Chapter VI: Part 6

Suddenly it struck her that a year could make startling changes in a woman's life--or even half a year. Twelve months ago in the New England mill-town where her parents lived she had no thought of ever coming to New York to stay or of marrying soon. Last Thanksgiving she had never seen John; and indeed, it was not till long after Decoration Day that she had first heard his name; and now there was a plain gold ring on her finger, and John and she were man and wife. If she had not accepted Mary Morton's invitation she might never have met John! She shuddered at the fatal possibility; and she marveled how the long happiness of a woman's life might hang on a mere chance. When the Mortons had asked her to go to Saratoga with them to spend the Fourth of July she had hesitated, and she came near refusing after Mary had said that Mr. Blackstock was going to be there, and that he was a widower now, and that there was a chance for her. She detested that kind of talk and thought it was always in bad taste. But then Mary Morton was a dear, good girl; and it was natural that Mr. Morton should be interested in Mr. Blackstock, since Mr. Blackstock was the head of the New York house that took all the output of the Morton mills. She had decided to go to Saratoga at last, partly because her father thought it would amuse her, and partly just to show Mary Morton that she was not the kind of girl to be thrown at a man's head.

The morning after their arrival in Saratoga, when they were walking in Congress Park, Mary had pointed out John to her, and she remembered that he had seemed to her very old. Of course, he was not really old; she knew now that he was just forty; but she was only twenty herself, and at first sight he had impressed her as an elderly man. That evening he came over to their hotel to call on Mr. Morton, and he was presented to her. Mary had been telling her how his wife had died the summer before, and how he had been inconsolable; and so she could not help sympathizing with him, nor could she deny that he had seemed to be taken with her from the beginning. Instead of talking to Mr. Morton or to Mary, he kept turning to her and asking her opinion. Before he got up to go he had invited them all to go down to the lake with him the next day for a fish dinner. Twenty-four hours later he had asked her to drive with him alone, and while she was wavering Mary had accepted for her; and really she did not see why she should not go with him. She had liked him from the first, he was so quiet and reserved, and then he had been so lonely since the death of his wife. On Sunday he had taken her to church; and the next morning he had moved over to their hotel. She had been afraid that Mary might tease her; but she did not care, for she was getting to like to have him attentive to her. She had made up her mind not to pay any regard to anything Mary might say. What Mary did say was to ask her to stay on another fortnight. She wondered now what would have happened if her father had refused his permission. As it was, she remained in Saratoga two weeks longer--and so did John, though Mr. Morton said that the senior partner of Blackstock, Rawlings & Cameron had lots of things to do in New York. Then Mary used to smile and to tell her husband that Mr. Blackstock had more pressing business on hand in Saratoga than in New York.

At last they all started for home again, and John had come with them as far as Albany. When he held her hand just as the car was going and said good-by, it was rather abruptly that he asked her if he might come and see her at Norwich--and he had blushed as he explained that he might be called there soon on important business.

As the picture of this scene rose before the eyes of the young bride she smiled again. She knew now what she had guessed then--that she was the important business that was bringing the senior partner of Blackstock, Rawlings & Cameron to Norwich. When he came up the next Saturday and had made the acquaintance of her father and mother she began to think that perhaps he was really interested in her. She spent the next twenty-four hours in a strange dream of ecstasy; and when he walked home with her after the evening service she knew that she had found her fate most unexpectedly. As they neared her father's door he had asked her if she were willing to trust her future to him, and she had answered solemnly that she was his whenever he might choose to claim her.

Although she had said this, she was taken aback when he had wished her to be married early in September. She had had to beg to have the wedding postponed till the end of October, assuring him that she could not be ready before then. Now, as she sat there rocking silently in the sitting-room of his house in New York, with a smile of happiness curving her lips, and as she recalled the swiftness of time's flight during the few weeks of her engagement, she did not regret that his neglected business would keep him in town all winter and that the promised trip to Europe was postponed until next summer. They had gone on their brief wedding journey to Niagara and Montreal and Quebec; and they had returned only the day before. Last night for the first time had she sat at the head of his table as the mistress of his house. For the first time that morning had she poured out his coffee in their future home, smiling at him across the broad table in the dingy dining-room with its black horsehair chairs.

