Strong kept his word about amusing the two girls. They were not allowedthe time to make themselves unhappy, restless or discontented. ThisSunday afternoon he set out with a pair of the fastest horses to be gotin the neighborhood, and if these did not go several times over thecliff, it was, as Strong had said, rather their own good sense thantheir driver's which held them back. Catherine, who sat by Strong'sside, made the matter worse by taking the reins, and a more recklesslittle Amazon never defied men. Even Strong himself at one moment, whenwreck seemed certain, asked her to kindly see to the publication of aposthumous memoir, and Esther declared that although she did not feardeath, she disliked Catherine's way of killing her. Catherine paid noattention to such ribaldry, and drove on like Phaeton. Wharton wascarried away by the girl's dash and coolness. He wanted to paint her asthe charioteer of the cataract. They drove by the whirlpool, and so farand fast that, when Esther found herself that night tossing and feverishin her bed, she could only dream that she was still skurrying over asnow-bound country, aching with jolts and jerks, but unable ever tostop. The next day she was glad to stay quietly in the house and amuseherself with sketching, while the rest of the party crossed the river toget Mr. Murray's sleeping-berth by the night train to New York, and towaste their time and money on the small attractions of the village. Mr.Murray was forced to return to his office. Wharton, who had no right tobe here at all, for a score of pressing engagements were calling forinstant attention in New York, telegraphed simply that his work woulddetain him several days longer at Niagara, and he even talked ofreturning with the others by way of Quebec.
While the rest of the party were attending to their own affairs at therailway station and the telegraph office, Wharton and Catherine strolleddown to the little park over the American Fall and looked at the scenefrom there. Catherine in her furs was prettier than ever; her freshcolor was brightened by the red handkerchief she had tied round herneck, and her eyes were more mutinous than usual. As she leaned overthe parapet, and looked into the bubbling torrent which leaped intospace at her feet, Wharton would have liked to carry her off like thetorrent and give her no chance to resist. Yet, reckless as he was, hehad still common sense enough to understand that, until he was fairlyrid of one wife, he could not expect another to throw herself into hisarms, and he awkwardly flitted about her, like a moth about a lantern,unable even to singe his wings in the flame.
"Then it is decided?" he asked. "You are really going abroad?"
"I am really going to take Esther to Europe for at least two years. Wewant excitement. America is too tame."
"May I come over and see you there?"
"No followers are to be allowed. I have forbidden Esther to think ofthem. She must devote all her time to art, or I shall be severe withher."
"But I suppose you don't mean to devote all your own time to art."
"I must take care of her," replied Catherine. "Then I have got to writesome more sonnets. My hand is getting out in sonnets."
"Paris will spoil you; I shall wish you had never left your prairie,"said Wharton sadly.
"It is you that have spoiled me," replied she. "You have made meself-conscious, and I am going abroad to escape your influence."
"Do me a favor when you are there; go to Avignon and Vaucluse; when youcome to Petrarch's house, think of me, for there I passed the mosthopeless hours of my life."
"No, I will not go there to be sad. Sadness is made only for poetry orpainting. It is your affair, not mine. I mean to be gay."
"Try, then!" said Wharton. "See for yourself how far gayety will carryyou. My turn will come! We all have to go over that cataract, and youwill have to go over with the rest of us."
Catherine peered down into the spray and foam beneath as though she werewatching herself fall, and then replied: "I shall stay in the shallowestpuddle I can find."
"You will one day learn to give up your own life and follow an ideal,"said Wharton.
Catherine laughed at his solemn speech with a boldness that irritatedhim. "Men are always making themselves into ideals and expecting womento follow them," said she. "You are all selfish. Tell me now honestly,would you not sell yourself and me and all New York, like Faust in theopera, if you could paint one picture like Titian?"
Wharton answered sulkily: "I would like to do it on Faust's conditions."
"I knew it," cried she exultingly.
