Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/832

772 at least must be present. If not, something else is there.

"But how is it with those solitary souls isolated in the world,—the lone herder who is found lifeless in some vast waterless desert, the pioneer whose bones are stumbled over by the tardy pickets of civilization,—and even those nearer us,—here in our city,—who are found in silent houses, in deserted streets, in the solitude of salt meadows, in the miserable desolation of vacant lands beyond the suburbs?"

The girl in black stood motionless, watching him intently.

"I like to believe," he went on, "that no living creature dies absolutely and utterly alone. I have thought that, perhaps in the desert, for instance, when a man is doomed, and there is no chance that he could live to relate the miracle, some winged sentinel from the uttermost outpost of Eternity, putting off the armor of invisibility, drops through space to watch beside him so that he may not die alone."

There was absolute quiet in the circle around him. Looking always at the girl in black, he said:

"Perhaps, those doomed on dark mountains or in solitary deserts, or the last survivor at sea, drifting to certain destruction after the wreck has foundered, finds death no terror, being guided to it by those invisible to all save the surely doomed. That is really all that suggested the marble,—quite illogical, you see."

In the stillness, somebody drew a long, deep breath; the easy reaction followed; people moved, spoke together in low voices; a laugh rippled up out of the darkness. But Helmer had gone, making his way through the half-light toward a figure that moved beyond through the deeper shadows of the foliage—moved slowly and more slowly. Once she looked back, and he followed, pushing forward and parting the heavy fronds of fern and palm and masses of moist blossoms. Suddenly he came upon her, standing there as though waiting for him.

"There is not a soul in this house charitable enough to present me," he began.

"Then," she answered, laughingly, "charity should begin at home. Take pity on yourself—and on me. I have waited for you."

"Did you really care to know me?" he stammered.

"Why am I here alone with you?" she asked, bending above a scented mass of flowers. "Indiscretion may be a part of valor, but it is the best part of—something else."

That blue radiance which a starless sky sheds lighted her white shoulders; transparent shadow veiled the contour of neck and cheeks.

"At dinner," he said, "I did not mean to stare so,—but I simply could not keep my eyes from yours—"

"A hint that mine were on yours, too?"

She laughed a little laugh so sweet that the sound seemed part of the twilight and the floating fragrance. She turned gracefully, holding out her hand.

"Let us be friends," she said,—"after all these years."

Her hand lay in his for an instant; then she withdrew it and dropped it caressingly upon a cluster of massed flowers.

"Forced bloom," she said, looking down at them, where her fingers, white as the blossoms, lay half buried. Then, raising her head, "You do not know me, do you?"

"Know you?" he faltered,—"how could I know you? Do you think for a moment that I could have forgotten you?"

"Ah, you have not forgotten me," she said, still with her wide smiling eyes on his; "you have not forgotten. There is a trace of me in the winged figure you cut in marble,—not the features, not the massed hair, nor the rounded neck and limbs,—but in the eyes. Who living, save yourself, can read those eyes?"

"Are you laughing at me?"

"Answer me; who alone in all the world can read the message in those sculptured eyes?"

"Can you?" he asked, curiously troubled.

"Yes; I, and the dying man in marble."

"What do you read there?"

"Pardon for guilt. You have foreshadowed it, unconsciously,—the resurrection of the soul. That is what you have left in marble for the mercilessly