At her usual hour for taking Esther to drive, Mrs. Murray appeared atthe house, where she found Catherine looking as little pleased as thoughshe were ordered to return to her native prairie.
"We have sent him off," said she, "and we are clean broke up."
The tears were in her eyes as she thus announced the tragedy which hadbeen acted only an hour or two before, but her coolness more than everwon Mrs. Murray's heart.
"Tell me all that has happened," said she.
"I've told you all I know," replied Catherine. "They had it out here foran hour or more, and then Esther ran up to her room. I've been to thedoor half a dozen times, and could hear her crying and moaning inside."
Mrs. Murray sat down with a rueful face and a weary sigh, but there wasno sign of hesitation or doubt in her manner. The time had come for herto take command, and she did it without fretfulness or unnecessarywords.
"You are the only person I know with a head," said she to Catherine."You have some common sense and can help me. I want to take Esther outof this place within six hours. Can you manage to get every thingready?"
"I will run it all if you will take care of Esther," replied Catherine."I'm not old enough to boss her."
"All you will have to do is to see that your trunks are packed for aweek's absence and you are both ready to start by eight o'clock,"answered Mrs. Murray. "Do you attend to that and I will look out for therest. Now wait here a few minutes while I go up and see Esther!"
Catherine wished nothing better than to start any where at the shortestnotice. She was tired of the long strain on her sympathies and feelings,and was glad to be made useful in a way that pleased her practical mind.Mrs. Murray went up to Esther's room. All was quiet inside. The stormhad spent itself. Knowing that her aunt would come, Esther had made theeffort to be herself again, and when Mrs. Murray knocked at the door,the voice that told her to come in was firm and sweet as ever. Estherwas getting ready for her drive, and though her eyes, in spite ofbathing, were red and swollen, they had no longer the anxious andtroubled look of a hunted creature which had so much alarmed Mrs. Murrayfor the last few days. Her expression was more composed than it had beenfor weeks. Her love had already become a sorrow rather than a passion,and she would not, for a world of lovers, have gone back to the distressof yesterday.
Mrs. Murray took in the whole situation at a glance and breathed abreath of relief. At length the crisis was past and she had only to savethe girl from brooding over her pain. Without waiting for anexplanation, she plunged into the torrent of Esther's woes.
"Mr. Murray and I are going to Niagara by the night train. I want youand Catherine to go with us."
"You are an angel!" answered Esther. "Did Catherine tell you how Iwanted to run away! You knew it would be so? I will go any where; thefurther the better; but how can I drag you and poor Uncle John away fromtown at this season? Can't I go off alone with Catherine?"
"Nonsense!" said her aunt briefly. "I shall be glad to get away from NewYork. I am tired of it. Get your trunks packed! Put in your sketchingmaterials, and we will pick you up at eight o'clock. George shall comeon to-morrow and pass Sunday with us."
Esther thanked her aunt with effusion. "I am going to show you how wellI can behave. Uncle John shall not know that any thing is the matterwith me unless you tell him. I won't be contemptible, even if I have gotred eyes."
Not five minutes were needed to decide on the new departure. Esther andCatherine found relief and amusement in the bustle of preparation. IfEsther was still a little feverish and excited, she was able to throw itoff in work. She was no longer an object of pity; it was her uncle andaunt who deserved deepest compassion. What worse shock was possible foran elderly, middle-aged New York lawyer than to return to his house atsix o'clock and find that he is to have barely time for his dinner andcigar before being thrust out into the cold and hideous darkness of aFebruary night, in order to travel some four hundred miles through asnow-bound country? It is true that he had received some little warningto arrange his affairs for an absence over Saturday, but at best theblow was a severe one, and he bore it with a silent fortitude whichwrung his wife's heart. She was a masterful mistress, but she was goodto those who obeyed, and she even showed the weakness of begging him notto go, although in her soul she knew that he must.
