According to the Pattern (20 page)

It was in some such way that Miriam came back to
life, knowing that henceforth if she lived her life at all,
she must live it hand in hand with God. And thus she
came to herself, feeling content to lie in God’s hand, but
dreading to come back to a life which had baffled her on
every side.

It was then the doctor began to be uneasy. She was
not gaining fast enough, but seemed to have come to a standstill.

Something more was needed to rouse her to an
interest in the world and give her an object for getting
well. Doctor Carter thought at once of her husband, and had decided to bring him in to see her for a few minutes,
but when he went in search of him he found him with
a drawn and haggard expression upon his face, so much
worse than it had been during the days that had passed
that he changed his mind and decided to try the children first. A woman would do more for her baby anyway than for any one else on earth.

It had been thought best that Miriam should not know
that her mother was in the house yet, lest she should
guess how ill she had been, therefore the grandmother
had taken up her place in the nursery, to the delight of
the children, who had sorely missed their mother’s
devotion of late.

Little Celia was brought to her mother first, and
nestled down shyly beside her on the pillow, and
touched the thin hand wonderingly, and the other chil
dren came and kissed her softly in awe, for her face was changed by her illness, white and almost unearthly in its
beauty, and then they trooped away glad to get back to
the cheer of the nursery and grandmother’s stories, while
Miriam lay still, feeling that she had drifted out away
from even her children, that they had learned to do
without her while she was ill, and that she was not
needed back among them now.

On the whole the doctor’s experiment had not suc
ceeded so well as he had hoped. He sat down and studied
the problem in perplexity. To have brought his patient
out from the shadow of death thus far and then to see
her slip slowly back again was more than he could
endure.

“George,” said he impatiently, as his brother came
into the office, “why don’t you pray this thing out for
me? What’s the use of prayer if you can’t work a miracle now and then?”

And the result of that conference was that once more George Carter stood beside that bed and spoke.

He came in quietly as if his coming were an every-day affair.

“I came to see you once before when you were so ill, Mrs. Winthrop,” he said, smiling pleasantly. “You don’t remember me, I suppose? You were troubled about the ‘
pattern in the mount,’ and I promised to tell you more
about it when you were stronger. Would you like to
hear it now?”

Miriam’s face lit with a half-smile of remembrance.

“I heard a sermon once—” she said and paused.

Speech seemed long and hard to her yet.

“Yes, and you were so tired and were troubled that
you had not made your life according to the pattern?” She nodded understandingly.

“I told you then that _Jesus wanted you to rest. I bring you another message to-day. It is this, ‘Be
strong
in the
Lord.’ He wants you to get well and begin to live after the pattern he has set for you. You need not be troubled
that you think you have spoiled it all. He will make that
right. When you are strong you will find the pattern
with careful directions in his book. Now will you obey
the message and get well?”

Wonderingly she answered, “Yes.” It seemed to her
that some strong angel had been sent down to speak to
her and give her heart of life again. And she was near
enough yet to the other world not to be much amazed
over it.

The young man knelt beside the bed and closed his
eyes:

“Dear Lord,” he said, “help this child of thine to get
strong for thee, and show her how to follow thee. For
Jesus’ sake.”

Then he was gone, and Miriam lay thinking of it all,
and in her heart there grew again determination to make the tight anew, this time with the God of battles on her side, and win.

Fool! All that is, at all,

Lasts ever, past recall;

Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure.

—Robert Browning

CLAUDE Winthrop had paid little attention to his
business since the night his wife was taken ill. He had
sent a message down to the office to the effect that his
wife was in a serious condition, and that he could not
leave home. Twice the private secretary had been out to consult him about some important affair that he only was
familiar with, but beyond that and friendly notes of
sympathy from different men in the house—which he
had scarcely read—he had heard nothing. It had not
seemed strange to him that things were going on just the
same without him, nor had he stopped to think that the
notes he had received from the heads of the firm had
been curt and formal.

He knew that he had left affairs in such shape that the man just below him could manage everything until he
went back, and beyond that he had not troubled himself
What was business at such a time as this?

