Was It Right to Forgive? by Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr (free novel 24 .txt) 📖

frivolous, who lived only to have what they called "a good time," gathered round her. To such entertainments it was the merest form to ask Adriana, and as her health was delicate, she had a suitable excuse without bringing her principles forward to be made a matter of mirth. But with Antony it was different.

"It is a long watch, and a weary one, for I am on guard day and night, Yanna," he said to his sister one afternoon. They had met in a fashionable store, where Rose was shopping; and standing a little apart, it had been possible to answer thus Adriana's query, "Why do you not come to see me, Antony?"

"Why do you permit----"

"Ask me no questions, Yanna. A doctor cannot prevent symptoms, he can only watch for them, and be ready to fight danger when he sees it. I am in that position, hour after hour. That is all."

"But it is misery for you."

"Yes; but I am watching for the soul of one I love better than myself."

"How long is it to last?"

"God knows; to the end of my life, if needs be."

Then Rose called Yanna sharply, and both went to her side. "I am coming to see you to-morrow, Yanna," she said. "I have something to tell you, dear," and she spoke with the old bewitching smile; and Yanna answered:

"Do come, Rose. You have never yet seen my baby."

Then at a word Rose turned to her purchases, and apparently forgot both her husband and her sister-in-law. Adriana had no heart to buy what she had come to buy. She passed out into the cold, dirty street, and drove back at once to her home.

It was fully two weeks before Rose remembered her promise; then she came suddenly one morning when Harry had gone away "queer" and the baby was suffering and cross, and the whole house a little affected by the tone of the heads of it. Rose was also cross, though she was sumptuously clothed in green velvet and golden beaver. She looked rather contemptuously round Adriana's parlor. "I wonder you put up with this house, Yanna," she said. "Harry ought to be ashamed of himself."

"I am very well pleased with my house, Rose; and very happy in it. You have grown used to palaces abroad. And Antony is so much richer than Harry."

"Harry could do better than he does. I do not understand how you endure his behavior."

"Rose, if you love me, say nothing wrong of Harry."

"He behaves too badly for anything. Mamma says the money he spends is dreadful! How do you bear it? I am sorry for you!"

"I am not the only one who has to bear. Constantly, I feel sorry for Antony."

"What do you mean? What has Antony told you? At least Antony is true as gold to me. I would not suffer a husband like Harry. I would divorce him. Why, Cora----"

"Rose! You must cease at once, or I must leave you. You have nothing to do with my husband."

"He is my brother, and the whole town talks of him."

Then Yanna left her sister-in-law, and in a few minutes she heard her carriage go clattering up the street; but she sat still and tearless in the little low chair which stood by the nursery fire. Her boy was taking a drive with his nurse, and she was quite alone in the room sacred to his innocent life. She kept the anger in her heart behind her closed lips, but she reflected that patience might cease to be a virtue; and that the time had come to demand from Harry some explanation of the rumors and accusations that had reached her.

"Mr. Van Hoosen is here, ma'am, and wishes to see you," said a servant.

Adriana thought of her brother with a sense of comfort. She felt that she could open her heart to him. But it was not Antony, it was Antony's father who came towards her with outstretched hands, and a blessing that fell like rain upon her hot heart.

"God has sent you, father," she said solemnly; "for I am in a strait, in such a strait as no one but you can help me out of." Then she told him all her sorrow; and it was evident to Peter that the sting of her grief was her husband's frailty. "If Harry were only good!" she cried despairingly. "I could bear the loss of his love."

"But, Yanna, my dearest one! what man is good? Was any one ever exempt from sin but the Son of the Virgin?"

"Oh, father!" she cried passionately, "will you be like the rest of the world, and take a man's view of this question, just because you are a man?"

"My dear one, neither must you take a woman's view just because you are a woman. The common law and the social law may regard sex; the commands of God are issued to man and woman alike; though our merciful Creator, no doubt, will judge us according to our circumstances and our temptations."

"If Harry wrongs me, or I wrong Harry, the sin is the same against God."

"It is. But it is not the same against each other. Harry could never wrong you as you could wrong Harry."

"Oh, father! How can you say such a thing?"

