THE VOICE IN THE DARKNESS
It was a fitful night; one on which the clouds travelled swiftly. One
moment the brightness of a silvering moon; the next comparative
darkness. When the extinguishers hid the lamp of night, the illumination
of the heavens was left to the stars.
There was sufficient light for Masters to find his way over the
breakwaters without stumbling. At times, though, despite the brightness
of the moon, his eyes saw dimly. With a swiftness bred of anger he
knuckled the dimness away, cursing his own irrepressible folly the
while.
His heart--soul--was full to bursting point. If he could only laugh, he
thought; only laugh at himself! What an immense, great big thing it
would be!
Walking, smart walking, was the only relief he experienced; physical
exertion was reputedly an antidote to mental excitement. He felt
sufficient energy to have moved on indefinitely. Wished he could walk on
till he fell from exhaustion. In that there would have been
satisfaction; rest, at any rate. Rest from that tumultuous tide of
recrimination surging in his brain.
His anger was directed against himself; no one else. It upsprung from
the fact that he had been such a fool, such an utter, absolute fool, as
to be gulled by a woman! Scoffingly he told himself that anger against
her would be unfair; that her behaviour had been merely typical of her
sex!
He, who had ever with his pen written against womankind--until at last
reviewers had spoken of his work as being that of a woman-hater--to have
fallen such an easy victim to the first siren who spread her snare for
him! The thought was fuel to the maddening fever in possession of him.
Then came before him her face; those sweet, eloquent, soulful eyes!
Well, he endeavoured to comfort himself with the thought that any man
would have fallen a victim as he had done. The amount of comfort in it,
though, would have found resting-place on a needle's point.
There was an underlying reason for the failure. Granted that his ideal
was shattered, he still loved its ruins. Therein lay the hopelessness of
it all--and he knew it. Striding on, he savagely kicked out of his way,
now and then, a stone. Poor sort of relief again.
The configuration of the coast line brought him to an abrupt standstill.
The cliff, jutting out, was met by a barrier of high rocks. These latter
were overgrown with seaweed of the slipperiest sort: defiance bidding.
Nature's sudden intervention in his proceedings produced a corresponding
interruption in his thoughts.
Why should he think about this woman any longer? She was not worth
wasting thought over. He had been happy enough without her--before he
knew her. So he would be happy without her still.
Cut the thought of her clean out of his mind; out of his heart. That, he
told himself, was the correct thing to do. Life should be for him as if
he had never seen her, never looked into the unfathomable depths of
those forget-me-not eyes. It would be quite easy; a little effort of
will was needed--that was all.
All that he meant; every word of it. Framed a resolution that he looked
on as adamantine. But he ignored an important factor; made no allowance
for the strange vitality of that prolific pure white flower: Love.
The axe of common sense may be laid to the root of the tree; may cut it
down root and branch. Still one small remaining tendril, hidden from the
sight, will work its way into the heart; spread and grow until in its
magnitude it overshadows every other thought. Such is love.
Masters reached the steps which led up from the sands to the seat.
Standing at their base, he looked away in the direction of the sea. It
was easy to mark the spot where Gracie had worked so hard with spade and
pail.
He thought of the child with a pang of pity. For his heart had gone out
to her; he had been captivated by her loving, winsome ways. Even now his
eyes rested on where Gracie had built her last castle. He could mentally
see her gleesomely watching the waters overflowing the moat and
gradually sweeping down the castle's inverted pail-shaped turrets.
Gracie! Poor little soul! And so she, whom he had mistaken for the
governess--this woman--was the mother of that incarnation of innocence
and purity! What of the child's future? He shuddered to think of it; it
was horrible; all horrible in the extreme.
Well, he would go home to his lodgings. First he would look again--for
the last time--on that portion of the sands. For he felt that he would
never be able to come there again. He would have been thankful for a
breeze just then: his brow was feeling so fevered.
Perhaps there was more air on the seawall; he would test it, pass up the
steps. There was the seat to avoid looking at; the seat whereon they had
both sat reading--heart reading heart. Where had been born to him the
happiest moment in life: love's awakening.
There was other history about the seat too: pencil created. Thereon,
before that meeting, had been born heroes and heroines, wicked men and
wicked women. All to be bound together and pressed between covers later
on, to gladden or sadden readers' hearts.
Living a romance is less alluring than writing one: Masters found it so.
He had been wont to believe in the parts he cast his characters for. He
was learning!
Stumbling up the steps on to the wall, he started to walk home. But he
halted, suddenly, before he had taken half-a-dozen paces. No drill
sergeant's command ever brought up an absent-minded beggar on parade as
did the words which fell on his ear.
"I thought that was you, Mr. Masters!"
Her voice! The voice of his shattered idol! The same voice: just as
fresh and soft and kind as ever! Her voice, speaking to him! Could it
be? Or was it a dream simply, a chimera of his brain? Or was this
voice--this voice ringing, singing in his ears now--the result of his
highly fevered imagination only?
He feared to turn his head to see. To know whether it was in reality the
woman for whom he had been ready to lay down his life--whom he had
considered a princess among women; chaste, pure, modest; whose
dethronation had been so recent. Whom he had come to think of as soiled.
Yes! She was there before him in the flesh! This perfidious parody of
perfection, this transmuted ideal. He waited for a moment motionless;
then raised his cap--a merely mechanical act.
Besides, being a woman, whatever else she might be, she was exempt from
rudeness at his hands.
Her sex protected her.