It was later than Holmes thought: a gray, cold evening. The streets in
that suburb were lonely: he went down them, the new-fallen snow dulling
his step. It had covered the peaked roofs of the houses too, and they
stood in listening rows, white and still. Here and there a pale
flicker from the gas-lamps struggled with the ashy twilight. He met no
one: people had gone home early on Christmas eve. He had no home to go
to: pah! there were plenty of hotels, he remembered, smiling grimly.
It was bitter cold: he buttoned up his coat tightly, as he walked
slowly along as if waiting for some one,--wondering dully if the gray
air were any colder or stiller than the heart hardly beating under the
coat. Well, men had conquered Fate, conquered life and love, before
now. It grew darker: he was pacing now slowly in the shadow of a long
low wall surrounding the grounds of some building. When he came near
the gate, he would stop and listen: he could have heard a sparrow on
the snow, it was so still. After a while he did hear footsteps,
crunching the snow heavily; the gate clicked as they came out: it was
Knowles, and the clergyman whom Dr. Cox did not like; Vandyke was his
name.
"Don't bolt the gate," said Knowles; "Miss Howth will be out presently."
They sat down on a pile of lumber near by, waiting, apparently. Holmes
went up and joined them, standing in the shadow of the lumber, talking
to Vandyke. He did not meet him, perhaps, once in six months; but he
believed in the man, thoroughly.
"I've just helped Knowles build a Christmas-tree in yonder,--the House
of Refuge: you know. He could not tell an oak from an arbor-vitae, I
believe."
Knowles was in no mood for quizzing.
"There are other things I don't know," he said, gloomily, recurring to
some subject Holmes had interrupted. "The House is going to the Devil,
Charley, headlong."
"There's no use in saying no," said the other; "you'll call me a lying
diviner."
Knowles did not listen.
"Seems as if I am to go groping and stumbling through the world like
some forsaken Cyclops with his eye out, dragging down whatever I touch.
If there were anything to hold by, anything certain!"
Vandyke looked at him gravely, but did not answer; rose and walked
indolently up and down to keep himself warm. A lithe, slow figure, a
clear face with delicate lips, and careless eyes that saw everything:
the face of a man quick to learn, and slow to teach.
"There she comes!" said Knowles, as the lock of the gate rasped.
Holmes had heard the slow step in the snow long before. A small woman
came out, and went down the silent street into the road beyond. Holmes
kept his back turned to her, lighting his cigar; the other men watched
her eagerly.
"What do you think, Vandyke?" demanded Knowles. "How will she do?"
"Do for what?"--resuming his lazy walk. "You talk as if she were a
machine. It is the way with modern reformers. Men are so many ploughs
and harrows to work on 'the classes.' Do for what?"
Knowles flushed hotly.
"The work the Lord has left for her. Do you mean to say there is none
to do,--you, pledged to Missionary labour?"
The young man's face coloured.
"I know this street needs paving terribly, Knowles; but I don't see a
boulder in your hands. Yet the great Task-master does not despise the
pavers. He did not give you the spirit and understanding for paving,
eh, is that it? How do you know He gave this Margret Howth the spirit
and understanding of a reformer? There may be higher work for her to
do."
"Higher!" The old man stood aghast. "I know your creed, then,--that
the true work for a man or a woman is that which develops their highest
nature?"
Vandyke laughed.
"You have a creed-mania, Knowles. You have a confession of faith
ready-made for everybody, but yourself. I only meant for you to take
care what you do. That woman looks as the Prodigal Son might have done
when he began to be in want, and would fain have fed himself with the
husks that the swine did eat."
Knowles got up moodily.
"Whose work is it, then?" he muttered, following the men down the
street; for they walked on. "The world has waited six thousand years
for help. It comes slowly,--slowly, Vandyke; even through your
religion."
The young man did not answer: looked up, with quiet, rapt eyes, through
the silent city, and the clear gray beyond. They passed a little
church lighted up for evening service: as if to give a meaning to the
old man's words, they were chanting the one anthem of the world, the
Gloria in Excelsis. Hearing the deep organ-roll, the men stopped
outside to listen: it heaved and sobbed through the night, as if
bearing up to God the wrong of countless aching hearts, then was
silent, and a single voice swept over the moors in a long, lamentable
cry:--"Thou that takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us!"
