Her eyes were turned away from his, but he could see a sparkle as of
dew on her lashes.
"Sit down by me again,"--she said in a low uncertain voice--"You do
believe!--and now that I know this for certain, I can make my
confession to you."
He resumed his seat beside her couch.
"Surely you have nothing to confess--" he said, gently.
"Why yes, I have!" she declared--"I've not been good, you know!"
He smiled.
"Have you not?" But his voice trembled a little--"Well! I suppose I
must believe you--but it will be difficult!"
She looked down at the bunch of violets she held, and touched the
purple and white blossoms tenderly.
"I don't mean,"--she continued softly--"that I have been downright
wicked in a criminal sense. Oh no!--I haven't anything to confess
that way! What I mean is that I haven't been religious. Now please
let me go straight on and explain--will you?"
He made a slight gesture of assent.
"Well now, to begin with," she said--"of course when I was quite a
child, I was taught to say prayers, and I was taken to church on
Sundays just in the usual way. But I never could quite believe there
was anyone to listen to my prayers, and going to church bored me and
made me dreadfully sleepy. All the clergymen seemed to talk and
preach in exactly the same way, and they all spoke in the same sing-
song voice. I found it very dull and monotonous. I was told that God
lived up in the sky, and that He loved me very much and would take
care of me always,--but I never could make out why, if God loved me,
He should not tell me so Himself, without the help of a clergyman.
Because then I should have understood things better. I daresay it
was a very wicked idea,--but it used to come into my head like that,
and I couldn't help it. Then, everything in my life as a child came
to an end with a great crash as it were, when my father was killed.
I adored my father! He was always kind to me,--always tender!--he
was the only man in the world that ever loved me! And when he was
taken away suddenly from me like that, and I was told it was God's
will, I hated God! I did really! You know unless you are a born
angel, it is natural to hate anyone who takes away the dearest and
most beloved thing you have to live for, isn't it?"
John turned his head a little away, and looked straight before him
into the glowing embers of the fire. A deep sigh involuntarily
escaped him.
"I suppose it is natural!" he said, slowly--"But we must fight
against nature. We must believe that God knows best!"
Her eyes, blue as flax-flowers, turned towards him wistfully.
"You believe that?" she asked--"You are sure that God means
everything for the best, even when He makes you suffer for no fault
of your own?"
At this his heart was sorely troubled within him, but he answered
quietly and firmly--
"Yes! I am sure that God means everything for the best, even when He
makes me suffer for no fault of my own!"
His voice, always soft and mellow, dropped to a tenderer cadence,
as,--like a true servant of the Master he served,--he faithfully
asserted his belief, that even in personal sorrow, the Divine will
is always a Divine blessing.
A pause of silence ensued. Then Maryllia went on somewhat
hesitatingly--
"Well, I was wicked, you see! I could NOT believe that God meant it
for the best in killing my father! And I know that my father himself
never could understand that God was at all good in allowing my
mother to die when I was born. So that I was quite set against God,
when, after my father's death, Uncle Fred and his wife came and took
me away to live with them, and adopted me as their daughter. And
living with them, and being always surrounded by the society they
entertained, made me forget religion altogether. They never went to
church,--neither did any of the people they called their friends.
Indeed nobody I ever met in all the 'sets' of London, or Paris, or
New York ever seemed to think of God or a future life at all. Some
of them went in for what they called 'spiritualism' and deceived
each other in the most terrible way! I never heard people tell so
many dreadful lies! They used to joke about it afterwards. But no
one ever seemed to think that religion,--real religion--real
Christianity--was at all necessary or worth talking about. They
called it an 'exploded myth.' When I met Cicely Bourne I found that
SHE believed in it. And I was quite surprised! Because she had such
a hard life, and she had always been so cruelly treated, that I
wondered how she could believe in anything. But she told me that
when she knew she had a voice and a gift for music, she used to pray
that an angel might be sent to help her,--and when I asked her--'Did
the angel come?' she said that God had sent ME as the angel! Of
course it wasn't true, but it was very sweet of her to say it!"