Then he had sent for a cab, and he had insisted on her coming down to the office with him. It was the first time that she had seen the immense building occupied by Blackstock, Rawlings & Cameron, with the packing-cases piled high on the sidewalk and with half a dozen drays unloading the goods just received from Europe. Although two or three of the clerks were looking at him when he got out of the cab, he had kissed her; and although she supposed she must have blushed, she did not really object. She was John's wife now, and it did not matter who knew it. He had called to the driver to come back so that he might tell her to stop anywhere she pleased on her way up-town and to buy anything she fancied. She had come straight home without buying anything, for, of course, she was not going to waste John's money.

All the same the house was very old-fashioned, and it sadly needed to be refurnished. John was rich, and John was generous with his money; and she felt sure he would let her do over the house just as she pleased. Then her thoughts went back to the days when she had been sent to a boarding-school in New York to finish her education and to the afternoon walks when she and the other girls, two by two, had again and again passed in front of that very house; and now it was her home for the rest of her life. It was hers to brighten and to beautify and to make over to suit herself. She did not want to say a word against John's first wife, but it did seem to her that the elder woman had lacked taste at least. The wall-papers and the hangings were all hopeless, and the furniture was simply prehistoric. The drawing-room looked as though nobody had ever dared to sit in it; and it was so repellent that she did not wonder everybody kept out of it.

Probably his first wife was a plain sort of person who did not care to entertain at all; perhaps she was satisfied with the narrow circle of church work. The young woman remarked how her mind kept on returning to her predecessor. She was ready to confess that this was natural enough, and yet it made her a little impatient nevertheless. Her eyes filled with tears when she thought of the swiftness with which a woman is forgotten when once she is dead.

She went to the window of the sitting-room and looked down on Gramercy Park again. The November twilight was settling down, and the rays of the setting sun were obscured by a heavy bank of gray clouds. The wind had risen and was whirling the dead leaves in erratic circles. Rain was threatened and might come at any minute. The day that had begun in glorious sunshine was about to end in gloom. The young bride was conscious of a vague feeling of loneliness and homesickness; she found herself longing for John's return.

As she turned away she heard the front door close heavily. With the swift hope that her husband might have come home earlier than he had promised, she flew to the head of the stairs. She was in time to see the butler gravely bowing an elderly gentleman into the drawing-room.

Disappointed that it was not John, she went back to the sitting-room and dropped into the rocking-chair by her old desk. She wondered who it was that hastened to call on her the day after her home-coming.

A minute later the butler was standing before her with the salver in his hand and a card on it.

She took it with keen curiosity.

"Dr. Thurston!" she cried. "Did you tell him Mr. Blackstock was not home yet?"

"Yes, m'am," the butler responded; "and he said it was Mrs. Blackstock he wished to see particularly."

"Oh, very well," she returned. "Say I will be down in a minute."

When the butler had gone, she ran to the tall mirror and readjusted her hair once more and felt to make sure that her belt was in position on her lithe young waist. She was glad that she happened to have on a presentable dress, so that she need not keep the minister waiting.

As she slowly went down-stairs she tried in vain to guess why it was that Dr. Thurston wanted to see her particularly. She knew that John had had a pew in Dr. Thurston's church for years and that he was accustomed to give liberally to all its charities. She had heard of the beautiful sermon the doctor had preached when John was left a widower, and so she almost dreaded meeting the minister for the first time all alone. She lost a little of her habitual buoyancy at the fear lest he should not like her. When she entered the drawing-room--which seemed so ugly in her eyes then that she was ready to apologize for it--the minister greeted her with a reserved smile.

"I trust you will pardon this early visit, Mrs. Blackstock--" he began.

"It is very good of you to come and see me so soon, Dr. Thurston," she interrupted, a little nervously, as she dropped into a chair.

"It is a privilege no less than a duty, my dear young lady," he returned, affably, resuming his own seat, "for me to be one of the first to welcome to her new home the wife of an old friend. There is no man in all my congregation for whom I have a higher regard than I have for John Blackstock."

