University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.
CRYSTALS.

The shadow of Moloch lay over all his
western valley, and only his topmost pines
caught the red light of the summer dawn,
when Marston Brent, alone and sorrowful,
came to bid good-by to the Old Garrison
House and its sleeping inmates. Avoiding
the creaking gate, he climbed the little paling,
and stole softly through the garden-walks,
smiling sadly as he brushed by the bachelor's-buttons,
with whose blossoms Beatrice had
sometimes merrily decked his coat, and bitterly
as he stood beside the plot of pansies whose
bed he had himself fashioned into the shape
of a great heart, and planted in its centre his
own and her initials.

“Heart's-ease!” murmured he. “Yes, for
her and me!” And with the smile which such
men use instead of tears, he gathered some of
the flowers and held them a moment to his
lips, then flung them down.

“Heart's-ease is sweet, but it does not last,”
said Marston Brent; and so bid good-by to
the old garden where they two had lingered
through so many blissful hours.

Then he passed on through the grove and
the meadow to the brook-side, where he had
planted the weeping willow, and fashioned a
seat beneath it—a seat just wide enough for
two, as he said that day, and now he sat down
upon it alone—alone forever, as he told himself
in bitter iteration; and plucking the long
branches that swept his face, he bound them
mockingly about his arm, then flung them indignantly
aside, and started to his feet.

“No willow for me!” said he aloud. “Or
if I must have it, I'll make a staff of it.”

And taking out his knife, he cut a stout
shoot from one of the principal branches of
the tree, and trimmed it to a walking-stick,
careful that all the twigs and leaves he cut
away should fall into the stream, instead of
littering the grass about the seat. The day
before, under the same impulse, he had
plucked away the weeds from the grave where

[ILLUSTRATION]

At the Brook-side.

[Description: 454EAF. Page 021. In-line image of a man and woman standing in a tree-lined grotto about to kiss.] his mother lay ten years buried; but this sorrow
was harder to bear than that.

As he turned from the brook-side, he found
Beatrice close behind him, her eyes dim, her
face wan, her drooping figure full of pathos
and of appeal.

He took her hands in his, and looked at her
long and sorrowfully.

“It is hard for you, too, poor darling,”
said he.

And at the loving word, her tears burst the
bonds she had laid upon them, and she sank
upon the little seat, sobbing without restraint.

He looked at her tenderly, pitifully, but did
not offer to approach her, did not dream of
returning upon the path wherein he had set
his feet.

Presently she looked up.

“I knew you were here, Marston. I saw
you in the garden. Look!”

And she held up the pansies he had kissed
and thrown away.

“You will keep them, Beatrice?”

“Always. But, O Marston! must you, will
you?”

“What, Beatrice?”

“Must you go?”

“You know I must.”

“Is it quite, quite impossible for you to
yield to my wishes?”

A slight frown changed the expression of
patient sadness upon his face.

“I am sorry you asked me that, Beatrice.
Is my word of so little account with you?”

“And yet you suffer!” murmured Beatrice.

“More than you can know, or I can tell.”

“But that is not firmness, that is —”

“What?”

“Obstinacy, fanaticism. You sacrifice yourself
and—yes, and me, rather than give up an
idea.”

“Beatrice, do you remember, in the chemical
experiments that amused us last winter,
watching the crystals form? Could those
crystals have been persuaded to change themselves
back into their component parts? And
just so, as it seems to me, a conviction should
form itself in a man's mind, and there remain
in its integrity through time and circumstances,
and the tears of the woman that he
loves, and the passion of his own heart, beat
against it without ceasing. It may be fanaticism,
dear, it may be obstinacy, but it is I as
God made me, and as I shall live and die.”

“Well, then,” cried the woman, driven to
her last extremity, and throwing to the winds
all considerations but the one standing closest
to her heart. “Well, then, if you will not
yield, Marston Brent, I will. I am not made
of these cold, hard crystals, but of warm flesh
and blood, thank God! I give up my opposition
to the life you propose. I consent that
you should go to Wahtahree, and I will follow
—”

“Stop, Beatrice. Do not finish that sentence,
do not make that offer, for I—O Beatrice!
how can I accept it?”

The color slowly left her face, the light
faded from her eyes, and she stood staring at
him, her lips parted for that next word whose
utterance he had forbidden.

Brent went on, no less moved than she, yet
very firm:

“How can I accept it, Beatrice, when twelve
hours ago you deliberately resolved and
vowed, and called God to witness the oath,
that you would never consent to the entreaty
I urged upon you, would never follow me to
Wahtahree as my wife, would never yield to
the plan you had formed for me to that I had
formed for myself? Dear love, if I should
allow you to perjure yourself to-day, you
would despise yourself and me to-morrow; and

whatever else befalls, I would save you from
the cureless pang of self-contempt. Words
may be but air, but honor turns them to claims
that may not be broken. Say that I am right,
Beatrice, for, O child! my burden is very hard
to bear.”

And snatching at her hands, he held them
close, turning upon her the while a face of
such white agony as might look up from the
rack whose utmost power may extort a groan,
but no recantation.

Her eyes met his, steadily enough now, and
coldly too.

“Thank you, Marston Brent,” said she;
“you have saved me from a great folly and a
great mortification. Good-by.”

“Good-by like this, Beatrice, after all that
has come and gone between us two!”

“Good-by,” repeated she; and drawing her
hands from his icy grasp, she walked steadily
up the path and disappeared in the wood, nor
once turned to look behind her.

Brent watched until the last flutter of her
dress was lost among the leaves, then cast
one slow, loving glance on all about him,
reverently raised his hat, murmuring:

“God bless and guard my darling, and all
about her!”

And taking the willow staff from the place
where it had fallen, went his way.