“I am weary with rowing, with rowing,Let me drift adown with the stream.I am weary with rowing, with rowing,Let me lay me down and dream.”
“I am weary with rowing, with rowing,Let me drift adown with the stream.I am weary with rowing, with rowing,Let me lay me down and dream.”
Noel knew the little song well, and in his fancy the full, pathetic voice gave it a sound and meaning that his longing heart desired to hear in it. The thrilling voice sang on, low and deep and full:
“The stream in its flowing, its flowing,Shall bear us adown to the sea.I am weary with rowing, with rowing,I yield me to love and to thee.I can struggle no longer, no longer,Here in thine arms let me lie,In thine arms which are stronger, are strongerThan all on the earth, let me die.”
“The stream in its flowing, its flowing,Shall bear us adown to the sea.I am weary with rowing, with rowing,I yield me to love and to thee.I can struggle no longer, no longer,Here in thine arms let me lie,In thine arms which are stronger, are strongerThan all on the earth, let me die.”
The sweet voice trembled as the song came to an end, and Christine, with a swift, impulsive movement, put her elbows on the keys of the piano, making a harsh discord of sound, and dropped her face in her hands. She remained so, without moving, for several minutes, while Noel, thrilling in all his senses to the power of that subtlysweet song, kept also profoundly still. He felt it was his only safety. If he had moved, it must have been to clasp her in his arms.
At last she rose to her feet and began to put the music in order. It was a moment when life, for each of them, seemed very hard. And yet, to one who looked and saw them so, it seemed as if the best that earth could offer might be theirs, and that they were made and fashioned to have and to enjoy it.
The pretty room was a soft glow of firelight and lamplight mingled. The rich harmonies of dark color made by carpets, hangings and furniture were lighted here and there by an infinite number of the charming little things that are the perfecting touches of a tasteful room. A bunch of freshly-gathered autumn leaves was massed under the light from the shaded lamp. Near by sat Christine. She had taken up a strip of gorgeous embroidery in her hands, and was bending above it and trying hard to put her stitches in withcare. To-night there was a steady flush in her cheeks that made her look more beautiful than he had ever seen her. He advanced a step or two, and stood, unseen, at a little distance from her, making unconsciously a complement to the picture. He took a step forward—and she heard the sound and lifted her head. He came nearer and his voice was sweet and thrilling as he said her name:
“Christine.”
She raised her eyes and looked at him; but they dropped before his steady gaze, and she did not answer.
“Let me speak to you a little, dear Christine,” he went on, taking a seat near her. He had himself well in hand and was determined not to blunder. Christine sat opposite and drew her needle through and through, saying neither yes nor no. “I want to be very careful not to hurt you,” Noel went on, “but I have had it on my mind a long, long time to talk to you about yourself. Do you intend to lead always, without change or variation, theisolated, dull, restricted life you are leading now?”
“Oh, don’t speak to me of any change!” she said entreatingly. “You have been so good to me. Be good to me still. Let me stay here, as I am, in this heaven of rest and peace. Mrs. Murray will keep me. She is not tired of me. She loves to have me, and it is my one idea of blessedness and comfort and rest.”
Her voice was agitated almost to tears, and she had dropped her work and clasped her hands together with a piteousness of appeal.
“No one will hinder you, Christine,” he said. “Mrs. Murray is made better and brighter and happier by your presence every day, and it would be only the greatest grief to her to part with you. This is your sure and safe and certain home as long as she lives, unless, of your own choice, you should choose to change it.”
Christine shook her head with a denial of the thought that was almost indignant.
“Never,” she said, “oh, never, never!I only ask to stay here, as I am, until I die.”
“Christine,” he said, and she could feel his strong gaze on her, through her lowered lids, “try to be honest with your own heart. Listen to its voice and you will have to own you are not happy.”
“Happy! How could I ever expect to be? It would be a shame to me even to think of it. Oh, you do not know a woman’s nature, or you could not talk to me of happiness.”
“I know your woman’s nature, Christine—well enough to reverence it and kneel to it, and I am not afraid to tell you you are outraging and wronging it, by shutting out happiness from your heart. What is there to hinder you from being happy? And oh, Christine, I know at least, there is no happiness but love.”
A silence, solemn and still as death, followed these fervent, low-toned words. He could see the fluttering of her breath, and the look of deep, affrighted pain upon her face made his heart quiver.
“Christine,” he murmured in a voice grown softer and lower still, “try not to be frightened or distressed. I cannot hold back my heart any longer. I love you—dear and good and noble one. If you could only love me a little, in return, I could make you so happy. I know I could, Christine, and as for me—why my life, if you refuse me your love, is worthless and wasted and dead. Oh, Christine, you are the very treasure of my heart, whether you will or no. Be my wife. You can make my happiness, as surely as I, if you will let me, can make yours.”
He would not venture to take her hand, but he held out his to her, saying in a voice that had sunk to a whisper:
“Only put your hand in mine, Christine, in token that you will try to love me a little, and I will wait for all the rest.”
He had bent very close to her, and she felt his breath against her hair as his passionate whisper fell upon her ear. Her heart thrilled to it, but she got up stiffly to her feet, bending her body away from himand covering her eyes, for a moment, with her hand.
