“Did she hint what she wished to tell you? Did you guess it all?”
“No. Whatever her secret may have been, it passed unuttered into that realm where all mysteries are solved. I neither know nor surmise the nature of her desired revelation, but some day when you fully understand me, I shall ask you to tell me that which she believed I ought to know. My dear madam, when I come to you and demand your confidence, I have no fear that you will withhold it.”
She closed her eyes as if to shut out some painful vision, and drooped her head lower, till it rested on her chest.
The sun flashed up from his ocean bed, and, as the first beams fell on the woman’s hair, Dr. Grey softly passed his broad white hand over its perfumed masses, redolent of orange flowers.
“The air is too damp for you. Come with me to the house.”
She did not heed his words, and perhaps his touch on her head recalled some exquisitely painful memory, for she shook it off, and exclaimed,—
“Doubtless, like the remainder of the curious herd, you are wondering at my ‘crown of glory,’—and conjecturing what dire tragedy bequeathed it to me. Sir,—
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‘My hair was black, but white my life: The colors in exchange are cast! The white upon my hair is rife, The black upon my life has passed.’ |
Dr. Grey, I understand you; but you need not stay here to keep guard over me, as if I were an imbecile or a refugee from 254 an insane asylum. That I am not the one or the other, is attributable to the fact that my powers of endurance are almost fabulous. You fear that in my loneliness and complete isolation I may turn coward, at the last ordeal I am put through,—and, like Zeno cry out, and in a fit of desperation strangle myself? Dr. Grey, make yourself easy. I do not love my Creator so devotedly that I must needs hurry into his presence before He sees proper to send me a summons.’”
“I am afraid to leave you here, for any woman who does not love and reverence her Maker, requires a guardian. Of course you will do as you like, but I shall remain here as long as you do.”