The Reverend Mr. Fletcher was also sorely troubled. His reputation as a revivalist was at stake. The eyes of the village were upon him. It is true that he had had a great measure of success. Every night the anxious-seat had been filled with weeping women. Ossie Annie Abbie Maria White had waxed fairly hysterical as she avowed her sins; Ann Lemon had howled forth a lengthy lamentation of her wickedness; Sol Disney had professed conversion, after "resisting the workings of the spirit within him for twenty-seven years," as he testified. But all this garnered grain was but as tares in the sight of the Reverend Fletcher because of that one stubborn thistle that refused to bow its head to the Scriptural sickle.
But the Reverend Fletcher was a strategist as well as a fighter. He recalled what Mrs. Deans had said regarding Myron's inordinate love for her child, and, remembering, resolved to win Myron Holder's soul despite herself.
With this resolution strong within him, he took his place for the last time before a Jamestown audience. It ought to have been very gratifying to the ministerial eye—that audience—for all the village was there. All—save with one notable exception. Clem Humphries' place before Mrs. Deans' was vacant, and never again would he vex that worthy woman's soul by his presence in the Jamestown Tabernacle. Clem had left Jamestown. The night before this last meeting Clem, willing to sustain his role of a religious individual, rose in his place and in sepulchral tones asked for the prayers of the congregation. It is probable that such a request was never so promptly granted before, for hardly had he resumed his seat before Ann Lemon was upon her feet.
Always voluble, Ann had no difficulty in finding words wherewith to address the Lord, which she proceeded to do upon Clem's behalf, as follows: "O Lord," she commenced. "save this sinful man who seeks Thy aid! You know what he is, O Lord! You know his pretences, his hypocrisy, his sinfulness; but save him, for You can! You know what a sinful man he is, far beyond any hope of good in this world; but, oh, save him! You know he drinks, putting an enemy into his mouth to steal away his soul! You know he lies, and is lazy, and is a Sabbath-breaker, spending in sinful sport the hours when he should worship Thee! You know he makes his religion just a cloak for his deceit! You know all this, for nothing is hid from Thee! You know he oppressed the widow all last winter; but save him, Lord, for You can! Save him now, whilst he seeks Thy aid! You know he did it for his own ends, to make people believe in his goodness; but save him now—now, O Lord, when he can't get out! Save him in spite of himself—make him indeed one of Your sheep!"
Ann sat down, amid a chorus of Amens, and Clem was eagerly besought to testify; but Clem was literally dumb with rage, and sat mute whilst the Reverend Fletcher prayed that the "new-found brother might be given the gift of holy speech" that he might "show forth the mercy he had found," concluding by giving thanks for the conversion of this great sinner. And this to a man who had been so long a favored one with the godly in the land! It was too much. Clem trembled with rage. Ann's life would hardly have been safe at that moment could Clem have laid hands on her. As it was, she did not fall in his way, and old Clem took French leave of Jamestown that night, shaking the dust from off his feet as a testimony against it. He resolved as he left the village never again to try to keep up with the religious folk. Clem decided they made the place too hot for him.
The Reverend Fletcher rose and began his address. Robbed of its exuberance of expression it was an effective one. He concluded with an impassioned appeal to his hearers to accept the truth.
"Is there," he said, "none among you to whom there appears a little, lonely grave, whose whispering grasses plead to you to think of the little one buried there? Wandering alone in Heaven, seeking there the love it had on earth, already wearied by its long waiting, already faltering as it searches for the loved face, already heart-sick as it listens to the angels singing the names of the saved on earth—but never, never hears that loved name in the heavenly roll-call? Is there none among you who has an empty heart? Is there none among you who feels, in memory only, the loving touch of baby fingers? Is there none among you who, in dreams only, hears a baby voice cry 'Mother—Mother'? If there is such a mother, will she sit stubbornly silent here whilst her lonely child—orphaned even in Heaven because of her hard-heartedness—searches ever on and on for the mother that will not come to him?"
Mr. Fletcher paused. There was breathless silence for a moment, then there was a stir far back near the door. The congregation moved, looked round, and murmured. A woman's figure came swiftly down the aisle, reached the clear space before the platform—stood—wavered. The next moment Myron Holder had fallen to the floor, prostrate as a novice beneath the pall.
Myron Holder and the Reverend Fletcher stood alone in the empty church. Mrs. Deans waited impatiently outside. She had never dreamed Mr. Fletcher would treat her thus! The noise of the departing congregation was dying away, and Mr. Fletcher was carrying out a stern resolution he had made. He was talking to Myron Holder of her sin and its enormity; upbraiding her for the past, and cautioning her against the future. She listened meekly, admitting her sin and saying no single word in palliation of it. He was giving her stern advice regarding her attitude towards the rest of the village, when she interrupted him for the first time.
"I am leaving Jamestown to-morrow," she said.
"What?" said Mr. Fletcher.
"I am leaving Jamestown to-morrow,"
The Reverend Fletcher's brow grew stern.
"Is that how you are going to evidence the new mercy you have found—by going out into the world to deceive people?"
"I will deceive no one," she said. "I can do nothing here. In winter I shall have to go on the township again. I must go to earn my living."
"Evil will come of it. Your influence will not be for good. You will spread a moral pestilence. Once I took a long journey in the cars; the car was very dirty, and there was much soot and smoke, and the black coat I wore absorbed the dust and grime. Well, it lost nothing of its good appearance; it was a black coat, like other black coats—to look at. But listen! One day soon after, in a crowded train, I sat next a woman with a white dress on. What was the result? Her dress was smirched and darkened where her sleeve touched mine. So it was always. That coat defiled everything it touched, until I put it from me. It was a good coat, and I could ill afford to do it, but still less could I afford to pollute whatever I touched. It is thus with you. Out of evil, evil will come. We do not gather figs of thistles. Your life has been evil; your heart is bad. Can good emanate from this? You will go forth to the world in fair seeming, no trace of your sin visible to the eye, and you will spread the contagion of your sin. Listen to me, Myron Holder. Do not dare go forth in silence! Do not dare conceal your real nature! Do not dare! Say to each man and woman with whom you have more than the most brief association, 'Lo, I am one who has sinned; I have been a mother but not a wife!'"
Myron gazed at him with horror-wide eyes. His were implacable.
"Am I so dreadful?" she said. "Oh, must I proclaim my shame aloud?"
"You must," he said. "What! Would you deny your child on earth and hope to meet him in Heaven?"
She let fall her face in her hands. There was silence for a space, then she raised her head.
"Very well," she said, "I will do as you say."
She turned from his side, and made her way down the church. A strange and new distinction of manner seemed to have enveloped her—a dignity of absolute isolation. She passed through the door, and for the last time Mrs. Deans' eyes looked into hers. That steady gaze lasted some seconds, and then Myron Holder went out into the night.
But in that last meeting of eyes Myron Holder's were not the ones that faltered. As Cain went forth with his curse, did his eyes fall before any living face? He was subject only to fear of his fate. Myron Holder feared only the years she had to live.
That night, in her cottage, Myron Holder sat sewing, fashioning a tiny bag out of one of My's misshapen aprons. When completed, she put something carefully in it and hung it round her neck, concealing it beneath her gown. She folded up her few articles of clean clothing and tied them up, with My's little tin mug, into a neat parcel. She took a last look around the silent rooms, and then went out, closing the door gently behind her, as if heedful not to awaken one who slept.
All along the little path voices seemed to bear her company: the voices of her father, her grandmother, Homer's strong, tender tones, and My's uncertain voice, and each awoke a loving echo in her heart—yes, even the strident voice of her grandmother. They each and all whispered "Good-bye—Good-bye," save the little child's: that was inarticulate, and babbled but of childish love and confidence.
She made her way along the road she had trodden so many times in anguish. She reached the graveyard, and there held her last vigil by the side of My's grave.
The stars were yet in the sky—the mysterious stars of morning skies—when she rose to her feet. She went to each of the other graves that her heart held, and then came back to this one, the newest and smallest of the four. She looked down upon it with the pain of childbirth in her eyes, then up to the "mindful stars." She turned away with a prayer upon her lips—the same in which was uttered her agony in the cottage; the same prayer that had faltered from her lips in the church—not "Lord—Lord," but "My—My!"
So Myron Holder left Jamestown, and with her we leave it also. There is much yet that might be told of the place—of the strange death that befell Bing White; of the marriage of Gamaliel Deans to Liz, the bound girl; of the penance of pain that was meted out to Mrs. Deans for the evil she had wrought; of how Mr. and Mrs. Wilson were turned out of their farm by those of their children who had so pitied them whilst Homer lived; of how, after all, the old ragman found a fortune in rags, though not in the way he had dreamed of; of how the new church was built, and of how the old Holder cottage still stands, a ruin amid its garden, peopled only by sparrows; of how a new railway runs through the school playground, and banishes the buttercups by its cinders to the other side of the broken-down fence. There they run riot, having spread even up to the doorstep of the old cottage, where they cluster about the roots of the hopvines.