Noel, who had risen too, stepped backward instantly. He saw her lips compressed convulsively as if in pain, and, for her sake, he thrust down into his heart its great longing, and forced himself to think of her alone. It cut him like a knife to see that she drew away from him.
“Don’t shrink from me, Christine,” he said. “If it distresses you for me to speak I can be silent. I was obliged to tell you, but there it can stop. I have laid the offering of my love and life before you and there it is for you to take or leave. Perhaps I have startled you. If you will only think about it and try to get used to the idea—”
But Christine had found her voice.
“I cannot think of it!” she cried. “I utterly refuse to think of it. Oh, I am more miserable than ever I have been yet! If I am to make you unhappy—if I am to spoil your life—”
“You have beautified and glorified and crowned it with love, Christine. I shouldhave gone to my grave without it, if you had not given it to me. It is a godlike thing to feel what I feel for you. Come what may I shall never be sorry for it. You have nothing to reproach yourself with.”
Christine was very pale. She felt herself trembling as she sank into a chair and clasped her hands about her knee. Noel too sat down, but farther away from her than he had been before.
“I entreat you not to be distressed—” he began, but she interrupted him.
“Oh, I feel—I cannot tell you what I feel,” she said. “Was ever a woman at once so honored and so shamed? How could I give to any man a ruined life like mine, and yet God knows how it is sweet to me to know you have this feeling for me—to know that I may still arouse in such a heart as yours this highest, holiest, purest, best of all the heart can give. Oh, I pray God to let you feel and know the joy it is to me—and yet I’d rather cut off my right hand than listen even to the thought of marrying you.”
Noel could not understand her. The look in her face completely baffled him.
“Christine,” he said, “there is but one thing to do. On one thing alone the whole matter rests. Look at me.”
His voice was resolute, though it was so gentle, and in obedience to its bidding Christine raised her eyes to his.
“Answer me this, Christine. Do you love me?”
And looking straight into his eyes she answered:
“No.”
Noel rose from his seat and crossed over to the fire, where he stood with his back toward her. He did not see the passionate gesture with which she strained her clasped hands to her breast a moment and then stretched them out toward him. In a second she withdrew them and let them fall in her lap. Her heart reproached her for the falseness of her tongue, and this had been a passionate impulse of atonement to him for the wrong that she had done. But stronger than her heart wasthe other voice that told her to make her utmost effort to keep up the deceit, for in the moment that the knowledge came to her that her heart, for the first time, was possessed by a true and mighty love an instinct stronger than that love itself compelled her to deny it—to give any answer, go any length, do anything sooner than make an admission by which she might be betrayed into doing a great and ineradicable wrong to the man she loved. Yes, the man she loved! For one second’s space she let the inward flame leap up, and then she forced it back and smothered it down, with all the power that was in her.
When Noel turned, his face was calm and he spoke, too, in a controlled and quiet voice.
“We will not be the less friends for this, Christine,” he said; “the best that is left to me is to be near you when I can. You will not forbid me this?”
He saw that her eyes consented. To save her life she could not deny him this—ordeny herself. Which was it that she thought of first?
“I think it best that Mrs. Murray should not know of it,” he said, and again she consented without speaking.
“I shall come as usual,” he went on, “and, Christine, never reproach yourself. Never dream but that it is more joy than I could ever have had in any other way, only to come and see you and be near you and hear you speak sometimes. Good-night,” he added, taking her cold, little hand in a gentle clasp. “It is the last time. You will see how faithful I will be. But once for all—Christine, Christine, Christine!—let me tell you that I love you with as great and true and strong a love as ever man had for woman. You seem to me a being between earth and Heaven—better than men and women here, and only a little below the angels.”
She felt the hand that held hers loose its hold, the kind voice died away, a door far off shut to, and Christine, rousing herself, looked about her and found that she was alone.
Two evenings later Noel called again, finding Mrs. Murray recovered and able to join the group around the table as usual. There was no consciousness expressed in the eyes of either Christine or himself as they met. At first she was very grave and silent, but under the influence of his easy talk her manner became perfectly natural, and at the close of the evening she found herself wondering if the exciting occurrences of their last meeting could be reality. Noel read aloud most of the evening an agreeable, unexciting book, and Christine thanked him from her heart that he did not ask, as usual, for music.
As for Mrs. Murray, as the days went on she found herself continually wondering that such a state of things could last. She was perfectly sure of Noel’s feeling, and she thought its continued entire suppression very strange. She was often tempted to make some excuse to leave them alone,but a fear of the consequences held her back, for she was absolutely unable to calculate upon Christine. She had not the courage to lift a finger in the matter.
Almost imperceptibly a change was coming over Christine, and by degrees Mrs. Murray became aware of it. She grew more silent and fond of being alone. She even went out now and took long, companionless walks, coming home exhausted and preoccupied. “Poor girl!” thought her kind, old friend. “She is very unhappy, and for a little while, in her deliverance from a worse unhappiness, she had managed to forget it partly.”
On one occasion Noel rather urgently pressed the matter of being allowed to bring his mother and sisters to call. He did so in the hope that time might have somewhat modified Christine’s feeling in the matter, but he found it absolutely unchanged and was obliged to withdraw his request.
