He did not find it very difficult to comply. After a little time he said, "But my conscience condemns me for caring too much for myself." "And no doubt your conscience is right. The idea of being a friend to yourself and going against your conscience!"
"Then I have ever been my own worst enemy."
"I can believe that, and so you'll continue to be if you don't take another piece of toast."
"And yet there has always seemed a fatal necessity for me to do wrong and go wrong. Miss Walton, you are made of different clay from me and most people that I know. It is your nature to be good and noble."
"Nonsense!" said Annie, with a positive frown. "Different clay indeed! I imagine you do wrong for the same reason that I do, because you wish to; and you fail in doing right because you have nothing but your weak human will to keep you up."
"And what keeps you up, pray?"
"Can you even suppose that I or any one can be a Christian withoutChrist?"
He gave one of his incredulous shrugs.
"Now what may that mean?" she asked.
"Pardon me if I say that I think yours is a pretty and harmless superstition. This world is one of inexorable law and necessity down to the minutest thing. A weed is always a weed. A rose is always a rose. It's my misfortune to be a weed. It's your good fortune to be a rose."
Annie looked as if she might become a briery one at that moment, for this direct style of compliment, though honest, was not agreeable. Conscious of many struggles with evil, it was even painful, for it did her injustice in two aspects of the case. So she said, dryly, "What an automaton you make me out to be!"
"How so?" "If I merely do right as the rose grows, I deserve no credit.I'm but little better than a machine."
"Not at all. I compared you to something that has a beautiful life of its own. But I would willingly be a machine, and a very angular, uncouth one too, if some outside power would only work me right and to some purpose."
"Such talk seems to me idle, Mr. Gregory. I know that I have to try very hard to do right, and I often fail. I do not believe that our very existence begins in a lie, as it were, for from earliest years conscience tells us that we needn't do wrong and ought not to. Honestly now, isn't this true of your conscience?"
"But my reason concludes otherwise, and reason is above conscience—above everything, and one must abide by its decisions."
For a moment Annie did not know how to answer. She was not versed in theology and metaphysics, but she knew he was wrong. Therefore she covered her confusion by quietly pouring him out another cup of tea, and then said, "Even my slight knowledge of the past has taught me how many absurd and monstrous things can be done and said in the name of reason. Religion is a matter of revelation and experience. But it is not contrary to reason, certainly not to mine. If your reason should conclude that this tea is not hot, what difference would that make to me? My religion is a matter of fact, of vivid consciousness."
"Of course it is. It's your life, your nature, just as in my nature there is nothing akin to it. That is why I say you are made of different clay from myself; and I am very glad of it," he added with an air of pleasantry which she saw veiled genuine earnestness, "for I wish you the best of everything now and always."
Annie felt that she could not argue him out of his folly; and while she was annoyed, she could not be angry with him for expressions that were not meant as flattery, but were rather the strong language of his gratitude. "Time will cure him of his delusions," she thought, and she said, lightly, "Mr. Gregory, from certain knowledge of myself which you cannot have I disclaim all your absurd ideas in regard to the new-fangled clay of my composition. I know very well that I am ordinary flesh and blood, a fact that you will soon find out for yourself. As your physician, I pronounce that such wild fancies and extravagant language prove that you are out of your head, and that you need quieting sleep. I am going to read you the dullest book in the library as a sedative."
"No, please, sing rather."
"What! after such a breakfast! Do you suppose that I would ruin the reputation of my voice in one fell moment? Now what kind of clay led to this remark? Do as your doctor says. Recline on the lounge. Close your eyes. Here is a treatise on the Nebular Hypothesis that looks unintelligible enough for our purpose."
"Nebular Hypothesis! Another heavenly experience such as you are ever giving me."
"Come, Mr. Gregory, punning is a very bad symptom. You must go to sleep at once." And soon her mellow voice was finding its way into a labyrinth of hard scientific terms, as a mountain brook might murmur among the stones. After a little time she asked of Gregory, whose eyes remained wide open, "How does it sound?"
"Like the multiplication table set to music."
"Why don't you go to sleep?"
"I'm trying to solve a little nebular hypothesis of my own. I was computing how many million belles such as I know, and how many ages, would be required to condense them into a woman like yourself."
Annie shut the book with a slam, and with an abrupt, half-vexed "good-by," left the room. For a brief time Gregory lay repenting of his disastrous levity, and then slept.
When Gregory awoke, the sun had sunk behind the mountains that he could not even look toward now without a shudder, and the landscape, as seen from the window, was growing obscure in the early dusk of an autumn evening. But had the window opened on a vista in Paradise he would not have looked without, for the one object of all the world most attractive to him was present. Annie sat near the hearth with some light crochet-work in her hands. She had evidently been out for a walk, for she was drying her feet on the fender. How trim and cunning they looked, peeping from under the white edge of her skirt, and what a pretty picture she made sitting there in the firelight! The outline of her figure surely did not suggest the "ethereal heroine," but rather the presiding genius in a happy home, in which the element of comfort abounded. She looked as if she would be a sweet-tempered, helpful companion, in the every-day cares and duties of a busy life:
"A creature not too bright or goodFor human nature's daily food."
"How dark and lustrous her eyes are in the firelight!" Gregory thought. "It seems as if another and more genial fire were burning in them. What can she be thinking of, that such happy, dreamy smiles are flitting across her face? If I had such a hearth as that, and such a good angel beside it to receive me after the day's work was over, I believe I could become at least a man, if not a Christian;" and he sighed so deeply that Annie looked hastily up, and encountered his wistful gaze.
"What a profound remark you just made!" she said. "What could have led to it?"
"You."
"I do not think that I am an object to sigh over. I'm perfectly well, I thank you, and have had my dinner."
"You have no idea what a pretty picture you made."
"Yes, in this poor light, and your disordered imagination. But did you sigh on that account?"
"No, but because to me it is only a picture—one that shall have the chief place in the gallery of my memory. In a few days I shall be in my cheerless bachelor apartments, with nothing but a dusty register in the place of this home-like hearth."
"Come, Mr. Gregory, you are growing sentimental. I will go and see if supper is ready."
"Please stay, and I will talk of the multiplication table."
"No, that led to the 'Nebular Hypothesis.' You had better prepare for supper;" and she vanished.
"It's my fate," he said, rising, "to drive away every good and pleasant thing."
He went to the fire and stood where she had sat, and again thought was busy.
"She seems so real and substantial, and yet so intangible! Her defensive armor is perfect, and I cannot get near or touch her unless she permits it. The sincerest compliment glances off. Out of her kindness she helps me and does me good. She bewitches and sways me by her spells, but I might as well seek to imprison a spirit of the air as to gain any hold upon her. I wonder whom or what she was thinking of, that such dreamy, tender smiles should flit across her face."
