“You two people do find queer things to talk about,” cried a lively voice behind them. “If I knew what mystical meant, I should say that it was you and Tessa. Don’t you want to hear all about Mrs. Towne, and what a lovely room we were taken into?”
“Yes, dear, and how her hair was fixed and just how she was dressed.”
Tessa ran back to her pansies; Mrs. Wadsworth had found a theme to enlarge upon for the next half hour. As Tessa worked among the flowers, a poem that she had learned that day while making the button-holes sang itself through and through her heart.
“Oh the hurt and the hurt and the hurt of love!
Wherever the sun shines, the waters go,
It hurts the snowdrop, it hurts the dove,
God on His throne, and man below.
But sun would not shine nor waters go,
Snowdrop tremble nor fair dove moan,
God be on high, nor man below,
But for love—the love with its hurt alone.
Thou knowest, O, Saviour, its hurt and its sorrows,
Didst rescue its joy by the might of Thy pain;
Lord of all yesterdays, days, and to-morrows,
Help us love on in the hope of Thy gain!
Hurt as it may, love on, love forever;
Love for love’s sake like the Father above,
But for whose brave-hearted Son we had never
Known the sweet hurt of the sorrowful love.”
“I am not sincere in repeating that,” she mused. “I don’t love on, love forever—and I don’t want to! If I were in a book, every thing would make no difference, nothing would make a difference—would love on, love forever—and I don’t know how. I wish I did. It would not change him, but it would make me very glad and very good! I can not attain to it.”
The grazing sound of wheels brought her back to the pansies, then to Dr. Lake; he had driven up close to the opening in the lilac shrubbery.
“Ah, Mystic.”
“Good evening, doctor.”
It was the first time that they had been alone together since Sue’s engagement. She had been dreading this first time. She arose and brushed her hands against each other, moving towards the opening in the lilacs.
“I saw you, and could not resist the temptation of stopping to speak to you.”