IT IS ALL TRUE.
After Miss Gastonguay left Justin, his long legs carried him rapidly in the direction of his own home, over the sidewalks, steaming in the hot March sun, and cooling again in the wind.
There she was, waiting for him by the letter-box on the corner,—the rounded girlish figure, whose sight always made his blood quicken in his veins. His eye ran approvingly over her trim green suit, and the round hat set so daintily on the fair head, and with a few quick strides he was beside her.
"I have kept you waiting, Derrice. I had an important interview."
"You need not apologise. I knew that you would have come sooner if you could."
He gave her so eloquent a glance that the blood rushed to her face, yet she did not shyly avert her blushes from him as she once would have done, but returned his look by one full of a passionate and steady devotion.
He did not speak again until they were walkingdown the steep hill toward the town, when he asked her, "Which way shall we go?"
"Not by the river," and she shivered, "out toward the prison."
It was his turn to shiver now; however, he made no protest, and they were soon well on the way toward French Cross.
"I forgot," she said, suddenly pausing, "one can still catch glimpses of the river from here, and I can not bear it to-day. Can we not strike out toward the blueberry barrens?"
"Certainly, but the mud."
"I have rubbers," and she held out one foot. They plunged into a country road and walked steadily on. Both were accomplished pedestrians, and having found out that for some unknown reason her husband had rather walk than drive, Derrice usually expressed a preference for the former exercise.
For some distance she walked a little ahead of him, and, in order to escape the slush of the road, traversed the length of an icy ridge, her hands in her jacket pockets, her body carefully balanced. When she paused to allow a muddy wagon to pass, he caught up to her.
"Derrice," he said, "let us go back. You are as pale as a ghost."
"No, no,—it is only that I cannot help thinking about yesterday."
"My darling, suppose I had been drowned."
"Drowned—" and she stopped and turned to him in blank horror. Then she lifted her eyes to the chill, blue sky above them. A new world was opening on her. She might have been left alone on its threshold, left alone to struggle with the problems of life and death, and human mysteries with which she had been confronted in her swift transition from girlhood to womanhood.
She could not answer him, and with a dumb and mournful gesture continued her walk.
"Death is to a Christian only the closing of the eyes," he went on, softly, "a waking up in an atmosphere infinitely more happy than any earthly one."
She brushed away the tears from her eyes. She did not understand him.
"My body would have been in the river, my soul with God."
"And I,—what should I have done?" she asked, wildly.
"Derrice, do you know what I resolved yesterday?"
"No, Justin."
"That, God helping me, I would leave no stone unturned to secure your soul's salvation."
"My soul's salvation,—am I then so wicked?"
"No, no, not wicked, but almost spotless andinnocent to human eyes, yet all—all are guilty in the eye of infinite holiness."
"If I had been drowned in Southern California, where would my soul have been?"
A mute agony took possession of him, and in spite of the icy wind great beads of perspiration stood on his forehead. "I do not wish to pain you," she said, earnestly, "but I want to know. Am I to go to one place and you to another?"
After a time he found his voice. "Day and night I have no peace. Walking the street, sitting at home, in the midst of my business, my heart goes up to God,—save my darling from the lions."
"Then your religion is stronger than your love?"
It was. His Puritanism was ingrained with his very being. "My love is stronger on account of my religion," he said, warmly. "Can you not understand that reverence for God and a pure system of faith heighten and do not lessen one's moral obligation toward one's fellow creatures?"
"It has a reasonable sound," she said, wistfully, "but I do not understand fully about these things. Will you teach me?"
There was a flash of worshipful affection in the granite-coloured eyes behind his glasses. He enwrapped her in one ardent look, then, in subdued, glad eagerness, he launched himself on an explanation of the various tenets of his faith.
Not a word was lost on her. In a silence varied only by a brief occasional question, she walked slowly by his side over the lonely road, until finally they turned and retraced their steps toward the town.
He escorted her to his own door, then he left her, and she thoughtfully went in, and telling Mrs. Prymmer that her son had gone to the hotel to meet some mill official, she abstractedly partook of dainties urged on her by her staunch friend and admirer, Captain White.
"Will you please tell me when you are going to have your prayers this evening?" she said to him after supper.
He gave her a brief "Certainly," then, sitting down opposite Mrs. Prymmer, he devoted himself to summing up accounts in a note-book.
At ten o'clock he ran up-stairs and knocked at Derrice's door.
"Coming," she replied, and made haste to descend with him.
She had not before been present at this ceremony of family prayers, and to her unaccustomed eyes Mrs. Prymmer, Captain White, and the maid servant Mary seemed to be engaged in a kind of contra-dance, in which they walked to and fro, seizing certain books and certain chairs, and arranging them carefully in certain places.
