CHAPTER IV.
Fortwo weeks Esther had been at the seaside. She had grown pale and tired from the ceaseless round of work and social play. This life had glamour, had charm, but no contentment. Her pleasure in it was not real. She entered it with the belief that it was sweet to love, natural to trust. There was nothing in life but faith and love. She was now in the midst of people who talked with a sceptical contempt of all that she had held sacred. They laughed at her simple faith in the old-fashioned morality taught her by cherished lips.
Glenn Andrews could not leave without seeing her again. He had sent her a message. In the afternoon of the last day he went down to theseaside where she was stopping. The expression on his face was one of unrelenting yet melancholy determination. She was not in, so he struck across the sand and strolled along the beach until he found her. In spite of the pain in her heart, her sensitive, proud face denied it. There was a smile on her pale lips.
“You’re about as hard to reach as the bag of gold at the rainbow’s end,” Glenn said, “but I am glad to find that the other hunters have not reached here. From stories that came back to town, you don’t often escape all of your admirers at once. I am fortunate to find you alone.”
“They are fairy stories that every girl has a right to be a heroine of during the season.”
“I ventured to ask you to be so good as to give me an hour, only because I am going away so soon, and I may not see you again.”
“Your ‘so’ is femininely unsatisfactory. That is the speech of a woman. How soon is that?”
He pointed across the water. “You see that ship? Just about this time to-morrow, when theMajestic sails that way, you may know I am aboard of her. I will wave you a farewell.”
Esther felt a tremor run over her. She looked past him at the baffled surf, as, white with rage, it sprang against the pier, retreating with a roar, leaving a glimpse of the green sea stones beneath.
“So soon as that?” she said, her eyes opening and closing convulsively. “I must have been asleep; I didn’t realize that the time was so near.”
“Time is a mule; it always takes the opposite gait from that which you want it to take. This month has taken wings.” He gave a swift glance at her. “And I expect the next one to crawl—that is, after the voyage. I love the water.”
“As the doctor thinks the sea air so good for you, why don’t you cruise along the shores of France?”
“I may,” hesitatingly he answered; a sense of guilt came over him at the thought of his deception.
“How long do you expect to be gone?”
“I don’t know,” he said, absently; he knew this was not curiosity, but personal concern; “it may be three months, or three years.”
“Which do you expect it to be?”
“I do not expect, because to do that is to rob one’s self of the emotion of surprise, without which there is little pleasure in living.”
“I don’t believe I could be surprised any more. I know how little there is ahead. I have been arranging it all in my mind.”
He looked seaward. “How’s that?”
“Well, Mrs. Low goes home with her daughter.” Here she touched her hands together impulsively.
“You both are going; that leaves me alone.”
“If thoughts count for anything, you will never be alone.”
“How am I to know that?”
“You have the word of Glenn Andrews,” he said quickly; “besides you have a glorious future to look forward to. You have attained! What happiness is there like unto it? Among themany desires of my heart, the first is of your happiness, which I believe lies through your art. I am proud for you. Let me have one comfort before we part. Promise me that you will not disappoint me in my hopes for you. Your success has come high.”
“Well, your future, tell me of that and what your art has cost you.”
“What I have suffered is too late to discuss. One can rate truly only as far as one has gone. I cannot see as far ahead for myself as for my friends.”
“I can see for you.” She spoke slowly, and with difficulty. “Not only perfect health, but laurels. I hope my little spot in your heart may not be entirely shadowed by the lustre of that hour.” Her composure was returning. “I shall miss you; I want you to know that I appreciate the value of your friendship, of which I stood in need. You have helped me by your fond belief in me.”
He didn’t raise his head, but his hand.
“Oh, I have done so little; don’t shame me. You have been taking care of me instead. You have made my life richer—deeper—brought back some of the old faith in my own ideals that was gradually being crushed out. I can understand how men can be forced to such a height that falling would seem too far and hard. I wish I could feel that I had brought half the sunlight into your life as you have into mine.”
“You have brought the most that will ever be there.”
“Oh, don’t say that just as I am going; that kind of sun shines not only through the senses, but through the soul. It will always shine if you will only think so.”
She bowed her head, the wide fringe of brown seaweed trembled under the waves that ran up on the warm-hued sand.
“And I am glad that we have had this year. With all its pain—it is ours. Think of me sometimes when I am gone, Esther. Be good—by that I mean, brave.”
His voice broke.
The tense strain of the moment was ended, as he bent forward. His heart was in the kiss he left on her hair. He turned and walked quickly away without looking back.
In the darkness of her room, a young figure lay stricken with grief across her bed, mourning the vision of her ideals that seemed gone without fulfillment. In the morning when she heard the happy sound of laughing voices the hopelessness of her bereavement came over her afresh. She was alone in her sorrow and memories. She was so weak that her body felt bruised, and her arms lay like a dead weight at her side. Was her courage broken? She prayed a passionate prayer for the poor, heartless women who had kept faith with virtue, and had not been rewarded—who had scattered their broken ideals along the road that they went, that all who followed must bleed and suffer. She reached out for her violin; for a while she lay still with it in her arms. It was not sufficient. She needed some human thing forcompanionship. Her soul hated its bodily enthrallment—she would fly out of it—she must. With a supreme effort she raised herself, and faced the mirror. Her wide, dim eyes looked out at her in pity. Then from her window she saw a steamer going out. It was time for the Majestic that was to take Glenn Andrews out of New York—out of her life. The two loves of her life—they must die together. Suddenly grasping the neck of her violin, she struck it against the side of the bed and shattered the exquisite thing. She fell back prostrate, and there for weeks she lay between this life and the eternal.