"If ever the devil, or any one else," continued Wharton, "can get me tosay to the passing moment, 'stay, thou art so fair,' he can have me fornothing. By that time I shall be worth nothing."
"Your temper will be much sweeter," interjected Catherine.
"Faust made a bargain that any man would be glad to make," growledWharton. "It was not till he had no soul worth taking that the devil hada chance to win."
Catherine turned on him suddenly with her eyes full of humor: "Then thatis the bargain you offer us women. You want us to take you on conditionthat we amuse you, and then you tell us that if we do amuse you, it willbe because you are no longer worth taking. Thank you! I can amuse myselfbetter. When we come home from Europe, I am going to buy a cattle ranchein Colorado and run it myself. You and Mr. Strong and Mr. Hazard shallcome out there and see it. You will want me to take you on wages ascowboys. I mean to have ten thousand head, and when you see them youwill say that they are better worth painting than all the saints andnaiads round the Mediterranean."
Wharton looked earnestly at her for a moment before replying, and shemet his eyes with a laugh that left him helpless. Unless takenseriously, he was beneath the level of average men. At last he closedthe talk with a desperate confession of failure.
"If you will not go to Vaucluse, Miss Brooke, go at least to the BritishMuseum in London, and when you are there, take a long look at what arecalled the Elgin marbles. There you will see Greek warriors killing eachother with a smile on their faces. You remind me of them. You are likeAchilles who answers his Trojan friend's prayer for life by saying:'Die, friend; you are no better than others I have killed.' I mean toget Miss Dudley to give me her portrait of you, and I shall paint in,over your head: [Greek: PHILOS THANE KAI SY]; and hang it up in mystudio to look at, when I am in danger of feeling happy."
With this they rambled back again towards their friends and ended forthe time their struggle for mastery. The morning was soon over; allreturned to their hotel, and luncheon followed; a silent meal at whichno one seemed bright except Strong, who felt that the burden wasbeginning to be a heavy one. Had it not been for Strong, not one of theparty would have moved out of the house again that day, but theProfessor privately ordered a sleigh to the door at three o'clock, andpacked his uncle and aunt into it together with Catherine and Wharton.Catherine's love of driving lent her energy, and Mrs. Murray, sadlyenough, consented to let her take the reins. As they drove away, Strongstood on the porch and watched them till they had disappeared down theroad. The afternoon was cloudy and gray, with flakes of snow droppingoccasionally through a despondent air. After the sleigh had gone, Strongstill gazed down the road, as though he expected to see something, butthe road was bare.
He had stayed at home under the pretense of writing letters, and nowreturned to the sitting-room, where Esther was sketching from the windowa view of the cataract. She went quietly on with her work, while he satdown to write as well as his conscience would allow him; for now that hesaw how much good Esther's escape had done her, how quiet she had becomeagain, and how her look of trouble had vanished, leaving only a tenderlittle air of gravity, as she worked in the silence of her memories; andwhen he thought how violently this serenity was likely to be disturbed,his conscience smote him, he bitterly regretted his interference, androundly denounced himself for a fool.
"Does Mr. Wharton really care for Catherine?" asked Esther, as she wenton with her sketch.
"I guess he thinks he does," answered Strong. "He looks at her as thoughhe would eat her."
"What a pity!"
"He is tough! Don't waste sympathy on him! If she took him, he wouldmake her a slave within a week. As it is, his passion will go into hispainting."
"She is a practical young savage," said Esther. "I thought at one timeshe was dazzled by him, but the moment she saw how unfit she was forsuch a man, she gave it up without a pang."
"I don't see her unfitness," replied Strong. "She has plenty of beauty,more common sense than he, and some money which would help him amazinglyexcept that he would soon spend it. I should say it was he who wantedfitness, but you can't harness a mustang with a unicorn."
"He wants me to study in Paris," said Esther; "but I mean to go to Romeand Venice. I am afraid to tell him."
"When do you expect to be there?"
"Some time in May, if we can get any one to take us."
"Perhaps I will look you up in the summer. If I do not go to Oregon, Imay run over to Germany."
