It was eleven o'clock when they parted for the night. Dartmouth went
up to his room and sat down at his desk to write a letter to his
father. In a moment he threw down the pen; he was not in a humor
for writing. He picked up a book (he never went to bed until he felt
sleepy), and crossed the room and sat down before the fire. But he
had not read two pages when he dropped it with an exclamation of
impatience: the story Weir had told him was written between every
line. She had told it so vividly and realistically that she had
carried him with her and almost curdled his blood. He had answered her
with a joke, because, in spite of the fact that he had been strongly
affected, he was angry as well. He hated melodrama, and the idea of
Weir having had an experience which read like a sensational column in
a newspaper was extremely distasteful to him. He sympathized with her
with all his heart, but he had a strong distaste for anything
which savored of the supernatural. Nevertheless, he was obliged to
acknowledge that this horrible, if commonplace experience of Weir's
had taken possession of his mind, and refused to be evicted. The scene
kept presenting itself in all its details again and again, and finally
he jumped to his feet in disgust and determined to go to the long
gallery which overhung the sea, and watch the storm. Rhyd-Alwyn was
built on a steep cliff directly on the coast, and exposed to all the
fury of the elements. In times of storm, and when the waves were high,
the spray flew up against the lower windows.
He left his room and went down the wide hall, then turned into a
corridor, which terminated in a gallery that had been built as a sort
of observatory. The gallery was long and very narrow, and the floor
was bare. But there were seats under the windows, and on a table were
a number of books; it was a place Dartmouth and Weir were very fond of
when it was not too cold.
It was a clear, moonlit night, in spite of the storm. There was no
rain; it was simply a battle of wind and waves. Dartmouth stood at one
of the windows and looked out over the angry waters. The billows were
piling one above the other, black, foam-crested, raging like wild
animals beneath the lash of the shrieking wind. Moon and stars gazed
down calmly, almost wonderingly, holding their unperturbed watch
over the war below. Sublime, forceful, the sight suited the somewhat
excited condition of Dartmouth's mind. Moreover, he was beginning to
feel that one of his moods was insidiously creeping upon him: not an
attack like the last, but a general feeling of melancholy. If he could
only put that wonderful scene before him into verse, what a solace
and distraction the doing of it would be! He could forget--he pulled
himself together with something like terror. In another moment there
would be a repetition of that night in Paris. The best thing he could
do was to go back to his room and take an anodyne.
He turned to leave the gallery, but as he did so he paused suddenly.
Far down, at the other end, something was slowly coming toward him.
The gallery was very long and ill-lighted by the narrow, infrequent
windows, and he could not distinguish whom it was. He stood, however,
involuntarily waiting for it to approach him. But how slowly it came,
as one groping or one walking in a dream! Then, as it gradually
neared him, he saw that it was a woman, dimly outlined, but still
unmistakably a woman. He spoke, but there was no answer, nothing but
the echo of his voice through the gallery. Someone trying to play a
practical joke upon him! Perhaps it was Weir: it would be just like
her. He walked forward quickly, but before he had taken a dozen
steps the advancing figure came opposite one of the windows, and the
moonlight fell about it. Dartmouth started back and caught his breath
as if someone had struck him. For a moment his pulses stood still, and
sense seemed suspended. Then he walked quickly forward and stood in
front of her.
"Sionèd!" he said, in a low voice which thrilled through the room.
"Sionèd!" He put out his hand and took hers. It was ice-cold, and its
contact chilled him to the bone; but his clasp grew closer and his
eyes gazed into hers with passionate longing.
"I am dead," she said. "I am dead, and I am so cold." She drew closer
and peered up into his face. "I have found you at last," she went on,
"but I wandered so far. There was no nook or corner of Eternity in
which I did not search. But although we went together, we were hurled
to the opposite poles of space before our spiritual eyes had met, and
an unseen hand directed us ever apart. I was alone, alone, in a great,
gray, boundless land, with but the memory of those brief moments of
happiness to set at bay the shrieking host of regrets and remorse
and repentance which crowded about me. I floated on and on and on for
millions and millions of miles; but of you, my one thought on earth,
my one thought in Eternity, I could find no trace, not even the
whisper of your voice in passing. I tossed myself upon a hurrying wind
and let it carry me whither it would. It gathered strength and haste
as it flew, and whirled me out into the night, nowhere, everywhere.
And then it slackened--and moaned--and then, with one great sob, it
died, and once more I was alone in space and an awful silence. And
then a voice came from out the void and said to me, 'Go down; he
is there;' and I knew that he meant to Earth, and for a moment I
rebelled. To go back to that terrible--But on Earth there had been
nothing so desolate as this--and if you were there! So I came--and I
have found you at last."
She put her arms about him and drew him down onto the low window-seat.
He shivered at her touch, but felt no impulse to resist her will, and
she pressed his head down upon her cold breast. Then, suddenly, all
things changed; the gallery, the moonlight, the white-robed, ice-cold
woman faded from sense. The storm was no longer in his ears nor
were the waves at his feet. He was standing in a dusky Eastern room,
familiar and dear to him. Tapestries of rich stuffs were about him,
and the skins of wild animals beneath his feet. Beyond, the twilight
stole through a window, but did not reach where he stood. And in his
close embrace was the woman he loved, with the stamp on her face
of suffering, of desperate resolution, and of conscious, welcomed
weakness. And in his face was the regret for wasted years and
possibilities, and a present, passionate gladness; _that_ he could see
in the mirror of the eyes over which the lids were slowly falling....
And the woman wore a clinging, shining yellow gown, and a blaze of
jewels in her hair. What was said he hardly knew. It was enough to
feel that a suddenly-born, passionate joy was making his pulses leap
and his head reel; to know that heaven had come to him in this soft,
quiet Southern night.
* * * * *