The Land of Content

by Edith Barnard Delano

In a moment she would have been in his arms, for they were opened toward her. But before she had quite reached him he threw them upward, across his face, as if to shut off the sight of her, and with a cry she could never forget turned and ran, stumbling down from the little path to the highway, crashing through the bushes, running, running, in the desperate haste of a man fleeing from temptation, over the frozen ruts, sometimes stumbling, almost falling, recovering, running still—running away from her.

She could never tell how she got back to the cottage, how she found her way to her own room through the blind agony of the hour. What stood between them she could not surmise; yet now she knew, beyond all doubt, that he loved her. His cry still rang in her ears. There might remain wonder, distress, sorrow, even separation; but doubt had been forever swept away.

Somehow she got through the evening, and, later, slept. She awoke before dawn as if someone were calling; and, as in answer, she slipped from the bed and went to her window. She thrust her feet into her fur-lined bedroom slippers; the heavy coat she used for driving lay across a chair; she fastened it around her, and turned the full collar up about her bare white throat. The air was very cold, but so still that it held no sting. Over the sleeping whiteness of the valley, the snowy steeps of the lower hillsides, the dark crests of the mountains, myriads of stars shone with a pale radiance more lovely far than moonlight. Mother Cary's lamp burned, small and clear, on the side of the opposite mountain, which at night seemed so like a huge crouching beast; little farmsteads in the valley and the nearer cottages were alike dark and slumbering patches of shadow. She watched the steady brilliance of a planet pass towards the horizon and sink over the mountain. A star fell. After a while, from somewhere far away, a cock crowed. The earth was waiting for the day.

Then a subtle change began. The stars grew dim; the sky deepened its blue, and again slowly paled. The western mountains were faintly crowned with light, and under the base of those to the eastward shadows gathered more closely. Again a cock called, and was answered from near at hand. Over the eastern mountain tops an iridescent wave of color spread upward. So still was the air, so silent lay the earth, that it might have been the expectant hush of creation, the quiet of some new thing forming in the Thought which gives love birth. Dawn was there; and through the stillness something stirred, or dimly echoed; almost a pulse it seemed, or the first faint throbs of life. Then gaining strength, or coming nearer, the sound came up to her more clearly. She knew where the road lay, white on white; along its winding lift something was moving. Surely the sound came from there! Nearer, more clearly, beat upon beat, she heard it. At last she made out the form, and watched it with straining eyes and heart that yearned toward it.

From some night errand of ministration his old white mare was wearily bringing him homeward.

XX

Yetta, a pretty girlish figure in soft gray, was leaning on the rail of the box, lost in the absorption of her first opera. For three or four exciting days they had been in the city, and Yetta felt as if she had been swept into fairyland. Everything was wonderful. Miss Randall had blossomed into a princess in marvelous raiment. The most beautiful lady in the world, Miss Randall's sister, had taken her to shops and bought her various garments as fine as Miss Randall's own. She had been whirled about in warm, closed automobiles. Footmen at whom, less than a year ago, she would have been pleased to smile, had opened doors for her while she haughtily passed through, outwardly oblivious of their magnificence. Miss Randall's friends, while they asked various questions about her as if she had possessed neither eyes nor ears, were mostly very kind and gentle to her. It was wonderful, and Yetta felt that the greatest day of her life had been the one when Miss Randall, coming down to breakfast, had surprised them all by declaring that she was going to New York that afternoon for a week or two, that Yetta was to accompany her, and that neither Mrs. Reeves, nor Grace, nor Timmy, nor Aunt Sue, nor Matt must divulge to a soul among their neighbors that she had gone, because she would be back before they had had time to think twice about it. And the crowning glory of it all was this, that to-night she was in the great Opera House in a box, leaning out toward the stage, and listening, listening, listening! She was certainly herself, Yetta; but it seemed as if she must also be someone else—someone in a lovely soft gray gown to whom Miss Randall's friends, coming into the box from time to time, bowed formally, as if she were a lady, and asked how she was enjoying herself; and quite secretly, though with all the intensity of her soul and her imagination she knew it, she was still another person who should, some day, be there on the stage, charming these hundreds of people as she herself was now bewitched, by the joy and beauty of a voice—her voice, Yetta's! But to-night it was enough to be a fairy princess!

Rosamund had not stopped to speculate upon Yetta's readiness for the great experience until they were on the north-bound train, on the day after her last encounter with Ogilvie. Her own need had been too pressing to admit of any other speculation or demand. She knew, when she turned back from the window after her vigil of the dawn, that she must get away for a time, away from the very thought of him, if she was to be able to continue to think at all. So she had bound the remaining members of the household to secrecy, and, with Yetta, started for New York.

The girl was really presentable, she thought. A child of no other race could have adjusted herself so quickly to the new demands; she believed that Yetta was now ready for a wider horizon, for she spoke and moved so well that Rosamund was sure even Cecilia's fastidiousness could find little fault in her. She meant to give her a glimpse of the larger world, to have her voice "tried" by a competent critic, and then to return to the little brown house, perhaps with a governess for the girl, someone who could do more for her education than the little school-teacher. At any rate, the trip would give her time to recover herself, to think, perhaps to decipher something of the puzzle of John Ogilvie's conduct.