The sultry summer day was at its close, and Norman Carlton had just finished reading the letter that Imelda had written the night before. A troubled look was upon the frank and honest face, as he stood at the open window looking out at the falling shadows, but seeing nothing. In one hand he still held the fateful sheets; the other hand he held to his aching temples. He stood and gazed until dusky twilight faded into starlit night. Ever and anon a deep sigh escaped the drawn lips as he thought, and thought, and thought.
But what was it he thought? Did that miserable tale of woe show him only the impracticability of an alliance with a child of the people? A woman whose mother had no right, according to the views of society, to the title of “lady;” whose sister had made an outcast of herself; whose brother might, even now, be occupying the cell of a criminal; whose past life had been one long privation and struggle with fate. His own lady mother and sister! Was it not his duty to first consult their views, their feeling upon the matter?
Or was it that he was made of more noble material? Were his views so broad that it was of no consequence what the world might say? It could hardly be expected, when we consider the training of his past life, that he would now have no battle to fight. It was not pleasant to know that the woman who had won his love should be so unpleasantly connected, but while this knowledge was to him most depressing, it also had the effect of raising, many fold, the respect he held for her. What could have been easier for her than to keep these matters secret? It gave him a better insight into the nobility of her character. She at least was truth itself. She would prove trustworthy. She was above reproach. He was doing battle with the old prejudices based on society codes, as they rose, one by one, to assail his love.
But to do him justice his love wavered not for one instant. If the setting be tarnished, will that fact diminish the lustre of the diamond? He knew that his jewel was of the purest; why should the setting trouble him? But all was not yet plain to him. He remembered that night under the maples; when she had refused him marriage—not love. Love she had given then as freely as now. He saw it then, he knew it now. But now again she makes the same refusal. “You understand now,” she wrote, “why it is that I cannot marry you.”
His noble manhood was all alert now. Does she think so meanly, so basely of him as to suppose that he would add to the burden that had so many years been resting upon those slender shoulders, by withdrawing his proposal? If that is what she thinks, her opinion of him is not so exalted as he could wish and—he must seek her—must see her tonight. With him to think was to act, and a few minutes later finds him on the way to the woman of his choice. It was with a dazed feeling that he stood upon the marble steps awaiting an answer to his ring. What would be the outcome of this night’s quest?
His card again found her at the bedside of the patient preparing for another long night watch by herself. Her heart beat high when the little bit of pasteboard was placed in her hand. Mrs. Boswell had not yet retired. She saw the flush steal over the fair brow and an understanding came intuitively to her as to what it meant. It was not so many years ago that she too had received a lover’s visit, and she knew so well that since the illness of Mrs. Westcot the young girl had no time to spend on friends or lovers. So she kindly said:
“Go and see your friend. I am not tired tonight and can well remain several hours longer.” With an appreciative “Thank you” Imelda accepted the kind offer and descended to the drawing room, where but one jet of gas was burning which but dimly lit the room.
Scarcely had she entered when she felt herself folded with strong arms to a wildly beating heart. Lips that whispered, “My own love,” were pressed firmly to hers. Her heart was full, her bosom heaving. That he held her thus was ample proof that to him she was just as lovable now as before he knew her wretched story. Brushing the soft dusky waves of hair from the flushed temples, he asked:
“Will my girl have a little while to spare for me tonight? I would have you walk with me under the maples. Will you come?” Without a word she turned to the hallway and taking a soft white scarf from a rack, threw it over her shoulders and said:
“Now, I am ready.” Together they wended their way to the silver leaved trees where once more they paced back and forth, his arm about the graceful form, his head bent until it rested against hers. Every attitude betokened the love they bore each other. O, how he talked, how he plead. But the slender girl at his side was strong and firm. She understood the ground she was treading upon. She met him at every turn.
He loved her, and as he listened to her arguments, as he watched the sparkle of her eye, as he got a better insight into her life, he felt that here was indeed a woman of superior qualities, a woman possessed of rare intellect. And as she met him, point after point, he began to see things in a different light. Dim and hazy at first yet still he saw a difference. Not that he showed an inclination to acknowledge the truth of any of the pictures she painted. O, no! not quite so easy are deep-rooted superstitions and prejudices uprooted. Yet she gave him food for thought.
