The glowing September sun had rarely revealed a sadder group than that which still watched beside poor Belle. At last Roger looked at his watch and said:
"I will now go and see Mr. Wentworth, and bring Mrs. Wheaton."
"Very well, Roger," Mildred replied, "we leave everything in your hands."
"Millie, I can't bear to have Belle placed in one of the crowded city cemeteries. Would you not be willing to have her sleep in our tree-shadowed graveyard at Forestville? We could keep flowers on her grave there as long as we lived."
"Oh, Roger, how kind of you to think of that! It would be such a comfort to us!"
"I will take her there myself on the evening boat," he said decisively, and he hastened away feeling that he must act promptly, for his aching head and limbs led him to fear that Belle's fever was already in his veins. Mr. Wentworth overflowed with sympathy, and hastened to the afflicted family with nourishing delicacies. Mrs. Wheaton soon followed, tearful and regretful.
"I didn't know," she said; "I've 'ad a sick child or I'd a been hover before. Not 'earing from you I thought hall vas veil, and there's the poor dear dead, an' I might 'ave done so much for 'er."
"No, Mrs. Wheaton, all was done that could be done in this poisoned air. We feared you might catch the fever if you came, and we knew you would come."
"Hindeed I vould, if you hall 'ad the small-pox. Now I'm going to do heverything," and she fretted at every effort of the exhausted watchers to help her.
Eoger telegraphed his father to meet him at the boat with the village hearse. The news spread fast, and the little community was soon deeply stirred with sympathetic interest. Mrs. Jocelyn was too weak to endure the journey, and Mildred would not leave her. Therefore Mr. Wentworth held a simple, heartfelt service over the one they all so loved, and Roger departed on his sad errand. He was eager to get away, and, if the thought of Belle had not been uppermost in all minds, it would have been seen that he was far from well in spite of his almost desperate efforts to hide his illness. His father found him on the boat delirious with fever. The old man's face was haggard and drawn as he returned to Forestville with his two helpless burdens, grieving far more for the one that was ill than for the one that was dead. "It's turning out just as brother Ezra said," he growled. "A man's a fool to mix himself up with other people's troubles." The interest in the village deepened into strong excitement when it became known that Roger was ill with the fever that had caused Belle's death, some timid ones fearing that a pestilence would soon be raging in their midst. But the great majority yielded to their good impulses, and Mrs. Atwood was overwhelmed with offers of assistance. Several young farmers to whom Belle had given a heartache a few weeks before volunteered to watch beside her until the funeral, and there was a deeper ache in their hearts as they sat reverently around the fair young sleeper. The funeral was a memorable one in Forestville, for the most callous heart was touched by the pathos of the untimely death.
Meanwhile poor Roger was tossing in fever and muttering constantly of his past life. The name, however, oftenest on his lips was that of Millie Jocelyn.
Never before in all the troubled past did the poor girl so need his sustaining love as on the night he left her. Mr. Wentworth spent an hour with the sad mother and daughter after the others had gone, and then sorrowfully departed, saying that he had an engagement out of town, and that he would come again immediately on his return. Mrs. Wheaton had gone home, promising that she would come back in the evening and spend the night with them, for she had a neighbor who would take care of the children, and so at last the two stricken women were left alone.
Mildred was bathing her mother's head and trying to comfort her when the door opened, and a haggard, unkempt man stood before them. For a second they looked at him in vague terror, for he stood in a deep shadow, and then Mrs. Jocelyn cried, "Martin! Martin!" and tears came to her relief at last.
He approached slowly and tremblingly. Mildred was about to throw herself into his arms, but he pushed her away. His manner began to fill them with a vague, horrible dread, for he acted like a spectre of a man.
"Where are the children?" he asked hoarsely.
"We have sent them to the country. Oh, papa, do be kind and natural—you will kill mamma."
"There is crape on the door-knob," he faltered. "Where's Belle?"
"Oh, oh, oh!" sobbed Mildred, "Papa, papa, have mercy on us. Can't you sustain and help us at such a time as this?"
"She is dead, then," he whispered, and he sank into a chair as if struck down.
"Yes, she's dead. You were the first one she asked for when she came out of her fever."
"Great God! my punishment is greater than I can bear," he groaned.
"Oh, Martin," pleaded his wife, "come to me," and too weak to rise from her couch she held out her arms to him.
He looked at her with a remorse and agony in his expression that were indescribable. "No, Nan," he said, "I'm not fit for you to touch now. I'm murdering you all," and he went hastily to his room and locked the door.
They waited, scarcely breathing in their deep apprehension.
In a few moments he came out, and his face was rigid and desperate in its aspect. In spite of his repelling gesture Mildred clasped him in her arms. The embrace seemed to torture him. "Let me go!" he cried, breaking away. "I poison the very air I breathe. You both are like angels of heaven and I—O God! But the end has come," and he rushed out into the gathering darkness. Mrs. Jocelyn tried to follow him, and fell prostrate with a despairing cry on the floor.
Mildred's first impulse was to restore her mother, without seeking help, in the faint hope that her father would return, for she had learned what strange alternations of mood opium produces; but as the sense of his words grew clearer she was overpowered, and trembled so violently that she was compelled to call to her help a neighbor—a plain, good-hearted woman who lived on the same floor. When at last Mrs. Jocelyn revived she murmured piteously:
"Oh, Millie, why didn't you let me die?"
"Mamma," pleaded the girl, "how can you even think of leaving me?"
"Millie, Millie darling, I fear I must. My heart feels as if it were bleeding internally. Millie"—and she grasped her child's shoulder convulsively, "Millie, look in his room for—for—his pistol."
"Oh, mamma, mamma!"
"Look, look!" said her mother excitedly. "I can't bear the suspense."
Thinking that her mother was a little hysterical, and that compliance would quiet her, Mildred went to the place where her father always kept his cavalry revolver—the one memento left of his old heroic army life. IT WAS GONE!
She almost sank to the floor in terror, nor did she dare return to her mother.
"Millie, Millie, quick!" came in a faint cry from the outer room.
The poor girl rushed forward and buried her face in her mother's bosom, sobbing, "Mamma, oh mamma, live for my sake."
"I knew it, I knew it," said the stricken wife, with a long low cry. "I saw it in his desperate face. Oh, Martin, Martin, we will die together!"
She clasped Mildred tightly, trembled convulsively a moment, and then her arms fell back, and she was as still as poor Belle had been.
"Oh, mamma!" Mildred almost shrieked, but she was far beyond recall, and the suffering heart was at rest.
When the woman returned with the cup of tea she had gone to prepare for Mrs. Jocelyn, she found the young girl leaning forward unconscious on the bosom of the dead mother.
When she revived it was only to moan and wring her hands in despair. Mrs. Wheaton soon appeared, and having learned what had happened she threw her apron over her head and rocked back and forth in her strong sympathetic grief. But her good heart was not long content with tears, and she took Mildred into her arms and said:
"I vill be a mother to you, and you shall never vant a 'ome vile I 'ave von," and the motherless girl clung to her in a way that did the kind soul a world of good.
