means of a sketch accidentally discovered in Astra's portfolio; she
wondered that she had not suspected it before, seeing how plainly he
had left his evil mark on Astra's mind. She was glad to think that she
had been instrumental in obliterating it; he himself having helped to
fit her for the work. Meanwhile, he had married Astra's friend. What
was her duty in this case; to speak, or to be silent? Silence was the
pleasanter thing, speech might be the only right thing. Sharp was the
conflict, puzzling the controversy. It was not decided until she
happened to meet Hubert Arling, and learned in what search he was
engaged, and what state of things existed in Berganton. Then, moved by
gratitude to Bergan, she had sought Carice.
But what was the meaning of it all? Reared in faithlessness, she had
been led to faith. Proud, she had been humbled. Wedded to Edmund
Roath, she had been made to follow in his track, and undo, in some
degree, his wicked work. So much was plain, even now; the rest would
be read, in time. But oh! the mystery, the wonder, of that overruling
Providence, who caught up man's wilful designs, ere they were out of
his hands, and turned them to His own vast purposes!
A light footstep fell behind her. Turning, she beheld Carice's soft
eyes,--eyes which, she thought half-enviously, showed so plainly that
they had never looked upward through the smoked glass of doubt, to
divest the sun of his glory, the sky of its blue, and call it seeing
more clear.
"We have been talking of you," said Carice, with gentle directness.
Diva smiled faintly. "I thought you would have pleasanter topics," she
answered, half-absently, half-sadly.
"Where could we have found them?" asked Carice, earnestly. "Oh, Diva,
you will never know--we shall never be able to tell you--what we think
of you! But, Bergan says this search after the doctor must be stopped
at once."
"He is very kind," replied Diva, quietly; "I understand what he would
spare me. Tell him to give himself no disquietude on that head. I
dare not lift a finger to stay the feet of justice, if I could; I can
bear whatever Providence sends. But my dread is not the expiation of
the scaffold, but the finding of no space for repentance. My
conviction is strong that--my husband will never be taken alive."
The quick tears came into Carice's sympathetic eyes; but Diva only
fixed her sad, calm gaze on the shining river, and saw in it, perhaps,
the River of Life, "proceeding out of the throne of God." After
victory is peace.
XI.
FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH.
Bergan now mended rapidly; a mind and heart at ease are excellent
medicines. In a few days it was pronounced safe to remove him to
Oakstead. Here he was informed of the strange disappearance of Maumer
Rue.
"Her grandson, Brick, was at the cabin two or three times," said Mr.
Bergan, "when you were too ill to allow his admittance. He is here
now, and very anxious to see you. May he come in?"
Brick, being admitted, burst into tears. He was glad to see his
beloved master, but his heart and mind were heavily burdened. When he
had last seen his grandmother, she had told him that she was going on a
long journey, and should not return; but she had charged him solemnly
to say nothing of this communication to anybody but Bergan; who, she
averred, would return in good time. Then he was to bid him, in her
name, to "seek and find;" she had added, that he would know where to
look.
Bergan started up with a face of alarm. "I must go at once," he ex
claimed; "I am afraid it is already too late!"
"But you are not strong enough," remonstrated Mr. Bergan. "Tell us
where to look, we will go in your stead."
"I would gladly do so, if I knew how," answered Bergan, "but I am not
certain that I can find the place myself; I never saw it but once, and
then it was in the night. At the worst, however, we can cut a way into
it. Come, uncle; come, Hubert, you will both be needed; and we ought
to have a doctor, too. The secret--for there is one--has long been
kept, but it must needs out now; and it is as well that it should, the
day of such things is over."
The carriage was ordered, and having set down the three gentlemen at
the Hall, went after Doctor Gerrish.
Bergan, meanwhile, sought for the hidden spring. It required some time
and thought before he found and pressed it. The secret chamber being
then exposed to view, Rue was discovered sitting at the massive
secretary, in a large arm-chair, with her head bowed on her folded
hands. She was dead; Doctor Gerrish affirmed that she had been so for
some days. Ample provision of food and water was near; she had died a
perfectly natural and peaceful death, from the infirmities of old age.
It was apparent that she had deliberately chosen this spot for her
death-chamber. But why? That was a mystery.
It was soon solved. As they gently raised the body to lay it on the
same bed where her master, and so many of his race had slept their last
sleep before her, a folded paper dropped from her clasped hands, and
fell at Bergan's feet. He picked it up, glanced at it, and laid it on
the desk without a word. There was that in his face, however, which
made Hubert also look at it; and straightway he held it up to view with
the triumphant exclamation:
"The lost will, gentlemen, the lost will! Bergan, let me be the first
to congratulate you."
