Volume 16 / Part 4 — The Cross Through Love, And Love Through The Cross.

Concluded.

The next morning he went to the Juden-Strasse before the hour of the synagogue service, and walked up unannounced into old Zimmermann's room. As he had hoped, so it proved—she was there, reading the Psalms to the old man. He wondered if she remembered him, if she had noticed him when he had stood upon the landing last Sabbath morning. Zimmermann greeted him with a nod that had not much recognition in it, but said:

“Maheleth, give the stranger a chair. Mein Herr, this is my good little nurse.”

Holcombe bowed, and the girl looked at him in silence for a few seconds.

“I remember,” she then said, “you picked up my music for me in a storm, nearly a month ago.”

“I thought you would not have known me again,” Holcombe stammered.

“Oh! yes, I am not forgetful. You have been very good to my patient, and I am very grateful, for he has eaten more this week than he has for a whole month.”

“I think I heard your father was ill, fräulein?”

“Oh! he has been so for many months. Is your English friend gone?”

“Yes; he has gone home to be married. I wish, fräulein, if you could suggest anything, I could be of some use, besides bringing fruit and flowers to this house. Do you know, since I have been in Frankfort, I have never found anything to do?”

“Do you mean,” she asked very gravely, “you wish to be of use to us?”

“I mean, if I could come and sit with Herr Löwenberg, and read or write for him, while you are away; for they tell me you are out all day, and it must be lonely for him.”

“That is very kind of you,” she answered, looking at him in calm wonder; “it is true he has no society, for the little girls hardly count.”

“Has he any books?” asked Holcombe. “Because I have plenty, and they might amuse him; and I have English newspapers, too, coming in regularly. Does he speak English?”

“He understands and reads it; but you are a stranger, and why should we place our burdens on your shoulders?”

“Oh! you must not mind my way; this sort of thing is a mania with me, you know.”

“It is a mania seldom found,” croaked out the old man.

“I think,” put in Maheleth, “it is time for me to leave you. How can I thank you, Mr. Holcombe? Perhaps, when you leave my friend here, you will stop at the next landing, and go in and see my father?”

“I will, and you must not think I am in a hurry.”

The ice thus broken, many visits followed, and at night, when Maheleth was at home, Henry read to the family in the little plain room that was so beautiful in his sight. More than once had he again seen the girl in the cathedral, always standing, [pg 524] and separated from the worshippers, always with that same sad, anxious look. One night, he noticed a certain constraint in the father's and daughter's manner, and Löwenberg was less cordial to him than usual. After that, Maheleth seemed yet more troubled, and grew paler and thinner. He asked old Zimmermann if he knew of any fresh trouble in the family, but he could learn nothing from him. Rachel, who always answered the bell, detained him one evening, and said:

“I would not go in to-night, if I were you. Don't be offended, mein Herr.”

“Why, Rachel, what is the matter?”

“Fräulein Löwenberg went to the Catholic Church last night, and her father found it out, and he said it was your fault.”

“Well, I will go in all the same; I had nothing to do with it, and my friend must not be angry with his daughter.”

Löwenberg was alone, and the room had a tossed look about it, very different from the cosy aspect it usually wore. The invalid lay on a couch, with a discontented expression on his dark, thin face.

“Are you worse to-night?” gently asked Holcombe.

“Ay, worse indeed, and you must add to my troubles after I had treated you as a son!”

“I! My friend, do you think that of me? Don't you know me better?”

“Ah!” said the invalid irritably, “don't try to deceive me. You know I have nothing left to care for but my daughter, and you have been trying to convert her. I know why, too, but you shall not see her any more.”

“You wrong me, Herr Löwenberg. I have never spoken to your daughter about religion, because I did not know whether it might be agreeable to her or not, and she never started the subject.”

“You know she goes to your church?”

“Yes, I have seen her there several times; she never saw me, however, and I never hinted to her that I had seen her.”

“You speak very fairly about it; but I know how unscrupulous you Christians can be in this matter. You would think it a grand thing to convert her.”

“Undoubtedly, if I could do it by sheer conviction. But you should know me too well to believe I would do it by any undue or secret influence.”

“You do not know how dear she is to me; you do not know how her defection from our ancient faith would break my heart; how I should have to renounce her for my other children's sake!”

