When it was done I made a little frame for it, and lettered on the frame this line:
"And her eyes dreamed against a distant goal."
It was the next day that she read the line. I saw the color die from her face and flood back again.
"Why did you set that line there?" she breathed, her eyes fixed on me with a strange expression. (_Comment by C. K._: _Rossetti again. The dead woman of the beach quoted "The House of Life," also._)
"Why not?" I asked. "It seems to express something in you which I have tried to embody in the picture. Don"t you like it?"
She repeated the line softly, making pure music of it. "I love it," she said.
At that, I spoke as it is given to a man to speak to one woman in the world when he has found her. She listened, with her eyes on the pictured face. But when I said to her, "You, who have all my heart, and whose name, even, I have not-is there no word for me," she rose, and threw out her hands in a gesture that sent a chill through me.
"Oh, no! No!" she cried vehemently. "Nothing-except good-by. Oh, why did you speak?"
I stood and watched her go. At the end of the garden walk she stooped and picked a rose with her gloved fingers, and as she disappeared in the thicket at the top of the hill I thought she half turned to look. That was five interminable days ago. I have not seen her since. I feel it is her will that I shall never see her again. And I must! You understand, Kent, you must find her!
I forgot to tell you that when I was sketching her I asked if she could bring something pink to wear, preferably coral. She came the next time with a string of the most beautiful rose-topazes I have ever seen, set in a most curious old gold design. It was that necklace and none other that the woman with the bundle wore, half concealed, when she came here.
To-day-it is yesterday really, since I am finishing this at three _A.
M._-the messenger boy brought me a telegram. It was from my love. It had been sent from Boston, and it read:
"Destroy the picture, for my sake. It tells too much of both of us."
The message was unsigned. I have destroyed the picture. Help me! --F. S.
CHAPTER IV-AN INQUIRY
"Am I running a Strangers" Rest here?" Francis Sedgwick asked of himself when he emerged upon his porch the morning after Kent"s visit.
The occasion of this query was a man stretched flat on the lawn, with his feet propped up comfortably against the stone wall. In this rec.u.mbent posture he was achieving the somewhat delicate feat of smoking a long, thin clay pipe. Except for this plebeian touch he was of the most unimpeachable elegance. His white serge suit was freshly pressed.
His lavender silk hose, descending without a wrinkle under his buckskin shoes, accorded with a lavender silk tie and lavender striped shirt. A soft white hat covered his eyes against the sun glare. To put a point to this foppishness, a narrow silken ribbon, also pure white, depending from his lapel b.u.t.tonhole, suggested an eye-gla.s.s in his pocket.
Sedgwick, who had risen late, having returned to his house at daybreak after delivering his ma.n.u.script at Kent"s hotel, regarded this sartorial marvel with a doubt as to whether it might not be a figment of latent dreams. Making a detour across the gra.s.s, he attained to a side view of the interloper"s face. It repaid the trouble. It was a remarkable face, both in contour and in coloring. From chin to cheek, the skin was white, with a tint of blue showing beneath; but the central parts of the face were bronzed. The jaw was long, lean and bony. The cheek-bones were high; the mouth was large, fine-cut, and firm; the nose, solid, set like a rock.
At the sound of a footstep, the man pushed his hat downward, revealing a k.n.o.bby forehead and half-closed eyes in which there was a touch of somberness, of brooding. The artist remembered having seen that type of physiognomy on the Venetian coins of the sixteenth century, the likenesses in bronze, of men who were of iron and gold,-scholars, rulers, and poets. The eyes of the still face opened wide, and fixed themselves on Sedgwick, and the expression of melancholy vanished.
"Good morning," said the artist, and then all but recoiled from the voice that replied, so harsh and raucous it was.
"You rise late," it said.
"I hear your opinion on it," retorted Sedgwick, a bit nettled. "Am I to infer that you have been waiting for me?"
"You wouldn"t go far wrong."
"And what can I do for you-before you leave?" said Sedgwick significantly.
"Take a little walk with me presently," said the man in another voice, brushing the hat clear of his face.
"Kent!" exclaimed the artist.
"Well, you appear surprised. What kind of artist are you, not to recognize a man simply because he shaves his beard and affects a false voice?"
"But you"re so completely changed. And why this disguise?"
"Disguise?" returned the other, astonished in his turn. "I"m not in disguise."
"Your clothes. They"re-well, except for being offensive, I"d call them foppish."
"Not at all!" protested the other warmly. "Just because I"m a scientific man, is it to be a.s.sumed that I ought to be a frump? I"m fond of good clothes; I can afford good clothes; I wear good clothes. It"s a hobby of mine; but I deny that it is a weakness."
"Of course not," a.s.sented the other, somewhat amused. "By the way, though, your socks and tie don"t match."
"They do, absolutely," replied the other with asperity.
"Perhaps in fact; but not in effect. In matching smooth silk with ribbed silk, you should get the latter one shade lighter."
"Is that so?" said Kent with interest. "You"ve told me something I never knew. I"ll remember that. Now I"ll trouble you to tell me some more things."
"While taking that walk you spoke of?"
"That comes later. I"ve read your story."
"Already?"
"Already! Do you know it"s ten o"clock? However, it"s a good story."
"Thank you."
"As a story. As information, it leaves out most of the important points."
"Thank you again."
"You"re welcome. Color, size, and trappings of the horse?"
"I didn"t notice particularly. Black, I think; yes, certainly, black.
Rather a large horse. That"s all I can tell you."
"Humph! Color, size, and trappings of the rider?"
"Reddish brown hair with a gloss like a b.u.t.terfly"s wing," said the artist with enthusiasm; "deep hazel eyes; clear sun-browned skin; tall-I should say quite tall-but so-so feminine that you wouldn"t realize her tallness. She was dressed in a light brown riding costume, with a toque hat, very simple, tan gauntlets, and tan boots; that is, the first time I saw her. The next time-"
"Hold on! A dressmaker"s catalogue is no good to me. I couldn"t remember it all. Was she in riding clothes on any of her later visits?"
"No."