BOOK II. THE HILL-CABIN (continued 3)

“I’m ready for what comes.”

By a really dramatic coincidence, within ten minutes after this fruitage of fine spirit, John Morning found an old unopened envelope from Nevin, the little doctor of the Sickles. He had recalled some data on Liaoyang while inspecting the morning—something that might prove valuable for the play, in the old wallet he had carried afield. Looking for this in the moulded leather, he found the letter Nevin had left in the Armory, before departing—just a little before Betty Berry came that day.... Nevin had not come back. But Noyes and Field had come.

Morning remembered that Nevin had spoken that morning of finding something for the wound that would not heal.... The remedy was Chinese. The Doctor knew of its existence, but had procured the name with great difficulty in the Chinese quarter.... Morning was to fast ten days while taking the treatment.

He went about it with a laugh. The message had renewed his deep affection for Nevin. It had come forth from the hidden place where Nevin now toiled, (secretly trying, doubtless, to cover every appearance of his humanity).... He remembered how Nevin had studied the wound that refused to heal. The last thing had been his report on that. When there was nothing more to be offered but felicities—he had vanished.

Morning did not leap into any expectancy that he was to be healed, but thoughts of Nevin gave him another desire after the play and the book—to trace the great-hearted little man before the end. Nevin would be found somewhere out among the excessive desolations. If it may be understood, the idea of mortal sickness remained in Morning’s mind at this time, mainly as a barrier between him and Betty Berry.

Nevin’s drug was procured in New York. Hackensack failed utterly in this.... On the third day, Morning suffered keenly for the need of food. A paragraph from Betty Berry on the subject of the fasting at this time completely astonished him; indeed, shook the basic conviction as to the meaning of her departure:

“... I have often thought you did not seem so well after I returned from Europe, as you were when we parted. But the ten days will do for you, something that makes whatever might happen in the body seem so little and unavailing.... Don’t you see, you are doing what every one, destined to be a world-teacher, has done?... What amazes me continually, is that you seem to be brought, one by one, to these things by exterior processes, rather than through any will of your own.... The Hebrew prophets were all called upon to do this in order to listen better. Recall, too, the coming forth from the Wilderness of the Baptist, and the forty days in the wilderness of the Master Himself. Why, it is part of the formula! You will do more than improve the physical health; you will hear your message more clearly.... I sit and think—in the very hush of expectancy for you.”

As the evidences came, so they vanished. She could not have fled from him in the fear of leprosy and written in this way; nor could Duke Fallows, who was first of all unafraid of fleshly things. The conviction of his taint, and of its incurableness, daily weakened. Before the ten days passed, the last vestige of the horror was cleaned away. Illusion—and yet the mental battle through which he had passed, and which, through three terrible days, had shaken him body and soul, was just as real in the graving of its experience upon the fabric of his being as was the journey to Koupangtse, done hand and foot and horse. He perceived that man, farther advanced in the complications of self-consciousness, covers ground in three days and masters a lesson that would require a life to learn in the dimness and leisure of simple consciousness.

There was no way of missing this added fact: He, John Morning, was not designed to lean. He had been whipped and spurred through another dark hollow in the valley of the shadow, to show him again, and finally, that he was not intended for leaning upon others, yet must have an instant appreciation of the suffering of others. He had been forced to fight his own way to a certain poise, through what was to him, at the time, actual abandonment in distress, by the woman and the friend he loved. Moreover, he had accepted death; resignation to death in its most horrible form had been driven into his soul—an important life lesson, which whole races of men have died to learn.

He was seeing very clearly.... He bathed continually both in water and sunlight, lying in the open doorway as the Spring took root on his hill and below. Often he mused away the hours, with Betty Berry’s letters in his hand—too weak almost to stir at last, but filled with ease and well-being, such as he had never known. Water from the Spring was all he needed, and the activity of mind was pure and unerring, as if he were lifted above the enveloping mists of the senses, through which he had formerly regarded life.

Everything now was large and clear. Life was like a coast of splendid altitude, from which he viewed the mighty distances of gilded and cloud-shadowed sea, birds sailing vast-pinioned and pure, the breakers sounding a part of the majestic harmony of granite and sea and sky; the sun God-like, and the stars vast and pure like the birds.