"We shall be terribly homesick," replied Esther.
Silence now followed till Strong finished his letters and looked againat his watch. It was four o'clock. "If he is coming," thought Strong,"it is time he were here; but I would draw him a check for his church ifhe would stay away." The jingling of sleigh-bells made itself heard onthe road below as though to rebuke him, and presently a cry of frightfrom Esther at the window told that she knew what was before her.
"What shall I do?" she cried breathlessly. "Here he is! I can't see him!I can't go through that scene again. George! won't you stop him?"
"What under the sun are you afraid of?" said Strong. "He'll not shootyou! If you don't mean to marry him, tell him so, and this time make itclear. Let there be no mistake about it! But don't send him away if youmean to make yourself unhappy afterwards."
"Of course I am going to be unhappy afterwards," groaned Esther. "Whatdo you know about it, George? Do you think I feel about him as you wouldabout a lump of coal? I was just beginning to be quiet and peaceful, andnow it must all start up again. Go away! Leave us alone! But not long!If he is not gone within an hour, come back!"
The next instant the door opened and Hazard was shown into the room. Hismanner at this awkward moment was quiet and self-possessed, as though hehad made it the business of his life to chase flying maidens. Havingtaken his own time, he was not to be thrown off his balance by anyordinary chance. He nodded familiarly to Strong, who left the room as heentered, and walking straight to Esther, held out his hand with a lookof entreaty harder for her to resist than any form of reproach.
"I told you that I should follow," he said.
She drew back, raising her hand to check him, and putting on what sheintended for a forbidding expression.
"It is my own fault. I should have spoken more plainly," she replied.
Instead of taking up the challenge, Hazard turned to the table where herunfinished drawing lay.
"What a good sketch!" he said, bending over it. "But you have not yetcaught the real fall. I never saw an artist that had."
Esther's defense was disconcerted by this attack. Hazard was bent ongetting back to his old familiar ground, and she let him take it. Herlast hope was that he might be willing to take it, and be made contentwith it. If she could but persuade him to forget what had passed, andreturn to the footing of friendship which ought never to have been left!This was what she was made for! Her courage rose as she thought thatperhaps this was possible, and as he sat down before the drawing anddiscussed it, she fancied that her object was already gained, and thatthis young greyhound at her elbow could be held in a leash and made toobey a sign.
In a few minutes he had taken again his old friendly place, and if shedid not treat him with all the old familiarity, he still gained groundenough to warrant him in believing more firmly than ever that she couldnot resist his influence so long as he was at her side. They ran ontogether in talk about the drawing, until he felt that he might riskanother approach, and his way of doing it was almost too easy anddexterous.
"What you want to get into your picture," he was saying; "is the air,which the fall has, of being something final. You can't go beyondNiagara. The universe seems made for it. Whenever I come here, I findmyself repeating our sonnet: 'Siccome eterna vita e veder dio;' for thesight of it suggests eternity and infinite power." Then suddenly puttingdown the drawing, and looking up to her face, as she stood by his side,he said: "Do you know, I feel now for the first time the beauty of thenext two verses:
'So, lady, sight of you, in my despair, Brings paradise to this brief life and frail.'"
"Hush!" said Esther, raising her hand again; "we are friends now andnothing more."
"Mere friends, are we?" quoted Hazard, with a courageous smile. "No!" hewent on quickly. "I love you. I cannot help loving you. There is nofriendship about it."
"If you tell me so, I must run away again. I shall leave the room.Remember! I am terribly serious now."
"If you tell me, honestly and seriously, that you love me no longer andwant me to go away, I will leave the room myself," answered Hazard.
"I won't say that unless you force me to it, but I expect you from thistime to help me in carrying out what you know is my duty."
"I will promise, on condition that you prove to me first what your dutyis."
To come back again to their starting point was not encouraging, and theyfelt it, but this time Esther was determined to be obeyed even if itcost her a lover as well as a husband. She did not flinch.
