THE INEVITABLE HOUR

"How shall I lose the sin yet keep the sense,
And love th' offender, yet detest the offense?"
—Pope.

After wandering aimlessly about the city for awhile the half-crazed gambler turned his footsteps toward home. He longed for and yet dreaded its quiet and repose. The forces of attraction and repulsion were so nearly balanced that for a long time he oscillated before his own door like a piece of iron hung between the opposite poles of a battery.

At last he entered, both hoping and fearing that Pepeeta would be asleep. He had a vague presentiment that he was on the verge of some great event. The guilty secret so long hidden in the depths of his soul seemed to have festered its way dangerously near to the surface, and he felt that if anything more should happen to irritate him he might do something desperate.

So quiet had been his movements that he stood at Pepeeta's door before she knew that he had entered the house, and when he saw her kneeling by her bedside he stamped his foot in rage. The worshiper, startled by the interruption, although she was momentarily expecting it, hastily arose.

As she turned toward him, he saw that there was a light on her pale countenance which reflected the peace of God to whom she had been praying, as worshipers always and inevitably reflect, however feebly, the character of what they worship. Her beauty, her humility, her holiness goaded him to madness. He hated her, and yet he loved her. He could either have killed her or died for her.

She smiled him a welcome which revealed her love, but did not conceal her sadness nor her suffering, and, approaching him, extended her hands for an embrace. He pushed her aside and flung himself heavily into a chair.

"You are tired," she said soothingly, and stroked his hair.

He did not answer, and her caress both tranquilized and frenzied him.

She placed before him the little lunch which she always prepared with her own hands and kept in readiness for his return.

"Take it away," he said.

She obeyed, and returning seated herself upon an ottoman at his feet.

The silence was one which it seemed impossible to break, but which at last became unendurable.

"How often have I told you never to let me find you on your knees when I come home?" he at last asked, brutally.

"Oh! my beloved," she exclaimed, "you will at least permit me to kneel to you! See! I am here in an attitude of supplication! Listen to me! Answer me! What is the matter? Do you not love me any more? Tell me!"

He drew away his hands which she had clasped, and folded them across his breast.

"What has come between us?" she continued. "Tell me why it is that instead of growing together, we are continually drawing apart? Sometimes I feel that we are drifting eternally away from each other. I can no longer get near to you. An ocean seems to roll between us! What does it mean? Is this the nature of love? Does it only last for a little time? Do you not love me any more? Will you never love me again?"

He still gazed sullenly at the floor.

"Will you not answer me?" she begged imploringly. "I cannot endure it any longer. My heart will break. I am a woman, you must remember that! I need love and sympathy so much. It is my daily bread. What is the matter? I beseech you to tell me! Is it your business? Do you feel, as I do, that it is wrong? I have sometimes thought so, and that you were worried by it and would be glad to give it up but for the fear that it might deprive me of some of these luxuries. Is it that? Oh! you do not know me. You do not know how happy I should be to leave these things forever, and to go out into the street this very night a pauper. It is wrong, David. I see it now. I feel it in the depths of my heart."

"Wrong, is it," he cried savagely, "and whose fault is it that I am in this wrong business?"

"It is mine," she said, "mine! I own it. It was I who led you astray. How often and how bitterly have I regretted it! How strange it is, that love like mine could ever have done you harm. I do not understand this. I cannot see how love can do harm. I have loved you so truly and so deeply, and I would give my life for you, and yet this love of mine has been the cause of all your trouble! It would seem that love ought to bless us. Would you not think so?"

He sat silent; any one but Pepeeta could have seen that this silence would soon be broken by an explosion.

"Speak to me, my love!" she pleaded, "speak to me. I confess that I have wronged you. But is there not something that I can do to make you happy? Surely a wrong like this cannot be irreparable. Tell me something that I can do to make you happy!"

With a violent and convulsive effort, he pushed her away and exclaimed fiercely, "Leave me! Do not touch me! I hate you!"

"Hate me?" she cried, "hate me? Oh! David. You cannot mean it. You cannot mean that you hate me?"

"But I do!" he exclaimed bitterly. "I hate you. You have ruined me, and now you confess it. From the time that I first saw you I have never had a moment's peace. Why did you ever cross my path? Could you not have left me alone in my happiness and innocence? Look at me now. See what you have brought me to. I am ruined! But I am not alone. You have pulled yourself down with me. What will you say when I tell you that you are involved in a crime that must drag us both to hell?"

"A crime?" she cried, clasping her hands in terror.

"Yes, a crime. You need not look so innocent. You are as guilty as I, or at least you are as deeply involved. We are bound together in misery. We are doomed."

"Doomed! Doomed! What do you mean? Tell me, I implore you—- do not speak in riddles!"

"Tell you? Do you wish to know? Are you in earnest? Then I will! You are not my wife! There! It is out at last!"

Pepeeta sprang to her feet and stood staring at him in horror.

"Not your wife?" she gasped.

"No, not my wife," he said, repeating the bitter truth. "I deceived you. You were married to your beast of a husband lawfully enough; but as you would not leave him willingly, I determined that you should leave him any way. And so I bribed the justice to deceive you."

