The Infidel: A Story of the Great Revival

by M. E. Braddon

  CHAPTER XVII.

  SWORD AND BIBLE.

  Lady Kilrush wrote to Lady Lanigan at the Circus, Bath, to inform herof her daughter-in-law's death. She had written some days before toacquaint that lady with poor Lucy's sad condition; but there had beenas yet no reply to the first letter, and there was no time to waitfor an answer to the second, so she made all arrangements for thefuneral, and chose Lucy's last resting-place in the rural churchyardat Mortlake, not very far from the cottage where she had first seenthe Methodist and his young wife. She was suffering from a chill and atouch of fever on the morning of the funeral, but bore up long enoughto see George Stobart's wife laid in earth, since there was no one elsebut the doctor and the nurse to perform that last office. She engagedthe old woman whom she had found on the premises to remain in the houseas caretaker, till Mr. Stobart's return.

  She had hardly strength to drag her aching limbs upstairs when hertask was over; and, as the evening wore on, her illness increased, andalthough she made light of her symptoms to Sophy, she could hardlydoubt their dire significance.

  She stood in front of her glass for some minutes before she took toher bed. Her head ached, and her throat was parched and swollen, butshe was in full beauty still. A hectic crimson burned on her cheeks,and her eyes were bright with fever. Her hair, dark as midnight, fellin natural curls over the marble whiteness of a throat and bust thathad been sung by a score of modish rhymesters, and declared to excelthe charms of every Venus in the Vatican. Would she ever see thatface again, she wondered, after she lay down on yonder bed? Would somestrange disfigured image look at her from that familiar glass--thelong cheval glass before which she had stood so often in her trivialmoods to study the set of a mantua, the hang of a petticoat, a dazzlingfigure in a splendour of gold and silver, and colour that mocked theglory of an autumn sunset, or for a whim, perhaps, in back velvet,sable from head to foot, a sombre background for her tiara and riviereof diamonds, and her famous pearl necklace.

  She burst into a wild laugh as she thought of those gems. Would sheever again wear pearls or diamonds on her neck? Disfigured--blind,perhaps, a creature upon whose hideous form fine clothes and flashingjewels would seem more appalling than a shroud!

  "Good-bye, beautiful Lady Kilrush," she said, making a low curtsey tothe figure in the glass; and then all grew dim, and she could onlytotter to the bell-pull and ring for help.

  Sophy came to her. The French maid had been banished after hermistress's first visit to Mrs. Stobart, Antonia having taken pains tolessen the risk of contagion for her household. Sophy had waited uponher, and had been her only means of communication with the servants.

  Dr. Heberden saw her next morning, and recognized the tokens of adisease not much less terrible than the plague. He was careful notto alarm the patient, but gave his instructions to Miss Potter, andpromised to send a capable nurse.

  "If I am going to be ill let me have the little Lambeth apothecary toattend me," Antonia said to the physician. "I have seen him by thesick-beds of the poor, and I know what a kind soul it is."

  "Let it be so, dear lady. He will make a good watch-dog. I shall seeyou every day till you are well."

  "That will not be for a long time, sir. I know what I have to expect,"she answered calmly. "But if I am likely to be hideous, for pity'ssake, don't try to save my life."

  "I protest, your ladyship takes alarm too soon. Your sickness may be nomore than a chill, with a touch of fever."

  "Oh, I know, I know," she answered, her eyes searching his countenance."You cannot deceive me, sir. I was prepared for this. I did not thinkit would come. I thought I was too strong. I hardly feared it; but Iknew it was possible. I did what I had to do without counting the cost."

  She was in a high fever, but still in her right senses. She lay in ahalf stupor for the rest of the day, and her nurses, a comfortablelooking middle-aged woman sent by Dr. Heberden, and Sophy Potter, hadnothing to do but watch her and give her a cooling drink from time totime.

  It was growing dusk, and Sophy and Mrs. Ball, the nurse, were takingtea in the dressing-room, when the door was opened and a lady appeared,struggling with a sheet steeped in vinegar that had been hung over thedoor by Mr. Morton's order. The intruder was Mrs. Granger, modishlydressed in a chintz silk tucked up over a black satin petticoat.

  "Drat your vinegar," she cried. "I'll wager my new silk is done for."

  "Oh, madam, you oughtn't to have come here," cried Sophy, starting upin a fright. "Her ladyship is taken with----"

  "Yes, I know. I've had it, Miss Potter--had it rather bad when I wasa child. You might have seen some marks on my forehead and chin ifyou'd ever looked close at me. I should have been marked much worse,and I should never have been Mrs. General Granger, if mother hadn'tsat by the bed and held my hands day and night to stop me doing myselfa mischief. And I'm going to keep watch over Antonia, and save herbeauty, if it's in human power to do it."

  "I am the nurse engaged for the case," said Mrs. Ball, rising from thetea-board with a stately air, "and your ladyship's services will not berequired."

  "That's for my ladyship to judge, not you. Lady Kilrush and me wasclose friends before we married; and I'm not going to leave her at themercy of any nurse in London, not if she was nurse to the Princess ofWales."

  "I think Dr. Heberden's favourite nurse may be trusted, madam," saidMrs. Ball, with growing indignation.

  Sophy had gone back to the sick-room.

  "I wonder her ladyship's hall porter should have let you come upstairs,madam, when he had positive orders to admit nobody," continued Mrs.Ball.

  "I didn't wait for his permission when I had got the truth out of him.Lions and tigers wouldn't have kept me from my friend, much less hirednurses and hall porters."

  She took off her hat and flung it on the sofa, and went into the nextroom with so resolute an air that Mrs. Ball could only stand staring ather.

  Antonia looked up as she approached the bed, and held out her hand toher.

  "Oh, Patty, how glad I am to see you. Your face always brings back myyouth. But no, no, no, don't come near me. Tell her, Sophy--tell her!Oh, what a racking headache."

