Originally published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine (Harper and Brothers) vol.18 #103 (Dec 1858).
She stands in the shadow of the great elm upon the lawn, and flakes of sunshine, sifting through the pendant branches, fall like tremulous gleaming gems upon her fair head with its masses of braided hair. She is petite, delicate as a fairy, with smiling lips, and blue eyes that laugh when her lips are still, and a quickly-changing, expressive face, that reflects every phase of feeling, every turn of thought, and restless hands that flutter like white butterflies over each object of desire, and feet that, even in her sleep, move unconsciously with the dancing happiness of her young life.
From the spot where she stands the lawn slopes downward, bordered by a thicket of acacia trees, and lilacs, and wild roses, which guard the little villa from the intrusive gaze of boatmen and pleasure-seekers upon the river. Yes, nearly opposite the elm-tree two large willows, leaning outward, dip their pendant branches in the stream when the ocean tides come, lifting it up to the level of the greensward; and through the space between them the eye ranges outward over the smooth water that throws back the sunshine like a mirror, and keeps all its secret depths unlighted—past the sails of yacht and wherry gliding to and fro—past the gay steamboats with their floating world of travelers—past the forest of masts gathered around the piers—up to the great city with its acres of stone and brick piled upward, and its spires that lift themselves into the sky.
From this distance, these houses and towers which wall the horizon look not unlovely; for the sunshine touches every thing with a tender, golden light, and the few fleecy clouds visible in the fathomless blue air seem like white doves of peace floating with wings outspread in benediction alike over the calm fields and the unreposing city, with its seething, struggling human life.
But the intent gaze of the young girl beneath the elm-tree brings to her mind little thought of field or city, or of the flashing waters flowing in from the sea. She is looking between the willows for a little boat which her eyes alone could certainly distinguish in the distance, and though she knows he will surely come that way, she watches none the less with a vague idea that her watching brings him more rapidly; and with intervals of dreamy reverie, wherein her eyes, half-vailed by their drooping lids, shine with a softened light, and her lips glow like wet coral as they part in a musing smile. For Alice Girdler is seventeen to-day, and in two more days she will be a bride.
Of what is she thinking as she stands there, her white arms half embracing the marble Fawn she leans upon? Is there any thought in her mind of woman's duty and destiny? Does she revolve the great problem of life as she speculates concerning the future, and, pondering those solemn words of the marriage-service, stand reverently before the great gate she is about to enter, and ask herself if she is fitted to take charge of another's welfare, and to meet the change and trial which is not withheld from the happiest life?
No. Alice Girdler is yet a child, and she lives in the present only, and plays with the delicious happiness of love as a child with a new toy. Never a wish of hers can she remember to have lost ungratified; never a trouble has come to her, but some quick hand relieved her from its pressure, and gave her a new joy instead. Wealth, and love, and pleasure have ministered to her since first her blue eyes opened in this world of ours, and no solemn angels of affliction have even for a little space closed the doors upon gayety and worldliness, and bade her learn the true meaning of this life or the mysteries of the life beyond.
But now through the trees which hide the house behind her come a troop of maidens, sisters, cousins, friends, who have gathered here to make merry over the bridal. They move with elegance and grace, and their jest and laugh at finding her watching her lover's approach are low-toned and restrained, not to transgress the proprieties in which they have been educated. She replies gayly, and a blush mantles her cheek. The little boat is near the willow gateway, and two gentlemen, resting upon their oars, look up the vista with a smile of admiration at the picturesque effect of those airy, graceful forms grouped upon the green, beneath the elm-tree shadows, around the marble Fawn.
"Stay—let us watch them a moment. See Alice! She has such vivacity and such refinement of manner when she is talking, that looking at her is only less delightful than listening to her."
"Ah, Laurance! what it is to be twenty-five, and in love!" replied the elderly gentleman to whom this enthusiastic address had been made; and a half sigh breathed through the smile with which he looked at his companion.
Laurance Grey turned to his friend, his fine face flushed with exercise, and all aglow with happiness which his frank nature had no inclination to deny.
"Ah! you may well envy me," he said. "Is she not charming?"
"She is indeed—very charming."
The words would have satisfied any but a lover's sensitive ear; but that detected an inflection of the voice implying a reservation or a doubt.
