University of Virginia Library

27. CHAPTER XXVII.
PLEADING FOR LIFE AND LOVE.

KNOWING that it was to be Gregory's last evening
with them, Annie determined it should be
full of pleasant memories. She sang with him, and
did anything he asked. Her heart overflowed toward
him in a genial and almost sisterly regard, but his
most careful analysis could find no trace even of the
inception of warmer feelings. She evidently had a
strong and growing liking for him, but nothing more,
and she clearly felt the greatest interest in his effort
to become a man of Christian principles. This fact
became his main hope. Her passion to save seemed
so strong that he trusted she might be approached
even thus early upon that side.

He felt that he must speak—must get some
definite hope for the future before he went away.
It seemed to him that he could fairly bring his great
need as a motive to bear upon her. Her whole
course encouraged him to do this, for she had
responded to every such appeal. Still with fear and
trembling he admitted that he was about to ask for
more now than ever before.

But he felt that he must speak. He had no hope
that he could ever be more than his wretched self

without her. He would ask nothing definite—only
encouragement that if he could make himself worthy
of her, she would give him a chance to win her love.
In her almost sisterly frankness it seemed that the
idea of loving him had never occurred to her, and
would not after he had gone. The thought of
leaving her heart all disengaged, for some other to
come and make a stronger impression, was torture.
He never could be satisfied with the closest friendship,
therefore he must plainly seek a dearer tie,
even though for a time their frank, pleasant relations
were disturbed. He resolved to take no denial, but
give fair warning, before it was too late, that he was
laying siege to her heart. He dreaded that attitude
of mind upon her part which enables a woman to
say to some men:

“I could be your sister, but never your wife.”

So he said, before they separated for the night:

“Miss Walton, I'm going to snatch a few more
hours from the hurry and grind of business, and will
not return to town till to-morrow afternoon. Won't
you take one more ramble with me in the morning?”

“With pleasure,” she replied promptly. “I will
devote myself to you to-morrow, and make you
without excuse for not coming again.”

He flushed with pleasure at her reply, but said
quickly:

“By the way, that reminds me. Won't you tell
me what your `special reason' was for wishing me to
stay a little longer?”

It was her turn to blush now, which she did in a
way that puzzled him. She answered hesitatingly:

“Well, I think I'll tell you to-morrow.”

“Good night,” said Mr. Walton, feelingly retaining
Gregory's hand when he came to his chair.
“We are coming to treat you almost as one of the
family. Indeed, it seems hard to treat you in any
other way now, especially in this your old home,
now doubly yours since you saved it from destruction.
Every day you remind me more of my dear old
friend. For some reason he had seemed very near
me of late. If it should be my lot to see your
sainted parents before you do, as it probably will, I
believe it will be in my power to add even to their
heavenly joys by telling them of your present prospects.
Good night, and may the blessing of your
father's and mother's God rest upon you.”

Tears sprang into the young man's eyes, and
with a strong responsive pressure of Mr. Walton's
hand, he hastened to his room, to hide what was
not weakness.

That was the last time he saw his father's friend.

Annie's eyes glistened as she looked after him,
and throwing her arms around her father's neck,
whispered:

“God did send him here I now truly believe.
We have not conspired and prayed in vain.”

Mr. Walton fondly stroked his daughter's brown
hair, and said, “You are right, Annie; but he will
be a gem in your crown of rejoicing. I praise God
for you, my child. You have acted very wisely, very

womanly, as your mother would, in this matter.
He was a bad man when he first came here, and
if I did not know you so well, I would not have
trusted you with him as I have. I believe God has
begun a good work in his soul, which he will surely
finish. Be as faithful through life, and you may lead
many more out of darkness.”

“Dear father,” said Annie tenderly, “this whole
day, with Charles's good letter, and crowned with
these precious words from you, seems like a benediction.
May we have many more such.”

“May God's will be done,” said the riper saint,
with eyes turned homeward.

Thus in hope, peace, and gladness the day ended
for all.

“Ye know not what shall be on the morrow.”

To Gregory's unfeigned sorrow Mr. Walton was
not well enough to appear at the breakfast table the
following morning. Annie was flitting in and out
with a grave and troubled face. But by ten o'clock
he seemed better and fell asleep. Leaving Miss
Eulie watching beside him, she came and said:

“Now, Mr. Gregory, I can keep my promise in
part, and take a short walk with you. You can well
understand why I cannot be away long.”