Before the evening was very far advanced a boy brought a note to the door. Mildred seized it and asked:
"Who gave it to you?"
"I don't know—a man. He pointed to this door, and then he went away very fast."
She tore it open, and read in horror: "My darling wife, dear beyond all words in these my final despairing moments. My love for you and those left is the only trace of good remaining in my heart. I die for your sakes. My continued existence would be a curse, for I have lost my manhood. I am possessed by a devil that I can't control. I cannot ask you to forgive me. I can never forgive myself. Farewell. After I am gone, brighter days will come to you all. Pity me if you can, forgive me if you can, and remember me as I was before—" And there the terrible missive ended.
For an hour the girl lay moaning as if in mortal pain, and then the physician who was summoned gave her a sedative which made her sleep long and heavily. It was quite late in the morning when she awoke, and the events that had passed first came to her like a horrid dream, and then grew into terrible reality. But she was not left to meet the emergency alone, for Mrs. Wheaton and Clara Wilson watched beside her. The latter in her strong sympathy had come to the city to take Mildred and her mother to the country, and she said to Mrs. Wheaton that she would now never leave her friend until she was in the breezy farm-house.
After a natural outburst of grief Mildred again proved that Arnold's estimate of her was correct. She was equal to even this emergency, for she eventually grew quiet and resolute. "I must find papa," she said.
"Shall I?" Mrs. Wilson asked Mrs. Wheaton significantly.
"Yes, Millie is more hof a soldier than hany hof us."
"Well," continued Mrs. Wilson, "Mrs. Wheaton found this in the morning paper: 'An unknown man committed suicide on the steps of No. 73——Street. His remains have been taken to the Morgue for identification.'"
For a few moments Mildred so trembled and looked so crushed that they feared for her exceedingly. "Poor papa!" she moaned, "he was just insane from remorse and opium. Seventy-three——Street! Why, that was the house in which we used to live. It was there that papa spent his first happy years in this city, and it was there he went to die. Oh, how dreadful, how inexpressibly sad it all is! What shall we do?"
"Leave hall to me," said Mrs. Wheaton. "Mrs. Wilson, you stay 'ere with the poor dear, an' I'll hattend to heverything."
Mildred was at last too overpowered to do more than lie on the lounge, breathing in long tremulous sighs.
Mrs. Wheaton went at once to the Morgue and found that the "unknown man" was indeed Mr. Jocelyn, and yet he had so changed, and a bullet-hole in his temple had given him such a ghastly appearance, that it was difficult to realize that he was the handsome, courtly gentleman who had first brought his beautiful daughter to the old mansion.
Mrs. Wheaton represented to the authorities that he was very poor, that his daughter was an orphan and overcome with grief, and that she now was the nearest friend of the afflicted girl. Her statement was accepted, and then with her practical good sense she attended to everything.
During her absence Mildred had sighed, "Oh, I do so wish that Eoger Atwood were here. He gives me hope and courage when no one else can."
"Millie," said Mrs. Wilson tearfully, "for his sake you must rally and be braver than you have ever been before. I think his life now depends upon you. He has the fever, and in his delirium he calls for you constantly."
At first Mrs. Wilson thought the shock of her tidings would be more disastrous to the poor girl, already so unnerved and exhausted, than all the terrible events which had thus far occurred. "I have brought him nothing but suffering and misfortune," she cried. "He gave up everything for us, and now we may cost him his life."
"Millie, he is not dead, and you, if any one, can bring him life."
She had touched the right chord, for the young girl soon became quiet and resolute. "He never failed me," she said in a low voice, "and I won't fail him."
"That is the right way to feel," said Mrs. Wilson eagerly. "I now think that everything depends on your courage and fortitude. Mrs. Wheaton and I have planned it all out. We'll go to Forestville on the evening boat, and take your father's and mother's remains with us."
Mrs. Wheaton learned from the undertaker connected with Mr. Wentworth's chapel that the clergyman would not be back until evening, and she told the former to tell their pastor all that had occurred, and to ask him to keep the circumstances of Mr. Jocelyn's death as quiet as possible.
The man was discreet and energetic, and they were all so expeditious that the evening saw them with their sad freight on the way to Forestville, the keys of Mildred's rooms having been left with the kind woman who had befriended her in the sudden and awful emergency. Mrs. Wheaton parted from Mildred as if she were her own child, and went mournfully back to her busy, useful life. Mr. and Mrs. Jocelyn were buried with a quiet, simple service beside poor Belle, and sensible Mrs. Wilson soon inspired the good-hearted village people with the purpose to spare the feelings of the stricken girl in every possible way. Mildred caressed her little brother and sister with the tenderness of a mother added to her sisterly affection, and she was comforted to see how much they had already improved in the pure country air. "Oh, Clara," she said, "what a friend you have been to me! God alone can repay you."
"Millie," Mrs. Wilson earnestly replied, "I owe you a debt I can never pay. I owe you and darling Belle happiness and prosperity for this life, and my hope of the life to come. My husband is strong and prosperous, and he says J shall do all that's in my heart for you. Oh, Millie, he is so good to me, and he cried over Belle like a child. I thought I loved him before, but when I saw those tears I just worshipped him. He has a man's heart, like Roger. Now, Millie, I'm going to keep these children as long as you'll let me, and treat them as my own. I feel that the promise has been given to me that they'll grow up to be a great comfort to us both."
On the evening after the funeral Mildred went to aid in the care of Roger, and Mrs. Atwood greeted her with all the warmth and tenderness that a daughter would have received. Even Mr. Atwood drew his sleeve across his eyes as he said, "If you'll help us save our boy, you'll find that I'm not as crabbed and crooked a stick as I seem."
Mildred was shocked and her heart chilled with fear at the change in Roger, but her hand upon his brow and her voice did more to quiet him than all the physician's remedies. She became his almost tireless watcher, and she said hopefully that the bracing autumn winds rustled around the farmhouse like the wings of ministering angels, and that they would bring life and health to the fever-stricken man. They all wondered at her endurance, for while she looked so frail she proved herself so strong. At last the crisis came, as it had in Belle's case, but instead of waking to die he passed from delirium into a quiet sleep, Mildred holding his hand, and when he opened his eyes with the clear glance of intelligence, they first looked upon her dear face. "Millie," he whispered.
She put her fingers upon her lips, smiled, and said, "I won't leave you if you will be good and do all I say. You never failed me yet, Roger, and you must not now."
"I'll surely get well if you stay with me, Millie," he answered contentedly, and soon he slept again as quietly as a child.
Our story passes rapidly over the events of the ensuing months. In his native mountain air, and under the impulse of his strong, unbroken constitution, Roger recovered rapidly and steadily. As soon as he was strong enough he went to the village cemetery, and, leaning his head on Belle's grave, sobbed until Mildred led him away. For a long time tears would come into his eyes whenever the names of Mrs. Jocelyn and the young girl he loved so fondly were mentioned. He and Mildred planted the sacred place thick with roses and spring-flowering bulbs.
