After the Storm

"Well." It was Emerson's only response.

"Well; and that is all?" Her tones were so chilling that they came over the spirit of her husband like the low waves of an icy wind.

"No, that is not all." What evil spirit was blinding his perceptions? What evil influence pressing him on to the brink of ruin?

"Say on." How strangely cold and calm she remained! "Say on," she repeated. Was there none to warn him of danger?

"If you go a third time to your father—" He paused.

"Well?" There was not a quiver in her low, clear, icy tone.

"You must do it with your eyes open, and in full view of the consequences."

"What are the consequences?"

Beware, rash man! Put a seal on your lips! Do not let the thought so sternly held find even a shadow of utterance!

"Speak, Hartley Emerson. What are the consequences?"

"You cannot return!" It was said without a quiver of feeling.

"Well." She looked at him with an unchanged countenance, steadily, coldly, piercingly.

"I have said the words, Irene; and they are no idle utterances. Twice you have left me, but you cannot do it a third time and leave a way open between us. Go, then, if you will; but, if we part here, it must be for ever!"

The eyes of Irene dropped slowly. There was a slight change in the expression of her face. Her hands moved one within the other nervously.

For ever! The words are rarely uttered without leaving on the mind a shade of thought. For ever! They brought more than a simple shadow to the mind of Irene. A sudden darkness fell upon her soul, and for a little while she groped about like one who had lost her way. But her husband's threat of consequences, his cold, imperious manner, his assumed superiority, all acted as sharp spurs to pride, and she stood up, strong again, in full mental stature, with every power of her being in full force for action and endurance.

"I go." There was no sign of weakness in her voice. She had raised her eyes from the floor and turned them full upon her husband. Her face was not so pale as it had been a little while before. Warmth had come back to the delicate skin, flushing it with beauty. She did not stand before him an impersonation of anger, dislike or rebellion. There was not a repulsive attitude or expression; no flashing of the eyes, nor even the cold, diamond glitter seen a little while before. Slowly turning away, she left the room; but, to her husband, she seemed still standing there, a lovely vision. There had fallen, in that instant of time, a sunbeam which fixed the image upon his memory in imperishable colors. What though he parted company here with the vital form, that effigy would be, through all time, his inseparable companion!

"Gone!" Hartley Emerson held his breath as the word came into mental utterance. There was a motion of regret in his heart; a wish that he had not spoken quite so sternly—that he had kept back a part of the hard saying. But it was too late now. He could not, after all that had just passed between them—after she had refused to answer his questions touching Major Willard—make any concessions. Come what would, there was to be no retracing of steps now.

"And it may be as well," said he, rallying himself, "that we part here. Our experiment has proved a sad failure. We grow colder and more repellant each day, instead of drawing closer together and becoming more lovingly assimilated. It is not good—this life—for either of us. We struggle in our bonds and hurt each other. Better apart! better apart! Moreover"—his face darkened—"she has fallen into dangerous companionship, and will not be advised or governed. I have heard her name fall lightly from lips that cannot utter a woman's name without leaving it soiled. She is pure now—pure as snow. I have not a shadow of suspicion, though I pressed her close. But this contact is bad; she is breathing an impure atmosphere; she is assorting with some who are sensual and evil-minded, though she will not believe the truth. Mrs. Lloyd! Gracious heavens! My wife the intimate companion of that woman! Seen with her in Broadway! A constant visitor at my house! This, and I knew it not!"

Emerson grew deeply agitated as he rehearsed these things. It was after midnight when he retired. He did not go to his wife's apartment, but passed to a room in the story above that in which he usually slept.

Day was abroad when Emerson awoke the next morning, and the sun shining from an angle that showed him to be nearly two hours above the horizon. It was late for Mr. Emerson. Rising hurriedly, and in some confusion of thought, he went down stairs. His mind, as the events of the last evening began to adjust themselves, felt an increasing sense of oppression. How was he to meet Irene? or was he to meet her again? Had she relented? Had a night of sober reflection wrought any change? Would she take the step he had warned her as a fatal one?

