"Thereon comes what awakening! One grave sheet
Of cold implacable white about me drawn"--
John Graham was one of those men in whose nature there seems no trace of
feminality. Man and woman supplement each other, each bringing certain
qualities to the completion of humanity; and yet it is rare to find a
man whose character is not modified by some mother trait. Graham's
qualities and his faults were equally masculine; he was more strongly
attracted by women through this intense virility than are men who,
having some trace of the feminine in their nature, understand and
sympathize more perfectly with the opposite sex. The attraction was one
against which he rebelled, deeming it to belong to the weaker side of
his nature; and he had so ordered his life that it might not fall within
the influence of maid or matron. This antagonism to woman made itself
felt in his work; his successful pictures were of men, their high
exploits and successes. A noble painting of Saint Paul, which now hung
over the altar of a Roman Catholic church in San Francisco, had won him
his first reputation in Paris; he could understand and sympathize with
that great man as if he had known him. It was only the highest type of
man that attracted him,--the lovers of men, and not their conquerors.
He had never tried to paint Alexander, but had labored long and lovingly
over a picture of Socrates. The female subjects which he had treated
were not less powerful than these, but the force which they showed was
scornful and untender. A marvellous painting of Circe hung in his
studio; it was one of his most masterly works, and yet, though critics
had praised and connoisseurs had approved it, the picture was still
unsold. With black brows bound by red-gold serpents, the enchantress lay
upon a luxurious couch; her beautiful body was but half veiled, the arms
and bosom immodestly displayed; about her jewelled feet fawned the
creatures whose brute natures had conspired with the enchantress to
smother whatever was human in their beings; self-despair and scorn for
their abasement deformed her regular features to that moral ugliness
never so hideous as when seen in a youthful and beautiful face. A
terrible picture, full of wrath, but untempered by mercy. His Cressida,
purchased by a great European Academy, was another wonderful picture; a
picture which made men smile a little bitterly, and had brought an angry
flush to the cheek of more than one sensitive woman.
Over a man of this nature woman holds a more important influence than
with any other class; it may be a good influence or it may be a harmful
one, but it is the most potent one which touches his life. Had John
Graham loved happily at twenty-five, instead of most miserably, he would
have been a very different man at thirty from the hermit artist of San
Rosario. It would have been better for him if he could have learned the
lesson which all wise men learn if they live long enough,--that women
are neither angels who stand immeasurably above men, nor inferior beings
whose place is at their feet, but human like themselves, full of good
and faulty instincts, and, with all their imperfections, the God-given
helpmates of man. So justly should they be judged; and if a little
mercy be claimed for them, generosity should not deny it, so few are
their chances in life compared with those of their brothers. A woman
has but one possibility of happiness in this world. The stakes are high
on which she risks her whole fortune, which she may lose by one
unredeemable throw.
If Graham could have known all this, as, being what he was, he could
not, he would have gained that one element which his genius lacked to
make it superlative. Man and child he was by turns, but never for an
instant had he been able to look at life from the standpoint of a woman.
He had once loved the whole gentler sex with that chivalrous spirit
which made him unfit to live in the nineteenth century. No discourteous
or cruel word toward any woman had he to reproach himself with; he had
looked upon them as creatures so far removed from his sphere, that his
mind must be cleared of every base thought before it might dwell upon
them; they were mysterious angels which it was his happiness to worship.
Then came a change, and the love which had turned to grief darkened his
soul. As his heart had been filled with a love so great that it
embraced all the sisters of his idol, his contempt went out towards
them, as his love had done before. His revenge had been terrible: he
had struck at womankind; he had pictured it in its debasement for all
the world to see.
The few women for whom he cared were elderly people, whose life-battles
had been fought and won; who sat enthroned in the calm of that peaceful
period when youth is no longer regretted nor old age feared. Such women
he could paint without bitterness; and his portrait of his mother was a
masterpiece of exquisite sentiment. No woman that he had ever met
disliked John Graham; if he was distant and cold, he was honest and
courteous, and a gentleman in the deepest sense of the word. He was too
chivalrous to revenge himself on any individual; his grief was too great
to stoop to anything so mean. More than one woman would gladly have
loved him, but he avoided them as if they had been poison-nurtured.
