Her eyes still rested on Horace. After hearing what he had heard could he resist that gentle, pleading look? Would he forgive her? A while since Julian had seen tears on his cheeks, and had believed that he felt for her. Why was he now silent? Was it possible that he only felt for himself?
For the last time—at the crisis of her life—Julian spoke for her. He had never loved her as he loved her at that moment; it tried even his generous nature to plead her cause with Horace against himself. But he had promised her, without reserve, all the help that her truest friend could offer. Faithfully and manfully he redeemed his promise.
“Horace!” he said.
Horace slowly looked up. Julian rose and approached him.
“She has told you to thankme, if her conscience has spoken. Thank the noble nature which answered when I called upon it! Own the priceless value of a woman who can speak the truth. Her heartfelt repentance is a joy in heaven. Shall it not plead for her on earth? Honor her, if you are a Christian! Feel for her, if you are a man!”
He waited. Horace never answered him.
Mercy’s eyes turned tearfully on Julian.Hisheart was the heart that felt for her!Hiswords were the words which comforted and pardoned her! When she looked back again at Horace, it was with an effort. His last hold on her was lost. In her inmost mind a thought rose unbidden—a thought which was not to be repressed. “Can I ever have loved this man?”
She advanced a step toward him; it was not possible, even yet, to completely forgot the past. She held out her hand.
He rose on his side—without looking at her.
“Before we part forever,” she said to him, “will you take my hand as a token that you forgive me?”
He hesitated. He half lifted his hand. The next moment the generous impulse died away in him. In its place came the mean fear of what might happen if he trusted himself to the dangerous fascination of her touch. His hand dropped again at his side; he turned away quickly.
“I can’t forgive her!” he said.
With that horrible confession—without even a last look at her—he left the room.
At the moment when he opened the door Julian’s contempt for him burst its way through all restraints.
“Horace,” he said, “I pity you!”
As the words escaped him he looked back at Mercy. She had turned aside from both of them—she had retired to a distant part of the library The first bitter foretaste of what was in store for her when she faced the world again had come to her from Horace! The energy which had sustained her thus far quailed before the dreadful prospect—doubly dreadful to a woman—of obloquy and contempt. She sank on her knees before a little couch in the darkest corner of the room. “O Christ, have mercy on me!” That was her prayer—no more.
Julian followed her. He waited a little. Then his kind hand touched her; his friendly voice fell consolingly on her ear.
“Rise, poor wounded heart! Beautiful, purified soul, God’s angels rejoice over you! Take your place among the noblest of God’s creatures!”
He raised her as he spoke. All her heart went out to him. She caught his hand—she pressed it to her bosom; she pressed it to her lips—then dropped it suddenly, and stood before him trembling like a frightened child.
“Forgive me!” was all she could say. “I was so lost and lonely—and you are so good to me!”
She tried to leave him. It was useless—her strength was gone; she caught at the head of the couch to support herself. He looked at her. The confession of his love was just rising to his lips—he looked again, and checked it. No, not at that moment; not when she was helpless and ashamed; not when her weakness might make her yield, only to regret it at a later time. The great heart which had spared her and felt for her from the first spared her and felt for her now.
He, too, left her—but not without a word at parting.
“Don’t think of your future life just yet,” he said, gently. “I have something to propose when rest and quiet have restored you.” He opened the nearest door—the door of the dining-room—and went out.
The servants engaged in completing the decoration of the dinner-table noticed, when “Mr. Julian” entered the room, that his eyes were “brighter than ever.” He looked (they remarked) like a man who “expected good news.” They were inclined to suspect—though he was certainly rather young for it—that her ladyship’s nephew was in a fair way of preferment in the Church.
Mercy seated herself on the couch.
There are limits, in the physical organization of man, to the action of pain. When suffering has reached a given point of intensity the nervous sensibility becomes incapable of feeling more. The rule of Nature, in this respect, applies not only to sufferers in the body, but to sufferers in the mind as well. Grief, rage, terror, have also their appointed limits. The moral sensibility, like the nervous sensibility, reaches its period of absolute exhaustion, and feels no more.
The capacity for suffering in Mercy had attained its term. Alone in the library, she could feel the physical relief of repose; she could vaguely recall Julian’s parting words to her, and sadly wonder what they meant—she could do no more.
An interval passed; a brief interval of perfect rest.
She recovered herself sufficiently to be able to look at her watch and to estimate the lapse of time that might yet pass before Julian returned to her as he had promised. While her mind was still languidly following this train of thought she was disturbed by the ringing of a bell in the hall, used to summon the servant whose duties were connected with that part of the house. In leaving the library, Horace had gone out by the door which led into the hall, and had failed to close it. She plainly heard the bell—and a moment later (more plainly still) she heard Lady Janet’s voice!
She started to her feet. Lady Janet’s letter was still in the pocket of her apron—the letter which imperatively commanded her to abstain from making the very confession that had just passed her lips! It was near the dinner hour, and the library was the favorite place in which the mistress of the house and her guests assembled at that time. It was no matter of doubt; it was an absolute certainty that Lady Janet had only stopped in the hall on her way into the room.
The alternative for Mercy lay between instantly leaving the library by the dining-room door—or remaining where she was, at the risk of being sooner or later compelled to own that she had deliberately disobeyed her benefactress. Exhausted by what she had already suffered, she stood trembling and irresolute, incapable of deciding which alternative she should choose.
Lady Janet’s voice, clear and resolute, penetrated into the room. She was reprimanding the servant who had answered the bell.
“Is it your duty in my house to look after the lamps?”
“Yes, my lady.”
“And is it my duty to pay you your wages?”
“If you please, my lady.”
“Why do I find the light in the hall dim, and the wick of that lamp smoking? I have not failed in my duty to You. Don’t let me find you failing again in your duty to Me.”
(Never had Lady Janet’s voice sounded so sternly in Mercy’s ear as it sounded now. If she spoke with that tone of severity to a servant who had neglected a lamp, what had her adopted daughter to expect when she discovered that her entreaties and her commands had been alike set at defiance?)
Having administered her reprimand, Lady Janet had not done with the servant yet. She had a question to put to him next.
“Where is Miss Roseberry?”
“In the library, my lady.”
Mercy returned to the couch. She could stand no longer; she had not even resolution enough left to lift her eyes to the door.
Lady Janet came in more rapidly than usual. She advanced to the couch, and tapped Mercy playfully on the cheek with two of her fingers.
