Moods
you doubt your ability to make his happiness. Am I not right?"
"I must say, yes."
"Then, it is scarcely necessary for me to tell you that I think this
unequal marriage would be but a brief one for you; bright at its
beginning, dark at its end. With him you would exhaust yourself in
passionate endeavors to follow where he led. He would not know this, you
would not confess it, but too late you might both learn that you were
too young, too ardent, too frail in all but the might of love, to be his
wife. It is like a woodbird mating with an eagle, straining its little
wings to scale the sky with him, blinding itself with gazing at the sun,
striving to fill and warm the wild eyrie which becomes its home, and
perishing in the stern solitude the other loves. Yet, too fond and
faithful to regret the safer nest among the grass, the gentler mate it
might have had, the summer life and winter flitting to the south for
which it was designed."
"Faith, you frighten me; you seem to see and show me all the dim
forebodings I have hidden away within myself, because I could not
understand or dared not face them. How have you learned so much? How can
you read me so well? and who told you these things of us all?"
"I had an unhappy girlhood in a discordant home; early cares and losses
made me old in youth, and taught me to observe how others bore their
burdens. Since then solitude has led me to study and reflect upon the
question toward which my thoughts inevitably turned. Concerning yourself
and your past Geoffrey told me much but Adam more."
"Have you seen him? Has he been here? When, Faith, when?"
Light and color flashed back into Sylvia's face, and the glad eagerness
of her voice was a pleasant sound to hear after the despairing accents
gone before. Faith sighed, but answered fully, carefully, while the
compassion of her look deepened as she spoke.
"I saw him but a week ago, vehement and vigorous as ever. He has come
hither often during the winter, has watched you unseen, and brought me
news of you which made Geoffrey's disclosure scarcely a surprise. He
said you bade him hear of you through me, that he preferred to come, not
write, for letters were often false interpreters, but face to face one
gets the real thought of one's friend by look, as well as word, and the
result is satisfactory."
"That is Adam! But what more did he say? How did you advise him? I know
he asked counsel of you, as we all have done."
"He did, and I gave it as frankly as to you and Geoffrey. He made me
understand you, judge you leniently, see in you the virtues you have
cherished despite drawbacks such as few have to struggle with. Your
father made Adam his confessor during the happy month when you first
knew him. I need not tell you how he received and preserved such a
trust. He betrayed no confidence, but in speaking of you I saw that his
knowledge of the father taught him to understand the daughter. It was
well and beautifully done, and did we need anything to endear him to us
this trait of character would do it, for it is a rare endowment, the
power of overcoming all obstacles of pride, age, and the sad reserve
self-condemnation brings us, and making confession a grateful healing."
"I know it; we tell our sorrows to such as Geoffrey, our sins to such as
Adam. But, Faith, when you spoke of me, did you say to him what you have
been saying to me about my unfitness to be his wife because of
inequality, and my unhappy inheritance?"
"Could I do otherwise when he fixed that commanding eye of his upon me
asking, 'Is my love as wise as it is warm?' He is one of those who
force the hardest truths from us by the simple fact that they can bear
it, and would do the same for us. He needed it then, for though instinct
was right,--hence his anxious question,--his heart, never so entirely
roused as now, made it difficult for him to judge of your relations to
one another, and there my woman's insight helped him."
"What did he do when you told him? I see that you will yet hesitate to
tell me. I think you have been preparing me to hear it. Speak out.
Though my cheeks whiten and my hands tremble I can bear it, for you
shall be the law by which I will abide."
"You shall be a law to yourself, my brave Sylvia. Put your hands in mine
and hold fast to the friend who loves and honors you for this. I will
tell you what Adam did and said. He sat in deep thought many minutes;
but with him to see is to do, and soon he turned to me with the
courageous expression which in him signifies that the fight is fought,
the victory won. 'It is necessary to be just, it is not necessary to be
happy. I shall never marry Sylvia, even if I may,'--and with that
paraphrase of words, whose meaning seemed to fit his need, he went away.
I think he will not come again either to me--or you."
How still the room grew as Faith's reluctant lips uttered the last
words! Sylvia sat motionless looking out into the sunny valley, with
eyes that saw nothing but the image of that beloved friend leaving her
perhaps forever. Well she knew that with this man to see _was_ to do,
and with a woeful sense of desolation falling cold upon her heart, she
felt that there was nothing more to hope for but a brave submission like
his own. Yet in that pause there came a feeling of relief after the
first despair. The power of choice was no longer left her, and the help
she needed was bestowed by one who could decide against himself,
inspired by a sentiment which curbed a strong man's love of power, and
made it subject to a just man's love of right. Great examples never lose
their virtue; what Pompey was to Warwick that Warwick became to Sylvia,
and in the moment of supremest sorrow she felt the fire of a noble
emulation kindling within her from the spark he left behind.
"Faith, what comes next?"
