CHAPTER XXIX.
FORGIVE AND FORGET.
Julia doubtless anticipated the subject of the interview. Her cheek was crimson, but there was a certain resolution manifested in her eye which might have foreboded ill to the doctor’s hopes, or might have been merely the effect of that bracing up of the nerves which is necessary to enable a maiden to meet what she desires, yet dreads.
“Miss Hungerford, perhaps I am rash and foolhardy. I feel that I am; but I cannot endure the painful anxiety in which I have existed during the last two months,” the doctor began. “You despise me; you are disgusted with me.”
“You wrong me, and you wrong yourself, Dr. Lynch.”
“It would not be unnatural that you should do so.”
“On the contrary, it would be more than strange if one for whom you have done so much should regard you with any other feelings than respect and esteem.”
“Miss Hungerford, you know what wrong I have done; you know how grossly and inexcusably I have injured your brother’s best friend--one who had been more than a friend to me.”
“Why need you mention this unpleasant matter, doctor? It is past and forgotten.”
“It cannot be forgotten; at least, not by me. The wrong was too grievous to rest lightly on my awakened conscience.”
“It was a grievous wrong, Dr. Lynch; it would be worse than foolish to deny it.”
The doctor did not appear to be encouraged by this remark.
“There was nothing to palliate it,” he added, meekly.
“Nothing, doctor; no attempt was made on your part to justify or excuse your conduct, which makes your friends all the more ready to forget and forgive.”
“I may be forgiven as the condemned criminal is forgiven, but I am despised as he is despised.”
“Far from it, doctor. Your confession, and the manly reparation you made, have atoned for the error; and for one, I must beg you never to allude to it again. One who has been so kind to us cannot be despised, or even regarded with coldness.”
“Miss Hungerford, you do not know what I have suffered. Long before the trial, long before Mr. Birch had the means of proving his innocence, I was convicted of my error. My penitence dates, not from the day Ross Kingman was tried, but from the day when you, lying at death’s door, opened your eyes and smiled upon me. It was your look that conquered me, not the fear of public disgrace. Miss Hungerford, I love you! Do not spurn me.”
“I am honored by your preference,” stammered Julia.
“You saved me from myself. As I bent over you, pale, wasted, almost in heaven, you seemed like an angel sent to convict and condemn me. I was convicted and condemned. O, how I loathed myself!” continued the doctor, earnestly.
“You were very kind to me then.”
“If I could have lain down in the grave, and gone to heaven with you, how happy I should have been! I was not fit for heaven; I was not fit even for the presence of the angel whom I had labored to save from the arms of death.”
“You are sentimental, doctor,” added Julia, trying to smile.
“The feeling of my own unworthiness as I looked upon you, as I watched your dimmed eye and your wasted form, was terrible to me, for I could not help loving you. When you were better, I tried to tear the idol from my soul. I could not; it had become part of my being. I was banished from your presence. Every day of absence was a day of misery. I would not even have you know what I endured. There was no hope, no comfort for me. But I had been so base and wicked that I deserved to suffer. I could reproach no one but myself.”
“Why need you indulge in this morbid self-condemnation? You have confessed your error; you have atoned for it as far as you can. Why need you repine any more?”
“Because my error has robbed me of all the joys of life,” replied the doctor, in the bitterness of desperation.
“That cannot be.”
“It can be; it is.”
“Your profession still enables you to do good to your fellow-beings, and your kind heart finds abundant objects of charity. You can be happy in being true to yourself and useful to others.”
Dr. Lynch was surprised into an expression of contempt, but it was instantly supplanted by his sad look of humiliation and self-abasement.
“You did not quite understand me. I have all these joys, and they are joys indeed. I am human, and therefore selfish. That which I have regarded as the greatest joy of earth has fled from my grasp, if it were ever within my reach.”
Julia knew what he meant, and her cheek betrayed her consciousness.
“If you desire any selfish joy, you should be willing to dispense with it. We should not repine because we cannot have all that we desire in this world; that is the common lot of humanity.”
“What I desire is absolutely necessary to save me from hopeless misery.”
“I trust not.”
“Miss Hungerford, I have been self-banished from this house for your sake.”
“For my sake!”
“Truly for your sake.”
“I should always have been glad to see you.”
“The feeling that I was not worthy to come into your presence has made me an exile from the society which I have longed for, pined for. I had fully resolved, bitter and terrible as was the fate to which I doomed myself, never again to see you.”
“Why should you?”
