After fighting all night against the impulse to think about Mrs. Arnot and her niece, he at last gave up the struggle, and permitted his mind to revert to them. Such thoughts were only pain now, and yet for some reason it seemed as if his mind were drawn irresistibly toward them. He felt that his deep regret was as useless and unavailing as the November wind that sweeps back and forth the withered and fallen leaves. His whole frame would at times tremble with gusts of remorseful passion, and again he would sigh long and drearily.

He now realized what a priceless opportunity he had lost. It was once his privilege to enter Mrs. Arnot's beautiful home assured of welcome. She had been deeply interested in him for his mother's sake, and might have become so for his own. He had been privileged to meet Laura Romeyn as her equal, at least in social estimation, and he might have made himself worthy of her esteem, and possibly of her affection. He saw that he had foolishly clamored, like a spoiled child, for that which he could only hope to possess by patient waiting and manly devotion; and now, with a regret that was like a serpent's tooth, he felt that such devotion might have been rewarded.

But a few months ago, whose life had been more rich with promise than his, or to whom had been given a better vantage-ground? And yet he had already found the lowest earthly perdition possible, and had lost hope of anything better.

In his impotent rage and despair he fairly gnashed his teeth and cursed himself, his fate, and those who had led to his evil fortunes. Then, by a natural revulsion of feeling, he sobbed like a child that has lost its way and can discover no returning path, and whose heart the darkness of the fast-approaching night fills with unutterable dread.

He was a criminal—in his despair he never hoped to be anything else—but he was not a hardened criminal and was still capable of wishing to be different. In the memory of his bitter experience a pure and honorable life now appeared as beautiful as it was impossible. He had no expectation, however, of ever living such a life, for pride, the cornerstone of his character, had given way, and he was too greatly discouraged at the time to purpose reform even in the future. Without the spur and incentive of hope we become perfectly helpless in evil; therefore all doctrines and philosophies which tend to quench or limit hope, or which are bounded by the narrow horizon of time and earth, are, in certain emergencies, but dead weights, dragging down the soul.

At last, from sheer exhaustion, he threw himself on his couch, and fell into a troubled sleep, filled with broken and distorted visions of the scenes that had occupied his waking hours. But he gradually became quieter, and it appeared in his dream as if he saw a faint dawning in the east which grew brighter until a distinct ray of light streamed from an infinite distance to himself. Along this shining pathway an angel seemed approaching him. The vision grew so distinct and real that he started up and saw Mrs. Arnot sitting in the doorway, quietly watching him. Confused and oblivious of the past, he stepped forward to speak to her with the natural instinct of a gentleman. Then the memory of all that had occurred rolled before him like a black torrent, and he shrank back to his couch and buried his face in his hands. But when Mrs. Arnot came and placed her hand on his shoulder, saying gently, but very gravely, "Egbert, since you would not come to me I have come to you," he felt that his vision was still true, and that God had sent his angel.



CHAPTER XXVIII

FACING THE CONSEQUENCES

A young man of Haldane's age is capable of despairing thoughts, and even of desperate moods, of quite extended continuance; but it usually requires a long lifetime of disaster and sin to bury hope so deep that the stone of its sepulchre is not rolled away as the morning dawns. Haldane had thought that his hope was dead; but Mrs. Arnot's presence, combined with her manner, soon made it clear, even to himself, that it was not; and yet it was but a weak and trembling hope, scarcely assured of its right to exist, that revived at her touch and voice. His heart both clung to and shrank from the pure, good woman who stood beside him.

He trembled, and his breast heaved convulsively for a few moments, and she quietly waited until he should grow more calm, only stroking his bowed head once or twice with a slight and reassuring caress. At last he asked in a low, hoarse voice:

"Do you know why I am here?"

"Yes, Egbert."

"And yet you have come in kindness—in mercy, rather."

"I have come because I am deeply interested in you."

"I am not worthy—I am not fit for you to touch."

"I am glad you feel so."

"Then why do you come?"

"Because I wish to help you to become worthy."

"That's impossible. It's too late."

"Perhaps it is. That is a question for you alone to decide; but I wish you to think well before you do decide it."

"Pardon me, Mrs. Arnot," he said emphatically, raising his head, and dashing away bitter tears; "the world has decided that question for me, and all have said in one harsh, united voice, 'You shall not rise.' It has ground me under its heel as vindictively as if I were a viper. You are so unlike the world that you don't know it. It has given me no chance whatever."

"Egbert, what have you to do with the world?"

"God knows I wanted to recover what I had lost," he continued in the same rapid tone. "God knows I left this cell weeks since with the honest purpose of working my way up to a position that would entitle me to your respect, and change my mother's shame into pride. But I found a mad-dog cry raised against me. And this professedly Christian town has fairly hunted me back to this prison."

Mrs. Arnot sighed deeply, but after a moment said, "I do not excuse the Christian town, neither can I excuse you."

"You too, then, blame me, and side against me."

"No, Egbert, I side with you, and yet I blame you deeply; but I pity you more."

He rose, and paced the cell with his old, restless steps. "It's no use," he said; "the world says, 'Go to the devil,' and gives me no chance to do otherwise."

"Do you regard the world—whatever you may mean by the phrase—as your friend?"

"Friend!" he repeated, with bitter emphasis.

"Why, then, do you take its advice? I did not come here to tell you to go to perdition."

"But if the world sets its face against me like a flint, what is there for me to do but to remain in prison or hide in a desert, unless I do what I had purposed, defy it and strike back, though it be only as a worm that tries to sting the foot that crushes it."

"Egbert, if you should die, the world would forget that you had ever existed, in a few days."

"Certainly. It would give me merely a passing thought as of a nuisance that had been abated."

"Well, then, would it not be wise to forget the world for a little while? You are shut away from it for the present, and it cannot molest you. In the meantime you can settle some very important personal questions. The world has power over your fate only as you give it power. You need not lie like a helpless worm in its path, waiting to be crushed. Get up like a man, and take care of yourself. The world may let you starve, but it cannot prevent you from becoming good and true and manly; if you do become so, however, rest assured the world will eventually find a place for you, and, perhaps, an honored place. But be that as it may, a good Christian man is sustained by something far more substantial than the world's breath."

Out of respect for Mrs. Arnot, Haldane was silent. He supposed that her proposed remedy for his desperate troubles was that he should "become a Christian," and to this phrase he had learned to give only the most conventional meaning.

"Becoming a Christian," in his estimation, was the making of certain professions, going through peculiar and abnormal experiences, and joining a church, the object of all this being to escape a "wrath to come" in the indefinite future. To begin with, he had not the slightest idea how to set in motion these spiritual evolutions, had he desired them; and to his intense and practical nature the whole subject was as unattractive as a library of musty and scholastic books. He wanted some remedy that applied to this world, and would help him now. He did not associate Mrs. Arnot's action with Christian principle, but believed it to be due to the peculiar and natural kindness of her heart. Christians in general had not troubled themselves about him, and, as far as he could judge, had turned as coldly from him as had others. His mother had always been regarded as an eminently religious woman, and yet he knew that she was morbidly sensitive to the world's opinion and society's verdict.

From childhood he had associated religion with numerous Sunday restraints and the immaculate mourning-dress which seemed chiefly to occupy his mother's thoughts during the hour preceding service. He had no conception of a faith that could be to him what the Master's strong sustaining hand was to the disciple who suddenly found himself sinking in a stormy sea.

It is not strange that the distressed in body or mind turn away from a religion of dreary formalities and vague, uncomprehended mental processes. Instant and practical help is what is craved; and just such help Christ ever gave when he came to manifest God's will and ways to men. By whose authority do some religious teachers now lead the suffering through such a round-about, intricate, or arid path of things to be done and doctrines to be accepted before bringing them to Christ?

But when a mind has become mystified with preconceived ideas and prejudices, it is no easy task to reveal to it the truth, however simple. Mrs. Arnot had come into the light but slowly herself, and she had passed through too many deep and prolonged spiritual experiences to hope for any immediate and radical change in Haldane. Indeed, she was in great doubt whether he would ever receive the faithful words she proposed speaking to him; and she fully believed that anything he attempted in his own strength would again end in disheartening failure.

"Egbert," she said gently, but very gravely, "have you fully settled it in your own mind that I am your friend and wish you well?"

"How can I believe otherwise, since you are here, and speaking to me as you do?"

"Well, I am going to test your faith in me and my kindness. I am going to speak plainly, and perhaps you may think even harshly. You are very sick, and if I am to be your physician I must give you some sharp, decisive treatment. Will you remember through it all that my only motive is to make you well?"

"I will try to."

"You have kept away from me a long time. Perhaps when released from this place you will again avoid me, and I may never have another opportunity like the present. Now, while you have a chance to think, I am going to ask you to face the consequences of your present course. Within an hour after passing out of this cell you will have it in your power to trample on your better nature and stupefy your mind. But now, if you will, you have a chance to use the powers God has given you, and settle finally on your plan of life."

"I have already trampled on my manhood—what is worse, I have lost it. I haven't any courage or strength left."

