Chapter 18

It seemed so strange to be going out of her gate alone and in the dark! Barbara was thrilled with a sense of adventure and romance which was quite new to her. This journeying into unknown lands in pursuit of unknown waters had all the fascination of discovery.

[Sidenote: An Autumn Dawn]

She went down the road faster than she had ever walked before. She was not at all tired and was eager for the sea. The Autumn dawn with its keen, cool air stirred her senses to new and abounding life. She went on and on and on, pausing now and then to lean against somebody's fence, or to rest on a friendly boulder when it appeared along the way.

Faint suggestions of colour appeared in the illimitable distances beyond. Barbara saw only a vast, grey expanse, but the surf murmured softly on the shadowy shore. Crossing the sand, and stumbling as she went, she stooped and dipped her hand into it, then put her rosy forefinger into her mouth to see if it were really salt, as everyone said. She sat down in the soft, cool sand, drew her white knitted shawl and lace scarf more closely about her, and settled herself to wait.

[Sidenote: Sunrise on the Sea]

The deep purple softened with rose. Tints of gold came far down on the horizon line. Barbara drew a long breath of wonder and joy. Out in the vastness dark surges sang and crooned, breaking slowly into white foam as they approached the shore. Rose and purple melted into amethyst and azure, and, out beyond the breakers, the grey sea changed to opal and pearl.

Mist rose from the far waters and the long shafts of leaping light divided it by rainbows as it lifted. Prismatic fires burned on the boundless curve where the sky met the sea. Wet-winged gulls, crying hoarsely, came from the night that still lay upon the islands near shore, and circled out across the breakers to meet the dawn.

Spires of splendid colour flamed to the zenith, the whole east burned with crimson and glowed with gold, and from that far, mystical arc of heaven and earth, a javelin of molten light leaped to the farthest hill. The pearl and opal changed to softest green, mellowed by turquoise and gold, the slow blue surges chimed softly on the singing shore, and Barbara's heart beat high with rapture, for it was daybreak in earth and heaven and morning in her soul.

She sat there for over an hour, asking for nothing but the sky and sea, and the warm, sweet sun that made the air as clear as crystal and touched the Autumn hills with living flame. She drew long breaths of the wind that swept, like shafts of sunrise, half-way across the world.

[Sidenote: The Boy in the Tower]

At last she turned to the package that lay beside her, and untied the string, idly wondering what book Roger had sent. How strange that the Boy in the Tower should be Roger, and yet, was it so strange, after all, when she had known him all her life?

Before looking at the book, she tore open the letter and read it--with wide, wondering eyes and wild-beating heart.

[Sidenote: Roger's Letter]

"Barbara, my darling," it began. "I found this book to-night and so I send it to you, for it is yours as much as mine.

"I think my father's wish has been granted and his love has been bequeathed to me. I have known for a long time how much I care for you, and I have often tried to tell you, but fear has kept me silent.

"It has been so sweet to live near you, to read to you when you were sewing or while you were ill, and sweeter than all else besides to help you walk, and to feel that you leaned on me, depending on me for strength and guidance.

"Sometimes I have thought you cared, too, and then I was not sure, so I have kept the words back, fearing to lose what I have. But to-night, after having read his letters, I feel that I must throw the dice for eternal winning or eternal loss. You can never know, if I should spend the rest of my life in telling you, just how much you have meant to me in a thousand different ways.

"Looking back, I see that you have given me my ideals, since the time we made mud pies together and built the Tower of Cologne, for which, alas, we never got the golden bells. I have loved you always and it has not changed since the beginning, save to grow deeper and sweeter with every day that passed.

"As much as I have of courage, or tenderness, or truth, or honour, I owe to you, who set my standard high for me at the beginning, and oh, my dearest, my love has kept me clean. If I have nothing else to give you, I can offer you a clean heart and clean hands, for there is nothing in my life that can make me ashamed to look straight into the eyes of the woman I love.

"Ever since we went to that wedding the other day, I have been wishing it were our own--that you and I might stand together before God's high altar in that little church with the sun streaming in, and be joined, each to the other, until death do us part.

"Sweetheart, can you trust me? Can you believe that it is for always and not just for a little while? Has your mother left her love to you as my father left me his?

