"Give me a few minutes to think," she pleaded, and he saw, from the quick rise and fall of her bosom and the nervous clasp of her hands, that she was deeply agitated. She turned from him and looked wistfully at the young tree on which she had inscribed her name the day she had promised Mr. Eltinge to receive all heavenly influences and guidance. She soon lifted her eyes above the tree and her lips moved in earnest prayer as ever came from a human heart. She was facing the sorest temptation of her life, for she had only to be silent now, she believed, and the success of her efforts to win him from Jennie Burton would be complete. If left to himself in this wild, distracted mood he would indeed break every tie that bound him to her rival; but after time had blunted his poignant self-condemnation he would inevitably come back to her. The conscience whispered: "Who forgave you here? What did you promise here? What does that tree mean with its branches reaching out towards heaven? What would you think of Jennie Burton were she trying to win him from you?"
"O Friend of the weak! be though my strength in this moment of desperate need," she sighed.
Van Berg watched her with increasing wonder, and his heart beat thick and fast as she at last turned to him with an expression such as he never had seen before on a human face. Was it the autumn sunlight that illumined her features? He learned eventually that it was the spiritual radiance of the n.o.blest self-sacrifice of which a woman is capable.
"Mr. Van Berg," she said, in tones that were quiet and firm, "please take Mr. Eltinge"s seat, for I wish to speak to you as a friend."
He obeyed mechanically, without removing his eyes from her face.
"I once took counsel of pa.s.sion and despair," she resumed, "and you know what might have resulted, but on this spot G.o.d forgave me and I promised to try to do right. With shame I confess I have not fully kept that promise, but I shall try to do so hereafter, be the consequences what they may. Pardon me for speaking so plainly, but you are now taking counsel of pa.s.sion and turning your back on duty. While almost insane from self-reproach and wounded pride you are taking steps that may blast your own life and the lives of others. To my mind there is an infinite distance between the error you naturally fell into in view of Miss Burton"s loveliness of character and any base intent, but even if I should share in your harsh judgement--which I never can--I would still say that you cannot help the past, and you are now bound by all that"s sacred to ask only what is right, and to do that at every cost to yourself.
You are pledged to Miss Burton, and you must make good your pledge."
"What! I go to that snow-white maiden with a lie on my lips!" he exclaimed indignantly.
"No! go to her with truth on your lips and in your heart, except as in unselfish loyalty to her and to your word you may hide some truth that would give her pain. Mr. Van Berg, you word is pledged.
You have won her love and this is your only honorable course. Thus far you have not done her intentional wrong, but if you rush away from duty now in cowardly flight you will do her a bitter and fatal wrong, for she loves you as only few women can love. She has grown wan and pale in your absence, and it touched me to the heart to see her yesterday, though she made such brave efforts to be cheerful and to encourage father. O G.o.d, forgive me that I--Go to her when you have become calm--your true self. Love like hers will take what you can give till you can give more, and surely one so lovely will soon win all. If ever I have seen human idolatry in any face it has been in hers, and she will soon banish all this wild pa.s.sion from your mind. But be that as it may you must keep your word if you would keep my respect, and I would not lose my respect for you for the world. I know you too well to doubt but that you will take up this sacred duty and seek to perform it with the whole strength of your manhood."
Never for a moment had Van Berg removed his eyes from Ida"s face, and her words and manner seemed both to awe and control him. As she spoke, his expression became quiet and strong, and when she concluded he came to her side and said earnestly:
"Miss Mayhew, since it is still possible, I will keep your respect, for it is absolutely essential to me. G.o.d has indeed given you a woman"s soul, and he NEVER MADE A n.o.bLER WOMAN. You are a friend in truth and not in name, and you have saved me from madly destroying my own future, and perhaps the future of others, which is of far more consequence. If I fail in obeying both the letter and spirit of your words it will be because I cannot help myself."
Her face, which had been so sweet and luminous with her generous impulse and n.o.ble thoughts, was growing very pale now, but she rose and gave him her hand, saying with a faint smile that was like the fading light of evening, "I knew you would not disappoint me; I was sure you were worthy of my trust. Let the honest right be our motto henceforth, and all will be well some day. Good-by."