Men, as a rule, respected and feared Graham; a few of his heart-friends
would have given their lives for him with a smile. To those who
understood and loved him, there was something more than human about the
man,--a quality to which the highest part of their nature did homage.
Fools laughed at him for his quixotism; the critics had worn themselves
out in shrieking abuse of his work which affected him in nowise. He
cared little for men's praise or blame; he would have died to help them
to a new truth. He was of the stuff which made martyrs in the old time,
crusaders in the dark ages, and artists in the Renaissance. His
pictures were beautiful as works of art, but they were great because
they embodied living truths. At twenty his friends said that he had
great talent; at thirty his enemies ceased to deny his force; at forty,
if he lived so long, the world would crown him with its laurel as a man
of genius. If haply that bitterness which lay like a blight on all his
work, on all his life, might be made sweet! What a chance was here for
the woman whose love was now breaking over his frozen life with warmth,
fragrance, and beauty! How grand an opportunity to sweeten by truth and
faith all that had grown bitter from untruth and faithlessness! If she
could only have known him as he was, have understood him and his past,
before she had loved him, what could not Millicent have accomplished!
Alas! poor child, she knew nothing of all this. Her own past was black
with a grief and wrong greater than that which he had borne. She, too,
was waking, and for the first time, from a trance of soul and sleep of
heart; she was all engrossed in her own growth and development. She was
like a little dungeon-born plant, which has at last climbed through the
iron bars, and under the light and warmth of the glorious day runs
riotous and unthinking across the wall, up, down, on every side, content
to live and grow in the sun and air. But the taint of the old wrong and
the lie it had entailed, were not yet left behind. He had taken her for
a pure white lily; and how could she tell him that there had been a time
when she lived in darkness and despair before her life flowered into its
one perfect white blossom under the warmth of his love?
Life is very pleasant at the San Rosario Ranch with its bordering of
peaceful hills. Here all are happy, be they of high or low degree; from
the gentle-voiced _chatelaine_ to the stranger within her gates, the
potent charm extends. The fair daughter and tall son have lived
peaceful, uneventful lives; and though their young eyes may sometimes
turn a little wearily toward the mountain barrier, beyond which lies the
great busy world, known more to them by hearsay than by actual
experience, they are happy, far happier than are most of the men and
women in the crowded thoroughfare of the world's cities. The Ranch does
not lie in the belt of gold, nor in the silver girdle which crosses the
Pacific coast. The rude mining towns are far distant from this portion
of the dairy lands of California. The trains which leave the station in
this neighborhood are laden indeed with a golden freight; but no armed
men are found necessary to guard the boxes filled with their rolls of
fragrant yellow. The product of the dairy lands is of a smaller, surer
value than that for which men toil and drudge in the gulches or mines.
Far away to the southward, where the orange groves are white and golden
with their double burden of blossom and fruit, is a climate milder than
that of San Rosario; and there Hal had set his heart upon one day
establishing himself. In that vine country the air is heavy with the
spicy odor of the grape, and the harvest is blood-red with its
life-juices; and yet to Millicent the fairest garden in this world's
garden lay between the circled hills of San Rosario.
Millicent, having learned the earliest stage of butter-making under
Hal's direction, wished to be initiated into the mysteries which follow
the skimming of the cream. Hal gave one of his boisterous guffaws of
laughter when she one morning gravely informed him that she was going to
help in that day's churning. She had donned the prettiest chintz
morning gown imaginable, with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow, and a
fresh white apron. Her skirt was kilted up half way to the knee,
showing a scarlet petticoat, which in turn exposed the pretty, small
feet, and possibly two inches more of the round ankle than is usually
shown by ladies of her degree. Tying one of the great picturesque hats
which they had brought home from San Real, under her chin, the energetic
young woman started for the dairy. Hal, giving a knowing wink to his
mother and sister standing near by, as if to say that the joke was too
good to be spoiled, followed her, with Tip, the cross old dog, following
him in turn.
"Millicent, did you ever do any churning?"
"No, but I can learn."
"Without doubt; but tell me, did you ever see any one else churn?"
"Oh, yes; very often."
"Who, if one may ask?"
"You will not know any better if I tell you. It was old Nina, at home."
"Ah, old Nina; and what sort of a machine did she use?"
"She did not use a machine at all; she used a churn, like anybody else."
"What did it look like?"