"What is it I hear you keeping back?" he said, laughing. "Speak it out, mine ancient friend and Mentor; for the time for giving me advice on this subject will soon be past."
"I fear it is past already."
"Yet speak! Your advice is almost always worth hearing, though one may not want to take it to heart."
"If you will know, I was thinking what a shame it is to make that child love and marry. She should have a little more time to play with her dolls."
"Indeed, getting married shall make no difference. She shall be my doll, and I will turn the whole world into a play-house for her."
"That may do for a while; but life is before you two, and life is something more serious than a play, and the time comes when a man needs that his wife should be something more than a doll. Alice is wholly undeveloped and undisciplined. Have you wisdom, have you strength to guide her?"
"She will not need any guidance. She is full of good impulses and generous instincts."
"But that is not enough in a character so impressible as hers. What she will be in the future only time can show. Will her kindly impulses harden into fixed principles of right? Will her generous instincts become informed and moulded by the spirit of Christian self-denial? Will her sunny good-nature crystallize into a cheerful serenity that smiles beneath the darkest skies? Or is there weakness, frivolity, selfishness, in that untried heart? and will she fail in the hour of trial, and be swayed by the despotism of fashion to accept a false standard of right, a false rule of duty? Pardon these questions; for the husband is the head of the wife, and your character will influence hers—"
"Weakness! selfishness!" interrupted Laurance Grey, indignantly. "Who dares couple those words with the name of my bride? Morton, if you were not my best friend I'd throw you overboard. I won't listen to you another minute."
So saying he seized the oars, and with a few swift strokes brought the boat under the willows, where he leaped on shore. The girls were coming down the lawn to meet them, and reflection was instantly banished by the mirth of the gay party; and as Mr. Morton followed them to the house he half repented of the words he had spoken. Why should he project over their bright thoughtlessness the shadow of his own mature experience? What if they were too carelessly approaching the holy sacrament of marriage, whereof whoso partakes with a heart unpurged from selfishness and vanity perils his own soul! They loved each other, and in that love he hoped as the agent which should purify and exalt them amidst the discipline of life.
Alice was married, and, as Laurance Grey had said, there was little change in her mode of living. The days flew by velvet-footed; her house was unexceptionable in its appointments; her wardrobe excited the envy of her companions; experienced servants relieved her of every shade of care; petted and flattered, she was for three years the spoiled child of fortune. Then a reverse came suddenly; her husband was a bankrupt, and her beautiful home passed into the hands of strangers.
Mr. Morton, who resided in a distant city, heard that Laurance Grey had failed in business, his liabilities far exceeding his assets, and that his failure had caused considerable pecuniary loss to the father of his wife. It happened that, soon after the intelligence reached him, he had occasion to leave home; and while traveling, at one of the way-stations where connections are made between different trains of cars, he unexpectedly met his young friend. A cordial greeting followed; but Mr. Morton noticed, with pain, the weary, harassed, and anxious expression which immediately returned to the face he remembered so full of hope and courage.
"You heard of my misfortunes," said he, as they walked, arm in arm, down the long platform.
"I did," replied Mr. Morton; "and I wrote you the day before I left home."
"I received your letter, and thank you for your offered aid; but my late experience makes me forever forswear the use of another man's name. Hereafter I will carve out my own fortune, and stand or fall thereby."
"Spoken nobly, like yourself," said Mr. Morton, warmly. "Now tell me your plans."
"I am going to C—, where I have secured a situation as clerk. The salary is but $500 for the first two years; afterward I have a prospect of being admitted as a partner in the firm. There was nothing better for me, and I must be doing something."
"And Alice?"
An expression of deeper pain crossed the pale face of the speaker as he answered, "She remains with her father's family. Of course I could not expect her to go into exile with me."
"Did she prefer to remain behind?"
"Every body advised that she should do so, and she acquiesced. Of course it was best she should stay."
Mr. Morton spoke somewhat savagely. "Yes—of course. What God has joined let no man put asunder until the money is gone!"
"You are too severe," replied Mr. Grey. "Alice has never known care or trouble, and has not the least idea of the labor, the privation, the mortification incident to poverty. Why should she leave the home her father offered her to incur all this? I could not ask such a sacrifice."
