Well, After All--

by Frank Frankfort Moore

Which was the dream—the man whom she seemed to see hurrying away from the house, or the man whom she seemed to see coming toward her amid the same whirling leaves, out from the same grey October landscape?

That was the form taken by her thoughts as she stood there. The landscape was precisely the same as it had been when she had awaited his coming to bid her good-bye before starting on his expedition. The same soft greyness was in the sky, the same skeleton trees stretched their gaunt arms out over the road; the sodden green of the grassy meadows, the great, bloom of the chrysanthemums that hid the garden walls, all were the same as they had been; but there was a man hurrying away on the road by which she had stood to watch his approach nine years before.

It seemed to her that she was having but another of the many dreams that had come to her of that man; yes, or was it the memory of a dream that returned to her at that moment—a dream of a devoted lover coming to hold her in his arms and to kiss her face before setting out on the expedition that was to bring honour to him—that was to give him a name of honour which she would share with him?

Which was the dream? Were both dreams? Had she passed her life in a dream, and had she only awakened now?

She drew her hand across her eyes and turned away from the window with an exclamation of impatience. But then she seated herself in front of the fire and bent forward, gazing into the glowing log that had burnt itself out in the grate.

Yes, she was awake now. She could look back and see clearly all that had taken place since she had had that dream of kissing a man and bidding him go forth and win a name for himself. She saw clearly that she had built up for herself the baseless fabric of a vision—that her life had been built upon a foundation no more substantial than air, and now she was sitting among its ruins.

She had lived with but one thought, with but one hope, ever before her, and that hope was to hear the footsteps of the man whom she loved, on the gravel of the drive down which he had gone after bidding her good-bye. Well, her hope had been realised. She had heard the sound of his feet coming to her—yes, and going from her. Heaven had answered her prayer—the one prayer which she had cried through all the years. She only asked to see him again; all the happiness to follow she took for granted.

And now she was seated gazing at the ashes of the log that had once been a tree—at the ashes of the love that had once been her life.

She was full of amazement. How had this wonderful thing come about? How was it that among all her thoughts of disaster, she had never taken account of the possibility of such a thing as the death of his love? His love had always seemed to her the one thing on earth which was certain. To have doubt of it would be as ridiculous as to question the likelihood of the light of the sun being quenched in darkness. Her faith had sustained her when nothing else had come to her aid.

And yet now she sat there looking into the ashes.