"Oh, mamma, I could shed for him all the blood left in my body."
"Nonsense!" cried the matter-of-fact Belle. "He doesn't want your blood; he only wants a sensible girl who will love him as he deserves, and who will help him to help us all."
Mildred made a despairing gesture and went to her room. She soon reappeared with a quilt and a pillow, and placing them on the floor beside the low bed in which the children slept, said, "I'll stay here, and you take my place with Belle, mamma. No," she added resolutely, as her mother began to remonstrate; "what I resolve upon I intend to do hereafter, even to the least thing. You shall not go near the room where papa is to-night."
Throughout the evening, while love, duty, and generous sympathy planned for his redemption; throughout the long night, while the sad-hearted wife prayed for success in their efforts, the husband and father lay shrouded in the heavy, rayless darkness of a drunken stupor.
Well, I must admit that I have rarely been so touched and interested before," said Mr. Wentworth, as he and Roger walked homeward together; "and that is saying much, for my calling brings human life before me in almost every aspect. Mildred Jocelyn is an unusual girl. Until to-day I thought her a trifle cold, and even incapable of very deep feeling. I thought pride—not a common pride, you know, but the traditional and proverbial pride of a Southern woman—her chief characteristic, but the girl was fairly volcanic with feeling to-night. I believe she would starve in very truth to save her father, though of course we won't permit any such folly as they are meditating, and I do not believe there is any sacrifice, not involving evil, at which she would hesitate. She's a jewel, Atwood, and in winning her, as you will, you will obtain a girl for whom a prince might well sue. She's one of a thousand, and beneath all her wonted self-control and reserve she has as true and passionate a heart as ever beat in a woman's breast."
"Good-night," said Roger, a little abruptly. "I agree with all you can say in regard to Miss Jocelyn's nobility, and I shall not fail her, nor shall I make bargains or conditions in my loyalty. The privilege of serving such a woman is enough. I will see you again soon," and he walked rapidly down the street on which his uncle resided.
Roger and Mr. Wentworth had become very good friends, and the latter had been of much service to the young fellow by guiding him in his reading and study. The clergyman had shown his usual tact in dealing with Roger. Never once had he lectured or talked religion at him, but he preached interestingly, and out of the pulpit was the genial, natural, hearty man that wins the respect and goodwill of all. His interviews with Roger were free from the faintest trace of religious affectation, and he showed that friendly appreciation and spirit of comradeship which young men like. Roger felt that he was not dealing with an ecclesiastic, but with a man who was as honest, earnest, and successful in his way as he ever hoped to be in his. He was therefore being drawn by motives that best accorded with his disposition toward the Christian faith—by a thorough respect for it, by seeing its practical value as worked out in the useful busy life of one who made his chapel a fruitful oasis in what would otherwise have been a moral desert. In his genuine humanity and downright honesty, in his care of people's bodies as well as souls, and temporal as well as spiritual interests, the minister was a tower of strength, and his influence for good over the ambitious youth, now fast developing the character which would make or mar him for life, was most excellent. While Roger spoke freely to him of his general hopes and plans, and gave to him more confidence than to any one else, there was one thing that, so far as words were concerned, he hid from all the world—his love for Mildred. The sagacious clergyman, however, at last guessed the truth, but until to-night never made any reference to it. He now smiled to think that the sad-hearted Jocelyns might eventually find in Roger a cure for most of their troubles, since he hoped that Mr. Jocelyn, if treated scientifically, might be restored to manhood.
Mr. Ezra Atwood, Roger's uncle, sat in his small parlor far beyond his usual hour for retiring, and occasionally he paced the floor so impatiently as to show that his mind was deeply perturbed. While his nephew had studied books he had studied his nephew, and in the process the fossilization of his heart had been arrested, and the strong, steady youth had suggested hopes of something like a filial relation to the childless man. At first he had growled to himself, "If the boy were only mine I'd make a man of him," and then gradually the idea of adopting and making a man of him, had presented itself and slowly gained full possession of his mind. Roger was capable, persevering, and tremendously ambitious—qualities that were after the old man's heart, and, after maintaining his shrewd furtive observation for months, he at last muttered to himself, "I'll do it, for he's got the Atwood grit and grip, and more brains than any of us. His father is shrewd and obstinate enough, but he's narrow, and hasn't breadth of mind to do more than pinch and save what he can scratch out of that stony farm of his. I'm narrow, too. I can turn an honest penny in my line with the sharpest in the market, and I'm content; but this young fellow is a new departure in the family, and if given a chance and kept from all nonsense he can climb to the top notch. There's no telling how high a lawyer can get in this country if he has plenty of brains and a ready tongue."
Thus the old man's dominant trait, ambition, which he had satisfied in becoming known as one of the most solid and wealthy men of his calling, found in his nephew a new sphere of development. In return for the great favors which he proposed to confer, however, he felt that Roger should gratefully accept his wishes as absolute law. With the egotism and confidence of many successful yet narrow men, he believed himself perfectly capable of guiding the young fellow's career in all respects, and had little expectation of any fortunate issue unless he did direct in all essential and practical matters. Mr. Atwood worshipped common-sense and the shrewd individuality of character which separates a man from his fellows, and enables him to wrap himself in his own interests and pursuits without babbling to others or being impeded by them. Influenced by his wife, he was kind to the poor, and charitable in a certain methodical way, but boasted to her that in his limited circle he had no "hangers-on," as he termed them. He had an instinctive antipathy to a class that he called "ne'er-do-weels," "havebeens," and "unlucky devils," and if their misfortunes and lack of thrift resulted from causes like those destroying Mr. Jocelyn he was sternly and contemptuously implacable toward them. He was vexed that Roger should have bothered himself with the sick man he had discovered on shipboard the day before Christmas. "It was no affair of his," he had grumbled; but as the young fellow had been steady as a clock in his business and studies after Mr. Jocelyn had recovered, he had given no further thought to these friends, nor had it occurred to him that they were more than passing acquaintances. But a letter from Roger's father, who had heard of Mr. Jocelyn's condition and of his son's intimacy with the family, awakened the conservative uncle's suspicions, and that very afternoon the well-meaning but garrulous Mrs. Wheaton had told his wife all about what she regarded as brilliant performances on the part of Roger at the police court. Mrs. Atwood was a kind-hearted woman, but she had much of her husband's horror of people who were not respectable after her strict ideal, and she felt that she ought to warn him that Roger's friends were not altogether desirable. Of course she was glad that Roger had been able to show that the young girl was innocent, but shop-girls living in low tenements with a drunken father were not fit companions for their nephew and possible heir. Her husband indorsed her views with the whole force of his strong, unsympathetic, and ambitious nature, and was now awaiting Roger with the purpose of "putting an end to such nonsense at once." The young man therefore was surprised to find, as he entered the hallway, that his uncle was up at an hour late for him.
