"The man what wrote that piece ain't got the slightest idea of what he's talkin' about."

Grandmother transfixed Matilda with an icy stare. Then, turning to the last page of the paper, she read, with due attention to emphasis: "'The Household Guardian is read every week in more than one million homes. Averaging five people to each family, this means that five million people, every Thursday, are eagerly watching for the regular issue of The Household Guardian.' If he don't know what he's talkin' about, why are five million people waitin' for the paper? Answer me that, Matilda Starr, if you can!"

"There ain't five in every family," Matilda objected. "That means the Pa and Ma and three children."

[Sidenote: Well Groomed]

"Maybe not. Maybe it's the Ma and Pa and two children and an Aunt or an Uncle or some other of the family connection."

"Well, even if there's only two children, if their Ma is makin' 'em caps to hold back their ears and pinchin' their noses regular, she ain't got no time to have her own nose flattened out against the glass lookin' for The Household Guardian."

"'If, however, through ignorance or the press of other occupations,'" Grandmother resumed, clearing her throat, "'this early care has not been given, every woman, no matter what her circumstances are, may at least be well-groomed.'"

Matilda giggled hysterically.

"What's the matter now?" queried Grandmother, with interest.

"I was just thinkin' about the erect carriage and the groomin'. The man what wrote that piece seems to think a woman is a horse. Reckon I'll get myself a curry-comb."

"It might improve the looks of your hair some if you did," the old lady observed, caustically. "'No woman is so poor that she cannot take the time to attend to her personal appearance, nor so rich that she can afford to neglect it. The hair should be shampooed at—Continued on page sixty-seven.'"

"The hair should be what?"

"'Shampooed at least once a month.'"

[Sidenote: Face Massage]

"What's that?"

"Don't interrupt," commanded the old lady, with the dull red burning on her withered cheeks. "Here I am readin' to you and tryin' to improve your mind and all the time you're interruptin' me."

"Only to ask questions," Matilda returned, with affected submission. "If I'm to have my mind improved I want it well done."

"'In the intervals it should be frequently brushed, and the regular weekly face massage'—that's printed wrong—'the regular weekly face message should not be neglected.'"

"What's a face message?" asked Matilda, curiosity overcoming prudence.

"Anything that's said to anybody, I suppose. Now don't speak to me again. 'The nails must also be taken care of and one or two visits to a good manicure will show any woman how it is to be done. The implements are not expensive and will last——'"

"What's a manicure?"

"Some kind of a doctor, I reckon,—'and will last a long time. A few simple exercises should be taken every night and morning to preserve the fig—Continued on page seventy.'"

"Preservin' figs ain't any particular exercise," Matilda observed, shaking out the mended skirt. "You can do most of it settin' down."

"'Preserve the figure,'" Grandmother continued with emphasis. "'Soap and hot water may be used on the face if a good cold cream is well rubbed into the pores immediately afterward.'"

[Sidenote: Cucumber Milk]

"Vanilla or lemon?" Matilda asked.

"It doesn't say ice-cream, it just says cold cream. 'Cucumber milk is excellent for freckles or tan, and——'"

"I reckon I won't hear no more," said Matilda. Her lips were compressed into a thin tight line. "I can stand the carriages that are to be driv' standin' up, and the lovely imps and the nose pinchin' and the caps for the ears, but when it comes to goin' out every mornin' to milk the cucumbers, I don't feel called on to set and listen to it. The man what wrote that piece was as crazy as a loon, and if five million people read his paper every week, four million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand and nine hundred and ninety-nine of 'em know it. I ain't sayin' who's the one that don't."

She sailed majestically out of the room with her head held high, and her frowsy grey hair bristling with indignation. Grandmother's lower jaw dropped in amazement for a moment, then she returned to the paper. "Milkin' the cucumbers don't seem quite right," she said to herself, "but there it is in print, as plain as day."

For the first time her faith in the printed word wavered. "Maybe there's some special kind of cucumber," she mused, "that gives milk. We used to hear 'em called cowcumbers. Why'd they be called that if they didn't give milk? There's only the two kinds as far as I know—the tame and wild, and the wild ones—" The light of pure intellectual joy dawned upon the puzzled old face. "Of course. Don't I remember the white sticky juice inside the wild ones? That's it! Wait till I tell Matilda!"

[Sidenote: Grandmother Sees the Stranger]

Triumphantly she returned to The Household Guardian, and, in her new allegiance, read every line of every advertisement before folding it carefully and putting it away with the others. "Good for freckles and tan," she said to herself, meditatively, "but it didn't say nothin' about warts. Maybe that'll be in next week's paper."

While she sat looking out of the window a woman passed, walking so slowly that Grandmother had plenty of time to observe her. As the stranger turned her head neither to the right nor the left, the old lady's intense scrutiny was attended by no embarrassment.

From the fragmentary description that had come her way, she at once recognised Mrs. Lee—the tall, straight figure in a gown of pale green linen, the dainty, regular features, and the crown of wonderful hair, radiating sunlit splendour, as she wore no hat.

[Sidenote: Ready Money]

A letter in her hand betrayed the object of her passing. "She's goin' to the post-office," Grandmother mused, "and if she comes back this way, I'll see her again. Matilda ain't seen her but twice and then she had a hat on."

Mrs. Lee did, indeed, come back that way, but gave no sign that she saw, or even felt, the presence of the keen observer in the window of the little brown house. Grandmother hoped that Matilda was not peering from an upper window. Perhaps she would tell her immediately, and perhaps she wouldn't. While she was considering this point, Rosemary came in, wiping her hands upon her apron, and announced that she was ready to go to the store.

Rapidly giving a list of the articles desired, Grandmother rose from her chair, lifted her skirts, and from some safe inner pocket, drew out a black bag, which was evidently fastened around her waist with a string. This bag contained another, closely wrapped. Inside was a much worn leather "wallet," from which Grandmother extracted a two-dollar bill and some pennies.

"Run along, Rosemary. I reckon that'll be enough."

Rosemary obeyed, privately wondering for the thousandth time whence came Grandmother's money. Neither she nor Matilda had ever dared to ask, but when the supply gave out, the old lady always produced a twenty-dollar gold piece from the magic bag.

[Sidenote: It Seemed Odd]

When she returned from her errand, Aunt Matilda was nowhere to be seen, and Grandmother, nodding in her chair by the window, had not been awakened by the opening and closing of the door. Rosemary went up-stairs, and, from sounds that penetrated the hall through the closed door of Aunt Matilda's room, inferred that she also was taking an afternoon nap.

If she could only write to Alden, and tell him he was free! Night after night she had pondered over ways and means. It seemed odd that in a house where there was always plenty to eat and to wear, of a certain sort, stationery and stamps should be practically unknown. Grandmother had used the last sheet of paper and the last envelope when she ordered the bolt of brown alpaca, and with stern suspicion held Rosemary to account for every penny with which she was entrusted.

If she had paper and an envelope, perhaps she might ask the storekeeper to send the note up with the Marshs' groceries, or, better yet, she might go up to the house herself very early some morning or very late some night and slip it under the front door. In that way, she would be sure he received it. Rosemary brightened as she saw that a stamp would not really be necessary after all.

[Sidenote: Rosemary Takes Possession of the Box]

If only, among her mother's things in the attic, there might be an envelope! She could use brown wrapping paper to write upon, if worst came to worst—the storekeeper might even give her a small, fresh piece of the pale yellow sort. Rosemary knew every separate article in the trunk, however, even the inlaid box to which the key was missing. She had never dared to ask for the key, much less to break open the box, but to-day, the courage of desperation sustained her and she ran quickly up-stairs.

Long afternoon sunbeams, sweet with June, came into the attic, and made fairy gold of the dust as they entered the room. It had none of the charm which belongs to every well-regulated attic; it was merely a storehouse, full of cobwebs and dust. A few old trunks were stored there, all empty save the small hair-cloth trunk which held Rosemary's mother's few possessions that had outlived her.

She opened it, found the box, and discovered that she had forgotten the scissors with which she intended to break the lock. She wondered whether she might safely risk the trip down-stairs after the scissors, or whether it would be better to take the box with her and hide it in her room. Before she had made up her mind, she heard a slow, heavy tread upon the stair.

She could not go down and she did not wish to be found with the box—indeed, she dared not. She cowered back under the eaves and lay flat on the floor behind the trunk, just as Grandmother came into the attic.

[Sidenote: Hidden Gold]

For a moment the old lady paused, her keen eyes searching the room as though she felt a presence which she did not see. Rosemary lay very quietly upon the floor, though fearing that the loud beating of her heart might be heard in the stillness.