As the days and weeks went by Noel became every day more restless andgloomy. He was unhappy if he stayed away from Christine, and yet to be in her presence merely as a friendly visitor was often galling and depressing to an almost intolerable degree. He scarcely ever saw her alone for a moment, and he had a certain conviction that while Mrs. Murray did some gentle plotting to leave themtête-à-têteChristine managed ingeniously to thwart her plans.
About this time he was compelled to go away for a week on a business expedition, and so, for more than that space of time, he had not called at Mrs. Murray’s. When he rang the door-bell on the evening of his return Harriet, who answered it, left him to find his way alone to the pretty sitting-room, warm and lighted and empty, as he thought. The next instant, however, his heart gave a bound, as he saw at its opposite end Christine, tall and slight and young and beautiful, standing, with her back turned, before a table against the wall, on which a large engraving rested.
It was heavily framed and he knew hehad never seen it there before. The fact was Mrs. Murray, who had a very romantic heart, had seen it in a shop-window and impulsively bought it, and it had just been sent home.
Noel, stepping with the utmost caution over the thick carpet, came near enough to look at the picture over Christine’s shoulder. He knew it well. It was Frederick Leighton’s “Wedded.”
As the man and woman stood before it each was under the spell of that beautiful representation of abandonment to love—the deep and holy wedded love which is the God-given right of every man and woman who lives and feels.
Christine was utterly unconscious of his nearness as she bent toward it eagerly. He could see by the movement of her throat and shoulders that her breaths were coming thick and fast and her heart was beating hard. As for him the fact that he was near to her was the supreme consciousness of that moment to him, and all the meaning of this consciousness was in his voice, as he whispered her name:
“Christine!”
She started and turned. His eyes caught hers and held them. For a moment she found it impossible to release them from his compelling gaze. She was under the spell of the picture still. It had broken down the habitual barriers of restraint and self-control, and sent an exultant gleam into her heart, which her face reflected.
“Christine!” he said again in that thrilling whisper.
The sound of his voice recalled her. That strange, exalted look gave place to another, which was as if a withering blight had crossed her face, and she turned and looked at Noel. He met that look of desolation and anguish with firm, unflinching eyes.
“I love you,” he whispered low, but clear.
“Then spare me,” she whispered back.
“Once more, Christine,” he said. They kept their places, a few feet apart, and neither moved a muscle except for the slight motion of their lips, from which thefaint sounds came forth like ghostly whispers. “Once more, Christine—answer me this. Do you love me?”
And again she answered:
“No.”
The tone in which she said it was strong and steady in spite of its lowness, and the eyes confirmed it.
The suspense was over. With that strange recollectedness which human beings often have in the sharpest crises of their lives Noel suppressed the great sigh that had risen from his heart, and let the breath of it go forth from his parted lips, with careful pains to make no sound.
It was a relief to both that at this moment Mrs. Murray came into the room. They turned abruptly from the picture, and in the cordial greeting which the hostess bestowed upon her guest the moment’s ordeal was successfully passed. Not, however, without the watchful eyes of Mrs. Murray having seen much, and conjectured far more. Whether her impulse in buying the picture had done good or harm she was puzzled to determine.
Noel, during the sleepless hours of the night which followed, looked the whole situation in the face and made his resolutions, strong and fast, for the future of Christine and himself. His love for her, which she had not forbidden and could not forbid, must be enough for him henceforth, and because all his soul desired her love in return she should not, for that reason, be deprived of his friendship. When he thought of loving any other woman, and being loved by her in return, and contrasted it with the mere right to love Christine and be near her, forever unloved, he felt himself rich beyond telling.
That evening, determined to put into effect at once this new resolution and conveying some hint of it to Christine, he went to Mrs. Murray’s. He rang the bell and entered the house with a strong sense of self-possession, which was only a very little disturbed when the maid again ushered himinto the little drawing-room where he found Christine alone.
He could see that his coming was utterly unexpected. The lamp, by which she usually sat at work, was not lighted, and the gas in the hall cast only a dim light upon her here, but the fire lent its aid in lighting up the figure. She was lying on the lounge before the fire as he came in, but she rose to her feet at once, saying, in a voice whose slight ring of agitation disturbed a little farther yet his self-poised calm:
“Mrs. Murray has gone to see a neighbor whose daughter is very ill. They have just moved to the house and have no friends near, and she went to see what she could do. She will be back very soon. She did not think you would come to-night.”
Noel heard the little strained sound in her voice, and fancied he saw also about her eyes a faint trace of recent tears; but the light was turned low and she stood with her back to it, as if to screen herself from his gaze. A great wave of tendernesspossessed his heart. He felt sure he could trust himself to be tender and no more, as he said gently:
“Christine, have you been crying—here all alone in the darkness, with no one to comfort and help you to bear? The thought of it wrings my heart.”
“Oh, it is nothing,” she said, her voice, in spite of her, choking up. “I sometimes get nervous—I am not used to being alone. It is over now. I will get the lamp—”
But he stopped her. He made one step toward her and took both her hands in his.
