XI
“Sunset and Evening Star”
Doctor Brinkerhoff came in the morning, but afterward, when Margaret questioned him, he shook his head sadly. “I will do the best I can,” he said, “and none of us can do more.” He went down the path, bent and old. He seemed to have aged since the previous night.
On Friday, Lynn went to Herr Kaufmann’s as usual, but he played carelessly. “Young man,” said the Master, “why is it that you study the violin?”
“Why?” repeated Lynn. “Well, why not?”
“It is all the same,” returned the Master, frankly. “I can teach you nothing. You have the technique and the good wrist, you read quickly, but you play like one parrot. When I say ‘fortissimo,’ you play fortissimo; when I say ‘allegro,’ you play allegro. You are one obedient pupil,” he continued, making no effort to conceal his scorn.
“What else should I be?” asked Lynn.
“Do not misunderstand,” said the Master, more kindly. “You can play the music as it is written. If that satisfies you, well and good, but the great ones have something more. They make the music to talk from one to another, but you express nothing. It is a possibility that you have nothing to express.”
Lynn walked back and forth with his hands behind his back, vaguely troubled.
“One moment,” the Master went on, “have you ever felt sorry?”
“Sorry for what?”
“Anything.”
“Of course – I am often sorry.”
“Well,” sighed the Master, instantly comprehending, “you are young, and it may yet come, but the sorrows of youth are more sharp than those of age, and there is not much chance. The violin is the most noble of instruments. It is for those who have been sorry to play to those who are. You have nothing to give, but it is one pity to lose your fine technique. Since you wish to amuse, change your instrument, and study the banjo, or perhaps the concertina.”
Lynn understood no more than if Herr Kaufmann had spoken in a foreign tongue. “I may have to stop for a little while,” he said, “for my aunt is ill, and I can’t practise.”
“Practise here,” returned the Master, indifferently. “Fredrika will not care. Or go to the office of mine friend, the Herr Doctor. He will not mind. A fine gentleman, but he has no ear, no taste. Until you acquire the concertina, you may keep on with the violin.”
“My mother,” began Lynn. “She wants me to be an artist.”
“An artist!” repeated the Master, with a bitter laugh. “Your mother – ” here he paused and looked keenly into Lynn’s eyes. Something was stirred; some far-off memory. “She believes in you, is it not so?”
“Yes, she does – she has always believed in me.”
“Well,” said the Master, with an indefinable shrug, “we must not disappoint her. You work on like one faithful parrot, and I continue with your instruction. It is good that mothers are so easy to please.”
“Herr Kaufmann,” pleaded the boy, “tell me. Shall I ever be an artist?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“When?”
“When the river flows up hill and the sun rises in the west.”
Suddenly, Lynn’s face turned white. “I will!” he cried, passionately; “I will! I will be an artist! I tell you, I will!”
“Perhaps,” returned the Master. He was apparently unmoved, but afterward, when Lynn had gone, he regretted his harshness. “I may be mistaken,” he admitted to himself, grudgingly. “There may be something in the boy, after all. He is young yet, and his mother, she believes in him. Well, we shall see!”
Lynn went home by a long, circuitous route. Far beyond East Lancaster was a stretch of woodland which he had not as yet explored. Herr Kaufmann’s words still rang in his ears, and for the first time he doubted himself. He sat down on a rock to think it over. “He said I had the technique,” mused Lynn, “but why should I feel sorry?”
After long study, he concluded that the Master was eccentric, as genius is popularly supposed to be, and determined to think no more of it. Still, it was not so easily put wholly aside. “You play like one parrot,” – that single sentence, like a barbed shaft, had pierced the armour of his self-esteem.
He went on through the woods, and stopped at a pile of rocks near a spring. It might have been an altar erected to the deity of the wood, but for one symbol. On the topmost stone was chiselled a cross.
“Wonder who did it,” said Lynn, to himself, “and what for.” He found some wild berries, made a cup of leaves, and filled it with the fragrant fruit, planning to take it to Aunt Peace.
But when he reached home Aunt Peace was far beyond the thought of berries. She was delirious, and her ravings were pitiful. Iris was as white as a ghost, and Margaret was sorely troubled.
“Lynn,” she said, “don’t go away. I need you. Where have you been?”
“To my lesson, and then for a walk. Herr Kaufmann says I may practise there sometimes. He also suggested Doctor Brinkerhoff’s.”
“That was kind, and I am sure the Doctor will be willing. How does he think you are getting along?”
