"If you are willing to stay, sir, there is no one I should like so well."

"It is not often you allow yourself in anything so gracious as that. I will stay with pleasure. But Miss Emerson says I must entertain you--I must be agreeable. Now, though I dare not, for my life, disobey anything so blackeyed and imperious, still I haven't the first idea how to proceed, and unless you give me a hint, I am certain I shall fail. What shall I talk about? What do young ladies like, literature or gossip--people or things?"

"My tastes haven't changed, Mr. Rutledge; you used to find no difficulty in talking to me--at least, I never supposed it cost you much effort, and you always succeeded in entertaining me; so if that is honestly your object to-night, I do not think you need be at a loss."

"What did I use to talk about, when I amused you, if ever I was so happy? If you would give me a suggestion"----

He turned his eyes full on me, as I answered: "When you first used to talk to me, you seemed to think me a very foolish, frightened child, and were very kind and gentle. Then, after you had found out I was old enough to understand you, and clever enough to appreciate you, you used to talk to me about your travels, and the people you had met, the countries you had seen. Sometimes you would talk to me about books, and make me tell you what ones I liked, and after you were convinced, I was prejudiced and enthusiastic enough to make it worth your while to oppose me, you would amuse yourself by contradicting and thwarting me. Then you would suddenly change and be kind--oh! so kind!--and treat me as if I were fit to be your friend and your companion; you would tell me about the world that I had only dreamed of then; you warned me of its danger, its heartlessness and treachery; you counselled me, and talked as if you really cared what became of me; you told me the world was full of coldness and unkindness, but oh! you did not tell me half you might have told me about that. Then, sometimes--not often--you would tell me some slight thing about yourself; you looked sterner and colder than ever when you did; your eye would flash, and your lip would curl--some unseen chain would gall you when you thought of the Past; something that came with its memory humbled you, you hated it, you hated yourself; but I liked you--I liked you better then than when you were talking to please me, or to instruct me, or to please or instruct other people; you were involuntary then--you were yourself--and though I liked you in those days whatever you did, I liked you best of all when you talked of yourself."

"Then I will talk of myself now; I have promised to entertain you, and you have told me how to do it. They are dancing in the parlor now, and the music and the laughing will screen us from them; you can listen at your ease, and be entertained without fear of interruption. I believe you when you say you like to hear me talk of myself, because it pleases me to believe it, and men, you know, will go great lengths to believe anything that suits their vanity.

"But first, you will not mind anything that I may say--you will not shrink and blush? Remember, it is a man's life, and not a woman's, that you are to hear about--a dark life, and not a prosperous one--and to make it vivid to you, I must show you the blackness of the shadow and the depth of the gloom; you must know what the trial has been before you can know what grim strength was needed to endure it--what coldness and sternness, as you call them, to keep down the pain within. You are a child no longer; you know something of what suffering is, so I can tell you with some hope of pity, if you will listen and not be dainty--if you will forget all about yourself, and think only of what you hear. Can you be such a listener? Such only are worthy of confidence. I never found one before, but I will try you. Do you hear the rumbling of that distant thunder? How strangely it mixes with the music across the hall! There is a storm coming up; we cannot go home for two hours yet, and they will not tire of dancing even then"----

There was a keen, piercing flash of lightning.

"Does it make you nervous? You used to be afraid in thunder-storms."

"I don't mind the lightning any more than the flare of the candle to-night, Mr. Rutledge. Why don't you go on with what you promised to tell me?"

"I will not begin by telling you about my childhood; a happy childhood is a thing to be enjoyed once in reality, and forever in memory, but not to be talked about; no one but the man himself can see the least pathos or deliciousness in the details and recollections of his nursery days; to others they are weariness and folly; to him they are the sweetest pages in his memory; but he must not hope to find there is any other than himself who can see any interest in them. Perhaps his mother, if G.o.d spares her to him--perhaps the woman whom he has taught to love him, and to whom he is all the world--perhaps his young children, before they have learned their perfect lesson of egotism and selfishness--may listen as if the story were their own; but I have found no one to whom I could be egotistical and not be wearisome; I have found that most people like to hear about themselves, and I have not thwarted them.

"But you shall hear of what I have told no one else."

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

----"Of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: 'It might have been!"

Whittier.

And I did hear it; I heard during the slow gathering and heavy bursting of that summer storm, the story about which my imagination had been so busy, and of which I had so longed to be a.s.sured; I heard from Mr.

