Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/546

 538 amid piles of luggage, General Maitland strode up and down the Paddington platform. Marion sat in the waiting-room.

“At last,” said a well-known voice, and Marston stood by her side. “Why do you avoid me, Marion?”

“I—Marston!”

“Yes; I am kept from seeing you on the most trivial pretences. Are they another’s, or your own?”

“Not mine,” she answered, colouring deeply, and looking down.

“Then, you are the same, Marion?” he continued, eagerly. “You care for me still?”

He had put out his hand; she placed hers in it.

“Did you think I could forget so easily, Marston?”

“There is the bell; may I write to you? God bless you, Marion!”

They reached Tremawr by evening.

“The country air has done you good, already,” said her father, and certainly she looked like her old self again. He did not know the secret spring of joy that caused the bright smiles.

The letter came. General Maitland had left home for two days, on business, so Marion could rejoice over it to her heart’s content.

But she was obliged to tell her father of it on his return.

“Papa, I have had a letter from Marston Howard.”

“The deuce you have! And what does he say for himself?”

“He asks me to be his wife, papa.”

“And you have given him your answer?”

“I wait for you to endorse it.”

She had turned very pale.

“Then write and decline, with thanks. Here is my desk—write.”

“I cannot write that, papa.”

“What? Eh? then I’ll write for you.”

She moved from the escritoire.

“I will write for myself; you can enclose it in yours.”

“Very fine; and call me a tyrant; fancy yourself a victim?”

“I will tell him the truth.”

“And pray what may that be?”

“That I love him,” she answered, proudly.

He said no more. When, an hour later, she brought him her note, he put it in his envelope and sealed it in silence.

She received one more letter from Marston: it was harsh and bitter. He accused her of coquetry in their last interview; “if she had not intended to accept him, why have allowed him to write. As to obedience, the wife of a professional man,” he was well aware, “could not command the luxuries to which she had grown accustomed. He did not doubt she had chosen wisely.” With scalding tears she read the cruel words; then threw them into the flames, and prayed that they might be forgiven him.

The life at Tremawr was retired. Miss Maitland had too many resources ever to feel time hang heavy upon her hands. The clergyman and his wife were old acquaintances, and soon became friends, worthy of regard and trust. Dinners and visits to the neighbouring country houses relieved the monotony of winter, and the facility of intercourse with London kept the General from feeling dull. He took pleasure in the country life; inspected his stables; demanded vegetables from the perplexed gardener at impossible seasons, and played at farming: his daughter was sometimes startled at the rate of mortality in mutton, but forbore remark.

She had trusted that time would soften her father’s feelings towards Marston Howard. Of the cruel wound she had herself experienced at his hands she kept the secret. Winters and summers passed away, and still, though he did not seem untouched by his daughter’s gentle and dutiful demeanor, he made no allusion to the past.

Once again she saw Marston. They were travelling in the Highlands, and were detained by a mountain storm at a wayside inn. A party of pedestrians entered the kitchen to dry their plaids. She heard his voice, and a companion called him by name. “What’s to be done, Howard? Mrs. Marston won’t thank us for keeping dinner waiting.” Whom could he have meant? Her father thought she had taken cold, and hurried her home, desiring her maid to nurse her well. She was glad to escape his scrutiny. She supposed afterwards that he too had seen Marston, for he said, “I don’t hear of Howard; I suppose he’s getting up in his profession: he’s a clever fellow, but I suspect with a heart as hard as his head. A proud, selfish man.”

We may not crouch on the steps of our broken altars, and let the weeds grow and the cobwebs thicken round us; whilst we sleep in selfish torpor the halt, and the sick, and the blind, and the sorrowing toil past, needing the succour which we could give. We may not hide our talent in the earth, for how then shall we answer our Lord when He reckons with us at his coming? So Marion rose, and girt on her armour, and found that life had work for her to do, and a blessing to bestow.

Her idol was dimmed—tarnished, but not destroyed. Sorrow and disappointment did not sour her generous nature: it mellowed and refined it. Her own grief made her pitiful and loving to all who needed sympathy. On rich and poor alike her care was lavished: the young and the old came to her to share their trouble or their joy. Nor could her father complain—however willing at times to find fault—that he was in any danger of being neglected for others. All engagements were made to yield to his convenience. As his health grew less robust, and his temper more and more irritable, his demands on her time and patience were often harassing and unconscionable; but her sweetness of temper was proof against all vexation, and sometimes drew an apology even from him.

The children from the Rectory ran up the garden one morning, as she was tending a favourite rose-tree.

“Dear Miss Maitland, only think where we went yesterday! We had a whole holiday, and