"I wish to see you," was the prompt, brief greeting from Mr. Atwood, who was uneasily tramping up and down the small stiff parlor, which was so rarely used that it might almost have been dispensed with as a part of the residence. Roger came forward with some anxiety, for his uncle lowered at him like a thunder-cloud.
"Sit there, where I can see your face," was the next curt direction. There was neither guilt nor fear in the frank countenance that was turned full upon him. "I'm a man of few words," he resumed more kindly, for Roger's expression disarmed him somewhat. "Surely," he thought, "when the boy gets a hint of what I can do for him, he'll not be the fool to tangle himself up with people like the Jocelyns."
"Where have you been to-night?" he asked bluntly. Roger told him. "Where were you last night and this morning?" Roger briefly narrated the whole story, concluding, "It's the first time I've been late to business, sir."
The old man listened grimly, without interruption, and then said, "Of course I'm glad you got the girl off, but it's bad management to get mixed up in such scrapes. Perhaps a little insight into court-room scenes will do you no harm since you are to be a lawyer. Now that the affair is over, however, I wish you to drop these Jocelyns. They are of no advantage to you, and they belong to a class that is exceedingly disagreeable to me. I suppose you know what kind of a man Mr. Jocelyn is?"
"Yes, sir; but you do not know what kind of a woman Mrs. Jocelyn is. She is—"
"She is Jocelyn's wife, isn't she?"
"Certainly; but—"
"And the girl is his daughter. They live in a dowdy tenement, and are as poor as crows."
"Misfortune and the wrong of others might make all this true of us," began the youth impetuously; "and yet if old friends should turn their backs—"
"You are not an old friend," his uncle again interrupted, in his hard, business-like tones. "They are merely accidental acquaintances, who happened to board at your father's house last summer. They haven't the ghost of a claim upon you. It looks far more as if you were in love with the girl, and were making a romantic fool of yourself."
Roger's face grew very white, but he controlled himself, and asked,"Uncle, have I ever treated you with disrespect?"
"Certainly not; why should you?"
"With some right I may also ask why you treat me with such disrespect?"
The old man opened his eyes, and was somewhat taken aback by this unexpected question, and yet a moment's reflection showed him that he had given cause for it. He also misunderstood his nephew, and resumed, with a short conciliatory laugh, "I guess I'm the fool, to be imagining all this nonsense. Of course you are too much of an Atwood to entangle yourself with such people and spoil your prospects for life. Look here, Roger. I'll be frank with you, and then we'll understand each other. You know I've neither chick nor child, and I've turned a good big penny in business. When you first came I thought you were a rattle-pated country boy that wanted a lark in the city, and I took you more to keep you out of mischief than for any other cause. Well, I've watched you closely, and I was mistaken. You've got the stuff in you to make a man, and I see no reason why you should not be at the top of the heap before you reach my years, and I mean to give you a chance. You've got a little soft place in your head and heart, or you wouldn't be getting yourself mixed up in other people's troubles. I tell you what it is, my boy, a man who gets ahead in these times must strike right out for himself, and steer clear of all fouling with 'ne'er-do-weels,' as if they had a pestilence. Hook on to the lucky ones, the strong ones, and they'll help you along. Now if you'll take this course and follow my advice right along, I'll give you a chance with the first. You shall go to the best college in the land, next to the law-school, and then have money enough to enable you to strike high. By the time you are thirty you can marry an heiress. But no more Jocelyns and shop-girls who have been at stationhouses, if you please. The girl may have been innocent of that offence; but, plain man as I am, I don't like this style of people at all, and I know human nature well enough to be sure that they'll try to tie themselves on to you if they can. I've thought it all out in my slow way, and, since you've got it in you, I'm going to give you a chance to put the Atwood name where I can't, with all my money."
Roger was deeply moved, for he had no idea that his uncle was cherishing such far-reaching plans in his behalf. While he had little sympathy with the cold, selfish side of the programme, his strong ambition responded powerfully to the prospect held out to him. He knew that the hopes inspired were not vain, for his uncle was a man whose deeds always outstripped his words, and that his fortunes were practically assured if he would follow the worldly-wise policy to which he had listened. His ambition whispered, "Mildred Jocelyn does not love you, and never will. Even now, after you have done so much for her, and her gratitude is boundless, her heart shrinks from you. She may not be able to help it, but it is true nevertheless. Why should you throw away such prospects for the sake of one who loves another man, and who, until in a time of desperate need, treated you with undisguised coldness and dislike? Besides, by yielding to your uncle's will you can eventually do more for the family than if thrown on your own resources." It was indeed the great temptation of his life, and he wavered.
"Uncle," he said irresolutely, "you have indeed opened a very alluring prospect, and I am grateful that you think So well of me, and that you are willing to do so much. Since you have been so frank with me, I will be equally so with you," and he told him all about his relations with the Jocelyns, and tried to make the shrewd old merchant understand that they were not common people.
"They are the most dangerous people of all," he interrupted impatiently. "Having once been up in the world, they think they are still as good as anybody, and are wild to regain their old position. If they had always been poor and commonplace, they would not be so likely to presume. What you say about the girl's not caring for you is sheer nonsense. She'd marry you to-morrow if she could. The one idea of such people is to get out of the slough into which they have fallen, and they'll marry out of it the first chance they get, and like enough they'll do worse if they can't marry. I tell you they are the most dangerous kind of people, and Southern at that. I've learned all about them; the father has gone to the devil for good and all, and, with your feeling and weakness toward them, you'll never be safe a moment unless you drop them completely and finally. Come, young man, let this affair be the test between us. I've worked hard for nearly a lifetime, and have a right to impose some conditions with what has been earned by forty years of toil, early and late. I never speculated once. Every dollar I had to spare I put in paying real estate and governments, and, Roger, I'm worth to-day a good half a million. Ha, ha, ha! people who look at the plain old man in the plain little house don't know that he could afford a mansion on the Avenue better than most of them. This is between ourselves, but I want you to act with your eyes open. If you are such a soft-headed fool as to let that girl, who you admit does not like you or care a rap for you personally, stand between you and such prospects, then I'm mistaken in you, and the sooner I find it out the better. Come, now, I'll be good-natured and liberal in the matter, for young men will be a little addle-pated and romantic before they cut their wisdom teeth. Through that English woman who works for your aunt occasionally you can see to it that these people don't suffer, but beyond that you must drop them once for all. What is more, your father and mother take the same view that I do, and your filial duty to them requires what I ask. While we naturally refuse to be mixed up with such people, we are seeking chiefly to promote your welfare; for the worst thing that can happen to a young man starting in life is to have a helpless lot of people hanging on him. So, come, give me your promise—the promise of an Atwood—and it will be all right."
