Part 33 (1/2)
Sometimes the Sculptor, whose workshop is the world, fuses many metals and casts a n.o.ble statue; leaves it for humanity to criticise, and when time has mellowed both beauties and blemishes, removes it to that inner studio, there to be carved in enduring marble.
Adam Warwick was such an one; with much alloy and many flaws; but beneath all defects the Master's eye saw the grand lines that were to serve as models for the perfect man, and when the design had pa.s.sed through all necessary processes,--the mould of clay, the furnace fire, the test of time,--He washed the dust away, and p.r.o.nounced it ready for the marble.
CHAPTER XXI.
OUT OF THE SHADOW.
They had been together for an hour, the husband and the wife. The first excitement was now over, and Sylvia stood behind him tearless and tranquil, while Moor, looking like a man out of whom the sea had drenched both strength and spirit, leaned his weary head against her, trying to accept the great loss, enjoy the great gain which had befallen him. Hitherto all their talk had been of Warwick, and as Moor concluded the history of the months so tragically ended, for the first time he ventured to express wonder at the calmness with which his hearer received the sad story.
”How quietly you listen to words which it wrings my heart to utter. Have you wept your tears dry, or do you still cling to hope?”
”No, I feel that we shall never see him any more; but I have no desire to weep, for tears and lamentations do not belong to him. He died a beautiful, a n.o.ble death; the sea is a fitting grave for him, and it is pleasant to think of him asleep there, quiet at last.”
”I cannot feel so; I find it hard to think of him as dead; he was so full of life, so fit to live.”
”And therefore fit to die. Imagine him as I do, enjoying the larger life he longed for, and growing to be the strong, sweet soul whose foreshadowing we saw and loved so here.”
”Sylvia, I have told you of the beautiful change which befell him in those last days, and now I see the same in you. Are you, too, about to leave me when I have just recovered you?”
”I shall stay with you all my life.”
”Then Adam was less to you than you believed, and I am more?”
”Nothing is changed. Adam is all he ever was to me, you are all you ever can be; but I--”
”Then why send for me? Why say you will stay with me all your life?
Sylvia, for G.o.d's sake, let there be no more delusion or deceit!”
”Never again! I will tell you; I meant to do it at once, but it is so hard--”
She turned her face away, and for a moment neither stirred. Then drawing his head to its former resting-place she touched it very tenderly, seeing how many white threads shone among the brown; and as her hand went to and fro with an inexpressibly soothing gesture, she said, in a tone whose quietude controlled his agitation like a spell--
”Long ago, in my great trouble, Faith told me that for every human effort or affliction there were two friendly helpers, Time and Death.
The first has taught me more gently than I deserved; has made me humble, and given me hope that through my errors I may draw virtue from repentance. But while I have been learning the lessons time can teach, that other helper has told me to be ready for its coming. Geoffrey, I sent for you because I knew you would love to see me again before we must say the long good by.”
”Oh, Sylvia! not that; anything but that. I cannot bear it now!”
”Dear heart, be patient; lean on me, and let me help you bear it, for it is inevitable.”
”It shall not be! There must be some help, some hope. G.o.d would not be so pitiless as to take both.”
”I shall not leave you yet. He does not take me; it is I, who, by wasting life, have lost the right to live.”
”But is it so? I cannot make it true. You look so beautiful, so blooming, and the future seemed so sure. Sylvia, show it to me, if it must be.”
She only turned her face to him, only held up her transparent hand, and let him read the heavy truth. He did so, for now he saw that the beauty and the bloom were transitory as the glow of leaves that frost makes fairest as they fall, and felt the full significance of the great change which had come. He clung to her with a desperate yet despairing hold, and she could only let the first pa.s.sion of his grief have way, soothing and sustaining, while her heart bled and the draught was very bitter to her lips.