  Her head fell back upon the pillow. It was impossible to hold it upwith that insufferable pain.

  Patty reminded her friend of the pock marks on her temple and chin, andthat she ran no risk in being with her; and from that moment till theperil was past, through a fortnight of keen anxiety, General Granger'swife remained at Antonia's bedside, watching over her with a devotionthat never wearied. It was useless for Mrs. Ball to protest, or forSophy Potter to show signs of jealousy.

  "I'm going to save her beautiful face for her," Patty declared. "Sheshan't get up from her sick-bed to find herself a fright. She's thehandsomest woman in London, and beauty like hers is worth fighting for."

  Dr. Heberden heard her, and approved. He had seen her clevermanagement, her tender care of Antonia, when the fever was raging, andthe delirious sufferer would have done herself mischief in an agonyof irritation. The famous doctor was vastly polite to this volunteernurse, and complimented her on her skill and courage.

  "As for my courage, sir, 'tis nothing to boast of," Patty answeredfrankly. "Poor as my face is, I wouldn't have risked spoiling it, andshouldn't be here if I had not had the distemper when I was a child."

  * * * * *

  Lady Kilrush passed safely through the malady that had been fatal toLucy Stobart; but her convalescence was very slow, and she suffereda depression of spirits from which neither her devoted Sophy Potternor her lively friend Patty could rouse her. She came back to lifeunwillingly, and felt as if she had nothing to live for.

  On the very first day that she was able to leave her bed for an hour ortwo, Patty led her to the great cheval glass.

  "There!" she cried, "look at yourself as close as you please. You arenot pitted as much as I am even. Why, Lord bless the woman! Aren't youpleased with yourself, Tonia? You stare as if you saw a ghost."

  "'Tis a g
host I am looking at, Patty, the ghost of my old self. Oh,you have been an angel of goodness, dear; and it is a mercy not to beloathsome; but the past is past, and I shall never be the beautifulLady Kilrush again. I hope I was not too proud of my kingdom while Ihad it. 'Tis gone from me for ever."

  "Why, you simpleton! All this fuss because you are hollow-cheeked andpale--and your beautiful hair has been cut off."

  "A wreck, Patty! A haggard ghost! Don't think I am going to weep forthe loss of a complexion. I had grown tired of the world before I fellill. It will give me little pain to leave it altogether--only there isnothing else--nothing left but to sit by the fire with a book, and waitfor the slow years to roll by. And the years are so slow. It seems acentury since I came into this house for the first time, and found theman I loved lying on his death-bed."

  "Oh, how foolish this sadness is! If I was a peeress, with such jewelsas yours, a young widow, my own mistress, free to do what I liked forthe rest of my days, or to pick and choose a new tyrant if I liked--Ishould jump for joy. You will be as handsome as ever you was after sixweeks at the Wells. And you ought to marry a duke, like your friendMiss Gunning that was, who would never have been thought your equal forlooks if there had not been two of her."

  "Dear Patty, I have done with vanities. But never doubt my gratitudefor the kindness that saved me from being a hideous spectacle."

  "Nay, 'tis but the lion and the mouse over again. You took me in handand made a lady of me, and how could I do less than jump at the firstchance of making a return? I used to be a little bit envious of yourhandsome face once, Tonia, when you used to come to my lodgings in thepiazza, in your shabby clothes, so careless and so lovely."

  * * * * *

  Lady Kilrush would see no one after her illness, putting off allvisitors with polite little notes of apology, protesting that she wasnot yet in health to receive visits, and must defer the pleasures offriendship till she was stronger. On this the rumour went about thatthe disease had disfigured her beyond recognition, and all the enviouswomen of her acquaintance were loud in their compassion.

  "'Tis vastly sad to think she is too ugly to let anybody see her," saidone. "I'm told she wears a thick veil even in her own house, for fearof frightening her footmen."

  "They say she offered a thousand pounds to any one who would invent awash that would hide the spots," said another.

  "Spots, my dear! 'Tis vastly fine to talk of spots. The poor wretch hasholes in her face as deep as your thimble."

  "And is as blind as Samson Agonistes," said a fourth.

  "And oh, dear, we are all so sorry for her," said the chorus, withsighs and uplifted hands; and then the fiddles began a country dance,and everybody was curtseying and simpering and setting to partners,down the long perspective of fine clothes and powdered heads, and LadyKilrush was forgotten.

  Not by Lord Dunkeld, who started post-haste for London directly heheard of her illness, and being informed that she was out of danger,and sitting up in her dressing-room every afternoon, pleaded hard to beadmitted, but was resolutely refused.

  Sophy wrote to him at her mistress's dictation, assuring him of herlady's unchanging esteem, but adding that she was too much out ofspirits to see even her most valued friends.

  "Most valued! I wonder what value she sets upon me?" questionedDunkeld, cruelly disappointed. "'Tis the parson-soldier, or thesoldier-parson she values. Perhaps the loss of her beauty moves hermost because she will be less fair in his eyes. I doubt that it isalways of one man only that a woman thinks, when she rejoices in herbeauty. It is for _his_ sake; to please _his_ eye! The fellow may bea Caliban, perhaps, and yet he is the shrine at which she offers hercharms."

  He tried to picture that glorious beauty changed to ugliness, triedand could not; for he could not banish her image as he had seen her inItaly. Her beauty sparkled and shone before him; and imagination couldnot conjure up the tragic transformation.

  "There is no change that could lessen my love," he thought. "She hasgrown into my heart, and is a part of my life. I may be appalled whenI see her, may suffer tortures at a sight so piteous; but she will bedearer to me in her ruined beauty than the handsomest woman in London."

  He thought of one of the handsomest, the exquisite Lady Coventry, theyounger of the Gunning sisters, whose brief reign was hastening towardsits melancholy close: a butterfly creature, inferior to Antonia in allmental qualities, but with much grace and sparkle, and an Irishwoman'shigh spirits. The Ring in Hyde Park, the Rotunda at Ranelagh, the OperaHouse and the Pantheon, would be poorer for the loss of that brilliantfigure.