"You-bribed-the-justice-to-deceive-me?"

"Yes, bribed him. Do you understand? You see now what your cursed beauty has brought you to?"

She stood before him white and silent.

He had risen, and they were confronting each other with their sins and their sorrows between them.

It was as if a flash of lightning had in an instant lit up the darkness of her whole existence, and she saw in one swift glance not only her misery, but her sin. He was cruel; but he was right. She had been ignorant; but she had not been altogether innocent. There was a period in this tragedy when she had gone against the vague but powerful protest of her soul. With a swift and true perception she traced her present sorrow to that moment in the twilight when, against that protest, she besought David to accompany them on their travels. She felt, but did not observe nor heed that admonition. She had even forgotten it, but now it rose vividly before her memory.

These moments of revision, when the logic of events throws into clear light the vaguely perceived motives of the soul, are always dramatic and often terrible.

It was Pepeeta who broke the silence following David's outburst. In a voice preternaturally calm, she said, "We are in the presence of God, and I demand of you the truth. Is what you have told me true?"

"As true as life. As true as death. As true as hell," he answered bitterly.

"This, then," she said, "is the clue to all this mystery. The tangled thread has begun to unravel. Many times this suspicion has forced itself upon my mind; but it was too terrible to believe! And yet I, who could not endure the suspicion, must now support the reality."

They had not taken their eyes from each other and were trying to penetrate each other's minds, but realized that it was impossible. There was in each something that the other could not comprehend.

The strain on his overwrought nerves soon became unendurable to David, and he sank into a chair.

"Well," he said, as he did so, "what are you going to do about it?"

She had not at first realized that the emergency called for action, but this inquiry awakened her to the consciousness that she was in a situation from which she must escape by an effort of her will. She was before a horrible dilemma and upon one horn or the other she must be cruelly impaled.

But David, who asked the question, had not realized this necessity at all.

"Do?" she said, "do? Must I do something? Yes, you are right. We cannot go on as we are. Something must be done. But what? Is it possible that I must return to my husband? How can I do that—I who cannot think of him without loathing! What is the matter? Why do you tremble so? Is it then as terrible to you as to me? I see from your emotion that I am right. And yet I cannot see what good it will do! How can it undo the wrong? It will be a certain sort of reparation, but it cannot bring him happiness, for I cannot give him back my heart. To whom will it bring happiness? Has happiness become impossible? Are we all three doomed to eternal misery? Oh! David, why have you done this?"

He did not reply, but sat cowering in his chair.

"Forgive me," she cried, when she noticed his despair, "I did not mean to reproach you, but I am so bewildered! And yet I see my duty! If he is my husband, I must go back to him. A wife's place is by her husband's side. I do not see how I can do it, but I must. How hard it is! I cannot realize it. The very thought of seeing him again makes me shudder! And yet I must go!"

"It is impossible," gasped the trembling creature to whom she looked for confirmation.

"Why impossible?"

"Because, because—he—is—dead," he whispered, through his dry lips.

"Dead? Did you say dead?" Pepeeta cried. "When did he die? How did he die?"

"I killed him," he shouted, springing to his feet and waving his hands wildly. "There! It has told itself. I knew it would. It has been eating its way out of my heart for months. I should have died if I had kept it secret for another moment. I feel relieved already. You do not know what it means to guard a secret night and day for years, do you? Oh, how sweet it is to tell it at last. I killed him! I killed him! I struck him with a stone. I crushed his skull and turned him face downward in the road and left him there so that when they found him they would think that he had fallen from his horse. It was well done, for one who had had no training in crime! No one has suspected it. I am in no danger. And yet I could not keep the secret any longer. Explain that, will you? If my tongue had been torn out by the roots, my eyes would have looked it, and if my eyes had been seared with a red-hot iron, my hands would have written it. A crime can find a thousand tongues! And now that I have told it, I feel so much happier. You would not believe it, Pepeeta. I am like myself again. I feel as if I should never be unkind or irritable any more. The load has fallen from my heart. Come, now, and kiss me. Let me take you in my arms."

Extending his hands, he approached her. As he did so, the look of horror with which she had regarded him intensified and she retreated before him until she reached the wall, looking like a sea-bird hurled against a precipice by a storm. Such dread was on her face that he dared not touch her.

"What is the matter?" he said. "Are you afraid of me?"

She did not reply, but gazed at him as if he were some monster suddenly risen from the deep. He endured the glance for a single moment, and then, realizing the crime which he had committed had excited an uncontrollable repulsion for him in her soul, he staggered backward and sank once more into his chair, the picture of helpless and hopeless despair.

For a long time Pepeeta gazed at him without moving or speaking. And then, as she beheld his misery, the look of horror slowly melted into one of pity, until she seemed like an angel who from some vast distance surveys a sinful man. Gradually she began to realize that he who had committed this dreadful deed was her own lover, and that it was the result of that guilty affection which they bore each other. The consciousness of her own complicity softened her. She moved towards him; she spoke.

