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TO THE HONOUR I DO YOU, and all that world of nothing!--Pray use
your victory! Lord it over me! I am the weed under your foot! I beg
you will not spare me! Speak out what you think of me!"
Ian took her hand. It trembled as if she would pull it away, and her
eyes flashed an angry fire. She looked more nearly beautiful than
ever he had seen her! His heart was like to break. He drew her to
the chair, and taking a stool, sat down beside her. Then, with a
voice that gathered strength as he proceeded, he said:--
"Let me speak to you, Christina Palmer, as in the presence of him
who made us! To pretend I loved you would be easier than to bear the
pain of giving you such pain. Were I selfish enough, I could take
much delight in your love; but I scorn the unmanliness of accepting
gold and returning silver: my love is not mine to give."
It was some relief to her proud heart to imagine he would have loved
her had he been free. But she did not speak.
"If I thought," pursued Ian, "that I had, by any behaviour of mine,
been to blame for this,--" There he stopped, lest he should seem to
lay blame on her.--"I think," he resumed, "I could help you if you
would listen to me. Were I in like trouble with you, I would go into
my room, and shut the door, and tell my Father in heaven everything
about it. Ah, Christina! if you knew him, you would not break your
heart that a man did not love you just as you loved him."
Had not her misery been so great, had she not also done the thing
that humbled her before herself, Christina would have been indignant
with the man who refused her love and dared speak to her of
religion; but she was now too broken for resentment.
The diamond rain was falling, the sun was shining in his vaporous
strength, and the great dome of heaven stood fathomless above the
pair; but to Christina the world was black and blank as the gloomy
hut in which they sat. When first her love blossomed, she saw the
world open; she looked into its heart; she saw it alive--saw it
burning with that which made the bush alive in the desert of
Horeb--the presence of the living God; now, the vision was over, the
desert was dull and dry, the bush burned no more, the glowing lava
had cooled to unsightly stone! There was no God, nor any man more!
Time had closed and swept the world into the limbo of vanity! For a
time she sat without thought, as it were in a mental sleep. She
opened her eyes, and the blank of creation stared into the very
heart of her. The emptiness and loneliness overpowered her. Hardly
aware of what she was doing, she slid to her knees at Ian's feet,
crying,
"Save me, save me, Ian! I shall go mad! Pardon me! Help me!"
"All a man may be to his sister, I am ready to be to you. I will
write to you from Canada; you can answer me or not as you please. My
heart cries out to me to take you in my arms and comfort you, but I
must not; it would not comfort you."
"You do not despise me, then?--Oh, thank you!"
"Despise you!--no more than my dead sister! I would cherish you as I
would her were she in like sorrow. I would die to save you this
grief--except indeed that I hope much from it."
"Forget all about me," said Christina, summoning pride to her aid.
"I will not forget you. It is impossible, nor would I if I could."
"You forgive me then, and will not think ill of me?"
"How forgive trust? Is that an offence?"
"I have lost your good opinion! How could I degrade myself so!"
"On the contrary, you are fast gaining iuy good opinion. You have
begun to be a true woman!"
"What if it should be only for--"
"Whatever it may have been for, now you have tasted truth you will
not turn back!"
"Now I know you do not care for me, I fear I shall soon sink back
into my old self!"
"I do care for you, Christina, and you will not sink back into your
old self. God means you to be a strong, good woman--able, with the
help he will give you, to bear grief in a great-hearted fashion.
Believe me, you and I may come nearer each other in the ages before
us by being both true, than is possible in any other way whatever."
"I am miserable at the thought of what you must think of me!
Everybody would say I had done a shameless thing in confessing my
love!"
"I am not in the way of thinking as everybody thinks. There is
little justice, and less sympathy, to be had from everybody. I would
think and judge and feel as the one, my Master. Be sure you are safe
with me."
"You will not tell anybody?"
"You must trust me."
"I beg your pardon! I have offended you!"
"Not in the least. But I will bind myself by no promises. I am bound
already to be as careful over you as if you were the daughter of my
father and mother. Your confession, instead of putting you in my
power, makes me your servant."
By this time Christina was calm. There was a great load on her
heart, but somehow she was aware of the possibility of carrying it.
She looked up gratefully in Ian's face, already beginning to feel
for him a reverence which made it easier to forego the right to put
her arms round him. And therewith awoke in her the first movement of
divine relationship--rose the first heave of the child-heart toward
the source of its being. It appeared in the form of resistance.
Complaint against God is far nearer to God than indifference about
him.
"Ian Macruadh," said Christina solemnly, and she looked him in the
eyes as she said it, "how can you believe there is a God? If there
were, would he allow such a dreadful thing to befall one of his
creatures? How am I to blame? I could not help it!"
"I see in it his truth and goodness toward his child. And he will
let you see it. The thing is between him and you."
"It will be hard to convince me it is either good or loving to make
anyone suffer like this!" protested Christina, her hand
unconsciously pressed on her heart; "--and all the disgrace of it
too!" she added bitterly.
"I will not allow there is any disgrace," returned Ian. "But I will
not try to con vince you of anything about God. I cannot. You must
know him. I only say I believe in him with all my heart. You must
ask him to explain himself to you, and not take it for granted,
because he has done what you do not like, that he has done you a
wrong. Whether you seek him or not, he will do you justice; but he
cannot explain himself except you seek him."
"I think I understand. Believe me, I am willing to understand."
A few long seconds of silence followed. Christina came a little
nearer. She was still on her knees.
"Will you kiss me once," she said, "as you would a little child!"
"In the name of God!" answered lan, and stooping kissed her gently
and tenderly.
"Thank you!" she said; "--and now the rain is over, let us join
Mercy and the chief. I hope they have not got very wet!"
"Alister will have taken care of that. There is plenty of shelter
about here."
They left the cottage, drew the door close, and through the heather,
sparkling with a thousand rain-drops, the sun shining hotter than
ever through the rain-mist, went up the hill.
They found the other pair sheltered by the great stone, which was
not only a shadow from the heat, but sloped sufficiently to be a
covert from the rain. They did not know it had ceased; perhaps they
did not know it had rained.
On a fine morning of the following week, the emigrants began the
first stage of their long journey; the women in two carts, with
their small impedimenta, the men walking--Ian with them, a stout
stick in his hand. They were to sail from Greenock.
Ian and Christina met several times before he left, but never alone.
No conference of any kind, not even of eyes, had been sought by
Christina, and Ian had resolved to say nothing more until he reached
Canada. Thence he would write things which pen and ink would say
better and carry nearer home than could speech; and by that time too
the first keenness of her pain would have dulled, and left her mind
more capable of receiving them. He was greatly pleased with the
gentle calm of her behaviour. No one else could have seen any
difference toward himself. He read in her carriage that of a child
who had made a mistake, and was humbled, not vexed. Her mother noted
that her cheek was pale, and that she seemed thoughtful; but farther
she did not penetrate. To Ian it was plain that she had set herself
to be reasonable.
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