"Will you go to the Cove with me this afternoon?"
It was Marian Lesley who asked the question.
Esterbrook Elliott unpinned with a masterful touch the delicate
cluster of Noisette rosebuds she wore at her throat and transferred
them to his buttonhole as he answered courteously: "Certainly. My
time, as you know, is entirely at your disposal."
They were standing in the garden under the creamy bloom of drooping
acacia trees. One long plume of blossoms touched lightly the soft,
golden-brown coils of the girl's hair and cast a wavering shadow over
the beautiful, flower-like face beneath it.
Esterbrook Elliott, standing before her, thought proudly that he had
never seen a woman who might compare with her. In every detail she
satisfied his critical, fastidious taste. There was not a discordant
touch about her.
Esterbrook Elliott had always loved Marian Lesley--or thought he had.
They had grown up together from childhood. He was an only son and she
an only daughter. It had always been an understood thing between the
two families that the boy and girl should marry. But Marian's father
had decreed that no positive pledge should pass between them until
Marian was twenty-one.
Esterbrook accepted his mapped-out destiny and selected bride with the
conviction that he was an exceptionally lucky fellow. Out of all the
women in the world Marian was the very one whom he would have chosen
as mistress of his fine, old home. She had been his boyhood's ideal.
He believed that he loved her sincerely, but he was not too much in
love to be blind to the worldly advantages of his marriage with his
cousin.
His father had died two years previously, leaving him wealthy and
independent. Marian had lost her mother in childhood; her father died
when she was eighteen. Since then she had lived alone with her aunt.
Her life was quiet and lonely. Esterbrook's companionship was all that
brightened it, but it was enough. Marian lavished on him all the rich,
womanly love of her heart. On her twenty-first birthday they were
formally betrothed. They were to be married in the following autumn.
No shadow had drifted across the heaven of her happiness. She believed
herself secure in her lover's unfaltering devotion. True, at times she
thought his manner lacked a lover's passionate ardour. He was always
attentive and courteous. She had only to utter a wish to find that it
had been anticipated; he spent every spare minute at her side.
Yet sometimes she half wished he would betray more lover-like
impatience and intensity. Were all lovers as calm and undemonstrative?
She reproached herself for this incipient disloyalty as often as it
vexingly intruded its unwelcome presence across her inner
consciousness. Surely Esterbrook was fond and devoted enough to
satisfy the most exacting demands of affection. Marian herself was
somewhat undemonstrative and reserved. Passing acquaintances called
her cold and proud. Only the privileged few knew the rich depths of
womanly tenderness in her nature.
Esterbrook thought that he fully appreciated her. As he had walked
homeward the night of their betrothal, he had reviewed with
unconscious criticism his mental catalogue of Marian's graces and good
qualities, admitting, with supreme satisfaction, that there was not
one thing about her that he could wish changed.
This afternoon, under the acacias, they had been planning about their
wedding. There was no one to consult but themselves.
They were to be married early in September and then go abroad.
Esterbrook mapped out the details of their bridal tour with careful
thoughtfulness. They would visit all the old-world places that Marian
wished to see. Afterwards they would come back home. He discussed
certain changes he wished to make in the old Elliott mansion to fit it
for a young and beautiful mistress.
He did most of the planning. Marian was content to listen in happy
silence. Afterwards she had proposed this walk to the Cove.
"What particular object of charity have you found at the Cove now?"
asked Esterbrook, with lazy interest, as they walked along.
"Mrs. Barrett's little Bessie is very ill with fever," answered
Marian. Then, catching his anxious look, she hastened to add, "It is
nothing infectious--some kind of a slow, sapping variety. There is no
danger, Esterbrook."
"I was not afraid for myself," he replied quietly. "My alarm was for
you. You are too precious to me, Marian, for me to permit you to risk
health and life, if it were dangerous. What a Lady Bountiful you are
to those people at the Cove. When we are married you must take me in
hand and teach me your creed of charity. I'm afraid I've lived a
rather selfish life. You will change all that, dear. You will make a
good man of me."
"You are that now, Esterbrook," she said softly. "If you were not, I
could not love you."
"It is a negative sort of goodness, I fear. I have never been tried or
tempted severely. Perhaps I should fail under the test."
"I am sure you would not," answered Marian proudly.
Esterbrook laughed; her faith in him was pleasant. He had no thought
but that he would prove worthy of it.
