Kitabı oku: «If Sinners Entice Thee», sayfa 5
Chapter Six
Outsiders
Many weeks went by. To Liane the days were long, weary and monotonous, for George had left, and the Court had passed into the possession of Major Stratfield, a proud, pompous, red-faced man, who often rode through the village, but spoke to nobody. Since her lover had gone she had remained dull and apathetic, taking scarcely any interest in anything, and never riding her cycle because of the tragic memories its sight always aroused within her. Her life was, indeed, grey and colourless, for she noticed that of late even her father’s manner had changed strangely towards her, and instead of being uniformly courteous and solicitous regarding her welfare, he now seemed to treat her with studied indifference, and she even thought she detected within him a kind of repulsion, as if her presence annoyed and distressed him.
He had never been the same towards her since that memorable evening when he had forbidden her to accept George’s offer. Yet her mind was full of thoughts of her absent lover, and she sent him by post boxes of flowers from the garden, that their sweet perfume should remind him of her.
Another fact also caused her most intense anxiety and apprehension. The secret which she believed locked securely within her own bosom was undoubtedly in possession of some unknown person, for having gone into the garden one morning, a week after that night when she had buried the small box from her jewel-case, she fancied that the ground had been freshly disturbed, and that someone had searched the spot.
If so, her actions had been watched.
Thus she lived from day to day, filled by a constant dread that gripped her heart and paralysed her senses. She knew that the most expert officers from Scotland Yard were actively endeavouring to discover the identity of Nelly’s assassin, and was convinced that sooner or later the terrible truth must be elicited.
Twice each week George wrote to her, and she read and re-read his letters many times, sending him in return all the gossip of the old-world village that he loved so well. Thanks to the generosity of the Major, who had decided to give him a small property bringing in some two hundred a year, he was not so badly off as he had anticipated; nevertheless, were it not for that he must have been in serious straits, for, according to his letters, work at the Bar was absolutely unobtainable, and for a whole month he had been without a single brief. Old Mr Harrison sometimes gave him one, but beyond that he could pick up scarcely anything.
One evening in late autumn, when the air was damp and chilly, the orchard covered with leaves and the walnuts were rattling down upon the out-house roof with every gust of wind that blew across the hills, the Captain received a telegram, and briefly observed that it was necessary he should go to London on the morrow. He threw the piece of pink paper into the fire without saying who was the sender, and next morning rose an hour earlier and caught the train to Paddington, whence he drove in a hansom to an address in Cork Street, Piccadilly.
A man-servant admitted him, and he was at once ushered upstairs to a small, well-furnished drawing-room, which, however, still retained the odour of overnight cigars. He had scarcely time to fling himself into a chair when a door on the opposite side of the room opened, and Zertho entered, well-dressed, gay and smiling, with a carnation in the lappel of his coat.
“Well, Brooker, old chap,” he cried, extending his white hand heartily, “I’m back again, you see.”
“Yes,” answered the other, smiling and grasping the proffered hand. “The dignity of Prince appears to suit you, judging from your healthful look.”
“It does, Brooker; it does,” he answered laughing. “One takes more interest in life when one has a plentiful supply of the needful than when one has to depend upon Fortune for a dinner.”
“I wonder that no one has yet spotted you,” Brooker observed, leaning back in the silken armchair, stretching out his feet upon the hearthrug, regarding the Prince with a critical look from head to toe, and lighting the cigar the other had offered him.
“If they did, it might certainly be a bit awkward,” Zertho acquiesced. “But many people are ready to forgive the little peccadilloes of anybody with a title.”
“Ah! that’s so. It’s money, money always,” the luckless gamester observed with a sigh.
“Well, hang it, you can’t grumble. You’ve won and lost a bit in your time,” his friend said, casting himself upon a couch near, stroking his dark beard, and blowing a cloud of smoke from his full lips. “If you’re such an idiot as not to play any more, well you, of course, have to suffer.”
“Play, be hanged!” cried Brooker, impetuously. “My luck’s gone. The last time I played trente-et-quarante, I lost a couple of ponies.”
“But the system is – ”
“Oh, the system is all rot. The Johnnie who invented it ought to have gone and played it himself. He’d have been a candidate for the nearest workhouse within three days.”
“Well, we brought it off all right more than once,” Zertho observed, with a slight accent.
“Mere flukes, all of them.”
