See how much I have said, and still I have not told you the strangest part of my story--the moonlit revelation of you to me. I am writing, writing, to ease my heart until you come. And always as I write I listen for the sound of your dear footsteps. For many successive days I had found our trysting place a veritable desert. I seemed to have lost my heart"s way to you; and in proportion to my bewilderment, life became more and more intolerable. I had the desperate sensation of one who is about to be lost in a waste land, and I felt that I could not live through the frightful loneliness of such an experience. Yesterday again I failed to find the comfort of your occult presence when I went into the wood. I was filled with consternation, and when the night came I lay tossing in a sleepless fever. Unless I knew once more in my heart that you loved me, I felt that I could no longer endure life. So I lay far into the night. At last in desperation I arose from my bed, slipped on my shoes and the big cloak that you will remember, and fled away to our tree in the forest, pursued by a thousand shadows. For indeed I am usually afraid of the dark; it is like a silence to me--your silence, Philip--and I fear it because I do not know what it contains. But I had got one of father"s wrestling-Jacob"s moods upon me by this time, and if Mahomet"s mountain had come booming by I should not have been deterred from my purpose. But do you know that there is more life in a little forest when darkness falls than in a big town? and that every living thing there recognises you as an intruder with warning calls from tree to tree? I had not more than cast myself upon the ground to sob out all my griefs to whatever G.o.ds would listen, when a sleepy little robin just overhead called up to his mistress the tone of my trouble. The young leaves whispered it, the boughs swept low about me, and the winds carried messages of it away into the heavens, so that suddenly the whole night knew of my woe and pitied me.
I know not how long I lay there staring up at the blue abyss of stars through the grizzly shades of night. I only know that my face was wet with tears and that I seemed to tremble upon the brink of a long life"s despair. And oh! Philip I never _loved_ you so,--not only with my heart and lips, but with my soul. And it was my soul that went out in a prayer to you to come. I remembered not only the dear ways you have of folding me into your arms and making me surpa.s.singly happy, so against my own will, but I remembered the silent young sage in his upper chamber, and I felt that indeed it was to this esoteric personality that I must pray for help.
And so I gave my soul away to the sweet silence, and waited. The moonlight falling down through an open s.p.a.ce made a cataract of tremulous brightness. It edged all the shadows with a silver whiteness, as of wings hidden.
And then suddenly there came to me out of the far abyss above my trees a message, a sweet a.s.surance. Oh, I know not how to call to it, only I felt the nearness of my love. And I was afraid, my darling, and closed my eyes lest I should _see_ you. And then, oh, Philip, I felt, I am sure I felt your face close to mine, and in my ears a low whisper breathed like the pa.s.sing of the breeze, a voice saying: "Fear not, beloved; be at peace until I come!" And I knew then that you loved me and had not forsaken me altogether.
And when at last I raised my eyes, I became aware of the fact that I was still not alone; and peering through the dim s.p.a.ces about me I beheld _Jack_ sitting hunched up on the root of his tree like a small toad of fidelity! The little owl sprite in him never quite slumbers, I think; and seeing me leave the parsonage, he had crept out and followed bravely after through the shadows. But the picture he made now startled me into a peal of laughter.
"You are the lady in the story that was lost," said Jack, with the solemn intonation of one who has himself received a revelation.
"Yes," I confessed softly.
"But will the knight come to find you?"
"I hope so; I think he is coming now, dear Jack."
"Well d.a.m.n him if he don"t!" was the little wretch"s impious comment. I always suspected him capable of using strong language, but this was the first time we had met upon a sufficiently intimate basis of friendship for him to exploit it.
And now, Philip, that is all until you come. But hasten, my beloved! I am already aged with this long waiting for you. Do not ask me about father.
He is a good shepherd, but I am a small black sheep determined not to be made white according to his plan. And he has come to that place where he would be ready to take even you as an under-shepherd of this factious ewe lamb. Besides, could we not make a providential offering of Jack, as Abraham did of the goat when he was about to slay Isaac? Jack, I think, has a heavenly wit withal, and could adjust the little prayer light of his soul even to father"s high altar mind. As for me, I cannot conceive of life alone without you one whole day longer. Indeed, so strong is my premonition of your approach, that even now I listen for the sound of your footsteps upon the gravel outside.
THE END