The sides of the gully were dazzling white in the hot sunshine. A line of scarlet poppies made a vivid fringe of color along its lip. From out its white walls great tufts of lavender-colored scabious sprang, and trails of lady’s-slipper flamed yellow in the sunlight. A drowsy hum of innumerable bees amongst the clover filled the hot, still air, mingled with the shrill whirr of grasshoppers. Down far below the blue sea broke, sparkling and dimpling into millions of flashing gems.
Bridget had thrown herself among the clover blossoms at the edge of the cliff. Her shade hat lay beside her. A scarlet sunshade was spread above her head. At some little distance, under the shade of a straggling elder bush Helen sat, reading. Bridget lay very still, listening half unconsciously to the whirr of wings, feeling the hot sunshine wrapping her round, her eyes fixed on the intense blue sky above the cliffs opposite, where the swallows were darting, wheeling, skimming in airy dance. In one hand she held a letter. This she presently drew noiselessly from its envelope. She had read and re-read it a hundred times; but now she read it once more with careful deliberation. It was dated the day after her walk with Carey in the Bushberry woods. She knew by heart the words with which it began.
“... Because I love you,” it went on, “I will not bring more trouble into your life, rashly, passionately, as, selfish devil that I am, I long to do. You shall be free to think—free to realize what it means if we decide to take this step. I start for Spain to-morrow. I will not even see you again. I dare not see you again. I will not write to you. It shall be as though I don’t exist for you—for three months. Dear, think well. I love you as I never yet loved a woman; but though I shudder at the mere idea of life without you, I will bear it somehow,—I must bear it, unless you can come to me without a single fear of consequence. I would gladly die to save you from pain. Think well; but (I feel a brute to say it, for it sounds as though I urge it as a plea, yet I cannot leave it unsaid) oh, Bridget! think also that I am wild for love of you!”
She read the words slowly, then she raised the letter to her lips before she replaced it in its envelope. For a moment longer she lay motionless. Then she rose, gathered up her sunshade and hat deliberately, and crossed the grass towards her friend. She slipped down beside her, in the shade, and laid her hand across the open page of her book.
Helen looked up with a start, and their eyes met.
“Bid?” she whispered, and paused. Her face had grown suddenly white.
“Yes,” said Bridget, slowly, “I have decided.”
There was a long silence. The shrill, insistent whirr of the grasshoppers, mingled with the hum of bees, was the only sound in the stillness.
Helen bent her head over the book on her lap. On the open page Bridget presently saw heavy tears falling. She raised herself to her knees, and put her arms round her friend, and rested her cheek caressingly against her fair hair.
“Helen,” she said softly, “listen! I want to try to explain. You have been so good,” she faltered. “You have never worried me. It was so like you not to harass me,—to let me have it out with myself! But now I want to tell you. I want to try and make you understand. Helen, you know I haven’t come to this decision lightly, without thought?” There was a touch of pained reproach in the last words, for Helen was still silent.