Chapter XVIII: "my Hopes and Thine Are One."

O we will walk this world,
Yoked in all exercise of noble end,
And so through those dark gates across the wild
That no man knows. Indeed I love thee; come,
Yield thyself up! My hopes and thine are one:
Accomplish thou my manhood and thyself;
Lay thy sweet hands in mine and trust to me.
_The Princess._

In spite of the inevitable excitement and anxiety, Donovan slept almost the whole way from London to St. Kerrans; he had large arrears of sleep to make up, and the doctor was glad enough to see him settle himself in a corner seat and take the rest he so much needed. By the time they reached St. Kerrans he was quite himself again, quiet rather, and not much inclined to talk, but with an unusual light in his dark eyes. Star and Ajax were waiting for them at the station; they drove through the little Cornish town, with its grey houses, and out into the narrow winding lanes, which Donovan remembered so well. It seemed almost a lifetime since the Sunday evening when he had first spoken unreservedly with Dr. Tremain--long years ago since their last drive to St. Kerrans, when he thought he had parted with Gladys for ever. His heart beat high with hope; every step was bringing him nearer the woman he loved! the very trees and hedgerows seemed to welcome him as he passed, even the cross-grained old man at the turnpike had a friendly greeting for him.

It was dark by the time they reached Porthkerran; the stars were shining brightly through the frosty air, the ponies' feet rang sharply on the hard road, in all the quaint, irregular houses shone friendly lights; he could see them climbing far up the hill, old Admiral Smith's house forming the apex. She was here in this home-like little fishing village! in a few minutes he should see her again! every pulse in him beat at double-quick time as he thought of it. They drove on through the quaint market-place, with its stone fountain, surrounded now with rows of boats drawn up from the beach into winter quarters. A blaze of light came from the little inn where he had stayed with his father, where he had first met Dr. Tremain; lights shone, too, from the windows of the school-house, and children's voices rang out clearly into the street--they were singing Dot's favourite old carol--the refrain reached him distinctly:

"O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy,
O tidings of comfort and joy!"

The doctor made the ponies draw up.

"Gladys must be at her choir practice," he said. "We will see if she is ready to come home."

He gave the reins to the groom, and Donovan followed him into the school-room.

There was Gladys surrounded with little blue-eyed Cornish children, sitting queen-like in a sort of bower of holly, and ivy, and laurel branches, for the next day was to be the children's winter school-treat. It had been postponed once or twice, but though somewhat late in the season, they were to celebrate it in Christmas fashion, and would not dispense with either carols or greenery.

She was not the least altered; it was just the same sweet, pure, sunshiny lace, the remembrance of which had so often kept him. from evil. They greeted each other in the most ordinary way. Then she turned to speak to her father, but Donovan was quite content, scarcely wished for more than the sight of her just then.

"Shall we drive you home?" said the doctor. "Is your practice over?"

"It is just finished, but I wanted rather to see old Mrs. Carne--she seems worse again."

"I will take back Jackie and Nesta then," said the doctor. "Donovan will see you safely home, I've no doubt."

Donovan, inwardly blessing the doctor, carried off Nesta to the pony-carriage, impatient to have them all out of the way. Was not each minute wasted which did not bring that perfect mutual understanding which he so longed for! She might not care for him, still they would understand each other, make an end of the miserable silence and doubt of these long years.

The pony-carriage drove off, the last carol was sung; with curtsies and salutes the small singers ran noisily out of the school. Donovan, whose "duteous service" had so long consisted in silence and absence, now made the most of his opportunity; raked out the fire, tidied the school, turned out the lamps, then with, in spite of himself, a certain sweet sense of possession--possession if only for these few minutes--he turned to Gladys, who for once seemed a little shy and silent.

They went out into the market-square, closely followed by Waif.

"It is a house down on the shore I want to go to," said Gladys, wishing her heart would not beat so uncomfortably. But somehow, when Donovan next spoke, there was that in his manner which calmed her.

"I am so glad to have this walk with you. It was good of your father to give me this time with you at once. I want, Gladys, to know how I am to come back to Porthkerran this time. The first time I came to you it was as a penniless outcast; the second as a friend; the next as one who loved you, but dared not speak. I have come this time ready to speak to you, if you will hear me; to ask if you can give me more than friendship--whether you care to take a love which has always been yours. May I go on? Will you hear me?"

She seemed to speak an assent, but her voice trembled, he took her hand in his, made her lean on his arm, still holding the little hand in his strong grasp.

"You see," he continued, "ever since I was a mere boy you have been my ideal. In a very strange way I had three passing glimpses of you, the first just after my father died, when I was miserable and disgraced, then again those two meetings when I was wronged and revengeful. Oh! Gladys, you little know what you did for me, what depths you saved me from. I think I am glad you saw me at my worst, without it I should hardly have dared to speak to you like this. You know all that I was, you were my friend when others shrank from me as an atheist, you have taught me what love is, and now that I am beginning to learn something of the everlastingness of love, I want your help more and more. Gladys, will you be my wife?"

"I think I have always loved you," she answered, quite simply and quietly. "And I was always sure the Light would come to you."

