No; not like that.
ETHEL. But there _is_ some one there?--some one that you've cared for?
PIKE [sadly]. Well, she's only been there in a way. I've had her picture
on my desk for a good while. Sometimes when I go home in the evening she
kind of seems to be there. I bought a homey old house up on Main Street,
you know; it's the house you were born in. It's kind of lonesome
sometimes, and then I get to thinking that she's there, sitting at an
old piano, that used to be my mother's, and singing to me--
ETHEL [smiling sorrowfully]. Singing "Sweet Genevieve"?
PIKE. Yes--that's my favorite. But then I come to and I find it ain't
so, no voice comes to me, and I find there ain't anybody but me
[swallows painfully], and it's so foolish that even Jim Cooley can write
me letters making fun of it!
ETHEL. You'll find her some day--you'll find some one to fulfil that
vision--and I shall think of you in your old house among the
beech-trees. I shall think of you often with her, listening to her voice
in the twilight. And I shall be far away from that sensible, kindly
life--keeping the promise that I have made [falters], and living out--my
destiny.
PIKE [gravely]. What destiny?
ETHEL. I am bound to Almeric in his misfortune, I am bound to him _by_
his misfortune.
[She goes on with a sorrowful eagerness.
Pages:
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122