In conclusion he said:"Of late,for reasons obvious to you,she has had strong fascinations for me,but above and beyond these has been her influence on the side of all that's right,manly,and true.I have never spoken of love to Miss Mayhew.Honor,loyalty,unbounded gratitude,and deep affection bind me to you,and shall through life.Please say no more,Miss Jennie,for if any question was ever settled,this is.""Then you propose to sacrifice yourself and Miss Mayhew for the shadowy chance of making me a little happier?""I shall not be sacrificed,and Ida Mayhew would justly reject me with scorn were I disloyal to you.I can give you more love,Jennie Burton,than I fear you will ever give me,but I shall wait patiently.When months and years have proved to you the truth of my words,you may feel differently.Let us leave the subject till then.""Oh,Mr.Van Berg,I shall have to tell you after all,"she said burying her face in her hands.
"You need not now,"he replied gently."You have been ill and are not strong enough for this agitation.You never need to tell me unless it will make your burden lighter.""It will make my burden lighter to-day,"she said hurriedly."Pardon me if I tell my story in the briefest and most prosaic way.You are the first one that has heard it.It may not seem much to you and others;but to me it is an awful tragedy,and I sometimes fear my life may be an eternal condition of suspense and waiting.You have been very generous in taking me so fully on trust,but now you shall know all.I am the only daughter of a poor,unworldly New England clergyman.My mother died before I can remember,and my father gave to me all the time he could spare from the duties of a small village parish.He and the beautiful region in which we lived were my only teachers.One June morning Harrold Fleetwood came to the parsonage with letters of introduction,saying that his physician had banished him from books and city life,and he asked if he could be taken as a lodger for a few weeks.Poor and unworldly as father was,for my sake he made careful inquiries and learned that the young man was from one of the best and wealthiest families of Boston,and bore an unblemished reputation.Then,since we were so very poor,he yielded to Mr.Fleetwood's wishes,hoping thus to be able to buy some books,he said,on which our minds could live during the coming winter.
"To me,Harrold Fleetwood was a very remarkable character.While he always treated me with kindness and respect,he did not take much notice of me at first;and I think he found me very diffident,to say the least.But,as he had overtaxed his eyes,I began to read to him;and then,as we became better acquainted,he resumed a habit he had,as I soon learned,of speaking in half-soliloquy concerning the subjects that occupied his mind.He said that an invalid sister had indulged him in this habit,and he had tried to think aloud partly to beguile her weariness.But to me it was the revelation of the richest and most versatile mind I have ever known.At last I ventured to show my interest and to ask some questions,and then he gradually became interested in me for some reason.""I can understand his reasons,"said Van Berg emphatically.
"He did not know at first how much time father had given me and to what good uses we had put the books we had.Well,I must be brief.
Every day brought us nearer together,until it seemed that we shared our thoughts in common.I ought not to complain,for perhaps in few long lives does there come more happiness than was crowded in those few weeks.It was the happiness of heaven--it was the happiness of two souls attuned to perfect harmony and ranging together the richest fields of truth and fancy.Dear old father was blind to it all,and I had scarcely thought whither the shining tide was carrying me until last Tuesday five years ago,Mr.Fleetwood said to me,'Jennie,our souls were mated in heaven,if any ever were,and I claim you as the fulfillment of what must have been a Divine purpose.'I found that my heart echoed every word he said.
"Then he appeared troubled and said that I must give him time to untangle a snarl into which he had drifted rather than involved himself.His family were wealthy and ambitious,and they had always spoken of his marriage with a cousin who was an heiress,as a settled thing.He had never bound himself by word or act,and often laughingly told his parents that they could not arrange these matters on strictly business principles,as did aristocrats abroad--that the young lady herself might have something to say,if he had not.But he was wrapt up in his studies--he was preparing for a literary life--and events drifted on until he found that every one of his house hold had set their hearts on this alliance.All that he could say against it was that he was indifferent.The lady was pretty and tried to make herself agreeable to him;while he felt that they had little in common,and was also led to believe that she would good-naturedly leave him to his own pursuits,and so he entered no protest to the family schemes,but drifted.That was the one defect of his character.He was a man of thought and fancy rather than of decision and action.
"When he returned home and told his parents of his attachment for me,they were furious,and wrote very bitter letters to both father and myself,accusing us of having intrigued to obtain a wealthy alliance.Thank God!father never saw the letter,as he died suddenly,before he knew how sore a wound I had received.Nor did I ever show the letter to Mr.Fleetwood,for my father had trained me too well to sow dissension between parents and son.