Rutledge's own lips, of his happy childhood, his hopeful boyhood. He described himself as he was then, as if he were describing some one else, some one who had died and left the light of day; for it was nothing else but death that pa.s.sed upon him, a death to hope and faith, a death to tenderness and trust, a death to all but stern endurance and sufferings that make life worse than death. If he had not been just so enthusiastic and full of hope, he could not have been so dashed down to despair; but because he had never dreamed that there could be anything but truth and purity and honor in those he loved, just so cruel and fatal was the awakening from the dream. He told me of his brother, the handsome Richard: with a soul too refined and delicate for the rough world he had to do with, a temperament that recoiled with pain from all that was coa.r.s.e or common, a pride that was so intuitive that it could hardly be overcome, so unconscious that it could hardly be called a sin, so fostered that he, at least, was not to blame for it. To him it was not matter of exultation that he was rich and well-born and high-bred; it was only his native air, his place in life, his vital breath, without which he must have died. Never overbearing and imperious, his reserve saved him from familiarity, his gentleness from aversion. Ah! Rutledge had then a worthy heir, n.o.ble, handsome, high-toned enough to fill even his proud father's ambition.

And then he told me, and it cost him a keen pang to speak her name, of Alice, his beautiful sister; of the adoration with which he had looked up to her, the pride which every one of the narrow home circle felt in her loveliness and grace. He had believed she was almost an angel; he had never looked above her for purity and truth, and in one cruel moment he had to learn that she was false and sinful, that she had fallen below the lowest, that "she had mixed her ancient blood with shame," that the darling and pride of every heart was now the disgrace and anguish of every heart.

The story that he told me did not sound at all like this; I could no more tell it as he told it, than I could paint one of Church's pictures.

I could, perhaps, describe, so as to make intelligible, the picture or the story, but it would be as impossible for me to render faithfully, in every delicate tone and touch, in the masterly strength and vivid power, the one as the other.

I listened with every pulse; my heart stopped, spellbound, before that story; not even my own life could have had more interest to me than his; and vaguely--but oh! how bitterly--it began to dawn upon me, that once I might have had the power to have made the past forgotten in the present, to have won him to believe in love and truth once more; that in my fatal choice I had not doomed myself alone, that three souls, instead of my own sinning one, were writhing now under the curse of my folly and deceit. Alice Rutledge's name had perished forever from the records of the good and pure; where would mine be, when the secrets of all hearts should be revealed? Not among the good, with a lie on my lips, a life-long hypocrisy to be carried in my heart; not among the pure, cherishing yet this unconquered pa.s.sion, while in the sight of Heaven I was breaking a vow only less sacred than the one I must make before the altar. But it is her story and not mine I am to tell.

If human love and care could suffice to keep any soul, under the pressure of a strong temptation, Alice Rutledge might have been safe; yet environed and hemmed in with affection, she fell; honor, pride, filial love, were powerless to keep her back. The only principle that can save man or woman in the hour when the powers of darkness have leave to try them, she lacked, and lacking that, fell hopelessly from the earthly paradise which alone she had lived for or regarded. The fair, frail daughter of a G.o.dless house, the child whose glance had never been directed to anything higher than virtue and honor, to whom no principle more binding than that of morality had been taught, whose frailty had never been strengthened by any aid more powerful and enduring than the yearning fondness of the hearts that doted on her; what wonder that when the powers of h.e.l.l a.s.saulted her, no strength could stand against them that was not divine, no work stand in that day, that was of wood, or hay, or stubble, no work that had not Heaven's own seal to resist the devouring flame!

All that the wit and knowledge and virtue of man could teach, Alice Rutledge had been taught; but the only lesson that could have done her any good in that day, she had never learned. The lesson that she should have lisped at her mother's knee, that should have been implanted before any earthly desire had taken root in her flexile soul, had never been given to her. The "sign to angels known," had not marked her baby-forehead, holy hands had not overshadowed her before the strife began, all her goodness and strength were of the earth, earthy, and the prince of this world won an easy victory over them. When temptation came, it found her careless, secure. How was it a possible thing for her to fall? Why need she renounce what was but a pleasant dream, as innocent as it was secret. She was promised to one whom she had meant to love; she had, perhaps, loved him at first, but with a shade too much of awe to make it perfect love, and the weakness and timidity of her nature made her shrink involuntarily from what was higher and stronger, and cling to what was lower, and nearer to her own level. And so she yielded, little by little, to the fascinations of an intercourse that, had she listened to it, even her own weak heart would have told her was a sin. She was bound by betrothal, her tempter was bound by marriage; if the glamour of destruction had not been over her already, she could have seen the madness of such an intimacy, the sure perdition that such a violation of right, even in thought, must lead to. But it was the very impossibility and security that ensnared her, that blinded those around her. Richard's dearest friend, the most desired and welcome guest at her father's house, the most accomplished and refined gentleman she knew, how could she see in him the traitor that he was? She, almost a child in years and inexperience, and he, a man of the world, with the world's worst principles, and withal, so wily, so eloquent, so impa.s.sioned, was it strange that before she dreamed of danger, she was snared beyond redemption. The destruction of her principles had been so gradual, the instilling of his so artful, that the work was nearly done before the lost girl saw her peril. Then, no one can tell the struggles of her tempted soul; duty and reason against sinful love and guilty pa.s.sion; but who can question for a moment which way the balance turned? There was none of whom she could ask counsel. She had deceived and outraged all she loved, so shamefully, by the very thought of what now tempted her, that it was worse than death to betray in the least her misery. The one to whom at last she turned, was the one least fitted to direct her; her companion, governess and friend was only less worldly and thoughtless than her charge; she loved her with all her heart, would have sacrificed anything to serve her; she never dreamed of the danger she was in till too late; terrified, she strove to bring her back to reason, but in vain. Alice's was the stronger will, and she weakly yielded to it, and became the reluctant tool in the hands of the seducer.

