"And yet--and yet--" thought he, "if Heaven might grant her to me--": and the heaven above him seemed like bra.s.s, and the wish like a prayer gone mad.

CHAPTER XX.

Sophia had lived on through a few more quiet days; and now she knew that the problem to which she had set herself was not that one pleasantly remote from her inmost self, as to where her duty lay in helping on an ideal social state, but another question, that beside the first seemed wholly common and vulgar, one that tore from her all glamours of romantic conception, so that she sat, as it were, in a chamber denuded of all softness and beauty, face to face with her own pride. And so l.u.s.ty was this pride she had deemed half-dead that beside it all her former enthusiasms seemed to fade into ghostly nothings.

At first she only determined, by all the chivalrous blood that ran in her veins, to continue her kindness to the Trenholmes. She foresaw a gust of unpopularity against them, and she saw herself defending their interests and defying criticism. In this bright prospect the brothers were humbly grateful and she herself not a little picturesque in generous patronage. It was a delightful vision--for an hour; but because she was nearer thirty than twenty it pa.s.sed quickly. She touched it with her knowledge of the world and it vanished. No; social life could not be changed in a day; it would not be well that it should be. Much of the criticism that would come in this case would be just; and the harsher blows that would be dealt could not be stayed nor the unkindness defied; even in the smaller affairs of life, he who would stand by the wronged must be willing to suffer wrong. Was she ready for that? The longer she meditated, the more surely she knew that Alec Trenholme loved her. And when she had meditated a little longer--in spite of the indignation she had felt at the bare suggestion--she knew that she loved him.

The fine theories of universal conduct in which she had been indulging narrowed themselves down to her own life and to sternest, commonest reality. Christianity is never a quality that can be abstracted from the individual and looked upon as having duties of its own.

She fought against the knowledge that she liked him so well; the thought of being his wife was the thought of a sacrifice that appalled her. A convent cell would not have appeared to her half so far removed from all that belongs to the pride of life; and lives there anyone who has so wholly turned from that hydra-headed delight as not to shrink, as from some touch of death, from fresh relinquishment? Her pulses stirred to those strains of life's music that call to emulation and the manifold pomps of honour; and, whatever might be the reality, in her judgment the wife of Alec Trenholme must renounce all that element of interest in the world for ever. Our sense of distinction poises its wings on the opinion of men; and, as far as she had learnt this opinion, a saint or a nun (she knew it now, although before she had not thought it) had honourable part in life's pageantry, but not the wife of such as he. The prospect in her eyes was barren of the hope that she might ever again have the power to say to anyone, "I am better than thou."

It did not help her that at her initiation into the Christian life she had formally made just this renunciation, or that she had thought that before now she had ratified the vow. The meaninglessness of such formulas when spoken is only revealed when deepening life reveals their depths of meaning. She asked, in dismay, if duty was calling her to this sacrifice by the voice of love in her heart. For that Love who carries the crown of earthly happiness in his hand was standing on the threshold of her heart like a beggar, and so terrible did his demand seem to her that she felt it would be easy to turn him away.

"I," she said to herself, "I, who have preached to others, who have discoursed on the vanity of ambition--this has come to teach me what stuff my glib enthusiasm is made of. I would rather perjure myself, rather die, rather choose any life of penance and labour, than yield to my own happiness and his, and give up my pride."

She arrayed before her all possible arguments for maintaining the existing social order; but conscience answered, "You are not asked to disturb it very much." Conscience used an uncomfortable phrase--"You are only asked to make yourself of no reputation." She cowered before Conscience. "You are not even asked to make yourself unhappy," continued Conscience; and so the inward monitor talked, on till, all wearied, her will held out a flag of truce.

Most women would have thought of a compromise, would have, said, "Yes, I will stoop to the man, but I will raise him to some more desirable estate"; but such a woman was not Sophia Rexford. She scorned love that would make conditions as much as she scorned a religion that could set its own limits to service. For her there was but one question--Did Heaven demand that she should acknowledge this love? If so, then the all-ruling Will of Heaven must be the only will that should set bounds to its demand.

In the distress of her mind, however, she did catch at one idea that was, in kind, a compromise. She thought with relief that she could take no initiative. If Alec Trenholme asked her to be his wife--then she knew, at last she knew, that she would not dare to deny the voice at her heart--in the light of righteousness and judgment to come, she would not dare to deny it. But--ah, surely he would not ask! She caught at this belief as an exhausted swimmer might catch at a floating spar, and rested herself upon it. She would deal honourably with her conscience; she would not abate her kindliness; she would give him all fair opportunity; and if he asked, she would give up all--but she clung to her spar of hope.

She did not realise the extent of her weakness, nor even suspect the greatness of her strength.

CHAPTER XXI.

Robert Trenholme had not told his brother that he had made his confession when he took tea with all the women. He knew that in such cases difference and separation are often first fancied and then created, by the self-conscious pride of the person who expects to be slighted. He refrained from making this possible on Alec's part, and set himself to watch the difference that would be made; and the interest of all side-issues was summed up for him in solicitude to know what Miss Rexford would do, for on that he felt his own hopes of her pardon to depend.

When he found, the day after Bates's departure, that Alec must seek Miss Rexford to give Eliza's message, he put aside work to go with him to call upon her. He would hold to his brother; it remained to be seen how she would receive them together.