There have been many changes in Jamestown—great factories disfigure the margin of the lake, defile the streams with their refuse, and befoul the atmosphere with their smoke. A long row of workmen's cottages, depressingly alike in gable and window, has crowded the Black Horse Inn out of existence. Its old bricks pave the paths over which the mill-hands go to work; the last vestige of its violets has vanished.
The hearts of the Jamestown women, however, have not changed. The same merciless virtue that hounded Myron Holder pursues the poor factory girl who falters on her way. The same pointing fingers sting her soul. The same condemnation, the same cruelty, the same scorn, greet her as were meted out to Myron Holder.
In the olden days it was the vestal virgins, charged with keeping alight the fires that burned upon the altars sacred to home, that doomed the fallen gladiator to death; their inflexible gesture negatived the pleading of the upraised hand. There is no single instance given where they exercised the power of pardon vested in them. And to-day the verdict upon the fallen comes from women also; and is there any record of pardons?
But, O women, think well before you utter a harsh judgment! Your verdict is the more sacred by virtue of being pronounced upon your own sex, for woman is more nearly allied to woman than man to man. Each woman is linked to her sister women by the indissoluble bond of common pain. "For men must work and women must weep" may have its exceptions as to men who, by favoring fortune or a kindly fate, may escape their heritage of labor; but did a woman ever elude her birthright of tears?
It rests with women whether the bitter cup these unhappy ones drink be brimmed to the lip or not.
Ah, well! there are many Jamestowns, and many women therein. "By their works ye shall know them."
To the Jamestown women we have known through their treatment of Myron Holder we say farewell gladly, only asking them—
"HAVE YE DONE WELL? They moulder flesh and bone,Who might have made this life's envenomed dreamA sweeter draught than ye shall ever taste, I deem."
"God gives him painful bread, and for all wineDoth feed him on sharp salt of simple tears,And bitter fast of blood."
"Come—pain ye shall have and be blind to the ending!Come—fear ye shall have 'mid the sky's overcasting!Come—change ye shall have, for far are ye wending!Come—no crown ye shall have for your thirst and your fasting!"
Myron Holder, in the blue garb of a professional nurse, stood one spring morning looking out of one of the high windows in the great hospital where she worked. Three years had passed since that daybreak when she turned her back on Jamestown. With what trembling steps she had made her way to town, to the house of the doctor who had attended old Mr. Carroll! He had suggested to her the vocation of professional nursing, having observed her natural aptitude for it when she was tending Mr. Carroll. He had given her his address, and bade her come to him if she decided to adopt the course he had indicated. She had done so, and, through his recommendation, she had obtained admittance to this hospital. Since then she had worked and studied hard, and had gained her certificate as a trained nurse.
She had gone forth from Jamestown "lonely as a cloud," and not without sorrow. The wild flower that grows by the bleakest roadside wilts and droops for a time, at least, when transplanted to even the most sheltered garden. The stunted cedar, clinging to a crevice in the granite, drawing its meagre juices hardly from the niggard soil, yellows and dies when rent by the resistless wind from its rocky resting-place. The barrenness of the mountain-side seems kinder to it than the green meadows to which it is hurled.
For some little time Myron was bewildered by the strange world which she had entered, but it did not remain long strange; it soon developed familiar phases.
She bore forever the burden of the hateful pledge the Reverend Mr. Fletcher had wrung from her. In the old, harsh days of Puritanical prudery and intolerance, the Evil Woman bore upon her breast a flamy insignia of shame—a beacon warning all not to trust their hopes or fears or joys to that perfidious bosom which had been false to its own womanhood, a something which could be seen afar off, a mute, yet eloquent, cry: "Unclean—Unclean!"
But the milder methods of modern Christianity were far different. They fastened no physical sign of degradation upon the object of their righteous wrath; no burning letter or brand. Hers was no torch of shame to light the beholder to other paths than that which lay by her side.
Hawthorne's stately Evil Woman bore an implacable face above that fatal mark; strode upon her way with "the stern step of vanquished will," defied by her mien her accusers and her judges. Upon her countenance was writ in all the varied hieroglyphics of tint and expression, line and curve, the story of her passion and her shame.
Not so this humble village outcast. Her mien showed rather the tender sorrow of a face created for tears—a face whose lips held pain enough prisoned behind their paleness to wail the woe of the whole world; eyes which had looked at death unflinchingly through the pangs of the sublimest torture womanhood knows rather than betray the coward who had forsaken her; eyes which had looked at misery and pain, suffering and death, so often that they seemed to have lost the power of reflecting aught else; eyes which held in their depths nothing but the resignation, despair, and the settled purpose of undeviating will. Sometimes, when the child was alive, there had shone in their depths varying shadows; then there were moments when she allowed herself to wish and hope and fear. But that was past, just as was her mad rebellion against his death.
