To-day she had walked clear around the bend. The little town and pleasant beach were hidden from view, and there was only the lighthouse out among the rocks, and the sea coming in wild and mighty to that coast to which no mariner would attempt to draw near.
It was the hour of the in-coming tide, and as the sea beat against the rocks it seemed as omnipotent and relentless as that sea of fate against which nothing erected by man could hope to prevail.
There was no human being in sight. Man, and all to which man blinded one, were far away. She was alone with things as they were, alone with the forces which made the world and life, and as the tides of the sea brought close to her wave after wave, so the mind's tides were bringing close to her wave upon wave of understanding.
Fate had washed them away just as this ocean would wash away the child's playhouse built upon the sands. They had believed they could make their lives, that it was for their spirit to elect what they should do, their hands build as they had willed; and all that the spirit had willed to do, and all that the hands set about to achieve, was washed away by just one of those waves of fate which rolled in and took them with no more of regret, no more of compassion, than the sea would have in washing away the play-house built upon the sands. And if the sea were chidden for having taken away the house upon the sands, which meant much to some one, it would quite likely answer grimly: "I did not know that it was there."
She laughed—and Karl would have hated life for bringing Ernestine to that laugh. But she laughed to think how she had looked fate in the face with the words: "I will prevail against you!" Would the child, building its house upon the sand and saying to the ocean: "I will not let you take my house!" be more absurd than she?
What she had believed to be the tremendous force of her spirit had been as one grain of sand against the tides of ocean. What was one to think of it all then—of human love which believed itself created for eternity, of dreams which one's soul persuaded one would come true, of aspirations born in a hallucination of power, of that spark within one which played one false, of believing one could master fate only to find one had erected a child's house upon the sands, and that what had been achieved in consciousness of great power could be swept away so easily that the ocean was not even conscious of having taken it unto itself?
Very sternly, very understandingly, their lives swept before her anew…. Just one little wave from the tide of fate had lapped up, unknowingly, uncaringly, that house upon the sand which a delusion of the spirit had made seem a castle grounded in eternity. Why blind one's self to the truth and call life fair? For what had they fought and suffered and believed and hoped? Just to hear the mocking voice of the outgoing tide?
The fury of the sea was creeping into her blood. Rage possessed her. All of her spirit, mightier than ever before, went out to meet the spirit of the sea—hating it, defying it, understanding its own futility, and the more hot from the sense of impotence. That died to desolation. She had never been so wholly desolate—the sea so mighty, she so powerless. Fate and human souls were like that.
Karl—where was he? Swept out by the ocean of fate. To what shore had he been carried? What thought he of the tide which had carried him out from her? Was his soul, like hers, spending itself in the passion of rebellion—so mighty as to shake the foundations of one's being, so futile as to prevail against not one drop of water in that sea of fate?
Time passed; the tide was still coming in, nearing its height. But to the sea there had come a change. The spirit of it seemed different. For a long time she sat there dimly conscious of a difference, and then it seemed as though the sea were trying to reach her with something it had to bring.