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Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
in sore need of money. My father lent him three thousand pounds.
The sum was lent without security, and it was never repaid.”
Morgan breathed more freely; but he thought of Nelly’s legacy.
“When my father felt himself to be dying,” Eve went on, “he wrote to
Mr. Myrtle, reminding him once more of the debt. It was for my sake
that he did this, knowing that I should be left quite friendless, and
almost penniless. And Mr. Myrtle promised to leave me three
thousand pounds in his will. He died last year, Mr. Foster, but there
was no legacy for me.”
Morgan’s words of sympathy sounded flat and commonplace. He
was too much overcome with shame to be conscious of what he was
saying. It was almost a relief when his old father returned from
church and broke up the tête-à-tête.
When Mrs. Foster was well enough to move from her bed to a
couch, the curate bethought him of returning to Huntsdean. He did
not dare to think much of all that awaited him there. He had lived a
lifetime in the space of a few weeks, and the village and its
associations looked unreal and far away. At this time shame was his
dominant feeling. He forgot to pity himself for the blunder that he
had made—he thought only of his involuntary treachery.
He did not dream of making any confession to Nelly; she should be
no sufferer through this dreadful mistake of his. And he wrote her as
lover-like a letter as he could frame, telling her that he was coming
home in a few days.
 CHAPTER XV.

A CONFESSION OVERHEARD.

