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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Life for a Life, Volume III (of III), by 
+Dinah Maria Craik
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+
+
+Title: A Life for a Life, Volume III (of III)
+
+Author: Dinah Maria Craik
+
+Release Date: March 13, 2015 [EBook #48483]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A LIFE FOR A LIFE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger from page images generously
+provided by the Internet Archive
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A LIFE FOR A LIFE
+
+By Dinah Maria Craik
+
+The Author Of "John Halifax, Gentleman," "A Woman's Thoughts About
+Women," &c., &c.
+
+In Three Volumes. Vol. III.
+
+London: Hurst And Blackett, Publishers,
+
+1859
+
+
+CHAPTER I. HER STORY.
+
+
+|Many, many weeks, months indeed have gone by since I opened this my
+journal. Can I bear the sight of it even now? Yes; I think I can.
+
+I have been sitting ever so long at the open window, in my old attitude,
+elbow on the sill; only with a difference that seems to come natural
+now, when no one is by. It is such a comfort to sit with my lips on my
+ring. I asked him to give me a ring, and he did so. Oh! Max, Max, Max!
+
+Great and miserable changes have befallen us, and now Max and I are
+not going to be married. Penelope's marriage also has been temporarily
+postponed, for the same reason, though I implored her not to tell it
+to Francis, unless he should make very particular inquiries, or be
+exceedingly angry at the delay. He was not. Nor did we judge it well to
+inform Lisabel. Therefore, papa, Penelope, and I, keep our own secret.
+
+Now that it is over, the agony of it smothered up, and all at Rockmount
+goes on as heretofore, I sometimes wonder, do strangers, or intimates,
+Mrs. Granton for instance, suspect anything? Or is ours, awful as it
+seems, no special and peculiar lot? Many another family may have its
+own lamentable secret, the burthen of which each member has to bear, and
+carry in society a cheerful countenance, even as this of mine.
+
+Mrs. Granton said yesterday, mine was "a cheerful countenance." If so, I
+am glad. Two things only could really have broken my heart--his ceasing
+to love me, and his changing so in _himself_, not in his circumstances,
+that I could no longer worthily love him. By "him," I mean, of course
+Max. Max Urquhart, my betrothed husband, whom henceforward I can never
+regard in any other light.
+
+How blue the hills are, how bright the moors! So they ought to be, for
+it is near midsummer. By this day fortnight--Penelope's marriage-day--we
+shall have plenty of roses. All the better; I would not like it to be
+a dull wedding, though so quiet; only the Trehernes and Mrs. Granton as
+guests, and me for the solitary bridesmaid.
+
+"Your last appearance I hope, Dora, in that capacity," laughed the
+dear old lady. "'Thrice a bridesmaid, ne'er a bride,' which couldn't be
+thought of, you know. No need to speak--I guess why your wedding isn't
+talked about yet.--The old story, man's pride, and woman's patience.
+Never mind. Nobody knows anything but me, and I shall keep a quiet
+tongue in the matter. Least said is soonest mended. All will come right
+soon, when the Doctor is a little better off in the world."
+
+I let her suppose so. It is of little moment what she or anybody thinks,
+so that it is nothing ill of him.
+
+"Thrice a bridesmaid, never a bride." Even so. Yet, would I change lots
+with our bride Penelope, or any other bride? No.
+
+Now that my mind has settled to its usual level; has had time to view
+things calmly, to satisfy itself that nothing could have been done
+different from what has been done; I may, at last, be able to detail
+these events. For both Max's sake and my own, it seems best to do
+it, unless I could make up my mind to destroy my whole journal. An
+unfinished record is worse than none. During our lifetimes we shall both
+preserve our secret; but many a chance brings dark things to light; and
+I have my Max's honour to guard, as well as my own.
+
+This afternoon, papa being out driving, and Penelope gone to town to
+seek for a maid, whom the Governor's lady will require to take out with
+her--they sail a month hence--I shall seize the opportunity to write
+down what has befallen Max and me.
+
+My own poor Max! But my lips are on his ring; this hand is as safely
+kept for him as when he first held it in his breast.
+
+Let me turn back a page, and see where it was I left off writing my
+journal.
+
+*****
+
+I did so; and it was more than I could bear at the time. I have had to
+take another day for this relation, and even now it is bitter enough to
+recall the feelings with which I put my pen by, so long ago, waiting for
+Max to come in "at any minute."
+
+I waited ten days; not unhappily, though the last two were somewhat
+anxious, but it was simply lest anything might have gone wrong with him
+or his affairs. As for his neglecting or "treating me ill," as Penelope
+suggested, such a thought never entered my head. How could he treat me
+ill?--he loved me.
+
+The tenth day, which was the end of the term he had named for his
+journey, I of course fully expected him.' I knew if by any human power
+it could be managed, I should see him; he never would break his word.
+I rested on his love as surely as in waking from that long sick swoon I
+had rested on his breast. I knew he would be tender over me, and not let
+me suffer one more hour's suspense or pain that he could possibly avoid.
+
+It may here seem strange that I had never asked Max where he was going,
+nor anything of the business he was going upon. Well, that was his
+secret, the last secret that was ever to be between us; so I chose not
+to interfere with it, but to wait his time. Also, I did not fret much
+about it, whatever it was. He loved me. People who have been hungry
+for love, and never had it all their lives, can understand the utterly
+satisfied contentment of this one feeling--Max loved me.
+
+At dusk, after staying in all day, I went out, partly because Penelope
+wished it, and partly for health's sake. I never lost a chance of
+getting strong now. My sister and I walked along silently, each thinking
+of her own affairs, when, at a turn in the road which led, not from
+the camp, but from the moorlands, she cried out, "I do believe there is
+Doctor Urquhart."
+
+If he had not heard his name, I think he would have passed us without
+knowing us. And the face that met mine, when he looked up--I never shall
+forget it to my dying day.
+
+It made me shrink back for a minute, and then I said:--
+
+"Oh! Max, have you been ill?"
+
+"I do not know. Yes--possibly."
+
+"When did you come back?"
+
+"I forget--oh! four days ago."
+
+"Were you coming to Rockmount?"
+
+"Rockmount?--oh! no." He shuddered, and dropped my hand.
+
+"Doctor Urquhart seems in a very uncertain frame of mind," said
+Penelope, severely, from the other side the road. "We had better leave
+him. Come, Dora."
+
+She carried me off, almost forcibly. She was exceedingly displeased.
+Four days, and never to have come or written! She said it was slighting
+me and insulting the family.
+
+"A man, too, of whose antecedents and connections we knew nothing. He
+may be a mere adventurer--a penniless Scotch adventurer; Francis always
+said he was."
+
+"Francis is--" But I could not stay to speak of him, or to reply to
+Penelope's bitter words. All I thought was how to get back to Max, and
+entreat him to tell me what had happened. He would tell _me_. He loved
+_me_. So, without any feeling of "proper pride," as Penelope called it,
+I writhed myself out of her grasp, ran hack to Doctor Urquhart, and took
+possession of his arm, my arm, which I had a right to.
+
+"Is that you, Theodora?"
+
+"Yes, it is I." And then I said, I wanted him to go home with me, and
+tell me what had happened.
+
+"Better not; better go home with your sister."
+
+"I had rather stay here. I mean to stay here."
+
+He stopped, took both my hands, and forced a smile:--"You are the
+determined little lady you always were; but you do not know what you are
+saying. You had better go and leave me."
+
+I was sure then some great misery was approaching us. I tried to read
+it in his face. "Do you--" did he still love me; I was about to ask, but
+there was no need. So my answer, too, was brief and plain.
+
+"I never will leave you as long as I live."
+
+Then I ran back to Penelope, and told her I should walk home with Doctor
+Urquhart; he had something to say to me. She tried anger and authority.
+Both failed. If we had been summer lovers it might have been different,
+but now in his trouble I seemed to feel Max's right to me and my
+love, as I had never done before. Penelope might have lectured for
+everlasting, and I should only have listened, and then gone back to
+Max's side. As I did.
+
+His arm pressed mine close; he did not say a second time, "Leave me."
+
+"Now, Max, I want to hear."
+
+No answer.
+
+"You know there is something, and we shall never be quite happy till it
+is told. Say it outright; whatever it is, I shall not mind."
+
+No answer.
+
+"Is it something very terrible?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Something that might come between and part us?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+I trembled, though not much, having so strong a belief in the
+impossibility of parting. Yet there must have been an expression I
+hardly intended in the cry "Oh, Max, tell me," for he again stopped
+suddenly, and seemed to forget himself in looking at and thinking of me.
+
+"Stay, Theodora,--you have something to tell _me_ first. Are you better?
+Have you been growing stronger daily? You are sure?"
+
+"Quite sure. Now--tell me."
+
+He tried to speak once or twice, vainly. At last he said:--
+
+"I--I wrote you a letter."
+
+"I never got it."
+
+"No; I did not mean you should until my death. But my mind has changed.
+You shall have it now. I have carried it about with me, on the chance of
+meeting you, these four days. I wanted to give it to you--and--to look
+at you. Oh, my child, my child."
+
+After a little while, he gave me the letter, begging me not to open it
+till I was alone at night.
+
+"And if it should shock you--break your heart?"
+
+"Nothing will break my heart."
+
+"You are right, it is too pure and good. God will not suffer it to be
+broken. Now, good-bye."
+
+For we had reached the gate of Bock-mount. It had never struck me before
+that I had to bid him adieu here, that he did not mean to go in with
+me to dinner; and when he refused, I felt it very much. His only answer
+was, for the second time, "that I did not know what I was saying."
+
+It was now nearly dark, and so misty that I could hardly breathe. Doctor
+Urquhart insisted on my going in immediately, tied my veil close under
+my chin, and then hastily untied it.
+
+"Love, do you love me?"
+
+He has told me afterwards, he forgot then for the time being, every
+circumstance that was likely to part us; everything in the whole world
+but me. And I trust I was not the only one who felt that it is those
+alone who? loving as we did, are everything to one another who have most
+strength to part.
+
+When I came indoors, the first person I met was papa, looking quite
+bright and pleased; and his first question was:--
+
+"Where is Doctor Urquhart? Penelope said Doctor Urquhart was coming
+here."
+
+I hardly know what was done during that evening, or whether they blamed
+Max or not.
+
+All my care was how best to keep his secret, and literally to obey him
+concerning it.
+
+Of course, I never named his letter, nor made any attempt to read it
+till I had bidden good night to them all, and smiled at Penelope's
+grumbling over my long candles and my large fire, "as if I meant to sit
+up all night." Yes, I had taken all these precautions in a quiet, solemn
+kind of way, for I did not know what was before me, and I must not fall
+ill if I could help. I was Max's own personal property.
+
+How cross she was that night, poor Penelope! It was the last time she
+has ever scolded me.
+
+For some things, Penelope has felt this more than anyone could, except
+papa, for she is the only one of us who has a clear recollection of
+Harry.
+
+Now, his name is written, and I can tell it--the awful secret I learned
+from Max's letter, which no one except me must ever read.
+
+My Max killed Harry. Not intentionally--when he was out of himself and
+hardly accountable for what he did; in a passion of boyish fury, roused
+by great cruelty and wrong; but--he killed him. My brother's death,
+which we believed to be accidental, was by Max's hand.
+
+I write this down calmly, now; but it was awful at the time. I think I
+must have read on mechanically, expecting something sad, and about Harry
+likewise; I soon guessed that bad man at Salisbury must have been poor
+Harry--but I never guessed anything near the truth till I came to the
+words "I _murdered_ him."
+
+To suppose one feels a great blow acutely at the instant is a
+mistake--it stuns rather than wounds. Especially when it comes in a
+letter, read in quiet and alone, as I read Max's letter that night.
+And--as I remember afterwards seeing in some book, and thinking how true
+it was--it is strange how soon a great misery grows familiar. Waking up
+from the first few minutes of total bewilderment, I seemed to have been
+aware all these twenty years that my Max killed Harry.
+
+O Harry, my brother, whom I never knew--no more than any stranger in
+the street, and the faint memory of whom was mixed with an indefinite
+something of wickedness, anguish, and disgrace to us all, if I felt not
+as I ought, then or afterwards, forgive me. If, though your sister, I
+thought less of you dead than of my living Max--my poor, poor Max, who
+had borne this awful burthen for twenty years--Harry, forgive me!
+
+Well, I knew it--as an absolute fact and certainty--though as one often
+feels with great personal misfortunes, at first I could not realize it.
+Gradually I became fully conscious what an overwhelming horror it was,
+and what a fearful retributive justice had fallen upon papa and us all.
+
+For there were some things I had not myself known till this spring, when
+Penelope, in the fullness of her heart at leaving us, talked to me a
+good deal of old childish days, and especially about Harry.
+
+He was a spoiled child. His father never said him nay in
+anything--never, from the time when he sat at table, in his own
+ornamental chair, and drank champagne out of his own particular glass,
+lisping toasts that were the great amusement of everybody. He never knew
+what contradiction was, till, at nineteen, he fell in love, and wanted
+to get married, and would have succeeded, for they eloped, (as I believe
+papa and Harry's mother had done), but papa prevented them in time. The
+girl, some village lass, but she might have had a heart nevertheless,
+broke it, and died. Then Harry went all wrong.
+
+Penelope remembers, how, at times, a shabby, dissipated man used to meet
+us children out walking, and kiss us and the nurserymaids all round,
+saying he was our brother Harry. Also, how he used to lie in wait for
+papa coming out of church, follow him into his library, where, after
+fearful scenes of quarrelling, Harry would go away jauntily, laughing
+to us, and bowing to mamma, who always showed him out and shut the door
+upon him with a face as white as a sheet.
+
+My sister also remembers papa's being suddenly called away from home for
+a day or two, and, on his return, our being all put into mourning, and
+told that it was for brother Harry, whom we must never speak of any
+more. And once, when she was saying her geography lesson, and wanted
+to go and ask papa some questions about Stonehenge and Salisbury, mamma
+stopped her, saying she must take care never to mention these places to
+papa, for that poor Harry--she called him so now--had died miserably by
+an accident, and been buried at Salisbury.
+
+She died the same year, and soon afterwards we came to Rockmount, living
+handsomely upon grandfather's money, and proud that we had already begun
+to call ourselves Johnston. Oh, me, what wicked falsehoods poor Harry
+told about his "family." Him we never again named; not one of our
+neighbours here ever knew that we had a brother.
+
+The first shock over, hour after hour of that long night I sat, trying
+by any means to recall him to mind, my father's son, my own flesh and
+blood--at least by the half-blood--to pity him, to feel as I ought
+concerning his death, and the one who caused it. But do as I would, my
+thoughts went back to Max--as they might have done, even had he not been
+my own Max--out of deep compassion for one who, not being a premeditated
+and hardened criminal, had suffered for twenty years the penalty of this
+single crime.
+
+It was such, I knew. I did not attempt to palliate it, or justify him.
+Though poor Harry was worthless, and Max is--what he is--that did not
+alter the question. I believe, even then, I did not disguise from myself
+the truth--that my Max had committed, not a fault, but an actual crime.
+But I called him my Max still. It was the only word that saved me, or I
+might, as he feared, have "broken my heart."
+
+The whole history of that dreadful night, there is no need I should tell
+to any human being; even Max himself will never know it. God knows it,
+and that is enough. By my own strength, I never should have kept my life
+or reason till the morning.
+
+But it was necessary, and it was better far that I should have gone
+through this anguish alone, guided by no outer influence, and sustained
+only by that Strength which always comes in seasons like these.
+
+I seem, while stretched on the rack of those long night hours, to have
+been led by some supernatural instinct into the utmost depths of human
+and divine justice, human and divine love, in search of _the right_.
+At last I saw it, clung to it, and have found it my rock of hope ever
+since.
+
+When the house below began to stir, I put out my candle, and stood
+watching the dawn creep over the grey moorlands, just as on the morning
+when we had sat up all night with my father--Max and I. How fond my
+father was of him--my poor, poor father!
+
+The horrible conflict and confusion of mind came back. I felt as if
+right and wrong were inextricably mixed together, laying me under a sort
+of moral paralysis, out of which the only escape was madness. Then out
+of the deeps I cried unto Thee: O Thou whose infinite justice includes
+also infinite forgiveness; and Thou heardest me.
+
+"_When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath
+committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his
+soul alive?_"
+
+I remembered these words: and unto Thee I trusted my Max's soul.
+
+It was daylight now, and the little birds began waking up, one by
+one, until they broke into a perfect chorus of chirping and singing.
+I thought, was ever grief like this of mine? Yes--one grief would have
+been worse--if, this sunny summer morning, I knew he had ceased to love
+me, and I to believe in him--if I had lost him--never either in this
+world or the next, to find him more.
+
+After a little, I thought if I could only go to sleep, though but for
+half an hour--it would be well. So I undressed and laid myself down,
+with Max's letter tight hidden in my hands.
+
+Sleep came; but it ended in dreadful dreams, out of which I awoke,
+screaming, to see Penelope standing by my bedside, with my breakfast.
+
+Now, I had already laid my plans--to tell my father all. For he must be
+told. No other alternative presented itself to me as possible--nor, I
+knew, would it to Max. When two people are thoroughly one, each guesses
+instinctively the other's mind; in most things always in all great
+things, for one faith and love includes also one sense of right. I was
+as sure as I was of my existence that Max meant my father to be told.
+Not even to make me happy would he have deceived me--and not even that
+we might be married, would he consent that we should deceive my father.
+
+Thus, that my father must be told, and that I must tell him, was a
+matter settled and clear--but I never considered about how far must
+be explained to anyone else, till I saw Penelope stand there with her
+familiar household face, half cross, half alarmed.
+
+"Why, child, what on earth is the matter? Here are you, staring as if
+you were out of your senses--and there is Doctor Urquhart, who has been
+haunting the place like a ghost ever since daylight. I declare, I'll
+send for him and give him a piece of my mind."
+
+"Don't, don't," I gasped, and all the horror returned--vivid as daylight
+makes any new anguish. Penelope soothed me--with the motherliness that
+had come over since I was ill, and the gentleness that had grown up in
+her since she had been happy, and Francis loving. My miserable heart
+yearned to her, a woman like myself--a good woman, too, though I did not
+appreciate her once, when I was young and foolish, and had never known
+care, as she had. How it came out I cannot tell--I have never regretted
+it--nor did Max, for I think it saved my heart from breaking--but I then
+and there told my sister Penelope our dreadful story.
+
+I see her still, sitting on the bed, listening with blanched face,
+gazing, not at me, but at the opposite wall. She made no outcry of
+grief, or horror against Max. She took all in a subdued, quiet way,
+which I had not expected would have been Penelope's passion of bearing a
+great grief. She hardly said anything, till I cried with a bitter cry:--
+
+"Now I want Max. Let me rise and go down, for I must see Max."
+
+Then we two women looked at one another pitifully, and my sister, my
+happy sister who was to be married in a fortnight, took me in her arms,
+sobbing,
+
+"Oh, Dora, my poor, poor child."
+
+All this seems years upon years ago, and I can relate it calmly enough,
+till I call to mind that sob of Penelope's.
+
+Well, what happened next? I remember, Penelope came in when I was
+dressing, and told me, in her ordinary manner, that papa wished her to
+drive with him to the Cedars this morning. "Shall I go, Dora?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Perhaps you will see _him_ in our absence."
+
+"I intend so."
+
+She turned, then came back and kissed me. I suppose she thought this
+meeting between Max and me would be an eternal farewell. The carriage
+had scarcely driven off, when I received a message that Doctor Urquhart
+was in the parlour.
+
+Harry--Harry, twenty years dead--my own brother killed by my husband!
+Let me acknowledge. Had I known this _before_ he was my betrothed
+husband, chosen open-eyed, with all my judgment, my conscience, and my
+soul, loved, not merely because he loved me, but because I loved him,
+honoured him, and trusted him, so that even marriage could scarcely
+make us more entirely one than we were already--had I been aware of
+this before, I might not, indeed I think I never should have loved him.
+Nature would have instinctively prevented me. But now it was too late.
+I loved him, and I could not unlove him: Nature herself forbade the
+sacrifice. It would have been like tearing my heart out of my bosom; he
+was half myself--and maimed of him, I should never have been my right
+self afterwards. Nor would he. Two living lives to be blasted for one
+that was taken unwittingly twenty years ago! Could it--ought it so to
+be?
+
+The rest of the world are free to be their own judges in the matter; but
+God and my conscience are mine.
+
+I went downstairs steadfastly, with my mind all clear. Even to the last
+minute, with my hand on the parlor-door, my heart--where all throbs
+of happy love seemed to have been long, long forgotten--my still heart
+prayed.
+
+Max was standing by the fire--he turned round. He, and the whole
+sunshiny room swam before my eyes for an instant,--then I called up my
+strength and touched him. He was trembling all over.
+
+"Max, sit down." He sat down.
+
+I knelt by him. I clasped his hands close, but still he sat as if he had
+been a stone. At last he muttered:--
+
+"I wanted to see you, just once more, to know how you bore it--to be
+sure I had not killed you also--oh, it is horrible, horrible!"
+
+I said it was horrible--but that we would be able to bear it.
+
+"We?"
+
+"Yes--we."
+
+"You cannot mean _that?_"
+
+"I do. I have thought it all over, and I do." Holding me at arm's
+length, his eyes questioned my inmost soul.
+
+"Tell me the truth. It is not pity--not merely pity, Theodora?"
+
+"Ah, no, no!"
+
+Without another word--the first crisis was past--everything which made
+our misery a divided misery.--He opened his arms and took me once more
+into my own place--where alone I ever really rested, or wish to rest
+until I die.
+
+Max had been very ill, he told me, for days, and now seemed both in body
+and mind as feeble as a child. For me, my childishness or girlishness,
+with its ignorance and weakness, was gone for evermore.
+
+I have thought since, that in all women's deepest loves, be they ever so
+full of reverence, there enters sometimes much of the motherly element,
+even as on this day I felt as if I were somehow or other in charge of
+Max, and a great deal older than he. I fetched a glass of water, and
+made him drink it--bathed his poor temples and wiped them with my
+handkerchief--persuaded him to lean back quietly and not speak another
+word for ever so long. But more than once, and while his head lay on my
+shoulder, I thought of his mother, my mother who might have been--and
+how, though she had left him so many years, she must, if she knew of all
+he had suffered, be glad to know there was at last one woman found who
+would, did Heaven permit, watch over him through life, with the double
+love of both wife and mother, and who, in any case, would be faithful to
+him till death.
+
+Faithful till death. Yes,--I here renewed that vow, and had Harry
+himself come and stood before me, I should have done the same. Look you,
+any one who after my death may read this;--there are two kinds of love,
+one, eager only to get its desire, careless of all risks and costs,
+in defiance almost of Heaven and earth; the other, which in its most
+desperate longing has strength to say, "If it be right and for our
+good--if it be according to the will of God." This only, I think, is the
+true and consecrated love, which therefore is able to be faithful till
+death.
+
+Max and I never once spoke about whether or not we should be married--we
+left all that in Higher hands. We only felt we should always be true
+to one another--and that, being what we were, and loving as we did, God
+himself could not will that any human will or human justice should put
+us asunder.
+
+This being clear, we set ourselves to meet what was before us. I told
+him poor Harry's history, so far as I knew it myself; afterwards we
+began to consider how best the truth could be broken to my father.
+
+And here let me confess something, which Max has long forgiven, but
+which I can yet hardly forgive myself. Max said, "And when your father
+is told, he shall decide what next is to be."
+
+"How do you mean?" I cried.
+
+"If he requires atonement, he must have it, even at the hands of the
+law."
+
+Then, for the first time, it struck me that, though Max was safe so
+long as he made no confession, for the peculiar circumstances of Harry's
+death left no other evidence against him, still, this confession once
+public (and it was, for had I not told Penelope?) his reputation,
+liberty, life itself, were in the hands of my sister and my father. A
+horror as of death fell upon me. I clung to him who was my all in this
+world, dearer to me than father, mother, brother, or sister; and I urged
+that we should both, then and there, fly--escape together anywhere, to
+the very ends of the earth, out of reach of justice and my father.
+
+I must have been almost beside myself before I thought of such a thing.
+I hardly knew all it implied, until Max gravely put me from him.
+
+"It cannot be you who says this. Not Theodora."
+
+And suddenly, as unconnected and even incongruous things will flash
+across one in times like these, I called to mind the scene in my
+favourite play, when, the alternative being life or honour, the woman
+says to her lover, "_No, die!_" Little I dreamed of ever having to say
+to my Max almost the same words.
+
+I said them, kneeling by him, and imploring his pardon for having wished
+him to do such a thing even for his safety and my happiness.
+
+"We could not have been happy, child," he said, smoothing my hair, with
+a sad, fond smile. "You do not know what it is to have a secret weighing
+like lead upon your soul. Mine feels lighter now than it has done for
+years. Let us decide: what hour to-night shall I come here and tell your
+father?" Saying this, Max turned white to the very lips, but still he
+comforted me.
+
+"Do not be afraid, my child. I am not afraid. Nothing can be worse than
+what has been--to me. I was a coward once, but then I was only a boy,
+hardly able to distinguish right from wrong. Now I see that it would
+have been better to have told the whole truth at once, and taken all
+the punishment. It might not have been death, or if it were, I could but
+have died."
+
+"Max, Max!"
+
+"Hush!" and he closed my lips so that they could not moan. "The truth is
+better than life, better even than a good name. When your father knows
+the truth, all else will be clear. I shall abide by his decision,
+whatever it be; he has a right to it. Theodora," his voice faltered,
+"make him understand, some day, that if I had married you, he never
+should have wanted a son,--your poor father."
+
+These were almost the last words Max said on this, the last hour that
+we were together by ourselves. For minutes and minutes he held me in
+his arms, silently; and I shut my eyes, and felt, as if in a dream, the
+sunshine and the flower-scents, and the loud singing of the two canaries
+in Penelope's greenhouse. Then,-with one kiss, he put me down softly
+from my place, and left me alone.
+
+I have been alone ever since; God only, knows _how_ alone.
+
+The rest I cannot tell to-day.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. HIS STORY.
+
+
+|This is the last, probably, of those "letters never sent," which may
+reach you one day; when or how, we know not. All that is, is best.
+
+You say you think it advisable that there should be an accurate written
+record of all that passed between your family and myself on the
+final day of parting, in order that no further conduct of mine may be
+misconstrued or misjudged. Be it so. My good name is worth preserving;
+for it must never be any disgrace to you that Max Urquhart loved you.
+
+Since this record is to be minute and literal, perhaps it will be better
+I should give it impersonally, as a statement rather than a letter.
+
+On February 9th, 1857, I went to Rockmount, to see Theodora Johnston,
+for the first time after she was aware that I had, long ago, taken the
+life of her half-brother, Henry Johnston, not intentionally, but in a
+fit of drunken rage. I came, simply to look at her dear face once more,
+and to ask her in what way her father would best bear the shock of this
+confession of mine, before I took the second step of surrendering myself
+to justice, or of making atonement in any other way that Mr. Johnston
+might choose. To him and his family my life was owed, and I left them to
+dispose of it or of me in any manner they thought best.
+
+With these intentions, I went to Theodora. I knew her well. I felt sure
+she would pity me, that she would not refuse me her forgiveness, before
+our eternal separation; that though the blood upon my hands was half
+her own, she would not judge me the less justly, or mercifully, or
+Christianly. As to a Christian woman, I came to her--as I had come once
+before, in a question of conscience; also, as to the woman who had been
+my friend, with all the rights and honours of that name, before she
+became to me anything more and dearer. And I was thankful that the
+lesser tie had been included in the greater, so that both need not be
+entirely swept away and disannulled.
+
+I found not only my friend, upon whom, above all others, I could depend,
+but my own, my love, the woman above all women who was mine; who, loving
+me before this blow fell, clung to me still, and believing that God
+Himself had joined us together suffered nothing to put us asunder.
+
+How she made me comprehend this I shall not relate, as it concerns
+ourselves alone. When at last I knelt by her and kissed her blessed
+hands--my saint! and yet all woman, and all my own--I felt that my sin
+was covered, that the All-merciful had had mercy upon me. That while,
+all these years, I had followed miserably my own method of atonement,
+denying myself all life's joys, and cloaking myself with every possible
+ray of righteousness I could find, He had suddenly led me by another
+way, sending this child's love, first to comfort and then, to smite me,
+that, being utterly bruised, broken, and humbled, I might be made whole.
+
+Now, for the first time, I felt like a man to whom there is a
+possibility of being made whole. Her father might hunt me to death, the
+law might lay hold on me, the fair reputation under which I had shielded
+myself might be torn and scattered to the winds; but for all that I was
+safe, I was myself, the true Max Urquhart, a grievous sinner; yet no
+longer unforgiven or hopeless.
+
+"_I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance_."
+
+That line struck home. Oh, that I could strike it home to every
+miserable heart as it went to mine. Oh! that I could carry into the
+utmost corners of the earth the message, the gospel which Dallas
+believed in, the only one which has power enough for the redemption of
+this sorrowful world--the gospel of the forgiveness and remission of
+sins.
+
+While she talked to me--this my saint, Theodora--Dallas himself might
+have spoken, apostle-like, through her lips. She said, when I listened
+in wonder to the clearness of some of her arguments, that she hardly
+knew how they had come into her mind, they seemed to come of themselves;
+but they were there, and she was _sure_ they were true. She was sure,
+she added, reverently, that if the Christ of Nazareth were to pass by
+Rockmount door this day, the only word He would say unto me, after all I
+had done, would be:--"Thy sins are forgiven thee--rise up and walk."
+
+And I did so. I went out of the house an altered man. My burthen of
+years had been lifted off me for ever and ever. I understood something
+of what is meant by being "born again." I could dimly guess at what they
+must have felt-who sat at the Divine feet, clothed and in their right
+mind, or who, across the sunny plains of Galilee, leaped, and walked,
+and ran, praising God.
+
+I crossed the moorland, walking erect, with eyes fixed on the blue sky,
+my heart tender and young as a child's. I even stopped, child-like, to
+pluck a stray primrose under a tree in a lane, which had peeped out, as
+if it wished to investigate how soon spring would come. It seemed to me
+so pretty--I might never have seen a primrose since I was a boy.
+
+Let me relate the entire truth--she wishes it. Strange as it may appear,
+though hour by hour brought nearer the time when I had fixed to be at
+Rockmount, to confess unto a father that I had been the slayer of his
+only son--still that day was not an unhappy day. I spent it chiefly out
+of doors on the moorlands, near a way-side public-house, where I had
+lodged some nights, drinking in large draughts of the beauty of this
+external world, and feeling even outer life sweet, though nothing to
+that renewed life which I now should never lose again. Never--even if
+I had to go next day to prison and trial, and stand before the world
+a convicted homicide. Nay, I believe I could have mounted the scaffold
+amidst those gaping thousands that were once my terror, and die
+peacefully in spite of them, feeling no longer either guilty or afraid.
+
+So much for myself, which will explain a good deal that followed in the
+interview which I have now to relate.
+
+Theodora had wished to save me by herself, explaining all to her father;
+but I would not allow this, and at length she yielded. However, things
+fell out differently from both our intentions: he learned it first from
+his daughter Penelope. The moment I entered his study I was certain Mr.
+Johnston knew.
+
+Let no sinner, however healed, deceive himself that his wound will never
+smart again. He is not instantly made a new man of, whole and sound: he
+must grow gradually, even through many a returning pang, into health
+and cure. If anyone thinks I could stand in the presence of that old man
+without an anguish sharp as death, which made me for the moment wish I
+had never been born, he is mistaken.
+
+But alleviations came. The first was to see the old man sitting there
+alive and well, though evidently fully aware of the truth, and having
+been so for some time, for his countenance was composed, his tea was
+placed beside him on the table, and there was an open Bible before him,
+in which he had been reading. His voice, too, had nothing unnatural
+or alarming in it, as, without looking at me, he bade the maid-servant
+"give Doctor Urquhart a chair and say, if anyone interrupted, that we
+were particularly engaged." So the door was shut upon us, leaving us
+face to face.
+
+But it was not long before he raised his eyes to him. It is enough, once
+in a lifetime, to have borne such a look.
+
+"Mr. Johnston,"--but he shut his ears.
+
+"Do not speak," he said; "what you have come to tell me I know already.
+My daughter told me this morning. And I have been trying ever since to
+find out what my church says to the shedder of blood; what she would
+teach a father to say to the murderer of his child. My Harry, my only
+son! And you murdered him!"
