“Of all sad words of tongue or pen,The saddest are these,—it mighthave been.”
“Of all sad words of tongue or pen,The saddest are these,—it mighthave been.”
“Of all sad words of tongue or pen,The saddest are these,—it mighthave been.”
“Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these,—it mighthave been.”
He could not pray at first, his brain was so confused; but when the white, quivering lips could move and the poor aching heart could pray, he only whispered: “God help me to do right,” and by that prayer he knew that for a single instant there had crept across his mind the possibility of sacrificing Lucy, the girl who loved and trusted him so much; but only for an instant. He would not cast her from him, though to take her now, knowing what he did, was almost death itself. “But God can help me, and he will,” he cried,—then falling upon his knees, with his face bowed to the floor, the rector of St. Mark’s prayed as he had never prayed before, first for himself, whose need was greatest, then for Lucy, that she might never know what making her happy had cost him, and then for Anna, whose name he could not speak. “That other one,” he called her, and his heart kept swelling in his throat and preventing his utterance so that the words he would say never reached his lips. But God heard them just the same, and knew his child was asking that Anna might forget him, if to remember him was pain,—that she might learn to loveanother far worthier than he had ever been. He did not think of Mrs. Meredith; he had no feeling of resentment then; he was too wholly crushed to care how his ruin had been brought about, and long after the wood-fire on the hearth had turned to cold, gray ashes, he knelt upon the floor and battled with his grief; and when the morning broke it found him still in the cheerless room, where he had passed the entire night and from which he went forth strengthened as he hoped to do what he fully believed to be his duty.
This was on Saturday, and the Sunday following there was no service at St. Mark’s. The rector was sick, the sexton said, hard sick, too, he had heard, and the Hetherton carriage with Lucy in it drove swiftly to the parsonage, where the quiet and solitude awed and frightened her as she entered the house and asked the housekeeper how Mr. Leighton was.
“It is very sudden,” she said. “He was perfectly well when he left me on Friday night. Please tell him I am here.”
The housekeeper shook her head. Her master’s orders were that no one but the doctor should be admitted, she said, repeating what Arthur had told her in anticipation of just such an infliction as this. But Lucy was not to be denied; Arthur was hers; his sickness was hers; his suffering was hers, and see him she would.
“He surely did not mean me, when he asked that noone should be admitted. Tell him it is I; it is Lucy,” she said, with an air of authority, which in one so small, so pretty, and so childish only amused Mrs. Brown, who departed with the message, while Lucy sat down with her feet upon the stove and looked around the sitting-room, thinking that it was smaller and poorer than the one at Prospect Hill, and how she would remodel it when she was mistress there.
“He says you can come,” was the word Mrs. Brown brought back, and with a gleam of triumph in her eye and a toss of the head which said, “I told you so,” Lucy went softly into the darkened room and shut the door behind her.
Arthur had half expected this and had nerved himself to meet it, but the cold sweat stood on his face and his heart throbbed painfully as Lucy bent over him and said, “Poor, dear Arthur, I am so sorry for you, and if I could I’d bear the pain so willingly.”
He knew she would; she was just as loving and unselfish as that, and he wound his arms around her and drew her closer to him, while he whispered, “My poor little Lucy, my poor little Lucy. I don’t deserve this from you.”
She did not know what he meant, and she only answered him with kisses, while her hands moved caressingly across his forehead, just as they had moved years ago in Rome when she soothed the pain away. There certainlywas a mesmeric influence emanating from those hands, and Arthur felt its power, growing very quiet and at last falling away to sleep while the passes went on, and Lucy held her breath lest she should waken him. She was a famous nurse, the physician said, when he came, and he constituted her his coadjutor and gave his patient’s medicine into her care.
It was hardly proper for her niece to stay at the rectory, Mrs. Hetherton thought, but Lucy was one who could trample down proprieties, and it was finally arranged that, in order to avoid all comment, Fanny should stay with her.
