When Hodder had reached the foot of the stairs, Alison came out to him.
The mourning she wore made her seem even taller. In the face upturned to
his, framed in the black veil and paler than he had known it, were traces
of tears; in the eyes a sad, yet questioning and trustful smile. They
gazed at each other an instant, before speaking, in the luminous ecstasy
of perfect communion which shone for them, undimmed, in the surrounding
gloom of tragedy. And thus, they felt, it would always shine. Of that
tragedy of the world's sin and sorrow they would ever be conscious.
Without darkness there could be no light.
"I knew," she said, reading his tidings, "it would be of no use. Tell me
the worst."
"If you marry me, Alison, your father refuses to see you again. He
insists that you leave the house."
"Then why did he wish to see you?"
"It was to make an appeal. He thinks, of course, that I have made a
failure of life, and that if I marry you I shall drag you down to poverty
and disgrace."
She raised her head, proudly.
"But he knows that it is I who insist upon marrying you! I explained it
all to him--how I had asked you. Of course he did not understand. He
thinks, I suppose, that it is simply an infatuation."
In spite of the solemnity of the moment, Hodder smiled down at her,
touched by the confession.
"That, my dear, doesn't relieve me of responsibility. I am just as
responsible as though I had spoken first, instead of you."
"But, John, you didn't--?" A sudden fear made her silent.
He took her hand and pressed it reassuringly.
"Give you up? No, Alison," he answered simply. "When you came to me,
God put you in my keeping."
She clung to him suddenly, in a passion of relief.
"Oh, I never could give you up, I never would unless you yourself told me
to. Then I would do it,--for you. But you won't ask me, now?"
He put his arm around her shoulders, and the strength of it seemed to
calm her.
"No, dear. I would make the sacrifice, ask you to make it, if it would
be of any good. As you say, he does not understand. And you couldn't go
on living with him and loving me. That solution is impossible. We can
only hope that the time will come when he will realize his need of you,
and send for you."
"And did he not ask you anything more?"
Hodder hesitated. He had intended to spare her that . . . . Her
divination startled him.
"I know, I know without your telling me. He offered you money, he
consented to our--marriage if you would give up St. John's. Oh, how
could he," she cried. "How could he so misjudge and insult you!"
"It is not me he misjudges, Alison, it is mankind, it is God. That is
his terrible misfortune." Hodder released her tenderly. "You must see
him--you must tell him that when he needs you, you will come."
"I will see him now, she said. You will wait for, me?"
"Now?" he repeated, taken aback by her resolution, though it was
characteristic.
"Yes, I will go as I am. I can send for my things. My father has given
me no choice, no reprieve,--not that I ask one. I have you, dear. I
will stay with Mr. Bentley to-night, and leave for New York to-morrow,
to do what I have to do--and then you will be ready for me."
"Yes," he said, "I shall be ready."
He lingered in the well-remembered hall . . . . And when at last she
came down again her eyes shone bravely through her tears, her look
answered the question of his own. There was no need for speech. With
not so much as a look behind she left, with him, her father's house.
Outside, the mist had become a drizzle, and as they went down the walk
together beside the driveway she slipped her arm into his, pressing close
to his side. Her intuition was perfect, the courage of her love sublime.
"I have you, dear," she whispered, "never in my life before have I been
rich."
"Alison!"
It was all he could say, but the intensity of his mingled feeling went
into the syllables of her name. An impulse made them pause and turn,
and they stood looking back together at the great house which loomed the
greater in the thickening darkness, its windows edged with glow. Never,
as in this moment when the cold rain wet their faces, had the thought of
its comfort and warmth and luxury struck him so vividly; yes, and of its
terror and loneliness now, of the tortured spirit in it that found no
rest.
"Oh, John," she cried, "if we only could!"
He understood her. Such was the perfect quality of their sympathy that
she had voiced his thought. What were rain and cold, the inclemency of
the elements to them? What the beauty and the warmth of those great,
empty rooms to Eldon Parr? Out of the heaven of their happiness they
looked down, helpless, into the horrors of the luxury of hell.
"It must be," he answered her, "in God's good time."
"Life is terrible!" she said. "Think of what he must have done to
suffer so, to be condemned to this! And when I went to him, just now,
he wouldn't even kiss me good-by. Oh, my dear, if I hadn't had you to
take me, what should I have done? . . . It never was a home to me--to any
of us. And as I look back now, all the troubles began when we moved into
it. I can only think of it as a huge prison, all the more sinister for
its costliness."
A prison! It had once been his own conceit. He drew her gently away,
and they walked together along Park Street towards the distant arc-light
at the corner which flung a gleaming band along the wet pavement.
"Perhaps it was because I was too young to know what trouble was when
we lived in Ransome Street," she continued. "But I can remember now
how sad my mother was at times--it almost seemed as though she had a
premonition." Alison's voice caught . . . .
The car which came roaring through the darkness, and which stopped
protestingly at their corner, was ablaze with electricity, almost filled
with passengers. A young man with a bundle changed his place in order
that they might sit together in one of the little benches bordering the
aisle; opposite them was a laughing, clay-soiled group of labourers going
home from work; in front, a young couple with a chubby child. He stood
between his parents, facing about, gazing in unembarrassed wonder at the
dark lady with the veil. Alison's smile seemed only to increase the
solemnity of his adoration, and presently he attempted to climb over the
barrier between them. Hodder caught him, and the mother turned in alarm,
recapturing him.
"You mustn't bother the lady, Jimmy," she said, when she had thanked the
rector. She had dimpled cheeks and sparkling blue eyes, but their
expression changed as they fell on Alison's face, expressing something
of the wonder of the child's.
"Oh, he isn't bothering me," Alison protested. "Do let him stand."
"He don't make up to everybody," explained the mother, and the manner of
her speech was such a frank tribute that Alison flushed. There had been,
too, in the look the quick sympathy for bereavement of the poor.
"Aren't they nice?" Alison leaned over and whispered to Hodder, when the
woman had turned back. "One thing, at least, I shall never regret,--that
I shall have to ride the rest of my life in the streetcars. I love them.
That is probably my only qualification, dear, for a clergyman's wife."