"I may have spoken harshly," she said. "Indeed, I am sure I have. But it was of yourself with regard to yourself, and in what I said there was no thought of my own connection with the subject. As to that part of it, I can have none; but I think, however much or little a woman esteems a man, there must be something especially tender in her dealings with one who has made her the offering of his love. You will believe me, then, when I say that I am pained, deeply pained, that you should have given yours to me, or deemed its acknowledgment necessary. Words are idle and superfluous here. I can and do appreciate it; I can be, I am your friend. Forgive me if I have been harsh; in calmer moments you will come to think of me as one whose words were quick and too impulsive, but who had your interest at heart. Now let me go. Do not speak further, I beg of you; it would only pain us both."
"But a few words," I said; "a very few. You have aimed surely, and struck deep. I do not blame you for my mistake, nor for that which you term harshness. I cannot, since I recognize its truth. The difference between you and most women is, that you are brave enough to speak that truth; for you are too free from vanity or falsity of any kind, I know, ever to speak other than your earnest thoughts. I may have scoffed at creeds; I have never scoffed at God; give me at least this merit. I have dreamed a dream—we all do at some time, I believe; may yours be happy realizations always. Good-by."
With a sudden glare the firelight flashed upon the wall, and the red glow shone full upon her face, paler than usual, but calm. There were tears in her eyes as they met mine; but what woman with a woman's heart could be unmoved at such a moment?
"Good-by," she answered, almost inaudibly. I paused to hear no more; the next moment the door closed behind me, and I was in the street.
CHAPTER III.
I went abroad, through the principal cities of the old world, and by quiet ways to unpretending places, where travellers seldom go. My heart sought rest and quiet; my soul was beginning to shake off the torpor that had enchained it; taking in, almost unconsciously, silent influences that pervaded my whole being. Truths forced themselves upon me unawares, and my ears did not refuse to hear them. Across the wide Atlantic some one was praying for me, although I did not know it while she prayed—one whose face I vainly strove to banish from my memory, whose voice ran through the current of my troubled dreams. And yet it was with no hope of winning her love in the future that I opened my heart and mind to the study of sacred things. That idea never came to me. The whole purpose of my life seemed changed. How often I thought of her denunciation of my aimless existence, my "dilettante tastes and careless ways." How often I thanked her that, all unconsciously though it were, she had opened to me new avenues of thought and action. "Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all," and so the work went on. Silently but surely my heart unclosed to the heavenly dews that fell upon it and renewed it. I remained some time in France and Italy, spent a few months in Germany, and then returned to England. At the feet of one of the fathers of the Oratory in London I made my first confession, and tasted the ineffable sweetness of divine compassion.
Nearly two years had passed, and the dolce non far niente life, so natural once, grew wearisome now. At home there was work for me to do; there lay my field and my mission. I did not attempt to disguise from myself the pain and renewal of old wounds that must inevitably follow my return. However, I resolved to nerve myself for the ordeal, and promised my timidity the struggle would be short, and then the world lay before me. A world in which there were great things to be learned and conquered.
I had written to Armitage once after my departure, and received an immediate answer, asking me to continue the correspondence. To his letter I had not replied, and I was almost entirely ignorant of affairs at home.
I landed in New York one bright September day, and the first feeling of strangeness vanished as I walked through the crowded streets, and recognized the familiar faces of former acquaintances. My whilom landlady received me with open arms; my old quarters had just been vacated, and I was speedily reinstalled. I had not been in town two days, when Armitage rushed in one evening, glad to see me, and brimful of news.
"Strange freak of yours that, Ed," he said. "I came around here one night by appointment; old lady met me with the information that you had sailed that day. I couldn't believe it. Went to Helen's, to see if she knew any thing about it; but she didn't. Then I felt sure the whole thing was a joke. You and she were such friends that I could not think you'd have gone off in that way, without saying good-by. That solitary letter of yours was worse than none at all; provoking in you to relapse into silence again, when a fellow thought he had got on your track. How soon do you intend to be off again?"