CONFESSION.
"I write without knowing to whom I am writing," began the paper, "except
that among the readers must be some whom I have wronged. I can scarcely
crave forgiveness of them, because they will surely not grant it to me.
I don't know even that I can crave it of Heaven, for I have played with
sacred things, and used a power given me for good, in an evil way, to
further my own devices, and, after all, I have not furthered them. I am
a man loving and unloved, one who has perhaps thrown away his soul on
the chance of winning earthly joy,--but such joy,--and has lost it. If
any have ever done like me, let them pity and pardon. I appeal to them
for compassion. I shall receive it nowhere else, unless it be possible,
that the one for love of whom I have done the wrong will out of the
kindness of her heart spare me by and by a thought of pity for what was
the suggestion of a moment and acted on--"
"Skip all that maundering," interrupted Stephen. "To the point. Who is
this man, and what has he done? Let him keep his feelings to himself, or
if they concern you, they don't us."
"No, no, Stephen. Fair play," called out Governor Wentworth. "Let us
hear every word, then we can judge better of the case, and of the
writer's truthfulness."
"Yes, you are right," answered the young man pressing Katie's arm more
firmly in his own to give silent vent to his impatience and his
defiance.
"And acted on without premeditation," resumed Master Shurtleff. "I left
England early in the spring, and coming to this worthy city of
Portsmouth with letters of introduction to Master Archdale, and others,
I met the beautiful Mistress Archdale. From the first hour my fate was
sealed; I loved her as only a man of strong and deep emotions can love,
with a very different feeling from the devotion her young admirers gave
her, ardent though they considered themselves. I had many rivals, some
the young lady herself so disapproved that they ceased troubling me,
even with their presence at her side. Among the others were only two
worthy of attention, and only one whom I feared. I was reticent and
watched; it was too soon to speak. But as I watched my fear of that one
increased, for age, association, a sternness of manner that unbent only
to her, many things in him showed me his possibilities of success. With
that rival out of my path, my way to victory was clear. There came a day
when, without lifting my finger against him, I could effectually remove
him. I did it. It was unjustifiable, but the temptation rushed upon me
suddenly with overwhelming force, and it was irresistible, for opposite
me sat Katie, more beautiful and lovable than ever, and beside her was
my rival, her cousin, with an air of security and satisfaction that
aroused the evil in me. It was August; we were on the river in a dead
calm, and at Mistress Archdale's suggestion had been telling stories for
amusement. Mine happened to be about a runaway match, and interested the
young people so much, that when I had finished they asked several
questions; one was in reference to a remark of mine, innocently made,
that the marriage ceremony itself, pure and simple, was something
unimaginably short. The story I had told illustrated this, and some of
the party asked me more particularly as to what the form was. Then I saw
my opportunity, and I took it. 'If one of the young ladies will permit
Master Archdale to take her hand a moment,' I said, 'I think I can
recollect the words; I will show you how short the formula may be.'
Master Archdale was for holding Katie's hand, but happily, as it seemed
to me at the moment, she was on the wrong side. I requested him to take
the lady on the other hand, who seemed a trifle unready for the jest,
but was induced by the entreaties of the others, and especially of
Mistress Katie herself. I went through the marriage service over them as
rapidly as I dared, my voice sounding to myself thick with the beating
of my heart. But no one noticed this; of course, it was all fun. And so
that summer evening, all in fun, except on my part, Stephen Archdale and
Elizabeth Royal were made man and wife, as fast as marriage vows could
make them. Nothing was omitted that would make the ceremony binding and
legal, not even its performance by a clergyman of the Church of
England."
A cry of rage and despair interrupted the reader. But he went on
directly.
"No one in America knew that I had been educated for the Church and had
taken orders, though I have never preached except one month; the work
was distasteful to me, and when my brother died and I inherited my
grandfather's property, I resigned my pastorate at once. This act shows
how unfit for it I was. But whatever my grief may be, my conscience
commands me to forbid this present marriage, and to declare with all
solemnity, that Stephen Archdale already has a wife, and that she is
that lady, who, until she opened my letter, believed herself still
Mistres Royal."