The Cove, so-called, was a little fishing hamlet situated on the low,
sandy shore of a small bay. The houses, clustered in one spot, seemed
like nothing so much as larger shells washed up by the sea, so grey
and bleached were they from long exposure to sea winds and spray.
Dozens of ragged children were playing about them, mingled with
several disreputable yellow curs that yapped noisily at the strangers.
Down on the sandy strip of beach below the houses groups of men were
lounging about. The mackerel, season had not yet set in; the spring
herring netting was past. It was holiday time among the sea folks.
They were enjoying it to the full, a happy, ragged colony, careless of
what the morrows might bring forth.
Out beyond, the boats were at anchor, floating as gracefully on the
twinkling water as sea birds, their tall masts bowing landward on the
swell. A lazy, dreamful calm had fallen over the distant seas; the
horizon blues were pale and dim; faint purple hazes blurred the
outlines of far-off headlands and cliffs; the yellow sands sparkled in
the sunshine as if powdered with jewels.
A murmurous babble of life buzzed about the hamlet, pierced through by
the shrill undertones of the wrangling children, most of whom had
paused in their play to scan the visitors with covert curiosity.
Marian led the way to a house apart from the others at the very edge
of the shelving rock. The dooryard was scrupulously clean and
unlittered; the little footpath through it was neatly bordered by
white clam shells; several thrifty geraniums in bloom looked out from
the muslin-curtained windows.
A weary-faced woman came forward to meet them.
"Bessie's much the same, Miss Lesley," she said, in answer to Marian's
inquiry. "The doctor you sent was here today and did all he could for
her. He seemed quite hopeful. She don't complain or nothing--just lies
there and moans. Sometimes she gets restless. It's very kind of you to
come so often, Miss Lesley. Here, Magdalen, will you put this basket
the lady's brought up there on the shelf?"
A girl, who had been sitting unnoticed with her back to the visitors,
at the head of the child's cot in one corner of the room, stood up and
slowly turned around. Marian and Esterbrook Elliott both started with
involuntary surprise. Esterbrook caught his breath like a man suddenly
awakened from sleep. In the name of all that was wonderful, who or
what could this girl be, so little in harmony with her surroundings?
Standing in the crepuscular light of the corner, her marvellous beauty
shone out with the vivid richness of some rare painting. She was tall,
and the magnificent proportions of her figure were enhanced rather
than marred by the severely plain dress of dark print that she wore.
The heavy masses of her hair, a shining auburn dashed with golden
foam, were coiled in a rich, glossy knot at the back of the
classically modelled head and rippled back from a low brow whose waxen
fairness even the breezes of the ocean had spared.
The girl's face was a full, perfect oval, with features of faultless
regularity, and the large, full eyes were of tawny hazel, darkened
into inscrutable gloom in the dimness of the corner.
Not even Marian Lesley's face was more delicately tinted, but not a
trace of colour appeared in the smooth, marble-like cheeks; yet the
waxen pallor bore no trace of disease or weakness, and the large,
curving mouth was of an intense crimson.
She stood quite motionless. There was no trace of embarrassment or
self-consciousness in her pose. When Mrs. Barrett said, "This is my
niece, Magdalen Crawford," she merely inclined her head in grave,
silent acknowledgement. As she moved forward to take Marian's basket,
she seemed oddly out of place in the low, crowded room. Her presence
seemed to throw a strange restraint over the group.
Marian rose and went over to the cot, laying her slender hand on the
hot forehead of the little sufferer. The child opened its brown eyes
questioningly.
"How are you today, Bessie?"
"Mad'len--I want Mad'len," moaned the little plaintive voice.
Magdalen came over and stood beside Marian Lesley.
"She wants me," she said in a low, thrilling voice; free from all
harsh accent or intonation. "I am the only one she seems to know
always. Yes, darling, Mad'len is here--right beside you. She will not
leave you."
She knelt by the little cot and passed her arm under the child's neck,
drawing the curly head close to her throat with a tender, soothing
motion.
Esterbrook Elliott watched the two women intently--the one standing by
the cot, arrayed in simple yet costly apparel, with her beautiful,
high-bred face, and the other, kneeling on the bare, sanded floor in
her print dress, with her splendid head bent low over the child and
the long fringe of burnished lashes sweeping the cold pallor of the
oval cheek.