How his face would have darkened with wrath and hate, if he had known that his detestation, Hunting, had inspired them!
The tea-bell reminded him how time was passing, and he went to his room with an elastic step that one would suppose impossible after seeing him in the morning. But, as is usual with nervous organizations, he sank or rallied rapidly in accordance with circumstances. When he appeared at the table, Mr. Walton could hardly believe his eyes.
"It is again the result of Miss Walton's witchcraft," explained Gregory. "The moment I felt her hand upon my brow, there came a sense of relief. In Italy they would make a saint of her, and bring out the sick for her to touch."
"And so soon lose their saint by some contagious disease," said Annie, laughing.
"I fear, sir, I was very rude to you this morning, but in truth I was beside myself with pain."
"Annie has a wonderful power of magnetism; I don't know what else to call it," said Miss Eulie. "She can drive away one of my headaches quicker than all other remedies combined."
"You are making out," said Annie, "that my proper calling is that of a nurse. If you don't change the subject, I'll leave you all to take care of yourselves, and go down to Bellevue."
"If you do," laughed Gregory, "I'll break every bone in my body, and be carried into your ward as a homeless stranger."
The supper-hour passed away in light and cheerful conversation. As if by common consent, the scenes on the mountain were not mentioned in the presence of the children, and they evidently had had their curiosity satisfied on the subject.
Annie seemed tired and languid after supper and Miss Eulie volunteered to see the children safely to their rest. Mr. Walton insisted that Annie should take his easy-chair, and Gregory placed a footstool at her feet, and together they "made a baby of her," she said. The old gentleman then took his seat, and seemed to find unbounded content in gazing on his beloved daughter. Their guest appeared restless and began to pace the room. Suddenly he asked Mr. Walton, "Have you heard anything of the fugitives?"
"Not a word beyond the fact that they bought tickets for New York and took the train. I have telegraphed to the City Police Department, and forwarded the description of their persons which Annie gave me. Their dwelling has been examined by a competent person, but evidently he is an old and experienced criminal and knows how to cover up his tracks. I think it extremely providential that they did nothing worse than send you over on the other side of the mountain in order to clear a way for escape. Such desperate people often believe only in the silence of death. They might have caused that dog to tear you to pieces and have appeared blameless themselves. If caught, only your testimony could convict them, though I suspect Mrs. Tompkins and her son. Young Tompkins brought them with their luggage to the depot. He says the man called 'Vight' met him returning from the delivery of a load of wood, and engaged his services. As he often does teaming for people in those back districts his story is plausible; and he swears he knew nothing against the man. But he is a bad drinking fellow, and just the one to become an accomplice in any rascality. I fear they will all escape us, and yet I am profoundly grateful that matters are no worse."
While Mr. Walton was talking, Gregory was looking intently at Annie. She was conscious of his scrutiny, and her color rose under it, but she continued to gaze steadily at the fire.
"And I am going to increase that gratitude a hundred-fold, sir," he said, earnestly.
Annie looked up at him with a startled, deprecatory air. "No, Miss Walton," he said, answering her look, "I will not be silent. While it is due to your generosity that the world does not hear of your heroism as the story would naturally be told, it is your father's right that he should hear it, and know the priceless jewel that he has in his daughter. I know that appearances will be against me. If you can take her view of the matter, sir, I shall be glad, otherwise I cannot help it;" and he related the events as they had actually occurred, softening or palliating his course in not the slightest degree.
Mr. Walton turned ashen pale as he thus for the first time learned the desperate nature of his daughter's peril. Then rising with a sudden impulse of pride and affection he clasped her in his arms.
Gregory was about to leave the room, when Mr. Walton's voice detained him.
"Do not go, sir. You will pardon a father's weakness."
"Father, I give you my word and honor," cried Annie, eagerly, "that Mr. Gregory did not act the part of a coward. He scarcely does himself justice in his story. He did not realize the principle involved, and saw in the promise he gave the readiest way out of an awkward and dangerous predicament. He did not think the man's crime was any of our business—"
"There is no need of pleading Mr. Gregory's cause so earnestly, my dear," interrupted her father. "I think I understand his course fully, and share your view of it. I am too well accustomed to the taking of evidence not to detect the ring of truth."
"I cannot tell you, sir, what a relief it is to me that you and Miss Walton can judge thus correctly of my action. This morning and yesterday I believed that you and all the world would regard me as the meanest of cowards, and the bitterness of death was in the thought."
"No, sir," said Mr. Walton, kindly but gravely; "your course did not result from cowardice. But permit an old man and your father's friend to say that it did result from the lack of high moral principle. Its want in this case might have been fatal, for the world, as you feared, would scarcely do you justice. Let it be a lesson to you, my dear young friend, that only the course which is strictly right is safe, even as far as this world is concerned."
Gregory's face flushed deeply, but he bowed his head in humility at the rebuke.
"At the same time," continued Mr. Walton, "it was manly in you to state the case frankly to me as you have done; for you knew that you might shield yourself behind Annie's silence."
"It was simply your right to know it," said Gregory, in a low tone.
After a few moments of musing silence, Annie said, earnestly, "I do so pity that poor woman!"
"I imagine she is little better than her companion," said Mr. Walton.
"Indeed she is, father," said Annie, eagerly. "I cannot tell you how I feel for her, and I know from her manner and words that her guilty life is a crushing burden. It must be a terrible thing to a woman capable of good (as she is), and wishing to live a true life, to be irrevocably bound to a man utterly bad."
"She is not so bound to him," said her father; "can she not leave him?"
"Ah! there comes in a mystery," she replied, and the subject dropped.Soon after, they separated for the night.
But Gregory had much food for painful thought. After the experience of that day his chief desire was to stand well in Miss Walton's esteem. And yet how did he stand—how could he stand, being what he was? He was not conscious of love for her as yet. He would have been satisfied if she had said, "I will be your friend in the truest sense of the word." He had no small vanity, and understood her kindness. She was trying to do good to him as she would to any one else. She was sorry for him as for the wretched woman who also found an evil life bitter, but she could never think of him as a dear, congenial, trusted friend. Even her father, in her presence, had rebuked his lack of principle, asserting that his nature was like the vile weed; and this had been proved every day of his visit. If she should come to know of his purpose and effort to tempt her into the display of petty weakness and lack of principle herself, would she not regard him as "utterly bad," and shrink with loathing even from the bonds of friendship?
He was learning the lesson that wrong sooner or later will bring its own punishment, and that the little experiment upon which he had entered as a relief from ennui might become the impassable gulf between him and happiness; for he knew that, if their relations ever verged toward mutual confidence, she would ask questions that would render lies his only escape. He could not sink to that resort. It was late before he found in sleep refuge from painful thoughts.
