should have been equally divided.  If the woman had been white,—­but the woman had not been white, and the same rule of moral conduct did not, could not, in the very nature of things, apply, as between white people!  For, if this were not so, slavery had been, not merely an economic mistake, but a great crime against humanity.  If it had been such a crime, as for a moment she dimly perceived it might have been, then through the long centuries there had been piled up a catalogue of wrong and outrage which, if the law of compensation be a law of nature, must some time, somewhere, in some way, be atoned for.  She herself had not escaped the penalty, of which, she realized, this burden placed upon her conscience was but another installment.

If she should make known the facts she had learned, it would mean what?—­a division of her father’s estate, a recognition of the legality of her father’s relations with Julia.  Such a stain upon her father’s memory would be infinitely worse than if he had not married her.  To have lived with her without marriage was a social misdemeanor, at which society in the old days had winked, or at most had frowned.  To have married her was to have committed the unpardonable social sin.  Such a scandal Mrs. Carteret could not have endured.  Should she seek to make restitution, it would necessarily involve the disclosure of at least some of the facts.  Had she not destroyed the will, she might have compromised with her conscience by producing it and acting upon its terms, which had been so stated as not to disclose the marriage.  This was now rendered impossible by her own impulsive act; she could not mention the will at all, without admitting that she had destroyed it.

Mrs. Carteret found herself in what might be called, vulgarly, a moral “pocket.”  She could, of course, remain silent.  Mrs. Carteret was a good woman, according to her lights, with a cultivated conscience, to which she had always looked as her mentor and infallible guide.

Hence Mrs. Carteret, after this painful discovery, remained for a long time ill at ease,—­so disturbed, indeed, that her mind reacted upon her nerves, which had never been strong; and her nervousness affected her strength, which had never been great, until Carteret, whose love for her had been deepened and strengthened by the advent of his son, became alarmed for her health, and spoke very seriously to Dr. Price concerning it.

XXXI

THE SHADOW OF A DREAM

Mrs. Carteret awoke, with a start, from a troubled dream.  She had been sailing across a sunlit sea, in a beautiful boat, her child lying on a bright-colored cushion at her feet.  Overhead the swelling sail served as an awning to keep off the sun’s rays, which far ahead were reflected with dazzling brilliancy from the shores of a golden island.  Her son, she dreamed, was a fairy prince, and yonder lay his kingdom, to which he was being borne, lying there at her feet, in this beautiful boat, across the sunlit sea.