Felix Holt, the Radical

by George Eliot

  CHAPTER VI.

  Though she be dead, yet let me think she lives, And feed my mind, that dies for want of her.

  --MARLOWE: _Tamburlaine the Great_.

  Hardly any one in Treby who thought at all of Mr. Lyon and his daughterhad not felt the same sort of wonder about Esther as Felix felt. She wasnot much liked by her father's church and congregation. The less seriousobserved that she had too many airs and graces and held her head muchtoo high; the stricter sort feared greatly that Mr. Lyon had not beensufficiently careful in placing his daughter among God-fearing people,and that, being led astray by the melancholy vanity of giving herexceptional accomplishments, he had sent her to a French school, andallowed her to take situations where she had contracted notions notonly above her own rank, but of too worldly a kind to be safe in anyrank. But no one knew what sort of woman her mother had been, for Mr.Lyon never spoke of his past domesticities. When he was chosen as pastorat Treby in 1825, it was understood that he had been a widower manyyears, and he had no companion but the tearful and much-exercised Lyddy,his daughter being still at school. It was only two years ago thatEsther had come home to live permanently with her father, and takepupils in the town. Within that time she had excited a passion in twoyoung Dissenting breasts that were clad in the best style of Trebywaistcoat--a garment which at that period displayed much design both inthe stuff and the wearer; and she had secured an astonished admirationof her cleverness from the girls of various ages who were her pupils;indeed, her knowledge of French was generally held to give a distinctionto Treby itself as compared with other market-towns. But she had wonlittle regard of any other kind. Wise Dissenting matrons were dividedbetween fear lest their sons should want to marry her and resentmentthat she should treat those "undeniable" young men with a distant scornwhich was hardly to be tolerated in a minister's daughter; not onlybecause that parentage appeared to entail an obligation to show anexceptional degree of Christian humility, but because, looked at from asecular point of view, a poor minister must be below the substantialhouseholders who keep him. For at that time the preacher who was paidunder the Voluntary system was regarded by his flock with feelings notless mixed than the spiritual person who still took his tithe-pig or his_modus_. His gifts were admired, and tears were shed under best bonnetsat his sermons; but the weaker tea was thought good enough for him; andeven when he went to preach a charity sermon in a strange town, he wastreated with home-made wine and the smaller bedroom. As the goodChurchman's reverence was often mixed with growling, and was apt to begiven chiefly to an abstract parson who was what a parson ought to be,so the good Dissenter sometimes mixed his approval of ministerial giftswith considerable criticism and cheapening of the human vessel whichcontained those treasures. Mrs. Muscat and Mrs. Nuttwood applied theprinciple of Christian equality by remarking that Mr. Lyon had hisoddities, and that he ought not to allow his daughter to indulge in suchunbecoming expenditure on her gloves, shoes, and hosiery, even if shedid pay for them out of her earnings. As for the Church people whoengaged Miss Lyon to give lessons in their families, their imaginationswere altogether prostrated by the incongruity between accomplishmentsand Dissent, between weekly prayer-meetings and a conversance with solively and altogether worldly a language as the French. Esther's ownmind was not free from a sense of irreconcilableness between the objectsof her taste and the conditions of her lot. She knew that Dissenterswere looked down upon by those whom she regarded as the most refinedclasses; her favorite companions, both in France and at an Englishschool where she had been a junior teacher, had thought it quiteridiculous to have a father who was a Dissenting preacher; and when anardently admiring school-fellow induced her parents to take Esther as agoverness to the younger children, all her native tendencies towardluxury, fastidiousness, and scorn of mock gentility, were strengthenedby witnessing the habits of a well-born and wealthy family. Yet theposition of servitude was irksome to her, and she was glad at last tolive at home with her father, for though, throughout her girlhood, shehad wished to avoid this lot, a little experience had taught her toprefer its comparative independence. But she was not contented with herlife; she seemed to herself to be surrounded with ignoble, uninterestingconditions, from which there was no issue; for even if she had beenunamiable enough to give her father pain deliberately, it would havebeen no satisfaction to her to go to Treby church, and visibly turn herback on Dissent. It was not religious differences, but socialdifferences, that Esther was concerned about, and her ambitious tastewould have been no more gratified in the society of the Waces than inthat of the Muscats. The Waces spoke imperfect English and played whist;the Muscats spoke the same dialect and took in the "EvangelicalMagazine." Esther liked neither of these amusements. She had one ofthose exceptional organizations which are quick and sensitive withoutbeing in the least morbid; she was alive to the finest shades of manner,to the nicest distinctions of tone and accent; she had a little code ofher own about scents and colors, textures and behavior, by which shesecretly condemned or sanctioned all things and persons. And she waswell satisfied with herself for her fastidious taste, never doubtingthat hers was the highest standard. She was proud that the best-bornand handsomest girls at school had always said that she might be takenfor a born lady. Her own pretty instep, clad in a silk stocking, herlittle heel, just rising from a kid slipper, her irreproachable nailsand delicate wrist, were the objects of delighted consciousness to her;and she felt that it was her superiority which made her unable to usewithout disgust any but the finest cambric handkerchiefs and freshestgloves. Her money all went in the gratification of these nice tastes,and she saved nothing from her earnings. I can not say that she hadpangs of conscience on this score; for she felt sure that she wasgenerous: she hated all meanness, would empty her purse impulsively onsome sudden appeal to her pity, and if she found out that her father hada want, she would supply it with some pretty device of a surprise. Butthen the good man so seldom had a want--except the perpetual desire,which she could never gratify, of seeing her under convictions, and fitto become a member of the church.

