Had she been hard to him, too hard?—for some hardness is the only kindness to such natures as his. Was it some true instinct, after all, that impelled him to fly to her to pick him out of the mire and save him? Her last words to him had indeed been hot and harsh; she had seen him wince and quiver under them—poor Ivor! She would have softened their effect with some kinder and sweeter words but for the storm and the baleful interruption of the Anarchist, who should have known better than to intrude at such a moment. Now she would see him no more; nothing could heal the wounds she had made; they would always rankle in his memory; the acid would bite deeper and deeper, as time went on and he plunged deeper and deeper into the mire of which he had spoken, whence gentler words and the love he craved might have drawn him. And yet her words had been terribly true. Yes, but she might have put them more gently and sweetly; she had blundered with a bludgeon, where a silken lash or the prick of a knife-point might have been enough. If only the storm and the Anarchist had kept away a few minutes, just a few precious, golden, irretrievable minutes, longer! But he would never have made the renunciation she asked. No; but if she had been kinder; if she had let him see that she was to be won; nay, if she had even given way, held out the hand he asked for and let him grasp it firmly, who knows but she might gradually and with much pain and anguish have rescued him? Who could tell? She might at least have given him hope. And even if all had been in vain, could it have been much worse than this?
She pictured him in his despair and anger, hardening day by day, descending deeper and deeper, reckless, loveless, degraded. She began to hate this mad, proud reticence of women, that will only give love for assured, declared love; what was it in comparison with a man's salvation? Why not have told the poor boy she loved him? Too late now. It was all over; her sacrifice had been in vain. Oh! she should have given more. She should have thrown herself into the breach, her whole self and all her shrinkings and loathings, her pride and reticence. No; that too would have been vain; to stain herself would never make him clean; nor could her descent ever lift him up.
His mother, that sweet, long-suffering mother and high-souled woman, what pain for her! Now she would have to bear this bitter sorrow always. Had a true instinct and no common sense prudence warned her that Agatha could do nothing for her prodigal, when she besought her so earnestly to give no response to his advances? These thoughts warring in her heart brought her to distraction and took the last remnants of strength from her tired body; she could hardly drag herself ever so slowly and falteringly up the steps, with gasping breath and throbbing pulse.
The storm had completely passed now; the divine stillness of the mountain solitudes had returned; sound there was none, save the distant roar of the vexed and chafing sea, whence the indigo stain had fled, leaving it darkly and deeply blue as before, with tumbling ridges of white foam, touched with gold. For now the setting sun flashed out from broken cloud, throwing rose-gold radiance across the western bay, striking up wooded hill-spurs, bringing towers and village walls into sudden glow, and flushing the wet, bare mountain peaks one after another with crimson fire.
Even Agatha's sad heart was quickened as she lifted her eyes to that glorious spectacle and saw the rose flame kindle peak after peak in the vast sweep of engirdling mountains with vivid changing splendour. It was as if the fire of Heaven had visibly descended upon that temple of many altars, in token of some hidden, accepted sacrifice, some offered incense found worthy and well-pleasing. The splendour glowed and deepened till every barren, craggy peak, veined with shadow and streaked with fresh snow, was a crimson flame on a violet sky; the deep silence was a mystic, triumphant psalm of praise to which the solemn roar of the troubled sea was a humbler antiphon, a more earthly response. "The Lord sitteth above the water-flood—The Lord is King be the people never so impatient," the far-off surges sang, and the impatience died from her troubled heart; the poignancy of her despair abated. The celestial fire, changing and quivering as with life-breath, kindled upon ridge after ridge; every village tower, every cottage and hut glowed in the jewel-flame; the white convent walls gleamed in pale claret and lambent gold from between dark cypress and eucalyptus boughs; and at the top of the steps, its welcoming arms flung wide to the world, the great wooden cross, one blaze of rose-gold fire, proclaimed the one hope in all the wide waste tumult of human life, the one eternal sacrifice, the Calvary that is the only road to any Paradise.
Ave Crux Spes Unica,
she read once more on the glowing centre of the cross.
Only a few hours since, she had prayed and implored, even knelt to, the Jewish usurer near that very cross for Ivor—and all to no purpose. It had been very bitter, to humble herself to that man, to lay bare to his contemptuous and cruel gaze that secret heart-sanctuary a woman veils jealously even from herself. He had said things that brought the crimson to her face and cut her to the very quivering heart; he had laughed and prophesied the futility of what she implored, even though he had melted and given way with respect, almost tenderness, at last. What if her own sacrifice, poor and petty, though so much to her, were vain, could that symbolized in the plain wood steeped in glorious rose-lustre above her ever fail?
No; that could never fail, never be in vain, not wholly, not eternally, in vain, something whispered to her stricken heart, and she fell on her knees among the melting hailstones, and prayed with greater passion than ever before, consumed with anguish, uplifted by faith, quivering with love and adoration, thrilled through all her sorrow with a deep divine sweetness; and notwithstanding the fervour of her supplication, full of quiet acquiescence in whatsoever the divine will should accord, even though it seemed despair.
The rosy fire died from the cross and the lower hill-crests, and faded lingeringly from the topmost peaks, leaving wooded steep and gorge in deep shadow, while Agatha poured out her heart on the rock steps with tears and prayers unutterable.