  "And if Antonia appears there no more 'twill be two stars dropped outof our firmament," thought Dunkeld.

  * * * * *

  It was in vain that Patty urged her friend to try the waters of Bath orBristol, as Dr. Heberden had advised, seeing that his patient was slowto recover her strength. Antonia refused to leave St. James's Square.

  "If I went to drink the waters I should have a host of trivialacquaintances buzzing round me," she told Patty. "And I have taken ahatred of all company, but yours and Sophy's. Indeed, I think I hatethe world. Here I am as safe as in a prison; for my fine friends willthink the house infected, and will be afraid to trust their beauty init."

  "Sure there has been pains enough taken to drive away the contagion,"said Sophy, who had suffered some inconvenience from the stringentmeasures Lady Kilrush had insisted upon after her recovery.

  "But my friends do not know that, and till they forget my illness thishouse is my castle."

  Mrs. Granger dropped in at teatime two or three times a week, andbrought the gossip of the town, and exercised all her wit to enlivenher friend; but Antonia seemed sunk in a hopeless languor andmelancholy, and only affected an interest in the outside world toplease her visitor.

  "I'll swear you are not listening, and have scarce heard a word of it,"Patty would exclaim, stopping midway in her account of the last eventthat had startled the town. A rich old Mrs. Somebody who was going tomarry a boy; or a high-born Iphigenia sacrificed to an octogenarianbridegroom.

  Antonia had left off caring what people did, or what became of them.

  Even the doings of her duchesses had ceased to interest. They hadsent affectionate notes and messages, and she had responded civilly.The Duke of Cumberland had sent an equerry with his card, and tenderinquiries. The Princess had sent one of her ladies. And all thatAntonia desired in her present mood was to be forgotten. She wasglad that Lady Margaret Laroche, whom she liked best of all of herfashionable friends, was spending the winter in Paris; since she couldhardly have denied herself where she was under so many obligations.

  She read the papers every day, wondering whether she would ever comeupon George Stobart's name in the news from America; but the name hadnot appeared, nor had Mr. Stobart been heard of at his own house at thebeginning of the year, when she sent a servant to inquire of the womanin charge there. It was a bitter cold winter; but London was full ofmovement and gaiety while Antonia sat alone in the library at the backof the great solemn house, where the shutting of one of the massivedoors reverberated from cellar to roof-tree in the silence. Neverhad there been a gayer season. It seemed as if the noise of all thecrackers and squibs that had been burnt after the news from Quebec wasstill in the air. The cold weather killed a good many old people, andthere were the usual number of putrid sore throats and typhus fevers inthe fine West End mansions; but the herd went on their way rejoicingand illuminating, and praising God for the triumph of English armson land and sea, since the victories of the great year '59 were beingbriskly followed up in the year that had just begun--the thirty-thirdof his Majesty's illustrious reign. His Majesty was waxing old andfeeble, and the hero of Dettingen was soon to follow that other oldlion in the Tower; and most people's eyes were turned to the mildeffulgence of the rising star, the young Prince of Wales, or to thePrince's mother, and his guardian, my Lord Bute, who might be supposedto direct that youthful mind. Soon
, very soon, the great bell would betolling, the muffled drums beating, and the pomp of a royal funeralwould fill the night with torches and solemn music.

  * * * * *

  That bitter winter was over, and the river was running gaily underApril skies, when George Stobart came up the Thames to the Pool ofLondon. What an insignificant river it seemed after the St. Lawrence!what a poor little flat world lay all around him, as his eyes lookedout upon his native land--melancholy eyes, that found no joy inanything, no pleasure in that aspect of familiar scenes which delightsmost wanderers in their home-coming. Duty brought him home, whileinclination would have kept him in Georgia, whither he had made his wayby a difficult and perilous journey, from the snow-fields and frozenrivers of Canada to the orange groves and sunny sea of the South,after a weary time in the hospital at Quebec. There had been muchfor him to see in the little colony established by the philanthropicOglethorpe five-and-twenty years before, a refuge and a home for poordebtors from the English prisons. He had preached several times inone of the school-rooms at Savannah; and the fire and fervour of hisexhortations had won him a numerous following, black and white. He hadgone among Whitefield's slaves; but although he found them for the mostpart well-used and contented, he loathed a condition which Whitefieldjustified, and against which Wesley had never lifted up his voice. ToStobart this buying and selling of humanity was intolerable. True thatin these pious communities the African was better off than many a slaveof toil in Spitalfields or Whitechapel; but he lived under the fear ofthe lash, and he knew not when it might suit his owner's convenienceto sell him into a worse bondage.

  It was with a willing heart that the soldier-priest laid down the swordand took up the Bible. In his hours of despair, in all the longing andregret of a hopeless love, his faith had remained unshaken. There wasstill the terror, and there was still the hope: the fear of everlastingcondemnation, the hope of life eternal. Among the ignorant throng whomthe great evangelist awakened to a sense of sin and a yearning forpardon, there were numerous backsliders; but the men of education andenlightenment who followed John Wesley seldom fell away. To them thethings unseen, the promise and the hope, were more real than the bustleand strife of the world that hemmed them round. They walked the streetsof the city with their eyes looking afar off, their thoughts full ofthat heavenly kingdom where life would put on a loveliness unthinkablehere below. Sickening at the horrors of a world in which there weresuch things as the gallows at Tyburn, with its batch of victims tenor a dozen at a time--men, women, boys and girls, children almost;the Fleet prison; Bedlam, with its manacles and scourges, and Sundaypromenades for the idle curious; Bridewell, Newgate. Sickening at sucha world as this, the Methodist turned his ecstatic gaze towards thatKingdom of Christ the Lord, where there should be no more tears, nomore war, no more oppression, no more grinding poverty or foul disease,and where all the redeemed should be equals in one brotherhood ofheavenly love.