Mildred resisted all entreaties to remain in the country, saying that she was a city girl at heart, and that, with Mr. Wentworth's aid, she could easily earn her livelihood in town, and do much for Fred and Minnie. Moreover, she felt that she could not be parted from Roger, for seemingly he had become an inseparable part of her life. The experiences he had shared with her were developing within him a strong and noble manhood, and he vowed that the young girl who had known so much sorrow should have all the happiness that he could bring to pass.
When Mrs. Wheaton learned of Mildred's purpose to return to town, she took more commodious apartments in the old mansion, and set apart a room for the young girl. She also sold most of her own things and took Mildred's furniture out of storage, so that the place might seem familiar and homelike to her friend.
When Roger had almost recovered his wonted health, Mrs. Atwood told her husband that he must go with her to visit his brother in town, for the worthy woman had a project on her mind which she carried out with characteristic directness and simplicity.
They surprised Mr. and Mrs. Ezra Atwood at breakfast, and partook of the cheer offered them rather grimly and silently. After the meal was over Roger's mother said, without any circumlocution:
"Brother-in-law, I've come to have a plain, honest talk with you, and if you're a true Atwood you'll listen to me. I want your wife and my husband to be present. We are nigh of kin, but we are forgetting ties which the Lord hath ordained. Ezra, I believe you are a good man at heart, but, like my husband, you set too much store by things that perish in the using. My boy has taught me that there are better things in this world, and we'll all soon be where we may look on money as a curse. You have not spoken to my son since last spring, and you've been cold toward us. I want you to know the truth, and realize what you're doing; then if you go on in this way, you must settle it with your own conscience;" and with a homely pathos all her own she told the whole story.
The uncle at first tried to be grim and obstinate, but he soon broke down completely. "I'm glad you've come," he said huskily. "My conscience hasn't given me any peace for months, and I wanted to give in, but you know that it's like drawing an eye-tooth for an Atwood to give in. I'm proud of the boy, and he'll be a blessing to us all. He IS a new departure in the family; he's got more brains than any of us, and with it all a big, brave heart. He shall marry the girl if he wants to; and now that her old wretch of a father is dead, no harm need come of it. But they're young; they must wait until Roger is educated up to the best of 'em. Well, now that I've given in, there shall be no half-way work," and he insisted on sending for his lawyer and making his will in Roger's favor at once.
"I didn't come for any such purpose as this," said Roger's mother, wiping her eyes, while his father could scarcely conceal his exultation; "but I felt that it was time for us to stop living like heathen," and after a visit of a very different nature from the one they had feared, the worthy couple returned to Forestville well content with the results of their expedition.
Roger was jubilant over the news, and he hastened to impart it to Mildred, who was spending the remaining weeks of her sojourn in the country with her friend Mrs. Wilson.
"Millie," he said, "you shall never want again. My good fortune would be nothing to me unless I shared it with you."
But she disappointed him by saying, "No, Roger, you must let me live the independent life that my nature requires," and the only concession that he could obtain from her was a promise to receive his aid should any emergency require it.
Before Mildred's return a letter from Vinton Arnold was forwarded to her at Forestville, and it must be admitted that it gave her sad heart something like a thrill of happiness. It was an eloquent and grateful outpouring of affection, and was full of assurances that she had now given him a chance for life and happiness.
When she told Roger, he looked very grim for a moment, and then by a visible effort brightened up and said, "It's all right, Millie." After pacing the room for a few moments with a contracted brow, he continued, "Millie, you must grant me one request—you must not say anything to Arnold about me."
"How can I say anything then about myself?" she answered. "I want him to know that I owe everything to you, and I hope to see the day when you will be the closest of friends."
"Well, that will be a good way on. I must see him first, and learn more about him, and—well, friends related as Arnold will be to me are not common. I've too much of the old untamed man in me to go readily into that kind of thing. I will do anything in the world for you, but you must not expect much more till I have a few gray hairs in my head. Come now, you must humor me a little in this affair; you can say generally that some friends were kind, and all that, without much personal reference to me. If you should write as you propose, he might be jealous, or—worse yet—write me a letter of thanks. It may prevent complications, and will certainly save me some confoundedly disagreeable experiences. After I've seen him and get more used to it all, I may feel differently."
"You certainly will, Roger. Your life will gradually become so rich, full, and happy, that some day you will look back in wonder at your present feelings."
"Life will be full enough if work can make it so; but you must not expect me to outgrow this. It will strengthen with my years. It's my nature as well as yours. But I foresee how it will be," he continued despondently; "I shall inevitably be pushed further and further into the background. In your happy home life—"
Before he could utter another word Mildred was sobbing passionately. "Roger," she cried, "don't talk that way. I can't bear it. If Vinton is jealous of you, if he fails in manly appreciation of you, I will never marry him. Strong as my love is for him, such a course would destroy it. There are certain kinds of weakness that I can't and won't tolerate."
He was surprised and deeply touched, for her manner was usually so quiet and well controlled that even he was at times tempted to forget how strong and passionate was her nature on occasions sufficient to awaken it. "There, Millie, I've hurt your feelings," he said remorsefully. "Even I do not half understand your good, kind heart. Well, you must have patience with me. When the right time comes my deeds will satisfy you, I think, though my words are now so unpromising. But please don't deny me—don't say anything about me until I give you permission. What has occurred between us is sacred to me—it's our affair."
"Very well, if you so wish it; but never even think again that you will ever be less to me than you are now."
Nevertheless he went sadly away, saying to himself, "She's sincere, Heaven knows, but what I said will be true in spite of her best intentions."
The next day, after many farewells and an hour spent beside Belle's grave, Roger returned to the city, far better prepared for life's battle than when he first left his native village. Two or three days later Mildred followed him, accompanied by Mrs. Wilson, who was determined to see her safely settled in Mrs. Wheaton's care. Pain and pleasure were almost equally blended in Mildred's experience as she looked upon the furniture and the one or two pictures that had escaped their poverty—all of which were so inseparable, in their associations, from those who were gone, yet never absent long from memory. But the pleasure soon got the better of the pain, for she did not wish to forget. Mrs. Wheaton's welcome was so hearty as to be almost overpowering, and when Roger appeared in the evening with a beautiful picture for her walls she smiled as she once thought she never could smile again. Mr. Wentworth also called, and was so kind and sympathetic that the young girl felt that she was far from friendless. "I so managed it," he whispered in parting, "that there was little public reference to your father's sad end. Now, Millie, turn your thoughts toward the future. Let Roger make you happy. Believe me, he's pure gold."
"Just what poor Belle said," she thought sighingly after he had gone. "I must disappoint them all. But Roger will help me out. He deserves a far better wife than poor shamed, half-crushed Millie Jocelyn can ever make him, and he shall have her, too, for he is much too young and strong not to get over all this before many years elapse."
Life soon passed into a peaceful, busy routine. Roger was preparing himself for the junior class in college under the best of tutors, and his evenings, spent with Mildred, were usually prefaced by a brisk walk in the frosty air. Then he either read aloud to her or talked of what was Greek to good-natured Mrs. Wheaton, who sat knitting in a corner discreetly blind and deaf. Unknown to Mildred, he was able to aid her very efficiently, for he taxed Mrs. Wentworth's ingenuity in the invention of all kinds of delicate fancy work, and that good lady, in the most business-like manner, gave the orders to Mildred, who thought that, considering the hard times, she was wonderfully prosperous.
