II

Isabel slept soundly, the regular habit of healthy years being too

firmly entrenched to give way at once. Meanwhile deep changes were

wrought out in her.

When we fall asleep, we do not lay aside the thoughts of the day,

as the hand its physical work; nor upon awakening return to the

activity of these as it to the renewal of its toil, finding them

undisturbed. Our most piercing insight yields no deeper conception

of life than that of perpetual building and unbuilding; and during

what we call our rest, it is often most active in executing its

inscrutable will. All along the dark chimneys of the brain,

clinging like myriads of swallows deep-buried and slumbrous in

quiet and in soot, are the countless thoughts which lately winged

the wide heaven of conscious day. Alike through dreaming and

through dreamless hours Life moves among these, handling and

considering each of the unredeemable multitude; and when morning

light strikes the dark chimneys again and they rush forth, some

that entered young have matured; some of the old have become

infirm; many of which have dropped in singly issue as companies;

and young broods flutter forth, unaccountable nestlings of a night,

which were not in yesterday's blue at all. Then there are the

missing--those that went in with the rest at nightfall but were

struck from the walls forever. So all are altered, for while we

have slept we have still been subject to that on-moving energy of

the world which incessantly renews us yet transmutes us--double

mystery of our permanence and our change.

It was thus that nature dealt with Isabel on this night: hours of

swift difficult transition from her former life to that upon which

she was now to enter. She fell asleep overwhelmed amid the ruins

of the old; she awoke already engaged with the duties of the new.

At sundown she was a girl who had never confessed her love; at

sunrise she was a woman who had discarded the man she had just

accepted. Rising at once and dressing with despatch, she entered

upon preparations for completing her spiritual separation from

Rowan in every material way.

The books he had lent her--these she made ready to return this

morning. Other things, also, trifles in themselves but until now

so freighted with significance. Then his letters and notes, how

many, how many they were! Thus ever about her rooms she moved on

this mournful occupation until the last thing had been disposed of

as either to be sent back or to be destroyed.

And then while Isabel waited for breakfast to be announced, always

she was realizing how familiar seemed Rowan's terrible confession,

already lying far from her across the fields of memory--with a path

worn deep between it and herself as though she had been traversing

the distance for years; so old can sorrow grow during a little

sleep. When she went down they were seated as she had left them

the evening before, grandmother, aunt, cousin; and they looked up

with the same pride and fondness. But affection has so different a

quality in the morning. Then the full soundless rides which come

in at nightfall have receded; and in their stead is the glittering

beach with thin waves that give no rest to the ear or to the

shore--thin noisy edge of the deeps of the soul.

This fresh morning mood now ruled them; no such wholesome relief

had come to her. So that their laughter and high spirits jarred

upon her strangely. She had said to herself upon leaving them the

evening before that never again could they be the same to her or

she the same to them. But then she had expected to return isolated

by incommunicable happiness; now she had returned isolated by

incommunicable grief. Nevertheless she glided Into her seat with

feigned cheerfulness, taking a natural part in their conversation;

and she rose at last, smiling with the rest.

But she immediately quitted the house, eager to be out of doors

surrounded by things that she loved but that could not observe her

or question her in return--alone with things that know not evil.

These were the last days of May. The rush of Summer had already

carried it far northward over the boundaries of Spring, and on this

Sunday morning it filled the grounds of Isabel's home with early

warmth. Quickened by the heat, summoned by the blue, drenched with

showers and dews, all things which have been made repositories of

the great presence of Life were engaged in realizing the utmost

that it meant to them.

It was in the midst of this splendor of light and air, fragrance,

colors, shapes, movements, melodies and joys that Isabel, the

loftiest receptacle of life among them all, soon sat in a secluded

spot, motionless and listless with her unstanched and desperate

wound. Everything seemed happy but herself; the very brilliancy of

the day only deepened the shadow under which she brooded. As she

had slipped away from the house, she would soon have escaped from

the garden had there been any further retreat.

It was not necessary long to wait for one. Borne across the brown

roofs and red chimneys of the town and exploding in the crystal air

above her head like balls of mellow music, came the sounds of the

first church bells, the bells of Christ Church.

They had never conveyed other meaning to her than that proclaimed

by the town clock: they sounded the hour. She had been too

untroubled during her young life to understand their aged argument

and invitation.

