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"Why, you are a young philosopher!" exclaimed Mr. Delancy, looking in wonder at his fair companion.
"No," she answered, with simplicity, "I talk with my father about these things, and it all seems very plain to me. I cannot see how any one can question what appears to me so plain. That the mind is substantial we see from this fact alone—it retains impressions longer than the body."
"You think so?"
"Take an instance," said Rose. "A boy is punished unjustly by a passionate teacher, who uses taunting words as well as smarting blows. Now the pain of these blows is gone in less than an hour, but the word-strokes received on his spirit hurt him, maybe, to the end of his mortal life. Is it not so? And if so, why? There must be substance to hold impressions so long."
"You silence, if you do not fully convince," replied Mr. Delancy. "I must dream over what you have said. And so your explanation is, that my thought of Irene has turned her thought to me, and thus we became really present?"
"Yes."
"And that I saw her just now by an inner, and not by an outer, sight?"
"Yes."
"But why was the appearance an outward manifestation, so to speak?"
"Sight is in the mind, even natural sight. The eye does not go out to a tree, but the image of the tree comes to the eye, and thence is presented, in a wonderful and mysterious way, to the mind, which takes note of its form. The appearance is, that the soul looks out at the tree; but the fact is, the image of the tree comes to the brain, and is there seen. Now the brain may be impressed, and respond by natural vision, from an internal as well as from an external communication. We see this in cases of visual aberrations, the instances of which given in books, and clearly authenticated, are innumerable. Things are distinctly seen in a room which have no existence in nature; and the illusion is so perfect that it seems impossible for eyes to be mistaken."
"Well, well, child," said Mr. Delancy, "this is curious, and a little bewildering. Perhaps it is all just as you say about Irene; but I feel very heavy here;" and he laid his hand on his breast and sighed deeply.
At this moment the library door was pushed gently open, and the form of a woman stood in the presence of Mr. Delancy and Rose. She was dressed in a dark silk, but had on neither bonnet nor shawl. Both started; Mr. Delancy raised his hands and bent forward, gazing at her eagerly, his lips apart. The face of the woman was pale and haggard, yet familiar as the face of an old friend; but in it was something so strange and unnatural that for a moment or two it was not recognized.
"Father!" It was Irene. She advanced quietly and held but her hand.
"My daughter!" He caught the extended hand and kissed her, but she showed no emotion.
"Rose, dear, I am glad to see you." There was truth in the dead level tone with which "I am glad to see you" was spoken, and Rose, who perceived this, took her hand and kissed her. Both hands and lips were cold.
"What's the matter, Irene? Have you been sick?" asked Mr. Delancy, in a choking voice.
"No, father, I'm very well." You would never have recognized that voice as the voice of Irene.
"No, child, you are not well. What ails you? Why are you here in so strange a way and looking so strangely?"
"Do I look strangely?" There was a feeble effort to awaken a smile, which only gave her face a ghastly expression.
"Is Hartley with you?"
"No." Her voice was fuller and more emphatic as she uttered this word. She tried to look steadily at her father, but her eyes moved aside from the range of his vision.
For a little while there was a troubled silence with all. Rose had placed an arm around the waist of Irene and drawn her to the sofa, on which they were now sitting; Mr. Delancy stood before them. Gradually the cold, almost blank, expression of Irene's face changed and the old look came back.
"My daughter," said Mr. Delancy.
"Father"—Irene interrupted him—"I know what you are going to say. My sudden, unannounced appearance, at this time, needs explanation. I am glad dear Rose is here—my old, true friend"—and she leaned against Miss Carman—"I can trust her."
The arm of Rose tightened around the waist of Irene.
"Father"—the voice of Irene fell to a deep, solemn tone; there was no emphasis on one word more than on another; all was a dead level; yet the meaning was as full and the involved purpose as fixed as if her voice had run through the whole range of passionate intonation—"Father, I have come back to Ivy Cliff and to you, after having suffered shipwreck on the voyage of life. I went out rich, as I supposed, in heart-treasures; I come back poor. My gold was dross, and the sea has swallowed up even that miserable substitute for wealth. Hartley and I never truly loved each other, and the experiment of living together as husband and wife has proved a failure. We have not been happy; no, not from the beginning. We have not even been tolerant or forbearing toward each other. A steady alienation has been in progress day by day, week by week, and month by month, until no remedy is left but separation. That has been, at length, applied, and here I am! It is the third time that I have left him, and to both of us the act is final. He will not seek me, and I shall not return."