With such questions crowding upon him, Hartley Emerson went down stairs. In passing their chamber-door he saw that it stood wide open, and that Irene was not there. He descended to the parlors and to the sitting-room, but did not find her. The bell announced breakfast; he might find her at the table. No—she was not at her usual place when the morning meal was served.

"Where is Mrs. Emerson?" he asked of the waiter.

"I have not seen her," was replied.

Mr. Emerson turned away and went up to their chambers. His footsteps had a desolate, echoing sound to his ears, as he bent his way thither. He looked through the front and then through the back chamber, and even called, faintly, the name of his wife. But all was still as death. Now a small envelope caught his eye, resting on a casket in which Irene had kept her jewelry. He lifted it, and saw his name inscribed thereon. The handwriting was not strange. He broke the seal and read these few words:

"I have gone. IRENE."

The narrow piece of tinted paper on which this was written dropped from his nerveless fingers, and he stood for some moments still as if death-stricken, and rigid as stone.

"Well," he said audibly, at length, stepping across the floor, "and so the end has come!"

He moved to the full length of the chamber and then stood still—turned, in a little while, and walked slowly back across the floor—stood still again, his face bent down, his lips closely shut, his finger-ends gripped into the palms.

"Gone!" He tried to shake himself free of the partial stupor which had fallen upon him. "Gone!" he repeated. "And so this calamity is upon us! She has dared the fatal leap! has spoken the irrevocable decree! God help us both, for both have need of help; I and she, but she most. God help her to bear the burden she has lifted to her weak shoulders; she will find it a match for her strength. I shall go into the world and bury myself in its cares and duties—shall find, at least, in the long days a compensation in work—earnest, absorbing, exciting work. But she? Poor Irene! The days and nights will be to her equally desolate. Poor Irene! Poor Irene!"

CHAPTER XVIII

YOUNG, BUT WISE

THE night had passed wearily for Mr. Delancy, broken by fitful dreams, in which the image of his daughter was always present—dreams that he could trace to no thoughts or impressions of the day before; and he arose unrefreshed, and with a vague sense of trouble in his heart, lying there like a weight which no involuntary deep inspirations would lessen or remove. No June day ever opened in fresher beauty than did this one, just four years since the actors in our drama came smiling before us, in the flush of youth and hope and confidence in the far-off future. The warmth of early summer had sent the nourishing sap to every delicate twig and softly expanding leaf until, full foliaged, the trees around Ivy Cliff stood in kingly attire, lifting themselves up grandly in the sunlight which flooded their gently-waving tops in waves of golden glory. The air was soft and of crystal clearness; and the lungs drank it in as if the draught were ethereal nectar.

On such a morning in June, after a night of broken and unrefreshing sleep, Mr. Delancy walked forth, with that strange pressure on his heart which he had been vainly endeavoring to push aside since the singing birds awoke him, in the faint auroral dawn, with their joyous welcome to the coming day. He drew in long draughts of the delicious air; expanded his chest; moved briskly through the garden; threw his arms about to hurry the sluggish flow of blood in his veins; looked with constrained admiration on the splendid landscape that stretched far and near in the sweep of his vision; but all to no purpose. The hand still lay heavy upon his heart; he could not get it removed.

Returning to the house, feeling more uncomfortable for this fruitless effort to rise above what he tried to call an unhealthy depression of spirits consequent on some morbid state of the body, Mr. Delancy was entering the library, when a fresh young face greeted him with light and smiles.

"Good-morning, Rose," said the old gentleman, as his face brightened in the glow of the young girl's happy countenance. "I am glad to see you;" and he took her hand and held it tightly.

"Good-morning, Mr. Delancy. When did you hear from Irene?"

"Ten days ago."

"She was well?"

"Oh yes. Sit down, Rose; there." And Mr. Delancy drew a chair before the sofa for his young visitor, and took a seat facing her.

"I haven't had a letter from her in six months," said Rose, a sober hue falling on her countenance.

"I don't think she is quite thoughtful enough of her old friends."

"And too thoughtful, it may be, of new ones," replied Mr. Delancy, his voice a little depressed from the cheerful tone in which he had welcomed his young visitor.

"These new friends are not always the best friends, Mr. Delancy."

