Helen was silent for a moment in thought, and then she said in a low, trembling voice: "David, there is only one thing to do."
"What is that, dear?" asked the other.
"We will have to take her home with us."
"Do you know what you are saying?" asked the other with a start; "that would be a fearful thing to do, Helen."
"I cannot help it," she replied, "it is the only thing. And it would be wicked not to be willing to do that, because she is a woman."
"She is in a fearful way, dear," said the other, hesitatingly; "and to ask you to take care of her--"
"I would do anything sooner than let you take that walk in such darkness as this!" was the girl"s reply; and with that statement she silenced all of his objections.
And so at last David pressed her hand, and whispered, "Very well, dear, G.o.d will bless you for it." Then for a while the two stood in silence, until Helen asked, "Do you think that we can carry her, poor creature?"
"We may try it," the other replied; and Helen went and knelt by the prostrate figure. The woman was muttering to herself, but she seemed to be quite dazed, and not to know what was going on about her.
Helen did not hesitate any longer, but bent over and strove to lift her; the woman was fortunately of a slight build, and seemed to be very thin, so that with David"s help it was easy to raise her to her feet. It was a fearful task none the less, for the poor wretch was foul with the mud in which she had been lying, and her wet hair was streaming over her shoulders; as Helen strove to lift her up the head sunk over upon her, but the girl bit her lips together grimly.
She put her arm about the woman"s waist, and David did the same on the other side, and so the three started, stumbling slowly along in the darkness.
"Are you sure that it is not too much for you?" David asked; "we can stop whenever you like, Helen."
"No, let us go on," the girl said; "she has almost no weight, and we must not leave her out here in the cold. Her hands are almost frozen now."
They soon made their way on down to where the lights of the little cottage shone through the trees. David could not but shrink back as he thought of taking their wretched burden into their little home, but he heard the woman groan feebly, and he was ashamed of his thought. Nothing more was said until they had climbed the steps, not without difficulty, and had deposited their burden upon the floor of the sitting room; after which David rose and sank back into a chair, for the strain had been a heavy one for him.
Helen also sprang up as she gazed at the figure; the woman was foul with every misery that disease and sin can bring upon a human creature, her clothing torn to shreds and her face swollen and stained. She was half delirious, and clawing about her with her shrunken, quivering hands, so that Helen exclaimed in horror: "Oh G.o.d, that is the most dreadful sight I have ever seen in my life!"
"Come away," said the other, raising himself from the chair; "it is not right that you should look at such things."
But with Helen it was only a moment before her pity had overcome every other emotion; she knelt down by the stranger and took one of the cold hands and began chafing it. "Poor, poor woman!" she exclaimed; "oh, what misery you must have suffered! David, what can a woman do to be punished like this? It is fearful!"
It was a strange picture which the two made at that moment, the woman in her cruel misery, and the girl in her pure and n.o.ble beauty. But Helen had no more thought of shrinking, for all her soul had gone out to the unfortunate stranger, and she kept on trying to bring her back to consciousness. "Oh, David," she said, "what can we do to help her? It is too much that any human being should be like this,--she would have died if we had not found her." And then as the other opened her eyes and struggled to lift herself, Helen caught an incoherent word and said, "I think she is thirsty, David; get some water and perhaps that will help her. We must find some way to comfort her, for this is too horrible to be. And perhaps it is not her fault, you know,--who knows but perhaps some man may have been the cause of it all? Is it not dreadful to think of, David?"
So the girl went on; her back was turned to her husband, and she was engrossed in her task of mercy, and did not see what he was doing.
She did not see that he had started forward in his chair and was staring at the woman; she did not see him leaning forward, farther and farther, with a strange look upon his face. But there was something she did see at last, as the woman lifted herself again and stared first at Helen"s own pitying face, and then vaguely about the room, and last of all gazing at David. Suddenly she stretched out her arms to him and strove to rise, with a wild cry that made Helen leap back in consternation:--"David! It"s David!"
And at the same instant David sprang up with what was almost a scream of horror; he reeled and staggered backwards against the wall, clutching with his hands at his forehead, his face a ghastly, ashen gray; and as Helen sprang up and ran towards him, he sank down upon his knees with a moan, gazing up into the air with a look of agony upon his face. "My G.o.d! My G.o.d!" he gasped; "it is my Mary!"
