These were not mere idle words, and the belief then expressed became
with Hugh Worthington a firm, fixed principle, which his skeptical uncle
tried in vain to eradicate. "There was a heaven, and she was there,"
comprised nearly the whole of Hugh's religious creed, if we except a
vague, misty hope, that he, too, would some day find her, how or by what
means he never seriously inquired; only this he knew, it would be
through her influence, which even now followed him everywhere, producing
its good effects. It had checked him many and many a time when his
fierce temper was in the ascendant, forcing back the harsh words he
would otherwise have spoken, and making him as gentle as a child; and
when the temptations to which young men of his age are exposed were
spread out alluringly before him, a single thought of her was sufficient
to lead him from the forbidden ground.
Only once had he fallen, and that two years before, when, as if some
demon had possessed him, he shook off all remembrances of the past, and
yielding to the baleful fascinations of one who seemed to sway him at
will, plunged into a tide of dissipation, and lent himself at last to an
act which had since embittered every waking hour. As if all the events
of his life were crowding upon his memory this night, he thought of two
years ago, and the scene which transpired in the suburbs of New York,
whither immediately after his uncle's death he had gone upon a matter of
important business. In the gleaming fire before him there was now
another face than hers, an older, a different, though not less beautiful
face, and Hugh shuddered as he thought how it must have changed ere
this--thought of the anguish which stole into the dark, brown eyes when
first the young girl learned how cruelly she had been betrayed. Why
hadn't he saved her? What had she done to him that he should treat her
so, and where was she now? Possibly she was dead. He almost hoped she
was, for if she were, the two were then together, his golden-haired and
brown, for thus he designated the two.
Larger and fuller grew the veins upon his forehead, as memory kept thus
faithfully at work, and so absorbed was Hugh in his reverie that until
twice repeated he did not hear his mother's anxious inquiry: "What is that noise? It sounds like some one in distress."
Hugh started at last, and, after listening for a moment he, too, caught
the sound which had so alarmed his mother, and made 'Lina stop her
reading. A moaning cry, as if for help, mingled with an infant's wail,
now here, now there it seemed to be, just as the fierce north wind
shifted its course and drove first at the uncurtained window of the
sitting-room, and then at the ponderous doors of the gloomy hall.