"After all, John, you needn't go with us. I can take the girls alone."
"As I understand it, you have engaged my professional services," hereplied. "On the whole I prefer prevention to cure. I would rather helpEsther to run away, than get her a divorce."
"When I am dead, you shall stay quietly at home and be perfectly happy,"she answered, with the venerable device which wives, from earliesthistory, have used to palliate their own sins.
Nevertheless he felt almost as miserable as his wife, when, wrapped incloaks and rugs, they left their bright dining room and shuffled downthe steps into the outside darkness to their carriage. He expressedopinions about lovers which would have put a quick end to the human racehad they been laws of nature. He wished the church would take them alland consign them to its own favorite place of punishment. He had adisagreeable trick of gibing at his wife's orthodoxy on this point, andwhen she remonstrated at his profanity, he smiled contentedly and said:"There is nothing profane about it. It is sound church doctrine, and Ienvy you for being able to believe it. You can hope to see them withyour own eyes getting their reward, confound them!"
Consoling himself with this pleasing hope, they started off, and in fiveminutes were at Esther's door. After taking the two girls into thecarriage, Mr. Murray became more affable and even gay. By the time theparty was established in their sleeping car, he had begun to enjoyhimself. He had too often made such journeys, and was too familiar withevery thing on the road to be long out of humor, and for once it wasamusing to have a pair of pretty girls to take with him. Commonly hisbest society was some member of the Albany Legislature, and his onlyconversation was about city charters and railroad legislation. Thevariety had its charm. Esther was as good as her word. She made adesperate battle to recover her gayety, and the little excitement of anight journey helped the triumph of her pride. Determined that she wouldnot be an object of pity, she made the most of all her chances,pretended to take in earnest her uncle's humorous instructions as to theart of arranging a sleeping berth, and horrified her aunt by letting himinduce Catherine and herself to eat hot doughnuts and mince pies on thetrain. It was outwardly a gay little party which rattled along the bankof the snowy river on their way northward.
The gayety, it is true, was forced. For the first ten minutes Estherfelt excited by the sense of flight and the rapid motion which wascarrying her she knew not where,--away into the infinite and unknown.What lay before her, beyond the darkness of the moment, she hardlycared. Never again could she go back to the old life, but like a youngbird that has lost its mate, she must fly on through the gloom till itend. Unluckily all her thoughts brought her back to Hazard. Even thissense of resembling a bird that flies, it knows not where, recalled toher the sonnet of Petrarch which she had once translated for him, andwhich, since then, had been always on his lips, although she had neverdreamed that it could have such meaning to her. Long after she hadestablished herself in her berth, solitary and wakeful, the verses maderhythm with the beat of the car-wheels:
"Vago augelletto che cantando vai!"
They were already far on their way, flying up the frozen stream of theHudson, before she was left alone with her thoughts in the noisy quietof the rushing train. She could not even hope to sleep. Propping herselfup against the pillows, she raised the curtain of her window and staredinto the black void outside. Nothing in nature could be more mysteriousand melancholy than this dark, polar world, beside which a winter stormon the Atlantic was at least exciting. On the ocean the forces of naturehave it their own way; nothing comes between man and the elements; butas Esther gazed out into the night, it was not the darkness, or thesense of cold, or the vagrant snow-flakes driving against the window,or the heavy clouds drifting through the sky, or even the ghastlyglimmer and reflection of the snow-fields, that, by contrast, made thegrave seem cheerful; it was rather the twinkling lights from distant andinvisible farm-houses, the vague outlines of barn-yards and fences alongdoubtful roads, the sudden flash of lamps as the train hurried throughunknown stations, or the unfamiliar places where it stopped, while thetap-tap of the train-men's hammers on the wheels beneath sounded likespirit-rappings. These signs of life behind the veil were like thesteady lights of shore to the drowning fisherman off the reef outside.Every common-place kerosene lamp whose rays struggled from distant,snow-clad farms, brought a picture of peace and hope to Esther. Not oneof these invisible roofs but might shelter some realized romance, somecontented love. In so dark and dreary a world, what a mad act it was tofly from the only happiness life offered! What a strange idea to seeksafety by refusing the only protection worth having! Love was all inall! Esther had never before felt herself so helpless as in the face ofthis outer darkness, and if her lover had now been there to claim her,she would have dropped into his arms as unresistingly as a tired child.