So, while Fanny went to bed and slept Lucy sat all night in the sick-room with Mrs. Brown, and when the next morning came she was looking very pale, and languid, but very beautiful withal. At least such was the mental compliment paid her by Thornton Hastings, who was passing through Hanover and stopped over a train to see his old college friend and perhaps tell him what he began to feel it was his duty to tell him in spite of his promise to Anna. She was nearly well now and had driven with him twice to the park, but he could not be insensible to what she suffered, or how she shrank from hearing the proposed wedding discussed, and in his intense pity for her he had half resolved to break his word and tell Arthur what he knew. But he changed his mind when he had been in Hanover a few hours and watchedthe little fairy, who, like some ministering angel, glided about the sick-room, showing herself every whit a woman, and making him repent that he had ever called her frivolous or silly. She was not either, he said, and with a magnanimity for which he thought himself entitled to a good deal of praise, he felt that it was very possible for Arthur to love the gentle little girl who smoothed his pillows so tenderly, and whose fingers threaded so lovingly the dark brown locks when she thought he—Thornton—was not looking on. She was very coy ofhim, and very distant towards him, for she had not forgotten his sin, and she treated him at first with a reserve for which he could not account. But as the days went on and Arthur grew so sick that his parishioners began to tremble for their young minister’s life, and to think it perfectly right for Lucy to stay with him even if she was assisted in her labor of love by the stranger from New York, the reserve all disappeared, and on the most perfect terms of amity she and Thornton Hastings watched together by Arthur’s side.
Thornton Hastings learned more lessons than one in that sick-room where Arthur’s faith in God triumphed over the terrors of the grave which at one time seemed so near, while the timid Lucy, whom he had only known as a gay butterfly of fashion, dared before him to pray that God would spare her promised husband, or give her grace to say “Thy will be done.” Thornton could hardly say that he was skeptical before, but any doubts he mighthave had touching the great fundamental truths on which a true religion rests were gone forever, and he left Hanover a changed man in more respects than one.
Arthur did not die, and on the Sunday preceding the week when the Christmas decorations were to commence he came again before his people, his face very pale and worn, and wearing upon it a look which told of a new baptism,—an added amount of faith which had helped to lift him above the fleeting cares of this present life. And yet there was much of earth clinging to him still, and it made itself felt in the rapid beatings of his heart when he glanced towards the pew where Lucy knelt and knew that she was giving thanks for him restored again.
Once in the earlier stages of his convalescence he had almost betrayed his secret by asking her which she would rather do, bury him from her sight, feeling that he loved her to the last, or give him to another now that she knew he would recover.
There was a frightened look in Lucy’s eyes as she replied:
“I would ten thousand times rather see you dead, and know that even in death you were my own, than to lose you that other way. O Arthur, you have no thought of leaving me now?”
“No, darling, I have not. I am yours always,” he said, feeling that the compact was sealed forever, and that God blessed the sealing.
He had written to Mrs. Meredith, granting her his forgiveness, and asking that if Anna did not already know of the deception she might never be enlightened. And Mrs. Meredith had answered that Anna had only heard a rumor that an offer had been made her, but that she regarded it as a mistake, and was fast recovering both her health and spirits. Mrs. Meredith did not add her surprise at Arthur’s conscientiousness in adhering to his engagement, nor hint that her attack of conscience was so safely over; she was glad of it, for she still had hope of that house on Madison Square; but Arthur guessed at it and dismissed her from his mind, and waited with a trusting heart for whatever the future might bring.
CHAPTER XII.VALENCIA.
Very extensive preparations were making at Prospect Hill for the double wedding to occur on the 15th of January. After much debate and consultation, Fanny had decided to take Mr. Bellamy then, and thus she, too, shared largely in the general interest and excitement which pervaded everything. Both brides-elect were very happy, but in a widely different way, for while Fanny was quiet and undemonstrative Lucy seemed wild with joy and danced gayly about the house, now in the kitchen, where the cake was made, now in the chamber, where the plain sewing was done, and then flitting to her own room in quest of Valencia, who was sent on divers errands of mercy, the little lady thinking that as the time for her marriage was so near it would be proper for her to stop in-doors and not show herself in public quite so freely as she had been in the habit of doing. So she remained at home, and they missed her in the back streets and by-lanes, and the Widow Hobbs, who was still an invalid, pined for a sight of her bright face, and was only half consoled for its absence by the charities whichValencia brought, the smart waiting-maid putting on a great many airs and making Mrs. Hobbs feel keenly how greatly she thought herself demeaned by coming to such a heathenish place. The Hanoverians, too, missed her in the streets, but for this they made ample amends by discussing the preparations at Prospect Hill and commenting upon the bridal trousseau, which was sent from New York the week before Christmas, thus affording a most fruitful theme of comment for the women and maids engaged in trimming the church. There were dresses of every conceivable fashion, it was said, but none were quite so grand as the wedding-dress itself,—a heavy white silk which “could stand alone,” and trailed a full yard behind. It was also whispered that, not content with seeing the effect of her bridal robes as they lay upon the bed, Miss Lucy Harcourt had actually tried them on, wreath, veil, and all, and stood before the glass until Miss Fanny had laughed at her for being so vain and foolish, and said she was a pretty specimen for a sober clergyman’s wife. For all this gossip the villagers were indebted mostly to Valencia Le Barre, who, ever since her arrival at Prospect Hill, had been growing somewhat dissatisfied with the young mistress she had expected to rule even more completely than she had ruled Mrs. Meredith. But in this she was mistaken, and it did not improve her never very amiable temper to find that she could not with safety appropriate more than half her mistress’ handkerchiefs,collars, cuffs, and gloves, to say nothing of perfumery and pomades; and as this was a new state of things with Valencia, she chafed at the administration under which she had so willingly put herself, and told things of her mistress which no sensible servant would ever have reported. And Lucy gave her plenty to tell. Frank and outspoken as a child, she acted as she felt anddidtry on the bridal dress, did scream with delight when Valencia fastened the veil and let its fleecy folds fall gracefully around her.
