“I shall never get over it,” said Stella, vehemently. She was crying with her head against her sister’s shoulder. “Oh, Kate, don’t be hard upon me, or say anything! I must—I must have one little half hour with Charlie before he goes away.”
“Indeed—indeed, I shall not say anything! I do feel for you, Stella. I am sorry for him. But, oh, don’t stay long, dear, it will only prolong the trouble. And it is so late, and people might say——”
“How could people say if they didn’t know? And, Katie,” cried her sister, “if you stay here to watch over us, while I bid him—I mean talk to him yonder—what could anyone say? Won’t it be enough to quench every evil tongue if you are there?”
“I suppose it will,” said Katherine dubiously.
She got down very dubiously from the brougham, from which Stella had sprung like an arrow. And Andrews, who drove the warm little carriage which was Stella’s, as he was more or less Stella’s man, turned immediately and drove away, no doubt to relieve the gatekeeper, who was waiting to close up after him. A sleepy footman had opened the door, and stood waiting while Katherine, in her white cloak, lingered in the porch. The fire was still burning in the hall, and the lamp bright. Katherine told the man to go to bed, and that she would herself fasten the door, and then she turned to the glory of the night, and the lawn, and all the shrubberies, looking like frosted silver in the moonlight. Stella had disappeared somewhere among the shadows with her lover. Katherine heard a faint sound of steps, and thought she could perceive still a gleam of whiteness among the trees. She stepped out herself upon the walk. It sounded a little crisp under her foot, for there was frost in the air. The moon was glorious, filling earth and heaven with light, and flinging the blackest shadows into all the corners. And the stillness was such that the dropping of one of those last yellow leaves slowly down through the air was like an event. She was warmly wrapped up in her fur cloak, and, though the hour was eerie, the night was beautiful, and the house with its open door, and the glow of the red fire, and the light of the lamp, gave protection and fellowship. All the rare trees, though sufficiently hardy to bear it, had shrunk a little before that pennyworth of frost, though it was really nothing, not enough to bind the moisture in a little hollow of the path, which Katherine had to avoid as she walked up and down in her satin shoes. After a while she heard the little click of the door at the foot of the steep path which led to the beach, and concluded that Stella had let her lover out that way, and would soon join her. But Katherine was in no hurry; she was not cold, and she had never been out, she thought, in so lovely a night. It carried her away to many thoughts; I will not venture to allege that James Stanford was not one of them. It would have been strange if she had not thought of him in these circumstances. She had never had the chance of saying farewell to him; he had been quenched at once by her father, and he had not had the spirit to come back, which, she supposed, Sir Charles had. He had disappeared and made no sign. Stella was more lucky than she was in every way. Poor Stella! who must just have gone through one of the most terrible of separations! “Partings that press the life from out young hearts!” Who was it that said that? But still it must be better to have the parting than that he should disappear like a shadow without a word, and be no more seen or heard of—as if he were dead. And perhaps he was dead, for anything she knew.
But, what a long time Stella was coming back! If she had let him out at that door, she surely should have found her way up the cliff before now. Katherine turned in that direction, and stood still at the top of the path and listened, but could hear nothing. Perhaps she had been mistaken about the click of the door. It was very dark in that deep shadow—too dark to penetrate into the gloom by herself without a lantern, especially as, after all, she was not quite sure that Stella had gone that way. She must at least wait a little longer before making any search which might betray her sister. She turned back again, accordingly, along the round of the broad cliff with its feathering edge of tamarisks. Oh, what a wonderful world of light and stillness! The white cliff to the east shone and flamed in the moonlight; it was like a tall ghost between the blue sea and the blue sky, both of them so indescribably blue—the little ripple breaking the monotony of one, the hosts of stars half veiled in the superior radiance of the moon diversifying the other. She had never been out on such a beautiful night. It was a thing to remember. She felt that she should never forget (though she certainly was not fond of him at all) the night of Charlie Somers’s departure—the night of the ball, which had been the finest Sliplin had ever known.
As Katherine moved along she heard in the distance, beginning to make a little roll of sound, the carriages of the people going away. She must have been quite a long time there when she perceived this; the red fire in the hall was only a speck now. A little anxious, she went back again to the head of the path. She even ventured a few steps down into the profound blackness. “Stella!” she cried in a low voice, “Stella!” Then she added, still in a kind of whisper, “Come back, oh, come back; it is getting so late.”
But she got no reply. There were various little rustlings, and one sound as of a branch that crushed under a step, but no step was audible. Could they be too engrossed to hear her, or was Stella angry or miserable, declining to answer? Katherine, in great distress, threaded her way back among the trees that seemed to get in her way and take pleasure in striking against her, as if they thought her false to her sister. She was not false to Stella, she declared to herself indignantly; but this was too long—she should not have stayed so long. Katherine began to feel cold, with a chill that was not of the night. And then there sounded into the clear shining air the stroke of the hour. She had never heard it so loud before. She felt that it must wake all the house, and bring every one out to see if the girls had not come back. It would wake papa, who was not a very good sleeper, and betray everything. Three! “Stella, Stella! oh, for goodness’ sake, don’t stay any longer!” cried Katherine, making a sort of funnel of her two hands, and sending her voice down into the dark.
After all, she said to herself, presently, three was not late for a ball. The rest of the people were only beginning to go away. And a parting which might be for ever! “It may be for years, and it may be for ever.” The song came into her mind and breathed itself all about her, as a song has a way of doing. Poor things, poor young things! and perhaps they might never see each other again. “Partings that press the life from out young hearts.” Katherine turned with a sigh and made a little round of the cliff again, without thinking of the view. And then she turned suddenly to go back, and looked out upon the wonderful round of the sea and sky.
There was something new in it now, something that had not been there before—a tall white sail, like something glorified, like an angel with one foot on the surface of the waves, and one high white wing uplifted. She stood still with a sort of breathless admiration and rapture. Sea and sky had been wonderful before, but they had wanted just that—the white softly moving sail, the faint line of the boat. Where was it she had seen just that before, suddenly coming into sight while she was watching? It was when the Stella, when Stella—good heavens!—the Stella, and Stella——