From the moment that Magdalen Crawford's haunting eyes had looked
straight into his for one fleeting second, an unnamable thrill of pain
and pleasure stirred his heart, a thrill so strong and sudden and
passionate that his face paled with emotion; the room seemed to swim
before his eyes in a mist out of which gleamed that wonderful face
with its mesmeric, darkly radiant eyes, burning their way into deeps
and abysses of his soul hitherto unknown to him.
When the mist cleared away and his head grew steadier, he wondered at
himself. Yet he trembled in every limb and the only clear idea that
struggled out of his confused thoughts was an overmastering desire to
take that cold face between his hands and kiss it until its
passionless marble glowed into warm and throbbing life.
"Who is that girl?" he said abruptly, when they had left the cottage.
"She is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen--present company
always excepted," he concluded, with a depreciatory laugh.
The delicate bloom on Marian's face deepened slightly.
"You had much better to have omitted that last sentence," she said
quietly, "it was so palpably an afterthought. Yes, she is wonderfully
lovely--a strange beauty, I fancied. There seemed something odd and
uncanny about it to me. She must be Mrs. Barrett's niece. I remember
that when I was down here about a month ago Mrs. Barrett told me she
expected a niece of hers to live with her--for a time at least. Her
parents were both dead, the father having died recently. Mrs. Barrett
seemed troubled about her. She said that the girl had been well
brought up and used to better things than the Cove could give her, and
she feared that she would be very discontented and unhappy. I had
forgotten all about it until I saw the girl today. She certainly seems
to be a very superior person; she will find the Cove very lonely, I am
sure. It is not probable she will stay there long. I must see what I
can do for her, but her manner seemed rather repellent, don't you
think?"
"Hardly," responded Esterbrook curtly. "She seemed surprisingly
dignified and self-possessed, I fancied, for a girl in her position. A
princess could not have looked and bowed more royally. There was not a
shadow of embarrassment in her manner, in spite of the incongruity of
her surroundings. You had much better leave her alone, Marian. In all
probability she would resent any condescension on your part. What
wonderful, deep, lovely eyes she has."
Again the sensitive colour flushed Marian's cheek as his voice lapsed
unconsciously into a dreamy, retrospective tone, and a slight
restraint came over her manner, which did not depart. Esterbrook went
away at sunset. Marian asked him to remain for the evening, but he
pleaded some excuse.
"I shall come tomorrow afternoon," he said, as he stooped to drop a
careless good-bye kiss on her face.
Marian watched him wistfully as he rode away, with an unaccountable
pain in her heart. She felt more acutely than ever that there were
depths in her lover's nature that she was powerless to stir into
responsive life.
Had any other that power? She thought of the girl at the Cove, with
her deep eyes and wonderful face. A chill of premonitory fear seized
upon her.
"I feel exactly as if Esterbrook had gone away from me forever," she
said slowly to herself, stooping to brush her cheek against a
dew-cold, milk-white acacia bloom, "and would never come back to me
again. If that could happen, I wonder what there would be left to live
for?"
* * * * *
Esterbrook Elliott meant, or honestly thought he meant, to go home
when he left Marian. Nevertheless, when he reached the road branching
off to the Cove he turned his horse down it with a flush on his dark
cheek. He realized that the motive of the action was disloyal to
Marian and he felt ashamed of his weakness.
But the desire to see Magdalen Crawford once more and to look into the
depths of her eyes was stronger than all else, and overpowered every
throb of duty and resistance.
He saw nothing of her when he reached the Cove. He could think of no
excuse for calling at the Barrett cottage, so he rode slowly past the
hamlet and along the shore.
The sun, red as a smouldering ember, was half buried in the silken
violet rim of the sea; the west was a vast lake of saffron and rose
and ethereal green, through which floated the curved shallop of a thin
new moon, slowly deepening from lustreless white, through gleaming
silver, into burnished gold, and attended by one solitary, pearl-white
star. The vast concave of sky above was of violet, infinite and
flawless. Far out dusky amethystine islets clustered like gems on the
shining breast of the bay. The little pools of water along the low
shores glowed like mirrors of polished jacinth. The small,
pine-fringed headlands ran out into the water, cutting its lustrous
blue expanse like purple wedges.
As Esterbrook turned one of them he saw Magdalen standing out on the
point of the next, a short distance away. Her back was towards him,
and her splendid figure was outlined darkly against the vivid sky.
