PAUL'S first impulse, on finding himself alone, was to walk to Grayson and look up his old friends; but so new and vivifying was his freedom from the cares which had so long haunted him that he wanted to hug the sense of it to himself still longer in solitude. So, leaving the farm-house, he went to the summit of a little wooded hill back of the tannery and sat down in the shade of the trees. In his boundless joy he actually felt imponderable. He had an ethereal sense of being free from his body, of flying in the azure above the earth, floating upon the fleecy clouds. He noticed a windblown drift of fragrant pine-needles in the cleft of a rock close by, and creeping into the cool nook like a beast into its lair, he threw himself down and chuckled and laughed in sheer delight.
Ethel, little Ethel, who had once been his friend—who had prayed for him and wept with him in sorrow—was coming. That very day he was to see her again after all those years; but she would not look the same. She was no longer a child. She had changed as he had changed. Would she know him? Would she even remember him—the gawky farm-hand she had so sweetly befriended? No; it was likely that he and all that pertained to him had passed out of her mind. The memory of her, however, had been his constant companion; her pure, childish faith had been an ultimate factor in his redemption.
The morning hours passed. It was noon, and the climbing sun dropped its direct rays full upon him. He left the rocks and stood out in the open, unbaring his brow to the cooling breeze which swept up from the fields of grain and cotton. His eyes rested on the red road leading to the village. Wagons, pedestrians, droves of sheep and cattle driven by men on horses, were passing back and forth. Suddenly his heart sprang like a startled thing within him. Surely that was Hoag's open carriage, with Cato on the high seat in front. Yes, and of the two ladies who sat behind under sunshades the nearer one was Ethel. Paul turned cold from head to foot, and fell to trembling. How strange to see her, even at that distance, in the actual flesh, when for seven years she had been a dream! A blinding mist fell before his eyes, and when he had brushed it away the carriage had passed out of view behind the intervening trees. In great agitation he paced to and fro. How could he possibly command himself sufficiently to face her in a merely conventional way? He had met women and won their friendship in the West, and had felt at ease in good society. But this was different. Strange to say, he was now unable to see himself as other than the awkward, stammering lad clothed in the rags of the class to which he belonged.
Hardly knowing what step to take, he turned down the incline toward the farm-house, thinking that he might gain his room unseen by the two ladies. At the foot of the hill there was a great, deep spring, and feeling thirsty he paused to bend down and drink from the surface, as he had done when a boy. Drawing himself erect, he was about to go on, when his eye caught a flash of a brown skirt among the drooping willows that bordered the stream, and Ethel came out, her hands full of maiden-hair ferns. At first she did not see him, busy as she was shaking the water from the ferns and arranging them. She wore a big straw hat, a close-fitting shirt-waist, and a neat linen skirt. How much she was changed! She was taller, her glorious hair, if a shade darker, seemed more abundant. She was slender still, and yet there was a certain fullness to her form which added grace and dignity to the picture he had so long treasured. Suddenly, while he stood as if rooted in the ground, she glanced up and saw him.
“Oh!” he heard her ejaculate, and he fancied that her color heightened a trifle. Transferring the ferns to her left hand, she swept toward him as lightly as if borne on a breeze, her right hand held out cordially. “I really wouldn't have known you, Paul,” she smiled, “if Uncle Jim had not told me you were here. Oh, I'msoglad to see you!”
As he held her soft hand it seemed to him that he was drawing self-possession and faith in himself from her ample store of cordiality.
“I would have known you anywhere,” he heard himself saying, quite frankly. “And yet you have changed very, very much.”
Thereupon he lost himself completely in the bewitching spell of her face and eyes. He had thought her beautiful as a little girl, but he had not counted on seeing her like this—on finding himself fairly torn asunder by a force belonging peculiarly to her.
He marveled over his emotions—even feared them, as he stole glances at her long-lashed, dreamy eyes, witnessed the sunrise of delicate embarrassment in her rounded cheeks, and caught the ripened cadences of the voice which had haunted him like music heard in a trance.
“You have changed a great deal,” she was saying, as she led him toward the spring. “A young man changes more when—when there really is something unusual in him. I was only a little girl when I knew you, Paul, but I was sure that you would succeed in the world. At least I counted on it till—”
“Till I acted as I did,” he said, sadly, prompted by her hesitation.
She looked at him directly, though her glance wavered slightly.
“If I lost hope then,” she replied, “it was because I could not look far enough into the future. Surely it has turned out for the best. Uncle told mewhyyou came back. Oh, I think that is wonderful, wonderful! Till now I have never believed such a thing possible of a man, and yet I know it now because—because you did it.”
He avoided her appealing eyes, looking away into the blue, sunlit distance. His lip shook when he answered:
“Some day I'll tell you all about it. I'll unfold it to you like a book, page by page, chapter by chapter. It is a story that opens in the blackness of night and ends in the blaze of a new day.”
“I know what you mean—oh, I know!” Ethel sighed. “The news of that night was my first realization of life's grim cruelty. Somehow I felt— I suppose other imaginative girls are the same way—I felt that it was a sort of personal matter to me because I had met you as I had. I didn't blame you. I couldn't understand it fully, but I felt that it was simply a continuation of your ill-luck. I cried all that night. I could not go to sleep. I kept fancying I saw you running away through the mountains with all those men trying to catch you.”
“So you didn't—really blame me?” Paul faltered. “You didn't think me so very, very bad?”
“No, I think I made a sort of martyr of you,” Ethel confessed. “I knew you did it impulsively, highly wrought up as you were over your poor father's death. You can't imagine how I worried the first few days after—after you left. You see, no one knew whether Jeff Warren would live or not. Oh, I was happy, Paul, when the doctor declared he was out of danger! I would have given a great deal then to have known how to reach you, but—but no one knew. Then, somehow, as the years passed, the impression got out that you were dead. Everybody seemed to believe it except old Mr. Tye, the shoemaker.”
“My faithful old friend!” Paul said. “He was constantly giving me good advice which I refused to take.”
“I sometimes go into his shop and sit and talk to him,” Ethel continued. “He is a queer old man, more like a saint than an ordinary human being. He declares he is in actual communion with God—says he has visions of things not seen by ordinary sight. He told me once, not long ago, that you were safe and well, and that you would come home again, and be happier than you ever were before. I remember I tried to hope that he knew. How strange that he guessed aright!”
“I understand him now better than I did when I was here,” Paul returned. “I didn't know it then, but I now believe such men as he are spiritually wiser than all the astute materialists the world has produced. What they know they get by intuition, and that comes from the very fountain of infinite wisdom to the humble perhaps more than to the high and mighty.”
“I am very happy to see you again,” Ethel declared, a shadow crossing her face; “but, Paul, you find me—you happen to find me in really great trouble.”
“You!” he cried. “Why?”
