After I had read this letter I saw that my great battle, which I had
supposed to be over, was hardly begun.
Martin was coming home with his big heart full of love for me, and my
own heart ran out to meet him.
He intended to sail for New Zealand the second week in August, and he
expected to take me with him.
In spite of all my religious fears and misgivings, I asked myself why I
should not go? What was to prevent me? What sin had I really committed?
What was there for reparation? Was it anything more than the letter of
the Divine law that I had defied and broken?
My love was mine and I was his, and I belonged to him for ever. He was
going out on a great errand in the service of humanity. Couldn't I go to
be his partner and helpmate? And if there _had_ been sin, if the law of
God _had_ been broken, wouldn't that, too, be a great atonement?
Thus my heart fought with my soul, or with my instincts as a child of
the Church, or whatever else it was that brought me back and back, again
and again, in spite of all the struggles of my love, to the firm
Commandment of our Lord.
Father Dan had been right--I could not get away from that. The Reverend
Mother had been right, too--other women might forget that they had
broken the Divine law but I never should. If I married Martin and went
away with him, I should always be thinking of the falseness of my
position, and that would make me unhappy. It would also make Martin
unhappy to witness my unhappiness, and that would be the worst
bitterness life could bring.
Then what was left to me? If it was impossible that I should bury myself
in a convent it was equally impossible that I should live alone, and
Martin in the same world with me.
Not all the spiritual pride I could conjure up in the majesty and
solemnity of my self-sacrifice could conquer the yearning of my heart as
a woman. Not all my religious fervour could keep me away from Martin. In
spite of my conscience, sooner or later I should go to him--I knew quite
well I should. And my child, instead of being a barrier dividing us,
would be a natural bond calling on us and compelling us to come
together.
Then what was left to a woman in my position who believed in the Divine
Commandment--who could not get away from it? Were all the doors of life
locked to her? Turn which way she would, was there no way out?
Darker and darker every day became this question, but light came at
last, a kind of light or the promise of light. It was terrible, and yet
it brought me, oh, such immense relief!
I am almost afraid to speak of it, so weak and feeble must any words be
in which I attempt to describe that unforgetable change. Already I had
met some of the mysteries of a woman's life--now I was to meet the last,
the greatest, the most tragic, and yet the kindest of them all.
I suppose the strain of emotion I had been going through had been too
much for my physical strength, for three days after the arrival of
Martin's letter I seemed to be really ill.
I am ashamed to dwell on my symptoms, but for a moment I am forced to do
so. My eyes were bright, my cheeks were coloured, and there was no
outward indication of any serious malady. But towards evening I always
had a temperature, and in the middle of the night (I was sleeping badly)
it rose very high, with a rapid pulse and anxious breathing, and in the
morning there was great exhaustion.
Old Doctor Conrad, who had been coming to me twice a day, began to look
very grave. At last, after a short examination, he said, rather
nervously:
"I should like a colleague from Blackwater to consult with me. Will you
receive him?"
I said "Yes" on one condition--that if the new doctor had anything
serious to say he should report it first to me.
A little reluctantly Martin's father agreed to my terms and the
consulting physician was sent for. He came early the next day--a
beautiful Ellan morning with a light breeze from the sea bringing the
smell of new-mown hay from the meadows lying between.
He was an elderly man, and I could not help seeing a shadow cross his
clean-shaven face the moment his eyes first fell on me. They were those
tender but searching eyes which are so often seen in doctors, who are
always walking through the Valley of the Shadow and seem to focus their
gaze accordingly.
Controlling his expression, he came up to my bed and, taking the hand I
held out to him, he said:
"I trust we'll not frighten you, my lady."
I liked that (though I cared nothing about my lost title, I thought it
was nice of him to remember it), and said I hoped I should not be too
restless.
While he took out and fixed his stethoscope (he had such beautiful soft
hands) he told me that he had had a daughter of my own age once.
"Once? Where is she now?" I asked him.
"In the Kingdom. She died like a Saint," he answered.
Then he made a long examination (returning repeatedly to the same
place), and when it was over and he raised his face I thought it looked
still more serious.
"My child," he said (I liked that too), "you've never spared yourself,
have you?"