"That can scarcely be true of one but little more than twenty. You are to be here in quietness for the next ten days, I learn. It is my intention, so far as it is in my power to bring it about, that you deliberately face the consequences of your present course during this time. By the consequences I do not mean what the world will think of you, but, rather, the personal results of your action—what you must suffer while you are in the world, and what you must suffer when far beyond the world. Egbert, are you pleased with yourself? are you satisfied with yourself?"

"I loathe myself."

"You can get away from the world—you are away from it now, and soon you will be away from it finally—but you can never get away from yourself. Are you willing to face an eternal consciousness of defeat, failure, and personal baseness?"

He shuddered, but was silent.

"There is no place in God's pure heaven for the drunkard—the morally loathsome and deformed. Are you willing to be swept away among the chaff and the thorns, and to have, forever, the shameful and humiliating knowledge that you rightfully belong to the rubbish of the universe? Are you willing to have a sleepless memory tell you in every torturing way possible what a noble, happy man you might have been, but would not be? Your power to drown memory and conscience, and stupefy your mind, will last a little while only at best. How are you going to endure the time when you must remember everything and think of everything? These are more important questions than what the world thinks of you."

"Have you no pity?" he groaned.

"Yes, my heart overflows with pity. Is it not kindness to tell you whither your path is leading? If I had the power I would lay hold of you, and force you to come with me into the path of life and safety," she answered, with a rush of tears to her eyes.

Her sympathy touched him deeply, and disarmed her words of all power to awaken resentment.

"Mrs. Arnot," he cried, passionately, "I did mean—I did try—to do better when I left this place; but, between my own accursed weakness and the hard-hearted world, I am here again, and almost without hope."

"Egbert, though I did not discourage you at the time, I had little hope of your accomplishing anything when you left this cell some weeks since. You went out to regain your old position and the world's favor, as one might look for a jewel or sum of money he had lost. You can never gain even these advantages in the way you proposed, and if you enjoy them again the cause will exist, not in what you do only, but chiefly in what you are. When you started out to win the favor of society, from which you had been alienated partly by misfortune, but largely through your own wrong action, there was no radical change in your character, or even in your controlling motives. You regretted the evil because of its immediate and disagreeable consequences. I do not excuse the world's harshness toward the erring; but, after all, if you can disabuse your mind of prejudice you will admit that its action is very natural, and would, probably, have been your own before you passed under this cloud. Consider what the world knows of you. It, after all, is quite shrewd in judging whom it may trust and whom it is safe to keep at arm's-length. Knowing yourself and your own weaknesses as you do, could you honestly recommend yourself to the confidence of any one? With your character unchanged, what guarantee have you against the first temptation or gust of passion to which you are subjected? You had no lack of wounded pride and ambition when you started out, but you will surely admit that such feelings are of little value compared with Christian integrity and manly principle, which render anything dishonorable or base impossible.

"I do not consider the world's favor worth very much, but the world's respect is, for it usually respects only what is respectable. As you form a character that you can honestly respect yourself, you will find society gradually learning to share in that esteem. Believe me, Egbert, if you ever regain the world's lost favor, which you value so highly, you will discover the first earnest of it in your own changed and purified character. The world will pay no heed to any amount of self-assertion, and will remain equally indifferent to appeals and upbraidings; but sooner or later it will find out just what you are in your essential life, and will estimate you accordingly. I have dwelt on this phase of your misfortune fully, because I see that it weighs so heavily on your heart. Can you accept my judgment in the matter? Remember, I have lived nearly three times as long as you have, and speak from ripe experience. I have always been a close observer of society, and am quite sure I am right. If you were my own son I would use the same words."

"Mrs. Arnot," he replied slowly, with contracted brow, "you are giving me much to think about. I fear I have been as stupid as I have been bad. My whole life seems one wretched blunder."

"Ah, if you will only think, I shall have strong hopes of you. But in measuring these questions do not use the inch rule of time and earth only. As I have said before, remember you will soon have done with earth forever, but never can you get away from God, nor be rid of yourself. You are on wretched terms with both, and will be, whatever happens, until your nature is brought into harmony with God's will. We are so made, so designed in our every fibre, that evil tortures us like a diseased nerve; and it always will till we get rid of it. Therefore, Egbert, remember—O that I could burn it into your consciousness—the best that you can gain from your proposed evil course is a brief respite in base and sensual stupefaction, or equally artificial and unmanly excitement, and then endless waking, bitter memories, and torturing regret. Face this truth now, before it is too late. Good-by for a time. I will come again when I can; or you can send for me when you please;" and she gave him her hand in cordial pressure.

He did not say a word, but his face was very white, and it was evident that her faithful words had opened a prospect that had simply appalled him.



CHAPTER XXIX

HOW EVIL ISOLATES

If Haldane had been left alone on an ice-floe in the Arctic Ocean he could scarcely have felt worse than he did during the remainder of the day after Mrs. Arnot's departure. A dreary and increasing sense of isolation oppressed him. The words of his visitor, "What have you to do with the world?" and "If you were dead it would forget you in a few days," repeated themselves over and over again. His vindictive feeling against society died out in the consciousness of his weakness and insignificance. What is the use of one's smiting a mountain with his fist? Only the puny hand feels the blow. The world became, under Mrs. Arnot's words, too large and vague a generality even to be hated.

In order to be a misanthrope one must also be an egotist, dwarfing the objects of his spite, and exaggerating the small atom that has arrayed itself against the universe. It is a species of insanity, wherein a mind has lost perception of the correct relationship between different existences. The poor hypochondriac who imagined himself a mountain was a living satire on many of his fellow-creatures, who differ only in being able to keep similar delusions to themselves.

Mrs. Arnot's plain, honest, yet kindly words had thrown down the walls of prejudice, and Haldane's mind lay open to the truth. As has been said, his first impression was a strange and miserable sense of loneliness. He saw what a slender hold he had upon the rest of humanity. The majority knew nothing of him, while, with few exceptions, those who were aware of his existence despised and detested him, and would breathe more freely if assured of his death. He instinctively felt that the natural affections of his mother and sisters were borne down and almost overwhelmed by his course and character. If they had any visitors in the seclusion to which his disgrace had driven them, his name would be avoided with morbid sensitiveness, and yet all would be as painfully conscious of him as if he were a corpse in the room, which by some monstrous necessity could not be buried. While they might shed natural tears, he was not sure but that deep in their hearts would come a sense of relief should they hear that he was dead, and so could not deepen the stain he had already given to a name once so respectable. He knew that his indifference and overbearing manner toward his sisters had alienated them from him; while in respect to Mrs. Haldane, her aristocratic conventionality, the most decided trait of her character, would always be in sharp contest with her strong mother-love, and thus he would ever be only a source of disquiet and wretchedness whether present or absent. In view of the discordant elements and relations now existing, there was not a place on earth less attractive than his own home.

It may at first seem a contradiction to say that the thought of Mrs. Arnot gave him a drearier sense of isolation than the memory of all else. In her goodness she seemed to belong to a totally different world from himself and people in general. He had nothing in common with her. She seemed to come to him almost literally as an angel of mercy, and from an infinite distance, and her visits must, of necessity, be like those of the angels, few and far between, and, in view of his character, must soon cease. He shrank from her purity and nobility even while drawn toward her by her sympathy. He instinctively felt that in all her deep commiseration of him she could not for a moment tolerate the debasing evil of his nature, and that this evil, retained, would speedily and inevitably separate them forever. Could he be rid of it? He did not know. He could not then see how. In his weakness and despondency it seemed inwrought with every fibre of his being, and an essential part of himself. As for Laura, she was like a bright star that had set, and was no longer above his dim horizon.

As he felt himself thus losing his hold on the companionship and remembrance of others, he was thrown back upon himself, and this led him to feel with a sort of dreary foreboding that it would be a horrible thing thus to be chained forever to a self toward which the higher faculties of his soul must ever cherish only hatred and loathing. Even now he hated himself—nay, more, he was enraged with himself—in view of the folly of which he had been capable. What could be worse than the endless companionship of the base nature which had already dragged him down so low?

As the hours passed, the weight upon his heart grew heavier, and the chill of dread more unendurable. He saw his character as another might see it. He saw a nature to which, from infancy, a wrong bias had been given, made selfish by indulgence, imperious and strong only in carrying out impulses and in gratifying base passions, but weak as water in resisting evil and thwarting its vile inclinations. The pride and hope that had sustained him in what he regarded as the great effort of his life were gone, and he felt neither strength nor courage to attempt anything further. He saw himself helpless and prostrate before his fate, and yet that fate was so terrible that he shrank from it with increasing dread.

What could he do? Was it possible to do anything? Had he not lost his footing? If a man is caught in the rapids, up to a certain point his struggle against the tide is full of hope, but beyond that point no effort can avail. Had he not been swept so far down toward the final plunge that grim despair were better than frantic but vain effort?

And yet he felt that he could not give himself up to the absolute mastery of evil without one more struggle. Was there any chance? Was he capable of making the needful effort?

