University of Virginia Library

37. CHAPTER XXXVII.
PERSUASION AND EXPLANATION.

THE flickering aureole of the waxen match which Lehming held between
himself and Nestoria lighted up two pale, quivering, anxious, imploring
faces.

One of these countenances pleaded with all the eloquence of affection, of
benevolence, and of conscious duty for one minute of speech and remonstrance.
The other pleaded with the still more intense fervor of keen misery and terror
for liberty to depart without a word into the unknown, into friendless flight,
into lifelong hiding.

They were much more than mere faces; they were souls encountering
each other. Neither saw the other's physical features; eyes looked far deeper
than the color and sparkle of eyes; they penetrated to the sufferings and longings
within. It was a meeting of vast import; one of those meetings which
must have more than earthly consequences; one of those meetings which
are worthy of the interest of seraphs and demons. Here were two beings
gifted with immense power of desire and of suffering; two imaginations which
were mighty enough to create heavens and hells; two consciences of almost
superhuman range and sensibility. Here was a cherubic spirit on the verge
of erring, and an archangelic spirit striving to save.

“The light has burned out,” whispered Lehming, as he let the remains of
the consumed match fall from his hand. “It seems to me as if we had met
in the darkness which stretches beyond the grave. Can you not look upon
your present purpose as you will look back upon it in your future existence? I
have an idea that you are about taking a step which will be decisive of your
character through all the hereafter. Can you not think it over again before
you finally decide upon it? Meditate it once more in my presence. I will
not utter a word of advice or query unless you wish it. I will neither
help nor hinder by any act. All I want is that, before you depart, you shall
be sure that departure is right.”

Nestoria, trembling from head to foot, did not answer; she appeared to
have no more life than sufficed to keep her from falling. Notwithstanding
the complete darkness, she could still see Lehming as plainly as ever; and
she could not withdraw the gaze of her soul from that sympathetic and benevolent
countenance. Sallow, irregular, and homely as it was, she had learned
to look upon it with liking and veneration, because it was so obviously the
index of a pure and compassionate spirit. And in this interview, under the
brief light of a moment since, it had so shone with heavenly yearning and
counsel, that it could neither be forgotten nor repelled. It seemed to her,
wandering as she was in a tempest of trouble, that she had met some holy one
walking upon the waters, able to stretch forth a victorious hand and save.
Her conscience, her strong and spiritualized imagination, all the righteous
influences of her earlier life, pressed her to lean toward this deliverer and accept

his help. She only needed a gentle and almost unfelt touch upon the
arm to turn her back from the stairway by which she had meant to fly from
all who had ever seen her.

In a moment more they were in the study, and the door was closed against
chance listeners. Lehming lighted his lamp, and saw that the girl was shivering
as with an ague; he stirred the embers which he had left purposely in
his fireplace, and roused a cheering blaze. For a little while they crouched
over the flame, merely warming themselves in silence, for both were chilled
with watching. At last the young man raised his large head, and looked auxiously
into the face of his guest. He was touched almost to tears by her expression
of unutterable perplexity, anxiety, and grief. Never before had he
seen such an agonizing revolt of mighty emotions against a mighty conscience.

“May I speak freely?” he asked in a whisper.

“Yes,” gasped Nestoria, without lifting her eyes from the faces and phantoms
of another world which leered and grimaced at her from amid the charring
coals.

“What I have to say will be hard to bear,” he continued, dreading to inflict
further suffering.

“I can bear everything,” replied the girl, remembering with a shudder
how much she had already borne.

“I must say then that I know you,” he went on with difficulty. “You are
Nestoria Bernard.”

Nestoria made no reply; she shuddered at hearing her own name, as if she
dreaded and hated it; but she still clung as firmly as she could to her secret.

“Here is your neckerchief, which I found in that closet,” he said, producing
it. “I understand how you came there. You ran in to escape from Edward
Wetherel.”

Still Nestoria did not confess, or confessed only by silence.

“I wish you could see it to be your duty to reveal the cause of your flight
from Sea Lodge,” he murmured with a sense of choking, as if the hangman's
noose were around his own neck.

A minute passed without a word from either. Several times Nestoria's
lips moved, but they gave forth no sound. Meantime the two continued to
look at each other with indescribable fixity and eagerness.

“Is there not a soul at stake in this matter?” he said at last.

“Yes—mine!” she answered, shaking her head desperately. “But I cannot
save it. It must go.”

“Oh, no!” he protested, fearful of driving her quite to despair. “We
must make allowance for differences of judgment. You may be right in your
reticence. Time will show.”

Then he sank into a wretched silence; he feared that Edward was the
murderer.

“Ah, yes, I may be right!” Nestoria burst out, after a few moments of
meditation. “There may be some mystery, some incomprehensible delusion,
in this horrible thing. Oh, there may be, there may be! Perhaps I ought to
wait; perhaps it is my duty. O God of mercy, grant that it may be so, and
that I may not die before I see it to be so!”

“Can you tell me nothing?” asked Lehming. “Can you not give me a
chance to judge your doubts?”

She looked at him with a dazed expression which might have meant that
she wanted to evade his question, or might have meant that she did not understand

it. He decided that it was proper and necessary to speak with unmistakable
plainness.

“Let me lay the whole thing before you,” he resumed. “You were in
the house of Judge Wetherel on the night of his death. Before morning you
had disappeared, and you have remained in hiding ever since. It is believed by
some misled people that you struck the blow which ended the old man's life!”

