第168章 A Night's Vigil.(1)

As Van Berg left Mr.Eltinge's grounds he had the aspect of a man who had seen a vision.He had seen more,for the human face expressive of absolute,even though brief,mastery over evil is a nobler object than can be the serene visage of a sinless and untempted angel.

At last he understood Ida Mayhew.If he had deeply honored her when he supposed that as a sincere,honest friend only she had spoken her strong,true words,which might save him from wrecking his life from impulses of shame and wounded pride,how instantaneously was this honor changed into reverence and wonder as he recognized her self-sacrifice at the dictates of conscience.All was now perfectly clear.The truth of her love had flashed out from the dark cloud of her passionate grief,and in its white radiance all the baffling mystery of her past action was dissipated instantly.Now he knew why the brilliant music at the concert garden could not brighten her face,and the end of the symphony saw her in tears.Now he understood why she could not be Jennie Burton's friend,even though capable of becoming a martyr for her sake from a sense of duty.The despairing farewell letter she had once written to him now became fraught with a deeper meaning,and he saw that in throwing away the imperfect rose-bud,and in looking at her as a creature akin to Sibley,he had inflicted mortal wounds on a heart that gave him only love in return.In her desperate effort to conceal an unsought love she had sought the nearest covert,and the stains Sibley had left upon her were no more hers than if he had been a blackened wall.After all her woman's soul had come to her as in the old and simple times when even water nymphs had hearts,and love was still the mightiest force in the universe.

His feeling now was far too deep for his former half-frenzied excitement.There was not a trace of exultation in his manner,and there was indeed no ground for rapture.Only the knowledge that he carried away her respect,and that he was going to the performance of what he believed a sacred duty,kept him from despair.

He did not blame himself as bitterly as might have been supposed that he had not discovered her secret earlier,and it increased his admiration for her,if that were possible,that she had so carefully maintained her maidenly reserve.A conceited man,or at least a man whose soul was infested with the meanest kind of conceit--that of imagining that the woman who gives him a friendly word or smile is disposed to throw herself into his arms--would no doubt have surmised her secret before;but although Van Berg was intensely proud,as we have seen,and had been rendered self-complacent and self-confident by the circumstances of his lot,he had none of this contemptible vanity.The discovery of Ida's love caused him far greater surprise than when he recognized his own,and it was a source of deep satisfaction to him that this modern and conventional Undine had received a nature of such true and womanly delicacy that it had led her to conceal her love like the trailing-arbutus that hides its fragrant blossoms under fallen leaves.

The light had been so clear that he even saw the temptation which he unconsciously had suggested to her while in the city.Unlike the little violet that weakly bowed its head and died because the brook would not stop,she had resolutely set about the task of making him stop,and yet never let him suspect that she was even looking at him.Hence her attempt to penetrate the wilderness of knowledge which was at once so pathetic and comical;hence also her wish to learn the authors and subjects which interested him.

"And she had every reason to believe that she might have won me from the one honorable allegiance I can give,"he exclaimed,in deep humiliation,"and probably she would have done so eventually had she not acted liek a saint rather than a woman.I've lost faith utterly in Harold Van Berg,and it will require a great many years to regain it."When he reached a dense tract of woodland through which the road ran,he concealed himself and waited till she should pass.Two hours elapsed before she did so.The passionate grief that had overwhelmed her was no slight and passing gust.He saw that she leaned back weakly and languidly in the phaeton,and had hidden her face by a vail of double thickness.He followed her at a distance far too great for recognition until she entered the hotel,and then sought to obtain a little rest and food at the nearest village inn;for he found now that his fierce paroxysm of rage and mental torment was over,he had become very faint and exhausted.After he had regained somewhat the power to think and act,he turned his steps towards a narrow,secluded ravine,about a mile from the hotel,knowing that here he would find the deepest solitude in which to grow calm and prepare himself for the quiet self-sacrifice of which Ida had given the example,and which no eye must be able to detect save his to whom the secrets of all hearts are open.

He made no effort to follow any path,but sprang carelessly and rapidly down the steep hillside.When he had almost reached the bottom of the ravine,his foot slipped on a rock half hidden by leaves,and he fell and rolled helplessly down.Before he could recover himself,the rock,which had been loosely imbedded in the soil and which his foot had struck so heavily,rolled after him and on his leg and foot.In sudden and increasing dismay,he found that he could not extricate himself.The stone would have been beyond his ability to lift even if he had the full use of all his powers;but he was held in a position that gave him very little chance to exert his strength.