This Christmas Sabbath, though marked by no unusual event, was destined to be a memorable day in the lives of Frank Hemstead and Charlotte Marsden. A chain of unforeseen circumstances and experiences, and a sequence of emotions still less understood, had lifted them higher and higher, until this culminating day was scarcely one of earthly existence.
Lottie, in her previous life, had been frivolous and selfish; but her evil resulted from thoughtlessness, rather than from the deliberate purpose to do wrong. She was the type of multitudes of her fair sisters, who, with sparkling eyes, look out upon life in its morning to see only what it offers to them, and not the tasks it furnishes them for others. Only by experience—only by God's logic of events—do they find that their happiness is in these tasks; in unselfish giving and doing.
The world had been at Lottie's feet. It had offered her all that it has to give to a girl in her station; but when, withdrawn from it by a day of suffering, she had summed up her treasures, she had found that she had nothing but remorse. She had been receiving all her life, and yet had nothing. She would then gladly have remembered that she had given even one an impulse towards a truer and happier life. But she could not. Apart from natural impulses of affection towards kindred and friends, her only thought in regard to all had been,—How can I make them minister to me and my pleasure? With tact and skill, enhanced by exceeding beauty, she had exacted an unstinted revenue of flattery, attention, and even love; and yet, when, in weakness and pain, she wished the solace of some consoling memory, she found only an accusing conscience.
This experience conveyed to the practical girl a startling lesson. With all her faults, she did not belong to the class that is hopeless, because so weak and shallow. Though her handsome face might often express much that was unlovely and unwomanly, it ever expressed mind.
When she, in her turn, like hosts of others, came to realize the limitations of her being, her weakness and need, she looked around, instinctively, for help and support. Human teaching presented a God from whom she shrank in fear and dislike. The Bible revealed Jesus. When she most felt her need, the Bible presented One whose eyes overflowed with sympathy, and whose hand was omnipotent. She instinctively felt, like Mary of old, that, at "His feet," there were rest and hope.
The feeling was not reached as a mathematician solves an equation, or a theologian comes to a conclusion, but more after the manner in which some women and most children will look at a person and say, "I like him; I'll trust him."
There was nothing incongruous or unnatural in the contemporary love growing up in her heart for Hemstead, though it is possible that some may so think. In some minds the ideas of love and passion seem inseparable, and they regard religion as something far removed. These are but the right wing of that sinister class who jumble their passions and religion together, and, in pious jargon and spiritual double entendre, half conceal and half convey the base meaning of their hearts. In others, love, or what with them goes by the name, is equally inseparable from management and match-making, trousseaux and settlements,—concerns pertaining to earth, and very earthy, it must be admitted. No doubt many excellent, solid people would regard Lottie's spiritual condition with grave suspicion, and ask, disapprovingly, "What business have two such DIFFERENT loves to be originating in her heart at the same time?" But, in the term "different," they beg the question. Where is the antagonism? Where is even the dissimilarity? Are not these two impulses of the heart near akin, rather? and does not a truer and deeper philosophy of life teach that love for a human object may be as certainly God's will as love towards Himself? Have these solid, excellent people aught to say against the faithful devotion of a wife, or the patient tenderness of a mother, which are corner-stones of the family, as the family is the corner-stone of all true civilization? But what is the origin of the wife's devotion and the mother's tenderness? These people, surely, are as wist as they are solid. They would have the day without the dawn.
At any rate, it would appear that Heaven was making the match between Hemstead and Lottie,—making it as the spring comes on in northern latitudes, subtilely, imperceptibly, and yet speedily. Just how or when it came about, they did not know; but when they met on that Christmas morning, the peace and gladness of an assured and reciprocal love smiled from each other's eyes. They needed no explanations. Frank Hemstead's face had ever been as easily interpreted as his honest words; and he now had taught Lottie's face to tell the truth. A blessed truth it revealed to him that Christmas day.
As he entered the pulpit that morning his face was radiant with the purest human love, as well as love to God. So far from being incongruous, the one seemed to kindle and intensify the other. Though his sermon was simplicity itself he spoke as one inspired. His message now was a gospel, and came to his hearers as the angel's announcement (which was his text) to the shepherds.
But his closing words were searching, and sent many of his hearers home thoughtful and conscience-smitten, as well as cheered by the great hope which Christmas day should ever bring to the world.