Thus hopes and fears, bitter memories and passionate regrets, swept to and fro through his soul like stormy gusts. A painful experience and Mrs. Arnot's words were teaching the giddy, thoughtless young fellow what life meant, and were forcing upon his attention the inevitable questions connected with it which must be solved sooner or later, and which usually grow more difficult as the consideration of them is delayed, and they become complicated. As his cell grew dusky with its early twilight, as he thought of another long night whose darkness would be light compared with the shadow brooding on his prospects, his courage and endurance gave way.

With something of the feeling of a terror-stricken child he called the under-sheriff, and asked for writing materials. With a pencil he wrote hastily:

"MRS. ARNOT—I entreat you to visit me once more to-day. Your words have left me in torture. I cannot face the consequences and yet see no way of escape. It would be very cruel to leave me to my despairing thoughts for another night, and you are not cruel."

In despatching the missive he said, "I can promise that if this note is delivered to Mrs. Arnot at once, the bearer shall be well paid."

Moments seemed hours while he waited for an answer. Suppose the letter was not delivered—suppose Mrs. Arnot was absent. A hundred miserable conjectures flitted through his mind; but his confidence in his friend was such that even his morbid fear did not suggest that she would not come.

The lady was at the dinner-table when the note was handed to her, and after reading it she rose hastily and excused herself.

"Where are you going?" asked her husband sharply.

"A person in trouble has sent for me."

"Well, unless the person is in the midst of a surgical operation, he, she, or it, whichever this person may be, can wait till you finish your dinner."

"I am going to visit Egbert Haldane," said Mrs. Arnot quietly. "Jane, please tell Michael to come round with the carriage immediately."

"You visit the city prison at this hour! Now I protest. The young rake probably has the delirium tremens. Send our physician rather, if some one must go, though leaving him to the jailer and a strait-jacket would be better still."

"Please excuse me," answered his wife, with her hand on the door-knob; "you forget my relations to Mrs. Haldane; her son has sent for me."

"'Her relations to Mrs. Haldane!' As if she were not always at the beck and call of every beggar and criminal in town! I do wish I had a wife who was too much of a lady to have anything to do with this low scum."

A few moments later Mr. Arnot broke out anew with muttered complaint and invective, as he heard the carriage driven rapidly away.

As by the flickering light of a dip candle Mrs. Arnot saw Haldane's pale, haggard face, she did not regret that she had come at once, for a glance gave to her the evidence of a human soul in its extremity.

In facing these deep questions of life, some regard themselves as brave or philosophical. Perhaps it were nearer the truth to say they are stolid, and are staring at that which they do not understand and cannot yet realize. Where in history do we read—who from a ripe experience can give—an instance of a happy life developing under the deepening shadow of evil? Suppose one has seen high types of character and happiness, and was capable of appreciating them, but finds that he has cherished a sottish, beastly nature so long that it has become his master, promising to hold him in thraldom ever afterward;—can there be a more wretched form of captivity? The ogre of a debased nature drags the soul away from light and happiness—from all who are good and pure—to the hideous solitude of self and memory.

There are those who will be incredulous and even resentful in view of this picture, but it will not be the first time that facts have been quarrelled with. It is true that many are writhing and groaning in this cruel bondage, mastered and held captive by some debasing appetite or passion, perhaps by many. Sometimes, with a bitter, despairing sorrow, of which superficial observers of life can have no idea, they speak of these horrid chains; sometimes they tug at them almost frantically. A few escape, but more are dragged down and away—away from honorable companionships and friendships; away from places of trust, from walks of usefulness and safety; away from parents, from wife and children, until the awful isolation is complete, and the guilty soul finds itself alone with the sin that mastered it, conscious that God only will ever see and remember. Human friends will forget—they must forget in order to obtain relief from an object that has become morally too unsightly to be looked upon; and in mercy they are so created that they can forget, though it may be long before it is possible.

There are people who scout this awful mystery of evil. They have beautiful little theories of their own, which they have spun in the seclusion of their studies. They keep carefully within their shady, flower-bordered walks, and ignore the existence of the world's dusty highways, in which so many are fainting and being trampled upon. What they do not see does not exist. What they do not believe is not true. They cannot condemn too severely the lack of artistic taste and liberal culture which leads any one to regard sin as other than a theologian's phrase or a piquant element in human life, which otherwise would be rather dull and flavorless.

Mrs. Arnot was not a theorist, nor was she the elegant lady, wholly given to the aesthetic culture that her husband desired; she was a large-hearted woman, and she understood human life and its emergencies sufficiently well to tremble with apprehension when she saw the face of Egbert Haldane, for she felt that a deathless soul in its crisis—its deepest spiritual need—was looking to her solely for help.



CHAPTER XXX

IDEAL KNIGHTHOOD

Mrs. Arnot again came directly to the youth and put her hand on his shoulder with motherly freedom and kindliness. Beyond even the word of sympathy is the touch of sympathy, and it often conveys to the fainting heart a subtle power to hope and trust again which the materialist cannot explain. The Divine Physician often touched those whom he healed. He laid his hand fearlessly on the leper from whom all shrank with inexpressible dread. The moral leper who trembled under Mrs. Arnot's hand felt that he was not utterly lost and beyond the pale of hope, if one so good and pure could still touch him; and there came a hope, like a ray struggling through thick darkness, that the hand that caressed might rescue him.

"Egbert," said the lady gravely, "tell me what I can do for you."

"I cannot face the consequences," he replied in a low, shuddering tone.

"And do you only dread the consequences?" Mrs. Arnot asked sadly. "Do you not think of the evil which is the cause of your trouble?"

"I can scarcely separate the sin from the suffering. My mind is confused, and I am overwhelmed with fear and loneliness. All who are good and all that is good seemed to be slipping from me, and I should soon be left only to my miserable self. O, Mrs. Arnot, no doubt I seem to you like a weak, guilty coward. I seem so to myself. If it were danger or difficulty I had to face I would not fear; but this slow, inevitable, increasing pressure of a horrible fate, this seeing clearly that evil cuts me off from hope and all happiness, and yet to feel that I cannot escape from it—that I am too weak to break my chains—it is more than I can endure. I fear that I should have gone mad if you had not come. Do you think there is any chance for me? I feel as if I had lost my manhood."

Mrs. Arnot took the chair which the sheriff had brought on her entrance, and said quietly, "Perhaps you have, Egbert; many a man has lost what you mean by that term."

"You speak of it with a composure that I can scarcely understand," said Haldane, with a quick glance of inquiry. "It seems to me an irreparable loss."

"It does not seem so great a loss to me," replied Mrs. Arnot gently. "As your physician you must let me speak plainly again. It seems to me that what you term your manhood was composed largely of pride, conceit, ignorance of yourself, and inexperience of the world. You were liable to lose it at any time, just as you did, partly through your own folly and partly through the wrong of others. You know, Egbert, that I have always been interested in young men, and what many of them regard as their manhood is not of much value to themselves or any one else."

"Is it nothing to be so weak, disheartened, and debased that you lie prostrate in the mire of your own evil nature, as it were, and with no power to rise?" he asked bitterly.

"That is sad indeed."

"Well, that's just my condition—or I fear it is, though your coming has brought a gleam of hope. Mrs. Arnot," he continued passionately, "I don't know how to be different; I don't feel capable of making any persistent and successful effort. I feel that I have lost all moral force and courage. The odds are too great. I can't get up again."

"Perhaps you cannot, Egbert," said Mrs. Arnot very gravely; "it would seem that some never do—"

He buried his face in his hands and groaned.

"You have, indeed, a difficult problem to solve, and, looking at it from your point of view, I do not wonder that it seems impossible."

"Cannot you, then, give me any hope?"

"No, Egbert; I cannot. It is not in my power to make you a good man. You know that I would do so if I could."

"Would to God I had never lived, then," he exclaimed, desperately.

"Can you offer God no better prayer than that? Will you try to be calm, and listen patiently to me for a few moments? When I said I could not give you hope—I could not make you a good man—I expressed one of my strongest convictions. But I have not said, Egbert, that there is no hope, no chance, for you. On the contrary, there is abundant hope—yes, absolute certainty—of your achieving a noble character, if you will set about it in the right way. But as one of the first and indispensable conditions of success, I wish you to realize that the task is too great for you alone; too great with my help; too great if the world that seems so hostile should unite to help you; and yet neither I nor all the world could prevent your success if you went to the right and true source of help. Why have you forgotten God in your emergency? Why are you looking solely to yourself and to another weak fellow-creature like yourself?"

"You are in no respect like me, Mrs. Arnot, and it seems profanation even to suggest the thought."

"I have the same nature. I struggled vainly and almost hopelessly against my peculiar weaknesses and temptations and sorrows until I heard God saying, 'Come, my child, let us work together. It is my will you should do all you can yourself, and what you cannot do I will do for you.' Since that time I have often had to struggle hard, but never vainly. There have been seasons when my burdens grew so heavy that I was ready to faint; but after appealing to my heavenly Father, as a little child might cry for help, the crushing weight would pass away, and I became able to go on my way relieved and hopeful."

