THE SECOND CHANCE.
REINING up her horse under the shadow of a clump of trees, Dora
waited, as her cousin had requested, for his return; and so much
pre-occupied was she with her own thoughts, that she failed to hear
the quick footfalls of an approaching horse, until his rider
slackened speed beside her, and Dora, looking up, saw that it was
Mr. Brown.
She grew a little pale, divining, not only from the presence of the
chaplain, but from a joyous and significant light in the eyes that
encountered hers, what might be his errand; and though she had not
failed to foresee this moment, no man, and surely no woman, is ever
so prepared for the great crises of life that they fail to come at
the last with almost as much of a shock as if they came quite
unawares.
She turned her horse into the track, and rode on, her eyes fixed
upon the wide prairie-view, which seemed to dance and shimmer before
them as if all Nature had suddenly grown as strange and unreal as
she felt herself. Her companion spoke, and in her ears his voice
sounded as from some far mountain-cave, hollow, broken, and vague;
and yet the words were far from momentous.
"Dora, I must leave you to-morrow."
"I am very sorry, sir," faltered Dora; and Mr. Brown, glancing at
her face, could not but notice its unwonted agitation. His own
wishes, and his sex, led him to misconstrue it; and, pressing, his
horse closer to her side, he said joyfully,--
"And so am I sorry, Dora; but I need not be gone long if you wish
for my return."
Dora did not speak; indeed, she could not: for the wild dance of sky
and plain, of prairie and forest, grew yet wilder; and in her ears
the voice of the chaplain mingled with a dizzy hum that almost
drowned the words. She grasped the horn of her saddle with both
hands, and only thought of saving herself from falling. The horse
was halted, an arm was about her waist, her head drawn to a
resting-place upon a steady shoulder; and that strange, far-off
voice murmured,--
"My darling, my long-loved, long-sought treasure, calm yourself; be
happy and secure in my love. Did you ever doubt that it was yours?"
He stooped to kiss her: but, at the motion, the virginal instincts
of the young girl's nature rallied to the defence; and, with a
sudden spring, Dora sat upright, her face very pale, but her eyes
clear and steadfast as their wont.
"Oh, sir, indeed you must not!" cried she, as pleadingly as a little
child, who will not be caressed, yet knows not why he should refuse.
"Must not, Dora?" persisted the lover gayly. "But why must I not
kiss my own betrothed?"
"But I am not; I cannot be. Don't be angry, sir: I would have spoken
sooner; but I could not. I believe I was a little faint;" and Dora's
eyes timidly sought those of the chaplain, who, meeting them,
remembered many such a glance when his pupil had feared to displease
him by inattention or disobedience. Again he thought to have
discovered the source of her refusal, and again he failed.
"Dora," said he gently, "you do not forget, that, some years ago, we
bore the relation of master and pupil; and you still regard me with
a certain deference and reserve, which, perhaps, blinds you to the
true relation existing between us now. Remember, dear, that I am yet
a younger man; and although my profession may have induced a certain
gravity of manner, contrasting, perhaps unpleasantly, with your gay
cousins joyous demeanor, I have all, or more than all, of his
fervency of feeling; far more, I trust, of depth and steadfastness
in my love for you."
"Please, Mr. Brown," interposed Dora, "do not let us say any thing
about Karl. He is not concerned in this."
"You are right, Dora, and I was wrong," said Mr. Brown with a little
effort of magnanimity. "But I was only trying to convince you that
my love is quite as ardent, and quite as tender, as that of a
younger and gayer man could be."
"Yes, sir," said Dora timidly, as he paused for her assent.
"Not 'Yes, sir,' child!" exclaimed the chaplain impatiently. "Don't
treat me with this distant respect and timid reverence. I am your
lover, your would-be comrade through life, as once through the less
earnest battles of war. Call me Frank, and look into my face and
smile as I have seen you smile on Karl."
A quick smile dimpled Dora's cheek, and passed.
"Not Karl, please, sir."
"Dora, if you say 'sir' to me again, I'll kiss you."
"Please not, Mr. Brown," said Dora demurely, "until you quite
understand me."
