LOVE ETERNAL
The first warm days of spring had come to Rockhaven ere Mona and her parents returned. The sunny slopes back of the village were growing green, the tulips and daffodils in Mona's dooryard just peeping out, the gulls on the cliffs nest-building, the fishermen painting their boats and mending nets, Parson Bush, with two helpers, thanks to Rockhaven stock, shingling the church, and life on the island budding forth into vernal activity. No hint of Mona's proud life in the city and wonderful triumph had reached those people, and the Hutton family were welcomed back as returning from a pleasure trip.
It was Mona's expressed wish that no mention be made of her musical ambition and its success, and as her desires were now law with Jess and her mother, she was obeyed. Captain Roby had told them of Winn's astonishing and unexpected visit before they set foot on the island; and it was repeated by many others with sundry comments, all converging to one end, Mrs. Moore's being the most pointed, perhaps, and therefore best to quote.
"I think," said that well-intentioned gossip-monger to Mona, "he come here to make ye a visit, more 'speshly, though he said he wanted to see what could be done 'bout settin' the quarry a-goin'. He called on me, and the only thing he seemed to listen to with any sort o' interest was 'bout you goin' away and when you was like to come back. I never seen a feller act more love-struck than he was, an' more out o' sorts. He even went a wandering over the island in the snow, like as if he was demented."
All this was a revelation to Mona, and unaccountable. At first it provoked her silent derision and increased the bitterness and almost hatred which she had come to feel toward this erstwhile lover.
Mona Hutton was what country people would call a strange compound: a product of a lone sea island, of its storms and the unceasing booming of billows; of days, weeks, and months spent alone, where only the ocean voiced eternity; of the whispers of winds in spruce thickets, of the gorge and the cave where she hid herself; of her own moods, sad, solemn, and contemplative. She had grown up close to God, but distant from man. The flowers blooming in her dooryard, the wild roses clinging to life between the granite ledges, the sea-gulls sailing over the cliffs, the inward rush of the white-crested waves tossing the rockweed and kelpie upward, and the starfish and anemones left by the tide had been her playmates. She had learned to depend on these and her violin for company. Lovers she had none, neither were other island young folk akin to her. Between her mother and herself, also, was a chasm. It had been opened when that unsympathetic mother forbade the violin in her house, and was never afterward bridged. Jess only understood her. Jess, with his quaint philosophy, tender heart, unselfish impulses, and love of nature, had been her spiritual and moral mentor. To him had she gone with her moods, and upon him lavished her childhood and girlhood love.
And then had come a new and strangely sweet illusion, a glow of new sunshine warming her heart and adding a roseate hue to her thoughts. It was unaccountable but charming, and seemed to lend a sparkle to the sea waves, a more impressive grandeur to the limitless ocean, a tenderer beauty to the moonlight. The gorge and the cave seemed an enchanted nook in fairyland, and the old tide mill a romantic ruin.
Then had come the climax of this strange intoxication, the one ecstatic moment when this magician over her thoughts, this Prince Perfect, had entwined his arms about her and whispered, "I love you."
Repel him she could not, neither did she care to do so. It was to her as if the gates of another world were opened; and in the wondrous thrill of his lips she forgot herself, life, and God, even.
And then the cold and cruel message that said to her, "Forget me as I must you." It was a summer-day dream, with no hope of renewal.