CHAPTER XIV.

THE MARRIAGE SCENE.

By riding across the small lagoon that lay beside Cloud Island to the

inward side of the bay, and then eastward some twelve miles toward an

island that was little frequented, the last of the chain on this horn of

the crescent, one came under the highest and boldest façade of cliffs

that was to be found in all that group. It was here that Caius chanced

to wander one calm mild day in early March, mild because the thermometer

stood at less than 30° below the freezing point, and a light vault of

pearly cloud shut in the earth from the heaven, and seemed, by way of

contrast with other days, to keep it warm. He had ridden far, following

out of aimless curiosity the track that had been beaten on the side of

the bay to this farthest island. It was a new road for him; he had never

attempted it before; and no sooner had he got within good sight of the

land, than his interest was wholly attracted by the cliffs, which,

shelving somewhat outward at the top, and having all their sides very

steep and smooth, were, except for a few crevices of ice, or an outward

hanging icicle, or here and there a fringe of icicles, entirely free

from snow and ice. He rode up under them wonderingly, pleased to feast

his eyes upon the natural colour of rock and earth, and eager, with

what knowledge of geology he had, to read the story they told.

This story, as far as the history of the earth was concerned, was soon

told; the cliffs were of gray carboniferous limestone. Caius became

interested in the beauty of their colouring. Blue and red clay had

washed down upon them in streaks and patches; where certain faults in

the rock occurred, and bars of iron-yielding stone were seen, the rust

had washed down also, so that upon flat facets and concave and convex

surfaces a great variety of colour and tint, and light and shade, was

produced.

He could not proceed immediately at the base of the cliffs, for in their

shelter the snow had drifted deep. He was soon obliged to keep to the

beaten track, which here ran about a quarter of a mile distant from the

rock. Walking his horse, and looking up as he went, his attention was

arrested by perceiving that a whitish stain on a smooth dark facet of

the rock assumed the appearance of a white angel in the act of alighting

from aërial flight. The picture grew so distinct that he could not take

his eyes from it, even after he had gone past, until he was quite weary

of looking back or of trying to keep his restive horse from dancing

forward. When, at last, however, he turned his eyes from the majestic

figure with the white wings, his fancy caught at certain lines and

patches of rust which portrayed a horse of gigantic size galloping upon

a forward part of the cliff. The second picture brought him to a

standstill, and he examined the whole face of the hill, realizing that

he was in the presence of a picture-gallery which Nature, it seemed, had

painted all for her own delight. He thought himself the discoverer; he

felt at once both a loneliness and elation at finding himself in that

frozen solitude, gazing with fascinated eyes at one portion of the rock

after another where he saw, or fancied he saw, sketches of this and that

which ravished his sense of beauty both in colour and form.

In his excitement to see what would come next, he did not check the

stepping of his horse, but only kept it to a gentle pace. Thus he came

where the road turned round with the rounding cliff, and here for a bit

he saw no picture upon the rock; but still he looked intently, hoping

that the panorama was not ended, and only just noticed that there was

another horse beside his own within the lonely scene. In some places

here the snow was drifted high near the track; in others, both the road

and the adjoining tracts of ice were swept by the wind almost bare of

snow. He soon became aware that the horse he had espied was not upon the

road. Then, aroused to curiosity, he turned out of his path and rode

through shallow snow till he came close to it.

The horse was standing quite still, and its rider was standing beside

it, one arm embracing its neck, and with head leaning back against the

creature's glossy shoulder. The person thus standing was Madame Le

Maître, and she was looking up steadfastly at the cliffs, of which this

point in the road displayed a new expanse.

So silently had the horse of Caius moved in the muffling snow that,

coming up on the other side, he was able to look at the lady for one

full moment before she saw him, and in that moment and the next he saw

that the sight of him robbed her face of the peace which had been

written there. She was wrapped as usual in her fur-lined cloak and

hood. She looked to him inquiringly, with perhaps just a touch of

indignant displeasure in her expression, waiting for him to explain, as

if he had come on purpose to interrupt her.

"I am sorry. I had no idea you were here, or I would not have come."

The next moment he marvelled at himself as to how he had known that this

was the right thing to say; for it did not sound polite.

Her displeasure was appeased.

"You have found my pictures, then," she said simply.

"Only this hour, and by chance."

By this time he was wondering by what road she had got there. If she had

ridden alone across the bay from Harbour Island, where the Pembrokes

lived, she had done a bold thing for a woman, and one, moreover, which,

in the state of health in which he had seen her last, would have been

impossible to her.

Madame Le Maître had begun to move slowly, as one who wakes from a happy

dream. He perceived that she was making preparations to mount.

"I cannot understand it," he cried; "how can these pictures come just by

chance? I have heard of the Picture Rocks on Lake Superior, for

instance, but I never conceived of anything so distinct, so lovely, as

these that I have seen."

"The angels make them," said Madame Le Maître. She paused again (though

her bridle had been gathered in her hand ready for the mount), and

looked up again at the rock.

Caius was not unheedful of the force of that soft but absolute

assertion, but he must needs speak, if he spoke at all, from his own

point of view, not hers.

"I suppose," he said, "that the truth is there is something upon the

rock that strikes us as a resemblance, and our imagination furnishes the

detail that perfects the picture."

"In that case would you not see one thing and I another?"

Now for the first time his eyes followed hers, and on the gray rock

immediately opposite he suddenly perceived a picture, without definite

edge it is true, but in composition more complete than anything he had

seen before. What had formerly delighted him had been, as it were, mere

sketches of one thing or another scattered in different places, but here

there was a large group of figures, painted for the most part in varied

tints of gray, and blue, and pink.

In the foreground of this picture a young man and young woman, radiant

both in face and apparel, stood before a figure draped in priestly

garments of sober gray. Behind them, in a vista, which seemed to be

filled with an atmosphere of light and joy, a band of figures were

dancing in gay procession, every line of the limbs and of the light

draperies suggesting motion and glee. How did he know that some of these

were men, and some were women? He had never seen such dresses as they

wore, which seemed to be composed of tunics and gossamer veils of blue

and red. Yet he did know quite distinctly which were men and which were

women, and he knew that it was a marriage scene. The bride wore a wreath

of flowers; the bridegroom carried a sheaf or garland of fruit or grain,

which seemed to be a part of the ceremony. Caius thought he was about

to offer it to the priest.

For some minutes the two looked up at the rock quite silently. Now the

lady answered his last remark:

"What is it you see?"

"You know it best; tell me what it is."

"It is a wedding. Don't you see the wedding dance?"

He had not got down from his horse; he had a feeling that if he had

alighted she would have mounted. He tried now, leaning forward, to tell

her how clearly he had seen the meaning, if so it might be called, of

the natural fresco, and to find some words adequately to express his

appreciation of its beauty. He knew that he had not expressed himself

well, but she did not seem dissatisfied at the tribute he paid to a

thing which she evidently regarded with personal love.

"Do you think," she said, "that it will alter soon, or become defaced?

It has been just the same for a year. It might, you know, become defaced

any day, and then no one would have seen it but ourselves. The

islanders, you know, do not notice it."

"Ah, yes," said Caius; "beauty is made up of two parts--the objects seen

and the understanding eye. We only know how much we are indebted to

training and education when we find out to what extent the natural eye

is blind."

This remark did not seem to interest her. He felt that it jarred

somehow, and that she was wishing him away.

"But why," he asked, "should angels paint a marriage? They neither

marry----" He stopped, feeling that she might think him flippant if he

quoted the text.

"Because it is the best thing to paint," she said.

"How the best?"

"Well, just the best human thing: everyone knows that."

"Has her marriage been so gloriously happy?" said Caius to himself as

the soft assurance of her tones reached his ears, and for some reason or

other he felt desolate, as a soul might upon whom the door of paradise

swung shut. Then irritably he said: "_I_ don't know it. Most marriages

seem to me----" He stopped, but she had understood.

"But if this picture crumbles to pieces, that does not alter the fact

that the angels made it lovely." (Her slight accent, because it made the

pronunciation of each word more careful, gave her speech a quaint

suggestion of instruction that perhaps she did not intend.) "The idea is

painted on our hearts in just the same way; it is the best thing we can

think of, except God."

"Yet," urged Caius, "even if it is the best from our point of view, you

will allow that it is written that it is not a heavenly institution. The

angels should try to teach us to look at something higher."

"The words do not mean that. I don't believe there is anything higher

for us. I don't believe people are not married in heaven."

With sweet unreason she set aside authority when it clashed with her

opinion. To Caius she had never been so attractive as now, when, for the

first time to him, she was proving herself of kin to ordinary folk; and

yet, so curiously false are our notions of sainthood that she seemed to

him the less devout because she proved to be more loving.

"You see"--she spoke and paused--"you see, when I was at school in a

convent I had a friend. I was perfectly happy when I was with her and

she with me; it was a marriage. When we went in the garden or on the

sea, we were only happy when we were with each other. That is how I

learned early that it is only perfect to be two. Ah, when one knows what

it is to be lonely, one learns that that is true; but many people are

not given grace to be lonely--they are sufficient to themselves. They

say it is enough to worship God; it is a lie. He cannot be pleased; it

is selfish even to be content to worship God alone."

"The kind of marriage you think of, that perhaps may be made in heaven."

Caius was feeling again that she was remote from him, and yet the hint

of passionate loneliness in tone and words remained a new revelation of

her life. "Is not religion enough?" He asked this only out of curiosity.

"It is not true religion if we are content to be alone with God; it is

not the religion of the holy Christ; it is a fancy, a delusion, a

mistake. Have you not read about St. John? Ah, I do not say that it is

not often right to live alone, just as it may be right to be ill or

starving. That is because the world has gone wrong; and to be content,

it is to blaspheme; it is like saying that what is wrong is God's ideal

for us, and will last for ever."

Caius was realizing that as she talked she was thinking only of the

theme, not at all of him; he had enough refinement in him to perceive

this quite clearly. It was the first time that she had spoken of her

religion to him, and her little sermon, which he felt to be too wholly

unreasonable to appeal to his mind, was yet too wholly womanly to repel

his heart.

