back at last. It said: “Don’t bother your head, dear, about these
things. You will always be the dearest girl in the world to me, and the
purest and the best; and as for me, I never forget that I’m working for
you, and if that won’t keep me straight, nothing will. What do you care
about those old fossils of Prestons, anyhow? You are you, and I am I,
and that’s all I care for, sweetheart.”
The wealth of meaning with which Milly freighted these honest lines it
would take pages to chronicle; perhaps it was partly on account of some
words of Mrs. Preston’s which haunted her: “I loved something that went
by his name—it wasn’t William.”
The clergyman’s family remained in her mind an unsolved problem; it was
nearly a month before she went to the rectory again, where she found
Mrs. Preston “up to her ears,” as she expressed it, endeavoring to
settle the affairs of a poor family who were preparing for emigration to
the West. Her snapping black eyes and vivacious mien showed thorough
enjoyment of the task, to say nothing of her dominant volubility. Mr.
Preston, who came in from the garden bearing the first strawberry
solemnly on a gilt plate for his wife’s acceptance, was unheeded until
Milly directed attention to him. He had been waiting, he explained
gravely, some days for this particular strawberry to ripen. Mrs. Preston
said, “Oh, yes,” and thereupon ate the fruit absent-mindedly as she went
on talking, with apparently no more appreciation of flavor than if it
had been gutta percha, and quite ignoring the giver.
Milly could not help smiling, but she left the house more bewildered
than ever. Mrs. Preston _must_ like her life more than she thought she
did, and it was impossible not to feel a little tinge of sympathy for
Mr. Preston. Did people after all know what they really liked—or,
indeed, what they really were? The moods of different days, of different
hours, what kind of a whole did they form?
Her own life seemed to be all question in these days, to which nobody
gave the answer.
Thus the second year stole on, and Norton’s home-coming appeared to grow
no nearer. The photograph which he sent her startled by its unlikeness
to her thought of him; those were the eyes that were to look into hers
again some day, those the lips that were to kiss hers. After a while by
much poring over it, the picture looked to her any way she pleased.
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder”—possibly, and possibly not always
fonder of the unseen beloved, but of one’s own personality, projected
into the suitable position.
But if any moment of serious doubt came, the remembrance of the
betrothal in the garden quenched it. There was always that to fall back
upon. Milly lived that over again, and again, and again, never without
the solemn rush of feeling that had accompanied the pledge with God for
their witness—“never to be forgotten, never to be denied”—the latter
words Norton had himself used in a letter to her once, a letter from
which she never parted.
With love came at last the teaching of death to Milly, and she went down
into the shadows and cried out affrighted. All props were torn away from
her, and she stood alone trembling, reaching out on the right hand and
on the left. “I had not thought it meant this,” she wrote piteously. “I
believe in God, and in heaven, why, then, should this desolation touch
me? Words—words that I have said all my life and believed in, mean
nothing to me. I believe in them now, but they mean nothing. I can’t
make anything real but death, not even your love! Oh, help me, tell me
that I shall not die alone, that you will go with me, tell me that you
are not afraid; help me, Norton. You _must_ know something to make it
all better!”
She had gained some peace before his reply reached her—a sense of the
eternal Fatherhood that pervaded the unseen world as well as the one she
walked and lived and loved in now—a protection that was a rest and
brought light into the sunshine once more. But he wrote,
“Milly, if you love me, don’t send me any more letters like the last. To
think of such things would drive me mad. I can’t think of death. It’s as
much as I can do to work for a living, and try and be worthy of you, and
I’ll have to leave the rest to the good Lord, I expect. I’ll be coming
home some day before you know it—drop me a line to tell me how you’d
feel if you saw me walking in just after you get this.”
If there was a graver look in Milly’s eyes than had been, there was also
a sweeter depth. The lines around her mouth were very gentle. She did
not talk much. It was the third summer of the separation; she no longer
tried to solve the problem of the Prestons, but accepted the fact that
she stood a little nearer to each of them than anyone else did. People
said she was a good listener, but although she seemed to give a quiet
attention to them, it was the voice across the sea that she was always
listening for. The letters came now so full of matters and people that
she knew nothing of; the whole burden of them for her lay in the few
loving sentences that began and ended the pages. Had she ever had a
lover? It was so long ago, and for so short a time! Yet at last she had
word that he was coming home.