The men stood silent, until the hush was broken by a low murmur:--"For
Thou only art holy." Holmes had taken off his hat, unconscious that he
did it; he put it on slowly, and walked on. What was it that Knowles
had said to him once about mean and selfish taints on his divine soul?
"For Thou only art holy:" if there were truth in that!
"How quiet it is!" he said, as they stopped to leave him. It was,--a
breathless quiet; the great streets of the town behind them were
shrouded in snow; the hills, the moors, the prairie swept off into the
skyless dark, a gray and motionless sea lit by a low watery moon. "The
very earth listens," he said.
"Listens for what?" said the literal old Doctor.
"I think it listens always," said Vandyke, his eye on fire. "For its
King--that shall be. Not as He came before. It has not long to wait
now: the New Year is not far off."
"I've no faith in holding your hands, waiting for it; nor have you
either, Charley," growled Knowles. "There's an infernal lot of work to
be done before it comes, I fancy. Here, let me light my cigar."
Holmes bade them good-night, laughing, and struck into the by-road
through the hills. He shook hands with Vandyke before he went,--a
thing he scarce ever did with anybody. Knowles noticed it, and, after
he was out of hearing, mumbled out some sarcasm at "a minister of the
gospel consorting with a cold, silent scoundrel like that!" Vandyke
listened to his scolding in his usual lazy way, and they went back into
town.
The road Holmes took was rutted deep with wagon-wheels, not easily
travelled; he walked slowly therefore, being weak, stopping now and
then to gather strength. He had not counted the hours until this day,
to be balked now by a little loss of blood. The moon was nearly down
before he reached the Cloughton hills: he turned there into a narrow
path which he remembered well. Now and then he saw the mark of a
little shoe in the snow,--looking down at it with a hot panting in his
veins, and a strange flash in his eye, as he walked on steadily.
There was a turn in the path at the top of the hill, a sunken wall,
with a broad stone from which the wind had blown the snow. This was the
place. He sat down on the stone, resting. Just there she had stood,
clutching her little fingers behind her, when he came up and threw back
her hood to look in her face: how pale and worn it was, even then! He
had not looked at her to-night: he would not, if he had been dying,
with those men standing there. He stood alone in the world with this
little Margret. How those men had carped, and criticised her,
chattered of the duties of her soul! Why, it was his, it was his own,
softer and fresher. There was not a glance with which they followed
the weak little body in its poor dress that he had not seen, and
savagely resented. They measured her strength? counted how long the
bones and blood would last in their House of Refuge? There was not a
morsel of her flesh that was not pure and holy in his eyes. His
Margret? He chafed with an intolerable fever to make her his, but for
one instant, as she had been once. Now, when it was too late. For he
went back over every word he had spoken that night, forcing himself to
go through with it,--every cold, poisoned word. It was a fitting
penance. "There is no such thing as love in real life:" he had told
her that! How he had stood, with all the power of his "divine soul" in
his will, and told her,--he,--a man,--that he put away her love from
him then, forever! He spared himself nothing,--slurred over nothing;
spurned himself, as it were, for the meanness, in which he had wallowed
that night. How firm he had been! how kind! how masterful!--pluming
himself on his man's strength, while he held her in his power as one
might hold an insect, played with her shrinking woman's nature, and
trampled it under his feet, coldly and quietly! She was in his way,
and he had put her aside. How the fine subtile spirit had risen up out
of its agony of shame, and scorned him! How it had flashed from the
puny frame standing there in the muddy road despised and jeered at, and
calmly judged him! He might go from her as he would, toss her off like
a worn-out plaything, but he could not blind her: let him put on what
face he would to the world, whether they called him a master among men,
or a miser, or, as Knowles did to-night after he turned away, a
scoundrel, this girl laid her little hand on his soul with an utter
recognition: she alone. "She knew him for a better man than he knew
himself that night:" he remembered the words.