"No, Rose. For my part, I wouldn't give one old friend, whose heart I had proved, for a dozen untried new ones."

"Nor I, Mr. Delancy. I love Irene. I have always loved her. You know we were children together."

"Yes, dear, I know all that; and I'm not pleased with her for treating you with so much neglect, and all for a set of—"

Mr. Delancy checked himself.

"Irene," said Miss Carman, whom the reader will remember as one of Mrs. Emerson's bridemaids, "has been a little unfortunate in her New York friends. I'm afraid of these strong-minded women, as they are called, among whom she has fallen."

"I detest them!" replied Mr. Delancy, with suddenly aroused feelings. "They have done my child more harm than they will ever do good in the world by way of atonement. She is not my daughter of old."

"I found her greatly changed at our last meeting," said Rose. "Full of vague plans of reforms and social reorganizations, and impatient of opposition, or even mild argument, against her favorite ideas."

"She has lost her way," sighed the old man, in a low, sad voice, "and I'm afraid it will take her a long, long time to get back again to the old true paths, and that the road will be through deep suffering. I dreamed about her all night, Rose, and the shadow of my dreams is upon me still. It is foolish, I know, but I cannot get my heart again into the sunlight."

And Rose had been dreaming troubled dreams of her old friend, also; and it was because of the pressure that lay upon her feelings that she had come over to Ivy Cliff this morning to ask if Mr. Delancy had heard from Irene. She did not, however, speak of this, for she saw that he was in an unhappy state on account of his daughter.

"Dreams are but shadows," she said, forcing a smile to her lips and eyes.

"Yes—yes." The old man responded with an abstracted air. "Yes; they are only shadows. But, my dear, was there ever a shadow without a substance?"

"Not in the outside world of nature. Dreams are unreal things—the fantastic images of a brain where reason sleeps."

"There have been dreams that came as warnings, Rose."

"And a thousand, for every one of these, that signified nothing."

"True. But I cannot rise out of these shadows. They lie too heavily on my spirit. You must bear with me, Rose. Thank you for coming over to see me; but I cannot make your visit a pleasant one, and you must leave me when you grow weary of the old man's company."

"Don't talk so, Mr. Delancy. I'm glad I came over. I meant this only for a call; but as you are in such poor spirits I must stay a while and cheer you up."

"You are a good girl," said Mr. Delancy, taking the hand of Rose, "and I am vexed that Irene should neglect you for the false friends who are leading her mind astray. But never mind, dear; she will see her error one of these days, and learn to prize true hearts."

"Is she going to spend much of her time at Ivy Cliff this summer?" asked Rose.

"She is coming up in July to stay three or four weeks."

"Ah? I'm pleased to hear you say so. I shall then revive old-time memories in her heart."

"God grant that it may be so!" Rose half started at the solemn tone in which Mr. Delancy spoke. What could be the meaning of his strangely troubled manner? Was anything seriously wrong with Irene? She remembered the confusion into which her impulsive conduct had thrown the wedding-party; and there was a vague rumor afloat that Irene had left her husband a few months afterward and returned to Ivy Cliff. But she had always discredited this rumor. Of her life in New York she knew but little as to particulars. That it was not making of her a truer, better, happier woman, nor a truer, better, happier wife, observation had long ago told her.

"There is a broad foundation of good principles in her character," said Miss Carman, "and this gives occasion for hope in the future. She will not go far astray, with her wily enticers, who have only stimulated and given direction, for a time, to her undisciplined impulses. You know how impatient she has always been under control—how restively her spirit has chafed itself when a restraining hand was laid upon her. But there are real things in life of too serious import to be set aside for idle fancies, such as her new friends have dignified with imposing names—real things, that take hold upon the solid earth like anchors, and hold the vessel firm amid wildly rushing currents."

"Yes, Rose, I know all that," replied Mr. Delancy. "I have hope in the future of Irene; but I shudder in heart to think of the rough, thorny, desolate ways through which she may have to pass with bleeding feet before she reaches that serene future. Ah! if I could save my child from the pain she seems resolute on plucking down and wearing in her heart!"

