Thelma
gentleman you are so often seen with. Notably concerning Sir Philip
Errington,--the vile tongue of rumor is busy,--for, according to his
first plans when his yacht arrived here, he was bound for the North
Cape,--and should have gone there days ago. Truly, I think,--and there
are others who think also in the same spirit of interest for you,--that
the sooner this young man leaves our peaceful Fjord the better,--and the
less he has to do with the maidens of the district, the safer we shall
be from the risk of scandal." And he heaved a pious sigh.
Thelma turned her eyes upon him in wonderment.
"I do not understand you," she said coldly. "Why do you speak of
_others_? No others are interested in what I do? Why should they be? Why
should _you_ be? There is no need!"
Mr. Dyceworthy grew slightly excited. He felt like a runner nearing the
winning-post.
"Oh, you wrong yourself, my dear Froeken," he murmured softly, with a
sickly attempt at tenderness in his tone. "You really wrong yourself! It
is impossible,--for me at least, not to be interested in you,--even for
our dear Lord's sake. It troubles me to the inmost depths of my soul to
behold in you one of the foolish virgins whose light hath been
extinguished for lack of the saving oil,--to see you wandering as a lost
sheep in the paths of darkness and error, without a hand to rescue your
steps from the near and dreadful precipice! Ay, truly! . . . my spirit
yearneth for you as a mother for an own babe--fain would I save you from
the devices of the evil one,--fain would I--" here the minister drew out
his handkerchief and pressed it lightly to his eyes,--then, as if with
an effort overcoming his emotion, he added, with the gravity of a
butcher presenting an extortionate bill, "but first,--before my own
humble desires for your salvation--first, ere I go further in converse,
it behoveth me to enter on the Lord's business!"
Thelma bent her head slightly, with an air as though she said: "Indeed;
pray do not be long about it!" And, leaning back against the porch, she
waited somewhat impatiently.
"The image I have just restored to you," went on Mr. Dyceworthy in his
most pompous and ponderous manner, "you say belonged to your unhappy--"
"She was not unhappy," interposed the girl, calmly.
"Ay, ay!" and the minister nodded with a superior air of wisdom. "So you
imagine, so you think,--you must have been too young to judge of these
things. She died--"
"I saw her die," again she interrupted, with a musing tenderness in her
voice. "She smiled and kissed me,--then she laid her thin, white hand on
this crucifix, and, closing her eyes, she went to sleep. They told me it
was death, since then I have known that death is beautiful!"
Mr. Dyceworthy coughed,--a little cough of quiet incredulity. He was not
fond of sentiment in any form, and the girl's dreamily pensive manner
annoyed him. Death "beautiful?" Faugh! it was the one thing of all
others that he dreaded; it was an unpleasant necessity, concerning which
he thought as little as possible. Though he preached frequently on the
peace of the grave and the joys of heaven,--he was far from believing in
either,--he was nervously terrified of illness, and fled like a
frightened hare from the very rumor of any infectious disorder, and he
had never been known to attend a death-bed. And now, in answer to
Thelma, he nodded piously and rubbed his hands, and said--
"Yes, yes; no doubt, no doubt! All very proper on your part, I am sure!
But concerning this same image of which I came to speak,--it is most
imperative that you should be brought to recognize it as a purely carnal
object, unfitting a maiden's eyes to rest upon. The true followers of
the Gospel are those who strive to forget the sufferings of our dear
Lord as much as possible,--or to think of them only in spirit. The minds
of sinners, alas! are easily influenced,--and it is both unseemly and
dangerous to gaze freely upon the carven semblance of the Lord's limbs!
Yea, truly, it hath oft been considered as damnatory to the soul,--more
especially in the cases of women immured as nuns, who encourage
themselves in an undue familiarity with our Lord, by gazing long and
earnestly upon his body nailed to the accursed tree."
Here Mr. Dyceworthy paused for breath. Thelma was silent, but a faint
smile gleamed on her face.
"Wherefore," he went on, "I do adjure you, as you desire grace and
redemption, to utterly cast from you the vile trinket, I have,--Heaven
knows how reluctantly! . . . returned to your keeping,--to trample upon
it, and renounce it as a device of Satan. . ." He stopped, surprised and
indignant, as she raised the much-abused emblem to her lips and kissed
it reverently.
"It is the sign of peace and salvation," she said steadily, "to me, at
least. You waste your words, Mr. Dyceworthy; I am a Catholic."
"Oh, say not so!" exclaimed the minister, now thoroughly roused to a
pitch of unctuous enthusiasm. "Say not so. Poor child! who knowest not
the meaning of the word used. Catholic signifies universal. God forbid a
universal Papacy! You are not a Catholic--no! You are a Roman--by which
name we understand all that is most loathsome and unpleasing unto God!
But I will wrestle for your soul,--yea, night and day will I bend my
spiritual sinews to the task,--I will obtain the victory,--I will
exorcise the fiend! Alas, alas! you are on the brink of hell--think of
it!" and Mr. Dyceworthy stretched out his hand with his favorite pulpit
gesture. "Think of the roasting and burning,--the scorching and
withering of souls! Imagine, if you can, the hopeless, bitter, eternal
damnation," and here he smacked his lips as though he were tasting
something excellent,--"from which there is no escape! . . . for which
there shall be no remedy!"
"It is a gloomy picture," said Thelma, with a quiet sparkle in her eye.
