Chapter XIII

CHRISTMAS DAY.

The worshippers at St. Mark's on Christmas morning heard the music of the bells as the Hetherton sleigh passed by, but none of them knew whither it was bound, or the scene which awaited the rector, when, his services over, he started towards home.

Lucy had kept her word, and, just as Mrs. Brown was looking at the clock to see if it was time to put her fowls to bake, she heard the hall-door open softly and almost dropped her dripping-pan in her surprise at the sight of Lucy Harcourt, with her white face and great sunken blue eyes, which looked so mournfully at her as Lucy said:

"I want to go to Arthur's room—the library, I mean."

"Why, child, what is the matter? I heard you was sick, but did not s'pose 'twas anything like this. You are paler than a ghost," Mrs. Brown exclaimed as she tried to unfasten Lucy's hood and cloak and lead her to the fire.

But Lucy was not cold, she said. She would rather go at once to Arthur's room. Mrs. Brown made no objection, though she wondered if the girl was crazy as she went back to her fowls and Christmas pudding, leaving Lucy to find her way alone to Arthur's study, which looked so like its owner, with his dressing-gown across the lounge, just where he had thrown it, his slippers under the table and his arm-chair standing near the table, where he sat when he asked Lucy to be his wife, and where she now sat down, panting for breath and gazing dreamily around with the look of a frightened bird when seeking for some avenue of escape from an appalling danger. There was no escape, and, with a moan, she laid her head upon the table and prayed that Arthur might come quickly while she had sense and strength to tell him. She heard his step at last, and rose up to meet him, smiling a little at his sudden start when he saw her there.

"It's only I," she said, shedding back the clustering curls from her pallid face, and grasping the chair to steady herself and keep from falling. "I am not here to frighten you, I've come to do you good—to set you free. Oh, Arthur, you do not know how terribly you have been wronged, and I did not know it, either, till a few days ago. She never received your letter—Anna never did. If she had she would have answered yes, and have been in my place now; but she is going to be there. I give you up to Anna. I'm here to tell you so. But oh, Arthur, it hurts—it hurts."

He knew it hurt by the agonizing expression of her face, but he could not go near her for a moment, so overwhelming was his surprise at what he saw and heard. But, when the first shock to them both was past, and he could listen to her more rational account of what she knew and what she was there to do, he refused to listen. He would not be free. He would keep his word, he said. Matters had gone too far to be suddenly ended. He held her to his promise and she must be his wife.

"Can you tell me truly that you love me more than Anna?" Lucy asked, a ray of hope dawning for an instant upon her heart, but fading into utter darkness as Arthur hesitated to answer.

He did love Anna best, though never had Lucy been so near supplanting even her as at that moment, when she stood before him and told him he was free. There was something in the magnitude of her generosity which touched a tender chord and made her dearer to him than she had ever been.

"I can make you very happy," he said at last, and Lucy replied:

"Yes, but yourself—how with yourself? Would you be happy, too? No, Arthur, you would not, and neither should I, knowing all I do. It is best that we should part, though it almost breaks my heart, for I have loved you so much."

She stopped for breath, and Arthur was wondering what he could say to persuade her, when a cheery whistle sounded near and Thornton Hastings appeared in the door. He had gone to the office after church, and not knowing that anyone but Arthur was in the library, had come there at once.

"I beg your pardon," he said when he saw Lucy, and he was hurrying away, but Lucy called him back, feeling that in him she should find a powerful ally to aid her in her task.

Appealing to him as Arthur's friend, she repeated the story rapidly, and then went on:

"Tell him it is best—he must not argue against me, for I feel myself giving way through my great love for him, and it is not right. Tell him so Mr. Hastings—plead my cause for me—say what a true woman ought to say, for, believe me, I am in earnest in giving him to Anna."

There was a ghastly hue upon her face, and her features looked pinched and rigid, but the terrible heart-beats were not there. God, in his great mercy, kept them back, else she had surely died under that strong excitement. Thornton thought she was fainting, and, going hastily to her side, passed his arm around her and put her in the chair; then, standing protectingly by her, he said just what first came into his mind to say. It was a delicate matter in which to interfere, and he handled it carefully, telling frankly of what had passed between himself and Anna, and giving it as his opinion that she loved Arthur to-day just as well as before she left Hanover.

"Then, if that is so and Arthur loves her, as I know he does, it is surely right for them to marry, and they must," Lucy exclaimed, vehemently, while Thornton laid his hand pityingly upon her head and said:

"And only you be sacrificed?"

There was something wondrously tender in the tone of Thornton's voice, and Lucy glanced quickly up at him, while her blue eyes filled with the first tears she had shed since she came into that room.

"I am willing—I am ready—I have made up my mind and I shall never revoke it," she answered, while Arthur again put in a feeble remonstrance.

But Thornton was on Lucy's side. He did with cooler judgment what she could not, and when, at last, the interview was ended, there was no ring on Lucy's forefinger, for Arthur held it in his hand and their engagement was at an end.

Stunned with what he had passed through, Arthur stood motionless, while Thornton drew Lucy's cloak about her shoulders, fastened her fur himself, tied on her satin hood, taking such care of her as a mother would take of a suffering child.

"It is hardly safe to send her home alone," he thought, as he looked into her face and saw how weak she was. "As a friend of both, I ought to accompany her."