Eoger was not a self-sacrificing saint by any means. Moreover, he had inherited the Atwood characteristics sufficiently to feel all the worldly force of his uncle's reasoning, and to be tempted tremendously by his offers. They promised to realize his wildest dreams, and to make the path to fame and wealth a broad, easy track instead of a long, steep, thorny path, as he had expected. He was virtually on the mountain-top, and had been shown "all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them."
But against this brilliant background he saw the thin, pale face of Mrs. Jocelyn, as she looked up to him with loving trust and gratitude, and the motherly kiss that she had imprinted on his cheek was a seal to her absolute faith. He felt the pressure of Belle's arm about his neck, and remembered his promise to give her a brother's regard and protection, and justly he feared that if deserted now the impulsive, tempted girl would soon meet shipwreck. She would lose faith in God and man. But that which touched him most nearly were his words to Mildred—words spoken even when she showed him most plainly that her heart was not his, and probably never could be—"I am your friend; never doubt it." How false he would seem to them; how false and selfish to his friend, the great-hearted clergyman, who was like Christ himself in his devoted labors; how false and base he would ever feel himself to be in his own soul!
For a time there was a terrible conflict in his breast as he paced the floor in long strides, with hands clenched and brow heavily contracted. His uncle watched him curiously and with displeased surprise, for that he could hesitate at all seemed to the worldly man an evidence of fatal weakness.
Roger fought it out like a genuine Atwood, and was nearer akin to his uncle than the old merchant would ever suspect. His heart craved the kingdoms of the world unspeakably, but he now realized that he must barter for them his honor, his manhood, and love. Thus far he had a right to love Mildred, and it was not her fault she could not return it. But, poor and shamed as she was, he knew that she would despise him if he yielded now, even though he rose to be the foremost man of the nation. Not with any chivalric, uncalculating impulse did he reach his conclusion, but by the slow, deliberate reasoning of a cool-headed, sturdy race that would hold to a course with life-long tenacity, having once chosen it.
Turning to his uncle, he asked quietly. "What did you mean by 'the promise of an Atwood'?"
"You ought to know. Our family, for generations, have lived up among the granite hills of Forestville, and, although poor, our promises, whether spoken or written, are like them."
"I'm glad to hear you say that—I'm glad to be reminded of it," his nephew replied. "Well, my promise has already been given. I have promised that poor broken-hearted woman, Mrs. Jocelyn, that I'd try to help her through her terrible misfortunes. I've promised her daughter Belle that I'd give her a brother's care and affection. I've promised the girl I love that I would at least be her friend, since I cannot be more. I'll prove myself a true Atwood, worthy to sustain the family name and honor by keeping my promises, and if I break them, you yourself, deep in your heart, would despise me."
For a moment the old merchant was nonplussed, so adroitly and unexpectedly had Roger turned his words against him. Then, like most men suddenly put in a false position, he grew angry, and blurted out, "Nonsense! It doesn't apply at all. These artful women have come it over you—have entrapped you." The young man here made a strong gesture of protest. "Oh, don't try to deceive me," his uncle proceeded, more loudly and passionately; "I know the world. If I'd blindly made promises to adventurers who would compass my ruin, ought I to keep them? If I find I've indorsed a forged check, ought I not to stop its payment? In the name of your parents and as your uncle, I protest against this folly, for I see well enough where it will end. Moreover, I tell you plainly that you must choose between me and my offers, and that old sot of a Jocelyn and his scheming wife and daughters. If you can be carried away by such absurdity, you are weaker than water, and the sooner you learn by bitter experience the better, for you certainly belong to that class which only hard experience can teach. But I'd like to see those brazen-faced creatures and give them a piece of—"
"Stop!" thundered Roger; "beware how you say another word against those whom sorrow should render sacred. You know less about them than about heaven. Do you forget that I am of age? You made me an offer, and I thanked you for it honestly and gratefully. What's more, I was base enough to be tempted by it. Oh, yes"—with a bitter laugh—"I was an Atwood enough for that. If you had not coupled it with the condition that I should, like a coward, desert helpless and unfortunate women to whom my word is given, I would have fulfilled your best hopes and ambitions, and have made your age glad with my grateful love and service. In your cold-hearted worldliness you have overreached yourself, and you wrong yourself more than me, even though I perish in the streets. But I won't starve. Mark my words: I'll place the Atwood name where you can't, with all your money, and I shall not make broken faith with those who trust me, the foundation of my fortunes."
"Very well, then," said his uncle, who had quieted down into an anger of white heat; "since you prefer those disreputable strangers to your family, go to them. I wash my hands of you, and shall write to your father to this effect to-night. I'm a prompt man and don't dilly-dally."
"Mrs. Jocelyn and her daughters are no more disreputable than you are, sir, and calling me 'soft-headed fool' doesn't make me one. I know the duty I owe my parents, and shall perform it. I shall write to them also. They shall hear both sides, and were your fortune multiplied a thousand times, I won't sell my manhood for it. Am I to have shelter another night, or do you wash your hands of me here and now?"
"Oh, stay by all means, or you may find yourself in the same cell in which your paragon spent last night," replied his uncle, whose rage now passed all bounds.
"Those words are brutal," said Roger sternly, "and if you are not ashamed of them after thinking them over, you are not the man I took you to be," and he stalked out of the room and out of the house, slamming the door after him.
The old merchant sank into a chair, trembling with both anger and chagrin, for he felt that he had been worsted in the encounter. He did regret the words as soon as spoken, and a certain rude sense of justice made him feel, even in his excitement, that his nephew, although an egregious fool of course, had been true to his sense of right and honor. He was assuredly the victim of a designing lot of women, but believing them to be true, his course had been manly, and the thought would come, "Since he was so faithful to them, he would have been equally so to me, and he might have found the hussies out in time to prevent trouble." And now he had said words which in effect turned his brother's son out of doors at midnight With something like a groan and an oath he resolved not to write that night, and to see how he felt in the morning. His nephew on provocation had proved as great a Tartar as he knew himself to be, and he now remembered that the former had some excuse in his hot young blood, and that he had a right to choose against his offer, if fool enough to do it, without being reviled and insulted.