“I wonder what Arthur will think. I so wish he was here,” she had said, ordering a glass brought, that she might see herself from behind, and know just how much her dress trailed, and how it looked beneath the costly veil.
She was very beautiful in her bridal robes, and she kept them on till Fanny began to chide her for her vanity, and even then she lingered before the mirror as if loth to take them off.
“I don’t believe in presentiments,” she said, “but do you know it seems to me just as if I should never wear this again,” and she smoothed thoughtfully the folds of the heavy silk she had just laid upon the bed. “I don’t know what can happen to prevent it, unless Arthur should die. He was so pale last Sunday, and seemed so weak that I shuddered every time I looked at him. I mean to drive round there this afternoon,” she continued.“I suppose it is too cold for him to venture out, and he has no carriage, either.”
Accordingly she went to the rectory that afternoon, and the women in the church saw her as she drove by, the gorgeous colors of her carriage-blanket flashing in the wintry sunshine, and the long white feather in her hat waving up and down as she nodded to them. There was a little too much of the lady patroness about her to suit the plain Hanoverians, especially those who were neither high enough nor low enough to be honored with her notice; and as they returned to their wreath-making and gossip, they wondered under their breath if it would not on the whole have been better if their clergyman had married Anna Ruthven, instead of the fine city girl with her Parisian manners. As they said this, a gleam of intelligence shot from the gray eyes of Valencia Le Barre, who was there at work in a most unamiable mood.
“Shedid not like to stain her hands with the nasty hemlock, more than other folks,” she had said, when, after the trying on of the bridal dress, Lucy had remonstrated with her for some duty neglected, and then bidden her go to the church and help if she was needed.
“I must certainly dismiss you unless you improve,” Lucy had said to the insolent girl, who went unwillingly to the church, where she sat tying wreaths when the carriage went by.
She had thought many times of the letter she had read,and more than once when particularly angry it had been upon her lips to tell her mistress that she was not Mr. Leighton’sfirstchoice, if indeed she was his choice at all; but there was something in Lucy’s manner which held her back, besides which she was rather unwilling to confess to her own meanness in reading the stolen letter.
“Icouldtell them something if I would,” she thought, as she bent over the hemlock boughs, and listened to the remarks; but for that time she kept her secret and worked on moodily, while the unsuspecting Lucy went her way, and was soon alighting at the parsonage-gate.
Arthur saw her as she came up the walk, and went out to meet her. He was looking very pale and miserable, and his clothes hung loosely upon him, but he welcomed her kindly, and lead her in to the fire, and tried to believe that he was glad to see her sitting there with her little high-heeled boots upon the fender, and the bright hues of her balmoral just showing beneath her dress of blue merino. She went all over the house as she usually did, suggesting alterations and improvements, and greatly confusing good Mrs. Brown, who trudged obediently after her, wondering what she and her master were ever to do with the gay-plumaged bird, whose ways were so unlike their own.
“You must drive with me to the church,” she said at last to Arthur. “Fresh air will do you good, and you stay moped up too much. I wanted you to-day at ProspectHill, for this morning the express from New York brought—” she stood up on tiptoe to whisper the great news to him, but his pulses did not quicken in the least, even when she told him how charming was the bridal dress.
