She explored the frailties of the human spirit—found the heights it could climb in a courageous hour, and followed it down into dark ways. It seemed angel and devil waited on her, clanging in turn for entrance. When she opened to the kind spirit she grew careless of her own hurts, and only was glad that she loved a man who was in trouble and whom she might have skill to help. When the demon came in at the door he whispered her she was a woman who loved a man, and who had been loved by him once upon a time. Now, with lips which had kissed her, the man kissed the robber who had stolen him away, and held that robber in the arms which once supported her. At such times she cried she was learning to hate this turncoat. If presently he would come riding up to sit beside her with long face, she would cry, "Begone to your child who bids you click and unclick her gate."
One terrible minute spent at this time with her father, more than all her resolutions, saved her from the melancholy which was falling upon her, and determined her to carry abroad again an untroubled face. She stood in the dining-room before lunch, trifling the moments away, when the old man stamped in, hat cocked to one side, pipe in mouth, heavy walking-stick in clutch. He was flushed from the sun and short of breath; but he blundered to the attack.
"Hey, Maud, what's this that's running round the place? Jim Power playing the double business with you. In a mess with that girl of Gregory's. I may be wrong, but I reckon I know how to settle that kind of thing. I may be wrong, huh, huh! No man plays fast and loose with a girl of mine. I'll have the blackguard kicked off the lease next time he——" The old man came to a standstill.
She had shown him a face grey with rage. Her words were colder than drops of ice falling upon snow.
"How dare you come in like this, father, blustering your way into a business where you have no concern! Jim and I can keep our house in order, and our very best thanks to you. How dare you come in like this, father, without apology to us?"
The old man took his pipe from his mouth the better to meet the attack. His shaggy white eyebrows bristled. "Goodness! girl, don't lose your head like that. I heard wrong, I reckon, in the town just now." He put back the pipe in his mouth and gathered confidence. "Well, that's all to be said about the matter, Maud, only a bit of news to remember is—nobody plays the game of do-as-you-please with my daughter. I may be wrong, huh, huh!" Then he scrambled about and went out of the room.
While the slothful lips of November counted away the days—if at that time Maud plucked all the strings of the lyre, and sounded high melody and awaked rough discord; if she fingered all the stops of feeling, the man she loved made music no less wild. As hope shuttered her lodge behind him, as despair came as neighbour to his street, he grew careless of opinion, thoughtless of the future, and with an appetite eager only to lap clean the dish of the present. Love was revealed as a light, blinding him who looked there to all but its brightness. As he stumbled towards it, calling out loud for a veil, it moved away. All his hurry and loud cries brought him no nearer, as a man may climb mountain upon mountain and never reach the stars.
As he grew mad, he grew wise with a cheerless wisdom. He rode to the river; he rode away; again he rode to the river. To-night he held in his arms the child he loved, and covered her with kisses. To-morrow he would hold her thus again. But ever Love fled him as he came. Ever Love turned in flight to mock him. Ever Love danced away on rosy toes. Strange teaching this—that a man can own the House of Love, and stamp adown the house from garret to cellar, and not on one couch find Love awaiting him. This child would lie in his arms through long minutes, would kiss back his kisses at his command, and press back his embraces—and all the passion spent on her passed over her, as when the clouds open on an autumn day, and the sun runs across the waiting field. As he sealed her eyes with kisses, behold they were sleepy with dreams another had laid there; as he stopped her mouth with his mouth, the taste of another's lips sweetened her own. Who knows that if her shallow little soul had cried to him then down the distance that his spirit might not have found sight and seen the poor thing it pursued. So Love might have wearied in the chase. But because this small thing fled him, he must snatch up his torch to follow, and among the high shadows of its leaping fire, surely one was the shadow of the thing he hunted.
He grew a tattered hermit of the woods who said good-bye and stole back as the night grew old to glide among the trees and watch the light fall from her doorway. Hither and thither he passed, that he might hear her laugh from here, that his ears might woo her voice from there, that now her shadow might cross the window as ointment for his eyes. The flying-foxes saw him at his watch, and high above the tree tops white stars stared down.
The light would go out in her hut, and for a little while the ghost of a light would peer through the pale wall of her tent. Did she pray in those few moments as she robed herself for sleep? Was she kneeling in that poor tent at her rough bed, vestured in white with her shining hair fallen unlooped about her? Did her straight white narrow feet push under the hem of her gown, with toes bent upon the surly ground? Did she remember him in the little prayers that fluttered up to God? Did she whisper a man loved her, who was in sore need of help? No. In her brief life she had scarce heard the name of God. Her rich body was her prayer.