Some dreamy consciousness seemed to come to her now that she had tarried

longer than she wished, and perhaps that her subject had not been one

that she cared to discuss with him. She turned and put her hand on the

pommel, and sprang into the saddle. He had often seen her make that

light, wonderful spring that seated her as if by magic on her horse's

back, but in her last weeks of nursing the sick folk she had not been

strong enough to do it. He saw now how much stronger she looked. The

weeks of rest had made her a different woman; there was a fresh colour

in her cheek, and the tired lines were all gone. She looked younger by

years than when he saw her last--younger, too, than when he had first

seen her, for even then she was weary. If he could only have seen the

line of her chin, or the height of her brow, or the way her hair turned

back from her temples, he thought that he might not have reckoned the

time when he had first seen her in the sick-room at Cloud Island as

their first meeting.

"You are going on?" said Madame Le Maître.

"Unless I can be of service to you by turning with you."

He knew by the time of day that he must turn shortly; but he had no hope

that she wanted him to go with her.

"You can do me more service," she said, and she gave him a little smile

that was like the ghost of the sea-maid's smile, "by letting me go home

alone."

He rode on, and when he looked back he saw that her horse was galloping

and casting up a little cloud of light snow behind it, so that, riding

as it were upon a small white cloud, she disappeared round the turn of

the cliffs.

Caius found no more pictures that day that he felt to be worthy of much

attention. He went back to the festive scene of the marriage, and moving

his horse nearer and further from it, he found that only from the point

where the lady had taken her stand was it to be distinctly seen. Twenty

yards from the right line of vision, he might have passed it, and never

known the beauty that the streaks and stains could assume.

When he went home he amused himself by seeking on the road for the track

of the other horse, and when he found that it turned to Cloud Island he

was happier. The place, at least, would not be so lonely when the lady

was at home.

_BOOK III._

CHAPTER I.

HOW HE HUNTED THE SEALS.

At this time on the top of the hills the fishermen were to be seen

loitering most of the day, looking to see if the seals were coming, for

at this season the seals, unwary creatures, come near the islands upon

the ice, and in the white world their dark forms can be descried a long

distance off. There was promise of an easy beginning to seal-fishing

this year, for the ice had not yet broken from the shore on the seaward

side of the island, and there would not at first be need of boats.

Caius, who had only seen the fishermen hanging about their doors in lazy

idleness, was quite unprepared for the excitement and vigour that they

displayed when this first prey of the year was seen to approach.

It was the morning after Madame Le Maître had returned to her home that

Caius, standing near his own door, was wondering within himself if he

might treat her like an ordinary lady and give her a formal call of

welcome. He had not decided the point when he heard sounds as of a mob

rushing, and, looking up the road that came curving down the hill

through the pine thicket, he saw the rout appear--men, women and

children, capped and coated in rough furs, their cheeks scarlet with the

frost and exercise, their eyes sparkling with delight. Singly down the

hill, and in groups, they came, hand-in-hand or arm-in-arm, some driving

in wooden sleighs, some of them beating such implements of tinware as

might be used for drums, some of them shouting words in that queer

Acadian French he could not understand, and all of them laughing.

He could not conceive what had happened; the place that was usually so

lonely, the people that had been so lazy and dull--everything within

sight seemed transformed into some mad scene of carnival. The crowd

swept past him, greeting him only with shouts and smiles and grimaces.

He knew from the number that all the people from that end of the island

were upon the road to the other end, and running after with hasty

curiosity, he went far enough to see that the news of their advent had

preceded them, and that from every side road or wayside house the people

came out to join in the riotous march.

Getting further forward upon the road, Caius now saw what he could not

see from his own door, a great beacon fire lit upon the hill where the

men had been watching. Its flame and smoke leaped up from the white hill

into the blue heaven. It was the seal-hunting, then, to which all the

island was going forth. Caius, now that he understood the tumult,

experienced almost the same excitement. He ran back, donned clothes

suitable for the hunt across the ice, and, mounting his horse, rode

after the people. They were all bound for the end of the island on which

the lighthouse stood, for a number of fish-sheds, used for cooking and

sleeping in the fishing season, were built on the western shore not far

from the light; and from the direction in which the seals had appeared,

these were the sheds most convenient for the present purpose.

By the time Caius reached the sheds, the greater number of the fishermen

were already far out upon the ice. In boots and caps of the coarse gray

seal-skin, with guns or clubs and knives in their hands, they had a wild

and murderous aspect as they marched forward in little bands. The gait,

the very figure, of each man seemed changed; the slouch of idleness had

given place to the keen manner of the hunter. On shore the sheds, which

all winter had been empty and lonely, surrounded only by curling drifts,

had become the scene of most vigorous work. The women, with snow-shovels

and brooms, were clearing away the snow around them, opening the doors,

lighting fires in the small stoves inside, opening bags and hampers

which contained provision of food and implements for skinning the seals.

The task that these women were performing was one for the strength of

men; but as they worked now their merriment was loud. All their children

stood about them, shouting at play or at such work as was allotted to

them. Some four or five of the women, with Amazonian strength, were

hauling from one shed a huge kettle, in which it was evidently meant to

try the fat from certain portions of the seal.

Caius held his horse still upon the edge of the ice, too well diverted

with the activity on the shore to leave it at once. Behind the animated

scene and the row of gray snow-thatched sheds, the shore rose white and

lonely. Except for the foot-tracks on the road by which they had come,

and the peak of the lighthouse within sight, it would have seemed that a

colony had suddenly sprung to life in an uninhabited Arctic region.

It was from this slope above the sheds that Caius now heard himself

hailed by loud shouting, and, looking up, he saw that O'Shea had come

there to overlook the scene below. Some women stood around him. Caius

supposed that Madame Le Maître was there.

O'Shea made a trumpet of his hands and shouted that Caius must not take

his horse upon the ice that day, for the beast would be frightened and

do himself harm.

Caius was affronted. The horse was not his, truly, but he believed he

knew how to take care of it, yet, as it belonged to a woman, he could

not risk disobeying this uncivil prohibition. Although he was accustomed

to the rude authority which O'Shea assumed whenever he wished to be

disagreeable, Caius had only learned to take it with an outward

appearance of indifference--his mind within him always chafed; this time

the affront to his vanity was worse because he believed that Madame Le

Maître had prompted, or certainly permitted, the insult. It did not

soothe him to think that, with a woman's nervousness, she might have

more regard for his safety than that of the horse. The brightness died

out of the beautiful day, and in a lofty mood of ill-used indifference

he assured himself that a gentleman could take little interest in such

barbarous sport as seal-hunting. At any rate, it would go on for many a

day. He certainly had not the slightest intention of dismounting at

O'Shea's command in order to go to the hunt.

Caius held his horse as quiet as he could for some ten minutes, feigning

an immense interest in the occupation of the women; then leisurely

curvetted about, and set his horse at a light trot along the ice close

by the shore.

He rode hastily past the only place where he could have ascended the

bank, and after that he had no means of going home until he had rounded

the island and returned by the lagoon. The distance up to the end was

seven miles. Caius rode on under the lonely cliffs where the gulls

wintered, and threading his way upon smooth places on the ice, came, in

the course of not much more than an hour, up to the end of the cliffs,

crossed the neck of the sand-bar, and followed the inward shore till he

got back to the first road.

Now, on this end of the island very few families lived. Caius had only

been upon the road he was about to traverse once or twice. The reason it

was so little built upon was that the land here belonged entirely to the

farm of Madame Le Maître, which stretched in a narrow strip for a couple

of miles from O'Shea's dwelling to the end of the island. The only point

of interest which this district had for Caius was a cottage which had

been built in a very sheltered nook for the accommodation of two women,

whose business it was to care for the poultry which was kept here. Caius

had been told that he might always stop at this lodge for a drink of

milk or beer or such a lunch as it could afford, and being thirsty by

reason of hard riding and ill-temper, he now tried to find the path that

led to it.

CHAPTER II.

ONCE MORE THE VISION.

When Caius turned up the farm road, which was entirely sheltered between

gentle slopes, the bright March sun felt almost hot upon his cheek. The

snow road under his horse's hoofs was full of moisture, and the snowy

slopes glistened with a coating of wet. He felt for the first time that

the spring of the year had come.

He was not quite certain where lay the cottage of which he was in quest;

and, by turning up a wrong path, he came to the back of its hen-houses.

At first he only saw the blank wall of a cowshed and two wooden

structures like old-fashioned dovecotes, connected by a high fence in

which there was no gate. Up to this fence he rode to look over it,

hoping to speak to the people he heard within; but it was too high for

him to see over. Passing on, he brought his head level with a small

window that was let into the wall of one of the hen-houses. The window

had glass in it which was not at all clean, but a fragment of it was

broken, and through this Caius looked, intending to see if there was any

gate into the yard which he could reach from the path he was on.

Through the small room of deserted hen-roosts, through the door which

was wide open on the other side, he saw the sunny space of the yard

beyond. All the fowls were gathered in an open place that had been

shovelled between heaps of hard-packed snow. There were the bright tufts

of cocks' tails and the glossy backs of hens brown and yellow; there

were white ducks, and ducks that were green and black, and great gray

geese of slender make that were evidently descended from the wild goose

of the region. On the snow-heaps pigeons were standing--flitting and

constantly alighting--with all the soft dove-colours in their dress. In

front of the large feathered party was a young woman who stood, basin in

hand, scattering corn, now on one side, now on another, with fitful

caprice. She made game of the work of feeding them, coquettishly

pretending to throw the boon where she did not throw it, laughing the

while and talking to the birds, as if she and they led the same life and

talked the same language. Caius could not hear what she said, but he

felt assured that the birds could understand.

For some few minutes Caius looked at this scene; he did not know how

long he looked; his heart within him was face to face with a pain that

was quite new in his life, and was so great that he could not at first

understand it, but only felt that in comparison all smaller issues of

life faded and became as nothing.

Beyond the youthful figure of the corn-giver Caius saw another woman. It

was the wife of O'Shea, and in a moment her steadfast, quiet face looked

up into his, and he knew that she saw him and did not tell of his

presence; but, as her eyes looked long and mutely into his, it seemed to

him that this silent woman understood something of the pain he felt.

Then, very quietly, he turned his horse and rode back by the path that

he had come.