He paused; but Nestoria did not answer, nor look up; she had evidently
considered the probability of this suspicion against herself; it was already an
idea so familiar that it did not surprise, nor even shock her.

“It is believed by others that you witnessed the tragedy, and that you
were driven from the house by terror for yourself,” continued Lehming.

The girl remained impassible; she did not dissent by either word or look;
but he guessed that this was not the true statement of the case.

“Others believe,” he persisted, “that you recognized the murderer, and
that you fled in order to avoid bearing witness against him.”

He stopped breathless. All his manhood, strength of mind, and sense of
duty had scarcely sufficed to enable him to make this terrible declaration. He
had feared, and at the same time had fully expected, that she would be overcome
by it.

He was disappointed. Nestoria did not utter a sound, and did not so much
as move. The volume of moral force which lay in this small, youthful, and
seemingly fragile creature was prodigious. She had long been prepared to
meet such a trial as this in some form or other, and now that it had come she
endured it with a composure which was almost more than human. Not a
vast intellect, not capable perhaps of a many-sided development, not gifted to
express even what was in her in any remarkable fashion, she had a depth of
feeling and a singleness of purpose and a tenacity of will which fitted her to
endure heroically. Face to face with a man who unveiled the horrible secret
of her life, and charged her with what she wretchedly felt to be her great
crime, she made no avowal either by word or glance. As she had resolved to
be silent and impassible if ever she should be brought before a court of justice,
so she was silent and impassible now. And the wonder of this moral—or immoral—achievement
was that she accomplished it in despite of a sense of guilt
from which her very soul revolted. The greatest and saddest feature of her
victory was that it was a victory of sentiment over conscience.

“Have you nothing to tell me?” inquired Lehming, after long waiting.

Still Nestoria did not respond; she was meditating, and she would not
speak until she had thought her thoughts clean out; not until she had surveyed
all the consequences which might follow on utterance.

“I had hoped to be able to counsel you,” Lehming presently added. “I
find that I can only counsel myself.”

“To surrender me?” she asked sharply. “You as good as promised not
to do that. I understood you so when I came in here.”

“I will not surrender you,” he said. “But ought you not to surrender
yourself?”

“Wait!” replied Nestoria.

This single word was the result of her long and laborious and miserable
deliberation. It was uttered most impressively, with a tone of finality, and
with a look of unalterable decision.

“Please to tell me more fully what you mean,” he begged, meanwhile
gazing at her with wonder.

“Oh, how hard it is to explain!” she groaned. “I want time. I am not
yet satisfied. I still doubt what my eyes told me. I cannot doubt, and yet
I must. Some day I may tell, but not now. I must have more time, more
time, I can't say how much. But I will stay here; that is—will you keep my
secret? If you will keep my secret, I will stay. Otherwise I will go at once.
I know that you can't keep me—that you won't try to hold me. But if you
will promise me your silence, I will stay. I want to stay. I can trust you;
I can trust your word, and your wisdom, and your heart; you are the only
person in the world whom I can trust fully. Now if you will give me
your word not to expose me, I will give you my word to remain here until—
until —. Ah, no! I dare not pledge myself,” she added, shaking her head.
“Some other discovery, some other meeting, might drive me away in a moment.
I cannot pledge myself.”

Interested and agitated as Lehming was, he noted her forethoughtedness
and her respect for truth with amazement, and said to himself that a girl who
in such circumstances could retain so clear a mind and scrupulous a conscience
deserved confidence.

“Do you know who I am?” he asked.

“You are Alice's cousin,” she answered. “I remember hearing her speak
of you. She only called you Cousin Walter. I did not recognize you until
—”

“Until you heard me talking just now with him,” he added, completing
her sentence.

Nestoria nodded slightly. She could not be induced to mention the name
of Edward Wetherel, nor to allude to him in any distinct fashion, for fear,
doubtless, that if she once began to speak of him, she might say too much.

“Mrs. Dinneford and Alice love you dearly,” Lehming went on. “They
are full of anxiety about you. Will you let me tell them where you are?
Can't you trust them?”

Nestoria's heart yearned for these two friends; but she said to herself that,
if she became known to them, she might meet Edward; and she felt that that
was an interview which she could not endure. In response to Lehming's
question she covered her face with her hands and shook her head violently.

“Then we two must keep this secret alone,” he said sorrowfully. “I will
promise—it is a tremendous thing to do, and I fear a wicked one—but I will
promise not to reveal who you are until you give me leave to do so, unless indeed
I am suddenly driven to call in others to save you from urgent danger.
I do this not because I approve of your decision, but to save you from flying
into lifelong hiding, remorse, misery, and perhaps into eternal ruin. I do it
in the hope that you will yet be led to see your duty, and to perform it, however
terrible it may be. I also hope that, if we wait a while, we may discover
something better than you believe. If I am wrong, God forgive me!”

In silence and with an air of profound abstraction Nestoria rose, threw her
shawl over her arm, picked up her little travelling-bag, and moved toward
the door.

“Where are you going?” he inquired anxiously, but without stirring to
check her.

“I am going to my own room,” she said, looking him in the face with a
trustfulness which demanded trust.

“May the Heavenly Mercy grant you sleep!” he responded. “My poor,
heavy-laden child, good-night!”

She passed out; she was as noiseless as a shadow; he listened in vain for
a sound which should indicate whither she had gone; after a while he extinguished
his lamp, stepped into the dark hall, and went to his bedroom.