"I would gladly correct," he said, "the impression which I fear was made on some minds last Sabbath. Christ is the embodiment of Christianity, and His coming to the world was 'tidings of great joy'; His coming to every sinful heart should be 'tidings of great joy.' But I fear that I led some to dread His coming, as they would purgatorial fires. How did the All-powerful One come? As a little, helpless child, that he might disarm our fears and enlist our sympathy. How did He live? The humblest among the humble, that no one on earth should be too lowly to go straight to His side with his griefs. How did He act? He took little children in His arms, and blessed them. He laid His hand on the loathsome leper from whom all shrank. He looked into the glare of the demoniac's eyes: the demons fled. Then, in meekness, He would offer to enter the poor wretch's heart, and dwell in what had been the foul abode of the foulest fiends. When men wept, He, from sympathy, wept with them, though his next breath changed their mourning into joy. When man dishonored God, or wronged his fellow-men,—as did the Pharisees, with their unhallowed traffic in the Temple, their robbery of the widow and fatherless, their blocking up of the way of life with their senseless ceremonies, puerile traditions,—no knight in all the heroic past ever breathed out a more fiery indignation. How did He die? In such a way that even the thief might be redeemed and live eternally. He was an ideal man, as well as perfect God. He was the servant of all, as well as King of kings. Not from his throne did He stoop to us. He stood at our side, and sustained fainting humanity with His encircling arm, as a brother. Little wonder, then, that the angel called the announcement that God had thus visited His creatures 'good tidings of great joy.'
"But there is a brief word of pointed and searching significance in this message. The angel said, 'Unto YOU is born a Saviour.' Is that true of each one of us? Is this Christmas day a mockery, reminding us of a hope that is not ours,—of a heaven in which we have no right or part? Does conscience tell us to-day that we have looked upon the light that shone at Bethlehem with apathetic eyes, and heard the angel's message with unbelieving hearts, so that practically no Saviour has been born unto us? Why do you keep this day as a festival, my hearer? I can tell you why you may. If you will receive it, the angel's message is to you personally; unto you is born a Saviour who will forgive your past sin, and shield you from its consequences,—who will ennoble your future life, and sustain and comfort you under the inevitable sorrow and suffering awaiting,—and who will receive you into an eternal and a happy home at the end of your brief sojourn here. May not this Christmas pass until each one has received the abiding peace and joy of the angel's message into the depths of his heart."
After the service, Miss Martell, with glistening eyes, said toHarcourt, "I am glad you heard that sermon."
"I admit," he replied, with bowed head, "that it is better than my old philosophy. I think Hemstead must have written it for me."
As the young clergyman helped Lottie into the sleigh, she whispered,"You wrote that sermon for me."
Both were right. Hemstead had preached Christ, who is God's embodied truth, meant alike for every human hearty and alike adapted to all.
It is a common impression that impending disasters cast their shadows before; and especially in the realm of fiction do we find that much is made of presentiments, which are usually fulfilled in a very dramatic way. But the close observer of real life, to a large degree, loses faith in these bodings of ill. He learns that sombre impressions result more often from a defective digestion and a disquieted conscience than from any other cause; and that, after the gloomiest forebodings, the days pass in unusual serenity. Not that this is always true, but it would almost seem the rule. Perhaps more distress is caused by those troubles which never come, but which are feared and worried over, than by those which do come, teaching us, often, patience and faith.
Does not experience show that disasters and trials more often visit us, like the "thief in the night," unexpectedly?
At any rate, it so occurred to Hemstead and Lottie on the dreary Monday that followed their glorified Sunday. And yet, never did a day open with fairer promise. A cloudless sky bent over a crystal earth. The mystic peace of Christmas seemed to have been breathed even into bleak December; for the air was mild and still, and the shadow of many a slender tree crept across the snow as steadily as that made by the sun-dial on the lawn.
Within doors all appeared equally serene. The fire burned cheerily upon the hearth when Hemstead came down to breakfast. What was of far more importance, the light of love glowed as brightly in Lottie's eyes, as she beamed upon him across the table; and the spell which kept him, unthinking, unfearing, in the beatified present remained unbroken.
But the darkest shadows were creeping towards both.
To any situated as they were, and in their condition of mind and heart, a mere awakening would have been a rude shock. Some one had only to show them, with the remorseless logic of this world, what all their heavenly emotions involved, in order to cause perplexity and almost consternation. They could not long dwell, like the immortal gods, on the Mount Olympus of their exalted feeling, subsisting on the nectar and ambrosia of tones and glances.