The night was growing murky and bitingly cold: there was no prospect on
the snow-covered hills, or the rough road at his feet with its pools
of ice-water, to bring content into his face, or the dewy light into
his eyes; but they came there, slowly, while he sat thinking. Some old
thought was stealing into his brain, perhaps, fresh and warm, like a
soft spring air,--some hope of the future, in which this child-woman
came close to him, and near. It was an idle dream, only would taunt
him when it was over, but he opened his arms to it: it was an old
friend; it had made him once a purer and better man than he could ever
be again. A warm, happy dream, whatever it may have been: the rugged,
sinister face grew calm and sad, as the faces of the dead change when
loving tears fall on them.
He sighed wearily: the homely little hope was fanning into life
stagnant depths of desire and purpose, stirring his resolute ambition.
Too late? Was it too late? Living or dead she was his, though he
should never see her face, by some subtile power that had made them
one, he knew not when nor how. He did not reason now,--abandoned
himself, as morbid men only do, to this delirious hope of a home, and
cheerful warmth, and this woman's love fresh and eternal: a pleasant
dream at first, to be put away at pleasure. But it grew bolder,
touched under-deeps in his nature of longing and intense passion; all
that he knew or felt of power or will, of craving effort, of success in
the world, drifted into this dream, and became one with it. He stood
up, his vigorous frame starting into a nobler manhood, with the
consciousness of right,--with a willed assurance, that, the first
victory gained, the others should follow.
It was late; he must go on; he had not meant to sit idling by the
road-side. He went through the fields, his heavy step crushing the
snow, a dry heat in his blood, his eye intent, still, until he came
within sight of the farm-house; then he went on, cool and grave, in his
ordinary port.
The house was quite dark; only a light in one of the lower
windows,--the library, he thought. The broad field he was crossing
sloped down to the house, so that, as he came nearer, he saw the little
room quite plainly in the red glow of the fire within, the curtains
being undrawn. He had a keen eye; did not fail to see the marks of
poverty about the place, the gateless fences, even the bare room with
its worn and patched carpet: noted it all with a triumphant gleam of
satisfaction. There was a black shadow passing and repassing the
windows: he waited a moment looking at it, then came more slowly
towards them, intenser heats smouldering in his face. He would not
surprise her; she should be as ready as he was for the meeting. If she
ever put her pure hand in his again, it should be freely done, and of
her own good-will.
She saw him as he came up on the porch, and stopped, looking out, as if
bewildered,--then resumed her walk, mechanically. What it cost her to
see him again he could not tell: her face did not alter. It was
lifeless and schooled, the eyes looking straight forward always,
indifferently. Was this his work? If he had killed her outright, it
would have been better than this.
The windows were low: it had been his old habit to go in through them,
and he now went up to one unconsciously. As he opened it, he saw her
turn away for an instant; then she waited for him, entirely tranquil,
the clear fire shedding a still glow over the room, no cry or shiver of
pain to show how his coming broke open the old wound. She smiled even,
when he leaned against the window, with a careless welcome.
Holmes stopped, confounded. It did not suit him,--this. If you know a
man's nature, you comprehend why. The bitterest reproach, or a proud
contempt would have been less galling than this gentle indifference.
His hold had slipped from off the woman, he believed. A moment before
he had remembered how he had held her in his arms, touched her cold
lips, and then flung her off,--he had remembered it, every nerve
shrinking with remorse and unutterable tenderness: now----! The utter
quiet of her face told more than words could do. She did not love him;
he was nothing to her. Then love was a lie. A moment before he could
have humbled himself in her eyes as low as he lay in his own, and
accepted her pardon as a necessity of her enduring, faithful nature:
now, the whole strength of the man sprang into rage, and mad desire of
conquest.
He came gravely across the room, holding out his hand with his old
quiet control. She might be cold and grave as he, but underneath he
knew there was a thwarted, hungry spirit,--a strong, fine spirit as
dainty Ariel. He would sting it to life, and tame it: it was his.
"I thought you would come, Stephen," she said, simply, motioning him to
a chair.
Could this automaton be Margret? He leaned on the mantel-shelf,
looking down with a cynical sneer.
"Is that the welcome? Why, there are a thousand greetings for this
time of love and good words you might have chosen. Besides, I have
come back ill and poor,--a beggar perhaps. How do women receive
such,--generous women? Is there no etiquette? no hand-shaking? nothing
more? remembering that I was once--not indifferent to you."
