Nora did not feel inclined to tell, even to her brother, had he been at home, the sad story she had heard; yet she felt she must take some one into her confidence, as to what ought to be done. Mr. Alden seemed to be her only resource. So, after much thought, she went to his house on the morning after the oratorio, intending to see him alone, and tell him the whole story. But, as often happens, she found her intentions completely and unexpectedly thwarted. Mr. Alden had been called away from home, on some ministerial duty, and Mrs. Alden and Grace were nursing two sick children through what seemed to be feverish colds.
"I wish Doctor Blanchard were at home again," said Mrs. Alden, who looked much exhausted. "I should like very much to have him come to see these children!"
Nora saw how much both she and Grace needed rest, and, with her usual impulse to help, she volunteered to stay all night and relieve them as far as possible. It was just what she wanted, too, to take her mind off more painful thoughts. And if it had been more of a sacrifice than it was, she would have been more than rewarded by the gratitude with which her offer was accepted, and by the soothing influence of Grace's society and innocent childlike talk about matters completely dissociated from the things which had been oppressing her like a nightmare.
Dr. Blanchard returned next day; and, apprised by Nora's message, of the illness of the children, came, as soon as possible, to see them. But he looked very grave, as he scrutinized them with his keen professional eye. He called Nora aside, and told her that they were undoubtedly sickening with scarlet fever. Nora was startled, but immediately replied:
"Well, you know I've had that, so I'm pretty safe; and I think the best thing I can do is to stay to help to nurse them."
Dr. Blanchard felt that it was the only thing to be done, under the circumstances. It would scarcely do for Nora to return to his own house, as, even if there were no real danger of infection just then, his wife could scarcely have been persuaded of this, on the children's account.
"I knew we should have an unhealthy spring," he said, "if peoplewouldn'ttake precautions to have the sources of disease removed. It's disgraceful for men like Mr. Pomeroy to own such hovels as that in which you found Mrs. Travers. I hear there's one case of diphtheria in that region already, and there are sure to be more. If it spreads to their own houses, perhaps they'll wake up."
"Mr. Pomeroy's! Are thosehishouses?" asked Nora, and then she thought of his own luxurious mansion, his magnificent dinner, and the five-thousand-dollar-subscription—all in one rapid flash. Next moment, her mind was recalled to present considerations, as her brother observed, very seriously:
"I wish you could manage to keep Grace, as well as the other children, as much as possible out of the sick-room. Hers isn't a constitution to stand an attack of fever, and she would have it more severely than they."
Nora's heart sank. She was depressed at any rate, and she remembered the old, too true proverb that "misfortunes never come single."
Mr. Alden returned that day, to her great relief; and he at once undertook a large share of the nursing, which the strong, tender-hearted man could so well perform. Anxious as he naturally was, as to the result of this inroad of dangerous disease among his happy little flock, his faith would not allow him to indulge in useless worry; and the influence of his cheerful spirit cheered not only the little patients, in the natural fretfulness of sick children, but also the nurses themselves. The other children were sent away to the house of a relative, but Grace would not be persuaded to leave her post as eldest daughter, though kept, as the doctor had directed, as much as possible out of the sick-room. The little patients' cases proved light, and it was not long before Dr. Blanchard pronounced them out of danger. But, just as they seemed fairly convalescent, Grace was prostrated by the same disease, in a much severer form.
Dr. Blanchard's fears were only too soon verified. The fever ran its course very rapidly—exhausting her small strength in a few days. There was a short period of delirium in which all her talk was of fair and pleasant things,—woodland wanderings,—spring flowers,—intermingled with snatches of childish fairy-tales, and Christian hymns. Nora could always soothe the delirium a little, by singing Grace's favorite, "He Leadeth Me," or her own, "Lead Kindly Light." But when the delirium passed away, it was evident that the quiet which followed was the quiet of approaching death; and, before they could realize the impending calamity, therealGrace was gone. Only the fair form that had enshrined her happy spirit lay there, cold and inanimate as a beautiful statue.
The blow was to them all a stunning one. Nora could scarcely bring herself to believe that their bright little Grace was reallydead! She had hoped to the last, doing everything that love and anxiety could suggest. Even when she stood by the still and rigid form in the "white raiment" that loving hands had covered with flowers, she could not get rid of the feeling that the living Grace was somewhere at hand, or cease expecting every moment to hear her familiar voice. It was almost the first time that death had come very near to her, and opened its unfathomable mystery at her feet. And, apart from her deep sorrow for her little friend, the new experience stirred in her heart the haunting questionings that come to us all, at such times of irretrievable loss.
Mrs. Alden was, very naturally, prostrated with grief and watching, and Mr. Alden had been shut up, either with his wife, or alone in his study, most of the time since Grace had quietly drawn her last breath; so that Nora had much to do and to think of, though one or two other friends came in to help. To her, however, was assigned the sad duty of taking in the two or three old friends who, notwithstanding the circumstances, desired to take a last look at the fair unconscious face.
Nora meantime had comparatively little time to think of the subject that had been so engrossing a few days before. It did recur to her again and again, in intervals of quiet;—but of course she had never ventured to intrude the matter on Mr. Alden at such a time. And she had been thinking, now, of Roland Graeme, with profound sympathy. She could easily divine the sorrow that the death of Grace must have brought to him. And she was not surprised, when, on the eve of the funeral, he appeared, looking sad and haggard, with the request that he might look on the sweet face once more.
"Are you sure it's safe for you?" she asked.
"I've had the disease," he replied, "but if I had not, I should still want to do this."
Nora took him to the door of the room, and, with true respect for his sorrow, left him to enter it alone. He stood by the coffin, silently, controlling his emotion, so that he might fix in his memory forever the fair angel-face with its aureole of golden hair, and the happy smile that the last sleep had brought. He could not think itdeath. After a time, the door opened, and Mr. Alden, looking ten years older, came softly in. He grasped Roland's hand in silence, then stood, like him, looking tenderly down on the marble face. At last he spoke in a broken voice:
"She is not dead, but sleepeth." There was another silence, till both turned to go. Then the father spoke again in a low, half-audible tone:
"My lamb—my own sweet, gentle lamb! If I did not know you were safe with the good Shepherd, how could I bear it!"
Roland Graeme left the house without a word; but Nora, who caught a passing glimpse of him—his usually happy eyes filled with tears—felt a stronger personal interest in him than she had ever done before. Somehow, he had always seemed to have so little personal stake in life, to live so completely for others and for the cause he had at heart, that he almost conveyed the idea of a transparency,—of a personality without much color of its own. After all, it is perhaps the faults and weaknesses of others that excite most interest in us; and Roland had seemed almost "faultily faultless." But this personal sorrow of his seemed to have emphasized his personality at last; and Nora, for the first time, began to think of him as an individuality, rather than as simply the champion of a worthy cause.
Of course Roland attended the funeral, walking behind Mr. Alden and Frank, with one of the younger boys. It was a warm and lovely day at the end of March, when the first robin's liquid notes were promising the coming spring, and the swelling buds were just beginning to diffuse a subtle fragrance. The grass in the cemetery was growing green, and nature herself seemed to breathe a soothing balm over the sorrowful hearts. After all was over, Mr. Alden remained a while behind the rest; and Roland, sharing his feeling, lingered too, not far off, unwilling to leave him—unwilling too, in his heart, to leaveher!
