University of Virginia Library

28. CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE SECRET IS WHISPERED.

The Reverend Chauncy Fairweather's congregation
was not large, but select. The lines
of social cleavage run through religious creeds
as if they were of a piece with position and
fortune. It is expected of persons of a certain
breeding, in some parts of New England, that
they shall be either Episcopalians or Unitarians.
The mansion-house gentry of Rockland were
pretty fairly divided between the little chapel
with the stained window and the trained rector,
and the meeting-house where the Reverend Mr.
Fairweather officiated.

It was in the latter that Dudley Venner worshipped,
when he attended service anywhere, —
which depended very much on the caprice of
Elsie. He saw plainly enough that a generous
and liberally cultivated nature might find a refuge
and congenial souls in either of these two
persuasions, but he objected to some points of
the formal creed of the older church, and especially
to the mechanism which renders it hard
to get free from its outworn and offensive formulæ,

— remembering how Archbishop Tillotson
wished in vain that it could be “well rid of”
the Athanasian Creed. This, and the fact that
the meeting-house was nearer than the chapel,
determined him, when the new rector, who was
not quite up to his mark in education, was
appointed, to take a pew in the “liberal” worshippers'
edifice.

Elsie was very uncertain in her feeling about
going to church. In summer, she loved rather
to stroll over The Mountain, on Sundays. There
was even a story, that she had one of the caves
before mentioned fitted up as an oratory, and
that she had her own wild way of worshipping
the God whom she sought in the dark chasms
of the dreaded cliffs. Mere fables, doubtless;
but they showed the common belief, that Elsie,
with all her strange and dangerous elements of
character, had yet strong religious feeling mingled
with them. The hymn-book which Dick had
found, in his midnight invasion of her chamber,
opened to favorite hymns, especially some of the
Methodist and Quietist character. Many had
noticed, that certain tunes, as sung by the choir,
seemed to impress her deeply; and some said,
that at such times her whole expression would
change, and her stormy look would soften so as
to remind them of her poor, sweet mother.

On the Sunday morning after the talk recorded
in the last chapter, Elsie made herself ready to
go to meeting. She was dressed much as usual,

excepting that she wore a thick veil, turned aside,
but ready to conceal her features. It was natural
enough that she should not wish to be looked
in the face by curious persons who would be staring
to see what effect the occurrence of the past
week had had on her spirits. Her father attended
her willingly; and they took their seats in the
pew, somewhat to the surprise of many, who had
hardly expected to see them, after so humiliating
a family development as the attempted crime of
their kinsman had just been furnishing for the
astonishment of the public.

The Reverend Mr. Fairweather was now in
his coldest mood. He had passed through the
period of feverish excitement which marks a
change of religious opinion. At first, when he
had begun to doubt his own theological positions,
he had defended them against himself with
more ingenuity and interest, perhaps, than he
could have done against another; because men
rarely take the trouble to understand anybody's
difficulties in a question but their own. After
this, as he began to draw off from different points
of his old belief, the cautious disentangling of
himself from one mesh after another gave sharpness
to his intellect, and the tremulous eagerness
with which he seized upon the doctrine which,
piece by piece, under various pretexts and with
various disguises, he was appropriating, gave interest
and something like passion to his words.
But when he had gradually accustomed his people

to his new phraseology, and was really adjusting
his sermons and his service to disguise his
thoughts, he lost at once all his intellectual acuteness
and all his spiritual fervor.

Elsie sat quietly through the first part of the
service, which was conducted in the cold, mechanical
way to be expected. Her face was hidden
by her veil; but her father knew her state of
feeling, as well by her movements and attitudes
as by the expression of her features. The hymn
had been sung, the short prayer offered, the Bible
read, and the long prayer was about to begin.
This was the time at which the “notes” of any
who were in affliction from loss of friends, the
sick who were doubtful of recovery, those who
had cause to be grateful for preservation of life
or other signal blessing, were wont to be read.

Just then it was that Dudley Venner noticed
that his daughter was trembling, — a thing so
rare, so unaccountable, indeed, under the circumstances,
that he watched her closely, and began
to fear that some nervous paroxysm, or other
malady, might have just begun to show itself in
this way upon her.

The minister had in his pocket two notes.
One, in the handwriting of Deacon Soper, was
from a member of this congregation, returning
thanks for his preservation through a season of
great peril, — supposed to be the exposure which
he had shared with others, when standing in the
circle around Dick Venner. The other was the

anonymous one, in a female hand, which he had
received the evening before. He forgot them
both. His thoughts were altogether too much
taken up with more important matters. He
prayed through all the frozen petitions of his expurgated
form of supplication, and not a single
heart was soothed or lifted, or reminded that its
sorrows were struggling their way up to heaven,
borne on the breath from a human soul that was
warm with love.

