"I"m not much hurt," he said half dazedly. "It--it was an accident. He didn"t mean it. I was looking at him. The gun went off. He didn"t shoot at me.... _Hugh_!"
The man was staring straight ahead of him, and now he drew his hand across his eyes, the fingers crooked as though they tore a veil.
"Now," he said, "I do see myself just as I am. Yes, I did shoot at you.
Yes, I think I meant to kill you. I must have meant to kill you. That"s the truth. For the second time I"m a murderer. Yet now, as G.o.d lives, even if I am down in the dust, I"ll lay hold of my stars. I"m going to walk out of your lives so that they can shape themselves to their own good ends. Sylvie can shape yours with you, Pete." He hesitated a moment. "If a coward, a murderer, can say "G.o.d bless you," take that blessing!"
He picked up his gun and shuffled across the floor, flinching aside from Bella as though he could bear no further touch or word, and went out of the door, letting in the brightness of the sunrise.
Pete had sunk into a chair, faint from the shock and weakness of his wound; and Sylvie bent over him. For a minute, in great and bitter loneliness Bella stood and watched them; then she followed Hugh.
He had put down his gun and gone slowly up from the hollow and was walking along the river-bank. He had the look of a man who strolls in meditation. When he came to his boat where it lay near the roots of the three big pines, he turned it over--he had been mending its bottom the morning of yesterday--and began to push it down toward the plunging stream. The glitter of morning took all the swirlings and ripplings and plungings of the swift water in its golden hands. Hugh steadied the boat. Above him on the bank Bella spoke quietly.
"Hugh," she said, "look up at me. What are you going to do?"
He lifted his face, still holding to the boat.
"What are you going to do?" she repeated.
"Why do you want to know? You"ve heard the truth."
She came down the bank and stood beside him so close that her hair, loosened by the wind, was blown against his shoulder. She pressed it back and gazed into his eyes. The inner glow had worn through at last.
She was all warmth, all flame now. She smiled with soft and parted lips.
"Do you think that was the truth of you, my dear," she said, "_my_ truth of you? I have always seen you as you are. But"--she drew a big breath, like a climber who has reached the height--"but--I came to you, didn"t I?"
Hugh"s eyes widened, the pupils swallowing her light. "You--you came to me? Not for Pete"s sake?"
"Never for his sake."
"But, Bella--you laughed at me."
"Yes, once, for your poor folly in trying to be what you are not. When have I ever laughed at what you are? It"s what you are I"ve loved, my dear, just what you are--a tormented child. Only be honest with me, Hugh. Tell me what do you want: the moon now or--or all the truth?"
"I want the truth--and the end," he said. "I"m going down the river."
She glanced at the flood as though it were a brook. "I am going with you then. You must take me. My life has always been yours."
He laid one of his hands on either of her cheeks so that her face was framed for him to read. It was flushed; the deep eyes were beautiful.
"You--all these empty years! _You_, Bella." It was as though he saw her now for the first time. The revelation dazzled him. "I"ve gone thirsty, with wine at my elbow, until it"s too late." He shook his shoulders.
"Come with me, then, if you must."
She stepped into the boat and sat in the stern, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes in their great and sudden beauty still fixed on his face.
The wind blew her hair wildly in a long, streaming veil across her forehead, down her cheek, out over her shoulder. She was beautiful with the joy that was hers at last.
Hugh stepped in and stood to push the boat out from the sh.o.r.e. His eyes never left hers. It was a deep, long look of which her soul drank, quenching its thirst. Very slowly the boat moved; then it turned. A hand seemed to grip it"s prow. There was a mighty, confused roaring in their ears; the bank seemed to be s.n.a.t.c.hed back from them. The sunlight, shone into Hugh"s face. Suddenly he caught at his oar.
"The river is not so high," he shouted; "the flood"s going down." He looked away from her and back. "We have--just a chance. We"ll leave it to the river. It may be the end of you and me--or, Bella, it may be the beginning."
He steadied the boat with all his skill. It was drawn with frightful swiftness down the swollen stream.
Before noon Sylvie and Pete moved slowly across the open s.p.a.ce and went back along their forest trail. They walked like lovers, and Sylvie"s arm helped to support him. Just before he stepped in among the trees he turned for a long, desolate, backward look.
Now the hoop of green, once white as paper under the noon sun, and the level, circular rim of the forest are empty and silent except for the rattling of the river and the moving of the pines against the fixed, grave stars. The human tragedy--or was it comedy?--has burnt itself out like the embers of a camp-fire that will never again be kindled in that lonely spot.
THE END