When he actually looked with his eyes, it was as if he had come back, a man, to some haunt of childhood. The little hill was just as lovely, a human delight in the unbudded elms, a soft and childish familiarity in the new greens of the sun-slope grass. The yellow primrose was first to come, for yellow answers the thinnest, farthest sunlight. The little cabin was like a cocoon. He was but half-out. Soon the stronger sunlight would set him free—then to the wings.... One afternoon he stared across to the haze of the great city. His eyes smarted with the thought of the Charleys and the sisters, of the Boabdils and the slums.... Then, at last, he thought of Betty Berry waiting and thinking of him ... “in the very hush of expectancy.” The world was very dear and wonderful, and his love for her was in it all.

It was the ninth day that the bandage slipped from him, as clean as when he put it on the day before, and when he opened the door of the cabin he heard the first robin.... There was a sweeping finality in the way it had come from Nevin, and the quality of the man lived in Morning’s appreciation. His friends were always gone before he knew how fine they were.

He was slow to realize that the days of earth-life were plentiful for him, in the usual course. A man is never the same after he has accepted death.... And it had all come in order.... He could look into her eyes and say, “Betty Berry, whatever you want, is right for me, but I think it would be best for you to tell me everything. We are strong—and if we are not to be one together, we should talk it over and understand perfectly.”...

How strange he had missed this straight way. There had been so much illusion before. His body was utterly weak, but his mind saw more clearly and powerfully than ever.

The Play was conceived as a whole that ninth day. The sun came warmly in, while he wrote at length of the work, as he finally saw it.... On the tenth day he drank a little milk and slept in his chair by the doorway.... There was one difficult run that the robin went over a hundred and fifty times, at least.

19

Betty Berry watched the progress of the fasting with a mothering intensity. She saw that which had been lyrical and impassioned give way to the workman, the deeper-seeing artist. He was not less human; his humanity was broadened. From one of his pages, she read how he had looked across at the higher lights of New York one clear March night. His mind had been suddenly startled by a swift picture of the fighting fool he had been, and of the millions there, beating themselves and each other to death for vain things.... She saw his Play come on in the days that followed the fasting. There was freshness in his voice. She did not know that he had accepted death, but she saw that he was beginning to accept her will in their separation.

And this is what she had tried to bring about, but her heart was breaking. Dully she wondered if her whole life were not breaking. The something implacable which she had always felt in being a woman, held her like a matrix of iron now. Her life story had been a classic of suffering, yet she had never suffered before.

A letter from him, (frequently twice a day, they came) and it was her instant impulse to answer, almost as if he had spoken. And when she wrote—all the woman’s life of her had to be cut from it—cut again and again—until was left only what another might say.... She was forced to learn the terrible process of elimination which only the greater artists realize, and which they learn only through years of travail—that selection of the naked absolute, according to their vision, all the senses chiseled away. His work, his health, especially the clear-seeing that came from purifying of the body, the detachment of his thoughts from physical emotions—of these, which were clear to her as the impulses of instinct—she allowed herself to write. But the woman’s heart of flesh, which had fasted so long for love, so often found its way to her pages, and forced them to be done again.... Certain of his paragraphs dismayed her, as:

“Does it astonish you,” he asked, almost joyously, “when I say there is something about Betty Berry beyond question—such a luxurious sense of truth?... I feel your silences and your listenings between every sentence. It is not what you say, though in words you seem to know what I am to-day, and what I shall be to-morrow—but all about the words, are you—those perfect hesitations, the things which I seemed to know at first, but could not express. They were much too fine for a medium of expression which knew only wars, horses, and the reporting of words and deeds of men.... Why, the best thing in my heart is its trust for you, Betty Berry. Looking back upon our hours together, I can see now that all the misunderstandings were mine and all the truth yours. When it seems to me that we should be together, and the memories come piling back—those perfect hours—I say, because of this trust, ‘Though it is not as I would have it, her way is better. And I know I shall come to see it, because she cannot be wrong.’”

So she could not hide her heart from him, even though she put down what seemed to her unworthiness and evasion, and decided through actual brain-process what was best to say. A new conduct of life was not carrying Betty Berry up into the coolness beyond the senses. Fasting would never bring that to her. Fasting of the body was so simple compared to the fasting of the heart which had been her whole life. Nor could she ever rise long from the sense of the serpent in woman which she had realized from the words of his Guardian—not a serpent to the usual man, but to the man who was destined to love the many instead of one.... She loved him as a woman loves—the boy, the lover, the man of him—the kisses, the whispers, the arms of strength, the rapture of nearness....

