Miss Evans sat quietly reading, when a gentle ring at the door, which
seemed to reach her heart rather than her ears, aroused her from an
intensely interesting chapter; but she laid the book aside, and promptly
answered the call.
Her face looked the welcome her heart gave them, as she asked Dawn and
her teacher into her cool, airy room. It was one of those snug, homelike
spots, made bright by touches of beauty. Here a vase of flowers, there a
basket of work; books, pictures, every chair and footstool betokened the
taste of the occupant, and the air of home sacredness that pervaded all,
soon made Miss Vernon at ease.
“We could n't help coming,” said Dawn, as Miss Evans removed her hat and
mantle, and her glowing features confirmed the assertion.
“Just the kind of visitors I like, fresh and spontaneous. We shall have
a nice time, I know, this lovely afternoon.”
“Can I walk in your garden, Miss Evans?”
“Certainly. But are you not too tired, now?”
“O, no,” and Dawn was out of sight the next instant.
“I have brought you a book, Miss Evans, which Mr. Wyman requested me to
bring, myself.”
“O, yes,” she said, glancing at the title, “the one he promised to loan
me so long ago. Is he away from home?”
“He left this morning.”
“You must miss him very much.”
“We do.”
Miss Evans saw, with a woman's intuition, that something was weighing on
the mind of her visitor, and kindly sought to divert her thoughts. The
conversation brightened a little, yet it was apparent that Miss Vernon's
interest flagged, and that her mind grew abstracted.
“I shall not relieve her, unless I probe the wound,” said Miss Evans to
herself, and she boldly ventured on grounds which her subtle penetration
discovered to be the cause of her gloom.
“You find my friend, Mr. Wyman, an agreeable companion, I hope, Miss
Vernon?”
“He has ever been so, and very kind and thoughtful.”
“He is a true gentleman, and a man of honor, as well of refinement and
noble character.”
Miss Vernon breathed freer.
“You have made him very happy,” resumed Miss Evans, “by consenting to
remain with him and his daughter. They are both much attached to you.”
A flush of pain she could not conceal passed over the face of the
caller. “O, if I might but speak to you as I would,” she said, almost
fainting with emotion.
“Do tell me in words what you have already so plainly told me in your
looks. Tell me freely the cause of the shadow that hangs over you.”
In response to this appeal, Florence related the experience of the
morning.
“I am not at all surprised at this,” said Miss Evans, after the
statement had been made, “for well I know the dark surmisings that the
dwellers in this little village have worked up into imaginary evils.
Sages would no doubt assert that all rumors have some degree of truth,
however slight, for a foundation. This may be true; at least I will not
deny that it is so, but the instigators of the cruel slanders in this
case have nothing but ignorance upon which to base them. Hugh Wyman is
what some might call eccentric. The fact is, he is so far beyond the
majority of his fellow men that he stands alone, and is the cause of
great clamor among those who do not know him. He expresses his views
upon social questions freely but wisely. His opinions respecting the
social relations that should exist between men and women, and their
right to selfhood, are not his alone, but are held by the best minds in
the world; and his home is often visited by men and women of the largest
culture and ability, both as thinkers and writers. I do not wonder for
a moment that your equilibrium was disturbed by these shallow-brained
women. And now before I advocate my friend's honesty and virtue farther,
I will tell you, what no one save myself and he knows, of one of the
women who called upon you this morning. It is your due, after what has
occurred, and belongs to this moment. I believe in such moments it is
right to raise the veil of the past. Listen:--
“A few years ago, one of that number who came to you, sought by
every subterfuge and art, to gain the affections of Hugh Wyman.
Intellectually, spiritually, in every way his inferior, of course he
could not for a moment desire her society. Yet she sought him at all
times, and when, at last, he told her in words what he had all along so
forcibly expressed by his acts, that he had not even respect for her,
and bade her cease her maneuverings, she turned upon him in slander; and
even on his wedding day asserted that his fair Alice was a woman of no
repute--abandoned by her friends. Nor is this all;-one year after the
marriage of Hugh, she gave birth to a child; it was laid at night at his
door, and he was charged with being its father.”
“But was she married, then?”
“No. She subsequently went to a small village in N--, and married.”
“Did the town people believe her story?”
“A few-but proofs of his innocence long since established the falsity
of the charge, except in the minds of those who seem to delight only in
that which dispoils the character of another.”
“But his wife? did she too suffer with doubt?”
“Never. Not for a moment was her faith in her husband clouded.”
“And this child must be the one they spoke of to deceive me.”
“It is. I will go with you some day to see him, and if your eyes can
detect the slightest resemblance to Hugh Wyman, I shall think you are
gifted with more than second sight. I do not wish to weary you, Miss
Vernon, but my friend's character is too sacred to me to be thus
assailed, and I not use all my powers to make known the truth, and prove
him innocent.”
“I believe his views upon marriage are rather radical, are they not,
Miss Evans?”
“They are. I join him fully in all his ideas, for long have I seen that
our system needs thorough reformation, and that while the marriage
bond is holy, too many have desecrated it. I believe some of the most
inharmonious offspring are brought into the world, under the sanction
of marriage-children diseased, mentally and physically; and worse than
orphans. I do not say this to countenance licentiousness. Indeed, I know
that licentiousness is not all outside of wedlock. It is to purify and
elevate the low, and not to give license to such, that earnest men and
women are talking and writing to-day. I do not blame you, Miss Vernon,
for wishing proof of Mr. Wyman's purity and honor. I like a mind that
demands evidence. And now, tell me, have I scattered or broken the cloud
that hung over you?”
“You have. I shall trust Mr. Wyman till I have some personal proof that
he is not all I feel him to be.”
“That is the true course to pursue, my friend. In that way alone you
have your own life developed. If by word, look or deed he ever betrays
your trust, I shall call my intuitions vain, and all my insight into
human character mere idle conjecture.”
“But I must go now, Miss Evans. I thank you much for the light which you
have given me, and your sympathy, all of which I so much needed.”
“Your position was indeed trying, but do you not feel that your
character will be deeper and stronger for this disturbance?”
“I feel as though I had lived through a long period.”
“I have one question to put to you, which you must answer from your
soul's deep intuition, and not from your reason alone. Do you believe
Hugh Wyman guilty of the crimes charged against him?”
“I do not.”
There was no hesitation in the answer; their souls met on sympathetic
ground, and those two women loved Hugh Wyman alike, with a pure sisterly
affection.