"Oh, how good you are!"
He held up his hand in warning. The tones of his voice deepened, the l.u.s.ter of his eyes brightened. She had stirred in the depths of that great heart the faith in which the man lived--the steady principle which guided his modest and n.o.ble life.
"No!" he cried. "Don"t say that! Say that I try to love my neighbor as myself. Who but a Pharisee can believe that he is better than another?
The best among us to-day may, but for the mercy of G.o.d, be the worst among us tomorrow. The true Christian virtue is the virtue which never despairs of a fellow-creature. The true Christian faith believes in Man as well as in G.o.d. Frail and fallen as we are, we can rise on the wings of repentance from earth to heaven. Humanity is sacred. Humanity has its immortal destiny. Who shall dare say to man or woman, "There is no hope in you?" Who shall dare say the work is all vile, when that work bears on it the stamp of the Creator"s hand?"
He turned away for a moment, struggling with the emotion which she had roused in him.
Her eyes, as they followed him, lighted with a momentary enthusiasm--then sank wearily in the vain regret which comes too late.
Ah! if he could have been her friend and her adviser on the fatal day when she first turned her steps toward Mablethorpe House! She sighed bitterly as the hopeless aspiration wrung her heart. He heard the sigh; and, turning again, looked at her with a new interest in his face.
"Miss Roseberry," he said.
She was still absorbed in the bitter memories of the past: she failed to hear him.
"Miss Roseberry," he repeated, approaching her.
She looked up at him with a start.
"May I venture to ask you something?" he said, gently.
She shrank at the question.
"Don"t suppose I am speaking out of mere curiosity," he went on.
"And pray don"t answer me unless you can answer without betraying any confidence which may have been placed in you."
"Confidence!" she repeated. "What confidence do you mean?"
"It has just struck me that you might have felt more than a common interest in the questions which you put to me a moment since," he answered. "Were you by any chance speaking of some unhappy woman--not the person who frightened you, of course--but of some other woman whom you know?"
Her head sank slowly on her bosom. He had plainly no suspicion that she had been speaking of herself: his tone and manner both answered for it that his belief in her was as strong as ever. Still those last words made her tremble; she could not trust herself to reply to them.
He accepted the bending of her head as a reply.
"Are you interested in her?" he asked next.
She faintly answered this time. "Yes."
"Have you encouraged her?"
"I have not dared to encourage her."
His face lighted up suddenly with enthusiasm. "Go to her," he said, "and let me go with you and help you!"
The answer came faintly and mournfully. "She has sunk too low for that!"
He interrupted her with a gesture of impatience.
"What has she done?" he asked.
"She has deceived--basely deceived--innocent people who trusted her. She has wronged--cruelly wronged--another woman."
For the first time Julian seated himself at her side. The interest that was now roused in him was an interest above reproach. He could speak to Mercy without restraint; he could look at Mercy with a pure heart.
"You judge her very harshly," he said. "Do _you_ know how she may have been tried and tempted?"
There was no answer.
"Tell me," he went on, "is the person whom she has injured still living?"
"Yes."
"If the person is still living, she may atone for the wrong. The time may come when this sinner, too, may win our pardon and deserve our respect."
"Could _you_ respect her?" Mercy asked, sadly. "Can such a mind as yours understand what she has gone through?"
A smile, kind and momentary, brightened his attentive face.
"You forget my melancholy experience," he answered. "Young as I am, I have seen more than most men of women who have sinned and suffered. Even after the little that you have told me, I think I can put myself in her place. I can well understand, for instance, that she may have been tempted beyond human resistance. Am I right?"
"You are right."
"She may have had n.o.body near at the time to advise her, to warn her, to save her. Is that true?"
"It is true."
"Tempted and friendless, self-abandoned to the evil impulse of the moment, this woman may have committed herself headlong to the act which she now vainly repents. She may long to make atonement, and may not know how to begin. All her energies may be crushed under the despair and horror of herself, out of which the truest repentance grows. Is such a woman as this all wicked, all vile? I deny it! She may have a n.o.ble nature; and she may show it n.o.bly yet. Give her the opportunity she needs, and our poor fallen fellow-creature may take her place again among the best of us--honored, blameless, happy, once more!"
Mercy"s eyes, resting eagerly on him while he was speaking, dropped again despondingly when he had done.
"There is no such future as that," she answered, "for the woman whom I am thinking of. She has lost her opportunity. She has done with hope."
Julian gravely considered with himself for a moment.
"Let us understand each other," he said. "She has committed an act of deception to the injury of another woman. Was that what you told me?"
"Yes."
"And she has gained something to her own advantage by the act."
"Yes."
"Is she threatened with discovery?"
"She is safe from discovery--for the present, at least."
"Safe as long as she closes her lips?"
"As long as she closes her lips."