“Thou majestic in thy sadness.”
Upon the present occasion there was no violent demonstration of
emotion to alarm the Roberts household, for Helen's grief was not of
the kind to vent itself in a passionate outburst and pass away. To
be sure, she wept a little, but the thoughts which haunted her were
not of a kind to be forgotten, and afterwards she was as wretched as
ever. What she had done seemed to her so dreadful that even tears
were not right, and she felt that she ought only to sit still and
think of it, and be frightened; it seemed to her just then as if she
would have to do the same thing for the rest of her days. She spent
several hours in her room without once moving, and without being
disturbed, for her aunt was sufficiently annoyed at her morning's
reception not to visit her again. The lunch hour passed, therefore,
unthought of by Helen, and it was an hour or two later before she
heard her aunt's step in the hall, and her knock upon the door.
Mrs. Roberts entered and stood in the center of the room, gazing at
Helen, and at the look of helpless despair which she turned towards
her; the woman's own lips were set very tightly.
“Well?” she said abruptly, “have you had your wish, and are you
happy?”
Helen did not answer, nor did she half realize the question, so lost
was she in her own misery. She sat gazing at her aunt, while the
latter went on: “You have had your way in one thing, at any rate,
Helen; Mr. Harrison is downstairs to see you.”
The girl gave a slight start, but then she answered quietly: “Thank
you, Auntie; I shall go down and see him.”
“Helen,” said Mrs. Roberts, “do you still refuse to tell me anything
of what I ask you?”
Helen was quite too much humbled to wish to oppose anyone just then;
and she answered mournfully, “What is it that you wish?”
“I wish to know in the first place why you wanted to see Mr.
Harrison.”
“I wanted to see him to tell him that I could not marry him, Aunt
Polly.”
And Mrs. Roberts sat down opposite Helen and fixed her gaze upon
her. “I knew that was it,” she said grimly. “Now, Helen, what in the
world has come over you to make you behave in this fashion?”
“Oh, it is so much to tell you,” began the girl; “I don't know--”
“What did you find at Hilltown?” went on her aunt persistently. “Did
you see Arthur?”
“No, Aunt Polly, that is what is the matter; he has gone.”
“Gone! Gone where?”
“Away, Aunt Polly! Nobody saw him go, and he left a note saying that
he would never return. And I am so frightened--”
Mrs. Roberts was gazing at her niece with a puzzled look upon her
face. She interrupted her by echoing the word “frightened”
inquiringly.
“Yes, Auntie!” cried the girl; “for I may never be able to find him
again, to undo what I have done!”
And Mrs. Roberts responded with a wondering laugh, and observed,
“For my part, I should think you'd be very glad to be rid of him
so.”
She saw Helen give a start, but she could not read the girl's mind,
and did not know how much she had done to estrange her by those
words. It was as if Helen's whole soul had shrunk back in horror,
and she sat staring at her aunt with open eyes.
“I suppose you think,” the other went on grimly, “that I am going to
share all this wonderful sentimentality with you about that boy; but
I assure you that you don't know me! He may get you to weep over him
because he chooses to behave like a fool, but not me.”
Helen was still for a moment, and then she said, in an awe-stricken
voice: “Aunt Polly, I have wrecked Arthur's life!” Mrs. Roberts
responded with a loud guffaw, which was to the other so offensive
that it was like a blow in the face.
“Wrecked his life!” the woman cried scornfully. “Helen, you talk
like a baby! Can't you know in the first place that Arthur is doing
all this high-tragedy acting for nothing in the world but to
frighten you? Wrecked his life! And there you were, I suppose, all
ready to get down on your knees to him, and beg his pardon for
daring to be engaged, and to promise to come to his attic and live
off bread and water, if he would only be good and not run away!”
Mrs. Roberts' voice was bitter and mocking, and her words seemed to
Helen almost blasphemy; it had never occurred to her that such grief
as hers would not be sacred to anyone. Yet there was no thought of
anger in her mind just then, for she had been chastened in a fiery
furnace, and was too full of penitence and humility for even that
much egotism. She only bowed her head, and said, in a trembling
voice: “Oh, Aunt Polly, I would stay in an attic and live off bread
and water for the rest of my days, if I could only clear my
conscience of the dreadful thing I have done.”
