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diff --git a/7866-h/7866-h.htm b/7866-h/7866-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..77c7a1d --- /dev/null +++ b/7866-h/7866-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4872 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>An Ambitious Man, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, An Ambitious Man, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 + + + + + +Title: An Ambitious Man + + +Author: Ella Wheeler Wilcox + + + +Release Date: July 5, 2014 [eBook #7866] +[This file was first posted on May 28, 2003] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN AMBITIOUS MAN*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1914 Gay & Hancock Ltd. edition by +David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/coverb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Book cover" +title= +"Book cover" +src="images/covers.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h1><span class="GutSmall">AN</span><br /> +AMBITIOUS MAN</h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="GutSmall">BY</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center">ELLA WHEELER WILCOX</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/tpb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Decorative graphic" +title= +"Decorative graphic" +src="images/tps.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="GutSmall">LONDON</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center">GAY & HANCOCK LTD.<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">12 AND 13 HENRIETTA STREET, +STRAND</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center">1914</p> +<p style="text-align: center">[<i>All Rights Reserved</i>]</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>First Edition 1908</i></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Popular Edition 1914</i></p> +<h2>CHAPTER I</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Preston Cheney</span> turned as he ran +down the steps of a handsome house on “The +Boulevard,” waving a second adieu to a young woman framed +between the lace curtains of the window. Then he hurried +down the street and out of view. The young woman watched +him with a gleam of satisfaction in her pale blue eyes. A +fine-looking young fellow, whose Roman nose and strong jaw belied +the softly curved mouth with its sensitive darts at the corners; +it was strange that something warmer than satisfaction did not +shine upon the face of the woman whom he had just asked to be his +wife.</p> +<p>But Mabel Lawrence was one of those women who are never swayed +by any passion stronger than worldly ambition, never burned by +any fires other than those of jealousy or anger. Her meagre +nature was truly depicted in her meagre face. Nature is +ofttimes a great lair and a cruel jester, giving to the cold and +vapid woman the face and form of a sensuous siren, and concealing +a heart of volcanic fires, or the soul of a Phryne, under the +exterior of a spinster. But the old dame had been wholly +frank in forming Miss Lawrence. The thin, flat chest and +narrow shoulders, the angular elbows and prominent +shoulder-blades, the sallow skin and sharp features, the deeply +set, pale blue eyes, and the lustreless, ashen hair, were all +truthful exponents of the unfurnished rooms in her vacant heart +and soul places.</p> +<p>Miss Lawrence turned from the window, and trailed her long +silken train across the rich carpet, seating herself before the +open fireplace. It was an appropriate time and situation +for a maiden’s tender dreams; only a few hours had passed +since the handsomest and most brilliant young man in that +thriving eastern town had asked her to be his wife, and placed +the kiss of betrothal upon her virgin lips. Yet it was with +a sense of triumph and relief, rather than with tenderness and +rapture, that the young woman meditated upon the +situation—triumph over other women who had shown a decided +interest in Mr Cheney, since his arrival in the place more than +eighteen months ago, and relief that the dreaded rôle of +spinster was not to be her part in life’s drama.</p> +<p>Miss Lawrence was twenty-six—one year older than her +fiancé; and she had never received a proposal of marriage +or listened to a word of love in her life before. Let me +transpose that phrase—she had never before received a +proposal of marriage, and had never in her life listened to a +word of love; for Preston had not spoken of love. She knew +that he did not love her. She knew that he had sought her +hand wholly from ambitious motives. She was the daughter of +the Hon. Sylvester Lawrence, lawyer, judge, state senator, and +proposed candidate for lieutenant-governor in the coming +campaign. She was the only heir to his large fortune.</p> +<p>Preston Cheney was a penniless young man from the West. +A self-made youth, with an unusual brain and an overwhelming +ambition, he had risen from chore boy on a western farm to +printer’s apprentice in a small town, thence to reporter, +city editor, foreign correspondent, and after two or three years +of travel gained in this manner he had come to Beryngford and +bought out a struggling morning paper, which was making a mad +effort to keep alive, changed its political tendencies, infused +it with western activity and filled it with cosmopolitan news, +and now, after eighteen months, the young man found himself +coming abreast of his two long established rivals in the +editorial field. This success was but an incentive to his +overwhelming ambition for place, power and riches. He had +seen just enough of life and of the world to estimate these +things at double their value; and he was, beside, looking at life +through the magnifying glass of youth. The Creator intended +us to gaze on worldly possessions and selfish ambitions through +the small end of the lorgnette, but youth invariably inverts the +glass.</p> +<p>To the young editor, the brief years behind him seemed like a +long hard pull up a steep and rocky cliff. From the point +to which he had attained, the summit of his desires looked very +far away, much farther than the level from which he had +arisen. To rise to that summit single-handed and alone +would require unremitting effort through the very best years of +his manhood. His brain, his strength, his ability, his +ambitions, what were they all in the strife after place and +power, compared to the money of some commonplace adversary? +Preston Cheney, the native-born American directly descended from +a Revolutionary soldier, would be handicapped in the race with +some Michael Murphy whose father had made a fortune in the saloon +business, or who had himself acquired a competency as a police +officer.</p> +<p>America was not the same country which gave men like Benjamin +Franklin, Abraham Lincoln and Horace Greeley a chance to rise +from the lower ranks to the highest places before they reached +middle life. It was no longer a land where merit strove +with merit, and the prize fell to the most earnest and the most +gifted. The tremendous influx of foreign population since +the war of the Rebellion and the right of franchise given +unreservedly to the illiterate and the vicious rendered the +ambitious American youth now a toy in the hands of aliens, and +position a thing to be bought at the price set by un-American +masses.</p> +<p>Thoughts like these had more and more with each year filled +the mind of Preston Cheney, until, like the falling of stones and +earth into a river bed, they changed the naturally direct current +of his impulses into another channel. Why not further his +life purpose by an ambitious marriage? The first time the +thought entered his mind he had cast it out as something unclean +and unworthy of his manhood. Marriage was a holy estate, he +said to himself, a sacrament to be entered into with reverence, +and sanctified by love. He must love the woman who was to +be the companion of his life, the mother of his children.</p> +<p>Then he looked about among his early friends who had married, +as nearly all the young men of the middle classes in America do +marry, for love, or what they believed to be love. There +was Tom Somers—a splendid lad, full of life, hope and +ambition when he married Carrie Towne, the prettiest girl in +Vandalia. Well, what was he now, after seven years? A +broken-spirited man, with a sickly, complaining wife and a brood +of ill-clad children. Harry Walters, the most infatuated +lover he had ever seen, was divorced after five years of +discordant marriage.</p> +<p>Charlie St Clair was flagrantly unfaithful to the girl he had +pursued three years with his ardent wooings before she yielded to +his suit. Certainly none of these love marriages were +examples for him to follow. And in the midst of these +reveries and reflections, Preston Cheney came to Beryngford, and +met Sylvester Lawrence and his daughter Mabel. He met also +Berene Dumont. Had he not met the latter woman he would not +have succumbed—so soon at least—to the temptation +held out by the former to advance his ambitious aims.</p> +<p>He would have hesitated, considered, and reconsidered, and +without doubt his better nature and his good taste would have +prevailed. But when fate threw Berene Dumont in his way, +and circumstances brought about his close associations with her +for many months, there seemed but one way of escape from the +Scylla of his desires, and that was to the Charybdis of a +marriage with Miss Lawrence.</p> +<p>Miss Lawrence was not aware of the part Berene Dumont had +played in her engagement, but she knew perfectly the part her +father’s influence and wealth had played; but she was quite +content with affairs as they were, and it mattered little to her +what had brought them about. To be married, rather than to +be loved, had been her ambition since she left school; being +incapable of loving, she was incapable of appreciating the +passion in any of its phases. It had always seemed to her +that a great deal of nonsense was written and talked about +love. She thought demonstrative people very vulgar, and +believed kissing a means of conveying germs of disease.</p> +<p>But to be a married woman, with an establishment of her own, +and a husband to exhibit to her friends, was necessary to the +maintenance of her pride.</p> +<p>When Miss Lawrence’s mother, a nervous invalid, was +informed of her daughter’s engagement, she burst into +tears, as over a lamb offered on the altar of sacrifice; and +Judge Lawrence pressed a kiss on the lobe of Mabel’s left +ear which she offered him, and told her she had won a prize in +the market. But as he sat alone over his cigar that night, +he sighed heavily, and said to himself, “Poor fellow, I +wish Mabel were not so much like her mother.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER II</h2> +<p>“<span class="smcap">Baroness Brown</span>” was a +distinctive figure in Beryngford. She came to the place +from foreign parts some three years before the arrival of Preston +Cheney, and brought servants, carriages and horses, and +established herself in a very handsome house which she rented for +a term of years. Her arrival in this quiet village town was +of course the sensation of the hour, or rather of the year. +She was known as Baroness Le Fevre—an American widow of a +French baron. Large, voluptuous, blonde, and handsome +according to the popular idea of beauty, distinctly amiable, +affable and very charitable, she became at once the fashion.</p> +<p>Invitations to her house were eagerly sought after, and her +entertainments were described in column articles by the +press.</p> +<p>This state of things continued only six months, however. +Then it began to be whispered about that the Baroness was in +arrears for her rent. Several of her servants had gone away +in a high state of temper at the titled mistress who had failed +to pay them a cent of wages since they came to the country with +her; and one day the neighbours saw her fine carriage horses led +away by the sheriff.</p> +<p>A week later society was electrified by the announcement of +the marriage of Baroness Le Fevre to Mr Brown, a wealthy widower +who owned the best shoe store in Beryngford.</p> +<p>Mr Brown owned ten children also, but the youngest was a boy +of sixteen, absent in college. The other nine were married +and settled in comfortable homes.</p> +<p>Mr Brown died at the expiration of a year. This one year +had taught him more of womankind than he had learned in all his +sixty and nine years before; and, feeling that it is never too +late to profit by learning, Mr Brown discreetly made his will, +leaving all his property save the widow’s +“thirds” equally divided among his ten children.</p> +<p>The Baroness made a futile effort to break the will, on the +ground that he was not of sound mind when it was drawn up; but +the effort cost her several hundred of her few thousand dollars +and the increased enmity of the ten Brown children, and availed +her nothing. An important part of the widow’s third +was the Brown mansion, a large, commodious house built many years +before, when the village was but a country town. Everybody +supposed the Baroness, as she was still called, half in derision +and half from the American love of mouthing a title, would offer +this house for sale, and depart for fresh fields and pastures +new. But the Baroness never did what she was expected to +do.</p> +<p>Instead of offering her house for sale, she offered +“Rooms to Let,” and turned the family mansion into a +fashionable lodging-house.</p> +<p>Its central location, and its adjacence to several restaurants +and boarding houses, rendered it a convenient place for business +people to lodge, and the handsome widow found no trouble in +filling her rooms with desirable and well-paying patrons. +In a spirit of fun, people began to speak of the old Brown +mansion as “The Palace,” and in a short time the +lodging-house was known by that name, just as its mistress was +known as “Baroness Brown.”</p> +<p>The Palace yielded the Baroness something like two hundred +dollars a month, and cost her only the wages and keeping of three +servants; or rather the wages of two and the keeping of three; +for to Berene Dumont, her maid and personal attendant, she paid +no wages.</p> +<p>The Baroness did not rise till noon, and she always +breakfasted in bed. Sometimes she remained in her room till +mid-afternoon. Berene served her breakfast and lunch, and +looked after the servants to see that the lodgers’ rooms +were all in order. These were the services for which she +was given a home. But in truth the young woman did much +more than this; she acted also as seamstress and milliner for her +mistress, and attended to the marketing and ran errands for +her. If ever a girl paid full price for her keeping, it was +Berene, and yet the Baroness spoke frequently of “giving +the poor thing a home.”</p> +<p>It had all come about in this way. Pierre Dumont kept a +second-hand book store in Beryngford. He was French, and +the national characteristic of frugality had assumed the shape of +avarice in his nature. He was, too, a petty tyrant and a +cruel husband and father when under the influence of absinthe, a +state in which he was usually to be found.</p> +<p>Berene was an only child, and her mother, whom she worshipped, +said, when dying, “Take care of your poor father, +Berene. Do everything you can to make him happy. +Never desert him.”</p> +<p>Berene was fourteen at that time. She had never been at +school, but she had been taught to read and write both French and +English, for her mother was an American girl who had been +disinherited by her grandparents, with whom she lived, for +eloping with her French teacher—Pierre Dumont. +Rheumatism and absinthe turned the French professor into a +shopkeeper before Berene was born. The grandparents had +died without forgiving their granddaughter, and, much as the +unhappy woman regretted her foolish marriage, she remained a +patient and devoted wife to the end of her life, and imposed the +same patience and devotion when dying on her daughter.</p> +<p>At sixteen, Berene was asked to sacrifice herself on the altar +of marriage to a man three times her age; one Jacques Letellier, +who offered generously to take the young girl as payment for a +debt owed by his convivial comrade, M. Dumont. Berene wept +and begged piteously to be spared this horrible sacrifice of her +young life, whereupon Pierre Dumont seized his razor and +threatened suicide as the other alternative from the dishonour of +debt, and Berene in terror yielded her word and herself the next +day to the debasing mockery of marriage with a depraved old +gambler and <i>roué</i>.</p> +<p>Six months later Jacques Letellier died in a fit of apoplexy +and Berene was freed from her chains; but freed only to keep on +in a life of martyrdom as servant and slave to the caprices of +her father, until his death. When he was finally well +buried under six feet of earth, Berene found herself twenty years +of age, alone in the world with just one thousand dollars in +money, the price brought by her father’s effects.</p> +<p>Without education or accomplishments, she was the possessor of +youth, health, charm, and a voice of wonderful beauty and power; +a voice which it was her dream to cultivate, and use as a means +of support. But how could she ever cultivate it? The +thousand dollars in her possession was, she knew, but a drop in +the ocean of expense a musical education would entail. And +she must keep that money until she found some way by which to +support herself.</p> +<p>Baroness Brown had attended the sale of old Dumont’s +effects. She had often noticed the young girl in the shop, +and in the street, and had been struck with the peculiar elegance +and refinement of her appearance. Her simple lawn or print +gowns were made and worn in a manner befitting a princess. +Her nails were carefully kept, despite all the household drudgery +which devolved upon her.</p> +<p>The Baroness was a shrewd woman and a clever reasoner. +She needed a thrifty, prudent person in her house to look after +things, and to attend to her personal needs. Since she had +opened the Palace as a lodging-house, this need had stared her in +the face. Servants did very well in their places, but the +person she required was of another and superior order, and only +to be obtained by accident or by advertising and the paying of a +large salary. Now the Baroness had been in the habit of +thinking that her beauty and amiability were quite equivalent to +any favours she received from humanity at large. Ever since +she was a plump girl in short dresses, she had learned that +smiles and compliments from her lips would purchase her friends +of both sexes, who would do disagreeable duties for her. +She had never made it a custom to pay out money for any service +she could obtain otherwise. So now as she looked on this +young woman who, though a widow, seemed still a mere child, it +occurred to her that Fate had with its usual kindness thrown in +her path the very person she needed.</p> +<p>She offered Berene “a home” at the Palace in +return for a few small services. The lonely girl, whose +strangely solitary life with her old father had excluded her from +all social relations outside, grasped at this offer from the +handsome lady whom she had long admired from a distance, and went +to make her home at the Palace.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER III</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Berene</span> had been several months in +her new home when Preston Cheney came to lodge at the Palace.</p> +<p>He met her on the stairway the first morning after his +arrival, as he was descending to the street door.</p> +<p>Bringing up a tray covered with a snowy napkin, she stepped to +one side and paused, to make room for him to pass.</p> +<p>Preston was not one of those young men who find pastime in +flirtations with nursery maids or kitchen girls. The very +thought of it offended his good taste. Once, in listening +to the boastful tales of a modern Don Juan, who was relating his +gallant adventures with a handsome waiter girl at a hotel, +Preston had remarked, “I would as soon think of using my +dinner napkin for a necktie, as finding romance with a servant +girl.”</p> +<p>Yet he appreciated a snowy, well-laundried napkin in its +place, and he was most considerate and thoughtful in his +treatment of servants.</p> +<p>He supposed Berene to be an upper servant of the house, and +yet, as he glanced at her, a strange and unaccountable feeling of +interest seized upon him. The creamy pallor of her skin, +colourless save for the full red lips, the dark eyes full of +unutterable longing, the aristocratic poise of the head, the +softly rounded figure, elegant in its simple gown and apron, all +impressed him as he had never before been impressed by any +woman.</p> +<p>It was several days before he chanced to see her again, and +then only for a moment as she passed through the hall; but he +heard a trill of song from her lips, which added to his interest +and curiosity. “That girl is no common +servant,” he said to himself, and he resolved to learn more +about her.</p> +<p>It had been the custom of the Baroness to keep herself quite +hidden from her lodgers. They seldom saw her, after the +first business interview. Therefore it was a matter of +surprise to the young editor when he came home from his office +one night, just after twelve o’clock, and found the +mistress of the mansion standing in the hall by the register, in +charming evening attire.</p> +<p>She smiled upon him radiantly. “I have just come +in from a benefit concert,” she said, “and I am as +hungry as a bear. Now I cannot endure eating alone at +night. I knew it was near your hour to return, so I waited +for you. Will you go down to the dining-room with me and +have a Welsh rarebit? I am going to make one in my chafing +dish.”</p> +<p>The young man hid his surprise under a gallant smile, and +offering the Baroness his arm descended to the basement +dining-room with her. He had heard much about the +complicated life of this woman, and he felt a certain amount of +natural curiosity in regard to her. He had met her but +once, and that was on the day when he had called to engage his +room, a little more than two weeks past.</p> +<p>He had thought her an excellent type of the successful +American adventuress on that occasion, and her quiet and dull +life in this ordinary town puzzled him. He could not +imagine a woman of that order existing a whole year without an +adventure; as a rule he knew that those blonde women with large +hips and busts, and small waists and feet, are as unable to live +without excitement as a fish without water.</p> +<p>Yet, since the death of Mr Brown, more than a year past, the +Baroness had lived the life of a recluse. It puzzled him, +as a student of human nature.</p> +<p>But, in fact, the Baroness was a skilled general in planning +her campaigns. She seldom plunged into action +unprepared.</p> +<p>She knew from experience that she could not live in a large +city and not use an enormous amount of money.</p> +<p>She was tired of taking great risks, and she knew that without +the aid of money and a fine wardrobe she was not able to attract +men as she had done ten years before.</p> +<p>As long as she remained in Beryngford she would be adding to +her income every month, and saving the few thousands she +possessed. She would be saving her beauty, too, by keeping +early hours and living a temperate life; and if she carefully +avoided any new scandal, her past adventures would be dim in the +minds of people when, after a year or two more of retirement and +retrenchment, she sallied forth to new fields, under a new name, +if need be, and with a comfortably filled purse.</p> +<p>It was in this manner that the Baroness had reasoned; but from +the hour she first saw Preston Cheney, her resolutions +wavered. He impressed her most agreeably; and after +learning about him from the daily papers, and hearing him spoken +of as a valuable acquisition to Beryngford’s intellectual +society, the Baroness decided to come out of her retirement and +enter the lists in advance of other women who would seek to +attract this newcomer.</p> +<p>To the fading beauty in her late thirties, a man in the early +twenties possesses a peculiar fascination; and to the Baroness, +clothed in weeds for a husband who died on the eve of his +seventieth birthday, the possibility of winning a young man like +Preston Cheney overbalanced all other considerations in her +mind. She had never been a vulgar coquette to whom all men +were prey. She had always been more or less +discriminating. A man must be either very attractive or +very rich to win her regard. Mr Brown had been very rich, +and Preston Cheney was very attractive.</p> +<p>“He is more than attractive, he is positively +<i>fascinating</i>,” she said to herself in the solitude of +her room after the tête-à-tête over the Welsh +rarebit that evening. “I don’t know when I have +felt such a pleasure in a man’s presence. Not +since—” But the Baroness did not allow herself +to go back so far. “If there is any fruit I +<i>detest</i>, it is <i>dates</i>,” she often said +laughingly. “Some people delight in a good +memory—I delight in a good forgettory of the past, with its +telltale milestones of birthdays and anniversaries of marriages, +deaths and divorces.”</p> +<p>“Mr Cheney said I looked very young to have been twice +married. Twice!” and she laughed aloud before her +mirror, revealing the pink arch of her mouth, and two perfect +sets of yellow-white teeth, with only one blemishing spot of gold +visible. “I wonder if he meant it, though?” she +mused. “And the fact that I <i>do</i> wonder is the +sure proof that I am really interested in this man. As a +rule, I never believe a word men say, though I delight in their +flattery all the same. It makes me feel comfortable even +when I know they are lying. But I should really feel hurt +if I thought Mr Cheney had not meant what he said. I +don’t believe he knows much about women, or about himself +lower than his brain. He has never studied his heart. +He is all ambition. If an ambitious and unsophisticated +youth of twenty-five or twenty-eight does get infatuated with a +woman of my age—he is a perfect toy in her hands. Ah, +well, we shall see what we shall see.” And the +Baroness finished her massage in cold cream, and put her blonde +head on the pillow and went sound asleep.</p> +<p>After that first tête-à-tête supper the +fair widow managed to see Preston at least once or twice a +week. She sent for him to ask his advice on business +matters, she asked him to aid her in changing the position of the +furniture in a room when the servants were all busy, and she +invited him to her private parlour for lunch every Sunday +afternoon. It was during one of these chats over cake and +wine that the young man spoke of Berene. The Baroness had +dropped some remarks about her servants, and Preston said, in a +casual tone of voice which hid the real interest he felt in the +subject, “By the way, one of your servants has quite an +unusual voice. I have heard her singing about the halls a +few times, and it seems to me she has real talent.”</p> +<p>“Oh, that is Miss Dumont—Berene Dumont—she +is not an absolute servant,” the Baroness replied; +“she is a most unfortunate young woman to whom my heart +went out in pity, and I have given her a home. She is +really a widow, though she refuses to use her dead +husband’s name.”</p> +<p>“A widow?” repeated Preston with surprise and a +queer sensation of annoyance at his heart; “why, from the +glimpse I had of her I thought her a young girl.”</p> +<p>“So she is, not over twenty-one at most, and woefully +ignorant for that age,” the Baroness said, and then she +proceeded to outline Berene’s history, laying a good deal +of stress upon her own charitable act in giving the girl a +home.</p> +<p>“She is so ignorant of life, despite the fact that she +has been married, and she is so uneducated and helpless, I could +not bear to see her cast into the path of designing +people,” the Baroness said. “She has a strong +craving for an education, and I give her good books to read, and +good advice to ponder over, and I hope in time to come she will +marry some honest fellow and settle down to a quiet, happy home +life. The man who brings us butter and eggs from the +country is quite fascinated with her, but she does not deign him +a glance.” And then the Baroness talked of other +things.</p> +<p>But the history he had heard remained in Preston +Cheney’s mind and he could not drive the thought of this +girl away. No wonder her eyes were sad! Better blood +ran in her veins than coursed under the pink flesh of the +Baroness, he would wager; she was the unfortunate victim of a +combination of circumstances, which had defrauded her of the +advantages of youth.</p> +<p>He spoke with her in the hall one morning not long after that; +and then it grew to be a daily occurrence that he talked with her +a few moments, and before many weeks had passed the young man +approached the Baroness with a request.</p> +<p>“I have become interested in your protégée +Miss Dumont,” he said. “You have done so much +for her that you have stirred my better nature and made me +anxious to emulate your example. In talking with her in the +hall one day I learned her great desire for a better education, +and her anxiety to earn money. Now it has occurred to me +that I might aid her in both ways. We need two or three +more girls in our office. We need one more in the +type-setting department. As <i>The Clarion</i> is a morning +paper, and you never need Miss Dumont’s services after five +o’clock, she could work a few hours in the office, earn a +small salary, and gain something in the way of an education also, +if she were ambitious enough to do so. Nearly all my early +education was gained as a printer. She tells me she is +faulty in the matter of spelling, and this would be excellent +training for her. You have, dear madam, inspired the girl +with a desire for more knowledge, and I hope you will let me +carry on the good work you have begun.”</p> +<p>Preston had approached the matter in a way that could not fail +to bring success—by flattering the vanity and pride of the +Baroness. So elated was she with the agreeable references +to herself, that she never suspected the young man’s deep +personal interest in the girl. She believed in the +beginning that he was showing Berene this kind attention solely +to please the mistress.