"I am sure I have forgotten; it was probably an old-fashioned one, but
it made quite as good butter as _yours_ does;" this in a slightly
irritated voice. She objected to being catechised, and had, moreover, a
dim sense that Deering was bent on quizzing her. She ran along the
footpath in advance in order to avoid further questioning, and reached
the dairy a few minutes before him. Finding the main door shut, she
hurried round to the side, when, just as she turned the corner, her
rapid progress was suddenly brought to an end. She had met an obstacle;
she had, moreover, fallen into the arms of the obstacle, which proved to
be a tall man with a kindly voice, for he called out merrily, "Hello, my
girl, where are you going so fast?" steadying her at the same moment
with his arm, as the sudden shock almost precipitated her from the path.
Millicent drew back disconcerted and breathless, and looked up into the
face of the man whom she had so unexpectedly encountered. When she saw
that it was a face familiar to her, she blushed and stammered a little
as she replied to his astonished greeting. Mutual apologies and
explanations followed; and Hal, coming up at that moment, laughed at her
discomfiture till the tears rolled down his face.
"You always laugh at other people's misfortunes," cried Millicent,
trying to be angry; but it was impossible to be angry with Hal. The
irrepressible young rancher carried the day; and Maurice Galbraith
assured Millicent that it was his awkwardness which had aroused
Deering's merriment.
"We are very glad to see you, Galbraith, but we are too busy to stop and
talk to you just now. You will find mother and Bab at the house. I have
a new hand here who is going to take charge of the churning in future,
and I am just showing her about a little. Do you catch on?"
"Slang again! Five cents more towards the amusement fund."
"Oh, we shall not want any more amusement fund if you are going to turn
worker, Princess." As he spoke they entered the cool dairy. It was
tenantless. At one end of the room stood a large wooden vessel, half as
big as the Trojan horse, and from its hollow sides came a dull,
splashing sound.
"Why, you said they would be at work already," said Millicent, in a
disappointed voice; "where are they all?"
"Oh, it only takes one man to attend to this part of the butter-making,
and there he is at his post."
Outside the open doorway, as wide as the entrance to a barn, sat Pedro,
lazily smoking his pipe, and occasionally flicking with his whip the
strong mule who was slowly revolving round the small space to which he
was tethered.
"Well," said Millicent impatiently, "what does that mean?"
"Only this, my Princess, that you must turn the crank that this animal
is agitating, with your own small hands, if you persist in your
resolution to help with the churning."
Millicent's face fell; and Galbraith hastened to explain to her that the
quantity of cream handled at one churning made it necessary, in a place
where human labor is so dear, to employ horsepower. Nobody likes to be
laughed at, though Millicent tried hard to smile at her own blunder;
when Hal, suddenly calling out; "By your leave, Princess," without a
word of warning caught up the young lady in his arms, and placed her on
the back of the patient mule, remarking, as he accomplished the feat,
"No one can say now that you have not helped with the churning."
It would be difficult to say whether Millicent or the mule felt the
greater surprise; they were both taken unawares; but the quadruped was
the first to recover himself, and resumed his weary task of plodding
round in the monotonous circle. Millicent, clinging closely to the
creature, cried loudly to be relieved from her uncomfortable position;
but Hal, fearing her wrath, had disappeared into the interior of the
dairy, leaving to Galbraith the pleasure of assisting the young woman in
dismounting. Pedro, who had been an amused spectator of the scene, now
announced that the churning was completed, and that they should soon see
the washing of the butter, if it pleased them to wait. The big golden
fragments were collected from the sea of buttermilk, and finally massed
together on a wide table. There it was worked by Pedro, who tossed the
fragrant mass from side to side, pressing out the remaining deposits of
the milk with a heavy wooden wand. He moulded the butter into fantastic
forms, prettiest of which was a huge bell-shaped flower like a giant
trumpet blossom. It struck Millicent that here was a delightful
material for modelling; and taking up a piece of butter and one of the
dairy tools, she forthwith produced a bas-relief portrait of Galbraith,
which would have done credit to the sculptress of the sleeping Iolanthe.
"There are two classes of hands, those which are skilful and those which
are clumsy; of all other divisions of humanity this is the most
important. You, Miss Almsford, are so happy as to belong to the skilful
half, or rather quarter, of humanity,--for men are all clumsy. I see
that you can do all things artistic as well as useful with your
fingers."