“A beautiful sentiment indeed!” said Mrs. Roberts, with a sniff of
disgust; and she stood surveying her niece in silence for a minute
or two. Then smothering her feelings a little, she asked her in a
quieter voice, “And so, Helen, you are really going to fling aside
the life opportunity that is yours for such nonsense as this? There
is no other reason?”
“There is another reason, Aunt Polly,” said Helen; “it is so
dreadful of you to ask me in that way. How CAN you have expected me
to marry a man just because he was rich?”
“Oh,” said the other, “so that is it! And pray what put the idea
into your head so suddenly?” She paused a moment, and then, as the
girl did not raise her head, she went on, sarcastically, “I fancy I
know pretty well where you got all of these wonderful new ideas; you
have not been talking with Mr. Howard for nothing, I see.”
“No, not for nothing,” said Helen gently.
“A nice state of affairs!” continued the other angrily; “I knew
pretty well that his head was full of nonsense, but when I asked him
here I thought at least that he would know enough about good manners
to mind his own affairs. So he has been talking to you, has he? And
now you cannot possibly marry a rich man!”
Mrs. Roberts stopped, quite too angry to find any more words; but as
she sat for a minute or two, gazing at Helen, it must have occurred
to her that she would not accomplish anything in that way. She made
an effort to swallow her emotions.
“Helen, dear,” she said, sitting down near her niece, “why will you
worry me in this dreadful way, and make me speak so crossly to you?
I cannot tell you, Helen, what a torment it is to me to see you
throwing yourself away in this fashion; I implore you to stop and
think before you take this step, for as sure as you are alive you
will regret it all your days. Just think of it how you will feel,
and how I will feel, when you look back at the happiness you might
have had, and know that it is too late! And, Helen, it is due to
nothing in the world but to your inexperience that you have let
yourself be carried away by these sublimities. You MUST know, child,
and you can see if you choose, that they have nothing to do with
life; they will not butter your bread, Helen, or pay your coachman,
and when you get over all this excitement, you will find that what I
tell you is true. Look about you in the world, and where can you
find anybody who lives according to such ideas?”
“What ideas do you mean, Aunt Polly?” asked Helen, with a puzzled
look.
“Oh, don't you suppose,” answered the other, “that I know perfectly
well what kind of stuff it is that Mr. Howard has talked to you? I
used to hear all that kind of thing when I was young, and I believed
some of it, too,--about how beautiful it was to marry for love, and
to have a fine scorn of wealth and all the rest of it; but it wasn't
very long before I found out that such opinions were of no use in
the world.”
“Then you don't believe in love, Aunt Polly?” asked Helen, fixing
her eyes on the other.
“What's the use of asking such an absurd question?” was the answer.
“Of course I believe in love; I wanted you to love Mr. Harrison, and
you might have, if you had chosen. I learned to love Mr. Roberts;
naturally, a couple have to love each other, or how would they ever
live happily together? But what has that to do with this ridiculous
talk of Mr. Howard's? As if two people had nothing else to do in the
world but to love each other! It's all very well, Helen, for a man
who chooses to live like Robinson Crusoe to talk such nonsense, but
he ought not to put it in the mind of a sentimental girl. He would
very soon find, if he came out into life, that the world isn't run
by love, and that people need a good many other things to keep them
happy in it. You ought to have sense enough to see that you've got
to live a different sort of a life, and that Mr. Howard knows
nothing in the world about your needs. I don't go alone and live in
visions, and make myself imaginary lives, Helen; I look at the world
as it is. You will have to learn some day that the real way to find
happiness is to take things as you find them, and get the best out
of life you can. I never had one-tenth of your advantages, and yet
there aren't many people in the world better off than I am; and you
could be just as happy, if you would only take my advice about it.