And then, three days after the crisis had passed and the
little world of their friends came to know that Miriam
was better, and ere he himself had as yet been able to
move out from under the shadow that had settled upon him, there came a letter which brought him suddenly to his senses.

It was on the afternoon that Doctor Carter intended
to take him in to see his wife that the letter had come.
He picked it up from the desk where the maid had
placed it after the two o’clock delivery and read it, idly
at first, and then starting to his feet, read it over again trying to understand the words. They danced before his eyes and would not stand still for him to understand. But
at last he comprehended. It was a firm but courteous
dismissal from the business house where but yesterday he
had supposed he was in a fair way to become second only
to the head in a few years, and perhaps, if all went well,
even one of the heads by and by.

How had his ambitions crumbled at his feet? How was
he fallen? What could it mean? Was it a dream? What
had brought it about? They surely had not dismissed him
for the brief absence when his wife hung between life
and death. They were good men. They would not do
that. He must go down and see about it at once. There
was some mistake. They had sent the letter to the wrong
man or some clerk had blundered. He started to his feet
and found that he was trembling from head to foot. He
must not go in this way. He must steady himself. This
long nightmare of sickness and trouble had upset him.
But be must set this thing straight at once. Why, where would he be if he lost his business connection? What would Miriam and the children do? How precious had they become! How terrible it would be if this were true, but of course it could not be. It was some mistake.

Just then a maid tapped on the door and handed him
a special delivery letter. He frowned at the interruption,
signed his name in the book, and sat down impatiently
to see what the letter contained.

It was a dainty envelope that bore the large blue
stamp, and filled the room about it with a subtle fra
grance that carried a hateful memory with it. It was the
fragrance of lilies of the valley. His heart stabbed him that
the perfume of his wife’s wedding flowers should have power to bring a hateful memory. But he tore open the
thick envelope and read, his eyes growing dark with
anger and understanding:

Dear Claude:—I am sorry for you in your humiliation.
I would have done something for you if I dared, but my husband was very angry. But though I have cause to be
angry with you, still I forgive you, and if you will come
to me I will yet put you in the way of something far better than the position which you occupied.

He read no further, but tearing the letter in tiny bits
put it in the flames of the fireplace until every atom was
consumed. Then he rose and began to pace the floor. He
knew now whom he had to thank for his dismissal. This, then, was her revenge!

It was just at this point that the doctor looked in and
changed his mind about taking Claude to see his wife.

And while the angel of peace was taking up his abode
with the wife, the husband wrestled with the adversary.

All that long afternoon he paced his room inside
locked doors. He did not go down to the office as he
intended. He knew now that it would be of no use. If
Mr. Sylvester had spoken the word it was final. There
was no appeal from that. And Mrs. Sylvester had ar
ranged it so. He followed carefully every thread of
evidence. Things that he had said and done and forgot
ten came up now to haunt him. The case was against
him. And what could he do or say? He could not go to Mr. Sylvester and say that his wife’s insinuations were false, because there was enough of truth for their foun
dation to make that impossible. He could not tell the
man that the fault had been the woman’s in the first place
because that would be as useless as it was pitiful, for after
all, would it better his case to say that he had been weak
enough to be led by a woman into temptation? And how
well he knew that that woman could make herself appear
as pure and unsullied as a star in the heavens. He was
caught in a net. He was bound hand and foot. It was too
late to even try to extricate himself. And why had she
done it? Was it her cruel desire to subjugate, that she still
wished to keep him a slave to herself and so, though
having shown him her power over him, yet show him
her tenderness by offering help just now when she knew
his extremity? Or did she really care for him? He recalled
looks and actions more meaningful than mere coquetry.
How they would have made his foolish heart throb in
some of the days gone by to have recognized what they
meant. But now it was a sort of fear of her that filled him.
She was determined to have his love, and it seemed that
he was powerless to keep her from it. What had he left
but to go to her for help—or let Miriam and the children
suffer?—and what would that be but to begin again the
double life which had caused him so great misery during
the past weeks?

