Miss Henderson had told him, now, in few, plain words, how things were ending; he strove, in all pleasant and thoughtful ways, to soothe and beguile her from her hara.s.sment. He dreamed not how the light had come to her that had revealed to her the insufficiency of that other love. He laid his own love back, from his own sight.
So, calmly, and with what peace they might, these hours went on.
"I want to see that Sampson woman," said Aunt Faith, suddenly, to her niece, on the third afternoon of their being together. "Do you think she would come over here if I should send for her?"
Faith flashed a surprised look of inquiry to Miss Henderson"s face.
"Why, aunt?" she asked.
"Never mind why, child. I can"t tell you now. Of course it"s something, or I shouldn"t want her. Something I should like to know, and that I suppose she could tell me. Do you think she"d come?"
"Why, yes, auntie. I don"t doubt it. I might write her a note."
"I wish you would. Mr. Armstrong says he"ll drive over. And I"d like to have you do it right off. Now, don"t ask me another word about it, till she"s been here."
Faith wrote the note, and Mr. Armstrong went away.
Miss Henderson seemed to grow tired, to-day, after her dinner, and at four o"clock she said to Glory, abruptly:
"I"ll go to bed. Help me into the other room."
Faith offered to go too, and a.s.sist her. But her aunt said, no, she should do quite well with Glory. "And if the Sampson woman comes, send her in to me."
Faith was astonished, and a little frightened.
What could it be that Miss Henderson wanted with the nurse? Was it professionally that she wished to see her? She knew the peculiar whim, or principle, Miss Sampson always acted on, of never taking cases of common illness. She could not have sent for her in the hope of keeping her merely to wait upon her wants as an invalid, and relieve Glory? Was her aunt aware of symptoms in herself, foretokening other or more serious illness?
Faith could only wonder, and wait.
Glory came back, presently, into the southeast room, to say to Faith that her aunt was comfortable, and thought she should get a nap. But that whenever the nurse came, she was to be shown in to her.
The next half hour, that happened which drove even this thought utterly from Faith"s mind.
Paul Rushleigh came.
Faith lay, a little wearily, upon the couch her aunt had quitted; and was thinking, at the very moment--with that sudden, breathless antic.i.p.ation that sweeps over one, now and then, of a thing awaited apprehensively--of whether this Sat.u.r.day night would not probably bring him home--when she caught the sound of a horse"s feet that stopped before the house, and then a man"s step upon the stoop.
It was his. The moment had come.
She sprang to her feet. For an instant she would have fled--anywhither.
Then she grew strangely calm and strong. She must meet him quietly. She must tell him plainly. Tell him, if need be, all she knew herself. He had a right to all.
Paul came in, looking grave; and greeted her with a gentle reserve.
A moment, they stood there as they had met, she with face pale, sad, that dared not lift itself; he, not trusting himself to the utterance of a word.
But he had come there, not to reproach, or to bewail; not even to plead.
To hear--to bear with firmness--what she had to tell him. And there was, in truth, a new strength and n.o.bleness in look and tone, when, presently, he spoke.
If he had had his way--if all had gone prosperously with him--he would have been, still--recipient of his father"s bounty, and accepted of his childish love--scarcely more than a mere, happy boy. This pain, this struggle, this first rebuff of life, crowned him, a man.
Faith might have loved him, now, if she had so seen him, first.
Yet the hour would come when he should know that it had been better as it was. That so he should grow to that which, otherwise, he had never been.
"Faith! My father has told me. That it must be all over. That it was a mistake. I have come to hear it from you."
Then he laid in her hand his father"s letter.
"This came with yours," he said. "After this, I expected all the rest."
Faith took the open sheet, mechanically. With half-blinded eyes, she glanced over the few earnest, fatherly, generous lines. When she came to the last, she spoke, low.
"Yes. That is it. He saw it. It would have been no true marriage, Paul, before Heaven!"
"Then why did I love you, Faith?" cried the young man, impetuously.
"I don"t know," she said, meditatively, as if she really were to answer that. "Perhaps you will come to love again, differently, yet, Paul; and then you may know why this has been."
"I know," said Paul, sadly, "that you have been outgrowing me, Faith. I have felt that. I know I"ve been nothing but a careless, merry fellow, living an outside sort of life; and I suppose it was only in this outside companionship you liked me. But there might be something more in me, yet; and you might have brought it out, maybe. You _were_ bringing it out. You, and the responsibilities my father put upon me. But it"s too late, now. It can"t be helped."
"Not too late, Paul, for that n.o.ble part of you to grow. It was that I came so near really loving at the last. But--Paul! a woman don"t want to lead her husband. She wants to be led. I have thought," she added, timidly, "so much of that verse in the Epistle--"the head of the woman is the man, and the head of the man is Christ, and the head of Christ is G.o.d.""
"You came _near_ loving me!" cried Paul, catching at this sentence, only, out of all that should, by and by, nevertheless, come out in letters of light upon his thought and memory. "Oh, Faith! you may, yet!
It isn"t all quite over?"
Then Faith Gartney knew she must say it all. All--though the hot crimson flushed up painfully, and the breath came quick, and she trembled from head to foot, there, where she stood. But the truth, mighty, and holy in its might, came up from heart to lip, and the crimson paled, and the breath grew calm, and she stood firm with her pure resolve, even in her maidenly shame, before him.
There are instants, when all thought of the moment itself, and the look and the word of it, are overborne and lost.
"No, Paul. I will tell you truly. With my little, childish heart, I loved you. With the love of a dear friend, I hold you still, and shall hold you, always. But, Paul!--no one else knows it, and I never knew it till I stood face to face with death--with my _soul_ I have come to love another!"
Deep and low these last words were--given up from the very innermost, and spoken with bowed head and streaming eyes.
Paul Rushleigh took her hand. A manly reverence in him recognized the pure courage that unveiled her woman"s heart, and showed him all.
"Faith!" he said, "you have never deceived me. You are always n.o.ble.
Forgive me that I have made you struggle to love me!"
With these words, he went.
Faith flung herself upon the sofa, and hid her face in its cushion, hearing, through her sobs, the tread of his horse as he pa.s.sed down the road.
This chapter of her life story was closed.
CHAPTER x.x.xI.