</p> +<p>Berene entered the office as type-setter, and made such +astonishing progress that she was promoted to the position of +proof-reader ere six months had passed. And hour by hour, +day by day, week by week, the strange influence which she had +exerted on her employer, from the first moment of their meeting, +grew and strengthened, until he realised with a sudden terror +that his whole being was becoming absorbed by an intense passion +for the girl.</p> +<p>Meantime the Baroness was growing embarrassing in her +attentions. The young man was not conceited, nor prone to +regard himself as an object of worship to the fair sex. He +had during the first few months believed the Baroness to be +amusing herself with his society. He had not flattered +himself that a woman of her age, who had seen so much of the +world, and whose ambitions were so unmistakable, could regard him +otherwise than as a diversion.</p> +<p>But of late the truth had forced itself upon him that the +woman wished to entangle him in a serious affair. He could +not afford to jeopardise his reputation at the very outset of his +career by any such entanglement, or by the appearance of +one. He cast about for some excuse to leave the Palace, yet +this would separate him in a measure from his association with +Berene, beside incurring the enmity of the Baroness, and possibly +causing Berene to suffer from her anger as well.</p> +<p>He seemed to be caught like a fly in a net. And again +the thought of his future and his ambitions confronted him, and +he felt abashed in his own eyes, as he realised how far away +these ambitions had seemed of late, since he had allowed his +emotions to overrule his brain.</p> +<p>What was this ignorant daughter of a French professor, that +she should stand between him and glory, riches and power? +Desperate diseases needed desperate remedies. He had been +an occasional caller at the Lawrence homestead ever since he came +to Beryngford. Without being conceited on the subject, he +realised that Mabel Lawrence would not reject him as a +suitor.</p> +<p>The masculine party is very dull, or the feminine very +deceptive, when a man makes a mistake in his impressions on this +subject.</p> +<p>That afternoon the young editor left his office at five +o’clock and asked Miss Lawrence to be his wife.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Preston Cheney</span> walked briskly down +the street after he left his fiancée, his steps directed +toward the Palace. It was seven o’clock, and he knew +the Baroness would be at home.</p> +<p>He had determined upon heroic treatment for his own mental +disease (as he regarded his peculiar sentiments toward Berene +Dumont), and he had decided upon a similar course of treatment +for the Baroness.</p> +<p>He would confide his engagement to her at once, and thus put +an end to his embarrassing position in the Palace, as well as to +establish his betrothal as a fact—and to force himself to +so regard it. It was strange reasoning for a young man in +the very first hour of his new rôle of bridegroom elect, +but this particular groom elect had deliberately placed himself +in a peculiar position, and his reasoning was not, of course, +that of an ardent and happy lover.</p> +<p>Already he was galled by his new fetters; already he was +feeling a sense of repulsion toward the woman he had asked to be +his wife: and because of these feelings he was more eager to nail +himself hand and foot to the cross he had builded.</p> +<p>He was obliged to wait some time before the Baroness came into +the reception-room; and when she came he observed that she had +made an elaborate toilet in his honour. Her sumptuous +shoulders billowed over the low-cut blue corsage like +apple-dumplings over a china dish. Her waist was drawn in +to an hourglass taper, while her ample hips spread out beneath +like the heavy mason work which supports a slender column. +Tiny feet encased in pretty slippers peeping from beneath her +silken skirts looked oddly out of proportion with the rest of her +generous personality, and reminded Preston of the grotesque cuts +in the humorous weeklies, where well-known politicians were +represented with large heads and small extremities. +Artistic by nature, and with an eye to form, he had never admired +the Baroness’s type of beauty, which was the theme of +admiration for nearly every other man in Beryngford. Her +face, with its infantine colouring, its large, innocent azure +eyes, and its short retroussé features, he conceded to be +captivatingly pretty, however, and it seemed unusually so this +evening. Perhaps because he had so recently looked upon the +sharp, sallow face of his fiancée.</p> +<p>Preston frequently came to his room about this hour, after +having dined and before going to the office for his final duties; +but he seldom saw the Baroness on these occasions, unless through +her own design.</p> +<p>“You were surprised to receive my message, no doubt, +saying I wished to see you,” he began. “But I +have something I feel I ought to tell you, as it may make some +changes in my habits, and will of course eventually take me away +from these pleasant associations.” He paused for a +second, and the Baroness, who had seated herself on the divan at +his side, leaned forward and looked inquiringly in his face.</p> +<p>“You are going away?” she asked, with a tremor in +her voice. “Is it not very sudden?”</p> +<p>“No, I am not going away,” he replied, “not +from Beryngford—but I shall doubtless leave your house ere +many months. I am engaged to be married to Miss Mabel +Lawrence. You are the first person to whom I have imparted +the news, but you have been so kind, and I feel that you ought to +know it in time to secure a desirable tenant for my +room.”</p> +<p>Again there was a pause. The rosy face of the Baroness +had grown quite pale, and an unpleasant expression had settled +about the corners of her small mouth. She waved a feather +fan to and fro languidly. Then she gave a slight laugh and +said:</p> +<p>“Well, I must confess that I am surprised. Miss +Lawrence is the last woman in the world whom I would have +imagined you to select as a wife. Yet I congratulate you on +your good sense. You are very ambitious, and you can rise +to great distinction if you have the right influence to aid +you. Judge Lawrence, with his wealth and position, is of +all men the one who can advance your interests, and what more +natural than that he should advance the interests of his +son-in-law? You are a very wise youth and I again +congratulate you. No romantic folly will ever ruin your +life.”</p> +<p>There was irony and ridicule in her voice and face, and the +young man felt his cheek tingle with anger and humiliation. +The Baroness had read him like an open book—as everyone +else doubtless would do. It was bitterly galling to his +pride, but there was nothing to do, save to keep a bold front, +and carry out his rôle with as much dignity as +possible.</p> +<p>He rose, spoke a few formal words of thanks to the Baroness +for her kindness to him, and bowed himself from her presence, +carrying with him down the street the memory of her mocking +eyes.</p> +<p>As he entered his private office, he was amazed to see Berene +Dumont sitting in his chair fast asleep, her head framed by her +folded arms, which rested on his desk. Against the dark +maroon of her sleeve, her classic face was outlined like a marble +statuette. Her long lashes swept her cheek, and in the +attitude in which she sat, her graceful, perfectly-proportioned +figure displayed each beautiful curve to the best advantage.</p> +<p>To a noble nature, the sight of even an enemy asleep, awakes +softening emotions, while the sight of a loved being in the +unconsciousness of slumber stirs the fountain of affection to its +very depths.</p> +<p>As the young editor looked upon the girl before him, a passion +of yearning love took possession of him. A wild desire to +seize her in his arms and cover her pale face with kisses, made +his heart throb to suffocation and brought cold beads to his +brow; and just as these feelings gained an almost uncontrollable +dominion over his reason, will and judgment, the girl awoke and +started to her feet in confusion.</p> +<p>“Oh, Mr Cheney, pray forgive me!” she cried, +looking more beautiful than ever with the flush which overspread +her face. “I came in to ask about a word in your +editorial which I could not decipher. I waited for you, as +I felt sure you would be in shortly—and I was so +<i>tired</i> I sat down for just a second to rest—and that +is all I knew about it. You must forgive me, sir!—I +did not mean to intrude.”</p> +<p>Her confusion, her appealing eyes, her magnetic voice were all +fuel to the fire raging in the young man’s heart. Now +that she was for ever lost to him through his own deliberate +action, she seemed tenfold more dear and to be desired. +Brain, soul, and body all seemed to crave her; he took a step +forward, and drew in a quick breath as if to speak; and then a +sudden sense of his own danger, and an overwhelming disgust for +his weakness swept over him, and the intense passion the girl had +aroused in his heart changed to unreasonable anger.</p> +<p>“Miss Dumont,” he said coldly, “I think we +will have to dispense with your services after to-night. +Your duties are evidently too hard for you. You can leave +the office at any time you wish. Good-night.”</p> +<p>The girl shrank as if he had struck her, looked up at him with +wide, wondering eyes, waited for a moment as if expecting to be +recalled, then, as Mr Cheney wheeled his chair about and turned +his back upon her, she suddenly sped away without a word.</p> +<p>She left the office a few moments later; but it was not until +after eleven o’clock that she dragged herself up two +flights of stairs toward her room on the attic floor at the +Palace. She had been walking the streets like a mad +creature all that intervening time, trying to still the agonising +pain in her heart. Preston Cheney had long been her ideal +of all that was noble, grand and good, she worshipped him as +devout pagans worshipped their sacred idols; and, without knowing +it, she gave him the absorbing passion which an intense woman +gives to her lover.</p> +<p>It was only now that he had treated her with such rough +brutality, and discharged her from his employ for so slight a +cause, that the knowledge burst upon her tortured heart of all he +was to her.</p> +<p>She paused at the foot of the third and last flight of stairs +with a strange dizziness in her head and a sinking sensation at +her heart.</p> +<p>A little less than half-an-hour afterwards Preston Cheney +unlocked the street door and came in for the night. He had +done double his usual amount of work and had finished his duties +earlier than usual. To avoid thinking after he sent Berene +away, he had turned to his desk and plunged into his labour with +feverish intensity. He wrote a particularly savage +editorial on the matter of over-immigration, and his leaders on +political questions of the day were all tinctured with a +bitterness and sarcasm quite new to his pen. At midnight +that pen dropped from his nerveless hand, and he made his way +toward the Palace in a most unenviable state of mind and +body.</p> +<p>Yet he believed he had done the right thing both in engaging +himself to Miss Lawrence and in discharging Berene. Her +constant presence about the office was of all things the most +undesirable in his new position.</p> +<p>“But I might have done it in a decent manner if I had +not lost all control of myself,” he said as he walked +home. “It was brutal the way I spoke to her; poor +child, she looked as if I had beat her with a bludgeon. +Well, it is just as well perhaps that I gave her good reason to +despise me.”</p> +<p>Since Berene had gone into the young man’s office as an +employé her good taste and another reason had caused her +to avoid him as much as possible in the house. He seldom +saw more than a passing glimpse of her in the halls, and +frequently whole days elapsed that he met her only in the +office. The young man never suspected that this fact was +due in great part to the suggestion of jealousy in the manner of +the Baroness toward the young girl ever after he had shown so +much interest in her welfare. Sensitive to the mental +atmosphere about her, as a wind harp to the lightest breeze, +Berene felt this unexpressed sentiment in the breast of her +“benefactress” and strove to avoid anything which +could aggravate it.</p> +<p>With a lagging step and a listless air, Preston made his way +up the first of two flights of stairs which intervened between +the street door and his room. The first floor was in +darkness; but in the upper hall a dim light was always left +burning until his return. As he reached the landing, he was +startled to see a woman’s form lying at the foot of the +attic stairs, but a few feet from the door of his room. +Stooping down, he uttered a sudden exclamation of pained +surprise, for it was upon the pallid, unconscious face of Berene +Dumont that his eyes fell. He lifted the lithe figure in +his sinewy arms, and with light, rapid steps bore her up the +stairs and in through the open door of her room.</p> +<p>“If she is dead, I am her murderer,” he +thought. But at that moment she opened her eyes and looked +full into his, with a gaze which made his impetuous, uncontrolled +heart forget that any one or anything existed on earth but this +girl and his love for her.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER V</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">One</span> of the greatest factors in the +preservation of the Baroness’s beauty had been her ability +to sleep under all conditions. The woman who can and does +sleep eight or nine hours out of each twenty-four is well armed +against the onslaught of time and trouble.</p> +<p>To say that such women do not possess heart enough or feeling +enough to suffer is ofttimes most untrue.</p> +<p>Insomnia is a disease of the nerves or of the stomach, rather +than the result of extreme emotion. Sometimes the people +who sleep the most profoundly at night in times of sorrow, suffer +the more intensely during their waking hours. Disguised as +a friend, deceitful Slumber comes to them only to strengthen +their powers of suffering, and to lend a new edge to pain.</p> +<p>The Baroness was not without feeling. Her temperament +was far from phlegmatic. She had experienced great cyclones +of grief and loss in her varied career, though many years had +elapsed since she had known what the French call a “white +night.”</p> +<p>But the night following her interview with Preston Cheney she +never closed her eyes in sleep. It was in vain that she +tried all known recipes for producing slumber. She said the +alphabet backward ten times; she counted one thousand; she +conjured up visions of sheep jumping the time-honoured fence in +battalions, yet the sleep god never once drew near.</p> +<p>“I am certainly a brilliant illustration of the saying +that there is no fool like an old fool,” she said to +herself as the night wore on, and the strange sensation of pain +and loss which Preston Cheney’s unexpected announcement had +caused her gnawed at her breast like a rat in a wainscot.</p> +<p>That she had been unusually interested in the young editor she +knew from the first; that she had been mortally wounded by +Cupid’s shaft she only now discovered. She had passed +through a divorce, two “affairs” and a legitimate +widowhood, without feeling any of the keen emotions which now +drove sleep from her eyes. A long time ago, longer than she +cared to remember, she had experienced such emotions, but she had +supposed such folly only possible in the high tide of early +youth. It was absurd, nay more, it was ridiculous to lie +awake at her time of life thinking about a penniless country +youth whose mother she might almost have been. In this +bitterly frank fashion the Baroness reasoned with herself as she +lay quite still in her luxurious bed, and tried to sleep.</p> +<p>Yet despite her frankness, her philosophy and her reasoning, +the rasping hurt at her heart remained—a hurt so cruel it +seemed to her the end of all peace or pleasure in life.</p> +<p>It is harder to bear the suffocating heat of a late September +day which the year sometimes brings, than all the burning June +suns.</p> +<p>The Baroness heard the click of Preston’s key in the +street door, and she listened to his slow step as he ascended the +stairs. She heard him pause, too, and waited for the sound +of the opening of his room door, which was situated exactly above +her own. But she listened in vain, her ears, brain and +heart on the alert with surprise, curiosity, and at last +suspicion. The Baroness was as full of curiosity as a +cat.</p> +<p>It was not until just before dawn that she heard his step in +the hall, and his door open and close.</p> +<p>An hour later a sharp ring came at the street door bell. +A message for Mr Preston, the servant said, in answer to her +mistress’s question as she descended from the room +above.</p> +<p>“Was Mr Preston awake when you rapped on his +door?” asked the Baroness.</p> +<p>“Yes, madame, awake and dressed.”</p> +<p>Mr Preston ran hurriedly through the halls and out to the +street a moment later; and the Baroness, clothed in a +dressing-gown and silken slippers, tiptoed lightly to his +room. The bed had not been occupied the whole night. +On the table lay a note which the young man had begun when +interrupted by the message which he had thrown down beside +it.</p> +<p>The Baroness glanced at the note, on which the ink was still +moist, and read, “My dear Miss Lawrence, I want you to +release me from the ties formed only yesterday—I am basely +unworthy—” here the note ended. She now turned +her attention to the message which had prevented the completion +of the letter. It was signed by Judge Lawrence and ran as +follows:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“<span class="smcap">My dear +Boy</span>,—My wife was taken mortally ill this morning +just before daybreak. She cannot live many hours, our +physician says. Mabel is in a state of complete nervous +prostration caused by the shock of this calamity. I wish +you would come to us at once. I fear for my dear +child’s reason unless you prove able to calm and quiet her +through this ordeal. Hasten then, my dear son; every moment +before you arrive will seem an age of sorrow and anxiety to +me.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">“S. <span +class="smcap">Lawrence</span>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>A strange smile curved the corners of the Baroness’s +lips as she finished reading this note and tiptoed down the +stairs to her own room again.</p> +<p>Meantime the hour for her hot water arrived, and Berene did +not appear. The Baroness drank a quart of hot water every +morning as a tonic for her system, and another quart after +breakfast to reduce her flesh. Her excellent digestive +powers and the clear condition of her blood she attributed +largely to this habit.</p> +<p>After a few moments she rang the bell vigorously. +Maggie, the chambermaid, came in answer to the call.</p> +<p>“Please ask Miss Dumont” (Berene was always known +to the other servants as Miss Dumont) “to hurry with the +hot water,” the Baroness said.</p> +<p>“Miss Dumont has not yet come downstairs, +madame.”</p> +<p>“Not come down? Then will you please call her, +Maggie?”</p> +<p>The Baroness was always polite to her servants. She had +observed that a graciousness of speech toward her servants often +made up for a deficiency in wages. Maggie ascended to Miss +Dumont’s room, and returned with the information that Miss +Dumont had a severe headache, and begged the indulgence of madame +this morning.</p> +<p>Again that strange smile curved the corners of the +Baroness’s lips.</p> +<p>Maggie was requested to bring up hot water and coffee, and +great was her surprise to find the Baroness moving about the room +when she appeared with the tray.</p> +<p>Half-an-hour later Berene Dumont, standing by an open window +with her hands clasped behind her head, heard a light tap on her +door. In answer to a mechanical “Come,” the +Baroness appeared.</p> +<p>The rustle of her silken morning gown caused Berene to turn +suddenly and face her; and as she met the eyes of her visitor the +young woman’s pallor gave place to a wave of deep crimson, +which dyed her face and neck like the shadow of a red flag +falling on a camellia blossom.</p> +<p>“Maggie tells me you are ill this morning,” the +Baroness remarked after a moment’s silence. “I +am surprised to find you up and dressed. I came to see if I +could do anything for you.”</p> +<p>“You are very kind,” Berene answered, while in her +heart she thought how cruel was the expression in the face of the +woman before her, and how faded she appeared in the morning +light. “But I think I shall be quite well in a little +while, I only need to keep quiet for a few hours.”</p> +<p>“I fear you passed a sleepless night,” the +Baroness remarked with a solicitous tone, but with the same cruel +smile upon her lips. “I see you never opened your +bed. Something must have been in the air to keep us all +awake. I did not sleep an hour, and Mr Cheney never entered +his room till near morning. Yet I can understand his +wakefulness—he announced his engagement to Miss Mabel +Lawrence to me last evening, and a young man is not expected to +woo sleep easily after taking such an important step as +that. Judge Lawrence sent for him a few hours ago to come +and support Miss Mabel during the trial that the day is to bring +them in the death of Mrs Lawrence. The physician has +predicted the poor invalid’s near end. Sorrow follows +close on joy in this life.”</p> +<p>There was a moment’s silence; then Miss Dumont said: +“I think I will try to get a little sleep now, +madame. I thank you for your kind interest in +me.”</p> +<p>The Baroness descended to her room humming an air from an old +opera, and settled to the task of removing as much as possible +all evidences of fatigue and sleeplessness from her +countenance.</p> +<p>It has been said very prettily of the spruce-tree, that it +keeps the secret of its greenness well; so well that we hardly +know when it sheds its leaves. There are women who resemble +the spruce in their perennial youth, and the vigilance with which +they guard the secret of it. The Baroness was one of +these. Only her mirror shared this secret.</p> +<p>She was an adept at the art of preservation, and greatly as +she disliked physical exertion, she toiled laboriously over her +own person an hour at least every day, and never employed a maid +to assist her. One’s rival might buy one’s +maid, she reasoned, and it was well to have no confidant in these +matters.</p> +<p>She slipped off her dressing-gown and corset and set herself +to the task of pinching and mauling her throat, arms and +shoulders, to remove superfluous flesh, and strengthen muscles +and fibres to resist the flabby tendencies which time +produces. Then she used the dumb-bells vigorously for +fifteen minutes, and that was followed by five minutes of +relaxation. Next she lay on the floor flat upon her face, +her arms across her back, and lifted her head and chest +twenty-five times. This exercise was to replace flesh with +muscle across the abdomen. Then she rose to her feet, set +her small heels together, turned her toes out squarely, and, +keeping her body upright bent her knees out in a line with her +hips, sinking and rising rapidly fifteen times. This +produced pliancy of the body, and induced a healthy condition of +the loins and adjacent organs.</p> +<p>To further fight against the deadly enemy of obesity, she +lifted her arms above her head slowly until she touched her +finger tips, at the same time rising upon her tiptoes, while she +inhaled a long breath, and as slowly dropped to her heels, and +lowered her arms while she exhaled her breath. While these +exercises had been taking place, a tin cup of water had been +coming to the boiling point over an alcohol lamp. This was +now poured into a china bowl containing a small quantity of sweet +milk, which was always brought on her breakfast tray.</p> +<p>The Baroness seated herself before her mirror, in a glare of +cruel light which revealed every blemish in her complexion, every +line about the mouth and eyes.</p> +<p>“You are really hideously passée, mon +amie,” she observed as she peered at herself searchingly; +“but we will remedy all that.”</p> +<p>Dipping a soft linen handkerchief in the bowl of steaming milk +and water, she applied it to her face, holding it closely over +the brow and eyes and about the mouth, until every pore was +saturated and every weary drawn tissue fed and strengthened by +the tonic. After this she dashed ice-cold water over her +face. Still there were little folds at the corners of the +eyelids, and an ugly line across the brow, and these were +manipulated with painstaking care, and treated with mysterious +oils and fragrant astringents and finally washed in cool toilet +water and lightly brushed with powder, until at the end of an +hour’s labour, the face of the Baroness had resumed its +roseleaf bloom and transparent smoothness for which she was so +famous. And when by the closest inspection at the mirror, +in the broadest light, she saw no flaw in skin, hair, or teeth, +the Baroness proceeded to dress for a drive. Even the most +jealous rival would have been obliged to concede that she looked +like a woman of twenty-eight, that most fascinating of all ages, +as she took her seat in the carriage.</p> +<p>In the early days of her life in Beryngford, when as the +Baroness Le Fevre she had led society in the little town, Mrs +Lawrence had been one of her most devoted friends; Judge Lawrence +one of her most earnest, if silent admirers. As +“Baroness Brown” and as the landlady of “The +Palace” she had still maintained her position as friend of +the family, and the Lawrences, secure in their wealth and power, +had allowed her to do so, where some of the lower social lights +had dropped her from their visiting lists.</p> +<p>The Baroness seemed to exercise a sort of hypnotic power over +the fretful, nervous invalid who shared Judge Lawrence’s +name, and this influence was not wholly lost upon the Judge +himself, who never looked upon the Baroness’s abundant +charms, glowing with health, without giving vent to a profound +sigh like some hungry child standing before a +confectioner’s window.</p> +<p>The news of Mrs Lawrence’s dangerous illness was voiced +about the town by noon, and therefore the Baroness felt safe in +calling at the door to make inquiries, and to offer any +assistance which she might be able to render. Knowing her +intimate relations with the mistress of the house, the servant +admitted her to the parlour and announced her presence to Judge +Lawrence, who left the bedside of the invalid to tell the caller +in person that Mrs Lawrence had fallen into a peaceful slumber, +and that slight hopes were entertained of her possible +recovery. Scarcely had the words passed his lips, however, +when the nurse in attendance hurriedly called him. +“Mrs Lawrence is dead!” she cried. “She +breathed only twice after you left the room.”</p> +<p>The Baroness, shocked and startled, rose to go, feeling that +her presence longer would be an intrusion.</p> +<p>“Do not go,” cried the Judge in tones of +distress. “Mabel is nearly distracted, and this news +will excite her still further. We thought this morning that +she was on the verge of serious mental disorder. I sent for +her fiancé, Mr Cheney, and he has calmed her +somewhat. You always exerted a soothing and restful +influence over my wife, and you may have the same power with +Mabel. Stay with us, I beg of you, through the afternoon at +least.”</p> +<p>The Baroness sent her carriage home and remained in the +Lawrence mansion until the following morning. The condition +of Miss Lawrence was indeed serious. She passed from one +attack of hysteria to another, and it required the constant +attention of her fiancé and her mother’s friend to +keep her from acts of violence.</p> +<p>It was after midnight when she at last fell asleep, and +Preston Cheney in a state of complete exhaustion was shown to a +room, while the Baroness remained at the bedside of Miss +Lawrence.</p> +<p>When the Baroness and Mr Cheney returned to the Palace they +were struck with consternation to learn that Miss Dumont had +packed her trunk and departed from Beryngford on the three +o’clock train the previous day.</p> +<p>A brief note thanking the Baroness for her kindness, and +stating that she had imposed upon that kindness quite too long, +was her only farewell. There was no allusion to her plans +or her destination, and all inquiry and secret search failed to +find one trace of her. She seemed to vanish like a phantom +from the face of the earth.</p> +<p>No one had seen her leave the Palace, save the laundress, Mrs +Connor; and little this humble personage dreamed that Fate was +reserving for her an important rôle in the drama of a life +as yet unborn.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Whatever</span> hope of escape from his +self-imposed bondage Preston Cheney had entertained when he began +the note to his fiancée which the Baroness had read, +completely vanished during the weeks which followed the death of +Mrs Lawrence.</p> +<p>Mabel’s nervous condition was alarming, and her father +seemed to rely wholly upon his future son-in-law for courage and +moral support during the trying ordeal. Like most large men +of strong physique, Judge Lawrence was as helpless as an infant +in the presence of an ailing woman; and his experience as the +husband of a wife whose nerves were the only notable thing about +her, had given him an absolute terror of feminine invalids.</p> +<p>Mabel had never been very fond of her mother; she had not been +a loving or a dutiful daughter. A petulant child and an +irritable, fault-finding young woman, who had often been devoid +of sympathy for her parents, she now exhibited such an excess of +grief over the death of her mother that her reason seemed to be +threatened.