"I am afraid I have never tried to do much that was useful," said the
girl half ruefully. "Barbara, now, can do all sorts of things. But I am
tired of comparing myself with her; I always suffer by the process;"
this with a rather vicious little stroke at the butter-model, which she
was now finishing into a medallion, with a pattern of scroll-work for a
border.
"Let me judge between yourself and Miss Barbara. I know that she can
touch the ivory keys with grace, and can also make wonderful peach
preserves. On the other hand, you model in butter and--and--well, what
else can those small hands accomplish of art or industry?"
"They can draw a little as well as model; they can trim bonnets, yes,
really quite well; they are not unfamiliar with the key-boards of piano
and organ; and, best of all,--I had really forgotten to enumerate this
accomplishment,--they can move tables and chairs; they can draw pain
from your head; they can put you into a trance,--they are, in fact,
magnetic hands."
"It seems, then, that you are a Spiritualist."
"Far from it; by what power I do the few things which form the
_repertoire_ of my manifestations, as the mediums call them, I do not
know any more than you."
"Will you give me a _seance_?"
"Indeed; no."
"And because--"
"Because it tires me, and I am rather afraid of my own power. Some one
once compared me to a child who had got hold of an electric battery
which he did not understand, and with which he unwittingly produced
inexplicable phenomena, not devoid of danger to himself."
"You are really in earnest then, and believe in these manifestations?"
"Perfectly so; and I am rather cowardly about exploring them to their
source, as I have seen so many strong minds unhinged by study of this
subject. I certainly object to the vulgar theory, that the spirits of
those who have gone before us have nothing better to do than to tip
tables and dip their hands in pails of paraffine which accommodating
mediums prepare for them."
"You do not believe in mediums, then?"
"I believe no manifestation to be genuine which comes from a
professional medium. That they often have real power, I do not doubt;
but so soon as it is a question of earning their living, they must
inevitably fall back upon fraud. But we are growing quite serious about
this subject which I never like to talk of for fear of being
misunderstood."
"But I am really interested in what you say--"
"Never mind; here is your portrait, which is not flattered, I frankly
confess; but is it a little like you?"
"If I know my face at all, it is wonderfully good. Would that you had
deigned to model it in a less perishable material!"
"Oh, no! this is infinitely better, it is so much more appropriate--
"Thanks for the compliment; but why, if I may ask, should you consider
butter to be particularly suitable to me?"
"Not to you personally, but to humanity. Is it not stupid to carve
bronze fac-similes of that which is as perishable as the grass?"
"But had it not been for this stupidity, how should we know the features
of Caesar?"
"And would it greatly matter?"
"I think so; but a young lady who so cruelly assures me that butter is
the only material in which my humble features deserve to be
reproduced--"
Millicent interrupted the speaker by her pleasant laugh, with its sound
of falling waters, and thanking Pedro for what he had shown her, led the
way from the dairy. She refused to speak further on the subject during
the day-time, but as they sat together on the piazza in the twilight,
Galbraith referred to it again; and, after much persuasion, Millicent
seated herself at a table, round which the company grouped themselves,
placing their hands lightly on its surface. Barbara, who was seated next
to Millicent, their hands touching one another, seemed strangely
affected, after they had been sitting for some time in silence. She
manifested unmistakable signs of sleepiness, and finally, with a long
sigh, her eyes closed and her head fell upon Millicent's shoulder. With
a little frightened cry, Millicent quickly lifted her, and making
several passes over her head called Hal to come and support his sister.
In a moment Barbara recovered herself, and showed no more symptoms of
sleep. She laughed heartily, and said that a peculiar sensation in her
elbows had preceded her momentary unconsciousness. Galbraith applauded
the little episode, which he assured Millicent was very well acted by
both participants. The girl turned her eyes, deep and burning, full upon
him, half in anger, and said,--
"Very well, Mr. Galbraith, we will see if you can act a part as well as
Barbara. Lay your hand in mine--so."
