The Sword of Damocles: A Story of New York Life

"I shall not meet you at breakfast and possibly not at dinner to-morrow, but when evening comes I shall look for my soul's dearer and better half, or my childless manhood's nearest and most cherished friend, as God pleaseth and your own heart and conscience shall decree.

"Edward Sylvester."

Miss Belinda was very much surprised to be awakened early the next morning, by a pair of loving arms clasped yearningly about her neck.

Looking up, she descried Paula kneeling beside her bed in the faint morning light, her cheeks burning, and her eyelids drooping; and guessing perhaps how it was, started up from her recumbent position with an energy strongly suggestive of the charger, that smells the battle afar off.

"What has happened?" she asked. "You look as if you had not slept a wink."

For reply Paula pulled aside the curtain at the head of her bed, and slipped into her hand Mr. Ensign's letter. Miss Belinda read it conscientiously through, with many grunts of approval, and having finished it, laid it down with a significant nod, after which she turned and surveyed Paula with keen but cautious scrutiny. "And you don't know what answer to give," she asked.

"I should," said Paula, "if – Oh aunt, you know what stands in my way! I have seen it in your eyes for some time. There is some one else – "

"But he has not spoken?" vigorously ejaculated her aunt.

Without answering, Paula put into her hand, with a slow reluctance she had not manifested before, a second little note, and then hid her head amid the bedclothes, waiting with quickly beating heart for what her aunt might say.

She did not seem in haste to speak, but when she did, her words came with a quick sigh that echoed very drearily in the young girl's anxious ears. "You have been placed by this in a somewhat painful position. I sympathize with you, my child. It is very hard to give denial to a benefactor."

Paula's head drew nearer to her aunt's breast, her arms crept round her neck. "But must I?" she breathed.

Miss Belinda knitted her brows with great force, and stared severely at the wall opposite. "I am sorry there is any question about it," she replied.

Paula started up and looked at her with sudden determination. "Aunt," said she, "what is your objection to Mr. Sylvester?"

Miss Belinda shook her head, and pushing the girl gently away, hurriedly arose and began dressing with great rapidity. Not until she was entirely prepared for breakfast did she draw Paula to her, and prepare to answer her question.

"My objection to him is, that I do not thoroughly understand him. I am afraid of the skeleton in the closet, Paula. I never feel at ease when I am with him, much as I admire his conversation and appreciate the undoubtedly noble instincts of his heart. His brow is not open enough to satisfy an eye which has accustomed itself to the study of human nature."

"He has had many sorrows!" Paula faintly exclaimed, stricken by this echo of her own doubts.

"Yes," returned her aunt, "and sorrow bows the head and darkens the eye, but it does not make the glance wavering or its expression mysterious."

"Some sorrows might," urged Paula tremulously, arguing as much with her own doubts as with those of her aunt. "His have been of no ordinary nature. I have never told you, aunt, but there were circumstances attending Cousin Ona's death that made it especially harrowing. He had a stormy interview with her the very morning she was killed; words passed between them, and he left her with a look that was almost desperate. When he next saw her, she lay lifeless and inert before him. I sometimes think that the shadow that fell upon him at that hour will never pass away."

"Do you know what was the subject of their disagreement?" asked Miss Belinda anxiously.

"No, but I have reason to believe it had something to do with business affairs, as nothing else could ever arouse Cousin Ona into being at all disagreeable."

"I don't like that phrase, business affairs; like charity, it covers entirely too much. Have you never had any doubts yourself about Mr. Sylvester?"

"Ah, you touch me to the quick, aunt. I may have had my doubts, but when I look back on the past, I cannot see as they have any very substantial foundation. Supposing, aunt, that he has been merely unfortunate, and I should live to find that I had discarded one whose heart was darkened by nothing but sorrow? I should never forgive myself, nor could life yield me any recompense that would make amends for a sacrifice so unnecessary."

"You love him, then, very dearly, Paula?"

A sudden light fell on the young girl's face. "Hearts cannot tell their love," said she, "but since I received this letter from him, it has seemed as if my life hung balancing on the question, as to whether he is worthy of a woman's homage. If he is not, I would give my life to have him so. The world is only dear to me now as it holds him."