What I am talking to you is common sense, Helen, and anybody that
you choose to ask will tell you the same thing.”
So Mrs. Roberts went on, quite fairly under way in her usual course
of argument, and rousing all her faculties for this last struggle.
She was as convinced as ever of the completeness of her own views,
and of the effect which they must have upon Helen; perhaps it was
not her fault that she did not know to what another person she was
talking.
In truth, it would not be easy to tell how great a difference there
was in the effect of those old arguments upon Helen; while she had
been sitting in her room alone and suffering so very keenly, the
girl had been, though she did not know it, very near indeed to the
sacred truths of life, and now as she listened to her aunt, she was
simply holding her breath. The climax came suddenly, for as the
other stopped, Helen leaned forward in her chair, and gazing deep
into her eyes asked her, “Aunt Polly, can it really be that you do
not know that what you have been saying to me is dreadfully
_wicked_?”
There was perhaps nothing that the girl could have done to take her
complacent relative more by surprise; Mrs. Roberts sat for a moment,
echoing the last word, and staring as if not quite able to realize
what Helen meant. As the truth came to her she turned quite pale.
“It seems to me,” she said with a sneer, “that I remember a time
when it didn't seem quite so wicked to you. If I am not mistaken you
were quite glad to do all that I told you, and to get as much as
ever you could.”
Helen was quite used to that taunt in her own heart, and to the pain
that it brought her, so she only lowered her eyes and said nothing.
In the meantime Mrs. Roberts was going on in her sarcastic tone:
“Wicked indeed!” she ejaculated, “and I suppose all that I have been
doing for you was wicked too! I suppose it was wicked of me to watch
over your education all these years as I have, and to plan your
future as if you were my own child, so that you might amount to
something in the world; and it was wicked of me to take all the
trouble that I have for your happiness, and wicked of Mr. Roberts to
go to all the trouble about the trousseau that he has! The only
right and virtuous thing about it all is the conduct of our niece
who causes us to do it all, and who promises herself to a man and
lets him go to all the trouble that he has, and then gets her head
full of sanctimonious notions and begins to preach about wickedness
to her elders!”
Helen had nothing to reply to those bitter words, for it was only
too easy just then to make her accuse herself of anything. She sat
meekly suffering, and thinking that the other was quite justified in
all her anger. Mrs. Roberts was, of course, quite incapable of
appreciating her mood, and continued to pour out her sarcasm, and to
grow more and more bitter. To tell the truth, the worthy matron had
not been half so unselfish in her hopes about Helen as she liked to
pretend, and she showed then that like most people of the world who
are perfectly good-natured on the surface, she could display no
little ugliness when thwarted in her ambitions and offended in her
pride.
It was not possible, however, for her to find a word that could seem
to Helen unjust, so much was the girl already humbled. It was only
after her aunt had ceased to direct her taunts at her, and turned
her spite upon Mr. Howard and his superior ideas, that it seemed to
Helen that it was not helping her to hear any more; then she rose
and said, very gently, “Aunt Polly, I am sorry that you feel so
about me, and I wish that I could explain to you better what I am
doing. I know that what I did at first was all wrong, but that is no
reason why I should leave it wrong forever. I think now that I ought
to go and talk to Mr. Harrison, who is waiting for me, and after
that I want you to please send me home, because father will be there
to-day, and I want to tell him about how dreadfully I have treated
Arthur, and beg him to forgive me.”
Then, without waiting for any reply, the girl left the room and went
slowly down the steps. The sorrow that possessed her lay so deep
upon her heart that everything else seemed trivial in comparison,
and she had put aside and forgotten the whole scene with her aunt
before she had reached the parlor where Mr. Harrison was waiting;
she did not stop to compose herself or to think what to say, but
went quickly into the room.
Mr. Harrison, who was standing by the window, turned when he heard
her; she answered his greeting kindly, and then sat down and
remained very still for a moment or two, gazing at her hands in her
lap. At last she raised her eyes to him, and asked: “Mr. Harrison,
did you receive the letter I wrote you?”
“Yes,” the other answered quickly, “I did. I cannot tell you how
much pain it caused me. And, Helen--or must I call you Miss Davis?”
“You may call me Helen,” said the girl simply. “I was very sorry to
cause you pain,” she added, “but there was nothing else that I could
do.”
“At least,” the other responded, “I hope that you will not refuse to
explain to me why this step is necessary?”
“No, Mr. Harrison,” said Helen, “it is right that I should tell you
all, no matter how hard it is to me to do it. It is all because of a
great wrong that I have done; I know that when I have told you, you
will think very badly of me indeed, but I have no right to do
anything except to speak the truth.”
She said that in a very low voice, not allowing her eyes to drop,
and wearing upon her face the look of sadness which seemed now to
belong to it always. Mr. Harrison gazed at her anxiously, and said:
“You seem to have been ill, Helen.”
“I have been very unhappy, Mr. Harrison,” she answered, “and I do
not believe I can ever be otherwise again. Did you not notice that I
was unhappy?”
“I never thought of it until yesterday,” the other replied.
“Until the drive,” said Helen; “that was the climax of it. I must
tell you the reason why I was so frightened then,--that I have a
friend who was as dear to me as if he were my brother, and he loved
me very much, very much more than I deserve to be loved by anyone;
and when I was engaged to you he was very ill, and because I knew I
was doing so wrong I did not dare to go and see him. That was why I
was afraid to pass through Hilltown. The reason I was so frightened
afterwards is that I caught a glimpse of him, and he was in such a
dreadful way. This morning I found that he had left his home and
gone away, no one knows where, so that I fear I shall never see him
again.”
Helen paused, and the other, who had sat down and was leaning
forward anxiously, asked her, “Then it is this friend that you
love?”
“No,” the girl replied, “it is not that; I do not love anybody.”
“But then I do not understand,” went on Mr. Harrison, with a puzzled
look. “You spoke of its having been so wrong; was it not your right
to wish to marry me?”
And Helen, punishing herself as she had learned so bravely to do,
did not lower her eyes even then; she flushed somewhat, however, as
she answered: “Mr. Harrison, do you know WHY I wished to marry you?”
The other started a trifle, and looked very much at a loss indeed.
“Why?” he echoed. “No, I do not know--that is--I never thought--”
“It hurts me more than I can tell you to have to say this to you,”
Helen said, “for you were right and true in your feeling. But did
you think that I was that, Mr. Harrison? Did you think that I really
loved you?”
Probably the good man had never been more embarrassed in his life
than he was just then. The truth to be told, he was perfectly well
aware why Helen had wished to marry him, and had been all along,
without seeing anything in that for which to dislike her; he was
quite without an answer to her present question, and could only
cough and stammer, and reach for his handkerchief. The girl went on
quickly, without waiting very long for his reply.
“I owe it to you to tell you the truth,” she said, “and then it will
no longer cause you pain to give me up. For I did not love you at
all, Mr. Harrison; but I loved all that you offered me, and I
allowed myself to be tempted thus, to promise to marry you. Ever
afterwards I was quite wretched, because I knew that I was doing
something wicked, and yet I never had the courage to stop. So it
went on until my punishment came yesterday. I have suffered
fearfully since that.”
Helen had said all that there was to be said, and she stopped and
took a deep breath of relief. There was a minute or two of silence,
after which Mr. Harrison asked: “And you really think that it was so
wrong to promise to marry me for the happiness that I could offer
you?”
Helen gazed at him in surprise as she echoed, “Was it so wrong?” And
at the same moment even while she was speaking, a memory flashed
across her mind, the memory of what had occurred at Fairview the
last time she had been there with Mr. Harrison. A deep, burning
blush mantled her face, and her eyes dropped, and she trembled
visibly. It was a better response to the other's question than any
words could have been, and because in spite of his contact with the
world he was still in his heart a gentleman, he understood and
changed color himself and looked away, feeling perhaps more rebuked
and humbled than he had ever felt in his life before.