"Forgive me," she said, "for seeming even for a moment to despise and abhor you. It was all so sudden. I do not mean to condemn you. I do not mean to act or feel as if I were any less guilty than you are in all this wrong. But when one has to face something awful without preparation, it is very hard. No wonder that we do not know what to do. Who but God can extricate us from this trouble? We are both guilty, David. I think that it is because I have had so large a share in all the rest that has been wrong that I cannot now feel towards you as I think I ought. It is true that you have injured me terribly and irretrievably. It is true that your hands are stained with blood, and yet I love you! My heart yearns for you this moment as never before since we have known each other. I long to take you in my arms."

He interrupted her by springing from his chair and attempting to embrace her; but she waved him back with a strange majesty in her mien, and continued. "I long to take you to my heart and comfort you. I could live with you or I could die with you. But there is a voice within my soul that tells me that we must part. Lives cannot be bound together by crime. While misfortunes and mistakes may knit the hearts of lovers together, evil deeds must force them apart! We are not lawfully married, and so—"

"But we can be!" he exclaimed.

"No," she answered, in a voice that sounded to him like that of destiny. "No, we cannot. No one would marry us if the facts were known. And if we concealed them from others, we could not hide them from ourselves! We have no right to each other. We could not respect and therefore we could not truly love each other. Into every moment of our lives this guilty secret would intrude. No, it is impossible. I see it clearly. Every passing moment only makes it more plain. It is terrible, but it is necessary, and what must be, must!"

"We shall not part!" he cried, springing towards her and seizing her by the wrist. "God has bound us together and no man shall put us asunder! We are as firmly linked by vice as by virtue. This secret will draw us together! We cannot keep away from each other. I should find you if you were in heaven and I in hell. You are mine! mine, I say! Nothing shall part us. Have I not suffered for you and sinned for you? What better title is there than that? It was not the sin, but the secret which has alienated us, and now that I am not compelled to guard it any longer, there can be no more trouble between us. The deed has passed unsuspected. We should have heard of it long ago if any one had ever doubted that it was an accident. Let the dead past bury its dead! Let us be happy."

He looked down upon her as if his will were irresistible; but she remained unmoved and immovable, and gazed at him with deep, sad eyes in which he saw his doom.

"No," she answered, calmly, "it is impossible. You need not argue. You cannot change my mind. I see it all too clearly. We must part."

"Oh! pity me," he cried, falling on his knees. "What shall I do? I cannot bear this burden alone. It will crush me. Have mercy, Pepeeta. Do not drive me away. I cannot endure to go forth with this brand of Cain upon my forehead and realize that I shall never hear from your lips another word of love or comfort. Pity me. You are not God. He has not put justice into your hands for execution. You are only human!"

"Alas," she cried, "and all too human. But, my beloved, I am not acting for myself. It is not my mind or heart that speaks. It is God speaking through me. I feel myself to be acting under an influence apart from myself. We have resisted these voices and this influence too long. Now we must obey them."

"But, Pepeeta," he continued, "you do not really think that you have the power to suppress the love you feel for me?"

"I shall not try," she answered.

"But can you not see that this passion of ours will bring us together again? Sooner or later, love will conquer. It conquers or crushes. Everything gives way to it at last. It disrupts the most solemn contracts. It burns the strongest bonds like tow. Always and everywhere, men and women who love will come together. It is the law of life, it is destiny. We cannot remain apart, we are linked together for time and eternity."

She listened to him calmly until he had finished and then said, "Nevertheless, I must go. And I will go now; delay is useless. I see only too clearly that as long as I am near, you must steadily get worse instead of better. While you possess the fruits of your sin you will not truly repent. You must either surrender them or be deprived of them. We can never become accustomed to this awful secret. Our lives are doomed to loneliness and sorrow; we must accept our destiny; we must go forth alone to seek the forgiveness of God. Good-bye; but remember, David, in every hour of trial, wherever you may be, there will be a never-ceasing prayer ascending to God for you. My life shall be devoted to supplication. I shall never lose hope; I shall never doubt. Love like that I bear you must in some way be redemptive in its nature. All will be well. Once more, good-bye."

She smiled on him with unutterable tenderness, and with her eyes still fixed upon his haggard face began to move slowly toward the door.

He did not stir; he could not move, but remained upon his knees with his hands extended towards her in supplication.

Like some exalted figure in a dream he saw her vanish from his sight; the world became empty and dark; his powers of endurance had been overtaxed; he lost all consciousness, and fell forward on the floor.

A SIGNAL IN THE NIGHT

A month of dangerous and almost fatal sickness followed. When at last, through the care of a faithful negro "mammy," the much-enduring man crept out from the valley of the shadow of death, he learned that Pepeeta had secured a little room in a tenement house and was supporting herself with her needle, in the use of which she had become an expert in those glad hours when she made her baby's clothes, and those sad ones when she sat far into the night awaiting David's return.

On the morning of the first day in which he was permitted to leave the house he made his way to Pepeeta's new quarters.

"And so this is to be her home," he said with a shudder as he looked up to the attic window. Every day this pale young man was seen, by the curious neighbors, hovering about the place. As for the object of his love and solicitude, she began at once to be a bread-winner. The delicate girl who never in her life until now had experienced a care about the necessities of existence began to struggle for bread in company with the thousands of poor and needy, creatures by whom she found herself surrounded. The only hunger she experienced was that of the heart. She soon became conscious of David's presence, and derived from it a pleasure which only added to her pain. She avoided him as best she could, and her determination and her sanctity prevented him from approaching her.