  As for little Mr. Lyon, he loved and admired this unregenerate childmore, he feared, than was consistent with the due preponderance ofimpersonal and ministerial regards: he prayed and pleaded for her withtears, humbling himself for her spiritual deficiencies in the privacy ofhis study; and then came down stairs to find himself in timoroussubjection to her wishes, lest, as he inwardly said, he should give histeaching an ill savor, by mingling it with outward crossing. There willbe queens in spite of Salic or other laws of later date than Adam andEve; and here in this small dingy house of the minister in MalthouseYard, there was a light-footed, sweet-voiced Queen Esther.

  The stronger will always rule, say some, with an air of confidence whichis like a lawyer's flourish, forbidding exceptions or additions. Butwhat is strength? Is it blind wilfulness that sees no terrors, nomany-linked consequences, no bruises and wounds of those whose cords ittightens? Is it the narrowness of a brain that conceives no needsdiffering from its own, and looks to no results beyond the bargains ofto-day; that tugs with emphasis for every small purpose, and thinks itweakness to exercise the sublime power of resolved renunciation? Thereis a sort of subjection which is the peculiar heritage of largeness andof love; and strength is often only another name for willing bondage toirremediable weakness.

  Esther had affection for her father: she recognized the purity of hischaracter, and a quickness of intellect in him which responded to herown liveliness, in spite of what seemed a dreary piety, which selectedeverything that was least interesting and romantic in life and history.But his old clothes had a smoky odor, and she did not like to walk withhim, because, when people spoke to him in the street, it was his wont,instead of remarking on the weather and passing on, to pour forth in anabsent manner some reflections that were occupying his mind about thetraces of the Divine government, or about a peculiar incident narratedin the life of the eminent Mr. Richard Baxter. Esther had a horror ofappearing ridic
ulous even in the eyes of vulgar Trebians. She fanciedthat she should have loved her mother better than she was able to loveher father; and she wished she could have remembered that mother morethoroughly.

  But she had no more than a broken vision of the time before she was fiveyears old--the time when the word oftenest on her lips was "Mamma"; whena low voice spoke caressing French words to her, and she in her turnrepeated the words to her rag doll; when a very small white hand,different from any that came after, used to pat her, and stroke her, andtie on her frock and pinafore, and when at last there was nothing butsitting with a doll on a bed where mamma was lying, till her father oncecarried her away. Where distinct memory began, there was no longer thelow caressing voice and the small white hand. She knew that her motherwas a Frenchwoman, that she had been in want and distress, and that hermaiden name was Annette Ledru. Her father had told her no more thanthis; and once, he had said, "My Esther, until you are a woman, we willonly think of your mother: when you are about to be married and leaveme, we will speak of her, and I will deliver to you her ring and allthat was hers; but, without a great command laid upon me, I cannotpierce my heart by speaking of that which was and is not." Esther hadnever forgotten these words, and the older she became, the moreimpossible she felt it that she should urge her father with questionsabout the past.

