CHAPTER XVII.

AS WHEAT IS SIFTED.

At two o'clock Helen rang the bell of Mrs. Everleigh's palatial home on Riverside Drive. A man in livery admitted her, swept herself and her card with a comprehensive glance as she laid the bit of pasteboard upon his tray, obsequiously bowed her into an elegantly appointed reception room, and disappeared.

Five minutes later Mrs. Everleigh came to her. Helen had thought her a rarely beautiful woman when she had seen her in church, more than four months previous; but she seemed a hundredfold more lovely now, dressed all in simple white, her abundant snowy hair coiled becomingly about her head, her only ornament an exquisite chain of turquoise set in silver and almost the color of her peaceful eyes, and her lips wreathed in sunny, welcoming smiles.

"Mrs. Ford, I am more than glad to see you," she said, as she cordially clasped Helen's hand. "And now, if you will allow me to waive the formalities of a first call, I am going to ask you to come up to my private sitting room, where we can be wholly by ourselves."

Helen thanked her, and followed her up the grand stairway, noting the costly furnishings of the great hall, the rare paintings, statuary, bric-a-brac, et cetera, on every hand; and almost gave vent to an exclamation of childish delight as she was ushered into an exquisite boudoir on the second floor, and which was furnished throughout in blue and white; the great chandelier in the center of the ceiling, and other appliances for lighting, together with many beautiful vases, being all of crystal or expensive cut glass.

"What an ideal setting for an ideal woman!" she said to herself, as she entered the room.

"Come and sit here, Mrs. Ford," said Mrs. Everleigh, as she preceded her to a great bow window, where there were two inviting rockers, with hassocks to match, a pretty onyx table on which rested a small easel supporting the photograph of a beautiful young girl, and, standing beside it, a costly cut-glass vase filled with fresh forget-me-nots.

"What a lovely nook!" was Helen's involuntary tribute, as she sank into the luxurious chair offered her. "And, oh, that view!" she added, with a quick indrawn breath, as her glance fell upon the scene without, where, between splendid great trees, all glorious in their brilliant fall attire of red, yellow, and green, glimpses of the river, flashing in the sunlight, with the darker hills beyond, made a picture that one could never forget.

"Yes, it is a scene of which I never tire," returned her hostess, as she took the other rocker, and thoughtfully pushed a hassock nearer her guest.

"I hope, Mrs. Everleigh, I have not seemed intrusive in asking to come to you?" Helen observed, after a moment or two, during which she sat silently drinking in the beauty before her. "But your kindness to me that day in church emboldened me to beg the favor."

"My dear, I am happy to have you come--I am glad to be helpful to any one, as opportunity offers," the elder lady graciously replied.

Helen lifted a glance of surprise to her. She had not hinted that she was unhappy, or needed help of any kind.

Mrs. Everleigh met her look with her winning smile.

"Your voice told me over the phone, dear, that you were in trouble," she said. "Now, open your heart to me. What can I do for you?"

Her tone was so kind, her smile and manner so loving, Helen's forced composure melted like wax in the sun, and a sudden flood of tears rendered her utterly helpless to respond for the moment.

The strain and excitement of the last forty-eight hours had been very great, and the loss of two nights' sleep, together with the relentless mental vivisection to which she had since subjected herself, had robbed her of both strength and self-control.

"Dear heart," gently entreated her companion, "let the bitterness all out; then there will be room to pour in the balm and oil."

She leaned back in her chair, and sat silent, with bowed head and averted eyes, until Helen's weeping ceased, and she began to regain something of her customary self-possession.

"Dear Mrs. Everleigh," she at length said, as she lifted her tear-stained face to her, "you have not attempted to question or comfort me, and yet it seems to me you have been pouring peace into my heart every moment since I came into this room; my trouble is the old puzzle regarding love and hate."

"How is it a puzzle?"

"All my life," Helen explained, "I have believed myself to be a good woman, a devoted wife and mother, faithful to my duties, charitable, conscientious, God-fearing, self-sacrificing to a fault, and absolutely loyal to my friends. I believed all this to be love. When trouble came, I bore it patiently, taking up my burdens with courage, and setting my face steadfastly toward the work of regaining for myself and my child that of which we had been cruelly robbed--home, position, and an honorable name. I thought I had won, that the goal had been attained, that I had so firmly established myself no taint of the past could touch me; and I believed I was happy in what I had achieved, until I suddenly awoke to the fact that all the fair fabric I had constructed and believed unassailable was only an outward show, built upon pride and self-righteousness; until I began to realize that I had all the time been possessed of a subconscious hate, the hate that wishes people dead and powerless to cross your path again! Does the picture appall you?"

