Emily's Quest (1927)

Chapter 11

I

When the letter came from Teddy--the first letter for so long--Emily's hand trembled so that she could hardly open it.

"I must tell you of a strange thing that has happened," he wrote. "Perhaps you know it already. And perhaps you know nothing and will think me quite mad. I don't know what to think of it myself. I know only what I saw--or thought I saw.

"I was waiting to buy my ticket for the boat-train to Liverpool--I was to sail on the Flavian. Suddenly I felt a touch on my arm--I turned and saw you. I swear it. You said, 'Teddy--come.' I was so amazed I could not think or speak. I could only follow you. You were running--no, not running. I don't know how you went--I only knew that you were retreating. How rotten this all sounds. Was I crazy? And all at once you weren't there--though we were by now away from the crowd in an open space where nothing could have prevented me from seeing you. Yet I looked everywhere--and came to my senses to realize that the boat-train had gone and I had lost my passage on the Flavian. I was furious--ashamed--until the news came. Then--I felt my scalp crinkle.

"Emily--you're not in England? It can't be possible you are in England. But then--what was it I saw in that station?

"Anyhow, I suppose it saved my life. If I had gone on the Flavian--well, I didn't. Thanks to--what?

"I'll be home soon. Will sail on the Moravian--if you don't prevent me again. Emily, I heard a queer story of you long ago--something about Ilse's mother. I've almost forgotten. Take care. They don't burn witches nowadays, of course--but still--"

No, they didn't burn witches. But still--Emily felt that she could have more easily faced the stake than what was before her.

II

Emily went up the hill path to keep tryst with Dean at the Disappointed House. She had had a note from him that day, written on his return from Montreal, asking her to meet him there at dusk. He was waiting for her on the doorstep--eagerly, happily. The robins were whistling softly in the fir copse and the evening was fragrant with the tang of balsam. But the air all about them was filled with the strangest, saddest, most unforgettable sound in nature--the soft, ceaseless wash on a distant shore on a still evening of the breakers of a spent storm. A sound rarely heard and always to be remembered. It is even more mournful than the rain-wind of night--the heart-break and despair of all creation is in it. Dean took a quick step forward to meet her--then stopped abruptly. Her face--her eyes--what had happened to Emily in his absence? This was not Emily--this strange, white, remote girl of the pale twilight.

"Emily--what is it?" asked Dean--knowing before she told him.

Emily looked at him. If you had to deal a mortal blow why try to lighten it?

"I can't marry you after all, Dean," she said. "I don't love you."

That was all she could say. No excuses--no self-defence. There was none she could make. But it was shocking to see all the happiness wiped out of a human face like that.

There was a little pause--a pause that seemed an eternity with that unbearable sorrow of the sea throbbing through it. Then Dean said still quietly:

"I knew you didn't love me. Yet you were--content to marry me--before this. What has made it impossible?"

It was his right to know. Emily stumbled through her silly, incredible tale.

"You see," she concluded miserably, "when--I can call like that to him across space--I belong to him. He doesn't love me--he never will--but I belong to him. . . . Oh, Dean, don't look so. I had to tell you this--but if you wish it--I will marry you--only I felt you must know the whole truth--when I knew it myself."