JUSTICE OR MERCY?

It was just as the silver-tongued clock on her mantel was tolling one, that the suggestion was suddenly made to Ruth Erskine Burnham that she was planning wickedness. Instead of trying to arrange how to break the dreadful news to Erskine, ought she not to be planning how to avoid having him know anything about it? Two very unreconcilable statements were in her mind clamoring to be heard.

"Of course she must tell him!" "No, she must not tell him!" "He ought to be told!" "He ought not to be told!" These in varying forms repeated themselves in her brain until she was bewildered. And the contradictory argument continued:—

"That girl, that forsaken, disowned girl—justice to her demanded the telling." "Justice did no such thing!" "But Irene was her mother, and had duties toward her that could not be ignored." "Irene was her mother only in name; there was no sense in which she could, even though she wished to do so, take the place of mother to her now." "Do not you know," continued that other voice speaking to the stricken woman, "do not you feel sure that for a young girl to be brought under the direction and daily influence of such a woman as Irene, would be almost the worst fate that could befall her?" "But Erskine has a duty toward her; he ought—" "Erskine cannot! you know he cannot. Have you not daily proof of the limit of his influence over Irene? Do you not know to your grief that in some matters she dominates him?"

"But Erskine ought to know the kind of woman that he is harboring. It is horrible to have him go on loving and trusting her!"

"Such knowledge coming to Erskine now, could work only harm. He has done no wrong; his conscience is clear, his hands are clean. Simply to reveal to him the former sins of the woman he has promised to love and cherish, would be to plunge him into depths of misery, without accomplishing anything for either the girl or his wife."

"But Irene ought to be exposed; she ought to repent, and confess her sin; it is monstrous to go on helping her to cover it!"

"You have nothing to do with Irene's 'oughts.' You cannot make her either confess or repent. To 'cover' her sin, as you call it, will not change the moral conditions for her in any way, it will simply bring unutterable pain and shame upon your son."

"But ought not sin to be exposed?"

"Not always. Sometimes to cover sin is God-like. Think, if you can, of one helpful, hopeful result which might reasonably be expected to follow such an exposure as you contemplate."

It was a long-drawn-out controversy; as real to Ruth as though her soul had separated itself from that other mysterious part of her which was yet not her body, and stood confronting her, calm, strong, unyielding. She tossed on her bed from side to side, and turned and re-turned her pillows, and straightened the disordered bedclothing, and sought in vain for an hour of rest. At times she resolutely told herself that she would put it all aside until morning, and wait, like a reasonable being, until her brain was clear and she was capable of reaching conclusions; then she would compose herself for sleep, only to find that she was taking up each minute detail of the story that had been told her and living it over again. She could not even interest herself in any of the side issues save for a few minutes at a time. She tried hard to centre her thoughts about the woman, Miss Parker, and contrast her with that crude disappointing girl by the same name that she had met years before; it did not seem to her that they could be one and the same! What a beautiful woman in every sense of the word this Miss Parker was! What if she, Erskine's mother, had been gifted with foresight, in those early years, had been able to conceive of the possibilities hidden in that uncouth, silly country girl, and had encouraged in Erskine the interest which she then awakened? Or, failing in that, what if she had simply kept her hand off and let things take their course? Would this woman with her beautiful face and gracious ways and cultivated mind and heart have become Erskine's wife, and her daughter? How extraordinary that it should have been Mamie Parker who had touched her life again, when she had labored so hard to be free from her, and had succeeded! And it was Mamie Parker who had come to the rescue of a desperately friendless girl who ought at this moment to be sheltered in their own home! And then she was back in the meshes of it all again!

She arose at length and began to move softly about her room through the darkness. She must stay in the darkness, otherwise Erskine might discover a light and insist upon being admitted. Very softly she drew back her curtains and looked out upon the moonless night. There were countless stars, but they gleamed from far away and looked even more indifferent than usual to what was going on below them. Softly she drew a chair beside the open casement and sat down to try the effect of the cool night air upon her throbbing head. If she could only get quiet enough to think! But those two conflicting thoughts were still pounding away in her brain: "Erskine must be told." "Erskine must not be told!"

Yet she made progress, and a discovery. It was beginning to humiliate her to the very dust to discover that there was a sense in which she wanted to tell him! No, not that, either; but she wanted him to know; and she wanted this because she desired to have Irene dethroned!

There were no tears shed during those hours. The victim had gone beyond tears. Her throat felt dry and parched and her eyes burned, as one in a fever. She was beginning to realize that this might be a conflict between right and wrong, and that her own personality was engaged in it. The clock struck two, struck three, and still that mother sat gazing out on the singularly quiet night. Twice during that time she heard Erskine come with soft footsteps, evidently to listen at her door.

"Mamma," he said, speaking low, but so distinctly that she knew he reasoned that if she were awake she would certainly hear him. It seemed to her that he must hear the throbbing of her heart as she waited. A wild desire possessed her to fling wide the door and bid him come in and listen while she said to him: "The woman you have taken to your heart, to love and cherish forever, is false to the truth, false to every sense of honor, false even to her own child!"

She clutched at the arms of her chair, to keep her, and held her breath that it make no sound.