Such was Myron Holder—meek, quiet, hopeless; bearing the burden imposed upon her by convention's unsparing, if righteous, hand. Men, looking at her, instinctively felt their own vileness; and women saw in her a refuge from their own weakness and sins until they knew of hers; then, rejoicing that they yet had power to wound something, crucified her afresh. Many a time her heart bled from stings implanted by lips she had moistened night after night. Many a time her face flushed before the scorn expressed in eyes that would have been forever darkened but for her untiring skill and patience.
Truly, to lay upon this woman the task of avowing her guilt to each human being who should ever look upon her with kindly tolerance was a measure that the old Puritans would not have adopted. The stake had not receded quite so far into the dim perspective of the past as it has now; and if they had deemed her worthy of the supremest torture, they would probably have chosen the more merciful flames.
Myron indeed stood within the shadow of the cross. But it must be remembered that whilst the cross has been the emblem of much mercy, it was also the symbol beneath which the Inquisition sat in council. It must be conceded that the Church is not very lenient with women. We remember its attitude when chloroform was introduced.
The mercy that the Reverend Mr. Fletcher had proffered Myron Holder was much like the salt that Eastern torturers rub into the wounds of their victims.
There was little to be seen from the high window where Myron stood—the topmost branches of a horse-chestnut tree just leafing out; a wide arch of gray-blue sky; and, far off, a confused mass of chimneys, where the city lay beneath its veil of smoke.
But Myron was not thinking of the busy city, of the tapping chestnut boughs, nor even of the overspan of pellucid sky. She was thinking of a cruel, sordid, babbling little village and of the silent, unkempt field wherein its dead lay. Her musings were interrupted by the ringing of a bell. She turned and hastened from the room—blue-clad, white-capped, capable—to find a new patient had arrived in her ward; a new patient, with thin, broad, stooped shoulders, overhanging pent-house brow, sad and secret, above sunken gray eyes that shone with unalterable love for mankind; a patient who, when he saw her coming, held out his hands and whispered "Myron—Myron!" and gave her such a look as banished all the bitterness of her barren belief and again bestowed the blessed benediction of peace.
Thus Philip Hardman and Myron Holder met again.
Philip Hardman was no longer a recognized minister of the Church. His doubts had grown too strong for his belief, or his beliefs had grown greater than his creed; and he had gone forth from the church to become an itinerant preacher, like the man Christ Jesus. He was miserably uncertain and unsettled.
Little bands of devotees gathered about him in every town he visited. They were those who were mentally maimed, or halt, or blind; those whose aspirations exceeded their capabilities; those in whose hearts a never-healing sore throbbed in unison with the suffering of mankind; those who were, like Philip Hardman, striving to flee from the wrath to come and found themselves bewildered amid the crossways. His followers were, in all places, strangely alike. They gathered to him gradually, and when he left they scattered. There was no unity of purpose among them, no common determination toward one end, to bind them together.
The Western worlds are not ready yet for those creedless, formless, Eastern doctrines of Universal Love. Poor Philip Hardman, in an Oriental world, would have made an excellent devotee, to dream away his years in spiritual abstraction with the best of them; nay, he might even have found courage to release his soul by fire from its earthly charnel like the old East Indians; but he made a poor minister; he was a good enoughpreacher, eloquent enough, and earnest enough, pitiful towards others, merciless to himself; but, constantly bewildered by the indefiniteness of his own aspirations, he could not minister any healing balm to the sorrows he deplored.
He never felt awkward nor constrained with his followers, only desperately unhappy. They looked to him for a message, and he had none to give them; he raised hopes in their breasts which he could not justify; held out a cup which proved empty when thirsty lips drew near.
When he left a town he was haunted for days by the yearning eyes he had left unlit by hope; yet he could not bring himself to desert the cross utterly, for
"Ever on the faint and flagging airA doleful spirit with a dreary noteCried in his fearful ear, 'Prepare—Prepare!'"
So he had stumbled on, the strong in him strong only to discern the needs, the wants, the sadness and cruelty of the world, not strong enough to evolve a creed of Truth to alleviate its misery; the weak in him only weak enough to make him shrink from giving up utterly the old dogmas that hampered his hands, not weak enough to permit him to steep himself in scriptural ease and spend all his time striving to save his own miserable soul.