The woman he had seen was the wife of the sea-captain Le Maître. He said

it to himself as if to be assured that the self within him had not in

some way died, but could still speak and understand. He knew that he had

seen the wife of this man, because the old cloak and hood, which he knew

so well, had only been cast off, and were still hanging to the skirts

below the girlish waist, and the white cap, too, had been thrown aside

upon the snow--he had seen it. As for the girl herself, he had loved her

so long that it seemed strange to him that he had never known until now

how much he loved her. Her face had been his one thought, his one

standard of womanly beauty, for so many years that he was amazed to find

that he had never known before how beautiful she was. A moment since and

he had seen the March sunshine upon all the light, soft rings of curling

hair that covered her head, and he had seen her laughter, and the oval

turn of the dimpled chin, and within the face he had seen what he knew

now he had always seen, but never before so clearly--the soul that was

strong to suffer as well as strong to enjoy.

By the narrow farm-path which his horse was treading Caius came to the

road he had left, and, turning homeward, could not help coming in front

of the little cottage whose back wall he had so lately visited. He had

no thought but of passing as quickly as might be, but he saw O'Shea's

wife standing before the door, looking for him with her quiet, eager

eyes. She came out a few steps, and Caius, hardly stopping, stooped his

head to hear what she had to say.

"I won't tell her," said the woman; then she pleaded: "Let her be, poor

thing! Let her be happy while she can."

She had slipped back into the house; Caius had gone on; and then he knew

that he had this new word to puzzle over. For why should he be supposed

to molest the happy hours of the woman he loved, and what could be the

sorrow that dogged her life, if her happy hours were supposed to be rare

and precious? O'Shea's wife he had observed before this to be a faithful

and trusted friend of her mistress; no doubt she spoke then with the

authority of knowledge and love.

Caius went home, and put away his horse, and entered his small house.

Everything was changed to him; a knowledge that he had vaguely dreaded

had come, but with a grief that he had never dreamed of. For he had

fancied that if it should turn out that his lady-love and Madame Le

Maître were one, his would only be the disappointment of having loved a

shadow, a character of his own creating, and that the woman herself he

would not love; but now that was not what had befallen him.

All the place was deserted; not a house had shown a sign of life as he

passed. All the world had gone after the seals. This, no doubt, was the

reason why the two women who had not cared for the hunting had taken

that day for a holiday. Caius stood at his window and looked out on the

sea of ice for a little while. He was alone in the whole locality, but

he would not be less alone when the people returned. They had their

interests, their hopes and fears; he had nothing in common with any of

them; he was alone with his pain, and his pain was just this, that he

was alone. Then he looked out further and further into the world from

which he had come, into the world to which he must go back, and there

also he saw himself to be alone. He could not endure the thought of

sharing the motions of his heart and brain with anyone but the one woman

from whom he was wholly separated. Time might make a difference; he was

forced to remember that it is commonly said that time and absence abate

all such attachments. He did not judge that time would make much

difference to him, but in this he might be mistaken.

A man who has depth in him seldom broods over real trouble--not at

first, at least. By this test may often be known the real from the

fanciful woe. Caius, knew, or his instincts knew, that his only chance

of breasting the current was, not to think of its strength, but to keep

on swimming. He took his horse's bits and the harness that had been

given him for his little sleigh, cleaning and burnishing everything with

the utmost care, and at the same time with despatch. He had some

chemical work that had been lying aside for weeks waiting to be done,

and this afternoon he did it. He had it on his mind to utilize some of

his leisure by writing long letters that he might post when it was

possible for him to go home; to-night he wrote two of them.

While he was writing he heard the people coming in twos and threes along

the road back to their houses for the night. He supposed that O'Shea had

got home with the girls he had been escorting, and that his wife had

come home, and that Madame Le Maître had come back to her house and

taken up again her regular routine of life.

CHAPTER III.

"LOVE, I SPEAK TO THY FACE."

Caius thought a good deal about the words that O'Shea's wife had said to

him. He did not know exactly what she meant, nor could he guess at all

from what point of view concerning himself she had spoken; but the

general drift of her meaning appeared to be that he ought not to let

Madame Le Maître know where and how he had seen her the day before. In

spite of this, he knew that he could neither be true to himself, nor to

the woman he was forced to meet daily, if he made any disguise of the

recognition which had occurred. He was in no hurry to meet her; he hoped

little or nothing from the interview, but dreaded it. Next day he went

without his horse out to where the men were killing the seals upon the

edge of the ice.

The warm March sun, and the March winds that agitated the open sea, were

doing their work. To-day there was water appearing in places upon the

ice where it joined the shore, and when Caius was out with a large band

of men upon the extreme edge of the solid ice, a large fragment broke

loose. There were some hundred seals upon this bit of ice, which were

being butchered one by one in barbarous fashion, and so busy were the

men with their work that they merely looked at the widening passage of

gray water and continued to kill the beasts that they had hedged round

in a murderous ring. It was the duty of those on the shore to bring

boats if they were needed. The fragment on which they were could not

float far because the sea outside was full of loose ice, and, as it

happened, when the dusk fell the chasm of water between them and the

shore was not too broad to be jumped easily, for the ice, having first

moved seaward, now moved landward with the tide.

For two or three days Caius lent a hand at killing and skinning the

gentle-eyed animals. It was not that he did not feel some disgust at the

work; but it meant bread to the men he was with, and he might as well

help them. It was an experience, and, above all, it was distraction.

When the women had seen him at work they welcomed him with demonstrative

joy to the hot meals which they prepared twice a day for the hunters.

Caius was not quite sure what composed the soups and stews of which he

partook, but they tasted good enough.

When he had had enough of the seal-hunt it took him all the next day to

cleanse the clothes he had worn from the smell of the fat, and he felt

himself to be effeminate in the fastidiousness that made him do it.

During all these days the houses and roads of the island were almost

completely deserted, except that Caius supposed that, after the first

holiday, the maids who lived with Madame Le Maître were kept to their

usual household tasks, and that their mistress worked with them.

At last, one day when Caius was coming from a house on one of the hills

which he had visited because there was in it a little mortal very new to

this world, he saw Madame Le Maître riding up the snowy road that he

was descending. He felt glad, at the first sight of her, that he was no

longer a youth but had fully come to man's estate, and had attained to

that command of nerve and conquest over a beating heart that is the

normal heritage of manhood. This thought came to him because he was so

vividly reminded of the hour in which he had once before sought an

interview with this lady--even holding her hand in his--and of his

ignominious repulse. In spite of the sadness of his heart, a smile

crossed his face, but it was gone before he met her. He had quite given

up wondering now about that seafaring episode, and accepted it only as a

fact. It did not matter to him why or how she had played her part; it

was enough that she had done it, and all that she did was right in his

eyes.

The lady's horse was walking slowly up the heavy hill; the reins she

hardly held, letting them loose upon its neck. It was evident that with

her there was no difference since the time she had last seen Caius; it

appeared that she did not even purpose stopping her horse. Caius stopped

it gently, laying his hand upon its neck.

"What is it?" she asked, with evident curiosity, for the face that he

turned to her made her aware that there was something new in her quiet

life.

It was not easy to find his words; he did not care much to do so

quickly. "I could not go on," he said, "without letting you know----" He

stopped.

She did not answer him with any quick impatient question. She looked at

the snowy hill in front of her. "Well?" she said.

"The other day, you know," he said, "I rode by the back of your poultry

farm, and--I saw you when you were feeding the birds."

"Yes?" she said; she was still looking gravely enough at the snow. The

communication so far did not affect her much.

"Then, when I saw you, I knew that I had seen you before--in the sea--at

home."

A red flush had mantled her face. There was perhaps an air of offence,

for he saw that she held her head higher, and knew what the turn of the

neck would be in spite of the clumsy hood; but what surprised him most

was that she did not express any surprise or dismay.

"I did not suppose," she said, in her own gentle, distant way, "that if

you had a good memory for that--foolish play, you would not know me

again." Her manner added: "I have attempted no concealment."

"I did not know you in that dress you wear"--there was hatred for the

dress in his tone as he mentioned it--"so I supposed that you did not

expect me to know who you were."

She did not reply, leaving the burden of finding the next words upon

him. It would seem that she did not think there was more to say; and

this, her supreme indifference to his recognition or non-recognition,

half maddened him. He suddenly saw his case in a new aspect--she was a

cruel woman, and he had much with which to reproach her.

"'That foolish play,' as you call it----" he had begun angrily, but a

certain sympathy for her, new-born out of his own trouble, stopped him,

and he went on, only reproach in his tone: "It was a sad play for me,

because my heart has never been my own since. I could not find out who

you were then, or where you hid yourself; I do not know now, but----"

He stopped; he did not wish to offend her; he looked at the glossy neck

of the horse he was holding. "I was young and very foolish, but I loved

you."

The sound of his own low sad tones was still in his ears when he also

heard the low music of irrepressible laughter, and, looking up, he saw

that the recollection which a few minutes before had made him smile had

now entirely overcome the lady's gravity. She was blushing, she was

trying not to laugh; but in spite of herself she did laugh more and more

heartily, and although her merriment was inopportune, he could not help

joining in it to some extent. It was so cheerful to see the

laughter-loving self appear within the grave face, to be beside her, and

to have partnership in her mirth. So they looked in each other's eyes,

and they both laughed, and after that they felt better.

"And yet," said he, "it was a frolic that has worked sorrow for me."

"Come," said she, lifting her reins, "you will regret if you go on

talking this way."

She would have gone on quite lightly and contentedly, and left him there

as if he had said nothing of love, as if their words had been the mere

reminiscence of a past that had no result in the present, as if his

heart was not breaking; but a fierce sense of this injustice made him

keep his hold of her bridle. She could weep over the pains of the poor

and the death of their children. She should not go unmindful that his

happiness was wrecked.

"Do you still take me for the young muff that I used to be, that you pay

no heed to what I say? I would scorn to meet you every day while I must

remain here and conceal from you the fact which, such is my weakness,

is the only fact in life for me just now. My heart is breaking because I

have found that the woman I love is wholly out of my reach. Can you not

give that a passing thought of pity? I have told you now; when we meet,

you will know that it is not as indifferent acquaintances, but

as--enemies if you will, for you, a happy married woman--will count me

your enemy! Yet I have not harmed you, and the truth is better at all

costs."

She was giving him her full attention now, her lips a little parted as

if with surprise, question plainly written upon her face. He could not

understand how the cap and hood had ever concealed her from him. Her

chief beauty lay, perhaps, in the brow, in the shape of the face, and in

its wreath of hair--or at least in the charm that these gave to the

strong character of the features; but now that he knew her, he knew her

face wholly, and his mind filled in what was lacking; he could perceive

no lack. He looked at her, his eyes full of admiration, puzzled the

while at her evident surprise.