  George Stobart went back to his mission work as faithful a believer asin the day of his conversion. He had not been an idle servant while hewas with his regiment. He had preached the gospel wherever he couldfind hearers, had been instant in season and out of season; but hispersistence had not been of a noisy kind, and although his superiorofficers were disposed to docket him as a religious monomaniac, afterthe manner of Methodists, they had never found him troublesome orinsubordinate.

  "Mr. Stobart is a gentleman," said the major. "And if expounding theScriptures to a parcel of unbelieving rascals can console him forshort rations, and keep him warm in a temperature ten degrees belowzero--why, who the deuce would deny him that luxury? If he's a saintat his prayers, he's a devil in a _melee_; and he saved my scalp fromthe redskins when we were fighting in the dark in the marshes beforeLouisburg."

  Stobart landed at the docks, had his luggage put on a hackney coach,and drove to his house at Lambeth, without a shadow of doubt that hewould find all things as he had left them more than two years ago.Lucy's last letter had been written in a cheerful spirit. She waselated at Georgie's good luck in pleasing his grandmamma, and sheprophesied that he would inherit Lady Lanigan's fortune and becomea person of importance. Her father's drunken habits and persecutingvisits were her only trouble. Her health was good, and her lastmaidservant was the best she had found since she began housekeeping.True that this letter had been written more than half a year ago; butthe idea of change or misfortune in the quiet life at home hardlyentered into the mind of the man who had so lately passed through allthe perils of the siege of Quebec, from the first disastrous attackon the heights of the Montmorenci to the daring escalade and thebattle on the Plains of Abraham, to say nothing of minor dangers andadventures which had made his life of the last two years a series ofhairbreadth escapes. He counted on his wife's smiling welcome; and inthe tediousness of the voyage he had been schooling himself to his dutyas a husband, to give love for love with liberal measure, to make hiswife's future years happy.

  "Poor Wesley's only mistake in life is to have made an unfortunatemarriage, and not to be able to make the best of a bad bargain," hethought. "But my Lucy is no such termagant as Mrs. John; and I mustbe a wretch if I cannot live contentedly with her. She was fair, andgentle, and loving; and I chose her for the companion of my life. Imust stand by my choice."

  In long, wakeful nights, when the ship was rolling in a stormy sea,he had ample leisure to travel again and again over the same ground,to make the same resolutions, to repeat the same prayers for strengthwithin and guidance from above.

  There was one name he never breathed to himself, one face he tried toshut out of his memory; but such names and such faces have the sleeperat their mercy; and his dreams were often haunted by an image that hiswaking thoughts ever strove to banish.

  The spring afternoon was grey and cheerless; a fine rain was falling;and the narrow streets, muddy gutters, and smoky atmosphere of Londonwere not attractive after the clear air and bright white light ofGeorgia.

  He felt in worse spirits than before he left the ship--his prison ofnear six weeks--and the journey seemed interminable; but the coachrolled over Westminster Bridge at last, and drew up in front of hishouse. The outside shutters were closed over the parlour windows,though it was only five o'clock and broad daylight. Lucy must beaway from home; with his mother, perhaps, who, having melted to thegrandson, might have made a further concession and extended herkindness to the daughter-in-law--her meek _protegee_ of days goneby. The suggestion seemed reasonable; but the aspect of those closedshutters chilled him.

  He knocked loudly at first; and knocked a second time before the doorwas opened by a decent old woman in clean white cap and apron.

  "Is your mistress away from home?"

  The explanation was slow, disjointed, on the woman's part. Hisquestioning was quick, impassioned, horror-stricken; but the storywas told at last, the woman sparing him no ghastly particulars: thepatient's sufferings; the disfiguring malady which had afterwardsseized Lady Kilrush, who had come through it worse than Mrs. Stobart,and was said to be a terrible "objick." Poor Lady Kilrush! who hadbeen so kind, and had visited Mrs. Stobart at the risk of her life,although the doctors had warned her of her danger times and often. Andnow she was shut up in her house and would see no one, not even her ownservants, without the black velvet mask which she wore day and night.

  Stobart had gone into the parlour while they were talking. The grey daycame in through the holes in the shutters, and made a twilight in thefamiliar room. Everything was the same as when his wife used to dustand polish the furniture with indefatigable care, and place every chairand table with a prim correctness of line that had often irritatedhim. There was the bureau at which he used to write; and the littlePembroke table was in its own place between the windows, with the bigBible laid upon a patchwork mat.

  And she for whom he had made the home was lying yonder in Mortlakechurchyard, the place of rustic graves through which he had passed sooften, crossing the meadows between Sheen and the church, on his way toth
e river. She was gone! and all his schemes for making her life happy,all his remorseful thoughts of her, had been in vain. She was gone! Hislast irrevocable act had been an act of unkindness. He had left her todie alone.

  For his sins against God he might atone, and might feel the assuranceof pardon; but for his sin against this weak mortal who had loved him,and whom he had sworn to cherish, there was no possibility of atonement.

  "Not to _her_, not to _her_," he thought. "I may repent in sackclothand ashes--I may rip the flesh from my bones with the penitent'sscourge, like Henry Plantagenet. But could he make amends to the martyrBecket? Can I make amends to her? 'O God! O God! that it were possibleto undo things done; to call back yesterday!'" he thought, recalling apassage in an old play that had burnt itself into his brain, by many apang of regret for acts ill done or duties neglected.

  He wandered from room to room in the familiar house which seemed sostrange in its blank emptiness, looking at everything with broodinggaze--the parlour where he had spent so many solitary hours in studyand in prayer. His books were on the shelves as he had left them--theold Puritan writers he loved--Baxter, Charnock, Howe, Bunyan. He hadtaken only three books on his voyage: his Bible, a pocket Milton,and Charles Wesley's Hymns. His study looked as if he had left ityesterday. The trees and shrubs were budding in the long slip ofgarden, where he had paced the narrow pathway so often in troubledthought.

