第48章 XVI(1)

GOD MADE US ALL

Rena was convalescent from a two-weeks' illness when her brother came to see her. He arrived at Patesville by an early morning train before the town was awake, and walked unnoticed from the station to his mother's house. His meeting with his sister was not without emotion: he embraced her tenderly, and Rena became for a few minutes a very Niobe of grief.

"Oh, it was cruel, cruel!" she sobbed. "I shall never get over it."

"I know it, my dear," replied Warwick soothingly,--"I know it, and I'm to blame for it. If I had never taken you away from here, you would have escaped this painful experience. But do not despair; all is not lost. Tryon will not marry you, as I hoped he might, while I feared the contrary; but he is a gentleman, and will be silent.

Come back and try again."

"No, John. I couldn't go through it a second time. I managed very well before, when I thought our secret was unknown; but now I could never be sure. It would be borne on every wind, for aught I knew, and every rustling leaf might whisper it. The law, you said, made us white;but not the law, nor even love, can conquer prejudice. HE spoke of my beauty, my grace, my sweetness! I looked into his eyes and believed him. And yet he left me without a word! What would I do in Clarence now? I came away engaged to be married, with even the day set; Ishould go back forsaken and discredited; even the servants would pity me.""Little Albert is pining for you," suggested Warwick. "We could make some explanation that would spare your feelings.""Ah, do not tempt me, John! I love the child, and am grieved to leave him. I'm grateful, too, John, for what you have done for me. I am not sorry that I tried it. It opened my eyes, and Iwould rather die of knowledge than live in ignorance.

But I could not go through it again, John;

I am not strong enough. I could do you no good;I have made you trouble enough already. Get a mother for Albert--Mrs. Newberry would marry you, secret and all, and would be good to the child.

Forget me, John, and take care of yourself. Your friend has found you out through me--he may have told a dozen people. You think he will be silent;--I thought he loved me, and he left me without a word, and with a look that told me how he hated and despised me. I would not have believed it--even of a white man.""You do him an injustice," said her brother, producing Tryon's letter. "He did not get off unscathed. He sent you a message."She turned her face away, but listened while he read the letter. "He did not love me," she cried angrily, when he had finished, "or he would not have cast me off--he would not have looked at me so. The law would have let him marry me. Iseemed as white as he did. He might have gone anywhere with me, and no one would have stared at us curiously; no one need have known. The world is wide--there must be some place where a man could live happily with the woman he loved.""Yes, Rena, there is; and the world is wide enough for you to get along without Tryon.""For a day or two," she went on, "I hoped he might come back. But his expression in that awful moment grew upon me, haunted me day and night, until I shuddered at the thought that I might ever see him again. He looked at me as though Iwere not even a human being. I do not love him any longer, John; I would not marry him if Iwere white, or he were as I am. He did not love me--or he would have acted differently. He might have loved me and have left me--he could not have loved me and have looked at me so!"She was weeping hysterically. There was little he could say to comfort her. Presently she dried her tears. Warwick was reluctant to leave her in Patesville. Her childish happiness had been that of ignorance; she could never be happy there again.

She had flowered in the sunlight; she must not pine away in the shade.

"If you won't come back with me, Rena, I'll send you to some school at the North, where you can acquire a liberal education, and prepare yourself for some career of usefulness. You may marry a better man than even Tryon.""No," she replied firmly, "I shall never marry any man, and I'll not leave mother again. God is against it; I'll stay with my own people.""God has nothing to do with it," retorted Warwick. "God is too often a convenient stalking-horse for human selfishness. If there is anything to be done, so unjust, so despicable, so wicked that human reason revolts at it, there is always some smug hypocrite to exclaim, `It is the will of God.'""God made us all," continued Rena dreamily, "and for some good purpose, though we may not always see it. He made some people white, and strong, and masterful, and--heartless. He made others black and homely, and poor and weak"--"And a lot of others `poor white' and shiftless,"smiled Warwick.