Elizabeth did not speak at once. David thought that she was not going to speak at all, but after what seemed like a long time she said:
“David!” and then stopped.
There was a good deal of colour in her cheeks. David saw that she, too, was making an effort.
“Well,” he said, and his voice was more natural.
“David,” said Elizabeth, “what did you mean by ‘doing your best’?”
David met her eyes. He had always liked Elizabeth’s eyes. They were so very clear.
“I meant that I’d do my best to make you a good husband,” he said quite simply.
Elizabeth’s colour rose higher still. She continued to look at David, because she would have considered it cowardly to look away.
“A good husband to my good wife,” she said. “But, David, I don’t think you want a wife just now.”
David came across the room and sat down by the table at which Elizabeth was working.
“Then why did you marry me, Elizabeth?” he asked.
Elizabeth did not turn her head at once.
“I think what we both want just now,” she said, “is friendship.” Her voice was low, but she kept it steady. “The sort of friendship that is one side of marriage. It is not really possible for a man and a woman to be friends in that sort of way unless they are married. I think you want a friend—I know I do. I think you have been very lonely—one is lonely, and it is worse for a man. He can’t get the home-feeling, and he misses it. You did not marry me because you needed a wife. I don’t think you do. When you want a wife, I will be your wife, but just now——”
She broke off. She did not look at David, but David looked at her. He saw how tightly her hands were clasped, he saw the colour flushing in her cheeks. She had great self-control, but that she was deeply moved was very evident.
All at once he became conscious of great fatigue. He had walked far and in considerable distress of mind. He had put a very strong constraint upon himself. He rested his head on his hand and tried to think. Elizabeth did not speak again. After a time he raised his head. Elizabeth was watching him—her eyes were very soft. A sense of relief came upon David. Just to drift—just to let things go on in the old way, on the old lines. Not for always—just for a time—until he had put Mary out of his thoughts. Their marriage was not an ordinary one. It was for Elizabeth to make what terms she would. And it was a relief—yes, no doubt it was a relief.
“If I say, Yes,” he said, “it is only for a time. It is not a very possible situation, you know, Elizabeth—not possible at all in most cases. But just now, just for the present, I admit your right to choose.”
Elizabeth’s hands relaxed.
“Thank you, David,” she said.
See, God is everywhere,Where, then, is care?There is no night in Him,Then how can we grow dim?There is no room for pain or fearSince God is Love, and Love is here.
See, God is everywhere,
Where, then, is care?
There is no night in Him,
Then how can we grow dim?
There is no room for pain or fear
Since God is Love, and Love is here.
The full cup lowered down into the sea,Is full continually,How can it lose one drop when all aroundThe endless floods abound?So we in Him no part of Life can lose,For all is ours to use.
The full cup lowered down into the sea,
Is full continually,
How can it lose one drop when all around
The endless floods abound?
So we in Him no part of Life can lose,
For all is ours to use.
David found himself enjoying his holiday a good deal. Blue skies and shining air, clear cold of the snows and radiant warmth of the spring sun, sweet sleep by night and pleasant companionship by day—all these were his portion. His own content surprised him. He had been so long in the dark places that he could scarcely believe that the shadow was gone, and the day clear again. He had been prepared to struggle manfully against the feeling for Mary which had haunted and tormented him for so long. To his surprise, he found that this feeling fell into line with the other symptoms of his illness. He shrank from thinking of it, as he shrank from thinking of his craving for drink, his sleepless nights, and his dread of madness. It was all a part of the same bad dream—a shadow among shadows, in a world of gloom from which he had escaped.
Elizabeth was a very good companion. It was too early to climb, but they took long walks, shared picnic meals, and talked or were silent just as the spirit moved them. It was the old boy and girl companionship come back, and it was a very restful thing. One day, when they had been married about a fortnight, David said suddenly:
“How did you do it, Elizabeth?”
They were sitting on a grassy slope, looking over a wide valley where blue mists lay. A little wind was blowing, and the upper air was clear. The grass on which they sat was short. It was full of innumerable small white and purple anemones. Elizabeth was sitting on the grass, watching the flowers, and touching first one and then another with the tips of her fingers.
“All these little white ones have a violet stain at the back of each petal,” was the last thing that she had said, but when David spoke she looked up, a little startled.
He was lying full length on a narrow ledge just above her, with his cap over his eyes to shield them from the sun, which was very bright.
“How did you do it, Elizabeth?” said David Blake.
Elizabeth hesitated. She could not see his face.
“What do you mean?”
“How did you do it? Was it hypnotism?”
“Oh, no—” There was real horror in her voice.
“It must have been.”
She was silent for a moment. Then she said:
“Do you remember how interested we used to be in hypnotism, David?”
“Yes, that’s partly what made me think of it.”
“We read everything we could lay hands on—all the books on psychic phenomena—Charcot’s experiments—everything. And do you remember the conclusion we came to?”
“What was it?”
“I don’t think you’ve forgotten. I can remember you stamping up and down my little room and saying, ‘It’s adamnablething, Elizabeth, a perfectly damnable thing. There’snoend, absolutely none to the extent to which it undermines everything—I believe it is a much more real devil than any that the theologies produce.’ That’s what you said nine years ago, David, and I agreed with you. We used quite a lot of strong language between us, and I don’t feel called upon to retract any of it. Hypnotismisa damnable thing.”
David pushed the cap back from his eyes as Elizabeth spoke, and raised himself on his elbow, so that he could see her face.
“There are degrees,” he said, “and it’s very hard to define. How would you define it?”
“It’s not easy. ‘The unlawful influence of one mind over another’?”
“That’s begging the question. At what point does it become unlawful?—that’s the crux.”
“I suppose at the point when force of will overbears sense—reason—conscience. You may persuade a man to lend you money, but you mayn’t pick his pocket or hypnotise him.”
David laughed.
“How practical!”
Then very suddenly:
“So it wasn’t hypnotism. Are yousure?”
“Yes, quite sure.”
“But can you be sure? There’s such a thing as the unconscious exercise of will power.”
Elizabeth shook her head.
“There is nothing in the least unconscious in what I do. I know very well what I am about, and I know enough about hypnotism to know that it is not that. I don’t use my will at all.”
“What do you do? How is it done?” His tone was interested.
“I think,” said Elizabeth slowly, “that it is done byrealising, by getting into touch with Reality. Things like sleeplessness, pain, and strain aren’t right—they aren’t normal. They are like bad dreams. If one wakes—if one sees the reality—the dream is gone.”
She spoke as if she were struggling to find words for some idea which filled her mind, but was hard to put into a communicable shape.
“It is life on the Fourth Dimension,” she said at last.
“Yes,” said David, “go on.” There was a slightly quizzical look in his eyes, but he was interested. “What do you mean by the Fourth Dimension?”
“We used to talk of that too, and lately I have thought about it a lot.”
“Yes?”
“It is so hard to put into words. Fourth Dimensional things won’t get into Third Dimensional words. One has to try and try, and then a little scrap of the meaning comes through. That is why there are so many creeds, so many sects. They are all an attempt to express—and one can’t really express the thing. I can’t say it, I can only feel it. It is limitless, and words are limited. There are no bounds or barriers. Take Thought, for instance—that is Fourth Dimensional—and Love. Religion is a purely Fourth Dimensional thing, and we all guess and translate as best we may. In all religions that have life, apprehension rises above the creed and reaches out to the Real—the untranslatable.”
“Yes, that’s true; but go on—define the Fourth Dimension.”
“I can see it, you know. It’s another plane. It is the plane which permeates and inter-penetrates all other planes—universal, eternal, unchanging. It’s like the Fire of God—searching all things. It is the plane of Reality. Nothing is real which is not universal and unchanging and eternal. If one can realise that plane, one is amongst the realities, and all that is unreal goes out. ‘There is no life but the Life of God, no consciousness but the Divine Consciousness.’ I think that is the best definition of all: ‘the Divine Consciousness.’”
