Chapter 7

_ENDED._

June was almost over, and Beth had been home a full month on that long four months' vacation that university students are privileged to enjoy. She was very ambitious when she came home that first vacation. She had conceived a fresh ideal of womanhood, a woman not only brilliantly educated and accomplished, but also a gentle queen of the home, one who thoroughly understood the work of her home. Clarence was quite pleased when she began to extol cooking as an art, and Dr. Woodburn looked through the open kitchen-door with a smile at his daughter hidden behind a clean white apron and absorbed in the mysteries of the pastry board. Aunt Prudence was a little astonished, but she never would approve of Beth's way of doing things--"didn't see the sense of a note-book and lead-pencil." But Beth knew what she was doing in that respect.

Then there were so many books that Beth intended to read in that vacation! Marie had come to the Mayfair's, too, and helped her to pass some pleasant hours. But there was something else that was holding Beth's attention. It was Saturday evening, and that story was almost finished, that story on which she had built so many hopes. She sat in her room with the great pile of written sheets before her, almost finished; but her head was weary, and she did not feel equal to writing the closing scene that night. She wanted it to be the most touching scene of all, and so it had to be rolled up for another week. Just then the door-bell rang and Mrs. Ashley was announced, our old friend Edith Mayfair, the same sweet, fair girl under another name.

They sat down by the window and had a long chat.

"Have you seen the new minister and his wife yet?" asked Edith.

"No; I heard he was going to preach to-morrow."

The Rev. Mr. Perth, as the new Methodist minister, was just now occupying the attention of Briarsfield.

"It's interesting to have new people come to town. I wonder if they will be very nice. Are they young?" asked Beth.

"Yes. They haven't been married so very long."

"Edith"--Beth hesitated before she finished the quietly eager enquiry--"do you still think marriage the best thing in the world?"

Edith gave her friend a warm embrace in reply. "Yes, Beth, I think it the very best thing, if God dwell in your home."

"That sounds like Arthur," said Beth.

"Do you ever hear of him. Where is he?"

"I don't know where he is," said Beth, with a half sigh.

Clarence walked home with Beth to dinner, after church, the next morning.

"How do you like the new minister?" Beth asked.

"Oh, I think he's a clever little fellow."

"So do I," said Beth. "He seems to be a man of progressive ideas. I think we shall have bright, interesting sermons."

Marie was slightly ill that Sunday, and did not come out. Clarence and Beth took a stroll in the moonlight. The world looked bright and beautiful beneath the stars, but Clarence was quieter even than usual, and Beth sighed faintly. Clarence was growing strangely quiet and unconfidential. He was certainly not a demonstrative lover. Perhaps, after all, love was not all she had dreamed. She had painted her dreamland too bright. She did not acknowledge this thought, even to her own soul; but her heart was a little hungry that summer night. Poor Beth! Before another Sabbath she was to know a greater pain than mere weariness. The flames were being kindled that were to scorch that poor heart of hers.

It was about ten o'clock the next night when she finished her novel. Somehow it gave her a grave feeling. Aunt Prudence was in bed, and Dr. Woodburn had gone out into the country to a patient, and would not return till midnight. The house was so still, and the sky and the stars so beautiful; the curtains of her open window just moved in the night air! It was all ended now--that dreamland which she had lived and loved and gave expression to on those sheets of paper. Ended! And she was sitting there with her pen in her hand, her work finished, bending over it as a mother does over her child. She almost dreaded to resign it to a publisher, to cast it upon the world. And yet it would return to her, bringing her fame! She was sure of that. The last scene alone would make her famous. She could almost see the sweet earnest-eyed woman in her white robes at the altar; she could hear the sound of voices and the tread of feet; she was even conscious of the fragrance of the flowers. It was all so vivid to her!

Then a sudden impulse seized her. She would like so much to show it to Clarence, to talk to him, and feel his sympathy. He never retired much before midnight, and it was scarcely ten minutes' walk. She would get back before her father returned, and no one would know. Seizing her hat, she went quietly out. It was a freak, but then Beth had freaks now and then. A great black cloud drifted over the moon, and made everything quite dark. A timid girl would have been frightened, but Beth was not timid.

She knew Clarence was likely to be in the library, and so went around to the south side. The library window was quite close to the door of the side hall, and as Beth came up the terrace, through the open window a picture met her eyes that held her spell-bound.

