Fenwick's Career Part 52

'I had to, John,' she pleaded. 'I had to.'

He said nothing, but he thrust his hand into the breast-pocket of his coat, and brought out the same large pocket-book which still held her last letter to him. He took out the letter, and offered it to her.

'Don't read it,' he said, peremptorily. 'Tear it up.'

She recognised it, with a sob, and, trembling, did as he bade her. He gathered up the small fragments of it, took them to the grate, and lit a match under them. Then he returned to her--still holding the open pocket-book.

'Give me your hand.'

She held it out to him, bewildered. He slowly drew off the ring, put it aside; then from the inmost fold of the pocket-book he took another ring, slipt it on her finger, and kissed the hand. After which he knelt down again beside her, and they clung to each other--close and long.

'I return it'--he murmured--'after twelve years! G.o.d bless you for Carrie. G.o.d bless you for coming back to me. We'll go to Italy. You shall do that for me. But I'll repay you--if I live. Now, are you happy? Why, we're young yet!'

And so they kissed; knowing well that the years are irreparable, and yet defying them; conscious, as first youth is never conscious, of the black forces which surround our being, and yet full of pa.s.sionate hope; aware of death, as youth is never aware of it, and yet determined to shape something out of life; sad and yet rejoicing, 'cast down, but not destroyed.'

EPILOGUE

Of Eugenie, still a few words remain to say. About a year after Fenwick's return she lost her father. A little later Elsie Welby died.

To the end of her life she had never willingly accepted Eugenie's service, and the memory of this, alack, is for Eugenie among the pains that endure. What influence it may have had upon her later course can hardly be discussed here. She continued to live in Westminster, and to be the friend of many. One friend was tacitly accepted by all who loved her as possessing a special place and special privileges.

Encouraged and inspired by her, Arthur Welby outlived the cold and academic manner of his later youth, and in the joy of richer powers, and the rewards of an unstained and pure affection, he recovered much that life seemed once to have denied him. Eugenie never married him.

In friendship, in ideas, in books, she found the pleasures of her way. Part of her life she spent--with yearning and humility--among the poor. But with them she never accomplished much. She was timid in their presence, and often unwise; neither side understood the other.

Her real sphere lay in what a great Oxford preacher once enforced at St. Mary's, as--'our duty to our equals'--the hardest of all. Her influence, her mission, were with her own cla.s.s; with the young girls just 'out,' who instinctively loved and clung to her; with the tired or troubled women of the world, who felt her presence as the pa.s.sage of something pure and kindling which evoked their better selves; and with those men, in whom the intellectual life wages its difficult war with temperament and circ.u.mstance, for whom beauty and truth are realities, and yet--great also is Diana of the Ephesians! Thus in her soft, glancing, woman's way, she stood with 'the helpers and friends of mankind.' But she never knew it. In her own opinion, few persons were so unprofitable as she; and but for her mystical belief, the years would have brought her melancholy. They left her smile, however, undimmed. For the mystic carries within a little flame of joy, very hard to quench. The wind of Death itself does but stir and strengthen it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Robin Ghyll Cottage_]