"Laurance, I must use my old privilege, and say what I think about this. You are about to make a great mistake," said Mr. Morton, earnestly. "You leave your wife at the time when you most need the comfort of her society. You refrain from taking her into the school which Providence has plainly appointed as a means of discipline for her as well as for yourself, and thereby she will miss the nobleness and strength this lesson was intended to give. You love her with an unwise tenderness, or she loves you too little, and you both err in consenting to this arrangement. A man and his wife should never live apart when it is possible for them to be together. It is either a prolonged pain borne needlessly, or, what is worse, the death of that love which should make no sacrifice so great as that which separates them from each other. For the reason you urge—for more or less of luxury and ease—to divorce yourselves! Oh, miserable infatuation!"
"We only do what is often done," replied Mr. Grey, after a pause. "All our friends said it would be arrant selfishness in me to take Alice away from the society and the luxuries to which she has been accustomed, and subject her to such hardships simply for my own comfort in her."
"And what did Alice say?"
"Poor little thing! she was too much bewildered and overwhelmed to know what she thought. It was terribly mortifying to her—my failure—but she bore it sweetly. She never uttered an unkind word."
"I don't know why she should. You were the greatest sufferer."
"You are unjust to her," said Laurance, coldly.
"You are unjust. You do discredit to the nobleness of a true woman's nature!" exclaimed his friend. 'No wonder our ears are filled with the clamor of women for their rights, when a good man, with a loving heart, denies to a woman such a right as this. You said your wife should be a doll, and truly you put her away from you, now that play-time is over and the real business of life begins. Except in rare cases, I believe the idea of equality between man and woman has never yet been accepted by this enlightened age. Either the woman is the victim of tyranny, or she is cheated, cajoled, blinded; her judgment never brought to maturity, because never exercised upon important matters; her intellect never stimulated by finding herself an acknowledged aid in moments of perplexity. Men assume that women are weak, and then Heaven knows how much they do to make the assumption just."
"The cars are coming, and we must part here," said Laurance. "Think what you please of the wisdom of our arrangement, but exonerate Alice from all blame. She only did what was thought best."
"It is not for the best," persisted Mr. Morton. "She is young, beautiful; and with her mercurial temperament, will soon again be gay. Will she be in no danger? And with your social tastes, are you quite safe away from her? Can you support your loneliness unharmed?"
"I believe so. I shall practice the strictest economy, that I may the sooner make a home to which I can invite Alice; and the thought of her will keep me from evil."
The cars came up, and they parted.
Lights, music, the soft crush of silks, the flutter of airy gauze and lace, the low murmur of voices, fashion-toned to monotonous sweetness, and now and then the sound of rippling laughter breaking the silver stream of talk—what was there in all this to cause the heavy frown that gloomed over Mr. Morton's face as he stood apart in the shadow of a bay window and looked upon the gliding throng? Again he was a visitor in the city, and had been compelled by courtesy to attend this scene of gayety. As he stood retired from observation, surveying these busy idlers with a smile half kindly half cynical, his attention was arrested by a conversation going on near him. He knew the speakers were aware of his presence, and thereture had no reason to avoid listening. To his dismay he heard Alice Grey's name, coupled with allusions he could hardly understand, and words that implied more than met the ear. Her conduct and her character were very freely discussed, and a bet was laid regarding the issue of a flirtation then progressing.
Startled and sorrowful, he left his retreat when the pressure of the crowd allowed, and made his way slowly to the room appropriated to dancing. Pausing at the door, he saw that the floor was occupied only by a few waltzers, and as the swift, graceful forms floated by, he recognized Alice and the gentleman whose name he had just heard associated with hers. Excited by the voluptuous music and the rapid motion, she was alive only to the pleasure of the dance. Her sylph-like figure was enveloped in a cloud of lace.
"Her feet beneath her petticoat,
Like little mice, stole in and out."
Her beautiful neck and bosom, and her rounded arms, were suffused with a color delicate and warm as that which blushes in the heart of a white rose, and her face, half up-turned, with glowing lips parted and sparkling eyes, was so bewitchingly lovely that Mr. Morton groaned inwardly to think so fair an offering should have been recklessly laid upon the altar of worldliness. As he looked on some one touched his arm, and, turning, he saw an old and familiar friend. When the first greeting had passed his friend said,
"I suppose you know yonder little lady is the wife of your old friend Laurance Grey?"