“And how you would stain your soul with the blackest ingratitude, Herr Löwenberg, if you did!” interrupted Henry excitedly.

“So you think that, do you? You don't know who she is, and how such a thing would be so unpardonable in her that no consideration could influence me. I never told you before, but she is of another blood than you are—she is the descendant of martyred rabbis, and her race is as pure as that of the old Machabees. We are not Germans. We are Spaniards, and, though ruined, our family pride is as great as it ever was—as great, too, as our love for our faith.”

“How long ago was it you were ruined?”

“Only a year and two months, and I fell ill six months ago; my wife died almost as soon as we came here, and my Maheleth has earned our daily bread, and taught her sisters, and managed the housekeeping, all [pg 525] alone. It is enough to make one curse God!”

“Hush, hush!” said Holcombe. “You do not mean that—you know you have too many blessings to thank him for.”

“And the best and only one you are seeking to take from me.”

“I swear to you that much as I should wish and pray for it—for that I will not conceal from you—yet I have never influenced your child in any way.”

“You have, because you love her.”

Henry was staggered at the suddenness of his words.

“You cannot deny it,” continued the invalid.

“No,” answered the young man; “I have no desire to deny it, but your daughter never heard it from my lips, and never would.”

“Never would!” echoed Löwenberg, firing up. “And do you, too, despise her for her race—she that is as far above you as you are above your lowest peasant!”

“God forbid!” said Henry solemnly; “for I think of her as of one of whom I am not worthy. But my faith forbids our union, and, love her though I shall to my dying day, my love should never cross my lips to stir and wound her heart.”

“You shall see her no more; you have seen her too much already; if you love her, as you say, desist at least now.”

“Do you mean that she knows—perhaps returns—my love?”

“I have said enough, and shall not gratify your vanity. But promise me you will not see her again, and I will even believe that you did not try to proselytize her.”

“No; I cannot promise that. Circumstances might arise under which it would be death to keep that promise, and yet I should have no hope of inducing you to give it me back.”

“You mean she might become a Christian?”

“Even so, as I pray she may.”

“And you will marry her then, and she feels it, and yet you pretend you use no influence!”

“I would marry her if she would not think me unworthy.”

“I need say no more. You have been my friend, and I thank you for your kindness; but henceforth our paths are separate. If I lose my child, I shall know you robbed me of her. I only ask you now to consider what I told you of our family and fortunes as a sacred confidence.”

“My friend,” said Henry sadly, as he rose, “I will obey you, and you may consider your secret as sacred as if it were my own. But remember this is your own act, and, if ever you wish to call on my friendship again, my services will be as willingly yours as though this breach had never been. God bless you and your daughter Maheleth!”

He left the room as in a dream; Rachel scanned his face curiously as she let him out at the crazy door.

“So,” he thought, “thus ends my connection with that house; and yet God knows how true my intentions were. I dare not seek her, still I know she may need me. God grant it be true that Maheleth is a Christian at heart!”

Unconsciously he bent his steps towards the cathedral; a few people were collected about the confessionals. The stained windows were dark and blurred in the uncertain light; only a lamp here and there hung from the pillars.

Perhaps his prayers were more fervent in intention than full in form, and mechanically he watched the shrouded confessionals. Suddenly from behind the green curtain of one of them issued the figure of the Jewish girl, a calm look lighting up her [pg 526] features, and her deportment altogether unlike that which he had so often and so painfully noticed.

Her eye fell upon him instantly, and, far from shunning him, gave him a long glance of recognition and sympathy. She knelt for some time, then rose and walked down the nave. He followed her, and at the entrance door she paused as if to wait for him.

“I have seen your father, Fräulein,” Holcombe said, “and he told me a great many things.”

“I hardly think he quite knows how far things have gone,” she answered gently. “I could give up anything for him except my soul, and for some months I have known that only by becoming a Christian could I save it.”

“I have often seen you in church.”

“Have you, indeed?”

“Your father accuses me of converting you.”

She blushed, and was silent for a few minutes.

“You have helped me by your prayers, I am sure,” she said at last.

“Tell me,” he asked, “are you a Catholic yet?”

“No; I only went into the confessional to speak to the priest; in a few days I shall be baptized.”

