Chapter VII

"Well, Marion," said Helen, "now that you have seen Mr. Singleton, what do you think of him?"

They were walking home through the soft, moonlit summer night when this question was asked; and Marion answered, lightly: "I find him charming. He is refined, fastidious, has seen a great deal of the world, and is altogether a man after my own taste."

"Then," said Frank Morley, who was walking by her side, "a man after your own taste must be a heartless valetudinarian; for that is what Mr. Singleton has the credit of being."

"As it chances," said Marion, "neither his heartlessness nor his valetudinarianism concerns me in the least--granting that they exist. But I confess to a doubt on that point. Are you very intimately acquainted with him, Mr. Morley?"

Had the moonlight been brighter, it might have been perceived that young Morley flushed at the tone of the question. "No," he answered; "I have no acquaintance with him at all. But that is the opinion of every one."

"The opinion of 'everyone' has very little weight with me," said Marion. "I prefer my own."

"You are quite right to distrust an uncharitable opinion, my dear Marion," interposed Mrs. Dalton's quiet voice. "The fact of its being general is no reason for crediting it. People are always quicker to believe evil than good, I am sorry to say."

"I suppose that is meant for me," said Frank Morley. "But really I am not inclined, on general principles, to believe evil sooner than good. I do think, however, that some weight is to be given to a _consensus_ of public opinion."

"What a large word!" cried Helen, laughing, while Rathborne observed, with his familiar sneer:--

"A word which represents a large fact also, but a fact that must be based on knowledge in order to have any value. Now, the public opinion of Scarborough has no knowledge at all of Mr. Singleton. Therefore its decision about him has no value."

"I am glad to hear it," said Marion; "for I do not believe that he is either heartless or a valetudinarian."

"I suppose he made himself agreeable to _you_," said young Morley.

"Very agreeable," she answered, coolly. "He informed me that we are related, and he asked me to come and sing for him alone."

"I congratulate you on a triumph, then," said Rathborne; "for he is a most critical person, who likes few things and tolerates few people."

"So I judged," she answered; "and I felt flattered accordingly."

"How frightened I should have been of him!" exclaimed Helen. "I am very glad that my singing was not worthy of his notice!"

There was a general laugh at this, as they paused at Mrs. Dalton's gate, where good-nights were exchanged. "I will see you to the house," said Rathborne, when his aunt declared that in the soft, bright moonlight there was no need for any one to accompany them farther; he opened the gate and went in, while the Morleys walked off.

"Frank," said Miss Morley, "what is the reason that you so often speak to Miss Lynde in a manner that sounds disagreeable and sarcastic? I don't think it is well-bred, and I never knew you guilty of speaking so to any one before."

"I never had such cause before," answered Frank. "It is the tone Miss Lynde habitually employs to _me_. You will say, perhaps, that is no excuse, but at least you will admit that it is a provocation."

"A provocation you ought to resist," said the young lady. "I am really ashamed of you? What is the reason that you positively seem to dislike each other?"

"Miss Lynde appears to think that I am a person who needs to be kept in his place by severe snubbing," replied the young man; "and I think that she is the most vain and conceited girl I ever encountered. I don't trust her an inch; and if there is not something very like a flirtation going on between Rathborne and herself, I'm mistaken."

"How can you say such a thing! Why, Paul Rathborne is as good as engaged to Helen; and, of course, her cousin knows it."

"That's neither here nor there. Whatever she knows or doesn't know, you have only to see them together to observe how well they understand each other. As for Rathborne, no treachery would surprise me in him."

"Frank, I am really shocked at you!" cried his sister. "You have let prejudice run away with your judgment. You dislike Paul Rathborne until you are ready to suspect him of anything. Of course he admires Miss Lynde--everyone does except yourself,--but that is no reason for believing that he would be treacherous to Helen. And Miss Lynde's manner is the same to him as to everyone, so far as I have observed."

"As far as you have observed may not be very far," said Frank, with brotherly candor. "Wait and see--that is all."

"I think _you_ ought to wait and see before you make such charges," returned Miss Morley. "You always disliked Paul Rathborne, and now you dislike Miss Lynde, so you suspect them both of very unworthy conduct. It shows how we ought to guard against disliking people, since to do so leads at last to unjust judgments."

