The Rector of St. Mark's Part 6

He was already repenting, for he felt that it was sin to take that warm, trusting, loving heart in exchange for the half-lifeless one he should render in return, the heart where scarcely a pulse of joy was beating, even though he held his promised wife, and she as fair and beautiful as ever promised wife could be.

"I can make her happy, and I will," he thought, pressing the warm fingers which quivered to his touch.

But he did not kiss her again. He could not, for the brown eyes which still seemed looking at him as if asking what he did. There was a strange spell about those phantom eyes, and they made him say to Lucy, who was now sitting demurely at his side:

"I could not clear my conscience if I did not confess that you are not the first woman whom I have asked to be my wife."

There was a sudden start, and Lucy's face was as pale as ashes, while her hand went quickly to her side, where the heart beats were so visible, warning Arthur to be careful how he startled her, so when she asked:

"Who was it, and why did you not marry her? Did you love her very much?" he answered indifferently:

"I would rather not tell you who it was, as that might be a breach of confidence. She did not care to be my wife, and so that dream was over and I was left for you."

He did not say how much he loved her, but Lucy forgot the omission and asked:

"Was she young and pretty?"

"Young and pretty both, but not as beautiful as you," Arthur replied, his fingers softly parting back the golden curls from the face looking so trustingly into his.

And in that he answered truly. He had seen no face as beautiful of its kind as Lucy's was, and he was glad that he could tell her so. He knew how it would please her, and partly make amends for the tender words which he could not speak for the phantom eyes haunting him so strangely. And Lucy, who took all things for granted, was more than content, only she wondered that he did not kiss her again, and wished she knew the girl who had come so near being in her place. But she respected his wishes too much to ask, after what he had said, and she tried to make herself glad that he had been so frank with her, and not left his other love affair to the chance of her discovering it afterwards at a time when it might be painful to her.

"I wish I had something to confess," she thought, but from the scores of her flirtations, and even offers, for she had not lacked for them, she could not find one where her own feelings had been enlisted in ever so slight a degree, until she remembered Thornton Hastings, who for one whole week had paid her much attentions as made her drive round on purpose to look at the house on Madison Square where the future Mrs. Hastings was to live. But his coolness afterwards, and his comments on her frivolity had terribly angered her, making her think she hated him, as she had said to Anna. Now, however, as she remembered the drive and the house, she nestled closer to Arthur, and told him all about it, fingering the b.u.t.tons on his dressing-gown as she told it, and never dreaming of the pang she was inflicting as Arthur thought how mysterious were G.o.d's ways, and wondered that he had not reversed the matter, and given Lucy to Thornton Hastings rather than to him, who did not half deserve her.

"I know now I never cared a bit for Thornton Hastings, though I might if he had not been so mean as to call me frivolous," Lucy said, as she arose to go; then suddenly turning to the rector, she added: "I shall never ask you who your first love was, but I would like to know if you have quite forgotten her."

"Have you forgotten Thornton Hastings?" Arthur asked, laughingly, and Lucy replied, "Of course not; one never forgets, but I don't care a pin for him now, and, did I tell you f.a.n.n.y writes that rumor says he will marry Anna Ruthven?"

"Yes, no, I did not know--I am not surprised," and Arthur stooped to pick up a book lying on the floor, thus hiding his face from Lucy, who, woman-like, was glad to report a piece of gossip, and continued: "She is a great belle, f.a.n.n.y says--dressed beautifully and in perfect taste, besides talking as if she knew something, and this pleases Mr.

Hastings, who takes her out to ride and drive, and all this after I warned her against him, and told her just what he said of me. I am surprised at her."

Lucy was drawing on her gauntlets, and Arthur was waiting to see her out, but she still lingered on the threshold, and at last said to him, "I wonder you never fell in love with Anna yourself. I am sure if I were you I should prefer her to me. She knows something and I do not, but I am going to study. There are piles of books in the library at Prospect Hill, and you shall see what a famous student I will become.

If I get puzzled, will you help me?"

"Yes, willingly," Arthur replied, wis.h.i.+ng that she would go before she indulged in any more speculations as to why he did not love Anna Ruthven.

But Lucy was not done yet, and Arthur felt as if the earth were giving way beneath his feet when, as he lifted her into the saddle and took her hand at parting, she said, "Now, remember, I am not going to be jealous of that other love. There is only one person who could make me so, and that is Anna Ruthven; but I know it was not she, for that night we all came from Mrs. Hobbs' and she went with me up-stairs, I asked her honestly if you had ever offered yourself to her, and she told me you had not. I think you showed a lack of taste, but I am glad it was not Anna."

Lucy was far down the road ere Arthur recovered from the shock her last words had given him. What did it mean, and why had Anna said he never proposed? Was there some mistake, and he the victim of it? There was a blinding mist before the young man's eyes as he returned to his study, and went over again, with all the incidents of Anna's refusal, even to the reading of the letter which he already knew by heart.

Then, as the thought came over him that possibly Mrs. Meredith played him false in some way, he groaned aloud, and the great sweat drops fell upon the table where he leaned his head. But this could not be, he reasoned. Lucy was mistaken. She had not heard aright. Somebody, surely, was mistaken, or he had committed a fatal error.

"But I must abide by it," he said, lifting up his pallid face. "G.o.d forbid the wrong I have done in asking Lucy to be my wife when my heart belonged to Anna. G.o.d help me to forget the one and love the other as I ought. She is a lovely little girl, trusting me so wholly that I can make her happy, and I will; but Anna! oh, Anna!"