And Helen sank down beside him, clutching him by the arm, and staring at him in terror. "David, David!" she whispered, in a hoa.r.s.e voice. But the man seemed not to hear her, so overwhelmed was he by his own emotion. "It is Mary," he cried out again,--"it is my Mary!--oh G.o.d, have mercy upon my soul!" And then a shudder pa.s.sed over him, and he buried his face in his arms and fell down upon the floor, with Helen, almost paralyzed with fright, still clinging to him.
In the meantime the woman had still been stretching out her trembling arms to him, crying his name again and again; as she sank back exhausted the man started up and rushed toward her, clutching her by the hand, and exclaiming frantically, "Mary, Mary, it is I--speak to me!" But the other"s delirium seemed to have returned, and she only stared at him blankly. At last David staggered to his feet and began pacing wildly up and down, hiding his face in his hands, and crying helplessly, "Oh, G.o.d, that this should come to me now! Oh, how can I bear it--oh, Mary, Mary!"
He sank down upon the sofa again and burst into fearful sobbing; Helen, who had still been kneeling where he left her, rushed toward him and flung her arms about him, crying out, "David, David, what is the matter? David, you will kill me; what is it?"
And he started and stared at her wildly, clutching her arm. "Helen,"
he gasped, "listen to me! I ruined that woman! Do you hear me?--do you hear me? It was I who betrayed her--I who made her what she is!
_I--I!_ Oh, leave me,--leave me alone--oh, what can I do?"
Then as the girl still clung to him, sobbing his name in terror, the man went on, half beside himself with his grief, "Oh, think of it--oh, how can I bear to know it and live? Twenty-three years ago,--and it comes back to curse me now! And all these years I have been living and forgetting it--and been happy, and talking of my goodness--oh G.o.d, and this fearful madness upon the earth! And I made it--I--and _she_ has had to pay for it! Oh, look at her, Helen, look at her--think that that foulness is mine! She was beautiful,--she was pure,--and she might have been happy, she would have been good, but for me! Oh G.o.d in heaven, where can I hide myself, what can I do?"
Helen was still clutching at his arm, crying to him, "David, spare me!" He flung her off in a mad frenzy, holding her at arm"s length, and staring at her with a fearful light in his eyes. "Girl, girl!"
he cried, "do you know who I am--do you know what I have done? This girl was like you once, and I made her love me--made her love me with the sacred fire that G.o.d had given me, made her love me as I made _you_ love me! And she was beautiful like you--she was younger than you, and as happy as you! And she trusted me as you trusted me, she gave herself to me as you did, and I took her, and promised her my love--and now look at her! Can you wish to be near me, can you wish to see me? Oh, Helen, I cannot bear myself--oh, leave me, I must die!"
He sank down once more, weeping, all his form shaking with his grief; Helen flung her arms about his neck again, but the man seemed to forget her presence. "Oh, think where that woman has been," he moaned; "think what she has seen, and done, and suffered--and what she is! Was there ever such a wreck of womanhood, ever such a curse upon earth? And, oh, for the years that she has lived in her fearful sin, and I have been happy--great G.o.d, what can I do for those years,--how can I live and gaze upon this crime of mine? I, who sought for beauty, to have made this madness; and it comes now to curse me, now, when it is too late; when the life is wrecked,--when it is gone forever!"
David"s voice had sunk into a moan; and then suddenly he heard the woman crying out, and he staggered to his feet. She was sitting up again, her arms stretched out; David caught her in his own, gazing into her face and crying, "Mary, Mary! Look at me! Here I am--I am David, the David you loved."
He stopped, gasping for breath, and the woman cried in a faint voice, "Water, water!" David turned and called to Helen, and the poor girl, tho scarcely able to stand, ran to get a gla.s.s of it; another thought came to the man in the meantime, and he turned to the other with a sudden cry. "If there were a child!" he gasped, "a child of mine somewhere in the world, alone and helpless!" He stared into the woman"s eyes imploringly.
She was gazing at him, choking and trying to speak; she seemed to be making an effort to understand him, and as David repeated his agonizing question she gave a sign of a.s.sent, causing a still wilder look to cross the man"s face. He called to her again to tell him where; but the woman seemed to be sinking back into her raving, and she only gasped faintly again for water.
