It grew quite chilly towards dusk, which gave Dr. Howe an excuse for
putting a match to the dusty pile of logs in the library fireplace. He
liked the snap and glow of the flames, and did not object to the mild,
soft heat; so he sat there long after Lois had gone wearily up-stairs to
bed, and the rectory was full of drowsy silence.
Outside, the tree which leaned toward the house bent and swayed in the
wind, and scratched against the weather boards, while the rain came in a
quick dash against the glass, and then seemed to listen for an answer,
and waver, and retreat, and go sweeping down among the bushes in the
garden.
The rector had not lighted his lamp; the faint, still light from two
candles in the row of silver candlesticks on the tall mantel was all he
wanted until he began to read. He was ready to do that later. A church
journal, with an account of a quarrel between a High-Church clergyman and
his Low-Church Bishop, was within reach of his hand, and the "Three
Guardsmen," in a ragged yellow cover, was astride his knee, but now he
was content to sit and think. He made a prosperous and comfortable
figure, reflected in the dim, dark mirror over the mantel, where the
candles shone back like stars in a pool at night. A white moth had found
its way into the house, and fluttered back and forth between the candles,
its little white ghost following it in the glass. The rector watched it
placidly. Even his thoughts were tranquil and comfortable, for he was
equally indifferent both to the bishop and his rebellious clergyman.
There was a cup of mulled wine simmering by the brass dogs, and the
fire sputtered and sung softly. Max, with his nose between his paws,
watched it with sleepy eyes. The little tinge of melancholy in Dr. Howe's
face did not interfere with a look of quiet satisfaction with life;
perhaps, indeed, it gave an added charm to his ruddy, handsome features.
At first he had been thinking of Mr. Denner; not of that distressing day
when he had told him of approaching death,--that was too painful for such
an hour, he meant to meet it later,--but of the sad vacancy the little
gentleman had left.
Perhaps the consciousness of the thought from which he was hiding turned
his mind to Helen, and here all was satisfactory. There had been no
discussion, none of the theological argument that her letters had given
him cause to dread, which had made him feel a quiver in that solid rock
of custom that a long-quieted earthquake had once shaken to its centre.
He felt in a vague way that his niece was not quite so near and familiar,
and there was a subtile reserve, which did not show itself in words or
any check in the expression of her love, but which was certainly there.
Yet he did not analyze it; he did not care to realize that perhaps she
feared to speak of what was so real to her, because she knew he had no
help for her. Dr. Howe would have perfectly understood that this must
inevitably create a distance between them; but it would have been
extremely painful to have let this creep into his thoughts, just as it
would have been painful for him had she spoken of it; so he preferred to
say to himself that all was well. The child had gotten over all that
foolishness; he would have disliked to find fault with her, as he must
have done had she mentioned it; he was glad it was all forgotten. He was
glad, too, Lois was going to Lockhaven to see her. Poor little Lois! Ah,
poor Denner! Well, well, there are some very sad things in life. And he
lifted his mug of mulled wine, and drank thoughtfully, and then crossed
his legs again on the fender; and the rain beat and sobbed outside.
He wondered if Lois's pale face had any connection with the departure of
the Forsythes. Mrs. Dale had hinted at it, though she had not dared to
quote Arabella Forsythe's triumphant secret. Then he remembered how
disappointed he had been that nothing came of that affair. But on the
whole it would have been very lonely at the rectory without Lois. It was
just as well. Dr. Howe generally found that most things were "just as
well." Indeed, he had been heard to say that, with a good digestion, any
sorrow showed itself to have been best inside three years. Perhaps he had
forgotten for the moment that he was a widower; but at all events, he
said it.
So he blew his logs to a brighter blaze, and drank the rest of his mulled
wine, stirring it round and round for the nutmeg and spice, and said to
himself, listening to the beat of the rain as he pulled Max's silky ears,
that it was the worst June storm he remembered. Perhaps that was why he
did not hear the front door open and close with a bang against the gust
which tried to force its way into the house, blowing out the hall lights,
and sending a dash of rain into Sally's face.
"Lord!" cried Sally, with a shrill scream, "it's Miss Helen's ghost!"