Ethel breathed out a tremulous sigh. “You have heard me speak of my cousin, Jennie Buford. She and I are more intimate than most sisters. We have been together almost daily all our lives. She is very ill. We were down to see her yesterday. She had an operation performed at a hospital a week ago, and her condition is quite critical. We would not have come back up here, but no one is allowed to see her, and I could be of no service. I am afraid she is going to die, and if sheshould—” Ethel's voice clogged, and her eyes filled.
“I'm so sorry,” Paul said, “but you mustn't give up hope.”
“Life seems so cruel—such a great waste of everything that is really worth while,” Ethel said, rebelliously. “Jennie's mother and father are almost crazed with grief. Jennie is engaged to a nice young man down there, and he is prostrated over it. Why, oh why, do such things happen?”
“There is a good reason for everything,” Paul replied, a flare of gentle encouragement in his serious eyes. “Often the things that seem the worst really are the best in the end.”
“There can be nothing good, or kind, or wise in Jennie's suffering,” Ethel declared, her pretty lips hardening, a shudder passing over her. “She is a sweet, good girl, and her parents are devout church members. The young man she is engaged to is the soul of honor, and yet all of us are suffering sheer agony.”
“You must try not to look at it quite that way,” Paul insisted, gently. “You must hope and pray for her recovery.”
Ethel shrugged her shoulders, buried her face in the ferns, and was silent. Presently, looking toward the farm-house, she said: “I see mother waiting for me. Good-by, I'll meet you at luncheon.” She was moving away, but paused and turned back. “You may think me lacking in religious feeling,” she faltered, her glance averted, “but I am very, very unhappy. I am sure the doctors are not telling us everything. I am afraid I'll never see Jennie alive again.”
He heard her sob as she abruptly turned away. He had an impulsive desire to follow and make a further effort to console her, but he felt instinctively that she wanted to be alone. He was sure of this a moment later, for he saw her using her handkerchief freely, and noted that she all but stumbled along the path leading up to the house. Mrs. Mayfield was waiting for her on the veranda, and Paul saw the older lady step down to the ground and hasten to meet her daughter.
“Poor, dear girl!” Paul said to himself, his face raised to the cloud-flecked sky. “Have I passed through my darkness and come out into the light, only to see her entering hers? O merciful God, spare her! spare her!”
THAT afternoon Paul went to Grayson, noting few changes in the place. The sun was fiercely beating down on the streets of the Square. Two or three lawyers, a magistrate, the county ordinary, and the clerk of the court sat in chairs on the shaded side of the Court House. Some were whittling sticks, others were playing checkers, all were talking politics. Under the board awnings in front of the stores the merchants sat without their coats, fighting the afternoon heat by fanning themselves and sprinkling water on the narrow brick sidewalks. A group of one-horse drays, on which idle negroes sat dangling their legs and teasing one another, stood in the shade of the hotel. The only things suggesting coolness were the towering mountains, the green brows of which rose into the snowy, breeze-blown clouds overhead.
Paul found Silas Tye at his bench in his shop. He was scarcely changed at all. Indeed, he seemed to be wearing exactly the same clothing, using the same tools, mending the same shoes. On his bald pate glistened beads of sweat which burst now and then and trickled down to his bushy eyebrows. Paul had approached noiselessly, and was standing looking in at him from the doorway, when the shoemaker glanced up and saw him. With an ejaculation of delight he dropped his work and advanced quickly, a grimy hand held out.
“Here you are, here you are!” he cried, drawing the young man into the shop. “Bearded and brown, bigger an' stronger, but the same Paul I used to know. How are you? How are you?”
“I'm all right, thank you,” Paul answered, as he took the chair near the bench and sat down. “How is Mrs. Tye?”
“Sound as a dollar, and simply crazy to see you,” Silas replied, with a chuckle. “If you hadn't come in we'd 'a' got a hoss an' buggy from Sid Trawley's stable an' 'a' rid out to see you. Jim Hoag this mornin' was tellin' about you gittin' back, an' said he'd already hired you to manage for him. Good-luck, good-luck, my boy; that's a fine job. Cynthy's just stepped over to a neighbor's, an' will be back purty soon. Oh, she was tickled when she heard the news—she was so excited she could hardly eat her dinner. She thought a sight of you. In fact, both of us sort o' laid claim to you.”
“Till I disgraced myself and had to run away,” Paul sighed. “I'm ashamed of that, Uncle Si. I want to say that to you first of all.”
“Don't talk that way.” Silas waved his awl deprecatingly. “Thank the Lord for what it's led to. Hoag was tellin' the crowd how you come back to give yourself up. Said he believed it of you, but wouldn't of anybody else. Lord, Lord, that was the best news I ever heard! Young as you are, you'll never imagine how much good an act o' that sort will do in a community like this. It is a great moral lesson. As I understand it, you fought the thing with all your might and main—tried to forget it, tried to live it down, only in the end to find that nothin' would satisfy you—nothin' but to come back here and do your duty.”
“Yes, you are right,” Paul assented. “I'll tell you all about it some time. I'm simply too happy now to look back on such disagreeable things. It was awful, Uncle Si.”
“I know, and I don't blame you for not talking about it,” the old man said. “Sad things are better left behind. But it is all so glorious! Here you come with your young head bowed before the Lord, ready to receive your punishment, only to find yourself free, free as the winds of heaven, the flowers of the fields, the birds in the woods. Oh, Paul, you can't see it, but joy is shining out o' you like a spiritual fire. Your skin is clear; your honest eyes twinkle like stars. It's worth it—your reward is worth all you've been through, an' more. Life is built that way. We have hunger to make us enjoy eatin'; cold, that we may know how nice warmth feels; pain, that we may appreciate health; evil, that we may know good when we see it; misery, that we may have joy, and death, that we may have bliss everlasting. I've no doubt you've suffered, but it has rounded you out and made you strong as nothing else could have done. I reckon you'll look up all your old acquaintances right away.”
Paul's glance went to the littered floor. “First of all, Uncle Si, I want to inquire about my mother.”
“Oh, I see.” The cobbler seemed to sense the situation as a delicate one, and he paused significantly. “Me an' Cynthy talked about that this momin'. In fact, we are both sort o' bothered over it. Paul, I don't think anybody round here knows whar your ma an' Jeff moved to after they got married. But your aunt went with 'em; she was bound to stick to your ma.”
“They married”—Paul's words came tardily—“very soon after—after Warren recovered, I suppose?”
“No; she kept him waitin' two years. Thar was an awful mess amongst 'em. Your ma an' your aunt stood for you to some extent, but Jeff was awful bitter. The trouble with Jeff was that he'd never been wounded by anybody in his life before, an' that a strip of a boy should shove 'im an inch o' death's door an' keep 'im in bed so long was a thing that rankled. Folks about here done 'em both the credit to think you acted too hasty, an' some thought Jim Hoag was back of it. The reason your ma kept Jeff waitin' so long was to show the public that she hadn't done nothin' she was ashamed of, an' folks generally sympathized with 'er. Finally she agreed to marry Jeff if he'd withdraw the case ag'in' you. It was like pullin' eye-teeth, but Jeff finally give in an' had a lawyer fix it all up. But he was mad, and is yet, I've no doubt.”
