A very curious silence followed this remark; then Rosalie continued:
“The country beyond was very beautiful—at least, I thought it was. It—it led me to a white house, with a low verandah and a pretty garden. It took me a whole day to go, and the sun was setting when I got there. In the house I met a youth—at least, I thought he was young; but afterwards he told me he was nearly as old as you. But he seemed to grow very quickly in the time that I was staying there. He took me to his father. At first I thought he was very old, because his hair was white. I had just one day’s holiday when I was there, and then I went to live in a little hut all alone, with a plantation in front of it. I sowed a basket of seeds in the ground that the Governor (that is the name I knew him by) had given me. But first I had to dig in the soil, and I didn’t like digging at all; I hated it. After that, everything went by the rule of contrary. The seeds never came up; they grew underneath, and looked to me like very beautiful jewels. But they took a great deal of digging out and freeing from the soil. I took them to the Governor, and he sent them somewhere, I think he said it was to the city, to be tested and valued. But every time they were sent back and marked as rubbish. I’ve never felt quite the same since. I used to feel young before, but ever since I’ve felt as old as old. And I do nothing but pretend all day long, in little and big things alike. I pretend least with you of anyone, and that night I ran away from you in the street (you remember it?) I felt quite surprised, and in one way just a little happy. It made me feel just a little more alive. But after a while the Governor said I had better come back again into the world. I didn’t want to, because there was nowhere to go to, and I did not want to come back to this house again. I was tired of prisons. But when he told me to come back into the world I was obedient, because I knew he was much wiser than anyone that I had ever met before. He was kind to me in some ways, although he never threw kindness away. So one morning I started on the return journey, and Brightcoat came along with me for company.
“When we were in the streets, I went along scarcely knowing what I was doing, I was so tired, and at last I sat down on a doorstep. It was Sir John Crokerly’s, and when his sister came home she took me in; and I have lived there ever since. There is nothing else to tell you. Now you know all, you need trouble yourself to be agreeable to me no longer. After all, I owed it to you to tell you. You gave me a greater gift than I thought it possible anyone on earth could ever give me. And you no doubt put it down to science, but I put it down to God. And—and about my coming here, when first I did come to you. I came from the sacred place of the temple. I had given up wishing to be cured of being dumb—at least, praying to be cured, because I thought God was not wishful to cure me. And I prayed to the Serpent just to help me to live the right way, because I knew that that was the only thing God really cared about And the Serpent seemed quite to disappear; in its place came the presence of God. Only one little ball of light and gold was left out of all that giant frame and jewelled head. And I don’t know quite how it was I came to you, any more than now I have gone to Miss Crokerly.”
With these words said, she got up and stood facing him, for he had not sat down during this monologue but stood looking at her, a thing which, after first beginning, she seemed quite unconscious of.
Her words had been simple, her sentences short and abrupt, and at times somewhat disconnected, but Rosalie’s voice was so sweet that it seemed to run like a silver bell in and out the mazes of this experience.
Now she held out her hand.
“I have detained you long enough. Perhaps you’ll forgive the school-girl style. Though I feel so old, I can find no other.”
“Come with me to the stable,” said he, “and show me the door. I don’t believe there is one.”
“You will be able to find it yourself.”
“I had much rather you came with me. It is the only way in which I can credit your story.”