EVELYN’S REVELATION

IT was during Arthur’s absence at Petersburg that Evelyn began talking with Dorothy about herself.

“It isn’t nice,” she said, as the two sat together in the porch one day, “for me to have reserves and secrets with you, Dorothy.”

“But why not? Every one is entitled to have reserves. Why should not you?”

“Oh, because—well, things are different with me. You are good to me—nobody was ever so good to me. I am living here, and loving you and letting you love me, and all the time you know nothing at all about me. It isn’t fair. I hate unfairness.”

“So do I,” answered Dorothy. “But this isn’t unfair. I never asked you to tell me anything about yourself.”

“That’s the worst of it. That’s what makes it so mean and ugly and unfair for me to go on in this way. Why should you be so good to me when you don’t know anything about me?”

“Why, because, although I do not know your history, I know you. If it is painful for you to tell me about yourself—”

“It wouldn’t be painful,” the girl answered, with an absent, meditative look in her eyes. But she added nothing to the sentence. She merely caressed Dorothy’s hand. After a little silence, she suddenly asked:—

“What’s a ‘parole,’ Dorothy?”

Dorothy explained, but the explanation did not seem to satisfy.

“What does it mean? How much does it include? How long does it last?”

Dorothy again explained. Then Evelyn said:—

“It was a parole I took. I don’t know what or how much it bound me not to tell. I wish I could make that out.”

“If you could tell me something about the circumstances,” answered the older woman, “perhaps I could help you to find out. But you mustn’t tell me anything unless you wish.”

“I should like to tell you everything. You see, they were trying to send me South, through the lines somehow. They said I was to be sent to some relatives—but I reckon that wasn’t true. Anyhow, they wanted to send me through the lines, and they had to get permission. So they took me to a military man of some sort, and he took my parole. I had to swear not to tell anything to the enemy, and after I had sworn that I wouldn’t, he looked very sternly at me and told me I mustn’t forget that I had taken an oath not to tell anything I knew.”

Dorothy answered without hesitation that the parole referred only to military matters, and not at all to things that related only to the girl herself and her life.

“But, Dorothy, I didn’t know anything about military affairs—how could I? So I reckon they couldn’t have meant that.”

“They could not know what information you might have, or what messages some one might send through you. You may be entirely sure, dear, that your oath meant nothing in the world beyond that. The military authorities at the North care nothing about your private affairs or how much you may talk of them. Still, you are not to tell anything that you have doubts about. You are not to wound your own conscience. I sometimes think our own consciences are all there is of Judgment Day. You are always to remember that Arthur and I are perfectly satisfied to take you for what you are, asking no questions as to the rest. We are vain enough to think ourselves capable of forming our own judgment concerning the character of a girl like you. We are not afraid of making any mistake about that.”

Evelyn did not reply. She sat still, continuing to caress Dorothy’s hand. She was thinking in some troubled fashion, and Dorothy was wise enough to let her go on thinking without interruption.

After a while the girl suddenly dropped the hand, arose, and went out upon the lawn. Her mare was grazing there, and Evelyn called the animal to her. Leaping upon the unsaddled and unbridled mare, she started off at a gallop. Presently she slipped off her low shoes, and in her stocking feet stood erect upon the galloping animal’s back. With low, almost muttered commands she directed the mare’s course, making her leap a fence twice, while her rider sometimes stood erect, sometimes knelt, and sometimes sat for a moment, only to rise again with as great apparent ease as if she had been occupying a chair.

Finally she brought her steed to a halt, leaped nimbly to the ground, and resumed her slippers. She walked rapidly back to the porch, and, with a look of positively painful earnestness in her face, demanded:—

“Does that make a difference? Does it alter your opinion? Do you still believe in me?”

Her tone was so eager, so intense, that it seemed almost angry. Dorothy only answered:—

“It makes no difference.”

“You know what that means? You guess where I learned to do that?”

“Yes.”

“And still you do not cast me out? Still you do not command me to go away?”

“Not at all. Why should I?”

“But why not? Most women of your class and in your position would send me away.”

“I am perhaps not like most women of my class and condition. At any rate, as I told you a while ago, I know you, I trust you, I believe in you. You are you. What else matters? Let me tell you a little life-story. My mother was a musician, who performed in public. Everybody about here scorned her for that. But she was the superior of all of them. She was a woman of genius and strong character. She hated shams and conventionalities, and she was a good woman. When the war came, she set to work nursing the wounded. She was shot to death a little while ago, and the soldiers loved her so that they rolled a great boulder over her grave and carved a loving inscription upon it with their own hands. Many of them were killed in doing that; but whenever one fell, another took his place. Do you think, Evelyn, that I, her daughter, could ever scorn a good woman like you, merely because she was or had been an actor in a show? I tell you, Evelyn Byrd, I know you, and that is quite enough for me.”

“Is it enough for Cousin Arthur?”

“Yes, assuredly.”

“And for—well, for others?”

“If you mean Kilgariff, yes. If you mean the conventional people, no. So you had better never say anything about it to them.”

At Dorothy’s mention of Kilgariff’s name, Evelyn started as if shocked. But quickly recovering herself, she said with passion in her tones:—

“You are the very best woman in the world, Dorothy. I shall not long have any secrets from you.”

The girl’s agitation was ungovernable. Emotionally she had passed through a greater crisis than she had ever known before, and her nerves were badly shaken. Without trying to utter the words that would not rise to her quivering lips, she took refuge in the laboratory, where she set to work with the impatience of one who must open a safety valve of some kind, or suffer collapse. Most women of her age, similarly agitated, would have gone to their chambers instead, and vented their feelings in paroxysms of weeping. Evelyn Byrd was not given to tears. Perhaps bitter experience had conquered that feminine tendency in her, though very certainly it had not robbed her of her intense femininity in any other way.

When Dorothy joined her in the laboratory an hour later, the girl was engaged in an operation so delicate that the tremor of a finger, the jarring of a sharply closed door, or even a sudden breath of air would have ruined the work.

“Step lightly, please,” was all that she said. Dorothy saw that the girl had completely mastered herself.

And Dorothy admired and rejoiced.