"I am an adventuress."
"There! there! don't say that. It's a miserable kind of a word. Did your
father come here to take you back?"
"I don't know why he came--not entirely. But he tells me to go with him.
I must go."
"Do you want to go, dear?"
She hesitated a moment, and they both listened to the sounds of the
summer night.
"I want to be honest," Rose said at last. "It is too late--but I must do
the best I can."
"It isn't ever too late," said grannie. "But I don't seem to want you to
go. I'm fond of you, dear." Rose lifted the cherishing hand to her lips.
"Peter is fond of you, too. He told me so to-day. It is all over between
him and Electra. He told you that?"
"Dear Peter! But after this"--she was quivering with impatience to put
that test--"you wouldn't be willing to have him like me--after this?"
Now grannie was silent, but only because she was thinking. The
tightening clasp of her hand made that evident.
"My dear," she said at last, in her soft old voice, "you can't imagine
how stupid I am. I never know how to say things right. But if it was a
transgression--I suppose you'd say it was--"
Honesty rose up in the girl, and cried to be heard.
"I thought it was right," she protested sharply. "I did think it was
right. About coming here I didn't think much, except that I was lonesome
and afraid. Now I understand. I must pay my penalties. I must be honest.
It is too late,--but it's all I can do."
"You see, about transgressions," said grannie, "why, they're not to be
thought of, my dear, not for an instant after we are sorry. We've just
taken the wrong road, that's all. We've got to clip it back into the
right one. We can't sit down to cry."
"We've got to take our punishment!"
"Yes, mercy, yes! I guess we have. But we've got to be happy, too. The
punishments were given us in love. We've got to be thankful for 'em.
Now, do you feel as if 't was right for you to go back with your
father?"
"There are hard things there. I ran away from them. I must face them."
"Then you go, dear," said grannie. "But don't you forget for one minute
that there's the love of God. Peter and I love you, too. And when all
the things are done, you hurry right back here, and we shall be
here--some of us, anyway--and your room'll be ready for you just the
same."
Rose lay there with the ineffable sense upon her of that readjusted
balance which we call forgiveness. Life, even the narrow piece of it she
was touching, greatened with possibilities.
"Grannie," she said, "there's one thing more."
"What is it, dear?"
"I want to leave a message with you. I want you to tell Osmond
something."
"Why, honey, do you know Osmond?"
"Yes, I know him." Then she rehearsed the bare details of their
meetings, and finishing, said, quite simply, "I can't see him. I can't
say good-by. If I spoke to him, how could I bear to go? But it's he who
really sends me."
"What do you mean, dear?"
"I don't know how to tell you. Only, he is so true he makes me want to
be true, too. He wants to do the hardest thing. This is the hardest
thing for me. And I want to go and be honest, not stay and have you all
make it easy for me to be honest. And I want to prove myself, to use my
voice. I don't intend to be supported by my father. But when I have
established myself, I shall come back."
She felt as if she were talking to Osmond himself, and as if his idea of
great world spaces and inevitable meetings made it certain for them to
part without loss.
Grannie was thinking. She gave a little sigh.
"What is it?" asked Rose.
"Osmond likes you very much, doesn't he?" asked the old lady.
"It isn't exactly liking. We understand each other. He is different from
anybody."
"Yes."
"He understands me almost before I speak. It is comfortable to be with
him."
"Yes. And the boy finds it comfortable to be with you."
"Oh, yes! It is because it is so exactly alike for us both. That is why
we are so contented together."
"He will miss you when you are gone."
"Oh, but not as I shall miss him! He is so sure of things. He knows so
well when the cord between us is holding. But I shall doubt. I shall
want to hear his voice."
Grannie sighed again. She was a happy old woman in her certainties; but
sometimes she felt tired, with the gentle lassitude of the old. She had
been with Osmond through every step of his difficult way, and she had
hoped some tragedies would be spared them both. Much as she believed in
ultimate good fortune, she had to shrink from his desiring woman's love.
