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PASSION AND PATIENCE.
It was a glorious morning, and as they climbed, the lightening air
made their spirits rise with their steps. Great masses of cloud hung
beyond the edge of the world, and here and there towered
foundationless in the sky--huge tumulous heaps of white vapour with
gray shadows. The sun was strong, and poured down floods of light,
but his heat was deliciously tempered by the mountain atmosphere.
There was no wind--only an occasional movement as if the air itself
were breathing--just enough to let them feel they moved in no
vacuum, but in the heart of a gentle ocean.
They came to the hut I have already described as the one chiefly
inhabited by Hector of the Stags and Bob of the Angels. It commanded
a rare vision. In every direction rose some cone-shaped hill. The
world lay in coloured waves before them, wild, rugged, and grand,
with sheltering spots of beauty between, and the shine of lowly
waters. They tapped at the door of the hut, but there was no
response; they lifted the latch--it had no lock--and found neither
within. Alister and Mercy wandered a little higher, to the shadow of
a great stone; Christina went inside the hut and looked from its
door upon the world; Ian leaned against the side of it, and looked
up to the sky. Suddenly a few great drops fell--it was hard to say
whence. The scattered clouds had been drawing a little nearer the
sun, growing whiter as they approached him, and more had ascended
from the horizon into the middle air, blue sky abounding between
them. A swift rain, like a rain of the early summer, began to fall,
and grew to a heavy shower. They were glorious drops that made that
shower; for the sun shone, and every drop was a falling gem,
shining, sparkling like a diamond, as it fell. It was a bounteous
rain, coming from near the zenith, and falling in straight lines
direct from heaven to earth. It wanted but sound to complete its
charm, and that the bells of the heather gave, set ringing by the
drops. The heaven was filled with blue windows, and the rain seemed
to come from them rather than from the clouds. Into the rain rose
the heads of the mountains, each clothed in its surplice of thin
mist; they seemed rising on tiptoe heavenward, eager to drink of the
high-born comfort; for the rain comes down, not upon the mown grass
only, but upon the solitary and desert places also, where grass will
never be--"the playgrounds of the young angels," Bob called them.
"Do come in," said Christina; "you will get quite wet!"
He turned towards her. She stepped back, and he entered. Like one a
little weary, he sat down on Hector's old chair.
"Is anything the matter?" asked Christina, with genuine concern.
She saw that he was not quite like himself, that there was an
unusual expression on his face. He gave a faint apologetic smile.
"As I stood there," he answered, "a strange feeling came over me--a
foreboding, I suppose you would call it!"
He paused; Christina grew pale, and said, "Won't you tell me what it
was?"
"It was an odd kind of conviction that the next time I stood there,
it would not be in the body.--I think I shall not come back."
"Come back!" echoed Christina, fear beginning to sip at the cup of
her heart. "Where are you going?"
"I start for Canada next week."
She turned deadly white, and put out her hands, feeling blindly
after support. Ian started to his feet.
"We have tired you out!" he said in alarm, and took her by both
hands to place her in the chair.
She did not hear him. The world had grown dark about her, a hissing
noise was in her ears, and she would have fallen had he not put his
arm round her. The moment she felt supported, she began to come to
herself. There was no pretence, however, no coquetry in her
faintness. Neither was it aught but misery and affection that made
her lay her head on Ian's shoulder, and burst into a violent fit of
weeping. Unused to real emotion, familiar only with the
poverty-stricken, false emotion of conquest and gratified vanity,
when the real emotion came she did not know how to deal with it, and
it overpowered her.
"Oh! oh!" she cried at length between her sobs, "I am ashamed of
myself! I can't help it! I can't help it! What will you think of me!
I have disgraced myself!"
Ian had been far from any suspicion of the state of things, but he
had had too much sorrowful experience to be able to keep his
unwilling eyes closed to this new consternation. The cold shower
seemed to flood his soul; the bright drops descending with such
swiftness of beauty, instinct with sun-life, turned into points of
icy steel that pierced his heart. But he must not heed himself! he
must speak to her! He must say something through the terrible shroud
that infolded them!
"You are as safe with me," he faltered, "--as safe as with your
mother!"
"I believe it! I know it," she answered, still sobbing, but looking
up with an expression of genuine integrity such as he had never seen
on her face before. "But I AM sorry!" she went on. "It is very weak,
and very, very un--un--womanly of me! But it came upon me all at
once! If I had only had some warning! Oh, why did you not tell me
before? Why did you not prepare me for it? You might have known what
it would be to hear it so suddenly!"
More and more aghast grew Ian! What was to be done? What was to be
said? What was left for a man to do, when a woman laid her soul
before him? Was there nothing but a lie to save her from bitterest
humiliation? To refuse any woman was to Ian a hard task; once he had
found it impossible to refuse even where he could not give, and had
let a woman take his soul! Thank God, she took it indeed! he yielded
himself perfectly, and God gave him her in return! But that was
once, and for ever! It could not be done again!
"I am very sorry!" he murmured; and the words and their tone sent a
shiver through the heart of Christina.
But now that she had betrayed her secret, the pent up tide of her
phantasy rushed to the door. She was reckless. Used to everything
her own way, knowing nothing of disappointment, a new and ill
understood passion dominating her, she let everything go and the
torrent sweep her with it. Passion, like a lovely wild beast, had
mastered her, and she never thought of trying to tame it. It was
herself! there was not enough of her outside the passion to stand up
against it! She began to see the filmy eyed Despair, and had neither
experience to deal with herself, nor reticence enough to keep
silence.
"If you speak to me like that," she cried, "my heart will
break!--Must you go away?"
"Dear Miss Palmer,--" faltered Ian.
"Oh!" she ejaculated, with a world of bitterness in the protest.
"--do let us be calm!" continued Ian. "We shall not come to anything
if we lose ourselves this way!"
The WE and the US gave her a little hope.
"How can I be calm!" she cried. "I am not cold-hearted like
you!--You are going away, and I shall never see you again to all
eternity!"
She burst out weeping afresh.
"Do love me a little before you go," she sobbed. "You gave me my
life once, but that does not make it right to take it from me again!
It only gives you a right to its best!"
"God knows," said Ian, "if my life could serve you, I should count
it a small thing to yield!--But this is idle talk! A man must not
pretend anything! We must not be untrue!"
She fancied he did not believe in her.
"I know! I know! you may well distrust me!" she returned. "I have
often behaved abominably to you! But indeed I am true now! I dare
not tell you a lie. To you I MUST speak the truth, for I love you
with my whole soul."
Ian stood dumb. His look of consternation and sadness brought her to
herself a little.
"What have I done!" she cried, and drawing back a pace, stood
looking at him, and trembling. "I am disgraced for ever! I have told
a man I love him, and he leaves me to the shame of it! He will not
save me from it! he will not say one word to take it away! Where is
your generosity, Ian?"
"I must be true!" said Ian, speaking as if to himself, and in a
voice altogether unlike his own.
"You will not love me! You hate me! You despise me! But I will not
live rejected! He brushes me like a feather from his coat!"
"Hear me," said Ian, trying to recover himself. "Do not think me
insensible--"
"Oh, yes! I know!" cried Christina yet more bitterly; "--INSENSIBLE
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