"What more proof do you need? I am not fit to be a clergyman's wife. Ishould be a scandal in the church, and you would have to choose betweenit and me."
"I know you better," said Hazard calmly. "You will find all your fearsvanish if you once boldly face them."
"I have tried," said Esther. "I tried desperately and failed utterly."
"Try once more! Do not turn from all that has been the hope and comfortof men, until you have fairly learned what it is!"
"Is it not enough to know myself?" asked Esther. "Some people are madewith faith. I am made without it."
Hazard broke in here in a warmer tone: "I know you better than you knowyourself! Do you think that I, whose business it is to witness every dayof my life the power of my faith, am going to hesitate before a triflelike your common, daily, matter-of-course fears and doubts, such as haverisen and been laid in every mind that was worth being called one, eversince minds existed?"
"Have they always been laid?" asked Esther gravely.
"Always!" answered Hazard firmly; "provided the doubter wanted to laythem. It is a simple matter of will!"
"Would you have gone into the ministry if you had been tormented by themas I am?" she asked.
"I am not afraid to lay bare my conscience to you," he replied becomingcool again, and willing perhaps to stretch his own points of consciencein the effort to control hers. "I suppose the clergyman hardly existswho has not been tormented by doubts. As for myself, if I could haveremoved my doubts by so simple a step as that of becoming an atheist, Ishould have done it, no matter what scandal or punishment had followed.I studied the subject thoroughly, and found that for one doubt removed,another was raised, only to reach at last a result more inconceivablethan that reached by the church, and infinitely more hopeless besides.What do you gain by getting rid of one incomprehensible only to put agreater one in its place, and throw away your only hope besides? Theatheists offer no sort of bargain for one's soul. Their scheme is allloss and no gain. At last both they and I come back to a confession ofignorance; the only difference between us is that my ignorance is joinedwith a faith and hope."
Esther was staggered by this view of the subject, and had to fall backon her common-places: "But you make me say every Sunday that I believein things I don't believe at all."
"But I suppose you believe at last in something, do you not?" askedHazard. "Somewhere there must be common ground for us to stand on; andour church makes very large--I think too large, allowances fordifference. For my own part, I accept tradition outright, because Ithink it wiser to receive a mystery than to weaken faith; but no oneexacts such strictness from you. There are scores of clergymen to-day inour pulpits who are in my eyes little better than open skeptics, yet Iam not allowed to refuse communion with them. Why should you refuse itwith me? You must at last trust in some mysterious and humanlyincomprehensible form of words. Even Strong has to do this. Why may younot take mine?"
"I hardly know what to trust in," said Esther sadly.
"Then trust in me."
"I wish I could, but--"
"But what? Tell me frankly where your want of confidence lies."
"I want to tell you, but I'm afraid. This is what has stood between usfrom the first. If I told you what was on my lips, you would think it aninsult. Don't drive me into offending you! If you knew how much I wantto keep your friendship, you would not force me to say such things."
"I will not be offended," answered Hazard gayly. "I can stand almost anything except being told that you no longer love me."
It wrung Esther's heart to throw away a love so pure and devoted. Shefelt ashamed of her fears and of herself. As he spoke, her ears seemedto hear a running echo: "Mistress, know yourself! Down on your knees,and thank heaven fasting for a good man's love!" She sat some momentssilent while he gazed into her face, and her eyes wandered out to thegloomy and cloud-covered cataract. She felt herself being swept over it.Whichever way she moved, she had to look down into an abyss, and leap.
"Spare me!" she said at last. "Why should you drive and force me to takethis leap? Are all men so tyrannical with women? You do not quarrel witha man because he cannot give you his whole life."
"I own it!" said Hazard warmly. "I am tyrannical! I want your wholelife, and even more. I will be put off with nothing else. Don't you seethat I can't retreat? Put yourself in my place! Think how you would actif you loved me as I love you!"
"Ah, be generous!" begged Esther. "It is not my fault if you and yourprofession are one; and of all things on earth, to be half-married mustbe the worst torture."
