{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_34109/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_34109","id":"gutenberg_34109","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34109","summary":null,"tags":["Category: American Literature","Category: Novels","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Kentucky -- Social life and customs -- Fiction"],"text":"Produced by David Garcia, Heather Clark and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This\nfile was produced from images generously made available\nby The Kentuckiana Digital Library)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                             SISTER DOLOROSA\n                                  AND\n                             POSTHUMOUS FAME\n\n                                   BY\n                            JAMES LANE ALLEN\n\n\n                           _Copyright Edition_\n\n\n                               EDINBURGH\n                      DAVID DOUGLAS, CASTLE STREET\n                                  1892\n\n\n\n               EDINBURGH: Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE for\n                              DAVID DOUGLAS\n\n                     LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL AND CO.\n\n\n\n\n                                 TO HER\n\n\n               FROM WHOSE FRAIL BODY HE DREW LIFE IN THE\n                BEGINNING, FROM WHOSE STRONG SPIRIT HE\n                WILL DRAW LIFE UNTIL THE CLOSE, THESE\n                TALES, WITH ALL OTHERS HAPLY HEREAFTER\n                     TO BE WRITTEN, ARE DEDICATED\n                       AS A PERISHABLE MONUMENT\n                             OF INEFFABLE\n                             REMEMBRANCE\n\n\n\n\n                      PREFACE TO BRITISH EDITION.\n\n\nThe Author is glad to know that a British Edition of his Kentucky Tales\nis to be brought out by Mr. David Douglas of Edinburgh.\n\nGenerations ago his mother's ancestors came from Scotland and Ireland;\ngenerations ago his father's came from England. Toward the three\ncountries his attention was fondly turned in early life; and the\ninterest then begotten has been but fostered since.\n\nIt is with peculiar pleasure, therefore, that he now avails himself of\nthe chance to ride hither and thither through these lands in his own\nconveyance--albeit the vehicle, a little book, may turn out a slow\ncoach.\n\n                                                     JAMES LANE ALLEN.\n\n      CHRISTMAS EVE,\n  LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY, 1891.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n                                PAGE\n  SISTER DOLOROSA,                13\n  POSTHUMOUS FAME,               163\n\n\n\n\nSISTER DOLOROSA.\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\n\nWhen Sister Dolorosa had reached the summit of a low hill on her way to\nthe convent, she turned and stood for a while looking backward. The\nlandscape stretched away in a rude, unlovely expanse of grey fields,\nshaded in places by brown stubble, and in others lightened by pale, thin\ncorn--the stunted reward of necessitous husbandry. This way and that ran\nwavering lines of low fences, some worm-eaten, others rotting beneath\nover-clambering wild-rose and blackberry. About the horizon masses of\ndense and rugged woods burned with sombre fires as the westering sun\nsmote them from top to underbrush. Forth from the edge of one a few\nlong-horned cattle, with lowered heads, wound meekly homeward to the\nscant milking. The path they followed led towards the middle background\nof the picture, where the weather-stained and sagging roof of a\nfarmhouse rose above the tops of aged cedars. Some of the branches,\nbroken by the sleet and snow of winters, trailed their burdens from the\nthinned and desolated crests--as sometimes the highest hopes of the\nmind, after being beaten down by the tempests of the world, droop around\nit as memories of once transcendent aspirations.\n\nWhere she stood in the dead autumn fields few sounds broke in upon the\npervasive hush of the declining day. Only a cricket, under the warm clod\nnear by, shrilled sturdily with cheerful forethought of drowsy\nhearthstones; only a lamb, timid of separation from the fold, called\nanxiously in the valley beyond the crest of the opposite hill; only the\nsummoning whistle of a quail came sweet and clear from the depths of a\nneighbouring thicket. Through all the air floated that spirit of vast\nloneliness which at seasons seems to steal like a human mood over the\nbreast of the great earth and leave her estranged from her transitory\nchildren. At such an hour the heart takes wing for home, if any home it\nhave; or when, if homeless, it feels the quick stir of that yearning for\nthe evening fireside with its half-circle of trusted faces, young and\nold, and its bonds of love and marriage, those deepest, most enchanting\nrealities to the earthly imagination. The very landscape, barren and\ndead, but framing the simple picture of a home, spoke to the beholder\nthe everlasting poetry of the race.\n\nBut Sister Dolorosa, standing on the brow of the hill whence the whole\npicture could be seen, yet saw nothing of it. Out of the western sky\nthere streamed an indescribable splendour of many-hued light, and far\ninto the depths of this celestial splendour her steadfast eyes were\ngazing.\n\nShe seemed caught up to some august height of holy meditation. Her\nmotionless figure was so lightly poised that her feet, just visible\nbeneath the hem of her heavy black dress, appeared all but rising from\nthe dust of the pathway; her pure and gentle face was upturned, so that\nthe dark veil fell away from her neck and shoulders; her lips were\nslightly parted; her breath came and went so imperceptibly that her\nhands did not appear to rise and fall as they clasped the cross to her\nbosom. Exquisite hands they were--most exquisite--gleaming as white as\nlilies against the raven blackness of her dress; and with startling\nfitness of posture, the longest finger of the right hand pointed like a\nmarble index straight towards a richly-embroidered symbol over her left\nbreast--the mournful symbol of a crimson heart pierced by a crimson\nspear. Whether attracted by the lily-white hands or by the red symbol, a\nbutterfly, which had been flitting hither and thither in search of the\ngay races of the summer gone, now began to hover nearer, and finally\nlighted unseen upon the glowing spot. Then, as if disappointed not to\nfind it the bosom of some rose, or lacking hope and strength for further\nquest--there it rested, slowly fanning with its white wings the tortured\nemblem of the divine despair.\n\nLower sank the sun, deeper and more wide-spread the splendour of the\nsky, more rapt and radiant the expression of her face. A painter of the\nangelic school, seeing her standing thus, might have named the scene the\ntransfiguration of angelic womanhood. What but heavenly images should\nshe be gazing on; or where was she in spirit but flown out of the\nearthly autumn fields and gone away to sainted vespers in the\ncloud-built realm of her own fantasies? Perhaps she was now entering\nyon vast cathedral of the skies, whose white spires touched the blue\neternity; or toiling devoutly up yon grey mount of Calvary, with its\nblackened crucifix falling from the summit.\n\nStanding thus towards the close of the day, Sister Dolorosa had not yet\npassed out of that ideal time which is the clear white dawn of life. She\nwas still within the dim, half-awakened region of womanhood, whose\nchanging mists are beautiful illusions, whose shadows about the horizon\nare the mysteries of poetic feeling, whose purpling east is the palette\nof the imagination, and whose up-springing skylark is blithe aspiration\nthat has not yet felt the weight of the clod it soars within. Before her\nstill was the full morning of reality and the burden of the mid-day\nhours.\n\nBut if the history of any human soul could be perfectly known, who would\nwish to describe this passage from the dawn of the ideal to the morning\nof the real--this transition from life as it is imagined through hopes\nand dreams to life as it is known through action and submission? It is\nthen that within the country of the soul occur events too vast,\nmelancholy, and irreversible to be compared to anything less than the\ndownfall of splendid dynasties, or the decay of an august religion. It\nis then that there leave us for ever bright, aerial spirits of the\nfancy, separation from whom is like grief for the death of the beloved.\n\nThe moment of this transition had come in the life of Sister Dolorosa,\nand unconsciously she was taking her last look at the gorgeous western\nclouds from the hill-tops of her chaste life of dreams.\n\nA flock of frightened doves sped hurtling low over her head, and put an\nend to her reverie. Pressing the rosary to her lips, she turned and\nwalked on towards the convent, not far away. The little footpath across\nthe fields was well trodden and familiar, running as it did between the\nconvent and the farmhouse behind her, in which lived old Ezra and Martha\nCross; and as she followed its windings, her thoughts, as is likely to\nbe true of the thoughts of nuns, came home from the clouds to the\nhumblest concerns of the earth, and she began to recall certain\nincidents of the visit from which she was returning.\n\nThe aged pair were well known to the Sisters. Their daughters had been\neducated at the convent; and, although these were married and scattered\nnow, the tie then formed had since become more close through their age\nand loneliness. Of late word had come to the Mother Superior that old\nMartha was especially ailing, and Sister Dolorosa had several times been\nsent on visits of sympathy. For reasons better to be understood later\non, these visits had had upon her the effect of an April shower on a\nthirsting rose. Her missions of mercy to the aged couple over, for a\nwhile the white taper of ideal consecration to the Church always burned\nin her bosom with clearer, steadier lustre, as though lit afresh from\nthe Light eternal. But to-day she could not escape the conviction that\nthese visits were becoming a source of disquietude; for the old couple,\nforgetting the restrictions which her vows put upon her very thoughts,\nhad spoken of things which it was trying for her to hear--love-making,\nmarriage, and children. In vain had she tried to turn away from the\nproffered share in such parental confidences. The old mother had even\nread aloud a letter from her eldest son, telling them of his approaching\nmarriage, and detailing the hope and despair of his wooing. With burning\ncheeks and downcast eyes Sister Dolorosa had listened till the close and\nthen risen and quickly left the house.\n\nThe recollection of this returned to her now as she pursued her way\nalong the footpath which descended into the valley; and there came to\nher, she knew not whence or why, a piercing sense of her own separation\nfrom all but the Divine love. The cold beauty of unfallen spirituality\nwhich had made her august as she stood on the hill-top died away, and\nher face assumed a tenderer, more appealing loveliness, as there crept\nover it, like a shadow over snow, that shy melancholy under which those\nwomen dwell who have renounced the great drama of the heart. She\nresolved to lay her trouble before the Mother Superior to-night, and ask\nthat some other Sister be sent hereafter in her stead. And yet this\nresolution gave her no peace, but a throb of painful renunciation; and\nsince she was used to the most scrupulous examination of her\nconscience, to detect the least presence of evil, she grew so disturbed\nby this state of her heart that she quite forgot the windings of the\npathway along the edge of a field of corn, and was painfully startled\nwhen a wounded bird, lying on the ground a few feet in front of her,\nflapped its wings in a struggle to rise. Love and sympathy were the\nstrongest principles of her nature, and with a little outcry she bent\nover and took it up; but scarce had she done so, when, with a final\nstruggle, it died in her hand. A single drop of blood oozed out and\nstood on its burnished breast.\n\nShe studied it--delicate throat, silken wings, wounded bosom--in the\nhelpless way of a woman, unwilling to put it down and leave it, yet more\nunwilling to take it away. Many a time, perhaps, she had watched this\nvery one flying to and fro among its fellows in the convent elms.\nStrange that any one should be hunting in these fields, and she looked\nquickly this way and that. Then, with a surprised movement of the hands\nthat caused her to drop the bird at her feet, Sister Dolorosa\ndiscovered, standing half hidden in the edge of the pale yellow corn a\nfew yards ahead, wearing a hunting-dress, and leaning on the muzzle of\nhis gun, a young man who was steadfastly regarding her. For an instant\nthey stood looking each into the other's face, taken so unprepared as to\nlose all sense of convention. Their meeting was as unforeseen as another\nfar overhead, where two white clouds, long shepherded aimlessly and from\nopposite directions across the boundless pastures by the unreasoning\nwinds, touched and melted into one. Then Sister Dolorosa, the first to\nregain self-possession, gathered her black veil closely about her face,\nand advancing with an easy, rapid step, bowed low with downcast eyes as\nshe passed him, and hurried on towards the convent.\n\nShe had not gone far before she resolved to say nothing about the\ngossip to which she had listened. Of late the Mother Superior had seemed\nworn with secret care and touched with solicitude regarding her. Would\nit be kind to make this greater by complaining like a weak child of a\ntrivial annoyance? She took her conscience proudly to task for ever\nhaving been disturbed by anything so unworthy. And as for this meeting\nin the field, even to mention that would be to give it a certain\nsignificance, whereas it had none whatever. A stranger had merely\ncrossed her path a moment and then gone his way. She would forget the\noccurrence herself as soon as she could recover from her physical\nagitation.\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\n\nThe Convent of the Stricken Heart is situated in that region of Kentucky\nwhich early became the great field of Catholic immigration. It was\nestablished in the first years of the present century, when mild\nDominicans, starving Trappists, and fiery Jesuits hastened into the\ngreen wildernesses of the West with the hope of turning them into\nreligious vineyards. Then, accordingly, derived from such sources as the\nimpassioned fervour of Italy, the cold, monotonous endurance of\nFlanders, and the dying sorrows of ecclesiastical France, there sprang\nup this new flower of faith, unlike any that ever bloomed in pious\nChristendom. From the meagrest beginning, the order has slowly grown\nrich and powerful, so that it now has branches in many States, as far as\nthe shores of the Pacific Ocean.\n\nThe convent is situated in a retired region of country, remote from any\nvillage or rural highway. The very peace of the blue skies seems to\ndescend upon it. Around the walls great elms stand like tranquil\nsentinels, or at a greater distance drop their shadows on the velvet\nverdure of the artificial lawns. Here, when the sun is hot, some\nwhite-veiled novice may be seen pacing soft-footed and slow, while she\nfixes her sad eyes upon pictures drawn from the literature of the Dark\nAges, or fights the first battle with her young heart, which would\nbeguile her to heaven by more jocund pathways. Drawn by the tranquillity\nof this retreat--its trees and flowers and dews--all singing-birds of\nthe region come here to build and brood. No other sounds than their pure\ncadencies disturb the echoless air except the simple hymns around the\naltar, the vesper bell, the roll of the organ, the deep chords of the\npiano, or the thrum of the harp. It may happen, indeed, that some one of\nthe Sisters, climbing to the observatory to scan the horizon of her\nsecluded world, will catch the faint echoes of a young ploughman in a\ndistant field lustily singing of the honest passion in his heart, or\nhear the shouts of happy harvesters as they move across the yellow\nplains. The population scattered around the convent domain are largely\nof the Catholic faith, and from all directions the country is threaded\nby footpaths that lead to the church as a common shrine. It was along\none of these that Sister Dolorosa, as has been said, hastened homeward\nthrough the falling twilight.\n\nWhen she reached the convent, instead of seeking the Mother Superior as\nheretofore with news from old Martha, she stole into the shadowy church\nand knelt for a long time in wordless prayer--wordless, because no\npetition that she could frame appeared inborn and quieting. An\nunaccountable remorse gnawed the heart out of language. Her spirit\nseemed parched, her will was deadened as by a blow. Trained to the most\nrigorous introspection, she entered within herself and penetrated to the\ndeepest recesses of her mind to ascertain the cause. The bright flame of\nher conscience thus employed was like the turning of a sunbeam into a\ndarkened chamber to reveal the presence of a floating grain of dust.\nBut nothing could be discovered. It was the undiscovered that rebuked\nher as it often rebukes us all--the undiscovered evil that has not yet\nlinked itself to conscious transgression. At last she rose with a sigh,\nand, dejected, left the church.\n\nLater, the Mother Superior, noiselessly entering her room, found her\nsitting at the open window, her hands crossed on the sill, her eyes\nturned outward into the darkness.\n\n\"Child, child,\" she said hurriedly, \"how uneasy you have made me! Why\nare you so late returning?\"\n\n\"I went to the church when I came back, Mother,\" replied Sister\nDolorosa, in a voice singularly low and composed. \"I must have returned\nnearly an hour ago.\"\n\n\"But even then it was late.\"\n\n\"Yes, Mother; I stopped on the way back to look at the sunset. The\nclouds looked like cathedrals. And then old Martha kept me. You know it\nis difficult to get away from old Martha.\"\n\nThe Mother Superior laughed slightly, as though her anxiety had been\nremoved. She was a woman of commanding presence, with a face full of\ndignity and sweetness, but furrowed by lines of difficult resignation.\n\n\"Yes; I know,\" she answered. \"Old Martha's tongue is like a terrestrial\nglobe; the whole world is mapped out on it, and a little movement of it\nwill show you a continent. How is her rheumatism?\"\n\n\"She said it was no worse,\" replied Sister Dolorosa absently.\n\nThe Mother Superior laughed again. \"Then it must be better. Rheumatism\nis always either better or worse.\"\n\n\"Yes, Mother.\"\n\nThis time the tone caught the Mother Superior's ear. \"You seem tired.\nWas the walk too long?\"\n\n\"I enjoyed the walk, Mother. I do not feel tired.\"\n\nThey had been sitting on opposite sides of the room. The Mother Superior\nnow crossed, and, laying her hand softly on Sister Dolorosa's head,\npressed it backward and looked fondly down into the upturned eyes.\n\n\"Something troubles you. What has happened?\"\n\nThere is a tone that goes straight to the heart of women in trouble. If\nthere are tears hidden, they gather in the eyes. If there is any\nconfidence to give, it is given then.\n\nA tremor, like that of a child with an unspent sob, passed across Sister\nDolorosa's lips, but her eyes were tearless.\n\n\"Nothing has happened, Mother. I do not know why, but I feel disturbed\nand unhappy.\" This was the only confidence that she had to give.\n\nThe Mother Superior passed her hand slowly across the brow, white and\nsmooth like satin. Then she sat down, and as Sister Dolorosa slipped to\nthe floor beside her she drew the young head to her lap and folded her\naged hands upon it. What passionate, barren loves haunt the hearts of\nwomen in convents! Between these two there existed a tenderness more\ntouching than the natural love of mother and child.\n\n\"You must not expect to know at all times,\" she said, with grave\ngentleness. \"To be troubled without any visible cause is one of the\nmysteries of our nature. As you grow older you will understand this\nbetter. We are forced to live in conscious possession of all faculties,\nall feelings, whether or not there are outward events to match them.\nTherefore you must expect to have anxiety within when your life is\nreally at peace without; to have moments of despair when no failure\nthreatens; to have your heart wrung with sympathy when no object of\nsorrow is nigh; to be spent with the need of loving when there is no\nearthly thing to receive your love. This is part of woman's life, and of\nall women, especially those who, like you, must live, not to stifle the\ntender, beautiful forces of nature, but to ennoble and unite them into\none divine passion. Do not think, therefore, to escape these hours of\nheaviness and pain. No saint ever walked this earth without them.\nPerhaps the lesson to be gained is this: that we may feel things before\nthey happen, so that if they do happen we shall be disciplined to bear\nthem.\"\n\nThe voice of the Mother Superior had become low and meditative; and,\nthough resting on the bowed head, her eyes seemed fixed on events long\npast. After the silence of a few moments she continued in a brighter\ntone--\n\n\"But, my child, I know the reason of _your_ unhappiness. I have warned\nyou that excessive ardour would leave you overwrought and nervous; that\nyou were being carried too far by your ideals. You live too much in your\nsympathies and your imagination. Patience, my little St. Theresa! No\nsaint was ever made in a day, and it has taken all the centuries of the\nChurch to produce its martyrs. Only think that your life is but begun;\nthere will be time enough to accomplish everything. I have been watching,\nand I know. This is why I send _you_ to old Martha. I want you to have\nthe rest, the exercise, the air of the fields. Go again to-morrow, and take\nher the ointment. I found it while you were gone to-day. It has been in the\nChurch for centuries, and you know this bottle came from blessed Loretto in\nItaly. It may do her some good. And, for the next few days, less reading\nand study.\"\n\n\"Mother!\" Sister Dolorosa spoke as though she had not been listening.\n\"What would become of me if I should ever--if any evil should ever\nbefall me?\"\n\nThe Mother Superior stretched her hands out over the head on her knees\nas some great, fierce, old, grey eagle, scarred and strong with the\nstorms of life, might make a movement to shield its imperilled young.\nThe tone in which Sister Dolorosa had spoken startled her as the\ndiscovered edge of a precipice. It was so quiet, so abrupt, so terrifying\nwith its suggestion of an abyss. For a moment she prayed silently and\nintensely.\n\n\"Heaven mercifully shield you from harm!\" she then said, in an\nawestricken whisper. \"But, timid lamb, what harm can come to you?\"\n\nSister Dolorosa suddenly rose and stood before the Mother Superior.\n\n\"I mean,\" she said, with her eyes on the floor and her voice scarcely\naudible--\"I mean--if I should ever fail, would you cast me out?\"\n\n\"My child!--Sister!--Sister Dolorosa!--Cast you out!\"\n\nThe Mother Superior started up and folded her arms about the slight dark\nfigure, which at once seemed to be standing aloof with infinite\nloneliness. For some time she sought to overcome this difficult,\nsingular mood.\n\n\"And now, my daughter,\" she murmured at last, \"go to sleep and forget\nthese foolish fears. I am near you!\" There seemed to be a fortress of\nsacred protection and defiance in these words; but the next instant her\nhead was bowed, her upward-pointing finger raised in the air, and in a\ntone of humble self-correction she added: \"Nay, not I; the Sleepless\nguards you! Good-night.\"\n\nSister Dolorosa lifted her head from the strong shoulder and turned her\neyes, now luminous, upon the troubled face.\n\n\"Forgive me, Mother!\" she said, in a voice of scornful resolution.\n\"Never--never again will I disturb you with such weakness as I have\nshown to-night. I _know_ that no evil can befall me! Forgive me, Mother.\nGood-night.\"\n\nWhile she sleeps learn her history. Pauline Cambron was descended from\none of those sixty Catholic families of Maryland that formed a league in\n1785 for the purpose of emigrating to Kentucky without the rending of\nsocial ties or separation from the rites of their ancestral faith. Since\nthen the Kentucky branch of the Cambrons has always maintained friendly\nrelations with the Maryland branch, which is now represented by one of\nthe wealthy and cultivated families of Baltimore. On one side the\ndescent is French; and, as far back as this can be traced, there runs a\ntradition that some of the most beautiful of its women became barefoot\nCarmelite nuns in the various monasteries of France or on some\nstorm-swept island of the Mediterranean Sea.\n\nThe first of the Kentucky Cambrons settled in that part of the State in\nwhich, nearly a hundred years later, lived the last generation of\nthem--the parents of Pauline. Of these she was the only child, so that\nupon her marriage depended the perpetuation of the Kentucky family. It\ngives to the Protestant mind a startling insight into the possibilities\nof a woman's life and destiny in Kentucky to learn the nature of the\nliterature by which her sensitive and imaginative character was from the\nfirst impressed. This literature covers a field wholly unknown to the\nordinary student of Kentucky history. It is not to be found in\nwell-known works, but in the letters, reminiscences, and lives of\nforeign priests, and in the kindling and heroic accounts of the\nestablishment of Catholic missions. It abounds in such stories as those\nof a black friar fatally thrown from a wild horse in the pathless\nwilderness; of a grey friar torn to pieces by a saw-mill; of a starving\nwhite friar stretched out to die under the green canopy of an oak; of\npriests swimming half-frozen rivers with the sacred vestments in their\nteeth; of priests hewing logs for a hut in which to celebrate the mass;\nof priests crossing and recrossing the Atlantic and traversing Italy and\nBelgium and France for money and pictures and books; of devoted women\nlaying the foundation of powerful convents in half-ruined log-cabins,\nshivering on beds of straw sprinkled on the ground, driven by poverty to\nsearch in the wild woods for dyes with which to give to their motley\nworldly apparel the hue of the cloister, and dying at last, to be laid\naway in pitiless burial without coffin or shroud.\n\nSuch incidents were to her the more impressive since happening in part\nin the region where lay the Cambron estate; and while very young she was\nherself repeatedly taken to visit the scenes of early religious\ntragedies. Often, too, around the fireside there was proud reference to\nthe convent life of old France and to the saintly zeal of the\nCarmelites; and once she went with her parents to Baltimore and\nwitnessed the taking of the veil by a cousin of hers--a scene that\nafterwards burned before her conscience as a lamp before a shrine.