"What took you to the steamer then?"
"Mr. Duval had some letters--foolish, imprudent letters--and I was miserable about them; because whenever I did not meet him, or send him money, he threatened to show them to Antony. He promised, as he was going to Cuba, to give them to me for $500. I had only three days to procure the money, and I did not succeed in getting it until noon of the last day. Then I went to the Astor House, where Mr. Duval was waiting for me, and because I wanted to keep him in a good temper, I took lunch with him. He said he would give me the letters after lunch.
I did not take but two gla.s.ses of wine, yet they made me feel strange, and when I was told that his luggage had all gone to the steamer, and that I must go there for the letters, I could not help crying. When Adriana spoke to me, I was begging for my letters, and he was urging me to go to Cuba with him. He wanted my money, mamma, and I knew it.
He was cruel to me, and I had become afraid of him. While he was talking, I was listening for the bell to warn people ash.o.r.e, and I should have fled at the first sound."
"He might have prevented you, Rose. My dear, what danger you were in!"
"I thought of that. There were several pa.s.sengers on deck, and the captain was not far away. I would have thrown myself into the water rather than have gone to Cuba with Mr. Duval."
"Did you get the letters?"
"No. Yanna came interfering, and then Antony. I let them think what they liked. Duval said I intended to go with him. It was a lie, and he knew it; but Yanna and Antony seemed to enjoy believing it, and so I let them think me as wicked and cruel as they desired. Not one of you took the trouble to ask me a question."
"We feared to wound your feelings, Rose, by alluding to what could not be undone. And you were fretting so about your child."
"Not one of you noticed that I had taken no clothing, none of my jewelry, not a single article necessary for comfort. Was it likely I would leave all my dresses and jewels behind me? If Mr. Duval thought I was going with him, was it likely he would have suffered me to forget them?"
"Why did you not tell me all this before, Rose?"
"I do not know "why," mamma. I enjoyed seeing Antony miserable. I enjoyed humbling Yanna"s pride. I used to laugh at the thought of Harry and her talking over my misconduct. A spirit I could not control took possession of me. I did not want to do wrong, but I liked people to think I did wrong. I suppose you cannot understand me, mamma?"
"Yes, I understand, Rose."
"When I was quite alone, I used to cry bitterly about the sin of it; but all the same, as soon as Antony, or you, or Yanna, or any one that knew about Duval, came into my sight, I tried to shock them again."
"You will do so no more, Rose?"
"The desire has gone from me. I do not even fear Mr. Duval now. He can send all the letters he has to Antony, if he wishes. I am naturally a coward, and cowardice made me sin many a time. If I had only been brave enough to tell Antony what the villain made me suffer, I need not have endured it. Antony is generosity. Duval is cruelty."
This explanation gave Mrs. Filmer great relief, and doubtless it tended to Rose"s quick recovery. She no longer bore her burden alone, and her mother"s sympathy, like the pity of the Merciful One, was without reproach. But it was now that Rose began to realize for the first time that love teaches as the demon of Socrates taught--by the penalties exacted for errors. For every hour of her life she felt the loss of her husband"s protecting care. Her sickness had compelled her to leave everything to servants; and the house was abandoned to their theft and riot. Waste, destruction, quarreling all day, and eating and drinking most of the night, were the household ordering. She found it difficult to get for her own wants the least attention; and the light, nourishing food she craved was prepared, if at all, in the most careless manner. Her orders were quarreled over, disputed, or neglected; and withal she had the knowledge that she must, for the time being, endure the shameful tyranny. But, oh, how every small wrong made her remember the almost omniscient love of her husband, and the involuntary and constant cry of her heart was, "If Antony were only here!"