"You are perfectly right," he replied. "My profession and I are one, andthis makes my case harder, for I have to fight two battles, one of love,and one of duty. Think for a moment what a struggle it is! I love youpassionately. I would like to say to you: 'Take me on your own terms! Iwill give you my life, as I will take yours.' But how can I? You aretrembling on the verge of what I think destruction. If I saw you tossingon the rapids yonder, at the edge of the fall, I could not be more eagerto save you. Yet think what self-control I have had to exercise, forthough I have felt myself, for weeks, fighting a battle of life anddeath for a soul much dearer to me than my own, I have gone forward asthough I felt no alarm. I have never even spoken to you on the subject.I stood by, believing so entirely in you that I dared let your ownnature redeem itself. But now you throw out a challenge, and I have nochoice but to meet it. I have got to fight for myself and my professionand you, at the same time."
At last, then, the battle was fairly joined, and desperately as both thelovers had struggled against it, they looked their destiny in the face.With all Esther's love and sympathy for Hazard, and with all the subtlepower which his presence had on her will, his last speech was unlucky.Here was what she had feared! She seemed to feel now, what she had onlyvaguely suspected before, the restraint which would be put upon her themoment she should submit to his will. He had as good as avowed thatnothing but the fear of losing her had kept him silent. She fancied thatthe thunders of the church were already rolling over her head, and thather mind was already slowly shutting itself up under the checks of itsnew surroundings. Hazard's speech, too, was unlucky in another way. Ifhe had tried not to shock her by taking charge of her soul before sheasked for his interference, she had herself made a superhuman effort notto shock him, and never once had she let drop a word that could offendhis prejudices. Since the truth must now come out, she was the lessanxious to spare his pride because he claimed credit for respectinghers.
"Must you know why I have broken down and run away?" she said at last."Well! I will tell you. It was because, after a violent struggle withmyself, I found I could not enter a church without a feeling of--ofhostility. I can only be friendly by staying away from it. I felt asthough it were part of a different world. You will be angry with me forsaying it, but I never saw you conduct a service without feeling asthough you were a priest in a Pagan temple, centuries apart from me. Atany moment I half expected to see you bring out a goat or a ram andsacrifice it on the high altar. How could I, with such ideas, join youat communion?"
No wonder that Esther should have hesitated! Her little speech was notmeant in ridicule of Hazard, but it stung him to the quick. He startedup and walked across the room to the window, where he stood a momenttrying to recover his composure.
"What you call Pagan is to me proof of an eternal truth handed down bytradition and divine revelation," he said at length. "But the mereceremonies need not stand in your way. Surely you can disregard them andfeel the truths behind."
"Oh, yes!" answered Esther, plunging still deeper into the morass. "Theceremonies are picturesque and I could get used to them, but thedoctrines are more Pagan than the ceremonies. Now I have hurt yourfeelings enough, and will say no more. What I have said proves that I amnot fit to be your wife. Let me go in peace!"
Again Hazard thought a moment with a grave face. Then he said: "Everychurch is open to the same kind of attack you make on ours. Do you meanto separate yourself from all communion?"
"If you will create a new one that shall be really spiritual, and notcry: 'flesh--flesh--flesh,' at every corner, I will gladly join it, andgive my whole life to you and it."
Hazard shook his head: "I can suggest nothing more spiritual than whatcame from the spirit itself, and has from all time satisfied the purestand most spiritual souls."
"If I could make myself contented with what satisfied them, I would doit for your sake," answered Esther. "It must be that we are in a newworld now, for I can see nothing spiritual about the church. It is allpersonal and selfish. What difference does it make to me whether Iworship one person, or three persons, or three hundred, or threethousand. I can't understand how you worship any person at all."
Hazard literally groaned, and his involuntary expression so irritatedEsther that she ran on still more recklessly.
"Do you really believe in the resurrection of the body?" she asked.
"Of course I do!" replied Hazard stiffly.