+
+Let the words which followed be sacred. If in some degree they were
+unjust, and overstepped the truth, let me not dare to murmur. I believe
+the curses he heaped upon me in his own words and those of the Holy
+Book, will not come, for its other and diviner words, which his daughter
+taught me, stand as a shield between me and him. I repeated them to
+myself in my silence, and so I was able to endure.
+
+When he paused and commanded me to speak, I answered only a few words,
+namely, that I was here to offer my life for his son's life; that he
+might do with me what he would.
+
+"Which means, that I should give you up to justice, have you tried,
+condemned, executed. You, Doctor Urquhart, whom the world thinks so well
+of. I might live to see you hanged."
+
+His eyes glared, his whole frame was convulsed. I entreated him to
+calm himself, for his own health's sake, and the sake of his children.
+
+"Yes, I will. Old as I am, this shall not kill me. I will live to exact
+retribution. My boy, my poor murdered Harry--murdered--murdered."
+
+He kept repeating and dwelling on the word, till at length I said:--
+
+"If you know the whole truth, you must be aware that I had no intention
+to murder him."
+
+"What, you extenuate? You wish to escape? But you shall not. I will have
+you arrested now, in this very house."
+
+"Be it so, then."
+
+And I sat down.
+
+So, the end had come. Life, and all its hopes, all its work, were over
+for me. I saw, as in a second of time, everything that was coming--the
+trial, the conviction, the newspaper clatter over my name, my ill deeds
+exaggerated, my good deeds pointed at with the finger of scorn, which
+perhaps was the keenest agony of all--save one.
+
+"Theodora!"
+
+Whether I uttered her name, or only thought it, I cannot tell. However,
+it brought her. I felt she was in the room, though she stood by her
+sister's side, and did not approach me.
+
+Again, I repeat, let no man say that sin does not bring its wages, which
+_must_ be paid. Whosoever doubts it, I would he could sit as I sat,
+watching the faces of father and daughters, and thinking of the dead
+face which lay against my knee, that midnight, on Salisbury plain.
+
+"Children," I heard Mr. Johnston saying, "I have sent for you to be my
+witnesses in what I am about to do. Not out of personal revenge--which
+were unbecoming a clergyman--but because God and man exact retribution
+for blood. There is the man who murdered Harry. Though he were the
+best friend I ever had, though I esteemed him ever so much, which I
+did,--still, discovering this, I must have retribution.
+
+"How, father?" Not _her_ voice, but her sister's. .
+
+Let me do full justice to Penelope Johnston. Though it was she who told
+my secret to her father, she did it out of no malice. As I afterwards
+learnt, chance led their conversation into such a channel, that she
+could only escape betraying the truth by a direct lie. And with all her
+harshnesses, the prominent feature of her character is its truthfulness,
+or rather its abhorrence of falsehood. Nay, her fierce scorn of any kind
+of duplicity is such, that she confounds the crime with the criminal,
+and, once deceived, never can forgive,--as in the matter of Lydia
+Cartwright, my acquaintance with which gave me this insight into Miss
+Johnston's peculiarity.
+
+Thus, though it fell to her lot to betray my confession, I doubt not she
+did so with most literal accuracy; acting towards me neither as a friend
+nor foe, but simply as a relater of facts. Nor was there any personal
+enmity towards me in her question to her father.
+
+It startled him a little.
+
+"How did you say? By the law, I conclude. There is no other way."
+
+"And if so, what will be the result? I mean what will be done to him?"
+
+"I cannot tell--how should I?"
+
+"Perhaps I can; for I have thought over and studied the question all
+day," answered Miss Johnston, still in the same cold, clear, impartial
+voice. "He will be tried, of course. I find from your 'Taylor on
+Evidence,' father, that a man can be tried and convicted, solely on his
+own confession. But in this case, there being no corroborating proof,
+and all having happened so long ago, it will scarcely prove a
+capital crime. I believe no jury would give a stronger verdict than
+manslaughter. He will be imprisoned, or transported beyond seas; where,
+with his good character, he will soon work his liberty, and start afresh
+in another country, in spite of us. This, I think, is the common-sense
+view of the matter."
+
+Astonished as Mr. Johnston looked, he made no reply.
+
+His daughter continued:--
+
+"And for this, you and we shall have the credit of having had arrested
+in our own house, a man who threw himself on our mercy, who, though he
+concealed, never denied his guilt; who never deceived us in any way.
+The moment he discovered the whole truth, dreadful as it was, he never
+shirked it, nor hid it from us; but told us outright, risking all the
+consequences. A man, too, against whom, in his whole life, we can prove
+but this one crime."
+
+"What, do you take his part?"
+
+"No," she said; "I wish he had died before he set foot in this
+house--for I remember Harry. But I see also that after all this lapse of
+years Harry is not the only person whom we ought to remember."
+
+"I remember nothing but the words of this Book," cried the old man,
+letting his hand drop heavily upon it. "'Whoso sheddeth man's blood,
+by man shall his blood be shed.' What have you to say for yourself,
+_murderer?_"
+
+All this time, faithful to her promise to me, she had not
+interfered--she, my love, who loved me; but when she heard him call me
+_that_, she shivered all over, and looked towards me. A pitiful,
+entreating look, but, thank God, there was no doubt in it--not the
+shadow of change. It nerved me to reply, what I will here record, by her
+desire and for her sake.
+
+"Mr. Johnston, I have this to say. It is written,--'Whoso hateth his
+brother is a murderer,' and in that sense, I am one,--for I did hate him
+at the time; but I never meant to kill him--and the moment afterwards I
+would have given my life for his. If now, my death could restore him to
+you, alive again, how willingly I would die."
+
+"Die, and face your Maker? an unpardoned man-slayer, a lost soul?"
+
+"Whether I live or die," said I, humbly, "I trust my soul is not lost. I
+have been very guilty; but I believe in One who brought to every sinner
+on earth the gospel of repentance and remission of sins."
+
+At this, burst out the anathema--not merely of the father, but the
+clergyman,--who mingled the Jewish doctrine of retributive vengeance
+during this life with the Christian belief of rewards and punishments
+after death, and confounded the Mosaic gehenna with the Calvinistic
+hell. I will not record all this--it was very terrible; but he only
+spoke as he believed, and as many earnest Christians do believe. I
+think, in all humility, that the Master Himself preached a different
+gospel.
+
+I saw it, shining out of her eyes--my angel of peace and pardon. O
+Thou, from whom all love comes, was it impious if the love of this Thy
+creature towards one so wretched, should come to me like an assurance of
+Thine?
+
+At length her father ceased speaking--took up a pen and began hastily
+writing. Miss Johnston went and looked over his shoulder.
+
+"Papa, if that is a warrant you are making-out, better think twice
+about it; for, as a magistrate, you cannot retract. Should you send Dr.
+Urquhart to trial, you must be prepared for the whole truth to come out.
+He must tell it; or, if he calls Dora and me as witnesses--she having
+already his written confession in full--_we_ must."
+
+"You must tell--what?"
+
+"The provocation Doctor Urquhart received--how Harry enticed him, a lad
+of nineteen, to drink--made him mad, and taunted him. Everything will be
+made public--how Harry was so degraded that from the hour of his death
+we were thankful to forget that he had ever existed--how he died as he
+had lived--a boaster, a coward, spunging upon any one from whom he could
+get money, using his talents only to his shame, devoid of one spark of
+honesty, honour, and generosity. It is shocking to have to say this of
+one's own brother; but, father, you know it is the truth--and, as such,
+it must be told."
+
+Amazed--I listened to her--this eldest sister, who I knew disliked me.
+
+Her father seemed equally surprised,--until, at length, her arguments
+apparently struck him with uneasiness.
+
+"Have you any motive in arguing thus?" said he, hurriedly and not
+without agitation; "why do you do it, Penelope!"
+
+"A little, on my own account, though the great scandal and publicity
+will not much affect Francis and me--we shall soon be out of England.
+But for the family's sake,--for Harry's sake,--when all his
+wickednesses and our miseries have been safely covered up these twenty
+years--consider, father!"
+
+She stung him deeper than she knew. I had guessed it before, when I was
+almost a stranger to him--but now the whole history of that old man's
+life was betrayed in one groan, which burst from the very depth of the
+father's soul.
+
+"Eli--the priest of the Lord--his sons made themselves vile and he
+restrained them not. Therefore they died in one day, both of them.
+It was the will of the Lord."
+
+The respectful silence which ensued, no one dared to break.
+
+He broke it himself at last, pointing to the door. "Go! murderer, or
+man-slayer, or whatever you are, you must go free. Moreover, I must have
+your promise--no, your oath--that the secret you have kept so long, you
+will now keep for ever."
+
+"Sir," I said; but he stopped me fiercely.
+
+"No hesitations--no explanations--I will have none and give none. As you
+said, your life is mine--to do with it as I choose. Better you should go
+unpunished, than that I and mine should be disgraced. Obey me. Promise."
+
+I did.
+
+Thus, in another and still stranger way, my resolutions were broken, my
+fate was decided for me, and I have to keep this secret unconfessed to
+the end.
+
+"Now, go. Put half the earth between us if you can--only go."
+
+Again I turned to obey. Blind obedience seemed the only duty left me.
+I might even have quitted the house, with a feeling of total
+irresponsibility and indifference to all things, had it not been for a
+low cry which I heard, as in a dream.
+
+So did her father. "Dora--I had forgotten. There was some sort of 'fancy
+between you and Dora. Daughter, bid him farewell, and let him go."
+
+Then she said--my love said, in her own soft, distinct voice: "No, papa,
+I never mean to hid him farewell--that is, finally--never as long as I
+live."
+
+Her father and sister were both so astounded, that at first they did not
+interrupt her, but let her speak on.
+
+"I belonged to Max before all this happened. If it had happened a year
+hence, when I was his wife, it would not have broken our marriage. It
+ought not now. When any two people are to one another what we are, they
+are as good as married; and they have no right to part, no more than man
+and wife have, unless either grows wicked, or both change. I never mean
+to part from Max Urquhart."
+
+She spoke meekly, standing with hands folded and head drooping; but as
+still and steadfast as a rock. My darling--my darling!
+
+Steadfast! She had need to he. What she bore during the next few minutes
+she would not wish me to repeat, I feel sure.
+
+She knows it, and so do I. She knows also that every stab with which I
+then saw her wounded for my sake, is counted in my heart, as a debt to
+be paid one day, if between those who love there can be any debts at
+all. She says not. Yet, if ever she is my wife.--People talk of dying
+for a woman's sake--but to live--live for her with the whole of one's
+being--to work for her, to sustain and cheer her--to fill her daily
+existence with tenderness and care--if ever she is my wife, she will
+find out what I mean.
+
+After saying all he well could say, Mr. Johnston asked her how she dared
+think of me--me, laden with her brother's blood and her father's curse.
+
+She turned deadly pale, but never faltered: "The curse causeless shall
+not come," she said, "For the blood upon his hand, whether it were
+Harry's or a stranger's, makes no difference; it is washed out. He has
+repented long ago. If God has forgiven him, and helped him to be what
+he is, and lead the life he has led all these years, why should I not
+forgive him? And if I forgive, why not love him?--and if I love him, why
+break my promise, and refuse to marry him?"
+
+"Do you mean, then, to marry him?" said her sister.
+
+"Some day--if he wishes it--yes!"
+
+From this time, I myself hardly remember what passed; I can only see
+her standing there, her sweet face white as death, making no moan, and
+answering nothing to any accusations that were heaped upon her, except
+when she was commanded to give me up, entirely and for ever and ever.
+
+"I cannot, father. I have no right to do it. I belong to him; he is my
+husband."
+
+At last, Miss Johnston said to me--rather gently than not, for her: "I
+think, Doctor Urquhart, you had better go."
+
+My love looked towards me, and afterwards at her poor father; she too
+said, "Yes, Max, go." And then they wanted her to promise she would
+never see me, nor write to me; but she refused.
+
+"Father, I will not marry him for ever so long, if you choose--but I
+cannot forsake him. I must write to him. I am his very own, and he has
+only me. Oh, papa, think of yourself and my mother." And she sobbed at
+his knees.
+
+He must have thought of Harry's mother, not hers, for this exclamation
+only hardened him.
+
+Then Theodora rose, and gave me her little hand.--"It can hold firm, you
+will find. You have my promise. But whether or no, it would have been
+all the same. No love is worth having that could not, with or without a
+promise, keep true till death. You may trust me. Now, goodbye. Good-bye,
+my Max."
+
+With that one clasp of the hand, that one look into her fond, faithful
+eyes, we parted. I have never seen her since.
+
+*****
+
+This statement, which is as accurate as I can make it, except in the
+case of those voluntary omissions which I believe you yourself would
+have desired, I here seal up, to be delivered to you with those other
+letters in case I should die while you are still Theodora Johnston.
+
+I have also made my will, leaving you all my effects, and appointing you
+my sole executrix; putting you, in short, in exactly the same position
+as if you had been my wife. This is best, in order that by no chance
+should the secret ooze out through any guesses of any person not
+connected with your family; also because I think it is what you would
+wish yourself. You said truly, I have only you.
+
+Another word, which I do not name in my ordinary letters, lest I might
+grieve you by what may prove to be only a fancy of mine.
+
+Sometimes, in the hard work of this my life here, I begin to feel that I
+am no longer a young man, and that the reaction after the great strain,
+mental and bodily, of the last few months, has left me not so strong as
+I used to be. Not that I think I am about to die, far from it. I have
+a good constitution, which has worn well yet, and may wear on for some
+time, though not for ever, and I am nearly fifteen years older than you.
+
+It is very possible that before any change can come, I may leave you,
+never a wife, and yet a widow. Possible, among the numerous fatalities
+of life, that we may never be married--never even see one another again.
+
+Sometimes, when I see two young people married and happy, taking it all
+as a matter of course, scarcely even recognising it as happiness---just
+like Mr. and Mrs. Treheme, who hunted me out lately, and insisted on my
+visiting them--I think of you and me, and it seems very bitter, and I
+look on the future with less faith than fear. It might not be so if
+I could see you now and then--but oftentimes this absence feels like
+death.
+
+Theodora, if I should die before we are married, without any chance of
+writing down my last words, take them here.
+
+No, they will not come. I can but crush my lips upon this paper--only
+thy name, not thee, and call thee "my love, my love!" Remember, I loved
+thee--all my soul was full of the love of thee. It made life happy,
+earth beautiful, and Heaven nearer. It was with me day and night, in
+work or rest--as much a part of me as the hand I write with, or the
+breath I draw. I never thought of myself, but of "us." I never prayed
+but I prayed for two. Love, my love, so many miles away--O my God, why
+not grant me a little happiness before I die!
+
+Yet, as once I wrote before, and as she says always in all things, _Thy
+will be done._
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. HER STORY.
+
+
+_Friday night._
+
+|My Dear Max,
+
+You have had your Dominical letter, as you call it, so regularly, that
+you must know all our doings at Rockmount almost as well as ourselves.
+If I write foolishly, and tell you all sorts of trivial things, perhaps
+some of them twice over, it is just because there is nothing else
+to tell. But, trivial or not, I have a feeling that you like to hear
+it--you care for everything that concerns me.
+
+So, first, in obedience to orders, I am quite well, even though my
+hand-writing is "not so pretty as it used to be." Do not fancy the hand
+shakes, or is nervous or uncertain. Not a bit of it. I am never nervous,
+nor weak either--now. Sometimes, perhaps, being only a woman after all,
+I feel things a little more keenly than I ought to feel; and then, not
+being good at concealment, at least not with you, this fact peeps out
+in my letters. For the home-life has its cares, and I feel very
+weary sometimes--and then, I have not you to rest upon--visibly, that
+is--though in my heart I do always. But I am quite well, Max, and quite
+content. Do not doubt it. He who has led us through this furnace of
+affliction, will lead us safely to the end.
+
+You will be glad to hear that papa is every day less and less cold to
+me--poor papa! Last Sunday, he even walked home from church with me,
+talking about general subjects, like his old self, almost. Penelope
+has been always good and kind.
+
+You ask if they ever name you? No.
+
+Life at Rockmount moves slowly, even in the midst of marriage
+preparations. Penelope is getting a large store of wedding presents.
+Mrs. Granton brought a beautiful one last night from her son Colin.
+
+I was glad you had that long friendly letter from Colin Granton--glad
+also that, his mother having let out the secret about you and me, he
+was generous enough to tell you himself that other secret, which I never
+told. Well, your guess was right; it was so. But I could not help it;
+I did not know it.--For me--how could any girl, feeling as I then
+did towards you, feel anything towards any other man but the merest
+kindliness?--That is all: we will never say another word about it;
+except that I wish you always to be specially kind to Colin, and to do
+him good whenever you can--he was very good to me.
+
+Life at Rockmount, as I said, is dull. I rise sometimes, go through the
+day, and go to bed at night, wondering what I have been doing during all
+these hours. And I do not always sleep soundly, though so tired. Perhaps
+it is partly the idea of Penelope's going away so soon; far away, across
+the sea, with no one to love her and take care of her, save Francis.
+
+Understand, this is not with any pitying of my sister for what is a
+natural and even a happy lot, which no woman need complain of; but
+simply because Francis is Francis--accustomed to think only of himself,
+and for himself. It may be different when he is married.
+
+He was staying with us here a week; during which I noticed him more
+closely than in his former fly-away visits. When one lives in the house
+with a person--a dull house too, like ours, how wonderfully odds and
+ends of character "crop out," as the geologists say. Do you remember the
+weeks when you were almost continually in our house? Francis had what
+we used then to call 'the Doctor's room.' He was pleasant and agreeable
+enough, when it pleased him to be-so; but, for all that, I used to say
+to myself, twenty times a-day, "My dear Max!"
+
+This merely implies that by a happy dispensation of Providence, I,
+Theodora Johnston, have not the least desire to appropriate my sister's
+husband, or, indeed, either of my sisters' husbands.
+
+By-the-by--in a letter from Augustus to papa, which reached me through
+Penelope, he names his visit to you; I am glad--glad he should show you
+such honour and affection, and that they all should see it. Do not give
+up the Trehernes; go there sometimes--for my sake. There is no reason
+why you should not. Papa knows it; he also knows I write to you--but
+he never says a word, one way or other. We must wait--wait and hope--or
+rather, trust. As you say, the difference between young and older people
+is, the one hopes, the other trusts.
+
+I seem, from your description, to have a clear idea of the gaol, and
+the long, barren breezy flat amidst which it lies, with the sea in the
+distance. I often sit and think of the view outside, and of the
+dreary inside, where you spend so many hours; the corridors, the
+exercise-yards, and the cells; also your own two rooms, which you say
+are almost as silent and solitary, except when you come in and find my
+letter waiting you. I wish it was me!--pardon grammar--but I wish it was
+me--this living me. Would you be glad to see me? Ah, I know!
+
+Look! I am not going to write about ourselves--it is not good for us.
+We know it all; we know our hearts are nigh breaking sometimes--mine is.
+But it shall not. We will live and wait.
+
+What was I telling you about?--oh, Francis. Well, Francis spent a whole
+week at Rockmount, by papa's special desire, that they might discuss
+business arrangements, and that he might see a little more of his
+intended son-in-law than he has done of late years. Business was soon
+dispatched--papa gives none of us any money during his life-time; what
+will come to us afterwards we have never thought of inquiring. Francis
+did, though--which somewhat hurt Penelope--but he accounted for it
+by his being so "poor." A relative phrase; why, I should think 500L.
+a-year, certain, a mine of riches--and all to be spent upon himself.
+But as he says, a single man has so many inevitable expenses, especially
+when he lives in society, and is the nephew of Sir William Treherne, of
+Treheme Court. All "circumstances'!" Poor Francis; whatever goes
+wrong he is sure to put between himself and blame the shield of
+"circumstances." Now, if I were a man, I would fight the world
+bare-fronted, any how. One would but be killed at last.
+
+Is it wrong of me to write to you so freely about Francis? I hope not.
+All mine are yours, and yours mine; you know their faults and virtues as
+well as I do, and will judge them equally, as we ought to judge those,
+who, whatever they are, are permanently our own. I have tried hard, this
+time, to make a real brother of Francis Charteris; and he is, for many
+things, exceedingly likeable--nay loveable. I see, sometimes, clearly
+enough, the strange charm which has made Penelope so fond of him all
+these years. Whether, besides loving him, she can trust him--can look
+on his face and feel that he would not deceive her for the world--can
+believe every line he writes, and every word he utters, and know that
+whatever he does, he will do simply from his sense of 'right, no meaner
+motive interfering--oh, Max, I would give much to be certain Penelope
+had this sort of love for her future husband!
+
+Well, they have chosen their lot, and must make the best of one another.
+Everybody must, you know.
+
+Heigho! what a homily I am giving you, instead of this week's history,
+as usual--from Saturday to Saturday.
+
+The first few days there really was nothing to tell. Francis and
+Penelope took walks together, paid visits, or sat in the parlour
+talking--not banishing me, however, as they used to do when they were
+young. On Wednesday, Francis went up to London for the day, and brought
+back that important article, the wedding-ring. He tried it on at
+supper-time, with a diamond keeper, which he said would be just the
+thing for "the governor's lady."
+
+"Say wife at once," grumbled I, and complained of the modern fashion of
+slurring over that word, the dearest and sacredest in the language.
+
+"Wife, then," whispered Francis, holding the ring on my sister's finger,
+and kissing it.
+
+Tears started to Penelope's eyes; in her agitation she looked almost
+like a girl again, I thought; so infinitely happy. But Francis, never
+happy, muttered bitterly some regret for the past, some wish that they
+had been married years ago. Why were they not? It was partly his fault,
+I am sure.
+
+The day after this he left, not to return till he comes to take her away
+finally. In the meanwhile, he will have enough to do, paying his adieux
+to his grand friends, and his bills to his tradespeople, prior to
+closing his bachelor establishment for ever and aye--how glad he must
+be.
+
+He seemed glad, as if with a sense of relief that all was settled, and
+no room left for hesitation. It costs Francis such a world of trouble
+to make up his own mind--which trouble Penelope will save him for the
+future. He took leave of her with great tenderness, calling her "his
+good, faithful girl," and vowing--which one would think was quite
+unnecessary under the circumstances--to be faithful to her all the days
+of his life.
+
+That night, when she came into my room, Penelope sat a long time on my
+bed talking; chiefly of old days, when she and Francis were boy and girl
+together--how handsome he was, and how clever--till she seemed almost
+to forget the long interval between. Well, they are both of an age--time
+runs equally with each; she is at least no more altered than he.
+
+Here, I ought to tell you something, referring to that which, as we
+agreed, we are best not speaking of, even between ourselves. It is all
+over and done--cover it over, and let it heal.
+
+My dear Max, Penelope confessed a thing, for which I am very sorry, but
+it cannot be helped now.
+
+I told you they never name you here. Not usually, but she did that
+night. Just as she was leaving me, she exclaimed, suddenly:--
+
+"Dora, I have broken my promise--Francis knows about Doctor Urquhart."
+
+"What!" I cried.
+
+"Don't be terrified--not the whole. Merely that he wanted to marry you,
+but that papa found out he had done something wrong in his youth, and so
+forbade you to think of him."
+
+I asked her, was she sure no more had escaped her? Not that I feared
+much; Penelope is literally accurate, and scrupulously straight forward
+in all her words and ways. But still, Francis being a little less so
+than she, might have questioned her.
+
+"So he did, and I refused point-blank to tell him, saying it would be a
+breach of trust. He was very angry; jealous, I think," and she smiled,
+"till I informed him that it was not my own secret--all my own secrets I
+had invariably told him, as he me. At which, he said, 'Yes, of course,'
+and the matter ended. Are you annoyed? Do you doubt Francis's' honour?"
+
+No. For all that, I have felt anxious, and I cannot choose but tell Max;
+partly because he has a right to all my anxieties, and, also, that
+he may guard against any possibility of harm. None is likely to come
+though; we will not be afraid.
+
+Augustus, in his letter, says how highly he hears you spoken of in
+Liverpool already; how your duties at the gaol are the least of your
+work, and that whatever you do, or wherever you go, you leave a good
+influence behind you. These were his very words. I was proud, though I
+knew it all before.
+
+He says you are looking thin, as if you were overworked. Max, my Max,
+take care. Give all due energy to the work you have to do, but remember
+me likewise; remember what is mine. I think, perhaps, you take too
+long walks between the town and the gaol, and that maybe, the prisoners
+themselves get far better and more regular meals than the doctor does.
+See to this, if you please, Doctor Urquhart.
+
+Tell me more about those poor prisoners, in whom you take so strong
+an interest--your spiritual as well as medical hospital. And give me a
+clearer notion of your doings in the town, your practice and schemes,
+your gratis patients, dispensaries, and so on. Also, Augustus said you
+were employed in drawing up reports and statistics about reformatories,
+and on the general question now so much discussed,--What is to be done
+with our criminal classes? How busy you must be! Cannot I help you? Send
+me your MSS. to copy. Give me some work to do.
+
+Max, do you remember our talk by the pond-side, when the sun was
+setting, and the hills looked so still, and soft, and blue? I was there
+the other day and thought it all over. Yes, I could have been happy,
+even in the solitary life we both then looked forward to, but it is
+better to belong to you as I do now.
+
+God bless you and keep you safe!
+
+Yours,
+
+Theodora.
+
+P.S. I leave a blank page to fill up after
+
+Penelope and I come home. We are going into town together early
+to-morrow, to enquire about the character of the lady's maid that is to
+be taken abroad, but we shall be back long before post-time. However, I
+have written all this overnight to make sure.
+
+_Sunday._
+
+P.S. You will have missed your Sunday letter to-day, which vexes me
+sore. But it is the first time you have ever looked for a letter and
+"wanted" it, and I trust it will be the last. Ah! now I understand
+a little of what Penelope must have felt, looking day after day for
+Francis's letters, which never came; how every morning before post-time
+she would go about the house as blithe as a lark, and afterwards turn
+cross and disagreeable, and her face would settle into the sharp,
+hard-set expression, which made her look so old even then. Poor
+Penelope! if she could have trusted him the while, it might have been
+otherwise--men's ways and lives are so different from women's--but it is
+this love without perfect trust which has been the sting of Penelope's
+existence.
+
+I try to remember this when she makes me feel angry with her, as she did
+on Saturday. It was through her fault you missed your Sunday letter.
+
+You know I always post them myself, in the town; our village post-office
+would soon set all the neighbours chattering about you and me. And
+besides, it is pleasant to walk through the quiet lanes we both know
+well with Max's letter in my hand, and think that it will be in his hand
+to-morrow. For this I generally choose the 'time when papa rests
+before dinner, with one or other of us reading to him, and Penelope has
+hitherto, without saying anything, always taken my place and set me free
+on a Saturday. A kindness I felt more than I expressed, many a time.
+But to-day she was unkind; shut herself up in her room the instant
+we returned from town; then papa called me and detained me till after
+post-time.
+
+So you lost your letter; a small thing, you will say, and this was a
+foolish girl to vex herself so much about it. Especially as she can
+make it longer and more interesting by details of our adventures in town
+yesterday.
+
+It was not altogether a pleasant day, for something happened about the
+servant which I am sure annoyed Penelope; nay, she being over-tired and
+over-exerted already, this new vexation, whatever it was, made her quite
+ill for the time, though she would not allow it, and when I ventured to
+question, bade me sharply, "let her alone." You know Penelope's ways,
+and may have seen them reflected in me sometimes. I am afraid, Max,
+that, however good we may be (of course!) we are not exactly what would
+be termed "an amiable family."
+
+We were amiable when we started, however; my sister and I went up to
+town quite merrily. I am merry sometimes, in spite of all things. You
+see, to have everyone that belongs to one happy and prosperous, is a
+great element in one's personal content. Other people's troubles weigh
+heavily, because we never know exactly how they will bear them, and
+because, at best, we can only sit by and watch them suffer, so little
+help being possible after all. But our own troubles we can always bear.
+
+You will understand all I mean by "our own." I am often very, sad for
+you, Max; but never afraid for you, never in doubt about you, not for an
+instant. There is no sting even in my saddest' thought concerning you. I
+trust you, I feel certain that whatever you do, you will do right; that
+all you have to endure will be borne nobly and bravely. Thus, I may
+grieve over your griefs, but never over you. My love of you, like my
+faith in you, is above all grieving. Forgive this long digression;
+to-day is Sunday, the best day in all the week, and my day for thinking
+most of you.
+
+To return. Penelope and I were both merry, as we started by the very
+earliest train, in the soft May morning; we had so much business to
+get through. _You_ can't understand it, of course, so I omit it, only
+confiding to you our last crowning achievement--the dress. It is white
+_moire antique_; Doctor Urquhart has not the slightest idea what that
+is, but no matter; and it has lace flounces, half a yard deep, and it is
+altogether a most splendid affair. But the governor's lady--I beg my own
+pardon--the governor's wife, must be magnificent, you know.
+
+It was the mantua-maker, a great West-end personage employed by the
+grand family to whom, by Francis's advice, Lydia Cartwright was sent,
+some years ago, (by-the-by, I met Mrs. Cartwright to-day, who asked
+after you, and sent her duty, and wished you would know that she
+had heard from Lydia),--this mantua-maker it was who recommended the
+lady's-maid, Sarah Enfield, who had once been a workwoman of her own. We
+saw the person, who seemed a decent young woman, but delicate-looking;
+said her health was injured with the long hours of millinery-work, and
+that she should have died, she thought, if a friend of hers, a kind
+young woman, had not taken her in and helped her. She was lodging with
+this friend now.
+
+On the whole, Sarah Enfield sufficiently pleased us to make my sister
+decide on engaging her, if only Francis could see her first. We sent
+a message to his lodgings, and were considerably surprised to have
+the answer that he was not at home, and had not been for three weeks;
+indeed, he hardly ever was at home. After some annoyance, Penelope
+resolved to make her decision without him.
+
+Hardly ever at home! What a lively life Francis must lead: I wonder he
+does not grow weary of it. Once, he half owned he was, but added, "that
+he must float with the stream--it was too late now--he could not stop
+himself." Penelope will, though.
+
+As we drove through the Park, to the address Sarah Enfield had given
+us--somewhere about Kensington--Penelope wishing to see the girl once
+again and engage her--my sister observed, in answer to my remark, that
+Francis must have many invitations.
+
+"Of course he has. It shows how much he is liked and respected. It will
+be the same abroad. We shall gather round us the very best society in
+the island. Still, he will find it a great change from London."
+
+I wonder, is she at all afraid of it, or suspects that he once was? that
+he shrank from being thrown altogether upon his wife's society--like
+the Frenchman who declined marrying a lady he had long visited because
+"where should he spend his evenings?" O, me! what a heart-breaking thing
+to feel that one's husband needed somewhere to spend his evenings.
+
+We drove past Holland Park--what a bonnie place it is (as you would
+say); how full the trees were of green leaves and birds. I don't
+know where we went next--I hardly know anything of London, thank
+goodness!--but it was a pretty, quiet neighbourhood, where we had the
+greatest difficulty in finding the house we wanted, and at last had
+recourse to the post-office.
+
+The post-mistress--who was rather grim--"knew the place, that is, the
+name of the party as lived there--which was all she cared to know. She
+called herself Mrs. Chaytor, or Chater, or something like it," which we
+decided must be Sarah Enfield's charitable friend, and accordingly drove
+thither.
+
+It was a small house, a mere cottage, set in a pleasant little garden,
+through the palings of which I saw, walking about, a young woman with a
+child in her arms. She had on a straw hat with a deep lace fall that hid
+her face, but her figure was very graceful, and she was extremely well
+dressed. Nevertheless, she looked not exactly "the lady." Also, hearing
+the gate bell, she called out, "Arriet," in no lady's voice.
+
+Penelope glanced at her, and then sharply at me.
+
+"I wonder--" she began; but stopped--told me to remain in the carriage
+while she went in, and she would fetch me if she wanted me.
+
+But she did not. Indeed, she hardly stayed two minutes. I saw the
+young woman run hastily in-doors, leaving her child--such a pretty
+boy! screaming after his "mammy,"--and Penelope came back, her face the
+colour of scarlet.
+
+"What? Is it a mistake?" I asked.
+
+"No--yes," and she gave the order to drive on.
+
+Again I enquired if anything were the matter, and was answered,
+"Nothing--nothing that I could understand." After which she sat with her
+veil down, cogitating; till, all of a sudden, she sprang up as if some
+one had given her a stab at her heart. I was quite terrified, but she
+again told me it was nothing, and bade me "let her alone." Which as you
+know, is the only thing one can do with my sister Penelope.
