CHAPTER XLI.
MARGARET'S CONFLICT.
Margaret had sent Philip back to the Ampezzo Valley as soon as she reached Berne, and before Rachel Goldsmith could join her there. The feeling that she had left her husband apparently in anger—though it was no ordinary anger that had possession of her—made her anxious that their son should return to him as soon as possible. Philip was disinclined to leave her; but they talked together quietly and fully of this terrible discovery, and of all its consequences, and she pointed out to him what, in her eyes, his path of duty clearly was. He must accept the past, with all its present outgrowth, and not make the harvest more bitter than it was by ineffectual reproaches and regrets. What did it really matter, for the brief span of this life, whether he passed through the world as a poor man or rich, distinguished or obscure? He was running the race set before him, and far other eyes than those of man were witnessing his career. Margaret, from her lofty point of view, was nearer Philip in his youthful idealism than Sidney could be, and his mother's counsels gave to him the courage and hopefulness which seemed to his father so strange and pathetic.
But Margaret herself was passing through the fiercest and most painful crisis of her life. The blow that had fallen had struck at the deepest roots of her being. It seemed as if she had linked her whole existence, down to its innermost fibers, with a nature absolutely at variance with it. This husband, whom she loved so perfectly, had been living all these years beside her a life of base treachery and dissimulation. She marveled as she thought of his daily intercourse with her maid Rachel, Sophy Goldsmith's aunt, and of his constant friendliness toward Andrew. How could he bear to see their grief and suspense, nay, even pretend to share it, and to pursue the search after their lost child? Was it possible that human nature contained such depths of duplicity? He had kept silence amid all their mourning, and made his silence seem full of sympathy. To be guilty of such infamy, for any reason whatever, seemed inexplicable to her. But to do it for the sake of money and position! If he had not owned it with his own lips, no force of accumulated evidence could have compelled her into belief.
Yet her heart was very tender toward him. His sin seemed to stain her own soul, so closely was she bound to him; for still she loved him. Rather she felt as if she loved him with a deeper fullness, because of her unutterable pity for his misery. She did not know for certain what he would do; but she would hope, even against hope, that he would pass through this gulf that lay between them, and reach her on the clear heights from which she looked down upon his wrong-doing. He was fallen indeed; but she would rather be his wife than fill any other position in the world. He could never be less dear to her than he had always been.
She blamed herself for her too great reticence and silence as to her own spiritual experience. It was so sacred, and yet so natural to her, that she had rarely attempted to put it into words. If she loved her husband's soul it must show itself in deeds, not speech. Her love to God, her discipleship toward Jesus Christ, must be displayed in the same way; if those around her could not see it in her daily life, it would be useless to proclaim it. What she felt herself she attributed to others. God was nearer to every soul than any fellow-creature could be, and his dealings with each soul was wrapped in a veil impenetrable to the understanding or comprehension even of those closest and dearest to it. What God was saying to her husband's soul she could not know. And no action of Sidney's life had taught her that they were worlds apart in their spiritual experience.
Now she saw in a new light that sin which Christ denounced above all sins—hypocrisy. In a book she had read a short time before she had come across these sentences: "Howbeit now I know well that Jesus came not to prophesy smooth things, but to teach us the truth. Therefore was it most needful that he should speak the truth, and nothing less than the truth, concerning the Pharisees, to the intent that the eyes of all mankind might be opened, even to the generation of generations, that they might discern that the sin of sins is hypocrisy. For other sins wound, but this sin slayeth, the conscience. Peradventure, also, Jesus foresaw that a time might come when certain even among his own disciples would err as the Pharisees erred, shutting their eyes against the truth, as being unfit and not convenient. He, also, that came to redeem all the children of men from all evil, was it not most necessary that he should make clear in the sight of all men what was the greatest evil? For if men knew it not, how could he redeem them from it?"
This had been Sidney's crowning sin. He had so acted a part that, unawares, he had grown to consider it his real nature; it had almost ceased to be hypocrisy, save in the sight of God, whose eye saw the false foundation on which the building was raised. For surely Sidney had not altogether feigned his enjoyment of the privileges and duties of Christianity. He had gone with her to the table of the Lord; he had given generously, not only of his wealth, but of his time and talents, to the service of his fellow-men. He had taken his stand in public life as a religious man. "Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity." This was the condemnation of her Lord against the man who was dearer to her than her own soul.
She felt that she was right in facing this crisis alone, free from the distracting affection of Sidney. To have stayed near him would have taxed her strength too heavily; for all life was under an eclipse! Was it not an abiding darkness, which could not pass away on this side of the grave? Was he not in an abyss of gloom, into which she must go down, and dwell with him there? Gloom and sorrow and remorse she would share with him, but not the infamy of a new sin.
Even in the deepest abyss God would be with her. This was the hope she clung to. She recalled the vision she once had of the love of God. There was absolutely no limit, no change, in that Divine love, though it might take the form of an apparent vengeance. "Even in hell thou art there!" she said, and she felt strong enough to go down to the nethermost depths, if underneath her she were still to feel the Everlasting Arms.
The nethermost depth to her would be to separate herself from Sidney. But if he persisted in carrying out his threat, and being guilty of this new iniquity, even if her heart broke she would no longer live with him. She knew what the world would say of it: that it was only a foolish woman's jealousy and prejudice, a straining at a gnat, if she could not forgive so boyish a sin as that of which he would seem to have been guilty. But she took no account of the world. If he persisted in his threatened injustice to Sophy's memory, if he brought this bitter shame upon the heads of her dear old friends, it would be a base act of perfidy, showing him absolutely unrepentant toward God and man. It would be impossible to her to resume her former wifehood with him.