In one awful moment it burst upon the proud old man that his name was branded with disgrace, his daughter fled, his love outraged, his honor stabbed a deadly blow; all that he had lived for lost; all that he had hoped for blighted.

In that household there was such amazement and wrath and desolation as are horrible but to imagine. Love outraged most cruelly, friendship betrayed most vilely, all that was pure turned into sin, all that was true turned false. In one short hour, the pride of that unG.o.dly home was humbled to the dust, its fair name stained with shame, its very life's blood oozing from that cruel wound. "Therefore revenge became it well?"

Therefore the agony that nothing else could allay, should seek to dull itself in vengeance, should hunt to the very death the shameless traitor? Should hurl blighting curses on the head of her who had brought this ruin on her home?

But G.o.d stayed the impotent wrath of man. He took the vengeance that alone is His, in His own hands; the curses that the outraged father called down on his erring child, cl.u.s.tered, a black and ghastly troop, around his own dying bed, and shut off the last ray of mercy. Before a hand could be raised to deal vengeance, death struck down the father, and but few days and nights of anguish and solicitude had pa.s.sed before his heir lay dead beside him, and the life of the boy who alone of all survived, lay trembling in the balance. For a long while it seemed uncertain whether G.o.d had not forgotten the race that had so long forgotten Him; whether He had not turned away His face, and they should all die and turn again to their dust; whether the memory of them should not be rooted off of the earth, and their name perish from among the children of men. For a long while, the boy lay between life and death, but when at last life conquered, and he came back to the changed and desolated world, it was with but little grat.i.tude for the boon that had been granted him, with almost a loathing of the life that had been spared to him.

It is not necessary to the purposes of my story nor will it further its elucidation, to repeat the history of the years that followed. It is sufficient that they were years of misanthropy and misery, almost of infidelity. Travel, change, society, neither attracted nor soothed him; the life he led it suited no one to join him in, and in the midst of the world he lived unmolested by it and regardless of it. At last--what need to tell when or how--there came an awakening; he saw the truth he had been so long shutting his eyes from, he saw G.o.d's mercy and his own sin, and rousing from his apathy he bent himself to the work that lay before him. We know what that work was, and how well he fulfilled it; from the misanthropic recluse, he became the Christian. I knew all this, and much more, that he did not tell me.

"The story has been too long already, I will leave you now," said Mr.

Rutledge with a sudden change of voice; "I have finished my office of _raconteur_, you have listened well; almost I could swear to having seen a tear glisten in your eye, almost I could take my oath you have not once thought of yourself and your young lady sensibilities, but have been absorbed to forgetfulness of them all by the story of one who is almost a stranger to you, quite a stranger, indeed, you said not long ago."

"I did not mean that when I said it, Mr. Rutledge, I repented of it a minute afterward. And I want to say to you now--I am sorry from my heart for that, and the many other hypocrisies you know I have been guilty of.

You don't know all, you would despise me if you did; if you knew how cowardly I have been, and how deceitful. I have not meant it; I have said a hundred things that I have cried for afterward, that I never would have said if I had not been too proud and too angry to have controlled myself. But believe me, I am miserably sorry now. Will you forgive me?"

He leaned forward for a moment on the table, and shading his eyes with his hand, fixed them on my face. "Forgive you?" he said in a low, clear tone, "Forgive you? no--not yet--you must not ask it yet! When I have conquered _my_ pride and _my_ pa.s.sion, you may ask me to forgive you, but not now--not now!"

"Aunt Edith, do you want me?" I faltered, starting up. Mrs. Churchill moved from where she stood beside the doorway and entered the room.

"You have been absent a long while," she said in a soft voice, "we have been wondering where you were. Mr. Rutledge, how have you managed to amuse my listless and _distraite_ young niece so long? Have you been studying a map of France with her, or poring over a chart of the Atlantic? For such pursuits are all, I believe, that have any interest for her now."

