Hugh Worthington

He found her in a tasteful dressing gown, its heavy tassels almost sweeping the floor, while her long glossy hair loosened from its confinement of ribbon and comb, covered her neck and shoulders as she sat before the fire always kindled in her room.

“How picturesque you look,” he said gaily, bending his knees in mock homage before her. Then seating himself upon the sofa at her side, he wound his arm around her and waited for her to speak.

“John,” and Anna’s voice was soft and pleading, “tell me more of that young girl. Did you love her very much?”

“Love her! yes,” and John spoke excitedly while the flush deepened on his cheek when Anna continued, “why didn’t you marry her then?”

“Why didn’t I? yes, why didn’t I?” and John started to his feet; then resuming his seat again he continued, “why didn’t you marry that Missionary who used to be here so much? Anna, I tell you there’s a heap of wrong for somebody to answer for, but it is not you, and it is not me—it’s—it’s mother!” and John whispered the word, as if fearful lest the proud, overbearing woman should hear.

“You are mistaken,” Anna replied, “for as far as Charlie was concerned father had more to do with it than mother. He objected to Charlie because he was poor—because he was a missionary—because he was not an Episcopalian, and because he loved me. He turned Charlie from the house—he locked me in my room, lest I should get out to meet him, and from that window I watched him going from my sight. I’ve never seen him since, though I wrote to him once or twice, bidding him forget me and marry some one else. He did marry another, but I’ve never quite believed that he forgot me. I know, though, that as Hattie’s husband he would do right and be true to her, for he was good, and when I was with him I was better; but I’ve forgotten most all he taught me, and the way he pointed out so clearly seems dark and hard to find, but I shall find it—yes, Charlie, I shall find it out at last, so we may meet in Heaven.”

Anna was talking more to herself than to John, and Charlie, could he have seen her, would have said she was not far from the narrow way which leadeth unto life. To John her white face, irradiated with gleams of the soft firelight, was as the face of an angel, and for a time he kept silence before her, then suddenly exclaimed.

“Anna, you are good, and so was she, and that made it hard to leave her, to give her up. Anna do you know what my mother wrote me? Listen, while I tell, then see if she is not to blame. She cruelly reminded me that by my father’s will all of us, save you, were wholly dependent upon her, and said the moment I threw myself away upon a low, vulgar, penniless girl, that moment she cast me off, and I might earn my bread and hers as best I could. She said, too, my sisters, Anna and all, sanctioned what she wrote, and your opinion had more weight than all the rest.”

“Oh, John, mother could not have so misconstrued my words. I said I thought it would be best for you not to marry her, unless you were too far committed; at least you might wait awhile, and when you started for Europe so abruptly, I thought you had concluded to wait and see how absence would affect you. Surely my note explained—I sent one in mother’s letter.”

“It never reached me,” John said bitterly, while Anna sighed at this proof of her mother’s treachery.

Always conciliatory, however, she soon remarked,

“You are sole male heir to the Richards name. Mother’s heart and pride are bound up in you. She wishes you to make a brilliant match, such as she is sure you can, and if she has erred, it was from her love to you and her wish for your success. A poor, unknown girl would only add to our expenses, and not help you in the least, so it’s for the best that you left her, though I’m sorry for the girl. Did she suffer much? What was her name? I’ve never heard.”

John hesitated a moment and then answered, “I called her Lily, she was so fair and pure.”

Anna was never in the least suspicious, or on the watch for quibbles, but took all things for granted, so now she thought within herself, “Lillian, most likely. What a sweet name it is.” Then she said aloud. “You were not engaged to her outright, were you?”

John started forward and gazed into his sister’s face with an expression as if he wished she would question him more closely, for confession to such as she might ease his burdened conscience, but Anna never dreamed of a secret, and seeing him hesitate, she said,

“You need not tell me unless you like. I only thought maybe, you and Lilly were not engaged.”

“We were;” and rising to his feet John leaned his forehead upon the marble mantel, which cooled its feverish throbbings. “Anna, I’m a wretch—a miserable wretch, and have scarcely known an hour’s peace since I left her.”

“Was there a scene?” Anna asked; and John replied,

“Worse than that. Worse for her. She did not know I was going till I was gone. I wrote to her from Paris, for I could not meet her face and tell her how mean I was. I’ve thought of her so much, and when I landed in New York I went at once to find her, or at least to inquire, hoping she’d forgotten me. The beldame who kept the place was not the same with whom I had left Lily, but she knew about her, and told me she died with cholera last September. She and—oh, Lily, Lily——” and hiding his face in Anna’s lap, John Richards sobbed like a little child.

Had Anna been possessed of ordinary penetration, she would have guessed that behind all this there was something yet untold, but she had literally no penetration at all. In her nature there was no deceit, and she never suspected it in others, until it became too palpable not to be seen. Very caressingly her white hand smoothed the daintily perfumed hair resting on her dress, and her own tears mingled with her wayward brother’s as she thought, “His burden is greater than mine. I will help him bear it if I can.”

“John,” she said at last, when the sobbing had ceased, “I do not think you so much to blame as others, and you must not reproach yourself so bitterly. You say Lily was good. Do you mean she was a Christian, like Charlie?”

“Yes, if there ever was one. Why, she used to make a villain like me kneel with her every night, and say the Lord’s Prayer.”

For an instant, a puzzling thought crossed Anna’s brain as to the circumstances which could have brought her brother every night to Lily’s side, but it passed away immediately as she rejoined,

“Then she is safe in Heaven, and there are no tears there; no broken hearts, or weary hours of watching. We’ll try to meet her some day. You did right to seek her out. You could not help her dying. She might have died had she been your wife, so, I’d try to think it happened for the best, and you’ll soon get to believing it did. That’s my experience. You are young yet, only twenty-six, and life has much in store for you. You’ll find some one to fill Lily’s place; some one whom we shall all think worthy of you, and we’ll be so happy together.”

The Doctor did not reply to this but sat as if lost in painful thought, until he heard the clock strike the hour of midnight.

“I did not think it was so late,” he exclaimed. “I must really leave you now.”

Anna would not keep him longer, and with a kiss she sent him away, herself holding the door a little ajar to see what effect the new carpet would have upon him. It did not have any at first, so much was he absorbed in thinking of Lily, but he noticed it at last, admiring its pattern and having a pleasant consciousness that every thing in his room was in keeping, from the handsome drapery which shaded the windows to the marble hearth on which a fire was blazing. He could afford to have a fire, and he sat enjoying it, thinking far different thoughts from Hugh Worthington, who, in his scantily furnished room, sat, with a curl of golden hair upon the stand beside him, and a well worn Bible in his hand. Dr. Richards had no Bible of his own; he did not read it now—had never read it much, but somehow his talk with Anna had carried him back to the time when just to please his Lily he had said with her the Lord’s Prayer, kneeling at her side with his arm around her girlish form. He had not said it since, and he never would again, he thought. It was sheer nonsense, asking not to be led into temptation, as if God delighted to lead us there. It was just fit for weak women to believe, though now that Lily was dead and gone he was glad that she had believed it, and he felt that she was better off for having said those prayers and acted up to what she said. “Poor Lily,” he kept repeating to himself, while in his dreams that night there were visions of a lonely grave in a secluded part of Greenwood, and he heard again the startling words,

“Dead, both she and the child.”

He did not know there was a child, and he staggered in his sleep, just as he staggered down the creaking stairs, repeating to himself,

“Lily’s child—Lily’s child! May Lily’s God forgive me!”