At last, the stricken father raised his head, and, after a gesture that looked like a benediction over the new-made grave, turned slowly and reluctantly away. Roland silently approached him and the two set out on their homeward walk.
"'I am the resurrection and the life,'" said Mr. Alden; "if I did not remember that, I think my heart would break, to go and leave her there. But she's notthere!" And then, as he looked back at the cemetery, lying peaceful in the sunset light, he murmured, half to himself, those beautiful lines of Whittier's, that have expressed the feeling of so many sorrowing hearts:—
"Yet Love will dream, and Faith will trust,(Since He who knows our need is just,)That somehow, somewhere—meet we must;Alas for him who never seesThe stars shine through his cypress-trees!Who, hopeless, lays his dead away,Nor looks to see the breaking day,Across the mournful marbles play!Who hath not learned, in hours of faith,The truth to flesh and sense unknown,That Life is ever Lord of Death,And Love can never lose its own!"
"Yet Love will dream, and Faith will trust,(Since He who knows our need is just,)That somehow, somewhere—meet we must;Alas for him who never seesThe stars shine through his cypress-trees!Who, hopeless, lays his dead away,Nor looks to see the breaking day,Across the mournful marbles play!Who hath not learned, in hours of faith,The truth to flesh and sense unknown,That Life is ever Lord of Death,And Love can never lose its own!"
Roland was silent for a while. He did not share Mr. Alden's firm faith; yet, just then, he could not bear to think otherwise. At last, he ventured to say, in his gentlest tone:
"I like the way in which it has been put by a country-man of my own—a young Canadian poet, who has since gone to verify his 'faith':
"'I have a faith—that life and death are one;That each depends upon the self-same thread;And that the seen and unseen rivers runTo one calm sea, from one dear fountain-head.'"[2]
"'I have a faith—that life and death are one;That each depends upon the self-same thread;And that the seen and unseen rivers runTo one calm sea, from one dear fountain-head.'"[2]
"Yes," said Mr. Alden, his sad eye lighting up; "I like that thought. Lifeiscontinuous, I'm sure. It is sweet to think of my little Gracie's purified life going on, under fairer, purer conditions. There seems to me a touch of truth in the old Greek saying, that 'whom the Gods love die young.' She was a little Christian from her infancy; but I used sometimes to fear for her happiness in this rude life of ours. She had such a tender and gentle spirit; with the moral sensitiveness of generations of Puritans so exquisitely keen in her, that a comparatively small wrong would give her great pain. We always tried to keep the knowledge of evil as far from her as possible. When she was a very little child, she would cry if she fancied that her mother and I had even a trifling disagreement. She was always our little peacemaker. But what she was, she was by the grace of God."
"Would you mind," said Roland, presently,—partly to give Mr. Alden's mind a little diversion, partly to satisfy a wish he had felt for some time,—"would you mind telling me what you think about some things that seem to me to stand in the way of my ever being what most people mean by a 'believer'?"
"Certainly, not!" said Mr. Alden, looking interested at once.
"Well, then," said Roland, "I never could believe that 'God is love,' and that he could create millions of people to be lost forever because they lived and died where they could never hear the story of Christ's life and death, never hear what people call the 'gospel,' or even because they could not receive it as literal truth. So I have felt as if I would rather trust to a vague, indefinite love, of which my own heart tells me, than to any such narrow gospel as that."
"Certainly, my dear fellow, I think you are perfectly right. I couldn't believe any such narrow gospel. It would be no 'good news' to me."
"Then you don't—" began the young man, with a puzzled air. "But I'm sure I've heard you, sir, in the pulpit, emphasize the Scripture declaration, that 'there is no other name given whereby man can be saved'!"
"Certainly! I could emphasize that truth everywhere—die for it, I trust, if need were. To me it is as precious as the love and Fatherhood of God."
"Then if thereis'no other name,' what becomes of those who never heard of it, but who are doing all they can—living up to the light they have? What can man do more?"
"I'm afraid most of us do a great deal less!" said Mr. Alden. "But I wish people would only read their Bibles with the intelligent common-sense with which they read other books;—history, for example. We Americans are always talking of our Declaration of Independence, just as Englishmen do of their Magna Charta. It affects the position, the freedom of every man, woman and child in this great country. We talk of George Washington as the deliverer of his country, of his heroism as affecting the destinies of every one in it, even the infant in arms! So we may speak of Lincoln's proclamation as freeing the black race in America. But does any one suppose that no one can benefit by these, except those who know the whole story of these deliverances, of the pain and struggle that led up to them, or of their complex relation with our whole social life and Constitutional history?"
"But then it seems to be presupposed that people are savedthroughhearing and believing the gospel, and you know Paul says that 'Faith cometh by hearing.'"
"Yes, but we are not told that it comes by the mere hearing of the ear! St. Paul was pleading with people whose business and duty it was to tell others what they knew. He was not talking didactic philosophy. And have we no sense of hearing but the outward one? How did Abraham know that he was to go out from the land he knew, to one of which he knew nothing? Just as you and I know that we are bound to help our suffering brothers! Don't wehearthe voice, in the plea of misery! And don't you suppose that Abraham, of whom we have no reason to believe that he knew anything definite as to the great Redeemer of the world, was just as much saved by Him as Paul was? People don't let themselves think enough to put two and two together here, as they do in any other matter whatsoever!"
"Then what is your theory of the Atonement?" he asked.
"My dear fellow, I don't attempt a theory. A theory, to my mind, is an attempt to force into a rigid mould of human formulæ, mysteries which, because they belong to the workings of infinite Wisdom and Love, are quite beyond the compass of human thought. Every theory I know fails miserably somewhere. The central doctrine of Christianity is far greater than any human theory, or all of them together;—one proof to me that it never was of human origin! I hold that its essence is greater, even, than the story of Christ's life and death and human character, great as these were, and all-powerful as they are to uplift and strengthen. For it is as old as life itself.In the beginningwas the 'Word'—the expression of the divine Will to man! 'That was the true light, that lighteth every man that cometh into the world.' The Christ-light and the Christ-life have, I believe, always brooded over poor humanity, to raise it out of the abyss of sin and death. But for that end there had to be, I can only faintly imaginewhy, Divine suffering. 'I believe in the forgiveness of sins'—believe in it as much for my sweet Grace, as for the poor despised outcast. For all that we are learning to-day in the direction of heredity, tends to make us realize the immense natural differences of original constitution. But what is our best, compared with Infinite Purity, Infinite Love, whichisGoodness?—
'As this poor taper's earthly sparkTo yonder argent round'!
'As this poor taper's earthly sparkTo yonder argent round'!
And Divine Purity could not pass by moral evil lightly. I feel, as James Hinton said, that 'when I am most a Christian, I am the best man,' but I also feel that when I am the best man, I am most a Christian!"
"But then, the historical and literary arguments! Don't you find any difficulties there?"
"I have never had too much time to think of them," he replied. "I was thoroughly satisfied, on other grounds, before they came much in my way, and I've had my own work to do. I think, however, from what I have read on the subject, that they have been met, in a manner satisfactory tome, at least. But to my mind, religion is not a literary or historical question. Neither is it to be founded, as some tell us, on the witness of the intellect, which has neither compass nor rudder on that sea; nor, as others tell us, on emotion, which is variable and evanescent as these sunset hues."