She paused. Walden was quite silent. Leaning his elbow on the raised
head of her couch, he shaded his brow with one hand, thus partially
covering his eyes from the glow of the fire. There were tears in
those eyes, and he was afraid she would see them.
"Cicely was always so brave and contented,"--she presently
continued--"And as I learned to know more of her I began to wonder
if really after all, her religion helped her? And then there came a
time of great worry and trouble for me--and--I came home here to try
and find peace and rest--and I met YOU!"
He moved restlessly, but said nothing.
"To meet you was an event in my life!" she said, turning. towards
him a little, and laying her hand timidly on his coat sleeve--"It
was really!"
He looked at her,--and a wave of warmth passed over his face.
"Was it?" he murmured.
"Of course it was!" she declared,--and almost she laughed--"You
won't understand me, I daresay!--but to meet you. for the first time
is a kind of event to most people! They begin to think about you,--
they can't help it! You are so different from the ordinary sort of
clergyman,--I don't know how or why,--but you are!"
He smiled a trifle sadly.
"Talk of yourself, not of me,"--he said, uneasily.
"Yes, but I cannot very well talk of myself now without bringing you
into it,"--she insisted,--"And you must let me tell my story in my
own way!"
He shaded his eyes again from the firelight, and listened.
"After I met you that morning," she went on--"I heard many things
about you in the village. Everyone seemed to love you!--yes, even
the tiniest children! The poor people, the old and the sick, all
seemed to trust you as their truest and best friend! And when I knew
all this I began to think very earnestly about the religious faith
which seemed to make you what you are. I didn't go to church to hear
you preach--you know that!--I only went once--and I was late--you
remember?--So it has not been anything you have said in the pulpit
that has changed me so much. It is just YOU, yourself! It is because
you live your life as you do that I want to learn to live the rest
of mine just a little bit like it, even though I am crippled and
more or less useless. You will teach me, won't you? I want to have
your faith--your goodness---"
He interrupted her.
"Do not call me good!" he said, faintly--"I cannot bear it--I
cannot!"
She looked at him, and there were tears in her eyes.
"I'm afraid you will have to bear it!" she said, softly--"For you
ARE good!--you have always been good to ME! And I do honestly
believe that God means everything for the best as you say, because
now I am a cripple, I have escaped once and for all from the
marriage my aunt was trying to force me into with Lord Roxmouth. I
thank God every minute of my life for that!"
"You never loved him?"
John's voice was very low and tremulous as he asked this question.
"Never!" she answered, in the same low tone. "How could you think
it?"
"I did not know--I was not quite sure---" he murmured.
"No, I never loved him!" she said, earnestly--"I always feared and
hated him! And he did not love me,--he only cared for the money my
aunt would have left me had I married him. But I have always wanted
to be loved for myself--and this has been my great trouble. If
anyone had ever really cared for me, I think it would have made me
good and wise and full of trust in God--I should have been a much
better woman than I am--I am sure I should! People say that the love
I want is only found in poems and story books, and that my fancies
are quite ridiculous. Perhaps they are. But I can't help it. I am
just myself and no other!" She smiled a little--then went on--"Lord
Roxmouth has a great social position,--but, to my mind, he has
degraded it. I could not have married a man for whom I had no
respect. You see I can talk quite easily about all this because it
is past. For of course now I am a cripple, the very idea of marriage
for me is all over. And I am really very glad it is so. No one can
spread calumnies about me, or compromise my name any more. And even
the harm Lord Roxmouth meant to try and do to YOU, has been stopped.
So this time God HAS answered my prayers."
John looked up suddenly.
"Did you pray---?" he began in a choked voice-then checked himself,
and said quickly--"Dear child, I do not think Lord Roxmouth could
have ever done me any harm!"
"Ah, you don't know him as I do!" and she sighed--"He stops at
nothing. He will employ any base tool, any mean spy, to gain his own
immediate purposes. And--and--" she hesitated--"you know I wrote to
you about it---he saw us in the picture gallery---"
"Well!" said John, and his eyes kindled into a sudden light and
fire--"What if he did?"