The young wife did not quite like to have her husband patronized even by the minister of his church, but smiled sweetly as she replied, "It is so kind of you to say that--and I am sure that there is no one whose friendship John values more than he does yours, Doctor."

The minister continued gravely, as though putting this compliment aside. "Yes, I think I have a right to call your husband an old friend. He joined my church only a few months after I was called to New York, and that is nearly fifteen years ago--a large part of a man's life. I have observed him under circumstances of unusual trial, and I can bear witness that he is made of sterling stuff. I was with him when he had to call upon all his fortitude to bear what is perhaps the hardest blow any man is required to submit to--the unexpected loss of the beloved companion of his youth."

Dr. Thurston paused here; and the bride did not know just what to say. She could not see why the minister should find it necessary to talk to her of the dead woman, who had been in her thoughts all the afternoon.

"Perhaps it may seem strange to you, Mrs. Blackstock," he went on, after an awkward silence, "that I should at this first visit and at this earliest opportunity of speech with you--that I should speak to you of the saintly woman who was John Blackstock's first wife. I trust that you will acquit me of any intention of offending you, and I beg that you will believe that I have mentioned her only because I have a solemn duty before me."

With wide-open eyes the bride sat still before him. She could not understand what these words might mean. When her visitor paused for a moment, all she could say was, "Certainly--certainly," and she would have been greatly puzzled to explain just what it was she wished to convey by the word. A vague apprehension thrilled her, for which she could give no reason.

"I will be brief," the doctor began again. "Perhaps you are aware that the late Mrs. Blackstock died of heart failure?"

The bride nodded and answered, "Yes, yes." She wanted to say "What of it? And what have I to do with her now? She is dead and gone; and I am alive. Why cannot she leave me alone?"

"But it may be you do not know," Dr. Thurston continued, "that she herself was aware of the nature of her disease? She learned the fatal truth two or three years before she died. She kept it a secret from her husband, and to him she was always cheerful and hopeful. But she made ready for death, not knowing when it might come, but feeling assured that it could not long delay its call. She was a brave woman and a devout Christian; and she could face the future fearlessly. Then, as ever, her first thought was for her husband, and she grieved at leaving him alone and lonely whom she had cared for so many years. If she were to die soon her husband would not be an old man, and perhaps he might take another wife. This suggestion was possibly repugnant to her at first; but in time she became reconciled to it."

The bride was glad to hear this. Somehow this seemed a little to lighten the gloom which had been settling down upon her.

"Then it was that the late Mrs. Blackstock, dwelling upon her husband's second marriage, decided to write a letter to you," and as the minister said this he took an envelope from his coat pocket.

"To me?" cried the young wife, springing to her feet, as though in self-defense. Her first fear was that she was about to learn some dread mystery.

"To you," Dr. Thurston answered calmly--"at least to the woman, whoever she might be, whom John Blackstock should take to wife."

"Why--" began the bride, with a little hysteric laugh, "why, what could she possibly have to say to me?" And her heart was chilled within her.

"That I cannot tell you," the minister answered; "she did not read the letter to me. She brought it to me one dark day the winter before last; and she besought me to take it and to say nothing about it to her husband; and to hand it myself to John Blackstock's new wife whenever they should return from their wedding trip and settle down in this house."

Then Dr. Thurston rose to his feet and tendered her the envelope.

"You want me to read that?" the bride asked, in a hard voice, fearful that the dead hand might be going to snatch at her young happiness.

"I have fulfilled my promise in delivering the letter to you," the minister responded. "But if you ask my advice, I should certainly recommend you to read it. The writer was a good woman, a saintly woman; and whatever the message she has sent you from beyond the grave, as it were, I think it would be well for you to read it."

The young wife took the envelope. "Very well," she answered, "since I must read it, I will."

"I am conscious that this interview cannot but have been somewhat painful to you, Mrs. Blackstock," said the minister, moving toward the door. "Certainly the situation is strangely unconventional. But I trust you will forgive me for my share in the matter--"

"Forgive you?" she rejoined, finding phrases with difficulty. "Oh yes--yes, I forgive you, of course."

