Beyond the Rocks

Unless death finishes what is apparently the last act, there is always

the to-morrow to be reckoned with--out of the story-book. So while

exalted--he by his sudden worship of that pure sweetness of soul in

Theodora which he had discovered, she by her innocence and desire to do

right--they had been able to tune their minds to an idea of a tender

good-bye, full of sentiment and vows of abstract devotion, and adherence

to duty.

And if he had gone to the ends of the earth that night the exaltation,

as a memory, might have continued, and time might have healed their

hurts--time and the starvation of absence and separation. But fate had

decreed they should meet again, and soon; and all the forces which

precipitate matters should be employed for their undoing.

For all else in life Hector was no weakling. He had always been a strong

man, physically and morally.

His views were the views of the world. It seemed no great sin to him to

love another man's wife. All his friends did the same at one period or

another.

It was only when Theodora had awakened him that he had begun even to

think of controlling himself.

It was to please her, not because he was really convinced of the right

and necessity of their course of action, that he had said good-bye and

agreed to worship her in the abstract.

He had been highly moved and elevated by her that night in Paris. And

when he wrote the letter his honest intention had been to follow its

words.

He did not recognize the fact that without the zeal of blind faith as to

the right, human nature must always yield to inclination.

So they sat there and ate their supper, and forgot to-morrow, and were

radiantly happy.

As they had gone down the stairs Monica Ellerwood had joined Lady

Bracondale in the gallery above.

"Oh! Look, Aunt Milly!" she had said. "Hector is with the American I

told you about in Paris. Do you see, going down to supper. Oh, isn't she

pretty! and what jewels--look!"

And Lady Bracondale had moved forward in a manner quite foreign to her

usual dignity to catch sight of them.

"It is the same woman he talked to at the opera last night," she said.

"She is not an American, but a Mrs. Brown, an Australian millionaire's

wife, we were told. She is certainly pretty. Oh--eh--you said Hector

was devoted to her in Paris?"

"Why, of course! You can ask Jack."

"I do not think we need worry, though, dear, because I am happy to say

Hector shows great signs of wishing to be with Morella."