Underneath were the baby clothes which the girl-wife had begun to make when she first knew of her child's coming. The cloth was none too fine and the little garments were awkwardly cut and badly sewn, but every stitch had been guided by a great love.
Araminta's first shoes were there, too—soft, formless things of discoloured white kid. Folded in a yellowed paper was a tiny, golden curl, snipped secretly, and marked on the outside: "Minty's hair." Farther down in the trunk were the few relics of Miss Mehitable's far-away girlhood.
A dog-eared primer, a string of bright buttons, a broken slate, a ragged, disreputable doll, and a few blown birds' eggs carefully packed away in a small box of cotton—these were her treasures. There was an old autograph album with a gay blue cover which the years in the trunk had not served to fade. Far down in the trunk was a package which Miss Mehitable took out reverently. It was large and flat and tied with heavy string in hard knots. She untied the knots patiently—her mother had taught her never to cut a string.
Underneath was more paper, and more string. It took her half an hour to bring to light the inmost contents of the package, bound in layer after layer of fine muslin, but not tied. She unrolled the yellowed cloth carefully, for it was very frail. At last she took out a photograph—Anthony Dexter at three-and-twenty—and gazed at it long.
On one page of her autograph album was written an old rhyme. The ink had faded so that it was scarcely legible, but Miss Hitty knew it by heart:
"'If you love me as I love youNo knife can cut our love in two.'Your sincere friend,ANTHONY DEXTER."
Like a tiny sprig of lavender taken from a bush which has never bloomed, this bit of romance lay far back in the secret places of her life. She had a knot of blue ribbon which Anthony Dexter had once given her, a lead pencil which he had gallantly sharpened, and which she had never used.
Her life had been barren—Miss Mehitable knew that, and in her hours of self-analysis, admitted it. She would gladly have taken Evelina's full measure of suffering in exchange for one tithe of Araminta's joy. After Anthony Dexter had turned from her to Evelina, Miss Mehitable had openly scorned him. She had spent the rest of her life, since, in showing him and the rest that men were nothing to her and that he was least of all.
She had hovered near his patients simply for the sake of seeing him—she did not care for them at all. She sat in the front window that she might see him drive by, and counted that day lost which brought her no sight of him. This was her one tenderness, her one vulnerable point.
The afternoon shadows grew long and the maple branches ceased to sway. Outside a bird crooned a lullaby to his nesting mate. An oriole perched on the topmost twig of an evergreen in a corner of the yard, and opened his golden throat in a rapture of song.
Love was abroad in the world that day. Bees hummed it, birds sang it, roses breathed it. The black and gold messengers of the fields bore velvety pollen from flower to flower, moving lazily on shimmering, gossamer wings. A meadow-lark rose from a distant clover field, dropping exquisite, silvery notes as he flew. The scent of green fields and honeysuckles came in at the open window, mingled inextricably with the croon of the bees, but Miss Mehitable knew only that it was Summer, that the world was young, but she was old and alone and would be alone for the rest of her life.
She leaned forward to look at the picture, and Anthony Dexter smiled back at her, boyish, frank, eager, lovable. A tear dropped on the pictured face—not the first one, for the photograph was blistered oddly here and there.
"I've done all I could," said Miss Mehitable to herself, as she wrapped it up again in its many yellowed folds of muslin. "I thought Minty would be happier so, but maybe, after all, God knows best."
Redeemed
Miss Evelina sat alone, in her house, at peace with Anthony Dexter and with all the world. The surging flood of forgiveness and compassion which had swept over her as she gazed at his dead face, had broken down all barriers, abrogated all reserves. She saw that Piper Tom was right; had she forgiven him, she would have been free long ago.
She shrank no longer from her kind, but yearned, instead, for friendly companionship. Once she had taken off her veil and started down the road to Miss Mehitable's, but the habit of the years was strong upon her, and she turned back, affrighted, when she came within sight of the house.
Since she left the hospital, no human being had seen her face, save Anthony Dexter and his son. She had crept, nun-like, into the shelter of her chiffon, dimly taking note of a world which could not, in turn, look upon her. She clung to it still, yet perceived that it was a lie.
She studied herself in the mirror, no longer hating the sight of her own face. She was not now blind to her own beauty, nor did she fail to see that transfiguring touch of sorrow and peace. These two are sculptors, one working both from within and without, and the other only from within.
