The Open Question Part 122

"Listen!" she said again. "Oh, Yaffti is very angry this time. I told you he was tired of waiting so long in the bay."

She opened the library door.

"Where are you going?" he demanded.

She went back and kissed him.

"Only up-stairs. I want to write to Emmie."

Ethan had been right: the storm was too violent to last. When it had spent itself he went down to the pier. Sky still a little overcast, but louder than ever the sea called to him.

He walked up and down, up and down. The salt blew keen in his face.

By-and-by he went to the boat-house to consult Sam.

"Well," in Sam's opinion, "they mout be a bigger gale on the way, and then, again, they moutn't."

But after a while the warm wind seemed to blow the clouds low down on the threshold of the ocean. The dome of heaven was swept bare and clean except for a little corner of the west. And louder than ever the sea kept calling. He would go up to the house, he told Sam, and see what Mrs. Gano was doing--if she minded his going out for an hour.

She had written to Emmie a simple family letter, full of affection and reminders of the old days. "I hope you've forgiven me for being so horrid to you when we were children. You have the comfort of remembering you were always very gentle and forbearing to everybody. I was a monster. I'm still rather a monster, but I'd like you to go on thinking kindly of me."

She found she had no stamps, and looked in Ethan's room. His travelling letter-case--it was really a portable writing-stand--lay open on the floor of his dressing-room, with his bunch of keys in the lock.

"Careless boy," she said to herself, and went over to close it.

Her eye fell on the old note-book that Ethan had gone back for that day they left the Fort. She opened it idly. He had shown her the first pages himself, with their odds and ends of verse, jottings and subjects, etc.

Absently she turned the leaves to the end. The last entry was the longest, the date early in that year:

"NICE.

"Forgetfulness! That is all my prayer. Do I blame the men who drink? No. Opium-eaters? Not I. I wonder we do not all--all who have the taste of suffering on our lips, and the knowledge of the aimless grotesque end--I wonder we do not buy oblivion at any price. How is it we are cajoled to bear this aching at the heart?"

"What date is this?" said the woman aloud, and read again: "Nice--why, he was with _me_, and we were happy! Nothing had happened then," she said, forgetting all the pain of the old doubt in the greater pain of the new certainty.

She read on:

"Forgetfulness! Dear saints in heaven! it's not a crown, not the white robe and palm I crave--forgetfulness! A little sweet upon the threshold, and then the dark. By sweet I mean the present love of some one dear; or, more honestly set down, I mean the companionship of the one dear soul on that far quest. Story-makers write at the end, 'And they lived happy ever after.' Give me and my dear one the epitaph, 'And they were dead together forever after.' For those myriads who merely skimmed the surface of thought and feeling--for those who had few fears and fewer heartaches, there may come a Resurrection Morn. The loud trumpet, dear, shall pierce our sleep as well, perhaps, and we will rouse and stir a little in our folded shrouds. I will whisper in your drowsy ear, 'Dear heart, it is the morning. Shall we arise? Shall we take up the round again?' And you will lie closer, with your arms of dust about me, and the dear voice will say in my ear, 'No, no, beloved; it is well with us here in our narrow house.' And I will say, 'Bethink you, this is the day when all men rise and greet their friends.' 'Friend,' you will answer, 'I give you greeting here.' And I, 'The just who rise to-day are given great reward.' But my beloved says, 'You gave me my reward; I have it in my heart of dust.' 'But Life and Light are waiting for you there.' And you will say, 'I know them both; and Death and Darkness are the better part.' Then, as I feel the blessed numbness stealing over this quintessence of the dust, I will rouse me one last moment, remembering how fair and fit for living and for loving my beloved was, and I will say with all the old world-anguish aching anew in every atom of my body's dust, 'Dear, there is much love awaiting you up there--that love you did so hunger for. Rise up. Love calls.' 'Hush, hush! I have found my love,' I seem to hear you saying, low and faint, like one who lingers but a moment on the hither sh.o.r.e of sleep. 'Oh, dear, dear heart, I'll say one word before we sleep. There is no other day of waking. If you stay here now, it is the end. There comes no more a Resurrection Morn.' 'There comes no more a battle or undoing,' I hear you say, so faint, so low, I scarce can part the sound from silence; 'no more retreat, no more defeat, no aching of the brave and hopeless heart.' Then, 'Good-night,' say I. And you, 'Good-night.'"

"No, no!" cried the living woman. "I'm apter at 'good-morning.' _I'm_ not that woman down beside him in the dark."

"Val!" he was calling in the garden; "Val!" he was calling on the stair.

She had closed the book, and slipped it guiltily into her pocket.

She left her letter on the floor and ran out to meet him, catching up hat and gloves as she hurried through her own room.

"I was just coming to ask you--" he began. "Oh, you've changed your dress!"

"Yes," she said, not meeting his eyes.

"Well, what shall we do?" They went down together to the door. He thought regretfully of _Yaffti_ and the shining bay. "What do you think you'd like?"

"Let us go down--" She nodded towards the boathouses.

"You don't mean down to the beach?"

"Yes."

He studied her a moment.

"The wind off the bay is fresh after the storm," he hesitated. "You are dressed very lightly."

"No, no--quite warm."

"In that blue cobweb, open at the throat?"

"It's the dress you like best," she said, in a low voice.

He saw now there was something more than common careful, something selected, in the simple toilet--her creamy laces, her favorite jewels.

"Very charming; but you can't deny you're not dressed for rough weather."

"Yes, I am; you'll see. But bring my reefer, too."

While he got the jacket she put on her hat and gloves.

Down on the pier she found the wind stronger than she had expected. She shivered a little, although it was warm, and drew the rough reefer together. She saw Ethan throw back his head, and his nostrils expand slightly as he inhaled the strong sea smell.

"Will ye be goin' out?" Sam asked.

"No, not to-day."

"Why not?" asked Val, quickly.

Ethan turned with a sudden light in his face.

"Do you mean you really don't mind?"

"Not--not if you take me."

He looked into her eyes and then across the bay. It was some time before he spoke:

"Sam to the contrary, I'm not sure but what the worst is to come."