The Open Question Part 117

"Where is the old Val gone? I want her back."

The slow tears filled her eyes. "You mustn't mind, dear; she went away, I think, one of those days--"

"What days?"

"When, with all that pain, everything was made ready."

He dropped his hands, but she caught them. "I wish _we_ could go away, too. But far, very far from here, where everything is new and strange."

"Oh, my dearest," he said, brokenly, "surely, surely, with so much at stake, we can readjust ourselves to the changed conditions."

She drew one hand across her eyes. "You call yourself weak," she said, "but it's no surprise to me to find how much stronger you are than I.

_You_ can make yourself face about, manfully enough."

"Well, and so can you." He searched the sensitive white face that gave no sign. What strange and unsuspected enemy had that not unvaliant spirit encountered in her path? As he looked at her, something born of their nearness--terrible offspring of true marriage--spoke to him out of the silence, telling him how each time this woman went straying in thought along that way of promise that is wont to smile so benignly upon young expectant wives, each time, before she could taste any of the natural joy and pride in her estate, came crushing back upon her the dead weight of their long fear, the gathered momentum of all their long terror-stricken fleeing.

The sudden change in his face showed her that her secret was no longer her own.

"Oh, what is it like?" she cried out, suddenly. "What is it like to have hoped and longed all these months, instead of dreaded?"

"Hush! hush!" he said, shrinking.

"I, who was so eager to know all that women _can_ know, I shall never know that."

He sank down on the terrace-steps in the twilight, and buried his face in his hands.

"Did I ever tell you"--her voice sounded faint and far above him, like the voice of some disembodied spirit--"did I ever tell you how proud I used to be to know my father once said that I was the symbol of my parents' single year of perfect happiness, the inheritor of the best moments life had brought them? Ethan"--she bent over him, whispering hurriedly and panting a little like one pursued--"the thought clutches at me in the night, it won't let me go--"

"What thought?" said the m.u.f.fled voice.

"That for a child of fear and shrinking there isn't much place in this world."

No answer.

She sat down beside him. Like a frightened child she crouched up against him. "All those times of dread come back, their evil faces frowning. Bad fairies! they wait for--for the new-comer with sinister gifts in their hands."

"Don't think such thoughts." He seized her arm roughly.

"No, no; help me not to," she said, shuddering. "But I wish I knew what it had been like to my mother--that first knowledge."

"You may be sure she was glad."

"Yes, yes; not like that hour in the long room, not as _we_ welcomed our--"

"You shall not talk so! to think of it so is a crime." He leaped to his feet. "Do you hear?--a crime."

She seemed to cower there below him on the step.

"And yet," she whispered, "whenever we look at the child we shall remember that hour. He'll wear my shrinking in his poor little face. Oh, what shall I do? In that hour, it may be, I branded my child!"

He sat beside her all night long while she tossed and dozed, and in her sleep pressed both hands to her breast, moaning faintly now and then.

The doctor had been sent for at midnight, and came again in the early morning.

"He's frightened!" said Val, watching the door as he went out after the second visit. "So are you." She smiled. "You're forgetting how hard we Ganos are to kill."

"You'll soon be all right."

She studied him. "You're only frightened on top." He wondered if she were wandering. "_Underneath_," she went on, "you're thinking this would be a solution."

"Hush, hush!" He put his arms round her. "You must remember me, dear."

She nestled in his arms. "She used to say we Ganos were _dreadfully_ hard to kill. We have to face that."

"Don't think of having to face things; forget it all."

She scanned his face eagerly. "Where shall I begin?"

"Begin?"

"Yes--to forget."

Did she mean to ask whether she was to forget the old compact, or its new annulment?

"Begin to forget where the pain begins," he said, evasively.

"That would carry us back a long way. But anyhow, I won't do it. Pain or no pain, _I_ don't mean to forget."

"Yes, yes," he said, soothingly.

"But I don't _want_ to."

He looked down at her perplexed.

"I don't mean to forget anything, not even the sad things. I don't want to let _anything_ go."

"Well, well." He smoothed the wild brown hair.

"To forget is to lose a bit of your life," she said, catching at his hand. "What was it you said once? it was a first victory for that spectre Annihilation that dogs us all. I didn't believe in your Annihilation then. Not very sure I do now."

She laid his hand, for comfort, over the ache in her breast.

Worn out towards morning, and yet afraid to undress lest the doctor might have suddenly to be brought, Ethan stretched himself on the sofa under the east window. He was scarcely comfortably relaxed, when Val, who had not spoken for hours, said:

"Why do you stay so far off?"

He was up in a moment.