</p> +<p>It was, in fact, quite as much anger as grief which caused her +nervous paroxysms. Mabel Lawrence had never since her +infancy known what it was to be thwarted in a wish. Both +parents had been slaves to her slightest caprice and she had +ruled the household with a look or a word. Death had +suddenly deprived her of a mother who was necessary to her +comfort and to whose presence she was accustomed, and her heart +was full of angry resentment at the fate which had dared to take +away a member of her household. It had never entered her +thoughts that death could devastate <i>her</i> home.</p> +<p>Other people lost fathers and mothers, of course; but that +Mabel Lawrence could be deprived of a parent seemed +incredible. Anger is a strong ingredient in the excessive +grief of every selfish nature.</p> +<p>Preston Cheney became more and more disheartened with the +prospect of his future, as he studied the character and +temperament of his fiancée during her first weeks of +loss.</p> +<p>But the net which he had woven was closing closer and closer +about him, and every day he became more hopelessly entangled in +its meshes.</p> +<p>At the end of one month, the family physician decided that +travel and change of air and scene was an imperative necessity +for Miss Lawrence. Judge Lawrence was engaged in some +important legal matters which rendered an extended journey +impossible for him. To trust Mabel in the hands of hired +nurses alone, was not advisable. It was her father who +suggested an early marriage and a European trip for bride and +groom, as the wisest expedient under the circumstances.</p> +<p>Like the prisoner in the iron room, who saw the walls slowly +but surely closing in to crush out his life, Preston Cheney saw +his wedding day approaching, and knew that his doom was +sealed.</p> +<p>There were many desperate hours, when, had he possessed the +slightest clue to the hiding-place of Berene Dumont, he would +have flown to her, even knowing that he left disgrace and death +behind him. He realised that he now owed a duty to the girl +he loved, higher and more imperative by far than any he owed to +his fiancée. But he had not the means to employ a +detective to find Berene; and he was not sure that, if found, she +might not spurn him. He had heard and read of cases where a +woman’s love had turned to bitter loathing and hatred for +the man who had not protected her in a moment of weakness. +He could think of no other cause which would lead Berene to +disappear in such a mysterious manner at such a time, and so the +days passed and he married Mabel Lawrence two months after the +death of her mother, and the young couple set forth immediately +on extended foreign travels. Fifteen months later they +returned to Beryngford with their infant daughter Alice. +Mrs Cheney was much improved in health, though still a great +sufferer from nervous disorders, a misfortune which the child +seemed to inherit. She would lie and scream for hours at a +time, clenching her small fists and growing purple in the face, +and all efforts of parents, nurses or physicians to soothe her, +served only to further increase her frenzy. She screamed +and beat the air with her thin arms and legs until nature +exhausted itself, then she fell into a heavy slumber and awoke in +good spirits.</p> +<p>These attacks came on frequently in the night, and as they +rendered Mrs Cheney very “nervous,” and caused a +panic among the nurses, it devolved upon the unhappy father to +endeavour to soothe the violent child. And while he walked +the floor with her or leaned over her crib, using all his strong +mental powers to control these unfortunate paroxysms, no vision +came to him of another child lying cuddled in her mother’s +arms in a distant town, a child of wonderful beauty and angelic +nature, born of love, and inheriting love’s divine +qualities.</p> +<p>A few months before the young couple returned to their native +soil, they received a letter which caused Preston the greatest +astonishment, and Mabel some hours of hysterical weeping. +This letter was written by Judge Lawrence, and announced his +marriage to Baroness Brown. Judge Lawrence had been a +widower more than a year when the Baroness took the book of his +heart, in which he supposed the hand of romance had long ago +written “finis,” and turning it to his astonished +eyes revealed a whole volume of love’s love.</p> +<p>It is in the second reading of their hearts that the majority +of men find the most interesting literature.</p> +<p>Before the Baroness had been three months his wife, the long +years of martyrdom he had endured as the husband of Mabel’s +mother seemed like a nightmare dream to Judge Lawrence; and all +of life, hope and happiness was embodied in the woman who ruled +his destiny with a hypnotic sway no one could dispute, yet a +woman whose heart still throbbed with a stubborn and lawless +passion for the man who called her husband father.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">More</span> than two decades had passed +since Preston Cheney followed the dictates of his ambition and +married Mabel Lawrence.</p> +<p>Many of his early hopes and desires had been realised during +these years. He had attained to high political positions; +and honour and wealth were his to enjoy. Yet Senator +Cheney, as he was now known, was far from a happy man. +Disappointment was written in every lineament of his face, +restlessness and discontent spoke in his every movement, and at +times the spirit of despair seemed to look from the depths of his +eyes.</p> +<p>To a man of any nobility of nature, there can be small +satisfaction in honours which he knows are bought with money and +bribes; and to the proud young American there was the additional +sting of knowing that even the money by which his honours were +purchased was not his own.</p> +<p>It was the second Mrs Lawrence (still designated as the +“Baroness” by her stepdaughter and by old +acquaintances) to whom Preston owed the constant reminder of his +dependence upon the purse of his father-in-law. In those +subtle, occult ways known only to a jealous and designing nature, +the Baroness found it possible to make Preston’s life a +torture, without revealing her weapons of warfare to her husband; +indeed, without allowing him to even smell the powder, while she +still kept up a constant small fire upon the helpless enemy.</p> +<p>Owing to the fact that Mabel had come as completely under the +hypnotic influence of the Baroness as the first Mrs Lawrence had +been during her lifetime, Preston was subjected to a great deal +more of her persecutions than would otherwise have been +possible. Mabel was never happier than when enjoying the +companionship of her new mother; a condition of things which +pleased the Judge as much as it made his son-in-law +miserable.</p> +<p>With a malicious adroitness possible only to such a woman as +the second Mrs Lawrence, she endeared herself to Mrs Cheney, by a +thousand flattering and caressing ways, and by a constant +exhibition of sympathy, which to a weak and selfish nature is as +pleasing as it is distasteful to the proud and strong. And +by this inexhaustible flow of sympathetic feeling, she caused the +wife to drift farther and farther away from her husband’s +influence, and to accuse him of all manner of shortcomings and +faults which had not suggested themselves to her own mind.</p> +<p>Mabel had not given or demanded a devoted love when she +married Preston Cheney. She was quite satisfied to bear his +name, and do the honours of his house, and to be let alone as +much as possible. It was the name, not the estate, of +wifehood she desired; and motherhood she had accepted with +reluctance and distaste.</p> +<p>Never was a more undesired or unwelcome child born than her +daughter Alice, and the helpless infant shared with its father +the resentful anger which dominated her unwilling mother the +wretched months before its advent into earth life.</p> +<p>To be let alone and allowed to follow her own whims and +desires, and never to be crossed in any wish, was all Mrs Cheney +asked of her husband.</p> +<p>This rôle was one he had very willingly permitted her to +pursue, since with every passing week and month he found less and +less to win or bind him to his wife. Wretched as this +condition of life was, it might at least have settled into a +monotonous calm, undisturbed by strife, but for the molesting +“sympathy” of the Baroness.</p> +<p>“Poor thing, here you are alone again,” she would +say on entering the house where Mabel lounged or lolled, quite +content with her situation until the tone and words of her +stepmother aroused a resentful consciousness of being +neglected. Again the Baroness would say:</p> +<p>“I do think you are such a brave little darling to carry +so smiling a face about with all you have to endure.” +Or, “Very few wives would bear what you bear and hide every +vestige of unhappiness from the world. You are a wonderful +and admirable character in my eyes.” Or, “It +seems so strange that your husband does not adore you—but +men are blind to the best qualities in women like you. I +never hear Mr Cheney praising other women without a sad and +almost resentful feeling in my heart, realising how superior you +are to all of his favourites.” It was the insidious +effect of poisoned flattery like this, which made the Baroness a +ruling power in the Cheney household, and at the same time turned +an already cold and unloving wife into a jealous and nagging +tyrant who rendered the young statesman’s home the most +dreaded place on earth to him, and caused him to live away from +it as much as possible.</p> +<p>His only child, Alice, a frail, hysterical girl, devoid of +beauty or grace, gave him but little comfort or +satisfaction. Indeed she was but an added disappointment +and pain in his life. Indulged in every selfish thought by +her mother and the Baroness, peevish and petulant, always ailing, +complaining and discontented, and still a victim to the nervous +disorders inherited from her mother, it was small wonder that +Senator Cheney took no more delight in the rôle of father +than he had found in the rôle of husband.</p> +<p>Alice was given every advantage which money could +purchase. But her delicate health had rendered systematic +study of any kind impossible, and her twentieth birthday found +her with no education, with no use of her reasoning or will +powers, but with a complete and beautiful wardrobe in which to +masquerade and air her poor little attempts at music, art, or +conversation.</p> +<p>Judge Lawrence died when Alice was fifteen years of age, +leaving both his widow and his daughter handsomely provided +for.</p> +<p>The Baroness not only possessed the Beryngford homestead, but +a house in Washington as well; and both of these were occupied by +tenants, for Mabel insisted upon having her stepmother dwell +under her own roof. Senator Cheney had purchased a house in +New York to gratify his wife and daughter, and it was here the +family resided, when not in Washington or at the seaside +resorts. Both women wished to forget, and to make others +forget, that they had ever lived in Beryngford. They never +visited the place and never referred to it. They desired to +be considered “New Yorkers” and always spoke of +themselves as such.</p> +<p>The Baroness was now hopelessly passée. Yet it +was the revealing of the inner woman, rather than the withering +of the exterior, which betrayed her years. The woman who +understands the art of bodily preservation can, with constant +toil and care, retain an appearance of youth and charm into +middle life; but she who would pass that dreaded meridian, and +still remain a goodly sight for the eyes of men, must possess, in +addition to all the secrets of the toilet, those divine elixirs, +unselfishness and love for humanity. Faith in divine +powers, too, and resignation to earthly ills, must do their part +to lend the fading eye lustre and to give a softening glow to the +paling cheek. Before middle life, it is the outer woman who +is seen; after middle life, skilled as she may be by art and +however endowed my nature, yet the inner woman becomes visible to +the least discerning eye, and the thoughts and feelings which +have dominated her during all the past, are shown upon her face +and form like printed words upon the open leaves of a book. +That is why so many young beauties become ugly old ladies, and +why plain faces sometimes are beautiful in age.</p> +<p>The Baroness had been unremitting in the care of her person, +and she had by this toil saved her figure from becoming gross, +retaining the upright carriage and the tapering waist of youth, +though she was upon the verge of her sixtieth birthday. Her +complexion, too, owing to her careful diet, her hours of repose, +and her knowledge of skin foods and lotions, remained smooth, +fair and unfurrowed. But the long-guarded expression in her +blue eyes of childlike innocence had given place to the hard look +of a selfish and unhappy nature, and the lines about the small +mouth accented the expression of the eyes.</p> +<p>It was, despite its preservation of Nature’s gifts, and +despite its forced smiles, the face of a selfish, cruel +pessimist, disappointed in her past and with no uplifting faith +to brighten the future.</p> +<p>The Baroness had been the wife of Judge Lawrence a number of +years, before she relinquished her hopes of one day making +Preston Cheney respond to the passion which burned unquenched in +her breast. It had been with the idea of augmenting the +interests of the man whom she believed to be her future lover, +that she aided and urged on her husband in his efforts to procure +place and honour for his son-in-law.</p> +<p>It was this idea which caused her to widen the breach between +wife and husband by every subtle means in her power; and it was +when this idea began to lose colour and substance and drop away +among the wreckage of past hopes, that the Baroness ceased to +compliment and began to taunt Preston Cheney with his dependence +upon his father-in-law, and to otherwise goad and torment the +unhappy man. And Preston Cheney grew into the habit of +staying anywhere longer than at home.</p> +<p>During the last ten years the Baroness had seemed to abandon +all thoughts of gallant adventure. When the woman who has +found life and pleasures only in coquetry and conquest is forced +to relinquish these delights, she becomes either very devout or +very malicious.</p> +<p>The Baroness was devoid of religious feelings, and she became, +therefore, the most bitter and caustic of cynical critics at +heart, though she guarded her expression of these sentiments from +policy.</p> +<p>Yet to Mabel she expressed herself freely, knowing that her +listener enjoyed no conversation so much as that of gossip and +criticism. A beautiful or attractive woman was the target +for her most cruel shafts of sarcasm, and indeed no woman was +safe from her secret malice save Mabel and Alice, over whom she +found it a greater pleasure to exercise her hypnotic +control. For Alice, indeed, the Baroness entertained a +peculiar affection. The fact that she was the child of the +man to whom she had given the strongest passion of her life, and +the girl’s lack of personal beauty, and her unfortunate +physical condition, awoke a medley of love, pity and protection +in the heart of this strange woman.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Baroness had always been a +churchgoing woman, yet she had never united with any church, or +subscribed to any creed.</p> +<p>Religious observance was only an implement of social warfare +with her. Wherever her lot was cast, she made it her +business to discover which church the fashionable people of the +town frequented, and to become a familiar and liberal-handed +personage in that edifice.</p> +<p>Judge Lawrence and his family were High Church Episcopalians, +and the second Mrs Lawrence slipped gracefully into the pew +vacated by the first, and became a much more important feature in +the congregation, owing to her good health and extreme desire for +popularity. Mabel and Alice were devout believers in the +orthodox dogmas which have taken the place of the simple +teachings of Christ in so many of our churches to-day. They +believed that people who did not go to church would stand a very +poor chance of heaven; and that a strict observance of a Sunday +religion would ensure them a passport into God’s +favour. When they returned from divine service and mangled +the character and attire of their neighbours over the Sunday +dinner-table, no idea entered their heads or hearts that they had +sinned against the Holy Ghost. The pastor of their church +knew them to be selfish, worldly-minded women; yet he +administered the holy sacrament to them without compunction of +conscience, and never by question or remark implied a doubt of +their true sincerity in things religious. They believed in +the creed of his church, and they paid liberally for the support +of that church. What more could he ask?</p> +<p>This had been true of the pastor in Beryngford, and it proved +equally true of their spiritual adviser in Washington and in New +York.</p> +<p>Just across the aisle from the Lawrences sat a rich financier, +in his sumptuously cushioned pew. During six days of each +week he was engaged in crushing life and hope out of the hearts +of the poor, under his juggernaut wheels of monopoly. His +name was known far and near, as that of a powerful and cruel +speculator, who did not hesitate to pauperise his nearest friends +if they placed themselves in his reach. That he was a thief +and a robber, no one ever denied; yet so colossal were his +thefts, so bold and successful his robberies, the public gazed +upon him with a sort of stupefied awe, and allowed him to +proceed, while miserable tramps, who stole overcoats or robbed +money drawers, were incarcerated for a term of years, and then +sternly refused assistance afterward by good people, who place no +confidence in jail birds.</p> +<p>But each Sunday this successful robber occupied his +high-priced church pew, devoutly listening to the divine +word.</p> +<p>He never failed to partake of the holy communion, nor was his +right to do so ever questioned.</p> +<p>The rector of the church knew his record perfectly; knew that +his gains were ill-gotten blood money, ground from the suffering +poor by the power of monopoly, and from confiding fools by smart +lures and scheming tricks. But this young clergyman, having +recently been called to preside over the fashionable church, had +no idea of being so impolite as to refuse to administer the bread +and wine to one of its most liberal supporters!</p> +<p>There were constant demands upon the treasury of the church; +it required a vast outlay of money to maintain the splendour and +elegance of the temple which held its head so high above many +others; and there were large charities to be sustained, not to +mention its rector’s princely salary. The millionaire +pewholder was a liberal giver. It rarely occurs to the +fashionable dispensers of spiritual knowledge to ask whether the +devil’s money should be used to gild the Lord’s +temple; nor to question if it be a wise religion which allows a +man to rob his neighbours on weekdays, to give to the cause of +charity on Sundays.</p> +<p>And yet if every clergyman and priest in the land were to make +and maintain these standards for their followers, there might be +an astonishing decrease in the needs of the poor and +unfortunate.</p> +<p>Were every church member obliged to open his month’s +ledgers to a competent jury of inspectors, before he was allowed +to take the holy sacrament and avow himself a humble follower of +Christ, what a revolution might ensue! How church spires +would crumble for lack of support, and poorhouses lessen in +number for lack of inmates!</p> +<p>But the leniency of clergymen toward the shortcomings of their +wealthy parishioners is often a touching lesson in charity to the +thoughtful observer who stands outside the fold.</p> +<p>For how could they obtain money to convert the heathen, unless +this sweet cloak of charity were cast over the sins of the +liberal rich? Christ is crucified by the fashionable +clergymen to-day more cruelly than he was by the Jews of old.</p> +<p>Senator Cheney was not a church member, and he seldom attended +service. This was a matter of great solicitude to his wife +and daughter. The Baroness felt it to be a mistake on the +part of Senator Cheney, and even Judge Lawrence, who adored his +son-in-law, regretted the young man’s indifference to +things spiritual. But with all Preston Cheney’s +worldly ambitions and weaknesses, there was a vein of sincerity +in his nature which forbade his feigning a faith he did not feel; +and the daily lives of the three feminine members of his family +were so in disaccord with his views of religion that he felt no +incentive to follow in their footsteps. Judge Lawrence he +knew to be an honest, loyal-hearted, God and humanity loving +man. “A true Christian by nature and +education,” he said of his father-in-law, “but I am +not born with his tendency to religious observance, and I see +less and less in the churches to lead me into the fold. It +seems to me that these religious institutions are getting to be +vast monopolistic corporations like the railroads and oil trusts, +and the like. I see very little of the spirit of Christ in +orthodox people to-day.”</p> +<p>Meanwhile Senator Cheney’s purse was always open to any +demand the church made; he believed in churches as benevolent if +not soul-saving institutions, and cheerfully aided their +charitable work.</p> +<p>The rector of St Blank’s, the fashionable edifice where +the ladies of the Cheney household obtained spiritual manna in +New York, died when Alice was sixteen years old. He was a +good old man, and a sincere Episcopalian, and whatever +originality of thought or expression he may have lacked, his +strict observance of the High Church code of ethics maintained +the tone of his church and rendered him an object of reverence to +his congregation. His successor was Reverend Arthur Emerson +Stuart, a young man barely thirty years of age, heir to a +comfortable fortune, gifted with strong intellectual powers and +dowered with physical attractions.</p> +<p>It was not a case of natural selection which caused Arthur +Stuart to adopt the church as a profession. It was the +result of his middle name. Mrs Stuart had been an +Emerson—in some remote way her family claimed relationship +with Ralph Waldo. Her father and grandfather and several +uncles had been clergymen. She married a broker, who left +her a rich widow with one child, a son. From the hour this +son was born his mother designed him for the clergy, and brought +him up with the idea firmly while gently fixed in his mind.</p> +<p>Whatever seed a mother plants in a young child’s mind, +carefully watches over, prunes and waters, and exposes to sun and +shade, is quite certain to grow, if the soil is not wholly stony +ground.</p> +<p>Arthur Stuart adored his mother, and stifling some commercial +instincts inherited from the parental side, he turned his +attention to the ministry and entered upon his chosen work when +only twenty-five years of age. Eloquent, dramatic in +speech, handsome, and magnetic in person, independent in fortune, +and of excellent lineage on the mother’s side, it was not +surprising that he was called to take charge of the spiritual +welfare of fashionable St Blank’s Church on the death of +the old pastor; or that, having taken the charge, he became +immensely popular, especially with the ladies of his +congregation. And from the first Sabbath day when they +looked up from their expensive pew into the handsome face of +their new rector, there was but one man in the world for Mabel +Cheney and her daughter Alice, and that was the Reverend Arthur +Emerson Stuart.</p> +<p>It has been said by a great and wise teacher, that we may +worship the god in the human being, but never the human being as +God. This distinction is rarely drawn by women, I fear, +when their spiritual teacher is a young and handsome man. +The ladies of the Rev. Arthur Stuart’s congregation went +home to dream, not of the Creator and Maker of all things, nor of +the divine Man, but of the handsome face, stalwart form and +magnetic voice of the young rector. They feasted their eyes +upon his agreeable person, rather than their souls upon his words +of salvation. Disappointed wives, lonely spinsters and +romantic girls believed they were coming nearer to spiritual +truths in their increased desire to attend service, while in fact +they were merely drawn nearer to a very attractive male +personality.</p> +<p>There was not the holy flame in the young clergyman’s +own heart to ignite other souls; but his strong magnetism was +perceptible to all, and they did not realise the +difference. And meantime the church grew and prospered +amazingly.</p> +<p>It was observed by the congregation of St Blank’s +Church, shortly after the advent of the new rector, that a new +organist also occupied the organ loft; and inquiry elicited the +fact that the old man who had officiated in that capacity during +many years, had been retired on a pension, while a young lady who +needed the position and the salary had been chosen to fill the +vacancy.</p> +<p>That the change was for the better could not be +questioned. Never before had such music pealed forth under +the tall spires of St Blank’s. The new organist +seemed inspired; and many people in the fashionable congregation, +hearing that this wonderful musician was a young woman, lingered +near the church door after service to catch a glimpse of her as +she descended from the loft.</p> +<p>A goodly sight she was, indeed, for human eyes to gaze +upon. Young, of medium height and perfectly symmetry of +shape, her blonde hair and satin skin and eyes of velvet darkness +were but her lesser charms. That which riveted the gaze of +every beholder, and drew all eyes to her whereever she passed, +was her air of radiant health and happiness, which emanated from +her like the perfume from a flower.</p> +<p>A sad countenance may render a heroine of romance attractive +in a book, but in real life there is no charm at once so rare and +so fascinating as happiness. Did you ever think how few +faces of the grown up, however young, are really happy in +expression? Discontent, restlessness, longing, unsatisfied +ambition or ill health mar ninety and nine of every hundred faces +we meet in the daily walks of life. When we look upon a +countenance which sparkles with health and absolute joy in life, +we turn and look again and yet again, charmed and fascinated, +though we do not know why.</p> +<p>It was such a face that Joy Irving, the new organist of St +Blank’s Church, flashed upon the people who had lingered +near the door to see her pass out. Among those who lingered +was the Baroness; and all day she carried about with her the +memory of that sparkling countenance; and strive as she would, +she could not drive away a vague, strange uneasiness which the +sight of that face had caused her.</p> +<p>Yet a vision of youth and beauty always made the Baroness +unhappy, now that both blessings were irrevocably lost to +her.</p> +<p>This particular young face, however, stirred her with those +half-painful, half-pleasurable emotions which certain perfumes +awake in us—vague reminders of joys lost or unattained, of +dreams broken or unrealised. Added to this, it reminded her +of someone she had known, yet she could not place the +resemblance.</p> +<p>“Oh, to be young and beautiful like that!” she +sighed as she buried her face in her pillow that night. +“And since I cannot be, if only Alice had that girl’s +face.”</p> +<p>And because Alice did not have it, the Baroness went to sleep +with a feeling of bitter resentment against its possessor, the +beautiful young organist of St Blank’s.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Up</span> in the loft of St Blank’s +Church the young organist had been practising the whole +morning. People paused on the street to listen to the +glorious sounds, and were thrilled by them, as one is only +thrilled when the strong personality of the player enters into +the execution.</p> +<p>Down into the committee-room, where several deacons and the +young rector were seated discussing some question pertaining to +the well-being of the church, the music penetrated too, causing +the business which had brought them together, to be suspended +temporarily.</p> +<p>“It is a sin to talk while music like that can be +heard,” remarked one man. “You have found a +genius in this new organist, Rector.”</p> +<p>The young man nodded silently, his eyes half closed with an +expression of somewhat sensuous enjoyment of the throbbing chords +which vibrated in perfect unison with the beating of his strong +pulses.</p> +<p>“Where does she come from?” asked the deacon, as a +pause in the music occurred.</p> +<p>“Her father was an earnest and prominent member of the +little church down-town of which I had charge during several +years,” replied the young man. “Miss Irving was +scarcely more than a child when she volunteered her services as +organist. The position brought her no remuneration, and at +that time she did not need it. Young as she was, the girl +was one of the most active workers among the poor, and I often +met her in my visits to the sick and unfortunate. She had +been a musical prodigy from the cradle, and Mr Irving had given +her every advantage to study and perfect her art.</p> +<p>“I was naturally much interested in her. Mr +Irving’s long illness left his wife and daughter without +means of support, at his death, and when I was called to take +charge of St Blank’s, I at once realised the benefit to the +family as well as to my church could I secure the young lady the +position here as organist. I am glad that my congregation +seem so well satisfied with my choice.”</p> +<p>Again the organ pealed forth, this time in that passionate +music originally written for the Garden Scene in <i>Faust</i>, +and which the church has boldly taken and arranged as a quartette +to the words, “Come unto me.”</p> +<p>It may be that to some who listen, it is the divine spirit +which makes its appeal through those stirring strains; but to the +rector of St Blank’s, at least on that morning, it was +human heart, calling unto human heart. Mr Stuart and the +deacons sat silently drinking in the music. At length the +rector rose. “I think perhaps we had better drop the +matter under discussion for to-day,” he said. +“We can meet here Monday evening at five o’clock if +agreeable to you all, and finish the details. There are +other and more important affairs waiting for me now.”