“I have a favor to ask you—will you let me be present?”

“Certainly, it will make me very happy, believe me.”

“Do you know that, when your father hears of it, he will turn you out of your home?”

“He said so—did he tell you so?”

“He did, but he could not have meant it.”

“Oh! yes,” she said sadly, “he would do it; he would think it a duty, a matter of principle.”

“It would be very ungrateful.”

“Ungrateful! Was I not bound to work for him who gave me life? He worked hard for us, and in the time of trouble we owed it to him.”

“But if he throws you off, what will become of him?”

“That is the saddest part; but I know God will take care of him.”

“Remember, Maheleth, that either for yourself or for him (for your sake) you must never hesitate to call upon me. Promise me that.”

It was the first time he had called her Maheleth. She blushed and looked down, saying:

“You have been very generous and very kind to my father; but surely now you have parted friendship with him?”

“No, I have not, as I told even him; but, were it not so, for your sake it should be.”

“I have God to look after me, Herr Holcombe.”

“But I want to be his instrument.”

“His Raphael, as you have been to us through this desert of want and poverty.”

“And will you not be my Sarah?” he asked suddenly, but in a soft, low voice.

Her whole frame shook; then she looked up in his face, silent.

“I have loved you since I knew you,” he went on to say; “I mean since I saw you first; but I never meant to tell my secret, for you know I could not wed a Jewess. But now, thank God! the bar is gone, and I can be happy without sin.”

She did not answer yet.

“Have I deceived myself, then?” asked the young man sadly. “And do you not love me, as I hoped?”

“I do,” she answered, quickly looking up. “God knows I do, but I cannot marry you.”

“Why, why, Maheleth? You torture me.”

“Because it would break my father's heart, and because it would [pg 527] give him reason to say I had changed my faith for you.”

“But how could he?”

“I could not leave him in misery, and my little sisters alone, and go and live in peace and earthly comfort which they could not share.”

“They are most welcome to share it, Maheleth.”

“You are too good, too noble,” she said; “but it cannot be.”

“And you love me, you say?”

“Must we not love God better, dear, dear friend? Henry, do not be angry with me. You will be my dear brother in the faith always.”

Holcombe was too overcome to speak. She stopped and entreated him to leave her.

“I am paining you beyond necessity,” she said; “you will be happier and calmer if you do not see me till the day of my baptism. All things are God's will, and, bitter as the trial may be, he gives us strength to bear it, if we look to him. Farewell, Henry.”

He wrung her hand in silence, and saw the drooping figure pass quickly out of sight. He felt how much harder her trial was, and how selfish his own words had been, yet he did not try to see her again until the day of her baptism.

The ceremony was to take place at the cathedral, at four in the morning. The sun had just risen, and the quiet streets were golden with his light. Holcombe was watching at the door. She came very soon, wrapped in a long black cloak, looking radiant and calm, as if nothing more could be of any consequence to her, nor stir her heart confusedly. She held out her hand to her friend with a “God bless you!” that left him dumb. Her cloak was laid on a carved bench, and her white robe gleamed under the rainbow from the great stained-glass window above her. More beautiful than ever she seemed, and more angel-like. The priest poured the saving waters upon her head, and performed all the holy mystic ceremonies of the sacrament, and she, as if in a heavenly trance, followed him throughout with her eyes and her lips. Mass was said directly after, and she and Henry knelt together at the altar-rails to receive the Bread of Angels. A long time passed after Mass, and when at length Maheleth, now Mary, rose from her knees, it was only to go to the distant Lady-chapel, and there offer up a golden brooch of Spanish workmanship, one of the few treasures saved from the wreck of her father's fortune.

As she left the church, Henry followed her.

“Are you going home?” he asked timidly.

She turned her dark eyes upon him very softly, but with no sadness in them.

“I have no home now,” she said slowly. “Last night I bade my father farewell; I am going to the convent.”

A look of terror came into Henry's face.

“To stay there always?” he asked.

“As God wills—I do not know,” she replied.

“But are you not sorry about your father and sisters?”

“It was a hard trial,” she answered, with radiant calmness in her eyes, “but God has taken the sorrow out of it now.”

“And shall I not see you again, now your faith is mine? I saw you often when there was a gulf between us!”