+
+But at the railway-station we met some people we knew, and she was
+forced to talk;--so that by the time we reached Rockmount she seemed to
+have got over her annoyance, whatever it was, concerning Sarah Enfield,
+and was herself again. That is, herself in one of those moods when,
+whether her ailment be mental or physical, the sole chance of its
+passing away is, as she says, "to leave her alone."
+
+I do not say this is not trying--doubly so now, when, just as she is
+leaving, I seem to understand my sister better and love her more than
+ever I did in my life. But I have learned at last not to break my heart
+over the peculiarities of those I care for; but try to bear with them as
+they must with mine, of which I have no lack, goodness knows!
+
+I saw a letter to Francis in the post-bag this morning, so I hope she
+has relieved her mind by giving him the explanation which she refused
+to me. It must have been some deception practised on her by this Sarah
+Enfield, and Penelope never forgives the smallest deceit.
+
+She was either too much tired or too much annoyed to appear again
+yesterday, so papa and I spent the afternoon and evening alone. But she
+went to church with us, as usual, to-day--looking pale and tired--the
+ill mood--"the little black dog on her shoulder," as we used to call it,
+not having quite vanished.
+
+Also, I noticed an absent expression in her eyes, and her voice in the
+responses was less regular than usual. Perhaps she was thinking this
+would almost be her last Sunday of sitting in the old pew, and looking
+up to papa's white hair, and her heart being fuller, her lips were more
+silent than usual.
+
+You will not mind my writing so much about my sister Penelope? You like
+me to talk to you of what is about me, and uppermost in my thoughts,
+which is herself at present. She has been very good to me, and Max loves
+everyone whom I love, and everyone who loves me.
+
+I shall have your letter to-morrow morning. Good night!
+
+Theodora.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. HIS STORY.
+
+
+|My dear Theodora:--
+
+This is a line extra, written on receipt of yours, which was most
+welcome. I feared something had gone wrong with my little methodical
+girl.
+
+Do not keep strictly to your Dominical letter just now--write any day
+that you can. Tell me everything that is happening to you--you must, and
+ought. Nothing must occur to you or yours that I do not know. You are
+mine.
+
+Your last letter I do not answer in detail till the next shall come: not
+exactly from press of business; I would make time if I had it not; but
+from various other reasons, which you shall have by-and-by.
+
+Give me, if you remember it, the address of the person with whom Sarah
+Enfield is lodging. I suspect she is a woman of whom, by the desire
+of her nearest relative, I have been in search of for some time. But,
+should you have forgotten, do not trouble your sister about this. I will
+find out all I wish to learn some other way. Never apologise for, or
+hesitate at, writing to me about your family--all that is yours is mine.
+Keep your heart up about your sister Penelope: she is a good woman, and
+all that befals her will be for her good. Love her, and be patient with
+her continually. All your love for her and the rest takes nothing from
+what is mine, but adds thereto.
+
+Let me hear soon what is passing at Rockmount. I cannot come to you, and
+help you--would I could! My love! my love!
+
+Max Urquhart.
+
+There is little or nothing to say of myself this week, and what there
+was you heard yesterday.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. HER STORY.
+
+
+|My Dear Max:--
+
+I write this in the middle of the night; there has been no chance for me
+during the day; nor, indeed, at all--until now. To-night, for the
+first time, Penelope has fallen asleep. I have taken the opportunity of
+stealing into the next room, to comfort--and you.
+
+My dear Max! Oh, if you knew! oh, if I could but come to you for one
+minute's rest, one minute's love!--There--I will not cry any more. It
+is much to be able to write to you; and blessed, infinitely blessed to
+know you are--what you are.
+
+Max, I have been weak, wicked of late; afraid of absence, which tries me
+sore, because I am not strong, and cannot stand up by myself as I used
+to do; afraid of death, which might tear you from me, or me from you,
+leaving the other to go mourning upon earth for ever. Now I feel that
+absence is nothing--death itself nothing, compared to one loss--that
+which has befallen my sister, Penelope.
+
+You may have heard of it, even in these few days--ill news spreads fast.
+Tell me what you hear; for we wish to save my sister as much as we can.
+To our friends generally, I have merely written that, "from unforeseen
+differences," the marriage is broken off. Mr. Charteris may give what
+reasons he likes at Treherne Court. We will not try to injure him with
+his uncle.
+
+I have just crept in to look at Penelope; she is asleep still, and
+has never stirred. She looks so old--like a woman of fifty, almost. No
+wonder. Think--ten years--all her youth to be crushed out at once. I
+wonder, will it kill her? It would me.
+
+I wanted to ask you--do you think, medically, there is any present
+danger in her state? She lies quiet enough; taking little notice of
+me or anybody--with her eyes shut during the day-time, and open,
+wide-staring, all night long. What ought I to do with her? There is only
+me, you know. If you fear anything, send me a telegram at once. Do not
+wait to write.
+
+But, that you may the better judge her state, I ought just to give you
+full particulars, beginning where my last letter ended.
+
+That "little black dog on her shoulder," which I spoke of so
+lightly!--God forgive me! also for leaving her the whole of that Sunday
+afternoon with her door locked, and the room as still as death; yet
+never once knocking to ask, "Penelope, how are you?" On Sunday night,
+the curate came to supper, and papa sent me to summon her; she came
+downstairs, took her place at table, and conversed. I did not notice
+her much, except that she moved about in a stupid, stunned-like fashion,
+which caused papa to remark more than once, "Penelope, I think you are
+half asleep." She never answered.
+
+Another night, and the half of another day, she must have spent in the
+same manner. And I let her do it without enquiry! Shall I ever forgive
+myself?
+
+In the afternoon of Monday, I was sitting at work, busy finishing
+her embroidered marriage handkerchief, alone in the sunshiny parlour,
+thinking of my letter, which you would have received at last; also
+thinking it was rather wicked of my happy sister to sulk for two whole
+days, because of a small disappointment about a servant--if such
+it were. I had almost determined to shake her out of her ridiculous
+reserve, by asking boldly what was the matter, and giving her a thorough
+scolding if I dared; when the door opened, and in walked Francis
+Charteris.
+
+Heartily glad to see him, in the hope his coming might set Penelope
+right again, I jumped up and shook hands, cordially. Nor till afterwards
+did I remember how much this seemed to surprise and relieve him.
+
+"Oh, then, all is right!" said he. "I feared, from Penelope's letter,
+that she wa a little annoyed with me. Nothing new that, you know."
+
+"Something did annoy her, I suspect," and I was about to blurt out as
+much as I knew or guessed of the foolish mystery about Sarah Enfield,
+but some instinct stopped me. "You and Penelope had better settle your
+own affairs," said I, laughing. "I'll go and fetch her."
+
+"Thank you." He threw himself down on the velvet arm-chair--his
+favourite lounge in our house for the last ten years. His handsome
+profile turned up against the light, his fingers lazily tapping the
+arm of the chair, a trick he had from his boyhood,--this is my last
+impression of Francis--as _our_ Francis Charteris.
+
+I had to call outside Penelope's door three times, "Francis is here."
+
+"Francis is waiting."
+
+"Francis wants to speak to you," before she answered or appeared; and
+then, without taking the slightest notice of me, she walked slowly
+downstairs, holding by the wall as she went.
+
+So, I thought, it is Francis who has vexed her after all, and determined
+to leave them to fight it out and make it up again--this, which would be
+the last of their many lovers' quarrels. Ah! it was.
+
+Half an hour afterwards, papa sent for me to the study, and there I saw
+Francis Charteris standing, exactly where you once stood--you see, I am
+not afraid of remembering 'it myself, or of reminding you. No, my Max!
+Our griefs are nothing, nothing!
+
+Penelope also was present, standing by my father, who said, looking
+round at us with a troubled, bewildered air:--
+
+"Dora, what is all this? Your sister comes here and tells me she will
+not marry Francis. Francis rushes in after her, and says, I hardly can
+make out what. Children, why do you vex me so? Why cannot you leave an
+old man in peace?"
+
+Penelope answered:--"Father, you shall be left in peace, if you will
+only confirm what I have said to that--that gentleman, and send him out
+of my sight."
+
+Francis laughed:--"To be called back again presently. You know you will
+do it, as soon as you have come to your right senses, Penelope. You will
+never disgrace us in the eyes of the world--set everybody gossipping
+about our affairs, for such a trifle."
+
+My sister made him no answer. There was less even of anger than
+contempt--utter, measureless contempt-!--in the way she just lifted
+up her eyes and looked at him--looked him over from head to heel, and
+turned again to her father.
+
+"Papa, make him understand--I cannot--that I wish all this ended; I wish
+never to see his face again."
+
+"Why?" said papa, in great perplexity.
+
+"He knows why."
+
+Papa and I both turned to Francis, whose careless manner changed a
+little: he grew red and uncomfortable. "She may tell if she chooses;
+I lay no embargo of silence upon her. I have made all the explanations
+possible, and if she will not receive them, I cannot help it. The thing
+is done, and cannot be undone. I have begged her pardon, and made all
+sorts of promises for the future--no man can do more."
+
+He said this sullenly, and yet as if he wished to make friends with her,
+but Penelope seemed scarcely even to hear.
+
+"Papa," she repeated, still in the same stony voice, "I wish you would
+end this scene; it is killing me. Tell him, will you, that I have burnt
+all his letters, every one. Insist on his returning mine. His presents
+are all tied up in a parcel in my room, except this; will you give it
+back to him?"
+
+She took off her ring, a small common turquoise which Francis had
+given her when he was young and poor, and laid it on the table. Francis
+snatched it up, handled it a minute, and then threw it violently into
+the fire.
+
+"Bear witness, Mr. Johnston, and you too, Dora, that it is Penelope, not
+I, who breaks our engagement. I would have fulfilled it honourably--I
+would have married her."
+
+"Would you?" cried Penelope, with flashing eyes, "no--not that last
+degradation--no!"
+
+"I would have married her," Francis continued, "and made her a good
+husband too. Her reason for refusing me is puerile--perfectly puerile.
+No woman of sense, who knows anything of the world, would urge it for a
+moment. Nor man either, unless he was your favourite--who I believe is
+at the bottom of this, who, for all you know, may be doing exactly as I
+have done--Doctor Urquhart."
+
+Papa started and said hastily, "Confine yourself to the subject on hand,
+Francis. Of what is this that my daughter accuses you? Tell me, and let
+me judge."
+
+Francis hesitated, and then said, "Send away these girls, and you shall
+hear."
+
+Suddenly, it flashed upon me _what_ it was. How the intuition came,
+how little things, before unnoticed, seemed to rise and put themselves
+together, including Saturday's story--and the shudder that ran through
+Penelope from head to foot, when on Sunday morning old Mrs. Cartwright
+curtsied to her at the churchdoor--all this I cannot account for, but
+I seemed to know as well as if I had been told everything. I need not
+explain, for evidently you know it also, and it is so dreadful, so
+unspeakably dreadful.
+
+Oh, Max, for the first minute or so, I felt as if the whole world
+were crumbling from under my feet--as I could trust nobody, believe
+in nobody--until I remembered you. My dear Max, my own dear Max! Ah,
+wretched Penelope!
+
+I took her hand as she stood, but she twisted it out of mine again. I
+listened mechanically to Francis, as he again began rapidly and eagerly
+to exculpate himself to my father.
+
+"She may tell you all, if she likes. I have done no worse than hundreds
+do in my position, and under my unfortunate circumstances, and the world
+forgives them, and women too. How could I help it? I was too poor to
+marry. And before I married I meant to do everyone justice--I meant--"
+
+Penelope covered her ears. Her face was so ghastly,-that papa himself
+said, "I think Francis, explanations are idle. You had better defer them
+and go."
+
+"I will take you at your word," he replied haughtily. "If you or she
+think better of it, or of me, I shall be at any time ready to fulfil my
+engagement--honourably, as a gentleman should. Good-bye; will you not
+shake hands with me, Penelope?"
+
+He walked up to her, trying apparently to carry things off with a high
+air, but he was not strong enough, or hardened enough. At sight of my
+sister sitting there, for she had sank down at last, with a face like a
+corpse, only it had not the peace of the dead, Francis trembled. .
+
+"Forgive me, if I have done you any harm. It was all the result of
+circumstances. Perhaps, if you had been a little less rigid--had scolded
+me less and studied me more.--But you could not help your nature, nor I
+mine. Good-bye, Penelope."
+
+She sat, impassive; even when with a sort of involuntary tenderness,
+he seized and kissed her hand; but the instant he was gone--fairly
+gone--with the door shut upon him and his horse clattering down
+the road--I heard it plainly--Penelope started up with a cry of
+"Francis--Francis!"--O the anguish of it!--I can hear it now.
+
+But it was not this Francis she called after--I was sure of that--I saw
+it in her eyes. It was the Francis of ten years ago--the Francis she had
+loved--now as utterly dead and buried, as if she had seen the stone laid
+over him, and his body left to sleep in the grave.
+
+Dead and buried--dead and buried. Do you know, I sometimes wish it were
+so; that she had been left, peacefully widowed--knowing his soul was
+safe with God. I thought, when papa and I--papa who that night kissed
+me, for the first time since one night you know--sat by Penelope's bed,
+watching her--"If Francis had only died!"
+
+After she was quiet, and I had persuaded papa to go to rest, he sent for
+me and desired me to read a psalm, as I used to do when he was ill--you
+remember? When it was ended, he asked me, had I any idea what Francis
+had done that Penelope could not pardon?
+
+I told him, difficult and painful as it was to do it, all I
+suspected--indeed, felt sure of. For was it not the truth?--the only
+answer I could give. For the same reason I write of these terrible
+things to you without any false delicacy--they are the truth, and they
+must be told.
+
+Papa lay for some time, thinking deeply. At last he said:--
+
+"My dear, you are no longer a child, and I may speak to you plainly. I
+am an old man, and your mother is dead. I wish she were with us now, she
+might help us: for she was a good woman, Dora. Do you think--take time
+to consider the question--that your sister is acting right?"
+
+I said, "quite right."
+
+"Yet, I thought you held that doctrine, 'the greater the sinner the
+greater the saint;' and believed every crime a man can commit may be
+repented, atoned, and pardoned?"
+
+"Yes, father; but Francis has never either repented or atoned."
+
+No; and therefore I feel certain my sister is right. Ay, even putting
+aside the other fact, that the discovery of his long years of deception
+must have so withered up her love,--scorched it at the root, as with a
+stroke of lightning--that even if she pitied him, she must also despise.
+Fancy, despising one's _husband!_ Besides, she is not the only one
+wronged. Sometimes, even sitting by my sister's bedside, I see the
+vision of that pretty young creature--she was so pretty and innocent
+when she first came to live at Rockmount,--with her boy in her arms; and
+my heart feels like to burst with indignation and shame, and a kind of
+shuddering horror at the wickedness of the world--yet with a strange
+feeling of unutterable pity lying at the depth of all.
+
+Max, tell me what you think--you who are so much the wiser of us two;
+but I think that even if she wished it still, my sister _ought not_ to
+marry Francis Charteris.
+
+Ah me! papa said truly I was no longer a child. I feel hardly even a
+girl, but quite an old woman--familiar with all sorts of sad and wicked
+things, as if the freshness and innocence had gone out of life, and were
+nowhere to be found. Except when I turn to-you, and lean my poor sick
+heart against you--as I do now. Max, comfort me!
+
+You will, I know, write immediately you receive this. If you could have
+come---but that is impossible.
+
+Augustus you will probably see, if you have not done so already--for he
+already looks upon you as the friend of the family, though in no other
+light as yet; which is best. Papa wrote to Sir William, I believe; he
+said he considered some explanation a duty, on his daughter's account;
+further than this, he wishes the matter kept quiet. Not to disgrace
+Francis, I thought; but papa told me one-half the world would hardly
+consider it any disgrace at all. Can this be so? Is it indeed such a
+wicked, wicked world?
+
+--Here my letter was stopped by hearing a sort of cry in Penelope's
+room. I ran in, and found her sitting up in her bed, her eyes starting,
+and every limb convulsed. Seeing me, she cried out:--
+
+"Bring a light;--I was dreaming. But it's not true. Where is Francis?"
+
+I made no reply, and she slowly sank down in her bed again. Recollection
+had come.
+
+"I should not have gone to sleep. Why did you let me? Or why cannot you
+put me to sleep for ever and ever, and ever and ever," repeating the
+word many times. "Dora!" and my sister fixed her piteous eyes on my
+face, "I should be so glad to die. Why won't you kill me?"
+
+I burst into tears.
+
+Max, you will understand the total helplessness one feels in the
+presence of an irremediable grief like this: how consolation seems
+cruel, and reasoning vain. "Miserable comforters are ye all," said
+Job to his three friends; and a miserable comforter I felt to this
+my sister, whom it had pleased the Almighty to smite so sore, until I
+remembered that He who smites can heal.
+
+I lay down outside the bed, put my arm over her, and remained thus for
+a long time, not saying a single word--that is, not with my lips.
+And since our weakness is often our best strength, and when we wholly
+relinquish a thing, it is given back to us many a time in double
+measure, so, possibly, those helpless tears of mine did Penelope more
+good than the wisest of words.
+
+She lay watching me--saying more than once:--
+
+"I did not know you cared so much for me, Dora."
+
+It then came into my mind, that as wrecked people cling to the smallest
+spar, if, instead of her conviction that in losing Francis she had lost
+her all, I could by any means make Penelope feel that there were others
+to cling to, others who loved her dearly, and whom she ought to try and
+live for still--it might save her. So, acting on the impulse, I told my
+sister how good I thought her, and how wicked I myself had been for
+not long since discovering her goodness. How, when at last I learned
+to appreciate her, and to understand what a sorely-tried life hers had
+been, there came not only respect, but love. Thorough sisterly love;
+such as people do not necessarily feel even for their own flesh
+and blood, but never, I doubt, except to them. (Save, that in some
+inexplicable way, fondly reflevted, I have something of the same sort of
+love for your brother Dallas.)
+
+Afterwards, she lying still and listening, I tried to make my sister
+understand what I had myself felt when she came to my bedside and
+comforted me that morning, months ago, when I was so wretched; how no
+wretchedness of loss can be altogether unendurable, so long as it does
+not strike at the household peace, but leaves the sufferer a little love
+to rest upon at home.
+
+And at length I persuaded her to promise that, since it made both papa
+and me so very miserable to see her thus,--and papa was an old man too.
+we must not have him with us many years--she would, for our sakes,
+try to rouse herself, and see if life were not tolerable for a little
+longer.
+
+"Yes," she answered, closing her heavy eyes, and folding her hands in a
+pitiful kind of patience, very strange in our quick, irritable Penelope.
+"Yes--just a little longer. Still, I think I shall soon die. I believe
+it will kill me."
+
+I did not contradict her, but I called to mind your words, that,
+Penelope, being a good woman, all would happen to her for good. Also,
+it is usually not the good people who are killed by grief: while others
+take it as God's vengeance, or as the work of blind chance, they receive
+it humbly as God's chastisement, live on, and endure. I do not think my
+sister will die--whatever she may think or-desire just now. Besides, we
+have only to deal with the present, for how can we look forward a single
+day? How little we expected all this only a week ago?
+
+It seems strange that Francis could have deceived us for so long; years,
+it must have been; but we have lived so retired, and were such a simple
+family for many things. How far Penelope thinks we know--papa and I--I
+cannot guess: she is totally silent on the subject of Francis. Except
+in that one outcry, when she was still only half awake, she has never
+mentioned his name.
+
+There was one thing more I wanted to tell you, Max; you know I tell you
+everything.
+
+Just as I was leaving my sister, she, noticing I was not undressed,
+asked me if I had been sitting up all night, and reproached me for doing
+so.
+
+I said, "I was not weary; that I had been quietly occupying myself in
+the next room."
+
+"Reading?"
+
+"No"
+
+"What were you doing?" with sharp suspicion.
+
+I answered without disguise:--
+
+"I was writing to Max."
+
+"Max who?--Oh, I had forgotten his name."
+
+She turned from me, and lay with her face to the wall, then said:--
+
+"Do you believe in him?"
+
+"Yes, I do."
+
+"You had better not. You will live to repent it. Child, mark my words.
+There may be good women--one or two, perhaps--but there is not a single
+good man in the whole world."
+
+My heart rose to my lips; but deeds speak louder than words. I did not
+attempt to defend you. Besides, no wonder she should think thus.
+
+Again she said, "Dora, tell Doctor Urquhart he was innocent
+comparatively; and that I say so. He only killed Harry's body, but those
+who deceive us are the death of one's soul. Nay," and by her expression
+I felt sure it was not herself and her own wrongs my sister was thinking
+of--"there are those who destroy both body and soul."
+
+I made no answer; I only covered her up, kissed her and left her;
+knowing that in one sense I did not leave her either forsaken or alone.
+
+And now, I must leave you too, Max; being very weary in body, though my
+mind is comforted and refreshed; ay, ever since I began this letter. So
+many of your good words have come back to me while I wrote--words
+which you have let fall at odd times, long ago, even when we were mere
+acquaintances. You did not think I should remember them? I do, every
+one.
+
+This is a great blow, no doubt. The hand of Providence has been heavy
+upon us and our house, lately. But I think we shall be able to bear it.
+One always has courage to bear a sorrow which shows its naked face, free
+from suspense or concealment; stands visibly in the midst of the home,
+and has to be met and lived down patiently, by every member therein.
+
+You once said that we often live to see the reason of affliction; how
+all the events of life hang so wonderfully together, that afterwards we
+can frequently trace the chain of events, and see in humble faith
+and awe, that out of each one has been evolved the other, and that
+everything, bad and good, must necessarily have happened exactly as it
+did. Thus, I begin to see--you will not be hurt, Max?--how well it
+was, on some accounts, that we were not married, that I should still be
+living at home with my sister; and that, after all she knows, and
+she only, of what has happened to me this year, she cannot reject any
+comfort I may be able to offer her on the ground that I myself know
+nothing of sorrow.
+
+As for me personally, do not fear; I have _you_. You once feared that
+a great anguish would break my heart: but it did not. Nothing in this
+world will ever do that--while I have _you_.
+
+Max, kiss me--in thought, I mean--as friends kiss friends who are
+starting on a long and painful journey, of which they see no end, yet
+are not afraid. Nor am I. Goodbye, my Max.
+
+Yours, only and always,
+
+Theodora Johnston.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. HIS STORY.
+
+
+|My dear Theodora:--
+
+You will have received my letters regularly; nor am I much surprised
+that they have not been answered. I have heard, from time to time, in
+other ways, all particulars of your sister's illness and of you. Mrs.
+Granton says you keep up well, but I know that, could I see it now, it
+would be the same little pale face which used to come stealing to me
+from your father's bedside, last year.
+
+If I ask you to write, my love, believe it is from no doubt of you,
+or jealousy of any of your home-duties; but because I am wearying for a
+sight of your handwriting, and an assurance from yourself that you are
+not failing in health, the only thing in which I have any fear of your
+failing.
+
+To answer a passage in your last, which I have hitherto let be, there
+was so much besides to write to you about--the passage concerning
+friends parting from friends. At first I interpreted it that in your
+sadness of spirit and hopelessness of the future, you wished me to sink
+back into my old place, and be only your friend. It was then no time to
+argue the point, nor would it have made any difference in my letters,
+either way; but now let me say two words concerning it.
+
+My child, when a man loves a woman, before he tries to win her, he will
+have, if he loves unselfishly and generously, many a doubt concerning
+both her and himself. In fact, as I once read somewhere, "When a man
+truly loves a woman, he would not marry her upon any account, unless he
+was quite certain he was the best person she could possibly marry." But
+as soon as she loves him, and he knows it, and is certain that, however
+unworthy he may be, or however many faults she may possess--I never told
+you you were an angel, did I, little lady?--they have cast their lot
+together, chosen one another, as your church says, "for better, for
+worse,"--then the face of things is entirely changed. He has his
+rights, close and strong as no other human being can have with regard to
+her--she has herself given them to him--and if he has any manliness in
+him he never will let them go, but hold her fast for ever and ever.
+
+My dear Theodora, I have not the slightest intention of again subsiding
+into your friend. I am your lover and your betrothed husband. I will
+wait for you any number of years, till you have fulfilled all your
+duties, and no earthly rights have power to separate us longer. But in
+the meantime I hold fast to _my_ rights. Everything that lover or
+future husband can be to you, I must be. And when I see you, for I am
+determined to see you at intervals, do not suppose that it will be
+a friend's kiss--if there be such a thing--that--But I have said
+enough--it is not easy for me to express myself on this wise.
+
+My love, this letter is partly to consult you on a matter which is
+somewhat on my mind. With any but you I might hesitate, but I know your
+mind almost as I know my own, and can speak to you, as I hope I always
+shall--frankly and freely as a husband would to his wife.
+
+About your sister Penelope and her great sorrow I have already written
+fully. Of her ultimate recovery, mentally as well as bodily, I have
+little doubt: she has in her the foundations of all endurance--a true
+upright nature and a religious mind. The first blow over, a certain
+little girl whom I know will be to her a saving angel; as she has been
+to others I could name. Fear not, therefore--"Fear God, and have no
+other fear:" you will bring your sister safe to land.
+
+But, you are aware, Penelope is not the only person who has been
+shipwrecked.
+
+I should not intrude this side of the subject at present, did I not feel
+it to be in some degree a duty, and one that, from certain information
+that has reached me, will not bear deferring. The more so, because my
+occupation here ties my own hands so much. You and I do not live for
+ourselves, you know--nor indeed wholly for one another. I want you to
+help me, Theodora.
+
+In my last, I informed you how the story of Lydia Cartwright came to my
+knowledge, and how, beside her father's coffin, I was entreated by her
+old mother to find her out, and bring her home if possible. I had then
+no idea who the "gentleman" was; but afterwards was led to suspect it
+might be a friend of Mr. Charteris. To assure myself, I one day put some
+questions to him--point-blank, I believe, for I abhor diplomacy, nor
+had I any suspicion of him personally. In the answer, he gave me a
+point-blank and insulting denial of any knowledge on the subject.
+
+When the whole truth came out, I was in doubt what to do consistent with
+my promise to the poor girl's mother. Finally, I made inquiries; but
+heard that the Kensington cottage had been sold up, and the inmates
+removed. I then got the address of Sarah Enfield--that is, I
+commissioned my old friend, Mrs. Ansdell, to get it, and sent it to Mrs.
+Cartwright, without either advice or explanation, except that it was
+that of a person who knew Lydia. Are you aware that Lydia has more than
+once written to her mother, sometimes enclosing money, saying she was
+well and happy, but nothing more?
+
+I this morning heard that the old woman, immediately on receiving my
+letter, shut up her cottage, leaving the key with a neighbour, and
+disappeared. But she may come back, and not alone; I hope, most
+earnestly, it will not be alone. And therefore I write, partly to
+prepare you for this chance, that you may contrive to keep your sister
+from any unnecessary pain, and also from another reason.
+
+You may not know it,--and it is a hard thing to have to enlighten my
+innocent love, but your father is quite right; Lydia's story is by no
+means rare, nor is it regarded in the world as we view it. There are
+very few--especially among the set to which Mr. Charteris belonged--who
+either profess or practice the Christian doctrine, that our bodies also
+are the temples of the Holy Spirit,--that a man's life should, be as
+pure as a woman's, otherwise no woman, however she may pity, can, or
+ought to respect him, or to marry him. This, it appears to me, is the
+Christian principle of love and marriage--the only one by which the
+one can be made sacred, and the other "honorable to all." I have tried,
+invariably, in every way to set this forth; nor do I hesitate to write
+of it to my wife that will be--whom it is my blessing to have united
+with me in every work which my conscience once compelled as atonement
+and my heart now offers in humblest thanksgiving.
+
+But enough of myself.
+
+While this principle, of total purity being essential for both man and
+woman, cannot be too sternly upheld, there is also another side to the
+subject, analagous to one of which you and I have often spoken. You will
+find it in the seventh chapter of Luke and eighth of John: written, I
+conclude, to be not only read, but acted up to by all Christians who
+desire to have in them "the mind of Christ."
+
+Now, my child, you see what I mean-how the saving command, "_Go and sin
+no more_" applies to this-sin also.
+
+You know much more of what Lydia Cartwright used to be than I do; but
+it takes long for any one error to corrupt the entire character; and
+her remembrance of her mother, as well as her charity to Sarah Enfield,
+imply that there must be much good left in the girl still. She is young.
+Nor have I heard of her ever falling lower than this once. But she may
+fall; since, from what I know of Mr. Charteris's present circumstances,
+she must now, with her child, be left completely destitute. It is not
+the first similar case, by many, that I have had to do with; but my
+love never can have met with the like before. Is she afraid? does she
+hesitate to hold out her pure right hand to a poor creature who never
+can be an innocent girl again; who also, from the over severity of
+Rockmount, may have been let slip a little too readily, and so gone
+wrong?
+
+If you do hesitate, say so; it will not be unnatural nor surprising. If
+you do not, this is what I want: being myself so placed that though I
+feel the thing ought to be done, there seems no way of doing it, except
+through you. Should the Cartwrights reappear in the village, persuade
+your father not altogether to set his face against them, or have them
+expelled the neighbourhood. They must leave--it is essential for your
+sister that they should; but the old woman is very poor. Do not have
+them driven away in such a manner as will place no alternative between
+sin and starvation. Besides, there is the child--how a man can ever
+desert his own child!--but I will not enter into that part of
+the subject. This a strange "love" letter; but I write it without
+hesitation--my love will understand.
+
+You will like to hear something of me; but there is little to tell. The
+life of a gaol surgeon is not unlike that of a horse in a mill; and, for
+some things, nearly as hopeless; best fitted, perhaps, for the old and
+the blind. I have to shut my eyes to so much that I cannot remedy, and
+take patiently so much to fight against which would be like knocking
+down the Pyramids of Egypt with one's head as a battering-ram, that
+sometimes my courage fails.
+
+This great prison is, you know, a model of its kind, on the solitary,
+sanitary, and moral improvement system; excellent, no doubt, compared
+with that which preceded it. The prisoners are numerous,-and as soon as
+many of them get out they take the greatest pains to get in again; such
+are the comforts of gaol life contrasted with that outside. Yet they
+seem to me often like a herd of brute beasts, fed and stalled by rule
+in the manner best to preserve their health, and keep them from injuring
+their neighbours; their bodies well looked after, but their souls--they
+might scarcely have any! They are simply Nos. 1, 2, 3, and so on, with
+nothing of human individuality or responsibility about them. Even their
+faces grow to the same pattern, dull, fat, clean, and stolid. During the
+exercising hour, I sometimes stand and watch them, each pacing his small
+bricked circle, and rarely catch one countenance which has a ray of
+expression or intelligence.
+
+Good as many of its results are, I have my doubts as to this solitary
+system; but they are expressed on paper in the M.S. you asked for, my
+kind little lady! so I will not repeat them here.
+
+Yet it will be a change of thought from your sister's sick-room for you
+to think of me in mine--not a sick-room though, thank God! This is a
+most healthy region: the sea-wind sweeps round the prison-walls, and
+shakes the roses in the governor's garden till one can hardly believe it
+is so dreary a place inside. Dreary enough sometimes to make one believe
+in that reformer who offered to convert some depraved region into a
+perfect Utopia, provided the males above the age of fourteen were all
+summarily hanged.
+
+Do you smile, my love, at this compliment to your sex at the expense of
+mine? Yet I see wretches here, whom I cannot hardly believe share the
+same common womanhood as my Theodora. Think over carefully what I asked
+you about Lydia Cartwright; it is seldom suddenly, but step by step,
+that this degradation comes. And at every step there is hope; at least,
+such is my experience.
+
+Do not suppose, from this description, that I am disheartened at my
+work here; besides rules and regulations, there is still much room for
+personal influence, especially in hospital. When a man is sick or dying,
+unconsciously his heart is humanized--he thinks of God. From this simple
+cause, my calling has a great advantage over all others; and it is much
+to have physical agencies on one's side, as I do not get them in the
+streets and towns. To-day, looking up from a clean, tidy, airy cell,
+where the occupant had at least a chance of learning to read if he
+chose; and, seeing through the window the patch of bright blue sky,
+fresh and pure as ever sky was, I thought of two lines you once repeated
+to me out of your dear head, so full of poetry:=
+
+````"God's in His heaven;
+
+`````All's right with the world."=
+
+Yesterday I had a holiday. I took the railway to Treherne Court, wishing
+to learn something of Rockmount. You said it was your desire I should
+visit your brother-in-law and sister sometimes.
