A HIDDEN SIN.
Nine o' clock in the evening was the hour named by Mr. Harman, and
punctually at that hour Home arrived at Prince's Gate. He was a man who
had never been known to be late for an appointment; for in little things
even, this singular man was faithful to the very letter of the trust.
This nice observance of his passed word, in a great measure counteracted
his otherwise unpractical nature. Home was known by all his
acquaintances to be a most dependable man.
Mr. Harman had told Charlotte that he was expecting a friend to visit
him. He said he should like to see that friend alone; but, contrary to
his wont, he did not mention his name. This cannot be wondered at, for
Mr. Harman knew of no connection between the Homes and Charlotte. He had
chosen this man of God, above his fellow-men, because he had been
haunted and impressed by his sermon, but he scarcely himself even knew
his name. It so happened, however, that Charlotte saw Mr. Home entering
her father's study. It is not too much to say that the sight nearly took
her breath away, and that she felt very considerable disquietude.
"Sit here," said Mr. Harman to his guest.
The room had been comfortably prepared, and when Home entered Mr. Harman
got up and locked the door; then, sitting down opposite to Home, and
leaning a little forward, he began at once without preface or preamble.
"I want to tell you without reservation the story of my life."
"I have come to listen," answered Home.
"It is the story of a sin."
Home bent his head.
"It is the story of a successfully hidden sin--a sin hidden from all the
world for three and twenty years."
"A crushing weight such a sin must have been," answered the clergyman.
"But will you just tell me all from the beginning?"
"I will tell you all from the beginning. A hidden sin is, as you say,
heavy enough to crush a man into hell. But I will make no more preface.
Sir, I had the misfortune to lose a very noble mother when I was young.
When I was ten years old, and my brother (I have one brother) was eight,
our mother died! We were but children, you will say; but I don't, even
now that I am a dying, sinful old man, forget my mother. She taught us
to pray and to shun sin. She also surrounded us with such high and holy
thoughts--she so gave us the perfection of all pure mother love, that we
must have been less than human not to be good boys during her lifetime.
I remember even now the look in her eyes when I refused on any childish
occasion to follow the good, and then chose the evil. I have a
daughter--one beloved daughter, something like my mother. I have seen
the same high and honorable light in her eyes, but never since in any
others. Well, my mother died, and Jasper and I had only her memory to
keep us right. We used to talk about her often, and often fretted for
her as, I suppose, few little boys before or since have fretted for a
mother. After her death we were sent to school. Our father even then was
a rich man: he was a self-made man; he started a business in a small way
in the City, but small beginnings often make great endings, and the
little business grew, and grew, and success and wealth came almost
without effort. Jasper and I never knew what poverty meant. I loved
learning better than my brother did, and at the age of eighteen, when
Jasper went into our father's business, I was sent to Oxford. At
twenty-two I had taken my degree, and done so, not perhaps brilliantly,
but with some honor. Any profession was now open to me, and my father
gave me full permission to choose any walk in life I chose; at the same
time he made a proposal. He was no longer so young as he had been; he
had made his fortune; he believed that Jasper's aptitude for business
excelled his own. If we would become partners in the firm which he had
made, and which was already rising into considerable eminence, he would
retire altogether. We young men should work the business in our own way.
He was confident we should rise to immense wealth. While making this
proposal our father said that he would not give up his business to
Jasper alone. If both his sons accepted it, then he would be willing to
retire, taking with him a considerable sum of money, but still leaving
affairs both unencumbered and flourishing. 'You are my heirs
eventually.' he said to us both; 'and now I give you a week to decide.'
At the end of the allotted time we accepted the offer. This was
principally Jasper's doing, for at that time I knew nothing of business,
and had thought of a profession. Afterwards I liked the counting-house,
and became as absorbed as others in the all-engrossing accumulation of
wealth. Our father had taken a very large sum of money out of the
business, and it was impossible for us not to feel for a time a
considerable strain; but Jasper's skill and talent were simply
wonderful, and success attended all our efforts.
