By night there was no trace of the ecstasy of which Roger Dallinger had caught a glimpse in Sheilah's face in the morning. It had disappeared entirely. So had the cause of it. That was the way it always was with her joy lately, Sheilah thought to herself, as she lay waiting for sleep to come to her that night.
It would begin to disappear almost immediately after its arrival and trickle away slowly bit by bit. She tried to hold it, but it was useless. Like trying to hold fine dry sand. It sifted out in spite of you, however tightly you grasped your fingers. Now, at midnight, there wasn't left a single shining grain of her confidence and courage of the morning. Instead there was fear again—thick soggy fear. Like heavy brown mud, which clings in clods, however hard you try to drop it.
Felix had walked home with Sheilah from the evening service of the Young People's guild that night. He had been walking home with Sheilah every Sunday night all winter now. Walking home from the Guild and skating on the river were the only times when she saw him alone. When the wave of courage had swept over Sheilah in the morning, she had made up her mind that to-night she would escape the strange, silent walk through the dark. She had tried to escape it.
At dinner at noon she had remarked to her mother and father that she thought she wouldn't go to the Young People's Guild that evening. Unspoken resolves so often died in her heart. But her mother had objected.
'Why shouldn't you go? You always do.'
'I've studying to do for to-morrow.'
'Well, you have the whole afternoon. Anyway, Sheilah, you know how I feel about Sunday studying. I was brought up'
'I know.'
'I wouldn't interrupt, dear. I was brought up not to study on Sunday. You see what it leads to—neglecting your Sunday duties. You're a member of the Young People's Guild, and if all the members stayed at home to study, there wouldn't be any Guild, would there? You see the principle, dear, is this. The greatest good of the greatest'
'Oh, never mind. I'll go.'
'Oh, why make her, Dora?' interrupted Sheilah's father, suddenly alert. Always suddenly alert to certain tones in Sheilah's voice.
'Why, Sidney!'
Sidney was not supposed to disagree with Dora about Sheilah. Parents should stand together in all decisions in regard to a girl's bringing-up. At least in her hearing.
'Well,' he shrugged, aware he had blundered, 'I only thought'
Dear, kind father!
'Never mind, father,' said Sheilah, and she shot him a little glance. He got it. He always got her little glances. 'I don't really care. I'll go.'
Anyhow, she had made the attempt. It would have resulted in one of those mysterious feuds between her mother and father—the kind you feel, though you can't actually see it, or hear it—if she had insisted upon staying at home.
The evening service of the Young People's Guild was held in the vestry of the church. Felix always sat in the back row up against the wall, with one or two other boys who had the same feeling as he, apparently, about seats, not only at church, but at school too, always choosing the back row—convenient for a hasty exit, and safe from observation. There had been an expanse of more than half a dozen empty rows of seats to-night between Felix and the little intimate group gathered around the platform. Sheilah had been aware of that expanse. That was the way it always was. Felix was a member of the Young People's Guild just as much as she was, but removed, outside.
It had been 'roll-call Sunday' to-day. Once a month, every member of the Guild must respond, to his or her name when it was called, by a prayer, or a verse of scripture, or remarks. It was always a painful Sunday for Sheilah. Not because of her own response—she liked speaking in public—but because of the mumble that issued from the back seat, in answer to the name of Felix Nawn. It was always the same mumble. Felix never varied his response. Those who had heard it many times knew that it was meant to be the first sentence of the Twenty-third Psalm.—To-night Nevin Baldwin had said to Sheilah, after the service (a half an hour after. She had had to stay for a committee meeting), 'Too bad to keep "The Lord-is-my-Shepherd" waiting all this time, Sheilah.'
Sheilah had flushed. She wasn't aware that any one knew about the dark walks home.
Nevin Baldwin was a tall, splendid sort of individual, with a gay, confident manner. Sheilah liked Nevin. Sheilah's mother liked Nevin too. And also Nevin's family. There was always a great deal of thought and preparation, Sheilah noticed, put into the dinner-party which her mother gave when the Baldwins were invited.