Miss Belinda picked up Mr. Ensign's letter with trembling fingers. "I thought you were safe when the younger man came to woo," said she. "Girls, as a rule, prefer what is bright to what is sombre, and Mr. Ensign is truly a very agreeable as well as worthy young man."

"Yes, aunt, and he came very near stealing my heart as he undoubtedly did my fancy, but a stronger hand snatched it away, and now I do not know what to do or how to act, so as to awaken in the future no remorse or vain regrets."

Miss Belinda opened the letters again and consulted their contents in a matter-of-fact way. "Mr. Ensign proposes to come this afternoon for his answer, while Mr. Sylvester defers seeing you till evening. What if I seek Mr. Sylvester this morning and have a little conversation with him, which shall determine, for once and all, the question which so troubles us? Would you not find it easier to meet Mr. Ensign when he comes?"

"You talk to Mr. Sylvester, and upon such a topic! Oh, I could not bear that. Pardon me, aunt, but I think I am more jealous of his feelings than of my own. If his secret can be learned in a half-hour's talk, it must be listened to by no one but myself. And I believe it can," she murmured reverently; "he is so tender of me he would never let me go blindfold into any path, concerning which I had once expressed anxiety. If I ask him whether there is any good reason before God or man why I should not give him my entire faith and homage, he will answer honestly, though it be the destruction of his hopes to do so?"

"Have you such trust as that in his uprightness as a lover, and the guardian of your happiness?"

"Have not you, aunt?"

And Miss Belinda remembering his words on the occasion of his first proposal to adopt Paula, was forced to acknowledge that she had.

So without further preliminaries, it was agreed upon that Paula should refrain from making a final decision until she had eased her heart by an interview with Mr. Sylvester.

"Meantime, you can request Mr. Ensign to wait another day for his answer," said Miss Belinda.

But Paula with a look of astonishment shook her head. "Is it you who would counsel me to such a piece of coquetry as that?" said she. "No, dear aunt, my heart is not with Mr. Ensign, as you know, and it is impossible for me to encourage him. If Mr. Sylvester should prove unworthy of my affection, I must bear, as best I may, the loss which must accrue; but till he does, let me not dishonor my womanhood by allowing hope to enter, even for a passing moment, the breast of his rival."

Miss Belinda blushed, and drew her niece fondly towards her. "You are right," said she, "and my great desire for your happiness has led me into error. Honesty is the noblest adjunct of all true love, and must never be sacrificed to considerations of selfish expediency. The refusal which you contemplate bestowing upon Mr. Ensign, must be forwarded to him at once."

And with a final embrace, in which Miss Belinda allowed herself to let fall some few natural tears of disappointment, she dismissed the young girl to her task.

XXXIV

PAULA MAKES HER CHOICE

"Good fortune then,To make me bless't or cursed'st among men." – Merchant of Venice.

It was evening in the Sylvester mansion. Mr. Sylvester who, according to his understanding with Paula, had been absent from his home all day, had just come in and now stood in his library waiting for the coming footfall that should decide whether the future held for him any promise of joy.

He had never looked more worthy of a woman's regard than he did that night. A matter that had been troubling him for some time had just been satisfactorily disposed of, and not a shadow, so far as he knew, lay upon his business outlook. This naturally brightened his cheek and lent a light to his eye. Then, hope is no mean beautifier, and this he possessed notwithstanding the disparity of years between himself and Paula. It was not, however, of sufficiently assured a nature to prevent him from starting at every sound from above, and flushing with quite a disagreeable sense of betrayal when the door opened and Bertram entered the room, instead of the gentle and exquisite being he had expected.

"Uncle, I am so full of happiness, I had to stop and bestow a portion of it upon you. Do you think any one could mistake the nature of Miss Stuyvesant's feelings, who saw her last night?"

"Hardly," was the smiling reply. "At all events I have not felt like wasting much but pleasant sympathy upon you. Your pathway to happiness looks secure, my boy."

His nephew gave him a wistful glance, but hid his thought whatever it was. "I am going to see her to-night," remarked he. "I am afraid my love is something like a torrent that has once burst its barrier; it cannot rest until it has worked its channel and won its rightful repose."

"That is something the way with all love," returned his uncle. "It may be dallied with while asleep, but once aroused, better meet a lion in his fury or a tempest in its rush. Are you going to test your hope, to-night?"

