The Mill Mystery | Page 5

appreciation which he found here, and the
field which daily opened before him for work, had wakened a spirit of
earnest trust that erelong developed that latent sweetness in his
disposition which more than his mental qualities, perhaps, won him
universal confidence and love.
"You have heard him preach, and you know he was not lacking in
genius; but you have not heard him speak, eye to eye and hand to hand.
It was there his power came in, and there, too, perhaps, his greatest
temptation. For he was one for women to love, and it is not always easy
to modify a naturally magnetic look and tone because the hand that
touches yours is shy and white, and the glance which steals up to meet
your own has within it the hint of unconscious worship. Yet what he
could do he did; for, unknown, perhaps, to any one here, he was
engaged to be married, as so many young ministers are, to a girl he had
met while at college.
"I do not mean to go into too many particulars, Constance. He did not
love this girl, but he meant to be true to her. He was even contented
with the prospect of marrying her, till----Oh, Constance, I almost forget
that he is gone, and that my own life is at an end, when I think of that
day, six months ago--the day when we first met, and, without knowing
it, first loved. And then the weeks which followed when each look was
an event, and a passing word the making or the marring of a day. I did
not know what it all meant; but he realized only too soon the precipice
upon which we stood, and I began to see him less, and find him more
reserved when, by any chance, we were thrown together. His cheek
grew paler, too, and his health wavered. A struggle was going on in his
breast--a struggle of whose depth and force I had little conception then,
for I dared not believe he loved me, though I knew by this time he was
bound to another who would never be a suitable companion for him.
"At last he became so ill, he was obliged to quit his work, and for a

month I did not see him, though only a short square separated us. He
was slowly yielding to an insidious disease, some said; and I had to
bear the pain of this uncertainty, as well as the secret agony of my own
crushed and broken heart.
"But one morning--shall I ever forget it?--the door opened, and he, he
came in where I was, and without saying a word, knelt down by my
side, and drew my head forward and laid it on his breast. I thought at
first it was a farewell, and trembled with a secret anguish that was yet
strangely blissful, for did not the passionate constraint of his arms mean
love? But when, after a moment that seemed a lifetime, I drew back and
looked into his face, I saw it was not a farewell, but a greeting, he had
brought me, and that we had not only got our pastor back to life, but
that this pastor was a lover as well, who would marry the woman he
loved.
"And I was right. In ten minutes I knew, that a sudden freak on the part
of the girl he was engaged to had released him, without fault of his own,
and that with this release new life had entered his veins, for the conflict
was over and love and duty were now in harmony.
"Constance, I would not have you think he was an absolutely perfect
man. He was too sensitively organized for that. A touch, a look that
was not in harmony with his thoughts, would make him turn pale at
times, and I have seen him put to such suffering by petty physical
causes, that I have sometimes wondered where his great soul got its
strength to carry him through the exigencies of his somewhat trying
calling. But whatever his weaknesses--and they were very few,--he was
conscientious in the extreme, and suffered agony where other men
would be affected but slightly. You can imagine his joy, then, over this
unexpected end to his long pain; and remembering that it is only a
month previous to the day set apart by us for our marriage, ask yourself
whether he would be likely to seek any means of death, let alone such a
horrible and lonesome one as that which has robbed us of him to-day?"
"No!" I burst out, for she waited for my reply. "A thousand times, no,
no, no!"
"He has not been so well lately, and I have not seen as much of