There had come a slight flush to the countenance of Irene before she commenced speaking, but this retired again, and she looked deathly pale. No one answered her—only the arm of Rose tightened like a cord around the waist of her unhappy friend.
"Father," and now her voice fluttered a little, "for your sake I am most afflicted. I am strong enough to bear my fate—but you!"
There was a little sob—a strong suppression of feeling—and silence.
"Oh, Irene! my child! my child!" The old man covered his face with his hands, sobbed, and shook like a fluttering leaf. "I cannot bear this! It is too much for me!" and he staggered backward. Irene sprung forward and caught him in her arms. He would have fallen, but for this, to the floor. She stood clasping and kissing him wildly, until Rose came forward and led them both to the sofa.
Mr. Delancy did not rally from this shock. He leaned heavily against his daughter, and she felt a low tremor in his frame.
"Father!" She spoke tenderly, with her lips to his ear. "Dear father!"
But he did not reply.
"It is my life-discipline, father," she said; "I will be happier and better, no doubt, in the end for this severe trial. Dear father, do not let what is inevitable so break down your heart. You are my strong, brave, good father, and I shall need now more than ever, your sustaining arm. There was no help for this. It had to come, sooner or later. It is over now. The first bitterness is past. Let us be thankful for that, and gather up our strength for the future. Dear father! Speak to me!"
Mr. Delancy tried to rally himself, but he was too much broken down by the shock. He said a few words, in which there was scarcely any connection of ideas, and then, getting up from the sofa, walked about the room, turning one of his hands within the other in a distressed way.
"Oh dear, dear, dear!" he murmured to himself, in a feeble manner. "I have dreaded this, and prayed that it might not be. Such wretchedness and disgrace! Such wretchedness and disgrace! Had they no patience with each other—no forbearance—no love, that it must come to this? Dear! dear! dear! Poor child!"
Irene, with her white, wretched face, sat looking at him for some time, as he moved about, a picture of helpless misery; then, going to him again, she drew an arm around his neck and tried to comfort him. But there was no comfort in her words. What could she say to reach with a healing power the wound from which his very life-blood was pouring.
"Don't talk! don't talk!" he said, pushing Irene away, with slight impatience of manner. "I am heart-broken. Words are nothing!"
"Mr. Delancy," said Rose, now coming to his side, and laying a hand upon his arm, "you must not speak so to Irene. This is not like you."
There was a calmness of utterance and a firmness of manner which had their right effect.
"How have I spoken, Rose, dear? What have I said?" Mr. Delancy stopped and looked at Miss Carman in a rebuked, confused way, laying his hand upon his forehead at the same time.
"Not from yourself," answered Rose.
"Not from myself!" He repeated her words, as if his thoughts were still in a maze. "Ah, child, this is dreadful!" he added. "I am not myself! Poor Irene! Poor daughter! Poor father!"
And the old man lost himself again.
A look of fear now shadowed darkly the face of Irene, and she glanced anxiously from her father's countenance to that of Rose. She did not read in the face of her young friend much that gave assurance or comfort.
"Mr. Delancy," said Rose, with great earnestness of manner, "Irene is in sore trouble. She has come to a great crisis in her life. You are older and wiser than she is, and must counsel and sustain her. Be calm, dear sir—calm, clear-seeing, wise and considerate, as you have always been."
"Calm—clear-seeing—wise." Mr. Delancy repeated the words, as if endeavoring to grasp the rein of thought and get possession of himself again.
"Wise to counsel and strong to sustain," said Rose. "You must not fail us now."
"Thank you, my sweet young monitor," replied Mr. Delancy, partially recovering himself; "it was the weakness of a moment. Irene," and he looked toward his daughter, "leave me with my own thoughts for a little while. Take her, Rose, to her own room, and God give you power to speak words of consolation; I have none."
