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diff --git a/7866-0.txt b/7866-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a0ea3fe --- /dev/null +++ b/7866-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4840 @@ +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: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN AMBITIOUS MAN*** + + +Transcribed from the 1914 Gay & Hancock Ltd. edition by David Price, +email ccx074@pglaf.org + + [Picture: Book cover] + + + + + + AN + AMBITIOUS MAN + + + BY + + ELLA WHEELER WILCOX + + [Picture: Decorative graphic] + + LONDON + + GAY & HANCOCK LTD. + 12 AND 13 HENRIETTA STREET, STRAND + + 1914 + + [_All Rights Reserved_] + + * * * * * + + _First Edition 1908_ + + _Popular Edition 1914_ + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +PRESTON CHENEY 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.” + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +“BARONESS BROWN” 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. + +Invitations to her house were eagerly sought after, and her +entertainments were described in column articles by the press. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Instead of offering her house for sale, she offered “Rooms to Let,” and +turned the family mansion into a fashionable lodging-house. + +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.” + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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 _roué_. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +BERENE had been several months in her new home when Preston Cheney came +to lodge at the Palace. + +He met her on the stairway the first morning after his arrival, as he was +descending to the street door. + +Bringing up a tray covered with a snowy napkin, she stepped to one side +and paused, to make room for him to pass. + +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.” + +Yet he appreciated a snowy, well-laundried napkin in its place, and he +was most considerate and thoughtful in his treatment of servants. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +But, in fact, the Baroness was a skilled general in planning her +campaigns. She seldom plunged into action unprepared. + +She knew from experience that she could not live in a large city and not +use an enormous amount of money. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“He is more than attractive, he is positively _fascinating_,” 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 _detest_, it is _dates_,” 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.” + +“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 _do_ 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. + +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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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. + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +“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 _The Clarion_ 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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +The masculine party is very dull, or the feminine very deceptive, when a +man makes a mistake in his impressions on this subject. + +That afternoon the young editor left his office at five o’clock and asked +Miss Lawrence to be his wife. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +PRESTON CHENEY 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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. + +“You are going away?” she asked, with a tremor in her voice. “Is it not +very sudden?” + +“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.” + +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: + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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 _tired_ 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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“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. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +ONE 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. + +To say that such women do not possess heart enough or feeling enough to +suffer is ofttimes most untrue. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +It is harder to bear the suffocating heat of a late September day which +the year sometimes brings, than all the burning June suns. + +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. + +It was not until just before dawn that she heard his step in the hall, +and his door open and close. + +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. + +“Was Mr Preston awake when you rapped on his door?” asked the Baroness. + +“Yes, madame, awake and dressed.” + +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. + +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:— + + “MY DEAR BOY,—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. + + “S. LAWRENCE.” + +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. + +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. + +After a few moments she rang the bell vigorously. Maggie, the +chambermaid, came in answer to the call. + +“Please ask Miss Dumont” (Berene was always known to the other servants +as Miss Dumont) “to hurry with the hot water,” the Baroness said. + +“Miss Dumont has not yet come downstairs, madame.” + +“Not come down? Then will you please call her, Maggie?” + +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. + +Again that strange smile curved the corners of the Baroness’s lips. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“You are really hideously passée, mon amie,” she observed as she peered +at herself searchingly; “but we will remedy all that.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +The Baroness, shocked and startled, rose to go, feeling that her presence +longer would be an intrusion. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +WHATEVER 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. + +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. + +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. + +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 +_her_ home. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +It is in the second reading of their hearts that the majority of men find +the most interesting literature. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +MORE than two decades had passed since Preston Cheney followed the +dictates of his ambition and married Mabel Lawrence. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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: + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +Judge Lawrence died when Alice was fifteen years of age, leaving both his +widow and his daughter handsomely provided for. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +THE Baroness had always been a churchgoing woman, yet she had never +united with any church, or subscribed to any creed. + +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. + +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? + +This had been true of the pastor in Beryngford, and it proved equally +true of their spiritual adviser in Washington and in New York. + +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. + +But each Sunday this successful robber occupied his high-priced church +pew, devoutly listening to the divine word. + +He never failed to partake of the holy communion, nor was his right to do +so ever questioned. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Yet a vision of youth and beauty always made the Baroness unhappy, now +that both blessings were irrevocably lost to her. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +UP 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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +“Where does she come from?” asked the deacon, as a pause in the music +occurred. + +“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. + +“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.” + +Again the organ pealed forth, this time in that passionate music +originally written for the Garden Scene in _Faust_, and which the church +has boldly taken and arranged as a quartette to the words, “Come unto +me.” + +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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +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.” + +“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.” + +The girl’s pink cheek flushed crimson, like a rose bathed in the sunset +colours of the sky. + +“I did not think you were a man to coin pretty speeches,” she said. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +Both were city born and city bred, yet both were as unfashionable and +untrammelled by custom as two children of the plains. + +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. + +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. + +She had never been in a fashionable assemblage; she had never attended a +theatre, as Mr Irving did not approve of them. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“Then you believe in evolution?” Joy asked with a note of surprise in her +voice. + +“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.” + +“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. + +They were seated on a rustic bench now, under the shadow of a great tree. + +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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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.” + +“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. + +“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.” + +Joy was still thinking of the reflection the rector had cast upon his +congregation. It hurt her, and she protested. + +“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.” + +The rector smiled sadly. + +“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. + +“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.” + +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!” + +“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.” + +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.” + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +EVER 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. + +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:— + + 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. + + 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. + + If we could all be compelled by some mysterious power to _think + aloud_ 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. + + 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. + + It is a curious fact, that the most aggressively sensitive persons + are at heart the most conceited. + + 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. + + After the devil had made all the trouble for woman he could with the + fig leaf, he introduced the French heel. + + It is well to see the ridiculous side of things, but not of people. + + Most of us would rather be popular than right. + +To these impressions Joy added the following:— + + It is not the interior of one’s house, but the interior of one’s mind + which makes home. + + 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. + + I wish we had more religion in the world and fewer churches. + + People who believe in no God, invariably exalt themselves into His + position, and worship with the very idolatry they decry in others. + + Music is the echo of the rhythm of God’s respirations. + + Poetry is the effort of the divine part of man to formulate a worthy + language in which to converse with angels. + + 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. + + 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. + + 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. + + 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. + + 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. + + 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. + + 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. + + 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. + + 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. + + Death should be called the Great Revealer instead of the Great + Destroyer. + + Some people think the way into heaven is through embroidered altar + cloths. + + The soul that has any conception of its own possibilities does not + fear solitude. + + 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. + + Astronomers know more about the character of the stars than the + average American mother knows about the temperament of her daughters. + + To some women the most terrible thought connected with death is the + dates in the obituary notice. + + 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. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +THE 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +The Baroness listened with a cold, sinking sensation at her heart + +“I am sure your son would never make a choice which was not agreeable to +you,” she ventured. + +“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.” + +And then the Baroness, with drawn lips and anguished eyes, took both of +Mrs Stuart’s hands in hers, and cried out: + +“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.” + +The two women fell weeping into each other’s arms. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +PRESTON CHENEY 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Before the organist had finished her introduction, he turned to Alice, +saying: + +“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?” + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +When the organist had finished her second selection, Mr Cheney addressed +the same question to his wife which he had addressed to Alice. + +“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. + +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?” + +“Yes, wait until we get home, and I will tell you all about her,” the +Baroness replied. + +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. + +The rector saw him and came down into the aisle to speak to him. + +“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.” + +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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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?” + +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. + +“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?” + +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.” + +“I am sure I don’t care to know her,” chimed in Alice. “I thought her +quite bold and forward in her manner.” + +“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. + +“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.” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +“I wish she were my daughter,” he said to himself; “what a comfort and +delight a girl like that would be to me!” + +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. + +“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.” + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +TWO 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. + +But inquiry elicited the information that the young musician had merely +employed a substitute because her mother was lying seriously ill at home. + +It was then that the Baroness put into execution a desire she had to make +the personal acquaintance of Joy Irving. + +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. + +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. + +She made her resolve known to the rector. + +“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?