As the night wore on, the darkness and desolation became intolerable,and she shut them out, only to find herself suffocated by theimprisonment of her sleeping-berth. Hour after hour dragged on; thelittle excitement of leaving Albany was long past, and the train waswandering through the dullness of Central New York, when at last a faintsuspicion of dim light appeared in the landscape, and Esther returned toher window. If any thing could be drearier than the blackness of night,it was the grayness of dawn, which had all the cold terror of death andall the grim repulsiveness of life joined in an hour of despair. Esthercould now see the outlines of farm-houses as the train glided on;snow-laden roofs and sheds; long stretches of field with fences buriedto their top rails in sweeping snow-drifts; in the houses, lights showedthat toil had begun again; smoke rose from the chimneys; figures movedin the farm-yards; a sleigh could be seen on a decided road; the worldbecame real, prosaic, practical, mechanical, not worth strugglingabout; a mere colorless, passionless, pleasureless grayness. As themystery vanished, the pain passed and the brain grew heavy. Esther'seyelids drooped, and she sank at last into a sleep so sound that therewas hardly need for Catherine to stand sentry before her berth and frownthe car into silence. The sun was high above the horizon; the sky wasbright and blue; the snowy landscape flashed with the sparkle ofdiamonds, when Esther woke, and it was with a cry of pleasure that shefelt her spirits answer the sun.
Meanwhile her flight was no secret. As the train that carried her offdrew out of the great station into the darkness for its long journey ofthree thousand miles, two notes were delivered to gentlemen only a fewsquares away. Strong at his club received one from Mrs. Murray: "We allstart for Clifton at nine o'clock. Come to-morrow and bring a companionif you can. We need to be amused." The Reverend Stephen Hazard receivedthe other note, which was still more brief, but long enough to strikehim with panic; for it contained two words: "Good-by! Esther."
No sooner did Strong receive his missive than he set himself in activemotion. Wharton, who commonly dined at the club, was so near that Stronghad only to pass the note over to him. Whether Wharton was stillsuffering from the shock of his wife's appearance, or disappearance, orwhether he was on the look-out for some chance to see again his friendCatherine, or whether he found it pleasanter to take a holiday than toattack his long arrears of work, the idea of running up to Niagara forSunday happened to strike him as pleasant, and he promised to joinStrong at the Erie Station in the morning. Strong knew him too well tocount on his keeping the engagement, but could do no more, and they bothleft the club to make their preparations. Strong had another duty.Before stirring further, he must talk with Hazard. The affair wasrapidly taking a shape that might embarrass them both.
Going directly to Hazard's house, he burst into the library, where hefound his friend trying to work in spite of the heavy load on his mind.Throwing him Mrs. Murray's note, Strong waited without a word whileHazard read it more eagerly than though it had been a summons to abishopric. The mysterious good-by, which had arrived but a few minutesbefore, had upset his nerves, and at first the note which Strong broughtreassured him, for he thought that Mrs. Murray was earning out his ownwishes and drawing Esther nearer to him.
"Then we have succeeded!" he cried.
"Not much!" said Strong dryly. "It is a genuine flight and escape in allthe forms. You are out-generaled and your line of attack is left all inthe air."
"I shall follow!" said Hazard, doggedly.
"No good! They are in earnest," replied Strong.
"So am I!" answered the clergyman sharply, while Strong threw himselfinto a chair, good-natured as ever, and said:
"Come along then! Will you go up with Wharton and me by the early trainto-morrow?"