"But surely," she said, "you cannot be so foolish--you, a man now--to

think that the fancy you took to a pretty face, for it could have been

nothing more, was of any importance."

"Such fancies make or mar the lives of men."

"Of unprincipled fools, yes--of men who care for appearance more than

sympathy. But you are not such a man! It is not as if we had been

friends; it is not as if we had ever spoken. It is wicked to call such a

foolish fancy by the name of love; it is desecration."

While she was speaking, her words revealed to Caius, with swift

analysis, a distinction that he had not made before. He knew now that

before he came to this island, before he had gone through the three

months of toil and suffering with Josephine Le Maître, it would truly

have been foolish to think of his sentiment concerning her as more than

a tender ideal. Now, that which had surprised him into a strength of

love almost too great to be in keeping with his character, was the unity

of two beings whom he had believed to be distinct--the playmate and the

saint.

"Whether the liking we take to a beautiful face be base or noble

depends, madame, upon the face; and no man could see yours without being

a better man for the sight. But think: when I saw the face that had been

enshrined for years in my memory yesterday, was it the face of a woman

whom I did not know--with whom I had never spoken?" He was not looking

at her as he spoke. He added, and his heart was revealed in the tone:

"_You_ do not know what it is to be shut out from all that is good on

earth."

There came no answer; in a moment he lifted his eyes to see what

response she gave, and he was astonished to detect a look upon her face

that would have become an angel who had received some fresh beatitude.

It was plain that now she saw and believed the truth of his love; it

appeared, too, that she felt it to be a blessing. He could not

understand this, but she wasted no words in explanation. When her eyes

met his, the joy in her face passed into pity for a minute; she looked

at him quietly and frankly; then she said:

"Love is good in itself, and suffering is good, and God is good. I

think," she added very simply, as a child might have done, "that you

are good, too. Do not fear or be discouraged."

Then, with her own hand, she gently disengaged his from the bridle and

rode up the hill on her errand of mercy.

CHAPTER IV.

HOPE BORN OF SPRING.

"Love is good; suffering is good; God is good"--that was what she had

answered him when he had said that for her sake he was shut out from all

that was good on earth. His heart did not rebel so bitterly against this

answer as it would have done if he had not felt assured that she spoke

of what she had experienced, and that his present experience was in some

sort a comradeship with her. Then, again, there was the inexplicable

fact that the knowledge of the way in which he regarded her had given

her pleasure; that was a great consolation to him, although he did not

gather from it any hope for the future. Her whole manner indicated that

she was, as he supposed her to be, entirely out of his reach, not only

by the barrier of circumstance, but by her own deliberate preference;

and yet he was certain that she was glad that he loved her. What did

that mean? He had so seen her life that he knew she was incapable of

vanity or selfish satisfaction; when she was glad it was because it was

right to be glad. Caius could not unravel this, and yet, deep within

him, he knew that there was consistency in it. Had she not said that

love in itself was good? it must be good, then, both to the giver and

receiver. He felt a certain awe at finding his own poor love embraced

in such a doctrine; he felt for the first time how gross and selfish,

how unworthy, it was.

It was now the end of March; the snow was melting; the ice was breaking;

it might be three or four weeks before ships could sail in the gulf, but

it would not be longer. There was no sign of further outbreak of

diphtheria upon the island. Caius felt the time of his going home to be

near; he was not glad to think of leaving his prison of ice. Two

distinct efforts were made at this time to entertain him.

O'Shea made an expedition to the island of the picture rocks, and, in

rough kindliness, insisted upon taking Caius with him, not to see the

rocks--O'Shea thought little of them. They had an exciting journey,

rowing between the ice-floes in the bay, carrying their boat over one

ice fragment and then another, launching it each time into a sea of

dangers. They spent a couple of days entertained by the chief man of

this island, and came back again at the same delightful jeopardy of

their lives.

After this Mr. Pembroke took Caius home with him, driving again over the

sand-dune, upon which, now that the drifts had almost melted, a road

could be made. All winter the dunes had been absolutely deserted,

impassable by reason of the depth of snow. It would seem that even the

devil himself must have left their valleys at this time, or have

hibernated. The chief interest to Caius in this expedition was to seek

the hollow where he had seen, or thought he had seen, the band of

mysterious men to which O'Shea introduced him; but so changed was the

appearance of the sand by reason of the streams and rivulets of melting

snow, and so monotonous was the dune, that he grew confused, and could

not in the least tell where the place had been. He paid a visit to

Pembroke's house, and to the inn kept by the old maids, and then went

back to his own little wooden domicile with renewed contentment in its

quaint appointments, in its solitude, but above all in its nearness to

that other house in which the five women lived guarded by the mastiffs.

Caius knew well enough that these plans for his amusement had been

instigated by Madame Le Maître. She was keeping out of his way, except

that now and then he met her upon the roads and exchanged with her a

friendly greeting.

The only satisfaction that Caius sought for himself at this time was an

occasional visit to O'Shea's house. All winter there had been growing

upon him a liking for the man's wife, although the words that he

exchanged with her were at all times few. Now the feeling that he and

she were friends had received a distinct increase. It was a long time

since Caius had put to anyone the questions which his mind was

constantly asking concerning Madame Le Maître. Apart from any thought of

talking about the object of their mutual regard, it was a comfort to him

to be in the presence of O'Shea's wife. He felt sure that she understood

her mistress better than anyone else did, and he also suspected her of a

lively sympathy with himself, although it was not probable that she knew

more concerning his relation to Josephine Le Maître than merely the fact

that it would be hard for any man to see so much grace and beauty and

remain insensible. Caius sat by this woman's hearth, and whittled tops

and boats for her children on the sunny doorstep when the days grew

warm at noon, and did not expect any guerdon for doing it except the

rest that he found in the proximity and occupation. Reward came to him,

however. The woman eyed him with more and more kindliness, and at length

she spoke.

It was one day towards the end of the month, when the last film of snow

had evaporated from many a field and slope, and the vivid green of grass

appeared for the first time to gladden the eyes, although many an

ice-wreath and snowy hollow still lay between. On such a day the sight

of a folded head of saxifrage from which the pearls are just breaking

makes the heart of man bound with a pleasure that has certainly no

rational cause which is adequate.

Caius came up from the western shore, where he had been watching a

distant ship that passed on the other side of the nearer ice-floes, and

which said, by no other signal than that of her white sails, that winter

was gone. The sea, whose rivers and lakes among the ice had of late

looked so turbid by reason of frozen particles in the water, was clear

now to reflect once more the blue above it, and the ice-cakes were very

white in the sunshine. Caius turned his back upon this, and came up a

stony path where large patches of the hill were green; and by chance he

came upon O'Shea's wife, who was laying out linen to bleach at some

distance from her own house. Close to her Caius saw the ledge of rock on

which the first flowers of the year were budding, and straightway fell

in love with them. Knowing that their plants would flourish indoors as

well as out, he stooped to lift the large cakes of moss in which their

roots were set. The woman, who wore a small pink shawl tied over her

head and shoulders, came near to where he was stooping, and made no

preface, but said:

"He's dead, sir; or if he isn't, and if he should come back, O'Shea will

kill him!"

Caius did not need to ask of whom she spoke.

"Why?" he asked. "Why should O'Shea want to kill him?"

"It would kill her, sir, if he came back to her. She couldn't abide him

no ways, and O'Shea says it's as good one murder should be done as

another, and if he was hung for it he wouldn't mind. O'Shea's the sort

of man that would keep his word. He'd just feel it was a kind of

interesting thing to do, and he worships her to that extent. But I feel

sure, sir, that Le Maître is dead. God would not be so unkind as to have

me and the children bereft in that way."

Her simple belief in her husband's power to settle the matter was

shocking to Caius, because he felt that she probably knew her husband

perfectly.

"But why," said he again, "would it kill her if he came back?"

"Well, what sort of a decent man is it that would have stayed away from

her all these years, poor lamb? Why, sir, she wasn't but a child at the

convent when her father had them married, and she back to school, and he

away to his ship, and never come to see her since."

Caius turned as he knelt upon the grass, and, holding the emerald moss

and saxifrage plants in his hand, looked up at her. "He went away two

years ago," he said, repeating defiantly what he believed he had heard.

"He went away six year ago," corrected she; "but it's two years now

since aught was heard of him, and his ship went down, sir, coming back

from Afriky--that we know; but word came that the crew were saved, but

never a word from him, nor a word of him, since."

"Did she"--his throat would hardly frame the words--a nervous spasm

impeded them; yet he could not but ask--"did she care for him?"

"Oh well, sir, as to that, he was a beautiful-looking man, and she but a

child; but when she came to herself she wrote and asked him never to

come back; she told me so; and he never did."

"Well, that at least was civil of him." Caius spoke in full earnest.

"No, sir; he's not civil; he's a beast of a man. There's no sort of low

trick that he hasn't done, only it can't be proved against him; for he's

the sort of beast that is a snake; he only married madame for the money

he'll get with her. It was when _she_ learned that that she wrote to him

not to come back; but he never sent an honest word to say whether he'd

stay away or not. She knows what he is, sir, for folks that he'd cheated

and lied to come to her to complain. Young as she is, there's white

threads in her hair, just to think that he might come back at any time.

It's making an old woman of her since she's come of an age to think; and

she the merriest, blithest creature that ever was. When she first came

out of the convent, to see her dance and sing was a sight to make old

eyes young."

"Yes," said Caius eagerly, "I know it was--I am sure it was."

"Oh, but you never saw her, sir, till the shadow had come on her."

"Do you know when it was I first saw her?" said Caius, looking down at

the grass.

"She told me 'twas when she went to Prince Edward's Land, the time she

went to see the wife of her father's brother. 'Twas the one time that

O'Shea let her out of his sight; but no one knew where she was, so if

the Captain had come at that time he couldn't have found her without

coming to O'Shea first. And the other time that O'Shea let her go was

the first winter she came here, for he knew no one could come at the

islands for the snow, and we followed by the first ship in spring."

"Couldn't she get a separation?"

"O'Shea says the law is that way made that she couldn't."

"If she changed her name and went away somewhere----" Caius spoke

thoughtfully.