“You lazy child! Not dressed for dinner? Oh, fie, fie!”
Her tone was as playfully affectionate as the action which had accompanied her words. In speechless astonishment Mercy looked up at her.
Always remarkable for the taste and splendor of her dress, Lady Janet had on this occasion surpassed herself. There she stood revealed in her grandest velvet, her richest jewelry, her finest lace—with no one to entertain at the dinner-table but the ordinary members of the circle at Mablethorpe House. Noticing this as strange to begin with, Mercy further observed, for the first time in her experience, that Lady Janet’s eyes avoided meeting hers. The old lady took her place companionably on the couch; she ridiculed her “lazy child’s” plain dress, without an ornament of any sort on it, with her best grace; she affectionately put her arm round Mercy’s waist, and rearranged with her own hand the disordered locks of Mercy’s hair—but the instant Mercy herself looked at her, Lady Janet’s eyes discovered something supremely interesting in the familiar objects that surrounded her on the library walls.
How were these changes to be interpreted? To what possible conclusion did they point?
Julian’s profounder knowledge of human nature, if Julian had been present, might have found a clew to the mystery.Hemight have surmised (incredible as it was) that Mercy’s timidity before Lady Janet was fully reciprocated by Lady Janet’s timidity before Mercy. It was even so. The woman whose immovable composure had conquered Grace Roseberry’s utmost insolence in the hour of her triumph—the woman who, without once flinching, had faced every other consequence of her resolution to ignore Mercy’s true position in the house—quailed for the first time when she found herself face to face with the very person for who m she had suffered and sacrificed so much. She had shrunk from the meeting with Mercy, as Mercy had shrunk from the meeting withher. The splendor of her dress meant simply that, when other excuses for delaying the meeting downstairs had all been exhausted, the excuse of a long, and elaborate toilet had been tried next. Even the moments occupied in reprimanding the servant had been moments seized on as the pretext for another delay. The hasty entrance into the room, the nervous assumption of playfulness in language and manner, the evasive and wandering eyes, were all referable to the same cause. In the presence of others, Lady Janet had successfully silenced the protest of her own inbred delicacy and inbred sense of honor. In the presence of Mercy, whom she loved with a mother’s love—in the presence of Mercy, for whom she had stooped to deliberate concealment of the truth—all that was high and noble in the woman’s nature rose in her and rebuked her. What will the daughter of my adoption, the child of my first and last experience of maternal love, think of me, now that I have made myself an accomplice in the fraud of which she is ashamed? How can I look her in the face, when I have not hesitated, out of selfish consideration for my own tranquillity, to forbid that frank avowal of the truth which her finer sense of duty had spontaneously bound her to make? Those were the torturing questions in Lady Janet’s mind, while her arm was wound affectionately round Mercy’s waist, while her fingers were busying themselves familiarly with the arrangement of Mercy’s hair. Thence, and thence only, sprang the impulse which set her talking, with an uneasy affectation of frivolity, of any topic within the range of conversation, so long as it related to the future, and completely ignored the present and the past.
“The winter here is unendurable,” Lady Janet began. “I have been thinking, Grace, about what we had better do next.”
Mercy started. Lady Janet had called her “Grace.” Lady Janet was still deliberately assuming to be innocent of the faintest suspicion of the truth.
“No,” resumed her ladyship, affecting to misunderstand Mercy’s movement, “you are not to go up now and dress. There is no time, and I am quite ready to excuse you. You are a foil to me, my dear. You have reached the perfection of shabbiness. Ah! I remember when I had my whims and fancies too, and when I looked well in anything I wore, just as you do. No more of that. As I was saying, I have been thinking and planning what we are to do. We really can’t stay here. Cold one day, and hot the next—what a climate! As for society, what do we lose if we go away? There is no such thing as society now. Assemblies of well-dressed mobs meet at each other’s houses, tear each other’s clothes, tread on each other’s toes. If you are particularly lucky, you sit on the staircase, you get a tepid ice, and you hear vapid talk in slang phrases all round you. There is modern society. If we had a good opera, it would be something to stay in London for. Look at the programme for the season on that table—promising as much as possible on paper, and performing as little as possible on the stage. The same works, sung by the same singers year after year, to the same stupid people—in short the dullest musical evenings in Europe. No! the more I think of it, the more plainly I perceive that there is but one sensible choice before us: we must go abroad. Set that pretty head to work; choose north or south, east or west; it’s all the same to me. Where shall we go?”
Mercy looked at her quickly as she put the question.
Lady Janet, more quickly yet, looked away at the programme of the opera-house. Still the same melancholy false pretenses! still the same useless and cruel delay! Incapable of enduring the position now forced upon her, Mercy put her hand into the pocket of her apron, and drew from it Lady Janet’s letter.
“Will your ladyship forgive me,” she began, in faint, faltering tones, “if I venture on a painful subject? I hardly dare acknowledge—” In spite of her resolution to speak out plainly, the memory of past love and past kindness prevailed with her; the next words died away on her lips. She could only hold up the letter.
Lady Janet declined to see the letter. Lady Janet suddenly became absorbed in the arrangement of her bracelets.
“I know what you daren’t acknowledge, you foolish child!” she exclaimed. “You daren’t acknowledge that you are tired of this dull house. My dear! I am entirely of your opinion—I am weary of my own magnificence; I long to be living in one snug little room, with one servant to wait on me. I’ll tell you what we will do. We will go to Paris, in the first place. My excellent Migliore, prince of couriers, shall be the only person in attendance. He shall take a lodging for us in one of the unfashionable quarters of Paris. We will rough it, Grace (to use the slang phrase), merely for a change. We will lead what they call a ‘Bohemian life.’ I know plenty of writers and painters and actors in Paris—the liveliest society in the world, my dear, until one gets tired of them. We will dine at the restaurant, and go to the play, and drive about in shabby little hired carriages. And when it begins to get monotonous (which it is only too sure to do!) we will spread our wings and fly to Italy, and cheat the winter in that way. There is a plan for you! Migliore is in town. I will send to him this evening, and we will start to-morrow.”
Mercy made another effort.
“I entreat your ladyship to pardon me,” she resumed. “I have something serious to say. I am afraid—”
“I understand. You are afraid of crossing the Channel, and you don’t like to acknowledge it. Pooh! The passage barely lasts two hours; we will shut ourselves up in a private cabin. I will send at once—the courier may be engaged. Ring the bell.”