The young man flushed. "I cannot say." But in another moment gayly added, "I only know that I am prepared for any emergency."

"Well, my boy, I wish you God-speed. If ever a man has won a right to happiness, you are that man; and you shall enjoy it too, if any word or action of mine can serve to advance it."

"Thank you!" replied Bertram, and with a bright look around the apartment, prepared to take his leave. "When I come back," he remarked, with a touch of that manly naïveté to which I have before alluded, "I hope I shall not find you alone."

Ignoring this wish which was re-echoed somewhat too deeply within his own breast for light expression, Mr. Sylvester accompanied his nephew to the front door.

"Let us see what kind of a night it is," observed he, stepping out upon the stoop. "It is going to rain."

"So it is," returned Bertram, with a quick glance overhead; "but I shall not let such a little fuss as that deter me from fulfilling my engagement." And bestowing a hasty nod upon his uncle, he bounded down the step.

Instantly a man who was loitering along the walk in front of the house, stopped, as if struck by these simple words, turned, gave Bertram a quick look, and then with a sly glance back at the open door where Mr. Sylvester still stood gazing at the lowering heavens, set himself cautiously to follow him.

Mr. Sylvester, who was too much pre-occupied to observe this suspicious action, remained for a moment contemplating the sky; then with an aimless glance down the avenue, during which his eye undoubtedly fell upon Bertram and the creeping shadow of a man behind him, closed the door and returned to the library.

The sight of another's joy has the tendency to either unduly depress the spirits or greatly to elate them. When Paula came into the room a few minutes later, it was to find Mr. Sylvester awaiting her with an expression that was almost radiant. It made her duty seem doubly hard, and she came forward with the slow step of one who goes to meet or carry doom. He saw, and instantly the light died out of his face, leaving it one blank of despair. But controlling himself, he took her cold hand in his, and looking down upon her with a tender but veiled regard, asked in those low and tremulous tones that exerted such an influence upon her:

"Do I see before me my affectionate and much to be cherished child, or that still dearer object of love and worship, which it shall be the delight of my life to render truly and deeply happy?"

"You see," returned she, after a moment of silent emotion, "a girl without father or brother to advise her; who loves, or believes she does, a great and noble man, but who is smitten with fear also, she cannot tell why, and trembles to take a step to which no loving and devoted friend has set the seal of his approval."

The clasp with which Mr. Sylvester held her hand in his, tightened for an instant with irrepressible emotion, then slowly unloosed. Drawing back, he surveyed her with eyes that slowly filled with a bitter comprehension of her meaning.

"You are the only man," continued she, with a glance of humble entreaty, "that has ever stood to me for a moment in the light of a relation. You have been a father to me in days gone by, and to you it therefore seems most natural for me to appeal when a question comes up that either puzzles or distresses me. Mr. Sylvester, you have offered me your love and the refuge of your home; if you say that in your judgment the counsel of all true friends would be for me to accept this love, then my hand is yours and with it my heart; a heart that only hesitates because it would fain be sure it has the smile of heaven upon its every prompting."

"Paula!"

The voice was so strange she looked up to see if it really was Mr. Sylvester who spoke. He had sunk back into a chair and had covered his face with his hands. With a cry she moved towards him, but he motioned her back.

"Condemned to be my own executioner!" he muttered. "Placed on the rack and bid to turn the wheel that shall wrench my own sinews! My God, 'tis hard!"

She did not hear the words, but she saw the action. Slowly the blood left her cheek, and her hand fell upon her swelling breast with a despairing gesture that would have smitten Miss Belinda to the heart, could she have seen it. "I have asked too much," she whispered.

With a start Mr. Sylvester rose. "Paula," said he, in a stern and different tone, "is this fear of which you speak, the offspring of your own instincts, or has it been engendered in your breast by the words of another?"

"My Aunt Belinda is in my confidence, if it is she to whom you allude," rejoined she, meeting his glance fully and bravely. "But from no lips but yours could any words proceed capable of affecting my estimate of you as the one best qualified to make me happy."

"Then it is my words alone that have awakened this doubt, this apprehension?"

"I have not spoken of doubt," said she, but her eyelids fell.

