The Rosary

CHAPTER XIII

THE AN­SWER OF THE SPHINX

Moon­light in the desert.

Jane or­dered her af­ter-​din­ner cof­fee on the pi­az­za of the ho­tel, that she might lose as lit­tle as pos­si­ble of the mys­tic love­li­ness of the night. The pyra­mids ap­peared so huge and sol­id, in the clear white light; and the Sphinx gath­ered un­to it­self more mys­tery.

Jane promised her­self a stroll round by moon­light present­ly. Mean­while she lay back in a low wick­er chair, com­fort­ably up­hol­stered, sip­ping her cof­fee, and giv­ing her­self up to the sense of dreamy con­tent which, in a healthy body, is apt to fol­low vig­or­ous ex­er­tion.

Very ten­der and qui­et thoughts of Garth came to her this evening, per­haps brought about by the as­so­ci­ations of moon­light.

“The moon shines bright:–in such a night as this, When the sweet wind did gen­tly kiss the trees, And they did make no noise–“

Ah! the great po­et knew the ef­fect up­on the heart of a vivid re­minder to the sens­es. Jane now passed be­neath the spell.

To be­gin with, Garth’s voice seemed singing ev­ery­where:

“En­able with per­pet­ual light The dul­ness of our blind­ed sight.”

Then from out the deep blue and sil­very light, Garth’s dear ador­ing eyes seemed watch­ing her. Jane closed her own, to see them bet­ter. To-​night she did not feel like shrink­ing from them, they were so full of love.

No shade of crit­ical re­gard was in them. Ah! had she wronged him with her fears for the fu­ture? Her heart seemed full of trust to- night, full of con­fi­dence in him and in her­self. It seemed to her that if he were here she could go out with him in­to this bril­liant moon­light, seat her­self up­on some an­cient fall­en stone, and let him kneel in front of her and gaze and gaze in his per­sis­tent way, as much as he pleased. In thought there seemed to-​night no shrink­ing from those dear eyes. She felt she would say: “It is all your own, Garth, to look at when you will. For your sake, I could wish it beau­ti­ful; but if it is as you like it, my own Dear, why should I hide it from you?”

What had brought about this change of mind? Had Deryck’s pre­scrip­tion done its full work? Was this a san­er point of view than the one she had felt con­strained to take when she ar­rived, through so much agony of re­nun­ci­ation, at her de­ci­sion? In­stead of go­ing up the Nile, and then to Con­stantino­ple and Athens, should she take the steam­er which sailed from Alexan­dria to-​mor­row, be in Lon­don a week hence, send for Garth, make full con­fes­sion, and let him de­cide as to their fu­ture?

That he loved her still, it nev­er oc­curred to Jane to doubt. At the very thought of send­ing for him and telling him the sim­ple truth, he seemed so near her once more, that she could feel the clasp of his arms, and his head up­on her heart. And those dear shin­ing eyes! Oh, Garth, Garth!

“One thing is clear to me to-​night,” thought Jane. “If he still needs me–wants me–I can­not live any longer away from him. I must go to him.” She opened her eyes and looked to­wards the Sphinx. The whole line of rea­son­ing which had car­ried such weight at Shen­stone flashed through her mind in twen­ty sec­onds. Then she closed her eyes again and clasped her hands up­on her bo­som.

“I will risk it,” she said; and deep joy awoke with­in her heart.

A par­ty of En­glish peo­ple came from the din­ing-​room on to the pi­az­za with a clat­ter. They had ar­rived that evening and gone in late to din­ner. Jane had hard­ly no­ticed them,–a hand­some wom­an and her daugh­ter, two young men, and an old­er man of mil­itary ap­pear­ance. They did not in­ter­est Jane, but they broke in up­on her rever­ie; for they seat­ed them­selves at a ta­ble near by and, in tru­ly British fash­ion, con­tin­ued a loud-​voiced con­ver­sa­tion, as if no one else were present. One or two for­eign­ers, who had been peace­ful­ly dream­ing over cof­fee and cigarettes, rose and strolled away to qui­et seats un­der the palm trees. Jane would have done the same, but she re­al­ly felt too com­fort­able to move, and afraid of los­ing the sweet sense of Garth’s near­ness. So she re­mained where she was.

The el­der­ly man held in his hand a let­ter and a copy of the MORN­ING POST, just re­ceived from Eng­land. They were dis­cussing news con­tained in the let­ter and a para­graph he had been read­ing aloud from the pa­per.

“Poor fel­low! How too sad!” said the chap­er­on of the par­ty.

“I should think he would soon­er have been killed out­right!” ex­claimed the girl. “I know I would.”

“Oh, no,” said one of the young men, lean­ing to­wards her. “Life is sweet, un­der any cir­cum­stances.”

“Oh, but blind!” cried the young voice, with a shud­der. “Quite blind for the rest of one’s life. Hor­ri­ble!”

“Was it his own gun?” asked the old­er wom­an. “And how came they to be hav­ing a shoot­ing par­ty in March?”