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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!” + +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. + +Our guardian angels sometimes send these feelings as danger signals to +our souls. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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: + +“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. + +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. + +“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. + +“Berene!” + +“Madam!” + +The two spoke simultaneously, and the invalid had started upright in bed. + +“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. + +“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.” + +Joy passed out with drooping head and a sinking heart. As the door +closed behind her the Baroness spoke. + +“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?” + +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. + +“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. + +“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.” + +The Baroness gave an unpleasant laugh. + +“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.” + +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.” + +The Baroness leaned lower over the pillow of the invalid as she answered: +“I will tell you why I ask this sacrifice of you.” + +“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. + +“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.” + +The tortured invalid fell back panting on her pillow. She put out her +hands with a distracted, imploring gesture. + +“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.” + +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. + +When she had completed her task she called Joy to her side. + +“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.” + +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. + +“I fear your mother’s life is a matter of days only,” he said. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +THE Baroness went directly from the home which she had entered only to +blight, and sent her card marked “urgent” to Mrs Stuart. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +“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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +The young rector looked his mother full in the face with calm, sad eyes. +Then he said slowly: + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +Two days later Mrs Irving died. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +THE 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:— + + “MY DEAR MISS IRVING,—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. + + “ARTHUR EMERSON STUART.” + +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. + +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. + +It increased, too, her love for him, for whenever over-anxiety is aroused +for one dear to us, our love is augmented. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +The Baroness made a mental resolve that the girl should not be there. + +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: + + “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. + + “A WELL-WISHER.” + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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 _was_ 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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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.” + +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.” + +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.” + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +JUST 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +He had asked her to confide to him whatever secret existed regarding +Joy’s birth. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“Is it her mother’s tendency to adventure developing in her?” he asked +himself. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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?” + +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.” + +“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.” + +The rector took another turn about the room, and then came and stood +facing Senator Cheney. + +“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.” + +“And you?” asked his listener after a moment’s silence. + +“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.” + +“Then do not marry her,” Preston Cheney said quietly. “Marriage without +love is unholy. Even to save life it is unpardonable.” + +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.” + +The report was made twelve hours later. Miss Cheney was delirious, and +calling constantly for the rector. Her physician feared the worst. + +The rector came, and his presence at once soothed the girl’s delirium. + +“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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +ALICE did not rally in health or spirits after her marriage, as her +family, friends and physician had anticipated. She remained nervous, +ailing and despondent. + +“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. + +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. + +This disaster to his only child caused a complete breaking down of spirit +and health in Preston Cheney. + +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. + +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. + +“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 _Berene Dumont_ escaped the +speaker’s lips, Arthur Stuart clutched his hands and clenched his teeth +to keep silent until the end of the story came. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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.” + +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 _unnatural_ child of your marriage.” + +The sick man started up on his couch, his eyes flaming, his cheeks +glowing with sudden lustre. + +“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.” + +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. + +“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. + +“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.” + +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. + +It had been one of his dying requests to have his body taken to +Beryngford and placed beside that of Judge Lawrence. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +JOY IRVING 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. + +“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.” + +So all unconsciously Joy fled from the metropolis to the very place from +which her mother had vanished twenty-two years before. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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:— + + People talk about following a divine law of love, when they wish to + excuse their brute impulses and break social and civil codes. + + No love is sanctioned by God, which shatters human hearts. + + Fathers are only distantly related to their children; love for the + male parent is a matter of education. + + The devil macadamises all his pavements. + + A natural child has no place in an unnatural world. + + When we cannot respect our parents, it is difficult to keep our ideal + of God. + + Love is a mushroom, and lust is its poisonous counterpart. + + It is a pity that people who despise civilisation should be so + uncivil as to stay in it. There is always darkest Africa. + + 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. + + 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. + + An anonymous letter is the bastard of a diseased mind. + + An envious woman is a spark from Purgatory. + + 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. + + 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. + + Virtue is very secretive about her payments, but the whole world + hears of it when vice settles up. + + 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. + + When the fruit must apologise for the tree, we do not care to save + the seed. + + It is only when God and man have formed a syndicate and agreed upon + their laws, that marriage is a safe investment. + + The love that does not protect its object would better change its + name. + + When we say _of_ people what we would not say _to_ them, we are + either liars or cowards. + + The enmity of some people is the greatest compliment they can pay us. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +It was only a few weeks later that the end came to all her dreams, +through that terrible anonymous letter. + +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!” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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: + + 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. + + Suppressed steam and suppressed emotion are dangerous things to deal + with. + + 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. + + The accumulated knowledge of ages is sometimes revealed by a kiss. + Where wisdom is bliss, it is folly to be ignorant. + + Some of us have to crucify our hearts before we find our souls. + + 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. + + 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. + + There is an ecstatic note in pain which is never reached in + happiness. + + The death of a great passion is a terrible thing, unless the dawn of + a greater truth shines on the grave. + + Love ought to have no past tense. + + Love partakes of the feline nature. It has nine lives. + + 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. + + Love and sorrow are twins, and knowledge is their nurse. + + The pathway of the soul is not a steady ascent, but hilly and broken. + We must sometimes go lower, in order to get higher. + + 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. + + 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. + + The materialist denying spirit is like the burr of the chestnut + denying the meat within. + + The inevitable is always right. + + Prayer is a skeleton key that opens unexpected doors. We may not + find the things we came to seek, but we find other treasures. + + The pessimist belongs to God’s misfit counter. + + Art, when divorced from Religion, always becomes a wanton. + + To forget benefits we have received is a crime. To remember benefits + we have bestowed is a greater one. + + 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. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +WHILE 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. + +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. + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +“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, _God_, how can you all desert me so?” + +At last, exhausted, she fell into a deep and dreamless sleep. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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?” + +His eyes shone strangely from dusky caverns, and there were deep lines +about his mouth. + +“He, too, has suffered,” thought Joy; “I have not borne it all alone.” +Then she said aloud: + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“Answer me, Joy,” he was pleading. “Answer me.” + +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.” + +He sprang toward her with a wild cry of joy, but she was already flying +down the stairs and out upon the street. + +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.” + +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.” + +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? + +She smiled silently into his eyes. Glance became entangled with glance, +and would not be separated. + +He pushed open the almost closed door and she felt herself enveloped with +arms and lips. + +A second later she stood alone, leaning dizzily against the door; heart, +brain and blood in a mad riot of emotion. + +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.” + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +THE first shock of the awakened emotions brings recklessness to some +women, and to others fear. + +The more frivolous plunge forward like the drunken man who leaps from the +open window believing space is water. + +The more intense draw back, startled at the unknown world before them. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +There must be the consciousness of the Infinite, in the mind which +produces infinite results. + +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. + +Joy’s religious nature found expression in her music, and so something +more than a harmony of beautiful sounds impressed her hearers. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“Is it to cater to the opinions and prejudices of people like _these_ +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. + +She sent her landlady two months’ rent in advance, and notice of her +departure, and set hurriedly about her preparations. + + * * * * * + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 +_ménage_, 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. + +“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.” + +So soon as Joy could gain possession of her surprised senses, she calmed +the weeping woman and began to question her. + +“My good woman,” she said, “what are you talking about? Did you ever +know my mother, and where did you know her?” + +“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.” + +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. + +And strangest and most startling of all, she learned that Arthur Stuart’s +insane wife was her half-sister. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + “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!” + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +JOY IRVING 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. + +She picked it up, and recognised Arthur Stuart’s penmanship. She sat +down, holding the unopened letter in her hands. + +“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.” + +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). + + “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. + + “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. + + “I shall see you at any hour you may indicate after to-morrow, for a + brief interview. + + “ARTHUR EMERSON STUART.” + +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: + + “MY DEAR MR STUART,—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. + + “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. + + “I now write to you my last letter and my farewell. + + “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. + + “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. + + “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. + + “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. + + “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 _me_ 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. + + “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. + + “Though there is no legal obstacle now in the path to our union, + there is a spiritual one which is insurmountable. _I no longer love + you_. 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. + + “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. + + “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. + + “Farewell, and may God be with you. + + “JOY IRVING.” + +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. + + * * * * * + + THE END + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN AMBITIOUS MAN*** + + +******* This file should be named 7866-0.txt or 7866-0.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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