David could never remember how many days were passed in this way, for he lost count of time, and lived more like a man in a dream than like one in a world of life and action.

But as his strength slowly returned, he grew more and more restive under the restraint which Pepeeta's will imposed upon him. And so, while he did not dare to approach her in person, he determined to put his case to a final test, and if he could not win her back to leave forever a place in which he was doomed to suffer perpetual torment.

In the execution of this purpose, he wrote her a letter in which, after passionately pleading for her love, he asked her to give him a sign of willingness to take him once more back into her life. "If I may cherish hope of your ultimate relenting," he wrote, "place your candle on the window sill. I will wait until midnight, and if you extinguish it then, I shall accept your decision as final, and you will be responsible for what follows. I am a desperate man, and life without you has become intolerable."

With this letter in his hand, he waited until the street was quiet and the halls of the tenement house deserted, and then crept up the long staircase with trembling knees.

On tiptoe he picked his way across the corridor and slipped the note under the door. So quietly did he step that he did not hear his own footfall; but it did not escape the ears of the woman who sat stitching her life into the garment lying upon her knees. There is often in a footfall music sweeter than bird songs or harp tones.

Having thrust the letter under the door, David fled hastily down the stairway and into the street, where he began to pace back and forth like a sentry on his beat, never for a single instant losing sight of the window whence streamed the feeble rays of the candle from which he was to receive the signal of hope or despair.

Never did a condemned felon in a cell watch for the coming of a messenger of pardon with more wildly beating heart than his as he gazed at that window up in the wall of the gloomy tenement house. Never did a mariner on a storm-tossed vessel keep his eye more resolutely fixed on beams from a distant lighthouse.

It was then ten o'clock, and as he watched the slow-moving hands upon the moonlit dial in the church tower, it seemed to him they were held back by invisible fingers, and there came to his mind a forgotten story of a man who, having been accidentally imprisoned in a sepulchre, suffered in the twenty minutes which elapsed before his release all the pangs of starvation, so powerfully was his imagination excited. This story which he had once discredited he now believed, for it seemed to him as if eternities were being crowded into single moments.

He had also heard that drowning men could review their entire lives in the few instants that preceded their loss of consciousness, and he acquired a new comprehension of this mystery. All the experiences of his entire existence swept through his mind again and again with a rapidity and a distinctness that astonished him. Like a great shuttle darting back and forth through a fabric, his mind seemed to be passing again and again forward and backward through all the scenes of the past. Finally, and after what seemed uncounted ages, the great clock struck the hour of midnight. One, two, three—he stood like a man rooted to the ground,—four, five, six—his heart beat louder than the bell,—seven, eight, nine—the blood seemed bursting through his temples,—ten, eleven, twelve!—the light went out! The universe seemed to have been instantaneously swallowed up in darkness. He could not see the figure that crept to the window and gazed down upon him from behind the drapery of the curtains. He did not know that Pepeeta had fallen upon her knees in an agony deeper than his own, and was gazing down at him through streaming tears. In those few succeeding moments the sense of his personal loss was displaced by a sudden and overpowering sense of his personal guilt. The full consciousness of his sin burst upon him. He saw the selfishness of his love and the wickedness of his lust in a light brighter than day.

There is a kind of rhododendron about Trebizond of which the bees make a honey that drives people mad! He saw that illicit love was that honey of Trebizond! He felt, as he had never felt before, the pressure of that terrible power that over all and through all the discords and sins of life makes resistlessly for righteousness. He perceived that a system of wheels is attached to every thought and act, and that, each one sets in motion the entire machinery of justice. He felt that every sleepless starry eye in heaven penetrated the guilty secrets of his soul and was pledged to the execution of judgment.

These perceptions confounded him with fear. His thoughts ceased to move in order, tossing and teasing each other like straws in the wind. They ceased to illumine the depths of his soul and only hung like flickering candles above a dark mine.

Whether he looked up or down, without or within, he saw no hope, but it was not until after the lapse of many and unnoted moments that the disturbed machinery of his mind began to move. He awakened as from a nightmare, drew his hands across his eyes and looked this way and that as if to get his bearings.

"What next?" he said aloud, as if speaking to some one else. Receiving no answer, he turned instinctively toward his gambling house, and went stumbling along through the deserted streets. What is a man, after all, but a stumbling machine? Progress is made by falling forward over obstacles! The poor stumbler tottered across his own threshold into that brilliant room where he had always received an enthusiastic welcome, but which he had not visited since his sickness. If ever a man needed kindness and encouragement it was he; but his sensitive spirit instantly discovered that all was changed.

His superstitious companions had not forgotten the broken glass, and had heard of his subsequent calamities. With them the lucky alone were the adorable! The gods of the temples of fortunes are easily and quickly dethroned and the worshipers had already prostrated themselves before other shrines.

