Stellamaris, for all the imperfections inseparable from humanity, had been a dweller about the Throne in her mystical Land of Illusion. Evil, or the whisper of evil, or the thought of evil, had, by the Unwritten Law, never been allowed to enter the sea-chamber. She issued therefrom, like the unfortunate seraph, without a standard. Her impressions of life (from our worldly point of view) were grotesque and unjust. John was condemned by her unheard. Like the seraph, she was lost and horrified. But, unlike the seraph—and here lies the tragedy, for no one of us would break his heart over the horrification of a seraph, as he has only to fly back whence he came to be perfectly happy—unlike the seraph, Stellamaris was just poor human clay, and she could not fly back to her Land of Illusion, because it did not exist. It was her fate to lead the common life of imperfect mortals, feeling the common human physical and spiritual pangs, with all the delicate tendrils of her nature inextricably intertwined in human things, and to focus the myriad sensations afforded by the bewildering panorama of life from the false and futile point of view of the seraph. In consequence, she suffered agonies inconceivable—agonies all the more torturing because she could not turn for alleviation to any human being. She shrank from contact with her kind, wandered lonely in the garden, save for the attendance of the old dog, and sat for hours by the window of the sea-chamber looking with yearning eyes at sea and sky.
But no more could sea and sky, cloud and sunset, foam and mist, take Stellamaris into their communion. She had put on mortality, and they had cast her out from their elemental sphere. The sea-gulls flashed their wings in the sun and circled up the cliff and hovered at her window, fixing her with their round, yellow eyes, but they were no longer the interpreting angels of wind and wave. The glory of all the mysteries had faded into the light of common day, and the memory of them was only the confused and unrecallable tangle of a dream. And Stellamaris cried passionately in her heart for the days when she had not set foot in the world of men, and when she lived somewhere out there in the salt sea-spray, and felt her soul flooded with happiness great and exquisite. But such days could never dawn again. She, too, had become bone and flesh of an abominable world.
Herold came down again, and found her white and pinched, with dark lines beneath her eyes. She scarcely spoke, replied in monosyllables, only made such appearances as the conventions of life demanded, and craftily avoided meeting him alone. She was no longer Stellamaris.
“What 's the matter with her, for pity's sake?” asked Herold.
“She has not yet got over that touch of the sun,” said Sir Oliver.
“This has nothing to do with the sun,” Herold declared.
Lady Blount sighed. “Perhaps it 's a phase. Young girls often pass through it, though earlier. But Stella is different.”
Herold saw that they did not understand, and, knowing their limitations, felt that even if they were enlightened, they would do more harm than good. As soon as he returned to town he tracked John to his office. John looked up from proof-sheets.
“Just back? I nearly ran down yesterday. I should have done so if I had n't promised my aunt to go to church with her.”
“You've quite taken to church-going lately,” said Herold, dryly.