LIGHT AT EVENTIDE
AS Mrs. Wheaton crossed the hallway from a brief call on a neighbor,
Vinton Arnold passed her. She noted by the light of the lamp in
her hand that his pallor was ghostlike, and she asked quickly:
"Vere is Miss Jocelyn?"
He paid no more heed to her than if he were a shadow of a man,
and went by her with wavering, uncertain steps, without a word. In
sudden alarm she hastened to the roof, and found Mildred kneeling
by her chair, weeping and almost speechless from grief. She took
the girl in her arms, and said excitedly, "Vat did he say to you?"
"Oh," sobbed Mildred, "my heart is broken at last. I feel as mamma
did when she said her heart was bleeding away. Mrs. Wheaton, I shall
stay with you now as long as I live, and it seems as if it wouldn't
be very long. Never speak of him again--never speak of it to a
living soul. He asked that which would banish you and Roger--dear,
brave, patient Roger--from my side forever, and I will never see
his face again. Oh, oh, I wish I could die!"
"I'm a plain voman," Mrs. Wheaton said grimly, "but I took the
measure of 'im soon as I clapped my heyes on 'im; but, Millie, me
darlin', you couldn't be so cruel as to break hour 'earts by dying
for sich a man. You vould make the vorld black for us hall, yer
know. Come, dear, come vith me. I'll take care hof yer. I'm not
fine like 'im that's gone, thank the Lord, but I'll never ax ye to
do haught that Mr. Ventvorth vouldn't bless," and she half supported
the exhausted, trembling girl to her room, and there was tender
and tireless in her ministrations. In the early dawn, when at last
Mildred slept for an hour or two, she wrote, in a half-eligible
scrawl, to Roger, "Come back. Millie wants you."
His presence in response was prompt indeed. On the second morning
after the events described, Mildred sat in her chair leaning back
with closed eyes. Mrs. Wheaton was away at work, and her eldest
daughter was watching the little brood of children on the sidewalk.
A decided knock at the door caused the young girl to start up with
apprehension. She was so nervously prostrated that she trembled like
a leaf. At last she summoned courage and opened the door slightly,
and when she saw Roger's sun-burned, honest face she welcomed him
as if he were a brother indeed.
He placed her gently in her chair again, and said, with a keen look
into her eyes, "How is this, Millie? I left you happy and even
blooming, and now you appear more pale and broken than ever before.
You look as if you had been seriously ill. Oh, Millie, that couldn't
be, and you not let me know," and he clasped her hand tightly as
he spoke.
She buried her burning face on his shoulder, and said, in a low,
constrained tone, "Roger, I've told Mr. Arnold this much about
you--I said I'd die ten thousand deaths rather than cause you to
blush for me."
He started as if he had been shot. "Great God!" he exclaimed, "and
did he ask you aught that would make you blush?"
Bitter tears were Mildred's only answer.
The young man's passion for a few moments was terrible, but Mildred's
pallid face soon calmed him. "You could not harm him," she said
sadly. "What is one blow more to a man who is in torture? I pity
him from the depths of my soul, and you must promise me to let him
alone. Never for a moment did I forget that you were my brother."
In strong revulsion of feeling he bent one knee at her side and
pleaded, "Oh, Millie, give me the right to protect you. I'll wait
for you till I'm gray. I'll take what love you can give me. I'll
be devotion itself."
"Don't, Roger," she said wearily. "I love you too well to listen.
Such words only wound me. Oh, Roger, be patient with me. You don't
understand, you never will understand. I do give you the right to
protect me; but don't talk that way again. I just long for rest and
peace. Roger, my friend, my brother," she said, lifting her eyes
appealingly to his, and giving him both of her hands, "don't you
see? I can give you everything in this way, but in the way you
speak of--nothing. My heart is as dead as poor Belle's."
"Your wish shall be my law," he said gently.
"And you'll not harm Mr. Arnold?"
"Not if it will hurt you."
"I never wish to see or hear from him again, and you'll never have
cause to fear any one else."