Twice during the winter she went with Roger to Forestville, and she had her little brother and sister spend the Christmas week with her. It was the brightest experience the little people ever remembered, although, unnoted by them, Mildred, with sad memories that do not belong to childhood, often wiped bitter tears from her eyes as she recalled the terrible events of the preceding holiday season. She became an efficient ally of Mr. Wentworth, and was almost as glad to aid him, in return for his stanch friendship, as the cause he represented.
She and Vinton Arnold maintained quite a regular correspondence, and the fact occasioned the young man more than one stormy scene. His mother saw Mildred's letter before he received it, and the effect of the missive upon him, in spite of his efforts at concealment, were so marked that she at once surmised the source from which it came. The fact that a few words from Mildred had done more for the invalid than all the expensive physicians and the many health resorts they had visited would have led most mothers to query whether the secret of good health had not been found. Mrs. Arnold, on the contrary, was only angered and rendered more implacable than ever against the girl. She wrote to her husband, however, to find out what he could about her family, believing that the knowledge might be useful. Mr. Arnold merely learned the bare facts that the Jocelyns had become greatly impoverished, that they were living in low tenements, that the father had become a wretched sot, and, worse than all, that the girl herself had been in a station-house, although he believed she was proved innocent of the charge against her. He therefore wrote to his wife that the correspondence must cease at once, since it might involve the family in disgrace—certainly in disgraceful associations. He also wrote to his son to desist, under the penalty of his heaviest displeasure. With an expression of horror on her face, Mrs. Arnold showed this letter to her son. In vain he tried to protest that not one evil thing against Mildred could be proved; that she was innocence and purity itself; that her misfortunes and the wrong of others were no reason for desertion on his part. His mother for once lost her frigid politeness. "What!" she almost screamed, "do you think we would ever let that horrid creature bear our name? A woman who has been in a prison cell, and mixed up with the vilest and lowest people in the city, should not even be named in my presence."
Her son gave her a strange, vindictive look. "You unnatural mother," he muttered between his teeth, "thus to speak of the girl to whom your son has given his best love, and who is worthy of it!" and he turned on his heel and left her.
Mrs. Arnold became somewhat hysterical, and wrote home that she believed that Vinton was losing his mind. She soon learned, however, that she would have no ground for such a charge, although her son was becoming greatly changed. His politeness to her was scrupulous to a nicety, but was unrelenting in its icy coldness. At the same time she knew that he was continuing the correspondence, and she saw, too, that he was making the most studied and careful effort to gain in physical strength. One day she began to upbraid him bitterly for his disobedience, but he interrupted her by saying sternly:
"Madam, there is no child present. I treat you with respect. I also demand respect."
The proud, resolute woman admitted to herself that his management was becoming a difficult and dubious problem, and at last, discouraged and exasperated by the unwavering steadfastness of his course and manner, she wrote that they might as well return home, for "he was beyond her influence."
Therefore, thrilling with glad expectation, Arnold found himself in his native city much sooner than he had expected. He had no very definite plans. If he could only become sufficiently well to earn his own livelihood the future would be comparatively clear. If this were impossible, his best hope was to wait, secure in Mildred's faith, for the chances of the future, believing that his father might relent if his mother would not. For this event, however, the outlook was unpromising. Mr. Arnold was incensed by his wife's fuller account of his son's behavior, and the proof she had obtained, in spite of his precautions, that he was in frequent correspondence with Mildred. He had since learned the circumstances of Mr. Jocelyn's wretched death, and that Mildred was but a sewing-girl, living with an ignorant English woman in a dilapidated old tenement, and his bitter revolt at the whole affair was quite natural in view of his superficial inquiries and knowledge. Both he and his wife judged from their proud and worldly standpoint solely, and therefore on the day following Vinton's arrival they summoned him to a private interview. At first Mr. Arnold proposed to reason with his son, but the cold, unyielding face soon so irritated him that he became almost violent in his anger. After he and his mother had nearly exhausted themselves, Vinton said quietly:
"Now that you have both lectured and threatened me as if I were a boy, I would like to ask one question. Have I ever disgraced you yet?"
The husband and wife looked at each other, and were not a little perplexed how to meet this passive resistance. In the same low, incisive tones, Vinton continued, "If you propose to turn me into the streets for loving Miss Jocelyn, do so at once, for I do love her, and I shall ever love her."
"She shall not touch a penny of our money," said Mrs. Arnold, with an implacable look.
"With me," replied her son, with the same old vindictive glance, "it is not a question of pennies, but of life and death. I feel toward Miss Jocelyn as I suppose my father once felt toward you, although what heart you had to win I cannot understand from your manner toward me. I have seen considerable of society, but have never met a woman who could compare with Mildred Jocelyn in all that constitutes a true lady. I shall not waste any words concerning the virtues of her heart upon such unsympathetic listeners, but I am at least a man in years, and have the right to love her."
"Oh, certainly," said Mrs. Arnold angrily, "there is no law which can prevent your disgracing yourself and us."
"Nor is there any law or gospel, madam, for your unnatural, unsympathetic course toward your own flesh and blood. Good-evening."
"Now you see how strange and infatuated he has become," she said to her husband after her son's departure; but the old merchant shook his head in trouble and perplexity.
"We have been too hard upon him, I fear," he said.
"If you weaken in this matter, I shall not," she answered decisively. "If he gives way to this folly, both I and my children will disown all kith and kin."
"Well, well," he replied impatiently, "it will have to be so, I suppose; but nevertheless I believe we have been too hard with him."
The next morning Arnold started out to visit the one rarely absent from his thoughts. It was a lovely day in the latter part of June, and his heart grew glad and hopeful in spite of the discouraging conditions of his lot. All the world could not prevent his loving Mildred, or destroy her faith, and at some time and in some way they would attain their happiness. These hopes were like the bright summer sun, and he walked with a firmer and more elastic tread than he had ever known before.
When he reached the haggard old mansion his heart misgave him. "Can it be reality," he asked himself, "that she has been living in places like this?" and the half-defined fear entered his mind that she might have changed somewhat with her fortunes, and might no longer be in appearance the delicate, refined, beautiful girl that he had left so long since. But his impatient heart gave him no time for such imaginings, and he hastened to gratify his intense desire to look upon her face.
In response to a low knock Mildred opened the door, and found herself in the arms of her lover. Then he held her off and looked at her earnestly. "Oh, Millie!" he exclaimed, "you have only grown more beautiful, more womanly in these long, weary years. Your face is the reflex of the letters on which I have lived, and which gave me the power to live."
Then in the excess of his joy he sank into a chair, and, putting his hand upon his heart, looked very pale. She sprang to his side in alarm. "Don't worry, Millie," he said, taking her hand. "It's passing. I don't have them very often now. I'm much better, thanks to you. Happiness rarely kills."