  He went upstairs, and stood beside the bed where his wife hadlain in her last sleep. The curtains had been stripped from thetent-bedstead, the carpet taken up, and every scrap of drapery removedfrom the windows when the house was disinfected. The room lookedpoverty-stricken and grim.

  The caretaker followed him from room to room, praising herself for thecleanliness of the house, and keeping up a continuous stream of talkto which he gave the scantiest attention. In the bedchamber she wasreminded of Lady Kilrush and her goodness, and began to dilate uponthat theme.

  Was there ever such a noble lady? She had thought of everything. Hemight make himself quite happy about his poor dear lady. Never had apatient been better nursed. Her ladyship never missed a day, and sawwith her own eyes that everything was being done. And she was with hislady a long time on that last day when the fever left her and she wasable to talk sensibly. And his lady was quite happy at the last--oh,so happy! And the old woman clasped her hands in a kind of ecstasy."Quite blind," she said, "and with a handkerchief bound over her pooreyes--but oh, so happy!"

  * * * * *

  He left the house, heavy-hearted, and walked across the bridge and byWhitehall to St. James's Square. He could not exist in uncertaintyabout Antonia's fate. He must discover if there were any truth in whatthe woman had told him, if that resplendent beauty, Nature's choicestdower given to one woman among thousands, had indeed been sacrificed.So great a sacrifice made by an Infidel! a woman who had no hope in aneverlasting reward for the renunciation of happiness here. He recalledthe exquisite face that had lured him to sin, and pictured it scarredand blemished--as he had seen so many faces,--changed by that fataldisease which leaves ruin where it spares life. He shuddered andsickened at the vision his imagination evoked. Would he honour herless, adore her less, so disfigured? He had told himself sometimes inhis guilty reveries, when Satan had got the better of him, that hewould love her if she were a leper; that it was the soul, the noble,the daring, the generous nature of the woman that he idolized; that hewas scarcely a sinner for loving the most perfect creature God had evermade.

  If she hid her blemished face from the world, would she consent to seehim? Or would he find his sin still unpardoned? Would she hold him ata distance for ever because of one fatal hour in his life? She couldscarcely forget their last parting, when she had prayed never to lookupon his face again; but time might have mitigated her wrath, and shemight have forgiven him.

  Her ladyship saw no visitors, the porter told him, and was about toshut the door in his face; but Mr. Stobart pushed his way in, andscribbled a note at a writing-table in the hall.

  "Pray be so kind as to see me. I want to thank you for your goodness tomy wife. I landed in London two hours ago on my arrival from America."

  He walked up and down the hall while a footman carried the note to hismistress. His heart beat heavily, tortured with the anticipation ofhorror; to look upon the altered face; to have to tell himself that_this_ was Antonia.

  The man came back, solemn and slow, in his rich livery and powderedhead. Her ladyship would see Mr. Stobart.

  She was sitting in a large armchair by the fire, her face showing dimlyin the twilight. He could distinguish nothing but her pallor and thedifference in the style of her hair. The flowing curls that he hadadmired were gone. He felt thankful for the darkness which spared himthe immediate sight of her changed aspect.

  "I am glad you are back in England, Mr. Stobart, and have escaped theperils of that dreadful war," she said, in a low, grave voice. "But youhave had a sorrowful welcome home."

  "Yes, it was a heavy blow."

  "I hope you had received Lady Lanigan's letter, and that the blow wassoftened by foreknowledge."

  "No, I had no letter; I came home expecting to find all things as Ileft them. My mind was full of schemes for making my wife happierthan I had made her in the past. But I doubt sins of omission areirrevocable. A man may sometimes undo what he has done, but he cannotmake amends for what he has left undone."

  There was a silence. The shadows deepened. The wood fire burnt low andgave no light.

  "I have no words to thank you for your goodness to my wife," he said."That you should go to her in her loneliness, that you should so braveall perils, be so compassionate, so self-sacrificing! What can I sayto you? There is nothing nobler in the lives of the saints. There wasnever Christian living more worthy to be called Christ's disciple."

  "Oh, sir, there needed no Gospel light to show me so plain a course.Your wife was alone, while you were fighting for your country. Ipromised years ago to be her friend. Could there be any question as tomy duty?"

  "'Twill need all my future life to prove my gratitude."

  "You have left the army?"

  "Yes. I resigned my commission after Quebec."

  "You were at the taking of Quebec, then? I thought you were withAmherst when he recovered Ticonderoga."

  "So I was, madam. But after we took the fort I was entrusted to carrya letter for General Wolfe conveying General Amherst's plans. 'Twas adifficult journey, by a circuitous route, and I was more than a monthon the way; but I was in time to be in the escalade and the battle.It was glorious--a glorious tragedy. England and France lost two ofthe finest leaders that ever soldier followed--Montcalm and Wolfe.Alas! shall I ever forget James Wolfe's spectral face in the grey ofthat fatal morning? He was fitter to be lying on a sick-bed than to becommanding an army. He looked a ghost, and fought like the god of war."

  "Shall you go back to your work with Mr. Wesley?"

  "If he will have me--and, indeed, I think he will, for he needshelpers. 'Tis in his army--the evangelical army--I shall fighthenceforward. I stand alone in the world now, for my son's welfarecould scarce be better assured than with his grandmother, who offersto provide his education, and is likely to make him her heir. Myexperience in Georgia renewed my self-confidence, and I doubt I may yetbe of some use to my fellow-creatures."

  "You could scarce fail in that," she answered gently. "I remember howthose poor wretches at Lambeth loved you."

  Her voice was unaltered. It had all that grave music he remembered ofold, when she spoke of serious things. It soothed him to sit in thedarkness and hear her talk, and he dreaded the coming of light thatwould break the spell.