He did not know that she was quoting, and he did not answer her or speak at all for some time. But at last he said:
“So I slept, because you saw me in the Divine Consciousness; is that it?”
“Something like that.”
“You didn’t will that I should sleep?”
“Oh, no.”
“Are you doing it still?”
“Yes.”
“Every night?”
“Yes,” said Elizabeth again.
David sat up. The mists in the valley beneath were golden, for the sun had dropped. As he looked, the gold turned grey, and the shadow of darkness to come rose out of the valley’s depths, though the hill-slope on which they sat was warm and sunny yet. David turned and saw that Elizabeth was watching him.
“I want you to stop whatever it is you do,” he said abruptly.
“Very well.”
“I’m not as ungrateful as that sounds—” He broke off, and Elizabeth said quickly:
“Oh, no.”
“You don’t think it?”
“Why should I? You are well again. You don’t need my help any more.”
A shadow like the shadow of evening came over her as she spoke, but her smile betrayed nothing.
They walked back to the hotel in silence.
David had wondered if he would sleep. He slept all night, the sweet sound sleep of health and a mind unburdened.
It was Elizabeth who did not sleep. She had walked with him through the valley of the shadow and he had come out of it a whole man again. Was she to cling to the shadow, because in the shadow David had clung to her? It came to that. She drove the thought home, and did not shirk the pain of it. They were come out into the light, and in the light he had no need of her. But this was not full daylight in which they walked—it was only the first chill grey of the dawn, and there is always a need of Love. Love needs must give, and giving, blesses and is blessed, for Love is of the realities—a thing immutable and all-pervading. No man can shut out Love.
My hand has never touched your hand, I have not seen your face,No sound of any spoken word has passed between us two—Yet night by night I come to you in some unearthly place,And all my dreams of day and night are dreams of love and you.
My hand has never touched your hand, I have not seen your face,
No sound of any spoken word has passed between us two—
Yet night by night I come to you in some unearthly place,
And all my dreams of day and night are dreams of love and you.
The moon has never shone on us together in our sleep,The sun has never seen us kiss beneath the arch of day,Your eyes have never looked in mine—your soul has looked so deep,That all the sundering veils of sense are drawn and done away.
The moon has never shone on us together in our sleep,
The sun has never seen us kiss beneath the arch of day,
Your eyes have never looked in mine—your soul has looked so deep,
That all the sundering veils of sense are drawn and done away.
My lids are sealed with more than sleep, but I am lapped in light,Your soul draws near, and yet more near, till both our souls are one,In that strange place of our content is neither day nor night,No end and no beginning, whilst the timeless æons run.
My lids are sealed with more than sleep, but I am lapped in light,
Your soul draws near, and yet more near, till both our souls are one,
In that strange place of our content is neither day nor night,
No end and no beginning, whilst the timeless æons run.
David came home after his month’s holiday as hard and healthy as a man may be. Elizabeth was well content. She and David were friends. He liked her company, he ate and slept, he was well, and he laughed sometimes as the old David had laughed.
“Don’t you think your master looks well, Mrs. Havergill?” she said quite gaily.
Mrs. Havergill sighed.
“He do look well,” she admitted; “but there, ma’am, there’s no saying—it isn’t looks as we can go by. In my own family now, there was my sister Sarah. She was a fine, fresh-looking woman. Old Dr. Jones he met her out walking, as it might be on the Thursday.
“‘Well, Miss Sarah, youdolook well,’ he says—and there, ’tweren’t but the following Tuesday as she was took. ‘Who’d ha’ thought it,’ he says. ‘In the midst of life we are in death,’ and that’s a true word. And my brother ’Enry now, ’e never look so well in all ’is life as when he was laying in ’is coffin.”
Elizabeth could afford to laugh.
“Oh, Mrs. Havergill, do be cheerful,” she implored; “it would be so much better for you.”
Mrs. Havergill looked injured.
“I don’t see as we’re sent into this world to be cheerful,” she said, with the air of one who reproves unchristian levity.
“Oh, but we are—we really are,” said Elizabeth.
Mrs. Havergill shook her head.