Rose drew her arm within that of Irene, and said, "Come." But Irene lingered, looking tenderly and anxiously at her father.
"Go, my love." Mr. Delancy waved his hand.
"Father! dear father!" She moved a step toward him, while Rose held her back.
"I cannot help myself, father. The die is cast. Oh bear up with me! I will be to you a better daughter than I have ever been. My life shall be devoted to your happiness. In that I will find a compensation. All is not lost—all is not ruined. My heart is as pure as when I left you three years ago. I come back bleeding from my life-battle it is true, but not in mortal peril—wounded, but not unto death—cast down, but not destroyed."
All the muscles of Mr. Delancy's face quivered with suppressed feeling as he stood looking at his daughter, who, as she uttered the words, "cast down, but not destroyed," flung herself in wild abandonment on his breast.
CHAPTER XX
THE PALSIED HEART
THE shock to Mr. Delancy was a fearful one, coming as it did on a troubled, foreboding state of mind; and reason lost for a little while her firm grasp on the rein of government. If the old man could have seen a ray of hope in the case it would have been different. But from the manner and language of his daughter it was plain that the dreaded evil had found them; and the certainty of this falling suddenly, struck him as with a heavy blow.
For several days he was like one who had been stunned. All that afternoon on which his daughter returned to Ivy Cliff he moved about in a bewildered way, and by his questions and remarks showed an incoherence of thought that filled the heart of Irene with alarm.
On the next morning, when she met him at the breakfast-table, he smiled on her in his old affectionate way. As she kissed him, she said,
"I hope you slept well last night, father?"
A slight change was visible in his face.
"I slept soundly enough," he replied, "but my dreams were not agreeable."
Then he looked at her with a slight closing of the brows and a questioning look in his eyes.
They sat down, Irene taking her old place at the table. As she poured out her father's coffee, he said, smiling,
"It is pleasant to have you sitting there, daughter."
"Is it?"
Irene was troubled by this old manner of her father. Could he have forgotten why she was there?
"Yes, it is pleasant," he replied, and then his eye dropped in a thoughtful way.
"I think, sometimes, that your attractive New York friends have made you neglectful of your lonely old father. You don't come to see him as often as you did a year ago."
Mr. Delancy said this with simple earnestness.
"They shall not keep me from you any more, dear father," replied Irene, meeting his humor, yet heart-appalled at the same time with this evidence that his mind was wandering from the truth.
"I don't think them safe friends," added Mr. Delancy, with seriousness.
"Perhaps not," replied Irene.
"Ah! I'm glad to hear you say so. Now, you have one true, safe friend. I wish you loved her better than you do."
"What is her name?"
"Rose Carman," said Mr. Delancy, with a slight hesitation of manner, as if he feared repulsion on the part of his daughter.
"I love Rose, dearly; she is the best of girls; and I know her to be a true friend," replied Irene.
"Spoken like my own daughter!" said the old man with a brightening countenance. "You must not neglect her any more. Why, she told me you hadn't written to her in six months. Now, that isn't right. Never go past old, true friends for the sake of new, and maybe false ones. No—no. Rose is hurt; you must write to her often—every week."
Irene could not answer. Her heart was beating wildly. What could this mean? Had reason fled? But she struggled hard to preserve a calm exterior.
"Will Hartley be up to-day?"
Irene tried to say "No," but could not find utterance.
Mr. Delancy looked at her curiously, and now in a slightly troubled way. Then he let his eyes fall, and sat holding his cup like one who was turning perplexed thoughts in his mind.
"You are not well this morning, father," said Irene, speaking only because silence was too oppressive for endurance.
"I don't know; perhaps I'm not very well;" and Mr. Delancy looked across the table at his daughter very earnestly. "I had bad dreams all last night, and they seem to have got mixed up in my thoughts with real things. How is it? When did you come up from New York? Don't smile at me. But really I can't think."
"I came yesterday," said Irene, as calmly as she could speak.
"Yesterday!" He looked at her with a quickly changing face.
"Yes, father, I came up yesterday."