Why should she not put her veil forever away from her now? Why should she not meet the world face to face, as frankly as the world met her? Why should she delay?
She had questioned herself continually, but found no answer. Since she came back to her old home, she had been mysteriously led. Perhaps she was to be led further through the deep mazes of life—it was not only possible, but probable.
"I'll wait," she said to herself, "for a sign."
She had not seen the Piper since the day they met so strangely, with Anthony Dexter lying dead between them. Quite often, however, she had heard the flute, usually at sunrise or sunset, afar off in the hills. Once, at the hour of the turning night, the melody had come to her on the first grey winds of dawn.
A robin had waked to answer it, for the Piper's fluting was wondrously like his own voice.
Contrasting her present peace with her days of torment. Miss Evelina thrilled with gratitude to Piper Tom, who had taken the weeds out of her garden in more senses than one. His hand had guided her, slowly, yet surely, to the heights of calm. She saw her life now as a desolate valley lying between two peaks. One was sunlit, yet opaline with the mists of morning; the other was scarcely a peak, but merely a high and grassy plain upon which the afternoon shadows lay long.
Ah, but there were terrors in the dark valley which lay between! Sharp crags and treeless wastes, tortuous paths and abysmal depths, with never a rest for the wayfarer who struggled blindly on. She was not yet so secure upon the height that she could contemplate the valley unmoved.
Her house was immaculate, now, and was kept so by her own hands. At first, she had not cared, and the dust and the cobwebs had not mattered at all. Miss Mehitable, in the beginning, had inspired her to housewifely effort, and Doctor Ralph's personal neatness had made her ashamed. She worked in the garden, too, keeping the brick-bordered paths free from weeds, and faithfully attending to every plant.
Yet life seemed strangely empty, lifted above its all-embracing pain. The house and garden did not occupy her fully, and she had few books. These were all old ones, and she knew them by heart, though she had found some pleasure in reading again the well-thumbed fairy books of her childhood.
She had read the book which Ralph had brought Araminta, and thought of asking him to lend her more—if she ever saw him again. She knew that he was very busy, but she felt that, surely, he would come again before long.
Araminta danced up the path, singing, and rapped at Miss Evelina's door. When she came in, it was like a ray of sunlight in a gloomy place.
"Miss Evelina!" she cried; "Oh, Miss Evelina! I'm going to be married!"
"I'm glad," said Evelina, tenderly, yet with a certain wistfulness. Once the joy of it had been in her feet, too, and the dread valley of desolation had opened before her.
"See!" cried Araminta, extending a dimpled hand. "See my ring! It's my engagement ring," she added, proudly.
Miss Evelina winced a little behind her veil, for the ring was the one Anthony Dexter had given her soon after their betrothal. Fearing gossip, she had refused to wear it until after they were married. So he had taken it, to have it engraved, but, evidently, the engraving had never been done. Otherwise Ralph would not have given it to Araminta—she was sure of that.
"It was his mother's ring, Miss Evelina, and now it's mine. His father loved his mother just as Ralph loves me. It's so funny not to have to say 'Doctor Ralph.' Oh, I'm so glad I broke my ankle! He's coming, but I wanted to come first by myself. I made him wait for five minutes down under the elm because I wanted to tell you first. I told Aunt Hitty, all alone, and I wasn't a bit afraid. Oh, Miss Evelina, I wish you had somebody to love you as he loves me!"
"So do I," murmured Evelina, grateful for the chiffon that hid her tears.
"Wasn't there ever anybody?"
"Yes."
"I knew it—you're so sweet nobody could help loving you. Did he die?"
"Yes."
"It was that way with Mr. Thorpe," mused Araminta, reminiscently."They loved each other and were going to be married, but she died. Hesaid, though, that death didn't make any difference with loving.There's Ralph, now."
"Little witch," said the boy, fondly, as she met him at the door; "did you think I could wait a whole five minutes?"
They sat in the parlour for half an hour or more, and during this time it was not necessary for their hostess to say a single word. They were quite unaware that they were not properly conducting a three-sided conversation, and Miss Evelina made no effort to enlighten them. Youth and laughter and love had not been in her house before for a quarter of a century.
"Come again," she begged, when they started home. Joy incarnate was a welcome guest—it did not mock her now.