"No, thank God!" he passionately exclaimed. "And yet you feel it," he went on more composedly. "I have studied your face too long and closely not to understand it."

She put out her hands in appeal, but for once it passed unheeded.

"Paula," said he, "you must tell me just what that doubt is; I must know what is passing in your mind. You say you love me – " he paused, and a tremble shook him from head to foot, but he went inexorably on – "it is more than I had a right to expect, and God knows I am grateful for the precious and inestimable boon, far as it is above my deserts; but while loving me, you hesitate to give me your hand. Why? What is the name of the doubt that disturbs that pure breast and affects your choice? Tell me, I must know."

"You ask me to dissect my own heart!" she cried, quivering under the torture of his glance; "how can I? What do I know of its secret springs or the terrors that disturb its even beatings? I cannot name my fear; it has no name, or if it has – Oh, sir!" she cried in a burst of passionate longing, "your life has been one of sorrow and disappointment; grief has touched you close, and you might well be the melancholy and sombre man that all behold. I do not shrink from grief; say that the only shadow that lies across your dungeon-door is that cast by the great and heart-rending sorrows of your life, and without question and without fear I enter that dungeon with you – "

The hand he raised stopped her. "Paula," cried he, "do you believe in repentance?"

The words struck her like a blow. Falling slowly back, she looked at him for an instant, then her head sank on her breast.

"I know what your hatred of sin is," continued he. "I have seen your whole form tremble at the thought of evil. Is your belief in the redeeming power of God as great as your recoil from the wrong that makes that redemption necessary?"

Quickly her head raised, a light fell on her brow, and her lips moved in a vain effort to utter what her eyes unconsciously expressed.

"Paula, I would be unworthy the name of a man, if with the consciousness of possessing a dark and evil nature, I strove by use of any hypocrisy or specious pretense at goodness, to lure to my side one so exceptionally pure, beautiful and high-minded. The ravening wolf and the innocent lamb would be nothing to it. Neither would I for an instant be esteemed worthy of your regard, if in this hour of my wooing there remained in my life the shadow of any latent wrong that might hereafter rise up and overwhelm you. Whatever of wrong has ever been committed by me – and it is my punishment that I must acknowledge before your pure eyes that my soul is not spotless – was done in the past, and is known only to my own heart and the God who I reverently trust has long ago pardoned me. The shadow is that of remorse, not of fear, and the evil, one against my own soul, rather than against the life or fortunes of other men. Paula, such sins can be forgiven if one has a mind to comprehend the temptations that beset men in their early struggles. I have never forgiven myself, but – " He paused, looked at her for an instant, his hand clenched over his heart, his whole noble form shaken by struggle, then said – "forgiveness implies no promise, Paula; you shall never link yourself to a man who has been obliged to bow his head in shame before you, but by the mercy that informs that dear glance and trembling lip, do you think you can ever grow to forgive me?"

"Oh," she cried, with a burst of sobs, violent as her grief and shame, "God be merciful to me, as I am merciful to those who repent of their sins and do good and not evil all the remaining days of their life."

"I thought you would forgive me," murmured he, looking down upon her, as the miser eyes the gold that has slipped from his paralyzed hand. "Him whom the hard-hearted sinner and the hypocrite despise, God's dearest lambs regard with mercy. I learned to revere God before I knew you, Paula, but I learned to love Him in the light of your gentleness and your trust. Rise up now and let me wipe away your tears – my daughter."

She sprang up as if stung. "No, no," she cried, "not that; I cannot bear that yet. I must think, I must know what all this means," and she laid her hand upon her heart. "God surely does not give so much love for one's undoing; if I were not destined to comfort a life so saddened, He would have bequeathed me more pity and less – " The lifted head fell, the word she would have uttered, stirred her bosom, but not her lips.

It was a trial to his strength, but his firm man's heart did not waver. "You do comfort me," said he; "from early morning to late night your presence is my healing and my help, and will always be so, whatever may befal. A daughter can do much, my Paula."

She took a step back towards the door, her eyes, dark with unfathomable impulses, flashing on him through the tears that hung thickly on her lashes.

"Is it for your own sake or for mine, that you make use of that word?" said she.

He summoned up his courage, met that searching glance with all its wild, bewildering beauty, and responded, "Can you ask, Paula?"

