4. IV.
The awkward thing in all story-telling is transition.
Invention you do not need if you have experience;
for fact is stranger than fiction. A beginning in these
days of startling abruptness is as simple as open your
mouth; and when you have once begun you can end
whenever you like, and leave the sequel to the reader's
imagination: but the hinges of a story—the turning
gracefully back from a digression (it is easy to turn
into one)—is the pas qui coúte. My education on that
point was neglected.
It was, as I said before, a moonlight night, and
Job and myself having, like Sir Fabian, “no mind
to sleep,” followed the fashion and the rest of the company
at the inn, and strolled down to see the falls by
moonlight. I had been there before, and I took Job
straight to the spot in the bed of the river which I
have described above as my favorite, and, after watching
it for a few minutes, we turned back to a dark
cleft in the rock which afforded a rude seat, and sat
musing in silence.
Several parties had strolled past without seeing us
in our recess, when two female figures, with their
arms around each other's waists, sauntered slowly
around the jutting rock below, and approached us,
eagerly engaged in conversation. They came on to
the very edge of the shadow which enveloped us,
and turned to look back at the scene. As the head
nearest me was raised to the light, I started half to
my feet: it was Edith! In the same instant her
voice of music broke on my ear, and an irresistible
impulse to listen unobserved drew me down again
upon my seat, and Job, with a similar instinct, laid his
hand on my arm.
“It was his favorite spot!” said Edith. (We had
been at Trenton together years before.) “I stood here
with him, and I wish he stood here now, that I might
tell him what my hand hesitates to write.”
“Poor Philip!” said her companion, whom by the
voice I recognised as the youngest of the Flemings,
“I can not conceive how you can resolve so coldly to
break his heart.”
I felt a dagger entering my bosom, but still I listened.
Edith went on.
“Why, I will tell you, my dear little innocent. I
loved Philip Slingsby when I thought I was going to
die. It was then a fitting attachment, for I never
thought to need, of the goods of this world, more
than a sick chamber and a nurse; and Phil was kind-hearted
and devoted to me, and I lived at home.
But, with returned health, a thousand ambitious desires
have sprung up in my heart, and I find myself
admired by whom I will, and every day growing
more selfish and less poetical. Philip is poor, and
love in a cottage, though very well for you if you
like it, would never do for me. I should like him
very well for a friend, for he is gentlemanlike and
devoted, but, with my ideas, I should only make him
miserable, and so—I think I had better put him out of
misery at once—don't you think?
A half-smothered groan of anguish escaped my lips;
but it was lost in the roar of the waters, and Edith's
voice, as she walked on, lessened and became inaudible
to my ear. As her figure was lost in the shadow
of the rocks beyond, I threw myself on the bosom of
my friend, and wept in the unutterable agony of a
crushed heart. I know not how that night was spent,
but I awoke at noon of the next day, in my bed, with
Job's hand clasped tenderly in my own.