The next day he was much alone. The news of their adventure having got abroad, many because of their sincere regard for Annie, and not a few out of curiosity, called to talk the matter over. After meeting one or two of these parties, and witnessing the modesty and grace with which Annie satisfied and foiled their curiosity at the same time, he was glad to escape further company in a long and solitary ramble. The air was mild, so that he could take rest in sunny nooks, and thus he spent most of the day by himself. His conscience was awakened, and the more pure and beautiful Annie's character grew in his estimation, the more dastardly his attempt upon it seemed. Never before had his evil life appeared so hideous and hateful.
And yet his remorse had nothing in it of true penitence. It was rather a bitter, impotent revolt at what he regarded as cruel necessity. Now that he had been forced to abandon his theory that people are good as they are untempted, he adopted another, which, if it left him in a miserable predicament, exonerated him from blame. He had stated it to Annie when he said, "You are made of different clay from other people." He tried hard to believe this, and partially succeeded. "It is her nature to be good, and mine to be evil," he often said to himself that long and lonely day. "I have had a fatal gravitation toward evil ever since I can remember."
But this was not true. Indeed, it could be proved out of his own memory that he had had as many good and noble impulses as the majority, and that circumstances had not been more adverse to him than to numerous others. He was dimly conscious of these facts, though he tried to shut his eyes to them.
A man finally gets justice at the bar of his own conscience, but it is extorted gradually, reluctantly, with much befogging of the case.
Still this theory would not help him much with Annie Walton, for he knew that she would never entertain it a moment.
Thus he wandered for hours amid old scenes and boyish haunts, utterly oblivious of them, brooding more and more darkly and despondingly over his miserable lot. He tried to throw off the burden of depressing thought by asking, in sudden fierceness, "Well, what is Annie Walton to me? I have only known her a short time, and having lived thus long, can live the rest of my days—probably few—without her."
But it was of no use. His heart would not echo the words, but in its very depths a voice clear and distinct seemed to say, "I want to be with her—to be near her. With her, the hours are winged; away, they are leaden-footed. She awakens hope, she makes it appear possible to be a man."
He remembered her hand upon his aching brow, and groaned aloud in view of the gulf that his own life had placed between them.
"'Neither can they pass to us,'" he said, unconsciously repeating the words of Scripture. "With her nature what I know it to be, she cannot in any way ally it to mine."
As the shadows of evening deepened he sauntered wearily and despondingly to the house. There were still guests in the parlor, and he passed up to his room. For the first time he found it chilly and fireless. It had evidently been forgotten, and he felt himself neglected; and it seemed that he could drop out of existence unnoted and uncared for. In what had been his own home, the place where for so many years he had experienced the most thoughtful tenderness, there came over him a sense of loneliness and desolation such as he had never before known or believed possible. He felt himself orphaned of heaven and earth, of God and man.
But a process had commenced in Annie's mind that would have surprised him much. Unconsciously as yet even to herself, she was disproving his "superior clay" theory. Though carefully trained, and though for years she had prayerfully sought to do right, still she was a true daughter of Eve, and was often betrayed by human weakness. She had not the small, habitual vanity of some pretty women, who take admiration and flattery as their due, and miss it as they do their meals. Still there were pride and vanity in her composition, and the causes that would naturally develop them were now actively at work. She considered herself plain and unattractive personally, and so she was to the careless glance of a stranger, but she speedily became beautiful, or, what was better, fascinating, to those who learned to know her well. All are apt to learn their strong points rather than their weak ones, and Annie had no little confidence in her power to win the attention and then the respect and regard of those whose eyes turned away indifferently after the first perception of her lack of beauty. She did not use this power like a coquette, but still she exulted in it, and was pleased to employ it where she could innocently. She was amused by Gregory's sublime indifference at first, and thought she could soon change that condition of his mind. She did not know that she was successful beyond her expectation or wishes.
But while she rejected and was not affected by the fulsome flattery with which he at first plied her, detecting in it the ring of insincerity, she had noted, with not a little self-gratulation, how speedily she had made him conscious of her existence and developed a growing interest. She knew nothing of his deliberate plot against her, or of its motive. Therefore his manner had often puzzled her, but she explained everything by saying, "He has lived too long in Paris."
Still it is justice to her to say that while, from the natural love of power existing in every breast, she had her own little complacencies, and often times of positive pride and self-glorification, yet she struggled against such tendencies, and in the main she earnestly sought to use for their own good the influence she gained over others.
But of late there had been enough to turn a stronger head than hers. Gregory's homage and admiration were now sincere, and she knew it, and it was no trifling thing to win such unbounded esteem from a man who had seen so much of the world and was so critical. "He may be bad himself, but he well knows what is good and noble," was a thought that often recurred to her. Then, in a moment of sudden and terrible peril, she had been able to master her strong natural timidity, and be true to conscience, and while she thanked God sincerely, she also was more and more inclined to take a great deal of credit to herself. Gregory's words kept repeating themselves, "You are made of different clay from others." While she knew that this was not true as he meant it, still the tempter whispered, "You are naturally superior, and you have so schooled yourself that you are better than many others." Her father's intense look of pride and pleasure when he first learned of her fortitude, and his strong words of thankfulness, she took as incense to herself. Then came a flock of eager, curious, sympathizing people, who continued to feed her aroused pride by making her out a sort of heroine. Chief of all she was complacent in the consciousness of so generously shielding Gregory when, if she had told the whole story, she, in contrast with him, would appear to far greater advantage.
Altogether, her opinion of Annie Walton was rising with dangerous rapidity; and the feeling grew strong within her that, having coped successfully with such temptations, she had little to fear from the future. And this feeling of overweening self-confidence and self-satisfaction was beginning to tinge her manner. Not that she would ever show it offensively, for she was too much of a lady for that. But at the supper-table that evening she gave evident signs of elation and excitement. She talked more than usual, and was often very positive in matters where Gregory knew her to be wrong; and she was also a little dictatorial. At the same time the excitement made her conversation more brilliant and pointed, and as Gregory skilfully drew her out, he was surprised at the force and freshness of her mind.
And yet there was something that jarred unpleasantly, a lack of the sincere simplicity and self-forgetfulness which were her usual characteristics. He had never known her to use the pronoun "I" with such distinctness and emphasis before. Still all this would not have seemed strange to him in another, but it did in her.
She did not notice the cloud upon his brow, or that he spoke only in order to lead her to talk. She was too much preoccupied with herself for her customary quick sympathy with the moods of others. She made no inquiries as to how he had spent the day, and seemingly had forgotten him as completely as he had been absorbed in her. He saw with a deeper regret than he could understand that, except when he awakened her pity by suffering, or entertained her by his conversation as any stranger might, he apparently had no hold upon her thoughts.
After supper, in answer to the children's demand for stories, she said almost petulantly that she was "too tired," and permitted Aunt Eulie to take them with sorrowful faces away to bed earlier than usual.
"I need a little rest and quiet," she said.
