Part 13

He spoke quite calmly after a few minutes. “You had better go back to the house now. My arrest was all a stupid blunder; I sent for Catherwood at once, and he saw Forrest. They are on the right track and I will be set free as soon as possible, to-morrow, probably; the charge is to be withdrawn. And don’t feel so badly, dear, I suppose it’s all my fault that you have never believed in me since we were married—for you never have, Milly.” He stooped and kissed her good-by, saying gently, “You must go now, dear.”

Three days after that he came home very ill. All that Milly had been longing to say to him, all that she had been longing to hear, must wait until the morrow—until the next week—until the next month; and then, and then, could it be? Until the next life!

He was so very ill from the beginning that there was nothing else to be considered; for the first time her own wishes and feelings were as naught. In the delirium he did not even know her. But there came a time before the end when she was startled as she sat by him in the twilight, holding his wasted hand to see his conscious eyes fixed upon her through the shadows. Her own responded with a depth of piteous eager love in them as she bent closer to him. Still the eyes gazed at her—what, oh, _what_ were they saying?

“_Darling_,” she whispered.

His lips did not move, but the fingers of the hand which lay in hers felt feebly for something—touched the golden circle on her finger, and held it as if contented at last.

And still the eyes—

It was again the moment of their betrothal, and God was with them as in the garden.

* * * * *

LATE in the moonlight, the tender moonlight of June, Milly sat alone by a grave. The soft night wind touched her face, the smell of countless budding flowers was around her. It was again the beautiful youth of the year, the time of love, and for her youth and love were done. Such a little while ago it seemed since she had been looking forward to it, and now it was done. Oh, what did it all mean, the love, the yearning, the striving, that it should end in such bitter loss; how had they made such a failure of marriage—marriage, that could have been so beautiful! Why was it that that last moment with Norton had been the first to show it to her?

In the utter solitude she thought and thought, with strained brow, with hands tightly clasped. She searched her soul as if it were the judgment day. Death held up the lamp by which she saw her husband at last clearly—all that he was, all that he might have been if she had not used her higher thought to build up a barrier between them. The sense of his maimed life, the loss of all the joy and trust there might have been, pierced her to the heart. His nature, lower than hers, had yet held in it the capacity to be more than hers—had seen more clearly, and had been more generous. Could it be that, after all, she who had loved so much had not loved enough?

Oh, what was it that was expected of love; to desire utterly the good of the best beloved, the development along lines where one cannot follow, on which one has no claim, which touch no answering chord of self—no one poor human being can love perfectly, as perfectly as that! If one were only God—

But there was God.

Milly raised her head, and the moonlight fell on her face.

“Oh, far beyond this poor horizon’s bound” shone the answer to all her thought. The capability of endless growth, the mating of two souls beyond the spheres and through all ages was the message of high emprise that called her like the voice of a star. With the heart of love, with the wings of immortality came the third revelation, reaching to infinite depths and heights, revealing the ineffable space where self is lost in the divine. The secret of life and death, of loss and reprisal, of the seen and the unseen, of _thou and I_, was there in the oneness of all that our mortal sense divides. Oh, the great, free, beautiful vision!

In the long silence—in the blowing of the night wind—when the clouds veiled the moon—spirit to spirit she stood with her beloved at last, as never, oh, never before upon this earth, and repeated aloud once more the words of eternal might:

“The Lord watch between thee and me—between thee and me—when we are parted the one from the other.”

THE END

THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS GARDEN CITY, N. Y.

● Transcriber’s Notes: ○ Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected. ○ Unbalanced quotation marks were corrected. ○ Typographical errors were silently corrected. ○ Inconsistent spelling was made consistent only when a predominant form was found in this book. ○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).