She knew that Roger was a friend, and nothing more—that his whole heart was absorbed in Mildred—and her feminine nature, stimulated by the peculiarities of her lot, craved warmer attentions. In her impoverished condition, and with her father's character becoming generally known, such attentions would not naturally come from young men whom those who loved her best could welcome. She was growing restless under restrictions, and her crowded, half-sheltered life was robbing her of womanly reserve. These undermining influences worked slowly, imperceptibly, but none the less certainly, and she recognized the bold, evil admiration which followed her more and more unshrinkingly.
Mr. Jocelyn's condition was no longer a secret, and he often, in common with other confirmed habitues, increased the effects of opium by a free use of liquor. He therefore had practically ceased to be a protector to his daughters. Fred and Minnie, in spite of all the broken-hearted and failing mother could do, were becoming little street Arabs, learning all too soon the evil of the world.
Since the revelation of her father's condition Mildred had finally relinquished her class at the mission chapel. Her sensitive spirit was so shadowed by his evil that she felt she would be speechless before children who might soon learn to associate her name with a vice that would seem to them as horrible as it was mysterious. Bread and shelter she must obtain, but she was too fear-haunted, too conscious of the shame to which she was linked, to face the public on any occasion not connected with her daily toil.
The pride characteristic of American people who have lapsed from a better condition was intensified by her Southern birth and prejudices. More than hunger, cold, and even death, she feared being recognized, pointed out, stared at, and gossiped about, while the thought of receiving charity brought an almost desperate look into her usually clear blue eyes. Therefore she shrank from even Mr. Wentworth, and was reticent on all topics relating to their domestic affairs. She knew that there were many families whom he was almost sustaining through crises of illness and privation; she also knew that there were far more who sought to trade upon his sympathies. While she could take aid from him as readily as from any one, she also believed that before she could receive it she must be frank concerning her father. Rather than talk of his shame, even to her pastor, it might well be believed that the girl would starve. What she might do for the sake of the others was another question.
Mr. Wentworth in sadness recognized the barrier which Mildred's pride was rearing between them, but he was too wise and experienced to be obtrusively personal. He sought earnestly, however, to guard the young girl against the moral danger which so often results from discouragement and unhappiness, and he entreated her not to part with her faith, her clinging trust in God.
"A clinging trust is, indeed, all that I have left," she had replied so sadly that his eye suddenly moistened; "but the waves of trouble seem strong and pitiless, and I sometimes fear that my hands are growing numb and powerless. In plain prose, I'm just plodding on—God knows whither. In my weary, faltering way I am trying to trust Him," she added, after a brief silence, "and I always hope to; but I am so tired, Mr. Wentworth, so depressed, that I'm like the soldiers that have been described to me as marching on with heavy eyes and heavy feet because they must. There is no use in my coming to the chapel, for I haven't the heart to say a word of cheer to any one, and hollow words would hurt me, while doing no good. I am trying your charity sorely, but I can't help it. I fear you cannot understand me, for even your Christian sympathy is a burden. I'm too tired, too sorely wounded to make any response; while all the time I feel that I ought to respond gratefully and earnestly. It seems a harsh and unnatural thing to say, but my chief wish is to shrink away from everybody and everything not essential to my daily work. I think I shall have strength enough to keep up a mechanical routine of life for a long time, but you must not ask me to think or give way to feeling, much less to talk about myself and—and—the others. If I should lose this stolid self-control which I am gaining, and which enables me to plod along day by day with my eyes shut to what may be on the morrow, I believe I should become helpless from despair and grief."
"My dear child," the clergyman had replied, in deep solicitude, "I fear you are dangerously morbid; and yet I don't know. This approach to apathy of which you speak may be God's shield from thoughts that would be sharp arrows. I can't help my honest sympathy, and I hope and trust that I may soon be able to show it in some helpful way—I mean in the way of finding you more remunerative and less cruel work," he added quickly, as he saw a faint flush rising in the young girl's face. Then he concluded, gravely and gently, "Miss Mildred, I respect you—I respect even your pride; but, in the name of our common faith and the bonds it implies, do not carry it too far. Good-by. Come to me whenever you need, or your conscience suggests my name," and the good man went away wholly bent on obtaining some better employment for Mildred; and he made not a little effort to do so, only to find every avenue of labor suited to the girl's capacity already thronged. Meanwhile the needs and sorrows of others absorbed his time and thoughts.
Belle, because of her thorough liking and respect for Mr. Wentworth, and even more for the reason that he had obtained her promise to come, was rarely absent from her class, and the hour spent at the chapel undoubtedly had a good and restraining influence; but over and against this one or two hours in seven days were pitted the moral atmosphere of the shop, the bold admiration and advances in the streets, which were no longer unheeded and were scarcely resented, and the demoralizing sights and sounds of a tenement-house. The odds were too great for poor Belle. Like thousands of other girls, she stood in peculiar need of sheltered home life, and charity broad as heaven should be exercised toward those exposed as she was.
As Mr. Jocelyn sank deeper in degradation, Mildred's morbid impulse to shrink, cower, and hide, in such poor shelter as she had, grew stronger, and at last she did little more than try to sleep through the long, dreary Sabbaths, that she might have strength for the almost hopeless struggle of the week. She was unconsciously drifting into a hard, apathetic materialism, in which it was her chief effort not to think or remember—from the future she recoiled in terror—but simply to try to maintain her physical power to meet the daily strain.
It is a sad and terrible characteristic of our Christian city, that girls, young, beautiful, and unprotected like Mildred and Belle, are the natural prey of remorseless huntsmen. Only a resolute integrity, great prudence and care, can shield them; and these not from temptation and evil pursuit, but only from the fall which such snares too often compass.