THE TEST
The door of Myra's sitting-room opened quietly, and Jim Airth came in.
She awaited him upon the couch, sitting very still, her hands folded in
her lap.
The room seemed full of flowers, and of soft sunset light.
He closed the door, and came and stood before her.
For a few moments they looked steadily into one another's faces.
Then Jim Airth spoke, very low.
"It is so good of you to see me," he said. "It is almost more than I had
ventured to hope. I am leaving England in a few hours. It would have been
hard to go--without this. Now it will be easy."
She lifted her eyes to his, and waited in silence.
"Myra," he said, "can you forgive me?"
"I do not know, Jim," she answered, gently. "I want to be quite honest
with you, and with myself. If I had cared less, I could have forgiven
more easily."
"I know," he said. "Oh, Myra, I know. And I would not have you forgive
lightly, so great a sin against our love. But, dear--if, before I go, you
could say, 'I understand,' it would mean almost more to me, than if you
said, 'I forgive.'"
"Jim," said Myra, gently, a tremor of tenderness in her sweet voice, "I
understand."
He came quite near, and took her hands in his, holding them for a moment,
with tender reverence.
"Thank you, dear," he said. "You are very good."
He loosed her hands, and again she folded them in her lap. He walked to
the mantelpiece and stood looking down upon the ferns and lilies.
She marked the stoop of his broad shoulders; the way in which he seemed
to find it difficult to hold up his head. Where was the proud gay
carriage of the man who swung along the Cornish cliffs, whistling like a
blackbird?
"Jim," she said, "understanding fully, of course I forgive fully, if it
is possible that between you and me, forgiveness should pass. I have been
thinking it over, since I knew you were in the house, and wondering why I
feel it so impossible to say, 'I forgive you.' And, Jim--I think it is
because you and I are so _one_ that there is no room for such a thing as
forgiveness to pass from me to you, or from you to me. Complete
comprehension and unfailing love, take the place of what would be
forgiveness between those who were less to each other."
He lifted his eyes, for a moment, full of a dumb anguish, which wrung her
heart.
"Myra, I must go," he said, brokenly. "There was so much I had to tell
you; so much to explain. But all need of this seems swept away by your
divine tenderness and comprehension. All my life through I shall carry
with me, deep hidden in my heart, these words of yours. Oh, my dear--my
dear! Don't speak again! Let them be the last. Only--may I say it?--never
let thoughts of me, sadden your fair life. I am going to America--a grand
place for fresh beginnings; a land where one can work, and truly live; a
land where earnest endeavour meets with fullest success, and where a
man's energy may have full scope. I want you to think of me, Myra, as
living, and working, and striving; not going under. But, if ever I feel
like going under, I shall hear your dear voice singing at my shoulder, in
the little Cornish church, on the quiet Sabbath evening, in the sunset:
'Eternal Father, strong to save,' ... And--when I think of you, my
dear--my dear; I shall know your life is being good and beautiful every
hour, and that you are happy with--" he lifted his eyes to Lord Ingleby's
portrait; they dwelt for a moment on the kind quiet face--"with one of
the best of men," said Jim Airth, bravely
He took a last look at her face. Silent tears stole slowly down it, and
fell upon her folded hands.
A spasm of anguish shot across Jim Airth's set features.
"Ah, I must go," he said, suddenly. "God keep you, always."
He turned so quickly, that his hand was actually upon the handle of the
door, before Myra reached him, though she sprang up, and flew across the
room.
"Jim," she said, breathlessly. "Stop, Jim! Ah, stop! Listen! Wait!--Jim,
I have always known--I told Jane so--that if I forgave you, I could not
let you go." She flung her arms around his neck, as he stood gazing at
her in dumb bewilderment. "Jim, my belovèd! I cannot let you go; or, if
you go, you must take me with you. I cannot live without you, Jim
Airth!"
For the space of a dozen heart-beats he stood silent, while she hung
around him; her head upon his breast, her clinging arms about his neck.