The young man smiled, and did as he was bid, with a courteous bow, as if
deprecating the power in which he did not believe; and for a space of
time they stood looking each other full in the face. Then Millicent's
slight form seemed to vibrate, and from her eyes a light flashed into
the man's dark orbs, her cheek flushed, and from every nerve in her body
an electric flash seemed to emanate, concentrating into a broad current
at the shoulder, and slipping through the round white arm to the very
finger-tips. Galbraith's face paled as hers flushed; a stinging
sensation half painful, half agreeable, made him wince; and when in a
few moments Millicent withdrew her hand, he remained standing
motionless, white to the lips, with dim, dreaming eyes, and slow-beating
heart.
"Speak," said the magnetizer, "tell me what is in your mind?"
"There is nothing," answered the man, in a low, monotonous voice.
"Now speak, and tell me what you see."
"I see a man on horseback; the horse is running away. Now he gallops,
and the rider loses control of him; they disappear in a cloud of dust,
and I see nothing. Now they return; the horse is going quietly, and the
rider looks towards a carriage in which sits a lady; it is Millicent.
He enters the carriage; she is weeping, and he touches--" he paused.
Millicent's cheek had grown crimson. She said in a low tone,--
"Why do you not continue?"
"Because you will not let me."
At this moment a light step sounded on the piazza. Millicent turned her
head and saw Graham approaching her. She stepped quickly towards him,
forgetting Galbraith, the company, everything and everybody, save that
her lover had come to her. As she turned from him, Galbraith reeled
suddenly, and would have fallen had not Hal steadied him to a seat.
"I fear I am interrupting you," said the artist, in a cool voice,
betraying some annoyance.
"Indeed, no," cried the girl, "we were only trying the stupid old game
of willing people; I have succeeded in magnetizing Mr. Galbraith here."
By this time the young lawyer had recovered himself, though he looked
strangely pale and agitated. He was somewhat overcome by what had gone
before, and was not a little troubled by the power which the tall,
straight girl had exercised over him. He rebelled against it, and yet
the sensation of giving up his volition, and living for the time only by
her will and her thought had not been unmixed with a keen pleasure. If
no one had witnessed the affair, above all, if Graham had not seen it,
he would not have greatly cared; but though he had no recollection of
what he had seen and described in Millicent's mind, that evening's
experience deepened the vague antipathy he had always felt towards the
artist, into a positive dislike.
Later, as they walked together alone, Graham asked Millicent if she
would magnetize him, to which she replied in the negative.
"Do you think that you could succeed?"
"I cannot tell; but if I could, I should not be willing to do so."
"And yet you threw a spell over that fellow Galbraith?"
"Dear, there is a difference; cannot you see?"
"No; upon my soul I can't."
"I do not want to command even your thought for an instant; you must
think of me to please yourself, not because I will it."
"What a strange girl you are, Millicent! Do you really love me so very
much?"
"I love you better than my own soul."
"A dangerous thing, child; do not ever say that to me again."
"Why?"
"It shocks me; I cannot tell you why."
For answer, she gave him a rose from her breast with a childish gesture,
as if asking forgiveness. There was an awkwardness, born of an unwonted
shyness, in the movement which was more attractive to the artist than
the most graceful attitude he had ever seen her assume. He caught the
hand with the rose and crushed them both in his two strong palms, as if
to hurt her. She smiled, though her wrist reddened from the sudden
pressure. It is more sweet to bear pain from those we love, than to
receive kindness from a hand which is not dear.
As Graham was taking his leave, he asked Millicent for two books which
she had promised to lend him. Barbara had joined them, and offered to
fetch them for him.
"Thank you, Barbara, but I know just where they are."
"Is it not the Petrarch and your manuscript translation of Dante that
Mr. Graham wants?"
"Yes."
"You left them on your table. I saw them when I went up to shut the
blinds. You had better let me go, you are so tired."
"Yes, let Miss Deering get them for you; you are quite worn out with
your magnetizing." He wanted to say one last good-night to her.
His lightest wish was her law; she nodded gratefully to Barbara, who
disappeared, while Graham told her once more how lovely she was that
night. When Miss Deering came back, Graham had already mounted his
horse and Millicent was feeding the animal with sugar.
"You are sure you have the right books, Barbara?"
"Quite sure; I know them perfectly."
"Many thanks to you both, and good-night."