"On what, then?" asked Roland, as he instinctively followed the direction of his eye.
"On something deeper than either; on the sense ofrighteousness, the deepest, truest consciousness of humanity. Speaking for myself,I want God—want the Divine Perfection, which is the same thing. I look for Him in Nature, but I cannot find Him there, except in hints and hieroglyphs. Nor can I find in Humanity the perfection I long for. I see imperfection and limitation in all, even the best! But what I want, I find in Jesus of Nazareth; nothing else satisfies me;that does. If I cannot see God there, I can see Him nowhere. I find in Him, as I see Him in the gospels, a moral beauty such as I could never of myself have imagined, but which, the more I know of men—even the best—the more I must appreciate and adore! It sometimes seems to me, that this age of ours is saying, like Pilate, and very much in his spirit, 'Behold The Man!' Well, the more it learns to truly behold theMan, the more it will be compelled to recognize that Manhood as Divine. I should have to become a different moral being, before I could cease to worship in Him the Christ, the only manifestation of the Divine that we are able to comprehend and grasp."
Mr. Alden had grown deeply moved as he continued to speak. When he ended, there was a thoughtful silence. After a little time he added:
"It is here I find my only rest in all perplexity, in all trouble—even in this one. But it is only he who is in deep and humble earnest for the right, who can understand. Only he 'who will do His will' can know this doctrine. But that is a 'salvation' each must work outfor himself."
There was little more said during the rest of the walk. Mr. Alden's thoughts had gone back to his own sorrow. As they reached the familiar door, a thousand tender memories and associations rushed over him, and, for the first time in his life, he leaned heavily on his cane, as the father's heart found utterance in the scarcely audible exclamation—"Oh, my gentle child! my tender, loving little Grace!"
Miss Blanchard felt she must remain with Mr. and Mrs. Alden till the two younger children were quite recovered, and the house had been disinfected. Then, after due precautions, she returned to her brother's house, the children, including Cecilia, being sent away, for a day or two, to one of Mrs. Blanchard's relatives. Nora had seized a favorable opportunity to tell Mr. Alden, in confidence, the painful story that was burdening her mind. He was, of course, deeply interested, the more so that he knew, as Nora did not, the story of the child's rejected appeal.
He was, though surprised, not so much shocked as Nora had been; for he had formed, from his own observation, a tolerably correct appreciation of Mr. Chillingworth's limitations. He thought, most decidedly, that the man chiefly concerned should know the circumstances, as soon as possible, but he felt that the task of telling him was one which he himself was not the best person to undertake.
"Then who could?" Nora anxiously inquired.
"I think, my dear girl," he said, "that no one can do it so well as yourself!"
"Oh! but Icouldn't!" she exclaimed.
"I think you could. I am sure you could if you made up your mind to do it. And, if it is right, you will make up your mind."
"But how? I could never begin!"
"Wait for your opportunity," he said. "You will surely get it, and I believe you will find the way, too, when the opportunity comes. There's no fear ofyourdoing it cruelly."
Nora did not feel so sure. She feared that the very effort would make the disclosure come out harshly, whatever she might desire. But she accepted Mr. Alden's counsel, without further opposition.
One of her first cares was a visit to the hospital, where she found that "Mrs. Travers" had been in a very quiet and subdued mood, ever since the painful scene of her return. Miss Spencer expressed relief and approval when Nora told her of her determination.
"Only," she said, "unless he means to acknowledge her, it will be best that she should never know that he knows."
Nora assented. But how, she thought, would it ever be possible forhim, of all men, to "acknowledge" a wife in such circumstances? She was very sad and thoughtful as she walked home.
That evening, it so happened that Mr. Chillingworth called at his usual hour—Mrs. Blanchard being out at a large afternoon reception, to which Nora naturally did not care to accompany her. Possibly Mr. Chillingworth had guessed as much, and hoped to find her alone. It was the first time he had been able to see her since the evening of the oratorio, and he was more effusive in his greeting, more genuinely sympathetic, than she had ever seen him. She found it almost impossible to command her thoughts, so as to keep up conversation. She could not keep them from darting off to the task that lay before her, and, all the time she was trying to reply to him, she was wondering when the "opportunity" would come, and whether she could be equal to it.
They talked of many indifferent things, of the financial success of the oratorio, of the beauty of the spring evenings, of the hyacinths and violets that were filling the room with fragrance, delighting Mr. Chillingworth's sensitive organization. He himself was in an unusually genial and happy mood, utterly unconscious, of course, of the abyss that was yawning at his feet. He had of late been indulging much in a day-dream that was ever taking more tangible shape. He was growing very tired of his solitary life, and he had been dreaming of the sweet companionship of a graceful and cultivated woman, which should refresh and rejuvenate his heart and life. The dream was uppermost in his heart, and very near his lips.
By and by, in spite of Nora's best efforts, the conversation flagged perceptibly. Mr. Chillingworth himself seemed indisposed to talk much. After a short pause he began, however, in a tone that was low, and more tenderly modulated than usual.
"It is curious how this spring weather seems to wake up all sorts of associations and longings in us; just as it wakes the stirring life in the flowers! Years ago, a blight—the result of a great trouble—seemed to come over my life. But it has gradually worn off, and of late I have been cherishing a hope that my life might yet blossom anew."
Nora's heart beat fast with affright. Her instinct warned her of what was coming. It must not come!Thatwould be too horrible! She had no time to delay, so she rushed into the subject without daring to pause to think.
"Do you know," she said, surprising him by what seemed the utter irrelevancy of her remark,—"we have always been much interested in the history of little Cecilia's mother. And now it turns out that she is the wife of a man who still supposes her to have been lost at sea!"
The pallor of her face, the suppressed agitation of her manner in forcing in this interruption, must of themselves have explained much more than her words. Well—she had dealt the blow, she hardly knew how; but she would not look to see its effect. She was conscious of a deadly stillness in the room. The faint ticking of the marble clock on the mantel, the occasional fall of a cinder from the fire in the grate, the distant note of a robin, were the only sounds, unless the beating of her heart were audible, as she fancied it must be. The only other sensation she was conscious of was the floating fragrance of the hyacinths, which she ever afterwards associated with this scene.
He spoke at last—but it was only to ask, in a scarcely audible tone:
"What was her name?"
"Her maiden name was—Celia Travers," she replied, in a tone as low as his own.
It seemed a long time—it could not have been many minutes—before Mr. Chillingworth rose, and in a hoarse, low tone that he vainly tried to steady, said 'he must go now, as he had many things to think of.' She gave him her hand timidly, without raising her eyes to his face. He held it for a moment, with a pressure that hurt it,—raised it for a moment to his lips—and was gone. She knew it was a silent farewell.
For two or three days after that startling revelation, Mr. Chillingworth remained almost entirely shut up in his own study. He had truly, as he said, "many things to think of"—past, present and future. Miss Blanchard's few and simple words had been enough to reveal to him, with a lightning flash, the whole situation. The child's name, the likeness that had always vaguely troubled him, the associations and memories it suggested, her uncommon delight in music, all pointed too distinctly in one direction. Yet he had never even heard that he had a child! And he had been so sure that the "Celia Chillingworth," whose name he had himself seen among the "lost" in that great steamship disaster which had caused such a widespread sensation, must have been his unfortunate wife, that he had had no more doubt on the subject than if he had seen her laid in her coffin. He had written to his English agent, and had ascertained through his inquiries, that she had taken passage with her cousin, in the ill-fated steamer. What further certainty could he need?