The people sat down as if relieved when the
dreary prayer was finished. Elsie alone remained
standing until her father touched her. Then she
sat down, lifted her veil, and looked at him with
a blank, sad look, as if she had suffered some
pain or wrong, but could not give any name or
expression to her vague trouble. She did not
tremble any longer, but remained ominously still,
as if she had been frozen where she sat.

— Can a man love his own soul too well?
Who, on the whole, constitute the nobler class
of human beings? those who have lived mainly
to make sure of their own personal welfare in
another and future condition of existence, or they
who have worked with all their might for their
race, for their country, for the advancement of the
kingdom of God, and left all personal arrangements
concerning themselves to the sole charge
of Him who made them and is responsible to
Himself for their safe-keeping? Is an anchorite
who has worn the stone floor of his cell into

basins with his knees bent in prayer, more acceptable
than the soldier who gives his life for the
maintenance of any sacred right or truth, without
thinking what will specially become of him
in a world where there are two or three million
colonists a month, from this one planet, to be
cared for? These are grave questions, which
must suggest themselves to those who know
that there are many profoundly selfish persons
who are sincerely devout and perpetually occupied
with their own future, while there are others
who are perfectly ready to sacrifice themselves
for any worthy object in this world, but are really
too little occupied with their exclusive personality
to think so much as many do about what is to
become of them in another.

The Reverend Chauncy Fairweather did not,
most certainly, belong to this latter class. There
are several kinds of believers, whose history we
find among the early converts to Christianity.

There was the magistrate, whose social position
was such that he preferred a private interview in
the evening with the Teacher to following him
with the street-crowd. He had seen extraordinary
facts which had satisfied him that the young
Galilean had a divine commission. But still he
cross-questioned the Teacher himself. He was
not ready to accept statements without explanation.
That was the right kind of man. See how
he stood up for the legal rights of his Master,
when the people were for laying hands on him!

And again, there was the government official,
intrusted with public money, which, in those
days, implied that he was supposed to be honest.
A single look of that heavenly countenance, and
two words of gentle command, were enough for
him. Neither of these men, the early disciple
nor the evangelist, seems to have been thinking
primarily about his own personal safety.

But now look at the poor, miserable turnkey,
whose occupation shows what he was like to be,
and who had just been thrusting two respectable
strangers, taken from the hands of a mob, covered
with stripes and stripped of clothing, into the
inner prison, and making their feet fast in the
stocks. His thought, in the moment of terror,
is for himself: first, suicide; then, what he shall
do, — not to save his household, — not to fulfil
his duty to his office, — not to repair the outrage
he has been committing, — but to secure his own
personal safety. Truly, character shows itself as
much in a man's way of becoming a Christian
as in any other!

— Elsie sat, statue-like, through the sermon.
It would not be fair to the reader to give an abstract
of that. When a man who has been bred
to free thought and free speeeh suddenly finds
himself stepping about, like a dancer amidst his
eggs, among the old addled majority-votes which
he must not tread upon, he is a spectacle for
men and angels. Submission to intellectual precedent
and authority does very well for those who

have been bred to it; we know that the underground
courses of their minds are laid in the Roman
cement of tradition, and that stately and
splendid structures may be reared on such a
foundation. But to see one laying a platform
over heretical quicksands, thirty or forty or fifty
years deep, and then beginning to build upon it,
is a sorry sight. A new convert from the reformed
to the ancient faith may be very strong
in the arms, but he will always have weak legs
and shaky knees. He may use his hands well,
and hit hard with his fists, but he will never
stand on his legs in the way the man does who
inherits his belief.

The services were over at last, and Dudley
Venner and his daughter walked home together
in silence. He always respected her moods, and
saw clearly enough that some inward trouble was
weighing upon her. There was nothing to be
said in such cases, for Elsie could never talk of
her griefs. An hour, or a day, or a week of
brooding, with perhaps a sudden flash of violence:
this was the way in which the impressions
which make other women weep, and tell their
griefs by word or letter, showed their effects in
her mind and acts.

She wandered off up into the remoter parts of
The Mountain, that day, after their return. No
one saw just where she went, — indeed, no one
knew its forest-recesses and rocky fastnesses as
she did. She was gone until late at night; and

when Old Sophy, who had watched for her, bound
up her long hair for her sleep, it was damp with
the cold dews.

The old black woman looked at her without
speaking, but questioning her with every feature
as to the sorrow that was weighing on her.

