suffered from severe mental shock more than physical injury, and in a week she was able to sit and watch by Charley’s bed and smooth his hot brow with her soft, trembling little hands, vying with the sisters and the nurse who performed the more onerous duties.
A frail white lily, so pure, so fragile, she looked to the sisters who had hated her so, but who now pitied and loved her for her own sweet sake as well as her unfailing devotion to their brother.
So the days came and went until over two weeks had passed; then the grieving family had a great surprise.
There stopped one day before the cottage a carriage, and out of it stepped Rosalind, in her handsomest traveling gown, with an anxious look on her beautiful face.
“Ah, my dear senator!” she cried, holding up her face for a kiss, as he stepped out to meet her. “How glad I am to see you again! As soon as I got your cablegram I started to come to you, feeling that in your trouble my place was by your side to comfort you, for I feared that Marie and Lucile could not come as soon as I.”
She had scarcely uttered the words when the sisters came out to greet her with kisses and loving welcomes.
“But I thought you were absent on your wedding tours?” cried Rosalind, secretly chagrined at their return.
They led her into the small sitting room, and she added, with eager curiosity:
“I was told in Paris that your brother is living yet, but cannot recover. Is it true?”
“He is living yet—and we hope he may recover,” Marie said tearfully, without noticing Rosalind’s frown at the news.
Stifling an angry sob, Rosalind continued spitefully:
“And that horrid girl—the daughter of our village tailoress—she also lives, I suppose? You cannot kill such people! They are very tough.”
She was startled when Lucile said, with a certain proud dignity:
“Please do not talk like that any more, Rosalind, for she is my sister now.”
“And my daughter,” Senator Bonair said tenderly.
“And a sweet, lovely creature!” Marie added frankly.
“Well, upon my word!” cried Rosalind, in frank anger and amazement. She realized that Berenice was forgiven; worse still—beloved.
An insane anger took possession of her, and she longed to strike every one in the face. It seemed to her, in her fury, that she could kill them.
Her anger gave way to hysterical sobbing, and then the sisters fell to soothing her tenderly and explaining how it all came about.
The senator had retreated, frowningly, at the first signs of hysterics, so the three were all alone, and the sisters felt it was the time to give good advice.
“Oh, Rosalind, you will have to give in and be very friendly, or papa will be displeased with you,” they said. “And, after all, it will be better to have peace in the family, don’t you think so? For even if poor Charley lives, he and his wife will never intrude on you, unless you invite them, you know. But now, in the face of death, papa will not love you as well if you do not forgive.”
It was a bitter pill for Rosalind, but she knew they were still her friends, and she did not care to antagonize them until she gained her point.
She sobbed dismally a moment or two, then lifted a piteous face, and murmured:
“Then I must try to forgive my enemies, for your father is the only friend I have in the world now, and if he turns against me I am all undone.”
“Why, how strangely you are talking, Rosalind—you who have a father and mother, and hosts of friends!” they cried, in amazement.
“Alas! you cannot guess at all my troubles. Listen and you will own that my words are true. My father, in his extreme old age, has met with financial disaster that has wrecked his mind. He is confined to his room, my mother his constant, watchful attendant. But worst of all, I have incurred my mother’s anger by undertaking alone this journey to be by your father’s side in his troubles. She forbade me to come. She said it was indiscreet, unwomanly, and that I could never hold up my head again if I outraged society by such a step. She refused me the money for my journey, so I sold my jewels to pay my passage over here.”
“Dear heart!” murmured Marie, pressing Rosalind’s white hand, while Lucile added:
“How noble!”
“Do you think so?” cried Rosalind eagerly. “And do you think your father will be as noble in return? For mamma said if I dared risk my reputation coming to him alone this way there was but one thing a man of honor could do in return for such blind devotion, and that was to marry me out of hand, to silence gossiping tongues. Not that I mind, dear girls, but for mamma’s sake—she is old and prudish, you know—do you think he would be willing to quiet her foolish scruples and ease my heart by a quiet marriage to-morrow? Do you think he would be willing to do me this kindness? Will you, my dear friends, ask him for me?”