He was standing before the mirror, and glancing at himself, he said half laughingly, half sadly, “I am a pitiful-looking bridegroom to go with all that finery. I should not think you would want me, Lucy.”
“But I do,” she answered, holding his hand and leading him to the carriage, which took him swiftly to the church.
He had not intended going there as long as there was an excuse for staying away, and he felt himself grow sick and faint when he stood amid the Christmas decorations, and remembered the last year, when he and Anna had fastened the wreaths upon the wall. They were trimming the church very elaborately in honor of him and his bride-elect, and white artificial flowers, so natural that they could not be detected from the real, were mixed with scarlet leaves and placed among the mass of green. The effect was very fine, and Arthur tried to praise it, but his face belied his words, and after he was gone, the disappointed girls declared that he looked more like a man about to be hung, than one so soon to be married.
It was very late that night when Lucy summoned Valencia to comb out her long, thick curls, and Valenciawas tired and cross and sleepy, and handled the brush so awkwardly, and snarled her mistress’s hair so often, that Lucy expostulated with her sharply, and this awoke the slumbering demon, which, bursting into full life, could no longer be restrained, and in amazement which kept her silent, Lucy listened, while Valencia vulgarly taunted her with “standing in Anna Ruthven’s shoes,” and told all she knew of the letter stolen by Mrs. Meredith, and the one she carried to Arthur. But Valencia’s anger quickly cooled, and she trembled with fear when she saw how deathly white her distress grew, and even heard the loud beating of the heart which seemed trying to burst from its prison, and fall bleeding at the feet of the poor, wretched girl, around whose lips the white foam gathered as she motioned Valencia to stop, and whispered “I am dying.”
She wasnotdying, but the fainting-fit which ensued was more like death than that which had come upon Anna when she heard that Arthur was lost. Once they really thought her dead, and in an agony of remorse Valencia hung over her, accusing herself as a murderess, but giving no other explanation to those around her than:
“I was combing her hair when the white froth spirted all over her wrapper, and she said that she was dying.”
And that was all the family know of the strange attack which lasted till the dawn of day, and left upon Lucy’s face a look as if years and years of roguish had passedover her young head, and left its footprints behind. Early in the morning she asked to see Valencia alone, and the repentant girl went to her, prepared to take back all she had said, and declare the whole a lie. But something in Lucy’s manner wrung the truth from her, and she repeated the story again so clearly, that Lucy had no longer a doubt that Anna was preferred to herself, and sending Valencia away, she moaned piteously:
“Oh, what shall I do? What is my duty?”
The part which hurt her most of all was the terrible certainty that Arthur did not loveher, as he loved Anna Ruthven. She seemed intuitively to understand it all, and see how in an unguarded moment he had offered himself to save her good name from gossip, and how ever since his life had been a constant struggle to do his duty by her.
“Poor Arthur,” she sobbed, “yours has been a hard lot, trying to act the love you did not feel; but it shall be so no longer, for I will set you free.”
This was her final decision, but she did not reach it till a day and night had passed, during which she lay with her face turned to the wall, saying she wanted nothing except to be left alone.
“When I can, I’ll tell you,” she had said to Fanny and her aunt, who insisted upon knowing the cause of her distress. “When I can, I’ll tell you all about it. Leave me alone till then.”
So they ceased to worry her, but Fanny sat constantly in the room watching the motionless figure, which took whatever she offered, but otherwise gave no sign of life until the morning of the second day, when it turned slowly towards her, and the livid lips quivered piteously and made an attempt to smile as they said:
“I can tell you now. I have made up my mind.”
Fanny’s eyes were dim with the truest tears she had ever shed when Lucy’s story was ended, and her voice was very low as she asked:
“And you mean to give him up at this late hour?”
“Yes, I mean to give him up. I have been over the entire ground many times, even to the deep humiliation of what people will say, and I have come each time to the same conclusion. It is right that Arthur should be released, and I shall release him.”
“And what willyoudo?” Fanny asked, gazing in wonder and awe at the young girl, who answered: “I do not know; I have not thought. I guess God will take care of that.”
And Goddidtake care ofthat, and inclined the Hetherton family to be very kind and tender towards her, and kept Arthur from the house until the Christmas decorations were completed and the Christmas festival was held. Many were the inquiries made for Lucy on Christmas Eve, and many thanks and wishes for her speedy restoration were sent to her by those whom shehad so bountifully remembered. Thornton Hastings, too, who had come to town and was present at the church on Christmas Eve, asked for her with almost as much interest as Arthur, who bade Fanny tell her that he should call on her on the morrow after the morning service.
