“We’ve a right to be happy. We’ve suffered enough.” She did not answer him, and he said, “God will understand. He’s merciful. We’ve had our hell here on earth, Naomi ... Naomi ... listen to me! Will you go now ... at once?” A curious, half-mad excitement colored his voice. “I’ve got money. I’ve been putting it aside for a long time, because I’ve thought for a long time I might want to go away.... I’ve been saving it, a dime and a quarter here and there where I could squeeze it. I’ve got more than two hundred dollars. I thought that sometime I’d have to run away. But I meant to go away alone ... I never knew ... I never knew.” He began abruptly to cry, the tears pouring down the lined, tired face. “We’ll go somewhere far away ... to South America, or the South Sea Islands, where nobody will know us. And we’ll be free there, and happy. We’ve a right to a little happiness. Oh, Naomi, we’ll be happy.”
She appeared not to have heard him. She lay in a kind of stupor, until, raising her body gently, he stood up and lifted her easily into the big leather chair, where she lay watching him, her eyes half-closed, her mouth set in a straight, hard line, touched with bitterness.
The Reverend Castor moved quickly, with a strange vigor and decision. The trembling had gone suddenly from his hands. His whole body grew taut and less weary, as if he had become suddenly young. He had the air of a man possessed, as if every fiber, every muscle, every cell, were crying out, “It’s not too late! It’s not too late! There is still time to live!” He approached the desk, and, unlocking the drawer, began taking out money—a thin roll of bills, and then an endless number of coins that tinkled and clattered as they slid into his pockets. There must have been pounds of metal in dimes and nickels and quarters. He filled his vest pocket with cheap cigars from a box on the desk, and then, turning, went over to Naomi, and, raising her from the chair, smoothed her hair and put her hat straight, with his own hands. Then he kissed her chastely on the brow, and she, leaning against him, murmured, “Take me wherever you like. I’m so tired.”
For a moment they stood thus, and presently he began to repeat in his low, rich, moving voice, The Song of Songs.
“For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land....”
The words had upon her a strange effect of exaltation, the same that had come over her when she sat by the piano, carried away by her emotions. She wasn’t Naomi any longer. Naomi seemed to have died. She was a gaudy Queen, and Solomon in all his glory was her lover. She seemed enveloped by light out of which the rich, vibrant voice was saying, “Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether.”
A little while after, as the clock on the firehouse struck midnight, the door of the study closed, and two figures hurried away into the pouring rain. They were a tired, middle-aged preacher and a bedraggled woman, in a queer, homemade dress of figured foulard, and a soaked coat and hat; but there was a light in their eyes which seemed to illumine the darkness and turn aside the rain.
23
Philip wakened slowly, conscious of being stiff and sore from having slept in a cramped position, and thinking, “It must be late. Naomi will be home soon.” And then, looking up at the clock, he saw that it was after one. He rose and went over to it, listening for the tick to make certain that it was working properly. He looked at his own watch. It, too, showed five minutes past one. He listened for a moment to the sound of the rain beating upon the tin roof and then he went into the other two rooms. They were empty, and, suddenly, he was frightened.
Giving a final look at the twins, he seized his hat, and, hurrying down the steps, roused the long-suffering Mrs. Stimson and told her that Naomi hadn’t yet come home. He begged her to leave her door open, so that she might hear the twins if they began to scream, and without waiting to hear her complaints he rushed out into the rain.