"Good night, Mary. God bless you!"
When he had left her, she took the ancient crucifix again in her hands, and kissed the five wounds silently. There is no better prayer. It is the prayer of conquered self; the acceptance of our sufferings in union with those of Christ.
"I must get well and be his second guardian angel," she said.
Vane spent half the night in studying and reading. Once he said out loud, "God help me through it!" Then came the thought, "How dare I ask for help, when I myself have sought temptation? Oh! if Mary would only get well and be my better self once more. What did she say once about the inefficacy of vicarious goodness?"
VII.
"May I come in?" asked Mary at the door of Lady Sackvil's music-room.
"By all means. I am going to play something for George and Flossy that will fascinate your maternal fancy." And with the little boy and girl on either side, she played the Scenes from Childhood, with little paraphrases of explanation full of merriment or pathos, as the case might be. The children were bewitched. Mary looked at her lovely face, her tasteful dress, her graceful though rather large hands, moving on the piano as in a native element; she listened to her exquisitely sympathetic playing, to her charming talk with the children, and a sense of despair came over her.
"How can I win him back?" she thought. "O God! it is so hard to bear, just because I am not handsome or clever. Surely my love, my fidelity must be more beautiful than her beauty, if he could only see clearly. It is useless for me to compete with this exquisite creature on any natural grounds. And yet, how strange it all is! I don't suppose he is the most attractive man in existence; and yet, it would no more occur to me to measure him with other men than if he were an archangel."
Lady Sackvil was singing now—little songs for children, by Taubert, cradle songs, and Volkslieder. George and Flossy were twins, and this was their birthday. "Aunt Milly" was as much bent on fascinating her juvenile audience as any prima donna in a royal theatre. She had not much voice; but her singing had the same sympathetic quality which made her playing delight every one, learned or unlearned. Those who were incapable of appreciating her sound musical training, her clever interpretation of the best compositions, her freedom from mannerism, whether pedantry or sentimentality, could derive pleasure from her delicious touch and the indefinable grace of her playing.