CHAPTER XVI

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"If we should part and pass to separate ways With stifled sigh, averted head, Within a land where centuries are as days Our love shall live though flesh and wrong lie dead."

And her lover, where was he? In the heart of the city, working in a garret on his great picture, for the sake of which he had forsaken the woman he loved. Intolerant of opposition was Graham; and when once an idea had been accepted by him, it was next to an impossibility for him to give it up. He had become convinced that his love for Millicent would make him faithless to his work; that the love of woman was not compatible with the highest devotion to art. Her fond dependence on him would drain his strength. Without his work he could neither be satisfied nor satisfy her. The closer she clung to him the more did he recoil from her. In the strength of his genius, he laughed at the idea that a loving companionship was necessary to him; and yet hours came, at the end of a long day's work, in the quiet watches of the night when the city slept about him, in which all his theories were overset, in a terrible longing for the girl whose sad eyes haunted him. To see her and to touch her; to hear her low, deep voice; to forget all the grievous striving of his life, in the restful warmth of hers! He thought of her always as he had first seen her, lying before the fire, her slender figure robed in white, her head supported in the hands which he had so often caressed. Waiting for him, she seemed to have been then. Waiting for him, he loved to fancy her always. These tender thoughts drifted through his mind in the soft twilight, or before the dawn. In the fervid daylight he only remembered her as she had been on that last evening, rebellious and close-clinging, desperate, beautiful, and full of unrest.

The city tired him with its everlasting sounds of traffic. The tread of dray horses and the rumbling of carts sounded in his ears from earliest dawn till late night. There was no peace here amongst his fellow-men. He longed for the solitude of his tower, for his forest neighbors, for the sound of the woods, the wide arch of blue sky, seen now through one narrow slit between the opposing houses.

One morning he determined to take a day of rest; and, after making a light breakfast at a coffee-house near by, he started for the San Rosario Ranch, with a lighter heart than he had carried in his bosom for many days. It was a bright morning; the air was crisped with a prediction of winter weather, genial enough in this region at its worst. As he passed through the familiar country he traced some likeness to Millicent Almsford in every object on which his eyes lighted. Now it was the golden-brown of her hair seen in the shiny coat of a sleek filly frolicking in a pasture; now it was her graceful movements traced in the trembling branches of a straight young sapling; again, her gray eyes smiled in his face from under the brows of a fair child playing by the roadside. The harsh voice of the wheels thundering over the steel rails seemed to be repeating her name; and his heart kept time with the refrain, beating out the syllables rhythmically,--Millicent, Millicent, Millicent! He was weary of reasoning with himself. For six days in the week his work was all-sufficing, and he needed no other companionship; but on the seventh day he longed for rest; he needed beauty, he needed love. He knew that it was weak in him to waver in his resolution not to see Millicent again; he knew that it was a wrong to her, and that he would bitterly regret it in after days. And yet he yielded to that exquisite golden haze which seemed to have dropped about him, flooding his life with a passionate delight, an ecstasy of expectation.

He alighted at the station, and stood watching the receding train with strained eyes. He wished now that he had not come. He walked up and down the narrow platform, flushed and unnerved with the tumult in his breast. On his right lay the dusty carriage-road which led to the house; on his left a narrow bridle-path pierced the woods, over which he must pass to reach his tower. Which should it be,--a day passed with the creatures of the forest, under the blue sky and murmuring trees; or an hour of the soft delight which Millicent's voice, Millicent's eyes, Millicent's lightest finger-touch, wrapped about him? He realized now how he had cheated himself. He had said that it was the wood-birds whose voices wooed him from the city! He knew now that beneath that longing for the free air of his forest home lay the deeper desire which had tempted him to leave his picture half finished, his palette half set.

Which road should he take? Not more unstable was the blue ring of smoke which the breeze carried from his lips, tossing it hither and thither in a cloudy wreath upon the white air, than was this man between the opposing influences which divided his nature. At last he tossed his cigarette upon the platform, carefully quenching its spark with his foot, and with a light, fleet step ran down the wide carriage-road which led to the house--which would bring him to Millicent. He had known all along, with that inner consciousness which decides with lightning rapidity a question which the intellect debates long and seriously, that his feet would follow that pleasant, open road rather than the dark wood-trail; and yet the train had sped twenty miles further on its journey before he turned his face toward the happy valley. So clumsy is reason compared to instinct; so tedious are the modes of thought to the working of the feelings; so useless is the grave gate of wisdom to check the tumultuous torrent of feeling.

