According to the Pattern (22 page)

By and by Claude broke the stillness which had been
with his guest one silent prayer.

“Will you pray for me?” He spoke in husky tones.

Broken and contrite he knelt beside the same chair in
which he had sat and planned to take his life. He
wondered as he listened to the simple, earnest prayer that any man could come so near to God. Ah! if he had been like that he never could have gone so far astray.

“Father, thou knowest this man’s heart. Thou
knowest his sorrow, his mistakes, his failures—” and to
Claude came a realization that God had known all the
time, had watched him when he put the revolver to his temple, had stayed his hand by the cry of his child, had been guarding him from himself.

One by one the evil spirits were exorcised and slunk
away from that room, forever. And in the heart of the
man bowed low before his Maker there grew a “light
that never shone on land or sea.”

He gripped the hand of his guest as they arose from their knees.

“I would give worlds,” said Claude, “if I had begun this way, as you have done.”

When George Carter was gone and he was left alone
he had no more fear for the haunting memories of the
night. He could even quietly open the drawer where lay the revolver and remove the cartridge and put it away in safety without a shaking hand. In his heart was a great thankfulness that he had been saved from himself and allowed one more chance. His life that he would have thrown away was saved and then gently given back that
he might try it over again and sec if he could not better
it with God’s help.

He could not see ahead. He did not know what he
should do nor how he should do it, but he knew that whatever he did was to be done in a different way from any that he had ever tried before, and with different
motives. And please God, if he ever stood with his life
at the mercy of a revolver again, it should be held in the
hand of another, and he would not have the regret for
his past that had held him so fast last night.

O heart! O blood that freezes, blood that burns!

             
Earth’s returns

For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin!

Shut them in,

With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!

Love is best.

—Robert Browning

AND now at last Miriam began to wonder about her husband. She searched her mind for any memory of his presence in the sick-room during her illness, but could not be sure of it. Had he then deserted her entirely? And they would not tell her of it till she was stronger!

Little by little the incidents of that last awful afternoon
and evening came to her mind. She stood again upon the Sylvester doorstep and met her husband face to face. She met him at the entrance to the Washburn conservatory, - and she lived over the shameful scene with the senator, and her flight, until it ended in unconsciousness at her husband’s feet. Had he turned upon his heel and spurned
her then before the world? He knew what the senator
was. He had tried to warn her once, and she had resented it because she felt he had no right to call her to account
when he was so much more at fault than she; but now
she saw her own part in sinful colors. She should have
been more careful. She had been so blind, and so
wrapped up in her own purposes! To think that she
could go against the whole world and win back her own!
No, she had but brought shame and disgrace upon
herself!

But God had forgiven. He would help her to begin
over again, only how could she ever bear it without
Claude? If only it could have been right that she should die. But there were the children. Then her new purpose came back to her, and a portion of the comfort, but she set her eyes restlessly upon the door and knew all who entered before the door was fairly open.

She would not ask one question, for if there were
shame to tell and more humiliation, she did not want
them to watch her bear it. It was for her and God. She
kept hoping the suspense would be over, and some word
would show her just how matters stood with regard to
her husband, so that she might have opportunity to
adjust herself to the new state of things during this
resting-time when she could keep her eyes closed and
shut out the world of other beings and be alone with
God.

There came a night when the night nurse was sud
denly taken ill. The day nurse had been going home at evening since Miriam had grown so much better. There was no one to call upon but Claude.

The nurse was too ill to hesitate long. She called Mr. Winthrop and asked him to stay with the patient for an
hour or two until she should feel better. There was
nothing to be done. The patient was sleeping quietly, and would probably continue to do so all night. If she should stir there was the medicine to be given, and there was water in the pitcher in the window. Mrs. Winthrop would not notice the change even if she should waken.

Then the nurse betook herself to a couch in the next room with her aching head, and Claude stole softly into the darkened room with bated breath as though he were entering a sacred temple.

It was a precious privilege, this of sitting once more
beside her whom he loved better than his own
who had been given back to him from the dead. There
was a future into which he dared not look as yet, which
might hold sorrow and estrangement still from her, but
the present was his and she lay here for him to guard.

Silently he took his scat as though he had been asked
to sit in an antechamber of heaven, and counted not the
hours slow while he heard the music of her regular
breathing, and blessed God with every breath that she
was here alive and getting well.

How he longed to stoop and kiss the sweet brow. But
no, he must never do that until she had forgiven him.
And could she ever forgive him?

Her white hand lay like a lily against the whiteness of
the bed covering. He knelt and reaching out one hand
laid it near to hers. And by and by it crept a little nearer, till one finger touched hers.

It was like feeling warm and living the hand of one who had gone out into the land of the dead. It thrilled him with a deeper joy than even when he had touched
it long ago in the rose-bordered lane where they had
wandered together when first he took that hand in his
and dared to hold it, and they both walked silent, neither letting the other see by look or motion what each was feeling over that hand-clasp.

