"Lost, my boy, lost with many others," was what his uncle had said.
He heard the words as plainly now as when they first were spoken,
remembering how his uncle's voice had faltered, and how the thought had
flashed upon his mind that John Stanley's heart was not as hard toward
womenkind as people had supposed. "Lost"--there was a world of meaning
in that word to Hugh more than any one had ever guessed, and, though it
was but a child he lost, yet in the quiet night, when all else around
Spring Bank was locked in sleep, he often lay thinking of that child and
of what he might perhaps have been had she been spared to him. He was
thinking of her now, and as he thought visions of a sweet, pale face,
shadowed with curls of golden hair, came up before his mind, and he saw
again the look of bewildered surprise and pain which shone in the soft,
blue eyes and illumined every feature when in an unguarded moment he
gave vent to the half infidel principles he had learned from his uncle.
Her creed was different from his, and she explained it to him so
earnestly, so tearfully, that he had said to her at last he did but jest
to hear what she would say, and, though she seemed satisfied, he felt
there was a shadow between them--a shadow which was not swept away, even
after he promised to read the little Bible she gave him and see for
himself whether he or she were right. He had that Bible now hidden away
where no curious eye could find it, and carefully folded between its
leaves was a curl of golden hair. It was faded now, and its luster was
almost gone, but as often as he looked upon it, it brought to mind the
bright head it once adorned, and the fearful hour when he became its
owner. That tress and the Bible which inclosed it had made Hugh
Worthington a better man. He did not often read the Bible, it is true,
and his acquaintances were frequently startled with opinions which had
so pained the little girl on board the St. Helena, but this was merely
on the surface, for far below the rough exterior there was a world of
goodness, a mine of gems, kept bright by memories of the angel child
which flitted for so brief a span across his pathway and then was lost
forever.
He had tried so hard to save her--had clasped her so fondly to
his bosom when with extended arms she came to him for aid. He could save
her, he said--he could swim to the shore with perfect ease and so
without a moment's hesitation she had leaped with him into the surging
waves, and that was about the last he could remember, save that he
clutched frantically at the long, golden hair streaming above the water,
retaining in his firm grasp the lock which no one at Spring Bank had
ever seen, for this one romance of Hugh's seemingly unromantic life was
a secret with himself. No one save his uncle had witnessed his emotions
when told that she was dead; no one else had seen his bitter tears or
heard the vehement exclamation: "You've tried to teach me there was no
hereafter, no heaven for such as she, but I know better now, and I am
glad there is, for she is safe forever."