"Let me have the sweetness of your leaning on me always, let me take care of you, comfort you when you are tired, laugh with you when you are glad, and love you until death and even after, as he loved her.

"Tell me you care, Barbara, even if it is only a little. Tell me you care, and I can wait, a long, long time.

"ROGER."

Barbara's heart sang with the joy of the morning. She opened the little worn book, with its yellow, tear-stained pages, and read it all, up to the very last line.

"Oh!" she cried aloud, in pity. "Oh! oh!"

Fully understanding, she put it aside, closing the faded cover reverently on its love and pain. Then she turned to Roger's letter, and read it again.

[Sidenote: First Flush of Rapture]

Dreaming over it, in the first flush of that mystical rapture which makes the world new for those to whom it comes, as light is recreated with every dawn, she took no heed of the passing hours. She did not know that it was very late, nor that Aunt Miriam, much worried, had asked Roger to go in search of her. She knew only that love and morning and the sea were all hers.

The tide was coming in. Each wave broke a little higher upon the thirsting shore. Far out on the water was a tiny dark object that moved slowly shoreward on the crests of the waves. Barbara stood up, shading her eyes with her hand, and waited, counting the rhythmic pulse-beats that brought it nearer.

She could not make out what it was, for it advanced and then receded, or paused in a circling eddy made by two retreating waves. At last a high wave brought it in and left it, stranded, at her feet.

[Sidenote: A Fragment]

Barbara laughed aloud, for, broken by the wind and wave and worn by tide, a fragment of one of her crutches had come back to her. The bit of flannel with which she had padded the sharp end, so that the sound would not distress her father, still clung to it. She wondered how it came there, never guessing that it was but the natural result of Eloise's attempt to throw it as far as Allan had thrown the other, the day he took them away from her.

A great sob of thankfulness almost choked her. Here she stood firmly on her own two feet, after twenty-two years of helplessness, reminded of it only by a fragment of a crutch that the sea had given back as it gives up its dead. She had outgrown her need of crutches as the tiny creatures of the sea outgrow their shells.

"Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!"

The beautiful words chanted themselves over and over in her consciousness. The past, with all its pain and grieving, fell from her like a garment. She was one with the sun and the morning; uplifted by all the world's joy.

[Sidenote: The True Lover]

Her blood sang within her and it seemed that her heart had wings. All of life lay before her--that life which is made sweet by love. She felt again the ecstasy that claimed her in the Tower of Cologne, when she and the Boy, after a lifetime of waiting, had rung all the golden bells at once.

And the Boy was Roger--always had been Roger--only she did not know. Into Barbara's heart came something new and sweet that she had never known before--the deep sense of conviction and the everlasting peace which the True Lover, and he alone, has power to bestow.

It was part of the wonder of the morning that when she turned, startled a little by a muffled footstep, she should see Roger with his hands outstretched in pleading and all his soul in his eyes.

Barbara's face took on the unearthly beauty of dawn. Her blue eyes deepened to violet, her sweet lips smiled. She was radiant, from her feet to the heavy braids that hung over her shoulders and the shimmering halo of soft hair, that blew, like golden mist, about her face.

Roger caught her mood unerringly--it was like him always to understand. He was no longer afraid, and the trembling of his boyish mouth was lost in a smile. She was more beautiful than the morning of which she seemed a veritable part--and she was his.

[Sidenote: Flower of the Dawn]

"Flower of the Dawn," he cried, his voice ringing with love and triumph, "do you care? Are you mine?"

She went to him, smiling, with the colour of the fiery dawning on her cheeks and lips. "Yes," she whispered. "Didn't you know?"

Then the sun and the morning and the world itself vanished all at once beyond his ken, for Barbara had put her soft little hand upon his shoulder, and lifted her love-lit face to his.

THE END.

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Transcriber's Notes:

Obvious punctuation errors repaired.

Page 4, "instrusted" changed to "intrusted" (china intrusted)

Page 272, "checks" changed to "cheeks" (fair cheeks)

Page 275, "venegeance" changed to "vengeance" (not of His vengeance)

Page 321, "anenomes" changed to "anemones" (and anemones)

Page 326, "assunder" changed to "asunder" (hopelessly put asunder)