CHAPTER XXII

A RAY OF HOPE

PRESENTLY Juliet made an attempt to check her passionate sobs. She remembered how distressed her mother would be if she saw her thus giving way, and for her mother's sake, she tried to rally strength and courage. She rose from her knees, slowly removed her walking dress, bathed her face with elaborate care, and did her utmost to remove every trace of agitation. She succeeded in regaining a calm demeanour; but the burden which pressed so heavily on her heart was not lightened, and she looked forward to the future with despair. How could she go on living, when she knew that everyone, save the dear mother who had always been too fond and indulgent towards her, condemned and despised her? The ban of shame she had brought upon herself seemed more than she could bear.

When she went downstairs, the table in the dining-room was laid for their early dinner, and Salome stood at the window watching for Hannah. Mrs. Tracy, busy with her knitting, sat in her easy-chair by the fire.

"See, mother," said Juliet, speaking with forced brightness, "I have matched your wool exactly, and it did not cost so much as you thought."

Mrs. Tracy looked at her keenly as she spoke. Despite her airy manner, there was a sound in Juliet's voice which told her mother she had been weeping, and her pink eyelids further confirmed the fact. A sharp pang emote the mother's heart. Instinctively she divined, in some degree, what had happened. But she asked no questions.

Hannah came in looking harassed, and her glance hardened as it rested on Juliet. It was not a cheerful meal which they took together. The talk was disjointed and constrained. Juliet hardly knew how to eat a morsel, though for her mother's sake, she tried bravely.

When they had finished, but whilst they still sat at the table, Hannah suddenly said, addressing no one in particular, "I have resigned my post at the high school. I shall not teach there after Christmas."

"You do not mean that?" exclaimed her mother, in amazement. "This is surely a very hasty resolve."

"Nothing was farther from my thoughts a few months ago, certainly," said Hannah, with deliberation. "But I am not responsible for the circumstances which have led to it."

She glanced at Juliet as she spoke.

"My satisfaction in teaching at the high school has been destroyed for me," she continued. "I cannot forget what has happened, cannot lose my sense that the thought of it is in the minds of others. I feel, if I do not hear, what is being said."

An uncomfortable silence followed. Juliet's head was bent. She was quivering with pain and indignation. Her mother dared not look at her. Hannah went on in her cold, firm tones—

"Miss Tucker understands my feeling, and she approves of what I have done, although she is very sorry. She advises me to apply for the headmistress-ship of a school at Leeds. It is not exactly a high school, but worked on the same lines. I hope, with her recommendation, I may obtain it."

"You need not go away, Hannah," exclaimed Juliet, starting up impetuously. "I will go away. It is better I should. I never ought to have come home. I am only a disgrace to you all now."

"If you go, I go also," exclaimed Mrs. Tracy excitedly. "You shall not leave me again, Juliet."

"That can easily be managed," said Hannah coolly. "Should I get this school, there will be an opening for Salome too; for there are boarders, and I shall need her to take charge of the housekeeping. So you and Juliet could live together where you please. That would be quite to her mind, I imagine."

"Let it be so, then," exclaimed Mrs. Tracy vehemently. "I, for one, shall be very happy. But, Hannah, I must say I think you are acting wrongly. You ought to stand by your sister, now she is under such a cloud, and help to bring things right. If you give up your post and go away, people will think the case worse than it is. They will imagine there is indeed cause for shame—"

"So there is, mother," broke in Juliet, "cause enough for shame. I am a girl who has lost her character, and for such there is no help!"

"Don't speak like that, Juliet. You will break my heart!" cried her mother, with tears. "It is not so bad as that; but if your own sister turns against you, people will think—anything."

"I do not turn against Juliet," said Hannah; "but since she has made my position here unendurable, I am surely at liberty to seek one elsewhere. I hope she has learned wisdom. She ought to know that she cannot escape the consequences of her wrong-doing."

"Of course she knows that," said Salome; "but I do think you are hard upon Juliet, Hannah. You forget that she is very sorry for what she has done."

"People generally are sorry when they have brought trouble on themselves," said Hannah coldly. "I am sorry if my words offend you; but for me black is black and white, white; and I can only regard Juliet's conduct in one way."

She rose as she spoke and went slowly from the room, holding herself very erect.

Salome had laid her hand with a timid, caressing touch on Juliet's shoulder; but the girl shook it off impatiently. She could not endure even kindness now. She looked at her mother, whose tears were falling fast and she hated herself.

"It is a pity I ever was born," she said bitterly; "I am naught but a cause of trouble!"

