 | CHAPTER LII.
EVERY BARRIER BURNED AWAY. Barriers burned away |  |
52. CHAPTER LII.
EVERY BARRIER BURNED AWAY.
Dennis was glad to escape, and went to a side door
where he could cool his hot cheeks in the night air. He
fairly dreaded to meet Christine again, and even where the
wind blew cold upon him his cheeks grew hotter and hotter,
as he remembered what had occurred. He had been
there but a little time when a light hand fell on his arm
and he was startled by her voice:
“Mr. Fleet, are you very tired?”
“Not in the least,” he answered eagerly.
“You must be: it is wrong for me to think of it.”
“Miss Ludolph, please tell me what I can do for
you?”
She looked at him wistfully and said:
“This is a time when loss and disaster burden every
courage, and forget personal troubles. I have tried to-day,
and, with God's help, hope in time to succeed. While
endeavoring to wear in public a cheerful face, I may perhaps
now, and to so true a friend as yourself, show more of
my real feelings. Is it too far—would it take too long, to go
to where my father died? His remains could not have been
removed.”
“Alas, Miss Ludolph,” said Dennis, very gently,
“there can be no visible remains. The words of the Prayer
Book are literally true in this case—`Ashes to ashes.'
But I can take you to the spot, and it is natural that you
should wish to go. Are you equal to the fatigue?”
“I will not feel it if you go with me, and then we can
ride part of the way, for I have a little money. (Dr. Arten
had insisted on her taking some.) Wait for me a moment.”
She soon reappeared with her shawl cut in two equal
parts. One she insisted on folding and putting around
him as the Scotsman wears his plaid. “You will need it
in the cool night wind,” she said, and then taking his arm
in perfect trust, they started.
In the cars she gave him her money, and he said, “I
will return my fare to-morrow night.”
“What!” she replied, looking a little hurt. “After
spending two dollars on me will you not take five cents in
return.
“But I spent it foolishly.”
“You spent it like a generous man. Surely, Mr. Fleet,
you did not understand my badinage this evening. If I
had not spoken to you in that strain, I could not have
spoken at all. You have been a brother to me, and we
should not stand on these little things.”
“That is it,” thought he again. “She looks upon and
trusts me as a brother, and such I must try to be till she
effort she would scarcely ask it.”
But as they left the car, he said: “All that you would
ask from a brother please ask from me.”
She put her hand in his, and said: “I now ask your
support, sympathy and prayer, for I feel that I shall need
all here.”
Still retaining her hand, he placed it on his arm and
guided her most carefully around the hot ruins and heaps
of rubbish till they came to where the Art Building had
stood. The moon shone brightly down, lighting up with
weird and ghostly effect the few walls remaining. They
were utterly alone in the midst of a desolation sevenfold
more impressive than that of the desert. Pointing to the
spot where, in the midst of his treasures of art and idolized
worldly possessions, Mr. Ludolph had perished, she said in
a thrilling whisper:
“My father's ashes are there.”
“Yes.”
Her breath came quick and short, and her face was so
pale and agonized that he trembled for her, but he tightened
his grasp on her hand and his tears fell with hers.
“Oh, my father,” she cried in a tone of indescribable
pathos, “can I never, never see you again? Can I never
tell you of the love of Jesus, and the better and happier
life beyond? Oh, how my heart yearns after you! God forgive
me if this is wrong, but I cannot help it!”
“It is not wrong,” said Dennis brokenly. “Our Lord
himself wept over those He could not save.”
“It is all that I can do,” she murmured, and leaning
her head on his shoulder, a tempest of sobs shook her
person.
He supported her tenderly as a brother might, and
said in the accents of the deepest sympathy: “My poor
you good.” At last, as she became calmer, he added:
“Remember that your great Elder brother has called the
heavy laden to him for rest.”
At last she raised her head, turned, and gave one long
parting look, and, as Dennis saw it in the white moonlight,
it was the face of a pitying angel. A low “Farewell!”
trembled from her lips, and leaning heavily on his arm
they turned away, and seemingly the curtain fell between
father and child to rise no more.
“Mr. Fleet,” she said pleadingly, “are you too tired to
take me to my old home on the north side?”
“Miss Ludolph, I could go to the ends of the earth
for you, but you are not equal to this strain upon your
feelings. Have mercy on yourself.”
But she said in a low dreamy tone:
“I wish to take leave to-night of my old life—the
strange sad past with its mystery of evil; and then I will
set my face resolutely toward a better life—a better
country. So bear with me, my true kind friend, a little
longer.”
“Believe me, my thought was all for you. All sense
of fatigue has passed away.”
Silently they made their way, till they stood where, a
few short days before, rose the elegant home that was full
of sad and painful memories to both.