Gregory was eager for further conversation in order that he might obtain some idea how mercy would tinge her judgment of him if she should ever come to know the worst, but she suddenly seemed disinclined to talk, or give him any attention at all.
Taking the arm-chair he usually occupied, and leaving the other for her father, she leaned back luxuriously and gazed dreamily into the fire. Mr. Walton politely offered Gregory his. Then Annie, suddenly, as if awakening, rose and said, "Excuse me," and was about to vacate her seat.
But Gregory insisted upon her keeping it, saying, "You need it more than I, after the unusual fatigues of the day. I am no longer an invalid. Even the ache in my bones from my cold has quite disappeared."
She readily yielded to his wish, and again appeared to see something in the fire that quite absorbed her. After receiving a few courteous monosyllables he apparently busied himself with a magazine.
Suddenly she said to her father, "Are you sure the steamer is due to-day?"
He replied with a nod and a smile that Gregory did not understand, and he imagined that she also gave him a quick look of vexed perplexity.
She did, for by that steamer she expected her lover, Mr. Hunting, who had been abroad on a brief business visit, and she hoped that in a day or two he would make his appearance. Conscious of the bitter enmity that Gregory for some unknown reason cherished toward him, she dreaded their meeting. As Gregory watched her furtively, her brow contracted into a positive frown. The following thoughts were the cause: "It will be exceedingly stiff and awkward to have two guests in the house who are scarcely on speaking terms, and unless I can make something like peace, it will be unendurable. Moreover, I don't want any strangers around, much less this one, while Charles is here."
Thus in the secret of her soul Annie's hospitality gave out utterly, and in spirit she had incontinently turned an unwelcome guest out of doors. Now that she had really won a vantage-ground that could be used effectively, all her Christian and kindly purposes were forgotten in the self-absorption that had suddenly mastered her.
The evening was a painful one to Gregory. His sense of loneliness was deepened, and nowhere is such a feeling stronger than at a fireside where one feels that he has no right. Mr. Walton was occupied that evening with some business papers. He had not a thought of discourtesy toward his guest. Indeed, in the perfection of hospitality, he had adopted Gregory so completely into his household that he felt that he could treat him as one of the family. And yet Mr. Walton was also secretly uneasy at the prospect of entertaining hostile guests, and, with his knowledge of the world, was not sure that peace between them could be made in an hour.
The disposition of those around us often creates an atmosphere, nothing tangible but something felt; and the impression on Gregory's mind, that he belonged not to this household, but to the outside world—that the circle of their lives did not embrace him, and that his visit might soon come to an end without much regret on their part—was not without cause. And yet they would have consciously failed in no duty of hospitality had he stayed for weeks.
But never before had Gregory so felt his isolation. He had but few relatives, and they were not congenial. His life abroad, and neglect, had made them comparative strangers. But here, in the home of his childhood, the dearest spot of earth, were those who might become equally loved with it. In a dim, obscure way the impression was growing upon him that his best chance for life and happiness still centred in the place where he had once known true life and happiness. Annie Walton seemed to him the embodiment of life. She was governed and sustained by a principle which he could not understand, and which from his soul he was beginning to covet.
His good father and mother had been like old Mr. Walton. Their voyage of life was nearly over as he remembered them, and they were entering the quiet, placid waters of the harbor. Whether they had reached their haven of rest through storm and temptation, he did not know, but felt that they never could have had his unfortunate experience or been threatened with utter wreck. They belonged to his happier yet vanished past, which could never return.
But Annie unexpectedly awakened hope for the present and future. This eager-eyed, joyous girl, looking forward with almost a child's delight to the life he dreaded—this patient woman already taking up the cares and burdens of her lot with cheerful acceptance—this strong, high-principled maiden, facing and mastering temptation in the spirit of the olden time—this daughter of nature was full of inspiration. Never had he found her society a weariness. On the contrary she had stirred his slow, feeble pulse, and revived his jaded mind, from the first. Her pure, fresh thought and feeling had been like a breath from an oasis to one perishing in the desert. But chiefly had her kindness, delicacy, and generosity, when in his moral and physical weakness he had been completely at her mercy, won his deepest gratitude. Also he felt that in all his after life he could never even think of her touch upon his aching temples without an answering thrill of his whole nature that appeared to have an innate sympathy with hers.
And yet the exasperating mystery of it all! While she was becoming the one source of life and hope for him, while his very soul cried out for her friendship and sisterly regard (as he would then have said), she seemed, in her preoccupation, unconscious of his existence, and he instinctively felt that she would bid him "good-by" on the following day, perhaps, with a sense of relief, and the current of her life flow on as smoothly and brightly as if he had never caused a passing agitation.
With gnawing remorse he inwardly cursed his evil life and unworthy character, for these he believed formed the hopeless gulf that separated them.
"It is the same," he said, in his exaggerating way, "as if a puddle should mirror the star just above it, and, becoming enamored, should wish it to fall and be quenched in its foul depths."
But he did himself great wrong; for in the fact that Annie so attracted him he proved that he possessed large capabilities of good.
He could not bear to see her sitting there so quietly forgetful of him, and so made several vain attempts during the evening to draw her into conversation. Finding her disinclined to talk, he at last ventured to ask her to sing. With something like coldness she replied, "Really, Mr. Gregory, I am not in the mood for it this evening; besides, I am greatly fatigued."
What a careless, indifferent shrug he usually gave when fair ladies denied his requests! Now, for some unaccountable reason, he flushed deeply and a sharp pain came into his heart. But he only said, "Pardon me, Miss Walton, for not seeing this myself. But you know that I am selfishness embodied, and your former good-nature leads me to presume."
Annie gave him a hurried smile, as she answered, "Another time I will try to keep up my character better"; and then she was absorbed again in a picture among the hickory coals.
Like many who live in the country and are much alone, she was given to fits of abstraction and long reveries. She had no idea how the time was passing, and meant to exert herself before the evening was over for the benefit of her father and guest. But her lively imagination could not endure interruption till it had completed some scenes connected with him she hoped so soon to see. Moreover, as we have said, the tendency to self-absorption had been developing rapidly.
After the last rebuff, Gregory was very quiet, and soon rose and excused himself, saying that he had taken longer walks than usual and needed rest.
Annie awakened, as if out of a dream, with a pang of self-reproach, and said, "I have been a wretched hostess this evening. I hope you will forgive me. The fact is, I've been talked out to-day."
"And I had not the wit to entertain and interest you, so I need forgiveness more. Good-night."
Mr. Walton looked up from his business papers and smiled genially over his spectacles and then was as absorbed as before.
Annie sat down with a vague sense of discontent. With their guest, her dreams also had gone, and she became conscious that she had treated him with almost rude neglect, and that he had borne it in a spirit different from that which he usually showed. But she petulantly said to herself, "I can't always be exerting myself for him as if he were a sick child."