"Two years after I joined the business, I married my Charlotte's mother.
I was a wealthy man even then. Though of no birth in particular, I was
considered gentlemanly. I had acquired that outward polish which a
university education gives; I was also good-looking. With my money, good
looks, and education, I was considered a match for the proud and very
poor daughter of an old Irish baronet. She had no money; she had nothing
but her beautiful face, her high and honorable spirit, her blue blood.
You will say, 'Enough!' Ay, it was more than enough. She made me the
best, the truest of wives. I never loved another woman. She was a little
bit extravagant. She had never known wealth until she became my wife,
and wealth, in the most innocent way in the world, was delightful to
her. While Jasper saved, I was tempted to live largely. I took an
expensive house--there was no earthly good thing I would not have given
to her. She loved me; but, as I said, she was proud. Pride in birth and
position was perhaps her only fault. I was perfect in her eyes, but she
took a dislike to Jasper. This I could have borne, but it pained me when
I saw her turning away from my old father. I dearly loved and respected
my father, and I wanted Constance to love him, but she never could be
got to care for him. It was at that time, that that thing happened which
was the beginning of all the after darkness and misery.
"My father, finding my proud young wife not exactly to his taste, came
less and less to our house. Finally, he bought an old estate in
Hertfordshire, and then one day the news reached us that he had engaged
himself to a very young girl, and that he would marry at once. There was
nothing wrong in this marriage, but Jasper and I chose to consider it a
sin. We had never forgotten our mother, and we thought it a dishonor to
her. We forgot our father's loneliness. In short, we were unreasonable
and behaved as unreasonably as unreasonable men will on such occasions.
Hot and angry words passed between our father and ourselves. We neither
liked our father's marriage nor his choice. Of course, we were scarcely
likely to turn the old man from his purpose, but we refused to have
anything to do with his young wife. Under such circumstances we had an
open quarrel. Our father married, and we did not see him for years. I
was unhappy at this, for I loved my father. Before his second marriage,
he always spent from Saturday to Monday at our house, and though my own
wife not caring for him greatly marred our pleasure, yet now that the
visits had absolutely ceased I missed them--I missed the gray head and
the shrewd, old, kindly face; and often, very often, I almost resolved
to run down into Hertfordshire and make up my quarrel. I did not do so,
however; and as the years went on, I grew afraid to mention my father's
name to either my wife or brother. Jasper and I were at this time deeply
absorbed in speculation; our business was growing and growing; each
thing we embarked in turned out well; we were beginning quite to recover
from the strain which our father's removal of so large a sum of money
had caused. Jasper was a better man of business than I was. Jasper,
though the junior partner, took the lead in all plans. He proposed that
an Australian branch of our business should be opened. It was done, and
succeeded well.
"About this time we heard that a little son had arrived at the Hermitage
in Hertfordshire. He did not live long. We saw his birth announced in
_The Times_. It may have been some months later, though, looking back on
it, it seems but a few days, that the birth was followed by the death. A
year or two passed away, and my wife and I were made happy by the
arrival of our first child. The child was a daughter. We called her
Charlotte, after my much-loved mother. Time went on, until one day a
telegram was put into my hand summoning my brother and myself to our
father's deathbed. The telegram was sent by the young wife. I rushed off
at once; Jasper followed by the next train.
"The hale old man had broken up very suddenly at last, and the doctor
said he had but a few days to live. During those few days, Jasper and I
scarcely left his bedside; we were reconciled fully and completely, and
he died at last murmuring my own mother's name and holding our hands.
"It was during this visit that I saw the little wife for the first time.
She was a commonplace little thing, but pretty and very young; it was
impossible to dislike the gentle creature. She was overpowered with
grief at her husband's death. It was impossible not to be kind to her,
not to comfort her. There was one child, a girl of about the age of my
own little Charlotte. This child had also been named Charlotte. She was
a pale, dark-eyed child, with a certain strange look of my mother about
her. She was not a particle like her own. My father loved this little
creature, and several times during those last days of his he spoke of
her to me.