Jane smiled a fierce smile in­to the moon­light. Pas­sion­ate love of an­imal life, in­tense re­gard for all life, even of the tini­est in­sect, was as much a re­li­gion with her as the wor­ship of beau­ty was with Garth. She nev­er could pre­tend sor­row over these ac­counts of shoot­ing ac­ci­dents, or falls in the hunt­ing-​field. When those who went out to in­flict cru­el pain were hurt them­selves; when those who went forth to take ea­ger, pal­pi­tat­ing life, lost their own; it seemed to Jane a just ret­ri­bu­tion. She felt no re­gret, and pre­tend­ed none. So now she smiled fierce­ly to her­self, think­ing: “One pair of eyes the less to look along a gun and frus­trate the de­spair­ing dash for home and lit­tle ones of a ter­ri­fied lit­tle moth­er rab­bit. One hand that will nev­er again change a soar­ing up­ward flight of spread­ing wings, in­to an ag­onised mass of falling feath­ers. One chance to the good, for the no­ble stag, as he makes a brave run to join his hinds in the val­ley.”

Mean­while the mil­itary-​look­ing man had read­just­ed his eye-​glass­es and was hold­ing the sheets of a close­ly writ­ten let­ter to the light.

“No,” he said af­ter a mo­ment, “shoot­ing par­ties are over. There is noth­ing do­ing on the moors now. They were pot­ting bun­nies.”

“Was he shoot­ing?” asked the girl.

“No,” replied the own­er of the let­ter, “and that seems such hard luck. He had giv­en up shoot­ing al­to­geth­er a year or two ago. He nev­er re­al­ly en­joyed it, be­cause he so loved the beau­ty of life and hat­ed death in ev­ery form. He has a love­ly place in the North, and was up there paint­ing. He hap­pened to pass with­in sight of some fel­lows rab­bit-​shoot­ing, and saw what he con­sid­ered cru­el­ty to a wound­ed rab­bit. He vault­ed over a gate to ex­pos­tu­late and to save the lit­tle crea­ture from fur­ther suf­fer­ing. Then it hap­pened. One of the lads, ap­par­ent­ly star­tled, let off his gun. The charge struck a tree a few yards off, and the shot glanced. It did not strike him full. The face is on­ly slight­ly pep­pered and the brain quite un­in­jured. But shots pierced the reti­na of each eye, and the sight is hope­less­ly gone.”

“Aw­ful hard luck,” said the young man.

“I nev­er can un­der­stand a chap not bein’ keen on shootin’,” said the youth who had not yet spo­ken.

“Ah, but you would if you had known him,” said the sol­dier. “He was so full of life and vivid vi­tal­ity. One could not imag­ine him ei­ther dy­ing or deal­ing death. And his love of the beau­ti­ful was al­most a form of re­li­gious wor­ship. I can’t ex­plain it; but he had a way of mak­ing you see beau­ty in things you had hard­ly no­ticed be­fore. And now, poor chap, he can’t see them him­self.”

“Has he a moth­er?” asked the old­er wom­an.

“No, he has no one. He is ab­so­lute­ly alone. Scores of friends of course; he was a most pop­ular man about town, and could stay in al­most any house in the king­dom if he chose to send a post-​card to say he was com­ing. But no re­la­tions, I be­lieve, and nev­er would mar­ry. Poor chap! He will wish he had been less fas­tid­ious, now. He might have had the pick of all the nicest girls, most sea­sons. But not he! Just charm­ing friend­ships, and wed­ded to his art. And now, as La­dy In­gle­by, says, he lies in the dark, help­less and alone.”

“Oh, do talk of some­thing else!” cried the girl, push­ing back her chair and ris­ing. “I want to for­get it. It’s too hor­ri­bly sad. Fan­cy what it must be to wake up and not know whether it is day or night, and to have to lie in the dark and won­der. Oh, do come out and talk of some­thing cheer­ful.”

They all rose, and the young man slipped his hand through the girl’s arm, glad of the ex­cuse her ag­ita­tion pro­vid­ed.

“For­get it, dear,” he said soft­ly. “Come on out and see the old Sphinx by moon­light.”

They left the pi­az­za, fol­lowed by the rest of the par­ty; but the man to whom the MORN­ING POST be­longed laid it on the ta­ble and stayed be­hind, light­ing a cigar.

Jane rose from her chair and came to­wards him.

“May I look at your pa­per?” she said abrupt­ly.

“Cer­tain­ly,” he replied, with ready cour­tesy. Then, look­ing more close­ly at her: “Why, cer­tain­ly, Miss Cham­pi­on. And how do you do? I did not know you were in these parts.”

“Ah, Gen­er­al Lo­raine! Your face seemed fa­mil­iar, but I had not recog­nised you, ei­ther. Thanks, I will bor­row this if I may. And don’t let me keep you from your friends. We shall meet again by and by.”

Jane wait­ed un­til the whole par­ty had passed out of sight and un­til the sound of their voic­es and laugh­ter had died away in the dis­tance. Then she re­turned to her chair, the place where Garth had seemed so near. She looked once more at the Sphinx and at the huge pyra­mid in the moon­light.

Then she took up the pa­per and opened it.

“En­able with per­pet­ual light The dul­ness of our blind­ed sight.”

Yes–it was Garth Dal­main–HER Garth, of the ador­ing shin­ing eyes– who lay at his house in the North; blind, help­less, and alone.