"Millie," he said sadly, "it is for you I fear most. You look so
sad, pale, and broken-hearted. There isn't a sacrifice I wouldn't
make for you. Millie, you won't let this thing crush you? It would
destroy me if you did. We will resume our old quiet life, and you
shall have rest of body and soul;" and he kept his word so well
that, before many months passed, her mind regained sufficient tone
and strength to enable her to engage in the simple duties of life
with something like zest. He talked to her about many of his studies,
he searched the stores for the books which he thought would be
to her taste, and took her to see every beautiful work of art on
exhibition. In spite of her poverty, he daily made her life richer
and fuller of all that he knew to be congenial to her nature. While
she gained in serenity and in capability for quiet enjoyment, he was
positively happy, for he believed that before many years passed she
would be ready to spend the rest of life at his side. He meantime
was pursuing his studies with a vigor and success that inspired
his friends with the most sanguine hopes.
Vinton Arnold, on that terrible night when his false dream of life
was shattered, went through the streets as oppressed with shame and
despair as if he were a lost spirit. As he was slowly and weakly
climbing the stairs his father called him to the sitting-room,
where he and his wife were in consultation, feeling that matters
must be brought to some kind of a settlement, Mrs. Arnold urging
extreme measures, and her husband bent on some kind of compromise.
As his son entered, the old gentleman started up, exclaiming:
"Good God, my boy, what is the matter?"
"He's going to have one of his bad turns," said his mother, rising
hastily.
"Hush, both of you," he commanded sternly, and he sat down near the
door. Fixing a look of concentrated hatred on his mother, he said
slowly, "Madam, you are not willing that I should marry Mildred
Jocelyn."
"And with very good reason," she replied, a little confused by his
manner.
"Well, let it rejoice such heart as you have--I shall never marry
her."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean never to speak to you again after this brief interview. I
am a lost man--lost beyond hope, and you are the cause. If you had
had a mother's heart my father would not have been so obdurate.
Since you would not let me marry her, I was tempted by my love
and the horrible life I lead in this house to offer her a relation
which would have been marriage to me, but from which her proud,
pure spirit, recoiled, as I recoil from you, and I shall never see
her face again in this world or in any world. Your work is finished.
You need not scheme or threaten any more. While she is as good as an
angel of heaven, she is as proud as you are, and you have murdered
my hope--my soul. Father, I have but one request to make to you.
Give me money enough to live anywhere except under this roof. No,
no more words to-night, unless you would have me die in your presence
with curses on my lips. I have reached the utmost limit;" and he
abruptly left the room.
Mrs. Arnold took refuge in hysterics, and her husband rang violently
for her maid, and then locked himself up in his library, where he
walked the floor for many an hour. The next morning he tried to make
overtures to his son, but he found the young man deaf and stony in
his despair. "It's too late," was all that he would say.
"Oh, let him alone," protested his wife irritably, as her husband
came down looking sorely troubled; "Vinton will indulge in high
tragedy for a few months, and then settle down to sensible life,"
and in the hope of this solution the old merchant went gloomily to
his business.
That day Vinton Arnold left his home, and it was years before he
returned.
Two years or more passed away in quiet, toilsome days for Mildred.
She had gained serenity, and apparently had accepted her lot
without repining. Indeed, thanks to Roger's unfaltering devotion,
it was not a monotonous or a sad one. He let her heart rest, hoping,
trusting that some day it would wake from its sleep. In compliance
with her wish he was in semblance a brother, and his attentions
were so quiet and frank, his manner toward her so restful, that
even she half believed at times that his regard for her was passing
into the quiet and equable glow of fraternal love. Such coveted
illusions could not be long maintained, however, for occasionally
when he was off his guard she would find him looking at her in a
way that revealed how much he repressed. She shed many bitter tears
over what she termed his "obstinate love," but an almost morbid
conviction had gained possession of her mind that unless she could
return his affection in kind and degree she ought not to marry him.
