Part 84

And looking into those eyes, that were incapable of insincerity, that, in the present instance, attempted to veil nothing, the priest read all that of which, six years ago on that never to be forgotten November night in New York, he had had premonition.

"My daughter--is it because of Champney's prospective return within a year that you feel you cannot remain longer with us?"

Her quivering lips gave an almost inaudible assent.

"Why?" He dared not spare her; he felt, moreover, that she did not wish to be spared. His eyes held hers.

Bravely she answered, bracing soul and mind and body to steadfastness. There was not a wavering of an eyelid, not a suggestion of faltering speech as she spoke the words that alone could lift from her overburdened heart the weight of a seven years' silence:

"Because I love him."

The answer seemed to Father Honore supreme in its sacrificial simplicity. He laid his hand on her head. She bowed beneath his touch.

"I have tried so hard," she murmured, "so hard--and I cannot help it. I have despised myself for it--if only he hadn't been put there, I think it would have helped--but he is there, and my thoughts are with him there--I see him nights--in that cell--I see him daytimes breaking stones--I can't sleep, or eat, without comparing--you know. Oh, if he hadn't been put there, I could have conquered this weakness--"

"Aileen, no! It is no weakness, it is strength."

Father Honore withdrew his hand, that had been to the broken woman a silent benediction, and walked up and down the long room. "You would never have conquered; there was--there is no need to conquer. Such love is of God--trust it, my child; don't try any longer to thrust it forth from your heart, your life; for if you do, your life will be but a poor maimed thing, beneficial neither to yourself nor to others. I say, cherish this supreme love for the man who is expiating in a prison; hold it close to your soul as a shield and buckler to the spirit against the world; truly, you will need no other if you go forth from us into a world of strangers--but why, why need you go?"

He spoke gently, but insistently. He saw that the girl was hanging upon his every word as if he bespoke her eternal salvation. And, in truth, the priest was illumining the dark and hidden places of her life and giving her courage to love on which, to her, meant courage to live on.--Such were the demands of a nature, loyal, impulsive, warmly affectionate, sincere, capable of an all-sacrificing love that could give without return if need be, but a nature which, without love developing in her of itself just for the sake of love, would shrivel, become embittered, and like withered fruit on a tree drop useless to the ground to be trodden under the careless foot of man.

In the darkening room the firelight leaped and showed to Father Honore the woman's face transfigured under the powerful influence of his words. She smiled up at him--a smile so brave in its pathos, so winning in its true womanliness, that Father Honore felt the tears bite his eyeballs.

"Perhaps I don't need to go then."

"This rejoices me, Aileen--it will rejoice us all," he answered heartily to cover his emotion.

"But it won't be easy to stay where I am."

"I know--I know; you speak as one who has suffered; but has not Champney suffered too? Think of his home-coming!"

"Yes, he has suffered--in a way--but not my way."

Father Honore had a vision at that moment of Champney Googe's face when he said, "But you loved her with your whole manhood." He made no reply, but waited for Aileen to say more if she should so choose.

"I believed he loved me--and so I told him my love--I shall never, never get over that!" she exclaimed passionately. "But I know now--I knew before he went away the last time, that I was mistaken; no man could say what he did and know even the first letter of love."

Her indignation was rising, and Father Honore welcomed it; it was a natural trait with her, and its suppression gave him more cause for anxiety than its expression.

"He didn't love me--not really--"

"Are you sure of this, Aileen?"

"Yes, I am sure."

"You have good reason to know that you are telling a fact in asserting this?"

"Yes, altogether too good a reason." There was a return of bitterness in her answer.

Father Honore was baffled. Aileen spoke without further questioning. Evidently she was desirous of making her position as well as Champney's plain to him and to herself. Her voice grew more gentle as she continued:--

"Father Honore, I've loved him so long--and so truly, without hope, you know--never any hope, and hating myself for loving where I was not loved--that I think I do know what love is--"

Father Honore smiled to himself in the half-dark; this voice was still young, and its love-wisdom was young-wise, also. There was hope, he told himself, that all would come right in the end--work together for good.