\n\nIs it strange if under such influences, living in a country place with\nfew associates, reading in her father's library books that were to be\nhad on the legends of the monastic orders and the lives of the\nsaints--is it strange if to the young Pauline Cambron this world before\nlong seemed little else than the battle-field of the Church, the ideal\nman in it a monk, the ideal woman a nun, the human heart a solemn\nsacrifice to Heaven, and human life a vast, sad pilgrimage to the shrine\neternal?\n\nAmong the places which had always appealed to her imagination as one of\nthe heroic sites of Kentucky history was the Convent of the Stricken\nHeart, not far away. Whenever she came hither she seemed to be treading\non sacred ground. Happening to visit it one summer day before her\neducation was completed, she asked to be sent hither for the years that\nremained. When these were past, here, with the difficult consent of her\nparents, who saw thus perish the last hope of the perpetuation of the\nfamily, she took the white veil. Here at last she hid herself beneath\nthe black. Her whole character at this stage of its unfolding may be\nunderstood from the name she assumed--Sister Dolorosa. With this name\nshe wished not merely to extinguish her worldly personality, but to\nclothe herself with a lifelong expression of her sympathy with the\nsorrows of the world. By this act she believed that she would attain a\nchange of nature so complete that the black veil of Sister Dolorosa\nwould cover as in a funeral urn the ashes which had once been the heart\nof Pauline Cambron. And thus her conventual life began.\n\nBut for those beings to whom the span on the summer-evening cloud is as\nnothing compared with that fond arch of beauty which it is a necessity\nof their nature to hang as a bow of promise above every beloved\nhope--for such dreamers the sadness of life lies in the dissipation of\nmystery and the disillusion of truth. When she had been a member of the\norder long enough to see things as they were, Sister Dolorosa found\nherself living in a large, plain, comfortable brick convent, situated in\na retired and homely region of Southern Kentucky. Around her were plain\nnuns with the invincible contrariety of feminine temperament. Before her\nwere plain duties. Built up around her were plain restrictions. She had\nrushed with outstretched arms towards poetic mysteries, and clasped\nprosaic reality.\n\nAs soon as the lambent flame of her spirit had burned over this new\nlife, as a fire before a strong wind rushes across a plain, she one day\nsurveyed it with that sense of reality which sometimes visits the\nimaginative with such appalling vividness. Was it upon this dreary waste\nthat her soul was to play out its drama of ideal womanhood?\n\nShe answered the question in the only way possible to such a nature as\nhers. She divided her life in twain. Half, with perfect loyalty, she\ngave out to duty; the other, with equal loyalty, she stifled within. But\nperhaps this is no uncommon lot--this unmating of the forces of the\nmind, as though one of two singing-birds should be released to fly forth\nunder the sky, while the other--the nobler singer--is kept voiceless in\na darkened chamber.\n\nBut the Sisters of the Stricken Heart are not cloistered nuns. Their\nchief vow is to go forth into the world to teach. Scarcely had Sister\nDolorosa been intrusted with work of this kind before she conceived an\naspiration to become a great teacher of history or literature, and\nobtained permission to spend extra hours in the convent library on a\nwider range of sacred reading. Here began a second era in her life.\nBooks became the avenues along which she escaped from her present into\nan illimitable world. Her imagination, beginning to pine, now took wing\nand soared back to the remote, the splendid, the imperial, the august.\nHer sympathies, finding nothing around her to fix upon, were borne afar\nlike winged seed and rooted on the colossal ruins of the centuries. Her\npassion for beauty fed on holy art. She lived at the full flood of life\nagain.\n\nIf in time revulsion came, she would live a shy, exquisite, hidden life\nof poetry in which she herself played the historic roles. Now she would\nbecome a powerful abbess of old, ruling over a hundred nuns in an\nimpregnable cloister. To the gates, stretched on a litter, wounded to\ndeath, they bore a young knight of the Cross. She had the gates opened.\nShe went forth and bent over him; heard his dying message; at his\nrequest drew the plighted ring from his finger to send to another land.\nHow beautiful he was! How many masses--how many, many masses--she had\ncelebrated for the peace of his soul! Now she was St. Agatha, tortured\nby the proconsul; now she lay faint and cold in an underground cell, and\nwas visited by Thomas a Kempis, who read to her long passages from the\n_Imitation_. Or she would tire of the past, and making herself an actor\nin her own future, in a brief hour live out the fancied drama of all her\ncrowded years.\n\nBut whatever part she took in this dream existence and beautiful\npassion-play of the soul, nothing attracted her but the perfect. For the\ncommonplace she felt a guileless scorn.\n\nThus for some time these unmated lives went on--the fixed outward life\nof duty, and the ever-wandering inner life of love. In mid-winter,\nwalking across the shining fields, you have come to some little\nfrost-locked stream. How mute and motionless! You set foot upon it, the\nice is broken, and beneath is musical running water. Thus under the\nchaste rigid numbness of convent existence the heart of Sister Dolorosa\nmurmured unheard and hurried away unseen to plains made warm and green\nby her imagination. But the old may survive upon memories; the young\ncannot thrive upon hope. Love, long reaching outward in vain, returns to\nthe heart as self-pity. Sympathies, if not supported by close realities,\nfall in upon themselves like the walls of a ruined house. At last,\ntherefore, even the hidden life of Sister Dolorosa grew weary of the\nfuture and the past, and came home to the present.\n\nThe ardour of her studies and the rigour of her duties combined--but\nmore than either that wearing away of the body by a restless mind--had\nbegun to affect her health. Both were relaxed, and she was required to\nspend as much time as possible in the garden of the convent. It was like\nlifting a child that has become worn out with artificial playthings to\nan open window to see the flowers. With inexpressible relief she turned\nfrom mediaeval books to living nature; and her beautiful imagination,\nthat last of all faculties to fail a human being in an unhappy lot, now\nbegan to bind nature to her with fellowships which quieted the need of\nhuman association. She had long been used to feign correspondences with\nthe fathers of the Church; she now established intimacies with dumb\ncompanions, and poured out her heart to them in confidence.\n\nThe distant woods slowly clothing themselves in green; the faint perfume\nof the wild rose, running riot over some rotting fence; the majestical\nclouds about the sunset; the moon dying in the spectral skies; the\nsilken rustling of doves' wings parting the soft foliage of the\nsentinel elms; landscapes of frost on her window-pane; crumbs in winter\nfor the sparrows on the sill; violets under the leaves in the convent\ngarden; myrtle on the graves of the nuns--such objects as these became\nthe means by which her imprisoned life was released. On the sensuous\nbeauty of the world she spent the chaste ravishments of her virginal\nheart. Her love descended on all things as in the night the dew fills\nand bends down the cups of the flowers.\n\nA few of these confidences--written on slips of paper, and no sooner\nwritten than cast aside--are given here. They are addressed severally to\na white violet, an English sparrow, and a butterfly.\n\n\"I have taken the black veil, but thou wearest the white, and thou\ndwellest in dim cloisters of green leaves--in the domed and\nmany-pillared little shrines that line the dusty roadside, or seem more\nfitly built in the depths of holy woodlands. How often have I drawn near\nwith timid steps, and, opening the doors of thy tiny oratories, found\nthee bending at thy silent prayers--bending so low that thy lips touched\nthe earth, while the slow wind rang thine Angelus! Wast thou blooming\nanywhere near when He came into the wood of the thorn and the olive?\nDidst thou press thy cool face against His bruised feet? Had I been\nthou, I would have bloomed at the foot of the Cross, and fed His failing\nlungs with my last breath. Time never destroys thee, little sister, or\nstains thy whiteness; and thou wilt be bending at thy prayers among the\ngreen graves on the twilight hillside ages after I who lie below have\nfinished mine. Pray for me then, pray for thine erring sister, thou\npure-souled violet!\"\n\n\"How cold thou art! Shall I take thee in and warm thee on my bosom? Ah,\nno! For I know who thou art! Not a bird, but a little brown mendicant\nfriar, begging barefoot in the snow. And thou livest in a cell under the\nconvent eaves opposite my window. What ugly feet thou hast, little\nFather! And the thorns are on thy toes instead of about thy brow. That\nis a bad sign for a saint. I saw thee in a brawl the other day with a\nmendicant brother of thine order, and thou drovest him from roof to roof\nand from icy twig to twig, screaming and wrangling in a way to bring\nreproach upon the Church. Thou shouldst learn to defend a thesis more\ngently. Who is it that visits thy cell so often? A penitent to confess?\nAnd dost thou shrive her freely? I'd never confess to thee, thou cross\nlittle Father! Thou'dst have no mercy on me if I sinned, as sin I must\nsince human I am. The good God is very good to thee that He keeps thee\nfrom sinning while He leaves me to do wrong. Ah, if it were but natural\nfor me to be perfect! But that, little Father, is my idea of heaven. In\nheaven it will be natural for me to be perfect. I'll feed thee no longer\nthan the winter lasts, for then thou'lt be a monk no longer, but a bird\nagain. And canst thou tell me why? Because, when the winter is gone,\nthou'lt find a mate, and wert thou a monk thou'dst have none. For thou\nknowest perfectly well, little Father, that monks do not wed.\"\n\n\"No fitting emblem of my soul art thou, fragile Psyche, mute and\nperishable lover of the gorgeous earth. For my soul has no summer, and\nthere is no earthly object of beauty that it may fly to and rest upon as\nthou upon the beckoning buds. It is winter where I live. All things are\ncold and white, and my soul flies only above fresh fields of flowerless\nsnow. But no blast can chill its wings, no mire bedraggle, or rude touch\nfray. I often wonder whether thou art mute, or the divine framework of\nwinged melodies. Thy very wings are shaped like harps for the winds to\nplay upon. So, too, my soul is silent never, though none can hear its\nmusic. Dost thou know that I am held in exile in this world that I\ninhabit? And dost thou know the flower that I fly ever towards and\ncannot reach? It is the white flower of eternal perfection that blooms\nand waits for the soul in Paradise. Upon that flower I shall some day\nrest my wings as thou foldest thine on a faultless rose.\"\n\nHarmonising with this growing passion for the beauty of the world--a\npassion that marked her approach to riper womanhood--was the care she\ntook of her person. The coarse, flowing habit of the order gave no hint\nof the curves and symmetry of the snow-white figure throbbing with eager\nlife within; but it could not conceal an air of refinement and movements\nof the most delicate grace. There was likewise a suggestion of artistic\nstudy in the arrangement of her veil, and the sacred symbol on her bosom\nwas embroidered with touches of elaboration.\n\nIt was when she had grown weary of books, of the imaginary drama of her\nlife, and the loveliness of Nature, that Sister Dolorosa was sent by the\nMother Superior on those visits of sympathy to old Martha Cross; and it\nwas during her return from one of them that there befell her that\nadventure which she had deemed too slight to mention.\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\n\nHer outward history was that night made known to Gordon Helm by old\nMartha Cross. When Sister Dolorosa passed him he followed her at a\ndistance until she entered the convent gates. It caused him subtle pain\nto think what harm might be lurking to ensnare her innocence. But\nsubtler pain shot through him as he turned away, leaving her housed\nwithin that inaccessible fold.\n\nWho was she, and from what mission returning alone at such an hour\nacross those darkening fields? He had just come to the edge of the corn\nand started to follow up the path in quest of shelter for the night,\nwhen he had caught sight of her on the near hill-top, outlined with\nstartling distinctness against the jasper sky and bathed in a tremulous\nsea of lovely light. He had held his breath as she advanced towards\nhim. He had watched the play of emotions in her face as she paused a few\nyards off, and her surprise at the discovery of him--the timid start;\nthe rounding of the fawn-like eyes; the vermeil tint overspreading the\ntransparent purity of her skin: her whole nature disturbed like a\nwind-shaken anemone. All this he now remembered as he returned along the\nfootpath. It brought him to the door of the farm-house, where he\narranged to pass the night.\n\n\"You are a stranger in this part of the country,\" said the old housewife\nan hour later.\n\nWhen he came in she had excused herself from rising from her chair by\nthe chimney-side; but from that moment her eyes had followed him--those\neyes of the old which follow the forms of the young with such despairing\nmemories. By the chimney-side sat old Ezra, powerful, stupid, tired,\nsilently smoking, and taking little notice of the others. Hardly a chill\nwas in the air, but for her sake a log blazed in the cavernous fireplace\nand threw its flickering light over the guest who sat in front.\n\nHe possessed unusual physical beauty--of the type sometimes found in the\nmen of those Kentucky families that have descended with little admixture\nfrom English stock; body and limbs less than athletic, but formed for\nstrength and symmetry; hair brown, thick, and slightly curling over the\nforehead and above the ears; complexion blond, but mellowed into rich\ntints from sun and open air; eyes of dark grey-blue, beneath brows low\nand firm; a moustache golden-brown, thick, and curling above lips red\nand sensuous; a neck round and full, and bearing aloft a head well\npoised and moulded. The irresistible effect of his appearance was an\nimpression of simple joyousness in life. There seemed to be stored up in\nhim the warmth of the sunshine of his land; the gentleness of its\nfields; the kindness of its landscapes. And he was young--so young! To\nstudy him was to see that he was ripe to throw himself heedless into\ntragedy; and that for him, not once, but nightly, Endymion fell asleep\nto be kissed in his dreams by encircling love.\n\n\"You are a stranger in this part of the country,\" said the old\nhousewife, observing the elegance of his hunting-dress and his manner of\nhigh breeding.\n\n\"Yes; I have never been in this part of Kentucky before.\" He paused; but\nseeing that some account of himself was silently waited for, and as\nthough wishing at once to despatch the subject, he added: \"I am from the\nblue-grass region, about a hundred miles northward of here. A party of\nus were on our way further south to hunt. On the train we fell in with a\ngentleman who told us he thought there were a good many birds around\nhere, and I was chosen to stop over to ascertain. We might like to try\nthis neighbourhood as we return, so I left my things at the station and\nstruck out across the country this afternoon. I have heard birds in\nseveral directions, but had no dog. However, I shot a few hoves in a\ncornfield.\"\n\n\"There are plenty of birds close around here, but most of them stay on\nthe land that is owned by the Sisters, and they don't like to have it\nhunted over. All the land between here and the convent belongs to them\nexcept the little that's mine.\" This was said somewhat dryly by the old\nman, who knocked the ashes off his pipe without looking up.\n\n\"I am sorry to have trespassed; but I was not expecting to find a\nconvent out in the country, although I believe I have heard that there\nis an abbey of Trappist monks somewhere down here.\"\n\n\"Yes; the abbey is not far from here.\"\n\n\"It seems strange to me. I can hardly believe I am in Kentucky,\" he said\nmusingly, and a solemn look came over his face as his thoughts went back\nto the sunset scene.\n\nThe old housewife's keen eyes pierced to his secret mood.\n\n\"You ought to go there.\"\n\n\"Do they receive visitors at the convent?\" he asked quickly.\n\n\"Certainly; the Sisters are very glad to have strangers visit the place.\nIt's a pity you hadn't come sooner. One of the Sisters was here this\nafternoon, and you might have spoken to her about it.\"\n\nThis intelligence threw him into silence, and again her eyes fed upon\nhis firelit face with inappeasable hunger. She was one of those women,\nto be met with the world over and in any station, who are remarkable for\na love of youth and the world, which age, sickness, and isolation but\ndeepen rather than subdue; and his sudden presence at her fireside was\nmore than grateful. Not satisfied with what he had told, she led the\ntalk back to the blue-grass country, and got from him other facts of his\nlife, asking questions in regard to the features of that more fertile\nand beautiful land. In return she sketched the history of her own\nregion, and dwelt upon its differences of soil, people, and\nreligion--chiefly the last. It was while she spoke of the Order of the\nStricken Heart that he asked a question he had long reserved.\n\n\"Do you know the history of any of these Sisters?\"\n\n\"I know the history of all of them who are from Kentucky. I have known\nSister Dolorosa since she was a child.\"\n\n\"Sister Dolorosa!\" The name pierced him like a spear.\n\n\"The nun who was here to-day is called Sister Dolorosa. Her real name\nwas Pauline Cambron.\"\n\nThe fire died away. The old man left the room on some pretext and did\nnot return. The story that followed was told with many details not given\nhere--traced up from parentage and childhood with that fine tracery of\nthe feminine mind which is like intricate embroidery, and which leaves\nthe finished story wrought out on the mind like a complete design, with\nevery point fastened to the sympathies.\n\nAs soon as she had finished he rose quickly from a desire to be alone.\nSo well had the story been knit to his mind that he felt it an\nirritation, a binding pain. He was bidding her good-night when she\ncaught his hand. Something in his mere temperament drew women towards\nhim.\n\n\"Are you married?\" she asked, looking into his eyes in the way with\nwhich those who are married sometimes exchange confidences.\n\nHe looked quickly away, and his face flushed a little fiercely.\n\n\"I am not married,\" he replied, withdrawing his hand.\n\nShe threw it from her with a gesture of mock, pleased impatience; and\nwhen he had left the room, she sat for a while over the ashes.\n\n\"If she were not a nun----\" then she laughed and made her difficult way\nto her bed. But in the room above he sat down to think.\n\nWas this, then, not romance, but life in his own State? Vaguely he had\nalways known that further south in Kentucky a different element of\npopulation had settled, and extended into the New World that mighty cord\nof ecclesiastical influence which of old had braided every European\ncivilisation into an iron tissue of faith. But this knowledge had never\ntouched his imagination. In his own land there were no rural Catholic\nchurches, much less convents, and even among the Catholic congregations\nof the neighbouring towns he had not many acquaintances and fewer\nfriends.\n\nTo descend as a gay bird of passage, therefore, upon these secluded,\nsombre fields, and find himself in the neighbourhood of a powerful\nOrder--to learn that a girl, beautiful, accomplished, of wealth and high\nsocial position, had of her own choice buried herself for life within\nits bosom--gave him a startling insight into Kentucky history as it was\nforming in his own time. Moreover--and this touched him especially--it\ngave him a deeper insight into the possibilities of woman's nature; for\na certain narrowness of view regarding the true mission of woman in the\nworld belonged to him as a result of education. In the conservative\nKentucky society by which he had been largely moulded the opinion\nprevailed that woman fulfilled her destiny when she married well and\nadorned a home. All beauty, all accomplishments, all virtues and graces,\nwere but means for attaining this end.\n\nAs for himself, he came of a stock which throughout the generations of\nKentucky life, and back of these along the English ancestry, had stood\nfor the home; a race of men with the fireside traits: sweet-tempered,\npatient, and brave; well-formed and handsome; cherishing towards women a\nsense of chivalry; protecting them fiercely and tenderly; loving them\nromantically and quickly for the sake of beauty; marrying early, and\nsometimes at least holding towards their wives such faith, that these\nhad no more to fear from all other women in the world than from all\nother men.\n\nDescended from such a stock and moulded by the social ideals of his\nregion, Helm naturally stood for the home himself. And yet there was a\ndifference. In a sense he was a product of the new Kentucky. His infancy\nhad been rocked on the chasm of the Civil War; his childhood spent amid\nits ruins; his youth ruled by two contending spirits--discord and peace:\nand earliest manhood had come to him only in the morning of the new era.\nIt was because the path of his life had thus run between light and shade\nthat his nature was joyous and grave; only joy claimed him entirely as\nyet, while gravity asserted itself merely in the form of sympathy with\nanything that suffered, and a certain seriousness touching his own\nresponsibility in life.\n\nReflecting on this responsibility while his manhood was yet forming, he\nfelt the need of his becoming a better, broader type of man, matching\nthe better, broader age. His father was about his model of a gentleman;\nbut he should be false to the admitted progress of the times were he not\nan improvement on his father. And since his father had, as judged by the\nideals of the old social order, been a blameless gentleman of the rural\nblue-grass kind, with farm, spacious homestead, slaves, leisure, and a\nlibrary,--to all of which, except the slaves, he would himself succeed\nupon his father's death--his dream of duty took the form of becoming a\nrural blue-grass gentleman of the newer type, reviving the best\ntraditions of the past, but putting into his relations with his\nfellow-creatures an added sense of helpfulness, a broader sense of\njustice, and a certain energy of leadership in all things that made for\na purer, higher human life. It will thus be seen that he took seriously\nnot only himself, but the reputation of his State; for he loved it,\npeople and land, with broad, sensitive tenderness, and never sought or\nplanned for his future apart from civil and social ends.\n\nIt was perhaps a characteristic of him as a product of the period that\nhe had a mind for looking at his life somewhat abstractedly and with a\ncertain thought-out plan; for this disposition of mind naturally belongs\nto an era when society is trembling upon the brink of new activities and\nforced to the discovery of new ideals. But he cherished no religious\npassion, being committed by inheritance to a mild, unquestioning,\nundeviating Protestantism. His religion was more in his conduct than in\nhis prayers, and he tried to live its precepts instead of following them\nfrom afar. Still, his make was far from heroic. He had many faults; but\nit is less important to learn what these were than to know that, as far\nas he was aware of their existence, he was ashamed of them, and tried to\novercome them.\n\nSuch, in brief, were Pauline Cambron and Gordon Helm: coming from\nseparate regions of Kentucky, descended from unlike pasts, moulded by\ndifferent influences, striving towards ends in life far apart and\nhostile. And being thus, at last they slept that night.\n\nWhen she had been left alone, and had begun to prepare herself for bed,\nacross her mind passed and repassed certain words of the Mother\nSuperior, stilling her spirit like the waving of a wand of peace: \"To be\ntroubled without any visible cause is one of the mysteries of our\nnature.\" True, before she fell asleep there rose all at once a\nsingularly clear recollection of that silent meeting in the fields; but\nher prayers fell thick and fast upon it like flakes of snow, until it\nwas chastely buried from the eye of conscience; and when she slept, two\ntears, slowly loosened from her brain by some repentant dream, could\nalone have told that there had been trouble behind her peaceful eyes.\n\n\n\n\nIV.\n\n\nSister Dolorosa was returning from her visit to old Martha on the\nfollowing afternoon. When she awoke that morning she resolutely put away\nall thought of what had happened the evening before. She prayed oftener\nthan usual that day. She went about all duties with unwonted fervour.\nWhen she set out in the afternoon, and reached the spot in the fields\nwhere the meeting had taken place, it was inevitable that a nature\nsensitive and secluded like hers should be visited by some question\ntouching who he was and whither he had gone; for it did not even occur\nto her that he would ever cross her path again. Soon she reached old\nMartha's; and then--a crippled toad with a subtle tongue had squatted\nfor an hour at the ear of Eve, and Eve, beguiled, had listened. And now\nshe was again returning across the fields homeward. Homeward?\n\nEarly that afternoon Helm had walked across the country to the station,\nsome two miles off, to change his dress, with the view of going to the\nconvent the next day. As he came back he followed the course which he\nhad taken the day before, and this brought him into the same footpath\nacross the fields.\n\nThus they met the second time. When she saw him, had she been a bird,\nwith one sudden bound she would have beaten the air down beneath her\nfrightened wings and darted high over his head straight to the convent.\nBut his step grew slower and his look expectant. When they were a few\nyards apart he stepped out of the path into the low, grey weeds of the\nfield, and seemed ready to pause; but she had instinctively drawn her\nveil close, and was passing on. Then he spoke quickly.\n\n\"I beg your pardon, but are strangers allowed to visit the convent?\"\n\nThere was no mistaking the courtesy of the tone. But she did not lift\nher face towards him. She merely paused, though seeming to shrink away.