"Yes," said Donovan, holding her hand more closely, "you could look at things from another point of viewr, you believed in a higher power; I, you see, only knew myself, and how could I dare to think of you as my wife? My darling, even now I half tremble at the thought. Can you trust yourself to one who is at the beginning of everything? I have spent my life in learning what you have always known. Can you put up with such incompleteness? Can you trust me?"

"After trusting in the darkness it is easy to trust in the light," said Gladys, softly.

"You did believe in me then, though I tried so hard that you should not," said Donovan, half smiling.

"You are not a good deceiver or concealer," replied Gladys. "That day at Z---- on the staircase when you said you could explain nothing, I could see by your face that you had never led Stephen into harm. I couldn't help believing you."

"I should have thought I was flinty enough," said Donovan, smiling now, though the remembrance of that parting still brought a cold chill to his heart.

"Yes," said Gladys, "in one way. I mean," she added, shyly, "that I thought you did not care for me."

"That was because I did love you. Will you take that silence now, darling, as a proof of the love I cannot speak even when I may. I thought it would only make you wretched then. I knew so bitterly what a difference of faith means between those who are very dear to each other."

Gladys looked up at him, a beautiful light in her face. How much he had thought of her! how true and unselfish his love was! she could not help contrasting it with Stephen's blindly selfish love and strangely different proposal.

"Directly you came into the school just now," she said, "I thought how like you had grown to the picture of little Dot--it is your eyes that have changed so. Oh! Donovan, how glad she will be!"

He pressed her hand, but did not speak. They walked along the shore in silence; presently reaching the little cottage where the sick woman lived, Gladys went in, and Donovan waited for her outside, not sorry for a minute's pause in which to realise his happiness.

In a little while she joined him again, and for a minute they stood still looking out sea-wards. A faint streak of yellow lingered in the west, but above the stars were shining brightly, while across the dark rolling sea there gleamed from the light-house two long tracks of light athwart each other. The same thought came to each of them, the sweet old saying--"Via crucis, via lucis." Neither of them spoke, but to each came the longing that their love might always be that self-sacrificing love which alone can lead into the light. It seemed to Gladys like a sort of sacrament when Donovan stooped down and with a grave reverence pressed his lips to hers.

"You will teach me," he said, after a time, as they walked back along the beach.

She felt like a baby beside him as he spoke, in his humility, in his grand self-denying nobleness he seemed to tower above her.

"Teach you!" she said, smiling. "I should as soon think of teaching papa! And yet papa always says the little ones do teach him. Perhaps in that way, Donovan--can you be content with that sort of child-wife who cannot understand half the great things you think of?"

"My darling, how can you use such a word?" he exclaimed. "Content! And have you not been teaching me all these years? How little the world knows its true teachers! How little the pure-hearted ones think of the lessons they teach!"

"We will learn together," said Gladys, softly.

"There is one thing I should like to tell you now," said Donovan. "I had arranged, you know, to go out to the war, and I find there is still a vacancy in one of the ambulances. You will not mind my going out, darling? I feel in a measure bound to go, and I should like, at any rate, a few months of good stiff work. Some time must pass before the legal matters are settled and the Manor really becomes my own, and I should like to be doing something in the waiting-time. You will not mind my going?"

Gladys did of course shrink from the thought, but she knew that in marrying such a man as Donovan she must make up her mind to much sacrifice. The delight of even now being able to share his work helped to lessen the pain.

"I think," she replied, "you would not have been Donovan if you had not wanted to go."

"And then with you," said Donovan, "I shall be strong to begin what I feel fearfully unequal to--the life as master of Oakdene. There is plenty of work for us at Greyshot, and you must help me to love the neighbours, who perhaps may not hate me now so much as they did. I almost fancy even Mrs. Ward may be civil now that I have found a woman brave enough to be my wife! Are you ready, darling, to be the wife of a radical?--to be looked down on perhaps as the wife of a some-time atheist?"

"To be your wife," said Gladys, gently.

They had made their way up the steep winding street and were in sight of Trenant, the dear old gabled house with its ivy-covered walls and welcoming lights.

"This is the place where I first saw you," said Donovan, glancing in at the drawing-room window. On the very spot on which he now stood with Gladys, he had once stood lonely and despairing, watching with bitterness a glimpse of home life. Some thought of the infinite possibilities of the future, of the limited view of the present, came to him.

"How glorious life is!" he exclaimed. "How different from what one used to think it! Oh! Gladys, if we can but do half we long to do! What a grand old working-place the world is!"

"You will be a grand worker," thought Gladys, but she did not reply in direct words.

They had reached the porch, some one had heard their steps, and as they drew near the door was thrown open. Donovan saw in a blaze of friendly light a sweeter home drama than the one he remembered long ago. There they all were--a welcoming group. Nesta, Jackie, Dick just home from sea, the father with indescribable content written on his face, and before all the mother--the truest mother Donovan had ever known--her soft grey eyes shining into his with loving welcome and understanding.

"Home at last!" she said smiling; and then seeing all, she gave a mother's greeting to both "children."

THE END.

LONDON: PRINTED BY DUNCAN MACDONALD, BLENHEIM HOUSE.