It was a despairing cry, such as a newly-engaged man should never have sent after another than his affianced bride. Arthur thought so, too, fighting back his first love with an iron will, and, after that first hour of anguish, burying it so far from sight that he went that night to Captain Humphreys and told of his engagement; then called upon his bride-elect, trying so hard to be satisfied that, when, at a late hour, he returned to the rectory, he was more than content; and, by way of fortifying himself still further, wrote the letter which Thornton Hastings read at Newport.

And that was how it happened.

CHAPTER IX.

ANNA.

Through the rich curtains which shaded the windows of a room looking out on Fifth Avenue, the late October sun was s.h.i.+ning, and as its red light played among the flowers on the carpet a pale young girl sat watching it, and thinking of the Hanover hills, now decked in their autumnal glory, and of the ivy on St. Mark's, growing so bright and beautiful beneath the autumnal frosts. Anna had been very sick since that morning in September when she sat on the piazza at the Ocean House and read Lucy Harcourt's letter. The faint was a precursor of fever, the physician said, when summoned to her aid, and in a tremor of fear and distress Mrs. Meredith had had her at once removed to New York, and that was the last Anna remembered.

From the moment her aching head had touched the soft pillows in Aunt Meredith's house all consciousness had fled, and for weeks she had hovered so near to death that the telegraph wires bore daily messages to Hanover, where the aged couple who had cared for her since her childhood wept, and prayed, and watched for tidings from their darling. They could not go to her, for Grandpa Humphreys had broken his leg, and his wife could not leave him, so they waited with what patience they could for the daily bulletins which Mrs. Meredith sent, appreciating their anxiety, and feeling glad withal of anything which kept them from New York.

"She had best be prayed for in church," the old man had said, and so Sunday after Sunday Arthur read the prayer for the sick, his voice trembling as it had never trembled before, and a keener sorrow in his heart than he had ever known when saying the solemn words. Heretofore the persons prayed for had been comparative strangers, people in whom he felt only the interest a pastor feels in all his flock, but now it was Anna, whose case he took to G.o.d, and he always smothered a sob during the moment he waited for the fervent response the congregation made, the "Amen" which came from the pew where Lucy sat sounding louder and heartier than all the rest, and having in it a sound of the tears which fell so fast on Lucy's book as she asked that Anna might not die. Oh, how he longed to go to her, but this he could not do, and so he had sent Lucy, who bent so tenderly above the sick girl, whispering loving words in her ear, and dropping kisses upon the lips which uttered no response, save once, when Lucy said:

"Do you remember Arthur?"

Then they murmured faintly:

"Yes; Arthur, I remember him, and the Christmas song, and the gathering in the church; but that was long ago. There's much happened since then."

"And I am to marry Arthur," Lucy had said again, but this time there was no sign that she was understood, and that afternoon she went back to Hanover loaded with testaments for the children of St. Mark's, and new books for the Sunday-school, and, accompanied by Valencia, who, having had a serious difference with her mistress, Mrs. Meredith, offered her services to Lucy, and was at once accepted.

That was near the middle of October; now it was towards the last, and Anna was so much better that she sat up for an hour or more, and listened with some degree of interest to what Mrs. Meredith told her of the days when she lay so unconscious of all that was pa.s.sing around her, never even heeding the kindly voice of Thornton Hastings, who, more than once, had stood by her pillow with his hand on her feverish brow, and whose thoughtfulness was visible in the choice bouquets he sent each day, with notes of anxious inquiry when he did not come himself.

Anna had not seen him yet since her convalescence. She would rather not see any one until strong enough to talk, she said; and so Thornton waited patiently for the interview she had promised him when she was stronger, but every day he sent her fruit and flowers, and books of prints which he thought would interest her, and which always made her cheeks grow hot and her heart beat regretfully, for she thought of the answer she must give him when he came, and she shrank from wounding him.

"He is too good, too n.o.ble to have an unwilling wife," she said, but that did not make it the less hard to tell him so, and when at last she was well enough to see him, she waited his coming nervously, starting when she heard his step, and trembling like a leaf as he drew near her chair. It was a very thin, wasted hand which he took in his, holding it for a moment between his own, and then laying it gently back upon her lap.

He had come for the answer to a question put six weeks before, and Anna gave it to him.

Kindly, considerately, but decidedly, she told him she could not be his wife, simply because she did not love him as he ought to be loved.

"It is nothing personal," she said, working nervously at the heavy fringe of her shawl. "I respect you more than any man I ever knew, but one, and had I met you years ago before--before----"

"I understand you," Thornton said, coming to her aid. "You have tried to love me, but cannot, because your affections are given to another."

Anna bowed her head in silence. Then after a moment she continued:

"You must forgive me, Mr. Hastings, for not telling you this at once.

I did not know then but I could love you--at least I meant to try, for you see, this other one----"

The fingers got terribly tangled in the fringe as Anna gasped for breath, and went on:

"He does not know, and never will; that is, he never cared for me, nor guessed how foolish I was to give him my love unsought."

"Then it is not Arthur Leighton, and that is the reason you refused him, too?" Mr. Hastings said, involuntarily, and Anna looked quickly up, her cheeks growing paler than they were before, as she replied:

"I don't know what you mean. I never refused Mr. Leighton--never."

"You never refused Mr. Leighton?" Thornton exclaimed, forgetting all discretion in his surprise at this flat contradiction. "I have Arthur's word for it, written to me last June, while Mrs. Meredith was there, I think."

"He surely could not have meant it, because it never occurred. Once, I was foolish enough to think he was going to, but he did not. There is some great mistake," Anna found strength to say, and then she lay back in her easy-chair panting for breath, her brain all in a whirl as she thought of the possibility that she was once so near the greatest happiness she had ever desired, and which was now lost to her forever.