Undoubtedly the intelligence of her death had been, in some sense, a relief to him. Yet another curious result had followed. This tragic event seemed to have obliterated the impatient disgust which had led to his harsh decision. For Mr. Chillingworth's character possessed none of the passionate impulse tosave—the tender sympathy with the wrong-doer—the infinite patience and compassion that mark the human saviour of his fellows, as they do the Divine One, and that are most frequently found in the feminine nature; though Mr. Alden was a conspicuous proof that they are by no means exclusively found there. But death seemed to have passed a softening and idealizing touch over the harsh lines of the past, and his early romance, by degrees, lost its painful aspect, and retained only the romantic one. He had not been conscious of being harsh, and the sorrow he felt was only the natural ruth that any mind of sensibility must feel at the tragic severance of a life, the premature fate that had overtaken one so young and so beautiful. And he had gradually begun to think only of his "bereavement," not of what had gone before. He had never thought of remarriage till he had met Nora Blanchard.
But now, in the light of the peculiar Nemesis that had overtaken him, he could not feel so sure that he had done right! His own moral perceptions, at least, had grown within the last ten years. Originally, they had been very limited. He had been brought up, a much indulged only child, by a widowed mother, who plumed herself on her "evangelical views" and attached infinite importance to what she called the "saving of the soul," meaning by that much abused term, however, little more than a claim to a fair prospect of safety and happiness in another life. She was especially strong on the "deadliness of doing," the worthlessness of "good works." Accordingly, Cecil Chillingworth, though brought up, of course, to avoid open transgression and hate vice, had never in those early days that do so much to mould a man's mind, taken in the idea of the gospel as a great moral cure and spiritual power, the very essence of which must be love to God and man. He bad never been taught that salvation meant becoming Christ-like, and that to follow Christ was to care for others, to deny himself for his brother's good. He had no gross impulses to resist, and, having a natural devotional tendency, he had drifted on in a refined self-indulgence, of which he was quite unconscious. Notwithstanding his evident musical talent, his mother discouraged his becoming a professional musician, from a vague idea that it was "worldly"—a reason quite sufficient to deter himself. The clerical profession was the next most congenial, and he went through his preparation for it in due course, being, however, much more deeply interested in music than in theology, and never having passed through any crisis that could wake him up to spiritual reality. Soon after his taking orders and settling down in a curacy, he had met Celia Travers, and had fallen passionately in love. His mother had died two or three years before, and, as he had only himself to please, and as Miss Travers' employer encouraged a speedy marriage, it had taken place while the spell of her beauty still blinded him to all other considerations. After a time came disillusion to a great extent, a sense of lack of congenial companionship, and then the shock of the last discovery, the shame, and dread, and final separation, which he justified to himself as the "cutting off of the right hand;" although the consequences it was to avert were temporal, not spiritual.
After he came to America, a gradual change and widening of intellectual and spiritual horizon grew with maturing years. He at least learned toseeChristianity differently. He caught up the current note of self-sacrifice, self-surrender. He was fascinated with an ideal spiritual beauty which called forth all his natural eloquence, and made him a popular preacher. But he had lived so completely in his ideals, that he had learned to worshipthese, instead of the realities that inspired them. And his own failure to grasp the practical side of Christianity reacted on his teaching. The beauty of the Christian religion, as he saw it, enchanted his idealistic nature, much as the glory of a distant mountain-top might fascinate the wayfarer, who as yet had but little conception of the long and toilsome journey that lies between. He could, therefore, discourse glowingly on the divine ideal of Christian love, without saying one word which could penetrate the conscience of the most consistently selfish hearer—who will stand calmly a vast amount of generalities, provided, only, that you do not "condescend upon particulars." Moreover, Mr. Chillingworth had lived so completely in a world of his own, so apart from the ordinary human life about him, that he himself did not know the needs of his own people, the points at which their selfishness was strongest, the absolute blank that lay between what they professed to believe and its natural development in the practice of daily life,—a gap, that, as we have seen, unhappily existed in his own life.
In these days of solitary self-communing, conscience, however, began to assert its claims. The fact that other hands had cared for and tended the woman whose chief claim was onhim, and the knowledge, from all he had seen of Miss Blanchard, in what light the whole affair and his action in it must appear to her who of late had been so much in his thoughts and hopes—all tended to open his eyes. In looking over some old sermons, in order to select a substitute for the one he could not write, he happened to come upon the one he had been writing on the day when Roland Graeme first made his acquaintance, and his eye chanced to fall on the paragraph in which he had been interrupted. Conscience, newly awakened, drove the shaft home. That "battle" he spoke of—how had he fought it? He could see, though dimly as yet, that the "battle with self" had never been fought at all—and, if so, what of the others? Heartsick and depressed, he felt, for the first time in his life, that he was a moral failure. The consciousness almost drowned the other pang—of a cherished hope shattered forever!
What he should do, he could not yet see. The future seemed all dark before him. To do anything, and to do nothing, seemed to him equally impossible. He could not even bring himself to ask questions, to put into tangible shape the nightmare that haunted him. While still in this miserable state of indecision, a stronger hand solved the question for him.
On the evening on which he heard the startling tidings, his trim maid, when she brought in his tea, asked if she might go to spend the night at her own home, on account of the illness of one of her little brothers. He assented,—mechanically—and she did not think it necessary to tell him that it was a case of diphtheria. Two or three days later, he felt sufficiently indisposed to send for Dr. Blanchard; when he found, to his surprise, that what he had thought an ordinary though severe sore throat was an incipient attack of that dreaded malady.
Dr. Blanchard urgently recommended the hospital, as the only place where he could be properly and safely treated; and he passively assented. Nothing seemed to matter much to him, just then. A cab was called, and the move was made without delay. And so, without any prearrangement, the husband and wife, so long and strangely separated, were once more brought together beneath the same roof.
A few days before Mr. Chillingworth's removal to the hospital, a very different patient had been taken thither, also sent in by Dr. Blanchard. This was poor Lizzie Mason, who had been taken ill during Nora's absence, and of whose illness Nora first heard from Miss Pomeroy, who had been specially active in looking after the "Girls' Club" while Miss Blanchard was on duty elsewhere. The story of Lizzie's illness was a sad one. The needs of the family had made her very anxious to earn a little more, if possible, and she had undertaken a kind of work that commanded higher wages on account of its inconvenience. It was that of spinning silk which had to be kept constantly wet by a spray of water, which, of course, kept the garments of the spinner more or less wet also. The obvious precaution of providing a water-proof suit, for this work, had not been deemed necessary by Mr. Willett; and Lizzie could not think of affording the outlay. So she worked on all day in damp clothes, running home afterwards, as quickly as she could, to exchange them. While the mild spring weather continued, no great harm resulted; but, as often happens in spring, it had suddenly become extremely raw and cold. Lizzie, leaving the overheated room in her damp clothing, had taken a chill, which in her weakened constitution had brought on a attack of pneumonia. Miss Pomeroy had been told of her illness, had gone to see her, and, by dint of cross-examination, had ascertained its origin. She went home in a white-heat of indignation, and told her mother the whole story, which, at first, Mrs. Pomeroy refused to believe. Yet when she was compelled to realize it, she suddenly burst into tears, for she was, after all, a good and well-meaning woman; and intermingled self-reproaches and self-defence in a most incoherent manner.