Hardman had come to the charity ward of the hospital to be treated for that common and troublesome disease familiarly known as "preacher's sore throat." It was a very natural result of speaking night after night in all sorts of weathers in the open air. He had persisted in his preaching, however, until his voice had become attenuated almost to a whisper; then suddenly realizing the gravity of his case, he had fled to the hospital in a panic. Myron's post was in the charity ward, by far the most arduous department in the hospital. Thus Hardman came directly under her care.
Relieved from the nervous excitement of his occupation, Hardman's fictitious strength suddenly collapsed, and, having squandered his resources recklessly, he was now left with very little stamina to fall back upon. But Myron tended him night and day, throwing into her efforts all the determination of her strong nature; and, little by little, she conquered. Philip Hardman himself had been as passive during the struggle as a bone for which two dogs fight; but after the fever left him he began to realize how nearly his doubts and surmises had been all solved, and looking at Myron's weary face read in a moment all the meaning of its weariness. From that time her care was seconded by his eager desire for health.
Then there fell upon those two that strange enchantment which entered the world when the first bird sang its first love song, which will endure till "the last bird fly into the last night."
"What time the mighty moon was gathering light,Love paced the thymy plots of Paradise."
What strange paths he has trodden since then! What devious ways he has threaded! What strait gates he has entered! Upon how many sandy shores he has left his immortal footprints! For all the oceans of human life, all its flood tides of hope, all its ebb tides of despair, cannot efface them. Let love once set his signet seal upon a brow, and all the gilding of glory, all the blackness of shame, the rose wreath nor the crown of thorns—nay, even Death itself—cannot blot it out.
Life—Love—Death—the true Trinity, teaching all things, could we but decipher them. Of Life we know the ending; of Death, the beginning; of Love, nothing. It springs without sowing, and bears many harvests. To these two lonely souls it brought a gift of "unhoped, great delight."
"Love, that all things doth redress," blotted out for a space the toil and moil of their lives. Hardman told Myron how he had loved her ever since he saw her; told her how her name had been mentioned in every prayer his lips had uttered since he left Jamestown; told her how he had written to her, and of how the letter had been, after many days, returned to him from the Dead Letter Office. Myron smiled a little at that; she understood so well the pang it must have cost Mrs. Warner to return it. Indeed, Mrs. Warner (who was postmaster in Jamestown) had suffered real tortures of curiosity and kept the letter twice the regulation time before she sent it to the Dead Letter Office. But "The Government" was a vague and awful power in Mrs. Warner's eyes, and, as she expressed it to her husband, "You never know what it knows, and what it don't."
Philip did not tell Myron about his doubts, nor that he had voluntarily forfeited his standing in the orthodox church. And she did not tell him of the promise that the Reverend Mr. Fletcher had exacted from her. Perhaps it was this mutual reticence that wrecked them. But for a short space they were indeed happy.
But as Philip grew stronger the inevitable problem of the future presented itself.
Philip asked Myron one day if she had attended the rest of the meetings after he left Jamestown.
"Yes," she said; "I am a Christian."
That calm statement of hers seemed to impose an impassable barrier between them. She had attained the peace he had lost. She held fast the hope that he was all but relinquishing. She was strong in the faith in which he was so weak.
She told him of her first struggle in the hospital; of the difficulty she had had in mastering the "book learning" of her profession; of the weariness she endured and the hopelessness she had overcome; and, listening, he thought his heart would break. How could he take from her the Faith that had made this possible? How deprive her of the inspiration that kept her worthy? Poor Philip Hardman thought he had alienated himself from his church utterly; but he had in no wise cast off its bonds; he still clung to the enervating doctrine of dependence upon supernatural help, and could not realize that in Myron's womanhood alone lay the strength, the purity of purpose, and the endurance that had brought her thus far upon her way.
Sometimes he wondered if it were possible that he could pass the cup from lip to lip, and the morsel from mouth to mouth, and yet be himself athirst and hungry. Now and then the thought came to him that he was but suffering from some spiritual sickness that would pass from him like a physical disease, and leave him weak, perhaps, but safe in his old beliefs. When he thought of this, he pictured himself in his old position as minister and wondered if to marry Myron would conserve the interests of his Faith. This was the one unworthy thought of which he was guilty. The man was weak, but this was shameful.
It seems incredible to us that this man, having, as he knew, this woman's happiness in the hollow of his hand, loving her as he undoubtedly did, should have hesitated. Had he fully understood the conditions of her life, it is impossible to believe he would have done so; but so few of us know each other "face to face."
And Philip Hardman was very humble in his estimate of himself. He did not allow himself to think that his life would compensate to Myron Holder for the spiritual benefits she might lose by marrying him. Indeed, this poor, tossed soul sometimes recalled with a shudder that mysterious Sin for which there is no forgiveness, and wondered if he had been guilty of it; then he trembled when Myron Holder approached lest she be contaminated.