</p> +<p>The deacons departed, and the young rector sank back in his +chair, and gave himself up to the enjoyment of the sounds which +flooded not only the room, but his brain, heart and soul.</p> +<p>“Queer,” he said to himself as the door closed +behind the human pillars of his church. “Queer, but I +felt as if the presence of those men was an intrusion upon +something belonging personally to me. I wonder why I am so +peculiarly affected by this girl’s music? It arouses +my brain to action, it awakens ambition and gives me courage and +hope, and yet—” He paused before allowing his +feeling to shape itself into thoughts. Then closing his +eyes and clasping his hands behind his head while the music +surged about him, he lay back in his easy-chair as a bather might +lie back and float upon the water, and his unfinished sentence +took shape thus: “And yet stronger than all other feelings +which her music arouses in me, is the desire to possess the +musician for my very own for ever; ah, well! the Roman Catholics +are wise in not allowing their priests and their nuns to listen +to all even so-called sacred music.”</p> +<p>It was perhaps ten minutes later that Joy Irving became +conscious that she was not alone in the organ loft. She had +neither heard nor seen his entrance, but she felt the presence of +her rector, and turned to find him silently watching her. +She played her phrase to the end, before she greeted him with +other than a smile. Then she apologised, saying: +“Even one’s rector must wait for a musical phrase to +reach its period. Angels may interrupt the rendition of a +great work, but not man. That were sacrilege. You +see, I was really praying, when you entered, though my heart +spoke through my fingers instead of my lips.”</p> +<p>“You need not apologise,” the young man +answered. “One who receives your smile would be +ungrateful indeed if he asked for more. That alone would +render the darkest spot radiant with light and welcome to +me.”</p> +<p>The girl’s pink cheek flushed crimson, like a rose +bathed in the sunset colours of the sky.</p> +<p>“I did not think you were a man to coin pretty +speeches,” she said.</p> +<p>“Your estimate of me was a wise one. You read +human nature correctly. But come and walk in the park with +me. You will overtax yourself if you practise any +longer. The sunlight and the air are vying with each other +to-day to see which can be the most intoxicating. Come and +enjoy their sparring match with me; I want to talk to you about +one of my unfortunate parishioners. It is a peculiarly +pathetic case. I think you can help and advise me in the +matter.”</p> +<p>It was a superb morning in early October. New York was +like a beautiful woman arrayed in her fresh autumn costume, +disporting herself before admiring eyes.</p> +<p>Absorbed in each other’s society, their pulses beating +high with youth, love and health; the young couple walked through +the crowded avenues of the great city, as happily and as +naturally as Adam and Eve might have walked in the Garden of Eden +the morning after Creation.</p> +<p>Both were city born and city bred, yet both were as +unfashionable and untrammelled by custom as two children of the +plains.</p> +<p>In the very heart of the greatest metropolis in America, there +are people who live and retain all the primitive simplicity of +village life and thought. Mr Irving had been one of +these. Coming to New York from an interior village when a +young man, he had, through simple and quiet tastes and religious +convictions, kept himself wholly free from the social life of the +city in which he lived. After his marriage his entire +happiness lay in his home, and Joy was reared by parents who made +her world. Mrs Irving sympathised fully with her husband in +his distaste for society, and her delicate health rendered her +almost a recluse from the world.</p> +<p>A few pleasant acquaintances, no intimates, music, books, and +a large share of her time given to charitable work, composed the +life of Joy Irving.</p> +<p>She had never been in a fashionable assemblage; she had never +attended a theatre, as Mr Irving did not approve of them.</p> +<p>Extremely fond of outdoor life, she walked, unattended, +wherever her mood led her. As she had no acquaintances +among society people, she knew nothing and cared less for the +rules which govern the promenading habits of young women in New +York. Her sweet face and graceful figure were well known +among the poorer quarters of the city, and it was through her +work in such places that Arthur Stuart’s attention had +first been called to her.</p> +<p>As for him, he was filled with that high, but not always wise, +disdain for society and its customs, which we so often find in +town-bred young men of intellectual pursuits. He was +clean-minded, independent, sure of his own purposes, and wholly +indifferent to the opinions of inferiors regarding his +habits.</p> +<p>He loved the park, and he asked Joy to walk with him there, as +freely as he would have asked her to sit with him in a +conservatory. It was a great delight to the young girl to +go.</p> +<p>“It seems such a pity that the women of New York get so +little benefit from this beautiful park,” she said as they +strolled along through the winding paths together. +“The wealthy people enjoy it in a way from their carriages, +and the poor people no doubt derive new life from their Sunday +promenades here. But there are thousands like myself who +are almost wholly debarred from its pleasures. I have +always wanted to walk here, but once I came and a rude man in a +carriage spoke to me. Mother told me never to come alone +again. It seems strange to me that men who are so proud of +their strength, and who should be the natural protectors of +woman, can belittle themselves by annoying or frightening her +when alone. I am sure that same man would never think of +speaking to me now that I am with you. How cowardly he +seems when you think of it! Yet I am told there are many +like him, though that was my only experience of the +kind.”</p> +<p>“Yes, there are many like him,” the rector +answered. “But you must remember how short a time man +has been evolving from a lower animal condition to his present +state, and how much higher he is to-day than he was a hundred +years ago even, when occasional drunkenness was considered an +attribute of a gentleman. Now it is a vice of which he is +ashamed.”</p> +<p>“Then you believe in evolution?” Joy asked with a +note of surprise in her voice.</p> +<p>“Yes, I surely do; nor does the belief conflict with my +religious faith. I believe in many things I could not +preach from my pulpit. My congregation is not ready for +broad truths. I am like an eclectic physician—I suit +my treatment to my patient—I administer the old school or +the new school medicaments as the case demands.”</p> +<p>“It seems to me there can be but one school in spiritual +matters,” Joy said gravely—“the right +one. And I think one should preach and teach what he +believes to be true and right, no matter what his congregation +demands. Oh, forgive me. I am very rude to speak like +that to you!” And she blushed and paled with fright +at her boldness.</p> +<p>They were seated on a rustic bench now, under the shadow of a +great tree.</p> +<p>The rector smiled, his eyes fixed with pleased satisfaction on +the girl’s beautiful face, with its changing colour and +expression. He felt he could well afford to be criticised +or rebuked by her, if the result was so gratifying to his +sight. The young rector of St Blank’s lived very much +more in his senses than in his ideals.</p> +<p>“Perhaps you are right,” he said. “I +sometimes wish I had greater courage of my convictions. I +think I could have, were you to stimulate me with such words +often. But my mother is so afraid that I will wander from +the old dogmas, that I am constantly checking myself. +However, in regard to the case I mentioned to you—it is a +delicate subject, but you are not like ordinary young women, and +you and I have stood beside so many sick-beds and death-beds +together that we can speak as man to man, or woman to woman, with +no false modesty to bar our speech.</p> +<p>“A very sad case has come to my knowledge of late. +Miss Adams, a woman who for some years has been a devout member +of St Blank’s Church, has several times mentioned her niece +to me, a young girl who was away at boarding school. A few +months ago the young girl graduated and came to live with this +aunt. I remember her as a bright, buoyant and very +intelligent girl. I have not seen her now during two +months; and last week I asked Miss Adams what had become of her +niece. Then the poor woman broke into sobs and told me the +sad state of affairs. It seems that the girl Marah is her +daughter. The poor mother had believed she could guard the +truth from her child, and had educated her as her niece, and was +now prepared to enjoy her companionship, when some +mischief-making gossip dug up the old scandal and imparted the +facts to Marah.</p> +<p>“The girl came to Miss Adams and demanded the truth, and +the mother confessed. Then the daughter settled into a +profound melancholy, from which nothing seemed to rouse +her. She will not go out, remains in the house, and broods +constantly over her disgrace.</p> +<p>“It occurred to me that if Marah Adams could be brought +out of herself and interested in some work, or study, it would be +the salvation of her reason. Her mother told me she is an +accomplished musician, but that she refuses to touch her piano +now. I thought you might take her as an understudy on the +organ, and by your influence and association lead her out of +herself. You could make her acquaintance through +approaching the mother who is a milliner, on business, and your +tact would do the rest. In all my large and wealthy +congregation I know of no other woman to whom I could appeal for +aid in this delicate matter, so I am sure you will pardon +me. In fact, I fear were the matter to be known in the +congregation at all, it would lead to renewed pain and added +hurts for both Miss Adams and her daughter. You know women +can be so cruel to each other in subtle ways, and I have seen +almost death-blows dealt in church aisles by one church member to +another.”</p> +<p>“Oh, that is a terrible reflection on Christians,” +cried Joy, who, a born Christ-woman, believed that all professed +church members must feel the same divine spirit of sympathy and +charity which burned in her own sweet soul.</p> +<p>“No, it is a simple truth—an unfortunate +fact,” the young man replied. “I preach sermons +at such members of my church, but they seldom take them +home. They think I mean somebody else. These are the +people who follow the letter and not the spirit of the +church. But one such member as you, recompenses me for a +score of the others. I felt I must come to you with the +Marah Adams affair.”</p> +<p>Joy was still thinking of the reflection the rector had cast +upon his congregation. It hurt her, and she protested.</p> +<p>“Oh, surely,” she said, “you cannot mean +that I am the only one of the professed Christians in your church +who would show mercy and sympathy to poor Miss Adams. +Surely few, very few, would forget Christ’s words to Mary +Magdalene, ‘Go and sin no more,’ or fail to forgive +as He forgave. She has led such a good life all these +years.”</p> +<p>The rector smiled sadly.</p> +<p>“You judge others by your own true heart,” he +said. “But I know the world as it is. Yes, the +members of my church would forgive Miss Adams for her +sin—and cut her dead. They would daily crucify her +and her innocent child by their cold scorn or utter ignoring of +them. They would not allow their daughters to associate +with this blameless girl, because of her mother’s +misstep.</p> +<p>“It is the same in and out of the churches. Twenty +people will repeat Christ’s words to a repentant sinner, +but nineteen of that twenty interpolate a few words of their own, +through tone, gesture or manner, until ‘Go and sin no +more’ sounds to the poor unfortunate more like ‘Go +just as far away from me and mine as you can get—and sin no +more!’ Only one in that score puts Christ’s +merciful and tender meaning into the phrase and tries by +sympathetic association to make it possible for the sinner to sin +no more. I felt you were that one, and so I appealed to you +in this matter about Marah Adams.”</p> +<p>Joy’s eyes were full of tears. “You must +know more of human nature than I do,” she said, “but +I hate terribly to think you are right in this estimate of the +people of your congregation. I will go and see what I can +do for this girl to-morrow. Poor child, poor mother, to +pass through a second Gethsemane for her sin. I think any +girl or boy whose home life is shadowed, is to be pitied. I +have always had such a happy home, and such dear parents, the +world would seem insupportable, I am sure, were I to face it +without that background. Dear papa’s death was a +great blow, and mother’s ill health has been a sorrow, but +we have always been so happy and harmonious, and that, I think, +is worth more than a fortune to a child. Poor, poor +Marah—unable to respect her mother, what a terrible thing +it all is!”</p> +<p>“Yes, it is a sad affair. I cannot help thinking +it would have been a pardonable lie if Miss Adams had denied the +truth when the girl confronted her with the story. It is +the one situation in life where a lie is excusable, I +think. It would have saved this poor girl no end of sorrow, +and it could not have added much to the mother’s +burden. I think lying must have originated with an erring +woman.”</p> +<p>Joy looked at her rector with startled eyes. “A +lie is never excusable,” she said, “and I do not +believe it ever saves sorrow. But I see you do not mean +what you say, you only feel very sorry for the girl; and you +surely do not forget that the lie originated with Satan, who told +a falsehood to Eve.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER X</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Ever</span> since early girlhood Joy +Irving had formed a habit of jotting down in black and white her +own ideas regarding any book, painting, concert, conversation or +sermon, which interested her, and epitomising the train of +thought to which they led.</p> +<p>The evening after her walk and talk with the rector of St +Blank’s, she took out her note-book, which bore a date four +years old under its title “My Impressions,” and read +over the last page of entries. They had evidently been +written at the close of some Sabbath day and ran as +follows:—</p> +<blockquote><p>Many a kneeling woman is more occupied with how +her skirts hang than how her prayers ascend. I am inclined +to think we all ought to wear a uniform to church if we would +really worship there. God must grow weary looking down on +so many new bonnets.</p> +<p>I wore a smart hat to church to-day, and I found myself +criticising every other woman’s bonnet during service, so +that I failed in some of my responses.</p> +<p>If we could all be compelled by some mysterious power to +<i>think aloud</i> on Sunday, what a veritable holy day we would +make of it! Though we are taught from childhood that God +hears our thoughts, the best of us would be afraid to have our +nearest friends know them.</p> +<p>I sometimes think it is a presumption on the part of any man +to rise in the pulpit and undertake to tell me about a Creator +with whom I feel every whit as well acquainted as he. I +suppose such thoughts are wicked, however, and should be +suppressed.</p> +<p>It is a curious fact, that the most aggressively sensitive +persons are at heart the most conceited.</p> +<p>I wish people smiled more in church aisles. In fact, I +think we all laugh at one another too much and smile at one +another too seldom.</p> +<p>After the devil had made all the trouble for woman he could +with the fig leaf, he introduced the French heel.</p> +<p>It is well to see the ridiculous side of things, but not of +people.</p> +<p>Most of us would rather be popular than right.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>To these impressions Joy added the following:—</p> +<blockquote><p>It is not the interior of one’s house, but +the interior of one’s mind which makes home.</p> +<p>It seems to me that to be, is to love. I can conceive of +no state of existence which is not permeated with this feeling +toward something, somebody or the illimitable +“nothing” which is mother to everything.</p> +<p>I wish we had more religion in the world and fewer +churches.</p> +<p>People who believe in no God, invariably exalt themselves into +His position, and worship with the very idolatry they decry in +others.</p> +<p>Music is the echo of the rhythm of God’s +respirations.</p> +<p>Poetry is the effort of the divine part of man to formulate a +worthy language in which to converse with angels.</p> +<p>Painting and sculpture seem to me the most presumptuous of the +arts. They are an effort of man to outdo God in +creation. He never made a perfect form or face—the +artist alone makes them.</p> +<p>I am sure I do not play the organ as well at St Blank’s +as I played it in the little church where I gave my services and +was unknown. People are praising me too much here, and this +mars all spontaneity.</p> +<p>The very first hour of positive success is often the last hour +of great achievement. So soon as we are conscious of the +admiring and expectant gaze of men, we cease to commune with +God. It is when we are unknown to or neglected by mortals, +that we reach up to the Infinite and are inspired.</p> +<p>I have seen Marah Adams to-day, and I felt strangely drawn to +her. Her face would express all goodness if it were not so +unhappy. Unhappiness is a species of evil, since it is a +discourtesy to God to be unhappy.</p> +<p>I am going to do all I can for the girl to bring her into a +better frame of mind. No blame can be attached to her, and +yet now that I am face to face with the situation, and realise +how the world regards such a person, I myself find it a little +hard to think of braving public opinion and identifying myself +with her. But I am going to overcome such feelings, as they +are cowardly and unworthy of me, and purely the result of +education. I am amazed, too, to discover this weakness in +myself.</p> +<p>How sympathetic dear mamma is! I told her about Marah, +and she wept bitterly, and has carried her eyes full of tears +ever since. I must be careful and tell her nothing sad +while she is in such a weak state physically.</p> +<p>I told mamma what the rector said about lying. She +coincided with him that Mrs Adams would have been justified in +denying the truth if she had realised how her daughter was to be +affected by this knowledge. A woman’s past belongs +only to herself and her God, she says, unless she wishes to make +a confidant. But I cannot agree with her or the +rector. I would want the truth from my parents, however +much it hurt. Many sins which men regard as serious only +obstruct the bridge between our souls and truth. A lie +burns the bridge.</p> +<p>I hope I am not uncharitable, yet I cannot conceive of +committing an act through love of any man, which would lower me +in his esteem, once committed. Yet of course I have had +little experience in life, with men, or with temptation. +But it seems to me I could not continue to love a man who did not +seek to lead me higher. The moment he stood before me and +asked me to descend, I should realise he was to be +pitied—not adored.</p> +<p>I told mother this, and she said I was too young and +inexperienced to form decided opinions on such subjects, and she +warned me that I must not become uncharitable. She wept +bitterly as she thought of my becoming narrow or bigoted in my +ideas, dear, tender-hearted mamma.</p> +<p>Death should be called the Great Revealer instead of the Great +Destroyer.</p> +<p>Some people think the way into heaven is through embroidered +altar cloths.</p> +<p>The soul that has any conception of its own possibilities does +not fear solitude.</p> +<p>A girl told me to-day that a rude man annoyed her by staring +at her in a public conveyance. It never occurred to her +that it takes four eyes to make a stare annoying.</p> +<p>Astronomers know more about the character of the stars than +the average American mother knows about the temperament of her +daughters.</p> +<p>To some women the most terrible thought connected with death +is the dates in the obituary notice.</p> +<p>As a rule, when a woman opens the door of an artistic career +with one hand, she shuts the door on domestic happiness with the +other.</p> +</blockquote> +<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> rector of St Blank’s +Church dined at the Cheney table or drove in the Cheney +establishment every week, beside which there were always one or +two confidential chats with the feminine Cheneys in the parsonage +on matters pertaining to the welfare of the church, and +occasionally to the welfare of humanity.</p> +<p>That Alice Cheney had conceived a sudden and consuming passion +for the handsome and brilliant rector of St Blank’s, both +her mother and the Baroness knew, and both were doing all in +their power to further the girl’s hopes.</p> +<p>While Alice resembled her mother in appearance and +disposition, propensities and impulses occasionally exhibited +themselves which spoke of paternal inheritance. She had her +father’s strongly emotional nature, with her mother’s +stubbornness; and Preston Cheney’s romantic tendencies were +repeated in his daughter, without his reasoning powers. +Added to her father’s lack of self-control in any strife +with his passions, Alice possessed her mother’s hysterical +nerves. In fact, the unfortunate child inherited the +weaknesses and faults of both parents, without any of their +redeeming virtues.</p> +<p>The passion which had sprung to life in her breast for the +young rector, was as strong and unreasoning as the infatuation +which her father had once experienced for Berene Dumont; but +instead of struggling against the feeling as her father had at +least attempted to do, she dwelt upon it with all the mulish +persistency which her mother exhibited in small matters, and +luxuriated in romantic dreams of the future.</p> +<p>Mabel was wholly unable to comprehend the depth or violence of +her daughter’s feelings, but she realised the fact that +Alice had set her mind on winning Arthur Stuart for a husband, +and she quite approved of the idea, and saw no reason why it +should not succeed. She herself had won Preston Cheney away +from all rivals for his favour, and Alice ought to be able to do +the same with Arthur, after all the money which had been expended +upon her wardrobe. Senator Cheney’s daughter and +Judge Lawrence’s granddaughter, surely was a prize for any +man to win as a wife.</p> +<p>The Baroness, however, reviewed the situation with more +concern of mind. She realised that Alice was destitute of +beauty and charm, and that Arthur Emerson Stuart (it would have +been considered a case of high treason to speak of the rector of +St Blank’s without using his three names) was independent +in the matter of fortune, and so dowered with nature’s best +gifts that he could have almost any woman for the asking whom he +should desire. But the Baroness believed much in +propinquity; and she brought the rector and Alice together as +often as possible, and coached the girl in coquettish arts when +alone with her, and credited her with witticisms and bon-mots +which she had never uttered, when talking of her to the young +rector.</p> +<p>“If only I could give Alice the benefit of my past +career,” the Baroness would say to herself at times. +“I know so well how to manage men; but what use is my +knowledge to me now that I am old? Alice is young, and even +without beauty she could do so much, if she only understood the +art of masculine seduction. But then it is a gift, not an +acquired art, and Alice was not born with the gift.”</p> +<p>While Mabel and Alice had been centring their thoughts and +attentions on the rector, the Baroness had not forgotten the +rector’s mother. She knew the very strong affection +which existed between the two, and she had discovered that the +leading desire of the young man’s heart was to make his +mother happy. With her wide knowledge of human nature, she +had not been long in discerning the fact that it was not because +of his own religious convictions that the rector had chosen his +calling, but to carry out the lifelong wishes of his beloved +mother.</p> +<p>Therefore she reasoned wisely that Arthur would be greatly +influenced by his mother in his choice of a wife; and the +Baroness brought all her vast battery of fascination to bear on +Mrs Stuart, and succeeded in making that lady her devoted +friend.</p> +<p>The widow of Judge Lawrence was still an imposing and +impressive figure wherever she went. Though no longer a +woman who appealed to the desires of men, she exhaled that +peculiar mental aroma which hangs ever about a woman who has +dealt deeply and widely in affairs of the heart. It is to +the spiritual senses what musk is to the physical; and while it +may often repulse, it sometimes attracts, and never fails to be +noticed. About the Baroness’s mouth were hard lines, +and the expression of her eyes was not kind or tender; yet she +was everywhere conceded to be a universally handsome and +attractive woman. Quiet and tasteful in her dressing, she +did not accentuate the ravages of time by any mistaken +frivolities of toilet, as so many faded coquettes have done, but +wisely suited her vestments to her appearance, as the withering +branch clothes itself in russet leaves, when the fresh sap ceases +to course through its veins. New York City is a vast +sepulchre of “past careers,” and the adventurous life +of the Baroness was quietly buried there with that of many +another woman. In the mad whirl of life there is small +danger that any of these skeletons will rise to view, unless the +woman permits herself to strive for eminence either socially or +in the world of art.</p> +<p>While the Cheneys were known to be wealthy, and the Senator +had achieved political position, there was nothing in their +situation to challenge the jealousy of their associates. +They moved in one of the many circles of cultured and agreeable +people, which, despite the mandate of a M‘Allister, formed +a varied and delightful society in the metropolis; they +entertained in an unostentatious manner, and there was nothing in +their personality to incite envy or jealousy. Therefore the +career of the Baroness had not been unearthed. That the +widow of Judge Lawrence, the stepmother of Mrs Cheney, was known +as “The Baroness” caused some questions, to be sure, +but the simple answer that she had been the widow of a French +baron in early life served to allay curiosity, while it rendered +the lady herself an object of greater interest to the majority of +people.</p> +<p>Mrs Stuart, the rector’s mother, was one of those who +were most impressed by this incident in the life of Mrs +Lawrence. “Family pride” was her greatest +weakness, and she dearly loved a title. She thought Mrs +Lawrence a typical “Baroness,” and though she knew +the title had only been obtained through marriage, it still +rendered its possessor peculiarly interesting in her eyes.</p> +<p>In her prime, the Baroness had been equally successful in +cajoling women and men. Though her day for ruling men was +now over, she still possessed the power to fascinate women when +she chose to exert herself. She did exert herself with Mrs +Stuart, and succeeded admirably in her design.</p> +<p>And one day Mrs Stuart confided her secret anxiety to the ear +of the Baroness; and that secret caused the cheek of the listener +to grow pale and the look of an animal at bay to come into her +eyes.</p> +<p>“There is just one thing that gives me a constant pain +at my heart,” Mrs Stuart had said. “You have +never been a mother, yet I think your sympathetic nature causes +you to understand much which you have not experienced, and +knowing as you do the great pride I feel in my son’s +career, and the ambition I have for him to rise to the very +highest pinnacle of success and usefulness, I am sure you will +comprehend my anxiety when I see him exhibiting an undue interest +in a girl who is in every way his inferior, and wholly unsuited +to fill the position his wife should occupy.”</p> +<p>The Baroness listened with a cold, sinking sensation at her +heart</p> +<p>“I am sure your son would never make a choice which was +not agreeable to you,” she ventured.</p> +<p>“He might not marry anyone I objected to,” Mrs +Stuart replied, “but I dread to think his heart may be +already gone from his keeping. Young men are so susceptible +to a pretty face and figure, and I confess that Joy Irving has +both. She is a good girl, too, and a fine musician; but she +has no family, and her alliance with my son would be a great +drawback to his career. Her father was a grocer, I believe, +or something of that sort; quite a common man, who married a +third-class actress, Joy’s mother. Mr Irving was in +very comfortable circumstances at one time, but a stroke of +paralysis rendered him helpless some four years ago. He +died last year and left his widow and child in straitened +circumstances. Mrs Irving is an invalid now, and Joy +supports her with her music. Mr Irving and Joy were members +of Arthur Emerson’s former church (Mrs Stuart always spoke +of her son in that manner), and that is how my son became +interested in the daughter—an interest I supposed to be +purely that of a rector in his parishioner, until of late, when I +began to fear it took root in deeper soil. But I am sure, +dear Baroness, you can understand my anxiety.”</p> +<p>And then the Baroness, with drawn lips and anguished eyes, +took both of Mrs Stuart’s hands in hers, and cried out:</p> +<p>“Your pain, dear madam, is second to mine. I have +no child, to be sure, but as few mothers love I love Alice +Cheney, my dear husband’s granddaughter. My very life +is bound up in her, and she—God help us, she loves your son +with her whole soul. If he marries another it will kill her +or drive her insane.”</p> +<p>The two women fell weeping into each other’s arms.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Preston Cheney</span> conceived such a +strong, earnest liking for the young clergyman whom he met under +his own roof during one of his visits home, that he fell into the +habit of attending church for the first time in his life.