Reassured, and not in the least lame, Grandmother went to the brick chimney that came up through the attic, and mounted a decrepit chair. She scratched and pried at a certain brick with her scissors, then removed it quietly. Reaching in, she drew out a black bag, whence came a sound of tinkling metal. Rosemary, peering around the corner of the trunk, could scarcely believe the evidence of her own senses.

Grandmother took out a twenty-dollar gold piece, restored the bag to its place, put the brick back, and went down-stairs with the quiet, stealthy movement of a cat.

Presently Rosemary went down-stairs also, with the box, stopping to leave it in her own room. Cold with excitement, she trembled when she went into the kitchen and began to make preparations for supper. She heard warring voices in the sitting-room, then Grandmother came to the kitchen door.

[Sidenote: The Old Photograph]

"Oh," she said. "So you came in the back way. I didn't hear you come in. Reckon I must have been asleep."

Rosemary did not answer. She longed to be alone in her own room with the inlaid box, which now assumed a mystery and portent it had never had before, but it was almost midnight before, by the flickering light of a candle-end, she broke it open, smothering the slight sound with the patchwork quilt.

She hoped for stationery, but there was none. It contained an old photograph and a letter addressed to Grandmother Starr. Rosemary leaned to the light with the photograph, studying it eagerly. It was old and faded, but the two were still distinct—a young woman in an elaborate wedding gown, standing beside a man who was sitting upon an obviously uncomfortable chair.

The man, in a way, resembled Grandmother Starr; the lady looked like Rosemary, except that she was beautiful. "Father!" cried Rosemary, in an agonising whisper. "Mother!" Face to face at last with those of her own blood, dead though they were!

The little mother was not more than two or three and twenty: the big strong father was about twenty-five. She had never been shown the picture, nor had even guessed its existence. Since she was old enough to think about it all, she had wondered what her father and mother looked like.

[Sidenote: Her Father's Letter]

Thrilled with a new, mysterious sense of kinship, she dwelt lovingly upon every line of the pictured faces, holding the photograph safely beyond the reach of the swift-falling tears. She was no longer fatherless, motherless; alone. Out of the dust of the past, like some strangely beautiful resurrection, these two had come to her, richly dowered with personality.

It was late when she put down the picture and took up the letter, which was addressed to Grandmother Starr. She took it out of the envelope, unfolded the crackling, yellowed pages, and read:

"Dear Mother;

"Since writing to you yesterday that I was going up north on the Clytie, I have been thinking about the baby, and that it might be wise to provide for her as best I can in case anything should happen to me. So I enclose a draft for eleven thousand five hundred dollars made payable to you. I have realised on my property here, but this is all I have aside from my passage-money and a little more, and, if I land safely, I shall probably ask you to return at least a large part of it.

"But, if the ship should go down, as I sincerely hope it won't, she will be sure of this, for her clothing and education. In case anything should happen to her, of course I would want you and Matilda to have the money, but if it doesn't, give Rosemary everything she needs or wants while the money lasts, and oh, mother, be good to my little girl!

"Your loving son,

"Frank."

[Sidenote: The Truth of the Matter]

In a flash of insight Rosemary divined the truth. The gold hidden behind the loose brick in the chimney was hers, given to her by her dead father. And she had not even a postage stamp!

But swiftly her anger died away in joy—a joy that surged and thrilled through her as some white, heavenly fire that warmed her inmost soul. Not alone, but cared for—sheltered, protected, loved. "Oh," breathed Rosemary, with her eyes shining; "Father, dear father—my father, taking care of me!" Then, in her thought, she added, without dreaming of irreverence, "I think God must be like that!"



XVI

One Little Hour

[Sidenote: The Two Faces]

When she awoke in the morning it was with a bewildering sense of change. Something had happened, and, in the first moment, she was not quite sure whether a dream had not boldly overstepped the line into daylight. The faded photograph, propped up on the table at the head of her bed, at once reassured her, and Rosemary smiled, with a joy so great that it was almost pain tugging at the fibres of her heart.

To an outsider, perhaps, the two faces would have been common enough, but one of love's divinest gifts is the power to bestow beauty wherever it goes. The old man, bent with years, with the snows of his fourscore winters lying heavily upon his head, may seem an object of kindly pity as he hobbles along with crutch or cane, going oh, so slowly, where once his feet were fain to run from very joy of living. The light may be gone from his faded eyes, his dull ears may not respond to question or call, but one face, waiting at a window, shall illumine at the sight of him, and one voice, thrilling with tenderness, shall stir him to eager answer.

[Sidenote: Beauty the Twin of Love]

Or a woman, worn and broken, her rough hands made shapeless by toil, may seem to have no claim to beauty as the word is commonly understood. Sleepless nights, perchance, have dimmed her eyes, suffering and sacrifice have seamed and marked her face, but those to whom she has given herself see only the great nobleness of her nature, the royalty of her soul. For the beauty of the spirit may transfigure its earth-bound temple, as some vast and grey cathedral with light streaming from its stained glass windows, and eloquent with chimes and singing, may breathe incense and benediction upon every passer-by.

And so, for those to whom love has come, beauty has come also, but merely as the reflection in the mirror, since only love may see and understand the thing itself. Purifying, uplifting, and exalting, making sense the humble servant and not the tyrannical master, renewing itself for ever at divine fountains that do not fail, inspiring to fresh sacrifice, urging onward with new courage, redeeming all mistakes with its infinite pardon; this, indeed is Love, which neither dies nor grows old. And, since God himself is Love, what further assurance do we require of immortality?

Upon the two in the faded picture the most exquisite mystery of life had wrought its transfiguration. Vaguely conscious of the unfamiliar and uncomfortable chair in which he sat, the young man looked out upon Rosemary, bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, with an all-embracing, all-understanding love. It came to her with a sense of surprise that father was only a little older than she was; he had paused, and she, receiving the gift of life from him, had gone on. And the little mother, brave in her white satin, with her long veil trailing down from her wreath of orange blossoms; she too, loved Rosemary; indeed, with a holy deepening of her soul, she loved the whole world.

[Sidenote: Effects of the Picture]

The picture must have been taken very soon after the ceremony. Rosemary fancied that they had gone to the photographer's with one or more of the wedding guests, while the revelry and feasting still went on. And yet, so soon, into the woman's eyes had come the look of wistfulness, almost of prayer, as though she had suddenly come face to face with the knowledge that love, like a child, is man's to give and woman's to keep, to guard, to nourish, to suffer for, and, perhaps, last of all, to lose.

The mother-hunger woke in Rosemary a strange longing. What joy to serve this little mother, to whom her child was as unknown then as now! What ecstasy to uncoil the smooth strands of brown hair, take the white shoes from the tiny feet, destined to tread the unfamiliar ways of pain; to breathe the soft sweetness of her neck and arms! The big, strong father, lovably boyish now, appealed to her with a sense of shelter, for valiantly he stood, or had tried to stand, between his child and the world, but, from the other came something more.

[Sidenote: Above Everyday Cares]

"I think," said Rosemary, to herself, "that she must have kissed me before she died."

That day she went about her tasks as might a dweller from another planet, who had set his body to carry on his appointed duties, while his spirit roamed the blue infinite spaces between the day-stars and the sun. Early in the afternoon she left the house, without asking whether she might go, or saying when she would be back. She even had the audacity to leave the luncheon dishes piled in the sink, and unwashed.

At the foot of the Hill of the Muses, she paused, then shook her head. She could never go there again, though the thought of Alden now brought no anguish—only a great sadness. A mocking smile curled her lips at the memory of her futile struggles toward stationery and a stamp, that she might set him free. How could he be more free than he was, untroubled, doubtless, by even the thought of her?

She began to perceive, though dimly, the divinity that shapes our humblest affairs. In the search for an envelope, she had found her father and mother, as was doubtless meant from the beginning. Surely she had never needed them more than she did now! If it had been meant for her to have stationery, and to set Alden free in that way, it would have been mysteriously provided—she was certain of that.

[Sidenote: A Clear Path]

She saw, too, that the way upon which we are meant to go is always clear, or at least indicated, at the time we are meant to take it; that guidance is definitely felt through the soul's own overpowering conviction. The struggle and the terror fell away from her like a garment she had cast aside, and for the moment she emerged into freedom as before she had come into love.

Deep in her heart she still loved Alden, but unselfishly. This new Rosemary asked nothing for herself, she only longed to give, though freedom might be her best gift to him. Harm could come to her only through herself; the burning heart and the racked soul had been under the dominion of Fear.

She took the path up along the river, that lay half asleep and crooning drowsily to the little clouds that were mirrored upon its tranquil breast. Tiny blue pools among the rushes at the bend in the stream gave back glints of sapphire and turquoise, with now and then a glimmer of gold. Sometimes, upon a hidden rock, the river swirled and rippled, breaking murmurously into silver and pearl, but steadily beneath, in spite of all outward seeming, the current moved endlessly toward its sea-born destiny, as Man himself unto the Everlasting.

