A Soldier of the Legion | Page 7

throw a pall of crape over the fantastic golden
harmonies. A figure lay there, very straight, very flat and long under
the coverlet pulled high over the breast. Even the hands were hidden:
and over the face was spread a white veil of chiffon, folded double, so
that no gleam of eye, no feature could even be guessed at.
Until that moment, Max had kept his self-control. But at sight of that
piteous form, and remembering the radiant face framed with great
bunches of red-gold hair, which he had kissed good-bye, in this very
bed not three months ago, the dam which had held back the flood of
anguish broke. It was as if his heart had turned to water. Tears sprang
from his eyes, and the strength went out of his knees. It was all he
could do not to fall at the side of the bed and to sob out his mother's
name, telling her that he would give his life a hundred times for hers if
that could be, or that he would go out of the world with her rather than
she should go alone. But something came to his help and kept him
outwardly calm save for a slight choking in the throat as he said softly,
standing by the bedside, "Dearest, I am here."
"At last," came a faint murmur from under the double veil.
Max thought, with a sharp stab of pain, that he would not have
recognized the voice if he had not known that it was his mother's. It
sounded like the voice of a little, frail, very old woman; whereas Rose
Doran had been a creature of glorious physique, looking and feeling at
least fifteen years younger than her age.
"I started the minute I had the telegram," Max said, wanting to make
sure that she realized his love, his frantic haste to reach her. "It has
seemed a hundred years! Darling, if I could bear this for you. If----"
"Please, don't," the little whining voice under the veil fretfully cut him
short. "I can't see very well. Has the doctor gone out?"
"Yes, dearest. We're alone."

"I'm glad. There isn't much time, and I've got a story to tell you. I ought
to call it a confession."
That swept Max's forced calmness away. "A confession from you to
me!" he cried out, horrified. "Never! Darling One, whatever it is I don't
want to hear it--I don't need to hear it, I know---- Rest. Be at peace. Just
let us love each other."
"You don't know what you are talking about." The veiled voice grew
shrill. "You only do harm trying to stop me. You'll kill me if you do."
"Forgive me, dear." Max controlled himself again. "I'll not say another
word. I----"
"Then don't--don't! I want to go on--to the end. I'd rather you sat down.
I can see you standing there. It's like a black shadow between me and
the light, accusing--no, don't speak! It needn't accuse. You wouldn't
have had the life you've had, if--but I mustn't begin like that. Where are
you now? Are you near enough to hear all I say? I can't raise my
voice."
"I'm sitting down, close by the bed. I can hear the least whisper," Max
assured her. He sat with his head bowed, his hands gripping the arms of
the chair. This seemed unbearable, to spend the last minutes of her life
hearing some confession! It was not right, from a mother to a son. But
he must yield.
"I don't know how long I can stand it--the pain, I mean," she moaned.
"So I can't try and break things gently to you, for fear--I have to stop in
the midst. I'm not your mother, Max, and Jack wasn't your father. But
he thought he was. He never knew. And he loved you. I didn't. I never
could. You see--I did know. You must have wondered sometimes. I
saw you wondered; I suppose you never guessed, even though I always
told you to call me Rose, or anything you liked, except mother?"
She was waiting for him to answer; and he did answer, though it was as
if she had thrown him over a precipice, and he were hanging by some
branch which would let him crash down in an instant to the bottom of

an unknown abyss.
"No, I never guessed." Queer how quiet, how utterly expressionless his
voice was! He heard it in faraway surprise.
"I used to be afraid at first that Jack would guess, you were so unlike
either of us, so dark, so--so Latin. But he said you were a throw-back to
his Celtic ancestors. There were French and Irish ones hundreds of
years ago, you know. He never suspected. Everything happened just as
I hoped it