Tale Fifteen As Told to a Clergyman
“The night has a thousand eyes,
The day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying sun.
“The wind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies,
When love is done.”
“You sent for me?” he said, gently, as he looked down at the emaciated form before him. Her eyes were unnaturally brilliant, her brow, with the thick, clustering curls brushed back from it, was as white as marble; the nose was sharp and had that pinched expression which is so sure a forerunner of dissolution. On each cheek was a small, red spot which indicated the fever which was consuming her. The chest heaved rapidly and as the clergyman leaned over her and looked into the hazel depths, he laid his hand almost caressingly upon her head.
At that touch she caught his hand in both her own frail palms, and sobbed, “Yes, I asked to have a clergyman sent to me.”
“I am James Townsend, the rector of St. Anne’s,” he said.
But before he had disclosed his identity she had fainted. He hastily summoned assistance and in a few moments she was restored to consciousness, although very weak.
He sat down near her couch and quietly stroked the masses of hair, the only charm left her by the ravages of disease. Her face seemed to him to be strangely familiar, and as she laid with closed eyes he had ample opportunity to study it as intently as he wished.
Where had he seen that face before? He bent more closely and, as if attracted by the scrutinizing gaze, she slowly lifted the deep fringed lids until her eyes met his.
“What is it?” she asked, faintly.
“Nothing but a little fainting fit, and you are all right now.”
“Yes, I’ll soon be out of all my trouble. I am so tired—so tired! I shall be so glad to rest at last,” she said.
He administered another stimulant and gradually she became stronger, until at length she was able to talk.
“I think, that is the last I remember, I was going to tell you why I sent for you. It was not to have you pray for me or to have you quote scripture. I sent for you because you are a clergyman and ought to be a good man. I know I am dying, although they tell me I will be better when the warm days come; but I know that when that time comes the grass will be growing over my grave, and that is why I want to tell you my life’s story. I do not feel that I ought to be absolved because I confess my story to you, but it will be a relief to tell some one all and the plain truth of every detail. I shall die easier, I know.”
“Aren’t you in danger of overtaxing your strength?” he asked.
“No, I feel quite strong again, and if you will give me some more wine I feel quite confident that I can tell you the whole story without a break. It is a long one, though, and may weary you.”
“Do not fear, I shall be an attentive and interested listener,” he said.
“Well, to begin at the very beginning, I must tell you that I was left an orphan very early in life. I was the youngest of three children, and after the small estate was divided my brother and sister held a consultation and decided to educate me for a kindergarten teacher, as there was less expense connected with the fitting for this work. I finished my course in due time and went to Peoria to organize a private class. Among the names of those given me who had children likely to join my class was a Mrs. Ames. I called at her home early in the week and secured her two children very easily. She seemed to take quite a fancy to me, I thought, a theory which afterward proved to be correct.
“One day I received a very urgent invitation from Mrs. Ames to lunch with them. I gladly accepted. We did not wait for Mr. Ames, as he was often detained beyond luncheon hour at his office. As we sat at the table idly chatting he entered. Up to this time I had never seen Mr. Ames and, in fact, had scarcely given his existence a thought. I gave him a casual glance as Mrs. Ames presented him to me, and noticed what a strong, finely developed man he was.
“He was rather quiet during the hour and had little to say, but when he was leaving he came over to me and said, ‘I am glad to have had the pleasure of meeting you at last, for I have heard your praises sung by many and was quite anxious to know this little paragon of virtues.’”
She shuddered as she said this and perhaps the quiver which shook the clergyman’s frame in his effort at self-control at this mention of the name Ames had communicated itself to her, and she remained silent for awhile.
Again the clergyman’s sympathetic hand sought to soothe and encourage her by stroking her hair.
Reassured, she continued:
“Not long after this I was quite ill, and much to my surprise, considering my limited acquaintance in the city, received a large box of American Beauties. The card accompanying them was that of Mr. Ames. On the back was written, ‘Because you are so like one I used to know.’
“I wondered whom he could mean and resolved to ask him the first time I saw him, yet I felt rather timid because he was quite a stranger to me. I need have felt no timidity, however, because he embraced the first opportunity to tell me when we were quite alone that I was so like his first wife, Laura, the mother of his children. He told me what a good, true woman the present Mrs. Ames was, and what a good mother she had made his children, but explained to me that it had been a matter of convenience on both sides—not a love affair. She had passed the age when women are most sought and was glad to accept the luxurious home he offered her, and he was glad to have such a sensible woman for the mother of his children.
“It was but a short time after that that Mrs. Ames asked me to come to her house and make my home with them as one of the family. No one but myself knew what a God-send that was. My class had been greatly decreased by a diphtheria scare and my finances were low, and now that I had no board to pay I could manage very nicely. Everyone at the house was so kind to me except Mrs. Ames’ mother, who lived with them, and she seemed to look upon me as an intruder, but I was thoroughly happy notwithstanding.
“I was at that time as innocent as a child, with absolutely no knowledge of the world except what I had seen in my own little sphere.
“One night Mr. Ames whispered to me that he was coming up to my room at Mrs. Ames’ request as soon as I retired. I had been in my room but a few minutes when he tapped on the door. I opened it and let him in. Be drew me to the window seat and put his arms around me and said:
“‘Little girlie, I have come to tell you a few things which you or any other innocent girl ought to know. It is for your own protection that I tell you. I would that I could spare you the revelation, but I cannot, for you are unsafe, there are so many unscrupulous men in the world who would take advantage of innocence.’
“I did not understand the drift of his remarks and was half vexed. He kissed me then for the first time. Then he told me about myself and about men and women and their relations to each other.
