East of the Shadows

by Mrs. Hubert Barclay

"I wonder what made me go there to-day," he continued thoughtfully. "I was sitting waiting for you, when suddenly something seemed to tell me to go into the churchyard—and just inside the gate I saw her grave—and then I knew. It was just as if a veil had been torn from my eyes—and still I could not understand. For mother was not old when I saw her last. I was afraid I was mad, until Isabella explained. And I thought and thought while I was waiting, and I knew you could not be Phil, for although you are exactly like my memory of her—in face—she would be much older. And there had been little things which puzzled me—which are clear now—about you, I mean. Phil could never have been content to stay indoors all day as you have—she was always a restless fairy thing—I never remember her still for long—and you are always working. Phil never did. Oh, I can find many little differences now.

"I cannot think of her as dead—she was so bright—so happy. She is dead—and I have lived on all these years. I wonder that I did not know that she was dead. I ought to have known it, for I loved her so. And all our love lately has been only a dream—and we were so happy. Oh, why was I not told the truth? why did you not let me die? It would have been kinder than to let me live to find out for myself—that she is gone—and I am all alone."

Philippa slipped down upon her knees beside the couch, and cried passionately, "Oh no, you are not all alone—we have been so happy—I have made you happy. Can we not be happy again? I love you so—have you no love for me?"

She was sobbing now, with her face hidden in her hands.

"I do not know," he said. "It is Phil I love—I loved you when I thought that you were Phil. My dear, my dear, how can I disentangle the present from the past?"

"Then do not try," she pleaded, raising her tear-stained face. "Oh, Francis, let us be happy again; let me make you happy. Think of me as Phil if you will—but let us dream again the dream we found so sweet. I love you so, and I will comfort you. Think of all we had planned. Shall we not grasp our dream and make it real? If I may be your wife—as you asked me—we will go together to the place where it is always sunshine and you will find that life can hold brightness. I will make it bright for you. You remember it was all arranged, we were to go to the Magical Island—that was what you called it. Do not send me away from you."

He looked at her pityingly. "My dear," he said gently, "it was only a dream—a dream and a delusion. It is not possible—you are only a child, while I am old. You are Jim's girl, and Jim was my boyhood's friend. Your life is all before you, while mine is near the ending—and—it is Phil I love."

"I am no child." She was pleading desperately now for what was slipping from her grasp. "I am no child, but a woman, and I love you—I ask of you nothing more than the right to be with you and care for you. You say you are all alone—then let me comfort you."

He shook his head. "Phil is dead—my life is over—I did not know—and she will forgive me my mistake—she must know I love no one but her. She was so true—I could not but be true to her—and perhaps I may go to her soon—she will be waiting—and I have lost twenty years of Paradise."

A fierce temptation assailed Philippa, the fiercest she had ever known or was ever likely to know—to tell him. To tell him the one thing of which as yet he was ignorant—that Phil had not been true, that she had not loved him, that she had been the wife of another man at the time of her death. Surely if he knew this he would turn to her, whom he had loved—if only in a dream—for a little while.