The "long glories of the winter moon" sent shafts of pale light to illumine both the sleepers and the listener. Within the chamber were the two shamed ones--the sinful mother, the child of sin. The two faces close together, both calm--for one heart was ignorant of the world and its cruelty, and the other for a brief space oblivious. Two hands were hidden, close clasped, beneath the coverlet; two lay palms up, so that the moonshine lit them palely--the one pink-palmed, unscarred, unstained; the other so worn, so hard, having lifted such heavy loads and borne such bitter burdens, having been stung by flowers that change to undying nettles, having so often shielded shamed eyes, having so often pressed against a breaking heart, having so often been raised in fruitless supplication, so often wrung in despair.
Without the door the listener, tremulous with eagerness, leant, holding her breath, and longing for the confirmation of her evil thoughts. She caught only the cadence of the breathing of mother and child--a music sweet to the old gods long ago, they say, and sacred still to us, the incense of love's devotion and sacrifice of suffering.
And is the offering less sacred because ascending from an altar differing in shape from the law's design? In what strange quality were these commingling breaths lacking that they should rise in vain?
Love bestows upon many things its own immortality. Why not upon the air, that gives it life? The air that has been breathed by the mutual lips of love can never again commingle with the grosser ether of our earthly atmosphere. It ascends afar, and perchance shall form the winey atmosphere of that fabled Land of Compensation, where, we are told, "the crooked shall be made straight."
"All the secret of the spring Moved in the chambers of the blood."
"Lovely spring A brief sweet thing, Is swift on the wing."
QUEEN ELEANOR--"...Some Flowers, they say, if one pluck deep enough. Bleed as you gather." BOUCHARD--"That means love, I think. You gather it, and there's the blood at root."
Winter was softening to spring. It was the dismal transition period, when half-frozen mud and icy slush take the place of snow. The deep drifts of the winter were gone; only in the fence-corners there yet remained darkened icy ridges, showing their outline.