Lottie was the fashionable daughter of an ultra-fashionable mother and a worldly father, in whose eyes sins against the beau monde were the most irrational and unpardonable.
Hemstead was a predestined home missionary, upon whom the Christian Church proposed to inflict the slow martyrdom of five or six hundred a year. Mrs. Marchmont but reflected the judgment of the world when she thought that for two young people, thus situated, to fall in love with each other, would be the greatest possible misfortune. Therefore, with the sincerest sense of duty, and the very best intentions, she set about preventing it, after all the mischief had been done.
Like a prudent lady, as she was, she first sought to get sufficient information to justify her in speaking plainly to both nephew and niece. For this purpose she drew Addie out on Sunday afternoon, asking her if she had noticed anything peculiar in the manner of Hemstead and Lottie towards each other. Then, for the first time, and with just indignation, to her credit be it said, she learned of the practical joke of which her nephew was to have been the victim. She skilfully drew from her daughter all the details of its inception and the mode in which it had been carried out; for, to Addie's superficial observation, Lottie was only indulging in one of her old flirtations, She neither saw, nor was she able to understand, the change in Lottie's feelings and character. She also wronged Lottie by giving the impression that she herself had had nothing to do with the plot, with the exception that she had promised not to interfere.
Mrs. Marchmont could scarcely believe what she heard, but Addie referred her to Bel, who confirmed her words and admitted that from the first she had "known it was very wrong, but had not believed that anything would come of it, until it seemed too late."
"Besides," she said, "Lottie told me that if I said a word, or interfered in any way, she would from that time treat me as a stranger, and she said it in a way that proved she meant it. Therefore, whatever you do, please let it appear that I have no part in it."
"You surprise and shock me greatly," said Mrs. Marchmont. "With all Lottie's wild nonsense and fondness for flirting, I would not have thought that she could be guilty of such deliberate and persistent effort to trifle with one so sincere and good as Frank. The most heartless coquette would scarcely call him fair game. She puzzles me too, for she does not seem like one who is acting, but more like one in earnest. Besides, look at the interest she is beginning to take in religion. She surely could not employ such sacred things for the purposes of mere flirtation."
But Bell soon converted Mrs. Marchmont to her way of thinking. Lottie had found Hemstead more interesting than she had expected, and had foolishly and recklessly permitted a mere sentiment for him to develop, which, in her case, would end with the visit, and soon be forgotten in the mad whirl of New York gayety. "But with Mr. Hemstead," concluded Bel, "it will be a very different affair. He is one of the kind that will brood over such a disappointment and wrong to the end of life."
So it was settled that Mrs. Marchmont should "speak plainly" to her nephew, and warn him against "Lottie's wiles," as soon as possible.
But no opportunity occurred before Monday morning, and then not until Hemstead had received some of the most blissful experiences that he had yet enjoyed. For, immediately after breakfast, all had flocked into the back parlor, where the laden Christmas tree revealed the secrets that had filled the air with mystery during the preceding days.
All had been remembered, and Mr. Martell's munificence towards the gallant coachman quite took away his breath.
But Hemstead was overwhelmed and troubled at first, when he opened an envelope, and found a check for a thousand dollars, with the words:
"We send you this, not in any sense as compensation,—for we know enough of your character to recognize that you would have taken equal risks in behalf of the penniless,—but because we wish to be remembered by you, whom we can never forget. And we only request tint you invest this sum towards your library, so that, in coming years, the thoughts of your favorite authors may remind you of those whose best wishes, sincerest gratitude, and highest esteem Will ever be yours.
"(Signed) HERBERT MARTELL, ALICE MARTELL."
"Now, Frank, what is the use of putting on such airs?" said Addie."You surely expected a handsome present from Mr. Martell."
"I assure you, I expected nothing of the kind," he replied, a trifle indignantly. "Why should I? As it is, I am doubtful whether I ought to accept it."
"Why should I?" Lottie echoed with a merry laugh. "That's like you. But, unless you wish to hurt and wrong sincere friends very much, I advise you to keep it and do as they say. You are so exceedingly proud or humble—which shall I call it?—that I fear you neither expect, nor will take anything from me."
"Here is a queer-looking parcel for Frank Hemstead," said Mr.Dimmerly, with his chuckling laugh.