"Miss Emerson, who sent me to entertain the young lady, did not confine me to those topics," he answered, rising, "and I have ventured to go beyond them. She will pardon me, I know, if I have not succeeded in my attempts to interest her." And Mr. Rutledge bowed and withdrew.

"I have a few words to say to you," said Mrs. Churchill, with m.u.f.fled hatred in her low tones. "You have withdrawn yourself from my confidence, and from my affections; but remember, you cannot withdraw yourself from my authority. It is perfectly useless for you to attempt to deceive me; from the first night you came under my roof, I have known you thoroughly. You are a care and a vexation to me daily; your coquetry, your vanity, your boldness, I have hitherto tried to see unmoved, knowing I was unable to influence you; but where influence fails, authority may step in. And authority, for your own sake, for the sake of the man you are engaged to, for my own dignity, I shall use to prevent the recurrence of such evenings as this."

"The authority you hold, Aunt Edith," I returned with a steadiness of tone and manner she was quite unprepared for, "the authority you hold over me, I beg to remind you, is very limited. Don't fancy I am unacquainted with the circ.u.mstances that have placed me in your care. I know every word of my mother's will, I have known it from a child. My fortune is placed at my own disposal after I am eighteen; till then I am recommended--_recommended_, Aunt Edith, to your care, and naturally devolve on you, but I know that I am free: I know that after next December I am my own mistress, and till that time, no one has any right but that of seniority and affection to dictate to me. So we understand each other, Aunt Edith, you say rightly, and why waste words? You cannot influence me; you have lost the only power you ever had over me. I came to you an affectionate, trusting child; you did not care to win my affection, you took no pains to make me trust in you. I threatened unconsciously to interfere in the plans you had for Josephine, and you, without a scruple, sacrificed me to her: you sacrificed my happiness, my peace, to the ambition you had for her; you have misled, thwarted, tortured me to make the path clear for her; you have done what in the sight of heaven will one day be a millstone round your neck to sink you to perdition! Oh! if I had but seen it all as clearly a few short weeks ago, as now I see it, you would not have had your triumph as near as you think you have it now! But because I was a foolish, trusting child, it was not hard to deceive me; because I looked to you for direction, you had the power to mislead me; because I had strong feelings it was all the easier to ensnare me. Let me say what I have to say now; this is our reckoning--I never want to have another explanation; we have understood each other perfectly since we came to Rutledge, this plain talk we scarcely needed, and let us end it. As long as I can endure to stay with you, just so long will I stay, and not a moment beyond it. As long as I must stay, you must bear the vexation and the trial of my presence, but you may be sure, your release will not be very distant. I am not bound to you nor to your children by one tie of grat.i.tude or affection, and those that restrain me of custom and convenience, don't cost much in the snapping!"

"All this tirade has wandered very far of the mark. I began to give you a caution and a command which my duty required me to give, and your duty required you to heed; and you fly angrily off on some unmeaning invectives which are very harmless because of their unmeaningness; if it were not the case, I should call you sternly to account for your words, and make you retract them."

"Unmeaning or not, Aunt Edith, they are sown in your memory, and nothing can root them out. They will bear bitter fruit some day, I promise you.

They will yield a rich harvest, when the early growths of ambition and worldliness have died down, and left you only the withered husks and stalks of remorse and regret to satisfy your hunger withal. And now unless you want to publish this, will you go into the parlor and let me follow you?"

"I have something more to say to you"----

"There comes Miss Emerson; if it is anything that will bear being said before her, pray continue."

"Ah! Is it not delightful!" cried our pretty hostess. "Mr. Rutledge and the other gentlemen have been out, holding a post-mortem examination of the storm, and they have decided that it has left so black a state of heavens and so wet a state of roads that it is impossible to think of your going home to-night, so you will have to stay till to-morrow, _bongre malgre_. And I am so charmed. Ah! _you_ are not, though, I see plainly enough, you want to go back to that tiresome Rutledge. What can it be, Mrs. Churchill? What is the matter with her. Though to be sure, the pale cheeks are gone now; I think I prescribed well. Mr. Rutledge must have said something very exciting all the while he was in here, to have given you such a bright color and such flashing eyes."

"A very little excitement brings that result, Miss Emerson. She has not learned much self-possession or self-control yet; we must excuse her."

"Oh! by all means. I am only glad she looks brighter than when I left her. But will you come into the parlor? Miss Josephine is going to give us one more song before we go to our rooms."

Josephine's song was gay and brilliant, her voice was rich and full, but they failed to drive the dreary echo of Victor's last words out of my mind, that deepened and strengthened as the night advanced: "You shall be freed! Be sure you shall be freed!" The lights shone clear and soft on the gay groups that peopled the rooms around me; but instead of them, I seemed to see, far nearer and more distinct, the deserted chamber at Rutledge, where the guilt of the Past and the crime of the Present, kept awful watch together.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.