"Have some books," said Captain White, handing her two, as she sat down in the place indicated by Mrs. Prymmer.
The first one given her was a hymn-book, and Mrs. Prymmer, selecting a trifling and unimportant jingle of religious rhymes, began in her hard voice, and with only slight assistance from Mary and Captain White, to utter a succession of unmelodious sounds. The hymn was not a success, and Derrice was glad when it was over.
The Scripture reading was announced from Jeremiah. Derrice, having never before heard of the weeping prophet, gazed helplessly at her mother-in-law, whose eyes were glued to the ponderous family Bible on the table before her.
Captain White politely found her place, but the prophecy was unintelligible to Derrice, and she fluttered over the leaves of her Bible until she came to the Song of Solomon. Here was something interesting, and in a few minutes she was utterly oblivious of her surroundings until aroused by a gentle tug at her dress from Captain White. They were all on their knees but herself. She hastily slipped down and listened to the words pouring from Mrs. Prymmer's florescent lips.
The good woman was praying for a brace of reprobates,—two beings ordained to everlasting and eternal punishment unless they indulged in a speedyand effectual repentance. Derrice, in mild wonder, followed her, until the startling discovery dawned upon her that she herself was one of the subjects of the petition. She was the stiff-necked sinner, the scorner of grace, the vessel doomed to everlasting wrath. And was it Captain White who was to go down to destruction with her? She cast a glance toward him, and was answered by a reassuring nod.
"She don't often get the chance to hold forth," he whispered, behind his uplifted hand. "Justin usually takes charge."
Derrice felt herself growing angry. How different was the mother from the son! She indignantly got off her knees and sat in her chair, and when the others rose she confronted Mrs. Prymmer with a stormy brow. Only waiting until Mary left the room she exclaimed, "You were talking about me just now—"
"About your immortal soul," said Mrs. Prymmer, pursing up her lips.
"Don't you do it again," said Derrice, wrathfully. "I will not be called by those names. You ought to be ashamed of yourself," and she swept out of the room.
"Serves you right, Hippolyta," remarked Captain White. "You brought it on yourself."
Mrs. Prymmer's countenance expressed unmitigated indignation.
"Hadn't you better give up that style of praying?" he inquired. "It's a trifle old-fashioned. They don't herd sinners into the kingdom that way now, and besides, see what poor success you've had with me. Twenty years you've been praying at me, and I drink, and dance, and fight just the same as ever. 'Pon my word, it makes me want to act worse to listen to you."
Mrs. Prymmer was not convinced. She began putting out the lights for the night, thinking thereby to force her cousin to beat a retreat into the hall.
"Quit that," he ejaculated. "Am I a twenty-dollar-a-week boarder to have the gas turned off in my face?"
"I didn't mean to rile you, Micah," she said, immediately lighting up again.
"All right, Hippolyta,—I'll not be long. I just want to discuss this reprobate business. You've got to stop calling me names. If you can't pray like a lady you can hold your tongue."
"Micah," she stammered, "it is for your soul's good."
"Soul be fiddlesticked! Can you doctor a sick soul when you send a body's temper flying all over the place?"
"I—I don't know."
"Well, you find out. Sister Negus doesn't pray that way, nor Sister Jones, nor Sister James, nor anyother sisters that I can hear of. It's just your darned old-timed way of holding sinners over the pit to see 'em squirm. Now, will you let up on it?"
"Micah, it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks."
"Then the old dog can go lie down in a corner and hold his tongue. Will he now, or shall I go down to the hotel where the waiters won't be running at me with hymn-books and Bibles?"
"Micah, when Justin's away I'll just read the Scriptures and not pray."
"All right, peony face, I'll stay," and, clapping her heartily on the shoulder, he took his hat and went for a stroll through the town before going to bed.
Derrice went into her husband's room, and, taking his Bible from the stand by his bed, carried it up-stairs.
When he came in a few minutes later he found her sitting by a table in her sitting-room, deep in the story of the creation.
"Who wrote all this?" she asked, looking up.
It seemed almost incredible to the young man that she should not be professing an ignorance she did not possess, yet he knew that she was honest. The Bible had not entered as a factor into her wandering life. He was a product of religious elements, she of worldly ones. In her training religious obligations had been ignored. She was a sweet moral blossomonly; it rested with him to add the fragrance of religion to her other attractions.
"Shall I read to you, dolly?" he said, in quiet delight; and, taking the book from her, he explained its source and inspiration, and then plunged into the recital of God's early dealings with men.
He read on and on, until he had finished Genesis, his wife meanwhile making no comment, but listening with a flushed and eager interest.
He paused when he reached Exodus, but a gesture from her urged him on. At last she took the book from him. "You are getting hoarse, I will read to you."