With intense delight Lottie saw the student hesitate, and his hand tremble as he slowly began to open it.
"It's not a torpedo, or an infernal machine, that you need be in such trepidation," she whispered. "It won't go off."
"Is it from you?"
"Look and see."
It was a sermon holder, of rich, plain morocco without, but within, most elaborately embroidered. Most prominent among the rare and dainty devices was a single oar.
The expression of his face repaid her, as he examined it with a comical blending of reverence and affection, such as a devout Catholic would manifest towards a relic. In the blade of the oar were worked, with the most exquisite fineness, the words, "A True Knight." Within an inner pocket, where they could not be readily seen, were the words,
"With the thanks of Lottie Marsden."
But his quick scrutiny soon discovered them, and he turned and said, with an emphasis that did her good, "I value this more than the check."
"What folly!" she said, blushing with pleasure; "it isn't worth five dollars."
"I can prove that it is worth more than the check," he said, in a low tone.
"How?"
"We value that gift most which we receive from the friend we value most. There; it is proved in a sentence; but I can prove it over again."
"What delightful lessons in logic! But you surely cannot prove it again."
"Yes. If the gift from the friend we value most contains evidence that thought and time have been expended upon it, that gift, however slight its market value, has a worth to us beyond price, because showing that the friend we love supremely thinks of us in our absence."
"I did put a great deal of time and thought in that little gift, but you have repaid me," Lottie answered.
Their brief but significant tete-a-tete was now interrupted by De Forrest, who came forward to thank Lottie for her costly gift to him,—a gift bought on Broadway. He had uneasily marked the fact that she had given something to Hemstead, but when he saw that it was only a sermon-cover, he was quite relieved.
"Come here, Frank, and show me your present," said Mr. Dimmerly, a little later.
Hemstead good-naturedly complied, and the old gentleman looked at the single embroidered oar, with a comical twinkle in his eye, and called again, "Lottie, come here."
She approached rather shyly and reluctantly, not knowing what to expect.
"Now, Lottie," said her uncle, reproachfully, pointing to the oar, "I did not expect that from so sensible a girl as you are. What is a man going to do with one oar, unless he is to take a lonely scull through life as I have? Did you mean to suggest that to Mr. Hemstead?"
"Mr. Hemstead found out another meaning than that," she said, laughing, "and I'm not going to stay here to be teased by you"; and she ran out of the room, the picture of blushing happiness.
When Hemstead again saw her it was with a great dread in his heart, and his tones were grave and almost stern.
"O—h—h, you found out another meaning, did you?" said Mr. Dimmerly, looking both kindly and quizzically over his spectacles at his nephew.
"Well, uncle, to tell you the truth I hardly understand myself. My visit here is a great contrast to my quiet seminary life, and I have been getting deeper and deeper into a maze of happy bewilderment every day. So much has happened, and I am so changed, that, like many in tales of enchantment, I scarcely know whether I am myself."
"I have seen the spell working," said Mr. Dimmerly, dryly, "and am thankful that the transformation has not been of the nature that Shakespeare portrayed in his Midsummer Night Fantasy. Your head might have become turned by the wrong girl, and you have reached the period when it is bound to be turned by some one."
"Uncle," he said, fervently, "she is the noblest and most beautiful being in existence."
"Frank, I wish to see you," said his aunt, quietly; and he followed her to her own private sitting-room.
Mr. Dimmerly indulged in his chuckling laugh as he looked after them.
"Now she's going to 'stop' it, he—he—In the mean time I'll go out and stop the brook from running down hill."
"The time has come," said Mrs. Marchmont to her perplexed nephew, with the complacent superiority with which the wise of this world enlighten those whose "heads are often in the clouds,"—"the time has come when I must speak plainly to you of a matter as important as it is delicate. You are my own sister's child, and I cannot see you wronged or going blindly into trouble without warning you. Are you not permitting yourself to become interested in Miss Marsden to a degree that is not wise?"
"Why not wise?" he answered with burning cheeks.
"Have you not realized that she is one of the most fashionable young ladies in New York, and belongs to one of the wealthiest and most fashionable families? If you could but once see her mother you would understand me."
"But she herself has changed," he urged, eagerly.
Mrs. Marchmont smiled incredulously and pityingly. "How little you know the world!" she said. "In what do you expect all your sentiment to end? Only sentiment? You say you purpose being a home missionary. Can you imagine for a moment that one situated as she is would contemplate such a life? Her parents would as soon bury her."