"I cannot understand it," said the young man, looking at her in deep perplexity.

"That does not prevent its being true. The most skilful physician cannot explain why certain beneficial effects follow the use of certain remedies; but when these effects become an established fact of experience it were sensible to employ the remedy as soon as possible. One might suffer a great deal, and, perhaps, perish, while asking questions and waiting for answers. To my mind the explanation is very simple. God is our Creator, and calls himself our Father. It would be natural on general principles that he should take a deep interest in us; but he assures us of the profoundest love, employing our tenderest earthly ties to explain how he feels toward us. What is more natural than for a father to help a child? What is more certain, also, than that a wise father would teach a child to do all within his ability to help himself, and so develop the powers with which he is endowed? Only infants are supposed to be perfectly helpless."

"It would seem that what you say ought to be true, and yet I have always half-feared God—that is, when I thought about him at all. I have been taught that he was to be served; that he was a jealous God; that he was angry with the sinful, and that the prayers of the wicked were an abomination. I am sure the Bible says the latter is true, or something like it."

"It is true. If you set your heart on some evil course, or are deliberating some dishonesty or meanness, be careful how you make long or short prayers to God while wilfully persisting in your sin. When a man is robbing and cheating, though in the most legal manner—when he is gratifying lust, hate, or appetite, and intends to continue doing so—the less praying he does the better. An avowed infidel is more acceptable. But the sweetest music that reaches heaven is the honest cry for help to forsake sin; and the more sinful the heart that thus cries out for deliverance the more welcome the appeal. Let me illustrate what I mean by your own case. If you should go out from this prison in the same spirit that you did once before, seeking to gain position and favor only for the purpose of gratifying your own pride—only that self might be advantaged, without any generous and disinterested regard for others, without any recognition of the sacred duties you owe to God, and content with a selfish, narrow, impure soul—if, with such a disposition, you should commence asking for God's help as a means to these petty, miserable ends, your prayers would, and with good reason, be an abomination to him. But if you had sunk to far lower depths than those in which you now find yourself, and should cry out for purity, for the sonship of a regenerated character, your voice would not only reach your divine Father's ear, but his heart, which would yearn toward you with a tender commiseration that I could not feel were you my only son."

The sincerity and earnestness of Mrs. Arnot's words were attested by her fast-gathering tears.

"This is all new to me. But if God is so kindly disposed toward us—so ready to help—why does he not reveal himself in this light more clearly? why are we so slow and long in finding him out? Until you came he seemed against me."

"We will not discuss this matter in general. Take your own experience again. Perhaps it has been your fault, not God's, that you misunderstood him. He tries to show how he feels toward us in many ways, chiefly by his written Word, by what he leads his people to do for us, and by his great mind acting directly on ours. Has not the Bible been within your reach? Have none of God's servants tried to advise and help you? I think you must have seen some such effort on my part when you were an inmate of my home. I am here this evening as God's messenger to you. All the hope I have of you is inspired by his disposition and power to help you. You may continue to stand aloof from him, declining his aid, just as you avoided your mother, and myself all these weeks when we were longing to help you; but if you sink, yours will be the fate of one who refuses to grasp the strong hand that is and ever has been seeking yours."

"Mrs. Arnot," said Haldane thoughtfully, "if all you say is true there is hope for me—there is hope for every one."

Mrs. Arnot was silent for a moment, and then said, with seeming abruptness:

"You have read of the ancient knights and their deeds, have you not?"

"Yes," was the wondering reply, "but the subject seems very remote."

"You are in a position to realize my very ideal of knightly endeavor."

"I, Mrs. Arnot! What can you mean?"

"Whether I am right or wrong I can soon explain what I mean. The ancient knight set his lance in rest against what seemed to him the wrongs and evils of the world. In theory he was to be without fear and without reproach—as pure as the white cross upon his mantle. But in fact the average knight was very human. His white cross was soon soiled by foreign travel, but too often not before his soul was stained with questionable deeds. It was a life of adventure and excitement, and abundantly gratifying to pride and ambition. While it could be idealized into a noble calling, it too often ended in a lawless, capricious career of self-indulgence. The cross on the mantle symbolized the heavy blows and sorrows inflicted on those who had the misfortune to differ in opinion, faith, or race with the knight, the steel of whose armor seemingly got into his heart, rather than any personal self-denial. Without any moral change on his own part, or being any way better than they, he could fight the infidel or those whose views differed from his with great zest.

"But the man who will engage successfully in a crusade against the evil of his own heart must have the spirit of a true knight, for he attempts the most difficult and heroic task within the limits of human endeavor. It is comparatively easy to run a tilt against a fellow-mortal, or an external evil; but to set our lance in rest against a cherished sin, a habit that has become our second nature, and remorselessly ride it down—to grapple with a secret fault in the solitude of our own soul, with no applauding hands to spur us on, and fight and wrestle for weary months—years perhaps—this does require heroism of the highest order, and the man who can do it is my ideal knight.

"You inveigh against the world, Egbert, as if it were a harsh and remorseless foe, bent on crushing you; but you have far more dangerous enemies lurking in your own heart. If you could thoroughly subdue these with God's aid, you would at the same time overcome the world, or find yourself so independent of it as scarcely to care whether or no it gave you its favor. When you left this prison before, you sought in the wrong way to win the position you had lost. You were very proud of your former standing; but you had very little occasion to be, for you had inherited it. The deeds of others, not your own, had won it for you. If you had realized it, it gave you a great vantage, but that was all. If you had been content to have remained a conceited, commonplace man, versed only in the fashionable jargon and follies of the hour, and basing your claims on the wealth which you had shown neither the ability nor industry to win, you would never have had my respect.

"Well, to tell the truth, such shadows of men are respected by no one, not even themselves, even though they may commit no deed which society condemns, But if in this prison cell you set your face like a flint against the weaknesses and grave faults of your nature which have brought you here, and which would have made you anything but an admirable man had you retained your old position—if, with God as your fast ally, you wage unrelenting and successful war against all that is unworthy of a Christian manhood—I will not only respect, I will honor you. You will be one of my ideal knights."

As Mrs. Arnot spoke, Haldane's eyes kindled, and his drooping manner was exchanged for an aspect that indicated reviving hope and courage.

"I have lost faith in myself," he said slowly; "and as yet I have no faith in God; but after what you have said I do not fear him as I did. I have faith in you, however, Mrs. Arnot, and I would rather gain your respect than that of all the world. You know me now better than any one else. Do you truly believe that I could succeed in such a struggle?"

"Without faith in God you cannot. Even the ancient knight, whose success depended so much on the skill and strength of his arm, and the temper of his weapons and armor, was supposed to spend hours in prayer before attempting any great thing. But with God's help daily sought and obtained, you cannot fail. You can achieve that which the world cannot take from you—which will be a priceless possession after the world has forgotten you and you it—a noble character."

Haldane was silent several moments, then, drawing a long breath, he said, slowly and humbly:

"How I am to do this I do not yet understand; but if you will guide me, I will attempt it."

"This book will guide you, Egbert," said Mrs. Arnot, placing her Bible in his hands. "God himself will guide you if you ask sincerely. Good-night." And she gave him such a warm and friendly grasp of the hand as to prove that evil had not yet wholly isolated him from the pure and good.



CHAPTER XXXI

THE LOW STARTING-POINT

On the afternoon of the following day Mrs. Arnot again visited Haldane, bringing him several letters from his mother which had been sent in her care; and she urged that the son should write at once in a way that would reassure the mother's heart.

In his better mood the young man's thoughts recurred to his mother with a remorseful tenderness, and he eagerly sought out the envelope bearing the latest date, and tore it open. As he read, the pallor and pain expressed in his face became so great that Mrs. Arnot was much troubled, fearing that the letter contained evil tidings.

Without a word he handed it to her, and also two inclosed paragraphs cut from newspapers.

"Do you think your mother would wish me to see it?" asked Mrs. Arnot, hesitatingly.

"I wish you to see it, and it contains no injunctions of secrecy. Indeed, she has been taking some very open and decided steps which are here indicated."

Mrs. Arnot read:

"MY UNNATURAL SON—Though you will not write me a line, you still make it certain that I shall hear from you, as the inclosed clippings from Hillaton papers may prove to you. You have forfeited all claim on both your sisters and myself. Our lawyer has been here to-day, and has shown me, what is only too evident, that money would be a curse to you—that you would squander it and disgrace yourself still more, if such a thing were possible. As the property is wholly in my hands, I shall arrange it in such a way that you shall never have a chance to waste it. If you will comply with the following conditions I will supply all that is essential to one of your nature and tastes. I stipulate that you leave Hillaton, and go to some quiet place where our name is not known, and that you there live so quietly that I shall hear of no more disgraceful acts like those herein described. I have given up the hope of hearing anything good. If you will do this I will pay your board and grant you a reasonable allowance. If you will not do this, you end all communication between us, and we must be as strangers until you can show an entirely different spirit. Yours in bitter shame and sorrow,

"EMILY HALDANE."