"And that's what O'Shea has been at her to do, for at least it would

give her peace; but she says, no, she'll do what's open and honest, and

God will take care of her. And I'm sure I hope He will. But it's hard,

sir, to see a young thing, so happy by nature as her, taking comfort in

nothing but prayers and hymns and good works, so young as she is; it's

enough to make the angels themselves have tears in their eyes to see

it."

At this the woman was wiping her own eyes; and, making soft sniffing

sounds of uncultivated grief, she went back to her work of strewing wet

garments upon the grass.

Caius felt that O'Shea's wife had read the mind of the angels aright.

CHAPTER V.

TO THE HIGHER COURT.

If Caius, as he went his way carrying the moss and budding flowers,

could have felt convinced with O'Shea's wife that Le Maître was dead, he

would have been a much happier man. He could not admit the woman's

logic. Still, he was far happier than he had been an hour before. Le

Maître might be dead. Josephine did not love Le Maître. He felt that

now, at least, he understood her life.

Having the flowers, the very first darlings of the spring, in his hand,

he went, in the impulse of the new sympathy, and knocked at her house

door. He carried his burden of moss, earth, moisture, and little gray

scaly insects that, having been disturbed, crawled in and out of it,

boldly into the room, whose walls were still decorated with the faded

garlands of the previous autumn.

"Let me talk to you," said Caius.

The lady and the one young girl who happened to be with her had

bestirred themselves to receive his gift. Making a platter serve as the

rock-ledge from which the living things had been disturbed, they set

them in the window to grow and unfold the more quickly. They had brought

him a bowl also in which to wash his hands, and then it was that he

looked at the lady of the house and made his request.

He hardly thought she would grant it; he felt almost breathless with his

own hardihood when he saw her dismiss the girl and sit before him to

hear what he might have to say. He knew then that had he asked her to

talk to him he would have translated the desire of his heart far better.

"O'Shea's wife has been talking to me," he said.

"About me?"

"I hope you will forgive us. I think she could not help speaking, and I

could not help listening."

"What did she say?"

It was the absolutely childlike directness of her thoughts and words

that always seemed to Caius to be the thing that put the greatest

distance between them.

"I could not tell you what she said; I would not dare to repeat it to

you, and perhaps she would not wish you to know; but you know she is

loyal to you, and what I can tell you is, that I understand better now

what your life is--what it has been."

Then he held out his hands with an impulsive gesture towards her. The

large table was between them; it was only a gesture, and he let his

hands lie on the table. "Let me be your friend; you may trust me," he

said. "I am only a very ordinary man; but still, the best friendship I

have I offer. You need not be afraid of me."

"I am not afraid of you." She said it with perfect tranquillity.

He did not like her answer.

"Are we friends, then?" he asked, and tried to smile, though he felt

that some unruly nerve was painting the heaviness of his heart in his

face.

"How do you mean it? O'Shea and his wife are my friends, each of them in

a very different way----" She was going on, but he interrupted:

"They are your friends because they would die to serve you; but have you

never had friends who were your equals in education and intelligence?"

He was speaking hastily, using random words to suggest that more could

be had out of such a relation than faithful service.

"Are you my equal in intelligence and education?" she asked appositely,

laughter in her eyes.

He had time just for a momentary flash of self-wonder that he should so

love a woman who, when she did not keep him at some far distance,

laughed at him openly. He stammered a moment, then smiled, for he could

not help it.

"I would not care to claim that for myself," he said.

"Rather," she suggested, "let us frankly admit that you are the superior

in both."

He was sitting at the table, his elbows upon it, and now he covered his

face with his hands, half in real, half in mock, despair:

"What can I do or say?" he groaned. "What have I done that you will not

answer the honest meaning you can understand in spite of my clumsy

words?"

Then he had to look at her because she did not answer, and when he saw

that she was still ready to laugh, he laughed, too.

"Have you never ceased to despise me because I could not swim? I can

swim now, I assure you. I have studied the art. I could even show you a

prize that I took in a race, if that would win your respect."

"I am glad you took the prize."

"I have not yet learned the magic with which mermaids move."

"No, and you have not heard any excuse for the boldness of that play

yet. And I was almost the cause of your death. Ah! how frightened I was

that night--of you and for you! And again when I went to see Mr.

Pembroke before the snow came, and the storm came on and I was obliged

to travel with you in O'Shea's great-coat--that again cannot seem nice

to you when you think of it. Why do you like what appears so strange?

You came here to do a noble work, and you have done it nobly. Why not go

home now, and be rid of such a suspicious character as I have shown

myself to be? Wherever you go, our prayers and our blessings will follow

you."

Caius looked down at the common deal board. There were dents and marks

upon it that spoke of constant household work. At length he said:

"There is one reason for going that would seem to me enough: if you will

tell me that you neither want nor need my companionship or help in any

way; but if you cannot tell me that----"

"Want," she said very sadly. "Ah, do you think I have no heart, no mind

that likes to talk its thoughts, no sympathies? I think that if

_anyone_--man, woman, or child--were to come to me from out the big

world, where people have such thoughts and feelings as I have, and offer

to talk to me, I could not do anything else than desire their

companionship. Do you think that I am hard-hearted? I am so lonely that

the affection even of a dog or a bird would be a temptation to me, if it

was a thing that I dared not accept, because it would make me weaker to

live the life that is right. That is the way we must tell what is right

or wrong."

In spite of himself, he gathered comfort from the fact that, pausing

here, without adequate reason that was apparent, she took for granted

that the friendship he offered would be a source of weakness to her.

She never stooped to try to appear reasonable. As she had been speaking,

a new look had been coming out of the habitual calmness of her face, and

now, in the pause, the calm went suddenly, and there was a flash of fire

in her eyes that he had never seen there before:

"If I were starving, would you come and offer me bread that you knew I

ought not to eat? It would be cruel." She rose up suddenly, and he stood

before her. "It is cruel of you to tantalize me with thoughts of

happiness because you know I must want it so much. I could not live and

not want it. Go! you are doing a cowardly thing. You are doing what the

devil did when our Lord was in the wilderness. But He did not need the

bread He was asked to take, and I do not need your friendship. Go!"

She held out the hand--the hand that had so often beckoned to him in

play--and pointed him to the door. He knew that he was standing before a

woman who had been irritated by inward pain into a sudden gust of anger,

and now, for the first time, he was not afraid of her. In losing her

self-control she had lost her control of him.

"Josephine," he cried, "tell me about this man, Le Maître! He has no

right over you. Why do you think he is not dead? At least, tell me what

you know."

It seemed that, in the confusion of conflicting emotions, she hardly

wondered why he had not obeyed her.

"Oh, he is not dead!" She spoke with bitterness. "I have no reason to

suppose so. He only leaves me in suspense that he may make me the more

miserable." And then, as if realizing what she had said, she lifted her

head again proudly. "But remember it is nothing to you whether he is

alive or dead."

"Nothing to me to know that you would be freed from this horrible

slavery! It is not of my own gain, but of yours, I am thinking."

He knew that what he had said was not wholly true, yet, in the heat of

the moment, he knew that to embody in words the best that might be was

to give himself the best chance of realizing it; and he did not believe

now that her fierce assertion of indifference for him was true either,

but his best self applauded her for it. For a minute he could not tell

what Josephine would do next. She stood looking at him helplessly; it

seemed as though her subsiding anger had left a fear of herself in its

place. But what he dreaded most was that her composure should return.

"Do not be angry with me," he said; "I ask because it is right that I

should know. Can you not get rid of this bond of marriage?"

"Do you think," she asked, "that the good God and the Holy Virgin would

desire me to put myself--my life--all that is sacred--into courts and

newspapers? Do you think the holy Mother of God--looking down upon me,

her child--wants me to get out of trouble in _that_ way?" Josephine had

asked the question first in distress; then, with a face of peerless

scorn, she seemed to put some horrid scene from before her with her

hand. "The dear God would rather I would drown myself," she said; "it

would at least be"--she hesitated for a word, as if at a loss in her

English--"at least be cleaner."

She had no sooner finished that speech than the scorn died out of her

face:

"Ah, no," she cried repentant; "the men and women who are driven to seek

such redress--I--I truly pity them--but for me--it would not be any use

even if it were right. O'Shea says it would be no use, and he knows. I

don't think I would do it if I could; but I could not if I would."

"Surely he is dead," pleaded Caius. "How can you live if you do not

believe that?"

She came a little nearer to him, making the explanation with child-like

earnestness:

"You see, I have talked to God and to the holy Mother about this. I know

they have heard my prayers and seen my tears, and will do what is good

for me. I ask God always that Le Maître may not come back to me, so now

I know that if" (a gasping sigh retarded for a moment the breath that

came and went in her gentle bosom) "if he does come back it will be

God's will. Who am I that I should know best? Shall I choose to be what

you call a 'missionary' to the poor and sick--and refuse God's will? God

can put an end to my marriage if He will; until He does, I will do my

duty to my husband: I will till the land that he left idle; I will

honour the name he gave me. I dare not do anything except what is very,

very right, because I have appealed to the Court of Heaven. You asked

me just now if I did not want and need friendship; it does not matter

at all what I want, and whatever God does not give me you may be sure I

do not need."

He knew that the peace he dreaded had come back to her. She had gone

back to the memory of her strength. Now he obeyed the command she had

given before, and went out.

CHAPTER VI.

"THE NIGHT IS DARK."

Caius went home to his house. Inconsistency is the hall-mark of real in

distinction from unreal life. A note of happy music was sounding in his

heart. The bright spring evening seemed all full of joy. He saw a flock

of gannets stringing out in long line against the red evening sky, and

knew that all the feathered population of the rocks was returning to its

summer home. Something more than the mere joy of the season was making

him glad; he hardly knew what it was, for it appeared to him that

circumstances were untoward.

It was in vain that he reasoned that there was no cause for joy in the

belief that Josephine took delight in his society; that delight would

only make her lot the harder, and make for him the greater grievance. He

might as well have reasoned with himself that there was no cause for joy

in the fact of the spring; he was so created that such things made up

the bliss of life to him.

