THE STRANGER IN THE CHAPEL.
"The Duke of Hereward in the congregation?" echoed the abbess, with a
troubled look.
"Yes, there in the middle aisle, in the third pew from the altar,"
replied Salome, in trembling tones.
"No matter. _You_ have nothing to fear, my daughter; you will be
protected. _He_ has everything to fear; he is a felon before the
law, and he may be prosecuted. Compose yourself, my child, and give your
mind to heavenly subjects. See, the priest is coming in," murmured the
abbess, who immediately crossed herself, and lowered her eyes in
devotion.
Salome, though trembling in every limb, and feeling faint, almost to
falling, followed the mother-superior's example, and tried to concentrate
her mind in worship.
The solemn procession of the service entered the chancel--the priests
in their sacerdotal vestments, the boys in their white robes. The
officiating priest took his station before the altar, with his assistants
on each side. And the impressive celebration of the high mass commenced.
But, ah! Salome could not confine her attention to the service! Her eyes,
guard them carefully as she might, would wander from her missal toward
the stalwart form and stately head of the stranger in that third pew
front; her thoughts would wander back to the past, forth to the future,
or, if they stayed upon the present at all, it was but in connection with
that stranger.
Father F----, the great English priest, preached the sermon, from the
text: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will to
men." He preached with all the force, fervor and eloquence inspired by
the Divine words, and he was heard with rapt attention by all the
cloistered nuns and all the common congregation--by all within the sound
of his voice, perhaps, except one--the most sorrowful one on that glad
day. Salome tried in vain to follow the golden thread of his discourse.
But how little she was able to do, may be known from the deep sigh of
relief she heaved when it was all over.
As soon as the benediction was pronounced, the nuns arose to leave their
screened choir, and the congregation got up to go out from the chapel.
Salome lingered behind the sisterhood, and watched the handsome stranger
in the third pew front--a stranger to every one present except herself.
He also lingered behind all his companions, and turned and looked
intently up into the screened choir.
Salome saw his full face for the first time since his appearance
there--and she saw that it was deadly, ghastly pale, with white lips and
glassy eyes. He gazed into the screened choir as into vacancy.
Salome knew that he could see nothing there, yet she shrank back and
stood in the deepest shadow, until she saw him pick up his hat and glide
from the chapel, the last man that went out.
"Ah, what could have changed him so?" she thought--"love, fear,
remorse--what?"
He had nothing to fear from her. If no one should take vengeance on him
until she should do so, then would he go unpunished to his grave, and his
sin would never have found him out in this world. Nay, sooner than to
have hurt him in life, liberty, honor, or estate, she, herself, would
have borne the penalty of all his crimes. Yet of those crimes what an
unspeakable horror she had, though for the criminal what an unutterable
pity--what an undying love.
While she stood there, gazing through the choir-screen upon the spot
whence the stranger had disappeared, her bosom, torn by these conflicting
passions of horror, pity, love, she felt a soft touch on her shoulder,
and turning, saw the mother-superior at her side.
"My daughter, why do you loiter here?" she tenderly inquired.
Salome's pale face flushed, as she replied:
"Oh, mother, I was watching him until he left the church."
"My daughter, it was a deadly sin to do so!" gravely replied the abbess.
"He could not see me, mother," sighed Salome, in a tremulous voice.
"That was well. Come now to your own room, daughter, and do not tremble
so. You have nothing to fear, except from your own weak and sinful
nature," said the abbess, as she drew the girl's arm within her own
and led her from the choir.
"Am I so weak and sinful, mother?" inquired Salome, after a silence which
had lasted until the two had reached the door of the Infants' Asylum,
where Salome now lodged.
"As every human being is! and especially as every woman is in all affairs
of the heart," gravely returned the abbess.
"Can you spare me a few minutes, mother? Will you come in and let me
talk to you a little while? Have you time? I want to talk to you. Oh!
I wish we had mother-confessors for women--for girls, I mean, instead of
father-confessors. Can you come in and let me talk to you, mother, for
a little while?"
"Surely, daughter," said the abbess, gently as with her own hand she
opened the door and led her votaress into the room.
Salome offered the one chair to the lady-superior, and then took the
foot-stool at her feet, and laid her head upon her knees.
"Now speak to me freely, child. Tell me what you wish and how I can help
you," said the abbess, kindly.
"Oh, mother! mother! I wish to be rid of the sin of loving him, for I
love him still. In spite of all, I love him still!" exclaimed Salome,
breaking down in a passion of tears and sobs.
The abbess laid her hands upon the bowed young head, and kept them so in
silence until the storm of grief had passed. Then she said:
"Child you must fast and pray, and so combat the 'inordinate and sinful
affections of the flesh.' Bethink you what you do in suffering them. You
make an idol of that monster of iniquity who was an accomplice in the
murder of your father--"
Salome uttered a low cry, and hid her face in her hands. The abbess went
on steadily, almost pitilessly:
"A man who, having already a living wife, of whom he had grown tired and
ashamed, married you, and so would have ruined you in soul and body."