So they sat thus for several minutes without speaking a word, or
looking at each other, each doing penance in his own heart. At last,
in a very low voice, the man said, “Helen, I do not know just how I
can ever apologize to you.”
The girl answered quietly: “I could not let you apologize to me, Mr.
Harrison, for I never once thought that you had done anything
wrong.”
“I have done very wrong indeed,” he answered, his voice trembling,
“for I do not think that I had any right even to ask you to marry
me. You make me feel suddenly how very coarse a world I have lived
in, and how much lower than yours all my ways of thinking are. You
look surprised that I say that,” he added, as he saw that the girl
was about to interrupt him, “but you do not know much about the
world. Do you suppose that there are many women in society who would
hesitate to marry me for my money?”
“I do not know,” said Helen, slowly; “but, Mr. Harrison, you could
certainly never be happy with a woman who would do that.”
“I do not think now that I should,” the man replied, earnestly, “but
I did not feel that way before. I did not have much else to offer,
Helen, for money is all that a man like me ever tries to get in the
world.”
“It is so very wrong, Mr. Harrison,” put in the other, quickly.
“When people live in that way they come to lose sight of all that is
right and beautiful in life; and it is all so selfish and wicked!”
(Those were words which might have made Mr. Howard smile a trifle
had he been there to hear them; but Helen was too much in earnest to
think about being original.)
“I know,” said Mr. Harrison, “and I used to believe in such things;
but one never meets anyone else that does, and it is so easy to live
differently. When you spoke to me as you did just now, you made me
seem a very poor kind of a person indeed.”
The man paused, and Helen sat gazing at him with a worried look upon
her face. “It was not that which I meant to do,” she began, but then
she stopped; and after a long silence, Mr. Harrison took up the
conversation again, speaking in a low, earnest voice.
“Helen,” he said, “you have made me see that I am quite unworthy to
ask for your regard,--that I have really nothing fit to offer you.
But I might have one thing that you could appreciate,--for I could
worship, really worship, such a woman as you; and I could do
everything that I could think of to make myself worthy of you,--even
if it meant the changing of all my ways of life. Do you not suppose
that you could quite forget that I was a rich man, Helen, and still
let me be devoted to you?”
There was a look in Mr. Harrison's eyes as he gazed at her just then
which made him seem to her a different sort of a man,--as indeed he
was. She answered very gently. “Mr. Harrison,” she said, “it would
be a great happiness to me to know that anyone felt so about me. But
I could never marry you; I do not love you.”
“And you do not think,” asked the other, “that you could ever come
to love me, no matter how long I might wait?”
“I do not think so,” Helen said in a low voice. “I wish that you
would not ever think of me so.”
“It is very easy to say that,” the man answered, pleadingly, “but
how am I to do it? For everything that I have seems cheap compared
with the thought of you. Why should I go on with the life I have
been leading, heaping up wealth that I do not know how to use, and
that makes me no better and no happier? I thought of you as a new
motive for going on, Helen, and you must know that a man cannot so
easily change his feelings. For I really loved you, and I do love
you still, and I think that I always must love you.”
Helen's own suffering had made her alive to other people's feelings,
and the tone of voice in which he spoke those words moved her very
much. She leaned over and laid her hand upon his,--something which
she would not have thought she could ever do.
“Mr. Harrison,” she said, “I cannot tell you how much it hurts me to
have you speak to me so, for it makes me see more than ever how
cruelly unfeeling I have been, and how much I have wronged you. It
was for that I wished to beg you to forgive me, to forgive me just
out of the goodness of your heart, for I cannot offer any excuse for
what I did. It makes me quite wretched to have to say that, and to
know that others are suffering because of my selfishness; if I had
any thought of the sacredness of the beauty God has given me, I
would never have let you think of me as you did, and caused you the
pain that I have. But you must forgive me, Mr. Harrison, and help
me, for to think of your being unhappy about me also would be really
more than I could bear. Sometimes when I think of the one great
sorrow that I have already upon my conscience, I feel that I do not
know what I am to do; and you must go away and forget about me, for
my sake if not for your own. I really cannot love anyone; I do not
think that I am fit to love anyone; I only do not want to make
anyone else unhappy.”
