But now in these dreary weeks of pain and dread she shared the hope of the Patmian seer. Night was a dreadful thing.
People said Emily Starr was very brave and patient and uncomplaining. But she did not seem so to herself. They did not know of the agonies of rebellion and despair and cowardice behind her outward calmness of Murray pride and reserve. Even Dean did not know... though perhaps he suspected.
She smiled gallantly when smiling was indicated, but she never laughed. Not even Dean could make her laugh, though he tried with all the powers of wit and humour at his command.
"My days of laughter are done," Emily said to herself. And her days of creation as well. She could never write again. The "flash" never came. No rainbow spanned the gloom of that terrible winter. People came to see her continuously. She wished they would stay away. Especially Uncle Wallace and Aunt Ruth, who were sure she would never walk again and said so every time they came. Yet they were not so bad as the callers who were cheerfully certain she would be all right in time and did not believe a word of it themselves. She had never had any intimate friends except Dean and Ilse and Teddy. Ilse wrote weekly letters in which she rather too obviously tried to cheer Emily up. Teddy wrote once when he heard of her accident. The letter was very kind and tactful and sincerely sympathetic. Emily thought it was the letter any indifferent friendly acquaintance might have written and she did not answer it though he had asked her to let him know how she was getting on. No more letters came. There was nobody but Dean. He had never failed her... never would fail her. More and more as the interminable days of storm and gloom passed she turned to him. In that winter of pain she seemed to herself to grow so old and wise that they met on equal ground at last. Without him life was a bleak, grey desert devoid of colour or music. When he came the desert would... for a time at least... blossom like the rose of joy and a thousand flowerets of fancy and hope and illusion would fling their garlands over it.
II
When spring came Emily got well... got well so suddenly and quickly that even the most optimistic of the three doctors was amazed. True, for a few weeks she had to limp about on a crutch, but the time came when she could do without it... could walk alone in the garden and look out on the beautiful world with eyes that could not be satisfied with seeing. Oh, how good life was again! How good the green sod felt beneath her feet! She had left pain and fear behind her like a cast-off garment and felt gladness... no, not gladness exactly, but the possibility of being glad once more sometime.
It was worth while to have been ill to realize the savour of returning health and well-being on a morning like this, when a sea- wind was blowing up over the long, green fields. There was nothing on earth like a sea-wind. Life might, in some ways, be a thing of shreds and tatters, everything might be changed or gone; but pansies and sunset clouds were still fair. She felt again her old joy in mere existence.
"'Truly the light is sweet and a pleasant thing it is for the eye to behold the sun,'" she quoted dreamily.
Old laughter came back. On the first day that Emily's laughter was heard again in New Moon Laura Murray, whose hair had turned from ash to snow that winter, went to her room and knelt down by her bed to thank God. And while she knelt there Emily was talking about God to Dean in the garden on one of the most beautiful spring twilights imaginable, with a little, growing moon in the midst of it.
"There have been times this past winter when I felt God hated me. But now again I feel sure He loves me," she said softly.
"So sure?" questioned Dean dryly. "I think God is interested in us but He doesn't love us. He likes to watch us to see what we'll do. Perhaps it amuses Him to see us squirm."
"What a horrible conception of God!" said Emily with a shudder. "You don't really believe that about Him, Dean."
"Why not?"
"Because He would be worse than a devil then... a God who thought only about his own amusement, without even the devil's justification of hating us."
"Who tortured you all winter with bodily pain and mental anguish?" asked Dean.
"Not God. And He... sent me YOU," said Emily steadily. She did not look at him; she lifted her face to the Three Princesses in their Maytime beauty... a white-rose face now, pale from its winter's pain. Beside her the big spirea, which was the pride of Cousin Jimmy's heart, banked up in its June-time snow, making a beautiful background for her. "Dean, how can I ever thank you for what you've done for me... been to me... since last October? I can never put it in words. But I want you to know how I feel about it."
"I've done nothing except snatch at happiness. Do you know what happiness it was to me to do something for you Star... help you in some way... to see you turning to me in your pain for something that only I could give... something I had learned in my own years of loneliness? And to let myself dream something that couldn't come true... that I knew ought not to come true... "
Emily trembled and shivered slightly. Yet why hesitate... why put off that which she had fully made up her mind to do?
"Are you so sure, Dean," she said in a low tone, "that your dream... can't come true?"
Chapter VIII
I
There was a tremendous sensation in the Murray clan when Emily announced that she was going to marry Dean Priest. At New Moon the situation was very tense for a time. Aunt Laura cried and Cousin Jimmy went about shaking his head and Aunt Elizabeth was exceedingly grim. Yet in the end they made up their minds to accept it. What else could they do? By this time even Aunt Elizabeth realized that when Emily said she was going to do a thing she would do it.
"You would have made a worse fuss if I had told you I was going to marry Perry of Stovepipe Town," said Emily when she had heard all Aunt Elizabeth had to say.
"Of course that is true enough," admitted Aunt Elizabeth when Emily had gone out. "And, after all, Dean is well-off... and the Priests are a good family."
"But so... so PRIESTY," sighed Laura. "And Dean is far, far too old for Emily. Besides, his great-great-grandfather went insane."
"Dean won't go insane."
"His children might."
"Laura," said Elizabeth rebukingly, and dropped the subject.
"Are you very sure you love him, Emily?" Aunt Laura asked that evening.
"Yes... in a way," said Emily.
Aunt Laura threw out her hands and spoke with a sudden passion utterly foreign to her.
"But there's only one way of loving."
"Oh no, dearest of Victorian aunties," answered Emily gaily. "There are a dozen different ways. YOU know I've tried one or two ways already. And they failed me. Don't worry about Dean and me. We understand each other perfectly."
"I only want you to be happy, dear."
"And I will be happy... I am happy. I'm not a romantic little dreamer any longer. Last winter took that all out of me. I'm going to marry a man whose companionship satisfies me absolutely and he's quite satisfied with what I can give him... real affection and comradeship. I am sure that is the best foundation for a happy marriage. Besides, Dean NEEDS me. I can make him happy. He has never been happy. Oh, it is delightful to feel that you hold happiness in your hand and can hold it out, like a pearl beyond price, to one who longs for it."