But Helen's quietness did not deceive her mother, whose heart ached
as she saw in the pale young face all the woful change wrought by one
night of suffering, one sharp touch of anguish. Yet, if she had only
known it, the girl brought back into the house a very different face
from that which she had taken out in the early morning, when, driven
by an intolerable sense of pain, she had gone in search of strength
to bear it. There was but one place where such strength was to be
found, and thither her feet had carried her direct. She was the first
person to enter the little church when it was opened to the freshness
of the summer morning; and long after the Holy Sacrifice was over she
had still knelt, absorbed and motionless, before the altar. Everyone
went away: she was left alone with the Presence in the tabernacle;
and in the stillness, the absolute quiet, a Voice seemed speaking to
her aching heart, and bringing comfort to her troubled soul. When at
length, warned of the passage of time by the striking of a distant
clock, she lifted her face from her clasped hands, even amid the stains
of tears there were signs of peace. The sting of bitterness had been
taken out of her grief; and, that being so, it had become endurable.
She might and would suffer still; but when she had once brought herself
to resign this suffering into the hands of God, and with the docility
of a child accept what it pleased Him to permit, the worst was over.
The first result of the struggle she had made and the victory she had
gained was apparent when, on her return home, she went to Marion's
room. The generous heart could not rest without clearing itself at once
of the least shadow of injustice,--and she had implied, if she had not
expressed, a blame of Marion which she was noble enough to feel might
be unjust. Hence that visit which so deeply touched the girl, whose own
conscience failed to echo Helen's acquittal.
Breakfast passed very quietly. Mrs. Dalton saw that her daughter was
making an heroic effort to appear as usual, and she seconded it as far
as lay in her power, talking more than was her custom in order to allow
Helen to be silent, and to prevent the boys from asking questions about
events of the preceding afternoon. To make no change in her manner to
Marion was more difficult; but, with the example that Helen set, she
was able to accomplish even this; and finally the usual separation for
the morning took place with great sense of relief to all concerned.
Marion put on her hat and went out, ostensibly to keep an appointment
with Mrs. Singleton, but really to be safely out of the way in case
Rathborne should make his appearance.
Helen herself had some fear of this appearance, and she took refuge
in her own chamber, dreading the necessary explanation to her mother,
not so much on her own account as on account of the judgment upon
Rathborne which she knew would follow. Tenderness does not die in an
hour or a day; and although her resolve to put him out of her life was
firm, she was not yet able to put him out of her heart, nor to think
without shrinking of the severe condemnation which her mother would
mete out to him. There was no need for haste in speaking; she might
rest a little, and gather strength for the trial, knowing that Mrs.
Dalton would make no effort to force her confidence.
So she was resting on the bed, where she had not slept at all the night
before, when the door softly opened and Mrs. Dalton entered the room.
"Helen," she said, gently, "I am sorry to disturb you, but Paul
Rathborne is downstairs and asks to see you. What shall I tell him?"
"Tell him that I cannot see him," answered Helen. "It is impossible!
You must speak for me--you must make him understand that he is entirely
free from any engagement to me, and I do not blame him for what he
could not help. I suppose you have guessed that something is the
matter," she added, wistfully. "It is only that I have found out he
cares for Marion--not for me."
Mrs. Dalton put her arm around her with a touch full of sympathy,
without speaking for a moment. Then she said: "My child, I always knew
he was not worthy of you."
"But this does not prove him unworthy of me," replied Helen, in a tone
sharp with pain. "It only proves that he was mistaken when he thought
of me."
"Men of honor do not make such mistakes," said Mrs. Dalton.
"How could he help falling in love with Marion?" continued Helen. "She
is so much more beautiful, so much more attractive than I am! And that
he has done so, settles the doubt of his disinterestedness which you
always entertained. Do him so much justice, mamma. You feared that he
professed to care for me because I have a little money. But Marion has
none."
"We need not discuss that, my dear," said Mrs. Dalton, who was touched
but not convinced by this generous plea. "It is enough if, satisfied
that his affections have wandered, you are determined to dismiss him."
"Yes," said Helen, "I am determined on that. But I cannot see him. You
must go to him, and tell him from me that I do not blame him, but that
all is at an end between us."