It seemed to Justin that he would never grow weary. The exquisite glow of happiness that pervaded him would keep him awake till all hours of the night, yet after a time he felt himself flagging; and, seeing that she was unwilling to go to bed, he slipped to the sofa for a brief nap.
After what seemed to him a few minutes, he opened his eyes. But the night was over. Daylight was creeping into the room; and there at the table still sat Derrice, her head dropped on her arms, the book pushed from her, and the gas burning in a sickly glare above.
He sprang up and shook from him the rug she had carefully tucked about him. She was asleep, and her hands were cold. The fire had long ago diedout, and the room was chilly. She had not been able to tear herself from the book, whose pages were full of such entrancing novelty. It was open at the account of the crucifixion. The thin leaves were blistered and her cheeks were tear-stained. Stumbling over the law and the prophets, she had probably turned to the New Testament for clearer reading. Perhaps, too, she wished to see for herself whether the prophesied One had really come, and what was the manner of his coming.
His own eyes grew moist. He softly dropped the rug over her shoulders, and set himself to the task of rebuilding the fire. Intense gratitude and thankfulness and such a flood of tender emotion overspread him that he could scarcely control himself. When a blaze sprang up from the wood, he rose and hurriedly paced the room. His ardent looks, like rays from burning glass, played over the head of the sleeping girl, and at last she stirred with an uneasy mention of his own name.
He was at her side in an instant, soothing her and kissing the heavy, swollen eyelids, but she seemed only partly aware of his presence, and writhed in his arms as if in bodily pain.
"Oh, it was so horrible, here alone in the night! Why did they kill Him? He was so holy!"
Justin gave her only the mute consolation of his presence. What words of his could soften the old,old tragedy of the cross,—so familiar a story to him, so startling and awful an occurrence to her? Alone in the midnight hours she had read the account of eye-witnesses, and their words had entered like iron into her sensitive soul.
"I heard something of it in a church once," she said, with closed eyes, "but I did not dream it was like that. Oh, how wicked they were! I would have fought for Him had I been there."
"His kingdom was not by the sword, my darling."
"Oh, I am so tired," she said, wearily, "so broken-hearted!"
"But you believe it?" said Justin, in a trembling voice. "It appeals to you as the truth?"
"Oh, yes, yes, that is truth. But they killed Him."
"He rose again, my darling. Did you read beyond the crucifixion?"
"No, no."
He reached past her for the Bible; and, in a solemn ecstasy, reverently unfolded to her the marvellously sweet and beautiful occurrences of the first day of the week so long ago.
Her distress left her little by little, and when he concluded with the words, "And they were continually in the temple praising and blessing God," she started up. "Now I understand. It was all planned. What those men called prophets spokewas all true. But, Justin, why have I never heard before? It is so wonderful, so astonishing! My father must have read this book,—he never told me."
Justin was silent. This book was a sealed mystery to her father. He did not care to know what was in it.
"Derrice," he said, at last, "when I married you I knew that I could not keep you wholly to myself. There are people who will tell you to beware of this book, that its teachings are narrow and hard to obey, that it is the work of men's hands, but you,—you see its divine origin. Now you are armed, I do not fear for you."
"I believe that there was never a man like this man," she said, softly, "I never heard of any one like Him; not even you, dear, dear Justin, though you are so good."
In unspeakable happiness he scrutinised her suddenly calm face, then murmured, "You love Him, you will serve Him?"
"Yes, yes, and I will not believe anything against Him; you will teach me more things, Justin. Will you tell me why some of those good people were so bad?"
"Ah, the deficiencies of the saints," he muttered. "Discrepancy most puzzling to human minds. Yes, I will teach you, little one, and you, too, will teachme many things. I am not the perfect being you think me. I, too, wish to improve, to become more compassionate, more tender, more like our Great Pattern. But what a load is off my heart. Your feet are on the everlasting rock, my Master will be your Master."
"Is this your rock?" she asked, laying her hand on the Bible.
"Yes,—the rock of our forefathers, the foundation on which the prosperity of New England is built, the rock scorned by unbelievers."
"It is a good rock," she said, seriously. "I have heard of the forefathers of New England. I have married one of their sons. I choose his faith."
Justin, overcome and subdued by the unutterable joy that had come upon him, rushed to his own room. He did not wish to break down before her. Later, he went down-stairs, and carried to the morning devotions, through the breakfast hour, and to his place of business, a face that was absolutely radiant. He was walking on air. A holy calm brooded over him, and in his manner was such an exquisite and gentle sympathy that even those men who had the briefest business transactions with him went away with a feeling of refreshment, and a frequently expressed opinion that young Mercer was growing more like his father every day.