It was after this news had reached her, and nearly three years from the
day of the revealing of love in the garden, that the second revelation
was given her. This time it was of immortality.
She was kneeling in the church during the afternoon service; the church
was almost empty. She had had a singularly calm spirit all day, and as
she knelt in the dim aisle, her gaze directed upward to the stained
glass window in one of the arches of the ceiling, she was not praying,
she was only peaceful. The window was partly open, so that a glimpse of
pale blue sky slanted through it with the afternoon sunshine. And as she
gazed, not consciously, her spirit went from her and mingled with that
sunlight, becoming one with it, and in a rapture of buoyancy, of
radiance, of exultant immortality. It had in it no acknowledged
perception of God, no conviction of sin, no so-called “experience”; it
was simply life eternal, utterly free from the body, the spirit divested
of the hampering bonds of the flesh. The wonder of it, the joy of it—yet
the wonderful and joyful familiarity with it, as of something known
always, that had been only forgotten for a little while, and was now
remembered; and beyond and through all something indescribable. One
cannot translate the meaning of life into words that belong to
mortality.
Milly bowed her head and the light closed over her and her spirit came
back to her body once more. She neither wept nor trembled; like Mary of
old she marveled and was silent. She thought she would write it all to
Norton, but she could not; she thought to tell him when he came, but she
did not. She never had the revelation again, but like the first it could
never be forgotten nor denied.
III
THEY were married at St. John’s a couple of months after his return. Mr.
Preston united them in the bonds of holy matrimony with his still
unvarying wooden gravity, through which, however, Milly was able to
discern some faint, limited attempt at warmth, and Mrs. Preston folded
her in her arms afterwards with a scoffing fondness that rather troubled
the bride when she thought of it. She did not want to think now of
spoiled lives. Something in Mrs. Preston’s manner implied—could it be
pity?
It had been delightful after three years of maiden dreaming and shadowy
aspiration to be carried forcibly out of them into a clear, cheerful,
masculine territory where things seemed to be exactly what they were.
The charm of having a lover who was almost a stranger, yet whom it was
taken for granted must be both dear and familiar, was nearly too
bewildering. She laughed at absurd jokes, was betrayed into
demonstrative foolishness, and could scarcely believe in her own
metamorphosis. She was in a state of suppressed excitement which must be
happiness.
“I hardly knew you when I saw you coming in the gate,” she confessed one
day soon after his arrival. “Think of it! I ran and hid.”
“You did not hide long,” he answered gravely, taking a hairpin from her
smooth locks. “Let your hair down, I want to see if it has grown.”
“Norton! how silly. Are you always like this?”
“Certainly.”
“But I want to tell you of so many things that I could not write when
you were away. Oh, Norton, the years have been short, yet they were so
very, very long, too! There is so much I have to confess to you—how
shall I ever begin?”
“Don’t try,” he answered laconically. “Leave all that time out, Milly, I
hate it. We’ll begin fresh now.” He drew a long breath. “It was a hard,
coarse life out there—you couldn’t even understand it, sweetheart. But
one thing I _can_ tell—” he turned around and faced her with steadfast
gaze—“I can look you straight in the eyes, dear, and not be ashamed.”
“Why, _of course_!” said Milly.
And so the new life began. A few months after the wedding they went to
live in a narrow street in the great city, away from all the dear lovely
hills and fields and sky that had hitherto made Milly’s world. She was
surprised to find that the dreary outlook on brick and stone affected
her like a physical blow, and that she missed familiar voices strangely.
She had often and often thought that she would be willing to live with
Norton in a desert, and forego all other companionship than his, which
necessarily must be satisfying. Was it? Gradually, very gradually, but
surely, a sinking of the heart, a gnawing homesickness began to take
possession of her—the homesickness of one transplanted in body and mind
to an alien soil; a feeling fiercely combated, fiercely denied, yet
conquering insidiously. To many women—to most women, perhaps—there is no
medium between worshiping and delicately despising the man they love.
They must either look up or down; anything but a level view, with clear
eyes meeting, and the honest admission: _Dear friend, my insufficiency
balances thine. What thou art not to me, that other thing I am not to
thee._
But it is torture not to be able to look up! The sense of superiority is
only a sting.
