CHAPTER XIII.

"Abroad it rushed,

My frolic soul, for it had sight

Of something half-way, which was known

As mine at once, yet not mine own."

It was early in the morning for Millicent, usually a late sleeper, to be

in the garden among the flowers. There Graham found her, white as the

gown she wore, standing with her arms filled with dark-red

roses,--standing with the sunlight touching her pretty hair, and shining

in her cool gray eyes. He stared at her, as at one risen from the dead;

he touched her hand before he spoke to her, to make sure that it was

really she, alive, with softly heaving breast and warm, clinging

fingers. Alive, and not as he had pictured her a thousand times during

that terrible ride,--cold and dead, with the stain which had dyed her

kerchief, on brow and bosom. For a long time they stood silently

looking into each other's faces; and then the man laid her hand gently

on his arm, and together they passed down the orchard road, across a

space of sunburnt meadow, to a spot they both knew,--Millicent's

boudoir, hanging over the narrow stream, walled by six tall redwoods

grown from the seeds of some giant predecessor, carpeted with thick

green moss, furnished with two rough seats. Here they rested silently

for a time,--Graham drawing long breaths of the morning air to relax his

tired lungs; Millicent resting her wearied heart with looking at him,

all her soul shining through her eyes. Graham first broke the silence

with questions of all that had happened since they had parted. She told

him of her danger, and of the murder of the Chinaman, in a low voice,

full of awe. It had been her first knowledge of death; and the chill

reality, the only certain thing which men look forward to, had first

been known by her now that she was a woman grown, and could fully

understand its dreadful significance. Hitherto, death had been a phrase

only; a thing which must come to all creatures, as a matter of course.

That she should sometime die she knew, but only by tradition; it had

meant nothing to her. Now she understood it all, and the terrible

knowledge had chilled her life-blood. Could she ever again think of

anything but that dead face? One stronger than the King of Terrors was

driving it from her thoughts: love was swiftly painting out the grim

picture from her memory.

Step by step they went over the ground of their mutual experiences since

the time when they had parted: the picnic, and its tragic ending; the

night which Graham had passed in the cabin with Ah Lam's murderer,--for

there could be no doubt it was he who had dropped Millicent's

handkerchief in the hut. Of the little journal Graham spoke sadly,

gently, without anger, as if it were a thing which concerned neither of

them. Then Millicent brokenly told the story which the written words

had simply indicated. She told it with a sense of thankfulness that the

weight of the secret rested no longer on her heart alone; that its pain

was shared, and that at last her lover understood and saw her absolutely

as she was. No reservation did she make, but bared to him the inmost

chambers of her heart, sure of no misunderstanding, and upheld by a

sympathy she had never before known. Then her confidence was returned,

and Graham spoke to her of many things of which he had never spoken

before; of the hopes and aspirations which had sometimes made his life

glorious; of the quicksands and hidden rocks which had often made his

way dangerous.

A wonderful confession,--solemn as those first confessions made by men

and women who at maturity join the Roman Catholic Church, and

unflinchingly reveal to the confessor every temptation to which they

have yielded in the course of their lives. To no mumbling, inattentive

priest, with store of penances and absolutions in his pocket, was the

confession made; in no stifling confessional, with throng of penitents

outside, grudging every moment of delay. Each spoke to a tender human

heart, that filled out the broken sentences, and echoed the deep sighs.

The roof of their temple swayed in the light breeze, and the wild birds

chanted the hymn of praise which consecrated it.

As Millicent at last sat silent, not knowing whether her lover still

spoke to her in words, or if that finer language of the spirit made his

thoughts clear to her, came at once a strange consciousness that she was

no longer a creature of this earth, with material senses and shape. The

last words which she had spoken she remembered as one dimly recalls what

has happened in another life. They were these:--

"Are you sorry for me?"

There had been no answer in words or in looks; for the power of sight

had been left behind with the outer case, now shaken off for the first

time since life upon the earth had begun. She was a thing apart no

longer; her existence had become merged in that of a stronger soul, to

which she was an all-important part. Folded in this spirit-embrace time

was not, nor past nor future; nothing but the perfect ecstasy of a union

which eternity should consecrate. Floating on a celestial ether, the

double soul mounted ever higher and higher. Was it toward eternal bliss

that it was wafted? Was the long waiting at an end?

Again she saw the sunlight; again she heard the ripple of the water;

again she felt the earthly tenement closing about the divine spirit.

Before her, framed in the green leaves, was a face dear indeed, the face

of her lover. With solemn eyes they looked at each other; and a broken

voice whispered to her,--

"Dear, what is it?"

She answered softly,--

"I have never been so near to you before."

Then a flood of feeling swept over her, and she would have knelt to him,

her other self; but he was already at her feet, moved by that same

instinct to do homage to the human form which held his counter soul, and

on her white feet he laid a reverent embrace.

Strengthened and uplifted by that mystic union whose memory should never

leave her, whose bonds should ever bind her, was Millicent. In every

existence comes one supreme, all-important moment, which thenceforth is

the landmark by which life is measured; the climacteric point to which

the past merely served to lead, the future availing only to enshrine its

memory. To some men and women the significance of that moment is known

only when it has long passed; to Millicent, the knowledge that her whole

after life should be controlled by that hour was not wanting. And her

lover,--would he be faithful to that unspoken vow? The thought never

crossed her mind; she was irrevocably bound to him; priest and rite

could but make a poor, earthy contract between what was mortal in them

both; the spiritual union was not for this world, and might not be

broken by either.