She said no more on the subject, but, naturally enough, she thought much. It was a new and startling suggestion, and seemed to derive added force from the fact that Rathborne had made it. For she had never lost the sense of his hostile influence—of the realization that she had made an enemy of one who had the strength as well as the will to be dangerous. And now she felt sure that if George Singleton were on the earth this man would find him. "That is what he intends to do," she said to herself; "and this is his way of letting me know it—of making me understand that I hold my fortune on an uncertain tenure. Well, let him do his worst. If I lose the fortune, nothing will be left me at all; and that, no doubt, is what I deserve."
This was a new conclusion for Marion, and showed how far she had already traveled on the road of self-knowledge. Even now she began to ask herself what there was which the money she had so eagerly desired could purchase for her of enduring interest? Now that everything was within her reach, she felt that she hardly cared to stretch out her hands to grasp any object of which she had dreamed. Admiration, pleasure, power,—all seemed to her like the toys which a sick child regards with eyes of indifference. Was it the weakening of her heart or the rousing of her soul which made them seem of so small account? She did not ask herself; she only felt that Brian Earle's influence had for a time lifted her into a region where she had breathed a higher air, and gained a knowledge of ideals which made her own now seem false, petty and unsatisfying.
Would these ideals have attracted Marion had they been presented by another person? That is difficult to say. Her nature had in it much essential nobleness—Earle had been right in thinking it more warped than really wrong,—and it might have responded in some degree to any influence of the kind. But surely it is not without grave reason that we are bidden to keep the heart with all diligence, since "out of it are the issues of life." It had been necessary that Marion's heart should be roused out of its cold indifference to all affection, before she could grasp the meaning of the higher things of life—those things which have their root and their end in eternity.
It was one evening about this time that she chanced to be driving late through the streets of Scarborough, and saw the Catholic church open and several persons entering. A sudden impulse made her bid the coachman stop. She was alone, having just left Mrs. Singleton at the house of a friend; and she felt that before leaving Scarborough finally—as it was her intention to do in a few days—she would like to enter once more the sanctuary where she had felt herself drawn very near to God. Since then the world had rushed in and overwhelmed her, and she had no longer any intention of embracing the true faith. But an attraction which could not be resisted drew her just now within the threshold of the door to which Earle had last led her.
She descended from her carriage, to the astonishment of a few loiterers around the church gate, and in the rich twilight walked up the path which led to the door. Music came from within, and as she pushed it open a vision of celestial yet familiar brightness burst on her. The altar was a mass of lights and flowers, and in the midst rose the ostensorium on its golden throne. The priest, with his attendants, knelt motionless before it, while from the organ-loft came the strains of the "O Salutaris Hostia." Marion had been at the convent too long not to know all that it meant. She knelt at once, as a Catholic might have done; and indeed in her mind at that moment there was no sense of doubt. From the uplifted Presence on the altar faith seemed suddenly infused into her soul. Not only did all thought of questioning leave her, but all memory of ever having questioned. She knelt like a child, simply, humbly, involuntarily; and, with the same confidence as those around her, breathed a petition for the things of which she had begun to feel herself in need—for light on a path which was by no means clear, and for some better guide than her own erring will.
After Benediction she was one of the first to leave the church, with a sense of peace which astonished her. "Why do I feel differently now from what I did when I entered?" she said to herself as she drove home in the soft dusk. "What power has touched me, and given me the first repose of spirit that I have known in a long time? It is surely strange, and impossible not to believe."
But there it ended. Not yet had come the time when she would feel the necessity of taking some practical step toward making this all-powerful help her own; not yet had the proud spirit bent itself to acknowledging its own inability to order its life. The very reason which not long before had drawn her toward the Church—the fact that Earle belonged to it—now repelled as strongly as it had attracted. The hour had not yet struck when such earthly considerations would fall away before the urgent demand of the soul, the need of the weak and the human for the strong and the eternal.
"The cedars must fall round us ere we see the light behind;"
and not all of Marion's cedars had fallen yet.
The next day a surprise, which was yet not altogether a surprise, awaited her. She was quietly sitting in the room which had been Mr. Singleton's—that small, pretty apartment behind the large drawing-room, which still seemed full of the suggestion of his presence,—when she heard a visitor ushered into the adjoining room, and a minute later a servant appeared bringing her a card. She took it and read the name of Paul Rathborne.