Part 5 (2/2)
”I shall not sing to-morrow,” she replied a little hurriedly, with averted face, and again she started on. But he walked beside her.
”In that case I have still to thank you for the pleasure I have had. I imagine that one would never do wrong if he could hear you sing whenever he is tempted,” he said, looking sidewise at her with a quiet, tentative smile.
”It is not my voice,” she replied more hurriedly. ”It is the music of the service. Do not thank me. Thank G.o.d.”
”I have heard the service before. It was your voice that touched me.”
She drew her veil about her face, and walked on in silence.
”But I have no wish to say anything against your religion,” he continued, his voice deepening and trembling. ”If it has such power over the natures of women, if it lifts them to such ideals of duty, if it develops in them such characters, that merely to look into their faces, to be near them, to hear their voices, is to make a man think of a better world, I do not know why I should say anything against it.”
How often, without meaning it, our words are like a flight of arrows into another's heart. What he said but reminded her of her unfaithfulness. And therefore while she revolved how with perfect gentleness she might ask him to allow her to continue her way alone, she did what she could: she spoke reverently, though all but inaudibly, in behalf of her order.
”Our vows are perfect and divine. If they ever seem less, it is the fault of those of us who dishonour them.”
The acute self-reproach in her tone at once changed his mood.
”On the other hand, I have also asked myself this question: Is it the creed that makes the natures of you women so beautiful, or is it the nature of woman that gives the beauty to the creed? Is it not so with any other idea that women espouse? with any other cause that they undertake? Is it not so with anything that they spend their hearts upon, toil for, and sacrifice themselves for? Do I see any beauty in your vows except such as your life gives to them? I can believe it. I can believe that if you had never taken those vows your life would still be beautiful. I can believe that you could change them for others and find yourself more nearly the woman that you strive to be--that you were meant to be!” He spoke in the subdued voice with which one takes leave of some hope that brightens while it disappears.
”I must ask you,” she said, pausing--”I must ask you to allow me to continue my walk alone,” and her voice quivered.
He paused, too, and stood looking into her eyes in silence with the thought that he should never see her again. The colour had died out of his face.
”I can never forgive your vows,” he said, speaking very slowly and making an effort to appear unmoved. ”I can never forgive your vows that they make it a sin for me to speak to you. I can never forgive them that they put between us a gulf that I cannot pa.s.s. Remember, I owe you a great deal. I owe you higher ideas of a woman's nature and clearer resolutions regarding my own life. Your vows perhaps make it even a sin that I should tell you this. But by what right? By what right am I forbidden to say that I shall remember you always, and that I shall carry away with me into my life----”
”Will you force me to turn back?” she asked in greater agitation; and though he could not see her face, he saw her tears fall upon her hands.
”No,” he answered sadly; ”I shall not force you to turn back. I know that I have intruded. But it seemed that I could not go away without seeing you again, to be quite sure that you were well. And when I saw you, it seemed impossible not to speak of other things. Of course this must seem strange to you--stranger, perhaps, than I may imagine, since we look at human relations.h.i.+ps so differently. My life in this world can be of no interest to you. You cannot, therefore, understand why yours should have any interest for me. Still, I hope you can forgive me,” he added abruptly, turning his face away as it flushed and his voice faltered.
She lifted her eyes quickly, although they were dim. ”Do not ask me to forgive anything. There is nothing to be forgiven. It is I who must ask--only leave me!”
”Will you say good-bye to me?” And he held out his hand.
She drew back, but, overborne by emotion he stepped forward, gently took her hand from the rosary, and held it in both his own.
”Good-bye! But, despite the cruel barriers that they have raised between us, I shall always----”
She foresaw what was coming. His manner told her that. She had not withdrawn her hand. But at this point she dropped the flowers that were in her other hand, laid it on her breast so that the longest finger pointed towards the symbol of the transfixed heart, and looked quickly at him with indescribable warning and distress. Then he released her, and she turned back towards the convent.
”Mother,” she said, with a frightened face, when she reached it, ”I did not go to old Martha's. Some one was hunting in the fields, and I came back. Do not send me again, Mother, unless one of the Sisters goes with me.” And with this half-truth on her lips and full remorse for it in her heart, she pa.s.sed into that deepening imperfection of nature which for the most of us makes up the inner world of reality.
Gordon wrote to her that night. He had not foreseen his confession. It had been drawn from him under the influences of the moment; but since it was made, a sense of honour would not have allowed him to stop there, even had feeling carried him no further. Moreover, some hope had been born in him at the moment of separation, since she had not rebuked him, but only reminded him of her vows.
His letter was full of the confidence and enthusiasm of youth, and its contents may be understood by their likeness to others. He unfolded the plan of his life--the life which he was asking her to share. He dwelt upon its possibilities, he pointed out the field of its aspirations. But he kept his letter for some days, unable to conceive a way by which it might be sent to its destination. At length the chance came in the simplest of disguises.
Ezra was starting one morning to the convent. As he was leaving the room, old Martha called to him. She sat by the hearthstone, with her head tied up in red flannel, and her large, watery face flushed with pain, and pointed towards a basket of apples on the window-sill.
”Take them to Sister Dolorosa, Ezra,” she said. ”Mind that you see _her_, and give them to her with your own hands. And ask her why she hasn't been to see me, and when she is coming.” On this point her mind seemed more and more troubled. ”But what's the use of asking _you_ to find out for me?” she added, flas.h.i.+ng out at him with heroic anger.
The old man stood in the middle of the room, dry and gnarled, his small eyes kindling into a dull rage at a taunt made in the presence of a guest whose good opinion he desired. But he took the apples in silence and left the room.
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