"I am sorry,--for _you_. But I am happier,--my faith teaches of
purgatory--there is always a little hope!"
"There is none! there is none!" exclaimed the minister rising in
excitement from his seat, and swaying ponderously to and fro as he
gesticulated with hands and head. "You are doomed,--doomed! There is no
middle course between hell and heaven. It must be one thing or the
other; God deals not in half-measures! Pause, oh pause, ere you decide
to fall! Even at the latest hour the Lord desires to save your
soul,--the Lord yearns for your redemption, and maketh me to yearn also.
Froeken Thelma!" and Mr. Dyceworthy's voice deepened in solemnity, "there
is a way which the Lord hath whispered in mine ears,--a way that
pointeth to the white robe and the crown of glory,--a way by which you
shall possess the inner peace of the heart with bliss on earth as the
forerunner of bliss in heaven!"
She looked at him steadfastly. "And that way is--what?" she inquired.
Mr. Dyceworthy hesitated, and wished with all his heart that this girl
was not so thoroughly self-possessed. Any sign of timidity in her would
have given him an increase of hardihood. But her eyes were coldly
brilliant, and glanced him over without the smallest embarrassment. He
took refuge in his never-failing remedy, his benevolent smile--a smile
that covered a multitude of hypocrisies.
"You ask a plain question, Froeken," he said sweetly, "and I should be
loth not to give you a plain answer. That way--that glorious way of
salvation for you is--through _me_!"
And his countenance shone with smug self-satisfaction as he spoke, and
he repeated softly, "Yes, yes; that way is through me!"
She moved with a slight gesture of impatience. "It is a pity to talk any
more," she said rather wearily. "It is all no use! Why do you wish to
change me in my religion? I do not wish to change _you_. I do not see
why we should speak of such things at all."
"Of course!" replied Mr. Dyceworthy blandly. "Of course you do not see.
And why? Because you are blind." Here he drew a little nearer to her,
and looked covetously at the curve of her full, firm waist.
"Oh, why!" he resumed in a sort of rapture--"why should we say it is a
pity to talk any more? Why should we say it is all no use? It _is_ of
use,--it is noble, it is edifying to converse of the Lord's good
pleasure! And what is His good pleasure at this moment? To unite two
souls in His service! Yea, He hath turned my desire towards you, Froeken
Thelma,--even as Jacob's desire was towards Rachel! Let me see this
hand." He made a furtive grab at the white taper fingers that played
listlessly with the jessamine leaves on the porch, but the girl
dexterously withdrew them from his clutch and moved a little further
back, her face flushing proudly. "Oh, will it not come to me? Cruel
hand!" and he rolled his little eyes with an absurdly sentimental air of
reproach. "It is shy--it will not clasp the hand of its protector! Do
not be afraid, Froeken! . . . I, Charles Dyceworthy, am not the man to
trifle with your young affections! Let them rest where they have flown!
I accept them! Yea! . . . in spite of wrath and error and moral
destitution,--my spirit inclineth towards you,--in the language of
carnal men, I love you! More than this, I am willing to take you as my
lawful wife--"
He broke off abruptly, somewhat startled at the bitter scorn of the
flashing eyes that, like two quivering stars, were blazing upon him. Her
voice, clear as a bell ringing in frosty air, cut through the silence
like a sweep of a sword-blade.
"How dare you!" she said, with a wrathful thrill in her low, intense
tones. "How dare you come here to insult me!"
Insult her! He,--the Reverend Charles Dyceworthy,--considered guilty of
insult in offering honorable marriage to a mere farmer's daughter! He
could not believe his own ears,--and in his astonishment he looked up at
her. Looking, he recoiled and shrank into himself, like a convicted
knave before some queenly accuser. The whole form of the girl seemed to
dilate with indignation. From her proud mouth, arched like a bow, sprang
barbed arrows of scorn that flew straightly and struck home.
"Always I have guessed what you wanted," she went on in that deep,
vibrating tone which had such a rich quiver of anger within it; "but I
never thought you would--" She paused, and a little disdainful laugh
broke from her lips. "You would make _me_ your wife--_me_? You think
_me_ likely to accept such an offer?" And she drew herself up with a
superb gesture, and regarded him fixedly.
"Oh, pride, pride!" murmured the unabashed Dyceworthy, recovering from
the momentary abasement into which he had been thrown by her look and
manner. "How it overcometh our natures and mastereth our spirits! My
dear, my dearest Froeken,--I fear you do not understand me! Yet it is
natural that you should not; you were not prepared for the offer of
my--my affections,"--and he beamed all over with benevolence,--"and I
can appreciate a maidenly and becoming coyness, even though it assume
the form of a repellant and unreasonable anger. But take courage, my--my
dear girl!--our Lord forbid that I should wantonly play with the
delicate emotions of your heart! Poor little heart! does it flutter?"
and Mr. Dyceworthy leered sweetly. "I will give it time to recover
itself! Yes, yes! a little time! and then you will put that pretty hand
in mine"--here he drew nearer to her, "and with one kiss we will seal
the compact!"
And he attempted to steal his arm round her waist, but the girl sprang
back indignantly, and pulling down a thick branch of the clambering
prickly roses from the porch, held it in front of her by way of
protection. Mr. Dyceworthy laughed indulgently.
"Very pretty--very pretty indeed!" he mildly observed, eyeing her as she
stood at bay barricaded by the roses. "Quite a picture! There, there! do
not be frightened,--such shyness is very natural! We will embrace in the