The clippings were Mr. Shrumpf's version of his own swindle, and a tolerably correct account of the events which led to the present imprisonment.

"Will you accept your mother's offer?" Mrs. Arnot asked, anxiously, for she was much troubled as to what might be the effect of the unfortunate letter at this juncture.

"No!" he replied with sharp emphasis.

"Egbert, remember you have given your mother the gravest provocation."

"I also remember that she did her best to make me the fool I have been, and she might have a little more patience now. The truth is that mother's God was respectability, and she will never forgive me for destroying her idol."

"Read the other letters; there may be that in them which will be more reassuring."

"No, I thank you," he replied, bitterly; "I have had all that I can stand for one day. She believes the infernal lie which that scoundrel Shrumpf tells, and gives me no hearing;" and he related to Mrs. Arnot the true version of the affair.

She had the tact to see that his present perturbed condition was not her opportunity, and she soon after left him in a mood that promised little of good for the future.

But in the long, quiet hours that followed her departure his thoughts were busy. However much he might think that others were the cause of his unhappy plight, he had seen that he was far more to blame. It had been made still more clear that, even if he could shift this blame somewhat, he could not the consequences. Mrs. Arnot's words had given him a glimpse of light, and had revealed a path, which, though still vague and uncertain, promised to lead out of the present labyrinth of evil. During the morning hours he had dared to hope, and even to pray, that he might find a way of escape from his miserable self and the wretched condition to which it had brought him.

For a long time he turned the leaves of Mrs. Arnot's Bible, and here and there a text would flash out like a light upon the clouded future, but as a general thing the words had little meaning.

To his ardent and somewhat imaginative nature she had presented the struggle toward a better life in the most attractive light. He was not asked to do something which was vague and mystical; he was not exhorted to emotions and beliefs of which he was then incapable, nor to forms and ceremonies that were meaningless to him, nor to professions equally hollow. On the contrary, the evils, the defects of his own nature, were given an objective form, and he could almost see himself, like a knight, with lance in rest, preparing to run a tilt against the personal faults which had done him such injury. The deeper philosophy, that his heart was the rank soil from which sprang these faults, like Cadmus' armed men, would come with fuller experience.

But in a measure he had understood and had been inspired by Mrs. Arnot's thought. Although from a weak mother's indulgence and his own, from wasted years and bad companionships, his life was wellnigh spoiled, he still had sufficient mind to see that to fight down the clamorous passions of his heart into subjection would be a grand and heroic thing. If from the yielding mire of his present self a noble and granite-like character could be built up, so strongly and on such a sure foundation that it would stand the shocks of time and eternity, it were worth every effort of which human nature is capable. Until Mrs. Arnot had spoken her wise and kind, yet honest words, he had felt himself unable to stand erect, much less to enter on a struggle which would tax the strongest.

But suppose God would deign to help, suppose it was the divine purpose and practice to supplement the feeble efforts of those who, like himself, sought to ally their weakness to his strength, might not the Creator and the creature, the Father and the child, unitedly achieve what it were hopeless to attempt unaided?

Thoughts like these more or less distinctly had been thronging his mind during the morning, and though the path out of his degradation was obscure and uncertain, it had seemed the only way of escape. He knew that Mrs. Arnot would not consciously mock him with delusive hopes, and as she spoke her words seemed to have the ring and echo of truth. When the courage to attempt better things was reviving, it was sad that he should receive the first disheartening blow from his mother. Not that she purposed any such cruel stroke; but when one commences wrong in life one is apt to go on making mischief to the end. Poor Mrs. Haldane's kindness and severity had always been ill-timed.

For some hours, as will be seen, the contents of the mother's letter inspired only resentment and caused discouragement; but calmer thoughts explained the letter, and confirmed Mrs. Arnot's words, that he had given the "gravest provocation."

At the same time the young man instinctively felt that if he attempted the knightly effort that Mrs. Arnot had so earnestly urged, his mother could not help him much, and might be a hindrance. Her views would be so conventional, and she would be so impatient of any methods that were not in accordance with her ideas of respectability, that she might imperil everything should he yield to her guidance. If, therefore, he could obtain the means of subsistence he resolved to remain in Hillaton, where he could occasionally see Mrs. Arnot. She had been able to inspire the hope of a better life, and she could best teach him how such a life was possible.

The next day circumstances prevented Mrs. Arnot from visiting the prison, and Haldane employed part of the time in writing to his mother a letter of mingled reproaches and apologies, interspersed with vague hopes and promises of future amendment, ending, however, with the positive assurance that he would not leave Hillaton unless compelled to do so by hunger.

To Mrs. Haldane this letter was only an aggravation of former misconduct, and a proof of the unnatural and impracticable character of her son. The fact that it was written from a prison was hideous, to begin with. That, after all the pains at which she had been to teach him what was right, he could suggest that she was in part to blame for his course seemed such black ingratitude that his apologies and acknowledgments of wrong went for nothing. She quite overlooked the hope, expressed here and there, that he might lead a very different life in the future. His large and self-confident assurances made before had come to naught, and she had not the tact to see that he would make this attempt in a different spirit.

It was not by any means a knightly or even a manly letter that he wrote to his mother; it was as confused as his own chaotic moral nature; but if Mrs. Haldane had had a little more of Mrs. Arnot's intuition, and less of prejudice, she might have seen scattered through it very hopeful indications. But even were such indications much more plain, her anger, caused by his refusal to leave Hillaton, and the belief that he would continue to disgrace himself and her, would have blinded her to them. Under the influence of this anger she sat down and wrote at once:

Since you cast off your mother for strangers—since you attempt again what you have proved yourself incapable of accomplishing—since you prefer to go out of jail to be a vagrant and a criminal in the streets, instead of accepting my offer to live a respectable and secluded life where your shame is unknown, I wash my hands of you, and shall take pains to let it be understood that I am no longer responsible for you or your actions. You must look to strangers solely until you can conform your course to the will of the one you have so greatly wronged.

Haldane received this letter on the morning of the day which would again give him freedom. Mrs. Arnot had visited him from time to time, and had been pleased to find him, as a general thing, in a better and more promising mood. He had been eager to listen to all that she had to say, and he seemed honestly bent on reform. And yet, while hopeful, she was not at all sanguine as to his future. He occasionally gave way to fits of deep despondency, and again was over-confident, while the causes of these changes were not very apparent, and seemingly resulted more from temperament than anything else. She feared that the bad habits of long standing, combining with his capricious and impulsive nature, would speedily betray him into his old ways. She was sure this would be the case unless the strong and steady hand of God sustained him, and she had tried to make him realize the same truth. This he did in a measure, and was exceedingly distrustful; and yet he had not been able to do much more than hope God would help him—for to anything like trustful confidence he was still a stranger.

The future was very dark and uncertain. What he was to do, how he was to live, he could not foresee. Even the prison seemed almost a refuge from the world, out into which he would be thrown that day, as one might be cast from a ship, to sink or swim, as the case might be.

While eager to receive counsel and advice from Mrs. Arnot, he felt a peculiar reluctance to take any pecuniary assistance, and he fairly dreaded to have her offer it; still, it might be all that would stand between him and hunger.

After receiving his mother's harsh reply to his letter, his despondency was too great even for anger. He was ashamed of his weakness and discouragement, and felt that they were unmanly, and yet was powerless to resist the leaden depression that weighed him down.

Mrs. Arnot had promised to call just before his release, and when she entered his cell she at once saw that something was amiss. In reply to her questioning he gave her the letter just received.

After reading it Mrs. Arnot did not speak for some time, and her face wore a sad, pained look.

At last she said, "You both misunderstand each other; but, Egbert, you have no right to cherish resentment. Your mother sincerely believes your course is all wrong, and that it will end worse than before. I think she is mistaken. And yet perhaps she is right, and it will be easier for you to commence your better and reformed life in the seclusion which she suggests. I am sorry to say it to you, Egbert, but I have not been able to find any employment for you such as you would take, or I would be willing to have you accept. Perhaps Providence points to submission to your mother's will."

"If so, then I lose what little faith I have in Providence," he replied impetuously. "It is here, in this city, that I have fallen and disgraced myself, and it is here I ought to redeem myself, if I ever do. Weeks ago, in pride and self-confidence, I made the effort, and failed miserably, as might have been expected. Instead of being a gifted and brilliant man, as I supposed, that had been suddenly brought under a cloud as much through misfortune as fault, I have discovered myself to be a weak, commonplace, illiterate fellow, strong only in bad passions and bad habits. Can I escape these passions and habits by going elsewhere? You have told me, in a way that excited my hope, of God's power and willingness to help such as I am. If he will not help me here, he will not anywhere; and if, with his aid, I cannot surmount the obstacles in my way here, what is God's promised help but a phrase which means nothing, and what are we but victims of circumstances?"

"Are you not reaching conclusions rather fast, Egbert? You forget that I and myriads of others have had proof of God's power and willingness to help. If wide and varied experience can settle any fact, this one has been settled. But we should ever remember that we are not to dictate the terms on which he is to help us."