Salome groaned deeply, and then suddenly broke forth in passionate
exclamations:
"I know it! I know it? I know it from the evidence of my own senses, no
less than from the testimony of others! I _know_ it, but I cannot _feel
it_, mother! I cannot feel it? My _mind_ adjudges him _guilty_; my _mind
condemns_ him upon unquestionable proof; but my _heart_ holds him
_guiltless_; in the face of all the proofs, my _heart acquits_ him! I
_know_ him to be a criminal; but I _feel_ him to be one of the greatest,
best and noblest of mankind! In spite of all I have heard and seen with
my own ears and eyes, corroborated by the testimony of others--in spite
of everything past, I _feel_, I _feel_ that if he should now come and
take my hand in his, and whisper to me, I should believe all that he
might tell me, and go with him whithersoever he might choose to lead me!
Mother, _save me from myself_!"
The abbess laid her hands again upon the throbbing head that lay on her
lap, as she answered, mournfully:
"Said I not that you have nothing to fear except from your weak and
sinful self. Child, you have nothing else on earth to dread. You are to
be protected from yourself alone."
"And from _him_! Oh, mother, keep the great temptation from me!"
"He shall be kept from you, if, indeed, he should presume to seek you
here," said the abbess.
"He will seek me, mother! He came to seek me, and for nothing else. He
has by some means found out my retreat, and he has come to seek me! Be
sure that he will present himself here to-morrow, if not to-day."
"In that case, we shall know how to deal with him, even though he is the
Duke of Hereward; for he has, and can have, no lawful claim on you. So
far from that, he is in deadly danger from you. He is liable to
prosecution by you; for you are not his wife; you are only a lady whom he
entrapped by a felonious marriage ceremony, and sought to ruin. It is
amazing," added the abbess, reflectively, "that a nobleman of his exalted
rank and illustrious fame should have stooped _so_ low as to stain
his honor with so deep a crime, and to risk the infamy and destruction
its discovery must have brought upon him."
"It is amazing and incredible! That is why, in the face of the evidence
of my own eyes and ears, the testimony of other eye and ear witnesses,
and of my own certain knowledge, based upon proof as sure as ever formed
the foundation of any knowledge, I still feel in my heart of heart that
he is guiltless, stainless, noble, pure and true as the prince of
noblemen should be," sighed Salome, adding word upon word of eulogy, as
if she could not say enough.
"In the face of all positive proof, and of the convictions of your
judgment, your _heart_ tells you that this criminal is innocent,"
said the abbess, incisively.
"In the face of all, my heart assures me that he is pure, true, and
noble!" exclaimed Salome.
"Do you believe your heart?" gravely inquired the elder lady.
"No; for is it not written: 'The heart is deceitful, and desperately
wicked.' No, I do not believe my weak and sinful heart, which I know
would betray me into the hands of my lover, if I should be so unfortunate
as to meet him."
"You shall not meet him; you shall be saved from him," answered the
abbess.
At that moment a bell was heard to ring throughout the building.
"That calls us to the refectory--to our happy Christmas festival. Come,
my daughter," said the lady, rising.
"I cannot go! Oh, indeed I cannot go, mother. I am utterly unnerved by
what has happened. I hope you will pardon and excuse me," pleaded Salome.
"What! Will you not join us at our Christmas feast?" kindly persisted the
abbess.
"Indeed, it is impossible! I will rest on my cot for a few minutes, and
then I will go and take my poor little Marie Perdue on my bosom and rock
her to sleep. I hear her fretting now; and when I hush her cries, she
also soothes my heartache."
"I will send you something; and I will come to you, before vespers," said
the abbess, kindly, as she glided away from the room.
Salome lay alone on the cot, with closed eyes and folded hands, praying
for light to see her duty and strength to do it.
She expected, in answer to her earnest prayers, that scales should fall
from her eyes, and impressions pass from her heart, and that she should
see her love in monstrous shape and colors, and be able to thrust him
from her heart. Instead of which, she saw him purer, truer, nobler, than
ever before. With this perception came a sweet, strange peace and trust
which she could not comprehend, and did not wish to cast off.
She arose and went into the infants' dormitory, and took up the youngest
and feeblest of the babes--the one which, on her very first visit, had so
appealed to her sympathies, and which she had adopted as her own.
This child, like many others in the asylum, had no known story.
A few days before Christmas, late in the evening, a bell had been rung at
the main door of the Infants' Asylum.
The portress who answered it found there a basket containing an infant a
few weeks old. It was cleanly dressed and warmly wrapped up in flannel;
but it had no scrap of writing, no name, nor mark upon its clothing by
which it might ever be identified.
The portress took it into the dormitory, where it was tenderly received
and cared for by the sisters on duty there.
The case was too common a one to excite more than a passing interest.