"Yes. For a sensible man he did a most foolish thing in leaving that little beauty to be petted and flirted with and spoiled. She seemed warm-hearted, she seemed to love him, and yet she leaves him to bear his dark hours alone."
"Evidently she prefers the sunshine. Well, a butterfly must be a butterfly!"
"You speak in all charity," said Mr. Morton, sadly; "but just now I can not look at the matter through the medium of cool philosophy. Laurance Grey is a man of large, unselfish heart and high sense of honor. If his wife takes advantage of the one to pursue her pleasures, she should at least keep the other unharmed."
"If you have influence with your friend's wife, use it for her good. I believe she is the victim of foolish advice, and of her own gentle temper. A young creature like her can not but be gay. Others are to be blamed for placing her where gayety may lead to folly."
The crowd moving outward separated the two gentlemen, but these last words lingered in Mr. Morton's ear, and confirmed his previous resolution. Since there was no one else to do it, he determined to make one appeal to her love as a wife—to her honor as a woman. He would test her character and save her from the trouble her thoughtlessness might bring. An hour or two passed, and as late in the evening he sought an opportunity to execute this purpose, he chanced to find a small room, unobserved before, charmingly cool and quiet, with its dark green curtains and carpet relieved only by two magnificent myrtle-trees in full bloom, which stood on either side of the window. These attracted him, and as he stood a moment admiring them, he heard a low murmur of voices in the recess of the window. Then there was a rustling, as of some one rising suddenly, and a young voice, sharp and tremulous with emotion, said,
"You must not talk so to me—I will not hear it!"
"Nay—but Alice—sweet Alice!" said the other voice.
Mr. Morton was retreating, but the name arrested him. He turned, and Alice Grey seized his arm as she came out of the recess.
"Take me away," she said, in a whisper, and he felt the little hand that rested on his arm quivering with suppressed excitement, and noticed the proud, indignant glance she cast upon her late companion as they left the room. He led her to the conservatory, and when she sank into a seat sheltered from observation by a group of azalias, she burst into a momentary fit of weeping.
Mr. Morton stood looking down upon her with a grave, sad face. To his nice sense of honor it was not enough that she had repelled evil; she should not have placed herself where temptation could reach her. But when, conscious at length of his strange silence, she looked up, he felt the witchery of her youth and beauty, and in a tone kinder than his thoughts were, he said,
"May I tell you a story?"
"A story? Yes indeed; I delight in stories."
"You need not think that it relates to any one now living," he continued, after a pause. "You may consider that it belonged to the time when my hair was not gray, and my heart was more hopeful than it now is. I had a friend once who married with the highest anticipations of prosperity, the most flattering prospect of happiness. His wedded life had not numbered many years when sudden reverses swept away all his property, and the lowering aspect of commercial affairs made it necessary for him to remove to a distant city and live in painful economy. His wife was young and had never known a care, and when the crash came each member of her family spoke of her as a victim to her husband's fate, and sought, first of all things, to keep her from being incommoded. In her inexperience she naturally accepted their view of the case: her first generous impulses were stifled, and thinking of the matter chiefly as it affected her own comfort, she acquiesced in the arrangement by which her husband went alone to his new home. A while she wept and was sad; but youth is elastic, and soon she smiled again, and, with every temptation to gayety, she was borne along in the whirl of fashionable amusement unprotected by her husband's presence. Accustomed to admiration and flattery from him, it was natural her young life should miss such sweetnesses when he was gone, and she submitted to receive them from other men. Her heart, deprived of its legitimate sphere, the sanctuary of homejoys and cares, grew restless and sought peace in the external pleasures where it is never found."
A vivid blush flashed over Alice Grey's white shoulders and ran up to her brow, and her eyes were like two wells of tears. "How kindly he speaks of me!" she thought; "and yet I know he thinks I am very foolish and naughty."
Mr. Morton continued: "Meantime her husband lived alone. He was a good man, but he had overrated his strength. Slowly I perceived that his hungry heart was feeding upon itself; his frank nature was becoming cynical; he was losing faith in the existence of a pure friendship in man, or an unselfish love in woman. And as his soul thus darkened his life became less pure. He fled from his lonely chambers, uncheered by woman's presence, unadorned by her graceful skill, to take pleasure and find stimulus in society which otherwise he would never have known."
Alice blushed no more; the tears dried in her eyes; she looked up defiantly, indignantly, and interrupted the speaker.