Her loneliness, too, was great; she was unaccustomed to solitude, and she was too weak to bear the physical fatigue of much reading. So the hours and the days of her convalescence went very drearily onward. She could not look backward without weeping, and there was no hope in the future. Alas! alas! our worst wounds are those inflicted by our own hands; and Rose, musing mournfully on her sofa, knew well that no one had injured her half so cruelly as she had injured herself. With how many tears her poor eyes did penance! But they were a precious rain upon her parched soul; it was softened by them, and though she had as yet no clear conception of her relationship to G.o.d, as a wandering daughter, far from His presence--but never beyond His love--she had many moments of tender, vague mystery, in which, weeping and sorrowful, she was brought very close to Him. For it is often in the dry time, and the barren time, that G.o.d reaches out His hand, and puts into the heart the hopeful resolve, "I will arise and go to my Father!" In some sense this was the cry that broke pa.s.sionately from Rose"s lips on one night which had ended a day full to the brim of those small, shameful household annoyances, through which servants torture those whom they can torture.
"I will arise and go to my husband!" That was the first step on the right road, and the resolve sprang suddenly from a heart broken and wounded, and hungry and thirsty for help and sympathy.
"In Antony"s heart there is love and to spare," she cried. "He would not suffer me to be tormented and neglected. He would put his strong arms round me, and the very south wind he would not let blow too rudely on my face. Oh, Antony! Antony! If you only knew how I long for you! How sorry I am for all the cruel words I said! How sorry I was even while saying them! I will go to Antony. I will tell him that I cannot forgive myself until he forgives me. I will tell him how truly I love him; how lonely and tired and sick and poor and wretched I am.
He will forgive me. He will love me again. I shall begin to go _now_--at this very moment."
She rose up with the words, and felt the strength of her resolve. She looked at her watch. It was not quite nine o"clock. She rang the bell and ordered her carriage. The man hesitated, but finally obeyed the order. She was driven directly to her father"s house. Mrs. Filmer had gone out with Harry and Adriana, but Mr. Filmer was in his study. He was amazed and terrified, when he saw Rose enter.
"My dear Rose! what are you doing here?" he cried. "You are ill, Rose."
"Ill or well, father, I want you. Oh, I need you so much!" and she covered her face with her hands, and wept with all her heart. "I have been ill, but you have never been to see me, father--did you not know how ill I was? Do you not care for me?" she sobbed.
Mr. Filmer pulled a chair to his side. "Come here, my girl," he answered, "for I cannot come to you. Look at my bandaged foot, Rose. I have not stepped on it for a month."
"Oh, father! I am so sorry for you--and for myself."
"I fell, my dear--fell down those spiral stairs in the library, and sprained myself very badly. Did you imagine I had forgotten?"
"Mamma never told me--yes, I believe she did tell me--but I thought it was only a little hurt. I have been so selfishly miserable. And, oh, father! it is such a disappointment to me. I wanted you to take me to Antony."
"That is folly, my child. Your husband is about his business. He will come home as soon as he can leave it; and you are not fit to travel."
Then Rose remembered that her father had but a partial knowledge of the truth regarding her real position, and she hesitated. Lame and unable to help her, why should she make him unhappy? So she only said: "There is something a little wrong between Antony and me, and I want to talk to him. Letters always make trouble. I thought perhaps you might go with me; but you are lame--and busy, too, I see."
"Unfortunately, I am lame at present; but if you are in any trouble, Rose, I am not busy. What is this to you?" he asked, lifting some ma.n.u.script and tossing it scornfully aside. "It is only my amus.e.m.e.nt; you are my heart, my honor, my duty! I would burn every page of my book if by so doing I could bring you happiness, my child."
"There is nothing to call for such a sacrifice, papa," she said, while the grateful tears sprang to her eyes; "but somehow, I do not seem to have any friends but you and mamma; none, at least, from whom I can expect help."
"In trouble, Rose, you may always go to G.o.d and to your father and mother for help. From them you cannot expect too much; and from men and women in general you cannot expect too little. Your mother will be home soon, so remain here to-night, and have a talk with her about this notion of going west to Antony. She will tell you that it is very foolish."
"If I stay I must send home the carriage, and then no one knows what may happen if the house is without any one even to give an alarm. But I am glad to have seen you, papa. And it was good to hear you say you would burn your book for my sake. I feel ever so much better for having heard you say such splendid words."
So Rose went home, without having made any advance towards her intention; but she was strengthened and comforted by her father"s love and trust.