“Let them be cheerful as has no troubles,” she remarked. “I’ve ’ad mine, and a-plenty,” and she went out of the room, sighing.
Mary ran in to see her sister quite early on the morning after their return.
“Well, Liz—no, let melookat you—I’ll kiss you in a minute. Are youhappy—you wrote dreadful guide-book letters, that I tore up and put in the fire.”
“Oh, Molly.”
“Yes, they were—exactly like Baedeker, only worse. All about mountains and flowers and the nice air, and ‘David is quite well again.’ As ifanyonewanted to hear about mountains and flowers from a person on her honeymoon. Are youhappy, Liz?”
“Don’t I look happy?” said Elizabeth laughing.
“Yes, you do.” Mary looked at her considering. “Youdo. Is it all right, Liz,reallyall right?”
“Yes, it’s really all right, Molly,” said Elizabeth, and then she began to talk of other things.
Mary kissed her very affectionately when she went away, but at the door she turned, frowning.
“I expect you wrotereamsto Agneta,” she said, and then shut the door quickly before Elizabeth had time to answer.
David was out when Mary came, and it so happened that for two or three days they did not meet. He had come to dread the meeting. His passion for Mary was dead. He was afraid lest her presence, her voice, should raise the dead and bring it forth again in its garment of glamour and pain. Then on Sunday he came in to find Mary sitting there with Elizabeth in the twilight. She jumped up as he came in, and held out her hand.
“Well, David, you are a nice brother—never to have come and seen me. Busy? Yes, of course you’ve been busy, but you might have squeezed in a visit to me, amongst all the visits to sick old ladies and naughty little boys. Oh,doyou know, Katie Ellerton has gone away? She took Ronnie to Brighton for a change, and then wrote and said she wasn’t coming back. I believe she is going to live with a brother who is a solicitor down there. And she’s selling her furniture, so if youwantextra things you might get them cheap.”
“That’s Elizabeth’s department,” said David, laughing.
“Well, this is for you both. When will you come to dinner? On Tuesday? Yes, do. Talk about being busy. Edward’s busy, if you like. I never see him, and he’s quite worried. Liz, you remember Jack Webster? Well, you know he’s on the West Coast, and he’s sent Edward a whole case of things—frightfully exciting specimens, two centipedes he’s wanted for ever so long, and a spider that Jack says is new. And Edward has never even had time to open the case. That shows you! It’s accounts, I believe. Edward does hate accounts.”
When she had gone David sat silent for a long time. It was the old Mary, and prettier than ever. He had never seen her looking prettier, but his feeling for her was gone. He could look at her quite dispassionately, and wonder over the old unreasoning thrill. And what a chatterbox she was. Thank Heaven, she had had the sense to marry Edward, who was really not such a bad sort. Poor Edward. He laughed aloud suddenly, and Elizabeth looked up and asked:
“What is it?”
“Edward and the case he can’t open, and the centipedes he can’t play with,” he said, still laughing. “Poor old Edward! What it is to have a conscience. I wonder he doesn’t have a midnight orgy with the centipedes, but I suppose Mary sees to that.”
It was that night that David dreamed his dream again. All these months it had never come to him. Amongst the many dreams that had haunted his sick brain, there had been no hint of this one. He had wondered about it sometimes. And now it returned. In the first deep sleep that comes to a healthy man he dreamed it.
He heard the wind blowing—that was the beginning of it. It came from the far distances of space, and it passed on again to the far distances beyond. David heard it blow, but his eyes were darkened. Then suddenly he saw. His feet were on the shining sand, the sand that shone because a golden moon looked down upon it from a clear sky, and the tide had left it wet.
David stood upon the shining sand, and saw the Woman of the Dream stand where the moon-track ceased at the sea’s rim. The moon was behind her head, and the wind blew out her hair. He stood as he had stood a hundred times, and as he had longed a hundred times to see the Woman’s face, so he longed now. He moved to go to her, and the wind blew about him in his dream.
