_ PART ONE
CHAPTER XVIII. TELLING ERNESTINE
He had thought to tell her on Tuesday, but after their talk, when he took his last look at her pictures--it had tortured both eyes and heart to do that, but he knew in the days ahead that he would be unsatisfied with having passed it by--he could not bring himself then to do it. He could not keep it from her long now, but she was so happy that day in her triumph about the picture. He was going to darken all of her days to come; he would leave her this one more unclouded. But it was hard for him to go through with it. He longed for her so! He must have her help. He had asked for the pictures before telling her just because he knew it would be unbearable for them both, if she did know. It would need to be done in that casual way or not at all. It was strange how he felt he must see them. It was his longing to keep close to her. He could not bear the thought that his blindness might make him to her as something apart from life, even though the dearest thing of all. He must enter into every channel of her life.
It was Wednesday now, and he had told her. All the night before he had lain awake trying to think of words which would hurt her the least. He would put it very tenderly to his poor Ernestine. He would even pretend he saw some way ahead, something to do. Ernestine could not bear it unless he did that. It was the one thing which remained for him now--to make it easy for her.
This was firmly fixed in his mind when he told her that morning he wanted to talk to her about something and asked her to come into the library. He was sure he had himself well in hand; the words were upon his lips. And then when he said: "I want to tell you something, dear--something that will hurt you very much. I never wanted to hurt you; I can not help it now,"--when he had said that, and she, with quick response to the sorrow in his voice, had knelt beside him, her arms about his neck, something,--the feel of her arms, the knowing there was some one now to help him--swept away the words and his broken-hearted cry had been: "Oh, sweetheart--help me! I'm going blind!"
Those first moments took from her something of youth and gladness she would never regain. First frozen with horror, then clinging to him wildly, sobbing that it could not be so--that Dr. Parkman, some one, would do something about it; protesting in a fierce outburst of the love which rose within her that it did not matter, that she would make it all up to him--their love make it right--in one moment stricken dumb as comprehension of it grew upon her, in another wildly defying fate, but always clinging to him, holding him so close, trying, though frightened and broken, to stand between him and the awful thing as the mother would stand between the child and its destroyer, Ernestine left with that hour things never to be claimed again. And when at last she began to sob--sobbing as he had never heard any one sob before--all his heart was roused for her, and he patted her head, kissed her hair, whispering: "Little one, little one, don't. We'll bear it together--some way."
During that hour she never loosened her arms about his neck. Deep in his despairing heart there glowed one warm spark. Ernestine would cling to him as she had never done before. God had not gone out of the world then. He had let fate strike a fearful blow, but He had left to the wounded heart such love as this.
"Dear," she said at last, her cheek against his, her dear, quivering voice trying so hard to be brave, "if you feel like telling me everything, I would like to know. I will be quiet. I will be good. But I want to bear every bit of it with you. Every bit of it, darling--now, and always. That is all I ask--that you let me bear it with you."
The love, the understanding, the longing to help, which were in her voice opened that innermost chamber of his heart to her. If she had not won this victory now, she could never have done so in the days ahead. This hour made possible the other hours of pouring out his heart to her, taking her into it all. He told her the story of how it happened, the long, hard story which only covered days, but seemed to extend through years. He told of those hours of the day and night on the rack of uncertainty, of trying with the force of mind and soul to banish that thing which had not claimed him then, but stood there beside him, not retreating,--waiting. He told her of that lecture hour Monday morning when he literally divided himself into two parts, one part of him giving the lecture, giving it just as well as he had ever done, the other part battling with the phantom which he would vanquish or surrender to within an hour. And her only cry was: "You should have told me! You should have told me from the first!" And once he answered: "No, dear--no; before I knew I did not want to frighten you, and after--oh, Ernestine, believe me, sweetheart, I would have shielded you forever, no matter at what cost to myself--if only I could have done it!"
At last he had finished the story. He had told it all; of sitting there afraid to look, of looking and seeing and comprehending. Oh how he had comprehended! It was as if his mind too, his mind trained to grasp things, had turned against him, was stabbing him with its relentless clearness of vision. He told her of the merciless comprehension with which he saw the giving up of his work, the changing of his life, the giving up--the eternal giving up. He told her of how it had seemed to mean the making over of his soul. For his soul had always cried for conquest, for victory, for doing things. How would he turn it now to submission, to surrender, to relinquishment? Everything had been tumbling about him, he said, when that knock came at the door as the call from life, the intrusion of those everyday things which would not let him alone, even in an hour like that. And then of the boy with his paltry trouble which seemed great--the hurts--the final rising up of the instinct to help, despite it all. Then of sitting there alone and seeing a faint light in the distance, wondering if, in all new and different ways, he could not keep his place in the world.
"Oh help me to do that, sweetheart! Help me to keep right! Don't let me lose out with those other things of life!"
Her arms about his neck! He would never forget how she clung to him. There was a long silence when their souls reached one another as they had never done before. The quivering of her body, her breath upon his cheek--they told him all. But after that, the words did come to her; broken words struggling to tell of what her love would do to make it right; how she would be with him, so close, so unfailing, that the darkness would never find him alone.
His arms about her tightened. Thank God--oh yes, a million times thank God for Ernestine!
Then he felt her start; there came a sound as though she would say something, but choked it back.
"Yes, dear?" he said gently.
"Oh, Karl, I shouldn't ask it. It will hurt you. I shouldn't ask."
"I would rather you did, dear. Ask anything. We are holding nothing from one another now."
"I just happened to think--I wanted to know--oh Karl, it wasn't in your eye on my birthday, was it? It hadn't happened--wasn't happening--when we sat there by the fire, happier than we had ever been before?"
His impulse was to hold that back. Why should he put that upon her, too, to hurt her as it had him, shake her faith as it had tried to shake his?
But his moment of silence could not be redeemed. "Karl,"--her voice was strangely quiet--"it wasn't, was it?"
He groaned, and she had her answer.
She sprang away from him, standing straight. "Then," she cried--he would never have dreamed Ernestine's voice could have sounded like that--"I hate the world! I despise it! I will not have anything to do with it! It fooled us--cheated us--
made fun of us! I'll despise it--fight it"--the words became incoherent, the sobs grew very wild, she sank to the floor, crouching there, her hands clenched, sobbing: "I hate it! Oh how I want to pay it back!"
He was long in quieting her, but at last she would listen to him.
"Ernestine," he said, his voice almost stern, "if you start out like that you cannot help me. It is to you I look. If you love me, Ernestine, help me not to hate the world. If we hate the world, we have given up. Sweetheart,"--the voice changed on that word--"even yet--even yet in a different way, I want to win. I cannot do it alone. I cannot do it at all, if you hate the world. You are to be my eyes, Ernestine. You are to see the beautiful things for me. You are to make me love them more than I ever did before. You are to be the light--don't you see, sweetheart? And you cannot do it, don't you see you cannot, if your own heart is not right with the world?"
She did not answer, but she came back to his arms. Her quick breath told him how hard she was trying.
"See your statue up there, liebchen? Remember how you always liked it? What you said about it that night? Oh, Ernestine"--crushing her to him--"help me to grip tight to my broken sword!" _