  Did he love her as he had loved her before those slow years ofseverance? Yes. Her lightest word thrilled him. He thought of thechange in her with unspeakable dread; but he knew that it would notchange his heart. Lovely or unlovely she would still be Antonia, thewoman he adored. A footman came in to light the candles.

  "This half darkness i
s very pleasant, madam," Stobart said hurriedly."Do you desire more light?"

  "I am expecting a friend to take tea with me, and I can hardly receiveher in the dark. You may light the candles, Robert."

  There were six candles in each of two bronze candelabra on themantelpiece, and two more in tall silver candlesticks on thewriting-table. Stobart sat looking down at the fading embers, and didnot lift his eyes till the servant had left the room. Then, as thedoor shut, he looked up and saw Antonia watching him in the brightcandlelight.

  He gave a sudden cry, in uncontrollable emotion, and burst into tears."You--you are not changed!" he cried, as soon as he could control hisspeech. "Oh, madam, I beseech you not to despise me for these unmanlytears! but--but I was told----"

  "You were told that the disease had used me very cruelly; that I shouldbe better dead than such a horrid spectacle," she said. "I know thathas been the talk of the town--and I let them talk. I have done withthe town."

  "Thank God!" he exclaimed, starting up from his chair and walking aboutthe room in a tumult of emotion. "Thank God, it was a lie that oldwoman told me. It would have broken my heart to know that your divinecharity had cost you the loss of your beauty."

  His eyes shone with wonder and delight as he looked at her. She wasgreatly changed, but in his sight not less lovely. Her bloom was gone.She could no longer dazzle the mob in Hyde Park by her vivid beauty.She was very pale, and her cheeks were hollow and thin. Her eyes lookedunnaturally large, and her hair, once so luxuriant, was clustered inshort curls under a little lace cap.

  "Oh, so far as that goes, sir, I renounce any claim I ever had to rankamong beauties," she said, amused at his surprise. "Through the devotedcare of a friend I was spared the worst kind of disfigurement; but as Ihave lost my complexion, my figure, and my hair, I can no longer hopeto take any place among the Waldegraves and Hamiltons. And I have donewith the great world and its vanities."

  "Then you will give yourself to that better world--the world of thetrue believer; you will be among the saved?"

  "Alas, sir, I am no nearer the heavenly kingdom than I was before Isickened of the earthly one. I am very tired of the pomps and vanities,but I cannot entertain the hope of finding an alternative pleasurein sermons and long prayers, or the pious company Lady Huntingdonassembles every Thursday evening."

  "If you have renounced the world of pleasure--the rest will follow."

  "You think a woman must live in some kind of fever? I own that LadyFanny Shirley seems always as busy and full of engagements as if shewere at the top of the _ton_. She flies from one end of London to theother to hear a new preacher, and makes more fuss about the opening ofsome poor little chapel in the suburbs, than the Duchess of Buccleuchmakes about an _al fresco_ ball that costs thousands. There is thechairman's knock. Perhaps you will scarce care to meet my livelyfriend, Mrs. Granger, in your sad circumstances."

  "Not for the world. Adieu, madam. I shall go to Mortlake to-morrow tolook at my poor Lucy's resting-place, and shall start the next day forBath to see my son; and thence to Bristol, where I hope to find Mr.Wesley."

  He bent down to kiss her hand, so thin and so alabaster white, and saidin a low voice, with his head still bent--

  "Dare I hope that my madness of the past is pardoned?"

  "The past is past," she answered coldly. "The world has changed forboth of us. Adieu."

  He left her, passing Mrs. Granger in the hall.

  "You have admitted a sneaking Methodist," cried Patty, "after denyingyourself to all the people of fashion in London."

  * * * * *

  Mr. Wesley received the returning prodigal with kindness. In that vastenterprise of one who said "My parish is the world," loyal adherentswere of unspeakable value. The few churchmen who served under hisbanner were but a sprinkling compared with his lay itinerants; andStobart was among the best of these. He was too manly a man to thinkthe worse of his helper for having changed gown for sword during atroubled interval of his life; for he divined that Stobart must havebeen in some bitter strait before he went back to the soldier's trade.

  He listened with interest to Stobart's American adventures, andcongratulated him upon having been with Wolfe at Quebec.

  "'Twas a glorious victory," he said; "but I doubt the French may yetprove too strong for us in Canada, and that we are still far from apeaceful settlement."

  "They are strong in numbers, sir, but weak in leaders. Levis is a poorsubstitute for Montcalm, and, if the Governor Vaudreuil harasses himand ties his hands, as he harassed the late marquis, whom he hated, hiswork will be difficult. I should not have left the regiment while therewas a chance of more fighting, if I had not been disabled by my wounds."

  "You were badly wounded?"

  "I had a bullet through my ribs that looked like making an end of me;and I walk lame still from a ball in my left hip. I spent eight weeksin the general hospital at Quebec, where the nuns tended me with anangelic kindness; and I was still but a feeble specimen of humanitywhen I set out on the journey to Georgia, through a country beset byIndians."

  "I honour those good women for their charity, Stobart; but I hope youdid not let them instil their pernicious doctrine into your mind whileit was enfeebled by sickness."

  "No, sir. Yet there was one pious enthusiast whom I could not silence;and be not offended if I say that her fervent discourse about spiritualthings reminded me of your own teaching."

  "Surely that's not possible!"

  "Extremes meet, sir; and, I doubt, had you not been a high-churchMethodist you would have been a Roman Catholic of the most exaltedtype."

  * * * * *

  Stobart accompanied Mr. Wesley from Bristol to St. Ives, then backto Bristol by a different route, taking the south coast of Cornwalland Devonshire. From Bristol they crossed to Ireland; and returnedby Milford Haven through Wales to London, a tour that lasted till thefirst days of October.

