Elizabeth had an humble way with her sometimes, and, as has been said, her own achievements seemed to her worthless. She had nothing of that blatant quality, vanity, which claims from others and by reason of its arrogance gets to be called pride; but her dignity strove above everything to be sufficient for itself. Such a spirit shrinks from claiming the appreciation it hungers for, shrinks back into itself, and passes for shyness, or humility, or anything but what it is, that supreme pride that seeks from the world its highest, the allegiance of love, in return for its own love of what is true and grand. Finding a denial in those it meets, it draws away in a silence that to people who rate assertion as power seems tameness, for its action is beyond them, like sights that need a telescope, or sounds out of reach of the ear. Pride like this has two possibilities. It is a Saint Christopher that will serve only the highest. That unfound, it grows bitter, and shrinks more and more into itself, and withers into hopelessness. But if it find the Highest and draw upon that love too great for change or failure, then all things have a new proportion, for grown up to the shelter of the eternities, human judgments dwindle, and human slights, however they may scar, cannot destroy.
The person Elizabeth seemed to see most clearly was Archdale in that one moment in which all his heart had been revealed. Yet it seemed to her that it was not of him that she was thinking most but of Katie's pain and anger. If she were to be separated from Stephen Archdale forever, what wonder that she was grieved with the woman who had done it? For Elizabeth knew that though Katie liked admiration, she loved Stephen. Elizabeth herself saw that he was superior, not only in appearance, but in mind, to any of the suitors with whom she confessed that in event of the worst it was possible that the girl might console herself.
But Elizabeth was by no means so far above thoughts of herself that any other woman's suffering was bringing to her face the look that came upon it as her pride and her fear forced her away from the belief she had determined to hold, into a horror lest all she dreaded was true, lest she was really the wife of the man who at the very lightest disliked her. She could not blame him for that, and it would not have been the worst thing, since she cared nothing about him; she had not fotgotten his look of scorn on that day of the wedding, it came back to her often; but what of that, she asked herself, since she returned it? But to-night there was more than this; to-night his heart had been shown, and Elizabeth had seen how she stood for misery to him, seen, too, another danger which she had never thought of before. This possibility, remote enough, would not be put out of sight now. It might happen that if there were proved to have been no marriage between herself and Stephen Archdale, the certainty of this would come too late to save Katie for him. Elizabeth turned wild at the sense of her own helplessness. "I am one too many in the world," she thought; she could not have spoken, all her will was concentrating into action. Night had overswept her; she forgot everything in her thought for the beings whom she saw were covered by the same cloud. She was to be always an ugly obstacle to the happiness of Katie and of a man she pitied. Whichever way she turned it seemed that there was no other chance for her. She would not go through the world one too many. On coming into the room she had put back the curtains for more air and had blown out the candles. She did not light them again; all that she was going to do she could see well enough to do by the stars and the long summer twilight. She sat down in the armchair beside her table, drew her dressing-case toward her, and opening it, unlocked one compartment with a tiny key found in another. The package so carefully locked away here was something that Mrs. Eveleigh in one of her nervous moods had given her to keep, lest some accident should happen. To be sure, she had given it under promise that no one should know of it, for she had used it for only a little while for her complexion, she explained to Elizabeth, and might never want it again. But, on the other hand, she might. It had been a good deal of trouble to buy it; she did not want to run another gauntlet of questions. So the powder had lain in Elizabeth's dressing-case, unremembered even, until to-night. Now she took it out with a firm hand; there was no sign of shrinking or fear about her, not because she was incapable of it, for she had her terrors, though she showed them less than some women. But she was a soldier in the midst of battle whose only object is to dislodge the enemy; what it will cost is not counted. She waited a moment, then opened the paper so steadily that she spilled none of the powder in the dimness. She had no last words to say, nothing to leave; it would be understood. She spread out the paper a little more, still firmly, still so absorbed in the thought of escape as to have taken no account of the way. Then she bent her face over it and slowly drew nearer. Suddenly she raised her head; it seemed as if a voice had called her, a voice so clear, so still, so full of power that she waited submissive and wondering. In another moment she came to herself, the brave self that suffering had thrust away usurping its place by a wicked will. She drew a long breath as if waking from a horrible dream, and sat quiet for a while, her hands clenched and brought together. She shivered in the summer air. Suddenly she rose, took up the paper, and going to the window, tossed it out, scattering its contents. "It shall never tempt any one like this again," she said aloud.
