Marjorie cast a sorrowful upward glance at the portrait. She thought she knew the tragic end of the blue-eyed man’s love idyl. Nothing but the rustle of the notebook’s leaf as she turned it broke the hush pervading the study. Her eyes met that which wrung from her a little cry of gladness.
“I have found love. I know its meaning now. I have come from the other side of the world to learn the wonder of all wonders. It is not the wonder of deeds. It is the wonder of a woman’s love, changeless in its white glory. I walked in darkness, without knowing. Now I have come into the light. She always loved me, from the first day. How could I have been so blind? There was a woman, my mother, who loved me. There is a woman, Angela, who loves me now. I know only these two.
“We shall be married at Easter. That time seems far off. Angela tells me it is only five months away. From November until April I shall endeavor to lavish upon her the devotion she says she feared might never be hers. I chose achievement instead of love. Yet love did not forsake me. I have been magnificently favored by God.”
The lovely, changeful face of the absorbed reader lightened a little over the cheerful turn in the story. Her faint smile died with the stark remembrance that Brooke Hamilton had not married. She continued reading with a sigh:
“Christmas Eve, eleven o’clock. I have just returned from Vernon Lodge. Early this evening I heard my favorite carol, ‘God Rest You Merry Gentlemen’ coming sweetly from the sitting room bow window. Angela, Adele and Bobby Vernon were the carolers. Angela’s high, entrancing soprano voice still lingers in my ears. I think I shall never wish to hear a truer, sweeter voice singing the carol my mother so greatly loved.
“Of course I caught them, brought them into the house, kissed Angela’s lips, under the mistletoe, kissed Adele’s hand and shook hands with Bobby. I would have entertained them at the Arms but they marched me off to Vernon Lodge. There we had one more divinely happy evening together. Angela is always so full of life, so brimming over with charm. I tell her sometimes she is too charming for her strength. She is rather frail still from the ravages of pneumonia. When we are married we shall go overseas on a long honeymoon voyage. This I believe will restore her to her former strength of constitution.”
Marjorie hastily turned the leaf. She was prepared for disaster, but it came with a relentlessness which made her heart ache:
“May first. My birthday. I am alone. It is two months since Angela died. Is that a long, or a short space of time? I do not know. I know only she is gone. She complained of being weary in the evening. Next morning they found her asleep, her dear little crinkling smile on her lips. Pneumonia had weakened her heart. Even she did not know to what extent. This afternoon I gathered quantities of the double, fragrant purple violets for which the Arms has been famed since my grandmother’s day. I took them all to the Vernon vault, my offering to love. Angela was not there, naturally. Her radiant spirit had long since transcended earth.
“I, Brooke Hamilton, a strong man, remain here. If only I had earlier understood love. I might have, had I not been so closely wrapped in my own dreams of achievement. What even greater things I might have accomplished with her by my side. Great love is the impetus to noble achievement. I know it now. Dear Angela! I bruised her tender heart with my selfish indifference to her love for me. God in mercy willed that I should not break it. Out of long years, four months! Forgive me, sweet. I shall never write in this book again.”
Marjorie put her curly head down on the table and cried. She had lived and suffered that balmy spring morning with Brooke Hamilton. She had a sad impression that she had forever passed out of the comfortable state of disinterest with which she had formerly looked upon love. Nothing would ever be the same again.