+
+They seemed very happy--so much as to be quite independent of visitors,
+but they received me warmly, and I gained tidings of you. They escorted
+me back as far as the park-gates, where I left them standing, talking
+and laughing together, a very picture of youth and fortune, and handsome
+looks; a picture suited to the place, with its grand ancestral trees
+branched down to the ground; its green slopes, and its herds of deer
+racing about--while the turrets of the magnificent house which they call
+"home," shone whitely in the distance.
+
+You see I am taking a leaf out of your book, growing poetical and
+descriptive; but this brief contrast to my daily life made the
+impression particularly strong.
+
+You need have no anxiety for your youngest sister; she looked in
+excellent health and spirits. The late sad events do not seem to have
+affected her. She merely observed, "She was glad it was over, she never
+liked Francis much. Penelope must come to Treherne Court for change, and
+no doubt she would soon make a far better marriage." Her husband said,
+"He and his father had been both grieved and annoyed--indeed, Sir.
+William had quite disowned his nephew--such ungentlemanly conduct was
+a disgrace to the family." And then Treherne spoke about his own
+happiness--how his father and Lady Augusta perfectly adored his wife,
+and how the hope and pride of the family were-entered in her, with more
+to the same purport. Truly this young couple have their cup brimming
+over with life and its joys.
+
+My love, good-bye; which means only "God be with thee!" nor in any
+way implies "farewell."--Write soon. Your words are, as the Good Book
+expresses it, "sweeter than honey and the honey-comb," to me unworthy.
+
+Max Urquhart.
+
+I should add, though you would almost take it for granted, that in all
+you do concerning Mrs. Cartwright or her daughter, I wish you to do
+nothing without your father's knowledge and consent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. HER STORY.
+
+
+|Another bright, dazzlingly-bright summer morning, on which I begin
+writing to my dear Max. This seems the longest-lasting, loveliest summer
+I ever knew, outside the house. Within, all goes on much in the same
+way, which you know.
+
+My moors are growing all purple, Max; I never remember the heather so
+rich and abundant; I wish you could see it! Sometimes I want you so! If
+you had given me up, or were to do so now, from hopelessness, pride, or
+any other reason, what would become of me! Max, hold me fast. Do not let
+me go.
+
+You never do. I can see how you carry me in your heart continually; and
+how you are for ever considering how you can help me and mine. And if
+it were not become so natural to feel this, so sweet to depend upon you,
+and accept everything from you without even saying "thank you," I might
+begin to express "gratitude;" but the word would make you smile.
+
+I amused you once, I remember, by an indignant disclaimer of obligations
+between such as ourselves; how everything given and received ought to be
+free as air, and how you ought to take me as readily if I were
+heiress to ten thousand a-year, as I would you if you were the Duke of
+Northumberland. No, Max; those are not these sort of things that give
+me, towards you, the feeling of "gratitude,"--it is the goodness, the
+thoughtfulness, the tender love and care. I don't mean to insult your
+sex by saying no man ever loved like you; but few men love in that
+special way, which alone could have satisfied a restless, irritable girl
+like me, who finds in you perfect trust and perfect rest.
+
+If not allowed to be grateful on my own account, I may be in behalf of
+my sister Penelope.
+
+After thus long following out your orders, medical and mental, I begin
+to notice a slight change in Penelope. She no longer lies in bed
+late, on the plea that it shortens the day; nor is she so difficult to
+persuade in going out. Further than the garden she will not stir; but
+there I get her to creep up and down for a little while daily. Lately,
+she has began to notice her flowers, especially a white moss-rose, which
+she took great pride in, and which never flowered until this summer.
+Yesterday, its first bud opened,--she stopped and examined it.
+
+"Somebody has been mindful of this--who was it?"
+
+I said, the gardener and myself together.
+
+"Thank you." She called John--showed him what a good bloom it was, and
+consulted how they should manage to get the plant to flower again next
+year. She can then look forward to "next year."
+
+You say, that as "while there is life there is hope," with the body; so,
+while one ray of hope is discernible, the soul is alive. To save souls
+alive, that is your special calling.
+
+It seems as if you yourself had been led through deep waters of despair,
+in order that you might personally understand how those feel who are
+drowning, and therefore know best how to help them. And lately, you have
+in this way done more than you know of. Shall I tell you? You will not
+be displeased.
+
+Max--hitherto, nobody but me has seen a line of your letters. I could
+not bear it. I am as jealous over them as any old miser; it has vexed
+me even to see a stray hand fingering them, before they reach mine. Yet,
+this week I actually read out loud two pages of one of them to Penelope!
+This was how it came about.
+
+I was sitting by her sofa, supposing her asleep. I had been very
+miserable that morning: tried much in several ways, and I took out your
+letter to comfort me. It told me of so many miseries, to which my own
+are nothing, and among which you live continually; yet are always so
+patient and tender over mine. I said to myself--"how good he is!" and
+two large tears came with a great splash upon the paper, before I was
+aware. Very foolish, you know, but I could not help it. And, wiping my
+eyes, I saw Penelope's wide open, watching me.
+
+"Has Doctor Urquhart been writing any thing to wound you?" said she,
+slowly and bitterly.
+
+I eagerly disclaimed this.
+
+"Is, he ill?"
+
+"Oh, no, thank God!"
+
+"Why, then, were you crying?"
+
+Why, indeed? But what could I say except the truth, that they were not
+tears of pain, but because you were so good, and I was so proud of you.
+I forgot what arrows these words must have been into my sister's heart.
+No wonder she spoke as she did, spoke out fiercely and yet with a
+certain solemnity.
+
+"Dora Johnston, you will reap what you sow, and I shall not pity you.
+Make to yourself an idol, and God will strike it down. '_Thou shalt have
+none other gods but me._' Remember Who says that, and tremble."
+
+I should have trembled, Max, had I _not_ remembered. I said to my
+sister, as gently as I could, "that I made no idols; that I knew all
+your faults, and you mine, and we loved one another in spite of them,
+but we did not worship one another--only God. That if it were His will
+we should part, I believed we could part. And--" here I could not say
+any more for tears. .
+
+Penelope looked sorry.
+
+"I remember you preaching that doctrine once, child, but--" she started
+up violently--"Can't you give me something to amuse me? Read me a bit
+of that--that nonsense. Of all amusing things in this world, there is
+nothing like a love-letter. But don't believe them, Dora,"--she grasped
+my hand hard--"they are every one of them lies."
+
+I said that I could not judge, never having received a "love-letter" in
+all my life, and hoped earnestly I never might.
+
+"No love-letters? What does he write to you about, then?"
+
+I told her in a general way. I would not see her half-satirical,
+half-incredulous smile. It did not last very long. Soon, though she
+turned away and shut her eyes, I felt sure she was both listening and
+thinking.
+
+"Doctor Urquhart cannot have an easy or pleasant life," she observed,
+"but he does not deserve it. No man does."
+
+"Or woman either," said I, as gently as I could.
+
+Penelope bade me hold my tongue; preaching was my father's business, not
+mine, that is, if reasoning were of any avail.
+
+I asked, did she think it was not?
+
+"I think nothing about nothing. I want to smother thought. Child, can't
+you talk a little? Or stay, read me some of Dr. Urquhart's letters; they
+are not love letters, so you can have no objection."
+
+It went hard, Max, indeed it did! till I considered--perhaps, to hear of
+people more miserable than herself, more wicked than Francis, might not
+do harm but good to my poor Penelope.
+
+So I was brave enough to take out my letter and read from it, (with
+reservations now and then, of course), about your daily work and the
+people concerned therein; all that interests me so much, and makes me
+feel happier and prouder than any mere "love-letter" written to or
+about myself. Penelope was interested too, both in the gaol and the
+hospital matters. They touched that practical, benevolent, energetic
+half of her, which till lately has made her papa's right hand in the
+parish. I saw her large black eyes brightening up, till an unfortunate
+name, upon which I fell unawares, changed all.
+
+Max, I am sure she had heard of Tom Turton. Francis knew him. When I
+stopped with some excuse, she bade me go on, so I was obliged to finish
+the miserable history. She then asked:--
+
+"Is Turton dead?"
+
+I said, "No," and referred to the postscript where you say that both
+yourself and his poor old ruined father hope Tom Turton may yet live to
+amend his ways.
+
+Penelope muttered:--
+
+"He never will. Better he died."
+
+I said Doctor Urquhart did not think so. She shook her head impatiently,
+exclaiming she was tired, and wished to hear no more, and so fell into
+one of her long, sullen silences, which sometimes last for hours.
+
+I wonder whether among the many cruel things she must be thinking about,
+she ever thinks, as I do often, what has become of Francis?
+
+Sometimes, puzzling over how best to deal with her, I have tried to
+imagine myself in her place, and consider what would have been my own
+feelings towards Francis now. The sharpest and most prominent would be
+the ever-abiding sense of his degradation,--he who was so dear, united
+to the constant terror of his sinking lower and lower to any depth of
+crime or shame. To think of him as a bad man, a sinner against heaven,
+would be tenfold worse than any sin or cruelty against me.
+
+Therefore, whether or not her love for him has died out, I cannot help
+thinking there must be times when Penelope would give anything for
+tidings of Francis Charteris. I wish you would find out whether he has
+left England, and then perhaps in some way or other I may let Penelope
+understand that he is safe away--possibly to begin a new and better
+life, in a new world.
+
+A new and better life. This phrase--Penelope might call it our "cant,"
+yet what we solemnly believe in is surely not cant--brings me to
+something I have to tell you this week. For some reasons I am glad it
+did not occur until this week, that I might have time for consideration.
+
+Max, if you remember, when you made to me that request about Lydia
+Cartwright, I merely answered "that I would endeavour to do as you
+wished;" as, indeed, I always would, feeling that my duty to you, even
+in the matter of "obedience," has already begun. I mean to obey, you
+see, but would rather do it with my heart, as well as my conscience. So,
+hardly knowing what to say to you, I just said this, and no more.
+
+My life has been so still, so safely shut up from the outside world,
+that there are many subjects I have never even thought about, and this
+was one. After the first great shock concerning Francis, I put it aside,
+hoping to forget it. When you revived it, I was at first startled; then
+I tried to ponder it over carefully, so as to come to a right judgment
+and be enabled to act in every way as became not only myself, Theodora
+Johnston, but--let me not be ashamed to say it--Theodora, Max Urquhart's
+wife.
+
+By-and-by, all became clear to me. My dear Max, I do not hesitate; I am
+not afraid. I have been only waiting opportunity; which at length came.
+
+Last Sunday I overheard my class--Penelope's that was, you
+know--whispering something among themselves, and trying to hide it from
+me; when I put the question direct, the answer was:--
+
+"Please, Miss, Mrs. Cartwright and Lydia have come home."
+
+I felt myself grow hot as fire--I do now, in telling you. Only it must
+be borne--it must be told.
+
+Also another thing, which one of the bigger girls let out, with many
+titters, and never a blush,--they had brought a child with them.
+
+Oh, Max, the horror of shame and repulsion, and then the perfect anguish
+of pity that came over me! These girls of our parish, Lydia was one
+of them; if they had been taught better; if I had tried to teach them,
+instead of all these years studying or dreaming, thinking wholly of
+myself and caring not a straw about my fellow-creatures. Oh, Max--would
+that my life had been more like yours!
+
+It shall be henceforth. Going home through the village, with the sun
+shining on the cottages, of whose inmates I know no more than of the New
+Zealand savages,--on the group of ragged girls who were growing up
+at our very door, no one knows how, and no one cares--I made a vow
+to myself. I that have been so blessed--I that am so happy--yes, Max,
+happy! I will work with all my strength, while it is day. You will help
+me. And you will never love me the less for anything I feel--or do.
+
+I was going that very afternoon, to walk direct to Mrs. Cartwright's,
+when I remembered your charge, that nothing should be attempted without
+my father's knowledge an consent.
+
+I took the opportunity when he and I were sitting alone
+together--Penelope gone to bed. He was saying she looked better. He
+thought she might begin visiting in the district soon, if she were
+properly persuaded. At least she might take a stroll round the village.
+He should ask her to-morrow.
+
+"Don't papa. Oh, pray don't!"--and then I was obliged to tell him
+the reason why. I had to put it very plainly before he understood--he
+forgets things now sometimes.
+
+"Starving, did you say?--Mrs. Cartwright, Lydia, and the child?--What
+child?"
+
+"Francis's."
+
+Then he comprehended,--and, oh, Max, had I been the girl I was a few
+months ago, I should have sunk to the earth with the shame he said I
+ought to feel at even alluding to such things. But I would not stop to
+consider this, or to defend myself; the matter concerned not me, but
+Lydia. I asked papa if he did not remember Lydia?
+
+She came to us, Max, when she was only fourteen, though, being
+well-grown and hand some, she looked older;--a pleasant, willing,
+affectionate creature, only she had "no head," or it was half-turned by
+the admiration her beauty gained, not merely among her own class, but
+all our visitors. I remember Francis saying once--oh, how angry Penelope
+was about it--that Lydia was so naturally elegant she could be made a
+lady of in no time, if a man liked to take her, educate and marry her.
+Would he had done it! spite of all broken vows to Penelope. I think my
+sister herself might have for given him, if he had only honestly fallen
+in love with poor Lydia, and married her.
+
+These things I tried to recall to papa's mind, but he angrily bade me be
+silent.
+
+"I cannot," I said, "because, if we had taken better care of the girl,
+this might never have happened. When I think of her--her pleasant
+ways about the house--how she used to go singing over her work of
+mornings--poor innocent young thing--oh, papa! papa!"
+
+"Dora," he said, eyeing me closely; "what change has come over you of
+late?"
+
+I said, I did not know, unless it was that which must come over people
+who have been very unhappy--the wish to save other people as much
+unhappiness as they can.
+
+"Explain yourself. I do not understand." When he did, he said
+abruptly,--
+
+"Stop. It was well you waited to consult with me. If your own delicacy
+does not teach you better, I must. My daughter--the daughter of the
+clergyman of the parish--cannot possibly be allowed to interfere with
+these profligates."
+
+My heart sunk like lead:--
+
+"But you, papa? They are here; you, as the rector, must do something.
+What shall you do?"
+
+He thought a little.
+
+"I shall forbid them the church and the sacrament; omit them from
+my charities; and take every lawful means to get them out of the
+neighbourhood. This, for my family's sake, and the parish's--that they
+may carry their corruption elsewhere."
+
+"But they may not be wholly corrupt. And the child--that innocent,
+unfortunate child!"
+
+"Silence, Dora. It is written, _The seed of evil-doers shall never be
+renowned_. The sinless must suffer with the guilty; there is no hope for
+either."
+
+"Oh, papa," I cried, in an agony, "Christ did not say so. He said, 'Go,
+and sin no more.'"
+
+Was I wrong? If I was, I suffered for it. What followed was very hard to
+bear.
+
+Max, if ever I am yours, altogether in your power, I wonder, will you
+ever give me those sort of bitter, cruel words? Words which people,
+living under the same roof, think nothing of using--mean nothing
+by them--yet they cut sharp, like swords. The flesh closes up after
+them--but oh, they bleed--they bleed! Dear Max, reprove me as you will,
+however much, but let it be in love, not in anger or sarcasm. Sometimes
+people drop carelessly, by quiet firesides, and with a good-night kiss
+following, as papa gave to me, words which leave a scar for years.
+
+Next day, I was just about to write and ask you to find some other plan
+for helping the Cartwrights, since we neither of us would choose to
+persist in one duty at the expense of another--when papa called me to
+take a walk with him.
+
+Is it not strange, the way in which good angels seem to take up the
+thread of our dropped hopes and endeavours, and wind them up for us, we
+see not how, till it is all done? Never was I more surprised than when
+papa, stopping to lean on my arm, and catch the warm, pleasant wind that
+came over the moors, said suddenly:--
+
+"Dora, what could possess you to talk to me as you did last night? And
+why, if you had any definite scheme in your head, did you relinquish it
+so easily?"
+
+"Papa, you forbade it."
+
+"So, even when differing from your father, you consider it right to obey
+him?"
+
+"Yes,--except--"
+
+"Say it out, child."
+
+"Except in the case of any duty which I felt to be not less sacred than
+the one I owe to my father."
+
+He made no reply.
+
+Walking on, we passed Mrs. Cartwright's cottage. It was quiet and
+silent, the door open, but the window-shutter half closed, and there was
+no smoke from the chimney. I saw papa turn round and look. At last he
+said:--
+
+"What did you mean by telling me they were 'starving?'"
+
+I answered the direct, entire truth. I was bold, for it was your mind
+as well as my own I was speaking out, and I knew it was right. I
+pleaded chiefly for the child--it was easiest to think of it, the little
+creature I had seen laughing and crowing in the garden at Kensington. It
+seemed such a dreadful thing for that helpless baby to die of want, or
+live to turn out a reprobate.
+
+"Think, papa," I cried, "if that poor little soul had been our own
+flesh and blood--if you were Francis's father, and this had been your
+grandchild!"
+
+To my sorrow, I had forgotten for the time a part of poor Harry's
+story--the beginning of it: you shall know it some day--it is all past
+now. But papa remembered it. He faltered as he walked--at last he sat
+down on a tree by the roadside, and said, "He must go home."
+
+Yet still, either by accident or design, he took the way by the lane
+where is Mrs. Cartwright's cottage. At the gate of it a little ragged
+urchin was poking a rosy face through the bars; and, seeing papa, this
+small fellow gave a shout of delight, tottered out, and caught hold
+of his coat, calling him "Daddy." He started--I thought he would have
+fallen, he trembled so: my poor old father.
+
+When I lifted the little thing out of his way, I too started. It is
+strange always to see a face you know revived in a child's face--in this
+instance it was shocking--pitiful. My first thought was, we never must
+let Penelope come past this way. I was carrying the boy off--I well knew
+where, when papa called me.
+
+"Stop. Not alone--not without your father."
+
+It was but a few steps, and we stood on the door-sill of Mrs.
+Cartwright's cottage. The old woman snatched up the child, and I heard
+her whisper something about "Run--Lyddy--run away."
+
+But Lydia, if that white, thin creature, huddled up in the corner were
+she, never attempted to move.
+
+Papa walked up to her.
+
+"Young woman, are you Lydia Cartwright, and is this your child?"
+
+"Have you been meddling with him? You'd better not! I say, Franky, what
+have they been doing to mother's Franky?"
+
+She caught at him, and hugged him close, as mothers do. And when
+the boy, evidently both attracted and puzzled by papa's height and
+gentlemanly clothes, tried to get back to him, and again call him
+"Daddy," she said angrily, "No, no, 'tis not your daddy. They're no
+friends o' yours. I wish they were out of the place, Franky, boy."
+
+"You wish us away. No wonder. Are you not ashamed to look us in the
+face--my daughter and me?"
+
+But papa might have said ever so much more, without her heeding.
+The child having settled himself on her lap, playing with the ragged
+counterpane that wrapped her instead of a shawl, Lydia seemed to care
+for nothing. She lay back with her eyes shut, still and white. We may be
+sure of one thing--she has preferred to starve.
+
+"Dunnot be too hard upon her, sir," begged the old woman. "Dunnot
+please, Miss Dora. She bean't a lady like you, and he were such a fine
+coaxing young gentleman. It's he that's most to blame."
+
+My father said sternly, "Has she left him, or been deserted by him--I
+mean Mr. Francis Charteris?"
+
+"Mother," screamed Lydia, "what's that? What have they come for? Do they
+know anything about him?"
+
+_She_ did not, then.
+
+"Be quiet, my lass," said the mother, soothingly, but it was of no use.
+
+"Miss Dora," cried the girl, creeping to me, and speaking in the same
+sort of childish pitiful tone in which she used to come and beg Lisabel
+and me to intercede for her when she had annoyed Penelope, "do, Miss
+Dora, tell me. I don't want to see him, I only want to hear. I've heard
+nothing since he sent me a letter from prison, saying I was to take my
+things and the baby's and go. I don't know what's become of him, no more
+than the dead. And, miss, he's that boy's father--miss--please--"
+
+She tried to go down to her knees, but fell prone on the floor.
+
+Max, who would have thought, the day before, that this day I should have
+been sitting with Lydia Cartwright's head on my lap, trying to bring her
+back to this miserable life of hers; that papa would have stood by and
+seen me do it, without a word of blame!
+
+"It's the hunger," cried the mother. "You see, she isn't used to it,
+now; he always kept her like a lady."
+
+Papa turned, and walked out of the cottage. I afterwards found out that
+he had bought the loaf at the baker's shop down the village, and got the
+bottle of wine from his private cupboard in the vestry. He returned with
+both--one in each pocket--then, sitting down on a chair, cut the bread
+and poured out the wine, and fed these three himself, with his own
+hands. My dear father!
+
+Nor did he draw back when, as she recovered, the first word that came to
+the wretched girl's lips was "Francis."
+
+"Mother, beg them to tell me about him. I'll do him no harm, indeed I
+won't, neither him nor them. Is he married? Or," with a sudden gasp, "is
+he dead? I've thought sometimes he must be, or he never would have left
+the child and me. He was always fond of us, wasn't he, Franky?"
+
+I told her, to the best of my knowledge, Mr. Charteris was living, but
+what had become of him we could none of us guess. We never saw him now.
+
+Here, looking wistfully at me, Lydia seemed suddenly to remember old
+times, to become conscious of what she used to be, and what she was now.
+Also, in a vague sort of way, of how guilty she had been towards her
+mistress and our family. How long, or how deep the feeling was, I cannot
+judge, but she certainly did feel. She hung her head, and tried to draw
+herself away from my arm.
+
+"I'd rather not trouble you, Miss Dora, thank you."
+
+I said it was no trouble, she had better lie still till she felt
+stronger.
+
+"You don't mean that. Not such as me."
+
+I told her she must know she had done very wrong, but if she was sorry
+for it, I was sorry for her, and we would help her if we could to an
+honest livelihood.
+
+"What, and the child too?"
+
+I looked towards papa; he answered distinctly, but
+sternly:--"Principally for the sake of the child."
+
+Lydia began to sob. She attempted no exculpation--expressed no
+penitence--just lay and sobbed, like a child. She is hardly more, even
+yet--only nineteen, I believe. So we sat--papa as silent as we, resting
+on his stick, with his eyes fixed on the cottage floor, till Lydia
+turned to me with a sort of fright. .
+
+"What would Miss Johnston say if she knew?"
+
+I wondered, indeed, what my sister would say.
+
+And here, Max--you will hardly credit it, nobody would, if it were an
+incident in a book--something occurred which, even now, seems hardly
+possible--as if I must have dreamt it all.
+
+Through the open cottage door a lady walked right in, looked at us all,
+including the child, who stopped in his munching of bread to stare
+at her with wide-open blue eyes--Francis's eyes; and that lady was my
+sister Penelope.
+
+She walked in and walked out again, before we had our wits about us
+sufficiently to speak to her, and when I rose and ran after her, she had
+slipped away somehow, so that I could not find her. How she came to
+take this notion into her head, after being for weeks shut up
+indoors;--whether she discovered that the Cartwrights had returned, and
+came here in anger, or else, prompted by some restless instinct, to have
+another look at Francis's child--none of us can guess; nor have we ever
+dared to enquire.
+
+When we got home, she was lying in her usual place on the sofa, as if
+she wanted us not to notice that she had been out at all. Still, by
+papa's desire, I spoke to her frankly--told her the circumstances of our
+visit to the two women--the destitution in which we found them; and how
+they should be got away from the village as soon as possible.
+
+She made no answer whatever, but lay absorbed, as it were--hardly
+moving, except an occasional nervous twitch, all afternoon and evening,
+until I called her in to prayers, which were shorter than usual--papa
+being very tired. He only read the collect, and repeated the Lord's
+Prayer, in which, among the voices that followed his, I distinguished,
+with surprise, Penelope's. It had a steadiness and sweetness such as I
+never heard before. And when--the servants being gone--she went up to
+papa, and kissed him, the change in her manner was something almost
+startling.
+
+"Father, when shall you want me in the district, again?" said she.
+
+"My dear girl!"
+
+"Because I am quite ready to go. I have been ill, and it has made me
+unmindful of many things; but I am better now. Papa, I will try and be a
+good daughter to you. I have nobody but you."
+
+She spoke quietly and softly, bending her head upon his grey hairs. He
+kissed and blessed her. She kissed me, too, as she passed, and then went
+away to bed, without any more explanation.
+
+But from that time--and it is now three days ago--Penelope has resumed
+her usual place in the household--taken up all her old duties, and even
+her old pleasures; for I saw her in her green-house this morning. When
+she called me, in something of the former quick, imperative voice, to
+look at an air-plant that was just coming into flower, I could not see
+it for tears.
+
+Nevertheless, there is in her a difference. Not her serious, almost
+elderly-looking face, nor her manner, which has lost its sharpness,
+and is so gentle sometimes that when she gives her orders the servants
+actually stare--but the marvellous composure which is evident in her
+whole demeanour; the bearing of a person who, having gone through that
+sharp agony which either kills or cures, is henceforth settled in mind
+and "circumstances," to feel no more any strong emotion, but go through
+life placidly and patiently, without much further change, to the end.
+The sort of woman that nuns are-made of--or-Sours de la Charité; or
+Protestant lay-sisters, of whom every village has some; and almost
+every family owns at least one. She will, to all appearance, be our
+one--our elder sister, to be regarded with reverence unspeakable, and be
+made as happy as we possibly can. Max, I am learning to think with hope
+and without pain, of the future of my sister Penelope.
+
+One word more, and this long letter ends.
+
+Yesterday, papa and I walking on the moor, met Mrs. Cartwright, and
+learnt full particulars of Lydia. From your direction, her mother found
+her out, in a sort of fever, brought on by want. Of course, everything
+had been taken from the Kensington cottage, for Francis's debts. She
+was turned out with only the clothes she wore. But you know all this
+already, through Mrs. Ansdell.
+
+Mrs. Cartwright is sure it was you who sent Mrs. Ansdell to them, and
+that the money they received week, by week, in their worst distress,
+came from you. She said so to papa, while we stood talking.
+
+"For it was just like our doctor, sir--as is kind to poor and rich--I'm
+sure he used to look at you, sir, as if he'd do anything in the world
+for you--as many's the time I've seed him a-sitting by your bedside when
+you was ill. If there ever was a man living as did good to every poor
+soul as came in his way--it be Doctor Urquhart."
+
+Papa said nothing.
+
+After the old woman had gone, he asked if I had any plans about Lydia
+Cartwright?
+
+I had one, which we must consult about when she is better,--whether she
+might not, with her good education, be made one of the schoolmistresses
+that you say, go from cell to cell, instructing the female prisoners
+in these model gaols. But I hesitated to start this project to papa--so
+told him I must think the matter over.
+
+"You are growing quite a thinking woman, Dora; who taught you, who put
+it into your mind to act as you do?--you, who were such a thoughtless
+girl;--speak out, I want to know?"
+
+I told him--naming the name of my dear Max; the first time it has ever
+passed my lips in my father's hearing, since that day. It was received
+in silence.
+
+Some time after, stopping suddenly, papa said to me, "Dora, some day, I
+know you will go and marry Doctor Urquhart."
+
+What could I say? Deny it, deny Max--my love, and my husband? or tell my
+father what was not true? Either was impossible.
+
+So we walked on, avoiding conversation until we came to our own
+churchyard, where we went in and sat in the porch, sheltering from the
+noon-heat, which papa feels more than he used to do. When he took my
+arm to walk home, his anger had vanished, he spoke even with a sort of
+melancholy.
+
+"I don't know how it is, my dear, but the world is altering fast. People
+preach strange doctrines, and act in strange ways, such as were never
+thought of when I was young. It may be for good or for evil--I shall
+find out by-and-by. I was dreaming of your mother last night; you are
+growing very like her, child." Then suddenly, "Only wait till I am dead,
+and you will be free, Theodora."
+
+My heart felt bursting; oh Max, you do not mind me telling you these
+things? What should I do if I could not thus open my heart to you?
+
+Yet it is not altogether with grief, or without hope, that I have
+thought over what then passed between papa and me. He knows you--knows
+too that neither you nor I have ever deceived him in anything. He was
+fond of you once; I think sometimes he misses you still, in little
+things wherein you used to pay him attention, less like a friend than a
+son.
+
+Now Max, do not think I am grieving--do not imagine I have cause to
+grieve. They are as kind to me as ever they can be. My home is as happy
+as any home could be made, except one, which, whether we shall ever find
+or not, God knows. In quiet evenings such as this, when, after a rainy
+day, it has just cleared up in time for the sun to go down, and he is
+going down peacefully in amber glory, with the trees standing up so
+purple and still, and the moorlands lying bright, and the hills distinct
+even to their very last faint rim--in such evenings as this, Max, when I
+want you and cannot find you, but have to learn to sit still by myself,
+as now, I learn to think also of the meeting which has no farewell, of
+the rest that comes to all in time, of the eternal home. We shall reach
+that--some day.
+
+Your faithful,
+
+Theodora.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. HIS STORY.
+
+
+_Treherne Court,_ _Sunday night._
+
+|My Dear Theodora,--
+
+The answer to my telegram has just arrived, and I find it is your sister
+whom we are to expect, not you. I shall meet her myself by the night
+train, Treherne being quite incapable; indeed, he will hardly stir from
+the corridor that leads to his wife's room.
+
+You will have heard already that the heir so ardently looked for has
+only lived a few hours. Lady Augusta's letters, which she gave me to
+address, and I took care to post myself, would have assured you of your
+sister's safety, though it was long doubtful. It will comfort you to
+know that she is in excellent care, both her medical attendants being
+known to me professionally, and Lady Augusta, being a real mother to
+her, in tenderness and anxiety.
+
+You will wonder how I came here. It was by accident--taking a Saturday
+holiday, which is advisable now and then; and Treherne's mother detained
+me, as being the only person who had any control over her son. Poor
+fellow! he was almost out of his mind. He never had any trouble before,
+and he knows not how to bear it. He trembled in terror--thus coming face
+to face with that messenger of God who puts an end to all merely mortal
+joys--was paralyzed at the fear of losing his blessings, which, numerous
+as they are, are all of this world. My love, whom I thought to have
+seen to-night, but shall not see--for how long?--things are more equally
+balanced than we suppose.
+
+You will be sorry about the little one.
+
+Treherne seems indifferent; his whole thought being, naturally, his
+wife; but Sir William is grievously disappointed. A son too--and he had
+planned bonfires, and bell-ringings, and rejoicings all over the estate.
+When he stood looking at the little white lump of clay, which is the
+only occupant of the grand nursery, prepared for the heir of Treherne
+Court, I heard the old man sigh as if for a great misfortune.
+
+You will think it none, since your sister lives. Be quite content about
+her--which is easy for me to say, when I know how long and anxious the
+days will seem at Rockmount. It might have been better, for some things,
+if you, rather than Miss Johnston, had come to take charge of your
+sister during her recovery; but, maybe, all is well as it is. To-morrow
+I shall leave this great house, with its many happinesses, which have
+run so near a chance of being overthrown, and go back to my own
+solitary life, in which nothing of personal interest ever visits me but
+Theodora's letters.
+
+There were two things I intended to tell you in my Sunday letter;
+shall I say them still? for the more things you have to think about the
+better, and one of them was my reason for suggesting your presence here,
+rather than your eldest sister's.--(Do not imagine though, your coming
+was urged by me wholly for other people's sakes. The sight of you---just
+for a few hours--one hour--People talk of water in the desert--the
+thought of a green field to those who have been months at sea--well,
+that is what a glimpse of your little face would be to me. But I cannot
+get it--and I must not moan.)
+
+What was I writing about? oh, to bid you tell Mrs. Cartwright from
+me that her daughter is well in health and doing well. After her two
+months' probation here, the governor, to whom alone I communicated her
+history (names omitted) pronounces her quite fitted for the situation.
+And she will be formally appointed thereto. This is a great satisfaction
+to me--as she was selected solely on my recommendation, backed by Mrs.
+Ansdell's letter. Say also to the old woman, that I trust she receives
+regularly the money her daughter sends her through me; which indeed is
+the only time I ever see Lydia alone. But I meet her often in the wards,
+as she goes from cell to cell, teaching the female prisoners; and it is
+good to see her sweet grave looks, her decent dress and mien, and her
+unexpressible humility and gentleness towards everybody.--She puts me in
+mind of words you know--which in another sense, other hearts than poor
+Lydia's might often feel--that those love most to whom most has been
+forgiven.
+
+Hinting this, though not in reference to her, in a conversation with
+the governor, he observed, rather coldly, "He had heard it said Doctor
+Urquhart held peculiar opinions upon crime and punishment--that, in
+fact, he was a little too charitable."