Esterbrook sprang from his horse and left the animal standing by
itself while he walked swiftly out to her. His heart throbbed
suffocatingly. He was conscious of no direct purpose save merely to
see her.
She turned when he reached her with a slight start of surprise. His
footsteps had made no sound on the tide-rippled sand.
For a few moments they faced each other so, eyes burning into eyes
with mute soul-probing and questioning. The sun had disappeared,
leaving a stain of fiery red to mark his grave; the weird, radiant
light was startlingly vivid and clear. Little crisp puffs and flakes
of foam scurried over the point like elfin things. The fresh wind,
blowing up the bay, tossed the lustrous rings of hair about Magdalen's
pale face; all the routed shadows of the hour had found refuge in her
eyes.
Not a trace of colour appeared in her face under Esterbrook Elliott's
burning gaze. But when he said "Magdalen!" a single, hot scorch of
crimson flamed up into her cheeks protestingly. She lifted her hand
with a splendid gesture, but no word passed her lips.
"Magdalen, have you nothing to say to me?" he asked, coming closer to
her with an imploring passion in his face never seen by Marian
Lesley's eyes. He reached out his hand, but she stepped back from his
touch.
"What should I have to say to you?"
"Say that you are glad to see me."
"I am not glad to see you. You have no right to come here. But I knew
you would come."
"You knew it? How?"
"Your eyes told me so today. I am not blind--I can see further than
those dull fisher folks. Yes, I knew you would come. That is why I
came here tonight--so that you would find me alone and I could tell
you that you were not to come again."
"Why must you tell me that, Magdalen?"
"Because, as I have told you, you have no right to come."
"But if I will not obey you? If I will come in defiance of your
prohibition?"
She turned her steady luminous eyes on his pale, set face.
"You would stamp yourself as a madman, then," she said coldly. "I know
that you are Miss Lesley's promised husband. Therefore, you are either
false to her or insulting to me. In either case the companionship of
Magdalen Crawford is not what you must seek. Go!"
She turned away from him with an imperious gesture of dismissal.
Esterbrook Elliott stepped forward and caught one firm, white wrist.
"I shall not obey you," he said in a low, intense tone; his fine eyes
burned into hers. "You may send me away, but I will come back, again
and yet again until you have learned to welcome me. Why should you
meet me like an enemy? Why can we not be friends?"
The girl faced him once more.
"Because," she said proudly, "I am not your equal. There can be no
friendship between us. There ought not to be. Magdalen Crawford, the
fisherman's niece, is no companion for you. You will be foolish, as
well as disloyal, if you ever try to see me again. Go back to the
beautiful, high-bred woman you love and forget me. Perhaps you think I
am talking strangely. Perhaps you think me bold and unwomanly to speak
so plainly to you, a stranger. But there are some circumstances in
life when plain-speaking is best. I do not want to see you again. Now,
go back to your own world."
Esterbrook Elliott slowly turned from her and walked in silence back
to the shore. In the shadows of the point he stopped to look back at
her, standing out like some inspired prophetess against the fiery
background of the sunset sky and silver-blue water. The sky overhead
was thick-sown with stars; the night breeze was blowing up from its
lair in distant, echoing sea caves. On his right the lights of the
Cove twinkled out through the dusk.
"I feel like a coward and a traitor," he said slowly. "Good God, what
is this madness that has come over me? Is this my boasted strength of
manhood?"
A moment later the hoof beats of his horse died away up the shore.
Magdalen Crawford lingered on the point until the last dull red faded
out into the violet gloom of the June sea dusk, than which nothing can
be rarer or diviner, and listened to the moan and murmur of the sea
far out over the bay with sorrowful eyes and sternly set lips.
The next day, when the afternoon sun hung hot and heavy over the
water, Esterbrook Elliott came again to the Cove. He found it
deserted. A rumour of mackerel had come, and every boat had sailed
out in the rose-red dawn to the fishing grounds. But down on a strip
of sparkling yellow sand he saw Magdalen Crawford standing, her hand
on the rope that fastened a small white dory to the fragment of a
half-embedded wreck.
She was watching a huddle of gulls clustered on the tip of a narrow,
sandy spit running out to the left. She turned at the sound of his
hurried foot-fall behind her. Her face paled slightly, and into the
depths of her eyes leapt a passionate, mesmeric glow that faded as
quickly as it came.