[Sidenote: Pleasures of the Valley]

Singing among the far hills, and rushing downward in a torrent of ecstatic life, the river had paused in the valley to rest, dreaming, perchance, of the long cool shadows in the uplands, the far altar-fires of daybreak. There were pleasant things to do in the valley, to lie at full length, basking in the sun, to hum a bit of the old music, to touch gently the harp-strings of the marsh grass and rushes, dimpling with pleasure at the faint answer, to reflect every passing mood of cloud and sky, even to hold the little clouds as a mother might, upon its deep and tender bosom. There were lily-pads to look after, too, bird-shadows and iridescent dragon flies, sunset lights to deepen and spread afar, and, at night, all the starry hosts of heaven to receive and give back, in luminous mist, to the waiting dusk.

Dawn came to the river while the earth still slept; it was day upon the waters while night lingered upon the shore. And, too, long after the abundant life of field and meadow was stilled in dreamless peace, past the power of the fairy lamp-bearers to stir or to annoy, the river lay awake and watchful, as some divinely appointed guardian of the Soul of Things.

[Sidenote: Murmur of Voices]

The peace of it came to Rosemary, as she walked, with the sense of healing, of balm. She saw plainly how Grandmother had wronged her, every day of her life, but set resentment aside, simply, as something that did not belong to her. The appointed thing came at the appointed time in the appointed way—there was no terror save her own fear. Outside herself was a mass of circumstance beyond her control, but, within herself, was the power of adjustment, as, when two dominant notes are given, the choice of the third makes either dissonance or harmony.

Tired, at last, for she had walked far upstream into the hills, Rosemary sat down upon a convenient rock to rest. The shores were steep, now, but just beyond her was a little cleft between two hills—a pleasant, sunny space, with two or three trees and a great rock, narrowing back into a thicket. She went on, after a few moments, down the slope to the level place, lay at full length upon the thick turf, and drank thirstily from the river.

In a moment, she heard the slow splash of oars, and the murmur of voices, both low and deep, though one evidently belonged to a man and one to a woman. Boats were infrequent upon the river, and, not caring to be seen, she stepped back into the thicket until it should pass.

[Sidenote: Mute and Frightened]

The voices came nearer and nearer, the man's full-toned and vaguely familiar, the woman's musical, vibrant, and, in a way, familiar too.

A single powerful stroke brought the boat into view, as it rounded the curve. It was Alden and Edith. The girl stepped back still farther into the sheltering thicket, repressing the cry of astonishment that rose to her lips. Acutely self-conscious, it seemed that the leaves were no protection; that she stood before them helpless, unconcealed.

Trembling, she sat down on a low, flat stone, for she had suddenly become too weak to stand. Much to her dismay, Alden swung the head of the boat toward the shore. They were going to land!

Mute and frightened, she watched him as he assisted her to the shore, saw him return to the boat for a basket covered with a white cloth, and draw the oars up to the bank.

Rosemary instantly comprehended the emotions of an animal in a trap. She scarcely dared to breathe, much less move. Unwilling to listen, she put her fingers in her ears and turned her head away, but presently the position became so strained and uncomfortable that she had to give it up. Their voices were plainly audible.

[Sidenote: A Picnic]

"I thought I heard a rustle behind that thicket," said Edith. She was lovely in her gown of pale green linen, and carried a white linen parasol instead of wearing a hat.

"It's a bird, or a squirrel," he assured her. "Nobody ever comes here."

"Are we nobody?"

"Indeed not—we're everybody. The world was made just for us two."

"I wish I could believe you," Edith returned, sadly. Then she added, with swift irrelevance: "Why do people always take hard-boiled eggs to picnics?"

"To mitigate the pickles," he responded. "There always are pickles—see? I knew Mother would put some in."

"Wine, too," commented Edith, peering into the basket. "Why, it's almost a party!"

Alden's face took on a grave, sweet boyishness. "I did that myself," he said. "Mother didn't know. Wait until I tell you. The day I was born, my father set aside all the wine that was that day ready for bottling. There wasn't much of it. All these years, it's been untouched on one particular shelf in the storeroom, waiting, in dust and cobwebs. At sunset he went to Mother, and told her what he had done. 'It's for the boy,' he said. 'It's to be opened the day he finds the woman he loves as I love you.'"

"And—" Edith's voice was almost a whisper.

[Sidenote: The Time Has Come]

"The time has come. I may have found her only to lose her again, but she's mine—for to-day."

He filled two small glasses, and, solemnly, they drank. The light mood vanished as surely as though they had been in a church, at some unwonted communion. Behind the leafy screen, Rosemary trembled and shook. She felt herself sharply divided into a dual personality. One of her was serene and calm, able to survey the situation unemotionally, as though it were something that did not concern her at all. The other was a deeply passionate, loving woman, who had just seen her life's joy taken from her for ever.

Alden, leaning back against the rock near which they sat, was looking at Edith as a man looks at but one woman in all his life. To Rosemary, trembling and cold, it someway brought a memory of her father's face, in the faded picture. At the thought, she clenched her hands tightly and compressed her lips. So much she had, made hers eternally by a grave. No one could take from her the thrilling sense of kinship with those who had given her life.

Edith looked out upon the river. Her face was wistful and as appealing as a child's. "Found," she repeated, "though only to lose again."

"Perhaps not," he answered, hopefully. "Wait and see."

[Sidenote: Never Again]

"Life is made of waiting," she returned, sadly—"woman's life always is." Then with a characteristically quick change of mood, she added, laughingly: "I know a woman who says that all her life, before she was married, she was waiting for her husband, and that since her marriage, she has noticed no difference."

Alden smiled at the swift anti-climax, then his face grew grave again. He packed the few dishes in the basket, rinsed the wine glasses in the river, brought them back, and gave one to Edith.

"We'll break the bottle," he said, "and the glasses, too. They shall never be used again."

The shattered crystal fell, tinkling as it went. The wine made a deep, purple stain upon the stone. He opened his arms.

"No," whispered Edith. "It only makes it harder, when——"

"Beloved, have you found so much sweetness in the world that you can afford to pass it by?" She did not answer, so he said, pleadingly: "Don't you want to come?"

She turned toward him, her face suddenly illumined. "I do, with all my soul I do."

"Then come. For one little hour—for one dear hour—ah, dearest, come!"

Rosemary averted her face, unable to bear it. When she turned her miserable eyes toward them again, allured by some strange fascination she was powerless to analyse, Edith was in his arms, her mouth crushed to his.

[Sidenote: Yours Alone]

"Dear, dearest, sweetheart, beloved!" the man murmured. "I love you so!"

There was a pause, then he spoke again. "Do you love me?"

"Yes," she breathed. "A thousand times, yes!"

"Say it," he pleaded. "Just those three words."

"I love you," she answered, "for everything you have been and everything you are and everything you are going to be, for always. I love you with a love that is yours alone. It never belonged to anybody else for the merest fraction of a second, and never can. It was born for you, lives for you, and will die when you need it no more."

"Ah," he said, "but I need it always. I've wanted you all my life."

"And will," she sighed, trying to release herself.

"Edith! Don't! I can't bear it! Take the golden hour as the glittering sands of eternity sweep past us. So much is yours and mine, out of all that is past and to come."

"As you wish," she responded. Then, after another pause, she said: "Don't you want to read to me?"

Rosemary, dumb and hopeless, saw them sit down, close together, and lean against the rock, where the sunlight made an aureole of Edith's hair. He slipped his arm around her, and she laid her head upon his shoulder, with a look of heavenly peace upon her pale face. Never had the contrast between them been more painful than now, for Edith, with love in her eyes, was exquisite beyond all words.

[Sidenote: The Red Book Again]

Alden took a small red book out of his pocket. With a pang, Rosemary recognised it. Was nothing to be left sacred to her? She longed to break from her hiding-place, face them both with stern accusing eyes, snatch the book which meant so much to her—ask for this much, at least, to keep. Yet she kept still, and listened helplessly, with the blood beating in her ears.

In his deep, musical voice, Alden read once more: Her Gifts. "That," he said, softly, "was the night I knew."

"Yes," Edith answered. "The night I found the book and brought it home."

Rosemary well remembered when Edith had found the book. Her strange sense of a dual self persisted, yet, none the less, her heart beat hard with pain.

He went on, choosing a line here and there as he turned the marked pages, but avoiding entirely some of the most beautiful sonnets because of their hopelessness. At last, holding her closer, he began:

[Sidenote: Suiting the Action to the Word]

"On this sweet bank your head thrice sweet and dear I lay, and spread your hair on either side, And see the new-born woodflowers bashful-eyed Look through the golden tresses here and there. On these debatable borders of the year Spring's foot half falters; scarce she yet may know The leafless blackthorn-blossom from the snow; And through her bowers the wind's way still is clear."

