Chapter 6 AN AIMLESS STROLL.

Late one afternoon, about a month after Bergan's return to Savalla, he quitted the office, which seemed to have grown unaccountably barren and dreary of aspect, and set out for an aimless stroll through the city. The air was fresh and moist from a recent shower, and the slanting sunbeams were working alchemic wonders in the streets and squares; turning the polished leaves of the oak and olive trees to silver, and hanging them with prismatic jewels, enriching the grass with a vivider green, and the earth with a rich golden brown, and imprinting the sensitive surface of every tiny rain-pool with a lovely picture of blue sky, fleecy clouds, and pendent sprays of foliage.

Through all these pleasant sights Bergan moved slowly and half absently, occupying himself less with their beauty than with the sober monologue of his own thoughts. Yet his gaze was not without occasional moments of intelligence, and in one of these he noticed a child, attended by a large dog, standing with a curiously doubtful, undecided air, in the midst of the square that he was crossing. Suddenly making up her mind, it would seem, she held out her hand to a gentleman coming from the opposite direction, who took no further notice of the mute appeal than was implied by a shake of the head. The sight was a comparatively strange one in those days, when begging was resorted to as an occasional resource, rather than followed as a regular trade; and Bergan continued to observe the child with a certain degree of interest, though not with a wholly unpreoccupied mind, as he advanced toward her.

All at once, it struck him that there was something oddly familiar about her slender little figure. As for the dog, he was certainly an old acquaintance, as could easily be proven; and Bergan's lips emitted a low, peculiar whistle. There was an instant pricking up of the canine ears, and an inquisitive turning sidewise of the canine head, but the faithful animal would not leave his young mistress until he was absolutely certain that he recognized a friend. She, meanwhile, seemed to notice neither the whistle nor its effect; nor could she distinctly see what manner of man drew near, her eyes being dazzled by the level sun-rays, but she again mutely held out her hand.

It was instantly taken possession of. "Cathie," said Bergan, wonderingly, "what does this mean?"

She looked at him a moment in blank bewilderment, but ended by recognizing him and flinging herself into his arms exactly as the Cathie of a year before would have done; but with a deep, long-drawn, repressed sob, implying a profounder sorrow than had ever darkened the horizon of even that child of many and incomprehensible moods.

Yet Bergan was considerably relieved by her first words;—"Oh, Mr. Arling, don't tell mamma—don't tell Astra—please don't!" It seemed probable that the episode of the begging was simply one of the child's strange freaks.

"Did you do it for fun, then?" he asked.

"Fun?" repeated Cathie, with indignant emphasis, "do you think it's fun to beg, Mr. Arling? I don't. I was so ashamed that I wanted to hide my face with both hands."

"Then why did you do it?" asked Bergan, gravely.

The child's lip assumed its most sorrowful curve. "To get some money to give Astra," she answered. "We are very poor now; the Bank went and got broke, with all mamma's money in it; and she was taken sick, and Astra couldn't get much to do, and we've had to move into a little mean house, in a dirty little street, where there are no flowers, nor trees, nor anything that's nice. And this morning I saw Astra take the last money out of her purse, to pay the rent, and she looked—oh! I can't tell how she looked,—something like that big gray man, with the little boy on his back, that she made so long ago; and I did so wish that I could do something to help her, just a little bit. So, when she sent me out to take a walk with Nix, it came into my head that I could beg for her, if I couldn't do anything else, and I thought I'd try it. Was it doing wrong?"

Bergan did not answer except by stooping to kiss the child's upturned face. His eyes grew moist.

"I know it must be wrong," pursued Cathie, innocently, "if it makes you cry, Mr. Arling."

"No, Cathie," replied Bergan, smiling reassuringly. "I do not think it was wrong,—at least, you did not mean to do wrong, and that makes a great difference. But I don't think that you will need to try it again. Now, certainly you can do something better; that is, take me home with you."

On the way, Cathie, secure in the sympathy of this trusted friend of better days, gave a more detailed account of the misfortunes that had befallen the little family, since it left Berganton. His heart ached as he pictured to himself the weary and wasting struggle with poverty that Astra had maintained so bravely, yet so hopelessly; heavily weighted, on the one hand, with the burden of disappointed affection, and, on the other, with the anxiety caused by her mother's severe illness. For works of art, there had been no demand; for portrait busts and medallions, there had been only a scanty and fitful one. Her last resource had been pupils in drawing, but these had now failed her, in consequence of the usual summer exodus of the city's wealthier population; by reason of which she was reduced to the bitter straits shadowed forth by Cathie's earlier communications. It was touching, too, to see what real nobleness of character had all along been hidden under the child's caprice and waywardness, as evinced by the fact that she said little of the privations that had fallen to her own lot, but dwelt chiefly on her mother's lack of accustomed comforts, and the forlorn face that Astra wore, when out of that mother's sight.

The house was reached before the story had come to an end. It was a little better than Bergan's fears, but far worse than his hopes. It smote him to the heart to contrast it with the comfortable and spacious mansion that had opened its doors so readily to him at Berganton, and wherein he had come to feel himself so pleasantly at home.

