Infelice | Page 6

the tearful eyes; but
Mr. Hargrove did not immediately respond to the appeal.
"I understand your silence--you think me presumptuous in my request,
and I daresay I am, but----"
"No, madam, not at all presumptuous. I hesitate habitually before
assuming grave responsibility, and I only regret that I did not hesitate
longer--four years ago. A man's first instincts of propriety, of right and
wrong, should never be smothered by persuasion, nor wrestled down
and overcome by subtle and selfish reasoning. I blame myself for much
that has occurred, and I am willing to do all that I can toward repairing
my error. If your child should ever really need a guardian, bring or send
her to me, and I will shield her to the full extent of my ability." Ere he
was aware of her intention, she caught his hand, and as she carried it to
her lips he felt her tears falling fast.
"God bless you for your goodness! I have one thing more to ask;
promise me that you will divulge to no one what I have told you. Let it
rest between God and you and me."
"I promise."
"In the great city where I labour I bear an assumed name, and none
must know, at least for the present, whom I am. Realizing fully the
unscrupulous character of the men with whom I have to deal, my only
hope of redress is in preserving the secret for some years, and not even
my baby can know her real parentage until I see fit to tell her. You will
not betray me, even to my child?"
"You may trust me."
"Thank you, more than mere words could ever express."
"May God help you, Mrs. Laurance, to walk circumspectly--to lead a
blameless life."
He took his hat from the stand in the hall, and silently they walked

down to the parsonage gate. The driver dismounted and opened the
carriage door, but the draped figure lingered, with her hand upon the
latch.
"If I should die before we meet again, you will not allow them to
trample upon my child?"
"I will do my duty faithfully."
"Remember that none must know I am Minnie Laurance until I give
you permission; for snares have been set all along my path, and
calumny is ambushed at every turn. Good-bye, sir. The God of orphans
will one day requite you."
The light from the carriage lamp shone down on her as she turned
toward it, and in subsequent years the pastor was haunted by the
marvellous beauty of the spirituelle features, the mournful splendour of
the large misty eyes, and the golden glint of the rippling hair that had
fallen low upon her temples.
"If it were not so late, I would accompany you to the railway station.
You will have a lonely ride. Good-bye, Mrs. Laurance."
"Lonely, sir? Aye--lonely for ever."
She laughed bitterly, and entered the carriage.
"Laughed, and the echoes huddling in affright, Like Odin's hounds fled
baying down the night."
CHAPTER II.
With the night passed the storm which had rendered it so gloomy, and
the fair cold day shone upon a world shrouded in icy cerements; a
hushed, windless world, as full of glittering rime-runes as the frozen
fields of Jotunheim. Each tree and shrub seemed a springing fountain,
suddenly crystallized in mid-air, and not all the mediæval marvels of
Murano equalled the fairy fragile tracery of fine spun, glassy web, and

film, and fringe that stretched along fences, hung from eaves, and
belaced the ivy leaves that lay helpless on the walls. A blanched
waning moon, a mere silver crescent, shivered upon the edge of the
western horizon, fleeing before the scarlet and orange lances that
already bristled along the eastern sky-line, the advance guard of the
conqueror, who would ere many moments smite all that weird icy
realm with consuming flames. The very air seemed frozen, and refused
to vibrate in trills and roulades through the throaty organs of matutinal
birds, that hopped and blinked, plumed their diamonded breasts, and
scattered brilliants enough to set a tiara; and profound silence brooded
over the scene, until rudely broken by a cry of dismay which rang out
startlingly from the parsonage. The alarm might very readily have been
ascribed to diligent Hannah, who, contemptuous of barometric or
thermal vicissitudes, invariably adhered to the aphorism of Solomon,
and, arising "while it is yet night, looketh well to the ways of her
household."
With a broom in one hand, and feather dusting-brush in the other, she
ran down the front steps, her white cap strings flying like distress
signals,--bent down to the ground as a blood-hound might in scenting a
trail,--then dashed back into the quiet old house, and uttered a wolfish
cry:
"Robbers! Burglars! Thieves!"
Oppressed with compassionate reflections concerning