  His inability to speak of that past to her depended on manifold causes.Partly it came from an initial concealment. He had not the courage totell Esther that he was not really her father: he had not the courage torenounce that hold on her tenderness which the belief in his naturalfatherhood must help to give him, or to incur any resentment that herquick spirit might feel at having been brought up under a falsesupposition. But there were other things yet more difficult for him tobe quite open about--deep sorrows of his life as a Christian ministerthat were hardly to be told to a girl.

  Twenty-two years ago, when Rufus Lyon was no more than thirty-six yearsold, he was the admired pastor of a large Independent congregation inone of our southern seaport towns. He was unmarried, and had met allexhortations of friends who represented to him that a bishop, _i.e._,the overseer of an Independent church and congregation--should be thehusband of one wife, by saying that St. Paul meant this particular as alimitation, and not as an injunction that a minister was permitted tohave one wife, but that he, Rufus Lyon, did not wish to avail himself ofthat permission, finding his studies and other labors of his vocationall-absorbing, and seeing that mothers in Israel were sufficientlyprovided by those who had not been set apart for a more special work.His church and congregation were proud of him: he was put forward onplatforms, was made a "deputation," and was requested to preachanniversary sermons in far-off towns. Wherever noteworthy preachers werediscussed, Rufus Lyon was almost sure to be mentioned as one who didhonor to the Independent body; his sermons were said to be full of fire;and while he had more of human knowledge than many of his brethren, heshowed in an eminent degree the marks of a true ministerial vocation.But on a sudden this burning and shining light seemed to be quenched:Mr. Lyon voluntarily resigned his charge and withdrew from the town.

  A terrible crisis had come upon him; a moment in which religious doubtand newly-awakened passion had rushed together in a common flood, andhad paralyzed his ministerial gifts. His thirty-six years had been astory of purely religious and studious fervor; his passion had been fordoctrines, for argumentative conquest on the side of right; the sins hehad chiefly to pray against had been those of personal ambition (undersuch forms as ambition takes in the mind of a man who has chosen thecareer of an Independent preacher), and those of a too restlessintellect, ceaselessly urging questions concerning the mystery of thatwhich was assuredly revealed, and thus hindering the due nourishment ofthe soul on the substance of the truth delivered. Even at that time ofcomparative youth, his unworldliness and simplicity in small matters(for he was keenly awake to the larger affairs of this world) gave acertain oddity to his manners and appearance; and though his sensitiveface had much beauty, his person altogether seemed so irrelevant to afashionable view of things, that well-dressed ladies and gentlemenusually laughed at him, as they probably did at Mr. John Milton afterthe Restoration and ribbons had come in, and still more at that apostle,of weak bodily presence, who preached in the back streets of Ephesus andelsewhere, a new view of a religion that hardly anybody believed in.Rufus Lyon was the singular-looking apostle of the Meeting in Skipper'sLane. Was it likely that any romance should befall such a man? Perhapsnot; but romance did befall him.

  One winter's evening in 1812, Mr. Lyon was returning from a villagepreaching. He walked at his usual rapid rate, with busy thoughtsundisturbed by any sight more distinct than the bushes and the hedgerowtrees, black beneath a faint moonlight, until something suggested to himthat he had perhaps omitted to bring away with him a thin account-bookin which he recorded certain subscriptions. He paused, unfastened hisouter coat, and felt in all his pockets, then he took off his hat andlooked inside it. The book was not to be found, and he was about to walkon, when he was startled by hearing a low, sweet voice, say, with astrong foreign accent--

  "Have pity on me, sir."

  Searching with his short-sighted eyes, he perceived some one on aside-bank; and approaching, he found a young woman with a baby on herlap. She spoke again more faintly than before.

  "Sir, I die with hunger; in the name of God take the little one."

  There was no distrusting the pale face and the sweet low voice. Withoutpause, Mr. Lyon took the baby in his arms and said, "Can you walk by myside, young woman?"

  She rose, but seemed tottering. "Lean on me," said Mr. Lyon, and so theywalked slowly on, the minister for the first time in his life carrying ababy.

