I bind to myself to-day, The Power of God to protect me, The Might of God to uphold me, The Wisdom of God to guide me, The Light of God to shine upon me, The Love of God to encompass me.
During these days Agneta looked at her anxiously, but she asked no questions at all, and Elizabeth loved her for it.
Elizabeth went home on the 15th of June. After hard struggle, she had come into a place of clear vision. If the dream stood the test, if in spite of all her strivings towards Truth, David still came to her, she would take the dream to be an earnest of some future waking. If the dream ceased, if David came no more, then she must cast her bread of love upon the waters of the Infinite, God only knowing, if after many days, she should be fed.
David was very much pleased to have her back. He told her so with a laugh-confessed that he had missed her.
When Elizabeth went to her room that night, she sat down on the window-seat and watched. It had rained, but the night was clear again. She looked from the window, and the midsummer beauty slid into her soul. The rain had washed the sky to an unearthly translucent purity, but out of the west streamed a radiance of turquoise light. It filled the night, and as it mounted towards the zenith, the throbbing colour passed by imperceptible degrees into a sapphire haze. The horizon was a ghostly line of far, pure emerald. This transfiguring glow had all the sunset's fire, only there was neither red nor gold in it. The ether itself flamed, and the colour of that flame was blue. It was the light of vision, the very light of a Midsummer's Dream. The cloud that had shed the rain brooded apart with wings of folded gloom. Two or three drifting feathers of dark grey vapour barred the burning blue. Perishably fine, they dissolved against the glow, and one amazing star showed translucent at the vapour's edge, now veiled, now blazing out as the mist wavered and withdrew from so much brightness. A night for love, a night for lovers' dreams.
Yearning came upon Elizabeth like a flood. Just once more to see him look at her with love. Just once more-once more, to feel his arms, his kiss-to weep upon his breast and say farewell.
She put her hand out waveringly until it touched the wall. She shut her eyes against the beauty of the night, and strove with the longing that rent her. Her lips framed broken words. She said them over and over again until the tumult died in her, and she was mistress of her thoughts. Immortal love could never lose by Truth.
Now she could look again upon the night. The trees were very black. The wind stirred them. The sky was full of light made mystical. Which of the temples that man has built, has light for its walls, and cloud and fire for its pillars? In which of them has the sun his tabernacle, through which of them does the moon pass, by a path of silver adoration? What altar is served by the rushing winds and lighted by the stars? In all the temples that man has made, man bows his head and worships, but in the Temple of the Universe it is the Heavens themselves that declare the Glory of God.
Elizabeth 's thought rose up and up. In the divine peace it rested and was stilled.
And David did not come.
CHAPTER XXII. AFTER THE DREAM
In Him we live,
He is our Source, our Spring,
And we, His fashioning.
We have no sight except by His foreseeing,
In Him we live and move and have our being,
He spake the Word, and lo!
Creation stood,
And God said, It is good.
DAVID came no more. The dream was done. During the summer days there rang continually in Elizabeth 's ears the words of a song-one of Christina's wonderful songs that sing themselves with no other music at all.
The hope I dreamed of was a dream Was but a dream, and now I wake Exceeding comfortless, and worn, and old, For a dream's sake.
“Exceeding comfortless.” Yes, there were hours when that was true. She had taken her heart and broken it for Truth's sake, and the broken thing cried aloud of its hurt. Only by much striving could she still it and find peace.
The glamour of the June days was gone too. July was a wet and stormy month, and Elizabeth was thankful for the rain and the cold, at which all the world was grumbling.
Mary came in one July day with a face that matched the weather.
“Why, Molly,” said Elizabeth, kissing her, “what 's the matter, child?”
Mary might have asked the same question, but she was a great deal too much taken up with her own affairs.
“Edward and I have quarreled,” she said with a sob in the words, and sitting down, she burst into uncontrollable tears.
“But what is it all about?” asked Elizabeth, with her arm around her sister. “Molly, do hush. It is so bad for you. What has Edward done?”
“Men are brutes,” declared Mary.
“Now, I 'm sure Edward is n't,” returned Elizabeth, with real conviction.
Mary sat up.
“He is,” she declared. “No, Liz, just listen. It was all over baby's name.”
“What, already?”
“Well, of course, one plans things. If one does n't, well, there was Dorothy Jackson-don't you remember? She was very ill, and the baby had to be christened in a hurry, because they did n't think it was going to live. And nobody thought the name mattered, so the clergyman just gave it the first name that came into his head, and the baby did n't die after all, and when Dorothy found she 'd got to go through life with a daughter called Harriet, she very nearly died all over again. So, you see, one has to think of things. So I had thought of a whole lot of names, and last night I said to Edward, 'What shall we call it?' and he looked awfully pleased and said, 'What do you think?' And I said, 'What would you like best?' And he said, 'I 'd like it to be called after you, Mary, darling. I got Jack Webster's answer to-day, and he says I may call it anything I like.' Well, of course, I did n't see what it had to do with Jack Webster, but I thought Edward must have asked him to be godfather. I was rather put out. I did n't think it quite nice beforehand, you know.”
The bright colour of indignation had come into Mary's cheeks, and she spoke with great energy.
“Of course, I just thought that, and then Edward said, 'So it shall be called after you-Arachne Mariana.' I thought what hideous names, but all I said was, 'Oh, darling, but I want a boy'; and do you know, Liz, Edward had been talking about a spider all the time-the spider that Jack Webster sent him. I don't believe he cares nearly as much for the baby, I really don't, and I wish I was dead.”
Mary sobbed afresh, and it took Elizabeth a good deal of the time to pacify her.
Mrs. Havergill brought in tea, it being Sarah's afternoon out. When she was taking away the tea-things, after Mary had gone, she observed:
“Mrs. Mottisfont, she do look pale, ma'am.”
“Mrs. Mottisfont is going to have a baby,” said Elizabeth, smiling.
Mrs. Havergill appeared to dismiss Mary's baby with a slight wave of the hand.
“I 'ad a cousin as 'ad twenty-three,” she observed in tones of lofty detachment.
“Not all at once?” said Elizabeth faintly.
Mrs. Havergill took no notice of this remark.
“Yes, twenty-three, pore soul. And when she was n't 'aving of them, she was burying of them. Ten she buried, and thirteen she reared, and many's the time I 've 'eard 'er say, she did n't know which was the most trouble.”
She went out with the tray, and later, when Sarah had returned, she repeated Mrs. Blake's information in tones of sarcasm.
“'There 's to be a baby at the Mottisfonts',' she says, as if I did n't know that. And I says, 'Yes, ma'am,' and that 's all as passed.”
Mrs. Havergill had a way of forgetting her own not inconsiderable contributions to a conversation.