+
+I sighed--thinking that of all men, Doctor Urquhart was the one who had
+the most reason to be charitable: and the governor fixed his eyes upon
+me somewhat unpleasantly. Anyone running counter, as I do, to several
+popular prejudices, is sure not to be without enemies. I should be
+sorry, though, to have displeased so honest a man, and one whom, widely
+as we differ in some things, is always safe to deal with, from his
+possessing that rare quality--justice.
+
+You see, I go on writing to you of my matters--just as I should talk to
+you if you sat by my side now, with your hand in mine, and your head,
+here. (So you found two grey hairs in those long locks of yours last
+week. Never mind, love. To me you will be always young.)
+
+I write as I hope to talk to you one day. I never was among those who
+believe that a man should keep all his cares secret from his wife. If
+she is a true wife, she will soon read them on his face, or the effect
+of them; he had better tell them out and have them over. I have learnt
+many things, since I found my Theodora: among the rest is, that when a
+man marries, or loves with the hope of marrying, let him have been ever
+so reserved, his whole nature opens out--he becomes another creature;
+in degree towards everybody, but most of all to her he has chosen. How
+altered I am--you would smile to see, were my little lady to compare
+these long letters, with the brief, businesslike productions which have
+heretofore borne the signature "Max Urquhart."
+
+I prize my name a little. It has been honourable for a number of years.
+My father was proud of it, and Dallas. Do you like it? Will you like it
+when--if----No, let me trust in heaven, and say, _when_ you bear it?
+
+Those papers of mine which you saw mentioned in the _Times_--I am glad
+Mr. Johnston read them; or at least you suppose he did.
+
+I believe they are doing good, and that my name is becoming pretty well
+known in connection with them, especially in this town. A provincial
+reputation has its advantages; it is more undoubted--more complete. In
+London, a man may shirk and hide; his nearest acquaintance can scarcely
+know him thoroughly; but in the provinces it is different. There, if
+he has a flaw in him, either as to his antecedents, his character,
+or conduct, be sure scandal will find it out; for she has every
+opportunity. Also, public opinion is at once stricter and more
+narrow-minded in a place like this than in a great metropolis. I am glad
+to be earning a good name here, in this honest, hard-working, commercial
+district, where my fortunes are apparently cast; and where, having been
+a "rolling stone" all my life, I mean to settle and "gather moss," if I
+can. Moss to make a little nest soft and warm for--my love knows who.
+
+Writing this, about the impossibility of keeping anything secret in
+a town like this, reminds me of something which I was in doubt about
+telling you or not: finally, I have decided that I will tell you. Your
+sister being absent, will make things easier for you. You will not have
+need to use any of those concealments which must be so painful in a
+home. Nevertheless, I do think Miss Johnston ought to be kept ignorant
+of the fact that I believe, nay, am almost certain, Mr. Francis
+Charteris is at this present time living in Liverpool.
+
+No wonder that all my inquiries about him in London failed. He has
+just been discharged from this very gaol. It is more than likely he
+was arrested for liabilities long owing; or contracted after his last
+fruitless visit to his uncle, Sir William. I could easily find out, but
+hardly consider it delicate to make inquiries, as I did not, you know,
+after the debtor--whom a turnkey here reported to have said he knew me.
+Debtors are not criminals by law--their ward is justly held private. I
+never visit any of them unless they come into hospital.
+
+Therefore my meeting with Mr. Charteris was purely accidental. Nor do
+I believe he recognised me--I had stepped aside into the warder's room.
+The two other discharged debtors passed through the entrance-gate, and
+quitted the gaol immediately; but he lingered, desiring a car to be sent
+for--and inquiring where one could get handsome and comfortable lodgings
+in this horrid Liverpool. He hated a commercial town.
+
+You will ask, woman-like, how he looked?
+
+Ill and worn, with something of the shabby, "poor gentleman" aspect,
+with which we here are only too familiar. I overheard the turnkey joking
+with the carman about taking him to "handsome rooms." Also, there was
+about him an ominous air of what we in Scotland call the "down-draught;"
+a term, the full meaning of which you probably do not understand--I
+trust you never may.
+
+*****
+
+You will see by its date how many days ago the first part of this letter
+was written. I kept it back till the cruel suspense of your sister's
+sudden relapse was ended--thinking it a pity your mind should be
+burthened with any additional care. You have had, in the meantime, the
+daily bulletin from Treherne Court--the daily line from me.
+
+How are you, my child?--for you have forgotten to say. Any roses out on
+your poor cheeks? Look in the glass and tell me. I must know, or I must
+come and see. Remember, your life is a part of mine, now.
+
+Mrs. Treherne is convalescent--as you know. I saw her on Monday for the
+first time. She is changed, certainly; it will be long before she is
+anything like the Lisabel Johnston of my recollection, full of health
+and physical enjoyment. But do not grieve. Sometimes, to have gone
+near the gates of death, and returned, hallows the whole future life. I
+thought, as I left her, lying contentedly on her sofa, with her hand in
+her husband's, who sits watching as if truly she were given back to him
+from the grave, that it may be good for those two to have been so nearly
+parted. It may teach them, according to a line you once repeated to me
+(you see, though I am not poetical, I remember all your bits of poetry),
+to=
+
+````"hold every mortal joy
+
+```With a loose hand."=
+
+since nothing finite is safe, unless overshadowed by the belief in, and
+the glory of, the Infinite.
+
+My dearest--my best of every earthly thing--whom to be parted from
+temporarily, as now often makes me feel as if half myself were
+wanting--whom to lose out of this world would be a loss irremediable,
+and to leave behind in it would be the sharpest sting of death--better,
+I have sometimes thought, of late--better be you and I than Treherne and
+Lisabel.
+
+In all these letters I have scarcely mentioned Penelope--you see I am
+learning to name your sisters as if mine. She, however, has treated me
+almost like a stranger in the few times we happened to meet--until last
+Monday.
+
+I had left the happy group in the library--Treherne, tearing himself
+from his wife's sofa--honest fellow! to follow me to the door--where he
+wrung my hand, and said, with a sob like a school-boy, that he had never
+been so happy in his life before, and he hoped he was thankful for it.
+Your eldest sister, who sat in the window sewing--her figure put me
+somewhat in mind of you, little lady--bade me good-bye--she was going
+back to Rockmount in a few days.
+
+I quitted them, and walked alone across the park, where the
+chestnut-trees--you remember them--are beginning, not only to change,
+but to fall; thinking how fast the years go, and how little there is in
+them of positive joy. Wrong--this!--and I know it; but, my love, I
+sin sorely at times. I nearly forgot a small patient I have at the
+lodge-gates, who is slipping so gradually, but surely, poor wee man!
+into the world where he will be a child for ever. After sitting with him
+half an hour, I came out better.
+
+A lady was waiting outside the lodge-gates. When I saw who it was, I
+meant to bow and pass on, but Miss Johnston called me. From her face, I
+dreaded it was some ill news about you.
+
+Your sister is a good woman and a kind.
+
+She said to me, when her explanations had set my mind at ease:--
+
+"Doctor Urquhart, I believe you are a man to be trusted. Dora trusts
+you. Dora once said, you would be just, even to your enemies."
+
+I answered, I hoped it was something more than justice, that we owed
+even to our enemies.
+
+"That is not the question," she said, sharply; "I spoke only of justice.
+I would not do an injustice to the meanest thing--the vilest wretch that
+crawls."
+
+"No."
+
+She went on:--
+
+"I have not liked you, Dr. Urquhart: nor do I know if my feelings are
+altered now--but I respect you. Therefore, you are the only person of
+whom I can ask a favour. It is a secret. Will you keep it so?"
+
+"Except from Theodora."
+
+"You are right. Have no secrets from Theodora. For her sake, and your
+own--for your whole life's peace--never, even in the lightest thing,
+deceive that poor child!" Her voice sharpened, her black eyes glittered
+a moment, and then she shrank back into her usual self. I see exactly
+the sort of woman, which, as you say, she will grow into--sister
+Penelope--aunt Penelope. Every one belonging to her must try,
+henceforth, to spare her every possible pang.
+
+After a few moments, I begged her to say what I could do for her.
+
+"Read this letter, and tell me if you think it is true."
+
+It was addressed to Sir William Treherne; the last humble appeal of a
+broken-down man; the signature "Francis Charteris."
+
+I tried my best to disguise the emotion which Miss Johnston herself did
+not show, and returned the letter, merely inquiring if Sir William had
+answered it?
+
+"No. He will not. He disbelieves the facts."
+
+"Do you, also?"
+
+"I cannot say. The--the writer was not always accurate in his
+statements."
+
+Women are, in some things, stronger and harder than men. I doubt if any
+man could have spoken as steadily as your sister did at this minute.
+While I explained to her, as I thought it right to do, though with the
+manner of one talking of a stranger to a stranger--the present position
+of Mr. Charteris, she replied not a syllable. Only passing a felled
+tree--she suddenly sank down upon it, and sat motionless.
+
+"What is he to do?" she said, at last.
+
+I replied that the Insolvent Court could free him from his debts, and
+grant him protection from further imprisonment; that though thus sunk in
+circumstances, a Government situation was hardly to be hoped for, still
+there were in Liverpool, clerkships and mercantile opportunities,
+in which any person so well educated as he, might begin the world
+again--health permitting.
+
+"His health was never good--has it failed him?"
+
+"I fear so."
+
+Your sister turned away. She sat--we both sat--for some time, so still
+that a bright-eyed squirrel came and peeped at us, stole a nut a few
+yards off, and scuttled away with it to Mrs. Squirrel and the little
+ones up in a tall sycamore hard by.
+
+I begged Miss Johnston to let me see the address once more, and I
+would pay a visit, friendly or medical, as the case might allow, to Mr.
+Charteris, on my way home to-night.
+
+"Thank you, Doctor Urquhart."
+
+I then rose and took leave, time being short.
+
+"Stay, one word if you please. In that visit, you will of course say,
+if inquired, that you learnt the address from Treherne Court. You will,
+name no other names?"
+
+"Certainly not."
+
+"But afterwards, you will write to me?"
+
+"I will."
+
+We shook hands, and I left her sitting there on the dead tree. I went
+on, wondering if anything would result from this curious combination of
+accidents: also, whether a woman's love, if cut off at the root, even
+like this tree, could be actually killed, so that nothing could revive
+it again. What think you, Theodora?
+
+But this trick of moralizing, caught from you, shall not be indulged.
+There is only time for the relation of bare facts.
+
+The train brought me to the opposite shore of our river, not half
+a mile's walk from Mr. Charteris's lodgings. They seemed "handsome
+lodgings" as he said--a tall new house, one of the many which, only
+half-built, or half-inhabited, make this Birkenhead such a dreary place.
+But it is improving, year by year--I sometimes think it may be quite a
+busy and cheerful spot by the time I take a house here, as I intend. You
+will like a hill-top, and a view of the sea.
+
+I asked for Mr. Charteris, and stumbled up the half-lighted stairs, into
+the wholly dark drawing-room.
+
+"Who the devil's there?"
+
+He was in hiding, you must remember, as indeed I ought to have done, and
+so taken the precaution first to send up my name--but I was afraid of
+non-admittance.
+
+When the gas was lit, his pale, unshaven, sallow countenance, his state
+of apparent illness and weakness, made me cease to regret having gained
+entrance, under any circumstances. Recognizing me, he muttered some
+apology.
+
+"I was asleep--I usually do sleep after dinner." Then recovering
+his confused faculties, he asked with some _hauteur_, "To what may I
+attribute the pleasure of seeing Doctor Urquhart? Are you, like myself,
+a mere bird of passage, or a resident in Liverpool?"
+
+"I am surgeon of ---------- gaol.
+
+"Indeed, I was not aware. A good appointment I hope? And what gaol did
+you say?"
+
+I named it again, and left the subject. If he chose to wrap himself in
+that thin cloak of deception, it was no business of mine to tear it off.
+Besides, one pities a ruined man's most petty pride.
+
+But it was an awkward position. You know how haughty Mr. Charteris
+can be; you know also that unlucky peculiarity in me, call it Scotch
+shyness, cautiousness, or what you please, my little English girl must
+cure it, if she can. Whether or not it was my fault, I soon felt that
+this visit was turning out a complete failure. We conversed in the
+civillest manner, though somewhat disjointedly, on politics, the
+climate and trade of Liverpool, &c., but of Mr. Charteris and his real
+condition, I learned no more than if I were meeting him at a London
+dinner-party, or a supper with poor Tom Turton--who is dead, as you
+know. Mr. Charteris did not, it seems, and his startled exclamation at
+hearing the fact was the own natural expression during my whole visit.
+Which, after a few rather broad hints, I took the opportunity of a
+letter's being brought in, to terminate.
+
+Not, however, with any intention on my side of its being a final one.
+The figure of this wretched-looking invalid, though he would not own to
+illness--men seldom will--lying in the solitary, fireless lodging-house
+parlor, where there was no indication of food, and a strong smell of
+opium--followed me all the way to the jetty, suggesting plan after plan
+concerning him.
+
+You cannot think how pretty even our dull river looks of a night, with
+its two long lines of lighted shores, and other lights scattered between
+in all directions, _every_ vessel's rigging bearing one. And to-night,
+above all things, was a large bright moon, sailing up over innumerable
+white clouds, into the clear dark zenith, converting the town of
+Liverpool into a fairy city, and the muddy Mersey into a pleasant river,
+crossed by a pathway of silver--such as one always looks at with a kind
+of hope that it would lead to "some bright isle of rest." There was a
+song to that effect popular when Dallas and I were boys.
+
+As the boat moved off, I settled myself to enjoy the brief seven minutes
+of crossing--thinking, if I had but the little face by me looking up
+into the moonlight she is so fond of, the little hand to keep warm in
+mine!
+
+And now, Theodora, I come to something which you must use your own
+judgment about telling your sister Penelope.
+
+Half-way across, I was attracted by the peculiar manner of a passenger,
+who had leaped on the boat just as we were shoved off, and now stood
+still as a carved figure, staring down into the foamy track of the
+paddle-wheels. He was so absorbed that he did not notice me, but I
+recognized him at once, and an ugly suspicion entered my mind.
+
+In my time, I have had opportunities of witnessing, stage by stage, that
+disease--call it dyspepsia, hypochondriasis, or what you will--it has
+all names and all forms--which is peculiar to our present state of high
+civilization, where the mind and the body seem cultivated into perpetual
+warfare one with the other. This state--some people put poetical names
+upon it--but we doctors know that it is at least as much physical as
+mental, and that many a poor misanthrope, who loathes himself and the
+world, is merely an unfortunate victim of stomach and nerves, whom rest,
+natural living, and an easy mind, would soon make a man again. But that
+does not remove the pitifulness and danger of the case. While the man is
+what he is, he is little better than a monomaniac.
+
+If I had not seen him before, the expression of his countenance, as he
+stood looking down into the river, would have been enough to convince me
+how necessary it was to keep a strict watch over Mr. Charteris.
+
+When the rush of passengers to the gangway made our side of the boat
+nearly deserted, he sprang up the steps of the paddle-box, and there
+stood.
+
+I once saw a man commit suicide. It was one of ours, returning from the
+Crimea. He had been drinking hard, and was put under restraint, for
+fear of delirium tremens; but when he was thought recovered, one day,
+at broad noon, in sight of all hands, he suddenly jumped overboard. I
+caught sight of his face as he did so--it was exactly the expression of
+Francis Charteris.
+
+Perhaps, in any case, you had better never repeat the whole of this to
+your sister.
+
+Not till after a considerable struggle did I pull him down to the safe
+deck once more. There he stood breathless.
+
+"You were not surely going to drown yourself, Mr. Charteris?"
+
+"I was. And I will."
+
+"Try,--and I shall call the police to prevent your making such an ass of
+yourself."
+
+It was no time to choose words, and in this sort of disease the best
+preventive one can use, next to a firm, imperative will, is ridicule. He
+answered nothing--but gazed at me in simple astonishment, while I took
+his arm and led him out of the boat and across the landing-stage.
+
+"I beg your pardon for using such strong language, but a man must be an
+ass indeed, who contemplates such a thing;--here, too, of all places.
+To be fished up out of this dirty river like a dead rat, for the
+entertainment of the crowd; to make a capital case at the magistrate's
+court to-morrow, and a first-rate paragraph in the _Liverpool
+Mercury_,--'Attempted Suicide of a Gentleman.' Or, if you really
+succeeded, which I doubt, to be 'Found Drowned,'--a mere body, drifted
+ashore with cocoa-nut husks and cabbages at Waterloo, or brought in as
+I once saw at these very stairs, one of the many poor fools who do this
+here yearly. They had picked him up eight miles higher up the river,
+and so brought him down, lashed behind a rowing-boat, floating face
+upwards"--
+
+"Ah!"
+
+I felt Charteris shudder.
+
+You will, too, my love, so I will repeat no more of what I said to him.
+But these ghastly pictures were the strongest arguments available with
+such a man. What was the use of talking to him of God, and life, and
+immortality? he had told me he believed in none of these things. But
+he believed in death--the epicurean's view of it--"to lie in cold
+obstruction and to rot." I thought, and still think, that it was best
+to use any lawful means to keep him from repeating the attempt. Best to
+save the man first, and preach to him afterwards.
+
+He and I walked up and down the streets of Liverpool almost in silence,
+except when he darted into the first chemist's shop he saw to procure
+opium.
+
+"Don't hinder me," he said, imploringly, "it is the only thing that
+keeps me alive."
+
+Then I walked him about once more, till his pace flagged, his limbs
+tottered, he became thoroughly passive and exhausted. I called a car,
+and expressed my determination to see him safe home.
+
+"Home! No, no, I must not go there." And the poor fellow summoned all
+his faculties, in order to speak rationally. "You see, a gentleman in
+my unpleasant circumstances--in short, could you recommend any place--a
+quiet, out-of-the-way place, where--where I could hide?"
+
+I had suspected things were thus. And now, if I lost sight of him even
+for twenty-four hours, he might be lost permanently. He was in that
+critical state, when the next step, if it were not to a prison, might be
+into a lunatic asylum.
+
+It was not difficult to persuade him that the last place where creditors
+would search for a debtor would be inside a gaol, nor to convey him,
+half-stupefied as he was, into my own rooms, and leave him fast asleep
+on my bed.
+
+Yet, even now, I cannot account for the influence I so soon gained, and
+kept; except that any person in his seven senses always has power over
+another nearly out of them, and to a sick man there is no autocrat like
+the doctor.
+
+Now for his present condition. The day following, I removed him to a
+country lodging, where an old woman I know will look after him. The
+place is humble enough, but they are honest people. He may lie safe
+there till some portion of health returns; his rent, &c.--my prudent
+little lady will be sure to be asking after my "circumstances"--well,
+love, his rent for the next month at least, I can easily afford to pay.
+The present is provided for--as to his future, heaven only knows.
+
+I wrote, according to promise, to your sister Penelope, explaining where
+Mr. Charteris was, his state of health, and the position of his affairs;
+also, my advice, which he neither assents to nor declines, that as soon
+as his health will permit, he should surrender himself in London, go
+through the Insolvent Court, and start anew in life. A hard life, at
+best, since, whatever situation he may obtain, it will take years to
+free him from all his liabilities.
+
+Miss Johnston's answer I received this morning. It was merely an
+envelope containing a bank note of 20L. Sir William's gift, possibly; I
+told her he had better be made aware of his nephew's abject state,--or
+do you suppose it is from herself? I thought beyond your quarterly
+allowance, you had none of you much ready money? If there is anything I
+ought to know before applying this sum to the use of Mr. Charteris, you
+will, of course, tell me?
+
+I have been to see him this afternoon. It is a poor room he lies in, but
+clean and quiet. He will not stir out of it; it was with difficulty
+I persuaded him to have the window opened, so that we might enjoy the
+still autumn sunshine, the church-bells, and the little robin's song.
+Turning back to the sickly drawn face, buried in the sofa-pillows,
+my heart smote me with a heavy doubt as to what was to be the end of
+Francis Charteris.
+
+Yet I do not think he will die; but he will be months, years
+in recovering, even if he is ever his old self again--bodily, I
+mean-whether his inner self is undergoing any change, I have small means
+of judging. The best thing for him, both mentally and physically, would
+be a fond, good woman's constant care; but that he cannot have.
+
+I need scarcely say, I have taken every precaution that he should never
+see nor hear anything of Lydia; nor she of him. He has never named her,
+nor any one; past and future seem alike swept out of his mind; he only
+lives in the miserable present, a helpless, hopeless, exacting invalid.
+Not on any account would I have Lydia Cartwright see him now. If I judge
+her countenance rightly, she is just the girl to do exactly what you
+women are so prone to--forgive everything, sacrifice everything, and
+go back to the old love. Ah! Theodora, what am I that I should dare to
+speak thus lightly of women's love, women's forgiveness!
+
+I am glad Mr. Johnston allows you occasionally to see Mrs. Cartwright
+and the child, and that the little fellow is so well cared by his
+grandmother. If, with his father's face, he inherits his father's
+temperament, the nervously sensitive organization of a modern
+"gentleman," as opposed to the healthy animalism of a working man, life
+will be an uphill road to that poor boy.
+
+His mother's heart aches after him sorely at times, as I can plainly
+perceive. Yesterday, I saw her stand watching the line of female
+convicts--those with infants--as one after the other they filed out,
+each with her baby in her arms, and passed into the exercising-ground.
+Afterwards, I watched her slip into one of the empty cells, fold up a
+child's cap that had been left lying about, and look at it wistfully, as
+if she almost envied the forlorn occupant of that dreary nook, where,
+at least, the mother had her child with her continually. Poor Lydia! she
+may have been a girl of weak will, easily led astray, but I am convinced
+that the only thing which led her astray must have been, and will always
+be, her affections.
+
+Perhaps, as the grandmother cannot write, it would be a comfort to
+Lydia, if your next letter enabled me to give to her a fuller account
+of the welfare of little Frank. I wonder, does his father ever think of
+him? or of the poor mother. He was "always kind to them," you tell me
+she declared; possibly fond of them, so far as a selfish man can be. But
+how can such an one as he understand what it must be to be a _father!_
+
+My love, I must cease writing now. It is midnight, and I have to take
+as much sleep as I can; my work is very hard just at present; but happy
+work, because, through it, I look forward to a future.
+
+Your father's brief message of thanks for my telegram about Mr.
+Treherne, was kind. Will you acknowledge it in the way you consider
+would be most pleasing; that is, least unpleasing, to him, from me.
+
+And now, farewell--farewell, my only darling.
+
+Max Urquhart.
+
+P.S.--After the fashion of a lady's letter, though not, I trust, with
+the most important fact therein. Though I re-open my letter to inform
+you of it, lest you might learn it in some other way, I consider it
+of very slight moment, and only name it because these sort of small
+unpleasantnesses have a habit of growing like snow-balls, every yard
+they roll.
+
+Our chaplain has just shown me in this morning's paper a paragraph about
+myself, not complimentary, and decidedly ill-natured. It hardly took me
+by surprise; I have of late occasionally caught stray comments, not very
+flattering, on myself and my proceedings, but they troubled me little.
+I know that a man in my position, with aims far beyond his present
+circumstances, with opinions too obstinate and manners too blunt to
+get these aims carried out, as many do, by the aid of other and more
+influential people, such a man _must_ have enemies.
+
+Be not afraid, love--mine are few; and be sure I have given them no
+cause for animosity. True, I have contradicted some, and not many men
+can stand contradiction--but I have wronged no man to my knowledge.
+My conscience is clear. So they may spread what absurd reports or
+innuendoes they will--I shall live it all down.
+
+My spirit seems to have had a douche-bath this morning, cold, but
+salutary. This tangible annoyance will brace me out of a little
+feebleheartedness that has been growing over me of late; so be content,
+my Theodora.
+
+I send you the newspaper paragraph. Read it, and burn it.
+
+Is Penelope come home? I need scarcely observe, that only herself and
+you are acquainted, or will be, with any of the circumstances I have
+related with respect to Mr. Charteris.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. HER STORY.
+
+
+|A fourth Monday, and my letter has not come. Oh, Max, Max!--You are
+not ill, I know; for Augustus saw you on Saturday. Why were you in such
+haste to slip away from him? He himself even noticed it.
+
+For me, had I not then heard of your wellbeing, I should have disquieted
+myself sorely. Three weeks--twenty-one days--it is a long time to go
+about as if there were a stone lying in the corner of one's heart, or
+a thorn piercing it. One may not acknowledge this: one's reason, or
+better, one's love, may often quite argue it down; yet, it is there.
+This morning, when the little postman went whistling past Rockmount
+gate, I turned almost sick with fear.
+
+Understand me--not with one sort of fear. Faithlessness or forgetfulness
+are--Well, with, you they are--simply impossible! But you are my Max;
+anything happening to you happens to me; nothing can hurt you without
+hurting me. Do you feel this as I do? if so, surely, under any
+circumstances, you would write.
+
+Forgive! I meant not to blame you; we never ought to blame what we
+cannot understand. Besides, all this suspense may end to-morrow. Max
+does not intend to wound me; Max loves me.
+
+Just now, sitting quiet, I seemed to hear you saying: "My little lady,"
+as distinctly as if you were close at hand, and had called me. Yet it is
+a year since I have heard the sound of your voice, or seen your face.
+
+Augustus says, of late you have turned quite grey. Never, mind, Max! I
+like silver locks. An old man I knew used to say, "At the root of every
+grey hair is a eell of wisdom."
+
+How will you be able to bear with the foolishness of this me? Yet, all
+the better for you. I know you would soon be ten years younger--looks
+and all--if, after your hard work, you had a home to come back to,
+and--and _me_.
+
+See how conceited we grow! See the demoralizing result of having been
+for a whole year loved and cared for; of knowing ourselves, for the
+first time in our lives, first object to somebody!
+
+There now, I can laugh again; and so I may begin and write my letter. It
+shall not be a sad or complaining letter, if I can help it.
+
+Spring is coming on fast. I never remember such a March. Buds of
+chestnuts bursting, blackbirds singing, primroses out in the lane, a
+cloud of snowy wind-flowers gleaming through the trees of my favourite
+wood, concerning which, you remember, we had our celebrated battle about
+blue-bells and hyacinths. These are putting out their leaves already;
+there will be such quantities this year. How I should like to show you
+my bank of--ahem! _blue-bells!_
+
+Mischievous still, you perceive. Obstinate, likewise; almost as
+obstinate as--you.
+
+Augustus hints at some "unpleasant business" you have been engaged in
+lately. I conclude some controversy, in which you have had to "hold your
+own" more firmly than usual. Or new "enemies,"--business foes only
+of course, about which you told me I must never grieve, as they were
+unavoidable. I do not grieve; you will live down any passing animosity.
+It will be all smooth sailing by-and-by. But in the meantime, why not
+tell me? I am not a child--and--I am to be your wife, Max.
+
+Ah, now the thorn is out, the one little sting of pain. It isn't this
+child you were fond of, this ignorant, foolish, naughty child, it is
+your wife, whom you yourself chose, to whom you yourself gave her place
+and her rights, who comes to you with her heart full of love and says,
+"Max, tell me!"
+
+Now, no more of this, for I have much to tell you--I tell _you_
+everything.
+
+You know how quietly this winter has slipped away with us at. Rockmount;
+how, from the time Penelope returned, she and I seemed to begin our
+lives anew together, in one sense beginning almost as little children,
+living entirely in the present; content with each day's work-and each
+day's pleasure,--and it was wonderful how many small pleasures we
+found--never allowing ourselves either to dwell on the future or revert
+to the past. Except when by your desire. I told my sister of Francis's
+having passed through the Insolvent Court, and how you were hoping to
+obtain for him a situation as corresponding clerk. Poor Francis! all
+his grand German and Spanish to have sunk down to the writing of a
+merchant's business-letters, in a musty Liverpool office! Will he ever
+bear it? Well, except this time, and once afterwards, his name has never
+been mentioned, either by Penelope or me.
+
+The second time happened thus--I did not tell you then, so I will now.
+When our Christmas bills came in--our private ones, my sister had no
+money to meet them. I soon guessed that--as, from your letter, I
+had already guessed where her half-yearly allowance had gone. I was
+perplexed, for though she now confides to me nearly everything of her
+daily concerns, she has never told me _that_. Yet she must have known I
+knew--that you would be sure to tell me.
+
+At last, one morning, as I was passing the door of her room, she called
+me in.
+
+She was standing before a chest-of-drawers, which, I had noticed, she
+always kept locked. But to-day the top drawer was open, and out of a
+small jewel-case that lay on it, she had taken a string of pearls. "You
+remember this?"
+
+Ah, yes! But Penelope looked steadily at it; so, of course, did I.
+
+"Have you any idea, Dora, what it is worth, or how much Sir William gave
+for it?"
+
+I knew: for Lisabel had told me herself, in the days when we were
+all racking our brains to find out suitable marriage presents for the
+governor's lady.
+
+"Do you think it would be wrong, or that the Trehernes would be annoyed,
+if I sold it?"
+
+"Sold it!"
+
+"I have no money--and my bills must be paid. It is not dishonest to sell
+what is one's own, though it may be somewhat painful."
+
+I could say nothing. The pain was keen--even to me.
+
+She then reminded me how Mrs. Granton had once admired these pearls,
+saying, when Colin married she should like to give her daughter-in-law
+just such another necklace.
+
+"If she would buy it now--if you would not mind asking her--"
+
+"No, no!"
+
+"Thank you, Dora."
+
+She replaced the necklace in its case, and gave it into my hand. I was
+slipping out of the room, when she said:--
+
+"One moment, child. There was something more I wished to say to you.
+Look here."
+
+She unlocked drawer after drawer. There lay, carefully arranged, all
+her wedding clothes, even to the white silk dress, the wreath and veil.
+Everything was put away in Penelope's own tidy, over-particular fashion,
+wrapped in silver paper, or smoothly folded, with sprigs of lavender
+between. She must have done it leisurely and orderly, after her peculiar
+habit, which made us, when she was only a girl of seventeen, teaze
+Penelope by calling her "old maid!"
+
+Even now, she paused more than once, to re-fold or re-arrange
+something--tenderly, as one would arrange the clothes of a person who
+was dead--then closed and locked every drawer, putting the key, not on
+her household-bunch, but in a corner of her desk.
+
+"I should not like anything touched in my lifetime, but, should I
+die--not that this is likely; I believe I shall live to be an old
+woman--still, should I die, you will know, where these things are. Do
+with them exactly what you think best. And if money is wanted for--" She
+stopped, and then, for the first time, I heard her pronounce his name,
+distinctly and steadily, like any other name, "for Francis Charteris, or
+any one belonging to him--sell them. You will promise?"
+
+I promised.
+
+Mrs. Granton, dear soul! asked no questions, but took the necklace, and
+gave me the money, which I brought to my sister. She received it without
+a word.
+
+After this, all went on as heretofore; and though sometimes I have felt
+her eye upon me when I was opening your letters, as if she fancied there
+might be something to hear, still, since there never was anything, I
+thought it best to take no notice. But Max, I wished often, and wish
+now, that you would tell me if there is any special reason why, for so
+many weeks, you have never mentioned Francis?
+
+I was telling you about Penelope. She has fallen into her old busy
+ways--busier than ever, indeed. She looks well too, "quite herself
+again," as Mrs. Granton whispered to me, one morning when--wonderful
+event--I had persuaded my sister that we ought to drive over to lunch
+at the Cedars, and admire all the preparations for the reception of Mrs.
+Colin, next month.
+
+"I would not have liked to ask her," added the good old lady; "but since
+she did come, I am glad. The sight of my young folk's happiness will not
+pain her? She has really got over her trouble, you think?"
+
+"Yes, yes," I said hastily, for Penelope was coming up the greenhouse
+walk. Yet when I observed her, it seemed not herself but a new
+self--such as is only born of sorrow which smiled out of her poor thin
+face, made her move softly, speak affectionately, and listen patiently
+to all the countless details about "my Colin" and "my daughter Emily,"
+(bless the dear old lady, I hope she will find her a real daughter).
+And though most of the way home we were both more silent than usual,
+something in Penelope's countenance made me, not sad or anxious, but
+inly awed, marvelling at its exceeding peace. A peace such as I could
+have imagined in those who had brought all their earthly possessions
+and laid them at the apostles' feet; or holier still, and therefore
+happier,--who had left all, taken up their cross, and followed _Him_.
+Him who through His life and death taught the perfection of all
+sacrifice, self-sacrifice.
+
+I may write thus, Max, may I not? It is like talking to myself, talking
+to you.
+
+It was on this very drive home that something happened, which I am going
+to relate as literally as I can, for I think you ought to know it. It
+will make you love my sister as I love her, which is saying a good deal.
