A Red Wallflower Part 94

'Yes, several. Oh yes! while we were in Seaforth.'

'And I got answers. Do you remember one long letter you wrote me, the second year after I went?'

'Yes,' she said, without looking at him.

'Esther, that letter was worth everything to me. It was like a sunbeam coming out between misty clouds and showing things for a moment in their true colours. I never forgot it. I never could forget it, though I fought for some years with the truth it revealed to me. I believed what you told me, and so I knew what I ought to do; but I struggled against my convictions. I knew from that time that it was the happiest thing and the worthiest thing to be a saint; all the same, I wanted to be a sinner. I wanted to follow my own way and be my own master. I wanted to distinguish myself in my profession, and rise in the world, and tower over other men; and I liked all the delights of life as well as other people do, and was unwilling to give up a life of self-indulgence, which I had means to gratify. Esther, I fought hard! I fought for years--can you believe it?--before I could make up my mind.'

'And now?' she said, looking at him.

'Now? Now,' said he, lowering his voice a little,--'now I have come to know the truth of what you told me; I have learned to know Christ; and I know, as you know, that all things that may be desired are not to be compared with that knowledge. I understand what Paul meant when he said he had suffered the loss of all things for it and counted them less than nothing. So do I; so would I; so have I, as far as the giving up of myself and them to their right owner goes. _That_ is done.'

Esther was very glad; she knew she ought to be very glad, and she was; and yet, gladness was not precisely the uppermost feeling that possessed her. She did not know what in the world could make her think of tears at that moment; but there was a strange sensation as if, had she been alone, she would have liked to cry. No shadow of such a softness appeared, however.

'What decided you at last?' she said softly.

'I can scarce tell you,' he answered. 'I was busy studying the matter, arguing for and against; and then I saw of a sudden that I was lighting a lost battle; that my sense and reason and conscience were all gained over, and only my will held out. Then I gave up fighting any more.'

'You came up to the subject on a different side from what I did,'

Esther remarked.

'And you, Esther? have you been always as happy as you were when you wrote that letter?'

'Yes,' she said quietly. 'More happy.' But she did not look up.

'The happiness in your letter was the sunbeam that cleared up everything for me. Now I have talked enough; tell me of yourself and your father.'

'There is not much to tell,' said Esther, with that odd quietness. She felt somehow oppressed. 'We are living in the old fashion; have been living so all along.'

'But-- _Quite_ in the old fashion?' he said, with a swift glance at the little room where they were sitting. 'It does not look so, Esther.'

'This is not so pleasant a place as we were in when we first came to New York,' Esther confessed. 'That was very pleasant.'

'Why did you change?'

'It was necessary,' she said, with a smile. 'You may as well know it; papa lost money.'

'How?'

'He invested the money from the sale of the place at Seaforth in some stocks that gave out somehow. He lost it all. So then we had nothing but the stipend from England; and I think papa somehow lost part of that, or was obliged to take part of it to meet obligations.'

'And you?'

'We did very well,' said Esther, with another smile. 'We are doing very well now. We are out of debt, and that is everything. And I think papa is pretty comfortable.'

'And Esther?'

'Esther is happy.'

'But--I should think--forgive me!--that this bit of a house would hardly hold you.'

'See how mistaken you are! We have two rooms unused.'

Pitt's eye roved somewhat restlessly over the one in which they were, as he remarked,--

'I never comprehended just why you went away from Seaforth.'

'For my education, I believe.'

'You were getting a very good education when I was there!'

'When _you_ were there,' repeated Esther, smiling; but then she went on quickly: 'Papa thought he could not give me all the advantages he wished, if we stayed in Seaforth. So we came to New York. And now, you see, I am able to provide for him. The education is turning to account.'

'How?' asked Pitt suddenly.

'I help out his small income by giving lessons.'

'_You_, giving lessons? Not that, Esther!'

'Why not?' she said quietly. 'The thing given one to do is the thing to do, you know; and this certainly was given me. And by means of that we get along nicely.'

Again Pitt's eye glanced over the scanty little apartment. What sort of 'getting along' was it which kept them here?

'What do you teach?' he asked, speaking out of a confusion of thoughts the one thing that occurred which it was safe to say.

'Drawing, and music, and some English branches.'

'Do you _like_ it?'

She hesitated. 'I am very thankful to have it to do. I do not fancy that teaching for money is just the same as teaching for pleasure. But I am very glad to be able to do it. Before that, there was a time when I did not know just what was going to become of us. Now I am very happy.'

Pitt could not at the moment speak all his thoughts. Moreover, there was something about Esther that perplexed him. She was so unmovedly quiet in her manner. It was kind, no doubt, and pleasant, and pleased; and yet, there was a smooth distance between him and her that troubled him. He did not know how to get rid of it. It was so smooth, there was nothing to take hold of; while it was so distant, or put her rather at such a distance, that all Pitt's newly aroused feelings were stimulated to the utmost, both by the charm and by the difficulty. How exquisite was this soft dignity and calm! but to the man who was longing to be permitted to clasp his arms round her it was somewhat aggravating.

'What has become of Christopher?' he asked after a pause.

'Oh, Christopher is happy!' said Esther, with a smile that was only too frank and free. Pitt wished she would have shown a little embarra.s.sment or consciousness. 'Christopher is happy. He has become a householder and a market-gardener, and, above all, a married man. Married a market-gardener's widow, and set up for himself.'

'What do you do without him?'

'Oh, we could not afford him now,' said Esther, with another smile. 'It was very good for us, almost as good for us as for him. Christopher has become a man of substance. We hire this house of him, or rather of his wife.'

'Are the two not one, then?'

Esther laughed. 'Yes,' she said; 'but you know, _which_ one it is depends on circ.u.mstances.'

And she went on to tell about her first meeting with the present Mrs.

Bounder, and of all the subsequent intercourse and long chain of kindnesses, to which Pitt listened eagerly though with a some what distracted mind. At the end of her story Esther rose.