"My Dear Lewis: Before you receive this letter, you will have had the
explanation of my disappearance from New York. A merciful Providence
directed me, in my partial derangement, to this peaceful retreat. Here
I have found rest for body and soul--peace such as the world could
never give the heart, even were it not bowed down by a sorrow like
mine. Not that I forget past errors; nor that the review does not
humble me in the dust. I confess, with shame and bitterness of spirit,
my wasted years, my unsanctified affections, my evil passions. But
for the assurance of the Father's pardon, the Saviour's loving pity,
the black catalogue would strike me dead with horror and anguish. It
is a fearful thing to be made to see one's self as she is; to scan
in terrified solicitude the record of a life, and find there nothing
better than pride, misanthropy, falsehood, hatred of men--rebellion
against God. It is a sweet experience to taste, however tremblingly,
the consolations of the Friend who invites the weary and heavy-laden
to draw near and learn of Him. In His strength--not in that feebleness
I once called power--have I resolved to lead a new life. Of the causes
which have contributed to produce this change, we will speak more at
length when we meet.
"'When we meet!' Lewis, will you, can you forget your manifold wrongs
and come back to me? I do not plead, now, 'for the sake of our child.'
Her sinless soul henceforth can know no pain or woe. God saw that I
was not worthy of her, and He took her. In the earlier weeks of my
selfish mourning, I had no thought of your bereavement. Latterly, I
have longed to comfort you, for I know that your heart is riven by
this stroke. She was your joy, as she was my angel of peace. Her loss
is our common sorrow. Shall it not draw us together? Yet, as I have
said, our estrangement cannot now affect her. Thoughtless of evil,
she passed away. Had she lived, the Omniscient only knows what grief
and mortification might have darkened her pathway. Nor do I desire a
reconciliation as a shield from the world's sneer or ban. I hold its
applause and its censure alike cheaply. In prosperity, its favors were
painted, tasteless fruit; in adversity, it would have fed my starving
heart with husks. But for my sake--by the thought of my late and sore
repentance; by the remorse that must gnaw my spirit, when I remember
your noble trust in me, your unswerving fidelity, your generous love
and my base requital of it all; by the sorrow that never leaves me
by day or by night--forgive me, and return to the home we have both
forsaken! I will serve you very faithfully, my husband! I have gained
other and higher views of the marriage relation within a short time
past. However presumptuously I may have assumed its responsibilities,
however unworthily I performed its duties in former days, I would
enter upon our re-engagement with a solemn sense of what I owe to you
and to Him who united us. You must have despised me at our parting,
and since. Perhaps you have come to think of me with dislike as well
as contempt. I will bear this--grievous though the burden will be--as
a part of my righteous punishment. I will never murmur--never, even
in thought, accuse you of unjust harshness, if you will grant me
the opportunity to make what amends I can for all you have lost and
suffered through my fault."
Sarah was still far from strong; and wearied as much by the intensity
of her feelings as by the manual effort of writing, she laid the pen
down, and leaned back in the cushioned chair. Her table stood in the
parlor beneath the window overlooking the river. The room was prim
and clean, as of yore, with its straight lines of chairs; its shining
specks of mirrors; the grim black profiles above the mantel, and the
green boughs in the fireplace. The outer scene was in its general
features, that which the girl had surveyed, with pleased surprise, the
July evening of her arrival here two years ago.
Only two years! The sufferings and life-lessons of twenty had been
crowded into that brief space. The meadows were growing sere, as
if scorching winds had swept over them, and the stream reflected
truthfully, yet, one could have fancied, sadly, the changing foliage
fringing its borders. But the sky, with its tender blue and its fleecy
clouds, ever shifting, yet ever retaining their likeness to one
another--the river's smooth, steady flow, were the same; fit emblems
both of them of counsels which are mercy and truth through all their
workings; of love that abideth forever!