He found the wide piazza deserted, the front door fast closed, the blinds of the library and dining-room tightly drawn. The hospitable house was silent and deserted. His imperative summons was finally answered by a domestic, the successor of poor Ah Lam, who in his ridiculous vernacular informed the visitor that "Alley folk go waly." Which, being translated into English, signified that no one was at home.

Graham felt as if a flood of cold water had been dashed into his face. He shivered, as he turned from the door and descended the steps; and yet before he had walked two miles in the familiar road which led to his tower, he gave a profound sigh of relief. It was better so! The exercise had cooled his fevered blood; the crisp forest air had brought reason back to his passion-tossed breast. It was better that he had not seen her. Something of the fatalist was there about this strong-brained rationalist. He half fancied that it was not chance alone which had decreed that Millicent should be absent from the Ranch that day. But he sang no more as he had done on his way to the house; and his serious face lost that smile of hope which had lighted the eyes and touched the mouth into an unaccustomed softness. If he was silent, the wild birds were melodious, and he walked between choirs of invisible songsters; while the whirring of a partridge, the fleet step of a wild fox in the thicket, gave him the assurance that he was not alone in the mysterious wood. At last the distance was accomplished; and at high noon, when the shadows had all shrunk back into the tall trees before the ardent heat of the sun, he reached the ruin of the old church. He leaned against the fragment of a pillar which stood at the foot of the staircase, and looked up at the square gray tower with its close-clinging pall of moss and yellow lichens. From a rift in the wall burst a blaze of color,--a clump of wallflowers stretching its flame of blossoms upward toward his window. He noticed that the casement was open; and as he looked he saw the fluttering of a bit of drapery over the edge of the sill. It must have been the curtain, of course; but the sight of it gave him a strange sensation, not unlike one that he had experienced before on that spot, when he had been tricked by the moonlight into fancying that there was a woman straying in the aisles of the old church. He remembered that night and what it had revealed to him; and at the black thought the sky seemed to have darkened over his head. He had stood dreaming at the tower foot for fifteen minutes, and in that time the sky had become overcast, a cold wind had sprung up and now blew into his face, carrying a host of big drops with it. The rain had come at last! After the long spring and summer unmarred by clouded skies or rude gusts, the first rain had come. With a rough tenderness it dashed itself against the parched land and shook the tall trees till they murmured a delighted welcome. The dusty ferns growing low down about the knees of the great trees caught the happy news, and uncurled their tender fernlings that they might feel the welcome touch of the rain-drops, as they filtered through the greedy leaves and raced down the straight stems to reach the myriads of thirsty mouths yearning for their balm. The rain had come; and the languid stream, which had pined and shrunk to a pitiful thread of water, leaped joyously down its rocky bed. It would grow strong and young and beautiful again; its banks would bloom with flowers; its course would no longer run painfully over heated stones, between seared brown edges,--the rain had come!

On the narrow stairway Graham paused, near the top. Something shining lay on the step before him. The object proved to be a small silver arrow, tipped with a feather of brilliants. He picked up the jewelled toy, which he had once before held in his hand,--one evening when he had withdrawn it from the soft tresses which it caught together behind a small white ear. His hand trembled as he remembered the soft rushing of silken curls over his arm, the fragrance which had floated about him, the look of loving reproach which had punished his audacity. Wondering how the arrow had found its way to the threshold of his tower, Graham tried to open the heavy door with his key. To his surprise it refused to yield; the bolt was drawn on the inside. Some one was in his tower. Thinking that the Frenchman, in whose care his room had been left, might be at work, he lifted the heavy brass dolphin which served for a knocker, and rapped loudly. There was no answer. The rain by this time was falling in torrents. He was entirely without shelter; and he knocked a second time, calling out to know who was inside the room. He heard a light step approach the door, and a hand was laid upon the lock. The old wood-cutter could never have walked with that musical footstep; the soft rustle of garments could not have been made by him. Graham's heart leaped from its quiet beating into a very tumult of pulsations, as the bolt was gradually drawn and the heavy door swung slowly open. On the threshold of his lonely tower stood Millicent, with downcast eyes and pale face. For a moment he was silent, looking at her, doubting his own vision; fearing to move lest she should vanish from before his eager eyes as she did in his dreams. Could this beautiful, colorless creature, with marble cheeks and fallen lids, with sombre garments and nerveless, pallid hands crossed upon the breast, be Millicent Almsford? He stepped nearer with outstretched hands to touch her, to feel that it was in verity the woman who had lain weeping at his feet that night among the roses. He would have folded her to his breast, but the white lids flashed open, the sad, tear-worn eyes looked into his own with an expression which made him draw back; and the girl, without a word, passed out of the doorway and stood unprotected in the driving storm.

