"No matter what else a man may do for position, don't let him marry a
woman he does not love, especially if he crucifies a vital passion
for another, in order to do this." Then Preston Cheney told the
story of his life to his son-in-law; and as the tale proceeded, a
strange interest which increased until it became violent excitement,
took possession of the rector's brain and heart. The story was so
familiar--so very familiar; and at length, when the name of BERENE
DUMONT escaped the speaker's lips, Arthur Stuart clutched his hands
and clenched his teeth to keep silent until the end of the story
came.
"From the hour Berene disappeared, to this very day, no word or
message ever came from her," the invalid said. "I have never known
whether she was dead or alive, married, or, terrible thought, perhaps
driven into a reckless life by her one false step with me. This last
fear has been a constant torture to me all these years.
"The world is cruel in its judgment of woman. And yet I know that it
is woman herself who has shaped the opinions of the world regarding
these matters. If men had had their way since the world began, there
would be no virtuous women. Woman has realised this fact, and she
has in consequence walled herself about with rules and conventions
which have in a measure protected her from man. When any woman
breaks through these conventions and errs, she suffers the scorn of
others who have kept these self-protecting and society-protecting
laws; and, conscious of their scorn, she believes all hope is lost
for ever.
"The fear that Berene took this view of her one mistake, and plunged
into a desperate life, has embittered my whole existence. Never
before did a man suffer such a mental hell as I have endured for this
one act of sin and weakness. Yet the world, looking at my life of
success, would say if it knew the story, 'Behold how the man goes
free.' Free! Great God! there is no bondage so terrible as that of
the mind. I have loved Berene Dumont with a changeless passion for
twenty-three years, and there has not been a day in all that time
that I have not during some hours endured the agonies of the damned,
thinking of all the disasters and misery that might have come into
her life through me. Heaven knows I would have married her if she
had remained. Strange and intricate as the net was which the devil
wove about me when I had furnished the cords, I could and would have
broken through it after that strange night--at once the heaven and
the hell of my memory--if Berene had remained. As it was--I married
Mabel, and you know what a farce, ending in a tragedy, our married
life has been. God grant that no worse woes befell Berene; God grant
that I may meet her in the spirit world and tell her how I loved her
and longed for her companionship."