He pressed her hand in both of his as he said fervently, "G.o.d bless you, Ida Mayhew!" Then he turned and hastened away, flying from his own weakness and a womanly loveliness which at the moment far excelled any ideal he had ever formed.
He had scarcely reached the road before he remembered that he had left his sketch-book, and he went back for it, but as he turned the corner of the shady path he stopped instantly. The strong, clear-eyed maiden who had rallied the forces of his shattered manhood, and given him the vantage-ground again in life"s battle, had bowed her head on the arm of the rustic seat and was sobbing convulsively. Indeed, her grief was so uncontrollable and pa.s.sionate that in his very soul he trembled before it.
"Oh, Jennie Burton," she moaned, "it would have been easier for me to die for you than to give him up. G.o.d help him--G.o.d help me through the dreadful years to come!"
His first impulse was to spring to her side, but he hesitated, and then with a gesture and look of infinite regret he turned and stole silently away.
Chapter LIII. A Night"s Vigil.
As Van Berg left Mr. Eltinge"s grounds he had the aspect of a man who had seen a vision. He had seen more, for the human face expressive of absolute, even though brief, mastery over evil is a n.o.bler object than can be the serene visage of a sinless and untempted angel.
At last he understood Ida Mayhew. If he had deeply honored her when he supposed that as a sincere, honest friend only she had spoken her strong, true words, which might save him from wrecking his life from impulses of shame and wounded pride, how instantaneously was this honor changed into reverence and wonder as he recognized her self-sacrifice at the dictates of conscience. All was now perfectly clear. The truth of her love had flashed out from the dark cloud of her pa.s.sionate grief, and in its white radiance all the baffling mystery of her past action was dissipated instantly. Now he knew why the brilliant music at the concert garden could not brighten her face, and the end of the symphony saw her in tears. Now he understood why she could not be Jennie Burton"s friend, even though capable of becoming a martyr for her sake from a sense of duty. The despairing farewell letter she had once written to him now became fraught with a deeper meaning, and he saw that in throwing away the imperfect rose-bud, and in looking at her as a creature akin to Sibley, he had inflicted mortal wounds on a heart that gave him only love in return. In her desperate effort to conceal an unsought love she had sought the nearest covert, and the stains Sibley had left upon her were no more hers than if he had been a blackened wall. After all her woman"s soul had come to her as in the old and simple times when even water nymphs had hearts, and love was still the mightiest force in the universe.
His feeling now was far too deep for his former half-frenzied excitement. There was not a trace of exultation in his manner, and there was indeed no ground for rapture. Only the knowledge that he carried away her respect, and that he was going to the performance of what he believed a sacred duty, kept him from despair.
He did not blame himself as bitterly as might have been supposed that he had not discovered her secret earlier, and it increased his admiration for her, if that were possible, that she had so carefully maintained her maidenly reserve. A conceited man, or at least a man whose soul was infested with the meanest kind of conceit--that of imagining that the woman who gives him a friendly word or smile is disposed to throw herself into his arms--would no doubt have surmised her secret before; but although Van Berg was intensely proud, as we have seen, and had been rendered self-complacent and self-confident by the circ.u.mstances of his lot, he had none of this contemptible vanity. The discovery of Ida"s love caused him far greater surprise than when he recognized his own, and it was a source of deep satisfaction to him that this modern and conventional Undine had received a nature of such true and womanly delicacy that it had led her to conceal her love like the trailing-arbutus that hides its fragrant blossoms under fallen leaves.
The light had been so clear that he even saw the temptation which he unconsciously had suggested to her while in the city. Unlike the little violet that weakly bowed its head and died because the brook would not stop, she had resolutely set about the task of making him stop, and yet never let him suspect that she was even looking at him. Hence her attempt to penetrate the wilderness of knowledge which was at once so pathetic and comical; hence also her wish to learn the authors and subjects which interested him.
