"Yes, that figure might apply to them also, for these opinions of mine--not compliments, mark!--often carry me up above the clouds and vapors of earth."
"Where you will find the atmosphere exceedingly thin and cold, I a.s.sure you," said Miss Burton, with something like seriousness in her tone. "I must remind you, Mr. Van Berg, that even Jack Bunsby did not give his opinions till they were asked, and I will take some toast, if you please, in their stead."
Stanton and Mrs. Mayhew now appeared, and the conversation became general, in which the former made rather futile efforts to conceal his dejection. His aunt had told him that Ida had merely said she had spent the day with a friend, and that she would explain her absence at the proper time. "She has such a dignified way of speaking, that you are made to feel it is an insult to ask a question, so I shall just take her at her word, and leave her to herself," concluded the lady.
"She"ll never forgive me," muttered Stanton.
A little later than the others, the object of his thoughts came down to supper. The deep color which the unexpected episode with the artist had caused now lingered only as a faint glow in her cheeks. She had fastened a few pear leaves in her hair, and wore no other ornament. Her thin white dress suggested rather than reveated the exquisite symmetry of her neck and arms, and Van Berg was compelled to admit to himself that his trained and critical eyes could scarcely detect a flaw in her marvellous beauty, or in the taste shown in her costume.
But there was something about her manner which appealed to him more than her beauty even. The evening before she had chilled their hearts by her unnatural and icy words and bearing. Now there was an expression of humility and diffidence wholly unlike anything he had ever seen before. She did not seem inclined to enter into conversation, and yet she was not repellant and cold, but rather seemed to shrink from notice, and to indicate that past memories were embarra.s.sing. But she would not look at her cousin, for she still felt a deep resentment towards him. She was no saint because she had cherished some good thoughts and impulses that day, and as for poor Stanton, he became so depressed that he lapsed into utter silence.
Miss Burton was becoming deeply interested in Ida. When she saw her crimson face as the artist hastened to the phaeton, a sudden light had flashed into her eyes, and the thought crossed her mind:
"Mr. Van Berg is the magician who is unwittingly practising upon her and making her so unlike her former self," and as she hurriedly recalled the past, she found there was much in Ida"s manner not inconsistent with this theory. Still it was not with any prying, gossipy interest, that she observed closely, in order to discover if there were good reasons for her surmise.
But Ida"s manner was so quiet and guarded it would have required keener eyes than even Jennie Burton"s to detect the hidden fire.
The meal promised to pa.s.s, with some constraint, it is true, but without any embarra.s.sing incident, when Mrs. Mayhew was the means of placing poor Ida in a very painful dilemma. Under a general impulse to conciliate her daughter and make amends, and with her usual want of tact, she suddenly and sententiously said:
"Well, I think Ida"s very brave to be able to drive for herself."
There was a moment of embarra.s.sed silence after this unexpected remark, and then Miss Burton made matters far worse by saying, with the kindest intentions:
"After Miss Mayhew"s adventure in the stage no one can doubt her courage, and I"m sure I admire a brave woman much more than a brave man. Men are brave as a matter of course." Then she saw from the sudden scarlet that flamed up into Ida"s cheeks, and the manner of the artist, who suddenly became wholly absorbed in his supper, that she had made an unfortunate allusion. There was nothing to do but promptly change the subject, so she turned and asked:
"What is the greatest number of miles you have ever driven in a day, Mr. Stanton?"
"I beg your pardon!" said the preoccupied young man, starting at the sound of his name.
Miss Burton repeated her question. But in the meantime it was evident a severe conflict was going on in Ida Mayhew"s mind. How could she obey Mr. Eltinge"s injunction to be honest and true, if she let this false impression concerning her behavior in the stage remain? How could she hope to win a particle of respect from Van Berg if she received again this undeserved praise? How could she look her kind old friend in the face if she continued silent? She felt she must either speak or take the pear leaves out of her hair.
It was hard, bitter hard to speak then and there before them all, but her indecision soon gave place to the resolve to lay at once what Mr. Eltinge had called the corner-stone of character.