“I understand.” Paul was looking wistfully out of the window into the street. “And would you advise me, Uncle Si, to—to try to find them?”
“I don't believe I would,” Silas opined slowly, his heavy brows meeting above his spectacles; “at least not at present, Paul. I'd simply wait an' hope for matters to drift into a little better shape. Jeff is a bad man, a fellow that holds a grudge, and, late as it is, he'd want a settlement o' some sort. I've talked to him. I've tried to reason with him, but nothin' I'd say would have any weight. I reckon he's been teased about it, an' has put up with a good many insinuations. Let 'em all three alone for the present. You've got a high temper yourself, an' while you may think you could control it, you might not be able to do it if a big hulk of a man like Jeff was to jump on you an' begin to pound you.”
“No; I see that you are right,” Paul sighed; “but I am sorry, for I'd like my mother to understand how I feel. She may think I still blame her for—for fancying Warren, even when my father was alive, but I don't. Rubbing up against the world, Uncle Si, teaches one a great many things. My mother was only obeying a natural yearning. She was seeking an ideal which my poor father could not fulfil. He was ill, despondent, suspicious, and faultfinding, and she was like a spoiled child. I am sure she never really loved him. I was in the wrong. No one could know that better than I do. When I went away that awful night I actually hated her, but as the years went by, Uncle Si, a new sort of tenderness and love stole over me. When I'd see other men happy with their mothers my heart would sink as I remembered that I had a living one who was dead to me. Her face grew sweeter and more girl-like. I used to recall how she smiled, and how pretty and different from other women she looked wearing the nice things Aunt Amanda used to make for her. I'd have dreams in which I'd hear her singing and laughing and talking, and I'd wake with the weighty feeling that I had lost my chance at a mother. It seemed to me that if I had not been so hasty”—Paul sighed—“she and I would have loved each other, and I could have had the joy of providing her with many comforts.”
Silas lowered his head toward his lap. The pegs, hammer and awl, and scraps of leather jostled together in his apron. He was weeping and valiantly trying to hide his tears. He took off his spectacles and laid them on the bench beside him. Only his bald pate was in view. Presently an uncontrollable sob broke from his rugged chest, and he looked at the young man with swimming eyes.
“You've been redeemed,” he said. “I see it—I see it! Nobody but a Son of God could look and talk like you do. My reward has come. I don't take it to myself—that would be a sin; but I want you to know that I've prayed for you every day and night since you left—sometimes in much fear an' doubt, but with a better feelin' afterward. You may not believe it, but I am sure there are times when I actually know that things are happenin' for good or ill to folks I love—even away off at a distance.”
“That is a scientific fact.” Paul was greatly moved by his old friend's tone and attitude. “It is a spiritual fact according to the laws of telepathy or thought-transference. Most scientists now believe in it.”
“You say they do?” Silas was wiping his flowing eyes and adjusting his spectacles. “Well, many and many a time I've had proof of it. I could tell wonders that I've experienced, but I won't now—that is, I won't tell you of but one thing, an' that concerned you. Last Christmas Eve me'n Cynthy had cooked a big turkey for the next day, an' made a lot o' other preparations. We had toys an' little tricks to give this child and that one. We had laid in things for pore neighbors to eat and wear, an' both of us was in about as jolly a mood as ever we was in all our lives. We set up rather late that night, an' sung an' read from the Bible, an' prayed as usual, an' then we went to bed. But I couldn't sleep. I got to thinkin' about you an' wonderin' whar you was at an' what sort o' Christmas you was to have. I rolled an' tumbled. Cynthy was asleep—the pore thing was awful tired—an' I got up an' went to the fireplace, where I had buried some coals in the ashes to kindle from in the momin' and bent over, still thinkin' o' you. Then all at once—I don't know how to describe it any other way than to say it was like a big, black, soggy weight that come down on me. It bore in from all sides, like a cloud that you can feel, an' I could hardly breathe. Then something—it wasn't a voice, it wasn't words spoke out of any human mouth, it was just knowledge—knowledge plainer and deeper than words could have expressed—knowledge from God, from space—from some'r's outside myself—that told me you was in a sad, sad plight. I couldn't say what it was, but it was awful. It seemed to me that you was swayin' to an' fro between good an' evil, between light and darkness—between eternal life an' eternal death. I never felt so awful in all my life, not even when my own boy died. I got down on my knees there in the ashes, and I prayed as I reckon never a man prayed before. I pleaded with the Lord and begged 'im to help you—to drag you back from the open pit or abyss, or whatever it was, that you was about to walk into. For awhile the thing seemed to hang an' waver like, and then, all at once, it was lifted, an' I knowed that you was safe. Iknowedit—Iknowedit.”
Silas ceased speaking, his mild, melting glance rested on the young man's face.
Paul sat in grave silence for a moment, his features drawn as by painful recollection.
“Your intuition was right,” he said. “On that night, Uncle Si, I met and passed through the greatest crisis of my life. I was tempted to take a step that was wrong. I won't speak of it now, but I'll tell you all about it some day. Something stopped me. Invisible hands seemed pushed out from the darkness to hold me back. Your prayers saved me, I am sure of it now.”
BEFORE the end of his first week's work Paul had reason to believe that Hoag was highly pleased with his executive ability. Paul had a good saddle-horse at his disposal, and he made daily visits to the various properties of his employer. He hired hands at his own discretion, and had a new plan of placing them on their honor as to the work that was to be done in his absence. Hoag was surprised. He had found it difficult to secure sufficient men, while under Paul's management the places were always filled. There was a clockwork regularity in it all. From his window every morning at sunrise Hoag could see men diligently at work in his fields, and at the tannery and mill. There was a fresh, buoyant activity in it all. The young man had replaced old, worn-out tools and implements with new ones, in which the workers took pride.
Paul's room looked as much like an office as a bedchamber. On his table Hoag discovered a most orderly set of accounts; on the walls hung charts, time-cards, and maps of the woodlands, with careful estimates of the cost of felling trees and the best disposition of the bark and timber. There was little doubt that Paul was infusing the spirit of the West into the slower habits of the South, and Hoag chuckled inwardly, finding it difficult to keep from openly expressing his enthusiasm. Paul convinced him, in a moment's talk, that the steam-engine and machinery at the cotton-gin were worn out, and that the whole should be renewed. Hoag saw, too, that the young man was right when he called attention to the careless manner in which the cotton lands had been fertilized. The negroes had used no judgment in placing the guano, having often put it on soil that did not need it—soil which could better be enriched by the till now unused loam of the marshes and the decayed matter of the forests.