"Oh!" breathed Rosemary, with her hands tightly clenched. "Dear God, have pity!"

Heedlessly, Alden went on:

"But April's sun strikes down the glades to-day; So shut your eyes upturned, and feel my kiss Creep, as the Spring now thrills through every spray, Up your warm throat to your warm lips; for this——"

He dropped the book, lifted Edith's chin and kissed her throat, then her mouth. She laid her hand upon his face. "Dear and lonely and hungry-hearted," she said; "how long you wanted me!"

"Yes," he murmured, "but I've found you now!"

How long they sat there, Rosemary never knew, for her senses were dulled. She did not hear their preparations for departure, but saw the boat swinging out into the current, with the sunset making golden glory of the river and of Edith's hair. When the sound of the oars ceased, she rose, numb and cold, and came out into the open space. She steadied herself for a moment upon the rock against which they had leaned.

[Sidenote: Another Thought]

"Service," she said to herself, "and sacrifice. Giving, and not receiving. Asking—not answer." Yet she saw that, even now, this could be neither sacrifice nor denial, because it was something she had never had.

She laughed, a trifle bitterly, and went on home, another thought keeping time with her footsteps. "The appointed thing comes at the appointed time in the appointed way. There is no terror save my own fear."



XVII

The Last Tryst

[Sidenote: A Double Self]

The shrill voices in the sitting-room rose higher and higher. Since the day Grandmother had read the article upon "Woman's Birthright" to Matilda, the subject of Mrs. Lee's hair had, as it were, been drowned in cucumber milk. When Rosemary came in from the kitchen, they appealed to her by common consent.

"Rosemary, have you ever heard of anybody taking a stool and a pail and goin' out to milk the cucumbers before breakfast?" This from Aunt Matilda.

"Rosemary, ain't you seen the juice of wild cucumbers when they spit their seeds out and ain't it just like milk, only some thicker?" This from Grandmother.

"I don't know," Rosemary answered, mechanically. The queer sense of a double self persisted. One of her was calm and content, the other was rebellious—and hurt.

"Humph!" snorted Grandmother.

"Humph!" echoed Aunt Matilda

[Sidenote: Going for the Paper]

"It's Thursday," Grandmother reminded her, "and I heard the mail train come in some time ago. You'd better leave the sweepin' an' go and get my paper."

"Yes, do," Aunt Matilda chimed in, with a sneer. "I can't hardly wait for this week's paper, more'n the other sufferin' five million can. Maybe there'll be a pattern for a cucumber milkin' stool in this week's paper; somethin' made out of a soap-box, with cucumber leaves and blossoms painted on it with some green and yellow house paint that happens to be left over. And," she continued, "they'd ought to be a pail too, but I reckon a tin can'll do, for the cucumbers I've seen so far don't look as if they'd be likely to give much milk. We can paint the can green and paste a picture of a cucumber on the outside from the seed catalogue. Of course I ain't got any freckles, but there's nothin' like havin' plenty of cucumber milk in the house, with hot weather comin' on."

Grandmother surveyed Matilda with a penetrating, icy stare. "You've got freckles on your mind," she said. "Rosemary, will you go to the post-office and not keep me waiting?"

The girl glanced at her brown gingham dress, and hesitated.

"You're clean enough," Grandmother observed, tartly. "Anybody'd think you had a beau waitin' for you somewheres."

[Sidenote: Young People's Calls]

She flushed to her temples, but did not speak. Her face was still red when she went out, wearing a brown straw hat three Summers old.

"The paper says," Grandmother continued, "that a blush is becomin' to some women, but Rosemary ain't one that looks well with a red face. Do you suppose she has got a beau?"

"Can't prove it by me," Matilda sighed, looking pensively out of the window. "That Marsh boy come to see her once, though."

"He didn't come again, I notice, no more'n the minister did."

"No," Matilda rejoined, pointedly, with a searching glance at Grandmother, "and I reckon it was for the same reason. When young folks comes to see young folks, they don't want old folks settin' in the room with 'em all the time, talkin' about things they ain't interested in."

"Young folks!" snorted Grandmother. "You was thirty!"

"That ought to be old enough to set alone with a man for a spell, especially if he's a minister."

"I suppose you think," the old lady returned, swiftly gathering her ammunition for a final shot, "that the minister was minded to marry you. I've told you more 'n once that you're better off the way you are. Marriage ain't much. I've been through it and I know."

[Sidenote: Face to Face]

With that, she sailed triumphantly out of the room, closing the door with a bang which had in it the sound of finality. Poor Miss Matilda gazed dreamily out of the window, treasuring the faint, fragrant memory of her lost romance. "If Rosemary has got a beau," she said to herself, "I hope she won't let Ma scare him away from her."

At the post-office, Rosemary met Alden, face to face. She blushed and stammered when he spoke to her, answered his kindly questions in monosyllables, and, snatching The Household Guardian from the outstretched hand of the postmaster, hurried away.

Presently he overtook her. "Please, Rosemary," he said, "give me just a minute. I want to talk to you. I haven't seen you for a long time."

"Yes?" She stopped, but could not raise her eyes to his face.

"I can't talk to you here. Come on up the hill."

"When?" The girl's lips scarcely moved as she asked the question.

"Now. Please come."

"I'll—I'll have to go home first, with this," she replied, indicating the paper. "Then I'll come."

"All right. I'll go on ahead and wait for you. Shall I tie the red ribbon to the tree?" He spoke thoughtlessly, meaning only to be pleasant, but the girl's eyes filled. She shook her head decisively and neither of them spoke until they reached the corner where she must turn.

[Sidenote: Waiting for Rosemary]

"Good-bye," she said.

"Auf wiedersehen," he replied, lifting his hat. "Don't be long."

Always, before, it had been Rosemary who waited for him. Now he sat upon the log, leaning back against the tree, listening to the chatter of the squirrels and the twitter of little birds in the boughs above him. It was not yet noon, and the sunlight made little dancing gleams of silver-gilt on the ground between the faint shadows of the leaves. He waited for her in a fever of impatience, for in his pocket he had a letter for Edith, addressed in a dashing masculine hand.

Not so long ago, in this same place, he had asked Rosemary to marry him. Now he must ask her to release him, to set him free from the bondage he had persisted in making for himself. He made a wry face at the thought, unspeakably dreading the coming interview and, in his heart, despising himself.

Rosemary did not keep him waiting long. When she came, she was flushed and breathless from the long climb—and something more. She sank down upon the seat he indicated—her old place.

[Sidenote: The Hour of Reckoning]

"It's been a long time since we were here last," Alden observed, awkwardly.

"Has it?" The grey eyes glanced at him keenly for a moment, then swiftly turned away.

"I've—I've wanted to see you," Alden lied.

"I've wanted to see you," she flashed back, telling the literal truth.

Alden sighed, for there was tremulous passion in her tone—almost resentment. He had treated her badly, considering that she was his promised wife. She had been shamefully neglected, and she knew it, and the hour of reckoning had come.

For the moment he caught at the straw the situation seemed to offer him. If they should quarrel—if he could make her say harsh things, it might be easier. Instantly his better self revolted. "Coward!" he thought. "Cad!"

"I've wanted to see you," Rosemary was saying, with forced calmness, "to tell you something. I can't marry you, ever!"

"Why, Rosemary!" he returned, surprised beyond measure. "What do you mean?"

The girl rose and faced him. He rose, too, awkwardly stretching out his hand for hers. She swerved aside, and clasped her hands behind her back.

[Sidenote: It's All a Mistake]

"I mean what I said; it's plain enough, isn't it?"

"Yes," he answered, putting his hands in his pockets, "it's perfectly plain. If I've done anything to hurt or offend you in any way, I—I'm sorry." So much was true. He was sorry for Rosemary and had never been more so than at that very moment. "You'll give me a reason, won't you?" he continued.

"Reason?" she repeated, with a bitter laugh. "Oh, I have plenty of reasons!" His heart sank for a moment, then went on, evenly. "It's all a mistake—it's never been anything but a mistake. I couldn't leave Grandmother and Aunt Matilda, you know. They need me, and I shouldn't have allowed myself to forget it."

"Yes," Alden agreed, quickly, "I suppose they do need you. I was selfish, perhaps."

Hot words came to her lips but she choked them back. For an instant she was tempted to tell him all she had seen and heard a few days before, to accuse him of disloyalty, and then prove it. Her face betrayed her agitation, but Alden was looking out across the valley, and did not see. In his pocket the letter for Edith lay consciously, as though it were alive.

"It isn't that you don't love me, is it?" he asked, curiously. His masculine vanity had been subtly aroused.

[Sidenote: They Part]

Rosemary looked him straight in the face. She was white, now, to the lips. "Yes," she lied. "It is that more than anything else."