\nHe saw the fingers of one hand lace themselves around the cross. Then a\nmoment later, in a voice very low and gentle, she replied, \"The Mother\nSuperior is glad to receive visitors at the convent,\" and, bowing, moved\naway.\n\nHe stood watching her with a quick flush of disappointment. Her voice,\neven more than her garb, had at once waved off approach. In his mind he\nhad crossed the distance from himself to her so often that he had\nforgotten the actual abyss of sacred separation. Very thoughtfully he\nturned at last and took his way along the footpath.\n\nAs he was leaving the farm-house the next day to go to the convent, Ezra\njoined him, merely saying that he was going also. The old man had few\nthoughts; but with that shrewd secretiveness which is sometimes found in\nthe dull mind he kept his counsels to himself. Their walk was finished\nin silence, and soon the convent stood before them.\n\nThrough a clear sky the wan light fell upon it as lifeless as though\nsent from a dead sun. The air hung motionless. The birds were gone. Not\na sound fell upon the strained ear. Not a living thing relieved the eye.\nAnd yet within what tragedies and conflicts, what wounds and thorns of\nwomanhood! Here, then, she lived and struggled and soared. An unearthly\nquietude came over him as he walked up the long avenue of elms,\npainfully jarred on by the noise of Ezra's shuffling feet among the dry\nleaves. Joyous life had retired to infinite remoteness; and over him,\nlike a preternatural chill in the faint sunlight, crept the horror of\nthis death in life. Strangely enough he felt at one and the same time a\nrepugnance to his own nature of flesh and a triumphant delight in the\npossession of bodily health, liberty--the liberty of the world--and a\nmind unfettered by tradition.\n\nA few feet from the entrance an aged nun stepped from behind a hedgerow\nof shrubbery and confronted them.\n\n\"Will you state your business?\" she said coldly, glancing at Helm and\nfixing her eyes on Ezra, who for reply merely nodded to Helm.\n\n\"I am a stranger in this part of the country, and heard that I would be\nallowed to visit the convent.\"\n\n\"Are you a Catholic?\"\n\n\"No; I am a Protestant.\"\n\n\"Are you acquainted with any of the young ladies in the convent?\"\n\n\"I am not.\"\n\nShe looked him through and through. He met her scrutiny with frank\nunconsciousness.\n\n\"Will you come in? I will take your name to the Mother Superior.\"\n\nThey followed her into a small reception-room, and sat for a long time\nwaiting. Then an inner door opened, and another aged nun, sweet-faced\nand gentle, entered and greeted them pleasantly, recognising Ezra as an\nacquaintance.\n\n\"Another Sister will be sent to accompany us,\" she said, and sat down to\nwait, talking naturally the while to the old man. Then the door opened\nagain, and the heart of Helm beat violently; there was no mistaking the\nform, the grace. She crossed to the Sister, and spoke in an undertone.\n\n\"Sister Generose is engaged. Mother sent me in her place, Sister.\" Then\nshe greeted Ezra and bowed to Helm, lifting to him an instant, but\nwithout recognition, her tremulous eyes. Her face had the whiteness of\nalabaster.\n\n\"We will go to the church first,\" said the Sister, addressing Helm, who\nplaced himself beside her, the others following.\n\nWhen they entered the church he moved slowly around the walls, trying to\nlisten to his guide and to fix his thoughts upon the pictures and the\narchitecture. Presently he became aware that Ezra had joined them, and\nas soon as pretext offered he looked back. In a pew near the door\nthrough which they had entered he could just see the kneeling form and\nbowed head of Sister Dolorosa. There she remained while they made the\ncircuit of the building, and not until they were quitting it did she\nrise and again place herself by the side of Ezra. Was it her last prayer\nbefore her temptation?\n\nThey walked across the grounds towards the old-fashioned flower-garden\nof the convent. The Sister opened the little latticed gate, and the\nothers passed in. The temptation was to begin in the very spot where\nLove had long been wandering amid dumb companions.\n\n\"Ezra!\" called the aged Sister, pausing just inside the gate and looking\ndown at some recently dug bulbs, \"has Martha taken up her tender bulbs?\nThe frost will soon be falling.\" The old man sometimes helped at the\nconvent in garden work.\n\n\"Who is this young man?\" she inquired carelessly a few moments later.\n\nBut Ezra was one of those persons who cherish a faint dislike of all\npresent company. Moreover, he knew the good Sister's love of news. So he\nbegan to resist her with the more pleasure that he could at least evade\nher questions.\n\n\"I don't know,\" he replied, with a mysterious shake of the head.\n\n\"Come this way,\" she said beguilingly, turning aside into another walk,\n\"and look at the chrysanthemums. How did you happen to meet him?\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen Sister Dolorosa and Helm found themselves walking slowly side by\nside down the garden-path--this being what he most had hoped for and she\nmost had feared--there fell upon each a momentary silence of\npreparation. Speak she must; if only in speaking she might not err.\nSpeak he could; if only in speaking he might draw from her more\nknowledge of her life, and in some becoming way cause her to perceive\nhis interest in it.\n\nThen she, as his guide, keeping her face turned towards the border of\nflowers, but sometimes lifting it shyly to his, began with great\nsweetness and a little hurriedly, as if fearing to pause--\n\n\"The garden is not pretty now. It is full of flowers, but only a few are\nblooming. These are daffodils. They bloomed in March, long ago. And here\nwere spring beauties. They grow wild, and do not last long. The Mother\nSuperior wished some cultivated in the garden, but they are better if\nlet alone to grow wild. And here are violets, which come in April. And\nhere is Adam and Eve, and tulips. They are gay flowers, and bloom\ntogether for company. You can see Adam and Eve a long way off, and they\nlook better at a distance. These were the white lilies, but one of the\nSisters died, and we made a cross. That was in June. Jump-up-Johnnies\nwere planted in this bed, but they did not do well. It has been a bad\nyear. A storm blew the hollyhocks down, and there were canker-worms in\nthe roses. That is the way with the flowers: they fail one year, and\nthey succeed the next. They would never fail if they were let alone. It\nis pleasant to see them starting out in the Spring to be perfect each in\nits own way. It is pleasant to water them and to help. But some will be\nperfect, and some will be imperfect, and no one can alter that. They are\nlike the children in the school; only the flowers would all be perfect\nif they had their way, and the children would all be wrong if they had\ntheirs--the poor, good children! This is touch-me-not. Perhaps you have\nnever heard of any such flower. And there, next to it, is\nlove-lies-bleeding. We have not much of that; only this one little\nplant.\" And she bent over and stroked it.\n\nHis whole heart melted under the white radiance of her innocence. He had\nthought her older; now his feeling took the form of the purest delight\nin some exquisite child nature. And therefore, feeling thus towards her,\nand seeing the poor, dead garden with only common flowers, which\nnevertheless she separately loved, oblivious of their commonness, he\nsaid with sudden warmth, holding her eyes with his--\n\n\"I wish you could see my mother's garden and the flowers that bloom in\nit.\" And as he spoke there came to him a vision of her as she might look\nin a certain secluded corner of it, where ran a trellised walk;\nover-clambering roses, pale golden, full blown or budding, and bent with\ndew; the May sun golden in the heavens; far and near birds singing and\nsoaring in ecstasy; the air lulling the sense with perfume, quickening\nthe blood with freshness; and there, within that frame of roses, her\nhead bare and shining, her funereal garb for ever laid aside for one\nthat matched the loveliest hue of living nature around, a flower at her\nthroat, flowers in her hand, sadness gone from her face, there the pure\nand radiant incarnation of a too-happy world, this exquisite\nchild-nature, advancing towards him with eyes of love.\n\nHaving formed this picture, he could not afterwards destroy it; and as\nthey resumed their walk he began very simply to describe his mother's\ngarden, she listening closely because of her love for flowers, which had\nbecome companions to her, and merely saying dreamily, half to herself\nand with guarded courtesy half to him, \"It must be beautiful.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"The Mother Superior intends to make the garden larger next year, and to\nhave fine flowers in it, Ezra. It has been a prosperous year in the\nschool, and there will be money to spare. This row of lilacs is to be\ndug up, and the fence set back so as to take in the onion patch over\nthere. When does he expect to go away?\" The aged Sister had not made\nrapid progress.\n\n\"I haven't heard him say,\" replied the old man.\n\n\"Perhaps Martha has heard him say.\"\n\nEzra only struck the toe of his stout boot with his staff.\n\n\"The Mother Superior will want _you_ to dig up the lilacs, Ezra. You\ncan do it better than any one else.\"\n\nThe old man shook his head threateningly at the bushes. \"I can settle\nthem,\" he said.\n\n\"Better than any one else. Has Martha heard him say when he is going\naway?\"\n\n\"To-morrow,\" he replied, conceding something in return for the lilacs.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"These are the chrysanthemums. They are white, but some are perfect and\nsome are imperfect, you see. Those that are perfect are the ones to feel\nproud of, but the others are the ones to love.\"\n\n\"If all were perfect would you no longer love them?\" he said gently,\nthinking how perfect she was and how easy it would be to love her.\n\n\"If all were perfect, I could love all alike, because none would need to\nbe loved more than others.\"\n\n\"And when the flowers in the garden are dead, what do you find to love\nthen?\" he asked, laughing a little and trying to follow her mood.\n\n\"It would not be fair to forget them because they are dead. But they are\nnot dead; they go away for a season, and it would not be fair to forget\nthem because they have gone away.\" This she said simply and seriously as\nthough her conscience were dealing with human virtues and duties.\n\n\"And are you satisfied to love things that are not present?\" he asked,\nlooking at her with sudden earnestness.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"The Mother Superior will wish him to take away a favourable impression\nof the convent,\" said the Sister. \"Young ladies are sometimes sent to us\nfrom that region.\" And now, having gotten from Ezra the information she\ndesired and turned their steps towards the others, she looked at Helm\nwith greater interest.\n\n\"Should you like to go upon the observatory?\" she meekly asked, pointing\nto the top of the adjacent building. \"From there you can see how far the\nconvent lands extend. Besides, it is the only point that commands a view\nof the whole country.\"\n\nThe scene of the temptation was to be transferred to the pinnacle of the\ntemple.\n\n\"It is not asking too much of you to climb so far for my pleasure?\"\n\n\"It is our mission to climb,\" she replied wearily; \"and if our strength\nfails, we rest by the way.\"\n\nOf herself she spoke literally; for when they came to the topmost story\nof the building, from which the observatory was reached by a short\nflight of steps, she sank into a seat placed near as a resting-place.\n\n\"Will you go above, Sister?\" she said feebly. \"I will wait here.\"\n\nOn the way up, also, the old man had been shaking his head with a stupid\nlook of alarm and muttering his disapproval.\n\n\"There is a high railing, Ezra,\" she now said to him, \"You could not\nfall.\" But he refused to go further; he suffered from vertigo.\n\nThe young pair went up alone.\n\nFor miles in all directions the landscape lay shimmering in the autumnal\nsunlight--a poor, rough, homely land, with a few farmhouses of the\nplainest kind. Briefly she traced for him the boundary of the convent\ndomain. And then he, thinking proudly of his own region, now lying heavy\nin varied autumnal ripeness and teeming with noble, gentle animal life;\nwith rolling pastures as green as May under great trees of crimson and\ngold; with flashing streams and placid sheets of water, and great\nsecluded homesteads--he, in turn, briefly described it; and she, loving\nthe sensuous beauty of the world, listened more dreamily, merely\nrepeating over and over, half to herself, and with more guarded courtesy\nhalf to him, \"It must be very beautiful.\"\n\nBut whether she suddenly felt that she had yielded herself too far to\nthe influence of his words and wished to counteract this, or whether she\nwas aroused to offset his description by another of unlike interest,\nscarcely had he finished when she pointed towards a long stretch of\nwoodland that lay like a mere wavering band of brown upon the western\nhorizon.\n\n\"It was through those woods,\" she said, her voice trembling slightly,\n\"that the procession of Trappists marched behind the cross when they\nfled to this country from France. Beyond that range of hills is the home\nof the Silent Brotherhood. In this direction,\" she continued, pointing\nsouthward, \"is the creek which used to be so deep in winter that the\npriests had to swim it as they walked from one distant mission to\nanother in the wilderness, holding above the waves the crucifix and the\nsacrament. Under that tree down there the Father who founded this\nconvent built with his own hands the cabin that was the first church,\nand hewed out of logs the first altar. It was from those trees that the\nfirst nuns got the dyes for their vestments. On the floor of that cabin\nthey sometimes slept in mid-winter with no other covering than an armful\nof straw. Those were heroic days.\"\n\nIf she had indeed felt some secret need to recover herself by reciting\nthe heroisms of local history, she seemed to have succeeded. Her face\nkindled with emotion; and as he watched it he forgot even her creed in\nthis revelation of her nature, which touched in him also something\nserious and exalted. But as she ceased he asked, with peculiar\ninterest--\n\n\"Are there any Kentuckians among the Trappist Fathers?\"\n\n\"No,\" she replied, after a momentary silence, and in a voice lowered to\ngreat sadness. \"There was one a few years ago. His death was a great\nblow to the Fathers. They had hoped that he might some day become the\nhead of the order in Kentucky. He was called Father Palemon.\"\n\nFor another moment nothing was said. They were standing side by side,\nlooking towards that quarter of the horizon which she had pointed out as\nthe site of the abbey. Then he spoke meditatively, as though his mind\nhad gone back unawares to some idea that was very dear to him--\n\n\"No, this does not seem much like Kentucky; but, after all, every\nlandscape is essentially the same to me if there are homes on it. Poor\nas this country is, still it is history; it is human life. Here are the\neternal ties and relations. Here are the eternal needs and duties;\neverything that keeps the world young and the heart at peace. Here is\nthe unchanging expression of our common destiny, as creatures who must\nshare all things, and bear all things, and be bound together in life and\ndeath.\"\n\n\"Sister!\" called up the nun waiting below, \"is not the wind blowing?\nWill you not take cold?\"\n\n\"The wind is not blowing, Sister, but I am coming.\"\n\nThey turned their faces outward upon the landscape once more. Across it\nwound the little footpath towards the farm-house in the distance. By a\ncommon impulse their eyes rested upon the place of their first meeting.\nHe pointed to it.\n\n\"I shall never forget that spot,\" he said impulsively.\n\n\"Nor I!\"\n\nHer words were not spoken. They were not uttered within. As unexpectedly\nand silently as in the remotest profound of the heavens at midnight some\npalest little star is loosened from its orbit, shoots a brief span, and\ndisappears, this confession of hers traced its course across the depths\nof her secret consciousness; but, having made it to herself, she kept\nher eyes veiled, and did not look at him again that day.\n\n\"I think you have now seen everything that could be of any interest,\"\nthe aged Sister said doubtfully, when they stood in the yard below.\n\n\"The place is very interesting to me,\" he answered, looking around that\nhe might discover some way of prolonging his visit.\n\n\"The graveyard, Sister. We might go there.\" The barely audible words\nwere Sister Dolorosa's. The scene of the temptation was to be\ntransferred for the third time.\n\nThey walked some distance down a sloping hillside, and stepped softly\nwithin the sacred enclosure. A graveyard of nuns! O Mother Earth,\nall-bearing, passion-hearted mother! Thou that sendest love one for\nanother into thy children, from the least to the greatest, as thou\ngivest them life! Thou that livest by their loves and their myriad\nplightings of troth and myriad marriages! With what inconsolable sorrow\nmust thou receive back upon thy bosom, the chaste dust of lorn virgins,\nwhose bosoms thou didst mould for a lover's arms and a babe's slumbers!\nAs marble vestals of the ancient world, buried and lost, they lie,\nchiselled into a fixed attitude of prayer through the silent centuries.\n\nThe aspect and spirit of the place: the simple graves placed side by\nside like those of the nameless poor, or of soldiers fallen in an\nunfriendly land: the rude wooden cross at the head of each, bearing the\nsacred name of her who was dust below; the once chirruping nests of\nbirds here and there in the grass above the songless lips; the sad\ndesolation of this unfinished end--all were the last thing needed to\nwring the heart of Helm with dumb pity and an ungovernable anguish of\nrebellion. This, then, was to be her portion. His whole nature cried\naloud against it. His ideas of human life, civilisation, his age, his\ncountry, his State, rose up in protest. He did not heed the words of the\nSister beside him. His thoughts were with Sister Dolorosa, who followed\nwith Ezra in a silence which she had but once broken since her last\nwords to him. He could have caught her up and escaped back with her into\nthe liberty of life, into the happiness of the world.\n\nUnable to endure the place longer, he himself led the way out. At the\ngate the Sister fell behind with Ezra.\n\n\"He seems deeply impressed by his visit,\" she said in an undertone, \"and\nshould bear with him a good account of the convent. Note what he says,\nEzra. The order wants friends in Kentucky, where it was born and has\nflourished;\" and looking at Sister Dolorosa and Helm, who were a short\ndistance in front, she added to herself--\n\n\"In her, more than in any other one of us, he will behold the perfect\nspiritual type of the convent. By her he will be made to feel the power\nof the order to consecrate women, in America, in Kentucky, to the\nservice of the everlasting Church.\"\n\nMeantime, Sister Dolorosa and Helm walked side by side in a silence\nthat neither could break. He was thinking of her as a woman of\nKentucky--of his own generation--and trying to understand the motive\nthat had led her to consecrate herself to such a life. His own ideal of\nduty was so different.\n\n\"I have never thought,\" he said at length, in a voice lowered so as to\nreach her ear alone--\"I have never thought that my life would not be\nfull of happiness. I have never supposed I could help being happy if I\ndid my duty.\"\n\nShe made no reply, and again they walked on in silence and drew near the\nconvent building. There was so much that he wished to say, but scarcely\none of his thoughts that he dared utter. At length he said, with\nirrepressible feeling--\n\n\"I wish your life did not seem to me so sad. I wish, when I go away\nto-morrow, that I could carry away, with my thoughts of this place, the\nthought that you are happy. As long as I remember it I wish I could\nremember you as being happy.\"\n\n\"You have no right to remember me at all,\" she said quickly, speaking\nfor the nun and betraying the woman.\n\n\"But I cannot help it,\" he said.\n\n\"Remember me, then, not as desiring to be happy, but as living to\nbecome blessed.\"\n\nThis she said, breaking the long silence which had followed upon his too\neager exclamation. Her voice had become hushed into unison with her meek\nand patient words. And then she paused, and, turning, waited for the\nSister to come up beside them. Nor did she even speak to him again,\nmerely bowing without lifting her eyes when, a little later, he thanked\nthem and took his leave.\n\nIn silence he and the old man returned to the farm-house, for his\nthoughts were with her. In the garden she had seemed to him almost as a\nchild, talking artlessly of her sympathies and ties with mute\nplaythings; then on the heights she had suddenly revealed herself as the\nyouthful transcendent devotee; and finally, amid the scenes of death,\nshe had appeared a woman too quickly aged and too early touched with\nresignation. He did not know that the effect of convent life is to force\ncertain faculties into maturity while others are repressed into\nunalterable unripeness; so that in such instances as Sister Dolorosa's\nthe whole nature resembles some long, sloping mountain-side, with an\nupper zone of ever-lingering snow for childhood, below this a green\nvernal belt for maidenhood, and near the foot fierce summer heats and\nsummer storms for womanhood. Gradually his plan of joining his friends\nthe next day wavered for reasons that he could hardly have named.\n\nAnd Sister Dolorosa--what of her when the day was over? Standing that\nnight in a whitewashed, cell-like room, she took off the heavy black\nveil and hood which shrouded her head from all human vision, and then\nunfastening at waist and throat the heavier black vestment of the order,\nallowed it to slip to the floor, revealing a white under-habit of the\nutmost simplicity of design. It was like the magical transformation of a\nsorrow-shrouded woman back into the shape of her own earliest\nmaidenhood.\n\nHer hair, of the palest gold, would, if unshorn, have covered her figure\nin a soft, thick golden cloud; but shorn, it lay about her neck and ears\nin large, lustrous waves that left defined the contour of her beautiful\nhead, and gave to it the aerial charm that belongs to the joyousness of\nyouth. Her whole figure was relaxed into a posture slightly drooping;\nher bare arms, white as the necks of swans, hung in forgotten grace at\nher sides; her eyes, large, dark, poetic, and spiritual, were bent upon\nthe floor, so that the lashes left their shadows on her cheeks, while\nthe delicate, overcircling brows were arched high with melancholy. As\nthe nun's funereal robes had slipped from her person had her mind\nslipped back into the past, that she stood thus, all the pure oval of\nher sensitive face stilled to an expression of brooding pensiveness? On\nthe urn which held the ashes of her heart had some legend of happy\nshapes summoned her fondly to return?--some garden? some radiant\nplay-fellow of childhood summers, already dim but never to grow dimmer?\n\nSighing deeply, she stepped across the dark circle on the floor which\nwas the boundary of her womanhood. As she did so her eyes rested on a\nsmall table where lay a rich veil of white that she had long been\nembroidering for a shrine of the Virgin. Slowly, still absently, she\nwalked to it, and, taking it up, threw it over her head, so that the\nsoft fabric enveloped her head and neck and fell in misty folds about\nher person; she thinking the while only of the shrine; she looking down\non this side and on that, and wishing only to judge how well this design\nand that design, patiently and prayerfully wrought out, might adorn the\nimage of the Divine Mother in the church of the convent.\n\nBut happening to be standing quite close to the white wall of the room\nwith the lamp behind her, when she raised her eyes she caught sight of\nher shadow, and with a low cry clasped her hands, and for an instant,\nbreathless, surveyed it. No mirrors are allowed in the convent. Since\nentering it Sister Dolorosa had not seen a reflection of herself, except\nperhaps her shadow in the sun or her face in a troubled basin of water.\nNow, with one overwhelming flood of womanly self-consciousness, she bent\nforward, noting the outline of her uncovered head, of her bared neck and\nshoulders and arms. Did this accidental adorning of herself in the veil\nof a bride, after she had laid aside the veil of the Church, typify her\ncomplete relapse of nature? And was this the lonely marriage-moment of\nher betrayed heart?\n\nFor a moment, trembling, not before the image on the wall, but before\nthat vivid mirror which memory and fancy set before every woman when no\nreal mirror is nigh, she indulged her self-surrender to thoughts that\ncovered her, on face and neck, with a rosy cloud more maidenly than the\nwhite mist of the veil. Then, as if recalled by some lightning stroke of\nconscience, with fearful fingers she lifted off the veil, extinguished\nthe lamp, and, groping her way on tiptoe to the bedside, stood beside\nit, afraid to lie down, afraid to pray, her eyes wide open in the\ndarkness.\n\n\n\n\nV.\n\n\nSleep gathers up the soft threads of passion that have been spun by us\nduring the day, and weaves them into a tapestry of dreams on which we\nsee the history of our own characters. We awake to find our wills more\ninextricably caught in the tissues of their own past; we stir, and\ndiscover that we are the heirs to our dead selves of yesterday, with a\nlarger inheritance of transmitted purpose.\n\nWhen Gordon awoke the next morning, among his first thoughts was the\nidea of going on to join his friends that day, and this thought now\ncaused him unexpected depression. Had he been older, he might have\naccepted this unwillingness to go away as the best reason for leaving;\nbut, young, and habitually self-indulgent towards his desires when they\nwere not connected with vice, he did not trouble himself with any\nforecast of consequences.\n\n\"You ought not to go away to-day,\" the old housewife said to him in the\nmorning, wishing to detain him through love of his company. \"To-morrow\nwill be Sunday, and you ought to go to vespers and hear Sister Dolorosa\nsing. There is not such another voice in any convent in Kentucky.\"\n\n\"I will stay,\" he replied quickly; and the next afternoon he was seated\nin the rear of the convent church, surrounded by rural Catholic\nworshippers who had assembled from the neighbourhood. The entire front\nof the nave on one side was filled with the black-veiled Sisters of the\norder; that on the other with the white-veiled novices--two\nfar-journeying companies of consecrated souls who reminded him in the\nmost solemn way how remote, how inaccessible, was that young pilgrim\namong them of whom for a long time now he had been solely thinking. With\nthese two companies of sacrificial souls before him he understood her\ncharacter in a new light.\n\nHe beheld her much as a brave, beautiful boy volunteer, who, suddenly\nwaving a bright, last adieu to gay companions in some gay-streeted town,\nfrom motives of the loftiest heroism, takes his place in the rear of\npassing soldiery, marching to misguided death: who, from the rear,\nglowing with too impetuous ardour, makes his way from rank to rank ever\ntowards the front; and who, at last, bearing the heavy arms and wearing\nthe battle-stained uniform of a veteran, steps forward to the van at\nthe commander's side, and sets his fresh, pure face undaunted towards\ndestruction. As he thought of her thus, deeper forces stirred within his\nnature than had ever been aroused by any other woman. In comparison\nevery one that he had known became for the moment commonplace, human\nlife as he was used to it gross and uninspiring, and his own ideal of\nduty a dwarfish mixture of selfishness and luxurious triviality.\nImpulsive in his recognition of nobleness of nature wherever he\nperceived it, for this devotedness of purpose he began to feel the\nemotion which of all that ever visit the human heart is at once the most\nhumbling, the most uplifting, and the most enthralling--the hero-worship\nof a strong man for a fragile woman.\n\nThe service began. As it went on he noticed here and there among those\nnear him such evidences of restlessness as betray in a seated throng\nhigh-wrought expectancy of some pleasure too long deferred. But at last\nthese were succeeded by a breathless hush, as, from the concealed\norgan-loft above, a low, minor prelude was heard, groping and striving\nnearer and nearer towards the concealed motive, as a little wave creeps\nfurther and further along a melancholy shore. Suddenly, beautiful and\nclear, more tender than love, more sorrowful than death, there floated\nout upon the still air of the church the cry of a woman's soul that has\noffended, and that, shrinking from every prayer of speech, pours forth\nits more intense, inarticulate, and suffering need through the diviner\nfaculty of song.\n\nAt the sound every ear was strained to listen. Hitherto the wont had\nbeen to hear that voice bear aloft the common petition as calmly as the\nincense rose past the altar to the roof; but now it quivered over\ntroubled depths of feeling, it rose freighted with the burden of\nself-accusal. Still higher and higher it rose, borne triumphantly upward\nby love and aspiration, until the powers of the singer's frame seemed\nspending themselves in one superhuman effort of the soul to make its\nprayer understood to the divine forgiveness. Then, all at once, at the\nhighest note, as a bird soaring towards the sun has its wings broken by\na shot from below, it too broke, faltered, and there was a silence. But\nonly for a moment: another voice, poor and cold, promptly finished the\nsong; the service ended; the people poured out of the church.\n\nWhen Gordon came out there were a few groups standing near the door\ntalking; others were already moving homeward across the grounds. Not\nfar off he observed a lusty young countryman, with a frank, winning\nface, who appeared to be waiting, while he held a child that had laid\nits bright head against his tanned, athletic neck. Gordon approached\nhim, and said with forced calmness--\n\n\"Do you know what was the matter in the church?\"\n\n\"My wife has gone to see,\" he replied warmly. \"Wait; she'll be here in a\nminute. Here she is now.\"\n\nThe comely, Sunday-dressed young wife came up and took the child, who\nheld out its arms, fondly smiling.\n\n\"She hadn't been well, and they didn't want her to sing to-day; but she\nbegged to sing, and broke down.\" Saying this, the young mother kissed\nher child, and slipping one hand into the great brown hand of her\nhusband, which closed upon it, turned away with them across the lawn\nhomeward.\n\nWhen Sister Dolorosa, who had passed a sleepless, prayerless night,\nstood in the organ-loft and looked across the church at the scene of\nthe Passion, at the shrine of the Virgin, at the white throng of novices\nand the dark throng of the Sisters, the common prayer of whom was to be\nborne upward by her voice, there came upon her like a burying wave a\nconsciousness of how changed she was since she had stood there last.\nThus at the moment when Gordon, sitting below, reverently set her far\nabove him, as one looks up to a statue whose feet are above the level of\nhis head, she, thinking of what she had been and had now become, seemed\nto herself as though fallen from a white pedestal to the miry earth. But\nwhen, to a nature like hers, absolute loyalty to a sinless standard of\ncharacter is the only law of happiness itself, every lapse into\ntransgression is followed by an act of passionate self-chastisement and\nby a more passionate outburst of love for the wronged ideal; and\ntherefore scarce had she begun to sing, and in music to lift up the\nprayer she had denied herself in words, before the powers of her body\nsuccumbed, as the strings of an instrument snap under too strenuous a\ntouch of the musician.\n\nGordon walked out of the grounds beside the rustic young husband and\nwife, who plainly were lovers still.\n\n\"The Sister who sang has a beautiful voice,\" he said.\n\n\"None of them can sing like her,\" replied the wife. \"I love her better\nthan any of the others.\"\n\n\"I tin sing!\" cried the little girl, looking at Gordon resentfully, as\nthough he had denied her that accomplishment.\n\n\"But you'll never sing in a convent, missy,\" cried the father, snatching\nher from her mother. \"You'll sing for some man till he marries you as\nyour mother did me. I was going to join the Trappist monks, but my wife\nsaid I was too good a sweetheart to spoil, and she had made up her mind\nto have me herself,\" he added, turning to Gordon with a laugh.\n\n\"I'd have been a Sister long ago if you hadn't begged and begged me\nnot,\" was the reply, with the coquettish toss of a pretty head.\n\n\"I doin' be Tap monk,\" cried the little girl, looking at Gordon still\nmore assertively, but joining in the laugh that followed with a scream\nof delight at the wisdom of her decision.\n\nTheir paths here diverged, and Gordon walked slowly on alone, but not\nwithout turning to watch the retreating figures, his meeting with whom\nat such a moment formed an episode in the history of that passion under\nthe influence of which he was now rapidly passing. For as he had sat in\nthe church his nature, which was always generous in its responsiveness,\nhad lent itself wholly to the solicitations of the service; and for a\ntime the stillness, the paintings portraying the divine sorrow, the slow\nprocession of nameless women, the tapers, the incense, the hoary\nantiquity of the ceremonial, had carried him into a little-known region\nof his religious feeling. But from this he had been sharply recalled by\nthe suggestion of a veiled personal tragedy close at hand in that\nunfinished song. His mood again became one of vast pity for her; and\nissuing from the church with this feeling, there, near the very\nentrance, he had come upon a rustic picture of husband, wife, and child,\nwith a sharpness of transition that had seemed the return of his spirit\nto its own world of flesh and blood. There to him was the poetry and the\nreligion of life--the linked hands of lovers; the twining arms of\nchildhood; health and joyousness; and a quiet walk over familiar fields\nin the evening air from peaceful church to peaceful home. And so,\nthinking of this as he walked on alone, and thinking also of her, the\ntwo thoughts blended, and her image stood always before him in the\npathway of his ideal future.\n\nThe history of the next several days may soon be told. He wrote to his\nfriends, stating that there was no game in the neighbourhood, and that\nhe had given up the idea of joining them and would return home. He took\nthe letter to the station, and waited for the train to pass southward,\nwatching it rush away with a subtle pleasure at being left on the\nplatform, as though the bridges were now burned behind him. Then he\nreturned to the farm-house, where Ezra met him with that look of stupid\nalarm which was natural to him whenever his few thoughts were agitated\nby a new situation of affairs.\n\nWord had come from the convent that he was wanted there to move a fence\nand make changes in the garden, and, proud of the charge, he wished to\ngo; but certain autumnal work in his own orchard and garden claimed his\ntime, and hence the trouble. But Gordon, who henceforth had no reason\nfor tarrying with the old couple, threw himself eagerly upon this\nopportunity to do so, and offered his aid in despatching the tasks. So\nthat thus a few days passed, during which he unconsciously made his way\nas far as any one had ever done into the tortuous nature of the old man,\nwho began to regard him with blind trustfulness.\n\nBut they were restless, serious days. One after another passed, and he\nheard nothing of Sister Dolorosa. He asked himself whether she were ill,\nwhether her visits to old Martha had been made to cease; and he shrank\nfrom the thought of bearing away into his life the haunting pain of such\nuncertainty. But some inner change constrained him no longer to call her\nname. As he sat with the old couple at night the housewife renewed her\ntalks with him, speaking sometimes of the convent and of Sister\nDolorosa, the cessation of whose visits plainly gave her secret concern;\nbut he listened in silence, preferring the privacy of his own thoughts.\nSometimes, under feint of hunting, he would take his gun in the\nafternoon and stroll out over the country; but always the presence of\nthe convent made itself felt over the landscape, dominating it, solitary\nand impregnable, like a fortress. It began to draw his eyes with a\nspecies of fascination. He chafed against its assertion of barriers, and\ncould have wished that his own will might be brought into conflict with\nit. It appeared to watch him; to have an eye at every window; to see in\nhim a lurking danger. At other times, borne to him across the darkening\nfields would come the sweet vesper bell, and in imagination he would see\nher entering the church amid the long procession of novices and nuns,\nher hands folded across her breast, her face full of the soft glories of\nthe lights that streamed in through the pictured windows. Over the\nfancied details of her life more and more fondly he lingered.\n\nAnd thus, although at first he had been interested in her wholly upon\ngeneral grounds, believing her secretly unhappy, thus by thinking always\nof her, and watching for her, and walking often beside her in his\ndreams, with the folly of the young, with the romantic ardour of his\nrace, and as part of the never-ending blind tragedy of the world, he\ncame at last to feel for her, among women, that passionate pain of\nyearning to know which is to know the sadness of love.\n\nSleepless one night, he left the house after the old couple were asleep.\nThe moon was shining, and unconsciously following the bent of his\nthoughts, he took the footpath that led across the fields. He passed the\nspot where he had first met her, and, absorbed in recollection of the\nscene, he walked on until before him the convent towered high in light\nand shadow. He had reached the entrance to the long avenue of elms. He\ntraversed it, turned aside into the garden, and, following with many\npauses around its borders, lived over again the day when she had led him\nthrough it. The mere sense of his greater physical nearness to her\nenthralled him. All her words came back: \"These are daffodils. They\nbloomed in March, long ago.... And here are violets, which come in\nApril.\" After awhile, leaving the garden, he walked across the lawn to\nthe church and sat upon the steps, trying to look calmly at this whole\nepisode in his life, and to summon resolution to bring it to an end. He\ndwelt particularly upon the hopelessness of his passion; he made himself\nbelieve that if he could but learn that she were not ill and\nsuffering--if he could but see her once more, and be very sure--he would\ngo away, as every dictate of reason urged.\n\nAcross the lawn stood the convent building. There caught his eye the\nfaint glimmer of a light through a half-opened window, and while he\nlooked he saw two of the nuns moving about within. Was some one dying?\nWas this light the taper of the dead? He tried to throw off a sudden\nweight of gloomy apprehension, and resolutely got up and walked away;\nbut his purpose was formed not to leave until he had intelligence of\nher.\n\nOne afternoon, a few days later, happening to come to an elevated point\nof the landscape, he saw her figure moving across the fields in the\ndistance below him. Between the convent and the farm-house, in one of\nthe fields, there is a circular, basin-like depression; and it was here,\nhidden from distant observation, with only the azure of the heavens\nabove them, that their meeting took place.\n\nOn the day when she had been his guide he had told her that he was going\naway on the morrow, and as she walked along now it might have been seen\nthat she thought herself safe from intrusion. Her eyes were bent on the\ndust of the pathway. One hand was passing bead by bead upward along her\nrosary. Her veil was pushed back, so that between its black border and\nthe glistening whiteness of her forehead there ran, like a rippling band\nof gold, the exposed edges of her shining hair. In the other hand she\nbore a large cluster of chrysanthemums, whose snow-white petals and\ngreen leaves formed a strong contrast with the crimson symbol that they\npartly framed against her sable bosom.\n\nHe had come up close before the noise of his feet in the stubble drew\nher attention. Then she turned and saw him. But certain instincts of\nself-preservation act in women with lightning quickness. She did not\nrecognise him, or give him time to recognise her. She merely turned\nagain and walked onward at the same pace. But the chrysanthemums were\ntrembling with the beating of her heart, and her eyes had in them that\nlistening look with which one awaits the on-coming of danger from\nbehind.\n\nBut he had stopped. His nature was simple and trustful, and he had\nexpected to renew his acquaintanceship at the point where it had ceased.\nWhen, therefore, she thus reminded him, as indeed she must, that there\nwas no acquaintanceship between them, and that she regarded herself as\nmuch alone as though he were nowhere in sight, his feelings were\narrested as if frozen by her coldness. Still, it was for this chance\nthat he had waited all these days. Another would not come; and whatever\nhe wished to say to her must be said now. A sensitiveness wholly novel\nto his nature held him back, but a moment more and he was walking\nbeside her.\n\n\"I hope I do not intrude so very far,\" he said, in a tone of apology,\nbut also of wounded self-respect.\n\nIt was a difficult choice thus left to her. She could not say \"Yes\"\nwithout seeming unpardonably rude; she could not say \"No\" without\nseeming to invite his presence. She walked on for a moment, and then,\npausing, turned towards him.\n\n\"Is there anything that you wished to ask me in regard to the convent?\"\nThis she said in the sweetest tone of apologetic courtesy, as though in\nhaving thought only of herself at first she had neglected some larger\nduty.\n\nIf he had feared that he would see traces of physical suffering on her\nface, he was mistaken. She had forgotten to draw her veil close, and the\nsunlight fell upon its loveliness. Never had she been to him half so\nbeautiful. Whatever the expression her eyes had worn before he had come\nup, in them now rested only inscrutable calmness.\n\n\"There is one thing I have wished very much to know,\" he answered\nslowly, his eyes resting on hers. \"I was at the church of the convent\nlast Sunday and heard you sing. They said you were not well. I have\nhoped every day to hear that you were better. I have not cared to go\naway until I knew this.\"\n\nScarcely had he begun when a flush dyed her face, her eyes fell, and she\nstood betrayed by the self-consciousness of what her own thoughts had\nthat day been. One hand absently tore to pieces the blooms of the\nchrysanthemums, so that the petals fell down over her dark habit like\nsnowflakes. But when he finished, she lifted her eyes again.\n\n\"I am well now, thank you,\" she said; and the first smile that he had\never seen came forth from her soul to her face. But what a smile! It\nwrung his heart more than the sight of her tears could have done.\n\n\"Then I shall hope to hear you sing again to-morrow,\" he said quickly,\nfor she seemed on the point of moving away.\n\n\"I shall not sing to-morrow,\" she replied a little hurriedly, with\naverted face, and again she started on. But he walked beside her.\n\n\"In that case I have still to thank you for the pleasure I have had. I\nimagine that one would never do wrong if he could hear you sing whenever\nhe is tempted,\" he said, looking sidewise at her with a quiet, tentative\nsmile.\n\n\"It is not my voice,\" she replied more hurriedly. \"It is the music of\nthe service. Do not thank me. Thank God.\"\n\n\"I have heard the service before. It was your voice that touched me.\"\n\nShe drew her veil about her face, and walked on in silence.\n\n\"But I have no wish to say anything against your religion,\" he\ncontinued, his voice deepening and trembling. \"If it has such power over\nthe natures of women, if it lifts them to such ideals of duty, if it\ndevelops in them such characters, that merely to look into their faces,\nto be near them, to hear their voices, is to make a man think of a\nbetter world, I do not know why I should say anything against it.\"\n\nHow often, without meaning it, our words are like a flight of arrows\ninto another's heart. What he said but reminded her of her\nunfaithfulness. And therefore while she revolved how with perfect\ngentleness she might ask him to allow her to continue her way alone, she\ndid what she could: she spoke reverently, though all but inaudibly, in\nbehalf of her order.\n\n\"Our vows are perfect and divine. If they ever seem less, it is the\nfault of those of us who dishonour them.\"\n\nThe acute self-reproach in her tone at once changed his mood.\n\n\"On the other hand, I have also asked myself this question: Is it the\ncreed that makes the natures of you women so beautiful, or is it the\nnature of woman that gives the beauty to the creed? Is it not so with\nany other idea that women espouse? with any other cause that they\nundertake? Is it not so with anything that they spend their hearts upon,\ntoil for, and sacrifice themselves for? Do I see any beauty in your vows\nexcept such as your life gives to them? I can believe it. I can believe\nthat if you had never taken those vows your life would still be\nbeautiful. I can believe that you could change them for others and find\nyourself more nearly the woman that you strive to be--that you were\nmeant to be!\" He spoke in the subdued voice with which one takes leave\nof some hope that brightens while it disappears.\n\n\"I must ask you,\" she said, pausing--\"I must ask you to allow me to\ncontinue my walk alone,\" and her voice quivered.\n\nHe paused, too, and stood looking into her eyes in silence with the\nthought that he should never see her again. The colour had died out of\nhis face.\n\n\"I can never forgive your vows,\" he said, speaking very slowly and\nmaking an effort to appear unmoved. \"I can never forgive your vows that\nthey make it a sin for me to speak to you. I can never forgive them that\nthey put between us a gulf that I cannot pass. Remember, I owe you a\ngreat deal. I owe you higher ideas of a woman's nature and clearer\nresolutions regarding my own life. Your vows perhaps make it even a sin\nthat I should tell you this. But by what right? By what right am I\nforbidden to say that I shall remember you always, and that I shall\ncarry away with me into my life----\"\n\n\"Will you force me to turn back?\" she asked in greater agitation; and\nthough he could not see her face, he saw her tears fall upon her hands.\n\n\"No,\" he answered sadly; \"I shall not force you to turn back. I know\nthat I have intruded. But it seemed that I could not go away without\nseeing you again, to be quite sure that you were well. And when I saw\nyou, it seemed impossible not to speak of other things. Of course this\nmust seem strange to you--stranger, perhaps, than I may imagine, since\nwe look at human relationships so differently. My life in this world can\nbe of no interest to you. You cannot, therefore, understand why yours\nshould have any interest for me. Still, I hope you can forgive me,\" he\nadded abruptly, turning his face away as it flushed and his voice\nfaltered.\n\nShe lifted her eyes quickly, although they were dim. \"Do not ask me to\nforgive anything. There is nothing to be forgiven. It is I who must\nask--only leave me!\"\n\n\"Will you say good-bye to me?\" And he held out his hand.\n\nShe drew back, but, overborne by emotion he stepped forward, gently took\nher hand from the rosary, and held it in both his own.\n\n\"Good-bye! But, despite the cruel barriers that they have raised between\nus, I shall always----\"\n\nShe foresaw what was coming. His manner told her that. She had not\nwithdrawn her hand. But at this point she dropped the flowers that were\nin her other hand, laid it on her breast so that the longest finger\npointed towards the symbol of the transfixed heart, and looked quickly\nat him with indescribable warning and distress. Then he released her,\nand she turned back towards the convent.\n\n\"Mother,\" she said, with a frightened face, when she reached it, \"I did\nnot go to old Martha's. Some one was hunting in the fields, and I came\nback. Do not send me again, Mother, unless one of the Sisters goes with\nme.\" And with this half-truth on her lips and full remorse for it in her\nheart, she passed into that deepening imperfection of nature which for\nthe most of us makes up the inner world of reality.\n\nGordon wrote to her that night. He had not foreseen his confession. It\nhad been drawn from him under the influences of the moment; but since it\nwas made, a sense of honour would not have allowed him to stop there,\neven had feeling carried him no further. Moreover, some hope had been\nborn in him at the moment of separation, since she had not rebuked him,\nbut only reminded him of her vows.\n\nHis letter was full of the confidence and enthusiasm of youth, and its\ncontents may be understood by their likeness to others. He unfolded the\nplan of his life--the life which he was asking her to share. He dwelt\nupon its possibilities, he pointed out the field of its aspirations. But\nhe kept his letter for some days, unable to conceive a way by which it\nmight be sent to its destination. At length the chance came in the\nsimplest of disguises.\n\nEzra was starting one morning to the convent. As he was leaving the\nroom, old Martha called to him. She sat by the hearthstone, with her\nhead tied up in red flannel, and her large, watery face flushed with\npain, and pointed towards a basket of apples on the window-sill.\n\n\"Take them to Sister Dolorosa, Ezra,\" she said. \"Mind that you see\n_her_, and give them to her with your own hands. And ask her why she\nhasn't been to see me, and when she is coming.\" On this point her mind\nseemed more and more troubled. \"But what's the use of asking _you_ to\nfind out for me?\" she added, flashing out at him with heroic anger.\n\nThe old man stood in the middle of the room, dry and gnarled, his small\neyes kindling into a dull rage at a taunt made in the presence of a\nguest whose good opinion he desired. But he took the apples in silence\nand left the room.\n\nAs Gordon followed him beyond the garden, noting how his mind was\nabsorbed in petty anger, a simple resolution came to him.\n\n\"Ezra,\" he said, handing him the letter, \"when you give the Sister the\napples, deliver this. And we do not talk about business, you know,\nEzra.\"\n\nThe old man took the letter and put it furtively into his pocket, with a\nbackward shake of his head towards the house.\n\n\"Whatever risks I may have to run from other quarters, he will never\ntell _her_,\" Gordon said to himself.\n\nWhen Ezra returned in the evening he was absorbed, and Gordon noted with\nrelief that he was also unsuspicious. He walked some distance to meet\nthe old man the next two days, and his suspense became almost\nunendurable, but he asked no questions. The third day Ezra drew from his\npocket a letter, which he delivered, merely saying--\n\n\"The Sister told me to give you this.\"\n\nGordon soon turned aside across the fields, and having reached a point\nscreened from observation, he opened the letter and read as follows:--\n\n     \"I have received your letter. I have read it. But how could I\n     listen to your proposal without becoming false to my vows? And if\n     you knew that I had proved false to what I held most dear and\n     binding, how could you ever believe that I would be true to\n     anything else? Ah, no! Should you unite yourself to one who for\n     your sake had been faithless to the ideal of womanhood which she\n     regarded as supreme, you would soon withdraw from her the very love\n     that she had sacrificed even her hopes of Heaven to enjoy.\n\n     \"But it seems possible that in writing to me you believe my vows no\n     longer precious to my heart and sacred to my conscience. You are\n     wrong. They are more dear to me at this moment than ever before,\n     because at this moment, as never before, they give me a mournful\n     admonition of my failure to exhibit to the world in my own life the\n     beauty of their ineffable holiness. For had there not been\n     something within me to lead you on--had I shown to you the sinless\n     nature which it is their office to create--you would never have\n     felt towards me as you do. You would no more have thought of loving\n     me than of loving an angel of God.\n\n     \"The least reparation I can make for my offence is to tell you that\n     in offering me your love you offer me the cup of sacred\n     humiliation, and that I thank you for reminding me of my duty,\n     while I drain it to the dregs.\n\n     \"After long deliberation I have written to tell you this; and if it\n     be allowed me to make one request, I would entreat that you will\n     never lay this sin of mine to the charge of my religion and my\n     order.\n\n     \"We shall never meet again. Although I may not listen to your\n     proposal, it is allowed me to love you as one of the works of God.\n     And since there are exalted women in the world who do not\n     consecrate themselves to the church, I shall pray that you may find\n     one of these to walk by your side through life. I shall pray that\n     she may be worthy of you; and perhaps you will teach her sometimes\n     to pray for one who will always need her prayers.\n\n     \"I only know that God orders our lives according to His goodness.