Part 73

"DEAR AND EVER DEARER:

"Your letter lies against my heart where I feel it with every rising breath. I, too, have longed for you, a thousand times, and in a thousand ways.

"Always as the tide of the night turns, I wake and think of you. When through the darkness comes no response, I smile to myself, knowing you are asleep, then I sleep also. But sometimes, in an instant, the darkness becomes alive and throbs with eager messages, as love surges from my heart to yours and from yours to mine.

"I, too, have come into the way of service, of brotherhood. It may seem a strange thing to write, or even to say, but you, who have never failed to understand me, will understand this. I never cared so much for my husband as I do now; I was never less conscious of myself, never more eager to ask nothing and give all. And, through this change in me has come about a change in him. Instead of each of us selfishly demanding what we conceive to be our 'rights,' each strives unselfishly to please the other--to see who can give the most.

"You have taken nothing away that belongs to anyone else, dear--the love I bear you is yours alone, but, through it, I have some way more to give; he is the richer, because of you.

"Like you, I have seen before me a multitude of openings, all leading, through ways of self-sacrifice, to the sure finding of one's self. The more love you give, the more you have; it is, in a way, like the old legend of the man who found he could take to Heaven with him only those things which he had given away.

"All around me I see the pitiful mistakes that masquerade as marriage--women who have no virtues save one tied like millstones to some of earth's noblemen; great-hearted and great-souled women mated with clods. I see people insanely jealous of one another, suspicious, fault-finding, malicious; covertly sending barbed shafts to one another through the medium of general conversation. As if love were ever to be held captive, or be won by cords and chains! As if the freest thing on earth would for a moment enter into bondage, or minister unto selfishness when it is, of itself, unselfishness! Passion-slaved and self-bound, they never see beyond their own horizon, nor guess that the great truths of life and love lie just beyond their reach.

"Looking back, I can see one thing that you may have missed. This love of ours has brought joy to you and to me, and, indirectly, happiness to my husband. It has not affected your mother, one way or another, but it has hurt Rosemary--taken away from her the one thing that made her sordid life worth while.

"Dear, can't you see your way clear to make it right with her--to give back at least as much as she had before I came into your life? You will take nothing from me by doing so, for my place with you is secure and beyond the reach of change, as you know yours is with me.

"But, just because the full moon has risen upon midnight, shall we refuse to look at the stars? Believe me, all the lesser loves have their rightful place, which should be more definitely assured because of the greater light.

"I am pleading not only for her, but for you. Tell her everything, if you choose, or if you feel that you must in order to be honest. I am sure you can make her understand.

"The door of the House of Life is open for you and for me, but it is closed against her. It is in your power at least to set it ajar for her; to admit her, too, into full fellowship through striving and through love.

"She will help you with your vineyard people, and, perhaps, come to peace that way. Her unhappy face as I saw it last haunts me--I cannot help feeling that I am in some way responsible. She needs you and what you can give her, more, perhaps, than I, who shall never have it again.

"Never! The word, as I write it, tolls through my consciousness like a funeral knell. Never to see your face again, or to touch your hand, or to hear you say you love me. Never to feel your arms holding me close, your heart beating against mine, never to thrill with ecstasy in every fibre of me in answer to your kiss.

"Only the silence, broken, perhaps, by an occasional letter, and the call in the night, bridging the darkness and distance between us, to be answered for one little hour by love, surging from one to the other and back again.

"And yet these thoughts of ours are as a weaver's shuttle, plying endlessly through the web of night and space and time. One thought may make a slender thread, indeed, but what of the countless thoughts that fly back and forth, weaving and interweaving as they go? Shall they not make first a thread, and then a cord, then a web, and then a fabric, until, at last, there is no separation, but that of the body, which counts for naught?

"Dear Heart, you mean so much to me, are so much. From you and from your love for me I take fresh courage every day. From your strength I make sure of my own strength, from your tenderness I gather compassion, and from your steadfastness I gain the hope that leads me onward, the belief that enables me to face each day bravely and with a smile.

"Deep in my heart, I hold fast to one great joy. Sometimes I close the door quickly upon it and bar up the passage, lest anyone should guess that there, within a bare white chamber, is erected the high altar of my soul, where the lights shine far into the shadows, in spite of rock-hewn portals, closed and barred.

"The knowledge of your love I have with me always, to steady me, to guide me, to uplift me, to make even a grave warm and sweet. And to you, with my own hands, I have brought the divine fire that shall not fail, so what more need we ask of God, save that somewhere, sometime, in His infinite compassion, we may be together, even though it may be in the House not Made with Hands?

"Remember that I long for you, dream of you, hope for you, believe in you, pray for you, and, above all else, love you, love you--love you. And in all the ways of Heaven and for always, I am thine.

"E."

XXIII

Betrothal

Desolation lay upon the vineyard. The fairy lace had been rudely torn aside by invading storms and the Secret Spinners had entered upon their long sleep. The dead leaves rustled back and forth, shivering with the cold, when the winds came down upon the river from the hill. Caught, now and then, upon some whirling gust, the leaves were blown to the surface of the river itself, and, like scuttled craft, swept hastily to ports unknown.

Rosemary escaped from the house early in the afternoon. Unable to go to the Hill of the Muses, or up the river-road, she had taken a long, roundabout path around the outskirts of the village and so reached the hills back of the vineyard. The air of the valley seemed to suffocate her; she longed to climb to the silent places, where the four winds of heaven kept tryst.

She was alone, as always. She sighed as she remembered how lonely she had been all her life. Except Alden, there had never been anyone to whom she could talk freely. Even at school, the other children had, by common consent, avoided the solitary, silent child who sat apart, always, in brown gingham or brown alpaca, and taking refuge in the fierce pride that often shields an abnormal sensitiveness.

She sat down upon the cold, damp earth and leaned against a tree, wondering if it would not be possible for her to take cold and die. In the books, people died when they wanted to, or, what was more to the point, when other people wanted them to. It was wonderful, when you came to think of it, how Death invariably aided Art.

But, in real life, things were pitifully different. People who ought not to die did so, and those who could well be spared clung to mortal existence as though they had drunk deeply of the fabled fountain of immortal youth.