It was the afternoon of Morgan’s last day in Warwickshire. He sat by

his mother’s couch, holding her thin hand in his, and wishing, with
all his heart, that she were the only woman in the world who had
any claim upon him. She looked at him with a long earnest look;
once or twice her lips opened, but some moments went by before
she spoke.
They were alone. Mr. Foster had pattered off to the railway station,
to seek for information about the train by which Morgan was to
travel. As he sat there, with the dear old woman who had shared all
his early joys and sorrows, he could not help longing to tell her of
his new trouble. But he knew not how to begin. And then her gentle
voice broke the silence.
“Morgan,” she said, “maybe I am going to do a foolish thing. I never
was a match-maker, for I’ve always thought that God alone ought to
bring people together. But when I see two who seem to be made for
each other, and one of them so near to me, how can I help saying a
word?”
“Speak on, mother,” he answered, drawing a long breath. He knew
what was coming. Well, at any rate it would give him the opportunity
of unburdening his heart.
“I should like to see you engaged to Eve Hazleburn,” she continued,
gaining courage. “She is as good as a daughter to me; but that isn’t
the reason that I want her for my son’s wife. I want her, because
there’s a sort of likeness between you that makes me sure you ought
to be made one. And I’ve seen your eyes follow her, Morgan, as if
you thought so too.”
“It cannot be, mother,” said the curate, almost passionately. “It
cannot be, and yet I know it ought to be! I am already engaged to
another woman; but I love Eve Hazleburn as I shall never love
again!”
“God help us all!” sighed Mrs. Foster, suddenly pressing his hand to
enjoin silence. It was too late. His voice had been raised above its
usual tone; and there stood Eve at the open door.
He did not care—he was almost glad that she knew all. There had
come upon him the recklessness that often arises out of
hopelessness. If he must wear his chain, she should know what a
heavy weight it was!
“Come in, Miss Hazleburn,” he said, rising excitedly; “I am not sorry
that you have overheard me. Perhaps you will pity me a little. Surely
you can spare a grain of compassion for the poor fool who has
spoiled his own life! I think you will, for you are a good woman.
Some women would glory in a conquest of this sort, but you are not
of that number. Ah, I am talking nonsense, I suppose.”
Eve went straight up to him and laid her hand upon his arm. She
could not pretend to have heard nothing, and she would not have
told a lie if she could. Her light touch stopped him in his impatient
walk up and down the little room.
“Think of your mother, Mr. Foster,” she said, softly. “She is not strong
enough to bear a scene.”
He sat down again by the couch, and buried his face in the cushion
on which Mrs. Foster’s head rested. It was a boyish action; but Eve
knew that the best men in the world generally keep a touch of
boyishness about them. Her heart ached for him as she stood
looking down upon the bowed head. And then the mother’s glance
met hers, and both women began to weep silently.
“I’m a foolish old body,” said poor Mrs. Foster. “It’s a mistake to go
knocking at the door of any heart, even if it’s that of one’s child. I
had better have held my tongue, and left all to God.”
“It is better as it is,” Morgan answered raising his head, and
speaking more quietly. “I am less miserable than I was before. And
Miss Hazleburn will understand,” he added, with a little pride, “that
although I am an unhappy man, I don’t mean to be a traitor. I do
not wish to recall anything I have said. Every word was true; and
now that she knows all, she will pray for me.”
Eve stood before him and held out her hand.
“I am going now,” she said. “God bless you, Mr. Foster. You shall
have all the blessings that my prayers can win for you; and the
truest respect and friendship that a woman can give. Perhaps we
shall never meet again. If we do, I think this scene will seem like a
dream to us both.”
She went her way out of the shabby little house into the narrow
street. Had God nothing better to give her than this? Had He shown
her the beautiful land of Might-have-been only to send her back,
doubly desolate, into the wilderness? These were the first rebellious
questions that arose in Eve’s heart, and it was some time before
they were answered.
Early on the following morning she went to the window of her room,
and looked between the slats of the Venetian blind. It was chill and
grey out-of-doors. The sun had not yet fully risen, and only a faint
pallor was to be seen in the eastern sky. Presently a fly stopped at
the door of that shabby little house which she knew so well. Then
the flyman knocked; the door opened, and he entered, soon
reappearing with a portmanteau. Another figure followed, tall and
black-coated. At the sight of it poor Eve uttered a low cry, and
pressed her hands tightly together. A moment more, and the fly had
rattled off down the street, and had turned the corner on its way to
the railway station.
Was that to be the end of it all? Shivering and forlorn, she went back
to her bed, and lay there for a time, mutely praying for strength and
peace.
Afterwards, she knew all that Morgan’s mother could tell her about
his engagement. And she knew, too, that Nelly Channell was the
lady to whom Mr. Myrtle had left the three thousand pounds. It
seemed to her just then, poor girl, as if Nelly were taking all the
things that ought to have been hers. But this mood did not last long,
and she was sorry that such bitter thoughts should have found their
way into her heart. The Golds came back from the seaside early in
March, and the ordinary way of life began again.
Morgan, too, had gone back to his work, but it was harder for him
than for Eve. She had no part to sustain—no love to simulate. And