When the morning broke gray and pink in the eastern
window, and the heavy-eyed nurse, somewhat refreshed from her sleep, came back to take his place, he went out
from that room and knelt beside his baby’s crib and prayed, prayed that God might make him better and
more worthy to have and keep the precious wife who
had once been his so fully.

Thereafter he made a habit of stealing in at night and sending the nurse to lie down, while he watched beside the bed, and the nurse, nothing loath, obeyed.

Then he would look at the sweet face upon the
pillow, softly shaded in the darkened room, and let his whole soul go out to her in a caress. And more and more
he dared touch the hand that lay upon the bed beside
him, to even lay his own hand closely over it as if it were a little lost, cold bird.

She never spoke nor stirred, nor awakened in the least.
And so he would continue to kneel beside her till the morningtime and he knew the nurse was coming back.

And in these vigils he told her all again and again.
He bitterly blamed himself, and then told her how he loved her. How the love he had given her before was as nothing to the new love that had blossomed here beside her sick-bed.

And all the time she lay there in her weakness asleep, and answered him not by so much as the fluttering of an eyelash.

His heart cried out in agony at last that he might speak
to her, might roll this awful burden of confession at her
feet, and let her know that in those terrible moments
when he had been made to appear before her in the
wrong, he had not been so very wrong as it looked; let
her know that her fears were greater than the truth, and that he had not ceased to love her, but loved her in his repentance with an aching love that could never be satisfied—no, not if they should have an eternity to live and love each other.

And once when he was holding her hand close and
thinking so, and praying, she drew a long, quivering sigh, and that was all. And then he moaned softly to
himself, and laid his face down on the hand that lay in
his so still and strengthless.

And Miriam dreamed a dream, a sweet, sweet dream. She had not dreamed the like since first her sorrow had
pierced her soul. She dreamed her husband was beside
her and that his hand touched hers, and she smiled in her sleep, and would not stir lest she should wake and find him gone.

Claude saw that smile, and wondered if when grown people smiled in their sleep it was because they were in pain, as nurses said of little babies in their sleep.

When the morrow came and Miriam remembered
her dream she hugged it close to her heart, and all that
day would not look toward the door nor listen to the
nurses, lest she should hear some word that might dispel

it. She longed for night to come that she might dream
the sweet thing over once more. And with the memory
of his touch, his loving touch once again, she forgot, as foolish, loving woman will, the misery and the shame he had brought her to bear, and found she loved him still.
And from that time the portraits of the woman and of
the senator began to fade in memory’s gallery until they took on the natural color of the other pictures there.

Night came, and Miriam sank to sleep in a blessed anticipation which wafted her to unconsciousness like a breath from a bed of glowing poppies. Would the dream come again, or would it not?

And again it came.

The next day the doctor thought her decidedly better, and wondered if it would not be a good plan to let her
husband in daylight to have a bit of a talk with her,
but she seemed so content to lie and smile and do as she was bidden that he hardly dared to break the spell yet for any experiments. His brother had told him of his con
versation with the husband and he felt a little uneasy
about the effect that his appearance might have on his
wife. So he held his peace for one day more, and thought about it.

Miriam came to sudden consciousness that night in
the midst of her dream. The dream was there in all its reality. She felt the strong hand holding hers, she knew
the long supple fingers, and the smooth texture of the
skin. And that was his face touching her palm, his cheek,
as he used to lay it in her hand long ago. But she was
awake and not dreaming. Why did the dream not go?
She dared not stir, but lay there trying to make her breath
come regularly as in sleep. She dared not lift her eyelids lest the dear dream should pass.

Her quivering heart reviewed all she knew of the
tragedy of their lives once more, and she judged him
before the bar of her soul as guilty, and yet she loved
him. It stood much in his favor that he had still some love
for her, for he would never lay his cheek so in her hand
unless he had. ‘Tis sad a woman will forgive all else save
lack of love for her. And that she cannot forgive.

And then herself—she was not so worthy of his love
as in the past. For had she not sinned also?—though without intention and unthinkingly. But he had a right
to question her conduct with the senator. Perhaps, per
haps, there was something too, to plead on his side.
Perhaps he was not all wrong or weak or wicked as she feared!

And then a drop fell on her hand, and straightway she knew it for a tear.

At once the motherhood in her, that is a part of all true wifehood, rose. A great love and pity swept over her. He
was sorry. And as she would have done with a sorrowful,
repentant child, she reached out arms that were suddenly made strong by love and gathered her dream to herself.

“Miriam, my darling, can you forgive?” He spoke the
words brokenly. He was frightened that he had waked
her, but the moment had come and she had enfolded
him in her arms and his face was resting in the old place on her bosom.

Her answer was a kiss.

When the nurse came to take his place that morning
she thought the glory in his face was from the rosy
reflection of the eastern sky, and she blamed herself that she had slept so late.

Miriam lay with closed eyes and face turned away and apparently slept still, but the joy that glowed in her consciousness would hardly be kept within bounds.