She asked the question idly, and scarcely expected an answer, but Lynn turned his face away and refused to meet her eyes. “Not very well,” he said, in a low tone.
“Why not, dear? You practise enough, don’t you?”
“Yes, I think so. He says I have the technique and the good wrist, but I play like a parrot, and can only amuse. He told me to take up the concertina.”
Margaret smiled. “That is his way. Just go on, dear, and do the very best you can.”
“But I don’t want to disappoint you, mother – I want to be an artist.”
“Lynn, dear, you will never disappoint me. You have been a comfort to me since the day you were born. What should I have done without you in all these years that I have been alone!”
She drew his tall head down and kissed him, but Lynn, boy-like, evaded the sentiment and turned it into a joke. “That’s very Irish, mother – ‘what would you have done without me in all the time you’ve been alone?’ How is the invalid?”
“The fever is high,” sighed Margaret, “and Doctor Brinkerhoff looks very grave.”
“I hope she isn’t going to die,” said Lynn, conventionally. “Can I do anything?”
“No, nothing but wait. Sometimes I think that waiting is the very hardest thing in the world.”
That day was like the others. Weeks went by, and still Aunt Peace fought gallantly with her enemy. Doctor Brinkerhoff took up his abode in the great spare chamber and was absent from the house only when there was urgent need of his services elsewhere. He even gave up his Sunday afternoons at Herr Kaufmann’s, and Fräulein Fredrika was secretly distressed.
“Fredrika,” said the Master, gently, “the suffering ones have need of our friend. We must not be selfish.”
“Our friend possesses great skill,” replied the Fräulein, with quiet dignity. “Do you think he will forget us, Franz?”
“Forget us? No! Fear not, Fredrika; it is only little loves and little friendships that forget. One does not need those ties which can be broken. The Herr Doctor himself has said that, and of a surety, he knows. Let us be patient and wait.”
“To wait,” repeated Fredrika; “one finds it difficult, is it not so?”
“Yes,” smiled the Master, “but when one has learned to wait patiently, one has learned to live.”
Meanwhile, Aunt Peace grew steadily weaker, and the strain was beginning to tell upon all. Doctor Brinkerhoff had lost his youth – he was an old man. Margaret, painfully anxious, found relief from heartache only in unremitting toil. Iris ate very little, slept scarcely at all, and crept about the house like the ghost of her former self. Lynn alone maintained his cheerfulness.
“Iris,” said Aunt Peace, one day, “come here.”
“I’m here,” said the girl, kneeling beside the bed, and putting her cold hand upon the other’s burning cheek, “what can I do?”
“Nothing, dearie. I could get well, I think, were it not for my terrible dreams.”
Iris shuddered, and yet was thankful because Aunt Peace could call her delirium “dreams.”
“Lately,” continued Aunt Peace, “I have been afraid that I am not going to get well.”
“Don’t!” cried Iris, sharply, turning her face away.
“Dearie, dearie,” said the other, caressingly, “be my brave girl, and let me talk to you. When the dreams come back, I shall not know you, but now I do. I am stronger to-day, and we are alone, are we not? Where are the others?”
“The Doctor has gone to see someone who is very ill. Lynn has taken Mrs. Irving out for a walk.”
“I am glad,” said Aunt Peace, tenderly. “Margaret has been very good to me. You have all been good to me.”
Iris stroked the flushed face softly with her cool hand. In her eyes were love and longing, and a foreshadowed loneliness.
“Dearie,” Aunt Peace continued, “listen while I have the strength to speak. All the papers are in a tin box, in the trunk in the attic. There you will find everything that is known of your father and mother. I do not anticipate any need of the information, but it is well that you should know where to find it.
“I have left the house to Margaret,” she went on, with difficulty, “for it was rightfully hers, and after her it goes to Lynn, but there is a distinct understanding that it shall be your home while you live, if you choose to claim it. Margaret has promised me to keep you with her. When Lynn marries, as some day he will, you will be left alone. You and Margaret can make a home together.”
The girl’s face was hidden in her hands, and her shoulders shook with sobs.
“Don’t, dearie,” pleaded Aunt Peace, gently; “be my brave girl. Look up at me and smile. Don’t, dearie – please don’t!
“I have left you enough to make you comfortable,” she went on, after a little, “but not enough to be a care to you, nor to make you the prey of fortune hunters. It is, I think, securely invested, and you will have the income while you live. Some few keepsakes are yours, also – they are written down in” – here she hesitated – “in a paper Doctor Brinkerhoff has. He has been very good to us, dearie. He is almost your foster-father, for he was with me when I found you. He is a gentleman,” she said, with something of her old spirit, “though he has no social position.”
