One of Our Conquerors - World eBook Library

One of Our Conquerors
‘She has her friend Mademoiselle de Seilles.’
Mr. Barmby remained humbly silent. Affectionate deep
regrets moved him to say: ‘A loss irreparable. We have but
one voice of sorrow. And how sudden! The dear lady had no
suffering, I trust.’
‘She fell into the arms of Mr. Durance. She died in his
arms. She was unconscious, he says. I left her straining for
breath. She said “Victor”; she tried to smile:—I understood
I was not to alarm him.’
‘And he too late!’
‘He was too late, by some minutes.’
‘At least I may comfort. Miss Radnor must be a blessing to
him.’
‘They cannot meet. Her presence excites him.’
That radiant home of all hospitality seemed opening on
from darker chambers to the deadly dark. The immorality in
the moral situation could not be forgotten by one who was
professionally a moralist. But an incorruptible beauty in the
woman’s character claimed to plead for her memory. Even
the rigorous in defence of righteous laws are softened by a
sinner’s death to hear excuses, and may own a relationship,
haply perceive the faint nimbus of the saint. Death among
us proves us to be still not so far from the Nature saying at
every avenue to the mind: ‘Earth makes all sweet.’
Mr. Durance had prophesied a wailful end ever to the carol
of Optimists! Yet it is not the black view which is the right
view. There is one between: the path adopted by Septimus
Barmby:—if he could but induce his brethren to enter on it!
The dreadful teaching of circumstances might help to the
persuading of a fair young woman, under his direction …
having her hand disengaged. Mr. Barmby started himself in
the dream of his uninterred passion for the maiden: he chased
it, seized it, hurled it hence, as a present sacrilege:—constantly,
and at the pitch of our highest devotion to serve, are
we assailed by the tempter! Is it, that the love of woman is
our weakness? For if so, then would a celibate clergy have
grant of immunity. But, alas, it is not so with them! We have
to deplore the hearing of reports too credible. Again we are
pushed to contemplate woman as the mysterious obstruction
to the perfect purity of soul. Nor is there a refuge in
asceticism. No more devilish nourisher of pride do we find
than in pain voluntarily embraced. And strangely, at the time
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