At last she began to grow a little restless under her rather
aimless life, and one day she said to her pastor, Mr. Wentworth,
"I want a career--isn't that what you call it? I'm tired of being
a sewing-woman, and soon I shall be a wrinkled spinster. Isn't
there something retired and quiet which a girl with no more brains
and knowledge than I have can do?"
"Yes," he said gravely; "make a home for Roger."
She shook her head. "That is the only thing I can't do for him,"
she replied very sadly. "God only knows how truly I love him. I
could give him my life, but not the heart of a wife. I have lost
everything except truth to my womanly nature. I must keep that.
Moreover, I'm too good a friend of Roger's to marry him. He deserves
the strong first love of a noble woman, and it will come to him
some day. Do you think I could stand before you and God's altar and
promise what is impossible? No, Mr. Wentworth, Roger has a strength
and force of character which will carry him past all this, and when
once he sees I have found a calling to which I can devote all my
energies, he will gradually become reconciled to the truth, and
finally accept a richer happiness than I could ever bring him."
"You are an odd girl, Mildred, but perhaps you are right. I've
learned to have great faith in you. Well, I know of a career which
possibly may suit you. It would open an almost limitless field of
usefulness," and he told her of the Training School for Nurses in
connection with Bellevue Hospital.
The proposition took Mildred's fancy greatly, and it was arranged
that they should visit the institution on the following afternoon.
Roger sighed when he heard of the project, but only remarked
patiently, "Anything you wish, Millie."
"Dear old fellow," she thought; "he doesn't know I'm thinking of
him more than myself."
Mildred made her friend Clara Wilson and her brother and sister
a long visit the following summer, and in the fall entered on her
duties, her zest greatly increased by the prospect of being able
before very long to earn enough to give Fred and Minnie a good
education. The first year of her training passed uneventfully
away, she bringing to her tasks genuine sympathy for suffering,
and unusual aptness and ability. Her own sorrowful experience made
her tender toward the unfortunate ones for whom she cared, and her
words and manner brought balm and healing to many sad hearts that
were far beyond the skill of the hospital surgeons.
During the first half of the second year, in accordance with the
custom of the School, she responded to calls from wealthy families
wherein there were cases of such serious illness as to require the
services of a trained nurse, and in each instance she so won the
confidence of the attending physician and the affection of the
family as to make them personal friends. Her beautiful face often
attracted to her not a little attention, but she was found to be
as unapproachable as a Sister of Charity. Roger patiently waited,
and filled the long months with unremitting toil.
One evening toward the latter part of the first six months of
her outside work, Mildred returned from nursing a patient back to
health. She found the lady in charge of the institution in much
tribulation. "Here is Mrs. Sheppard, from one of the most influential
families on Fifth Avenue, offering anything for a nurse. Her brother
is dying with consumption, she says. He has a valet in attendance,
but the physician in charge says he needs a trained nurse, for
he wants constant watching. He is liable to die at any moment. We
haven't a nurse unemployed. Do you feel too tired to go?"
"Oh, no," said Mildred. "My patient improved so much that for the
last week I've almost been resting."
"And you think you can go?"
"Certainly."
"I'll tell Mrs. Sheppard then to send for you in a couple of hours.
That will give you time to get ready."
Two hours later Mildred was driven rapidly by a coach-man in livery
to a mansion on Fifth Avenue, and she was speedily ushered into
the room where the patient lay. He was sleeping at the time, with
curtains drawn and his face turned away. Mildred only glanced at him
sufficiently to see that he was very much emaciated. A middle-aged
lady who introduced herself as Mrs. Sheppard received her, saying,
"I'm so glad you are here, for I am overcome with fatigue. Last
night he was very restless and ill, and would have no one near him
except myself. His valet is in that room just across the hall, and
will come at the slightest summons. Now while my brother is sleeping
I will rest at once. My room is here, opening into this. Call me
if there is need, and don't mind if he talks strangely. Your room
is there, just beyond this one," and with a few directions, given
with the air of extreme weariness, she passed to her own apartment,
and was soon sleeping soundly.
