"O, Jennie Burton, good angel of G.o.d! he has sent you to me," cried the rescued man, who with a glad thrill of joy felt that life was coming back in the line of honor and duty.
"Harold Van Berg! what are you doing here?" she asked in wild amazement.
"I was dying till you came and brought me hope and life, as you have to so many others."
"Thank G.o.d, thank G.o.d," she panted, and she rushed at the rock that had held him in such terrible durance.
He struggled up and tried to pull her hands away.
"Don"t do that, Jennie," he said, "you are not quite an angel yet, and cannot "roll the stone away.""
"O G.o.d!" she exclaimed, with a sharp cry of agony, "in some such way and place HE may have died," and she sank to the ground, moaning and wringing her hands as if overwhelmed with agony at the thought.
Van Berg reached out and took her hand, forgetting for a moment his own desperate need, as he said: "Dear Jennie, don"t grieve so terribly."
"G.o.d forgive me, that I could forget you!" she said, starting up.
"I must not lose a second in bringing you help."
But he clung feebly to her hand. "Wait, Jennie, till you are more calm. My life depends on you now. The hotel is a long way off, and if you start in your present mood you will never reach it yourself, and I had better die a thousand times than cause harm to you."
She put her hand on her side and her convulsive sobbing soon ceased.
After a moment or two she said quietly: "You can trust me now, Mr. Van Berg; I won"t fail you."
"Do you think you could bring me a little water before you go?" he asked.
"Yes, there"s a spring near; I know this place well," and it seemed to him that she flitted back and forth like a ray of light, bringing all the water she could carry in a large leaf.
"Oh," he said, with a long deep breath, "did ever a sweeter draught pa.s.s mortal lips, and from your hands, too, Jennie Burton. May I die as I would have died here if I do not devote my life to making you happy!"
"I accept that pledge," she said, with a wan smile that on her pale, tear-stained face was inexpressibly touching. "It makes me bold enough to ask one more promise."
"It"s made already, so help me G.o.d!" he replied fervently.
A faint, far-away gleam of something like mirth came into her deep blue eyes as she said, "I"ve bound you now, and you can have no choice. Your pledge is this--that you will make me happy in my own way. Now, not another word, not another motion; keep every particle of life and strength till I come again with a.s.sistance,"
and she brought him water twice again, silencing him by an imperious gesture when he attempted to speak, and then she disappeared.
"That was an odd pledge that she beguiled me into," he murmured.
"I fear that in the wiles of her unselfish heart she has caught me in some kind of a trap." But after a little time he relapsed again into a condition of partial unconsciousness.
Chapter LIV. Life and trust.
Ida did not leave the refuge of her room for several hours after her return from the memorable visit to Mr. Eltinge"s garden,--for far more than the long hot drive, her heroic, spiritual conflict with temptation, the sense of immeasurable loss, and the overwhelming sorrow that followed, had exhausted her. As she rallied from her deep depression, which was physical as well as mental, and found that she could think connectedly, she turned to her Bible in the hope of discovering some comforting and rea.s.suring truths spoken by that Friend for whose sake she had given up so much.
These words caught her attention, and in accordance with the simplicity and directness of her nature she built upon them her only hope for the future: "HE THAT LOSETH HIS LIFE FOR MY SAKE SHALL FIND IT!"
She sighed: "I have lost that which is life and more than life to me, and it was for Christ"s sake. It was because he forgave me and was kind in that awful moment when my crime was crushing my soul. I could not have given up my chance of happiness just because it was right, but the thought that he asked it and that it was for his sake, turned the wavering scale; and now I will trust him to find my life for me again in his own time and way. As far as this world is concerned, my life probably will be an increasing care of father and others, who, like myself, have, or have had "a worm i"
the bud." But be the future what it may, I"ve made my choice and I shall abide by it."
Then she turned to the xiv. chapter of St. John, that window of heaven through which the love of G.o.d has shone into so many sad hearts; and by the time she had read the words--"Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid"--she found that the peace promised--deep, quiet, sustaining--was stealing into her heart as the dawn turns night into day. Simple-minded Ida Mayhew believed that Jesus Christ had kept his word, for that was all faith meant to her. The rationalist practically maintains that such effects are without causes, and the materialist explains that they are physical conditions to be accounted for, by the state of the nervous system.
Ida went down to supper, and spent the evening with her mother in the parlor. She resolved to take up her burden at once, and that there should be no sentimental sighing in solitude. Though so sorely wounded, she meant to keep her place in the ranks and win from society something better than pity. Jennie Burton looked at her wistfully and wonderingly many times, for the impress of the spiritual experience of that day was on her face, and made it more than beautiful. The blending of sadness and serenity, of quiet strength with calm resolve, was apparent to one possessing Miss Burton"s insight into character. "Can it be," she thought, "that Van Berg has discovered her secret, and finds that while he can give her warm friendship and sympathy in her new life, he cannot give any more, and has made as much apparent to her by his manner?
