The Scent of Violets.
In accordance with Dora’s instructions I hailed a cab, and although she would give me no inkling of our destination, she ordered the man to drive with all haste to Paddington. At the station she told me to book to Didcot, the junction for Oxford, and about an hour later we alighted there.
From a neighbouring inn we obtained a fly, and together drove out across a level stretch of country some two miles, until we passed a crumbling stone cross, and turning suddenly entered a peaceful old-world village, which I understood by her order to the driver to be East Hagbourne. It consisted of one long straggling street of cottages, many of them covered with roses and honeysuckle, with here and there some good sized, quaint-gabled house, or lichen-covered, moss-grown barn, but when nearly at the further end of the little place the man pulled up suddenly before a large, rambling house of time-mellowed red brick, half hidden by ivy and creepers. It stood near the road with a strip of well-kept lawn in front and an iron railing, quite an incongruity in those parts. When we alighted our summons was responded to by a neat maid whom Dora addressed as Ashcombe, and who at once led the way to a long, low room, oak-beamed, panelled and very comfortably furnished.
“Who lives here?” I inquired in a half-whisper when the domestic had gone, but my question was answered by the sudden appearance of its occupant, who next second stood silent upon the threshold, motionless, statuesque.
Astonishment held me dumb. I sprang from the chair whereon I had been seated agape, amazed, my eyes riveted upon the figure standing silent before the dark portiere curtain.
Words froze on my lips; my tongue refused to articulate. Had insanity, the affliction I most dreaded, at last seized me, or was it some strange chimera, some extraordinary trick of my warped imagination? It was neither. The figure that had passed into the room swiftly and noiselessly while I had for an instant turned to question Dora was that of a living person—a person whose presence roused within my heart a tumult of wonder and of joy.
It was Sybil!
Yes, there was the delicately-poised head, the same flawlessly beautiful face that had entranced me in the little Southern mountain town, the same candid forehead, the same half-parted lips, the same dimpled cheeks that I had so often kissed with a mad passion such as I had never experienced before or since. She wore a grey silk gown; at her throat was one simple rose of deepest crimson. Her little white hand bore a wedding-ring—the one I had placed upon it—the lace on her skirt and bodice, the delicate pale tint of her face, bore testimony to the elegant and opulent indolence of her existence.
Yet was she not dead? Had I not been present when her soul and body parted? Had I not stood before the spot where she slept beneath a willow planted years ago by pious hands that had raised a neighbouring tomb? That willow had, I remembered, never grown vigorous and free in the strength of its sap. I knew how sadly its yellow foliage drooped, the ends of its branches hung down like heavy, weary tears. I recollected how, when first I saw it, I had thought that its roots went down and absorbed from my dead love’s heart all the bitterness of a life thrown away. And the roses near her grave bore large blossoms as white as milk and of a deep red. The roots penetrated to the depths of the coffin, the sweet-smelling blooms took their whiteness from a virgin bosom and their crimson from a wounded heart.
I had held her cold hand and kissed her icy lips. Yet here she stood before me in the flesh, grave-eyed, dove-robed, and something wan and pale, an inner beauty shining from her face.