Mildred sat down in the dim room where the light fell upon her
pure, sweet profile, which was made a little more distinct by the
flickering of the cannel-coal fire, and began one of the quiet
watches to which she was becoming so accustomed. Her thoughts were
very painful at first, for they seemed strangely inclined to dwell
on Vinton Arnold. From the time they parted she had heard nothing
of him, and since the brief explanation that she had been compelled
to give to Roger, his name had not passed her lips. He had been
worse than dead to her, and she wondered if he were dead. She had
never cherished any vindictive feelings toward him, and even now
her eyes filled with tears of commiseration for his wronged and
wretched life. Then by a conscious effort she turned her thoughts
to the friend who had never failed her. "Dear Roger," she murmured,
"he didn't appear well the last time I saw him. He is beginning to
look worn and thin. I know he is studying too hard. Oh, I wish my
heart were not so perverse, for he needs some one to take care of
him. He can't change; he doesn't get over it as I hoped he would,"
and her eyes, bent on the fire, grew dreamy and wistful.
Unknown to herself, she was watched by one who scarcely dared to
breathe lest what seemed a vision should vanish. The dying man was
Vinton Arnold. His married sister, overcome by weariness and the
stupor of sleep, had inadvertently forgotten to mention his name,
and Mildred was under the impression that the name of her patient
was Sheppard. She had never been within the Arnold mansion, nor
was she specially familiar with its exterior. Entering it hastily
on a stormy night, she had not received the faintest suggestion
that it was the home to which she and her mother had once dreamed
she might be welcomed.
When at last Arnold had awakened, he saw dimly, sitting by the
fire, an unfamiliar form, which nevertheless suggested the one never
absent from his thoughts. Noiselessly he pushed the lace curtain
aside, and to his unspeakable wonder his eyes seemed to rest on
Mildred Jocelyn. "She is dead," he first thought, "and it is her
spirit. Or can it be that my reason is leaving me utterly, and the
visions of my tortured mind are becoming more real than material
things? Oh, see," he murmured, "there are tears in her eyes. I
could almost imagine that a good angel had taken her guise and was
weeping over one so lost and wrecked as I am. Now her lips move--she
is speaking softly to herself. Great God! can it be real? Or is
it that my end is near, and long-delayed mercy gives me this sweet
vision before I die?"
His sombre and half-superstitious conjectures were almost dispelled
by a little characteristic act on Mildred's part--an act that
contained a suggestion of hope for Roger. In awakening the stronger
traits of manhood in the latter she had also evoked an appreciation of
beauty and a growing love for it. Mildred was human enough not to
regret that this developing sense should find its fullest gratification
in herself. Though so determined to become a wrinkled spinster,
she found a secret and increasing pleasure in the admiring glances
that dwelt upon her face and dainty figure, and this fact might
have contained for him, had he known it, a pleasing hint. It must
be confessed that she no longer wished to go into his presence
without adding a little grace to her usually plain attire; and now
that she was thinking so deeply of him she involuntarily raised her
hand to adjust her coquettish nurse's cap, which by some feminine
magic all her own she ever contrived to make a becoming head-dress
rather than a badge of office.
Even to Vinton Arnold's perturbed and disordered mind the act was
so essentially feminine and natural, so remote from ghostly weirdness,
that he raised himself on his elbow and exclaimed, "Millie, Millie
Jocelyn!"
"Ah," cried Mildred starting from her chair and looking fearfully
toward the half-closed door of Mrs. Sheppard's room. In her turn
her heart beat quickly, with the sudden superstitious fear which the
strongest of us cannot control when we seem close to the boundaries
of the unseen world. "It was HIS voice," she murmured.
"Millie, oh, Millie, are you real, or is it a dream?"
She took two or three steps toward the bed, stopped, and covered
her face with her hands.
"Oh, speak!" he cried in agony. "I do not know whether I am dreaming
or awake, or whether I now see as if before me the one ever in my
thoughts. You hide your face from me," he groaned, sinking back
despairingly. "You have come for a brief moment to show me that I
can never look upon your face again."