“You won at one coup thirty-six thousand francs, I remember. Surely that wasn’t bad?”
“Ah! that was because Liane was sitting beside me. It’s wonderful what luck that girl has.”
“Then why not take her back again this season?” his companion suggested.
“She wouldn’t go,” he answered, after a slight pause.
“Wouldn’t go!” cried the Prince, raising his dark, well-defined brows. “You are her father. Surely she obeys you?”
“Of late she’s very wilful; different entirely from the child as you knew her. Since poor Nelly’s death she seems to have been seized with a sudden desire to go to church on Sunday, and is getting altogether a bluestocking,” the Captain said.
“Poor Nelly!” sighed the Prince. “I have never ceased to think of that sad evening when she grasped my hand through the carriage-window as the train was moving, and with a merry mischievous laugh waved me farewell. She was bright and happy then, as she always was; yet an hour later she was shot dead by some villainous hand. I wonder whether the mystery will ever be explained,” he added, reflectively.
The Captain made no reply, but smoked on steadily, his head thrown back, gazing fixedly at the opposite wall.
“The police have done their best,” he answered at length. “At present, however, they have no clue.”
“And I don’t believe they ever will have,” answered Zertho, slowly.
“What makes you think that?” Brooker inquired, turning and looking at him.
“Well, I’ve read all that the papers say about the affair,” he answered, “and to me the mystery seems at present one that may never be solved.”
“Unless the crime is brought home to the assassin by some unexpected means.”
“Of course, of course,” he answered. “You’re a confounded fool to remain down in that wretched, dismal hole, Brooker. How you can stand it after what you’ve been used to I really can’t think.”
“My dear fellow, I’ve grown quite bucolic,” he assured his companion, laughing a trifle bitterly. “The few pounds I’ve still got suffice to keep up the half-pay wheeze, and although I’m in a chronic state of hard-up, yet I manage to rub along somehow and just pay the butcher and baker. Hang it! Why, I’m so infernally respectable that a chap came round last week with a yellow paper on which he wanted me to declare my income. Fancy me paying an income-tax!”
The Prince laughed at his friend’s grim humour. In the old days at Monte Carlo, Erle Brooker had been full of fun. He was the life and soul of the Hôtel de Paris. No reverse ever struck him seriously, for he would laugh when “broke” just as heartily as when, with pockets bulky with greasy banknotes, he would descend the steps from the Casino, and crack a bottle of “fizz” at the café opposite.
“If I were you I’d declare my income at eight hundred a year, pay up, and look big,” Zertho laughed. “It would inspire confidence, and you could get a bit of credit here and there. Then when that’s exhausted, clear out.”
“The old game, eh? No, I’m straight now,” the other answered, his face suddenly growing grave.
“Honesty is starvation. That used to be our motto, didn’t it? Yet here you are with only just enough to keep a roof over your head, living in a dreary out-of-the-way hole, and posing as the model father. The thing’s too absurd.”
“I don’t see it. Surely I can please myself?”
“Of course. But is it just to Liane?”
“What do you mean?”
“It is essential for a young girl of her temperament to have life and gaiety,” he said, exhibiting his palms with a quick, expressive movement. “By vegetating in Stratfield Mortimer, amid surroundings which must necessarily possess exceedingly painful memories, she will soon become prematurely old. It’s nothing short of an infernal shame that she should be allowed to remain there.”
Brooker did not reply. He had on more than one occasion lately reflected that a change of surroundings would do her good, for he had noticed with no little alarm how highly strung had been her nerves of late, and how pale and wan were her cheeks. Zertho spoke the truth.
“I don’t deny that what you say is correct,” he replied thoughtfully. “But what’s the use of talking of gaiety? How can any one have life without either money or friends?”
“Easily enough. Both you and Liane know the Riviera well enough to find plenty of amusement there.”
“No, she wouldn’t go. She hates it.”
“Bah!” cried the prince, impatiently. “If, as you say, she’s turned a bit religious, she of course regards the old life as altogether dreadful. But you can easily overcome those prejudices – or I will.”
“How?”
“In December I’m going to Nice for the season,” Zertho explained. “We shall have plenty of fun there, so at my expense you’ll come.”
“I think not,” was the brief reply.