"Your dreams have made you gloomy, Mr. Delancy," said Rose, forcing a smile to her sweet young face. "Come now, let us be more hopeful. Irene has a good husband. A little too much like her in some things, but growing manlier and broader in mental grasp, if I have read him aright. He understands Irene, and, what is more, loves her deeply. I have watched them closely."

"So have I." The voice of Mr. Delancy was not so hopeful as that of his companion.

"Still looking on the darker side." She smiled again.

"Ah, Rose, my wise young friend," said Mr. Delancy, "to whom I speak my thoughts with a freedom that surprises even myself, a father's eyes read many signs that have no meaning for others."

"And many read them, through fond suspicion, wrong," replied Rose.

"Well—yes—that may be." He spoke in partial abstraction, yet doubtfully.

"I must look through your garden," said the young lady, rising; "you know how I love flowers."

"Not much yet to hold your admiration," replied Mr. Delancy, rising also. "June gives us wide green carpets and magnificent draperies of the same deep color, but her red and golden broideries are few; it is the hand of July that throws them in with rich profusion."

"But June flowers are sweetest and dearest—tender nurslings of the summer, first-born of her love," said Rose, as they stepped out into the portico. "It may be that the eye gets sated with beauty, as nature grows lavish of her gifts; but the first white and red petals that unfold themselves have a more delicate perfume—seem made of purer elements and more wonderful in perfection—than their later sisters. Is it not so?"

"If it only appears so it is all the same as if real," replied Mr. Delancy, smiling.

"How?"

"It is real to you. What more could you have? Not more enjoyment of summer's gifts of beauty and sweetness."

"No; perhaps not."

Rose let her eyes fall to the ground, and remained silent.

"Things are real to us as we see them; not always as they are," said Mr. Delancy.

"And this is true of life?"

"Yes, child. It is in life that we create for ourselves real things out of what to some are airy nothings. Real things, against which we often bruise or maim ourselves, while to others they are as intangible as shadows."

"I never thought of that," said Rose.

"It is true."

"Yes, I see it. Imaginary evils we thus make real things, and hurt ourselves by contact, as, maybe, you have done this morning, Mr. Delancy."

"Yes—yes. And false ideas of things which are unrealities in the abstract—for only what is true has actual substance—become real to the perverted understanding. Ah, child, there are strange contradictions and deep problems in life for each of us to solve."

"But, God helping us, we may always reach the true solution," said Rose Carman, lifting a bright, confident face to that of her companion.

"That was spoken well, my child," returned Mr. Delancy, with a new life in his voice; "and without Him we can never be certain of our way."

"Never—never." There was a tender, trusting solemnity in the voice of Rose.

"Young, but wise," said Mr. Delancy.

"No! Young, but not wise. I cannot see the way plain before me for a single week, Mr. Delancy. For a week? No, not for a day!"

"Who does?" asked the old man.

"Some."

"None. There are many who walk onward with erect heads and confident bearing. They are sure of their way, and smile if one whisper a caution as to the ground upon which they step so fearlessly. But they soon get astray or into pitfalls. God keeping and guiding us, Rose, we may find our way safely through this world. But we will soon lose ourselves if we trust in our own wisdom."

Thus they talked—that old man and gentle-hearted girl—as they moved about the garden-walks, every new flower, or leaf, or opening bud they paused to admire or examine, suggesting themes for wiser words than usually pass between one so old and one so young. At Mr. Delancy's earnest request, Rose stayed to dinner, the waiting-man being tent to her father's, not far distant, to take word that she would not be at home until in the afternoon.

CHAPTER XIX

THE SHIPWRECKED LIFE

OFTEN, during that morning, did the name of Irene come to their lips, for the thought of her was all the while present to both.

"You must win her heart back again, Rose," said Mr. Delancy. "I will lure her to Ivy Cliff often this summer, and keep her here as long as possible each time. You will then be much together." They had risen from the dinner-table and were entering the library.

"Things rarely come out as we plan them," answered Rose. "But I love Irene truly, and will make my own place in her heart again, if she will give me the key of entrance."

"You must find the key, Rose."

Miss Carman smiled.

"I said if she would give it to me."