Suddenly she turned to Old Sophy.

“You want to know what there is troubling
me,” she said. “Nobody loves me. I cannot
love anybody. What is love, Sophy?”

“It's what poor Ol' Sophy's got for her Elsie,”
the old woman answered. “Tell me, darlin', —
don' you love somebody? — don' you love —?
you know, — oh, tell me, darlin', don' you love to
see the gen'l'man that keeps up at the school
where you go? They say he's the pootiest gen'l'man
that was ever in the town here. Don' be
'fraid of poor Ol' Sophy, darlin', — she loved a
man once, — see here! Oh, I've showed you this
often enough!”

She took from her pocket a half of one of the
old Spanish silver coins, such as were current in
the earlier part of this century. The other half
of it had been lying in the deep sea-sand for more
than fifty years.

Elsie looked her in the face, but did not answer
in words. What strange intelligence was that
which passed between them through the diamond
eyes and the little beady black ones? — what
subtile intercommunication, penetrating so much
deeper than articulate speech? This was the

nearest approach to sympathetic relations that
Elsie ever had: a kind of dumb intercourse of
feeling, such as one sees in the eyes of brute
mothers looking on their young. But, subtile as
it was, it was narrow and individual; whereas an
emotion which can shape itself in language opens
the gate for itself into the great community of
human affections; for every word we speak is
the medal of a dead thought or feeling, struck in
the die of some human experience, worn smooth
by innumerable contacts, and always transferred
warm from one to another. By words we share
the common consciousness of the race, which has
shaped itself in these symbols. By music we
reach those special states of consciousness which,
being without form, cannot be shaped with the
mosaics of the vocabulary. The language of the
eyes runs deeper into the personal nature, but it
is purely individual, and perishes in the expression.
If we consider them all as growing out of
the consciousness as their root, language is the
leaf, music is the flower; but when the eyes meet
and search each other, it is the uncovering of the
blanched stem through which the whole life runs,
but which has never taken color or form from the
sunlight.

For three days Elsie did not return to the
school. Much of the time she was among the
woods and rocks. The season was now beginning
to wane, and the forest to put on its autumnal
glory. The dreamy haze was beginning to

soften the landscape, and the most delicious days
of the year were lending their attraction to the
scenery of The Mountain. It was not very singular
that Elsie should be lingering in her old
haunts, from which the change of season must
soon drive her. But Old Sophy saw clearly
enough that some internal conflict was going
on, and knew very well that it must have its
own way and work itself out as it best could.
As much as looks could tell Elsie had told her.
She had said in words, to be sure, that she could
not love. Something warped and thwarted the
emotion which would have been love in another,
no doubt; but that such an emotion was striving
with her against all malign influences which interfered
with it the old woman had a perfect certainty
in her own mind.

Everybody who has observed the working of
emotions in persons of various temperaments
knows well enough that they have periods of
incubation, which differ with the individual, and
with the particular cause and degree of excitement,
yet evidently go through a strictly self-limited
series of evolutions, at the end of which,
their result — an act of violence, a paroxysm of
tears, a gradual subsidence into repose, or whatever
it may be — declares itself, like the last stage
of an attack of fever and ague. No one can observe
children without noticing that there is a
personal equation, to use the astronomer's language,
in their tempers, so that one sulks an hour

over an offence which makes another a fury for
five minutes, and leaves him or her an angel
when it is over.

At the end of three days, Elsie braided her
long, glossy, black hair, and shot a golden arrow
through it. She dressed herself with more than
usual care, and came down in the morning superb
in her stormy beauty. The brooding paroxysm
was over, or at least her passion had changed its
phase. Her father saw it with great relief; he
had always many fears for her in her hours and
days of gloom, but, for reasons before assigned,
had felt that she must be trusted to herself, without
appealing to actual restraint, or any other
supervision than such as Old Sophy could exercise
without offence.

She went off at the accustomed hour to the
school. All the girls had their eyes on her. None
so keen as these young misses to know an inward
movement by an outward sign of adornment: if
they have not as many signals as the ships that
sail the great seas, there is not an end of ribbon
or a turn of a ringlet which is not a hieroglyphic
with a hidden meaning to these little cruisers over
the ocean of sentiment.

