CHAPTER XLVII
EDITHA’S GREETING
Fifteen minutes after Madam Forrester left Earle a light step sounded outside the door, a trembling hand turned the silver handle, and Editha Forrester stood once more in the presence of her lover.
She was somewhat pale and worn, as Madam had said; but a lovely flush of expectation and delight had crept into her cheeks, and a joyous light gleamed from her beautiful eyes, as Earle leaped to his feet and went forward to meet her.
No word was spoken for the first few moments—their feelings were too deep, too sacred, for any outward expression; but Earle drew her to his breast and held her there with a strong, tender clasp that claimed her his own forever—that told her they would nevermore be parted while both should live.
Editha was the first to break the significant silence.
“Earle, I am glad you have come,” she said, as she raised her eyes shining with happy tears to read the face she loved so well.
It was the same simple yet hearty greeting that she had given him so long ago on that day before Christmas when he had come to her. Earle remembered it and drew her still closer as he thought of her constancy to him through all the various changes of the last four years.
“The wings of the wind were not rapid enough to bear me to you, my own, when I knew that you wanted me; and yet I did not dream of the joy that was awaiting me,” he said, with tremulous gladness.
“Joy and sorrow too, Earle, for Papa cannot remain with us long,” she answered, with a sigh.
She still called Mr. Dalton by the old familiar name, for not only would it have been awkward to change, but it would have seemed cruel to the invalid, who in all the world had alone this fair girl to cling to.
But in her heart, she thanked God every day that Richard Forrester had been her father instead of Sumner Dalton, while no words could express her joy for the loving mother she had found.
“Yes, it pains me to find him as he is,” Earle returned, in answer to her remark; but he was thinking more of his spiritual condition than of his physical suffering.
“He is very sorry for the past,” Editha said, with a wistful look; “he talks of it almost constantly in his sleep in a wild, sad way, although he speaks bitterly when he is awake. He begs Marion—that was your mother, Earle—to forgive him, and tells her that he did not see things then as he does now. I think she would forgive him now if she could see him; and, Earle, I wish you could forgive him, too. Oh, if you could part at peace with each other!”
“We can, my darling. I have never wished him any ill, and freely forgive him every wrong; though, of course, it cannot be expected that I could feel any affection for him,” Earle replied, gravely.
“No—oh, no.”
“And my mother’s wrongs were very grievous.”
“I know,” Editha said, with a deep sigh of regret, as she thought of that delicate, lovely girl, and what torture she must have endured when she believed herself betrayed and scorned.
“Editha, can you forgive Mr. Dalton for all he has wilfully made you suffer—for trying to part us when there was no need, and for seeking to hide you from your mother?” Earle asked, regarding her curiously.
The tears sprang to her eyes as she answered:
“Oh, yes; he is dying, you know, and I could not let him leave me feeling that I cherished any bitterness toward him. His path to the grave is very dark, and I would not add to its gloom. It has been very hard to bear all those things,” she added, sighing; “but I think Papa has been the worst sufferer, after all. He never was unkind to me until after my dear father died. Oh, Earle,” she cried, her lovely face lighting up with tenderness, “you don’t know how I love to think that he was my father—I loved him so dearly. I used to think sometimes that I was really ungrateful to love him so very much when he was only my uncle, but now I know why it was—it was the natural impulse of my heart going out to him, where it belonged.”
“How like a romance the story of your life is, my darling,” Earle said, thoughtfully.
“Not more so than your own, I am quite sure, Earle. But do you not think Mother is very lovely?” she asked.
“She is, truly. How very happy you are in the knowledge of your parentage.”
“Yes; and for more reasons than one,” she answered, with a shy smile at him, accompanied with a rosy blush; then she added, more gravely: “But I wish my mother need not have suffered quite so deeply. If my father could but have known how sorry and repentant she was, and how truly good she was at heart, they might have grown to be very happy after a while; he need not have lived such a lonely, sorrowful life, and all this sin and trouble need never have been. But”—with a sigh of regret—“we have no right to question the dealings of One who is wiser than we. There is some good reason for all the suffering there is in the world, and someone has somewhere said that ‘human lives are like some sweet plants, which must be crushed ere they give forth their sweetest fragrance.’”
“And we are told somewhere else that gold seven times tried is pure. How very free from dross, then, you must be, my darling,” Earle said, with playful tenderness.
“No, indeed, Earle; my trials and sorrows have been nothing compared to yours,” Editha said, earnestly.