Clarence and Marie were sitting side by side on the sofa, a few feet from the window. Marie's dark face was drooping slightly, her cheeks flushed, and her lips just parted in a smile. There was a picture of the Crucifixion on the wall above them, and rich violet curtains hanging to one side. One of Marie's slender olive hands rested on the crimson cushions at her side, the other Clarence was stroking with a tender touch. Both were silent for a moment. Then Clarence spoke in a soft, low tone:

"Marie, I want to tell you something."

"Do you? Then tell me."

"I don't like to say it," he answered.

"Yes, do. Tell me."

"If I were not an engaged man,"--his voice seemed to tremble faintly, and his face grew paler--"I should try and win you for my wife."

Beth drew back a step, her young cheek colorless as death. No cry escaped her white lips, but her heart almost ceased its beating. It was only a moment she stood there, but it seemed like years. The dark, blushing girl, the weak, fair-haired youth in whom she had placed her trust, the pictures, the cushions, the curtains, every detail of the scene, seemed printed with fire upon her soul. She was stung. She had put her lips to the cup of bitterness, and her face looked wild and haggard as she turned away.

Only the stars above and the night wind sighing in the leaves, and a heart benumbed with pain! A tall man passed her in the shadow of the trees as she was crossing the lawn, but she paid no heed. The lights in the village homes were going out one by one as she returned up the dark, deserted street. The moon emerged from the clouds, and filled her room with a flood of unnatural light just as she entered. She threw herself upon her pillow, and a cry of pain went up from her wounded heart. She started the next instant in fear lest some one had heard. But no, there was no one near here, save that loving One who hears every moan; and Beth had not learned yet that He can lull every sufferer to rest in His bosom. The house was perfectly still, and she lay there in the darkness and silence, no line changing in the rigid marble of her face. She heard her father's step pass by in the hall; then the old clock struck out the midnight hour, and still she lay in that stupor with drops of cold perspiration on her brow.

Suddenly a change came over her. Her cheeks grew paler still, but her eyes burned. She rose and paced the room, with quick, agitated steps.

"Traitress! Traitress!" she almost hissed through her white lips. "It is _her_ fault. It is _her_ fault. And I called her _friend_. Friend! Treachery!"

Then she sank upon her bed, exhausted by the outburst of passion, for it took but little of this to exhaust Beth. She was not a passionate girl. Perhaps, never in her life before had she passed through anything like passion, and she lay there now still and white, her hands folded as in death.

In the meantime something else had happened at the Mayfair dwelling. She had not noticed the tall man that passed her as she crossed the lawn in the darkness, but a moment later a dark figure paused on the terrace in the same spot where she had stood, and his attention was arrested by the same scene in the library. He paused but a moment before entering, but even his firm tread was unheard on the soft carpet, as he strode up the hall to the half-open curtains of the library. Marie's face was still drooping, but the next instant the curtains were thrown back violently, and they both paled at the sight of the stern, dark face in the door-way.

"Clarence Mayfair!" he cried in a voice of stern indignation. "Clarence Mayfair, you dare to speak words of love to that woman at your side? You! Beth Woodburn's promised husband?"

"Arthur Grafton!" exclaimed Clarence, and Marie drew back through the violet curtains.

A firm hand grasped Clarence by the shoulder, and, white with fear, he stood trembling before his accuser.

"Wretch! unworthy wretch! And you claim _her_ hand! Do you know her worth?"

"In the name of heaven, Grafton, don't alarm the house!" said Clarence, in a terrified whisper. His lip trembled with emotion, and Arthur's dark eyes flashed with fire. There was a shade of pitiful scorn in them, too. After all, what a mere boy this delicate youth looked, he thought. Perhaps he was too harsh. He had only heard a sentence or two outside the window, and he might have judged too harshly.

"I know it, I know I have wronged her," said Clarence, in a choked voice; "but don't betray me!"

There was a ring of true penitence and sorrow in the voice that touched Arthur, and as he raised his face to that picture of the Crucifixion on the wall, it softened gradually.

"Well, perhaps I am severe. May God forgive you, Clarence. But it is hard for a man to see another treat the woman he--well, there, I'll say no more. Only promise me you will be true to her--more worthy of her."

"I will try, Arthur. Heaven knows I have always meant to be honorable."

"Then, good-bye, Clarence. Only you need not tell Beth you have seen me to-night," said Arthur, as he turned to leave; "I shall be out of Briarsfield before morning."