'If I didn't know you had a standing date with Pastey, alias The-Lord-is-my-Shepherd, every Sunday night,' Nevin went on now, 'I might see if you got home safely myself.'
'Might you?' she laughed, and turned away.
Not for anything in the world would Sheilah allow circumstances at this late date to rob her of what was waiting for her out there beyond the church door. She had tried to escape it when she had been several hours away from it. But it was too late now. Like drawing away from water when your lips are on the edge of the glass, and you are very thirsty. Poisonous water, too, perhaps.
Sheilah never knew at what corner, or from behind what shadow, Felix would appear. Sometimes she would be within only a few blocks of home before he joined her. To-night it was not until she had reached the hedge in front of the house that she saw the familiar outline of the shadow that made her heart jump so. They met at the wooden gate set in the opening of the hedge opposite the front door. The hedge was high and dense and covered with snow now. They stood hidden in the dark black shadow of it, close together.
'Hello,' murmured Felix, eyes downcast as if ashamed at being discovered.
'Hello.'
'I thought you weren't coming.'
'I had to stay for a committee meeting.'
'I waited at every corner.'
'Did you?'
And then silence—long, poignant, hurting silence—and immobility, broken finally by Felix taking a step nearer to Sheilah. Just one step. She leaned back a little against the hedge, not because Felix touched her, but there seemed sometimes to be a sort of aura emanating from him so that if he stood within a foot of her she felt him. She put one hand on the gate-rail, as if to support herself against the pressing aura, and Felix, whose hands till now had been hidden within the deep side pockets of his overcoat, also put one hand on the gate-rail. It was bare as usual.
'I must go in,' said Sheilah.
'Not yet.'
Again there was silence, and again, 'I must go in.' But she didn't make a motion towards it.
Felix moved his hand a little nearer hers, like a cat stealing up slowly upon a bird.
'What kind of fur is that?' he asked, indicating with a nod Sheilah's neck-piece. As if he cared!
'It's fox.' As if she cared!
'I thought fox was red.'
'Sometimes it's gray.'
'I never saw a gray fox.'
Under cover of such irrelevant remarks Felix moved his hand nearer and nearer to Sheilah's, until it touched it. Only the edge of it, and she wore her gloves, too. But oh—oh!
'I must go in!' she exclaimed for the third time.
'Why?'
'Oh, I must! I must!'
'No, you mustn't.'
Sheilah dropped her free hand to her side. She had been holding it against her chest till then. There was in the helpless little gesture sudden submission. She stood very still afterwards without further protest and waited. Slowly Felix's fingers stole to her bare wrist, and lay there, cold. She had had to wrench herself away finally. Not that Felix grasped her wrist, or held or detained her in any way, but it was as if the aura, minute by minute, had swathed itself around them, and held her to him.
It was after midnight before Sheilah went to sleep, and she woke early, long before the gray dawn came creeping into the room. It was a dream that woke her. A terrible dream. She had dreamed the same dream several times before. It always woke her.
It was a dream about a Chinaman—a yellow-skinned, slant-eyed Chinaman, in baggy clothes, working in a garden. The garden didn't have many things growing in it. Sheilah always wondered why, because the earth was so dark and rich. The Chinaman was picking up little shining white things out of the black earth and putting them in a deep side pocket in his coat. From a distance the shining white things looked like sea-shells. It was so strange to be hunting for sea-shells in a garden that Sheilah approached the Chinaman, and asked him what it was he was putting in his pocket. He mumbled something she couldn't understand, and, stretching out the opening of his pocket towards her, he motioned her to put her hand down in it and find out for herself. Sheilah plunged her hand and arm, bare to the elbow, down into the deep pocket. Immediately a shudder ran through her. There were cold, wet things in the pocket. She drew her hand out as quickly as she could, but to her dismay some of the cold, wet things were sticking to her wrist! Big white worms—slugs, she called them when she was a little girl. She tried to shake them off, but she couldn't! They clung. That was what woke her. The horror of those clinging white slugs!