The Hand But Not the Heart

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"I did," was his answer.

"Then I may infer," said Jessie, "that your pressing desire to see
me this evening has grown out of something you heard from the lips
of Mrs. Denison. Am I right in this conclusion?"

Dexter was not quite prepared for this. After a slight hesitation he
answered--

"Partly so."

The cold indifferent manner of Jessie Loring passed away directly.

"If you have anything to communicate, as of course you have, say on,
Mr. Dexter."

As little prepared was he for this; and quite as little for the
almost stately air with which Jessie drew up her slight form,
returning his glances with so steady a gaze that his eyes fell.

The hour and the opportunity had come. But Leon Dexter had neither
the manliness nor the courage to speak.

"Did Mrs. Denison introduce my name?" asked Jessie, seeing that her
lover had failed to answer. There was not a quiver in her voice, nor
the slightest failing in her eyes.

"Yes; casually." Dexter spoke with evasion.

"What did she say?"

"Nothing but what was good," said Dexter, now trying to resume his
wonted pleasant exterior. "What else could she say? You look as if
there had been a case of slander."

"She said something in connection with my name," answered Jessie
firmly, "that disturbed you. Now as you have disclosed so much, I
must know all."

"I have made no disclosures." Dexter seemed annoyed.

"You said you were at Mrs. Denison's."

"Yes."

"And said it with a meaning. I noticed both tone and manner. You
came directly here, according to your own admission, and asked for
me. Not being well, I desired to be excused. But you would take no
excuse. Your manner to the servant was not only disturbed, but
imperative. To me it is constrained, and altogether different from
anything I have hitherto noticed. So much is disclosed. Now I wish
you to go on and tell the whole story. Then we shall understand each
other. What has Mrs. Denison said about me that has so ruffled your
feelings?"

There was no retreat for the perplexed young man. He must go forward
in some path--straight or tortuous--manly or evasive. There was too
much apparent risk in the former; and so he chose the latter. All at
once his exterior changed. The clouded brow put on a sunny aspect.

"Forgive me, dear Jessie!" he said with ardor, and a restored
tenderness of manner. "True love has ever a touch of jealousy; and
something that Mrs. Denison intimated aroused that darker passion.
But the shadowed hour has passed, and I am in the clear sunlight
again."

He raised her hand to his lips, and kissed it with fervor.

"What did she intimate?" asked Miss Loring. Her manner was less
excited, and her tone less imperative.

"What I now see to be false," said Dexter. "I was disturbed because
I imagined intrigue, and a purpose to rob me of something I prize
more dearly than life--the love of my Jessie."

"Intrigue!" was answered; "you fill me with surprise. Mrs. Denison,
if I understand her, is incapable of anything so dishonorable."

"I don't know." Mr. Dexter spoke with the manner of one in doubt,
and as if questioning his own thoughts. "She has filled my mind with
dark suspicions. Why, Jessie!" and he assumed a more animated
exterior, "she went so far as to intimate a disingenuous spirit in
you!"

"In me!" Miss Loring's surprise was natural. "Disingenuousness!"

"That word is not the true one," said Dexter. "What she said meant
something more."

"What?"

"That you were--but I will not pain your ears, darling! Forgive my
foolish indignation. Love with me is so vital a thing, that the
remotest suspicion of losing its object, brings smarting pain. You
are all the world to me, Jessie, and the intimation"--

"Of what, Leon?"

He had left the sentence unfinished. Dexter was holding one of her
hands. She did not attempt to withdraw it.

"That you were false to me!"

The words caused Miss Loring to spring to her feet. Bright spots
burned on her cheeks, and her eyes flashed.

"False to you! What did she mean by such words?" was demanded.

"It was the entering wedge of suspicion," said Dexter. "But the
trick has failed. My heart tells me that you are the soul of honor.
If I was disturbed, is that a cause of wonder? Would not such an
allegation against me have disturbed you? It would! But that your
heart is pure and true as an angel's, I best know of all the living.
Dear Jessie!" and he laid a kiss upon her burning cheek,

"I shall never cease to blame myself for the part I have played this
evening. Had I loved you less I had been calmer."

"False in what way?" asked Miss Loring, unsatisfied with so vague an
answer.

"False to your vows, of course. What else could she mean?"

"Did she say that?"

"No--of course not. But she conveyed the meaning as clearly as if
she had uttered the plainest language."

"What were her words?" asked Miss Loring.