Millicent was in a wakeful mood that night. She went to the piano and
played for an hour or two, as she only played when alone. Her hands
drifted dreamily over the key-board, drawing out fantastic
melodies,--themes which were composed and forgotten within the hour. In
an obscure corner of the room stood a head of Beethoven. Her eyes were
fixed on the face of the master while she played, and as the notes grew
strong and sweet she smiled; when the harmony changed to a tender minor
strain, the smile faded from her face. The music expressed the thoughts
which drifted through her mind. At first she played the quick movement
of a march, through which rang out the measured beat of a horse's hoofs;
then the strain changed to a pensive nocturne suggestive of the forest
at night. A tender slumber-song followed, in which her voice took up
the melody, chanting loving words in the language of Tuscany. The
light, delicate thread of harmony now broadened into a full consonance
of sound, the chords following each other tumultuously, as if in
translating one supreme moment of leave-taking. As she was striking the
closing strains of this emotional improvisation, her powerful voice
trembling with a passionate _addio_, the sweet symphony of sounds was
interrupted by a crashing discord. She sprang from the piano startled
and trembling, to find that a heavy vase of flowers had fallen on the
key-board from the shelf above the piano. The metal jar was uninjured,
but about her feet were scattered the petals of a bunch of white roses
which Graham had plucked for her that night. So rudely was her rhapsody
interrupted! She closed the piano, and, after restlessly wandering
through the silent house, went to her own room, where she sat looking
out of her window at the moon-lit hills. She could not sleep, she was
full of unrest.
The gray morning light was filtering into Barbara Deering's room when
she was awakened by a light touch on the shoulder. Millicent stood
before her, gray as the twilight; she held in her hand a small parchment
book.
"Barbara, what books did you give Mr. Graham?"
"The Petrarch and your Dante. What is the matter, Millicent? Have n't
you been in bed?"
"No, I could not sleep. Here is the little Dante; where did you find
the book you mistook for it?"
Barbara sat up and rubbed her eyes confusedly.
"Why, it was not where I had last seen it. I found it somewhere, in
your jewel-box, I think. I am so sorry I made a mistake; 't was just
like the Dante. Does it matter much?"
"I only wanted to know, Barbara; go to sleep again."
She spoke in a low, constrained voice, and glided quietly from the room.
Barbara, only half awake, gave a sigh, and settling her flaxen head
among the pillows, again fell asleep and dreamed that she had stabbed
Millicent with a knife, and that Graham was trying to stanch the wound
with the leaves of a little parchment book.
When Graham arrived at his lonely tower, after making his horse
comfortable for the night, he looked into French John's cabin to see
whether all was well with the old fellow. The door was fast, and
looking through the small window, the young man saw the wood-cutter
lying on his hard couch, his gun beside him, his dog curled up at his
feet. The creature growled at the sound of Graham's footsteps, but
catching sight of a familiar face through the window, he gave a
comfortable yawp, wagged his tail, and relapsed into slumber. The
artist never slept without paying this last visit to his humble friend.
He stumbled up the steep tower stairs, and after fumbling with the
clumsy lock, the door swung open and admitted him to his one room. After
groping about in the dark for a moment he struck a light, and out of the
embers on the hearth blew a little flame. He looked about the small
room and laughed; this was a home, indeed, to which to bring a bride!
It sufficed for him; and he asked for nothing more commodious or
luxurious than this old tower in the corner of the ruined church, with
its grand north light and easy chair, its open fire and pallet-bed.
If he married,--when he married, he corrected himself, for he surely
intended to marry Millicent,--there would have to be great changes in
his life. He would be obliged to abandon his old tower, and live in a
smug new house somewhere, with fuss and worry about servants, who would
not please him half so well as did the old wood-cutter John. His work,
ah, how that would suffer!--no more of the pleasant conscientious labor,
the slow painting and study of that one supreme moment of the day when
the golden copse was made tender by the light of the setting sun. He
must hie him to the city and pass his life in painting fat, over-fed
matrons in lace and diamonds, or expressionless minxes with costumes
indicative of youth and ignorance. He would, perhaps, relapse into a
mere mechanical portrait-painter, with as much imagination as a
photographer; and his pictures would be ordered as theirs are, with the
simple difference that the artist produces but one copy, while the
photographer, with equal trouble, makes a dozen or ten dozen, or a
single picture. He sighed aloud, and for consolation lit his pipe. He
caught sight of the flower which had bloomed on a fair bosom and was now
fastened to his coat, somewhat crushed but still fragrant. He carefully
unpinned the rose and placed it in a small vase of water, and then
proceeded to examine the books which Millicent had given him. Graham
liked old books, and was delighted with the yellowed parchment copy of
Petrarch. An inscription on the cover showed that it had once belonged
to a monastery. On the fly-leaf was a slight sketch of a young monk's
head seen in profile. It was a beautiful, clear-cut face, with delicate
outlines and an earnest expression; beneath it was written, "Fra
Antonio, Aetat 22."
