Miss Axtell covered her face with the hands so long rigidly clasped about her precious package, and the very air that was in the room caught the thrill and quiver of her heart, strong to suffer, strong to love. When she again spoke, it was in low, murmurous tones.
"I wanted my mother to know what God had permitted me to be to this man, his great anchor of clinging in all storms,—how, in loving him, I had been permitted to save him. Do you think it is good," she asked,—"my story? It isn't a story of what the world calls 'happy love'; I don't think I should find it happy even now. I have come to a solemn bridge in the journey of Time. I know it must be crossed,—only how? It is high; my head is dizzied by the very thought. It has none of the ordinary protective railings; I must walk out alone, and—I cannot see the other end; it is too far, too misty. My mother's face fills up all the way; it comes out to meet me, and I do not rightly hear what she says, for my ears are filled with the roar of the life-current that frets over rocks below. I try to stay it while I listen; it only floods the way. There is time given me; there is no immediate cause for action: for this I am thankful. Mr. McKey left me at the tower on the day you heard us there. He is a surgeon in the naval service. His ship sailed last week on a three years' voyage. I shall have time to think, to decide what I ought to do; perhaps the roar will cease, and I shall hear what my mother tries to say.
"I have one great thought of torment. Abraham, what if he should die, too,—die without knowing? that I could not bear"; and the face, still looking toward Zoar, lifted up itself from the little City of Refuge, and looked into the face of Anna Percival. "Poor Abraham!" she said, "he has suffered, perhaps even more than I. He will hear you. Will you tell him this for me? Tell him all; and when you tell how Mary came to die, give him this,"—and she handed to me the very package I had twice journeyed with,—"it will prove to him the truth of what I say."
I hesitated to take that which she proffered.
"You must not disappoint me," she said. "I have spent happy hours since you went away, in the belief that Providence sent you here to me in the greatness of my need. I cannot tell Abraham; I could not bear the joy that will, that must come, when he lays down the burden of his crime,—for, oh! it will be at the feet of Bernard McKey. You will not refuse me this?" she pleaded.
Anna Percival, in the silence of that upper room where so much of life had come to her, sat at Miss Axtell's side, and thought of the dream that came one Sunday morning to her, sleeping, and out of the memory of it came tolling down to her heart the words then spoken, and, taught by them, she answered Miss Axtell's pleading by an "I will."
"Good little comfort-giver!" Miss Lettie said; and she left the package, containing the precious jewel, in my hands.
Bewildered by the story, filled with sorrow for sufferers passed away from the great, suffering earth, aching for those that still were in the void of misery, I arose to go. "It was near to mid-day; Aaron and Sophie would wait dinner for me," I said to Miss Lottie's pleading for another hour. Ere I went, the conventionalities that signalled our meeting were repeated, and, wrapped in the web and woof Miss Axtell had woven, I went down the staircase and through the wide hall and out of the solemn old house, wondering if ever again Anna Percival would cross its entrance-porch. Kino heard the noise of the closing of the door, and came around the corner to see who it might be. I stayed a moment to say a few comforting words to the dog. Kino saw me safely outside of the gate by way of gratitude. I walked on toward the parsonage.
Redleaf seemed very silent, almost deserted. I met none of the villagers in my homeward walk. "It will be ten minutes yet ere Sophie and Aaron will, waiting, say, 'I wonder why Anna does not come,'" I thought, as I drew near, and my fingers held the tower-key. I had not been there since the Sunday morning memorable to me through all coming time. I lifted the fastening to the church-yard, and went in. My sister Mary lay in this church-yard now. I had until this day known only sister Sophie, and in my heart I thanked Miss Axtell for her story. I went in to look at Mary's grave. A sweet perfume filled the inclosure; it came to me through the branching evergreens; it was from Mary's grave, covered with the pale pink flowers of the trailing-arbutus. I knew that Abraham Axtell had brought them hither. I gathered one, the least of the precious fragments. I knew that Mary, out of heaven seeing me, would call it no sacrilege, and with it went to my tower.
Spring fingers had gathered up the leaves of snow, winter's growth, from in among the crevices of stone. I noticed this as I went in. The great stone was over the passage-opening, just where Mr. Axtell had dropped it, lest Aaron should see. Something said to me that my love for the tower was gone, that never more would I care to come to it; and I think the voice was speaking truly, everything did seem so changed. The time moss was only common moss to me, the old rocks might be a part of any mountain now. I had caught up all the romance, all the poetry, which is mystery, of the tower, and henceforth I might leave it to stand guard over the shore of the Sea of Death, white with marble foam. I went up to the very window whence I had taken the brown plaid bit of woman's wear. I looked out from where I had seen the dying day go down. I heard the sound, from the open door of the parsonage, of Sophie's voice, humming of contentment; I saw the little lady come and look down the village—street for me; I saw her part those bands of softly purplish hair, with fingers idly waiting the while she stood looking for me. I looked up at the window, down at the floor, down through the winding way of stair, where once I had trembling gone, and, with a farewell softly spoken, I left my churchyard tower with open door and key in the lock. Henceforth it was not mine. I left it with the hope that some other loving soul would take up my devotion, and wait and watch as I had done.