“It was a great shock to me and I hid my face on his broad shoulder and cried as if my heart would break. After he had quieted me, we talked a long time and I could see what a good thing it was that he had told me as much as he had.
“It was one night some weeks after this had occurred that Mr. Ames and I were left alone in the parlor. We had waited a long time for grandma to retire, and when she finally went he turned out the electric light for a moment, so that he could take me in his arms and kiss me good-night. It was a mistake, for grandma stood on the landing above and saw it.
“Nothing was ever said about it, but I could feel the change in the atmosphere and luckily, as my school term was out that week, I was able to leave without occasioning comment. I returned to Chicago with little money and secured a pleasant room with a private family on Drexel boulevard. I had not been there a week, when Mr. Ames, to whom I had promised to send my address, came to see me. I was so discouraged and blue that his presence was a panacea for all my ills. He laid down on the couch and asked me to come and sit down beside him, and took me in his arms.
“I was just in the state of mind to receive caresses and to return them; his were balm to my aching heart. He caressed me until—well, I don’t know how it all happened—if anyone had asked me the next morning if I had done wrong, I should have said no, with a clear conscience, for I did not know then that that which a good woman prizes higher than life had been taken from me.
“After this he came as often as his business cares would permit, always the same, tender and true. One day he came as usual and said, ‘I have planned your vacation trip for the summer, dear, and although it will deprive me of the pleasure of your company for a long time and I hardly know how I am going to get along without the sunshine of your presence; but you are not well and I think the change will do you good.’
“Then he unfolded his plan to me. I was to go to Mackinac for the summer. He gave me $200 when I left. I staid three months and was really very lonely at times without Fred, but not as lonely as he was without me, for I had many friends among the young people, while he was obliged to come to the city regularly and stay for a day or two every week as usual, to keep up appearance at home.
“He sent me many pretty little gowns and waists, and showed rare good taste in their selection, and was so thoughtful in every way that it was little wonder that I leaned on him more than I realized. And, then, too, his letters were so beautiful, every one of them breathing of his devotion to me. When fall came, with it came the thought of what I was to do to support myself. I came back to Chicago and Fred met me. We had a long talk and he asked me if I thought I could manage to live on $10 a week. I felt very rich at the prospect of having an income assured me every week, and think I enjoyed it, small though it was, more than I did the days of prosperity that followed.
“I boarded all winter with a friend who had moved to Chicago during my absence. The next spring he invested $200 for me and in a year it had made $5,000. He felt he was better able to provide me with a good home of my own now, and so he found a beautiful little flat, which he furnished very cozily.
“He came to Chicago every week, ostensibly on business, and remained two days. Of course my living this kind of a life necessitated my giving up all my former friends; they would wonder and ask questions and rather than lie, I ostracised myself.
“I had learned to love him devotedly by this time, for he was so good to me, my slightest wish was anticipated, and he loved me with such tenderness as only a strong man can bestow.”
“Tell me again that he was good to you,” said the clergyman.
“Why,” she said, wonderingly, her eyes meeting his for the first time since she began her narrative.
“I—I only wanted to be reassured of the fact that while Fre—this man, I mean, had done you the greatest wrong that a man can do a woman, he tried to make reparation.”
“Yes, he was good, until—until,” and again her face was drawn in agony and her frail form quivered, “well, until the time came when he could not come every week. Business was such that it was impossible, he said. I grew so lonely that I thought I should die.
“During this period of loneliness, I met an old school mate on the street one day. She seemed very glad to see me and insisted on my going to Rector’s with her, where she had an appointment to dine with her friend. I went and it was the same old story. Her friend was a strikingly handsome fellow and I was a pretty girl then,” she said with a wan smile, “and we became enamored of each other.
“He asked to call and I allowed him to come. He came often and finally in a moment of weakness I yielded to his importunities. This was my fatal mistake. Fred came unexpectedly the next day and I was so remorseful and conscious stricken that I could not appear natural. He took me gently in his arms and begged me to tell him what the matter was. I sobbed it all out to him, yes, every word of the truth, and instead of forgiving me as he should have done, he tore my arms from about his neck, and threw me from him.
“I think I must have fainted, for when I became conscious of my surroundings, he had gone.”
The clergyman groaned aloud, but so absorbed was she in her contemplation of that past, that she did not heed it.
“I laid on the floor all night, just where he had thrown me. Morning came and brought with it more misery. A special delivery letter was brought to me; it contained a draft for $5,000 to be deposited to my credit in the bank, and a short note saying that he did not wish to see me again. That my sin had found me out.
“I was crushed and heartbroken. My illness began with that day. The doctors say it is pulmonary trouble, but it is not that. It is a consumption of the heart and brain, and the desire to live vanished when I knew he had gone out of my life forever.”
The last words were scarcely audible. The clergyman leaned over her and took her in his arms and wiped the death sweat from her brow.
She looked at him and whispered, “Why are you so good to me?”
He thought a moment, fearing to tell her the truth lest the shock prove too much for her rapidly ebbing strength, but the pleading eyes were fixed on his and he could not withhold the truth.
“Because,” he said, gently, “the man who ruined you is my half brother. He was younger than I by ten years, and I loved him better than my life and cared for him after our mother died. I could not believe he would have done such a thing, had not you yourself told me. I have seen your picture in their home, and that is why your face seemed so strangely familiar to me when I first came in. There is but one thing I can do that will in the least atone for what he has done, and it is this: Marry me within an hour, that you may at least have a name. I will take you away with me to a warmer climate and change of scene and you may yet recover and learn to be happy. I think God must have sent me to you at just the right time. Will you marry me?”
He bent over her almost eagerly, longing to hear her say yes, now that he had made up his mind to make the sacrifice.
But she had gone where there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage.