“Christine Ludolph is anything but weak and frivolous,” said he. “Her character is strong, and I think most decided in its present bent. But as you say, if the Divine Alchemist wills it, He can change even the dross to gold, and turn unbelief to faith.”
Hope, Christine! There is light coming, though as yet you cannot see it. There are angels of mercy flying toward you, though you cannot hear the rustle of their wings. The dark curtain of death and despair can never shut down upon a life linked to heaven by such true, strong prayer. And yet the logical results of wrongdoing will work themselves out, sin must be punished and faith sorely tried.
Dennis heard incidentally that Christine was absent on a visit to New York, but he knew nothing of the time of her return.
He now bent himself steadily and resolutely to the mastering of his business, and under Mr. Bruder’s direction resumed his art studies, though now in such moderation as Dr. Arten would commend.
He also entered on an artistic effort that would tax his powers and genius to the very utmost, of which more anon.
By the time Christine returned, he was quite himself again, though much paler and thinner than when he first entered the store.
After Christine had been at home nearly a week, her father, to rouse her out of her listlessness, said one morning: “We have recently received quite a remarkable painting from Europe. You will find it in the upper showroom, and had better come down today to see it, for it may be sold soon. I think you would like to copy one or two figures in it.”
The lassitude from her New York dissipation was passing away, and her active nature beginning to assert itself again. She started up and said, “Wait five minutes and I will get sketching materials and go down with you.”
By reason of her interdict, made at West Point, so earnestly, and indeed fiercely, and confirmed by her manner, her father had never mentioned the name of Dennis Fleet. The very fact that no one had spoken of him since that dreadful day when tidings came in on every side that he could not live was confirmation in her mind that he was dead.
She dreaded going to the store, especially for the first time, for everything would irresistibly remind her of him whom she could not think of now without a pang. But as the ordeal must come, why, the sooner it was over the better. So a few moments later her hand was on her father’s arm, and they were on their way to the Art Building as in happier days.
Mr. Ludolph went to his office, and Christine, looking neither to the right nor to the left, ascended to the upper showroom, and at once sought to engage every faculty in making the sketch her father had suggested. Since Dennis was not, as she believed, either on the earth or elsewhere, she tried to take up life again as it had been before he came, and to act as if he had never been.
Hopeless task! In that familiar place, where they had begun the rearrangement of the store, everything spoke of him. She saw his glowing cheeks; again his dark, eager eyes followed her every movement and interpreted her wishes even before she could speak. Some of the pictures on the walls his hands had handled, and in her strong fancy his lithe form seemed moving the ladder to take them down again, while she, with heart and mind at rest, looked with growing curiosity and interest on her humble helper.
What changes had occurred within a short half-year! She shuddered at the thought that one who was then so instinct with life and happiness could now be dust and nothingness, and she the cause.
Association and conscience were again too powerful. She was becoming nervous and full of a strange unrest, so she concluded to finish her sketch at another time. As she was gathering up her materials she heard someone enter the room.
She was in such a morbid, unstrung state that the least thing startled her. But imagine if you can her wonder and terror as she saw Dennis Fleet—the dead and buried, as she fully believed—enter, carrying a picture as of old, and looking as of old, save that he was paler and thinner. Was it an apparition? or, as she had read, had she dwelt so long on this trouble that her mind and imagination were becoming disordered and able to place their wild creations before her as realities?
Her sketching materials fell clattering to the floor, and after one sharp exclamation of alarm she stood as if transfixed, with parted lips and dilated eyes, panting like a frightened bird.
If a sculptor had wished to portray the form and attitude of one startled by the supernatural, never could he have found a more fitting model than Christine at this moment.
As she had been seated a little on one side Dennis had not seen her at first; but, on recognizing her so unexpectedly, he was scarcely less startled than she, and the valuable picture he was carrying nearly met sudden destruction. But he had no such reason as Christine for the continuance of his surprise, and, at once recovering himself, he set the picture against the wall.
This made the illusion still more strange and terrible to Christine. There was the dead before her, doing just as she had been imagining—just what he had done at her bidding months before.
Dennis was greatly puzzled by her look of alarm and distress. Then he thought that perhaps she feared he would break out in bitter and angry invectives again, and he advanced toward
