"Next day this same father was conducting a meditation--on "the condescension of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament." I was kneeling, half stupefied, when I heard him tell a story of the Cure d"Ars. After the procession of Corpus Christi, which was very long and fatiguing, someone pressed the Cure to take food. "I want nothing," he said. "How could I be tired? I was bearing Him who bears me!" "My brothers," said Father Stuart, turning to the altar, "the Lord who bore the sin of the whole world on the Cross, who opens the arms of His mercy now to each separate sinful soul, is _there_. He beseeches you by me, "Choose, My children, between the world and Me, between sin and Me, between h.e.l.l and Me. Your souls are Mine: I bought them with anguish and tears. Why will ye now hold them back from Me--wherefore will ye die?""
"My whole being seemed to be shaken by these words. But I instantly thought of Marie. I said to myself, "She is alone--perhaps in despair.
How can I save myself, wretched tempter and coward that I am, and leave her in remorse and grief?" And then it seemed to me as though a Voice came from the altar itself, so sweet and penetrating that it overpowered the voice of the preacher and the movements of my companions. I heard nothing in the chapel but It alone. "She is saved!" It said--and again and again, as though in joy, "She is saved--saved!"
"That night I crept to the foot of the crucifix in my little cell.
"_Elegi, elegi: renuntio!_"--I have chosen: I renounce." All night long those alternate words seemed to be wrung from me."
There was deep silence. Helbeck knelt on the gra.s.s beside Laura and took her hands afresh.
"Laura, since that night I have been my Lord"s. It seemed to me that He had come Himself--come from His cross--to raise two souls from the depths of h.e.l.l. Marie went into a convent, and died in peace and blessedness; I came home here, to do my duty if I could--and save my soul. That seems to you a mere selfish bargain with G.o.d--an "egotism"--that you hate. But look at the root of it. Is the world under sin--and has a G.o.d died for it? All my nature--my intellect, my heart, my will, answer "Yes." But if a G.o.d died, and must die--cruelly, hideously, at the hands of His creatures--to satisfy eternal justice, what must that sin be that demands the Crucifixion? Of what revolt, what ruin is not the body capable? I knew--for I had gone down into the depths. Is any chastis.e.m.e.nt too heavy, any restraint too harsh, if it keep us from the sin for which our Lord must die? And if He died, are we not His from the first moment of our birth--His first of all? Is it a selfish bargain to yield Him what He purchased at such a cost, to take care that our just debt to Him is paid--so far as our miserable humanity can pay it. All these mortifications, and penances, and self-denials that you hate so, that make the saints so odious in your eyes, spring from two great facts--Sin and the Crucifixion. But, Laura, are they _true_?"
He spoke in a low, calm voice, yet Laura knew well that his life was poured into each word. She herself did not, could not, speak. But it seemed to her strangely that some spring within her was broken--some great decision had been taken, by whom she could not tell.
He looked with alarm at her pallor and silence.
"Laura, those are the hard and awful--to us Catholics, the majestic--facts on which our religion stands. Accept them, and nothing else is really difficult. Miracles, the protection of the saints, the mysteries of the sacraments, the place that Catholics give to Our Lady, the support of an infallible Church--what so easy and natural if _these_ be true?... Sin and its Divine Victim, penance, regulation of life, death, judgment--Catholic thought moves perpetually from one of these ideas to another. As to many other thoughts and beliefs, it is free to us as to other men to take or leave, to think or not to think. The Church, like a tender mother, offers to her children an innumerable variety of holy aids, consolations, encouragements. These may or may not be of faith. The Crucifix _is_ the Catholic Faith. In that the Catholic sees the Love that brought a G.o.d to die, the Sin that infects his own soul. To requite that love, to purge that sin there lies the whole task of the Catholic life."
He broke off again, anxiously studying the drooping face so near to him.
Then gently he put his arm round her, and drew her to him till her brow rested against his shoulder.
"Laura, does it seem very hard--very awful--to you?"
She moved imperceptibly, but she did not speak.
"It may well. The way _is_ strait! But, Laura, you see it from without--I from within. Won"t you take my word for the sweetness, the reward, and the mercifulness of G.o.d"s dealings with our souls?" He drew a long agitated breath. "Take my own case--take our love. You remember, Laura, when you sat here on Easter Sunday? I came from Communion and I found you here. You disliked and despised my faith and me. But as you sat here, I loved you--my eyes were first opened. The night of the dance, when you went upstairs, I took my own heart and offered it. You did not love me then: how could I dream you ever would? The sacrifice was mine; I tried to yield it. But it was not His will. I made my struggle--you made yours.
He drew us to each other. Then----"
He faltered, looked down upon her in doubt.
"Since then, Laura, so many strange things have happened! Who was I that I should teach anybody? I shrank from laying the smallest touch on your freedom. I thought, "Gradually, of her own will, she will come nearer.
The Truth will plead for itself." My duty is to trust, and wait. But, Laura, what have I seen in you? Not indifference--not contempt--never!
But a long storm, a trouble, a conflict, that has filled me with confusion--overthrown all my own hopes and plans. Laura, my love, my sweet, why does our Faith hurt you so much if it means nothing to you? Is there not already some tenderness"--his voice dropped--"behind the scorn?