+
+Watching her, I almost--forgive, dear Max!--but I almost forgot my
+letter to you, safely written overnight, to be posted on our way home
+from the Cedars; till Penelope thought of a village post-office we had
+just passed.
+
+"Don't vex yourself, child," she said, "you shall cross the moor again;
+you will be quite in time; and I will drive round, and meet you just
+beyond the ponds."
+
+And, in my hurry, utterly forgot that cottage you know, which she has
+never yet been near, nor is aware who live in it. Not till I had
+posted my letter, did I call to mind that she would be passing Mrs.
+Cartwright's very door!
+
+However, it was too late to alter plans, so I resolved not to fret
+about it. And, somehow, the spring feeling came over me; the smell of
+furze-blossoms, and of green leaves budding; the vague sense as if some
+new blessing were coming with the coming year. And, though I had not Max
+with me, to admire my one stray violet that I found, and listen to my
+lark--the first, singing up in his white cloud, still I thought of you,
+and I loved you! With a love that, I think, those only feel who have
+suffered, and suffered together: a love that, though it may have known
+a few pains, has never, thank God, known a single doubt. And so you did
+not feel so very far away.
+
+Then I walked on as fast as I could, to meet the pony-carriage, which
+I saw crawling along the road round the turn--past the very cottage. My
+heart beat so! But Penelope drove quietly on, looking straight before
+her. She would have driven by in a minute; when, right across the road,
+in front of the pony, after a dog or something, I saw run a child.
+
+How I got to the spot I hardly know; how the child escaped I know still
+less; it was almost a miracle. But there stood Penelope, with the little
+fellow in her arms. He was unhurt--not even frightened.
+
+I took him from her--she was still too bewildered to observe him
+much--besides, a child alters so in six months. "He is all right you
+see. Run away, little man."
+
+"Stop! there is his mother to be thought of," said Penelope; "where does
+he live? whose child is he?"
+
+Before I could answer, the grandmother ran out, calling
+"Franky--Franky."
+
+It was all over. No concealment was possible.
+
+I made my sister sit down by the roadside, and there, with her head on
+my shoulder, she sat till her deadly paleness passed away, and two tears
+slowly rose and rolled down her cheeks; but she said nothing.
+
+Again I impressed upon her what a great comfort it was that the boy had
+escaped without one scratch; for there he stood, having once more got
+away from his granny, staring at us, finger in mouth, with intense
+curiosity and enjoyment.
+
+"Off with you! "--I cried more than once. But he kept his ground; and
+when I rose to put him away--my sister held me.
+
+Often I have noticed, that in her harshest days Penelope never disliked
+nor was disliked by children. She had a sort of instinct for them. They
+rarely vexed her, as we, or her servants, or her big scholars always
+unhappily contrived to do. And she could always manage them, from
+the squalling baby that she stopped to pat at a cottage door, to the
+raggedest young scamp in the village, whom she would pick up after a
+pitched battle, give a good scolding to, then hear all his tribulations,
+dry his dirty face, and send him away with a broad grin upon it, such as
+was upon Franky's now.
+
+He came nearer, and put his brown little paws upon Penelope's silk gown.
+
+"The pony," she muttered; "Dora, go and see after the pony."
+
+But when I was gone, and she thought herself unseen, I saw her coax the
+little lad to her side, to her arms, hold him there and kiss him;--oh!
+Max, I can't write of it; I could not tell it to anybody but you.
+
+After keeping away as long as was practicable, I returned, to find
+Franky gone, and my sister walking slowly up and down; her veil
+was down, but her voice and step had their usual "old-maidish"
+quietness,--if I dared without a sob at the heart, even think that word
+concerning our Penelope!
+
+Leaving her to get into the carriage, I just ran into the cottage to
+tell Mrs. Cartwright what had happened, and assure her that the child
+had received no possible harm; when, who should I see sitting over the
+fire but the last person I ever expected to see in that place!
+
+Did you know it?--was it by your advice he came?--what could be his
+motive in coming? or was it done merely for a whim---just like Francis
+Charteris.
+
+Anywhere else I believe I could not have recognised him. Not from his
+shabbiness; even in rags Francis would be something of the gentleman;
+but from his utterly broken-down appearance, his look of hopeless
+indifference, settled discontent; the air of a man who has tried all
+things and found them vanity.
+
+Seeing me, he instinctively set down the child, who clung to his knees,
+screaming loudly to "Daddy."
+
+Francis blushed violently, and then laughed. "The brat owns me, you see;
+he has not forgotten me--likes me also a little, which cannot be said
+for most people. Heyday, no getting rid of him? Come along then, young
+man; I must e'en make the best of you."
+
+Franky, nothing loth, clambered up, hugged him smotheringly round the
+neck, and broke into his own triumphant "Ha! ha! he! "--His father
+turned and kissed him.
+
+Then, somehow, I felt as if, it were easier to speak to Francis
+Charteris. Only a word or two--enquiries about his health--how long he
+had left Liverpool--and whether he meant to return.
+
+"Of course. Only a day's holiday. A horse in a mill--that is what I
+am now. Nothing for it but to grind on to the end of the chapter--eh,
+Franky my boy!"
+
+"Ha! ha! he!" screamed the child, with another delighted hug.
+
+"He seems fond of you," I said.
+
+"Oh yes; he always was." Francis sighed. I am sure, nature was tugging
+hard at the selfish pleasure-loving heart. And pity--I know it was not
+wrong, Max!--was pulling sore at mine.
+
+I said I had heard of his illness in the winter, and was glad to find
+him so much recovered:--how long had he been about again?
+
+"How long? Indeed I forget. I am so apt to forget things now. Except
+"--he added bitterly--"the clerk's stool and the office window with the
+spider-webs over it--and the thirty shillings a-week. That's my
+income, Dora--I beg your pardon, Miss Dora,--I forgot I was no longer a
+gentleman, but a clerk at thirty shillings a-week."
+
+I said, I did not see why that should make him less of a gentleman; and,
+broken-down as he was,--sitting crouching over the fire with his sickly
+cheek passed against that rosy one,--I fancied I saw something of the
+man--the honest, true man--flash across the forlorn aspect of poor
+Francis Charteris.
+
+I would have liked to stay and talk with him, and said so, but my sister
+was outside.
+
+"Is she? will she be coming in here?"--And he shrank nervously into his
+corner. "I have been so ill, you know."
+
+He need not be afraid, I told him--we should have driven off in two
+minutes. There was not the slightest chance of their meeting--in all
+human probability he would never meet her more.
+
+"Never more!"
+
+I had not thought to see him so much affected.
+
+"You were right, Dora, I never did deserve Penelope--yet there is
+something I should like to have said to her. Stop, hold back the
+curtain--she cannot see me sitting here?"
+
+"No."
+
+So, as she drove slowly past, Francis watched her; I felt more than
+glad--proud that he should see the face which he had known blooming and
+young, and which would never be either the one or the other again in
+this world, and that he should see how peaceful and good it was.
+
+"She is altered strangely."
+
+I asked, in momentary fear, did he think her looking out of health?
+
+"Oh no--It is not that. I hardly know what it is;" then, as with a
+sudden impulse, "I must go and speak to Penelope."
+
+And before I could hinder him, he was at the carriage side.
+
+No fear of a "scene." They met--oh Max, can any two people so meet who
+have been lovers for ten years!
+
+It might have been that the emotion of the last few minutes left her
+in that state when no occurrence seemed unexpected or strange--but
+Penelope, when she saw him, only gave a slight start;--and then looked
+at him, straight in the face, for a minute or so.
+
+"I am sorry to see that you have been ill."
+
+That one sentence must have struck him, as it did me, with the full
+conviction of how they met--as Penelope and Francis no more--merely Miss
+Johnston and Mr. Charteris.
+
+"I have been ill," he said, at last. "Almost at death's door. I should
+have died, but for Doctor Urquhart and--one other person, whose name I
+discovered by accident. I beg to thank her for her charity."
+
+He blushed scarlet in pronouncing the word. My sister tried to speak,
+but he stopped her.
+
+"Needless to deny."
+
+"I never deny what is true," said Penelope gravely. "I only did what I
+considered right, and what I would have done for any person whom I had
+known so many years. Nor would I have done it at all, but that your
+uncle refused."
+
+"I had rather owe it to you--twenty times over!" he cried. "Nay--you
+shall not be annoyed with gratitude--I came but to own my debt--to say,
+if I live, I will repay it; if I die--"
+
+She looked keenly at him:--"You will not die."
+
+"Why not? What have I to live for--a ruined, disappointed, disgraced
+man? No, no--my chance is over for this world, and I do not care how
+soon I get out of it."
+
+"I would rather hear of your living worthily in it."
+
+"Too late, too late."
+
+"Indeed it is not too late."
+
+Penelope's voice was very earnest, and had a slight falter that startled
+even me. No wonder it misled Francis,--he who never had a particularly
+low opinion of himself, and who for so many years had been fully aware
+of a fact--which, I once heard Max say, ought always to make a man
+humble rather than vain--how deeply a fond woman had loved him.
+
+"How do you mean?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"That you have no cause for all this despair. You are a young man still;
+your health may improve; you are free from debt, and have enough to live
+upon. Whatever disagreeables your position has, it is a beginning--you
+may rise. A long and prosperous career may lie before you yet--I hope
+so."
+
+"Do you?"
+
+Max, I trembled. For he looked at her as he used to look when they were
+young. And it seems so hard to believe that love ever can die out. I
+thought, what if this exceeding calmness of my sister's should be only
+the cloak which pride puts on to hide intolerable pain?--But I was
+mistaken. And now I marvel, not that he, but that I--who know my sister
+as a sister ought--could for an instant have seen in those soft sad eyes
+anything beyond what her words expressed the more plainly, as they were
+such extremely kind and gentle words.
+
+Francis came closer, and said something in a low voice, of which I
+caught only the last sentence,--
+
+"Penelope, will you trust me again?"
+
+I would have slipped away--but my sister detained me; tightly her
+fingers closed on mine; but she answered Francis composedly:
+
+"I do not quite comprehend you."
+
+"Will you forgive and forget? will you marry me?"
+
+"Francis!" I exclaimed, indignantly; but Penelope put her hand upon my
+mouth.
+
+"That is right. Don't listen to Dora--she always hated me. Listen to me.
+Penelope, you shall make me anything you choose; you would be the
+saving of me--that is, if you could put up with such a broken, sickly,
+ill-tempered wretch."
+
+"Poor Francis!" and she just touched him with her hand.
+
+He caught it and kept it. Then Penelope seemed to wake up as out of a
+dream.
+
+"You must not," she said hurriedly; "you must not hold my hand."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because I, do not love you any more."
+
+It was so; he could not doubt it. The vainest man alive must, I think,
+have discerned at once that my sister spoke out of neither caprice or
+revenge, but in simple sadness of truth. Francis must have felt almost
+by instinct that, whether broken or not, the heart so long his, was his
+no longer--the love was gone.
+
+Whether the mere knowledge of this made his own revive, or whether
+finding himself in the old familiar places--this walk was a favourite
+walk of theirs--the whole feeling returned in a measure, I cannot tell;
+I do not like to judge. But I am certain that, for the time, Francis
+suffered acutely.
+
+"Do you hate me then?" said he at length.
+
+"No; on the contrary, I feel very kindly towards you. There is nothing
+in the world I would not do for you."
+
+"Except marry me?"
+
+"Even so."
+
+"Well, well; perhaps you are right. I, a poor clerk, with neither
+health, nor income, nor prospects--"
+
+He stopped, and no wonder, before the rebuke of my sister's eyes.
+
+"Francis, you know you are not speaking as you think. You know I have
+given you my true reason, and my only one. If we were engaged still,
+in outward form, I should say exactly the same, for a broken promise
+is less wicked than a deceitful vow. One should not marry--one ought
+not--when one has ceased to love."
+
+Francis made her no reply. The sense of all he had lost, now that he
+had lost it, seemed to come upon him heavily, overwhelmingly. His first
+words were the saddest and humblest I ever heard from Francis Charteris.
+
+"I deserve it all. No wonder you will never forgive me."
+
+Penelope smiled--a very mournful smile.
+
+"At your old habit of jumping at conclusions! Indeed, I have forgiven
+you long ago. Perhaps, had I been less faulty myself, I might have had
+more influence over you. But all was as it was to be, I suppose and it
+is over now. Do not let us revive it."
+
+She sighed, and sat silent for a few moments, looking absently across
+the moorland; then with a sort of wistful tenderness--the tenderness
+which, one clearly saw, for ever prevents and excludes love--on Francis.
+
+"I know not how it is, Francis, but you seem to me Francis no
+longer--quite another person. I cannot tell how the love has gone, but
+it is gone; as completely as if it had never existed. Sometimes I was
+afraid if I saw you it might come back again; but I have seen you, and
+it is not there. It never can return again any more."
+
+"And so, from henceforth, I am no more to you than any stranger in the
+street?"
+
+"I did not say that--it would not be true. Nothing you do, will ever be
+indifferent to me. If you do wrong--oh, Francis, it hurts me so! it
+will hurt me to the day of my death. I care little for your being very
+prosperous, or very happy, possibly no one is happy; but I want you to
+be good. We were young together, and I was very proud of you:--let me be
+proud of you again as we grow old."
+
+"And yet you will not marry me?"
+
+"No, for I do not love you; and never could again, no more than I could
+love another woman's husband. Francis," speaking almost in a whisper;
+"you know as well as I do, that there is one person and only one, whom
+you ought to marry."
+
+He shrank back, and for the second time--the first being when I found
+him with his boy in his arms--Francis turned scarlet with honest shame.
+
+"Is it you--is it Penelope Johnston who can say this?"
+
+"It is Penelope Johnston."
+
+"And you say it to me?"
+
+"To you."
+
+"You think it would be right?"
+
+"I do."
+
+There were long pauses between each of these questions, but my sister's
+answers were unhesitating. The grave decision of them seemed to smite
+home--home to the very heart of Francis Charteris. When his confusion
+and surprise abated, he stood with eyes cast down, deeply pondering.
+
+"Poor little soul!" he muttered. "So fond of me, too--fond and faithful.
+She would be faithful to me to the end of my days."
+
+"I believe she would," answered Penelope.
+
+Here arose a piteous outcry of "Daddy, Daddy!" and little Franky,
+bursting from the cottage, came and threw himself in a perfect paroxysm
+of joy upon his father. Then I understood clearly how a good and
+religious woman like our Penelope could not possibly have continued
+loving, or thought of marrying, Francis Charteris, any more than if, as
+she said, he had been another woman's husband.
+
+"Dora, pray don't take the child away. Let him remain with his father."
+
+And from her tone, Francis himself must have felt--if further
+confirmation were needed--that now and henceforth Penelope Johnston
+could never view him in any other light than as Franky's father.
+
+He submitted--it always was a relief to Francis to have things decided
+for him. Besides, he seemed really fond of the boy. To see how patiently
+he let Franky clamber up him, and finally mount on his shoulder, riding
+astride, and making a bridle of his hair, gave one a kindly feeling,
+nay, a sort of respect, for this poor sick man whom his child comforted;
+and who, however erring he had been, was now, nor was ashamed to be, a
+father.
+
+"You don't hate me, Franky," he said, with a sudden kiss upon the
+fondling face. "You owe me no grudge, though you might, poor little
+scamp! You are not a bit ashamed of me; and, by God! (it was more a vow
+than an oath) I'll never be ashamed of you."
+
+"I trust in God you never will," said Penelope, solemnly.
+
+And then, with that peculiar softness of voice, which I now notice
+whenever she speaks of or to children, she said a few words, the
+substance of which I remember Lisabel and myself quizzing her for, years
+ago, irritating her with the old joke about old bachelor's wives and
+old maids' children--namely, that those who are childless, and know they
+will die so, often see more clearly and feel more deeply, than parents
+themselves, the heavy responsibilities of parenthood.
+
+Not that she said this exactly, but you could read it in her eyes, as
+in a few simple words she praised Franky's beauty, hinted what a solemn
+thing it was to own such a son, and, if properly brought up, what a
+comfort he might grow.
+
+Francis listened with a reverence that was beyond all love, and a
+humility touching to see. I, too, silently observing them both, could
+not help hearkening even with a sort of awe to every word that fell
+from the lips of my sister Penelope. All the while hearing, in a vague
+fashion, the last evening song of my lark, as he went up merrily into
+his cloud,--just as I have watched him, or rather his progenitors,
+numberless times; when, along this very road, I used to lag behind
+Francis and Penelope, wondering what on earth they were talking about,
+and how queer it was that they never noticed anything or anybody except
+one another.
+
+Heigho! how times change!
+
+But no sighing: I could not sigh, I did not. My heart was full, Max, but
+not with pain. For I am learning to understand what you often said, what
+I suppose we shall see clearly in the next life if not in this--that the
+only permanent pain on earth is sin. And, looking in my sister's dear
+face, I felt how blessed above all mere happiness, is the peace of those
+who have suffered and overcome suffering, who have been sinned against
+and have forgiven.
+
+After this, when Franky, tired out, dropped suddenly asleep, as children
+do, his father and Penelope talked a good while, she inquiring, in
+her sensible, practical way, about his circumstances and prospects; he
+answering, candidly and apparently truthfully without any hesitation,
+anger, or pride; every now and then looking down, at the least movement
+of the pretty, sleepy face; while a soft expression, quite new in
+Francis Charteris, brightened his own. There was even a degree of
+cheerfulness and hope in his manner, as he said, in reply to some
+suggestion of my sister's:--"Then you think, as Doctor Urquhart did,
+that my life is worth preserving--that I may turn out not such a bad man
+after all?"
+
+"How could a man be anything but a good man, who really felt what it is
+to be the father of a child?"
+
+Francis replied nothing, but he held his little son closer to his
+breast. Who knows but that the pretty boy may be heaven's messenger to
+save the father's soul?
+
+You see, Max, I still like, in my old moralizing habit, to "justify the
+ways of God to men," to try and perceive the use of pain, the reason of
+punishment; and to feel, not only by faith, but experience, that, dark
+as are the ways of Infinite Mercy, they are all safe ways. "_All things
+work together for good to them that love Him._"
+
+And so, watching these two, talking so quietly and friendly together,
+I thought how glad my Max would be; I remembered all my Max had
+done--Penelope knows it now; I told her that night. And, sad and anxious
+as I am about you and many things, there came over my heart one of those
+sudden sunshiny refts of peace, when we feel that whether or not all is
+happy, all is well.
+
+Francis walked along by the pony-carriage for a quarter of a mile, or
+more.
+
+"I must turn now. This little man ought to have been in his bed an hour
+or more: he always used to be. His mother--" Francis stopped--"I beg
+your pardon." Then, hugging the boy in a sudden passion of remorse, he
+said, "Penelope, if you want your revenge, take this. You cannot tell
+what a man feels, who, when the heyday of youth is gone, longs for a
+home, a virtuous home, yet knows that he never can offer or receive
+unblemished honour with his wife--never give his lawful name to his
+first-born."
+
+This was the sole allusion made openly to what both tacitly understood
+was to be, and which you, as well as we, will agree is the best thing
+that can be, under the circumstances.
+
+And here I have to say to you, both from my sister and myself, that if
+Francis desires to make Lydia Cartwright his wife, and she is willing,
+tell them both that if she will come direct from the gaol to Rockmount,
+we will receive her kindly, provide everything suitable for her (since
+Francis must be very poor, and they will have to begin housekeeping on
+the humblest scale), and take care that she is married in comfort and
+credit. Also, say that former things shall never be remembered against
+her, but that she shall be treated henceforward with the respect due to
+Francis's wife; in some things, poor loving soul! a better wife than he
+deserves.
+
+So he left us. Whether in this world he and Penelope will ever meet
+again, who knows? He seemed to have a foreboding that they never will,
+for, in parting, he asked, hesitatingly, if she would shake hands?
+
+She did so, looking earnestly at him,--her first love, who, had he been
+true to himself and to her, might have been her love for ever. Then
+I saw her eye wander down to the little head which nestled on his
+shoulder.
+
+"Will you kiss my boy, Penelope?"
+
+My sister leaned over, and touched Franky's forehead with her lips.
+
+"God bless him! God bless you all?"
+
+These were her last words, and however long both may live, I have a
+conviction that they will be her last words--to Francis Charteris.
+
+He went back to the cottage; and through the rosy spring twilight, with
+a strangely solemn feeling, as if we were entering upon a new spring in
+another world, Penelope and I drove home.
+
+And now, Max, I have told you all about these. About myself--No, I'll
+not try to deceive you; God knows how true my heart is, and how sharp
+and sore is this pain.
+
+Dear Max, write to me;--if there is any trouble, I can bear it; any
+wrong--supposing Max could do me wrong--I'll forgive. I fear nothing,
+and nothing has power to grieve me, so long as you hold me fast, as I
+hold you.
+
+Your faithful
+
+Theodora.
+
+P.S.--A wonderful, wonderful thing--it only happened last night. It
+hardly feels real yet.
+
+Max, last night, after I had done reading, papa mentioned your name of
+his own accord.
+
+He said, Penelope in asking his leave, as we thought it right to do
+before we sent that message to Lydia, had told him the whole story about
+your goodness to Francis. He then enquired abruptly how long it was
+since I had seen Doctor Urquhart?
+
+I told him, never since that day in the library--now a year ago.
+
+"And when do you expect to see him?"
+
+"I do not know." And all the bitterness of parting--the terrors lest
+life's infinite chances should make this parting perpetual--the murmurs
+that will rise, why hundreds and thousands who care little for one
+another should be always together, whilst we--we--Oh Max! it all broke
+out in a sob, "Papa, papa, how _can_ I know?"
+
+My father looked at me as if he would read me through.
+
+"You are a good girl, and an honourable. He is honourable too. He would
+never persuade a child to disobey her father."
+
+"No, never!"
+
+"Tell him,"--and papa turned his head away, but he did say it, I
+could not mistake, "tell Doctor Urquhart if he likes to come over to
+Rockmount, for one day only, I shall not see him, but you may."
+
+Max, come. Only for one day of holiday rest. It would do you good. There
+are green leaves in the garden, and sunshine and larks in the moorland,
+and--there is me. Come!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. HIS STORY.
+
+
+|My dear Theodora,
+
+I did not write, because I could not. In some states of mind nothing
+seems possible to a man but silence. Forgive me, my love, my comfort and
+joy.
+
+I have suffered much, but it is over now, at least the suspense of it;
+and I can tell you all, with the calmness that I myself now feel.
+You are right; we love one another; we need not be afraid of any
+tribulation.
+
+Before entering on my affairs, let me answer your letter--all but its
+last word, "Come!" My other self, my better conscience, will herself
+answer that.
+
+The substance of what you tell me, I already know. Francis Charteris
+came to me on Sunday week, and asked for Lydia. They were married two
+days after--I gave the bride away. Since then I have drank tea with them
+at his lodging, which, poor as it is, has already the cheerful comfort
+of a home with a woman in it, and that woman a wife.
+
+I left them--Mr. Charteris sitting by the fire with his boy on his knee;
+he seems passionately fond of the little scapegrace, who is, as you
+said, his very picture. But more than once I caught his eyes following
+Lydia with a wistful, grateful tenderness.
+
+"The most sensible practical girl imaginable," he said, during her
+momentary absence from the room; "and she knows all my ways, and is so
+patient with them. 'A poor wench,' as Shakspere hath it. 'A poor wench,
+sir, but mine own!'"
+
+For her, she busied herself about house-matters, humble and silent,
+except when her husband spoke to her, and then her whole face
+brightened. Poor Lydia! None familiar with her story are likely to see
+much of her again; Mr. Charteris seems to wish, and for very natural
+reasons, that they should begin the world entirely afresh; but we may
+fairly believe one thing concerning her as concerning another poor
+sinner,--"_Her sins, which were many, are forgiven, for she loved
+much_."
+
+After I returned from them, I found your letter. It made me cease to
+feel what I have often felt of late, as if hope were knocking at every
+door except mine.
+
+I told you once, never to be ashamed of showing me that you love me. Do
+not be; such love is a woman's glory, and a man's salvation.
+
+Let me now say what is to be said about myself, beginning at the
+beginning.
+
+I mentioned to you once that I had here a good many enemies, but that I
+should soon live them down; which, for some time, I hoped and
+believed, and still believe that it would have been so, under ordinary
+circumstances.
+
+I have ever held that truth is stronger than falsehood, that an honest
+man has but to sit still, let the storm blow over, and bide his time.
+It does not shake this doctrine that things have fallen out differently
+with me.
+
+For some time I had seen the cloud gathering; caught evil reports flying
+about; noticed that in society or in public meetings, now and then an
+acquaintance gave me the "cold shoulder." Also, what troubled me more,
+for it was a hindrance felt daily, my influence and authority in the
+gaol did not seem quite what they used to be. I met no tangible affront,
+certainly, and all was tolerably smooth sailing, till I had to find
+fault, and then, as you know, a feather will show which way the wind
+blows!
+
+It was a new experience, for, at the worst of times, in camp or
+hospital, my poor fellows always loved me--I found it hard.
+
+More scurrilous newspaper paragraphs, the last and least obnoxious of
+which I sent you lest you might hear of it in some other way, followed
+those proceedings of mine concerning reformatories. Two articles--the
+titles, "Physician, heal thyself," and "Set a thief to catch a thief,"
+will give you an idea of their tenor--went so far as to be actionable
+libels. Several persons here, our chaplain especially, urged me to take
+legal proceedings in defence of my character, but I declined.
+
+One day, arguing the point, the chaplain pressed me for my reasons,
+which I gave him, and will give you, for I have since had only too much
+occasion to remember them literally.
+
+I said I had always had an instinctive dislike and dread of the law;
+that a man was good for little if he could not defend himself by any
+better weapons than the verdict of an ignorant jury, and a specious,
+sometimes lying, barrister's tongue.
+
+The old clergyman, alarmed, "hoped I was not a duellist," at which I
+only smiled. It never occurred to me to take the trouble of denying
+any such ridiculous purpose. I knew not how, when once the ball is set
+rolling against a man, his lightest words are made to gather weight and
+meaning, his very looks are brought in judgment upon him. It is the way
+of the world.
+
+You see I can moralize, a sign that I am recovering myself; I think,
+with the relief of telling all out to you.
+
+"But," reasoned the chaplain, "when a man is innocent, why should he not
+declare it? Why sit tamely under calumny? It is unwise,--nay, unsafe.
+You are almost a stranger here, and we in the provinces like to find out
+everything about everybody. If I might suggest," and he apologized for
+what he called the friendly impertinence, "why not be a little less
+modest, a little more free with your personal history, which must have a
+remarkable one, and let some friend, in a quiet, delicate way, see that
+the truth is as widely disseminated as the slander? If you will trust
+me--"
+
+"I could not choose a better pleader," said I, gratefully; "but it is
+impossible."
+
+"How so? A man like you can have nothing to dread--nothing to conceal."
+
+I said again, all I could find words to say:--
+
+"It is impossible."
+
+He urged no more, but I soon felt painfully certain that some
+involuntary distrust lurked in the good man's mind, and though he
+continued the same to me in all our business relations, a cloud came
+over our private intercourse, which was never removed.
+
+About this time another incident occurred; You know I have a little
+friend here, the governor's motherless daughter, a bonnie wee child whom
+I meet in the garden sometimes, where we water her flowers, and have
+long chats about birds, beasts, and the wonders of foreign parts. I
+even have given a present or two to this, my child-sweetheart. Are you
+jealous? She has your eyes!
+
+Well, one day when I called Lucy, she came to me slowly, with a shy,
+sad countenance; and I found out after some pains, that her nurse had
+desired her not to play with Doctor Urquhart again, because he was
+"naughty."
+
+Doctor Urquhart smilingly inquired what he had done?
+
+The child hesitated.
+
+"Nurse does not exactly know, but she says it is something very
+wicked--as wicked as anything done by the bad people in here. But it
+isn't true--tell Lucy it isn't true?"
+
+It was hard to put aside the little loving face, but I saw the nurse
+coming. Not an ill-meaning body, but one whom I knew for as arrant
+a gossip as any about this place. Her comments on myself troubled me
+little; I concluded it was but the result of that newspaper tattle,
+against which I was gradually growing hardened; nevertheless, I thought
+it best just to say that I had heard with much surprise what she had
+been telling Miss Lucy.
+
+"Children and fools speak truth," said the woman saucily.
+
+"Then you ought to be the more careful that children always hear the
+truth." And I insisted upon her repeating all the ridiculous tales she
+had been circulating about me.
+
+When, with difficulty, I got the facts out of her, they were not what I
+expected, but these: Somebody in the gaol had told somebody else how Dr.
+Urquhart had been in former days such an abandoned character, that still
+his evil conscience always drove him among criminals; made him haunt
+gaols, prisons, reformatories, and take an interest in every form of
+vice. Nay, people had heard me say--and truly they might!--_apropos_ to
+a late hanging at Kirkdale--that I had sympathy even for a murderer.
+
+I listened--you will imagine how--to all this.
+
+For an instant I was overwhelmed; I felt as if God had forsaken me; as
+if His mercy were a delusion; His punishments never-ending; His justice
+never satisfied. Despite my promise to your father, I might, in some
+fatal way, have betrayed myself, even on the spot, had I not heard the
+little girl saying, with a sob, almost--poor pet!--
+
+"For shame, nurse! Doctor Urquhart isn't a wicked man; Lucy loves him."
+
+And I remembered you.
+
+"My child," I said, in a whisper, "we are all wicked; but we may all
+be forgiven; I trust God has forgiven me;" and I walked away without
+another word.
+
+But since then I have thought it best to avoid the governor's garden;
+and it has cost me more pain than you would imagine--the contriving
+always to pass at a distance, so as to get only a nod and smile, which
+cannot harm her, from little Lucy.
+
+About this time--it might be two or three days after, for out of
+work-hours I little noticed how time passed--an unpleasant circumstance
+occurred with Lucy's father.
+
+I must have told you of him; for he is a remarkable man--young still,
+and well-looking; with manners like his features, hard as iron, though
+delicate and polished as steel. He seems born to be the ruler of
+criminals. Brutality, meanness, or injustice would be impossible to him.
+Likewise, another thing--mercy.
+
+It was on this point that he and I had our difference.
+
+We met in the east ward, when he pointed out to me, in passing, the
+announcement on the centre slate of "a boy to be whipped."
+
+It seems ridiculous, but the words sickened me. For I knew the boy, knew
+also his offence; and that such a punishment would be the first step
+towards converting a mere headstrong lad, sent here for a street row,
+into, a hardened ruffian. I pleaded for him strongly.
+
+The governor listened--polite, but inflexible.
+
+I went on speaking with unusual warmth; you know my horror of these
+floggings; you know, too, my opinion on the system of punishment, viewed
+as mere punishment, with no ulterior aim at reformation. I believe it
+is only our blinded human interpretation of things spiritual, which
+transforms the immutable law that evil is its own avenger and that
+the wrath of God against sin must be as everlasting as His pity for
+sinners--into the doctrine of eternal torment, the worm that dieth not,
+and the fire that is never quenched.
+
+The governor heard all I had to say; then, politely always, regretted
+that it was impossible either to grant my request, or release me from my
+duty.
+
+"There is, however, one course which I may suggest to Doctor Urquhart,
+considering his very peculiar opinions, and his known sympathy with
+criminals. Do you not think, it might be more agreeable to you to
+resign?"
+
+The words were nothing; but as he fixed on me that keen eye, which,
+he boasts can, without need of judge or jury detect a man's guilt or
+innocence, I felt convinced that with him too my good name was gone. It
+was no longer a battle with mere side-winds of slander--the storm had
+begun.
+
+I might have sunk like a coward, if there were only myself to be crushed
+under it. As it was, I looked the governor in the face.
+
+"Have you any special motive for this suggestion?"
+
+"I have stated it."
+
+"Then allow me to state, that whatever my opinions may be, so long as my
+services are useful here, I have not the slightest wish or intention of
+resigning."
+
+He bowed, and we parted.
+
+The boy was flogged. I said to him, "Bear it; better confess,"--as he
+had done--"confess and be punished now. It will then be over." And I
+hope, by the grateful look of the poor young wretch, that with the pain,
+the punishment was over; that my pity helped him to endure it, so that
+it did not harden him, but, with a little help, he may become an honest
+lad yet.
+
+When I left him in his cell, I rather envied him.
+
+It now became necessary to look to my own affairs, and discover if
+possible, all that report alleged against me--false or true--as well as
+the originator of these statements. Him I at last by the merest chance
+discovered.
+
+My little lady, with her quick, warm feelings, must learn to forgive, as
+I have long ago forgiven. It was Mr. Francis Charteris.