“Social position is not much, Aunt Peace, beside the things that really count, do you think it is?”
“I hardly know, dearie, but I have changed my mind about a great many things since I have lain here. I was never ill before – in all my seventy-five years, I have never been ill more than a day at a time, and it seems very hard.”
“It is hard, Aunt Peace, but we hope you will soon be well.”
“No, dearie,” she answered, “I’m afraid not. But do not let us borrow trouble, and let me tell you something to remember. When you have the heartache, dearie,” – here the old eyes looked trustfully into the younger ones, – “don’t forget that you made me happy. You have filled my days with sunshine, and, more than anything else, you have kept me young. I know you thought me harsh at first, but now, I am sure you understand. You have been my own dear daughter, Iris. If you had been my own flesh and blood, you could not have been more to me than you have.”
Margaret came in, and Iris went away, sobbing bitterly. Aunt Peace sighed heavily. Her cheeks were scarlet, and her eyes burned like stars.
“I’m afraid you’ve tired yourself,” said Margaret, softly. “Was I gone too long?”
“No, indeed! Iris has been with me, and I am better to-day.”
“Try to sleep,” said Margaret, soothingly.
Obediently, Aunt Peace closed her eyes, but presently she sat up. “I’m so warm,” she said, fretfully. “Where is Doctor Brinkerhoff?”
“He has not come yet, but I think he will be here soon.”
“Margaret?”
“Yes, Aunt Peace.”
“Will you write off the recipe for those little cakes for him? He may be able to find someone to make them for him, though of course they will not be the same.”
“Yes, I will.”
“It’s in my book. They are called ‘Doctor Brinkerhoff’s cakes.’ You will not forget?”
“No, I won’t forget. Can’t you sleep now?”
“I’ll try.”
Presently, the deep regular breathing told that she was asleep. Iris came back with her eyes swollen and Margaret took her out into the hall. They sat there for a long time, hand in hand, waiting, but no sound came from the other room.
“I cannot bear it,” moaned Iris, her mouth quivering. “I cannot bear to have Aunt Peace die.”
“Life has many meanings,” said Margaret, “but it is what we make it, after all. The pendulum swings from daylight to darkness, from sun to storm, but the balance is always true.”
Iris leaned against her, insensibly comforted.
“She would be the first to tell you not to grieve,” Margaret went on, though her voice faltered, “and still, we need sorrow as the world needs night. We cannot always live in the sun. We can take what comes to us bravely, as gentlewomen should, but we must take it, dear – there is no other way.”
Long afterward, Iris remembered the look on Margaret’s face as she said it, but the tears blinded her just then.
Doctor Brinkerhoff came back at twilight, anxious and worn, yet eager to do his share. Through the night he watched with her, alert, capable, and unselfish, putting aside his personal grief for the sake of the others.
In the last days, those two had grown very near together. When the dreams came, he held her in his arms until the tempest passed, and afterwards, soothed her to sleep.
“Doctor,” she said one day, “I have been thinking a great deal while I have lain here. I seem never to have had the time before. I think it is well, at the end, to have a little space of calm, for one sees so much more clearly.”
“You have always seen clearly, dear lady,” said the Doctor, very gently.
“Not always,” she answered, shaking her head. “I can see many a mistake now. The fogs have sometimes gathered thick about me, but now they have lifted forever. We are but ships on the sea of life,” she went on. “My course has lain through calm waters, for the most part, with the skies blue and fair above me. I have been sheltered, and I can see now that it might have made me stronger and better to face some of the storms. Still, my Captain knows, and now, when I can hear the breakers booming on the reef where I am to strike my colours, I am not afraid.”
The end came on Sunday, just at sunset, while the bells were tolling for the vesper service. The crescent moon rocked idly in the west, and a star glimmered faintly above it.
“Sunset and evening star,” she repeated, softly. “And one clear call for me. Will you say the rest of it?”
Choking, Doctor Brinkerhoff went on with the poem until he reached the last verse, when he could speak no more.
“For though from out our bourne of time and place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to meet my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.”
She finished it, then turned to him with her face illumined. “It is beautiful,” she said, “is it not, my friend?”
Twilight came, and Margaret found them there when she went in with a lighted candle. The Doctor sat at the side of the bed, very stiff and straight, with the tears streaming over his wrinkled face. On his shoulder, like a tired child, lay Aunt Peace, who had put on, at last, her Necklace of Perfect Joy.
XII
The False Line
Up in the darkened chamber where Aunt Peace lay, Iris stood face to face with the greatest sorrow of her life. Was this, then, the end? Was there nothing more? Cold as snow, unpitying as marble, Death mocked Iris as she stood there, mutely questioning. Timidly she touched the waxen cheek. The crimson fires burned there no more – the fever was gone.
Through the house resounded the steady tread of muffled feet. Of all the horrors of Death, the worst is that seemingly endless procession who come to offer “sympathy,” to ask if there is anything they can do. Mere acquaintances, privileged only by a casual nod, break down all barriers when the Conqueror comes. Is it that idle curiosity which occasionally dominates the best of us, or is it Life, triumphant for the moment, looking forward fearfully to its inevitable end?
Some “friend of the family,” high in its confidence, assumes the responsibility at such times. Chance callers are rewarded with grisly details and grewsome descriptions of the soul struggling to free itself from its bonds. We are told how the others “took it,” when at last the sail was spread for the voyage over the uncharted sea.
In the hall, straight as a soldier under orders, stood Doctor Brinkerhoff. “No, madam,” he would say, “there is nothing you can do. The arrangements are made. I will tell Mrs. Irving and Miss Temple that you called. Yes, we were expecting it. She died peacefully; there was no pain. To-morrow at four.”
And then again: “Thank you, there is nothing you can do, but it is kind of you to offer. The ladies will be grateful for your sympathy. Who shall I say called?”
“Iris,” pleaded Margaret, “come away.”
The girl started. “I can’t,” she answered, dully.
“You must come, dear – come into my room.”
Unwillingly, Iris suffered herself to be led away. It is only the surface emotion which is relieved by tears. Within the prison-house of the soul, when Grief, clad in grey garments, enters silently and prepares to remain, there is no weeping. One hides it, as the Spartan covered the bleeding wound in his breast.
“Dear,” said Margaret, “my heart aches for you.”
“She was all I had,” whispered Iris.
“But not all you have. Lynn and I, and Doctor Brinkerhoff – surely we are something.”
“Did you ever care?” asked Iris, her despairing eyes fixed upon Margaret.
The older woman shrank from the question. She was tempted to dissemble, but one tells the truth in the presence of Death.
“Not as you care,” she answered. “My mother broke my heart. She took me away from the man I loved, and forced me to marry another, whom I only respected. When my husband died, I had my freedom, but it came too late. When my mother died – she died unforgiven.”
“Then you don’t understand.”
“Yes, dear, I understand. You must remember that I loved her too.”
“Suppose it had been Lynn?”
“Lynn!” cried Margaret, with her lips white. “Lynn! Dear God, no!”
Iris laughed hysterically. “You do not understand,” she said, with forced calmness, “but you would if it were Lynn. You would not let me keep you away if it were Lynn instead of Aunt Peace, so please do not disturb me again.”
Back she went, into the darkened chamber, and closed the door.
Lynn walked back and forth through the halls aimlessly. All along, he had felt the repulsion of the healthy young animal for the aged and ill. Now he was unmoved, save by the dank, sweet smell of the house of death. It grated on his sensibilities and made him shudder. He wished that it was over.
From his mother, he felt a curious alienation. Her eyes were red, and, man-like, Lynn hated tears. From Doctor Brinkerhoff, too, a gulf divided him.
His fingers itched for his violin, but he could not practise. It would not disturb Aunt Peace, but it would be considered out of keeping with the situation. The Doctor’s rooms over the post-office were also impossible. He smiled at the thought of the gossip which would permeate East Lancaster if he should practise there.
But at Herr Kaufmann’s? His face brightened, and with characteristic impulsiveness he hastened downstairs.
Doctor Brinkerhoff still stood in the hall, a little wearily, perhaps, but calmness overlaid his features like a mask. Lynn wondered at the change in him.
“Mr. Irving,” he said, huskily, “you were going out?”
“Yes,” replied Lynn, “to Herr Kaufmann’s. I can do nothing here,” he added, by way of apology.
“No,” sighed the Doctor, “no one can do anything here, but wait one moment.”
“Yes?” responded Lynn, with a rising inflection. “Is there some message?”
“It is my message,” said the Doctor, with dignity. “Say to him, please, that no provision has been made for music to-morrow, and that I would like him to come. Be sure to say that I ask it.”
“Very well.”
Lynn moved away from the house decorously, though the freedom of the outer air and the spring of the turf beneath his feet lifted the cloud from his spirits and urged him to hasten his steps.