"Yes!" replied Hazard quickly. Then he paused; there were limits to hispower and he began to feel them. "No!" he went on. "I can't get awayto-morrow. I must wait till Sunday night."
"Better wait altogether," said Strong. "You take the chances againstyou."
"I told her I should follow her, and I shall," repeated Hazard stiffly.He felt hurt, as though Esther had rebelled against his authority, andhe was not well pleased that Strong should volunteer advice.
"Give me my orders then!" said Strong. "Can I do any thing for you?"
"I shall be there on Monday afternoon. Telegraph me if they shoulddecide to leave the place earlier. Try and keep them quiet till I getthere!"
"Shall I tell them you are coming?"
"Not for your life!" answered Hazard impatiently. "Do all you can tosoothe and quiet her. Hint that in my place you would come. Try to makeher hope it, but not fear it."
"I will do all that to the letter," said Strong. "I feel partlyresponsible for getting you and Esther into this scrape, and am ready togo a long way to pull you through; but this done I stop. If Esther is inearnest, I must stand by her. Is that square?"
Hazard frowned severely and hesitated. "The real struggle is justcoming," said he. "If you keep out of the way, I shall win. So far Ihave never failed with her. My influence over her to-day is greater thanever, or she would not try to run away from it. If you interfere I shallthink it unkind and unfriendly."
To this Strong answered pleasantly enough, but as though his mind werequite made up: "I don't mean to interfere if I can help it, but I can'tpersecute Esther, if it is going to make her unhappy. As it is, I amlikely to catch a scoring from my aunt for bringing you down on them,and undoing her work. I wish I were clear of the whole matter and Estherwere a pillar of the church."
With this declaration of contingent neutrality, Strong went his way, andas he walked musingly back to his rooms, he muttered to himself that hehad done quite as much for Hazard as the case would warrant: "What atrump the girl is, and what a good fight she is making! I believe I amgetting to be in love with her myself, and if he gives it up--hum--yes,if he gives it up,--then of course Esther will go abroad and forget it."
Hazard's solitary thoughts were not quite so pointless. The danger ofdisappointment and defeat roused in him the instinct of martyrdom. Hewas sure that all mankind would suffer if he failed to get theparticular wife he wanted. "It is not a selfish struggle," he thought."It is a human soul I am trying to save, and I will do it in the teethof all the powers of darkness. If I can but set right thissystematically misguided conscience, the task is done. It is the affairof a moment when once the light comes;--A flash! A miracle! If I cannotwield this fire from Heaven, I am unfit to touch it. Let it burn me up!"
Early the next morning, not a little to their own surprise, Strong andWharton found themselves dashing over the Erie Road towards Buffalo.They had a long day before them and luckily Wharton was in his bestspirits. As for Strong he was always in good spirits. Within the memoryof man, well or ill, on sea or shore, in peril or safety, Strong hadnever been seen unhappy or depressed. He had the faculty of interestinghimself without an effort in the doings of his neighbors, and Whartonalways had on hand some scheme which was to make an epoch in thehistory of art. Just now it was a question of a new academy of musicwhich was to be the completest product of architecture, and to combineall the senses in delight. The Grand Opera at Paris was to be tamebeside it. Here he was to be tied down by no such restraints as thechurch imposed on him; he was to have beauty for its own sake and tocreate the thought of a coming world. His decorations should make arevolution in the universe. Strong entered enthusiastically into hisplans, but both agreed that preliminary studies were necessary both forarchitects and artists. The old world must be ransacked to the depths ofJapan and Persia. Before their dinner-hour was reached, they had laidout a scheme of travel and study which would fill a life-time, while theHome of Music in New York was still untouched. After dinner and a cigar,they fought a prodigious battle over the influence of the Aryan races onthe philosophy of art, and then, dusk coming on, they went to sleep, andfinished an agreeable journey at about midnight.