After a wretched night he found on the breakfast-table a brief, cold note from Roger, saying that he would inform him in a day or two where to send his effects and such part of his salary as remained unpaid. The old man frowned, and the Atwood pride and obstinacy took possession of him like evil spirits. In grim reticence he resumed his old routine and life, and again gave himself up to the mechanical accumulation and saving of money.
From his uncle's house Roger went to a small hotel and obtained a room in which to spend a sleepless night. After the excitement of anger passed, he recognized the difficulties of his position. He was worse than friendless in the great city, for when he sought employment and gave an account of his antecedents, people would ask suspiciously why he left his uncle. The reasons were of too delicate a nature to be babbled about in business offices.
At first he was much depressed, and complained that "luck was dead against him." Moreover he felt that he had responded too harshly to his uncle, who, after all, was only trying to aid him in his cold-blooded way. Nevertheless he, too, had his share of the Atwood pride and obstinacy, and he resolved that the man who had called him a "soft-headed fool" for sacrificing himself to his sense of honor and duty must apologize before there could be any reconciliation. His good sense led him to make one wise resolution, and early in the morning he carried it out by making a clean breast of it to Mr. Wentworth. The good man listened with deep interest, and heartened the young fellow wonderfully by clapping him on the shoulder and saying, "You are made of the right stuff, Atwood, and although the material is yet a little raw and crude, experience and Christian principle will temper it in time into the finest metal."
"Don't ascribe Christian principle to me," growled Roger, "for I'm tempted to swear like a pirate."
"Very likely, and not without some reason. I occasionally feel a little that way myself, but I don't do it; neither have you."
Roger stared. "You're not a bit like a minister," he burst out.
"Sorry to hear it."
"That isn't what I mean. You are a MAN. Our dominie up at Forestville was only a minister."
"I have my share of human nature, Roger, and am glad of it, for I know from experience just how you young fellows feel. But it involves many a big fight. Christian principle doesn't mean a cotton-and-wool nature, or a milk-and-water experience, to put it in a homely way. It's Christian principle that makes Mildred Jocelyn, as you say, one of the bravest and best girls in the world. She's worth more than all your uncle's money, and you needn't be discouraged, for you'll win her yet. A young fellow with your pluck can make his way unaided, and thousands have done so without your motives or your ability. I'll stand by you, for you are the kind of man that I believe in. To make your course completely blameless, you must write a long filial letter to your mother, explaining everything; and if you'll take my advice you will send something like this to your uncle;" and sitting down he scratched off the following words:
"On calmer reflection I perceive that your intentions toward me were kindly and friendly. I should have remembered this, and the respect due to your years, and not have spoken so harshly. For all that it was not right for me to say, I apologize. At the same time it is my undoubted right and unwavering purpose to be guided by my own conscience. Our views of life and duty vary so widely that it will be best for me to struggle on alone, as I can. This, however, is no reason why we should quarrel, or forget the ties of blood which unite us, or our characters as gentlemen."
"Such a note will put you right with your own conscience and your people at home," resumed Mr. Wentworth, "and there's nothing like starting right."
Roger complied at once, for the clergyman's "human nature" had gained his unlimited confidence.
"Now I'm going out," said his friend. "You stay and make my study your own. There is paper, etc. I think I know of a room that you can obtain for a small sum from a nice, quiet family, and perhaps it will just suit you. I'll see; but don't take it if you don't like it. You'll stay and lunch with us, and we'll drink to your success in generous cups of coffee that only my wife knows how to make," and he left Roger cheered, hopeful, and resolute. What was better still, the young man was starting right, as was well proved by the long, affectionate, yet firm and manly letter written to his mother.
After a genial lunch, at which he was treated with a respect and kindness which did him a world of good, he went with Mr. Wentworth to see the room, and was well pleased with it, and he added his future address to the note to his uncle. He then said:
"I keep my promise about Mr. Jocelyn, and the sooner that man is put under treatment the better."
"Why, Roger!" exclaimed his friend, "you can't do anything now."
"I can do just what I promised. I have a hundred dollars in the bank, and there is about twenty-five still due me. With the latter sum I can get along until I can find employment."
"Hold on, Roger; it seems to me that your generosity is getting the better of you now. Circumstances have greatly changed since you made your promise."
"I've not changed, and my promises don't change with circumstances. It may be some time before you can raise the money, even if you can get it at all in these bard times, and it's something that ought to be done at once."
"Give me your hand again, old fellow. The world would say we were a pair of fools, but we'll wait and see who's right. Come to me at nine to-morrow morning."
Mr. Wentworth had several things on hand that he meant to do, but he dropped everything and started for the offices of some lawyers whom he knew, determined to find a foothold at once for his plucky protege. Roger went to call on Mrs. Jocelyn, feeling that he would like to get the matter relating to her husband settled, so that he might give all his thought and energy to the problem of making his way unaided. In response to his knock a light step crossed the floor, and the door was opened a little, revealing Mildred's face, then it was thrown open hospitably. "Oh, Mr. Atwood," she exclaimed, "I am very glad to see you. Forgive me that I opened the door so suspiciously, but you have never lived in a tenement, and do not know what awful neighbors are often prowling around. Besides, I was alone, and that made me more timid. I am so troubled about something, and perhaps you can help me, for you seem to be able to help every one," Mildred continued hastily, for she dreaded an embarrassing silence between them unspeakably. "I've been to see my employers in the hope they would forgive that poor girl who put the lace in my cloak, and they won't. They were polite and kind to me, and offered me better wages if I would come back, but were relentless toward the girl, saying they 'meant to break up that kind of thing once for all.' Don't you think something might be done?"
"If you failed there would be no use of my trying," said Roger, smiling. "I think it was wonderfully good of you to go on such an errand."
"I've had some lessons in goodness lately," she replied, with a little friendly nod. "As I talked with those stern men, I realized more than ever what an escape I've had, and I've thanked you in my heart a thousand times."
The young fellow looked as if he had been repaid a thousand times, and wondered that he could have been so tempted by his uncle's terms, for it now seemed impossible that he could ever do aught else than serve the sweet, sad girl who looked into his eyes with the trust and friendliness which he had sought for so long in vain. His face became so expressive of his feelings that she hurried on to speak of another matter weighing on her mind.
