I questioned the stars in my blind anguish to learn if there were no resources in nature to wall in this terrible blank of being that stretched so miserably, so limitlessly before me as a future without Brases or Trueberry. Old interests, old tastes, old desires had dropped from me, and I stood beggared of sum and aim of life.’
I was abroad upon the moors by sunrise, lessening my feeling of personal diminution in the earth’s grandeur and the wavering immensity of the Atlantic as it rolled under the lemon-tinted horizon. I took my last look of forked mountains against the grey-shot blue of the heaven, of shattered rocks, and sombre tarn seen through the opening of a valley, and the distant plain, an inner sea of bracken and heather. Ever the sound of water, of moaning wave, of mingling rill, of foaming fall, the shrill cry of eagle and curlew, and the melody of the early birds. An hour hence should find me trudging to Kilstern, away from the wild beauty of this place—the home of Brases! On my way back, I met my host, and mentioned my intention. ‘That’s as it should be,’ was all he said.
His curt approval galled me, and to silence discourteous retort, I flung myself over the stone ledge, and took the manor path like a chased creature. With what unconscious accuracy of observation I noted each leaf, each colour and form of a scene memory was destined to retain for evermore! following with eager eyes the light as it made its own short road of gold among the dense shadows, and these as they picked out in blots the sunny spaces.
The hall door as usual was open, and in passing the portraits, I took my last look of the boy with curls and ruffles, and beyond of the girl with the proud fair face that might be a portrait of Brases in younger days. I inspected it steadily, and traced where resemblance stopped in the lack of the subtle stamp of the soul, the ennobling seal of grief. It was a Brases who had never wept, never thought, a creature of mere bodily beauty.
I found Trueberry walking up and down in restless expectation. I could see that sight of me brought an uncontrollable smart of disappointment to his eyelids, and his expressive mouth twitched like a child’s.
‘What’s the matter, Gontran?’ he asked, with an affectionate effort, and placed one hand on my shoulder. ‘You look frightfully battered, my poor fellow.’
‘Last night I meant to go away in silence,’ I said, not able to meet his kind glance, ‘but to-day I decided I owed my friend a franker course. Neither of us is responsible for the fact, but we must separate now.’
‘You would desert me, Gontran—now!’ he cried, and the bitter tone of his reproach fetched a sob to my throat.
‘I wish to God it should not be, that I had the unselfish courage to stay and witness your happiness——’
‘Happiness!’ he shouted frantically. ‘My poor boy, I am more miserable than yourself,’ he added, with a dejected movement.