"So do I," murmured Evelina, grateful for the chiffon that hid her tears.
"Wasn"t there ever anybody?"
"Yes."
"I knew it--you"re so sweet n.o.body could help loving you. Did he die?"
"Yes."
"It was that way with Mr. Thorpe," mused Araminta, reminiscently.
"They loved each other and were going to be married, but she died. He said, though, that death didn"t make any difference with loving.
There"s Ralph, now."
"Little witch," said the boy, fondly, as she met him at the door; "did you think I could wait a whole five minutes?"
They sat in the parlour for half an hour or more, and during this time it was not necessary for their hostess to say a single word. They were quite unaware that they were not properly conducting a three-sided conversation, and Miss Evelina made no effort to enlighten them. Youth and laughter and love had not been in her house before for a quarter of a century.
"Come again," she begged, when they started home. Joy incarnate was a welcome guest--it did not mock her now.
Half-way down the path, Ralph turned back to the veiled woman who stood wistfully in the doorway. Araminta was swinging, in childish fashion, upon the gate. Ralph took Miss Evelina"s hand in his.
"I wish I could say all I feel," he began, awkwardly, "but I can"t.
With all my heart, I wish I could give some of my happiness to you!"
"I am content--since I have forgiven."
"If you had not, I could never have been happy again, and even now, I still feel the shame of it. Are you going to wear that--veil--always?"
"No," she whispered, shrinking back into the shelter of it, "but I am waiting for a sign."
"May it soon come," said Ralph, earnestly.
"I am used to waiting. My life has been made up of waiting. G.o.d bless you," she concluded, impulsively.
"And you," he answered, touching his lips to her hand. He started away, but she held him back. "Ralph," she said, pa.s.sionately, "be true to her, be good to her, and never let her doubt you. Teach her to trust you, and make yourself worthy of her trust. Never break a promise made to her, though it cost you everything else you have in the world. I am old, and I know that, at the end, nothing counts for an instant beside the love of two. Remember that keeping faith with her is keeping faith with G.o.d!"
"I will," returned Ralph, his voice low and uneven. "It is what my own mother would have said to me had she been alive to-day. I thank you."
The house was very lonely after they had gone, though the echoes of love and laughter seemed to have come back to a place where they once held full sway. The afternoon wore to its longest shadows and the dense shade of the cypress was thrown upon the garden. Evelina smiled to herself, for it was only a shadow.
The mignonette breathed fragrance into the dusk. Scent of lavender and rosemary filled the stillness with balm. Drowsy birds chirped sleepily in their swaying nests, and the fairy folk of field and meadow set up a whirr of melodious wings. White, ghostly moths fluttered, cloud-like, over the quiet garden, and here and there a tiny lamp-bearer starred the night. A flaming meteor sped across the uncharted dark of the heavens, where only the love-star shone. The moon had not yet risen.
From within, Evelina recognised the st.u.r.dy figure of Piper Tom, and went out to meet him as he approached. She had drawn down her veil, but her heart was strangely glad.
"Shall we sit in the garden?" she asked.
"Aye, in the garden," answered the Piper, "since "t is for the last time."
His voice was sad, and Evelina yearned to help him, even as he had helped her. "What is it?" she asked. "Is it anything you can tell me?"
"Only that I"ll be trudging on to-morrow. My work here is done. I can do no more."
"Then let me tell you how grateful I am for all you have done for me.
You made me see things in their true relation and taught me how to forgive. I was in bondage, and you made me free."
The Piper sprang to his feet. "Spinner in the Sun," he cried, "is it true? Just as I thought your night was endless, has the light come?
Tell me again," he pleaded, "ah, tell me "t is true!"
"It is true," said Evelina, with solemn joy. "In all my heart there is nothing but forgiveness. The anger and resentment are gone--all gone."
"Spinner in the Sun!" breathed the Piper, scarcely conscious that he spoke the words aloud. "My Spinner in the Sun!"
Slowly the moon climbed toward the zenith, and still, because there was no need, they spoke no word. Dew rose whitely from the clover fields beyond, veiling them as with white chiffon. It was the Piper, at last, who broke the silence.
"When I trudge on to-morrow," he said, ""t will be with a glad heart, even though the little chap is no longer with me. "T is a fair, brave world, I"m thinking, since I"ve set your threads to going right again.
I called you," he added, softly, "and you came."
"Yes," said Evelina, happily, "you called me, and I came."
"Spinner in the Sun," said the Piper, tenderly, "have you guessed my work?"
"Why, keeping the shop, isn"t it?" asked Evelina, wonderingly; "the needles and thread and pins and b.u.t.tons and all the little trifles that women need? A pedler"s pack, set up in a house?"
The Piper laughed. "No," he replied, "I"m thinking that is not my work, nor yet the music that has no tune, which I"m for ever playing on my flute. Lady, I have travelled far, and seen much, and always there has been one thing that is strangest of all. In every place that I have been in yet, there has been a church and a minister, whose business was to watch over human souls.
"He"s told them what was right according to his own thinking, which I"m far from saying isn"t true for him, and never minded anything more. In spite of blood and tears and agony, he"s always held up the one standard, and, I"m thinking, has always pointed to the hardest way to reach it. The way has been so hard that many have never reached it at all, and those who have--I"ve not seen that they are the happiest or the kindest, nor that they are loved the most.
"In the same place, too, there is always a doctor, whose business it is to watch over the body. If you have a broken leg or a broken arm, or a fever, he can set you right again. Blind eyes can be made to see, and deaf ears made to hear, but, Lady, who is there to care about a broken heart?
"I have taken in my pedler"s pack the things that women need, because "t is women, mostly, who bear the heartaches of the world, and I come closer to them so. What you say I have done for you, I have done for many more. I"m trying to make the world a bit easier for all women because a woman gave me life. And because I love another woman in another way," he added, his voice breaking, "I"ll be trudging on to-morrow alone, though "t would be easier, I"m thinking, to linger here."
Evelina"s heart leaped with a throb of the old pain. "Tell me about her," she said, because it seemed the only thing to say.
"The woman I love," answered the Piper, "is not for me. She"d never be thinking of stooping to such as I, and I"d not be insulting her by asking. She"s very proud, but she could be tender if she chose, and she"s the bravest soul I ever knew--so brave that she fears neither death nor life, though life itself has not been kind.
"Her little feet have been set upon the rough pathways, almost since the beginning, and her hands catch at my heart-strings, they are so frail. They"re fluttering always like frightened birds, and the fluttering is in her voice, too."
"And her face?"
"Ah, but I"ve dreamed of her face! I"ve thought it was n.o.ble beyond all words, with eyes like the first deep violets of Spring, but filled with compa.s.sion for all the world. So brave, so true, so tender it might be that I"m thinking if I could see it once, with love on it for me, that I"d never be asking more."
"Why haven"t you seen her face?" asked Evelina, idly, to relieve an awkward pause. "Is she only a dream-woman?"
"Nay, she"s not a dream-woman. She lives and breathes as dreams never do, but she hides her face because she is so beautiful. She veils her face from me as once she veiled her soul."
Then, at last, Evelina understood. She felt the hot blood mantling her face, and was thankful, once more, for the shelter of her chiffon.