Part 31 (1/2)

to which came the following answer:

”Not to-day. Meet me to-morrow at the Dead Church at three o'clock.

--Stella.”

It was the only letter that he ever received from her.

That afternoon, December 23, Mr. Fregelius and his daughter moved to the Rectory in a fly that had been especially prepared to convey the invalid without shaking him. Morris did not witness their departure, as the Colonel, either by accident or design, had arranged to go with him on this day to inspect the new buildings which had been erected on the Abbey Farm. Nor, indeed, were the names of the departed guests so much as mentioned at dinner that night. The incident of their long stay at the Abbey, with all its curious complications, was closed, and both father and son, by tacit agreement, determined to avoid all reference to it; at any rate for the present.

The Christmas Eve of that year will long be remembered in Monksland and all that stretch of coast as the day of the ”great gale” which wrought so much damage on its sh.o.r.es. The winter's dawn was of extraordinary beauty, for all the eastern sky might have been compared to one vast flower, with a heart of burnished gold, and sepals and petals of many coloured fires. Slowly from a central point it opened, slowly its splendours spread across the heavens; then suddenly it seemed to wither and die, till where it had been was nothing but ma.s.ses of grey vapour that arose, gathered, and coalesced into an ashen pall hanging low above the surface of the ashen sea. The coastguard, watching the gla.s.s, hoisted their warning cone, although as yet there was no breath of wind, and old sailormen hanging about in knots on the cliff and beach went to haul up their boats as high as they could drag them, knowing that it would blow hard by night.

About mid-day the sea began to be troubled, as though its waves were being pushed on by some force as yet unseen, and before two o'clock gusts of cold air from the nor'east travelled landwards off the ocean with a low moaning sound, which was very strange to hear.

As Morris trudged along towards the Dead Church he noticed, as we do notice such things when our minds are much preoccupied and oppressed, that these gusts were coming quicker and quicker, although still separated from each other by periods of aerial calm. Then he remembered that a great gale had been prophesied in the weather reports, and thought to himself that they portended its arrival.

He reached the church by the narrow spit of sand and s.h.i.+ngle which still connected it with the sh.o.r.e, pa.s.sed through the door in the rough brick wall, closing it behind him, and paused to look. Already under that heavy sky the light which struggled through the brine-encrusted eastern window was dim and grey. Presently, however, he discovered the figure of Stella seated in her accustomed place by the desolate-looking stone altar, whereon stood the box containing the aerophone that they had used in their experiments. She was dressed in her dark-coloured ulster, of which the hood was still drawn over her head, giving her the appearance of some cloaked nun, lingering, out of time and place, in the ruined habitations of her wors.h.i.+p.

As he advanced she rose and pushed back the hood, revealing the ma.s.ses of her waving hair, to which it had served as a sole covering. In silence Stella stretched out her hand, and in silence Morris took it; for neither of them seemed to find any words. At length she spoke, fixing her sad eyes upon his face, and saying:

”You understand that we meet to part. I am going to London to-morrow; my father has consented.”

”That is Christmas Day,” he faltered.

”Yes, but there is an early train, the same that runs on Sundays.”

Then there was another pause.

”I wish to ask your pardon,” he said, ”for all the trouble that I have brought upon you.”

She smiled. ”I think it is I who should ask yours. You have heard of these stories?”

”Yes, my father spoke to me; he told me of his conversation with you.”

”All of it?”

”I do not know; I suppose so,” and he hung his head.

”Oh!” she broke out in a kind of cry, ”if he told you all----”

”You must not blame him,” he interrupted. ”He was very angry with me. He considered that I had behaved badly to you, and everybody, and I do not think that he weighed his words.”

”I am not angry. Now that I think of it, what does it matter? I cannot help things, and the truth will out.”

”Yes,” he said, quite simply; ”we love each other, so we may as well admit it before we part.”

”Yes,” she echoed, without disturbance or surprise; ”I know now--we love each other.”

These were the first intimate words that ever pa.s.sed between them; this, their declaration, unusual even in the long history of the pa.s.sions of men and women, and not the less so because neither of them seemed to think its fas.h.i.+on strange.

”It must always have been so,” said Morris.