A Soldier of the Legion | Page 7

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 would--just as I wanted it to. But I didn't realize how I should feel about it if I were going to die. The minute I came to myself after--the accident, it rushed over me. Not the very first thought. That was about myself. I wanted to know if my looks were gone. When they had to say yes, I was glad--thankful--I could die. I'd have poisoned or starved myself rather than live on. But no need of that. I think I could let myself slip away any minute now. I'm just--holding on. For something told me--I have a feeling that Jack himself came, and has been here ever since, knowing all I had done and willing me to tell the truth. I struggled a little against it, for why shouldn't you go on being happy? Nothing was your fault. But it was borne in