“Please do not feel that you must go,” he said.
“However great the disappointment, I could not ask
you to leave your father if he needs you.”

“You may rest assured that nothing would tempt
me from father if he needed me. But I think the
worst is over now. He is sleeping quietly. I can

trust Auntie even better than myself. Besides, I
want to go. I need the fresh air, and I wish to see
more of you before you leave us.”

“Your kindness, Miss Walton, comes to me like
spring after winter. I shall wait for you on the
piazza.”

They went down across the lawn through the
garden. The sun was shining brightly, though occasionally
obscured with clouds.

“How beautiful everything is,” said Annie, “even
now, when the leaves are half off the trees and falling
fast. At any season the moment I get out of
doors I feel new life and hope.”

“What nature does for you, Miss Annie, you
seem to do for others. I feel `new life and hope'
the moment I am with you.”

She looked at him quickly, for she did not quite
like his tone and manner. But she only said:

“You must believe, as I do, in a power behind
nature. What little I have done for you I have
been enabled to do by One who alone can complete
the work.”

“But even you believe he works through human
agencies.”

“Yes, up to a certain point.”

“But who can say where that point is in any
experience? Miss Walton,” he continued in grave
earnestness, stopping and pointing to the rustic seat
where, on the previous Sabbath, he had revealed to
her his evil life, “that place is sacred to me. No
hallowed spot of earth to which pilgrimages are

made can compare with it. You know that in some
places in Europe they raise a rude cross by the roadside
where a man has been murdered. Should there
not be a monument where one was given life? If I
owned this place I would put one there, if I could
think of something appropriate.

“I'll put one there, that I'm sure you'll like,”
said she with animation. “I will plant an evergreen
tree with my own hands, and it shall be a pledge
between us that I will pray faithfully, and that you
will pray and strive to make the hope that came to
you there, like the tree, unfading. Moreover, next
spring I will sow the seeds of my immortelle flowers
around it, and so the place will be beautifully emblematic.”

His face lighted up with pleasure, for he knew
she would do as she said, and thus he would be
kept before her mind.

“You would make the best of missionaries,” he
said, “for you would make religion attractive to the
most besotted of heathen.”

As they resumed their walk, he said in a low,
meaning tone:

“Do you remember old Daddy Tuggar's words?
`You could take the wickedest man living straight
to heaven if you'd stay right by him.'”

“But he was wrong,” she replied.

“Pardon me if I differ from you, and agree with
him. Miss Walton, I've been in your society scarcely
three weeks. You know what I was when I came.
I make no great claims now, but surely if tendencies,

wishes, purposes count for anything, I am very different.
How can you argue me out of the consciousness
that I owe it all to you?”

“You will one day understand,” she answered
earnestly, “that God has helped us both, and how
futile my efforts would have been without such help.
But, Mr. Gregory,” she continued, looking frankly
into his flushed face (for she was beginning to suspect
now something of his drift, and instinctively
sought to ward off words which might disturb their
pleasant relations), “I do not intend to give you up
from this day forth. As our quaint old friend suggests,
I do mean to stand right by you as far as circumstances
will allow me. I recognize how isolated
and lonely you are, and I feel almost a sister's interest
in you.”

“You emphasize the word `sister.' I suppose I
ought to be more than satisfied. Believe me I am
very grateful that you can so speak. But suppose
the frankness I promised compels me to say that it
does not, and never can satisfy?”

“Then I will think you very unreasonable. You
have no right to ask more than one has the power to
give,” she answered, with a look and manner that
were full of pain. “But surely, Mr. Gregory, we do
not understand each other.”

“But I want you to understand me,” he exclaimed
earnestly. “If you had the vanity and
worldly experience of most women, you would have
known before this that I love you.”

Tears sprang into Annie's eyes, and for a few

moments she walked on in utter silence. This was
so different an ending from what she expected. She
felt that she must be very careful or she would undo
all she had attempted. She now dreaded utter failure,
utter estrangement, and how to avoid these was
her chief thought.