"Then I will bid you good afternoon," he returned.

"Good afternoon," she answered, automatically.

"I beg that you will give my regards to your husband."

"To my husband?" she repeated. "Of course, of course."

When Dr. Thurston had gone at last, the bride stood still in the center of the drawing-room with the envelope gripped in her hand. Taking a long breath, she tore it open with a single motion and took out the half-dozen sheets that were folded within it. She turned it about and shook it suspiciously, but nothing fell from it. This relieved her dread a little, for she feared that there might be some inclosure--something that she would be sorry to have seen.

With the letter in her hand at last, she hesitated no longer; she unfolded it and began to read.

The ink was already faded a little, for the date was nearly two years old. The handwriting was firm but girlishly old-fashioned; it was perfectly legible, however. This is what the bride read:

"MY DEAR YOUNG FRIEND,--I must begin by begging your pardon for
writing you this letter. I hope you will forgive it as the strange
act of a foolish old woman who wants to tell you some of the things
her heart is full of.

"You do not know me--at least, I think it most likely you do not,
although I cannot be sure of this, for you may be one of the girls
I have seen growing up. And I do not know you for sure; but all the
same I have been thinking of you very often in the past few weeks.
I have thought about you so often that at last I have made up my
mind to write you this letter. When I first had the idea, I did not
want to, but now I have brooded over it so long that I simply must.

"I have been wondering how you will take it, but I can't help that
now. I have something to say, and I am going to say it. I have been
wondering, too, what you will be like. I suppose that you are
young, very young perhaps, for John has always been fond of young
people. You are a good woman, I am sure, for John could never have
anything to do with a woman who was not good. Young and good I feel
sure you will be; and that is all I know about you.

"I cannot even guess how you have been brought up or what your
principles are or your ideas of duty. I wish I could. I am very
old-fashioned myself, I find, and so very few young people nowadays
seem to have the same opinion about serious things that I have. I
wish I could be sure you were a sincere Christian. I wish I were
certain you held fast to the old ideas of duty and self-sacrifice
that have been the honor and the glory of the good women of the
past. But I have no right to expect that you will think about all
these things just as I do. And I know only too well how weak I am
myself and how neglectful I have been in improving my own
opportunities. The most I can do is to hope that you will do what I
have always tried to do ever since I married John--and long before,
too--and that is to make him happy and to watch over him.

"If you are very young perhaps you do not yet know that men are not
like us women; they need to be taken care of just like children. It
is a blessed privilege to be a mother, but a childless wife can at
least be a mother to her husband. That is what I have been trying
to do all these years. I have tried to watch over John as though he
were my only son. Perhaps if our little girl had lived to grow up I
might have seen a divided duty before me. But it pleased God to
take her to Himself when she was only a baby in arms, and He has
never given me another. Many a night I have lain awake with my arms
aching to clasp that little body again; but the Lord gave and the
Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord! So I have
had nothing to draw me away from my duty to John. If you have
children some day--and God grant that you may, for John's heart is
set on a boy--if you have children, don't let your love for them
draw you away from John. Remember that he was first in your love,
and see that he is last also. He will say nothing, for he is good
and generous; but he is quick to see neglect, and it would be
bitter if he were left alone in his old age.

"You will find out in time that he is very sensitive, for all he is
a man and does not complain all the time. So be cheerful always, as
it annoys him to see anybody in pain or suffering in any way. It is
a great comfort to me now that the disease that is going to take me
away from him sooner or later, I cannot know when--that it is
sudden and not disfiguring, and that he need not know anything at
all about it until it is all over. I have made the doctor promise
not to tell him till I am dead.