“It is better you should forget me. But that shall be as God wills; I leave it to him, and will make no arrangements.”

[pg 528]

“Thank you for that, anyhow; remember all I told you, dear Maheleth; so far, at least, you can make me happy.”

“I will remember it always, and bless you for it, but I do not promise to act up to it.”

“Never mind, you cannot help God protecting you, no matter through what instrument.”

And with these words he left her.

For some weeks they did not meet, but Henry was busy at correspondence with his English agents and bankers. In the meanwhile, regular remittances arrived at Herr Löwenberg's house, which he at first refused to accept, not knowing whether they came from his daughter whom he had thrown off, or his friend whom he had insulted, and not wishing to be beholden to either for his daily pittance. But starvation was the alternative, and, had not Rachel kindly shared her meals with his children, and sent him little inexpensive dishes now and then, hunger would have made him yield long ago. As it was, he missed his daily sustenance sorely, and at last, under protest, and promising himself prompt repayment of these loans as soon as he should be well again, he began to use the money sent to him. Many a time Holcombe came to the door to inquire after him from the good-natured Rachel; and every day, in the dusk of the evening, came his daughter, almost always bearing a basket that held some little delicacy.

One night it happened that Henry and Maheleth met at the door. She was the first to speak.

“You see I am not yet immured in my convent!” she said gayly. “I have to thank you so much for coming here to look after my dear father. I shall be leaving Frankfort soon, and then there will be no one to be so good to him as you.”

“But I shall not leave. Do you really mean you are going?”

“Yes; the good nuns have got me a governess' situation somewhere in Bohemia with Catholics. I shall go next week.”

“May I come and bid you good-by?”

“Oh, yes! come on a visiting day, Thursday. Have you seen my sisters? How are they looking?”

“I saw them a week ago; they looked tired, I thought.”

“Oh! they don't know how to nurse him, and he tires them, I am afraid. But God will see to them and him too.”

“Will you be able to come back here for a vacation?”

“Perhaps in a year—not before.”

“Your father may be well again by that time.”

“God grant it! But I must not stay any longer now.”

And having made some inquiries of Rachel, she left the house.

Henry Holcombe longed for Thursday. He wanted to ask leave to write to Maheleth, to give her news of her father, he would say. When the time arrived, the parlor at the convent was full, and he hardly relished making his adieus in a crowd. He was relieved to find a nun come and beckon him away, and show him into a quiet little room, with a polished floor, a Munich Madonna, and a few plain chairs round a dark table.

In a few minutes, a pleasant-looking old religious came in, followed by Maheleth.

The girl reached her hand to Henry, saying:

“Sister Mary Ambrose knows you by name very well.”

The talk was general for a short time, then the old nun got up and walked to the window.

“I wanted to ask you if I might [pg 529] write to you, Maheleth,” said the young man, much relieved by the prospect of a comparative tête-à-tête.

“If you wish to do so, by all means.”

“And you don't wish it?” he said, in disappointment.

“I meant it might be painful to you after all. What I wish is of no moment.”

“Maheleth, how can you say so, when you know I shall always feel for you the same love I do now?”

“Well, my friend, let that pass. Write to me, then; you know your letters will be welcome.”

“I will always let you know about your father.”

“You will not always stay in Frankfort?”

“Not quite, but I shall be here again this time next year.”

She smiled and said:

“I might not be here myself.”

“Then I shall see you wherever you are, and I shall ask you the same question you have answered once.”

“Ah! Henry, do not trust to accidents! It may never be; forget me, as I already told you.”

“We'll not argue about it; we will wait and see. Look, I have brought you something,” he added, taking a tiny velvet case from his breast-pocket. “It is not an engagement-ring, do not be afraid,” he said, as she seemed troubled; “it is only a souvenir, and I want you to promise me to wear it for one year, till I see you again. After that, you shall do as you like about keeping it. You know what a rosary-ring is?” he asked, as he showed her the broad yellow band notched by tiny bubbles of gold. “And here is the cross laid upon it, and the cross is of pearls, the emblem of innocence. You read what is inside now.”

She took it and read the device on the interior rim: “Crux per amore; Amor per cruce.”

“The cross through love; Love through the cross,” he explained.