He must have been close to the spirit of that night at the theatre, when this was written:

“The letter to-day, with the plaintive note in it, has brought you even closer. I never think of you as one who can be tried seriously; always as one finished, with infinite patience, and no regard at all for the encompassing common. Of course, I know differently, know that you must suffer, you who are so keenly and exquisitely animate—but you have an un-American poise.... You played amazingly. I loved that at once. There was a gleam about it. Betty Berry’s gleaming. I faced you from the wings that night. I wanted to come up behind you. You were all music.... But I love even better the instrument of emotions you have become. That must be what music is for—to sensitize one’s life, to make it more and more responsive....”

Then in a different vein:

“... The long forenoons, wherein we grow.... Yes, I knew you were a tree-lover; that the sound of running water was dear to you ... and the things you dream of ... work and play and forest scents and the wind in the branches.... Sometimes it seems to me—is it a saying of lovers?—that we should be boy and girl together.... Why, I’ve only just now learned to be a boy. There was so much of crudity and desire and anguish-to-do-greatly-at-any-cost—until just a little ago. But I’ve never had a boyhood that could have known you. I wasn’t ready for such loveliness in the beginning.... I’ve wanted terribly to go to you, but that is put away for the time.”

These lines wrung her heart. “Oh, no,” she cried, “you have not learned how to become a boy. There was never a time you were not ready—until now! You are becoming a man—and the little girl—oh, she is a little girl in her heart....”

Everything his Guardian had promised was coming to be. He was changing into a man. That would take him from her at the last—even letters, this torrent of his thoughts of life and work. She saw the first process of it—as the Play grasped him finally—the old tragedy of a man turning from a woman to his work....

She built the play from the flying sparks.... He was thronged with illusions of production. How badly he had done it before, he said, and how perfect had proved the necessity to wait, and to do it a second time.... Even the most unimaginative audience must build the great battle picture from the headquarters scene; then the trampled arena of the Ploughman, deep in the hollow of that valley, and his coming forth through the millet....

“... It’s so simple,” he wrote in fierce haste. “You see, I remember how hard it was for me to grasp that first night, when Fallows brought in the story to the Russian headquarters.... I have remembered that. I have made it so that I could see it then. And I was woven in and fibred over with coarseness, from months of life in Liaoyang and from the day’s hideous brutality. I have measured my slowness and written to quicken such slowness as that. The mystery is, it is not spoiled by such clearness. It is better—it never lets you alone. It won’t let you lie to yourself. You can’t be the same after reading it.... And it goes after the deepest down man.... Every line is involved in action.

“The third act—sometime we’ll see it together—how the main character leaves the field and goes out in search of the Ploughman’s hut, across Asia and Europe; how he reaches there—the old father and mother, the six children, the one little boy, who has the particular answer for the man’s lonely love—the mother of the six, common, silent, angular, her skirt hanging square, as Duke put it—but she is big enough for every one to get into her heart. You will see the fear of her man’s death, which the stranger’s presence brings to her, though he leaves it to Russia to inform the family. You will see the beautiful mystery of compassion that he brings, too. That’s the whole shine of the piece. And it came from the ministry of pain.

... “I’m not praising my Play—it isn’t. It’s Duke’s almost every word of it—every thought, the work of Duke’s disciple. I have merely felt it all and made it clear—clear. You see it all. Many thousands must see, and see what the name means. It’s the most wonderful word in the world to me, Compassion.”

Then came the break for a day, and the flash that his work on the Play was finished. “The cabin will be harder for me now. The new work is only a dream so far—and this goes to Markheim to-day.... It is very queer that I should go back to Markheim, but somehow I want to pick up that failure. There are other reasons.... I shall tell him that he can have five days. I’m just getting ready to go across the River.... My health was almost never better. I’m not tired. The work has seemed to replenish me, as your letters do. But that last letter—yesterday’s—it seems to come from behind a screen, where other voices were—the loved tones troubled and crowded out by others. It left me restless and more than ever longing to see you. It is as if there were centuries all unintelligible, to be made clear only by being with you. The world and the other voices drown yours——”

She felt the instinct of centuries to hold out her arms to him—arms of the woman, after man’s task in the world—home at evening with the prize of the hunt and battle. The world for the day, the woman for the night—that is man’s way. She seemed to know it now from past eternity. And for woman—day and night the man of her thoughts.... She was afraid of her every written word now. Her heart answered every thrill of his; the murmuring and wrestling resistance of his against the miles, was hers ten-fold.... The days of the fasting had not been like this, nor the two weeks that followed in which he had completed the play.... April had come. She was ill. Her music was neglected altogether. Her friend, Helen Quiston, never faltered in her conception of the beauty and the mystery of the separation. With all her will, Helen sustained her against the relinquishing of the lofty ideal of sacrifice, and tried to distract her impassioned turning to the east.... She would hold to the death; Betty Berry knew this.

