Hearts Afire - By J. D. Rawden Page 0,21
are back from the morning service, I will be back; and, if there is good news, I will be glad for thee.”
Not half an hour was Guy Barrington away; and yet, to the miserable girl, how grief and fear lengthened out the moments! She tried to prepare herself for the worst; she tried to strengthen her soul even for the message of death. But very rarely is any grief as bad as our own terror of it. When Guy Barrington came back, it was with a word of hope on his lips.
“I have seen,” he said, “who dost thou think?—the old surgeon. He of all men, he has sat by Harleigh's side all night; and he has dressed and redressed the wound continually all night. And he said to me, Three times, in the Persian desert, I have cured wounds still worse, and, if he can live through the day, the young man shall recover. That is what he said, Charlotte.”
“Forever I will love the surgeon. Though he fail, I will love him. So kind he is, even to those who have not spoken well, nor done well, to him.”
“So kind, also, was his friend Ewan Rawden to me. Now, then, go wash thy face, and take comfort and courage.”
“Guy, leave me not.”
“There is Sir Edward. We have been companions; and his father and his mother are old, and need me.”
“Also, I need thee. All the time they will make me to feel how wicked I have been!”
At this moment the family returned from the morning service, and Guy Barrington rather defiantly drew Charlotte to his side. No one spoke to Charlotte; even her mother was annoyed and humiliated at the social ordeal through which they had just passed, and she thought it only reasonable that the erring girl should be made to share the trial. Joris, however, had much curiosity; and his first thought on seeing Guy Barrington at his home was, “Sir Edward is of course dead, and in the tone of one personally injured by such a fatality, he ejaculated,—
“So it is the end, then. On the Sabbath day Sir Edward has gone. If it should be the Sabbath day in the other world,—which is likely,—it will be the worse for Sir Edward.”
“What mean you?”
“Is not Sir Edward?”
“No. I think, also, that he will live.”
“I am glad. It is good for Charlotte.”
“I see it not.”
“Well, then, if he dies, is it not Charlotte's fault?”
“Goodness! No! Charlotte is not to blame.”
“All respectable and moral people will say so.”
“Better for them not to say so. If I hear of it, then I will make them say it to my face.”
But, though Guy Barrington bravely championed Charlotte he could not protect her from those wicked innuendoes disseminated for the gratification of the virtuous; nor from those malicious regrets of very good people over rumors which they declare to “be incredible,” and yet which, nevertheless, they “unfortunately believe to be too true.” The New Yorkers have a precept which says, “Never speak ill of the dead.” Would it not be much better to speak no ill of the living? Little could it have mattered to Madam Bogardus or Madam Stuyvesant what a lot of silly people said of them in Gates Street or Lewis street, a century after their death; but poor Charlotte Morgan shivered and sickened in the presence of averted eyes and uplifted shoulders, and in that chill atmosphere of disapproval which separated her from the sympathy and confidence of her old friends and acquaintances.
“It is thy punishment,” said her mother, “bear it bravely and patiently. In a little while, it will be forgot.” But the weeks went on, and the wounded men slowly fought death away from their pillows, and Charlotte did not recover the place in social estimation which she had lost through the ungovernable tempers of her lovers. For, alas, there are few social pleasures that have so much vital power as that of exploring the faults of others, and comparing them with our own virtues!
ROAD TO RECOVERY.
But nothing ill lasts forever; and in three months Sir Edward was in the law office again, wan and worn with fever and suffering, and wearing his sword arm in a sling, but still decidedly world-like and life-like. It was characteristic of Sir Edward that few, even of his intimates, cared to talk of the duel to him, to make any observations on his absence, or any inquiries about his health. But it was evident that public opinion was