Milly took life with intense earnestness. She could not understand
Norton’s light, jocular way of looking at things; he cared for nothing
“improving,” he simply wanted recreation. He loved her—yes, as much, she
thought, sadly, as he could have loved any woman, but not, oh, not as
she loved! She missed so much, _so_ much! Each day brought a subtle
shock of disappointment with it, a miserable feeling of loss. What could
she do about it? She tried vainly to adjust her vision to the man’s
point of view. Her husband seemed to her shallow, coarse, with no high
standard of honor. It must be her mission to elevate him.
The more unsatisfied her mind became, the more her heart endeavored to
make up for it. “You are not what I dreamed—but kiss me, kiss me more
passionately that I may forget it!” was the continued inner cry. But
kisses do not grow more passionate under the insistent claim.
She prayed for him with a hysterical uplifting of the spirit, followed
by fathomless exhaustion and depression. He was always very, very kind
to her when she wept—and very glad to get away.
She relapsed into an obedient endurance, a patient and uncomplaining
disapproval.
There seemed to be nothing in him of the man she had married except a
certain sweet boyishness that had always been one of his charms, and
which showed at times through everything, and a bright, yet delicate
kindness which other people liked, although to her it had no depth.
Sometimes she felt a little envious of his ease with others.
“How you talked to Mrs. Catherwood to-night,” she said one evening after
the guests had gone. “You quite monopolized her. I wonder what she
thought of you!”
“Oh, that was all right!” he answered somewhat absently. Then he looked
up with a smile. “What do you think? I found that she came from the town
I used to live in. I knew her sister well. We went back over old times.”
“You never talk to me about them.”
“You—oh, that’s different; you wouldn’t be interested, dear.” He shook
his head with a kind of rueful amusement. “I always feel when I tell you
of such things that you are wondering how I could enjoy them. It came
sort of _easy_ to talk to Mrs. Catherwood—she seemed to understand; some
people do make you feel that way, you know.” He looked up a little
sadly, and then came over to his wife and kissed her. “You’re a saint,
Milly, and saints are not expected to take stock in vain jestings. You
have to be good for both of us, you know.”
Milly flushed angrily. “I _wish_ you wouldn’t say such things—you take
such a low view! And I wanted you to see something of Professor Stearns
to-night, he is such a fine man, so thoroughly high-minded, so firm in
principle, he never gives way an inch in what he thinks is right. How
people dislike him for it! It’s really splendid.”
Norton looked humorous, but discreetly held his peace.
“I tell you, Jordan,” he said one day to a friend, half sadly, half
jestingly, “my wife wants me to be a good _woman_, to like all the
things she likes, and to do all the things she does. I know she mourns
over me every day of her life. I suppose it’s a hopeless job for both of
us. I never was anything but a commonplace sort of fellow, not near good
enough for her.”
“That is the proper frame of mind, old fellow,” said his friend, and
they went on riding together in silence.
To what end had the higher life been Milly’s? In five years she and
Norton had been drifting slowly but surely ever further apart. Had
companionship with her elevated him? Impossible not to see that he had
deteriorated, that the lax hold on former ideals had lapsed entirely!
Can any human soul thrive in an atmosphere of doubt?
It was when this knowledge of further separation lay heaviest upon her,
that word came to Milly one morning in the bright sunlight that Norton
had been arrested for embezzlement and was in jail. Her heart stood
still. This, then, was what she had been foreboding all along; the
instantaneous conviction of his guilt was the cruel blow. Oh, the awful,
awful wrench of the heart, when disgrace lays its hand on one we love!
Death seems an honest, joyful thing in comparison. Yet she could think
of a thousand extenuations for him—she found herself yearning over him
as she might have done over the children that had never been hers.
She prayed all the way to jail. How often she had read of similar
journeys—the prisoner was always “sitting on the side of his bed,” in
the cell. Norton was sitting on the side of his bed; his face was turned
away as she came in. She sat down beside him and took his hand.
“Norton!” she said and yet again, “Norton!” and he turned and looked at
her.
“I knew you would come,” he said, “and I knew—you would think—I had done
it.”
“Oh, Norton, Norton! Say only that you did not, and I will believe you.”
“You will believe—if I tell you—that I am not—a thief? What would a
thief’s word be good for, Milly? Do I have to tell such a thing to my
own wife? Why, even that poor Irish woman you can hear crying in the
next cell believes in her husband; you should have heard her talking
before you came—and he’s a brute.”