“Lady Janet, I must submit to my hard lot. I cannot hope to associate myself again with any future plans of yours—”
“What! you are afraid of our ‘Bohemian life’ in Paris? Observe this, Grace! If there is one thing I hate more than another, it is ‘an old head on young shoulders.’ I say no more. Ring the bell.”
“This cannot go on, Lady Janet! No words can say how unworthy I feel of your kindness, how ashamed I am—”
“Upon my honor, my dear, I agree with you. Yououghtto be ashamed, at your age, of making me get up to ring the bell.”
Her obstinacy was immovable; she attempted to rise from the couch. But one choice was left to Mercy. She anticipated Lady Janet, and rang the bell.
The man-servant came in. He had his little letter-tray in his hand, with a card on it, and a sheet of paper beside the card, which looked like an open letter.
“You know where my courier lives when he is in London?’ asked Lady Janet.
“Yes, my lady.”
“Send one of the grooms to him on horseback; I am in a hurry. The courier is to come here without fail to-morrow morning—in time for the tidal train to Paris. You understand?”
“Yes, my lady.”
“What have you got there? Anything for me?”
“For Miss Roseberry, my lady.”
As he answered, the man handed the card and the open letter to Mercy.
“The lady is waiting in the morning-room, miss. She wished me to say she has time to spare, and she will wait for you if you are not ready yet.”
Having delivered his message in those terms, he withdrew.
Mercy read the name on the card. The matron had arrived! She looked at the letter next. It appeared to be a printed circular, with some lines in pencil added on the empty page. Printed lines and written lines swam before her eyes. She felt, rather than saw, Lady Janet’s attention steadily and suspiciously fixed on her. With the matron’s arrival the foredoomed end of the flimsy false pretenses and the cruel delays had come.
“A friend of yours, my dear?”
“Yes, Lady Janet.”
“Am I acquainted with her?”
“I think not, Lady Janet.”
“You appear to be agitated. Does your visitor bring bad news? Is there anything that I can do for you?”
“You can add—immeasurably add, madam—to all your past kindness, if you will only bear with me and forgive me.”
“Bear with you and forgive you? I don’t understand.”
“I will try to explain. Whatever else you may think of me, Lady Janet, for God’s sake don’t think me ungrateful!”
Lady Janet held up her hand for silence.
“I dislike explanations,” she said, sharply. “Nobody ought to know that better than you. Perhaps the lady’s letter will explain for you. Why have you not looked at it yet?”
“I am in great trouble, madam, as you noticed just now—”
“Have you any objection to my knowing who your visitor is?”
“No, Lady Janet.”
“Let me look at her card, then.”
Mercy gave the matron’s card to Lady Janet, as she had given the matron’s telegram to Horace.
Lady Janet read the name on the card—considered—decided that it was a name quite unknown to her—and looked next at the address: “Western District Refuge, Milburn Road.”
“A lady connected with a Refuge?” she said, speaking to herself; “and calling here by appointment—if I remember the servant’s message? A strange time to choose, if she has come for a subscription!”
She paused. Her brow contracted; her face hardened. A word from her would now have brought the interview to its inevitable end, and she refused to speak the word. To the last moment she persisted in ignoring the truth! Placing the card on the couch at her side, she pointed with her long yellow-white forefinger to the printed letter lying side by side with her own letter on Mercy’s lap.
“Do you mean to read it, or not?” she asked.
Mercy lifted her eyes, fast filling with tears, to Lady Janet’s face.
“May I beg that your ladyship will read it for me?” she said—and placed the matron’s letter in Lady Janet’s hand.
It was a printed circular announcing a new development in the charitable work of the Refuge. Subscribers were informed that it had been decided to extend the shelter and the training of the institution (thus far devoted to fallen women alone) so as to include destitute and helpless children found wandering in the streets. The question of the number of children to be thus rescued and protected was left dependent, as a matter of course, on the bounty of the friends of the Refuge, the cost of the maintenance of each child being stated at the lowest possible rate. A list of influential persons who had increased their subscriptions so as to cover the cost, and a brief statement of the progress already made with the new work, completed the appeal, and brought the circular to its end.
The lines traced in pencil (in the matron’s handwriting) followed on the blank page.
“Your letter tells me, my dear, that you would like—remembering your own childhood—to be employed when you return among us in saving other poor children left helpless on the world. Our circular will inform you that I am able to meet your wishes. My first errand this evening in your neighborhood was to take charge of a poor child—a little girl—who stands sadly in need of our care. I have ventured to bring her with me, thinking she might help to reconcile you to the coming change in your life. You will find us both waiting to go back with you to the old home. I write this instead of saying it, hearing from the servant that you are not alone, and being unwilling to intrude myself, as a stranger, on the lady of the house.”
Lady Janet read the penciled lines, as she had read the printed sentences, aloud. Without a word of comment she laid the letter where she had laid the card; and, rising from her seat, stood for a moment in stern silence, looking at Mercy. The sudden change in her which the letter had produced—quietly as it had taken place—was terrible to see. On the frowning brow, in the flashing eyes, on the hardened lips, outraged love and outraged pride looked down on the lost woman, and said, as if in words, You have roused us at last.
“If that letter means anything,” she said, “it means you are about to leave my house. There can be but one reason for your taking such a step as that.”
“It is the only atonement I can make, madam.”
“I see another letter on your lap. Is it my letter?”
“Yes.”
“Have you read it?”
“I have read it.”
“Have you seen Horace Holmcroft?”
“Yes.”
“Have you told Horace Holmcroft—”
“Oh, Lady Janet—”
“Don’t interrupt me. Have you told Horace Holmcroft what my letter positively forbade you to communicate, either to him or to any living creature? I want no protestations and excuses. Answer me instantly, and answer in one word—Yes, or No.”
Not even that haughty language, not even those pitiless tones, could extinguish in Mercy’s heart the sacred memories of past kindness and past love. She fell on her knees—her outstretched hands touched Lady Janet’s dress. Lady Janet sharply drew her dress away, and sternly repeated her last words.
“Yes? or No?”
“Yes.”
She had owned it at last! To this end Lady Janet had submitted to Grace Roseberry; had offended Horace Holmcroft; had stooped, for the first time in her life, to concealments and compromises that degraded her. After all that she had sacrificed and suffered, there Mercy knelt at her feet, self-convicted of violating her commands, trampling on her feelings, deserting her house! And who was the woman who had done this? The same woman who had perpetrated the fraud, and who had persisted in the fraud until her benefactress had descended to become her accomplice. Then, and then only, she had suddenly discovered that it was her sacred duty to tell the truth!