It was well that Mrs. Wheaton and the children were out. This scene would have been a great shock to the good woman, for she was Roger's ally, heart and soul, and did not even know of Arnold's existence. Since Arnold and Mildred were so fortunate as to be alone, they talked frankly over their old happy days, and as far as she could without breaking her promise to Roger, Mildred spoke of the deep sorrows which had almost overwhelmed her during his absence.
"How my heart aches for you!" Arnold said. "I never realized before what sad experiences you have passed through. The part which I can't endure is that I have been of no help to you. On the contrary, you reached out this little hand and saved me. Everything has been just the opposite of what it ought to have been, and even now in these surroundings you are like a diamond in a dust-heap. Oh, how different it would all be if I had my way!" and he in turn told her quite frankly how he was situated.
"Vinton," she said earnestly, "you must do all in your power to grow strong and make a place for yourself in the world. As you say, I cannot punish you for the pride and hostility of your parents; I don't think of them, and I could never take any favors at their hands. As a man you have the right to choose for yourself, and can do so while maintaining the utmost courtesy and respect toward your family. I don't fear poverty—I'm used to it. The thing for you to do is to find some honest work that won't tax you too greatly, and gain strength in its performance."
"Oh, Millie, how strong and true you are! I will take your advice in this as in all respects. But we shall have to wait a long time, I fear. I have so little knowledge of business, and I think my father, influenced by my mother, will thwart rather than help me."
"Very well, I can wait," she answered smilingly. "Indeed I'd rather wait."
Now that her happiness seemed assured, however, she sighed overRoger so often and remorsefully that at last Arnold said,
"You have some trouble on your mind, Millie?"
"You must not expect to find me a light-hearted girl any more," she replied evasively.
"Well," he said, as he clasped her closely in farewell, "my every waking thought shall now be how best to banish sighs and bring smiles."
That evening, while they were out for a walk, Mildred said to Roger, with a little tremor in her voice, "He's come."
He gave her a swift look, and then he turned as quickly away, but his arm grew rigid under her hand.
"Don't fail me, Roger," she pleaded.
"It's unexpected—I wasn't prepared," he said, in a low tone, and then he was silent. He felt her hand trembling so greatly that he soon mastered himself for her sake. "It's all right, Millie," he said heartily. "Be just as happy as you can."
"How can I be truly happy when you are not?" she sighed.
"Bless your kind heart! do you think I am going to stand off and lower at your happiness like a black cloud? Do you think I'm going to droop, look forlorn and deserted, and heave great sighs in dark corners? By all the powers! if I were capable of such meanness toward you, I'd whip myself worse than I did that fellow Bissel."
"Do you think I'll feel for you any the less because you are so good and brave about it?"
"Oh, confound it!" he said impatiently, "you must not feel too much. Spoiling your happiness won't do me any good; it would just make me savage."
She leaned her head for a second against his shoulder and said,"I'm not a bit afraid of you, Roger."
"There, Millie," he said quietly, "you always get the better of the old Satan in me, but I sometimes feel as if I could more easily tame a whole menagerie than my own nature. Come to think of it, it's all turning out for the best. To-morrow I go home on quite a long vacation. Father isn't very well this summer, and I'm to take charge of the harvest for him."
"Isn't this plan a little sudden?" she asked.
"Not more so than your news," he replied grimly.
"Are you not willing to meet him yet?"
"Not quite. After a few weeks in the fields I shall come back with the stoicism and appearance of a wild Indian. Come, Millie, I said I wouldn't fail you, nor shall I. Leave it all to me. I will explain to Mrs. Wheaton to-night, and to our other friends when the right time comes, and I will make it appear all right to them. If I justify you, they should have nothing to say. And now you have nothing to do but accept your happiness and make the most of it. I still request that you do not speak of me to Arnold except in a casual way. When we meet you can introduce me simply as a friend who was kind during your troubles. I'll soon know after we meet whether we can get on together, and if we can't it will save complications for you as well as myself. You must let me serve you in my own way, and I think my judgment will be better than yours in this matter."
She was silent for a few moments, and by the light of a lamp he saw that her eyes were full of tears. "Roger," she said softly after a while, "I sometimes think that my affection for you is greater than my love for Vinton, but it is so different. It seems almost like my religion. You are a refuge for me, no matter what happens."
"Thank you, Millie, but I don't deserve such honor."
Mrs. Wheaton could not be brought to look at the situation as Roger did, and she accepted the fact of Vinton Arnold with but a grim acquiescence, which was not mollified by the young man's manner toward her. While meaning to be very kind and polite, he was unconsciously patronizing. She belonged to a class with which he had never had much to do, and in his secret soul he chafed at her presence and her relations to Mildred. While in the abstract he might say that Mildred's associations made no difference to him, he could not in fact overcome his lifelong prejudices, and Mildred's surroundings were not at all to his taste. Luxury and the absence of all that was rude and coarse had become essential to him, and Mrs. Wheaton's cockney English and homely life often gave him cold chills.
Mildred in one respect disappointed him also, for she would take no aid from him, and would in no way deviate from her retired, independent life. "Even if my feelings and principles were not involved," she said, "good taste requires that I conform to my circumstances."
She would take such quiet walks with him as his strength permitted, but would visit no places of public resort. In view of his family's hostility to his course, Arnold did not so much regret this, and so it came about that they spent many of their evenings on the platform over the roof, with the old German astronomer, star-gazing and oblivious, not far away.
While Mildred maintained her loyalty to her old friends, and her resolute plainness and simplicity of life, she considerately recognized that it was all so foreign to her lover's previous experience that she could not expect him to feel as she did. Moreover, his presence renewed her old love for the refined and beautiful, and her heart, that had been so sad and preoccupied, awoke at last to the truth that she was out of her sphere—an exile far from the world her nature craved. Arnold seemed an inseparable part of that old world of beauty and elegance. His every act and word brought it back, and it caused a deepening regret that he was compelled to seek her in her present situation; therefore she also began to share his ill-concealed wish that she might soon escape. Honestly as she loved Mrs. Wheaton, and would love her for all her kindness, the good woman's talk and ways often jarred discordantly on her nerves. Arnold soon discovered this fact, and it made him very impatient over the prospect of life long continued under its present aspects. He was conscious of Mrs. Wheaton's latent hostility, and he had not the tact to conciliate her nor indeed did he make very great effort to do so. Mildred was very sorry for this, but did not blame him greatly, for she knew her plain old friend could never be to him what she was to those who had learned her goodness and worth in emergencies that had levelled all external differences.
But in spite of the ingredients brought by these facts and the memories of the past, Mildred found the cup of happiness which Arnold pressed to her lips sweet indeed. She had been exceedingly sorrowful for a long time, and it is contrary to nature that the young should cling to sorrow, however true and constant they may be. Her love was a part of her happy girlhood, and now it seemed to have the power to bring back some of her former girlish lightness of heart. The prospects offered by Arnold certainly had little to do with the returning tide of gladness which seemed bearing her from the dark, rugged shores on which she had been nearly wrecked. It was a buoyancy inherent within the love she cherished, and her joy was so sweet, so profound, that she shut her eyes to the future and thought, "For a few days, for a few weeks, we'll just drink deeply at this life-giving fountain. After our long separation it will do us both more good than anything else."
