The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 53, March, 1862. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ calmness that made her tremble as she had not done before.

      “You have deceived yourself: when you try to fill your heart with this work, you serve neither your God nor your fellow-man. You tell me,” stooping close to her, “that I am nothing to you: you believe it, poor child! There is not a line on your face that does not prove it false. I have keen eyes, Margaret !”—He laughed,—a savage, despairing laugh.—“You have wrung this love out of your heart? If it was easy to do, did it need to wring with it every sparkle of pleasure and grace out of your life? Your very hair is gathered out of your sight: you feared to remember how my hand had touched it? Your dress is stingy and hard; your step, your eyes, your mouth under rule. So hard it was to force yourself into an old worn-out woman! Oh, Margaret! Margaret!”

      She moaned under her breath.

      “I notice trifles, child! Yonder, in that corner, used to stand the desk where I helped you with your Latin. How you hated it! Do you remember?”

      “I remember.”

      “It always stood there: it is gone now. Outside of the gate there was that elm I planted, and you promised to water while I was gone. It is cut down now by the roots.”

      “I had it done, Stephen.”

      “I know. Do you know why? Because you love me: because you do not dare to think of me, you dare not trust yourself to look at the tree that I had planted.”

      She started up with a cry, and stood there in the old way, her fingers catching at each other.

      “It is cruel,—let me go!”

      “It is not cruel.”—He came up closer to her.—“You think you do not love me, and see what I have made you! Look at the torpor of this face,—the dead, frozen eyes! It is a ‘nightmare, death in life,’ Good God, to think that I have done this! To think of the countless days of agony, the nights, the years of solitude that have brought her to this,—little Margaret!”

      He paced the floor, slowly. She sat down on a low stool, leaning her head on her hands. The little figure, the bent head, the quivering chin brought up her childhood to him. She used to sit so when he had tormented her, waiting to be coaxed back to love and smiles again. The hard man’s eyes filled with tears, as he thought of it. He watched the deep, tearless sobs that shook her breast: he had wounded her to death,—his bonny Margaret! She was like a dead thing now: what need to torture her longer? Let him be manly and go out to his solitary life, taking the remembrance of what he had done with him for company. He rose uncertainly,—then came to her: was that the way to leave her?

      “I am going, Margaret,” he whispered, “but let me tell you a story before I go,—a Christmas story, say. It will not touch you,—it is too late to hope for that,—but it is right that you should hear it.”

      She looked up wearily.

      “As you will, Stephen.”

      Whatever impulse drove the man to speak words that he knew were useless made him stand back from her, as though she were something he was unfit to touch: the words dragged from him slowly.

      “I had a curious dream to-night, Margaret,—a waking dream: only a clear vision of what had been once. Do you remember—the old time?”

      What disconnected rambling was this? Yet the girl understood it, looked into the low fire with sad, listening eyes.

      “Long ago. That was a free, strong life that opened before us then, little one,—before you and me? Do you remember the Christmas before I went away? I had a strong arm and a hungry brain to go out into the world with, then. Something better, too, I had. A purer self than was born with me came late in life, and nestled in my heart. Margaret, there was no fresh loving thought in my brain for God or man that did not grow from my love of you; there was nothing noble or kindly in my nature that did not flow into that love and deepen there. I was your master, too. I held my own soul by no diviner right than I held your love and owed you mine. I understand it, now, when it is too late.”—He wiped the cold drops from his face.—“Now do you know whether it is remorse I feel, when I think how I put this purer self away,—how I went out triumphant in my inhuman, greedy soul,—how I resolved to know, to be, to trample under foot all weak love or homely pleasures? I have been punished. Let those years go. I think, sometimes, I came near to the nature of the damned who dare not love: I would not. It was then I hurt you, Margaret,—to the death: your true life lay in me, as mine in you.”

      He had gone on drearily, as though holding colloquy with himself, as though great years of meaning surged up and filled the broken words. It may have been thus with the girl, for her face deepened as she listened. For the first time for many long days tears welled up into her eyes, and rolled between her fingers unheeded.

      “I came through the streets to-night baffled in life,—a mean man that might have been noble,—all the years wasted that had gone before,—disappointed,—with nothing to hope for but time to work humbly and atone for the wrongs I had done. When I lay yonder, my soul on the coast of eternity, I resolved to atone for every selfish deed. I had no thought of happiness; God knows I had no hope of it. I had wronged you most: I could not die with that wrong unforgiven.”

      “Unforgiven, Stephen?” she sobbed; “I forgave it long ago.”

      He looked at her a moment, then by some master effort choked down the word he would have spoken, and went on with his bitter confession.

      “I came through the crowded town, a homeless, solitary man, on the Christmas eve when love comes to every man. If ever I had grown sick for a word or touch from the one soul to whom alone mine was open, I thirsted for it then. The better part of my nature was crushed out, and flung away with you, Margaret. I cried for it,—I wanted help to be a better, purer man. I need it now. And so,” he said, with a smile that hurt her more than tears, “I came to my good angel, to tell her I had sinned and repented, that I had made humble plans for the future, and ask her—God knows what I would have asked her then! She had forgotten me,—she had another work to do!”

      She wrung her hands with a helpless cry. Holmes went to the window: the dull waste of snow looked to him as hopeless and vague as his own life.

      “I have deserved it,” he muttered to himself. “It is too late to amend.”

      Some light touch thrilled his arm.

      “Is it too late, Stephen?” whispered a childish voice.

      The strong man trembled, looking at the little dark figure standing near him.

      “We were both wrong; let us be friends again.”

      She went back unconsciously to the old words of their quarrels long ago. He drew back.

      “Do not mock me,” he gasped. “I suffer, Margaret. Do not mock me with more courtesy.”

      “I do not; let us be friends again.”

      She was crying like a penitent child; her face was turned away; love, pure and deep, was in her eyes.

      The red fire-light grew stronger; the clock hushed its noisy ticking to hear the story. Holmes’s pale lip worked: what was this coming to him? He dared not hope, yet his breast heaved, a dry heat panted in his veins, his deep eyes flashed fire.

      “If my little friend comes to me,” he said, in a smothered voice, “there is but one place for her,—her soul with my soul, her heart on my heart.”—He opened his arms.—“She must rest her head here. My little friend must be—my СКАЧАТЬ