“Go ahead with yore rat-killin',” Hoag was fond of saying. “You've got the right idea. I'm not such a old dog that I can't learn new tricks. Them fellows out West know a good many twists and turns that we ain't onto, an' I'm willin' to back you up with the cash on anything you propose.”
His niece was with him on the lawn one morning as he was opening his mail.
“Just look at that letter,” he said, with a low, pleased laugh, as he offered it for inspection. “I'm in a cool thousand dollars on this one deal. My scrub of a white-trash manager told me last week that the man in Atlanta who has been handlin' my leather was buncoin' me good an' strong. I didn't think he knowed what he was talkin' about then, but it seems he'd been readin' market reports an' freight rates, an' now I know he was right. He asked me to write to Nashville for prices. I did, an' here is an offer that is away ahead of any my Atlanta agent ever got, an' I save his commission to boot. Who'd 'a' thought, Eth', that such a puny no-account skunk as Ralph Rundel could be the daddy o' sech an up-to-date chap as Paul?”
Ethel's sweet face took on a serious cast. “I don't think we ought to judge our mountain people by their present unfortunate condition,” she said. “I was reading in history the other day that many of them are really the descendants of good English, Scotch, and Irish families. I have an idea, from his name alone, that Paul came from some family of worth.”
“You may be right,” Hoag admitted. “I know my daddy used to tell us boys that the Hoag stock away back in early times was big fighters, not afraid o' man, Indian, or beast. One of 'em was a pirate of the high seas, who had his own way purty much, and died with his boots on. Pa was proud o' that. He used to set an' tell about it. He learnt us boys to fight when we wasn't more'n knee high. The hardest lickin' Pa ever give me was for comin' home from school cryin' once because another chap had got the best of me. I never shall forget it. Pa was as mad as a wildcat at me, an' t'other fellow too. An' the next mornin', as I started to school, he tuck me out in the yard an' picked up a sharp rock, he did, an' showed me how to cup my hand over it and sorter hide it like. He told me to keep it in my pocket, an' if the fellow said another word to me to use it on 'im like a pair o' brass knucks.”
“Oh,” Ethel cried, “that wasn't right! It was a shame!”
“That's what thefellowthought.” Hoag burst out laughing. “He was standin' in a gang braggin' about our fight when I got to school an' I went up to 'im, I did, an' spit on him. He drawed back to hit me, but I let 'im have a swipe with my rock that laid his jaw open to the bone. He bled like a stuck pig, an' had to git a doctor to sew the crack up. After that you bet he let me alone, an' folks in general knowed I wouldn't do to fool with, either. The teacher o' that school—it was jest a log shack in the country—used to use the hickory on the boys, an' I've seen 'im even tap the bare legs o' the gals; but he never dared touch me. He knowed better. He drawed me up before 'im one day for stickin' a pin in a little runt of a boy, and axed me what I done it for. I looked 'im straight in the eyes, an' told 'im I did it because it would make the boy grow. I axed 'im what he expected to do about it. He had a switch in his hand, but he turned red an' hummed an' hawed while the whole school was laughin', an' then he backed down—crawfished on the spot—said he'd see me about it after school; but I didn't stay, an' that was the end of it. The man on the farm whar he boarded told Pa that the fellow was afraid to go out at night, thinkin' I'd throw rocks at 'im. Say, Eth', not changin' the subject, how are you an' Ed Peterson gittin' on?”
“Oh, about the same,” Ethel answered, with a slight shrug. “I got a letter from him yesterday. He had been to the hospital to inquire about Jennie, and he thought I'd like to hear she wasn't any worse.”
“Well, it ain't no business o' mine,” Hoag smiled knowingly, “but I hope you won't keep the fellow in torment any longer than you can help. He sorter confides in me, you know, an' every time I'm in Atlanta he throws out hints like he is in the dark an' can hardly see his way clear. He is a man with a long business head on 'im, an' he certainly knows what he wants in the woman line. He's powerfully well thought of in bankin' circles, an', as you know, his folks are among the best in the South.”
Ethel, frowning slightly, was avoiding her uncle's curious gaze. “I shall not marry any man,” she said, quite firmly, “until I know that I really love him.”
“Love a dog's hind foot!” Hoag sneered. “Looky' here, Eth', take it straight from me. That is a delusion an' a snare. Many an' many a good-hearted gal has spoiled her whole life over just that highfalutin notion. They've tied the'rselves to incompetent nincompoops with low brows an' hair plastered down over their eyes—chaps who couldn't make a decent livin'—and let men pass by that was becomin' financial powers in the land. Ed Peterson is of the right stripe. He ain't no fool. He knows you've got property in your own name an' that I've set somethin' aside for you, an' he's jest got sense enough to know that it is as easy to love a woman with money as without.”
“How does he know?” Ethel's lips were drawn tight; there was a steady light in her eyes as she stood looking toward the mountain. “How does he know that you intend, or even ever thought of—”
“Oh, you see, he has all my papers down thar,” Hoag explained. “He keeps 'em for me in the bank vault. He knows all about my business, and naturally he'd be on to a thing like that. I hain't never intimated that I'd coerce you in any way, but he knows I look favorably on the outcome. In fact, I've told 'im a time or two that, as far as I was concerned, he had a clean right-o'-way. He's sure I am on his side, but he don't seem at all satisfied about you. He's a jealous cuss, an' as much as I like him, I have to laugh at 'im sometimes.”
“Jealous!” Ethel exclaimed, with a lofty frown of vague displeasure.
“Yes; he gits that way once in a while on mighty slight provocation,” Hoag rambled on. “I was tellin' 'im t'other day, when I was down thar, about Paul Rundel comin' back, an' what a solid chap he'd turned out to be with all his bookish ideas an' odd religious notions—givin' hisse'f up to the law, an' the like. Ed didn't seem much interested till I told 'im that the women round about generally admired Paul, an' loved to hear 'im talk—like your mother does, for instance—an' that most of 'em say he has fine eyes an' is good-lookin'. Right then Ed up an' wanted to know whar Paul was livin'”—Hoag tittered—“whar he slept an' ate. An' when I told 'im he stayed here at the house with us, he had the oddest look about the eyes you ever saw. I teased 'im a little—I couldn't help it. I was in a good-humor, for he had just told me about a Northern feller that wanted to buy some o' my wild mountain-land at a good figure. But I let up on 'im after awhile, for he really was down in the mouth. 'Do you know,' said he, 'that I'd tackle any man on earth in a race for a woman quicker than I would a religious crank or a spindle-legged preacher of any denomination whatever.'”
“I don't think you ought to talk me over that way,” Ethel returned, coldly. “You'll make me dislike him. He and I are good friends now, but no girl likes to have men speak of her as if she were a piece of property on the market.”