Then a cry so terrible burst from him, that Myra's heart stood still.
"Oh, my God," he cried, "this is the worst of all! Have I, in falling,
dragged _her_ down? Now, indeed am I broken--broken. What was the loss of
my own pride, my own honour, my own self-esteem, to this? Have I soiled
her fair whiteness; weakened the noble strength of her sweet purity? Oh,
not this--my God, not this!"
He lifted his hands to his neck, took hers by the wrists, and forcibly
drew them down, stepping back a pace, so that she must lift her head.
Then, holding her hands against his breast: "Lady Ingleby," he said,
"lift your eyes, and look into my face."
Slowly--slowly--Myra lifted her grey eyes. The fire of his held her; she
felt the strength of him mastering her, as it had often done before. She
could scarcely see the anguish in his face, so vivid was the blaze of his
blue eyes.
"Lady Ingleby," he said, and the grip of his hands on hers, tightened.
"Lady Ingleby--we stood like this together, you and I, on a fast
narrowing strip of sand. The cruel sea swept up, relentless. A high cliff
rose in front--our only refuge. I held you thus, and said: 'We must
climb--or drown.' Do you remember?--I say it now, again. The only
possible right thing to do is steep and difficult; but we must climb. We
must mount above our lower selves; away from this narrowing strip of
dangerous sand; away from this cruel sea of fierce temptation; up to the
breezy cliff-top, up to the blue above, into the open of honour and right
and perfect purity. You stood there, until now; you stood there--brave
and beautiful. I dragged you down--God forgive me, I brought you into
danger--Hush! listen! You must climb again; you must climb alone; but
when I am gone, your climbing will be easy. You will soon find yourself
standing, safe and high, above these treacherous dangerous waters.
Forgive me, if I seem rough." He forced her gently backwards to the
couch. "Sit there," he said, "and do not rise, until I have left the
house. And if ever these moments come back to you, Lady Ingleby,
remember, the whole blame was mine.... Hush, I tell you; hush! And will
you loose my hands?"
But Myra clung to those big hands, laughing, and weeping, and striving to
speak.
"Oh, Jim--my Jim!--you can't leave me to climb alone, because I am all
your own, and free to be yours and no other man's, and together, thank
God, we can stand on the cliff-top where His hand has led us.
Dearest--Jim, dearest--don't pull away from me, because I must cling on,
until you have read these telegrams. Oh, Jim, read them quickly! ... Sir
Deryck Brand brought them down from town this afternoon. And oh, forgive
me that I did not tell you at once.... I wanted you to prove yourself,
what I knew you to be, faithful, loyal, honourable, brave, the man of all
men whom I trust; the man who will never fail me in the upward climb,
until we stand together beneath the blue on the heights of God's eternal
hills.... Oh, Jim----"
Her voice faltered into silence; for Jim Airth knelt at her feet, his
head in her lap, his arms flung around her, and he was sobbing as only a
strong man can sob, when his heart has been strained to breaking point,
and sudden relief has come.
Myra laid her hands, gently, upon the roughness of his hair. Thus they
stayed long, without speaking or moving.
And in those sacred minutes Myra learned the lesson which ten years of
wedded life had failed to teach: that in the strongest man there is,
sometimes, the eternal child--eager, masterful, dependent, full of
needs; and that, in every woman's love there must therefore be an
element of the eternal mother--tender, understanding, patient; wise, yet
self-surrendering; able to bear; ready to forgive; her strength made
perfect in weakness.
At length Jim Airth lifted his head.
The last beams of the setting sun, entering through the western window,
illumined, with a ray of golden glory, the lovely face above him. But he
saw on it a radiance more bright than the reflected glory of any earthly
sunset.
"Myra?" he said, awe and wonder in his voice. "Myra? What is it?"
And clasping her hands about his neck as he knelt before her, she drew
his head to her breast, and answered:
"I have learnt a lesson, my belovèd; a lesson only you could teach. And I
am very happy and thankful, Jim; because I know, that at last, I--even
I--am ready for wifehood."