“It’s harder now that the play is done,” Betty repeated. “He can’t be driven instantly to work again. I can’t lie to him. He doesn’t fight me—he thinks I’m right—that’s the unspeakable part of it. There is nothing for me to write about except his work....”

And Helen Quiston found her, a half-hour afterward, staring out of the window, exactly as she had left—her hands in her lap exactly the same.... Betty Berry was thinking unutterable things, having to do with adorable meetings in the theatre-wings—of wonderful night journeys, all night talking—of waiting in a little room, and at the head of the stairs. There was an invariable coming back to the first kiss in the wings of the theatre.

“We were real—we were true to each other that night—true as little children. We needed no words,” this was her secret story.... “Oh, I waited so long for him ... and we could have gone out together and served in a little way. But they would not let us alone.”

He had been across to New York.... The second morning after the play was finished, she received a letter with a rather indescribable ending. He told her of fears and strangeness, of intolerable longing for something to happen that would bring them together.... The rest is here:

“I’m a bit excited by the thought that just came to me. And another, but I won’t tell you yet, for fear.... I don’t quite understand myself. I seem afraid. I think I would ask more of myself than I would of another man just now. There seem all about me invisible restraints. Something deep within recognizes the greatness and finality of your meaning to me.... It is true, you do not leave the strength to me. Did you ever—? No, I won’t ask that.... This letter isn’t kind to you—unsettling, strange, full of an intensity to see and be with you....”

Moments afterwards, as she was standing at the piano—the letter trailing from her hand—the telephone in the inner room startled her like a human cry.

20

It was Morning. She did not remember his words nor her answers—only that she had told him he might come up-town to her. He had dropped the receiver then, as if it burned him.

So, it was a matter of minutes. Nothing was ready. Least of all, was she ready. She could hardly stand. She had forgotten at first, and it had required courage, of late, to look in the mirror. She would have given up, before what she saw now, but a robin was singing in the foliage by the rear windows. She went out to open the studio door into the hall, then retired to the inner room again.... “He can heal you, and bring back the music,” her heart whispered, but her mind cowered before herself, and this mate of herself, Helen Quiston, and before his Guardian.... She heard his step on the stair ... called to him to wait in the studio. He was pacing to and fro.

Morning felt the light resistance in her arms. His kiss fell upon her cheek. He held her at arm’s length, looking into her face.

She laughed, repeating that she was not ill.... She was always thinner in summer, she said. In her withholding, there was destructiveness for the zeal he had brought; and that which she set herself resolutely to impart—the sense of their separateness—found its lodgment in his nature. It would always be there now, she thought; it would augment, like ice about a spring in early winter, until the frost sealed the running altogether. The lover was stayed, though his mind would not yet believe.

“Is it really possible,” he said, sitting before her restlessly, “that I am here in your house, and that I can stay, and talk with you, and see you and hear you play? I have thought about it so much that it’s hard to realize.”

“It is quite what a lover would say,” she thought.... She had to watch her words. Her heart went out to him, but her mind remembered the work to do.... Self-consciousness, and a weighing of words—how horrible between them!

“And what made you come? I had just read your letter, when the telephone rang——”

“I shouldn’t have sent that letter,” he answered. “I must have sent it because of the things I thought, and didn’t write.... The night before, I had come home to the cabin—after Markheim and the city. It was dreadful—with the work gone. Yesterday was too much for me—the Spring day—alone—not ready to begin again—you here.... I got to thinking about you so fast—and the shame of it, for us to be apart—that I couldn’t endure it.... I thought of going to you in a month—in a week; and then when the letter was mailed, I thought of it being with you this morning.... A thousand things poured into my mind. It seemed finally as if everything was wrong between us; as if I had already remained too long from you. It was like fighting devils.... And then I tried to beat the letter to you, but it got here by an earlier train this morning.”

He was like a child to her, telling about something that had frightened him.

Their silences were strained. His eyes had a sleepless look. Betty saw it working upon him—the repulsion that had gone from her. She wished she might go to his arms and die. It suddenly came over her—the uselessness of it all—the uselessness of being a woman, of waiting, of final comprehension—all for this rending.... Yet she saw what would happen if she followed her heart. He would take her. There would be a radiant season, for the lover within him was not less because his work was for other men. But there was also within him (his Guardian had made her believe it) her rival, a solitary stranger come to the world for service, who would not delay long to show him how he had betrayed his real work, how he had caged his greater self, his splendid pinions useless.... Morning would hear the world calling for work he could not do.