He laughed. She stood still and grave as before.
"Why, Margret, I have been down near death since that night."
He thought her lips grew gray, but she looked up clear and steady.
"I am glad you did not die. Yes, I can say that. As for hand-shaking,
my ideas may be peculiar as your own."
"She measures her words," he said, as to himself; "her very eye-light
is ruled by decorum; she is a machine, for work. She has swept her
child's heart clean of anger and revenge, even scorn for the wretch
that sold himself for money. There was nothing else to sweep out, was
there?"--bitterly,--"no friendships, such as weak women nurse and
coddle into being,--or love, that they live in, and die for sometimes,
in a silly way?"
"Unmanly!"
"No, not unmanly. Margret, let us be serious and calm. It is no time
to trifle or wear masks. That has passed between us which leaves no
room for sham courtesies."
"There needs none,"--meeting his eye unflinchingly. "I am ready to
meet you and hear your good-bye. Dr. Knowles told me your marriage was
near at hand. I knew you would come, Stephen. You did before."
He winced,--the more that her voice was so clear of pain.
"Why should I come? To show you what sort of a heart I have sold for
money? Why, you think you know, little Margret. You can reckon up its
deformity, its worthlessness, on your cool fingers. You could tell the
serene and gracious lady who is chaffering for it what a bargain she
has made,--that there is not in it one spark of manly honour or true
love. Don't venture too near it in your coldness and prudence. It has
tiger passions I will not answer for. Give me your hand, and feel how
it pants like a hungry fiend. It will have food, Margret."
She drew away the hand he grasped, and stood back in the shadow.
"What is it to me?"--in the same measured voice.
Holmes wiped the cold drops from his forehead, a sort of shudder in his
powerful frame. He stood a moment looking into the fire, his head
dropped on his arm.
"Let it be so," he said at last, quietly. "The worn old heart can gnaw
on itself a little longer. I have no mind to whimper over pain."
Something that she saw on the dark sardonic face, as the red gleams
lighted it, made her start convulsively, as if she would go to him;
then controlling herself, she stood silent. He had not seen the
movement,--or, if he saw, did not heed it. He did not care to tame her
now. The firelight flashed and darkened, the crackling wood breaking
the dead silence of the room.
"It does not matter," he said, raising his head, laying his arm over
his strong chest unconsciously, as if to shut in all complaint. "I had
an idle fancy that it would be good on this Christmas night to bare the
secrets hidden in here to you,--to suffer your pure eyes to probe the
sorest depths: I thought perhaps they would have a blessing power. It
was an idle fancy. What is my want or crime to you?"
The answer came slowly, but it did come.
"Nothing to me."
She tried to meet the gaunt face looking down on her with its proud
sadness,--did meet it at last with her meek eyes.
"No, nothing to you. There is no need that I should stay longer, is
there? You made ready to meet me, and have gone through your part
well."
"It is no part. I speak God's truth to you as I can."
"I know. There is nothing more for us to say to each other in this
world, then, except good-night. Words--polite words--are bitterer than
death, sometimes. If ever we happen to meet, that courteous smile on
your face will be enough to speak--God's truth for you. Shall we say
good-night now?"
"If you will."
She drew farther into the shadow, leaning on a chair.
He stopped, some sudden thought striking him.
"I have a whim," he said, dreamily, "that I would like to satisfy. It
would be a trifle to you: will you grant it?--for the sake of some old
happy day, long ago?"
She put her hand up to her throat; then it fell again.
"Anything you wish, Stephen," she said, gravely.
"Yes. Come nearer, then, and let me see what I have lost. A heart so
cold and strong as yours need not fear inspection. I have a fancy to
look into it, for the last time."
She stood motionless and silent.
"Come,"--softly,--"there is no hurt in your heart that fears detection?"
She came out into the full light, and stood before him, pushing back
the hair from her forehead, that he might see every wrinkle, and the
faded, lifeless eyes. It was a true woman's motion, remembering even
then to scorn deception. The light glowed brightly in her face, as the
slow minutes ebbed without a sound: she only saw his face in shadow,
with the fitful gleam of intolerable meaning in his eyes. Her own
quailed and fell.