But conscience replied, "You have so much to make you happy, and he so little! You are on the eve of a great joy, and you might have given him one more pleasant evening."
But she met these accusations with a harshness all unlike herself. "It's his own fault that he is not happy. He had no business to spoil his life."
"Yes," retorted conscience, "but you have promised and purposed to help him find the true life, and now you wish him out of the way, and have lost one of your best opportunities and perhaps your last; for he will not stay after Hunting comes;" and, self-condemned, she felt that she had spent a very selfish and profitless evening.
For some reason she did not feel like staying to prayers with her father and Miss Eulie, who now came in, but, printing a hasty kiss on Mr. Walton's cheek, said, "Good-night. I'm tired, and going to bed." Even in her own room there was a malign influence at work that made her devotion formal and brief, and she went to sleep, "out of sorts."
The cloud on her brow had not disappeared on the ensuing morning when she came down to breakfast. Unless the causes are removed, the bad moods of one day are apt to follow us into the next.
Annie was now entering upon one of those periods when, in accordance with a common expression, "everything goes wrong," and the world develops a sudden perverseness that distracts and irritates even the patient.
The butcher had neglected to fill the order for breakfast, and Jeff, also under the baleful spell, had killed an ancient hen instead of a spring chicken, to supply the sudden need.
"Couldn't cotch nothin' else," he answered stolidly to Annie's sharp reprimand, so sharp that Gregory, who was walking toward the barn, was surprised.
Zibbie was fuming in the broadest Scotch, and had spoiled her coffee, and altogether it was a sorry breakfast to which they sat down that morning; and Annie's worried, vexed looks did not make it more inviting. Gregory tried to appear unconscious, and directed his conversation chiefly to Mr. Walton and Miss Eulie.
"Annie," said her father, humorously, "it seems to me that this fowl must have reminiscences of the ark."
But she could not take a jest then, and pettishly answered that "if he kept such a stupid man as Jeff, he could not expect anything else."
Annie was Jeff's best friend, and had interceded for him in some of his serious scrapes, but her mood now was like a gusty day that gives discomfort to all.
After a few moments she said, suddenly, "O father, I forgot to tell you. I invited the Camdens here to dinner to-day."
His face clouded instantly, and he looked exceedingly annoyed.
"I am very sorry to hear it," he said.
"Why so?" asked Annie, with an accent that Gregory had never heard her use toward her father.
"Because I shall have to be absent, for one reason. I meant to tell you about it last evening, but you seemed so occupied with your own thoughts, and disappeared at last so suddenly, that I did not get a chance. But there is no help for it. I have very important business that will take me out to Woodville, and you know it requires a good long day to go and come."
"It will never do in the world for you to be away," cried Annie.
"Can't help it, my dear; it's business that must be attended to."
"But, father," she urged, "the Camdens are new people, and said to be very wealthy. We ought to show them some attention. They were so cordial yesterday, and spoke so handsomely of you, expressing a wish to meet you and be social, that I felt that I could not do otherwise than invite them. For reasons you understand it may not be convenient to see them very soon after to-day."
The old gentleman seemed to share his daughter's vexation, but from a different cause, and after a moment said, "You are right; they are 'new people' in more senses than one, and appear to me to be assuming a great deal more than good taste dictates in view of the past. As mistress of my home I wish you to feel that you have the right to invite any one you please, within certain limits. The Camdens are people that I would do any kindness to and readily help if they were in trouble, but I do not wish to meet them socially."
Tears of shame and anger glistened in Annie's eyes as she said, "I'm sure you know very well that I wish to entertain no vulgar, pushing people. I knew nothing of their 'past.' They seemed pleasant when they called. They were said to have the means to be liberal if they wished, and I thought they would be an acquisition to our neighborhood, and that we might interest them in our church and other things."
"In my view," replied Mr. Walton, a little hotly, "the church and every good cause would be better off without their money, for, in plain English, it was acquired in a way that you and I regard as dishonorable. I'm very sorry they've come to spend it in our neighborhood. The fact may not be generally known here, but it soon will be. I consider such people the greatest demoralizers of the age, flaunting their ill-gotten wealth in the faces of the honest, and causing the young to think that if they only get money, no matter how, society will receive them all the same. I am annoyed beyond measure that we should seem to give them any countenance whatever. Moreover, it is necessary that I go to Woodville."
"O dear!" exclaimed Annie, in a tone of real distress, "what shall I do? If I had only known all this before!" Then, turning with sudden irritation to her father, she asked, "Why did you not tell me about them?"
"Because you never asked, and I saw no occasion to. I do not like to speak evil of my neighbors, even if it be true. I did not know of your call upon them till after it occurred, and then remarked, if you will remember, that they were people that I did not admire."
"Yes," she exclaimed, in a tone of strong self-disgust, "I do remember your saying so, though I had no idea you meant anything like what you now state. The wretched mystery of it all is, why could I not have remembered it yesterday?"
"Well, my dear," replied the father, with the glimmer of a smile, "you were a bit preoccupied yesterday; though I don't wonder at that."
"I see it all now," cried Annie, impetuously. "But it was with myself I was preoccupied, and therefore I made a fool of myself. I was rude to you last night also, Mr. Gregory, so taken up was I with my own wonderful being."
"Indeed, Miss Walton, I thought you were thinking of another," said he, with a keen glance, and she blushed so deeply that he feared she was; but he added, quickly, "You once told me that it was as wrong to judge one's self harshly as another. I assure you that I've no complaints to make, but rather feel gratitude for your kindness. As to this other matter, it seems to me that in your ignorance of these people you have acted very naturally."
"I'm sorry I did not tell you more about them," said her father. "I did intend to, but somehow it escaped me."
"Well," said Annie, with a long breath, "I am fairly in the scrape.I've invited them, and the question now is, what shall we do?"
The old merchant, with his intense repugnance to anything like commercial dishonesty, was deeply perturbed. The idea of entertaining at his board as guest a man with whom he would not have a business transaction was exceedingly disagreeable. Leaving the unsatisfactory breakfast half-finished, he rose and paced the room in his perplexity. At last he spoke, as much to himself as to his daughter. "It shall never be said that John Walton was deficient in hospitality. They have been invited by one who had the right, so let them come, and be treated as guests ever are at our house. This much is due to ourselves. But after to-day let our relations be as slight as possible. Mr. Gregory, you are under no obligation to meet such people, and need not appear unless you wish."
"With your permission I will be present, sir, and help Miss Walton entertain them. Indeed, I can claim such slight superiority to these Camdens or any one else that I have no scruples."
"How is that?" asked Mr. Walton, with a grave, questioning look. "I trust you do not uphold the theory that seems to prevail in some commercial circles, that any mode by which a man can get money and escape State prison is right?"