It seems this poor man was incapable of understanding the true beauty of Love. So that now he would wonder if Myron Holder as his wife would stultify his efforts for the Faith, and presently tremble lest he drag her down to the perdition he feared. At this juncture he deliberately shifted the burden from his own shoulders to those of Myron Holder. He asked her to decide, expressing his own love for her and saying tenderly:
"And you, Myron, you love me?"
She only looked her answer, but the eloquence of her look seemed to argue and decide the whole case.
This conversation occurred in the morning. In the evening, just as dusk fell, Myron came to the ward and sat by him for a little space. Now that the burden was shifted off his own shoulders Philip felt calm and happy.
He lay long, and gazed upon her as she sat beside him, gathered the tender strength of her face, the sweet womanliness of her form, the resolution and patience that made bright her brow, and noted all the beauty of her eyes. He pictured their future life together; he thought of her sitting by him in the twilight; of her bidding him good-bye in the morning; of her welcoming him at night; he thought of her looking up at him in the pauses of some household task; he imagined her eyes as they would turn to him for guidance; he dreamed of their comfort when he looked to them for love. He thought of all these things, and then abased himself before the vision of a holy, patient face,—the face of the mother of his child.
'Mid these thoughts speech does not find ready way. They were together silent, hand in hand.
The time came for Myron to go. It was almost dark in the ward, and an angled screen hid them from view.
"Myron," whispered Philip, and looked at her pleadingly.
She looked at him—her head sank near his—he kissed her—her lips were trembling. He passed an arm about her shoulder and gave her a tender, reassuring pressure.
"I will know in the morning?" he said.
"Yes," she answered, and turned to leave him. She hesitated at the foot of the bed and then turned toward him again. "Good-night," she said. "Good-night, Philip."
Then she turned and went swiftly from the ward, passing the night nurse at the door.
Hardman felt a moisture on his hand, the hand she had held as she said "Good-night."
"She was crying, bless her, and I never knew it," he thought.
He soon slept. It would seem that he was content so long as Myron made the decision and thus relieved him from the responsibility and consequences of doing so. Well, we cannot tell. "The heart knoweth its own bitterness," and it is not for us to judge Hardman. But whilst withholding judgment upon him we need not spare to pity Myron, who, prone upon the narrow couch in the bare dormitory, was face to face with her own soul.
Whilst Hardman slept, having cast off his burden, she was tasting the bitterness of death. Myron Holder's agony would have indeed bewildered him could he have witnessed it. It was in such strong contrast to the peace of that perfect hour just past. He could not have realized the battle Myron had done with herself, her tears, her fears, whilst she sat by him; and he comforted himself with visions of an illusive future. Alas! Poor Myron—poor Hardman! Not for them was "The House of Fulfillment of Craving," not for them the "Cup with the roses around it."
We cannot trace step by step the progress of the struggle.
"A sign—a sign!" she cried in her pain. "Oh, what shall I do?"
It was at midnight when the sign was given her and the path pointed out. The clock in her room had just struck twelve when the electric bell at her bedside rang, summoning her downstairs. She rose hastily, and quickly dashing a little cold water in her face, assumed her cap and hurried out. She found the entire staff of nurses assembling. They were gathering about the medical officer in charge of the hospital. He held a telegram in his hand. When they had all come, he read it aloud. It was brief. An urgent appeal from a quarantine station asking for volunteer nurses for cholera patients. The doctor read it and waited. The little crowd of women before him murmured confusedly. Some faces reddened, some paled. The doctor read the telegram again, and said quietly:
"The need is urgent, but I advise no one. If, however, any of you will go, she must be ready in an hour. The express leaves then."
He paused. There was no answer. His face paled a little. He had been very proud of his intrepid nurses, this doctor, and somehow, in this time of trial, they seemed about to be found wanting.
"As soon as each one makes up her mind," he said, "she will return to her duties or acquaint me with her determination to go."
The group before him parted as if by a single impulse, each seeking to escape unseen to her place. Only one came forward quietly, and said steadily:
"I will go, sir, if you will let me."
The departing ones stayed their steps and listened.
"It is Nurse Myron," they said to each other.
"Yes," said the doctor, catching one of these remarks, "it is Nurse Myron, of whom you have made a pariah. Go back to your duties, please." His voice, usually so gentle, was stern and peremptory. They went.