“There was my studio,” she said in the same dreamy
tone, “where I indulged in my wild ambitious dreams,
and sought to grasp a little fading circlet of laurel, while
ignoring a heavenly and immortal crown. There,” she
continued, her pale face becoming crimson, even in the
pale moonlight, I most painfully wronged you, my most
generous, forgiving friend, and a noble revenge you took
when you saved my life and led me to a Saviour. May
God reward you, but I humbly ask your pardon—”
“Please, Miss Ludolph, do not speak of that. I have
buried it all. Do not pain yourself by recalling that
which I have forgiven and almost forgotten. You are now
my ideal of all that is noble and good, and in my solitary
artist life of the future, you shall be my gentle yet potent
inspiration.”
“Why must your life be solitary in the future?” she
asked in a low tone.
He was very pale, and his arm trembled under her
hand; at last he said in a hoarse voice:
“Do not ask me. Why should I pain you by telling
the truth?”
“Is it the part of a true friend to refuse confidence?”
she asked reproachfully.
He turned his face away, that she might not see the
evidences of the bitter struggle within—the severest he
had ever known; but at last he spoke in the firm and
quiet voice of victory. She had called him brother, and
trusted him as such. She had ventured out alone on a
sacred mission with him as she might with a brother.
She was dependent on him, and burdened by a sense of
obligation. His high sense of honor forbade that he
should urge his suit under such circumstances. If she
could not accept, how painful beyond words would be the
necessity of refusal, and the impression had become
almost fixed in his mind that her regard for him was only
sisterly and grateful in its character.
“Yes, Miss Ludolph,” he said, “my silence is the part
of true friendship—truer than you can ever know. May
Heaven's richest blessings go with you to your own land,
and follow you through a long happy life.”
“My own land? This is my own land.”
“Do you not intend to go abroad at once, and enter
upon your ancestral estates as the Baroness of Ludolph?”
“Not if I can earn a livelihood in Chicago,” she
answered most firmly. “Mr. Fleet, all that nonsense has
perished as utterly as this my former home. It belongs to
my old life, of which I have forever taken leave to-night.
My ancestral estate in Germany is but a petty affair, and
mortgaged beyond its real worth by my deceased uncle.
All I possess—all I value, is in this city. It was my father's
ambition, and at one time my own, to restore the ancient
grandeur of the family with the wealth acquired in this
land. The plan had lost its charms to me, long ago—(I
would not have gone if I could have helped it) and now it
is impossible. It has perished in flame and smoke with
something else more substantial. Mr. Fleet, you see before
you a simple American girl. I claim and wish to be
known in no other character. If nothing remains of my
father's fortune I shall teach either music or painting—”
“Oh, Christine,” he interrupted, “forgive me for speaking
to you under the circumstances, but indeed I cannot
help it. Is there hope for me?”
She looked at him so earnestly as to remind him of
her strange steady gaze when before he pleaded for her
love on that same spot, but her hand trembled in his like
the flutter of a frightened bird.
In a low eager tone she said, “And can you still truly
love me after all the shameful past?”
“When have I ceased to love you?”
With a little cry of ecstasy, like the note of joy that a
weary bird might utter as it flew into its nest, she put her
arm around his neck and buried her face on his shoulder
and said:
“No hope for you, Dennis, but perfect certainty, for now
every Barrier is burned away!”
What though the home before them is a deserted ruin?
Love is joining hands that shall build a fairer and better
love.
What though all around are only dreary ruins, where
the night wind is sighing mournfully? Love has transformed
that desert place into the Paradise of God; and if such is
its power in the wastes of earthly desolation, what will be
its might amid the perfect scenes of Heaven?
Our story is finished.
It only remains to say, that Christine stands high at
court, but it is a grander one than any of earth. She is
allied to a noble, but to one who has received his patent
from no petty sovereign of this world. She has lost sight
of the transient laurel wreath which she sought to grasp
at such cost to herself and others, in view of the “crown
of glory that fadeth not away,” and to this already, as an
earnest Christian, she has added starry jewels.
Below is the Ludolph Hall in which sturdy independence
led her to commence her married life. But she is
climbing the mountain at her husband's side, and often
her hands steady and help. The ash-tree, twined with the
passion-flower, is not very far above them, and the villa,
beautiful within and without, is no vain dream of the
future. But even in happy youth their eyes of faith see
in airy golden outline their heavenly home awaiting.
SHELTER COMMITTEE.
HOUSE WITH TWO ROOMS.
Note.—The above is a fac-simile of the little houses furnished by
the Chicago Shelter Committee to those who possessed or could procure
ground on which to build.
| CHAPTER LII.
EVERY BARRIER BURNED AWAY. Barriers burned away | |