CHAPTER XVI.

"You who keep account
Of crisis and transition in this life,
Set down the first time Nature says plain 'no'
To some 'yes' in you, and walks over you
In gorgeous sweeps of scorn. We all begin
By singing with the birds, and running fast
With June days hand in hand; but, once for all,
The birds must sing against us, and the sun
Strike down upon us like a friend's sword, caught
By an enemy to slay us, while we read
The dear name on the blade which bites at us."
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

It is easy for the young to be happy before the deep feelings of the heart have been stirred. It is easy to be good when there has been no strong temptation to be evil; easy to be unselfish when nothing is ardently craved; easy to be faithful when faithfulness does not tear the soul out of its abiding-place. Some persons pass through all of life without strong temptations; not having deep feelings, they are likewise exempt from deep sins. These pass for saints. But when one thinks of the cause of their faultlessness, one understands perhaps better the meaning of those words, otherwise mysterious, that "joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance."

Anne went through that night her first real torture; heretofore she had felt only grief—a very different pain.

Being a woman, her first feeling, even before the consciousness of what it meant, was jealousy. What did Helen mean by speaking of him as though he belonged to her? She had never spoken in that way before. Although she—Anne—had mistaken the fictitious titles, still, even under the title, there had been no such open appropriation of the Knight-errant. What did she mean? And then into this burning jealous anger came the low-voiced question, asked somewhere down in the depths of her being, as though a judge was speaking, "What—is—it—to—you?" And again, "What is it to you?" She buried her face tremblingly in her hands, for all at once she realized what it was, what it had been, unconsciously perhaps, but for a long time really, to her.

She made no attempt at self-deception. Her strongest trait from childhood had been her sincerity, and now it would not let her go. She had begun to love Ward Heathcote unconsciously, but now she loved him consciously. That was the bare fact. It confronted her, it loomed above her, a dark menacing shape, from whose presence she could not flee. She shivered, and her breath seemed to stop during the slow moment while the truth made itself known to her. "O God!" she murmured, bursting into tears; and there was no irreverence in the cry. She recognized the faithlessness which had taken possession of her—unawares, it is true, yet loyal hearts are not conquered so. She had been living in a dream, and had suddenly found the dream reality, and the actors flesh and blood—one of them at least, a poor wildly loving girl, with the mark of Judas upon her brow. She tried to pray, but could think of no words. For she was false to Rast, she loved Heathcote, and hated Helen, yet could not bring herself to ask that any of these feelings should be otherwise. This was so new to her that she sank down upon the floor in utter despair and self-abasement. She was bound to Rast; she was bound to Helen. Yet she had, in her heart at least, betrayed them both.

Still, so complex is human nature that even here in the midst of her abasement the question stole in, whispering its way along as it came, "Does he care for me?" And "he" was not Rast. She forgot all else to weigh every word and look of the weeks and days that had passed. Slowly she lived over in memory all their conversations, not forgetting the most trivial, and even raised her arm to get a pillow in order that she might lie more easily; but the little action brought reality again, and her arm fell, while part of her consciousness drew off, and sat in judgment upon the other part. The sentence was scathing.

Then jealousy seized her again. She had admired Helen so warmly as a woman, that even now she could not escape the feeling. She went over in quick, hot review all that the sweet voice and delicate lips had ever said concerning the person veiled under the name of Knight-errant, and the result was a miserable conviction that she had been mistaken; that there was a tie of some kind—slight, perhaps, yet still a tie. And then, as she crushed her hands together in impotent anger, she again realized what she was thinking, and began to sob in her grief like a child. Poor Anne! she would never be a child again. Never again would be hers that proud dauntless confidence of the untried, which makes all life seem easy and secure. And here suddenly into her grief darted this new and withering thought: Had Heathcote perceived her feeling for him? and had he been playing upon it to amuse himself?