I thought I detected a different tendency in his mind before he went to the city. Something has occurred between them evidently, that to poor Ida means giving up a hope that is like life to a woman. I wish she would let me talk with her, for I think we could help each other. There is certainly a sustaining element in her faith which I do not possess or understand. Year after year I just struggle desperately to keep from sinking into despair, and the conflict is wearing me out. How to meet to-morrow with all its memories I do not know. I can see from the expression of Miss Mayhew"s face how I ought to meet this anniversary of a day that once seemed to me like heaven"s gate; but all I can do is just cling to my hope in G.o.d, while I cry like a child that has lost itself and all it loves in a th.o.r.n.y wilderness. I DO wish we could talk frankly, but she is utterly unapproachable."
Poor Stanton stalked up and down on the piazza without, smoking furiously and muttering strange oaths. If the troubles that preyed upon the two maidens towards whom his heart was so tender, were outward enemies, the smallest grain of discretion would have kept them out of his way that night, and if Van Berg had quietly walked up the piazza steps as Ida was expecting, he would have received anything but a friendly greeting. That he did not come was a disappointment to Ida, and yet deep in her heart there was a secret satisfaction that he found it so difficult to enter on the task that duty and honor demanded. "I shall see him at breakfast, however," she thought; "and he"ll be quiet, sane, and true to his pledge."
But when she did not see him the next morning, and also learned from Stanton that he had not been in his room during the night, forebodings of some kind of evil began coming like prowling beasts of he night that the traveler cannot drive very far away from his camp-fire. Could he have broken his promise to her, and have fled from duty after all? She felt that she would love him no matter what he did--for poor Ida could not love on strictly moral princ.i.p.als, and withdraw her love in offended dignity if the occasion required; but her purer and womanly instincts made her fear that if he forfeited her respect her love might degenerate into pa.s.sion.
Her wish that he would come grew more intense every moment, and from her heart she pitied Jennie Burton as she saw her turn away from an almost untasted breakfast, and with a face that was so full of suffering that she could not disguise it. "If he fails her utterly she"ll die," murmured Ida, as she climbed wearily to her room. "Merciful Saviour, forgive me that I tried to tempt him from her."
She watched from her window, but he did not come. She saw Jennie Burton hastening away on one of the lonely walks to which she was given of late. She saw Stanton drive off rapidly, and when a few hours later he came back, she went down to meet him, and asked hesitatingly:
"Have you seen or heard anything of Mr. Van Berg?"
"Confound him! no. I don"t see what the deuce he means by his course! Burleigh says he has not seen or heard a word from him since early Monday morning when he started off with his sketch-book, and Burleigh also says he seemed very glum and out of sorts when he joked him a little. I"ve been to the landing and depot, and no one has seen him. Unless Van can give a better account of himself than I expect, he and I will have a tremendous falling out."
"No, Cousin Ik, you will leave him to himself, for anything like what you threaten would wound two hearts already sad enough."
"Well, curse it all! I must do something or other, or I"ll explode, I can"t sit by and twirl my thumbs while two such women as you and Miss Burton are in trouble. When a man breaks a girl"s heart I feel like breaking his head."
"Merciful heaven! See--quick--Miss Burton--she"s beckoning to you."
Stanton sprang from the piazza at a bound, and was almost instantly at Jennie Burton"s side, who sank into a seat near, and gasped:
"Do as I bid--no words--a carriage, and a stout man with yourself--take brandy. Haste, or Mr. Van Berg will die."
"O G.o.d! don"t say that," Ida sobbed, kneeling at her feet with a low shuddering cry.
Jennie stooped over and kissed her and said: "Courage, Miss Mayhew, all will yet be well. Be your brave self, and you can help me save him. Tell Mr. Burleigh to come here. Have a physician sent for."
Ida almost dragged the bewildered host from his office. Under the inspiration of hope her motions were lithe and swift as a leopard"s.
Within five minutes after Miss Burton"s arrival, a carriage containing herself, Stanton, and two stout men, dashed furiously towards the ravine in which Van Berg was lying, and a buggy was sent with equal rapidity for a physician. Then came to poor Ida the awful suspense and waiting, which is so often woman"s part in life"s tragedies.
"Oh, can it be," she thought, with thrills of dread and horror, "that he has attempted my crime?" and she grew sick and faint.
Then she resolutely put the suspicion away from her as unjust to him. "Will they never return? O G.o.d, if they should be too late!"
She stood on the piazza with eyes dilated and strained, in one direction, caring not what any one saw or surmised; but in the increasing excitement, as the rumor spread and grew, she was unnoticed.
At last the carriage appeared, and it was driven so slowly and carefully that it suggested to the poor girl the deliberate and mournful pace of a funeral procession, when all need for haste is past forever, and she sprang down the steps in her intense anxiety, and took some swift steps before she controlled herself. Then pressing her hand on her side, she sank into the seat which Miss Burton had occupied a little before.
Jennie Burton waved a handkerchief--that meant life. "Thank G.o.d!"
she murmured, and tears of joy rushed into her eyes. She now saw that Stanton was supporting Van Berg. She sprang up the steps again, broke through the excited and curious throng on the piazza, and was back with a strong arm-chair from the office by the time the carriage stopped at the door.