Eve's Ransom - BestLightNovel.com
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Eve flushed with satisfaction.
"It's more than kind of you to say that. But you always had a generous spirit. I never thanked you. Not one poor word. I was cowardly--afraid to write. And you didn't care for my thanks."
"I do now."
"Then I thank you. With all my heart, again and again!"
Her voice trembled under fulness of meaning.
"You find life pleasant?"
"You do, I hope?" she answered, as they paced on.
"Not unpleasant, at all events. I am no longer slaving under the iron G.o.ds. I like my work, and it promises to reward me."
Eve made a remark about a flower-bed. Then her voice subdued again.
"How do you look back on your great venture--your attempt to make the most that could be made of a year in your life?"
"Quite contentedly. It was worth doing, and is worth remembering."
"Remember, if you care to," Eve resumed, "that all I am and have I owe to you. I was all but lost--all but a miserable captive for the rest of my life. You came and ransomed me. A less generous man would have spoilt his work at the last moment. But you were large minded enough to support my weakness till I was safe."
Hilliard smiled for answer.
"You and Robert are friends again?"
"Perfectly."
She turned, and they rejoined the company.
A week later Hilliard went down into the country, to a quiet spot where he now and then refreshed his mind after toil in Birmingham. He slept at a cottage, and on the Sunday morning walked idly about the lanes.
A white frost had suddenly hastened the slow decay of mellow autumn.
Low on the landscape lay a soft mist, dense enough to conceal everything at twenty yards away, but suffused with golden sunlight; overhead shone the clear blue sky. Roadside trees and hedges, their rich tints softened by the medium through which they were discerned, threw shadows of exquisite faintness. A perfect quiet possessed the air, but from every branch, as though shaken by some invisible hand, dead foliage dropped to earth in a continuous shower; softly pattering from beech to maple, or with the heavier fall of ash-leaves, while at long intervals sounded the thud of apples tumbling from a crab-tree.
Thick-cl.u.s.tered berries arrayed the hawthorns, the briar was rich in scarlet fruit; everywhere the frost had left the adornment of its subtle artistry. Each leaf upon the hedge shone silver-outlined; spiders' webs, woven from stein to stem, glistened in the morning radiance; the gra.s.ses by the way side stood stark in gleaming mail.
And Maurice Hilliard, a free man in his own conceit, sang to himself a song of the joy of life.
THE END.