\n     My feet He set in one path of duty, yours in another, and He had\n     separated us for ever long before He allowed us to meet. If,\n     therefore, having thus separated us, He yet brought us together\n     only that we should thus know each other and then be parted, I\n     cannot believe that there was not in it some needed lesson for us\n     both. At least, if He will deign to hear the ceaseless, fervent\n     petition of one so erring, He will not leave you unhappy on account\n     of that love for me, which in this world it will never be allowed\n     me to return. Farewell!\"\n\nThe first part of this letter awakened in Gordon keen remorse and a\nfaltering of purpose, but the latter filled him with a joy that excluded\nevery other feeling.\n\n\"She loves me!\" he exclaimed; and, as though registering a vow, he added\naloud, \"And nothing--God help me!--nothing shall keep us apart.\"\n\nWalking to a point of the landscape that commanded a view of the\nconvent, he remained there while the twilight fell, revolving how he was\nto surmount the remaining barriers between them, for these now seemed\nhardly more than cobwebs to be brushed aside by his hand; and often,\nmeanwhile, he looked towards the convent, as one might look longingly\ntowards some forbidden shrine, which the coming night would enable him\nto approach.\n\n\n\n\nVI.\n\n\nA night for love it was. The great sun at setting had looked with\nsteadfast eye at the convent standing lonely on its wide landscape, and\nhad then thrown his final glance across the world towards the east; and\nthe moon had quickly risen and hung about it the long silvery twilight\nof her heavenly watchfulness. The summer, too, which had been moving\nsouthward, now came slowly back, borne on warm airs that fanned the\nconvent walls and sighed to its chaste lattices with the poetry of dead\nflowers and vanished songsters. But sighed in vain. With many a prayer,\nwith many a cross on pure brow and shoulder and breast, with many a\npious kiss of crucifix, the convent slept. Only some little novice,\nlying like a flushed figure of Sleep on a couch of snow, may have\nstirred to draw one sigh, as those zephyrs, toying with her warm hair,\nbroke some earthly dream of too much tenderness. Or they may merely have\ncooled the feverish feet of a withered nun, who clasped her dry hands in\necstasy, as on her cavernous eyes there dawned a vision of the glories\nand rewards of Paradise. But no, not all slept. At an open window on the\neastern side of the convent stood the sleepless one looking out into the\nlargeness of the night like one who is lost in the largeness of her\nsorrow.\n\nAcross the lawn, a little distance off, stood the church of the convent.\nThe moonlight rested on it like a smile of peace, the elms blessed it\nwith tireless arms, and from the zenith of the sky down to the horizon\nthere rested on outstretched wings, rank above rank and pinion brushing\npinion, a host of white, angelic cloud-shapes, as though guarding the\nsacred portal.\n\nBut she looked at it with timid yearning. Greater and greater had become\nthe need to pour into some ear a confession and a prayer for pardon. Her\npeace was gone. She had been concealing her heart from the Mother\nSuperior. She had sinned against her vows. She had impiously offended\nthe Divine Mother. And to-day, after answering his letter in order that\nshe might defend her religion, she had acknowledged to her heart that\nshe loved him. But they would never meet again. To-morrow she would make\na full confession of what had taken place. Beyond that miserable ordeal\nshe dared not gaze into her own future.\n\nLost in the fears and sorrows of such thoughts, long she stood looking\nout into the night, stricken with a sense of alienation from human\nsympathy. She felt that she stood henceforth estranged from the entire\nconvent--Mother Superior, novice, and nun--as an object of reproach, and\nof suffering into which no one of them could enter.\n\nSorer yet grew her need, and a little way across the lawn stood the\nchurch, peaceful in the moonlight. Ah, the divine pity! If only she\nmight steal first alone to the shrine of her whom most she had offended,\nand to an ear gracious to sorrow make confession of her frailty. At\nlength, overcome with this desire and gliding noiselessly out of the\nroom, she passed down the moonlit hall, on each side of which the nuns\nwere sleeping. She descended the stairway, took from the wall the key of\nthe church, and then softly opening the door, stepped out into the\nnight. For a moment she paused, icy and faint with physical fear; then,\npassing like a swift shadow across the silvered lawn, she went round to\nthe side entrance of the church, unlocked the door, and, entering\nquickly, locked herself inside. There she stood for some time with hands\npressed tightly to her fluttering heart, until bodily agitation died\naway before the recollection of her mission; and there came upon her\nthat calmness with which the soul enacts great tragedies. Then slowly,\nvery slowly, hidden now, and now visible where the moonlight entered the\nlong, Gothic windows, she passed across the chancel towards the shrine\nof one whom ancestral faith had taught her to believe divine; and before\nthe image of a Jewish woman--who herself in full humanity loved and\nmarried a carpenter nearly two thousand years ago, living beside him as\nblameless wife and becoming blameless mother to his children--this poor\nchild, whose nature was unstained as snow on the mountain peaks, poured\nout her prayer to be forgiven the sin of her love.\n\nTo the woman of the world, the approaches of whose nature are defended\nby the intricacies of wilfulness and the barriers of deliberate reserve;\nto the woman of the world, who curbs and conceals that feeling to which\nshe intends to yield herself in the end, it may seem incredible that\nthere should have rooted itself so easily in the breast of one of her\nsex this flower of a fatal passion. But it should be remembered how\nunbefriended that bosom had been by any outpost of feminine\nself-consciousness; how exposed it was through very belief in its\nunearthly consecration; how, like some unwatched vase that had long been\ncollecting the sweet dews and rains of heaven, it had been silently\nfilling with those unbidden intimations that are shed from above as the\nbest gifts of womanhood. Moreover, her life was unspeakably isolate. In\nthe monotony of its routine a trifling event became an epoch; a fresh\nimpression stirred within the mind material for a chapter of history.\nLifted far above commonplace psychology of the passions, however, was\nthe planting and the growth of an emotion in a heart like hers.\n\nHer prayer began. It began with the scene of her first meeting with him\nin the fields, for from that moment she fixed the origin of her\nunfaithfulness. Of the entire hidden life of poetic reverie and\nunsatisfied desires which she had been living before, her innocent soul\ntook no account. Therefore, beginning with that afternoon, she passed in\nreview the history of her thoughts and feelings. The moon outside,\nflooding the heavens with its beams, was not so intense a lamp as\nmemory, now turned upon the recesses of her mind. Nothing escaped\ndetection. His words, the scenes with him in the garden, in the\nfield--his voice, looks, gestures--his anxiety and sympathy--his\npassionate letter--all were now vividly recalled, that they might be\nforgotten; and their influence confessed, that it might for ever be\nrenounced. Her conscience stood beside her love as though it were some\ngreat fast-growing deadly plant in her heart, with deep-twisted roots\nand strangling tendrils, each of which to the smallest fibre must be\nuptorn so that not a germ should be left.\n\nBut who can describe the prayer of such a soul? It is easy to ask to be\nrid of ignoble passions. They come upon us as momentary temptations and\nare abhorrent to our better selves; but of all tragedies enacted within\nthe theatre of the human mind what one is so pitiable as that in which a\npure being prays to be forgiven the one feeling of nature that is the\nrevelation of beauty, the secret of perfection, the solace of the world,\nand the condition of immortality?\n\nThe passing of such a tragedy scars the nature of the penitent like the\npassing of an age across a mountain rock. If there had lingered thus\nlong on Sister Dolorosa's nature any upland of childhood snows, these\nvanished in that hour; if any vernal belt of maidenhood, it felt the hot\nbreath of that experience of the world and of the human destiny which\nquickly ages whatever it does not destroy. So that while she prayed\nthere seemed to rise from within her and take flight for ever that\nspotless image of herself as she once had been, and in its place to\nstand the form of a woman, older, altered, and set apart by sorrow.\n\nAt length her prayer ended and she rose. It had not brought her the\npeace that prayer brings to women; for the confession of her love before\nthe very altar--the mere coming into audience with the Eternal to\nrenounce it--had set upon it the seal of irrevocable truth. It is when\nthe victim is led to the altar of sacrifice that it turns its piteous\neyes upon the sacrificing hand and utters its poor dumb cry for life;\nand it was when Sister Dolorosa bared the breast of her humanity that it\nmight be stabbed by the hand of her religion, that she, too, though\nattempting to bless the stroke, felt the last pangs of that deep thrust.\n\nWith such a wound she turned from the altar, walked with bowed head once\nmore across the church, unlocked the door, stepped forth and locked it.\nThe night had grown more tender. The host of seraphic cloud-forms had\nfled across the sky; and as she turned her eyes upward to the heavens,\nthere looked down upon her from their serene, untroubled heights only\nthe stars, that never falter or digress from their fore-written courses.\nThe thought came to her that never henceforth should she look up to them\nwithout being reminded of how her own will had wandered from its orbit.\nThe moon rained its steady beams upon the symbol of the sacred heart on\nher bosom, until it seemed to throb again with the agony of the\ncrucifixion. Never again should she see it without the remembrance that\n_her_ sin also had pierced it afresh.\n\nWith what loneliness that sin had surrounded her! As she had issued from\nthe damp, chill atmosphere of the church, the warm airs of the south\nquickened within her long-sleeping memories; and with the yearning of\nstricken childhood she thought of her mother, to whom she had turned of\nyore for sympathy; but that mother's bosom was now a mound of dust. She\nlooked across the lawn towards the convent where the Mother Superior and\nthe nuns were sleeping. To-morrow she would stand among them a greater\nalien than any stranger. No; she was alone; among the millions of human\nbeings on the earth of God there was not one on whose heart she could\nhave rested her own. Not one save him--him--whose love had broken down\nall barriers that it might reach and infold her. And him she had\nrepelled. A joy, new and indescribable, leaped within her that for him,\nand not for another she suffered and was bound in this tragedy of her\nfall.\n\nSlowly she took her way along the side of the church towards the front\nentrance, from which a paved walk led to the convent building. She\nreached the corner, she turned, and then she paused as one might pause\nwho had come upon the beloved dead, returned to life.\n\nFor he was sitting on the steps of the church, leaning against one of\nthe pillars, his face lifted upward so that the moonlight fell upon it.\nShe had no time to turn back before he saw her. With a low cry of\nsurprise and joy he sprang up and followed along the side of the church;\nfor she had begun to retrace her steps to the door, to lock herself\ninside. When he came up beside her, she paused. Both were trembling; but\nwhen he saw the look of suffering on her face, acting upon the impulse\nwhich had always impelled him to stand between her and unhappiness, he\nnow took both of her hands.\n\n\"Pauline!\"\n\nHe spoke with all the pleading love, all the depth of nature, that was\nin him.\n\nShe had attempted to withdraw her hands; but at the sound of that once\nfamiliar name, she suddenly bowed her head as the wave of memories and\nemotions passed over her; then he quickly put his arms around her, drew\nher to him, and bent down and kissed her.\n\n\n\n\nVII.\n\n\nFor hours there lasted an interview, during which he, with the delirium\nof hope, she with the delirium of despair, drained at their young lips\nthat cup of life which is full of the first confession of love.\n\nIn recollections so overwhelming did this meeting leave Gordon on the\nnext morning, that he was unmindful of everything beside; and among the\nconsequences of absentmindedness was the wound that he gave himself by\nthe careless handling of his gun.\n\nWhen Ezra had set out for the convent that morning he had walked with\nhim, saying that he would go to the station for a daily paper, but\nchiefly wishing to escape the house and be alone. They had reached in\nthe fields a rotting fence, on each side of which grew briers and\nunderwood. He had expected to climb this fence, and as he stood beside\nit speaking a few parting words to Ezra he absently thrust his gun\nbetween two of the lower rails, not noticing that the lock was sprung.\nCaught in the brush on the other side, it was discharged, making a wound\nin his left leg a little below the thigh. He turned to a deadly\npaleness, looked at Ezra with that stunned, bewildered expression seen\nin the faces of those who receive a wound, and fell.\n\nBy main strength the old man lifted and bore him to the house and\nhurried off to the station, near which the neighbourhood physician and\nsurgeon lived. But the latter was away from home; several hours passed\nbefore he came; the means taken to stop the haemorrhage had been\nineffectual; the loss of blood had been very great; certain foreign\nmatter had been carried into the wound; the professional treatment was\nunskilful; and septic fever followed, so that for many days his life\nhung upon a little chance. But convalescence came at last, and with it\ndays of clear, calm thinking. For he had not allowed news of his\naccident to be sent home or to his friends; and except the old couple,\nthe doctor, and the nurse whom the latter had secured, he had no company\nbut his thoughts.\n\nNo tidings had come to him of Sister Dolorosa since his accident; and\nnothing had intervened to remove that sad image of her which had haunted\nhim through fever and phantasy and dream since the night of their final\ninterview. For it was then that he had first realised in how pitiless a\ntragedy her life had become entangled, and how conscience may fail to\ngovern a woman's heart in denying her the right to love, but may still\ngovern her actions in forbidding her to marry. To plead with her had\nbeen to wound only the more deeply a nature that accepted even this\npleading as a further proof of its own disloyalty, and was forced by it\ninto a state of more poignant humiliation. What wonder, therefore, if\nthere had been opened in his mind from that hour a certain wound which\ngrew deeper and deeper, until, by comparison, his real wound seemed\npainless and insignificant.\n\nNevertheless, it is true that during this interview he had not been able\nto accept her decision as irreversible. The spell of her presence over\nhim was too complete; even his wish to rescue her from a lot, henceforth\nunhappier still, too urgent; so that in parting he had clung to the\nsecret hope that little by little he might change her conscience, which\nnow interposed the only obstacle between them.\n\nEven the next day, when he had been wounded and life was rapidly flowing\nfrom him, and earthly ties seemed soon to be snapped, he had thought\nonly of this tie, new and sacred, and had written to her. Poor boy!--he\nhad written, as with his heart's blood, his brief, pathetic appeal that\nshe would come and be united to him before he died. In all ages of the\nworld there have been persons, simple in nature and simple in their\nfaith in another life, who have forgotten everything else in the last\nhour but the supreme wish to grapple to them those they love, for\neternity, and at whatever cost. Such simplicity of nature and faith\nbelonged to him; for although in Kentucky the unrest of the century\ntouching belief in the supernatural, and the many phases by which this\nexpresses itself, are not unknown, they had never affected him. He\nbelieved as his fathers had believed, that to be united in this world in\nany relation is to be united in that relation, mysteriously changed yet\nmysteriously the same, in another.\n\nBut this letter had never been sent. There had been no one to take it at\nthe time; and when Ezra returned with the physician he had fainted away\nfrom loss of blood.\n\nThen had followed the dressing of the wound, days of fever and\nunconsciousness, and then the assurance that he would get well. Thus,\nnearly a month had passed, and for him a great change had come over the\nface of nature and the light of the world. With that preternatural calm\nof mind which only an invalid or a passionless philosopher ever obtains,\nhe now looked back upon an episode which thus acquired fictitious\nremoteness. So weak that he could scarcely lift his head from his\npillow, there left his heart the keen, joyous sense of human ties and\npursuits. He lost the key to the motives and forces of his own\ncharacter. But it is often the natural result of such illness that while\nthe springs of feeling seem to dry up, the conscience remains sensitive,\nor even burns more brightly, as a star through a rarer atmosphere. So\nthat, lying thus in the poor farm-house during dreary days, with his\nlife half-gone out of him, and with only the sad image of her always\nbefore his eyes, he could think of nothing but his cruel folly in having\nbroken in upon her peace; for perfect peace of some sort she must have\nhad in comparison with what was now left her.\n\nBeneath his pillow he kept her letter, and as he often read it over he\nasked himself how he could ever have hoped to change the conscience\nwhich had inspired such a letter as that. If her heart belonged to him,\ndid not her soul belong to her religion; and if one or the other must\ngive way, could it be doubtful with such, a nature as hers which would\ncome out victorious? Thus he said to himself that any further attempt to\nsee her could but result in greater suffering to them both, and that\nnothing was left him but what she herself had urged--to go away and\nresign her to a life from which he had too late found out that she could\nnever be divorced.\n\nAs soon as he had come to this decision, he began to think of her as\nbelonging only to his past. The entire episode became a thing of memory\nand irreparable incompleteness; and with the conviction that she was\nlost to him her image passed into that serene, reverential sanctuary of\nour common nature, where all the highest that we have grasped at and\nmissed, and all the beauty that we have loved and lost, take the forms\nof statues around dim walls and look down upon us in mournful,\nnever-changing perfection.\n\nAs he lay one morning revolving his altered purpose, Ezra came quietly\ninto the room and took from a table near the foot of the bed a waiter on\nwhich were a jelly-glass and a napkin.\n\n\"_She_ said I'd better take these back this morning,\" he observed,\nlooking at Gordon for his approval, and motioning with his head towards\nthat quarter of the house where Martha was supposed to be.\n\n\"Wait awhile, will you, Ezra?\" he replied, looking at the old man with\nthe dark, quiet eye of an invalid. \"I think I ought to write a few lines\nthis morning to thank them for their kindness. Come back in an hour,\nwill you?\"\n\nThe things had been sent from the convent; for, from the time that news\nhad reached the Mother Superior of the accident of the young stranger\nwho had visited the convent some days before, there had regularly come\nto him delicate attentions which could not have been supplied at the\nfarmhouse. He often asked himself whether they were not inspired by\n_her_; and he thought that when the time came for him to write his\nthanks, he would put into the expression of them something that would\nbe understood by her alone--something that would stand for gratitude and\na farewell.\n\nWhen Ezra left the room, with the thought of now doing this another\nthought came unexpectedly to him. By the side of the bed there stood a\nsmall table on which were writing materials and a few books that had\nbeen taken from his valise. He stretched out his hand, and opening one\nof them took from it a letter which bore the address, \"Sister Dolorosa.\"\nIt contained those appealing lines that he had written her on the day of\nhis accident; and with calm, curious sadness he now read them over and\nover, as though they had never come from him. From the mere monotony of\nthis exercise sleep overtook him, and he had scarcely restored the\nletter to the envelope and laid it back on the table before his eyelids\nclosed.\n\nWhile he still lay asleep, Ezra came quietly into the room again, and\ntook up the waiter with the jelly-glass and the napkin. Then he looked\naround for the letter that he was to take. He was accustomed to carry\nGordon's letters to the station, and his eye now rested on the table\nwhere they were always to be found. Seeing one on it, he walked across,\ntook it up and read the address, \"Sister Dolorosa,\" hesitated, glanced\nat Gordon's closed eyes, and then, with an intelligent nod to signify\nthat he could understand without further instruction, he left the room\nand set out briskly for the convent.\n\nSister Dolorosa was at the cistern filling a bucket with water when he\ncame up and, handing her the letter, passed on to the convent kitchen.\nShe looked at it with indifference; then she opened and read it; and\nthen in an instant everything whirled before her eyes, and in her ears\nthe water sounded loud as it dropped from the chain back into the\ncistern. And then she was gone--gone with a light, rapid step, down, the\navenue of elms, through the gate, across the meadows, out into the\nfields--bucket and cistern, Mother Superior and sisterhood, vows and\nmartyrs, zeal of Carmelite, passion of Christ, all forgotten.\n\nWhen, nearly a month before, news had reached the Mother Superior of the\nyoung stranger's accident, in accordance with the rule which excludes\nfrom the convent worldly affairs, she had not made it known except to\nthose who were to aid in carrying out her kindly plans for him. To\nSister Dolorosa, therefore, the accident had just occurred, and\nnow--now as she hastened to him--he was dying.\n\nDuring the intervening weeks she had undergone by insensible degrees a\ndeterioration of nature. Prayer had not passed her lips. She believed\nthat she had no right to pray. Nor had she confessed. From such, a\nconfession as she had now to make, certain new-born instincts of\nwomanhood bade her shrink more deeply into the privacy of her own being.\nAnd therefore she had become more scrupulous, if possible, of outward\nduties, that no one might be led to discover the paralysis of her\nspiritual life. But there was that change in her which soon drew\nattention; and thenceforth, in order to hide her heart, she began to\npractise with the Mother Superior little acts of self-concealment and\nevasion, and by-and-by other little acts of pretence and feigning,\nuntil--God pity her!--being most sorely pressed by questions, when\nsometimes she would be found in tears or sitting listless with her hands\nin her lap like one who is under the spell of mournful phantasies, these\nbecame other little acts of positive deception. But for each of them\nremorse preyed upon her the more ruthlessly, so that she grew thin and\nfaded, with a shadow of fear darkening always her evasive eyes.\n\nWhat most held her apart, and most she deemed put upon her the angry ban\nof Heaven, was the consciousness that she still loved him, and that she\nwas even bound to him the more inseparably since the night of their last\nmeeting. For it was then that emotions had been awakened which drew her\nto him in ways that love alone could not have done. These emotions had\ntheir source in the belief that she owed him reparation for the\ndisappointment which she had brought upon his life. The recollection of\nhis face when she had denied him hope rose in constant reproach before\nher; and since she held herself blamable that he had loved her, she took\nthe whole responsibility of his unhappiness.\n\nIt was this sense of having wronged him that cleft even conscience in\nher and left her struggling. But how to undo the wrong--this she vainly\npondered; for he was gone, bearing away into his life the burden of\nenticed and baffled hope.\n\nOn the morning when she was at the cistern--for the Sisters of the Order\nhave among them such interchange of manual offices--if, as she read the\nletter that Ezra gave her, any one motive stood out clear in the stress\nof that terrible moment, it was, that having been false to other duties\nshe might at least be true to this. She felt but one desire--to atone to\nhim by any sacrifice of herself that would make his death more peaceful.\nBeyond this everything was void and dark within her as she hurried on,\nexcept the consciousness that by this act she separated herself from her\nOrder and terminated her religious life in utter failure and disgrace.\n\nThe light, rapid step with which she had started soon brought her across\nthe fields. As she drew near the house, Martha, who had caught sight of\nher figure through the window, made haste to the door and stood awaiting\nher. Sister Dolorosa merely approached and said--\n\n\"Where is he?\"\n\nFor a moment the old woman did not answer. Then she pointed to a door at\nthe opposite end of the porch, and with a sparkle of peculiar pleasure\nin her eyes she saw Sister Dolorosa cross and enter it. A little while\nlonger she stood, watching the keyhole furtively, but then went back to\nthe fireside, where she sat upright and motionless with the red flannel\npushed back from her listening ears.\n\nThe room was dimly lighted through half-closed shutters. Gordon lay\nasleep near the edge of the bed, with his face turned towards the door.\nIt might well have been thought the face of one dying. Her eyes rested\non it a moment, and then with a stifled sob and moan she glided across\nthe room and sank on her knees at the bedside. In the utter\nself-forgetfulness of her remorse, pity, and love, she put one arm\naround his neck, she buried her face close beside his.