And Helen stopped again, and pressed her hand upon Mr. Harrison's
imploringly. He sat gazing at her in silence for a minute, and then
he said, slowly: “When you put it so, it is very hard for me to say
anything more. If you are only sure that that is your final
word--that there is really no chance that you could ever love me,--”
“I am perfectly sure of it,” the girl answered; “and because I know
how cruel it sounds, it is harder for me to say than for you to
hear. But it is really the truth, Mr. Harrison. I do not think that
you ought to see me again until you are sure that it will not make
you unhappy.”
The man sat for a moment after that, with his head bowed, and then
he bit his lip very hard and rose from his chair. “You can never
know,” he said, “how lonely it makes a man feel to hear words like
those.” But he took Helen's hand in his and held it for an instant,
and then added: “I shall do as you ask me. Good-by.” And he let her
hand fall and went to the door. There he stopped to gaze once again
for a moment, and then turned and disappeared, closing the door
behind him.
Helen was left seated in the chair, where she remained for several
minutes, leaning forward with her head in her hands, and gazing
steadily in front of her, thinking very grave thoughts. She rose at
last, however, and brushed back the hair from her forehead, and went
slowly towards the door. It would have seemed lack of feeling to
her, had she thought of it, but even before she had reached the
stairs the scene through which she had just passed was gone from her
mind entirely, and she was saying to herself, “If I could only know
where Arthur is this afternoon!”
Her mind was still full of that thought when she entered the room,
where she found her aunt seated just as she had left her, and in no
more pleasant humor than before.
“You have told him, I suppose?” she inquired.
“Yes,” Helen said, “I have told him, Aunt Polly.”
“And now you are happy, I suppose!”
“No, indeed, I am very far from that,” said Helen, and she went to
the window; she stood there, gazing out, but with her thoughts
equally far away from the scene outside as from Mrs. Roberts'
warnings and sarcasms. The latter had gone on for several minutes
before her niece turned suddenly. “Excuse me for interrupting you,
Aunt Polly,” she said; “but I want to know whether Mr. Howard has
gone yet.”
“His train goes in an hour or so,” said Mrs. Roberts, not very
graciously.
“I think I will see if he is downstairs,” Helen responded; “I wish
to speak to him before he goes.” And so she descended and found Mr.
Howard seated alone upon the piazza.
Taking a seat beside him, she said, “I did not thank you when I left
you in the carriage, Mr. Howard, for having been so kind to me; but
I was so wrapped up in my worry--”
“I understood perfectly,” put in the other. “I saw that you felt too
keenly about your discovery to have anything to say to me.”
“I feel no less keenly about it now,” said Helen; “but I could not
let you go away until I had spoken to you.” She gazed very earnestly
at him as she continued: “I have to tell you how much you have done
for me, and how I thank you for it from the bottom of my heart. I
simply cannot say how much all that you have shown me has meant to
me; I should have cared for nothing but to have you tell me what it
would be right for me to do with my life,--if only it had not been
for this dreadful misfortune of Arthur's, which makes it seem as if
it would be wicked for me to think about anything.”
Mr. Howard sat gazing in front of him for a moment, and then he said
gently, “What if the change that you speak of were to be
accomplished, Miss Davis, without your ever thinking about it? For
what is it that makes the difference between being thoughtless and
selfish, and being noble and good, if it be not simply to walk
reverently in God's great temple of life, and to think with sorrow
of one's own self? Believe me, my dear friend, the best men that
have lived on earth have seen no more cause to be pleased with
themselves than you.”
“That may be true, Mr. Howard,” said Helen, sadly, “but it can do me
no good to know it. It does not make what happens to Arthur a bit
less dreadful to think of.”