She wouldn't have believed Willett would have permitted such a thing—but how could she know anything about it? Only to think that such things should happen at her own door! She had been pitying the poor women on the other side of the globe, and here were girls in their own mill sacrificed like this! If she had only thought of looking into things a little more! Well, such a thing would never happen again, if she could help it!
"And, in the meantime, Clara," she said, "you will go to Doctor Blanchard, and ask him, for me, to see this poor girl at once, and to do the very best he can for her. And she must get everything she needs, or fancies, to set her up again."
The result of which was, that Lizzie, after much persuasion, consented to go to the hospital for care and treatment, one inducement being the promise that she should be placed in the room of her friend, Mrs. Travers, who had been doing her best to assist the tired nurses in the busy time that the great increase of sickness had brought upon them. It need scarcely be said that she at once became Lizzie's devoted attendant—scarcely relaxing her watch for a moment, till Lizzie was pronounced somewhat better, with a tolerable possibility of recovery.
It was well that she had improved before Mr. Chillingworth's arrival. When Miss Spencer had learned that his case was pronounced an extremely severe and dangerous one, she thought it only right to tell his wife, who, from that moment, seemed to have no thought but for him. Indeed, she begged so hard to be allowed to take a share in the constant attendance he required, that Miss Spencer arranged for her doing so, on the express condition that she should keep well out of his sight, till the issue of the attack should be determined. Mr. Chillingworth, indeed, was not likely to notice any one just then. He was very ill, indeed, and lay most of the time with closed eyes, in a state of great suffering and prostration. His wife's whole being seemed absorbed in watching him with intense anxiety, doing everything for him that it was possible for her to do without being observed by him, and evidently availing herself greedily of the opportunity of once more gazing on his face—so changed, in some respects, yet so familiar, and still to her so dear.
"That poor thing is a heroine in her way," said Dr. Blanchard, on his return from one of his visits. "I never knew greater devotion, and after such an experience!"
He was of the three or four people who had heard the sad story, and Nora had to depend on him for all her information about the invalids; for Mrs. Blanchard, nervously afraid of infection, would not hear of her going near the hospital, even to see Lizzie Mason.
"Poor thing," exclaimed Mrs. Blanchard, sympathetically; "well, she has her turn now! How oddly things seem to come round!"
"She took me by surprise to-day," Dr. Blanchard continued, "when I found him so ill that I thought there was no hope for him but in the last resort—trying to suck out the membraneous stuff with an instrument."
"Oh, Will," exclaimed his wife, "I can't bear to have you do such things! You have no right to risk your life in that way—and all our lives!"
"If I had done it, I should not have told you now. I've done it before. Don't you know, we doctors are all under orders to risk life when it's necessary? We couldn't do much, if we weren't ready for that. And I should be a degenerate descendant of the brave Blanchards who fought for freedom, if I couldn't face death as readily to save life, as they did to destroy it. However, I haven't told you yet what surprised me. Just as I was going to do it, this poor woman pressed forward, whispering—"Oh, letme! It'smyplace!"—in such an agonized way, that I had not the heart to refuse her. I saw it was a real comfort to her. I hardly know whether I was right or not, but I let her do it."
"Of course you were right!" Mrs. Blanchard said, much relieved. "Itwasher place, as she said. I should have felt just so!"
Nora said nothing; but as she silently listened, the tears started to her eyes, at the thought of the words, "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much!"
Whether or not it was this "last resort" that saved the clergyman's life, he began from that time slightly to improve. The violence of the attack abated, leaving it possible for him to secure the soothing and strengthening rest he so much needed. And, at last, Miss Spencer, who had been watching with deep interest the course of events, told the poor shy watcher that she need not continue to practise such caution in avoiding recognition. It would not hurt him, now, she thought, and it might as well come soon as late. But it happened, after all, in a way entirely accidental and unpremeditated.
With the first light of morning, Mr. Chillingworth awoke, at length, from a long, restful sleep. He had no idea that his wife was in the hospital, for he had not, of course, felt sufficiently interested in Miss Blanchard'sprotégée, to keep track of her history. And, since the disclosure, he had not yet dared to ask any questions.
But very probably, some chance token of a once familiar presence may have stolen into his mind, even through the prostration of disease. It is curious, what slight touches will start the springs of old associations. Mr. Chillingworth, at any rate, had been dreaming a long pleasant dream of the old happy days of his youthful love and marriage, of wanderings in English lanes and saunterings in leafy garden-walks, always with one fair face and graceful figure by his side, that had then seemed to hold the whole charm of life for him. As he awoke, he had been, in his dream, looking down at the familiar upturned face, with its gaze of happy, trustful love.
It seemed to him, when he opened his eyes in the bare hospital room, that he must be dreaming still. For, in a low chair beside the bed, sat, with her head resting on it, in a quiet sleep that had stolen irresistibly over her—the very original of his dreams. In the soft light that penetrated through the drawn blinds, the traces left by years and suffering on the still lovely face were almost unperceived; the soft rings of dark hair curled low on the forehead just as he so well remembered them—lovely even in their slight disorder. And, even as he looked, the long lashes were raised, and the beautiful gray eyes were opened, in a shy, half-frightened, but fascinated gaze.
Mr. Chillingworth was just in that weak and helpless state, when—if ever in his life—a man yearns for the tender ministrations of a loving woman. Suffering and prostration had broken down the hard coldness of his nature, and it seemed as if he had become like a dependent child. The old love of the former days, stirred up by his vivid dream, seemed to thrill once more through his whole being, sweeping away all the barriers that years and circumstances had interposed. He feebly stretched out his arms, and by the irresistible impulse—strange influence that love can exert over the hardest will!—the long severed husband and wife were reunited in a close, instinctive, passionate embrace.
If life is to be measured by happiness, the days that followed should have been reckoned by years for the poor young woman, so long defrauded of the rightful love of her life. To Mr. Chillingworth, they were days of strangely mingled happiness and pain. As, little by little, he learned most of her story, in the long, quiet days when husband and wife were left alone together, he felt, with deep humiliation, how great a wrong his impatient harshness bad done to her, and to himself. When she, poor thing, timidly spoke of "forgiveness," he passionately responded that it washe, not she, who needed to be forgiven. But, as yet, he could not, weak and prostrate as he still was, face the problem of the future.
That problem, too, was solved for him in a way he had little dreamed of. As he rapidly recovered, his devoted nurse could no longer conceal the fact that the dangerous malady had attacked herself. This was not, of course, surprising, since, she was as yet by no means strong, and had been so constantly shut up in the infected atmosphere. It did not take long for the disease to work its fatal way in her enfeebled constitution. Indeed, it seemed as if she had not the vitality left for any resistance. She had, evidently, but little desire for life, and she had learned to think of death without fear, much as a tired child thinks of its evening rest. As she lay, prostrated by weakness, scarcely speaking, but watching her husband's face and movements, the expression of the pale but satisfied and peaceful countenance seemed to say, "Now, let me depart in peace."