“Because I love you! You spurn me; you shrink from me!” exclaimed the doctor, with passionate earnestness.
Julia did not move, did not start, did not shrink. As she had no feeling of disgust, she did not manifest any. The suitor was poetic, rather dramatic, in his demonstrations. Julia looked anxious, troubled, rather than agitated.
“I am sure, Dr. Lynch, no one of our family, least of all myself, regards you with aversion. We are weighed down with obligations to you; and if we were so disposed, we could not afford to think unkindly of you.”
“You are noble and generous, and your generosity makes my error all the more loathsome to me. I have never ceased to feel your kindness and generosity; but I could not tax it to the extent of compelling you to tolerate one so base and despicable as myself.”
“You really hurt my feelings by applying such epithets to yourself.”
Perhaps that was what the doctor intended to do.
“I am what I am. I would sacrifice everything to win back the integrity I have lost. I cannot hide myself from my own eyes. I was willing to hide myself from yours. I intended not again to burden your family with the sight of me.”
“We should have been glad to see you every day since your return. Eugene invited you, and tried to persuade you to come to Pine Hill. Does not this fact convince you that you would have been welcome here?”
“I have never doubted that I should be welcome. To stay away seemed to me to be a sacred duty, though it was contrary to my own inclinations. Does this convince you of the sincerity of my repentance?”
“We knew you were sincere, and we asked no such proof.”
“I believed it was my duty to stay away. I faithfully followed my conviction. I should have persevered, but your brother insisted that I should attend your mother in her sickness.”
“Mother could not think of having any other physician.”
“It was not my fault that I came.”
“Your fault! It was kind of you to come. Mother might have died if you had refused to come.”
“But I dreaded to come; not on your mother’s account, of course, for I respect and esteem her more than any other woman in the world. I feared to come.”
“Why should you?”
“I suggested to your brother that he had better call in another physician.”
“So he told me.”
“If I could honorably have avoided coming, I should have done so.”
“I am sorry you had so strong a dislike to coming to our house.”
“Dislike! Far from it!”
“What was it, then?”
“Simple duty. I could not avoid seeing you.”
“Did you object to seeing me?”
“It was rapture even to look upon you! Julia, I came. Right or wrong, I cannot help loving you. I would have spared you this, for I know you hate me, if your gentle nature is capable of hating.”
“I do not hate you; I do not dislike you, doctor. Your words pain me.”
“I have thought that it was the guidings of Providence that brought me here after I had so solemnly exiled myself from these halls. The happiest hours of my life have been spent here; but, like our first parents, I have been driven from Eden by my own transgression.”
“Be more reasonable, doctor. Promise me that you will come here as you used to come. I will insure you a glad welcome at all times.”
“Heaven knows how joyfully I would give such a promise! Julia--will you pardon me for speaking to you thus familiarly?”
“Certainly; it is all in the family,” laughed she.
“Julia, how many times have I said I loved you! You do not speak of this.”
“I cannot,” she replied, with some confusion.
“Do you hate me?”
“No.”
“You despise me.”
“No.”
“You believe that I am unworthy of you.”
“No; we have all done wrong, and we need to be forgiven.”
“Have you forgiven me?”
“I have.”
“Do you regard me now as you did before my great transgression was exposed?”
“I do not.”
“I feared it,” replied he, with a kind of hopeless gasp between a sigh and a groan.
“Do not misunderstand me, Dr. Lynch. While I respect and esteem you; while I am grateful to you to a degree I cannot express; while I forgive and forget the wrong you have done; while there is nothing in the world that I would not do for you,--I cannot regard you as I did before.”
Dr. Lynch breathed forth a sigh which seemed to come from the deepest depths of a hopeless and desponding soul. He rose from his chair, and walked across the room, apparently to hide his emotions from Julia. He stood facing the corner of the room. He took a spotless white handkerchief from his pocket.
“Doctor, you do not understand me,” said Julia, greatly troubled by the apparent anguish of her suitor.
“You speak too plainly to have your meaning mistaken,” he replied, as he turned and walked towards her again.
There was an expression of agony on his face which appealed to her woman’s heart with tremendous force. His eyes looked misty, and if his spotless handkerchief was not stained by a tear, perhaps it was because it is not manly to weep.
“I do not condemn you. I shall meet you as I have always met you. I shall have the same regard for you.”
“But you have not even forgiven me.”
“I have, fully and freely.”
“You cannot _forget_ my transgressions.”