When Helen brought it they poured it down her throat, and then David repeated his question once more; but he gave a groan as he saw that it was all in vain; the wild raving had begun again, and the woman only stared at him blankly, until at last the wretched man, quite overcome, sank down at her side and buried his head upon her shrunken bosom and cried like a child, poor Helen in the meantime clinging to him still.
It was only when David had quite worn himself out that he seemed to hear her pleading voice; then he looked at her, and for the first time through his own grief caught sight of hers. There was such a look of helpless woe upon Helen"s face that he put out his hand to her and whispered faintly, "Oh, poor little girl, what have _you_ done that you should suffer so?" As Helen drew closer to him, clinging to his hand in fright, he went on, "Can you ever forgive me for this horror--forgive me that I dared to forget it, that I dared to marry you?"
The girl"s answer was a faint moan, "David, David, have mercy on me!" He gazed at her for a moment, reading still more of her suffering.
"Helen," he asked, "you see what has come upon me--can you ask me not to be wretched, can you ask me still to live? What can I do for such a crime,--when I look at this wreck of a soul, what comfort can I hope to find?" And the girl, her heart bursting with grief, could only clasp his hands in hers and gaze into his eyes; there was no word she could think of to say to him, and so for a long time the two remained in silence, David again fixing his eyes upon the woman, who seemed to be sinking into a kind of stupor.
When he looked up once more it was because Helen was whispering in his ear, a new thought having come to her, "David, perhaps _I_ might be able to help you yet."
The man replied in a faint, gasping voice, "Help me? How?" And the girl answered, "Come with me," and rose weakly to her feet, half lifting him also. He gazed at the woman and saw that she was lying still, and then he did as Helen asked. She led him gently into the other room, away from the fearful sight, and the two sat down, David limp and helpless, so that he could only sink down in her arms with a groan. "Poor, poor David," she whispered, in a voice of infinite pity; "oh, my poor David!"
"Then you do not scorn me, Helen?" the man asked in a faint, trembling voice, and went on pleading with her, in words so abject and so wretched that they wrung the girl"s heart more than ever.
"David, how can you speak to me so?" she cried, "you who are all my life?" And then she added with swift intensity, "Listen to me, David, it cannot be so bad as that, I know it! Will you not tell me, David? Tell me all, so that I may help you!" So she went on pleading with him gently, until at last the man spoke again, in faltering words.
"Helen," he said, "I was only a boy; G.o.d knows that is one excuse, if it is the only one. I was only seventeen, and she was no more."
"Who was she, David?" the girl asked.
"She lived in a village across the mountains from here, near where our home used to be. She was a farmer"s daughter, and she was beautiful--oh, to think that that woman was once a beautiful girl, and innocent and pure! But we were young, we loved each other, and we had no one to warn us; it was so long ago that it seems like a dream to me now, but we sinned, and I took her for mine; then I went home to tell my father, to tell him that she was my wife, and that I must marry her. And oh, G.o.d, she was a farmer"s daughter, and I was a rich man"s son, and the cursed world knows nothing of human souls!
And I must not marry her--I found all the world in arms against it---"
"And you let yourself be persuaded?" asked the girl, in a faint whisper.
"Persuaded?" echoed David, his voice shaking; "who would have thought of persuading a mad boy? I let myself be commanded and frightened into submission, and carried away. And then five or six miserable months pa.s.sed away and I got a letter from her, and she was with child, and she was ruined forever,--she prayed to me in words that have haunted me night and day all my life, to come to her and keep my promise."
And David stopped and gave a groan; the other whispered, "You could not go?"
"I went," he answered; "I borrowed money, begged it from one of my father"s servants, and ran away and went up there; and oh, I was two days too late!"
"Too late?" exclaimed Helen wonderingly.
"Yes, yes," was the hoa.r.s.e reply, "for she was a weak and helpless girl, and scorned of all the world; and her parents had turned her away, and she was gone, no one knew where. Helen, from that day to this I have never seen her, nor ever heard of her; and now she comes to curse me,--to curse my soul forever. And it is more than I can bear, more than I can bear!"
David sank down again, crying out, "It is too much, it is too much!"
But then suddenly he caught his wife"s hand in his and stared up at her, exclaiming, "And she said there was a child, Helen! Somewhere in the world there is another soul suffering for this sin of mine!
Oh, somehow we must find out about that--something must be done, I could not have two such fearful things to know of. We must find out, we must find out!"