Elizabeth had sat late in her room. There was a book in her hand, but after a time she did not read. The night was very warm. She got up and opened the window wide. The moon was low and nearly full, and a wind blew out of the west—such a warm wind, full of the scent of green, growing things. Elizabeth put out the light and stood by the window, drawing long breaths. It seemed as if the wind were blowing right through her. It beat upon her uncovered throat, and the touch of it was like something alive. It sang in her ears, and Elizabeth’s blood sang too.
And then, quite suddenly, she heard a sound that stopped her heart. She heard the handle of the door between her room and David’s turn softly, and she heard a step upon the threshold. All her life was at her heart, waiting. She could neither move, nor speak, nor draw her breath. And the wind blew out her long white dress, and the wind blew out her hair. As in a trance between one world and the next, she heard a voice in the room. It was David’s voice, and yet not David’s voice, and it shook the very foundations of her being.
“Turn round and let me see your face, Woman of my Dream,” said David Blake.
Elizabeth stood quite still. Only her breath came again. The wind brought it back to her, and as she drew it in, the step came nearer and David said again:
“Show me your face—your face; I have never seen your face.”
She turned then, very slowly—in obedience to an effort, that left her drained of strength.
David was standing in the middle of the room. His feet were bare, as he had risen from his bed, but his eyes were open, and they looked not at, but through Elizabeth, to the place where she walked in his dream.
“Ah!” said David on a long, slow, sudden breath.
He came nearer—nearer. Now he stood beside her, and the wind swept suddenly between them, and eddying, drove a great swathe of her unfastened hair across his breast. David put up his hand and touched the hair.
“But I can’t see your face,” he said, in a strange, complaining note. “The moon shines on your hair, but not upon your face. Show me your face—your face——”
She moved, and the moon shone on her. Her face was as white as ivory. Her eyes wide and dark—as dark as the darkening sky. They stood in silence, and the moon sank low.
Then David put out his hands and touched her on the breast.
“Now I have seen your face,” he said. “Now I am content because I have seen your face. I have gone hungry for the sight of it, and have gone thirsty for the love of you, and all the years I have never seen your face.”
“And now——?”
Elizabeth’s voice came in a whisper.
“Now I am content.”
“Why?”
“Your face is the face of Love,” said David Blake.
His hands still held her hair. They lay against her heart, and moved a little as she breathed.
A sudden terror raised its head and peered at Elizabeth. Mary—oh, God—if he took her for Mary. The thought struck her as with a spear of ice. It burned as ice burns, and froze her as ice freezes. Her lips were stiff as she forced out the words:
“Who am I? Say.”
His hands were warm. He answered her at once.
“We are in the Dream, you and I. You are the Woman of the Dream. Your face is the face of Love, and your hair—your floating hair—” He paused.
“My hair—what colour is my hair?” whispered Elizabeth.
“Your hair—” He lifted a strand of it. The wind played through it, and it brushed his cheek, then fell again upon her breast. His hand closed down upon it.
“What colour is my hair?” said Elizabeth very quietly. Mary’s hair was dark. Even in the moonlight, Mary’s hair would be dark. If he said dark hair, dark like the night which would close upon them when that low moon was gone—what should she do—oh, God, what should she do?
“Your hair is gold—moon gold, which is pale as a dream,” said David Blake. And a great shudder ran through Elizabeth from head to foot as the ice went from her heart.
“Like moon gold,” repeated David, and his hands were warm against her breast.
And then all at once they were in the dark together, for the moon went out suddenly like a blown candle. She had dropped into a bank of clouds that rose from the clouding west. The wind blew a little chill, and as suddenly as the light had gone, David, too, was gone. One moment, so near—touching her in the darkness—and the next, gone—gone noiselessly, leaving her shaking, quivering.
When she could move, she lit a candle and looked in through the open door. David lay upon his side, with one hand under his cheek. He was sleeping like a child.
Elizabeth shut the door.
Where have I seen these tall black trees,Two and two and three—yes, seven,Standing all about in a ring,And pointing up to Heaven?
Where have I seen these tall black trees,
Two and two and three—yes, seven,
Standing all about in a ring,
And pointing up to Heaven?