"Say what you will of me, but not one word against Laurance. He is good; he is true. I will not hear you speak one word against him."
Mr. Morton smiled. "If my story displeases you I will pursue it no longer. But tell me—were my friends wise in living thus apart?"
"No; it is not right, it is not wise," replied Alice, passionately; "but I never realized it until this evening. It is natural for me to do as I am told, and they all said I must stay here; and now I am here I must laugh, and dance, and be gay. I can't be miserable all the time—I can't bear it. It would be selfish and mean in me to mope and pine when every body tries to make me happy; and because I seem to forget Laurance is away, they think I have forgotten, and men presume upon it—as if I could ever really care for any thing more than for him! I would go to him this minute if he would allow me."
"Would you really go? Could you be happy in a tame and quiet life? Think twice before you answer; for your husband is a poor man, and could give you few pleasures. I think you have never seen so poor a room as he occupies. I was there last week, and looking around on its homeliness and bareness, he said, with a curve of his handsome lips, 'Do you think I will ask her to come here?'"
"Ah—does he think I should mind it! Does he really think I should care so much when I had him there with me! I thought, perhaps, I should be a burden and a trouble to him, and for that reason he did not ask me. Take me to him, Mr. Morton. Papa thinks Laurance and I are two young things who do not know what is best, but he will hear your arguments. Take me to my husband, and you shall see what will make me happiest." Tears were in her beautiful eyes, but her face was all aglow with eagerness and excitement. Mr. Morton forgot that she had ever displeased him, forgot that he had ever thought Laurance Grey foolish in loving her. Her manner was childlike, her expressions ardent: now as much as ever before was she moved by impulse; yet he did not stop to think how evanescent was feeling, and how unstable was impulse. She had won his friendship, and therefore he trusted her.
Mr. Morton had the gift of persuasion. Three days after this conversation Alice had received from her father the consent so long withheld, and under Mr. Morton's care had gone to join her husband. All her early love for Laurance was roused into new life by the thought of again seeing him. She had little dread of the change of life before her. Her fancy amused itself in picturing the happiness she might enjoy in "a cottage;" and while she laughed at her own ignorance of domestic details, she took courage from Mr. Morton's assertion that it was possible to apply chemistry to cooking, and common sense to common life, in a way to obviate all difficulties.
It was a dark, chilly evening in April when they stood on the steps of the house which Laurance Grey had made his temporary home. He had not been informed of their coming, and, to make the surprise more complete, Alice insisted that she should accompany Mr. Morton to her husband's room and there await his return should he be absent. Mr. Morton had prepared her to find no elegance there; yet when the wondering landlady, with many apologies, opened to her the door of her husband's chamber she could hardly suppress an exclamation of dismay. Never had she seen an apartment so forlorn. The rusty grate contained no fire, and the untidy hearth was covered with cinders and ashes. Scanty curtains hung in the windows, the bed was made up in the uninviting manner noticeable occasionally in cheap boarding-houses, around the table the faded carpet was strewn with bits of torn letters, while on the table books and papers were piled in confusion. Alice felt like crying, but she only allowed herself to laugh. The hostess looked into her face with a suspicious glance, and said something about "poor servants," "a large family," and "Mr. Grey's way of throwing every thing on the floor."
Alice hastened to interrupt her. One glance at Mr. Morton's face as he stood regarding her had restored her courage. He should see that Laurance had a wife, a helper, and not a burden in possessing her. She turned to their irritated companion with a smile so sunny that vexation fled before it. The feminine instinct of housekeeping awoke within her. A few coaxing words to the landlady, and compliments liberally dispensed, a plan rapidly formed and as rapidly sketched to Mr. Morton, who gave it efficient aid, an hour of bustle and activity, and the chamber they had found so repelling in appearance was transformed as by the touch of a magic wand. The carpet and hearth were neatly swept, a bright fire glowed in the grate, the bed had been removed to a corner where it obtruded itself less into notice, and for lack of better curtains Alice had pinned her two large shawls over the windows, where their deep colors and heavy folds, gracefully draped, gave the room an air of comfort. The armchair was placed in the corner of the fire-place, and over it Mr. Grey's dressing-gown was thrown in a most enticing manner. The books and papers had been arranged upon the bureau, leaving the table at liberty to display a bright colored cloth, a dish of fruit, and a blooming rose-tree in a china pot. These Alice had supplied. The cost was trifling, but they were grouped artistically, and shed the glamour of their beauty over the meaner articles around.
