The man looked at her then, and there was that in his gray eyes that tinged her face crimson.
“No. It was Harry Randall,” he said. “It’s all right, Elice. The miracle came.” 349
“The miracle!” The voice was uncertain again, but from a far different cause this time. “Don’t keep me waiting. Tell me. Is he—well?”
This time Roberts actually smiled,—smiled as he had not done before in months.
“Yes; and writing like mad! That’s the miracle. He’s been at it steady now for twenty hours, and won’t even pause to eat. He sent for Harry to deliver the message. It’s inspiration he’s working under and he couldn’t stop to come himself, wouldn’t. He said to tell you, and me, that it was all right. He’d found himself at last. Those were his words,—he’d found himself at last.” As suddenly as it had come the smile passed, and Roberts stood up, his big hands locked behind his back.
“We’ve thought we understood him all these years,” he said steadily, “but at last I realize that we haven’t at all. It would be humorous if it hadn’t been so near to tragedy, so very near. Anyway, it’s clear now. Harry Randall sees it too. That’s why he wouldn’t stay. Steve Armstrong never cared for you really at all, Elice. He thought he did—but he didn’t. It was himself he cared for; and a fancy. Neither you nor I nor any one can change him 350 or help him more than temporarily. We’re free. He’ll stand or go under as it was written in the beginning.” The voice lowered until it throbbed with the conviction that was in the speaker’s soul. “No man alive who really cared could find inspiration where he found it. The world is before us and we’re free, Elice, free!”
Unconsciously, in answer to an instinct she obeyed without reason, the girl too arose, an exaltation in her face no artist could reproduce nor words describe.
“Yes,” she said. “I see it all too at last. We’ve all been blind.” She caught her breath at the thought that would intrude, force it back as she would. “And still we came so near, so very, very near—”
“Yes; but it’s past.” The man opposite was advancing. Not the impassive, cold Darley Roberts the world knew, but the other Darley Roberts revealed to one alone; the isolate human alone and lonely. “But it’s past, past, do you hear? And to-day is December the sixth, our anniversary—ours.” He halted, waiting. He smiled, with a tenderness infinite. “Is it ‘Darley’ still, Elice? Won’t you come and say it again?”
THE END