Caius did not himself think that Josephine owed any duty to La Maître;

he could only hope, and try to believe, that the man was dead. Reason,

common-sense, appeared to him to do away with what slight moral or

religious obligation was involved in such a marriage; yet he was quite

sure of one thing--that this young wife, left without friend or

protector, would have been upon a very much lower level if she had

thought in the manner as he did. He knew now that from the first day he

had seen her the charm of her face had been that he read in it a

character that was not only wholly different to, but nobler than, his

own. He reflected now that he should not love her at all if she took a

stand less high in its sweet unreasonableness, and his reason for this

was simply that, had she done otherwise, she would not have been

Josephine.

The thought that Josephine was what she was intoxicated him; all the

next day time and eternity seemed glorious to him. The islands were

still ringed with the pearly ring of ice-floes, and for one brief spring

day, for this lover, it was enough to be yet imprisoned in the same bit

of green earth with his lady, to think of all the noble things she had

said and done, and, by her influence, to see new vistas opening into

eternity in which they two walked together. There was even some

self-gratulation that he had attained to faith in Heaven. He was one of

those people who always suppose that they would be glad to have faith if

they could. It was not faith, however, that had come to him, only a

refining and quickening of his imagination.

Quick upon the heels of these high dreams came their test, for life is

not a dream.

Between the Magdalen Islands and the mainland, besides the many stray

schooners that came and went, there were two lines of regular

communication--one was by a sailing vessel which carried freight

regularly to and from the port of Gaspé; the other was by a small

packet steamer that once a week came from Nova Scotia and Prince

Edward's Island, and returned by the same route. It was by this steamer,

on her first appearance, that Caius ought reasonably to return to his

home. She would come as soon as the ice diminished; she would bring him

news, withheld for four months, of how his parents had fared in his

absence. Caius had not yet decided that he would go home by the first

trip; the thought of leaving, when it forced itself upon him, was very

painful. This steamer was the first arrival expected, and the islanders,

eager for variety and mails, looked excitedly to see the ice melt or be

drifted away. Caius looked at the ice ring with more intense longing,

but his longing was that it should remain. His wishes, like prayers,

besought the cold winds and frosty nights to conserve it for him.

It so happened that the Gaspé schooner arrived before the southern

packet, and lay outside of the ice, waiting until she could make her way

through. So welcome was the sight that the islanders gathered upon the

shores of the bay just for the pleasure of looking at her as she lay

without the harbour. Caius looked at her, too, and with comparative

indifference, for he rejoiced that he was still in prison.

Upon that day the night fell just as it falls upon all days; but at

midnight Caius had a visitor. O'Shea came to him in the darkness.

Caius was awakened from sound sleep by a muffled thumping at his door

that was calculated to disturb him without carrying sharp sound into the

surrounding air. His first idea was that some drunken fellow had

blundered against his wall by mistake. As the sounds continued and the

full strangeness of the event, in that lonely place, entered his waking

brain, he arose with a certain trepidation akin to that which one feels

at the thought of supernatural visitors, a feeling that was perhaps the

result of some influence from the spirit of the man outside the door;

for when he opened it, and held his candle to O'Shea's face, he saw a

look there that made him know certainly that something was wrong.

O'Shea came in and shut the door behind him, and went into the inner

room and sat down on the foot of the bed. Caius followed, holding the

candle, and inspected him again.

"Sit down, man." O'Shea made an impatient gesture at the light. "Get

into bed, if ye will; there's no hurry that I know of."

Caius stood still, looking at the farmer, and such nervousness had come

upon him that he was almost trembling with fear, without the slightest

notion as yet of what he feared.

"In the name of Heaven----" he began.

"Yes, Heaven!" O'Shea spoke with hard, meditative inquiry. "It's Heaven

she trusts in. What's Heaven going to do for her, I'd loike to know?"

"What is it?" The question now was hoarse and breathless.

"Well, I'll tell you what it is if ye'll give me time"--the tone was

sarcastic--"and you needn't spoil yer beauty by catching yer death of

cold. 'Tain't nicessary, that I know of. There's things that are

nicessary; there's things that will be nicessary in the next few days;

but that ain't."

For the first time Caius did not resent the caustic manner. Its

sharpness was turned now towards an impending fate, and to Caius O'Shea

had come as to a friend in need. Mechanically he sat in the middle of

the small bed, and huddled its blankets about him. The burly farmer, in

fur coat and cap, sat in wooden-like stillness; but Caius was like a man

in a fever, restless in his suspense. The candle, which he had put upon

the floor, cast up a yellow light on all the scant furniture, on the two

men as they thus talked to each other, with pale, tense faces, and threw

distorted shadows high up on the wooden walls.

Perhaps it was a relief to O'Shea to torture Caius some time with this

suspense. At last he said: "He's in the schooner."

"Le Maître? How do you know?"

"Well, I'll tell ye how I know. I told ye there was no hurry."

If he was long now in speaking, Caius did not know it. Upon his brain

crowded thoughts and imaginations: wild plans for saving the woman he

loved; wild, unholy desires of revenge; and a wild vision of misery in

the background as yet--a foreboding that the end might be submission to

the worst pains of impotent despair.

O'Shea had taken out a piece of paper, but did not open it.

"'Tain't an hour back I got this. The skipper of the schooner and me

know each other. He's been bound over by me to let me know if that man

ever set foot in his ship to come to this place, and he's managed to get

a lad off his ship in the noight, and across the ice, and he brought me

this. Le Maître, he's drunk, lyin' in his bunk; that's the way he's

preparing to come ashore. It may be one day, it may be two, afore the

schooner can get in. Le Maître he won't get off it till it's in th'

harbour. I guess that's about all there is to tell." O'Shea added this

with grim abstinence from fiercer comment.

"Does she know?" Caius' throat hardly gave voice to the words.

"No, she don't; and I don't know who is to tell her. I can't. I can do

most things." He looked up round the walls and ceiling, as if hunting in

his mind for other things he could not do. "I'll not do that. 'Tain't in

my line. My wife is adown on her knees, mixing up prayers and crying at

a great rate; and says I to her, 'You've been a-praying about this some

years back; I'd loike to know what good it's done. Get up and tell

madame the news;' and says she that she couldn't, and she says that in

the morning you're to tell her." O'Shea set his face in grim defiance of

any sentiment of pity for Caius that might have suggested itself.

Caius said nothing; but in a minute, grasping at the one straw of hope

which he saw, "What are you going to do?" he asked.

O'Shea smoothed out the letter he held.

"Well, you needn't speak so quick; it's just that there I thought we

might have our considerations upon. I'm not above asking advoice of a

gintleman of the world like yerself; I'm not above giving advoice,

neither."

He sat looking vacantly before him with a grim smile upon his face.

Caius saw that his mind was made up.

"What are you going to do?" he asked again.

At the same moment came the sharp consciousness upon him that he himself

was a murderer, that he wanted to have Le Maître murdered, that his

question meant that he was eager to be made privy to the plot, willing

to abet it. Yet he did not feel wicked at all; before his eyes was the

face of Josephine lying asleep, unconscious and peaceful. He felt that

he fought in a cause in which a saint might fight.

"What I may or may not do," said O'Shea, "is neither here nor there just

now. The first thing is, what you're going to do. The schooner's out

there to the north-east; the boat that's been used for the sealing is

over here to the south-west; now, there ain't no sinse, that I know of,

in being uncomfortable when it can be helped, or in putting ourselves

about for a brute of a man who ain't worth it. It's plain enough what's

the easy thing to do. To-morrow morning ye'll make out that ye can't

abide no longer staying in this dull hole, and offer the skipper of one

of them sealing-boats fifty dollars to have the boat across the ice and

take you to Souris. Then ye will go up and talk plain common-sinse to

madame, and tell her to put on her man's top-coat she's worn before, and

skip out of this dirty fellow's clutches. There ain't nothing like being

scared out of their wits for making women reasonable--it's about the

only time they have their sinses, so far as I know."

"If she won't come, what then?" Caius demanded hastily.

"My woife says that if ye're not more of a fool than we take ye for,

she'll go."

There was something in the mechanical repetition of what his wife had

said that made Caius suspect.

"You don't think she'll go?"

O'Shea did not answer.

"That is what you'll do, any way," he said; "and ye'll do it the best

way ye know how."

He sat upon the bed some time longer, wrapped in grim reserve. The

candle guttered, flared, burned itself out. The two men were together in

the dark. Caius believed that if the first expedient failed, and he felt

it could not but fail, murder was their only resource against what

seemed to them intolerable evil.

O'Shea got up.

"Perhaps ye think the gintleman that is coming has redeeming features

about him?" A fine edge of sarcasm was in his tone. "Well, he hain't.

Before we lost sight of him, I got word concarning him from one part of

the world and another. If I haven't got the law of him, it's because

he's too much of a sneak. He wasn't anything but a handsome sort of

beast to begin with; and, what with drinking and the life he's led, he's

grown into a sort of thing that had better go on all fours like

Nebuchadnezzar than come nigh decent people on his hind-legs. Why has he

let her alone all these years?" The speech was grimly dramatic. "Why,

just because, first place, I believe another woman had the upper hand of

him; second place, when he married madame it was the land and money her

father had to leave her that made him make that bargain. He hadn't that

in him that would make him care for a white slip of a girl as she was

then, and, any way, he knew that the girl and the money would keep till

he was sick of roving. It's as nasty a trick as could be that he's

served her, playing dead dog all these years, and coming to catch her

unawares. I tell ye the main thing he has on his mind is revenge for the

letters she wrote him when she first got word of his tricks, and then,

too, he's coming back to carouse on her money and the money she's made

on his father's land, that he niver looked to himself."

O'Shea stalked through the small dark rooms and went out, closing the

outer door gently behind him. Caius sat still, wrapped in his blankets.

He bowed his head upon his knees. The darkness was only the physical

part of the blackness that closed over his spirit. There was only one

light in this blackness--that was Josephine's face. Calm he saw it,

touched with the look of devotion or mercy; laughing and dimpled he saw

it, a thing at one with the sunshine and all the joy of earth; and then

he saw it change, and grow pale with fear, and repulsion, and disgust.

Around this one face, that carried light with it, there were horrid

shapes and sounds in the blackness of his mind. He had been a good man;

he had preferred good to evil: had it all been a farce? Was the thing

that he was being driven to do now a thing of satanic prompting, and he

himself corrupt--all the goodness which he had thought to be himself

only an organism, fair outside, that rotted inwardly? Or was this fear

the result of false teaching, the prompting of an artificial conscience,

and was the thing he wished to do the wholesome and natural course to

take--right in the sight of such Deity as might be beyond the curtain of

the unknown, the Force who had set the natural laws of being in motion?