"Why, my dear girl! I thought——"

"So did I. We were both mistaken, that is all."

"And you really don't love me?"

"Not in the least."

Alden laughed—a little mirthless, mocking laugh. It is astonishing, sometimes, how deeply a man may be hurt through his vanity. Rosemary had turned away, and he called her back.

"Won't you kiss me good-bye?" he asked, with a new humility.

Then Rosemary laughed, too, but her laugh was also mirthless. "No," she answered, in a tone from which there was no appeal. "Why should I?" Before he realised it, she was gone.

He went back to the log and sat down to think. This last tryst with Rosemary had been a surprise in more ways than one. He had been afraid that she would be angry, or hurt, and she had been neither. He had come to ask for freedom and she had given it to him without asking, because she could not leave Grandmother and Aunt Matilda, and because she did not love him. He could understand the first reason, but the latter seemed very strange. Yet Rosemary had looked him straight in the face and he had never known her to lie. He had a new emotion toward her; not exactly respect, but something more than that.

[Sidenote: A Letter for Edith]

Then, with a laugh, he straightened his shoulders. He had what he wanted, though it had not come in the way he thought it would. If he had been obliged to ask her to release him, he would have felt worse than he did now. The letter in his pocket, heavy with portent, asserted itself imperiously. He hurried home, feeling very chivalrous.

Edith, cool and fresh in white linen, with one of the last of the red roses thrust into her belt, was rocking on the veranda, with a book in her lap which she had made no pretence of reading. Two or three empty chairs were near her, but Madame was nowhere to be seen. Alden handed her the letter. "I'm free!" he said, exultantly.

Edith smiled, then, with shaking hands, tore open the letter. Alden eagerly watched her as she turned the closely written pages, but her face was inscrutable. She read every word carefully, until she reached the signature. Then she looked up.

"I'm not," she said, briefly. She tossed the letter to him, and went into the house. He heard her light feet upon the stairs and the rustle of her skirts as she ascended. Perfume persisted in the place she had just left—the rose at her belt, the mysterious blending of many sweet odours, and, above all, the fragrance of Edith herself.

[Sidenote: Alden Reads the Letter]

"It's nonsense," he murmured, looking after her. All her quixotic notions of honour would eventually yield to argument—of course they would. Yet his heart strangely misgave him as he read the letter.

"My dear Edith," it began.

"Your letter has somewhat surprised me, and yet I cannot say I feel that I don't deserve it. Since you have been away I have been doing a good deal of thinking. Of course you and I haven't hit it off very well together, and, as I can see no point where you have failed me, I realise that it must be my fault and that I have failed you.

"I wish you had talked to me about it, instead of going away, and yet, even as I write the words, I see how impossible it would have been, for we haven't been in the habit of talking things over since the first year we were married. Gradually the wall of silence and reserve has grown up between us, but while you, with the quicker insight of a woman, have seen it growing, I haven't realised it until it was completed.

"Your offering me my freedom has made me wonder what my life would be without you. No one has ever filled your place to me, or ever will. I may have seemed careless, thoughtless—indeed, I have been both, and constantly, but always in the background has been the knowledge that you were there—that I could depend upon you.

[Sidenote: The Husband's Point of View]

"It may seem like a trite and commonplace thing to say, but upon my word and honour, Edith, I haven't meant to fail you, as I see I have in a thousand ways. I'm sorry, deeply sorry, but I know that the words will not mean much to you.

"Since I first saw you, there's never been any woman in the world for me but you, and there never will be, even though you should cast me off as I deserve. If you can make up your mind to come back to me and let me try again, I'll do my best to make you happy—to consider you instead of myself.

"Men are selfish brutes at the best, and I don't claim to be any better than the average, but all I'm asking for now is a chance to make myself worthy of you—to be the sort of husband a woman like you should have.

"Please let me hear from you very soon.

"Your loving husband,

"W. G. L."

Alden read it again, though he did not need to—he had understood every word of it the first time. Then he folded it, slowly and precisely, and put it into the torn envelope. He tapped on the arm of the chair for a moment with the edge of the envelope, then, mechanically, put it into his pocket.

[Sidenote: Effect upon Alden]

A robin, in a maple tree beyond him, piped his few notes with unbearable intensity. Discordant chirps assailed his ears from the lattice where the climbing rose put forth its few last blooms. Swaying giddily in a crazy pattern upon the white floor of the veranda, was the shadow of the rose, the plaything of every passing wind. He remembered the moonlight night which might have been either yesterday or in some previous life, as far as his confused perceptions went, when Edith had stood with the rose in her hand, and the clear, sharply-defined shadow of it had been silhouetted at her feet.

All his senses seemed mercilessly acute. Some of the roses were almost dead and the sickening scent of them mingled with the fragrance of those that had just bloomed. It made him dizzy—almost faint.

The maid announced luncheon, but food, or the sight of his mother were among the last things he desired, just then. Affecting not to hear, he went out, got a boat, and rowed far up the river alone.

When he was utterly exhausted, he shipped the oars and let himself drift back, pushing out from shore now and then when the current brought him too near. He knew, with crushing certainty, that Edith would not be swerved from her chosen path by argument—but he could at least try.

[Sidenote: A Silent Function]

White-faced and weary, he went to his room when he reached home, lay down, and tried to sleep, but sleep would not come. He seemed to have come to a point of absolute bodily suspension, neither to hunger nor thirst nor sleep again. It was, in a way, like a clock, that ticks steadily, though the hands are definitely fixed at a certain hour and will not move.

He forced himself to dress for dinner and to go down at the proper time. Madame was waiting, but Edith was late. When she appeared, she was in the white linen gown she had worn all day, with the withered rose in her belt. It was the first evening she had not dressed for dinner and she at once apologised to Madame.

"I'm sorry," she said, "but it seemed impossible to make the effort to-night. You'll forgive me, won't you?"

"Of course," Madame returned sweetly.

"Of course," Alden echoed. His voice sounded distant and his eyes were dull.

As dinner bade fair to be a silent function, Madame turned to Edith with the first question that came into her mind.

"What have you been doing all the afternoon?"

"Packing," replied Edith, with dry lips.

[Sidenote: Nothing to Say]

"Or rather, getting ready to pack." She did not look at Alden, but at Madame, with a wan little smile that made the old lady's heart suddenly very tender toward her.

"My dear! We'll miss you so."

"I know," Edith murmured, "and I shall miss you—more than words may say, but I have to go." She drained the glass of water at her plate, then added: "My husband wants me to come back. He has written to say so."

"Then," said Madame, "I suppose you will have to go."

"I suppose so," repeated Edith, parrot-like.

Alden's eyes never swerved from Edith's white face. In their depths was the world-old longing, the world-old appeal, but never for the fraction of an instant did Edith trust herself to look at him.

When they rose from the table, Edith went back to her room immediately, murmuring an excuse. Alden watched her despairingly until the hem of her white gown was lost at the turn of the stairs. Then he sat down with the paper, but he could not read, for the words zig-zagged crazily along the page.

Madame understood and sincerely pitied them both, but there seemed to be nothing to say. She leaned back in her chair, with her eyes closed, pretending to be asleep, but, in reality, watching Alden as he stared vacantly at the paper he held in his shaking hands.

[Sidenote: Poor Comfort]

At last he rose and went out upon the veranda. Madame started from her chair, then forced herself to lean back again, calmly. She heard the scraping of his chair as he moved it along the veranda, out of the way of the light that came through the open window. For a long time there was silence.

Longing to comfort him and unable to endure it longer, Madame went out, softly. He did not hear her step, for his head was bowed upon his hands. From a room above Edith's light streamed out afar into the sweet darkness, drawing toward it all the winged wayfarers of the night.

Madame slipped her arm around his shoulders, and bent down to him. "Dear," she said brokenly, "she's married."

Alden drew a quick, shuddering breath, and freed himself roughly from the tender clasp. "I know it, Mother," he cried, in a voice vibrant with pain. "For God's sake, don't remind me of that!"



XVIII

Starbreak

[Sidenote: Edith's Failure]

Through the long night Edith lay awake, thinking. Her senses were blindly merged into one comprehensive hurt. She was as one who fares forth in darkness, knowing well the way upon which he must go, yet longing vainly for light.

Her path lay before her, mercilessly clear and distinct. A trick of memory took her back to what Madame had said, the day after she came: "The old way would have been to have waited, done the best one could, and trusted God to make it right in His good time." She remembered, too, her bitter answer: "I've waited and I've done the best I could, and I've trusted, but I've failed."

Keenly she perceived the subtlety of her punishment. Attempting to bind the Everlasting with her own personal limitations, her own desires, she had failed to see that at least half of a rightful prayer must deal with herself. She had asked only that her husband might love her; not that she might continue to love him.