Half-way down the path, Ralph turned back to the veiled woman who stood wistfully in the doorway. Araminta was swinging, in childish fashion, upon the gate. Ralph took Miss Evelina's hand in his.
"I wish I could say all I feel," he began, awkwardly, "but I can't.With all my heart, I wish I could give some of my happiness to you!"
"I am content—since I have forgiven."
"If you had not, I could never have been happy again, and even now, I still feel the shame of it. Are you going to wear that—veil—always?"
"No," she whispered, shrinking back into the shelter of it, "but I am waiting for a sign."
"May it soon come," said Ralph, earnestly.
"I am used to waiting. My life has been made up of waiting. God bless you," she concluded, impulsively.
"And you," he answered, touching his lips to her hand. He started away, but she held him back. "Ralph," she said, passionately, "be true to her, be good to her, and never let her doubt you. Teach her to trust you, and make yourself worthy of her trust. Never break a promise made to her, though it cost you everything else you have in the world. I am old, and I know that, at the end, nothing counts for an instant beside the love of two. Remember that keeping faith with her is keeping faith with God!"
"I will," returned Ralph, his voice low and uneven. "It is what my own mother would have said to me had she been alive to-day. I thank you."
The house was very lonely after they had gone, though the echoes of love and laughter seemed to have come back to a place where they once held full sway. The afternoon wore to its longest shadows and the dense shade of the cypress was thrown upon the garden. Evelina smiled to herself, for it was only a shadow.
The mignonette breathed fragrance into the dusk. Scent of lavender and rosemary filled the stillness with balm. Drowsy birds chirped sleepily in their swaying nests, and the fairy folk of field and meadow set up a whirr of melodious wings. White, ghostly moths fluttered, cloud-like, over the quiet garden, and here and there a tiny lamp-bearer starred the night. A flaming meteor sped across the uncharted dark of the heavens, where only the love-star shone. The moon had not yet risen.
From within, Evelina recognised the sturdy figure of Piper Tom, and went out to meet him as he approached. She had drawn down her veil, but her heart was strangely glad.
"Shall we sit in the garden?" she asked.
"Aye, in the garden," answered the Piper, "since 't is for the last time."
His voice was sad, and Evelina yearned to help him, even as he had helped her. "What is it?" she asked. "Is it anything you can tell me?"
"Only that I'll be trudging on to-morrow. My work here is done. I can do no more."
"Then let me tell you how grateful I am for all you have done for me. You made me see things in their true relation and taught me how to forgive. I was in bondage, and you made me free."
The Piper sprang to his feet. "Spinner in the Sun," he cried, "is it true? Just as I thought your night was endless, has the light come? Tell me again," he pleaded, "ah, tell me 't is true!"
"It is true," said Evelina, with solemn joy. "In all my heart there is nothing but forgiveness. The anger and resentment are gone—all gone."
"Spinner in the Sun!" breathed the Piper, scarcely conscious that he spoke the words aloud. "My Spinner in the Sun!"
Slowly the moon climbed toward the zenith, and still, because there was no need, they spoke no word. Dew rose whitely from the clover fields beyond, veiling them as with white chiffon. It was the Piper, at last, who broke the silence.
"When I trudge on to-morrow," he said, "'t will be with a glad heart, even though the little chap is no longer with me. 'T is a fair, brave world, I'm thinking, since I've set your threads to going right again. I called you," he added, softly, "and you came."
"Yes," said Evelina, happily, "you called me, and I came."
"Spinner in the Sun," said the Piper, tenderly, "have you guessed my work?"
"Why, keeping the shop, isn't it?" asked Evelina, wonderingly; "the needles and thread and pins and buttons and all the little trifles that women need? A pedler's pack, set up in a house?"
The Piper laughed. "No," he replied, "I'm thinking that is not my work, nor yet the music that has no tune, which I'm for ever playing on my flute. Lady, I have travelled far, and seen much, and always there has been one thing that is strangest of all. In every place that I have been in yet, there has been a church and a minister, whose business was to watch over human souls.
"He's told them what was right according to his own thinking, which I'm far from saying isn't true for him, and never minded anything more. In spite of blood and tears and agony, he's always held up the one standard, and, I'm thinking, has always pointed to the hardest way to reach it. The way has been so hard that many have never reached it at all, and those who have—I've not seen that they are the happiest or the kindest, nor that they are loved the most.