The girls all looked at Elsie with a new
thought; for she was more sumptuously arrayed
than perhaps ever before at the school; and they
said to themselves that she had come meaning to
draw the young master's eyes upon her. That
was it; what else could it be? The beautiful,

cold girl with the diamond eyes meant to dazzle
the handsome young gentleman. He would be
afraid to love her; it couldn't be true, that which
some people had said in the village; she wasn't
the kind of young lady to make Mr. Langdon
happy. Those dark people are never safe: so
one of the young blondes said to herself. Elsie
was not literary enough for such a scholar: so
thought Miss Charlotte Ann Wood, the young
poetess. She couldn't have a good temper, with
those scowling eyebrows: this was the opinion
of several broad-faced, smiling girls, who thought,
each in her own snug little mental sanctum, that,
if, etc., etc., she could make him so happy!

Elsie had none of the still, wicked light in her
eyes, that morning. She looked gentle, but
dreamy; played with her books; did not trouble
herself with any of the exercises, — which in itself
was not very remarkable, as she was always
allowed, under some pretext or other, to have her
own way.

The school-hours were over at length. The
girls went out, but she lingered to the last. She
then came up to Mr. Bernard, with a book in her
hand, as if to ask a question.

“Will you walk towards my home with me to-day?”
she said, in a very low voice, little more
than a whisper.

Mr. Bernard was startled by the request, put in
such a way. He had a presentiment of some
painful scene or other. But there was nothing

to be done but to assure her that it would give
him great pleasure.

So they walked along together on their way
toward the Dudley mansion.

“I have no friend,” Elsie said, all at once.
“Nothing loves me but one old woman. I cannot
love anybody. They tell me there is something
in my eyes that draws people to me and
makes them faint. Look into them, will you?”

She turned her face toward him. It was very
pale, and the diamond eyes were glittering with
a film, such as beneath other lids would have
rounded into a tear.

“Beautiful eyes, Elsie,” he said, — “sometimes
very piercing, — but soft now, and looking as if
there were something beneath them that friendship
might draw out. I am your friend, Elsie.
Tell me what I can do to render your life happier.”

“Love me!” said Elsie Venner.

What shall a man do, when a woman makes
such a demand, involving such an avowal? It
was the tenderest, cruellest, humblest moment of
Mr. Bernard's life. He turned pale, he trembled
almost, as if he had been a woman listening to
her lover's declaration.

“Elsie,” he said, presently, “I so long to be
of some use to you, to have your confidence and
sympathy, that I must not let you say or do
anything to put us in false relations. I do love
you, Elsie, as a suffering sister with sorrows of

her own, — as one whom I would save at the
risk of my happiness and life, — as one who
needs a true friend more than any of all the
young girls I have known. More than this you
would not ask me to say. You have been
through excitement and trouble lately, and it
has made you feel such a need more than ever.
Give me your hand, dear Elsie, and trust me that
I will be as true a friend to you as if we were
children of the same mother.”

Elsie gave him her hand mechanically. It
seemed to him that a cold aura shot from it
along his arm and chilled the blood running
through his heart. He pressed it gently, looked
at her with a face full of grave kindness and
sad interest, then softly relinquished it.

It was all over with poor Elsie. They walked
almost in silence the rest of the way. Mr. Bernard
left her at the gate of the mansion-house,
and returned with sad forebodings. Elsie went
at once to her own room, and did not come from
it at the usual hours. At last Old Sophy began
to be alarmed about her, went to her apartment,
and, finding the door unlocked, entered
cautiously. She found Elsie lying on her bed,
her brows strongly contracted, her eyes dull, her
whole look that of great suffering. Her first
thought was that she had been doing herself a
harm by some deadly means or other. But
Elsie saw her fear, and reassured her.

“No,” she said, “there is nothing wrong, such

as you are thinking of; I am not dying. You
may send for the Doctor; perhaps he can take
the pain from my head. That is all I want him
to do. There is no use in the pain, that I know
of; if he can stop it, let him.”

So they sent for the old Doctor. It was not
long before the solid trot of Caustic, the old bay
horse, and the crashing of the gravel under the
wheels, gave notice that the physician was driving
up the avenue.

The old Doctor was a model for visiting practitioners.
He always came into the sick-room
with a quiet, cheerful look, as if he had a consciousness
that he was bringing some sure relief
with him. The way a patient snatches his first
look at his doctor's face, to see whether he is
doomed, whether he is reprieved, whether he is
unconditionally pardoned, has really something
terrible about it. It is only to be met by an imperturbable
mask of serenity, proof against anything
and everything in a patient's aspect. The
physician whose face reflects his patient's condition
like a mirror may do well enough to examine
people for a life-insurance office, but does not
belong to the sick-room. The old Doctor did not
keep people waiting in dread suspense, while he
stayed talking about the case,—the patient all the
time thinking that he and the friends are discussing
some alarming symptom or formidable operation
which he himself is by-and-by to hear of.

