Part 60

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.