Mr. Chillingworth tried to speak to her of the hope that it is the minister's privilege to set before dying eyes, but his attempts seemed to himself weak and impotent. He had lived so long in a world of ideals and abstractions, that he had, in a great measure, lost the realizing sense of the simple gospel truths, so familiar to him from infancy. Reality seemed to have gone out of the things he had so long believed, and he sometimes wondered whether he had believed at all—whether he were not himself drifting into the position of an agnostic. He remembered a sermon he had once preached, about the rich young man who had come to the Master, but who, tried by too severe a test, had shrunk back from the required sacrifice, and had "gone away sorrowful." So, he thought, had he shrunk back from the cross laid on him, and, what right had he to call himself a follower of the Master? But, what was impossible to him, had been long ago done by others. Other guidance than his had led the poor wanderer to the Divine and forgiving Helper, in whom alone rests the hope of the true penitent; and she, who had "loved much," felt herself forgiven.
The end came very soon. Her constitution made so little resistance that the suffering seemed the less severe. As the fair spring morning of Easter Sunday dawned, it was clear to the solitary watcher that all was nearly over. He tenderly held his wife supported by his encircling arm, watching her as she looked at him wistfully, with a faint smile of recognition, scarcely able to speak.
"It—is—far—the best thing,—Cecil!" she said, in words disjointed and scarcely audible; "you'll take care of Cecilia—she'll be a comfort to you—by and by!"
Then the eyelids drooped, and her husband, bending low, could only catch faintly the words, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we——"
He repeated the words with her, and finished the sentence. As he did so, he found that he was alone with the dead.
Gently he laid back the lifeless form, kissed the cold brow, and sat for a little while, reluctant to break the spell of the solemn stillness, and absorbed in the thought of the remote past which had now swallowed up the present, and of that unseen future which he vainly tried to grasp, and which seemed to him so shadowy. But, as he knelt in prayer, he registered a silent, passionate vow, that, henceforward, his life should be lived, to the utmost of his power, in the spirit of that unselfish love which he had preached so long and practised so little. The sharpest conflicts are often those which take place in silence and solitude, without any outward sign; and human lives are shaped and moulded to higher uses as silently as were the Temple stones of old.
As he slowly turned at last, to leave the room, the golden light of the new day broke in upon him from without, and he heard the silvery chimes of the Easter bells ushering in the morning that commemorates the Resurrection.
Nora Blanchard had remained in Minton longer than she had originally intended, delayed partly by her interest in the events that had been taking place, partly because she would not go till she had made some arrangements for the future of little Cecilia. Of course, it had been impossible that the child could see her mother in those last days, and the task of breaking to her the truth that she should see that mother no more had been to Nora a terribly trying one. She soothed the child's passionate grief, as she best could; but she could not venture, as yet, to intrude upon it what she felt would be the unwelcome intelligence of her relationship to Mr. Chillingworth. When the latter, by Dr. Blanchard's advice, went away for a time to recruit at a noted health-resort, he gladly accepted Miss Blanchard's offer to take Cecilia with her to her home at Rockland for the summer, until he should be able to make up his mind as to his future arrangements. The secret of his sad story was known to very few, and those few were not likely to make it more generally known.
Meantime Lizzie Mason had made a tolerably satisfactory recovery, and had been sent back to her home, but she still had a cough which neither Nora nor Dr. Blanchard liked to hear. Miss Blanchard had formed one of her impulsive plans for transplanting the whole family to Rockland. If she could get employment for Lizzie and Jim under Mr. Foster, the benevolent mill-owner there, they would all be so much better off in the healthy, pleasant country place, and Jim would be away from his bad companions, and, by and by, he and Nelly might settle down. Lizzie's eyes sparkled with pleasure as Miss Blanchard unfolded this project.
"Oh, if it could only all happen, Miss Blanchard, it would be just lovely!" she said.
And Nora made up her mind to try to accomplish it. She was, herself, thinking longingly of the green fields and budding woods of Rockland in these early days of May; and she was growing impatient for the sight of the wild flowers that she knew were blooming fresh and fair in her favorite woodland nooks. And yet, she felt very unwilling to leave her friends in Minton, her little nephews and nieces, the "Girls' Club," and all the other interests that had engaged her thoughts daring the winter. But as the married sister, who had been staying with her family in the old homestead at Rockland was soon to take her departure, Nora's return could not be long delayed.
She bad seen a good deal of Roland Graeme of late. He had called repeatedly to bear the latest report of the progress of the invalids, in whom they were both so deeply interested. His own saddened expression, so different from the bright, eager look natural to him, and what Nora had said about his attachment to Grace, had enlisted Mrs. Blanchard's kindly feeling, and she hospitably urged the young man to come to see them often. With Nora he had always many common objects of interest, but the chief bond of sympathy, now, was the sweet memory of Grace, about whom Roland liked to talk freely when alone with Miss Blanchard, sure of her full comprehension. And he, in turn, felt for her more sympathy than was perhaps needed, on the score of the disappointment he thought she had experienced in Mr. Chillingworth. She, happily, was thoroughly cured of the incipient fancy, which had not been strong enough to seriously affect her happiness, though the moral shock could not but leave its mark—a mark which, but for the solemn experiences she had passed through, immediately after, would have been much deeper.
Roland had need of all the comfort and sympathy she could give him, for he had various troubles just then. The people who delight in inventing or propagating malicious gossip had been making such mischief as they could. Nora's indignation had been roused more than once, lately, by hearing the incident of his appearance at the police-court on behalf of their unfortunateprotégée, distorted into a story discreditable to Roland on the score of such an acquaintance. And, as she could not possibly give the true history of the affair, her indignant defence was received with somewhat incredulous and significant smiles, excessively annoying to her chivalrous nature. Many people, indeed, were only too glad to catch at a substantial reason for looking askance at Roland Graeme.
But personal annoyances did not, after all, trouble him so much as did his growing anxiety about Waldberg, which also, to some extent, he confided to Miss Blanchard. The "boy" had got fairly into the vortex of speculation, so far as his very limited means would permit. Some fatal successes had greatly intensified his ambition. He was dreaming wild dreams of "making his pile," and carrying off Kitty in triumph; for he had no doubt that "Old Farrell" would "come round" if he could only satisfy him financially. And he knew, too well, that Kitty was thoroughly tired of her engagement, and that, but for her father's strong opposition, it would have been broken long ago. The truth was, Mr. Farrell had lost heavily of late through various causes, and his own affairs were not in nearly such a flourishing condition as was generally supposed.
Mr. Archer had also become a frequent visitor at Dr. Blanchard's, and had been, as Mrs. Blanchard observed, "very polite and attentive." He was fond of riding in the fine spring afternoons, and, as Miss Blanchard was a good horsewoman, he had urged that, since she was looking rather pale and languid, she should have a ride or two with him, Miss Pomeroy's horse and habit being readily placed at her disposal. Her brother warmly seconded the proposal. It was, he said, just the sort of tonic she needed, after all she had been through. Accordingly, they had two delightful rides into the country, during which Mr. Archer exerted himself to be more agreeable than she had ever known him, for he knew by this time what Nora liked, and he could throw off his half-assumed tone of cynicism when it pleased him. He led the way to the prettiest spots in the neighborhood, where they alighted to pick wild flowers. As they were returning from the last of these excursions—Miss Blanchard with a knot of hepaticas on her breast—they met Roland Graeme, who had been giving himself the refreshment of a country walk. He looked somewhat wistfully at the two riders. He was, himself, very fond of the exercise, and Miss Blanchard was looking remarkably well, the rapid exercise having brought the color to her cheek and the sparkle to her eyes. He could not help feeling a pang of envy—a wish, that just then he could be in the place of the prosperous-looking, well-appointed Philip Archer.
