She kept her word. To Mrs. Irving she merely said that she had already trespassed too long upon their hospitality, and that she thought it best to go away. She had talked with Herr Kaufmann, and he had advised her to go to the city and have her voice trained. Yes, she would write, and would always think of them kindly.
Lynn, who had passed the first sleepless night of his life, went to the train with her, but few words were spoken. Iris was cool, dignified, and cruelly formal. An immeasurable distance lay between them, and one, at least, made no effort to lessen it.
They had only a few minutes to wait, and, just as the train came in sight, Lynn bent over her. “Iris,” he said, unsteadily, “if you ever want me, will you promise me that you will let me know?”
“Yes,” she replied, with an incredulous laugh, “if I ever want you, I will let you know.”
“I will go to you,” said Lynn, struggling for his self-control, “from the very end of the world. Just send me the one word: ‘Come.’ And let me thank you now for all the happiness you have given me, and for the memory of you, which I shall have in my heart for always.”
“You are quite welcome,” she returned, frigidly. “You—” but the roar of the train mercifully drowned her words.
The sun still shone, the birds did not cease their singing. Outwardly, the world was just as fair, even though Iris had gone. Lynn walked away blindly, no longer dull, but keenly alive to his hurt.
From the crucible of Eternity, Time, the magician, draws the days. Some are wholly made of beauty; of wide sunlit reaches and cool silences. Some of dreams and twilight, with roses breathing fragrance through the dusk. Some of darkness, wild and terrible, lighted only by a single star. Others still of riving lightnings and vast, reverberating thunders, while the heart, swelled to bursting, breaks on the reef of Pain.