University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.
BLUE MONDAY.

IT was to all intents and purposes “blue Monday”
with the rector of St. Mark's, for aside
from the weariness and exhaustion which always
followed his two services on Sunday, and his care
of the Sunday-school, there was a feeling of disquiet and
depression, occasioned partly by that rencontre with
pretty Lucy Harcourt, and partly by the uncertainty as
to what Anna's answer might be. He had seen the look
of displeasure on her face as she stood watching him and
Lucy, and though to many this would have given hope,
it only added to his nervous fears lest his suit should be
denied. He was sorry that Lucy Harcourt was in the
neighborhood, and sorrier still for her tenacious memory,
which had evidently treasured up every incident which
he could wish forgotten. With Anna Ruthven absorbing
every thought and feeling of his heart, it was not
pleasant to remember what had been a genuine flirtation
between himself and the sparkling belle he had met
among the Alps.

It was nothing but a flirtation he knew, for in his inmost
soul he absolved himself from ever having had a
thought of matrimony connected with Lucy Harcourt.
He had admired her greatly and loved to wander with
her amid the Alpine scenery, listening to her wild bursts
of enthusiasm, and watching the kindling light in her
blue eyes, and the color coming to her thin, pale cheeks,
as she gazed upon some scene of grandeur, and clung
close to him as for protection, when the path was fraught
with peril.

Afterwards in Venice, beneath the influence of those
glorious moonlight nights, he had been conscious of a
deeper feeling, which, had he tarried longer at the syren's
side, might have ripened into love. But he left her just
in time to escape what he felt would have been a most
unfortunate affair for him, for sweet and beautiful as she
was, Lucy was not the wife for a clergyman to choose.
She was not like Anna Ruthven, whom both young and
old had said was so suitable for him.

“And just because she is suitable, I may not win her,
perhaps,” he thought, as he paced up and down his
library, wondering when she would answer his letter, and
wondering next how he could persuade Lucy Harcourt
that between the young theological student, sailing in a
gondola through the streets of Venice, and the rector of
St. Mark's, there was a vast difference; that while the
former might be Arthur with perfect propriety, the

latter should be Mr. Leighton, in Anna's presence, at
least.

And yet the rector of St. Mark's was conscious of a
pleasurable emotion, even now, as he recalled the time
when she had, at his request, first called him Arthur, her
birdlike voice hesitating just a little, and her soft eyes
looking coyly up to him, as she said:

“I am afraid that Arthur is hardly the name by which
to call a clergyman.”

“I am not in orders yet, so let me be Arthur to you.
I love to hear you call me so, and you to me shall be
Lucy,” was his reply.

A mutual clasp of hands had sealed the compact, and
that was the nearest to a love-making of anything which
had passed between them, if we except the time when he
had said good-by, and wiped away the tear which came
unbidden to her eye as she told him how lonely she
should be without him.

Hers was a nature as transparent as glass, and the
young man, who for days had paced the ship's deck so
moodily, was fighting back the thoughts which whispered
that in his intercourse with her he had not been all
guileless, and that if in her girlish heart there was feeling
for him stronger than that of friendship, he had
helped to give it life.

Time and absence and Anna Ruthven had obliterated
all such thoughts till now, when Lucy herself had

brought them back again with her winsome ways, and
her evident intention to begin just where they had left
off.

“Let Anna tell me yes, and I will at once proclaim
our engagement, which will relieve me from all embarrassments
in that quarter,” the clergymen was thinking,
just as his housekeeper came up, bringing him
two notes, one in a strange handwriting, and the other in
the graceful running hand which he recognized as Lucy
Harcourt's.

This he opened first, reading as follows:

Yes, he would go, and if Anna's answer did not come
before, he would ask her for it. There would be plenty
of opportunities down in those deep woods. On the
whole, it would be pleasanter to hear the words from her
own lips, and see the blushes on her cheeks when he
tried to look into her eyes.

The imaginative rector could almost see those eyes,

and feel the touch of her hand as he took the other note,
which Mrs. Meredith had shut herself in her room to
write, and sent slyly by Valencia, who was to tell no one
where she had been.

