What Can She Do?

by Edward Payson Roe

"Oh, dear!" said Laura, "it seems as if I had been in a trance and had just awakened. Why, Edith, I must do something. It is not right to let you bear all these things alone. But don't trouble about Zell, not one of George Allen's daughters will sink to that."

CHAPTER XIX

A FALLING STAR

Zell slept most of the day. She had reached that point where she did not want to think. On hearing Edith say that she would go to New York on Monday, a sadden and strong temptation assailed her. Impulsive, but not courageous, abounding in energy, but having little fortitude, she found the conditions of her country life growing unendurable. Van Dam seemed her only refuge, her only means of escape. She soon lost all hope of their sustaining themselves by work in Pushton. Her uncurbed nature could wait patiently for nothing, and as the long, idle days passed, she doubted, and then despaired, of any success from Edith's plans. She harbored Van Dam's temptation, and the consciousness of doing this hurt her womanly nature, and her hard, reckless tone and manner were the natural consequence. She said to herself, and tried to believe—

"He will marry me—he has promised again and again."

Still, there was the uneasy knowledge that she was placing herself and her reputation entirely at his mercy, and she long had known that Van Dam was no saint. It was this lurking knowledge, shut her eyes to it as she might, that acted on her nature like a petrifying influence.

And yet, Van Dam's temptation had more to contend with in her pride than in her moral nature. Everything in her education had tended to increase the former, and dwarf the latter. Her parents had taken her to the theatre far oftener than even to the fashionable church on the avenue. From the latter she carried away more ideas about dress than about anything else. From a child she had been familiar with the French school of morals, as taught by the sensational drama in New York. Society, that will turn a poor girl out of doors the moment she sins, will take her at the most critical age of her unformed character, night after night, to witness plays in which the husband is made ridiculous, but the man who destroys purity and home-happiness is as splendid a villain as Milton's Satan. Mr. Allen himself had familiarized Zell's mind with just what she was tempted to do, by taking her to plays as poisonous to the soul as the malaria of the Campagna at Rome to the body. He, though dead, had a part in the present temptation of his child, and we unhesitatingly charge many parents with the absolute ruin of their children, by exposing them, and permitting them to be exposed, to influences that they know must be fatal. No guardian of a child can plead the densest stupidity for not knowing that French novels and plays are as demoralizing as the devil could wish them to be; and constantly to place young, passionate natures, just awakening in their uncurbed strength, under such influences, and expect them to remain as spotless as snow, is the most wretched absurdity of our day. Society brings fire to the tow, the brand to the powder, and then lifts its hand to hurl its anathema in case they ignite.

But Mr. Allen sinned even more grievously in permitting a man like Van Dam to haunt his home. If now one of the lambs of his flock suffered irretrievably, he would be as much to blame as a shepherd who daily saw the wolf within his fold. Mr. Allen was familiar with the stories about Van Dam, as multitudes of wealthy men are to-day with the character of well-dressed scoundrels who visit their daughters. Some of the worst villains in existence have the entree into the "best society." It is pretty well known among men what they are, and fashionable mammas are not wholly in the dark. Therefore, every day, "angels that kept not their first estate" are falling from heaven. It may not be the open, disgraceful ruin that threatened poor Zell, but it is ruin nevertheless.

After all, it was the undermining, unhallowed influence of long association with Van Dam that now made Zell so weak in her first sharp stress of temptation. Crime was not awful and repulsive to her. There was little in her cunningly-perverted nature that revolted at it. She hesitated mainly on the ground of her pride, and in view of the consequences. And even these latter she in no sense realized, for the school in which she had been taught showed only the flowery opening of the path into sin, while its terrible retributions were kept hidden.

Therefore, as the miseries of her condition in the country increased, Zell's pride failed her, and she began to be willing to risk all to get away, and when she felt the pinch of hunger she became almost desperate. As we have said, on Edith's naming a day on which she would be absent on the forlorn mission that would only put off the day of utter want a little longer, the temptation took definite shape in Zell's mind to write at once to Van Dam, acceding to his shameful conditions.