"You see, John has his worries down-town--not so many now as he
used to have, I am thankful to say; and I have tried always to make
his home bright for him so that he could forget unpleasant things.
I hope you will always do that, too; it is a wife's duty, I think.
You will forgive my telling you these things, won't you? You see I
am so much older than you are, and I have known John for so many
years. I have found that it relieves his feelings sometimes to tell
me his troubles and to talk over things with me. Of course, I don't
know much about business, and I suppose that what I say is of no
value; but it soothes him to have sympathy. So I hope you will
never be impatient when he wants to tell you about his partners and
the clerks and things of that sort. I have seen women foolish
enough not to want to listen when their husbands talked about
business. I do hope that you are wiser, or, at any rate, that you
will take advice from an old woman like me, thinking only of the
happiness of the man you have promised to love, honor, and obey.
You will learn in time how good John is. Perhaps you may think you
know now--but you can't know that as well as I do.

"You see I am older than John--not so much older, either, only a
little more than two years. He doesn't like me to admit it, but it
is true; and of late I have been afraid that everybody could see
it, for I am past forty now and I feel very old sometimes, while
John is as young as ever. He looks just as he did twenty years ago;
he has not a gray hair in his head yet. He comes up-stairs to me,
after he gets back from the office, with the same boyish step I
know so well.

"He was only a boy when I first saw him in the little village
school-house. His family had just moved into our neighborhood, and
the school he had been to before was not very good, and so I was
able to help him with his lessons. The memory of that first winter
when we were boy and girl together has always been very precious to
me; and I can see him now as he used to come into the school,
panting with his hard run to get there in time.

"I don't know when it was that I began to love him, but it was
long before he had grown to be a man. That early love of mine gave
me many a sorrowful hour in those days, for there were other girls
who saw how handsome John was. One girl there was he used to say
was pretty, but I never could see it, for she had red hair and
freckles--but perhaps John said this to tease me, for he was always
fond of a joke. This girl made up to him, and John came near
marrying her; but fortunately a new minister came to town and she
gave up John and took him. So John came back to me, and that spring
we were married.

"John was not rich then; he had his way to make, but when an old
family friend offered him a place in New York City he hesitated. He
did not want to take me away from my mother; he has always been so
good to me. But mother would not hear of it; and so we came to this
big city, and John succeeded from the very first. It was not ten
years before he was taken into the firm; and now for two years he
has been at the head of it. I doubt if there is another man as
young as he is in all New York at the head of so large a business.

"When we first came to New York we boarded; and then after a while
we found a little house in Grove Street. It was there baby was born
and there she died; and perhaps that is why I was so ungrateful as
to be sorry when John bought this big house here on Gramercy Park.
He said he wanted his wife to have as good a house as anybody
else. Of course, I ought to have known that a man of John's
prominence could not go on living in Grove Street; he had to take
his position in the world. He let me have my own way about
furnishing this house, although he did pretend to scold me for not
spending enough money. I have been very happy here, although I will
not say that I have never regretted the little house where my only
child died; but, of course, I never told this to John, and it has
always pleased me to see the pride he took in this handsome house.
And now in a few weeks or a few months I shall leave it forever,
and I leave him also.

"But I must not talk about myself any more. It is about John I
wanted to speak. I meant to tell you how good he is and how he
deserves to be loved with your whole heart. I intended to ask you
to take care of him as I have tried to do, to watch over him, to
comfort him, to sympathize with him, to be truly his helpmate.

"Especially must you watch over him, for he will not take care of
himself. For instance, he is so busy all day that he will forget to
eat any luncheon unless you keep at him; and if he goes without his
lunch sometimes he has bad attacks of indigestion. And even when it
is raining he does not always think to take his overshoes or even
his umbrella; and he ought to be particular, because he is
threatened with rheumatism. If he has a cold, send for Dr.
Cheever at once, and John seems to catch cold very easily; once,
three years ago, he came near having pneumonia. You must see that
he changes his flannels early in the fall; he will never do it
unless you get them out for him. You will have to look after him as
if he were a baby; and that is one reason why I am writing this
long, long letter, just to tell you what you will have to do.

"Perhaps I had another reason, too--the joy I take always in
talking about him and in praising him and in telling how good he
is. I hope he has been happy with me all these years, and I know I
have been very happy with him. It may be very fanciful in me, but I
like the idea that these words of mine praising him will be read
after my death. If you love him, as I hope you do, with your whole
heart and soul, you will understand why I have written this and you
will forgive me.