\n\nHe had awaked, bewildered, as he saw her coming towards him. He now took\nher arm from around his neck, pressed her hand again and again to his\nlips, and then laying it on his heart crossed his arms over it, letting\none of his hands rest on her head. For a little while he could not trust\nhimself to speak; his love threatened to overmaster his\nself-renunciation. But then, not knowing why she had come unless from\nsome great sympathy for his sufferings, or perhaps to see him once more\nsince he was now soon to go away, and not understanding any cause for\nher distress but the tragedy in which he had entangled her life--feeling\nonly sorrow for her sorrow and wishing only by means of his last words\nto help her back to such peace as she still might win, he said to her\nwith immeasurable gentleness--\n\n\"I thought you would never come! I thought I should have to go away\nwithout seeing you again! They tell me it is not yet a month since the\naccident, but it seems to me so _long_--a lifetime! I have lain here\nday after day thinking it over, and I see things differently now--so\ndifferently! That is why I wanted to see you once more. I wanted you to\nunderstand that I felt you had done right in refusing--in refusing to\nmarry me. I wanted to ask you never to blame yourself for what has\nhappened--never to let any thought of having made _me_ unhappy add\nto the sorrow of your life. It is my fault, not yours. But I meant it--God\n_knows_, I meant it!--for the happiness of us both? I believed that\nyour life was not suited to you. I meant to make you happy! But since you\n_cannot_ give up your life, I have only been unkind. And since you\nthink it wrong to give it up, I am glad that you are so true to it! If you\n_must_ live it, Heaven only knows how glad I am that you will live it\nheroically. And Heaven keep me equally true to the duty in mine, that I\nalso shall not fail in it! If we never meet again, we can always think\nof each other as living true to ourselves and to one another. Don't deny\nme this! Let me believe that your thoughts and prayers will always follow\nme. Even your vows will not deny me this! It will always keep us near each\nother, and it will bring us together where they cannot separate us.\"\n\nHe had spoken with entire repression of himself, in the slow voice of an\ninvalid, and on the stillness of the room each word had fallen with hard\ndistinctness. But now, with the thought of losing her, by a painful\neffort he moved closer to the edge of the bed, put his arms around her\nneck, drew her face against his own, and continued--\n\n\"But do not think it is easy to tell you this! Do not think it is easy\nto give you up! Do not think that I do not love you! O Pauline--not in\n_another_ life, but in _this_--_in this_!\" He could say no\nmore; and out of his physical weakness tears rose to his eyes and fell\ndrop by drop upon her veil.\n\n\n\n\nVIII.\n\n\nSister Dolorosa had been missed from the convent. There had been inquiry\ngrowing ever more anxious, and search growing ever more hurried. They\nfound her bucket overturned at the cistern, and near it the print of her\nfeet in the moist earth. But she was gone. They sought her in every\nhidden closet, they climbed to the observatory and scanned the\nsurrounding fields. Work was left unfinished, prayer unended, as the\nnews spread through the vast building; and as time went by and nothing\nwas heard of her, uneasiness became alarm, and alarm became a vague,\nimmeasurable foreboding of ill. Each now remembered how strange of late\nhad been Sister Dolorosa's life and actions, and no one had the heart to\nname her own particular fears to any other or to read them in any\nother's eyes. Time passed on and discipline in the convent was\nforgotten. They began to pour out into the long corridors, and in\ntumultuous groups passed this, way and that, seeking the Mother\nSuperior. But the Mother Superior had gone to the church with the same\nimpulse that in all ages has brought the human heart to the altar of God\nwhen stricken by peril or disaster; and into the church they also\ngathered. Into the church likewise came the white flock of the novices,\nwho had burst from their isolated quarter of the convent with a sudden\ncontagion of fear. When, therefore, the Mother Superior rose from where\nshe had been kneeling, turned, and in the dark church saw them assembled\nclose around her, pallid, anxious, disordered, and looking with helpless\ndependence to her for that assurance for which she had herself in\nhelpless dependence looked to God, so unnerved was she by the spectacle\nthat strength failed her and she sank upon the steps of the altar,\nstretching out her arms once more in voiceless supplication towards the\naltar of the Infinite helpfulness.\n\nBut at that moment a little novice, whom Sister Dolorosa loved and whom\nshe had taught the music of the harp, came running into the church,\nwringing her hands and crying. When she was half-way down the aisle, in\na voice that rang through the building she called out--\n\n\"O Mother, she is coming! Something has happened to her! Her veil is\ngone!\" and, turning again, she ran out of the church.\n\nThey were hurrying after her when a note of command, inarticulate but\nimperious, from the Mother Superior arrested every foot and drew every\neye in that direction. Voice had failed her, but with a gesture full of\ndignity and reproach she waved them back, and supporting her great form\nbetween two of the nuns, she advanced slowly down the aisle of the\nchurch and passed out by the front entrance. But they forgot to obey her\nand followed; and when she descended the steps to the bottom and made a\nsign that she would wait there, on the steps behind they stood grouped\nand crowded back to the sacred doors.\n\nYes, she was coming--coming up the avenue of elms--coming slowly, as\nthough her strength were almost gone. As she passed under the trees on\none side of the avenue she touched their trunks one by one for support.\nShe walked with her eyes on the ground and with the abstraction of one\nwho has lost the purpose of walking. When she was perhaps half-way up\nthe avenue, as she paused by one of the trees and supported herself\nagainst it, she raised her eyes and saw them all waiting to receive her\non the steps of the church. For a little while she stood and surveyed\nthe scene; the Mother Superior standing in front, her sinking form\nsupported between two Sisters, her hands clasping the crucifix to her\nbosom; behind her the others, step above step, back to the doors; some\nlooking at her with frightened faces; others with their heads buried on\neach other's shoulders; and hiding somewhere in the throng, the little\nnovice, only the sound of whose sobbing revealed her presence. Then she\ntook her hand from the tree, walked on quite steadily until she was\nseveral yards away, and paused again.\n\nShe had torn off her veil and her head was bare and shining. She had\ntorn the sacred symbol from her bosom, and through the black rent they\ncould see the glistening whiteness of her naked breast. Comprehending\nthem in one glance, as though she wished them all to listen, she looked\ninto the face of the Mother Superior, and began to speak in a voice\nutterly forlorn, as of one who has passed the limits of suffering.\n\n\"Mother!----\"\n\n\"Mother!----\"\n\nShe passed one hand slowly across her forehead, to brush away some cloud\nfrom her brain, and for the third time she began to speak--\n\n\"Mother!----\"\n\nThen she paused, pressed both palms quickly to her temples, and turned\nher eyes in bewildered appeal towards the Mother Superior. But she did\nnot fall. With a cry that might have come from the heart of the\nboundless pity the Mother Superior broke away from the restraining arms\nof the nuns and rushed forward and caught her to her bosom.\n\n\n\n\nIX.\n\n\nThe day had come when Gordon was well enough to go home. As he sat\ngiving directions to Ezra, who was awkwardly packing his valise, he\nlooked over the books, papers, and letters that lay on the table near\nthe bed.\n\n\"There is one letter missing,\" he said, with a troubled expression, as\nhe finished his search. Then he added quickly, in a tone of helpless\nentreaty--\n\n\"You couldn't have taken it to the station and mailed it with the\nothers, could you, Ezra? It was not to go to the station. It was to\nhave gone to the convent.\"\n\nThe last sentence he uttered rather to his own thought than for the ear\nof his listener.\n\n\"I _took_ it to the convent,\" said Ezra, stoutly raising himself from\nover the valise in the middle of the floor. \"I didn't _take_ it to the\nstation!\"\n\nGordon wheeled on him, giving a wrench to his wound which may have\ncaused the groan that burst from him, and left him white and trembling.\n\n\"You took it _to the convent_! Great God, Ezra! When?\"\n\n\"The day you _told_ me to take it,\" replied Ezra simply. \"The day the\nSister came to see you.\"\n\n\"O _Ezra_!\" he cried piteously, looking into the rugged, faithful\ncountenance of the old man, and feeling that he had not the right to\ncensure him.\n\nNow for the first time he comprehended the whole significance of what\nhad happened. He had never certainly known what motive had brought her\nto him that day. He had never been able to understand why, having come,\nshe had gone away with such abruptness. Scarcely had he begun to speak\nto her when she had strangely shrunk from him; and scarcely had he\nceased speaking when she had left the room without a word, and without\nhis having so much as seen her face.\n\nSlowly now the sad truth forced itself upon his mind that she had come\nin answer to his entreaty. She must have thought his letter just\nwritten, himself just wounded and dying. It was as if he had betrayed\nher into the utmost expression of her love for him and in that moment\nhad coldly admonished her of her duty. For him she had broken what was\nthe most sacred obligation of her life, and in return he had given her\nan exhortation to be faithful to her vows.\n\nHe went home to one of the older secluded country-places of the\nBlue-grass Region not far from Lexington. His illness served to account\nfor a strange gravity and sadness of nature in him. When the winter had\npassed and spring had come, bringing perfect health again, this sadness\nonly deepened. For health had brought back the ardour of life. The\nglowing colours of the world returned; and with these there flowed back\ninto his heart, as waters flow back into a well that has gone dry, the\nperfect love of youth and strength with which he had loved her and tried\nto win her at first. And with this love of her came back the first\ncomplete realisation that he had lost her; and with this pain, that\nkeenest pain of having been most unkind to her when he had striven to be\nkindest.\n\nHe now looked back upon his illness, as one who has gained some clear\nheadland looks down upon a valley so dark and overhung with mist that he\ncannot trace his own course across it. He was no longer in sympathy with\nthat mood of self-renunciation which had influenced him in their last\ninterview. He charged himself with having given up too easily; for might\nhe not, after all, have won her? Might he not, little by little, have\nchanged her conscience, as little by little he had gained her love?\nWould it have been possible, he asked himself again and again, for her\never to have come to him as she had done that day, had not her\nconscience approved? Of all his torturing thoughts, none cost him\ngreater suffering than living over in imagination what must have\nhappened to her since then--the humiliation, perhaps public exposure;\nfollowed by penalties and sorrows of which he durst not think, and\ncertainly a life more unrelieved in gloom and desolation.\n\nIn the summer his father's health began to fail and in the autumn he\ndied. The winter was passed in settling the business of the estate, and\nbefore the spring passed again Gordon found himself at the head of\naffairs, and stretching out before him, calm and clear, the complete\nindependence of his new-found manhood. His life was his own to make it\nwhat he would. As fortunes go in Kentucky he was wealthy, his farm being\namong the most beautiful of the beautiful ones which make up that land,\nand his homestead being dear through family ties and those intimations\nof fireside peace which lay closest the heart of his ideal life. But\namid all his happiness, that one lack which made the rest appear\nlacking--that vacancy within which nothing would fill! The beauty of the\nrich land henceforth brought him the dream-like recollection of a rough,\npoor country a hundred miles away. Its quiet homesteads, with the\nimpression they create of sweet and simple lives, reminded him only of a\nconvent standing lonely and forbidding on its wide landscape. The calm\nliberty of woods and fields, the bounding liberty of life, the\nenlightened liberty of conscience and religion, which were to him the\nbest gifts of his State, his country, and his time, forced on him\nperpetual contrast with the ancient confinement in which she languished.\n\nStill he threw himself resolutely into his duties. In all that he did or\nplanned he felt a certain sacred, uplifting force added to his life by\nthat high bond through which he had sought to link their sundered\npathways. But, on the other hand, the haunting thought of what might\nhave befallen her since became a corrosive care, and began to eat out\nthe heart of his resolute purposes.\n\nSo that when the long, calm summer had passed and autumn had come,\nbringing him lonelier days in the brown fields, lonelier rides on\nhorseback through the gorgeous woods, and lonelier evenings beside his\nrekindled hearth-stones, he could bear the suspense no longer, and made\nup his mind to go back, if but to hear tidings whether she yet were\nliving in the convent. He realised, of course, that under no\ncircumstances could he ever again speak to her of his love. He had put\nhimself on the side of her conscience against his own cause; but he felt\nthat he owed it to himself to dissipate uncertainty regarding her fate.\nThis done, he could return, however sadly, and take up the duties of his\nlife with better heart.\n\n\n\n\nX.\n\n\nOne Sunday afternoon he got off at the little station. From one of the\nrustic loungers on the platform he learned that old Ezra and Martha had\ngone the year before to live with a son in a distant State, and that\ntheir scant acres had been absorbed in the convent domain.\n\nSlowly he took his way across the sombre fields. Once more he reached\nthe brown footpath and the edge of the pale, thin corn. Once more the\nsummoning whistle of the quail came sweet and clear from the depths of a\nneighbouring thicket. Silently in the reddening west were rising the\nwhite cathedrals of the sky. It was on yonder hill-top he had first seen\nher, standing as though transfigured in the evening light. Overwhelmed\nby the memories which the place evoked, he passed on towards the\nconvent. The first sight of it in the distance smote him with a pain so\nsharp that a groan escaped his lips as from a reopened wound.\n\nIt was the hour of the vesper service. Entering the church he sat where\nhe had sat before. How still it was, how faint the autumnal sunlight\nstealing in through the sainted windows, how motionless the dark company\nof nuns seated on one side of the nave, how rigid the white rows of\nnovices on the other!\n\nWith sad fascination of search his eyes roved among the black-shrouded\ndevotees. She was not there. In the organ-loft above, a voice, poor and\nthin, began to pour out its wavering little tide of song. She was not\nthere, then. Was her soul already gone home to Heaven?\n\nNoiselessly from behind the altar the sacristine had come forth and\nbegun to light the candles. With eyes strained and the heart gone out of\nhim he hung upon the movements of her figure. A slight, youthful figure\nit was--slighter, as though worn and wasted; and the hands which so\nfirmly bore the long taper looked too white and fragile to have upheld\naught heavier than the stalk of a lily.\n\nWith infinite meekness and reverence she moved hither and thither about\nthe shrine, as though each footfall were a step nearer the glorious\nPresence, each breath a prayer. One by one there sprang into being,\nbeneath her touch of love, the silvery spires of sacred flame. No angel\nof the night ever more softly lit the stars of heaven. And it was thus\nthat he saw her for the last time--folded back to the bosom of that\nfaith from which it was left him to believe that he had all but rescued\nher to love and happiness, and set, as a chastening admonition, to tend\nthe mortal fires on the altar of eternal service.\n\nLooking at her across the vast estranging gulf of destiny, heart-broken,\nhe asked himself in his poor yearning way whether she longer had any\nthought of him or longer loved him. For answer he had only the assurance\ngiven in her words, which now rose as a benediction in his memory--\n\n\"If He will deign to hear the ceaseless, fervent petition of one so\nerring, He will not leave you unhappy on account of that love for me\nwhich in this world it will never be allowed me to return.\"\n\nOne highest star of adoration she kindled last, and then turned and\nadvanced down the aisle. He was sitting close to it, and as she came\ntowards him, with irresistible impulse he bent forward to meet her, his\nlips parted as though to speak, his eyes implored her for recognition,\nhis hands were instinctively moved to attract her notice. But she passed\nhim with unuplifted eyes. The hem of her dress swept across his foot. In\nthat intense moment, which compressed within itself the joy of another\nmeeting and the despair of an eternal farewell--in that moment he may\nhave tried to read through her face and beyond it in her very soul the\nstory of what she must have suffered. To any one else, on her face\nrested only that beauty, transcending all description, which is born of\nthe sorrow of earth and the peace of God.\n\nMournful as was this last sight of her, and touched with remorse, he\ncould yet bear it away in his heart for long remembrance not untempered\nby consolation. He saw her well; he saw her faithful; he saw her bearing\nthe sorrows of her lot with angelic sweetness. Through years to come the\nbeauty of this scene might abide with him, lifted above the realm of\nmortal changes by the serenitude of her immovable devotion.\n\n\n\n\nXI.\n\n\nThere was thus spared him knowledge of the great change that had taken\nplace regarding her within the counsels of the Order; nor, perhaps, was\nhe ever to learn of the other changes, more eventful still, that were\nnow fast closing in upon her destiny.\n\nWhen the Creator wishes to create a woman, the beauty of whose nature is\nto prefigure the types of an immortal world, He endows her more\nplenteously with the faculty of innocent love. The contravention of this\nfaculty has time after time resulted in the most memorable tragedies\nthat have ever saddened the history of the race. He had given to the\nnature of Pauline Cambron two strong, unwearying wings: the pinion of\nfaith and the pinion of love. It was His will that she should soar by\nthe use of both. But they had denied her the use of one; and the vain\nand bewildered struggles which marked her life thenceforth were as those\nof a bird that should try to rise into the air with one of its wings\nbound tight against its bosom.\n\nAfter the illness which followed upon the events of that terrible day,\nshe took towards her own conduct the penitential attitude enjoined by\nher religion. There is little need to lay bare all that followed. She\nhad passed out of her soft world of heroic dreams into the hard world of\nunheroic reality. She had chosen a name to express her sympathy with the\nsorrows of the world, and the sorrows of the world had broken in upon\nher. Out of the white dawn of the imagination she had stepped into the\nheat and burden of the day.\n\nLong after penances and prayers were over, and by others she might have\nfelt herself forgiven, she was as far as ever from that forgiveness\nwhich comes from within. It is not characteristic of a nature such as\nhers to win pardon so easily for such an offence as she considered hers.\nIndeed, as time passed on, the powers of her being seemed concentrated\nmore and more in one impassioned desire to expiate her sin; for, as time\npassed on, despite penances and prayers, she realised that she still\nloved him.\n\nAs she pondered this she said to herself that peace would never come\nunless she should go elsewhere and begin life over in some place that\nwas free from the memories of her fall, there was so much to remind her\nof him. She could not go into the garden without recalling the day when\nthey had walked through it side by side. She could not cross the\nthreshold of the church without being reminded that it was the scene of\nher unfaithfulness and of her exposure. The graveyard, the footpath,\nacross the fields, the observatory--all were full of disturbing images.\nAnd therefore she besought the Mother Superior to send her away to some\none of the missions of the Order, thinking that thus she would win\nforgetfulness of him and singleness of heart.\n\nBut while the plan of doing this was yet being considered by the Mother\nSuperior, there happened one of those events which seem to fit into the\ncrises of our lives as though determined by the very laws of fate. The\nattention of the civilised world had not yet been fixed upon the heroic\nlabours of the Belgian priest, Father Damien, among the lepers of the\nisland of Molokai. But it has been stated that near the convent are the\nmonks of La Trappe. Among these monks were friends of the American\npriest, Brother Joseph, who for years was one of Father Damien's\nassistants; and to these friends this priest from time to time wrote\nletters, in which he described at great length the life of the leper\nsettlement and the work of the small band of men and women who had gone\nto labour in that remote and awful vineyard. The contents of these\nletters were made known to the ecclesiastical superior of the convent;\nand one evening he made them the subject of a lecture to the assembled\nnuns and novices, dwelling with peculiar eloquence upon the devotion of\nthe three Franciscan Sisters who had become outcasts from human society\nthat they might nurse and teach leprous girls, until inevitable death\nshould overtake them also.\n\nAmong that breathless audience of women there was one soul on whom his\nwords fell with the force of a message from the Eternal. Here, then, at\nlast, was offered her a pathway by following meekly to the end of which\nshe might perhaps find blessedness. The real Man of Sorrows appeared to\nstand in it and beckon her on to the abodes of those abandoned creatures\nwhose sufferings He had with peculiar pity so often stretched forth His\nhand to heal. When she laid before the Mother Superior her petition to\nbe allowed to go, it was at first refused, being regarded as a momentary\nimpulse; but months passed, and at intervals, always more earnestly, she\nrenewed her request. It was pointed out to her that when one has gone\namong the lepers there is no return; the alternatives are either\nlifelong banishment, or death from leprosy, usually at the end of a few\nyears. But always her reply was--\n\n\"In the name of Christ, Mother, let me go!\"\n\nMeantime it had become clear to the Mother Superior that some change of\nscene must be made. The days of Sister Dolorosa's usefulness in the\nconvent were too plainly over.\n\nIt had not been possible in that large household of women to conceal the\nfact of her unfaithfulness to her vows. As one black veil whispered to\nanother--as one white veil communed with its attentive neighbour--little\nby little events were gathered and pieced together, until, in different\nforms of error and rumour, the story became known to all. Some from\nbehind window lattices had watched her in the garden with the young\nstranger on the day of his visiting the convent. Others had heard of his\nlying wounded at the farm-house. Still others were sure that under\npretext of visiting old Martha she had often met him in the fields. And\nthen the scene on the steps of the church, when she had returned soiled\nand torn and fainting.\n\nSo that from the day on which she arose from her illness and began to go\nabout the convent, she was singled out as a target for those small\narrows which the feminine eye directs with such faultless skill at one\nof its own sex. With scarcely perceptible movements they would draw\naside when passing her, as though to escape corrupting contact. Certain\nones of the younger Sisters, who were jealous of her beauty, did not\nfail to drop inuendoes for her to overhear. And upon some of the\nnovices, whose minds were still wavering between the church and the\nworld, it was thought that her example might have a dangerous influence.\n\nIt is always wrong to judge motives; but it is possible that the head of\nthe Order may have thought it best that this ruined life should take on\nthe halo of martyrdom, from which fresh lustre would be reflected upon\nthe annals of the church. However this may be, after about eighteen\nmonths of waiting, during which correspondence was held with the\nSandwich Islands, it was determined that Sister Dolorosa should be\nallowed to go thither and join the labours of the Franciscan Sisters.\n\nFrom the day when consent was given she passed into that peace with\nwhich one ascends the scaffold or awaits the stake. It was this look of\npeace that Gordon had seen on her face as she moved hither and thither\nabout the shrine.\n\nOnly a few weeks after he had thus seen her the day came for her to go.\nOf those who took part in the scene of farewell she was the most\nunmoved. A month later she sailed from San Francisco for Honolulu; and\nin due time there came from Honolulu to the Mother Superior the\nfollowing letter. It contains all that remains of the earthly history of\nPauline Cambron--\n\n\n\n\nXII.\n\n\n                                  \"KALAWAO, MOLOKAI, HAWAIIAN ISLANDS,\n                                                  \"_January 1, 188--_.\n\n\"DEAR MOTHER,--I entreat you not to let the sight of this strange\nhandwriting, instead of one that must be so familiar, fill you with too\nmuch alarm. I hasten to assure you that before my letter closes you will\nunderstand why Sister Dolorosa has not written herself.\n\n\"Since the hour when the vessel sailed from the American port, bearing\nto us that young life as a consecrated helper in our work among these\nsuffering outcasts of the human race, I know that your thoughts and\nprayers have followed her with unceasing anxiety; so that first I should\ngive you tidings that the vessel reached Honolulu in safety. I should\ntell you also that she had a prosperous voyage, and that she is now\nhappy--far happier than when she left you. I know, likewise, that your\nimagination has constantly hovered about this island, and that you have\npictured it to yourself as the gloomiest of all spots in the universe of\nGod; so that in the next place I should try to remove this impression by\ngiving you some description of the island itself, which has now become\nher unchanging home.\n\n\"The island of Molokai, then, on which the leper settlement has been\nlocated by the Government, is long, and shaped much like the leaf of the\nwillow-tree. The Sandwich Islands, as you well know, are a group of\nvolcanoes out of which the fires have for the most part long since died.