Chapter II: Waiting and Hoping

“‘If he would come to-day, to-day, to-day,
O what a day to-day would be!
But now he’s away, miles and miles away
From me across the sea.

“‘O little bird, flying, flying, flying,
To your nest in the warm west,
Tell him as you pass that I am dying,
As you pass home to your nest.’”

A cloudy gray sky, a chill gray sea, a stretch of sandy beach against a back-ground of rugged hills covered with trees, through whose leafless branches the March wind was eerily moaning. In all the grey monotony there was no touch of color or brightness, save the figure of a girl in a scarlet merino dress and turban, standing on the shell-strewn shore gazing seaward at a noble steamer bounding over the waves toward the landing that was hidden from sight by a turn in the shore, perhaps a quarter of a mile distant.

The girl had come down from the great red brick mansion that crowned a tall bluff, perhaps half a mile away, and she had no companion save the great shaggy, black Newfoundland that crouched at her feet, gazing up at her with mute, adoring eyes of almost human intelligence, as she chanted low and softly to herself:

“‘If he would come to-day, to-day, to-day,
O what a day to-day would be!
But now he’s away, miles and miles away
From me across the sea.’”

Then she looked down with a laugh that was half sad, into the big brown eyes of her canine friend.

“Ah, Lion, old fellow, what a silly pair we are, coming out in this wild weather watching for a ship that never comes in,” she said. “Every day for years we have come down to the wharf to wait for one who never comes. Will it always be thus, I wonder? Shall I go on waiting and hoping and loving till my hair turns gray, and will he never come?

Half unconsciously she hummed over another verse of her song:

“‘In this weary world it is so cold, so cold,
While I sit here all alone;
I would not like to wait and to grow old,
But just to be dead and gone.’”

Lion leaned his shaggy mane caressingly against her, and while she patted his black head with her white, jeweled hand, the steamer touched the wharf, landed a solitary passenger, and moved on majestically upon its way.

Nina Strangemore looked up after a minute, gave a smothered sigh, and turned back to her dog.

“Ah, Lion, my good dog, it is the same old story, ‘He cometh not,’” she said; and the magnificent animal gave a piteous whine, as if he comprehended the full measure of her wistful disappointment. He fell to licking her hands and gazing up at her with his dumb, affectionate eyes full of a mute sympathy that was almost painful to its recipient. She pushed him almost pettishly from her, and looked out again at the wide sea and the fast receding ship.

“How they come and go over the water like white-winged birds,” she sighed, with a patient sorrow in her voice. “Ah, me, will they never bring Talbot home?”

A sound, a step! She turned with a start.

A gentleman was coming along the level sands toward her--a tall, bronzed, handsome man, whose eyes lingered upon her with startled, irrepressible admiration. She met his gaze, and the rich color flew into her cheeks, and the light of a sudden, supreme happiness flashed into her great dark eyes. She made a few steps toward him, then quickly checked herself, and stood waiting with a bounding pulse and wildly beating heart.

The stranger came nearer, lifted his hat with courteous grace to the solitary girl, and passed on, followed by a low, inquiring growl from Lion, who did not quite know whether to regard him as friend or enemy.

But Nina Strangemore gazed like one petrified after the retreating form, and when it had passed from her sight, she knelt down upon the wet sands, put her arms around Lion’s black mane, and hid her white face there.

“Oh, Lion, Lion,” she sobbed, in an abandon of girlish sorrow. “He is home at last! Talbot, my husband, and he did not speak to me; he did not even remember me, his little Nina, his loving girl-wife! Oh, what shall we do, Lion, old fellow?”