"Yours sincerely,

"SARAH BLACKSTOCK."

Before the young bride had read the half of this unexpected communication her eyes had filled with tears, and when she came to the end her face was wet.

She stood silently in the center of the room where the minister had left her, and she held the open sheets of the letter in her hand. Then the front door was closed with a jar to be felt all over the house; and in a moment she had heard her husband's footsteps in the hall.

"John!" she cried.

When he came to the door she flung herself into his arms, sobbing helplessly.

"Oh, John," she managed to say, at last. "Your first wife was an angel! I don't believe I can ever be as good as she was. But you will love me too--won't you, dear?"

(1897)

Day in the Year]

The snow was still falling steadily, although it had already thickly carpeted the avenue. It was a soft, gentle snow, sifting down calmly and clinging moistly to the bare branches of the feeble trees, which stood out starkly sheathed in white, spectral in the grayness of the late afternoon. Gangs of men were clearing the cross-paths at the corners and shoveling the sodden drifts into carts of various sizes, impressed into sudden service. It was not yet dusk, but the street-lamps had been lighted; and the tall hotel almost opposite was already illuminated here and there by squares of yellow.

Elinor stood at the window of her aunt's house, gazing out, and yet not seeing the occasional carriages and the frequent automobiles that filled the broad avenue before her. The Christmas wreath that hung just over her head was scarcely more motionless than she was, as she stared straight before her, unconscious of anything but the deadness of her own outlook on life.

She looked very handsome in her large hat and her black furs, which set off the pallor of her face, relieved by the deep eyes, now a little sunken, and with a dark line beneath them. She took no notice of the laborers as they stood aside to allow her aunt's comfortable carriage to draw up before the door. She did not observe the laughing children at an upper window of the house exactly opposite, highly excited at the vision of a huge Christmas tree which towered aloft in a cart before the door. She was waiting for Aunt Cordelia to take her to a tea, and then to a studio, where her portrait was to be shown to a few of her friends.

Her thoughts were not on any of these things; they were far away from wintry New York. Her thoughts were centered on the new-made grave in distant Panama, in which they had buried the man she loved less than a week ago.

And it was just a year ago to-day, on the twenty-second of December, the shortest day in the year, that she had promised to be his wife. Only a year--and it seemed to her that those twelve months had made up most of her life. What were the score of years that had gone before in comparison with the richness of those happy twelve months, when life had at last seemed worth while?

As a girl she had wondered sometimes what life was for, and why men and women had been sent on this earth. What was the purpose of it all? But this question had never arisen again since she had met him; or, rather, it had been answered, once for all. Life was love; that was plain enough to her. At last her life had taken on significance, since she had yielded herself to his first kiss, and since the depth of her own passion had been revealed to her swiftly and unexpectedly.

As she looked back at his unexpected appeal to her, and as she remembered that when he had told her his love and asked her to be his they had met only ten days before and had spoken to each other less than half a dozen times, she realized that it was her fate which had brought them together. Although she did not know it, she had been waiting for him, as he had been waiting for her. She was his mate, and he was hers, chosen out of all others--a choice foreordained through all eternity.

Their wooing was a precious secret, shared by no one else. They knew it themselves, and that was enough; and perhaps the enforced mystery made the compact all the sweeter. Ever since they had plighted their troth she had gone about with joy in her heart and with her head in a heaven of hope, hardly aware that she was touching the earth. All things were glad around her; and a secret song of happiness was forever caroling in her ears.

And yet she knew that it might be years before he could claim her, for he was only now beginning his professional career as an engineer. He had just been appointed to a good place on the canal. His chief was encouraging, and put responsibilities on him; he had felt sure that he would have a chance to show what he could do. And she had been almost angry how any one could ever doubt that he would rise to the head of his profession. She had told him that she would wait seven years, and twice seven years, if need be.

