Chapter V

Mentally refreshed after her monologue and physically buoyant because of a dreamless night Mona ate a hearty breakfast. No lilies and languour for her in the golden morning hours. She read a newspaper. Her appetite for the realities we call "life" was fresh; in the evening she couldn't bear the sight of printed news. The post brought her two letters. One told her that her subscription to a musical publication had expired; a glance at the superscription of the other sent her scurrying upstairs to her Ebony Tower, as she fantastically named her study. It was from him, the father of her dream-children, the one man in the world for her. As if dazzled by an unexpected flash of lightning she saw the truth; she loved Ulick Invern. She must make him her husband,--or?... She read his letter. It began thus:

"Grane and Shamus stood near the big tree in the cool park listening to the song of the leaves. This tree had been nice to them, no branches had harshly croaked: 'Go away. I hate little boys and girls.' This tree they heard saying nice things about them to the cross, crooked crab-apple tree next to it.... They loved the singing trees. They loved to be under the 'few large stars', their faces buffeted by sudden little winds from the lazy white clouds in the sky. They were not keeping faith with their mamma. They had promised to be home before dusk and yet they lingered in the twilight park as if they were birds that perched and slept in the hollow night. Their mother longed for them and sent Nursie to fetch them home. But the voices of the leaves held them captive; they overheard the strange secrets and sorrows of the trees. 'O, if only we could run about like those queer human children! Moving plants. If only our branches, which are our arms, could become free and fly through the air instead of cowardly waving to the prompting of every vagrant breeze. Alas! we are rooted in the soil. What crime did our arboreal ancestors commit that we must so suffer and atone for it? In what faraway forest is buried the sinister evidence of the trees fall from grace?' Shamus nudged Grane. 'Do you hear what the trees are telling us?' 'Of course I do, Shamus,' pertly answered Grane, 'but I don't understand them any more than you do.' 'Grane, I'm afraid, let's go back to the house.' 'Cry-baby' retorted his sister, 'I'm not a bit afraid.' They lingered on. The trees still babbled. Then the clear voice of Nursie reached their ears. 'Grane! Shamus! Your mamma wants you to come in right away. Papa is asking for you.' Hand in hand they traversed the field; it didn't seem so big now. They saw a sickle of silver fire floating over the tree tops. It was the new moon. Elated, they both wished that their mamma would reveal the secret of the trees. She gently smiled at their insistent questioning. 'The trees,' she explained, 'were naughty once upon a time in the long-ago. They disobeyed their parents and left their cabin in the woods. Soon they were lost and begged to be shown the way back in the black darkness. Alarmed by their lamentings, the moon appeared and pointed the path of light to their house. They promised never to leave their roots any more.' She looked at Grane and Shamus, and at their papa. He bowed his head. He, too, had wandered in the dark forest and had been lost like the little trees. Then the mama took her darlings to her bosom and over their tiny golden heads she smiled--a smile of tender pity and forgiveness."

Her eyes swimming with unshed tears Mona threw herself on the bed her burning cheeks buried in a pillow. This whimsical letter profoundly moved her. Every fibre of longing, of sweet desires, of craving motherhood tugged at her heart, knocked at the door of her soul and unbidden entered and took possession.... Milt would have told her that seven evil ones possessed her; but she knew better. She was, at last, a woman, with a woman's complex passion, and also a woman's stern purpose. Every monad has its day, she sobbed, but remained dry-eyed. I mean to have mine. Now or never.... It was three o'clock in the afternoon when Mona passed her mother in the doorway. "Where in the world are you off to so late, Mona? It's surely going to rain and you haven't your unbrella. Dear, dear, what a forgetful girl you are." "I'm only going across the park, mamma, and if it threatens, I'll run home," she explained; but her mother shook her head. "You will get wet, and then it will be too late to return." Mona went her way but said naught of her secret errand.