+
+I believe still, it was less from malice premeditated, than from a mere
+propensity for talking, and that looseness and inaccuracy of speech
+which he always had--that he, when idling away his time in the debtor's
+ward of this gaol, repeated, probably with extempore additions, what
+your sister Penelope once mentioned to him concerning me--namely, that I
+was once about to be married, when the lady's father discovered a crime
+I had committed in my youth--whether dishonesty, duelling, seduction, or
+what, he could not say--but it was something absolutely unpardonable
+by an honourable man, and the marriage was forbidden. On this, all the
+reports against me had been grounded.
+
+After hearing this story, which one of the turnkeys whose children were
+down with fever, told me while watching by their bedside, begging my
+pardon for doing it, honest man! I went and took a long walk down the
+Waterloo shore, to calm myself, and consider my position. For I knew it
+was in vain to struggle any more. I was ruined.
+
+An innocent man might have fought on; how any one, with a clear
+conscience, is ever conquered by slander, or afraid of it, I cannot
+understand. With a clean heart, and truth on his tongue, a man ought to
+be as bold as a lion. I should have been; but--My love, you know.
+
+This Waterloo shore has always been a favourite haunt of mine. You once
+said, you should like to live by the sea; and I have never heard the
+ripple of the tide without thinking of you--never seen the little
+children playing about and digging on the sands without thinking--God
+help me! if one keeps silence, it is not because one does not feel the
+knife.
+
+"Who would have thought the old man had so much blood in him?"
+
+Let me stop. I will not pain you, my love, more than I can help.
+Besides, as I told you, the worst of my suffering is ended.
+
+I believe I must have sat till night-fall among the sand-hills by the
+shore. For years to come, if I live so long, I shall see as clear and
+also as unreal as a painting--that level sea-line, along which moved
+the small white silent ships, and the steamers, with their humming
+paddle-wheels and their trailing thread of smoke, dropping one after the
+other into what some one of your favourite poets, my child, calls "the
+under world." There seemed a great weight on my head--a weariness all
+over me. I did not feel anything much, after the first half-hour; except
+a longing to see your little face once again, and then, if it were
+God's will, to lie down and die, somewhere near you, quietly, giving no
+trouble to you or to any one any more. You will remember, I was not in
+my usual health, and had had extra hard work, for some little time.
+
+Well, my dear one, this is enough about myself, that day. I went home
+and fell into harness as usual; there was nothing to be done but to
+wait till the storm burst, and I wished for many reasons to retain my
+situation at the gaol as long as possible.
+
+But it was a difficult time; rising to each day's duty, with total
+uncertainty of what might happen before night: and, duty done,
+struggling against a depression such as I have not known for these many
+years. In the midst of it came your dear letters--cheerful, loving,
+contented--unwontedly contented they seemed to me. I could not answer
+them, for to have written in a false strain was impossible, and to tell
+you everything seemed equally so. I said to myself, "No, poor child! she
+will learn all soon enough. Let her be happy while she can."
+
+I was wrong; I was unjust to you and to myself. From the hour you gave
+me your love, I owed it to us both to give you my full confidence, as
+much as if you were my wife. I had no right to wound your dear heart
+by keeping back from it any sorrows of mine. Forgive me, and forgive
+something else, which, I now see, was crueller still.
+
+Theodora, I wished many times that you were free; that I had never bound
+you to my hard lot, but kept silence and left you to forget me, to love
+some one else better than me--pardon, pardon!
+
+For I was once actually on the point of writing to you, saying this,
+when I remembered something you had said long ago,--that whether or no
+we were ever married you were glad we had been betrothed--that so far we
+might always be a help and comfort to one another. For, you added, when
+I was blaming myself, and talking as men do of "honour," and "pride"--to
+have left you free when you were not free, would have given you all the
+cares of love, with neither its rights, nor duties, nor sweetnesses;
+and this might--you did not say it would--but it might have broken your
+heart.
+
+So in my bitter strait I trusted that pure heart, whose instinct, I
+felt, was truer than all my wisdom. I did not write the letter, but at
+the same time, as I have told you, it was impossible to write any other,
+even a single line.
+
+Your last letter came. Happily, it reached me the very morning when the
+crisis which I had been for weeks expecting, occurred. I had it in my
+pocket all the time I stood in that room before those men,--but I had
+best relate from the beginning.
+
+You are aware that any complaints respecting the officers of this gaol,
+or questions concerning its internal management, are laid before the
+visiting justices. Thus, after the governor's hint, on every board day,
+I prepared myself for a summons. At length it came; ostensibly for a
+very trivial matter--some relaxation of discipline which I had ordered
+and been counteracted in. But my conduct had never been called into
+question before, and I knew what it implied. The very form of it--"The
+governor's compliments, and he requests Doctor Urquhart's attendance in
+the board-room;"--instead of "Doctor, come up to my room and talk the
+matter over," was sufficient indication of what was impending.
+
+I found present, besides the governor and chaplain, an unusual number of
+magistrates. These, who are not always or necessarily gentlemen, stared
+at me as if I had been some strange beast, all the time I was giving
+my brief evidence about the breach of regulations complained of. It was
+soon settled, for I had been careful to keep within the letter of
+the law, and I made a motion to take leave, when one of the justices
+requested me to "wait a bit, they hadn't done with me yet."
+
+These sort of men, low-born--not that that is any disgrace, but a glory,
+unless accompanied with a low nature--and "dressed in a little brief
+authority," one often meets with here; I was well used to deal with,
+them, and to their dealings with the like of me--a poor professional,
+whose annual income was little more than they would expend, carelessly,
+upon one of their splendid "feeds." But, until lately, among my co-mates
+in office, I had been both friendly and popular. Now, they took their
+tone from the rest, and even the governor and-the chaplain preserved
+towards me a rigid silence. You do not know our old mess phrase of
+being "sent to Coventry." If you did, you would understand how those ten
+minutes that, according to my orders, I sat aloof from the board, while
+other business was proceeding, were not the pleasantest possible.
+
+Men amongst men grow hard, are liable to evil passions, fits of pride,
+hatred, and revenge, that are probably unfamiliar to you sweet women. It
+was well I had your letter in my pocket. Besides, there is something
+in coming to the crisis of a great misfortune which braces up a man's
+nerves to meet it. So, when the governor, turning round in his always
+courteous tone, said the board requested a few minutes' conversation
+with me, I could rise and stand steady, to meet whatever shape of hard
+fortune lay before me.
+
+The governor, like most men of non-intrusive but iron will, who have
+both temper and feelings perfectly under control, has a very strong
+influence wherever he goes. It was he who opened and carried on with me,
+what he politely termed, a "little conversation."
+
+"These difficulties," continued he, after referring to the dismissed
+complaint of my straining the rules of the gaol to their utmost limit,
+from my "sympathy with criminals," "these unpleasantnesses, Doctor
+Urquhart, will, I fear, be always occurring. Have you reconsidered the
+hint I gave to you, some little time ago?"
+
+I answered that it was rarely my habit to take hints; I preferred having
+all things spoken right out.
+
+"Such candour is creditable, though not always possible or advisable. I
+should have been exceedingly glad if you had saved me from what I feel
+to be my duty, however painful, namely, to repeat my private suggestion
+publicly."
+
+"You mean that I should tender my resignation."
+
+"Excuse my saying--and the board agrees with me--that such a step seems
+desirable, for many reasons."
+
+I waited, and then asked for those reasons.
+
+"Doctor Urquhart must surely be aware of them."
+
+A man is not bound to rush madly into his ruin. I determined to die
+fighting, at any rate. I said, addressing the board:--
+
+"Gentlemen, I am not aware of having conducted myself in any manner that
+unfits me for being surgeon to this gaol. Any slight differences between
+the governor and myself, are mere matters of opinion, which signify
+little, so long as neither trenches on the other's authority, and both
+are amenable to the regulations of the establishment. If you have any
+cause of complaint against me, state it, reprove or dismiss me, it is
+your right; but no one has a right without just grounds to request me to
+resign."
+
+The governor, even through that handsome, impassive, masked countenance
+of his, looked annoyed. For an instant his hard manner dropped into the
+old friendliness, even as when, in the first few weeks after his wife's
+death, he and I used to sit playing chess together of evenings, with
+little Lucy between us.
+
+"Doctor, why will you misapprehend me? It is for your own sake that I
+wish, before the matter is opened up further, you should resign your
+post."
+
+After a moment's consideration, I requested him to explain himself more
+clearly.
+
+One of the magistrates here cried out with a laugh:--"Come, come,
+doctor, no shamming. You are the town's talk." And another suggested
+that "Brown had better mind his P's and Q's; there were such things as
+actions for libel."
+
+I replied if the gentlemen referred to the scurrilous allegations
+against me which had appeared in print, they might speak without fear; I
+had no intention of prosecuting for libel. This silenced them a moment,
+and then the first magistrate said:--
+
+"Give a dog a bad name and hang him; but surely, doctor, you can't be
+aware what a very bad name you have somehow got in these parts, or you
+would have been more eager to draw your neck out of the halter in time.
+Why, bless my soul, man alive, do you know what folk make you out to
+be?"
+
+"This discussion is growing foreign to the matter in hand," interrupted
+the governor, who I felt had never taken his sharp eyes off me. "The
+question is merely this: that any officer in authority among criminals
+must of necessity bear an unblemished character. Neither in the
+establishment nor out of it ought people to be able to say of him
+that--that--"
+
+"Say it out, sir."--"That there were circumstances in his former life
+which would not bear inspection, and that merely accident drew the line
+between himself and the convicts he was bent on reforming."
+
+"Hear, hear!" said a justice, who had long thwarted me in my schemes;
+having a conscientious objection to reforming everybody--including
+himself.
+
+"Nay," said the governor. "I did not give this as a fact,--only a
+report. These reports have come to such a height, that they must either
+be proved or denied. And therefore I wished, before any public inquiry
+became necessary--unless, indeed, Doctor Urquhart will consent to the
+explanatory self-defence which he definitely refused Mr. Thorley--"
+
+And they both looked anxiously at me--these two whom I have always
+found honest, honorable men, and who were once my friends, or at least
+friendly associates--the chaplain and the governor.
+
+Theodora, no one need ever dread lest the doctrine of total forgiveness
+should make guilt no burthen, and repentance pleasant and easy. There
+are some consequences of sin which must haunt a sinner to the day of his
+death.
+
+It might have been one minute or ten, that I stood motionless, feeling
+as if I could have given up life and all its blessings without a pang,
+to be able to face those men with a clear conscience, and say, "It is
+all a lie. I am innocent."
+
+Then, for my salvation, came the thought--it seemed spoken into my ear,
+the voice half like Dallas's, half like yours--"If God hath forgiven
+thee, why be afraid of men?" And I said, humbly enough--yet, I trust,
+without any cringing or abjectness of fear--that I wished, before taking
+any further step, to hear the whole of the statements current against
+myself, and how far they were credited by the gentlemen before me.
+
+The accusation, I was informed, stood thus: floating rumours having
+accumulated into a substantive form--terribly near the truth! that I
+had, in my youth, either here or abroad, committed some crime which
+rendered me amenable to the laws of my country; and though, by some
+trick of law, I had escaped justice, the ban upon me was such, that only
+by the wandering life which I myself had owned to having led, could I
+escape the fury of public opinion. The impression against me was now so
+strong, in the gaol and out of it, that the governor would not engage
+even by his own authority to preserve mine unless I furnished him with
+an immediate, explicit denial to this charge. Which, he was pleased to
+say, if it had not been so widely spread, so mysterious in its origin,
+and so oddly corroborated by accidental admissions on my part, he should
+have treated as simply ridiculous.
+
+"And now," he added, apparently re-assured by the composure with which
+I had listened, "I have only to ask you to deny it, point-blank, before
+the board and myself."
+
+I asked, what must I deny?
+
+"Why, if the accusations were not too ludicrous to express, just state
+that you are neither forger, burglar, nor body-snatcher; that you never
+either killed a man (unprofessionally, of course, if we may be excused
+the joke)--for professional purposes, or shot him irregularly in a duel,
+or waylaid him with pistols behind a hedge."
+
+"Am I supposed to have committed all these crimes?"
+
+"Such is the gullibility of the public; you really are," said the
+governor, smiling.
+
+On the indignant impulse of the moment, I denied them each and all, upon
+my honor as a gentleman; until, feeling the old chaplain cordially grip
+my hand, I was roused into a full consciousness of where and what I was,
+and what, either by word or implication, I had been asserting.
+
+Somebody said, "Give him air; no wonder he feels it, poor fellow!"
+And so, after a little, I gathered up my faculties, and saw the board
+sitting waiting; and the governor with pen and ink before him.
+
+"This painful business will soon be settled, Doctor," said he
+cheerfully. "Just answer a question or two, which, as a matter of form,
+I will put in writing, and then, if you will do me the honour to dine
+with me to-day, we can consult how best to make the statement public;
+without of course compromising your dignity. To begin. You hereby make
+declaration that you were never in gaol? never tried at any assizes?
+have never committed any act which rendered you liable to prosecution
+under our criminal law?"
+
+He ran the words off carelessly, and paused for my answer. When none
+came, he looked up, his own penetrative, suspicious look.
+
+"Perhaps I did not express myself clearly?" And he slightly changed the
+form of the sentence. "Now, what shall I write, Doctor Urquhart?".
+
+If I could then and there have made full confession, and gone out of
+that room an arrested prisoner, it would have been, so far as regarded
+myself, a relief unutterable, a mercy beyond all mercies. But I had to
+remember your father.
+
+The governor laid down his pen.
+
+"This looks, to say the least, rather strange."
+
+"Doctor," cried one of the board, "you must be mad to hold your tongue
+and let your character go to the dogs in this way."
+
+Alas, I was not mad; I saw all that was vanishing from me--inevitably,
+irredeemably--my good name, my chance of earning a livelihood, my sweet
+hope of a home and a wife. And I might save everything, and keep my
+promise to your father also, by just one little lie!
+
+Would you have had me utter it? No, love; I know you would rather have
+had me die.
+
+The sensation was like dying, for one minute, and then it passed away.
+I looked steadily at my accusers; for accusation, at all events strong
+suspicion, was in every countenance now; and told them that though I had
+not perpetrated a single one of the atrocious crimes laid to my charge,
+still the events of my life had been peculiar; and circumstances left me
+no option but the course I had hitherto pursued, namely, total silence.
+That if my good character were strong enough to sustain me through it,
+I would willingly retain my post at the gaol, and weather the storm as I
+best could. If this course were impossible--
+
+"It is impossible," said the governor, decisively.
+
+"Then I have no alternative but to tender my resignation."
+
+It was accepted at once.
+
+I went out from the board-room a disgraced man, with a stain upon my
+character which will last for life, and follow me wherever I plant my
+foot. The honest Urquhart name, which my father bore, and Dallas--which
+I ought to have given stainless to my wife, and left--if I could leave
+nothing else--to my children--ay, it was gone. Gone, for ever and ever.
+
+I stole up into my own rooms, and laid myself down on my bed, as
+motionless as if it had been my coffin.
+
+Fear not, my love; one sin was saved me, perhaps by your letter of that
+morning. The wretchedest, most hopeless, most guilty of men would never
+dare to pray for death so long as he knew that a good woman loved him.
+
+When daylight failed, I bestirred myself, lit my lamp, and began to make
+a few preparations and arrangements about my rooms--it being clear that,
+wherever I went, I must quit this place as soon as possible.
+
+My mind was almost made up as to the course I ought to pursue; and that
+of itself calmed me. I was soon able to sit down, and begin this letter
+to you; but got no further than the first three words, which, often as I
+have written them, look as new, strange, and precious as ever: "_My dear
+Theodora_." Dear,--God knows how infinitely! and mine--altogether and
+everlastingly mine. I felt this, even now. In the resolution I had
+made, no doubts shook me with respect to you; for you would bid me to
+do exactly what conscience urged--ay, even if you differed from me. You
+said once, with your arms round my neck, and your sweet eyes looking up
+steadfastly in mine:--"Max, whatever happens, always do what you think
+to be right, without reference to me. I would love you all the better
+for doing it, even if you broke my heart."
+
+I was pondering thus, planning how best to tell you of things so sore;
+when there came a knock to my room-door. Expecting no one but a servant,
+I said "Come in," and did not even look up--for every creature in the
+gaol must be familiar with my disgrace by this time.
+
+"Doctor Urquhart, do I intrude?"
+
+It was the chaplain.
+
+Theodora, if I have ever in my letters implied a word against him--for
+the narrowness and formality of his religious belief sometimes annoyed
+and were a hindrance to me--remember it not. Set down his name, the
+Reverend James Thorley, on the list of those whom I wish to be kept
+always in your tender memory, as those whom I sincerely honoured, and
+who have been most kind to me of all my friends.
+
+The old man spoke with great hesitation, and when I thanked him for
+coming, replied in the manner which I had many a time heard him use in
+convict cells:--
+
+"I came, sir,' because I felt it to be my duty."
+
+"Mr. Thorley, whatever was your motive, I respect it, and thank you."
+
+And we remained silent--both standing--for he declined my offer of a
+chair. Noticing my preparations, he said, with some agitation, "Am I
+hindering your plans for departure? Are you afraid of the law?"
+
+"No."
+
+He seemed relieved; then, after a long examining look at me, quite broke
+down.
+
+"O Doctor, Doctor, what a terrible thing this is! who would have
+believed it of you!" It was very bitter, Theodora.
+
+When he saw that I attempted neither answer nor defence, the chaplain
+continued sternly:--"I come here, sir, not to pry into your secrets, but
+to fulfil my duty as a minister of God; to urge you to make confession,
+not unto me, but unto Him whom you have offended, whose eye you cannot
+escape, and whose justice sooner or later will bring you to punishment.
+But perhaps," seeing I bore with composure these and many similar
+arguments; alas, they were only too familiar! "perhaps I am labouring
+under a strange mistake? You do not look guilty, and I could as soon
+have believed in my own son's being a criminal, as you. For God's sake
+break this reserve, and tell me all."
+
+"It is not possible."
+
+There was a long pause, and then the old man said, sighing:--
+
+"Well, I will urge no more. Your sin, whatever it be, rests between you
+and the Judge of sinners. You say the law has no hold over you?"
+
+"I said I was not afraid of the law."
+
+"Therefore, it must have been a moral, rather than a legal crime, if
+crime it was." And again I had to bear that searching look, so dreadful
+because it was so eager and kind. "On my soul, Doctor Urquhart, I
+believe you to be entirely innocent."
+
+"Sir," I cried out, and stopped; then asked him "if he did not believe
+it possible for a man to have sinned and yet repented?"
+
+Mr. Thorley started back--so greatly shocked that I perceived at once
+what an implication I had made. But it was too late now; nor, perhaps,
+would I have had it otherwise.
+
+"As a clergyman--I--I--" He paused. "If a man sin a sin which is not
+unto death,--You know the rest. And there is a sin which is unto
+death; I do not say that he shall pray for it? But never that we shall
+_not_ pray for it."
+
+And falling down on his knees beside me, the old chaplain repeated in
+a broken voice:--"_Remember not the sins of my youth nor my
+transgressions; according to thy mercy, think thou upon me, O Lord, for
+thy goodness._' Not ours, which is but filthy rags; for _Thy_ goodness,
+through Jesus Christ, O Lord."
+
+"Amen."
+
+Mr. Thorley rose, took the chair I gave him, and we sat silent.
+Presently he asked me if I had any plans? Had I considered what
+exceeding difficulty I should find in establishing myself anywhere
+professionally, after what had happened this day?
+
+I said, I was fully aware that, so far as my future prospects were
+concerned, I was a ruined man.
+
+"And yet you take it so calmly?"
+
+"Ay."
+
+"Doctor," said he, after again watching me, "you must either be
+innocent, or your error must have been caused by strong temptation,
+and long ago retrieved. I will never believe but that you are now as
+honourable and worthy a man as any living."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+An uncontrollable weakness came over me; Mr. Thorley, too, was much
+affected.
+
+"I'll tell you what it is, my dear fellow," said he, as he wrung my
+hand, "you must start afresh in some other part of the world. You are no
+older than my son-in-law was when he married and went to Canada, in your
+own profession too. By the way, I have an idea."
+
+The idea was worthy of this excellent man, and of his behaviour to me.
+He explained that his son-in-law, a physician in good practice, wanted a
+partner--some one from the old country, if possible.
+
+"If you went out, with an introduction from me, he would be sure to
+like you, and all might be settled in no time. Besides, you Scotch hang
+together so--my son-in-law is a Fife man--and did you not say you were
+born or educated at St. Andrews? The very thing!"
+
+And he urged me to start by next Saturday's American mail.
+
+A sharp straggle went on within my mind. Mr. Thorley evidently thought
+it sprang from another cause, and, with much delicacy, gave me to
+understand that in the promised introduction, he did not consider there
+was the slightest necessity to state more than that I had been an army
+surgeon, and was his valued friend; that no reports against me were
+likely to reach the far Canadian settlement, whither I should carry
+both to his son-in-law and the world at large, a perfectly unknown and
+unblemished name.
+
+If I had ever wavered, this decided me. The hope must go. So I let it
+go, in all probability, for ever.
+
+Was I right? I can hear you say, "Yes, Max."
+
+In bidding the chaplain farewell, I tried to explain to him, that in
+this generous offer he had given to me more than he guessed--faith not
+only in heaven, but in mankind, and strength to do without shrinking
+what I am bound to do--trusting that there are other good Christians in
+this world besides himself who dare believe that a man may sin and yet
+repent--that the stigma even of an absolute crime is not hopeless, nor
+eternal.
+
+His own opinion concerning my present conduct, or the facts of my past
+history, I did not seek; it was of little moment; he will shortly learn
+all.
+
+My love, I have resolved, as the only thing possible to my future peace,
+the one thing exacted by the laws of God and man--to do what I ought to
+have done twenty years ago--to deliver myself up to justice.
+
+Now I have told you; but I cannot tell you the infinite calm which this
+resolution has brought to me. To be free; to lay down this living load
+of lies, which has hung about me for twenty years; to speak the whole
+truth before God and man--confess all, and take my punishment--my
+love, my love, if you knew what the thought of this is to me, you would
+neither tremble nor weep, but rather rejoice!
+
+My Theodora, I take you in my arms, I hold you to my heart, and love you
+with a love that is dearer than life and stronger than-death, and I ask
+you to let me do this.
+
+In the enclosed letter to your father, I have, after relating all the
+circumstances of which I here inform you, implored him to release me
+from a pledge which I ought never to have given. Never, for it was
+putting the fear of man before the fear of God: it was binding myself
+to an eternal hypocrisy, an inward gnawing of shame, which paralyzed
+my very soul. I must escape it; you must try to release me from it,--my
+love, who loves me better than herself, better than myself, I mean this
+poor worthless self, battered and old, which I have often thought
+was more fit to go down into the grave than live to be my dear girl's
+husband. Forgive me if I wound you. By the intolerable agony of this
+hour, I feel that the sacrifice is just and right.
+
+You must help me, you must urge your father to set me free. Tell
+him--indeed I have told him--that he need dread no disgrace to the
+family, or to him who is no more. I shall state nothing of Henry
+Johnston excepting his name, and my own confession will be sufficient
+and sole evidence against me.
+
+As to the possible result of my trial, I have not overlooked it. It was
+just, if only for my dear love's sake, that I should gain some idea
+of the chances against me. Little as I understand of the law, and
+especially English law, it seems to me very unlikely that the verdict
+will be wilful murder, nor shall I plead, guilty to that. God and my
+own conscience are witness that I did _not_ commit murder, but
+unpremeditated manslaughter.
+
+The punishment for this is, I believe, sometimes transportation,
+sometimes imprisonment for a long term of years. If it were death--which
+perhaps it might as well be to a man of my age, I must face it. The
+remainder of my days, be they few or many, must be spent in peace.
+
+If I do not hear within two days' post from Rockmount, I shall conclude
+your father makes no opposition to my determination, and go at once to
+surrender myself at Salisbury. _You_ need not write; it might compromise
+you; it would be almost a relief to me to hear nothing of or from you,
+until all was over.
+
+And now farewell. My personal effects here I leave in charge of the
+chaplain, with a sealed envelope, containing the name and address of
+the friend to whom they are to be sent in case of my death, or any other
+emergency. This is yourself. In my will, I have given you, as near as
+the law allows, every right that you would have had, as my wife.
+
+My wife--my wife in the sight of God, farewell! That is, until such time
+as I dare write again. Take good care of yourself--be patient and
+have hope. In whatever he commands--he is too just a man to command an
+injustice--obey your father.
+
+Forget me not--but you never will. If I could have seen you once more,
+have felt you close to my heart--but perhaps it is better as it is.
+
+Only a week's suspense for you, and it will be over. Let us trust in
+God; and farewell! Remember how I loved you, my child!
+
+Max Urquhart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. HIS STORY.
+
+
+|My dear Theodora,--
+
+By this time you will have known all.--Thank God, it is over. My dear,
+dear love--my own faithful girl--it is over!
+
+When I was brought back to prison tonight, I found your letters; but I
+had heard of you the day before, from Colin Granton. Do not regret
+the chance which made Mr. Johnston detain my letter to you, instead of
+forwarding it at once to the Cedars. These sort of things never seem to
+me as accidental; all was for good. In any case, I could not have done
+otherwise than I did; but it would have been painful to have done it in
+direct opposition to your father. The only thing I regret is, that my
+poor child should have had the shock of first seeing these hard tidings
+of my surrender to the magistrate, and my public confession, in a
+newspaper.
+
+Granton told me how you bore it. Tell him, I shall remember gratefully
+all my life, his goodness to you, and his leaving his young wife--(whom
+he dearly loves, I can see) to come to me, here. Nor was he my only
+friend; do not think I was either contemned or forsaken. Sir William
+Treherne and several others offered any amount of, bail for me; but it
+was better I should remain in prison, during the few days between my
+committal and the assizes. I needed quiet and solitude.
+
+Therefore, my love, I dared not have seen you, even had you immediately
+come to me. You have acted in all things as my dear girl was sure to
+act, wise, thoughtful, self-controlled, and oh! how infinitely loving.
+
+I had to stop here for want of daylight--but they have now brought me my
+allowance of candle--slender enough, so I must make haste.
+
+I wish you to have this full account as soon as possible after the brief
+telegram which I know Mr. Granton sent you, the instant my trial was
+over. A trial, however, it was not--in my ignorance of law, I imagined
+much that never happened. What did happen, I will here set down.
+
+You must not expect me to give many details; my head was rather
+confused, and my health has been a good deal shaken, though do not take
+heed of anything Granton may tell you about me or my looks. I shall
+recover now.
+
+Fortunately, the four days of imprisonment gave me time to recover
+myself in a measure, and I was able to write out the statement I meant
+to read at my trial. I preferred reading it, lest any physical weakness
+might make me confused or inaccurate. You see I took all rational
+precautions for my own safety. I was as just to myself as I would have
+been to another man. This for your sake, and also for the sake of those
+now dead, upon whose fair name I have brought the first blot.
+
+But I must not think of that--it is too late. What best becomes me
+is humility, and gratitude to God and man. Had I known in my wretched
+youth, when, absorbed in terror of human justice, I forgot justice
+divine, had I but known there were so many merciful hearts in this
+world!
+
+After Colin Granton left me last night, I slept quietly, for I felt
+quiet and at rest. O the peace of an unburdened conscience, the freedom
+of a soul at ease--which, the whole truth being told, has no longer
+anything to dread, and is prepared for everything!
+
+I rose calm and refreshed, and could see through my cell-window that it
+was a lovely spring morning. I was glad my Theodora did not know what
+particular day of the assizes was fixed for my trial. It would make
+things a little easier for her.
+
+It was noon before the case came on: a long time to wait.
+
+Do not suppose me braver than I was. When I found myself standing in the
+prisoner's dock, the whole mass of staring faces seemed to whirl round
+and round before my eyes; I felt sick and cold; I had lost more strength
+than I thought. Everything present melted away into a sort of dream
+through which I fancied I heard you speaking, but could not distinguish
+any words; except these, the soft, still tenderness of which haunted me
+as freshly as if they had been only just uttered: "My dear Max! my dear
+Max!"
+
+By this I perceived that my mind was wandering, and must be recalled;
+so I forced myself to look round at the judge, jury, witness-box--in the
+which was one person sitting with his white head resting on his hand. I
+felt who it was.
+
+Did you know your father was subpoenaed here? If so, what a day this
+must have been for my poor child! Think not, though, that the sight of
+him added to my suffering. I had no fear of him or of anything now.
+Even public shame was less terrible than I thought; those scores of
+inquisitive eyes hardly stabbed so deep as in days past did many a kind
+look of your father's, many a loving glance of yours.
+
+The formalities of the court began, but I scarcely listened to them.
+They seemed to me of little consequence. As I said to Granton when he
+urged me to employ counsel, a man who only wants to speak the truth can
+surely manage to do it, in spite of the incumbrances of the law.
+
+It came to an end--the long, unintelligible indictment--and my first
+clear perception of my position was the judge's question:--
+
+"How say you, prisoner at the bar, guilty, or not guilty?"
+
+I pleaded "guilty," as a matter of course. The judge asked several
+questions, and held a long discussion with the counsel for the crown,
+on what he termed "this very remarkable case," the purport of it was,
+I believe, to ascertain my sanity; and whether any corroboration of my
+confession could be obtained. It could not. All possible witnesses were
+long since dead, except your father.
+
+He still kept his position, neither turning towards me, nor yet from
+me,--neither compassionate nor revengeful, but sternly composed; as if
+his long sorrows had obtained their solemn satisfaction, and even though
+the end was thus, he felt relieved that it had come. As if he, like me,
+had learned to submit that our course should be shaped for us rather
+than by us; being taught that even in this world's events, the God of
+Truth will be justified before men; will prove that: those who, under
+any pretence, disguise or deny the truth, live not unto Him, but unto
+the father of lies.
+
+Is it not strange, that then and there I should have been calm enough to
+think of these things. Ay, and should calmly write of them now. But as I
+have told you, in a great crisis my mind always recovers its balance
+and becomes quiet. Besides, sickness makes us both clear-sighted and
+far-sighted; wonderfully so, sometimes.
+
+Do not suppose from this admission, that my health is gone or going;
+but, simply that I am, as I see in the looking-glass, a somewhat older
+and feebler man than my dear love remembers me a year ago. But I must
+hasten on.
+
+The plea of guilty being recorded, no trial was necessary; the judge had
+only to pass sentence. I was asked whether, by counsel or otherwise, I
+wished to say anything in my own defence? And then I rose and told the
+whole truth.
+
+Do not grieve for me, Theodora? The truth is never really terrible. What
+makes it so is the fear of man, and that was over with me; the torment
+of guilty shame, and that was gone too. I have had many a moment of far
+sharper anguish, more grinding humiliation than this, when I stood up
+and publicly confessed the sin of my youth, with the years of suffering
+which had followed--dare I say expiated it?
+
+There is a sense in which no sin ever can be expiated, except in One
+Blessed Way;--yet, in so far as man can atone to man, I believed
+I had atoned for mine; I had tried to give a life for a life, morally
+speaking; nay, I had given it. But it was not enough; it could not he.
+Nothing less than the truth was required from me--and I here offered it.
+Thus, in one short half hour, the burthen of a lifetime was laid down
+for ever.
+
+The judge--he was not unmoved,-so they told me afterwards--said he must
+take time to consider the sentence. Had the prisoner any witnesses as to
+character?
+
+Several came forward. Among the rest, the good old chaplain, who had
+travelled all night from Liverpool, in order, he said, just to shake
+hands with me to-day--which he did, in open court--God bless him!
+
+There was also Colonel Turton; with Colin Granton--who had never left me
+since daylight this morning--but they all held back when they saw rise
+and come forward, as if with the intention of being sworn, your father.
+
+Have no fear my love, for his health. I watched him closely all this
+day. He bore it well--it will have no ill result I feel sure. From my
+observation of him, I should say that a great and salutary change had
+come over him, both body and mind, and that he is as likely to enjoy a
+green old age as any one I know.
+
+When he spoke, his voice was as steady and clear as before his accident
+it used to be in the pulpit.
+
+"My lords and gentlemen, I was subpoenaed to this trial. Not being
+called upon to give evidence, I wish to make a statement upon oath."
+
+There must have been a "sensation in the court," as newspapers say, for
+I saw Granton look anxiously at me. But I had no fears. Your father,
+whatever he had to say, was sure to speak the truth, not a syllable more
+or less, and the truth was all I wanted.