Aunt Cordelia was hoping that she would make a splendid match. Within a week after John Grant had said good-by she had rejected Reggie Eames, whom her aunt had been encouraging for a year or two. She liked Reggie well enough; he was a good fellow. When he had asked her if there was another suitor standing in his way, she had looked him in the face and told him that there was; and Reggie had taken it like a man, and had made a point of being nice to her ever since, whenever they met in society.

As she stood there at the window she gave a slight start and nodded pleasantly to Reggie, who had bowed as he passed the house on the way to the Union Club. And then the avenue, with all its passers-by, its carriages and automobiles, its shoveling laborers and its falling snow, its Christmas greens and its lighted windows, faded again from her vision, as she tried to imagine that unseen grave far away in Panama.

She wished that she could have been with him--that they could have had those last few hours together. She had had so little of him, after all. An unexpected summons had come to him less than a week after they were engaged; and he had gone at once. Of course, he had written by every steamer, but what were letters when she was longing for the clasp of his arms? And every month, on the twenty-second, there had come a bunch of violets, with the single word "Sweetheart." He had laughed when he told her that the twenty-second of December was the shortest day in the year--which was not very promising if they expected to be "as happy as the day is long"!

The months had gone, one after another; she had not seen him again; and now she would never see him again. He had been hoping for leave of absence early in the spring; and she had been looking forward to it. He had written that he did not know how the work would get along without him, but he did know that he could not get along without her. Hereafter she would have to get along without him; and she had never longed for him so much, wanted him, needed him.

The long years to come stretched out before her vision, as she stood there in the window, lovely in her youthful beauty; and she knew that for her they would be desolate, barren, and empty years. The flame of love burned within her as fiercely as ever; but there was now nothing for it to feed on but a memory; yet the fire was hot in its ashes.

She opened her heavy furs, for she felt as if they were stifling her. She knew that they had been admired by her friends, and even envied by some of them. Aunt Cordelia had given them to her for Christmas, insisting on her wearing them as soon as they came home, since they were so becoming.

Aunt Cordelia meant to be kind; she had always meant to be kind, ever since Elinor had come to her as an orphan of ten. Her kindness was a little exacting at times; and her narrow matrimonial ambitions Elinor could not help despising. What did it profit a girl to make a splendid match, if she did not marry the one man she was destined to love?

The furs were beautiful, and they were costly. Were they the price of her freedom? Was it due to these expensive things she did not really want that she had not been able to take John Grant for her husband a month or a week after he had asked her?

Everything in this world had to be paid for; and perhaps she had sold her liberty too cheap. If it had not been for the furs, and for all the other things that her aunt had accustomed her to, she might have gone with him to Panama and nursed him when he fell ill. She felt sure that she could have saved him. She would have tried so hard! She would have put her soul into it. Her soul? She felt as if the sorrow of the past week had made her acquainted with her own soul for the first time. And she confessed herself to be useless and feeble and weak.

That was what made it all so strange. Why could she not have died in his place? Why could not she have died for him? She had lived, really lived, only since she had known him; and it was only since he had gone that she had known herself. She had meant to help him--not that he needed any assistance from anybody. Now she could help no one in all the wide world. She was useless again--a girl, ignorant and helpless.

Why could she not have been taken, and why could not he have been spared? He had a career before him; he would have been able to do things--strong things, brave things, noble things, delicate things. And he was gone before he had been able to do anything, with all his possibilities of honor and fame, with all his high hope of honest, hard work in the years of his manly youth, with everything cut short, just as if a candle had been blown out by a chance wind.

She marveled how it was that she had been able to live through the long days since she had read the brief announcement of his death. She did not see how it was that she had not cried out, how it was that she had not shouted aloud the news of her bereavement. She supposed it must be because she had inherited self-control, because she had been trained to keep her feelings to herself, and never to make a scene.

Fortunately she was alone when she learned that he was dead. She had been up late at a ball the night before, and, as usual, Aunt Cordelia had insisted on her staying in bed all the morning to rest. When she had finished her chocolate, Aunt Cordelia had brought in the morning paper, and had raised the window-shade for her to read, before going down for a long talk with the lawyer who managed their affairs.

