The Potter and the Clay: A Romance of Today
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*III.*
After Trevelyan had come and gone, each day seemed to Cary like the onebefore; and they all stretched out, crushed and dead and lifeless, as astring of pearls from which the luster has disappeared.
After awhile there were rumors that Stewart was coming home; thatStewart was making a desperate effort to come home—to England. Londonwas agog—Stewart’s part of London. Everyone by this time had gotten apretty clear idea of affairs, and because Stewart had come up to whatthey had expected of him, and had faced danger and death like thesoldier he was, and had generally conducted himself like agentleman,—London was pleased. London, like a woman, derivedsatisfaction in saying, "I always knew it. I told you so."
Little by little the excitement penetrated Cary’s inertia. After all,it was not quite fair that because one man had broken her faith and hishonor, she should judge all men by him. John had not failed her.Perhaps John would pull things straight again for her, and make her seelife as she ought.
The warm days of early spring came—the English spring and the sunshine,and there was no need any longer for a fire on the hearth, and every daybrought the ship nearer, and every fair breeze helped to bring him intoport quicker—John, coming back, sick and wounded for life, from battle.
After all, she had forgotten that part of it—his part; and his burdenthat was heavier than her own, and Trevelyan’s burden, that was heavierthan all.
After awhile she brought a pity, wholly womanly and half divine, out ofthe ashes that had seemed so dead, and on the awful truth of these men’slives, broken by the failure of one, she built the mercy that isstronger than justice, and the faith that is stronger than doubt.
Something, though, remained in the ashes, dead, never to be rekindled,and woman-like she used to cry a little over the dead part of it; notbecause she could not relight it, but because it was so dead.
She grew into a woman in those weeks lapsing between Trevelyan’s calland Stewart’s return—gradually, as clay is moulded in the hands of apotter, who cuts it on his wheel, to give to it the finer tracings andthe smoothness of completion.
And every day and every fair breeze brought Stewart nearer, and Caryturned from the ashes to the sunsets again. Fires would go out, evenwith careful tending, but the sunsets were God’s, Cary told herself,and, therefore, eternal.