"Graeme's looking fagged out, these days!" remarked Mr. Archer. "His philanthropy seems to be too much for him."
Nora made no reply; for she could not talk over Roland's troubles with Mr. Archer, who always patronized "Graeme."
"It's too bad of you, Miss Blanchard," he continued, "to go off and leave all your friends here, just when they've got to depend on you. The Girls' Club will be left desolate. Miss Pomeroy and Miss Farrell will never be able to keep it up without you."
"I think they will do very well," she said, laughing.
"And Mr. Graeme will miss one of his warmest sympathizers," he added, looking at her scrutinizingly. He saw no trace of any consciousness and went on, lightly: "And what will you do with yourself in Rockland? By your account there are no wrongs to right in that happy Arcadia."
"Rest, and be thankful," she retorted, in the same tone.
When he spoke again, there was an undercurrent of real feeling struggling through the lightness of his tone.
"Now, Miss Blanchard, you know philanthropy is decidedly your vocation; you ought to have a subject always at hand. Couldn't you now—" he hesitated, and she looked at him inquiringly, "couldn't you now—take a fellow likemein hand, and try what you could do with him? I assure you—you wouldn't find me a bad subject!"
His tone made her begin to comprehend his meaning, but she was too much surprised to have words ready. He spoke again, more pleadingly, "Won't you try, Miss Blanchard? I do think you could make something of me, if you cared enough to try?"
His manner had forced Nora to understand him at last. She was divided between surprise at the unexpected proposal, and involuntary annoyance that it should have been made without the slightest reason to suppose that it would be accepted. However, she managed, she hardly knew how, to convey to him, in a few rather curt words, the fact that such a thing was utterly impossible, that she was sorry he should have thought of it. She regretted, afterwards, that she had been so abrupt in her refusal. But she had no need to trouble herself. Mr. Archer's self-satisfaction was not likely to be permanently disturbed by any such experience; and it is even possible that, on cooler reflection, he did not altogether regret that his rather impulsive offer had been declined; for it would have been, he felt, rather a strain for him to try, for any length of time, to "live up to" such a girl as Nora Blanchard!
In order to break the somewhat awkward silence that followed during the last part of their ride, Mr. Archer remarked that he was afraid "Old Farrell" would be in financial trouble, now.
"Why?" asked Nora, interested on her friend's account, and glad of a diversion from the former subject.
"Oh, I suspect he's been playing high, lately, in stocks. There's been a rapid rise for some days, in B. & B., and I believe he stood fair to make a big score. Every one thought a further rise was sure. But I believe they've come down with a run to-day, and I'm afraid he and a lot of the smaller fry that follow his lead, will get pretty well caught."
"Oh, I hope not—for Kitty's sake!"
"Oh, Miss Kitty's all right, you know! I imagine the old fellow was very glad to get Pomeroy secured for her; for I rather think he's been feeling a little shaky of late."
Nora was very silent during the short remainder of her ride. She was thinking, not only of Kitty, but of Waldberg and Roland Graeme.
When Roland sat down to dinner that evening with Mr. Dunlop, who generally preferred to dine with the two young men, Waldberg did not make his appearance as usual. After dinner, Roland went up to his room, ostensibly to write. But he did not write much; he was too much concerned about his friend. Mr. Dunlop, who kept himself well informed as to financial matters, had told him of the rumored collapse in certain stocks, the rapid rise of which had been exciting great general interest. Roland knew that Waldberg had been watching them with a feverish; though sanguine eagerness, which it pained him to see. And now he feared for a crushing disappointment.
Two or three hours had passed, and still no Waldberg appeared. Roland was just thinking that he must go out to look for him, little as he knew where to look, when he heard the door below open and close much more softly than usual, and what he recognized as Waldberg's familiar step—though it was strangely soft and slow—mounting the stair, and passing into his own room. Then all was silence for a time. Roland listened,—more anxious than ever, since Waldberg did not, as usual, come in to tell him his news. After a time, he heard him moving about in his room, opening drawers, as if searching for something. Unable any longer to resist the strong impulse of anxiety, he rose, walked softly to Waldberg's room, and entered without knocking. His misgivings were only too well justified. The young German was standing in front of the mirror, with something in his up-lifted hand. Roland made a dash at his hand, not a moment too soon. The next instant, he was conscious of a strange sensation in his own shoulder, which made him stagger back, caught by the bewildered Waldberg.
"Roland! Mein Roland! Why did you that? Now I am done for!"
Roland sat down, feeling somewhat faint, as he tried to pull off his coat, exclaiming, as he did so, "Waldberg! how could you think of such a senseless, cowardly thing?"
"Ah, you know nothing! I am in despair! But first I must see about this. Did the thing go through?"
An examination showed that the bullet had but grazed his shoulder, leaving a somewhat severe flesh-wound which Roland declared a mere trifle. Waldberg, who had had some experience in German students' duels, had set to work to bandage it, when a step in the passage without made Roland rouse himself and go out to see who it was. It turned out to be Mr. Dunlop, who had been awakened by the report, and had come, in some alarm, to discover what was the matter. Roland told him that an accident had happened, which had given him a mere scratch; and he went back to bed, growling a little and only half-satisfied. When he had gone down, Roland was glad to sink down in an easy-chair, while Waldberg completed a temporary dressing, that would serve till morning, as Roland insisted that there must be no fuss made about it that night. When it was done, he insisted on knowing what had tempted Waldberg to such a mad and reckless step, adding:
"I'm only too glad the lead went across my shoulder instead of into your brain!"
"Oh, well, you see, mein Roland, I was desperate! It was mad, I know, but indeed I knew not what to do! However, you shall know all, if you must."
He told the story in German, partly for the sake of privacy, partly because when agitated he generally relapsed into his mother tongue. It was a sad and too common tale. He had been desperately anxious to make all he could, in the venture to which he had been encouraged by the opinion of such an "expert" as Mr.
Farrell and one of his clerks—that it was a "sure thing." He had embarked in it all his own little resources, only regretting that these were not greater, as he had the expectation of at least a ten-fold return.
"Pity you couldn't put in another five hundred!" his adviser had said; "couldn't you borrow it?"
"No," Waldberg had said. He couldn't ask Graeme, and Mr. Dunlop would never lend his money for speculation. "Get him to sign a note—you needn't say what for," said his tempter; "you'll be able to pay twice over before a month's past."
Just when he was most anxious for this additional stake, chance threw a temptation in his way. He found, in a book of Mr. Dunlop's an envelope on which he had written his own name, "Alexander C. Dunlop," with "Minton" below, evidently intended to be enclosed in a letter to some stranger, for the purpose of containing a reply. The sight of this put into his mind the idea of writing, above the signature, a joint note with his own signature above Mr. Dunlop's, the word, "Minton" coming in for the date. He cherished the thought, till it proved irresistible. It would only, he thought, be borrowing Mr. Dunlop's endorsement for a loan he would soon be able to repay. Without letting himself realize the wrong of it, the thing was done. And he had been counting on making an additional five thousand out of the five hundred he was now borrowing.