Cathie ushered Bergan into the dingy little room that served both for parlor and studio, and then rushed through the opposite door, full of the importance of the news that she had to impart. There was a smothered exclamation of surprise from the adjoining room, followed by a murmured consultation; and then Astra appeared in the doorway.

But it was by no means the Astra of Bergan's remembrance. The features were the same, to be sure, but the light, the hope, the energy, that had animated them, and informed them with such rich and varied expression, was utterly lacking. There was a perceptible line between the eyebrows, as if the brow were wont to be knit over difficult problems; and the mouth expressed a settled melancholy, which a smile seemed only to vary slightly, not to displace. Nor could Bergan help detecting a little hardness in it,—the look of a defeated general, forced to lay down his weapons, but still unsubdued in will.

What he most marvelled at, however, was that it immediately brought Diva Thane's face before him, as if there were some subtle relation between them, though there was not the slightest resemblance.

Astra's manner to him was scarcely less altered than her face. It was not exactly cold, but it lacked much of the old warmth and heartiness. Bergan took no notice of it; he readily divined what chords of painful association were thrilled at the sight of him, and how inevitably her pride revolted against being seen in her present surroundings. Her hand was so cold, when he took it in his, that he pressed it between both his own, with a vague idea of warming it; then, stirred by a sympathy too deep for ordinary expression, he bent over and touched it with his lips.

"You are not wise," said Astra, with a faint smile; "you should not do homage to a fallen princess."

"Neither do I," rejoined Bergan, with a deep music in his voice. "She is not fallen, but holding out most bravely against the time when she may expect succor."

"Succor?" responded Astra, with a mixture of pride and mournfulness,—"from what or whom could acceptable succor come?"

Bergan smiled, and pointed upward. "From the Source of all succor, whatever be the channel."

Astra shook her head, and the lines of her mouth grew set and hard. "Acceptable succor comes in season," said she, "and through legitimate channels."

Bergan was confounded. This lack of faith, this arraignment of Providence, argued a more amazing change in Astra than he had yet suspected. At the same time it afforded him a clue to that mysterious connection, in his mind, between her face and Miss Thane's. Under the hardness of the one and the coldness of the other, the same scepticism lay hidden,—possibly engendered by similar causes. In Astra's case, he had no hesitation in attributing it to Doctor Remy's influence; and he could not but wonder at the singular and fatal power of the man over the minds of those who were brought into close contact with him. Was this deadly poison to be also instilled into the pure mind of Carice? He shuddered at the thought. Better for her to lie dead at the bottom of the river, by which he had last seen her soft, rapt face.

Feeling that this was no time to argue with Astra, Bergan turned to the table, which was littered with drawings and sketches, plaster reliefs, and small clay models, to a degree that implied no lack of patient industry, despite the want of encouragement, and the absence of faith.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Nothing, just now," she answered, mournfully. "I believe my hands have lost their cunning,—if ever they had any. That is the last." She pointed to a small bas-relief.

It represented a child, skipping lightly down a flowery slope, trailing a vine behind her. The face was turned so far away from the beholder, as to show only the rounded outline of the youthful cheek and brow, but the figure expressed a wonderful joyousness. In more senses than one, it was plainly, "In the Sunshine;" which title was lightly scratched in the plaster.

Bergan studied it attentively. "It is as fresh as a rose," said he, "and as sweet."

"The analogy, if there be any, goes deeper than that," rejoined Astra, bitterly. "A rose is born out of darkness and dampness and decay, and this is the offspring of pain and discouragement, and all that makes the hand weak and the heart sick."

"And that is probably the secret of its perfection," remarked Bergan, meditatively. "The loveliest graces of character—such as charity that thinketh no evil, and hope that lives by faith, not by sight—are the legitimate children of suffering. Then why not the finer works of art?"

Astra's eyes fell, and she did not answer.

"At any rate," pursued Bergan, "this 'Sunshine' is just what I want to brighten my office. I was thinking, this very day, that something must be done to make it less dismal. I suppose it is for sale?"

Astra bent her head a little stiffly. She doubted the reality of this new-born desire for office decorations.

He took out his purse, and laid a folded bank-note on the table. He expected that she would not look at it, until after he had gone, but she immediately took it up, opened it, and tendered it back to him.

"It is too much," said she proudly. And her look added, "I am no beggar."

"Is it?" inquired Bergan, with apparent surprise. "I thought it agreed tolerably well with the prices that you used to mention as the least you would receive for your works, in the future."

"I have lived to grow wiser," replied Astra,

"It is all the same," rejoined Bergan composedly, "I was about to say that, as my mother has long been entreating me to send her some sort of a portrait, it occurs to me that I cannot do better than to get you to make a medallion or a bust of me, whichever you please. The balance of the note can go toward the first payment. We will arrange for the sittings, as soon as you are at leisure."

Astra's lip trembled. Put in this way, the note might be retained; and no one knew so well as herself what an amount of relief to her, and of comfort to her mother, it ensured. But her pride was very sore, nevertheless, and her face was little grateful, as she dropped the note on the table, somewhat as if it had burned her fingers.