"Miss Burton," she said abruptly, as Stanton was trying to collect his wits so as to make a suitable reply.
They all looked at her involuntarily. Her face was pale now, and had the white, resolute aspect often seen in those about to face great danger.
"Miss Burton, I am sorry to say you have a false impression of my conduct in the stage. So far from showing presence of mind and courage on that occasion, I was terror-stricken and, I believe, hysterical. With all my faults, I shall at LEAST try to tell the truth hereafter."
"By Jupiter!" cried the impulsive Stanton, "that"s the pluckiest thing I ever saw a woman do, or man either. Ida, from this day I"m proud of you, though you have little occasion to be so of me."
The poor girl had looked steadily at Miss Burton while speaking, but the moment the ordeal was over her lip quivered like that of a child, and she hastily left the table.
She had scarcely mounted half the stairs that led to her room before Van Berg was at her side.
"Miss Mayhew," he said eagerly, "I did not sleep last night, nor can I to-night until a.s.sured of your forgiveness. Myself I can never forgive."
Her heart was full and her nerves overstrained already. She could not speak, but she bowed her head on the rail of the bal.u.s.trade, hiding her face against her arm, and strove hard to check the rising sobs.
"Miss Mayhew," he continued, in low, pleading tones, "in all my life I never condemned myself so bitterly as I have for my treatment of you. I can only appeal to your generosity. I NEED your forgiveness,"
and he waited for her answer.
But she could not answer. It seemed as if she could not maintain even her partial self-control a moment longer. Her heart forgave him, however, and she wished him to know it, so without lifting her head she held out her hand in the place of the words she could not trust herself to utter. He seized it eagerly, and it so trembled and throbbed in his grasp that it made him think of a wounded bird that he once had captured.
"I take your hand, Miss Mayhew," he said earnestly, "not as a sign of truce between us, but as a token of forgiveness, and the pledge of reconciliation and friendship. Your brave truth-telling to-night has atoned for your past. Please give me a chance at least to try to atone for mine."
His only reply was a faint pressure from her hand and then she sped up the stairway. He did not see her again till she came down to breakfast the following morning, when she treated him with a quiet, distant, well-bred courtesy that did not suggest the sobbing girl who had fled from him the evening before, much less the despairing, desperate woman who had given him the drug with which she had intended to end her existence. They who see conventional surfaces only know but little of life.
Truthful as she was trying to be, she was puzzling him more than ever, although he was giving a great deal of thought to the problem.
Chapter XLIII. A "Heavenly Mystery."
While Ida"s manner at the breakfast-table was quiet and self-possessed, she still maintained the same distant bearing which had been characteristic the evening before. It was evident to Van Berg, however, that pride, wounded vanity, and resentment were no longer the motives for the seclusion in which she sought to remain, even while under the eyes of others. It was the natural shrinking of one who would hide weakness, trouble, and imperfection. It was the bearing of one who had been deeply humiliated, and who was conscious of a partial estrangement towards those having a knowledge of this humiliation. Thus far he could understand her; and in the proportion she was depressed and withdrew from social recognition and encouragement, his sympathy and respect were drawn out towards her.
"She is not trivial and superficial, as I supposed," he thought twenty times that morning. "There is not a sudden calm after the storm that has been raging, as would be the case were she in character like a shallow pool. Her manner now proves daily the largeness of the nature that has been so deeply moved, and which, like the agitated sea, regains its peace but slowly;" and the sagacious Van Berg, whose imagination was not under very good control began to react into the other extreme, and query whether Ida Mayhew"s moral nature, now that it was aroused, was not her chief characteristic.
Meanwhile, the subject of his many-colored speculations had driven away in the low basket phaeton, having first explained briefly to her mother that she intended to spend the morning again with the two old people she had visited the previous day.
Stanton volunteered this amount of information to his friend, and there was much surmise and curiosity in their minds in regard to these "old people," and her motive in seeking them. But even Mrs.
Mayhew had begun to realize that they must take Ida at her word and leave her to herself.