"And she had every reason to believe that she might have won me from the one honorable allegiance I can give," he exclaimed, in deep humiliation, "and probably she would have done so eventually had she not acted liek a saint rather than a woman. I"ve lost faith utterly in Harold Van Berg, and it will require a great many years to regain it."
When he reached a dense tract of woodland through which the road ran, he concealed himself and waited till she should pa.s.s. Two hours elapsed before she did so. The pa.s.sionate grief that had overwhelmed her was no slight and pa.s.sing gust. He saw that she leaned back weakly and languidly in the phaeton, and had hidden her face by a vail of double thickness. He followed her at a distance far too great for recognition until she entered the hotel, and then sought to obtain a little rest and food at the nearest village inn; for he found now that his fierce paroxysm of rage and mental torment was over, he had become very faint and exhausted. After he had regained somewhat the power to think and act, he turned his steps towards a narrow, secluded ravine, about a mile from the hotel, knowing that here he would find the deepest solitude in which to grow calm and prepare himself for the quiet self-sacrifice of which Ida had given the example, and which no eye must be able to detect save his to whom the secrets of all hearts are open.
He made no effort to follow any path, but sprang carelessly and rapidly down the steep hillside. When he had almost reached the bottom of the ravine, his foot slipped on a rock half hidden by leaves, and he fell and rolled helplessly down. Before he could recover himself, the rock, which had been loosely imbedded in the soil and which his foot had struck so heavily, rolled after him and on his leg and foot. In sudden and increasing dismay, he found that he could not extricate himself. The stone would have been beyond his ability to lift even if he had the full use of all his powers; but he was held in a position that gave him very little chance to exert his strength.
When he found that it was utterly impossible to push the stone away, he tried to excavate the earth, by means of sticks and his small pocket-knife, from under his leg, but soon found, with a sense of mortal fear, that his limb was resting in a little depression between two other large rocks deeply imbedded in the bottom of the ravine. This depression, and the soft, dry leaves which had covered it like a cushion, prevented the stone from crushing his limb and foot, but also held him in a sort of natural sock.
As these appalling facts became clear, he saw that he was in imminent danger of death by starvation. Then a worse fear than that chilled his very soul. He might die in that lonely spot and never be discovered. The prowling vermin of the night might tear away his flesh, and drag his bones. .h.i.ther and thither, till the leaves that now would soon fall covered them forever from sight and knowledge; but Ida Mayhew, and the orphan girl to whom his honor bound him, would think that he had broken his pledges, and was in truth a vagabond on the earth--eating and drinking, rioting, perhaps in ign.o.ble obscurity. The prospect made him sick and faint for a time, for that which in his first blind sense of shame he had proposed to do, now that he had heard Ida"s heaven-inspired words, seemed base and cowardly to the last degree. If she had not brought to him sane and quiet thought, he would have grimly said to himself that fate had taken him out of his dilemma in a fitting way, punishing and destroying him at one and the same time; but now to die and forever seem unworthy of the trust of the woman he so loved and revered was a kind of eternal punishment in itself. He called and shouted with desperate energy for aid but the freshening wind of early September rustled millions of leaves in the forest around him and drowned his voice. He soon realized that one standing on the bank just above him would scarcely be able to hear, even though listening. Oh, why would that remorseless wind blow so steadily!
Was there no pity in nature?
Then in a frenzy he struggled and wrenched his leg till it was bruised and bleeding, but the rocky grip would not yield. He soon began to consider that he was exhausting himself and thus lessening his chances of escape, and he lay quietly on his side and tried to think how long he could survive, and now deeply regretted that his wild pa.s.sion for the past two days had drawn so largely on his vital powers. Already, after but an hour"s durance, he was weak and faint.
Then various expedients to attract attention began to present themselves. By means of a stick he drew down the overhanging branch of a tree and tied to it his handkerchief. He also managed to insert a stick in the ground near him, and on its top placed his hat, but he saw that they could not be seen through the thick undergrowth at any great distance. Then more deliberately, and with an effort to economize his strength, he again attempted to undermine the rocks on which his leg rested, but found that they ran under him and hopelessly deep. At intervals he would shout for help, but his cries grew fainter as he became weak and discouraged.