She had said to Arnold that she was willing to wait, that she would rather wait, but she soon began to feel differently. Arnold infused into her nature some of his own dreamy, enervated spirit, and sometimes he would describe to her an imaginary home so exactly to her taste that she would sigh deeply; and one day she remonstrated, "Don't tantalize me with any more such exquisite mirages. Let us rather think of the best and quickest way to secure a real home, and let us be content in it, however humble it must be." But Arnold was far better able to construct an imaginary palace than an ordinary cottage. Although he seemed gaining steadily under the impulse of his happiness, she often trembled to see how frail he was in body and how untrained and impracticable in mind. He was essentially the product of wealth, luxury, and seclusion, and while his intentions might be the best, she was sometimes compelled to doubt his ability to make much headway in the practical, indifferent world. Instead of being discouraged, she only thought, "No one can ever doubt the genuineness of my love. Roger is rich already, and he is certain to become eminent, and yet my love is more than all the world to me, and I so long for a little nook of a home that I could call all my own, that I would be willing to marry Vinton at once and support him myself if his health required it. I don't think I can be like other girls. I shall never get over my pride, but I haven't a particle of ambition. The world at large is nothing to me, and instead of wishing to shine in it, I am best pleased to escape its notice altogether."
Arnold's family were as deeply perplexed as they were incensed at his course. He would not leave the city for any fashionable resort, and they well knew the reason. His father and mother hesitated in their departure, not knowing what "folly," as they termed it, he might be guilty of in their absence. They felt that they must bring the matter to some issue, and yet how to do so puzzled them greatly, for, as he had said, he had done nothing as yet to disgrace them, and his bearing toward them was as irreproachable as it was cold and dignified.
At last, unknown to them, an elder brother undertook to solve the problem. He was a thorough man of the world, and his scrupulous compliance with the requirements of fashionable society led his mother to regard him as a model of propriety. In his private, hidden life he was as unscrupulous as the ultra fashionable often are.
"Vinton," he said one day, "what a fool you are making of yourself in this affair! You have been brought up like a girl, and you are more simple and innocent than they average. I've seen your charmer, and I admit that she is a fine creature. As far as looks go, you show as much judgment as any man in town, but there your wits desert you. Girls in her position are not nice as to terms when they can greatly better themselves. You have money enough to lodge her like a princess compared with her present condition. Verbum sat sapienti."
Vinton replied indignantly that he knew nothing about Mildred.
"Oh, I know all about women," was the confident reply; "have forgotten more than you ever knew."
Nevertheless this thought, like an evil seed, sprang up into a speedy but not rank growth. Arnold saw that his family would regard his marriage as an outrage which they would resent in every possible way, and that their hostility now was but an ill-concealed, smouldering fire. The relation to him would not be what his brother suggested, but as sacred and binding as marriage. His unhealthful reading, his long years abroad, and the radical weakness of his nature prepared him to accept this solution as the easiest and best that circumstances permitted of. He justly doubted whether he would soon, if ever, gain the power of being independent. He knew nothing of business, and hated its turmoil and distractions, and while for Mildred's sake he would attempt anything and suffer anything, he had all the unconquerable shrinking from a manful push out into the world which a timid man feels at the prospect of a battle. He had been systematically trained into weakness, and he felt that men, when he came to compete with them, would discover and take advantage of his defects. His cold, haughty reticence was but disguised timidity. In Mildred's presence he ever showed the best side of his nature, and his lonely, repressed life had always touched the tenderest chords of her heart. If their love had been smiled upon from the first, how different would have been his fate! She would have tenderly developed his dwarfed, crushed manhood, and the result would have been happiness for them both.
"Millie," said Arnold, one starlight night, "do you care very much for the world's opinions?" They were sitting on the platform above the old mansion. The German astronomer, after grumbling awhile at an obscuring haze, had gone downstairs in disgust, and left the lovers to themselves.
"No, Vinton, I never cared much for the world at any time, and now I have an almost morbid impulse to shrink from it altogether. I'm like my dear mamma. Home was her world. Poor, dear mamma!" and she buried her face on his shoulder and shed tears that his presence robbed of much of their bitterness.
"I not only do not care for the world," he said impetuously, "but I hate it. I've been dragged through it, and have ever found it a desert, stony place. My heart just aches for the sweet quiet and seclusion of such a home as you could make, Millie. As it is, I have no home. A hollow iceberg could not be more cold and joyless than my present abode. Neither have you a home. It is only in stolen moments like these, liable to interruption, that we can speak of what is in our hearts;" and then, prompted by his feelings, longings, and the apparently friendless condition of the girl whose head rested so trustingly on his breast, he broached the scheme of life that had taken possession of his imagination.
At first, in her faith and innocence she scarcely understood him, but suddenly she raised her head, and looked at him with startled eyes. "What!" she said, in trembling alarm, "no marriage? Mr. Wentworth and Roger Atwood not present?"
"No minister could make our union more sacred than it would be to me," he faltered, "and as soon as my obdurate parents—"
She sprang to her feet, and exclaimed passionately, "I'd rather die ten thousand deaths than bring a blush of shame to Roger Atwood's face." Then she sank into her chair in an uncontrollable outburst of grief. He pleaded with her, but she was deaf; he tried to caress her, but although half unconscious from her agony, she repulsed him. "Oh, oh," she moaned, "is this the sole reward of my fidelity?"
"Millie, Millie," he entreated, "you will kill me if you cannot control yourself. I will do anything you say—submit to any terms. Oh, pity me, or I shall die."
"Leave me," she said faintly.
"Never," he cried; "I'd sooner cast myself down from this height."
By visible and painful effort she at last grew calm enough to say firmly:
"Mr. Arnold, I do pity you. Even at this moment I will try to do you justice. My heart seems broken, and yet, I fear you will suffer more than I. My own womanhood would make your words the sufficient cause for our final separation, and had I not a friend in the world we could never meet again. But I have a friend, a brother to whom I owe more than life, and whom I love better than life. He would have made me rich if I would have let him, but I loved you too well. Not for my hope of heaven would I make him blush for me. I would have married you and lived in a single room in a tenement. I would have supported you with my own hands. The weaknesses for which you were not to blame drew my heart toward you, but you have shown a defect in your character to-night which creates an impassable gulf between us. In view of the wrong done you by others I forgive you—I shall pray God to forgive you—but we have fatally misunderstood each other. If you have any manhood at all, if you have the ordinary instincts of a gentleman, you will respect the commands of an orphan girl, and leave me, never to approach me again."
Speechless, almost paralyzed in his despair, he tottered to the steps and disappeared.
AS Mrs. Wheaton crossed the hallway from a brief call on a neighbor, Vinton Arnold passed her. She noted by the light of the lamp in her hand that his pallor was ghostlike, and she asked quickly:
"Vere is Miss Jocelyn?"
