"I am particularly glad, for Miss Underwood's sake, that you are here,"
he said; "she feared you might not come, and it worried her."
"Which accounts for the importunate little note which accompanied the
invitation," said Mr. Britton, with a half-smile; "but I would have made
it a point to be present in any event; why did she doubt my coming?"
"Because of the season, I suppose, and the unusual storms; then, too,"
Darrell spoke with some hesitation, "she told me she believed you had a
sort of aversion to weddings."
"She was partly right," Mr. Britton said, after a pause; "I have not
been present at a wedding ceremony for more than twenty-five years--not
since my own marriage," he added, slowly, in a low tone, as though
making a confession.
Darrell's heart throbbed painfully; it was the first allusion he had
ever heard the other make to his own past, and from his tone and manner
Darrell knew that he himself had unwittingly touched the great, hidden
sorrow in his friend's life.
"Forgive me!" he said, with the humility and simplicity of a child.
"I have nothing to forgive," Mr. Britton replied, gently, fixing his
eyes with a look of peculiar affection upon Darrell's face. "You know
more now, my son, than the whole world knows or has known in all these
years; and some day in the near future you shall know all, because, for
some inexplicable reason, you, out of the whole world, seem nearest to
me."
A few moments later he resumed, with more of his usual manner, "I am not
quite myself to-night. The events of the last few days have rather upset
me, and," with one of his rare smiles, "I have come to you to get
righted."
"To me?" Darrell exclaimed.
"Yes; why not?"
"I am but your pupil,--one who is just beginning to look above his own
selfish sorrows only through the lessons you have taught him."
"You over-estimate the little I have tried to do for you; but were it
even as you say, I would come to you and to no one else. To whom did the
Divine Master himself turn for human sympathy in his last hours of grief
and suffering but to his little band of pupils--his disciples? And in
proportion as they had learned of Him and imbibed His spirit, in just
that proportion could they enter into his feelings and minister to his
soul."
Mr. Britton had withdrawn the cards from the envelope and was regarding
them thoughtfully.
"The receipt of those bits of pasteboard," he said, slowly, "unmanned me
more than anything that has occurred in nearly a score of years. They
called up long-forgotten scenes,--little pathetic, heart-rending
memories which I thought buried long ago. I don't mind confessing to
you, my boy, that for a while I was unnerved. It did not seem as though
I could ever bring myself to hear again the music of wedding-bells and
wedding-marches, to listen to the old words of the marriage service. But
for the sake of one who has seemed almost as my own child I throttled
those feelings and started for the mountains, resolved that no
selfishness of mine should cloud her happiness on her wedding day. I
came, to find, what I would never have believed possible, that my old
friend would sacrifice his child's happiness, all that is sweetest and
holiest in her life, to gratify his own ambition. I cannot tell you the
shock it was to me. D. K. Underwood and I have been friends for many
years, but that did not prevent my talking plainly with him--so plainly
that perhaps our friendship may never be the same again. But it was of
no avail, and the worst is, he has persuaded himself that he is acting
for her good, when it is simply for the gratification of his own pride.
I could not stay there; the very atmosphere seemed oppressive; so I came
up here for a day or two, as I told you, to get righted."