Sorrows endured in silence are ever doubly felt. The nature of Rachel Gray was silent; she had never asked for sympathy; she had early been taught to expect and accept in its stead, its bitter step-sister Ridicule. Derided, laughed at, she had learned to dread that the look of a human being should catch a glimpse of her sorrows. If her little troubles were thus treated—how would her heavier griefs fare?
And now no more than ever did Rachel trouble any with her burden. Why should she? Who, what was she that others should care whether or not her father loved her! That he did not sufficiently, condemned her to solitude. The pitying eye of God might, indeed, look down upon her with tenderness and love, but from her brethren Rachel expected nothing.
And thus it was that, on this night, after consoling the idle sorrows of an indulged child, Rachel, sitting in solitude, found the weight of her own grief almost intolerable. Like all shy and nervous persons, she was deeply excitable. Anger she knew not; but emotions as vehement, though more pure, could trouble her heart. And now she was moved, and deeply moved, by a sense of injustice and of wrong. Her father wronged her— perhaps he knew it not; but he wronged her. "God Almighty had not given him a child, she felt, to treat it thus, with mingled dislike and contempt Were there none to receive his slights and his scorn, but his own daughter?"
She rose, and walked up and down the room with some agitation. Then came calmer and gentler thoughts, moving her heart until her tears flowed freely. Had she not failed that day—had she not been too cold in her entreaties, too easily daunted by the first rejection? Had she but allowed her father to see the love, deep and fervent, which burned in his daughter's heart—he would not, he could not so coldly have repelled and cast her from him.
"And why not try again?" murmured an inner voice; "the kingdom of Heaven is taken by storm—and what is the kingdom of Heaven, but the realm of love?"
At first, this seemed a thought so wild, that Rachel drew back from it in alarm, as from an abyss yawning at her feet. But even as our looks soon become familiar with images of the wildest danger, so the thought returned; and she shrank not back from it. Besides, what had she to lose? Nothing! With a sort of despair, she resolved to go and seek Thomas Gray, and attempt once more to move him. "If he rejects me now," she added, inwardly, "I shall submit, and trouble him no more."
The hour was not late; besides, in her present mood, the timid Rachel felt above fear. She was soon dressed—soon on her road. This time neither annoyance nor evil befell her. She passed like a shadow through crowds, and like a shadow was unheeded. The night was dark and dreary; a keen wind whistled along the streets—but for either cold or darkness Rachel cared not. Her thoughts flowed full and free in her brain; for once, she felt that she could speak; and a joyful presentiment in her heart told her that she would, and should be heard—and not in vain.
Absorbed in those thoughts, Rachel scarcely knew what speed she had made, until, with the mechanical impulse of habit, she found herself stopping before the second hand ironmonger's shop. Wakening as from a dream, and smiling at herself, she went on. Rachel had expected to find the shop of Thomas Gray closed, and himself absent; but the light that burned from his dwelling, and shed its glow on the opposite houses, made her heart beat with joy and hope. Timidly, she looked in through the glass panes; the shop was vacant; her father was, no doubt, in the back parlour. Rachel entered; the door-bell rang. She paused on the threshold, expecting to see him appear from within, nerving herself to bear his cold look, and severe aspect; but he came not He was either up-stairs, or in some other part of the house, or next door with a neighbour.
There was a chair in the shop; Rachel took it, sat down, and waited—how long, she herself never knew; for seconds seemed hours, and all true consciousness of time had left her. At length, she wondered; then she feared—why was her father's house so silent and so deserted? She went to the door, and looked down the street. It was still and lonely; every house was shot up; and even from the neighbouring thoroughfare, all sounds of motion and life seemed gone.
Suddenly Rachel remembered the little public-house to which her father had once sent her. She had often seen him going to it in the evening; perhaps he was there now. In the shadow of the houses, she glided up to the tavern door—it stood half open—she cautiously looked in; and standing, as she did in the gloom of the street, she could do so unseen. The landlord sat dozing in the bar—not a soul was with him. Rachel glanced at the clock above his head; it marked a quarter to twelve. Dismayed and alarmed, she returned to her father's house. It so chanced, that as she walked on the opposite side of the narrow street, a circumstance that had before escaped her notice, now struck her. In the room above the shop of Thomas Gray, there burned a light. She stopped short, and looked at it with a beating heart. She felt sure her father was there.