Then it was given to him at last to look into the open
mouth of the horrible pit of wickedness into which his
feet had almost slipped beyond reclaim. He saw things as
they were. He called things by their names. His own soul
appeared cringing before his sharpened judgment, all
blackened with dishonor. And in that lurid place where
abode the evil thoughts and careless actions of his past
days, each one an evil spirit came to haunt him, he
thought he was going insane. What ugly creatures were
these that menaced all hope of peace, these little evil-
faced imps that mocked at him as if they had a right? Was
it possible that they were his own thoughts? Had he
really entertained such creatures and taken pleasure in
them when they had appeared as angels of light?

Cold sweat stood upon his forehead and he pressed his
burning eyeballs for relief from pain. Almost he seemed
to see a vision of eternal fires prepared for such writhing
souls as his who had dared to fashion a torture so
exquisite for a soul so pure as Miriam’s.

And he had ventured to hope for a reconciliation. He, blackened as he was with the evil he had harbored in his
thoughts! He to expect once more to touch her sweet
hand, and have the honor of pressing her precious lips
against his own dishonored ones—his lips that had
promised and had not performed, his lips that had delib
erately been untrue to her! He to think ever to have her
look with clear and trustful gaze into his eyes with eyes
of love!

The knocks that came to his door from time to time,
the call to dinner, the messages that came to the house,
made no more impression upon his mind than if they
had been the moaning of the wind outside. At first he
only answered that he was busy, but as he became more
and more absorbed he did not respond at all, nor even
lift his head from where it had sunk upon his arms on his
desk.

Life in the future looked too black for him to face. He
seemed to have reached the end of all things for himself.
Now and again he would bring himself to consider the
possibility of going to Mrs. Sylvester and taking the
business chance she offered for Miriam’s sake, but the
thought of bringing help to Miriam through the one
who had caused her so much sorrow was intolerable.
Then he would try to consider what he should do. It was
useless to think of attempting to get something else in
that same city with a tarnished character. Neither could
he ever face his wife with all this upon him. They would
be better off without him. He was now but a sorrow and humiliation to them, his wife and his children. Through
sharpened memory he knew as clearly how Miriam had
felt about his relations to Mrs. Sylvester as though he had
been able to read her heart. It was like looking at his
shameful self through eyes that saw as the eyes of God
see.

There was nothing for him but that horrible torture
into which he had been looking, or the worse torture of
going on with life.

It had grown dark in his library now, and the room
felt chilly. Someone had turned the heat away from the
room, but he had not noticed it before. If they should

find him lying here to-morrow cold and dead, they
would hide it from Miriam until she was better, and
when she was strong enough to hear it, it would be to
her but a fit ending for the sorrowful story she had begun
many months back. He could never hope now to win
back her love and favor again. Even a “clean breast” of
it could never undo the past. He would not even be able
to support her as he had done of late, and there would
be disgrace too, attached to him, which would be harder
for her to bear. If he ended it all to-night there would at
least be pity. There was always pity for one who went
out of life by his own hand. Perhaps they would say he
had lost his mind through worry over his wife’s illness.
And perhaps he had! He felt as if it were gone.
Only one thing was clear. He saw it shining before
him now out of the darkness of the room; though its
cruel metal form was shut away in a locked drawer, it
gleamed with swift and irrevocable relief.

He struck the light to find the key of the drawer. The key had been put away from other keys because Miriam
was afraid of the wicked instrument of death. It had been
one of the purchases of his younger days when the
possession of a revolver was synonymous with manhood.
He had argued that it was necessary to have one to
protect his family in case of burglars, and he had proudly
slept with it under his pillow until in deference to
Miriam, it had gone, first to a high shelf in the closet near
the bed, then to this secret drawer, where it had stayed.
For as the little ones had entered their home and his
fatherhood had grown more deeply protective he had
feared the revolver himself, lest the children should by
mistake play with it someday.

It was not loaded. He had cleaned it carefully and
unloaded it, and showed it to Miriam one day when she
was worried and fearful of it, and had put it where he
had scarcely looked at it since.

There was a sort of morbid fascination in handling it
now. Clearly, out of the shadows of the room came the
picture of his wife as she had sat there sewing while he
put it away. Ah, she never dreamed how it would be with them both when he should take it out as he was
doing now, and load it that he might end his own
wretched existence with it.