"You were not offended at my sending them?"
"No, I was glad you sent them. It was thoughtful of you." She spoke low and seriously. "But do I quite understand?"
She asked him several questions, modest but straightforward, with her grave eyes on his face. While he answered he was thinking, "To the pure, all things are pure."
She dropped her eyes and sighed.
"It is a dreadful story; it makes me very sad."
Then after a minute she looked up again and asked:
"What are you going to do?"
He shook with vague apprehension, and leaned sidewise on the rock.
"With her?" he asked. "I hardly know. I thought you would advise me.
You cannot think I am under obligation to keep her any longer? I am not bound to her by any law."
She did not answer for a minute or look at him. When she did, there was a strong fervor in her voice:
"We are all bound; we are all under obligation to help, to guard, to seek and to save them that are lost."
She stood before him. Her face was like the face of the angel of pity, her tones full of passionate pleading.
"Did you take her ignorantly? Have you kept her only because the law made you? I know you better. What will become of her if you cast her off? She might be worse than she is."
She turned away and shuddered. Her words pierced him the deeper because they were the same Cora had used, because they were his own smothered thoughts.
He was silent, leaning against a great rock as he stood before her, and she went on, with rising passion:
"And beware for your own sake. If you throw her off, she will draw you down with her, you and all--" she caught her breath--"all connected with you. You cannot punish her as a criminal. What could you say to justify your action? Think of the position you would stand in before the world, with your tongue tied. You could not bear it. In your heat you may think you could, but you might as well think to resist the sea. Beware lest in your haste you throw away the good you have gained. For you have gained. Your power over her is multiplied tenfold. Your freedom is your power. She must know she is in your hands now; the fences are all down. She will know she can no longer presume; her instincts of self-preservation will weigh on your side, and your forbearance be a perpetual restraint upon her. I think you have no good alternative, and that your duty is plain. Don't think I am hard; we have all our tasks that seem too heavy at times. We can't understand; 'His ways are past finding out.'"
Her voice grew tremulous, and she held her face away a minute or two, but then looked up and smiled faintly:
"'Theirs not to make reply; theirs not to reason why.' Who knows what great things you may accomplish yet?"
All his sense went with her, down in some unseen depth; but above that rolled a stream whose waves bore him past all resistance. And now the billows swept over him and were bitter in his eyes and throat. He bent backward and rested his head upon the high rock, and stretched up his arms above him. The freshness of the morning turned to ashy pallor; the land and the sea sickened with pain.
Slowly he bent forward again:
"All that is true, I have no doubt. You have clear eyes, and some day I may see it so myself. But I can't see, I can't hear that now. There is only one thing I can see or hear. I disowned it, I put it away, I crushed it down; I was faithful to the galling bond; I did my duty!"
He raised his arms again; his voice was like a cry to heaven:
"She made my love her plaything; she wore it out with base uses. She has used me despitefully; she has been the curse of my life!"
And the low answer came back steadfastly:
"'Bless them that curse you; do good to them that despitefully use you!' You say you have done your duty; I know you have. Cleave fast to that. Take care, lest you have not that to say by and by."
Her voice faltered; there was a look of repressed tears about her drooped eyes. She had plainly been over the first part of this path before, but she was getting on untrodden ground.
"Duty is the principal thing; there is always some sweetness sooner or later with that; but without it, the best things will turn to ashes and dust."
"I know, I know," he cried. "But I can't feel that now. I can only feel one thing; I can only care for one thing. I only know that there is but one person in all the world for me, and that duty, and reason, and heaven itself, mean nothing beside her. And it is like death to hear her say these things to me, and to know that she could not say them if she cared for me as I do for her."
He thought her as steady as the rocks, and to her the solid earth seemed to heave round her more than the unstable sea. But she steadied herself and replied:
"Ought you not to be glad if it is not so? It would not alter your duty. Would it not make it the harder for you? Would it not make your way darker than it is?"
"Glad!" he called out, despairingly. "Glad that the sun is put out in the sky; that the earth is a desert and my heart an intolerable pang; that there is no more purpose, or spring, or desire in my life! Oh, yes, I am glad, glad! You can't know what you say!"
She clasped her hands; she laid her shoulder and face against the rock; she spoke bitterly:
"Oh, do not try me so. Do you suppose there is nothing hard for me also? Yes, I know; I know!"
He bent toward her, but a horrible doubt seized him. He clasped his hands behind his head; he swung from side to side.
"For another? Not for me?" he demanded, hoarsely.
She stood unsteadily; she lifted her joined hands; her upturned face was aflame, but she could not speak. Then her self-repression broke down. She sank upon the rock and covered her face, and wept uncontrollably. He threw himself beside her.
"Oh, is it true?" he besought her. "Can it be true?"
"Yes!--yes!" she cried, sobbing vehemently. "I tried to keep it down; I would not hear it. I tried to do right. But I can't help it now."
He turned his face up to the sky and groaned. "O God!" It was as if heaven came within his reach, and resistless hands stretched out and held him back. But it was too much. Fierce joy rushed upon him and swept away everything else. He stretched out his arms; he bowed over her; he caught her and held her fast. The sun leaped up in the sky.
The waves and the winds sang together. There was a new heaven and a new earth! "O Stella!" was all he said.
She lay still; she had no strength. But soon she found faint voice:
"O Lawrence, I am so weak! You must help me to do right."
"Help you!" he cried, piteously. "Help the angels of light! O Stella, Stella! Don't trust in me. I have no goodness but yours, no right but you. I had rather the tide would rise over us here, than have to go away from you."
She sobbed, then turned her head with a long, long breath, and slowly, steadily, with weak, limp fingers began to loosen his clasp and raise herself up. He let her go. The world seemed slipping from him; the shadows of night fell about him. They sat side by side and looked at each other.
"Is there no way?" he asked.
"No,--no way but one."
She tried to stanch her tears, but they would flow.
"Don't cry, don't cry!" he besought. "I can't bear that."
"Oh, never mind," she replied. "It's a relief to cry; I am not altogether unhappy. It is very bitter at first, and chokes me."
She bowed her face a moment, then lifted it and went on, with the tears in her eyes and voice: