the other day, about the vineyard, and I'm to stay here – all the rest of my life," he concluded bitterly.
"I don't see why, if you don't want to," she answered, half-fearfully. "You're a man, and men can do as they please."
"It probably seems so to you, but I assure you it's very far from the truth. I wonder, now and then, if any of us ever really do as we please. Freedom is the great gift."
"And the great loneliness," she added, after a pause.
"You may be right," he sighed. "Still, I'd like to try it for a while. It's the one thing I'd choose. What would you take, if you could have anything you wanted?"
"Do you mean for just a little while, or for always?"
"For always. The one great gift you'd choose from all that Life has to give."
"I'd take love," she said, in a low tone. She was not looking at him now, but far across the valley where the vineyard lay. Her face was wistful in the half-light; the corners of her mouth quivered, ever so little.
Alden looked at her, then rubbed his eyes and looked at her again. In some subtle way she had changed, or he had, since they last met. Never before had he thought of her as a woman; she had been merely another individual to whom he liked to talk. To-day her womanhood carried its own appeal. She was not beautiful and no one would ever think her so, but she was sweet and wholesome and had a new, indefinable freshness about her that, in another woman, would have been called charm.
It came to him, all at once, that, in some mysterious way, he and Rosemary belonged together. They had been born to the same lot, and must spend all their days in the valley, hedged in by the same narrow restrictions. Even an occasional hour on the Hill of the Muses was forbidden to her, and constant scheming was the price she was obliged to pay for it.
The restraint chafed and fretted him, for her as much as for himself. It was absurd that a girl of twenty-five and a man of thirty should not have some little independence of thought and action. The silence persisted and finally became awkward.
"It's the book," said Rosemary, with a forced laugh. She was endeavouring to brush her mood away as though it were an annoying cobweb. "I've grown foolish over the book."
"I'm glad you liked it," he returned, taking it from her. "I was sure you would. What part of it did you like best?"
"All of it. I can't choose, though of course some of it seems more beautiful than the rest."
"I suppose you know it by heart, now, don't you?"
"Almost."
"Listen. Isn't this like to-day?"
"Spring's foot half falters; scarce she yet may know
The leafless blackthorn-blossom from the snow;
And through her bowers the wind's way still is clear."
Rosemary got to her feet unsteadily. She went to the brow of the hill, on the side farthest from the vineyard, and stood facing the sunset. Scarcely knowing that she had moved, Alden read on:
"But April's sun strikes down the glades to-day;
So shut your eyes upturned, and feel my kiss – "
A smothered sob made him look up quickly. She stood with her back to him, but her shoulders were shaking. He dropped the book and went to her.
A strange, new tenderness possessed him. "Rosemary," he whispered, slipping his arm around her. "What is it – dear?"
"Nothing," she sobbed, trying to release herself. "I'm – I'm tired – and foolish – that's all. Please let me go!"
Something within him stirred in answer to the girl's infinite hunger, to the unspoken appeal that vibrated through her voice. "No," he said, with quiet mastery, "I won't let you go. I want to take care of you, Rosemary. Leave all that misery and come to me, won't you?"
Her eyes met his for an instant, then turned away. "I don't quite – understand," she said, with difficulty.
"I'm asking you to marry me – to come to mother and me. We'll make the best of it together."
Her eyes met his clearly now, but her face was pale and cold. She was openly incredulous and frightened.
"I mean it, dear. Don't be afraid. Oh, Rosemary, can't you trust me?"
"Trust you? Yes, a thousand times, yes!"
He drew her closer. "And love me – a little?"
"Love you?" The last light shone upon her face and the colour surged back in waves. She seemed exalted, transfigured, as by a radiance that shone from within.
He put his hand under her chin and lifted her face to his. "Kiss me, won't you, dear?"
And so, Rosemary came to her woman's birthright, in the shelter of a man's arms.
V
The House of the Broken Heart
The road was steep and very dark, but some unseen Power compelled her to climb. Dimly, through the shadow, she saw shafts of broken marbles and heard the sound of slow-falling waters. The desolation oppressed her, and, as she climbed, she pressed her hands tightly to her heart.
She was alone in an empty world. All traces of human occupation had long since vanished. Brambles and thorns grew thickly about her, and her brown gingham dress was torn to shreds. Rosemary shuddered in her dream, for Grandmother and Aunt Matilda would be displeased.
And yet, where were they? She had not seen them since she entered the darkness below. At first she had been unable to see anything, for the darkness was not merely absence of light but had a positive, palpable quality, it enshrouded her as by heavy folds of black velvet that suffocated her, but, as she climbed, the air became lighter and the darkness less.
She longed to stop for a few moments and rest, but the pitiless Power continually urged her on. Bats fluttered past her and ghostly wings brushed her face, but, strangely, she had no fear. As her eyes became accustomed to the all-encompassing night, she saw into it for a little distance on either side, but never ahead.
On the left was a vast, empty garden, neglected and dead. The hedge that surrounded it was only a tangled mass of undergrowth, and the paths were buried and choked by weeds. The desolate house beyond it loomed up whitely in the shadow. It was damp and cold in the garden, but she went in, mutely obeying the blind force that impelled her to go.
She struggled up the path that led to the house, falling once into a mass of thistles that pricked and stung. The broken marbles, as she saw now, were statues that had been placed about the garden and had fallen into decay. The slow-falling water was a fountain that still murmured, choked though it was by the dense undergrowth.
One of the steps that led to the house had fallen inward, so she put her knee on the one above that and climbed up. She tested each step of the long flight carefully before she trusted herself to it. When she reached the broad porch, her footsteps echoed strangely upon the floor. Each slight sound was caught up and repeated until it sounded like the tread of a marching army, vanishing into the distance.
The