“Oh, Ed Peterson is all right,” Hoag declared, his eyes on Jack, who was climbing a tree near the fence. “That child will fall and hurt hisse'f one o'these days. Oh, Jack! Come down from there—that's a good boy; come down, daddy wants you.” Looking at Ethel suddenly, he saw that she was smiling.
“What in thunder is funny aboutthat?” he inquired.
Ethel laughed softly. “I was just thinking of your sneer at the idea of any one's loving another. You perhaps never loved any one else in your life, but your whole soul is wrapped up in Jack.”
“I reckon you are right,” Hoag confessed, half sheepishly, as he started down the steps toward his son. “Sometimes I wonder what's got into me. He has sech a strange, kittenish way o' gittin' round a fellow. I believe, if I was to come home some night an' find him sick or hurt I'd go stark crazy. He ain't like no other child I ever dealt with.”
“He'll be more and more of a mystery to you the older he gets,” Ethel answered. “He has a strong imagination and great talent for drawing. I'm teaching him. He loves to have me read to him, and he makes up stories out of his own head that really are wonderful.”
“I always thought he'd make a smart man, a teacher, or a lawyer, or something like that,” Hoag returned, proudly, and he hurried away, calling loudly to his son to get down.
IT is held by many philosophers that in order to appreciate happiness one must first experience its direct antithesis, and it may have been Paul Rundel's early misfortunes that gave to his present existence so much untrammeled delight. For one thing, he was again—and with that new soul of his—amid the rural scenes and folk he loved so passionately.
His heart was full of actual joy as he rode down the mountain-side one Saturday afternoon, for the next day would be a day of rest, and he had worked hard all the week. There was a particular book he intended to read, certain fancies of his own which he wanted to note down in manuscript, and hoped to talk over with Ethel.
He was a nature-worshiper, and to-day Nature had fairly wrapped her robe of enchantment about him. The sky had never seemed so blue; space had never held so many hints of the Infinite. Scarcely a flower on the roadside escaped his eye. The gray and brown soil itself had color that appealed to his senses, and the valley stretching away under the bluish veil of distance seemed some vague dream-spot ever receding from his grasp. The day was a perfect one. Since early morning a gentle breeze had been steadily blowing and the air was crisp and bracing.
It was growing dusk when he reached home. He was just entering the front gate when he saw Ethel walking back and forth on the lawn. Something in her hanging head and agitated step told him that her mind was not at ease. At first he thought she might wish to avoid him, but, hearing the clicking of the gate-latch, she turned and advanced across the grass to him. Then he saw that she held a folded letter in her hand and there was a perturbed look on her face.
“Not bad news, I hope?” he ventured.
“I don't know exactly.” Her voice quivered, and she looked at him with a shadow of dumb worry in her eyes. “This letter is from my aunt, Jennie's mother. She proposes that mother and I come down at once. She—she—” Ethel's voice shook with rising emotion. “She doesn't say there is really anynewdanger. In fact, at the last report the doctors said Jennie was doing as well as could be expected; but somehow—you see, the fact that my aunt wants us to come looks as if—”
“Oh, I hope you won't lose hope,” Paul tried to say, consolingly. “At such a distance, and not being with your cousin, it is natural for you to exaggerate the—”
“No; listen,” Ethel now fairly sobbed. “I've reflected a good deal over our recent talk about thought-transference, and I am sure there is much in it. Jennie and I used to think of the same things at the same time, and I am sure—I reallyfeelthat something is going wrong—that she is worse. This letter was written last night and mailed this morning. I was not greatly worried till about three o'clock to-day, but since then I have been more depressed than I ever was in my life. Somehow I can't possibly conquer it. Paul, I'm afraid Jennie is going to die—she may be—be dying now, actually dying, and if she should, if sheshould—” Ethel dropped her eyes, her breast rose tumultuously, and she looked away from him.
There was nothing Paul could do or say. He simply stood still and mute, a storm of pain and sympathy raging within him.
Ethel seemed to understand and appreciate his silence, for she turned to him and said, more calmly:
“Of course, it may be only my imagination—my overwrought fears. I'm going to try to feel more hopeful. We leave on the eight o'clock train. Mother's packing our things now. It is good of you to be so sympathetic; I knew you would be.”
She turned away. With a halting step she went up the veranda steps and ascended the stairs to her mother's room. Paul was seated on the lawn in the dusk smoking a cigar, when Mrs. Tilton came out to him.
“I saw you talkin' to Ethel just now,” she began. “I reckon she spoke to you about her cousin?”
He nodded and regarded the old wrinkled face steadily as Mrs. Tilton continued, in a tone of resignation:
“Harriet ain't told Ethel the worst of it. A telegram come about an hour by sun, but she didn't let Ethel see it. It said come on the fust train—the doctors has plumb give up. Harriet is afraid Ethel couldn't stand the trip on top of news like that, an' she won't let her know. It's goin' to be awful on the pore child. I'm actually afraid she won't be able to bear it. In all my born days I've never seen such love as them two girls had for each other.”
Paul's heart sank in dismay. “Do you think, Mrs. Tilton,” he said, “that I could be of any service? To-morrow is Sunday, and I am not busy, you know. Could I help by going down with them?”
“No, I don't believe I would,” the old woman answered. “Jim is goin' along. He don't care nothin' about Jennie, but he'll take that excuse to get down there to see his friends. Harriet will bring Ethel back here right after the buryin'. She as good as told me so; she thinks a quiet place like this will be better than down thar among so many sad reminders. I want to tell you now, Paul, an' I don't intend to flatter you neither; but when Jim was talkin' so big on the porch t'other night, an' pokin' fun at the idea of a future life, an' you sat down on 'im so flat, an' said all them purty things so full o' hope to old folks like me, I jest set thar in the dark an' shed tears o' joy. I could 'a' tuck you in my arms an' 'a' hugged you. He is a-hirin' you, an' would naturally like for you to agree with him; but you fired your convictions at him the same as you would 'a' done at anybody else. I'm sick an' tired o' the way he's always talked—classin' humanity with cattle an' hogs like he does. I believe thar's a life after this un; if I didn't I'd go crazy. If I didn't know, actuallyknow, that my poor daughter, who suffered all them years as that man's wife, was happy now, I'd be a fiend incarnate, an' go rantin' over the world like a she-devil let loose. I say I don't want to flatter you, but you've been like a ray o' sunshine in this house ever since you got here. If I had been an' infidel all my life the sight o' your face and the sound o' your voice would turn me flat over.”
Mrs. Tilton was crying. She wiped her eyes on her apron and moved away in the twilight. Paul looked, up at the window of Ethel's room, through which a light was shining. Then he bowed his head, locked his hands in front of him. He remained so for several minutes, then he said, fervently:
“O God, my Lord and Master, my Creator, my All, be merciful. I pray Thee, oh, be merciful—be merciful!”
TWO days after this Hoag came back from Atlanta, reaching home just at noon.