[Sidenote: Out of Harmony]

Now, with her heart and soul wholly in the keeping of another man, the boon had been granted her, in bitterness and ashes and desolation. He had said, in his letter, that her coming away had made him think. Through her absence he had seen the true state of affairs between them, as she could never have made him see it if she had remained at home. This, then, was God's way of revelation to him, but—to her?

The truth broke upon her with the vividness of a lightning flash. It was the way of revelation to her also, but how? She sat up in bed, propping herself back against the pillows, her mind groping eagerly for the clue.

During the past six years she had endeavoured constantly for a certain adjustment. Now it had come, but she herself was out of harmony. Were her feet to be forever set upon the ways of pain? Was there nothing at all in the world for her?

Alden, too, was awake and thinking. She felt it, through the darkness, as definitely as though he had been in the same room, with his face full in the light. He also was conscious of the utter hopelessness of it and was striving to see his way clearly.

Until then, she had not known how far his argument had swayed her, nor how much she had depended upon the thought that her husband would gladly accept the release she offered him. Her principles had not changed, but his possible point of view had not been considered before.

[Sidenote: Irrevocably Bound]

"'Until death do us part,'" said Edith, to herself. "Not 'until death or divorce do us part'; nor yet 'until I see someone else I like better'; not even 'until you see someone else you like better,' And, again, 'forsaking all others keep thee only unto me so long as we both shall live.'"

Suppose he had violated his oath, consented to accept freedom at her hands, and gone his way? Would not the solemn words she had spoken at the altar still be binding upon her? She saw, now, that they would be, and that whatever compromise he might have been able to make with his own conscience, to be legally justified later, she was irrevocably bound, until death should divide them one from the other.

She smiled sadly, for it was, indeed, a confused and muddled world. Things moved crazily, depending wholly upon blind chance. One works steadily, even for years, bending all his energies to one single point, and what is the result? Nothing! Another turns the knob of a door, walks into a strange room, or, perhaps, writes a letter, and from that moment his whole life is changed, for destiny lurks in hinges and abides upon the written page.

For days, for months even, no single action may be significant, and again, upon another day, a thoughtless word, or even a look, may be as a pebble cast into deep waters, to reach, by means of ever-widening circles, some distant, unseen shore.

[Sidenote: The One Affected]

All this had come from a single sentence. Louise Archer, upon her death-bed, had harked back to her school days, and, thinking fondly of Virginia Marsh, had bade her daughter go to her if she felt the need of a mother's counsel when her own mother was past the power of giving it. Years afterward, during a day of despondency, Edith had remembered. The pebble had fallen deep and far and had become still again, but its final circle had that day touched the ultimate boundary made by three lives.

It had, of course, made no difference to Madame, but two men and a woman had been profoundly shaken by it, though not moved from their original position. They would all stay where they were, of course—Alden with his mother, and Edith with her husband. Then, with a shock, Edith remembered Rosemary—she was the one who had been swept aside as though by a tidal wave.

Poor Rosemary! Edith's heart throbbed with understanding pity for the girl who had lost all. She had not asked how it had happened, merely accepting Alden's exultant announcement. Now she hoped that it might have been done delicately, so that Alden need not feel himself a brute, nor Rosemary's pride be hurt.

[Sidenote: A Sleepless Night]

Then, through the night, came a definite perception, as though Alden himself had given her assurance. Rosemary had done it herself, had she? Very well—that was as it should be. For a moment she dwelt upon the fact with satisfaction, then, a little frightened, began to speculate upon this mysterious tie between herself and Alden.

The thing was absurd, impossible. She curled her short upper lip scornfully in the darkness. "You know it is," she said, imperiously, in her thought, as though in answer to a mocking question from somewhere: "Is it?"

She turned restlessly. All at once her position became tiresome, unbearable. She wanted to go to sleep, indeed she must sleep, for she had a long hard day before her to-morrow, putting her things into her trunks. Perhaps, if she rose and walked around her room a little——

One small, pink foot was on the floor, and the other almost beside it, when a caution came to her from some external source: "Don't. You'll take cold." She got back into bed, shivering a little. Yes, the polished floor was cold.

Then she became furious with Alden and with herself. Why couldn't the man go to sleep? It must be past midnight, now, and she would walk, if she wanted to. Defiantly and in a triumph of self-assertion, she went to the open window and peered out into the stillness, illumined by neither moon nor stars. The night had the suffocating quality of hangings of black velvet.

[Sidenote: Sitting in the Dark]

She lighted a candle, found her kimono and slippers, wrapped herself in a heavy blanket, and drew up a low rocker to the open window. Then she put out the light and settled herself to wait until she was sleepy.

The darkness that clung around her so closely seemed alive, almost thrilling, as it did, with fibres of communication perceptible only to a sixth sense. She marvelled at the strangeness of it, but was no longer afraid. Her fear had vanished at the bidding of someone else.

Why was it? she asked herself, for the hundredth time, and almost immediately the answer came: "Why not?"

Why not, indeed? If a wireless telegraph instrument, sending its call into space, may be answered with lightning-like swiftness by another a thousand miles away, why should not a thought, without the clumsy medium of speech, instantly respond to another thought from a mind in harmony with it?

A subtle analogy appeared between the earth and the body, the tower from which the wireless signalled and the thought which called to another. When the physical forces were at their lowest ebb, and the powers of the spirit had risen to keep the balance true, why was not communication possible always between soul and soul? And, if one lived always above the fog of sense, as far as the earth-bound may, what would be the need of speech or touch between those who belonged to one another?

[Sidenote: Two Views]

She and Alden "belonged," there was no doubt of that. She had, for him, the woman's recognition of her mate, which is never to be mistaken or denied when once it has asserted itself. "Why," she thought, "will people marry without it?" The other mind responded instantly: "Because they don't know."

Marriage presented itself before her in two phases, the one sordid and unworthy, as it so often is, the other as it might be—the earthly seal upon a heavenly bond. But, if the heavenly relationship existed, was the other essential? Her heart answered "No."

Slowly she began to see her way through the maze of things. "Dust to dust, earth to earth, ashes to ashes." Then she laughed outright, for that was part of the burial service, and she had been thinking of something else. And yet—earth to earth meant only things that belonged together; why not soul to soul?

Warm tides of assurance and love flowed through her heart, cleansing, strengthening, sweeping barriers aside in a mighty rush of joy. What barriers could earth interpose, when two belonged to each other in such heavenly ways as this? Step by step her soul mounted upward to the heights, keeping pace with another, in the room beyond.

[Sidenote: Edith's Revelation]

Out of sound and sight and touch, with darkened spaces and closed doors between, they two faced the world together as surely as though they were hand in hand. Even Death could make no difference—need Life deny them more?

Then, with a blinding flash of insight, the revelation came to her—there was no denial, since they loved. Sense, indeed, was wholly put aside, but love has nothing to do with sense, being wholly of the soul. Shaken with wonder, she trembled as she sat in her chair, staring out into the starless night.

No denial! All that Love might give was theirs, not only for the moment but for all the years to come. Love—neither hunger nor thirst nor passion nor the need of sleep; neither a perception of the senses nor a physical demand, yet streaming divinely through any or all of these as only light may stream—the heavenly signal of a star to earth, through infinite darkness, illimitable space.

By tortuous paths and devious passages, she had come out upon the heights, into the clear upper air of freedom and of love. Exquisitely, through the love of the one had come the love of the many; the complete mastery of self had been gained by the surrender of self; triumph had rewarded sacrifice.

[Sidenote: Her Understanding of Love]

Nothing was difficult now—nothing would ever be hard again. To go where she was wanted, to give what she could that was needed, steadily to set self aside, asking for nothing but the opportunity to help, and through this high human service renewing the spent forces of her soul at the divine fountains that do not fail—this, indeed, was Love!

Oh, to make the others understand as she understood now—and as Alden understood! In her thought they two were as one. Groping through the same darkness, he had emerged, with her, into the same light; she felt it through the living, throbbing night more certainly than if they stood face to face in the blinding glare of the sun.

The heart-breaking tragedy of Woman revealed itself wholly to her for the first time. Less materialistic and more finely-grained than Man, she aspires toward things that are often out of his reach. Failing in her aspiration, confused by the effort to distinguish the false from the true, she blindly clutches at the counterfeit and so loses the genuine forever.

Longing, from the day of her birth for Love, she spends herself prodigally in the endless effort to find it, little guessing, sometimes, that it is not the most obvious thing Man has to offer. With colour and scent and silken sheen, she makes a lure of her body; with cunning artifice she makes temptation of her hands and face and weaves it with her hair. She flatters, pleads, cajoles; denies only that she may yield, sets free in order to summon back, and calls, so that when he has answered she may preserve a mystifying silence.