The face she saw was ghost-like indeed. It was wet and streaming with
rain, and the dark eyes were strange and unseeing.
"Do not tell Miss Lois I am here," the pale lips said. "Where is my
uncle? I must see him."
Sally could only point speechlessly to the library door. Helen went
swiftly towards it. She seemed to hesitate a moment before she entered,
and then she opened it, and closed it again behind her, standing silently
in front of it.
Dr. Howe looked up calmly, expecting to see Sally; but the sight of that
still figure, with eyes which looked at him with a curious fixedness,
sent the color from his face in one moment of actual fright. "Helen!" he
cried, springing to his feet. "Good heavens! child, what is it? What is
the matter?"
"I have come back," she answered, uttering each word with that peculiar
slowness one notices in a very sick person, who tries to hear himself
speak.
Dr. Howe had turned to light the lamp, but his hand shook, and Helen
absently steadied the shade until he raised the wick, and then fumbled
for his glasses, and turned to look at her. It was a relief to hear her
speak.
"My dear," he said, his voice still tremulous, "you alarmed me terribly.
Why, how wet you are!" He had laid his hand upon her shoulder to help her
take off her wraps. "Bless my soul, child, you're drenched! Did you come
in an open carriage? But why are you here? Did you miss your train?"
Even as he spoke, before she silently shook her head, he knew she would
have been back by noon had she missed her train.
Max had come and sniffed suspiciously at her skirts before he recognized
her, and then he rubbed his head against her knee, and reached up to be
patted. She let her hand rest a moment on his head, and then with cold,
stiff fingers tried to help her uncle take off her cloak, and lift her
bonnet from her dripping hair. She made no effort to wipe the rain from
her face, and Dr. Howe, with his big handkerchief, tried clumsily to do
it for her.
"What is the matter, my dear?" the rector was saying nervously. "Is
anything wrong with Mr. Ward? Have you had bad news? Tell me, my
darling; you distress me by your silence."
Helen's throat seemed dry, and she moved her lips once or twice before
the words came. "I have come back," she answered slowly, looking with
absent eyes at Max, who was furtively licking her hand. "I have had a
letter from John. So I have come back. I am very tired."
She looked wearily around, and swayed a little from side to side. Dr.
Howe caught her in his arms. "My dear," he said, in a frightened voice,
"my dear--you are very ill. I'll fetch Jean--I'll send for Adele!"
Helen laid her shaking hand upon his arm. "No, no,--I am not ill. I am
only tired. I walked from Mercer, I think; I don't quite remember. Please
do not call any one, uncle."
In spite of the wildness of her words, it was not a delirious woman who
was speaking to him, as he had thought. "Try and tell me, then, what it
all means," he said; "or stay,--first let me get you a glass of wine."
He went shuffling along in his slippers to the dining-room, and came back
with a wineglass and the little fat decanter, with the silver collar
clinking about its neck. He filled the glass, and held it to her lips,
and then stood and looked at her as she drank, his lower lip thrust out,
and perplexity and anxiety written on every feature.
Helen handed the glass back to him, and rose. "Thank you, uncle Archie,"
she said. "I--I must go up-stairs now. I am tired."
"But, my dear child," he remonstrated, "my dear Helen, you must tell me
what all this means, first."
She looked at him entreatingly. "Not now,--oh, not to-night."
"But, Helen," he said, "I can't be kept in suspense, you know."
He tried to put his arm about her, but she pushed it a little aside and
shook her head. "I will tell you," she said, while Dr. Howe, not
understanding his repulse, stood with parted lips and frowning eyebrows,
polishing his glasses on the skirt of his dressing-gown. Helen rubbed her
hand across her forehead.
"I am a little confused," she began, "but--there is not much to say. John
has written that I must not come back to Lockhaven. I shall never see my
husband again, uncle Archie," she added piteously.
"Why--why--why!" cried Dr. Howe. "Bless my soul, what's all this? Mr.
Ward says my niece is not to return to her husband! Oh, come, now, come!"
"Need we say anything more to-night?" Helen said. "I--I cannot talk."