"Mr. Atwood," she said hesitatingly, "I have another trouble. You looked so vindictively at that Mr. Bissel in the court-room that I have feared you might do something that you would afterward regret. I know how one with your honorable spirit would feel toward such a wretch, but, believe me, he is beneath your notice. I should feel so badly if you got into any trouble on my account. Indeed it seems that I couldn't stand it at all," and she said it with so much feeling that he was honestly delighted. His spirits were rising fast, for this frank, strong interest in his welfare, in contrast with her old constraint and coldness, was sweet to him beyond all words.
With a mischievous and rather wicked look in his dark eyes, he said,"You must leave that fellow to me. I'm not a saint as you are."
Mildred proved that she was not altogether a saint by inwardly relishing his spirit, for she never could overcome some of the traits of her Southern blood; but she said, honestly and anxiously, "I should feel very badly if you got into any trouble."
"That thought will make me prudent," he replied gratefully. "You would never feel badly again about anything, if I had my way."
"I believe you, Mr. Atwood, and I can't see why I did not understand you better before," said Mildred, the words slipping out almost before she knew it.
"I don't think you understand me yet," he answered, very gently.
She did not reply, but he saw her fingers trembling with nervous apprehension as she tried to go on with her sewing; he also saw that she was growing very pale. Indeed she had almost the sick, faint look of one who is about to submit to some painful operation.
"Don't be frightened, Miss Mildred," he remarked, after watching her keenly for a moment or two. She looked up and saw him smiling broadly at her. In answer to her perplexed look he continued quietly, "I can tell you what has been the matter between us, and what is the matter now—you are afraid of me."
"Mr. Atwood—" faltered Mildred, and then words failed her, and her pale face crimsoned.
"Don't you think it would be best for us to understand each other, now that we are to be friends?" he asked.
"Yes," gasped the young girl faintly, fearing every moment that he would lose his self-control and pour out a vehement declaration of his love. She was prepared to say, "Roger Atwood, I am ready to make any sacrifice within my power that you can ask," but at the same time felt that she could endure slow torture by fire better than passionate words of love, which would simply bruise the heart that could make no response. If he would only ask quietly, "Mildred, will you be my wife when the right time comes? I'll be content with such love as you can give," she would have replied with the calmness of an unalterable purpose, "Yes, Roger, and I'll do my best," believing that years of effort might be crowned with success. But now, to have him plead passionately for what she could no more bestow than if she were dead, gave her an indescribable sense of fear, pain, and repugnance; and she cowered and shrank over the sewing which she could scarcely hold, so great was her nervous apprehension.
Instead of the vehement declaration there came a low, mellow laugh, and she lifted her eyes and stared at him, her work dropping from her hands.
Roger understood the situation so well, and was so thoroughly the master of it in his generous self-control and kindly intentions, that he should scarcely be blamed if he got out of it such bitter-sweet enjoyment as he could, and he said, with a twinkle in his eyes, "Miss Millie, I wasn't going to strike you."
"I don't understand you at all," cried Mildred, with a pathetically perplexed expression and starting tears, for the nervous strain was becoming a little too prolonged.
Roger became grave at once, and with a quiet, gentle manner he came to her side and took her hand. "Will you be as honest with me as I shall be with you?" he asked.
"I'll try to be."
"Well, then, I'll soon solve for you my poor little riddle. Miss Mildred, you know that I have loved you ever since you waked up an awkwad, lazy, country fellow into the wish to be a man."
His words were plain enough now, surely, but she was no longer frightened, for he spoke in such a kindly natural voice that she looked him straight in the eyes, with a delicate bloom in her face, and replied:
"I didn't wish to mislead you, Mr. Atwood, and I wouldn't trifle with you."
"You have been truth and honesty itself."
"No, I've not," she answered impetuously; "I cherished an unreasoning prejudice against you, and—and—I disliked you, though why, I can't see now, and nobly you have triumphed over both prejudice and dislike."
"It will ever be the proudest triumph of my life; but, Miss Mildred, you do not love me in the least, and I fear you never will."
"I am so sorry, so very sorry," she faltered, with a crimson face and downcast eyes.
"I am, too; but that which I want to say to you is, that you are not to blame, and I don't blame you. I could not love a girl simply because she wanted me to, were such a thing possible, and why should I demand of you what I couldn't do myself? All I asked in the first place—don't you remember it in the old front walk at home?—was friendship. Let us go back to that. Let me become your simple, honest friend, and help you in every way within my power. Don't let me frighten you any more with the dread of high tragedy. Now you've had all the declaration you ever need fear. I won't break loose or explode under any provocation. I can't help my love, and you must not punish me for it, nor make yourself miserable about it, as if it were a powder magazine which a kind word or look might touch off. I want to put your heart to rest, for you have enough to bear now, Heaven knows; I want you to feel safe with me—as free from fear and annoyance as Belle is. I won't presume or be sentimental."
"Oh, my perverse, perverse heart!" wailed Mildred. "I could tear it out of my breast and throw it away in disgust. I want to love—it would be a poor return for all that you are and have done for me—but it is of no use. I will not deceive one so true as you are, by even a trace of falseness. You deserve the love of the best woman in the world, and some day you'll find her—-"
"I have found her," he put in quietly.
"No, no, no!" she cried passionately; "but I am as nature made me, and I can't seem to help myself. How strange it seems that I can say from the depths of my soul I could die for you, and yet that I can't do just the one thing you deserve a thousand times! But, Roger, I will be the most devoted sister that ever a man had."
"No," he said, smiling, "that won't answer at all. That wouldn't be honest, as far as I am concerned. Belle is my sister, but you can never be. I know you don't love me now, and, as I've said, perhaps you never can, but I'm too persistent in my nature to give up the hope. Time may bring changes, and I've got years of up-hill work before I can think of marrying. You are in a self-sacrificing mood now. I saw it in your eyes and manner last night—I see it now. Mildred, I could take a very great advantage of you if I chose."
"Indeed you could. You don't know how generous you are. You have conquered me, overwhelmed me by your kindness, and I couldn't say No to anything in your nature to ask."
For a moment he looked sorely tempted, and then he said brusquely, "I'll put a spoke in that wheel. I'd give all the world for this little hand, but I won't take it until your heart goes with it. So there!"
The young girl sighed deeply. "You are right," she murmured, "when you give so much I can give so little."