+
+The judge here interfered, observing that there being no trial, he could
+receive no legal evidence against the prisoner.
+
+"Nor have I any such evidence to give: I wish only for justice. My lord,
+may I speak?"
+
+Assent was given.
+
+Your father's words were brief and formal; but you will imagine how they
+fell on one ear at least.
+
+"My name is William Henry Johnston, clerk, of Rockmount, Surrey. Henry
+Johnston, who--died--on the night of November 19th, 1836, was my only
+son. I know the prisoner at the bar. I knew him for some time before he
+was aware whose father I was, or I had any suspicion that my son came to
+his death in any other way than by accident."
+
+"Was your first discovery of these painful facts by the prisoner's
+present confession?"
+
+"No, my lord." Your father hesitated, but only momentarily. "He told
+me the whole story, himself, a year ago, under circumstances that would
+have induced most men to conceal it for ever."
+
+The judge inquired why was not this confession made public at once?
+
+"Because I was afraid. I did not wish to make my family history a
+by-word and a scandal. I exacted a promise that the secret should be
+kept inviolate. This promise he has broken--but I blame him not. It
+ought never to have been made."
+
+"Certainly not. It was thwarting the purposes of justice and of the
+law."
+
+"My lord, I am an old man, and a clergyman; I know nothing about the
+law; but I know it was a wrong act to bind any man's conscience to live
+a perpetual lie."
+
+Your father was here asked if he had any thing more to say?
+
+"A word only. In the prisoner's confession, he has, out of delicacy to
+me, omitted three facts, which weigh materially in extenuation of his
+crime. When he committed it he was only nineteen, and my son was thirty.
+He was drunk, and my son, who led an irregular life, had made him so,
+and afterwards taunted him, more than a youth of nineteen was likely
+to bear. Such was his statement to me, and knowing his character and my
+son's, I have little doubt of its perfect accuracy."
+
+The judge looked up for his notes. "You seem, sir, strange to say, to be
+not unfavourable towards the prisoner."
+
+"I am just towards the prisoner. I wish to be, even though he has on his
+hands the blood of my only son."
+
+After the pause which followed, the judge said:--
+
+"Mr. Johnston:--the Court respects your feelings, and regrets to detain
+you longer or put you to any additional pain. But it may materially
+aid the decision of this very peculiar case, if you will answer another
+question. You are aware that, all other evidence being wanting, the
+prisoner can only be judged by his own confession. Do you believe, on
+your oath, that this confession is true?"
+
+"I do. I am bound to say from my intimate knowledge of the prisoner,
+that I believe him to be now, whatever he may have been in his youth,
+a man of sterling honour and unblemished life; one who would not tell a
+lie to save himself from the scaffold."
+
+"The Court is satisfied."
+
+But before he sat down, your father turned, and, for the first time that
+day, he and I were face to face.
+
+"I am a clergyman, as I said, and I never was in a court of justice
+before. Is it illegal for me to address a few words to the prisoner?"
+
+Whether it was or not, nobody interrupted him.
+
+"Doctor Urquhart," he said, speaking loud enough for every one to hear,
+"what your sentence may be I know not, or whether you and I shall ever
+meet again until the day of judgment. If not, I believe that if we are
+to be forgiven our debts according as we forgive our debtors, I shall
+have to forgive you then. I prefer to do it now, while we are in the
+flesh, and it may comfort your soul. I, Henry Johnston's father, declare
+publicly that I believe what you did was done in the heat of youth, and
+has ever since been bitterly repented of. May God pardon you, even as I
+do this day."
+
+I did not see your father afterwards. He quitted the court directly
+after sentence was given--three months' imprisonment--the judge making a
+long speech previously; but I heard not a syllable. I heard nothing but
+your father's words--saw no one except himself, sitting there below me,
+with his hands crossed on his stick, and a stream of sunshine falling
+across his white hairs--Theodora--Theodora--I cannot write--it is
+impossible.
+
+Granton got admission to me for a minute, after I was taken back to
+prison. He told me that the "hard labour" was remitted, that there had
+been application made for commutation of the three months into one, but
+the judge declined. If I wished, a new application should be made to the
+Home Secretary.
+
+No, my love, suffer him not to do it. Let nothing more be done. I had
+rather abide my full term of punishment. It is only too easy.
+
+Do not grieve for me. Trust me, my child, many a peer puts on his robes
+with a heavier heart than I put on this felon's dress, which shocked
+Granton so much that he is sure to tell you of it. Never mind it--my
+clothes are not me, are they, little lady? Who was the man that
+wrote:--=
+
+````"Stone walls do not a prison make,
+
+````Nor iron bars a cage,
+
+````Minds innocent--"=
+
+Am I innocent? No, but I am forgiven, as I believe, before God and man.
+And are not all the glories of heaven preparing, not for sinless but for
+pardoned souls?
+
+Therefore, I am at peace. This first night of my imprisonment is, for
+some things, as happy to me as that which I have often imagined to
+myself, when I should bring you home for the first time to my own
+fireside.
+
+Not even that thought, and the rush of thoughts that came with it, are
+able to shake me out of this feeling of unutterable rest: so perfect
+that it seems strange to imagine I shall ever go out of this cell to
+begin afresh the turmoil of the world--as strange as that the dead
+should wish to return again to life and its cares. But this as God
+wills.
+
+My love, good night. Granton will give you any further particulars. Talk
+to him freely--it will be his good heart's best reward. His happy, busy
+life, which is now begun, may have been made all the brighter for the
+momentary cloud which taught him that Providence oftentimes blesses us in
+better ways than by giving us exactly the thing we desired. He told me
+when we parted, which was the only allusion he made to the past--that
+though Mrs. Colin was "the dearest little woman in all the world," he
+should always adore as "something between a saint and an angel," Miss
+Dora.
+
+Is she my saint and angel? Perhaps--if she were not likewise the woman
+of my love.
+
+What is she doing now, I wonder? Probably vanishing, lamp in hand, as
+I have often watched her, up the stair into her own wee room--where she
+shuts the door and remembers me.
+
+Yes, remember me--but not with pain. Believe that I am happy--that
+whatever now befalls me, I shall always be happy.
+
+Tell your father--No, tell him nothing. He surely knows all. Or he will
+know it--when, this life having passed away like a vapour, he and I
+stand together before the One God--who is also the Redeemer of sinners.
+
+Write to me, but do not come and see me. Hitherto, your name has been
+kept clear out of everything; it must be still, at any sacrifice to both
+of us. I count on this from you. You know, you once said, laughing, you
+had already taken in your heart the marriage vow of "obedience," if I
+chose to exact it.
+
+I never did, but I do now. Unless I send for you--which I solemnly
+promise to do if illness or any other cause makes it necessary--obey me,
+your husband: do not come and see me.
+
+Three months will pass quickly. Then? But let us not look forward.
+
+My love, good-night.
+
+Max Urquhart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. HER STORY.
+
+
+|Max says I am to write an end to my journal, tie it up with his letters
+and mine, fasten a stone to it, and drop it over the ship's bulwarks
+into this blue, blue sea.--That is, either he threatened me or I him--I
+forget which, with such a solemn termination; but I doubt if we shall
+ever have courage to do it. It would feel something like dropping a
+little child into this "wild and wandering grave," as a poor mother on
+board had to do yesterday.
+
+"But I shall see him again," she sobbed, as I was helping her to sew the
+little white body up in its hammock. "The good God will take care of him
+and let me find him again, even out of the deep sea. I cannot lose him;
+I loved him so."
+
+And thus, I believe, no perfect love, or the record of it, in heart
+or in word, can ever be lost. So it is of small matter to Max and me,
+whether this, our true love's history, sinks down into the bottom of
+the ocean; to sleep there--as we almost expected we should do yesterday,
+there was such a storm; or is sealed up and preserved for the benefit
+of--of our great-grandchildren.
+
+Ah! that poor mother and her dead child!
+
+--Max here crept down into the berth to look for me--and I returned with
+him and left him resting comfortably on the quarter-deck, promising not
+to stir for a whole hour. I have to take care of him still; but, as I
+told him, the sea winds are bringing; some of its natural brownness back
+to his dear old face:--and I shall not consider him "interesting" any
+more.
+
+During the three months that Max was in prison, I never saw him. Indeed,
+we never once met from the day we said good-bye in my father's presence,
+till the day that----But I will continue my story systematically.
+
+All those three months Max was ill; not dangerously--for he said so, and
+I could believe him. It would have gone very hard with me if I could
+not have relied on him in this, as in everything. Nevertheless, it was a
+bitter time, and now I almost wonder how I bore it. Now, when I am ready
+and willing for everything, except the one thing, which, thank God, I
+shall never have to bear again--separation.
+
+The day before he came out of prison, Max wrote to me a long and serious
+letter. Hitherto, both our letters had been filled up with trivialities,
+such as might amuse him and cheer me, we deferred all plans till he
+was better. My private thoughts, if I had any, were not clear even to
+myself, until Max's letter.
+
+It was a very sad letter. Three months' confinement in one cell, with
+one hour's daily walk round a circle in a walled yard--prisoner's
+labour, for he took to making mats, saying it amused him; prisoner's
+rules and fare--no wonder that towards the end even his brave heart gave
+way.
+
+He broke down utterly. Otherwise he never would have written to me as
+he did--bidding me farewell, _me!_ At first I was startled and shocked;
+then I laid down the letter and smiled--a very sad sort of smile of
+course, but still it was a smile. The idea that Max and I could part,
+or desire to do so, under any human circumstances, seemed one of those
+amusingly impossible things that one would never stop to argue in the
+least, either with one's self or any other person. That we loved one
+another, and therefore some day should probably be married, but that
+anyhow we belonged to one another till death, were facts at once as
+simple, natural, and immutable, as that the sun stood in the heavens or
+that the grass was green.
+
+I wrote back to Max that night.
+
+Not that I did it in any hurry, or impulse of sudden feeling. I took
+many hours to consider both what I should say, and in what form I should
+put it. Also, I had doubts whether it would not be best for him, if he
+accepted the generous offer of Mr. Thorley's son-in-law, made with full
+knowledge of all circumstances, to go first to America alone. But, think
+how I would, my thoughts all returned and settled in the same track, in
+which was written one clear truth; that after God and the right--which
+means all claims of justice and conscience--the first duty of any two
+who love truly is towards one another.
+
+I have thought since, that if this truth were plainer seen and more
+firmly held, by those whom it concerns--many false notions about honour,
+pride, self-respect, would slip off; many uneasy doubts and divided
+duties would be set at rest; there would be less fear of the world and
+more of God, the only righteous fear. People would believe more simply
+in His ordinance, instituted "from the beginning"--not the mere outward
+ceremony of a wedding; but the love which draws together man and woman,
+until it makes them complete in one another, in the mystical marriage
+union, which, once perfect, should never he disannulled. And if this
+union begins, as I think it does, from the very hour each feels certain
+of the other's love--surely, as I said to Max--to talk about giving
+one another up, whether from poverty, delay, altered circumstances, or
+compulsion of friends, anything in short except changed love, or lost
+honour--like poor Penelope and Francis--was about as foolish and wrong
+as attempting to annul a marriage. Indeed, I have seen many a marriage
+that might have been broken with far less unholiness than a real troth
+plight, such as was this of ours.
+
+After a little more "preaching," (a bad habit that I fear is growing
+upon me, save that Max merely laughs at it, or when he does not laugh
+he actually listens!) I ended my letter by the-earnest advice, that
+he should go and settle in Canada, and go at once; but that he must
+remember he had to take with him one trifling incumbrance--me.
+
+When the words were written, the deed done, I was a little startled
+at myself. It looked so exceedingly like my making _him_ an offer of
+marriage! But then--good-bye, foolish doubt! good-bye contemptible,
+shame! Those few tears that burnt my cheeks after the letter was gone,
+were the only tears of the sort that I ever shed--that Max will ever
+suffer me to shed. Max loves me!
+
+His letter in reply I shall not give--not a line of it. It was only _for
+me_.
+
+So that being settled, the next thing to consider was how matters could
+be brought about, without delay either. For, with Max's letter, I got
+one from his good friend Mrs. Ansdell, at whose house in London he
+had gone to lodge. Her son had followed his two sisters--they were a
+consumptive family--leaving her a poor old childless widow now. She was
+very fond of my dear Max, which made her quick-sighted concerning him,
+and so she wrote as she did, delicately, but sufficiently plainly, to
+me, whom she said he had told her was, in case of any sudden calamity,
+to be sent for as "his dearest friend."
+
+My dear Max! Now, we smile at these sad forebodings; we believe we shall
+both live to see a good old age. But if I had known that we should only
+be married a year, a month, a week,--if I had been certain he would die
+in my arms the very same day--I should still have done exactly what I
+did.
+
+In one sense, his illness made my path easier. He had need of me, vital,
+instant need, and no one else had. Also, he was so weak that even his
+will had left him; he could neither reason nor resist. He just wrote,
+"You are my conscience; do as you will, only do right." And then,
+as Mrs. Ansdell afterwards told me, he lay for days and days, calm,
+patient; waiting, he says, for another angel than Theodora.
+
+Well--we smile now, at these days, as I said; thank God, we can smile;
+but it would not do to live them over again.
+
+Max refused to let me come to see him at Mrs. Ansdell's, until my father
+had been informed of all our plans. But papa went on in his daily
+life, now so active and cheerful; he did not seem to remember anything
+concerning Doctor Urquhart and me. For two whole days did I follow him
+about, watching an opportunity, but it never came. The first person who
+learnt my secret was Penelope.
+
+How many a time, in these strange summers to come, shall I call to mind
+that soft English summer night, under the honeysuckle-bush,--Penelope
+and I sitting at our work; she talking the while of Lisabel's new hope,
+and considering which of us two should best be spared to go and take
+care of her in her trial.
+
+"Or, indeed, papa might almost be left alone, for a week or two. He
+would hardly miss us--he is so well. I should not wonder, if, like
+grandfather, whom you don't remember, Dora,--he lived to be ninety years
+old."
+
+"I hope he may; I hope he may!"
+
+And I burst out sobbing; then, hanging about my sister's neck, I told
+her all.
+
+"Oh!" I cried, for my tongue seemed unloosed, and I was not afraid of
+speaking to her, nor even of hurting her--if now she could be hurt by
+the personal sorrows that mine recalled to her mind. "Oh, Penelope,
+don't you think it would be right? Papa does not want me--nobody wants
+me. Or if they did--"
+
+I stopped. Penelope said, meditatively:--"A man shall leave his father
+and his mother and cleave unto his wife."
+
+"And equally, a woman ought to cleave unto her husband. I mean to ask my
+father's consent to my going with Max to Canada."
+
+"Ah! that's sudden, child." And by her start of pain I felt how untruly
+I had spoken, and how keenly I must have wounded my sister in saying,
+"Nobody wanted me" at home.
+
+Home, where I lived for nearly twenty-seven years, all of which now seem
+such happy years. "God do so unto me and more also," as the old Hebrews
+used to say, if ever I forget Rockmount, my peaceful maiden-home!
+
+It looked so pretty that night, with the sunset colouring its old walls,
+and its terrace-walk, where papa was walking to and fro, bareheaded, the
+rosy light falling like a glory upon his long white hair. To think of
+him thus pacing his garden, year after year, each year growing older and
+feebler, and I never seeing him, perhaps never hearing from him; either
+not coming back at all, or returning after a lapse of years to find
+nothing left to me but my father's grave!
+
+The conflict was very terrible; nor would Max himself have wished it
+less. They who do not love their own flesh and blood, with whom they
+have lived ever since they were born, how can they know what any love
+is?
+
+We heard papa call us:--"Come in, you girls! The sun is down, and the
+dews are falling." Penelope put her hand softly on my head. "Hush,
+child, hush! Steal into your own room, and quiet yourself. I will go and
+explain things to your father."
+
+I was sure she must have done it in the best and gentlest way; Penelope
+does everything so wisely and gently now; but when she came to look for
+me, I knew, before she said a word, that it had been done in vain.
+
+"Dora, you must go yourself and reason with him. But take heed what you
+say and what you do. There is hardly a man on this earth for whom it is
+worth forsaking a happy home and a good father."
+
+And truly, if I had ever had the least doubt of Max, or of our love for
+one another; if I had not felt as it were already married to him, who
+had no tie in the whole wide world but me--I never could have nerved
+myself to say what I did say to my father. If, in the lightest word, it
+was unjust, unloving or undutiful--may God forgive me, for I never meant
+it! My heart was breaking almost--but I only wanted to hold fast to the
+right, as I saw it, and as, so seeing it, I could not but act.
+
+"So, I understand you wish to leave your father?"
+
+"Papa!--papa!"
+
+"Do not argue the point. I thought that folly was all over now. It must
+be over. Be a good girl, and forget it. There!"
+
+I suppose I must have turned very white, for I felt him take hold of
+me, and press me into a chair beside him. But it would not do to let my
+strength go.
+
+"Papa, I want your consent to my marriage with Dr. Urquhart. He would
+come and ask you himself; but he is too ill. We have waited a long time,
+and suffered much. He is not young, and I feel old--quite old myself,
+sometimes. Do not part us any more."
+
+This was, as near as I can recollect, what I said--said very quietly and
+humbly, I know it was; for my father seemed neither surprised nor angry;
+but he sat there as hard as a stone, repeating only, "It _must_ be
+over."
+
+"Why?"
+
+He answered by one word:--"_Harry_"
+
+"No other reason?"
+
+"None."
+
+Then I dared to speak out plain, even to my father. "Papa, you said,
+publicly, you had forgiven him for the death of Harry."
+
+"But I never said I should forget."
+
+"Ay, there it is!" I cried out bitterly. "People say they forgive, but
+they cannot forget. It would go hard with some of us if the just God
+dealt with us in like manner."
+
+"You are profane."
+
+"No! only I am not afraid to bring God's truth into all the
+circumstances of life, and to judge them by it. I believe,--if Christ
+came into the world to forgive sinners, we ought to forgive them too."
+
+Thus far I said--not thinking it just towards Max that I should plead
+merely for pity to be shewn to him or to me who loved him; but because
+it was the right and the truth, and as such, both for Max's honour and
+mine, I strove to put it clearly before my father. And then I gave way,
+pleading only as a daughter with her father, that he should blot out the
+past, and not for the sake of one long dead and gone break the heart of
+his living child.
+
+"Harry would not wish it--I am sure he would not. If Harry has gone
+where he, too, may find mercy for his many sins, I know that he has long
+ago forgiven my dear Max." My father, muttering something about "strange
+theology," sat thoughtful. It was some time before he spoke again.
+
+"There is one point of the subject you omit entirely. What will the
+world say? I, a clergyman, to sanction the marriage of my daughter with
+the man who took the life of my son? It is not possible."
+
+Then I grew bold:--"So, it is not the law of God, or justice, or nature,
+that keeps us asunder--but the world? Father, you have no right to part
+Max and me for fear of the world."
+
+When it was said, I repented myself of this. But it was too late. All
+his former hardness returned as he said:--
+
+"I am aware that I have no legal right to forbid your marriage. You are
+of age: you may act, as you have all along acted, in defiance of your
+father."
+
+Never in defiance, nor even in secret disobedience and I reminded him
+how all things had been carried on--open and plain--from first to last;
+how patiently we had waited, and how, if Max were well and prosperous, I
+might still have said, "We will wait a little longer. Now--"
+
+"Well, and now?"
+
+I went down on my very knees, and with tears and sobs besought my father
+to let me be Max's wife.
+
+It was in vain.
+
+"Good night: go to your bed, Dora, and weary me no more."
+
+I rose, certain now that the time was come when I must choose between
+two duties--between father and husband; the one to whom I owed
+existence, the other to whose influence I owed everything that had made
+me a girl worth living, or worth loving. Such crises do come to poor
+souls!--God guide them, for He only can.
+
+"Good night, father"--my lips felt dry and stiff--it was scarcely my own
+voice that I heard, "I will wait--there are still a few days."
+
+He turned suddenly upon me. "What are you planning? Tell the truth."
+
+"I meant to do so." And then, briefly,--for each word came out with
+pain, as if it were a last breath,--I explained that Dr. Urquhart would
+have to leave for Canada in a month--that, if we had gained my father's
+consent, we intended to be married in three weeks, remain a week in
+England, and then sail.
+
+"And what if I do not give my consent?"
+
+I stopped a moment, and then strength came.
+
+"I must be Max's wife still. God gave us to one another, and God only
+shall put us asunder."
+
+After that, I remember nothing till I found myself lying in my own bed
+with Penelope beside me.
+
+No words can tell how good my sister Penelope was to me in the three
+weeks that followed. She helped me in all my marriage preparations; few
+and small, for I had little or no money except what I might have asked
+papa for, and I would not have done that--not for worlds! Max's wife
+would have come to him almost as poor as Griseldis, had not Penelope one
+day taken me to those locked-up drawers of hers.
+
+"Are you afraid of ill-luck with these things? No? Then choose whatever
+you want, and may you have health and happiness to wear them, my dear."
+
+And so--with a little more stitching--for I had a sort of superstition
+that I should like to be married in one new white gown, which my sister
+and I made between us--we finished and packed the small wardrobe which
+was all the marriage portion poor Theodora Johnston could bring to her
+husband.
+
+My father must have been well aware of our preparations, for we did
+not attempt to hide them; the household knew only that Miss Dora, was
+"going a journey," but he knew better--that she was going to leave him
+and her old home, perhaps for evermore. Yet he said nothing. Sometimes I
+caught him looking earnestly at me--at the poor face which I saw in
+the looking-glass--growing daily more white and heavy-eyed--yet he said
+nothing.
+
+Penelope told me when, hearing me fall, she had run into the library
+that night, he bade her "take the child away, and say she must not speak
+to him on this subject any more." I obeyed. I behaved all through those
+three weeks as if each day had been like the innumerable other days that
+I had sat at my father's table, walked and talked by his side, if not
+the best loved, at least as well loved as any of his daughters. But
+it was an ordeal such as even to remember gives one a shiver of pain,
+wondering how one bore it.
+
+During the day-time I was quiet enough, being so busy, and, as I said,
+Penelope was very good to me; but at night I used to lie awake, seeing,
+with open eyes, strange figures about the room--especially my mother, or
+some one I fancied was she. I would often talk to her, asking her if I
+were acting right or wrong, and whether all that I did for Max she would
+not have once done for my father? then rouse myself with a start, and
+a dread that my wits were going, or that some heavy illness was
+approaching me, and if so, what would become of Max?
+
+At length arrived the last day--the day before my marriage. It was not
+to be here, of course; but in some London church, near Mrs. Ansdell's,
+who was to meet me herself at the railway-station early the same
+morning, and remain with me till I was Dr. Urquhart's wife. I could have
+no other friend; Penelope and I agreed that it was best not to risk my
+father's displeasure by asking for her to go to my marriage. So,
+without sister or father, or any of my own kin, I was to start on my sad
+wedding-morning--quite alone.
+
+During the week, I had taken an opportunity to drive over to the Cedars,
+shake hands with Colin and his wife, and give his dear old mother one
+long kiss, which she did not know was a good-bye. Otherwise I bade
+farewell to no one. My last walk through the village was amidst a deluge
+of August rain, in which my moorlands vanished, all mist and gloom. A
+heavy, heavy night: it will be long before the weight of it is lifted
+off my remembrance.
+
+And yet I knew I was doing right, and, if needed, would do it all over
+again. Every human love has its sacrifices and its anguishes, as well as
+its joys--the one great love of life has often most of all. Therefore,
+let those beware who enter upon it lightly, or selfishly, or without
+having counted its full cost.
+
+"I do not know if we shall be happy," said I to Penelope, when she was
+cheering me with a future that may never come--"I only know that Max and
+I have cast our lots together, and that we shall love one another to the
+end."
+
+And in that strong love armed, I lived--otherwise, many times that day,
+it would have seemed easier to have died.
+
+When I went, as usual, to bid papa goodnight, I could hardly stand. He
+looked at me suspiciously.
+
+"Good night, my dear. By-the-by, Dora, I shall want you to drive me to
+the Cedars tomorrow."
+
+"I--I--Penelope will do it." And I fell on his breast with a pitiful
+cry. "Only bid me good-bye! Only say 'God bless you,' just once,
+father."
+
+He breathed hard. "I thought so. Is it to be to-morrow?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where?"
+
+I told him.
+
+For a few minutes papa let me lie where I was; patting my shoulder
+softly, as one does a sobbing child--then, still gently, he put me away
+from him.
+
+"We had better end this, Dora; I cannot bear it. Kiss me. Good-bye."
+
+"And not one blessing? Papa, papa!"
+
+My father rose, and laid his hand solemnly on my head:--"You have been
+a dutiful girl to me, in all things save this, and a good daughter makes
+a good wife. Farewell--wherever you go,--God bless you!"
+
+And as he closed the library-door upon me I thought I had taken my last
+look of my dear father.
+
+It was only six o'clock in the morning when Penelope took me to the
+station. Nobody saw us--nobody knew. The man at the railway stopped
+us, and talked to Penelope for full two minutes about his wife's
+illness--two whole minutes out of our last five.
+
+--My sister would not bid me good-bye--being determined, she said, to
+see me again, either in London or Liverpool, before we sailed. She had
+kept me up wonderfully, and her last kiss was almost cheerful, or she
+made it seem so. I can still see her--very pale, for she had been up
+since daylight, but otherwise quiet and tearless, pacing the solitary
+platform--our two long shadows gliding together before us, in the early
+morning sun. And I see her, even to the last minute, standing with her
+hand on the carriage-door--smiling.
+
+"Give Doctor Urquhart my love--tell him, I know he will take care of
+you. And child"--turning round once again with her "practical" look
+that I knew so well, "Remember, I have written 'Miss Johnston,' on your
+boxes. Afterwards, be sure that you alter the name. Good-bye,--nonsense,
+it is not really goodbye."
+
+Ay, but it was. For how many, many years?
+
+In that dark, gloomy, London church, which a thundery mist made darker
+and stiller--I first saw again my dear Max.
+
+Mrs. Ansdell said, lest I should be startled and shocked, that it was
+only the sight of me which overcame him; that he was really better. And
+so when, after the first few minutes, he asked me, hesitatingly, "if I
+did not find him much altered?" I answered boldly, "No! that I should
+soon get accustomed to his grey hair; besides, I never remembered
+him either particularly handsome or particularly young." At which he
+smiled--and then I knew again my own Max! and all things ceased to feel
+so mournfully strange.
+
+We went into one of the far pews, and Max tried on my ring. How his
+hands shook! so much that all my trembling passed away, and a great calm
+came over me. Yes--I had done right. He had nobody but me.
+
+So we sat, side by side, neither of us speaking a word, until the
+pew-opener came to say the clergyman was ready.
+
+There were several other couples waiting to be married at the same
+time--who had bridesmaids, and friends, and fathers. We three walked
+up and took our places--there was no one to pay heed to us. I saw the
+verger whisper something to Max--to which he answered "Yes," and the
+old man came and stood behind Mrs. Ansdell and me. A few other folk were
+dotted about in the pews, but I only noticed them as moving figures, and
+distinguished none.
+
+The service began--which I--indeed we both--had last heard at Lisabel's
+wedding--in our pretty church, all flower-adorned, she looking so
+handsome and happy, with her sisters near her, and her father to give
+her away. For a moment I felt very desolate: and hearing a pew-door open
+and a footstep come slowly up the aisle, I trembled with a vague fear
+that something might happen, something which even at the last moment
+might part Max and me.
+
+But it did not; I heard him repeat the solemn promises--how dare any one
+make them lightly, or break them afterwards! to "_love, comfort, honor
+and keep me, in sickness and in health, and, forsaking all other, keep
+me only unto him, so long as we both should live_" And I felt that I
+also, out of the entire trust I had in him, and the great love I bore
+him, could cheerfully forsake all other, father, sisters, kindred, and
+friends, for him. They were very dear to me, and would be always: but he
+was part of myself,--my husband.
+
+And here let me relate a strange thing--so unexpected that Max and I
+shall always feel it as a special blessing from heaven to crown all our
+pain and send us forth on our new life in peace and joy. When in the
+service came the question:--"Who giveth this woman, &c"--there was no
+answer, and the silence went like a stab to my heart. The minister,
+thinking there was some mistake, repeated it again:--"Who giveth this
+woman to be married to this man?"
+
+"I do."
+
+It was not a stranger's voice, but my dear father's.
+
+*****
+
+My husband had asked me where I should best like to go for our marriage
+journey. I said, to St. Andrews. Max grew much better there. He seemed
+better from the very hour, when, papa having remained with us till our
+train started, we were for the first time left alone by our two selves.
+An expression ungrammatical enough to be quite worthy, Max would say,
+of his little lady, but people who are married will understand what it
+means.--We did, I think, as we sat still, my head on his shoulder and my
+hand between both his, watching the fields, trees, hills, and dales,
+fly past like changing shadows; never talking at all, nor thinking much,
+except--the glad thought came in spite of all the bitterness of of these
+good-byes--that there was one goodbye which never need be said again. We
+were married.
+
+I was delighted with St. Andrews. We shall always talk of our four
+days there, so dream-like at the time, yet afterwards become clear in
+remembrance down to the minutest particulars. The sweetness of them will
+last us through many a working hour, many an hour of care--such as we
+know must come, in ours as in all human lives. We are not afraid: we are
+together.
+
+Our last day in St. Andrews was Sunday, and Max took me to his own
+Presbyterian church, in which he and his brother were brought up, and of
+which Dallas was to have been a minister. From his many wanderings it
+so happened that my husband had not heard the Scotch service for many
+years, and he was much affected by it. I too--when, reading together the
+psalms at the end of his Bible, he shewed me, silently, the name written
+in it--Dallas Urquhart..
+
+The psalm--I shall long remember it, with the tune it was sung to--which
+was strange to me, but Max knew it well of old, and it had been a
+particular favourite with Dallas. Surely if spirit, freed from flesh, be
+everywhere, or, if permitted, can go anywhere that it desires,--not
+very far from us two, as we sat singing that Sunday, must have been our
+brother Dallas.=
+
+```"How lovely is thy dwelling place
+
+````O Lord of hosts, to me!--
+
+```The tabernacles of thy grace
+
+````How pleasant, Lord, they be!
+
+```My thirsty soul longs vehemently
+
+````Yea, faints, thy courts to see:
+
+```My very heart and flesh cry out
+
+````O living God, for thee.. . .
+
+```Blest are they, in thy house who dwell,
+
+````Who ever give thee praise;
+
+```Blest is the man whose strength thou art
+
+````In whose heart are thy ways:
+
+```Who, passing thorough Baca's vale,
+
+````Therein do dig up wells:
+
+```Also the rain that falleth down
+
+````The pools with water fills.
+
+```Thus they from strength unwearied go
+
+````Still forward unto strength:
+
+```Until in Zion they appear
+
+````Before the Lord at length.=
+
+Amen! So, when this life is ended, may we appear, even there still
+together,--my husband and I!
+
+*****
+
+Contrary to our plans, we did not see Rockmount again, nor Penelope, nor
+my dear father. It was thought best not. Especially as in a few years at
+latest, we hope, God willing, to visit them all again, or perhaps even
+to settle in England.
+
+After a single day spent at Treherne Court, Augustus went with us one
+sunshiny morning on board the American steamer, which lay so peacefully
+in the middle of the Mersey--just as if she were to lie there for ever,
+instead of sailing, and we with her--in one little half hour. Sailing
+far away, far away to a home we knew not, leaving the old familiar faces
+and the old familiar land.
+
+It seemed doubly precious now, and beautiful; even the sandy flats, that
+Max had so often told me about, along the Mersey shore. I saw him look
+thoughtfully towards them, after pointing out to me the places he knew,
+and where his former work had lain.
+
+"That is all over now," he said, half sadly. "Nothing has happened as I
+planned, or hoped, or--"
+
+"Or feared."
+
+"No. My dear wife, no! Yet all has been for good. All is very good. I
+shall find new work in a new country."
+
+"And I too?"
+
+Max smiled. "Yes, she too. We'll work together, my little lady!"
+
+The half hour was soon over--the few last words soon said. But I did not
+at all realize that we were away, till I saw Augustus wave us good-bye,
+and heard the sudden boom of our farewell gun as the _Europa_ slipped
+off her mail-tender, and went steaming seaward alone--fast, oh! so fast.
+
+The sound of that gun, it must have nearly broken many a heart, many
+a time! I think it would have broken mine, had I not, standing,
+close-clasped, by my husband's side, looked up in his dear face, and
+read, as he in mine, that to us thus together, everywhere was Home.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Life for a Life, Volume III (of III), by 
+Dinah Maria Craik
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