But I find that again I am using superfluous if not wholly irrelevant speech. Let me say, however, that had I possessed more curiosity—or, rather, if I had expressed more curiosity—friend Afton would have told me, as she afterward did, that the woman was not so entirely alone as she imagined herself to be, for that weekly letters reached friend Afton wherein were goodly wages for the care of the stricken one.
That my affairs prospered I am glad to relate—that in the six months I should be here I should accumulate an agreeable sum might have pleased me. But what was that sum to me now, when I realized to what purpose I had expected to put it? Yet my greed received a check. I had a letter from friend Hicks. It was a most grievous letter: my money, all that he held in trust for me (and it was my all), had been stolen from his keeping. The theft had occurred more than a month ago, but as he had sedulously hoped to detect the culprit, he had kept the fact from me for shame at what might be termed his negligence of reposed trust. He had instigated diligent search, but nothing had come of it: there was no one to accuse. He had determined, however, to pay back to my account from his own moneys the full amount, and had only informed me of the loss that there might be no secrecy between us, and that I should never hear from outside parties that this thing had occurred, and that he had used most reprehensive tact to disguise the fact from me. I wrote a letter to him. I reminded him that the money was of no account—that as it had been intended for the well-known purpose, and as my marriage was to be at no set time, let it rest to my loss, and not his, for that I would never accept of his money to cover what was truthfully a theft from me.
I heard long afterward that he let his daughter read this letter, as he knew that she was often with Richard Jordan, and he desired to acquaint her that I meant to be well in all my principles. This was as I understood it.
The loss of this money gave me little concern, I assure thee; and now that it would never be put to its originally-intended use, I perhaps cared less than I ordinarily might have cared; for friend Barbara's long silence could help me but to one conclusion, and that was that she would never be my wife. For had she consented to be guided by her former promise, her confession of much care for another man would have most effectively debarred me from calling into requisition that promise so exactingly obtained from her. My wife must have no fondness for another man than me. And yet when, a few days after the receipt and reply of her father's letter, another in friend Barbara's writing was placed in my hand, I can but say that more joy than I had ever before experienced was mine, and I thought of Miriam's song so full of triumph and gladness. And then the wonderful words of the psalm came to me. "'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me,'" I said aloud, and thought of poor friend Jordan as she had understood those words so short a time ago.
Suppose Barbara had written in answer to my letter to her—had owned that her thought of the man was a delusion, and that she cared for me, and me only, above all others in the world! I carried the letter by me for many an hour, for it was business-time when I had it, and I let nothing interfere with needful duties of the day. It lay within my pocket pulseless, as a letter always is: its envelope had my name upon it carefully and neatly inscribed. Then when I had an hour to myself I walked, not more briskly than usual, to a sunny hollow surrounded by new boards smelling most pleasantly of the rich forests they had helped to form, and there, surrounded by deal that had held many a singing bird's voice in its time, I broke the seal of Barbara's second letter to me. I think I was vastly stricken as I read it—more stricken perhaps than life can ever experience twice. Did she write as I had most hoped and desired? It was a long letter, and I read it through twice to fully comprehend it. She was a thief! she herself had stolen the money! She knew that her father must have written me that the money was gone, and she did not wish to see the blame rest on an innocent person. Her father had been harsher than usual with her, and, when she would have asserted herself in many ways, had always referred her to me, telling her that I was the rightful one to say what might and what might not be: her father had refused to hear her make mention of the man she had mentioned to me, and had not recognized her being with him at all. (I could see in this that friend Hicks had tried more than arbitrary means to reduce his daughter's mind to the level of his wishes. But to the letter.) How could she, then, she wrote, tell her father of the taking of the money? She trusted that I might not think her overly bold, but if I did, it made no difference to her, for she was rendered desperate on all sides. (Ah, friend Barbara! thy father had ever such a cold reserve, that was not meant unkindly, but nevertheless was overly severe.) She could trust me, for it was my own money she had taken. (I bethink me it was but an odd trust at best.) She had taken the money to send to the man she cared so much for: he was a very poor man, and the congregation of which he was the hired preacher was poor; and as they had built a church which they could not afford to pay for, it was but in reason that they could not pay the minister of the church. The church was what the world's people call "a split" from another church—split because the people quarrelled about the Thirty-nine Articles, whatever they be, one party wanting thirty-eight or forty, and the other perhaps the original number. She knew that the minister was woefully in debt; that no one would trust him any further; that he had met and told her nothing at all of it; that he was duly polite to her, and mentioned none of his affairs at all. (O Barbara! how thee shielded him!) But she had questioned a woman who knew much of him, and the woman had said that he must have money for a certain secret purpose, the nature of which purpose the woman refused to tell, and that he was crazed for money. Barbara had asked the woman if the purpose were a sinful or shameful purpose, but the answer had been that it was the most holy one a man could have. Then Barbara had looked upon his white face and knew of his straits, and had pitied him. It was borne in upon her that she should help him. "Thee would have felt so, I am assured," she wrote. Then looking around her, confused by many and conflicting feelings, sad and grieving for herself, having no one to go to in the greatest trial a woman can have, she had seen but one thing to do: she called to mind Samuel Biddle, and how generously he had acted toward her—more generously than she had reason to suppose another man could ever do. Friend Biddle's letter to her was couched in such kindly terms that she knew it had been no great overthrow of feeling on his part to give her the liberty which she had long debated with herself whether to accept or not; and had finally concluded to do so. Then she had taken the money from her father's iron safe. She had sent it anonymously to the man, though she feared that he suspected from whom it came; and that was the saddest stroke of all, "for, friend Biddle," she wrote, "I know not if I am anything unto him, but I do assure thee he is much to me." (Poor friend Barbara! how I pitied thee for that!)
This was all of the letter, and I read it through twice.
I had gotten over my foolish emotion of disappointment, as I have told thee before this, and I went back to my office and indited a reply to the epistle immediately. "Let it be as thee has done, and thee may think that I fully sympathize with thee." That was my only reply.
And when I thought over the letter—her letter—from beginning to end, all day long, I did not see that I could have indited a different reply. Still, when I went home to friend Afton's house, and friend Afton came to me and told me that friend Jordan had had a more miserable day than ever, although my sympathy was fully aroused, yet it was with a sense of relief that I entered my room and closed the door, for I bethought me that I had much to ponder on. But my thought was interrupted: the poor demented woman was weeping in her room. She was stormy in her grief, and I heard friend Afton scolding. I opened my door. "Friend Jordan, is thee grieved?" I asked.
"Oh, Quaker," she cried, running to me, "they are all in the sky calling to me, and this woman will not let me reach them."
"She would have jumped out," whispered friend Afton, "and I had to nail down the sash."