When at last they drove up to the hotel door in the frosty night, andstamped their feet, chilled by the sleigh-ride from the station, thecataract's near roar and dim outline under the stars did not preventthem from warmly greeting Mr. Murray who sallied out to welcome them andto announce that their supper was waiting. The three women had longsince gone to bed, but Mr. Murray staid up to have a chat with the boys.He was in high spirits. He owned that he had enjoyed his trip and was inno hurry to go home. While his nephew and Wharton attacked their supper,he sipped his Scotch whisky, and with the aid of a cigar, enlivened thefeast.
"We got over here before three o'clock," said he, "and of course I tookthem out to drive at once. Esther sat in front with me and we let thehorses go. Your aunt thinks I am unsafe with horses and I took somepains to prove that she was right. The girls liked it. They wouldn'thave minded being tipped into a snow-bank, but I thought it would berough on your aunt, so I brought them home safe, gave them a first-ratedinner and sent them off to bed hours ago, sleepy as gods. To-morrow youmust take them in hand. I have made to-day what the newspapers call mymost brilliant forensic effort, and I'll not risk my reputation again."
"Keep out of our way then!" said Strong. "Wharton and I mean to spillthose two girls over the cliff unless Canadian horses know geology."
Esther slept soundly that night while the roar of the waters lulled herslumbers. The sun woke her the next morning to a sense of new life. Herroom looked down on the cataract, and she had already taken a fancy tothis tremendous, rushing, roaring companion, which thundered and smokedunder her window, as though she had tamed a tornado to play in hercourt-yard. To brush her hair while such a confidant looked on and askedquestions, was more than Pallas Athene herself could do, though shelooked out forever from the windows of her Acropolis over the Blue苂ean. The sea is capricious, fickle, angry, fawning, violent, savageand wanton; it caresses and raves in a breath, and has its moods ofsilence, but Esther's huge playmate rambled on with its story, in thesame steady voice, never shrill or angry, never silent or degraded by asign of human failings, and yet so frank and sympathetic that she had nochoice but to like it. "Even if it had nothing to tell me, its mannersare divine," said Esther to herself as she leaned against the windowsash and looked out. "And its dress!" she ran on. "What a complexion, tostand dazzling white and diamonds in the full sunlight!" Yet it was notthe manners or the dress of her new friend that most won Esther's heart.Her excitement and the strain of the last month had left her subject toher nerves and imagination. She was startled by a snow-flake, wasreckless and timid by turns, and her fancy ran riot in dreams of loveand pain. She fell in love with the cataract and turned to it as aconfidant, not because of its beauty or power, but because it seemed totell her a story which she longed to understand. "I think I dounderstand it," she said to herself as she looked out. "If he could onlyhear it as I do," and of course "he" was Mr. Hazard; "how he would feelit!" She felt tears roll down her face as she listened to the voice ofthe waters and knew that they were telling her a different secret fromany that Hazard could ever hear. "He will think it is the churchtalking!" Sad as she was, she smiled as she thought that it was Sundaymorning, and a ludicrous contrast flashed on her mind between thedecorations of St. John's, with its parterre of nineteenth centurybonnets, and the huge church which was thundering its gospel under hereyes.
To have Niagara for a rival is no joke. Hazard spoke with no suchauthority; and Esther's next idea was one of wonder how, after listeninghere, any preacher could have the confidence to preach again. "What dothey know about it?" she asked herself. "Which of them can tell a storylike this, or a millionth part of it?" To dilute it in words andtranslate bits of it for school-girls, or to patronize it by defense orpraise, was somewhat as though Esther herself should paint a row of hersaints on the cliff under Table Rock. Even to fret about her own loveaffairs in such company was an impertinence. When eternity, infinity andomnipotence seem to be laughing and dancing in one's face, it is well totreat such visitors civilly, for they come rarely in such a humor.
