Beth Woodburn Part 11

"I don't know."

"I should like to meet him," and Beth paused before she continued, in a quiet tone, "I am going to be a missionary myself."

"Beth!" exclaimed Mrs. Perth.

"I thought you were planning this," said Mr. Perth.

"Thought so? How could you tell?" asked Beth.

"I saw it working in your mind. You are easily read. Where are you going?"

"I haven't decided yet. I only just decided to go lately--one Sunday afternoon this spring. I used to hate the idea."

Perhaps it was this little talk that made her think of Arthur again that night. Why had he never sent her one line, one word of sympathy in her sorrow? He was very unkind, when her father had loved him so. Was that what love meant?

The supply did not stay at the parsonage, and Beth did not even ask his name, as she supposed it would be unfamiliar to her. The old church seemed so home-like that Sunday. The first sacred notes echoed softly down the aisles; the choir took their places; then there was a moment's solemn hush,--and Arthur! Why, that was Arthur going up into the pulpit!

She could hardly repress a cry of surprise. For the moment she forgot all her coldness and indifference, and looked at him intently. He seemed changed, somehow; he was a trifle paler, but there was a delicate fineness about him she had never seen before, particularly in his eyes, a mystery of pain and sweetness, blended and ripened into a more perfect manhood. Was it because Arthur preached that sermon she thought it so grand? No, everybody seemed touched. And this was the small boy who had gone hazel-nutting with her, who had heard her geography, and, barefoot, carried her through the brook. But that was long, long ago. They had changed since then. Before she realized it, the service was over, and the people were streaming through the door-way where Arthur stood shaking hands with the acquaintances of his childhood. There was a soothed, calm expression on Beth's brow, and her eyes met Arthur's as he touched her hand. May thought she seemed a trifle subdued that day, especially toward evening. Beth had a sort of feeling that night that she would have been content to sit there at the church window for all time. There was a border of white lilies about the altar, a sprinkling of early stars in the evening sky; solemn hush and sacred music within, and the cry of some stray night-bird without. There were gems of poetry in that sermon, too; little gleanings from nature here and there. Then she remembered how she had once said Arthur had not an artist-soul. Was she mistaken? Was he one of those men who bury their sentiments under the practical duties of every-day life? Perhaps so.

The next day she and May sat talking on the sofa by the window.

"Don't you think, May, I should make a mistake if I married a man who had no taste for literature and art?"

"Yes, I do. I believe in the old German proverb, 'Let like and like mate together.'"

Was that a shadow crossed Beth's face?

"But, whatever you do, Beth, don't marry a man who is all moonshine. A man may be literary in his tastes and yet not be devoted to a literary life. I think the greatest genius is sometimes silent; but, even when silent, he inspires others to climb the heights that duty forbade him to climb himself."

"You've deep thoughts in your little head, May." And Beth bent over, in lover-like fashion, to kiss the little white hand, but May had dropped into one of her light-hearted, baby moods, and playfully withdrew it.

"Don't go mooning like that, kissing my dirty little hands! One would think you had been falling in love."

Beth went for another stroll that evening. She walked past the dear old house on the hill-top. The shutters were no longer closed; last summer's flowers were blooming again by the pathway; strange children stopped their play to look at her as she pa.s.sed, and there were sounds of mirth and music within. Yes, that was the old home--home no longer now! There was her own old window, the white roses drooping about it in the early dew.

"Oh, papa! papa! look down on your little Beth!" These words were in her eyes as she lifted them to the evening sky, her tears falling silently.

She was following the old path by the road-side, where she used to go for the milk every evening, when a firm step startled her.

"Arthur! Good evening. I'm so glad to see you again!"

She looked beautiful for a moment, with the tears hanging from her lashes, and the smile on her face.

"I called to see you at the parsonage, but you were just going up the street, so I thought I might be pardoned for coming too."

They were silent for a few moments. It was so like old times to be walking there together. The early stars shone faintly; but the clouds were still pink in the west; not a leaf stirred, not a breath; no sound save a night-bird calling to its mate in the pine-wood yonder, and the bleat of lambs in the distance. Presently Arthur broke the silence with sweet, tender words of sorrow for her loss.

"I should have written to you if I had known, but I was sick in the hospital, and I didn't--"

"Sick in the hospital! Why, Arthur, have you been ill? What was the matter?"

"A light typhoid fever. I went to the Wesleyan College, at Montreal, after that, so I didn't even know you had come back to college."

"To the Wesleyan? I thought you were so attached to Victoria! Whatever made you leave it, Arthur?"

He flushed slightly, and evaded her question.

"Do you know, it was so funny, Arthur, you roomed in the very house where I boarded last fall, and I never knew a thing about it till afterward? Wasn't it odd we didn't meet?"

Again he made some evasive reply, and she had an odd sensation, as of something cold pa.s.sing between them. He suddenly became formal, and they turned back again at the bridge where they used to sit fishing, and where Beth never caught anything (just like a girl); they always went to Arthur's hook. The two forgot their coldness as they walked back, and Beth was disappointed that Arthur had an engagement and could not come in. They lingered a moment at the gate as he bade her good-night. A delicate thrill, a something sweet and new and strange, possessed her as he pressed her hand! Their eyes met for a moment.