  Nothing better occurred to him than to take his charge to his own house;it was the simplest way of relieving the woman's wants, and finding outhow she could be helped further; and he thought of no otherpossibilities. She was too feeble for more words to be spoken betweenthem till she was seated by his fireside. His elderly servant was noteasily amazed at anything her master did in the way of charity, and atonce took the baby, while Mr. Lyon unfastened the mother's damp bonnetand shawl, and gave her something warm to drink. Then, waiting by hertill it was time to offer her more, he had nothing to do but to noticethe loveliness of her face, which seemed to him as that of an angel,with a benignity in its repose that carried a more assured sweetnessthan any smile. Gradually she revived, lifted up her delicate handsbetween her face and the firelight, and looked at the baby which layopposite to her on the old servant's lap, taking in spoonfuls with muchcontent, and stretching out naked feet toward the warmth. Then, as herconsciousness of relief grew into contrasting memory, she lifted up hereyes to Mr. Lyon, who stood close by her, and said, in her pretty brokenway:

  "I knew you had a good heart when you took your hat off. You seemed tome as the image of the _bien-amie Saint Jean_."

  The grateful glance of those blue-gray eyes, with their longshadow-making eyelashes, was a new kind of good to Rufus Lyon it seemedto him as if a woman had never really looked at him before. Yet thispoor thing was apparently a blind French Catholic--of delicate nurture,surely, judging from her hands. He was in a tremor; he felt that itwould be rude to question her, and he only urged her now to take alittle food. She accepted it with evident enjoyment, looking at thechild continually, and then, with a fresh burst of gratitude, leaningforward to press the servant's hand and say, "Oh, you are good!" Thenshe looked up at Mr. Lyon again and said, "Is there in the world aprettier _marmot?_"

  The evening passed; a bed was made up for the strange woman, and Mr.Lyon had not asked her so much as her name. He never went to bed himselfthat night. He spent it in misery, enduring a horrible assault of Satan.He thought a frenzy had seized him. Wild visions of an impossible futurethrust themselves upon him. He dreaded lest the woman had a husband; hewished that he might call her his own, that he might worship her beauty,that she might love and caress him. And what to the mass of men wouldhave been only one of many
allowable follies--a transient fascination,to be dispelled by daylight and contact with those common facts of whichcommon-sense is the reflex--was to him a spiritual convulsion. He was asone who raved, and knew that he raved. These mad wishes wereirreconcilable with what he was, and must be, as a Christian minister,nay, penetrating his soul as tropic heat penetrates the frame, andchanges for it all aspects and all flavors, they were irreconcilablewith that conception of the world which made his faith. All the busydoubt which had before been mere impish shadows flitting around a beliefthat was strong with the strength of an unswerving moral bias, had nowgathered blood and substance. The questioning spirit had become suddenlybold and blasphemous; it no longer insinuated scepticism--it prompteddefiance; it no longer expressed cool, inquisitive thought, but was thevoice of a passionate mood. Yet he never ceased to regard it as thevoice of the tempter: the conviction which had been the law of hisbetter life remained within him as a conscience.

  The struggle of that night was an abridgment of all the struggles thatcame after. Quick souls have their intensest life in the firstanticipatory sketch of what may or will be, and the pursuit of theirwish is the pursuit of that paradisiacal vision which only impelledthem, and is left farther and farther behind, vanishing forever even outof hope in the moment which is called success.

  The next morning Mr. Lyon heard his guest's history. She was thedaughter of a French officer of considerable rank, who had fallen in theRussian campaign. She had escaped from France to England with muchdifficulty in order to rejoin her husband, a young Englishman, to whomshe had become attached during his detention as a prisoner of war onparole at Vesoul, where she was living under the charge of somerelatives, and to whom she had been married without the consent of herfamily. Her husband had served in the Hanoverian army, had obtained hisdischarge in order to visit England on some business, with the nature ofwhich she was not acquainted, and had been taken prisoner as a suspectedspy. A short time after their marriage he and his fellow-prisoners hadbeen moved to a town nearer the coast, and she had remained in wretcheduncertainty about him, until at last a letter had come from him tellingher that an exchange of prisoners had occurred, that he was in England,that she must use her utmost effort to follow him, and that on arrivingon English ground she must send him word under a cover which heenclosed, bearing an address in London. Fearing the opposition of herfriends, she started unknown to them, with a very small supply of money;and after enduring much discomfort and many fears in waiting for apassage which she at last got in a small trading smack, she arrived atSouthampton--ill. Before she was able to write, her baby was born; andbefore her husband's answer came, she had been obliged to pawn someclothes and trinkets. He desired her to travel to London where he wouldmeet her at the Belle Sauvage, adding that he was himself in distress,and unable to come to her: when once she was in London they would takeship and quit the country. Arrived at the Belle Sauvage, the poor thingwaited three days in vain for her husband: on the fourth a letter camein a strange hand, saying that in his last moments he had desired thisletter to be written to inform her of his death, and recommend her toreturn to her friends. She could choose no other course, but she hadsoon been reduced to walking, that she might save her pence to buy breadwith: and on the evening when she made her appeal to Mr. Lyon, she hadpawned the last thing, over and above needful clothing, that she couldpersuade herself to part with. The things she had not borne to part withwere her marriage-ring, and a locket containing her husband's hair, andbearing his baptismal name. This locket, she said, exactly resembled oneworn by her husband on his watch-chain, only that his bore the nameAnnette, and contained a lock of her hair. The precious trifle now hunground her neck by a cord, for she had sold the small gold chain whichformerly held it.