"Does it hurt you that I should even look at you?" he said, drawing
back. "Why, even the sainted dead suffer us to come near them after
they have died to us,--to touch their hands, to kiss their lips, to
find what look they left in their faces for us. Be patient, for the
sake of the old time. My whim is not satisfied yet."
"I am patient."
"Tell me something of yourself, to take with me when I go, for the last
time. Shall I think of you as happy in these days?"
"I am contented,"--the words oozing from her white lips in the
bitterness of truth. "I asked God, that night, to show me my work; and
I think He has shown it to me. I do not complain. It is a great work."
"Is that all?" he demanded, fiercely.
"No, not all. It pleases me to feel I have a warm home, and to help
keep it cheerful. When my father kisses me at night, or my mother
says, 'God bless you, child,' I know that is enough, that I ought to be
happy."
The old clock in the corner hummed and ticked through the deep silence,
like the humble voice of the home she toiled to keep warm, thanking
her, comforting her.
"Once more," as the light grew stronger on her face,--"will you look
down into your heart that you have given to this great work, and tell
me what you see there? Dare you do it, Margret?"
"I dare do it,"--but her whisper was husky.
"Go on."
He watched her more as a judge would a criminal, as she sat before him:
she struggled weakly under the power of his eye, not meeting it. He
waited relentless, seeing her face slowly whiten, her limbs shiver, her
bosom heave.
"Let me speak for you," he said at last. "I know who once filled your
heart to the exclusion of all others: it is no time for mock shame. I
know it was my hand that held the very secret of your being. Whatever
I may have been, you loved me, Margret. Will you say that now?"
"I loved you,--once."
Whether it were truth that nerved her, or self-delusion, she was strong
now to utter it all.
"You love me no longer, then?"
"I love you no longer."
She did not look at him; she was conscious only of the hot fire wearing
her eyes, and the vexing click of the clock. After a while he bent
over her silently,--a manly, tender presence.
"When love goes once," he said, "it never returns. Did you say it was
gone, Margret?"
One effort more, and Duty would be satisfied.
"It is gone."
In the slow darkness that came to her she covered her face, knowing and
hearing nothing. When she looked up, Holmes was standing by the
window, with his face toward the gray fields. It was a long time
before he turned and came to her.
"You have spoken honestly: it is an old fashion of yours. You believed
what you said. Let me also tell you what you call God's truth, for a
moment, Margret. It will not do you harm."--He spoke gravely,
solemnly.--"When you loved me long ago, selfish, erring as I was, you
fulfilled the law of your nature; when you put that love out of your
heart, you make your duty a tawdry sham, and your life a lie. Listen
to me. I am calm."
It was calmness that made her tremble as she had not done before, with
a strange suspicion of the truth flashing on her. That she, casing
herself in her pride, her conscious righteousness, hugging her
new-found philanthropy close, had sunk to a depth of niggardly
selfishness, of which this man knew nothing. Nobler than she; half
angry as she felt that, sitting at his feet, looking up. He knew it,
too; the grave judging voice told it; he had taken his rightful place.
Just, as only a man can be, in his judgment of himself and her: her
love that she had prided herself with, seemed weak and drifting,
brought into contact with this cool integrity of meaning. I think she
was glad to be humbled before him. Women have strange fancies,
sometimes.
"You have deceived yourself," he said: "when you try to fill your heart
with this work, you serve neither your God nor your fellow-man. You
tell me," stooping close to her, "that I am nothing to you: you believe
it, poor child! There is not a line on your face that does not prove it
false. I have keen eyes, Margret!"-- He laughed.--"You have wrung this
love out of your heart? If it were easy to do, did it need to wring
with it every sparkle of pleasure and grace out of your life! Your
very hair is gathered out of your sight: you feared to remember how my
hand had touched it? Your dress is stingy and hard; your step, your
eyes, your mouth under rule. So hard it was to force yourself into an
old worn-out woman! Oh, Margret! Margret!"
She moaned under her breath.
"I notice trifles, child! Yonder, in that corner, used to stand the
desk where I helped you with your Latin. How you hated it! Do you
remember?"