"That is not what I was thinking of. As a woman you have sacred rights, and I should despise myself if I tried to buy you with kindness, or take advantage of your gratitude. I'll admit, too, since we are to have no dark corners in this talk, that I would rather be loved as I know you can love. I'd rather have an honest friendship than a forced affection, even though the force was only in the girl's will and wishes. I was reading Maud Muller the other night, and no woman shall ever say of her life's happiness, that but for me 'it might have been.'"
"I don't think any woman could ever say that of you."
"Mildred, you showed me your heart last night, and it has a will stronger than your will, and it shall have its way."
The girl again sighed. "Roger," she said, "one reason why I so shrank from you in the past was that you read my thoughts. You have more than a woman's intuition."
"No," he said, laughing a little grimly, "I'm not a bit feminine in my nature. My explanation may seem absurd to you, but it's true, I think. I am exceedingly fond of hunting, and I so trained my eyes that if a leaf stirred or a bird moved a wing I saw it. When you waked me up, and I determined to seek my fortunes out in the world, I carried with me the same quickness of eye. I do not let much that is to be seen escape me, and on a face like yours thoughts usually leave some trace."
"You didn't learn to be a gentleman, in the best sense of the word, in the woods," she said, with a smile.
"No, you and your mother taught me that, and I may add, your father, for when I first saw him he had the perfection of manners." He might also have referred to Vinton Arnold, whom he had studied so carefully, but he could not bring himself to speak of one whom in his heart he knew to be the chief barrier between them, for he was well aware that it was Mildred's involuntary fidelity to her first love that made his suit so dubious. At his reference to her father Mildred's eyes had filled at once, and he continued gently, "We understand each other now, do we not? You won't be afraid of me any more, and will let me help you all to brighter days?"
She put both of her hands in his, and said earnestly, "No, I will never be afraid of you again, but I only half understand you yet, for I did not know that there was a man in the world so noble, so generous, so honest. You have banished every trace of constraint, and I'll do everything you say."
There was a look of almost boyish pleasure on his face as she spoke, and in imitation of the heroes of the interminable old-time romances that once had formed the larger part of his reading, he was about to raise her hand to his lips when she snatched it away, and as if mastered by an impulse not to be controlled, put her arms around his neck and kissed him, then burst into tears with her head upon his shoulder.
He trembled a moment, and said, in low tones, "God bless you, Millie." Then he gently placed her in her chair. "You mustn't do that again," he said gravely. "With you it was but a grateful sisterly impulse, but if I were Samson I'd not be strong enough—well, you understand me. I don't want to give the lie to all I've said."
"Oh, Roger, Roger," sobbed the girl, "I can do nothing for you and yet you have saved me from shame and are giving us all hope and life."
"You are responsible for all there is good in me," he tried to say lightly, "and I'll show you in coming years if you have done nothing for me. Good-by now. It's all right and settled between us. Tell Mrs. Jocelyn that one hundred dollars are ready as soon as she can induce her husband to take the step we spoke of." And he hastened away, feeling that it was time he retreated if he would make good the generous words he had spoken.
"Oh, Millie," cried Mrs. Jocelyn, entering with the children and throwing herself into a chair, fatigued and panting from her walk and climb of the stairs, "I've so much to tell you. Oh, I'm so distressed and sorry. It seems that evil has become our lot, and that we bring nothing but evil to others. You, too, look as if you had been crying as if your heart would break."
"No, mamma, I feel much better—more at rest than I have been for a long time. My tears have done me good."
"Well, I'm sorry I must tell you something that will grieve you dreadfully, but there's no help for it. It does seem when things are going wrong in one's life, there's no telling where they'll stop. You know Mrs. Wheaton works for Roger's aunt, Mrs. Atwood. Well, she was there this morning, and Mrs. Atwood talked dreadfully about us, and how we had inveigled her nephew into the worst of folly. She told Mrs. Wheaton that Mr. Atwood had intended to give Roger a splendid education, and might have made him his heir, but that he demanded, as his condition, that he should have nothing more to do with such people as we were, and how Roger refused, and how after a bitter quarrel the latter left the house at midnight. She also said that his uncle would have nothing more to do with him, and that his family at home would be almost equally angry. Oh, I feel as if I could sink into the earth with shame and worry. What shall we do?"
"Surely, mamma, there is some mistake. Roger was here much of the afternoon, and he never said one word about it," Mildred answered, with a troubled face.
"It's just like him. He didn't want to pain you with the news. What did he say?" she asked, with kindling interest, and Mildred told her substantially all that had occurred.
"Well, Millie," said her mother emphatically, "you will be the queerest girl on the face of the earth if you can't love him now, for he has given up everything for you. He might have been richer than Vinton Arnold."
"He must not give up anything," said Mildred resolutely. "There is reason in all things. He is little more than a boy in years, and he has a boy's simplicity and unworldliness. I won't let him sacrifice himself for me. He doesn't know what he is doing. His aunt's estimate of such people as we have become is correct, and I'll perish a thousand times before I'll be the means of dragging down such a man as Roger Atwood. If I knew where to find him I'd go and tell him so this moment."
That was a dreary hour in the poor little home, but worse things were in store for them, for, as Mrs. Jocelyn said, when things are going wrong there is a terrible logic about them, and malign events follow each other with almost inevitable sequence. All was wrong with the head of the family, and terrible were the consequences to his helpless wife and children. Mr. Jocelyn heard a rumor of Mildred's experience in the police court, and he went to the place that day and obtained some account of the affair. More clearly and awfully than ever before he comprehended the depths into which he had fallen. He had not been appealed to—he had not even been told. He did not stop to consider how good the reasons were for the course his family had taken, but, blind with anger and despair, he sought his only refuge from the hell within his breast, and began drinking recklessly. By the time he reached the tenement where he dwelt he was in a state of wild intoxication. A man at the door called him a drunken beast, at which Mr. Jocelyn grasped him by the throat and a fierce scuffle ensued. Soon the whole populous dwelling was in an uproar, while the man retreated, fighting, up the stairways, and his infuriated assailant followed with oaths and curses. Women and children were screaming, and men and boys pouring out of their rooms, some jeering and laughing, and others making timid and futile efforts to appease and restrain the liquor-crazed man.
Suddenly a door opened, and a pale face looked out; then a slight girlish figure darted through the crowd and clasped Mr. Jocelyn. He looked down and recognized his daughter Mildred. For a moment he seemed a little sobered, and then the demon within him reasserted itself. "Get out of my way!" he shouted. "I'll teach that infernal Yankee to insult a Southern officer and gentleman. Let me go," he said furiously, "or I'll throw you down the stairway," but Mildred clung to him with her whole weight, and the men now from very shame rushed in and overpowered him.