With this message Mrs. Dalton went downstairs. Her own mood with
Rathborne was far from being as charitable as her daughter's; and her
face, usually set in very gentle lines, hardened to sternness as she
descended. She was not inclined to deal leniently with one who had so
shamefully betrayed the trust placed in him, and had overshadowed so
darkly the sunshine of Helen's life. Like some other parents, she had
up to this time imagined that the stern conditions of human existence
were to be relaxed for Helen, and that one so formed for happiness was
to be granted that happiness in a measure which is allowed to few. A
sense of keen injury was, therefore, added to her indignation at a
treachery for which she could find no palliation.
Rathborne, who was anxiously expecting yet dreading to see Helen, drew
his breath with a sharp sense of vexation when his aunt entered. This
was worse than he had feared. Calculating upon Helen's gentleness, he
had not thought that she would refuse to see him; and if she saw him,
he believed that his influence would be strong enough to induce her
to overlook anything. But when Mrs. Dalton entered, he knew that the
consequences of his treachery were to be fully paid. A cold greeting
was exchanged between them, and then a short silence followed, as each
hesitated to speak. It was Mrs. Dalton who broke it, as soon as she
felt able to control her voice.
"I have told Helen that you are here," she said, "but she declines to
see you. It is not necessary, I presume, to explain why she declines.
Of that you are fully aware. It is not necessary, either, that I should
add anything to her own words, which are, briefly, that you will
consider everything at an end between you. She added also that she does
not blame you for anything that has occurred--but I hardly think that
your own conscience will echo that."
"No," said Rathborne, who had paled perceptibly, "my own conscience
does not echo it. On the contrary, I feel that I am deeply to blame;
yet I hoped that Helen might believe me when I say that I am not so
much to blame as appears on the surface. A man may be tempted beyond
his strength, and some women are experts in such temptations."
Mrs. Dalton looked at him with scorn in her eyes. "If you think," she
said, "that you will serve your cause with Helen by such cowardly
insinuations as that, you are mistaken. And, as far as I am concerned,
you have only taken a step lower in my esteem. But that is a point
which does not matter. Wherever the blame rests, the fact remains that
if Helen did not take the decision of the matter into her hands, _I_
should do so. You have proved yourself a man whom it is impossible I
can ever consent to trust with my daughter's life and happiness."
Rathborne rose to his feet. The decisive words seemed to leave him
no alternative. He felt that he had committed a blunder which was
altogether irretrievable; and combined with the keen mortification of
failure was a hatred, which gathered bitterness with every moment,
against the woman he believed to have led him on and deceived him.
"In that case," he said, "there is nothing for me to do but to go. I
had hoped that Helen might understand--that she would not let a moment
of folly outweigh the devotion of years; but if she judges me as hardly
as you seem to imply, I see that my hope is vain. Tell her from me that
if she knew the whole truth she would regard the matter in a different
light. But if she does not wish to know the truth--if she prefers to
judge me unheard,--I can only submit."
"It is best she should not see you," said Mrs. Dalton, who was glad
that Helen herself had decided this point. "Even if you persuaded her
to trust you again, I could not give my consent to the renewal of an
engagement which has been ended in this manner."
"_You_ have always distrusted me," said Rathborne, bitterly.
"No," she replied, gravely; "so far from that, I trusted you as my own
son, though I did not think you were the person to make Helen happy.
I had always a fear that you did not care for her enough, and now I
am forced to believe that you did not care for her at all. If you had
done so, this could never have happened, just as it could never have
happened if you had possessed the right principle and the sense of
honor which I should certainly wish my daughter's husband to possess."
Rathborne could hardly believe the evidence of his ears as he listened
to these severe, incisive words. He had always regarded Mrs. Dalton as
a person who was mild to weakness, and whom, whenever it suited him,
he could influence in whatever manner desired. He therefore scarcely
recognized this woman, with her sentence of condemnation based on
premises which he could not deny, though he made a faint attempt to do
so.
"You do not understand," he said, "how a brief infatuation--a delirium
of fancy--can attack a man, let his sense of honor be what it may. As
for my attachment to Helen, that is something which has lasted too long
to be doubted now."
"Will you inform me, then, how you proposed to reconcile it with your
declaration to Marion?"
"That was drawn from me--forced from me!" he exclaimed. "It was a
madness of the moment, into which I was led by her art."
Mrs. Dalton rose now, a bright spot of color on each check. "That is
enough!" she said. "I can listen to nothing more. No man of honor
would, for his own sake, utter such words as those--even if they were
true, and I am sure they are not. Great as my niece's faults may be,
she is incapable of such conduct as you charge her with. Go, Paul
Rathborne! By such excuses you only prove more and more how unworthy
you are of Helen's affection or Helen's trust."
