There was a fire in the west. Upon the dreaming land the dreaming mist lay pale. The sentinel trees stood motionless and dark, each folded in his mantle of grey. Only the water waked and knew its God. And far across the sleeping land, in the long lines of flooded meadow, the fire trembled on the upturned face of the water, like the reflection of the divine glory in a passionate human soul.
It passed. The light throbbed and died, but Di did not stir. And as she sat motionless, her mind slipped sharp and keen out of its lethargy and restlessness, like a sword from its scabbard.
"Now, at this moment, is he alive or dead?"
And at the thought of death, that holiest minister who waits on life, all the rebellious anger, all the nameless fierce resentment against her lover—because he was her lover—fell from her like a garment, died down like Peter's lies at the glance of Christ.
The evening deepened its mourning for the dead day. One star shook in the empty sky, above the shadow and the mist.
"Love the gift is Love the debt." Di perceived that at last. A great shame fell upon her for the divided feelings, the unconscious struggle with her own heart, of the last few weeks. It appeared to her now ignoble, as all elementary phases of feeling, all sheaths of deep affections must appear, in the moment when that which they enfolded and protected grows beyond the narrow confines which it no longer needs.
If he is dead? Di twisted her hands.
Who, one of two that have loved and stood apart has escaped that pang, if death intervene? A moment ago and the world was full of messengers waiting to speed between them at the slightest bidding. A penny stamp could do it. But there was no bidding. A moment more and all communication is cut off. No Armada can cross that sea.
"Perhaps he is dying; and I sit here," she said. "I would give my life for him, and I cannot do a hand's turn." And she rocked herself to and fro.
For the first time in her life Di dashed herself blindly against one of God's boundaries; and the shock that a first realization of our helplessness always brings, struck her like a blow. She could do nothing.