So much did these thoughts interest and amuse her that she took infinitepains with her toilet in order to honor her colossal host whose owntoilet was sparkling with all the jewels of nature, like an Indianprince whose robes are crusted with diamonds and pearls. When she camedown to the breakfast-room, Strong, who was alone there, looked up witha start.
"Why, Esther!" he broke out, "take care, or one of these days you willbe handsome!"
Catherine too was pretty as a fawn, and was so honestly pleased to meetWharton again that he expanded into geniality. As for broken hearts, noself-respecting young woman shows such an ornament at any well regulatedbreakfast-table; they are kept in dark drawers and closets like otherbroken furniture. Esther had made the deadliest resolution to let notrace of her unhappiness appear before her uncle, and Mr. Murray, whosaw no deeper than other men into the heart-problem, was delighted withthe gayety of the table, and proud of his own success as a physician forheart complaints. Mrs. Murray, who knew more about her own sex, kept hereye on the two girls with more anxiety than she cared to confess. If anynew disaster should happen, the prospect would be desperate, and it wasuseless to deny that she had taken risks heavy enough to stagger aprofessional gambler. The breakfast table looked gay and happy enough,and so did the rapids which sparkled and laughed in the distance.
After breakfast the two young women, with much preparation of boots,veils and wraps, went off with Strong and Wharton for a stroll down tothe banks of the river. The two older members of the party remainedquietly in their parlor, thinking that the young people would get onbetter by themselves. As the four wandered down the road, Mr. Murraywatched them, and noticed the natural way in which Esther joined Strong,while Catherine fell to Wharton. Standing with his hands in histrousers' pockets and his nose close to the window-pane, Mr. Murraylooked after them as they disappeared down the bank, and then, withoutturning round, he made a remark as husbands do, addressed to theuniverse and intended for his wife.
"I suppose that is what you are driving at."
"What?" asked Mrs. Murray.
"I don't mind George and Esther, but I grudge Catherine to that manWharton. He may be a good artist, but I think his merits as a husbandbeneath criticism. I believe every woman would connive at a love affairthough the man had half a dozen living wives, and had been hung two orthree times for murder."
"I wish Esther were as safe as I think Catherine," said Mrs. Murray. "Itwould surprise me very much if Catherine took Mr. Wharton now, but ifMr. Hazard were to walk round the corner, I should expect to see Estherrun straight into his arms."
"Hazard!" exclaimed Mr. Murray. "I thought he was out of the running andyou meant Esther for George."
"I am not a match-maker, and I've no idea that Esther will ever marryGeorge," replied Mrs. Murray with the patience which wives sometimesshow to husbands whom they think obtuse.
"Then what is it you want?" asked Mr. Murray, with some signs ofrebellion, but still talking to the window-pane, with his hands in hispockets. "You encourage a set of clever men to hang round two prettygirls, and you profess at the same time not to want anything to come ofit. That kind of conduct strikes an ordinary mind as inconsistent."
"I want to prevent one unhappy marriage, not to make two," replied hiswife. "Girls must have an education, and the only way they can get agood one is from clever men. As for falling in love, they will always dothat whether the men are clever or not. They must take the risk."
"And what do you mean to do with them when they are educated?"inquired he.
"I mean them to marry dull, steady men in Wall Street, without anymanners, and with their hands in their pockets," answered Mrs. Murray,her severity for once mingled with a touch of sweetness.
"Thank you," replied her husband, at last turning round. "Then that isto be the fruit of all this to-do?"
"I am sure it is quite fruit enough," rejoined she. "The business ofeducating their husbands will take all the rest of their lives."
Mr. Murray reflected a few minutes, standing with his back to the fireand gazing at his wife. Then he said: "Sarah, you are a clever woman. Ifyou would come into my office and work steadily, you could double myincome at the bar; but you need practice; your points are too fine; yourun too many risks, and no male judge would ever support your managementof a case. As practice I grant you it is bold and has much to recommendit, but in the law we cannot look so far ahead. Now, why won't you letEsther marry George?"