"So this was brother Antonio, and he lived and died probably in the
peaceful quiet of a Roman monastery. I wonder if he painted too, or
whether he wrote hymns to all the pretty female saints in the calendar.
Brother Antonio must have lived and died without a helpmeet. I fancy he
did none the worse work for that."
The thought struck him as ungrateful, and, as if to make amends for it,
he took up the other little volume. It was a thin book bound in white
vellum, with Millicent's name in illuminated text upon its cover. The
covers of this small tome were closed with a gold clasp, which he
finally succeeded in opening. It proved to be a diary in manuscript; he
recognized the clear, delicate handwriting of the girl he loved. Yes,
he loved her tenderly; why else should he press the senseless pages
close to his lips, kissing the fair paper over which her fairer hand had
passed? He drew his lamp nearer to him and prepared to read the record.
It was written in Italian, and the first page bore a date five years
back. He was somewhat puzzled, but supposed he had misunderstood what
she had told him of the book. She could have been but a child then; she
was now only just past her majority. How pretty she must have been at
sixteen, before she had grown to the perfect womanhood which now became
her so well! He fancied her in all the shyness and awkwardness of young
maidenhood, with childhood reluctantly slipping from her, and girlhood
anxiously leading her forward. Again he kissed the book, but reverently
this time, and with a deep sigh as if it had been a holy one. If he
could have known her then, before he had grown to feel so old, before
she had learned that she was fair and young, how much easier it would
have been for both of them. As he sat with unseeing eyes fixed on the
faintly traced characters, beholding in fancy the little Millicent of
half-grown figure and cool, loveless eyes stooping over the book,
putting her white, childish thoughts into these words, it seemed to him
that he heard a faint sound,--a sound that was deeper than the wind
stirring the tops of the redwoods; a sound that made him shiver and turn
the bright flame of the lamp a little higher. It was like a noise heard
dimly in a dream, an echo of a woman's sob ringing faint and muffled
through a space of years, was it, or of distance? It had grown quite
cold; and he heaped an armful of brushwood on the dying fire, which soon
shot up the little chimney with a cheery roar, and threw its bright
light to the farthest corner of the room, touching the picture on the
easel, bringing out the ugly little _netshukes_ from their shadowy
corner, and shining on the polished steel of the gun standing near the
maulstick and fishing-rod.
It must have been the wind, that faint sound which had seemed to find an
echo in the beating of his heart. He drew aside the heavy
window-curtains. Outside in the cool moonlight he saw the arms of the
great trees swaying to and fro; below these the desolate ruins of the
old church; all was quiet and deserted. There was the dismantled
altar,--it was surely a trick of the moonlight and the trees, that
shadowy semblance of a woman kneeling out there in the night, with wild
hair, and arms cast about the broken cross, overturned this half
century? Yes, it was a shadow surely; for a cloud passed before the
silver face of the half-moon, and when it had floated by, the shadow of
a female figure had vanished. He dropped the curtain and turned with a
sigh of relief from the mysterious half-light, with its revelations of
deserted chapels and uncared-for altars, its shattered cross and phantom
penitent. Inside his small domicile was warmth and light; and to drive
away the cold, nervous feeling which had crept about him like an
invisible network, he again took up the little parchment journal. Again
he seated himself, and turned the first leaf. As he read he smiled, and
occasionally turned over the sheets to see how many more pages remained
to be perused. Presently the smile faded from his face; and the flames
on the hearth burnt low and finally died, choked by the gray ashes. And
still Graham turned the pages of the little journal with cold fingers.
The lamp grew dim, and the moon paled and sank beneath the horizon; the
chill morning twilight crept betwixt the hangings, and showed him
sitting cold and motionless to the slow-coming dawn. The last page of
the journal had been turned long since; but he still held the book open,
his eyes fixed on the final words.