Fabiola : or, The church of the catacombs - Digital Repository Services

20 THE TWO VICTORIES.
And thus he fed the sense of the wrong he fancied he had
sustained never thinking for a moment that it was I
who stood most in need of panlou and forgiveness never for
a moment thinking of his boy with feelings of forgiveness and
reconciliation, except in union with that submission to his will
and that rejection of his adopted religion which he knew in his
lu 'art that Edwin would never make.
There was in his study, hanging over the fireplace, a large
full-length portrait of Edwin taken when he was about fifteen
years
i ~i age. He would sit for hours, almost unconsciously
gazing upon it, and phmged into the deepest and most bitter
thought. About a month aftr-r Edwin had gone to college, and
when his bitter feelings were keenest, he had come home from
the city one day more irritated and passionate than usual.
Walking straight to his room, he locked himself
in, nud throwing himself upon a chair, Ms eyes
rested as usual upon the picture. He sat thus for nearly an
hour, and whether it were that his good angel was at work trying
to soften the proud heart, or whether the remembrance of
bygone days was flitting round him with a chastening influence,
we know not but the tears ; began to flow quickly down his
pale cheek as he sat with his head resting upon his hand. Sud-
denly coming to himself, he started to his feet, and stood for a
moment with clenched hands and contracted brow then ; pulling
the bell violently, as the old butler hurriedly entered the
room, he said, pointing with his hand to the picture, but with
averted face "Johnson, take that that thing away; and
mind that I never see it again. No," he muttered, pacing
backwards and forwards with hasty steps, " I will never for-
give him never never never." And then he satdownagain,
looking for awhile upon the blank space where the picture had
been, till he turned away and hid his head upon his desk, and
wept for his poor empty heart wept in the stillness and dark-
ness of the night, even for his lost, lost boy.
He received several letters from Edwin, who wrote to him in
a most affectionate manner, begging his pardon if he had shown
any want of due respect and deference towards him, candidly
telling him, that were the step to be taken again a thousand
times, he would feel equally bound to take it and when he
came to this part, Mr. Stanhope cast the letters passionately
away from him but that, in the manner of taking it, there
was, perhaps, something to beg pardon for, asking him to remember
the days gone by and all their former love, telling him
how happy he was, and that the only thing needed to render
his happiness complete was his father's forgiveness, assuring
him that, whatever might happen, or wherever he might be, he
could never forget his duty and love toward his dear father and
his sister.
These letters were never answered, but were always returned
Seymour, who had spoken to him very freely on the subject of
his son. Whilst the warm-hearted old man was in the middle
of an eloquent, because warm and honest, expostulation with
him, Mr. Stanhope interrupted him, coldly saying : "When
I require your advice on the management of my domestic af-
fairs, sir, I will ask you for it. Till then I will trouble you,
sir, to keep it to yourself." And, turning on his heel, he stalked
proudly and haughtily away. He transacted his business
as usual; he frequented the church as usual; he was in the
world almost as much as usual, and casual observers remarked
but little change in him, and wondered to Bee him bear his
troubles so well. But, in the midst of his business, at ehii'rli,
or in the world, there were moments when, although a shadow
that was dark and very gloomy flitted over his countenance,
etill the face grew less stern and haughty, and his pride seemed
to be giving way, moments when he looked so worn and weary,
that in very truth it rent the heart to see him, many, many
moments when that old look came over him, telling in an instant
its tale of grief and pain, telling, although he flattered
himself that lie had conquered, of the bitter, crushing price of
the victory he had gained.
CHAPTEB XVH.
THE SHADOWS THICKEN. OLD JOHNSON CAN*T HELP IT, AND
DOESN'T WANT TO HELP rr.
One morning, towards the middle of September, Father
Eustace, who had become very uneasy at not having heard from
Edwin for several weeks past, received a letter from the Superior
of the College, informing him that his young friend was
very unwell, and begging him to run down as soon as possible
to see him.
Father Eustace turned very pale as he read, and when he
had finished the letter, he put it aside with a very sad and
troubled air, and covering his face with his hands, remained
some time buried in sorrowful and foreboding thought. He
had long felt that it would be so, and somehow he was not at
all astonished at receiving this news ; but for a moment he was
crushed. He gathered from the letter that Edwin had about
a month before caught a very severe cold ; that it had baffled
all the skill of the physician, and seemed to have settled upon
the lungs of its victim, who was in a very weak and debilitated
state. Edwin's courage at the time of his conversion, and his
gentle and affectionate demeanor during their subsequent in.
tercourse, had so endeared him to the good old priest, that he
felt this illness of his dear young friend more keenly than even
he himself liked to admit. He was resigned to the will of God.
but he felt that it would be a very heavy blow to him, should
the Good Shepherd take the innocent boy for ever to Himself.
He felt that there would be one tie more, and that, perhaps,
the strongest, loosed between himself and the world and al-
;
though he felt, and felt most surely, that his own loss would
be the eternal gain of his young friend, still it would be a loss
to him, and nature shrunk and trembled as she contemplated
it.
He sat down to his desk with a moist eye and an aching
heart, and wrote a few lines to Maria, breaking the sad news to
her, but speaking of it as lightly as possible, and describing it
as probably a mere passing illness from which he might soon
recover. Father Eustace had a sad presentiment that it would
not be so, and he feared that he was hoping against hope. He
started at once for the college, and as soon as he saw Edwin
to Edwin with a formal note from one of the clerks, intimating
that he wrote, by Mr. Stanhope's orders, to Mr. Edwin Stanhope,
to inform him that Mr. Stanhope had no desire to enter
into any correspondence with him, and begged not to be troubled
with any more letters.
And so he went his way, nursing his his worst fears were realized. Edwin was up and dressed, reclining
upon
pride, even whilst it
steeled his heart against his own son. He was kind, as usual,
to his daughter, but would never allow her to introduce the
mention of her brother's name. He had quarrelled with Mr.
a couch, and as Father Eustace hurriedly entered,
he stretched out both his hands, with the same gentle, innocent
smile upon his face that Father Eustace had so often seen before,
and putting his arms around the old man's neck, kissed
him upon both cheeks, and then laid his head upon that breast
which had once before pillowed it so gently and so lovingly,
and burst into tears. Father Eustace looked for a moment
upon the eye, at once so sunken and. so bright. He saw the
flush upon the drawn and hollow cheek. He saw the blue veins
in all their painful distinctness upon the broad and white brow,
and in the poor shrunken hands. He listened with all the
quickened perceptions of love to the slow, heavy breathing,
and he saw at a glance that his child was the victim of that
dread and treacherous disease, which, seizing as it ever does,
upon the fairest, purest children of the earth, snatches them
away from us, even then when it has so refined and purified their
grosser part that we can least afford to lose them ; snatches
them away from us after it has made them most augel-lik
heavenly, and whilst we would gladly lay down our own lives
them with (i us, laughs at our impotent efforts to cheat
it of its prey snatches them from us when the ;
eye is bright-
est and the cheek most rosy leaving us, when all is over, but
a poor, wasted, shrunken form, as fuir, but as fleeting and as