Nothing could have shown Dr. Howe's affection for his niece more than the
way in which he said, looking at her in silence for a moment, "My child,
you shall do just what you please. Come up-stairs now, and get to bed. It
will be a mercy if you're not laid up with a cold to-morrow. Would you
rather not see Lois? Well, then, Jean shall come and make you
comfortable."
But Dr. Howe, shuffling over the bare stairs, and fuming to himself,
"What's all this! Nonsense, I say, perfect nonsense!" could not fail to
arouse Lois, and she called out drowsily, "Good-night, father, dear. Is
anything the matter?"
"Nothing,--nothing!" cried the rector testily. "Go to sleep. Come, Helen,
take my arm, and let me help you."
"Helen!" Lois exclaimed, wide awake, and springing from her bed to rush
to her cousin. "What is it?" she gasped, as she caught sight of the
group.
"Nothing, I tell you," said the rector. "Go to bed at once; you'll take
cold."
But Helen, seeing the distressed face, put her hands on Lois's shoulders,
and pushed her gently back into her room. "I had to come back, Lois," she
said. "I will tell you why, to-morrow. I am too tired, now. Don't speak
to me, please, dear."
The rector had hurried down the entry to find Jean, who indeed needed no
rousing, for Sally had told her who had come. "Let me know when Miss
Helen is comfortable," he said.
And when the old woman, awed by Helen's still, white face, told him his
niece was in bed, he came up again, holding the decanter by the throat,
and begging her to take another glass of wine. But she only turned her
head away and asked to be alone. She would not say anything more, and did
not seem to hear his assurances that it would be "all right in the
morning," and that "she must not worry."
It was the kindest thing to her, but it was very hard for the rector to
go down to his library still in ignorance. The spell of peace had been
rudely broken, and his fire was out. He lifted Helen's bonnet, still
heavy with rain, and laid it on the cloak she had thrown across a chair,
and then stood and looked at them as though they could explain the
mystery of her return. The tall clock on the stairs struck eleven, and
outside the storm beat and complained.
Dr. Howe was up early the next morning. He went through the silent house
before Sally had crept yawning from her room, and, throwing open the
doors at each end of the hall, let a burst of sunshine and fresh wind
into the darkness and stillness. Then he went out, and began to walk up
and down the porch as a sort of outlet to his impatience. Over and over
he said, "What can it be?" Indeed, Dr. Howe had asked himself that
question even in his dreams. "I hope there's no woman at the bottom
of it," he thought. "But no; Ward's a fool, but he is a good man."
He stopped once, to lift a trailing vine and twist it about a support.
The rain had done great damage in the night: the locust blossoms had been
torn from the trees, and the lawn was white with them; the soft, wet
petals of the climbing roses were scattered upon the path by the side of
the house; and a long branch of honeysuckle, wrenched from its trellis,
was prone upon the porch. These small interests quieted the rector, and
he was able soon to reason himself into the belief that his niece's
return was a trifling affair, perhaps a little uncomfortable, and
certainly silly, but he would soon make it all right; so that when he saw
her coming slowly down-stairs, with Lois creeping after her, almost
afraid to speak, he was able to greet her very tranquilly.
"Are you rested, my child? After breakfast, we'll have a good talk, and
everything shall be straightened out."
Breakfast was a dreary affair. Helen's abstraction was too profound for
her to make even the pretense of eating. Once or twice, when Lois's voice
pierced through the clouds and reached her heart, she looked up, and
tried to reply. But they were all glad when it was over, and the rector
put his arm gently over his niece's shoulders, and drew her into the
library.
"If any one comes, Lois," he said, "you had better just say Helen changed
her mind about going yesterday, and has come back for a few days."
"No," interrupted Helen slowly. "You had better say what is the truth,
Lois. I have come back to Ashurst to stay."
"Now, my dear," remonstrated the rector when they were in the library,
and he had shut the door, "that is really very unwise. These little
affairs, little misunderstandings, are soon cleared up, and they are even
forgotten by the people most interested in them. But outsiders never
forget. So it is very unwise to speak of them."
Helen had seated herself on the other side of his writing-table, brushing
away the litter of papers and unanswered letters, so that she could lean
her elbow on it, and now she looked steadily across at him.