A burst of amazement and indignation, that could no longer be repressed,
interrupted the reading. Faces and voices expressed consternation. To
this confession had been added names and dates, the year of the writer's
entrance into the ministry, the time and place of his brief pastorate,
everything that was necessary to give his statement a reliable air, and
to verify it if one chose to do so. It was evident that there could be
no wedding that morning, and as the truth of the story impressed itself,
more and more upon the minds of the audience, a fear spread lest there
could be no wedding at all, such as they had been called together to
witness. For, if this amusement should turn out to have been a real
marriage, what help was there? It was in the days when amusements were
viewed seriously and were readily imagined to lead to fatal
consequences. Had Stephen Archdale really married? The people in the
drawing-room that December morning were able men and women, they were
among the best representatives of their time, an age that America will
always be proud of, but they held marriage vows so sacred, that even
made in jest there seemed to be a weight in them. Proofs must be found,
law must speak, yet these people in waiting feared, for their part in
life was to be so great in uprightness and self-restraint, that these
qualities flowing through mighty channels should conquer physical
strength and found a nation. To do a thing because it was pleasant was
no part of their creed,--although, even then, there were occasional
examples of it in practice.
That winter morning, therefore, the guests were ready to inveigh against
the sin of unseemly jesting, to hope that all would be well, and to
shake their heads mournfully.
"Harwin!" cried Master Archdale as he heard the name of the writer; "it
seems impossible. I liked that man so much, and trusted him so much. I
knew he loved my little girl, but I thought it was with an honorable
love that would rejoice to see her happy. No, no, it cannot be true. We
must wait. But matters will come right at last."
"Yes," assented the Colonel across whose face an incomprehensible
expression had passed more than once during the reading; "it will all
come right. We must make it so."
A hum of conversation went on in the room, comment, inquiry, sympathy,
spoken to the chief actors in this scene, or if not near enough to them
for that, spoken to the first who were patient enough to listen instead
of themselves talking.
In the midst of it all Stephen raised his head, for he had been bending
over Katie who still clung to him, and asked when the next ship left for
England.
"In about three weeks," answered Col. Pepperrell, "and we will send out
a person competent to make full inquiries; the matter shall be sifted."
"I shall go," returned Stephen. "I shall make the necessary inquiries
myself, it will be doing something, and I may find the man. We need that
he should be found, Katie and I."
Elizabeth drew back still more; some flash of feeling made the blood
come hotly to her face for a moment, then fade away again.
Katie looked up, turned her eyes slowly from one to another, finding
everywhere the sympathy she sought.
"Go, Stephen, since you will feel better," she said, "but it's of no
use, I am sure. I understand now something Master Harwin said to me when
he left me. I did not know then what he meant. He has taken you away
from me forever." And with a sob, again she hid her face upon his
shoulder. Then, slowly drawing away from him, she turned to Elizabeth,
and in her eyes was something of the fury of a jealous woman mixed with
the bitter reproach of friendship betrayed.
"How could you," she said, "how could you consent to do it?"
She had drawn toward Elizabeth every gaze and every thought in the room;
she had pointed out the substitute on whom might be emptied those vials
of wrath that the proper object of them had taken care to escape.
Elizabeth heard on all sides of her the whispered, "Yes, how could she
do it, how could she consent to do it?" Suddenly she found herself, and
herself alone, as it seemed, made responsible for this disaster; for
the feeling beginning with Katie seemed to grow, and widen, and widen,
like the circles of water into which a stone is thrown, and she was
condemned by her friends, by the people who had known her and her
father, condemned as false to her friendship, as unwomanly. Katie she
could forgive on account of her misery, but the others! She stood
motionless in a world that she had never dreamed of. These whispers that
her imagination multiplied seemed to roar in her ears. But innocence and
pride kept her erect, and at last made her raise her eyes which had
fallen and grown dim under the blow of Katie's words. She swept them
slowly around the room, turning her head slightly to do it. Not a look
of sympathy met her. Then, in the pain, a power awoke within her.
"It is no less a disaster to me," she said. Her words fell with the
weight of truth. She had kept back her pain, no one thought of pitying
her as Katie was pitied, but she was vindicated.
"Does she hate him, do you suppose?" asked Madam Pepperrell in a low
tone of Governor Wentworth at her elbow.
"It is not probable she loves him much," replied that gentleman studying
the girl's haughty face. "I don't envy her, on the whole, I don't envy
either of them." By George, madam, it _is_ hard."
"Very hard," assented Colonel Pepperrell, whose glance, having more
penetration, had at last brought a look of sympathy to his face. "Let us
go up to the poor thing, she stands so alone, and I'm not clear that she
has not the worst of it."
"Oh, no, indeed, not that," returned his wife as they moved forward. But
before they could reach her, being stopped by several who spoke to them,
there was a change in the group in that part of the room. Katie had
fallen, and there was a cry that she had fainted. Stephen stooped over
her, lifted her tenderly, and carried her from the room. He was followed
by Mistress Archdale and his own mother. As he passed Elizabeth their
eyes met, his glowed with a sullen rage, born of pain and despair, they
seemed to sweep her with a glance of scorn, as she looked at him it
seemed to her that every fibre of his being was rejecting her. "You!" he
seemed to be saying with contemptuous emphasis. In answer her eyes
filled him with their haughtiness, they and the scornful curl of her
lip, as she stood motionless waiting for him to pass, haunted him; it
seemed to him as if she felt it an intrusion that he should pass near
her at all. He still saw her face as he bent over Katie.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
* * * * *
GOVERNOR CLEVELAND AND THE ROMAN CATHOLIC PROTECTORY.
BY CHARLES COWLEY, LL.D.
It is not often that a Governor's objections to a measure, which his
veto has defeated, become, even indirectly, the subject of judicial
consideration. Such, however, has been the experience of Governor
Cleveland in connection with his veto of the appropriation, which was
made in 1883, to the Roman Catholic Protectory of the City of New York.
And it must be gratifying to him as a constitutional lawyer, to see the
principles of that veto entirely approved by all the judges of the Court
of Appeals, as well as by all the judges by whom those principles were
considered, before the case, in which they were involved, reached that
august tribunal, the highest in the judicial system of that State.
By an amendment to the Constitution of New York, adopted in 1874, it is
provided that, "Neither the credit nor the money of the State shall be
given, or loaned to, or in aid of, any association, corporation, or
private undertaking."
It would hardly seem possible to mistake the meaning of a prohibition
like this; but this prohibition is accompanied by the following
modification: "This section shall not, however, prevent the Legislature
from making such provision for the education and support of the blind,
the deaf and dumb, and juvenile delinquents, as to it may seem proper;
nor shall it apply to any fund or property, now held by the State for
educational purposes."
The question, how far this qualifying clause limits the proceeding
prohibition, arose first in the Court of Common Pleas, and afterwards in
the Court of Appeals, in the case of the Shepherd's Fold of the
Protestant Episcopal Church _vs_. The Mayor, Aldermen and Commonalty of
the City of New York.[A] The Attorney-General of the State had given an
official opinion, tending to the conclusion that the prohibition is
almost entirely neutralized by the modification. The Judges of the Court
of Common Pleas, and the lawyers who argued this case in either court,
differed widely upon the question, whether money raised by local
taxation by the City of New York, under the authority of the State law,
for the maintainance of the children of the Shepherd's Fold, was, or was
not, "money of the State," and therefore included in the terms of this
prohibition; and when one sees how much is done in the discussions of
the able counsel before the Court of final resort, and by the learned
opinion of Judge Rapello, to reconcile these differences, one can not
but wish that the Old Bay State had a similar Court of Appeals, to
revise and clarify the decisions of her Supreme Court. About twenty-five
per cent, of all the decisions of the General Terms of the Supreme
Court, Superior Court, and Court of Common Pleas, which are carried to
the Court of Appeals, are there reversed; and can any lawyer doubt that,
at least, as large a proportion of the decisions of our Supreme Judicial
Court ought also to be revised and reversed?
[Footnote A: See 10 Daly's Reports, 319; and 96 New York Reports. 137.]
The Court of Appeals says: "It seems to us that that section [to wit,
the prohibition above quoted] had reference to money raised by general
taxation throughout the State, or revenues of the State, or money
otherwise belonging to the State treasury, or payable out of it."
The money claimed by the Shepherd's Fold being raised by local taxation
for a local purpose in the city of New York, and not "by general
taxation throughout the State," the Court of Appeals holds that it is
not within the terms of the Constitutional prohibition, and therefore
reverses the decision of the Court of Common Pleas on that particular
point, while agreeing with it on the main question.
As the money, appropriated to the Roman Catholic Protectory, was
unquestionably money of the State, "being raised by general taxation
throughout the State," that appropriation was unquestionably in conflict
with the prohibition of the Constitution, which the Governor was sworn
to support.
Of the courage and independence displayed by Governor Cleveland in thus
vetoing a measure in which so large a number of his political supporters
might be supposed to feel so deep an interest, this is not the place to
speak. But it is creditable to him as a lawyer that alone without a
single precedent to guide him, relying upon his own judicial sense, and
rejecting the opinion of a former Attorney-General, he challenged "the
validity of this appropriation under that section of the Constitution."
The Protectory, he says, "appears to be local in its purposes and
operations." And being a sectarian charity, he adds, "Public funds
should not be contributed to its support. A violation of this principle
in this case would tend to subject the state treasury to demands in
behalf of all sorts of sectarian institutions, which a due care for the
money of the State, and a just economy, could not concede."
In the higher and broader field of public service--"the grandest throne
on earth"--as the Presidency which he is about to enter, has been
grandiloquently called, let us hope that he will display the same
honesty, capability, and fidelity to the Constitution. We shall then be
assured that the interests of the Republic will suffer no detriment at
his hands.