But now, contrary to the most confident expectations, the tide had suddenly turned—quotations had come down with a rush, and Waldberg, with many others, had lost his whole venture. And how was he, thus left penniless for the present, to face Mr. Dunlop when the note should fall due? He had drunk enough to "prime himself," and had come home to seek a rash release from his troubles.
Roland was terribly shocked. He could not understand how Waldberg could have done such a thing as this. But he saw that he was utterly wretched, and he would not add a straw, by reproach, to the burden he bore. "I shall be disgraced for ever," he said, "and it's all up now, about Kitty!"
"You shall not be disgraced, Hermann!" he said. "I know you will never do such a thing again. I think I can manage it so that no one will know, not even Mr. Dunlop; andhewouldn't be hard on you if he did; he's really fond of you!"
"But how, then?" asked Waldberg, bewildered in his turn.
"I can let you have a hundred dollars now, or when the note falls due. And I shall ask Mr. Dunlop to lend me the other four hundred for a time on my own note and yours. He'll do it if I ask him. And you can make it up by degrees."
"Oh, Roland, you're the best friend any fellow ever had! Indeed, you may be sure I'll never try such a thing again! My heart's been like lead, ever since I did it. Butyou'rehurt now—and I know it's all up with Kitty!" he groaned.
"And, Hermann, whatever happens, never again try that cowardly plan of shirking the consequences of your own actions. It was only making bad ten times worse. Think of the stain it would have left on your name; and how your friends would have felt!"
Happily no one else slept near, and no one but Mr. Dunlop had been alarmed by the noise. Roland quietly retired to his own apartment, where Waldberg would not leave him, until he had seen him settled for the night as comfortably as possible; and then went to try to sleep off his own excitement: while Roland, now suffering a good deal, lay awake—satisfied, however, with having, in a double sense, saved the life of his friend. He got up and dressed next morning, though unable to move his arm, and, in reply to all inquiries, would vouchsafe no further explanation than that he had given to Mr. Dunlop. And, somehow, the story got about that he had discovered a burglar who was intending to rob the rich old Scotchman, had wrested his pistol from his grasp and frightened him away. Mr. Dunlop, whose shrewdness suspected more than he knew, said nothing, and asked no questions, even when the loan was asked for without explanation. He had learned to trust Roland, absolutely, and he at once granted his request. But he insisted that Roland should have medical treatment for his shoulder, which was now giving him a good deal of trouble, and himself sent for Dr. Blanchard.
"I don't much care whether ye pay me or not, lad," he said, as he handed Roland his cheque for the sum asked for. "I don't expect to need this world's goods very long. I've always thought I should go off suddenly, like the snuff of a candle; or what's happened to Farrell may happen to me, too."
For, on the evening of the "crash," Mr. Farrell had had a paralytic, stroke, evidently the result of his anxiety and disappointment. It did not, however, seem likely to be fatal; but he was completely helpless, and no hope was given of his ever being less so. His losses had been, very heavy, and, as his business would now have to be wound up, he would be left with only a small proportion of the fortune he had been supposed to possess.
Nora, before she left town, paid a visit of condolence to Kitty, whom, to her surprise, she found by no means overwhelmed by the sudden reverse of fortune. Except for her natural sorrow for her father's helpless condition, indeed, Nora would have thought her rather brighter than when she had last seen her. And, by and by, she learned the secret.
"It's all over between Harold Pomeroy and me, Nora. I think he was very glad to get out of it, when I told him he could have his freedom and his rings back. Hermann can't give me adiamondring," she said, holding up her finger, "but this is a signet ring his mother gave him, and I'm to keep it till he can give me a plain gold one."
"Why, Kitty!" exclaimed Nora. "Is that how it is?"
"Yes," said Kitty, "when Hermann heard of papa's misfortune he came to sympathize. And, of course, we've known we've loved each other this long time, only I didn't know how I could break with Harold; it would vex father so, though I knewhedidn't care very much. But since poor papa's been ill, he doesn't seem to mind about anything.—And so it's all settled. Hermann and I are to be married just as soon as he's able to take a little cottage by the river, and papa and mamma are to live with us. And I'm to sweep and dust, and make my own dresses, and be as happy as the day is long. I'm sick of doing nothing!"
Nora could not help laughing outright at the idea of the petted Kitty, whose forefinger had hardly ever been pricked by a needle, making her own dresses, and finding it delightful. However, she kissed her, and said she hoped she would be as happy as she expected;—forgetting altogether the slighted affections of Mr. Harold Pomeroy.
"And mind," said Kitty, "you're to come to the wedding, whenever it is! I want you for my bridesmaid, and Roland Graeme is to be groomsman."
"Very well!" said Nora, laughing, and so they parted. Roland Graeme, chafing under the temporary imprisonment enforced by his wound and its effects, which had been both painful and tedious, regretted very much, when he heard of Miss Blanchard's approaching departure, that he should not be able to see her before she went. Something of this regret he had expressed to Dr. Blanchard, who still visited him occasionally. He was sitting by his open window, one warm May morning, thinking longingly of woods just bursting into leaf, and all the country sights and sounds to which he had been accustomed, long ago, when a note was brought to him. He knew that the handwriting was Miss Blanchard's and opened it eagerly. It did not take long to read the few cordial lines:
"Dear Mr. Graeme,"I am so sorry I cannot see you before I go, to say Good-bye, and wish you God-speed. I was very sorry, too, to hear of your accident, but I trust you will soon be quite restored. I hope you will come by and by, to visit us at Rockland, which is always lovely inJune. The change of air will do you so much good, my brother says, and my father bids me say that he will be delighted to make your acquaintance, and I shall be happy to show you all our sights, including Mr. Foster's model mills."Meantime, with kindest regards, believe me"Your sincere friend,"Nora Blanchard."
"Dear Mr. Graeme,
"I am so sorry I cannot see you before I go, to say Good-bye, and wish you God-speed. I was very sorry, too, to hear of your accident, but I trust you will soon be quite restored. I hope you will come by and by, to visit us at Rockland, which is always lovely inJune. The change of air will do you so much good, my brother says, and my father bids me say that he will be delighted to make your acquaintance, and I shall be happy to show you all our sights, including Mr. Foster's model mills.
"Meantime, with kindest regards, believe me
"Your sincere friend,
"Nora Blanchard."
Roland read this note several times over, before he folded it up and put it carefully away. And the somewhat languid and wistful expression that his face had worn before, was brightened, now, with the pleasure caused by the kindly words and the still more pleasant vista it called up before him. The enforcedrôleof an invalid had been to him a new and unwelcome experience, and the temporary prostration left by the injury, at a time when his naturally vigorousphysiquehad been a good deal run down by overwork, was particularly trying to his energetic spirit. But the mental picture that the note had conjured up, of June and woods and flowers, added to the grateful sense of Miss Blanchard's kind consideration, appealed to the underlying, inextinguishable poetry of his nature, and sent his thoughts off on a refreshing day-dream, far away from the smoky factories, the feverish competitions, the exasperating wrongs, and all the tangles and worries of life in Minton.