Yet this was to be. A little jealous doubt of the girl crept into her
troubled heart. Was she light of love, a lady of enchantments who could
appear out of nowhere and make all these strange happenings seem
commonplace until her fickle destiny should snatch her away again,
leaving hurt and mourning hearts behind? Grannie was humbly conscious
that there were many things outside her world, exotic flowers of life
her upland pastures did not breed. That they were poison flowers she
could not well believe; but when her dear boy tasted the essence of
them, she had to pause and sternly think it over, whether it was well.
"My dear," she said, "you must be honest with him." The gentle voice had
steel in it.
"Honest? With Osmond? How should I be anything else? What reason--why,
grannie!"
"Osmond is not like other men."
"He is better. He is like a spirit."
"No. He is only a man that's had heavy loads to carry. You mustn't be
cruel to him."
"Grannie, I never heard you speak like that. You have been so kind."
"I am kind now, but Osmond is my boy. Do you feel to him as you did to
Tom Fulton?"
"Oh!" It was a cry of pain. "What has Tom Fulton to do with it, to do
with me?" the girl asked, in that hurt surprise. "All I want is to
forget him. He made himself beautiful to me because he lied to me. The
things I loved he said he loved--and then he laughed at them. But
Osmond--what has Osmond to do with Tom Fulton?"
"You have made Osmond love you," said grannie. "That's all."
The chamber was very still. Rose could hear the ticking of grannie's
watch beside her on the stand. Presently she spoke in a wondering tone.
"Love me? Grannie, is it that?"
"What did you think it was?"
"I didn't think. I thought it was something greater."
"There is nothing greater, Rose. Is there anything more terrible?"
The girl turned her face over, and dropped it for a minute on the hollow
of the old woman's arm. Then she spoke, and to grannie's amazement she
laughed a little, too.
"Oh, I never dreamed I could be so happy!"
"Happy! But is he happy?"
"He must be, if he knows it. Do you think he knows it, grannie?"
"I'm afraid he does, my dear," said grannie sadly.
"Has he told you so?"
"Not a word."
"If he does, tell me, grannie. Betray him. I need to know everything he
knows--everything."
It was a new Rose, one none of them in America had yet seen. There were
tumultuous yearnings in her voice, innocent insistencies; she seemed to
be clamoring for life, the boon that it was right and sweet for her to
have.
"He doesn't speak of you," said grannie. "What could come of it, if he
did?"
"What could come of it? Everything could come of it. I shall write him
by every mail. Tell him that. I will write him all my life, every minute
of it from morning till night. And I will come back, soon, soon,--as
soon as I have earned money to be honest on. Tell him that, grannie."
But grannie sighed.
"I am afraid you are not very reasonable," she said. "And I shouldn't
dare to give him such messages. How do I know what they would mean to
him? Why, my dear, you may meet some young man to-morrow, any day. You
may want to marry him. What do you think Osmond would feel, if you wrote
and told him that?"
"Why," said Rose, in a pained surprise, "you haven't understood, after
all. But he will understand. No, don't tell him anything, grannie, only
that I'll write to him every mail and that I shall come home. He will
believe me. Now I must go and pack."
But grannie held her anxiously.
"I'm afraid I've made you troubled," she said.
"No, you've made me rich. I don't care what happens to me now. I can
face it all. Dear, dear grannie! I thank you for forgiving me." She
kissed the two kind hands, and stood beside the bed for a minute. "He
comes to you in the morning, doesn't he? Tell him all that then. Only
tell him I couldn't bear to say good-by. But I shall come back, and
there will be welcomes, not good-bys." She went softly out, and grannie
heard the closing of the door.
Rose, in her own room, did not begin at once to pack. She was alive
again with the most brilliant triumph and delight. Her father's
influence had slipped from her, and she stood there shuddering in the
delicious cold of a strong wind of life. If she was to go forth, to make
herself whole with her own destiny, she was going, not as the puppet of
his will, but exhilarated by marvels. There were still large things in
the world, strong loyalties, pure faithfulness. She felt like a warrior
girded with a sword.