"Very fine moralizing," remarked the young man; "but not at all applicable in this case, since I don't suspect them because I dislike them, but I dislike them because I suspect them. There's all the difference in the world in that."

"It amounts to the same thing with you, I fancy," answered his skeptical sister. "But I hope that at least you will keep your suspicions to yourself. If you breathed them to Helen--"

"Do you think I would!" he said, indignantly. "What good could it do? Helen will believe nothing against any one she loves. And she does love Rathborne--confound him!"

"Frank, you are really growing so uncharitable that it distresses me to hear you talk," said his sister, solemnly.

Frank only responded by a laugh compounded of scorn and vexed amusement; but in his heart he knew that it was true--that he was growing uncharitable, and that he disliked Rathborne so much that he was ready to believe any ill of him. It was this dislike which had sharpened his eyes to perceive what that astute gentleman thought he was concealing from every one--the fact of the strong attraction which Marion had for him; and whoever else that fact might surprise, it did not surprise young Morley in the least. He had never believed in the disinterestedness of Rathborne's affection for Helen, and it had enraged him to perceive the trust with which his cousin gave her heart to a man unworthy of it. These sentiments had prepared him to observe any failure in the conduct of that man, and there had been a gratified sense of the justification of his own judgment when he perceived what was so far hidden from everyone else except Rathborne himself and--Marion.

For Marion was fully alive to the admiration with which Rathborne regarded her; but it is only justice to say that no thought of treachery to Helen was ever in _her_ mind. Many and great as her faults might be, they were not of a mean order. By towering ambition and arrogant pride, she might fall into grievous error, but hardly into baseness--at least not by premeditation. But it is hard to say at exactly what milestone we will stop on the road of seeking the gratification and interest of self. It pleased her to see that Rathborne regarded her in a very different manner from that in which he regarded any other woman with whom she saw him associating; the unconscious homage of his air when he approached her, of his tone when he addressed her, the choice of his subjects when he talked to her alone, were all like incense to her vanity; and it was this incense which she liked, rather than the man. Concerning the latter, she had not changed her first opinion, which did not differ very widely from that of Mr. Frank Morley.

The day after Mrs. Singleton's evening, Helen said to her cousin: "I wish so much, Marion, that you would sometimes sing in our choir! Miss Grady, our organist, said to me last night that she would be so glad if you would, and I promised to ask you."

"Why, certainly," replied Marion, with ready assent; "I shall be very glad to do so whenever you like. Catholic music is so beautiful that it is a pleasure to sing it; but I don't know much of it."

"You know that lovely '_Ave Maria_' you used to sing at the convent."

"Gounod's? Oh, yes! But when can I sing that?"

"At the Offertory in the Mass. I know Miss Grady will be delighted, for she has no really good voice. Fancy, mine is her best!"

"How modest you are!" said Marion, smiling. "Very well, then, I will sing the '_Ave Maria_' next Sunday with a great deal of pleasure, if your organist likes, and your priest does not object to a Protestant voice."

"He is not likely to do that; but I thought you always declared that you are not a Protestant."

"I suppose one must be classed as a Protestant, according to the strict sense of the term, when one is not a Catholic--and that I am not."

"But you may be some day."

"Nothing is more unlikely. Your religion is too exacting: it puts one's whole life in bondage. Now, I want to be free."

"Not free to do wrong, Marion! And the only bondage which the Catholic Church lays upon people is to forbid their doing what is wrong."

"I must be free to judge for myself what _is_ wrong," returned Marion, with a haughty gesture of her head. "But we had better not talk of this, Helen. We do not think alike, and I do not wish to say anything disagreeable to you."

"Nor I to you," said Helen; "and indeed I have no talent for argument. One needs Claire for that. Dear Claire! how I wish she were here!"

"So do I," said Marion; "but not for purposes of argument, I confess."

Glad to do something to please her aunt and cousin, Marion went willingly the next Sunday to the Catholic church; and, having already seen the organist--a pleasant young music teacher--accompanied Helen into the choir-loft. Here, sitting quietly in a corner during the first part of the Mass, she had time to contrast the scene before her with that which she had witnessed during the other Sundays of her stay in Scarborough. The first thing which struck her was the poverty of the small building, as compared with the luxury and beauty of the Episcopal place of worship. Here were no finely-carved and polished woods; but plain, plastered walls, relieved from bareness only by the pictures which told in simple black and white the woful story of the Cross. The sound of moving feet and scraping benches on the uncovered floor jarred on her nerves after the subdued quiet, which was the result of carpeted aisles and pews; while the appearance of the congregation spoke plainly of humble, hard-working lives. No suggestion of social distinction and elegance was here. But in the sanctuary there was something of beauty to please even her æsthetic eye.

