So the boy laughed; and the sound of his laughter reached the ears both of the elder and the younger Lady Calmady, as they slowly paced the straight walk between the gray bal.u.s.trade and the edge of the turf. On their left the great outstretch of valley and wood lay drowned in the suave uncertainties of the summer night. Before them was the whole terrace-front of the house, its stacks of twisted chimneys clear cut against the sky. Bright light shone out from the windows of the red drawing-room, and from those of the hall, bringing flowers, sections of gray pavement, and like details into sharp relief. There were pa.s.sing lights in the range of windows above, suggesting cheerful movement within the great house. At the southern end of the terrace, just below the arcade of the garden-hall--which showed pale against the shadow within and brickwork above--two men were sitting. Their voices reached the ladies now and then in quiet yet animated talk. A spirit of peace, of security, of firmly-planted hope, seemed to pervade all the scene, all the place. Waking or sleeping, fear was banished. All was strong to work to-morrow, so to-night all could calmly yield itself to rest.

And it was a sense of just this, and a tender anxiety lest the fulness of the gracious content of it should be in any degree marred to her dear companion, which made Honoria Calmady say presently:--

"You don't mind little d.i.c.k's racketting with those ridiculous puppies, do you, Cousin Katherine? If it bothers you I'll stop him like a shot."

But Katherine shook her head.

"My dearest child, why stop him?" she said. "The foolishnesses of young creatures at play are delicious, and laughter, so long as it is not cruel, I reckon among the good gifts of G.o.d."--She paused a moment.

"Dear Marie de Mirancourt tried to teach me that long ago, but I was culpably dull of hearing in those days where spiritual truth was concerned, and I failed to grasp her meaning. I believe we never really love, either man or Almighty G.o.d, until we can both laugh ourselves and let others laugh. Of all false doctrines that of the sour-faced, joyless puritan is the falsest. His mere outward aspect is a sin against the Holy Ghost."

And Honoria smiled, patting the hand which lay on her arm very tenderly.

"How I love your heavenly rage!" she said. They moved on a few steps in silence. Then, careless of all the rapture its notification of the pa.s.sing of time might cut short, the clock at the house-stables chimed the half-hour. Honoria paused in her gentle walk.

"Bedtime, d.i.c.k," she cried.

"All right," the boy returned. He pursued, and laid hold of, the errant puppies, stowing them, not without kickings and strugglings on their part, one under either arm. They were large and heavy, just as much as he could carry, and he staggered across the gra.s.s with them, presenting the effect of a small, black donkey between a pair of very big, white panniers.

"I say, they are awfully stunning though, you know, Honoria," he said rather breathlessly as he came up to her.

"Very soul-satisfying, aren't they, d.i.c.k?" she replied. "Richard foresaw as much. That is why he got them for you."

"If I put them down do you suppose they'll follow? Carrying them does make my arms ache."

"Oh, they'll follow fast enough," Honoria said.

He lowered the puppies circ.u.mspectly on to the gravel.

"They'll be whoppers when they're grown," he remarked.

"What shall you call them?"

"Adam and Eve I think, because they're the first of my lot. They're pedigree dogs--and later I may want to show, don't you see."

"Yes, I see," Honoria said.

He came close to her, putting his face up half shyly to be kissed. Then as young Lady Calmady, somewhat ghostly in her trailing, white evening dress, bent her charming head, the boy, suddenly overcome with the manifold excitements of the day, flung his arms round her.

"Oh! oh!" he gasped, "how awfully ripping it is to be back here again with you and Cousin Richard and Aunt Katherine! I wish number-four dormitory would get measles the middle of every term!--Only I forgot--perhaps I ought not to touch you, Honoria, after messing about with the dogs. Do you mind?"

"Not a bit," she said.

"But, Honoria,"--he rubbed his cool cheek against her bare neck--"I say, don't you think you might come and see me, just for a little weeny while, after I'm in bed to-night?"

And young Lady Calmady, thus coaxed, held the slight figure close. She had a very special place in her heart for this small d.i.c.k, who in face, and as she hoped in nature also, bore such comfortable resemblance to that elder, and altogether well-beloved, d.i.c.k who was the delight of her life.

"Yes, dear, old chap, I'll come," she said. "Only it must really be for a little, weeny while, because you must go to sleep. By the way, who's going to valet you these holidays? Clara or Faulstich?"

"Oh, neither," the boy answered. "I think I'm rather old for women now, don't you know, Honoria."--At which statement she laughed, his cheek being again tucked tight into the turn of her neck. "I shall have Andrews in future. I asked Cousin Richard about it. He's a very civil-mannered fellow, and he knows about yachts and things, and he says he likes being up before five o'clock."

"Does he? Excellently veracious young man!" Honoria remarked.

But thereupon, exuberance of joy demanding active expression, the boy broke away with a whoop and set off running. The puppies lolloped away at his heels. And young Lady Calmady--whom such giddy fancies still took at times, notwithstanding nearly three years of marriage--flew after the trio, the train of her dress floating out behind her to most admired extravagance of length as she skimmed along the path. Fair lady, boy, and dogs disappeared, with sounds of merriment, into the near garden-hall; reappeared upon the terrace, bearing down, but at sobering pace, upon the occupants of the chairs set at the end of it.