The train of thought was replete with refreshing to the spirit that
was striving, in prayer and watchfulness, to adhere to the right, to
accept, with meek submission, all that her cup yet held of pungent
or nauseous lees. There was no affectation in the humble tone of her
letter. She would not begin it until she had mastered the stubborn
remnant of her native pride. It should be nothing to her that her
husband had wilfully separated himself from her, and refused her
overtures of reconcilement. If this was unkindness it was all she could
reproach him with in the course of time they had spent together. He had
been a true friend, an honorable protector, and dimly still, but more
justly than ever before, she perceived that into his love for her there
had entered none of the merely prudential considerations, the cool
calculations, wherewith she used to account for his choice of herself
as a helpmeet. Where, in the world's heartless circles, could she point
out another wife as much indulged, as much honored in public and in
private, as she once was by him? Mournfully, if not lovingly, she dwelt
upon the countless evidences of his cordial fulfillment, in letter and
in spirit, of his part of their mutual engagement, with something of
the sinking heart the alchemist may have felt when, after he had, by
a mechanical and habitual fling of his arm, tossed the eagerly-sought
philosopher's stone into the sea as a worthless pebble, he discovered
that the divining steel he held had been changed to gold by its touch.
To whom of us has not an experience similar to this come? It may be
that the eyes which once besought affection with dumb and disregarded
eloquence are closed and rayless for all future time; the lips that
told, with modest frankness, how dear we were to hearts we cared
not then to win, are now but silent dust. Or, perchance, grieved
by indifference, repelled by unkindness, those hearts have sought
and found in other loves solace for the pain we, in our blindness
inflicted. It matters little whether they be dead to all the world, or
only to us. In either case, the longing and despair of our lonely lives
are rendered the more unendurable from the flash of tardy truth that
shows us, side by side with our actual poverty of heart riches, the
tranquil beauty of the pictured "might have been."
Aunt Sarah had gone on a visit to a neighbor; the hired girl was in
the distant wash-house; and Charley considered it his duty to linger
within easy reach of his cousin, should she need him for any purpose.
To guard her from all chance of intrusion, he stationed himself on
the front porch steps, with his book on his knee. For an hour he read
on uninterruptedly; then, glancing up as he turned a leaf, he saw a
gentleman coming down the gravel walk. He looked thin and anxious,
and his restless eye wandered from door to windows, as in expectation
of seeing some one beside the boy. With a ready apprehension of his
infirmity, only to be accounted for by some prior knowledge of the
person he saluted, he took from his pocket a card, which he presented
before he shook hands with the silent host. Charley's intelligent
face was one beam of pleasure as he read, and his warm grasp showed
his sympathy in the happiness he fancied was in store for his cousin.
Inviting the guest by a gesture to follow him, he went softly to the
parlor-door, tapped lightly--too lightly, indeed, to attract the notice
of the musing occupant of the room, then drew back the bolt, admitted
the stranger, and delicately withdrew.
Sarah heard the door open and Charley's retreating footsteps, and,
supposing that he had peeped in to see that she was comfortable and
wanted for nothing, she did not look around. The intruder stood still
one step within the room, as if unable to advance or speak. The
languid attitude of the figure before him, so unlike the self-poise
and quiet energy of her former deportment, her black dress, even the
wasted hands dropped so wearily upon her lap, told of the storm that
had passed over her, the utter revolution in her life and nature. A
struggling sigh he could not repress broke from the gazer's breast, and
Sarah turned hastily towards him. She did not swoon, as he feared she
would. A thrill, like an electric shock, shook her from head to foot;
a wild inquiry looked from her eyes; a question or the reality of the
appearance, succeeding so closely to--did it grow out of her revery?
Lewis put this imagination to flight.
"Sarah!" he said, pressing in his the hands she extended mutely. "They
told me you were lost, and I hurried home to find you. I could not
wait for your permission to come to you, when I learned in New York
that I had a living wife! The loss of the child was heavy enough; but
this"--He could say no more.
"I am thankful! I am glad that you are here!" A faint, beautiful smile
shone over her wan features. "And our baby, Lewis! We must remember
that she is an angel now!"