Mildred thought swiftly. Her first impulse was to depart at once,
and then her womanly pity and sense of duty gained the mastery.
Vinton Arnold was now a dying man, and she but a trained nurse.
Perhaps God's hand was in their strange and unexpected meeting, and
it was His will that the threads of two lives that had been bound
so closely should not be severed in fatal evil. Should she thwart
His mercy?
"Mr. Arnold," she said, in an agitated voice, "this is a strange and
undreamed-of meeting. Let me quiet your mind, however, by telling
you how simple and matter-of-fact are the causes which led to it.
I am now a professional nurse from the Training School connected
with Bellevue Hospital, and your sister, having sent to the School
for assistance, obtained my services as she might those of any of
my associates. In view--perhaps--it would be best for one of them
to take my place."
He was strongly moved, and listened panting and trembling in his
weakness. "Millie," at last he faltered, "is there any God at all?
Is there any kind or merciful spirit in nature? If so, you have been
sent to me, for I am dying of remorse. Since you bade me leave you
I have suffered tortures, day and night, that I cannot describe. I
have often been at the point of taking my own life, but something
held me back. Can it be that it was for this hour? Mildred, I am
dying. The end of a most unhappy life is very near. Is there no
mercy in your faith--no mercy in your strong, pure womanly heart?"
"Vinton," she said gently, "I believe you are right. God has sent
me to you. I will not leave you until it is best."
"Millie, Millie," he pleaded, "forgive me. I cannot believe in
God's forgiveness until you forgive me."
"I forgave you from the first, Vinton, because I knew there was
no cold-blooded evil in your mind, and I have long felt that you
were more sinned against than sinning. If I stay I must impose one
condition--there must be no words concerning the past. That is gone
forever."
"I know it, Mildred. I killed your love with my own hand, but the
blow was more fatal to me than to you."
"Can you not rally and live?" she asked tearfully.
"No," he said, with a deep breath. "Moreover, I have no wish to
live. The dark shadow of my life will soon fall on you no more,
but the hope that I may breathe my last with you near brings a deep
content and peace. Does any one yet suspect who you are?"
"No. I fear Mrs. Arnold will not think it best."
"I have never spoken to Mrs. Arnold since that awful night, and if
she interferes now I will curse her with my last breath. This is
my one hope--my one gleam of light in the life she has cursed--"
"Hush, oh hush! Unless my presence brings quietness I cannot stay,"
for at the name of his mother he became dangerously agitated. "I
will tell Mrs. Sheppard in the morning, and I think she will arrange
it so that I can do all in my power for you."
"No," he replied, after a little thought, "I will tell her. She is
unlike my mother and other sisters, and has a good heart. She has
taken entire charge of me, but I was in such a hell of suffering at
the thought of dying without one word from you that I was almost
a maniac. I will be quiet now. Leave all to me; I can make her
understand."
When Mrs. Sheppard entered, as the late dawn began to mingle with
the gaslight, she found her brother sleeping quietly, his hand
clasping Mildred's. To her slight expression of surprise the young
girl returned a clear, steadfast look, and said calmly, "When
your brother awakes he has some explanations to make. I am Mildred
Jocelyn."
The lady sank into a chair and looked at her earnestly. "I have long
wished to see you," she murmured. "Vinton has told me everything.
I was so overcome with sleep and fatigue last night that I neither
told you his name nor asked yours. Did you not suspect where you
were?"
"Not until he awoke and recognized me."
"Was he greatly agitated?"
"Yes, at first. It was so unexpected that he thought me a mere
illusion of his own mind."
"Miss Jocelyn, I believe God sent you to him."
"So he thinks."
"You won't leave him till--till--It can't be long."
"That depends upon you, Mrs. Sheppard. I am very, very sorry for
him," and tears came into her eyes.
Low as was the murmur of their voices, Arnold awoke and glanced
with troubled eyes from one to the other before it all came back
to him; but his sister brought quiet and rest by saying gently, as
she kissed him:
"Vinton, Miss Jocelyn shall not leave you."