Launa took up shorthand as a sedative, and worked with great diligence. But she learned nothing. However, as neither her father nor Miss Black was aware of this, because of their utter ignorance of shorthand, its failure as an attainable subject caused no surprise to them.
Mr. Archer went to New York, and then Launa frequently took long wandering walks—over stretches of rocky country with narrow, gloomy, cuttings full of granite boulders, where there were caves.
One day she went, in her canoe, up a stream, until she reached a chain of lakes where she could paddle on and on—far away into space—where the stillness was maddening yet restful.
The peace of autumn, of approaching death, lay on the woods. The maples, with their gorgeous colouring, shone and flamed in the bright sun; the birches were yellow, almost gold, in the brilliant light; occasionally a leaf fell slowly, it reminded Launa of a ghost of the end; there was dread in the creeping slowness, as of the invincible, powerful march of a quiet enemy. The breeze sprung up gently, it rippled the water, and stirred the tall pine trees slowly with a rhythmic movement, and the sun began to sink. She gazed again and again at the warm rapturous colouring, the triumph of the trees at the end of their summer life, for the leaves have a glorious finish, and then she turned her canoe round and paddled swiftly back to “Solitude.”
Everything there was in confusion; Miss Black had been taken suddenly ill. She was still unconscious, and they had sent for the doctor, who arrived only to tell them she was dead.
Launa did not know her father’s address. Miss Black’s relations were merely cousins, to whom her death and funeral were matters of indifference.
So Launa stayed alone with the dead woman weeping tears of sorrow—some tears were for the loss of companionship, some for the love and never ceasing care. The idea of a funeral was terrible to her; death meant earth and creepy things. At last Mr. Archer got his telegram, and came home.
Launa felt as if the end had come to her. Death, the intruder, had entered into her life; he was a powerful enemy, and hitherto she had only regarded him as a sleeping brother.
Mr. Archer’s grief was not perfunctory, he grieved honestly and really. Miss Black was his friend—if any longing for a nearer and perhaps dearer connection (the dearness thereof is wont to depart when the nearness is an accomplished fact) had ever crossed his mind, it had crossed only and never taken root. The constancy of man is more frequently attributable to circumstances than to everlasting love.
Mr. Archer observed that Launa had grown different—older, more absorbed in something, more sympathetic. Always a child of deep emotions, she had developed into a woman. But because her heart was not navigable to floundering old women, the world near “Solitude” called her cold, unfeeling, and indifferent.