Chapter 2

I walk again in the moonlight. It is calm, like an untroubled silver
sea, bearing softly on its breast a fleet of poppies; for the roses have
gone, and the poppies have taken their places. But I cannot share the
calm of the moonlight. I am shaken—tossed about with hope and fear.

I have heard to-day that Averil and her father are coming home. I shall
see her again. But what shall I see? The Averil of my dreams, or
another?

All my certainty has gone. I am distracted with doubts. Have I deceived
myself all these years? Have I given myself over to the beguilement of a
vain dream, and is the moment of a miserable awakening near? Perhaps
Averil, the woman, has not fulfilled the promise of Averil, the child. I
fear—I dread to meet her. If she be not _my_ Averil, how shall I bear
it? I shall have wasted my love and lavished my soul on a mere creation.

What do I know of her? Nothing, save that as a child she seemed to me
the unfolded bloom for me alone. A poet’s vain ideal, perhaps, destined
to be shattered by contact with the real. She may be beautiful, but her
beauty will be nothing to me if it is not the beauty I have dreamed of
and worshipped.

What if, when we meet, her eyes express only a girl’s coquetry or a
stranger’s indifference? I cannot, I will not believe it possible. Yet I
shall dwell till our meeting in miserable suspense and doubt, which yet
I shall shrink from exchanging for a still more miserable certainty.

How the poppies dance in the moonlight; the light-hearted, silken
coquettes! I love them not. Yet if she should be like them, instead of
if she should be a beautiful and scentless flower? Nay, it is
impossible. I shall have faith in those remembered eyes.

THE AUGUST NIGHT

It is the time of lilies. To-night they are holding up their chalices of
gold and crimson and frosty white to be filled with the moonshine. Now
and then the air is sweet with their breath, as if the angels walked
invisibly in this garden and swung censers of perfume in their hands.

I love the lilies, but I love the roses better. And she, my love, is
like the white rose.

Last night the old house in the next garden blazed with light. I knew
that this betokened the coming of Averil and her father. This morning I
rose at sunrise and went for a walk, seeking calmness wherewith to face
this day of destiny. I thought myself alone in a young world, but as I
went down a wooded hill, all green with pines and breasting the east, I
saw a girl at the curve of the path, looking down the long, dewy valley,
abloom with the sunrise. Its light was all about and around her, smiting
her bared dark head with a glory of delicate rays. As I drew near she
turned and I knew her—Averil, my Averil, the Averil of my dreams and
love! How fair, how very fair she was! And her eyes were unchanged, for
they could not be more lovely than they had always been, nor could they
be less.

“Averil,” I said, helplessly, foolishly, like a boy.

She held out her hand to me simply and joyfully.

“It is Paul. I am glad to see you. Why did you not come to welcome us
home last night?”

“I was afraid to,” I said. “Averil, do you remember our first—our last
meeting years ago in the rose garden?”

“I remember,” she said, a beautiful flush coming into her face.

“I feared to meet you again lest you had forgotten,” I said. “Because I
have never forgotten, Averil.”

“I thought, from your poems, that you remembered,” she answered.

We walked home together over the pine path and the hill, and talked of
many things such as all the world might have listened to. But underneath
this commonplaceness was a gladness and a joy that spoke in tone and eye
and smile.

Therefore to-night I walk in the moonlight, companioned with happiness.
Beyond, in that other garden, Averil waits. And I go to join her.

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Mis-spelled words and printer errors have been fixed.

[The end of _The Story of a Love_ by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery]