FORGIVING AN ENEMY.
And now we must return to Mary whom we left in her new surroundings.
Immediately after leaving Pine Farm, Mary went with the Count's family
to the city, in which they spent part of every year. While they were
there, a clergyman came one morning to their residence and asked to see
Mary. He told her that he was charged with a message for her from a
person who was very ill and probably near death, and who desired
anxiously to speak to her. The clergyman said that the person was not
willing to give her message to any one but to Mary herself.
Mary could not imagine what the woman could want with her, and she
consulted the Countess as to what she ought to do. The Countess,
knowing the clergyman to be a pious and prudent man, advised Mary to go
with him, and at the minister's request old Anthony the huntsman
accompanied them. After a long walk to the outskirts of the town, they
arrived at last at a house situated in a side street, which presented a
most gloomy aspect. "Here is the house," said the clergyman, knocking
at the door, "but wait a little."
After a few moments he returned for Mary, who then entered with him
into a most miserable room. The window was narrow and dark, and some
broken panes were patched with paper. The only furniture which the room
contained was a miserable truckle-bed, covered with a more miserable
mattress, and a broken chair, on which stood a stone pitcher, with
neither handle nor cover.
On the miserable bed lay stretched a figure which to Mary's eyes seemed
more like a skeleton, but which she gradually made out was the form of
a woman, in the last stages of illness.
In a voice which resembled the rattle of death, this miserable creature
sought to speak with Mary, who trembled in every limb. It was with the
utmost difficulty that she could make out what the poor woman said, but
at last she learned, to her horror, that the frightful phantom was
Juliette, who at the Castle of Eichbourg had been the beginning and
cause of all her distress. After being turned away from the Castle, she
had gone from bad to worse, until she had sunk into her present state.
Lying upon her miserable bed, death staring her in the face, remorse
had overtaken her, and her one wish was to have Mary's forgiveness.
Learning in some way, that the Count and his family were in the city,
she begged of the clergyman who was visiting her to ask Mary to come to
see her. The poor woman, judging Mary by herself, had entreated the
clergyman not to mention her name in case Mary would not come.
Mary was affected to the heart when she heard Juliette's story, and she
shed tears of sympathy with her old enemy. She assured her that she had
forgiven her long ago, and that the only feeling she experienced was
that of the deepest pity for her.
[Illustration: "Mary was affected to the heart when she heard
Juliette's story."
_See page 142._]
"Alas," said Juliette, "I am a great sinner; I have deserved my fate.
Forgetfulness of God, contempt of good advice, love of dress, flattery,
and pleasure were the first causes of misery, and these have brought me
to my present state. Oh," cried she, raising her voice to a shriek, and
weeping bitterly, "that is nothing to the fate which I fear awaits me
in the world to come. You have pardoned me, it is true, but I feel the
weight of God's anger now settling on my soul."
Mary conversed long and earnestly with her, endeavouring to point her
to the Saviour of the world, who would receive her if she truly
repented. At last she was obliged to leave her without being satisfied
as to her state of mind, but the idea of the unhappy Juliette dying
without hope continually pressed on her mind and weighed down her
spirits. She recollected her little apple tree in blossom, withered by
the frost, and what her father had said on that occasion. The most
consoling words he had said on his deathbed presented themselves to her
mind, and she renewed the promise she had made to God to live entirely
to His glory.
To the Countess she related her discovery, and that generous lady sent
the unhappy Juliette medicine, food, and linen, and everything which
might tend to relieve her illness. But it was too late, and at the age
of twenty-three the once beautiful Juliette, reduced to a mere skeleton
and disfigured by disease, died without having given evidence of a
changed heart towards God.