"'I have called her after your own mother,' he said. 'I love my second
wife; but the Charlotte of my youth can never be forgotten. I have
called the child Charlotte; you have called your daughter Charlotte.
Good! let the two be friends.'
"I promised readily enough, and I felt pity and interest for the little
forlorn creature. I also, as I said, intended to be good to the mother,
who seemed to me to be incapable of standing alone.
"Immediately after my father's death and before the funeral, I was
summoned hastily to town. My wife was dangerously ill. A little dead
baby had come into the world, and for a time her life was despaired of;
eventually she got better; but for the next few days I lived and thought
only for her. I turned over all business cares to Jasper. I was unable
even to attend our father's funeral. I never day or night left
Constance's bedside. I loved this woman most devotedly, most
passionately. During all those days when her life hung in the balance,
my time seemed one long prayer to God. 'Spare her, spare her precious
life at any cost, at any cost.' Those were the words, forever on my
lips. The prayer was heard; I had my wife again. For a short time she
was restored to me. I have often thought since, was even that precious
life worth the price I paid for it?"
Here Mr. Harman paused. Some moisture had gathered on his brow; he took
out his handkerchief to wipe it away. A glass of water stood by his
side; he drank a little.
"I am approaching the sin," he said addressing the clergyman. "The
successfully buried sin is about to rise from its grave; pardon me if I
shrink from the awful sight."
"God will strengthen you, my dear sir," answered Home. "By your
confession, you are struggling back into the right path. What do I say?
Rather you are being led back by God himself. Take courage. Lean upon
the Almighty arm. Your sin will shrink in dimensions as you view it; for
between you and it will come forgiveness."
Mr. Harman smiled faintly, After another short pause, he continued.
"On the day on which my dear wife was pronounced out of danger, Jasper
sent for me. My brother and I had ever been friends, though in no one
particular were we alike. During the awful struggle through which I had
just passed. I forgot both him and my father. Now I remembered him and
my father's death, and our own business cares. A thousand memories came
back to me. When he sent for me I left my wife's bedside and went down
to him. I was feeling weak and low, for I had not been in bed for many
nights, and a kind of reaction had set in. I was in a kind of state when
a man's nerves can be shaken, and his whole moral equilibrium upset. I
do not offer this as an excuse for what followed. There is no excuse for
the dark sin; but I do believe enough about myself to say that what I
then yielded to, I should have been proof against at a stronger physical
moment. I entered my private sitting-room to find Jasper pacing up and
down like a wild creature. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair tossed. He
was a calm and cheerful person generally. At this instant, he looked
like one half bereft of reason. 'Good heavens! what is wrong?' I said. I
was startled out of myself by his state of perturbation.
"'We are ruined; that is what is wrong,' answered Jasper.
"He then entered into particulars with which I need not trouble you. A
great house, one of the greatest and largest houses in the City, had
come to absolute grief; it was bankrupt. In its fall many other houses,
ours amongst them, must sink.
"I saw it all quite plainly. I sat down quiet and stunned; while Jasper
raved and swore and paced up and down the room, I sat still. Yes we
were, beggars, nothing could save the house which our father had made
with such pride and care.
"After a time I left Jasper and returned to my wife's room. On the way I
entered the nursery and paid my pretty little Charlotte a visit. She
climbed on my knee and kissed me, and all the time I kept saying to
myself, 'The child is a beggar, I can give her no comforts; we are
absolutely in want.' It was the beginning of the winter then, and the
weather was bitterly cold. The doctor met me on the threshold of my
wife's room; he said to me, 'As soon as ever she is better, you must
either take or send her out of England. She may recover abroad; but to
winter in this climate, in her present state, would certainly kill her.'
How bitter I felt; for was I not a beggar? How could I take my wife
away? I sat down again in the darkened room and thought over the past.
Hitherto the wealth, which was so easily won, seemed of comparatively
small importance. It was easy with a full purse to wish, then to obtain.
