Patricia Wentworth

“ Was she to cling to the shadow, because in the shadow David had clung to her? It came to that. She drove the thought home, and did not shirk the pain of it. They were come out into the light, and in the light he had no need of her. But this was not full daylight in which they walked—it was only the first chill grey of the dawn, and there is always a need of Love. Love needs must give, and giving, blesses and is blessed, for Love is of the realities—a thing immutable and all-pervading. No man can shut out Love. ”

“ Elizabeth set down the lamp, knelt in the dust and caught his hand in hers, which trembled now. In that twilight place of her imagining they had met, she knew that once and for all, and with the knowledge apathy melted from her heart, and with a warm rush came back the desire for life. If death had let them go, should they not take their lives? ”

“ And she began to tremble and to catch her breath and laugh.
“Now, Mrs. Ames!” said the doctor sternly. And the white-faced man let go of his companion's arm and put out his hand.
“Lucy!” he said, in a queer, weak voice. “Lucy—my wife——”
But Lucy was clinging to John Alden and fighting for breath and words.
“Oh, I'm not—he's not—” she gasped. And John Alden's hand closed on her wrist like a vice.
“Be quiet!” he said roughly. “Lucy, stop—stop, I say! Pull yourself together! No! you can if you try—no—stop at once—at once!” ”

“ It was a relief to drop the mask of a friendly indifference, to be able to watch David with no thought except for him. Her heart yearned to him as never before. She divined in him a great hunger—a great pain. And this hunger, this pain, was hers. The longing to give, to assuage, to comfort, welled up in her with a suddenness and strength that were almost startling. Elizabeth took her thought in a strong hand, forcing it along accustomed channels from the plane where love may be thwarted, to that other plane, where love walks unashamed and undeterred, and gives her gifts, no man forbidding her. ”

“ Elizabeth was past being frightened now. She turned back to the house, stepped over young Carter’s body, took the lamp from her husband’s table and went out with it towards the gate. She held the lamp well up above her head, and her hand was as steady as a rock. She had no fear of being seen. The dust was in John Oswald’s throat, and the dust was in his eyes. Through its blinding, choking clouds the lamp shone, and he looked up out of his torment and saw its light falling upon Elizabeth. ”

“ Agneta Mainwaring was little and dark, passionate, earnest, and frivolous. A creature of variable moods and intense affections, steadfast only where she loved. Elizabeth was watching the firelight upon the big square sapphire ring which she always wore. She looked up from it now and smiled at Agneta, just a smile of the eyes.
“Well, I am here,” she said, and Agneta went on stroking, and exclaimed:
“Oh, it’s so good to have you.”
“The world not been going nicely?” said Elizabeth.
Agneta frowned.
“Oh, so, so. Really, Lizabeth, being engaged to an explorer is the devil. ”

“ Lucy was left alone. She sat down on a chair and tried to think, but felt too dazed. Suddenly she began to cry, and was somehow glad that she could cry for her husband, who had been dead for nearly two years, and dead to her for five.
When she had cried her fill she looked up, and there was the Christmas motto on the wall before her—“Peace and Good-will.” Peace for the dead, and good-will—yes, good-will to every one. It seemed to mean something to her now.
She looked at the words with swimming eyes, and then John Alden came in and took her in his arms. They did not speak—they did not kiss. ”

“ Kill! Kill! Kill!”
She was wondering if there were anyone left to kill besides herself, when, above the noise, and from the opposite quarter, she heard the short, sharp clattering noise that shod hoofs make when a horse is either bolting, or being ridden at a speed which spells out panic.
Elizabeth parted the stiff oleander stems and looked out. The air was grey with the twilight now, but she could see the mud wall that bounded the garden, and beyond it the dusty road. As she looked the dust flew up in a thick cloud, and a man on a black horse drove into sight. ”

“ And as she had done once before, Elizabeth cried out.
“Who am I, David?—tell me! Am I Mary?”
He repeated the name slowly, and each repetition was a wound.
“Mary,” he said, wonderingly, “there is no Mary in the Dream. There are only you and I—and you are Love——”
“And if I went out of the Dream?” said Elizabeth, leaning against his breast. The comfort of his touch stole back into her heart. Her breathing steadied.
“Then I would come and find you,” said David Blake.
It was the next day that Agneta’s letter came. Elizabeth opened it at breakfast and exclaimed. ”

“ The ether itself flamed, and the colour of that flame was blue. It was the light of vision, the very light of a Midsummer’s Dream. The cloud that had shed the rain brooded apart with wings of folded gloom. Two or three drifting feathers of dark grey vapour barred the burning blue. Perishably fine, they dissolved against the glow, and one amazing star showed translucent at the vapour’s edge, now veiled, now blazing out as the mist wavered and withdrew from so much brightness. A night for love, a night for lovers’ dreams.
Yearning came upon Elizabeth like a flood. ”

“ The crackle and roar of the burning Mess, further off in the bazaar the shouts of men half drunk with murder and strong drink, and, like a continuous undercurrent, a monotonous unceasing drumming of tom-toms. The native servants had all fled in terror, and the house and compound were quite deserted. Elizabeth wondered if she would have to wait all night before someone came and killed her. ”

“ She had thought him a god, and he was only a man, after all. Reality seemed incredibly ugly, inconceivably cruel. She was very forlorn and alone, and she was only three-and-twenty. John Alden never knew how he let her go, but she went, and he found her work with a philanthropic lady and got a man secretary for himself.
He went to see Lucy once a month, and every time he found her a little whiter, a little lonelier, a little dearer. She didn't like the philanthropic lady, who was much too philanthropic to consider a secretary as anything but a machine. ”

“ When he had gone, Elizabeth told herself that this was the end of the Dream. She could drift no more with the tide of that moon-watched sea. She must think things out and come to some decision. Hitherto, if she thought by day, the night with its glamour threw over her thoughts a rainbow mist that hid and confused them. Now Agneta needed her, there would be work for her to do. And she would not see David again until she could look her conscience in the face. ”

“ You are as old as Egypt, and as young as very Youth,
Before your still, immortal eyes the ages come and go,
The dusk of death is but a dream that dims the face of Truth—
Oh, turn again, and look again, for when you look, I know.
When Elizabeth came to herself, the room was full of mist. Through the mist, she saw David’s face, and quite suddenly in these few minutes it had grown years older. ”