He was in Elsie's room almost before she

knew he was in the house. He came to her
bedside in such a natural, quiet way, that it
seemed as if he were only a friend who had
dropped in for a moment to say a pleasant
word. Yet he was very uneasy about Elsie
until he had seen her; he never knew what
might happen to her or those about her, and
came prepared for the worst.

“Sick, my child?” he said, in a very soft,
low voice.

Elsie nodded, without speaking.

The Doctor took her hand, — whether with
professional views, or only in a friendly way, it
would have been hard to tell. So he sat a few
minutes, looking at her all the time with a kind
of fatherly interest, but with it all noting how
she lay, how she breathed, her color, her expression,
all that teaches the practised eye so much
without a single question being asked. He saw
she was in suffering, and said presently, —

“You have pain somewhere; where is it?”

She put her hand to her head.

As she was not disposed to talk, he watched
her for a while, questioned Old Sophy shrewdly
a few minutes, and so made up his mind as to
the probable cause of disturbance and the proper
remedies to be used.

Some very silly people thought the old Doctor
did not believe in medicine, because he gave
less than certain poor half-taught creatures in
the smaller neighboring towns, who took advantage

of people's sickness to disgust and disturb
them with all manner of ill-smelling and ill-behaving
drugs. In truth, he hated to give anything
noxious or loathsome to those who were
uncomfortable enough already, unless he was
very sure it would do good, — in which case, he
never played with drugs, but gave good, honest,
efficient doses. Sometimes he lost a family
of the more boorish sort, because they did not
think they got their money's worth out of him,
unless they had something more than a taste of
everything he carried in his saddle-bags.

He ordered some remedies which he thought
would relieve Elsie, and left her, saying he would
call the next day, hoping to find her better. But
the next day came, and the next, and still Elsie
was on her bed, — feverish, restless, wakeful, silent.
At night she tossed about and wandered,
and it became at length apparent that there was
a settled attack, something like what they called
formerly, a “nervous fever.”

On the fourth day she was more restless than
common. One of the women of the house came
in to help to take care of her; but she showed
an aversion to her presence.

“Send me Helen Darley,” she said, at last.

The old Doctor told them, that, if possible, they
must indulge this fancy of hers. The caprices
of sick people were never to be despised, least
of all of such persons as Elsie, when rendered
irritable and exacting by pain and weakness.

So a message was sent to Mr. Silas Peckham,
at the Apollinean Institute, to know if he could
not spare Miss Helen Darley for a few days, if
required, to give her attention to a young lady
who attended his school and who was now lying
ill,—no other person than the daughter of Dudley
Venner.

A mean man never agrees to anything without
deliberately turning it over, so that he may see
its dirty side, and, if he can, sweating the coin
he pays for it. If an archangel should offer to
save his soul for sixpence, he would try to find
a sixpence with a hole in it. A gentleman says
yes to a great many things without stopping to
think: a shabby fellow is known by his caution
in answering questions, for fear of compromising
his pocket or himself.

Mr. Silas Peckham looked very grave at the
request. The dooties of Miss Darley at the Institoot
were important, very important. He paid
her large sums of money for her time, — more
than she could expect to get in any other institootion
for the edoocation of female youth. A
deduction from her selary would be necessary, in
case she should retire from the sphere of her
dooties for a season. He should be put to extry
expense, and have to perform additional labors
himself. He would consider of the matter. If
any arrangement could be made, he would send
word to Squire Venner's folks.

“Miss Darley,” said Silas Peckham, “the' 's a

message from Squire Venner's that his daughter
wants you down at the mansion-house to see her.
She's got a fever, so they inform me. If it's any
kind of ketchin' fever, of course you won't think
of goin' near the mansion-house. If Doctor Kittredge
says it's safe, perfec'ly safe, I can't objec'
to your goin', on sech conditions as seem to be
fair to all concerned. You will give up your pay
for the whole time you are absent, — portions of
days to be caounted as whole days. You will be
charged with board the same as if you ēat your
victuals with the household. The victuals are of
no use after they're cooked but to be ēat, and
your bein' away is no savin' to our folks. I shall
charge you a reasonable compensation for the
demage to the school by the absence of a teacher.
If Miss Crabs undertakes any dooties belongin'
to your department of instruction, she will look
to you for sech pecooniary considerations as you
may agree upon between you. On these conditions
I am willin' to give my consent to your
temporary absence from the post of dooty. I
will step down to Doctor Kittredge's, myself,
and make inquiries as to the natur' of the complaint.”