"Well then, let me quite understand you very quick; for I think I
shall exact the penalty, even without further offence."
"But I cannot promise,--I cannot be what you said," stammered Dora,
half terrified, half confused.
"Nay, darling,--I am going to always call you that, as expressive
both of name and nature,--it is you who do not quite understand
either yourself or me. I do not expect, or even wish, you to profess
a love for me as ardent, open, and pronounced as my own: that were
to make you other than the modest and delicately reserved maiden I
have loved so long. All I ask you to feel is, that you can trust
yourself to my guidance through life; that you can place your future
in my hands, believing me capable of shaping it aright; that you can
promise to tread with me the path I have selected, sure that it
shall be my care to remove from it all thorns, all obstacles that
mortal power may control, and that my arms shall bear you tenderly
over the rough places I cannot make smooth for you.
"Dora, years ago I resolved that you should be my wife, God and you
consenting. I have waited until I thought you old enough to decide
calmly and wisely; but, through these years of waiting, I have
cherished a hope, almost a certainty, of success, that has struck
deep roots among the very foundations of my life. You will not tear
it away! Dora, you do not know me: you cannot guess at the ardor or
the power of a love I have never dared wholly to reveal even to
myself. Trust it, Dora: it cannot but make you happy. Give yourself
to me, dear child; and I will account to God for the precious
charge."
Never man was more in earnest, never was wooing at once so fervent
and so lofty in its tone; and so Dora felt it. The temptation to
yield, without further struggle, to the belief that Mr. Brown knew
better what was good for her than she knew for herself, was very
great; but, even while she hesitated, the inherent truthfulness of
her nature rose up, and cried, "No, no! you shall not do such wrong
to me who am the Right!" and turning, with an effort, to meet the
keen eyes reading her face, she said, still timidly perhaps, but
very calmly,--
"I am but a simple girl, almost a child in some things, and you are
a wise and good man, learned in books and in the way of the world;
but I must judge for myself, and must believe my own heart sooner
than you in such matters as these. Years ago, as you say, I was your
pupil, and you then nobly offered to adopt me as your child or
sister."
"As my future wife, Dora. I meant it from the very first,"
interposed the chaplain impetuously.
"I did not know that: perhaps it makes a difference. But, at any
rate, I promised then, that if I went home with Capt. Karl, and you
wanted me afterward, I would come to you whenever you said so."
"Yes, yes; that is quite true: well?" demanded Mr. Brown eagerly.
"Well, sir, a promise is a promise; and, if you demand it now, I
will come and live with you, or you can come, and live with me,--not
as your wife, however, but as your sister and child and friend."
"You will come and live with me, but not marry me!" exclaimed the
young man, with a gleam of amusement at the unworldly proposal
lighting his dark eyes.
"Yes, sir," replied Dora, without looking up.
To her infinite astonishment and dismay, she found herself suddenly
embraced, and a hearty kiss tingling upon her lips.
"I am sorry if you don't like it, Dora; but I said I would if you
called me 'sir' again; and you are so scrupulous about your
promises, you cannot wish me to break mine."
"Then I am afraid I must promise, if you do so again, to go back and
ride with Kitty all the rest of the way," said Dora, as, with
heightened color and a decided pout, she drew her left-hand rein so
sharply as to wheel Max to the other side of the road.
"Dora, I am afraid you are a little of a coquette, after all!"
exclaimed the lover, gazing at her with admiration.
"Oh, no indeed, Mr. Brown! I wouldn't be for the world! I said just
what I meant to you. I always do."
"But why, then, if you love me well enough to live with me as
sister, child, or friend, can't you also live with me as wife?"
"Because, sir,--oh, no! I didn't mean sir,--because"--
"Frank, I told you to call me."
"Because, Frank, I don't love you that way."
The answer was so explicit, so unembarrassed, and so quiet, that,
for the first time, Mr. Brown believed it.
"Not love me, Dora, when I love you so much!" exclaimed he in
dismay.
"Not love you in a wife way, Frank, but a great deal in every other
way. And then I don't think we should be happy together if we were
married."
