Daybreak; A Romance of an Old World Part 43

"I was only dozing. But what did you do then?"

"Oh, I sat quiet for a while, and then took up the amus.e.m.e.nt I usually follow when I find myself alone."

"What is that? Pray tell."

"Singing, of course."

"Singing?"

"Why, yes, didn't you know I could sing?"

"Do you mean to say you were singing all those two or three hours?"

"Not all the time, but at intervals. I sang so loud sometimes that I thought I should wake you."

"Then," I exclaimed with feeling, "it was you that I heard. You know my ears are never fully asleep. Margaret, it was your voice that I have been falling in love with."

At this Margaret laughed heartily, as she answered:

"You have been a good while finding it out. I knew it all the time.

That's what I sang for, and I had my pay as I went on, for every time I began, whether soft or loud, I could see your face light up with the light of your soul, and then I knew my voice was finding its way to some corner of your brain."

"How stupid of me," I said, "not to wake up the very first time I heard you; but I thought it was Mona. Oh, how it did thrill me! And to think I am to hear it again when I am really awake. Come, why do we waste all this time in talking when I have that great happiness still unfulfilled?

May I not hear you sing now?"

"Oh, you might be disappointed, after all. My idea is that you enjoyed my singing because all your critical faculties were dulled in sleep, and you heard only through your heart, as it were. Don't you think it would be better to live awhile on the pleasant memory you have brought back with you?"

"Not at all. I can retain the memory, and have the present happiness besides."

"But you said you never expected to hear such music in your waking hours."

"Do not be so cruel, Margaret, as to recall those words against me, although they were really a tribute to you, for it was your own voice that forced me to utter them. But what can I do to induce you to sing?"

"Go to sleep," she replied. "I will sing for you all you please when you are asleep, and you can hear me and think of Mona at the same time. That will be a double pleasure."

"My dear, I prefer to think of you. Mona was a beautiful girl, but she could never love me as you do."

"Why so? Wasn't her heart large enough?"

"Yes, it was too large--so large that she loved everybody, and one no more than another; while you, darling, have chosen me, out of all the people in the world, as the object of your highest and deepest love, and yet in doing that have only increased your power of loving others. Now what will you do to pay me for that speech?"

"Well, I'll relent. But you must at least pretend to be asleep. Come back and find another chair that you can rest in easily, and I will sit beside you. There, that will do. Now turn your head away from me, close your eyes, and promise me you won't open them till I tell you to do so.

I intend to have the calm judgment of your ears uninfluenced by your sight or any other sense. If you can manage to fall asleep while I am singing, so much the better."

"Margaret," I replied, "I shall try hard to keep my eyes closed, but there isn't a drug in the s.h.i.+p's dispensary powerful enough to put me to sleep."

"Then keep quiet and think of Mona. That will be the next best occupation for you. Stop laughing, or I shall disappoint you, after all. I should think the memory of the first time I sang for you would be enough to sober you. Now I am going to turn away my head, so that if you do look around you won't see my face."

I said nothing in reply, being too eager to have her begin. And now I had not long to wait for the fulfillment of my oft-expressed desire.

Sweet and low came the first accents of her song, and, with all my antic.i.p.ations and with the foretaste I had had in my sleep, I was not prepared for the effect they had on me. It was Mona's voice, but with every fine quality so exaggerated that all my faculties, now in the fullest sense awake, were completely taken captive. I made no movement, except to turn my head slightly so that I might drink in the sweet sounds with both ears. As the notes increased in volume my pleasure grew to rapture. Not only was my critical taste fully satisfied, which of itself was almost bliss, but that other and higher effect followed--my heart was enlisted. I had never known love till that hour. We had been introduced to each other years ago and had kept up a cold and formal acquaintance, and in my recent sleep we had made notable progress, but only now did love and I really clasp hands in a warm and lasting embrace.

If I had loved Margaret before, then the feeling I now had was something else, it was so different. But it was nothing else, and, therefore, I was obliged to conclude that I had lived all these years with a false notion in my head. As the song changed now and then, but did not stop, my heart swelled with its strong emotion, and I had the greatest difficulty to keep my promise and remain quiet. At length the music ceased, and I jumped from my chair with the intention of giving Margaret some palpable sign of my new love, when I was arrested by her warning hand and these words:

"Wait, Walter, someone is coming. I can see all you want to tell me in your face."

I was obliged to stop, and reserve for a more private place any violent manifestation of my exuberant affection, but answered quietly:

"Not all, dear Margaret. You will never know all my love." There was now more or less pa.s.sing back and forth by the pa.s.sengers, preparing for the approaching landing, but yet we were able to continue our conversation.

At Margaret's request I told her more about Mona and Avis, and the princ.i.p.al incidents of what seemed to me a real experience, reserving the graver parts of the story for other occasions. Her sympathies went out particularly toward Mona, and suggested the question:

"Did not the poor child recover her voice?"

