by T. S. Arthur
“The record is very explicit.”
“Read in the simple letter, I grant that it is. But”—
“Paul! It grieves me to throw an icy chill over your ardent feelings,” said Mrs. Denison, interrupting him. “But you may rest well assured of one thing: Jessie Loring, though no longer Mrs. Dexter, will not consider herself free to marry again.”
“Do you know her views on this subject?” asked the young man, quickly.
“I think I know the woman. In the spirit of a martyr she took up her heavy cross, and bore it while she had strength to stand. The martyr spirit is not dead in her. It will not die while life remains. In the fierce ordeals through which she has passed, she has learned to endure; and now weak nature must yield, if in any case opposed to duty.”
“Have you met her of late?” inquired the young man, curiously.
“No, but I talked with Mrs. De Lisle about her not long ago. Mrs. De Lisle is her most intimate friend, and knows her better, perhaps, than any other living person.”
“And what does she say? Have you conversed with her on this subject?”
“No; but I have learned enough from her in regard to Jessie’s views of life and duty, as well as states of religious feeling, to be justified in saying that she will not consider a court’s decree of sufficient authority in the case. Alas! my young friend, I cannot see cause for gratulation so far as you are concerned. To her, the act of divorce may give a feeling of relief. A dead weight is stricken from her limbs. She can walk and breathe more freely; but she will not consider herself wholly untrammelled. Nor would I. Paul, Paul! the gulf that separates you is still impassable! But do not despair! Bear up bravely, manfully still. Six years of conflict, discipline, and stern obedience to duty have made you more worthy of a union with that pure spirit than you were when you saw her borne from your eager, outstretched arms. Her mind is ripening heavenward—let yours ripen in that direction also. You cannot mate with her, my friend, in the glorious hereafter, unless you are of equal purity. Oh, be patient, yet hopeful!”
Hendrickson had bowed his head, and was now sitting with his eyes upon the floor. He did not answer after Mrs. Denison ceased speaking, but still sat deeply musing.
“It is a hard saying!” He had raised his eyes to the face of his maternal friend. “A hard saying, and hard to bear. Oh, there is something so like the refinement of cruelty in these stern events which hold us apart, that I feel at times like questioning the laws that imposed such fearful restrictions. We are one in all the essentials of marriage, Mrs. Denison. Why are we thus sternly held apart?”
“It is one of the necessities of our fallen nature,” Mrs. Denison replied, in her calm, yet earnest voice, “that spiritual virtues can only have birth in pain. We rise into the higher regions of heavenly purity only after the fires have tried us. Some natures, as you know, demand a severer discipline than others. Yours, I think, is one of them. Jessie’s is another. But after the earthly dross of your souls is consumed, the pure gold will flow together, I trust, at the bottom of the same crucible. Wait, my friend; wait longer. The time is not yet.”
A sadder man than when he came, did Mr. Hendrickson leave the house of Mrs. Denison on that day. She had failed to counsel him according to his wishes; but her words, though they had not carried full conviction to his clouded understanding, had shown him a goal still far in advance, towards which all of true manhood in him felt the impulse to struggle.
CHAPTER XXVI.
WHEN the news of Mr. Dexter’s second marriage reached Mr. Hendrickson, he said:
“Now she is absolved!” but his friend Mrs. Denison, replied:
“I doubt if she will so consider it. No act of Mr. Dexter’s can alter her relation to the Divine law. I am one of these who cannot regard him as wholly innocent. And yet his case is an extreme one; for his wife’s separation was as final as if death had broken the bond. But I will not judge him; he is the keeper of his own conscience, and the All-Wise is merciful in construction.”
“I believe Jessie Loring to be as free to give her hand as before her marriage.”
“With her will rest the decision,” was Mrs. Denison’s answer.
“Have you seen her?” inquired Hendrickson.
“No.”
“Has she been seen outside of her aunt’s dwelling?”
“If so I have never heard of it.”
“Do you think, if I were to call at Mrs. Loring’s, she would see me?”
