Miss Evans sat quietly reading, when a gentle ring at the door, which seemed to reach her heart rather than her ears, aroused her from an intensely interesting chapter; but she laid the book aside, and promptly answered the call.
Her face looked the welcome her heart gave them, as she asked Dawn and her teacher into her cool, airy room. It was one of those snug, homelike spots, made bright by touches of beauty. Here a vase of flowers, there a basket of work; books, pictures, every chair and footstool betokened the taste of the occupant, and the air of home sacredness that pervaded all, soon made Miss Vernon at ease.
“We could n't help coming,” said Dawn, as Miss Evans removed her hat and mantle, and her glowing features confirmed the assertion.
“Just the kind of visitors I like, fresh and spontaneous. We shall have a nice time, I know, this lovely afternoon.”
“Can I walk in your garden, Miss Evans?”
“Certainly. But are you not too tired, now?”
“O, no,” and Dawn was out of sight the next instant.
“I have brought you a book, Miss Evans, which Mr. Wyman requested me to bring, myself.”
“O, yes,” she said, glancing at the title, “the one he promised to loan me so long ago. Is he away from home?”
“He left this morning.”
“You must miss him very much.”
“We do.”
Miss Evans saw, with a woman's intuition, that something was weighing on the mind of her visitor, and kindly sought to divert her thoughts. The conversation brightened a little, yet it was apparent that Miss Vernon's interest flagged, and that her mind grew abstracted.
“I shall not relieve her, unless I probe the wound,” said Miss Evans to herself, and she boldly ventured on grounds which her subtle penetration discovered to be the cause of her gloom.
“You find my friend, Mr. Wyman, an agreeable companion, I hope, Miss Vernon?”
“He has ever been so, and very kind and thoughtful.”
“He is a true gentleman, and a man of honor, as well of refinement and noble character.”
Miss Vernon breathed freer.
“You have made him very happy,” resumed Miss Evans, “by consenting to remain with him and his daughter. They are both much attached to you.”
A flush of pain she could not conceal passed over the face of the caller. “O, if I might but speak to you as I would,” she said, almost fainting with emotion.
“Do tell me in words what you have already so plainly told me in your looks. Tell me freely the cause of the shadow that hangs over you.”
In response to this appeal, Florence related the experience of the morning.
“I am not at all surprised at this,” said Miss Evans, after the statement had been made, “for well I know the dark surmisings that the dwellers in this little village have worked up into imaginary evils. Sages would no doubt assert that all rumors have some degree of truth, however slight, for a foundation. This may be true; at least I will not deny that it is so, but the instigators of the cruel slanders in this case have nothing but ignorance upon which to base them. Hugh Wyman is what some might call eccentric. The fact is, he is so far beyond the majority of his fellow men that he stands alone, and is the cause of great clamor among those who do not know him. He expresses his views upon social questions freely but wisely. His opinions respecting the social relations that should exist between men and women, and their right to selfhood, are not his alone, but are held by the best minds in the world; and his home is often visited by men and women of the largest culture and ability, both as thinkers and writers. I do not wonder for a moment that your equilibrium was disturbed by these shallow-brained women. And now before I advocate my friend's honesty and virtue farther, I will tell you, what no one save myself and he knows, of one of the women who called upon you this morning. It is your due, after what has occurred, and belongs to this moment. I believe in such moments it is right to raise the veil of the past. Listen:—
“A few years ago, one of that number who came to you, sought by every subterfuge and art, to gain the affections of Hugh Wyman. Intellectually, spiritually, in every way his inferior, of course he could not for a moment desire her society. Yet she sought him at all times, and when, at last, he told her in words what he had all along so forcibly expressed by his acts, that he had not even respect for her, and bade her cease her maneuverings, she turned upon him in slander; and even on his wedding day asserted that his fair Alice was a woman of no repute—abandoned by her friends. Nor is this all;-one year after the marriage of Hugh, she gave birth to a child; it was laid at night at his door, and he was charged with being its father.”
“But was she married, then?”
“No. She subsequently went to a small village in N—, and married.”
“Did the town people believe her story?”
“A few-but proofs of his innocence long since established the falsity of the charge, except in the minds of those who seem to delight only in that which dispoils the character of another.”
“But his wife? did she too suffer with doubt?”
“Never. Not for a moment was her faith in her husband clouded.”
“And this child must be the one they spoke of to deceive me.”
“It is. I will go with you some day to see him, and if your eyes can detect the slightest resemblance to Hugh Wyman, I shall think you are gifted with more than second sight. I do not wish to weary you, Miss Vernon, but my friend's character is too sacred to me to be thus assailed, and I not use all my powers to make known the truth, and prove him innocent.”
“I believe his views upon marriage are rather radical, are they not, Miss Evans?”
“They are. I join him fully in all his ideas, for long have I seen that our system needs thorough reformation, and that while the marriage bond is holy, too many have desecrated it. I believe some of the most inharmonious offspring are brought into the world, under the sanction of marriage-children diseased, mentally and physically; and worse than orphans. I do not say this to countenance licentiousness. Indeed, I know that licentiousness is not all outside of wedlock. It is to purify and elevate the low, and not to give license to such, that earnest men and women are talking and writing to-day. I do not blame you, Miss Vernon, for wishing proof of Mr. Wyman's purity and honor. I like a mind that demands evidence. And now, tell me, have I scattered or broken the cloud that hung over you?”
“You have. I shall trust Mr. Wyman till I have some personal proof that he is not all I feel him to be.”
“That is the true course to pursue, my friend. In that way alone you have your own life developed. If by word, look or deed he ever betrays your trust, I shall call my intuitions vain, and all my insight into human character mere idle conjecture.”
“But I must go now, Miss Evans. I thank you much for the light which you have given me, and your sympathy, all of which I so much needed.”
“Your position was indeed trying, but do you not feel that your character will be deeper and stronger for this disturbance?”
“I feel as though I had lived through a long period.”
“I have one question to put to you, which you must answer from your soul's deep intuition, and not from your reason alone. Do you believe Hugh Wyman guilty of the crimes charged against him?”
“I do not.”
There was no hesitation in the answer; their souls met on sympathetic affection.
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