Poor Arthur! Time had not yet healed his wound, but he was one of those brave souls who can "suffer and be still." That night, as he was passing through Briarsfield on the late train, a desire had seized him to go back to the old place just once more, to walk up and down for a little while before the home of the woman he loved. He did not care to speak to her or to meet her face to face. She was another's promised wife. Only to be near her home--to breathe one deep blessing upon her, and then to leave before break of day, and she would never know he had been near. He had come under cover of the darkness, and had seen her descending the great wide stairway in her white muslin dress, and going down the dark street toward the Mayfairs'. After a little while he had followed, even approached the windows of Clarence Mayfair's home, hoping for one last look. But he had passed her in the shadow of the trees, and had only seen what filled his heart with sorrow. A meaner man would have taken advantage of the sight, and exposed his rival. But Arthur had anything but a mean soul. He believed Beth loved Clarence, as he thought a woman should love the man to whom she gives her life. He believed that God was calling him to the mission-field alone. He had only caught a few words that Clarence had said to Marie, and he fancied it may, after all, have been mere nonsense. Surely he could not have ceased to love Beth! Surely he could not be blind to her merits! Arthur saw only too truly how weak, emotional and changeable Clarence was, but it was not his place to interfere with those whom God had joined. So he argued to himself.

But the night was passing, and Beth still lay there, no tear on her cold white cheeks. The clock struck one, a knell-like sound in the night! Beth lay there, her hands folded on her breast, the prayer unuttered by her still lips--one for death. The rest were sleeping quietly in their beds. They knew nothing of her suffering. They would never know. Oh, if that silent messenger would but come now, and still her weary heart! They would come in the morning to look at her. Yes; Clarence would come, too. Perhaps he would love her just a little then. Perhaps he would think of her tenderly when he saw her with the white roses in her hands. Oh, was there a God in heaven who could look down on her sorrow to-night, and not in pity call her home? She listened for the call that would bear her far beyond this earthly strife, where all was such tangle and confusion. She listened, but she heard it not, and the darkness deepened, the moon grew pale and the stars faded away. The house was so still! The whistle of a steam-engine broke the silence, and she saw the red light as the train swept around the curve. It was bearing Arthur away, and she did not know that one who loved her had been so near! Then she saw a grey gleam in the east. Ah, no! she could not die. The day was coming again, and she would have to face them all. She would sit in the same place at the breakfast table. She would meet Clarence again, and Marie--oh--oh, she could not bear the thought of it! She sat up on her bedside with such a weary, anguished look in her eyes! Then she went to kneel at the open window, where her mother had taught her to kneel long years ago. Her sweet-faced, long-dead mother! When she raised her eyes again the east was all aglow with the pink and purple dawn, and the rooks were cawing in the pines across the meadow. She paced the floor for a moment or two.

"Yes, it must be done. I will do it," she thought. "He loves her. I will not stand in the way of his happiness. No; I had rather die."

And she took a sheet of note-paper, and wrote these simple words:

"DEAR CLARENCE,--I do not believe you love me any more. I can never be your wife. I know your secret. I know you love Marie. I have seen it often in your eyes. Be happy with her, and forget me. May you be very happy, always. Good-bye. BETH."

She took it herself to the Mayfair home, knowing that her father would only think she had gone out for a morning walk. The smoke-wreaths were curling upward from the kitchen chimneys as she passed down the street, and Squire Mayfair looked a little surprised when she handed him her note for Clarence, and turned to walk away.

That sleepless, tearless night had told upon her, and she was not able to come down to breakfast. Her father came in, and looked at her with a professional air.

"Just what I told you, Beth. You've worked too hard. You need rest. That's just what's the matter," he said, in a brusque voice, as he put some medicine on the table and left the room.

Rest! Yes, she could rest now. Her work was done. She looked at the sheet of manuscript that she had taken last night to show Clarence. Yes, the work was done. She had reached the end of her story--the end of her prospect of marriage. Ended her labor--ended her life-dream!

As for Clarence, he read her note without any emotion.

"Humph! I didn't think Grafton was the fellow to make mischief so quickly. A tale-bearer! Well, it's all for the best. I made a mistake. I do not love Beth Woodburn. I cannot understand her."

Beth slept, and seemed much better in the afternoon, but she was still quite pale when she went into her father's room after tea.

"Dear old daddy," she said, putting her arms about his neck, "you were always so kind. You never refuse me anything if you can help it. I wish you would let me go away."

"Why, certainly, Beth, dear!" he said briskly. "Isn't that just what I've been telling you? Stop writing all day in that hot room up-stairs. Go off and have a frolic. Go and see your Aunt Margaret."

And so it was settled that if Beth were well enough she should start for Welland next afternoon. She did not see Clarence during the next morning. It surprised her that he sought no explanation, and before three o'clock Briarsfield was a mere speck in the distance.