"In the same place, too, there is always a doctor, whose business it is to watch over the body. If you have a broken leg or a broken arm, or a fever, he can set you right again. Blind eyes can be made to see, and deaf ears made to hear, but, Lady, who is there to care about a broken heart?
"I have taken in my pedler's pack the things that women need, because 't is women, mostly, who bear the heartaches of the world, and I come closer to them so. What you say I have done for you, I have done for many more. I'm trying to make the world a bit easier for all women because a woman gave me life. And because I love another woman in another way," he added, his voice breaking, "I'll be trudging on to-morrow alone, though 't would be easier, I'm thinking, to linger here."
Evelina's heart leaped with a throb of the old pain. "Tell me about her," she said, because it seemed the only thing to say.
"The woman I love," answered the Piper, "is not for me. She'd never be thinking of stooping to such as I, and I'd not be insulting her by asking. She's very proud, but she could be tender if she chose, and she's the bravest soul I ever knew—so brave that she fears neither death nor life, though life itself has not been kind.
"Her little feet have been set upon the rough pathways, almost since the beginning, and her hands catch at my heart-strings, they are so frail. They're fluttering always like frightened birds, and the fluttering is in her voice, too."
"And her face?"
"Ah, but I've dreamed of her face! I've thought it was noble beyond all words, with eyes like the first deep violets of Spring, but filled with compassion for all the world. So brave, so true, so tender it might be that I'm thinking if I could see it once, with love on it for me, that I'd never be asking more."
"Why haven't you seen her face?" asked Evelina, idly, to relieve an awkward pause. "Is she only a dream-woman?"
"Nay, she's not a dream-woman. She lives and breathes as dreams never do, but she hides her face because she is so beautiful. She veils her face from me as once she veiled her soul."
Then, at last, Evelina understood. She felt the hot blood mantling her face, and was thankful, once more, for the shelter of her chiffon.
"Spinner in the Sun," said the Piper, with suppressed tenderness, "were you thinking I could see you more than once or twice and not be caring? Were you thinking I could have the inmost soul of me torn because you'd been hurt, and never be knowing what lay beyond it, for me? Were you thinking I could be talking to you day after day, without having the longing to talk with you always? And now that I've done my best for you, and given you all that rests with me for giving, do you see why I'll be trudging on to-morrow, alone?
"'T is not for me to be asking it, for God knows I could never be worthy, but I've thought of Heaven as a place where you and I might fare together always, with me to heal your wounds, help you over the rough places, and guide you through the dark. That part of it, I'm to have, I'm thinking, for God has been very good to me. I'm to know that wherever you are, you re happy at last, because it's been given me to lead you into the light. I called you, and you came."
"Yes," said Evelina, her voice lingering upon the words, "you called me and I came, and was redeemed. Tell me, in your thought of Heaven, have you ever asked to see my face?"
"Nay," cried the Piper, "do you think I'd be asking for what you hide from me? I know that 't is because you are so beautiful, and such beauty is not for my eyes to see."
"Piper Tom," she answered; "dear Piper Tom! I told you once that I had been terribly burned. I was hurt so badly that when the man I was pledged to marry, and whose life I had saved, was told that every feature of mine was destroyed except my sight, he went away, and never came back any more."
"The brute who hurt Laddie," he said, in a low tone. "I told him then that a man who would torture a dog would torture a woman, too. I'd not be minding the scars," he added, "since they're brave scars, and not the marks of sin or shame. I'm thinking that 't is the brave scars that have made you so beautiful—so beautiful," he repeated, "that you hide your face."
Into Evelina's heart came something new and sweet—that perfect, absolute, unwavering trust which a woman has but once in her life and of which Anthony Dexter had never given her the faintest hint. All at once, she knew that she could not let him go; that he must either stay, or take her, too.
She leaned forward. "Piper Tom," she said, unashamed, "when you go, will you take me with you? I think we belong together—you and I."
"Belong together?" he repeated, incredulously. "Ah, 't is your pleasure to mock me. Oh, my Spinner in the Sun, why would you wish to hurt me so?"
Tears blinded Evelina so that, through her veil, and in the night, she could not see at all. When the mists cleared, he was gone.