And she too quitted the room. Thus the miserable scene ended.

The agitation it had caused her was more than Mrs. Tracy's enfeebled frame could sustain without suffering. A severe nervous headache confined her to her room all the following day. In the afternoon, she felt inclined to sleep, and Juliet left her to herself.

Hannah and Salome had gone out together, and Juliet was sitting alone in the dining-room, when she heard a rap at the front door, and presently discovered to her dismay that Ann was conducting a visitor to the drawing-room. Who could it be? She was not left long in doubt. Ann speedily appeared with a card, on which Juliet read with astonishment the name of Mr. Mainprice.

"Did you not tell him mother could see no one?" demanded Juliet.

"I did, miss; but he asked if you were at home, and said he would like to speak to you."

"Oh!" Juliet's face grew crimson.

Ann looked at her with the utmost curiosity, and slowly quitted the room.

Juliet stood motionless. Why did he come and ask to see her? He must know that she would shrink from seeing him. For he knew all about it. From Salome, from his sister, from Mrs. Hayes, he had heard the worst that could be told of her. She would not see him. She would send Ann to him with an excuse.

But though she said this to herself, Juliet made no movement to summon Ann. She stood irresolute, with strangely mingled emotions contending within her. Pride urged her to avoid this man, whom she could not face without shame; but within her stricken heart another voice made itself heard, the voice of sorrow and penitence craving the presence of someone who should understand, who could sympathise, whose words might have help and healing for her bitter wound. More than once during the past days, the strong yet gentle face of Arthur Mainprice had risen before her mental vision, and she had felt that he was one who might help her, if she could ever find courage to pour into his ear the burden of her heart. But it had seemed to her that the fitting opportunity for doing so would never come.

And now it had come! Mr. Mainprice was awaiting her in the next room. Should she go to him and tell him all? Had she the courage for it?

It was but for a few seconds that she hesitated, though it seemed to her longer. There had not been time for Mr. Mainprice to grow impatient when she opened the drawing-room door and advanced to him, looking so changed from the bright, saucy, self-confident girl who had inspired him with interest at Lynton, that his heart gave a deep throb of pity as he looked at her, and there was more fervour of sympathy than he knew in his warm hand-clasp and the glance of his frank, kindly eyes.

To Juliet, who had prepared herself for a cool reception, the pure friendliness of his greeting was as a sudden burst of warm sunshine on a frosty day. It took her so by surprise that she forgot herself, and stood looking at him for a few moments without speaking, but with such a pathetic, appealing look in her childlike eyes as he never forgot. They caused him a sensation so acute as to threaten his self-control, and to save it, he began to speak hastily and with some nervousness.

"I have called," he began—"Mrs. Hayes asked me to bring your sister this book. It is just a list of the different charities available for the poor in London. She wants to look up something in it, I believe."

"Oh yes," said Juliet, taking the book and looking at it vaguely; "Salome is always wanting to know about these things. Thank you. I will give it to her. But won't you sit down?"

He took a chair, for he had no wish to go away immediately. Juliet seated herself opposite to him. She sat gazing at her hands folded together on her lap, and for some moments neither spoke. He had time to observe her more closely, and to mark the look of age which, despite its youthful contour and her childlike, appealing glance, had crept into her face.

Then he said, "I am sorry to hear that your mother is suffering to-day. It is nothing serious, I trust?"

"Only a bad headache. She was excited and troubled yesterday, and this is the consequence. She can bear so little now. It will be long ere she recovers from the effects of her illness."

There was a pause, and then Juliet added in a low, distinct voice, "You know what made her ill?"

He did not profess to misunderstand her.

"It was her anxiety for you," he said.

"It was because I was so wicked and ungrateful," said Juliet.

He was silent.

"Mr. Mainprice," said Juliet, speaking tremulously, "you once warned me against following my own way. You said it would not bring me happiness. You were right. I have taken my own way, and it has brought me the most hopeless misery. You said you were sorry for me. Well, you may be sorry for me now, for my life is quite blighted."

Her words ended in a sob.

"Not hopeless, not blighted," he said quickly. "Nothing blights a life but sin."

"But it is sin," she protested. "I never used to think myself a sinner, but I know that I am one now. And the worst of it is, I have not marred my own life only; I have hurt my mother and my sisters too."

"Yes, yes; I understand just how you feel," he said, and the grave, kind tones seemed to promise help. "Mind, I do not say that you have not sinned. I would rather counsel you to cherish that sense of sin. For it is the hardness of heart that cannot discern between good and evil, which sins without suffering and does evil without pain, that is the hopeless state. We may even be thankful for the wrong-doing that leads to the broken heart and the contrite spirit."