She replied by kissing the ring and handing it to him, as she said:

“Put it on my finger, Henry, and only you or God himself shall ever draw it off.”

“You do not mean—”

“Hush! how can you question him? But I fear he will not call me in that way. Who knows, perhaps we shall meet next year? I leave my father to God and you.”

The old nun came back from the window.

“My child, I am afraid I cannot stay any longer,” she said.

The girl rose, and took Henry's hand in both her own.

“God bless and reward you, my dear, dear friend. You know all I would say and yet cannot.”

He kissed her hand, and, with an ineffable look of holy calm, the Jewish convert left the room, still glancing back at him.

Two months passed, and Löwenberg grew better. One morning, a large letter was brought to him, with the Madrid post-mark. He opened it hastily, and scanned its contents. The letter fell from his hands as he read, and a dizziness came over him; he lay back on his couch, deadly pale.

“Is it anything bad about Maheleth?” timidly asked little Thamar.

“No,” he said, momentarily roused to anger. He took up the letter again and muttered, “A million dollars!” The children thought he was worse, and looked on with scared faces.

The letter was from a banker at Madrid, saying that he was authorized by a person deeply in Señor Cristalar's debt, but who wished to remain nameless, to apprise him of a [pg 530] certain sum, a million dollars, lying in ready money at his command in Hauptmann's bank at Frankfort. The person had long been wishing to make this restitution, but had not till now been able to ascertain his hiding-place. The invalid was in a fever; he could not help thinking of the young Christian he had spurned, yet he tried to persuade himself it was not he, but the man to whose knavery he had owed his total ruin.

Several days passed, and at last he wrote to Holcombe at the hotel he had been staying at. In ambiguous terms, he spoke of a generous service undeserved by him, and of his desire to see him, if only once. But the Englishman was gone and had left no address. He then wrote to his Madrid correspondent, urging him to try and discover the person from whom the money had been sent; but the banker wrote word that the whole transaction had been kept very secret, and that, before it had become known to him, it had passed through so many hands that it was impossible to find out the first person concerned. There was a hint of some American bank connected with it, and the money had been originally paid down in American gold; but beyond this there was no clue. Cristalar thought the Spanish banker had been probably bribed to keep silence, and a few more weeks sped by without his taking any active measures about his newly-found wealth. He received and acknowledged a letter of advice from Hauptmann's bank, telling him of the sum at his disposal, and Hauptmann himself came to call upon him and offer him his congratulations. The Spaniard, who still called himself by his German name, received the visit of his former employer as a mere conventional act of courtesy, and seemed in no wise elated by the sudden good-fortune he was being congratulated upon. He did not change his lodgings, but he hired a servant, and sent his daughters to the best Jewish school in the town. As soon as he got well, which was by rapid degrees, after he had received the letter that once more made him a millionaire, he left his children in charge of Rachel, and proceeded to London, where he advertised daily for information of Henry Holcombe. The weekly supplies in small sums had never discontinued, but he felt assured that, notwithstanding all these blinds, he could not be mistaken as to the name of his benefactor.

Meanwhile, Maheleth in her Bohemian home heard from Rachel of her father's fortune, his restoration to health, and his journey to England. She, too, wrote to Henry, and asked him to tell her if it were he that had thus returned good for evil. He simply said in reply that he was free to do as he liked with his money, and that he thought Señor Cristalar knew better how to use it than he did.

Summer came again, and with it Henry Holcombe; the old Juden-Strasse was once more before him, and then he learnt that Herr Löwenberg had gone three months ago to Madrid. He had been travelling in Italy and Greece, and had never gone home to his old English country-house, which now was let to good and steady tenants. He went to the convent; she was not there, but they expected her. So there was nothing for it but to go and chat with Rachel and old Zimmermann about old times and old friends.

A week later he called again at the convent, and the portress told him to wait. In the same little parlor, unchanged and clean, he waited for a quarter of an hour, hoping and dreading to see Maheleth. She [pg 531] came in this time alone. He took her hand in his, and looked a hungry look into her eyes. She said to him, smiling:

“Do you see I have kept my promise? I have the dear ring on my finger, and every day I have said the rosary with it for you. And now, you know, I must thank you.”

“I cannot bear it; don't, for my sake, Maheleth! Have you heard from your father?”