"I remember."
"It always stood there: it is gone now. Outside of the gate there was
that elm I planted, and you promised to water while I was gone. It is
cut down now by the roots."
"I had it done, Stephen."
"I know. Do you know why? Because you love me: because you do not
dare to think of me, you dare not trust yourself to look at the tree
that I had planted."
She started up with a cry, and stood there in the old way, her fingers
catching at each other.
"It is cruel,--let me go!"
"It is not cruel."--He came up closer to her.--"You think you do not
love me, and see what I have made you! Look at the torpor of this
face,--the dead, frozen eyes! It is a 'nightmare death in life.' Good
God, to think that I have done this! To think of the countless days of
agony, the nights, the years of solitude that have brought her to
this,--little Margret!"
He paced the floor, slowly. She sat down on a low stool, leaning her
head on her hands. The little figure, the bent head, the quivering
chin brought up her childhood to him. She used to sit so when he had
tormented her, waiting to be coaxed back to love and smiles again. The
hard man's eyes filled with tears, as he thought of it. He watched the
deep, tearless sobs that shook her breast: he had wounded her to
death,--his bonny Margret! She was like a dead thing now: what need to
torture her longer? Let him be manly and go out to his solitary life,
taking the remembrance of what he had done with him for company. He
rose uncertainly,--then came to her: was that the way to leave her?
"I am going, Margret," he whispered, "but let me tell you a story
before I go,--a Christmas story, say. It will not touch you,--it is
too late to hope for that,--but it is right that you should hear it."
She looked up wearily.
"As you will, Stephen."
Whatever impulse drove the man to speak words that he knew were
useless, made him stand back from her, as though she were something he
was unfit to touch: the words dragged from him slowly.
"I had a curious dream to-night, Margret,--a waking dream: only a clear
vision of what had been once. Do you remember--the old time?"
What disconnected rambling was this? Yet the girl understood it,
looked into the low fire with sad, listening eyes.
"Long ago. That was a free, strong life that opened before us then,
little one,--before you and me? Do you remember the Christmas before I
went away? I had a strong arm and a hungry brain to go out into the
world with, then. Something better, too, I had. A purer self than was
born with me came late in life, and nestled in my heart. Margret,
there was no fresh loving thought in my brain for God or man that did
not grow from my love of you; there was nothing noble or kindly in my
nature that did not flow into that love, and deepen there. I was your
master, too. I held my own soul by no diviner right than I held your
love and owed you mine. I understand it, now, when it is too
late."--He wiped the cold drops from his face.--"Now do you know
whether it is remorse I feel, when I think how I put this purer self
away,--how I went out triumphant in my inhuman, greedy brain,--how I
resolved to know, to be, to trample under foot all weak love or homely
pleasures? I have been punished. Let those years go. I think,
sometimes, I came near to the nature of the damned who dare not love: I
would not. It was then I hurt you, Margret,--to the death: your true
life lay in me, as mine in you."
He had gone on drearily, as though holding colloquy with himself, as
though great years of meaning surged up and filled the broken words.
It may have been thus with the girl, for her face deepened as she
listened. For the first time for many long days tears welled up into
her eyes, and rolled between her fingers unheeded.
"I came through the streets to-night baffled in life,--a mean man that
might have been noble,--all the years wasted that had gone
before,--disappointed,--with nothing to hope for but time to work
humbly and atone for the wrongs I had done. When I lay yonder, my soul
on the coast of eternity, I resolved to atone for every selfish deed.
I had no thought of happiness; God knows I had no hope of it. I had
wronged you most: I could not die with that wrong unforgiven."
"Unforgiven, Stephen?" she sobbed; "I forgave it long ago."
He looked at her a moment, then by some effort choked down the word he
would have spoken, and went on with his bitter confession.
"I came through the crowded town, a homeless, solitary man, on the
Christmas eve when love comes to every man. If ever I had grown sick
for a word or touch from the one soul to whom alone mine was open, I
thirsted for it then. The better part of my nature was crushed out,
and flung away with you, Margret. I cried for it,--I wanted help to be
a better, purer man. I need it now. And so," he said, with a smile
that hurt her more than tears, "I came to my good angel, to tell her I
had sinned and repented, that I had made humble plans for the future,
and ask her---- God knows what I would have asked her then! She had
forgotten me,--she had another work to do!"
