_ CHAPTER III
"Such is the world, understand it, despise it, love it; cheerfully hold on thy way through it, with thy eye on highest loadstars."--Carlyle.
It was a week since the party. Mrs. Hayden had been to the opera and returned late. Her husband was absent on a business trip, and she felt a vague uneasiness come over her as she entered the room. She knew not why, but it seemed unusually lonely without him. She seldom went out alone, but to-night she had gone out as much to while away the time as to hear the music. After paying her usual visit to the nursery, she went to bed, but slept little for several hours.
About 4 o'clock she was awakened by stifling fumes of smoke and startling cries of fire. Was it too late? She sprang up and ran to the nursery stairs, but the scorching flames met her, and she retreated to the window, shrieking for help, only to get a glimpse of someone through the smoke climbing toward her.
"Hold on!" cried the fireman, and reached out his arms for her just as she fell back fainting. Grasping her firmly, the brave man dragged her out of the window, and began his perilous descent. When about half way down, the ladder fell, but its burden was expected, and mattress and bed-clothing saved them from what might have been worse. As it was, the fireman escaped with a few bruises and slight scorching, and Mrs. Hayden with a broken limb. First they feared she was dead, but after a few moments she revived and moaned feebly for husband and children. Little Mabel clung desperately to her mother, and sobbingly told her "only the house was burnt. Fred and Jamie were safe, and now she must get up and be glad." Poor child, instinctively she knew the value of life above all other things.
"How did it happen, where did it start, and who saw it first?" were the queries on every side. Some one down at the foot of the hill had seen a tiny blue flame licking the corner of the roof. The fire alarm was touched, the bells set to ringing, and the observers leaped up the terraced stairways and arrived at the top just as the whole house burst into flames. The fire company had not arrived in time to do anything, as it was impossible to climb the hill with their heavy trucks, and their hose was not long enough to reach the flames, so the house was gone. Many people had gathered from all quarters in the fashion peculiar to fire crowds, but now they had seen the spectacle, and, as there was nothing further to see or do, they slowly dispersed.
Mrs. Hayden and the children were removed to the hotel and a telegram sent to Mr. Hayden, informing him of the catastrophe.
When he arrived, twelve hours later, he found his wife confined to the bed with a nervous fever and a broken limb. The children were safe and well cared for, and though his elegant home was in ruins, John Hayden was deeply thankful. Marion would, of course, get over the trouble, and things were much better than they might have been, he said. So he tried to look on the bright side, and after a few cheering words and a loving kiss he left her, to run up the hill and view the ruins.
It was early twilight, and as he beheld the smouldering
debris, and realized that the comforts and luxuries, possibly the necessities of life had gone up in the smoke that even now curled in sullen wreaths from the blackened heaps, he bowed his head and wept.
It was but a moment, but that moment was the bitterest of his whole life. He knew better than anyone else that this was probably the beginning of financial misfortune, for a very important transaction was even now pending that he feared would take his all. As a merchant he had an honorable reputation and position, but this unfortunate speculation would ruin him. Failure seemed inevitable. But he hoped to save enough to pay every debt and still be able to live, even though in a modest way. Now he would not even get his insurance on his house, for in his financial embarrassment he had failed to renew his policy, which had expired but few days before. He would now have little besides this spot, this beautiful hill. Yes, it was valuable, and in time could be sold for what it was worth, but not now, and in the meantime what should he do? How would Marion take it? Why had he not told her before he went away? But he had known it himself only a few days.
"Oh, my dear wife, would that we could commence life as we did when we were first married!" he groaned.
His mind went back to the past. He looked again into her sweet, girlish face, into her clear, earnest eyes. He remembered how they had both desired to live a religious life, how he, having been brought up in a religious home, undertook in vain to explain the Bible where it was dark and unreasonable to her. He remembered how fruitlessly she had tried to be converted, and that he had found even through her earnest seeking that he had naught but the letter of religion and was also as helpless as to the manner of salvation. And then they had given up trying. She sought, for a while, to satisfy herself by doing for others, giving her time and energy to the poor that found her out and besieged her for favors, while he had been satisfied to let religion alone and believe with the majority concerning the doctrines and dogmas.
As the years went on, and prosperity came to them, he had grown more and more indifferent, and finally, when they moved away from their early home and entered a new city, they had begun a new life, as it were.
He remembered, regretfully, that she had entered the competitive ranks of society, at his wish at first, because he thought it would add to his popularity as a merchant and increase the number and quality of his customers. Too well he remembered that the elegant parties and party costumes were first his own instigation, and now that these were likely to be taken away, he felt responsible for her happiness, and had a secret misgiving, born of his early religious training perhaps, of retribution and judgment. He hoped indeed that she would be able to rise above circumstances, but he was utterly at a loss to know how she would take it, for although he knew that deep down in her heart were still traces of the early longings, he felt vaguely there was no way to satisfy them any more now than in the past, and probably they would only increase the difficulty of finding happiness.
John Hayden was kind-hearted and upright in all his ways, strictly honest and conscientious, but apt to be a little one-sided in his judgments, simply because, as a rule, he reasoned from one standpoint, thought in one groove. He had never considered the questions from this point of view, and therefore they were seriously perplexing. Like many another he lived within his own world, and knew naught of any other. In the later years of their married life he and Marion had grown a little apart in the closest confidences, but it was caused by circumstances more than anything else, and notwithstanding the present misery he was sure of her love.
"Poor girl, I must hasten back to her," he murmured, as he rose from his uncomfortable position. "After all, I can thank God for my family, my health, my honor, for no matter how much
we may suffer, no one else shall suffer through me."
There was a little pang at the thought of the privations in possible store for the family through him, but he had resolved to make the best of circumstances and be brave as possible. Once more he looked over the scene, but there were only dim black shadows in the starlight, and he went down toward the twinkling lights of the city below. _