I went down to the lake directly after dinner; several things were troubling me, and I wanted to lay my puzzled head on Mother Nature's bosom.
My run down the steep sides of the bluff set the blood to coursing smartly through my veins, and a new and more cheerful stream of thought to flowing.
I was tired that night, and it was a luxury to lie flat upon my back on the beach, listening to the rhythmical thud of the big, long wave at my feet, and the song of the stars overhead. There is something unspeakably tranquillizing in the studded dome of heaven; there is also something unspeakably sad. It bends over the struggling, yearning, aching human heart, as a mother, who has attained that peace which is the outgrowth of suffering, bends over the passion, the sobbing, and the despair of her child.
"Hush, hush, it is all for the best."
"I cannot--will not bear it!"
"Hush, you know not what you say. God's hand is in it all."
"There is no God in this, or if there is, He hates me!"
"Ah, my child, He loves you with unutterable love, and pities with unutterable pity. Yet a little while, and the day shall shine upon you; then you will know--a little while."
I turned from the great vault above me, and looked out upon the restive waters, and as I turned I saw a shadowy Mrs. Purblind sitting beside me on the beach, and questioning with sad eyes and heart, the stars that bent to listen.
"I have tried," she said; her face, usually so thoughtless, tear-stained, and quivering.
"Yes, I know you have tried," I answered; "I have seen that!"
"But he is just the same."
"Yes, and will be for a long time, and you will have to go on trying for years, if you want to carry him back to the old days," I said.
"That's one of the hardest things in all the world!" she cried passionately, "if we stop doing right--the right stops with us, but if we stop doing wrong and begin to do right, the wrong goes on."
"Not for always," I said, looking up to the stars.
"Oh, for so long!"
The great dome rich with gems, and deep with peace, bent over her, and by and by her sobs ceased.
"You are trying, I know," I reiterated, "but you don't understand--you can't, for you have only a woman's nature."