He was speedily thrust within his own doorway, and Mildred turned the key after him and concealed it. Little recked the neighbors, as they gradually subsided into quiet, that there came a crash of crockery and a despairing cry from the Jocelyns' room. They had witnessed such scenes before, and were all too busy to run any risk of being summoned as witnesses at a police court on the morrow. The man whom Mr. Jocelyn had attacked said that he would see the agent of the house in the morning and have the Jocelyn family sent away at once, because a nuisance, and all were content with this arrangement.
Within that locked door a terrible scene would have been enacted had it not been for Mildred's almost supernatural courage, for her father was little better than a wild beast. In his mad rush forward he overturned the supper-table, and the evening meal lay in a heap upon the floor. The poor wife, with a cry in which hope and her soul itself seemed to depart fell swooning on the children's bed, and the little ones fled to the darkest corner of Mildred's room and cowered in speechless fear. There was none to face him save the slight girl, at whom he glared as if he would annihilate her.
"Let me out!" he said savagely.
"No," said the girl, meeting his frenzied gaze unwaveringly, "not until you are sober."
He rushed to the door, but could not open it. Then turning upon Mildred he said, "Give me the key—no words—or I'll teach you who is master."
There were no words, but only such a look as is rarely seen on. a woman's face. He raised his hand to strike her, but she did not shrink a hair-breadth. "Papa," she said, in a low, concentrated tone, "you called yourself a Southern gentleman. I did not dream you could strike a woman, even when drunk."
The effect of her words was magical. His hand sank to his side. Then he raised it and passed it over his brow as if it all were a horrid dream. Without a word he went with unsteady step to his own room, and again Mildred locked the door upon him.
Mrs. Jocelyn's swoon was long and death-like, and before Mildred could restore her, Belle, returning from her work, tried to enter, and finding the door locked called for admittance. When she crossed the threshold and saw the supper dishes broken and scattered on the floor: when she saw her mother looking as if dead, the little ones crying at her side, and Mildred scarcely less pale than the broken-hearted woman, with a desperate look in her blue eyes, the young girl gave a long, low cry of despair, and covering her face with her hands she sank into a chair murmuring, "I can't endure this any longer—I'd rather die. We are just going to rack and ruin. Oh, I wish I could die, for I'm getting reckless—and—and wicked. Oh, oh, oh!—"
"Belle, come and help me," said Mildred, in the hard, constrained tones of one who is maintaining self-control by the utmost effort. Belle complied, but there was an expression on her face that filled her sister's soul with dread.
It were well perhaps to veil the agony endured in the stricken household that night. The sufferings of such women as Mrs. Jocelyn and Mildred cannot be portrayed in words, and the dark chaos that had come into poor Belle's tempted, despairing, immature soul might well make her good angel weep. With a nature craving sunshine and pleasure like the breath of life, she felt herself being dragged hopelessly into darkness, shame, and abject poverty. The poor child was not deliberately contemplating evil—she was scarcely capable of doing good or evil deliberately—but a youth who had sought her once before, and of whom she had long been shy, was again hovering around her.
She was more wary now, yet bolder, and received his advances with a manner tinged with mocking coquetry. He was profuse with promises, and she tried to believe them, but in her heart she could not, and yet she did not repulse him with that stern, brief decision which forms the viewless, impassable wall that hedges virtue.
The sisters tried to remove the outward traces of their wrecked home, and mechanically restored such order as was within their power, but in their secret souls they saw their household gods overturned and trampled upon, and, with the honor and manhood of their father, they felt that night as if they had lost everything.
After they had quieted their mother and brought the poor creature a brief oblivion, Mildred made a passionate appeal to Belle to stand by her. The warm-hearted girl cried and wrung her hands passionately, but all her trembling sister could obtain from her were the words,
"Millie, we are being dragged down I don't know where."
Events followed rapidly. Before Mr. Jocelyn, sullen, nerveless, racked with headache and tortured with heartache, could leave his room on the morrow, the agent of the tenement served a notice on him to the effect that he must vacate his rooms at once; that the other tenants complained of him as a nuisance; and that he (the agent) would be content to lose the rent for the few days that had elapsed since the last regular payment if they would all go out at once. The angry reply was that they would move that day, and, without a word, he left his family in suspense. In the course of the forenoon he returned with a furniture van, and had so braced himself with opium that he was able to assist effectively, yet morosely, in the packing and removing of their fast-dwindling effects, for everything not essential had been sold. His wife and daughter did not remonstrate—they were too dispirited for that—but in dreary apathy did his bidding as far as their strength permitted, feeling meanwhile that any change could scarcely be for the worse.
Mildred almost felt that it was for the better, for their new shelter was in a small rear tenement not far from the old mansion, and was reached from the street by a long covered passageway. To her morbid fancy it suggested the hiding-place that her heart craved. She now scarcely heeded the facts that the place was anything but cleanly and that their neighbors were more unpromising in appearance than those they had just left. Mrs. Jocelyn was so ill and weak that she ought not to raise her hands, and Mildred felt that her strength was unequal to the task of even arranging their household articles so as to make the poor little nook inhabitable. She therefore went for their old stanch ally Mrs. Wheaton, who returned with her and wrought such miracles as the wretched place permitted of. In just foreboding she shook her head over the prospects of her friends in such a neighborhood, for her experienced eyes enabled her to gauge very correctly the character of the people who lived across the hall and in the upper and lower stories. They were chiefly ignorant and debased Irish families, and the good woman's fears were not wholly due to race antipathy. In the tenement from which they came, the people, although poor, were in the main stolid, quiet, and hard-working, but here on every side were traces and hints, even at midday, of degraded and vicious lives. The classes in the tenements appear to have a moral gravity or affinity which brings to the same level and locality those who are alike, and woe be to aliens who try to dwell among them. The Jocelyns did not belong to the tenement classes at all, and Mrs. Wheaton correctly feared that the purgatory which was the corner-stone in their neighbors' creeds would be realized in the temporal experience of the Southern family. Now that the step had been taken, however, she concealed her anxieties, and did her best to avoid collisions with the burly, red-faced women and insolent children whose officious offers of help were but thin veils to a coarse curiosity and a desire for petty pilfering. Mildred shuddered at the people about her, and was cold and brief in her words. As it was, Fred nearly brought on general hostilities by resisting a shock-headed little urchin who had not the remotest regard for the principles of MEUM and TUUM. As the sun declined the general verdict of the neighbors was, "They thinks themselves too foine for the loikes o' us, but we'll tache 'em."