She wrung her hands with a helpless cry. Holmes went to the window:
the dull waste of snow looked to him as hopeless and vague as his own
life.
"I have deserved it," he muttered to himself. "It is too late to amend."
Some light touch thrilled his arm.
"Is it too late, Stephen?" whispered a childish voice.
The strong man trembled, looking at the little dark figure standing
near him.
"We were both wrong: I have been untrue, selfish. More than you.
Stephen, help me to be a better girl; let us be friends again."
She went back unconsciously to the old words of their quarrels long
ago. He drew back.
"Do not mock me," he gasped. "I suffer, Margret. Do not mock me with
more courtesy."
"I do not; let us be friends again."
She was crying like a penitent child; her face was turned away; love,
pure and deep, was in her eyes.
The red fire-light grew stronger; the clock hushed its noisy ticking to
hear the story. Holmes's pale lip worked: what was this coming to him?
His breast heaved, a dry heat panted in his veins, his deep eyes
flashed fire.
"If my little friend comes to me," he said, in a smothered voice,
"there is but one place for her,--her soul with my soul, her heart on
my heart."--He opened his arms.--"She must rest her head here. My
little friend must be--my wife."
She looked into the strong, haggard face,--a smile crept out on her
own, arch and debonair like that of old time.
"I am tired, Stephen," she whispered, and softly laid her head down on
his breast.
The red fire-light flashed into a glory of crimson through the room,
about the two figures standing motionless there,--shimmered down into
awe-struck shadow: who heeded it? The old clock ticked away furiously,
as if rejoicing that weary days were over for the pet and darling of
the house: nothing else broke the silence. Without, the deep night
paused, gray, impenetrable. Did it hope that far angel-voices would
break its breathless hush, as once on the fields of Judea, to usher in
Christmas morn? A hush, in air, and earth, and sky, of waiting hope,
of a promised joy. Down there in the farm-window two human hearts had
given the joy a name; the hope throbbed into being; the hearts touching
each other beat in a slow, full chord of love as pure in God's eyes as
the song the angels sang, and as sure a promise of the Christ that is
to come. Forever,--not even death would part them; he knew that,
holding her closer, looking down into her face.
What a pale little face it was! Through the intensest heat of his
passion the sting touched him. Some instinct made her glance up at
him, with a keen insight, seeing the morbid gloom that was the man's
sin, in his face. She lifted her head from his breast, and when he
stooped to touch her lips, shook herself free, laughing carelessly.
Alas, Stephen Holmes! you will have little time for morbid questionings
in those years to come: her cheerful work has begun: no more
self-devouring reveries: your very pauses of silent content and love
will be rare and well-earned. No more tranced raptures for
to-night,--let to-morrow bring what it would.
"You do not seem to find your purer self altogether perfect?" she
demanded. "I think the pale skin hurts your artistic eye, or the
frozen eyes,--which is it?"
"They have thawed into brilliant fire,--something looks at me
half-yielding and half-defiant,--you know that, you vain child! But,
Margret, nothing can atone"----
He stopped.
"Yes, stop. That is right, Stephen. Remorse grows maudlin when it
goes into words," laughing again at his astounded look.
He took her hand,--a dewy, healthy hand,--the very touch of it meant
action and life.
"What if I say, then," he said, earnestly, "that I do not find my angel
perfect, be the fault mine or hers? The child Margret, with her sudden
tears, and laughter, and angry heats, is gone,--I killed her, I
think,--gone long ago. I will not take in place of her this worn, pale
ghost, who wears clothes as chilly as if she came from the dead, and
stands alone, as ghosts do."
She stood a little way off, her great brown eyes flashing with tears.
It was so strange a joy to find herself cared for, when she had
believed she was old and hard: the very idle jesting made her youth and
happiness real to her. Holmes saw that with his quick tact. He flung
playfully a crimson shawl that lay there about her white neck.