“I cannot answer the question.”
“But what is your opinion?”
“If I were you,” said Mrs. Denison, “I would not call at present.”
“Why.”
“This act of her former husband is too recent. Let her have time to get her mind clear as to her new relation. She may break through her seclusion now, and go abroad into society again. If so you will meet her without the constraint of a private interview.”
“But she may still shut herself out from the world. Isolation may have become a kind of second nature.”
“We shall see,” replied Mrs. Denison. “But for the present I think it will be wiser to wait.”
Weeks, even months, passed, and Paul Hendrickson waited in vain. He was growing very impatient.
“I must see her! Suspense like this is intolerable!” he said, coming in upon Mrs. Denison one evening.
“I warn you against it,” replied Mrs. Denison.
“I cannot heed the warning.”
“Her life is very placid, I am told by Mrs. De Lisle. Would you throw its elements again into wild disturbance?”
“No; I would only give them their true activity. All is stagnation now. I would make her life one thrill of conscious joy.”
“I have conversed with Mrs. De Lisle on this subject,” said Mrs. Denison.
“You have? And what does she say?”
“She understands the whole case. I concealed nothing—was I right?”
“Yes. But go on.”
“She does not think that Jessie will marry during the lifetime of Mr. Dexter,” said Mrs. Denison.
Hendrickson became pale.
“I fear,” he remarked, “that I did not read her heart aright. I thought that we were conjoined in spirit. Oh, if I have been in error here, the wreck is hopeless!”
He showed a sudden and extreme depression.
“I think you have not erred, Paul. But if Jessie regards the conditions of divorce, given in Matthew, as binding, she is too pure and true a woman ever to violate them. All depends upon that. She could not be happy with you, if her conscience were burdened with the conviction that your marriage was not legal in the Divine sense. Don’t you see how such an act would depress her? Don’t you see that, in gaining her, you would sacrifice the brightest jewel in her crown of womanhood?”
“Does Mrs. De Lisle know her views on this subject?” he asked.
“Yes.”
A quick flush mantled Hendrickson’s face.
“Well, what are they?” He questioned eagerly, and in a husky voice.
“She reads the law in Matthew and in Luke, literally.”
“The cup is indeed broken, and the precious wine spilled!” exclaimed the unhappy man, rising in strong agitation.
“Paul,” said Mrs. Denison, after this agitation had in a measure passed away; “all this I can well understand to be very hard for one who has been so patient, so true, so long suffering. But think calmly; and then ask yourself this question: Would you be willing to marry Jessie Loring while she holds her present views?”
Hendrickson bent his head to think.
“She believes,” said Mrs. Denison, “that such a marriage would be adulterous. I put the matter before you in its plainest shape. Now, my friend, are you prepared to take a woman for your wife who is ready to come to you on such terms? I think not. No, not even if her name be Jessie Loring.”
“I thank you, my friend, for setting me completely right,” said Hendrickson. He spoke sadly, yet with the firmness of a true man. “I hav
e now but one favor to ask. Learn from her own lips, if possible, her real sentiments on this subject.”
“I will do so.”
“Without delay?”
“Yes. To-morrow I will see Mrs. De Lisle, and confer with her on the subject, and then at the earliest practical moment call with her upon Jessie.”
Two days afterwards, Mr. Hendrickson received a note from his friend, asking him to call.
“You have seen her?”
The young man was paler than usual, but calm. His voice was not eagerly expectant, but rather veiled with sadness, as if he had weighed all the chances in his favor, and made up his mind for the worst.
“I have,” replied Mrs. Denison.
“She is much changed, I presume?”
“I would scarcely have known her,” was answered.
“In what is she changed?”
“She has been growing less of the earth earthy, in all these years of painful discipline. You see this in her changed exterior; your ear perceives it in the tones of her voice; your mind answers to it in the pure sentiments that breathe from her lips. Her very presence gives an atmosphere of heavenly tranquillity.”
