CHAPTER XVII.

“And whether we shall meet again I know not,Therefore our everlasting farewell take.”Julius Cæsar.

“And whether we shall meet again I know not,

Therefore our everlasting farewell take.”

Julius Cæsar.

The days sped away all too fast, crowded full of work and talk and earnest thought. I entered eagerly into all of Mildred’s plans; she always knew that she could rely on me to do that, in spite of the protestations and objections with which I generally greeted the first announcement of each new scheme. I think she rather liked my objecting, as it gave her so fine an opportunity to state her case clearly and triumph over all obstacles.

“Do be charitable and indulge my garrulous propensities a little,” she would laughingly plead. “You may congratulate yourself that I was not born a man,—such a stump orator as I should have made, with all my hobbies!”

In spite of her gayety and happiness, however, I could see that the strain of attending to multitudes of things was beginning to tell, even on her apparently boundless strength. The day before the last she was with her lawyers, signing last papers, seeing that nothing was neglected, no one forgotten. In the evening there was a farewell reception for hosts of friends, at which all good-byes were said.

“I want no one but you to see me sail, Ruby dear,” she said; and so the hour of her departure was not announced. They had planned, first of all, a sailing voyage to the West Indies, and thence they were to go to Spain.

“I can’t bear Europe just yet,” said Mildred. “I want to put letters, despatches, and newspapers even, out of reach for a few weeks; to forget immigrants, cooking schools, tenement houses, libraries, and lawyers, and all the several problems that have been besetting me these last bewilderingly busy months.

“I must get time to stop and think. I want to sail idly through purple tropic seas; to skirt the green shores of volcanic islands; I want to feel for the time being that I have banished conscience and responsibility; in fact,” she added, laughing, “I want to become a pagan for a while, if I can.”

“The most sensible thing that I ever heard you say,” I remarked with decision. “If there ever was a girl who has earned a vacation, it is you.”

They were going on the Nanepashemet, manned by Captain Roberts, a weather-beaten seaman of Marblehead, who twenty years ago had dandled the little Mildred on his knee. He now counted it the greatest honor of his life that she had not forgotten him, and that he had been invited to take this bonny bride on his plain little sailing vessel.

“Why, jest think of it, Miss,” he proudly remarked to me, “she might jest as easy hev bought one of them crack steam yachts with fancy fixins,and have gone in reg’lar Vanderbilt style. But it’s jest like her, jest like her. She wa’n’t never one of the kind to make a splurge. I knew when she got her money ’twouldn’t turn her head.”

One day Ralph and I had been down to inspect the craft and attend to certain alterations in the cabin which were to be made for the accommodation of the two passengers, when the captain grew quite communicative on his favorite theme.

“I knew that little chick ’ud make something when she wa’n’t no higher than that,” he remarked, holding his brown, tattooed hand about three feet above the deck.

“I didn’t cal’late on her turnin’ out so mighty rich, of course,” he continued, meditatively, leaning against the rail and evidently pleased to find an appreciative listener, “but I allus knew, by the way the little thing kep’ askin’ questions about everything under heaven, that she’d got a headpiece on her that ’ud make things spin one o’ these days. Full o’ fun, too. She could swim like a duck, and row a boat with them little pipe-stem arms of hers, and yet—wal—she was sort o’ pious-like too, and allus askin’ me to tell her about my trips to the East Injies, and whether I see any women a-throwin’ their babies to crocodiles and a-bowin’ down to idols of wood and stone.

“‘I tell you, Cap’n Roberts,’ that little thing ’ud say, a-settin’ there in my boat, when her ma let me take her out,—‘I tell you, when I get to be a grown-up woman I’m goin’ out there and just teach those people better.’

“‘Did you ever hear about Judson?’ says she. ‘No,’ says I; ‘was he a sea-cap’n?’

“‘He was a missionary,’ says she, real solemn; ‘a missionary; and that’s what I’m going to be; and you’ll take me out there in your ship, won’t you, cap’n?’ says she. ‘And oh, I’m goin’ to take a whole trunk full of story-books for all those poor little girls that have to get married and don’t have any.’

“Wal, wal,” he continued, as he filled his pipe, “she begun it young, ’n I warn’t a mite surprised when I heerd she’d got her money and see what she was a-beginnin’ to do for those nasty Italians down to the Mulberry Bend. She never forgits anybody, Millie don’t. Excuse me, I s’pose I orter say Mis’ Everett now. She’s been a-talkin’ to me about the sailors; says when we git out to sea she wants a long talk with me about ’em; wants to know what they read, and everything of that sort.”

“And that is the way she proposes to turn pagan,” I soliloquized.