“My dear fellow, why not,” he cried. “Surely you can have no qualms about accepting my hospitality. You will remember that when I was laid up with typhoid in Ostend I lived for months on your generosity. And heaven knows, you had then but little to spare! It is my intention now to recompense you.”
“And to endeavour to win Liane’s love,” added the Captain, curtly.
Zertho’s brows narrowed slightly. He paused, gazing at the fine diamond glittering upon his white finger.
“Well, yes,” he answered at last. “I don’t see why there should be anything underhand between us.”
“I gave you my answer when you came down to Stratfield Mortimer,” the other responded in a harsh, dry tone, rising slowly. “I still adhere to my decision.”
“Why?” protested his whilom partner, looking up at him intently, and sticking his hands into his pockets in lazy, indolent attitude.
“Because I’m confident she will never marry you.”
“Has she a lover?”
His companion gave an affirmative nod. Zertho frowned and bit his lip.
“Who is he?” he asked. “Some uncouth countryman or other, I’ll be bound.”
“The son of Sir John Stratfield.”
The prince sprang to his feet, and faced his visitor with a look of amazement.
“Sir John’s son! Never!” he gasped.
“Yes. Strange how such unexpected events occur, isn’t it?” Brooker observed, slowly, with emphasis.
“But, my dear fellow, you can’t allow it. You must not!” he cried wildly.
“I’ve already told her that marriage is entirely out of the question. Yet she will not heed me,” her father observed, twirling the moustaches which he kept as well trained now as in the days when he rode at the head of his troop on Hounslow Heath, and was the pet of certain London drawing-rooms.
“Then take her abroad, so that they cannot meet. Come to Nice in December.”
“I am to bring her, so that you may endeavour to take George Stratfield’s place in her heart – eh?” observed the Captain shrewdly.
“Marriage with George Stratfield is agreed between us both to be impossible, whereas marriage with me is not improbable,” was the reply.
Erle Brooker shrugged his shoulders as he again puffed vigorously at his cigar. He now saw plainly Zertho’s object in asking him to call.
“Well,” continued his friend, “even I, with all my faults, am preferable to any Stratfield as Liane’s husband, am I not?”
“I don’t see why we need discuss it further,” said Brooker quietly. “Liane will never become Princess d’Auzac.”
“Will you allow me to pay my attentions to her?”
“If you are together I cannot prevent it, Zertho. But, candidly speaking, you are not the man I would choose as husband for my daughter.”
“I know I’m not, old fellow,” the other said, shrugging his shoulders slightly. “And you’re not exactly the man that, in ordinary circumstances, I’d choose as my father-in-law. But I have money, and if the man’s a bit decent-looking, and sound of wind and limb, it’s about all a woman wants nowadays.”
“Ah! I don’t think you yet understand Liane. She’s not eager for money and position, like most girls.”
“Well, let me have a fair innings, Brooker, and she’ll consent to become Princess d’Auzac, I feel convinced. You fancy I only admire her; but I swear it’s a bit more than mere admiration. For Heaven’s sake take her out of that dismal hole where you are living, and make her break it all off with Stratfield’s son. She must do that at once. Take her to the seaside – to Paris – anywhere, for a month or two until we can all meet in the South.”
Brooker, leaning against the mantelshelf, slowly flicked the ash from his cigar, meditated deeply for a few moments, then asked —
“Why do you wish to take me back to the old spot?”
“Because only there can you pick up a living. The police have nothing against either of us, so what have we to fear?”
“Recognition by one or other of our dupes. Play wasn’t all straight, you’ll remember.”
“Bah!” cried Zertho with impatience. “What’s the use of meeting trouble half-way? You never used to have a thought for the morrow in the old days. But, there, you’re respectable now,” he added, with a slight sneer.
“If I go South I shall not play,” Brooker said, decisively. “I’ve given it up.”
“Because you’ve had a long run of ill-luck – eh?” the other laughed. “Surely this is the first time you’ve adopted such a course. I might have been in the same unenviable plight as yourself by now if my respected parent had not taken it into his head to drop out of this sick hurry of life just at a moment when my funds were exhausted. One day I was an adventurer with a light heart and much lighter pocket, and on the next wealthy beyond my wildest expectations. Such is one’s fortune. Even your bad luck may have changed during these months.”
“I think not,” Brooker answered gravely.
“Well, you shall have a thousand on loan to venture again,” his old partner said good-naturedly.