Helen paused, almost breathless from inward emotion and rapid speaking.

"My dear, you have uncovered all this in connection with yourself?" gravely queried Mrs. Everleigh.

"_Something_ has uncovered it," said Helen, with a bitter sigh.

"And what is the result of such searching introspection?"

"I feel like a whited sepulcher. I am appalled, shocked beyond measure at myself," said Helen, with a gesture of repugnance.

"Do you think it was your real self who was nursing all the evil you have portrayed?" gently inquired her companion.

Helen lifted a look of surprise to her.

"My real self?" she repeated, in perplexity.

"The real self is the purity--the innate consciousness that shrinks from evil, and would be clothed upon with the garment of righteousness, of right thinking and right living," said Mrs. Everleigh.

"Then the evil-thinking is the unreal self, and every one possesses a dual nature? I recognize that--it is the old story of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde--but when one wakes up to find that even the good he _thinks_ he has done is evil, because of the worm at the core, it becomes a mocking paradox," said Helen bitterly.

"No, dear; not the good he thinks and has done," opposed her companion gently, "for every good thought that has taken form in your consciousness, every good deed that has been the outgrowth of that thought, belongs to your true self, and nothing can rob you of it. Your efforts to conquer adverse circumstances, your determination to achieve success in your profession--I have recently heard Madam Ford sing, and have learned something of her career," the lady smilingly interposed--"and an honorable name and position for yourself and your child are all justifiable and praiseworthy. We have a right to set our standards high and do our utmost, with right motives, to attain them. But the undercurrent of bitterness, the sense of resentment, self-pity, self-righteousness--the thinking that is continually arguing about the faults and sins of the wrongdoer--everything that tends to self-justification by the condemnation of another is all wrong, and must be put out, if we hope ever to attain to our ideals, and know real peace of mind. It matters not how fair our outward living may seem, if the thinking is wrong."

"I began to realize something of this, that Sunday in church," said Helen. "It seemed as if a wonderful searchlight had been turned upon my inner self, revealing lurking demons I never dreamed I was harboring."

"Every one, sooner or later, must be sifted as wheat is sifted--must be refined as gold is refined; the dross and the chaff must be cast out," said her companion.

"Oh, tell me how!" Helen exclaimed. "One yearns to be pure in thought as well as in deed, but the wrong-thinking seems to go on and on of itself. How can it be conquered?"

"By putting self out of sight and giving loving service to others."

"To those who have done us desperate wrong?" panted Helen, with an inward shock.

"Even to those," said Mrs. Everleigh gently. "They need it most of all."

"Oh, you cannot mean that we should take them back into our hearts and lives, and nourish and serve them again as if no wrong had been done, when every law of God and man had been violated, every tendril of affection ruthlessly trampled upon!" Helen's voice was almost inaudible as she concluded.

Mrs. Everleigh did not immediately reply; she sat gravely thinking for several minutes.

"Dear Mrs. Ford," she at length began, "we each have different problems in life to solve, and it is difficult and perhaps unwise for one to say to another what he or she would do under certain circumstances which had never come into one's own experience. Loving service is that which best promotes the welfare of the one served. What might be loving service and helpful for one might be just the reverse for another. The wrongdoer must suffer for his wrongdoing, else he would never recognize or repent his sin; it would be doing irreparable injury to remove his punishment, restoring joys he had forfeited, privileges he had trampled upon. That would be encouraging sin. We are commanded to 'cast not our pearls before swine.' We must not continue to shower blessings and favors indiscriminately upon those who have shown themselves unappreciative and unworthy of past benefits. Having cut themselves adrift, it is theirs to work out their own salvation, and it is not our duty to again put ourselves in contact with the error that has deliberately wronged and wounded us. And yet, there is loving service that we can still render even these; we can think and speak kindly of them, giving honor where honor is due, compassion instead of condemnation for the errors that hold them in bondage. Such an attitude cannot fail to crowd out and conquer the bitterness, self-pity, self-righteousness, condemnation--everything that robs us of our peace. When we attain to this we shall know that we have no partnership with hate."

