“Many nights I have thought of you, Anna. Your face has flitted out of my watch-fire, and then I have been a haunted man. But with the morning, the glorious unstained morning the passion of living would stir even the blood of a clod. It comes over the mountains, Anna, pink darkening into orange red, everywhere a wonderful cloud sea, scintillating with colour. It is enough to make a man throw away canvas and brushes into the bottomless precipices, enough to make one weep with despair at his utter and absolute impotence. Nature is God, Anna, and the greatest artist of us all a pigmy. When I think of those ateliers of ours, the art jargon, the decadents with their flamboyant talk I long for a two-edged sword and a minute of Divinity. To perdition with them all.
“I shall come back, if at all, a new man. I have a new cult to teach, a new enthusiasm. I feel years younger, a man again. My first visit will be to you. I must tell you all about God’s land, this marvellous virgin country, with its silent forests and dazzling peaks. I make no apology for not being with you now. You love Ennison. Believe me, the bitterness of it has almost departed, crushed out of me together with much of the weariness and sorrow I brought with me here by the nameless glory of these lonely months. Yet I shall think of you to-day. I pray, Anna, that you may find your happiness.
“Your friend,
“David Courtlaw.
“P.S.—I do not congratulate you on your success. I was certain of it. I am glad or sorry according as it has brought you happiness.”
Anna’s eyes were a little dim as she poured out her coffee, and the laugh she attempted was not altogether a success.
“This is all very well,” she said, “but two out of the three are rank deserters—and if the papers tell the truth the third is as bad. I believe I am doomed to be an old maid.”
She finished her breakfast and strolled out across the garden with the letters still in her hand. Beyond was a field sloping steeply upwards, and at the top a small pine plantation. She climbed slowly towards it, keeping close to the hedge side, fragrant with wild roses, and holding her skirts high above the dew-laden grass. Arrived in the plantation she sat down with her back against a tree trunk.
Already the warm sun was drawing from the pines their delicious odour. Below her stretched a valley of rich meadowland, of yellow cornfields, and beyond moorland hillside glorious with purple heather and golden gorse. She tried to compose her thoughts, to think of the last six months, to steep herself in the calm beauty of the surroundings. And she found herself able to do nothing of the sort. A new restlessness seemed to have stolen in upon her. She started at the falling of a leaf, at the lumbering of a cow through the hedge. Her heart was beating with quite unaccustomed vigour, her hands were hot, she was conscious of a warmth in her blood which the summer sunshine was scarcely responsible for. She struggled against it quite uselessly. She knew very well that a new thing was stirring in her. The period of repression was over. It is foolish, she murmured to herself, foolish. He will not come. He cannot.
And then all her restlessness was turned to joy. She sprang to her feet and stood listening with parted lips and eager eyes. So he found her when he came round the corner of the spinney.