Hemstead groaned under his aunt's remorseless words, but said in a sort of blind desperation: "Her parents! Is this Hindostan, that parents can treat their daughters as merchandise? A girl of Miss Marsden's force and nobility of character—"
"O Frank, hush! It absolutely makes me sick to see one so easily deceived. 'Nobility of character,' indeed! Well, I didn't wish to speak of it. I could not believe it even of Lottie, but nothing less than the whole truth will convince you"; and she told him of the plot in which Lottie purposed to make him the ridiculous subject of a practical joke, and intimated that all her action since had been but the carrying out of that plot.
At first Hemstead grew deathly pale, and his aunt, thinking he was going to faint, began fumbling for her salts. But a moment later the blood suffused even his neck and brow, and he said passionately, "I don't believe a word of this; Miss Marsden is not capable of such falsehood."
"Whether in your unreasoning passion you will believe it or not makes no difference," said Mrs. Marchmont, quietly. "It is true, as I can prove by Addie and Miss Parton."
He took a few hasty strides up and down the room and muttered, "I will take her word against all the world. She shall answer for herself"; and he rang the bell.
When the servant appeared he said, "Please ask Miss Marsden to come here at once."
Mrs. Marchmont regretted Hemstead's action very much, but it was too firm and decided to be prevented. She had planned that after his "eyes had been opened to his folly," and Lottie's frivolity, to say the least, her nephew would, with quiet dignity, cease his attentions, and perhaps shorten his visit. She had a horror of scenes, but feared that one was coming now.
Hemstead admitted Lottie with a silent bow and gave her a chair.
When she saw his grave, pale face, her heart misgave her strangely, and she trembled so that even he noticed it, and also another fact,—she did not meet his eyes. He fastened his upon her, as if he would read her soul, for he now felt that more than life was at stake.
"Miss Marsden," he said, in a low, deep tone, "my aunt has made a strange charge against you, but I said to her, and I now say to you, that I will take your word against all the world. She asserts, and she gives the names of her witnesses, that your action—your kindness towards me from the first—has been but the carrying out of a deliberate and heartless jest. Is it true?"
Lottie's wonted quickness failed her. She had been so happy, she had seemed to have got so far beyond her old, false self, and so established in his affection, that such a reverse did not appear possible. But the evil that at one time she had feared had now come in a form so unexpected and serious that, for a moment, she was stunned and bewildered, and fell into helpless confusion. The nature of the case aggravated her distress. How could she explain? What could she say? In response to his question she only trembled more violently and buried her burning face in her hands.
He saw in this action confirmation of fears that he at first would scarcely entertain, and regarded her a moment with a strange expression upon his face,—anger and pity blended,—and then silently left the room.
The sleigh stood at the door, and the coachman was just starting on an errand to Newburgh.
Mr. Dimmerly looked with surprise at his nephew's pale face,—a surprise that was greatly increased as the young man seized his hat and coat, and said in a husky tone, "I am going to New York for some days," and sprang into the sleigh and was driven away.
"Well," said the old man, testily, "if she 'stopped' him as easily as that, he deserves to lose her."
And Mrs. Marchmont, seeing Hemstead depart so silently, congratulated herself that she had escaped a scene after all, and complacently thought, "These things can be 'stopped' if taken in time, notwithstanding brother's sentimental nonsense."
As poor Lottie's mind emerged from its chaos into connected thought, she speedily came to the conclusion to tell Hemstead the whole truth, to condemn herself more severely than even he could in his anger, and to ask his forgiveness.
But when she raised her tearful face to speak, he was gone.
She heard the sound of bells. A sudden fear chilled her, and she sprang to the window and saw a vanishing form that she dreaded might be his. Without a word to Mrs. Marchmont, she rushed down to the lower hall, where she found Mr. Dimmerly fuming about.
"Where is Mr. Hemstead?" she asked, eagerly.
"What the deuce is the matter? What have you sister been saying that Frank should come down here white as a sheet?"
"But where is he?" she asked again, in a tone that her uncle had never heard her use before.
"Gone to New York for several days," he said.
Lottie tottered a moment as if she had received a blow. With one hand she steadied herself on the balustrade of the stairs, while she passed the other across her brow, then turned and wearily climbed to her room.