"O G.o.d," he said, "there is just the bare chance that some one may stumble upon me, and that is all;" and as the glen fell into deeper and deeper shadow in the declining day, even more swiftly it seemed to him that the shadow of death was darkening about him.
At last the bark of squirrels and the chirp and twitter of birds that haunted the lonely place ceased and it was night. Only the notes of fall insects in their monotonous and ceaseless iteration were heard above the sighing wind, which now sounded like a requiem to the disheartened man. Suddenly a great owl flapped heavily over him, and lighting in a tree near by, began its discordant hootings.
"That"s an omen of death," he muttered, grimly. Then at last, in uncontrollable irritation, he shouted, "Curse you, begone!" and the ill-boding bird flapped away with a startled screech, that to Van Berg"s morbid fancy was like a demon"s laugh. But it alighted again a little further off and drove him half wild with its dismal cries. At last there was a radiance among the trees on the eastern side of the ravine, and soon the moon rose clear and bright; the wind went down, and except the "audible silence" of insect sounds all was still. Nature seemed to him holding her breath in suspense, waiting for the end. He called out from time to time till, from the lateness of the hour, he knew that it was utterly useless.
He began in a dreamy way, to wonder if Ida had missed him yet and was surprised that he had not returned. He thought how strange, how unaccountable even, his conduct must appear to Miss Burton, and how very difficult it would have been to explain it at best.
"Ida was wrong, however, in thinking that it is for me that she is grieving so deeply," he murmured, "although she may be right in believing that I have raised hopes in Jennie"s mind of a happier future, when time had healed the wounds made in the past. If I had lived, if by any happy chance I DO live, my only course will be to maintain the character of a friend until she gives up the past for the sake of what I can offer. In a certain sense we will be on equal footing, for her lover is dead and my love is the same as dead to me. But what is the use of such thoughts! I shall be dead to them both in a few hours more, and what is far worse, despised by them both," and for the first time in all that awful vigil bitter tears rolled down his cheeks.
Then, slowly and minutely, he went over all that had occurred during that eventful summer. He found a melancholy pleasure which served to beguile the interminable hours of pain--for now his leg and unnatural position began to cause very severe suffering--in portraying to himself the changes in Ida"s mind and character from the hour of their first meeting, and it seemed to him very mysterious indeed that the thread of his life should have been caught in hers by that mere casual glance at the concert garden, and then that it should have been so strangely and intimately woven with hers only to be snapped at last in this untimely and meaningless fashion. He groaned, "its all more like the malicious ingenuity of a fiend seeking to cause the weak human puppets that it misleads the greatest amount of suffering, than like the hap-hazard of a blind fate, or the work of a kind and good G.o.d. Oh, if I had only waited till my Undine received her woman"s soul, what a heaven I might have had on earth! She would have filled my studio with light and beauty, and my life with honor and happiness. Never, never was there a more cruel fate than mine! I shall die, and my only burial will be the infamy which will cover my memory forever."
Then, with a dreary sinking of heart, his mind reverted to the long future before him that was now so terribly vague and dark. In the consciousness of solitude and in order to break the oppressive stillness, he spoke aloud at intervals between his paroxysms of pain. "After all, what is dying? I know how deeply rooted in the human mind is the belief that it is only a departure to another place and a different condition of life. Can a conviction that has been universal in all ages and among all peoples be a delusion?
Then whoever or whatever created human nature built it on a lie.