"I begin to understand something of what love means," Helen said, in a tone of awe. "I feel as if I were just beginning to see how to live. You surely have helped me to empty myself of much of the evil that seemed to be surging within me when I came here this afternoon. You have indeed 'poured in balm and oil,' and given me much food for thought."

She arose to leave as she spoke, holding out her hand, a look of grateful appreciation in her eyes.

"Oh, I am not going to let you go yet! I have not said half I wish," cried her hostess, clasping her extended hand, but forcing her gently back into her chair; and Helen, eager to learn more from the wisdom that fell from her lips, sank restfully down among her cushions again, and they talked on for an hour longer.

"How glad I am you came to me, Mrs. Ford!" Mrs. Everleigh observed, when she finally said she must go. "I hope to see you often after this--I shall make it my way to do so, if you will allow me. I heard you sing at the Wardsworths' shortly after we met in church, and I intended to be introduced to you at that time, but you had left when I asked to be presented. You have a great gift, and I am going to beg you to use it for me some time."

"It will give me great pleasure to do so, Mrs. Everleigh. I would love to show some appreciation of the good you have done me to-day," Helen heartily responded, adding, as her eyes sought those of her companion: "It is a privilege just to look into your peaceful face--one would think that no blight or sorrow had ever touched you in----"

Mrs. Everleigh's hand closed over Helen's almost spasmodically, and her lips whitened suddenly, as her glance sought the beautiful photograph resting on the onyx table beside the vase of forget-me-nots.

"No blight--no sorrow!" she repeated, as she gently drew her visitor a step nearer the likeness. "Oh, no one escapes the tragedies of this mortal life, my dear--they pass none of us by. This is a likeness of my daughter. Is she not beautiful? She was swept from my sight almost before I realized she was in danger. It seemed as if a whirlwind caught her away, and--she was all I had--the apple of my eye, the one darling of my heart. The blow left me with this crown of snow," she went on, touching with tremulous fingers the hair upon her forehead. "It broke my heart, crushed me to earth for the time being, and the battle I had to fight was much the same that you are fighting now. It is only step by step that we conquer in such experiences, but if we are sincere--'honest in mind and intention'--if we keep our armor on, and wield a merciless sword upon our secret foes, we must win in the end."

Helen was very near weeping again as she listened to her. Surely, she thought, the tragedies of earth pass no one by! Those in palace and hovel meet on common ground in these great heart sorrows. She lifted the hand she held, and softly laid her lips against it--she was powerless to speak one word.

But Mrs. Everleigh quickly quelled her momentary emotion, and her peaceful smile seemed like a benediction as she turned again to Helen.

"But she made my life very bright while she was here. I have beautiful things to remember of her; I have very much to be grateful for," she said bravely. "We must not forget to number our blessings, dear Mrs. Ford," she continued gravely, "lest we drift back into the former bitterness and darkness. You still have your lovely daughter, if you have had other trials--I saw her also at the Wardsworths'--be thankful, and, in the light of that and other blessings, forget the wrong and blight of the past."

They went downstairs together, Mrs. Everleigh accompanying her visitor to the door and exacting a promise that she would come again in the near future, for there was more she wished to say to her when the world seemed brighter to her.

Helen went home with a sense of peace in her heart such as she had not known for many weeks. She felt like a different person from what she had been during the last forty-eight hours. She reviewed every step of her interview with Mrs. Everleigh, analyzing her arguments, making a personal application of them, and seeking to attain to a higher understanding of them.

"Loving service for even those who have wronged us most!" This had impressed her more deeply than anything else she had said, and as she conned it o'er and o'er she came to see that to purify her own consciousness of evil-thinking against John--he who had wronged her most, who had put the worst possible humiliation and suffering upon her--would not only release her from the intolerable bondage of mental discord which she had suffered for years whenever he had come into her thought, but would also be obeying the divine command: "Do unto others as ye would they should do unto you."

She might never see or hear from John again--she hoped she would not; he had said he would trouble her no more; but whether he did or not, she knew that the bitterness of hate was past, and in its place there was dawning a peace that comes to all those who realize and practice the greatest of all virtues--"Charity, the love that thinketh no evil."