The Lifting of the Veil
From afar, at the turn of night, came the pipes o' Pan—the wild, mysterious strain which had first summoned Evelina from pain to peace. At the sound, she sat up in bed, her heavy, lustreless white hair falling about her shoulders. She guessed that Piper Tom was out upon the highway, with his pedler's pack strapped to his sturdy back. As in a vision, she saw him marching onward from place to place, to make the world easier for all women because a woman had given him life, and because he loved another woman in another way.
Was it always to be so, she wondered; should she for ever thirst while others drank? While others loved, must she eternally stand aside heart-hungry? Unyielding Fate confronted her, veiled inscrutably, but she guessed that the veil concealed a mocking smile.
Out of her Nessus-robe of agony, Evelina had emerged with one truth. Whatever is may not be right, but it is the outcome of deep and far-reaching forces with which our finite hands may not meddle. The problem has but one solution—adjustment. Hedged in by the iron bars of circumstance as surely as a bird within his cage, it remains for the individual to choose whether he will beat his wings against the bars until he dies, or take his place serenely on the perch ordained for him—and sing.
Within his cage, the bird may do as he likes. He may sleep or eat or bathe, or whet his beak uselessly against the cuttlebone thrust between the bars. He may hop about endlessly and chirp salutations to other birds, likewise caged, or he may try his eager wings in a flight which is little better than no flight at all. His cage may be a large one, yet, if he explores far enough, he will most surely bruise his body against the bars of circumstance. With beak and claws and constant toil he may, perhaps, force an opening in the bars wide enough to get through, slowly, and with great discomfort. He has gained, however, only a larger cage.
If he is a wise bird, he settles down and tries to become satisfied with his surroundings; even to gather pleasure from the gilt wires and the cuttlebone thrust picturesquely between them. When the sea gull wings his majestic way past his habitation, free as the wind itself, the wise bird will close his eyes, and affect not to see. So, also, will the gull, for there is no loneliness comparable with unlimited freedom.
Upon the heights, the great ones stand—alone. To the dweller in the valley, those distant peaks are clad in more than mortal splendour. Time and distance veil the jagged cliffs and hide the precipices. Day comes first to the peaks and lingers there longest; while it is night in the valley, there is still afterglow upon the hills.
Perhaps, some dweller in the valley longs for the height, and sets forth, heeding not the eager hands that, selfishly, as it seems, would keep him within their loving reach. Having once turned his face upward, he does not falter, even for the space of a backward look. He finds that the way is steep, that there is no place to rest, and that the comfort and shelter of the valley are unknown. The sun burns him, and the cold freezes his very blood, for there are only extremes on the way to the peak. Glittering wastes of ice dazzle him and snow blinds him, with terror and not with beauty as from below. The opaline mists are gone, and he sees with dreadful clearness the path which lies immediately ahead.
Beyond, there is emptiness, vast as the desert. At the timber line, he pauses, and, for the first time, looks back. Ah, how fair the valley lies below him! The silvery ribbon of the river winds through a pageantry of green and gold. Upon the banks are woodland nooks, fragrant with growing things and filled with a tender quiet broken only by the murmer of the stream. The turf is soft and cool to the wayfarer's tired feet, and there is crystal water in abundance to quench his thirst.
But, from the peak, no traveller returns, for the way is hopelessly cut off. Above the timber line there is only a waste of rock, worn by vast centuries in which every day is an ordinary lifetime, into small, jagged stones that cut the feet. The crags are thunder-swept and blown by cataclysmic storms of which the dwellers in the valley have never dreamed. In the unspeakable loneliness, the pilgrim abides for ever with his mocking wreath of laurel, cheered only by a rumbling, reverberant "All Hail!" which comes, at age-long intervals, from some peak before whose infinite distance his finite sight fails.
At intervals throughout the day, Miss Evelina heard the Piper's flute, always from the hills. Each time it brought her comfort, for she knew that, as yet, he had not gone. Once she fancied that he had gone long ago, and some woodland deity, magically transported from ancient Greece, had taken his place. Late in the afternoon, she heard it once, but so far and faintly that she guessed it was for the last time.