"Think a moment. The infidelity of a husband injures a wife's good name far less than the infidelity of a wife injures her husband's good name. In one case the wife is only visited by the pity of her acquaintances, in the other case the husband is an object of derision; yes; in every age the world has thought the deceived husband worthy to be derided and sneered at. Socially then your sin would hurt Harry worse than his sin could hurt you. Between a man and his Maker, and a woman and her Maker, the cases are to judge; but between a man and his wife infidelity to marriage vows is not as hard on the wife as it is on the husband. I am speaking now, Yanna, as the sin affects daily life."

"Oh, what must I do? What must I do?"

"You must be patient and forgiving. If the Holy One, in whose sight heaven itself is impure, can bear with Harry, can you not also bear? Have you fulfilled the seventy-and-seven times given for a brother's forbearance, and was there any limit given for a wife's forbearance? Has Harry yet done a wrong that your pardon cannot reach? Are you more strict to mark his offences than his Maker is? To be sure, you are blameless where Harry is guilty, but, oh, Yanna! is chastity the only conjugal virtue? Where are charity, patience, sweet temper, cheerfulness? In these pleasant home virtues have you never failed? My dear one, there is an egotism of wifely sorrow that drives a man to sin. Your mother made me unhappy very often with just such jealous affection."

"You are very hard, father. I thought you would stand by me."

"Not yet, not yet, Yanna! You must stand for yourself; stand on your own merits, your beauty, your rights; stand on Harry's love for you, and your great, patient love for him; stand on your faith in God, your desires for the happiness of others, and your measureless charity for all. Oh, Adriana, when a wife cannot lean on her husband, she must stand alone until she can! Interferers only bring sorrow."

"It is all so dark and void and lonely, father."

"Put your hand out into the darkness, and you will find The Hand that you can safely clasp; that will lead you and Harry into confident and satisfied affection. There is much good in Harry; there are many years of great love and happiness in store for you both, if you, Yanna, do not get weary in well-doing. Is there any sin for which a man may not be pardoned? Is not the Gospel built on unlimited forgiveness?"

As Peter was speaking Miss Alida entered. She looked at him, and then at Yanna, and shrugged her shoulders with an understanding glance at the pale, troubled woman. "Well, Cousin Peter," she said, "I am glad to see you; but I doubt if you are the best adviser for Yanna, at this time. Suppose you leave us a little. I have some words for my girl that I do not want you to contradict until she has had time to think them over." Then Peter went out, and Miss Alida set her chair down with a vigorous little thump close to Yanna's side. "I called on Rose this morning," she said, "and I heard from Antony that she had come here, so I guessed what she had come to say. Now, Yanna, we are going to have some straight, sensible talk, and then, if you make a little fool of yourself afterwards, it will not be Alida Van Hoosen's fault. Rose told you about Harry's fondness for certain society?"

"Yes."

"And made more of her information than there was need to--that of course. What have you been telling Cousin Peter?"

"I said to father that Harry would make a great complaint if I behaved with certain gay men as he behaves with certain gay women. I told him I thought the sin in both cases just alike, and that I was tired of bearing wrongs which would send Harry to the divorce court."

"Hum--m--m! What did your father say?"

"He said Harry's sin towards God was the same as my sin would be in like circumstances; but that Harry's sin to me was less than the same sin on my part would be towards him. And he told me to pray, and forgive, and hope, and wait, and so on," she added with a weary sigh.

"Good, as far as it goes. We are going further, and we must not look in a one-eyed manner at the question. To begin at the beginning, none of us supposed, not you, nor I, not yet your father, that Harry was before his marriage to you, a model of morality. Before your marriage, antecedent purity was not pretended on Harry's side; and your family never inquired after it, I dare say. Unfortunately, though early marriage is rare, early depravity is not rare; and I will venture to doubt if one youth in one hundred struggles unpolluted out of the temptations that assail youth. Whatever future obligations were imposed on Harry by his marriage, nobody thought of blaming him for the past."

"I do not permit myself to consider Harry's past. In our marriage he was bound by the same vows and obligations as I was. When he breaks them he is precisely as guilty as I would be if I should break them."

"Not quite so. The offence of a married woman changes purity to impurity; the offence of a married man usually only makes what was impure a little more so. That is one difference. Your father pointed out the social difference--pity for the woman, scorn and derision for the man. I will go still further, and remind you that society in blaming the woman so much more than the man acts on a great physiological truth, affecting not only racial and family characteristics, but the proper heirship of large properties and the successions to vast estates. The infidelity of the husband inflicts no spurious children on his wife. If a woman has no other married privilege, she has that of knowing her own children."

"That is not the whole of