Muriel, who hated quarrels, said: "Don't be angry, Zella. Let's go on digging."
And the governess, who had followed the conversation with what attention she could spare from a novel, looked up and remarked, "James, you are not to tease your cousin," while inwardly thanking Providence that she was not responsible for the upbringing of that untruthful little half-foreign child, Zella de Kervoyou.
But Zella, who was hurt by a suspicion of her truthfulness as by nothing else, rushed away to sob and cry behind the laurel hedge, and wish that she was dead.
"Was it really an untruth?" Muriel asked with a horrified face as her cousin fled in tears.
"I am afraid so, dear," replied Miss Vincent with some asperity, thinking it worth while to improve the occasion. "Your little cousin is very young; when she grows older she will see how very naughty it is to tell stories."
"I don't believe Zella tells stories," muttered James, in a tone inaudible to the governess.
"But you said she did, just now."
"No, I didn't. I said I didn't believe about the horse, that's all."
Muriel looked bewildered.
"But, then, it was an untruth," she reiterated helplessly.
"It's an untruth when you or me say what isn't true, but not Zella," said James, with psychological insight far beyond his powers of grammatical expression.
"But why?"
"Because she's different, that's all. Let's go on digging."
Meanwhile Zella cried and sobbed, crouching on the ground behind the laurel hedge, convinced that nobody loved her, and with a terrible feeling that she was the naughtiest little girl in the whole world. This dreadful state of affairs had all been brought about by the theft of the chocolates, and now that she was confronted by some of the results of her crime Zella felt an unendurable remorse. At least she mistook it for remorse, though it was chiefly a passionate desire to regain her own self-esteem. She rose and went slowly towards the house, a pathetic tiny figure, in her crumpled white frock, with tear-stained face and quivering mouth.
From the top terrace her mother was advancing slowly. At sight of the woe-begone figure of her only child, Madame de Kervoyou sprang forward.
"What is the matter, my darling?"
Zella immediately began to cry again, was lifted on to her mother's lap, and asked if she had hurt herself.
"No—no."
"Oh, my pet, you haven't quarrelled with the others again, have you? said poor Madame de Kervoyou, who knew that her sister would place any dissension among the children to the credit of that French blood of Zella's, which she owed entirely to her father.
"Have you been naughty?"
"Yes," wailed Zella, with an awful sense of the relief to be founding confession;" I've been most dreadfully wicked." "What have you done?"
"I went into the dining-room, and—and—I took"
Zella gasped.
The clasp of her mother's arms was intensely comforting, and she dreaded the loosening of that clasp at the revelation of her iniquity.
"I took—I took "—her courage failed her—" one chocolate off the table, and I ate it."
"My darling! you know you must never take what isn't yours like that.. It's stealing," said Madame de Kervoyou, with an utter absence of conviction in her tone that was not lost upon Zella.
"But it was very brave of you to come and tell me, and when you are honest like that you know mother never punishes you."
The most intense relief of which seven-years-old is capable filled Zella's heart. Her partial confession had brought her comfort, absolution, and even a sense of complacency at her own voluntary revelation of a sin that might have remained hidden for ever. When her mother said, " Were you crying so sadly about that, my poor little baby?" it was with perfect conviction that Zella replied, "Yes; I was so miserable after I'd done it." It was the orthodox attitude of a sinner, and rilled Zella with a feeling of self-righteousness.
It was with a pang of undiluted dismay that she remembered, half an hour afterwards, the other stolen chocolates in her pocket. Before she went to bed Zella had buried them in the garden, and felt herself noble because she did not eat one of them.
The episode of the white horse amongst the flower-beds was allowed to drop, and never penetrated to the ears of the authorities. Nor was it mentioned amongst the children during the rest of James and Muriel's visit. Muriel forgot the incident, but retained a general impression that Zella was by nature untruthful, and therefore never to be quite trusted again. James, who never forgot things, remembered all about it, but thought it profoundly unimportant. Zella forgot everything but that she had courageously confessed a great sin to her mother, and had been pardoned, and that night she fell asleep with tears still sparkling on her thick lashes and her lips parted in
The attitude of mind thus denoted remained typical of Zella de Kervoyou.
I
WHEN Zella de Kervoyou was fourteen her mother died.
She died at Villetswood, towards evening, after a week's illness, when September reds and golds were staining the trees and a species of Indian summer had set in. The day after her death, her only sister, Mrs. Lloyd Evans, telegraphed to Zella's father: "Heartbroken at terrible news of dearest Esmée. Shall be with you this evening."
Louis de Kervoyou crumpled the telegram into the waste-paper basket. He sat at the writing-table in the bay-window of the study, where the blind was not drawn, and looked out at the garden, still brilliant with autumn flowers.
The door opened, and his only child, Zella, came in.
She was a slender little thing, very small for her age, with beautiful grey eyes and thick soft hair of a peculiarly pale brown colour. Her face was pale and stained with tears. Louis had hardly seen her since the preceding evening, when he had himself told her of her mother's death.
She crept towards him now, half timidly, and he held out his hand. Zella flung herself on the floor beside him, and leant her head, that ached from crying, against his knee.
"Poor child !" said Louis very gently, and stroked the brown hair. But his gaze was far away over the distant hills.
"Papa—may I—may I "said Zella, half choked.
"May you what, my dear?" Louis's voice was as usual, though Zella spoke in a half-whisper, but there was an underlying note of despairing weariness in his level tones.
"Come with you and see her?" said Zella, with a fresh outburst of tears.
"Why?"
The question startled Zella, and jarred upon her, gently though it had been spoken.
"Because," she sobbed—" because—oh, don't you understand?—to say good-bye to her?"
"She is not there," said Louis very steadily. "Your mother's spirit is not there. All that was her is gone. She would not wish you to see what is left, my poor little child!"
There was a silence. Zella was crying again. Presently he spoke to her softly:
"Zella, try and stop crying, mignonne. You will make yourself ill."
"I can't—I can't—I wish I was dead, too."
Louis spoke no more. Presently a servant came in half hesitatingly, and announced that the clergyman was waiting; and he rose instantly and went into the hall, where Zella heard a subdued murmur of voices. Only one sentence reached her, spoken by her father.
"I wish it to be at once. To-day is Monday—on Thursday