Bel was startled at the pallor of Lottie's face as she entered the room, and rose hastily to offer assistance, but Lottie motioned her away. Without a word she threw herself upon the bed and signified her grief and despair by an act as old as the oldest records of humanity,—she "turned her face to the wall."
Bel knew that Mrs. Marchmont had "spoken plainly," and she had seen Hemstead drive away. She expected Lottie to come to her room in a towering passion, and was prepared to weather the storm in cynical endurance, assured that her friend would eventually thank her for having had a hand in breaking up the "whole absurd thing."
But when Lottie entered, with the expression of one who had received a mortal wound,—when in silence and despair she had turned her face from all the world as if there were nothing left in it for which she cared,—the nervous young lady began to fear that this affair might not pass away like an ordinary "mood."
She reasoned and remonstrated, but Lottie did not heed, and scarcely heard her. Then she went to Mrs. Marchmont, and disturbed even that lady's complacency by her account of Lottie's appearance and manner. But with approving consciences they both said, "It was time something was done."
The dinner hour came, but Lottie silently shook her head to all urging to come down. It was the same at supper. Entreaty, remonstrance, the assumption of hurt and injured tones, were alike unavailing. She lay motionless, like one stunned and under partial paralysis.
Mrs. Marchmont lost her complacency utterly, and Mr. Dimmerly proved but a Job's comforter, as he snarled, "You have stopped it with a vengeance. It's always the way when people meddle."
Nervous Bel was in a perfect tremor of anxiety, perplexity, and weak remorse; and she kept flitting in and out of the room as pale and restless as a disquieted ghost.
De Forrest thought he ought to be "chief mourner," but no one seemed to pay much attention to him.
As for Lottie, one ever-present thought seemed scorching her brain and withering heart and hope.
"He thinks me false,—false in everything,—false in every glance and word to him,—false even when I spoke of sacred things; and he will despise me forever."
Little wonder that she was so drearily apathetic to all that could be said or done to rouse her. The fall from the pinnacle of her religious hope and earthly happiness was too far and great to permit speedy recovery.
At last she rose, and mechanically disrobed for the night: but no sleep blessed her eyes, for, on every side, she saw, in flaming letters, the word false. With increasing vividness her fancy portrayed a pale, stern, averted face.
The next morning she was really ill, and her aunt, in alarm, was about sending for the physician, but Lottie prevented her by saying, somewhat coldly, "What drug has the doctor for my trouble? If you really wish me to get better, give Bel another room, and leave me to myself. I must fight this battle out alone."
"Now, Lottie, how can you take a little thing so greatly to heart?"
"Is it a little thing that the one whom I most honor and respect in all the world regards me as a false coquette?"
"You surely cannot apply such language to my nephew?"
"I do; and on the best grounds. If I am young, I am somewhat capable of judging. He is not the first man I have seen. You do not know, and have never appreciated Mr. Hemstead."
"But, Lottie, compare your station and prospects with his."
"There is scarcely any one with whom I would not exchange prospects. I am sick of society's artificial distinctions, in which true worth and manhood—all that Heaven cares for—count for nothing. What does Mr. Hemstead care about my wealth, name, and position in New York? He looks at me; and you, or, rather, my own senseless folly, have made me appear a weak, false thing, that, from the very laws of his being, he cannot help despising. But it was cruelly hard in you and Bel, when you saw that I was trying to be a different—a better girl, to show him only what I was, and give me no chance to explain. He will never trust,—never even look at me again." And, for the first time, the unhappy girl burst into a passion of tears, and sobbed so long and violently that Mrs. Marchmont had a distressing consciousness that her worldly wisdom was not equal to this case at all. She would have telegraphed Hemstead to return, if she had known where to address him. She was often tempted to write to Lottie's mother, but dreaded the reproaches of Mrs. Marsden for permitting matters to reach such a crisis before "stopping" them. And so, in anxiety and perplexity, the day dragged slowly on, until, at last, Lottie, wearied out, fell into the heavy sleep of utter exhaustion, from which she did not wake till the following morning.
But the respite from that most depressing of all suffering; mental trouble, had given her a chance, and her healthful nature began to recover.
She was a girl of too much force and character to succumb long to any misfortune; and, as she said to her aunt, she meant to fight this battle out to some kind of solution.
