A Hero of the Pen

by E. Werner

"Not one; I stand entirely alone in the world."

There lay a quiet, but deep anguish in these words. The doctor preserved a sympathetic silence; Fernow reached him his hand.

"I must now bid you farewell. I have much to arrange, but I will see you again this evening."

He went. Doctor Stephen accompanied him to the door, and they parted with a cordial pressure of the hand. The professor entered the parlor through which he must pass in order to reach the hall; his features had won again the gentle, melancholy expression peculiar to them; but suddenly he started, and drew back--he caught a glimpse of Miss Forest.

She had not left her place at the window, but she had stepped forward somewhat, so that he could not avoid seeing her, and her glance met his. Jane's eyes were capable of no soft, dreamy glance, and even their fire was always like the glow of Northern Lights over an ice field; but still, a strange power lay in those shadowing depths, the might of a proud, unyielding will, which knew not how to entice, but to compel; and she was in the fullest measure conscious of her power. Seldom as she had recourse to this power, whenever she did enforce it, the victory remained with her, and it had been a victory over no common individuals. The obstinate character of her father had bowed to this will; it had silenced the ever-ready sarcasm of Atkins; it had brought the cold, equally rigid nature of Alison under her control. And now it must also enforce something else; the step which, in spite of all that had happened, must and should cross her path, the farewell word which she must once again hear from his lips--for this, these eyes now beamed in the full radiance of their splendor, and deep below, under all this ice flamed something warmer than the mere glow of boreal fires.

This mysterious power seemed also to subdue Fernow; as if spellbound, his glance rested upon her face; he saw that she was waiting, waiting for a farewell. It would cost him only one step, one single word; here was involved an absence perhaps without return. Over Jane's features flashed a triumphant glance--then all at once the professor's face grew dark, every muscle was strained for an energetic resistance. Slowly, as if step by step, he would withdraw from the influence of a demoniac power, he tore his eyes from her face; his lips quivered as he set them firmly together, to shut in any farewell word; his breast rose and fell convulsively in an agonizing inward conflict; but the wounded pride of the man held its ground before temptation. He turned to go; a bow, cold, distant as that parting one upon the Ruènberg, and the door closed behind him. He had kept his word!

Jane stood there like a statue; this was too much! She had humiliated herself by waiting; she had waited all this time, and now she stood there decided to offer her hand in reconciliation, ready to give and to receive a last parting word; and this incredible self-mastery of hers had been thus received! What then did this man wish? Did he demand entreaties from her?

Entreaty? At the mere word, the whole nature of this young girl was aroused to resistance and exasperation. To entreat was something she could not do. Miss Forest, who so clearly tested, so calmly considered all, never had occasion to lament a momentary enthusiasm nor to atone for an error, because she never allowed herself to yield to impulse; even in her childhood entreaty was something that had been impossible to her. She had borne every punishment, but it was with an obstinacy which chose to endure for long weeks, rather than allow the word "forgive" to pass her lips; and Forest had discerned in the child too much of his own nature to force her to anything he would himself regard as a humiliation. The thought of entreaty flashed through Jane's soul, only to be repelled with abhorrence. He wished no farewell; well then he might go without it, into the field, to death, wherever he would.

And what had driven him to this? She knew now; the bitter satisfaction with which he had heralded his ceasing to be any longer "a hero of the pen," had betrayed it to her. That phrase had entered deep into this man's soul; for weeks long it had tortured him; had become the goad which had impelled him on to undertake something to which his strength was not equal; and if he now succumbed, if he perished in the undertaking, whose was the blame?

Jane began to pace excitedly up and down the room; she strove to repel this thought, but ever and ever again it would return. She heard only the words he had spoken in gloomy resignation: "I have no one; I stand alone in the world!" She pressed her hand against her breast, as if that agony had found an echo there.--Perhaps she ought now to confess this to him. The old obstinacy again towered up in all its uncontrollable might, she stamped violently as if beside herself. "No, and no! and forever no!"