The coldness of his greeting sent a chill to his already benumbed heart and increased his desperation. He was nervous, excited, depressed, and feeling the need of something to distract his thought from his troubles, he sat down and began to play; but from the first deal he lost—lost steadily and heavily.

The habitués of the place exchanged significant glances as much as to say, "I told you so!"

Whispered phrases passed from lip to lip.

"He is playing wild."

"He has lost his nerve."

"His luck has turned."

And so indeed it had! Within a few short hours he had staked his entire fortune and lost it. It had gone as easily and as quickly as it had come.

"I guess that is about all," he said, pushing himself wearily back from the table at which he had just parted with the title to his desolated home.

"Shall I stake you, Davy?" asked one of his friends, touched by the pathos of the haggard face and hopeless voice.

"No," he answered, rising. "I have played enough. I am going away. Good-bye, boys."

Without another word, he left them and passed out of the door.

"Good-bye," they cried, as he vanished, scarcely raising their eyes from the tables.

Even in a crowd like that there will generally be found some heart which still retains its tenderness. The young man who had offered to stake him, followed the ruined gambler into the street.

"Where are you going, old man?" he said kindly, slipping his hand through David's arm.

"I don't know," he answered absently.

"Are you dead broke, Davy?"

"Dead broke," in a lifeless echo.

"Will you accept a little loan? You can't go far without money."

"It's no use."

"Take it! I wouldn't have had it if it hadn't been for you, and I won't have it long whether you take it or not."

As he spoke he slipped a roll of bills into his friend's pocket.

"Thanks!" said David.

"Don't mention it," he replied.

"Good-bye."

"Good-bye."

The sun was just rising as they parted. The first faint stir of life was perceptible in the city streets; the green-grocers were coming in with their fresh vegetables; the office boys were opening the doors and putting away the shutters; there was a bright, morning look on the faces which peered into the haggard countenance of the gambler as he crept aimlessly along, but the fresh, sweet light gave him neither brightness nor joy. His heart was cold and dead; he had not even formed a purpose.

And so he drifted aimlessly until the current that was setting toward the levee caught him and bore him on with it. The sight of a vessel just putting out to sea communicated to his spirit its first definite impulse and he ascended the gang-plank without even inquiring its destination.

In a few moments the boat swung loose and turned its prow down the river. The bustle of the embarkation distracted him. He watched the hurrying sailors, gazed at the piles of merchandise, walked up and down the deck, listened to the fresh breeze that began to play upon the great, sonorous harp of the shrouds and the masts, and when at last the vessel glided out into the waters of the gulf he lay down in a hammock and fell into a long and dreamless sleep.

HEART HUNGER

"Only; I discern
Infinite passion, and the pain
Of finite hearts that yearn."

—Browning.

For a moment after she had read the note which David thrust beneath her door, Pepeeta held her breath; then sinking to her knees, she prostrated herself before that august Being to whom all men bow in last extremities; her head resting upon arms pathetically crossed on the low window sill—bruised but not broken, cast down, but not destroyed—she drank the cup of sorrow to its dregs.

Men hang birds in dark rooms, sometimes, until they learn to sing, and it was to a kindred discipline of her Heavenly Father's that Pepeeta was being subjected. In that supreme hour of trial she performed the greatest feat of which the soul is capable. She defied her own nature; she committed an act of sacred violence against the most clamorous propensities of her heart.

What that struggle cost her no mortal mind can know. That in her decision she chose the better part some will doubt. The most common justification of our conduct is that we have followed the "dictates of our natures." But because those natures are double, and the good and evil perpetually struggle for the mastery, we are sometimes compelled to reverse their most strenuous demands.

Those lofty souls who are enabled to perceive their duty clearly and to commit bravely this act of sacred violence must always remain a mystery to those who meanly live upon a lower plane of existence.

It was as certain when this pure soul entered upon her renewed struggle to find the path of duty that she would succeed, as that the carrier pigeon, launched into an unknown region, will find the homeward way; but for a little time she fluttered her wings in ignorance and despair; she found no rest for the soles of her feet, and the ark of refuge was nowhere to be seen.

The nearness of her lover, she could see him in the street; his sorrow, she could behold his white face even by the pale light of the moon; his tender love, whose real depth she had never for a moment doubted; his bitter agony, which she knew she could terminate in a single instant, all appealed to her with an indescribable power. Her own sorrow and loneliness were eclipsed by the consciousness of the sorrow and loneliness of the man whom she loved more than life. She felt the pain in his bosom far more than in her own; but this feeling which added so much to her suffering became a clear interpreter of her duty.

She acted from a single, undivided impulse; it was to do him good and bring to him the final beatitude of life. She saw as clearly as when the facts about this tragedy were flashed upon her that her presence in David's life would be a perpetual source of irritation, and that so long as he possessed her he would never be able to face the truly spiritual problems which remained to be solved.

How she acquired those powers of divination is a mystery. Such women possess a certain prescience that cannot wholly be accounted for. What Pepeeta did was right because she was Pepeeta. It does not follow that because such natures see so clearly that they act with less pain than others. Indeed, the more clear those spiritual perceptions, the more poignant are the sufferings which they involve; life can scarcely afford a situation more pathetic than hers.