"To me it seems a shocking idea. I despise and loathe myself, and yetyou thrust self at me from every corner of the church as though I lovedand admired it. All religion does nothing but pursue me with self eveninto the next world."
Esther had become very animated in the course of her remarks, and notthe less so because she saw Hazard frown and make gestures of impatienceas she passed from one sacrilege to another. At last he turned at bay,and broke out:
"Do you think all this is new to me? I know by heart all thesecriticisms of the church. I have heard them in one form and another eversince I was a boy at school. They are all equally poor and ignorant.They touch no vital point, for they are made by men, like your cousinGeorge Strong, from whom I suppose you got them, who know nothing of thechurch or its doctrines or its history. I'll not argue over them. Letthem go for whatever you may think they are worth. I will only put toyou one question and no more. If you answer it against me, I will goaway, and never annoy you again. You say the idea of the resurrection isshocking to you. Can you, without feeling still more shocked, think of afuture existence where you will not meet once more father or mother,husband or children? surely the natural instincts of your sex must saveyou from such a creed!"
"Ah!" cried Esther, almost fiercely, and blushing crimson, as thoughHazard this time had pierced the last restraint on her self-control:"Why must the church always appeal to my weakness and never to mystrength! I ask for spiritual life and you send me back to my flesh andblood as though I were a tigress you were sending back to her cubs. Whatis the use of appealing to my sex? the atheists at least show me respectenough not to do that!"
At this moment the door opened and Strong entered. It was high time. Thescene threatened to become almost violent. As Strong came in, Estherwas standing by the fire-place, all her restless features flashing withthe excitement of her last speech. Hazard, with his back to the window,was looking at her across the room, his face dark with displeasure. AsStrong stepped between them, a momentary silence followed, when not asound was heard except the low thunder of the falling waters. One wouldhave said that storm was in the air. Suddenly Hazard turned on theunlucky professor and hurled at him the lightning.
"You are the cause of all this! what is your motive?"
Strong looked at him with surprise, but understood in a moment what hadhappened. Seeing himself destined in any case to be the victim of thecoming wrath, he quietly made up his mind to bear the lot of allmediators and inter-meddlers.
"I am afraid you are half right," he answered. "My stupidity may havemade matters a little worse."
"What was your motive?" repeated Hazard sternly.
"My motive was to fight your battle for you," replied Strong unruffled;"and I did it clumsily, that's all! I might have known it beforehand."
"Have you been trying to supplant me in order to get yourself in myplace?" demanded Hazard, still in the tone of a master.
"No!" replied Strong, half inclined to laugh.
"You will never find happiness there!" continued Hazard, turning toEsther, and pointing with a sweep of his hand to Strong.
"Esther agrees with you on that point," said Strong, beginning to thinkit time that this scene should end. "I don't mind telling you, too, thatsince I have seen her stand out against your persecution, I would giveany chance I have of salvation if she would marry me; but you needn't bealarmed about it,--she won't!"
"She will!" broke in Hazard abruptly. "You have betrayed me, and yourconduct is all of a piece with your theories." Then turning to Esther,who still stood motionless and silent before the fire, he went on: "I ambeaten. You have driven me away, and I will never trouble you again,till, in your days of suffering and anguish you send to me for hope andconsolation. Till then--God bless you!"
The silence was awful when his retreating footsteps could no longer beheard. It was peace, but the peace of despair. As the sound of thejangling sleigh-bells slowly receded from the door, and Esther realizedthat the romance of her life was ended, she clasped her hands togetherin a struggle to control her tears. Strong walked once or twice up anddown the room, buried in thought, then suddenly stopping before her, hesaid in his straight-forward, practical way:
"Esther, I meant it! you have fought your battle like a heroine. If youwill marry me, I will admire and love you more than ever a woman wasloved since the world began."
Esther looked at him with an expression that would have been a smile ifit had not been infinitely dreary and absent; then she said, simply andfinally:
"But George, I don't love you, I love him."
THE END.
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