she had the consolation of his mother’s friendship, and the sad
delight of reading his letters. In those letters no mention was ever
made of her; but they told of a life of daily struggles—a life whose
best comfort was found in labour. Eve and Mrs. Foster wept over
them together, and clung to each other with a new tenderness. The
mother had faith, and she believed that her son would be set free.
She ventured, once or twice, to say this to Eve, but the girl shook
her head.
“No,” she said, “we must not look for that. We ought rather to pray
that the ties may grow pleasant instead of irksome.”
“I don’t know,” replied Mrs. Foster, thoughtfully. “I almost think it is
best to pray for the freedom. It was not the right kind of feeling,
Eve, that led him to propose to Miss Channell. He was startled into
it, and it really seemed at first as if that were the way that God
meant him to go.”
“He should have stood still, and just have waited for guidance,” Eve
remarked, sadly.
“Yes, I know that,” admitted the mother. “But do not most of our
troubles come to us because we will not wait? We all find it easier to
run than to stand still.”
While these other hearts were throbbing with restless pain, Nelly
Channell was serenely happy. She complained at times that Morgan
was working too hard, and wearing himself out, but she never
thought of attributing his wan looks to any cause save that of over-
exertion.
But Robert Channell had a keener sight; and he began to ask
himself, uneasily, if he had been right in letting this engagement
come to pass? In his heart of hearts he owned that he had been
secretly anxious to secure the curate for his daughter. It was the
desire of his life that Nelly should marry a good man, and Morgan
Foster was the best man that had as yet come in her way. Perhaps
he, too, had been running when he ought to have stood still. He
began to think that this was the case.
But how could he undo what was done? In his perplexity he talked
the matter over with his wife. And she admitted that the curate did
not seem to be quite at ease in Nelly’s company. There was a
shadow upon him. It might be a consciousness of failing health, or
——
“Or of failing love,” said Mr. Channell, finishing her sentence. “If that
is it, Rhoda, it is a miserable affair indeed! We ought to have made
them wait before we sanctioned the engagement. But you know I
wanted to keep her safe from those selfish, worldly men who have
been seeking her.”
“We are always afraid to trust God with anything dear to us,”
answered Mrs. Channell, sadly. “But if Morgan Foster has mistaken
his own feelings, Robert, it will be hard to condemn him, and equally
hard to forgive him.”
Summer came. And early in July all the gossips in Huntsdean were
talking of the rich family who had taken Laurel House. Mr. Gold, they
said, was a retired merchant from Warwickshire, who was as wealthy
as a nabob. His household consisted of a wife and six children, a
governess, and menservants and maidservants. And when Nelly
heard that the governess was a Miss Hazleburn, the name awoke no
recollections. She had quite forgotten the little poem in the Monthly
Guest.
The Channells called on the new-comers, and were received by Miss
Hazleburn. Illness kept Mrs. Gold in her own room for some weeks
after her arrival in Huntsdean, and on Eve devolved the unwelcome
task of seeing visitors. The one whom she most dreaded and most
longed to see did not come. She saw him in church, and that was
all. She had determined that her stay in Huntsdean should be as
short as possible. Already she was answering advertisements, and
doing her utmost to get away from the place. It was hard upon her,
she thought, that among the earliest callers should be Nelly
Channell.
Yet when she saw the girl she felt a thrill of secret satisfaction. This,
then, was the woman before whom she was preferred; and Eve’s
eyes told her that she could no more be compared with Nelly than a
daisy can be compared with a rose! But the poor daisy, growing in
life’s highway, unsheltered from the storms of the world, was loved
better than the beautiful garden flower. She was human, and she
could not help rejoicing in her unsuspected triumph.
Nelly took a girl’s sudden and unreasonable liking to the governess.
She wanted Miss Hazleburn to be her friend; she talked of her to
everybody, including Morgan Foster.
“Have you seen her, Morgan?” she asked.
“I have seen her in church,” he answered.
“Then you haven’t called on the Golds yet,” said Nelly. “Why don’t
you go there?”
“The rector has called,” Morgan replied, “and there really is no need
for a curate to be thrusting himself into rich folks’ houses unless they
are ill.”
“You didn’t mind coming to our house,” rejoined Nelly, “and I
daresay we are as rich as the Golds. But you can’t judge of Miss
Hazleburn by seeing her in church, Morgan. It is in conversation that
you find out how charming she is. And actually there is something in
her that reminds me of you! I can’t tell where the resemblance lies—
it may be in the voice, or it may be in the face, but I am certain that
it exists.”
“It exists only in your imagination,” said Morgan, bent upon
changing the subject.
Before Mrs. Gold had entirely recovered, Nelly had got into a habit of
running in and out of the house. It was about three-quarters of a
mile from her home, and stood on the summit of the green downs
which she had loved in her childhood. The garden slanted down
from the back of the house to these open downs: it was raised
above the slopes and terminated in a gravelled terrace; and so low
was this terrace that Nelly could easily climb upon it and go straying
into the shrubbery. She had done this dozens of times while Laurel
House was empty, for the old garden, with its thick hedges of laurel
and yew, had always been a favourite haunt of hers. Finding that the
Golds were free-and-easy people, who gladly welcomed the pretty
trespasser, she chose to keep up her old custom.
 CHAPTER XVI.