Then slipping down to the floor, she leaned her arms upon the windowsill and buried her face in them.
"God, forgive me," she cried. "It was Thy cross that I was casting off. But my life is in Thy guidance. I will take all the pain from Thy hand. Forgive me. Help me against my wicked pride. And in return for the misery I have brought, give me something good that I may do, some little favor. And yet—Thy will be done," she added brokenly, then trembled lest that Will should refuse the one request which seemed to promise any relief; trembled, but did not retract. "I will wait, I will trust," she said, and looked into the depths beyond the stars with no fear that her prayer would fall back into itself like a sound which, finding no home, returns weary, and robbed of its meaning and strength. She knew that the something which fell upon her was forgiveness too deep for words and an assurance of guidance. For the telephone is not new but as old as humanity and with a call in every man's consciousness. It summons him at times to leave what he is doing and listen. And when in some depth of need he sends a message, then, because no other ear than his may catch the answer given, is there for that reason none? The soul is like science; it cannot break through its boundaries and burst in upon the unknowable that surrounds its little realm of knowledge, but wherever it presses against these barriers they recede without being destroyed, and the adventurer, still in his own domain, brings back new treasures to the old life. The source of power is, we know, forever beyond us, but in going out toward that we enter the realm of power and are charged with it.
In the stillness that had fallen upon her Elizabeth rose softly, and made her preparations for the night.
Archdale came down early the next morning. He stood a few moments in the hall waiting for the appearance of the person he had come to meet. As he looked out into the garden, a picture seemed to rise before him, one that was not within his horizon at present. He seemed to be looking out into a garden as he had been that morning when, with his mother, Sir Temple and Lady Dacre, he had paid a visit to Madam Pepperell. Looking into this garden absently he had seen Elizabeth. Unaware of visitors in the house, she was going on with her occupation of gathering roses. Archdale the day before, wondering about her complicity with Edmonson's scheme had had this vision of her come between him and any belief in this. It came again that next morning as he was waiting to see Edmonson alone, and imagined his mind full only of what he had learned from him the day before. He remembered the expression of her face; he had never seen it gentle like this. She had been standing only a few rods distant with scarcely so much as her profile turned toward him. A cluster was in her left hand; in her right a stem just broken off, holding a rose and several buds. She was perfectly still, seeming to have forgotten to move, to be lost in reverie. She saw him no more than her roses; she was alone with her thoughts. There was a strength and a sadness in the delicate outline, especially in the mouth, which he had not seen before, perhaps, because he had never studied her profile. As he had thought of this expression while he had stood before the uncovered portrait, he had said to himself that certainly she had not been willingly concerned in helping forward another's misfortune. While he sat watching her he had been inclined to go to her, obeying his impulse rather than his judgment, which told him that even if he were in any way the cause of her sorrow, he could do nothing to help her. But Lady Dacre had spoken to him at the moment, and before he could answer her he had seen a servant go up to Elizabeth, and had perceived that she was coming into the house.
This morning also it was Lady Dacre's voice that broke in upon him. She was hurrying through the hall with eyes on the open door.
"Good morning," she said. "Has Madam Archdale gone into the garden yet? I told her I should be there first this morning, and now she has stolen a march upon me." Archdale was startled. Yes, his mother was in the garden, he saw her now. Was the other only a vision? "Will you follow, Temple?" cried her ladyship. Her husband, who had been coming down stairs as his wife spoke, greeted Archdale hastily and accepted her invitation, for some one else stood in the hall, having entered it, his observer supposed, from the library, for he had not seen him on the stairs. This other one was coming forward to his host when Sir Temple passed, and in another moment he stood face to face with Archdale.
"Good morning," he said with a bow. His expression had changed from the sneer it had worn as he stood in the shadow covertly watching Archdale's face. "Friends, is it not?" he added, and he smiled and held out his hand tentatively. His host hesitated in the least, then took it. He had been obliged to remind himself first that instinct was not an autocrat of one's manners. Edmonson perceived the hesitation, slight as it was, and the shadow in his heart sprang up and darkened his face for a moment. Then he gave a short laugh, and turned toward the sunshine. "That's right," he said; "let us part on good terms; it's luck, not I, that you find against you."