</p> +<p>Mabel and Alice were deeply gratified with this intimacy +between the two men, which brought the rector to the house far +oftener than they could have tastefully done without the +co-operation of the husband and father. Besides, it looked +well to have the head of the household represented in the +church. To the Baroness, also, there was added satisfaction +in attending divine service, now that Preston Cheney sat in the +pew. All hope of winning the love she had so longed to +possess, died many years before; and she had been cruel and +unkind in numerous ways to the object of her hopeless passion, +yet like the smell of dead rose leaves long shut in a drawer, +there clung about this man the faint, suggestive fragrance of a +perished dream.</p> +<p>She knew that he did not love his wife, and that he was +disappointed in his daughter; and she did not at least have to +suffer the pain of seeing him lavish the affection she had +missed, on others.</p> +<p>Mr Cheney had been called away from home on business the day +before the new organist took her place in St Blank’s +Church. Nearly a month had passed when he again occupied +his pew.</p> +<p>Before the organist had finished her introduction, he turned +to Alice, saying:</p> +<p>“There has been a change here in the choir, since I went +away, and for the better. That is a very unusual +musician. Do you know who it is?”</p> +<p>“Some lady, I believe; I do not remember her +name,” Alice answered indifferently. Like her mother, +Alice never enjoyed hearing anyone praised. It mattered +little who it was, or how entirely out of her own line the +achievements or accomplishments on which the praise was bestowed, +she still felt that petty resentment of small creatures who +believe that praise to others detracts from their own value.</p> +<p>A fortune had been expended on Alice’s musical +education, yet she could do no more than rattle through some +mediocre composition, with neither taste nor skill.</p> +<p>The money which has been wasted in trying to teach music to +unmusical people would pay our national debt twice over, and +leave a competency for every orphan in the land.</p> +<p>When the organist had finished her second selection, Mr Cheney +addressed the same question to his wife which he had addressed to +Alice.</p> +<p>“Who is the new organist?” he queried. Mabel +only shook her head and placed her finger on her lip as a signal +for silence during service.</p> +<p>The third time it was the Baroness, sitting just beyond Mabel, +to whom Mr Cheney spoke. “That’s a very +remarkable musician, very remarkable,” he said. +“Do you know anything about her?”</p> +<p>“Yes, wait until we get home, and I will tell you all +about her,” the Baroness replied.</p> +<p>When the service was over, Mr Cheney did not pass out at once, +as was his custom. Instead he walked toward the pulpit, +after requesting his family to wait a moment.</p> +<p>The rector saw him and came down into the aisle to speak to +him.</p> +<p>“I want to congratulate you on the new organist,” +Mr Cheney said, “and I want to meet her. Alice tells +me it is a lady. She must have devoted a lifetime to hard +study to become such a marvellous mistress of that difficult +instrument.”</p> +<p>Arthur Stuart smiled. “Wait a moment,” he +said, “and I will send for her. I would like you to +meet her, and like her to meet your wife and family. She +has few, if any, acquaintances in my congregation.”</p> +<p>Mr Cheney went down the aisle, and joined the three ladies who +were waiting for him in the pew. All were smiling, for all +three believed that he had been asking the rector to accompany +them home to dinner. His first word dispelled the +illusion.</p> +<p>“Wait here a moment,” he said. “Mr +Stuart is going to bring the organist to meet us. I want to +know the woman who can move me so deeply by her music.”</p> +<p>Over the faces of his three listeners there fell a +cloud. Mabel looked annoyed, Alice sulky, and a flush of +the old jealous fury darkened the brow of the Baroness. But +all were smiling deceitfully when Joy Irving approached.</p> +<p>Her radiant young beauty, and the expressions of admiration +with which Preston Cheney greeted her as a woman and an artist, +filled life with gall and wormwood for the three feminine +listeners.</p> +<p>“What! this beautiful young miss, scarcely out of short +frocks, is not the musician who gave us that wonderful harmony of +sounds. My child, how did you learn to play like that in +the brief life you have passed on earth? Surely you must +have been taught by the angels before you came.”</p> +<p>A deep blush of pleasure at the words which, though so +extravagant, Joy felt to be sincere, increased her beauty as she +looked up into Preston Cheney’s admiring eyes.</p> +<p>And as he held her hands in both of his and gazed down upon +her it seemed to the Baroness she could strike them dead at her +feet and rejoice in the act.</p> +<p>Beside this radiant vision of loveliness and genius, Alice +looked plainer and more meagre than ever before. She was +like a wayside weed beside an American Beauty rose.</p> +<p>“I hope you and Alice will become good friends,” +Mr Cheney said warmly. “We should like to see you at +the house any time you can make it convenient to come, would we +not Mabel?”</p> +<p>Mrs Cheney gave a formal assent to her husband’s words +as they turned away, leaving Joy with the rector. And a +scene in one of life’s strangest dramas had been enacted, +unknown to them all.</p> +<p>“I would like you to be very friendly with that girl, +Alice,” Mr Cheney repeated as they seated themselves in the +carriage. “She has a rare face, a rare face, and she +is highly gifted. She reminds me of someone I have known, +yet I can’t think who it is. What do you know about +her, Baroness?”</p> +<p>The Baroness gave an expressive shrug. “Since you +admire her so much,” she said, “I rather hesitate +telling you. But the girl is of common origin—a +grocer’s daughter, and her mother quite an inferior +person. I hardly think it a suitable companionship for +Alice.”</p> +<p>“I am sure I don’t care to know her,” chimed +in Alice. “I thought her quite bold and forward in +her manner.”</p> +<p>“Decidedly so! She seemed to hang on to your +father’s hand as if she would never let go,” added +Mabel, in her most acid tone. “I must say, I should +have been horrified to see you act in such a familiar manner +toward any stranger.” A quick colour shot into +Preston Cheney’s cheek and a spark into his eye.</p> +<p>“The girl was perfectly modest in her deportment to +me,” he said. “She is a lady through and +through, however humble her birth may be. But I ought to +have known better than to ask my wife and daughter to like anyone +whom I chanced to admire. I learned long ago how futile +such an idea was.”</p> +<p>“Oh, well, I don’t see why you need get so angry +over a perfect stranger whom you never laid eyes on until +to-day,” pouted Alice. “I am sure she’s +nothing to any of us that we need quarrel over her.”</p> +<p>“A man never gets so old that he is not likely to make a +fool of himself over a pretty face,” supplemented Mabel, +“and there is no fool like an old fool.”</p> +<p>The uncomfortable drive home came to an end at this juncture, +and Preston Cheney retired to his own room, with the disagreeable +words of his wife and daughter ringing in his ears, and the +beautiful face of the young organist floating before his +eyes.</p> +<p>“I wish she were my daughter,” he said to himself; +“what a comfort and delight a girl like that would be to +me!”</p> +<p>And while these thoughts filled the man’s heart the +Baroness paced her room with all the jealous passions of her +still ungoverned nature roused into new life and violence at the +remembrance of Joy Irving’s fresh young beauty and Preston +Cheney’s admiring looks and words.</p> +<p>“I could throttle her,” she cried, “I could +throttle her. Oh, why is she sent across my life at every +turn? Why should the only two men in the world who interest +me to-day, be so infatuated over that girl? But if I cannot +remove so humble an obstacle as she from my pathway, I shall feel +that my day of power is indeed over, and that I do not believe to +be true.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Two</span> weeks later the organ loft of +St Blank’s Church was occupied by a stranger. For a +few hours the Baroness felt a wild hope in her heart that Miss +Irving had been sent away.</p> +<p>But inquiry elicited the information that the young musician +had merely employed a substitute because her mother was lying +seriously ill at home.</p> +<p>It was then that the Baroness put into execution a desire she +had to make the personal acquaintance of Joy Irving.</p> +<p>The desire had sprung into life with the knowledge of the +rector’s interest in the girl. No one knew better +than the Baroness how to sow the seeds of doubt, distrust and +discord between two people whom she wished to alienate. +Many a sweetheart, many a wife, had she separated from lover and +husband, scarcely leaving a sign by which the trouble could be +traced to her, so adroit and subtle were her methods.</p> +<p>She felt that she could insert an invisible wedge between +these two hearts, which would eventually separate them, if only +she might make the acquaintance of Miss Irving. And now +chance had opened the way for her.</p> +<p>She made her resolve known to the rector.</p> +<p>“I am deeply interested in the young organist whom I had +the pleasure of meeting some weeks ago,” she said, and she +noted with a sinking heart the light which flashed into the +man’s face at the mere mention of the girl. “I +understand her mother is seriously ill, and I think I will go +around and call. Perhaps I can be of use. I +understand Mrs Irving is not a churchwoman, and she may be in +real need, as the family is in straitened circumstances. +May I mention your name when I call, in order that Miss Irving +may not think I intrude?”</p> +<p>“Why, certainly,” the rector replied with +warmth. “Indeed, I will give you a card of +introduction. That will open the way for you, and at the +same time I know you will use your delicate tact to avoid +wounding Miss Irving’s pride in any way. She is very +sensitive about their straitened circumstances; you may have +heard that they were quite well-to-do until the stroke of +paralysis rendered her father helpless. All their means +were exhausted in efforts to restore his health, and in the +employment of nurses and physicians. I think they have +found life a difficult problem since his death, as Mrs Irving has +been under medical care constantly, and the whole burden falls on +Miss Joy’s young shoulders, and she is but +twenty-one.”</p> +<p>“Just the age of Alice,” mused the Baroness. +“How differently people’s lives are ordered in this +world! But then we must have the hewers of wood and the +drawers of water, and we must have the delicate human +flowers. Our Alice is one of the latter, a frail blossom to +look upon, but she is one of the kind which will bloom out in +great splendour under the sunshine of love and happiness. +Very few people realise what wonderful reserve force that +delicate child possesses. And such a tender heart! +She was determined to come with me when she heard of Miss +Irving’s trouble, but I thought it unwise to take her until +I had seen the place. She is so sensitive to her +surroundings, and it might be too painful for her. I am for +ever holding her back from overtaxing herself for others. +No one dreams of the amount of good that girl does in a secret, +quiet way; and at the same time she assumes an indifferent air +and talks as if she were quite heartless, just to hinder people +from suspecting her charitable work. She is such a strange, +complicated character.”</p> +<p>Armed with her card of introduction, the Baroness set forth on +her “errand of mercy.” She had not mentioned +Miss Irving’s name to Mabel or Alice. The secret of +the rector’s interest in the girl was locked in her own +breast. She knew that Mabel was wholly incapable of coping +with such a situation, and she dreaded the effect of the news on +Alice, who was absorbed in her love dream. The girl had +never been denied a wish in her life, and no thought came to her +that she could be thwarted in this, her most cherished hope of +all.</p> +<p>The Baroness was determined to use every gun in her battery of +defence before she allowed Mabel or Alice to know that defence +was needed.</p> +<p>The rector’s card admitted her to the parlour of a small +flat. The portières of an adjoining room were thrown +open presently, and a vision of radiant beauty entered the +room.</p> +<p>The Baroness could not explain it, but as the girl emerged +from the curtains, a strange, confused memory of something and +somebody she had known in the past came over her. But when +the girl spoke, a more inexplicable sensation took possession of +the listener, for her voice was the feminine of Preston +Cheney’s masculine tones, and then as she looked at the +girl again the haunting memories of the first glance were +explained, for she was very like Preston Cheney as the Baroness +remembered him when he came to the Palace to engage rooms more +than a score of years ago. “What a strange thing +these resemblances are!” she thought. “This +girl is more like Senator Cheney, far more like him, than Alice +is. Ah, if Alice only had her face and form!”</p> +<p>Miss Irving gave a slight start, and took a step back as her +eyes fell upon the Baroness. The rector’s card had +read, “Introducing Mrs Sylvester Lawrence.” She +had known this lad by sight ever since her first Sunday as +organist at St Blank’s, and for some unaccountable reason +she had conceived a most intense dislike for her. Joy was +drawn toward humanity in general, as naturally as the sunlight +falls on the earth’s foliage. Her heart radiated love +and sympathy toward the whole world. But when she did feel +a sentiment of distrust or repulsion she had learned to respect +it.</p> +<p>Our guardian angels sometimes send these feelings as danger +signals to our souls.</p> +<p>It therefore required a strong effort of her will to go +forward and extend a hand in greeting to the lady whom her rector +and friend had introduced.</p> +<p>“I must beg pardon for this intrusion,” the +Baroness said with her sweetest smile; “but our rector +urged me to come and so I felt emboldened to carry out the wish I +have long entertained to make your acquaintance. Your +wonderful music inspires all who hear you to know you personally; +the service lacked half its charm on Sunday because you were +absent. When I learnt that your absence was occasioned by +your mother’s illness, I asked the rector if he thought a +call from me would be an intrusion, and he assured me to the +contrary. I used to be considered an excellent nurse; I am +very strong, and full of vitality, and if you would permit me to +sit by your mother some Sunday when you are needed at church, I +should be most happy to do so. I should like to make the +acquaintance of your mother, and compliment her on the happiness +of possessing such a gifted and dutiful daughter.”</p> +<p>Like all who sat for any time under the spell of the second +Mrs Lawrence, Joy felt the charm of her voice, words and manner, +and it began to seem as if she had been very unreasonable in +entertaining unfounded prejudices.</p> +<p>That the rector had introduced her was alone proof of her +worthiness; and the gracious offer of the distinguished-looking +lady to watch by the bedside of a stranger was certainly evidence +of her good heart. The frost disappeared from her smile, +and she warmed toward the Baroness. The call lengthened +into a visit, and as the Baroness finally rose to go, Joy +said:</p> +<p>“I will take you in and introduce you to mamma +now. I think it will do her good to meet you,” and +the Baroness followed the graceful girl through a narrow hall, +and into a room which had evidently been intended for a +dining-room, but which, owing to its size and its windows opening +to the south, had been utilised as a sick chamber.</p> +<p>The invalid lay with her face turned away from the door. +But by the movement of the delicate hand on the counterpane, Joy +knew that her mother was awake.</p> +<p>“Mamma, I have brought a lady, a friend of Dr +Stuart’s, to see you,” Joy said gently. The +invalid turned her head upon the pillow, and the Baroness looked +upon the face of—Berene Dumont.</p> +<p>“Berene!”</p> +<p>“Madam!”</p> +<p>The two spoke simultaneously, and the invalid had started +upright in bed.</p> +<p>“Mamma, what is the matter? Oh, please lie down, +or you will bring on another hæmorrhage,” cried the +startled girl; but her mother lifted her hand.</p> +<p>“Joy,” she said in a firm, clear voice, +“this lady is an old acquaintance of mine. Please go +out, dear, and shut the door. I wish to see her +alone.”</p> +<p>Joy passed out with drooping head and a sinking heart. +As the door closed behind her the Baroness spoke.</p> +<p>“So that is Preston Cheney’s daughter,” she +said. “I always had my suspicions of the cause which +led you to leave my house so suddenly. Does the girl know +who her father is? And does Senator Cheney know of her +existence, may I ask?”</p> +<p>A crimson flush suffused the invalid’s face. Then +a flame of fire shot into the dark eyes, and a small red spot +only glowed on either pale cheek.</p> +<p>“I do not know by what right you ask these questions, +Baroness Brown,” she answered slowly; and her listener +cringed under the old appellation which recalled the miserable +days when she had kept a lodging-house—days she had almost +forgotten during the last decade of life.</p> +<p>“But I can assure you, madam,” continued the +speaker, “that my daughter knows no father save the good +man, my husband, who is dead. I have never by word or line +made my existence known to anyone I ever knew since I left +Beryngford. I do not know why you should come here to +insult me, madam; I have never harmed you or yours, and you have +no proof of the accusation you just made, save your own evil +suspicions.”</p> +<p>The Baroness gave an unpleasant laugh.</p> +<p>“It is an easy matter for me to find proof of my +suspicions if I choose to take the trouble,” she +said. “There are detectives enough to hunt up your +trail, and I have money enough to pay them for their +trouble. But Joy is the living evidence of the +assertion. She is the image of Preston Cheney, as he was +twenty-three years ago. I am ready, however, to let the +matter drop on one condition; and that condition is, that you +extract a promise from your daughter that she will not encourage +the attentions of Arthur Emerson Stuart, the rector of St +Blank’s; that she will never under any circumstances be his +wife.”</p> +<p>The red spots faded to a sickly yellow in the invalid’s +cheeks. “Why should you ask this of me?” she +cried. “Why should you wish to destroy the happiness +of my child’s life? She loves Arthur Stuart, and I +know that he loves her! It is the one thought which resigns +me to death; the thought that I may leave her the beloved wife of +this good man.”</p> +<p>The Baroness leaned lower over the pillow of the invalid as +she answered: “I will tell you why I ask this sacrifice of +you.”</p> +<p>“Perhaps you do not know that I married Judge Lawrence +after the death of his first wife. Perhaps you do not know +that Preston Cheney’s legitimate daughter is as precious to +me as his illegitimate child is to you. Alice is only six +months younger than Joy; she is frail, delicate, sensitive. +A severe disappointment would kill her. She, too, loves +Arthur Stuart. If your daughter will let him alone, he will +marry Alice. Surely the illegitimate child should give way +to the legitimate.</p> +<p>“If you are selfish in this matter, I shall be obliged +to tell your daughter the true story of her life, and let her be +the judge of what is right and what is wrong. I fancy she +might have a finer perception of duty than you have—she is +so much like her father.”</p> +<p>The tortured invalid fell back panting on her pillow. +She put out her hands with a distracted, imploring gesture.</p> +<p>“Leave me to think,” she gasped. “I +never knew that Preston Cheney had a daughter; I did not know he +lived here. My life has been so quiet, so secluded these +many years. Leave me to think. I will give you my +answer in a few days; I will write you after I reflect and +pray.”</p> +<p>The Baroness passed out, and Joy, hastening into the room, +found her mother in a wild paroxysm of tears. Late that +night Mrs Irving called for writing materials; and for many hours +she sat propped up in bed writing rapidly.</p> +<p>When she had completed her task she called Joy to her +side.</p> +<p>“Darling,” she said, placing a sealed manuscript +in her hands, “I want you to keep this seal unbroken so +long as you are happy. I know in spite of your deep sorrow +at my death, which must come ere long, you will find much +happiness in life. You came smiling into existence, and no +common sorrow can deprive you of the joy which is your +birthright. But there are numerous people in the world who +may strive to wound you after I am gone. If slanderous +tales or cruel reports reach your ears, and render you unhappy, +break this seal, and read the story I have written here. +There are some things which will deeply pain you, I know. +Do not force yourself to read them until a necessity +arises. I leave you this manuscript as I might leave you a +weapon for self-defence. Use it only when you are in need +of that defence.”</p> +<p>The next morning Mrs Irving was weakened by another and most +serious hæmorrhage of the lungs. Her physician was +grave, and urged the daughter to be prepared for the worst.</p> +<p>“I fear your mother’s life is a matter of days +only,” he said.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Baroness went directly from the +home which she had entered only to blight, and sent her card +marked “urgent” to Mrs Stuart.</p> +<p>“I have come to tell you an unpleasant story,” she +said—“a painful and revolting story, the early +chapters of which were written years ago, but the sequel has only +just been made known to me. It concerns you and yours +vitally; it also concerns me and mine. I am sure, when you +have heard the story to the end, you will say that truth is +stranger than fiction, indeed: and you will more than ever +realise the necessity of preventing your son from marrying Joy +Irving—a child who was born before her mother ever met Mr +Irving; and whose mother, I daresay, was no more the actual wife +of Mr Irving in the name of law and decency than she had been the +wife of his many predecessors.”</p> +<p>Startled and horrified at this beginning of the story, Mrs +Stuart was in a state of excited indignation at the end. +The Baroness had magnified facts and distorted truths until she +represented Berene Dumont as a monster of depravity; a vicious +being who had been for a short time the recipient of the +Baroness’s mistaken charity, and who had repaid kindness by +base ingratitude, and immorality. The man implicated in the +scandal which she claimed was the cause of Berene’s flight +was not named in this recital.</p> +<p>Indeed the Baroness claimed that he was more sinned against +than sinning, and that it was a case of mesmeric influence, or +evil eye, on the part of the depraved woman.</p> +<p>Mrs Lawrence took pains to avoid any reference to Beryngford +also; speaking of these occurrences having taken place while she +spent a summer in a distant interior town, where, “after +the death of the Baron, she had rented a villa, feeling that she +wanted to retire from the world.”</p> +<p>“My heart is always running away with my head,” +she remarked, “and I thought this poor creature, who was +shunned and neglected by all, worth saving. I tried to +befriend her, and hoped to waken the better nature which every +woman possesses, I think, but she was too far gone in +iniquity.</p> +<p>“You cannot imagine, my dear Mrs Stuart, what a shock it +was to me on entering that sickroom to-day, my heart full of +kindly sympathy, to encounter in the invalid the ungrateful +recipient of my past favours; and to realise that her daughter +was no other than the shameful offspring of her immoral +past. In spite of the girl’s beauty, there is an +expression about her face which I never liked; and I fully +understand now why I did not like it. Of course, Mrs +Stuart, this story is told to you in strict confidence. I +would not for the world have dear Mrs Cheney know of it, nor +would I pollute sweet Alice with such a tale. Indeed, Alice +would not understand it if she were told, for she is as ignorant +and innocent as a child in arms of such matters. We have +kept her absolutely unspotted from the world. But I knew it +was my duty to tell you the whole shameful story. If worst +comes to worst, you will be obliged to tell your son perhaps, and +if he doubts the story send him to me for its +verification.”</p> +<p>Worst came to the worst before twenty-four hours had +passed. The rector received word that Mrs Irving was +rapidly failing, and went to act the part of spiritual counsellor +to the invalid, and sympathetic friend to the suffering girl.</p> +<p>When he returned his mother watched his face with eager, +anxious eyes. He looked haggard and ill, as if he had +passed through a severe ordeal. He could talk of nothing +but the beautiful and brave girl, who was about to lose her one +worshipped companion, and who ere many hours passed would stand +utterly alone in the world.</p> +<p>“I never saw you so affected before by the troubles and +sorrows of your parishioners,” Mrs Stuart said. +“I wonder, Arthur, why you take the sorrows of this family +so keenly to heart.”</p> +<p>The young rector looked his mother full in the face with calm, +sad eyes. Then he said slowly:</p> +<p>“I suppose, mother, it is because I love Joy Irving with +all my heart. You must have suspected this for some +time. I know that you have, and that the thought has pained +you. You have had other and more ambitious aims for +me. Earnest Christian and good woman that you are, you have +a worldly and conventional vein in your nature, which makes you +reverence position, wealth and family to a marked degree. +You would, I know, like to see me unite myself with some royal +family, were that possible; failing in that, you would choose the +daughter of some great and aristocratic house to be my +bride. Ah, well, dear mother, you will, I know, concede +that marriage without love is unholy. I am not able to +force myself to love some great lady, even supposing I could win +her if I did love her.”</p> +<p>“But you might keep yourself from forming a foolish and +unworthy attachment,” Mrs Stuart interrupted. +“With your will-power, your brain, your reasoning +faculties, I see no necessity for your allowing a pretty face to +run away with your heart. Nothing could be more unsuitable, +more shocking, more dreadful, than to have you make that girl +your wife, Arthur.”</p> +<p>Mrs Stuart’s voice rose as she spoke, from a quiet +reasoning tone to a high, excited wail. She had not meant +to say so much. She had intended merely to appeal to her +son’s affection for her, without making any unpleasant +disclosures regarding Joy’s mother; she thought merely to +win a promise from him that he would not compromise himself at +present with the girl, through an excess of sympathy. But +already she had said enough to arouse the young man into a +defender of the girl he loved.</p> +<p>“I think your language quite too strong, mother,” +he said, with a reproving tone in his voice. “Miss +Irving is good, gifted, amiable, beautiful, beside being young +and full of health. I am sure there could be nothing +shocking or dreadful in any man’s uniting his destiny with +such a being, in case he was fortunate enough to win her. +The fact that she is poor, and not of illustrious lineage, is but +a very worldly consideration. Mr Irving was a most +intelligent and excellent man, even if he was a grocer. The +American idea of aristocracy is grotesquely absurd at the +best. A man may spend his time and strength in buying and +selling things wherewith to clothe the body, and, if he succeeds, +his children are admitted to the intimacy of princes; but no +success can open that door to the children of a man who trades in +food, wherewith to sustain the body. We can none of us +afford to put on airs here in America, with butchers and Dutch +peasant traders only three or four generations back of our +‘best families.’ As for me, mother, remember my +loved father was a broker. That would damn him in the eyes +of some people, you know, cultured gentleman as he +was.”</p> +<p>Mrs Stuart sat very still, breathing hard and trying to gain +control of herself for some moments after her son ceased +speaking. He, too, had said more than he intended, and he +was sorry that he had hurt his mother’s feelings as he saw +her evident agitation. But as he rose to go forward and beg +her pardon, she spoke.</p> +<p>“The person of whom we were speaking has nothing +whatever to do with Mr Irving,” she said. “Joy +Irving was born before her mother was married. Mrs Irving +has a most infamous past, and I would rather see you dead than +the husband of her child. You certainly would not want your +children to inherit the propensities of such a grandmother? +And remember the curse descends to the third and fourth +generations. If you doubt my words, go to the +Baroness. She knows the whole story, but has revealed it to +no one but me.”</p> +<p>Mrs Stuart left the room, closing the door behind her as she +went. She did not want to be obliged to go over the details +of the story which she had heard; she had made her statement, one +which she knew must startle and horrify her son, with his high +ideals of womanly purity, and she left him to review the +situation in silence. It was several hours before the +rector left his room.</p> +<p>When he did, he went, not to the Baroness, but directly to Mrs +Irving. They were alone for more than an hour. When +he emerged from the room, his face was as white as death, and he +did not look at Joy as she accompanied him to the door.</p> +<p>Two days later Mrs Irving died.