That same afternoon Sophia went forth with Winifred and the little boys to gather autumn leaves. When the two brothers came out of the college gate they saw her, not twenty yards away, at the head of her little troop. Down the broad road the cool wind was rushing, and they saw her walking against it, outwardly sedate, with roses on her cheeks, her eyes lit with the sunshine. The three stopped, and greeted each other after the manner of civilised people.

Trenholme knew that the change that any member of the Rexford family would put into their demeanour could not be rudely perceptible. He set no store by her greeting, but he put his hand upon his brother's shoulder and he said:

"This fellow has news that will surprise you, and a message to give.

Perhaps, if it is not asking too much, we may walk as far as may be necessary to tell it, or," and he looked at her questioningly, "would you like him to go and help you to bring down the high boughs?--they have the brightest leaves."

"Will you come and help us gather red leaves?" said Sophia to Alec.

She did not see the grat.i.tude in the elder brother's eyes, because it did not interest her to look for it.

"And you?" she said to him.

"Ah, I" (he held up the cane with which he still eased the weight on one foot), "I cannot walk so far, but perhaps I will come and meet you on your return," and he pleased himself with the idea that she cared that he should come.

He went into his house again. His heart, which had lately been learning the habit of peace, just now learned a new lesson of what joy might be.

His future before him looked troublous, but the worst of his fears was allayed. He had loved Sophia long; to-day his love seemed multiplied a thousandfold. Hope crept to his heart like a darling child that had been in disgrace and now was forgiven.

The others went on down the road.

Alec told his news about Eliza as drily as facts could be told. If he touched his story at all with feeling, it was something akin to a sneer.

"She'll get him on to the track of prosperity now she's taken hold, Miss Rexford," said he. "Mr. and Mrs. Bates will be having a piano before long, and they will drive in a 'buggy.' That's the romance of a settler's life in Canada."

When they had left that subject Sophia said, "Now he is gone, are you going away?"

"Yes; in a day or two. I've fixed nothing yet, because Robert seems to have some unaccountable objection to getting rid of me just at present; but I shall go."

"It is very fine weather," she said.

"There is too much glare," said he.

"You are surely hard to please."

"What I call fine weather is something a man has something in common with. If one were a little chap again, just leaving school for a holiday, this would be a glorious day, but--what _man_ has spirits equal to" (he looked above) "this sort of thing."

His words came home to Sophia with overwhelming force, for, as they went on, touching many subjects one after another, she knew with absolute certainty that her companion had not the slightest intention of being her suitor. If the sunny land through which she was walking had been a waste place, in which storm winds sighed, over which storm clouds muttered, it would have been a fitter home for her heart just then. She saw that she was to be called to no sacrifice, but she experienced no buoyant relief. He was going away; and she was to be left. She had not known herself when she thought she wanted him to go--she was miserable.

Well, she deserved her misery, for would she not be more miserable if she married him? Had she not cried and complained? And now the door of this renunciation was not opened to her--he was going away, and she was to be left.

Very dull and prosaic was the talk of these two as they walked up the road to that pine grove where the river curved in, and they turned back through that strip of wilderness between road and river where it was easy to be seen that the brightest leaf posies were to be had.

Nearest the pines was a group of young, stalwart maple trees, each of a different dye--gold, bronze, or red. It was here that they lingered, and Alec gathered boughs for the children till their hands were full. The noise of the golden-winged woodp.e.c.k.e.r was in the air, and the call of the indigo bird.

Sophia wandered under the branches; her mind was moving always. She was unhappy. Yes, she deserved that; but he--he was unhappy too; did he deserve it? Then she asked herself suddenly if she had no further duty toward him than to come or go at his call. Did she dare, by all that was true, to wreck his life and her own because she would not stoop to compel the call that she had feared?

Humility does not demand that we should think ill of ourselves, but that we should not think of ourselves at all. When Sophia lost sight of herself she saw the gate of Paradise. After that she was at one again with the sunshine and the breeze and the birds, with the rapture of the day and the land, and she ceased to think why she acted, or whether it was right or wrong. The best and worst hours of life are in themselves irresponsible, the will hurled headlong forward by an impulse that has gathered force before.

And what did she do? The first thing that entered her mind--it mattered not what to her. The man was in her power, and she knew it.

When the children's arms were full and they had gone on homeward down a pathway among lower sumac thickets, Alec turned and saw Sophia, just as stately, just as quiet, as he had ever seen her. So they two began to follow.

Her hand had been cut the day before, and the handkerchief that bound it had come off. Demurely she gave it to him to be fastened. Now the hand had been badly cut, and when he saw that he could not repress the tenderness of his sympathy.

"How could you have done it?" he asked, filled with pain, awed, wondering.

She laughed, though she did not mean to; she was so light-hearted, and it was very funny to see how quickly he softened at her will.

"Do not ask me to tell you how low we Rexfords have descended!" she cried, "and yet I will confess I did it with the meat axe. I ought not to touch such a thing, you think! Nay, what can I do when the loin is not jointed and the servant has not so steady a hand as I? Would you have me let papa grumble all dinner-time--the way that you men do, you know?"

The little horror that she had painted for him so vividly did its work.

With almost a groan he touched the hand with kisses, not knowing what he did; and looking up, frightened of her as far as he could be conscious of fear, he saw, not anger, but a face that fain would hide itself, and he hid it in his embrace.