An hour later, Myron Holder left the hospital. As she came down from the dormitory, clad in the blue serge gown with its cape and close-fitting hat, she went into the charity ward. Quietly she stole along its length until she came to the bed in the corner. A straight shaft of moonlight fell upon the pillow. It made visible all the strength and beauty of Hardman's brow and showed all the sweetness of his mouth, all the kindly expression of his face. His brow was placid; his lips smiled. To the woman's eyes there was nothing weak, nothing cowardly, in the man before her. He was her saint among men.
"He will know in the morning," she said. The doctor beckoned from the door. She murmured again, "He will know in the morning," and so bade him an eternal farewell.
"HE WILL KNOW IN THE MORNING.""HE WILL KNOW IN THE MORNING."
* * * * * *
Next morning Philip Hardman learned from the doctor of Myron's act.
"The nurses say you are a minister, and that she loved you," said the doctor. "If praying is your trade, pray for her, man; she has need of it." Then he passed on. He was a little bitter and stern, the good doctor, that morning.
There comes a time to some of us,
"When happy dreams have just gone byAnd left us without remedyWithin the unpitying hands of life."
Those of us who have lived through such an hour can understand what had come to Philip Hardman. He saw now clearly what he ought to have done, but it was too late. He tried to comfort himself with the hope that she would come back, andthen, he told himself, no power in earth or heaven should come between them.
How vain this hope was the event proved; but it was well he had it at the moment, else his self-reproach would have been too poignant. As it was, his fever returned and it was many days before his last tidings of Myron Holder. He was told, and lived. That is all we need say or care to hear of Philip Hardman.
"Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds,At last he beat his music out."
"Death comes to set thee free,Oh, meet him cheerilyAs thy true friend;Then all thy cares shall ceaseAnd in eternal peaceThy penance end."
"Even the weariest riverWinds somewhere safe to the sea."
The arrival of the new nurse had been announced to the doctor in charge of the quarantine station. He waited for her coming in his office. She entered the room, paused for a moment on the threshold, and then came forward. The light, to which his back was turned, fell full upon her face,—a face devoid of bitterness as it was of joy. Her form, clad in the regulation nurse's garb of blue, showed in strong relief against the unpainted pine walls of the great doctor's office—a somewhat broad, low figure, not slight, nor lissome, but most eloquently womanly. Her lips parted in a question which he did not hear.
Time had gone back with him. He stood upon a jutting ledge of rock, which from the ridge hung out into the blue. He was alone, and waiting—waiting with every faculty of his will strained to the utmost; looking through a parting in the leaves between the tree-trunks, he watched for a girl's figure. Far away there was a glimmer of water; somewhere a village band was practising, but distance deadened all sound from it save the throb of the heavy drum which pulsed through the air and seemed to add motion to the heavy, odorous vapor of the summer night and send it eddying up in perfumed waves about the craggy platform. Then he saw one coming, flushed, and "foot gilt with all the blossom dust" of wild venollia, fleabane and spent moondaisies. And then he held once more a trembling maiden form within his clasp. Again from out the hollow of his arm there looked up at him two eyes of clearest, purest glance. Again he dwelt upon the smooth forehead with its faint upraised brows. Again he kissed the white throat bent outward like a singing bird's, as her head rested against him and her eyes met his. Again he saw those eyes grow dim and moist. Again he felt the encircled form tremble. Again he stilled the appealing lips with a kiss. Again he vowed eternal faith. Again he heard her say—
"Will you be good enough to tell me my duties?" the new nurse was saying, in low, strained tones, in a voice without modulation and suggestive of reiteration.
"What is your name?" he asked, with unstrung joints.
"I am Myron Holder," she said, and looked at him.
Her lips did not quiver. Her cheeks did not flush. Her eyes did not falter. All the majesty of a wronged womanhood shone upon her brow. Her glance spoke of a dignity far beyond the gift of man, above the world's honor—a dignity bought at a terrible price and sealed with a terrible seal of loneliness and separation.
"Ah!" he said, and leaned upon the table at his side, mentally acknowledging the strength of her presence. "I am Henry Willis," he said. "Did you know me?"
"I recognized you when I came into the room," she answered, in a monotonous tone.
There was a pause. Her eyes rested upon him unwaveringly, and sent from their depths intolerable meanings of contempt and righteous indignation and hopeless reproach.
He came a step nearer.
"Let me—" he began. She stepped back—her nostrils dilated.
"Would you be good enough to tell me my duties?" she said.
"Tell me how you came here."
"I am Nurse Myron," she said, and uttered no further word.
He waited in a silence she did not break.
"If you will come with me," he said at length.
She signified her acquiescence and followed him.