"You see I have come back in spite of your command, Magdalen."
"I do see it," she answered in a gravely troubled voice. "You are a
madman who refuses to be warned."
"Where are you going, Magdalen?" She had loosened the rope from the
wreck.
"I am going to row over to Chapel Point for salt. They think the boats
will come in tonight loaded with mackerel--look at them away out there
by the score--and salt will be needed."
"Can you row so far alone?"
"Easily. I learned to row long ago--for a pastime then. Since coming
here I find it of great service to me."
She stepped lightly into the tiny shallop and picked up an oar. The
brilliant sunshine streamed about her, burnishing the rich tints of
her hair into ruddy gold. She balanced herself to the swaying of the
dory with the grace of a sea bird. The man looking at her felt his
brain reel.
"Good-bye, Mr. Elliott."
For answer he sprang into the dory and, snatching an oar, pushed
against the old wreck with such energy that the dory shot out from the
shore like a foam bell. His sudden spring had set it rocking
violently. Magdalen almost lost her footing and caught blindly at his
arm. As her fingers closed on his wrist a thrill as of fire shot
through his every vein.
"Why have you done this, Mr. Elliott? You must go back."
"But I will not," he said masterfully, looking straight into her eyes
with an imperiousness that sat well upon him. "I am going to row you
over to Chapel Point. I have the oars--I will be master this once, at
least."
For an instant her eyes flashed defiant protest, then drooped before
his. A sudden, hot blush crimsoned her pale face. His will had
mastered hers; the girl trembled from head to foot, and the proud,
sensitive, mouth quivered.
Into the face of the man watching her breathlessly flashed a
triumphant, passionate joy. He put out his hand and gently pushed her
down into the seat. Sitting opposite, he took up the oars and pulled
out over the sheet of sparkling blue water, through which at first the
bottom of white sand glimmered wavily but afterwards deepened to
translucent, dim depths of greenness.
His heart throbbed tumultuously. Once the thought of Marian drifted
across his mind like a chill breath of wind, but it was forgotten when
his eyes met Magdalen's.
"Tell me about yourself, Magdalen," he said at last, breaking the
tremulous, charmed, sparkling silence.
"There is nothing to tell," she answered with characteristic
straightforwardness. "My life has been a very uneventful one. I have
never been rich, or very well educated, but--it used to be different
from now. I had some chance before--before Father died."
"You must have found it very lonely and strange when you came here
first."
"Yes. At first I thought I should die--but I do not mind it now. I
have made friends with the sea; it has taught me a great deal. There
is a kind of inspiration in the sea. When one listens to its
never-ceasing murmur afar out there, always sounding at midnight and
midday, one's soul goes out to meet Eternity. Sometimes it gives me so
much pleasure that it is almost pain."
She stopped abruptly.
"I don't know why I am talking to you like this."
"You are a strange girl, Magdalen. Have you no other companion than
the sea?"
"No. Why should I wish to have? I shall not be here long."
Elliott's face contracted with a spasm of pain.
"You are not going away, Magdalen?"
"Yes--in the fall. I have my own living to earn, you know. I am very
poor. Uncle and Aunt are very kind, but I cannot consent to burden
them any longer than I can help."
A sigh that was almost a moan broke from Esterbrook Elliott's lips.
"You must not go away, Magdalen. You must stay here--with me!"
"You forget yourself," she said proudly. "How dare you speak to me so?
Have you forgotten Miss Lesley? Or are you a traitor to us both?"
Esterbrook made no answer. He bowed his pale, miserable face before
her, self-condemned.
The breast of the bay sparkled with its countless gems like the breast
of a fair woman. The shores were purple and amethystine in the
distance. Far out, bluish, phantom-like sails clustered against the
pallid horizon. The dory danced like a feather over the ripples. They
were close under the shadow of Chapel Point.
* * * * *
Marian Lesley waited in vain for her lover that afternoon. When he
came at last in the odorous dusk of the June night she met him on the
acacia-shadowed verandah with cold sweetness. Perhaps some subtle
woman-instinct whispered to her where and how he had spent the
afternoon, for she offered him no kiss, nor did she ask him why he had
failed to come sooner.
