Helena's Path

"You would see me walking on Beach Path day by day."

"I never call it Beach Path."

"May it now be called – Helena's?"

"Or will you stay and lunch with me to-day? And you might even pay homage again – say to-morrow – or – or some day in the week."

"Lunch, most certainly. That commits me to nothing. Homage, Marchesa, is quite another matter."

"Your chivalry is turning to bargaining, Lord Lynborough."

"It was never anything else," he answered.

"Homage is rendered in payment – that's why one says 'Whereas.'" His keen eager eyes of hazel raised once more the flood of subdued crimson in her face. "For every recognition of a right of mine, I will pay you homage according to the form prescribed for St. John Baptist's Feast."

"Of what other rights do you ask recognition?"

"There might be the right of welcoming you at Scarsmoor to-morrow?"

She made him a little curtsy. "It is accorded – on the prescribed terms, my lord."

"That will do for the twenty-fifth. There might be the right of escorting you home from Scarsmoor by the path called – Helena's?"

"On the prescribed terms it is your lordship's."

"What then of the right to see you daily, and day by day?"

"If your leisure serves, my lord, I will endeavor to adjust mine – so long as we both remain at Fillby. But so that the homage is paid!"

"But if you go away?"

"I'm bound to tell you of my whereabouts only on St. John Baptist's Feast."

"The right to know it on other days – would that be recognized in return for a homage, Marchesa?"

"One homage for so many letters?"

"I had sooner there were no letters – and daily homages."

"You take too many obligations – and too lightly."

"For every one I gain the recognition of a right."

"The richer you grow in rights then, the harder you must work!"

"I would have so many rights accorded me as to be no better than a slave!" cried Lynborough. "Yet, if I have not one, still I have nothing."

She spoke no word, but looked at him long and searchingly. She was not nervous now, but proud. Her look bade him weigh words; they had passed beyond the borders of merriment, beyond the bandying of challenges. Yet her eyes carried no prohibition; it was a warning only. She interposed no conventional check, no plea for time. She laid on him the responsibility for his speech; let him remember that he owed her homage.

They grew curious and restless on the lawn; the private audience lasted long, the homage took much time in paying.

"A marvelous thing has come to me," said Lynborough, speaking slower than his wont, "and with it a great courage. I have seen my dream. This morning I came here not knowing whether I should see it. I don't speak of the face of my dream-image only, though I could speak till next St. John's Day upon that. I speak to a soul. I think our souls have known one another longer, aye, and better than our faces."

"Yes, I think it is so," she said quietly. "Yet who can tell so soon?"

"There's a great gladness upon me because my dream came true."

"Who can tell so soon?" she asked again. "It's strange to speak of it."

"It may be that some day – yes, some day soon – in return for the homage of my lips on your hand, I would ask the recognition of my lip's right on your cheek."

She came up to him and laid her hand on his arm. "Suffer me a little while, my lord," she said. "You've swept into my life like a whirlwind; you would carry me by assault as though I were a rebellious city. Am I to be won before ever I am wooed?"

"You sha'n't lack wooing," he said quickly. "Yet haven't I wooed you already – as well in my quarrel as in my homage, in our strife as in the end of it?"

"I think so, yes. Yet suffer me a little still."

"If you doubt – " he cried.

"I don't think I doubt. I linger." She gave her hand into his. "It's strange, but I cannot doubt."

Lynborough sank again upon his knee and paid his homage. As he rose, she bent ever so slightly toward him; delicately he kissed her cheek.

"I pray you," she whispered, "use gently what you took with that."

"Here's a heart to my heart, and a spirit to my spirit – and a glad venture to us both!"

"Come on to the lawn now, but tell them nothing."

"Save that I have paid my homage, and received the recognition of my right?"

"That, if you will – and that your path is to be – henceforward – Helena's."

"I hope to have no need to travel far on the Feast of St. John!" cried Lynborough.

They went out on the lawn. Nothing was asked, and nothing told, that day. In truth there appeared to be no need. For it seems as though Love were not always invisible, nor the twang of his bow so faint as to elude the ear. With joyous blood his glad wounds are red, and who will may tell the sufferers. Sympathy too lends insight; your fellow-sufferer knows your plight first. There were fellow-sufferers on the lawn that day – to whom, as to all good lovers, here's Godspeed.

She went with him in the afternoon through the gardens, over the sunk fence, across the meadows, till they came to the path. On it they walked together.

"So is your right recognized, my lord," she said.

"We will walk together on Helena's Path," he answered, "until it leads us – still together – to the Boundless Sea."

THE END