“Oh! mother, mother, it is all at an end, and we have parted for ever!” was poor Constance’s wailing answer. And Mrs. Channing, feeling quite sick with the various troubles that seemed to be coming upon her, inquired why it was at an end.
“He feels that the disgrace which has fallen upon us would be reflected upon him, were he to make me his wife. Mother, there is no help for it: it would disgrace him.”
“But where there is no real guilt there can be no real disgrace,” objected Mrs. Channing. “I am firmly persuaded, however mysterious and unsatisfactory things may appear, that Arthur is not guilty, and that time will prove him so.”
Constance could only shiver and sob. Knowing what she knew, she could entertain no hope.
“Poor child! poor child!” murmured Mrs. Channing, her own tears dropping upon the fair young face, as she gathered it to her sheltering bosom. “What have you done that this blight should extend to you?”
“Teach me to bear it, mother. It must be God’s will.” And Constance Channing lay in her resting-place, and there sobbed out her heart’s grief, as she had done in her early girlhood.
CHAPTER XXVIII. — AN APPEAL TO THE DEAN.
The first sharpness of the edge worn off, Arthur Channing partially recovered his cheerfulness. The French have a proverb, which is familiar to us all: “Ce n’est que le premier pas qui coute.” There is a great deal of truth in it, as experience teaches us, and as Arthur found. “Of what use my dependence upon God,” Arthur also reasoned with himself ten times a day, “if it does not serve to bear me up in this, my first trouble? As well have been brought up next door to a heathen. Let me do the best I can under it, and go my way as if it had not happened, trusting all to God.”