Beyond These Voices

by M. E. Braddon

Vera turned from him, trying to hide her agitation, but the feelings he had awakened were too strong, and she let her head fall upon the arm of the sofa, and gave herself up to a passion of tears.

"Pardon?" she gasped, amidst her sobs; "you know I need pardon?"

"We all need pity and pardon. No man's life is spotless, and the life you and Claude have been living is a life of sin—aimless, sensual, godless. I have had a wide experience of men, I have known the best and the worst, and have seen the strange transmutations that may take place in a man, under certain influences—how the sinner may become a saint, and the saint fall into an abyss of sin—but I have never seen changes so sudden and so inexplicable as those I have seen in your husband, whom I have known, and I think I may say I have loved, from the time when he began to have a will and a mind."

"I hope you do not blame me for his having left the monastery and come back to the world."

"How can I blame you when his mother was the active agent? She is a good woman, though a weak one, where her affections are engaged. She was perfectly frank with me. She told me how you had refused to use your influence to keep her son in the world, and she loved you because she thought it was his love for you that made him abandon his purpose. She rejoiced in his marriage, but I doubt if she has been any more edified than I have been in watching the life you and her son have been leading since then. No, I do not blame you for Claude's sudden breakdown, but I deeply deplore that he should have turned back, since I know that his resolution to have done with the world was a right one—astounding as it seemed to me when I first heard of it. I urged him against a step for which I thought him utterly unprepared. I did not believe in his vocation, but after-consideration made me take a different view of his case. I knew that such a man would never have contemplated such a renunciation without so strong a reason that it was my duty to encourage him in his sacrifice of the world rather than to hold him back. I will say something more than this, Mrs. Rutherford, I will tell you that if it was to make his peace with God that your husband entered the Roman monastery, he lost all hope of peace when he left it, and he will never know rest for his heart and his conscience until he returns to the path that leads to the cloister."

"Claude is happy enough," Vera answered lightly. "He has so many occupations and interests. He is not as tired of things as I am. But no doubt I shall have to go on giving parties now and then, on Claude's account. He is not tired of the maelstrom, and it would not please him for me to drop out altogether, and to be talked about as eccentric, or 'not quite right.'"

She spoke with a weariness that moved the priest to pity. And then he spoke to her—as he had sometimes spoken in the past—words that were profoundly earnest, even eloquent, for what highly-educated man, or even what uneducated man, can miss being eloquent when his faith is deeply rooted and sincere, and his feelings are strongly moved?

He offered her the shelter of the Church, the only armour of defence against the weariness and wickedness of life. He would have led her in the passive way of light and love. He offered her the only certain cure for that Welt-Schmerz of which her husband had complained when he wanted to end his life in a cloister. He had pleaded with her before to-day, had tried to win her, years ago, when the pleasures of life had still something of their first freshness. He had tried vainly then, and his efforts were as vain now. She answered him coldly, almost mechanically. Yes; it was true that she was tired of everything, as Claude had been years ago, before their marriage, as he would be again perhaps by and by. But the Church could not help her. If she were to become a Roman Catholic it would only be in order to escape from the world—to do as Claude had wished to do, and make an end of a life that had lost all savour. But until she was prepared to take the veil she would remain as she was—a believer, but not in formulas—a believer, in the after-life and in the influencing minds, the purified souls that had crossed the river.

"I see you prefer Mr. Symeon's religion of the day before yesterday to that of the saints and martyrs of two thousand years," Cyprian Hammond said in his coldest tones, as he rose to leave her. "You are as dark a mystery as your husband is. God help you both, for I fear I cannot."

The grey darkness of a wet summer night was in the room as Vera rose to ring the bell and switch on the lamps. The clear white light showed her face drawn and pale, but very calm.