It was with something even more than hopefulness that Ida drew near to the garden again. She was alive; that fact, in contrast with what might have been, was like solid ground beneath her feet. Then, again, in the place of the cold, distant manner of the guests, after the departure of Sibley, she had already noticed friendly glances and an evident disposition to make amends. It also gave her not a little satisfaction that her cousin and the artist were experiencing such sincere compunctions, and were realizing the enormity of their offence. Ida was very human, and always would be. She was also a little elated over the fact that she had been able to tell the truth the evening before. The memory, however, that nestled most warmly in her heart was the a.s.sertion of Van Berg, "I NEED your forgiveness." "How much does that mean?" she asked herself again and again. "Does he really wish to be a friend, or is he only trying to smooth over matters and calm me down so he can leave me decorously, as after our hateful episode on the stage?"
Her wishes colored her thoughts. "He spoke too earnestly to mean so little," she said to herself, with a dreamy smile that Van Berg, as an artist merely, would have given much to see.
After all, perhaps one of the chief causes of her reviving spirits was in the fact she was young. She could not take a very sombre view of life that fresh summer morning, even in view of the past and the future, and her manner of greeting Mr. Eltinge and of telling her experiences since they parted suggested to him that she was gaining in self-complacency, earthly hope, and youthful spirits, rather than in the deep and lasting peace and moral strength which is built up from the Living Rock. She was finding relief from depression and suffering from causes as transient as they were superficial. Chief of all, she had not realized as he had supposed the shadow of the awful crime that was resting upon her, and the need of G.o.d"s forgiveness. Almost unconsciously the old man, wise and experienced in spiritual life, sighed deeply as she finished her story.
Her quick ear caught the sigh, and her woman"s intuition gathered from his face that the outlook did not seem so encouraging to him.
Her heart began to sink, and she said earnestly:
"Mr. Eltinge, I"ve tried to be true; I want you to be faithful to me. Don"t hide anything from me."
Yes, my child," he replied gravely, "you are sincere--you hide nothing. I think I understand you. I thank G.o.d he gave you strength last night to tell the truth under very trying circ.u.mstances, and you have greatly increased my respect for you that you did so. But, to use a little figurative language, if I were your doctor I might tell you that you don"t realize how sick you are and have been.
There have been some encouraging symptoms and circ.u.mstances, and your spirits and hope are reviving, and you are looking to these things rather than to him who taketh away the sin of the world. I tried to encourage you yesterday, my child, because I saw you were deeply depressed; and to discourage us is one of the chief aims of the Evil One. I do not wish to discourage you to-day--far from it--but I wish to realize that only the forgiveness and healing touch of the Son of G.o.d are equal to your need.
"My child," he continued, with a solemnity that made her grow very pale, "suppose I should take you to a room in the house there, show you a fair girl with eyes that should look for her duty in life closed forever, and the hands that should faithfully and bravely do it paralyzed in death. Suppose I should tell you that I had given her a poisonous drug the night before, what would I be?"
"A murderer," whispered the girl with eyes dilated with fear and horror.
"Yes," said the old man, shaking his head sadly; "I would have destroyed a life that G.o.d had given, and destroyed endless chances for happiness and usefulness, and sent a poor soul to judgement, perhaps unforgiven and unprepared. My child, it cuts me to the heart to pain you so, but the physician"s probe must go to the depth of the wound. It is no kindness to the patient to put on a soothing surface application and leave death to rankle in the blood. We have no reason to believe that in the eye of G.o.d he that destroys himself is any the less guilty than he that kills another, and even in the judgment of man it"s a cowardly flight from misfortunes that should be triumphed over with courage and patience, or endured with fort.i.tude and resignation. Mark my words, it is only a flight, not an escape, for every evil you sought to shun would have been intensified and rendered eternal. Now, the simple truth is, we hold our own lives in trust from G.o.d, to be used according to his will, and we have no more right to destroy the life he entrusts to us than the life he gives to others."
Ida had buried her face in her hands and was trembling violently.