  The only guarantee of this story, besides the exquisite candor of herface, was a small packet of papers which she carried in her pocket,consisting of her husband's few letters, the letter which announced hisdeath, and her marriage certificate. It was not so probable a story asthat of many an inventive vagrant; but Mr. Lyon did not doubt it for amoment. It was impossible to him to suspect this angelic-faced woman,but he had strong suspicions concerning her husband. He could not helpbeing glad that she had not retained the address he had desired her tosend to in London, as that removed any obvious means of learningparticulars about him. But enquiries might have been made at Vesoul byletter, and her friends there might have been appealed to. Aconsciousness, not to be quite silenced, told Mr. Lyon that this was thecourse he ought to take, but it would have required an energeticself-conquest, and he was excused from it by Annette's owndisinclination to return to her relatives, if any other acceptablepossibility could be found.

  He dreaded, with a violence of feeling which surmounted all struggles,lest anything should take her away, and place such barriers between themas would make it unlikely or impossible that she should ever love himwell enough to become his wife. Yet he saw with perfect clearness thatunless he tore up his mad passion by the roots, his ministerialusefulness would be frustrated, and the repose of his soul would bedestroyed. This woman was an unregenerate Catholic; ten minutes'listening to her artless talk made that plain to him: even if herposition had been less equivocal, to unite himself to such a woman wasnothing less than a spiritual fall. It was already a fall that he hadwished there was no high purpose to which he owed an allegiance--that hehad longed to fly to some backwoods where there was no church toreproach him, and where he might have this sweet woman to wife, and toknow the joys of tenderness. Those sensibilities which in most lives arediffused equally through the youthful years, were aroused suddenly inMr. Lyon, as some men have their special genius revealed to them by atardy concurrence of conditions. His love was the first love of a freshyoung heart full of wonder and worship. But what to one man is thevirtue which he has sunk below the possibility of aspiring to, is toanother the backsliding by which he forfeits his spiritual crown.

  The end was, that Annette remained in his house. He had striven againsthimself so far as to represent her position to some chief matrons in hiscongregation, praying and yet dreading that they would so take her bythe hand as to impose on him that denial of his own longing not to lether go out of his sight, which he found it too hard to impose onhimself. But they regarded the case coldly; the woman was, after all, avagrant. Mr. Lyon was observed to be surprisingly weak on thesubject--his eagerness seemed disproportionate and unbecoming; and thisyoung Frenchwoman, unable to express herself very clearly, was no moreinteresting to those matrons and their husbands than other pretty youngwomen suspiciously circumstanced. They were willing to subscribesomething to carry her on her way, or if she took some lodgings theywould give her a little sewing, and endeavor to convert her fromPapistry. If, however, she was a respectable person, as she said, theonly proper thing for her was to go back to her own country and friends.In spite of himself, Mr. Lyon exulted. There seemed a reason now that heshould keep Annette under his own eyes. He told himself that no realobject would be served by his providing food and lodging for herelsewhere--an expense which he could ill afford. And she was apparentlyso helpless, except as to the one task of attending to her baby, that itwould have been folly to think of her exerting herself for her ownsupport.

