THE PARTING OF THE WAYS
When Winn passed out of Rockhaven the next morning, Mona was in her
dooryard kneeling beside a bed of flowers, her face shaded by a checked
calico sunbonnet. At the gate he paused.
"Good morning, little girl," he said pleasantly, "do I get a flower for
my good looks this morning?" Had Mona been a cultured society girl she
would have replied in the same coin, instead she merely answered his
greeting and plucking one each of a half dozen kinds, still moist with
the dew, handed them to him. And he looked into the wondrous eyes raised
to his, saw a new light lingering in them, and smiling softly as he took
the flowers he thanked her and went his way.
And strange to say, when he reached the quarry, he hid that little
nosegay in a shaded nook beside the ledge where a tiny spring dripped
out, and when he returned that noon, carried them wrapped in a wet
handkerchief to his room and left them in a glass of water. And that
night when the vexation and cares of the day had passed, he, a little
homesick and with the charm of Mona's playing still lingering in his
mind, held communion with himself. And the cause was the following
missive which had reached him:--
"DEAR MR. HARDY:
"I was surprised a few days ago when your aunt told me you had
left the city to be manager of the Rockhaven Granite Co., and
had gone away to some unheard of island. I had missed seeing
you for a week, and when you were not at church with your aunt,
asked her what had become of you. When she told me where you
were it seemed likely you would be glad to hear from home, and
as I am aware your worthy aunt hates letter writing, I thought
I would be good to you. There isn't a bit of news to write, and
the city is getting positively unbearable.
"Mother and I are getting ready to go to the mountains; we
shall start early in July and your aunt goes with us. I presume
from what she said you will remain where you are this summer. I
almost envy you, for it certainly must be cool there, and no
doubt you have or will find some sweet fishermaid to flirt
with. Grace is not going with us for she says a baby is a
nuisance at a hotel and then 'hubby' can't afford it. I saw
Jack (your chum) the other evening at the Bijou with a girl who
was stunning, also Mabel Weston and her mother.
"I do not know of anything else that will interest you except
my address for the summer, which I enclose, and the hope that
you won't forget us all before your return.
"Yours sincerely,
"ETHEL SHERMAN."
And this from the girl who two short years before had laughed his
marriage proposal to scorn.
And he was like to find some simple fishermaid to flirt with, was he?
And the cool indifference to that fact; and the covert, yet openly
expressed invitation for him to write to her.
Now Winn Hardy was not blind, and in spite of the two years, during
which he had never met or thought of Ethel Sherman without a pin-prick
in his heart, clear and distinct in his mind was the alluring glance of
her blue eyes that had led him to make a fool of himself, and the red
ripe temptation of her lips he had once stolen kisses from. And now she
was inviting him to write to her. And not two rods away was a girl as
simple and sweet as the daisies that bloomed in a meadow, as utterly
unsophisticated as though reared within convent walls, with eyes like
deep waters, and a soul trembling with passionate music!
For one hour Winn communed with himself, glancing attentively at the
little knot of flowers on a small table near him, and the letter beside
them, and then arose and putting on his hat, left the house. It was a
still summer evening with the crescent of a new moon glinting in the
waters of Rockhaven harbor and outlining the spectral shape of the tower
on Norse Hill. To this Winn turned his steps, and seating himself where
he could look over the undulating ocean, continued his meditation.
All his life, since the day he first entered the office of Weston &
Hill, came to him. All the many snubs he had received, all the
disappointments he had met, all the weeks, months, and years of
monotonous drudgery in that office, all the "fool's paradise" hours he
had passed with Ethel Sherman, all the harsh bitterness he had heard
from the lips of Jack Nickerson--and now the new life, new ambition, and
new influence that had come to him--passed in review. And as he
leisurely puffed his cigar, looking the while out upon the boundless
expanse that, like an eternity, lay before him, he saw himself as he
was, and knew that as a man of honor and for his own peace of mind, he
must choose between two ways. That he could not escape the island for
months and perhaps for years, he saw clearly, and if he remained, as
remain he must if he were to win success in this new project, he must
inevitably become one and a part of the social and hard-working life of
the people with whom he mingled, sharing their hopes and encouraging
their ambitions. And if he did, could he go on holding himself aloof
from all tender impulses, living the life of a recluse, as inflexible as
the granite he quarried, and as void of sentiment?
Winn Hardy besides being impulsive was endowed with a vein of romance,
and saw and felt the poetic side of all things. The whispers of winds in
the pine trees, flowers that grew wild in out of the way nooks, birds
singing, bees gathering honey, squirrels hiding their winter store of
nuts, the sea in all its moods, clouds sailing across a summer sky and
all that was beautiful in nature appealed to him. This island whose
frowning cliffs faced the ocean billows so defiantly, the placid harbor
with its rippled sandy shore, the old tide mill an ancient ruin, the
dark thickets of spruce between the rolling ledges of granite, and the
weird gorge where this girl had hid herself, each and all seemed to him
as so many bits of poetry. Then the peculiar and romantic fact of her
going to such a picturesque spot, out of sight and sound of even the
island people, and beyond that the wonderful sweetness and pathos of her
simple music, all appealed to him as to but few. It was as if he felt in
her a kinship of soul, an echo of his own poetic nature, a response to
his own ideals in life, with a face like a flower, lips like two
rosebuds, and eyes like a Madonna.
For a long time he sat there in communion with his own needs and nature,
sobered by the silence of night and eternity so near him. When he arose,
turning back toward the village, he paused on the brow of the hill,
looking down upon it still and silent in the faint moonlight. Away to
the right and pointing skyward, he saw the little spire of the church
whose bell had recalled his early boyhood days and all the sweet and
pure influences they had contained, even the face of his own mother, he
knew he should never look upon again. And with that recollection came
the half-pitiful words he had heard in that church that seemed like a
plea for help from starvation.
Winn was not religious. He had never been drawn toward an open
profession of faith. He had at first felt church going and
Sabbath-school lessons an irksome task, and later a social custom,
useful because it bound together congenial people. He believed in God
but not in prayer. His heart was in sympathy with all the carnal needs
of humanity, but not the spiritual; those he considered figments of the
imagination, useful, maybe, when old age came, but needless during
healthy, active life. To the customary observance of them he always
yielded respectful attention, but felt not their influence. And musing
there it came to him that perhaps some divine power had directed his
footsteps and brought him into the lives of these simple honest people
for a purpose not understood.
When he reached his room it was fragrant with the flowers Mona had given
him that morning, and beside them lay the letter of Ethel Sherman.