"My wife must suffer her life to flush out in gleams of colour and
light: her cheeks must hint at a glow within, as yours do now. I will
have no hard angles, no pallor, no uncertain memory of pain in her
life: it shall be perpetual summer."
He loosened her hair, and it rolled down about the bright, tearful
face, shining in the red fire-light like a mist of tawny gold.
"I need warmth and freshness and light: my wife shall bring them to me.
She shall be no strong-willed reformer, standing alone: a sovereign
lady with kind words for the world, who gives her hand only to that man
whom she trusts, and keeps her heart and its secrets for me alone."
She paid no heed to him other than by a deepening colour; the clock,
however, grew tired of the long soliloquy, and broke in with an
asthmatic warning as to the time of night.
"There is midnight," she said. "You shall go, now, Stephen
Holmes,--quick! before your sovereign lady fades, like Cinderella, into
grayness and frozen eyes!"
When he was gone, she knelt down by her window, remembering that night
long ago,--free to sob and weep out her joy,--very sure that her Master
had not forgotten to hear even a woman's prayer, and to give her her
true work,--very sure,--never to doubt again. There was a dark, sturdy
figure pacing up and down the road, that she did not see. It was there
when the night was over, and morning began to dawn. Christmas morning!
he remembered,--it was something to him now! Never again a homeless,
solitary man! You would think the man weak, if I were to tell yon how
this word "home" had taken possession of him,--how he had planned out
work through the long night: success to come, but with his wife nearest
his heart, and the homely farm-house, and the old school-master in the
centre of the picture. Such an humble castle in the air! Christmas
morning was surely something to him. Yet, as the night passed, he went
back to the years that had been wasted, with an unavailing bitterness.
He would not turn from the truth, that, with his strength of body and
brain to command happiness and growth, his life had been a failure. I
think it was first on that night that the story of the despised
Nazarene came to him with a new meaning,--One who came to gather up
these broken fragments of lives and save them with His own. But
vaguely, though: Christmas-day as yet was to him the day when love came
into the world. He knew the meaning of that. So he watched with an
eagerness new to him the day-breaking. He could see Margret's window,
and a dim light in it: she would be awake, praying for him, no doubt.
He pondered on that. Would you think Holmes weak, if he forsook the
faith of Fichte, sometime, led by a woman's hand? Think of the apostle
of the positive philosophers, and say no more. He could see a
flickering light at dawn crossing the hall: he remembered the old
school-master's habit well,--calling "Happy Christmas" at every door:
he meant to go down there for breakfast, as he used to do, imagining
how the old man would wring his hands, with a "Holloa! you're welcome
home, Stephen, boy!" and Mrs. Howth would bring out the jars of
pine-apple preserve which her sister sent her every year from the West
Indies. And then---- Never mind what then. Stephen Holmes was very
much in love, and this Christmas-day had much to bring him. Yet it was
with a solemn shadow on his face that he watched the dawn, showing that
he grasped the awful meaning of this day that "brought love into the
world." Through the clear, frosty night he could hear a low chime of
distant bells shiver the air, hurrying faint and far to tell the glad
tidings. He fancied that the dawn flushed warm to hear the
story,--that the very earth should rejoice in its frozen depths, if it
were true. If it were true!--if this passion in his heart were but a
part of an all-embracing power, in whose clear depths the world
struggled vainly!--if it were true that this Christ did come to make
that love clear to us! There would be some meaning then in the old
school-master's joy, in the bells wakening the city yonder, in even
poor Lois's thorough content in this day,--for it would be, he knew, a
thrice happy day to her. A strange story that of the Child coming into
the world,--simple! He thought of it, watching, through his cold, gray
eyes, how all the fresh morning told it,--it was in the very air;
thinking how its echo stole through the whole world,--how innumerable
children's voices told it in eager laughter,--how even the lowest slave
half-smiled, on waking, to think it was Christmas-day, the day that
Christ was born. He could hear from the church on the hill that they
were singing again the old song of the angels. Did this matter to him?
Did not he care, with the new throb in his heart, who was born this
day? There is no smile on his face as he listens to the words, "Glory
to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men;" it
bends lower,--lower only. But in his soul-lit eyes there are warm
tears, and on his worn face a sad and solemn joy.