"Truly you have to some purpose used your power to charm," said Mr. Morton, smiling as he surveyed the change.
Her face glowed as she answered the smile. Success in little things is often more gratifying than in matters which seem vastly important, and Alice possessed the rare gift of being able to seize all the pleasure the present offers and to turn away from its pain. Reared as she had been in luxury, an intuition told her how to avail herself of the most ordinary means to create around her an atmosphere of beauty and grace. There is in some youthful natures a power to live in the ideal which puts to shame the stoical endurance gained in later years from experience, and the novelty of her situation neither depressed nor discouraged her. She was a young wife, awaiting her husband, for whom she had prepared an agreeable surprise. Who will doubt that she said truly, in reply to the commendation of her friend, "I think I never was so happy in all my life as I am now. I only want to see how Laurance will look when he sees what we have done! You may go now and find him; but do be careful what you say, for I wish the surprise to he complete."
Mr. Morton's eyes rested upon her with pleasure. "Ah," he thought, "if I could charm your life so that you would always be as happy and as light of heart as now!"
Vain wish! He had arisen to prepare to go out, and as she talked gayly, he detected an unusual sound in the entry below, and heard an exclamation of surprise or fear. Without saying a word to alarm Alice he went out quickly. Four men were carrying an inanimate form slowly up stairs, and behind them the landlady stood, wringing her hands.
"What is it?" he asked, in a low voice.
It was Laurance Grey. He had been shot, and was scarcely alive.
"How did it happen?" exclaimed Mr. Morton, forgetting his caution.
In a hotel not far from his boarding-house, where he passed an hour or two each evening, he had overheard a young man reading a letter just received from New York, wherein, amidst much gossip, there was repeated the slanderous insinuations against Alice which had moved Mr. Morton to take her away from the city. The friend could not hear them unmoved. They roused the husband to fury. He sprang upon the unconscious reader. There were loud insulting words, rapid blows, shots were fired, and before any one interfered Laurance Grey had received a deadly wound. All this was told in a few blunt words. Mr. Morton heard like one in a dream, and before the story was ended a low moan, a faint sobbing groan told him that Alice also had heard. He turned to her. How would she bear this!
She neither shrieked nor fainted. She had laid her hand on his arm, and still her grasp held there when they carried her husband by her and laid him like a corpse upon the bed, while her hand grew cold and rigid, and her white face had the expression of one suddenly struck blind.
Oh it was too hard! too pitiful! He could have cursed the impulse that led him to bring her here only to endure this great trouble! He spoke to her hurried words full of a hope he did not feel; he bade her be strong and courageous, but she did not seem to hear. Her gaze wandered around the poor room she had taken such care to arrange for her husband's reception. With a bitter feeling of helplessness and despair she thought what it would be to live when he was dead, and then, with a keen pang like a sword-thrust, came the recollection that because of her folly, her imprudence, he had been thus brought low.
She started, she escaped from Mr. Morton's restraining hand, and with a wild cry she threw herself on her knees beside the bed.
"Oh, speak to me!" she moaned, as her arms were wound around her husband's neck—as her kisses were pressed upon the pallid lips that looked as if they would never again unclose. "Oh, speak to me—I am here—I am true to you—I love you! Laurance, speak to me!"
As if her voice had called him back from death the wounded man looked at her with the light of life once more kindling in his eyes—spoke her name feebly, and tried to take her in his arms; but the blood gushed anew from his wound, and he fell back, like one dying. The physician who was in attendance now interfered, and insisted Alice should leave the room; Mr. Grey's life hung on a thread, and he must not be agitated. The ball must be extracted, and if that could be done he might survive; otherwise—a professional shake of the head finished the sentence.
Alice was led from the room, but she would not leave the door. Outside its threshold she crouched, rejecting aid or solace. She heard footsteps in the chamber, she heard low, cautious tones, and now and then a groan. Oh! would it never end! How slow they were, when each minute might be his last, and she was not beside him! At length, when it seemed as if she could bear the torturing suspense no longer, the door opened, and Mr. Morton came out. She sprang to her feet and grasped his hands, looking into his face with pallid, quivering lips that could not frame the question they trembled with.