"Uncle," she said, calmly "you do not know. There is no misunderstanding.
It is just what I told you last night: he thinks it best that I should
leave him indefinitely. I know that it is forever. Yes, it seems to him
best. And I am sure, feeling as he does, he is right. Yes, John is
right."
Dr. Howe threw himself back in his revolving chair, and spun half-way
round. "Helen," he said, "this is folly; you must talk like a sensible
woman. You know you cannot leave your husband. I suppose you and Ward,
like all the rest of the world that is married, have had some falling
out; and now, being young, you think your lives are over. Nonsense!
Bless my soul, child, your aunt and I had dozens of them, and all as
silly as this, I'll be bound. But I'm sure we did not take the public
into our confidence by declaring that we would live apart. I should have
given you credit for more sense, indeed I should."
Helen did not notice the reprimand.
"Now tell me all about it," he continued. "You know you can trust me, and
I'll write your husband a letter which will make things clear."
Helen shook her head wearily. "You will not understand. Nothing can be
done; it is as fixed as--death. We can neither of us alter it and be
ourselves. Oh, I have tried and tried to see some way out of it, until it
seems as if my soul were tired."
"I did not intend to be severe, my child," the rector said, with
remorseful gentleness, "but in one way it is a more serious thing than
you realize. I don't mean this foolishness of a separation; that will all
be straightened out in a day or two. But we do not want it gossiped
about, and your being here at all, after having started home, looks
strange; and of course, if you say anything about having had a--a falling
out with Ward, it will make it ten times worse. But you haven't told me
what it is?"
"Yes, I'll tell you," she answered, "and then perhaps you will see that
it is useless to talk about it. I must just take up the burden of life as
well as I can."
"Go on," said the rector.
"John has been much distressed lately," Helen began, looking down at her
hands, clasping each other until the skin was white across the knuckles,
"because I have not believed in eternal punishment. He has felt that my
eternal happiness depended upon holding such a belief." Dr. Howe looked
incredulous. "Some weeks ago, one of his elders came to him and told him
I was spreading heresy in the church, and damning my own soul and the
souls of others who might come to believe as I did,--you know I told Mrs.
Davis that her husband had not gone to hell,--and he reproached John for
neglecting me and his church too; for John, to spare me, had not preached
as he used to, on eternal punishment. It almost killed him, uncle," she
said, and her voice, which had given no hint of tears since her return,
grew unsteady. "Oh, he has suffered so! and he has felt that it was his
fault, a failure in his love, that I did not believe what he holds to be
true."
"Heavens!" cried the rector explosively, "heresy? Is this the nineteenth
century?"
"Since I have been away," Helen went on, without noticing the
interruption, "they have insisted that I should be sessioned,--dealt
with, they call it. John won't let me come back to that; but if that were
his only reason, we could move away from Lockhaven. He has a nobler
reason: he feels that this unbelief of mine will bring eternal misery to
my soul, and he would convert me by any means. He has tried all that he
knows (for oh, we have discussed it endlessly, uncle Archie!),--argument,
prayer, love, tenderness, and now--sorrow."
The rector was sitting very straight in his chair, his plump hands
gripping the arms of it, and his lips compressed with anger, while he
struggled for patience to hear this preposterous story through.
"He makes me suffer," Helen continued, "that I may be saved. And indeed I
don't see how he can do anything else. If a man believes his wife will be
damned for all eternity unless she accepts certain doctrines, I should
think he would move heaven and earth to make her accept them. And John
does believe that. In denying reprobation, I deny revelation, he says,
and also the Atonement, upon which salvation depends. So now you see
why he says I shall not come back to him until I have found the truth."
Then Dr. Howe burst into a torrent of indignant remonstrance. A clergyman
send his wife from him because she does not believe some dogma! Were we
back in the dark ages? It was too monstrously absurd! If the idiots he
preached to forced him to do it, let him leave them; let him come to
Ashurst. The rector would build him a meeting-house, and he could preach
his abominable doctrine to anybody who was fool enough to go and hear
him.
