At the close of school this June day Margaret asked Mrs. Thorpe to go with her to tea.
"You refused last night and the night before," she said.
"And I think it better for me not to go to-night, dear. I have some exercises to look over and some work to prepare for to-morrow. Another time, perhaps, but not to-night." And so Margaret left her and went her way alone.
The work that required her attention was examined and preparations for the morrow completed, and still Mrs. Thorpe lingered in the empty room. She walked back and forth through the room where all was silent save the sound of her footsteps; but she was not lonely; she loved the quiet of the deserted room and the memories that lingered about it. She loved the children among whom she worked, and she was hopeful and ambitious for them. She longed to see them in the way of honor and virtue, in the way of self-respect and independence; and she believed that this way lay before them. Her life was full of hopes and plans for their future, and she worked willingly, gladly, whole-heartedly, for the fulfillment of these plans.
Yet this woman had never tried to deceive herself. She knew that there was a room in her heart silent and empty, where memories, sad and silent, lingered among the shadows. She was not unhappy because of this; her happiness lay in accepting it and fashioning her life superior to it.
There had been a time when she believed that, like the chords of a harp, the sweetest strains of her life had been broken. She recognized the generally accepted view that if the union between a man and a woman be broken, the lives affected by the dissolution must necessarily be crippled and their usefulness impaired. But this view of life had gradually changed as she came into a larger, more scientific view of life. Now she believed that nothing but a violation of the life Principle could mar a life or rob it of its legitimate rights. She had come to understand that there is a Law back of Life, a Law to which all the children of creation must conform, and that nothing but an infringement of God's law can hurt or destroy in all His holy mountain. And the natural deduction followed that all relationships between individuals must be honest, sincere and pure. And that any law, written or unwritten, that fosters or favors the domination or control of one person over another is a mortal law, and invariably an immoral one. Man in the image and likeness of God is governed by righteousness and not by his fellow men.
Mrs. Thorpe was no longer a frail woman; her physical development had come about gradually and naturally. Her form that had remained slender and girlish long after her girlhood days had passed, was now rounded out into full contour of womanhood. Her eyes that had been too large and bright for her colorless face, now blended harmoniously with her soft, warm color. No stimulants nor artificial means had been employed to bring about this change; it had come naturally with her changed attitude toward life, her scientific understanding of life harmonious, as the reflection of the Infinite. Where once she had been irrational, ignorant and ill, now she was sensible, wise and well; the one following the other in natural sequence in the physical as well as in the mental condition.
Yet she was always frank with herself; she missed the love and companionship that had once been hers. She walked over to one of the windows and seated herself on the window-seat. The wind came in softly and touched the tendrils of brown hair about her face. She looked far off to the distant blue hills. "Maurice," she called, softly; "Maurice." Deep in her heart she knew that the old relationship could never exist between them again. They were both children of the one God, answerable to Him only. It was a violation of this law of life, a conception derived from tradition, and tainted with paganism that had brought about their downfall. "But oh, Maurice," she whispered, "I love you, love you!"
The flowers outside the window nodded and swayed in the gentle wind, and a bird whose happy secret lay concealed within reach of her hand, twittered, unafraid, on a swaying bough; and the twilight settled down about her.
When Mrs. Thorpe arose she shook herself free from the memories that had clung about her, and walked out into the semi-darkness. Wholesome and whole-souled, she was little given to retrospection or introspection, but chose to live her life in the fruitful present.