One man rose to his feet, a tall, narrow, black figure. The other remained seated. The light shining forth from the great bay-window of the hall touched the little group, conferring a certain grandeur upon the graceful, white-clad Honoria. Her satin dress shimmered as she moved. There was, as of old, a triumph of high purity, of freedom of soul, in her aspect. Her voice came, with a fine gladness yet soft richness of tone, across that intervening triangular s.p.a.ce of sloping turf upon which terrace and troco-ground alike looked down. The nightingale, who had fallen silent during the skirmish, took up his pa.s.sionate singing again, and was answered delicately, a song not of the flesh but of the spirit, by the bird from across the valley.

Katherine Calmady stood solitary, watching, listening, her hands folded rather high on her bosom. The caressing suavity of the summer night enfolded her. And remembrance came to her of another night, nearly four-and-thirty years ago, when, standing in this same spot, she, young, untried, ambitious of unlimited delight, had felt the first mysterious pangs of motherhood, and told her husband of that new, unseen life which was at once his and her own. And of yet another night, when, after long experience of sorrow, solitude, and revolt, her husband had come to her once again--but come even as the bird's song came from across the valley, etherealised, spiritualised, the same yet endowed with qualities of unearthly beauty--and how that strange and exquisite communion with the dead had fortified her to endure an anguish even greater than any she had yet known.--She had prayed that night that she might behold the face of her well-beloved, and her prayer had been granted. She had prayed that, without reservation, she might be absorbed by, and conformed to, the Divine Will. And that prayer had, as she humbly trusted, been in great measure granted also.

But then the Divine Will had proved so very merciful, the Divine Intention so wholly beneficent, there was small credit in being conformed to either!--Katherine bowed her head in thanksgiving. The goodness of the Almighty towards her had been abundant beyond asking or fondest hope.

She was aroused from her gracious meditation by the sound of footsteps--measured, a little weary perhaps--approaching her. She looked up to see Julius March. And a point of gentle anxiety p.r.i.c.ked Katherine. For it occurred to her that Julius had failed somewhat in health and energy of late. She reproached herself lest, in the interest of watching those vigorous, young lives so dear to her, partic.i.p.ating in their schemes, basking in the sunshine of their love, she had neglected Julius and failed to care for his comfort as she might. To those that have shall be given even of sympathy, even of strength. In that there is an ironical as well as an equitable truth; and she was to blame perhaps in the ironical application of it. It followed therefore, that she greeted him now with a quickening both of solicitude and of affection.

"Come and pace, dear Julius, come and pace," she said, "as in times past. Yet not wholly as in the past, for then often I must have distressed and troubled you, since my pacings were too often the outcome of restlessness and of unruly pa.s.sion, while now----"

Katherine broke off, gazing at the little company gathered upon the terrace.

"Surely they are very happy?" she said, almost involuntarily.

And he, smiling at his dear lady's incapacity of escape from her fixed idea, replied:--

"Yes, very surely."

Katherine tied the white, lace coif she wore a little tighter beneath her chin.

"In their happiness I renew that of my own youth," she said gently, "as it is granted to few women, I imagine, to renew it. But I renew it with a reverence for them; since my own happiness was plain sailing enough, obvious, incontestable, whilst theirs is n.o.bler, and rises to a higher plane. For its roots, after all, are planted in very mournful fact, to which it has risen superior, and over which it has triumphed."

But he answered, jealous of his dear lady's self-depreciation:--

"I can hardly admit that. To begin in unclouded promise of happiness, to decline to searching and unusual experience of sorrow, and then, by self-discipline and obedience, to attain your present alt.i.tude of tranquillity and a.s.surance of faith, is surely a greater trial, a greater triumph, than to begin with difficulties, with much, I admit, to overcome and resist, but to succeed as they are succeeding and be granted the high land of happiness which they even now possess? They are young, fortune smiles on them. Above all, they have one another----"

"Ah, yes!" she said, "they have one another. Long may that last. It is a very perfect marriage of true minds, as well as true hearts. I had, and they have, all that love can give,"--Lady Calmady turned at the end of the walk. "But it troubles me, as a sort of emptiness and waste, dear Julius, that you have never had that. It pains me that you, who possess so n.o.ble a power of disinterested and untiring friendship, should never have enjoyed that other, and nearer relation, which transcends friendship even as to-morrow's dawn will transcend in loveliness the chastened restfulness of this evening's dusk."

Katherine moved onward with a certain sweet dignity of manner.

"Tell me--is she still alive, Julius, this lady whom you so loved?"

"Yes, thank G.o.d," he said.

"And you have never tried to elude that vow which--as you once told me--you made long ago before you knew her?"

"Never," he replied. "Without it I could not have served her as I have been able to serve her. I am wholly thankful for it. It made much possible which must have otherwise been impossible."

"And have you never told her that you loved her--even yet?"

"No," he replied, "because, had I told her, I must have ceased to serve her, I must have left her, Katherine, and I did not think G.o.d required that of me."

Lady Calmady walked on in silence, her head a little bent. At the end of the path she stood a moment, listening to the answering songs of the two nightingales.

"Ah!" she said softly, "how greatly I have under-rated the beauty of the dusk! To submit to dwell in the border-land, to stand on the dim bridge, thus, between day and night, demands perhaps the very finest courage conceivable. You have shown me, Julius, how exquisite and holy a thing it is.--And, as to her whom you have so faithfully loved, I think, could she know, she would thank you very deeply for never telling her the truth. She would entreat you to keep your secret to the end. But to remain near her, to let her seek counsel of you when in perplexity or distress, to talk with her both of those you and she love, and have loved, and of the promise of fair things beyond and above our present seeing--pacing with her at times--even as you and I, dear friend, pace together here to-night--amid the restrained and solemn beauty of the dusk. Would she not do this?"