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Page 10
"I may have that sail across the bay before I go? It promises to be fair
to-morrow."
He hesitated.
"I suppose it will be our last," said the lady, softly.
She was rather sorry when she had spoken, for she really did not mean
anything, and was surprised at the sound of her own voice.
But they took the sail.
Harrie watched them off--her husband did not invite her to go on that
occasion--with that stealthy sharpness in her eyes. Her lips and hands
and forehead were burning. She had been cold all day. A sound like the
tolling of a bell beat in her ears. The children's voices were choked
and distant. She wondered if Biddy were drunk, she seemed to dance about
so at her ironing-table, and wondered if she must dismiss her, and who
could supply her place. She tried to put my room in order, for she was
expecting me that night by the last train, but gave up the undertaking
in weariness and confusion.
In fact, if Harrie had been one of the Doctor's patients, he would have
sent her to bed and prescribed for brain-fever. As she was not a
patient, but only his wife, he had not found out that anything ailed
her.
Nothing happened while he was gone, except that a friend of Biddy's
"dropped in," and Mrs. Sharpe, burning and shivering in her
sewing-chair, dreamily caught through the open door, and dreamily
repeated to herself, a dozen words of compassionate Irish brogue:--
"Folks as laves folks cryin' to home and goes sailin' round with other
women--"
Then the wind latched the door.
The Doctor and Miss Dallas drew in their oars, and floated softly.
There were gray and silver clouds overhead, and all the light upon the
sea slanted from low in the west: it was a red light, in which the bay
grew warm; it struck across Pauline's hands, which she dipped, as the
mood took her, into the waves, leaning upon the side of the boat,
looking down into the water. One other sail only was to be seen upon the
bay. They watched it for a while. It dropped into the west, and sunk
from sight.
They were silent for a time, and then they talked of friendship, and
nature, and eternity, and then were silent for a time again, and then
spoke--in a very general and proper way--of separation and communion in
spirit, and broke off softly, and the boat rose and fell upon the strong
outgoing tide.
"Drifting, drifting on and on," hummed Pauline.
The west, paling a little, left a haggard look upon the Doctor's face.
"An honest man," the Doctor was saying, "an honest man, who loves his
wife devotedly, but who cannot find in her that sympathy which his
higher nature requires, that comprehension of his intellectual needs,
that--"
"I always feel a deep compassion for such a man," interrupted Miss
Dallas, gently.
"Such a man," questioned the Doctor in a pensive tone, "need not be
debarred, by the shallow conventionalities of an unappreciative world,
from a friendship which will rest, strengthen, and ennoble his weary
soul?"
"Certainly not," said Pauline, with her eyes upon the water; dull
yellow, green, and indigo shades were creeping now upon its ruddiness.
"Pauline,"--Dr. Sharpe's voice was low,--"Pauline!"
Pauline turned her beautiful head. "There are marriages for this world;
true and honorable marriages, but for this world. But there is a
marriage for eternity,--a marriage of souls."
Now Myron Sharpe is not a fool, but that is precisely what he said to
Miss Pauline Dallas, out in the boat on that September night. If wiser
men than Myron Sharpe never uttered more unpardonable nonsense under
similar circumstances, cast your stones at him.
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