Could it torment you if--if it had not gained some footing in your heart?
Laura, speak to me!"
She slowly drew away from him. Gently she shook her head. Her eyes were full of tears.
But the strange look of power--almost of triumph--on Helbeck"s face remained unaltered. She shrank before it.
"Laura, you don"t know yourself! But no matter! Only, will you forgive me if you feel a change in me? Till now I have shrunk from fighting you. It seemed to me that an ugly habit of words might easily grow up that would poison all our future. But now I feel in it something more than words. If you challenge, Laura, I shall meet it! If you strike, I shall return it."
He took her hands once more. His bright eye looked for--demanded an answer. Her own personality, for all its daring, wavered and fainted before the attacking force of his.
But Helbeck received no a.s.surance of it. She showed none of that girlish yielding which would have been so natural and so delightful to her lover.
Without any direct answer to his appeal or his threat, she lifted to him a look that was far from easy to read--a look of pa.s.sionate sadness and of pure love. Her delicate face seemed to float towards him, and her lips breathed.
"I was not worthy that you should tell me a word. But--" It was some time before she could go on. Then she said with sudden haste, the colour rushing back into her cheeks, "It is the most sacred honour that was ever done me. I thank--thank--thank you!"
And with her eyes still fixed upon his countenance, and all those deep traces that the last half hour had left upon it, she raised his hand and pressed her soft quivering mouth upon it.
Never had Helbeck been filled with such a tender and hopeful joy as in the hours that followed this scene between them. Father Leadham arrived in time for dinner. Laura treated him with a gentleness, even a sweetness, that from the first moment filled the Jesuit with a secret astonishment. She was very pale; her exhaustion was evident.
But Helbeck silenced his sister; and he surrounded Laura with a devotion that had few words, that never made her conspicuous, and yet was more than she could bear.
Augustina insisted on her going to bed early. Helbeck went upstairs with her to the first landing, to light her candle.
Nothing stirred in the old house. Father Leadham and Augustina were in the drawing-room. They two stood alone among the shadows of the panelling, the solitary candle shining on her golden hair and white dress.
"I have something to say to you, Laura," said Helbeck in a disturbed voice.
She looked up.
"I can"t save the Romney, dear. I"ve tried my very best. Will you forgive me?"
She smiled, and put her hand timidly on his shoulder.
"Ask her, rather! I know you tried. Good-night."
And then suddenly, to his astonishment, she threw both her arms round his neck, and, like a child that nestles to another in penitence or for protection, she kissed his breast pa.s.sionately, repeatedly.
"Laura, this can"t be borne! Look up, beloved! Why should my coat be so blessed?" he said, half laughing, yet deeply moved, as he bent above her.
She disengaged herself, and, as she mounted the stairs, she waved her hand to him. As she pa.s.sed out of his sight she was a vision of gentleness. The woman had suddenly blossomed from the girl. When Helbeck descended the stairs after she had vanished, his heart beat with a happiness he had never yet known.
And she, when she reached her own room, she let her arms drop rigidly by her side. "It would be a crime--a _crime_--to marry him," she said, with a dull resolve that was beyond weeping.
Helbeck and Father Leadham sat long together after Augustina had retired.
There was an argument between them in which the Jesuit at last won the victory. Helbeck was persuaded to a certain course against his judgment--to some extent against his conscience.
Next morning the Squire left Bannisdale early. He was to be away two days on important business. Before he left he reluctantly told his sister that the Romney would probably be removed before his return, by the dealer to whom it had been sold. Laura did not appear at breakfast, and Helbeck left a written word of farewell, that Augustina delivered.
Meantime Father Leadham remained as the guest of the ladies. In the afternoon he joined Miss Fountain in the garden, and they walked up and down the bowling-green for some time together. Augustina, in the deep window of the drawing-room, was excitedly aware of the fact.
When the two companions came in, Father Leadham after a time rejoined Mrs. Fountain. She looked at him with eagerness. But his fine and scholarly face was more discomposed than she had ever seen it. And the few words that he said to her were more than enough.
Laura meanwhile went to her own room, and shut herself up there. Her cheeks were glowing, her eyes angry. "He promised me!" she said, as she sat down to her writing-table.
But she could not stay there. She got up and walked restlessly about the room. After half an hour"s fruitless conversation, Father Leadham had been betrayed into an expression--hardly that--a shade of expression, which had set the girl"s nature aflame. What it meant was, "So this--is your answer--to the chivalry of Mr. Helbeck"s behaviour--to the delicacy which could go to such lengths in protecting a young lady from her own folly?" The meaning was conveyed by a look--an inflection--hardly a phrase. But Laura understood it perfectly; and when Father Leadham returned to Mrs. Fountain he guiltily knew what he had done, and, being a man in general of great tact and finesse, he hardly knew whom to blame most, himself, or the girl who had imperceptibly and yet deeply provoked him.
That evening Laura told her stepmother that she must go up to London the following day, by the early afternoon train, on some shopping business, and would stay the night with her friend Molly Friedland. Augustina fretfully acquiesced; and the evening was spent by Mrs. Fountain at any rate, in trying to console herself by much broken talk of frocks and winter fashions, while Laura gave occasional answers, and Father Leadham on a distant sofa buried himself in the "Tablet."
"Gone!"