"Good-bye for to-night, Beth."

May was singing a soft lullaby as she came up the walk. Only a moment!

Yet what a revelation a moment may bring to these hearts of ours! A look, a touch, and something live is throbbing within! We cannot speak it. We dare not name it. For, oh, hush, 'tis a sacred hour in a woman's life.

Beth went straight to her room, and sat by the open window in the star-light. Some boys were singing an old Scotch ballad as they pa.s.sed in the street below; the moon was rising silvery above the blue Erie; the white petals of apple-blossoms floated downward in the night air, and in it all she saw but one face--a face with great, dark, tender eyes, that soothed her with their silence. Soothed? Ah, yes! She felt like a babe to-night, cradled in the arms of something, she knew not what--something holy, eternal and calm. And _this_ was love. She had craved it often--wondered how it would come to her--and it was just Arthur, after all, her childhood's friend, Arthur--but yet how changed!

He was not the same. She felt it dimly. The Arthur of her girlhood was gone. They were man and woman now. She had not known this Arthur as he was now. A veil seemed to have been suddenly drawn from his face, and she saw in him--her ideal. There were tears in her eyes as she gazed heavenward. She had thought to journey to heathen lands alone, single-handed to fight the battle, and now--"Arthur--Arthur!" she called in a soft, sweet whisper as she drooped her smiling face. What mattered all her blind shilly-shally fancies about his nature not being poetic?

There was more poetry buried in that heart of his than she had ever dreamed. "I can never, never marry Arthur!" she had often told herself.

She laughed now as she thought of it, and it was late before she slept, for she seemed to see those eyes looking at her in the darkness--so familiar, yet so new and changed! She awoke for a moment in the grey light just before dawn, and she could see him still; her hand yet thrilled from his touch. She heard the hoa.r.s.e whistle of a steamer on the lake; the rooks were cawing in the elm-tree over the roof, and she fell asleep again.

"Good-morning, Rip Van Winkle," said May, when she entered the breakfast-room.

"Why, is that clock--just look at the time! I forgot to wind my watch last night, and I hadn't the faintest idea what time it was when I got up this morning!"

"Good-bye for to-night, Beth," he had said, and he was going away to-morrow morning, so he would surely come to-day. No wonder she went about with an absent smile on her face, and did everything in the craziest possible way. It was so precious, this newly-found secret of hers! She knew her own heart now. There was no possibility of her misunderstanding herself in the future. The afternoon was wearing away, and she sat waiting and listening. Ding! No, that was only a beggar-woman at the door. Ding, again! Yes, that was Arthur! Then she grew frightened. How could she look into his eyes? He would read her secret there. He sat down before her, and a formal coldness seemed to paralyze them both.

"I have come to bid you good-bye, Miss Woodburn!"

Miss Woodburn! He had never called her that before. How cold his voice sounded in her ears!

"Are you going back to Victoria College?" she asked.

"No, to the Wesleyan. Are you going to spend your summer in Briarsfield?"

"Most of it. I am going back to Toronto for a week or two before 'Varsity opens. My friend Miss de Vere is staying with some friends there. She is ill and--"

"Do you still call her your friend?" he interrupted, with a sarcastic smile.

"Why, yes!" she answered wonderingly, never dreaming that he had witnessed that same scene in the Mayfair home.

"You are faithful, Beth," he said, looking graver. Then he talked steadily of things in which neither of them had any interest. How cold and unnatural it all was! Beth longed to give way to tears. In a few minutes he rose to go. He was going! Arthur was going! She dared not look into his face as he touched her hand coldly.

"Good-bye, Miss Woodburn. I wish you every success next winter."

She went back to the parlor and watched him--under the apple trees, white with blossom, through the gate, past the old church, around the corner--he was gone! The clock ticked away in the long, silent parlor; the sunshine slept on the gra.s.s outside; the b.u.t.terflies were flitting from flower to flower, and laughing voices pa.s.sed in the street, but her heart was strangely still. A numb, voiceless pain! What did it mean?

Had Arthur changed? Once he had loved her. "G.o.d have pity!" her white lips murmured. And yet that look, that touch last night--what did it mean? What folly after all! A touch, a smile, and she had woven her fond hopes together. Foolish woman-heart, building her palace on the sands for next day's tide to sweep away! Yet how happy she had been last night! A thrill, a throb, a dream of bliss; crushed now, all but the memory! The years might bury it all in silence, but she could never, never forget. She had laid her plans for life, sweet, unselfish plans for uplifting human lives. Strange lands, strange scenes, strange faces would surround her. She would toil and smile on others, "but oh, Arthur, Arthur--"

All through the long hours of that night she lay watching; she could not sleep. Arthur was still near, the same hills surrounding them both. The stars were shining and the hoa.r.s.e whistle of the steamers rent the night. Perhaps they would never be so near again. Would they ever meet, she wondered. Perhaps not! Another year, and he would be gone far across the seas, and then, "Good-bye, Arthur! Good-bye! G.o.d be with you!"