"Is that all?"
"There were notices in the papers."
"Is that all?"
"Mr. Denning must have known it when he stopped divorce proceedings."
"Doubtless he believed it; he wished to do so."
"Tyrrel, tell me what you mean."
"I always wondered about his death rather than believed in it. Basil had a consuming sense of honor and affection for the Church and its sacred offices. He would have died willingly rather than drag them into the mire of a divorce court. When the fear became certainty he disappeared--really died to all his previous life."
"But I cannot conceive of Basil lying for any purpose."
"He disappeared. His family and friends took on themselves the means they thought most likely to make that disappearance a finality."
"Have you heard anything, seen anything?"
"One night just before I left the West a traveler asked me for a night"s lodging. He had been prospecting in British America in the region of the Klondike, and was full of incidental conversation. Among many other things he told me of a wonderful sermon he had heard from a young man in a large mining camp. I did not give the story any attention at the time, but after he had gone away it came to me like a flash of light that the preacher was Basil Stanhope."
"Oh, Tyrrel, if it was--if it was! What a beautiful dream! But it is only a dream. If it could be true, would he forgive Dora? Would he come back to her?"
"No!" Tyrrel"s voice was positive and even stern. "No, he could never come back to her. She might go to him. She left him without any reason.
I do not think he would care to see her again."
"I would say no more, Tyrrel. I do not think as you do. It is a dream, a fancy, just an imagination. But if it were true, Basil would wish no pilgrimage of abas.e.m.e.nt. He would say to her, "Dear one, HUSH! Love is here, travel-stained, sore and weary, but so happy to welcome you!" And he would open all his great, sweet heart to her. May I tell Dora some day what you have thought and said? It will be something good for her to dream about."
"Do you think she cares? Did she ever love him?"
"He was her first love. She loved him once with all her heart. If it would be right--safe, I mean, to tell Dora----"
"On this subject there is so much NOT to say. I would never speak of it."
"It may be a truth"
"Then it is among those truths that should be held back, and it is likely only a trick of my imagination, a supposition, a fancy."
"A miracle! And of two miracles I prefer the least, and that is that Basil is dead. Your young preacher is a dream; and, oh, Tyrrel, I am so tired! It has been such a long, long, happy day! I want to sleep. My eyes are shutting as I talk to you. Such a long, long, happy day!"
"And so many long, happy days to come, dearest."
"So many," she answered, as she took Tyrrel"s hand, and lifted her fur and fan and gloves. "What were those lines we read together the night before we were married? I forget, I am so tired. I know that life should have many a hope and aim, duties enough, and little cares, and now be quiet, and now astir, till G.o.d"s hand beckoned us unawares----"
The rest was inaudible. But between that long, happy day and the present time there has been an arc of life large enough to place the union of Tyrrel and Ethel Rawdon among those blessed bridals that are
"The best of life"s romances."