In proud silence the great lady met the blow that had fallen on her. In proud silence she turned her back on her adopted daughter and walked to the door.
Mercy made her last appeal to the kind friend whom she had offended—to the second mother whom she had loved.
“Lady Janet! Lady Janet! Don’t leave me without a word. Oh, madam, try to feel for me a little! I am returning to a life of humiliation—the shadow of my old disgrace is falling on me once more. We shall never meet again. Even though I have not deserved it, let my repentance plead with you! Say you forgive me!”
Lady Janet turned round on the threshold of the door.
“I never forgive ingratitude,” she said. “Go back to the Refuge.”
The door opened and closed on her. Mercy was alone again in the room.
Unforgiven by Horace, unforgiven by Lady Janet! She put her hands to her burning head and tried to think. Oh, for the cool air of the night! Oh, for the friendly shelter of the Refuge! She could feel those sad longings in her: it was impossible to think.
She rang the bell—and shrank back the instant she had done it. Hadsheany right to take that liberty? She ought to have thought of it before she rang. Habit—all habit. How many hundreds of times she had rung the bell at Mablethorpe House!
The servant came in. She amazed the man—she spoke to him so timidly: she even apologized for troubling him!
“I am sorry to disturb you. Will you be so kind as to say to the lady that I am ready for her?”
“Wait to give that message,” said a voice behind them, “until you hear the bell rung again.”
Mercy looked round in amazement. Julian had returned to the library by the dining-room door.
“Mr. Gray!” she exclaimed, “why have you delayed my message? If you knew all, you would know that it is far from being a kindness to me to keep me in this house.”
He advanced closer to her—surprised by her words, alarmed by her looks.
“Has any one been here in my absence?” he asked.
“Lady Janet has been here in your absence. I can’t speak of it—my heart feels crushed—I can bear no more. Let me go!”
Briefly as she had replied, she had said enough. Julian’s knowledge of Lady Janet’s character told him what had happened. His face showed plainly that he was disappointed as well as distressed.
“I had hoped to have been with you when you and my aunt met, and to have prevented this,” he said. “Believe me, she will atone for all that she may have harshly and hastily done when she has had time to think. Try not to regret it, if she has made your hard sacrifice harder still. She has only raised you the higher—she has additionally ennobled you and endeared you in my estimation. Forgive me if I own this in plain words. I cannot control myself—I feel too strongly.”
At other times Mercy might have heard the coming avowal in his tones, might have discovered it in his eyes. As it was, her delicate insight was dulled, her fine perception was blunted. She held out her hand to him, feeling a vague conviction that he was kinder to her than ever—and feeling no more.
“I must thank you for the last time,” she said. “As long as life is left, my gratitude will be a part of my life. Let me go. While I can still control myself, let me go!”
She tried to leave him, and ring the bell. He held her hand firmly, and drew her closer to him.
“To the Refuge?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Home again!”
“Don’t say that!” he exclaimed. “I can’t bear to hear it. Don’t call the Refuge your home!”
“What else is it? Where else can I go?”
“I have come here to tell you. I said, if you remember, I had something to propose.”
She felt the fervent pressure of his hand; she saw the mounting enthusiasm flashing in his eyes. Her weary mind roused itself a little. She began to tremble under the electric influence of his touch.
“Something to propose?” she repeated, “What is there to propose?”
“Let me ask you a question on my side. What have you done to-day?”
“You know what I have done: it is your work,” she answered, humbly. “Why return to it now?”
“I return to it for the last time; I return to it with a purpose which you will soon understand. You have abandoned your marriage engagement; you have forfeited Lady Janet’s love; you have ruined all your worldly prospects; you are now returning, self-devoted, to a life which you have yourself described as a life without hope. And all this you have done of your own free-will—at a time when you are absolutely secure of your position in the house—for the sake of speaking the truth. Now tell me, is a woman who can make that sacrifice a woman who will prove unworthy of the trust if a man places in her keeping his honor and his name?”
She understood him at last. She broke away from him with a cry. She stood with her hands clasped, trembling and looking at him.
He gave her no time to think. The words poured from his lips without conscious will or conscious effort of his own.
“Mercy, from the first moment when I saw you I loved you! You are free; I may own it; I may ask you to be my wife!”
She drew back from him further and further, with a wild imploring gesture of her hand.
“No! no!” she cried. “Think of what you are saying! think of what you would sacrifice! It cannot, must not be.”
His face darkened with a sudden dread. His head fell on his breast. His voice sank so low that she could barely hear it.
“I had forgotten something,” he said. “You’ve reminded me of it.”
She ventured back a little nearer to him. “Have I offended you?”
He smiled sadly. “You have enlightened me. I had forgotten that it doesn’t follow, because I love you, that you should love me in return. Say that it is so, Mercy, and I leave you.”
A faint tinge of color rose on her face—then left it again paler than ever. Her eyes looked downward timidly under the eager gaze that he fastened on her.
“HowcanI say so?” she answered, simply. “Where is the woman in my place whose heart could resist you?”
He eagerly advanced; he held out his arms to her in breathless, speechless joy. She drew back from him once more with a look that horrified him—a look of blank despair.
“Am I fit to be your wife?” she asked. “Must I remind you of what you owe to your high position, your spotless integrity, your famous name? Think of all that you have done for me, and then think of the black ingratitude of it if I ruin you for life by consenting to our marriage—if I selfishly, cruelly, wickedly, drag you down to the level of a woman like me!”
“I raise you tomylevel when I make you my wife,” he answered. “For Heaven’s sake do me justice! Don’t refer me to the world and its opinions. It rests with you, and you alone, to make the misery or the happiness of my life. The world! Good God! what can the world give me in exchange for You?”
She clasped her hands imploringly; the tears flowed fast over her cheeks.
“Oh, have pity on my weakness!” she cried. “Kindest, best of men, help me to do my hard duty toward you! It is so hard, after all that I have suffered—when my heart is yearning for peace and happiness and love!” She checked herself, shuddering at the words that had escaped her. “Remember how Mr. Holmcroft has used me! Remember how Lady Janet has left me! Remember what I have told you of my life! The scorn of every creature you know would strike at you through me. No! no! no! Not a word more. Spare me! pity me! leave me!”