“I didn't go to the funeral myself,” he carelessly remarked at the dinner-table. “I had some fellers to see on business, an' I ain't much of a hand at such parades of flowers an' black stuff, nohow. Harriet is standin' it all right, but Eth' is in a purty bad fix. They've had a doctor with 'er ever since Jennie died. Eth' had never seen anybody die before, an' it seems that Jennie knowed enough to recognize 'er, an' begged 'er to stick by 'er side to the very end. Eth' has been nearly crazy ever since. She was too upset to go to the buryin', although plenty o' carriages was on hand, an' she could have rid in comfort. They offered me a seat at their expense, but, as I say, I had other fish to fry.”
“I knew it would go hard with Ethel,” Mrs. Tilton sighed. “It is a pity they let 'er see it. Such things are hard enough even on old, experienced folks. When are they comin' up, or did they say?”
“To-morrow. That ain't no place for 'em down thar in all that whiz, hustle, an' chatter, with a nigger fetchin' in a card or a bunch o' flowers every minute. The fellers that run the flower-stores certainly are in clover.”
Mrs. Mayfield and Ethel came in on the nighttrain which reached Grayson at ten o'clock, and, having retired, Paul saw neither of them till the next day. He had risen for his early morning walk, and gone down to the front lawn, where he was surprised to see Mrs. Mayfield nervously walking back and forth, her troubled glance on the ground. He had never seen her look so grave, so despondent. Her hair was drawn more tightly across her brow, and there was no trace of color in her pinched and troubled face. Seeing him, she bowed and made a pathetic little gesture of welcome. He hesitated for a moment as to whether he might intrude upon her, but some appealing quality of friendliness in her sad glance reassured him, and, hat in hand, he crossed the grass to her.
“I was very sorry to hear your bad news,” he said. “I was sorry, too, that there seemed nothing I could do to help.”
“Thank you; you are very kind,” the lady said, her thin lips quivering sensitively. “I have thought of you, Paul, several times since the blow came. After our recent talks I am sure you could have given us more consolation than almost any one else. At a time like this there is absolutely nothing to lean on except the goodness and wisdom of God.”
“Yes, of course,” he responded, simply.
“I am not worrying about Jennie now,” Mrs. Mayfield went on, gravely, sweeping his face with almost yearning eyes. “At my age one becomes accustomed to face death calmly, but, Paul, I am actually alarmed about the effect on Ethel.”
“I know, and I am sorry,” Paul said; “very, very sorry.”
“She has hardly touched any sort of food since Jennie died,” Mrs. Mayfield asserted, in a tremulous tone. “She is wasting away. She can't sleep even under opiates. She cries constantly, and declares she can't get her mind from it for a moment. We ought not to have allowed her to see the end, but we could not avoid it. Jennie was conscious almost to the last minute, though she did not realize she was dying. They thought it best not to tell her, and she begged Ethel and her parents and me and the young man she was to marry—begged us not to leave her. She seemed quite afraid. Then suddenly she had a terrible convulsion. She was clinging to my daughter's hand when she died. Ethel fainted, and had to be taken home in a carriage. She—she—Paul, she has lost all faith in the goodness of God, in an after-life, in everything. She is simply desperate and defiant. She can't be made to see any sort of justice in it. She is bitter, very bitter, and hard and resentful. Two kind-hearted ministers down there tried to talk to her, but she almost laughed in their faces. Some sweet old ladies—intimate friends of ours—tried to pacify her, too, but could do nothing. I wish you had been there. You have comforted me more than any one else ever did. Your faith seems such a living, active thing, and even while down there under all that sadness I found myself somehow feeling that your thoughts—your prayers were with us.”
“Yes, yes,” he nodded, his blood mounting to his face, “that was all I could do. Prayer is a wonderful force, but unfortunately it seems without great or immediate effect unless it arises out of faith itself, and perfect faith is very rare.”
“I understand,” the lady sighed. “I hear Ethel coming down. I wish you would talk to her. I am sure you can do her good, and something must be done. No medicine can help her; her trouble is of the mind. It is natural for persons to lose faith under a shock like this, and in time get over it; but—but, Paul, I've known people to die of grief, and that is really what I am afraid of.”
Ethel, as she descended the veranda steps, saw them. She wavered for a moment, as if undecided which way to go, and then, as if reluctantly, she came on to them. Paul noted the drawn whiteness of her face and the dark rings about her despairing eyes. Her whole being seemed to vibrate from a tense state of nervousness. Her lips were fixed in a piteous grimace as she gave Paul her hand.
“Mother's told you about it, I am sure,” were her first words.
“Yes,” he nodded, sympathetically, “it is very sad.”
She took a deep, tremulous breath, and her lips were drawn tight as from inner pain. “Paul,” she said, bitterly, “I didn't know till now that even anomnipotentGod could invent a thing as horrible as all that was. If—if it would amount to anything I would curse him—actually curse him.”
“I am going to leave you with Paul,” Mrs. Mayfield said, suddenly catching her breath as if in pain. “I have something to do up-stairs. Listen to him, my child. He has comforted me, and he can comfort you. You must not allow yourself to become hard like this. Oh, you mustn't—you mustn't, darling! You'll break my heart.”
“Oh, I don't know what to do—I don't know what to do!” Ethel shook with dry sobs, and there was a fixed stare in her beautiful eyes. “I can't think of Jennie being gone—being put away like that, when she had so much to live for, and when the happiness of so many depended on her recovery.”
Without a word, and with an appealing and significant backward glance at Paul, Mrs. Mayfield moved away.
“Would you like to walk down to the spring?” Paul proposed, gently. “The air is so fresh and invigorating, and breakfast won't be ready for some time yet.”
She listlessly complied, walking along at his side like a drooping human flower in movement. He heard her sighing constantly. He did not speak again till they were seated at the spring, then he said:
“Your mother overrates my power of giving consolation; there is nothing helpful that any mortal can do at such a time. I cannot give you my faith. It came to me only after years and years of suffering, sordid misery, and dense spiritual blindness. But I want to try, if you don't mind. I'd give my life to—to save you pain, to turn you from your present despair. Will you listen to me if I'll tell you some of the things that I passed through? You can't see it as I do, Ethel, but I am absolutely positive that your cousin is now a thousand times happier than she was—happier than you or I, or any one on earth.”
“Oh, I know what you will say,” Ethel wailed, softly. “I believed such things once, as you know. But I haven't been frank with you, Paul. Seeing your beautiful faith which brought you back here in such a wonderful way, I could not bear to let you know the truth; but I have been in doubt for a long time, and now I have nothing to hold to—absolutely nothing. You might argue a thousand years and you could not—kind and gentle though you are—convince me that a just and merciful God would allow my poor cousin to suffer as she suffered, and cause me to feel as I feel only through my love for her. If thereisa good God, He is powerless to avert such as that, and a creator who is not omnipotent is no God at all. We are a lot of helpless material creatures staggering through darkness, dragging bleeding hearts after us, and yearning for what can never be ours. That's the awful, repulsive truth, Paul. It's unpleasant, but it's the truth.”
