Such a marriage as theirs is, of course, the dream of all separated lovers, "the love that waited and in waiting died" the theme of many poets; and there have been great historic love-stories to prove such love a possibility of human hearts; yet, alas! for the experiment that must so often fail, for the weak wills of loving that will so truly and yet must loose their holds,--the fire that promised itself food in memory for a thousand years, but needs the sensual fuel of sight and touch after all; the love that believed it could go on trusting through centuries of silence, yet dies at last of little earthly doubts!
For this tremendous fast which you are to make believe a feast, trust in each other is the one condition that may avail. This trust must come of no mere exchange of vow or deeply-sworn and eloquent promise; it must be knowledge one heart of the other, clear and absolute; and such knowledge in your short hour of revelation you must have learned so passionately that, like poetry learnt in childhood, it is henceforth no longer a forgettable, detachable part of your mind's furniture, but a well-spring of instinct for ever. Is your lady true? You will ask that only when you ask: Is she beautiful?
Such confidence as this is comparatively common in friendship, but it is very rare in love: whether it was to be justified in the case of Isabel and Theophil, time alone could show. Meanwhile they felt calm and happy, as only two can feel who have discovered in each other the one unchanging reality in a world of flowing shadow.
It was very wonderful, in quite a new way, to meet again. Their love was no longer hunger and unrest, it had gained the impassioned peace of great accepted realities. It was married love now. As the quiet firm hands held each other again, there seemed to be long retrospects of tried and tender intercourse in their very touch. Their eyes held a past in them as well as a future. There was no hurry of the emotions now, no reason for haste in the seeking and giving of tenderness, no need to snatch and clutch the good gifts of love as though there was but a short day for the giving. Their love had grown conscious of its eternity.
It held but one lasting sadness,--that it might not be revealed to Jenny. So little did they regard their love as one essentially for concealment, that the temptation to include Jenny in their bond was at moments a danger. It was so beautiful, and actually, though unconsciously, she was so integral a part of its beauty.
Theirs was that dream of a threefold union, in which, so to say, jealousy shall be so taken into the confidence of, so held to the heart of, love, that it shall transform itself into love too; and, from being the lonely tragic third, become, as the other two, one of an indivisible trinity. Such unions of natures of especial grace have been born under like conditions of fated intercourse, and they have been unions of a strange beauty, the more blest by the sense of a conquest over love's one unworthiness, its egoism. As the égoisme à deux is finer than an egoism of one, so this égoisme à trois, if you will, is again finer by its additional inclusiveness.
Perhaps it had proved wiser in the end to yield to this temptation too. But the tragic risk was one to dismay experiment. The strength of such a union is literally the strength of its weakest link. Jenny loved both Isabel and Theophil, and both Isabel and Theophil loved Jenny; and in the love of the two girls, there was an element of affection that was more impassioned than friendship. Jenny indeed loved Isabel so much that it might well have proved that her love, with nothing but gladness, could have added its volume to Theophil's, and the three loves, meeting in one river of love, flowed on together to the eternal sea.
But the tragic risk! The alternative was--heart-break, death. They had vowed to save Jenny from the lightning. Perhaps it would not destroy, but only transfigure, after all,--yet the test was lightning; and for whom that we love dare we venture such an ordeal, though it were to win them Paradise?
No! Jenny must never know. And yet, perhaps, if Jenny had been told... Well, the greatest love for another cannot guard all the gates of chance. And, alas! these two, loyal as they were, for one unguarded moment were to leave open a gate of their Paradise,--when we withdraw into Paradise we should see that all the gates are closed,--and Jenny, by a like chance, was to take into her soul one blinding glimpse of them there.
It was the evening of the last recital, and Theophil and Isabel had gone down, to "Zion" a few minutes before the hour arranged, Jenny, who for some trivial reason was detained, to meet them at the hall. An audience was already gathered there; but this Theophil and Isabel avoided, entering the building by the minister's private entrance into his vestry, which communicated by a dark staircase with the chapel and the lecture-hall where the recital was to be given. There was a light in the vestry, but no one was there, though they might have expected Mr. Moggridge. For a moment, to their eternal sorrow, they forgot all but that they were once more alone and together; and as they sought each other's arms, standing in the centre of that grim little room, a weak anguish came over Theophil, and he exclaimed,--