The Pagans Part 34

x.x.xVII.

FAREWELL AT ONCE, FOR ONCE, FOR ALL AND EVER.

Richard II.; ii.--2.

The outward bound steamer was almost ready to sail, and all the bustle attendant upon departure of an ocean craft eddied about three people who stood in a half-sheltered nook upon the wharf. They were saying little. Both Grant Herman and Ninitta kept their eyes fixed upon Helen, while her glance was cast to the ground, save when she raised her head in speaking.

The Italian from time to time took Helen's hand in hers and kissed it fondly.

"I pray the Madonna for you every night," she whispered in her native tongue, "that she will give you a safe voyage."

The sculptor watched all that went on about them, waiting with some inward impatience for the moment when the duty of escorting Mrs.

Greyson on board would give him an opportunity of being a moment alone with her.

"We shall miss you much," he said, feeling that any thing would be better than the silence which hedged them in amid the noisy bustle of the throng. "We shall not soon fill your place, shall we, Ninitta?"

He did not listen to the eager answer; his eyes were fixed upon Helen's face, and for her alone he had ears.

"Yes," he said again with nervous plat.i.tude, when once more they had lapsed into the silence he found it so hard to bear; "neither my wife nor myself has any friend to take your place."

Some faint accent in the tone in which he referred to his three hours'

bride made the widow look up suddenly. To the question in her eyes his glance gave no answer, and for the moment a feeling of despair overcame her. Had she given him up only to the end that his life should be miserable; had she forced him into a marriage whose bonds would gall and chafe him with more deadly and festering wounds as time went on?

But all these questionings Helen had answered with stern bravery during the sad wakeful nights and lonely days just past. She had first convinced herself that it was right that Herman should redeem his old-time pledge to Ninitta, and after that she forced herself to the bitterer task of realizing that when time had obliterated somewhat the clearness of her own image in the sculptor's heart, something of his old affection for the Italian might be rekindled in his generous, warm nature, always tenderly chivalrous towards woman, and sure to prove doubly so to one dependent upon him. It was hard, but Helen unflinchingly a.n.a.lyzed the nature of her lover, and while she could not believe that he would ever feel for his wife the grand pa.s.sion which she had herself inspired in his breast, she saw for him a tranquil future in which his wife's devotion would be met with enduring, even with increasing affection, which if not love, would be so like it that Ninitta, at least, would never distinguish; and in which her husband would find comfort and warmth, if not fire and aspiration.

She had a harder struggle when the thought came to her, "Have I not led him into the one thing he most dreads and despises, an act of insincerity? Can a loveless marriage be honest?" But she answered her doubting heart; "No; he has told Ninitta that he does not love her as of old, and he is not deceiving her. It is my own selfishness that puts this thought into my mind." It may be that Helen was wrong, for the influence of her Puritan training had left a strong impress upon her moral sense in a regard for the sanct.i.ty of a pledge, especially to its spirit rather than its letter, so deep as to be almost morbid; yet at least she was self sacrificing and never more truly consistent than in the seeming inconsistency of urging this marriage.

"Come," was Herman's word, almost a command, when the crowd upon the steamer's deck began definitely to separate into those who were to go and those who remained. "You must go aboard. Ninitta, stand just where you are until I come back. I will be gone only an instant."

Helen turned and kissed Ninitta, a sharp pang stabbing her very soul, as the thought came to her: "He will love her; she is his wife, and he will learn to love her!" Then she put her arm upon Herman's in silence.

She had been alternately desiring and fearing this moment, until her excitement was almost beyond control. The sculptor led her on board the steamer, and together they descended to the saloon. Every body was on deck except the servants, and without difficulty a nook was found where the two were alone.

"Well," he said, breaking the silence with a voice full of emotion, "it is done, and we are parted as far as the earth is wide."

"No," she answered, clasping his hands in hers. "With a broken faith between us we should have been separated; now we are truly together, no matter how many oceans part us. It is hard; it is hard; but I know it must be right."

He bent forward to kiss her.

"No," she said, drawing back. "Your kisses belong to your wife, now. I have no right even to your thought. But I cannot help telling you, now we are parting, how much it is to me to love you. It is hard to leave you, Grant, to give you up; but now I understand that it is better to love, even if we are not together, even though we may not belong to each other. And I cannot but find comfort in thinking that you will not forget me."

"But if hereafter," he began eagerly, but before the words were uttered he realized what they implied, and a hot flush of shame tinged his cheek. "No," he said, "I cannot think of the future."

She put up her hand with a gesture of appeal. The bell of the steamer sounded out sharply upon the air.

"No," she said. "We must say good-by with no reservations, no hopes, even with no prayers. It is simply and absolutely good-by. And oh!" she added, her voice breaking a little, "I do so hope for your happiness, though I must not share it."

He wrung her hand and left her. Once he halted, as if to return, but her gesture gave him so absolute a farewell that he went on. His wife awaited him where he had left her. She slipped her arm through his.

"I am so glad you have come back," she said in her soft Italian, lifting to his a face full of trust and love; "I was so lonely and afraid without you."

He was touched with a tender pity as he looked into her eyes. When he withdrew his glance the steamer was moving, and he saw Helen leaning over the rail. She waved her hand, and as the ship glided away, down the harbor, these two, so separated, yet so united, clung together by their glances until distance shut them from each other's sight.

FINIS.