"And why not?" asked the young man, smiling in spite of himself at
the quiet opinion.
"Because, as you said, you want me to put my life into your hands,
and you will shape it; and you want me to set my feet in your path,
and follow it with you; and you want me to trust my soul to you, and
you will guide it: but I could never do that, Mr. Brown; never for
any man, I think. I could never forget that God has given me a life,
and a path, and a soul, all my own, and not to be judged except by
Him and myself: and I am afraid I should always be asking if your
guiding was in the same direction that I was meant to go; and, if I
thought it was not, I should be very unhappy, and should try to live
my own life, and not yours; and that would make trouble."
"Yes, that would make trouble certainly, Dora," said the chaplain
gravely. "But are you sure that a young and comparatively unlearned
woman like yourself would be a better judge of what was right and
best than a man of mature years, who has made the care of souls his
profession and most earnest duty?"
"No, Mr. Brown, not if I judged for myself: but I think God has
especial care of those, who, like me, have none else to guide them;
and I think this voice in my heart is the surest teaching of all."
The profound conviction of her tone was final; the simple faith of
her argument was unassailable: and Mr. Brown, skillful polemic that
he was, found himself silenced.
After a moment, he said calmly,--
"Dora, you will not forget that this is, to me at least, a very
serious, indeed a vital matter. Is what you have just said the
solemn conviction of your own heart? or have you suffered yourself
to be misled by the tendency to self-esteem and perverseness I have
sometimes had occasion to reprove in you? Have you thoroughly
searched your own heart to its deepest depths? and is not your
refusal tinctured by the natural reluctance of a determined nature
to yield to a love, which, in woman, must bring with it some degree
of dependence and deference?"
He looked almost severely into the pale face and earnest eyes
upraised to his, and read there pain, anxiety, an humble appeal, but
not one trace of hesitation, not one shade of duplicity.
"I have searched my own heart, Mr. Brown; and I am sure of its
answer. I never, never, can be your wife, so long as we both live."
"That is sufficient, Dora. I am rightly punished for building my
hopes and my happiness upon the sandy foundations of an earthly
love. They perish, and leave me desolate; but, among the ruins, I
yet can say, 'It is rightly and justly done.'"
The bitter pain in his voice pierced to Dora's very heart, and
wounded it almost as sorely as she had wounded his. The rare tears
overflowed her eyes; and, pressing close to his side, she laid a
hand upon his own, saying,--
"Oh, forgive me!-say you forgive me! Indeed, I must do and say what
conscience bids me, at all cost."
"It is not for me to gainsay such a precept as that," said the
chaplain.
"But I will come to you, and live as long as you want me. I will be
everything but wife. Say I may do this, or I shall never forgive
myself. Say I may make some amends for the pain I have given you."
The young man laughed bitterly, then, turning suddenly, seized both
her hands, and looked deep into her eyes.
"My poor child," cried he, "my innocent lamb, who turns from the
shepherd because she will not be guided, and yet is all unfit to
guide herself! Do not even you, Dora, guileless and unworldly as you
are, see how impossible it would be for a young and beautiful girl
to live with a man who admires and loves her openly, without such
scandal, as should ruin both in the world's eyes, even if they saved
their own souls unspotted?"
Dora snatched away her hands, and her whole face flamed with a
sudden shame.
She was learning fast to-day in the book of human passion,
suffering, and sin.
Without comment upon her embarrassment, the chaplain went on:--
"No, Dora: I must lay aside the dream of four sweet years, and take
up my lonely life without disguise or embellishment. I cannot
dispute your decision. I will not by one word or look urge you to
change it; for I too deeply respect the truthfulness of your
character to dream that it is capable of change. I do not say that I
forgive you, for you have done nothing calling for forgiveness; and
yet, if your tender heart should suffer, in thinking of my
suffering, remember always that what you have to-day said has
increased my respect and esteem for you fourfold: and, if it has
also added to the bitterness of my disappointment, I will not have
you reproach yourself; for I would rather reverence you as the wife
of another than to claim you as my own, and know you untrue to
yourself. And now, dear, the subject is closed utterly and forever."