The Glory of the Conquered | Page 3

who went to New York with all the dreams of all her years calling upon her for fulfillment. She knew what that girl had dreamed when she dreamed she knew not what; knew what she thought when she thought the undefined. She smiled understandingly, tenderly, at thought of it all--the bounding joy and the stubborn determination, the fearing and the demanding and the resolving with which she began her work. She was a great deal like a child on the long-promised holiday, and much like the pilgrim at the shrine. Somewhere between those two was Ernestine that first winter in New York.
It was after the second year, after that strange mixture of things within her had unified to fixed purpose, and after it had become quite certain her dreams had not played her false, that the other big change had come. Her mother slipped away from the life which had never held her in the big grip of reality. She had been so long a longing looker-on from the outer circle that the slipping away was the less hard. Ernestine stopped work in order to care for her, reproaching herself with never having been able to give to her mother with the unrestraint and bounteousness she had given to her work. During those last weeks she often found her mother's eyes--sombre, brooding eyes--following her about the room like the spirit of unrest.
"Try to be happy, Ernestine," she said, when about to leave the house in which she had ever been a stranger. "Life is so awful if you are not happy."
She took her back to the little town and put her away beside the man with whom her soul had never been at peace. That first night she awakened in the dark hours and fancied she heard them quarreling. The hideous fancy would not let her go to sleep, though she told herself over and over that surely death would bring them the peace life had so long withheld.
She went back to her work then with a new steadiness; loneliness feeding the fire of consecration. Often when alone in her room at night she felt those disappointed eyes following her about, heard again that plaintive: "Try to be happy, Ernestine. Life is so awful if you are not happy." She had many times opened the book in which her mother copied the poems written at intervals during the years, but always would come the feeling of their holding something at which it would be hard to look. To-night, with her new understanding, this wondrous new touchstone, she took them from her trunk with eagerness. She longed now to know the secret of her mother's life; she would know why happiness had passed her by.
There was tragedy in those little poems--a soul's long tragedy in their halting lines, in the faltering breath with which they were sung. Indeed they were not the songs of a poet at all; they were but the helpless reaching out of an unsatisfied, unanchored soul. The blackboard had never given back what it should; the crayon would not write. Was it true there were countless souls who went away like this--leaving unsaid a word they had craved to say?
"For our souls were not in tune"--was a line she found in one of the verses and which she sat a long time pondering. Was not the secret of it here? This the rock which held the wreckage of their lives?
She left her room and went out of doors. The night was very still. A tender peace brooded over the world. She lifted her eyes to the stars--her soul to the great Wonder. Enveloping her was Life--drawing her straight to the heart of things was Love. Doubts and speculations and ominous memories seemed blown away by the breath of the night. The years had no lesson to teach save this--One must love! All that was wrong in the world came through too little loving. All that was great and beautiful sprang from love which knew not doubts nor fears. What was a "point of view" when one throbbed with the memory of his good-bye kiss!
There was a force which moved the world. She was in the grip of that force to-night. All else was but the tiny whirlpool against the mighty current. And she was not afraid. Love would deal kindly with her own. She lifted her soul to the great Mother and Father of the world. "Oh take me and teach me!"--was her passionate prayer.

CHAPTER II
THE LETTER
What was that story the old Greeks told about love being the union--or reunion--of the two halves of an originally perfect whole? The envious gods--who were a very bad lot--cut the original perfect being in two. Then love is a finding of one's own--also, a getting ahead of the gods. I