Elinor had glanced over the society reporter's account of the ball and his description of her own gown; she had read the announcement of the engagement of a girl she knew to a foreign count; and then she was putting the paper down carelessly when her eye caught the word "Panama" at the top of a paragraph. Then, at a flash, she had read the inconspicuous paragraph which told how John Grant, a very promising young engineer in charge of a section of the work on the canal, had died suddenly of pneumonia, after only two days' illness, to the great grief of all his associates, especially of the chief, who had thought very highly of him.

The words danced before her eyes in letters of fire; and she felt as if an icy hand had clutched her heart. She was as stunned as if the end of the world had come; and it was the end of her world.

She did not recall how long she had held the paper clutched in her hand; and she did not know why she had not wept. It seemed to her as if her tears would be a profanation of her grief, too deep to be washed away by weeping. She had not cried once. Perhaps it would have been a relief if she could have had a good cry, petty and pitiful as it would be.

When Aunt Cordelia had called her, at last, to get ready for luncheon, she had arisen as if she had been somebody else. She had dressed and gone down-stairs and sat opposite her aunt and chatted about the ball. She recalled that her aunt had said that there was nothing in the paper that morning except the account of the ball. Nothing in the paper! She had kept her peace, and made no confession. It seemed to her that it could not have been herself who sat there calmly and listened and responded. It seemed as if she was not herself, but another girl--a girl she did not know before.

So the days had gone, one after another, and so they would continue to go in the future. She was young, and she came of a sturdy stock; she might live to be three-score and ten.

As she stood there at the window, staring straight before her, she saw herself slowly changing into an old maid like Aunt Cordelia, well meaning and a little fidgety, a little fussy, and quite useless. She recoiled as she surveyed the long vista of time, with no husband to take her into his arms, and with no children for her to hold up to him when he came back from his work. And she knew that she was fit to be a wife and a mother; and now she would never be either.

What was there left for her to do in life? She could not go into a convent, and she could not study to be a trained nurse. There she was at twenty-one, a broken piece of driftwood washed up on an unknown island. She had no hope any more; the light of her life had gone out.

She asked herself whether she had any duty toward others--duty which would make life worth living once more. She wished that there was something for her to do; but she saw nothing. She set her teeth and resolved that she would go through life, whatever it might bring, and master it for his sake, as he would have expected her to do. He was dead, and lying alone in that distant, lonely grave; and she would have to live on and on--but at least she would live as he would approve.

But whatever her life might be, it would not be easy without him. She had lived on his letters; and she had taken a new breath of life every month when his violets came. And now nothing would come any more--no message, no little words of love, nothing to cheer her and to sustain her. Never before had she longed so much for a message from him--a line only--a single word of farewell.

It was again the shortest day of the year, and it was to her the longest of all her life. But all the days would be long hereafter, and the nights would be long, and life would be long; and all would be empty, since he would never again be able to communicate with her. If only she believed in spiritualism, if only she could have even the dimmest hope that some day, somehow, some sort of communication might come to her from him, from the shadowy realm where he had gone, and where she could not go until the summons came to join him!

So intent was she upon her own thoughts that she did not hear the ring of the door-bell; and a minute later she started when the butler entered the room with a small parcel in his hand.

"What is it, Dexter?" she asked, mechanically.

"This has just come for you, Miss," he answered, handing her the parcel.

She held it without looking at it until Dexter had left the room. Probably it was a Christmas present from one of her friends; and she loosened the strings listlessly.

It was a box from a florist; and she wondered who could have sent her any flowers on the day sacred to him. It might be Reggie, of course; but he had not done that for nearly a year now.

She opened the box carelessly, and found a bunch of violets. There was a card with it.

She took it nearer to the window, to read it in the fading light. It bore the single word, "Sweetheart."

She stood for a moment, silent and trembling.

"John!" she cried aloud. "From you!"

She sank into a chair, with the violets pressed against her heart, sobbing; and the tears came at last, plentifully.

Then she heard footsteps on the stairs; and in a moment more her aunt was standing at the door and calling:

"Elinor, are you ready? We are late."

(1910)

THE END