Part 62

"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.

"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."

"'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----"