“It will all come back, dear,” said Herold, “with your faith in God and the essential beauty of the world.”
“But what is the essential beauty of the world?”
“My dear,” he laughed, “you mustn’t ask a poor man such conundrums and expect an instantaneous answer. I should say roughly it was strength and sacrifice and love.” He took a cigarette from his case and lit it. “You’ll find the comfort of the sea again. I think it will have quite a new meaning for you, a deeper meaning, when you sit by it with the man whom you love and who loves you, as you know he loves you, and all the past has become sacred, and there’s no longer a shadow between you.”
“Are you sure?”
“Quite sure. You see, Stellamaris dear,” he added after a second or two, “you don’t need me any longer. Your happiness, as well as John’s happiness, is in your own hands. I can go away with an easy mind. And when I come back—”
“Yes? And when you come back?”
Pain started through his eyes. When he came back? What would be left for him? His art, his ambitions? What were they? A child’s vain toys cumbering his feet. His soul was set on the slip of pale girlhood, startlingly black and white, with her mass of soft hair beneath the plain, black hat, and her great pools of eyes, no longer agates or diamonds, but aglow with remote flames, who, in poor common earthliness, stood by his side, but in maddening reality was pinnacled on inaccessible heights by the love between her and the man they both loved. He felt that the pure had an unsuspected power of torture.
“When I come back? Well—” he broke off lamely. And they looked at each other without speaking until they became aware of a human presence. They turned and saw John, his huge bulk in the frame of the doorway, watching them dully beneath his heavy brows.
AT the Channel House Stella’s health began to mend. The black shadows disappeared from beneath her eyes, and her lips caught the lost trick of a smile. She no longer wandered desolate about house and garden, but sought the companionship of those about her. The old folks discussed and wrangled over the change.
“One would have thought,” said Lady Blount, “that this terrible affair would have crushed her altogether.”