Where have I seen this black, black pool,That never ruffles to any breath,But stares and stares at the empty sky,As silently as death?
Where have I seen this black, black pool,
That never ruffles to any breath,
But stares and stares at the empty sky,
As silently as death?
How did we come here, you and I,With the pool beneath, and the trees above?Oh, even in death or the dusk of a dream,You are heart of the heart of Love.
How did we come here, you and I,
With the pool beneath, and the trees above?
Oh, even in death or the dusk of a dream,
You are heart of the heart of Love.
Elizabeth was very pale when she came down the next day. As she dressed, she could hear David singing and whistling in his room. He went down the stairs like a schoolboy, and when she followed she found him opening his letters and whistling still.
“Hullo!” he said. “Good-morning. You’re late, and I’ve only got half an hour to breakfast in. I’m starving, I don’t believe you gave me any dinner last night. I shall be late for lunch. Give me something cold when I come in, I’ve got a pretty full day——”
Elizabeth wondered as she listened to him if it were she who had dreamed.
That evening he looked up suddenly from his book and said:
“Was the moon full last night?”
“Not quite.”
Elizabeth was startled. Did he, after all, remember anything?
“When is it full?”
“To-morrow, I think. Why?”
Her breathing quickened a little as she asked the question.
“Because I dreamed my dream again last night, and it generally comes when the moon is full,” he said.
Elizabeth turned, as if to get more light upon her book. She could not sit and let him see her face.
“Your dream——?”
Her voice was low.
“Yes.”
He paused for so long that the silence seemed to close upon Elizabeth. Then he said thoughtfully:
“Dreams are odd things. I’ve had this one off and on since I was a boy. And it’s always the same. But I have not had it for months. Then last night—” He broke off. “Do you know I’ve never told any one about it before—does it bore you?”
“No,” said Elizabeth, and could not have said more to save her life.
“It’s a queer dream, and it never varies. There’s always the same long, wet stretch of sand, and the moon shining over the sea. And a woman——”
“Yes——”
“She stands at the edge of the sea with the moon behind her, and the wind—did I tell you about the wind?—it blows her hair and her dress. And I have never seen her face.”
“No?”
“No, never. I’ve always wanted to, but I can never get near enough, and the moon is behind her. When I was a boy, I used to walk in my sleep when I had the dream. I used to wake up in all sorts of odd places. Once I got as far as the front-door step, and waked with my feet on the wet stones. I suppose I was looking for the Woman.”
Elizabeth took a grip of herself.
“Do you walk in your sleep now?”
He shook his head.
“Oh, no. Not since I was a boy,” he said cheerfully. “Mrs. Havergill would have evolved a ghost story long ago if I had.”
“And last night your dream was just the same?”
“Yes, just the same. It always ends just when it might get exciting.”
“Did you wake?”
“No. That’s the odd part. One is supposed to dream only when one is waking, and of course it’s very hard to tell, but my impression is, that at the point where my dream ends I drop more deeply asleep. Dreams are queer things. I don’t know why I told you about this one.”
He took up his book as he spoke, and they talked no more.
* * * * * * * *
Elizabeth went to her room early that night, but she did not get into bed. She moved about the room, hanging up the dress she had worn, folding her things—even sorting out a drawer full of odds and ends. It seemed as if she must occupy herself.
Presently she heard David come up and go into his room. She went on rolling up stray bits of lace and ribbon with fingers that seemed oddly numb. When she had finished, she began to brush her hair, standing before the glass, and brushing with a long, rhythmic movement. After about ten minutes she turned suddenly and blew out the candle. She went to the window and opened it wide.
Then, because she was trembling, she sat down on the window-seat and waited. The night came into the room and filled it. The trees moved above the water. The rumble of traffic in the High Street sounded very far away. It had nothing to do with the world in which Elizabeth waited. There was no wind to-night. It was very still and warm. The moon shone.