She was, indeed, very weak, so weak that she could scarcely stand, and Thornton took her in his arms and carried her to the sleigh; then springing in beside her he made her lean her tired head upon his shoulder as they drove to Prospect Hill. She did not seem frivolous to him now, but rather the noblest type of womanhood he had ever met. Few could do what she had done, and there was much of warmth and fervor in the clasp of his hand as he bade her good-by and went back to the rectory, thinking how deceived he had been in Lucy Harcourt.

Great was the consternation and surprise in Hanover when it was known that there was to be but one bride at Prospect Hill on the night of the fifteenth, and various were the surmises as to the cause of the sudden change; but, strive as they might, the good people of the village could not get at the truth, for Valencia held her peace, while the Hethertons were far too proud to admit of being questioned, and Thornton Hastings stood a bulwark of defence between the people and their clergyman, adroitly managing to have the pulpit at St. Mark's supplied for a few weeks while he took Arthur away, saying that his health required the change.

"You have done nobly, darling," Fanny Hetherton had said to Lucy when she received her from Thornton's hands and heard that all was over; then, leading her half-fainting cousin to her own cheerful room, she made her lie down while she told of the plan she had formed when first she heard what Lucy's intentions were.

"I wrote to the doctor, asking if he would take a trip to Europe, so that you could go with us, for I know you would not wish to stay here. To-day I have his answer, saying he will go, and what is better yet, father and mother are going, too."

"Oh, I am so glad, so glad. I could not stay here now," Lucy replied, sobbing herself to sleep, while Fanny sat by and watched, wondering at the strength which had upheld her weak little cousin in the struggle she had been through, and, now that it was over and the doctor safe from temptation, feeling that it was just as well; for, after all, it was a mésalliance for an heiress like her cousin to marry a poor clergyman.

There was a very quiet wedding at Prospect Hill on the night of the fifteenth, but neither Lucy nor Arthur were there. He lay sick again at the St. Denis in New York and she was alone in her chamber, fighting back her tears and praying that, now the worst was over, she might be withheld from looking back and wishing the work undone. She went with the bridal party to New York, where she tarried for a few days, seeing no one but Anna, for whom she sent at once. The interview had lasted more than an hour, and Anna's eyes were swollen with passionate weeping when at last it ended, but Lucy's face, though white as snow, was very calm and quiet, wearing a peaceful, placid look, which made it like the face of an angel. Two weeks later and the steamer bore her away across the water, where she hoped to outlive the storm which had beaten so piteously upon her. Thornton Hastings and Anna went with her on board the ship, and for their sakes she tried to appear natural, succeeding so well that it was a very pleasant picture which Thornton cherished in his mind of a frail little figure standing upon the deck, holding its waterproof together with one hand and with the other waving a smiling adieu to Anna and himself.

More than a year after, Thornton Hastings followed that figure across the sea, finding it in beautiful Venice, sailing again through the moon-lit streets and listening to the music which came so oft from the passing gondolas. It had recovered its former roundness and the face was even more beautiful than it had been before, for the light frivolity was all gone and there was reigning in its stead a peaceful, subdued expression which made Lucy Harcourt very fair to look upon. At least, so thought Thornton Hastings, and he lingered at her side, feeling glad that she had given no outward token of agitation when he said to her:

"There was a wedding at St. Mark's, in Hanover, just before I left; can you guess who the happy couple were?"

"Yes—Arthur and Anna. She wrote me they were to be married on Christmas Eve. I am so glad it has come round at last."

Then she questioned him of the bridal, of Arthur, and even of Anna's dress, her manner evincing that the old wound had healed and nothing but a sear remained to tell where it had been. And so the days went on beneath the sunny Italian skies, until one glorious night, when Thornton spoke his mind, alluding to the time when each loved another, expressing himself as glad that, in his case, the matter had ended as it did, and then asking Lucy if she could conscientiously be his wife.

"What, you marry a frivolous plaything like me?" Lucy asked, her woman's pride flashing up once more, but this time playfully, as Thornton knew by the joyous light in her eye.

She told him what she meant and how she had hated him for it, and then they laughed together; but Thornton's kiss smothered the laugh on Lucy's lips, for he guessed what her answer was, and that this, his second wooing, was more successful than his first.

"Married, in Rome, on Thursday, April 10th, Thornton Hastings, Esq., of New York City, to Miss Lucy Harcourt, also of New York, and niece of Colonel James Hetherton."

Anna was out in the rectory garden bending over a bed of hyacinths when Arthur brought her the paper and pointed to the notice.

"Oh, I am so glad—so glad—so glad!" she exclaimed, emphasizing each successive "glad" a little more and setting down her foot, as if to give it force. "I have never dared to be quite as happy with you as I might," she continued, leaning lovingly against her husband, "for there was always a thought of Lucy and what a fearful price she paid for our happiness. But now it is all as it should be; and, Arthur, am I very vain in thinking that she is better suited to Thornton Hastings than I ever was, and that I do better as your wife than Lucy would have done?"

A kiss was Arthur's only answer, but Anna was satisfied, and there rested upon her face a look of perfect content as all that warm spring afternoon she worked in her pleasant garden, thinking of the newly-married pair in Rome, and glancing occasionally at the open window of the library, where Arthur was busy with his sermon, his pen moving all the faster for the knowing that Anna was just within his call—that by turning his head he could see her dear face, and that by-and-by when his work was done she would come in to him, and with her loving words and winsome ways, make him forget how tired he was, and thank heaven again for the great gift bestowed when it gave him Anna Ruthven.

THE END.