"I cannot repeat them. She spoke with great caution, keeping remote,
as to words, from the matter first in her thought, yet filling my
mind with vague distrust, or firing it with jealousy at every
sentence."

"Can you fix a single clear remark--something that I can repeat?"

"Not one. The whole interview impresses me like a dream. Only the
disturbance remains. But let it pass as a dream, darling--a
nightmare created by some spirit of evil. A single glance into your
dear face and loving eyes rebukes my folly and accuses me of wrong.
We are all the world to each other, and no shadow even shall come
again between our souls and happiness."

Jessie resumed her seat and questioned no farther. Was she satisfied
with the explanation? Of course not. But her lover was adroit, and
she became passive.

"You cannot wonder now," he said, "that I was so anxious to see you
this evening. I might have spared you this interview, and it would
have been better, perhaps, if I had done so. But excited lovers are
not always the most reasonable beings in the world. I could not have
slept to-night. Now I shall find the sweetest slumber that has yet
refreshed my spirit--and may your sleep, dearest, be gentle as the
sleep of flowers! I will leave you now, for I remember that you are
far from being well this evening. It will grieve me to think that my
untimely intrusion, and this disturbing hour, may increase the pain
you suffer or rob you of a moment's repose.--Good night, love!" and
he kissed her tenderly. "Good night, precious one!" he added. "May
angels be your companions through the dark watches, and bring you to
a glorious morning!"

He left her, and moved towards the door; yet lingered, for his mind
was not wholly at ease in regard to the state of Jessie's feelings.
She had not repelled him in any way--but his ardent words and acts
were too passively received. She was standing where he had parted
from her, with her eyes upon the floor.

"Jessie!"

She looked up.

"Good night, dear!"

"Good night, Mr. Dexter."

"Mr. Dexter!" The young man repeated the words between his teeth, as
he passed into the street a moment afterwards. "Mr. Dexter! and in
tones that were cold as an icicle!"

He strode away from the house of Mrs. Loring, but little comforted
by his interview with Jessie, and with the fiend Jealousy a
permanent guest in his heart.

CHAPTER X.

LEON DEXTER was not wrong in his suspicions. It was Hendrickson who
visited Miss Loring on the evening of his interview with Mrs.
Denison. The young man had striven, with all the power he possessed,
to overcome his fruitless passion--but striven in vain.--The image
of Miss Loring had burned itself into his heart, and become
ineffaceable. The impression she had made upon him was different
from that made by any woman he had yet chanced to meet, and he felt
that, in some mysterious way, their destinies were bound up
together. That, in her heart, she preferred him to the man who was
about to sacrifice her at the marriage altar he no longer doubted.

"Is it right to permit this sacrifice?" The question had thrust
itself upon him for days and weeks.

"Leon Dexter cannot fill the desire of her heart." Thus he talked
with himself. "She does not love; and to such a woman marriage
unblessed by love must be a condition worse than death. No--no! It
shall not be! Steadily she is moving on, nerved by a false sense of
honor; and unless some one comes to the rescue, the fatal vow will
be made that seals the doom of her happiness and mine. It must
not--shall not be! Who so fitting as I to be her rescuer? She loves
me! Eyes, lips, countenance, tones, gestures, all have been my
witnesses. Only an hour too late! Too late? No--no! I will not
believe the words! She shall yet be mine!"

It was in this spirit, and under the pressure of such feelings, that
Paul Hendrickson visited Jessie Loring on the night Dexter saw him
enter the house. The interview was not a very long one, as the
reader knows. He sent up his card, and Miss Loring returned for
answer, that she would see him in a few moments. Full five minutes
elapsed before she left her room. It had taken her nearly all that
time to school her agitated feelings; for on seeing his name, her
heart had leaped with an irrepressible impulse. She looked down into
her heart, and questioned as to the meaning of this disturbance. The
response was clear. Paul Hendrickson was more to her than any living
man!

"He should have spared me an interview, alone," she said to herself.
"Better for both of us not to meet."

This was her state of feeling, when after repressing, as far as
possible, every unruly emotion, she left her room and took her way
down stairs.

"Is not this imprudent?" The mental question arrested the footsteps
of Miss Loring, ere she had proceeded five paces from the door of
her chamber.

"Is not what imprudent?" was answered back in her thoughts.

"What folly is this!" she said, in self-rebuke, and passed onward.

"Miss Loring!" There was too much feeling in Hendrickson's manner.
But its repression, under the circumstances, was impossible.

"Mr. Hendrickson!" The voice of Miss Loring betrayed far more of
inward disturbance than she wished to appear.

Their hands met. They looked into each other's eyes--then stood for
some moments in mutual embarrassment.

"You are almost a stranger," said Jessie, conscious that any remark
was better, under the circumstances, than silence.

"Am I?" Hendrickson still held her hand, and still gazed into her
eyes. The ardor of his glances reminded her of duty and of danger.
Her hand disengaged itself from his--her eyes fell to the floor--a
deep crimson suffused her countenance. They seated themselves--she
on the sofa, and he on a chair drawn close beside, or rather nearly
in front of her. How heavily beat the maiden's heart! What a
pressure, almost to suffocation, was on her bosom! She felt an
impending sense of danger, but lacked the resolution to flee.

"Miss Loring," said Hendrickson, his unsteady voice betraying his
inward agitation, "when I last saw you"--

"Sir!" There was a sudden sternness in the young girl's voice, and a
glance of warning in her eye. But the visitor was not to be driven
from his purpose.

"It is _not_ too late, Jessie Loring!" He spoke with eagerness.

She made a motion as if about to rise, but he said in a tone that
restrained her.

"No, Miss Loring! You _must_ hear what I have to say to-night."

She grew very pale; but looked at him steadily.

So unexpected were his intimations--so imperative his manner, that
she was, in a degree, bereft for the time of will.

"You should have spared me this, Mr. Hendrickson," she answered,
sadly, and with a gentle rebuke in her tones.

"I would endure years of misery to save you from a moment's pain!"
was quickly replied. "And it is in the hope of being able to call
down Heaven's choicest blessings on your head, that I am here
to-night. Let me speak without reserve. Will you hear me?"

Miss Loring made no sigh; only her eyelids drooped slowly, until the
bright orbs beneath were hidden and the dark lashes lay softly on
her colorless cheeks.

"There is one thing, Miss Loring," he began, "known to yourself and
me alone. It is our secret. Nay! do not go! Let me say on now, and I
will ever after hold my peace. If this marriage contract, so
unwisely made, is not broken, two lives will be made wretched--yours
and mine. You do not love Mr. Dexter! You cannot love him! That were
as impossible as for light to be enamored of dark"--

"I will not hear you!" exclaimed Miss Loring, starting to her feet.
But Hendrickson caught her hand and restrained her by force.

"You must hear me!" he answered passionately.

"I dare not!"

"This once! I must speak now, and you must hear! God has given you
freedom of thought and freedom of will. Let both come into their
true activity. The holiest things of your life demand this, Miss
Loring. Sit down and be calm again, and let us talk calmly. I will
repress all excitement, and speak with reason. You shall hearken and
decide. There--I thank you"--

Jessie had resumed her seat.

"We have read each other's hearts, Miss Loring," Hendrickson went
on. His voice had regained its firmness, and he spoke in low, deep,
emphatic tones. "I, at least, have read yours, and you know mine.
Against your own convictions and your own feelings, you have been
coerced into an engagement of marriage with a man you do not, and
never can, love as a wife should love a husband. Consummate that
engagement, and years of wretchedness lie before you. I say nothing
of Mr. Dexter as regards honor, probity, and good feeling. I believe
him to be a man of high integrity. His character before the world is
blameless--his position one to be envied. But you do not love
him--you cannot love him. Nay it is idle to repel the assertion. I
have looked down too deeply into your heart. I know how its pulses
beat, Jessie Loring! There is only one living man who has the power
to unlock its treasures of affection. To all others it must remain
eternally sealed. I speak solemnly--not vainly. And your soul echoes
the truth of my words. It is not yet too late!"

"You should not have said this, Mr. Hendrickson!" Jessie resolutely
disengaged the hand he had taken, and was clasping with almost
vice-like pressure, and arose to her feet. He did not rise, but sat
looking up into her pale suffering face, with the light of hope,
which for a moment had flushed his own, fast decaying.

"You should not have said this, Mr. Hendrickson!" she repeated, in a
steadier voice. "It is too late, and only makes my task the
harder--my burden heavier. But God helping me, I will walk forward
in the right path, though my feet be lacerated at every step."

"Is it a right path, Miss Loring? I declare it to be the wrong
path!" said Hendrickson.

"Let God and my own conscience judge!" was firmly answered. "And
now, sir, leave me. Oh, leave me."

"And you are resolute?"

"I am! God being my helper, I will go forward in the path of duty.
When I faint and fall by the way through weakness, the trial will
end."

"Friends, wealth, social attractions--all that the world can give
will be yours. But my way must be lonely--my heart desolate. I shall
be"--

"Go, sir!" Miss Loring's voice was imperative, and there was a flash
like indignation in her eyes. "Go sir!" she repeated. "This is
unmanly!"

The last sentence stung Mr. Hendrickson, and he arose quickly. Miss
Loring, who saw the effect of her words, threw up, with a woman's
quick instinct, this further barrier between them--

"I marvel, sir, knowing, as you do, the sacred obligations under
which I rest, that you should have dared utter language such as my
ears have been compelled to hear this night! I take it as no
compliment, sir."

The young man attempted to speak; but with a sternness of manner
that sent a chill to his heart, she motioned him to be silent, and
went on--

"Let this, sir, be the last time you venture to repeat what I cannot
but regard as dis"--

Dishonorable was the word on her lips, but she suddenly checked
herself. She could not say that to him.

Waking or sleeping, alone or in society, for weeks, months and years
afterwards, the image of that young man's despairing face, as she
saw it then, was ever before her.

"Insult! Dishonor!" he said, as if speaking to himself. "I could die
for her--but not that!--not that!"

And without a parting glance or a parting word, Paul Hendrickson
turned from the woman who was destined to influence his whole life,
and left her alone in his bewilderment and wretchedness. It is
difficult to say on which heart the heaviest pressure fell, or which
life was most hopeless. It is alleged that only men die of broken
hearts--that women can bear the crushing heel of disappointment,
live on and endure, while men fall by the way, and perish in the
strife of passion. It may be so. We know not. In the present case
the harder lot was on Miss Loring. If she bore her pain with less of
exterior token, it is no argument in favor of the lighter suffering.
The patiently enduring oftenest bear the most.

CHAPTER XI.

THE efforts which were made to save Miss Loring, only had the effect
to render the sacrifice more acutely painful. Evil instead of good
followed Mrs. Denison's appeals to Mr. Dexter. They served but to
arouse the demon jealousy in his heart. Upon Hendrickson's movements
he set the wariest surveillance. Twice, since that
never-to-be-forgotten evening he met the young man in company when
Jessie was present. With an eye that never failed for an instant in
watchfulness, he noted his countenance and movements; and he kept on
his betrothed as keen an observation. Several times he left her
alone, in order to give Hendrickson an opportunity to get into her
company. But there was too studied avoidance of contact. Had they
met casually and exchanged a few pleasant words, suspicion would
have been allayed. As it was, jealousy gave its own interpretation
to their conduct.

On the last of these occasions referred to, from a position where he
deemed himself beyond the danger of casual observation, Hendrickson
searched with his eyes for the object of his undying regard. He saw
her, sitting alone, not far distant. Her manner was that of one lost
in thought--the expression of her countenance dreamy, and overcast
with a shade of sadness. How long he had been gazing upon her face,
the young man could not have told, so absorbed was he in the
feelings her presence had awakened, when turning almost
involuntarily his eyes caught the gleam of another pair of eyes that
were fixed intently upon him. So suddenly had he turned, that the
individual observing him was left without opportunity to change in
any degree the expression of his eyes or countenance. It was almost
malignant. That individual was Leon Dexter.

In spite of himself, Hendrickson showed confusion, and was unable to
return the steady gaze that rested upon him. His eyes fell. When he
looked up again, which was in a moment, Dexter had left his
position, and was crossing the room towards Miss Loring.

"It is the fiend Jealousy!" said Hendrickson, as he withdrew into
another room. "Well--let it poison all the springs of his happiness,
as he has poisoned mine! I care not how keen may be his sufferings."

He spoke with exceeding bitterness.

A few weeks later, and the dreaded consummation came. In honor of
the splendid alliance formed by her niece, Mrs. Loring gave a most
brilliant wedding party, and the lovely bride stood forth in all her
beauty and grace--the admired and the envied. A few thought her
rather pale--some said her eyes were too dreamy--and a gossip or two
declared that the rich young husband had only gained her person,
while her heart was in the keeping of another. "She has not married
the man, but his wealth and position!" was the unguarded remark of
one of these thoughtless individuals; and by a singular fatality,
the sentence reached the ears of Mr. Dexter. Alas! It was but
throwing another fagot on the already kindling fires of unhallowed
jealousy. The countenance of the young husband became clouded; and
it was only by an effort that he could arouse himself, and assume a
gay exterior. The prize after which he had sprung with such eager
haste, distancing all competitors, was now his own. Binding vows had
been uttered, and the minister had said--"What God hath joined
together, let not man put asunder." Yet, even in his hour of
triumph, came the troubled conviction that, though he had gained the
beautiful person of his bride, he could not say surely that her more
beautiful soul was all his own.