"I shall practice only before women judges," replied Mrs. Murray, "and Iwill undertake to say that I never should find one so stupid as not tosee that George is not at all the sort of man whom a girl with Esther'snotions would marry. If I tried to make her do it, I should be aswrong-headed as some men I know."
"I suppose you don't mean to put yourself in George's way, if he asksher," inquired Mr. Murray rather anxiously.
"My dear husband, there is no use in thinking about George one way orthe other. Do put him out of your head! You fancy because Esther seemsbright this morning, that she might marry George to-morrow. Now I cansee a great deal more of Esther's mind than you, and I tell you that itis all we can do to prevent her from recalling Mr. Hazard, and that ifwe do prevent it, we shall have to take her abroad for at least twoyears before she gets over the strain."
At this emphatic announcement that his life was to be for two years asacrifice to Esther's love-affairs, Mr. Murray retired again to hiswindow and meditated in a more subdued spirit. He knew that protestwould avail nothing.
Meanwhile the two girls were already down on the edge of the icy river,talking at first of the scene which lay before their eyes.
"Think what the Greeks would have done with it!" said Wharton. "Theywould have set Zeus in a throne on Table Rock, firing away hislightnings at Prometheus under the fall."
"Just for a change I rather like our way of sticking advertisementsthere," said Catherine. "It makes one feel at home."
"A woman feels most the kind of human life in it," said Esther.
"A big, rollicking, Newfoundland dog sort of humanity," said Strong.
"You are all wrong," said Catherine. "The fall is a woman, and she is asself-conscious this morning as if she were at church. Look at thecoquetry of the pretty curve where the water falls over, and the lace onthe skirt where it breaks into foam! Only a woman could do that and lookso pretty when she might just as easily be hideous."
"It is not a woman! It is a man!" broke in Esther vehemently. "No womanever had a voice like that!" She felt hurt that her cataract should betreated as a self-conscious woman.
"Now, Mr. Wharton!" cried Catherine, appealing to the artist: "Now, yousee I'm right, and self-consciousness is sometimes a beauty."
Wharton answered this original observation of nature by a lecture whichmay be read to more advantage in his printed works. It ended byCatherine requiring him to draw for her the design of a dress whichshould have the soul of Niagara in its folds, and while he was engagedin this labor, which absorbed Catherine's thoughts and gave her extremeamusement, Esther strolled on with Strong, and for nearly an hour walkedup and down the road, or leaned against the rock in sheltered placeswhere the sun was warm. At first they went on talking of the scenery,then Esther wanted to know about the geology, and quickly broke in onStrong's remarks upon this subject by questions which led further andfurther away from it. The river boiled at their feet; the sun meltedthe enormous icicles which hung from the precipice behind them; a massof frozen spray was banked up against the American fall opposite them,making it look like an iceberg, and snow covered every thing except theperpendicular river banks and the dark water. The rainbow hung over thecataract, and the mist rose from the furious waters into the peace ofthe quiet air.
"You know what has happened?" she asked.
Strong nodded assent. He was afraid to tell her how much he knew.
"Do you think I have done wrong?"
"How can I tell without knowing all your reasons?" he asked. "It looksto me as though you were uncertain of yourself and cared less for himthan he for you. If I were in his place I should follow you close up,and refuse to leave you."
Esther gave a little gasp: "You don't think he will do that? if he does,I shall run away again."
"Why run away? if you really want to get rid of him, why not make himrun away?"
"Because I don't want to make him run away from me, and because I don'tknow how. If I could only get him away from his church! All I know aboutit is that I can't be a clergyman's wife, but the moment that I try toexplain why, he proves to me that my reasons are good for nothing."
"Are you sure he's not right?" asked Strong.