It was some moments before Hendrickson made further remark. He then said:
“How long a time were you with her, Mrs. Denison?”
“We spent over an hour in her company.”
“Was my name mentioned?”
“No.”
“Nor the subject in which I feel so deep an interest?”
“Yes, we spoke of that!”
“And you were not in error as to her decision of the case?”
Hendrickson manifested no excitement.
“I was not.”
He dropped his eyes again to the floor, and sat musing for some time.
“She does not consider herself free to marry again?”
He looked up with a calm face.
“No.”
There was a sigh; a falling of the eyes; and a long, quiet silence.
“I was prepared for it, my friend,” he said, speaking almost mournfully. “Since our last interview, I have thought on this subject a great deal, and looked at it from another point of vision. I hare imagined myself in her place, and then pondered the Record. It seemed more imperative. I could not go past it, and yet regard myself innocent, or pure. It seemed a hard saying—but it was said. The mountain was impassable. And so I came fortified for her decision.”
“Would you have had it otherwise?” Mrs. Denison asked.
Hendrickson did not answer at once. The question evidently disturbed him.
“The heart is very weak,” he said at length.
“But virtue is strong as another Samson,” Mrs. Denison spoke quickly.
“Her decision does not produce a feeling of alienation. I am not angry. She stands, it is true, higher up and further off, invested with saintly garments. If she is purer, I must be worthier. I can only draw near in spirit—and there can be no spiritual nearness without a likeness of quality. If the stain of earth is not to be found on her vesture, mine must be white as snow.”
“It is by fire we are purified, my friend,” answered Mrs. Denison, speaking with unusual feeling.
Not many weeks after this interview with Mrs. Denison, she received a communication from Hendrickson that filled her with painful surprise. It ran thus:
“MY BEST FRIEND:—When this comes into your hands, I shall be away from B—. It is possible that I may never return again. I do not take this step hastily, but after deep reflection, and in the firm conviction that I am right. If I remain, the probabilities are that I shall meet Jessie Loring, who will come forth gradually from her seclusion; and I am not strong enough, nor cold enough for that. Nor do I think our meeting would make the stream of her life more placed. It has run in wild waves long enough—the waters have been turbid long enough—and mine is not the hand to swirl it with a single eddy. No—no. My love, I trust, is of purer essence. I would bless, not curse—brighten, not cloud the horizon of her life.
“And so I recede as she comes forth into the open day, and shall hide myself from her sight. As she advances by self denials and holy charities towards celestial purity, may I advance also, fast enough at least not to lose sight of her in the far off distance.
“You will meet her often, from this time, dear, true, faithful friend! And I pray you to keep my memory green in her heart. Not with such bold reference as shall disturb its tranquil life. Oh, do not give her pain! But with gentle insinuations; so that the thought of me have no chance to die. I will keep unspotted from the world; yet will I not withdraw myself, but manfully take my place and do battle for the right.
“And now, best of friends, farewell! I go out into the great world, to be absorbed from observation in the crowd. But my heart will remain among the old places, and beat ever faithful to its early loves.
“PAUL HENDRICKSON.”
He had withdrawn himself from all business connections, and sold his property. With his small fortune, realized by active, intelligent industry, and now represented by Certificates of Deposit in three of the city banks, he vanished from among those who had known and respected him for years, and left not a sign of the direction he had taken. Even idle rumor, so usually unjust, did him no wrong. He had been, in all his actions, too true a man for even suspicion to touch his name.
CHAPTER XXVII.
As Hendrickson had rightly supposed, Jessie Loring came forth from her seclusion of years. Not all at once, but by gradual intrusions upon the social life around her. At first she went abroad on a mission of charity. Then her friend Mrs. De Lisle, drew her to her house, and there a new face that interested her awakened a new impulse in her mind. And so the work went on, and ere long she was in part restored to society. But how different from the one who had withdrawn from it years before! Suffering and discipline had left upon her their unmistakable signs. The old beauty of countenance had departed. The elegant style—the abounding grace of manner—the fascinating speech—all were gone. Only those to whom she had been most familiar, recognized in the pale, serene countenance, retiring grace and gentle speech of Jessie Loring, the once brilliant Mrs. Dexter.