It was easy to understand now, that, feeling her last hour at hand, and
knowing that no will left anywhere in the Hall, or in her own cabin,
would be likely to escape Doctor Remy's destructive touch, she had
taken this method of fulfilling her master's last command:
"See that Harry has Bergan Hall. Give this will into his own hands,
and no one's else. I trust none of them but you."
Well might he trust her! Almost a century of loyal service had she
given to him and his house, ready at any time, if need be, to lay down
her life for their sake. Well might Bergan give her tender, honorable
burial, and cause to be graven deep on her tombstone:
FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH.
* * * * *
Hubert Arling wooed and won Coralie Youle. His strong likeness to his
brother first found him favor in her eyes; by and by, she would have
been amazed to be told that she had ever cared for him, except on his
own sufficient account.
Diva Thane and Astra Lyte went to Italy, for some years, to give
Astra's genius fit food and training. The direction of its future
labors was settled. She would spend her life and strength in the
service of Christian art, trying to lose all thought of self in that of
consecration, and counting her work successful, though it never left
her studio, nor brought her either money or fame, if only it lifted the
minds of those who contemplated it to a point above itself, to a
loftier standard of living, a clearer conception of the beauty of
holiness, a more earnest aspiration after the glory that "shall be."
On her return, she brought with her a Saint Christopher that satisfied
even Carice. The giant was kneeling before the Wondrous Child, who had
at once so burdened him, and so strengthened him to bear; his face was
full of awe and love; he recognized his Lord; he had found the King who
alone was worthy of his service, and whom alone he was content to serve.
As for Diva, there are sisters of charity, who wear no distinctive
garments, save patience and faith. A gentleman once said to Bergan,
admiring her stately beauty, "She should be a queen." "She is a
queen," was the quick reply, "a queen according to the Gospel pattern,
'Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant.'"
In due time, Bergan restored the old Hall, although not without
reducing somewhat of its ostentatious size by cutting down the long
wings, and with no extravagant outlay. He had learned that the
inevitable, and probably healthful, tendency of property in this
country, is to division. The larger and costlier the dwelling, beyond
a certain extent, the more sure it is to prove too heavy a burden for
some inheritor, and the less likely to go down in a direct line. The
man who would have his name live, must link it with some institution
more imperishable than a family home. First of all, therefore, Bergan
took care to embody in carven stone and jewelled glass that fair vision
which he had seen on his first visit to the Berganton church. This
being done, we may be sure that his more personal dreams of happiness
and honor came true, also.
A fair and gracious wife and mother was Carice! She never lost the
flower-like grace and purity of her girlhood, nor her rare power of
seeing straight to the central truth of things. "It is said that I
have lost a year of my life," he once remarked; "it is the year that I
count most truly saved."
Richard Causton, having learned, through his forced abstinence during
his long, lonely watch over Bergan, that existence was possible without
alcoholic stimulant, and being helped by Bergan's steady friendship and
countenance, made a determined effort at reformation, and succeeded,
though not without a sore struggle, and many lapses. The last of his
backslidings was made memorable by the following incident.
Going too near the edge of the excavation aforementioned, he slipped
and fell over, displacing some of the sand at the foot of the bank by
his weight, which had also been much washed by a recent heavy rain.
Struggling to his feet, he was horrified to see a skeleton hand
pointing at him from the base of the precipice. He fled, without
stopping to look behind him; but his story set other and acuter minds
to work, as well as, a little later, two or three careful spades; and
the body of Edmund Roath was exhumed, and the mystery of his
disappearance was explained. The sand had suddenly caved in, under his
weight, and buried him, as he fell. His flight had been short, in one
sense; far, very far, in another. Had he witnessed such a termination
to another's career, he would, doubtless, have termed it Chance, or
Fate; but those who stood around his dead, shrunken body, with its
sunken eyes and its uplifted hands, looked awe-stricken in each other's
faces, and solemnly whispered, "Providence." Nevertheless, some simple
souls murmured that he had escaped just punishment. "Do you think so?"
asked Mr. Islay. "So would not he who said 'It is a fearful thing to
fall into the hands of the living God.' Be thankful, rather, that
justice to the guilty is so tempered with mercy to the innocent. An
earthly scaffold would not have added one straw's weight to the despair
of that miserable soul, when he stood on the brink of death, and knew
that his failure was complete for time and eternity, but it would have
been a heavy burden to certain gentle hearts. It is they who have
escaped, not he. Where the cords of his sins do not hold a man to a
godly sorrow, they must needs hold him to a righteous retribution."
Richard Causton's old age had something of the mellow sweetness of a
late, frost-bitten apple, such as is occasionally plucked from the tree
in midwinter. He lived to teach Bergan's eldest son many of his
favorite proverbs, in their many tongues, but he constantly impressed
upon him that the truest, most significant, most solemn of them all was
one from Holy Writ:
"HE SHALL BE HOLDEN WITH THE CORDS OF HIS SINS."
THE END.