“There seem all about me invisible restraints.”

This from the letter of the morning—alone remained with her. It expressed it all. The sentence uprose in her mind. It was more dominant to her than if a father had forbade his coming, or even if by his coming another was violated.

All the forbiddings that Society can bring against desire are but symbols compared to the invisible restraints of a full man’s nature. Men who are held by symbols, ruled by exterior voices and fears, are not finished enough to be a law unto themselves.... It wasn’t the terror of these thoughts, but tenderness in answer to his hurried tumble of explanation regarding his coming, that had filled Betty’s eyes. He caught the sparkle of a tear in profile, and came to her.

“It’s like creating—visibly, without hands, but with thoughts—creating a masterpiece—to see the tears come like that——”

He drew a chair to the bench where she sat, her back to the piano. Helen Quiston was away, as usual, for the forenoon.

“It is creating—another world,” she answered steadily.

He stared at her. She saw again that sleepless look.

“You’ve been a whole month on a lofty ridge—just think of it—fasting and pure expression of self—spiritual self-revelation——”

It seemed to him there was a suggestion in what she said for the new book.

“And now you are down in the meadows again,” she finished.

“The earth-sweet meadows—with you.”

He could not know what the words meant to her; that there was no quarter in them for her. She did not belong to his ascents.

“Somehow I always think of you as belonging best to the evenings, the hushed earth, the sweetness of the rest-time. You make me remember what to do, and how to do it well. Why, just now you made me see clearly for a second what I must do next. You make me love people better—when I am close to you.”

She was not to be carried away by these givings which would have made many a woman content.

“Remember, I have had your letters every day. You are very dear to me up there. You have been down in the meadows—and in the caverns—much. You are not ready to return—even for the evenings. You stand now for austere purity—for plain, ancient, mother’s knee ideals. You must not delude yourself. A man must be apart in order to see. You did not begin really to live—until you drew apart.”

He felt her stripping his heart. His face lifted in agony, and his eyes caught the picture on the wall of the meeting of Beatrice and Dante. The Florentine woman seemed not to touch the earth; the poet was awed, mystic in the fusion of their united powers. It was fateful that Morning saw the picture at this instant.

“Look,” he said, “what the world has from the meeting of that man and woman—an immortal poem!”

“But Beatrice passed on——”

“She became identified with his greater power, Betty. She was one with it——”

“By passing on!”

He arose and lifted her to her feet, and his arms did not relinquish her.

“And you mean that you would pass on?... You must not. You must not. We would both be broken and bewildered. I love you. I have come to you. I want to be near—and work with you. I know you all, and shall love you always. I have come to you, and I must stay—or you must come with me——”

Her resistance was broken for the moment. An icy burden fell from her. She clung to him, and tears helped her.

They were together again in the studio that afternoon. Betty Berry was making tea, her strength renewed. Helen Quiston had come and gone. Morning had been away for an hour.

“Strange man,” she said, “let us reason together.... You are working now for men. That is right, but when you are full of power, when you come really into the finished man you are to be, and all these hard years have healed beyond the last ache—you will work for women. Does it sound strange from me, that the inspiration of the world to-day is with the women? Why, it seems to me that men are caught in the very science of cruelty. And then, the women of to-day represent the men of the future. When one of the preparers of the way brings his gospel to women, he kindles the inspiration of the next generation. But this fire can only come from the solitary heights—never from the earth-sweet meadows——”

He shook his head.

“The men who have done the most beautiful verses and stories about children—have had no children of their own. A man cannot be the father of his country and the father of a house. The man who must do the greatest work for women must hunger for the vision of Woman, and not be yoked with one.... It is so clear. It is always so.”

“All that you say makes me love you more, Betty——”

“Don’t, dear. Don’t make it harder for me.... It is not I that thrills you. It is my speaking of your work that fills your heart with gladness—the things you feel to do——”

“They are from you——”

“Don’t say that. It is not true.”

“But I never saw so clearly——”

“Then go away with the vision. Oh, John Morning, you cannot listen to yourself—with a woman in the room!”

He lifted his shoulders, drawing her face to his. “I was going to say, you are my wings,” he whispered. “But that is not it. You are my fountain. I would come to you and drink——”

“But not remain——”

“I love your thoughts, Betty, your eyes and lips——”

“Because you are athirst——”

“I shall always be athirst!”

