“We’ve been separated nearly three months,” said Caro, dolefully; “eleven weeks and four days today. But I’m not going to talk about David any more. What hurts me most of all is the way I’ve treated you. You ought to hate me if you don’t. I—”
I laid my hand over her mouth.
“What’s the use of being older than you if I can’t understand, child? And I’ve travelled every step of the way before. Everything that isn’t right will come right between you and David; but with you and me everything is right already. Just drop your troubles under the trees, dearie, as I do, and open your heart to the hills and the sky. Isn’t today worth yesterday’s storm?”
She sat up and looked across the Valley. The mountains stood out in the afternoon sunlight all the clearer for the long shadows already gathering in the hollows; each leaf and grass blade was shining fresh after the rain, and everywhere was a flutter and stir of wings. A nuthatch crept down a locust trunk before us, a yellow-billed cuckoo slipped by overhead; and all down the hillside the swallows swept in long, beautiful curves, their bright breasts shining against the sun.
“Dear,” I said presently, “don’t you see, out of doors here, how wise it is to take the long look at life? The mountains make me ashamed of my fretting. And life is working toward this beauty all the time; the winters in the way don’t matter; they pass. And yet before they pass they teach us to love life better when it re-appears. When your happiness is safe in your hands once more, you won’t hurt it again for a child’s anger or a fool’s speech. I know; for I learned it, too.”
She laid her cheek against my hand in silence, and we watched together while the sun went down. The blue shadows overflowed the hollows of the mountains and met across the green ridges on their sides. Against that shadowed background the poplars of the Garden, smitten by the last rays of sunlight, shone like silver, and the locusts like fronds of gold.
Far below, in the Valley, lay the peace of the coming twilight, and all about us were the soft murmuring of birdlings settling down to rest, and of mothers crooning over them as they slept. And at last the gardener came over from the Madam’s, and wheeled me back, with Caro by my side.
August 2nd. The Peon is with David now, and I shall soon be having news. He did not start as early as he hoped, and was detained on the way; but being there at last, he will soon be able to tell me something definite about David’s coming home. I haven’t meddled a meddle: not that I’ve earned any frill to my halo thereby; it’s just that I know by my own past Caro would catch up with me if I tried it, even if I hadn’t promised David. So I’m pinning my hopes to the Peon: he has been so very non-committal that he must have something on his mind. But I can’t share these hopes with Caro, and they wouldn’t help her if I could: she is in that stage of penitence where it is against her principles for her to accept consolation, so far as David is concerned. Her misery, poor little soul, is the only comfort she can allow herself; and if her happiness is to have a thorough recovery, the process cannot be hurried.