"He lives—the ball has been extracted, and he lives—but he is very weak from the loss of blood; and Alice, dear child, you can not see him until you are more calm. Go to the next room and rest. When you have slept you can better compose yourself."
Sleep! oh, mockery! As if sleep was possible to her then, when over the eyes whose lovelight had been her life might be stealing the darkness of a long, last slumber! Alice had given way to the first agony of her emotions with the abandonment of youth and an untried heart. But there was beneath that girlish exterior a strength never called forth until now, but which this hour was to prove. She had leaned back against the wall when she heard Mr. Morton's first words, and covered her face with her hands; but when, after pausing a moment, he took her arm to lead her away, she turned and looked at him, and as the lamp-light fell upon her face, he was struck with the change he saw. It was no longer a thoughtless, helpless girl he looked upon, but a woman, fair and pale, yet with a lofty and composed expression that told of self-restraint and of a power to suffer and to endure. The words he was about to repeat died on his lips.
"You are stronger than I thought," he said. "Will you trust yourself to watch with me tonight in there?"
"It is my place—you must allow it," she replied, with a mingled dignity and submission in her manner which disarmed objection. She did not notice how reverently he opened the door for her to pass in, appreciating the queen-like womanhood she had assumed; but she remembered afterward that from that hour he never used that old familiar appellation or treated her like a child.
All night they watched beside Laurance Grey, not daring to hope, but forbidding themselves to despair. Only the most assiduous care—such care as love only gives—could have stimulated the vital forces to rally for the struggle that ensued. With renewed vigor came fever, and pain, and delirium; and for days Alice had the inexpressible grief to know that her presence, her cares, were unheeded, and to hear herself called upon, conjured by every term of endearment or reproach to come to him and free her name from the scandal that stained it. It was a terrible lesson, and, in its prolonged torture, she feared sometimes that heart and brain would fail. On one such occasion, when Mr. Morton entered the chamber, he found her weeping. The hired nurse had gone away to rest, and Alice was alone.
"Oh!" she cried, "how long must this last! How can I endure it! My husband will die, and I shall have killed him! I can not, I can not bear it!"
"Dear Mrs. Grey," said her friend, slowly, with deep feeling, "there is but One who can aid us in these moments, when earthly help fails. That One holds in His hands the issues of life and death. Look to God for help."
That thought had crossed her mind before; but, alas! it was unfamiliar, and brought with it no assurance of protection and comfort. She had uttered that great name in ejaculations of distress—the instinctive cry of humanity in its utmost need, "Be pitiful, O God!"—but until this moment she had never realized what it was to call upon the Almighty as upon one present to hear. With a sudden sense of shame and penitence, she replied, "I can not—I can not do so. I have never loved or sought God in my happy hours, and will He hear me now?"
"His ear is ever open. His pity is like a mother's for her child. He knoweth our frame—He remembereth that we are dust."
"Oh, then," she cried, "then He will not try me too utterly. Pray to Him—you know Him—He is your friend—pray that He will be mine!"
Tears flowed from her eyes; feelings new and full of awe, yet strangely sweet, took possession of her heart as she listened, kneeling, while Mr. Morton prayed. His words were few and simple; but they came from lips touched with Spirit influences, through long years of such communing as made him one of those who "have power with God." In her gay and worldly life Alice had given little thought even to that external religion which feeds the hungry and clothes the naked, and joins in the ministration of public worship. She was an utter stranger to, that interior life, hidden, unnoticed, and often disbelieved by men, but which is the vital principle that keeps alive all forms—without which charity "profiteth nothing"—which vivifies human happiness with a celestial joy, and makes all human woe endurable. Of this life she now obtained a glimpse—imperfect, indeed, and soon overclouded—yet her whole soul went out toward it with a deep longing—with a cry like the cry of the famishing for bread—"O God, be merciful to me a sinner!"
Mr. Morton had come to bid her farewell. An emergency in his affairs imperatively required his presence at home; and though he left her but for a few days, and had made every possible provision for her comfort, her heart sank at the thought of being left alone among strangers. Her face revealed her emotion, and Mr. Morton was touched by the generosity that kept her from expressing it. "Laurance was right," he thought, as he recalled their conversation so long ago; "Alice is unselfish—she is devoted—she is strong—she has the germs of a noble womanhood, and her follies were but the weeds that choked their development."
