“I must see her,” said Eric desperately.
“Aunt Janet, be my friend. Tell her she
must see me for a little while at least.”
Janet shook her head but went upstairs. She
soon returned.
“She says she cannot come down. You know
she means it, Master, and it is of no use to coax
her. And I must say I think she is right.
Since she will not marry you it is better for her
not to see you.”
Eric was compelled to go home with no better comfort
than this. In the morning, as it was Sunday,
he drove David Baker to the station. He had
not slept and he looked so miserable and reckless
that David felt anxious about him. David would
have stayed in Lindsay for a few days, but a certain
critical case in Queenslea demanded his speedy return.
He shook hands with Eric on the station platform.
“Eric, give up that school and come home at
once. You can do no good in Lindsay now, and
you’ll only eat your heart out here.”
“I must see Kilmeny once more before I leave,”
was all Eric’s answer.
That afternoon he went again to the Gordon homestead.
But the result was the same; Kilmeny refused to see
him, and Thomas Gordon said gravely,
“Master, you know I like you and I am sorry
Kilmeny thinks as she does, though maybe she is right.
I would be glad to see you often for your own sake
and I’ll miss you much; but as things are I
tell you plainly you’d better not come here any
more. It will do no good, and the sooner you
and she get over thinking about each other the better
for you both. Go now, lad, and God bless you.”
“Do you know what it is you are asking of me?”
said Eric hoarsely.
“I know I am asking a hard thing for your own
good, Master. It is not as if Kilmeny would
ever change her mind. We have had some experience
with a woman’s will ere this. Tush, Janet,
woman, don’t be weeping. You women are
foolish creatures. Do you think tears can wash
such things away? No, they cannot blot out sin,
or the consequences of sin. It’s awful
how one sin can spread out and broaden, till it eats
into innocent lives, sometimes long after the sinner
has gone to his own accounting. Master, if you
take my advice, you’ll give up the Lindsay school
and go back to your own world as soon as may be.”
Eric went home with a white, haggard face. He
had never thought it was possible for a man to suffer
as he suffered then. What was he to do?
It seemed impossible to go on with life—there
was no life apart from Kilmeny. Anguish
wrung his soul until his strength went from him and
youth and hope turned to gall and bitterness in his
heart.
He never afterwards could tell how he lived through
the following Sunday or how he taught school as usual
on Monday. He found out how much a man may suffer
and yet go on living and working. His body seemed
to him an automaton that moved and spoke mechanically,
while his tortured spirit, pent-up within, endured
pain that left its impress on him for ever. Out
of that fiery furnace of agony Eric Marshall was to
go forth a man who had put boyhood behind him for
ever and looked out on life with eyes that saw into
it and beyond.
