GOOD-NIGHT.
Love us, God! love us, man! we believe, we achieve.
Let us live, let us love,
For the acts correspond:
We are Glorious, and Die.
—E. B. B.
Good-night, dearest Dolly,' whispered Henley, as they all stood waiting for their train in the crowded station. 'You can tell your mother as you go home.'
'Here, Dolly! jump in,' cried John Morgan, standing by an open railway-door; 'your aunt is calling you.'
'I can't come up till Tuesday,' Henley went on in a low voice, 'but I shall write to your mother to-night.'
He helped her into the dark carriage: everybody seemed to lean forward at once and say good-night; there was a whistle, a guard banged the door, Mrs. Palmer stretched her long neck through the window, but the train carried her off before she could speak her last words.
Dolly just saw Henley turning away, and George under a lamp-post; then they were gone out of the station into the open country; wide and dim it flowed on either side into the dusk. The day had come to an end—the most wonderful day in Dolly's life. Was it a real day; was it a day out of somebody else's existence? As Dolly sat down beside her mother she had felt as if her heart would break with wonder and happiness; it was not big enough to hold the love that was her portion. He loved her! She had floated into some new world where she had never been before; where people had been living all their lives, thought Dolly, and she had never even guessed at it.
Had her mother felt like this? Had Frank Raban's poor young wife felt this when he married her? So she wondered, looking up at the clear evening sky. Might not death itself be this, only greater still and completer—too complete for human beings? Dolly had got her mother's hand tight in hers. 'My dear child, take care, take care!' cried Mrs. Palmer, sharply; 'my poor fingers are so tender, Mr. Morgan; and Dolly's is such a grip. I remember once when the Admiral, with his great driving gloves....' Her voice sank away, and Dolly's mamma began telling John Morgan all about one episode in her life.
Meanwhile, Dolly went on with her speculations. How surprised Aunt Sarah would be; how surprised she was herself. Dolly had had a dream, so have most young maidens, formless, voiceless, indefinitely vague, but with a meaning to it all the same, and a soul; and here was Robert, and the soul was his, and he loved her! 'Thanks, half-way up,' murmured Mrs. Palmer to a strange passenger who did not belong to the party.