ADVICE IN THE DARK.
It was some moments before either of them spoke, and it did not help
Wingfold that she sat clouded by a dark-coloured veil. At length he
said,
"You must not fear to trust me because I doubt my ability to help
you. I can at least assure you of my sympathy. The trouble I have
myself had enables me to promise you that."
"Can you tell me," she said, from behind more veils than that of
lace, "how to get rid of a haunting idea?"
"That depends on the nature of the idea, I should imagine," answered
the curate. "Such things sometimes arise merely from the state of
the health, and there the doctor is the best help."
Helen shook her head, and smiled behind her veil a grievous smile.
The curate paused, but, receiving no assistance, ventured on again.
"If it be a thought of something past and gone, for which nothing
can be done, I think activity in one's daily work must be the best
aid to endurance."
"Oh dear! oh dear!" sighed Helen--"when one has no heart to endure,
and hates the very sunlight!--You wouldn't talk about work to a man
dying of hunger, would you?"
"I'm not sure about that."
"He wouldn't heed you."
"Perhaps not."
"What would you do then?"
"Give him some food, and try him again, I think."
"Then give me some food--some hope, I mean, and try me again.
Without that, I don't care about duty or life or anything."
"Tell me, then, what is the matter; I MAY be able to hint at some
hope," said Wingfold, very gently. "Do you call yourself a
Christian?"
The question would to most people have sounded strange, abrupt,
inquisitorial; but to Helen it sounded not one of them all.
"No," she answered.
"Ah!" said the curate a little sadly, and went on. "Because then I
could have said, you know where to go for comfort.--Might it not be
well however to try if there is any to be had from him that said
'COME UNTO ME, AND I WILL GIVE YOU REST?'"
"I can do nothing with that. I have tried and tried to pray, but it
is of no use. There is such a weight on my heart that no power of
mine can lift it up. I suppose it is because I cannot believe there
is anyone hearing a word I say. Yesterday, when I got alone in the
park, I prayed aloud: I thought that perhaps, even if he might not
be able to read what was in my heart, he might be able to hear my
voice. I was even foolish enough to wish I knew Greek, because
perhaps he would understand me better if I were to pray in Greek. My
brain seems turning. It is of no use! There is no help anywhere!"
She tried hard, but could not prevent a sob. And then came a burst
of tears.
"Will you not tell me something about it?" said the curate, yet more
gently. Oh, how gladly would he relieve her heart if he might!
"Perhaps Jesus has begun to give you help, though you do not know it
yet," he said, "His help may be on the way to you, or even with you,
only you do not recognize it for what it is. I have known that kind
of thing. Tell me some fact or some feeling I can lay hold of.
Possibly there is something you ought to do and are not doing, and
that is why you cannot rest. I think Jesus would give no rest except
in the way of learning of him."
Helen's sobs ceased, but what appeared to the curate a long silence
followed. At length she said, with faltering voice:
"Suppose it were a great wrong that had been done, and that was the
unendurable thought? SUPPOSE, I say, that was what made me
miserable!"
"Then you must of course make all possible reparation," answered
Wingfold at once.
"But if none were possible--what then?"
Here the answer was not so plain, and the curate had to think.
"At least," he said at length, "you could confess the wrong, and ask
forgiveness."
"But if that also were impossible," said Helen, shuddering inwardly
to find how near she drew to the edge of the awful fact.
Again the curate took time to reply.
"I am endeavouring to answer your questions as well as I can," he
said; "but it is hard to deal with generalities. You see how
useless, for that very reason, my answers have as yet been! Still I
have something more to say, and hesitate only because it may imply
more confidence than I dare profess, and of all things I dread
untruth. But I am honest in this much at least, that I desire with
true heart to find a God who will acknowledge me as his creature and
make me his child, and if there be any God I am nearly certain he
will do so; for surely there cannot be any other kind of God than
the Father of Jesus Christ! In the strength of this much of
conscious truth I venture to say--that no crime can be committed
against a creature without being committed also against the creator
of that creature; therefore surely the first step for anyone who has
committed such a crime must be to humble himself before God, confess
the sin, and ask forgiveness and cleansing. If there is anything in
religion at all it must rest upon an actual individual communication
between God and the creature he has made; and if God heard the man's
prayer and forgave him, then the man would certainly know it in his
heart and be consoled--perhaps by the gift of humility."
"Then you think confession to God is all that is required?"
"If there be no one else wronged to whom confession can be made. If
the case were mine--and sometimes I much fear that in taking holy
orders I have grievously sinned--I should then do just as I have
done with regard to that--cry to the living power which I think
originated me, to set the matter right for me."
"But if it could not be set right?"
"Then to forgive and console me."
"Alas! alas! that he will not hear of. He would rather be punished
than consoled. I fear for his brain. But indeed that might be well."
She had gone much farther than she had intended; but the more
doubtful help became, the more she was driven by the agony of a
perishing hope to search the heart of Wingfold.
Again the curate pondered.
"Are you sure," he said at length, "that the person of whom you
speak is not neglecting something he ought to do--something he knows
perhaps?"
He had come back to the same with which he started.
Through her veil he saw her turn deadly white. Ever since Leopold
said the word JURY, a ghastly fear had haunted Helen. She pressed
her hand on her heart and made no answer.
"I speak from experience," the curate went on--"from what else could
I speak? I know that so long as we hang back from doing what
conscience urges, there is no peace for us. I will not say our
prayers are not heard, for Mr. Polwarth has taught me that the most
precious answer prayer can have, lies in the growing strength of the
impulse towards the dreaded duty, and in the ever sharper stings of
the conscience. I think I asked already whether there were no
relatives to whom reparation could be made?"
"Yes, yes," gasped Helen;" and I told you reparation was
impossible."
Her voice had sunk almost to a groan.
"But at least confession--" said Wingfold---and started from his
seat.