“No; he never will write, I knew that; but I have heard of him; he is in Spain. He will begin again as a banker, I feel sure, and never rest till he has repaid you.”

“I don't want to be repaid, except with interest, and you know it is not from him I can ask that. Do you remember that I was to ask you the same question I asked once already?”

“Yes, Henry, but think what you are doing.”

“I shall ask it first, and then think.”

“Well, Henry, if I should say that, I will answer it as you wish, provided you can gain my father's consent?”

The young man looked blank.

“I believe that is what God would wish me to do, Henry. My father has no further need of me, and he or I owe you a debt of gratitude we can never pay; yet I should like his distinct permission, if I could have it, and you can obtain it more easily than I can.”

“I shall not rest till it be done,” said Holcombe excitedly. “Shall I write to him? Maheleth, you have had ‘Crux per amore’; now God will give us ‘Amor per cruce.’ ”

He wrote that very day to Madrid, asking the hand of his daughter from the wealthy Jewish banker, and pleading as hard as though he were some poor outcast, with never a roof to his head, begging for the favor of a royal maiden's love. Cristalar was overjoyed at knowing at last where to find the man he owed health and fortune to, and, instead of a letter, he sent a telegram to say he would be in Frankfort in a week.

Henry took the telegram to the convent; Maheleth turned very pale as she read it.

“It is all right, surely, darling, is it not?” asked Holcombe.

“I have never seen him since the eve of my baptism.”

“And,” interrupted the young man, “please God, you will see him again the eve of our marriage.”

She hid her face in her hands. “God grant it!” she murmured, under her breath.

Ephraim Cristalar, for he called himself by his own name now, went to the hotel where Holcombe used to live, and inquired for the young Englishman. He had not long to wait.

“Mr. Holcombe!” he exclaimed, as he caught him in his arms, “I cannot speak to you—you are master of all I am and have; can you but forgive me, say?”

“My friend and father!” replied Holcombe, “you must not give way like this! I only asked you a simple question, a great favor, it is true, but that is all we have to speak of.”

“Oh! I know better than that, Henry. What have you to ask of me, when all I have is yours?”

“There is one thing I want, you know what; and my only other request is that you will see your daughter.”

Cristalar drew back. “She is yours, Henry Holcombe,” he said solemnly, “as far as she is mine to give; but she is an alien to my faith, and to my home.”

“No, no, it must not, shall not be. Remember how she fed you, worked [pg 532] for you, brought up your little ones, and sent you the little she earned, even though you had cast her off.”

“It is cruel, Holcombe, to remind me of that,” said Cristalar reproachfully. “Perhaps as your wife I may see her—as the wife of my benefactor, not as my daughter.”

“I want to take her from your hands. And think how she has wearied for you all this time!”

“I know—and do you think I have not missed her? I have only half lived since she left me; and I love her beyond description even yet, but that is an unhallowed love.”

“Say, rather, an unnatural delusion; I mean your refusal to see her. You will, for my sake, for your son-in-law's sake?”

“Leave me now, Henry, I must think.”

Need we tell the end? How his better nature triumphed; how prosperity had softened his heart, and gratitude had bent his pride; how at last his father's love could stand no longer the knowledge of his child's great sorrow; and how Henry's prophecy that Maheleth should see her father on the eve of her marriage was anticipated by many weeks? Her sisters and Señor Cristalar accompanied her to the cathedral, and, after the ceremony, the banker put into the hands of the officiating priest a check for $10,000 for the Catholic poor of Frankfort.

Holcombe House was made ready soon after for the bride's reception, and Señor Cristalar established a branch bank in London, of which his son-in-law was partner and responsible head. In a very few years, the Holcombe income was the same it had been before the appalling drain the agents had spoken of, when the young possessor had drawn the £100,000 of ready money left him by his father, and added to it an equal sum raised on the estate.

The old Spaniard could never be induced to abandon the faith that was as much a part of his family pride as of the tradition of his race; but Thamar and Agar, Maheleth's two sisters, were baptized two years after the marriage, under the names of Elizabeth and Magdalen, and, when they in their turn married into noble English houses, their father certainly showed no sign of disapproval of their change of religion, in the princely fortunes he allotted to each.

[pg 533]