CHAPTER XX.
FORGIVING AN ENEMY.
And now we must return to Mary whom we left in her new surroundings.
Immediately after leaving Pine Farm, Mary went with the Count's familyto the city, in which they spent part of every year. While they werethere, a clergyman came one morning to their residence and asked to seeMary. He told her that he was charged with a message for her from aperson who was very ill and probably near death, and who desiredanxiously to speak to her. The clergyman said that the person was notwilling to give her message to any one but to Mary herself.
Mary could not imagine what the woman could want with her, and sheconsulted the Countess as to what she ought to do. The Countess,knowing the clergyman to be a pious and prudent man, advised Mary to gowith him, and at the minister's request old Anthony the huntsmanaccompanied them. After a long walk to the outskirts of the town, theyarrived at last at a house situated in a side street, which presented amost gloomy aspect. "Here is the house," said the clergyman, knockingat the door, "but wait a little."
After a few moments he returned for Mary, who then entered with himinto a most miserable room. The window was narrow and dark, and somebroken panes were patched with paper. The only furniture which the roomcontained was a miserable truckle-bed, covered with a more miserablemattress, and a broken chair, on which stood a stone pitcher, withneither handle nor cover.
On the miserable bed lay stretched a figure which to Mary's eyes seemedmore like a skeleton, but which she gradually made out was the form ofa woman, in the last stages of illness.
In a voice which resembled the rattle of death, this miserable creaturesought to speak with Mary, who trembled in every limb. It was with theutmost difficulty that she could make out what the poor woman said, butat last she learned, to her horror, that the frightful phantom wasJuliette, who at the Castle of Eichbourg had been the beginning andcause of all her distress. After being turned away from the Castle, shehad gone from bad to worse, until she had sunk into her present state.
Lying upon her miserable bed, death staring her in the face, remorsehad overtaken her, and her one wish was to have Mary's forgiveness.Learning in some way, that the Count and his family were in the city,she begged of the clergyman who was visiting her to ask Mary to come tosee her. The poor woman, judging Mary by herself, had entreated theclergyman not to mention her name in case Mary would not come.
Mary was affected to the heart when she heard Juliette's story, and sheshed tears of sympathy with her old enemy. She assured her that she hadforgiven her long ago, and that the only feeling she experienced wasthat of the deepest pity for her.
"Mary was affected to the heart when she heardJuliette's story."_See page 142._]
"Alas," said Juliette, "I am a great sinner; I have deserved my fate.Forgetfulness of God, contempt of good advice, love of dress, flattery,and pleasure were the first causes of misery, and these have brought meto my present state. Oh," cried she, raising her voice to a shriek, andweeping bitterly, "that is nothing to the fate which I fear awaits mein the world to come. You have pardoned me, it is true, but I feel theweight of God's anger now settling on my soul."
Mary conversed long and earnestly with her, endeavouring to point herto the Saviour of the world, who would receive her if she trulyrepented. At last she was obliged to leave her without being satisfiedas to her state of mind, but the idea of the unhappy Juliette dyingwithout hope continually pressed on her mind and weighed down herspirits. She recollected her little apple tree in blossom, withered bythe frost, and what her father had said on that occasion. The mostconsoling words he had said on his deathbed presented themselves to hermind, and she renewed the promise she had made to God to live entirelyto His glory.
To the Countess she related her discovery, and that generous lady sentthe unhappy Juliette medicine, food, and linen, and everything whichmight tend to relieve her illness. But it was too late, and at the ageof twenty-three the once beautiful Juliette, reduced to a mere skeletonand disfigured by disease, died without having given evidence of achanged heart towards God.