"I imagine I am the last one in the world to uphold such a 'theory,'" replied Gregory, quickly, with one of his expressive shrugs, "inasmuch as I am a poor man to-day because this theory has been put in practice against me. No, Mr. Walton," he continued, with the dignity of truth, "it is but justice to myself to say that my mercantile life has been as pure as your own, and that is the highest encomium that I could pass upon it. At the same time it has been evident to you from the first day I came under your roof that I am not the good man that you loved in my father."
The old gentleman sighed deeply. He was too straightforward to utter some trite, smooth remark, such as a man of the world might make. Regarding Gregory kindly, he said, almost as if it were a prayer, "May his mantle fall on you. You have many traits and ways that remind me strongly of him, and you have it in you to become like him."
Gregory shook his head in deep dejection, and said in a low tone, "No, never."
"You know not the power of God," said Mr. Walton, gravely. "At any rate, thank Him that He has kept you from the riches of those who I am sorry to find must be our guests to-day."
The children now came in from their early visit to the chestnut-trees, and the subject was dropped. Mr. Walton left the room, and Gregory also excused himself. Miss Eulie had taken no part in the discussion. It was not in her nature to do so. She sat beaming with sympathy on both Annie and her brother-in-law, and purposing to do all she could to help both out of the dilemma. She felt sorry for them, and sorry for the Camdens and Gregory, and indeed everybody in this troubled world; but such were her pure thoughts and spiritual life that she was generally on the wing, so far above earthly things that they had little power to depress her.
The burden of the day fell upon Annie, and a heavy one she found it. Her lack of peace within was reflected upon her face, and in her satellites that she usually managed with such quiet grace. Zibbie was in one of her very worst tantrums, and when she heard that there was to be company to dinner, seemed in danger of flying into fragments. The thistle, the emblem of her land, was a meek and downy flower compared with this ancient dame. When she took up or laid down any utensil, it was in a way that bade fair to reduce the kitchen to chaos before night. Jeff had "got his back up" also about the hen, and was as stupid and sullen as only Jeff knew how to be; and even quiet Hannah was almost driven to frenzy by Zibbie reproaching her for being everything under heaven that she knew she was not. In her usual state of mind Annie could have partly allayed the storm, and poured oil on the troubled waters, but now disquietude sat on her own brow, and she gave her orders in the sharp, decisive tone that compels reluctant obedience.
The day was raw and uncomfortable, and Gregory resolved to make his easy-chair by the parlor fire the point from which he would watch the development of this domestic drama. He had no vulgar, prying curiosity, but an absorbing interest in the chief actor; and was compelled to admit that the being whom he had come to regard as faultless was growing human faster than he liked.
This impression was confirmed when the children came tearing through the main hall past the parlor to the dining-room opposite, which they entered, leaving the door open. Annie was there preparing the dessert. Country house-keepers can rarely leave these matters to rural cooks, and Zibbie could be trusted to sweeten nothing that day.
With exclamations of delight the children clamored to help, or "muss" a little in their own way, a privilege often given them at such times. But Annie sent them out-of-doors again with a tone and manner that caused them to tip-toe back past the parlor with a scared look on their faces, and the dining-room door was shut with a bang.
Gregory was puzzled. Here was one who had foiled his most adroit temptations, and resisted wrong in a way that was simply heroic, first showing something very like vanity and selfishness, and then temper and passion on what seemed but slight provocation. He did not realize, as many do not, that the petty vexations of life will often sting into the most humiliating displays of weakness one who has the courage and strength to be a martyr. Generals who were as calm and grand in battle as Mont Blanc in a storm have been known to fume like small beer, in camp, at very slight annoyances.
Annie's spirit was naturally quick and imperious, brooking opposition from no one. She was also fond of approbation. She rated Gregory's hollow French gallantry at its true worth, but his subsequent sincere respect and admiration, after their mountain adventure, had unconsciously elated her, especially as she felt that she had earned them well.
Thus, when he had not intended it, and had given over as hopeless his purpose to tempt her, and dropped it in self-loathing that he should ever have entertained it, he had by his honest gratitude and esteem awakened the dormant vanity which was more sensitive to tributes to her character than to mere personal compliments. The attention she had received the day before had developed this self-complacency still more, and the nice balance of her moral life had been disturbed.
It seems that the tempter watches for every vantage. At any rate, as she expressed it, "everything went wrong" that day. One weakness, one wrong, prepares the way for another as surely as when one soldier of Diabolus gets within the city he will open the gates to others; and Annie's temper, that she had so long and prayerfully schooled, was the weak point inevitably assailed. She was found with her armor off. She had closed the preceding day and entered on the present with the form and not the reality of prayer. Therefore it was Annie Walton alone who was coping with temptation. She felt that all was wrong without and within. She felt that she ought to go to God at once in acknowledgment and penitence, and regain her peace; but pride and passion were aroused. She was hurried and worried, full of impotent revolt at herself and everything. She was in no mood for the dreaded self-examination that she knew must come. She was like a little wayward child, that, while it loves its parents, yet grieves and wrongs them by lack of obedience and simple trust, and having wronged them, partly from pride and partly from fear, does not humbly seek reconciliation.
The obnoxious guests came, and the dinner followed. Mr. Walton was the embodiment of stately courtesy, but it was a courtesy due to John Walton rather than to them, and it somewhat awed and depressed the Camdens. Zibbie had done her best to spoil the dinner, and, in spite of Annie, had succeeded tolerably well. Only the dessert, which Annie had made, did credit to her housekeeping. Hannah waited on them as if she were assisting at their obsequies. Altogether it was a rather heavy affair, though Gregory honestly did his best to entertain, and talked on generalities and life abroad, which the Camdens were glad to hear about, so incessantly that he scarcely had time to eat. But he was abundantly rewarded by a grateful look from Annie.
As for herself, she could not converse connectedly or well. She was trammelled by her feeling toward the guests; she was so vexed with herself, mortified at the dinner, and angry with Zibbie, whom she mentally vowed to discharge at once, that she felt more like crying than talking graceful nonsense; for the Camdens soon proved themselves equal only to chit-chat. She sat at her end of the table, red, flurried, and nervous, as different as possible from the refined, elegant hostess that she could be.
Gregory was also much interested in observing how one so truthful would act under the circumstances, and he saw that she was sorely puzzled continually by her efforts to be both polite and honest.
The Camdens were puzzled also, and severely criticised their entertainers, mentally concluding and afterward asserting, with countless variations, that Miss Walton was wonderfully overrated—that she was a poor housekeeper, and, they should judge, but little accustomed to good society.
"I never saw a girl so flustered," Mrs. Camden would remark,complacently. "Perhaps our city style rather oppressed her; and as forMr. Walton, he put on so much dignity that he leaned over backward.They evidently don't belong to our set."
That was just the trouble, and Mrs. Camden was right and wrong at the same time.