And she said to herself, "Perhaps I had better not be rash. I will be still, and think over things." Yet she was sensible of a singular impatience of delay. "Delay might mean so much. Her evil genius might have foreseen her effort, and resolved thus to defeat it. Harry might go with her. She might go by herself. Had she not contemplated a journey to Europe alone?" Until long after midnight she sat considering the details of her journey--the dress she ought to wear--the words she ought to say--and, alas! the possibilities of disappointment.
"No! there must be no delay," she whispered, as at last, weary with thought, she laid her head on her pillow. "I will go to-morrow, or, at any rate, on the day following." And with this determination, she fell asleep.
Just in the gray light before the dawning, she leaped from her bed like one pursued. She was drenched in the sweat of terror; the very sheets which had wrapped her were wet with the unhappy dew. To the window she ran, and threw it open, and leaned far out, and looked up and down the dim, silent street, sighing heavily, and wringing her hands like a child in terror, lost and perplexed. It was strange to see her walk round the room, touch the chairs, the ornaments, lift her garments, and finally go to the mirror and peer into it at her own white face.
A few hours later she was in Woodsome, talking to Peter Van Hoosen.
Memories and fears that she could not endure were pressing her so sorely that she must needs tell them, and there seemed to be no one at once so strong and so sympathetic as Antony"s father. He was listening to her story with an almost incredulous silence, as with tears and shame-dyed cheeks, she confessed her many sins and contradictions against her husband. Peter sat with eyes cast down, but ever and anon he lifted his searching gaze to the penitent"s face; and anger and pity strove for the mastery.
"I think I was possessed of a devil," she said, and she looked hopelessly at Peter, with the self-accusation.
"You were possessed of yourself, Rose Van Hoosen; and there is no greater mystery than to be possessed of self."
"I know. I never cared for Antony"s happiness. It was always what I wanted, and what I thought. That is the reason I must go and tell him how sorry I am."
"You must go further and higher than Antony. You must feel as David felt when he cried out to G.o.d, "Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned; and done this evil in Thy sight." It is not Antony, but G.o.d, you will have to answer. You have lived as the fool lives. You have not remembered that every day is bringing you closer to that Great Day when this heaven and earth shall pa.s.s away like a burning scroll. Then Rose, you yourself will have to tell what you have done with the love and the time and the money that have been loaned you. If G.o.d sent you away from His presence forever, how could you bear it?"
An awful fear came into her eyes; she was white as death, and she trembled visibly.
"I have been where G.o.d is not," she said, in a whisper full of horror.
"I was there this morning. I was not dreaming. I was there. I was in the Land of Evil Spirits."
Peter bent forward, and took her hand between his hands, and said:
"Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me."
"There was no G.o.d in that Land of the Shadow of h.e.l.l. It was desolation unutterable, and the light of it was darkness. I saw nothing but bare black mountains, and dead pits of black water, and wretched huts, wherein the evil ones crouched and crawled. There was a dreadful smell everywhere, I could not escape from it; and it was worse than all the other horrors. And I knew that it came from dead and dying souls and putrid sins and I tried to hide in caves, or climb the dark mountains, but I could not get beyond its sickening influence. I can not understand. Can you?"
"I think so, Rose. No sense we have is more closely connected with the sphere of the soul than the sense of smell. If it is a direct avenue for the soul"s approach to G.o.d, may it not lead also the other way? It is certain that because of its far-reaching power over the deep things, and the hidden things of the heart, the Bible is full of images appealing to this very sense. I can understand why the Land of the Evil Ones has the odor of death unto death."
"I tried in vain to flee from it, for I could not move fast. Some Power seemed to be dragging me slowly down; a Power like a huge loadstone, patient, because it was sure of me, and therefore able to wait. I knew prayer could help me; but I could not pray. Suddenly I saw an angel, very tired, and scarce moving her wings in the black air. I knew it was my Guardian Angel. Her eyes were full of pity, and she seemed so loth to leave me. Then in an awful terror I stretched out my hands, and called to her; and so calling, I came back to myself. And I flew to my window and looked out, and I touched all the things in my room, for I wanted to be sure that I was still alive; and as I dressed I said continually, "Thank G.o.d! thank G.o.d!" I must go to Antony and tell him how sorry I am; then perhaps G.o.d will forgive me.
Will you go with me to Antony?"