"Abroad it rushed,
My frolic soul, for it had sight
Of something half-way, which was known
As mine at once, yet not mine own."
It was early in the morning for Millicent, usually a late sleeper, to be in the garden among the flowers. There Graham found her, white as the gown she wore, standing with her arms filled with dark-red roses,--standing with the sunlight touching her pretty hair, and shining in her cool gray eyes. He stared at her, as at one risen from the dead; he touched her hand before he spoke to her, to make sure that it was really she, alive, with softly heaving breast and warm, clinging fingers. Alive, and not as he had pictured her a thousand times during that terrible ride,--cold and dead, with the stain which had dyed her kerchief, on brow and bosom. For a long time they stood silently looking into each other's faces; and then the man laid her hand gently on his arm, and together they passed down the orchard road, across a space of sunburnt meadow, to a spot they both knew,--Millicent's boudoir, hanging over the narrow stream, walled by six tall redwoods grown from the seeds of some giant predecessor, carpeted with thick green moss, furnished with two rough seats. Here they rested silently for a time,--Graham drawing long breaths of the morning air to relax his tired lungs; Millicent resting her wearied heart with looking at him, all her soul shining through her eyes. Graham first broke the silence with questions of all that had happened since they had parted. She told him of her danger, and of the murder of the Chinaman, in a low voice, full of awe. It had been her first knowledge of death; and the chill reality, the only certain thing which men look forward to, had first been known by her now that she was a woman grown, and could fully understand its dreadful significance. Hitherto, death had been a phrase only; a thing which must come to all creatures, as a matter of course. That she should sometime die she knew, but only by tradition; it had meant nothing to her. Now she understood it all, and the terrible knowledge had chilled her life-blood. Could she ever again think of anything but that dead face? One stronger than the King of Terrors was driving it from her thoughts: love was swiftly painting out the grim picture from her memory.
Step by step they went over the ground of their mutual experiences since the time when they had parted: the picnic, and its tragic ending; the night which Graham had passed in the cabin with Ah Lam's murderer,--for there could be no doubt it was he who had dropped Millicent's handkerchief in the hut. Of the little journal Graham spoke sadly, gently, without anger, as if it were a thing which concerned neither of them. Then Millicent brokenly told the story which the written words had simply indicated. She told it with a sense of thankfulness that the weight of the secret rested no longer on her heart alone; that its pain was shared, and that at last her lover understood and saw her absolutely as she was. No reservation did she make, but bared to him the inmost chambers of her heart, sure of no misunderstanding, and upheld by a sympathy she had never before known. Then her confidence was returned, and Graham spoke to her of many things of which he had never spoken before; of the hopes and aspirations which had sometimes made his life glorious; of the quicksands and hidden rocks which had often made his way dangerous.
A wonderful confession,--solemn as those first confessions made by men and women who at maturity join the Roman Catholic Church, and unflinchingly reveal to the confessor every temptation to which they have yielded in the course of their lives. To no mumbling, inattentive priest, with store of penances and absolutions in his pocket, was the confession made; in no stifling confessional, with throng of penitents outside, grudging every moment of delay. Each spoke to a tender human heart, that filled out the broken sentences, and echoed the deep sighs. The roof of their temple swayed in the light breeze, and the wild birds chanted the hymn of praise which consecrated it.
As Millicent at last sat silent, not knowing whether her lover still spoke to her in words, or if that finer language of the spirit made his thoughts clear to her, came at once a strange consciousness that she was no longer a creature of this earth, with material senses and shape. The last words which she had spoken she remembered as one dimly recalls what has happened in another life. They were these:--
"Are you sorry for me?"
There had been no answer in words or in looks; for the power of sight had been left behind with the outer case, now shaken off for the first time since life upon the earth had begun. She was a thing apart no longer; her existence had become merged in that of a stronger soul, to which she was an all-important part. Folded in this spirit-embrace time was not, nor past nor future; nothing but the perfect ecstasy of a union which eternity should consecrate. Floating on a celestial ether, the double soul mounted ever higher and higher. Was it toward eternal bliss that it was wafted? Was the long waiting at an end?
Again she saw the sunlight; again she heard the ripple of the water; again she felt the earthly tenement closing about the divine spirit. Before her, framed in the green leaves, was a face dear indeed, the face of her lover. With solemn eyes they looked at each other; and a broken voice whispered to her,--
"Dear, what is it?"
She answered softly,--