XIV.
The winter continued cold and blustering. Helen sketched no more out-of-doors. But she did the interior of the Dutch house and both sketches were sold on the opening day of the spring exhibition. Whenever Derring chided her for careless disregard of her health, she would meekly call his attention to this very pleasant and tangible result of the North Shore expedition.
Derring gradually became conscious of another result—less palpable, but no less real. Since their first acquaintance he had known that her presence had a marked effect on him—soothing and quieting him if he were tired, and quickening his fancy and imagination if he were in good spirits. He was always conscious of her presence in a room, even before his eyes had testified to it. Soon he became aware that a new and more subtle communication had been established between them. He continued to feel an added sense of well-being in her presence; but he discovered that this power of her personality had escaped the bonds of space, and that wherever she might be, his spirit was conscious of her. The first sign of this was a vague restlessness and foreboding which came to him, now and then, without apparent cause.
Since she was always in his mind, it did not occur to him as strange that his thoughts of her should take a gloomy turn when this humor was on him. Nor did he guess the secret of the strange mood till a day when the feeling became too strong to be resisted, and he sought her in the studio. He found her sitting on the top of a tall step-ladder, a comical picture of despair.
Her face brightened as he appeared in the doorway. “Oh, I am so glad! Do you suppose you can get me down?”
“Of course. Come on.” He held out his hands.
“I can't. I have sprained my foot. It was silly to try to hang a heavy picture on this rickety old thing. I never dreamed I should slip, though. It hurts so that I can't bear my weight—oh!” She lifted it carefully. “And the ladder shakes so I don't dare hop down. I am sure I hope you have sense enough to know what to do—I haven't.”
He lifted her carefully from her insecure seat and placed her on the very hard divan that ran the length of the room.
“You have to spend most of your time rescuing me, don't you?” she said, laughing. “How did you happen to come over so early? I had made up my mind to sit there till six o'clock. Tom has to come for some pictures then.”
How had he happened to come?—In a flash he saw it all—and told her. She laughed a little at the explanation. But he recalled to her other times when he had unconsciously been warned of her danger or discomfort. They discussed the situation with analytic appreciation. At least, if not true, it was interesting.
A few experiments convinced them that it was true as well as interesting.
It was evidently an uncertain communication, however. Several times when he yielded to the feeling of disquiet and sought her out he found her working, serenely unconscious of danger and ready to laugh at his fears. Moreover, it was a one-sided communication. Helen, as he reproachfully pointed out to her, was never conscious of danger to him, while he had a headache if she so much as scratched her little finger.
But, although. Derring jested, he rejoiced in this new power. It deepened their relation. He might be disquieted without cause; but at least no harm would come to her without his knowing it.
But as the spring came on a new dread assailed him. Soon it would be summer. She would go home for the vacation. Would this power extend over the thousand miles? And would he have, as now, the prescience of danger without the power to go to her?
He grew to dread the summer.
But it was destined, that he should be the first to go away. Early in April a letter came from his mother. Seth Kinney was very ill and asked continually: for him.
As he packed his travelling-bag and prepared to go, he was conscious of mixed motives. He was fond of Seth. He would have gone to him in any case. But, with a little sense of shame, he found himself thinking that the trip would give him a chance to test the communication. He would be gone only a few days. Nothing could happen. But at least he should know what he had to expect during the long weeks of vacation. So anxious was he to make the experiment that he almost forgot the dread of separation.
“Be as happy as you can—for my sake,” he said laughingly as they parted. “Don't run any more risks than you can help.”
The morning train was full of the hum of life. People seemed to be letting off superabundant vitality. Behind Derring a child was humming contentedly to herself. Her mother. was talking in a loud voice to a man across the aisle. “You have to look after the seed, praise the Lord! If we don't gather a sheaf in this life, it's no matter.” Farther to the front of the car two business men were talking.
As the day wore on, each person in the car assumed for Derring a distinct individuality. The sense of isolation deepened. He entered into conversation with no one, but sat idly listening to the flow of talk.
At times he watched the changing landscape. Along the margin of each little stream the willows grew yellow in the sunshine. Across the plain a mass of low crimson marked where the sap crept up at the touch of spring. As they approached the woods, the crimson faded to a soft, feathery gray. Then they were among the trees themselves, and the sunshine, slanting across the great trunks, hung, caught in tangled underbrush, or rested lightly on some tuft of moss or dark, shining pool.
Derring was impressed with the incongruity of it all—his solitude in the midst of the life that pressed so close about him, the hum of busy talk and the shriek of the engine deep in the woods where one never goes except alone or with some congenial soul. With one glance he caught the freshness of the spring, and with the next, the commonplace face and striped trousers of the passenger across the aisle.
His thoughts went to Helen and their love, to the happiness of the past year and the days that were before them. The car and its occupants faded from sight. He brooded on the beauty and mystery of their relation—the foreboding of danger—the necessary accompaniment of love. Great happiness—deep suffering. Sunlight and shade. The capability of sin in man—at once the mark of the beast and the promise of a divinity within him. He had drifted far into metaphysical speculation before he reached the New England hills. But whatever foreboding the future might hold for him, he no longer dreaded its power. He saw deep into its nature. He who loves much will suffer much.
Throughout the journey the thought stayed with him; and when, once or twice, he felt the dread of danger near, he even rejoiced that distance could not mar the closeness of love. The longing for her safety that stole from his heart would, in another man, have been a prayer.