"Perfectly sure!" replied Esther earnestly. "I can't reason it out, butI feel it. I believe you could explain it if you would, but when I askedyou, in the worst of my trouble, you refused to help me."
"I gave you all the help I could, and I am ready to give you whateveryou want more," replied Strong.
"Tell me what you think about religion!"
Strong drew himself together with a perceptible effort: "I think aboutit as little as possible," said he.
"Do you believe in a God?"
"Not in a personal one."
"Or in future rewards and punishments?"
"Old women's nursery tales!"
"Do you believe in nothing?"
"There is evidence amounting to strong probability, of the existence oftwo things," said Strong, slowly, and as though in his lecture-room.
"What are they, if you please?"
"Should you know better if I said they were mind and matter?"
"You believe in nothing else?"
"N-N-No!" hesitated Strong.
"Isn't it horrible, your doctrine?"
"What of that, if it's true? I never said it was pleasant."
"Do you expect to convert any one to such a religion?"
"Great Buddha, no! I don't want to convert any one. I prefer almost anykind of religion. No one ever took up this doctrine who could helphimself."
Esther pondered deeply for a time. Strong's trick of driving her to dowhat he wanted was so old a habit that she had learned to distrust it.At last she began again from another side.
"You really mean that this life is every thing, and the future nothing?"
"I never said so. I rather think the church is right in thinking thislife nothing and the future every thing."
"But you deny a future life!"
Strong began to feel uncomfortable. He wanted to defend his opinions,and it became irksome to go on making out the strongest case he couldagainst himself.
"Come!" said he: "don't go beyond what I said. I only denied the rewardsand punishments. Mind! I'll not say there is a future life, but I don'tdeny it's possibility."
"You are willing to give us a chance?" said Esther rather sarcastically.
"I don't know that you would call it one," replied Strong satisfied byEsther's irony that he had now gone far enough. "If our minds could gethold of one abstract truth, they would be immortal so far as that truthis concerned. My trouble is to find out how we can get hold of the truthat all."
"My trouble is that I don't think I understand in the least what youmean," replied Esther.
"I thought you knew enough theology for that," said George. "The thingis simple enough. Hazard and I and every one else agree that thought iseternal. If you can get hold of one true thought, you are immortal asfar as that thought goes. The only difficulty is that every fellowthinks his thought the true one. Hazard wants you to believe in his, andI don't want you to believe in mine, because I've not got one which Ibelieve in myself."
"Still I don't understand," said Esther. "How can I make myself immortalby taking Mr. Hazard's opinions?"
"Because then the truth is a part of you! if I understand St. Paul, thisis sound church doctrine, leaving out the personal part of the Trinitywhich Hazard insists on tacking to it. Except for the rubbish, I don'tthink I am so very far away from him," continued Strong, now assumingthat he had done what he could to set Esther straight, and going on withthe conversation as though it had no longer a personal interest. As hetalked, he poked holes in the snow with his stick, as though what hesaid was for his own satisfaction, and he were turning this old problemover again in his mind to see whether he could find any thing new at thebottom of it. "I can't see that my ideas are so brutally shocking. Wemay some day catch an abstract truth by the tail, and then we shall haveour religion and immortality. We have got far more than half way.Infinity is infinitely more intelligible to you than you are to asponge. If the soul of a sponge can grow to be the soul of a Darwin, whymay we not all grow up to abstract truth? What more do you want?"
As he looked up again, saying these words without thinking of Esther'sinterest, he was startled to see that this time she was listening with avery different expression in her face. She broke in with a questionwhich staggered him.
"Does your idea mean that the next world is a sort of great reservoir oftruth, and that what is true in us just pours into it like raindrops?"
"Well!" said he, alarmed and puzzled: "the figure is not perfectlycorrect, but the idea is a little of that kind."
"After all I wonder whether that may not be what Niagara has beentelling me!" said Esther, and she spoke with an outburst of energy thatmade Strong's blood run cold.