CHAPTER XII
THE PARTING OF THE WAYS
When Winn passed out of Rockhaven the next morning, Mona was in herdooryard kneeling beside a bed of flowers, her face shaded by a checkedcalico sunbonnet. At the gate he paused.
"Good morning, little girl," he said pleasantly, "do I get a flower formy good looks this morning?" Had Mona been a cultured society girl shewould have replied in the same coin, instead she merely answered hisgreeting and plucking one each of a half dozen kinds, still moist withthe dew, handed them to him. And he looked into the wondrous eyes raisedto his, saw a new light lingering in them, and smiling softly as he tookthe flowers he thanked her and went his way.
And strange to say, when he reached the quarry, he hid that littlenosegay in a shaded nook beside the ledge where a tiny spring drippedout, and when he returned that noon, carried them wrapped in a wethandkerchief to his room and left them in a glass of water. And thatnight when the vexation and cares of the day had passed, he, a littlehomesick and with the charm of Mona's playing still lingering in hismind, held communion with himself. And the cause was the followingmissive which had reached him:--
"DEAR MR. HARDY:
"I was surprised a few days ago when your aunt told me you had left the city to be manager of the Rockhaven Granite Co., and had gone away to some unheard of island. I had missed seeing you for a week, and when you were not at church with your aunt, asked her what had become of you. When she told me where you were it seemed likely you would be glad to hear from home, and as I am aware your worthy aunt hates letter writing, I thought I would be good to you. There isn't a bit of news to write, and the city is getting positively unbearable.
"Mother and I are getting ready to go to the mountains; we shall start early in July and your aunt goes with us. I presume from what she said you will remain where you are this summer. I almost envy you, for it certainly must be cool there, and no doubt you have or will find some sweet fishermaid to flirt with. Grace is not going with us for she says a baby is a nuisance at a hotel and then 'hubby' can't afford it. I saw Jack (your chum) the other evening at the Bijou with a girl who was stunning, also Mabel Weston and her mother.
"I do not know of anything else that will interest you except my address for the summer, which I enclose, and the hope that you won't forget us all before your return.
"Yours sincerely, "ETHEL SHERMAN."
And this from the girl who two short years before had laughed hismarriage proposal to scorn.
And he was like to find some simple fishermaid to flirt with, was he?And the cool indifference to that fact; and the covert, yet openlyexpressed invitation for him to write to her.
Now Winn Hardy was not blind, and in spite of the two years, duringwhich he had never met or thought of Ethel Sherman without a pin-prickin his heart, clear and distinct in his mind was the alluring glance ofher blue eyes that had led him to make a fool of himself, and the redripe temptation of her lips he had once stolen kisses from. And now shewas inviting him to write to her. And not two rods away was a girl assimple and sweet as the daisies that bloomed in a meadow, as utterlyunsophisticated as though reared within convent walls, with eyes likedeep waters, and a soul trembling with passionate music!
For one hour Winn communed with himself, glancing attentively at thelittle knot of flowers on a small table near him, and the letter besidethem, and then arose and putting on his hat, left the house. It was astill summer evening with the crescent of a new moon glinting in thewaters of Rockhaven harbor and outlining the spectral shape of the toweron Norse Hill. To this Winn turned his steps, and seating himself wherehe could look over the undulating ocean, continued his meditation.
All his life, since the day he first entered the office of Weston &Hill, came to him. All the many snubs he had received, all thedisappointments he had met, all the weeks, months, and years ofmonotonous drudgery in that office, all the "fool's paradise" hours hehad passed with Ethel Sherman, all the harsh bitterness he had heardfrom the lips of Jack Nickerson--and now the new life, new ambition, andnew influence that had come to him--passed in review. And as heleisurely puffed his cigar, looking the while out upon the boundlessexpanse that, like an eternity, lay before him, he saw himself as hewas, and knew that as a man of honor and for his own peace of mind, hemust choose between two ways. That he could not escape the island formonths and perhaps for years, he saw clearly, and if he remained, asremain he must if he were to win success in this new project, he mustinevitably become one and a part of the social and hard-working life ofthe people with whom he mingled, sharing their hopes and encouragingtheir ambitions. And if he did, could he go on holding himself alooffrom all tender impulses, living the life of a recluse, as inflexible asthe granite he quarried, and as void of sentiment?
Winn Hardy besides being impulsive was endowed with a vein of romance,and saw and felt the poetic side of all things. The whispers of winds inthe pine trees, flowers that grew wild in out of the way nooks, birdssinging, bees gathering honey, squirrels hiding their winter store ofnuts, the sea in all its moods, clouds sailing across a summer sky andall that was beautiful in nature appealed to him. This island whosefrowning cliffs faced the ocean billows so defiantly, the placid harborwith its rippled sandy shore, the old tide mill an ancient ruin, thedark thickets of spruce between the rolling ledges of granite, and theweird gorge where this girl had hid herself, each and all seemed to himas so many bits of poetry. Then the peculiar and romantic fact of hergoing to such a picturesque spot, out of sight and sound of even theisland people, and beyond that the wonderful sweetness and pathos of hersimple music, all appealed to him as to but few. It was as if he felt inher a kinship of soul, an echo of his own poetic nature, a response tohis own ideals in life, with a face like a flower, lips like tworosebuds, and eyes like a Madonna.
For a long time he sat there in communion with his own needs and nature,sobered by the silence of night and eternity so near him. When he arose,turning back toward the village, he paused on the brow of the hill,looking down upon it still and silent in the faint moonlight. Away tothe right and pointing skyward, he saw the little spire of the churchwhose bell had recalled his early boyhood days and all the sweet andpure influences they had contained, even the face of his own mother, heknew he should never look upon again. And with that recollection camethe half-pitiful words he had heard in that church that seemed like aplea for help from starvation.
Winn was not religious. He had never been drawn toward an openprofession of faith. He had at first felt church going andSabbath-school lessons an irksome task, and later a social custom,useful because it bound together congenial people. He believed in Godbut not in prayer. His heart was in sympathy with all the carnal needsof humanity, but not the spiritual; those he considered figments of theimagination, useful, maybe, when old age came, but needless duringhealthy, active life. To the customary observance of them he alwaysyielded respectful attention, but felt not their influence. And musingthere it came to him that perhaps some divine power had directed hisfootsteps and brought him into the lives of these simple honest peoplefor a purpose not understood.
When he reached his room it was fragrant with the flowers Mona had givenhim that morning, and beside them lay the letter of Ethel Sherman.
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