The Garden of Memories

by Henry St. John Cooper

And the sunshine was on his brown honest face and in his clear eyes. He could only see the smile she had for him, he could not read at this distance the message in her eyes, a new message, one that they had never sent to him before, a message of a newly found yet great and sure and strong love.

And now, as she watched him, she knew why yesterday she had been able to turn that leaf, in the book of her life with scarce a heartache.

She knew the truth now, she had idealised the child's love, she had lived on the ideal, had tended it and cared for it and worshipped it and had made it the most beautiful and wonderful thing in her life. She had built for herself a great and wonderful palace and had found that its foundations were laid on the shifting sands, and so the dream palace had crumbled and fallen into utter ruin, the dream had ended, and with clear eyes she beheld the truth.

This morning Scarsdale had told her quietly that he had been asked to stay by Allan. He had watched her curiously while he told her, had wondered if she would shew anger or annoyance, and she had shewn neither.

She was only the gracious hostess who expressed her pleasure at his continued stay.

"When our other friends are gone, I am afraid you will find it very dull, unless you are interested in those things that Allan is interested in—this modern, scientific farming." She smiled at him, there was no self-consciousness.

Yesterday might never have been, all the years, all their memories might never have been. This man was her guest, her husband's friend—his guest from this moment, nothing more. She was not playing a part, she was not cheating herself. Yesterday she had told him that as lovers they had parted forever, as mere friends they would probably meet many times, and so it was.

Harold Scarsdale represented nothing to her now; he was even less her friend henceforth than her husband's.

He had wondered at the far-away look in her eyes, at the almost mechanical way in which she had accepted his news. How could he guess how utterly and completely her thoughts were filled with this knowledge, the greatest, most wonderful that ever comes into a woman's life?

And so she sat here by her window and watched the figures of the two men, both dear to her, but one grown suddenly so wonderfully, so inexpressibly dear that the strength and depth of her love almost made her afraid.