“I have forgotten them.”
“Then why do you say you shall not again regard me as you did before?”
“You have proved your capacity to do what is as loathsome to you as it is to me. My estimate of your character has been affected. I cannot help it. It is involuntary on my part. I can forgive and forget the wrong, but I cannot blot out the influence which it has had upon my mind.”
“Then you are always to look down upon me, from the pinnacle of your own goodness, as a base and hopeless transgressor?”
“How much you wrong me! St. Paul, who called himself the chief of sinners, came to be the holiest of saints. The stone that was rejected becomes the head of the corner. I shall not think--none at Pine Hill will think--of what you were, or what you have done. We shall esteem you, and judge you by what you are. We may all learn to regard you even more kindly than before anything occurred to lower our estimate of you.”
“That is hopeful,” said the doctor, apparently somewhat comforted by her explanation.
“I trust you are satisfied.”
“As far from it as Tantalus when the cool waters which he could not drink rippled within reach of his parched lips,” replied the doctor, vehemently. “Julia, I love you with all my mind, heart, and soul. I have not a thought of existence which is not wedded to you! I have not a hope or a joy which is not colored by your smile! I have not a waking hour which is not haunted by your image! Life without you is misery, torment, desperation; with you it is heaven. Is there any hope for me?”
“I am afraid not.”
“You do not love me.”
“I do not dislike you.”
“There was a time when I believed you were not wholly indifferent to me.”
“I am not now, any more than then,” she replied, with a calmness which almost prostrated the ardent wooer.
“You distort my meaning. I speak not of simple friendship or mere regard. Do you love me, Julia?”
“I do not.”
Dr. Lynch sprang from his chair. He seemed to be furious in his disappointment; like one of those sunny-clime lovers who, refused, clap a pistol to their heads, and blow out their brains, or find a grave in the deepest waters that flow within their reach. He indulged in sharp, impatient, convulsive movements; his eyes glared out the window, at the floor, at the ceiling. And Julia was calm as a summer rainbow while the lightnings gleam and the thunder roars in the opposite horizon. This is something which some men must have, as some children must have the whooping cough. It is really terrible, but nothing can be done.
“Julia,” cried the doctor, suddenly dashing across the room to the place where she sat,--“Julia, _can_ you ever love me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can you permit me to hope?”
“I fear it would be useless to anticipate such a conclusion of the whole matter,” she replied, smiling.
The doctor demonstrated again for a few moments. She was as cold as an iceberg.
“You close the door of hope against me?”
“I do not.”
“You permit me to hope?”
“Yes, if you will.”
“Forgive me, Julia; do you love another?”
“Not even my best friend may ask me such a question.”
She blushed deeply.
“You love Mr. Birch; and he is worthy of you,” groaned the doctor.
“Mr. Birch never spoke a word to me on such a subject; never even hinted at it.”
“Do you not love him?”
“I will not answer.”
“If you do, Julia, it is right that you should say so to me.”
“I have said all that I would say, even to my own mother, concerning Mr. Birch. Neither you, nor any one, has the right to catechise me on that which every woman must conceal until it reveals itself.”
“I did not ask for the purpose of impertinently prying into your affairs, Miss Hungerford,” continued the doctor, rather coldly. “If you love Mr. Birch, any attentions from me would be an annoyance to you.”
“I wish to meet you as we have always met. I regard you as a strong personal friend, to whom I am under no common obligations.”
“Do not speak of obligations.”
“It gives me great satisfaction to acknowledge them. Any attentions you may be disposed to bestow upon me will always be gratefully received.”
“You do not accept the issue as it is. I love you. I have committed myself both by word and deed. I have given you the power to say you have rejected me.”
“I have not rejected you; if I had, I could not mention it.”
“You have not?”
“No.”
“You have said that you regard my suit as hopeless.”
“That is my opinion.”
“If Mr. Birch----”
“No more of Mr. Birch, if you please. I am committed to no one. I have decided nothing. I am as ignorant of the future as you are. I am content to let events take their course. Am I a flirt? No. I will marry no man unless I love him well enough to be his wife.”
“You neither accept nor reject me.”
“I do not. I hope to meet you as a friend.”
“Julia, this is misery for me.”
“I have told you the simple truth. I am passive. I cannot control my heart. I will obey its dictates as I shall those of my conscience.”
If Dr. Lynch was not satisfied with the result of this interview, it certainly was not Julia’s fault. Nothing was decided, and the doctor joined Eugene and Dick Birch in the library without a very clear apprehension of his own position. It looked rather hopeless from one point of view, but the gates of paradise had not been closed against him. Of course he believed that Birch had all the advantage now, though it appeared that he had not been forward to avail himself of his opportunity.
There was a stranger in the library when he entered--a plainly-dressed, but very good-looking lady of twenty-five. She was introduced to the doctor as Miss Thompson.
“This lady is to be our new missionary,” said Eugene. “I find we need such a person.”
“There is plenty for her to do,” replied the doctor, who did not appear to have much interest just then in missions or missionaries.
The doctor did not say much, and in a short time took his leave. Miss Thompson was to take the place of Mary, whose approaching marriage would soon deprive the chapel enterprise of her valuable services. Eugene had spoken of the loss which would thus be involved, and Dick had mentioned this lady as one residing with his family for a brief period. She was said to be a poor girl, of excellent character and a Christian spirit, who would be glad to do anything to help herself. Dick said nothing of her antecedents; indeed, he carefully avoided telling more about her than was absolutely necessary. Eugene was not very curious, any farther than to satisfy himself that she was qualified for the position for which she was wanted.
She had arrived at Poppleton while Dr. Lynch was pleading his cause before Julia. Eugene had conversed with her for half an hour. Her manners were pretty, as well as her face, and her speech was modest, and indicated intelligence. Eugene was entirely satisfied with her.
“I have the buggy at the door, and I will drive Miss Thompson down to the Port and over to the Mills. I suppose you are going to The Great Bell,” said Dick.
“I am; I will tell Mary to meet Miss Thompson to-morrow, and point out to her the duties of her office,” replied Eugene.
“Very well. Where is Julia?”
“The last I heard of her, she was with the doctor in the sitting-room.”
“With the doctor!”
“Between us, Dick, I think he has proposed to her, for he certainly looked like a man who had been rejected,” added Eugene, in a low tone. “I doubt whether we see him here again.”
“I hope we shall.”
“So do I; but it was hard work to get him here, and I think he will not come unless he finds it pleasant to do so. My mother thinks so much of the doctor that she will be likely to plead his cause for him.”
Julia entered the library just as Dick was going out. Miss Thompson was warmly greeted, and Eugene looked for any change which might have come over his sister since her interview with the doctor. There was none. She was as placid as a summer sea.
Dick drove off with the new missionary. He explained to her what his friend was doing for the poor of Poppleton; he described the chapel, and gave John Porter an excellent character. Miss Thompson was sad, silent, and thoughtful. She listened attentively to all that was said to her until they came to the burying-ground.
“Was he buried there?” she asked, with much emotion.
“He was.”
“Has any stone been erected over his grave?”
“Not yet.”
“That shall be my first duty.”
“He was placed in the tomb first, and efforts were made to find his friends. As no one claimed the body, it was buried last summer.”
“Do you know where the grave is?”
“I do.”
“Would it be asking too much of you to show me the way?”
“By no means; but do you think it would be best for you to visit the spot?”
“I would like to do so.”
Dick hitched the horse at the gate of the cemetery, and conducted her to the grave of Eliot Buckstone. Miss Thompson stood in silence gazing at the mound capped with turf. A bunch of flowers which Eugene had gathered for her in the conservatory--for he could not judge of her fitness to do missionary work until he knew whether she really loved flowers--was placed at the head of the grave.
Dick retired from the spot, and presently she knelt down, and bowed her head. There were tears in her eyes; they were the first that had been shed at the grave of the murdered man.
“Father in heaven, forgive him for the wrong he has done to me and to others,” murmured she.
She rose, wiped away her tears, placed the bunch of flowers on the sod above the breast of the sleeper beneath, and turned away.
“Mr. Birch, you have been very kind to me; may I dare to ask one more favor of you?”
“Certainly.”
“Will you have a white marble stone placed at the head of his grave? I will pay for it with the first money I earn.”
“We will select one at the Port to-day.”
“Thank you. I cannot bear to think of his sleeping there without a stone to mark his resting-place.”
“Every thing you desire shall be done; but you must not even mention his name.”
“I will not.”
They went to the marble works, and the stone was ordered. In a few days it was erected. It bore no record but the name, age, and date of his death. Through the summer that followed, a bunch of fresh flowers was occasionally found on the grave of the murdered man; but no one was seen to place them there, and no one but Dick Birch knew that the female missionary of Eugene Hungerford had ever been interested in the clay beneath the stone.