“I will tell you what I passed through after I left here, if you will let me,” Paul began, a look of pained sensitiveness clutching his mobile features. “It is hard to have you—of all persons—know to what depths of degradation I sank; but I feel—something seems to tell me—that my story may help you. Will you hear me?”
“Perhaps you ought not to tell me anything that is unpleasant,” Ethel said, listlessly.
Paul lowered his head and looked at the ground. “I am not sure, Ethel, that it is not my duty to go from man to man, house to house, and tell it word for word, thought for thought, deed for deed. The world, as never before in its history, is groping for spiritual light, and my life—my soul-experiences—would shed it upon any thinking person. No one could pass through what I have passed through and doubt the existence of God and His inexpressible goodness. It is painful to tell you, for, above all, I want your good opinion, and yet I must. Will you listen, Ethel?”
“Yes, yes,” she answered; “but, Paul, if I am absent-minded don't blame me. I've not thought of a single thing since Jennie died but the way she looked then, and in her coffin afterward. I don't think I can ever get those things out of my mind. They are simply driving me insane.”
“Nothing but an absolutely different point of view will help you,” Paul said, gravely, his glance now resting tenderly on her grief-stricken face. “When my father died I, too, was desperate. When I ran away from here that terrible night I was as near akin to a wild beast as ever mortal man was. I was at heart a murderer gloating like a bloodthirsty savage over another's death. I won't go into detail over the earliest part of what I went through. I traveled with a band of thieving gipsies for a while. Later I joined a circus, and there gravitated to the same sort of associates. Some of the company were not immoral; but I was a murderer hiding my guilt, and among only the lowest of the low did I feel at home. All others I hated.”
“Oh, do you think you ought to—ought to—” Ethel faltered. “How can it do any good to—” Her voice failed her, and she stared at him dumbly.
“I think I ought to tell you, because it is the hardest thing in the world for me to do,” he said, his tone low and labored. “I want you to know me as I was at my worst. I can't feel that I have the right to sit by you and be treated as a friend while you are unaware of what I have been. For the first two years I was as low as the lowest. I hated life, man, everything, and yet there was always something holding me back from absolute crime. Down deep within me there was always a voice, always a picture, always a sunlit scene—”
He choked up, pretended to cough, and looked away to avoid her inquiring eyes.
“I don't quite understand,” she prompted him, with her first show of interest.
He turned and looked steadily into her great, shadowy eyes.
“The scene was the roadside down there, Ethel. The picture was that of a refined, gentle little girl, her eyes full of sympathy. The voice was hers, telling me that she was going to pray for—for me.”
“Oh, oh, why do you say that now?” Ethel cried. “Now, now, after I have told you that I no longer—”
“Because the little girl ought to know,” he answered. “She should be told of the clinging effect her promise—her prayers—had on a storm-tossed human soul. The scene, the voice, the picture, never left the wanderer. They grew like pure flowers in the mire of his deepest sin. In many cases it is the memory of prayers at a mother's knee in childhood that haunts the worldly minded in after-life; but my childhood had no prayers, and that little girl became my guardian angel.”
“Oh, Paul, Paul, don't, don't!” Ethel cried, and for a moment she seemed to have forgotten her grief.
“But I must go on,” Paul answered. “I finally reached Portland and settled down. I was tired of roaming, and under a small printer I began to learn type-setting. I made rapid progress. I had access to a good public library, and I passed most of my evenings in study. Later I began reporting on a big newspaper, and from that I gradually drifted into the writing of editorials. I don't take any credit for the success I met, for the articles I wrote were readable only because they were without heart or soul, and appealed only to individuals like myself. I ridiculed everything, tore down everything. A thing only had to be praised by others for me to hurl my vitriol upon it. The arrant hypocrisy of the church-members, the mental weakness of the preachers, and the gullibility of the public were my choice themes. Birds of my own particular feather flocked about me and congratulated me. I became vain of my powers. I was sure that I was a great intellectual force in the world. My salary was raised, and I found myself in comfortable circumstances. I belonged to a small society of advanced thinkers, as we styled ourselves. We held meetings once a week and prepared and read essays. The great materialistic scientists and writers were our guides and gods. We pitied all the rest of the world for its inability to reach our height. That went on for several years, then an odd thing happened.”
“What was that?” Ethel was now almost eagerly leaning forward, her pale lips parted.
The color in Paul's cheeks had deepened. “I must tell that, too,” he said. “And I shall not shirk the humiliation of it. There was a young poet in Boston whose parents lived in Portland. His books had been widely circulated, and when he came out on a visit the papers had a great deal to say about him. I don't think I ever sank lower than I did then.” Paul's voice faltered. “I was jealous. I read his books out of curiosity, and found them wholly spiritual, full of dreams, ideality, and mysticism. Then I sat up all of one night and wrote the most caustic and virulent attack on his work that I had ever written. It was published at once, and created a local sensation. My friends gave me a dinner in honor of it, and we drank a good deal of beer and filled the air with smoke. Selections from the poet's books were read and laughed at. That seemed all right; but an unexpected thing happened. The next day the young man called at the office and sent in his card, asking particularly for me. It made me furious; my associates on the paper thought he had come to demand personal satisfaction, and so did I. I kept him waiting in the reception-room for some time, and then I went in to him, fully expecting trouble. So you can imagine my surprise to have him rise and extend his hand in a timid and yet cordial manner. I had never seen him before, and I was struck by the wonderful, almost suffering delicacy of his face and a certain expression in his big, dreamy eyes that I had never seen before. He seemed greatly embarrassed, so much so that at first he seemed unable to talk. Presently he managed to tell me, in the frankest, most gentle manner, that he had come to see me because, after reading my article, he was afraid he or his work had offended me personally in some way. I was completely taken aback. I simply couldn't make him out. I was tempted to speak roughly, but couldn't. We sat down, and he started to explain more fully why he had come. He said it was his aim in life to live in harmony with God's law, and that, as he saw it, the feeling between him and me was spiritual discord which ought not to exist. He said he was sure, when I understood him fully, that I could have no personal animus against him for conscientiously writing the poems I had attacked. He said it was the highest law of life for all men to love one another, and until they did there would be human discord. I can't tell you half he said. I know, somehow, that for the first time in my experience I found myself facing a human being who was more spirit than matter, and who possessed a power against which I had no weapon. He seemed to feel my embarrassment, and rose to go. At the door he gave me his hand again and pressed mine warmly. 'I am sure,' he said, 'that nothing but good can result from this visit. Something within me always tells me when I ought to do a thing like this. It is always hard to do; but if I refuse to obey I invariably suffer for it.'”
“How very strange!” Ethel exclaimed. “And what came of it?”