Mr. Peckham took up a rusty and very narrow-brimmed
hat, which he cocked upon one side of
his head, with an air peculiar to the rural gentry.
It was the hour when the Doctor expected to be
in his office, unless he had some special call which
kept him from home.

He found the Reverend Chauncy Fairweather
just taking leave of the Doctor. His hand was
on the pit of his stomach, and his countenance
expressive of inward uneasiness.

“Shake it before using,” said the Doctor; “and
the sooner you make up your mind to speak right
out, the better it will be for your digestion.”

“Oh, Mr. Peckham! Walk in, Mr. Peckham!
Nobody sick up at the school, I hope?”

“The haälth of the school is fust-rate,” replied
Mr. Peckham. “The sitooation is uncommonly
favorable to saloobrity.” (These last words were
from the Annual Report of the past year.) “Providence
has spared our female youth in a remarkable
measure. I've come with reference to another
consideration. Doctor Kittredge, is there any
ketchin' complaint goin' about in the village?”

“Well, yes,” said the Doctor, “I should say
there was something of that sort. Measles.
Mumps. And Sin, — that's always catching.”

The old Doctor's eye twinkled; once in a while
he had his little touch of humor.

Silas Peckham slanted his eye up suspiciously
at the Doctor, as if he was getting some kind of
advantage over him. That is the way people
of his constitution are apt to take a bit of pleasantry.

“I don't mean sech things, Doctor; I mean
fevers. Is there any ketchin' fevers — bilious, or
nervous, or typus, or whatever you call 'em — now

goin' round this village? That's what I want to
ascertain, if there's no impropriety.”

The old Doctor looked at Silas through his
spectacles.

“Hard and sour as a green cider-apple,” he
thought to himself. “No,” he said, — “I don't
know any such cases.”

“What's the matter with Elsie Venner?”
asked Silas, sharply, as if he expected to have
him this time.

“A mild feverish attack, I should call it in anybody
else; but she has a peculiar constitution,
and I never feel so safe about her as I should
about most people.”

“Anything ketchin' about it?” Silas asked,
cunningly.

“No, indeed!” said the Doctor, — “catching?
— no, — what put that into your head, Mr. Peckham?”

“Well, Doctor,” the conscientious Principal answered,
“I naterally feel a graät responsibility, a
very graäät responsibility, for the noomerous and
lovely young ladies committed to my charge. It
has been a question, whether one of my assistants
should go, accordin' to request, to stop with Miss
Venner for a season. Nothin' restrains my givin'
my full and free consent to her goin' but the fear lest
contagious maladies should be introdooced among
those lovely female youth. I shall abide by your
opinion, — I understan' you to say distinc'ly, her
complaint is not ketchin'? — and urge upon Miss

Darley to fulfil her dooties to a sufferin' fellow-creature
at any cost to myself and my establishment.
We shall miss her very much; but it is a
good cause, and she shall go, — and I shall trust
that Providence will enable us to spare her without
permanent demage to the interests of the Institootion.”

Saying this, the excellent Principal departed,
with his rusty narrow-brimmed hat leaning over,
as if it had a six-knot breeze abeam, and its gunwale
(so to speak) was dipping into his coat-collar.
He announced the result of his inquiries to
Helen, who had received a brief note in the mean
time from a poor relation of Elsie's mother, then
at the mansion-house, informing her of the critical
situation of Elsie and of her urgent desire
that Helen should be with her. She could not
hesitate. She blushed as she thought of the
comments that might be made; but what were
such considerations in a matter of life and death?
She could not stop to make terms with Silas
Peckham. She must go. He might fleece her,
if he would; she would not complain, — not even
to Bernard, who, she knew, would bring the Principal
to terms, if she gave the least hint of his intended
extortions.

So Helen made up her bundle of clothes to be
sent after her, took a book or two with her to help
her pass the time, and departed for the Dudley
mansion. It was with a great inward effort that
she undertook the sisterly task which was thus

forced upon her. She had a kind of terror of
Elsie; and the thought of having charge of her,
of being alone with her, of coming under the full
influence of those diamond eyes, — if, indeed,
their light were not dimmed by suffering and
weariness, — was one she shrank from. But what
could she do? It might be a turning-point in
the life of the poor girl; and she must overcome
all her fears, all her repugnance, and go to her
rescue.

“Is Helen come?” said Elsie, when she heard,
with her fine sense quickened by the irritability of
sickness, a light footfall on the stair, with a cadence
unlike that of any inmate of the house.

“It's a strange woman's step,” said Old Sophy,
who, with her exclusive love for Elsie, was naturally
disposed to jealousy of a new-comer. “Let
Ol' Sophy set at th' foot o' th' bed, if th' young
missis sets by th' piller, — won' y', darlin'? The'
's nobody that's white can love y' as th' ol' black
woman does; — don' sen' her away, now, there's
a dear soul!”