"This," and she was gathered close while Faith confessed how hard her
task had been by letting tears fall fast upon the head which seemed to
have found its proper resting-place, as if despite her courage and her
wisdom the woman's heart was half broken with its pity. Better than any
words was the motherly embrace, the silent shower, the blessed balm of
sympathy which soothed the wounds it could not heal. Leaning against
each other the two hearts talked together in the silence, feeling the
beauty of the tie kind Nature weaves between the hearts that should be
knit. Faith often turned her lips to Sylvia's forehead, brushed back her
hair with a lingering touch, and drew her nearer as if it was very
pleasant to see and feel the little creature in her arms. Sylvia lay
there, tearless and tranquil; thinking thoughts for which she had no
words, and trying to prepare herself for the life to come, a life that
now looked very desolate. Her eye still rested on the valley where the
river flowed, the elms waved their budding boughs in the bland air, and
the meadows wore their earliest tinge of green. But she was not
conscious of these things till the sight of a solitary figure coming
slowly up the hill recalled her to the present and the duties it still
held for her.
"Here is Geoffrey! How wearily he walks,--how changed and old he
looks,--oh, why was I born to be a curse to all who love me!"
"Hush, Sylvia, say anything but that, because it casts reproach upon
your father. Your life is but just begun; make it a blessing, not a
curse, as all of us have power to do; and remember that for every
affliction there are two helpers, who can heal or end the heaviest we
know--Time and Death. The first we may invoke and wait for; the last God
alone can send when it is better not to live."
"I will try to be patient. Will you meet and tell Geoffrey what has
passed? I have no strength left but for passive endurance."
Faith went; Sylvia heard the murmur of earnest conversation; then steps
came rapidly along the hall, and Moor was in the room. She rose
involuntarily, but for a moment neither spoke, for never had they met as
now. Each regarded the other as if a year had rolled between them since
they parted, and each saw in the other the changes that one day had
wrought. Neither the fire of resentment nor the frost of pride now
rendered Moor's face stormy or stern. Anxious and worn it was, with
newly graven lines upon the forehead and melancholy curves about the
mouth, but the peace of a conquered spirit touched it with a pale
serenity, and some perennial hope shone in the glance he bent upon his
wife. For the first time in her life Sylvia was truly beautiful,--not
physically, for never had she looked more weak and wan, but spiritually,
as the inward change made itself manifest in an indescribable expression
of meekness and of strength. With suffering came submission, with
repentance came regeneration, and the power of the woman yet to be,
touched with beauty the pathos of the woman now passing through the
fire.
"Faith has told you what has passed between us, and you know that my
loss is a double one," she said. "Let me add that I deserve it, that I
clearly see my mistakes, will amend such as I can, bear the consequences
of such as are past help, try to profit by all, and make no new ones. I
cannot be your wife, I ought not to be Adam's; but I may be myself, may
live my life alone, and being friends with both wrong neither. This is
my decision; in it I believe, by it I will abide, and if it be a just
one God will not let me fail."
"I submit, Sylvia; I can still hope and wait."
So humbly he said it, so heartily he meant it, she felt that his love
was as indomitable as Warwick's will, and the wish that it were right
and possible to accept and reward it woke with all its old intensity. It
was not possible; and though her heart grew heavier within her, Sylvia
answered steadily--
"No, Geoffrey, do not hope, do not wait; forgive me and forget me. Go
abroad as you proposed; travel far and stay long away. Change your life,
and learn to see in me only the friend I once was and still desire to
be."
"I will go, will stay till you recall me, but while you live your life
alone I shall still hope and wait."
This invincible fidelity, so patient, so persistent, impressed the
listener like a prophecy, disturbed her conviction, arrested the words
upon her lips and softened them.
"It is not for one so unstable as myself to say, 'I shall never change.'
I do not say it, though I heartily believe it, but will leave all to
time. Surely I may do this; may let separation gently, gradually
convince you or alter me; and as the one return which I can make for all
you have given me, let this tie between us remain unbroken for a little
longer. Take this poor consolation with you; it is the best that I can
offer now. Mine is the knowledge that however I may thwart your life in
this world, there is a beautiful eternity in which you will forget me
and be happy."
She gave him comfort, but he robbed her of her own as he drew her to
him, answering with a glance brighter than any smile--
"Love is immortal, dear, and even in the 'beautiful eternity' I shall
still hope and wait."
* * * * *
How soon it was all over! the return to separate homes, the disclosures,
and the storms; the preparations for the solitary voyage, the last
charges and farewells.
Mark would not, and Prue could not, go to see the traveller off; the
former being too angry to lend his countenance to what he termed a
barbarous banishment, the latter, being half blind with crying, stayed
to nurse Jessie, whose soft heart was nearly broken at what seemed to
her the most direful affliction under heaven.
But Sylvia and her father followed Moor till his foot left the soil, and
still lingered on the wharf to watch the steamer out of port. An
uncongenial place in which to part; carriages rolled up and down, a