Alone in a great city, young and beautiful, capable of enjoying happiness with a singular appreciation, the victim of a complicated set of circumstances for the comprehension and management of which her early life had afforded no training; guilty of a great sin, but if one could say so, innocently guilty, and penitent; consecrated to duty, but torn asunder by conflicting emotions as if upon a wheel—of what deeper sorrow is the soul capable?

When she extinguished that candle she extinguished the sun of her human happiness; but it happened to her as it has happened to countless others, that in the darkness which ensued she saw a myriad beautiful stars.

The next morning Pepeeta resolutely took up the heavy burden of her life and bore it uncomplainingly, adjusting herself as the brave and patient have ever done, to the necessities of her daily existence. Her little attic room became a sort of sanctuary, and began to take upon itself a reflection of her nature. She built it to fit her own character and needs, as a bird builds its nest to fit its bosom.

It may be said of most of us that we secrete our homes as the snails do their shells. They become a sort of material embodiment of our spirits, a physical expression of our whole thought about life. Before long flowers were blooming in Pepeeta's window; a mocking bird was singing in a cage above it; on the wall hung the old tambourine and one after another many little inexpensive but brightening bits and scraps of things such as women pick up by instinct found their places in this simple attic.

She seldom left it for the outside world, except when she went to deliver the work she had finished, and on Sundays when she spent the morning wandering from one church to another. As a consequence of these brief but regular pilgrimages her beautiful face became familiar to the residents of some of the side streets where the women and children made her low courtesies and the men doffed their hats by that divine instinct of reverence which we all feel in the presence of the beautiful and the good.

A double craving devours our human hearts—for solitude and for companionship. As there are hours when we thirst to be alone, there are others when we hunger for the touch of a human hand, the glance of a human eye, a smile from human lips. Even gross, material things like food and drink lose half their flavor when taken in solitude. Pepeeta needed friends and found them.

We never know how small a part of ourselves that fraction may be which we have taken for the whole! We come to know ourselves by struggle and endeavor, more than by thought and meditation. We have only to do our work each day in hope and trust. We can only find rest in effort. It is not in repose, but in activity—not in joy, but in sorrow, that the soul comes to its second birth. Pepeeta needed labor and suffering, and they were sent her.

She accepted all that followed her supreme decision without a question and without a murmur for many months, and then—a reaction came! The draughts upon her physical and emotional nature had been too great.

WHERE I MIGHT FIND HIM

"Attempt the end, and never stand to doubt,
Nothing's so hard but search will find it out."

—Herrick.

During several months of loneliness and sorrow a great change had been taking place in the mind of the patient sufferer, of which she was only vaguely conscious.

Purposes are often formed in the depths of our souls, of which we know nothing until they suddenly emerge into full view. Such a purpose had been slowly evolving in the heart of Pepeeta.

The strain which she had been undergoing began at last to exhaust her physically.

Her vital force became depleted, her step grew feeble, the light died out of her eyes, she drooped and crept feebly about her room. The determination which she had so resolutely maintained to live apart from her guilty lover slowly ebbed away. She was, after all, a woman, not a disembodied spirit, and her woman's heart yearned unquenchably for the touch of her lover's hand, for the kisses of his lips, for the comfort of his presence.

This longing increased with every passing hour. Fatigue, weariness, loneliness, steadily undermined her still struggling resistance to those hungerings which never left her, till at last, when the failing resources of her nature were at their lowest point, all her remaining strength was concentrated into a single passionate desire to look once more upon the face which glowed forever before her inner eye, or at least to discover what had befallen the wanderer in his sin and wretchedness.

Slowly the diffused longing crystallized into a fixed purpose, to resist which was beyond her power. Having nobly conquered temptation while she had strength, and yielded only when her physical nature itself was exhausted, she gathered up the few possessions she had accumulated, sold them for what they would bring, and, with a heart palpitating wildly, broke every tie she had formed with the life around her and turned her face toward the little village where her happiness and sorrows had begun.

It was a long and tedious journey from New Orleans to Cincinnati in those days, and it told terribly upon the weakened constitution of the wayfarer. Her heart beat too violently in her bosom; a fierce fever began to burn in her veins; she trembled with terror lest her strength fail her before she reached her journey's end. It was not of Death himself that she was afraid; but that he should overtake her before she had seen her lover!

Husbanding her strength as shipwrecked sailors save their bread and water, she counted the days and the miles to the journey's end, and having arrived at the wharf of the Queen City, the pale young traveler who had excited the compassion of the passengers, but who would neither communicate the secret of her sorrow nor accept of any aid, took her little bundle in her thin hand and started off on the last stage of her weary pilgrimage. It was the hardest of all, for her money was exhausted and there was nothing for her to do but walk.

It was a cold December day. Gray clouds lowered, wintry winds began to moan, and she had proceeded but a little way when light flakes of snow began to fall. The chill penetrated her thin clothing and shook her fragile form. She moved more like a wraith than a living woman. Her tired feet left such slight impressions in the snow that the feathery flakes obliterated one almost before she had made another, and she was haunted by the thought that every trace of her passage through life was thus to disappear!