Elsie motioned her to sit in the place she had
pointed to, and Helen at that moment entered
the room. Dudley Venner followed her.

“She is your patient,” he said, “except while
the Doctor is here. She has been longing to have
you with her, and we shall expect you to make
her well in a few days.”

So Helen Darley found herself established in
the most unexpected manner as an inmate of the

Dudley mansion. She sat with Elsie most of the
time, by day and by night, soothing her, and trying
to enter into her confidence and affections, if
it should prove that this strange creature was
really capable of truly sympathetic emotions.

What was this unexplained something which
came between her soul and that of every other
human being with whom she was in relations?
Helen perceived, or rather felt, that she had, folded
up in the depths of her being, a true womanly
nature. Through the cloud that darkened her aspect,
now and then a ray would steal forth, which,
like the smile of stern and solemn people, was all
the more impressive from its contrast with the expression
she wore habitually. It might well be
that pain and fatigue had changed her aspect;
but, at any rate, Helen looked into her eyes without
that nervous agitation which their cold glitter
had produced on her when they were full of their
natural light. She felt sure that her mother must
have been a lovely, gentle woman. There were
gleams of a beautiful nature shining through
some ill-defined medium which disturbed and
made them flicker and waver, as distant images
do when seen through the rippling upward currents
of heated air. She loved, in her own way,
the old black woman, and seemed to keep up a
kind of silent communication with her, as if they
did not require the use of speech. She appeared
to be tranquillized by the presence of Helen, and
loved to have her seated at the bedside. Yet

something, whatever it was, prevented her from
opening her heart to her kind companion; and
even now there were times when she would lie
looking at her, with such a still, watchful, almost
dangerous expression, that Helen would sigh, and
change her place, as persons do whose breath
some cunning orator has been sucking out of
them with his spongy eloquence, so that, when
he stops, they must get some air and stir about,
or they feel as if they should be half-smothered
and palsied.

It was too much to keep guessing what was
the meaning of all this. Helen determined to
ask Old Sophy some questions which might
probably throw light upon her doubts. She
took the opportunity one evening when Elsie
was lying asleep and they were both sitting at
some distance from her bed.

“Tell me, Sophy,” she said, “was Elsie always
as shy as she seems to be now, in talking
with those to whom she is friendly?”

“Alway jes' so, Miss Darlin', ever sence she
was little chil'. When she was five, six year
old, she lisp some, — call me Thophy; that make
her kin' o' 'shamed, perhaps: after she grow up,
she never lisp, but she kin' o' got the way o' not
talkin' much. Fac' is, she don' like talkin' as
common gals do, 'xcep' jes' once in a while wi'
some partic'lar folks, — 'n' then not much.”

“How old is Elsie?”

“Eighteen year this las' September.”

“How long ago did her mother die?” Helen
asked, with a little trembling in her voice.

“Eighteen year ago this October,” said Old
Sophy.

Helen was silent for a moment. Then she
whispered, almost inaudibly, — for her voice appeared
to fail her, —

“What did her mother die of, Sophy?”

The old woman's small eyes dilated until a
ring of white showed round their beady centres.
She caught Helen by the hand and clung
to it, as if in fear. She looked round at Elsie,
who lay sleeping, as if she might be listening.
Then she drew Helen towards her and led her
softly out of the room.

“'Sh! — 'sh!” she said, as soon as they were
outside the door. “Don' never speak in this
house 'bout what Elsie's mother died of!” she
said. “Nobody never says nothin' 'bout it. Oh,
God has made Ugly Things wi' death in their
mouths, Miss Darlin', an' He knows what they're
for; but my poor Elsie! — to have her blood
changed in her before — It was in July Mistress
got her death, but she liv' till three week
after my poor Elsie was born.”

