Page:Possession (1926).pdf/389

 "There was a story that he shot himself. . . . That wasn't true, was it?"

Ellen did not answer at once. She took the hand of the baby in hers, and looking away, replied in a low voice, "No, it wasn't true. . . . You remember he had a weak heart. It was his heart that killed him."

"I'm glad," said May softly. "I always liked him. I wouldn't want to think he'd committed suicide."

She stood in the doorway, unconscious of the cold until the figure of May, swaying from side to side and surrounded by the phalanx of offspring, had disappeared among the shadows of the lilacs.

In the hallway, Rebecca was awaiting her.

"Thank God, that's over," she said with a laugh, but she must have noticed that Ellen did not respond.

"She was a friend of mine," Ellen observed gravely. "I grew up with her."

Again Rebecca laughed in that same hard, worldly fashion. "I must say she has been more abundant than you."

This time Ellen made no answer at all. She was hypnotized by the memory of the look that had come into May's eyes at the mention of Clarence. It was an embarrassed, shy look, but it glowed all the same with a fire that had never burned for Herman Biggs. And Ellen understood then for the first time that she had been wrong after all, for Clarence—poor, meek, inarticulate Clarence, who had been dead for years—was to May a romantic figure, a fascinating creature. May had thought of him always. . . perhaps in the same fashion in which she herself thought of Callendar.

It had been all wrong since the beginning. There was no longer any doubt. It was May whom he should have married. And she wondered again for the thousandth time what it was that had turned him toward herself.

But the dog was still howling in loneliness. She walked along