Held In the arms of her father, when a babe, she had been duly

christened. His death had occurred soon afterwards, then her

mother's. Under the nurture of a grandmother to whom religion was

a convenience and social form, she had received the strictest

ceremonial but in no wise any spiritual training. The first

conscious awakening of this beautiful unearthly sense had not taken

place until the night of her confirmation--a wet April evening when

the early green of the earth was bowed to the ground, and the

lilies-of-the-valley in the yard had chilled her fingers as she had

plucked them (chosen flower of her consecration); she and they but

rising alike into their higher lives out of the same mysterious

Mother.

That night she had knelt among the others at the chancel and the

bishop who had been a friend of her father's, having approached her

in the long line of young and old, had laid his hands the more

softly for his memories upon her brow with the impersonal prayer:

"_Defend, O Lord, this thy child with thy heavenly grace, that she

may continue thine forever, and daily increase in thy Holy Spirit

more and more, until she come unto thy Everlasting Kingdom_."

For days afterwards a steady radiance seemed to Isabel to rest upon

her wherever she went, shed straight from Eternity. She had

avoided her grandmother, secluded herself from the closest

companions, been very thoughtful.

Years had elapsed since. But no experience of the soul is ever

wasted or effaceable; and as the sound of the bells now reached her

across the garden, they reawoke the spiritual impulses which had

stirred within her at confirmation. First heard whispering then,

the sacred annunciation now more eloquently urged that in her

church, the hour of real need being come, she would find refuge,

help, more than earthly counsellor.

She returned unobserved to the house and after quick simple

preparation, was on her way.

When she slipped shrinkingly into her pew, scarce any one had

arrived. Several women in mourning were there and two or three

aged men. It is the sorrowful and the old who head the human host

in its march toward Paradise: Youth and Happiness loiter far behind

and are satisfied with the earth. Isabel looked around with a

poignant realization of the broken company over into which she had

so swiftly crossed.

She had never before been in the church when it was empty. How

hushed and solemn it waited in its noonday twilight--the Divine

already there, faithful keeper of the ancient compact; the human

not yet arrived. Here indeed was the refuge she had craved; here

the wounded eye of the soul could open unhurt and unafraid; and she

sank to her knees with a quick prayer of the heart, scarce of the

lips, for Isabel knew nothing about prayer in her own words--that

she might have peace of mind during these guarded hours: there

would be so much time afterwards in which to remember--so many

years in which to remember!

How still it was! At first she started at every sound: the barely

audible opening and shutting of a pew door by some careful hand;

the grating of wheels on the cobblestones outside as a carriage was

driven to the entrance; the love-calls of sparrows building in the

climbing oak around the Gothic windows.

Soon, however, her ear became sealed to all outward disturbance.

She had fled to the church, driven by many young impulses, but

among them was the keen hope that her new Sorrow, which had begun

to follow her everywhere since she awoke, would wait outside when

she entered those doors: so dark a spirit would surely not stalk

behind her into the very splendor of the Spotless. But as she now

let her eyes wander down the isle to the chancel railing where she

had knelt at confirmation, where bridal couples knelt in receiving

the benediction, Isabel felt that this new Care faced her from

there as from its appointed shrine; she even fancied that in effect

it addressed to her a solemn warning:

"Isabel, think not to escape me in this place! It is here that

Rowan must seem to you most unworthy and most false; to have

wronged you most cruelly. For it was here, at this altar, that you

had expected to kneel beside him and be blessed in your marriage.

In years to come, sitting where you now sit, you may live to see

him kneel here with another, making her his wife. But for you,

Isabel, this spot must ever mean the renunciation of marriage, the

bier of love. Then do not think to escape me here, me, who am

Remembrance."

And Isabel, as though a command had been laid upon her, with her

eyes fixed on the altar over which the lights of the stained glass

windows were joyously playing, gave herself up to memories of all

the innocent years that she had known Rowan and of the blind years

that she had loved him.

She was not herself aware that marriage was the only sacrament of

religion that had ever possessed interest for her. Recollection

told her no story of how even as a child she had liked to go to the

crowded church with other children and watch the procession of the

brides--all mysterious under their white veils, and following one

and another so closely during springs and autumns that in truth

they were almost a procession. Or with what excitement she had

watched each walk out, leaning on the arm of the man she had chosen

and henceforth to be called his in ail things to the end while the

loud crash of the wedding march closed their separate pasts with a

single melody.