HOW THE TRUTH CAME OUT.

One August evening, when it was too sultry to stay indoors, Nelly
wandered out into the lanes alone. She had told Morgan that she
was going to drive into the nearest town on a shopping expedition,
and should not return till dusk. But one of her ponies had fallen
lame, and she had given up the plan.
On she went, saying a kind word or two to the villagers as she
passed their cottages. They all loved Nelly well. Her bright face came
amongst them like a sunbeam; even the smallest children had a
smile for her as she went by. She was so young and healthy and
beautiful that many an admiring glance followed her tall figure. She
belonged to Huntsdean, and Huntsdean was proud of her.

On she went through the village.—Page 191.

She made straight for the downs, tripping up the green slopes, and
startling the browsing sheep. She gave a friendly nod to the little
shepherd-boy who lay idly stretched upon the grass. And then, as
she had done often enough before, she mounted the gravelled
terrace, and sat down on a rustic bench behind the hedge of laurels.
From this spot she could not see Laurel House at all. The high wall
of evergreens completely shut in the view of the residence and its
garden. The gravelled terrace was divided from the grounds by this
thick hedge, and was only approached from the house by one long
straight path of turf. The path terminated in an arch, formed by the
carefully-kept shrubs, and giving access to the platform; and any
one walking on the downs must go up to the middle of the terrace
and look through this archway before he could get a glimpse of the
house.
Nelly knew that Miss Hazleburn liked to walk up and down the turfy
path when the day’s duties were done. She meant to rest herself for
a few minutes before entering the garden.
The bench was at the very end of the platform. She loved the seat
because it commanded an extensive view of the surrounding
country. Beyond the Huntsdean downs she could see other hills lying
far away, softly outlined against the summer evening sky. And nearer
lay the dearer old meadows and homesteads and the long tracts of
woodland,—all familiar and beloved scenes to the girl who had been
born and bred among them. The air was very still; even here it was
but a faint breath of wind that fanned her flushed cheeks; but the
coolness on these highlands was delightful after the closeness of the
vale. She sat and enjoyed it in silence.
Quite suddenly the sound of voices broke the stillness. The speakers
were hidden from Nelly’s gaze, for the tones came from the other
side of the laurel hedge. Eve Hazleburn’s accents, clear and musical,
could be recognised in a moment.
“I am going away next week,” she said, “going back to Warwickshire,
Mr. Foster, I wrote to Mr. Lindley, the good Vicar of C——, and he has
found a place for me. I am to be companion to an invalid lady whose
house is close to the street where your father and mother live. They
will be glad to have me near them again.”
She spoke rapidly, and a little louder than usual. Nelly, overwhelmed
with astonishment, sat still, without giving a thought to her position
as an eavesdropper.
“I have kept away from you—I have tried not to think of you!” cried
Morgan Foster, in irrepressible anguish. “God does not help me in
this matter. I have prayed, worked, struggled, yet I get no relief.
What shall I do, Eve—what shall I do?”