Bergan hastened to change the subject. "I am sorry not to see your mother," he began; but Astra interrupted him.

"She would like to see you very much," said she, "if you don't mind coming to her room. It is several days since she has left it; though I really think that she is better to-day."

"Why should I mind?" asked Bergan, smiling. "She used to call me her son sometimes; though you do take such pains to give me to understand that you utterly repudiate me as a brother."

Astra turned her face aside, to conceal the sudden unbending of the set mouth. "Indeed, I do not," she faltered.

Bergan drew her toward him, just as a brother would have done. "Then you will help me to persuade her to move into more comfortable quarters, at once. I promise you that it shall be arranged so carefully as to give her the least possible fatigue."

Astra shook her head. "It cannot be; it would excite her too much. Her disease is of the heart; and joy kills as surely as sorrow. When I moved her here,—being imperatively forced to do so, because I could not afford to stay where we were,—I determined that, let come what would, she should not be stirred again, until she is a great deal better or—worse. Thank you for the kind thought, but indeed she is best off here, for the present,—now that I have the means of making her tolerably comfortable."

In the last sentence, there was some trace of Astra's old self; and, glad to have gained thus much, Bergan followed her to Mrs. Lyte's bedside.

If he still cherished any belief in the feasibility of removing her, it vanished with the first sight of her face. He wondered what could have led Astra to think her better. Even to his inexperienced eyes, the struggling breath, the beaded forehead, the ashy pallor, indicated but too plainly that the thread of her life was wellnigh spun.

Yet she was less changed, in some respects, than Astra. Her smile had the old sweetness; her face—when the excitement caused by his unexpected visit was calmed a little, and she could breathe easier—had the old expression of gentle resignation. It lighted up, too, at sight of him;—as he had reminded Astra, she had come to regard him with a half-motherly affection, during his residence in her house.

"It is very good of you to come to us," she said, gratefully; "it seems a great while since I have seen any friendly face."

"If I had only known that you were in Savalla, I should have come much sooner," answered Bergan.

"And if I had known that you were here," she responded, "I should certainly have sent for you. It is strange, Astra, that we never happened to hear of him."

Astra's face flushed a little. "We are not in the way of hearing news," she replied, evasively. "But now that he is here, to sit with you a few minutes, I will run out and get that prescription filled, which the doctor left this morning."

Bergan rose instantly. "Let me go, rather," said he.

"N-o, no," said Mrs. Lyte, "it will do her good to have a little run. Besides, I want to talk with you."

Bergan sat down again, and Cathie nestled to his side. Nix, too, came and lay down at his feet, quite in the old Berganton fashion.

"I am very glad to see you," continued Mrs. Lyte, when Astra had left the room, "but I am afraid it is largely a selfish gladness. I am so certain that you will see what can be done for my children after I am gone."

Bergan opened his lips to speak, but she lifted her hand with a deprecating gesture, and went on:—

"Let me say what I want to say; I shall be so much easier in my mind. Do you know how we came to leave Berganton?"

"I do not; I only heard of it when I went back there, in the Fall."

Mrs. Lyte briefly explained the circumstances which had led to the removal. She stated, furthermore, that she had written to Major Bergan, upon the failure of the Bank where her money was invested, and inquired if he had sold the house, and whether there was any balance in her favor. To which he replied that he had done nothing about the matter, and proposed to do nothing, at present; he only wished that she would come back, and live in it, as before. But this was impossible, she had now no means of maintaining so large and expensive a place. She had, therefore, written again, to the effect that she asked nothing better than the immediate foreclosure of the mortgage, and the sale of the property. Would he attend to it at his earliest convenience, and forward her the balance? To this letter there had been no reply; she took it for granted that a purchaser had not been found. What she desired of Bergan, in the event of her death, which she believed to be near at hand, was to hurry forward the sale of the place, and secure something for Astra, if possible. This he promised to do; and he added, in a tone that brought instant conviction to her mind, and tears of gratitude to her eyes, that, however this matter terminated, neither Astra nor Cathie should lack friendly aid, at need.

When he finally took his leave, Bergan beckoned Astra to the door. "Are you alone here?" he inquired. "Is there no one to share your labors and your cares?"

"We brought our old Chloe with us," replied Astra; "she would not be left behind, and indeed, I do not know what we should have done without her. But lately the good old creature has insisted upon going out to do a day's washing, now and then, to bring something into the family purse; she is out to-day. When she is home, she does all she can."

Bergan recollected the old slave, and doubted nothing of her fidelity. But, in the woful event that he foresaw, Astra would need other help, other sympathy, he thought.

"Is there no one you can send for,—no relative, no friend, in Berganton, or elsewhere?" he persisted.

"None," replied Astra. "And what accommodations have we for such a friend, if we had one?"

There was nothing more to be said. He shook her hand warmly, told her that he had promised her mother to come again on the morrow, lifted his hat, with his usual courtesy, and went down the street, in such a maze of pity and perplexity, that he forgot to notice which way he went.

When he became cognizant of his whereabouts, he was standing before a large, old-fashioned mansion fronting on one of the principal squares of the city. On the door was a silver plate, bearing the name of "DIVA THANE, ARTIST."