On the next day after the arrival of the infant, it happened that the
mother-superior brought Salome there on her first visit, when the misery
of the motherless and forsaken infant so moved the sympathies of the
young lady that she immediately took it to her own bosom.
Subsequently, since she had devoted herself to the care of these deserted
babies, she took an especial interest in this youngest and most helpless
of their number.
She named it Marie Perdue, and stood godmother at its baptism.
It lay in her arms often during the day, and slept at her bosom during
the night. It had grown to know its nurse, and to recognize her presence
and caresses by those soft, low sounds, half cooing and half complaining,
with which very young babes first try to utter their emotions or their
wants.
Now, as she took little Marie Perdue from the cot, the child greeted her
with sweet smiles and soft coos, and nestled lovingly to her bosom. And
peace deepened in Salome's heart.
She sat down in a low nursing-chair, fed the child with warm milk and
water until it was satisfied, and then rocked it and sang to it in a low,
melodious voice, until it fell asleep.
She was still rocking and singing when the rosy-cheeked and cheery young
Sister Felecitie came in.
"Our holy mother was going to send your dinner in here, Miss Levison; but
I think it must be so dismal to eat one's dinner alone on Christmas day,
so I pleaded to be allowed to plead with _you_ that you will come
and dine with us young sisters at the second table, which is just as
good as the first, I assure you, only it is served an hour later. Will
you come? Say yes!" urged the merry and kind-hearted girl.
"I will come, thank you; though I did too moodily decline the invitation
of the abbess," said Salome, rising and placing her sleeping charge upon
its little cot.
"Now! what did I tell you about the children and the dolls! Look there!"
gleefully exclaimed Sister Felecitie, pointing to a row of cots where
about a dozen infants lay asleep, clasping their dolls tightly.
"Yes, the tiny mimic mothers really do love their doll babies," Salome
confessed with a smile.
As they went out of the dormitory they passed into the children's
day-room, where about twenty infants, from one to two years old, were at
play--some sitting on mats or creeping on all fours, because they could
not yet stand; some walking around chairs and holding on to support
themselves; and some running here and there, in full possession of the
use of their limbs.
All rejoiced in the possession of little dolls.
"Look at them!" exclaimed Sister Felecitie, gleefully.
"We tried the least little ones with other toys: but, bless you, nothing
else pleases them so well as dolls. We once tried the little yearlings
with rattles, which we thought, it being noisy nuisances, would please
them better; but save us! If any one doubts the doctrine of original sin
and total depravity, they should have seen the three year-old babies
fling down their rattles in a passion and go for the other babies' dolls,
to seize and take them by force and violence; and the corresponding rage
and resistance of the latter."
"All that was very natural," said Salome, with a smile.
"Oh, yes, natural, and perhaps something else too, beginning with a 'd.'
They call children 'little angels.' Yes. I know they are, when they are
sound asleep," exclaimed the sister, laughing.
"If they are not angels, they have angels with them. I feel they have,
for when I am in their sphere, I possess my soul in peace."
As the young lady said this, the children noticed her presence for the
first time, and all who could walk ran to her, clustered around her and
thrust their dolls upon her, for inspection and approval.
All this Salome bestowed freely with many caresses and gentle, playful
words.
Then the children sitting on the mats reached out their dolls at
arm's-length, and screamed to have them noticed.
Salome made her way to these little sitters, while all the other
children, clinging to her skirt, attended her, impeding her progress.
It was a great confusion.
The merry little sister laughed aloud.
"Now!" she said, gayly. "You are in their sphere, do you possess your
soul in peace?"
"Something even better. My soul goes out to them, delighting in their
innocent delight!" answered Salome.
And after she had patted their heads and praised their dolls, and pleased
them all with loving notice, she followed her conductress from the
children's play-room through the long rectangular passage that led to the
nun's refectory.
The sisterhood, abstemious nearly all the days of the year, feasted on
certain high holidays.
The Christmas dinner, laid for the young nuns in the refectory, would
have satisfied the most fastidious epicure. But I doubt if any epicure
could have enjoyed it half as well as did these abstemious young women,
whose appetites were only let loose on certain high days and holidays.
Salome wondered at herself, who but two hours before had given way to a
storm of passionate sobs and tears, yet now felt a strange peace of mind
that enabled her to enter sincerely into the happiness of those around
her.
In the afternoon, the convent was visited by a large number of benevolent
people in the neighborhood, who brought their Christmas offerings to the
poor and needy of the house.
These visitors were shown through all the various departments of charity,
and left their offerings in each before they went away.
"I do wish _one_ thing," said little Sister Felecitie, as she
lingered near Salome, after the departure of the visitors.
"What do you wish, dear?" inquired the latter.
"Why, then, that the good people who give to our poor, whatever else they
give, would _always_ give the children dolls and the old people tobacco.
The children _never_ can have _too many_ dolls, nor the old people
_enough_ tobacco."
"But is not the use of tobacco a vicious habit?"
"I _hope_ not. It makes the poor old souls so happy."