“Wait,” he said, in a controlled and quiet tone. In the silence that followed the word they could hear the little clock on the mantel ticking monotonously. Noel was trying hard, as they stood thus alone in the stillness and half-darkness, to gather up his suddenly-weakened forces, so that he might tell her, in the hope of giving her comfort, of the resolute purpose he had entered into. But in the moment which he gave himself to make this rally a sudden influence came over him from the contactof the cold hands he held in his. At first it was a subtle, faint, indefinite sensation, as of something strange and wonderful and far away, but coming nearer. The very breath of his soul seemed suspended, to listen and look as he waited. The clock ticked on, and they stood there motionless as statues. Suddenly a short, low sigh escaped Christine, and he felt her cold hands tremble. The swift consciousness that ran through Noel was like living ecstasy injected in his veins. He drew her two hands upward and crushed them against his breast.
“Christine,” he said, “you love me.”
She met his ardent, agitated gaze with direct, unflinching eyes.
“Yes,” she said distinctly, “I love you,” but with the exertion of all her power she shook herself free from his grasp, and sprang away from him to the farthest limit of the little room.
“Stop,” she said, waving him back with her hand. “I have owned the truth, but I must speak to you—”
As well might Christine have tried to parley with a coming storm of wind. The chained spirit within Noel had been set free by the words, “Yes, I love you,” that Christine had spoken, and his passionate love must have its way. He followed her across the room, and with a gentle force, against which she was as helpless as a child, he compelled her to come into his arms, to put down her head against his shoulder and to rest on his her bounding heart. He held her so in a close, restrictive pressure, against which she soon ceased to struggle, but lay there still and unresisting.
“Now,” he said gently, speaking the low word softly and clearly in her ear, “now, speak, and I will listen.”
“I love you,” she said brokenly.
Their full hearts throbbed together as he answered:
“That is enough.”
“It is all—the utmost,” she went on. “I can never marry you. When you loose me from your arms to-night it will be forever. Hold me close a little longer while I tell you.”
Her voice was faint and uncertain; her frame was trembling; he could feel the whole weight of her body upon him, as he held her against his exultant heart, while the power that had come into him gave him a strength so mighty that he supported the sweet burden as if its weight were nothing.
“Go on,” he murmured gently, in a secure and quiet tone, “I am listening.”
“I only want to tell you, if I can, how much I love you. I want you to know it all, that the torment of having it unsaid may leave me.”
Of her own will she raised her arms and put them about his neck, laying down her face on one of them, so that her lips were close against his ear.
“At the first,” she said, “I liked and admired you because I saw you were good and noble. Then I trusted you, and made your truth my anchor in the awful seas of trouble I was tossed in. Then I came to reverence and almost worship you for the highness that is in you, and then, oh, then after my baby died and my other dreadful sorrowcame, against my will, in spite of hard fighting and struggling and trying, I went a step higher yet and loved you, with a love that takes in all the rest—that is admiration, and trust, and reverence, and love in one. Oh,” she said with a great sigh, “but it is all in vain! I cannot tell you—I cannot! I say the utmost, and it seems pale and poor and miserably weak. You do not understand the love you have called into being in my poor, broken heart. I thought I should have the comfort of feeling I had told you. I feel only that I have failed! Oh, before we part, I want you to know how I love you—how the stress of it is bursting my heart—how the mightiness of it seems to expand my soul until it touches Heaven. Oh, if I could only ease my heart of its great weight of love by finding words to tell you.”
He put his lips close to her ear.
“One kiss,” he said softly, and then turned them to meet hers.
Christine gave him the kiss, and it was as he had said. The stress upon her heartwas loosened. She felt that she had told him all.
“You are mine,” he said, in a calm, low voice of controlled exultation, although, even as he said it, he loosed her from his arms and suffered her to move away from him and sink into a chair. He came and sat down opposite her, repeating the words he had spoken.
“No,” she said, “I am my own! I am the stronger to be so, now that the whole truth is known to you. Mr. Noel, I have only to tell you good-by. To-night must be the very last of it.”
“Mr. Noel!” he threw the words back to her, with a little scornful laugh. “You can never call me that again, without feeling it the hollowest pretence! I tell you you are mine!”
The assured, determined calm of his tones and looks began to frighten her. She saw the struggle before her assuming proportions that made her fear for herself—not for the strength of her resolve, but for her power to carry it out. She could only repeat, as if to fortify herself:
“I will never marry you.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because—ah, because I love you too much. Be merciful, and let that thought plead for me.”
“It is for the same reason that I will never give you up. It is no use to oppose me now, Christine. You are mine and I am yours.”
“But if you know that you make me suffer—”
“I know, too, that I can comfort you. I know I can make you happy, beyond your highest dreams. I know I can take you away from every association of sadness, far off to beautiful foreign countries where no one will know us for anything but what we are—what alone we shall be henceforth, a man and woman who love each other and who have been united in the holy bond of marriage, which God has blessed—just a husband and wife, Christine—get used to the dear names and thought—with whose right to love each other no one will have anything to do. If the idea ofthe past disturbs you we will get rid of it by going where we have no past, where no one will ever have heard of us before. As for ourselves, Christine, I can give you my honor that there is nothing in the past of either of us that disturbs me for one pulse-beat, and I’ll engage to make you forget all that it pains you to remember. Why, it is a simple thing to do. We send for a clergyman, and here in this room, with Mrs. Murray and Eliza and Harriet for witnesses, we are married to-morrow morning! In the afternoon we sail for Europe, to begin our long life of happiness together. You know whether I could make you happy or not, Christine. You know whether your heart longs to go with me—just as surely as I know that my one possible chance of happiness is in getting your consent to be my wife.”