“It is the most painful fact about all our wrong,” the other
answered, “that no amount of repentance can ever alter the
consequences. But, Miss Davis, that is a guilt which all creation
carries on its shoulders; it is what is symbolized in the Fall of
Man--that he has to realize that he might have had infinite beauty
and joy for his portion, if only the soul within him had never
weakened and failed. Let me tell you that he is a lucky man who can
look back at all his life and see no more shameful guilt than yours,
and no consequence worse than yours can be.” As Mr. Howard spoke he
saw a startled look cross the girl's face, and he added, “Do not
suppose that I am saying that to comfort you, for it is really the
truth. It oftens happens too, that the natures that are strongest
and most ardent in their search for righteousness have the worst
sins to remember.”
Helen did not answer for several moments, for the thought was
strange to her; then suddenly she gazed at the other very earnestly
and said: “Mr. Howard, you are a man who lives for what is beautiful
and high,--suppose that YOU had to carry all through your life the
burden of such guilt as mine?”
The man's voice was trembling slightly as he answered her: “It is
not hard for me to suppose that, Miss Davis; I HAVE such a burden to
carry.” As he raised his eyes he saw a still more wondering look
upon her countenance.
“But the consequences!” she exclaimed. “Surely, Mr. Howard, you
could not bear to live if you knew--”
“I have never known the consequences,” said the man, as she stopped
abruptly; “just as you may never know them; but this I know, that
yours could not be so dreadful as mine must be. I know also that I
am far more to blame for them than you.”
Helen could not have told what caused the emotion which made her
shudder so just then as she gazed into Mr. Howard's dark eyes. Her
voice was almost a whisper as she said, “And yet you are GOOD!”
“I am good,” said the man gently, “with all the goodness that any
man can claim, the goodness of trying to be better. You may be that
also.”
Helen sat for a long time in silence after that, wondering at what
was passing in her own mind; it was as if she had caught a sudden
glimpse into a great vista of life. She had always before thought of
this man's suffering as having been physical; and the deep movement
of sympathy and awe which stirred her now was one step farther from
her own self-absorption, and one step nearer to the suffering that
is the heart of things.
But Helen had to keep that thought and dwell upon it in solitude;
there was no chance for her to talk with Mr. Howard any more, for
she heard her aunt's step in the hall behind her. She had only time
to say, “I am going home myself this afternoon; will you come there
to see me, Mr. Howard? I cannot tell you how much pleasure it would
give me.”
“There is nothing I should like to do more,” the man answered; “I
hope to keep your friendship. When would you like me to come?”
“Any time that you can,” replied Helen. “Come soon, for I know how
unhappy I shall be.”
That was practically the last word she said to Mr. Howard, for her
aunt joined them, and after that the conversation was formal. It was
not very long before the carriage came for him, and Helen pressed
his hand gratefully at parting, and stood leaning against a pillar
of the porch, shading her eyes from the sun while she watched the
carriage depart. Then she sat down to wait for it to return from the
depot for her, which it did before long; and so she bid farewell to
her aunt.
It was a great relief to Helen; and while we know not what emotions
it may cause to the reader, it is perhaps well to say that he may
likewise pay his last respects to the worthy matron, who will not
take part in the humble events of which the rest of our story must
be composed.
For Helen was going home, home to the poor little parsonage of
Oakdale! She was going with a feeling of relief in her heart second
only to her sorow; the more she had come to feel how shallow and
false was the splendor that had allured her, the more she had found
herself drawn to her old home, with its memories that were so dear
and so beautiful. She felt that there she might at least think of
Arthur all that she chose, and meet with nothing to affront her
grief; and also she found herself thinking of her father's love with
a new kind of hunger.
When she arrived, she found Mr. Davis waiting for her with a very
anxious look upon his countenance; he had stopped at Hilltown on his
way, and learned about Arthur's disappearance, and then heard from
Elizabeth what she knew about Helen's engagement. The girl flung
herself into his arms, and afterwards, quite overcome by the
emotions that surged up within her, sank down upon her knees before
him and sobbed out the whole story, her heart bursting with sorrow
and contrition; as he lifted her up and kissed her and whispered his
beautiful words of pardon and comfort, Helen found it a real
homecoming indeed.