Days passed—long days and nights which seemed to outlast eternity in their dreary passage. Day by day the nurses and physicians did battle with the foul pestilential scourge they were striving to stifle. The great Dr. Willis, the eminent bacteriologist, peered and pried incessantly over his gelatin films, striving to win the secret of infection and its origin from the minute particles of matter he held prisoned there. But yet more earnestly did he strive to learn the secret of one strong, brave soul, hut in vain.
The quality Dr. Willis most admired, respected and understood was Will, but here it reigned in such transcendent strength that he stood appalled before it. From that moment of retrospect and recognition he had awakened with a galling sense of his own inferiority. Never before had Henry Willis owned the domination of a living will. Now the wide earth held no sweetness, all his achievements no triumph for him, unless he could once more possess the woman who had, so long ago, been wholly his.
They worked side by side. As the cases multiplied, and two of the men nurses were stricken with the disease, Henry Willis, perforce threw aside his experiments and flung himself into the fray. Day by day saw these two drawn closer and closer together by the exigencies of their peculiar and dreadful position. No more volunteers were forthcoming. The force in the quarantine station was weakening. The physician, albeit wiry and of an iron physique, was pale and thin.
Myron Holder's strong frame and brave heart were giving way; only her will sustained each. Her eyes shone neither steadily nor calmly now, but burned with desperate courage.
Dr. Willis came to her one day with a newspaper containing reports of their work. The names of Dr. Henry Willis and Nurse Myron were coupled with honorable and enduring encomiums. She read it standing in the corridor before his office door. As she read and gathered the import of the words, a change overspread her face. Her eyes, of late so hot and dry, grew moist; her lips trembled; from brow to chin the color flushed her face, bringing back to it all the charm of a crushed and subordinate womanhood. She read the article over and looked him full in the face.
"My name is here and yours," she said. Then, in a voice which had burst from its shackles at last, and rang out clear and high, "They should be read above the grave of a nameless child."
She paused a moment—long enough for the man before her to gather the meaning of her words—long enough to allow memory to whelm her own heart and break it at last, and then she sank upon the floor, weeping and crying aloud for her dead child.
When Henry Willis carried her to the office, the first paroxysmal symptoms of cholera had set in.
* * * * * *
All hope was over. Nurse Myron was dying. Every remedy despairing skill could suggest had been resorted to, but in vain. Transfusion of blood had brought not even an evanescent strength. The disease had culminated, and death was simply a question of minutes—an hour at most.
Her face had become olive in tint, and shone up with Murillo-like beauty of tint and form from the pillow. Beside her, in all the abandon of shattered hope, knelt Henry Willis. But to all his pleading Myron Holder was deaf, until, by the inspiration of despair, he cried aloud:
"For his sake, to give him a name!"
Then she consented. In the presence of the remnant of nurses left, blessed by the devoted minister who also lived among these dangers, Myron Holder and Henry Willis took each other for man and wife.
They were alone. He held her hand, awed by the supernal brightness of her eyes.
"You will write his name above his grave?" she said. "His real name—Henry Willis? Do you know what I called him? My—little My."
"Live," he murmured. "Live to let me atone—to be happy—to be adored. Live—you can if you will."
"Could I?" she said. "Life holds nothing for me; Death him, or forgetfulness."
Her eyes began to film. He bent over her distractedly, calling her tender names, pleading for a look—a sign.
"Speak to me—forgive me," he cried. "Myron—Myron!"
"I forgive you," she said, looking at him once again with calm and steadfast eye of divine forgetfulness. She sank into a stupor, through which she murmured "My—little My"—tenderly, as to a sleeping child. Then suddenly her eyes opened, a flood of ineffable brightness illumined her face, she stretched forth her arms and uttered a name in a cry of joyous hope, and sank back. The world was over for her. There but remained the involuntary efforts of life against annihilation, efforts which, happily, were few and brief. Twenty minutes after she became a wife, Myron Willis had passed—
"'And surely,' all folk said,'None ever saw such joy on visage dead.'"
They buried her, as the law required, with the rest of those who died of the pest. Upon her breast they found an ill-made little bag of checked blue and white cotton. Within it was a flossy skein of child's hair tangled by many tears and kisses. They brought it to Dr. Willis, and he replaced it upon the dead breast with whose secret sobs and sighs it had risen and fallen for so long.
The newspapers gave a pathetic account of the "Romance in a Quarantine Station," and told how the famous Dr. Willis, meeting his "girl love" in the hospital, had married her on her deathbed. The tale cast quite a romantic lustre over the doctor's somewhat prosaic career of medical achievement.
There was no word said, however, of their first meeting and parting, nor of a little grave that to this day is unmarked save for a tiny tablet whereon is carven one syllable—MY.