“I cannot!” she said, “I cannot! We must think of others beside ourselves. If you are willing to sacrifice yourself, think of your mother and sisters!”
“Sacrifice myself! I sacrifice myselfonly if I give you up. You must feel the falseness of such a use of the word. As for my mother and sisters, I ask you to test that matter. Agree to marry me and I promise that they will come to our wedding, and my mother will call you daughter, and my sisters will call you sister, and they will open their hearts to you and love you.”
“Because your will is all-powerful with them,” she said.
“Yes, partly because they trust and believe in me, and will sanction what I do; and also because—in spite of a good deal of surface conventionality and worldliness—they are right-minded, true-hearted, good women, who will only need to know your whole history, as I know it, and to realize my love for you, as I can make them realize it, to feel that our marriage is the right and true and only issue of it all.”
Christine felt herself terribly shaken. She did not dare to look at Noel lest her eyes might betray her, and she would not for anything have him to know how she was weakened in her resolve by what hehad said of his mother and sisters. The conviction with which he spoke had carried its own force to her mind, and she suddenly found the strongest weapon with which she had fought her fight shattered in her hands. He saw that she was weakening, but he would not take advantage of it. She was so white and tremulous; her breath came forth so quick and short; the drawn lines about her mouth were so piteous that he felt she must be spared.
“I will not press you now, Christine,” he said; “take time to think about it. Let me come again to-morrow morning. I will leave you now and you must try to rest. Talk freely to Mrs. Murray. Ask her what you must do. Remember that I consent to wait, only because I am so determined. Listen to me one moment. I swear before Heaven I will never give you up. You gave yourself to me in that kiss, and you are mine.”
“Yes,” she said, as if that struggle were over with her now, “I am yours. I know it. Even if we part forever I am alwaysyours. I will tell you what I will do. Your mother shall know everything and she shall decide.”
He was at once afraid and glad, and Christine saw it.
“I must see your mother,” she began.
“I will see her for you. I will tell her everything and you shall see she will be for us. But if she should not, I warn you, Christine, I will not give you up for any one alive.”
“Listen to me,” said Christine calmly. “This is what you must do. You must go to your mother and tell her there is some one that you love. Tell her as fully and freely as you choose. Convince her of the truth and strength of it as thoroughly as you can, and tell her that woman loves you in return, but has refused to marry you, for reasons which, if she would like to hear them, that woman herself will lay before her. I cannot let you do it for me,” she went on earnestly. “I know you would wish to spare me this, but only a woman’s tongue could tell that story of misery, andonly a woman’s heart could understand it. You think she will love me for my misfortunes, as you have done in your great, generous heart. I do not dare to think it, but I will put it to the test. You must promise me to tell her nothing except just what I have told you. Do you promise this?”
“I promise it, upon my honor; but remember, if my mother should decide against me, I do not give you up.”
“No, but I will give you up.”
“Christine!” he cried. “And yet you say you love me!”
“Oh, yes, I say I love you—and you know whether it is true.”
She stood in front of him and looked him firmly in the face, but the look of her clear eyes was so full of crowding, overwhelming sorrow that love, for a while, seemed to have taken flight.
In vain he tried to put his hopeful spirit into her. She only shook her head and showed him a face of deep, unhoping sorrow.
“If your mother consents to see me, appoint an hour to-morrow morning and let me know. I will take a carriage and go alone—”
“I will come for you. I will bring my mother’s carriage—”
“No, I must go alone, and I prefer to go in a hired carriage. You must see that no one else is present—neither of your sisters. It is to your mother only that I can say what I have to say.”
“Everything shall be as you wish. But, Christine, don’t be hurt if you find my mother’s manner difficult, at first. She has had a great deal of trouble, and it has made her manner a little hard—”
“Ah,” she said, “I can understand that.”
“But it is only her manner,” Noel went on, “her heart is kind and true.”
“Don’t try to encourage me. I am not afraid. If she has known the face of sorrow that is the best passport between us. Perhaps she will understand me.”
“Promise me this, Christine—that whatever happens, you will see me to-morrow evening—and see me alone.”
“I promise, but it may be to say good-by.”
He repressed the defiant protest of his heart, secure in his strong resolve.
“Good-night, Christine,” he said.
“Good-night,” she answered. Her eyes seemed to look at him through a great cloud of sorrow, and her voice was like the speaking of a woman in a dream. There was a great and availing force in the mood that held her. Noel knew she wished to be alone and that she had need of the repose of solitude. So he only clasped her hand an instant, in a strong, assuring pressure, and was gone.
Exhausted, worn out, spent with sorrow, Christine retired at once to her room, and went wearily to bed, wondering what the next day would bring. She soon fell into a deep sleep, and slept heavily till morning, waking with a confused mingling of memory and expectancy in which joy and pain were inseparably united.