  But this course of his was severely disapproved by his church. Therewere various signs that the minister was under some evil influence: hispreaching wanted its old fervor, he seemed to shun the intercourse ofhis brethren, and very mournful suspicions were entertained. A formalremonstrance was presented to him, but he met it as if he had alreadydetermined to act in anticipation of it. He admitted that externalcircumstances, conjoined with a peculiar state of mind, were likely tohinder the fruitful exercise of his ministry, and he resigned it. Therewas much sorrowing, much expostulation, but he declared that for thepresent he was unable to unfold himself more fully; he only wished tostate solemnly that Annette Ledru, though blind in spiritual things, wasin a worldly sense a pure and virtuous woman. No more was to be said,and he departed to a distant t
own. Here he maintained himself, Annetteand the child, with the remainder of his stipend, and with the wages heearned as a printer's reader. Annette was one of those angelic-facedhelpless women who take all things as manna from heaven: the good imageof the well-beloved Saint John wished her to stay with him, and therewas nothing else that she wished for except the unattainable. Yet for awhole year Mr. Lyon never dared to tell Annette that he loved her: hetrembled before this woman; he saw that the idea of his being her loverwas too remote from her mind for her to have any idea that she ought notto live with him. She had never known, never asked the reason why hegave up his ministry. She seemed to entertain as little concern aboutthe strange world in which she lived as a bird in its nest: an avalanchehad fallen over the past, but she sat warm and uncrushed--there was foodfor many morrows, and her baby flourished. She did not seem even to careabout a priest, or about having her child baptized; and on the subjectof religion Mr. Lyon was as timid, and shrank as much from speaking toher, as on the subject of his love. He dreaded anything that might causeher to feel a sudden repulsion toward him. He dreaded disturbing hersimple gratitude and content. In these days his religious faith was notslumbering; it was awake and achingly conscious of having fallen in astruggle. He had had a great treasure committed to him, and had flung itaway: he held himself a backslider. His unbelieving thoughts nevergained the full ear and consent of his soul. His prayers had beenstifled by the sense that there was something he preferred to completeobedience; they had ceased to be anything but intermittent cries andconfessions, and a submissive presentiment, rising at times even to anentreaty, that some great discipline might come, that the dull spiritualsense might be roused to full vision and hearing as of old, and thesupreme facts become again supreme in his soul. Mr. Lyon will perhapsseem a very simple personage, with pitiably narrow theories; but none ofour theories are quite large enough for all the disclosures of time, andto the end of men's struggles a penalty will remain for those who sinkfrom the ranks of the heroes into the crowd for whom the heroes fightand die.

  One day, however, Annette learned Mr. Lyon's secret. The baby had atooth coming, and being large and strong now, was noisily fretful. Mr.Lyon, though he had been working extra hours and was much in need ofrepose, took the child from its mother immediately on entering the houseand walked about with it, patting and talking soothingly to it. Thestronger grasp, the new sensations, were a successful anodyne, and babywent to sleep on his shoulder. But fearful lest any movement shoulddisturb it, he sat down, and endured the bondage of holding it stillagainst his shoulder.

  "You do nurse baby well," said Annette, approvingly. "Yet you nevernursed before I came?"

  "No," said Mr. Lyon. "I had no brothers and sisters."

  "Why were you not married?" Annette had never thought of asking thatquestion before.

  "Because I never loved any woman--till now. I thought I should nevermarry. Now I wish to marry."

  Annette started. She did not see at once that she was the woman hewanted to marry; what had flashed on her mind was, that there might be agreat change in Mr. Lyon's life. It was as if the lightning had enteredinto her dream and half awaked her.

  "Do you think it foolish, Annette, that I should wish to marry?"

  "I did not expect it," she said, doubtfully. "I did not know you thoughtabout it."

  "You know the woman I should like to marry?"

  "I know her?" she said, interrogatively, blushing deeply.

  "It is you, Annette--you whom I have loved better than my duty. Iforsook everything for you."

  Mr. Lyon paused: he was about to do what he felt would be ignoble--tourge what seemed like a claim.

  "Can you love me, Annette? Will you be my wife?" Annette trembled andlooked miserable.

  "Do not speak--forget it," said Mr. Lyon, rising suddenly and speakingwith loud energy. "No, no--I do not want it--I do not wish it."

  The baby awoke as he started up; he gave the child into Annette's arms,and left her.

  His work took him away early the next morning and the next again. Theydid not need to speak much to each other. The third day Mr. Lyon was tooill to go to work. His frame had been overwrought; he had been too poorto have sufficiently nourishing food, and under the shattering of hislong deferred hope his health had given away. They had no regularservant--only occasional help from an old woman, who lit the fires andput on the kettles. Annette was forced to be the sick-nurse, and thissudden demand on her shook away some of her torpor. The illness was aserious one, and the medical man one day hearing Mr. Lyon in hisdelirium raving with an astonishing fluency in Biblical language,suddenly looked round with increased curiosity at Annette, and asked ifshe were the sick man's wife, or some other relative.