Doctor Brinkerhoff looked after him, his old eyes dim. The impassable chasm of the years lay between him and Lynn – a measureless gulf which no trick of magic might span. “If I had it to do over,” said the Doctor, to himself, – “if I had my lost youth – and was not afraid, – things would not be as they are now.”
Margaret saw him from her upper window, and something tightened round her heart, as though some iron hand held it unpityingly. Then came a great throb of relief, because it was Aunt Peace, instead of Lynn.
Iris, too, had seen him as he left the house. She perceived that he was eager to get away – that only a sense of the fitness of things kept him from running and whistling as was his wont. From the first, she had known that it was nothing to him. “He has no heart,” she said to herself. “He is as cold as – as cold as Aunt Peace is now.”
Slow torture held the girl in a remorseless gird. Dimly, she knew that some day there would be a change – that it could not always be like this. Sometime it must ease, and each throb would be sensibly less of a hurt – just a little easier to bear. With rare prescience, also, she knew that nothing in the world would ever be the same again – that she had come to the dividing line. One reaches it as a light-hearted child; one crosses it – a woman.
“No,” said the Doctor, for the fiftieth time, “there is nothing you can do. Mrs. Irving and Miss Temple are not receiving. Yes, we expected it. The end was very peaceful and she did not suffer at all. Yes, it is surely a comfort to know that. The arrangements are all made. Yes, thank you, we have the music provided for. It was kind of you to come, and the ladies will be grateful for your sympathy. Who shall I say called?”
Behind him were the portraits, ranged in orderly rows. Some were old and others young, but all had gone the way that Peace should go to-morrow. Dumbly, the Doctor wondered if the same remorseless questioning had gone on every time there had been a death in the old house, and, if so, why the very floors did not cry out in protest at the desecration.
Life, that mystery of mysteries! The silence at the end and the beginning is far easier to understand than the rainbow that arches between. Man, the epitome of his forbears, – more than that, the epitome of creation, – stands by himself – the riddle of the universe.
The house in some way seemed alive, in pitiful contrast to its mistress, who lay upstairs, spending her last night in the virginal whiteness of her chamber. To-night there, and to-morrow night —
Doctor Brinkerhoff, unable to bear the thought, recoiled as if from an unexpected blow. Was it fancy, or did the painted lips of the young officer in the uniform of the Colonies part in an ironical smile?
“So,” said the Master, as he opened the door, “you are late to your lesson.”
“It is my lesson day, isn’t it?” returned Lynn. “But I have only come to practise. My aunt is dead.”
“So? Your aunt?”
“Yes, Aunt Peace. Miss Field, you know,” he continued, in explanation.
“So? I did not know. When was it?”
“Sunday afternoon.”
“And this is Tuesday. Well, we hear very little up here. It is too bad.”
“Yes,” agreed Lynn, awkwardly, “It – it upsets things.”
The Master looked at him narrowly. “So it does. For instance, you have lost one lesson on account of it, but you can practise. Come down in mine shop where I am finishing mine violin. You shall play your concerto. It is not a necessity to lose the practise for death.”
“That’s what I thought,” said Lynn, as they went downstairs. “She was very old, you know – more than seventy-five. There is a great deal of fuss made about such things.”
Again the Master looked at him sharply, but Lynn was unconscious and perfectly sincere. He was not touched at all.
“You can have one of mine violins,” the Master resumed, “and I shall finish the one upon which I am at work. The concerto, please.”
At once Lynn began, walking back and forth restlessly as he played. He had long since memorised the composition, and when he finished the first movement he paused to tighten a string.
“You,” said the Master, – “you have studied composition?”
“Only a little.”
“You feel no gift in that line?”
“No, not at all.”
“It is only to play?”
“Yes, for the present.”
“Then,” said the Master, changing the position of the bridge on the violin in his hand, “if you have no talents for composition, why do you not let the composer of your concerto have his own way? You should not correct him – it is most impolite.”
“What – what do you mean?” stammered Lynn.
“Nothing,” said the Master, “only, if you have no gifts, you should play G sharp where it is written, instead of G natural. It is not what one might call an improvement in the concerto.”
Lynn flushed, and began to play the movement over again, but before he reached the bar in question he had forgotten. When he came to it he played G natural again, and instantly perceived his mistake.
The Master laughed. “Genius,” he said, “must have its own way. It is not to be held down by the written score. It must make changes, flourishes, improvements. It is one pity that the composer cannot know.”
