Beulah - Page 242/348

"And can you contentedly contemplate your future, passed as this

last year has been?" cried Clara.

"Perhaps 'contentedly' is scarcely the right term. I shall not

murmur, no matter how dreary the circumstances of my life may be,

provided I succeed at last," replied Beulah resolutely.

"Oh, Beulah, you make my heart ache!"

"Then try not to think of or care for me."

"There is another heart, dear Beulah, a heart sad but noble, that

you are causing bitter anguish. Are you utterly indifferent to this

also?"

"All of the last exists merely in your imagination. We will say no

more about it, if you please."

She immediately began a brilliant overture, and Clara retreated to

the window. With night the roar of the tempest increased; the rain

fell with a dull, uninterrupted patter, the gale swept furiously on,

and the heaving, foaming waters of the bay gleamed luridly beneath

the sheet-lightning. Clara stood looking out, and before long Beulah

joined her; then the former said suddenly: "Do you remember that, about six years ago, a storm like this tossed

the 'Morning Star' far from its destined track, and for many days it

was unheard of? Do you remember, too, that it held one you loved;

and that, in an agony of dread lest he should find a grave among

coral beds, you bowed your knee in prayer to Almighty God, imploring

him to calm the tempest, hush the gale, and save him who was so dear

to you? Ah, Beulah, you distrusted human pilots then!"

As Beulah made no reply, she fancied she was pondering her words.

But memory had flown back to the hour when she knelt in prayer for

Eugene, and she thought she could far better have borne his death

then, in the glorious springtime of his youth, than know that he had

fallen from his noble height. Then she could have mourned his loss

and cherished his memory ever after; now she could only pity and

despise his folly. What was that early shipwreck she so much

dreaded, in comparison with the sea of vice, whose every wave tossed

him helplessly on to ruin. He had left her an earnest believer in

religion; he came back scoffing at everything sacred. This much she

had learned from Cornelia. Was there an intimate connection between

the revolutions in his nature? Misled by her silence, Clara said

eagerly: "You were happy in that early faith. Oh, Beulah, you will never find

another so holy, so comforting!"

Beulah frowned and looked up impatiently.