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Beyond the Rocks, A Love Story

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<h2>XXIX</h2> Late that night, in the old panelled library at Bracondale, Hector walked up and down. He, too, was suffering, suffering intensely, his only grain of comfort being that he was alone. His mother was away in the north with Anne, and he had the place to himself. In his hand was Theodora's letter. As Josiah had calculated, knowing cross-country posts, both his and hers had arrived at the same time. Hector paced and paced up and down, his thoughts maddening him. And so three people were unhappy now—not he and his beloved one alone. This was the greater calamity. But how he had misjudged Josiah! The common, impossible husband had behaved with a nobility, a justice, and forbearance which he knew his own passionate nature would not have been capable of. It had touched him to the core, and he had written at once in reply, enclosing Theodora's letter about the arrival of the train. "Dear Sir,—I am overcome with your generosity and your justice. I thank you for your letter and for your magnanimity in forwarding the enclosure it contained. I understand and appreciate the sentiment you express when you say, had you been younger you would have killed me, and I on my side would have been happy to offer you any satisfaction you might have wished, and am ready to do so now if you desire it. At the same time, I would like you to know, in deed, I have never injured you. My deep and everlasting grief will be that I have brought pain and sorrow into the life of a lady who is very dear to us both. My own life is darkened forever as well, and I am going away out of England for a long time as soon as I can make my arrangements. I will respect your desire never to inform your wife of her mistake, and I will not trouble either of you again. Only, by a later post, I intend to answer her letter and say farewell. "Believe me, "Yours truly, "Bracondale." This he had despatched some hours ago, but his last good-bye to Theodora was not yet written. What could he say to her? How could he tell her of all the misery and anguish, all the pain which was racking his being; he, who knew life and most things it could hold, and so could judge of the fact that nothing, nothing, counted now but herself—and they should meet no more, and it was the end. A blank, absolute end to all joy. Nothing to exist upon but the remembrance of an hour or two's bliss and a few tender kisses. And as Josiah had done, he could only say: "Oh, God! Oh, God!" On top of his large escritoire there stood a minute and very perfect copy of the fragment of Psyche, which he had so intensely admired. He turned to it now as his only consolation; the likeness to Theodora was strong; the exact same form of face, and the way her hair grew; the pure line of the cheek, and the angle which the head was set on to the column of her throat—all might have been chiselled from her. How often had he seen her looking down like that. Perhaps the only difference at all was that Theodora's nose was fine, and not so heavy and Greek; otherwise he had her there in front of him—his Theodora, his gift of the gods, his Psyche, his soul. And wherever he should wander—if in wildest Africa or furthest India, in Alaska or Tibet—this little fragment of white marble should bear him company. It calmed him to look at it—the beautiful Greek thing. And he sat down and wrote to his loved one his good-bye. <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus4.png" width-obs="347" height-obs="558" alt="What Could He Say to Her." title="What Could He Say to Her." /> What Could He Say to Her.</div> He told her of his sorrow and his love, and how he was going away from England, he did not yet know where, and should be absent many months, and how forever his thoughts from distant lands would bridge the space between them, and surround her with tenderness and worship. And her letter, he said, should never leave him—her two letters; they should be dearer to him than his life. He prayed her to take care of herself, and if at any time she should want him to send for him from the ends of the earth. Bracondale would always find him, sooner or later, and he was hers to order as she willed. And as he had ended his letter before, so he ended this one now: "For ever and ever your devoted "Lover." After this he sat a long time and gazed out upon the night. It was very dark and cloudy, but in one space above his head two stars shone forth for a moment in a clear peep of sky, and they seemed to send him a message of hope. What hope? Was it, as she had said, the thought that there would be a returning spring—even for them? <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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