The small altar was beautifully dressed with freshly-cut flowers, draped with spotless linen and fine lace, and brilliant with light of wax tapers. Evidently Helen's careful hand and convent-bred taste had been there, even as Helen's pure, sweet, young voice was even now singing the angelic words of the "_Gloria_." The priest, who was a pale and rather insignificant-looking man, certainly lacked the refined and scholarly air of the handsome young clergyman with whom Marion instinctively compared him; but there was an assured dignity in his air and gestures, as he stood at the altar, which she was too keen an observer not to perceive, and remember that the other had lacked.

In the midst of these mingled thoughts and impressions--thoughts and impressions wherein devotion had no place--she was suddenly summoned to sing. She took her place with the self-possession which never failed her, and began that beautiful strain to which Gounod has set the sacred words of the "_Ave Maria_." There were not many musically trained ears or critically trained tastes among the congregation below, but even they turned instinctively to see what voice was rising with such divine melody toward heaven. Over and over again Marion had sung these words without thinking of their meaning, but she had never before sung them in the Mass; and now something in the hush of the stillness around her, in the reverence of the silent people, in the solemn, stately movements of the priest and the uplifting of the chalice, seemed to fill her with a consciousness that she, too, was uttering a prayer--a prayer of such ancient and holy origin that careless lips should fear to speak it.

"_Sancta Maria, Mater Dei!_"--Never before had the wonder, the majesty, the awfulness of the Name struck her as it struck her now, when she was, as it were, the mouthpiece for all the believing hearts that so called the Blessed Maid of Israel. "_Ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostræ._" Her voice sank over the last words with a strange sense of their meaning. The hour of our death! It would come to her, too, that hour--a sudden, intense realization of the fact seemed to run through her veins like ice,--and when it came, would it not be well to have appealed in earnest to Her who stood by the Cross, and was and is eternally the Mother of God?

Such a thought, such a question was new to this proud and worldly spirit. Why it came to her at this moment is one of the miracles of God's grace. It was not destined to make any lasting impression; but for the time it was strong enough to cause her, when the hymn was ended, to go and kneel down in the place she had left; while from her heart rose the appeal which only her lips had uttered a moment before, "Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for me now and at the hour of my death."

It gratified Helen to observe that Marion knelt with apparent devoutness during the solemn portion of the Mass; but when they came out of church, and she turned with a smile to congratulate her on her singing, she was struck by the paleness and gravity of the beautiful face. "What is the matter?" she asked, quickly. "Has anything displeased you?"

"Displeased me!" said Marion, with a start of surprise. "No; why should you think so?"

"You look so grave."

"Do I? Perhaps I am displeased with myself, then. I did not know before that I was impressionable, and I find that I am. That vexes me. I detest impressionable people; I detest above all to feel that I myself am at the mercy of outward influences."

Helen looked all the wonder that she felt. "I don't understand what you mean." she said. "How have you found out that you are impressionable--I mean particularly so?"

Marion smiled slightly. "I am afraid you would not understand if I told you," she replied. "Or you would misunderstand, which is worse. But don't ask me to go to your church again, Helen. Something there--something about the services--affects me in a way I don't like. Nothing I should dislike so much as to become a mere emotional, susceptible creature; and I feel there as if I might."

"But, Marion," exclaimed Helen, half-shocked, half-eager, "surely our feelings are given, like everything else, to lead us to God! And, O Marion! how can you turn away from what may be the grace of God? For remember, _God Himself_ was on the altar to-day!"

She uttered the last sentence in tones of reverent awe; but Marion frowned impatiently.

"It was because I knew you would not understand that I did not want to speak," she said. "What I am talking of is a mere matter of susceptibility to outward influences. It is disagreeable to me, and I do not wish to subject myself to it--that is all. I am never troubled in that way at the Episcopal services," she added, more lightly. "I shall go there in future."