"Then you loved Ellen O'Niel, Thomas?" I said, coming to the prompt conclusion that such morbid vehemence could spring but from one root.
"Yes, Donald, I loved her, and will always love her--or her memory, more than aught else in the world. It was, I think, the suspicion that I was growing to love Ellen, and the fear of her influence over me, that made my mother more and more harsh to her. She is beginning, however, to find out that if I have lost Ellen, she has lost a son, and what is more to her, I think, the church has lost a preacher. She thought I would soon get over it, but now she is beginning to worry about it, and to wish me to find Ellen. I care little any more; however, mother's worries are her chief sources of happiness."
"I do not believe Ellen is dead, Thomas," I said, ignoring his disrespect to his mother. "Either she is hiding somewhere, as Aunt Martha surmises, or she has been carried off by the Indians. In either case, Thomas, we'll find her, for I intend to join you in the search, and will not give up 'till we have a sure clew. Don't let it trouble you so, laddie, but cheer up and expect good news every day as father has done. And I'm sorry, Thomas, to hear you express yourself so bitterly against religion on this day of all others--when for the first time I have felt the influence of converting grace," and then I told him of Parson Waddell's sermon, and my resolve to be a Christian.
Thomas was moved, I could see, but he held firmly to his latest view, that religion in most people was naught but fanaticism, and Presbyterianism a narrowing creed. "If ever I find Ellen alive," he concluded, "I shall become a Catholic and marry her. Should I be assured of her death I shall go west as pioneer or scout or else turn monk."
"I can offer you a better career than either of those," I replied, laying my hand on his arm, and speaking cheerfully, "and not only a fine career, but, if all our searching hereabouts fails, your best chance to find Ellen. Come to see me, and we'll talk it over."
At the first bend in the road, I turned to wave to Thomas; he was still leaning dejectedly upon the stile, his back to me, and his absent gaze fixed upon the mountains. And now surprising thoughts and feelings took possession of me. My sympathy for Thomas was marred by sudden and unreasoning jealousy. What right had he to fall in love with Ellen O'Niel in my absence? Had she not shown plainly enough her preference for me? He had not been man enough to protect her from his mother's tyranny, and yet he talked as presumptuously of marrying her as if he had earned a right to her. He had not even found her in all these weeks, and was now hanging idly on his father's stile, whining, and uttering blasphemies. Find her and marry her indeed! I'd find her myself, and, marry her, too, if I pleased, for all he might say. Nor would I turn Catholic and abuse my relatives, and the religion of my fathers to win her; rather, I'd make her see she had acted foolishly and teach her to honor our creed, as I should honor hers. Ellen, I plainly saw, had needed sympathy, and love, also some one to show her the dangers of her own impetuous, and self-willed nature.