His eyes lingered on her in the dim light, taking in every detail of
her sweet womanly refinement and loveliness, and with difficulty he
choked back a groan. Again he asked himself what madness had come over
him, and again for an answer rose up the vision of Magdalen Crawford's
face as he had seen it that day, crimsoning beneath his gaze.
It was late when he left. Marian watched him out of sight, standing
under the acacias. She shivered as with a sudden chill. "I feel as I
think Vashti must have felt," she murmured aloud, "when, discrowned
and unqueened, she crept out of the gates of Shushan to hide her
broken heart. I wonder if Esther has already usurped my sceptre. Has
that girl at the Cove, with her pale, priestess-like face and
mysterious eyes, stolen his heart from me? Perhaps not, for it may
never have been mine. I know that Esterbrook Elliott will be true to
the letter of his vows to me, no matter what it may cost him. But I
want no pallid shadow of the love that belongs to another. The hour of
abdication is at hand, I fear. And what will be left for throneless
Vashti then?"
Esterbrook Elliott, walking home through the mocking calm of the
night, fought a hard battle with himself.
He was face to face with the truth at last--the bitter knowledge that
he had never loved Marian Lesley, save with a fond, brotherly
affection, and that he did love Magdalen Crawford with a passion that
threatened to sweep before it every vestige of his honour and
loyalty.
He had seen her but three times--and his throbbing heart lay in the
hollow of her cold white hand.
He shut his eyes and groaned. What madness. What unutterable folly! He
was not free--he was bound to another by every cord of honour and
self-respect. And, even were he free, Magdalen Crawford would be no
fit wife for him--in the eyes of the world, at least. A girl from the
Cove--a girl with little education and no social standing--aye! but he
loved her.
He groaned again and again in his misery. Afar down the slope the bay
waters lay like an inky strip and the distant, murmurous plaint of the
sea came out of the stillness of the night; the lights at the Cove
glimmered faintly.
In the week that followed he went to the Cove every day. Sometimes he
did not see Magdalen; at other times he did. But at the end of the
week he had conquered in the bitter, heart-crushing struggle with
himself. If he had weakly given way to the first mad sweep of a new
passion, the strength of his manhood reasserted itself at last.
Faltering and wavering were over, though there was passionate pain in
his voice when he said at last, "I am not coming back again,
Magdalen."
They were standing in the shadow of the pine-fringed point that ran
out to the left of the Cove. They had been walking together along the
shore, watching the splendour of the sea sunset that flamed and glowed
in the west, where there was a sea of mackerel clouds, crimson and
amber tinted, with long, ribbon-like strips of apple-green sky
between. They had walked in silence, hand in hand, as children might
have done, yet with the stir and throb of a mighty passion seething in
their hearts.
Magdalen turned as Esterbrook spoke, and looked at him in a long
silence. The bay stretched out before them, tranced and shimmering; a
few stars shone down through the gloom of dusk. Right across the
translucent greens and roses and blues of the west hung a dark,
unsightly cloud, like the blurred outline of a monstrous bat. In the
dim, reflected light the girl's mournful face took on a weird,
unearthly beauty. She turned her eyes from Esterbrook Elliott's set
white face to the radiant gloom of the sea.
"That is best," she answered at last, slowly.
"Best--yes! Better that we had never met! I love you--you know
it--words are idle between us. I never loved before--I thought I did.
I made a mistake and I must pay the penalty of that mistake. You
understand me?"
"I understand," she answered simply.
"I do not excuse myself--I have been weak and cowardly and disloyal.
But I have conquered myself--I will be true to the woman to whom I am
pledged. You and I must not meet again. I will crush this madness to
death. I think I have been delirious ever since that day I saw you
first, Magdalen. My brain is clearer now. I see my duty and I mean to
do it at any cost. I dare not trust myself to say more. Magdalen, I
have much for which to ask your forgiveness."
"There is nothing to forgive," she said steadily. "I have been as much
to blame as you. If I had been as resolute as I ought to have been--if
I had sent you away the second time as I did the first--this would not
have come to pass. I have been weak too, and I deserve to atone for my
weakness by suffering. There is only one path open to us. Esterbrook,
good-bye." Her voice quivered with an uncontrollable spasm of pain,
but the misty, mournful eyes did not swerve from his. The man stepped
forward and caught her in his arms.
"Magdalen, good-bye, my darling. Kiss me once--only once--before I
go."
She loosened his arms and stepped back proudly.
