Part 63

"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.

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?"

"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.

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."

"Yes, I know."