The last day had come, and we were on board the ship. Mildred, in her long, gray ulster and bright steamer hood, paced the deck arm in arm with me, taking her last look at the bridge, the towers and spires, the bronze goddess looming up against the blue, and all the dear, familiar sights. The sky was cloudless; the soft south-wind gently swelled the white sails overhead; the sea, the fawning, treacherous sea, shone brilliantly in the golden sunlight and seemed to murmur caressingly in ourears, as if to beguile us to forget its cruel power hidden for the time under this shining mask.

We paced up and down in silence, breaking it now and then by trying to say the last words, which were so hard to speak. Ralph had kindly gone below, ostensibly to look after a hamper of fruit. There was a lump in my throat; I could not speak.

How was it that this woman, whom I had met but little more than a year ago, had come to be nearer to me than any kith or kin? Life had broadened, had grown rich, since her life had come into mine. In my little narrow routine, fashioned according to the demands of society and its conventionalities, I had never before dreamed of its possibilities.

Mildred tried to talk, but I could not answer. At last, breaking down completely, I sobbed out, “Oh, Mildred, Mildred, Icannotlet you go. I have no one in the wide world but you. You will never, never come back.”

I had meant to be brave and not to sadden these last moments by my selfish grief, but a sudden premonition of evil had taken hold of me. I was not superstitious, but I felt a convulsive clutch at my heart as I looked up into her beautiful dark eyes through the mist in my own.

“Don’t be morbid, darling,” said she, trying to speak cheerfully, and drawing my arm closer in her embrace. But her voice sounded to me strange and far away.

“There are few women ever blessed with such a sister as you have been to me,” she said tenderly. “You alone among women have made me feel this last year that you loved me for myself, and would have loved me just the same were I the lonely teacher among my books instead of a favored, flattered, rich woman. Others have given me adulation, you have given me love. And now, dear, that you may know that I know how real a sister you have been to me, until we meet again wear this for me.”

I saw the red gleam of the rare jewel in her white hand, as over my finger, held in her own warm grasp, she slipped the ruby ring, her dead sister’s ring which I had always seen her wear.

I said no word of thanks. I scarcely realized what she had done. I was dumb with the misery of those moments—a death’s-knell seemed sounding in my ears.

We paced on again in silence, letting the precious moments pass. Presently she said, as if in reply to the wild outburst of emotion which had passed and left me numb and speechless, “Yes, dear, it may be as you fear. Whether we meet again, God only knows. But whether it be you or I that goes first into the great wonderful Beyond, of which we have so often talked, I think we shall not be sorry, we shall not be afraid.

“‘For from the things we seeWe trust the things to be,That in the paths untrod,And the long days of God,Our feet shall still be led,Our hearts be comforted.’

“‘For from the things we see

We trust the things to be,

That in the paths untrod,

And the long days of God,

Our feet shall still be led,

Our hearts be comforted.’

“But life is sweet, oh, so sweet. I want to live, there is so much to do,” said Mildred earnestly. Yet in a moment she added, hastily, “But what folly for me to fancy thatIam needed to do the work.

“‘Others shall sing the song,Others shall right the wrong,Finish what I begin,And all I fail of, win.’”

“‘Others shall sing the song,

Others shall right the wrong,

Finish what I begin,

And all I fail of, win.’”

We said no more, but still paced the deck together, looking at sea and shore and sunny sky, finding no words to tell of all that was in our hearts.

At last the signal was given, and the tug that was to carry me back to the city steamed alongside. I knew that the moment of parting had come, and, like an exile summoning all his fortitude to help him take bravely the last step across the border line which divides him from home and country, I said, calmly, “Well, dear,—

“‘If we do meet again, why, we shall smile;If not, why, then, this parting were well made.’”

“‘If we do meet again, why, we shall smile;

If not, why, then, this parting were well made.’”

I felt her warm, red lips against my cheek. I heard Ralph’s strong “God bless and keep you, little sister,” and then, almost before I knew it, I had slipped over the vessel’s side, and they were gone. I saw them wave a last adieu. I saw, as in a dream, the white-winged ship, bearing itsprecious freight, sail out into the dazzling east, over the dimpling sea, the shimmering, golden sea, the cruel, cruel sea.

There is no more to tell. The world knows the rest. Seven days of calm weather, and then from the coral reefs of the southern sea to the rocky headlands of the north, the storm-king raged. Madly the fierce Atlantic lashed its waves on cliff and beach and sunken ledge, sending dumb terror to the hearts that had seen their loved ones go down unto the sea in ships.

Somewhere on that wild waste of waters, whether in the chill, gray dawn or in midnight blackness, amid the lightning’s flash and thunder’s peal,—God only knows,—a little ship went down. And when the sharp, swift summons came, two brave hearts went forth together into the great Unseen, knowing of a surety that this, thank God, was not the end—only the end of the beginning.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTESSilently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling.Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

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