Yet, to tread that flowery way, to begin to-night!
He wheeled around to the dying fire, and sat staring into the deep coals and flickering blaze, balancing the golden vial in his hand, as one weighing a decision.
To tread that flowery way, with its blue skies and its singing birds, to feel one’s heart bursting with a new ecstasy, to reach again the land of hope and love, and to linger there with some one--some one with a heart full of love and life! He had always been so lonely!
The age of work, his own age, his guest had chosen to linger there; had resisted all other temptations for that. With the wisdom of fourscore years and all his subtle gift for detecting and avoiding dangers, he had chosen the middle age of life for his abiding-place. The age of work, yes, it was that, if one only made it his vantage-ground.
But, oh, the glory of the flowery way, with all its dangers and all its heartbreaks! His decision was swinging to and fro, like a pendulum: the age of work, the flowery way, the age of work?
And he had been so idle. Perhaps that had been the trouble all along.
“The age of work,” he whispered, “the age of achievement!”
He balanced the precious vial more quickly. It caught the flicker of a waning blaze and became a great, throbbing ruby in his hand.
“To live life over! To go back and begin the game anew! Good God!”
Then--he did not know how it happened--the little bottle toppled, fell, and struck the stone hearth, splashing its contents into the dying embers. There was a leap of yellow flame, which an instant later had become vivid scarlet, changing as quickly to crimson, deep purple, then to a flare of blinding white, and was gone.
Carringford, startled for a moment, sat gazing dumbly at the ashes of his dying fire.
“The question has decided itself,” he said.
Dear, I lie dying, and thou dost not know-- Thou whom of all the world I love the best, And wilt not know until I lie at rest, With lips forever closed and lids dropped low. O Love, O Love, I cannot leave thee so! Cannot, still undivined, still unexpressed, Unheeding to the last my heart’s behest, Dumb into the eternal silence go! What reck I in this moment of disgrace? Albeit the whole world hear what my heart saith, I cry aloud to thee across all space, To thee--to thee--I call with my last breath! O Love, lean forth from out thy dwelling-place! Listen, and learn I loved thee, Love, till death.