_ CHAPTER XVI. "VENGEANCE IS MINE"
When Hinton at last left him, Mr. Harman sat on for a long time by his study fire. The fire burnt low but he did not replenish it, neither did he touch the cold coffee which still remained on his table. After an hour or so of musings, during which the old face seemed each moment to grow more sad and careworn, he stretched out his hand to ring his bell.
Almost instantly was the summons answered--a tall footman stood before him.
"Dennis, has Mr. Jasper left?"
"Yes, sir. He said he was going to his club. I can have him fetched, sir."
"Do not do so. After Mr. Hinton leaves, ask Miss Harman to come here."
The footman answered softly in the affirmative and withdrew, and Mr. Harman still sat on alone. He had enough to think about. For the first time to-day death had come and stared him in the face; very close indeed his own death was looking at him. He was a brave man, but the sight of the cold, grim thing, brought so close, so inevitably near, was scarcely to be endured with equanimity. After a time, rising from his seat, he went to a bookcase and took down, not a treatise on medicine or philosophy, but an old Bible.
"Dying men are said to find comfort here," he said faintly to himself. He put one of the candles on the table and opened the book. It was an old Bible, but John Harman was not very well acquainted with its contents.
"They tell me there is much comfort here," he said to himself. He turned the old and yellow leaves.
"_Vengeance is mine. I will repay._" These were the words on which his eyes fell.
Comfort! He closed the book with a groan and returned it to the bookshelf. But in returning it he chose the highest shelf of all and pushed it far back and well out of sight.
He had scarcely done so before a light quick step was heard at the door, and Charlotte, her eyes and cheeks both bright, entered.
"My dearest, my darling," he said. He came to meet her, and folded her in his arms. He was a dying man, and a sin-laden one, but not the less sweet was that young embrace, that smooth cheek, those bright, happy eyes.
"You are better, father; you look better," said his daughter.
"I have been rather weak and low all the evening, Lottie; but I am much better for seeing you. Come here and sit at my feet, my dear love."
"I am very happy this evening," said Charlotte, seating herself on her father's footstool, and laying her hand on his knee.
"I can guess the reason, my child; your wedding-day is fixed."
"This morning, father, I said it should be the twentieth of June; John seemed quite satisfied, and four months were not a bit too long for our preparations; but to-night he has changed his mind; he wants our wedding to be in April. I have not given in--not yet. Two months seem so short."
"You will have plenty of time to prepare in two months, dear; and April is a nice time of year. If I were you, I would not oppose Hinton."
Charlotte smiled. She knew in her heart of hearts she should not oppose him. But being a true woman, she laid hold of a futile excuse.
"My book will not be finished. I like to do well what I do at all."
Her father was very proud of this coming book; but now, patting her hand, he said softly,--
"The book can keep. Put it out of your head for the present; you can get it done later."
"Then I shall leave you two months sooner, father; does that not weigh with you at all?"
"You are only going for your honeymoon, darling; and the sooner you go the sooner you will return."
"Vanquished on all points," said Charlotte, smiling radiantly, and then she sat still, looking into the fire.
Long, long afterwards, through much of sorrow--nay, even of tribulation--did her thoughts wander back to that golden evening of her life.
"You remind me of my own mother to-night," said her father presently.
Charlotte and her father had many times spoken of this dead mother. Now she said softly,--
"I want, I pray, I long to make as good a wife as you tell me she did."
"With praying, longing, and striving, it will come Charlotte. That was how she succeeded."
"And there is another thing," continued Charlotte, suddenly changing her position and raising her bright eyes to her old father's face. "You had a good wife and I had a good mother. If ever I die, as my own mother died, and leave behind me a little child, as she did, I pray that my John may be as good a father to it as you have been to me."
But in answer to this little burst of daughterly love, a strange thing happened. Mr. Harman grew very white, so white that he gasped for breath.
"Water, a little water," he said, feebly; and when Charlotte had brought it to him and he raised it to his lips, and the color and power to breathe had come back again, he said slowly and with great pain,--
"Never, never pray that your husband may be like me, Charlotte. To be worthy of you at all, he must be a much better and a very different man." _