An Ambitious Man

"No matter what else a man may do for position, don't let him marry a

woman he does not love, especially if he crucifies a vital passion

for another, in order to do this." Then Preston Cheney told the

story of his life to his son-in-law; and as the tale proceeded, a

strange interest which increased until it became violent excitement,

took possession of the rector's brain and heart. The story was so

familiar--so very familiar; and at length, when the name of BERENE

DUMONT escaped the speaker's lips, Arthur Stuart clutched his hands

and clenched his teeth to keep silent until the end of the story

came.

"From the hour Berene disappeared, to this very day, no word or

message ever came from her," the invalid said. "I have never known

whether she was dead or alive, married, or, terrible thought, perhaps

driven into a reckless life by her one false step with me. This last

fear has been a constant torture to me all these years.

"The world is cruel in its judgment of woman. And yet I know that it

is woman herself who has shaped the opinions of the world regarding

these matters. If men had had their way since the world began, there

would be no virtuous women. Woman has realised this fact, and she

has in consequence walled herself about with rules and conventions

which have in a measure protected her from man. When any woman

breaks through these conventions and errs, she suffers the scorn of

others who have kept these self-protecting and society-protecting

laws; and, conscious of their scorn, she believes all hope is lost

for ever.

"The fear that Berene took this view of her one mistake, and plunged

into a desperate life, has embittered my whole existence. Never

before did a man suffer such a mental hell as I have endured for this

one act of sin and weakness. Yet the world, looking at my life of

success, would say if it knew the story, 'Behold how the man goes

free.' Free! Great God! there is no bondage so terrible as that of

the mind. I have loved Berene Dumont with a changeless passion for

twenty-three years, and there has not been a day in all that time

that I have not during some hours endured the agonies of the damned,

thinking of all the disasters and misery that might have come into

her life through me. Heaven knows I would have married her if she

had remained. Strange and intricate as the net was which the devil

wove about me when I had furnished the cords, I could and would have

broken through it after that strange night--at once the heaven and

the hell of my memory--if Berene had remained. As it was--I married

Mabel, and you know what a farce, ending in a tragedy, our married

life has been. God grant that no worse woes befell Berene; God grant

that I may meet her in the spirit world and tell her how I loved her

and longed for her companionship."