|ETHEL had been to her uncle's grave one afternoon, and was returning
through the wood which lay between the farmhouse and the village when
she met Paul.
“I've just been up with some flowers,” she said. “Oh, it is so sad! I
had a good cry.”
“I have no doubt it made you feel better,” he said, looking at her
tenderly. “Nature has made us that way.”
“I am afraid I became rather despondent,” she answered. “Oh, Paul, I
wish I had all your beautiful faith! You have actually reconciled me
to poor dear Jennie's death. I can already see that it was best. It has
made me kinder and broader in many ways. Do you know, Paul, there are
times when I am fully conscious of her presence--I don't mean in the
ordinary, spiritualistic sense, but something--I don't know how to put
it--but something like the highest mental essence of my dear cousin
seems to fold me in an embrace that is actually transporting. I find
myself full of tears and joy at the same time, and almost dazed with the
indescribable reality of it.”
“Many sensitive persons have that experience in sorrow,” Paul said, “and
I am obliged to think there is some psychic fact beneath it. There is
something undoubtedly uplifting in a great grief. It is a certain cure
for spiritual blindness. It tears the scales of matter from our eyes as
nothing else can do.”
“I can't, however, keep from being despondent over my poor uncle,” Ethel
sighed, as she agreed with him. “Oh, Paul, he really wasn't prepared. He
plunged into the dark void without the faintest faith or hope.”
Paul gravely shook his head and smiled. “To believe that is to doubt
that the great principle of life is love. We cannot conceive of even
an earthly father's punishing one of his children for being blind, much
less the Creator of us all. Your uncle through his whole life was blind
to the truth. Had he seen it, his awakening would have been here instead
of there, that is all.”
“Oh, how comforting, how sweetly comforting!” Ethel sobbed. There was a
fallen tree near the path, and she turned aside and sat down. She folded
her hands in her lap, while the tears stood in her eyes. “Paul,” she
said, suddenly, “you are very happy, aren't you? You must be--you have
so much to make you so.”
He looked away toward the mountain where the slanting rays of the sun
lay in a mellow flood, and a grave, almost despondent, expression crept
into his eyes. He made no answer. She repeated her question in a rising
tone, full of tender eagerness. Then without looking at her he answered,
slowly and distinctly:
“All humanity must suffer, Ethel. It is part of the divine order.
Suffering is to the growing soul what decayed matter is to the roots
of a flower. Light is the opposite of darkness; joy is the opposite
of suffering. The whole of life is made up of such contrasts; earth is
temporary captivity, Paradise is eternal freedom.”
“But you have already _had_ your suffering,” Ethel pursued, her drying
eyes fixed hungrily on his face. “Surely you--you are not unhappy now.
I don't see how you could be so when everybody loves you so much, and is
so appreciative of your goodness. Henry worships you. He says you have
made a man of him. Old Mr. Tye declares you have actually put an end to
lawlessness in these mountains. I can't see how you, of all men, could
be unhappy for a minute.”
“There are things”--he was still avoiding her eyes, and he spoke with
a sort of tortured candor as he sat down near her and raised his knee
between his tense hands--“there are things, Ethel, which the very soul
of a man cries out for, but which he can never have--which he dare not
even hope for, lest he slip into utter despondency and never recover his
courage.”
She rose and stood before him. He had never seen her look more
beautiful, more resolute. “You intimated--Paul, you hinted, when you
first came home from the West, that as a boy, away back before your
great trouble, you--you cared for me--you said you thought of me often
during those years. Oh, Paul, have you changed in that respect? Do you
no longer--” Her voice trailed away from her fluttering throat, and,
covering her face with her blue-veined hands, she stood motionless, her
breast visibly palpitating, her sharp intakes of breath audible.
Rising, he drew her hands down and gazed passionately into her eyes. “I
have come to love you so much, Ethel, that I dare not even think of it.
It takes my breath away. Every drop of blood in my body cries out for
you--cries, cries constantly. I have never dared to hope, not for a
moment. I know what Mr. Peterson has to offer you. He can give you
everything that the world values. I cannot see where my future duty may
call me, but I am sure that I can't strive for the accumulation of a
great fortune. So even if I _could_ win your love I could not feel
that I had a right to it. Many persons think I am a fanatic, and if I
am--well, I ought not to influence you to link your life to mine. As
you say, I have suffered, and I have borne it so far, but whether I
can possibly bear to see you the--the wife of another man remains to be
proved. I am afraid that would drag me down. I think I would really lose
faith in God--in everything, for I can't help loving you. You are more
to me than life--more than Heaven.”
“You mustn't desert me, Paul.” Ethel raised his hand to her lips and
kissed it. The action drew her warm face close to his. “I want to go on
with you in body and in spirit through eternity. I love you with all
my soul. You have sweetened my life and lifted me to the very stars.
I don't want wealth or position. I want only you--just as you are.” He
seemed unable to speak. Tenderly and reverently he drew her back to
the log. In silence they sat, hand in hand, watching the shadows of the
dying day creep across the wood and climb the mountainside.
THE END