“I appreciate your kindness, Zertho,” he answered, in a low tone, smiling sadly, “but my days are over. I’ve lost, and gone under.”
The prince glanced at him for an instant. There was a strange glint in his dark eyes.
“As you wish,” he answered, then walking to a small rosewood escritoire which stood in the window, he sat down and scribbled a cheque, payable to his friend for five hundred pounds. Brooker, still smoking, watched him in silence, unaware of his intention. Slowly the prince blotted it, folded it, and placing it in an envelope, returned to where his visitor was standing.
“I asked you to take Liane from all the painful memories of Stratfield Mortimer. Do so for her sake, and accept this as some slight contribution towards the expense. Only don’t let her know that it comes from me.”
Brooker took the envelope mechanically, regarding his friend steadily, with fixed gaze. At first there was indecision in his countenance, but next instant his face went white with fierce anger and resentment. His hand closed convulsively upon the envelope, crushing it into a shapeless mass, and with a fierce imprecation he cast it from him upon the floor.
“No, I’ll never touch your money!” he cried, with a gesture, as if shrinking from its contact. “You fear lest Liane should know that you are attempting to buy her just as you would some chattel or other which, for the moment, takes your fancy. But she shall know; and she shall never be your wife.”
“Very well,” answered Zertho, with a contemptuous smile, facing the Captain quickly. “Act as you please, but I tell you plainly, once and for all, that Liane will many me.”
“She shall not.”
“She shall!” declared the other, determinedly, looking into his face intently, his black eyes flashing. “And you will use that cheque for her benefit, and in the manner I direct, without telling her anything. You will also bring her to Nice, and stand aside that I may win her, and – ”
“I’ll do nothing of the sort. I’d rather see her dead.”
Zertho’s fingers twitched, as was his habit when excited. Upon his dark sallow face was an expression of cruel, relentless revenge; an evil look which his companion had only seen once before.
“Listen, Brooker,” he exclaimed in a low, harsh tone, as advancing close to him he bent and uttered some rapid words in his ear, so low that none might hear them save himself.
“Good God! Zertho!” cried the unhappy man, turning white to the lips, and glaring at him. “Surely you don’t intend to give me away?” he gasped, in a hoarse, terrified whisper.
“I do,” was the firm reply. “My silence is only in exchange for your assistance. Now you thoroughly understand.”
“Then you want Liane, my child, as the price of my secret! My God!” he groaned, in a husky, broken voice, sinking back into his chair in an attitude of abject dejection, covering his blanched, haggard face with trembling hands.
Chapter Seven
The Missing Mariette
In London the January afternoon was wet and cheerless. Alone in his dingy chambers on the third floor of an ancient smoke-begrimed house in Clifford’s Inn, one of the old bits of New Babylon now sadly fallen from its once distinguished estate, George Stratfield sat gazing moodily into the fire. In his hand was a letter he had just received from Liane; a strange letter which caused him to ponder deeply, and vaguely wonder, whether after all he had not acted unwisely in sacrificing his fortune for her sake.
She had been nearly three months abroad, and although she had written weekly there was an increasing coldness about her letters which sorely puzzled him. Twice only had they met since he left the Court – on the two evenings she and her father had spent in London on their way to the Continent. He often looked back upon those hours, remembering every tender word she had uttered, and recalling the unmistakable light of love that lit up her face when he was nigh. Yet since she had been en séjour on the Riviera her letters were no longer long and gossipy, but brief, hurriedly-written scribbles which bore evidence that she wrote more for the fulfilment of her promise than from a desire to tell of her daily doings, as lovers will.
A dozen times he had read and re-read the letter, then lifting his eyes from it his gaze wandered around the shabby room with its ragged leather chairs, its carpet so faded that the original pattern had been lost, its two well-filled bookcases which had stood there and been used by various tenants for close upon a century, its panelled walls painted a dull drab, and its deep-set windows grimy with the soot of London. The two rooms which comprised this bachelor abode were decidedly depressing even on the brightest day, for the view from the windows was upon a small paved court, beyond which stood the small ancient Hall, the same in which Sir Matthew Hale and the seventeen judges sat after the Great Fire in 1666, to adjudicate on the claims of landlords and tenants of burned houses, so as to prevent lawsuits. An ocean of chimneys belched around, while inside the furniture had seen its best days fully twenty years before, and the tablecloth of faded green was full of brown holes burnt by some previous resident who had evidently been a careless cigarette smoker.