And quite as different was the effect she produced upon those who came within the sphere of her chastened thoughts. Before, all admired her; now, all who could draw close enough, found in her speech an inspiration to good deeds. Some were wiser—all were better in right purposes—who met her in familiar intercourse. And the more intimately she was known, the more apparent became the higher beauty into which she had arisen; a celestial beauty, that gave angelic lustre at times to her countenance.
To no one did she mention the name of Hendrickson. If she missed him from the circles which had again opened to receive her, none knew that her eyes had ever looked for his presence. No one spoke to her of him, and so she remained for a time in ignorance of his singular disappearance. A caution from Mrs. De Lisle to Mrs. Loring, made that not over-cautious individual prudent in this case.
One day Jessie was visiting Mrs. Denison, to whom she had become warmly attached. She did not show her accustomed cheerfulness, and to the inquiries of Mrs. Denison as to whether she was as well as usual, replied, as it seemed to that lady, evasively. At length she said, with a manner that betrayed a deep interest in the subject:
“I heard a strange story yesterday about an old acquaintance whom I have missed—Mr. Hendrickson.”
“What have you heard?” was inquired.
“That he left the city in a mysterious manner several months ago, and has not been heard of since.”
“It is true,” said Mrs. Denison.
“Was there anything wrong in his conduct?” asked Jessie Loring, her usually pale face showing the warmer hues of feeling.
“Nothing. Not even the breath of suspicion has touched his good name.”
“What is the explanation?”
“Common rumor is singularly at fault in the case,” replied Mrs. Denison. “I have heard no reason assig
ned that to me had any appearance of truth.”
“Had he failed in business?” asked Miss Loring.
“No. He was in a good business, and accumulating property. But he sold out, and converting all that he was worth into money, took it with him, and left only his memory behind.”
“Had he trouble with any one?”
“No.”
Jessie looked concerned—almost sad.
“I would like to know the reason.” She spoke partly to herself.
“I alone am in possession of the reason,” said Mrs. Denison, after a silence of more than a minute.
“You!”
Thrown off her guard, Jessie spoke eagerly and with surprise.
“Yes. He wrote me a letter at the time, stating in the clearest terms the causes which led to so strange a course of conduct.
“Did you approve of his reasons?” Miss Loring had regained much of her usual calm exterior.
“I accepted them,” was answered. “Under all the circumstances of the case, his course was probably the wisest that could have been taken.”
“Are you at liberty to state the reasons?” asked Miss Loring.
Mrs. Denison thought for some time.
“Do you desire to hear them?” she then asked, looking steadily into the face of her visitor.
“I do,” was firmly answered.
“Then I will place his letter to me in your hands. But not now. When you leave, it will be time enough. You must read it alone.”
A sudden gleam shot across the face of Jessie. But it died like a transient meteor.
“I will return home now, Mrs. Denison,” she said, with a manner that showed a great deal of suppressed feeling. “You will excuse me, of course.”
“Cannot you remain longer? I shall regret your going,” said her kind friend.
“Not in my present state of mind. I can see from your manner that I have an interest in the contents of that letter, and I am impatient to know them.”
It was all in vain that Jessie Loring sought to calm her feelings as she returned homeward with the letter of Paul Hendrickson held tightly in her hand. The suspense was too much for her. On entering the house of her aunt, she went with unusual haste to her own room, and without waiting to lay aside any of her attire, sat down and opened the letter. There was scarcely a sign of life while she read, so motionless did she sit, as if pulsation were stilled. After reading it to the last word she commenced folding up the letter, but her hands, that showed a slight tremor in the beginning, shook so violently before she was done, that the half closed sheet rattled like a leaf in the wind. Then tears gushed over the letter, falling upon it like rain.