Mr. Morton went away. All that morning Laurance became rapidly worse. The afternoon was dark and lowering. The sick man had fallen asleep, and his slumber was like death, so heavy and so deep. The house was still—every footfall was hushed, every voice lowered to a whisper. The doctor, the nurse, the landlady, came and went with cautious movements; and in every face Alice read the fear no one dared to speak. She sat as in a dream, and felt the minutes slide away, the hours pass on—each hour, each minute so much taken from the brief remnant left her of the life so knit to hers. She looked back through her life with a sad wonder at her former joyousness—she was so wretched now! She reviewed the past, and memory mocked her with its follies. Where had she been, what was she, that until now she had lived wholly upon superficial feelings, and had never known the depths of her own heart? Was the knowledge now too late? While she gathered glittering tinsel, had the stream of Time borne away the precious golden treasure of her life? Would Laurance die, and never know how she could love him—never learn the devotion, the self-sacrifice of which her heart now told her she was capable?
She counted the weak pulses in the hand she held; with a new and wild terror she bent to catch the feeble breath; she looked into the faces of her attendants with such pathetic entreaty that they could not endure to see the woe she felt, and, one by one, withdrew from the bedside. Twilight was gathering, and, in the dim shadow of the low chamber, her husband's face looked white and ghastly, like one already dead. She bowed her head on her clasped hands, and her heart seemed breaking with its grief and its despair.
Suddenly she remembered those words of Mr. Morton which had moved her with such power. Was there indeed One, all-powerful, who would hear her cry for aid, though her whole life had been unthankful, self-seeking, careless of His will? Ah! she was not his child; she had no right to address him as "Father;" and yet she recalled, vaguely, some words which she had heard read in church—"Yes, Lord; yet the dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from the children's table!"
There are those whom God leads to himself through flowery paths, where the thorns, if thorns there be, are hidden by roses; there are others whom He leads through rough places, around whom He must make the silence of the desert before they can hear His voice; and men have walked in a furnace, yea, seven times heated, that they might come forth purified as gold is pure.
Laurance Grey lived. Youth and a vigorous constitution triumphed over disease. He lived, and with returning health resumed the humble labors his illness had interrupted; but his wife never again left him. From that trial of her true nature Alice came forth with the dross which had hidden it utterly consumed. The keen suffering of those days cured her of thoughtlessness, of selfishness, of vanity; and her gratitude for deliverance awakened a religious trust which strengthened and developed all her nobler qualities. In the trials that came afterward, where a weak woman would have fallen, she stood firmly; where a selfish woman would have been careless of others, she showed a rare self-abnegation. She shared her husband's poverty, and lightened it of half its bitterness by a thousand graceful wiles, known only to a loving woman; and, when prosperity came, they had both learned to live for nobler aims than selfish pleasures—for a purer happiness than gold ever bought.
Some years after the scenes I have related, when Mr. Morton was an old man, and white hairs had begun to cluster among Laurance Grey's dark locks, the two, friends of a lifetime, stood upon the piazza of their Western home, and looked down into the garden where Alice was walking. She paused to throw some bits of cake to the gold fishes in a pond, and, as she did so, leaned against a statue which had been placed beneath a tree. Something in her attitude reminded the gentlemen of the evening when they saw her thus leaning against the marble Faun, on her seventeenth birthday. They looked at each other and smiled. "Do you remember?" asked Mr. Grey.
"Yes. Time has touched her lightly. One might almost imagine it was still Alice Girdler, the young bride of a boy-lover."
Mr. Grey smiled again as heanswered. "The change has indeed been chiefly of the mind and heart. I thought her perfect then; but I am conscious she has developed into a nobler type of woman than her girlhood promised. Ah, yes; the wife is dearer than the bride!"
He spoke fervently, and his cheek flushed, as his eyes again sought the quiet figure, still resting beneath the tree, unconscious of observation.
"You have a very happy home here," said Mr. Morton, after a pause.
"I have; and my life has been richly blest. Yet I can truly say I thank God most for the years that seemed sometimes in passing so full of sorrow and care; for then I learned to know the blessing a woman's love can be; and together Alice and I were taught a lesson which remained an unfailing comfort in view of the vicissitudes of human affairs—"A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth."