The Garden of Memories

by Henry St. John Cooper

She dropped him a curtsey, "My Lady sent me to say that she would be here in the garden very soon, sir."

"Thank you." He stood looking at her, at the pretty, downcast face. He looked after her when she had turned back towards the house. A pretty little country girl with a sweet voice, he thought, and then, even before she had whisked out of sight behind a door, he had forgotten her and his thoughts had gone back to the one to whom they were constant.

She was coming, and when she came what should he say to her? Just as ten years ago he had watched and waited for her in another garden, his heart filled with love for her, so he was watching and waiting now and his love was the same, no—not the same, for, even he, was conscious of its change. But it was no less, it was even more, it was greater, it burned with a stronger flame, a greater passion.

And after ten years—did many men love for ten long years, were many men as constant as he had been? Would not that constancy count for something with her? Surely, surely it must, for women prized constancy in a man above all other things.

So the smile still lingered on his lips, as he turned and slowly made his way along the sun warmed path. What should he say to her when she came, what had he said to her in the old days when he had poured out his heart to her? A thousand things, a million things, and yet all were summed up in three words, "I love you."

He had given her everything, a man's love, a man's constancy. His heart had not beaten one throb the faster for any woman but her. His eyes had found no pleasure in looking on any other woman's face. Could man give more than he had given? What could he ask in return? Everything—and he knew that he must ask everything of her.

Kathleen was conscious of a trepidation, of a nervousness unusual to her. A strange shyness had come to her, an unwillingness to meet him; yet she must and because she must she was here. She had asked herself—Was he the same, had the years altered him? And she had answered her own questions with No and Yes: he was not the same, the years had altered him. She scarcely knew this silent, almost morose man. He came to her with his tanned, lean face, his deep sombre eyes, as almost a stranger, just now and again for a fleeting moment she saw something in his face, heard something in his voice that brought back memories of the boy she had known and loved. Yet they were but fleeting.

The ardent, outspoken, honest, loving boy had changed into the quiet, self-contained man. The man had infinitely more self-control than the boy. Yet she had seen those eyes of his lighten up, had seen the spark of fire gleam in them and she knew that it was not the same flame that had burned so brightly in the boyish eyes.

He met her and looked at her with a smile on his face, but he did not speak and she spoke because she knew that the silence must be broken.

"I saw you from my window, you have been admiring the—our garden," she said.