Heriot's Choice: A Tale

by Rosa Nouchette Carey

Alas! he had grasped the truth too late. The true woman, the true mate, the very nature akin to his own, had been beside him all these years, and he had not recognised her, blind in his pitiful worship of lesser lights.

And as he thought of the innocent girl who had pledged her faith to him, he groaned again within himself. Polly was not less dear to him in the misery that had befallen him, yet he knew, and shuddered at the knowledge, that all unwittingly he had deceived himself and her; he would love his child-wife dearly, he knew, but not as he could love a woman like Mildred.

'If she had been less reserved, less unapproachable in her gentle dignity, it might have been better for both of us,' he said to himself. 'The saint has hidden the woman; one cannot embrace a halo!' and he thought with sharp anguish how well this new phase of weakness had become her. When she had claimed his indulgence for her wayward and nervous fancies, he had felt even then a sort of pride that she should appeal to him in her helplessness.

But these were vain thoughts. It might have been better for both of them if she were lying now under the dark waters of Coop Kernan Hole, her angel soul in its native heaven. Yes, it might be far better; he did not know—he had not Mildred's faith; for as long as they must dwell together, and yet apart, in this mortal world, life could only be a bitter thing for him; but not for that should he cease to struggle.

'I have more than myself to consider,' he continued, as he rose and drew back the curtain, and looked out on the rich harvest of the sky-glittering sheaves of stars, countless worlds beyond worlds, stretching out into immensity. 'God do so to me and more also if my unkindness or fickleness cloud the clear mirror of that girlish soul. It is better, far better, for me to suffer—ay, for her too—than to throw off a responsibility at once so sacred and so pure.'

How Mildred would have gloried in this generous victory if she had witnessed it! The knowledge that the tardy blessing of his love had been vouchsafed her, though too late and in vain, would have gladdened her desolate heart, and the honour and glory of it would have decked her lonely life, with infinite blossom.

But now she could only worship his goodness from afar. None but Mildred had ever rightly read him, or knew the unselfishness that was so deeply ingrained in this man's nature. Loving and impulsive by nature, he had patiently wooed and faithfully held to the woman who had scorned his affection and provoked his forbearance; he had borne his wrecked happiness, the daily spectacle of his degradation, with a resignation that was almost sublime; he had comforted the poor sinner on her deathbed with assurances of forgiveness that had sunk into her soul with strange healing; when at last she had left him, he had buried his dead out of his sight, covering with thick sods, and heaping the earth with pious hands over the memory of her past sins.

It was this unselfishness that had first taught him to feel tenderly to the poor orphan; he had schemed out of pure benevolence to make her his wife, until the generous fancy had grown dear to him, and he had believed his own happiness involved in it.

And now that it had resulted in a bitter awakening to himself and disappointment to another, no possibility of eluding his fate ever came into his mind. Polly already belonged to him; she was his, made his own by a distinct and plighted troth; he could no more put her away from him than he would have turned away the half-frozen robin that sought refuge from the inclement storm. Mildred had betrayed her love too late; it was his lot to rescue her from death, but not to bid her welcome to a heart that should in all honour belong to another. True, it was a trial most strange and bitter—an ordeal from which flesh and blood might well shrink; but long before this he had looked into the burning fiery furnace of affliction, and he knew, as such men know, that though he might be cast therein bound and helpless, that even there the true heart could discern the form most like unto the Son of God.

It was with some such feeling as this that he lingered by Polly's side, as though to gain a minute's strength before he should be ushered into Mildred's presence.