To the surprise of every one, she appeared at the breakfast table, very pale, but quiet, and perfectly self-possessed. Her bearing, however, had a dignity and a decision which would make even Mrs. Marchmont hesitate before she "meddled" again. De Forrest was half afraid of her, and began to realize that she was not the girl he had brought to the country but a few weeks since.
After breakfast, she dismissed Bel by saying plainly that she wished to be alone, and then sat down, and, for the first time, tried to clearly understand the situation. It grew more and more evident how desperately against her were appearances. She had been false at first, and, in a certain sense, must appear false to the last, in that she had not told him the truth. Besides, just when and how she had become in earnest she could not remember. The poor girl was greatly discouraged, and again gave way to tears, as if her heart would break.
But in the midst of her sore trouble, like a flash of genial light came the thought, "If Mr. Hemstead will never look at me again, there is One who will"; and she sprang up, and, having found a Bible, turned again to its shortest text, remembering, with a quick sob, how she had first discovered it. With almost the distinctness and reality of actual presence, there rose up before her mind One who, with bowed head, wept with men for men. Every tear of sympathy appeared to fall on her bruised heart; and hope, that she believed dead, began to revive. She just clung to one simple thought: "He feels sorry for me"; and it comforted her.
Then she began to turn the leaves back and forth to find places where Jesus showed kindness and forgave, and she soon found that this was His life,—His work in which He never wearied,—kindness to all, forgiveness for all. Then the thought stole into her heart, like the dove bringing the "olive leaf" from across a dreary waste, "If Mr. Hemstead is like his Master he will forgive me." Hope now grew strong and steadily, and the impulsive, demonstrative girl kissed the little Book, pressed it to her heart, and caressed it as if it were a thing of life. She got out her portfolio and wrote:
"Mr. Hemstead, I sincerely ask your forgiveness for my folly, which you cannot condemn as severely as I do. Though unworthy, indeed, of your friendship and esteem, can you believe that I am not now the weak, wicked creature that I was when we first met? But I have not the courage to plead my own cause. I know that both facts and appearances are against me. I can only ask you, Who told His disciples to forgive each other, 'seventy times seven'?
"Yours, in sorrow and regret,
"I have now done the best I can," she said. "The issue is in God's hands."
At the dinner-table she again perplexed the mystified household. They, in their narrow worldliness, had no key to such a problem as Lottie Marsden had become. She was gentleness itself. The mystic tears falling from Divine eyes had melted away all coldness and hardness, and the touch of her words and manner, if we may so speak, had in it a kindliness and a regard for others to which even the most callous respond. Patient self-forgetfulness is the most God-like and the most winning of all the graces.
After dinner, Mr. Dimmerly shuffled away by himself, with a sound between a sniffle and his old chuckle, muttering, "I don't believe it's 'stopped,' after all. Anyway, I wish she were going to be a home missionary in my home."
Lottie went with Dan again to the pond, and then to the "fallen tree"; but she found no other tryst there than memories, that, in view of what had happened, were very painful.
After her return, she no longer shunned the others, but sat down and talked quietly with them, as multitudes of men and women are doing daily, giving no sign that in the mean time they are patiently watching at the sepulchre of a buried hope, which may, or may not, rise again.
As with Lottie at first, so with Hemstead, the word false seemed to have the malignant power to quench hope and happiness. If it is faith that saves, it would seem that it is its opposite—distrust—that most quickly destroys. In no way can we deal more fatal and ruinous blows than to deceive those who trust us.
And Hemstead felt, at first, that he had been deceived and trifled with in all that was sacred. For hours both faith and reason reeled in passion, that grew and raged in the strong man's breast like a tropical storm. He plunged into the streets, crowded with his unknowing, uncaring fellow-creatures, as he would lose himself in the depths of a lonely forest, and walked hour after hour, he knew not and cared not whither.
Two thoughts pursued him like goading phantoms,—she was false—he was deceived.
At last, when the frenzy left him, weak and exhausted, he found himself near a large hotel, and he went in and slept almost as the dead sleep.
In his case also sleep proved "nature's sweet restorer." In the morning faith and reason sat together on their throne, and he recognized his duty to act the part of a man and a Christian, whatever the truth might be.
He sat down at last and calmly tried to disentangle the web. Second thoughts brought wiser judgment, for, after going over every day and hour of his acquaintance with Lottie, he could scarcely resist the conclusion that if she had begun in falsehood she was ending in truth. If she, in all her words and manner, had been only acting, he could never trust his senses again, or be able to distinguish between the hollow and the real.