"Very well," he answered, his face white and bitter with anger. "As you
and she have decided, so be it. But take care that the day does not
come when you will deeply regret this decision."
Then he turned, and, without giving her time to reply had she been so
inclined, left the room.
Mrs. Dalton looked after him with a heavy sigh. Regret her decision she
knew that she would not; but it would be vain to say that she did not
regret the necessity for it, that she did not think with a keen pang
of Helen's suffering, and that she did not feel, with much bitterness,
that Marion had not been guiltless in the matter. Yet even in the midst
of her indignation she had pity for the girl, whose vanity and ambition
were likely to wreck her life, as they had already gone far to alienate
her best friends.
Meanwhile Marion could not disguise the fact that she was not in her
usual spirits--for the thought of Helen weighed heavily upon her,--and
Mrs. Singleton, observing this, drew at once her own conclusions.
"I am afraid the gypsy tea was not altogether a success, so far as you
were concerned or your cousin either," she said. "I heard that she went
home with Frank Morley instead of with her _fiancé_. I will not ask any
indiscreet questions, but I suspect that your attractions have drawn
Mr. Rathborne from his allegiance. It is what I have anticipated for
some time."
Marion frowned a little, annoyed by this freedom, which, however, she
felt that she had drawn upon herself, and had no right to resent. But
she evaded the implied question.
"Helen was not feeling well, and so she made her cousin take her home
before we were ready to start," she said. "I am not particularly
partial to Miss Morley's society, or Mr. Rathborne's either, and
thought I would accept the seat you offered me. That was the whole
matter."
"I am delighted to hear it," said Mrs. Singleton, not deceived in the
least. "I was afraid there had been a lover's quarrel, and that perhaps
you were the innocent cause of it. That is always such an awkward
position. I have occupied it myself once or twice, so I speak from
knowledge."
"I am sure that if you occupied it, it must have been innocently," said
Marion, with malice. "But we need not discuss what is not, I trust,
likely to occur, so far as I am concerned. How is Mr. Singleton this
morning?"
"Not well at all. This is one of his bad days. And it is one of mine,
too," she added, with a slight grimace; "for I have just heard that
Brian Earle is coming."
"And who is Brian Earle?"
"Surely you have heard my uncle talk of him? At least, it is most
astonishing if you have not; for he likes him better than any one else
in the world, I think; although they don't agree very well. I have no
fancy for Brian myself: I find him entirely too much of a prig; but
I will say that he might twist the old man around his finger if he
would only yield a little more to his wishes and opinions. It is a
lucky thing for us that he will not, but it does not make his folly
less. Fancy! Mr. Singleton asked him to live with him, look after his
business, and generally devote himself to him during his life, with the
promise of making him his sole heir, and _he refused_! Can you believe
that?"
"I must believe it if you are sure of it," replied Marion, smiling at
the energy of the other. "But why did he refuse?"
Mrs. Singleton shrugged her shoulders. "Because he was not willing to
give up control of his own life, and spend the best years of his youth
in idleness, waiting for an old man to die. That is what he said. As
if he would not gain by that waiting more than his wretched art would
bring him if he toiled at it all his life!"
"His art--what is he?"
"Oh! a painter--or an attempt at one. Are such people always visionary
and impracticable? I judge so from what I have read of them, and from
my knowledge of him. It is true that his folly serves our interest very
well; for if he had agreed to what his uncle proposed, we should have
no chance of inheriting anything; but, nevertheless, one has a contempt
for a man with so little sense."
"I think you should have the highest regard for him in this instance,
since he is serving your interest so well. But why is he coming?"
"To see his uncle before going abroad again. Mr. Singleton has a strong
attachment for him, notwithstanding the way he has acted; and I should
not be surprised if he made him his heir, after all. So you see there
is no reason why I should be overjoyed at his visit, especially since
he is not at all an agreeable person, as you will see."
"I may not see," said Marion; "for I do not think I shall be in
Scarborough much longer."
"You are going away?" said Mrs. Singleton, with a quick flash of
comprehension in her eyes.
"In a few days probably," was the reply. "I promised to spend only a
month with Helen, and I have been here now six weeks."
"But I thought you were good for the season," said Mrs. Singleton;
while her inward comment was: "So matters are just as I thought!"