George drew his hand wearily across his brow, sighed, replaced the letter slowly in its envelope, examined the post-mark, then placed it in his pocket.
“No,” he said aloud, “I won’t believe it. She said she loved me, and she loves me still.”
And he poked the fire vigorously until it blazed and threw a welcome light over the gloomy, dismal room.
Suddenly a loud rapping sounded on the outer door, and rising unwillingly, expecting it to be one of his many friends of the “briefless brigade,” he went and opened it, confronting to his surprise his father’s solicitor, Harrison.
“Well, George,” exclaimed his visitor, thrusting his wet umbrella into the stand in the tiny cupboard-like space which served as hall, and walking on uninvited into the apartment which served as office and sitting-room. “Alone I see. I’m glad, for I want ten minutes’ chat with you.”
“At your service, Harrison,” Stratfield answered, in expectation of a five-guinea brief. “What is it? Something for opinion?”
“Yes,” answered the elder man, taking a chair. “It is for opinion, but it concerns yourself.”
George flung himself into the armchair from which he had just risen, placed his feet upon the fender and his hands at the back of his head, as was his habit when desiring to listen attentively.
“Well,” he said, sighing, “about that absurd provision of the old man’s will, I suppose? I’m comfortable enough, so what’s the use of worrying over it?”
“But it is necessary. You see, I’m bound to try and find this woman,” the other answered, taking from his pocket some blue foolscap whereon were some memoranda. “Besides, the first stage of the inquiry is complete.”
“And what have you discovered?” he asked eagerly. “I placed the matter in the hands of Rutter, the private inquiry agent, whose report I have here,” answered the solicitor. “It states that no such person as Madame Lepage is living at 89 Rue Toullier, Paris, but the concierge remembers that an elderly lady, believed to be a widow, once occupied with her daughter a flat on the fourth floor. The man, however forgets their name, as they only resided there a few months. During that time the daughter, whom he describes as young and of prepossessing appearance, mysteriously disappeared, and although a search was instituted, she was never found. There was no suspicion of suicide or foul play, but the police at the time inclined to the belief that, possessing a voice above the average, she had, like so many other girls who tire of the monotony of home life, forsaken it and obtained an engagement at some obscure café-concert under an assumed name. Rutter, following up this theory, then visited all the impressarios he could find in an endeavour to discover an artist whose real name was Lepage. But from the first this search was foredoomed to failure, for girls who desire to exchange home life for the stage seldom give their impressarios their correct names, hence no such person as Mariette Lepage could be traced.”
“Then, after all, we are as far off discovering who this mysterious woman is as we ever were,” George observed, glancing at his visitor with a half-amused smile.
“Well, not exactly,” the solicitor answered. “Undoubtedly the girl who disappeared from the house in the Rue Toullier was the woman for whom we are searching.”
“The letter found on Nelly Bridson is sufficient proof that she’s still alive,” said the younger man.
“Exactly; and from its tone it would appear that she is in the lower strata of society,” Harrison remarked.
“Whoever she is I shall, I suppose, be required to offer her marriage, even if she’s a hideous old hag! My father was certainly determined that I should be sufficiently punished for my refusal to comply with his desire,” George observed, smiling bitterly.
“Why regret the past?” Harrison asked slowly, referring again to the blue foolscap by the fitful light of the fire. “The inquiry has, up to the present, resulted in the elucidation of only one definite fact; nevertheless, Rutter is certainly on the right scent, and as he is now extensively advertising in the principal papers throughout France, I hope to be able ere long to report something more satisfactory.”
“It will be no satisfaction whatever to me if she is found,” observed the young man, grimly.
“But it is imperative that the matter should be cleared up,” the solicitor protested. “When we have discovered her you will, of course, be at liberty to offer her marriage, or not, just as you please.”
“It is a most remarkable phase of the affair that the only person acquainted with this mysterious woman was poor Nelly,” the young barrister exclaimed at last. “You will remember that in the letter, with its slang of the slums, Liane’s name was mentioned. Well, I have written asking her whether she is acquainted with any woman of the same name with which the curious letter is signed, but she has replied saying that neither herself nor her father ever knew any such person, and they had been quite at a loss to know how Nelly should have become acquainted with her. Here is her reply; read for yourself,” and from his pocket he took several letters, and selecting one, handed it to the keen-faced, grey-haired man, at the same time striking a vesta and lighting the lamp standing upon the table.
