“I will come with you!” was all she said; and it was her arms as well as his that drew them together.
“God bless you!” she heard him say with the old under-breathed voice she knew, and that had thrilled her out of all theories into the pain and glory of womanhood. “God keep you safely, and bless you, my darling!” It is when a strong man loves something better than himself that he feels his impotence, and hastens to charge it on the Deity he affects to do well without, himself. The most irreligious men are always ready to pray above the heads nearest and dearest to them. Gregory, who would have snapped any commandment left undefended by law, called on the Unknown God to do the one thing of which he felt himself incapable. With the woman he had loved in his arms he fell back on an instinct which is greater even than habit—
“God bless you, because you are my darling!”
The sun had reached the hill crest, and his last level glow touched their faces at last with unnatural fire. For a minute Leoline was dazzled, but through the haze she looked out over the half-reaped valley, and it was as if she saw Key Island in symbol, the strange little place to which she had come so light-heartedly to find fate and tragedy there. His glance followed hers, but he saw nothing of the peaceful harvest or rest at evening time. To his steady gaze the red light was War and his future wrapped in smoke. He did not fear, and he did not repent, because he had long since counted the cost, and reckoned it as gain; but he knew, as that old-time counterpart of his sin had known, that there was no peace for him or his—and that because he had despised the unwritten law, War should be his portion for ever, as clearly as if the prophet had said to him also, “Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house!”
And the woman for whom he had sinned knew also that there was a shadow on their lives for ever, cast by the man they had sacrificed, and that she could never dare to look her love bravely in the face without that dark reservation that she thrust out of sight. She did not repent either—with her hand in that of the man she loved she was ready to go with him into the wilderness as he had said, and let him lead her where he would, the stony places were gentle so long as it was his path also. But her eyes, as they looked over the golden transfigured valley, held all the pain of the love that is earth-marred, and she knew that the tragedy of her life lay in that sealing of their destinies.
THE END
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Cého means simply “call”—the sarcastic inference in the native mind being that an Englishman’s most universal call is for strong drink. There being no bells in Key Island a shout brings the servant—usually with the ingredients for a Cého, which order he takes for granted.
Transcriber’s Notes
Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Variations in hyphenation and accents have been standardised but all other spelling and punctuation remains unchanged.