University of Virginia Library

22. CHAPTER XXII.
NOT A HEROINE, BUT A WOMAN.

THE cold, cynical man of the world was in a maze.
He was deeply and painfully surprised at Miss
Walton, and scarcely less so at himself. How could
he account for the tumult at his heart! When he
first saw that outburst of passion against a trembling,
pleading child, he felt that he wished to leave the
house then and forever. The next moment, when
he saw Annie's face as she convulsively clasped the
boy to her breast, and with supernatural strength
fled to the refuge of her room, he was not only
instantly disarmed of anger, but touched and melted
as he had never been before.

Feeling is sometimes so intense that it is like the
lightning, and burns its way instantly to the consciousness
of others. Words of condemnation would
have died on the lips of the sternest judge had he
seen Annie's face. It would have shown him that
the harshest things that he could utter were already
anticipated in unmeasured self-upbraidings.

From anger and disgust Gregory passed to the
profoundest pity. The children's unbounded affection
for Annie proved that she was usually kind and
patient toward them. A little thought convinced

him that the act he saw was a sudden outburst of
passion which the exasperating events of the day
had prepared for. Her face showed as no language
could how sincere and deep would be her repentance.

He had not gone very far into the early twilight
of a grove before he was conscious of a strong and
secret exultation.

“She is not made of different clay from others,”
he said. “She cannot condemn me so utterly now;
and in view of what I have seen, she cannot loftily
deny the kinship of human weakness.

“What a nature she has, with its subterranean
fires! She is none of your cool, calculating creatures,
who cipher out from day to day what is policy to
do. She will act rightly till there is an irrepressible
irruption, and then, beware. And yet these ebullitions
enrich her life as the lava flow does the sides of
Vesuvius. I shall be greatly disappointed if she is
not ten times more kind, sympathetic, and self-forgetful
than she was before; and as for that boy, she
will keep him in the tallest clover for weeks to come,
to make up for this.

“How piquant she is! I do not fear her quick,
flame-like spirit when it is combined with so much
conscience and principle. Indeed, I like her passion.
It warms my cold, heavy heart. I wish she had
shaken me, who deserved it, instead of the child, and
if any makings up like that in yonder room could
follow, I would like to be shaken every day in the
week. It would make a new man of me.”

In the excitement of his feelings, he had gone
farther than he realized, and the dusk was deepening
fast when he reached the house on his return. He
felt not a little uneasy as to his reception after the
severe rebuke he had given, but counted much on
Annie's just and generous disposition. He entered
quietly at a side door and passed through the dining-room
into the hall. The lamp in the parlor was unlighted,
but the bright wood fire shed a soft, uncertain
radiance throughout the room. A few notes of
prelude were struck on the piano, and he knew that
Miss Walton was there. Stepping silently forward
opposite the open door, he stood in the dark hall
watching her as she sang the following words:

As in tremulous, melting tones she sang this simple
prayer with tears glistening in her eyes, Gregory
was again conscious of the strong answering emotion
which the presence of deep feeling in those bound
to us by some close tie of sympathy often excites.

But far more than mere feeling moved him now.
Her words and manner vivified an old truth familiar
from infancy, but which he had never realized nor
intelligently believed—the power of prayer to secure
practical help from God.

How often men have lived and died poor just
above mines of untold wealth. Gaunt famine has
been the inmate of households, while there were
buried treasures under the hearth-stone.

So multitudes in their spiritual life are weak,
despairing, perishing, when by the simple divinely
appointed means of prayer they might fill their lives
with strength and fulness. How long men suffered
and died with diseases that seemed incurable before
they discovered in some common object a potent
remedy that relieved pain and restored health.

As is the case with many brought up in Christian
homes, with no one thing was Gregory more
familiar than prayer. For many years he had said
prayers daily, and yet he had seldom in all his life
prayed, and of late years had come to be a practical

infidel in regard to the whole matter. People who
only say prayers, and expect slight, or no results
from them, or are content year after year to see no
results—who lack simple, honest, practical faith in
God's word, such as they have in that of their physician
or banker—who only feel that they ought to
pray, and that in some vague, mystical manner it
may do them good, are very apt to end as skeptics
as to its efficacy and value. Or they may become
superstitious, and continue to say prayers as the
poor Indian mutters his “hocus pocus” to keep off the
witches. God hears prayer when his children cry to
him—when his faithful friends speak to him straight
and true from their hearts; and such know well that
they are answered.