He paid no more heed to her than if he were a shadow of a man, and went by her with wavering, uncertain steps, without a word. In sudden alarm she hastened to the roof, and found Mildred kneeling by her chair, weeping and almost speechless from grief. She took the girl in her arms, and said excitedly, "Vat did he say to you?"
"Oh," sobbed Mildred, "my heart is broken at last. I feel as mamma did when she said her heart was bleeding away. Mrs. Wheaton, I shall stay with you now as long as I live, and it seems as if it wouldn't be very long. Never speak of him again—never speak of it to a living soul. He asked that which would banish you and Roger—dear, brave, patient Roger—from my side forever, and I will never see his face again. Oh, oh, I wish I could die!"
"I'm a plain voman," Mrs. Wheaton said grimly, "but I took the measure of 'im soon as I clapped my heyes on 'im; but, Millie, me darlin', you couldn't be so cruel as to break hour 'earts by dying for sich a man. You vould make the vorld black for us hall, yer know. Come, dear, come vith me. I'll take care hof yer. I'm not fine like 'im that's gone, thank the Lord, but I'll never ax ye to do haught that Mr. Ventvorth vouldn't bless," and she half supported the exhausted, trembling girl to her room, and there was tender and tireless in her ministrations. In the early dawn, when at last Mildred slept for an hour or two, she wrote, in a half-eligible scrawl, to Roger, "Come back. Millie wants you."
His presence in response was prompt indeed. On the second morning after the events described, Mildred sat in her chair leaning back with closed eyes. Mrs. Wheaton was away at work, and her eldest daughter was watching the little brood of children on the sidewalk. A decided knock at the door caused the young girl to start up with apprehension. She was so nervously prostrated that she trembled like a leaf. At last she summoned courage and opened the door slightly, and when she saw Roger's sun-burned, honest face she welcomed him as if he were a brother indeed.
He placed her gently in her chair again, and said, with a keen look into her eyes, "How is this, Millie? I left you happy and even blooming, and now you appear more pale and broken than ever before. You look as if you had been seriously ill. Oh, Millie, that couldn't be, and you not let me know," and he clasped her hand tightly as he spoke.
She buried her burning face on his shoulder, and said, in a low, constrained tone, "Roger, I've told Mr. Arnold this much about you—I said I'd die ten thousand deaths rather than cause you to blush for me."
He started as if he had been shot. "Great God!" he exclaimed, "and did he ask you aught that would make you blush?"
Bitter tears were Mildred's only answer.
The young man's passion for a few moments was terrible, but Mildred's pallid face soon calmed him. "You could not harm him," she said sadly. "What is one blow more to a man who is in torture? I pity him from the depths of my soul, and you must promise me to let him alone. Never for a moment did I forget that you were my brother."
In strong revulsion of feeling he bent one knee at her side and pleaded, "Oh, Millie, give me the right to protect you. I'll wait for you till I'm gray. I'll take what love you can give me. I'll be devotion itself."
"Don't, Roger," she said wearily. "I love you too well to listen. Such words only wound me. Oh, Roger, be patient with me. You don't understand, you never will understand. I do give you the right to protect me; but don't talk that way again. I just long for rest and peace. Roger, my friend, my brother," she said, lifting her eyes appealingly to his, and giving him both of her hands, "don't you see? I can give you everything in this way, but in the way you speak of—nothing. My heart is as dead as poor Belle's."
"Your wish shall be my law," he said gently.
"And you'll not harm Mr. Arnold?"
"Not if it will hurt you."
"I never wish to see or hear from him again, and you'll never have cause to fear any one else."
"Millie," he said sadly, "it is for you I fear most. You look so sad, pale, and broken-hearted. There isn't a sacrifice I wouldn't make for you. Millie, you won't let this thing crush you? It would destroy me if you did. We will resume our old quiet life, and you shall have rest of body and soul;" and he kept his word so well that, before many months passed, her mind regained sufficient tone and strength to enable her to engage in the simple duties of life with something like zest. He talked to her about many of his studies, he searched the stores for the books which he thought would be to her taste, and took her to see every beautiful work of art on exhibition. In spite of her poverty, he daily made her life richer and fuller of all that he knew to be congenial to her nature. While she gained in serenity and in capability for quiet enjoyment, he was positively happy, for he believed that before many years passed she would be ready to spend the rest of life at his side. He meantime was pursuing his studies with a vigor and success that inspired his friends with the most sanguine hopes.
Vinton Arnold, on that terrible night when his false dream of life was shattered, went through the streets as oppressed with shame and despair as if he were a lost spirit. As he was slowly and weakly climbing the stairs his father called him to the sitting-room, where he and his wife were in consultation, feeling that matters must be brought to some kind of a settlement, Mrs. Arnold urging extreme measures, and her husband bent on some kind of compromise. As his son entered, the old gentleman started up, exclaiming:
"Good God, my boy, what is the matter?"
"He's going to have one of his bad turns," said his mother, rising hastily.
"Hush, both of you," he commanded sternly, and he sat down near the door. Fixing a look of concentrated hatred on his mother, he said slowly, "Madam, you are not willing that I should marry Mildred Jocelyn."
"And with very good reason," she replied, a little confused by his manner.
"Well, let it rejoice such heart as you have—I shall never marry her."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean never to speak to you again after this brief interview. I am a lost man—lost beyond hope, and you are the cause. If you had had a mother's heart my father would not have been so obdurate. Since you would not let me marry her, I was tempted by my love and the horrible life I lead in this house to offer her a relation which would have been marriage to me, but from which her proud, pure spirit, recoiled, as I recoil from you, and I shall never see her face again in this world or in any world. Your work is finished. You need not scheme or threaten any more. While she is as good as an angel of heaven, she is as proud as you are, and you have murdered my hope—my soul. Father, I have but one request to make to you. Give me money enough to live anywhere except under this roof. No, no more words to-night, unless you would have me die in your presence with curses on my lips. I have reached the utmost limit;" and he abruptly left the room.
Mrs. Arnold took refuge in hysterics, and her husband rang violently for her maid, and then locked himself up in his library, where he walked the floor for many an hour. The next morning he tried to make overtures to his son, but he found the young man deaf and stony in his despair. "It's too late," was all that he would say.
"Oh, let him alone," protested his wife irritably, as her husband came down looking sorely troubled; "Vinton will indulge in high tragedy for a few months, and then settle down to sensible life," and in the hope of this solution the old merchant went gloomily to his business.
That day Vinton Arnold left his home, and it was years before he returned.
Two years or more passed away in quiet, toilsome days for Mildred. She had gained serenity, and apparently had accepted her lot without repining. Indeed, thanks to Roger's unfaltering devotion, it was not a monotonous or a sad one. He let her heart rest, hoping, trusting that some day it would wake from its sleep. In compliance with her wish he was in semblance a brother, and his attentions were so quiet and frank, his manner toward her so restful, that even she half believed at times that his regard for her was passing into the quiet and equable glow of fraternal love. Such coveted illusions could not be long maintained, however, for occasionally when he was off his guard she would find him looking at her in a way that revealed how much he repressed. She shed many bitter tears over what she termed his "obstinate love," but an almost morbid conviction had gained possession of her mind that unless she could return his affection in kind and degree she ought not to marry him.