Noel’s note came early. It announced that his mother would be ready to receive her visitor any time after eleven. It was full of the strongest assurances of love and constancy, and Christine knew it was meant to comfort and support her in her approaching ordeal. She felt so strong to meet this, however, that even Mrs. Murray’s earnest protest that harm would come of the visit failed to intimidate her, and she turned a deaf ear to all her good friend’s entreaties to her to give it up. Mrs. Murray’s advice was for the immediate marriage and departure for Europe, but Christine’s mind was made up, and could not be shaken.
She was feeling strangely calm as she drove along through a part of the great city she had never ever seen before, where there were none but splendid houses, with glimpses, through richly-curtained windows, of luxurious interiors, and where all thepeople who passed her, whether on foot or in handsome carriages, had an air of ease and comfort and luxury that made her feel herself still more an alien. She did not regret her resolution, but she felt quite hopeless of its result. It would make matters simpler for her, at all events.
When the carriage stopped she got out with a strange feeling of unreality, closed the door behind her, careful to see that it caught, spoke to the driver quietly and told him to wait, and then walked up the steps and rang the bell. During the moment she stood there a boy came along and threw a small printed paper at her feet. It was an advertisement of a new soap, and she was reading it mechanically when the door was opened by a tall man-servant who stood against the background of a stately hall, whose rich furnishings were revealed by the softened light that came through the stained glass windows. Christine was closely veiled, and coming out of the sunshine it all seemed obscure and dim. She asked if Mrs. Noel was at home, and when the man said yes,and ushered her in she desired him to say to Mrs. Noel that the lady with whom she had an appointment was come.
Then she sat down in the great drawing-room and waited. The silence was intense. She seemed to have shrunk to a very small size as she sat in the midst of all this high-pitched, broad-proportioned stateliness. As her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness the objects about her seemed to come out, one by one—beautiful pictures, graceful statues, rich draperies and delicate, fine ornaments of many kinds. A carriage rolled by outside, one of the horses slipping on the thin coat of ice with which the shady side of the street was covered. The driver jerked him up sharply, with a smothered exclamation, and went on. As the sound of wheels died away she could hear a street band far off, playing a popular air. Then that too ceased and the silence without was as profound as the silence within. Christine felt precisely as if she were dreaming. It seemed to her hours that she had waited here, though she knew it was only a very few minutes, beforethe servant returned. Mrs. Noel requested that she would be kind enough to come up-stairs, he said.
Christine followed him silently up the great staircase, and was ushered into a room near its head. She heard the door closed behind her, and saw a small, slight figure, dressed in black, standing opposite to her.
“Good-morning. Excuse my asking you to come up-stairs,” a clear, refined voice began; but suddenly it broke off, and perfect silence followed, and the eyes of the two women met. Christine was very pale, and those beautiful eyes of hers had dark rings around them, but they were marvellously clear and true, and, above all, they were eloquent with sorrow.
The elder woman advanced to her and took her hand.
“Oh, my child, how you must have suffered!” she said.
“Ah, you know what it is. You have suffered, too. We shall understand each other better for that.”
“My dear, I seem to understand it all.Don’t be unhappy. You need have no fear of me. If you love my son as he loves you, you have my consent. I will not ask to know anything.”
“You must know. I have come to tell you. You will probably change your mind when you have heard.”
The elder woman, who was pale and delicate, and yet in spite of all this bore some resemblance to her strong young son, now led her tall companion to a seat, and sitting down in front of her, said kindly:
“Take off your hat and gloves, my dear. Try to feel at home with me. I love my son too dearly to go against him in the most earnest desire of his life. He has told me nothing, except that you love each other, and that there is something which you consider an obstacle to your marriage, but which he utterly refuses to accept as such. Tell me about it, dear, and let me set your mind at rest.”
Christine took off her gloves, because they were a constraint to her, and now, as she gave her two bare hands into those of Mrs. Noel, she said calmly:
“You think it is some little thing—that lack of fortune or a difference in social position is the obstacle. I would not be here now if it were no more than that—for I do love him!”
The last words broke from her as if involuntarily, and the impulse that made her utter them sent the swift tears to her eyes. But she forced them back, and they had no successors.
“And he loves you, too—oh, how he loves you! I wonder if you know.”
“Yes, I know—I know it all. He has shown and proved, as well as told me. We love each other with a complete and perfect love. Even if I have to give him up nothing can take that away.”
“My dear, you need not give him up. I asked my son one question only: ‘Is her honor free from stain?’”
“And what was his answer?”
“‘Absolutely and utterly. She is as stainless as an angel.’ Those were his very words.”
“God bless him for them! God foreverbless him!” said Christine. “I know, in his eyes, it is so.”
“In his eyes!” repeated Mrs. Noel. “Is there any doubt that it would be so in any eyes?”
“Yes,” said Christine, “there is great doubt.”