I had often wondered at Constance's love for all the pretty things with
which I delighted to surround her, her almost childish pleasure in the
riches which had come to her. She always said to me at such times:
"'But I have known such poverty; I hate poverty, and I love, I love the
pretty things of life.'
"This very night, as I sat by her bedside, she opened her lovely eyes
and looked at me and said:
"'John, I have had such a dream so vivid, so, so terrible. I thought we
were poor again--poorer than I ever was even with my father; so poor,
John, that I was hungry, and you could give me nothing to eat. I begged
you to give me food. There was a loaf in a shop window, such a nice
crisp loaf; and I was starving. When you said you had no money, I begged
of you to steal that loaf. You would not, you would not, and at last I
lay down to die. Oh! John, say it was a dream.'
"'Of course it was only a dream, my darling!' I answered, and I kissed
her and soothed her, though all the time my heart felt like lead.
"That evening Jasper sent for me again. His manner now was changed. The
wildness and despair had left it. He was his old, cool, collected self.
He was in the sort of mood when he always had an ascendency over me--the
sort of mood when he showed that wonderful business faculty for which I
could not but admire him.
"'Sit down, John,' he said, 'I have a great deal to say to you. There is
a plan in my head. If you will agree to act with me in it, we may yet be
saved.'
"Thinking of my Constance lying so ill upstairs, my heart leaped up at
these words.
"'What is your plan?' I said. 'I can stay with you for some time. I can
listen as long as you like.'
"'You hate poverty?' said Jasper.
"'Yes,' I said, thinking of Constance, 'I hate it.'
"'If you will consent to my scheme; if you will consent before you leave
this room, we need not sink with Cooper, Cooper and Bennett.'
"'I will listen to you,' I said.
"'You have always been so absorbed lately in your wife,' continued
Jasper, 'that you have, I really believe, forgotten our father's death:
his funeral was last Thursday. Of course you could not attend it. After
the funeral I read the will.'
"'Yes,' I said, 'I had really forgotten my father's will. He left us
money?' I said. 'I am glad; it will keep us from absolute want.
Constance need not be hungry after all.'
"My brother looked at me.
"'A little money has been left to us,' he said, 'but so little that it
must go with the rest. In the general crash those few thousands must
also go. John, you remember when our father took that very large sum out
of the business, he promised that we should be his heirs. It was a loan
for his lifetime.'
"'He had not married then,' I said.
"'No,' answered Jasper, 'he had not married. Now that he has married he
has forgotten all but this second wife. He has left her, with the
exception of a few thousands, the whole of that fine property. In short,
he has left her a sum of money which is to realize an income of twelve
hundred a year.'
"'Yes,' I said, wearily.
"Jasper looked at me very hard. I returned his gaze.
"'That money, if left to us, would save the firm. _Quite absolutely save
the firm in this present crisis_,' he said, slowly and emphatically.
"'Yes,' I said again. I was so innocent, so far from what I since
became, at that moment, that I did not in the least understand my
brother. 'The money is not ours,' I said, seeing that his eyes were
still fixed on me with a greedy intense light.
"'If my father were alive now,' said Jasper, rising to his feet and
coming to my side, 'if my father were alive now, he would break his
heart, to see the business which he made with such pride and skill, come
to absolute grief. If my father were still alive; if that crash had come
but a fortnight ago, he would say, 'Save the firm at any cost.'
"'But he is dead,' I said, 'we cannot save the firm. What do you mean,
Jasper? I confess I cannot see to what you are driving.'
"'John,' said my brother, 'you are stupid. If our father could speak to
us now, he would say, 'Take the money, all the money I have left, and
save the firm of Harman Brothers.'
"'You mean,' I said, 'you mean that we--we are to _steal_ that money,
the money left to the widow, and the fatherless?'
"I understood the meaning now. I staggered to my feet. I could have
felled my brother to the ground. He was my brother, my only brother; but
at that moment, so true were my heart's instincts to the good and
right, that I loathed him. Before however, I could say a word, or utter
a reproach, a message came to me from my wife. I was wanted in my wife's
room instantly, she was excited, she was worse. I flew away without a
word.
