August First
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Iwouldn't see. Till at last he got me inspired, and I said I'd go toFrance and see him. And I've just been. And he says--" suddenly thebright, changing face was buried in her hands and she was sobbing as ifher heart would break.
McBirney's pulse stopped; he was terrified. "What?" he demanded."Never mind what he said, dear. I'll take care of you. Don't trouble,my own--" And then again the sunshine flashed through the storm andshe looked up, all tears and laughter.
"He said I'd get well," she threw at him. "In time. With care. Andif you don't understand that I've got to cry when I'm glad, then we cannever be happy together."
"I'll get to understand," he promised, with a thrill as he thought howthe lesson would be learned. And went on: "There's another conundrum.Of course--that man--he's not on earth--but how did you--kill him?"
The girl looked bewildered a moment. "Who? Oh! Alec. My dear--" andshe slid her hand into his as if they had lived together foryears--"the most glorious thing--he jilted me. He eloped with NatalieMinturn--the California girl--the heiress. She had"--the girl laughedagain--"more money than I. And unimpeachable bones. She's a nicething," she went on regretfully. "I'm afraid she's too good for Alec.But she liked him; I hope she'll go on liking him. It was a greatthing for me to get jilted. Any more questions in the Catechism? Willthe High-Mightiness take me now? Or have I got to beg and explain alittle more?"
"You're a very untruthful character," said "the High-Mightiness"unsteadily. "It wasn't I who hid away, and turned last winter intohell for a well-meaning parson. Will--I take you? Come."
Again eternal things brooded over the bright, quiet garden and thelarkspur spires swayed unnoticed and the bees droned casually aboutthem and dived into deep cups of the lilies, and peace and sunshine andlovely things growing were everywhere. But the two did not notice.
After a time: "What about Halarkenden?" asked the man, holding a slimhand tight as if he held to a life-preserver.
"That's the last question in the Catechism," said Hope Stuart. "Andthe answer is the longest. One of your letters did it."
"One of my letters?"
"Just the other day. I went to Forest Gate, as soon as I came homefrom France--to tell Robin that I was going to get well. I was in thegarden. With--I hate to tell you--but with--all your letters." Theman flushed. "And--and Robin came and--and I talked a little to himabout you, and then, to show him what you were like, I read him--some."
"You did?" McBirney looked troubled.
"Oh, I selected. I read about the boy, Theodore--'the Gift.'"
Then she went on to tell how, as she sat in a deep chair at the end ofa long pergola where small, juicy leaves of Dorothy Perkins rose-vinesand of crimson ramblers made a green May mist over the line of arches,Halarkenden had come down under them to her.
"I believe I shall never be in a garden without expecting to see himstalk down a path," she said. She told him how she had read to himabout the boy Theodore with his charm and his naughtiness and hisScotch name. How there had been no word from Robert Halarkenden whenshe finished, and how, suddenly, she had been aware of a quality in thesilence which startled her, and she had looked up sharply. How, as shelooked, the high-featured, lean, grave face was transformed with acolor which she had never seen there before, a painful, slow-comingcolor; how the muscles about his mouth were twisting. How she hadcried out, frightened, and Robert Halarkenden, who had not fought withthe beasts for nothing, had controlled himself once again and, after amoment, had spoken steadily. "It was the boy's name, lassie," he hadsaid. "He comes of folk whom I knew--back home." How at that, withhis big clippers in his hand, he had turned quietly and gone workingagain among his flowers.
"But is that all?" demanded McBirney, interested. "Didn't he tell youany more? Could Theodore be any kin to him, do you suppose? It wouldbe wonderful to have a man like that who took an interest. I'll writethe young devil. He's been away all winter, but he should be back bynow. I wonder just where he is."
And with that, as cues are taken on the stage, there was a scurryingdown the gravel and out of the sunshine a bare-headed, tall lad wasleaping toward them.
"By all that's uncanny!" gasped McBirney.