At last she began to grow a little restless under her rather aimless life, and one day she said to her pastor, Mr. Wentworth, "I want a career—isn't that what you call it? I'm tired of being a sewing-woman, and soon I shall be a wrinkled spinster. Isn't there something retired and quiet which a girl with no more brains and knowledge than I have can do?"
"Yes," he said gravely; "make a home for Roger."
She shook her head. "That is the only thing I can't do for him," she replied very sadly. "God only knows how truly I love him. I could give him my life, but not the heart of a wife. I have lost everything except truth to my womanly nature. I must keep that. Moreover, I'm too good a friend of Roger's to marry him. He deserves the strong first love of a noble woman, and it will come to him some day. Do you think I could stand before you and God's altar and promise what is impossible? No, Mr. Wentworth, Roger has a strength and force of character which will carry him past all this, and when once he sees I have found a calling to which I can devote all my energies, he will gradually become reconciled to the truth, and finally accept a richer happiness than I could ever bring him."
"You are an odd girl, Mildred, but perhaps you are right. I've learned to have great faith in you. Well, I know of a career which possibly may suit you. It would open an almost limitless field of usefulness," and he told her of the Training School for Nurses in connection with Bellevue Hospital.
The proposition took Mildred's fancy greatly, and it was arranged that they should visit the institution on the following afternoon. Roger sighed when he heard of the project, but only remarked patiently, "Anything you wish, Millie."
"Dear old fellow," she thought; "he doesn't know I'm thinking of him more than myself."
Mildred made her friend Clara Wilson and her brother and sister a long visit the following summer, and in the fall entered on her duties, her zest greatly increased by the prospect of being able before very long to earn enough to give Fred and Minnie a good education. The first year of her training passed uneventfully away, she bringing to her tasks genuine sympathy for suffering, and unusual aptness and ability. Her own sorrowful experience made her tender toward the unfortunate ones for whom she cared, and her words and manner brought balm and healing to many sad hearts that were far beyond the skill of the hospital surgeons.
During the first half of the second year, in accordance with the custom of the School, she responded to calls from wealthy families wherein there were cases of such serious illness as to require the services of a trained nurse, and in each instance she so won the confidence of the attending physician and the affection of the family as to make them personal friends. Her beautiful face often attracted to her not a little attention, but she was found to be as unapproachable as a Sister of Charity. Roger patiently waited, and filled the long months with unremitting toil.
One evening toward the latter part of the first six months of her outside work, Mildred returned from nursing a patient back to health. She found the lady in charge of the institution in much tribulation. "Here is Mrs. Sheppard, from one of the most influential families on Fifth Avenue, offering anything for a nurse. Her brother is dying with consumption, she says. He has a valet in attendance, but the physician in charge says he needs a trained nurse, for he wants constant watching. He is liable to die at any moment. We haven't a nurse unemployed. Do you feel too tired to go?"
"Oh, no," said Mildred. "My patient improved so much that for the last week I've almost been resting."
"And you think you can go?"
"Certainly."
"I'll tell Mrs. Sheppard then to send for you in a couple of hours.That will give you time to get ready."
Two hours later Mildred was driven rapidly by a coach-man in livery to a mansion on Fifth Avenue, and she was speedily ushered into the room where the patient lay. He was sleeping at the time, with curtains drawn and his face turned away. Mildred only glanced at him sufficiently to see that he was very much emaciated. A middle-aged lady who introduced herself as Mrs. Sheppard received her, saying, "I'm so glad you are here, for I am overcome with fatigue. Last night he was very restless and ill, and would have no one near him except myself. His valet is in that room just across the hall, and will come at the slightest summons. Now while my brother is sleeping I will rest at once. My room is here, opening into this. Call me if there is need, and don't mind if he talks strangely. Your room is there, just beyond this one," and with a few directions, given with the air of extreme weariness, she passed to her own apartment, and was soon sleeping soundly.
Mildred sat down in the dim room where the light fell upon her pure, sweet profile, which was made a little more distinct by the flickering of the cannel-coal fire, and began one of the quiet watches to which she was becoming so accustomed. Her thoughts were very painful at first, for they seemed strangely inclined to dwell on Vinton Arnold. From the time they parted she had heard nothing of him, and since the brief explanation that she had been compelled to give to Roger, his name had not passed her lips. He had been worse than dead to her, and she wondered if he were dead. She had never cherished any vindictive feelings toward him, and even now her eyes filled with tears of commiseration for his wronged and wretched life. Then by a conscious effort she turned her thoughts to the friend who had never failed her. "Dear Roger," she murmured, "he didn't appear well the last time I saw him. He is beginning to look worn and thin. I know he is studying too hard. Oh, I wish my heart were not so perverse, for he needs some one to take care of him. He can't change; he doesn't get over it as I hoped he would," and her eyes, bent on the fire, grew dreamy and wistful.
Unknown to herself, she was watched by one who scarcely dared to breathe lest what seemed a vision should vanish. The dying man was Vinton Arnold. His married sister, overcome by weariness and the stupor of sleep, had inadvertently forgotten to mention his name, and Mildred was under the impression that the name of her patient was Sheppard. She had never been within the Arnold mansion, nor was she specially familiar with its exterior. Entering it hastily on a stormy night, she had not received the faintest suggestion that it was the home to which she and her mother had once dreamed she might be welcomed.
When at last Arnold had awakened, he saw dimly, sitting by the fire, an unfamiliar form, which nevertheless suggested the one never absent from his thoughts. Noiselessly he pushed the lace curtain aside, and to his unspeakable wonder his eyes seemed to rest on Mildred Jocelyn. "She is dead," he first thought, "and it is her spirit. Or can it be that my reason is leaving me utterly, and the visions of my tortured mind are becoming more real than material things? Oh, see," he murmured, "there are tears in her eyes. I could almost imagine that a good angel had taken her guise and was weeping over one so lost and wrecked as I am. Now her lips move—she is speaking softly to herself. Great God! can it be real? Or is it that my end is near, and long-delayed mercy gives me this sweet vision before I die?"
His sombre and half-superstitious conjectures were almost dispelled by a little characteristic act on Mildred's part—an act that contained a suggestion of hope for Roger. In awakening the stronger traits of manhood in the latter she had also evoked an appreciation of beauty and a growing love for it. Mildred was human enough not to regret that this developing sense should find its fullest gratification in herself. Though so determined to become a wrinkled spinster, she found a secret and increasing pleasure in the admiring glances that dwelt upon her face and dainty figure, and this fact might have contained for him, had he known it, a pleasing hint. It must be confessed that she no longer wished to go into his presence without adding a little grace to her usually plain attire; and now that she was thinking so deeply of him she involuntarily raised her hand to adjust her coquettish nurse's cap, which by some feminine magic all her own she ever contrived to make a becoming head-dress rather than a badge of office.