But there were mothers in the church who, attracted by the child's

expression, would say to each other a little sadly perhaps, that

love and marriage were destined to be the one overshadowing or

overshining experience in life to this most human and poetic soul.

After she had learned of Rowan's love for her and had begun to

return his love, the altar had thenceforth become the more personal

symbol of their destined happiness. Every marriage that she

witnessed bound her more sacredly to him. Only a few months before

this, at the wedding of the Osborns--Kate being her closest friend,

and George Osborn being Rowan's--he and she had been the only

attendants; and she knew how many persons in the church were

thinking that they might be the next to plight their vows; with

crimsoning cheeks she had thought it herself.

Now there returned before Isabel's eyes the once radiant procession

of the brides--but how changed! And bitter questioning she

addressed to each! Had any such confession been made to any one of

them--either before marriage or afterwards--by the man she had

loved? Was it for some such reason that one had been content to

fold her hands over her breast before the birth of her child? Was

this why another lived on, sad young wife, motherless? Was this

why in the town there were women who refused to marry at all? So

does a little knowledge of evil move backward and darken for us

even the bright years in which it had no place.

The congregation were assembling rapidly. Among those who passed

further down were several of the girls of Isabel's set. How fresh

and sweet they looked as they drifted gracefully down the aisles

this summer morning! How light-hearted! How far away from her in

her new wretchedness! Some, after they were seated, glanced back

with a smile. She avoided their eyes.

A little later the Osborns entered, the bride and groom of a few

months before. Their pew was immediately in front of hers. Kate

wore mourning for her mother. As she seated herself, she lifted

her veil halfway, turned and slipped a hand over the pew into

Isabel's. The tremulous pressure of the fingers spoke of present

trouble; and as Isabel returned it with a quick response of her

own, a tear fell from the hidden eyes.

The young groom's eyes were also red and swollen, but for other

reasons; and he sat in the opposite end of the pew as far as

possible from his wife's side. When she a few moments later leaned

toward him with timidity and hesitation, offering him an open

prayer-book, he took it coldly and laid it between them on the

cushion. Isabel shuddered: her new knowledge of evil so cruelly

opened her eyes to the full understanding of so much.

Little rime was left for sympathy with Kate. Nearer the pulpit was

another pew from which her thoughts had never been wholly

withdrawn. She had watched it with the fascination of abhorrence;

and once, feeling that she could not bear to see him come in with

his mother and younger brother, she had started to leave the

church. But just then her grandmother had bustled richly in,

followed by her aunt; and more powerful with Isabel already than

any other feeling was the wish to bury her secret--Rowan's

secret--in the deepest vault of consciousness, to seal it up

forever from the knowledge of the world.

The next moment what she so dreaded took place. He walked quietly

down the aisle as usual, opened the pew for his mother and brother

with the same courtesy, and the three bent their heads together in

prayer.

"Grandmother," she whispered quickly, "will you let me pass! I am

not very well, I think I shall go home."

Her grandmother, not heeding and with her eyes fixed upon the same

pew, whispered in return;

"The Merediths are here," and continued her satisfying scrutiny of

persons seated around.

Isabel herself had no sooner suffered the words to escape than she

regretted them. Resolved to control herself from this time on, she

unclasped her prayer-book, found the appointed reading, and

directed her thoughts to the service soon to begin.

It was part of the confession of David that reached her, sounding

across how many centuries. Wrung from him who had been a young man

himself and knew what a young man is. With time enough afterwards

to think of this as soldier, priest, prophet, care-worn king, and

fallible judge over men--with time enough to think of what his days

of nature had been when he tended sheep grazing the pastures of

Bethlehem or abided solitary with the flock by night, lowly

despised work, under the herded stars. Thus converting a young

man's memories into an older man's remorses.

As she began to read, the first outcry gripped and cramped her

heart like physical pain; where all her life she had been repeating

mere words, she now with eyes tragically opened discerned forbidden

meanings:

"_Thou art about my path and about my bed . . . the darkness is no

darkness to thee. . . . Thine eyes did see my substance being yet

imperfect . . . look well if there be any wickedness in me; and

lead me in the way everlasting . . . haste thee unto me . . .

when I cry unto thee. O let not my heart be inclined to an evil

thing_."

She was startled by a general movement throughout the congregation.