Caius did not know. While his judgment was in suspense he was beset by

horrible fears--the fear that he might be driven to do a villainous

deed, the greater fear that he should not accomplish it, the awful fear,

rising above all else in his mind, of seeing Josephine overtaken by the

horrible fate which menaced her, and he himself still alive to feel her

misery and his own.

No, rather than that he would himself kill the man. It was not the part

that had been assigned to him, but if she would not save herself it

would be the noblest thing to do. Was he to allow O'Shea, with a wife

and children, to involve himself in such dire trouble, when he, who had

no one dependent upon him, could do the deed, and take what consequences

might be? He felt a glow of moral worth like that which he had felt when

he decided upon his mission to the island--greater, for in that his

motives had been mixed and sordid, and in this his only object was to

save lives that were of more worth than his own. Should he kill the man,

he would hardly escape death, and even if he did, he could never look

Josephine in the face again.

Why not? Why, if this deed were so good, could he not, after the doing

of it, go back to her and read gratitude in her eyes? Because

Josephine's standard of right and wrong was different from his. What was

her standard? His mind cried out an impatient answer. "She believes it

is better to suffer than to be happy." He did not believe that; he would

settle this matter by his own light, and, by freeing her and saving her

faithful friends, be cut off from her for ever.

It would be an easy thing to do, to go up to the man and put a knife in

his heart, or shoot him like a dog!

His whole being revolted from the thought; when the deed came before his

eyes, it seemed to him that only in some dark feverish imagination could

he have dreamed of acting it out, that of course in plain common-sense,

that daylight of the mind, he could not will to do this.

Then he thought again of the misery of the suffering wife, and he

believed that, foreign as it was to his whole habit of life, he could do

this, even this, to save her.

Then again came over him the sickening dread that the old rules of right

and wrong that he had been taught were the right guides after all, and

that Josephine was right, and that he must submit.

The very thought of submission made his soul rise up in a mad tempest of

anger against such a moral law, against all who taught it, against the

God who was supposed to ordain it; and so strong was the tempest of this

wrath, and so weak was he, perplexed, wretched, that he would have been

glad even at the same moment to have appealed to the God of his fathers,

with whom he was quarrelling, for counsel and help. His quarrel was too

fierce for that. His quarrel with God made trust, made mere belief even,

impossible, and he was aware that it was not new, that this was only the

culminating hour of a long rebellion.

CHAPTER VII.

THE WILD WAVES WHIST.

Next morning, when Caius walked forth into the glory of the April

sunshine, he felt himself to be a poor, wretched man. There was not a

fisherman upon the island, lazy, selfish as they were, and despised in

his eyes, that did not appear to him to be a better man than he. All the

force of training and habit made the thing that he was going to do

appear despicable; but all the force of training and habit was not

strong enough to make his judgment clear or direct his will.

The muddy road was beginning to steam in the sunshine; the thin shining

ice of night that coated its puddles was melting away. In the green

strip by the roadside he saw the yellow-tufted head of a dandelion just

level with the grass. The thicket of stunted firs on either side smelt

sweet, and beyond them he saw the ice-field that dazzled his eyes, and

the blue sea that sparkled. From this side he could not see the bay and

the ship of fate lying at anchor, but he noticed with relief that the

ice was not much less.

There was no use in thinking or feeling; he must go on and do what was

to be done. So he told himself. He shut his heart against the influence

of the happy earth; he felt like a guest bidden by fate, who knew not

whether the feast were to be for bridal or funeral. That he was not a

strong man was shown in this--that having hoped and feared, dreamed and

suffered, struggling to see a plain path where no path was, for half the

night, he now felt that his power of thought and feeling had burned out,

that he could only act his part, without caring much what its results

might be.

It was eight o'clock. He had groomed his horse, and tidied his house,

and bathed, and breakfasted. He did not think it seemly to intrude upon

the lady before this hour, and now he ascended her steps and knocked at

her door. The dogs thumped their tails on the wooden veranda; it was

only of late they had learned this welcome for him. Would they give it

now, he wondered, if they could see his heart? As he stood there waiting

for a minute, he felt that it would be good, if possible, to have laid

his dilemma fairly before the canine sense and heart, and to have let

the dogs rise and tear him or let him pass, as they judged best. It was

a foolish fancy.

It was O'Shea's wife who opened the door; her face was disfigured by

crying.

"You have told her?" demanded Caius, with relief.

The woman shook her head.

"It was the fine morning that tempted her out, sir," she said. "She sent

down to me, saying how she had taken a cup of milk and gone to ride on

the beach, and I was to come up and look after the girls. But look here,

sir"--eagerly--"it's a good thing, I'm thinking, for her spirits are

high when she rides in fine weather, and she's more ready for games and

plays, and thinking of pleasure. She's gone on the west shore, round by

the light, for O'Shea he looked at the tracks. Do you get your horse

and ride after, where you see her tracks in the sand."

Caius went. He mounted his horse and rode down upon the western shore.

He found the track, and galloped upon it. The tide was low; the ice was

far from shore; the highway, smoothed by the waves, was firm and good.

Caius galloped to the end of the island where the light was, where the

sealing vessels lay round the base of the lighthouse, and out upon the

dune, and still the print of her horse's feet went on in front of him.

It was not the first time that he and she had been upon the dune

together.

A mile, two miles, three; he rode at an easy pace, for now he knew that

he could not miss the rider before him. He watched the surf break gently

on the broad shallow reach of sand-ridges that lay between him and the

floating ice. And when he had ridden so far he was not the same man as

when he mounted his horse, or at least, his own soul, of which man has

hardly permanent possession, had returned to him. He could now see, over

the low mists of his own moods, all the issues of Josephine's case--all,

at least, that were revealed to him; for souls are of different stature,

and it is as the head is high or low that the battlefield is truly

discerned.

Long before he met her he saw Josephine. She had apparently gone as far

as she thought wise, and was amusing herself by making her horse set his

feet in the cold surf. It was a game with the horse and the wavelets

that she was playing. Each time he danced back and sunned himself he had

to go in again; and when he stood, his hind-feet on the sand and his

fore-feet reared over the foam, by way of going where she wished and

keeping himself dry, Caius could see her gestures so well that it

seemed to him he heard the tones of playful remonstrance with which she

argued the case.

When she perceived that Caius intended to come up to her, she rode to

meet him. Her white cap had been taken off and stuffed into the breast

of her dress; the hood surrounded her face loosely, but did not hide it;

her eyes were sparkling with pleasure--the pure animal pleasure of life

and motion, the sensuous pleasure in the beauty and the music of the

waves; other pleasures there might be, but these were certain, and

predominated.

"Why did you come?"

She asked the question as a happy child might ask of its playmate--no

hint of danger.

To Caius it was a physical impossibility to answer this question with

the truth just then.

"Is not springtime an answer?" he asked, then added: "I am going away

to-day. I came for one last ride."

She looked at him for a few moments, evidently supposing that he

intended to go to Harbour Island to wait there for his ship. If that

were so, it seemed that she felt no further responsibility about her

conduct to him. His heart sank to see that her joy in the spring and the

morning was such that the thought of parting did not apparently grieve

her much.

In a moment more her eyes flashed at him with the laughter at his

expense which he knew so well; she tried not to laugh as she spoke, but

could not help it.

"I have been visiting the band of men who were going to murder you the

night you came. Would you like to see them?"

"If you will take care of me."

As she turned and rode before him he heard her laughing.

"There," she said, stopping and pointing to the ground--"there is the

place where the quicksand was. I have not gone over it this morning.

Sometimes they last from one season to another; sometimes they change

themselves in a few days. I was dreadfully frightened when we began to

sink, but it was you who saved the pony."

"Don't," said Caius--"don't attempt to make the best of me. I would

rather be laughed at." He spoke lightly, without feeling, and that

seemed to please her.

"I think," she said candidly, "we behaved very badly; but it was

O'Shea's fault--I only enjoyed it. And I don't see what else we could

have done, because those two French sailors had to watch if anyone came

to steal from the wreck, and they were going to help us so far as to go

to the sheds on the cliff for boards to get up the cart; but O'Shea

could not have stayed all night with the bags unless I had left him my

coat as well as his own."

"You might have trusted me," said Caius. Still he spoke with no

sensibility; she grew more at her ease.

"O'Shea wouldn't; and I couldn't control O'Shea. And then we had to meet

so often, that I could not bear that you should know I had worn a man's

coat. I had to do it, for I couldn't drive home any other way." Here a

pause, and her mind wandered to another recollection. "Those men we met

brought us word that one of my friends was so ill; I had to hurry to

him. In my heart I thought you would not respect me because I had worn a

man's coat; and because---- Yes, it was very naughty of me indeed to

behave as I did in the water that summer. Even then I did try to get

O'Shea to let me walk with you, but he wouldn't."

She had been slowly riding through a deep, soft sand-drift that was

heaped at the mouth of the hollow, and when they had got through the

opening, Caius saw the ribs of one side of an enormous wreck protruding

from the sand, about six feet in height. A small hardy weed had grown

upon their heads in tufts; withered and sear with the winter, it still

hung there. The ribs bent over a little, as the men he had seen had

bent.

"The cloud-shadows and the moonlight were very confusing," remarked

Josephine; "and then O'Shea made the two sailors stand in the same way,

and they were real. I never knew a man like O'Shea for thinking of

things that are half serious and half funny. I never knew him yet fail

to find a way to do the thing he wanted to do; and it's always a way

that makes me laugh."

If Josephine would not come away with him, would O'Shea find a way of

killing Le Maître? and would it be a way to make her laugh? With the

awful weight of the tidings he brought upon his heart, all that he said

or did before he told them seemed artificial.

"I thought"--half mechanically--"that I saw them all hold up their

hands."

"Did you?" she asked. "The first two did; O'Shea told them to hold up

their hands."

"There is something you said a minute ago that I want to answer," he

said.

She thought he had left the subject of his illusion because it mortified

him.

"You said"--he began now to feel emotion as he spoke--"that you thought

I should not respect you. I want to tell you that I respected you as I

respect my mother, even when you were only a mermaid. I saw you when I

fell that night as we walked on this beach. If you had worn a boy's

coat, or a fishskin, always, I had sense enough to see that it was a

saint at play. Have you read all the odd stories about the saints and

the Virgin--how they appear and vanish, and wear odd clothes, and play

beneficent tricks with people? It was like that to me. I don't know how

to say it, but I think when good people play, they have to be very, very

good, or they don't really enjoy it. I don't know how to explain it, but

the moderate sort of goodness spoils everything."

Caius, when he had said this, felt that it was something he had never

thought before; and, whatever it might mean, he felt instinctively that

it meant a great deal more than he knew. He felt a little shabby at

having expressed it from her religious point of view, in which he had no

part; but his excuse was that there was in his mind at least the doubt

that she might be right, and, whether or not, his mission just then was

to gain her confidence. He brushed scruples aside for the end in view.

"I am glad you said that," she said. "I am not good, but I should like

to be. It wasn't becoming to play a mermaid, but I didn't think of that

then. I didn't know many things then that I know now. You see, my

uncle's wife drowned her little child; and afterwards, when she was ill,

I went to take care of her, and we could not let anyone know, because

the police would have interfered for fear she would drown me. But she is

quite harmless, poor thing! It is only that time stopped for her when

the child was drowned, and she thinks its little body is in the water

yet, if we could only find it. I found she had made that dress you call

a fishskin with floats on it for herself, and she used to get into the

sea, from the opening of an old cellar, at night, and push herself about

with a pole. It was the beautiful wild thing that only a mad person with

nice thoughts could do. But when she was ill, I played with it, for I

had nothing else to do; it was desecration."

"I thought you were like the child that was lost. I think you are like

her."

"She thought so, too; she used to think sometimes that I was her little

daughter grown up. It was very strange, living with her; I almost think

I might have gone mad, too, if I hadn't played with you."

It was very strange, Caius thought, that on this day of all days she

should be willing to talk to him about herself, should be willing to

laugh and chat and be happy with him. The one day that he dare not

listen long, that he must disturb her peace, was the only time that she

had seemed to wish to make a friend of him.

"When you lived so near us," he asked, "did you ever come across the

woods and see my father's house? Did you see my father and mother? I

think you would like them if you did."

"Oh, no," she said lightly; "I only knew who you were because my aunt

talked about you; she never forgot what you had done for the child."

"Do not turn your horse yet." He allowed himself to be urgent now. "I

have something to say to you which must be said. I am going home; I do

not want to wait for the steamer; I want to bribe one of those sealing

vessels to start with me to-day. I have come to ask you if you will not

come with me to see my mother. You do not know what it is to have a

mother. Mothers are very good; mine is. You would like to be with her, I

know; you would have the calm of feeling taken care of, instead of

standing alone in the world."

He said all this without letting his tone betray that that

double-thoughted mind of his was telling him that this was doubtful,

that his mother might be slow to believe in Josephine, and that he was

not sure whether Josephine would be attracted by her.

Josephine looked at him with round-eyed surprise; then, apparently

conjecturing that the invitation was purely kind, purely stupid, she

thanked him, and declined it graciously.

"Is there no folly with which you would not easily credit me?" He smiled

faintly in his reproach. "Do you think I do not know what I am saying? I

have been awake all night thinking what I could do for you." For a

moment he looked at her helplessly, hoping that some hint of the truth

would come of itself; then, turning away his face, he said hoarsely: "Le

Maître is on the Gaspé schooner. O'Shea has had the news. He is lying

drunk in his berth."

He did not turn until he heard a slight sound. Then he saw that she had

slipped down from her horse, perhaps because she was afraid of falling

from it. Her face was quite white; there was a drawn look of abject

terror upon it; but she only put her horse's rein in his hand, and

pointed to the mouth of the little valley.

"Let me be alone a little while," she whispered.

So Caius rode out upon the beach, leading her horse; and there he held

both restive animals as still as might be, and waited.

CHAPTER VIII.

"GOD'S IN HIS HEAVEN."

Caius wondered how long he ought to wait if she did not come out to him.

He wondered if she would die of misery there alone in the sand-dune, or

if she would go mad, and meet him in some fantastic humour, all the

intelligence scorched out of her poor brain by the cruel words he had

said. He had a notion that she had wanted to say her prayers, and,

although he did not believe in an answering Heaven, he did believe that

prayers would comfort her, and he hoped that that was why she asked to

be left.

When he thought of the terror in her eyes, he felt sanguine that she

would come with him. Now that he had seen her distress, it seemed to him

worse than any notion he had preconceived of it. It was right that she

should go with him. When she had once done that, he would stand between

her and this man always. That would be enough; if she should never care

for him, if he had nothing more than that, he would be satisfied, and

the world might think what it would. If she would not go with him--well,

then he would kill Le Maître. His mind was made up; there was nothing

left of hesitation or scruple. He looked at the broad sea and the

sunlight and the sky, and made his vow with clenched teeth. He laughed

at the words which had scared him the night before--the names of the

crimes which were his alternatives; they were made righteousness to him

by the sight of fear in a woman's face.

It is one form of weakness to lay too much stress upon the emotion of

another, just as it is weak to take too much heed of our own emotions;

but Caius thought the sympathy that carried all before it was strength.

After awhile, waiting became intolerable. Leading both horses, he walked

cautiously back to a point where he could see Josephine. She was sitting

upon the sandy bank near where he had left her. He took his cap in his

hand, and went with the horses, standing reverently before her. He felt

sure now that she had been saying her prayers, because, although her

face was still very pallid, she was composed and able to speak. He

wished now she had not prayed.

"You are very kind to me." Her voice trembled, but she gave him a little

smile. "I cannot pretend that I am not distressed; it would be false,

and falsehood is not right. You are very, very kind, and I thank

you----"

She broke off, as if she had been going to say something more but had

wearily forgotten what it was.

"Oh, do not say that!" His voice was like one pleading to be spared a

blow. "I love you. There is no greater joy to me on earth than to serve

you."

"Hush," she said; "don't say that. I am very sorry for you, but sorrow

must come to us all in some way."

"Don't, don't!" he cried--"don't tell me that suffering is good. It is

not good; it is an evil. It is right to shun evil; it is the only

right. The other is a horrid fable--a lie concocted by priests and

devils!"

"Suppose you loved someone--me, for instance--and I was dead, and you

knew quite certainly that by dying you would come to where I was--would

you call death good or evil?"

He demurred. He did not want to admit belief in anything connected with

the doctrine of submission.

"I said 'suppose,'" she said.

"I would go through far more than death to come near you."

"Suffering is just a gate, like death. We go through it to get the

things we really want most."

"I don't believe in a religion that calls suffering better than

happiness; but I know you do."

"No, I don't," she said, "and God does not; and people who talk as if He

did not want us to seek happiness--even our own happiness--are making to

themselves a graven image. I will tell you how I think about it, because

I have been alone a great deal and been always very much afraid, and

that has made me think a great deal, and you have been very kind, for

you risked your life for my poor people, and now you would risk

something more than that to help me. Will you listen while I try to tell

you?"

Caius signified his assent. He was losing all his hope. He was thinking

that when she had done talking he would go and get ready to do murder;

but he listened.

"You see," she began, "the greatest happiness is love. Love is greedy to

get as well as to give. It is all nonsense talking about love that gives

and asks for no return. We only put up with that when we cannot get the

other, and why? Why should we think it the grandest thing to give what

we would scorn to take? You, for instance--you would rather have a

person you loved do nothing for you, yet enjoy you, always demanding

your affection and presence, than that he or she should be endlessly

generous, and indifferent to what you give in return."

"Yes." He blushed as he said it.

"Well then, it is cant to speak as if the love that asks for no return

is the noblest. Now listen. I have something very solemn to say, because

it is only by the greatest things that we learn what the little ought to

be. When God came to earth to live for awhile, it was for the sake of

His happiness and ours; He loved us in the way that I have been saying;

He was not content only to bless us, He wanted us to enjoy Him. He

wanted that happiness from us; and He wanted us to expect it from Him

and from each other; and if we had answered, all would have been like

the first marriage feast, where they had the very best wine, and such

lots of it. But, you see, we couldn't answer; we had no souls. We were

just like the men on Cloud Island who laughed at you when you wanted

them to build a hospital. The little self or soul that we had was of

that sort that we couldn't even love each other very much with it, and

not Him at all. So there was only one way, and that was for us to grow

out of these stupid little souls, and get good big ones, that can enjoy

God, and enjoy each other, and enjoy everything perfectly." She looked

up over the yellow sand-hills into the deep sunny sky, and drew a long

breath of the April air involuntarily. "Oh," she said, "a good, big,

perfect soul could enjoy so much."

It seemed as if she thought she had said it all and finished the

subject.

"Well," said Caius, interested in spite of himself, "if God wanted to

make us happy, He could have given us that kind of soul."

"Ah, no! We don't know why things have to grow, but they must;

everything grows--_you_ know that. For some reason, that is the best

way; so there was just one way for those souls to grow in us, and He

showed us how. It is by doing what is quite perfectly right, and bearing

all the suffering that comes because of it, and doing all the giving

side of love, because here we can't get much. Pain is not good in

itself; it is a gate. Our souls are growing all through the gate of the

suffering, and when we get to the other side of it, we shall find we

have won them. God wants us to be greedy for happiness; but we must find

it by going through the gate He went through to show us the way."

Caius stood before her holding the horses; even they had been still

while she was speaking, as if listening to the music of her voice. Caius

felt the misery of a wavering will and conflicting thoughts.

"If I thought," he said, "that God cared about happiness--just simple

happiness--it would make religion seem so much more sensible; but I'm

afraid I don't believe in living after death, or that He cares----"

What she said was wholly unreasonable. She put out her hand and took

his, as if the hand-clasp were a compact.

"Trust God and see," she said.

There was in her white face such a look of glorious hope, that Caius,

half carried away by its inspiration, still quailed before her. After

he had wrung her hand, he found himself brushing his sleeve across his

eyes. As he thought that he had lost her, thought of all that she would

have to endure, of the murder he still longed to commit, and felt all

the agony of indecision again, and suspected that after this he would

scruple to commit it--when all this came upon him, he turned and leaned

against one of the horses, sobbing, conscious in a vague way that he did

not wish to stop himself, but only craved her pity.

Josephine comforted him. She did not apparently try to, she did not do

or say anything to the purpose; but she evinced such consternation at

the sight of his tears, that stronger thoughts came. He put aside his

trouble, and helped her to mount her horse.