"You were telling me how much you disliked seeing women smoke"--she
faltered--"And--and--you spoke of Psyche,--you remember---"
"I remember!" And John grew bolder and more resolute in spirit as he
saw the soft rose flush on her cheeks and listened to the dulcet
tremor of her voice--"I shall never forget!"
"And he thought--he thought---" here her words sank almost to a
whisper--"that I--that you---"
He turned suddenly and looked down upon her where she lay. Their
eyes met,--and in that one glance, love flashed a whole unwritten
history. Stooping over her, he caught her little hands in his own,
and pressed them against his heart with strong and passionate
tenderness.
"If he thought I loved you,"--he said--"he was right! I loved you
then--I love you now!--I shall love you for ever--till death, and
beyond it! My darling, my darling! You know I love you!"
A half sob, a little smile answered him,--and then soft, broken
words.
"Yes--I know!--I always knew!"
He folded his arms about her, and drew her into an embrace from
which he wildly thought not Death itself should tear her.
"And you care?" he whispered.
"I care so much that I care for nothing else!" she said--then, all
suddenly she broke down and began to weep pitifully, clinging to him
and murmuring the grief she had till now so bravely restrained--"But
it is all too late!" she sobbed--"Oh my dearest, you love me,--and I
love you,--ah!--you will never know how much!--but it is too late!--
I can be of no use to you!--I can never be of use! I shall only be a
trouble to you,--a drag and a burden on your days!--oh John!--and a
little while ago I might have been your joy instead of your sorrow!"
He held her to him more closely.
"Hush, hush!" he said softly, soothing her as he would have soothed
a child,--and with mingled tenderness and reverence, he kissed the
sweet trembling lips, the wet eyes, the tear-stained cheeks--"Hush,
my little girl! You are all my joy in this world--can you not feel
that you are?" And he kissed her again and yet again. "And I am so
unworthy of you!--so old and worn and altogether unpleasing to a
woman--I am nothing! Yet you love me! How strange that seems!--how
wonderful!--for I have done nothing to deserve your love. And had
you been spared your health and strength, I should never have
spoken--never! I would not have clouded your sunny life with my
selfish shadow. No! I should have let you go on your way and have
kept silence to the end! For in all your vital brightness and beauty
I should never have dared to say I love you, Maryllia!"
At this she checked her sobs, and looked up at him in vague
amazement.
"You would never have spoken?"
"Never!"
"You would have let me live on here, quite close to you, seeing you
every day, perhaps, without a word of the love in your heart?"
He kissed her, half-smiling.
"I think I should!"
"Then"--said Maryllia, with grave sweetness--"I know that God does
mean everything for the best--and I thank Him for having made me a
cripple! Because if my trouble has warmed your heart,--your cold,
cold heart, John!"--and she smiled at him through her tears--"and
has made you say you love me, then it is the most blessed and
beautiful trouble I could possibly have, and has brought me the
greatest happiness of my life! I am glad of it and proud of it,--I
glory in it! For I would rather know that you love me than be the
straightest, brightest, loveliest woman in the world! I would rather
be here in your arms--so--" and she nestled close against him--"than
have all the riches that were ever counted!--and--listen, John!"
Here, with her clinging, caressing arms, she drew his head down
close to her breast--"Even if I have to die and leave you soon, I
shall know that all is right with my soul!--yes, dear, dear John!--
because you will have taken away all its faults and made it
beautiful with your love!--and God will love it for love's sake,
almost as much as He must love you for your own, John!"
There was only one way--there never has been more than one way--to
answer such tender words, and John took that way by silencing the
sweet lips that spoke them with a kiss in which the pent-up passion
of his soul was concentrated. The shadows of the winter gloaming
deepened;--the firelight died down to a mass of rosy embers;-and
when Cicely softly opened the door an hour later, the room was
almost dark. But the scent of violets was in the air--she heard soft
whisperings, and saw that two human beings at least, out of all a
seeking world, had found the secret of happiness. And she stole away
unseen, smiling, yet with glad tears in her eyes, and a little
unuttered song in her heart--
"If to love is the best of all things known,
We have gain'd the best in the world, mine own!
We have touch'd the summit of love--and live
God Himself has no more to give!"