I'll ever have," she returned, trying to keep her voice even. "My wardrobe consists of an endless parade of brown alpaca and brown gingham garments, all made exactly alike."
"Like a dozen stage soldiers, marching in and out, to create the illusion of a procession?"
"I suppose so. You know I've never seen a stage, much less a stage soldier."
Alden's heart softened with pity. He longed to take Rosemary to town and let her feast her eyes upon some gorgeous spectacle; to see her senses run riot, for once, with colour and light and sound.
"I feel sometimes," she was saying, "as though I had sold my soul for pretty things in some previous existence, and was paying the penalty for it now."
"You love pretty things, don't you?"
She turned brimming eyes toward him. "Love them?" she repeated, brokenly. "There aren't words enough to say how much!"
From a fresh point of view he saw her countless deprivations, binding her, thwarting her, oppressing her on all sides by continual denial. His own rebellion against circumstances seemed weak and unworthy.
"Whenever I think of you," he said, in a different tone, "I feel ashamed of myself. I have freedom, of a certain sort, and you've never had a chance to learn the meaning of the word. You're dominated, body and soul, by a couple of old women who haven't discovered, as yet, that the earth is round and not flat."
"My soul isn't bound," returned Rosemary, softly, "but it would have been, if it hadn't been for you."
"I? Why, my dear girl, what have I done?"
"Everything. Think of all the books you've loaned me, all the candles you've given me – all the times you've climbed this steep hill just to talk to me for an hour and give me new strength to go on."
"It's only selfishness, Rosemary. I knew you were here and I like to talk to you. Don't forget that you've meant something to me, too. Why, you're the only woman I know, except my mother."
"Your mother is lovely," she returned. "I wish I could go to see her once in a while. I like to look at her. Even her voice is different someway."
"Yes, mother is 'different,'" he agreed, idly. "It's astonishing, sometimes, how 'different' she manages to be. We had it out the other day, about the vineyard, and I'm to stay here – all the rest of my life," he concluded bitterly.
"I don't see why, if you don't want to," she answered, half-fearfully. "You're a man, and men can do as they please."
"It probably seems so to you, but I assure you it's very far from the truth. I wonder, now and then, if any of us ever really do as we please. Freedom is the great gift."
"And the great loneliness," she added, after a pause.
"You may be right," he sighed. "Still, I'd like to try it for a while. It's the one thing I'd choose. What would you take, if you could have anything you wanted?"
"Do you mean for just a little while, or for always?"
"For always. The one great gift you'd choose from all that Life has to give."
"I'd take love," she said, in a low tone. She was not looking at him now, but far across the valley where the vineyard lay. Her face was wistful in the half-light; the corners of her mouth quivered, ever so little.
Alden looked at her, then rubbed his eyes and looked at her again. In some subtle way she had changed, or he had, since they last met. Never before had he thought of her as a woman; she had been merely another individual to whom he liked to talk. To-day her womanhood carried its own appeal. She was not beautiful and no one would ever think her so, but she was sweet and wholesome and had a new, indefinable freshness about her that, in another woman, would have been called charm.
It came to him, all at once, that, in some mysterious way, he and Rosemary belonged together. They had been born to the same lot, and must spend all their days in the valley, hedged in by the same narrow restrictions. Even an occasional hour on the Hill of the Muses was forbidden to her, and constant scheming was the price she was obliged to pay for it.
The restraint chafed and fretted him, for her as much as for himself. It was absurd that a girl of twenty-five and a man of thirty should not have some little independence of thought and action. The silence persisted and finally became awkward.
"It's the book," said Rosemary, with a forced laugh. She was endeavouring to brush her mood away as though it were an annoying cobweb. "I've grown foolish over the book."
"I'm glad you liked it," he returned, taking it from her. "I was sure you would. What part of it did you like best?"
"All of it. I can't choose, though of course some of it seems more beautiful than the rest."
"I suppose you know it by heart, now, don't you?"
"Almost."
"Listen. Isn't this like to-day?"
"Spring's foot half falters; scarce she yet may know
The leafless blackthorn-blossom from the snow;
And through her bowers the wind's way still is clear."
Rosemary got to her feet unsteadily. She went to the brow of the hill, on the side farthest from the vineyard, and stood facing the sunset. Scarcely knowing that she had moved, Alden read on:
"But April's sun strikes down the glades to-day;
So shut your eyes upturned, and feel my kiss – "
A smothered sob made him look up quickly. She stood with her back to him, but her shoulders were shaking. He dropped the book and went to her.
A strange, new tenderness possessed him. "Rosemary," he whispered, slipping his arm around her. "What is it – dear?"
"Nothing," she sobbed, trying to release herself. "I'm – I'm tired – and foolish – that's all. Please let me go!"
Something within him stirred in answer to the girl's infinite hunger, to the unspoken appeal that vibrated through her voice. "No," he said, with quiet mastery, "I won't let you go. I want to take care of you, Rosemary. Leave all that misery and come to me, won't you?"
Her eyes met his for an instant, then turned away. "I don't quite – understand," she said, with difficulty.
"I'm asking you to marry me – to come to mother and me. We'll make the best of it together."
Her eyes met his clearly now, but her face was pale and cold. She was openly incredulous and frightened.
"I mean it, dear. Don't be afraid. Oh, Rosemary, can't you trust me?"
"Trust you? Yes, a thousand times, yes!"
He drew her closer. "And love me – a little?"
"Love you?" The last light shone upon her face and the colour surged back in waves. She seemed exalted, transfigured, as by a radiance that shone from within.
He put his hand under her chin and lifted her face to his. "Kiss me, won't you, dear?"
And so, Rosemary came to her woman's birthright, in the shelter of a man's arms.
V
The House of the Broken Heart
The road was steep and very dark, but some unseen Power compelled her to climb. Dimly, through the shadow, she saw shafts of broken marbles and heard the sound of slow-falling waters. The desolation oppressed her, and, as she climbed, she pressed her hands tightly to her heart.
She was alone in an empty world. All traces of human occupation had long since vanished. Brambles and thorns grew thickly about her, and her brown gingham dress was torn to shreds. Rosemary shuddered in her dream, for Grandmother and Aunt Matilda would be displeased.
And yet, where were they? She had not seen them since she entered the darkness below. At first she had been unable to see anything, for the darkness was not merely absence