Mr. Davis was also able to calm her worry a little by telling her
that he did not think it possible that Arthur would keep his
whereabouts secret from him very long. “When I find him, dear
child,” he said, “it will all be well again, for we will believe in
love, you and I, and not care what the great world says about it. I
think I could be well content that you should marry our dear
Arthur.”
“But, father, I do not love him,” put in Helen faintly.
“That may come in time,” said the other, kissing her tenderly, and
smiling. “There is no need to talk of it, for you are too young to
marry, anyway. And in the meantime we must find him.”
There was a long silence after that. Helen sat down on the sofa
beside her father and put her arms about him and leaned her head
upon his bosom, drinking in deep drafts of his pardon and love. She
told him about Mr. Howard, and of the words of counsel which he had
given her, and how he was coming to see her again. Afterwards the
conversation came back to Arthur and his love for Helen, and then
Mr. Davis went on to add something that caused Helen to open her
eyes very wide and gaze at him in wonder.
“There is still another reason for wishing to find him soon,” he
said, “for something else has happened to-day that he ought to know
about.”
“What is it?” asked Helen.
“I don't know that I ought to tell you about it just now,” said the
other, “for it is a very sad story. But someone was here to see
Arthur this morning--someone whom I never expected to see again in
all my life.”
“To see Arthur?” echoed the girl in perplexity. “Who could want to
see Arthur?” As her father went on she gave a great start.
“It was his mother,” said Mr. Davis.
And Helen stared at him, gasping for breath as she echoed the words,
“His mother!”
“You may well be astonished,” said the clergyman. “But the woman
proved beyond doubt that she was really the person who left Arthur
with me.”
“You did not recognize her?”
“No, Helen; for it has been twenty-one or two years since I saw her,
and she has changed very much since then. But she told me that in
all that time she has never once lost sight of her boy, and has been
watching all that he did.”
“Where has she been?”
“She did not tell me,” the other answered, “but I fancy in New York.
The poor woman has lived a very dreadful life, a life of such
wretched wickedness that we cannot even talk about it; I think I
never heard of more cruel suffering. I was glad that you were not
here to see her, or know about it until after she was gone; she said
that she had come to see Arthur once, because she was going away to
die.”
“To die!” exclaimed the girl, in horror.
“Yes,” said Mr. Davis, “to die; she looked as if she could not live
many days longer. I begged her to let me see that she was provided
for, but she said that she was going to find her way back to her old
home, somewhere far off in the country, and she would hear of
nothing else. She would not tell the name of the place, nor her own
name, but she left a letter for Arthur, and begged me to find him
and give it to him, so that he might come and speak to her once if
he cared to do so. She begged me to forgive her for the trouble she
had caused me, and to pray that God would forgive her too; and then
she bade me farewell and dragged herself away.”
Mr. Davis stopped, and Helen sat for a long time staring ahead of
her, with a very frightened look in her eyes, and thinking, “Oh, we
MUST find Arthur!” Then she turned to her father, her lips trembling
and her countenance very pale. “Tell me,” she said, in a low,
awe-stricken voice, “a long time ago someone must have wronged that
woman.”
“Yes, dear,” said Mr. Davis, “when she was not even as old as you
are. And the man who wronged her was worth millions of dollars,
Helen, and could have saved her from all her suffering with a few of
them if he cared to. No one but God knows his name, for the woman
would not tell it.”
Helen sat for a moment or two staring at him wildly; and then
suddenly she buried her head in his bosom and burst into tears,
sobbing so cruelly that her father was sorry he had told her what he
had. He knew why that story moved her so, and it wrung his heart to
think of it,--that this child of his had put upon her own shoulders
some of that burden of the guilt of things, and must suffer beneath
it, perhaps for the rest of her days.
When Helen gazed up at him again there was the old frightened look
upon her face, and all his attempts to comfort her were useless.
“No, no!” she whispered. “No, father! I cannot even think of peace
again, until we have found Arthur!”
Freundliches Voglein!