Part 55 (1/2)
”Not if it will hurt you.”
”I never wish to see or hear from him again, and you'll never have cause to fear any one else.”
”Millie,” he said sadly, ”it is for you I fear most. You look so sad, pale, and broken-hearted. There isn't a sacrifice I wouldn't make for you. Millie, you won't let this thing crush you? It would destroy me if you did. We will resume our old quiet life, and you shall have rest of body and soul;” and he kept his word so well that, before many months pa.s.sed, her mind regained sufficient tone and strength to enable her to engage in the simple duties of life with something like zest. He talked to her about many of his studies, he searched the stores for the books which he thought would be to her taste, and took her to see every beautiful work of art on exhibition. In spite of her poverty, he daily made her life richer and fuller of all that he knew to be congenial to her nature. While she gained in serenity and in capability for quiet enjoyment, he was positively happy, for he believed that before many years pa.s.sed she would be ready to spend the rest of life at his side. He meantime was pursuing his studies with a vigor and success that inspired his friends with the most sanguine hopes.
Vinton Arnold, on that terrible night when his false dream of life was shattered, went through the streets as oppressed with shame and despair as if he were a lost spirit. As he was slowly and weakly climbing the stairs his father called him to the sitting-room, where he and his wife were in consultation, feeling that matters must be brought to some kind of a settlement, Mrs. Arnold urging extreme measures, and her husband bent on some kind of compromise.
As his son entered, the old gentleman started up, exclaiming:
”Good G.o.d, my boy, what is the matter?”
”He's going to have one of his bad turns,” said his mother, rising hastily.
”Hush, both of you,” he commanded sternly, and he sat down near the door. Fixing a look of concentrated hatred on his mother, he said slowly, ”Madam, you are not willing that I should marry Mildred Jocelyn.”
”And with very good reason,” she replied, a little confused by his manner.
”Well, let it rejoice such heart as you have--I shall never marry her.”
”What do you mean?”
”I mean never to speak to you again after this brief interview. I am a lost man--lost beyond hope, and you are the cause. If you had had a mother's heart my father would not have been so obdurate.
Since you would not let me marry her, I was tempted by my love and the horrible life I lead in this house to offer her a relation which would have been marriage to me, but from which her proud, pure spirit, recoiled, as I recoil from you, and I shall never see her face again in this world or in any world. Your work is finished.
You need not scheme or threaten any more. While she is as good as an angel of heaven, she is as proud as you are, and you have murdered my hope--my soul. Father, I have but one request to make to you.
Give me money enough to live anywhere except under this roof. No, no more words to-night, unless you would have me die in your presence with curses on my lips. I have reached the utmost limit;” and he abruptly left the room.
Mrs. Arnold took refuge in hysterics, and her husband rang violently for her maid, and then locked himself up in his library, where he walked the floor for many an hour. The next morning he tried to make overtures to his son, but he found the young man deaf and stony in his despair. ”It's too late,” was all that he would say.
”Oh, let him alone,” protested his wife irritably, as her husband came down looking sorely troubled; ”Vinton will indulge in high tragedy for a few months, and then settle down to sensible life,”
and in the hope of this solution the old merchant went gloomily to his business.
That day Vinton Arnold left his home, and it was years before he returned.
Two years or more pa.s.sed away in quiet, toilsome days for Mildred.
She had gained serenity, and apparently had accepted her lot without repining. Indeed, thanks to Roger's unfaltering devotion, it was not a monotonous or a sad one. He let her heart rest, hoping, trusting that some day it would wake from its sleep. In compliance with her wish he was in semblance a brother, and his attentions were so quiet and frank, his manner toward her so restful, that even she half believed at times that his regard for her was pa.s.sing into the quiet and equable glow of fraternal love. Such coveted illusions could not be long maintained, however, for occasionally when he was off his guard she would find him looking at her in a way that revealed how much he repressed. She shed many bitter tears over what she termed his ”obstinate love,” but an almost morbid conviction had gained possession of her mind that unless she could return his affection in kind and degree she ought not to marry him.
At last she began to grow a little restless under her rather aimless life, and one day she said to her pastor, Mr. Wentworth, ”I want a career--isn't that what you call it? I'm tired of being a sewing-woman, and soon I shall be a wrinkled spinster. Isn't there something retired and quiet which a girl with no more brains and knowledge than I have can do?”
”Yes,” he said gravely; ”make a home for Roger.”
She shook her head. ”That is the only thing I can't do for him,”
she replied very sadly. ”G.o.d only knows how truly I love him. I could give him my life, but not the heart of a wife. I have lost everything except truth to my womanly nature. I must keep that.
Moreover, I'm too good a friend of Roger's to marry him. He deserves the strong first love of a n.o.ble woman, and it will come to him some day. Do you think I could stand before you and G.o.d's altar and promise what is impossible? No, Mr. Wentworth, Roger has a strength and force of character which will carry him past all this, and when once he sees I have found a calling to which I can devote all my energies, he will gradually become reconciled to the truth, and finally accept a richer happiness than I could ever bring him.”
”You are an odd girl, Mildred, but perhaps you are right. I've learned to have great faith in you. Well, I know of a career which possibly may suit you. It would open an almost limitless field of usefulness,” and he told her of the Training School for Nurses in connection with Bellevue Hospital.
The proposition took Mildred's fancy greatly, and it was arranged that they should visit the inst.i.tution on the following afternoon.
Roger sighed when he heard of the project, but only remarked patiently, ”Anything you wish, Millie.”