Winter Evening Tales. Barr Amelia E.
no longer young, and was married now, for he had found out that the beaten track is the safest.
"Franz," he said, "have you heard about Clarke? His affairs are frightfully wrong, and he shot himself an hour ago."
"And Christine? Does she know? Who has gone to her?"
"My wife is with her. Clarke shot himself in his own room. Christine was the first to reach him. He left a letter saying he was absolutely ruined."
"Where will Christine and the children go?"
"I suppose to her father's. Not a pleasant place for her now. Christine's step-mother dislikes both her and the children."
Franz said no more, and Louis went away with a feeling of disappointment. "I thought he would have done something for her," he said to his wife. "Poor Christine will be very poor and dependent."
Ten days after he came home with a different story. "There never was a woman as lucky about money as Cousin Christine," he said. "Hardy & Hall sent her notice to-day that the property at Ryebeach settled on her before her marriage by Mr. Clarke was now at her disposal. It seems the old gentleman anticipated the result of his wild speculations, and in order to provide for his wife, quietly bought and placed in Hardy's charge two beautifully furnished cottages. There is something like an accumulation of sixteen thousand dollars of rentage; and as one is luckily empty, Christine and the children are going there at once. I always thought the property was Hardy's own before. Very thoughtful in Clarke."
"It is not Clarke one bit. I don't believe he ever did it. It is some arrangement of Franz Müller's."
"For goodness' sake don't hint such a thing, Lizzie! Christine would not go, and we should have her here very soon. Besides, I don't believe it. Franz took the news very coolly, and he has kept out of my way since."
The next day Louis was more than ever of his wife's opinion. "What do you think, Lizzie?" he said. "Franz came to me to-day and asked if Clarke did not once loan me two thousand dollars. I told him Clarke gave me two thousand about the time we were married."
"'Say loaned, Louis,' he answered, 'to oblige me. Here is two thousand and the interest for six years. Go and pay it to Christine; she must need money.' So I went."
"Is she settled comfortably?"
"Oh, very. Go and see her often. Franz is sure to marry her, and he is growing richer every day."
It seemed as if Louis's prediction would come true. Franz began to drive out every afternoon to Ryebeach. At first he contented himself with just passing Christine's gate. But he soon began to stop for the children, and having taken them a drive, to rest a while on the lawn, or in the parlor, while Christine made him a cup of tea.
For Franz tired very easily now, and Christine saw what few others noticed: he had become pale and emaciated, and the least exertion left him weary and breathless. She knew in her heart that it was, the last summer he would be with her. Alas! what a pitiful shadow of their first one! It was hard to contrast the ardent, handsome lover of ten years ago with the white, silently happy man who, when October came, had only strength to sit and hold her hand, and gaze with eager, loving eyes into her face.
One day his physician met Louis on Broadway. "Mr. Curtin," he said, "your friend Müller is very ill. I consider his life measured by days, perhaps hours. He has long had organic disease of the heart. It is near the last."
"Does he know it?"
"Yes, he has known it long. Better see him at once."
So Louis went at once. He found Franz calmly making his last preparations for the great event. "I am glad you are come, Louis," he said; "I was going to send for you. See this cabinet full of letters. I have not strength left to destroy them; burn them for me when—when I am gone.
"This small packet is Christine's dear little notes: bury them with me: there are ten of them, every one ten years old."
"Is that all, dear Franz?"
"Yes; my will has long been made. Except a legacy to yourself, all goes to Christine—dear, dear Christine!"
"You love her yet, then, Franz?"
"What do you mean? I have loved her for ages. I shall love her forever. She is the other half of my soul. In some lives I have missed her altogether let me be thankful that she has come so near me in this one."
"Do you know what you are saying, Franz?"
"Very clearly, Louis. I have always believed with the oldest philosophers that souls were created in pairs, and that it is permitted them in their toilsome journey back to purity and heaven sometimes to meet and comfort each other. Do you think I saw Christine for the first time in your uncle's parlor? Louis, I have fairer and grander memories of her than any linked to this life. I must leave her now for a little. God knows when and where we meet again; but He does know; that is my hope and consolation."
Whatever were Louis's private opinions about Franz's theology it was impossible to dissent at that hour, and he took his friend's last instructions and farewell with such gentle, solemn feelings as had long been strange to his-heart.
In the afternoon Franz was driven out to Christine's. It was the last physical effort he was capable of. No one saw the parting of those two souls. He went with Christine's arms around him, and her lips whispering tender, hopeful farewells. It was noticed however, that after Franz's death a strange change came over Christine—a beautiful nobility and calmness of character, and a gentle setting of her life to the loftiest aims.
Louis said she had been wonderfully moved by the papers Franz left. The ten letters she had written during the spring-time of their love went to the grave with him, but the rest were of such an extraordinary nature that Louis could not refrain from showing them to his cousin, and then at her request leaving them for her to dispose of. They were indeed letters written to herself under every circumstance of her life, and directed to every place in which she had sojourned. In all of them she was addressed as "Beloved Wife of my Soul," and in this way the poor fellow had consoled his breaking, longing heart.
To some of them he had written imaginary answers, but as these all referred to a financial secret known only to the parties concerned in Christine's and his own sacrifice, it was proof positive that he had written only for his own comfort. But it was perhaps well they fell into Christine's hands: she could not but be a better woman for reading the simple records of a strife which set perfect unselfishness and child-like submission as the goal of its duties.
Seven years after Franz's death Christine and her daughter died together of the Roman fever, and James Barker Clarke, junior, was left sole inheritor of Franz's wealth.
"A German dreamer!"
Ah, well, there are dreamers and dreamers. And perchance he that seeks fame, and he that seeks gold, and he that seeks power, may all alike, when this shadowy existence is over, look back upon life "as a dream when one awaketh."
THE VOICE AT MIDNIGHT
"It is the King's highway that we are in; and know this, His messengers are on it. They who have ears to hear will hear; and He opens the eyes of some, and they see things not to be lightly spoken of."
It was John Balmuto who said these words to me. John was a Shetlander, and for forty years he had gone to the Arctic seas with the whale boats. Then there had come to him a wonderful experience. He had been four days and nights alone with God upon the sea, among mountains of ice reeling together in perilous madness, and with little light but the angry flush of the aurora. Then, undoubtedly, was born that strong faith in the Unseen which made him an active character in the facts I am going to relate.
After his marvelous salvation, he devoted his life to the service of God by entering that remarkable body of lay evangelists attached to the Presbyterian Church in Highland parishes, called "The Men," and he became noted throughout the Hebrides for his labors, and for his knowledge of the Scriptures.
Circumstances, that summer, had thrown us together; I, a young woman, just entering an apparently fortunate life; he, an aged saint, standing on the borderland of eternity. And we were sitting together, in the gray summer gloaming, when he said to me, "Thou art silent to-night. What hast thou, then, on