Her voice failed her; sobs choked her utterance. He sprang to her and took her in his arms. She was incapable of resisting him; but there was no yielding in her. Her head lay on his bosom, passive—horribly passive, like the head of a corpse.
“Mercy! My darling! We will go away—we will leave England—we will take refuge among new people in a new world—I will change my name—I will break with relatives, friends, everybody. Anything, anything, rather than lose you!”
She lifted her head slowly and looked at him.
He suddenly released her; he reeled back like a man staggered by a blow, and dropped into a chair. Before she had uttered a word he saw the terrible resolution in her face—Death, rather than yield to her own weakness and disgrace him.
She stood with her hands lightly clasped in front of her. Her grand head was raised; her soft gray eyes shone again undimmed by tears. The storm of emotion had swept over her and had passed away A sad tranquillity was in her face; a gentle resignation was in her voice. The calm of a martyr was the calm that confronted him as she spoke her last words.
“A woman who has lived my life, a woman who has suffered what I have suffered, may love you—asIlove you—but she must not be your wife.Thatplace is too high above her. Any other place is too far below her and below you.” She paused, and advancing to the bell, gave the signal for her departure. That done, she slowly retraced her steps until she stood at Julian’s side.
Tenderly she lifted his head and laid it for a moment on her bosom. Silently she stooped and touched his forehead with her lips. All the gratitude that filled her heart and all the sacrifice that rent it were in those two actions—so modestly, so tenderly performed! As the last lingering pressure of her fingers left him, Julian burst into tears.
The servant answered the bell. At the moment he opened the door a woman’s voice was audible in the hall speaking to him.
“Let the child go in,” the voice said. “I will wait here.”
The child appeared—the same forlorn little creature who had reminded Mercy of her own early years on the day when she and Horace Holmcroft had been out for their walk.
There was no beauty in this child; no halo of romance brightened the commonplace horror of her story. She came cringing into the room, staring stupidly at the magnificence all round her—the daughter of the London streets! the pet creation of the laws of political economy! the savage and terrible product of a worn-out system of government and of a civilization rotten to its core! Cleaned for the first time in her life, fed sufficiently for the first time in her life, dressed in clothes instead of rags for the first time in her life, Mercy’s sister in adversity crept fearfully over the beautiful carpet, and stopped wonder-struck before the marbles of an inlaid table—a blot of mud on the splendor of the room.
Mercy turned from Julian to meet the child. The woman’s heart, hungering in its horrible isolation for something that it might harmlessly love, welcomed the rescued waif of the streets as a consolation sent from God. She caught the stupefied little creature up in her arms. “Kiss me!” she whispered, in the reckless agony of the moment. “Call me sister!” The child stared, vacantly. Sister meant nothing to her mind but an older girl who was strong enough to beat her.
She put the child down again, and turned for a last look at the man whose happiness she had wrecked—in pity tohim.
He had never moved. His head was down; his face was hidden. She went back to hi m a few steps.
“The others have gone from me without one kind word. Canyouforgive me?”
He held out his hand to her without looking up. Sorely as she had wounded him, his generous nature understood her. True to her from the first,hewas true to her still.
“God bless and comfort you,” he said, in broken tones. “The earth holds no nobler woman than you.”
She knelt and kissed the kind hand that pressed hers for the last time. “It doesn’t end with this world,” she whispered: “there is a better world to come!” Then she rose, and went back to the child. Hand in hand the two citizens of the Government of God—outcasts of the government of Man—passed slowly down the length of the room. Then out into the hall. Then out into the night. The heavy clang of the closing door tolled the knell of their departure. They were gone.
But the orderly routine of the house—inexorable as death—pursued its appointed course. As the clock struck the hour the dinner-bell rang. An interval of a minute passed, and marked the limit of delay. The butler appeared at the dining-room door.
“Dinner is served, sir.”
Julian looked up. The empty room met his eyes. Something white lay on the carpet close by him. It was her handkerchief—wet with her tears. He took it up and pressed it to his lips. Was that to be the last of her? Had she left him forever?
The native energy of the man, arming itself with all the might of his love, kindled in him again. No! While life was in him, while time was before him, there was the hope of winning her yet!
He turned to the servant, reckless of what his face might betray.
“Where is Lady Janet?”
“In the dining-room, sir.”
He reflected for a moment. His own influence had failed. Through what other influence could he now hope to reach her? As the question crossed his mind the light broke on him. He saw the way back to her—through the influence of Lady Janet.
“Her ladyship is waiting, sir.”
Julian entered the dining-room.
CONTAINING SELECTIONS FROM THE CORRESPONDENCE OF MISS GRACE ROSEBERRY AND MR. HORACE HOLMCROFT; TO WHICH ARE ADDED EXTRACTS FROM THE DIARY OF THE REVEREND JULIAN GRAY.
I.
From MR. HORACE HOLMCROFT to MISS GRACE ROSEBERRY.
“I HASTEN to thank you, dear Miss Roseberry, for your last kind letter, received by yesterday’s mail from Canada. Believe me, I appreciate your generous readiness to pardon and forget what I so rudely said to you at a time when the arts of an adventuress had blinded me to the truth. In the grace which has forgiven me I recognize the inbred sense of justice of a true lady. Birth and breeding can never fail to assert themselves: I believe in them, thank God, more firmly than ever.
“You ask me to keep you informed of the progress of Julian Gray’s infatuation, and of the course of conduct pursued toward him by Mercy Merrick.
“If you had not favored me by explaining your object, I might have felt some surprise at receiving from a lady in your position such a request as this. But the motives by which you describe yourself as being actuated are beyond dispute. The existence of Society, as you truly say, is threatened by the present lamentable prevalence of Liberal ideas throughout the length and breadth of the land. We can only hope to protect ourselves against impostors interested in gaining a position among persons of our rank by becoming in some sort (unpleasant as it may be) familiar with the arts by which imposture too frequently succeeds. If we wish to know to what daring lengths cunning can go, to what pitiable self-delusion credulity can consent, we must watch the proceedings—even while we shrink from them—of a Mercy Merrick and a Julian Gray.
“In taking up my narrative again where my last letter left off, I must venture to set you right on one point.