After Mrs. Wheaton had departed with many misgivings, Mildred took her father aside and told him plainly what had occurred the evening before. He sat with his face buried in his hands, and listened without a word. Indeed, he was so overwhelmed with shame and remorse that he was speechless. "Papa, look at me," she said at last.
Slowly he raised his bloodshot, fearful eyes to hers, and the expression of his child's face made him tremble.
"Papa," she said slowly, and her tones were both sad and stern, "you must never come home drunk again. Another such scene might cost mamma her life. If you WILL take opium, we cannot help it, but you must drink no more vile liquor. I have now learned from bitter experience what the latter means, and what it must lead to. I shall not fail in love and duty to you, but I cannot permit mamma, Belle, and the children to be utterly destroyed. You may do some wild, reckless deed that would blast us all beyond remedy; therefore, if you have a particle of self-control left, let rum alone, or else we must protect ourselves. We have endured it thus far, not with patience and resignation, but in a sort of apathetic despair. This apathy has been broken. Belle is becoming reckless, mamma is dying of a broken heart, and the little ones are exposed to influences that threaten to blight their lives. There must be some change for the better. We must at least be relieved from the fear of bodily harm and the intolerable shame of such scenes as occurred last night. In our hard struggle we must find some kind of a refuge and some degree of quiet and peace in what we call home. It is no kindness to you to endure in silence any longer, and I now see that it will be fatal to those we both love. You may not be able to refrain from opium, but you can and must give up liquor. If you cannot, and there is a remedy in the land, we must avail ourselves of it. I do not know what kind of a place you have brought us to, but I feel sure that we shall need protection. If you should come home again as you did last night, I am satisfied, from the looks of the people in this house, that we should have a scene of violence that I shudder to think of. You had better—it would be more merciful to stab mamma to her heart than to cause her death by drunkenness."
Her words were not threatening, but were spoken with the calmness of inexorable resolve, and he sat before her with an ashen face, trembling like an aspen, for it was like the Day of Judgment to him. Then in gentler and pleading accents she told him of their plan to place him under skilful treatment, and besought him to yield himself up to the care of one who had won much reputation in dealing with cases like his own; but all the encouragement she could obtain were the words, "I'll think of it."
The memory of those fearful days on shipboard, when he was without morphia, made him recoil with unspeakable dread from a like ordeal again, but he promised earnestly that he would indulge no more in liquor. With the cunning of an opium maniac he understood his danger, knowing that further scenes of violence would lead to his arrest and imprisonment. Of his gentle wife he had no fears, but this frail, resolute girl subdued him. He saw that he was driving a strong nature to desperation—saw it with all the agony and remorse of a naturally good father whose better nature was bound hand and foot by depraved appetites. He was conscious of the terrible wrong that he was inflicting on those for whom he once would have died to shield them from a breath of dishonor. But, come what might, he must have opium now, and to counteract the words of his daughter he took enough morphia to kill all the wretched inmates of the tenement. Under its slight exhilaration he felt some hope of availing himself of the proposition that he should go to a curative institution, and he half promised that he would before long. At this point the painful interview ended, and Mildred went for Belle, who as yet had no knowledge of their change of abode.
As the two girls returned, in the dusk of evening, to the long dark passageway that led to the tenement in which they now had rooms, Mildred trembled with fear as she saw that its entrance was surrounded and blocked by a group of rough-looking young men and boys. Belle pushed boldly through them, although they leered, laughed, and made coarse jests. Mildred followed shrinkingly, with downcast eyes. "We'll tache 'em to be neighborly," were the last words she heard, showing that the young ruffians had already obtained their cue from their depraved and low-lived parents.
They looked forward to a dismal evening, but a loyal friend came to their rescue. Roger, having arranged the room selected for him by Mr. Wentworth, could not resist the temptation to see those who were ever uppermost in his thoughts. In dismay and anxiety he learned of their hasty removal and something of the causes which led to it. From the janitor he obtained their present address, and the appearance of his broad shoulders and fearless face had a restraining influence on the mischief-making propensities of the rowdies who kennelled in the vicinity. The alien new-comers evidently were not friendless, and there was hesitation in the half-formed measures for their annoyance.
Roger remained an hour or two, aiding the girls in trying to make the rooms more homelike, which, however, was rather a hopeless task. Mr. Jocelyn, half stupefied by opium, retreated to one of the small dark closet bedrooms, and left the scene unembarrassed by his presence. Roger remarked emphatically that the tenement was no place for them, but Mildred told him that the rent had been paid for a month in advance, and that they must try to endure it, adding, "The twenty-five dollars that you and Mr. Wentworth obtained for me has been, after all, a perfect Godsend."
He was touched, and bound to her with bands of steel by the perfect trust she now reposed in him, and he determined to watch over her like an amiable dragon, making it his first and constant thought how to rescue them all from their wretched condition. He was much surprised, however, when Mildred said to him, as he was preparing to leave, "Mr. Atwood, there is something I wish to say to you. Will you let me walk a block or two with you, and then bring me back again?"
Roger tried to disguise his feelings by saying laughingly that he would "walk to Spuyten Duyvil" with her, but added, "You are too tired to go out at all to-night. I will come to-morrow evening," and he remonstrated so earnestly and kindly that she yielded, promising to rest much of the following day.
"Oh, Millie," said her mother, with a faint smile, "it does my heart good to see that there is some one who knows how and has the will to take care of you."
"Yes," cried Belle, "this place is a perfect hole. It's not fit for nice girls to be seen in, and if Roger gives us a chance to get out of it you had better take it as soon as possible. I give you fair warning."
"What do you mean, Belle?" asked her mother. Belle made no answer,but went to her closet bedroom with a morose, sullen look on her face.The poor woman looked inquiringly at Mildred, who said soothingly,"Don't worry, mamma. Belle is a little tired and discouraged tonight.She'll be in a better mood in the morning."
When all were sleeping from the fatigues of the day, she sat alone with clasped hands and eyes so wide and troubled that it seemed as if she could never close them again. "Alas!" she sighed, "what must I do? He is our good genius, and yet I must drive him away. He must not sacrifice all his prospects for us. It would be most cruel and unjust to let him do so. I must reason with him and show him plainly that it would not be right, and absolve him from every shadow of blame for leaving us to such fate as God permits. Because he is so generous and brave he shall not suffer a loss which he cannot now comprehend."
At last, from utter weariness, she fell into a broken sleep.