It was well for her that she had not hoped too much—well that she had kept continually in mind the awful value of the revelation she had come to make. If she had been sanguine and confident the look that now came over the face of Noel’s mother would have been a harder thing to bear. But Christine was all prepared for it. It wounded, but it did not surprise nor disturb her perfect calm. There was a distinct change in the tone with which Mrs. Noel now said:
“If you have been unfortunate, poor girl, and have been led into trouble without fault of your own, as may possibly be, no one could pity you more than I. I can imagine such a case, and I could not look at you and think any evil of you. But if you knowthe world at all, you must know that these things—let a woman be utterly free from fault herself—carry their inexorable consequences.”
“I know the world but little,” said Christine, “and yet I know that.”
“Then, my dear child, you cannot wonder that the woman so unfortunately situated is thought to be debarred from honorable marriage.”
“I do not wonder when I meet with this judgment in the world or in you. I only wondered when I found in your son a being too high for it—a being to whom right is right and pureness is pureness, as it is to God. You will remember, madame, that it was your son who claimed that I was not debarred from honorable marriage, and not I. Oh, I have suffered—you were right. No wonder that the sign of it is branded on my forehead for all the world to see. I have suffered in a way as far beyond the worst pain you have ever known as that pain of yours has been from pleasure. You have known death in its most awful form when ittook from you your dearest ones, but I have known death too. My little baby, who was like the very core of my heart, round which the heartstrings twisted, and the clinging flesh was wrapped, was torn away from me by death, and it was pain and anguish unspeakable—but I have known a suffering compared to which that agony was joy. There can be worse things to bear than the death of your heart’s dearest treasure—at least I know it may be so with women. And it was because you were a woman, with a woman’s possibilities of pain, that I wanted to come to you—to tell you all, and let you say whether I am a fit wife for your son.”
Ah, poor Christine! She felt, as she spoke those words, the silent, still, impalpable recoil in her companion’s heart. She knew the poor woman was trying to be kind and merciful and sympathetic, but she also knew that what she had just said had rendered Noel’s mother the foe and opposer of this marriage, instead of its friend.
“Go on, tell me all,” his mother said, and that subtle change of voice and manner was distincter still to the acute consciousness of Christine’s suffering soul. “I will be your friend whatever happens, and I honor you for the spirit in which you look upon this thing. I will speak out boldly, though you know I dislike to give you pain. But tell me this: Do you think yourself a fit wife for my son?”
Christine raised her head and answered with a very noble look of pride:
“I do.”
Her companion seemed to be surprised, and a faint shade of disapproval crossed her face.
“I know it,” said Christine. “I know he did not say too much when he spoke those blessed words to you and said I was stainless. God saw my heart through everything and He knows that it is so, but the world thinks otherwise. The world, and his own family, perhaps, would think your son lowered and dishonored by marrying me, and I never could consent to goamong the people who could think it; so, if he married me, he would not only have to bear this odium, but to give up too, forever, his home and relatives, and friends and country, and it was for these reasons I refused to marry him—not for an instant because I felt myself unworthy.”
It was plain that these earnest words had moved her companion deeply, and that she felt a desire to hear more.
“Tell me the whole story,” she said. “This you have promised to do, and you have made me eager to hear it. Remember how little I have been told. I do not even know your name.”
With the full gaze of her sorrowful eyes upon the elder woman’s face, she said quietly:
“My name is Christine.”
There was an infinite proud calm in her voice, and in the same tone she went on:
“I bore throughout my childhood and my young girl days another name that seems in no sense to belong to me now. That child and girl, Christine Verrone, isnot in any way myself. It seems only a sweet memory of a dear young creature, nearer akin to the birds, and the winds, and the flowers than to me. I cannot feel I ought to take her name, and pass myself for her. For three years I bore another name, but it is one my very lips refuse to utter now, and I never had a right to it. The one name that I feel is really mine is just Christine—the name that was given to the little baby, on whose forehead the sign of the cross was made soon after she came into this sad world, to taste of its most awful sorrow and to grow into the woman that I am. I have always loved it, because, in sound, it seemed to bring me near to Christ—the dear Christ who has never forsaken me since I have borne His sign, who has been through all my loving, dear Brother, knowing and understanding all and grieving that I had to suffer so. He is with me still. He will stay with me if I have to give up earthly love and all that can make life happy. I know He has let it all happen to me, and that it must be formy good. I know I am as pure in His eyes as when I was that little baby, baptized in His name, bearing the humanity He bore. You may decide my earthly happiness as you choose. I am not comfortless. I know now the extent of His perfect power to comfort, since I find that He can support me through the supreme trial of giving up the man I love. It is in our darkest hour He comes closest,” she said, as if in a sort of ecstasy. “He is here right with me now, strengthening and blessing me. I can feel His hands on my head. They actually press and touch me.”
The fervor of her voice, the exaltation of her look, and the extreme realism of the words she used were indescribably awing and agitating to her companion, to whom such evidences in connection with religious feeling were utterly unprecedented. She saw that the source of this deep emotion was utter despair of earthly happiness, as, in truth, it was. From the moment that Christine had noted the change in her companion, which had followed her partial confession,she felt that her doom was sealed, and it was under the influence of this conviction that she had spoken. She felt anxious now to finish the interview and get away, that she might look her sorrow in the face, without the feeling of strange eyes upon her, and that she might gather strength for her parting with the man she loved.