In her garden there were flowers, blooming luxuriantly. From their swaying censers, fragrant incense filled the air. The weeds had been taken out and no trace was left. From the garden of her heart the weeds were gone, too, but there were no flowers. Rue and asphodel had been replaced by lavender and rosemary; the deadly black poppy had been uprooted, and where it had grown there were spikenard and balm. Yet, as the Piper had said, she asked for roses, and it is not every garden in which roses will bloom.
At dusk she went out into her transformed garden. Where once the thorns had held her back, the paths were straight and smooth. Dense undergrowth and clinging vines no longer made her steps difficult. Piper Tom had made her garden right, and opened before her, clearly, the way of her soul.
In spite of the beauty there was desolation, because the cheery presence had gone to return no more. Her loneliness was so acute that it was almost pain, and yet the pain was bearable, because he had taught her how to endure and to look beyond.
Fairy-like, the white moths fluttered through the garden, and the crickets piped cheerily. Miss Evelina stopped her ears that she might not hear their piping, rude reminder, as it was, of music that should come no more, but, even so, she could not shut out remembrance.
With a flash of her old resentment, she recalled how everything upon which she had ever depended had been taken away from her, almost immediately. No sooner had she learned the sweetness of clinging than she had been forced to stand alone. One by one the supports had been removed, until she stood alone, desolate and wretched, indeed, but alone. Of such things as these self-reliance is made.
Suddenly, the still air seemed to stir. A sound that was neither breath nor music, so softly was it blown, echoed in from the hills. Then came another and another—merest hints of melody, till at last she started up, trembling. Surely these distant flutings were the pipes o' Pan!
She set herself to listen, her tiny hands working convulsively. Nearer and nearer the music came, singing of wind and stream and mountain—the "music that had no tune." No sooner had it become clear than it ceased altogether.
But, an hour or so afterward, when the moon had risen, there was a familiar step upon the road outside. Veiled, Evelina went to the gate and met Piper Tom, whose red feather was aloft in his hat again and whose flute was slung over his shoulder by its accustomed cord. His pedler's pack was not to be seen.
"I thought you had gone," she said.
"I had," he answered, "but 't is not written, I'm thinking, that a man may not change his mind as well as a woman. My heart would not let my feet go away from you until I knew for sure whether or not you were mocking me last night."
"Mocking you? No! Surely you know I would never do that?"
"No, I did not know. The ways of women are strange, I'm thinking, past all finding out. In truth, 't would be stranger if you were not mocking me than it ever could be if you were. Tell me," he pleaded, "ah, tell me what you were meaning, in words so plain that I can understand!"
"Come," said Evelina; "come to where we were sitting last night and I will tell you." He followed her back to the maple beside the broken wall, where the two chairs still faced each other. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and looked at her so keenly that she felt, in spite of the darkness and her veil, that he must see her face.
"Piper Tom," she said, "when you came to me, I was the most miserable woman on earth. I had been most cruelly betrayed, and sorrow seized upon me when I was not strong enough to stand it. It preyed upon me until it became an obsession—it possessed me absolutely, and from it there was no escape but death."
"I know," answered the Piper. "I found the bottle that had held the dreamless sleep. I'm thinking you had thrown it away."
"Yes, I had thrown it away, but only because I was too proud to die at his door—do you understand?"
"Yes, I'm thinking I understand, but go on. You've not told me whether or no you mocked me. What did you mean?"
"I meant," said Evelina, steadfastly, "that if you cared for the woman you had led out of the shadow of the cypress, and for all that was in her heart to give you, she was yours. Not only out of gratitude, but because you have put trust into a heart that has known no trust since its betrayal, and because, where trust is, there may some day come—more."
Her voice sank almost to a whisper, but Piper Tom heard it. He took her hand in his own, and she felt him tremble—she was the strong one, now.
"Spinner in the Sun," he began, huskily, "were you meaning that you'd go with me when I took the highway again, and help me make the world easier for everybody with a hurt heart?"
"Yes," she answered. "You called me and I came—for always."
"Were you meaning that you'd face the storms and the cold with me, and take no heed of the rain—that you'd live on the coarse fare I could pick up from day to day, and never mind it?"
"Yes, I meant all that."
"Were you meaning, perhaps, that you'd make a home for me? Ah, Spinner in the Sun, it takes a woman to make a home!"
"Yes, I'd make a home, or go gypsying with you, just as you chose."
The Piper laughed, with inexpressible tenderness. "You know, I'm thinking, that 't would be a home, and not gypsying—that I'd not let you face anything I could shield you from."