"Yes, me," agreed the apparition. "I trailed you. Why"--heinterrupted himself--"didn't you get my telephones? Why, somebody tookthe message--twice. Cost three dollars--had to pawn stuff to pay it.Then I trailed you. The rector had your address. We're going toScotland bang off and I had to see you. We're sailing from Boston.To-morrow."
"Who's 'we'?" demanded McBirney.
"My family and--oh gosh, you don't know!" He threw back his handsomehead and broke into a great shout of young laughter. With that hewhirled and flung out an arm. "There he comes. My family." The prideand joy in the boy's voice were so charged with years of lonelinesspast that the two who listened felt an answering thrill.
They looked. Down the gravel, through the sunshine, strayed, betweenflower borders, a gaunt and grizzled man who bent, here and there, overa blossom, and touched it with tender, wise fingers and gazed this wayand that, scrutinizing, absorbed, across the masses of living color.
"I told you," the girl said, as if out of a dream, and her arm, too,was stretched and her hand pointed out the figure to her lover. "Itold you there never would be a garden but he would be in it. It'sRobin."
SATURDAY NIGHT LATE. WARCHESTER, St. Andrew's Parish House.
There wasn't time to leave you a note even. I barely caught the train.Dick was to tell you. I wonder if he got it straight. He motored meto the station, early this morning--a thousand years ago. You see therector suddenly wired for me to come back for over Sunday. It's Sundaymorning now--at least by the clock.
There's still such a lot to tell you. There always will be. Onereally can't say much in only eight or nine hours, and I don't believewe talked a minute longer. That's why I didn't want to catch trains.Well, there were other reasons too, now I go into it.
Do you know, I keep thinking of Dick Marston's face when he poked it inat the door of that summer-house yesterday on you and "Robin" andTheodore and me. I think likely Dick's brain is sprained.
Curious, isn't it--this being knocked back into the necessity ofwriting letters--and so soon. But I can say anything now, can't I? Itdoesn't seem true, but it is--it is! When I think of that otherletter, that last one, and all the months that I didn't know even whereyou were! And now here's the world transfigured. It _is_ true, isn'tit? I won't wake up into that awful emptiness again? So many timesI've done that. I'd made up my mind nothing was any use. I told Dick,just before we started on the motor trip. The stellar system had goneto pieces. But to-night I tore up the letter I'd got ready to send tothe rector. All those preparations, and then to walk down a gravelpath into heaven. It isn't the slightest trouble for you to rebuildpeople's worlds, is it? As for instance, Theodore's. I must tell youthat some incoherences have come in from that Gift of God, by way ofthe pilot, after they'd sailed. Mostly regarding Cousin Robin. Eventhat has worked out. And there's Halarkenden--mustn't I say McGregor,though?--going back home to wander at large in paradise. Three newworlds you set up in half an hour. I think you said once that you'dnever done anything for anybody? Well, you've begun your job; didn't Itell you it might be just around the corner? Besides "Cousin Robin,"two things stuck out in Theodore's epistle; he's going to turn himselfloose for the benefit of those working people in his factories, andhe's going to have "The Cairns" swept and garnished for you and mewhen--when we get there.
This is all true. I am sitting here, writing to her. She is going tobe there when I get back. I am to have her for my own, to look at andto listen to and to love. She has said that she wanted it like that--Iheard her say it. Oh my dear darling, there aren't any words to tellyou--you are like listening to music--you are the spirit of all theexquisite wonders that have ever been--you are the fragrant silence ofshut gardens sleeping in the moonlight. What if I had missed you?What if I'd never found you? Yo
u _will_ be there when I come back--youwon't vanish--you _are_ real? Think of the life opening out for youand me; this world now; afterwards the next. Oh my very dear, supposeyou hadn't waited--suppose you'd cut into God's big pattern becausesome dark threads had to be woven into it! We shall look at the wholeof it some day--all that mighty, living tapestry of His weaving, and weshall understand, then, and