"You have helped me hitherto, though I did not know whose hand was smoothing my way; do not give up now, despairing. Kitty and Stephen will be faithful, no one else need know the secrets of that dreadful room.
"I am not so selfish as you think. I do not forget that you are only less miserable than I am, as you have only grief and not remorse to bear. Heaven send you the peace I have no right to ask for myself."
I folded my letter quickly and sealed it; then with one more look at Kitty, and one hurried glance around the familiar room, I put out the candle, took the package from the table and stole out. Where should I put my letter? It must be within reach of no other hand than his; no one must know that I had written to him. The hall—no words can tell its gloom, the early dawn just turning its darkness into spectral dimness. If inevitable detection had been the result, I could not have helped the hurried, incautious steps with which I crossed it, and listened at Mr. Rutledge's door. Within the inner room I heard a step pacing restlessly up and down, but no other sound. He was awake, then; I stooped, and softly tried the handle of the door. It was locked; he would be the first to open it; so I slipped the letter under it, and springing up, fled down the stairs and through the hall, without a look behind, with no thought but that of escape, no fear so strong as that of detection. I had forgotten everything now but flight.
It was Heaven's mercy and nothing else, as poor Kitty would have said, that no one was aroused by the loud sliding of the bolts, that required all my strength to move; I hardly stopped to pull the heavy door to, after me; I should not have heard, if the whole household had been in pursuit, for the wild throbbing of my heart, the maddening pressure on my brain, the choking fear, kept me insensible to sight and sound. I flew on, through the shrubbery, across the unfrequented, dark orchard; my feet tangled in the rank, wet grass that lay in the field beyond it, my light dress tore to fragments in the thicket that bordered the western extremity of the park; but on, till the thickest of the forest sheltered me; then sinking exhausted and panting upon the ground, I hid my eyes and shuddered at the terrors I was flying, and the dismal blank, and dread uncertainty of what was beyond.
[CHAPTER XXXVIII.]
"Vous qui pleurez, venez à ce Dieu, car il pleure.
Vous qui souffrez, venez à lui, car il guerit.
Vous qui tremblez, venez à lui, car il sourit.
Vous qui passez, venez à lui, car il demeure."
ECRIT AU BAS D'UN CRUCIFIX.
The years that have passed since that night, have been long and strange years. At first they were too strange and hopeless and blank to be borne without repining; I knew but too well the curse that turns life into a burden and a dread, and makes the wretched soul cry in the morning, "would God, it were evening," and in the evening, "would God, it were morning!" I knew what it was to dread solitude, and yet to shrink from the reproach of any human face; to hate life, and yet to fear death; to know to the fullest the terrors of remorse and the bitterness of repentance.
I have passed through this howling wilderness, passed through it once and forever; it lies black and horrible behind me; when I look back, I cross myself and murmur a prayer; but beyond—thank God's good grace—lies a plain path; over it shines the steady star of faith, the cold, clear light of duty fills the sky, the still air breathes peace; the promise is faint of the life that now is, but of that which is to come, of the bliss that never tires, the joy that never ceases, the majesty of the Glory that fills the heaven beyond the dividing limit of that horizon, I can dream and hope, till the dream fills my soul to satisfaction, and the hope grows strong as life itself.
The daily routine of my life is easily described, and the occupations that served to soothe and sustain me will not take many words to paint. The refuge I had sought upon my flight from Rutledge, was not distant; Mr. Shenstone's compassion was the first I asked; he heard, fresh from its occurrence, the awful story of Victor's death, the not less awful story of his life. I needed no truer friend than he; and though it opened anew the recollection of his own early trial, I did not suffer from the association it awoke; he was only tenderer and kinder.