"I must see how Scanlan is getting along," he said, and left the room.
Molly sat very still, with the magazine face down upon her knee. Her eyes, abrim with tears, saw nothing of the glowing fire toward which they were turned. There was no need for her to look, to see by whom the story was written. Who but her old lover could touch her so with the silent magic of printed words? She forgot, for awhile, the unanswered letter and the weary seasons through which she had vainly waited for his forgiveness. Now she saw only the exile,—the wanderer,—and her heart bled for him. He would be wiser than of old, she thought, but still gentle and still fearless. A cynic?—no, he could never be that. Such a heart, though embittered against one woman, would not turn against the whole of God's world. She had thrown aside the love that now read and translated the sufferings and joys of outland camps and cities. The very tenderness that enabled him to understand the men and women of which he wrote had once been all for her.
The magazine slid to the floor, and a loose page, evidently cut from some other periodical, fluttered to one side. Molly sat up and recovered it. Listlessly she turned it over. Here were verses by Hemming. Her tears blotted the lines as she read:
"When the palms are black, and the stars are low, and even
the trade-winds sleep,
God, give my longing wings, to span the valleys and hills
of the deep!"
And again,—
"The sailor's voyage is a thousand miles, 'bout ship, and a
thousand more!
By landfall, pilot, and weed-hung wharf,—to the lass at the
cabin door.
"But mine!—fool heart, what a voyage is this, storm-beaten
on every sea,
With never the glow of an open door and a lamp on the sill
for me?"
When Mr. Pollin returned to the library, he found his niece with her face hidden in the cushions of the chair, weeping quietly. He had half-expected something unusual, but the sight of her grief made him feel like a fool. He picked up the magazine, and replaced it neatly on the top of the pile. Then he noticed the clipping containing Hemming's verses, damp and crumpled, at her feet. That's what did it, he thought, and was about to recover it, too, when his attention was diverted by the sound of wheels at his curb.
"The general," he exclaimed.
Molly sat up quickly, and mopped her eyes. "I think I must have fallen asleep," she said, with her face turned away from her uncle. But he was the more confused of the two.