Her last words had been followed by a thrilling silence which the other felt herself powerless to break. It was Christine who spoke.
“I promised your son that I would tell you the history of my life,” she said. “I can give it to you very briefly. I was as innocent and unknowing as a little child when I was taken from the convent where I was educated, and married by my father to a man I scarcely knew. I suppose I was a burden to my father and he wanted to get rid of me. He told me that the whole of my mother’s little fortune had been spent on my education, and that he had no home to take me to, and that I must marry. The young man he chose for me was good-lookingand kind, though he did not speak my language, and I knew almost nothing of his. My father did everything. He assured me this man adored me and would do everything to make me happy—would always take care of me and give me a beautiful home in his land beyond the sea. I was ignorant of marriage as a baby. It was easy to get up a girlish fancy for the young man thus presented to my childish imagination, and I consented willingly. I had a lot of charming clothes ordered for my trousseau, and I was as delighted as a child. In this way I was married—”
“Ah, you were really married!” interrupted her companion, the cloud on her face beginning to clear away. Christine saw it with a tinge of bitterness in her gentle heart.
“No,” she said, almost coldly, “I was not really married. I thought so, and for three years I struggled through pain and woe and horror to do my duty to the man to whom I believed myself bound by the holy and indissoluble tie of marriage. I was ignorant, but somehow I had imbibedfrom every source ever opened to me a deep sense of the sacredness and eternity of that bond. So I fought and struggled on, feeling that truth to that obligation was my one anchor in a sea of trouble. I thought when I came here I could tell you some of the things I felt and endured, but I cannot. There would be no use. The bare fact is enough for a woman’s heart. When my child came I fixed my whole soul’s devotion on him. He was always delicate and feeble, but I loved him as, perhaps, a strong and healthy child could not have been loved. His father never noticed him at all, except to show that he thought him a burden. That was the final touch of complete alienation. Love—or what I had once called by that name—was gone long ago. We had become extremely poor—every cent of the principal had been spent in the most reckless way—oh, I can’t tell you all that. Your son will tell you if you ask him. I think a sort of mental lack was at the back of it. I must hurry; I can’t bear to go over it all now. I metyour son on the steamer coming over, and he was kind to me then, suspecting, perhaps, how things were tending. Long after I met him again, accidentally, and he found out how wretched and poor I was, with my baby ill, and in need almost of the necessaries of life. He gave me sittings at his studio, then, and paid me for them—larger sums, I suppose, than they were worth. At any rate, he and a good doctor and an old servant helped me through my trouble when my baby died and was buried. Then—oh, I am almost done with it now, thank God!” she said, with a great sobbing breath—“it came to your son’s knowledge, professionally, that another woman claimed the man I supposed to be my husband, and he was about to be tried for—” she hesitated before the word, and could not utter it. “Then—it was months ago—he took me to Mrs. Murray, who took care of me through all the misery and wretchedness of those first weeks, and afterward got me work to do that I might make my own living. There I have been, in mysad peace and safety, ever since—a broken-hearted, wretched, nameless woman, and as such your son loved me. I returned his love with all the fire and strength of an utterly unexpended force. I had never loved before. I never felt the power of that love so mighty as now, in this moment that I give him up.”
“You shall not give him up! I know it all now, and, in spite of everything, I tell you you shall not. Christine, listen, I give my consent. I declare to you that you honor him supremely when you agree to marry him. My child, if you had had a mother all this would not have come to you. I rejoice to take you for my daughter. Look at me, Christine, and try to feel that you have a mother at last.”
It was almost too much for the strained nerves of the girl. She could have borne denial calmly, seeing that she was ready for it, but the great rush of joy that surged into her heart at these unexpected words confused and agitated her. A strong voice spoke to her words of comfort and cheer,and loving arms embraced her. Sweet mother-kisses were pressed upon her cheeks and eyes, and she was gently reassured and calmed and strengthened. Her mind was still a little dazed, however, and she did not quite know how it was that she found herself now standing alone, near the middle of the room.
The door opened. Some one entered and closed it softly. She felt that it was Noel. He paused an instant near the threshold, and she turned her head and looked at him. He held out his arms. They moved toward each other, and she was folded in a close embrace. They remained so, absolutely still. Her heart was beating in full, thick throbs against his, which kept time to it. Her closed eyes were against his throat, and she would not move so much as an eyelash. She gave herself up utterly to this ecstasy of content.
“Don’t move,” she whispered. She was afraid this perfect moment would be spoiled; a kiss, even, would have done it. But he seemed to understand, and exceptto tighten slightly the pressure of his arms he kept profoundly still. She could hear his low, uneven breathing and the faint, regular ticking of his watch. They seemed enclosed in a silence vast as space, and sweeter than thought could fathom. A great ocean of contentment flowed about them, stretching into infinity. Neither could have thought of anything to wish for. They seemed in absolute possession of all joy.
A sound—the striking of a clock—broke the spell of silence. They moved a little apart, and so looked long into each other’s eyes. Then Noel bent toward the face upraised to his, and their lips met.
There were tears in Christine’s eyes as she sank back from that kiss, but her happiness was complete, absolute, supreme. God had given to them both his richest gift of pleasure after pain.