Before her mute grief, his passionate longing was turned to a great and holy pity. He stood beside her and said gently,--

"Millicent, you will not leave me without a word? You must not go out into the storm; I will leave you here alone, if you wish, until the rain is over. Do not be so cruel as to doubt me, dear one."

He stopped, for his words had made her tremble. She feared him no longer, and with a little sigh laid her hand in his and suffered him to lead her into the room. The artist placed his visitor in a great chair, and busied himself in making a fire on his cold hearth.

"Now this is more cheerful, fair lady, is it not?" he cried, in a pleasant voice. "And pray tell me what brought you to my lonely dwelling."

"I had always wanted to see your tower, Graham; and this morning they all went to San Francisco for the day, and I thought I would ride over and look at it from the outside. I found old John airing the room, and accepted his invitation to rest here for half an hour before riding home. He came up just now to tell me that it was going to rain, but as he thought it would be only a shower he had put my horse under shelter. This is how I came here; and now tell me what brought you so unexpectedly from town."

"I cannot tell, white one. Your will, perhaps."

"Nay, friend, that has never swayed thee one hair's-breadth from thine appointed course."

He shook his head sadly, and looked out of the window. She did not know--it was better for her perhaps that she never should know--how great an influence she had wielded over his life. She did not know that for her, faith and youth had bloomed in his heart when he had thought them dead. Her untruth was killing them, and their death-agony had shaken and worn him cruelly. She thought him hard and relentless. It might be easier for her to dull the pain in her heart, with this consciousness of injury received. He would never tell her of the irreparable wrong she had done him. If he was not forgiving he was magnanimous. No word of reproach should pass his lips.

Outside the rain was pouring down, but less steadily; the patter of the drops sounded more and more lightly on the window-panes. The shower would not long continue. Graham took note of the clearing sky, and sighed heavily. With all her faults he loved her; the tower would be lonelier than ever when she had flitted from it like a sprite of the rain-storm. The great trees outside lifted up their branches with a mighty wailing, echoing his sigh; and Millicent, as if conscious that love was pleading against pride in that strong heart which had never learned the lesson of forgiveness, turned her white, appealing face towards him. The man's being had been swept that day with fiery impulses from the first moment of consciousness. Passionate love, pity, scorn, and anger had in turn written their impress on his mobile face. He came close to her side, and taking both her hands in his, knelt at her side:

"O Millicent, Millicent! could he not have spared you? We could have loved each other so truly! Poor child, poor child! What fiend was he to have betrayed you! But now it can never be, never, never, never!" The words rang out drearily, the death-knell of all that had made life beautiful to them both. The pale girl sat motionless, speechless, her eyes dark with horror, her hands nerveless in his passionate grasp. Tears fell upon those white fingers which he had so often kissed,--cruel tears wrung from the bruised heart of the man she loved; tears that she had no power to check, tears that had their source in her own sin. In that hour of agony, if remorse may in aught atone for error, Millicent must have been forgiven of the angels. The proud man knew how to suffer, but he could not forgive. He arose and dashed the tears from his eyes; they had cost him mortal pain.

The rain was over, the gray sky had cleared; and Millicent, like a gray shadow, slipped from the tower, leaving her lover alone, with the mocking sunlight shining on his dark, tear-stained face.

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