She pointed out to him conditions as they exist throughout the country, She showed him how one vexed question is entangled with another. She drew his attention to the masses of workers who with their dollar a day,—sometimes a little more, sometimes even less,—have no time for self-improvement, no time for healthful recreation. That recreation which is of an elevating character, is quite unattainable and that which is within their reach is of the most demoralizing kind. The swilling of vile drinks, with vile companions in dens still more vile.
She spoke of the overburdened wife and mother, wearing away her life in drudgery and loneliness. At the close of his day’s toil the husband brings no love to the cheerless home. That which he had named and believed love on their wedding day has long since fled; yet of this union springs unwishedfor children; children gestated in an atmosphere of hate; idiots and criminals ushered into being to fill our prisons and insane asylums. The employer class, on the other hand, feast upon the wealth these unfortunates produce, and by their excesses sow the seeds of crime in their offspring.
“On all sides,” said Imelda, “through the force of circumstances young lives are lost in the sloughs of vice and shame. Woman sells her virtue to the highest bidder; the one for a passing hour, the other for a life time. Which of the two is the worse? The merciless and unnatural codes of society demand the unsexing of woman by strangling nature’s desires, then these codes permit one man to drive her to the grave or to the mad house through the power given to him by the law. The woman that would be true to her normal instincts, the woman that would practicalize her natural right of being a mother, must first sell herself for all time to some man, who, in return, forces upon her what at first was a pleasure and a blessing but now a hundred-fold curse. To surrender herself in love with holiest emotions is a sin, is a demoralization. To endure the hated embrace of the man who long since murdered every trace of that holy love, is a duty and virtue.
“To escape such thralldom is to her an utter impossibility, as the only way out lies through that most damnable of abominations, the divorce court, where every pure instinct of a sensitive woman’s nature is outraged to such extent that generally she prefers, of the two evils, the marital outrage to that of the divorce court.
“And yet the world goes on. Ignorant mothers bear and rear ignorant children. From their birth nature is strangled. They are fed and clothed in an unhealthful, unnatural manner, so that the wonder is, not that there are so many small graves but rather that so many survive. The little girl with propensities to romp is told she is a hoyden, a tomboy. The boy with refined sentiments, that he is a ‘sissy,’ and so on throughout the long category. We are bound, fettered, on all sides from the cradle to the grave. No matter what misery, what woe, springs therefrom, never go your own way but travel only that which is mapped out for you by custom which has been foisted upon society. O, it is so unnatural, so miserable, this binding, this fettering, this laying down laws that are made only to be broken.”
She had spoken rapidly, and had warmed in her enthusiasm. Her head thrown slightly backward with a motion most graceful, her eyes shining with a glory that was beautiful, and Norman did not fail to be struck by it.
“How can it all affect us, my sweet?” he asked. “Are we not far above all the horrible pictures you have drawn?”
“I hope so,” she answered. “I do, indeed, hope we are above it, but don’t you see every picture has its ground work in the ‘Thou shalt not,’ of some law? Every picture has its clanking chains and the heaviest is always the marriage chain. Don’t you see, don’t you understand?” He folded her close in his arms, an action which she by no means resented.
“And must our sweet love be sacrificed because of those horrible conditions? Have you not more faith in the voice of your heart?” Tears sprang to her eyes. O, how hard it was to steel that heart to the pleadings of the precious voice. How could she make him understand that he possessed the unbounded trust, the most unconditional love of her whole being?
“I have all the faith in the world in you,” she said, as with trembling fingers she caressed the fair locks that fell in clustering masses over the open noble brow.
“Can you not see, can you not understand that I love you with all the strength of my being? Let us be happy now, in the present, in that love, and trust to the future to lift the veil, to dispel the clouds,”—and he could not dissuade her. He kissed the tears from the shining dark eyes. His love for her grew with every hour. He realized that bitter suffering in the past had sown the seed of the present strength of character and growth of views to which until now he had given but a passing thought.