“Oh, I cannot see him here! I must tell him at the rectory in the very room where he asked me to be his wife,” Lucy said, when Fanny reported Arthur’s message. “I am able to ride there, and it will be fine sleighing to-morrow. See, the snow is falling now,” and pushing back the curtain Lucy looked drearily out upon the fast-whitening ground, sighing as she remembered the night when the first snow-flakes were falling, and she stood watching them with Arthur at her side.
Fanny did not oppose her cousin, and with a kiss upon the blue-veined forehead, she went to her own room and left her to think for the hundredth timewhatshe should say to Arthur.
CHAPTER XIII.CHRISTMAS DAY.
The worshippers at St. Mark’s on Christmas morning heard the music of the bells as the Hetherton sleigh dashed by, but none of them knew whither it was bound or dreamed of the scene which awaited the rector when after the services were over he started towards home. Lucy had kept to her resolution, and just as Mrs. Brown was looking at the clock to see if it was time to put her fowls to bake, she heard the hall door open softly, and almost dropped her dripping-pan in her surprise at the sight of Lucy Harcourt, who looked so mournfully at her as she said:
“I want to go to Arthur’s room,—the library, I mean.”
“Why, child, what is the matter? I heard you was sick, but did not s’spose ’twas anything very bad. You are paler than a ghost,” Mrs. Brown exclaimed, as she tried to unfasten Lucy’s hood and cloak and lead her to the fire.
But Lucy was not cold, and would rather go at once to Arthur’s room. So Mrs. Brown made no objection,though she wondered if the girl was crazy as she went back to her fowls and Christmas pudding, and left Lucy to find her way alone to Arthur’s study, which looked so like its owner, with his dressing-gown across the lounge just where he had thrown it, his slippers on the rug, and his arm-chair standing near the table, where he had sat when he asked Lucy to be his wife, and where she now sat down, panting heavily for breath and gazing drearily around with the look of a frightened bird when seeking for some avenue of escape from an appalling danger. Therewasno escape, and with a moan she laid her head upon the writing-table, and prayed that Arthur might come quickly while she had sense and strength to tell him. She heard his step at last, and rose up to meet him, smiling a little at his sudden start when he saw her there.
“It’s only I,” she said, shedding back the curls from her pallid face and grasping the chair to steady herself and keep from falling. “I am not here to frighten or worry you. I’ve come to do you good,—to set you free. O Arthur, you do not know how terribly you have been wronged, and I did not know it either till a few days ago! She never received your letter,—Anna never did. If she had she would have answered yes and been in my place now; but she is going to be there. I give you up to Anna. I’m here to tell you so. But O Arthur, it hurts,—it hurts—”
He knew it hurt by the agonized expression of her face, but he could not go near her for a moment, so great was his surprise at what he saw and heard. But when the first shock for them both was past, and he could listen to her more rational account of what she knew and what she was there to do, he refused to listen. He knew it all before, and he would not be free; he would keep his word, he said. Matters had gone too far to be so suddenly ended; he held her to her promise, and she must be his wife.
“Can you tell me truly that you lovememore than Anna?” Lucy asked, a ray of hope dawning for an instant upon her heart, but fading into utter darkness as Arthur hesitated to answer her.
Hedidlove Anna best, though never had Lucy been so near supplanting her as at that moment when she stood before him and told him he was free. There was something in the magnitude of her generosity which touched him closely, and made her dearer to him than she had ever been.
“I can make you very happy,” he said at last, and Lucy replied, “Yes, but how with yourself? Would you be happy too? No, Arthur, you would not, and neither should I, knowing what I do. It is best that we should part, though it almost breaks my heart, for I have loved you so much.”
She stopped for breath, and Arthur was wonderingwhat he should say next, when a cheery whistle sounded near, and Thornton Hastings appeared in the door. He had just returned from the post-office, whither he had gone after church, and not knowing any one but Arthur was in the library, had come there at once.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, when he saw Lucy; and he was hurrying away, but Lucy called him back, feeling that in him she would find a powerful ally to aid her in her task.