Eve Hazleburn and Morgan Foster.—Page

194.
“You must endure to the end,” she answered, with a little sob. “God
will make it easier by-and-by. Oh, I was so sorry to come here, Mr.
Foster; but I could not help it! We will never meet again, you and I.
Yet I am glad that I know Miss Channell. I will go and tell the old
people what a sweet bright girl she is; and they will soon learn to
love her. It will all come right in the end.”
“Ah, if I could believe that!” said the curate. “But I can’t. It is
madness to think that a wrong path can have a right ending.
Sometimes I am persuaded it would be best to tell her everything.”
“If you did,” cried Eve, sternly, “you would break her heart. And
don’t think—pray don’t think, Mr. Foster, that I would build my house
on the ruins of another woman’s happiness! When I am gone,” and
the proud voice trembled, “you will learn to submit to circumstances.
We are not likely to cross each other’s paths again; you will be a rich
man——”
“Oh, the money makes it all the harder to bear!” interrupted Morgan,
bitterly. “That three thousand pounds that Mr. Myrtle promised to
leave to you has been left to her. Did you know this?”
Nelly did not wait to hear Eve’s reply. Swiftly and noiselessly she
sprang from the terrace on to the smooth sod beneath, her muslin
dress making no rustle as she moved. Away she sped down the
green slopes; the sheep parted to left and right before her flying
footsteps; the shepherd-lad stared after her in amazement. She did
not take the road that led through the village. In her misery and
bewilderment she remembered that she could not bear the friendly
good-nights of the cottagers. She struck wildly across the fields,
regardless of the wet grass, and the brambles that tore her thin
skirts as she dashed through the gaps in the hedges, until she came
to the side of the brook, where she was alone in her grief. She was
not thinking at all; she was only feeling—feeling passionately and
bitterly—that she had been cruelly wronged and deceived.
“Oh those two!” she moaned aloud, as her home came in sight. “The
man whom I loved—the girl whom I would have made my friend!”
Robert Channell and his wife were sitting together in the library. He
had been reading aloud: Shakespeare still lay open on his knee, and
Rhoda occupied a low chair by his side. They were talking, as happy
married people love to talk, of the old days when God first brought
them together.
While they chatted in low tones, the day was fast closing in. The
French windows stood open, and the first breath of the night wind
stole into the room. A dusky golden haze was settling down over the
garden; the air was heavy with flower-scents and the faint odours of
fallen leaves. Suddenly a great shower of petals from over-blown
roses drifted through the casement, and Nelly swept in after them.
She sank down on her knees, shivering in her limp, wet dress, and
hid her face in her stepmother’s lap. And then the story was told
from beginning to end.
An hour later, Rhoda was sitting by Nelly’s pillow, talking to her in
the sweet hush of the August twilight. Already the heat of anger had
passed away. The girl’s thoughts had gone back, as Rhoda knew
they would, to that winter afternoon when Morgan had asked her to
become engaged to him.
“Mamma,” she said, piteously, “he has never loved me at all. He
gave me all he could give; but it was only the silver, not the gold. It
is very, very humiliating, but it is the truth, and it must be faced. To-
night when I heard him speaking to Eve Hazleburn, I understood the
difference between love and liking. He liked me, and perhaps he saw
—more than I meant him to see! O mamma, I was very young and
foolish!”
It touched Rhoda to hear Nelly speak of her old self in the past
tense. Yet it was a fact; the youth and the folly had had their day.
Nelly would never be so young again, for sorrow takes away girlhood
when it teaches wisdom.
“I heard Eve say,” she went on, “that she would never build her
house on the ruins of another woman’s happiness; and God forbid
that I should build mine on ground that has never rightly belonged
to me! But I wish he had told me the truth. He has done me a
greater wrong in hiding it, than in speaking it out.”
“Nelly,” said her stepmother, tenderly, “we believe that Morgan has
been a blunderer, but not a traitor. We have blundered terribly
ourselves. We ought not to have let the engagement take place until
we had tested the strength of his attachment. We wanted to guard
you from unworthy suitors; and in taking you out of danger, we led
you into sorrow.”
“I was very foolish,” repeated Nelly, with a sigh.
“Don’t forget,” Rhoda continued, “that God can bless those whom He
puts asunder, as well as those whom He joins together. It is better to
dwell apart than to live together with divided souls. He saw we were
too weak and stupid to set our mistake right, and He has done it for
us. While we were gazing helplessly at the knot, He cut the thread.”
It was on a Saturday evening that Nelly’s love affair came to an end.
She was in her place in church on Sunday morning, and during the
rest of the day she kept much by her father’s side. They had talked
the matter over and over, and had arranged all their plans before the
night closed in. And Nelly thanked God that the anger had gone
away from her heart, although the sorrow remained.
 CHAPTER XVII.

AN UNLOOKED-FOR RELEASE.