“Certain expressions which have escaped your pen suggest to me that you blame Julian Gray as the cause of Lady Janet’s regrettable visit to the Refuge the day after Mercy Merrick had left her house. This is not quite correct. Julian, as you will presently see, has enough to answer for without being held responsible for errors of judgment in which he has had no share. Lady Janet (as she herself told me) went to the Refuge of her own free-will to ask Mercy Merrick’s pardon for the language which she had used on the previous day. ‘I passed a night of such misery as no words can describe’—this, I assure you, is what her ladyship really said to me—‘thinking over what my vile pride and selfishness and obstinacy had made me say and do. I would have gone down on my knees to beg her pardon if she would have let me. My first happy moment was when I won her consent to come and visit me sometimes at Mablethorpe House.’
“You will, I am sure, agree with me that such extravagance as this is to be pitied rather than blamed. How sad to see the decay of the faculties with advancing age! It is a matter of grave anxiety to consider how much longer poor Lady Janet can be trusted to manage her own affairs. I shall take an opportunity of touching on the matter delicately when I next see her lawyer.
“I am straying from my subject. And—is it not strange?—I am writing to you as confidentially as if we were old friends.
“To return to Julian Gray. Innocent of instigating his aunt’s first visit to the Refuge, he is guilty of having induced her to go there for the second time the day after I had dispatched my last letter to you. Lady Janet’s object on this occasion was neither more nor less than to plead her nephew’s cause as humble suitor for the hand of Mercy Merrick. Imagine the descent of one of the oldest families in England inviting an adventuress in a Refuge to honor a clergyman of the Church of England by becoming his wife! In what times do we live! My dear mother shed tears of shame when she heard of it. How you would love and admire my mother!
“I dined at Mablethorpe House, by previous appointment, on the day when Lady Janet returned from her degrading errand.
“‘Well?’ I said, waiting, of course, until the servant was out of the room.
“‘Well,’ Lady Janet answered, ‘Julian was quite right.’
“‘Quite right in what?’
“‘In saying that the earth holds no nobler woman than Mercy Merrick.’
“‘Has she refused him again?’
“‘She has refused him again.’
“‘Thank God!’ I felt it fervently, and I said it fervently. Lady Janet laid down her knife and fork, and fixed one of her fierce looks on me.
“‘It may not be your fault, Horace,’ she said, ‘if your nature is incapable of comprehending what is great and generous in other natures higher than yours. But the least you can do is to distrust your own capacity of appreciation. For the future keep your opinions (on questions which you don’t understand) modestly to yourself. I have a tenderness for you for your father’s sake; and I take the most favorable view of your conduct toward Mercy Merrick. I humanely consider it the conduct of a fool.’ (Her own words, Miss Roseberry. I assure you once more, her own words.) ‘But don’t trespass too far on my indulgence—don’t insinuate again that a woman who is good enough (if she died this night) to go to heaven, isnotgood enough to be my nephew’s wife.’
“I expressed to you my conviction a little way back that it was doubtful whether poor Lady Janet would be much longer competent to manage her own affairs. Perhaps you thought me hasty then? What do you think now?
“It was, of course, useless to reply seriously to the extraordinary reprimand that I had received. Besides, I was really shocked by a decay of principle which proceeded but too plainly from decay of the mental powers. I made a soothing and respectful reply, and I was favored in return with some account of what had really happened at the Refuge. My mother and my sisters were disgusted when I repeated the particulars to them. You will be disgusted too.
“The interesting penitent (expecting Lady Janet’s visit) was, of course, discovered in a touching domestic position! She had a foundling baby asleep on her lap; and she was teaching the alphabet to an ugly little vagabond girl whose acquaintance she had first made in the street. Just the sort of artfultableau vivantto impose on an old lady—was it not?
“You will understand what followed, when Lady Janet opened her matrimonial negotiation. Having perfected herself in her part, Mercy Merrick, to do her justice, was not the woman to play it badly. The most magnanimous sentiments flowed from her lips. She declared that her future life was devoted to acts of charity, typified, of course, by the foundling infant and the ugly little girl. However she might personally suffer, whatever might be the sacrifice of her own feelings—observe how artfully this was put, to insinuate that she was herself in love with him!—she could not accept from Mr. Julian Gray an honor of which she was unworthy. Her gratitude to him and her interest in him alike forbade her to compromise his brilliant future by consenting to a marriage which would degrade him in the estimation of all his friends. She thanked him (with tears); she thanked Lady Janet (with more tears); but she dare not, in the interests ofhishonor andhishappiness, accept the hand that he offered to her. God bless and comfort him; and God help her to bear with her hard lot!
“The object of this contemptible comedy is plain enough to my mind. She is simply holding off (Julian, as you know, is a poor man) until the influence of Lady Janet’s persuasion is backed by the opening of Lady Janet’s purse. In one word—Settlements! But for the profanity of the woman’s language, and the really lamentable credulity of the poor old lady, the whole thing would make a fit subject for a burlesque.
“But the saddest part of the story is still to come.
“In due course of time the lady’s decision was communicated to Julian Gray. He took leave of his senses on the spot. Can you believe it?—he has resigned his curacy! At a time when the church is thronged every Sunday to hear him preach, this madman shuts the door and walks out of the pulpit. Even Lady Janet was not far enough gone in folly to abet him in this. She remonstrated, like the rest of his friends. Perfectly useless! He had but one answer to everything they could say: ‘My career is closed.’ What stuff!
“You will ask, naturally enough, what this perverse man is going to do next. I don’t scruple to say that he is bent on committing suicide. Pray do not be alarmed! There is no fear of the pistol, the rope, or the river. Julian is simply courting death—within the limits of the law.
“This is strong language, I know. You shall hear what the facts are, and judge for yourself.
“Having resigned his curacy, his next proceeding was to offer his services, as volunteer, to a new missionary enterprise on the West Coast of Africa. The persons at the head of the mission proved, most fortunately, to have a proper sense of their duty. Expressing their conviction of the value of Julian’s assistance in the most handsome terms, they made it nevertheless a condition of entertaining his proposal that he should submit to examination by a competent medical man. After some hesitation he consented to this. The doctor’s report was conclusive. In Julian’s present state of health the climate of West Africa would in all probability kill him in three months’ time.
“Foiled in his first attempt, he addressed himself next to a London Mission. Here it was impossible to raise the question of climate, and here, I grieve to say, he has succeeded.