Appealing to him as Arthur’s friend, she repeated Valencia’s story rapidly, and then went on: “Anna never knew of that letter,—or she would have answered yes. I know she loves him, for I can remember a thousand things which prove it, and I know he has loved her best all the time, even when trying so hard to love me. Oh, how it hurts me to think he had totryto love me who loved him so much. But that is all past now. I give him up to Anna, and you must help me as if I were your sister. Tell him it is best. He must not argue against me, for I feel myself giving way through my great love for him, and I know it is not right. Tell him, Mr. Hastings; plead my cause for me; say what a true woman ought to say, for, believe me, I am in earnest in giving him to Anna.”
There was a ghastly hue upon her face, and her features looked pinched and rigid, but the terrible heartbeats were not there. God in His great mercy kept themback, else she had surely died under that strong excitement. Thornton thought she was fainting, and going hastily to her side, passed his arm around her and put her in the chair; then standing by her, he said just what first came into his mind to say. It was a delicate matter in which to interfere, but he handled it carefully, telling frankly what had passed between himself and Anna, and giving as his opinion, that she loved Arthur to-day just as well as before she left Hanover.
“Then it is surely right for Arthur to marry her, and he must!” Lucy exclaimed vehemently, while Thornton laid his hand pityingly upon her head, and said, “And only you be sacrificed.”
There was something wonderfully tender in the tone of Thornton’s voice, and Lucy glanced quickly at him while her eyes filled with the first tears she had shed since she came into the room.
“I am willing; I am ready; I have made up my mind, and I shall never unmake it,” she answered, while Arthur put in a feeble remonstrance.
But Thornton was on Lucy’s side, and did with his cooler judgment what she could not; and when at last the interview was ended, there was no ring on Lucy’s forefinger, for Arthur held it in his hand, and their engagement was at an end. Stunned with what he had passed through, he stood motionless while Thornton drew Lucy’s cloak about her shoulders, fastened her fur, tied on her satinhood, and took such care of her as a mother would take of a suffering child.
“It is hardly safe to send her home alone,” he thought, as he looked into her face and saw how weak she was. “As a friend of both I ought to accompany her.”
She was indeed so weak that she could scarcely stand, and Thornton took her in his arms and carried her to the sleigh; then springing in beside her, he made her lean her tired head upon his shoulder as they drove to Prospect Hill. She did not seem frivolous to him now, but rather the noblest type of womanhood he had ever met. Few could have done what she had, and there was much of warmth and fervor in the clasp of his hand as he bade her good-by, and went back to the rectory.
Great was the consternation and surprise in Hanover when it was known that there was to be but one bride at Prospect Hill on the night of the 15th, and various were the surmises as to the cause of the sudden change; but strive as they might, the good people of the village could not get at the truth, for Valencia held her peace, while the Hethertons were far too proud to admit of their being questioned, and Thornton Hastings stood a bulwark of defence between the people and the clergyman, and managed to have the pulpit at St. Mark’s supplied for a few weeks, while he took Arthur away, saying that his health required the change.
“You have done nobly, darling,” Fanny Hetherton had said to Lucy when she received her from Thornton’s hands and heard that all was over. Then, leading her half-fainting cousin to her own cheerful room, she made her lie down while she told her of the plan she had formed when first she heard what Lucy’s intentions were. “I wrote to Mr. Bellamy asking if he would take a trip to Europe, so that you could go with us, for I knew you would not wish to stay here. To-day I have his answer saying he will go; and what is better yet, father and mother are going, too.”
“Oh I am so glad! I could not stay here now,” Lucy replied, sobbing herself to sleep, while Fanny sat by and watched, wondering at the strength which had upheld her weak little cousin in the struggle she had been through, and feeling, too, that it was just as well, for after all it was amésalliancefor an heiress like her cousin to marry a poor clergyman.
There was a great wedding at Prospect Hill on the night of the 15th, but neither Lucy nor Arthur were there. He lay sick again at the St. Denis, in New York, and she was alone in her chamber fighting back her tears, and praying that now the worst was over she might be withheld from looking back and wishing the work undone. She went with the bridal party to New York, where she tarried for a few days, but saw no one but Anna, forwhom she sent at once. The interview lasted more than an hour, and Anna’s eyes were swollen with weeping when at last it ended; but Lucy’s face, though white as snow, was very calm and quiet, and wore a peaceful, placid look which made it like the face of an angel. Two weeks later, and the steamer Java bore her away across the water, where she hoped to outlive the storm which had beaten so piteously upon her. Thornton Hastings and Anna went with her on board the ship, and for their sakes she tried to appear natural, succeeding so well that it was a very pleasant picture, which Thornton kept in his mind, of a frail little figure standing upon the deck, holding its water-proof together with one hand, and with the other waving a smiling adieu to Anna and himself.