When the door opened, Elizabeth knew that she had known that he would come. He crossed the room and took her in his arms. She felt his arms about her, she felt his kiss, and there was nothing of the unsubstantial stuff of dreams in his strong clasp. For one moment, as her lips kissed too, she thought that he was awake—that he had remembered, but as she stepped back and looked into his face she saw that he was in his dream. His eyes looked far away. Then he kissed her again, and dreaming or waking her soul went out of her and was his soul, her very consciousness was no more hers, but his, and she, too, saw that strange, moon-guarded shore, and she, too, heard the wind. But the night—the night was still. Where did it come from, this sudden rush of the wind, that seemed to blow through her? From far away it came, from very far away, and it passed through her and on to its own far place again, a rushing eddy of wind, whirling about some unknown centre.
Elizabeth was giddy and faint with the singing of that wind in her ears. The moon was in her eyes. She trembled, and hid them upon David’s breast.
“David,” she whispered at last, and he answered her.
“Love—love——”
She turned a little from the light and looked at him. There was a smile upon his face, and his eyes smiled too.
“Where are we?” she said. And David laid his face against hers and said:
“We are in the Dream.”
“David, what is the Dream? Do you know? Tell me.”
“It is the Dream,” he said, “the old dream, the dream that has no waking.”
“And who am I? Am I Elizabeth?” She feared so much to say it, and could not rest till it was said.
“Elizabeth.” He repeated the word, and paused. His eyes clouded.
“You are the Woman of the Dream.”
“But I have a name——”
“Yes—you have a name, but I have forgotten—if I could remember it. It is the name—the old name—the name you had before the moon went down. It was at night. You kissed me. There were so many trees. I knew your name. Then the moon went down, and it was dark, and I forgot—not you—only the name. Are you angry, love, because I have forgotten your name?”
There was trouble in his tone.
“No, not angry,” said Elizabeth, with a quiver in her voice. “Will you call me Elizabeth, David? Will you say Elizabeth to me?”
He said “Elizabeth,” and as he said it his face changed. For a moment she thought that he was waking. His arms dropped from about her, and he drew a long, deep breath that was like a sigh.
Then he went slowly from her into the darkness of his own room, walking as if he saw.
Elizabeth fell on her knees by the window-seat and hid her face. The wind still sang in her ears.
The sun was cold, the dark dead MoonHung low behind dull leaden bars,And you came barefoot down the skyBetween the grey unlighted Stars.
The sun was cold, the dark dead Moon
Hung low behind dull leaden bars,
And you came barefoot down the sky
Between the grey unlighted Stars.
You laid your hand upon my soul,My soul that cried to you for rest,And all the light of the lost SunWas in the comfort of your breast.
You laid your hand upon my soul,
My soul that cried to you for rest,
And all the light of the lost Sun
Was in the comfort of your breast.
There was no veil upon your heart,There was no veil upon your eyes;I did not know the Stars were dim,Nor long for that dead Moon to rise.
There was no veil upon your heart,
There was no veil upon your eyes;
I did not know the Stars were dim,
Nor long for that dead Moon to rise.
They dined with Edward and Mary next day.
The centipedes were still immured, and Edward made tentative overtures to David on the subject of broaching the case after dinner.
“Edward is the soul of hospitality,” David said afterwards. “He keeps his best to the end. First, a positively good dinner, then some comparatively enjoyable music, and, last of all, the superlatively enthralling centipedes.”
At the time, he complied with a very good grace. He even contrived a respectable degree of enthusiasm when the subject came up.
It was Mary who insisted on the comparatively agreeable music.
“No—I will not have you two going off by yourselves the moment you’ve swallowed your dinner. It’s notgoodfor people. Edward will certainly have indigestion—yes, Edward, you know you will. Come and have coffee with us in a proper and decent fashion, and we’ll have some music, and then you shall do anything you like, and I’ll talk to Elizabeth.”
Edward sang only one song, and then said that he was hoarse, which was not true. But Elizabeth was glad when the door closed upon him and David, for the song Edward had sung was the one thing on earth which she felt least able to hear. He sang,O Moon of my Delight, transposed by Mary to suit his voice, and he sang it with his usual tuneful correctness.