"I cannot be thankful for my wrong-doing," said Juliet; "it has spoiled my life, it will spoil the lives of others. Sometimes I think that I would not mind if it were only I who suffered, for I deserve it. There are hours when I feel so to hate myself that I long for punishment."

"Then cannot you accept the sad results of your sin as a punishment sent to you by your loving Father?"

"I could, I could," sobbed Juliet, "if it would make me better! But when people look on me so hardly, when I know they are saying unkind things of me, it makes me feel bad. I may hate myself, certainly, but I hate them too. I am ready to go on being wicked."

"But who would be so unkind to you?" he asked. "Surely you exaggerate the unkindness."

Juliet shook her head sorrowfully.

"But He, the Divine Brother, the Saviour of sinners, will help you to overcome, in spite of every hindrance which the coldness of others may raise. Surely you see now, as you never did before, the meaning of the Divine Sacrifice offered for sin! You feel the need of it in your own life?"

"Yes, yes," murmured Juliet; "and oh, I will try to be different. But tell me what I must do. I cannot leave mother; she would be miserable if I went away from her. Yet if I stay with her—she is so indulgent to me—I fear I shall fall into the old self-willed ways again."

"You must arm yourself against that which you fear. Do you know Dante's 'Purgatorio'?"

Juliet smiled faintly.

"I have read scarcely any books except novels," she said.

"No?" he said, with a smile. "Then you have a wide and rich field before you, and I advise you to begin to explore it without delay. But what I was going to say about the 'Purgatorio' is this: Dante represents the souls in purgatory as loving and courting the pain which is to purge them from their sin. There is an intimate connection between their sin and its punishment. Many of the sinners are depicted as enjoying that which their penitent will now eagerly desires—the exact opposite of their sin. Thus the proud willingly go bowed to the earth; gluttons delight in the pangs of hunger, and the slothful urge themselves onward in perpetual haste. Do you catch the idea? Can you apply it to yourself?"

"Ah, I see!" exclaimed Juliet, with kindling eyes. "You mean that I should now choose the opposite of that which I chose before—my own way."

"Just so," he said. "You have tasted the bitterness and sorrow which come of making self the centre of one's life. Now strive to get out of yourself. Make it your aim to mortify self. Desire to do the will of another rather than your own. Above all, seek to do the will of God."

Juliet had ceased to shed tears. Her face though sad was calm. She was silent for some moments after he had spoken, then she turned her eyes upon him with a look of perfect, childlike self-surrender, and said, "I will. I will try to do what you say; but you will help me? I shall see you sometimes, and you will help me?"

"Alas! I am afraid I cannot help you much," he said, with a troubled look, "nor shall I be able to see you. You knew, did you not, that I was only here for a short time? The Bishop of Durham has just appointed me to a living in the North of England, and I go there almost immediately."

Juliet's countenance fell. She sat looking at her hands in silence. It may be pardoned her that at that moment she could perceive the fact only as it affected herself. It never occurred to her to utter words of polite congratulation or goodwill.

"You will have better help than mine," he said, after a pause. "I shall think of you and pray for you. And I know that it will be well with you. You will gain the victory over yourself. Your life will yet be the better, your character the stronger and purer, for this painful experience."

"I will try," said Juliet again.

There was another brief pause of silence, and then he rose and held out his hand.

"You will help me; you do help me," said Juliet suddenly, in her ardent, impetuous way as they clasped hands; "this talk with you has helped me. I shall remember all that you have said. And it will always help me to remember that you think kindly—that you do not despair of me."

With these, her last words, ringing in his ears, he went away. Yet he was sad as he thought of her. Her young, fair face, as he had seen it clouded with sorrow and shame, haunted his memory. He had a keen perception of how hard she had made her life, and of the trials that must beset her in the future from friction within her own home circle, from the coldness of so-called friends, and from the hard, censorious judgment of the world. He was a man of large and tender heart, and he yearned to save her from these troubles. But it might not be. She must bear her own burden, a burden surely none the lighter that it was the fruit of her own self-will.

Yet, as he thought of her thus sadly, the gloom of Juliet's inner life was broken by the first ray of light and hope which had entered it since she awoke to the horror of her wrong-doing and its results. The knowledge that this good and noble man, whom she had always secretly revered, had such hope for her, such belief in her future, made it possible for her self-despising, self-despairing soul to look heavenward, and with new faith and hope struggle upward from the slough into which it had fallen.