More than a year later Thornton Hastings followed that figure across the sea, and found it in beautiful Venice, sailing again through the moonlit streets, and listening to the music which came so oft from the passing gondolas. It had recovered its former roundness, and the face was even more beautiful than it had been before, for the light frivolity was gone, and there was in its stead a peaceful, subdued expression which made Lucy Harcourt more attractive than she had ever been. At least so Thornton Hastings thought, and he lingered at her side, and felt glad that she gave no outward token of agitation when he said to her:
“There was a wedding at St. Mark’s in Hanover justbefore I left. Can you guess who the happy couple were?”
“Yes, Arthur and Anna. She wrote me they were to be married on Christmas eve. I am so glad it has come around at last.”
Then she questioned him of the bridal,—of Arthur,—and even of Anna’s dress, her manner evincing that the old wound had healed, or was healing very fast, and that soon only a scar would remain to tell where it had been.
And so the days went on beneath the sunny Italian skies, until one glorious night in Rome, when they sat together amid the ruins of the Colosseum, and Thornton spoke his mind, alluding to the time when each had loved another, expressing himself as glad that in his case the matter had ended as it did, and then asking Lucy if she could conscientiously be his wife.
“What! You marry a frivolous plaything like me?” Lucy asked, her woman’s pride flashing up once more, but this time playfully, as Thornton knew by the joyous light in her eye.
She told him what she meant, and how she had hated him for it, and then they laughed together, but Thornton’s kiss smothered the laugh on Lucy’s lips, for he guessed what her answer was, and that this, his second wooing, was more successful than his first had been.
“Married, in Rome, on Thursday, April 10th,Thornton Hastings, Esq., of New York City, toMiss Lucy Harcourt, also of New York, and niece of Colonel James Hetherton.”
Anna was out in the rectory garden bending over a bed of hyacinths when Arthur brought her the paper and pointed to the notice.
“Oh, I am so glad, soglad, soGLAD!” she exclaimed, emphasizing each successive glad a little more, and setting down her foot as if to give it force. “I have never dared be quite as happy with you as I might,” she continued, leaning lovingly against her husband, “for there was always a thought of Lucy, and what a fearful price she paid for our happiness. But now it is all as it should be, and, Arthur, am I very vain in thinking that she is better suited to Thornton Hastings than I ever was, and that I do better as your wife than Lucy would have done?”
A kiss was Arthur’s only answer, but Anna was satisfied, and there rested upon her face a look of perfect content as all that warm spring afternoon she walked in her pleasant garden, thinking of the newly married pair in Rome, and glancing occasionally at the open window of the library where Arthur was, busy with his sermon, his pen moving all the faster for the knowing that Anna was just within his call,—that by turning his head he could see her dear face, and that by and by, when hiswork was done, she would come in to him, and with her loving words and winsome ways make him forget how tired he was, and thank Heaven again for the great gift bestowed when it gave him Anna Ruthven.
THE END.
THE END.
THE END.
1874. 1874. G. W. CARLETON & CO.
NEW BOOKSAND NEW EDITIONSRECENTLY ISSUED BYG. W. Carleton & Co., Publishers,Madison Square, New York.The Publishers, upon receipt of the price in advance, will send any book on this Catalogue by mail,postage free, to any part of the United States.All books in this list [unless otherwise specified] are handsomely bound in cloth board binding, with gilt backs, suitable for libraries.
NEW BOOKSAND NEW EDITIONSRECENTLY ISSUED BYG. W. Carleton & Co., Publishers,Madison Square, New York.The Publishers, upon receipt of the price in advance, will send any book on this Catalogue by mail,postage free, to any part of the United States.All books in this list [unless otherwise specified] are handsomely bound in cloth board binding, with gilt backs, suitable for libraries.
NEW BOOKS
AND NEW EDITIONS
RECENTLY ISSUED BY
G. W. Carleton & Co., Publishers,
Madison Square, New York.
The Publishers, upon receipt of the price in advance, will send any book on this Catalogue by mail,postage free, to any part of the United States.
All books in this list [unless otherwise specified] are handsomely bound in cloth board binding, with gilt backs, suitable for libraries.