"And Rose was here?"
"Yes."
Mr. Delancy's eyes fell again, and he sat very still.
"Hartley will not be here to-day?"
Mr. Delancy did not look up as he asked this question.
"No, father."
"Nor to-morrow?"
"I think not."
A sigh quivered on the old man's lips.
"Nor the day after that?"
"He did not say when he was coming," replied Irene, evasively.
"Did not say when? Did not say when?" Mr. Delancy repeated the sentence two or three times, evidently trying all the while to recall something which had faded from his memory.
"Don't worry yourself about Hartley," said Irene, forcing herself to pronounce a name that seemed like fire on her lips. "Isn't it enough that I am here?"
"No, it is not enough." And her father put his hand to his forehead and looked upward in an earnest, searching manner.
What could Irene say? What could she do? The mind of her father was groping about in the dark, and she was every moment in dread lest he should discover the truth and get farther astray from the shock.
No food was taken by either Mr. Delancy or his daughter. The former grew more entangled in his thoughts, and finally arose from the table, saying, in a half-apologetic way,
"I don't know what ails me this morning."
"Where are you going?" asked Irene, rising at the same time.
"Nowhere in particular. The air is close here—I'll sit a while in the portico," he answered, and throwing open one of the windows he stepped outside. Irene followed him.
"How beautiful!" said Mr. Delancy, as he sat down and turned his eyes upon the attractive landscape. Irene did not trust her voice in reply.
"Now go in and finish your breakfast, child. I feel better; I don't know what came over me." He added the last sentence in an undertone.
Irene returned into the house, but not to resume her place at the table. Her mind was in an agony of dread. She had reached the dining-room, and was about to ring for a servant, when she heard her name called by her father. Running back quickly to the portico, she found him standing in the attitude of one who had been suddenly startled; his face all alive with question and suspense.
"Oh, yes! yes! I thought you were here this moment! And so it's all true?" he said, in a quick, troubled way.
"True? What is true, father?" asked Irene, as she paused before him.
"True, what you told me yesterday."
She did not answer.
"You have left your husband?" He looked soberly into her face.
"I have, father." She thought it best to use no evasion.
He groaned, sat down in the chair from which he had arisen, and let his head fall upon his bosom.
"Father!" Irene kneeled before him and clasped his hands. "Father! dear father!"
He laid a hand on her head, and smoothed her hair in a caressing manner.
"Poor child! poor daughter!" he said, in a fond, pitying voice, "don't take it so to heart. Your old father loves you still."
She could not stay the wild rush of feeling that was overmastering her. Passionate sobs heaved her breast, and tears came raining from her eyes.
"Now, don't, Irene! Don't take on so, daughter! I love you still, and we will be happy here, as in other days."
"Yes, father," said Irene, holding down her head and calming her voice, "we will be happy here, as in the dear old time. Oh we will be very happy together. I won't leave you any more."
"I wish you had never left me," he answered, mournfully; "I was always afraid of this—always afraid. But don't let it break your heart; I'm all the same; nothing will ever turn me against you. I hope he hasn't been very unkind to you?" His voice grew a little severe.
"We wont say anything against him," replied Irene, trying to understand exactly her father's state of mind and accommodate herself thereto. "Forgive and forget is the wisest rule always."
"Yes, dear, that's it. Forgive and forget—forgive and forget. There's nothing like it in this world. I'm glad to hear you talk so."
The mind of Mr. Delancy did not again wander from the truth. But the shock received when it first came upon him with stunning force had taken away his keen perception of the calamity. He was sad, troubled and restless, and talked a great deal about the unhappy position of his daughter—sometimes in a way that indicated much incoherence of thought. To this state succeeded one of almost total silence, and he would sit for hours, if not aroused from reverie and inaction by his daughter, in apparent dreamy listlessness. His conversation, when he did talk on any subject, showed, however, that his mind had regained its old clearness.
On the third day after Irene's arrival at Ivy Cliff, her trunks came up from New York. She had packed them on the night before leaving her husband's house, and marked them with her name and that of her father's residence. No letter or message accompanied them. She did not expect nor desire any communication, and was not therefore disappointed, but rather relieved from what would have only proved a cause of disturbance. All angry feelings toward her husband had subsided; but no tender impulses moved in her heart, nor did the feeblest thought of reconciliation breathe over the surface of her mind. She had been in bonds; now the fetters were cast off, and she loved freedom too well to bend her neck again to the yoke.
No tender impulses moved, we have said, in her heart, for it lay like a palsied thing, dead in her bosom—dead, we mean, so far as the wife was concerned. It was not so palsied on that fatal evening when the last strife with her husband closed. But in the agony that followed there came, in mercy, a cold paralysis; and now toward Hartley Emerson her feelings were as calm as the surface of a frozen lake.
And how was it with the deserted husband? Stern and unyielding also. The past year had been marked by so little of mutual tenderness, there had been so few passages of love between them—green spots in the desert of their lives—that memory brought hardly a relic from the past over which the heart could brood. For the sake of worldly appearances, Emerson most regretted the unhappy event. Next, his trouble was for Irene and her father, but most for Irene.
"Willful, wayward one!" he said many, many times. "You, of all, will suffer most. No woman can take a step like this without drinking of pain to the bitterest dregs. If you can hide the anguish, well. But I fear the trial will be too hard for you—the burden too heavy. Poor, mistaken one!"
For a month the household arrangements of Mr. Emerson continued as when Irene left him. He did not intermit for a day or an hour his business duties, and came home regularly at his usual times—always, it must be said, with a feeble expectation of meeting his wife in her old places; we do not say desire, but simply expectation. If she had returned, well. He would not have repulsed, nor would he have received her with strong indications of pleasure. But a month went by, and she did not return nor send him any word. Beyond the brief "I have gone," there had come from her no sign.
Two months elapsed, and then Mr. Emerson dismissed the servants and shut up the house, but he neither removed nor sold the furniture; that remained as it was for nearly a year, when he ordered a sale by auction and closed the establishment.
Hartley Emerson, under the influence of business and domestic trouble, matured rapidly, and became grave, silent and reflective beyond men of his years. Companionable he was by nature, and during the last year that Irene was with him, failing to receive social sympathy at home, he had joined a club of young men, whose association was based on a declared ambition for literary excellence. From this club he withdrew himself; it did not meet the wants of his higher nature, but offered much that stimulated the grosser appetites and passions. Now he gave himself up to earnest self-improvement, and found in the higher and wider range of thought which came as the result a partial compensation for what he had lost. But he was not happy; far, very far from it. And there were seasons when the past came back upon him in such a flood that all the barriers of indifference which he had raised for self-protection were swept away, and he had to build them up again in sadness of spirit. So the time wore on with him, and troubled life-experiences were doing their work upon his character.
CHAPTER XXI
THE IRREVOCABLE DECREE
IT is two years since the day of separation between Irene and her husband. Just two years. And she is sitting in the portico at Ivy Cliff with her father, looking down upon the river that lies gleaming in sunshine—not thinking of the river, however, nor of anything in nature.
They are silent and still—very still, as if sleep had locked their senses. He is thin and wasted as from long sickness, and she looks older by ten years. There is no fine bloom on her cheeks, from which the fullness of youth has departed.
It is a warm June day, the softest, balmiest, brightest day the year has given. The air comes laden with delicate odors and thrilling with bird melodies, and, turn the eye as it will, there is a feast of beauty.
Yet, the odors are not perceived, nor the music heard, nor the beauty seen by that musing old man and his silent daughter. Their thoughts are not in the present, but far back in the unhappy past, the memories of which, awakened by the scene and season, have come flowing in a strong tide upon them.
Two years! They have left the prints of their heavy feet upon the life of Irene, and the deep marks will never be wholly obliterated. She were less than human if this were not so. Two years! Yet, not once in that long, heart-aching time had she for a single moment looked backward in weakness. Sternly holding to her act as right, she strengthened herself in suffering, and bore her pain as if it were a decree of fate. There was no anger in her heart, nor anything of hardness toward her husband. But there was no love, nor tender yearning for conjunction—at least, nothing recognized as such in her own consciousness.