“Much, much,” Paul answered. “When he had gone I remained for some time in the room with the door closed. I was hot from head to foot with shame. I felt worse than if I had been thrashed in public. I did not know what to do, and I was sure something had to be done. I returned to the office, and the reporters and printers gathered about me, full of jokes and eager for information. I could say nothing. A mechanical jest rose to my lips, but I didn't utter it. I could no longer make sport of him behind his back. I put on my hat and went for a walk. I felt sure that I owed him a public apology, and I knew that I would not be able to make it, and that fairly confounded me. I admired him more than any man I had ever met. During that walk a maddening mental picture rose before me.” Here the speaker's voice quivered. “I fancied, Ethel—I fancied that I saw you as I last saw you. Some one was presenting that young man to you. I saw you both walking off together across the meadows in the sunshine among the flowers. He was gathering them for you. You were receiving them, and it seemed to me that you and he were matedas man and woman never had been mated before.”
“Oh, Paul, don't!” Ethel protested. “You must not think of me that way; but go on—go on!”
“Day after day, week after week,” Paul continued, “I fought the inclination to write that apology. I'd start it, only to throw it aside as something above and beyond my nature. I began to loath myself. I had sufficient cause. I was a murderer living under a false name, continually lying about my past, haunted by remorse, and gradually losing my reason. Then came the crisis. I call it my 'black day.' You will despise me when I confess it, but I decided to—kill myself.”
“Oh, Paul, Paul!” Ethel covered her face with her hands. “Howcouldyou—howcouldyou?”
“I was a blind man, goaded to despair. I was swimming with my last feeble stroke in a torrent of sin. It was Christmas Eve. The joy of the rest of the world only added to my loneliness. All my acquaintances had gone to relatives and friends, and I was alone in my desolate room. I had never faced myself so plainly as I did that night. I did not believe there was any future life, and I told myself that I was tired of the struggle, and wanted to go to sleep never to wake again. I thought that would solve it, you see, I wrote a note to old Silas Tye, feeling somehow that I wanted him to know what had happened to me. I got ready. Forgive me, but I want you to hear it all. The door' and windows were tightly closed, and I turned on the gas and lay down on the bed. I folded my hands on my breast. I was sorry for myself. Then, just as I was beginning to notice the odor of the gas, I seemed to see old Uncle Si on his knees praying for me, and I asked myself what was he praying for, to whom or what was he praying? My next thought was of you and your sweet, girlish faith, and then I recalled the poet and his beautiful ideas of life. All at once, as if in a flash of light, came the thought that you three might be right and I wrong; that while I could kill my body I might never be able to kill my soul. 'God help me!' I cried, and why I did not know, for I had never prayed before. I sprang up and turned out the gas and opened the windows and breathed the fresh air deep into my lungs. Just then the church-bells of the city rang out in the announcement of the day on which Christ was born. I was tingling all over with a strange, new hope. What if I should, after all, actually be immortal?
“I sat down before the fire and asked myself, for the first time in my life, 'Am I flesh, blood, and bones, or am I wholly spirit?' Was it a physical possibility for my brain-cells—tiny fragments of matter—to evoke the spiritual tempest through which I was passing? Was there a God and was He good? If not, why was the universe?
“I had brought home a new book—theLife of Tolstoi—to review, and I began to read it with the first touch of sympathy I had ever given such a work. It clutched me and held me like a vise. At one time Tolstoi—like myself—had been tempted to kill himself because he had no faith, and life was nothing without it. Like myself, he had been influenced by materialistic thinkers and worldly-minded associates. He had wealth, a noble's title, and great fame, and yet he had thrown them all over that he might become as a little child. Among the great men of the earth—his mental peers—he could not find the peace of soul that he found reflected in the faces of the poorest peasants on his estate. He wanted to be like them, because he felt they were more like God than he. For him the riddle was solved. It struck me that his life was a wonderful revelation of spiritual truth, if it was anything aside from senility. To satisfy myself on this point I spent the next day reading his books, becoming more and more convinced of his rational sincerity and the unity of his life from beginning to end. Tolstoi's admiration for Rousseau led me to Rousseau's life andConfessions. From him I went to Plato, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, and all the great poets. I neglected my duties on the paper, and fairly buried myself in books such as I'd never read before. My desire to satisfy myself that my soul was immortal became a veritable passion. I read everything that could possibly throw a light on the subject. The first thing that I became convinced of was my stupendous ignorance. For instance, I had never dreamt that one could have any faith which was not founded on the religious creeds of which I had heard all my life; but I soon saw that it was possible to acquire a belief like that of Emerson, Whitman, Wordsworth, and Goethe, which soared above all so-called revelation and reached out into the transcendental. I read the works of many philosophers, spurning almost angrily those who leaned to the material side of life and reverently devouring those who, like Kant and Hegel, were idealistic. Among the modern ones William James seemed inspired. Then Bergson held me with his idea that the simple intuition of the trusting masses was a better guide to hidden truth than the intellectuality of all the scholars.”
“I didn't know you had read so much,” Ethel said, when Paul paused and sat tenderly regarding her grief-stricken face.
“I was forced to,” he smiled. “I was in a corner fighting for life against awful odds. I was sick and disgusted with existence. In my new atmosphere I began to breathe for the first time. I was sensing the eternal meaning of things. I began to see why I had been made to suffer, and I was glad. The habits of my associates, their cramped and aimless lives, now seemed horribly sordid. It sounded strange to hear them speak so seriously and gravely of trivial affairs when a vast new world was fairly throbbing around me. I ventured to speak with a tentative sort of respect of some of the books I had read, and they laughed at me. I was forced into cowardly craftiness. I hid my wonderful secret and continued to go among them. But that couldn't go on. One cannot serve both the spirit and the flesh and be true to either, so I gave up my associates. I apologized to the poet, wrote a strong review of a new book of his, and we became good friends.”
“Then, then”—Ethel laid an eager hand on his arm—“then you decided to—to come home?”
Paul smiled reminiscently, his glance on the gray wisps of clouds slowly lifting themselves from the mountain-side up into the full blaze of the sun.
“I simply had to do it,” he said. “It was as inevitable as life itself. I knew it was right, and that settled it.”
“So you came!” Ethel cried. “You came back.”
“Yes, and when I reached here that night and learned the truth I saw God's hand in it all. Now, you see why I have told you this. Can you believe there is any other design than good—infinite good—behind sorrow, trouble, and agony? Your grief is great—it seems unbearable now; but behind it, above it, beyond it is a purpose so divinely wise that no mortal sense can grasp it.”
Just then Cato appeared at the kitchen door ringing the breakfast-bell. Ethel rose apathetically, and they slowly walked toward the house together. They saw her mother among the flowers waiting for them. Paul heard his companion sigh and, looking at her, he saw that she had lapsed into despair again.
“I can't bear it,” he heard her say. “I can't—I can't. It's awful, awful!”