Every incident of Myron's life was noted and enhanced by Ann's evil imaginings—was bruited from lip to lip. Myron knew this. In the old days, whatever bitterness had awaited her within the walls of the cottage, they had at least shielded her from the curious eye and whispering lip of the village. They did so no longer. Her last refuge was taken from her. She felt she lived in a veritable glass house, pierced by day and night by relentless eyes. The knowledge made her restless and ill at ease.
Ann did her best, as has been said, to deserve the welcome she received at Mrs. Dean's, Mrs. White's, Mrs. Warner's, and the other houses she went to. She crawled up from her warm couch to listen at Myron's door at night, and crept back, shivering with cold, and angry that Myron did not justify the vileness of her suspicions.
The "long glories of the winter moon" sent shafts of pale light to illumine both the sleepers and the listener. Within the chamber were the two shamed ones—the sinful mother, the child of sin. The two faces close together, both calm—for one heart was ignorant of the world and its cruelty, and the other for a brief space oblivious. Two hands were hidden, close clasped, beneath the coverlet; two lay palms up, so that the moonshine lit them palely—the one pink-palmed, unscarred, unstained; the other so worn, so hard, having lifted such heavy loads and borne such bitter burdens, having been stung by flowers that change to undying nettles, having so often shielded shamed eyes, having so often pressed against a breaking heart, having so often been raised in fruitless supplication, so often wrung in despair.
Without the door the listener, tremulous with eagerness, leant, holding her breath, and longing for the confirmation of her evil thoughts. She caught only the cadence of the breathing of mother and child—a music sweet to the old gods long ago, they say, and sacred still to us, the incense of love's devotion and sacrifice of suffering.
And is the offering less sacred because ascending from an altar differing in shape from the law's design? In what strange quality were these commingling breaths lacking that they should rise in vain?
Love bestows upon many things its own immortality. Why not upon the air, that gives it life? The air that has been breathed by the mutual lips of love can never again commingle with the grosser ether of our earthly atmosphere. It ascends afar, and perchance shall form the winey atmosphere of that fabled Land of Compensation, where, we are told, "the crooked shall be made straight."
CHAPTER XVII.
"All the secret of the spring
Moved in the chambers of the blood."
"Lovely spring
A brief sweet thing,
Is swift on the wing."