Their early departure was satisfactory to both parties. Mr. Walton drew a long breath of immeasurable relief, and then called briskly to Jeff, who was coming up from the garden, "Harness Dolly to my buggy."
"Why, father, where are you going?" exclaimed Annie.
"To Woodville."
"Now, father—" began Annie, laying hold of his arm.
"Not a word, my dear; I must go."
"But it will be late in the night before you can get back. The day is cold and raw, and it looks as if it would rain."
"I can't help it. It's something I can't put off. Hurry, Jeff, and get ready to go with me."
"O dear!" cried Annie; "this is the worst of all. Let me go for you—please do."
"I'm not a child," said the old gentleman, irritably. "Since I could not go this morning, I must go now. Please don't worry me. It's public business that I have no right to delay, and I promised that it should be attended to today;" and with a hasty "good-by" he took his overcoat and started.
Annie was almost beside herself with vexation and self-reproach, and her feelings must find vent somewhere. Gregory prudently retired to his room.
"There's Zibbie," she thought; "I'll teach her one lesson;" and she went to the kitchen and discharged the old servant on the spot.
Zibbie was in such a reckless state of passion that she didn't care if the world came to an end. The only comfort Annie got in this direction was a volley of impudence.
"I hod discharged mesel' afore ye spoke," said the irate dame. "An' ye think I'm gang to broil an ould hen for a spring chicken in peace and quietness, ye're a' wrong. An' then to send that dour nagur a speerin' roun' among my fowl that I've raised from babies—I'll na ston it. I'll gang, I'll gang, but ye'll greet after the ould 'ooman for a' o' that."
Annie then retreated to the sitting-room, where Miss Eulie was placidly mending Susie's torn apron, and poured into her ears the story of her troubles.
"To be sure—to be sure," Aunt Eulie would answer, soothingly; "but then, Annie dear, it all won't make any difference a hundred years from now."
This only irritated Annie more, and at the same time impressed her with her own folly in being so disturbed by comparative trifles.
Gregory found his room chill and comfortless, therefore he put on his overcoat, and started for a walk, full of surprise and painful musings. As he was descending the stairs, Johnny came running in, crying in a tone of real distress, "Oh, Aunt Annie, Aunt Annie, I'm so sorry, so very sorry—"
Annie came running out of the sitting-room, exclaiming sharply, "What on earth is the matter now? Hasn't there been trouble enough for one day?"
"I'm so sorry," sobbed the little boy, "but I got a letter at the post-office, and I—I—lost it coming across the lots, and I—I—can't find it."
This was too much. This was the ardently-looked-for letter that had glimmered like a star of hope and promise of better things throughout this miserable day, and Annie lost all control of herself. Rushing upon the child, she cried, "You naughty, careless boy! I'll give you one lesson"; and she shook him so violently that Gregory's indignation got the better of him, and he said, in a low, deep tone, "Miss Walton, the child says he is 'very, very sorry.' He has not meant to do wrong."
Annie started back as if she were committing sacrilege, and covered her face with her hands. Her back was toward Gregory, but he could see the hot blood mantling her very neck. She stood there for a moment, trembling like a leaf, and he, repenting of his hasty words, was about to apologize, when she suddenly caught the boy in her arms, and sped past him up the stairs to her own room.
To his dying day he would never forget the expression of her face.
It cannot be described. It was the look of a noble spirit, deeply wounded, profoundly penitent. Her intense feeling touched him, and the rough October winds brushed a tear from his own eyes more than once before he returned.
The cold, cynical man of the world was in a maze. He was deeply and painfully surprised at Miss Walton, and scarcely less so at himself. How could he account for the tumult at his heart? When he first saw that outburst of passion against a trembling, pleading child, he felt that he wished to leave the house then and forever. The next moment, when he saw Annie's face as she convulsively clasped the boy to her breast, and with supernatural strength fled to the refuge of her room, he was not only instantly disarmed of anger, but touched and melted as he had never been before.
Feeling is sometimes so intense that it is like the lightning, and burns its way instantly to the consciousness of others. Words of condemnation would have died on the lips of the sternest judge had he seen Annie's face. It would have shown him that the harshest things that he could utter were already anticipated in unmeasured self-upbraidings.
From anger and disgust Gregory passed to the profoundest pity. The children's unbounded affection for Annie proved that she was usually kind and patient toward them. A little thought convinced him that the act he saw was a sudden outburst of passion for which the exasperating events of the day had been a preparation. Her face showed as no language could how sincere and deep would be her repentance. He had not gone very far into the early twilight of a grove before he was conscious of a strong and secret exultation.
"She is not made of different clay from others," he said. "She cannot condemn me so utterly now; and, in view of what I have seen, she cannot loftily deny the kinship of human weakness.
"What a nature she has, with its subterranean fires! She is none of your cool, calculating creatures, who cipher out from day to day what is policy to do. She will act rightly till there is an irrepressible irruption, and then, beware. And yet these ebullitions enrich her life as the lava flow does the sides of Vesuvius. I shall be greatly disappointed if she is not ten times more kind, sympathetic, and self-forgetful than she was before; and as for that boy, she will keep him in the tallest clover for weeks to come, to make up for this.
"How piquant she is! I do not fear her quick, flame-like spirit when it is combined with so much conscience and principle. Indeed, I like her passion. It warms my cold, heavy heart. I wish she had shaken me, who deserved it, instead of the child, and if any makings-up like that in yonder room could follow, I would like to be shaken every day in the week. It would make a new man of me."
In the excitement of his feelings, he had gone further than he had intended, and the dusk was deepening fast when he reached the house on his return. He felt not a little uneasy as to his reception after the rebuke he had given, but counted much on Annie's just and generous disposition. He entered quietly at a side door and passed through the dining-room into the hall. The lamp in the parlor was unlighted, but the bright wood fire shed a soft, uncertain radiance throughout the room. A few notes of prelude were struck on the piano, and he knew that Miss Walton was there. Stepping silently forward opposite the open door, he stood in the dark hall watching her as she sung the following words:
"My Father, once again Thy wayward childIn sorrow, shame, and weakness comes to Thee,Confessing all my sin, my passion wild,My selfishness and petty vanity.
"O Jesus, gentle Saviour, at Thy feetI fall, where often I have knelt before;Thou wilt not spurn, nor charge me with deceit,Because old faults have mastered me once more.
"Thou knowest that I would be kind and true,And that I hate the sins that pierced Thy side;Thou seest that I often sadly viewThe wrong that in my heart will still abide.
"But Thou didst come such erring ones to save,And weakness wins Thy strong and tender love;So not in vain I now forgiveness crave,And cling to hopes long stored with Thee above.
"And yet I plead that Thou would'st surely keepMy weak and human heart in coming days;Though now in penitence I justly weep,O fill my future life with grateful praise."
