Cursed

“Listen to me!” he commanded, masterfully lying. “There’s never been anybody but you, Laura. There never will be. You’ve been in all my dreams, by night, my visions by day, up here in fairyland!”

His words were coming impetuously now. In his eyes the golden flame of desire was burning hot.

“You’re everything to me! Everything! I’ve sensed it for a long time, but only in the last month or two I’ve really understood. It all came to me in a kind of revelation, Laura, one day when I was translating a poem from the Hindustani.”

“A poem, Hal?” The girl’s voice was tremulous. Her eyes had closed. Her head, resting on his shoulder, thrilled him with ardor; and in his nostrils the perfume of her womanhood conjured up shimmering dream-pictures of the Orient – strange lands that, though unseen, he mysteriously seemed to know. “Tell me the poem, dear!” Laura whispered. “A love-poem?”

“Such a love-poem! Listen, sweetheart! It’s a thousand years old, and it comes from the dim past to tell you what I feel for you. It runs this way:

“Belovèd, were I to name the blossoms of the spring,
And all the fruits of autumn’s bounteousness;
Were I to name all things that charm and thrill,
And earth, and Heaven, all in one word divine,
I would name thee!

“Had I the gold of Punjab’s golden land,
Had I as many diamonds, shining bright
As leaves that tremble in a thousand woods,
Or sands along ten thousand shining seas;
Had I as many pearls of shifting hue
As blades of grass in fields of the whole world,
Or stars that shine on the broad breast of night,
I’d give them all, a thousand, thousand times,
To make thee mine!”

For a minute, while Hal watched her with calculation, Laura kept silence. Then she looked up at him, dreamy-eyed, and smiled.

“That’s wonderful, Hal. I only wish you meant it!”

“You know I do! I want you, Laura – God, how much! You’re all I need to make my fairyland up here a heaven!”

“What – what do you mean, Hal? Are you asking me to – to be your wife?”

His face contracted, involuntarily, but he veiled his true thought with a lie. What mattered just a lie to gain possession of her in this golden hour of sunshine?

“Yes, yes, of course!” he cried, drawing her to his lips in a betraying kiss – a kiss, to her, culminant with wonder and mystic with a good woman’s aspiration for a life of love and service – a kiss, to him, only a trivial incident, lawless, unbridled. At heart he cursed the girl’s pure passion for him. Not this was what he wanted; and dimly, even through the flame of his desire, he could see a hundred complications, perils. But now the lie was spoken – and away with to-morrow!

Again he kissed the girl, sensing, in spite of his desire, the different quality of her returning kiss. Then she smiled up at him, and with her hand smoothed back the thick, black hair from his forehead.

“It’s all so wonderful, Hal!” she whispered fondly. “I can’t believe it’s true. But it is true, isn’t it? Even though we’ve got to wait till you get through college. I’m willing to. I love you enough, Hal, to wait forever. And you will, too, won’t you?”

“Of – of course I will!”

“And it’s really, really true? It’s not just a fairy dream of wonderland, up here, that will vanish when we go down to the world again?”

“No, no, it’s all true, Laura,” he was forced to answer, baffled and at a loss. Not at all was this adventure developing as he had planned it. Why, Laura was taking it seriously! Laura was acting like a child – a foolish, preposterous child! The web that he had hoped to spread for her undoing had, because of her own trusting confidence, been tangled all about himself.

Abashed and angry, he sought some way to break its bonds. Another poem rose to memory, a poem that he hoped might make her understand. He had read it the day before in a little book called “The Divine Image,” and it had instantly burned itself into his brain. Now said he:

“Listen, dear. I’ve got another verse for you. It’s called: ‘His Woman.’”

“And I’m really yours, forever?”

“Of course you are, dear! Listen, now:

“‘In the pale, murmuring dawn she lay
Alone, with nothing more to lose.
Her eyes one warm, soft arm espied,
And lips too tired to voice her pride
Caressed and kissed a bruise.’”

The girl looked up at him a moment, circled with his arm, as she lay there content. For a little she seemed not to understand. Then, slowly, a puzzled look and then a look of hurt rose to her eyes.

“Hal, you – you mustn’t – ”

“Why mustn’t I, dear?”

She tried to answer, but his lips upon her mouth stifled her speech.

Swift fear leaped through her as she fought away from him.

“Oh, Hal!” she cried. “What – what are you looking at me that way for? Your eyes, Hal – your eyes – ”

In vain he tried to kiss her. Her face was turned away, her hands repulsing him.

“Kiss me, Laura! Kiss me!”

“No, no – not now! Oh, Hal, you have only yourself to resist. I have you to resist, and myself, too!”

The thought gave him a minute’s pause. Did some instinct of chivalry, deep-buried, try for a second to struggle up through his evil heritage, or was it but surprise that loosed his grip upon her so that she escaped his hands, his arms?

“God forgive you, Hal, for having killed the most wonderful treasure I had – my faith in you!” she cried from where she stood now, looking down at him with tragic eyes of disillusion. “Oh, God forgive you!”

He would have spoken, but she turned and fled toward the tangled thicket through which the path led downward.

“Laura! Wait!” He sprang to his feet, peering after her with hateful eyes. No answer as she vanished through the greenery.

For all his rage and passion, Hal realized how absurd a figure he would make, pursuing her. Swift anger swept over him, broke all down, rushed in uncontrolled floods.

A moment he stood there, brutal, venomous. Then with a laugh, the echo of that which had sounded when Alpheus Briggs had flung the Malay girl to death, he clutched at his thick hair, tugging at it with excess of madness. He broke into wild curses that rose against the sky with barbarous blasphemy.

Foam slavered upon his lips. His face grew black; the veins stood out upon his neck and temples. A madman, he trampled through the bushes, stamping, striking, lusting to kill.

So for a time he raged in blind, stark passion; while Laura, shaken and afraid, bleeding at her heart of hearts, made her way all alone back to the safety of the seashore road.

At last, his rage burned out, Hal flung himself down in the grass. Face buried in hands, teeth set in bleeding lip, he lay there.

And over him the heavens, like an eyeless face, smiled down with calm, untroubled purpose.