“That is not nature.”

He shuddered.

“Do men, however athirst—remain at the oases? Men of strength—would they not long to go? Would they not remember the far cities and the long, blinding ways of the sun?”

“But you could go with me—” he exclaimed.

“That is not nature!”

He was the weaker. “But you have gone alone to the far cities, and the long, blinding ways of the sun——”

“Yes, alone. But with you—a time would come when I could not. We are man and woman. There would be little children. I would stay—and you could not leave them.... Oh, they are not for you, dear. They would weaken your courage. You would love them. At the end of the day, you would want them, and the mother again.... The far cities would not hear you; the long, blinding ways of the sun would know you no more——”

“Betty,” he whispered passionately, “how wonderfully sweet that would be!”

“Yes ... to the mother ... but you—I can see it in your eyes. You would remember Nineveh, that great city....”

Darkness was about them.

“Betty Berry—you would rather I wouldn’t take the train to you again—not even when it seems I cannot stay longer away?”

She did not answer.

“Betty——”

“Yes....”

She left him and crossed to the far window.

“Would you not have me come to you again—at all?”

She could not hold the sentence, and her answer. The room was terrible. It seemed filled with presences that suffocated her—that cared nothing for her. All day they had inspired her to speak and answer—and now they wanted her death. She moved to the ’cello. Her hands fluttered along the strings—old, familiar ways—but making hardly a sound.... If she did not soon speak, he would come to her. She would fail again—the touch of him, and she would fail.

“Betty, is there never to be—the fountain at evening?”

“You know—you know—” she cried out. Words stuck after that. She had not a thought to drive them.

He arose.

“Don’t,” she implored. “Don’t come to me! I cannot bear it.”

... It was his final rebellion.

“I am not a preparer of the way. I have not a message. I am sick of the thought. I am just a man—and I love you!”

At last she made her stand, and on a different position. “I could not love you—if that were true.”

She heard him speak, but not the words. She heard the crackling and whirring of flames. He did not cross the room.... She had risen, her arms groping toward him. She felt him approach, and the flames were farther.... She must not speak of flames.

“You will go away soon—won’t you?” she whispered, as he took her.

“Yes, to-night——”

“Yes—to-night,” she repeated.

She was lying upon the couch in the studio, and his chair was beside her.

“No, don’t light anything—no light!... It is just an hour.... I could not think of food until you go. But you may bring me a drink of water. On the way to the train, you can have your supper.... I will play—play in the dark, and think of you—as you go——”

She talked evenly, a pause between sentences. There was a tensity in the formation of words, for the whirring and crackling distracted, dismayed her. Her heart was breaking. This she knew. When it was finished, he would be free.... The flames were louder and nearer, as he left for the drink of water. She called to him to light a match, if he wished, in the other room.... He was in her room. She knew each step, just where. He was there. It was as if he were finally materialized from her thoughts in the night, her dreaming and writing to him. His hand touched her dresser. She heard the running water ... and then it was all red and rending and breathless, until she felt the water to her lips. Always, as he came near, the flames receded.

And out of all the chaos, the figure of the craftsman had returned to him. The world had revealed itself to him as never before in the passage of time. She had given him her very spirit that day, and the strength of all her volition from the month of brooding upon the conception of his Guardian. Literally on that day the new Book was conceived, as many a man’s valorous work has begun to be, in a woman’s house—her blood and spirit, its bounty.

“This is a holy place to me, this room,” he said, the agonies of silence broken. “I can feel the white floods of spirit that drive the world.”

She did not need to answer. She held fast to herself, lest something betray her. Darkness was salvation. All that his Guardian had asked was in her work. John Morning told it off, sentence by sentence. It took her life, but he must not know. She thought she would die immediately after he was gone—but, strangely, now the suffering was abated.... She was helping.... Was not that the meaning of life—to give, to help, to love?... Someone had said so.

He lifted her, carried her in his arms, talked and praised her.

“There’s something deathlessly bright about you, Betty Berry!” he whispered. “I am going—but we are one! Don’t you feel it? You are loving the world from my heart!”

To the door, but not to the light, she walked with him.... Up the stairs he strode a last time to take her in his arms.

“We are one—a world-loving one—remember that!”

She did not know why, but as he kissed her—she thought of the pitcher broken at the fountain.

It was all strange light and singing flame.... She was lost in the hall. She laughed strangely.... She must play him on his way.... Someone helped her through the raining light—until she could feel the strings.