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> congregation of St +Blank’s Church was rendered sad and solicitous by learning +that its rector was on the eve of nervous prostration, and that +his physician had ordered a change of air. He went away in +company with his mother for a vacation of three months. The +day after his departure Joy Irving received a letter from him +which read as follows:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“<span class="smcap">My dear Miss +Irving</span>,—You may not in your deep grief have given me +a thought. If such a thought has been granted one so +unworthy, it must have taken the form of surprise that your +rector and friend has made no call of condolence since death +entered your household. I want to write one little word to +you, asking you to be lenient in your judgment of me. I am +ill in body and mind. I feel that I am on the eve of some +distressing malady. I am not able to reason clearly, or to +judge what is right and what is wrong. I am as one tossed +between the laws of God and the laws made by men, and bruised in +heart and in soul. I dare not see you or speak to you while +I am in this state of mind. I fear for what I may say or +do. I have not slept since I last saw you. I must go +away and gain strength and equilibrium. When I return I +shall hope to be master of myself. Until then, adieu.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">“<span class="smcap">Arthur +Emerson Stuart</span>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>These wild and incoherent phrases stirred the young +girl’s heart with intense pain and anxiety. She had +known for almost a year that she loved the young rector; she had +believed that he cared for her, and without allowing herself to +form any definite thoughts of the future, she had lived in a +blissful consciousness of loving and being loved, which is to the +fulfilment of a love dream, like inhaling the perfume of a rose, +compared to the gathered flower and its attending thorns.</p> +<p>The young clergyman’s absence at the time of her +greatest need had caused her both wonder and pain. His +letter but increased both sentiments without explaining the +cause.</p> +<p>It increased, too, her love for him, for whenever over-anxiety +is aroused for one dear to us, our love is augmented.</p> +<p>She felt that the young man was in some great trouble, unknown +to her, and she longed to be able to comfort him. Into the +maiden’s tender and ardent affection stole the wifely wish +to console and the motherly impulse to protect her dear one from +pain, which are strong elements in every real woman’s +love.</p> +<p>Mrs Irving had died without writing one word to the Baroness; +and that personage was in a state of constant excitement until +she heard of the rector’s plans for rest and travel. +Mrs Stuart informed her of the conversation which had taken place +between herself and her son; and of his evident distress of mind, +which had reacted on his body and made it necessary for him to +give up mental work for a season.</p> +<p>“I feel that I owe you a debt of gratitude, dear +Baroness,” Mrs Stuart had said. “Sad as this +condition of things is, imagine how much worse it would be, had +my son, through an excess of sympathy for that girl at this time, +compromised himself with her before we learned the terrible truth +regarding her birth. I feel sure my son will regain his +health after a few months’ absence, and that he will not +jeopardise my happiness and his future by any further thoughts of +this unfortunate girl, who in the meantime may not be here when +we return.”</p> +<p>The Baroness made a mental resolve that the girl should not be +there.</p> +<p>While the rector’s illness and proposed absence was +sufficient evidence that he had resolved upon sacrificing his +love for Joy on the altar of duty to his mother and his calling, +yet the Baroness felt that danger lurked in the air while Miss +Irving occupied her present position. No sooner had Mrs +Stuart and her son left the city, than the Baroness sent an +anonymous letter to the young organist. It read:</p> +<blockquote><p>“I do not know whether your mother imparted +the secret of her past life to you before she died, but as that +secret is known to several people, it seems cruelly unjust that +you are kept in ignorance of it. You are not Mr +Irving’s child. You were born before your mother +married. While it is not your fault, only your misfortune, +it would be wise for you to go where the facts are not so well +known as in the congregation of St Blank’s. There are +people in that congregation who consider you guilty of a wilful +deception in wearing the name you do, and of an affront to good +taste in accepting the position you occupy. Many people +talk of leaving the church on your account. Your gifts as a +musician would win you a position elsewhere, and as I learn that +your mother’s life was insured for a considerable sum, I am +sure you are able to seek new fields where you can bide your +disgrace.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">“A <span +class="smcap">Well-Wisher</span>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Quivering with pain and terror, the young girl cast the letter +into the fire, thinking that it was the work of one of those +half-crazed beings whose mania takes the form of anonymous +letters to unoffending people. Only recently such a person +had been brought into the courts for this offence. It +occurred to her also that it might be the work of someone who +wished to obtain her position as organist of St +Blank’s. Musicians, she knew, were said to be the +most jealous of all people, and while she had never suffered from +them before, it might be that her time had now come to experience +the misfortunes of her profession.</p> +<p>Tender-hearted and kindly in feeling to all humanity, she felt +a sickening sense of sorrow and fear at the thought that there +existed such a secret enemy for her anywhere in the world.</p> +<p>She went out upon the street, and for the first time in her +life she experienced a sense of suspicion and distrust toward the +people she met; for the first time in her life, she realised that +the world was not all kind and ready to give her back the honest +friendship and the sweet good-will which filled her heart for all +her kind. Strive as she would, she could not cast off the +depression caused by this vile letter. It was her first +experience of this cowardly and despicable phase of human malice, +and she felt wounded in soul as by a poisoned arrow shot in the +dark. And then, suddenly, there came to her the memory of +her mother’s words—“If unhappiness ever comes +to you, read this letter.”</p> +<p>Surely this was the time she needed to read that letter. +That it contained some secret of her mother’s life she felt +sure, and she was equally sure that it contained nothing that +would cause her to blush for that beloved mother.</p> +<p>“Whatever the manuscript may have to reveal to +me,” she said, “it is time that I should +know.” She took the package from the hiding place, +and broke the seal. Slowly she read it to the end, as if +anxious to make no error in understanding every phase of the long +story it related. Beginning with the marriage of her mother +to the French professor, Berene gave a detailed account of her +own sad and troubled life, and the shadow which the +father’s appetite for drugs cast over her whole +youth. “They say,” she wrote, “that there +is no personal devil in existence. I think this is true; he +has taken the form of drugs and spirituous liquors, and so his +work of devastation goes on.” Then followed the story +of the sacrilegious marriage to save her father from suicide, of +her early widowhood; and the proffer of the Baroness to give her +a home. Of her life of servitude there, her yearning for an +education, and her meeting with “Apollo,” as she +designated Preston Cheney. “For truly he was like the +glory of the rising day to me, the first to give me hope, courage +and unselfish aid. I loved him, I worshipped him. He +loved me, but he strove to crush and kill this love because he +had worked out an ambitious career for himself. To +extricate himself from many difficulties and embarrassments, and +to further his ambitious dreams, he betrothed himself to the +daughter of a rich and powerful man. He made no profession +of love, and she asked none. She was incapable of giving or +inspiring that holy passion. She only asked to be +married.</p> +<p>“I only asked to be loved. Knowing nothing of the +terrible conflict in his breast, knowing nothing of his new-made +ties, I was wounded to the soul by his speaking unkindly to +me—words he forced himself to speak to hide his real +feelings. And then it was that a strange fate caused him to +find me fainting, suffering, and praying for death. The +love in both hearts could no longer be restrained. +Augmented by its long control, sharpened by the agony we had both +suffered, overwhelmed by the surprise of the meeting, we lost +reason and prudence. Everything was forgotten save our +love. When it was too late I foresaw the anguish and sorrow +I must bring into this man’s life. I fear it was this +thought rather than repentance for sin which troubled me. +Well may you ask why I did not think of all this before instead +of after the error was committed. Why did not Eve realise +the consequences of the fall until she had eaten of the +apple? Only afterward did I learn of the unholy ties which +my lover had formed that very day—ties which he swore to me +should be broken ere another day passed, to render him free to +make me his wife in the eyes of men, as I already was in the +sight of God.</p> +<p>“Yet a strange and sudden resolve came to me as I +listened to him. Far beyond the thought of my own ruin, +rose the consciousness of the ruin I should bring upon his life +by allowing him to carry out his design. To be his wife, +his helpmate, chosen from the whole world as one he deemed most +worthy and most able to cheer and aid him in life’s +battle—that seemed heaven to me; but to know that by one +rash, impetuous act of folly, I had placed him in a position +where he felt that honour compelled him to marry me—why, +this thought was more bitter than death. I knew that he +loved me; yet I knew, too, that by a union with me under the +circumstances he would antagonise those who were now his best and +most influential friends, and that his entire career would be +ruined. I resolved to go away; to disappear from his life +and leave no trace. If his love was as sincere as mine, he +would find me; and time would show him some wiser way for +breaking his new-made fetters than the rash and sudden method he +now contemplated. He had forgotten to protect me with his +love, but I could not forget to protect him. In every true +woman’s love there is the maternal element which renders +sacrifice natural.</p> +<p>“Fate hastened and furthered my plans for +departure. Made aware that the Baroness was suspicious of +my fault, and learning that my lover was suddenly called to the +bedside of his fiancée, I made my escape from the town and +left no trace behind. I went to that vast haystack of lost +needles—New York, and effaced Berene Dumont in Mrs +Lamont. The money left from my father’s belongings I +resolved to use in cultivating my voice. I advertised for +embroidery and fine sewing also, and as I was an expert with the +needle, I was able to support myself and lay aside a little sum +each week. I trimmed hats at a small price, and added to my +income in various manners, owing to my French taste and my deft +fingers.</p> +<p>“I was desolate, sad, lonely, but not despairing. +What woman can despair when she knows herself loved? To me +that consciousness was a far greater source of happiness than +would have been the knowledge that I was an empress, or the wife +of a millionaire, envied by the whole world. I believed my +lover would find me in time, that we should be reunited. I +believed this until I saw the announcement of his marriage in the +press, and read that he and his bride had sailed for an extended +foreign tour; but with this stunning news, there came to me the +strange, sweet, startling consciousness that you, my darling +child, were coming to console me.</p> +<p>“I know that under the circumstances I ought to have +been borne down to the earth with a guilty shame; I ought to have +considered you as a punishment for my sin—and walked in the +valley of humiliation and despair.</p> +<p>“But I did not. I lived in a state of mental +exaltation; every thought was a prayer, every emotion was linked +with religious fervour. I was no longer alone or +friendless, for I had you. I sang as I had never sung, and +one theatrical manager, who happened to call upon my teacher +during my lesson hour, offered me a position at a good salary at +once if I would accept.</p> +<p>“I could not accept, of course, knowing what the coming +months were to bring to me, but I took his card and promised to +write him when I was ready to take a position. You came +into life in the depressing atmosphere of a city hospital, my +dear child, yet even there I was not depressed, and your face +wore a smile of joy the first time I gazed upon it. So I +named you Joy—and well have you worn the name. My +first sorrow was in being obliged to leave you; for I had to +leave you with those human angels, the sweet sisters of charity, +while I went forth to make a home for you. My voice, as is +sometimes the case, was richer, stronger and of greater compass +after I had passed through maternity. I accepted a position +with a travelling theatrical company, where I was to sing a solo +in one act. My success was not phenomenal, but it +<i>was</i> success nevertheless. I followed this life for +three years, seeing you only at intervals. Then the +consciousness came to me that without long and profound study I +could never achieve more than a third-rate success in my +profession.</p> +<p>“I had dreamed of becoming a great singer; but I learned +that a voice alone does not make a great singer. I needed +years of study, and this would necessitate the expenditure of +large sums of money. I had grown heart-sick and disgusted +with the annoyances and vulgarity I was subjected to in my +position. When you were four years old a good man offered +me a good home as his wife. It was the first honest love I +had encountered, while scores of men had made a pretence of +loving me during these years.</p> +<p>“I was hungering for a home where I could claim you and +have the joy of your daily companionship instead of brief +glimpses of you at the intervals of months. My voice, never +properly trained, was beginning to break. I resolved to put +Mr Irving to a test; I would tell him the true story of your +birth, and if he still wished me to be his wife, I would marry +him.</p> +<p>“I carried out my resolve, and we were married the day +after he had heard my story. I lived a peaceful and even +happy life with Mr Irving. He was devoted to you, and never +by look, word or act, seemed to remember my past. I, too, +at times almost forgot it, so strange a thing is the human heart +under the influence of time. Imagine, then, the shock of +remembrance and the tidal wave of memories which swept over me +when in the lady you brought to call upon me I +recognised—the Baroness.</p> +<p>“It is because she threatened to tell you that you were +not born in wedlock that I leave this manuscript for you. +It is but a few weeks since you told me the story of Marah Adams, +and assured me that you thought her mother did right in +confessing the truth to her daughter. Little did you dream +with what painful interest I listened to your views on that +subject. Little did I dream that I should so soon be called +upon to act upon them.</p> +<p>“But the time is now come, and I want no strange hand to +deal you a blow in the dark; if any part of the story comes to +you, I want you to know the whole truth. You will wonder +why I have not told you the name of your father. It is +strange, but from the hour I knew of his marriage, and of your +dawning life, I have felt a jealous fear lest he should ever take +you from me; even after I am gone, I would not have him know of +your existence and be unable to claim you openly. Any +acquaintance between you could only result in sorrow.</p> +<p>“I have never blamed him for my past weakness, however I +have blamed him for his unholy marriage. Our fault was +mutual. I was no ignorant child; while young in years, I +had sufficient knowledge of human nature to protect myself had I +used my will-power and my reason. Like many another woman, +I used neither; unlike the majority, I did not repent my sin or +its consequences. I have ever believed you to be a more +divinely born being than any children who may have resulted from +my lover’s unholy marriage. I die strong in the +belief. God bless you, my dear child, and +farewell.”</p> +<p>Joy sat silent and pale like one in a trance for a long time +after she had finished reading. Then she said aloud, +“So I am another like Marah Adams; it was this knowledge +which caused the rector to write me that strange letter. It +was this knowledge which sent him away without coming to say one +word of adieu. The woman who sent me the message, sent it +to him also. Well, I can be as brave as my mother +was. I, too, can disappear.”</p> +<p>She arose and began silently and rapidly to make preparations +for a journey. She felt a nervous haste to get away from +something—from all things. Everything stable in the +world seemed to have slipped from her hold in the last few +days. Home, mother, love, and now hope and pride were gone +too. She worked for more than two hours without giving vent +to even a sigh. Then suddenly she buried her face in her +hands and sobbed aloud: “Oh, mother, mother, you were not +ashamed, but I am ashamed for you! Why was I ever +born? God forgive me for the sinful thought, but I wish you +had lied to me in place of telling me the truth.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Just</span> as Mrs Irving had written her +story for her daughter to read, she told it, in the main, to the +rector a few days before her death.</p> +<p>Only once before had the tale passed her lips; then her +listener was Horace Irving; and his only comment was to take her +in his arms and place the kiss of betrothal on her lips. +Never again was the painful subject referred to between +them. So imbued had Berene Dumont become with her belief in +the legitimacy of her child, and in her own purity, that she felt +but little surprise at the calm manner in which Mr Irving +received her story, and now when the rector of St Blank’s +Church was her listener, she expected the same broad judgment to +be given her. But it was the calmness of a great and +all-forgiving love which actuated Mr Irving, and overcame all +other feelings.</p> +<p>Wholly unconventional in nature, caring nothing and knowing +little of the extreme ideas of orthodox society on these +subjects, the girl Berene and the woman Mrs Irving had lived a +life so wholly secluded from the world at large, so absolutely +devoid of intimate friendships, so absorbed in her own ideals, +that she was incapable of understanding the conventional opinion +regarding a woman with a history like hers.</p> +<p>In all those years she had never once felt a sensation of +shame. Mr Irving had requested her to rear Joy in the +belief that she was his child. As the matter could in no +way concern anyone else, Mrs Irving’s lips had remained +sealed on the subject; but not with any idea of concealing a +disgrace. She could not associate disgrace with her love +for Preston Cheney. She believed herself to be his +spiritual widow, as it were. His mortal clay and legal name +only belonged to his wife.</p> +<p>Mr Irving had met Berene on a railroad train, and had +conceived one of those sudden and intense passions with which a +woman with a past often inspires an innocent and unworldly young +man. He was sincerely and truly religious by nature, and as +spotless as a maiden in mind and body.</p> +<p>When he had dreamed of a wife, it was always of some shy, +innocent girl whom he should woo almost from her mother’s +arms; some gentle, pious maid, carefully reared, who would help +him to establish the Christian household of his +imagination. He had thought that love would first come to +him as admiring respect, then tender friendship, then love for +some such maiden; instead it had swooped down upon him in the +form of an intense passion for an absolute stranger—a woman +travelling with a theatrical company. He was like a sleeper +who awakens suddenly and finds a scorching midday sun beating +upon his eyes. A wrecked freight train upon the track +detained for several hours the car in which they travelled. +The passengers waived ceremony and conversed to pass the time, +and Mr Irving learnt Berene’s name, occupation and +destination. He followed her for a week, and at the end of +that time asked her hand in marriage.</p> +<p>Even after he had heard the story of her life, he was not +deterred from his resolve to make her his wife. All the +Christian charity of his nature, all its chivalry was aroused, +and he believed he was plucking a brand from the burning. +He never repented his act. He lived wholly for his wife and +child, and for the good he could do with them as his faithful +allies. He drew more and more away from all the allurements +of the world, and strove to rear Joy in what he believed to be a +purely Christian life, and to make his wife forget, if possible, +that she had ever known a sorrow. All of sincere gratitude, +tenderness, and gentle affection possible for her to feel, Berene +bestowed upon her husband during his life, and gave to his memory +after he was gone.</p> +<p>Joy had been excessively fond of Mr Irving, and it was the +dread of causing her a deep sorrow in the knowledge that she was +not his child, and the fear that Preston Cheney would in any way +interfere with her possession of Joy, which had distressed the +mother during the visit of the Baroness, rather than +unwillingness to have her sin revealed to her daughter. +Added to this, the intrusion of the Baroness into this long +hidden and sacred experience seemed a sacrilege from which she +shrank with horror. But she now told the tale to Arthur +Stuart frankly and fearlessly.</p> +<p>He had asked her to confide to him whatever secret existed +regarding Joy’s birth.</p> +<p>“There is a rumour afloat,” he said, “that +Joy is not Mr Irving’s child. I love your daughter, +Mrs Irving, and I feel it is my right to know all the +circumstances of her life. I believe the story which was +told my mother to be the invention of some enemy who is jealous +of Joy’s beauty and talents, and I would like to be in a +position to silence these slanders.”</p> +<p>So Mrs Irving told the story to the end; and having told it, +she felt relieved and happy in the thought that it was imparted +to the only two people whom it could concern in the future.</p> +<p>No disturbing fear came to her that the rector would hesitate +to make Joy his wife. To Berene Dumont, love was the +law. If love existed between two souls she could not +understand why any convention of society should stand in the way +of its fulfilment.</p> +<p>Arthur Stuart in his rôle of spiritual confessor and +consoler had never before encountered such a phase of human +nature. He had listened to many a tale of sin and folly +from women’s lips, but always had the sinner bemoaned her +sin, and bitterly repented her weakness. Here instead was +what the world would consider a fallen woman, who on her deathbed +regarded her weakness as her strength, her shame as her glory, +and who seemed to expect him to take the same view of the +matter. When he attempted to urge her to repent, the words +stuck in his throat. He left the deathbed of the +unfortunate sinner without having expressed one of the +conflicting emotions which filled his heart. But he left it +with such a weight on his soul, such distress on his mind that +death seemed to him the only way of escape from a life of +torment.</p> +<p>His love for Joy Irving was not killed by the story he had +heard. But it had received a terrible shock, and the +thought of making her his wife with the probability that the +Baroness would spread the scandal broadcast, and that his +marriage would break his mother’s heart, tortured +him. Added to this were his theories on heredity, and the +fear that there might, nay, must be, some dangerous tendency +hidden in the daughter of a mother who had so erred, and who in +dying showed no comprehension of the enormity of her sin. +Had Mrs Irving bewailed her fall, and represented herself as the +victim of a wily villain, the rector would not have felt so great +a fear of the daughter’s inheritance. A frail, +repentant woman he could pity and forgive, but it seemed to him +that Mrs Irving was utterly lacking in moral nature. She +was spiritually blind. The thought tortured him. To +leave Joy at this time without calling to see her seemed base and +cowardly; yet he dared not trust himself in her presence. +So he sent her the strangely worded letter, and went away hoping +to be shown the path of duty before he returned.</p> +<p>At the end of three months he came home stronger in body and +mind. He had resolved to compromise with fate; to continue +his calls upon Joy Irving; to be her friend and rector only, +until by the passage of time, and the changes which occur so +rapidly in every society, the scandal in regard to her birth had +been forgotten. And until by patience and tenderness, he +won his mother’s consent to the union. He felt that +all this must come about as he desired, if he did not aggravate +his mother’s feeling or defy public opinion by too +precipitate methods.</p> +<p>He could not wholly give up all thoughts of Joy Irving. +She had grown to be a part of his hopes and dreams of the future, +as she was a part of the reality of his present. But she +was very young; he could afford to wait, and while he waited to +study the girl’s character, and if he saw any budding shoot +which bespoke the maternal tree, to prune and train it to his own +liking. For the sake of his unborn children he felt it his +duty to carefully study any woman he thought to make his +wife.</p> +<p>But when he reached home, the surprising intelligence awaited +him that Miss Irving had left the metropolis. A brief note +to the church authorities, resigning her position, and saying +that she was about to leave the city, was all that anyone knew of +her.</p> +<p>The rector instituted a quiet search, but only succeeded in +learning that she had conducted her preparations for departure +with the greatest secrecy, and that to no one had she imparted +her plans.</p> +<p>Whenever a young woman shrouds her actions in the garments of +secrecy, she invites suspicion. The people who love to +suspect their fellow-beings of wrong-doing were not absent on +this occasion.</p> +<p>The rector was hurt and wounded by all this, and while he +resented the intimation from another that Miss Irving’s +conduct had been peculiar and mysterious, he felt it to be so in +his own heart.</p> +<p>“Is it her mother’s tendency to adventure +developing in her?” he asked himself.</p> +<p>Yet he wrote her a letter, directing it to her at the old +number, thinking she would at least leave her address with the +post-office for the forwarding of mail. The letter was +returned to him from that cemetery of many a dear hope, the +dead-letter office. A personal in a leading paper failed to +elicit a reply. And then one day six months after the +disappearance of Joy Irving, the young rector was called to the +Cheney household to offer spiritual consolation to Miss Alice, +who believed herself to be dying. She had been in a decline +ever since the rector went away for his health.</p> +<p>Since his return she had seen him but seldom, rarely save in +the pulpit, and for the last six weeks she had been too ill to +attend divine service.</p> +<p>It was Preston Cheney himself, at home upon one of his +periodical visits, who sent for the rector, and gravely met him +at the door when he arrived, and escorted him into his study.</p> +<p>“I am very anxious about my daughter,” he +said. “She has been a nervous child always, and +over-sensitive. I returned yesterday after an absence of +some three months in California, to find Alice in bed, wasted to +a shadow, and constantly weeping. I cannot win her +confidence—she has never confided to me. Perhaps it +is my fault; perhaps I have not been at home enough to make her +realise that the relationship of father and daughter is a sacred +one. This morning when I was urging her to tell me what +grieved her, she remarked that there was but one person to whom +she could communicate this sorrow—her rector. So, my +dear Dr Stuart, I have sent for you. I will conduct you to +my child, and I leave her in your hands. Whatever comfort +and consolation you can offer, I know will be given. I hope +she will not bind you to secrecy; I hope you may be able to tell +me what troubles her, and advise me how to help her.”</p> +<p>It was more than an hour before the rector returned to the +library where Preston Cheney awaited him. When the senator +heard his approaching step, he looked up, and was startled to see +the pallor on the young man’s face. “You have +something sad, something terrible to tell me!” he +cried. “What is it?”</p> +<p>The rector walked across the room several times, breathing +deeply, and with anguish written on his countenance. Then +he took Senator Cheney’s hand and wrung it. “I +have an embarrassing announcement to make to you,” he +said. “It is something so surprising, so unexpected, +that I am completely unnerved.”</p> +<p>“You alarm me, more and more,” the senator +answered. “What can be the secret which my frail +child has imparted to you that should so distress you? +Speak; it is my right to know.”</p> +<p>The rector took another turn about the room, and then came and +stood facing Senator Cheney.</p> +<p>“Your daughter has conceived a strange passion for +me,” he said in a low voice. “It is this which +has caused her illness, and which she says will cause her death, +if I cannot return it.”</p> +<p>“And you?” asked his listener after a +moment’s silence.</p> +<p>“I? Why, I have never thought of your daughter in +any such manner,” the young man replied. “I +have never dreamed of loving her, or winning her love.”</p> +<p>“Then do not marry her,” Preston Cheney said +quietly. “Marriage without love is unholy. Even +to save life it is unpardonable.”