And he had returned from service without the uniform!
He had used to come and dream here after the Woolwich years, whenever he could get off from duty or was not with Cary. He had come here often in that winter when Cary was away in France. And he had planned his portrait hanging so, in uniform, with hers near his—even as his mother's was near his father's. And sometimes when the sun had gone and the darkness had crept in, the shadows had taken other forms—the forms of children—who would troop up and take their places on the empty spaces waiting for them on the wall.
He had dreamed of her—-of Cary—as a strong passionate nature dreams of its best beloved. He had fancied her in a hundred different guises—at the head of his table, moving around the house, as its mistress, talking to old Mactier and his tenantry, as the master's wife; he had dreamed of her, after he and she had lived together alone for a period of ineffable bliss, as the mother of his children; strong sons and fair daughters, that would reflect her sweetness and his strength—the completion of their love. He had dreamed of the time when the house would ring with their voices, and then of the days when the house had lapsed into silence again, when learning love's mystery they had gone to homes of their own; when he and she would live on in a love that time could not change, nor age wither; how later she would lay him in the tomb of his ancestors, and later still they would put her close beside him and his people. He had never dreamed of her dying first, or of his life without her.
And now, she had gone from his life, and the dreams had gone; and he had shattered the hopes with his own hand. He would never feel her in his arms, or lean down and rest the hollow of his cheek against her hair; he would never see her moving around the house, or watch her shadow as she passed. She would never rest beside him in the vault.
The house would remain silent in the years that stretched ahead, as it had remained silent in the years that lay behind. There would never be again even the dream echoes of the children's voices. His portrait—in uniform—would never hang upon the wall; the space where he had dreamed her pictured face would look down into his living one, would be left empty; and the shadows would never take the forms of little children, and only the grim shadow-curtain of darkness would stretch across the barren wall.
And he would leave the gallery and go into the desolate library, where he and she had stood that day of the storm, and he would sit down and bow his face on the big, carved table, wondering what was the answer to the twisted riddle of his life.
He had told himself he would pick up the broken pieces and remould them for England and the Service, and he had thought to learn the answer here—at home, in Scotland, by the crags and sea.
But Scotland had not answered him.
VII.
Trevelyan let the hand that held Mackenzie's letter fall between his sprawling legs.