I pitied him, but I pitied myself more. For, looking at him, hearing
him talk, I saw that he did not know and would never know. God had not
made him to know as Eloise and I knew, not even as Elsie would know. In
spite of all that had passed before him, and all that he had seen, he
did not know that as he talked of Eloise it was I who was suffering
most. He did not even see remotely that it was I who loved her, not
he.... There are fish in the deep sea which carry their own electric
light.... There are others there which have not even eyes! ...
Elsie was openly happy all the afternoon with me. Such dreams as she
had dreamt of our future! Such dreams as had come true even in her own
castle!
I let her talk and plan for our future. I did not know what it all
meant, whither Fate was hurrying me. I could not see the end, but I
knew that the end would be well. For the real architect of our lives is
God. The very shadow of our doubt becomes pictures done in beauty.
It takes shadows to make pictures. In the foreground of every shadow
already stands the picture from His hand. And as for the sorrows sent
of Him, they are not sorrows; rather are they crowns of Great Joy for
brows chosen of Martyrdom.... So I let her dream and love and plan,
knowing that whatever was coming to me would be good, that behind the
Wish of our own little dreams lay the larger Will of the Great
Dreamer....
In the afternoon I had slipped away to a place where two great maples
threw their shadows across the lawn. I was tired, and my heart was full
of conflicts. I wanted to think of Eloise.
It was a quiet, sweet place. Then I heard Elsie coming, full of
happiness, to judge from the very tread of her feet on the grass.
I was lying half propped against a tree. Looking up I saw she was
kneeling above me, her eyes laughing as she shyly peeped from behind the
trunk. There was a sofa pillow in her hands and she was trying to place
it under my head. "You must sleep, now," she said softly. "You are so
tired and hollow-cheeked, Jack, my bonnie Jack. I am going to begin to
learn now to take care of you. I will come to waken you in an hour,
then we are going to drive into town, father and you and me!"
She lingered a moment slyly; then stooped to kiss my forehead and was
gone.
I had not come to sleep, I had come to think of Eloise, to dream of her
once more. I took her note from my pocket; I kissed it and with tears I
read it. "_I was widowed of love but I am wedded. Forgive me, forget
me, but love me always, Jack, as I shall you,—Eloise._" How strange it
is, this joy-sorrow! There can be but one explanation of it: down the
endless chain of our ancestry so much sorrow has come that the taint of
it lies sweetly in the pedigree of our own breast.
I kissed the withered heart’s-ease. Later I must have fallen asleep...
It was Colonel Goff who wakened me, coming on a run.
"Quick, Jack!" he cried.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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