A gleam of intelligence had shone in Valencia's eyes
as she took the note and carried it safely to the parsonage,
never yielding to the temptation to read it as she
had read the one found in her mistress's pocket, while
the family were at church.

Mrs. Meredith's note was as follows:

This was the letter which the cruel woman had
written, and it dropped from the rector's fingers, as,
with a groan, he bent his head upon the back of a chair,
and tried to realize the magnitude of the blow which had
fallen so suddenly upon him. Not till now did he realize
how, amid all his doubts, he had still been sure of
winning her, and the shock was terrible.

He had staked his all on Anna, and lost it; the world,
which before had been so bright, looked very dreary now,
while he felt that he could never again come before his
people weighed down with so great a load of pain and
humiliation; for it touched the young man's pride that,
not content to refuse him, Anna had chosen another than
herself as the medium through which her refusal must be

conveyed to him. He did not fancy Mrs. Meredith.
He would rather she did not possess his secret, and it
hurt him to know that she did.

It was a bitter hour for the clergyman, for strong and
clear as was his faith in God, he lost sight of it for a time,
and poor, weak human nature cried:

“It's more than I can bear.”

But as the mother does not forget her child, even
though she passes from its sight, so God had not forgotten,
and the darkness broke at last and the lips could
pray again for strength to bear and faith to do all that
God might require.

“Though He slay me I will trust Him,” came like a
ray of sunlight into the rector's mind; and ere the day was
over he could say with a full heart, “Thy will be done.”

He was very pale, and his lip quivered occasionally as
he thought of all he had lost, while a blinding headache,
induced by strong excitement, drove him nearly wild
with pain. He had been subject to headaches all his life,
but he had never suffered as he was suffering now but
once, and that on a rainy day in Rome, when, boasting of
her mesmeric power, Lucy had stood by him, and
passed her hands soothingly across his throbbing temples.

How soft and cool they were,—but they had not
thrilled him as the touch of Anna's did when they hung
the Christmas wreaths and she wore that bunch of scarlet
berries in her hair.

That time seemed very far away, farther even than
Rome and the moonlight nights of Venice. He did not
like to think of it, for the bright hopes which were budding
then were blighted now, and dead; and with a moan,
he laid his aching head upon his pillow, and tried to forget
all he had ever hoped or longed for in the future.

“She will marry Thornton Hastings. He is a more
eligible match than a poor clergyman,” he said, and then,
as he remembered Thornton's letter, and that his man
Thomas would be coming soon to ask if there were letters
to be taken to the office, he arose, and going to the study
table, wrote hastily:

The rector felt better after that letter was written.
He had told his grievance to some one, and it seemed to
have lightened half the load.

“Thorne is a good fellow,” he said, as he directed the
letter. “A little fast, it's true, but a splendid fellow
after all. He will sympathize with me in his way, and I
would rather give Anna to him than any other living
man.”

Arthur was serious in what he said, for, wholly unlike
as they were, there was between him and Thornton Hastings
one of those strong friendships which sometimes
exist between two men, but rarely between two women,
of so widely different temperaments. They had roomed
together four years in college, and countless were the
difficulties from which the sober Arthur had extricated
the luckless Thorne, while many a time the rather slender
means of Arthur had been increased in a way so delicate
that expostulation was next to impossible.

Arthur was better off now in worldly goods, for by the
death of an uncle he had come in possession of a few
thousand dollars, which had enabled him to travel in
Europe for a year, and left a surplus, from which he fed
the poor and needy with no sparing hand.

St. Mark's was his first parish, and though he could
have chosen one nearer to New York, where the society
was more congenial to his taste, he had accepted of what
God offered to him, and had been very happy there since

Anna Ruthven came home from Troy and made such
havoc with his heart. He did not believe he should ever
be quite so happy again, but he would try to do his work,
and take thankfully whatever of good might come to him.

This was his final decision, and when at last he laid
down to rest, the wound, though deep and sore, and
bleeding yet, was not quite as hard to bear as it had been
earlier in the day, when it was fresh and raw, and faith
and hope seemed swept away.