The White Shadow | Page 4

second may last?"
"But we--what difference can that make?" I asked.
"To us?"
"Yes."
"None," said Sweetheart decisively.
We looked out into the west. The sun turned to a mound of cinders; the hills loomed in opalescent steam.
"But--but--your shadow!" said Sweetheart.
I bent my head, thrilled with happiness.
"And yours," I whispered.
The shadows we cast were whiter than snow.
I still heard the hill winds, soft in my ears as breaking surf; a bird-note came from the dusky woodland; a star broke out overhead.
"What is your pleasure, Sweetheart, now all is said?" I asked.
"The world is all so fair," she sighed; "is it fairer beyond the hills, Jack?"
"It is fair where you pass by, north, south, and from west to west again. In France the poplars are as yellow as our oaks. In Morbihan the gorse gilds all the hills, yellow as golden-rod. Shall we go?"
"But in the spring--let us wait until spring."
"Where?"
"Here."
"Until spring?"
"It is written that Time shall pass as a shadow across the sea. What is that book there under your feet--that iron-bound book, half embedded like a stone in the grass."
"I did not see it!"
"Bring it to me."
I raised the book; it left a bare mark in the sod as a stone that is turned. Then, holding it on my knees, I opened it, and Sweetheart, leaning on my shoulder, read. The tall stars flared like candles, flooding the page with diamond light; the earth, perfumed with blossoms, stirred with the vague vibration of countless sounds, tiny voices swaying breathless in the hidden surge of an endless harmony.
"The white shadow is the shadow of the soul," she read. Even the winds were hushed as her sweet lips moved.
"And what shall make thee to understand what hell is? . . . When the sun shall be folded up as a garment that is laid away; when the stars fall, and the seas boil, and when souls shall be joined again to their bodies; and when the girl who hath been buried alive shall be asked for what crime; when books shall be laid open, when hell shall burn fiercely, and when paradise shall be brought very near:
"Every soul shall know what it hath wrought!"
I closed my eyes; the splendour of the starlight on the page was more than my eyes could bear.
But she read on; for what can dim her eyes?
"O man, verily, labouring, thou labourest to meet thy LORD.
"And thou shalt meet HIM!"
"When the earth shall be stretched like a skin, and shall cast forth that which is therein;
"By the heaven adorned with signs, by the witness and the witnessed;
"By that which appeareth by night; by the daybreak and the ten nights-the ten nights;
"The night of Al Kadr is better than a thousand months.
"Praise be to God, the Lord of all creatures; the Most Merciful, the King of the Day of Judgment. Thee do we worship, and of thee do we beg assistance. Direct us in the right way, in the way of those to whom thou hast been gracious; not of those against whom thou art incensed, nor of those who go astray!"
* * *
In the sudden silence that spread across earth and heaven I heard the sound of a voice under the earth, calling, calling, calling.
"It is already spring," said Sweetheart; and she rose, placing her white hands in mine. "Shall we go?"
"But we are already there," I stammered, turning my eyes fearfully; for the tall pines dwindled and clustered and rose again cool and gray in the morning air, all turned to stone, fretted and carved like lacework; and where the pines had faded, the twin towers of a cathedral loomed; and where the hills swept across the horizon, the roofs of a white city glimmered in the morning sun. Bridges and quays and streets and domes and the hum of traffic and rattle of arms; and over all, the veil of haze and the twin gray towers of Notre Dame!
"Sweetheart!" I faltered.
But we were already in my studio.
IV.
The studio had not changed. The sun flooded it.
Sweetheart sat in the broken armchair and watched me struggle with the packing. Every now and then she made an impulsive movement toward the heap of clothes on the floor, which I checked with a "Thanks! I can fix it all alone, Sweetheart."
Clifford seemed to extract amusement from it all, and said as much to Rowden, who was as usual ruining my zitherine by trying to play it like a banjo.
Elliott, knowing he could be of no use to us, had the decency to sit outside the studio on one of the garden benches. He appeared at intervals at the studio door, saying, "Come along, Clifford; they don't want you messing about. Drop that banjo, Rowden, or Jack will break your head with it--won't you, Jack?"
I said I would, but not with the zitherine.
Clifford flatly refused