Page:Weird Tales Volume 6 Number 5 (1925-11).djvu/49

words of welcome which he had yearned to say through all the years would not come. A strange timidity held him back from her. He wanted to fall upon his knees and cry. At last he uttered halting words.

"You—you have come!"

"Yes, David; I have come!" Her voice was calm and sweet. She advanced. Her dainty slippers touched the carpet noiselessly and her long garment dragged behind with a sighing sound. When she had reached the table where the lights were, she put her candle in an empty bracket, then sat down upon a low stool facing David. It did not seem that she thought of coming nearer. How different this was from the meeting he had dreamed of! His own voice was calm as she said:

"Why did you not come before? I have waited so long, darling." He stepped toward her, but leaned back against the table as he saw that she shrank away. Her eyes grew wide.

"It has not been long. It has only been a little while." The wind whined through the gables outside. David watched her draw the white robe close around her while a new loneliness arose in his heart.

"Has it seemed short to you, then? Oh, the long, long years, Eleanore! They have made me old—and you say 'a little while'!"

Why were they so strangely calm? Why were they not in each other's arms with that sweet, warm embrace of old? The smile was gone from her lips now. She said mournfully:

"I have tried to come to you so many, many times—and I could not. Sometimes I was at your window whispering to you; then I would laugh and tap on the panes—but you never heard."

"How could I know?" He shook his head. She sighed and it seemed that there were violets in the room.

"I am glad to be here. I am glad to be near you, David, because" (she drew the robe close about her again) "it was lonely and cold."

David shuddered. "Where—where was it lonely and cold?"

She made a vague gesture that caused the open sleeve to fall back from her arm.

"Out there."

After a few minutes she looked down at the things which lay on the floor at their feet, and the open chest.

"What are these?"

Once more that queer loneliness!

"Don't you know, Eleanore? Surely you remember—"

"No."

"Why, they are your own! Your letter, dear, the comb you wore in your hair—"

How small and like a child she looked as she slipped down from the stool and knelt among the relics! She held up the yellowed handkerchief and looked at him with a question in her eyes.

"This, David," she said, "I think I—remember—"

He shuddered again. After that she looked no more at the things but straight up into his eyes.

"I like to be here," she said simply. "It is warm and sweet where you are, David." His heart beat faster as he looked down and saw something of the old light burning in those strange eyes.

"And I am old, Eleanore—I grew old when you left me—everything grew old and musty and dismal when you went away." He motioned to the ceiling with bits of cobwebs in its comers—to the faded carpet. "But you are young and beautiful—"

She gave a laugh that sounded like the patter of rain against the casement.

"No, no! It is you who are young: I am not young!" The eery laugh pattered again. "David, I—". She seemed to be groping for words she