They had reached the cedar thicket where they
had first met, and she sat down upon the rock where
she had found Gregory. Her whole aim was to end
this unfortunate matter so they might still continue
friends. And yet the task seemed well-nigh impossible,
for if he felt as he said, how could she tell him
about Hunting without increasing their alienation.
But her impression was strong that he was acting
under an exaggerated sense of her services and belief
in the error that she was essential to the success
of his efforts to be a good man. Therefore she
tried to turn the matter off lightly at first by saying:

“Mr. Gregory, you are the most grateful man I
ever heard of. You need not think you must reward
my slight services by marrying me.”

“Now you greatly wrong me,” he answered.
“Did I not say I loved you? How deeply and truly
you can never know. I cannot reward you. I did
not dream of such a thing. My best hope was that
some time in the future, when by long and patient
effort I had become truly a man, you might learn to
think of me in the way I wish.”

“Mr. Gregory,” said she, in a voice full of trouble,
“has my manner or words led you to hope this? If
so, I can never forgive myself.”

“You have no cause for self-reproaches,” he said
earnestly. “Though my suit should ever prove
hopeless, in the depths of my heart I will acquit you
of all blame. You have been what you promised—
a true sisterly friend, nothing more. But please understand
me. I ask nothing now, I am not worthy.
Perhaps I shall never be. If so, I will not bind you
to me with even a gossamer thread. I have too
deep a respect for you. But I am so self-distrustful.
I know my weakness better than you can. Still I
am confident that if you could `reward' me, and give
the hope that you would crown the victory with
yourself, I could do anything. In loving me, you
would save me.”

“Pardon me, but you are all wrong. I'm only an
oar, but you look upon me as the life-boat itself. In
that you persist in looking to me, a weak, sinful
creature, instead of Him who alone `taketh away the
sin of the world,' you discourage me utterly.”

“I will look to Him, but I want you to lead me
to him, and keep me at his side.

“I can do that just as well as your friend.”

“I can never think so. I shall go away from this
place utterly disheartened, unless you give me some
hope, no matter how faint, that I shall not have to
struggle alone.”

She sprang up quickly, for he incensed her, while
at the same time she pitied him. She could not understand
how he had so soon learned to love her
“deeply and truly.” It rather appeared true that
he had formed the mistaken opinion that she was

essential to his success, and that he was bent upon
bolstering himself up in his weakness, and sought to
place her as a barrier between him and his old evil
life; and she felt that he might need some wholesome
truth rather than tender sympathy. At any
rate her womanly nature took offence at his apparent
motive, as she understood it—a motive that
appeared more selfish and unworthy every moment.
He was asking what he had no right to expect of any
one. But she would not misunderstand him, and
therefore said with a grave, searching look:

“Only then as I give you the hope you ask for,
will you make the effort you have promised to
make?”

“Only then can I make it,” he replied in some
confusion. “Can effort of any kind be asked of one
utterly disabled?”

Sudden fire leaped into her dark eyes, but she
said with dignity:

“Mr. Gregory, you disappoint me greatly. You
assume a weakness—a disability—which does not
and cannot exist under the circumstances. You made
me promise, but now impose a new condition which
I did not dream of at the time, and which now I cannot
accept. You are asking more than you have a
right to ask. However imperfect my efforts have
been in your behalf, they were at least sincere and
unselfish, and I was beginning to have a warm regard
for you as a friend. I tell you frankly that I am
most anxious that we should remain friends as before.
If so, this kind of folly must cease now and

forever. I have no right to listen to such words at
all, and would not but for your sake, and in the hope
of removing from your mind a very mistaken and
unworthy idea. You are entirely wrong in thinking
that your salvation depends solely upon me. It
cannot—it ought not. It rests between you and
God, and you cannot shift the responsibility. I am
willing to do all you can ask of a sister, but no more.
Do you think I have no needs, no weakness, myself?
In a husband I want a man I can lean upon as well
as help. I wish to marry one with higher moral
character than I, to whom I can look up. There is
the widest difference in the world between giving
help, and even sincere affection to those who win it,
and giving one's self away. Simple justice requires
that my happiness and feelings be considered also.
It is selfish in you to ask of me this useless sacrifice
of myself.”

Annie's quick, passionate nature was getting the
better of her. It seemed in a certain sense disloyalty
to Hunting to have listened thus long to
Gregory. Moreover, not believing in, nor understanding
the latter's love for her, she was indignant
that he should seek to employ her as a sort of stepping
stone into heaven. She would despise the man
who sought her merely to advance his earthly interests,
and she was growing honestly angry at Gregory,
who, it seemed, wanted her only as a guide and
staff in his pilgrimage—justly angry, too, if she were
right.