And so there was a death's head at his feast; and the costly wine
was dashed with bitterness.

Of what was passing in the mind of Dexter his bride had no
knowledge; nor did her keen instincts warn her that the demon of
jealousy was already in his heart. Suffering, and the colder spirit
of endurance that followed, had rendered her, in a certain sense,
obtuse in this direction.

A full-grown, strong woman, had Jessie become suddenly. The gentle,
tenderly-loving, earnest, simple-hearted girl, could never have
sustained the part it was hers to play. Unless a new and more
vigorous life had been born in her, she must have fallen. But now
she stood erect, shading her heart from her own eyes, and gathering
from principle strength for duty. Very pure--very true she was. Yet,
in her new relation, purity and truth were shrined in a cold
exterior. It were not possible to be otherwise. She did not love her
husband in any thing like the degree she was capable of loving. It
was not in him to find the deep places of her heart. But true to him
she could be, and true to him it was her purpose to remain.

Taking all the antecedents of this case, we will not wonder, when
told that quite from the beginning of so inharmonious a union,
Dexter found himself disappointed in his bride. He was naturally
ardent and demonstrative; while, of necessity, she was calm, cold,
dignified--or simply passive. She was never unamiable or capricious;
and rarely opposed him in anything reasonable or unreasonable. But
she was reserved almost to constraint at times--a vestal at the
altar, rather than a loving wife. He was very proud of her, as well
he might be; for she grew peerless in beauty. But her beauty was
from the development of taste, thought, and intellect. It was not
born of the affections. Yes, Leon Dexter was sadly disappointed. He
wanted something more than all this.

Lifted from an almost obscure position, as the dependent niece of
Mrs. Loring, the young wife of Mr. Dexter found herself in a larger
circle, and in the society of men and women of more generally
cultivated tastes. She soon became a centre of attraction; for
taste attracts taste, mind seeks mind. And where beauty is added,
the possessor has invincible charms. It did not escape the eyes of
Dexter that, in the society of other men, his young wife was gayer
and more vivacious (sic) that when with him. This annoyed him so
much, that he began to act capriciously, as it seemed to Jessie.
Sometimes he would require her to leave a pleasant company long
before the usual hour, and sometimes he would refuse to go with her
to parties or places of amusement, yet give no reasons that were
satisfactory. On these occasions, a moody spirit would come over
him. If she questioned, he answered with evasion, or covert
ill-nature.

The closer union of an external marriage did not invest the husband
with any new attractions for his wife. The more intimately she knew
him, the deeper became her repugnance. He had no interior qualities
in harmony with her own. An intensely selfish man, it was impossible
for him to inspire a feeling of love in a mind so pure in its
impulses, and so acute in its perceptions. If Mrs. Dexter had been a
worldly-minded woman--a lover of--or one moved by the small
ambitions of fashionable life--her husband would have been all well
enough. She would have been adjoined to him in a way altogether
satisfactory to her tastes, and they would have circled their orbit
of life without an eccentric motion. But the deeper capacities and
higher needs of Mrs. Dexter, made this union quite another thing.
Her husband had no power to fill her soul--to quicken her
life-pulses--to stir the silent chords of her heart with the deep,
pure, ravishing melodies they were made to give forth. That she was
superior to him mentally, Mr. Dexter was not long in discovering.
Very rapidly did her mind, quickened by a never-dying pain, spring
forward towards its culmination. Of its rapid growth in power and
acuteness, he only had evidence when he listened to her in
conversation with men and women of large acquirements and polished
tastes. Alone with him, her mind seemed to grow duller every day;
and if he applied the spur, it was only to produce a start, not a
movement onwards.

Alas for Leon Dexter! He had caged his beautiful bird; but her song
had lost, already, its ravishing sweetness.

CHAPTER XII.

THE first year of trial passed. If the young wife's heart-history
for that single year could be written, it would make a volume, every
pages of which the reader would find (sic) spoted with his tears. No
pen but that of the sufferer could write that history; and to her,
no second life, even in memory, were endurable. The record is sealed
up--and the story will not be told.

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