\nMolokai, therefore, is really but a mountain of cooled lava, half of\nwhich perhaps is beneath the level of the sea. The two leper villages\nare actually situated in the cup of an ancient crater. The island is\nvery low along the southern coast, and slopes gradually to its greatest\naltitude on the northern ridge, from which the descent to the sea is in\nplaces all but perpendicular. It is between the bases of these northern\ncliffs and the sea that the villages are built. In the rear of them is a\nlong succession of towering precipices and wild ravines, that are solemn\nand terrible to behold; and in front of them there is a coast-line so\nrough with pointed rocks that as the waves rush in upon them spray is\noften thrown to the height of fifty or a hundred feet. It is this that\nmakes the landing at times so dangerous; and at other times, when a\nstorm has burst, so fatal. So that shipwrecks are not unknown, dear\nMother, and sometimes add to the sadness of life in this place.\n\n\"But from this description you would get only a mistaken idea of the\naspect of the island. It is sunny and full of tropical loveliness. The\nlapse of centuries has in places covered the lava with exquisite\nverdure. Soft breezes blow here, about the dark cliffs hang purple\natmospheres, and above them drift pink and white clouds. Sometimes the\nwhole island is veiled in golden mist. Beautiful streams fall down its\ngreen precipices into the sea, and the sea itself is of the most\nbrilliant blue. In its depths are growths of pure white corals, which\nare the homes of fishes of gorgeous colours.\n\n\"If I should speak no longer of the island, but of the people, I could\nperhaps do something further still to dissipate the dread with which you\nand other strangers must regard us. The inhabitants are a simple,\ngenerous, happy race; and there are many spots in this world--many in\nEurope and Asia, perhaps some in your own land--where the scenes of\nsuffering and death are more poignant and appalling. The lepers live for\nthe most part in decent white cottages. Many are the happy faces that\nare seen among them; so that, strange as it may seem, healthy people\nwould sometimes come here to live if the laws did not forbid. So much\nhas Christianity done that one may now be buried in consecrated ground.\n\n\"If all this appears worldly and frivolous, dear Mother, forgive me! If\nI have chosen to withhold from you news of her, of whom alone I know you\nare thinking, it is because I have wished to give you as bright a\npicture as possible. Perhaps you will thus become the better prepared\nfor what is to follow.\n\n\"So that before I go further, I shall pause again to describe to you one\nspot which is the loveliest on the island. About a mile and a half from\nthe village of Kalawao there is a rocky point which is used as an\nirregular landing-place when the sea is wild. Just beyond this point\nthere is an inward curve of the coast, making an inlet of the sea; and\nfrom the water's edge there slopes backward into the bosom of the island\na deep ravine. Down this ravine there falls and winds a gleaming white\ncataract, and here the tropical vegetation grows most beautiful. The\ntrees are wreathed with moist creepers; the edges and crevices of the\nlava blocks are fringed with ferns and moss. Here the wild ginger blooms\nand the crimson lehua. Here grow trees of orange and palm and punhala\ngroves. Here one sees the rare honey-bird with its plumage of scarlet\nvelvet, the golden plover, and the beautiful white bos'un-bird, wheeling\nabout the black cliff heights. The spot is as beautiful as a scene in\nsome fairy tale. When storms roll in from the sea the surf flows far\nback into this ravine, and sometimes--after the waters have subsided--a\npiece of wreckage from the ocean is left behind.\n\n\"Forgive me once more, O dear Mother! if again I seem to you so idle and\nunmeaning in my words. But I have found it almost impossible to go on;\nand, besides, I think you will thank me, after you have read my letter\nthrough, for telling you first of this place.\n\n\"From the day of our first learning that there was a young spirit among\nyou who had elected, for Christ's sake, to come here and labour with us,\nwe had counted the days till she should arrive. The news had spread\nthroughout the leper settlement. Father Damien had made it known to the\nlepers in Kalawao, Father Wendolen had likewise told it among the lepers\nin Kalapaupa, and the Protestant ministers spoke of it to their flocks.\nThus her name had already become familiar to hundreds of them, and many\na prayer had been offered up for her safety.\n\n\"Once a week there comes to Molokai from Honolulu a little steamer\ncalled _Mokolii_. When it reached here last Saturday morning it brought\nthe news that just before it sailed from Honolulu the vessel bearing\nSister Dolorosa had come into port. She had been taken in charge by the\nSisters until the _Mokolii_ should return and make the next trip. I\nshould add that the steamer leaves at about five o'clock in the\nafternoon, and that it usually reaches here at about dawn of the\nfollowing morning in ordinary weather.\n\n\"And now, dear Mother, I beseech you to lay my letter aside! Do not read\nfurther now. Lay it aside, and do not take it up again until you have\nsought in prayer the consolation of our divine religion for the sorrows\nof our lives.\n\n\"I shall believe that you have done this, and that, as you now go on\nwith the reading of my letter, you have gained the fortitude to hear\nwhat I have scarcely the power to write. Heaven knows that in my poor\nway I have sought to prepare you!\n\n\"As it was expected that the steamer would reach the island about dawn\non Saturday morning, as usual, it had been arranged that many of us\nshould be at the landing-place to give her welcome. But about midnight\none of the terrific storms which visit this region suddenly descended,\nenveloping the heavens, that had been full of the light of the stars, in\nimpenetrable darkness. We were sleepless with apprehension that the\nvessel would be driven upon the rocks--such was the direction of the\nstorm--long before it could come opposite the villages: and a few hours\nbefore day Father Damien, accompanied by Father Conradi, Brother James,\nand Brother Joseph, went down to the coast. Through the remaining hours\nof the night they watched and waited, now at one point, and now at\nanother, knowing that the vessel could never land in such a storm. As\nthe dawn broke they followed up the coast until they came opposite that\nrocky point of which I have already spoken as being an irregular\nlanding-place.\n\n\"Here they were met by two or three men who were drenched with the sea,\nand just starting towards the villages, and from them they learned that,\nan hour or two before, the steamer had been driven upon the hidden rocks\nof the point. It had been feared that it would soon be sunk or dashed to\npieces, and as quickly as possible a boat had been put off, in which\nwere the leper girls that were being brought from Honolulu. There was\nlittle hope that it would ever reach the shore, but it was the last\nchance of life. In this boat, dear Mother, Sister Dolorosa also was\nplaced. Immediately afterwards a second boat was put off, containing the\nothers that were on board.\n\n\"Of the fate of the first boat they had learned nothing. Their own had\nbeen almost immediately capsized, and, so far as they knew, they were\nthe sole survivors. The Hawaiians are the most expert of swimmers, being\nalmost native to the sea; and since the distance was short, and only\nthese survived, you will realise how little chance there was for any\nother.\n\n\"During the early hours of the morning, which broke dark and\ninexpressibly sad for us, a few bodies were found washed ashore, among\nthem those of two leper girls of Honolulu. But our search for her long\nproved unavailing. At length Father Damien suggested that we follow up\nthe ravine which I have described, and it was thither that he and\nBrother Joseph and I accordingly went. Father Damien thought it well\nthat I should go with them.\n\n\"It was far inland, dear Mother, that at last we found her. She lay\noutstretched on a bare, black rock of lava, which sloped upward from the\nsea. Her naked white feet rested on the green moss that fringed its\nlower edge, and her head was sheltered from the burning sun by branches\nof ferns. Almost over her eyes--the lids of which were stiff with the\nsalt of the ocean--there hung a spray of white poppies. It was as though\nnature would be kind to her in death.\n\n\"At the sight of her face, so young, and having in it the purity and the\npeace of Heaven, we knelt down around her without a word, and for a\nwhile we could do nothing but weep. Surely nothing so spotless was ever\nwashed ashore on this polluted island! If I sinned, I pray to be\nforgiven; but I found a strange joy in thinking that the corruption of\nthis terrible disease had never been laid upon her. Heaven had accepted\nin advance her faithful spirit, and had spared her the long years of\nbodily suffering.\n\n\"At Father Damien's direction Brother Joseph returned to the village for\na bier and for four lepers who should be strong enough to bear it. When\nthey came we laid her on it, and bore her back to the village, where\nMother Marianne took the body in charge and prepared it for burial.\n\n\"How shall I describe her funeral? The lepers were her pall-bearers. The\nnews of the shipwreck had quickly spread throughout the settlement, and\nthese simple, generous people yield themselves so readily to the emotion\nof the hour. When the time arrived, it seemed that all who could walk\nhad come to follow her to the churchyard. It was a moving sight--the\nlong, wavering train of that death-stricken throng, whose sufferings had\nso touched the pity of our Lord when He was on earth, and the desolation\nof whose fate she had come to lessen. There were the young and the old\nalike, Protestants and Catholics without distinction, children with\ntheir faces so strangely aged with ravages of the leprosy, those\nadvanced in years with theirs so mutilated and marred. Others, upon whom\nthe leprosy had made such advances that they were too weak to walk, sat\nin their cottage doors and lifted their husky voices in singing that\nwailing native hymn in which they bemoan their hopeless fate. Some of\nthe women, after a fashion of their own, wore large wreaths of blue\nblossoms and green leaves about their withered faces.\n\n\"And it was thus that we lepers--I say we lepers because I am one of\nthem, since I cannot expect long to escape the disease--it was thus that\nwe lepers followed her to the graveyard in the rock by the blue sea,\nwhere Father Damien with his own hands had helped to dig her grave. And\nthere, dear Mother, all that is mortal of her now rests. But we know\nthat ere this she has heard the words: 'I was sick, and ye visited me.'\n\n\"Mother Marianne would herself have written, but she was called away to\nthe Leproserie.\n\n                                                      \"SISTER AGATHA.\"\n\n\n\n\nPOSTHUMOUS FAME; OR, A LEGEND OF THE BEAUTIFUL\n\n\n\n\nI.\n\n\nThere once lived in a great city, where the dead were all but\ninnumerable, a young man by the name of Nicholas Vane, who possessed a\nsingular genius for the making of tombstones. So beautiful they were,\nand so fitly designed to express the shadowy pain of mortal memory or\nthe bright forecasting of eternal hope, that all persons were held\nfortunate who could secure them for the calm resting-places of their\nbeloved sleepers. Indeed, the curious tale was whispered round that the\nbereft were not his only patrons, but that certain personages who were\npeculiarly ambitious of posthumous fame--seeing they had not long to\nlive, and unwilling to intrust others with the grave responsibility of\nhaving them commemorated--had gone to his shop and secretly advised with\nhim respecting such monuments as might preserve their memories from too\nswift oblivion.\n\nHowever this may fall out, certain it is that his calling had its\nsecrets; and once he was known to observe that no man could ever\nunderstand the human heart until he had become a maker of tombstones.\nWhether the knowledge thus derived should make of one a laughing or a\nweeping philosopher, Nicholas himself remained a joyous type of youthful\nmanhood--so joyous, in fact, that a friend of his who wrought in colour,\nstrolling one day into the workshop where Nicholas stood surrounded by\nthe exquisite shapes of memorial marbles, had asked to paint the scene\nas a representation of Life chiselling to its beautiful purposes the\nrugged symbols of Death, and smiling as it wove the words of love and\nfaith across the stony proofs of the universal tragedy. Afterwards, it\nis true, a great change was wrought in the young artisan.\n\nHe had just come in one morning and paused to look around at the\nvarious finished and unfinished mortuary designs.\n\n\"Truly,\" he said to himself all at once, \"if I were a wise man, I'd\nbegin this day's business by chiselling my own head-stone. For who knows\nbut that before sunset my brother the gravedigger may be told to build\nme one of the houses that last till doomsday! And what man could then\nmake the monument to stop the door of _my_ house with. But why should I\nhave a monument? If I lie beneath it, I shall not know I lie there. If I\nlie not there, then it will not stand over me. So, whether I lie there,\nor lie not there, what will it matter to me then? Ay; but what if, being\ndead only to this world and living in another, I should yet look on the\nmonument erected to my memory and therefore be the happier? I know not;\nnor to what end we are vexed with this desire to be remembered after\ndeath. The prospect of vanishing from a poor, toilsome life fills us\nwith such consternation and pain! It is therefore we strive to impress\nourselves ineffaceably on the race, so that, after we have gone hence,\nor ceased to be, we may still have incorporeal habitation among all\ncoming generations.\"\n\nHere he was interrupted by a low knock at the door. Bidden to come in,\nthere entered a man of delicate physiognomy, who threw a hurried glance\naround and inquired in an anxious tone--\n\n\"Sir, are you alone?\"\n\n\"I am never alone,\" replied Nicholas in a ringing voice; \"for I dwell\nhard by the gate-way of life and death, through which a multitude is\nalways passing.\"\n\n\"Not so loud, I beseech you,\" said the visitor, stretching forth his\nthin, white hands with eager deprecation. \"I would not, for the world,\nhave any one discover that I have been here.\"\n\n\"Are you, then, a personage of such importance to the world?\" said\nNicholas, smiling, for the stranger's appearance argued no worldly\nconsideration whatsoever. The suit of black, which his frail figure\nseemed to shrink away from with very sensitiveness, was glossy and\npathetic with more than one covert patch. His shoes were dust-covered\nand worn. His long hair went round his head in a swirl, and he bore\nhimself with an air of damaged, apologetic, self-appreciation.\n\n\"I am a poet,\" he murmured with a flush of pain, dropping his large\nmournful eyes beneath the scrutiny of one who might be an unsympathetic\nlistener. \"I am a poet, and I have come to speak with you privately of\nmy--of the--of a monument. I am afraid I shall be forgotten. It is a\nterrible thought.\"\n\n\"Can you not trust your poems to keep you remembered?\" asked Nicholas,\nwith more kindliness.\n\n\"I could if they were as widely read as they should be.\" He appeared\nemboldened by his hearer's gentleness. \"But, to confess the truth, I\nhave not been accepted by my age. That, indeed, should give me no pain,\nsince I have not written for it, but for the great future to which alone\nI look for my fame.\"\n\n\"Then why not look to it for your monument also?\"\n\n\"Ah, sir!\" he cried, \"there are so many poets in the world that I might\nbe entirely overlooked by posterity, did there not descend to it some\nsign that I was held in honour by my own generation.\"\n\n\"Have you never noticed,\" he continued, with more earnestness, \"that\nwhen strangers visit a cemetery they pay no attention to the thousands\nof little head-stones that lie scattered close to the ground, but hunt\nout the highest monuments, to learn in whose honour they were erected?\nHave you never heard them exclaim: 'Yonder is a great monument! A great\nman must be buried there. Let us go and find out who he was and what he\ndid to be so celebrated.' O sir, you and I know that this is a poor way\nof reasoning, since the greatest monuments are not always set over the\ngreatest men. Still the custom has wrought its good effects, and\nsplendid memorials do serve to make known in years to come those whom\nthey commemorate, by inciting posterity to search for their actions or\nrevive their thoughts. I warrant you the mere bust of Homer----\"\n\n\"You are not mentioning yourself in the same breath with Homer, I hope,\"\nsaid Nicholas, with great good-humour.\n\n\"My poems are as dear to me as Homer's were to him,\" replied the poet,\nhis eyes filling.\n\n\"What if you _are_ forgotten? Is it not enough for the poet to have\nlived for the sake of beauty?\"\n\n\"No!\" he cried passionately. \"What you say is a miserable error. For the\nvery proof of the poet's vocation is in creating the beautiful. But how\nknow he has created it? By his own mind? Alas, the poet's mind tells him\nonly what is beautiful to _him_! It is by fame that he knows it--fame,\nthe gratitude of men for the beauty he has revealed to them! What is so\nsweet, then, as the knowledge that fame has come to him already, or\nsurely awaits him after he is dead?\"\n\n\"We labour under some confusion of ideas, I fear,\" said Nicholas, \"and,\nbesides, are losing time. What kind of mon----\"\n\n\"That I leave to you,\" interrupted the poet. \"Only, I should like my\nmonument to be beautiful. Ah, if you but knew how all through this poor\nlife of mine I have loved the beautiful! Never, never have I drawn near\nit in any visible form without almost holding my breath as though I were\nlooking deep, deep into God's opened eyes. But it was of the epitaph I\nwished to speak.\"\n\nHereupon, with a deeper flush, he drew from a large inside\nbreast-pocket, that seemed to have been made for the purpose, a worn\nduodecimo volume, and fell to turning the much-fingered pages.\n\n\"This,\" he murmured fondly, without looking up, \"is the complete\ncollection of my poems.\"\n\n\"Indeed!\" exclaimed Nicholas, with deep compassion.\n\n\"Yes, my complete collection. I have written a great deal more, and\nshould have liked to publish all that I have written. But it was\nnecessary to select, and I have included here only what it was\nintolerable to see wasted. There is nothing I value more than a group of\nelegiac poems, which every single member of my large family--who are\nfine critics--and all my friends, pronounce very beautiful. I think it\nwould be a good idea to inscribe a selection from one on my monument,\nsince those who read the selection would wish to read the entire poem,\nand those who read the entire poem would wish to read the entire\ncollection. I shall now favour you with these elegies.\"\n\n\"I should be happy to hear them; but my time!\" said Nicholas\ncourteously. \"The living are too impatient to wait on me; the dead too\npatient to be defrauded.\"\n\n\"Surely you would not refuse to hear one of them,\" exclaimed the poet,\nhis eyes flashing.\n\n\"Read _one_, by all means.\" Nicholas seated himself on a monumental\nlamb.\n\nThe poet passed one hand gently across his forehead, as though to brush\naway the stroke of rudeness; then, fixing upon Nicholas a look of\ninfinite remoteness, he read as follows:--\n\n    \"He suffered, but he murmured not;\n      To every storm he bared his breast;\n    He asked but for the common lot--\n      To be a man among the rest.\n\n    \"Here lies he now----\"\n\n\"If you ask but for the common lot,\" interrupted Nicholas, \"you should\nrest content to be forgotten.\"\n\nBut before the poet could reply, a loud knock caused him to flap the\nleaves of the \"Complete Collection\" together with one hand, while with\nthe other he gathered the tails of his long coat about him, as though\npreparing to pass through some difficult aperture. The exaltation of his\nmood, however, still showed itself in the look and tone of proud\ncondescension with which he said to Nicholas--\n\n\"Permit me to retire at once by some private passway.\"\n\nNicholas led him to a door in the rear of the shop, and there, with a\nsmile and a tear, stood for a moment watching the precipitate figure of\nthe retreating bard, who suddenly paused when disappearing and tore open\nthe breast of his coat to assure himself that his beloved elegies were\nresting safe across his heart.\n\nThe second visitor was of another sort. He hobbled on a cork leg, but\ninexorably disciplined the fleshly one into old-time firmness and\nprecision. A faded military cloak draped his stalwart figure. Part of\none bushy grey eyebrow had been chipped away by the same sword-cut that\nleft its scar across his battle-beaten face.\n\n\"I have come to speak with you about my monument,\" he said, in a gruff\nvoice that seemed to issue from the mouth of a rusty cannon. \"Those of\nmy old comrades that did not fall at my side are dead. My wife died long\nago, and my little children. I am old and forgotten. It is a time of\npeace. There's not a boy who will now listen to me while I tell of my\ncampaigns. I live alone. Were I to die to-morrow my grave might not have\nso much as a head-stone. It might be taken for that of a coward. Make me\na monument for a true soldier.\"\n\n\"Your grateful country will do that,\" said Nicholas.\n\n\"Ha!\" exclaimed the veteran, whom the shock of battle had made deaf long\nago.\n\n\"Your country,\" shouted Nicholas, close to his ear, \"your country--will\nerect a monument--to your memory.\"\n\n\"My country!\" The words were shot out with a reverberating, melancholy\nboom. \"My country will do no such a thing. How many millions of soldiers\nhave fallen on her battle-fields! Where are their monuments? They would\nmake her one vast cemetery.\"\n\n\"But is it not enough for you to have been a true soldier? Why wish to\nbe known and remembered for it?\"\n\n\"I know I do not wish to be forgotten,\" he replied simply. \"I know I\ntake pleasure in the thought that long after I am forgotten there will\nbe a tongue in my monument to cry out to every passing stranger, 'Here\nlies the body of a true soldier.' It is a great thing to be brave!\"\n\n\"Is, then, this monument to be erected in honour of bravery, or of\nyourself?\"\n\n\"There is no difference,\" said the veteran bluntly. \"Bravery _is_\nmyself.\"\n\n\"It is bravery,\" he continued, in husky tones, and with, a mist\ngathering in his eyes that made him wink as though he were trying to see\nthrough the smoke of battle--\"it is bravery that I see most clearly in\nthe character of God. What would become of us if He were a coward? I\nserve Him as my brave Commander; and though I am stationed far from Him\nand may be faint and sorely wounded, I know that He is somewhere on the\nbattle-field, and that I shall see Him at last, approaching me as He\nmoves up and down among the ranks.\"\n\n\"But you say that your country does not notice you--that you have no\nfriends; do you, then, feel no resentment?\"\n\n\"None, none,\" he answered quickly, though his head dropped on his bosom.\n\n\"And you wish to be remembered by a world that is willing to forget\nyou?\"\n\nHe lifted his head proudly. \"There are many true men in the world,\" he\nsaid, \"and it has much to think of. I owe it all I can give, all I can\nbequeath; and I can bequeath it nothing but the memory of a true man.\"\n\nOne day, not long after this, there came into the workshop of Nicholas a\nvenerable man of the gravest, sweetest, and most scholarly aspect, who\nspoke not a word until he had led Nicholas to the front window and\npointed a trembling finger at a distant church spire.\n\n\"You see yon spire?\" he said. \"It almost pierces the clouds. In the\nchurch beneath I have preached to men and women for nearly fifty years.\nMany that I have christened at the font I have married at the altar;\nmany of these I have sprinkled with dust. What have I not done for them\nin sorrow and want! How have I not toiled to set them in the way of\npurer pleasures and to anchor their tempest-tossed hopes! And yet how\nsoon they will forget me! Already many say I am too old to preach. Too\nold! I preach better than I ever did in my life. Yet it may be my lot to\nwander down into the deep valley, an idle shepherd with an idle crook. I\nhave just come from the writing of my next sermon, in which I exhort my\npeople to strive that their names be not written on earthly monuments\nor human hearts, but in the Book of Life. It is my sublimest theme. If I\nam ever eloquent, if I am ever persuasive, if I ever for one moment draw\naside to spiritual eyes the veil that discloses the calm, enrapturing\nvistas of eternity, it is when I measure my finite strength against this\nmighty task. But why? Because they are the sermons of my own aspiration.\nI preach them to my own soul. Face to face with that naked soul I pen\nthose sermons--pen them when all are asleep save the sleepless Eye that\nis upon me. Even in the light of that Eye do I recoil from the thought\nof being forgotten. How clearly I foresee it! Ashes to ashes, dust to\ndust! Where then will be my doctrines, my prayers, my sermons?\"\n\n\"Is it not enough for you to have scattered your handful of good\nbroadcast, to ripen as endlessly as the grass? What if they that gather\nknow naught of him that sowed?\"\n\n\"It is not enough. I should like the memory of _me_ to live on and\non in the world, inseparable from the good I may have done. What am I but\nthe good that is in me? 'Tis this that links me to the infinite and the\nperfect. Does not the Perfect One wish His goodness to be associated\nwith His name? No! No! I do not wish to be forgotten!\"\n\n\"It is mere vanity.\"\n\n\"Not vanity,\" said the aged servitor meekly. \"Wait until you are old,\ntill the grave is at your helpless feet: it is the love of life.\"\n\nBut some years later there befell Nicholas an event that transcended all\npast experiences, and left its impress on his whole subsequent life.\n\n\n\n\nII.\n\n\nThe hour had passed when any one was likely to enter his shop. A few\nrays of pale sunlight, straggling in through crevices of the door,\nrested like a dying halo on the heads of the monumental figures grouped\naround. Shadows, creeping upward from the ground, shrouded all else in\nthin, penetrable half-gloom, through which the stark grey emblems of\nmortality sent forth more solemn suggestions. A sudden sense of the\nearthly tragedy overwhelmed him. The chisel and the hammer dropped from\nhis hands, and, resting his head on the block he had been carving, he\ngave himself up to that mood of dim, distant reverie in which the soul\nseems to soar and float far above the shock and din of the world's\ndisturbing nearness. On his all but oblivious ear, like the faint\nwashings of some remote sea, beat the waves of the city's tide-driven\nlife in the streets outside. The room itself seemed hushed to the awful\nstillness of the high aerial spaces. Then all at once this stillness was\nbroken by a voice, low, clear, and tremulous, saying close to his ear--\n\n\"Are you the maker of gravestones?