“You don’t seem to mind other people reading your love-letters,” the old solicitor said, laughing and turning towards the light. “When I was young I kept them tied up with pink tape in a box carefully locked.”
George smiled. “The pink tape was owing to the legal instinct, I suppose,” he said. Then he added, with a slight touch of sorrow, “There are not many secrets in Liane’s letters.”
The shrewd old man detected disappointment in his voice, and after glancing at the letter, looked up at him again, saying, “The course of true love is not running smooth, eh? This lady is in Nice, I see.”
“Yes, Harrison,” he answered gravely, leaning against the table with head slightly bent. “We are parted, and I fear that, after all, I have acted foolishly.”
“You will, no doubt, remember my advice on the day of your father’s death.”
“I do,” George answered, huskily. “At that time I fondly believed she loved me, and was prepared to sacrifice everything in order that she should be mine. But now – ”
“Well?”
“Her letters have grown colder, and I have a distinct and painful belief that she loves me no longer, that she has, amid the mad whirl of gaiety on the Riviera, met some man who has the means to provide her with the pleasures to which she has been accustomed, and upon whom she looks with favour. Her letters now are little more than the formal correspondence of a friend. She has grown tired of waiting.”
“And are you surprised?” Harrison asked.
“I ought not to be, I suppose,” he said gloomily. “I can never hope to marry her.”
“Why despair?” the old solicitor exclaimed kindly. “You have youth, talent, and many influential friends, therefore there is no reason why your success at the Bar should not be as great as other men’s.”
“Or as small as most men’s,” he laughed bitterly. “No, Harrison, without good spirits it is impossible for one to do one’s best. Those I don’t possess just now.”
“Well, if, because you are parted a few months, the lady pleases to forsake you, as you suspect, then all I can say is that you are very fortunate in becoming aware of the truth ere it is too late,” the elder man argued.
“But I love her,” he blurted forth. “I can’t help it.”
“Then, under the circumstances, I would, if I were you, stick to my profession and try and forget all that’s past. Bitter memories shorten life and do nobody any good.”
“Ah! I only wish I could get rid of all thought of the past,” he sighed, gazing fixedly into the fire. “You are my friend and adviser, Harrison, or I should not have spoken thus to you.”
The old man, with his blue foolscap still in his thin, bony hand, paused, regarded his client’s son with a look of sympathy for a few moments, and sighed.
“Your case,” he said at last, “is only one of many thousands. All of us, in whatever station, have our little romances in life. We have at some time or another adored a woman who, after the first few months, has cast us aside for a newer and perhaps richer lover. There are few among us who cannot remember a sweet face of long ago, a voice that thrilled us, a soft, caressing hand that was smooth as satin to our lips. We sigh when we recollect those long-past days, and wonder where she is, who she married, and whether, in her little debauches of melancholy, she ever recollects the man who once vowed he would love her his whole life through. Years have gone since then, yet her memory clings to us as vividly as if she were still a reality in our lives. We still love her and revere her, even though she cast us aside, even though we are not certain whether she still exists. The reason of all this is because when we are young we are more impressionable than when we are older, with wider and more mature experience of the world. The woman we at twenty thought adorable we should pass by unnoticed if we were forty. Thus it is that almost all men cherish in their hearts a secret affection for some woman who has long ago gone out of their lives, passed on, and forgotten them.”
George smiled bitterly at the old man’s philosophy. “Are you, then, one of those with a romance within you?” he asked, his face suddenly becoming grave again.
“Yes,” the old lawyer answered, his features hard and cold. “I, dry-as-dust, matter-of-fact man that I am, I also have my romance. Years ago, how many I do not care to count, I loved a woman just as madly as you love Liane Brooker. She was of good family, wealthy, and so handsome that a well-known artist painted her portrait, which was hung at one of the Galleries as one of a collection of types of English beauty. That she loved me I could not doubt, and the first six months of our acquaintance in the quaint old cathedral town where we lived was a dream of sunny, never-ending days. At evening, when the office at which I was articled was closed, she met me, and we walked together in the sunset by the river. I see her now, as if it were but yesterday, in her simple white dress and large hat trimmed with roses. The years that have passed have not dimmed my memory.”
