Part 79 (1/2)
Large tears are falling silently, without a sob, down her white cheeks, because to-night they say their last farewell. It is one of those bitter partings, such as ”press the life from out young hearts” and makes them doubt the good that this world conceals even in the very core of its disappointments.
”I feel as though I were losing all,” says Molly, in a despairing tone.
”First John, and now--you. Oh, how difficult a thing is life! how hard, how cruel!” Yet only a month before she was singing its praises with all the self-confidence of foolish ignorant youth.
”While I am alive you do not lose me,” he answers, pressing his lips to her soft hair and brow. ”But I am unhappy about you, my own: at the risk of letting you think me importunate, I would ask you again to reconsider your decision, and let me know how it is you propose fighting this cold world.”
Unable to refuse him audibly, and still determined to adhere to her resolution to let nothing interfere with her self-imposed task, she maintains a painful silence, merely turning her head from side to side upon his chest uneasily.
”You still refuse me? Do you not think, Molly,”--reproachfully,--”your conduct toward me is a little cold and unfeeling?”
”No, no. Do not misjudge me: indeed I am acting for the best.
See,”--placing two bare white arms around his neck, that gleam with snowy softness in the moonlight against the mournful draperies that fall away from them,--”if I were cold and unfeeling would I do this?”
pressing her tender lips to his. ”Would I? You know I would not. I am a coward too, and fear you would not look upon my plan as favorably as I do. Darling, forgive and trust me.”
”Are you going on the stage?” asks he, after a pause, and with evident hesitation.
”Why?” with a forlorn little smile. ”If I were, would you renounce me?”
”Need I answer that? But you are so young, so pretty,--I am afraid, my darling, it--it would be unpleasant for you.”
”Be satisfied: I am not thinking of the stage. But do not question me, Teddy. I shall write to you, as I have promised, in six months,--if I succeed.”
”And if you fail?”
”I suppose then--I shall write to you too,” she answers, with a sigh and a faint smile. ”But I shall not fail. After all, success will bring me no nearer to you: I shall always have the children to provide for,”
she says, despondingly.
”We can at least live and hope.”
He draws her shawl, which has slipped to the ground, close round her, and mutely, gloomily, they stand listening to the murmuring of the sympathetic stream.
”I always think of this spot as the dearest on earth,” he says, after a pause. ”Here I picture you to myself with your hands full of forget-me-nots. I have a large bunch of them yet, the same you gathered; faded, it is true, to others, but never so to me. They will always be as fresh in my eyes as on the evening I took them from you.
'My sweet love's flowers.' Darling, darling,” pressing her to his heart in a very agony of regret, ”when shall we two stand here again together?”
”Never,” she whispers back, in a prophetic tone, and with a trembling, sobbing sigh more sad than any tears.
”Give me something to remember you by,--something to remind me of to-night.”
”Shall you need it?” asks she, and then raising her hands she loosens all her pretty hair, letting it fall in a bright shower around her.
”You shall have one little lock all to yourself,” she says. ”Choose, and cut it where you will.”
Tenderly he selects a s.h.i.+ning tress,--a very small one, so loath is he, even for his own benefit, to lessen the glory of her hair,--and, severing it, consigns it to the back case of his watch.
”That is a good place to keep it,” she says, with an upward glance that permits him to see the love that lives for him in her dewy eyes. ”At least every night when you wind your watch you must think of me.”
”I shall think of you morning, noon, and night, for that matter.”
”And I,--when shall I think of you? And yet of what avail?” cries she, in despair; ”all our thought will be of no use. It will not bring us together. We must be always separate,--always apart. Not all our longing will bring us one day nearer to each other. Our lives are broken asunder.”