“Yes,” she whispered: “I promise.
Good-bye.” She pressed my hand again and
was gone; and, as I gazed at the empty doorway through
which she had passed, I caught a glimpse of her reflection
in a glass case on the landing, where she had paused
for a moment to wipe her eyes. I felt it, in
a manner, indelicate to have seen her, and turned away
my head quickly; and yet I was conscious of a certain
selfish satisfaction in the sweet sympathy that her
grief bespoke.
But now that she was gone a horrible sense of desolation
descended on me. Only now, by the consciousness
of irreparable loss, did I begin to realise the meaning
of this passion of love that had stolen unawares into
my life. How it had glorified the present and
spread a glamour of delight over the dimly considered
future: how all pleasures and desires, all hopes
and ambitions, had converged upon it as a focus; how
it had stood out as the one great reality behind which
the other circumstances of life were as a background,
shimmering, half seen, immaterial, and unreal.
And now it was gone—lost, as it seemed,
beyond hope; and that which was left to me was but
the empty frame from which the picture had vanished.
I have no idea how long I stood rooted to the spot
where she had left me, wrapped in a dull consciousness
of pain, immersed in a half-numb reverie. Recent
events flitted, dream-like, through my mind; our happy
labours in the reading-room; our first visit to the
Museum; and this present day that had opened so brightly
and with such joyous promise. One by one these
phantoms of a vanished happiness came and went.
Occasional visitors sauntered into the room—but
the galleries were mostly empty that day—gazed
inquisitively at my motionless figure, and went their
way. And still the dull, intolerable ache in my
breast went on, the only vivid consciousness that
was left to me.
Presently I raised my eyes and met those of the portrait.
The sweet, pensive face of the old Greek settler looked
out at me wistfully as though he would offer comfort;
as though he would tell me that he, too, had known
sorrow when he lived his life in the sunny Fayyum.
And a subtle consolation, like the faint scent of
old rose leaves, seemed to exhale from that friendly
face that had looked on the birth of my happiness
and had seen it wither and fade. I turned away,
at last, with a silent farewell; and when I looked
back, he seemed to speed me on my way with gentle
valediction.
CHAPTER XVII
THE ACCUSING FINGER
Copyrights
The Vanishing Man from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