</p> +<p>The rector was silent, and walked the room with nervous +steps. “I must go home and think it all out,” +he said after a time. “Perhaps Miss Cheney will find +her grief less, now that she has imparted it to me. I am +alarmed at her condition, and I shall hope for an early report +from you regarding her.”</p> +<p>The report was made twelve hours later. Miss Cheney was +delirious, and calling constantly for the rector. Her +physician feared the worst.</p> +<p>The rector came, and his presence at once soothed the +girl’s delirium.</p> +<p>“History repeats itself,” said Preston Cheney +meditatively to himself. “Alice is drawing this man +into the net by her alarming physical condition, as Mabel riveted +the chains about me when her mother died.</p> +<p>“But Alice really loves the rector, I think, and she is +capable of a much stronger passion than her mother ever felt; and +the rector loves no other woman at least, and so this marriage, +if it takes place, will not be so wholly wicked and unholy as +mine was.”</p> +<p>The marriage did take place three months later. Alice +Cheney was not the wife whom Mrs Stuart would have chosen for her +son, yet she urged him to this step, glad to place a barrier for +all time between him and Joy Irving, whose possible return at any +day she constantly feared, and whose power over her son’s +heart she knew was undiminished.</p> +<p>Alice Cheney’s family was of the best on both sides; +there were wealth, station, and honour; and a step-grandmamma who +could be referred to on occasions as “The +Baroness.” And there was no skeleton to be hidden or +excused.</p> +<p>And Arthur Stuart, believing that Alice Cheney’s life +and reason depended upon his making her his wife, resolved to end +the bitter struggle with his own heart and with fate, and do what +seemed to be his duty, toward the girl and toward his +mother. When the wedding took place, the saddest face at +the ceremony, save that of the groom, was the face of the +bride’s father. But the bride was radiant, and Mabel +and the Baroness walked in clouds.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Alice</span> did not rally in health or +spirits after her marriage, as her family, friends and physician +had anticipated. She remained nervous, ailing and +despondent.</p> +<p>“Should maternity come to her, she would doubtless be +very much improved in health afterward,” the doctor said, +and Mabel, remembering how true a similar prediction proved in +her case, despite her rebellion against it, was not sorry when +she knew that Alice was to become a mother, scarcely a year after +her marriage.</p> +<p>But Alice grew more and more despondent as the months passed +by; and after the birth of her son, the young mother developed +dementia of the most hopeless kind. The best specialists in +two worlds were employed to bring her out of the state of settled +melancholy into which she had fallen, but all to no avail. +At the end of two years, her case was pronounced hopeless. +Fortunately the child died at the age of six weeks, so the seed +of insanity which in the first Mrs Lawrence was simply a case of +“nerves,” growing into the plant hysteria in Mabel, +and yielding the deadly fruit of insanity in Alice, was allowed +by a kind providence to become extinct in the fourth +generation.</p> +<p>This disaster to his only child caused a complete breaking +down of spirit and health in Preston Cheney.</p> +<p>Like some great, strongly coupled car, which loses its grip +and goes plunging down an incline to destruction, Preston +Cheney’s will-power lost its hold on life, and he went down +to the valley of death with frightful speed.</p> +<p>During the months which preceded his death, Senator +Cheney’s only pleasure seemed to be in the companionship of +his son-in-law. The strong attachment between the two men +ripened with every day’s association. One day the +rector was sitting by the invalid’s couch, reading aloud, +when Preston Cheney laid his hand on the young man’s arm +and said: “Close your book and let me tell you a true story +which is stranger than fiction. It is the story of an +ambitious man and all the disasters which his realised ambition +brought into the lives of others. It is a story whose +details are known to but two beings on earth, if indeed the other +being still exists on earth. I have long wanted to tell you +this story—indeed, I wanted to tell it to you before you +made Alice your wife, yet the fear that I would be wrecking the +life and reason of my child kept me silent. No doubt if I +had told you, and you had been influenced by my experience +against a loveless marriage, I should to-day be blaming myself +for her condition, which I see plainly now is but the culmination +of three generations of hysterical women. But I want to +tell you the story and urge you to use it as a warning in your +position of counsellor and friend of ambitious young men.</p> +<p>“No matter what else a man may do for position, +don’t let him marry a woman he does not love, especially if +he crucifies a vital passion for another, in order to do +this.” Then Preston Cheney told the story of his life +to his son-in-law; and as the tale proceeded, a strange interest +which increased until it became violent excitement, took +possession of the rector’s brain and heart. The story +was so familiar—so very familiar; and at length, when the +name of <i>Berene Dumont</i> escaped the speaker’s lips, +Arthur Stuart clutched his hands and clenched his teeth to keep +silent until the end of the story came.</p> +<p>“From the hour Berene disappeared, to this very day, no +word or message ever came from her,” the invalid +said. “I have never known whether she was dead or +alive, married, or, terrible thought, perhaps driven into a +reckless life by her one false step with me. This last fear +has been a constant torture to me all these years.</p> +<p>“The world is cruel in its judgment of woman. And +yet I know that it is woman herself who has shaped the opinions +of the world regarding these matters. If men had had their +way since the world began, there would be no virtuous +women. Woman has realised this fact, and she has in +consequence walled herself about with rules and conventions which +have in a measure protected her from man. When any woman +breaks through these conventions and errs, she suffers the scorn +of others who have kept these self-protecting and +society-protecting laws; and, conscious of their scorn, she +believes all hope is lost for ever.</p> +<p>“The fear that Berene took this view of her one mistake, +and plunged into a desperate life, has embittered my whole +existence. Never before did a man suffer such a mental hell +as I have endured for this one act of sin and weakness. Yet +the world, looking at my life of success, would say if it knew +the story, ‘Behold how the man goes free.’ +Free! Great God! there is no bondage so terrible as that of +the mind. I have loved Berene Dumont with a changeless +passion for twenty-three years, and there has not been a day in +all that time that I have not during some hours endured the +agonies of the damned, thinking of all the disasters and misery +that might have come into her life through me. Heaven knows +I would have married her if she had remained. Strange and +intricate as the net was which the devil wove about me when I had +furnished the cords, I could and would have broken through it +after that strange night—at once the heaven and the hell of +my memory—if Berene had remained. As it was—I +married Mabel, and you know what a farce, ending in a tragedy, +our married life has been. God grant that no worse woes +befell Berene; God grant that I may meet her in the spirit world +and tell her how I loved her and longed for her +companionship.”</p> +<p>The young rector’s eyes were streaming with tears, as he +reached over and clasped the sick man’s hands in his. +“You will meet her,” he said with a choked +voice. “I heard this same story, but without names, +from Berene Dumont’s dying lips more than two years +ago. And just as Berene disappeared from you—so her +daughter disappeared from me; and, God help me, dear +father—doubly now my father, I crushed out my great passion +for the glorious natural child of your love, to marry the +loveless, wretched and <i>unnatural</i> child of your +marriage.”</p> +<p>The sick man started up on his couch, his eyes flaming, his +cheeks glowing with sudden lustre.</p> +<p>“My child—the natural child of Berene’s love +and mine, you say; oh, my God, speak and tell me what you mean; +speak before I die of joy so terrible it is like +anguish.”</p> +<p>So then it became the rector’s turn to take the part of +narrator. When the story was ended, Preston Cheney lay +weeping like a woman on his couch; the first tears he had shed +since his mother died and left him an orphan of ten.</p> +<p>“Berene living and dying almost within reach of my +arms—almost within sound of my voice!” he +cried. “Oh, why did I not find her before the grave +closed between us?—and why did no voice speak from that +grave to tell me when I held my daughter’s hand in +mine?—my beautiful child, no wonder my heart went out to +her with such a gush of tenderness; no wonder I was fired with +unaccountable anger and indignation when Mabel and Alice spoke +unkindly of her. Do you remember how her music stirred +me? It was her mother’s heart speaking to mine +through the genius of our child.</p> +<p>“Arthur, you must find her—you must find her for +me! If it takes my whole fortune I must see my daughter, +and clasp her in my arms before I die.”</p> +<p>But this happiness was not to be granted to the dying +man. Overcome by the excitement of this new emotion, he +grew weaker and weaker as the next few days passed, and at the +end of the fifth day his spirit took its flight, let us hope to +join its true mate.</p> +<p>It had been one of his dying requests to have his body taken +to Beryngford and placed beside that of Judge Lawrence.</p> +<p>The funeral services took place in the new and imposing church +edifice which had been constructed recently in Beryngford. +The quiet interior village had taken a leap forward during the +last few years, and was now a thriving city, owing to the +discovery of valuable stone quarries in its borders.</p> +<p>The Baroness and Mabel had never been in Beryngford since the +death of Judge Lawrence many years before; and it was with sad +and bitter hearts that both women recalled the past and realised +anew the disasters which had wrecked their dearest hopes and +ambitions.</p> +<p>The Baroness, broken in spirit and crushed by the insanity of +her beloved Alice, now saw the form of the man whom she had +hopelessly loved for so many years, laid away to crumble back to +dust; and yet, the sorrows which should have softened her soul, +and made her heart tender toward all suffering humanity, rendered +her pitiless as the grave toward one lonely and desolate being +before the shadows of night had fallen upon the grave of Preston +Cheney.</p> +<p>When the funeral march pealed out from the grand new organ +during the ceremonies in the church, both the Baroness and the +rector, absorbed as they were in mournful sorrow, started with +surprise. Both gazed at the organ loft; and there, before +the great instrument, sat the graceful figure of Joy +Irving. The rector’s face grew pale as the corpse in +the casket; the withered cheek of the Baroness turned a sickly +yellow, and a spark of anger dried the moisture in her eyes.</p> +<p>Before the night had settled over the thriving city of +Beryngford, the Baroness dropped a point of virus from the lancet +of her tongue to poison the social atmosphere where Joy Irving +had by the merest accident of fate made her new home, and where +in the office of organist she had, without dreaming of her +dramatic situation, played the requiem at the funeral of her own +father.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Joy Irving</span> had come to Beryngford +at the time when the discoveries of the quarries caused that +village to spring into sudden prominence as a growing city. +Newspaper accounts of the building of the new church, and the +purchase of a large pipe organ, chanced to fall under her eye +just as she was planning to leave the scene of her +unhappiness.</p> +<p>“I can at least only fail if I try for the position of +organist there,” she said, “and if I succeed in this +interior town, I can hide myself from all the world without +incurring heavy expense.”</p> +<p>So all unconsciously Joy fled from the metropolis to the very +place from which her mother had vanished twenty-two years +before.</p> +<p>She had been the organist in the grand new Episcopalian Church +now for three years; and she had made many cordial acquaintances +who would have become near friends, if she had encouraged +them. But Joy’s sweet and trustful nature had +received a great shock in the knowledge of the shadow which hung +about her birth. Where formerly she had expected love and +appreciation from everyone she met, she now shrank from forming +new ties, lest new hurts should await her.</p> +<p>She was like a flower in whose perfect heart a worm had +coiled. Her entire feeling about life had undergone a +change. For many weeks after her self-imposed exile, she +had been unable to think of her mother without a mingled sense of +shame and resentment; the adoring love she had borne this being +seemed to die with her respect. After a time the bitterness +of this sentiment wore away, and a pitying tenderness and sorrow +took its place; but from her heart the twin angels, Love and +Forgiveness, were absent. She read her mother’s +manuscript over, and tried to argue herself into the philosophy +which had sustained the author of her being through all these +years.</p> +<p>But her mind was shaped far more after the conventional +pattern of her paternal ancestors, who had been New England +Puritans, and she could not view the subject as Berene had viewed +it.</p> +<p>In spite of the ideality which her mother had woven about him, +Joy entertained the most bitter contempt for the unknown man who +was her father, and the whole tide of her affections turned +lavishly upon the memory of Mr Irving, whom she felt now more +than ever so worthy of her regard.</p> +<p>Reason as she would on the supremacy of love over law, yet the +bold, unpleasant fact remained that she was the child of an +unwedded mother. She shrank in sensitive pain from having +this story follow her, and the very consciousness that her +mother’s experience had been an exceptional one, caused her +the greater dread of having it known and talked of as a common +vulgar liaison.</p> +<p>There are two things regarding which the world at large never +asks any questions—namely, How a rich man made his money, +and how an erring woman came to fall. It is enough for the +world to know that he is rich—that fact alone opens all +doors to him, as the fact that the woman has erred closes them to +her.</p> +<p>There was a common vulgar creature in Beryngford, whose many +amours and bold defiance of law and order rendered her name a +synonym for indecency. This woman had begun her career in +early girlhood as a mercenary intriguer; and yet Joy Irving knew +that the majority of people would make small distinctions between +the conduct of this creature and that of her mother, were the +facts of Berene’s life and her own birth to be made +public.</p> +<p>The fear that the story would follow her wherever she went +became an absolute dread with her, and caused her to live alone +and without companions, in the midst of people who would gladly +have become her warm friends, had she permitted.</p> +<p>Her book of “Impressions” reflected the changes +which had taken place in the complexion of her mind during these +years. Among its entries were the following:—</p> +<blockquote><p>People talk about following a divine law of love, +when they wish to excuse their brute impulses and break social +and civil codes.</p> +<p>No love is sanctioned by God, which shatters human hearts.</p> +<p>Fathers are only distantly related to their children; love for +the male parent is a matter of education.</p> +<p>The devil macadamises all his pavements.</p> +<p>A natural child has no place in an unnatural world.</p> +<p>When we cannot respect our parents, it is difficult to keep +our ideal of God.</p> +<p>Love is a mushroom, and lust is its poisonous counterpart.</p> +<p>It is a pity that people who despise civilisation should be so +uncivil as to stay in it. There is always darkest +Africa.</p> +<p>The extent of a man’s gallantry depends on the +goal. He follows the good woman to the borders of Paradise +and leaves her with a polite bow; but he follows the bad woman to +the depths of hell.</p> +<p>It is easy to trust in God until he permits us to +suffer. The dentist seems a skilled benefactor to mankind +when we look at his sign from the street. When we sit in +his chair he seems a brute, armed with devil’s +implements.</p> +<p>An anonymous letter is the bastard of a diseased mind.</p> +<p>An envious woman is a spark from Purgatory.</p> +<p>The consciousness that we have anything to hide from the world +stretches a veil between our souls and heaven. We cannot +reach up to meet the gaze of God, when we are afraid to meet the +eyes of men.</p> +<p>It may be all very well for two people to make their own laws, +but they have no right to force a third to live by them.</p> +<p>Virtue is very secretive about her payments, but the whole +world hears of it when vice settles up.</p> +<p>We have a sublime contempt for public opinion theoretically so +long as it favours us. When it turns against us we suffer +intensely from the loss of what we claimed to despise.</p> +<p>When the fruit must apologise for the tree, we do not care to +save the seed.</p> +<p>It is only when God and man have formed a syndicate and agreed +upon their laws, that marriage is a safe investment.</p> +<p>The love that does not protect its object would better change +its name.</p> +<p>When we say <i>of</i> people what we would not say <i>to</i> +them, we are either liars or cowards.</p> +<p>The enmity of some people is the greatest compliment they can +pay us.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>It was in thoughts like these that Joy relieved her heart of +some of the bitterness and sorrow which weighed upon it. +And day after day she bore about with her the dread of having the +story of her mother’s sin known in her new home.</p> +<p>As our fears, like our wishes, when strong and unremitting, +prove to be magnets, the result of Joy’s despondent fears +came in the scandal which the Baroness had planted and left to +flourish and grow in Beryngford after her departure. An +hour before the services began, on the day of Preston +Cheney’s burial, Joy learned at whose rites she was to +officiate as organist. A pang of mingled emotions shot +through her heart at the sound of his name. She had seen +this man but a few times, and spoken with him but once; yet he +had left a strong impression upon her memory. She had felt +drawn to him by his sympathetic face and atmosphere, the sorrow +of his kind eyes, and the keen appreciation he had shown in her +art; and just in the measure that she had been attracted by him, +she had been repelled by the three women to whom she was +presented at the same time. She saw them all again +mentally, as she had seen them on that and many other days. +Mrs Cheney and Alice, with their fretful, plain, dissatisfied +faces, and their over-burdened costumes, and the Baroness, with +her cruel heart gazing through her worn mask of defaced +beauty.</p> +<p>She had been conscious of a feeling of overwhelming pity for +the kind, attractive man who made the fourth of that +quartette. She knew that he had obtained honours and riches +from life, but she pitied him for his home environment. She +had felt so thankful for her own happy home life at the time; and +she remembered, too, the sweet hope that lay like a closed-up bud +in the bottom of her heart that day, as the quartette moved away +and left her standing alone with Arthur Stuart.</p> +<p>It was only a few weeks later that the end came to all her +dreams, through that terrible anonymous letter.</p> +<p>It was the Baroness who had sent it, she knew—the +Baroness whose early hatred for her mother had descended to the +child. “And now I must sit in the same house with her +again,” she said, “and perhaps meet her face to face; +and she may tell the story here of my mother’s shame, even +as I have felt and feared it must yet be told. How strange +that a ‘love child’ should inspire so much +hatred!”</p> +<p>Joy had carefully refrained from reading New York papers ever +since she left the city; and she had no correspondents. It +was her wish and desire to utterly sink and forget the past life +there. Therefore she knew nothing of Arthur Stuart’s +marriage to the daughter of Preston Cheney. She thought of +the rector as dead to her. She believed he had given her up +because of the stain upon her birth, and, bitter as the pain had +been, she never blamed him. She had fought with her love +for him and believed that it was buried in the grave of all other +happy memories.</p> +<p>But as the earth is wrenched open by volcanic eruptions and +long buried corpses are revealed again to the light of day, so +the unexpected sight of Arthur Stuart, as he took his place +beside Mabel and the Baroness during the funeral services, +revealed all the pent-up passion of her heart to her own +frightened soul.</p> +<p>To strong natures, the greater the inward excitement the more +quiet the exterior; and Jay passed through the services, and +performed her duties, without betraying to those about her the +violent emotions under which she laboured.</p> +<p>The rector of Beryngford Church requested her to remain for a +few moments, and consult with him on a matter concerning the next +week’s musical services. It was from him Joy learned +the relation which Arthur Stuart bore to the dead man, and that +Beryngford was the former home of the Baroness.</p> +<p>Her mother’s manuscript had carefully avoided all +mention of names of people or places. Yet Joy realised now +that she must be living in the very scene of her mother’s +early life; she longed to make inquiries, but was prevented by +the fear that she might hear her mother’s name mentioned +disrespectfully.</p> +<p>The days that followed were full of sharp agony for her. +It was not until long afterward that she was able to write her +“impressions” of that experience. In the +extreme hour of joy or agony we formulate no impressions; we only +feel. We neither analyse nor describe our friends or +enemies when face to face with them, but after we leave their +presence. When the day came that she could write, some of +her reflections were thus epitomised:</p> +<blockquote><p>Love which rises from the grave to comfort us, +possesses more of the demons’ than the angels’ +power. It terrifies us with its supernatural qualities and +deprives us temporarily of our reason.</p> +<p>Suppressed steam and suppressed emotion are dangerous things +to deal with.</p> +<p>The infant who wants its mother’s breast, and the woman +who wants her lover’s arms, are poor subjects to reason +with. Though you tell the former that fever has poisoned +the mother’s milk, or the latter that destruction lies in +the lover’s embrace, one heeds you no more than the +other.</p> +<p>The accumulated knowledge of ages is sometimes revealed by a +kiss. Where wisdom is bliss, it is folly to be +ignorant.</p> +<p>Some of us have to crucify our hearts before we find our +souls.</p> +<p>A woman cannot fully know charity until she has met passion; +but too intimate an acquaintance with the latter destroys her +appreciation of all the virtues.</p> +<p>To feel temptation and resist it, renders us liberal in our +judgment of all our kind. To yield to it, fills us with +suspicion of all.</p> +<p>There is an ecstatic note in pain which is never reached in +happiness.</p> +<p>The death of a great passion is a terrible thing, unless the +dawn of a greater truth shines on the grave.</p> +<p>Love ought to have no past tense.</p> +<p>Love partakes of the feline nature. It has nine +lives.</p> +<p>It seems to be difficult for some of us to distinguish between +looseness of views, and charitable judgments. To be sorry +for people’s sins and follies and to refuse harsh criticism +is right; to accept them as a matter of course is wrong.</p> +<p>Love and sorrow are twins, and knowledge is their nurse.</p> +<p>The pathway of the soul is not a steady ascent, but hilly and +broken. We must sometimes go lower, in order to get +higher.</p> +<p>That which is to-day, and will be to-morrow, must have been +yesterday. I know that I live, I believe that I shall live +again, and have lived before.</p> +<p>Earth life is the middle rung of a long ladder which we climb +in the dark. Though we cannot see the steps below, or +above, they exist all the same.</p> +<p>The materialist denying spirit is like the burr of the +chestnut denying the meat within.</p> +<p>The inevitable is always right.</p> +<p>Prayer is a skeleton key that opens unexpected doors. We +may not find the things we came to seek, but we find other +treasures.</p> +<p>The pessimist belongs to God’s misfit counter.</p> +<p>Art, when divorced from Religion, always becomes a wanton.</p> +<p>To forget benefits we have received is a crime. To +remember benefits we have bestowed is a greater one.</p> +<p>To some men a woman is a valuable book, carefully studied and +choicely guarded behind glass doors. To others, she is a +daily paper, idly scanned and tossed aside.</p> +</blockquote> +<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">While</span> Joy battled with her sorrow +during the days following Preston Cheney’s burial, she woke +to the consciousness that her history was known in +Beryngford. The indescribable change in the manner of her +acquaintances, the curiosity in the eyes of some, the insolence +or familiarity of others, all told her that her fears were +realised; and then there came a letter from the church +authorities requesting her to resign her position as +organist.</p> +<p>This letter came to the young girl on one of those dreary +autumn nights when all the desolation of the dying summer, and +none of the exhilaration of the approaching winter, is in the +air. She had been labouring all day under a cloud of +depression which hovered over her heart and brain and threatened +to wholly envelop her; and the letter from the church committee +cut her heart like a poniard stroke. Sometimes we are able +to bear a series of great disasters with courage and equanimity, +while we utterly collapse under some slight misfortune. Joy +had been a heroine in her great sorrows, but now in the +undeserved loss of her position as church organist, she felt +herself unable longer to cope with Fate.</p> +<p>“There’s no place for me anywhere,” she said +to herself. Had she known the truth, that the Baroness had +represented her to the committee as a fallen woman of the +metropolis, who had left the city for the city’s good, the +letter would not have seemed to her so cruelly unjust and +unjustifiable.</p> +<p>Bitter as had been her suffering at the loss of Arthur Stuart +from her life, she had found it possible to understand his +hesitation to make her his wife. With his fine sense of +family pride, and his reverence for the estate of matrimony, his +belief in heredity, it seemed quite natural to her that he should +be shocked at the knowledge of the conditions under which she was +born; and the thought that her disappearance from his life was +helping him to solve a painful problem, had at times, before this +unexpected sight of him, rendered her almost happy in her lonely +exile. She had grown strangely fond of Beryngford—of +the old streets and homes which she knew must have been familiar +to her mother’s eyes, of the new church whose glorious +voiced organ gave her so many hours of comfort and relief of +soul, of the tiny apartment where she and her heart communed +together. She was catlike in her love of places, and now +she must tear herself away from all these surroundings and seek +some new spot wherein to hide herself and her sorrows.</p> +<p>It was like tearing up a half-rooted flower, already drooping +from one transplanting. She said to herself that she could +never survive another change. She read the letter over +which lay in her hand, and tears began to slowly well from her +eyes. Joy seldom wept; but now it seemed to her she was +some other person, who stood apart and wept tears of sympathy for +this poor girl, Joy Irving, whose life was so hemmed about with +troubles, none of which were of her own making; and then, like a +dam which suddenly gives way and allows a river to overflow, a +great storm of sobs shook her frame, and she wept as she had +never wept before; and with her tears there came rushing back to +her heart all the old love and sorrow for the dead mother which +had so long been hidden under her burden of shame; and all the +old passion and longing for the man whose insane wife she knew to +be a more hopeless obstacle between them than this mother’s +history had proven.</p> +<p>“Mother, Arthur, pity me, pity me!” she +cried. “I am all alone, and the strife is so +terrible. I have never meant to harm any living +thing! Mother Arthur, <i>God</i>, how can you all desert me +so?”</p> +<p>At last, exhausted, she fell into a deep and dreamless +sleep.</p> +<p>She awoke the following morning with an aching head, and a +heart wherein all emotions seemed dead save a dull despair. +She was conscious of only one wish, one desire—a longing to +sit again in the organ loft, and pour forth her soul in one last +farewell to that instrument which had grown to seem her friend, +confidant and lover.</p> +<p>She battled with her impulse as unreasonable and unwise, till +the day was well advanced. But it grew stronger with each +hour; and at last she set forth under a leaden sky and through a +dreary November rain to the church.</p> +<p>Her head throbbed with pain, and her hands were hot and +feverish, as she seated herself before the organ and began to +play. But with the first sounds responding to her touch, +she ceased to think of bodily discomfort.