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Page 79
"I think no author ought to write such a story," said Mrs. Douglas,
emphatically. "Life holds too much that is sad for us all to justify the
expenditure of so much unavailing sympathy. The emotion that cannot work
itself out in action takes from moral strength instead of adding to it.
It is a pity to use so great literary talent in this way."
"But do not such things sometimes happen, and is it not a literary
virtue to describe real life?" queried Barbara, from her corner amidst
the shadows.
"Is it an especially artistic virtue to picture deformity and suffering
just because they exist? I acknowledge that a picture or a book may be
fine, even great, with such subjects; but is it either as helpful or
wholesome as it might have been?" argued Mrs. Douglas.
"Yet in this book the characters of both hero and heroine grow stronger
because of their suffering," suggested Bettina.
"But such an unnecessary suffering!" rather impatiently asserted Malcom.
"If either had died, then the other might have borne it patiently and
been just as noble. But such a blunder! I threw the book aside in
disgust, for the author had absorbed me with interest, and I was so
utterly disappointed."
Mr. Sumner had been reading, and had not joined in the conversation, but
Bettina thought she saw some evidence that he had heard it; and when,
throwing aside his paper, he stepped outside on the balcony, she obeyed
an impulse she could never afterward explain to herself, and followed
him. Quickly putting her hand on his, she said, with a fluttering heart,
but with a steady voice:--
"Dear Mr. Sumner, do not do as Richard did."
Then drawing back in consternation as she realized what she had done,
she gasped:--
"Oh, forgive me! Forget what I have said!"
She tried to escape, but her hand was in a grip of iron. "What do you
mean? Tell me, Betty. Barbara--" His voice failed, but the passion of
love that blazed in his eyes reassured her.
"I will not say another word. Please let me go and never, _never_ tell
Barbara what I said;" and as she wrenched her hand from him, and
vanished from the balcony, her smiling face, white amidst the darkness,
looked to Robert Sumner like an angel of hope. Could it be that she
intended to give him hope of Barbara's love--that sweet young girl--when
he was so much older? When she knew that he had once before loved? But
what else could Betty have meant? Had he been blind all this time, and
had Betty seen it? A hundred circumstances sprang into his remembrance,
that, looked at in the light of her message, took on possible meanings.
Robert Sumner was a man of action. As soon as his sister retired to her
own room, he followed, and then and there fully opened his heart to her.
He told her all, from the first moment when Barbara began to monopolize
his thoughts, and confessed his struggles against her usurpation of the
place Margaret had so long held.
To say that Mrs. Douglas was astonished does not begin to express the
truth. She listened in helpless wonder. As he went on, and it became
evident to her what a strong hold on his affections Barbara had gained,
the fear arose lest he might be on the brink of a direful
disappointment. At last, when he ended, saying, "I shall tell her all
to-morrow," she could only falter:--
"Is it best so soon, Robert?"
"Soon!" he cried. "It seems as if I have waited years! Say not one word
against it, sister. My mind is made up!"
But he could not tell her the hope Bettina had given, which was singing
joyfully in his heart all the time. And so Mrs. Douglas was tortured all
through the night with miserable forebodings.
The next morning Bettina was troubled at the look of resolve she
understood in Mr. Sumner's face, and almost trembled at the thought of
what she had done. "But I am sure--I am sure," she kept repeating, to
reassure herself.
A last visit to the Academy had been planned for the afternoon. They
walked thither, as they often loved to do, through the narrow, still
streets and across the little foot-bridges. Mrs. Douglas, with Margery
and Miss Sherman, arrived first, and, after a few minutes' delay,
Bettina and Malcom appeared.
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