The Crimson Tide Part 79

Dim visions of cloistered forms, moving in a blessed twilight, grew and a.s.sumed familiar shape amid the dumb desolation reigning in her brain. The spectral temptation pa.s.sed, repa.s.sed; processional, recessional glided by, timed by her heart's low rhythm.

But, little by little, she came to understand that there was no refuge even there; no mystic glow in the dark corridors of her own heart; no source of light save from the candles glimmering on the high altar; no aureole above the crucifix.

Always, everywhere, there seemed to be no shelter, no roof above the scheme of things.

She heard the telephone. As she slowly rose from the sofa she noted the hour as it sounded;--four o'clock in the morning.

A man's voice was speaking--an unhurried, precise, low-pitched, monotonous voice:

"This--is--the--Memorial Hospital. Doctor--Willis--speaking. Mr.--John-- Estridge--died--at--ten minutes--to--four. Miss Westgard--wishes--to-- go--to--your--residence--and--remain--over--night--if--convenient....

Thank you. Miss--Westgard--will--go--to--you--immediately. Good-night."

Palla rose from her chair in the unfurnished drawing-room, went out into the hall, admitted Ilse, then locked and chained the two front doors.

When she turned around, trembling and speechless, they kissed. But it was only Palla's mouth that trembled; and when they mounted the stairs it was Ilse's arm that supported Palla.

Except that her eyes were heavy and seemed smeared with deep violet under the lower lids, Ilse did not appear very much changed.

She took off her furs, hat, and gloves and sat down beside Palla. Her voice was quite clear and steady; there appeared to be no sign of shock or of grief, save for a pa.s.sing tremor of her tired eyes now and then.

She said: "We talked a little together, Jack and I, after I telephoned to you.

"That was the last. His hand began to burn in mine steadily, like something on fire. And when, presently, I found he was not asleep, I motioned to the night nurse.

"The change seemed to come suddenly; she went to find one of the internes; I sat with my hand on his pulse.... There were three physicians there.... Jack was not conscious after midnight."

Palla's lips and throat were dry and aching and her voice almost inaudible:

"Darling," she whispered, "--darling--if I could give him back to you and take his place!----"

Ilse smiled, but her heavy eyelids quivered:

"The scheme of things is so miserably patched together.... Except for the indestructible divinity within each one of us, it all would be so hopeless.... I had never been able to imagine Jack and Death together--" She looked up at the clock. "He was alive only an hour ago.... Isn't it strange--"

"Oh, Ilse, Ilse! I wish this G.o.d who deals out such wickedness and misery had struck me down instead!"

Neither seemed to notice the agnostic paradox in this bitter cry wrung from a young girl's grief.

Ilse closed her eyes as though to rest them, and sat so, her steady hand on Palla's. And, so resting, said in her unfaltering voice:

"Jack, of course, lives.... But it seems a long time to wait to see him."

"Jack lives," whispered Palla.

"Of course.... Only--it seems so long a time to wait.... I wanted to show him--how kind love has been to us--how still more wonderful love could have been to us ... for I could have borne him many children....

And now I shall bear but one."

After a silence, Palla lifted her eyes. In them the shadow of terror still lingered; there was not an atom of colour in her face.

Ilse slept that night, though Palla scarcely closed her eyes. Dreadful details of the coming day rose up to haunt her--all the ghastly routine necessary before the dead lie finally undisturbed by the stir and movement of many footsteps--the coming and going of the living.

Because what they called pneumonia was the Black Death of the ancient East, they had warned Ilse to remain aloof from that inert thing that had been her lover. So she did not look upon his face again.

There were relatives of sorts at the chapel. None spoke to her. The sunshine on the flower-covered casket was almost spring like.

And in the cemetery, too, there was no snow; and, under the dead gra.s.s, everywhere new herbage tinted the earth with delicate green.

Ilse returned from the cemetery with Palla. Her black veil and garments made of her gold hair and blond skin a vivid beauty that grief had not subdued.

That deathless courage which was part of her seemed to sustain the clear glow of her body's vigour as it upheld her dauntless spirit.

"Did you see Jim in the chapel?" she asked quietly.

Palla nodded. She had seen Marya, also. After a little while Ilse said gravely:

"I think it no treachery to creed when one submits to the equally vital belief of another. I think our creed includes submission, because that also is part of love."

Palla lifted her face in flushed surprise:

"Is there any compromising with truth?" she asked.

"I think love is the greatest truth. What difference does it make how we love?"

"Does not our example count? You had the courage of your belief. Do you counsel me to subscribe to what I do not believe by acquiescing in it?"

Ilse closed her sea-blue eyes as though fatigued. She said dreamily:

"I think that to believe in love and mating and the bearing of children is the only important belief in the world. But under what local laws you go about doing these things seems to be of minor importance,--a matter, I should say, of personal inclination."

Ilse wished to go home. That is, to her own apartment, where now were enshrined all her memories of this dead man who had given to her womanhood that ultimate crown which in her eyes seemed perfect.

She said serenely to Palla: "Mine is not the loneliness that craves company with the living. I have a long time to wait; that is all. And after a while I shall not wait alone.

"So you must not grieve for me, darling. You see I know that Jack lives. It's just the long, long wait that calls for courage. But I think it is a little easier to wait alone until--until there are two to wait--for him----"

"Will you call me when you want me, Ilse?"

"Always, darling. Don't grieve. Few women know happiness. I have known it. I know it now. It shall not even die with me."

She smiled faintly and turned to enter her doorway; and Palla continued on alone toward that dwelling which she called home.