  Wesley was then fifty-seven years of age, in the zenith of his renownas the founder of a sect that had spread itself abroad with amazingpower since the day when a handful of young men at Oxford, poor,obscure, unpretending, had met together in each other's rooms to prayand expound the Scriptures, and by their orderly habits, and the methodwith which they conducted all their spiritual exercises, had won forthemselves the name of "methodists." From those quiet rooms at Oxfordhad arisen a power that had shaken the Church of England, and whichmight have reinforced and strengthened that Church with an infiniteaccess of vigour, enthusiasm, and piety, had English churchmen sowilled. But the Methodists had been driven from the fold and cast upontheir own resources. They were shut out of the churches; but, as one ofthe society protested, the fields were open to them, and they had thehills for their pulpit, the heavens for their sounding board.

  George Stobart flung himself heart and soul into his work as anitinerant preacher, riding through the country with Mr. Wesley,preaching at any of the smaller towns and outlying villages towhich his leader sent him, and confronting the malice of "baptizedbarbarians" with a courage as imperturbable as Wesley's. To be welcomedwith pious enthusiasm, or to be assailed with the vilest abuse, seemeda matter of indifference to the Methodist itinerants. Their missionwas to carry the tidings of salvation to the lost sheep of Israel; andmore or less of ill usage suffered on their way counted for little inthe sum of their lives. 'Twas a miracle, considering the violence ofthe mob and the inefficiency of rustic constables, that not one ofthese enthusiasts lost his life at the hands of enemies scarce lessferocious than the Indians on the banks of the Monongahela. But inthose savage scenes it seemed ever as if a special providence guardedJohn Wesley and his followers. Many and many a time the rabble routseemed possessed by Moloch, and the storm of stones and clods flew fastaround the preacher's head; and again and again he passed unharmed outof the demoniac herd. Missiles often glanced aside and wounded theenemy, for the aim of blind hate was seldom true; and if Wesley did notescape injury on every occasion, his wounds were never se
rious enoughto drive him from the stand he had taken by the market cross or in thechurchyard, in outhouse or street, on common or hillside. He mightfinish his discourse while a stream of blood trickled down his face, orthe arm that he would fain have raised in exhortation hung powerlessfrom a blow; but in none of his wanderings had he been silenced oracknowledged defeat.

  It was John Wesley's privilege, or his misfortune, at this time tostand alone in the world, unfettered by any tie that could hamper himin his life's labour. He was childless; and hard fate had given him awife so uncongenial, so tormenting in her causeless jealousy and pettytyranny, that 'twas but an act of self-defence to leave her. In theearlier years of their marriage she accompanied him on his journeys;but as she quarrelled with his sister-in-law, Charles Wesley'samiable helpmeet, and insulted every woman he called his friend,her companionship must have been a thorn in the flesh rather than ablessing. His brother Charles--once the other half of his soul--was nowestranged. Their opinions differed upon many points, and John, as thebolder spirit, had gone far beyond the order-loving and placable poet,who deemed no misfortune so terrible for the Methodists as to standoutside the pale of the Church, albeit they might be strong enough intheir own unaided power to gather half the Protestant world withintheir fold. Charles thought of himself and his brother Methodists onlyas more fervent members of the Church of England, never as the foundersof an independent establishment, primitive in the simplicity of itsdoctrine and observances, modern in its fitness to the needs of modernlife.

  John Wesley was now almost at the height of his power, and strongenough in the number of his followers, and in their profound affectionfor his person, to laugh at insult, and to defy even so formidable anassailant as Dr. Lavington, Bishop of Exeter, with whom he was carryingon a pamphlet war.

  George Stobart loved the man and honoured the teacher. It was apleasure to him to share the rough and smooth of Wesley's pilgrimage,to ride a sorry jade, even, for the privilege of riding at the side ofone of the worst and boldest horsemen in England, who was not unlikelyto come by a bad fall before the end of his journey. In those longstages there was ample leisure for the two friends to share theirburden of sorrows and perplexities, and for heart to converse withheart.

  Wesley was too profound a student of his fellow men not to havefathomed George Stobart's mind in past years, when Antonia's loverwas himself but half conscious of the passion that enslaved him; and,remembering this, he was careful not to say too much of the young wifewho was gone, or the love-match which had ended so sadly. He knew thatin heart, at least, Stobart had been unfaithful to that sacred tie;but although he deplored the sin he could not withhold his compassionfrom the sinner. The Methodist leader had been singularly unlucky inaffairs of the heart, from the day when at Savannah he allowed himselfto be persuaded out of an engagement with a girl he loved, to the hourwhen he took a Zantippe for his spouse; and it may be that his ownunfortunate marriage, and the memory of Grace Murray, that other womanonce so dearly loved and once his plighted wife, made him better ableto sympathise with the victim of a misplaced affection.

  It was after Stobart had been working with him all through the summerand autumn, and when that eventful year of 1760 was waning, that Wesleyfor the first time spoke of Antonia.

  "Your kinswoman Lady Kilrush?" he inquired. "What has become of so muchbeauty and fashion? I have not seen the lady's name in the eveningpapers for an age."

  "Lady Kilrush has withdrawn herself from society. She has discoveredhow poor a thing a life of pleasure is when the bloom of novelty is offit."

  "Aye, aye. Fashion's child has cut open the top of her drum and foundnothing but emptiness in the toy. Did I not hear, by-the-bye, when Iwas last in London, that the poor lady had come through an attack ofconfluent smallpox with the loss of her beauty? If it be so, I hopeshe may awaken to the expectation of a kingdom where all faces arebeautiful in the light that shines around the throne of God."

  "No, sir, her ladyship has lost but little of her beauty. And it is notbecause she can no longer excel there that she has left the world offashion."

  And then Stobart took courage for the first time to speak freely of thewoman he loved, and told Mr. Wesley the story of his wife's death-bedand Antonia's devotion. But when questioned as to the lady's spiritualstate, he had to confess that her opinions had undergone no change.

