"I see with your eyes, I speak with your voice, I comprehend with your mind when you are present. When you are absent, I become as the echo unevoked by any sound, as the shadow when neither sun or moon look forth to cast it, as the reflection in the mirror when that of which it was the image has moved away. Only my heart remains to me; and it, when you are absent, longs and searches, journeying from place to place, formless, wordless, and blind, sensible only of its own infelicity, while seeking that which alone can bring it ease and light."
"My poor love!" Laurence said gently, greatly moved; "my poor love!"
For a space he was silent, pondering upon her words, almost staggered by the intensity of her innocent passion. He was not worthy to inspire such devotion. Had that other Laurence Rivers, his predecessor and namesake, been more worthy, he wondered. Shame covered him in face of the deception he was in process of practising upon her. But he put the thought of that from him fiercely. For was he not prepared to take all the risks? Surely his action was justified—was it not a work of mercy to rescue and restore this gentle and homeless ghost? And then, since the air was mild and the young moon lent an added charm to the formal alleys of the Italian garden, Laurence, hoping thereby both to allay his own perturbation of spirit and dissipate the melancholy which still sat in the clear depths of Agnes Rivers's lovely eyes, engaged her to come out, once more, and walk. But though the charm of the garden was great, he almost regretted that he had invited her to leave the shelter of the house, she appeared so anxiously elusive and fragile a creature. Watching her, though his courage was stubborn and his will fiercely set, the task he had undertaken appeared hopeless of accomplishment. But if the task was hopeless, all the more must it be fulfilled—that had been the way of his people, and henceforth it was to be his way. And so he talked to her with a certain lightness, looking at her and smiling.
"Are you happy, Agnes?" he asked her at last.
And she answered with a return to her daintily demure and old-world manner—
"I should, indeed, be ungrateful were I not so, dear Laurence. Yet, since you question me, I must own a distrust of the future works a black thread through all the glad pattern of the present."
She paused, glancing back somewhat timidly at the house. Every window of it was lighted, save those of Mr. Rivers's bed-chamber. These last were dark and blank, producing an arresting effect, and recalling to Laurence the empty eye-sockets of the crystal memento mori.
"You are here with me," she continued, "and again I taste happiness. Yet I am oppressed by the persuasion that, as before, in some hour of peculiar promise and security you will be called from my side. And that this time—ah! I fear you may justly reproach my weakness and deride my far-fetched alarms—this time, going, you will not return; or returning, you will no longer find me here to greet you."
"Then very certainly I will never go—that is unless you yourself send me," Laurence said. He walked on a few paces, and then added, speaking almost sullenly, answering his own thoughts rather than her words—"Thank Heaven, I am my own master at last. No one can compel me. I can do as I think fit; and since I think fit to stay, stay I most assuredly will, here among my own people, and in my own house."
He looked at his companion, instinctively desiring to read approval in her eyes; but her expression was one of startled inquiry.