"'Come back again, I will wait for you here,' called after me my
brother.
"I entered Constance's room. I think she was a little delirious. She was
still talking about money, about being hungry and having no money to buy
bread. Perhaps a presentiment of _the_ evil news had come to her. I had
to soothe, to assure her that all she desired should be hers. I even
took my purse out and put it into her burning hand. At last she believed
me; she fell asleep with her hand in mine. I dared not stir from her;
and all the time as I sat far into the night, I thought over Jasper's
words. They were terrible words, but I could not get them out of my
head, they were burning like fire into my brain. At last Constance
awoke; she was better, and I could leave her. It was now almost morning.
I went to my study, for I could not sleep. To my surprise, Jasper was
still there. It was six hours since I had left him, but he had not
stirred.
"'John,' he said, seeing that I shrank from him, 'you must hear me out.
Call my plan by as ugly a name as you like, no other plan will save the
firm. John, will you hear me speak?'
"'Yes, I will hear you,' I said. I sank down on the sofa. My head was
reeling. Right and wrong seemed confused. I said to myself, My brain is
so confused with grief and perplexity that it is no matter what Jasper
says just now, for I shall not understand him. But I found to my
surprise, almost to my horror, that I understood with startling
clearness every word. This was Jasper's plan. There were three trustees
to the will; I was one, my brother Jasper another, a third was a man by
the name of Alexander Wilson. He was brother to my father's second wife.
This Alexander Wilson I had never seen. Jasper had seen him once. He
described him to me as a tall and powerful man with red hair. 'He is the
other trustee,' said my brother, 'and he is dead.'
"'Dead!' I said, starting.
"'Yes, he is without doubt dead; here is an account of his death.'
"Jasper then opened an Australian paper and showed me the name, also
the full account of a man who answered in all particulars to the
Alexander Wilson named as a third trustee. Jasper then proceeded to
unfold yet further his scheme.
"That trustee being dead, we were absolute masters of the situation, we
could appropriate that money. The widow knew nothing yet of her
husband's will; she need never know. The sum meant for her was, under
existing circumstances, much too large. She should not want, she should
have abundance. But we too should not want. Were our father living he
would ask us to do this. We should save ourselves and the great house of
Harman Brothers. In short, to put the thing in plain language, we
should, by stealing the widow's money, save ourselves. By being
faithless to our most solemn trust, we could keep the filthy lucre. I
will not say how I struggled. I did struggle for a day; in the evening I
yielded. I don't excuse myself in the very least. In the evening I fell
as basely as a man could fall. I believe in my fall I sank even lower
than Jasper. I said to him, 'I cannot bear poverty, it will kill
Constance, and Constance must not die; but you must manage everything. I
can go into no details; I can never, never as long as I live, see that
widow and child. You must see them, you must settle enough, abundance on
them, but never mention their names to me. I can do the deed, but the
victims must be dead to me.'
"To all this Jasper promised readily enough. He promised and acted. All
went, outwardly, smoothly and well; there was no hitch, no outward flaw,
no difficulty, the firm was saved; none but we two knew how nearly it
had been engulfed in hopeless shipwreck. It recovered itself by means of
that stolen money, and flew lightly once again over the waters of
prosperity. Yes, our house was saved, and from that hour my happiness
fled. I had money, money in abundance and to spare; but I never knew
another hour, day or night, of peace. I had done the deed to save my
wife, but I found that, though God would give me that cursed wealth, He
yet would take away my idol for whom I had sacrificed my soul. Constance
only grew well enough to leave England. We wintered abroad, and at
Cannes, surrounded by all that base money could supply, she closed her
eyes. I returned home a widower, and the most wretched man on the face
of the earth. Soon after, the Australian branch of our business growing
and growing, Jasper found it well to visit that country. He did so, and
stayed away many years. Soon after he landed, he wrote to tell me that
he had seen the grave of Alexander Wilson; that he had made many
inquiries about him, and that now there was not the least shadow of
doubt that the other trustee was dead. He said that our last fears of
discovery might now rest.