Very early on Monday, the Golds’ governess took her departure from
Huntsdean. The train bore her away through the pleasant southern
counties while the dew was still shining on the meadows. On and on
it went; past cottages, standing amid fruit-laden trees, and gardens
where Michaelmas daisies were in bloom; past yellow fields, where
the corn was falling under the sickles of the reapers. Hedges were
gay with Canterbury bells and ragged robins. Here and there were
dashes of gold on the deep green of the woods. Eve Hazleburn,
quiet and tearless, looked out upon the smiling country, and bade it
a mute farewell.
Afterwards, two carriages laden with luggage drove out of the
village, taking the road that led to the neighbouring seaport town.
The first contained the two little Channells and their nurses; in the
second sat Rhoda and Nelly. And before the vehicles were out of
sight, Robert Channell had turned his steps in the direction of the
curate’s lodging.
He met the young man in the lane outside the sexton’s cottage, and
gave him a kindly good morning.
“I am the bearer of startling news, Morgan,” he said, slipping a little
note into his hand. “Let us come under the shade of the churchyard
trees. And now, Morgan, before you read the note, I want to ask you
to forgive my Nelly.”
“Forgive Nelly!” stammered the curate, thinking that if all could be
known it would be Nelly’s part to forgive him.
“Yes,” the father answered. “Try to think of her as a dear, foolish
child who has made a grave mistake. She has sent me to break off
her engagement with you, Morgan. She begs you, through me, to
forgive her for any pain that she may cause you. She wants you to
remember her kindly always, but neither to write to her, nor seek to
see her again.”
The curate was silent for some moments. No suspicion of the truth
crossed his mind. He concluded, not unnaturally, that he had been
too quiet and grave a lover for the bright girl. That was all.
When he spoke, his words were very few. Perhaps Nelly’s father
respected him none the less because he made no pretence of great
sorrow. His face was pale, and his voice trembled a little, as he said
quietly,—
“If you will come into my lodging, Mr. Channell, I will give you Nelly’s
letters and her portrait. She may like to have them back again
without delay.”
They walked out of the churchyard, and down the lane to the
sexton’s cottage. And then Morgan left Mr. Channell sitting in the
little parlour, while he went upstairs to his room.
The hour of release had come. He took out a plain gold locket,
which had always been worn unseen, and detached it from its
guard. He opened it, and looked long and sadly at the fair face that
it contained. It was a delicately-painted photograph, true to life; and
locket and portrait had been Nelly’s first gift. The smile was her own
smile, frank and bright; the brown eyes seemed to look straight at
the gazer. “O Nelly,” he said, kissing the picture, “why couldn’t I love
you better? Thank God for this painless parting! No wonder that you
wearied of me, dear; you will be a thousand times freer and happier
without me.”
Presently he came downstairs, and entered the parlour with the
locket and a little packet of letters. These he gave silently into Mr.
Channell’s hands.
“Morgan,” said Robert Channell, “I am heartily sorry for this. Don’t
think that I shall cease to feel for you as a friend, because I cannot
have you for a son-in-law.”
“I shall never forget all your kindness,” Morgan answered, in a low
voice. “But I shall soon leave this place, Mr. Channell.”
“Better so, perhaps,” Robert responded. “You ought to labour in a
larger sphere. You have great capacities for hard work, Morgan.”
Then the two men parted with a close hand-shake. And Mr. Channell
looked back to say, almost carelessly,—
“My family have migrated to Southsea for a month or two. I follow
them to-morrow.”
It would be too much to say that the curate “regained his freedom
with a sigh.” Yet certain it is that this unlooked-for release set his
heart aching; it might be that his amour propre was slightly
wounded, for was it not a little hard to find that the girl for whom he
had been making a martyr of himself could do very well without
him? He had climbed the height of self-sacrifice only to find
deliverance. The spirit of sacrifice had been required of him, but the
crowning act was not demanded.
He read Nelly’s note again. It was a very commonplace little letter,
written in a sloping, feminine hand. She used that stereotyped
phrase which, hackneyed as it is, does as well or better than any
other, “I feel we are not suited for each other.” This was the sole
excuse offered for breaking the engagement, and surely it was
excuse enough.
How could he know that these few trite sentences had been written
in the anguish of a woman’s first great sorrow? We don’t recognise
the majesty of woe when it masquerades in every-day garments. It
needs a Divine sight to find out the real heroes and heroines of life.
If Morgan had been questioned about Nelly, the term “heroine”
would have been the very last that he would have applied to her.
And yet Nelly, quite unconsciously, had acted in the true spirit of
heroism.
By-and-by the sense of relief began to make itself felt, and Morgan’s
heart grew wonderfully light. He went through his usual routine of
duties, and then took his way to the rectory. He must give the rector
timely notice of his intention to resign his curacy.
Meanwhile Robert Channell had proceeded to Laurel House. Mrs.
Gold received him in a depressed manner. Her governess, she said,
had left her; and she seemed to consider that Miss Hazleburn had
used her unkindly. She did not know how such a useful person could
be replaced. Nobody would ever satisfy her so well as Miss
Hazleburn had done. Yes, she could give the governess’s address to
Mr. Channell. She had chosen to go to Warwickshire, to live with an
invalid lady. Mrs. Gold hoped she would find the post unbearably
dull, and return to her former situation.
“There is little probability of that,” thought Robert Channell, as he
went his way with the address in his pocket-book. And then he
thought of Nelly’s face and voice when she had stated her intention
of giving up Mr. Myrtle’s legacy to Eve.
“I won’t keep anything that isn’t fairly mine,” she had said; “let her
have both the lover and the money.”
Eve never ceased to wonder how the Channells had found out that
Mr. Myrtle had owed her father three thousand pounds.
October had just set in when Eve and Morgan met again. It was
Sunday morning, and she was on her way to that beautiful old
church which is the chief glory of the city of C——. The bells were
chiming; the ancient street was bright with autumn light; far above
them rose the tall spire, rising high into the calm skies.
They said very little to each other at that moment. A great deal had
already been said on paper, and they could afford to be quiet just
then. Together they entered the church, a happy pair of
worshippers, “singing and making melody in their hearts to the
Lord.” “A thousand times happier,” Eve remarked afterwards, “than
we could ever have dared to be if another had suffered for our joy.”
 CHAPTER XVIII.

