"Going to Stoughton with papa."
"But--but--Miss Guion--"
"I'm not going to be married," she continued, in the same even tone. "I
thought perhaps Colonel Ashley might have told you. That's all over."
"All over--how?"
"He's been so magnificent--so wonderful. He stood by me during all my
trouble, never letting me know that he'd changed in any way--"
"Oh, he's changed, has he?"
Because he sat slightly behind her, she missed the thunderous gloom in
his face, while she was too intent on what she was saying to note the
significance in his tone.
"Perhaps he hasn't changed so much, after all. As I think it over I'm
inclined to believe that he was in love with Drusilla from the
first-only my coming to Southsea brought in a disturbing--"
"Then he's a hound! I'd begun to think better of him--I did think better
of him--but now, by God, I'll--"
With a backward gesture of the hand, without looking at him, she made
him resume the seat from which he was again about to spring.
"No, no. You don't understand. He's been superb. He's still superb. He
would never have told me at all if he hadn't seen--"
She stopped with a little gasp.
"Yes? If he hadn't seen--what?"
"That I--that I--I care--for some one else."
"Oh! Well, of course, that does make a difference."
He fell back into the depths of his chair, his fingers drumming on the
table beside which he sat. Minutes passed before he spoke again. He got
the words out jerkily, huskily, with dry throat.
"Some one--in England?"
"No--here."
During the next few minutes of silence he pulled himself imperceptibly
forward, till his elbows rested on his knees, while he peered up into
the face of which he could still see nothing but the profile.
"Is he--is he--coming to Stoughton?"
"He's _going_ to Stoughton. He's been there--already."
If there was silence again it was because he dared not frame the words
that were on his tongue.
"It isn't--it can't be--?"
Without moving otherwise, she turned her head so that her eyes looked
into his obliquely. She nodded. She could utter no more than the
briefest syllables. "Yes. It is."
His lips were parched, but he still forced himself to speak. "Is that
true?--or are you saying it because--because I put up the money?"
She gathered all her strength together. "If you hadn't put up the money,
I might never have known that it was true; but it _is_ true. I think it
was true before that--long ago--when you offered me so much--so
_much!_--that I didn't know how to take it--and I didn't answer you. I
can't tell. I can't tell when it began--but it seems to me very far
back--"
Still bending forward, he covered his eyes with his left hand, raising
his right in a blind, groping movement in her direction. She took it in
both her own, clasping it to her breast, as she went on:
"I see now--yes, I think I see quite clearly--that that's why I
struggled against your help, in the first place.... If it had been
anybody else I should probably have taken it at once.... You must have
thought me very foolish.... I suppose I was.... My only excuse is that
it was something like--like revolt--first against the wrong we had been
doing, and then against the great, sublime thing that was coming up out
of the darkness to conquer me.... That's the way I felt.... I was
afraid.... I wanted something smaller--something more conventional--such
as I'd been trained for.... It was only by degrees that I came to see
that there were big things to live for--as well as little.... It's all
so wonderful!--so mysterious! I can't tell!... I only know that now--"
He withdrew his hand, looking troubled.
"Are you--are you--_sure?_"
She reflected a minute. "I know what makes you ask that. You think I've
changed too suddenly. If so, I can explain it."
The silence in which he waited for her to continue assented in some sort
to this reading of his thoughts.
"It isn't that I've changed," she said, at last, speaking thoughtfully,
"so much as that I've wakened to a sense of what's real for me as
distinguished from what's been forced and artificial. You may understand
me better if I say that in leading my life up to--up to recently, I've
been like a person at a play--a play in which the situations are
interesting and the characters sympathetic, but which becomes like a
dream the minute you leave the theater and go home. I feel that--that
with you--I've--I've got home."
He would have said something, but she hurried on.
"I've not changed toward the play, except to recognize the fact that it
_was_ a play--for me. I knew it the instant I began to learn about
papa's troubles. That was like a summons to me, like a call. When it
came, everything else--the things I'd been taught to strive for and the
people whom I had supposed to be the only ones worth living with, grew
distant and shadowy, as though they belonged to a picture or a book. It
seemed to me that I woke then for the first time to a realization of the
life going on about me here in my own country, and to a sense of my
share in it. If I hadn't involved myself so much--and involved some one
else with me--my duty would have been clearer from the start. But
Colonel Ashley's been so noble!--he's understood me so well!--he's
helped me so much to understand myself!--that I can't help honoring him,
honoring him with my whole heart, even if I see now that I don't--that I
never did--care for him in the way--"
She pressed her handkerchief to her lips to keep back what might have
become a sob.
"Did you know I--I loved you?" he asked, still speaking hoarsely.
"I thought you must," she said, simply. "I used to say I hoped you
didn't--but deep down in my heart--"
He got up and strode to the window, where, with his back to her, he
stared awhile at the last cold glimmer of the sun set. His big frame and
broad shoulders shut out the light to such an extent that when he turned
it was toward a darkened room. He could barely see her, as she sat
sidewise to the desk, an arm along the back of her chair. His attitude
bespoke a doubt in his mind that still kept him at a distance.
"You're not--you're _not_--saying all this," he pleaded, "because you
think I've done anything that calls for a reward? I said once that I
should never take anything from you, and I never shall--unless it's
something you give only because you can't help it."
Her answer was quite prompt. "I'm not giving anything--or doing
anything. What has happened seems to me to have come about simply and
naturally, like the sunrise or the seasons, because it's the fullness of
time and what God means. I can't say more about it than that. If it
depended on my own volition I shouldn't be able to speak of it so
frankly. But now--if you want me--as you wanted me once--"
She rose and stood by her chair, holding herself proudly and yet with a
certain meekness. With his hands clasped behind him, as though even yet
he dared not touch her, he crossed the twilit room toward her.
* * * * *
Late that night Henry Guion stood on the terrace below the
Corinthian-columned portico. There was no moon, but the stars had
the gold fire with which they shine when the sky is violet. Above
the horizon a shimmering halo marked the cluster of cities and towns.
In the immediate foreground the great elm was leafless now, but for
that reason more clearly etched against the starlight--line on line,
curve on curve, sweeping, drooping, interlaced. Guion stood with head
up and figure erect, as if from strength given back to him. Even
through the darkness he displayed some of the self-assurance and
stoutness of heart of the man with whom things are going well. He was
remembering--questioning--doubting.
"I had come to the end of the end ... and I prayed ... yes, I
_prayed_.... I asked for a miracle ... and the next day it seemed to
have been worked.... Was it the prayer that did it?... Was it any one's
prayer?... Was it any one's faith?... Was it--God?... Had faith and
prayer and God anything to do with it?... Do things happen by
coincidence and chance?... or is there a Mind that directs them?... I
wonder!... I wonder!..."