"Years went by, and we grew richer and richer; all we put our hands to
prospered. Money seemed to grow for us on every tree. I could give my
one child all that wealth could suggest. She grew up unsullied by what
was eating into me as a canker. She was beautiful alike in mind and
body; she was and is the one pure and lovely thing left to me. She
became engaged to a good and honorable man. He had, it is true, neither
money nor position, but I had learned, through all these long years of
pain, to value such things at their true worth. Charlotte should marry
where her heart was. I gave her leave to engage herself to Hinton.
Shortly after that engagement, Jasper, my brother, returned from
Australia. His presence, reminding me, as it did, day and night, of my
crime, but added to my misery of soul. I was surprised, too, to see how
easily what was dragging me to the very gate of hell seemed to rest on
him. I could never discover, narrowly as I watched him, that he was
anything but a happy man. One evening, after spending some hours in his
presence, I fainted away quite suddenly. I was alone when this fainting
fit overtook me. I believe I was unconscious for many hours. The next
day I went to consult a doctor. Then and there, in that great
physician's consulting-room, I learned that I am the victim of an
incurable complaint; a complaint that must end my life, must end it
soon, and suddenly. In short, the doctor said to me, not in words, but
by look, by manner, by significant hand pressure, and that silent
sympathy which speaks a terrible fact. 'Prepare to meet thy God.' Since
the morning I left the doctor's presence I have been trying to prepare;
but between God and me stands my sin. I cannot get a glimpse of God. I
wait, and wait, but I only see the awful sin of my youth. In short, sir,
I am in the far country where God is not."
"To die so would be terrible," said Mr. Home.
"To die so will be terrible, sir; in, short, it will be hell."
"Do not put it in the future tense, Mr. Harman, for you that day is
past."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that even now, though you know it not, you are no longer in the
far country. You are the prodigal son if you like, but you are on the
road back to the Father. You are on the homeward road, and the Father is
looking out for you. When you come to die you will not be alone, the
hand of God will hold yours, and the smile of a forgiving God will say
to you, as the blessed Jesus said once to a poor sinful woman, who yet
was not _half_ as great a sinner as you are, 'Thy sins, which are many,
are forgiven thee.'"
"You believe then in the greatness of my sin?"
"I believe, I _know_ that your sin was enormous; but so also is your
repentance."
"God knows I repent," answered Mr. Harman.
"Yes; when you asked me to visit you, and when you poured out that story
in my ears, your long repentance and anguish of heart were beginning to
find vent."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that you will make reparation."
"Ay, indeed I am more than willing. Zacchaeus restored fourfold."
"Yes, the road for you, straight to the bosom of the Father, is very
prickly and full of sharp thorns. You have held a high character for
honor and respectability. You have a child who loves you, who has
thought you perfect. You must step down from your high pedestal. You
must renounce the place you have held in your child's heart. In short,
you must let your only child, and also the cold, censorious world, see
you as God has seen you for so long."
"I don't mind the world, but--my child--my only child," said Mr. Harman,
and now he put up his trembling hands and covered his face. "That is a
very hard road," he said after a pause.
"There is no other back to the Father," answered the clergyman.
"Well, I will take it then, for I _must_ get back to Him. You are a man
of God. I put myself in your hands. What am I to do?"
"You put yourself not into my hands, sir, but into the loving and
merciful hands of my Lord Christ. The course before you is plain. You
must find out those you have robbed; you must restore all, and ask these
wronged ones' forgiveness. When they forgive, the peace of God will
shine into your heart."
"You mean the widow and the child. But I do not know anything of them; I
have shut my eyes to their fate."
"The widow is dead, but the child lives; I happen to know her; I can
bring her to you."
"Can you? How soon?"
"In an hour and a half from now if you like. I should wish you to rest
in that peace I spoke of before morning. Shall I bring her to-night?"
"Yes, I will see her; but first, first, will you pray with me?"
Mr. Home knelt down at once. The gray-headed and sinful man knelt by his
side. Then the clergyman hurried away to fetch his wife.