“He is now working—in other words, he is now deliberately risking his life—in the Mission to Green Anchor Fields. The district known by this name is situated in a remote part of London, near the Thames. It is notoriously infested by the most desperate and degraded set of wretches in the whole metropolitan population, and it is so thickly inhabited that it is hardly ever completely free from epidemic disease. In this horrible place, and among these dangerous people, Julian is now employing himself from morning to night. None of his old friends ever see him. Since he joined the Mission he has not even called on Lady Janet Roy.
“My pledge is redeemed—the facts are before you. Am I wrong in taking my gloomy view of the prospect? I cannot forget that this unhappy man was once my friend, and I really see no hope for him in the future. Deliberately self-exposed to the violence of ruffians and the outbreak of disease, who is to extricate him from his shocking position? The one person who can do it is the person whose association with him would be his ruin—Mercy Merrick. Heaven only knows what disasters it may be my painful duty to communicate to you in my next letter!
“You are so kind as to ask me to tell you something about myself and my plans.
“I have very little to say on either head. After what I have suffered—my feelings trampled on, my confidence betrayed—I am as yet hardly capable of deciding what I shall do. Returning to my old profession—to the army—is out of the question, in these leveling days, when any obscure person who can pass an examination may call himself my brother officer, and may one day, perhaps, command me as my superior in rank. If I think of any career, it is the career of diplomacy. Birth and breeding have not quite disappeared as essential qualifications inthatbranch of the public service. But I have decided nothing as yet.
“My mother and sisters, in the event of your returning to England, desire me to say that it will afford them the greatest pleasure to make your acquaintance. Sympathizing with me, they do not forget what you too have suffered. A warm welcome awaits you when you pay your first visit at our house. Most truly yours,
“HORACE HOLMCROFT.” II.
From MISS GRACE ROSEBERRY to MR. HORACE HOLMCROFT.
“DEAR MR. HOLMCROFT—I snatch a few moments from my other avocations to thank you for your most interesting and delightful letter. How well you describe, how accurately you judge! If Literature stood a little higher as a profession, I should almost advise you—but no! if you entered Literature, how couldyouassociate with the people whom you would be likely to meet?
“Between ourselves, I always thought Mr. Julian Gray an overrated man. I will not say he has justified my opinion. I will only say I pity him. But, dear Mr. Holmcroft, how can you, with your sound judgment, place the sad alternatives now before him on the same level? To die in Green Anchor Fields, or to fall into the clutches of that vile wretch—is there any comparison between the two? Better a thousand times die at the post of duty than marry Mercy Merrick.
“As I have written the creature’s name, I may add—so as to have all the sooner done with the subject—that I shall look with anxiety for your next letter. Do not suppose that I feel the smallest curiosity about this degraded and designing woman. My interest in her is purely religious. To persons of my devout turn of mind she is an awful warning. When I feel Satan near me—it will besucha means of grace to think of Mercy Merrick!
“Poor Lady Janet! I noticed those signs of mental decay to which you so feelingly allude at the last interview I had with her in Mablethorpe House. If you can find an opportunity, will you say that I wish her well, here and hereafter? and will you please add that I do not omit to remember her in my prayers?
“There is just a chance of my visiting England toward the close of the autumn. My fortunes have changed since I wrote last. I have been received as reader and companion by a lady who is the wife of one of our high judicial functionaries in this part of the world. I do not take much interest inhim; he is what they call a ‘self-made man.’ His wife is charming. Besides being a person of highly intellectual tastes, she is greatly her husband’s superior—as you will understand when I tell you that she is related to the Gommerys of Pommery;notthe Pommerys of Gommery, who (as your knowledge of our old families will inform you) only claim kindred with the younger branch of that ancient race.
“In the elegant and improving companionship which I now enjoy I should feel quite happy but for one drawback. The climate of Canada is not favorable to my kind patroness, and her medical advisers recommend her to winter in London. In this event, I am to have t he privilege of accompanying her. Is it necessary to add that my first visit will be paid at your house? I feel already united by sympathy to your mother and your sisters. There is a sort of freemasonry among gentlewomen, is there not? With best thanks and remembrances, and many delightful anticipations of your next letter, believe me, dear Mr. Holmcroft,
“Truly yours,
“GRACE ROSEBERRY.” III.
From MR. HORACE HOLMCROFT to MISS GRACE ROSEBERRY.
“MY DEAR MISS ROSEBERRY—Pray excuse my long silence. I have waited for mail after mail, in the hope of being able to send you some good news at last. It is useless to wait longer. My worst forebodings have been realized: my painful duty compels me to write a letter which will surprise and shock you.
“Let me describe events in their order as they happened. In this way I may hope to gradually prepare your mind for what is to come.
“About three weeks after I wrote to you last, Julian Gray paid the penalty of his headlong rashness. I do not mean that he suffered any actual violence at the hands of the people among whom he had cast his lot. On the contrary, he succeeded, incredible as it may appear, in producing a favorable impression on the ruffians about him. As I understand it, they began by respecting his courage in venturing among them alone; and they ended in discovering that he was really interested in promoting their welfare. It is to the other peril, indicated in my last letter, that he has fallen a victim—the peril of disease. Not long after he began his labors in the district fever broke out. We only heard that Julian had been struck down by the epidemic when it was too late to remove him from the lodging that he occupied in the neighborhood. I made inquiries personally the moment the news reached us. The doctor in attendance refused to answer for his life.
“In this alarming state of things poor Lady Janet, impulsive and unreasonable as usual, insisted on leaving Mablethorpe House and taking up her residence near her nephew.
“Finding it impossible to persuade her of the folly of removing from home and its comforts at her age, I felt it my duty to accompany her. We found accommodation (such as it was) in a river-side inn, used by ship-captains and commercial travelers. I took it on myself to provide the best medical assistance, Lady Janet’s insane prejudices against doctors impelling her to leave this important part of the arrangements entirely in my hands.
“It is needless to weary you by entering into details on the subject of Julian’s illness.
“The fever pursued the ordinary course, and was characterized by the usual intervals of delirium and exhaustion succeeding each other. Subsequent events, which it is, unfortunately, necessary to relate to you, leave me no choice but to dwell (as briefly as possible) on the painful subject of the delirium. In other cases the wanderings of fever-stricken people present, I am told, a certain variety of range. In Julian’s case they were limited to one topic. He talked incessantly of Mercy Merrick. His invariable petition to his medical attendants entreated them to send for her to nurse him. Day and night that one idea was in his mind, and that one name on his lips.
“The doctors naturally made inquiries as to this absent person. I was obliged (in confidence) to state the circumstances to them plainly.