  "And can this presumptuous worm still deny her Maker? Can this heartwhich melts at a sister's distress remain adamant against Christ? It isa mystery! I know that the man atheist is common enough--an arrogantwretch, like David Hume, who thinks himself wiser than God who madethe universe. But can a woman, a being that should be all softness andhumility, set up her shallow reason against the light of nature andrevelation, the light that comes to the savage in the wilderness andtells him there is an avenging God; the light that shows the child, assoon as he can think, that there is something better and higher thanthe erring mortals he knows, somewhere a world more beautiful than thegarden where he plays? Stobart, I grieve that there should be such awoman, and that you should be her friend."

  "The fabric of our friendship was torn asunder before I went toAmerica, sir. I doubt if the ravelled edges will ever meet again."

  "And you heave a sigh as you say it! You regret the loss of afriendship that might have shipwrecked your immortal soul."

  "Oh, sir, why must my soul be the forfeit? Might it not be my happinessto save hers?"

  "You were her friend and companion for years. Did you bring her nearerGod?"

  "Alas, no!"

  "Abjure her company then for ever. I warned you of your peril whenyou had a wife, when I feared your spirit hovered on the brink ofhell--for remember, Stobart, there is no such height of holiness asit is impossible to fall from. I adjured you to renounce that woman'scompany as you would avoid companionship with Satan. I warn you evenmore solemnly to-day; for at that time it was a sin to love her, andyour conscience might have been your safeguard. You are a free man now;and you may account it no sin to love an infidel."

  "Is it a sin, sir, even when that love goes hand in hand with thedesire to bring her into Christ's fold?"

  "It is a sin, George. It is the way to everlasting perdition, it is thechoice of evil instead of good, Lucifer instead of Christ. Do you knowwhat would happen if you were to marry this woman?"

  "You would cease to be my friend, perhaps?"

  "No, my son. I could not cease to love you and to pity you; but youcould be no more my fellow worker. This pleasant communion in work andhope would be at an end for ever. At our last Conference we resolvedto expel any member of our society who should marry an unbeliever. Wehave all seen the evil of such unions, the confusion worse confoundedwhen the cloven foot crosses the threshold of a Christian's home, theuselessness of a Teacher whose heart is divided between fidelity toChrist and affection for a wicked wife. We resolved that no member ofour society must marry without first taking counsel with some of ourmost serious members, and being governed by their advice."

  "Oh, sir, this is tyranny!"

  "It is the upshot of long experience. He who is not with me is againstme. We can have no half-hearted helpers. You must choose whom you willserve, George: Christ or Satan."

  "Ah, sir, my fortitude will not be put to the test. The lady for whomI would lay down my life looks upon me with a chilling disdain. 'Tishalf a year since I forced myself upon her presence to acknowledge hergoodness to my wife; and in all that time she has given me no sign thatshe remembers my existence."

  "Shun her, my friend; walk not in the way of sinners; and thank God onyour knees that your Delilah scorns you."

  George Stobart spent many a bitter hour after that conversation withhis leader. To be forbidden to think of the woman he worshipped now,when no moral law came between him and her love, when from theworldling's standpoint it was the most natural thing that he should tryto win her; he, who for her sake had been disinherited, and who had byhis life of self-denial proved himself above all mercenary views. Whyshould he not pursue h
er, with a love so sincere and so ardent thatit might prevail even over indifference, might conquer disdain? Therewas not a man in his late regiment, not a man in the London clubs, whowould not laugh him to scorn for letting spiritual things stand betweenhim and that earthly bliss. And yet for him who had taken up the Crossof Christ, who had given his best years and all the power of heart andbrain to preaching Christ's Law of self-surrender and submission, howhorrible a falling away would it be if he were to abandon his belovedleader, turn deserter while the Society was still on its trial beforethe sight of men, and while every fervent voice was an element ofstrength. He thought of Wesley's other helpers, and recalled thoseardent enthusiasts who had broken all family ties, parted from fatherand mother, sisters and brothers and plighted wife, renounced thecomforts of home, and suffered the opprobrium of the world, in order tospend and be spent in the task of converting the English heathen, thetoilers in the copper mine or the coal pit, the weavers of Somerset andYorkshire, the black faces, the crooked backs, the forgotten sheep ofEpiscopal Shepherds.

  But had any man living given up more than he was called upon tosurrender, he asked himself? Who among those soldiers and servants ofChrist had loved a woman as beautiful, loved with a passion as fervent?

  He went back to London discouraged, yet not despairing. There was stillthe hope, faint perhaps, that he might lead that bright spirit out ofdarkness into light; win her for Christ, and so win her for himself.Ah, what an ecstatic dream, what an ineffable hope! To kneel by herside at the altar, to know her among the redeemed, the chosen of God!For that end what labour could be too difficult?

  But, alas! between him and that hope there came the cloud of a terriblefear. He knew the Tempter's power over senses and soul, knew that to bein Antonia's company was to forget the world present and the world tocome, to remember nothing, value nothing, but her, to become a worseidolator than they of old who worshipped Moloch and gave their childrento the fire.

  Wesley had warned him. Should he, in defiance of that warning from thebest and wisest friend he ever had, enter the house where the Tempterlay in wait to destroy him, where he must meet the Enemy of Man? Callthat enemy by what name he would, Satan, or love, he knew himselfincapable of resistance.

  He resolved to abide by Wesley's advice. He went back to his desolatehome, and resumed his work in Lambeth Marsh, where he was welcomed withan affection that touched him deeply. His many converts, the awakenedand believing Christians, flocked to his chapel and his schools;but that which moved him most was the welcome of the sinners andreprobates, whom he had taught to love him, though he could not teachthem to forsake sin.

  Before resuming his mission work in the old district he had ascertainedthat Lady Kilrush no longer went there. She still ministered to theLambeth poor by deputy, and Mrs. Sophy Potter came among them often. Hewas weak enough to think with rapture of conversing with Sophy, fromwhom he would hear of Antonia. And so in the long dark winter he tookup the old drudgery, teaching and exhorting, strenuous in good works,but with a leaden heart.