Dr. Howe was walking hastily up and down the room, gesticulating as he
talked. Helen's patient eyes followed him. Again and again she tried to
point out to him her husband's intense sincerity, and the necessity which
his convictions forced upon him. But the rector refused to think Mr.
Ward's attitude worthy of serious consideration. "The man is insane!"
he cried. "Send his wife away from him to force her into a certain
belief? Madness,--I tell you, madness!"
"I cannot hear you speak so of my husband," Helen said very quietly, but
it caused Dr. Howe to conceal his wrath.
"He'll think differently in a day or two," he said. "This nonsense won't
last."
Then Helen, having exhausted all her arguments to show that John was
immovable, said, "Let me read you what he says himself; then you will
understand, perhaps, how real it all is to him, and how he cannot help
it."
"Bah!" cried Dr. Howe, and certainly it was trying to have Helen attempt
to excuse such folly. "I've no patience with--There, there! I didn't
mean to lose my temper, but bless my soul, this is the worst thing I ever
knew. See here, Helen, if the man is so determined, you'll have to change
your views, or go back to your old views, I mean,--I don't know what you
do believe,--that's all there is about it."
Helen was unfolding John's letter, and she looked up at her uncle with a
fleeting smile. "Change my views so that I can go back? Do you think that
would satisfy John? Do you think I could? Why, uncle Archie, do you
believe in eternal damnation? I know you pray to be delivered from it in
the Litany, but do you believe in it?"
"That has nothing to do with the question, Helen," he answered, frowning,
"and of course I believe that the consequences of sin are eternal."
"You know that is not what the prayer means," she insisted; "you have
to put your private interpretation upon it. Well, it is my private
interpretation which John thinks is sin, and sin which will receive what
it denies."
"Well, you must believe it, then," the rector said, striking his fist on
the arm of his chair; "it is the wife's place to yield; and while I
acknowledge it is all folly, you must give in."
"You mean," she said, "that I must say I believe it. Can I change a
belief? You know I cannot, uncle Archie. And when you hear what John
says, you will see I must be true, no matter where truth leads me."
Helen knew every word of that letter by heart. She had read it while she
drove towards the depot, and when she dismissed the carriage it was with
a vague idea of flying to Lockhaven, and brushing all this cobweb of
unreason away, and claiming her right to take her place at her husband's
side. But as she sat in the station, waiting, every sentence of the
letter began to burn into her heart, and she slowly realized that she
could not go back. The long day passed, and the people, coming and going,
looked curiously at her; one kindly woman, seeing the agony in her white
face, came up and asked her if she were ill, and could she help her?
Helen stared at her like a person in a dream, and shook her head. Then,
in a numb sort of way, she began to understand that she must go back to
Ashurst. She did not notice that it had begun to rain, or think of a
carriage, but plodded, half blind and dazed, over the country road to her
old home, sometimes sitting down, not so much to rest as to take the
letter from its envelope again and read it.
She looked at it now, with a sudden gasp of pain; it was as though a
dagger had been turned in a wound. It seemed too sacred to read to Dr.
Howe, but it was just to John that it should be heard, even if only
partly understood; and it was also just to her--for Helen had one of
those healthy souls which could be just to itself. With the letter had
come a clear and logical statement of the doctrine of reprobation,
together with the arguments and reasons for holding it; besides this,
there was a list of books which he meant to send her. All these she
handed to her uncle.
"I will not read you all he writes," she said, "but even a little will
show you the hopelessness of thinking I can ever go back to him. He tells
me first of a meeting of his Session, where the elders told him they
wished to have me summoned before them, and of another visit from Mr.
Dean, of whom I spoke to you, insisting that John had been faithless in
his duty to his church and me. 'I could only listen,' he writes, 'in
assenting anguish, when he charged me with having been careless of your
spiritual life; and when he said that the sin of your unbelief had crept
from soul to soul, like an insidious and fatal disease unseen by the eyes
of the church, until spiritual death, striking first one and then
another, roused us to our danger. How can I write that word "us," as
though I arrayed myself with them against you, dearest! Yet it is not
you, but this fatal unbelief! They charged me, these elders, whose place
it is to guard the spiritual life of the church, with having preached
peace to them, when there was no peace, and leaving unspoken the words of
warning that eternal death awaits unrepented sin. They told me Davis had
died in his sin, not having had the fear of hell before his eyes to
convert his soul. And, Helen, I know it is all true! When they insisted
that you, like any other member of the church, should be brought before
the Session, that they might reason with you, and by the blessing of God
convert your soul to a saving knowledge of the truth, or at least bind
you to silence for the sake of others, I would not listen. Here I felt my
right was greater than theirs, for you are like my own soul. I told them
I would not permit it; I knew it would but drive you further from grace.