“The eminent physician whom I had called in to superintend the treatment behaved admirably. Though he has risen from the lower order of the people, he has, strange to say, the instincts of a gentleman. He thoroughly understood our trying position, and felt all the importance of preventing such a person as Mercy Merrick from seizing the opportunity of intruding herself at the bedside. A soothing prescription (I have his own authority for saying it) was all that was required to meet the patient’s case. The local doctor, on the other hand, a young man (and evidently a red-hot radical), proved to be obstinate, and, considering his position, insolent as well. ‘I have nothing to do with the lady’s character, and with your opinion of it,’ he said to me. ‘I have only, to the best of my judgment, to point out to you the likeliest means of saving the patient’s life. Our art is at the end of its resources. Send for Mercy Merrick, no matter who she is or what she is. There is just a chance—especially if she proves to be a sensible person and a good nurse—that he may astonish you all by recognizing her. In that case only, his recovery is probable. If you persist in disregarding his entreaties, if you let the delirium go on for four-and-twenty hours more, he is a dead man.’
“Lady Janet was, most unluckily, present when this impudent opinion was delivered at the bedside.
“Need I tell you the sequel? Called upon to choose between the course indicated by a physician who is making his five thousand a year, and who is certain of the next medical baronetcy, and the advice volunteered by an obscure general practitioner at the East End of London, who is not making his five hundred a year—need I stop to inform you of her ladyship’s decision? You know her; and you will only too well understand that her next proceeding was to pay a third visit to the Refuge.
“Two hours later—I give you my word of honor I am not exaggerating—Mercy Merrick was established at Julian’s bedside.
“The excuse, of course, was that it was her duty not to let any private scruples of her own stand in the way, when a medical authority had declared that she might save the patient’s life. You will not be surprised to hear that I withdrew from the scene. The physician followed my example—after having written his soothing prescription, and having been grossly insulted by the local practitioner’s refusing to make use of it. I went back in the doctor’s carriage. He spoke most feelingly and properly. Without giving any positive opinion, I could see that he had abandoned all hope of Julian’s recovery. ‘We are in the hands of Providence, Mr. Holmcroft;’ those were his last words as he set me down at my mother’s door.
“I have hardly the heart to go on. If I studied my own wishes, I should feel inclined to stop here.
“Let me, at least, hasten to the end. In two or three days’ time I received my first intelligence of the patient and his nurse. Lady Janet informed me that he had recognized her. When I heard this I felt prepared for what was to come. The next report announced that he was gaining strength, and the next that he was out of danger. Upon this Lady Janet returned to Mablethorpe House. I called there a week ago—and heard that he had been removed to the sea-side. I called yesterday—and received the latest information from her ladyship’s own lips. My pen almost refuses to write it. Mercy Merrick has consented to marry him!
“An outrage on Society—that is how my mother and my sisters view it; that is howyouwill view it too. My mother has herself struck Julian’s name off her invitation-list. The servants have their orders, if he presumes to call: ‘Not at home.’
“I am unhappily only too certain that I am correct in writing to you of this disgraceful marriage as of a settled thing. Lady Janet went the length of showing me the letters—one from Julian, the other from the woman herself. Fancy Mercy Merrick in correspondence with Lady Janet Roy! addressing her as ‘My dear Lady Janet,’ and signing, ‘Yours affectionately!’
“I had not the patience to read either of the letters through. Julian’s tone is the tone of a Socialist; in my opinion his bishop ought to be informed of it. As forhershe plays her part just as cleverly with her pen as she played it with her tongue. ‘I cannot disguise from myself that I am wrong in yielding.... Sad forebodings fill my mind when I think of the future.... I feel as if the first contemptuous look that is cast at my husband will destroymyhappiness, though it may not disturbhim.... As long as I was parted from him I could control my own weakness, I could accept my hard lot. But how can I resist him after having watched for weeks at his bedside; after having seen his first smile, and heard his first grateful words t o me while I was slowly helping him back to life?’
“There is the tone which she takes through four closely written pages of nauseous humility and clap-trap sentiment! It is enough to make one despise women. Thank God, there is the contrast at hand to remind me of what is due to the better few among the sex. I feel that my mother and my sisters are doubly precious to me now. May I add, on the side of consolation, that I prize with hardly inferior gratitude the privilege of corresponding withyou?
“Farewell for the present. I am too rudely shaken in my most cherished convictions, I am too depressed and disheartened, to write more. All good wishes go with you, dear Miss Roseberry, until we meet.
“Most truly yours,
“HORACE HOLMCROFT.” IV.
Extracts from the DIARY of THE REVEREND JULIAN GRAY.
FIRST EXTRACT.
....“A month to-day since we were married! I have only one thing to say: I would cheerfully go through all that I have suffered to live this one month over again. I never knew what happiness was until now. And better still, I have persuaded Mercy that it is all her doing. I have scattered her misgivings to the winds; she is obliged to submit to evidence, and to own that she can make the happiness of my life.
“We go back to London to-morrow. She regrets leaving the tranquil retirement of this remote sea-side place—she dreads change. I care nothing for it. It is all one to me where I go, so long as my wife is with me.”
SECOND EXTRACT.
“The first cloud has risen. I entered the room unexpectedly just now, and found her in tears.
“With considerable difficulty I persuaded her to tell me what had happened. Are there any limits to the mischief that can be done by the tongue of a foolish woman? The landlady at my lodgings is the woman, in this case. Having no decided plans for the future as yet, we returned (most unfortunately, as the event has proved) to the rooms in London which I inhabited in my bachelor days. They are still mine for six weeks to come, and Mercy was unwilling to let me incur the expense of taking her to a hotel. At breakfast this morning I rashly congratulated myself (in my wife’s hearing) on finding that a much smaller collection than usual of letters and cards had accumulated in my absence. Breakfast over, I was obliged to go out. Painfully sensitive, poor thing, to any change in my experience of the little world around me which it is possible to connect with the event of my marriage, Mercy questioned the landlady, in my absence, about the diminished number of my visitors and my correspondents. The woman seized the opportunity of gossiping about me and my affairs, and my wife’s quick perception drew the right conclusion unerringly. My marriage has decided certain wise heads of families on discontinuing their social relations with me. The facts, unfortunately, speak for themselves. People who in former years habitually called upon me and invited me—or who, in the event of my absence, habitually wrote to me at this season—have abstained with a remarkable unanimity from calling, inviting, or writing now.