Elizabeth looked up only once, and that was just at the end. David was looking at her with a frown of perplexity. But as Edward remarked that he was hoarse, David passed his hand across his eyes for a moment, as if to brush something away, and rose with alacrity to leave the room.
When they were gone Mary drew a chair close to her sister and sat down. She was rather silent for a time, and Elizabeth was beginning to find it hard to keep her own thoughts at bay, when Mary said in a new, gentle voice:
“Liz, I’m sohappy.”
“Are you, Molly?” She spoke rather absently, and Mary became softly offended.
“Don’t you want to know why, Liz? I don’t believe you care a bit. I don’t believe you’d mind if I were ever so miserable, now that you’ve got David, and are happy yourself!”
Elizabeth came back to her surroundings.
“Oh, Molly, what a goose you are, and what a monster you make me out. What is it, Mollykins, tell me?”
“I’ve a great mind not to. I don’t believe you really care. I wouldn’t tell you a word, only I can’t help it. Oh, Liz, I’m going to have a baby, and I thought I never should. I was making myselfwretchedabout it.”
She caught Elizabeth’s hand and squeezed it.
“Oh, Liz, be glad for me. I’m so glad and happy, and I want some one to be glad too. You don’t know how I’ve wanted it. No one knows. I’ve simply hated all the people in theMorning Postwho had babies. I’ve not even read the first column for weeks, and when Sybil Delamere sent me an invitation to her baby’s christening—she was married the same day I was, you know—I just tore it up andburntit. And now it’s really coming to me, and you’re to be glad for me, Liz.”
“Molly, darling, Iamglad—so glad.”
“Really?”
Mary looked up into her sister’s face, searchingly.
“You’re thinking of me,reallyof me—not about David, as you were just now? Oh, yes, I knew.”
Elizabeth laughed.
“Really, Molly, mayn’t I think of my own husband?”
“Not when I’m telling you about a thing like this,” said Mary. “Liz, you are the first person I have told, theveryfirst.”
Elizabeth did not allow her thoughts to wander again. As they talked, the rain beat heavily against the windows, and they heard the rush of it in the gutters below.
“What a pity,” Mary cried. “How quickly it has come up, and last night was so lovely. Did you see the moon? And to-night it is full.”
“Yes, to-night it is full,” said Elizabeth.
Edward and Mary came down to see their guests off. Edward shut the door behind them.
“What a night!” he exclaimed. But Mary came close and whispered:
“I’ve told her.”
“Have you?”
Edward’s tone was just the least shade perfunctory. He slid home the bolt of the door and turning, caught Mary in his arms and hugged her.
“O Mary,darling!”
Mary glowed, responsive.
“O Mary, darling, it reallyisa new spider,” he cried.
David and Elizabeth walked home in a steady downpour. Mary had lent her overshoes, and she had tucked up her dress under a mackintosh of Edward’s. There was much merriment over their departure with a large umbrella between them, but as they walked home, they both grew silent. Elizabeth said good-night in the hall, and ran up to her room. To-night he would not come. Oh, to-night she felt quite sure that he would not come. It was dark. She heard the rain falling into the river, and she could just see how the trees bent in the rush of it. And yet she sat for an hour, by her window, in the dark, waiting breathlessly for that which would not happen.
The time went slowly by. The rain fell, and it was cold. Elizabeth lay down in the great square bed, and presently she slept, lulled by the steady dropping of the rain. She slept, and in her sleep she dreamed that she was sinking fathoms deep in a stormy, angry sea. Far overhead, she could hear the clash of the waves, and the long, long sullen roar of the swelling storm. And she went down and down into a black darkness that was deeper than any night—down, till she lost the roar of the storm above, down until all sound was gone, and she was alone in a black silence that would never lift or break again. Her soul was cold and blind, and most unendurably alone. Then something touched her, something that was warm. There came upon her that strange sense of home-coming, which comes to us in dreams, when love comes back to us across the sundering years, and all the pains of life, the pains of death, vanish and are gone, and we are come home—home to the place where we would be.