Erskine went on tiptoe back to his room, and his mother, who had almost spent her physical strength, sank limply back into her chair. But before the clock struck again she had got to her knees. All the while she had been conscious of a strange reluctance about going to God with this trouble. Accustomed as she was, and had been ever since she became a praying woman, to taking all things, small as well as great, to Him, it had seemed strange even to herself that she held back.

Not that she had said that she would not pray, she had simply shrunken back with a half-frightened "Not yet, I am not ready yet; let me think." But she reached the moment when she understood that she must have help and must have it at once, and that only God could give it.

She knelt long; at first speaking no words, not thinking words. Then she broke into short, half-sobbing ejaculations: "Lord, show me the way. Christ, son of Mary, son of God, help me!" And then the habit of years asserted itself and the sorely shaken woman entered wholly within the refuge and poured out her soul in prayer.

When she arose from her knees, the rosy tints of a new day were beginning to flush the east. She drew her shades and went back to her bed and slept. Some things had been settled for her; she need not think about them any more.

The woman who a few hours later appeared at the breakfast table in a white morning dress and with her hair carefully arranged, showed little trace of her night's vigil, though her son regarded her searchingly.

"I am thankful to see you here," he said. "I was quite worried about you last night. It is so unusual not to meet you at dinner and have a little chat with you. You did not even give a fellow a chance to say good-night! I was sure that something was wrong." His wife laughed.

"Erskine cannot get away from the idea that he is his mother's nursemaid," she said lightly. "And he is a real 'Miss Nancy' for worrying. Such a night as he gave me, merely because you did not choose to come down to dinner! He must have trotted out to your door to listen twenty times, at least."

"Twice, anyway," said Erskine, gayly. "Never mind, though; she is all right this morning, and that is more than I dared to hope." But he watched her closely.

"What tired you so, mamma? Or rather, who did? Irene said you had company all the afternoon."

"Yes, an old acquaintance. I don't think you could guess who it was."

"Not at least without seeing her. Was she also an old acquaintance of mine?"

"I think you will remember her; at least you will, her brother. It was Miss Parker."

"'Miss Parker?' Not Mamie? How interesting! Why didn't you keep her to dinner? I should like to have met her. Is she 'Miss Parker' still, after all these years? That is rather surprising, isn't it? She must be thirty or more. And what about her brother? I haven't heard anything of him to speak of, since I left college."

"Who are these interesting people who seem to have just sprung into existence again?" Irene asked. "I have never heard of Mamie Parker, have I? Is she an old sweetheart of yours?"

"Hardly!" Erskine laughed carelessly. "There was a time during my college life that her brother and I were rather intimate; then we drifted apart; he was a good fellow, though. What about him, mamma?"

"Something that greatly surprised me. Had you supposed him to be of the material that makes missionaries? That is what he has become: a foreign missionary. He went out to China about seven years ago, purely in a commercial way. He represented a New York business house, but he carried letters of introduction to our missionaries located there, and became intimate with them and so interested in their work that, after a time, he gave up his business entirely and became a missionary teacher."

"Is it possible!" said Erskine. "I think he is the last one I should have chosen for such a future; from our class, I mean. Though he was a fine fellow with a big unselfish heart. Didn't I always insist upon that, mamma, in the days when you did not like him very well? Weren't there such days? I have almost forgotten."

"I don't think I considered him remarkable," Mrs. Burnham said. "Though I remember that Alice saw possibilities in him. She liked him for being so good to his sister."

"And he is really in China! How does his sister like that?"

"So well that she is going out to be with him for a year, and perhaps longer. She is in daily expectation of receiving a summons from a party of missionaries with whom she is to travel. She is very enthusiastic about it; sees ways in which she can further the work. I should not be at all surprised if she remained there and made it her life work."

Erskine Burnham looked curiously at his mother, as if to determine whether she was really in earnest, then threw back his head and laughed.

"Mamie Parker a missionary in China!" he exploded, "or anywhere else! my imagination isn't equal to such a flight as that."

"She has changed wonderfully, Erskine. At first I could not make myself believe that she was really the Mamie Parker we used to know. Yet as I studied her closely I could see a suggestion of the girlish face. She was pretty, you remember, but I did not think her face gave promise of the beauty it has now. However, she is more than beautiful. She is an educated cultivated woman."

"Educated?" Erskine repeated the word incredulously.

"She went back to school, Erskine, the winter after she visited her brother, and prepared for college. She is a Smith graduate, think of it! As for culture, I don't think I ever met a more perfect-appearing lady than she has become."

"Dear me!" said Irene with a but slightly suppressed yawn, "what a paragon she must be; I'm glad I didn't meet her. I detest paragons. Now, if you, sir, can stop talking about her long enough to consider it, have the goodness to tell me at what time I may expect you in town this afternoon? We are to be at the Durands' at five, remember. Don't you dare to tell me you must be excused, for I have simply set my heart on having you with me."

But Erskine could not so readily be made to forget his anxieties. He put off a direct answer to his wife, and followed his mother to her room to press his inquiries tenderly.

"Are you sure that you are all right this morning, and that it was only weariness which kept you so close a prisoner last night? There is something about you that I don't quite like; there are heavy rings under your eyes, and you are paler than usual. Did you sleep well?"

"Not very," she said after a moment's hesitation. "I was—restless."

He studied her face and spoke with tender reproach.

"Mommie, something troubles you. Am I not to know it?"

She had no recourse but to speak truth.