“The bitterness of the past disappears in the brightness of the present, and what the future promises to be; and I do not forget, my darling, that but for your fortitude, a dark shadow would still rest upon my life—you endured a great deal for my sake, Editha,” and his lips touched her forehead almost reverently.
“And I would have resisted until I died rather than have given up my treasure into the hands of that wicked man,” she cried, with something of the old wilful gleam in her eyes. “Do you know,” she added, eagerly, in the same breath, “that I have found the Lokers, and they are now just as comfortable as they can be.”
“And all owing to your own kindness of heart and liberal hand, no doubt,” Earle responded, with a smile.
“How could I help expressing my gratitude in some way for having that dark mystery solved and every stigma removed from your character? I did help them to begin with, but they are going to help themselves now. I stocked a cunning little store with fancy and useful articles, furnished two rooms in the rear for their private use, and they are really very successful in their little business.”
“With you for their chief patron, I presume,” was Earle’s laughing reply, as he gazed admiringly into her animated face.
“Well, of course, I go there,” she admitted, flushing, “to get all my needles, pins, thread, etc., and so do a great many of my friends. But Mrs. Loker is really a very worthy woman, and her daughter is bright and keen as a brier at a trade; it is a real pleasure to encourage such people. But I have talked enough about myself—tell me something about your adventure with that wicked creature who has brought so much trouble upon us.”
Earle complied, relating all that had occurred from the night of the attempted robbery until the time of his departure, while Editha listened intensely interested.
“Do you know I stand almost in awe of you to know that you have accomplished such a change in that vile nature? It seems almost like a miracle,” she said when he had finished.
“Do not think of it, then, for I have no wish, I assure you, to inspire you with any such sentiment toward me. But I do not think this looks as if you were very much afraid of me,” he laughed, as he gathered her closer in his arms and kissed the fair face upon his breast again and again.
“I shall be obliged to impose a duty upon all such operations in the future if you carry them to such an extent,” she said, trying to hide her blushing face with a very insufficient hand.
“Then never tell me again that you stand in awe of me, or I shall feel it my duty to take even more effective measures to eradicate the feeling,” Earle said, with mock gravity.
“But about this man”—Editha thought it best to change the subject—“don’t you think you’re carrying your kindness a little too far? He may betray your trust; besides, he has violated the laws of the land, and have you any right to shield him?”
“I suppose I am not obliged to give any evidence against him, since he was not arrested by a commissioned officer; the offense was against myself alone, and if I see fit to take no action in the matter, I do not see how I am violating any right, either civil or moral—particularly as I am conscientiously convinced that the man’s salvation depends upon kindness rather than upon punishment.”
Earle had argued this matter many times with himself, and he felt that he was doing perfectly right.
“If suffering is any penalty for sin,” he continued, “he has paid it, for he was fearfully wounded. I fully believe, that if he had escaped unharmed from the bullet, and been arrested, convicted, and sentenced, he would have grown more hardened and desperate, and been prepared for almost any evil upon the expiration of his term. But laid upon a bed of sickness, with someone to care for him and treat him as if he were a human being, he has had the opportunity to think as he has never thought before. As Mr. Dalton said today, ‘Things look very different to a man when he fears that life is slipping from his grasp than they do when he is in the full vigor of life,’ and I think Tom Drake realized that if ever a man did. He was not easily won—he was suspicious of me and my motives for a long time, but when he found that I would take no measures against him he was completely staggered; and the shock which his hitherto benumbed conscience thus received restored it to something like its normal condition. I believe he will do well, and, as long as he does, I shall give him my support and confidence.”
“But didn’t you feel the least bit triumphant when he lay there powerless before you?” Editha asked.
“I cannot say that I did not experience a sense of satisfaction in knowing that at last one so deserving of justice and so steeped in crime had been arrested in his career. But my first thought was, ‘Are my hands stained with the lifeblood of a fellow being?’ It was a great relief when I discovered that he was not mortally wounded, but my anxiety returned when he was so sick and we thought he would die.”
“It was a great care for you, Earle, and a noble thing for you to do after suffering all you have on his account,” Editha said, her heart swelling with pride of her noble lover.
“You know the more care anyone occasions us the more interest we naturally feel in that one,” he answered, smiling at her praise; “and so it was in this case. I saw the man was capable of better things; he is naturally smart, and I longed to save him despite the injury he had done to me and others. If there was one thing harder than all the rest for me to forgive, it was his treatment of you. Will it be agreeable to you, dearest, to see him about the place when we go home?” he asked, seeing the shiver that crept involuntarily over her at the mention of the past.