WHAT GOD HATH JOINED TOGETHER.

About two years ago, a great crowd assembled in one of the largest
churches in London to hear a popular preacher. He had, it was said,
a rare power of touching men’s hearts, and of lifting their thoughts
out of the mire and clay of this working-day world. And often, too,
his wife’s name was coupled with his; for she, by her written words,
was doing angels’ work among the people. Fashionable society knew
them only as preacher and writer; but some of the unfashionable
were better acquainted with them.
In the crowd were two persons who managed to get good seats in
the middle aisle. They were husband and wife; he a brave soldier,
she a beautiful woman. It would not have been easy to have found a
couple better matched, or better satisfied with each other. They
exchanged a quick glance of intelligence when the preacher
ascended the pulpit stairs, and then composed themselves to listen.
They were not disappointed in him. As they listened, they
understood how and why he won such a ready hearing; and when
the sermon was over, Nelly turned to her husband again with the old
bright look; and he answered her with a slight nod of satisfaction.
Then, and not till then, did she perceive a familiar face at the top of
the pew.
As Nelly looked once more on Eve, there was revealed to her a
strange glimpse of what might have been if those two had been kept
apart, and she had taken Eve’s place. She saw herself a restless,
unsatisfied wife, always craving for a vague something that was
withheld. She saw Morgan crippled, not helped, by her riches; a
good man still, but one who had, somehow, missed his footing, and
failed to climb so high as had been expected of him. And she
comprehended, fully and thankfully, the great love and pity of that
Being who had saved them from their mistake.
There was a quiet hand-clasp in the crowded aisle; and then these
two women went their respective ways. And a voice seemed to be
ringing in Nelly’s ears, as she leaned upon her husband’s arm.
“I am thinking,” she said, “of something that was spoken long ago. It
was when I was in great trouble, dear, and felt as if I couldn’t be
comforted. ‘Don’t forget,’ my stepmother said to me, ‘that God can
bless those whom He puts asunder as well as those whom He joins
together.’ And I think I’m realizing the truth of those words to-night.”
 Transcriber's Note:
All variable hyphenation and variant spelling has been retained. However,
obvious printer's errors have been corrected.
All obvious punctuation errors have been repaired.
 *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NELLY CHANNELL
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