"It is more than hard, it is wicked," the other replied with earnestness. "But first be sure that the person is innocent; and then, having ascertained that, try to recollect, my dear friend, that you alone are not to right all the wrongs of earth. Some must be endured, some must be rectified by others than you. And, after all, I am inclined to believe that, as a rule, no innocent person falls into serious difficulty without having been faulty in some way, as regards prudence, at least. Now, how is such a person to learn wisdom by experience, if there is always somebody at his elbow to save him from the consequences of his own act. It is not pleasant to be obliged to check a generous impulse in ourselves or in others; and it is not pleasant, when we are in trouble, to be left to fight our way out of it alone. But if we are always performing works of supererogation, we may unfit ourselves for performing duties. And as to finding our track, unassisted, through difficult ways, and learning by sharp experience how to avoid them, it develops our inward resources, and is good for us, though bitter."
The last words were delivered with an incisive emphasis so delicate as to be observable only in one who seldom spoke with emphasis, and it touched the listener deeply. F. O'Donovan never complained, and he had never made any special revelations to his friend; but one who knew his life could not doubt that he had learned to take his very sleep in armor. He had risen from poverty and obscurity, as the sparks rise; had borne the jealousy of those whom he left behind, and of those he had eclipsed in his higher estate; had been obliged to control in himself a haughty spirit and a tender heart; yet had never made a misstep of any consequence, nor given his most jealous detractor an angry word to remember.
His place was in a metropolitan church; but, at his own request, he had been sent for a time to a quiet country parish, that he might have leisure to complete a literary work for which city life and the demands of a host of admirers were too distracting.
He had followed F. Chevreuse from his own house to the prison, and from the prison to Mrs. Gerald's, and he understood perfectly what he would wish to do and where he had been disappointed. Honora had, indeed, told him, half weeping, of the request she had refused, and had proposed to make him the bearer of her retraction.
"To think I should have set up my sense of right against his!" she exclaimed. "To think that I should have refused him anything!"
And yet, though she was sincere in her regret, she was greatly relieved when F. O'Donovan declined to carry her message, assuring her that F. Chevreuse would doubtless, on second thought, approve of her refusal. To have sent a direct message to a man who stood before the world charged with a horrible crime, and, perhaps, to have received a message in return from him—to have placed herself thus in communication with one of the most darkly accused inmates of that jail which she had passed frequently during her whole life without ever dreaming of crossing the threshold, even for a work of mercy—the very possibility plunged Miss Pembroke into confusion and distress. The regions of crime were as far removed from her experience as the regions that lie outside of human life; and, of herself, she would as soon have thought of following any one to purgatory as to prison.
That scrupulous correctness and propriety which we admire in these fair women, whose whole lives are passed in the delicately screened cloisters of the world, shows sometimes a reverse not so admirable. They are seldom the friends in need; and when a fearless heroism is wanted, they do not come forward. They draw back instinctively those garments they have been at pains to preserve so white from contact with the blood-stained, dusty One who goes staggering by with the thorns on his head and the cross on his shoulders. A look of pity and horror may follow him from the safe place where they stand; but it is not they who pierce their way through the rabble, with Veronica, to take the imprint of his misery on to their stainlessness, nor they who weep around his tomb through dews and darkness, careless of the world in their unspeakable sorrow, and floating above the world in the unspeakable ecstasy to which that sorrow gives place. No, the charity of the human angel is limited. Only the angels of God, and those generous souls whose anguish of pity for the suffering is a constantly purifying fire, can go down into the darker paths of life and receive no stain.
"I am glad F. O'Donovan came," Mrs. Gerald remarked when their second visitor left them. "I feel better for being reassured by him. Of course, we all know that we cannot throw ourselves away for everybody, as dear F. Chevreuse's impulse is; yet he is so good, so much better than any one else, one feels almost guilty in not following him every step he wishes. His utter unselfishness and generosity are very disturbing to one sometimes; for we must think of ourselves."
"It is well for the world that there are those who see no such necessity," Miss Pembroke replied briefly.