Evelina laughed, too—a low, sweet laugh. "Yes, I know," she said.
The Piper turned away, struggling with temptation. At length he came back to her. "'T is wrong of me, I'm thinking, but I take you as a man takes Heaven, and we'll do the work together. 'T is as though I had risen from the dead and the gates of pearl were open, with all the angels of God beckoning me in."
In the exaltation that was upon him, he had no thought of profaning her by a touch. She stood apart from him as something high and holy, enthroned in a sacred place.
"Beloved," he pleaded, "will you be coming; with me now to the place where I saw you first? 'T is night now, and then 'twas day, but I'm thinking the words are wrong. 'T is day now, with the sun and moon and stars all shining at once and suns that I never saw before. Will you come?"
"I'll go wherever you lead me," she answered. "While you hold my hand in yours, I can never be afraid."
They went through the night together, taking the shorter way over the hills. She stumbled and he took her hand, his own still trembling. "Close your beautiful eyes," he whispered, "and trust me to lead you."
Though she did not close her eyes, she gave herself wholly to his guidance, noting how he chose for himself the rougher places to give her the easier path. He pushed aside the undergrowth before her, lifted her gently over damp hollows, and led her around the stones.
At last they came to the woods that opened out upon the upper river road, where she had stood the day she had been splashed with mud from Anthony Dexter's wheels, and, at the same instant, had heard the mysterious flutings from afar. They entered near the hill to which her long wandering had led her, and at the foot of it, the Piper paused.
"You'll have no fear, I'm thinking, since the moon makes the clearing as bright as day, and I'll not be letting you out of my sight. I have a fancy to stand upon yonder level place and call you as I called you once before. Only, this time, the heart of me will dance to my own music, for I know you'll be coming all the while I play."
He left her and clambered up the hill to the narrow ledge which sloped back, and was surrounded with pines. He kept in the open spaces, so that the moonlight was always upon him, and she did not lose sight of him more than once or twice, and then only for a moment. The hill was not a high one and the ascent was very gradual. Within a few minutes, he had gained his place.
Clear and sweet through the moonlit forest rang out the pipes o' Pan, singing of love and joy. Never before had the Piper's flute given forth such music as this. The melody was as instinctive as the mating-call of a thrush, as crystalline as a mountain stream, and as pure as the snow from whence the stream had come.
Evelina climbed to meet him, her face and heart uplifted. The silvery notes dropped about her like rain as she ascended, strangely glad and strangely at peace. When she reached the level place where he was standing, his face illumined with unspeakable joy. He dropped his flute and opened his arms.
"My Spinner in the Sun," he whispered, "I called you, and you came."
"Yes," she answered, from his close embrace, "you called me, and I have come—for always."
At last, he released her and they stood facing each other. The Piper was stirred to the depths of his soul. "Last night I dreamed," he said, "and 't was the dream that brought me back. It was a little place, with a brook close by, and almost too small to be called a house, but 'twas a home, I'm thinking, because you were there. It was night, and I had come back from making the world a bit easier for some poor woman-soul, and you were standing in the door, waiting.
"The veil was gone, and there was love on your face—ah, I've often dreamed a woman was waiting for me so, but because you hide your beauty from me, 't is not for me to be asking more. God knows I have enough given me, now.
"Since the first, I've known you were very beautiful, and very brave. I knew, too, that you were sad—that you had been through sorrows no man would dare to face. I've dreamed your eyes were like the first violets of Spring, your lips deep scarlet like the Winter berries, and I know the wonder of your hair, for The veil does not hide it all. I've dreamed your face was cold and pure, as if made from marble, yet tender, too, and I well know that it's noble past all words of mine, because it bears brave scars.
"I've told you I would never ask, and I'll keep my word, for I know well 't is not for the likes of me to see it, but only to dream. Don't think I'm asking, for I never will, but, Spinner in the Sun, because you said you would fare with me on the highway and face the cold and storm, it gives me courage to ask for this.
"If I close my eyes, will you lift your veil, and let me kiss the brave scars, that were never from sin or shame? The brave scars, Beloved—ah, if you would let me, only once, kiss the brave scars!"
Evelina laughed—a laugh that was half a sob—and leaning forward, full into the moonlight, she lifted her veil—for ever.