Milly gasped painfully, the tears were running down her cheeks. “You
know you always thought some things honest that I did not—some
transactions—we have often talked—how could I tell—”
“You had your ideas and I had mine,” he interrupted. “It’s mighty hard
to conduct business on abstract principles—perhaps—I don’t deny it! My
ways weren’t always what they ought to have been. But this is
_stealing_. It somehow kills me to think that you—” he stopped short
with a gesture, and hid his face in his hands.
Milly longed to put her arms around him, to kiss the hands that hid him
from her, to do anything to show her love and grief, and her faith in
him, but she did not dare. This was her husband, but she did not dare.
He spoke quite calmly after a few minutes. “You had better go back to
the house now. My arrest was all a stupid blunder; I sent for Catherwood
at once, and he saw Forrest. They are on the right track and I will be
set free as soon as possible, to-morrow, probably; the charge is to be
withdrawn. And don’t feel so badly, dear, I suppose it’s all my fault
that you have never believed in me since we were married—for you never
have, Milly.” He stooped and kissed her good-by, saying gently, “You
must go now, dear.”
Three days after that he came home very ill. All that Milly had been
longing to say to him, all that she had been longing to hear, must wait
until the morrow—until the next week—until the next month; and then, and
then, could it be? Until the next life!
He was so very ill from the beginning that there was nothing else to be
considered; for the first time her own wishes and feelings were as
naught. In the delirium he did not even know her. But there came a time
before the end when she was startled as she sat by him in the twilight,
holding his wasted hand to see his conscious eyes fixed upon her through
the shadows. Her own responded with a depth of piteous eager love in
them as she bent closer to him. Still the eyes gazed at her—what, oh,
_what_ were they saying?
“_Darling_,” she whispered.
His lips did not move, but the fingers of the hand which lay in hers
felt feebly for something—touched the golden circle on her finger, and
held it as if contented at last.
And still the eyes—
It was again the moment of their betrothal, and God was with them as in
the garden.
* * * * *
LATE in the moonlight, the tender moonlight of June, Milly sat alone by
a grave. The soft night wind touched her face, the smell of countless
budding flowers was around her. It was again the beautiful youth of the
year, the time of love, and for her youth and love were done. Such a
little while ago it seemed since she had been looking forward to it, and
now it was done. Oh, what did it all mean, the love, the yearning, the
striving, that it should end in such bitter loss; how had they made such
a failure of marriage—marriage, that could have been so beautiful! Why
was it that that last moment with Norton had been the first to show it
to her?
In the utter solitude she thought and thought, with strained brow, with
hands tightly clasped. She searched her soul as if it were the judgment
day. Death held up the lamp by which she saw her husband at last
clearly—all that he was, all that he might have been if she had not used
her higher thought to build up a barrier between them. The sense of his
maimed life, the loss of all the joy and trust there might have been,
pierced her to the heart. His nature, lower than hers, had yet held in
it the capacity to be more than hers—had seen more clearly, and had been
more generous. Could it be that, after all, she who had loved so much
had not loved enough?
Oh, what was it that was expected of love; to desire utterly the good of
the best beloved, the development along lines where one cannot follow,
on which one has no claim, which touch no answering chord of self—no one
poor human being can love perfectly, as perfectly as that! If one were
only God—
But there was God.
Milly raised her head, and the moonlight fell on her face.
“Oh, far beyond this poor horizon’s bound” shone the answer to all her
thought. The capability of endless growth, the mating of two souls
beyond the spheres and through all ages was the message of high emprise
that called her like the voice of a star. With the heart of love, with
the wings of immortality came the third revelation, reaching to infinite
depths and heights, revealing the ineffable space where self is lost in
the divine. The secret of life and death, of loss and reprisal, of the
seen and the unseen, of _thou and I_, was there in the oneness of all
that our mortal sense divides. Oh, the great, free, beautiful vision!
In the long silence—in the blowing of the night wind—when the clouds
veiled the moon—spirit to spirit she stood with her beloved at last, as
never, oh, never before upon this earth, and repeated aloud once more
the words of eternal might:
“The Lord watch between thee and me—between thee and me—when we are
parted the one from the other.”
THE END
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: Decoration]
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS
GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected.
○ Unbalanced quotation marks were corrected.
○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling was made consistent only when a predominant
form was found in this book.
○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).