“Who will kill him?—I hope nothing has occurred about your friend’s child to agitate my Susan,” said his mother. “It was all the kindness of your heart, my dear boy; but it was very imprudent of you to let Susan’s name be connected with anybody of doubtful character. Oh, Arthur, dear, we have both been very imprudent!—you have so much of my quick temper. It was a punishment to me to see how impatient you were today; but Susan takes after your dear father. Oh, my own boy, pray; pray for her, that her heart may not be broken by this dreadful news.”
And Mrs. Vincent leant back in her corner, and once more put down her veil. Pray!—who was he to pray for? Susan, forlorn and innocent, disappointed in her first love, but unharmed by any worldly soil or evil passion?—or the other sufferers involved in more deadly sort, himself palpitating with feverish impulses, broken loose from all his peaceful youthful moorings, burning with discontents and aspirations, not spiritual, but of the world? Vincent prayed none as he asked himself that bitter question. He drew back in his seat opposite his mother, and pondered in his heart the wonderful difference between the objects of compassion to whom the world gives ready tears, and those of whom the world knows and suspects nothing. Susan! he could see her mother weeping over her in her white and tender innocence. What if, perhaps, she broke her young heart? the shock would only send the girl with more clinging devotion to the feet of the great Father; but as for himself, all astray from duty and sober life, devoured with a consuming fancy, loathing the way and the work to which he had been trained to believe that Father had called him—who thought of weeping?—or for Her, whom his alarmed imagination could not but follow, going forth remorseless and silent to fulfil her promise, and kill the man who had wronged her? Oh, the cheat of tears!—falling sweet over the young sufferers whom sorrow blessed—drying up from the horrible complex pathways where other souls, in undisclosed anguish, went farther and farther from God!
With such thoughts the mother and son hurried on upon their darkling journey. It was the middle of the night when they arrived in Lonsdale—a night starless, but piercing with cold. They were the only passengers who got out at the little station, where two or three lamps glared wildly on the night, and two pale porters made a faint bustle to forward the long convoy of carriages upon its way. One of these men looked anxiously at the widow, as if with the sudden impulse of asking a question, or communicating some news, but was called off by his superior before he could speak. Vincent unconsciously observed the look, and was surprised and even alarmed by it, without knowing why. It returned to his mind, as he gave his mother his arm to walk the remaining distance home. Why did the man put on that face of curiosity and wonder? But, to be sure, to see the mild widow arrive in this unexpected way in the middle of the icy January night, must have been surprising enough to anyone who knew her, and her gentle decorous life. He tried to think no more of it, as they set out upon the windy road, where a few sparely-scattered lamps blinked wildly, and made the surrounding darkness all the darker. The station was half a mile from the town, and Mrs. Vincent’s cottage was on the other side of Lonsdale, across the river, which stole sighing and gleaming through the heart of the little place. Somehow the sudden black shine of that water as they caught it, crossing the bridge, brought a shiver and flash of wild imagination to the mind of the Nonconformist. He thought of suicides, murders, ghastly concealment, and misery; and again the face of the porter returned upon him. What if something had happened while the watchful mother had been out of the way? The wind came sighing round the corners with an ineffectual gasp, as if it too had some warning, some message to deliver. Instinctively he drew his mother’s arm closer, and hurried her on. Suggestions of horrible unthought-of evil seemed lurking everywhere in the noiseless blackness of the night.
Mrs. Vincent shivered too, but it was with cold and natural agitation. In her heart she was putting tender words together, framing tender phrases—consulting with herself how she was to look, and how to speak. Already she could see the half-awakened girl, starting up all glowing and sweet from her safe rest, unforeboding of evil; and the widow composed her face under the shadow of her veil, and sent back with an effort the unshed tears from her eyes, that Susan might not see any traces in her face, till she had “prepared her” a little, for that dreadful, inevitable blow.
The cottage was all dark, as was natural—doubly dark tonight, for there was no light in the skies, and the wind had extinguished the lamp which stood nearest, and on ordinary occasions threw a doubtful flicker on the little house. “Susan will soon hear us, she is such a light sleeper,” said Mrs. Vincent. “Ring the bell, Arthur. I don’t like using the knocker, to disturb the neighbours. Everybody would think it so surprising to hear a noise in the middle of the night from our house. There—wait a moment. That was a very loud ring; Susan must be sleeping very soundly if that does not wake her up.”
There was a little pause; not a sound, except the tinkling of the bell, which they could hear inside as the peal gradually subsided, was in the air; breathless silence, darkness, cold, an inhuman preternatural chill and watchfulness, no welcome sound of awakening sleepers, only their own dark shadows in the darkness, listening like all the hushed surrounding world at that closed door.
“Poor