Ignorant of the distance or the exact direction, and stopping occasionally to inquire the way, she plodded on, the exhaustion of hunger and weariness becoming more and more unendurable. All that she did now was done by the sheer force of will; but yield she would not. She would die cheerfully when she had attained her object, but not before. The winds became more wild and boisterous; they loosened and tossed her black hair about her wan face; they beat against her person and drove her back. Every step seemed the last one possible; but suddenly, just as she descended the slope of a steep hill, she saw the twinkling lights of the village and the feeble rays shot new courage into her heart. Under this accession of power she pushed forward and made her way toward the old Quaker homestead.

The night had now deepened around her; but every foot of the landscape had been indelibly impressed upon her memory, and even in the gathering gloom she chose the road unerringly. There were only a few steps more, and reeling toward the door yard fence she felt her way to the gate, opened it, staggered forward up the path in the rays of light that struggled out into the darkness, and with one final effort fell fainting upon the threshold.

The scene within the house presented a striking contrast to that without. In a great open fireplace the flames of the beech logs were wavering up the chimney. Seated in the radiance of their light, on a low stool, was a young boy with his elbows upon his knees and his cheeks in the palms of his hands. His mother sat by his side stroking his hair and gazing at him in fond, brooding love. The father was bending over a Bible lying open on the table; it was the hour of prayer. He was reading a lesson from the twenty-fifth chapter of St. Matthew, and had just articulated in slow and reverent tones the words of Jesus, "I was a stranger and ye took me in," when they heard a sound at the door.

Father, mother and son sprang to their feet and, hurrying towards the door, flung it open and beheld a woman's limp form lying on the threshold.

It was but a child's weight to the stalwart Quaker who picked it up in his great arms and carried it into the radiance of the great fireplace, and in an instant he and Dorothea his wife were pushing forward the work of restoration. They forced a cordial between the parted lips, chafed the white hands, warmed the half-frozen feet, and in a few moments were rewarded by discovering feeble signs of life. The color came back in a faint glow to the marble face, the pulses fluttered feebly, the bosom heaved gently, as if the refluent tide of life had surged reluctantly back, and the tired heart began once more to beat. She had regained her life but not her consciousness, and lay there as white and almost as still as death. The little boy stood gazing wonderingly at her from a distance. The calm features of the Quaker were agitated with emotion. His wife knelt by the side of the pale sleeper, and her tears dropped silently on the hand which she pressed to her lips.

SAFE HAVEN

"The human heart finds shelter nowhere but in human kind."

—George Eliot.

For many days Pepeeta's life hung in the balance, her spirit hovering uncertainly along the border land of being, and it was only love that wooed it back to life.

When at length, through careful nursing, she really regained her consciousness and came up from those unfathomable abysses where she had been wandering, she opened her eyes upon the walls of a little chamber that looked out through an alcove into the living room of the Quaker house.

Dorothea had finished her afternoon's work and was seated before the great fireplace, while by her side stood Steven, speaking to her in whispers, and looking often toward the cot on which Pepeeta lay. An almost sacred stillness was in the room, for since the advent of the sufferer, even the quiet of that well-ordered household had deepened and softened.

The silence was suddenly broken by a voice feeble and tremulous, but very musical and sweet. It was Pepeeta, who gazed around her in bewilderment and asked in vague alarm, "Where am I?"

Dorothea was by her side in an instant, and taking the thin fingers in her strong hands, replied: "Thee is among friends."

Pepeeta looked long into the calm face above her, and gathered reassurance; but her memory did not at once return.

"Have I ever been in this place before? Have I ever seen your face? Has something dreadful happened? Tell me," she entreated, gazing with agitation into the calm eyes that looked down into hers.

"I cannot tell thee whether thee has ever seen us before, but we have seen thee so much for a few days that we feel like old friends," said Dorothea, pressing the hand she held, and smiling.

Pepeeta's eyes wandered about the room restlessly for a moment, and then some dim remembrance of the past came back.

"Did I come here in a great storm?" she asked.

"Thee did, indeed. The night was wild and cold."

"Did I fall on the threshold?"

"Upon the very threshold, and let us thank God for that, because if thee had fallen at the gate or in the path we should never have heard thee."

Pepeeta struggled to a sitting posture as her memory clarified, fixed her wide open eyes upon Dorothea and asked, pathetically, "Where is he?"

"I do not know who thee means," said Dorothea, laying her hand on the invalid's shoulders and trying gently to push her back upon her pillow.

"David!" she exclaimed, "David. Tell me if you know, for it seems to me I shall die if I do not hear."

"I do not know, my love. It is a long time since we have heard from David. But thee must lie down. Thee is not strong enough to talk."

She did not need to force her now. The muscles relaxed, and Pepeeta sank back upon her pillow, sobbing like a little child, while Dorothea stroked her forehead. The soothing touch of her hand and her gentle presence calmed the agitated and disappointed heart. The sobs became less frequent, the tears ceased to flow, and sleep, coming like a benediction, brought the balm of oblivion.

The boy, with his great brown eyes, looked wonderingly from the face of the invalid to that of his mother, who sat silently weaving in her imagination the story of this life, from the few strands which she had seized in this brief and broken conversation.