The minister had advanced to the reading desk and begun to read:

"_I will arise and go to my father and will say unto him: Father, I

have sinned against heaven and before thee and am no more worthy to

be called thy son_."

Ages stretched their human wastes between these words of the New

Testament and those other words of the Old; but the parable of

Christ really finished the prayer of David: in each there was the

same young prodigal--the ever-falling youth of humanity.

Another moment and the whole congregation knelt and began the

confession. Isabel also from long custom sank upon her knees and

started to repeat the words, "We have erred and strayed from thy

ways like lost sheep." Then she stopped. She declined to make

that confession with Rowan or to join in any service that he shared

and appropriated.

The Commandments now remained and for the first time she shrank

from them as being so awful and so near. All our lives we placidly

say over to ourselves that man is mortal; but not until death

knocks at the threshold and enters do we realize the terrors of our

mortality. All our lives we repeat with dull indifference that man

is erring; but only when the soul most loved and trusted has gone

astray, do we begin to realize the tragedy of human imperfection.

So Isabel had been used to go through the service, with bowed head

murmuring at each response, "_Lord have mercy upon us and incline

our hearts to keep this law_."

But the laws themselves had been no more to her than pious archaic

statements, as far removed as the cherubim, the candlesticks and

the cedar of Solomon's temple. If her thoughts had been forced to

the subject, she would have perhaps admitted the necessity of these

rules for men and women ages ago. Some one of them might have

meant much to a girl in those dim days: to Rebecca pondering who

knows what temptation at the well; to Ruth tempted who knows how in

the corn and thinking of Boaz and the barn; to Judith plotting in

the camp; to Jephtha's daughter out on the wailing mountains.

But to-day, sitting in an Episcopal church in the closing years of

the nineteenth century, holding a copy of those old laws, and

thinking of Rowan as the breaker of the greatest of them, Isabel

for the first time awoke to realization of how close they are

still--those voices from the far land of Shinar; how all the men

and women around her in that church still waged their moral battles

over those few texts of righteousness; how the sad and sublime

wandering caravans of the whole race forever pitch their nightly

tents beneath that same mountain of command.

Thick and low sounded the response of the worshippers. She could

hear her grandmother's sonorous voice, a mingling of worldly

triumph and indifference; her aunt's plaintive and aggrieved. She

could hear Kate's needy and wounded. In imagination she could hear

his proud, noble mother's; his younger brother's. Against the

sound of his responses she closed all hearing; and there low on her

knees, in the ear of Heaven itself, she recorded against him her

unforgiveness and her dismissal forever.

An organ melody followed, thrillingly sweet; and borne outward on

it the beseeching of the All-Merciful:

"'Art thou weary, art thou languid,

Art thou sore distressed?

Come to me!' saith one; 'and, coming,

Be at rest!'"

It was this hymn that brought her in a passion to her feet.

With whatsoever other feelings she had sought the church, it was at

least with the hope that it had a message for her. She had indeed

listened to a personal message, but it was a message delivered to

the wrong person; for at every stage of the worship she, the

innocent, had been forgotten and slighted; Rowan, the guilty, had

been considered and comforted. David had his like in mind and

besought pardon for him; the prophet of old knew of a case like his

and blessed him; the apostle centuries afterward looked on and did

not condemn; Christ himself had in a way told the multitude the

same story that Rowan had told her,--counselling forgiveness. The

very hymns of the church were on Rowan's side--every one gone in

search of the wanderer. For on this day Religion, universal mother

of needy souls and a minister of all comforts, was in the mood to

deal only with youth and human frailty.

She rebelled. It was like commanding her to dishonor a woman's

strongest and purest instincts. It called upon her to sympathize

with the evil that had blighted her life. And Rowan himself!--in

her anger and suffering she could think of him in no other way than

as enjoying this immortal chorus of anxiety on his account; as

hearing it all with complacency and self-approval. It had to her

distorted imagination the effect of offering a reward to him for

having sinned; he would have received no such attention had he

remained innocent.

With one act of complete revulsion she spurned it all: the moral

casuistry that beguiled him, the church that cloaked him; spurned

psalm and prophet and apostle, Christ and parable and song.

"Grandmother," she whispered, "I shall not wait for the sermon."

A moment later she issued from the church doors and took her way

slowly homeward through the deserted streets, under the lonely blue

of the unanswering sky.