“I might do it,” he muttered as he strode along, “I might dash George Wardsworth from his proud position to the level of a beggar; I wonder if the haughty Grace would come to him then. To-night George Wardsworth stands on the verge of financial ruin; if he can stave off his creditors for another week, the tide will change, and he will remain as he is, wealthy, happy, and loved. To-morrow I will tell the secret to his creditors, they will foreclose, and George Wardsworth will be a penniless man, and I shall have had my revenge.”
Wrapping his ulster more closely about him to keep warm his revengeful spirit, he passed on, but in a short time paused, attracted by the unusually cheerful appearance of one of the mansions. He gazed into the window. The sight for a moment unnerved him. There seated at the piano amid all the luxury of the Egerton mansion was the one who had made him the hardhearted, revengeful man that he had become,—with her face turned to a sofa on which easily reclined George Wardsworth. How contented and happy they looked!
He had not known where Grace was living, and this sudden discovery maddened him, and he muttered, “I will do it. George Wardsworth, beware!” He started on to carry out his threat, when the sound of music recalled him. As though guided by the hand of fate, Grace had turned to the piano and run her fingers over the ivory keys. Now instrument and voice chorded together, and softly there came to the revengeful listener, the sweet harmony of Cardinal Newman’s hymn. He waited through it all, and as
“And with the morn those angels’ faces smile,
Which I have loved, long since and lost, a while.”
lingered and died away, Ralph recalled the same hymn, that other night, when his hopes had forever vanished. He heard again the voice of his beloved sister. Even now she might be watching him from the star-lit heavens above. How false was he to her trust, meditating such vengeance. He hurried away, humming to himself the words of the sacred hymn, and the business house of Wardsworth & Co. weathered the financial storm.
Next day as the glad Christmas bells heralded the story of Christ throughout the land, they mingled with the merry bells of Grace Egerton’s wedding; but they told not to the world the message which had come into one man’s heart on Christmas eve.