It was quite night when she and Harold wont out of the cottage. The snow had ceased falling, but it lay on every tree of the forest like a white shroud. And high above, through the opening of the branches, was seen the blue-black frosty sky, with its innumerable stars. The keen, piercing cold, the utter stirlessness, the mysterious silence, threw a sense of death—white death—over all things. It was a night when one might faintly dream what the world would be, if the infidel's boast were true, and there were no God.
They walked for some time in perfect silence. Troubled thoughts were careering like storm-clouds over Olive's spirit. Wonder was there, and pity, and an indefined dread. As she leaned on Mr. Gwynne's arm, she had a presentiment that in the heart whose strong beating she could almost feel, was prisoned some great secret of woe or wrong, before which she herself would stand aghast. Yet such was the nameless attraction which drew her to this man, that the more she dreaded, the more she longed to discover his mystery, whatsoever it might be. She determined to break the silence.
“Mr. Gwynne, I trust you will not think it presumption in me to have spoken as I did, instead of you; but I saw how shocked and overpowered you were, nor wondered at your silence.”
He answered in the low tone of one struggling under great excitement. “You noticed my silence, then?—that I, summoned as a clergyman to give religious consolation, had none to offer.”
“Nay, you did attempt some.”
“Ay, I tried to preach faith with my lips, and could not, because there was none in my heart. No, nor ever will be!”
Olive looked at him uncomprehending, but he seemed to shrink from her observation. “I am indeed truly grieved,” she began to say, but he stopped her.
“Do not speak to me yet, I pray you.”
She obeyed; though yearning with pity over him. Hitherto, in all their intercourse, whatever had been his kindness towards her, towards him she had continually felt a sense of restraint—even of fear. That controlling influence, which Mr. Gwynne seemed to exercise over all with whom he deigned to associate, was heavy upon Olive Rothesay. Before him she felt more subdued than she had ever done before any one; in his presence she unconsciously measured her words and guarded her looks, as if meeting the eye of a master. And he was a master—a man born to rule over the wills of his brethren, swaying them at his lightest breath, as the wind bends the grass of the field.
But now the sceptre seemed torn from his hand—he was a king no more. He walked along—his head drooped, his eyes fixed on the ground. And beholding him thus, there came to Olive, in the place of fear, a strong compassion, tender as strong, and pure as tender. Angel-like, it arose in her heart, ready to pierce his darkness with its shining eyes—to fold around him and all his misery its sheltering wings. He was a great and learned man, and she a lowly woman; in her knowledge far beneath him, in her faith—oh! how immeasurably above!