\"\n\n\"That is my sad calling,\" he cried bitterly, starting up with\ninstinctive forebodings.\n\nHe saw before him a veiled figure. To support herself, she rested one\nhand on the block he had been carving, while she pressed the other\nagainst her heart, as though to stifle pain.\n\n\"Whose monument is this?\"\n\n\"A neglected poet's who died not long ago. Soon, perhaps, I shall be\nmaking one for an old soldier, and one for a holy man, whose soul, I\nhear, is about to be dismissed.\"\n\n\"Are not some monuments sadder to make than others?\"\n\n\"Ay, truly.\"\n\n\"What is the saddest you ever made?\"\n\n\"The saddest monument I ever made was one for a poor mother who had lost\nher only son. One day a woman came in who had no sooner entered than she\nsat down and gave way to a passionate outburst of grief.\n\n\"'My good woman,' I said, 'why do you weep so bitterly?'\n\n\"'Do not call me good,' she moaned, and hid her face.\n\n\"I then perceived her fallen character. When she recovered self-control\nshe drew from her sinful bosom an old purse filled with coins of\ndifferent values.\n\n\"'Why do you give me this?' I asked.\n\n\"'It is to pay for a monument for my son,' she said, and the storm of\nher grief swept over her again.\n\n\"I learned that for years she had toiled and starved to hoard up a sum\nwith which to build a monument to his memory, for he had never failed of\nhis duty to her after all others had cast her out. Certainly he had his\nreward, not in the monument, but in the repentance which came to her\nafter his death. I have never seen such sorrow for evil as the memory of\nhis love wrought in her. For herself she desired only that the spot\nwhere she should be buried might be unknown. This longing to be\nforgotten has led me to believe that none desire to be remembered for\nthe evil that is in them, but only for some truth, or beauty, or\ngoodness by which they have linked their individual lives to the general\nlife of the race. Even the lying epitaphs in cemeteries prove how we\nwould fain have the dead arrayed on the side of right in the thoughts of\ntheir survivors. This wretched mother and human outcast, believing\nherself to have lost everything that makes it well to be remembered,\ncraved only the mercy of forgetfulness.\"\n\n\"And yet I think she died a Christian soul.\"\n\n\"You knew her, then?\"\n\n\"I was with her in the last hours. She told me her story. She told me\nalso of you, and that you would accept nothing for the monument you were\nat such care to make. It is perhaps for this reason that I have felt\nsome desire to see you, and that I am here now to speak with you of----\"\n\nA shudder passed over her.\n\n\"After all, that was not a sad, but a joyous monument to fashion,\" she\nadded abruptly.\n\n\"Ay, it was joyous. But to me the joyous and the sad are much allied in\nthe things of this life.\"\n\n\"And yet there might be one monument wholly sad, might there not?\"\n\n\"There might be, but I know not whose it would be.\"\n\n\"If she you love should die, would not hers be so?\"\n\n\"Until I love, and she I love is dead, I cannot know,\" said Nicholas,\nsmiling.\n\n\"What builds the most monuments?\" she asked quickly, as though to\nretreat from her levity.\n\n\"Pride builds many--splendid ones. Gratitude builds some, forgiveness\nsome, and pity some. But faith builds more than these, though often\npoor, humble ones; and love!--love builds more than all things else\ntogether.\"\n\n\"And what, of all things that monuments are built in memory of, is most\nloved and soonest forgotten?\" she asked, with intensity.\n\n\"Nay, I cannot tell that.\"\n\n\"Is it not a beautiful woman? This, you say, is the monument of a poet.\nAfter the poet grows old, men love him for the songs he sang; they love\nthe old soldier for the battles he fought, and the preacher for his\nremembered prayers. But a woman! Who loves her for the beauty she once\npossessed, or rather regards her not with the more distaste? Is there in\nhistory a figure so lonely and despised as that of the woman, who, once\nthe most beautiful in the world, crept back into her native land a\nwithered hag? Or, if a woman die while she is yet beautiful, how long is\nshe remembered? Her beauty is like heat and light--powerful only for\nthose who feel and see it.\"\n\nBut Nicholas had scarcely heard her. His eyes had become riveted upon\nher hand, which rested on the marble, as white as though grown out of it\nunder the labours of his chisel.\n\n\"My lady,\" he said, with the deepest respect, \"will you permit me to\nlook at your hand? I have carved many a one in marble, and studied many\na one in life; but never have I seen anything so beautiful as yours.\"\n\nHe took it with an artist's impetuosity and bent over it, laying its\npalm against one of his own and stroking it softly with the other. The\nblood leaped through his heart, and he suddenly lifted it to his lips.\n\n\"God only can make the hand beautiful,\" he said.\n\nDisplaced by her arm which he had upraised, the light fabric that had\nconcealed her figure parted on her bosom and slipped to the ground. His\neyes swept over the perfect shape that stood revealed. The veil still\nconcealed her face. The strangely mingled emotions that had been\ndeepening within him all this time now blended themselves in one\nirrepressible wish.\n\n\"Will you permit me to see your face?\"\n\nShe drew quickly back. A subtle pain was in his voice as he cried--\n\n\"O my lady! I ask it as one who has pure eyes for the beautiful.\"\n\n\"My face belongs to my past. It has been my sorrow; it is nothing now.\"\n\n\"Only permit me to see it!\"\n\n\"Is there no other face you would rather see?\"\n\nWho can fathom the motive of a woman's questions?\n\n\"None, none!\"\n\nShe drew aside her veil, and her eyes rested quietly on his like a\nrevelation. So young she was as hardly yet to be a woman, and her beauty\nhad in it that seraphic purity and mysterious pathos which is never seen\nin a woman's face until the touch of another world has chastened her\nspirit into the resignation of a saint. The heart of Nicholas was wrung\nby the sight of it with a sudden sense of inconsolable loss and longing.\n\n\"O my lady!\" he cried, sinking on one knee and touching his lips to her\nhand with greater gentleness. \"Do you indeed think the beauty of a woman\nso soon forgotten? As long as I live, yours will be as fresh in my\nmemory as it was the moment after I first saw it in its perfection and\nfelt its power.\"\n\n\"Do not recall to me the sorrow of such thoughts.\" She touched her\nheart. \"My heart is a tired hour-glass. Already the sands are wellnigh\nrun through. Any hour it may stop, and then--out like a light! Shapeless\nashes! I have loved life well, but not so well that I have not been able\nto prepare to leave it.\"\n\nShe spoke with the utmost simplicity and calmness, yet her eyes were\nturned with unspeakable sadness towards the shadowy recesses of the\nroom, where from their pedestals the monumental figures looked down upon\nher as though they would have opened their marble lips and said, \"Poor\nchild! Poor child!\"\n\n\"I have had my wish to see you and to see this place. Before long some\none will come here to have you carve a monument to the most perishable\nof all things. Like the poor mother who had no wish to be\nremembered----\"\n\nNicholas was moved to the deepest.\n\n\"I have but little skill,\" he said. \"The great God did not bestow on me\nthe genius of His favourite children of sculpture. But if so sad and\nsacred a charge should ever become mine, with His help I will rear such\na monument to your memory that as long as it stands none who see it will\never be able to forget you. Year after year your memory shall grow as a\nlegend of the beautiful.\"\n\nWhen she was gone he sat self-forgetful until the darkness grew\nimpenetrable. As he groped his way out at last along the thick\nguide-posts of death, her voice seemed to float towards him from every\nhead-stone, her name to be written in every epitaph.\n\nThe next day a shadow brooded over the place. Day by day it deepened. He\nwent out to seek intelligence of her. In the quarter of the city where\nshe lived he discovered that her name had already become a nucleus\naround which were beginning to cluster many little legends of the\nbeautiful. He had but to hear recitals of her deeds of kindness and\nmercy. For the chance of seeing her again he began to haunt the\nneighbourhood; then, having seen her, he would return to his shop the\nvictim of more unavailing desire. All things combined to awake in him\nthat passion of love whose roots are nourished in the soul's finest soil\nof pity and hopelessness. Once or twice, under some pretext, he made\nbold to accost her; and once, under the stress of his passion, he mutely\nlifted his eyes, confessing his love; but hers were turned aside.\n\nMeantime he began to dream of the monument he chose to consider she had\ncommitted to his making. It should be the triumph of his art; but more,\nit would represent in stone the indissoluble union of his love with her\nmemory. Through him alone would she enter upon her long after-life of\nsaint-like reminiscence.\n\nWhen the tidings of her death came, he soon sprang up from the\nprostration of his grief with a burning desire to consummate his\nbeloved work.\n\n\"Year after year your memory shall grow as a legend of the beautiful.\"\n\nThese words now became the inspiration of his masterpiece. Day and night\nit took shape in the rolling chaos of his sorrow. What sculptor in the\nworld ever espoused the execution of a work that lured more irresistibly\nfrom their hiding-places the shy and tender ministers of his genius?\nWhat one ever explored with greater boldness the utmost limits of\nartistic expression, or wrought in sterner defiance of the laws of our\ncommon forgetfulness?\n\n\n\n\nIII.\n\n\nOne afternoon, when people thronged the great cemetery of the city, a\nstrolling group were held fascinated by the unique loveliness of a newly\ncreated monument.\n\n\"Never,\" they exclaimed, \"have we seen so exquisite a masterpiece. In\nwhose honour is it erected?\"\n\nBut when they drew nearer, they found carved on it simply a woman's\nname.\n\n\"Who was she?\" they asked, puzzled and disappointed. \"Is there no\nepitaph?\"\n\n\"Ay,\" spoke up a young man lying on the grass and eagerly watching the\nspectators. \"Ay, a very fitting epitaph.\"\n\n\"Where is it?\"\n\n\"Carved on the heart of the monument!\" he cried, in a tone of triumph.\n\n\"On the heart of the monument? Then we cannot see it.\"\n\n\"It is not meant to be seen.\"\n\n\"How do _you_ know of it?\"\n\n\"I made the monument.\"\n\n\"Then tell us what it is.\"\n\n\"It cannot be told. It is there only because it is unknown.\"\n\n\"Out on you! You play your pranks with the living and the dead.\"\n\n\"You will live to regret this day,\" said a thoughtful bystander. \"You\nhave tampered with the memory of the dead.\"\n\n\"Why, look you, good people,\" cried Nicholas, springing up and\napproaching his beautiful master-work. He rested one hand lovingly\nagainst it and glanced around him pale with repressed excitement, as\nthough a long-looked-for moment had at length arrived. \"I play no pranks\nwith the living or the dead. Young as I am, I have fashioned many\nmonuments, as this cemetery will testify. But I make no more. This is my\nlast; and as it is the last, so it is the greatest. For I have fashioned\nit in such love and sorrow for her who lies beneath it as you can never\nknow. If it is beautiful, it is yet an unworthy emblem of that brief and\ntransporting beauty which was hers; and I have planted it here beside\nher grave, that as a delicate white flower it may exhale the perfume of\nher memory for centuries to come.\n\n\"Tell me,\" he went on, his lips trembling, his voice faltering with the\nburden of oppressive hope--\"tell me, you who behold it now, do you not\nwed her memory deathlessly to it? To its fair shape, its native and\nunchanging purity?\"\n\n\"Ay,\" they interrupted impatiently. \"But the epitaph?\"\n\n\"Ah!\" he cried, with tenderer feeling, \"beautiful as the monument is to\nthe eye, it would be no fit emblem of her had it not something sacred\nhidden within. For she was not lovely to the sense alone, but had a\nperfect heart. So I have placed within the monument that which is its\nheart, and typifies hers. And, mark you!\" he cried, in a voice of such\nawful warning that those standing nearest him instinctively shrank back,\n\"the one is as inviolable as the other. No more could you rend the heart\nfrom the human bosom than this epitaph from the monument. My deep and\nlasting curse on him who attempts it! For I have so fitted the parts of\nthe work together, that to disunite would be to break them in pieces;\nand the inscription is so fragile and delicately poised within, that so\nmuch as rudely to jar the monument would shiver it to atoms. It is put\nthere to be inviolable. Seek to know it, you destroy it. This I but\ncreate after the plan of the Great Artist, who shows you only the fair\noutside of His masterpieces. What human eye ever looked into the\nmysterious heart of His beautiful--that heart which holds the secret of\ninexhaustible freshness and eternal power? Could this epitaph have been\ncarved on the outside, you would have read it and forgotten it with\nnatural satiety. But uncomprehended, what a spell I mark it exercises!\nYou will--nay, you _must_--remember it for ever! You will speak of it\nto others. They will come. And thus in ever-widening circle will be\nborne afar the memory of her whose name is on it, the emblem of whose\nheart is hidden within. And what more fitting memorial could a man rear\nto a woman, the pure shell of whose beauty all can see, the secret of\nwhose beautiful being no one ever comprehends?\"\n\nHe walked rapidly away, then, some distance off, turned and looked back.\nMore spectators had come up. Some were earnestly talking, pointing now\nto the monument, now towards him. Others stood in rapt contemplation of\nhis master-work.\n\nTears rose to his eyes. A look of ineffable joy overspread his face.\n\n\"O my love!\" he murmured, \"I have triumphed. Death has claimed your\nbody, heaven your spirit; but the earth claims the saintly memory of\neach. This day about your name begins to grow the Legend of the\nBeautiful.\"\n\nThe sun had just set. The ethereal white shape of the monument stood\noutlined against a soft background of rose-coloured sky. To his\ntransfiguring imagination it seemed lifted far into the cloud-based\nheavens, and the evening star, resting above its apex, was a celestial\nlamp lowered to guide the eye to it through the darkness of the\ndescending night.\n\n\n\n\nIV.\n\n\nMysterious complexity of our mortal nature and estate that we should so\ndesire to be remembered after death, though born to be forgotten! Our\nwords and deeds, the influences of our silent personalities, do indeed\npass from us into the long history of the race and abide for the rest of\ntime: so that an earthly immortality is the heritage, nay, the\ninalienable necessity, of even the commonest lives; only it is an\nimmortality not of self, but of its good and evil. For Nature sows us\nand reaps us, that she may gather a harvest, not of us, but from us. It\nis God alone that gathers the harvest of us. And well for us that our\ndestiny should be that general forgetfulness we so strangely shrink\nfrom. For no sooner are we gone hence than, even for such brief times as\nour memories may endure, we are apt to grow by processes of accumulative\ntransformation into what we never were. Thou kind, kind fate,\ntherefore--never enough named and celebrated--that biddest the sun of\nmemory rise on our finished but imperfect lives, and then lengthenest or\nshortenest the little day of posthumous reminiscence, according as thou\nseest there is need of early twilight or of deeper shadows!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nYears passed. City and cemetery were each grown vaster. It was again an\nafternoon when the people strolled among the graves and monuments. An\nold man had courteously attached himself to a group that stood around a\ncrumbling memorial. He had reached a great age; but his figure was\nerect, his face animated by strong emotions, and his eyes burned beneath\nhis brows.\n\n\"Sirs,\" said he, interposing in the conversation, which turned wholly on\nthe monument, \"you say nothing of him in whose honour it was erected.\"\n\n\"We say nothing because we know nothing.\"\n\n\"Is he then wholly forgotten?\"\n\n\"We are not aware that he is at all remembered.\"\n\n\"The inscription reads: 'He was a poet.' Know you none of his poems?\"\n\n\"We have never so much as heard of his poems.\"\n\n\"My eyes are dim; is there nothing carved beneath his name?\"\n\nOne of the bystanders went up and knelt down close to the base.\n\n\"There _was_ something here, but it is effaced by time--Wait!\" And\ntracing his finger slowly along, he read like a child--\n\n    \"He--asked--but--for--the--common--lot.\n\n\"That is all,\" he cried, springing lightly up. \"Oh, the dust on my\nknees!\" he added with vexation.\n\n\"He may have sung very sweetly,\" pursued the old man.\n\n\"He may, indeed!\" they answered carelessly.\n\n\"But, sirs,\" continued he, with a sad smile, \"perhaps you are the very\ngeneration that he looked to for the fame which his own denied him;\nperhaps he died believing that _you_ would fully appreciate his poems.\"\n\n\"If so, it was a comfortable faith to die in,\" they said, laughing, in\nreturn. \"He will never know that we did not. A few great poets have\nposthumous fame: we know _them_ well enough.\" And they passed on.\n\n\"This,\" said the old man, as they paused elsewhere, \"seems to be the\nmonument of a true soldier; know you aught of the victories he helped to\nwin?\"\n\n\"He may not have helped to win any victories. He may have been a coward.\nHow should _we_ know? Epitaphs often lie. The dust is peopled with\nsoldiers.\" And again they moved on.\n\n\"Does any one read his sermons now, know you?\" asked the old man as they\npaused before a third monument.\n\n\"Read his sermons!\" they exclaimed, laughing more heartily. \"Are sermons\nso much read in the country you come from? See how long he has been\ndead! What should the world be thinking of, to be reading his musty\nsermons?\"\n\n\"At least does it give you no pleasure to read 'He was a good man'?\"\ninquired he plaintively.\n\n\"Ay; but if he was good, was not his goodness its own reward?\"\n\n\"He may have also wished long to be remembered for it.\"\n\n\"Naturally; but we have not heard that his wish was gratified.\"\n\n\"Is it not sad that the memory of so much beauty and truth and goodness\nin our common human life should perish? But, sirs,\"--and here the old\nman spoke with sudden energy--\"if there should be one who combined\nperfect beauty and truth and goodness in one form and character, do you\nnot think such a rare being would escape the common fate and be long and\nwidely remembered?\"\n\n\"Doubtless.\"\n\n\"Sirs,\" said he, quickly stepping in front of them with flashing eyes,\n\"is there in all this vast cemetery not a single monument that has kept\ngreen the memory of the being in whose honour it was erected?\"\n\n\"Ay, ay,\" they answered readily. \"Have you not heard of it?\"\n\n\"I am but come from distant countries. Many years ago I was here, and\nhave journeyed hither with much desire to see the place once more. Would\nyou kindly show me this monument?\"\n\n\"Come!\" they answered eagerly, starting off. \"It is the best known of\nall the thousands in the cemetery. None who see it can ever forget it.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes!\" murmured the old man. \"That is why I have--I foresaw---- Is\nit not a beautiful monument? Does it not lie--in what direction does it\nlie?\"\n\nA feverish eagerness seized him. He walked now beside, now before, his\ncompanions. Once he wheeled on them.\n\n\"Sirs, did you not say it perpetuates the memory of her--of the one--who\nlies beneath it?\"\n\n\"Both are famous. The story of this woman and her monument will never be\nforgotten. It is impossible to forget it.\"\n\n\"Year after year----\" muttered he, brushing his hand across his eyes.\n\nThey soon came to a spot where the aged branches of memorial evergreens\ninterwove a sunless canopy, and spread far around a drapery of gloom\nthrough which the wind passed with an unending sigh. Brushing aside the\nlowest boughs, they stepped in awestricken silence within the dank,\nchill cone of shade. Before them rose the shape of a grey monument, at\nsight of which the aged traveller, who had fallen behind, dropped his\nstaff and held out his arms as though he would have embraced it. But,\ncontrolling himself, he stepped forward, and said, in tones of thrilling\nsweetness--\n\n\"Sirs, you have not told me what story is connected with this monument\nthat it should be so famous. I conceive it must be some very touching\none of her whose name I read--some beautiful legend----\"\n\n\"Judge you of that!\" interrupted one of the group, with a voice of stern\nsadness and not without a certain look of mysterious horror. \"They say\nthis monument was reared to a woman by the man who once loved her. She\nwas very beautiful, and so he made her a very beautiful monument. But\nshe had a heart so hideous in its falsity that he carved in stone an\nenduring curse on her evil memory, and hung it in the heart of the\nmonument because it was too awful for any eye to see. But others tell\nthe story differently. They say the woman not only had a heart false\nbeyond description, but was in person the ugliest of her sex. So that\nwhile the hidden curse is a lasting execration of her nature, the\nbeautiful exterior is a masterpiece of mockery which her nature, and not\nher ugliness, maddened his sensitive genius to perpetrate. There can be\nno doubt that this is the true story, as hundreds tell it now, and that\nthe woman will be remembered so long as the monument stands--ay, and\nlonger--not only for her loathsome---- Help the old man!\"\n\nHe had fallen backward to the ground. They tried in vain to set him on\nhis feet. Stunned, speechless, he could only raise himself on one elbow\nand turn his eyes towards the monument with a look of preternatural\nhorror, as though the lie had issued from its treacherous shape. At\nlength he looked up to them, as they bent kindly over him, and spoke\nwith much difficulty--\n\n\"Sirs, I am an old man--a very old man, and very feeble. Forgive this\nweakness. And I have come a long way, and must be faint. While you were\nspeaking my strength failed me. You were telling me a story--were you\nnot?--the story--the legend of a most beautiful woman, when all at once\nmy senses grew confused and I failed to hear you rightly. Then my ears\nplayed me such a trick! O sirs! if you but knew what a damnable trick my\nears played me, you would pity me greatly, very, very greatly. This\nstory touches me. It is much like one I seemed to have heard for many\nyears, and that I have been repeating over and over to myself until I\nlove it better than my life. If you would but go over it\nagain--carefully--very carefully.\"\n\n\"My God, sirs!\" he exclaimed, springing up with the energy of youth when\nhe had heard the recital a second time, \"tell me _who_ started this\nstory! Tell me _how_ and _where_ it began!\"\n\n\"We cannot. We have heard many tell it, and not all alike.\"\n\n\"And do they--do you--believe--it is--true?\" he asked helplessly.\n\n\"We all _know_ it is true; do not _you_ believe it?\"\n\n\"I can never forget it!\" he said, in tones quickly grown harsh and\nhusky. \"Let us go away from so pitiful a place.\"\n\nIt was near nightfall when he returned, unobserved, and sat down beside\nthe monument as one who had ended a pilgrimage.\n\n\"They all tell me the same story,\" he murmured wearily. \"Ah, it was the\nhidden epitaph that wrought the error! But for it, the sun of her memory\nwould have had its brief, befitting day and tender setting. Presumptuous\nfolly, to suppose they would understand my masterpiece, when they so\noften misconceive the hidden heart of His beautiful works, and convert\nuncomprehended good and true into a curse of evil!\"\n\nThe night fell. He was awaiting it. Nearer and nearer rolled the dark,\nsuffering heart of a storm; nearer towards the calm, white breasts of\nthe dead. Over the billowy graves the many-footed winds suddenly fled\naway in a wild, tumultuous cohort. Overhead, great black bulks swung\nheavily at one another across the tremulous stars.\n\nOf all earthly spots, where does the awful discord of the elements seem\nso futile and theatric as in a vast cemetery? Blow, then, winds, till\nyou uproot the trees! Pour, floods, pour, till the water trickles down\ninto the face of the pale sleeper below! Rumble and flash, ye clouds,\ntill the earth trembles and seems to be aflame! But not a lock of hair,\nso carefully put back over the brows, is tossed or disordered. The\nsleeper has not stretched forth an arm and drawn the shroud closer\nabout his face, to keep out the wet. Not an ear has heard the riving\nthunderbolt, nor so much as an eyelid trembled on the still eyes for all\nthe lightning's fury.\n\nBut had there been another human presence on the midnight scene, some\nlightning flash would have revealed the old man, a grand, a terrible\nfigure, in sympathy with its wild, sad violence. He stood beside his\nmasterpiece, towering to his utmost height in a posture of all but\nsuperhuman majesty and strength. His long white hair and longer white\nbeard streamed outward on the roaring winds. His arms, bared to the\nshoulder, swung aloft a ponderous hammer. His face, ashen-grey as the\nmarble before him, was set with an expression of stern despair. Then, as\nthe thunder crashed, his hammer fell on the monument. Bolt after bolt,\nblow after blow. Once more he might have been seen kneeling beside the\nruin, his eyes strained close to its heart, awaiting another flash to\ntell him that the inviolable epitaph had shared in the destruction.\n\nFor days following many curious eyes came to peer into the opened heart\nof the shattered structure, but in vain.\n\nThus the masterpiece of Nicholas failed of its end, though it served\nanother. For no one could have heard the story of it, before it was\ndestroyed, without being made to realise how melancholy that a man\nshould rear a monument of execration to the false heart of the woman he\nonce had loved; and how terrible for mankind to celebrate the dead for\nthe evil that was in them instead of the good.\n\n                                THE END.","title":"Sister Dolorosa, and Posthumous Fame","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":38260}