Editha flushed involuntarily at the mention of going “home,” but she said, with gentle gravity:
“No, Earle; if we can save him, I can conquer the repugnance that I have hitherto felt for him; but, as I remember him, he seems perfectly hideous to me.”
“He does not look nearly so repulsive since his sickness; he is, of course, much thinner and more refined in appearance, while his expression is wholly changed.”
“Whether he is changed or not, I will join you heart and hand in any good thing you may wish to do for him,” she said, heartily.
“What a gentle mistress Wycliffe will have,” Earle said, fondly; “and you will not refuse to go back with me this time?”
“No, Earle; only it must not be at present, you know,” she returned, with some sadness.
“I do know, dear, and of course shall remain as long as Mr. Dalton may need either you or me; but, oh! my darling, you cannot tell how thankful I am that I am not doomed to spend my life in gloom and alone; everything has looked so dreary and desolate to me until today.”
Editha did not reply, but she laid her cheek against his in mute sympathy, and with a sigh that told him she had also experienced something of the desolateness of which he spoke.
“You have not seen Mr. Tressalia yet, I suppose?” she said, after a few minutes of silence.
“No, dear, I have not seen him since the day I had such a struggle with my selfishness, and sent him hither to win you and be happy if he could.”
His arm tightened around the slight form at his side as he said this, and Editha knew how he must have suffered in that struggle to renounce her so utterly.
“Did you send him to me, Earle?” she asked, with a startled look.
“Yes, dear; Paul Tressalia is one of the earth’s noblest men. I believed you lost to me forever. You once told me if there had been no Earle Wayne in the world, you might have loved him. I wanted you to be happy—I wanted him to know something of the comfort of life, and I knew of no one whom I would rather have win a sister of mine than him. It was a miserable kind of an arrangement all around, but I knew of nothing better.”
Earle spoke with a tinge of the bitterness he had experienced at the time as if even the memory of it was exceedingly painful.
“Dear Earle, you might have known it could not be,” she whispered, sliding one hand into his and dropping her flushed face upon his shoulder.
“Never—not even if our relations had remained as we have believed them to be?”
“Never,” she replied, decidedly. “I could not change, even though I believed I was sinning every day of my life, and I would not wrong him by accepting his love when I had none to give him in return.”
“Editha, my beloved, I should crown you with passionflowers and snowdrops for your devotion and faithfulness,” Earle breathed, in low, intense tones, and deeply moved by her confession.
“Hush!” she said, releasing herself from his encircling arms, her face like a carnation; “there is the bell—that is Mr. Tressalia; he has heard of the arrival of a steamer, and has come to see if you are here;” and she arose to go, feeling that she could not be present while they met.
Earle arose, too, surmising her thought, but gently detained her a moment longer.
“My love—my Editha—my ‘happiness,’ you have not yet told me that you are glad to be my wife and go home with me to Wycliffe; let me hear you say it once,” he pleaded, with grave earnestness, as he studied the beautiful face intently.
“You know that I am glad, Earle;” and the clear, truthful eyes were raised to his with a look that satisfied him, though the conscious crimson dyed all her fair face.
“And there will be no regret at leaving your native land?” he persisted, his whole being thrilling with the consciousness of her pure love.
“Not one, save the lonely graves I shall leave behind and would like to visit occasionally,” she murmured, with a starting tear, as she thought of Richard Forrester and his sister sleeping so quietly side by side in Greenwood, and of that other grave that must soon be made beside them.
Earle lifted the sweet face and kissed the tremulous lips with infinite tenderness, then releasing her, she slipped from the room by one door as Paul Tressalia entered by another.
The greeting of the two young men was cordial and friendly, although each felt a thrill of pain as they clasped hands and realized all that that meeting meant to them.
Each knew that as soon as Mr. Dalton should be laid away Earle would claim Editha as his wife, and take her back to reign in the home of his ancestors, where, doubtless, a life of joy, such as falls to the lot of few, would be spent.
But Paul Tressalia was not a man to sit weakly down and pine for what he could not have.
Since that day when he had pleaded his suit for the last time with Editha, and she had in her despair cried out for a friend, strong and true, he had bravely set himself to work to conquer the hopeless passion in his heart, and he had already learned to look upon his future with a calmness at which he himself at times was surprised.
He came today as both Earle’s and Editha’s tried and trusted friend, and the congratulations which he tendered the former had a ring of heartiness in them not to be questioned for a moment.
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