"What do you wish me to do, Mr. Thorne? I am willing to leave everything to Mrs. Collet's decision."
"I will take nothing on myself again," said the other; "I will leave everything in the Lord's hands. If it is His will that we be brought together, we shall be so brought. I will not stay now—indeed I am in no fit state of mind—but in a few days I will come again, and whatever the Lord shall do in the meanwhile, His will be done."
The inconsistency of this last resolution with the denunciation of the Ferrar family, and especially of Inglesant, which he had before expressed, struck Inglesant as so extraordinary that he began to doubt the sanity of his companion; but finding that Mr. Thorne was determined to go, he parted from him with mutual courtesy, and returned at once into the house.
As he entered the room where Mary Collet was still sitting alone, she looked up with a smile, and was about to speak, no doubt to palliate the rudeness of their guest; but seeing from his manner that something extraordinary had occurred, she stopped, and Inglesant, who had resolved to tell her all that the Puritan had said, began at once and related simply, and, as closely as he could, word for word, what had happened. As he went on, the sympathy which the strange conflict he had witnessed in the other's breast had excited in his own, and the feeling he had of the truth of the other's power to protect, inspired his manner so that he spoke well and eloquently of his rival's nature, and of the advantages that alliance with him would bestow; but honest as his purpose was, no course more fatal to his rival's chance could probably have been taken, while at the same time he seriously, if he had any cause himself, jeopardised that also.
Mary Collet listened with ever-increasing surprise, and the light in her eyes died away to coldness as she continued to look at Inglesant. Her calm look suffered no other change; but that acute perception which Inglesant's training had given him—perception which the purest love does not always give—showed him what was passing in his friend's mind: he stopped suddenly in his pleading, and knew that he had said too much not to say more. He sank on the ground before the chair, and rested his hands upon the carved elbow, with his face, to which excitement gave increased beauty, raised to Mary Collet's eyes.
"It is all true, Mary," he said. It was the first time he had called her by her name, and it sounded so sweetly that he said it again. "It is all true, Mary; I might have spoken to you of another, would many times have spoken, if all this had not been true. As he said to me, dark days are coming on, the State is shaken to its base, the highest in the realm are disgraced and ruined, and even harried to death; what will happen the wisest heads cannot think; the King is a fugitive; I am all but penniless, should be homeless but for you. This even is not all; if it had been I might have spoken, but there is more which must be told. I am not my own. I am but the agent of a mighty will, of a system which commands unhesitating obedience—obedience which is part of my very being. I cannot even form the thought of violating it. This is why, often, when I tried to speak, my tongue refused its office, my conscience roused itself to keep me still. But if, happily for me, I have been wrong; if, even for me, the gates of heaven may still open,—the gates that I have thought were inexorably closed,—I dare not face the radiance that even now issues through the opening space. Mary, you know me better than I know myself; I am ignorant and sinful and worldly; you are holy as a saint of God. Do with me what you will, if there is anything in me worthy of you, take me and make it more worthy; if not, let me go: either way I am yours—my life belongs to you—neither life nor death is anything to me except as it may advantage you."
The light shone full on Mary Collet's face, looking down on him as he spoke. The odour of the garden flowers filled the room. The stillness of the late afternoon was unbroken, save by the murmur of insect life. Her eyes—those wonderful eyes that had first attracted him in the Church—grew larger and more soft as they looked down on him with a love and tenderness which he had never seen before, and saw only once again. For some seconds she did not—perhaps could not—speak, for the great lustrous eyes were moist with tears. He would have lain there for ever with no thought but of those kindly eyes. At last she spoke, and her voice was tender, but low and calm; "Johnny,"—it was the first time she had called him so, and she said it twice,—"Johnny, you were right, I know you better than you know yourself. Your first instinct was right; but it was not your poverty, nor the distraction of the time, nor yet this mysterious fate that governs you, which kept you silent; poverty and the troubles of the times we might have suffered together; this mysterious fate we might have borne together, or have broken through. No," she continued with a radiant smile, "cavalier and courtier as you are, you also, in spite of Mr. Thorne, have heard a voice behind you saying, 'This is the way, walk in it.' That way, Johnny, you will never leave for me. As this voice told you, this is not a time for us to spend our moments like two lovers in a play; we have both of us other work to do, work laid out for us, from which we may not shrink; a path to walk in where there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage. As for me, if I can follow in any degree in the holy path my uncle walked in, growing more into the life of Jesus as he grew into it, it is enough for me; as for you, you will go on through the dark days that are at hand, as your way shall lead you, and as the divine voice shall call; and when I hear your name, as I shall hear it, Johnny, following as the divine call shall lead, you may be sure that my heart will beat delightedly at the name of a very noble gentleman who loves me, and whom—I love."
The evening sun that lighted all the place went down suddenly behind the hedges of the garden, and the room grew dark.
CHAPTER VIII.
The manner of life at Gidding went on after this without the least alteration, and Inglesant's position in the family remained the same. Two or three days after, Mr. Thorne returned, and had an interview with Mary Collet alone. She told him she had not thought of marriage with any one, but had dedicated her life to other work. He attempted a flowing discourse upon the evils of celibacy, and managed to destroy by his manner much of the kindly feeling which Mary had conceived for him. He met John Ferrar and Inglesant coming from the Church, and Inglesant tried to exchange some kindly words with him; but he avoided conversation with him, and soon left. Inglesant passed most of his time (for he was not quite so much with Mary Collet as before) in reading, especially in Greek, and in assisting some of the family in preparing that great book, which was afterwards presented to Prince Charles. The influence of Mr. Hobbes's conversation wore off in the peaceful religious talk and way of life of this family. It was here that he had first obtained glimpses of what the divine life might be, and it was here alone that he felt any power of approach to it in his own heart. His love for Mary Collet, which was increased tenfold by the acknowledgment she had made to him, and which grew more and more every day that he spent at Gidding, associated as it was with all the teachings and incidents of these quiet holy days, made this life of devotion more delightful than can be told, and, indeed, made that life more like to heaven than any other that Inglesant ever lived. As he knelt in Church during the calm hours of prayer, and now and again looked up into Mary Collet's face from where he knelt, he often felt as though he had found the Beatific Vision already, and need seek no more, so closely was her beauty connected with all that was pure and holy in his heart. In these happy days all pride and trouble seemed to have left him, and he felt free in heart from all self-will and sin. It was a dream and unreal, doubtless; but it was allowed him not altogether without design, perhaps, in the divine counsel, and it could not be without fruit in his spiritual life.