Rose MacLeod

								

warriors' shields clanging over poor Tarpeia,--precious, but too
crushing. They disconcerted her. If she could not manage to escape after
the first blow, she guessed how they might bruise.
"When did you come?" she asked.
Peter did not answer. He was still looking at her with those wonderful
eyes that always seemed to her too compelling for happy intercourse.
"Electra," he said, and stopped. She had to answer him. There must be
some heavy thing to break to her, which he felt unequal to the task of
telling unless she helped him. "Electra," he said again, "I didn't come
alone. Some one came with me. I wrote you about Tom."
Electra drew her hand away, and sat up straight and chilled. There had
been few moments of her grown-up life, it seemed to her, unspoiled by
Tom, her recreant brother. In the tumultuous steeple chase of his
existence he had brought her nothing but mortification. In his death, he
was at least marring this first moment of her lover's advent.
"You wrote me everything," she said. The tone should have discouraged
him. "You were with him at the last. He knew you. I gather he didn't
send any messages to us, or you would have given them."
"He did, Electra."
"He sent a message?"
"I simply couldn't write it, because I knew I should be home so soon. It
was about his wife. He begged you to be kind to her."
"His wife! Tom was not married."
"He was married, Electra, to a very beautiful girl. I have brought her
home with me."
Electra was upon her feet. Her face had lost its cold sweet pallor. The
scarlet of hot blood was upon it, a swift response to what seemed
outrage at his hands.
"I have never--" she gasped. "It is not true."
Peter, too, had risen. He was looking at her rather wistfully. His
imperial lady had, in that instant, lost her untouched calm. She was
breathing ire.
"Ah, don't say that," he pleaded. "You never saw her."
"I can't help it. I feel it. She is an adventuress."
"Electra!"
"What did he say to you? What did Tom say?"
"He pointed to her as she stood by the window, her back to us--it was
the day before he died--and said, 'Tell them to be good to her.'"
"You see! You don't even know whether he meant it as a message to me or
some of his associates. He didn't say she was his wife?"
"No."
He answered calmly and rather gravely, but the green world outside the
arbor looked unsteady to him. Electra was one of the fixed ideas of his
life; her nobility, her reserve, her strength had seemed to set her far
above him. Now she sounded like the devil's advocate. She was gazing at
him keenly.
"Her story made a great impression on you," she threw out incidentally.
The effort was apparent, but Peter accepted it.
"Yes," he answered simply. "She makes a great impression on everybody.
She will on you."
"What evidence have you brought me? Did you see them married?"
"No," said Peter, with the same unmoved courtesy.
"You see! Have you even found any record of their marriage?"