"I do not mean to do this," said Haldane eagerly, "but I have a conviction that I ought to remain in Hillaton. To tell you the truth, Mrs. Arnot, I am afraid to go elsewhere," he added in a low tone, while tears suffused his eyes. "You are the only friend in the universe that I am sure cares for me, or that I can trust without misgivings. To me God is yet but little more than a name, and one that heretofore I have either forgotten or feared. You have led me to hope that it might be otherwise some day, but it is not so yet, and I dare not go away alone where no one cares for me, for I feel sure that I would give way to utter despondency, and recklessness would follow as a matter of course."

"O Egbert," sighed Mrs. Arnot, "how weak you are, and how foolish, in trusting so greatly in a mere fellow-creature."

"Yes, Mrs. Arnot, 'weak and foolish.' Those two words now seem to sum up my whole life and all there is of me."

"And yet," she added earnestly, "if you will, you can still achieve a strong, and noble character. O that you had the courage and heroic faith in God to fight out this battle to the end! Should you do so, as I told you before, you would be ideal knight. Heaven would ring with your praise, however unfriendly the world might be. I cannot conceive of a grander victory than that of a debased nature over itself. If you should win such a victory, Egbert—if, in addition, you were able, by the blessing of God on your efforts, to build up a strong, true character—I would honor you above other men, even though you remained a wood-sawyer all your days," and her dark eyes became lustrous with deep feeling as she spoke.

Haldane looked at her fixedly for a moment, and grew very pale. He then spoke slowly and in a low tone:

"To fail after what you have said and after all your kindness would be terrible. To continue my old vile self, and also remember the prospect you now hold out—what could be worse? And yet what I shall do, what I shall be, God only knows. But in sending you to me I feel that he has given me one more chance."

"Egbert," she replied eagerly, "God will give you chances as long as you breathe. Only the devil will tell you to despair. He, never. Remember this should you grow old in sin. To tell you the truth, however, as I see you going out into the world so humbled, so self-distrustful, I have far more hope for you than when you first left this place, fully assured that you were, in yourself, sufficient for all your peculiar difficulties. And now, once more, good-by, for a time. I will do everything I can for you. I have seen Mr. Growther to-day, and he appears very willing that you should return to his house for the present. Strange old man! I want to know him better, for I believe his evil is chiefly on the outside, and will fall off some day, to his great surprise."



CHAPTER XXXII

A SACRED REFRIGERATOR

The glare of the streets was intolerable to Haldane after his confinement, and he hastened through them, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left. A growl from Mr. Growther's dog greeted him as he entered, and the old man himself snarled:

"Well, I s'pose you stood me as long as you could, and then went to prison for a while for a change."

"You are mistaken, Mr. Growther; I went to prison because I deserved to go there, and it's very good of you to let me come back again."

"No, it ain't good of me, nuther. I want a little peace and comfort, and how could I have 'em while you was bein' kicked and cuffed around the streets? Here, I'll get you some dinner. I s'pose they only gave you enough at jail to aggravate your in'ards."

"No, nothing more, please. Isn't there something I can do? I've sat still long enough."

Mr. Growther looked at him a moment, and then said:

"Are you sayin' that because you mean it?"

"Yes."

"Would you mind helpin' me make a little garden? I know I ought to have done it long ago, but I'm one of those 'crastinating cusses, and rheumatic in the bargain."

"I'll make your garden on the one condition that you stand by and boss the job."

"O, I'm good at bossin', if nothing else. There ain't much use of plantin' anything, though, for every pesky bug and worm in town will start for my patch as soon as they hear on't."

"I suppose they come on the same principle that I do."

"They hain't so welcome—the cussed little varmints! Some on 'em are so blasted mean that I know I ought to be easier on 'em just out of feller feelin'. Them cut-worms now—if they'd only take a plant and satisfy their nateral appetites on it, it would go a good ways, and the rest o' the plants would have a chance to grow out of harm's way; but the nasty little things will jest eat 'em off above the ground, as if they was cut in two by a knife, and then go on to anuther. That's what I call a mean way of gettin' a livin'; but there's lots of people like 'em in town, who spile more than they eat. Then there's the squash-bug. If it's his nater to eat up the vines I s'pose he must do it, but why in thunder must he smell bad enough to knock you over into the bargain? It's allers been my private opinion that the devil made these pests, and the Lord had nothin' to do with 'em. The idea that he should create a rose, and then a rose-bug to spile it, ain't reconcilable to what little reason I've got."

"Well," replied Haldane with a glimmer of a smile, "I cannot account for rose-bugs and a good many worse things. I notice, however, that in spite of all these enemies people manage to raise a great deal that's very nice every year. Suppose we try it."

They were soon at work, and Haldane felt the better for a few hours' exercise in the open air.

The next morning Mrs. Arnot brought some papers which she said a legal friend wished copied, and she left with them, inclosed in an envelope, payment in advance. After she had gone Haldane offered the money to Mr. Growther, but the old man only growled:

"Chuck it in a drawer, and the one of us who wants it first can have it."

For the next two or three weeks Mrs. Arnot, by the dint of considerable effort, kept up a supply of MSS., of which copies were required, and she supplemented the prices which the parties concerned were willing to pay. Her charitable and helpful habits were well known to her friends, and they often enabled her thus to aid those to whom she could not give money direct. But this uncertain employment would soon fail, and what her protege was then to do she could not foresee. No one would trust him, and no one cared to have him about his premises.

But in the meantime the young man was thinking deeply for himself. He soon concluded not to make Mr. Growther's humble cottage a hiding-place; and he commenced walking abroad through the city after the work of the day. He assumed no bravado, but went quietly on his way like any other passer-by. The majority of those who knew who he was either ignored his existence, or else looked curiously after him, but some took pains to manifest their contempt. He could not have been more lonely and isolated if he were walking a desert.

Among the promises he had made Mrs. Arnot was that he would attend church, and she naturally asked him to come to her own.

"As you feel toward my husband, it will probably not be pleasant for you to come to our pew" she had said; "but I hope the time will come when bygones will be bygones. The sexton, however, will give you a seat, and our minister preaches excellent sermons"

Not long after, true to his word, the young man went a little early, as he wished to be as unobtrusive as possible. At the same time there was nothing furtive or cringing in his nature. As he had openly done wrong, he was now resolved to try as openly to do right, and let people ascribe whatever motive they chose.

But his heart misgave him as he approached the new elegant church on the most fashionable street. He felt that his clothes were not in keeping with either the place of worship or the worshippers.

Mr. Arnot's confidential clerk was talking with the sexton as he hesitatingly mounted the granite steps, and he saw that dignified functionary, who seemed in some way made to order with the church over which he presided, eye him askance while he lent an ear to what was evidently a bit of his history. Walking quietly but firmly up to the official, Haldane asked:

"Will you give me a seat, sir?"

The man reddened, frowned, and then said:

"Really, sir, our seats are generally taken Sunday mornings. I think you will feel more at home at our mission chapel in Guy street."

"And among the guys, why don't you add?" retorted Haldane, his old spirit flashing up, and he turned on his heel and stalked back to Mr. Growther's cottage.

"Short sermon to-day," said the old man starting out of a doze.

Haldane told him of his reception.

The wrinkles in the quaint visage of his host grew deep and complicated, as though he had tasted something very bitter, and he remarked sententiously:

"If Satan could he'd pay that sexton a whoppin' sum to stand at the door and keep sinners out."

"No need of the devil paying him anything; the well-dressed Christians see to that. As I promised Mrs. Arnot to come, I tried to keep my word, but this flunky's face and manner alone are enough to turn away such as I am. None but the eminently respectable need apply at that gate of heaven. If it were not for Mrs. Arnot I would believe the whole thing a farce."

"Is Jesus Christ a farce?" asked the practical Mr. Growther, testily. "What is the use of jumping five hundred miles from the truth because you've happened to run afoul of some of those Pharisees that he cussed?"

Haldane laughed and said, "You have a matter-of-fact way of putting things that there is no escaping. It will, probably, do me more good to stay home and read the Bible to you than to be at church."

The confidential clerk, who had remained gossiping in the vestibule, thought the scene he had witnessed worth mentioning to his employer, who entered with Mrs. Arnot not very long after, and lingered for a word or two. The man of business smiled grimly, and passed on. He usually attended church once a day, partly from habit and partly because it was the respectable thing to do. He had been known to remark that he never lost anything by it, for some of his most successful moves suggested themselves to his mind during the monotony of the service.

To annoy his wife, and also to gratify a disposition to sneer at the faults of Christians, Mr. Arnot, at the dinner, commenced to commend ironically the sexton's course.

"A most judicious man!" he affirmed. "Saint Peter himself at the gate could not more accurately strain out the saints from the sinners—nay, he is even keener-eyed than Saint Peter, for he can tell first-class from second-class saints. Though our church is not full, I now understand why we have a mission chapel. You may trust 'Jeems' to keep out all but the very first-class—those who can exchange silk and broadcloth for the white robe. But what on earth could have brought about such a speedy transition from jail to church on the part of Haldane?"

"I invited him," said Mrs. Arnot, in a pained tone; "but I did not think it would be to meet with insult"

"Insult! Quite the reverse. I should think that such as he ought to feel it an honor to be permitted a place among the second-class saints."

Mrs. Arnot's thoughts were very busy that afternoon. She was not by nature an innovator, and, indeed, was inclined to accept the established order of things without very close questioning. Her Christian life had been developed chiefly by circumstances purely personal, and she had unconsciously found walks of usefulness apart from the organized church work. But she was a devout worshipper and a careful listener to the truth. It had been her custom to ride to the morning service, and, as they resided some distance from the church, to remain at home in the evening, giving all in her employ a chance to go out.

Concerning the financial affairs of the church she was kept well informed, for she was a liberal contributor, and also to all other good causes presented. From earliest years her eye had always been accustomed to the phases presented by a fashionable church, and everything moved forward so quietly and with such sacred decorum that the thought of anything wrong did not occur to her.

But the truth that one who was endeavoring to lead a better life had been practically turned from the door of God's house seemed to her a monstrous thing. How much truth was there in her husband's sarcasm? How far did her church represent the accessible Jesus of Nazareth, to whom all were welcomed, or how far did it misrepresent him? Now that her attention was called to the fact, she remembered that the congregation was chiefly made up of the elite of the city, and that she rarely had seen any one present who did not clearly present the fullest evidence of respectability. Were those whom the Master most emphatically came to seek and save excluded? She determined to find out speedily.

Summoning her coachman, she told him that she wished to attend church that evening. She dressed herself very plainly, and entered the church closely veiled. Instead of going to her own pew, she asked the judicious and discriminating sexton for a seat. After a careless glance he pointed to one of the seats near the door, and turned his back upon her. A richly dressed lady and gentleman entered soon after, and he was all attention, marshalling them up the aisle into Mrs. Arnot's own pew, since it was known she did not occupy it in the evening. A few decent, plain-looking women, evidently sent thither by the wealthy families in whose employ they were, came in hesitatingly, and those who did not take seats near the entrance, as a matter of course, were motioned thither without ceremony. The audience room was but sparsely filled, large families being represented by one or two members or not at all. But Mrs. Arnot saw none of Haldane's class present—none who looked as if they were in danger, and needed a kind, strong, rescuing hand—none who looked hungry and athirst for truth because perishing for its lack. In that elegant and eminently respectable place, upholstered and decorated with faultless taste, there was not a hint of publicans and sinners. One might suppose he was in the midst of the millennium, and that the classes to whom Christ preached had all become so thoroughly converted that they did not even need to attend church. There was not a suggestion of the fact that but a few blocks away enough to fill the empty pews were living worse than heathen lives.

The choir performed their part melodiously, and a master in music could have found no fault with the technical rendering of the musical score. They were paid to sing, and they gave to such of their employers as cared to be present every note as it was written, in its full value. As never before, it struck Mrs. Arnot as a performance. The service she had attended hitherto was partly the creation of her own earnest and devotional spirit. To-night she was learning to know the service as it really existed.

The minister was evidently a conscientious man, for he had prepared his evening discourse for his thin audience as thoroughly as he had his morning sermon. Every word was carefully written down, and the thought of the text was exhaustively developed. But Mrs. Arnot was too far back to hear well. The poor man seemed weary and discouraged with the arid wastes of empty seats over which he must scatter the seeds of truth to no purpose. He looked dim and ghostly in the far-away pulpit, and in spite of herself his sermon began to have the aspect of a paid performance, the effect of which would scarcely be more appreciable than the sighing of the wind without. The keenest theologian could not detect the deviation of a hair from the received orthodox views, and the majority present were evidently satisfied that his views would be correct, for they did not give very close attention. The few plain domestics near her dozed and nodded through the hour, and so gained some physical preparation for the toils of the week, but their spiritual natures were as clearly dormant as their lumpish bodies.

After the service Mrs. Arnot lingered, to see if any one would speak to her as a stranger and ask her to come again. Such was clearly not the habit of the congregation. She felt that her black veil, an evidence of sorrow, was a sort of signal of distress which ought to have lured some one to her side with a kind word or two, but beyond a few curious glances she was unnoticed. People spoke who were acquainted, who had been introduced to each other. As the worshippers (?) hastened out, glad to escape to regions where living questions and interests existed, the sexton, who had been dozing in a comfortable corner, bustled to the far end of the church, and commenced, with an assistant, turning out the lights on either side so rapidly that it seemed as if a wave of darkness was following those who had come thither ostensibly seeking light.

Mrs. Arnot hastened to her carriage, where it stood under the obscuring shadow of a tree, and was driven home sad and indignant—most indignant at herself that she had been so absorbed in her own thoughts and life that she had not discovered that the church to build and sustain which she had given so liberally was scarcely better than a costly refrigerator.



CHAPTER XXXIII

A DOUBTFUL BATTLE IN PROSPECT

The painful impression made by the evening service that has been described acted as a rude disenchantment, and the beautiful church, to which Mrs. Arnot had returned every Sabbath morning with increasing pleasure, became as repulsive as it had been sacred and attractive. To her sincere and earnest spirit anything in the nature of a sham was peculiarly offensive; and what, she often asked herself, could be more un-Christlike than this service which had been held in his name?

The revelation so astonished and disheartened her that she was prone to believe that there was something exceptional in that miserable Sabbath evening's experience, and she determined to observe further and more closely before taking any action. She spoke frankly of her feelings and purposes to Haldane, and in so doing benefited the young man very much; for he was thus led to draw a sharp line between Christ and the Christlike and that phase of Christianity which is largely leavened with this world. No excuse was given him to jumble the true and the false together.

"You will do me a favor if you will quietly enter the church next Sunday morning and evening, and unobtrusively take one of the seats near the door," she said to him. "I wish to bring this matter to an issue as soon as possible. If you could manage to enter a little in advance of me, I would also be glad. I know how Christ received sinners, and I would like to see how we who profess to be representing him, receive those who come to his house."

Haldane did as she requested. In a quiet and perfectly unobtrusive manner he walked up the granite steps into the vestibule, and his coarse, gray suit, although scrupulously clean, was conspicuous in its contrast with the elegant attire of the other worshippers. He himself was conspicuous also; for many knew who he was, and whispered the information to others. A "jail-bird" was, indeed, a rara avis in that congregation, and there was a slight, but perfectly decorous, sensation. However greatly these elegant people might lack the spirit of Him who was "the friend of publicans and sinners" they would not for the world do anything that was overtly rude or ill-bred. Only the official sexton frowned visibly as the youth took a seat near the door. Others looked askance or glided past like polished icicles. Haldane's teeth almost chattered with the cold. He felt himself oppressed, and almost pushed out of the house, by the moral atmosphere created by the repellent thoughts of some who apparently felt the place defiled by his presence. Mrs. Arnot, with her keen intuition, felt this atmosphere also, and detected on the part of one or two of the officers of the Church an unchristian spirit. Although the sermon was an excellent one that morning, she did not hear it.

In the evening a lady draped in a black veil sat by Haldane. The service was but a dreary counterpart of the one of the previous Sabbath. The sky had been overcast and slightly threatening, and still fewer worshippers had ventured out.

Beyond furtive and curious glances no one noticed them save the sexton, who looked and acted as if Haldane's continued coming was a nuisance, which, in some way, he must manage to abate.

The young man waited for Mrs. Arnot at her carriage-door, and said as he handed her in:

"I have kept my word; but please do not ask me to come to this church again, or I shall turn infidel."

"I shall not come myself again," she replied, "unless there is a decided change."

The next morning she wrote notes to two of the leading officers of the church, asking them to call that evening; and her request was so urgent that they both came at the appointed hour.

Mrs. Arnot's quiet but clear and distinct statement of the evils of which she had become conscious greatly surprised and annoyed them. They, with their associates, had been given credit for organizing and "running" the most fashionable and prosperous church in town. An elegant structure had been built and paid for, and such a character given the congregation that if strangers visited or were about to take up their abode in the city they were made to feel that the door of this church led to social position and the most aristocratic circles. Of course, mistakes were made. People sometimes elbowed their way in who were evidently flaunting weeds among the patrician flowers, and occasionally plain, honest, but somewhat obtuse souls would come as to a Christian church. But people who were "not desirable"—the meaning of this phrase had become well understood in Hillaton—were generally frozen out by an atmosphere made so chilly, even in August, that they were glad to escape to other associations less benumbing. Indeed, it was now so generally recognized that only those of the best and most assured social position were "desirable," that few others ventured up the granite steps or sought admittance to this region of sacred respectability. And yet all this had been brought about so gradually, and so entirely within the laws of good breeding and ecclesiastical usage, and also under the most orthodox preaching, that no one could lay his finger on anything upon which to raise an issue.

The result was just what these officers had been working for, and it was vexatious indeed that, after years of successful manipulation, a lady of Mrs. Arnot's position should threaten to make trouble.

"My dear Mrs. Arnot," said one of these polished gentlemen, with a suavity that was designed to conciliate, but which was nevertheless tinged with philosophical dogmatism, "there are certain things that will not mix, and the attempt to mingle them is wasting time on the impossible. It is in accordance with the laws of nature that each class should draw together according to their affinities and social status. Our church is now entirely homogeneous, and everything moves forward without any friction."

"It appears to me sadly machine-like," the lady remarked.

"Indeed, madam," with a trace of offended dignity, "is not the Gospel ably preached?"

"Yes, but it is not obeyed. We have been made homogeneous solely on worldly principles, and not on those taught in the Gospels."

They could not agree, as might have been supposed, and Mrs. Arnot was thought to be unreasonable and full of impracticable theories.

"Very well, gentlemen," said Mrs. Arnot, with some warmth, "if there can be no change in these respects, no other course is left for me but to withdraw;" and the religious politicians bowed themselves out, much relieved, feeling that this was the easiest solution of the question.

Mrs. Arnot soon after wrote to the Rev. Dr. Barstow, pastor of the church, for a letter of dismission. The good man was much surprised by the contents of this missive. Indeed, it so completely broke a chain of deep theological speculation that he deserted his study for the street. Here he met an officer of the church, a man somewhat advanced in years, whom he had come to regard as rather reserved and taciturn in disposition. But in his perplexity he exhibited Mrs. Arnot's letter, and asked an explanation.

"Well," said the gentleman, uneasily, "I understand that Mrs. Arnot is dissatisfied, and perhaps she has some reason to be."

"Upon what grounds?" asked the clergyman hastily.

"Suppose we call upon her," was the reply. "I would rather you should hear her reasons from herself; and, in fact, I would be glad to hear them also."

Half an hour later they sat in Mrs. Arnot's parlor.

"My dear madam," said Dr. Barstow, "are you willing to tell us frankly what has led to the request contained in this letter? I hope that I am in no way to blame."

"Perhaps we have all been somewhat to blame," replied Mrs. Arnot in a tone so gentle and quiet as to prove that she was under the influence of no unkindly feeling or resentment; "at least I feel that I have been much to blame for not seeing what is now but too plain. But habit and custom deaden our perceptions. The aspect of our church was that of good society—nothing to jar upon or offend the most critical taste. Your sermons were deeply thoughtful and profound, and I both enjoyed and was benefited by them. I came and went wrapped up in my own spiritual life and absorbed in my own plans and work, when, unexpectedly, an incident occurred which revealed to me what I fear is the animus and character of our church organization. I can best tell you what I mean by relating my experience and that of a young man whom I have every reason to believe wishes to lead a better life, yes, even a Christian life;" and she graphically portrayed all that had occurred, and the impressions made upon her by the atmosphere she had found prevalent, when she placed herself in the attitude of a humble stranger.

"And now," she said in conclusion, "do we represent Christ, or are we so leavened by the world that it may be doubted whether he would acknowledge us?"

The minister shaded his pained and troubled face with his hand.

"We represent the world," said the church officer emphatically; "I have had a miserable consciousness of whither we were drifting for a long time, but everything has come about so gradually and so properly, as it were, that I could find no one thing upon which I could lay my finger and say, This is wrong and I protest against it. Of course, if I had heard the sexton make such a remark to any one seeking to enter the house of God as was made to the young man you mention I should have interfered. And yet the question is one of great difficulty. Can such diverse classes meet on common ground?"

"My dear sir," said Mrs. Arnot earnestly, "I do not think we, as a church, are called upon to adjust these diverse classes, and to settle, on the Sabbath, nice social distinctions. The Head of the Church said, 'Whosoever will, let him come.' We, pretending to act in his name and by his authority, say, 'Whosoever is sufficiently respectable and well-dressed, let him come.' I feel that I cannot any longer be a party to this perversion.

"If we would preserve our right to be known as a Christian church we must say to all, to the poor, to the most sinful and debased, as well as to those who are now welcomed, 'Come'; and when they are within our walls they should be made to feel that the house does not belong to an aristocratic clique, but rather to him who was the friend of publicans and sinners. Christ adjusted himself to the diverse classes. Are we his superiors?"

"But, my dear madam, are there to be no social distinctions?"

"I am not speaking of social distinctions. Birth, culture, and wealth will always, and very properly, too, make great differences. In inviting people to our homes we may largely consult our own tastes and preferences, and neither good sense nor Christian duty requires that there should be intimacy between those unfitted for it by education and character. But a church is not our house, but God's house, and what right have we to stand in the door and turn away those whom he most cordially invites? Christ had his beloved disciple, and so we can have our beloved and congenial friends. But there were none too low or lowly for him to help by direct personal effort, by sympathetic contact, and I, for one, dare not ignore his example."

"Do you not think we can better accomplish this work by our mission chapel?"

"Where is your precedent? Christ washed the feet of fishermen in order to give us an example of humility, and to teach us that we should be willing to serve any one in his name. I heartily approve of mission chapels as outposts; but, as in earthly warfare, they should be posts of honor, posts for the brave, the sagacious, and the most worthy. If they are maintained in the character of second-class cars, they are to that extent unchristian. If those who are gathered there are to be kept there solely on account of their dress and humble circumstances, I would much prefer taking my chances of meeting my Master with them than in the church which practically excludes them.

"Christ said, 'I was a stranger, and ye took me in.' I came to our church as a stranger twice. I was permitted to walk in and walk out, but no one spoke to me, no one invited me to come again. It seems to me that I would starve rather than enter a private house where I was so coldly treated. I have no desire for startling innovations. I simply wish to unite myself with a church that is trying to imitate the example of the Master, and where all, whatever may be their garb or social and moral character, are cordially invited and sincerely welcomed."

Dr. Barstow now removed his hand from his face. It was pale, but its expression was resolute and noble.

"Mrs. Arnot, permit me to say that you are both right and wrong," he said. "Your views of what a church should be are right; you are wrong in wishing to withdraw before having patiently and prayerfully sought to inculcate a true Christian spirit among those to whom you owe and have promised Christian fidelity. You know that I have not very long been the pastor of this church, but I have already felt that something was amiss. I have been oppressed and benumbed with a certain coldness and formality in our church life. At the same time I admit, with contrition, that I have given way to my besetting sin. I am naturally a student, and when once in my study I forget the outside world. I am prone to become wholly occupied with the thought of my text, and to forget those for whom I am preparing my discourse. I, too, often think more of the sermon than of the people, forgetting the end in the means, and thus I fear I was becoming but a voice, a religious philosophy, among them, instead of a living and a personal power. You have been awakened to the truth, Mrs. Arnot, and you have awakened me. I do not feel equal to the task which I clearly foresee before me; I may fail miserably, but I shall no longer darken counsel with many words. You have given me much food for thought; and while I cannot foretell the end, I think present duty will be made clear. In times of perplexity it is our part to do what seems right, asking God for guidance, and then leave the consequences to him. One thing seems plain to me, however, that it is your present duty to remain with us, and give your prayers and the whole weight of your influence on the side of reform."

"Dr. Barstow," said Mrs. Arnot, her face flushing slightly, "you are right; you are right. I have been hasty, and, while condemning others, was acting wrong myself. You have shown the truer Christian spirit. I will remain while there is any hope of a change for the better."

"Well, Mrs. Arnot," said Mr. Blakeman, the elderly church officer, "I have drawn you out partly to get your views and partly to get some clearer views myself. I, too, am with you, doctor, in this struggle; but I warn you both that we shall have a hot time before we thaw the ice out of our church."

"First pure, and then peaceable," said the minister slowly and musingly; and then they separated, each feeling somewhat as soldiers who are about to engage in a severe and doubtful battle.



CHAPTER XXXIV

A FOOTHOLD

The skies did not brighten for Haldane, and he remained perplexed and despondent. When one wishes to reform, everything does not become lovely in this unfriendly world. The first steps are usually the most difficult, and the earliest experience the most disheartening. God never designed that reform should be easy. As it is, people are too ready to live the life which renders reform necessary. The ranks of the victims of evil would be doubled did not a wholesome fear of the consequences restrain.

Within a few short weeks the fortunes of the wealthy and self-confident youth had altered so greatly that now he questioned whether the world would give him bread, except on conditions that were painfully repugnant.

There was his mother's offer, it is true; but had Mrs. Haldane considered the nature of this offer, even she could scarcely have made it. Suppose he tried to follow out his mother's plan, and went to a city where he was unknown, could she expect an active young fellow to go to an obscure boarding-house, and merely eat and sleep? By an inevitable law the springing forces of his nature must find employment either in good or evil. If he sought employment of any kind the question would at once arise, "Who are you?" and sooner or later would come his history. In his long, troubled reveries he thought of all this, and the prospect of vegetating in dull obscurity at his mother's expense was as pleasant as that of being buried alive.

Moreover, he could not endure to leave Hillaton in utter defeat. He was prostrate, and felt the foot of adverse fate upon his neck, but he would not acknowledge himself conquered. If he could regain his feet he would renew the struggle; and he hoped in some way to do so. As yet, however, the future was a wall of darkness.