  "No--no relation," said Annette, shaking her head. "He has been good tome."

  "How long have you lived with him?"

  "More than a year."

  "Was he a preacher once?"

  "Yes."

  "When did he leave off being a preacher?"

  "Soon after he took care of me."

  "Is that his child?"

  "Sir," said Annette, coloring indignantly, "I am a widow."

  The doctor, she thought, looked at her oddly, but he asked no morequestions.

  When the sick man was getting better, and able to enjoy invalid's food,he observed one day, while he was taking some broth, that Annette waslooking at him; he paused to look at her in return, and was struck witha new expression in her face, quite distinct from the merely passivesweetness which usually characterized it. She laid her little hand onhis, which was now transparently thin, and said, "I am getting verywise; I have sold some of the books to make money--the doctor told mewhere; and I have looked into the shops where they sell caps and bonnetsand pretty things, and I can do all that, and get more money to keepus. And when you are well enough to get up, we will go out and bemarried--shall we not? See! and _la petite_" (the baby had neverbeen named anything else) "shall call you Papa--and then we shall neverpart."

  Mr. Lyon trembled. This illness--something else, perhaps--had made agreat change in Annette. A fortnight after that they were married. Theday before he had ventured to ask her if she felt any difficulty abouther religion, and if she would consent to have _la petite_ baptized andbrought up as a Protestant. She shook her head and said very simply--

  "No: in France, in other days, I would have minded; but all is changed.I never was fond of religion, but I knew it was right. _J'aimais lesfleurs, les bals, la musique, et mon mari qui etait beau_. But all thatis gone away. There is nothing of my religion in this country. But thegood God must be here, for you are good; I leave all to you."

  It was clear that Annette regarded her present life as a sort of deathto the world--an existence on a remote island where she had been savedfrom wreck. She was too indolent mentally, too little interested, toacquaint herself with any secrets of the isle. The transient energy, themore vivid consciousness and sympathy which had been stirred in herduring Mr. Lyon's illness, had soon subsided into the old apathy toeverything except her child. She withered like a plant in strange air,and the three years of life that remained were but a slow and gentledeath. Those three years were to Mr. Lyon a period of suchself-suppression and life in another as few men know. Strange! that thepassion for this woman, which he felt to have drawn him aside from theright as much as if he had broken the most solemn vows--for that onlywas right to him which he held the best and highest--the passion for abeing who had no glimpse of his thoughts induced a more thoroughrenunciation than he had ever known in the time of his complete devotionto his ministerial career. He had no flattery now, either from himselfor the world; he knew that he had fallen, and _his_ world had forgottenhim, or shook their heads at his memory. The only satisfaction he hadwas the satisfaction of his tenderness--which meant untiring work,untiring patience, untiring wakefulness even to the dumb signs offeeling in a creature whom he alone cared for.

  The day of parting came, and he was left with little Esther as the onevisible sign of tha
t four years' break in his life. A year afterward heentered the ministry again, and lived with the utmost sparingness thatEsther might be so educated as to be able to get her own bread in caseof his death. Her probable facility in acquiring French naturallysuggested his sending her to a French school, which would give her aspecial advantage as a teacher. It was a Protestant school, and FrenchProtestantism had the high recommendation of being non-Prelatical. Itwas understood that Esther would contract no Papistical superstitions;and this was perfectly true; but she contracted, as we see, a good dealof non-Papistical vanity.

  Mr. Lyon's reputation as a preacher and devoted pastor had revived; butsome dissatisfaction beginning to be felt by his congregation at acertain laxity detected by them in his views as to the limits ofsalvation, which he had in one sermon even hinted might extend tounconscious recipients of mercy, he had found it desirable seven yearsago to quit this ten years' pastorate and accept a call from the lessimportant church in Malthouse Yard, Treby Magna.

  This was Rufus Lyon's history, at that time unknown in its fullness toany human being besides himself. We can perhaps guess what memories theywere that relaxed the stringency of his doctrine on the point ofsalvation. In the deepest of all senses his heart said--

  "Though she be dead, yet let me think she lives, And feed my mind, that dies for want of her."