 | IV. My third book |  |
4. IV.
A year had the Rev. Ralph Huntington been married,
and now his wife lay dying. Her father had understood
her nature. The knowledge that her husband
had once loved another was killing her; and yet
her death was beautiful as her life had been. During
the year that she had been the rector's wife she had
not been wholly unhappy. There was joy in being
near him, in hearing the tones of his voice, in watching
the play of his features—joy above all in feeling
that her sympathy added to his happiness. But beneath
all this there was an undercurrent. She felt
that there was one name to which his heart echoed as
it could never echo to hers; one voice which had
power to move the deep currents of his nature as hers
never could; and in every rose of happiness which
her fingers gathered lurked the thorns of despair.
It was a warm summer day, but Alice Huntington
was very cold. Her hand was chill as it lay in her
husband's clasp. Her eyes were fixed upon his face,
and she murmured,
“It is sweet, beloved, to pass away thus, with my
hand in yours, knowing, at last, that I am very dear
to your priceless heart.”
Alas! unsatisfied Joanna, even in that death hour
thou must haunt him. A letter was given to him,
whose author he knew but too surely. He crumpled
the paper in his hand, and then he withdrew to the
window to read it. It said,
“Well, Ralph Huntington, proud stoic, Christian
Are two victims enough? I hear your wife
is dying, and I— Well, hearts break, sometimes, that
are strong. I am still true to you. Joanna.”
A wave of agony rolled upward to his lips, but he
choked it back again. He went to his wife's beside.
He was startled at the change which had come over
her in his absence, momentary as it was. Death had
already set his seal on her fair young face.
“That letter,” she said, faintly—“was it from Joanna?”
“Yes, my wife. She has heard of your illness, and
she accuses me of being your murderer. Oh, Alice,
angel Alice, is it true?” He threw himself upon his
knees—he bowed his head upon his hands in anguish.
Once more, with a powerful effort of her failing
strength, she raised it, and dropped upon his brow a
kiss of heavenly peace.
“No,” she said, tenderly; “no, my Ralph, my own
husband, it is not true. If you had not loved me, if
you had not married me, I should have died long ago.
Oh, believe this, believe it always. The year that I
have been your wife is the happiest of my life. You
have been very good to your motherless girl.”
“Oh, Alice, if I had! Oh, if I could think so!
God knows I have wished to make you happy. God
knows I would die to save your precious life. I shall
die very soon—I feel it, and then, beloved, purified
from all dross of earth, we shall meet again, and be
united forever.”
She lifted her eyes to heaven with a look of faith,
of hope, of ineffable peace, and then she said,
“I feel very sleepy. I want to sleep now. I'll
talk to you again when I wake up.”
For two hours he held her. He sat in a sort of
trance. At first his tears fell fast upon that pale, upturned
brow. Then that mood passed, and he lifted
his heart in sacred faith to the land whither his wife
was going. She had grown very cold in his clasp before
he realized that the smile which her face wore
was but the token left by the angel of Death—that
Alice Huntington's awaking would be in heaven.
His grief was not loud, but deep. Three days after,
he turned away from the grave under the willows a
chastened man, with the path on which he hoped to
walk toward the “land that is very far off” stretching
out straight and narrow, to be traversed now with solitary,
longing heart, by lonely feet.
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