"But kindness and charity are omnipotent."
"Yes, if thee turns to Omnipotence for them. But far be it from me to judge thee, Richard Morton. Because thee does not walk just where I am walking is no proof that thou art not a pilgrim."
"I must tell you in all sincerity that I am not. My brain, heart, and soul have been absorbed by the world, and not by its best things either. Fifteen years ago, when scarcely more than a child, I was left alone in it. I have feared it inexpressibly, and with good reason. I have fought it, and have often been worsted. At times I have hated it; but as I began to succeed I learned to love it, and to serve it with an ambition that gave me so little respite that yesterday I thought that I was a broken and worn-out man. If ever the world had a slave, I am one; but there have been times during this June day when I earnestly wished that I might break my chains; and your serene, kindly face, that is in such blessed contrast to its shrewd, exacting, and merciless spirit, gave hope from the first."
"So thee has been alone in the world since thee was a little boy," she said, in a tone that seemed the echo of my dead mother's voice.
"Since I was twelve years of age," I replied, after a moment, and looking away. I could not meet her kind eyes as I added: "My mother's memory has been the one good, sacred influence of my life; but I have not been so true to it as I ought to have been—nothing like so true."
"Has thee no near friends or relatives?"
"I have acquaintances by the hundred, but there is no one to whom I could speak as I have to you, whom I have known but a few hours. A man has intuitions sometimes as well as a woman."
"How strange it all is!" said Mrs. Yocomb, with a sigh, and looking absently out of the window to where the sun glowed not far above the horizon. Its level rays lighted up her face, making it so beautiful and noble that I felt assured that I had come to the right one for light and guidance. "Every heart seems to have its burden when the whole truth is known," she added, meditatively. "I wonder if any are exempt. Thee seemed indeed a man of the world when jesting at the table, but now I see thy true self Thee is right, Richard Morton; thee can speak to me as to thy friend."
"I fear your surmise is true, Mrs. Yocomb; for in two instances to-day have I caught glimpses of burdens heavier than mine." She looked at me hastily, and her face grew pale. I relieved her by quietly continuing:
"Whether you have a burden on your heart or not, one thing I know to be true—the burdened in heart or conscience would instinctively turn to you. I am conscious that it is this vital difference between your spirit and that of the world which leads me to speak as I do. Except as we master and hold our own in the world, it informs us that we are of little account—one of millions; and our burdens and sorrows are treated as sickly sentimentalities. There is no isolation more perfect than that of a man of the world among people of his own kind, with whom manifestations of feeling are weaknesses, securing prompt ridicule. Reticence, a shrewd alertness to the main chance of the hour, and the spirit of the entire proverb, 'Every man for himself,' become such fixed characteristics that I suppose there is danger that the deepest springs in one's nature may dry up, and no Artesian shaft of mercy or truth be able to find anything in a man's soul save arid selfishness. In spite of all that conscience can say against me—and it can say very much—I feel sure that I have not yet reached that hopeless condition."