[Sidenote: Her Estimate of Women]

She affects a thousand arts that in her heart she despises, pretends to housewifery that she hates, forces herself to play tunes though she has no gift for music, and chatters glibly of independence when she has none at all.

In making herself "all things to all men," she loses her own individuality, and becomes no more than a harp which any passing hand may strike to quick response. To one man she is a sage, to another an incarnate temptation, to another a sensible, business-like person, to another a frothy bit of frivolity. To one man she is the guardian of his ideals, as Elaine in her high tower kept Launcelot's shield bright for him, to another she is what he very vaguely terms "a good fellow," with a discriminating taste in cigarettes and champagne.

Let Man ask what he will and Woman will give it, praying only that somewhere she will come upon Love. She adapts herself to him as water adapts itself to the shape of the vessel in which it is placed. She dare not assert herself or be herself, lest, in some way, she should lose her tentative grasp upon the counterfeit which largely takes the place of love. If he prefers it, she will expatiate upon her fondness for vaudeville and musical comedy until she herself begins to believe that she likes it. With tears in her eyes and her throat raw, she will choke upon the assertion that she likes the smell of smoke; she will assume passion when his slightest touch makes her shudder and turn cold.

[Sidenote: Her Estimate of Women]

And, most pitiful of all, when blinded by her own senses, she will surrender the last citadel of her womanhood to him who comes a-wooing, undismayed by the weeping women around her whose sacred altars have been profaned and left bare. They may have told her that if it is love, the man will protect her even against himself, but why should she take account of the experience of others? Has not he himself just told her that she is different from all other women? Hugging this sophistry to her breast, and still searching for love, she believes him until the day of realisation dawns upon her—old and broken and bitter-hearted, with scarcely a friend left in the world, and not even the compensating coin thriftily demanded by her sister of the streets.

Under her countless masques and behind her multitudinous phases, lurks the old hunger, the old appeal. Man, too, though more rarely, guessing that the imperishable beauty of the soul is above the fog of sense and not in it, searches hopefully at first, then despairingly, and finally offers the counterfeit to the living Lie who is waiting for it with eager, outstretched hands.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The Clouds Break]

Stirred to the depths by the pity of it, Edith brushed away a tear or two. She was not at all sleepy, but drew the blanket closer around her, for the night grew chill as the earth swept farther and farther away from the sun. The clouds had begun to drift away, and faintly, through the shadow, glimmered one pale star. Gradually, others came out, then a white and ghostly moon, with a veil of cloud about it, grey, yet iridescent, like mother-of-pearl.

Blown far across the seas of space by a swiftly rising wind, the clouds vanished, and all the starry hosts of heaven marched forth, challenging the earth with javelins of light.

"Starbreak," murmured Edith, "up there and in my soul."

The blue rays of the love-star burned low upon the grey horizon, that star towards which the eyes of women yearn and which women's feet are fain to follow, though, like a will-o'-the-wisp, it leads them through strange and difficult places, and into the quicksands.

[Sidenote: Fellowship with the World]

The body grows slowly, but the soul progresses by leaps and bounds. Through a single hurt or a single joy, the soul of a child may reach man's estate, never to go backward, but always on. And so, through a great love and her own complete comprehension of its meaning, Edith had grown in a night out of herself, into a beautiful fellowship with the whole world.

Strangely uplifted and forever at peace, she rose from her chair. The blanket slipped away from her, and her loosened hair flowed back over her shoulders, catching gleams of starlight as it fell. She stretched out her arms in yearning toward Alden, her husband, Madame—indeed, all the world, having come out of self into service; through the love of one to the love of all.

Then, through the living darkness, came the one clear call: "Mine?"

Unmistakably the answer surged back: "In all the ways of Heaven and for always, I am thine."



XIX

If Love Were All

[Sidenote: When the Shadows Lengthen]

The last of the packing was done, and four trunks stood in the lower hall, waiting for the expressman. Alden had not seen Edith that day, though he had haunted the house since breakfast, waiting and hoping for even a single word.

She had been too busy to come down to luncheon, and had eaten only a little from the tray Madame sent to her room. She was to take the early train in the morning.

The afternoon shadows had begun to lengthen when she came down, almost as white as her fresh linen gown, but diffusing about her some radiance from within that seemed not wholly of earth. He met her at the foot of the stairs, and took her hand in his.

"Edith! I've been longing for you all day!"

"And I for you," she returned, avoiding his eyes.

"Listen, dear. Give me the rest of it, won't you?"

[Sidenote: For the Last Time]

"The rest of what?"

"The little time you have left with us—this afternoon and to-night."

For a moment she hesitated, then looked him full in the face, her eyes mutely questioning his.

"I won't," he said. "I promise you that."

"Then I'll come."

"Out on the river?"

"Yes."

"It's for the last time, Edith," he said, sadly; "the very last time."

"I know," she returned. Her lips quivered a little, but her eyes did not falter. Clear and steadfast they looked far beyond him into the future where he had no part. The golden lights in them seemed signal fires now, summoning him mysteriously onward to some high service, not alien, even though apart from her.

They said no more until they were in the boat, swinging out upon the sunlit river. Then Edith glanced at him, half shyly.

"Wasn't last night wonderful?"

"Wasn't it!" he echoed. "I never understood before."

"Nor I."

She trailed a white hand in the water as they sped up stream. The light touched her hair lovingly, bringing gleams of gold and amber from the depths.

[Sidenote: Alden's Silence]

"Dear," he said, "did you think that, after last night, I could urge you to violate your solemn oath or even to break your word?"

"I hoped not, but I didn't know."

"I see it all clearly now. If more was meant for us to have, more would be right for us to take. Back in the beginning this was meant for you and me—just this, and nothing more."

"How could there be more? Isn't love enough?"

"Surely, but the separation hurts. Never even to see your face or touch your hand again!"

"I know," she said, softly. "I'll want you, too."

A thousand things struggled for utterance, but, true to his word, he remained silent. His whole nature was merged into an imperious demand for her, the cry of the man's soul for the woman who belonged to him by divine right.

"If love were all," she breathed, as though in answer to it, "I'd come."

"If love were all," he repeated. "I wonder why it isn't? What is there on earth aside from this? What more can heaven be than love—without the fear of parting?"

"No more," she replied. "We've lost each other in this life, but there's another life to come."

[Sidenote: Whirling Atoms]

"'Helen's lips are drifting dust,'" he quoted.

"Perhaps not. That which once was Helen may be alive to-day in a thousand different forms. A violet upon a mossy bank, a bough of apple blossoms mirrored in a pool, the blood upon some rust-stained sword, a woman waiting, somewhere, for a lover who does not come."

"And her soul?"

"Drawn back into the Universal soul, to be born anew, in part or all."

"What a pagan you are!"

"Yes," she responded, smiling a little, "I am pagan and heathen and Christian martyr and much else. I am everything that I can understand and nothing that I cannot. Don't you see?"

"Yes, I see, but what are we after all? Only two whirling atoms, blown on winds of Fate. What difference does it make whether we cling together, or are hopelessly sundered, as far apart as the poles?"

"The same difference that it makes to a human body whether its atoms behave or not. You don't want to upset the Universe, do you?"

He laughed, a trifle bitterly. "I don't flatter myself that I could."

"Not you alone, nor I, nor even both together, but we mustn't set a bad example to other atoms. As long as there's a preponderance of right in the world, things are clear, but, shift the balance, and then——"

[Sidenote: What Is Right?]

"What is right?" he demanded, roughly. "Always to do the thing you don't want to do?"

"That depends," she returned, shrugging her shoulders. "It is to do what you think is right, and trust that it may be so."

Alden stopped rowing. He was interested in these vague abstractions. "And," he said, "if a woman thinks it is her duty to murder her husband, and does it, is she doing right?"

"Possibly. I've seen lots of husbands who would make the world better by leaving it, even so—well, abruptly, as you indicate. And the lady you speak of, who, as it were, assists, may merely have drawn a generous part of Lucretia Borgia for her soul-substance, and this portion chanced to assert itself while her husband was in the house and out of temper."

"Don't be flippant, darling. This is our last day together. Let's not play a waltz at an open grave."

The long light lay upon the tranquil waters, and, as a mirror might, the river gave it back a hundred-fold, sending stray gleams into the rushes at the bend in the stream, long arrows of impalpable silver into the far shadows upon the shore, and a transfiguring radiance to Edith's face.

[Sidenote: A Rainbow]

Where the marsh swerved aside to wait until the river passed, the sunlight took a tall, purple-plumed iris, the reflection of the turquoise sky in a shallow pool, a bit of iridescence from a dragon-fly's wing, the shimmering green of blown grasses and a gleam of rising mist to make a fairy-like rainbow that, upon the instant, disappeared.

"Oh!" said Edith. "Did you see?"

