The cottage is still the old familiar white cottage at the foot of the
lane. The dog on the step is Helen's dog. The bed of sweet-williams is
still tended by Braine. The same old desk sits in the corner, at which
the same earnest, grave man works, but all else is different.
There is no longer the seductiveness of shining cleanliness alone, but
there have been added the proper settings of the Helen of long ago.
The cottage is dainty within;--rich with soft carpets and heavy
hangings. It impresses one as a little incongruous at first, on entering
with the impression of simplicity gained outside; but the feeling
quickly wears off, and one is satisfied with the charm.
All was done in a week's time. She did not have to wait.
She apparently has been unimpressed with the change. She has accepted
the luxury as she did the apparent poverty. Braine has no way of knowing
whether it pleases her or not; whether she has a desire that he may make
himself happy by gratifying her or not.
She sits always in one place--on a luxuriously soft, roomy chair in the
window, with the flower-bed just in front of her. She sits half
reclining here, from morning till night.
Braine attends to every want. He dresses her as deftly as a woman, in
the morning; at night he assists her again.
She requires no waiting on. He stands for moments beside her sometimes,
longing to hear her signify a desire that he may fulfil it. She wants
nothing.
Sometimes her presence drives him nearly mad. He sits at the desk hour
after hour, feeling her dark, brooding eyes fixed upon him. He endures
it until he feels his senses swimming, and then sometimes looks up with
a smile, terrible in its effort and pathos. He looks up to meet the
relentless gaze that follows him from morning till night. Never a word,
never a motion. Silence, passivity always.
She looks at one other thing--the sweet-williams in front of the window.
Her expression may not change; it may be the relief that he
experiences, when he knows that her eyes are not upon him, but he
fancies that the gaze is less terrible, less forbidding when she looks
at the flowers. For this reason, he brings her a fragrant little bunch
each morning, each evening. He lays them in her lap. He never sees her
touch them, but she never rejects them. She accepts them as she does
everything else, in utter silence, passively.
Those brought in the morning are withered at night, and those brought at
night, faded by day--but he never throws them away. They have been near
her. They have touched her gown--possibly she has touched them with her
hands. It is possible she has touched them with her lips--those lips he
never dares kiss. At any rate he keeps the withered flowers. He puts
them away, each little faded bunch, in a drawer in the strange little
desk.
Sometimes he raises his head from his writing to speak. He meets her
glance, and is dumb. Sometimes he thinks she must be lonely, and reads
to her,--reads until the fascination of her eyes draws his glance from
the pages, and he looks up with the feeling of horror and oppression
that now possesses him. Sometimes he longs for the sound of her voice.
Indeed, sometimes the longing becomes so intense that he clenches his
hands, and the perspiration stands in great beads upon his forehead.
Sometimes he sits in the twilight, the silent figure near, and thinks of
the tones of a voice long ago. He tries to recall the intonation she
gave to his name, and certain phrases she used. He wonders if the tones
are just right in his memory.
At these times he thinks every moment:
"Will she speak? She is about to speak now. In a moment she will speak
my name." And he sits breathlessly, with his head partly turned. There
is never a word, never a sound, never a motion.
He is working in his flower-bed. He puts down his trowel and hurries in,
suddenly possessed with the idea--"She may feel like speaking, and I not
be there." Or while he is at work among the flowers he looks up to find
her looking at him.
Her dog is at her feet. She never notices him, never touches him. Braine
can no longer find a trace of Helen, his wife, in this woman. He tries
in vain to recall her expression.
This evening he is standing at the little gate leading to the lane. He
leans on it in the sweet silence, that the birds are emphasizing. He is
looking off into the far-away, his white hair touched by the setting
sun.
Is it the effect of the dying light, or is his face different? His dark
eyes have grown dreamy with their absent look. There is a half smile on
his firm, tender lips; an expression of resignation, which is not dogged
but cheerful; an expression that impels the squirrel on the rail of the
fence to stay where he is, and the dog to poke his black nose into his
master's hand.
He turns toward the house, stooping over the sweet-williams to gather
the accustomed bunch. He goes into the cottage with them in his hand,
the same half-smile on his lips.
In the doorway he pauses. He stands gazing at the figure in the chair by
the window. What has come over him? He brushes his hand slowly across
his eyes. Helen sits by the window. Where is the terrible face that has
haunted him all these months?
He goes nearer. She is asleep. The setting sun burnishes the gold of her
hair until it is like the aureole of a saint. It frames the face not of
the woman who has sat in silence so long, but of the woman who loved him
in his youth. The same sweet mouth with its tender smile. The wife of
his youth, of his love, of his happiness, of his poverty, of his
eminence, of--
He is at her side. The sun has lowered a little, and the delicate flush
on her face is going with it.
He bends near her till his lips touch her tender ones that seem to
invite.
He leans heavily against her chair. He lays the sweet-williams gently in
her dead hands, as the sun sets behind the hill.
* * * * *
Juggernaut has passed over his soul and Helen's.