As Gregory looked at and listened to Annie
Walton, he could no more believe that she was expressing
a little aimless religious emotion just as she
would sing a sentimental ballad, than he could think
that she was only showing purposeless filial affection
if she were hanging on her father's arm and pleading
for something vital to her happiness. The thought
flashed across him:

“Here may be the secret of her power to do
right—the help she gets from a source above and
beyond herself. Here may be the key both to her
strength and weakness. Here glimmers light even
for me.”

Annie was about to sing again, but the interest
which she had awakened was so strong that he could
not endure delay. Anxiety as to his personal reception

was forgotten, and he stepped forward and interrupted
her with a question.

“Miss Walton, do you honestly believe that?”

“Believe what?” said she hastily, quite startled.

“What I gathered from the hymn you sang—
that your prayer is really heard and answered?”

“Why, certainly I believe it,” said Annie in a
shocked and pained tone. “Do you think me capable
of mockery in such things? And yet,” she added
sadly, “perhaps after to-day you think me capable of
anything.”

“Now you do both yourself and me wrong,”
Gregory eagerly replied. “I do believe you are sincerely
trying to obey your conscience. Did I not
see your look of sorrow as you passed me on the
stairs?—when will I forget it! Remember words
that must have been inspired, which you once quoted
to me?

And pardon me when I tell you that I have been
listening the last few moments, out in the hall.
Your tones and manner would melt the heart of an
infidel, and they have made me wish that I were not
so unbelieving. Forgive me for even putting such
thoughts in your mind—I feel it is wicked and selfish
in me to do it—but how do you know that your
prayer, though so direct and sincere, was not sound
lost in space?”

“Because it has been answered,” she replied
eagerly. “Peace came even as I spoke the words.

Because whenever I really pray to God he answers
me.”

They now stood on opposite sides of the hearth,
with the glowing fire between them. In its light
Annie's wet eyes glistened, but she had forgotten
herself in her sincere and newly awakened interest in
him whom she had secretly hoped and purposed
before to lead to better things. It had formed no
small part of her keen self-reproach that she had
forgotten that purpose, and wished him out of the
way, just as she was beginning to gain a decided
influence over him for good. After what he had
witnessed that afternoon she felt that he would
never listen to her again.

He would not had he detected the slightest tinge
of acting or insincerity on her part, but her penitence
had been as real as her passion.

She was glad and grateful indeed when he approached
her again in the spirit he now manifested,
and hoped she saw the leadings of a kind Providence
bringing “good out of evil.”

As she stood there in the firelight, self-forgetful,
conscious only of her wish to say some words that
would be like light to him, her large humid eyes
turned up to his face, she made a picture that his
mother would like to see. Perhaps she did, bending
from heaven with the angels who watch for one
sinner's repentance.

He leaned against the mantel and looked dejectedly
into the fire. After a moment he said sadly:

“I envy you, Miss Walton. I wish I could

believe in a personal God who thought about us and
cared for us—that is, each one of us. Of course I
believe in a Supreme Being—a great First Cause; but
he hides himself behind the stars—he is lost to me
in his vast universe. I think my prayers once had an
effect on my own mind, and so did me some good.
But that's past, and now I might as well pray to
gravitation as to anything else.”

Then turning to her, he caught her wistful, interested
look—an expression which said plainly, “I
want to help you,” and it touched him. He continued
feelingly:

“Perhaps you are not conscious of it, but you
now look as if you cared whether I was good or bad,
was sad or unhappy, lived or died. If I could only
see that God cared in something the same way! He
no doubt intends to do what is best for the race in
the long run, but that may involve my destruction.
I dread his terrible, inexorable laws.”

“Alas,” said Annie, tears welling up into her
eyes, “I am not wise enough to argue out these
matters and demonstrate the truth. I suppose it
can be done by those who know how.”

“I doubt it,” said he, shaking his head decisively.

“Well, I can only tell you what I feel and
know.”

“That is better than argument—that is what I
would like. You are not a weak, sentimental woman,
full of mysticism and fancies, and I would have much
confidence in what you know and feel.”

