There & Back

The side-gate at the lodge was yet open; so was the great door of the house. He entered softly, and going along a wide passage, arrived at the foot of the great staircase, which ascended with the wide sweep of half an oval, just in time to see at the top the reflection of a candle disappearing to the right. There were many chances against its being Barbara’s, but with an almost despairing recklessness he darted up, and turning, saw again the reflection of the candle from the wall of a passage that crossed the corridor. He followed as swiftly and lightly as he could, and at the corner all but overturned an elderly maid, whose fright gave place to wrath when she saw who had endangered her.

“I want to see Miss Wylder!” said Richard hurriedly.

“You have no call to be in this part of the house,” returned the woman.

“I can’t stop to explain,” answered Richard. “Please tell me which is her room.”

“Indeed I will not.”

“When she knows my business, she will be glad I came to her.”

“You may find it for yourself.”

“Will you take a message for me then?”

“I am not Miss Wylder’s maid!” she replied. “Neither is it my place to wait on my fellow-servants.”

She turned away, tossing her head, and rounded the corner into the corridor.

Richard looked down the passage. A light was burning at the other end of it, and he saw there were not many doors in it. With a sudden resolve to go straight ahead, he called out clear and plain—

“Miss Wylder!” and again, “Miss Wylder!”

A door opened and, to his delight, out peeped Barbara’s dainty little head. She saw Richard, gave one glance in the opposite direction, and made him a sign to come to her. He did so. She was in her dressing-gown: it was not her candle he had followed, but its light had led him to her!

“What is it!” she said hurriedly. “Don’t speak loud: lady Ann might hear you!”

“There’s a girl all but dying—” began Richard.

“Go to the library,” she said. “I will come to you there. I shan’t be a minute!”

She went in, and her door closed with scarce a sound. Then first a kind of scare fell upon Richard: one of those doors might open, and the pale, cold face of the formidable lady look out Gorgon-like! If it was her candle he had followed, she could hardly have put it down when he called Miss Wylder! He ran gliding through passage and corridor, and down the stair, noiseless and swift as a bat. Arrived in the library, he lighted a candle, and, lest any one should enter, pretended to be looking out books. Within five minutes Barbara was at his side.

“Now!” she said, and stood silent, waiting.

There was a solemn look on her face, and none of the smile with which she usually greeted him. Their last interview had made her miserable for a while, and more solemn for ever. For hours the world was black about her, and she felt as if Richard had struck her. To say there was no God behind the loveliness of things, was to say there was no loveliness—nothing but a pretence of loveliness! The world was a painted thing! a toy for a doll! a phantasm!

He told her where and in what state he had found the girl, and to what a poor place he had been compelled to carry her, saying he feared she would die before he could get anything for her, except Miss Wylder would help him.

“Brandy!” she said, thinking. “Lady Ann has some in her room. The rest I can manage!—Wait here; I will be with you in three minutes.”

She went, and Richard waited—without anxiety, for whatever Barbara undertook seemed to those who knew her as good as done.

She reappeared in her red cloak, with a basket beneath it. Richard, wondering, would have taken the basket from her.

“Wait till we are out of the house,” she said. “Open that bay window, and mind you don’t make a noise. They mustn’t find it undone: we have to get in that way again.”

Richard obeyed scrupulously. It was a French window, and issue was easy.

“What if they close the shutters?” he ventured to say.

“They don’t always. We must take our chance,” she replied.

He thought she must mean to go as far as the lodge only.

“You won’t forget, miss, to fasten the window again?” he whispered, as he closed it softly behind them.

“We must always risk something!” she answered. “Come along!”

“Please give me the basket,” said Richard.

She gave it him; and the next moment he found her leading to the way through the park toward the lodgeless gate.

They had walked a good many minutes, and Barbara had not said a word.

“How good of you, miss, to come!” ventured Richard.

“To come!” she returned. “What else did you expect? Did you not want me to come?”

“I never thought of your coming! I only thought you would get the right things for me—if you could!”

“You don’t think I would leave the poor girl to the mercy of a man who would tell her there was nobody anywhere to help her out of her troubles!”

“I don’t think I should have told her that; I might have told her there was nobody to bring worse trouble upon her!”

“What comfort would that be, when the trouble was come—and as strong as she could bear!”

Richard was silent a moment, then in pure self-defence answered—

“A man must neither take nor give the comfort of a lie!”

“Tell me honestly then,” said Barbara, “—for I do believe you are an honest man—tell me, are you sure there is no God? Have you gone all through the universe looking for him, and failed to find him? Is there no possible chance that there may be a God!”

“I do not believe there is.”

“But are you sure there is not? Do you know it, so that you have a right to say it?”

Richard hesitated.

“I cannot say,” he answered, “that I know it as I know a proposition in Euclid, or as I know that I must not do what is wrong.”

“Then what right have you to go and make people miserable by saying there is no God—as if you, being an honest man, knew it, and would not say it if you did not know it? You take away the only comfort left the unhappy! Of course you have a right to say you don’t believe it—but only that! And I would think twice before I said even that, where all the certainty was that it would make people miserable!”

“I don’t know anybody it would make miserable,” said Richard.

“It would make me dead miserable,” returned Barbara.

“I know many it would redeem from misery,” rejoined Richard. “To believe in a cruel being ready to pounce upon them is enough to make the strongest miserable.”