Gregory became very pale as her words quivered

in his heart like arrows, but in the consciousness of
a true and unselfish love, he looked at her unfalteringly
to the last, and said:

“In justice to myself I might again urge that
you misunderstand me. I asked for nothing now,
only a hope for the future based on what I possibly
might become. But as you say, I now know I asked
too much—more than I had a right to. You can
never look up to me, and with a sadness you will
never understand, I admit myself answered finally.
But there is one imputation in your words that I
cannot rest under. I solemnly assert before God
and in the name of my mother, that my love for you
is as strong, pure, and unselfish as can exist in my
half-wrecked nature.”

“Oh dear,” exclaimed Annie, in a tone of mingled
vexation and distress, “why has it all turned
out so miserably! I'm so sorry, so very sorry; but
in kindness, I must show you how hopeless it all is.
I am the same as engaged to another.”

Gregory started violently. His despairing words
were not quite despairing. But now a chill, like
death, settled about his heart. He was well satisfied
that she was one who would be true as steel to
all such ties, and that no man who had learned to
know her would ever prove inconstant. But, with a
white face and firmly compressed lips, he still listened
quietly.

“I came out this morning hoping to tell you a
little secret as I might confide in a brother, and I
trusted that your friendship for me would prove

strong enough to enable me to make you his friend
also. I wanted you to stay a little longer, that you
might meet him—and that I might reconcile you,
and prepare the way for pleasant companionship in
the future. I am expecting Charles Hunting how
every—

“What is the matter? What do you mean by
that look of horror? What have you against him,
that you should show such deep hostility before,
and now stare at me in almost terror?”

But he only staggered against a tree for support.

“Speak,” cried she, passionately seizing his arm.
“I will not endure the innuendo of your look and
manner.”

“I will speak,” he answered in sudden vehemence.
“I've lost too much by him. Charles Hunting
is—”

But he stopped, clenched his hands, and seemed
to make a desperate effort at self-control. She heard
him mutter as he turned away a few steps:

“Stop! stop! All that is left you now is a
little self-respect. Keep that—keep that.”

Annie misunderstood him, and thought he referred
to some slander that he had hesitated to utter
against his enemy even in his anger and jealousy.
With blazing eyes she said:

“Let me complete the sentence for you. Charles
Hunting is a Christian gentleman. You may well
think twice before you speak one word against him
in my presence.”

“Did I say one word against him?” he asked
eagerly.

“No, but you looked more than words can express.”

“I could not help that. Your revelation was sudden,
Miss Walton.”

“How could it be otherwise?” she asked indignantly.
“The first evening of your arrival, when his
name was mentioned your face grew as black as night.
When I again sought to speak to you of him, you
adjured me never to mention his name. You taxed
my forbearance severely at that time. But I was in
hopes you would become one that would render such
enmity impossible.”

“I see it all now,” he groaned, “the miserable
fatality of it all. I must shut off the one way of
escape, and then go forward. By my own act, I must
destroy my one chance. If I had only known this
in time—and yet it's through my own act that I did
not know. Your God is certainly one of justice.
I'm punished now for all the past. But it seems a
trifle cruel to show one heaven and then shut the
door in one's face. If I had only known!”

“There,” exclaimed Annie in the deepest distress,
“because of this little thing you fall back into
your old skepticism.”

“This `little thing' is death to me,” he said in a
hard, bitter tone. “Oh no, I'm not at all skeptical.
The `argument from design,' the nature of the result,
are both too clear. I'm simply being dealt
with according to law. Though perfectly sincere,
you were entirely too lenient that Sunday evening
when I told you what I was. My conscience was

right after all. I only wish that I had fallen from
yonder roof the other night. I might then have
made my exit decently.”

“Mr. Gregory, you shock me,” she said almost
sternly. “You have no right to insult my faith in a
merciful God by such words, and your believing him
cruel and vindictive on this one bit of your experience
is the sheerest egotism. It is the essence of
selfishness to think everything wrong when one does
not have one's own way.”

He only bowed his answer, then took a few steps
out to the point of the hill and took a long, lingering
look at the valley and his old home, sighed deeply,
turned and said to her quietly:

“Perhaps it is time for you to return to your
father.”