The next morning when Pepeeta awakened she was not only rested and refreshed by this natural sleep, but was restored to the full possession of her consciousness and her memory.

When Dorothea came in from her morning duties to see how her patient fared, she was startled by the change, for the invalid had recovered that calm self-possession which she had lost before beginning her journey, and now that her uncertainty was ended had already begun to face disappointment with fortitude and resolution.

The nurse seated herself by the patient, who said humbly:

"May I talk now?"

"If thee feels strong enough and can do it without exciting thyself, thee may. But if thee cannot, thee had better wait a little longer. Thee is very weak."

"But I am much better, am I not?"

"Yes, thee is much better, but thee is far from well."

"Yes, I am far from well; but it will do me good to talk. I have much to tell, and I cannot rest until I tell it all."

"Thee need not hurry—need thee?"

"Yes—I feel in haste. I have no right to all this kindness, for I have done this household a great wrong and I must confess it. It is a sad, sad story. Will you listen to it now?"

"If it will do thee good instead of harm, I will."

"Then prop me up in bed, if you please. Place me so that I can talk freely. There, thank you. You are so gentle and so kind. I have never in all my life had any one touch me so gently. And now, if you are ready, be seated in the great chair and turn your face to the wall."

"To the wall?"

"Yes, to the wall. I cannot bear to see the reproaches that must fill those kind eyes."

"But, my dear, thee shall not see any reproaches in my eyes. Who am I that I should judge thee? We are commanded in the holy Bible to judge not, lest we be judged again. Tell thy story without fear. Thee shall tell it to ears that shall hear thee patiently, and a heart that is not devoid of pity."

"I cannot, cannot," cried Pepeeta, "do as I pray! Look out of the window. Look anywhere but at my face. Let me lie here and look up. Let me tell my story as if to God alone. It will be easy for me to do that, for I have told it to Him again and again."

Fearing to agitate her, Dorothea did as she desired.

"Are we alone?"

"Yes, all alone."

"Well, then, I will begin," Pepeeta said, and in a voice choked with emotion, the poor sufferer breathed out the tale of her sin and her sorrow. She told all. She did not shield herself, and everywhere she could she softened the wrong done by David. It was a long story, and was interrupted only by the ticking of the great clock in the hallway, telling off the moments with as little concern as when three years before it had listened to the story told to David by his mother. When the confession was ended a silence followed, which Dorothea broke by asking gently:

"May I look, now?"

"If you can forgive me," Pepeeta answered.

The tender-hearted woman rose, approached the bedside and kissed the quivering lips.

"Have you forgiven me?" Pepeeta asked, seizing the face in her thin hands and looking almost despairingly into the great blue eyes.

"As I hope to be forgiven," Dorothea answered, kissing her again and again.

A look of almost perfect happiness diffused itself over the pale countenance.

"It is too much—too much. How can it be? It was such a great wrong!" she exclaimed,

"Yes, it was a great wrong. Thee has sinned much, but much shall be forgiven if thee is penitent, and I think thee is. No love nor pardon should be withheld from those who mourn their sins. Our God is love! And we are so ignorant and frail. It is a sad story, as thee says, but it is better to be led astray by our good passions than by our bad. I have noticed that it is sometimes by our holiest instincts that we are betrayed into our darkest sins! It was heaven's brightest light—the light of love—that led thee astray, my child, and even love may not be followed with closed eyes! But thee does not need to be preached to."

Astonished at such an almost divine insight and compassion, Pepeeta exclaimed, "How came you to know so much of the tragedy of human life, so much of the soul's weakness and guilt; you who have lived so quietly in this happy home?"

"By consulting my own heart, dear. We do not differ in ourselves so much as in our experiences and temptations. But thee has talked enough about thy troubles. Tell me thy name? What shall we call thee?"

"My name is Pepeeta."

"And mine is Dorothea."

"Oh! Dorothea," Pepeeta exclaimed, "do you think we shall ever see him again?"

"I cannot tell. We had made many inquiries and given up in despair. And now when we least expected news, thee has come! We will cherish hope again. We were discouraged too easily."

"Oh! how strong you are—how comforting. Yes, we will cherish hope, and when I am well I will start out, and search for him everywhere. I shall find him. My heart tells me so."

"But thee is not well enough, yet," Dorothea said, with a kind smile, "and until thee is, thee must be at rest in thy soul and, abiding here with us, await the revelation of the divine will."

"Oh, may I stay a little while? It is so quiet and restful here. I feel like a tired bird that has found a refuge from a storm. But what will your husband say, when he hears this story?"

"Thee need not be troubled about that. His door and heart are ever open to those who labor and are heavy laden. The Christ has found a faithful follower in him, Pepeeta. It was he who first divined thy story."

"Then you knew me?"

"We had conjectured."

"Then I will stay, oh, I will stay a little while, and perhaps, perhaps—who knows?" she clasped her hands, her soul looked out of her eyes, and a smile of genuine happiness lit up her sad face.

"Yes, who knows?" said Dorothea, gently, rearranging the pillows and bidding the invalid fall asleep again.

THE LITTLE LAD