He hated his past life and the woman who
was so intimately associated with it; he became gloomy and reckless,
gave up his religion with all its practices of piety, and abandoned
himself to books of science, such as are the ruin of human souls all
over the world. I remonstrated with him hourly, but without avail--" a
slight coughing interrupted her here, I gave her a drink and shook up
her pillows, and feeling somewhat refreshed, she lay back again and
continued:
"Mamma thought that his solitude was perhaps his great enemy and wrote
to his college chum, Mr. Dalton, to come and visit us for a little
while." At the mention of Ernest Dalton's name a faint pink colour
rose steadily into her face. "He came and spent three months with us,
but did little good in the way we had hoped he could, but he was kind
and consoling in another way. He gave poor mamma great comfort while
he remained; when he left they sent me to Notre Dame, I don't know
why, although it proved a great blessing in the end.
"My mother used to write me about Bayard's moods, which were now often
worse, and never better. Ah! no one knew what a burden of grief I
carried to and from the class-room of Notre Dame Abbey. Sometimes I
felt that only for my mother, death would be a merciful relief, which
is a sad conviction for one so young. One day," she said, lowering her
voice almost to a whisper and folding her thin hands over the white
counter-pane "I was praying in the chapel and I began to think
seriously of all my troubles, how dark and gloomy they looked and how
weak and cowardly I seemed! Suddenly a little voice within me began to
ask: 'Why don't you make some desperate effort to save those whose
misfortunes are making you so miserable? Why would you not try some
daring sacrifice for instance, so that your brother be set free and
the ultimate recovery and conversion of his wife be obtained?' I
hesitated and looked through my gathering tears at the flickering lamp
in the sanctuary.
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