“Do not say that I am not a weak woman. I
have shown you better. Be sincere with me, for I
am with you. Well, it seems to me that this question
of prayer is simply one of fact. We know that
God answers prayer, not only because he said he
would, but because he does. From my own experience
I am as certain of it as of my existence.
I think that many who sneer or doubt in regard
to prayer are very unfair. I ask you, is it scientific
for men to say, Nothing is true save what
we have seen and known ourselves? How that
would limit one's knowledge! If some facts are
discovered in Europe and established by a few proper
witnesses, we believe them here. Now in every age
multitudes have said that it was a fact that God heard
and answered their prayers. What right has any one
to ignore these truths any more than any other
truths of human experience? I ask my earthly father
for something. The next day I find it on my dressing-table.
Is it a delusion to believe that he heard
and granted my request? When I ask my Heavenly
Father for outward things, he sometimes gives them,
and sometimes he does not, as he sees is best for
me, just as my parents did when I was a little child.
And I have already seen that he has often been
kinder in refusing. But when I ask for that which
will meet my deeper and spiritual needs I seldom ask
in vain. If you should ask me how do I know it,
I in return ask how do you know that you are ill, or
well, that you are glad or sad, or tired, or anything
about yourself that depends on your own inner consciousness.

If I should say unjust, insulting things
to you now, how would you know you were angry?
If I should say, Mr. Gregory, you are mocking me;
what I am now saying has no interest for you.
You don't hear me, you don't understand me, you
are thinking of something else. Suppose that I
should say I want mathematical proof that you do
feel an interest—or physical proof, something that I
can measure, weigh, or see, would I be reasonable?
Do I make it clear to you why I say I know this?”

“Clearer than it was ever made to me before. I
cannot help seeing that you are sincere and sure
about it. But pardon me—I've got in such an
inveterate habit of doubting—are not good Catholics
just as sure about the Virgin and the saints hearing
and answering them, and do not pagans feel the
same way about their deities?”

“Now, Mr. Gregory,” said Annie with a little
indignant reproach in her tone, “do you think it
just and reasonable to compare my faith, or that of
any intelligent Christian, with the gross superstition
you name? Christianity is not embraced only by
the ignorant and weak-minded: multitudes of the
best and ripest scholars in the world are honest
believers.”

“Indeed, Miss Walton, I did not mean you to
draw any such inference as that,” replied he hastily
and in some confusion.

“I do not see how any other can be drawn,” she
continued; “and I know from what I have read and
heard that unbelievers usually seek to give that impression.

But it's not a fair one. The absurdities of
paganism, monkish legends, and even the plausible
errors of the Romish Church, will not endure the
light of intelligent education; but the more I know
the more I see the beauty and perfection of the
Christian religion and the reasonableness of prayer,
and so it is with far stronger and wiser heads than
mine. Your father and mine were never men to be
imposed upon, nor to believe anything just because
they were told to do so when children.”

“Really, Miss Walton, you said you couldn't
argue about this matter. I think you can, like a
lawyer.”

“If you mean that I am using a lawyer's proverbial
slight of hand, I'm sorry.”

“I don't mean that at all, but that you put your
facts in such a way that it's hard to meet them.”

“I only try to use common sense. It's about the
only sense I have. But I was in hopes you did not
want to meet what I say adversely, but would like
to believe.”

“I would, Miss Walton, honestly I would; but
wishes go little way against stubborn doubt. This
one now rises: How is it that scientific men are so
apt to become infidel in regard to the Bible and its
teachings, and specially prayer?”

“I'm sure I hardly know,” she answered with a
sigh; “but I will tell you what I think. I don't believe
the majority of them know much about either
the Bible or prayer. With my little smattering of
geology I would think it very presuming to give an

opinion contrary to that held by the best authorities
in that science; and I think it very presuming in
those who rarely look into a Bible, and never pray,
to tell those who read and pray daily, that they
don't know what they do know. Then again, scientific
people often apply gross material tests to matters
of faith and religious experience. The thing is
absurd. Suppose a man should seek to investigate
light with a pair of scales that could not weigh anything
less than a pound. There is a spiritual and
moral world as truly as a physical, and spiritual
facts are just as good to build on as any other; and
I should think they ought to be better, because the
spirit is the noblest part of us. A man who sees
only one side of a mountain has no right to declare
that the other is just like it. Then again your scientific
oracles are always contradicting each other,
and upsetting one another's theories. Science to-day
laughs at the absurdities believed by the learned
a hundred years ago; and so will much that is now
called science, and because of which men doubt the
Bible, be laughed at in the future. But my belief is
the same substantially as that of Paul, Augustine,
Luther, and the best people of my own age; and
Luther, who did more for the world than any mere
man, said that to `pray well was to work well.'”

When Annie was under mental excitement, she
was a rapid, fluent talker, and this was specially her
condition this evening. As she looked earnestly at
Gregory as she spoke, her dark eyes glowing with
feeling and intelligence and lighting her whole face,

he was impressed more than he could have been by
the labored arguments of a cool, logical scholar. Her
intense earnestness put a soul into the body of her
words. He was affected more than he wished her to
know, more than was agreeable to his pride. What
she had said seemed so perfectly true and real to her,
that for the time she made it true to him; and yet to
admit that his long-standing doubts could not endure
so slight an assault as this, was to show that they
had a very flimsy basis. Moreover, he knew that
when, left to himself, he thought it all over, new questions
would rise that could not be answered, and new
doubts return. Therefore he could not receive now
what he might be disposed to doubt to-morrow.
He was a trifle bewildered, and wanted time to
think. He was as much interested in Miss Walton
as in what she was saying, and when her words
proved that she was a thoughtful woman, and could
be the intelligent companion of any man, the distracting
fear grew stronger that when she came to
know him well, she would coldly stand aloof. The
very thought was unendurable. In all the world,
only in the direction of Annie Walton seemed there
any light for him. So to gain time he instinctively
sought to give a less serious turn to the conversation,
by saying:

“Come, Miss Walton, this is the best preaching
I've ever heard. It seems to me quite unusual to
find a young lady so interested and well versed in
these matters. You must have given a good deal of
thought and reading to the subject.”

Annie looked disappointed. She had hoped for
a better result from her earnest words than a compliment
and a little curiosity as to herself. But she
met him in his own apparent mood, and said:

“Now see how easily imposed upon your skeptical
people are. I could palm myself off, like Portia,
as a Daniel come to judgment, and by a little discreet
silence gain a blue halo as a woman of deep
research and profound reading. Just the contrary
is true. I am not a very great reader on any subject,
and certainly not on theology and kindred
topics. The fact is I am largely indebted to my
father. He is interested in these subjects and takes
pains to explain much to me that would require
study; and since mother died he has come to talk to
me very much as he did to her. But it seems to me
all that I have said is very simple and plain, and you
surely know that my motive was not to air the little
instruction I have received.”

Gregory's policy forsook him as he saw her disappointed
look; and as he looked at her flushed and
now lovely face to him, acting upon a sudden impulse
he asked:

“Won't you please tell me your motive?”

His manner and tone convinced her in a moment
that he was more moved and interested than she
thought, and answering with a like impulse on her
part, she said frankly:

“Mr. Gregory, pardon me for saying it, but from
the first day of your visit it seemed clear to me that
you were not living and feeling as those who once

made this your home could wish, and the thought
was impressed upon me, impressed strongly, that
perhaps God had sent you in your feeble health and
sadness (for you evidently were depressed in mind
also), to this place of old and holy memories, that you
might learn something better than this world's philosophy.
I have hoped and prayed that I might be
able to help you. But when to-day,” she continued,
turning away her head to hide the rising tears, “I
showed such miserable weakness, I felt that you
would never listen to me again on such subjects, and
doubt more than ever their reality, and it made me
very unhappy. I feel very grateful that you have
listened to me so patiently. I hope you won't let
my weakness hurt my cause. Now you see what
a frank, guileless conspirator I am,” she added, trying
to smile at him through her tears.

While she spoke Gregory bent upon her a look
that tried to search her soul. But the suspicious man
of the world could not doubt her perfect sincerity.
Her looks and words revealed her thought as a
crystal stream a white pebble over which it flows.
He stepped forward and took her hand with a pressure
that caused it to pain for hours after, but he only
trusted himself to say:

“You are my good angel, Miss Walton. Now
I understand your influence over me,” and then
abruptly left the room.

But he did not understand her influence. A
man seldom does when he first meets the woman
whose words, glances, and presence have the subtle

power to fill his thoughts, quicken his pulse, stir his
soul, and awaken his whole nature into new life.
He usually passes through a luminous haze of congeniality,
friendship, Platonic affinity, or even brotherly
regard, till something suddenly clears up the
mist and he finds, like the first man, lonely in Eden,
that there is but one woman for him in all the
world.

Gregory was in the midst of the cloud, but it
seemed very bright around him as he paced his room
excitedly.