REDEEMED BY LOVE.
"If anything can redeem her, it will be love." So Miss Hastings had said
of Pauline long months ago, when she had first seen her grand nature
warped and soured by disappointment, shadowed by the fierce desire of
revenge. Now she was to see the fulfillment of her words.
With a nature like Pauline's, love was no ordinary passion; all the
romance, the fervor, the poetry of her heart and soul were aroused. Her
love took her out of herself, transformed and transfigured her, softened
and beautified her. She was not of those who could love moderately, and,
if one attachment was not satisfactory, take refuge in another. For such
as her there was but one love, and it would make or mar her life.
Had Sir Vane St. Lawrence been merely a handsome man she would never
have cared for him; but his soul and mind had mastered her. He was a
noble gentleman, princely in his tastes and culture, generous, pure,
gifted with an intellect magnificent in itself, and cultivated to the
highest degree of perfection. The innate nobility of his character at
once influenced her. She acknowledged its superiority; she bowed her
heart and soul before it, proud of the very chains that bound her.
How small and insignificant everything else now appeared! Even the loss
of Darrell Court seemed trifling to her. Life had suddenly assumed
another aspect. She was in an unknown land; she was happy beyond
everything that she had ever conceived or imagined it possible to be. It
was a quiet, subdued happiness, one that was dissolving her pride
rapidly as the sunshine dissolves snow--happiness that was rounding off
the angles of her character, that was taking away scorn and defiance,
and bringing sweet and gracious humility, womanly grace and tenderness
in their stead.
While Sir Vane was studying her as the most difficult problem he had
ever met with, he heard from Miss Hastings the story of her life. He
could understand how the innate strength and truth of the girl's
character had rebelled against polite insincerities and conventional
untruths; he could understand that a soul so gifted, pure, and eager
could find no resting-place and no delight; he could understand, too,
how the stately old baronet, the gentleman of the old school, had been
frightened at his niece's originality, and scared by her uncompromising
love of truth.
Miss Hastings, whose favorite theme in Pauline's absence was praise of
her, had told both mother and son the story of Sir Oswald's project and
its failure--how Pauline would have been mistress of Darrell Court and
all her uncle's immense wealth if she would but have compromised
matters and have married Aubrey Langton.
"Langton?" questioned Sir Vane. "I know him--that is, I have heard of
him; but I cannot remember anything more than that he is a great _roue_,
and a man whose word is never to be believed."
"Then my pupil was right in her estimate of his character," said Miss
Hastings. "She seemed to guess it by instinct. She always treated him
with the utmost contempt and scorn. I have often spoken to her about
it."
"You may rely upon it, Miss Hastings, that the instinct of a good woman,
in the opinion she forms of men, is never wrong," observed Sir Vane,
gravely; and then he turned to Lady St. Lawrence with the sweet smile
his face always wore for her.
"Mother," he said, gently, "after hearing of such heroism as that, you
must not be angry about Lillith Davenant again."
"That is a very different matter," opposed Lady St. Lawrence; but it
seemed to her son very much the same kind of thing.
Before he had known Pauline long he was not ashamed to own to himself
that he loved her far better than all the world beside--that life for
him, unless she would share it, was all blank and hopeless. She was to
him as part of his own soul, the center of his existence; he knew she
was beautiful beyond most women, he believed her nobler and truer than
most women had ever been. His faith in her was implicit; he loved her
as only noble men are capable of loving.
As time passed on his influence over her became unbounded. Quite
unconsciously to herself she worshiped him; unconsciously to herself her
thoughts, her ideas, all took their coloring from his. She who had
delighted in cynicism, whose beautiful lips had uttered such hard and
cruel words, now took from him a broader, clearer, kinder view of
mankind and human nature. If at times the old habit was too strong for
her, and some biting sarcasm would fall from her, some cold cynical
sneer, he would reprove her quite fearlessly.
"You are wrong, Miss Darrell--quite wrong," he would say. "The noblest
men have not been those who sneered at their fellow-men, but those who
have done their best to aid them. There is little nobility in a deriding
spirit."
And then her face would flush, her lips quiver, her eyes take the
grieved expression of a child who has been hurt.
"Can I help it," she would say, "when I hear what is false?"
"Your ridicule will not remedy it," he would reply. "You must take a
broader, more kindly view of matters. You think Mrs. Leigh deceitful,
Mrs. Vernon worldly; but, my dear Miss Darrell, do you remember this,
that in every woman and man there is something good, something to be
admired, some grand or noble quality? It may be half-hidden by faults,
but it is there, and for the sake of the good we must tolerate the bad.
No one is all bad. Men and women are, after all, created by God; and
there is some trace of the Divine image left in every one."
This was a new and startling theory to the girl who had looked down with
contempt not unmixed with scorn on her fellow-creatures--judging them by
a standard to which few ever attain.
"And you really believe there is something good in every one?" she
asked.
"Something not merely good, but noble. My secret conviction is that in
every soul there is the germ of something noble, even though
circumstances may never call it forth. As you grow older and see more of
the world, you will know that I am right."
"I believe you!" she cried, eagerly. "I always believe every word you
say!"
Her face flushed at the warmth of her words.
"You do me justice," he said. "I have faults by the million, but want of
sincerity is not among them."
So, little by little, love redeemed Pauline, took away her faults, and
placed virtues in their stead. It was almost marvelous to note how all
sweet, womanly graces came to her, how the proud face cleared and grew
tender, how pride died from the dark eyes, and a glorious love-light
came in its stead, how she became patient and gentle, considerate and
thoughtful, always anxious to avoid giving pain to others. It would have
been difficult for any one to recognize the brilliant, willful Pauline
Darrell in the loving, quiet, thoughtful girl whom love had transformed
into something unlike herself.
There came a new world to her, a new life. Instead of problems difficult
to solve, life became full of sweet and gracious harmonies, full of the
very warmth and light of Heaven, full of unutterable beauty and
happiness; her soul reveled in it, her heart was filled with it.
All the poetry, the romance, had come true--nay, more than true. Her
girlish dreams had not shown her such happiness as that which dawned
upon her now. She had done what she had always said she should
do--recognized her superior, and yielded full reverence to him. If
anything had happened to disenchant her, if it had been possible for her
to find herself mistaken in him, the sun of the girl's life would have
set forever, would have gone down in utter darkness, leaving her without
hope.
This beautiful love-idyl did not remain a secret long; perhaps those
most interested were the last to see it. Miss Hastings, however, had
watched its progress, thankful that her prophecy about her favorite was
to come true. Later on Lady St. Lawrence saw it, and, though she could
not help mourning over Lillith Davenant's fortune, she owned that
Pauline Darrell was the most beautiful, the most noble, the most
accomplished girl she had ever met. She had a moderate fortune, too; not
much, it was true; yet it was better than nothing.
"And, if dear Vane has made up his mind," said the lady, meekly, "it
will, of course, be quite useless for me to interfere."
Sir Vane and Pauline were always together; but hitherto no word of love
had been spoken between them. Sir Vane always went to Marine Terrace the
first thing in the morning; he liked to see the beautiful face that had
all the bloom and freshness of a flower. He always contrived to make
such arrangements as would insure that Pauline and he spent the morning
together. The afternoon was a privileged time; it was devoted by the
elder ladies, who were both invalids, to rest. During that interval Sir
Vane read to Pauline, or they sat under the shadow of the great cliffs,
talking until the two souls were so firmly knit that they could never be
severed again. In the evening they walked on the sands, and the waves
sang to them of love that was immortal, of hope that would never
die--sang of the sweet story that would never grow old.