With a lift of her head that gave an almost queenly stateliness to her form, she advanced a step, and drawing a crumpled paper from her pocket, said, "When I went to my room last night, it was to read two letters, one from yourself, and one from Mr. Ensign. This is his, and a manly and noble letter it is too; but hearts have right to hearts, and I was obliged to refuse his petition." And with a reverent but inexorable hand, she dropped the letter on the burning coals of the grate at their side, and softly turned to leave the room.

"Paula!" With a bound the stern and hitherto forcibly repressed man, leaped to her side. "My darling! my life!" and with a wild, uncontrollable impulse, he caught her for one breathless moment to his heart; then as suddenly released her, and laying his hand in reverence on her brow, said softly, "Now go and pray, little one; and when you are quite calm, an hour hence or a week hence whichever it may be, come and tell me my fate as God and the angels reveal it to you." And he smiled, and she saw his smile, and went out of the room softly, as one who treadeth upon holy ground.

Mr. Sylvester was considered by his friends and admirers as a proud man. If a vote had been cast among those who knew him best, as from what especial passion common to humanity he would soonest recoil, it would have been unanimously pronounced shame, and his own hand would have emphasized the judgment of his fellows. But shame which is open to the gaze of the whole world, differs from that which is sacred to the eyes of one human being, and that the one who lies nearest the heart.

As Paula's retreating footsteps died away on the stairs, and he awoke to the full consciousness that his secret was shared by her whose love was his life, and whose good opinion had been his incentive and his pride, his first sensation was one of unmitigated anguish, but his next, strange to say, that of a restful relief. He had cast aside the cloak he had hugged so closely to his breast these many years, and displayed to her shrinking gaze the fox that was gnawing at his vitals; and Spartan though he was, the dew that had filled her loving eyes was balm to him. And not only that; he had won claim to the title of true man. Her regard, if regard it remained, was no longer an airy fabric built upon a plausible seeming, but a firm structure with knowledge for its foundation. "I shall not live to whisper, 'If she knew my whole life, would she love me so well?'"

His first marriage had been so wholly uncongenial and devoid of sympathy, that his greatest longing in connection with a fresh contract, was to enjoy the full happiness of perfect union and mutual trust; and though he could never have summoned up courage to take her into his confidence, unsolicited, now that it had been done he would not have it undone, no, not if by the doing he had lost her confidence and affection.

But something told him he had not lost it. That out of the darkness and the shock of this very discovery, a new and deeper love would spring, which having its birth in human frailty and human repentance, would gain in the actual what it lost in the ideal, bringing to his weary, suffering and yearning man's nature, the honest help of a strong and loving sympathy, growing trust, and sweetest because wisest encouragement.

It was therefore, with a growing sense of deep unfathomable comfort, and a reverent thankfulness for the mercies of God, that he sat by the fire idly watching the rise and fall of the golden flames above the fluttering ashes of his rival's letter, and dreaming with a hallowing sense of his unworthiness, upon the possible bliss of coming days. Happiness in its truest and most serene sense was so new to him, it affected him like the presence of something strangely commanding. He was awe-struck before it, and unconsciously bowed his head at its contemplation. Only his eyes betrayed the peace that comes with all great joy, his eyes and perhaps the faint, almost unearthly smile that flitted across his mouth, disturbing its firm line and making his face for all its inevitable expression of melancholy, one that his mother would have loved to look upon. "Paula!" came now and then in a reverent, yearning accent from between his lips, and once a low, "Thank God!" which showed that he was praying.

Suddenly he rose; a more human mood had set in, and he felt the necessity of assuring himself that it was really he upon whom the dreary past had closed, and a future of such possible brightness opened. He walked about the room, surveying the rich articles within it, as the possible belongings of the beautiful woman he adored; he stood and pictured her as coming into the door as his wife, and before he realized what he was doing, had planned certain changes he would make in his home to adapt it to the wants of her young and growing mind, when with a strange suddenness, the door upon which he was gazing flew back, and Bertram Sylvester entered just as he had come from the street. He looked so haggard, so wild, so little the picture of himself as he ventured forth a couple of hours before, that Mr. Sylvester started, and forgetting his happiness in his alarm, asked in a tone of dismay: