Pressed by the faithless man who had so cruelly wronged her in after-years, she only wondered why he had waited so long before h e asked her to marry him. Addressed with equal ardor by that other man, whose age, whose character, whose modest devotion offered her every assurance of happiness that a woman could desire, she had struggled against herself, and had begged him to give her a day to consider. That day was now drawing to an end.
As she watched the setting sun, the phantom of her guilty husband darkened the heavenly light; imbittered the distrust of herself which made her afraid to say Yes; and left her helpless before the hesitation which prevented her from saying No.
The figure of a man appeared on the lonely path that led to the lodge gate.
Impulsively she rose from her seat as he advanced. She sat down again. After that first act of indecision, the flutter of her spirits abated; she was able to think.
To avoid him, after he had spared her at her own request, would have been an act of ingratitude: to receive him was to place herself once more in the false position of a woman too undecided to know her own mind. Forced to choose between these alternatives, her true regard for Bennydeck forbade her to think of herself, and encouraged her to wait for him. As he came nearer, she saw anxiety in his face and observed an open letter in his hand. He smiled as he approached her, and asked leave to take a chair at her side. At the same time, when he perceived that she had noticed his letter, he put it away hurriedly in his pocket.
"I hope nothing has happened to annoy you," she said.
He smiled again; and asked if she was thinking of his letter. "It is only a report," he added, "from my second in command, whom I have left in charge of my Home. He is an excellent man; but I am afraid his temper is not proof against the ingratitude which we sometimes meet with. He doesn't yet make allowances for what even the best natures suffer, under the deteriorating influence of self-distrust and despair. No, I am not anxious about the results of this case. I forget all my anxieties (except one) when I am with you."
His eyes told her that he was about to return to the one subject that she dreaded. She tried--as women will try, in the little emergencies of their lives--to gain time.
"I am interested about your Home," she said: "I want to know what sort of place it is. Is the discipline very severe?"
"There is no disciplined," he answered warmly. "My one object is to be a friend to my friendless fellow-creatures; and my one way of governing them is to follow the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount. Whatever else I may remind them of, when they come to me, I am determined not to remind them of a prison. For this reason--though I pity the hardened wanderers of the streets, I don't open my doors to them. Many a refuge, in which discipline is inevitable, is open to these poor sinners already. My welcome is offered to penitents and sufferers of another kind--who have fallen from positions in life, in which the sense of honor has been cultivated; whose despair is associated with remembrances which I may so encourage, with the New Testament to help me, as to lead them back to the religious influences under which their purer and happier lives may have been passed. Here and there I meet with disappointments. But I persist in my system of trusting them as freely as if they were my own children; and, for the most part, they justify my confidence in them. On the day--if it ever comes--when I find discipline necessary, I shall suffer my disappointment and close my doors."
"Is your house open," Catherine asked, "to men and women alike?"
He was eager to speak with her on a subject more interesting to him even than his Home. Answering her question, in this frame of mind, his thoughts wandered; he drew lines absently with his walking-stick on the soft earth under the trees.
"The means at my disposal," he said, "are limited. I have been obliged to choose between the men and the women."
"And you have chosen women?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because a lost woman is a more friendless creature than a lost man."
"Do they come to you? or do you look for them?"
"They mostly come to me. There is one young woman, however, now waiting to see me, whom I have been looking for. I am deeply interested in her."
"Is it her beauty that interests you?"
"I have not seen her since she was a child. She is the daughter of an old friend of mine, who died many years ago."
"And with that claim on you, you keep her waiting?"
"Yes."
He let his stick drop on the ground and looked at Catherine; but he offered no explanation of his strange conduct. She was a little disappointed. "You have been some time away from your Home," she said; still searching for his reasons. "When do you go back?"
"I go back," he answered, "when I know whether I may thank God for being the happiest man living."
They were both silent.