"No," said Helen, "but because I love you."

"Tell me--WERE you frightened?"

"Of you? when I saw you at the door?"

"Yes. Were you?"

"Oh, my boy."

"But didn't you think I might be a scamp?"

"I didn't think about it at all. It wouldn't have made any difference."

"Then why were you as mum as a fish?"

"Oh, my boy."

"Why? why? why?--if you weren't frightened? Of course you were frightened."

"No, no, I wasn't. I told you I wasn't. Why don't you believe me?-- Oh, you're laughing at me again."

"You're blushing again."

"It's so easy to make me ashamed when I've been silly. Of course you know now why I couldn't speak. You know what took my words away. Didn't you know then?"

"How could I know? How could I dream it would be as quick for you as for me?"

"One can dream anything...oh!"

"What is it, child?" For she had caught at her heart.

"Dreams...and not truth. Oh, are you here? Am I? Where are you--where are you? Hold me, hold me fast. Don't let it be just empty dreams."

"Hush, hush, my dear. Dreams aren't empty. Dreams are as near the truth as we can come. What greater truth can you ever have than this? For as men and women dream, they drop one by one the veils between them and the mystery. But when they meet they are shrouded in the veils again, and though they long to strip them off, they cannot. And each sees of each but dimly the truth which in their dreams was as clear as light.

Oh, child, it's not our dreams that are our illusions."

"No," she whispered. "But still it is not enough. Not quite enough for the beloved that they shall dream apart and find their truths apart. In life too they must touch, and find the mystery together. Though it be only for one eternal instant. Touch me not only in my dreams, but in life. Turn life itself into the dream at last. Oh, hold me fast, my boy, my boy..."

"Hush, hush, child, I'm holding you..."

"You wept."

"Oh, did you see? I turned my head away."

"Why did you weep?"

"Because you thought I had misjudged you."

"Then I misjudged you."

"But I did not weep for that."

"Would you, if I misjudged you?"

"It would not be so hard to bear."

"And you went away with tears and brought me the corn of your mill."

"And you took it with smiles, and gave me the sh.e.l.l of your seas."

"Your corn rustled through my head."

"Your sh.e.l.l whispers at my heart."

"You shall always hear it whispering there. It will tell you what I can never tell you, or only tell you in other ways."

"Of your life on the sea? Of the countries over the water? Of storms and islands and flashing birds, and strange bright flowers? Of all the lands and life I've never seen, and dream of all wrong? Will it tell me those things?--of your life that I don't know."

"Yes, perhaps. But I could tell you of that life."

"Of what other life will it tell me?"

"Of my life that you do know."

"Is there one?"

"Look in your own heart."

"I am looking."

"And listen."

"Yes."

"What do you hear?"

"Oh, boy, the whispering of your sh.e.l.l!"

"Oh, child, the rustling of your corn!"

Oh, maids! the grinding of the millstones.

This is only a little part of what she heard. But if I told you the whole we should rise from the story gray-headed. For every day she carried her boy's sh.e.l.l to the grinding stones, and stood there while it spoke against her heart. And at other times of the day it lay in her pocket, while she swept and cooked and spun, and she saw shadows of her mill-dreams in the cobwebs and the rising steam, and heard echos of them in her singing kettle and her singing wheel. And at night it lay on her pillow against her ear, and the voice of the waters went through her sleep.

So the years slipped one by one, and she grew from a girl into a young woman; and presently pa.s.sed out of her youth. But her eyes and her heart were still those of a girl, for life had touched them with nothing but a girl's dream. And it is not time that leaves its traces on the spirit, whatever it may do to the body. Her father meanwhile grew harder and more tyrannical with years. There was little for him to fear now that any man would come to take her from him; but the habit of the oppressor was on him, and of the oppressed on her. And when this has been many years established, it is hard for either to realize that, to escape, the oppressed has only to open the door and go.