I cannot think I sinned in this, though I apparently neglect a means of
salvation for you; but I could not subject you to that,--I could not put
your soul into their hands. I distrust myself (I have need, having loved
earthly happiness more than your immortal peace, and called it wisdom),
yet I think I am right in this. God grant that the means of grace which I
choose instead, which will crucify my own heart, may, by his blessing,
save your soul. And I have faith to believe it will. The promises of God
fail not.
"'Oh, Helen, if I loved you less! Sometimes, in these two weeks, while
this purpose has been growing up in my mind, I have shrunk back, and
cried that I could not drink of the cup, and in the depth of human
weakness I have felt, if I loved her less, I could not do what I have to
do, and so the pain would be spared. But love is too mighty for me. I
shall save you! When I think of the months since we were married, which
I have kept unruffled by a single entreaty that you would turn from
darkness into light, my eyes are blasted by the sight of my own sin;
despair and death lay hold upon me. But He has had mercy upon me. He has
shown me one way in which you shall be saved, and by his strength I am
not disobedient to the heavenly vision. Reason and argument have not
shown you the light. Joy and peace have not led you to it. There is one
other path, beloved, which I have faith to believe shall not fail. It is
sorrow. Sorrow can bring the truth home to you as no other thing will.
The relentless pressure of grief will force you to seek for light. It
will admit of no evasion; it will receive no subtilty; it will bring you
face to face with the eternal verities; it will save your soul. And what
sorrow, Helen, can come to you such as making me suffer? And is there a
pang which can tear my soul in this world like absence from my beloved? I
trample my own happiness under my feet. Too long I have been weak, too
long I have loved you with but half my nature; now I am strong. Therefore
I say, before God, for your soul's sake, you shall not see my face until
you have found the truth. This pain, which will be to me but the just
punishment for my sin, will be to you like some sharp and bitter medicine
which shall heal you of what would otherwise bring eternal death. Even as
I write I am filled with strength from God to save you. For God has shown
me the way. And it shall be soon,--I know it shall be soon. The Lord's
hand is not shortened that it cannot save. He has revealed to me the one
last way of showing you the truth, and He will lighten your eyes. Yet,
oh, my love, my wife, help me to be strong for you,--my Helen, help me in
these days or weeks of waiting.
"'There is one mercy vouchsafed to me who am all unworthy of the least
favor: it is the knowledge of your understanding it all,--the bitter
distress, the absolute conviction, and the necessity which follows it.
You see what the temptation was to fly with you to some spot where your
unbelief could not injure any one, and there work and pray for your
salvation; leaving these souls, which my neglect of you and so of them,
has allowed to drift deep into sin. You will understand that, believing
(oh, knowing, Helen, knowing) that salvation depends upon a right
conception of truth, I have no choice but to force you by any means to
save your soul. This knowledge makes me strong. So I am set, with
strength which you yourself give me, to inflict this suffering upon you.
Take this absence and use its bitterness to sting you to search for
truth. Take its anguish to God. Pray for light, pray for the Spirit of
God. And when light comes--Oh, love, the thought of that joy seems too
great to bear except before the throne of God! I shall not write again;
you will meet this grief in the solitude of your own soul, where even I
dare not come to break the silence which may be the voice of God. Write
me any questionings, that I may help those first faint stirrings of the
Holy Spirit, but unless questionings come I shall be silent.'"
Helen had not read all of this aloud, and there was yet more, on which
she looked a moment before she folded the letter. The closing words were
full of a human tenderness too divine and holy for any heart but her own;
a faint smile crept about her lips for a moment, as she leaned out of her
distress to rest upon her husband's love, and then she woke again to the
present.