"I think she did soon after we left," I replied. "I neglected to tell you that, the morning we started for our last aerial trip, Antonia told me she was teaching Mona the use of the vocal organs, and the results were already such that she believed she would in a short time be entirely successful."

"How fortunate for me," said Margaret, laughing, "that you came away just then."

"Oh, Margaret," I exclaimed as loud as I dared, "I thought I was happy last night, but what shall I call my condition now? Do you have that intensity of feeling for me which is nearly bursting my heart?"

"Yes, my dear, I have had it for years. But my love is certainly increasing now, when I see yours flowering out so luxuriantly."

In such sweet converse the time pa.s.sed rapidly. Steadily our n.o.ble vessel carried us every moment nearer home. And with the last words of Thorwald, "Go back to the earth," still ringing in my ears, we steamed amid familiar scenes--the lights from Long Island, New Jersey, Staten Island, and soon Liberty's torch, Governor's Island, and the great city in front of us. This voyage was ended, but our life's voyage seemed to be just beginning as I led Margaret forth with wonderful tenderness and whispered in her ear, pa.s.sionately, the magic words, "I love you."

POSTSCRIPT.

Every book should have a purpose. Notwithstanding the popular character of much that is contained in these pages, the purpose of this volume is a serious one.

I acquired the belief in the habitability of other worlds when quite young, and it long ago grew into a settled conviction.

Firmly held by this idea, what is called the astronomical difficulty in theology gave me great concern. When I considered the vast extent of the universe, and saw, with but little imagination, millions on millions of habitable worlds, I felt the force of the old objection, How could our tiny earth have been chosen for such peculiar and high honor as we read of in the gospel story?

Thomas Chalmers, in the preface to his astronomical discourses, states the difficulty in these words: "This argument involves in it an a.s.sertion and an inference. The a.s.sertion is, that Christianity is a religion which professes to be designed for the single benefit of our world; and the inference is, that G.o.d cannot be the author of this religion, for he would not lavish on so insignificant a field such peculiar and such distinguis.h.i.+ng attentions as are ascribed to him in the Old and New Testaments."

And then Dr. Chalmers proceeds in his able manner to overthrow both a.s.sertion and inference. He shows that it is only presumption for the infidel to claim that Christianity is designed solely for this world, and asks how he is able to tell us, "that if you go to other planets, the person and religion of Jesus are there unknown to them." "For anything he [the infidel] can tell," the writer continues, "the redemption proclaimed to us is not one solitary instance, or not the whole of that redemption which is by the Son of G.o.d;... the moral pestilence, which walks abroad over the face of our world, may have spread its desolation over all the planets of all the systems which the telescope has made known to us.... The eternal Son, of whom it is said that by him the worlds were created, may have had the government of many sinful worlds laid upon his shoulders."

In this and in all the rest of his argument Dr. Chalmers, while intimating that the redemption may include other worlds, retains the belief that the actual occurrences related in the gospel took place only on this globe. Others may have heard the story, or, as he beautifully says: "The wonder-working G.o.d, who has strewed the field of immensity with so many worlds, and spread the shelter of his omnipotence over them, may have sent a message of love to each, and rea.s.sured the hearts of its despairing people by some overpowering manifestation of tenderness.... Angels from paradise may have sped to every planet their delegated way, and sung from each azure canopy a joyful annunciation, and said, 'Peace be to this residence and good will to all its families, and glory to Him in the highest, who from the eminence of his throne has issued an act of grace so magnificent as to carry the tidings of life and of acceptance to the unnumbered orbs of a sinful creation.'"

But, as Dr. Chalmers truthfully says, it is not the infidel alone that raises this question. It is asked by many sincere believers, generally in communion with their own minds, and has disturbed, if not hindered, their faith. These brilliant discourses left me still perplexed on the main point, and I was forced to ask myself again if it was at all likely that one world could be made so unlike all others as to become the only scene of such a wonderful event as the death of the Son of G.o.d. And even if this could be made to seem probable, what an infinitesimal chance there would be that our earth would be the one chosen for this exhibition, out of the unnumbered worlds that fill the immensity of s.p.a.ce.

As a feeble hint toward a possible solution of this difficulty, this volume is offered. The argument may not be acceptable to a single reader. I do not say that I believe it myself; but the thought has helped to satisfy my mind and may be of a.s.sistance to some other soul.

I will merely say that, of course, I do not believe the a.n.a.logy between any two worlds is so close as I have made it, for the purposes of the story, between Mars and the earth.

In my effort to relieve the book of dullness, I have exaggerated some of the situations, as in the treatment of the woman question for example, but the intelligent reader will easily discover whether there be anything of value remaining after the extravagance has been brushed away.

Alvan Clark & Sons, the celebrated makers of telescopic lenses, in view of their recent successes in casting larger object-gla.s.ses than was once thought possible, now a.s.sert that they can place no limit to the size these gla.s.ses may reach in the future. It is only a question of time, skill, patience, and money.