Part 28

"Do you think Margaret cares anything for Angus?" she asked, the hour being that post-retiring one sacred in every age to conjugal conference.

"I don't think so--certainly not; why should she? We have a triangular family altogether--two to each of us, and why should she want any more? She has you and me, just as I have you and her, and you have her and me."

"But that is foolish; you don't understand."

"I don't want to understand," I answered drowsily. "Margaret's only a child--and I want to go to sleep; if I don't sleep over my sermon to-night, the people will to-morrow." For it was Saturday night.

But "the child" was not asleep. The love affairs of other hearts are by others easily borne, even though those others be the next nearest and dearest of all. But how different with the maiden's heart that loves, and tremblingly hopes that it loves not in vain! Then doth the pillow burn with holy passion, and considerate sleep, like an indulgent nurse, turns her steps aside, fearing to break in upon the soul's solemn revelry. Even when she ventures nigh, gently withdrawing the still unwearied heart from its virgin joy, do the half open lips still sip from the new found cisterns of sweet and tender bliss.

O holy love! Who shall separate the joy thou bringest from the heart that opens wide to welcome it, even as the flower bares its bosom to the sun?

Darkness and tears and sorrow may follow fast; fears and misgivings and dread discoveries may come close upon thy train; broken-heartedness and bleak perpetual maidenhood may be thine only relics; or, flowering with the years, the thorns of grief and poverty and widowhood may grow where youthful fancy looked for radiant flowers; the heart which echoed with thy bridal song may yet peal forth the Rachel cry--but thou belongest to the heart forever, and none of these can dispossess the soul of its unforgotten transport. Nor fire, nor flood, nor fraud can prevail against thee! Thy treasures moth and rust doth not corrupt nor thieves break through and steal!

As a burning building lends its heat to all beside it, so was my own soul kindled, half with rapture and half with anger, by the story of Margaret's passion. Father's and daughter's hearts were never pressed closer to each other than were mine and my only child's.

It was the succeeding Sunday night that Margaret, in her father's arms, breathed out the tender tale; I was enjoying my evening smoke (a post-sermonic anodyne), but long before Margaret had finished, my cigar was in ashes and my heart in flame.

"Father," she began, her face hidden on my shoulder, "I am either very happy or very wretched, and I cannot decide which till I know which you will be."

"The old problem, daughter, is it not?" I answered. "Still longing to enter a hospital? And you want to wheedle your old father into giving you up?" for Margaret, like every other modern girl, had been craving entrance to that noble calling. The high-born and the love-lorn, those weary of life, or of love, or both, find a refuge there.

"No, father, I was not thinking of that at all. I don't want to be a nurse any more."

"What is it then? You have never had any secrets from your father and you will not have any now, will you, dear one?"

"Oh, father, I will tell you all I can--but I cannot tell you all."

I started in my chair, for the child note was absent from her words, and the passion of womanhood was in its stead. Awesome to a father's heart is that moment wherein a daughter's voice unconsciously asserts the suffrage of her soul.

"Go on, my daughter--tell me what you may," I said, for I knew now that the realm was one wherein parental authority was of no avail.

Only silence followed; her lips spoke no word, but the heaving bosom had a rhetoric all its own and told me that a new life, begotten not of mine, was throbbing there. An alien life it seemed to me, a soul's expansion beyond the province of my own, an infinitude which denied the sway of even a father's love. At length she spoke:

"Oh, father, I will tell you all--that is, all I can. But I am so lonely. You cannot follow me, father. I have gone away in--with another--in where you cannot go."

"What mean you, Margaret? In where? Where can I not come?" I asked, perplexed.

"Father, let me tell you. I am speaking in a figure, I know--but it is the only way--and you will understand. Love is a far country, and prodigals take their journey there--but they seek it two by two. Oh, father, another one and I went off together to that far, far land and those who go leave father and mother far behind. But there is no hunger and no famine there."

Rich the endowment love bestows! While we had all thought Margaret anything but dull, yet this new speech of metaphor and music fell upon my ears as a great surprise. That live coal from off God's altar had touched her lips when first another's burning lips of love anointed them with flame. When this new sun arises, the humblest of God's meadow creatures know that the soul has wings and spread them in that holy light.

Closer to my breast I pressed the heart whose tumult, as it struggled with its muffled witnesses, started the same passionate riot in my own.

"There are many voices in your heart, daughter mine; let them speak every one and tell me all their story. Where is it that your father cannot come?"

"Father," she answered, with sweet calmness but with averted face, "I never loved you more than now. But love's joy is in its loneliness, its sweet bridal loneliness. It was a long weary way that another one and I--you know his name, and I cannot speak it yet--walked together, but not alone together; for others walked besides us--and friendship is a cruel thing. But oh, father dear, one day--no, it was in the gloaming, we saw an avenue far beyond; and we both knew it was for us and for us alone. I saw it first, but I did not let Angus know. But he saw it in a moment and he started quickly on. Then my feet fell back, though my heart pressed on with his. But Angus would not let me stop. He hurried me on; and it was sweet to be overborne, for love makes a man so strong and a woman so weak.

"When we came close up to where you enter in, I saw that the way within was sweet, and shadowy, so shadowy, but I saw that it was long, so long. And I turned away, though my heart never turned. But Angus's eyes never moved from the avenue, and he whispered that it was meant for us two--just for us two--and for none on earth beside; he said no one could go in alone, because it would vanish if they did--and he held me close--and we went in together--and we shall come out no more forever. That is where you cannot come, father--nor mother, nor dearest friend can. You could not if you would, for it is God who keeps the gate."

Her trembling voice was still, but throbbing heart and swelling bosom still poured forth their passionate utterance.

Soon her lips opened again, yielding before the inner tide.

"And father," her hot cheek pressed to mine foretold the ardent story, "it was at evening, as I said, and Angus and I had wandered far--farther than we thought. We were resting on a grassy knoll. Angus had been speaking of his mother, and he said that the beauty of nature always made his heart ache. Surely, father, there is nothing so lonesome as beauty when the heart's lonesome! Angus and I were still a long time--till it was growing dusk; and then at last he said, 'How lonely all this is if no one loves you!' And I started at his tone, and when my eyes met his I went down before them, for they caressed me so. Father dear, I need not tell you all. I could not if I would--no girl could. I know, I remember, oh, I remember what he said, and no one else knows but me, and my soul trusted him and he took me into the sheltering place where nobody but God could see my soul's surrender."