"No! No man kisses my lips unless he is to be my husband. Good-bye,
dear."
He bowed his head silently and went away, looking back not once, else
he might have seen her kneeling on the damp sand weeping noiselessly
and passionately.
* * * * *
Marian Lesley looked at his pale, determined face the next evening and
read it like an open book.
She had grown paler herself; there were purple shadows under the sweet
violet eyes that might have hinted of her own sleepless nights.
She greeted him calmly, holding out a steady, white hand of welcome.
She saw the traces of the struggle through which he had passed and
knew that he had come off victor.
The knowledge made her task a little harder. It would have been easier
to let slip the straining cable than to cast it from her when it lay
unresistingly in her hand.
For an instant her heart thrilled with an unutterably sweet hope.
Might he not forget in time? Need she snap in twain the weakened bond
between them after all? Perhaps she might win back her lost sceptre,
yet if--
Womanly pride throttled the struggling hope. No divided allegiance, no
hollow semblance of queenship for her!
Her opportunity came when Esterbrook asked with grave earnestness if
their marriage might not be hastened a little--could he not have his
bride in August? For a fleeting second Marian closed her eyes and the
slender hands, lying among the laces in her lap, clasped each other
convulsively.
Then she said quietly, "Sometimes I have thought, Esterbrook, that it
might be better--if we were never married at all."
Esterbrook turned a startled face upon her.
"Not married at all! Marian, what do you mean?"
"Just what I say. I do not think we are as well suited to each other
after all as we have fancied. We have loved each other as brother and
sister might--that is all. I think it will be best to be brother and
sister forever--nothing more."
Esterbrook sprang to his feet.
"Marian, do you know what you are saying? You surely cannot have
heard--no one could have told you--"
"I have heard nothing," she interrupted hurriedly. "No one has told me
anything. I have only said what I have been thinking of late. I am
sure we have made a mistake. It is not too late to remedy it. You will
not refuse my request, Esterbrook? You will set me free?"
"Good heavens, Marian!" he said hoarsely. "I cannot realize that you
are in earnest. Have you ceased to care for me?" The rigidly locked
hands were clasped a little tighter.
"No--I shall always care for you as my friend if you will let me. But
I know we could not make each other happy--the time for that has gone
by. I would never be satisfied, nor would you. Esterbrook, will you
release me from a promise which has become an irksome fetter?"
He looked down on her upturned face mistily. A great joy was surging
up in his heart--yet it was mingled with great regret.
He knew--none better--what was passing out of his life, what he was
losing when he lost that pure, womanly nature.
"If you really mean this, Marian," he said slowly, "if you really have
come to feel that your truest love is not and never can be mine--that
I cannot make you happy--then there is nothing for me to do but to
grant your request. You are free."
"Thank you, dear," she said gently, as she stood up.
She slipped his ring from her finger and held it out to him. He took
it mechanically. He still felt dazed and unreal.
Marian held out her hand.
"Good-night, Esterbrook," she said, a little wearily. "I feel tired. I
am glad you see it all in the same light as I do."
"Marian," he said earnestly, clasping the outstretched hand, "are you
sure that you will be happy--are you sure that you are doing a wise
thing?"
"Quite sure," she answered, with a faint smile. "I am not acting
rashly. I have thought it all over carefully. Things are much better
so, dear. We will always be friends. Your joys and sorrows will be to
me as my own. When another love comes to bless your life, Esterbrook,
I will be glad. And now, good-night. I want to be alone now."
At the doorway he turned to look back at her, standing in all her
sweet stateliness in the twilight duskness, and the keen realization
of all he had lost made him bow his head with a quick pang of regret.
Then he went out into the darkness of the summer night.
An hour later he stood alone on the little point where he had parted
with Magdalen the night before. A restless night wind was moaning
through the pines that fringed the bank behind him; the moon shone
down radiantly, turning the calm expanse of the bay into a milk-white
sheen.
He took Marian's ring from his pocket and kissed it reverently. Then
he threw it from him far out over the water. For a second the diamond
flashed in the moonlight; then, with a tiny splash, it fell among the
ripples.
Esterbrook turned his face to the Cove, lying dark and silent in the
curve between the crescent headlands. A solitary light glimmered from
the low eaves of the Barrett cottage.
Tomorrow, was his unspoken thought, I will be free; to go back to
Magdalen.