Hour after hour he sat and thought. He held a solemn assize within his own breast, and marshalled all he could remember as witnesses for and against her. Much in her conduct that at first had puzzled him now grew clear in view of her purpose to victimize him, and, even as late as Christmas eve, he remembered how her use of the word "comedy" had jarred unpleasantly upon his ear. But on the other hand there seemed even more conclusive evidence that she had gradually grown sincere, and come to mean all she said and did. Could the color that came and went like light from an inner flame,—could tears that seemed to come more from her heart than from her eyes,—could words that had sounded so true and womanly, and that had often dwelt on the most sacred themes, be only simulated?
"If so," he groaned, "then there are only two in the wide universe that I can ever trust,—God and mother."
Moreover, in her trial, Lottie had an eloquent advocate to whom even deliberate reason appeared only too ready to lend an attentive ear,—the student's heart.
Therefore she finally received a better vindication than the Scotch verdict "not proven," and the young man began to condemn himself bitterly for having left so hastily, and before Lottie had time to explain and defend herself.
His first impulse was to go back at once and give her another hearing. But, almost before he was aware, he found a new culprit brought to the bar for judgment,—himself.
If the trial, just completed, had failed to prove Lottie's guilt, it had most conclusively shown him his love. He saw how it had developed while he was blind to its existence. He saw that his wild agony of the preceding day was not over falsehood and deception in the abstract, but over the supposed falsehood of a woman whom he had come to love as his own soul. And even now he was exulting in the hope that she might have passed, as unconsciously as himself, into like sweet thraldom. In the belief of her truthfulness, how else could he interpret her glances, tones, actions, and even plainly-spoken words?
But the flame of hope, that had burned higher and brighter, gradually sank again as he recalled his aunt's words, "How is all this sentiment to end?—in only sentiment?"
He remembered his chosen calling. Could he ask this child of luxury to go with him to the far West and share his life of toilsome privation? He had long felt that the work of a missionary was his vocation. She had never had any such feeling. He recalled her words, spoken but yesterday, it seemed: "Do you imagine that any nice girl will go out with you among the border ruffians?"
That is the way it appeared to her then. If such a thing were possible, that she had become attached to him, would it not be an unfair and almost a mean thing to take advantage of her affection, and, by means of it, commit her to a life for which she was unfitted, and which might become almost a martyrdom? The change from her luxurious home to frontier-life would be too great. If she had felt called of God to such a work,—if she had laid herself as a sacrifice upon the Divine Altar, that would be very different, for the Master would give no task without imparting strength and patience for its fulfilment. Besides, He had Heaven to give in return.
But Frank Hemstead's unselfish manhood told him plainly that he had no right to ask any such sacrifice.
Incidentally, Lottie had mentioned the number of her residence, and he hastily went up Fifth Avenue, and saw her palace of a home. Every stone in the stately abode seemed part of the barrier between them.
An elegant carriage with liveried coachman and footman came around to the entrance, and a lady who had Lottie's features, except that they had grown rigid with pride and age, entered it, and was driven away. As he saw her stately bearing, and the pomp and show of her life, he could almost believe his aunt,—that this proud woman of the world would rather bury the daughter of whom she expected so much than marry her to an obscure home missionary.
His heart grew heavy as lead, and he groaned, "Even if she loves me I have lost her."
Then came the supreme temptation of his life. Why must he be a home missionary? Who was there to compel such a sacrifice of himself? He might come to this city, and win a place as high as hers, as many poorer and more friendless than himself had done. He might even seek some well-situated Eastern church. He might aim to be one of the great popular preachers of the day; and so be able to come to the door of that proud home and ask what it would be no condescension to grant.
Again he was out in the storm; again he was in the thick of the battle;—passionate longings and love on one hand; stern, steady conscience on the other. In painful pre-occupation he again walked unknown distances. His aimless steps took him away from the mansions of the rich down among the abodes of the poor. As he was crossing a street his troubled eyes rested upon a plain cross over a lowly chapel door. He stopped before it like a superstitious Romanist,—not reverencing the emblem, however, but in vivid remembrance of Him who suffered thereon. He recalled His self-sacrifice and His words, "Whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple."
He bowed his head a moment, then turned quietly, and went back to his hotel.
The conflict was over,—the temptation passed,—and he was loyal.