This accursed rock has fallen on my body, and holds it as if it were a mere clod of earth, as it soon may be; but it does not hold my mind. My thoughts have followed father and dear, dear mother, and sister Laura across the sea a hundred times to-night. But oh, how strangely my thoughts come back from every one--everything to that dear saint who sacrificed herself for me to-day.--And yet I"m leaving her, I"m leaving all. Whither am I going? It"s all dark, DARK; vague and dreary. Oh, that I had her simple faith! Whether true or no it would be an infinite comfort now. What did she say?--"I"ve found a Friend pledged to take care of me." That is all I would ask. I would not be afraid to go out into this great universe if I only had such a Friend as she believes in, waiting to receive me. Who cares how strange a place may be if a loved friend meets and greets us. But to go alone, and away from so much to which my heart clings--oh, it is awful! awful!---
"A man can"t die, ought not to die, like a stupid beast unless he is a beast only; nor should death drag us like trembling captives from the sh.o.r.es of time. And yet I must do one of three things: either wait helplessly and in trembling expectancy, or take cousel of pride, and stubbornly and sullenly meet the future, or else appeal to Ida"s Friend. It seems mean business to do the last now in my extremity, but I well know that Ida would counsel it, and by reaching her Friend I may at some time in the future reach her again. I know well how my mother--were I dying--would urge me to look to him, whom she in loyal faith worships daily, and thus I may see her once more. The Bible teaches how many in their extremity looked to Christ and he helped them. But then they had not known about him, and coldly and almost contemptuously neglected him for years as I have. Oh, what has my reason, of which I have been so proud, done for me, save blast my earthly life with folly, and permitted the neglect of all preparation for an eternal life. If ever a self-confident man was taught how utterly incapable he was of meeting events and questions that might occur within a few brief days, I am he, and yet, vain fool that I was! I was practically acting as if I could meet all that would happen to all eternity in a cool, well-bred, masterful way. Poor untrained, untaught Ida Mayhew said she had "found a Friend pledged to take care of her,"
and he has taken care of her. He has made her life true, n.o.ble, heroic, beneficent. I was content to take care of myself, and this is the result. G.o.d might well turn away in disgust from any prayer of mine now, but may I be accursed if I do not become a Christian man, if by any means I now escape death!"
But in his intense longing to see again those he loved so well, and tell them that he had not basely broken his pledges and fled like a coward from duty, he did pray with all the agonized earnestness of a soul clinging to the one hope that intervened between itself and utter despair, but the moon moved on serenely and sank among the trees on the western bank of the ravine. The night darkened again and the stars came out more clearly with their cold distant glitter. Nature"s breathless hush and expectancy continued, and there was no sound without and no answer within the heart of the despairing man. At last, in weakness and discouragement, he moaned:
"Well, thank G.o.d, brave Ida Mayhew put an honorable purpose in my heart before I died, and I meant to have carried it out. There"s no use of praying, for it seems as if I were no more than one of these millions of leaves over my head when it falls from its place.
Nature is pitiless and G.o.d is as cold towards me as I was once to one who turned her appealing eyes to me for a little kindness and sympathy. O G.o.d! if I must die, let it be soon, for my pain and thirst are becoming intolerable."
The dawn was now brightening the east. Nature as if tired of waiting--like some professed friends--for one who was long in dying, ceased its breathless hush. A fresh breeze rustled the motionless leaves, birds withdrew their heads from under their wings, and began the twittering preliminary to their morning songs; and two squirrels, springing from their nest in a hollow tree, like children from a cottage door, scrambled down and over Van Berg"s prostrate form in their wild sport, but he was too weak, too far gone in dull, heavy apathy to heed them.
At last he thought he was dying, and he became unconscious.
He learned that it was only a swoon from the fact that he revived again, and was dimly conscious of sounds near him. It seemed to him that he was half asleep, and that he could not wake up sufficiently to distinguish whether the sounds were heard in a dream or in reality.
But he soon became sure that some one was crying and moaning not far away, and he naturally a.s.sociated such evidences of distress with what he had seen last in Mr. Eltinge"s garden. He therefore called feebly:
"Ida--Ida Mayhew."
"Merciful G.o.d!" exclaimed a voice, "who is that?"
His heart beat so fast he could not answer at once, but he heard a light, swift step; the shrubbery and low branches of the trees were swept aside, and Jennie Burton"s blue eyes, full of tears but dilated with wonder and fear, looked upon him.