</p> +<p>The music was the voice of her own soul, uttering to God all +its desolation, its anguish and its despair. Then suddenly, +with no seeming volition of her own, it changed to a passion of +human love, human desire; the sorrow of separation, the strife +with the emotions, the agony of renunciation were all there; and +the November rain, beating in wild gusts against the window-panes +behind the musician, lent a fitting accompaniment to the +strains.</p> +<p>She had been playing for perhaps an hour, when a sudden +exhaustion seized upon her, and her hands fell nerveless and +inert upon her lap; she dropped her chin upon her breast and +closed her eyes. She was drunken with her own music.</p> +<p>When she opened them again a few moments later, they fell upon +the face of Arthur Stuart, who stood a few feet distant regarding +her with haggard eyes. Unexpected and strange as his +presence was, Joy felt neither surprise nor wonder. She had +been thinking of him so intensely, he had been so interwoven with +the music she had been playing, that his bodily presence appeared +to her as a natural result. He was the first to speak; and +when he spoke she noticed that his voice sounded hoarse and +broken, and that his face was drawn and pale.</p> +<p>“I came to Beryngford this morning expressly to see you, +Joy,” he said. “I have many things to say to +you. I went to your residence and was told by the maid that +I would find you here. I followed, as you see. We +have had many meetings in church edifices, in organ lofts. +It seems natural to find you in such a place, but I fear it will +be unnatural and unfitting to say to you here, what I came to +say. Shall we return to your home?”</p> +<p>His eyes shone strangely from dusky caverns, and there were +deep lines about his mouth.</p> +<p>“He, too, has suffered,” thought Joy; “I +have not borne it all alone.” Then she said +aloud:</p> +<p>“We are quite undisturbed here; I know of nothing I +could listen to in my room which I could not hear you say in this +place. Go on.”</p> +<p>He looked at her silently for a moment, his cheeks pale, his +breast heaving. Before he came to Beryngford, he had fought +his battle between religion and human passion, and passion had +won. He had cast under his feet every principle and +tradition in which he had been reared, and resolved to live alone +henceforth for the love and companionship of one human being, +could he obtain her consent to go with him.</p> +<p>Yet for the moment, he hesitated to speak the words he had +resolved to utter, under the roof of a house of God, so strong +were the influences of his early training and his habits of +thought. But as his eyes feasted upon the face before him, +his hesitation vanished, and he leaned toward her and +spoke. “Joy,” he said, “three years ago I +went away and left you in sorrow, alone, because I was afraid to +brave public opinion, afraid to displease my mother and ask you +to be my wife. The story your mother told me of your birth, +a story she left in manuscript for you to read, made a social +coward of me. I was afraid to take a girl born out of +wedlock to be my life companion, the mother of my children. +Well, I married a girl born in wedlock; and where is my +companion?” He paused and laughed recklessly. +Then he went on hurriedly: “She is in an asylum for the +insane. I am chained to a corpse for life. I had not +enough moral courage three-years ago to make you my wife. +But I have moral courage enough now to come here and ask you to +go with me to Australia, and begin a new life together. My +mother died a year ago. I donned the surplice at her +bidding. I will abandon it at the bidding of Love. I +sinned against heaven in marrying a woman I did not love. I +am willing to sin against the laws of man by living with the +woman I do love; will you go with me, Joy?” There was +silence save for the beating of the rain against the stained +window, and the wailing of the wind.</p> +<p>Joy was in a peculiarly overwrought condition of mind and +body. Her hours of extravagant weeping the previous night, +followed by a day of fasting, left her nervous system in a state +to be easily excited by the music she had been playing. She +was virtually intoxicated with sorrow and harmony. She was +incapable of reasoning, and conscious only of two +things—that she must leave Beryngford, and that the man +whom she had loved with her whole heart for five years, was +asking her to go with him; to be no more homeless, unloved, and +alone, but his companion while life should last.</p> +<p>“Answer me, Joy,” he was pleading. +“Answer me.”</p> +<p>She moved toward the stairway that led down to the street +door; and as she flitted by him, she said, looking him full in +the eyes with a slow, grave smile, “Yes, Arthur, I will go +with you.”</p> +<p>He sprang toward her with a wild cry of joy, but she was +already flying down the stairs and out upon the street.</p> +<p>When he joined her, they walked in silence through the rain to +her door, neither speaking a word, until he would have followed +her within. Then she laid her hand upon his shoulder and +said gently but firmly: “Not now, Arthur; we must not see +each other again until we go away. Write me where to meet +you, and I will join you within twenty-four hours. Do not +urge me—you must obey me this once—afterward I will +obey you. Good-night.”</p> +<p>As she closed the door upon him, he said, “Oh, Joy, I +have so much to tell you. I promised your father when he +was dying that I would find you; I swore to myself that when I +found you I would never leave you, save at your own +command. I go now, only because you bid me go. When +we meet again, there must be no more parting; and you shall hear +a story stranger than the wildest fiction—the story of your +father’s life. Despite your mother’s +secretiveness regarding this portion of her history, the +knowledge has come to me in the most unexpected manner, from the +lips of the man himself.”</p> +<p>Joy listened dreamily to the words he was saying. Her +father—she was to know who her father was? Well, it +did not matter much to her now—father, mother, what were +they, what was anything save the fact that he had come back to +her and that he loved her?</p> +<p>She smiled silently into his eyes. Glance became +entangled with glance, and would not be separated.</p> +<p>He pushed open the almost closed door and she felt herself +enveloped with arms and lips.</p> +<p>A second later she stood alone, leaning dizzily against the +door; heart, brain and blood in a mad riot of emotion.</p> +<p>Then she fell into a chair and covered her burning face with +her hands as she whispered, “Mother, mother, forgive +me—I understand—I understand.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> first shock of the awakened +emotions brings recklessness to some women, and to others +fear.</p> +<p>The more frivolous plunge forward like the drunken man who +leaps from the open window believing space is water.</p> +<p>The more intense draw back, startled at the unknown world +before them.</p> +<p>The woman who thinks love is all ideality is more liable to +follow into undreamed-of chasms than she who, through the +complexity of her own emotions, realises its grosser +elements.</p> +<p>It was long after midnight when Joy fell into a heavy sleep, +the night of Arthur Stuart’s visit. She heard the +drip of the dreary November rain upon the roof, and all the light +and warmth seemed stricken from the universe save the fierce fire +in her own heart.</p> +<p>When she woke in the late morning, great splashes of sunlight +were leaping and quivering like living things across the foot of +her bed; she sprang up, dazed for a moment by the flood of light +in the room, and went to the window and looked out upon a +sun-kissed world smiling in the arms of a perfect Indian summer +day.</p> +<p>A happy little sparrow chirped upon the window sill, and some +children ran across the street bare-headed, exulting in the soft +air. All was innocence and sweetness. Mind and morals +are greatly influenced by weather. Many things seem right +in the fog and gloom, which we know to be wrong in the clear +light of a sunny morning. The events of the previous day +came back to Joy’s mind as she stood by the window, and +stirred her with a sense of strangeness and terror. The +thought of the step she had resolved to take brought a sudden +trembling to her limbs. It seemed to her the eyes of God +were piercing into her heart, and she was afraid.</p> +<p>Joy had from her early girlhood been an earnest and sincere +follower of the Christian religion. The embodiment of love +and sympathy herself, it was natural for her to believe in the +God of Love and to worship Him in outward forms, as well as in +her secret soul. It was the deep and earnest fervour of +religion in her heart, which rendered her music so unusual and so +inspiring. There never was, is not and never can be +greatness in any art where religious feeling is lacking.</p> +<p>There must be the consciousness of the Infinite, in the mind +which produces infinite results.</p> +<p>Though the artist be gifted beyond all other men, though he +toil unremittingly, so long as he says, “Behold what I, the +gifted and tireless toiler, can achieve,” he shall produce +but mediocre and ephemeral results. It is when he says +reverently, “Behold what powers greater than I shall +achieve through me, the instrument,” that he becomes great +and men marvel at his power.</p> +<p>Joy’s religious nature found expression in her music, +and so something more than a harmony of beautiful sounds +impressed her hearers.</p> +<p>The first severe blow to her faith in the church as a divine +institution, was when her rector and her lover left her alone in +the hour of her darkest trials, because he knew the story of her +mother’s life. His hesitancy to make her his wife she +understood, but his absolute desertion of her at such a time, +seemed inconsistent with his calling as a disciple of the +Christ.</p> +<p>The second blow came in her dismissal from the position of +organist at the Beryngford Church, after the presence of the +Baroness in the town.</p> +<p>A disgust for human laws, and a bitter resentment towards +society took possession of her. When a gentle and loving +nature is roused to anger and indignation, it is often capable of +extremes of action; and Arthur Stuart had made his proposition of +flight to Joy Irving in an hour when her high-wrought emotions +and intensely strung nerves made any desperate act possible to +her. The sight of his face, with its evidences of severe +suffering, awoke all her smouldering passion for the man; and the +thought that he was ready to tread his creed under his feet and +to defy society for her sake, stirred her with a wild joy. +God had seemed very far away, and human love was very precious; +too precious to be thrown away in obedience to any man-made +law.</p> +<p>But somehow this morning God seemed nearer, and the +consciousness of what she had promised to do terrified her. +Disturbed by her thoughts, she turned towards her toilet-table +and caught sight of the letter of dismissal from the church +committee. It acted upon her like an electric shock. +Resentment and indignation re-enthroned themselves in her +bosom.</p> +<p>“Is it to cater to the opinions and prejudices of people +like <i>these</i> that I hesitate to take the happiness offered +me?” she cried, as she tore the letter in bits and cast it +beneath her feet. Arthur Stuart appeared to her once more, +in the light of a delivering angel. Yes, she would go with +him to the ends of the earth. It was her inheritance to +lead a lawless life. Nothing else was possible for +her. God must see how she had been hemmed in by +circumstances, how she had been goaded and driven from the paths +of peace and purity where she had wished to dwell. God was +not a man, and He would be merciful in judging her.</p> +<p>She sent her landlady two months’ rent in advance, and +notice of her departure, and set hurriedly about her +preparations.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>Twenty-five years before, when Berene Dumont disappeared from +Beryngford, she had, quite unknown to herself, left one devoted +though humble friend behind, who sincerely mourned her +absence.</p> +<p>Mrs Connor liked to be spoken of as “the wash-lady at +the Palace.” Yet proud as she was of this +appellation, she was not satisfied with being an excellent +laundress. She was a person of ambitions. To be the +owner of a lodging-house, like the Baroness, was her leading +ambition, and to possess a “peany” for her young +daughter Kathleen was another.</p> +<p>She kept her mind fixed on these two achievements, and she +worked always for those two results. And as mind rules +matter, so the laundress became in time the landlady of a +comfortable and respectable lodging-house, and in its parlour a +piano was the chief object of furniture.</p> +<p>Kathleen Connor learned to play; and at last to the joy of the +lodgers, she married and bore her “peany” away with +her. During the time when Mrs Connor was the ambitious +“wash-lady” at the Palace, Berene Dumont came to live +there; and every morning when the young woman carried the tray +down to the kitchen after having served the Baroness with her +breakfast, she offered Mrs Connor a cup of coffee and a slice of +toast.</p> +<p>This simple act of thoughtfulness from the young dependant +touched the Irishwoman’s tender heart and awoke her lasting +gratitude. She had heard Berene’s story, and she had +been prepared to mete out to her that disdainful dislike which +Erin almost invariably feels towards France. Realising that +the young widow was by birth and breeding above the station of +housemaid, Mrs Connor and the servants had expected her to treat +them with the same lofty airs which the Baroness made familiar to +her servants. When, instead, Berene toasted the bread for +Mrs Connor, and poured the coffee and placed it on the kitchen +table with her own hands, the heart of the wash-lady melted in +her ample breast. When the heart of the daughter of Erin +melts, it permeates her whole being; and Mrs Connor became a +secret devotee at the shrine of Miss Dumont.</p> +<p>She had never entertained cordial feelings toward the +Baroness. When a society lady—especially a titled +one—enters into competition with working people, and yet +refuses to associate with them, it always incites their +enmity. The working population of Beryngford, from the +highest to the lowest grades, felt a sense of resentment toward +the Baroness, who in her capacity of landlady still maintained +the airs of a grand dame, and succeeded in keeping her footing +with some of the most fashionable people in the town.</p> +<p>Added to these causes of dislike, the Baroness was, like many +wealthier people, excessively close in her dealings with working +folk, haggling over a few cents or a few moments of wasted time, +while she was generosity itself in association with her +equals.</p> +<p>Mrs Connor, therefore, felt both pity and sympathy for Miss +Dumont, whose position in the Palace she knew to be a difficult +one; and when Preston Cheney came upon the scene the romantic +mind of the motherly Irishwoman fashioned a future for the young +couple which would have done credit to the pen of a Mrs +Southworth.</p> +<p>Mr Cheney always had a kind word for the laundress, and a tip +as well; and when Mrs Connor’s dream of seeing him act the +part of the Prince and Berene the Cinderella of a modern fairy +story, ended in the disappearance of Miss Dumont and the marriage +of Mr Cheney to Mabel Lawrence, the unhappy wash-lady mourned +unceasingly.</p> +<p>Ten years of hard, unremitting toil and rigid economy passed +away before Mrs Connor could realise her ambition of becoming a +landlady in the purchase of a small house which contained but +four rooms, three of which were rented to lodgers. The +increase in the value of her property during the next five years, +left the fortunate speculator with a fine profit when she sold +her house at the end of that time, and rented a larger one; and +as she was an excellent financier, it was not strange that, at +the time Joy Irving appeared on the scene, “Mrs +Connor’s apartments” were as well and favourably +known in Beryngford, if not as distinctly fashionable, as the +Palace had been more than twenty years ago.</p> +<p>So it was under the roof of her mother’s devoted and +faithful mourner that the unhappy young orphan had found a home +when she came to hide herself away from all who had ever known +her.</p> +<p>The landlady experienced the same haunting sensation of +something past and gone when she looked on the girl’s +beautiful face, which had so puzzled the Baroness; a something +which drew and attracted the warm heart of the Irishwoman, as the +magnet draws the steel. Time and experience had taught Mrs +Connor to be discreet in her treatment of her tenants; to curb +her curiosity and control her inclination to sociability. +But in the case of Miss Irving she had found it impossible to +refrain from sundry kindly acts which were not included in the +terms of the contract. Certain savoury dishes found their +way mysteriously to Miss Irving’s <i>ménage</i>, and +flowers appeared in her room as if by magic, and in various other +ways the good heart and intentions of Mrs Connor were +unobtrusively expressed toward her favourite tenant. Joy +had taken a suite of four rooms, where, with her maid, she lived +in modest comfort and complete retirement from the social world +of Beryngford, save as the close connection of the church with +Beryngford society rendered her, in the position of organist, a +participant in many of the social features of the town. +While Joy was in the midst of her preparations for departure, Mrs +Connor made her appearance with swollen eyes and red, blistered +face.</p> +<p>“And it’s the talk of that ould witch of a +Baroness, may the divil run away with her, that is drivin’ +ye away, is it?” she cried excitedly; “and it’s +not Mrs Connor as will consist to the daughter of your mother, +God rest her soul, lavin’ my house like this. To +think that I should have had ye here all these years, and never +known ye to be her child till now, and now to see ye driven away +by the divil’s own! But if it’s the fear of not +being able to pay the rint because ye’ve lost your +position, ye needn’t lave for many a long day to +come. It’s Mrs Connor would only be as happy as the +queen herself to work her hands to the bone for ye, remembering +your darlint of a mother, and not belavin’ one word against +her, nor ye.”</p> +<p>So soon as Joy could gain possession of her surprised senses, +she calmed the weeping woman and began to question her.</p> +<p>“My good woman,” she said, “what are you +talking about? Did you ever know my mother, and where did +you know her?”</p> +<p>“In the Palace, to be sure, as they called the house of +that imp of Satan, the Baroness. I was the wash-lady there, +for it’s not Mrs Conner the landlady as is above +spakin’ of the days when she wasn’t as high in the +world as she is now; and many is the cheerin’ cup of coffee +or tay from your own mother’s hand, that I’ve had in +the forenoon, to chirk me up and put me through my washing, bless +her sweet face; and niver have I forgotten her; and niver have I +ceased to miss her and the fine young man that took such an +interest in her and that I’m as sure loved her, in spite of +his marrying the Judge’s spook of a daughter, as I am that +the Holy Virgin loves us all; and it’s a foine man that +your father must have been, but young Mr Cheney was +foiner.”</p> +<p>So little by little Joy drew the story from Mrs Connor and +learned the name of the mysterious father, so carefully guarded +from her in Mrs Irving’s manuscript, the father at whose +funeral services she had so recently officiated as organist.</p> +<p>And strangest and most startling of all, she learned that +Arthur Stuart’s insane wife was her half-sister.</p> +<p>Added to all this, Joy was made aware of the nature of the +reports which the Baroness had been circulating about her; and +her feeling of bitter resentment and anger toward the church +committee was modified by the knowledge that it was not owing to +the shadow on her birth, but to the false report of her own evil +life, that she had been asked to resign.</p> +<p>After Mrs Connor had gone, Joy was for a long time in +meditation, and then turned in a mechanical manner to her delayed +task. Her book of “Impressions” lay on a table +close at hand.</p> +<p>And as she took it up the leaves opened to the sentence she +had written three years before, after her talk with the rector +about Marah Adams.</p> +<blockquote><p>“It seems to me I could not love a man who +did not seek to lead me higher; the moment he stood below me and +asked me to descend, I should realise he was to be pitied, not +adored!”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>She shut the book and fell on her knees in prayer; and as she +prayed a strange thing happened. The room filled with a +peculiar mist, like the smoke which is illuminated by the +brilliant rays of the morning sun; and in the midst of it a small +square of intense rose-coloured light was visible. This +square grew larger and larger, until it assumed the size and form +of a man, whose face shone with immortal glory. He smiled +and laid his hand on Joy’s head. “Child, +awake,” he said, and with these words vast worlds dawned +upon the girl’s sight. She stood above and apart from +her grosser body, untrammelled and free; she saw long vistas of +lives in the past through which she had come to the present; she +saw long vistas of lives in the future through which she must +pass to gain the experience which would lead her back to +God. An ineffable peace and serenity enveloped her. +The divine Presence seemed to irradiate the place in which she +stood—she felt herself illuminated, transfigured, +sanctified by the holy flame within her.</p> +<p>When she came back to the kneeling form by the couch, and rose +to her feet, all the aspect of life had changed for her.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Joy Irving</span> had unpacked her trunks +and set her small apartment to rights, when the postman’s +ring sounded, and a moment later a letter was slipped under her +door.</p> +<p>She picked it up, and recognised Arthur Stuart’s +penmanship. She sat down, holding the unopened letter in +her hands.</p> +<p>“It is Arthur’s message, appointing a time and +place for our meeting,” she said to herself. +“How long ago that strange interview with him +seems!—yet it was only yesterday. How utterly the +whole of life has changed for me since then! The universe +seems larger, God nearer, and life grander. I am as one who +slept and dreamed of darkness and sorrow, and awakes to light and +joy.”</p> +<p>But when she opened the envelope and read the few hastily +written lines within, an exclamation of surprise escaped her +lips. It was a brief note from Arthur Stuart and began +abruptly without an address (a manner more suggestive of strong +passion than any endearing words).</p> +<blockquote><p>“The first item which my eye fell upon in +the telegraphic column of the morning paper, was the death of my +wife in the Retreat for the Insane. I leave by the first +express to bring her body here for burial.</p> +<p>“A merciful providence has saved us the necessity of +defying the laws of God or man, and opened the way for me to +claim you before all the world as my worshipped wife so soon as +propriety will permit.</p> +<p>“I shall see you at any hour you may indicate after +to-morrow, for a brief interview.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">“<span class="smcap">Arthur +Emerson Stuart</span>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Joy held the letter in her hand a long time, lost in profound +reflection. Then she sat down to her desk and wrote three +letters; one was to Mrs Lawrence; one to the chairman of the +church committee, who had requested her resignation; the third +was to Mr Stuart, and read thus:</p> +<blockquote><p>“<span class="smcap">My dear Mr +Stuart</span>,—Many strange things have occurred to me +since I saw you. I have learned the name of my father, and +this knowledge reveals the fact to me that your unfortunate wife +was my half-sister. I have learned, too, that the loss of +my position here as organist is not due to the narrow prejudice +of the committee regarding the shadow on my birth, but to +malicious stories put in circulation by Mrs Lawrence, relating to +me.</p> +<p>“Infamous and libellous tales regarding my life have +been told, and must be refuted. I have written to Mrs +Lawrence demanding a letter from her, clearing my personal +character, or giving her the alternative of appearing in court to +answer the charge of defamation of character. I have also +written to the church committee requesting them to meet me here +in my apartments to-morrow, and explain their demand for my +resignation.</p> +<p>“I now write to you my last letter and my farewell.</p> +<p>“In the overwrought and desperate mood in which you +found me, it did not seem a sin for me to go away with the man +who loved me and whom I loved, before false ideas of life and +false ideas of duty made him the husband of another. +Conscious that your wife was a hopeless lunatic whose present or +future could in no way be influenced by our actions, I reasoned +that we wronged no one in taking the happiness so long denied +us.</p> +<p>“The last three years of my life have been full of +desolation and sorrow. From the day my mother died, the +stars of light which had gemmed the firmament for me, seemed one +by one to be obliterated, until I stood in utter darkness. +You found me in the very blackest hour of all—and you +seemed a shining sun to me.</p> +<p>“Yet so soon as my tired brain and sorrow-worn heart +were able to think and reason, I realised that it was not the man +I had worshipped as an ideal, who had come to me and asked me to +lower my standard of womanhood. It was another and less +worthy man—and this other was to be my companion through +time, and perhaps eternity. When I learned that your insane +wife was my sister, and that knowing this fact you yet planned +our flight, an indescribable feeling of repulsion awoke in my +heart.</p> +<p>“I confess that this arose more from a sentiment than a +principle. The relationship of your wife to me made the +contemplated sin no greater, but rendered it more tasteless.</p> +<p>“Had I gone away with you as I consented to do, the +world would have said, she but follows her fatal +inheritance—like mother like daughter. There were +some bitter rebellious hours, when that thought came to me. +But to-day light has shone upon me, and I know there is a law of +Divine Heredity which is greater and more powerful than any +tendency we derive from parents or grandparents. I have +believed much in creeds all my life; and in the hour of great +trials I found I was leaning on broken reeds. I have now +ceased to look to men or books for truth—I have found it in +my own soul. I acknowledge no unfortunate tendencies from +any earthly inheritance; centuries of sinful or weak ancestors +are as nothing beside the God within. The divine and +immortal <i>me</i> is older than my ancestral tree; it is as old +as the universe. It is as old as the first great Cause of +which it is a part. Strong with this consciousness, I am +prepared to meet the world alone, and unafraid from this day +onward. When I think of the optimistic temperament, the +good brain, and the vigorous body which were naturally mine, and +then of the wretched being who was my legitimate sister, I know +that I was rightly generated, however unfortunately born, just as +she was wrongly generated though legally born.</p> +<p>“My father, I am told, married into a family whose crest +is traced back to the tenth century. I carry a coat-of-arms +older yet—the Cross; it dates back eighteen hundred +years—yes, many thousand years, and so I feel myself the +nobler of the two. Had you been more of a disciple of +Christ, and less of a disciple of man, you would have realised +this truth long ago, as I realise it to-day. No man should +dare stand before his fellows as a revealer of divine knowledge +until he has penetrated the inmost recesses of his own soul, and +found God’s holy image there; and until he can show others +the way to the same wonderful discovery. The God you +worshipped was far away in the heavens, so far that he could not +come to you and save you from your baser self in the hour of +temptation. But the true God has been miraculously revealed +to me. He dwells within; one who has found Him, will never +debase His temple.</p> +<p>“Though there is no legal obstacle now in the path to +our union, there is a spiritual one which is +insurmountable. <i>I no longer love you</i>. I am +sorry for you, but that is all. You belonged to my +yesterday—you can have no part in my to-day. The man +who tempted me in my weak hour to go lower, could not help me to +go higher. And my face is set toward the heights.</p> +<p>“I must prove to that world that a child born under the +shadow of shame, and of two weak, uncontrolled parents, can be +virtuous, strong, brave and sensible. That she can conquer +passion and impulse, by the use of her divine inheritance of +will; and that she can compel the respect of the public by her +discreet life and lofty ideals.</p> +<p>“I shall stay in this place until I have vindicated my +name and character from every aspersion cast upon them. I +shall retain my position of organist, and retain it until I have +accumulated sufficient means to go abroad and prepare myself for +the musical career in which I know I can excel. I am young, +strong and ambitious. My unusual sorrows will give me +greater power of character if I accept them as spiritual +tonics—bitter but strengthening.</p> +<p>“Farewell, and may God be with you.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">“<span class="smcap">Joy +Irving</span>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>When the rector of St Blank’s returned from the +Beryngford Cemetery, where he had placed the body of his wife +beside her father, he found this letter lying on his table in the +hotel.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">THE END</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN AMBITIOUS MAN***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 7866-h.htm or 7866-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/7/8/6/7866 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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