She could speak no more. She had said
enough. Helen remembered the stories she had
heard on coming to the village, and among them
one referred to in an early chapter of this narrative.
All the unaccountable looks and tastes
and ways of Elsie came back to her in the light

of an ante-natal impression which had mingled
an alien element in her nature. She knew the
secret of the fascination which looked out of her
cold, glittering eyes. She knew the significance
of the strange repulsion which she felt in her
own intimate consciousness underlying the inexplicable
attraction which drew her towards
the young girl in spite of this repugnance. She
began to look with new feelings on the contradictions
in her moral nature, — the longing for
sympathy, as shown by her wishing for Helen's
company, and the impossibility of passing beyond
the cold circle of isolation within which
she had her being. The fearful truth of that
instinctive feeling of hers, that there was something
not human looking out of Elsie's eyes,
came upon her with a sudden flash of penetrating
conviction. There were two warring principles
in that superb organization and proud soul.
One made her a woman, with all a woman's
powers and longings. The other chilled all the
currents of outlet for her emotions. It made her
tearless and mute, when another woman would
have wept and pleaded. And it infused into
her soul something — it was cruel now to call
it malice — which was still and watchful and
dangerous, — which waited its opportunity, and
then shot like an arrow from its bow out of the
coil of brooding premeditation. Even those who
had never seen the white scars on Dick Venner's
wrist, or heard the half-told story of her supposed
attempt to do a graver mischief, knew
well enough by looking at her that she was one
of the creatures not to be tampered with, —
silent in anger and swift in vengeance.

Helen could not return to the bedside at once
after this communication. It was with altered
eyes that she must look on the poor girl, the
victim of such an unheard-of fatality. All was
explained to her now. But it opened such
depths of solemn thought in her awakened consciousness,
that it seemed as if the whole mystery
of human life were coming up again before
her for trial and judgment. “Oh,” she thought,
“if, while the will lies sealed in its fountain, it
may be poisoned at its very source, so that it
shall flow dark and deadly through its whole
course, who are we that we should judge our
fellow-creatures by ourselves?” Then came the
terrible question, how far the elements themselves
are capable of perverting the moral nature:
if valor, and justice, and truth, the strength
of man and the virtue of woman, may not be
poisoned out of a race by the food of the Australian
in his forest, — by the foul air and
darkness of the Christians cooped up in the
“tenement-houses” close by those who live in
the palaces of the great cities?

She walked out into the garden, lost in thought
upon these dark and deep matters. Presently
she heard a step behind her, and Elsie's father
came up and joined her. Since his introduction

to Helen at the distinguished tea-party given by
the Widow Rowens, and before her coming to
sit with Elsie, Mr. Dudley Venner had in the
most accidental way in the world met her on
several occasions: once after church, when she
happened to be caught in a slight shower and he
insisted on holding his umbrella over her on her
way home; — once at a small party at one of the
mansion-houses, where the quick-eyed lady of the
house had a wonderful knack of bringing people
together who liked to see each other; — perhaps
at other times and places; but of this there is no
certain evidence.

They naturally spoke of Elsie, her illness, and
the aspect it had taken. But Helen noticed in
all that Dudley Venner said about his daughter
a morbid sensitiveness, as it seemed to her, an
aversion to saying much about her physical condition
or her peculiarities, — a wish to feel and
speak as a parent should, and yet a shrinking,
as if there were something about Elsie which
he could not bear to dwell upon. She thought
she saw through all this, and she could interpret
it all charitably. There were circumstances
about his daughter which recalled the great
sorrow of his life; it was not strange that this
perpetual reminder should in some degree have
modified his feelings as a father. But what a
life he must have been leading for so many
years, with this perpetual source of distress
which he could not name! Helen knew well

enough, now, the meaning of the sadness which
had left such traces in his features and tones,
and it made her feel very kindly and compassionate
towards him.

So they walked over the crackling leaves in
the garden, between the lines of box breathing
its fragrance of eternity; — for this is one of the
odors which carry us out of time into the abysses
of the unbeginning past; if we ever lived on another
ball of stone than this, it must be that there
was box growing on it. So they walked, finding
their way softly to each other's sorrows and sympathies,
each matching some counterpart to the
other's experience of life, and startled to see how
the different, yet parallel, lessons they had been
taught by suffering had led them step by step to
the same serene acquiescence in the orderings of
that Supreme Wisdom which they both devoutly
recognized.

Old Sophy was at the window and saw them
walking up and down the garden-alleys. She
watched them as her grandfather the savage
watched the figures that moved among the
trees when a hostile tribe was lurking about his
mountain.

“There'll be a weddin' in the ol' house,” she
said, “before there's roses on them bushes ag'in.
But it won' be my poor Elsie's weddin', 'n' Ol'
Sophy won' be there.”

When Helen prayed in the silence of her soul
that evening, it was not that Elsie's life might be

spared. She dared not ask that as a favor of
Heaven. What could life be to her but a perpetual
anguish, and to those about her an ever-present
terror? Might she but be so influenced
by divine grace, that what in her was most truly
human, most purely woman-like, should overcome
the dark, cold, unmentionable instinct which had
pervaded her being like a subtile poison: that was
all she could ask, and the rest she left to a higher
wisdom and tenderer love than her own.