“I forgot,” temporised Lynn.
“So? Then why not take up the parlour organ? You should have an instrument on which the notes are all made. I should not advise the banjo, or even the concertina. The organ that turns by the handle would be better yet. To make the notes – that is most difficult, is it not so? Now, then, the adagio. Let us see how much you can better that.”
Lynn played it correctly, and with intelligence, but without feeling.
“One moment,” said the Master. “There is something I do not understand. That adagio is one of the most beautiful things ever written. It is full of one heartache and has in it many tears. Your aunt, you say, lies dead in your house, and yet you play it like one machine. I cannot see! Perhaps you had quarrelled?”
“No,” returned Lynn, in astonishment, “I was very, very fond of her.”
There was a long silence, then the Master sighed. “The thing means more than the person,” he said. “Whoever is dead, if it is only one little bird, it should make you feel sad. But it waits. Before you have finished, the world will do one of three things to you. It will make your heart very soft, very hard, or else break it, so. No one escapes.”
“By the way,” began Lynn, eager to change the subject, “Doctor Brinkerhoff told me to ask you to come and play at the funeral to-morrow at four o’clock. He said it was his wish.”
The Master’s face was troubled. “Once,” he said, “I promised one very angry lady that I would not go in that house again, and I have kept mine word. It was only once I went, but that was too much. Still, it was twenty-five years and more past, and she has long since been dead. Death frees one from a promise, is it not so?”
“Of course,” replied Lynn, vaguely.
“At any rate, mine friend, the Herr Doctor, has asked it, even after he has known of mine promise, and, of a surety, he is wiser than I. I will come, at four, with mine violin.”
Lynn took the long way home, his sunny nature deeply disturbed. “What is it?” he vainly asked of himself. “Am I different from everybody else? They all seem to know something that I do not.”
Iris kept her long vigil by Aunt Peace, her grief too great for her starved body to withstand. At the sound of a fall, Doctor Brinkerhoff left his post and hurried upstairs. Margaret was there almost as soon as he was. Iris had fainted.
Together, they carried her into her own room, where at length she revived. “What happened?” she asked, weakly. “Did I fall?”
“Hush, dear,” said Margaret. “Lie still. I’m coming to sit with you after a while.”
She went out into the hall to speak to the Doctor, but he was not there. By instinct, she knew where to find him, and went into the front room.
He stood with his back to the door, looking down upon that marble face. Margaret was beside him, before he knew of her presence, and when he turned, for once off his guard, she read his secret.
“She never knew,” he said, briefly, as though in explanation. “I never dared to tell her. Sometimes I think the lines we draw are false ones – that God knows best.”
“Yes,” replied Margaret, unsteadily, “the lines are false, but it is always too late when we find it out.”
“Yet a part of the barrier was of His own making. She was infinitely above me. I should have been her slave; I was never meant to be her equal. Still, the thirsty heart will aspire to the waters beyond its reach.”
“She knows now,” said Margaret.
“Yes, she knows now, and she pardons me for my presumption. I can read it in her face as I stand here.”
Margaret choked back a sob. “Come away,” she said, with her hand upon his arm, “come away until to-morrow.”
“Until to-morrow,” he repeated, softly. He closed the door quietly, as though he feared the sound might break her sleep.
Iris was resting, and Margaret tiptoed down into the parlour, where the Doctor sat with his grey head bowed upon his hands. “She knows it now,” he said again, “and she forgives me. I can feel it in my heart.”
“If she had known it before,” said Margaret, “things would have been different,” but she knew that what she said was untrue.
“No,” he returned, shaking his head, “the line was there. You would not know what it is like unless there had been a line between you and the one you loved.”
“There was,” she answered, hoarsely, then her eyes met his.
“You, too?” he asked, unbelieving, but she could not speak. She only bowed her head in assent. Then his hand grasped hers in full understanding. The false line divided them, also, but in one thing, at least, they were kindred.
“I wish,” said the Doctor, after a little, “that we could hide her away before to-morrow. The people she has held herself apart from all her life will come and look at her now that she is helpless.”
“That is the irony of it,” returned Margaret. “I have even prayed to outlive those I hated, so that they could not come and look at me when I was dead.”
“Have you outlived them?”
“Yes,” answered Margaret, thickly, “every one.”
“You hated someone who drew the false line?”
“Yes.”
“And that person is dead?”
“Yes.”
“Then,” said the Doctor, very gently, “when you have forgiven, the line will be blotted out. The one on the other side of it may be out of your reach forever, but the line will be gone.”