"See what, dearest?"

"The rainbow—just for a moment, over the marsh?"

"No, I didn't. Do you expect me to hunt for rainbows while I may look into your face?"

The faint colour came to her cheeks, then receded. "Better go on," she suggested, "if we're to get where we're going before dark."

The oars murmured in the water, then rain dripped from the shining blades. The strong muscles of his body moved in perfect unison as the boat swept out into the sunset glow. Deeper and more exquisite with every passing moment, the light lay lovingly upon the stream, bearing fairy freight of colour and gold to the living waters that sang and crooned and dreamed from hills to sea.

"It doesn't seem," she said, "as though it were the last time. With earth so beautiful, how can people be miserable?"

[Sidenote: A Perfect Spring Day]

"Very easily," he responded. The expression of his face changed ever so little, and lines appeared around his mouth.

"I remember," Edith went on, "the day my mother died. It was a perfect day late in the Spring, when everything on earth seemed to exult in the joy of living. Outside, it was life incarnate, with violets and robins and apple blossoms and that ineffable sweetness that comes only then. Inside, she lay asleep, as pale and cold as marble. At first, I couldn't believe it. I went outside, then in again. One robin came to the tree outside her window and sang until my heart almost broke with the pain of it. And every time I've heard a robin since, it all comes back to me."

"Yes," said Alden, quietly, "but all the life outside was made from death, and the death within had only gone on to life again. You cannot have one without the other, any more than you can have a light without a shadow somewhere."

"Nor a shadow," Edith continued, "without knowing that somewhere there must be light."

They stopped at the cleft between the hills, where they had been the other day, but this time no one waited, with breaking heart, behind the rustling screen of leaves. Against the rock, with some simple woodcraft of stones and dry twigs, Alden made a fire, while Edith spread the white cloth that covered Madame's basket and set forth the dainty fare.

[Sidenote: At Sunset]

They ate in silence, not because there was nothing to say, but because there was so much that words seemed empty and vain. Afterward, when the flaming tapestry in the West had faded to a pale web of rose and purple, faintly starred with exquisite lamps of gleaming pearl, he came to her, and, without speaking, took her into his arms.

For a long time they stood there, heart to heart, in that rapturous communion wholly transcending sense. To him it was not because she was a woman; it was because she was Edith, the mate of his heart and soul. And, to her, it was a subtle completion of herself, the best of her answering eagerly to the best in him.

At last, with a sigh, he pushed her gently away from him, and looked down into her eyes with a great sadness.

"Never any more, beloved. Have you thought of that?"

"Yes, I know," she whispered. "Never any more."

"I'll want you always."

"And I you."

"Sometimes my heart will almost break with longing for you, craving the dear touch of you, though it might be only to lay my hand upon your face."

[Sidenote: The Day's Duty]

"Yes, I know."

"And at night, when I dream that we're somewhere together, and I reach out my arms to hold you close, I'll wake with a start, to find my arms empty and my heart full."

"The whole world lies between us, dear."

"And heaven also, I think."

"No, not heaven, for there we shall find each other again, with no barriers to keep us apart."

"I shall live only to make myself worthy of finding you, dearest. I have nothing else to do."

"Ah, but you have."

"What?"

"The day's duty, always; the thing that lies nearest your hand. You know, I've begun to see that it isn't so much our business to be happy as it is to do the things we are meant to do. And I think, too, that happiness comes most surely to those who do not go out in search of it, but do their work patiently, and wait for it to come."

"That may be true for others, but not for us. What happiness is there in the world for me, apart from you?"

"Memory," she reminded him gently. "We've had this much and nobody can take it away from us."

[Sidenote: Memories]

"But even this will hurt, heart's dearest, when we see each other no more."

"Not always." As she spoke, she sat down on the ground and leaned back against a tree. He dropped down beside her, slipped his arm around her, and drew her head to his shoulder, softly kissing her hair.

"I remember everything," she went on, "from the time you met me at the station. I can see you now as you came toward me, and that memory is all by itself, for nobody at the very first meeting looks the same as afterward. There is always some subtle change—I don't know why. Do I look the same to you now as I did then?"

"You've always been the most beautiful thing in the world to me, since the first moment I saw you."

"No, not the first moment."

"When was it, then, darling?"

"The first night, when I came down to dinner, in that pale green satin gown. Don't you remember?"

"As if I could ever forget!"

"And you thought I looked like a tiger-lily."

"Did I?"

"Yes, but you didn't say it and I was glad, for so many other men had said it before."

"Perhaps it was because, past all your splendour, I saw you—the one perfect and peerless woman God made for me and sent to me too late."

[Sidenote: Kisses]

"Not too late for the best of it, dear."

"What else do you remember?"

"Everything. I haven't forgotten a word nor a look nor a single kiss. The strange sweet fires in your eyes, the clasp of your arms around me, your lips on mine, the nights we've lain awake with love surging from heart to heart and back again—it's all strung for me into a rosary of memories that nothing can ever take away."

"That first kiss, beloved. Do you remember?"

"Yes. It was here." She stretched out her arm and with a rosy finger-tip indicated the bare, sweet hollow of her elbow, just below the sleeve.

Lover-like, he kissed it again. "Do you love me?"

"Yes, Boy—for always."

"How much?"

"Better than everything else in the world. Do you love me?"

"Yes, with all my heart and soul and strength and will. There isn't a fibre of me that doesn't love you."

"For always?"

"Yes, for always."

And so they chanted the lover's litany until even the afterglow had died out of the sky. Edith released herself from his clinging arms. "We must go," she sighed. "It's getting late."

[Sidenote: If]

He assisted her to her feet, and led her to the boat, moored in shallows that made a murmurous singing all around it and upon the shore. He took her hand to help her in, then paused.

"If love were all," he asked, "what would you do?"

"If love were all," she answered, "I'd put my arms around you, like this, never to be unclasped again. I'd go with you to-night, to the end of the world, and ask for nothing but that we might be together. I'd face the heat of the desert uncomplainingly, the cold of perpetual snows. I'd bear anything, suffer anything, do anything. I'd so merge my life with yours that one heart-beat would serve us both, and when we died, we'd go together—if love were all."

"God bless you, dear!" he murmured, with his lips against hers.

"And you. Come."

The boat swung out over the shallows into the middle of the stream, where the current took them slowly and steadily toward home. For the most part they drifted, though Alden took care to keep the boat well out from shore, and now and then, with the stroke of an oar dipped up a myriad of mirrored stars.

[Sidenote: Seeking for a Message]

Edith laughed. "Give me one, won't you, please?"

"You shall have them all."

"But I asked only for one."

"Then choose."

She leaned forward, in the scented shadow, serious now, with a quick and characteristic change of mood. "The love star," she breathed. "Keep it burning for me, will you, in spite of clouds and darkness—for always?"

"Yes, my queen—for always."

When they reached the house, Madame was nowhere in sight. Divining their wish to be alone on this last evening together, she had long since gone to her own room. The candles on the mantel had been lighted and the reading lamp burned low. Near it was the little red book that Edith had found at the top of the Hill of the Muses.

Sighing, she took it up. "How long ago it seems," she said, "and yet it wasn't. Life began for me that night."

"And for me. I read to you, do you remember, just before I kissed you for the first time?"

"Yes. Read to me again just before you kiss me for the last time, then give me the book to keep."

"Which one? The same?"

"No," cried Edith. "Anything but that!"

"Then choose. Close your eyes, and choose."

"It's like seeking for a message, or a sign," she said, as she swiftly turned the pages. Then, with her eyes still closed, she offered him the book. "Here—read this. Is it a blank page?"

[Sidenote: Severed Selves]

There was a pause, then Edith opened her eyes. "It isn't the first one you read to me, is it? Don't tell me that it is!"

"No," said Alden, "it isn't, but it's a message. Listen."

She sat down, in her old place, but he stood at the table, bending toward the light. His boyish mouth trembled a little, his hands were unsteady, and there was a world of love and pain in his eyes. With his voice breaking upon the words, he read:

"Two separate divided silences, Which, brought together, would find loving voice; Two glances which together would rejoice In love, now lost like stars beyond dark trees; Two hands apart, whose touch alone gives ease; Two bosoms which, heart-shrined with mutual flame, Would, meeting in one clasp, be made the same; Two souls, the shores wave-mocked of sundering seas:—

Such are we now. Ah! may our hope forecast Indeed one hour again, when on this stream Of darkened love once more the light shall gleam?— An hour how slow to come, how quickly past,— Which blooms and fades, and only leaves at last, Faint as shed flowers, the attenuated dream."

For a moment the silence was tense. Then the hall clock struck the hour of midnight. It beat upon their senses like a funeral knell. Then Edith, white-faced, and struggling valiantly for self-control, reached out her hand for the book.