As in tremulous, melting tones she sung this simple prayer with tears glistening in her eyes, Gregory was again conscious of the strong, answering emotion which the presence of deep feeling in those bound to us by some close tie of sympathy often excites. But far more than mere feeling moved him now. Her words and manner vivified an old truth familiar from infancy, but never realized or intelligently believed—the power of prayer to secure practical help from God.
How often men have lived and died poor just above mines of untold wealth! Gaunt famine has been the inmate of households while there were buried treasures under the hearthstone. So multitudes in their spiritual life are weak, despairing, perishing, when by the simple divinely appointed means of prayer they might fill their lives with strength and fulness. How long men suffered and died with diseases that seemed incurable, before they discovered in some common object a potent remedy that relieved pain and restored health!
As is the case with many brought up in Christian homes, with no one thing was Gregory more familiar than prayer. For many years he had said prayers daily, and yet he had seldom in all his life prayed, and of late years had come to be a practical infidel in regard to this subject. People who only say prayers, and expect slight, or no results from them, or are content year after year to see no results—who lack simple, honest, practical faith in God's word, such as they have in that of their physician or banker—who only feel that they ought to pray, and that in some vague, mystical manner it may do them good, are very apt to end as sceptics in regard to its efficacy and value. Or they may become superstitious, and continue to say prayers as the poor Indian mutters his incantation to keep off the witches. God hears prayer when His children cry to Him—when His faithful friends speak to Him straight and true from their hearts; and such know well that they are answered.
As Gregory looked at and listened to Annie Walton, he could no more believe that she was expressing a little aimless religious emotion, just as she would sing a sentimental ballad, than he could think that she was only showing purposeless filial affection if she were hanging on her father's arm and pleading for something vital to her happiness. The thought flashed across him, "Here may be the secret of her power to do right—the help she gets from a source above and beyond herself. Here may be the key to both her strength and weakness. Here glimmers light even for me."
Annie was about to sing again, but the interest which she had awakened was so strong that he could not endure delay. Anxiety as to his personal reception was forgotten, and he stepped forward and interrupted her with a question.
"Miss Walton, do you honestly believe that?"
"Believe what?" said she, hastily, quite startled.
"What I gathered from the hymn you sung—that your prayer is really heard and answered?"
"Why, certainly I believe it," said Annie, in a shocked and pained tone. "Do you think me capable of mockery in such things? And yet," she added, sadly, "perhaps after to-day you think me capable of anything."
"Now you do both yourself and me wrong," Gregory eagerly replied. "I do believe you are sincerely trying to obey your conscience. Did I not see your look of sorrow as you passed me on the stairs?—when shall I forget it! Remember words that must have been inspired, which you once quoted to me—
"'Who by repentance is not satisfiedIs not of heaven nor earth,'
and pardon me when I tell you that I have been listening the last few moments out in the hall. Your tones and manner would melt the heart of an infidel, and they have made me wish that I were not so unbelieving. Forgive me for even putting such thoughts in your mind—I feel it is wicked and selfish in me to do it—but how do you know that your prayer, though so direct and sincere, was not sound lost in space?"
"Because it has been answered," she replied, eagerly. "Peace came even as I spoke the words. Because whenever I really pray to God he answers me."
They now stood on opposite sides of the hearth, with the glowing fire between them. In its light Annie's wet eyes glistened, but she had forgotten herself in her sincere and newly awakened interest in him whom she had secretly hoped and purposed before to lead to better things. It had formed no small part of her keen self-reproach that she had forgotten that purpose, and wished him out of the way, just as she was beginning to gain a decided influence over him for good. After what he had witnessed that afternoon she felt that he would never listen to her again.
He would not had he detected the slightest tinge of acting or insincerity on her part, but her penitence had been as real as her passion.
She was glad and grateful indeed when he approached her again in the spirit he now manifested.
As she stood there in the firelight, self-forgetful, conscious only of her wish to say some words that would be like light to him, her large, humid eyes turned up to his face, she made a picture that his mother would like to see.
He leaned against the mantel and looked dejectedly into the fire. After a moment he said, sadly, "I envy you, Miss Walton. I wish I could believe in a personal God who thought about us and cared for us—that is, each one of us. Of course I believe in a Supreme Being—a great First Cause; but He hides Himself behind the stars; He is lost to me in His vast universe. I think my prayers once had an effect on my own mind, and so did me some good. But that's past, and now I might as well pray to gravitation as to anything else."
Then, turning to her, he caught her wistful, interested look—an expression which said plainly, "I want to help you," and it touched him. He continued, feelingly, "Perhaps you are not conscious of it, but you now look as if you cared whether I was good or bad, was sad or happy, lived or died. If I could only see that God cared in something the same way! He no doubt intends to do what is best for the race in the long run, but that may involve my destruction. I dread His terrible, inexorable laws."
"Alas!" said Annie, tears welling up into her eyes, "I am not wise enough to argue out these matters and demonstrate the truth. I suppose it can be done by those who know how."
"I doubt it," said he, shaking his head decisively.
"Well, I can tell you only what I feel and know."
"That is better than argument—that is what I would like. You are not a weak, sentimental woman, full of mysticism and fancies, and I should have much confidence in what you know and feel."
"Do not say that I am not a weak woman; I have shown you otherwise. Be sincere with me, for I am with you. Well, it seems to me that this question of prayer is simply one of fact. We know that God answers prayer, not only because He said He would, but because He does. From my own experience I am as certain of it as of my existence. I think that many who sneer or doubt in regard to prayer are very unfair. I ask you, is it scientific for men to say, 'Nothing is true save what we have seen and know ourselves?' How that would limit one's knowledge. If some facts are discovered in Europe and established by a few proper witnesses, we believe them here. Now in every age multitudes have said that it was a fact that God heard and answered their prayers. What right has any one to ignore these truths any more than any other truths of human experience? I ask my earthly father for something. The next day I find it on my dressing-table. Is it a delusion to believe that he heard and granted my request? When I ask my Heavenly Father for outward things, He sometimes gives them, and sometimes He does not, as He sees is best for me, just as my parents did when I was a little child. And I have already seen that He has often been kinder in refusing. But when I ask for that which will meet my deeper and spiritual needs I seldom ask in vain. If you should ask me how I know it, I in return ask how you know that you are ill, or well, that you are glad or sad, or tired, or anything about yourself that depends on your own inner consciousness? If I should say unjust, insulting things to you now, how would you know you were angry? If I should say, Mr. Gregory, you are mocking me; what I am now saying has no interest for you; you don't hear me, you don't understand me, you are thinking of something else, what kind of proof to the contrary could you offer? Suppose that I should say I want mathematical proof that you do feel an interest, or physical proof—something that I can measure, weigh, or see—should I be reasonable? Do I make it clear to you why I say I know this?"