When Grace hinted of a possible pardon, the poor thing stared with a frightened expression that only seemed to say: "And I must be his slave again," as if the thought of her own bondage were the only thing on earth that could move her. But at last, being appealed to in the name of her own self-respect, she seemed to have a dawning sense that her present course was hardly the one to elevate her once again into the sphere of tranquil content whence her husband's degradation had, three short years ago, so fatally withdrawn her. The dikes of her soul burst suddenly, and the flood of sweet memories of past days, and of the happy hours spent in the old farm-house, of the flood of womanliness and pity, of the sensibility of the mother, of the forbearance of the Christian, broke over her in saving waves, each teaching the same lesson in their infinite variety of tenderest human voices. She rose, took her child in her arms, and followed her young protectress nearly as far as the prison. Grace would go no further, but agreed to wait till the interview with the condemned man was over. The woman came out weeping and softened. Her husband was at least not obdurate, and expressed sincere regret for what he had been led to do. He bade his wife implore of the unknown lady who had so generously befriended them to accept the blessing he was not worthy to give, but which nevertheless was the last and only tribute a dying man could offer. Grace shuddered as this message was conveyed to her through tears and sobs, but her companion was too greatly busied with her own griefs to notice it.
One evening, as Edmund Oakhurst sat, with his promised wife, in the room the presence of the dead had hallowed to their simple, trusting hearts, he was astonished at her unusual agitation, and at the remark she quietly made as the expression of it.
"Edmund, I am going to get a reprieve for Eldridge, and that may lead to a commutation of sentence. He is very penitent, I hear, and, for his wife's sake, I should wish it."
"But, Grace," replied her lover, with characteristic common sense, "if he is penitent and well-prepared, it would be safer even for his own soul's sake that he should suffer the full penalty of the law."
"We are no judges of that, Edmund," she answered, her bright eyes turning, with suppressed enthusiasm, towards the open window, all bathed in wintry sunlight. "God, I think, must mean otherwise for him, or else he would never have put this idea in my mind. I have thought of it ever since he lay there" (pointing to the centre of the room, where the dear dead had rested), "and his spirit seemed to whisper it constantly to my heart, as if it were some message of God's mercy, of which he vouchsafed to make us the bearers to the rulers of earth."
"Grace, I thought your training would have led you a different way. I thought you would be the first to see God's hand in the established law. Darling, this is sentimentalism. You can forgive the wretched man, and pray for him, and help the forsaken ones he leaves behind, without hindering the law in its operations. You will have fulfilled the Christian duty of forgiveness, without interfering with another sphere of equally binding duty on the community."
"I think you might be right in an ordinary case, Edmund, but God seems to put this beyond common rules, to me."
"Is that not pride, Grace?"
"I trust not," she replied, gently but firmly; "it is a call, a command from God, just as my father's conversion, and my still more unexpected one, were calls from on high—direct calls that took our hearts by storm."
"Grace, dear, I cannot help thinking it presumptuous in you to dream of these things; you make them miracles almost!"