"She does not carry the key that opens the door for you," replied Mr. Delancy. "If you do not know where it lies, search for it in the secret places of your own mind, and it will be found, God helping you, Rose."

Mr. Delancy looked at her significantly.

"God helping me," she answered, with a reverent sinking of her voice, "I will find the key."

"Who is that?" said Mr. Delancy, in a tone of surprise, turning his face to the window.

Rose followed his eyes, but no one was visible.

"I saw, or thought I saw, a lady cross the portico this moment."

Both stood still, listening and expectant.

"It might have been fancy," said Mr. Delancy, drawing a deep breath.

Rose stepped to one of the library windows, and throwing it up, looked out upon the portico.

"There is no one," she remarked, coming back into the room.

"Could I have been so mistaken?"

Mr. Delancy looked bewildered.

Seeing that the impression was so strong on his mind, Miss Carman went out into the hall, and glanced from there into the parlor and dining-room.

"No one came in, Mr. Delancy," she said, on returning to the library.

"A mere impression," remarked the old man, soberly. "Well, these impressions are often very singular. My face was partly turned to the window, so that I saw out, but not so distinctly as if both eyes had been in the range of vision. The form of a woman came to my sight as distinctly as if the presence had been real—the form of a woman going swiftly past the window."

"Did you recognize the form?"

It was some time before Mr. Delancy replied.

"Yes." He looked anxious.

"You thought of Irene?"

"I did."

"We have talked and thought of Irene so much to-day," said Rose, "that your thought of her has made you present to her mind with more than usual distinctness. Her thought of you has been more intent in consequence, and this has drawn her nearer. You saw her by an inward, not by an outward, vision. She is now present with you in spirit, though her body be many miles distant. These things often happen. They startle us by their strangeness, but are as much dependent on laws of the mind as bodily nearness is dependent on the laws of matter."

"You think so?" Mr. Delancy looked at his young companion curiously.

"Yes, I think so."

The old man shook his head. "Ingenious, but not satisfactory."

"You will admit," said Rose, "that as to our minds we may be present in any part of the world, and in an instant of time, though our bodies move not."

"Our thought may be," replied Mr. Delancy. "Or, in better words, the eyes of our minds may be; for it is the eyes that see objects," said Rose.

"Well; say the eyes of our minds, then."

"We cannot see objects in London, for instance, with our bodily eyes unless our bodies be in London?" resumed Rose.

"Of course not."

"Nor with our mental eyes, unless our spirits be there."

Mr. Delancy looked down thoughtfully.

"It must be true, then, that our thought of any one brings us present to that individual, and that such presence is often recognized."

"That is pushing the argument too far."

"I think not. Has it not often happened that suddenly the thought of an absent one came into your mind, and that you saw him or her for a moment or two almost as distinctly as if in bodily presence before you?"

"Yes. That has many times been the case."

"And you had not been thinking of that person, nor had there been any incident as a reminder?"

"I believe not."

"My explanation is, that this person from some cause had been led to think of you intently, and so came to you in spirit. There was actual presence, and you saw each other with the eyes of your minds."

"But, my wise reasoner," said Mr. Delancy, "it was the bodily form—with face, eyes, hands, feet and material garments—that was seen, not the spirit. If our spirits have eyes that see, why they can only see spiritual things."

"Has not a spirit a face, and hands, and feet?" asked Rose, with a confidence that caused the old man to look at her almost wonderingly.

"Not a face, and hands, and feet like these of mine," he answered.

"Yes, like them," she replied, "but of spiritual substance."

"Spiritual substance! That is a novel term. This is substance." And Mr. Delancy grasped the arm of a chair.

"No, that is material and unsubstantial," she calmly replied; "it is subject to change and decay. A hundred years from now and there may be no visible sign that it had ever been. But the soul is imperishable and immortal; the only thing about man that is really substantial. And now," she added, "for the faces of our spirits. What gives to our natural faces their form, beauty and expression? Is it not the soul-face within? Remove that by death, and all life, thought and feeling are gone from the stolid effigy. And so you see, Mr. Delancy, that our minds must be formed of spiritual substance, and that our bodies are but the outward material clothing which the soul puts on for action and use in this world of nature."