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The Girl At The Gate
by
At the end of the doctor’s half-hour I rose to go. Mrs. Stewart had fallen asleep and he would not let me wake her, saying he needed nothing and felt like sleeping himself. I promised to come up again on the morrow and went out.
It was dark in the hall, where no lamp had been lighted, but outside on the lawn the moonlight was bright as day. It was the clearest, whitest night I ever saw. I turned aside into the garden, meaning to cross it, and take the short way over the west meadow home. There was a long walk of rose bushes leading across the garden to a little gate on the further side … the way Mr. Lawrence had been wont to take long ago when he went over the fields to woo Margaret. I went along it, enjoying the night. The bushes were white with roses, and the ground under my feet was all snowed over with their petals. The air was still and breezeless; again I felt that sensation of waiting … of expectancy. As I came up to the little gate I saw a young girl standing on the other side of it. She stood in the full moonlight and I saw her distinctly.
She was tall and slight and her head was bare. I saw that her hair was a pale gold, shining somewhat strangely about her head as if catching the moonbeams. Her face was very lovely and her eyes large and dark. She was dressed in something white and softly shimmering, and in her hand she held a white rose … a very large and perfect one. Even at the time I found myself wondering where she could have picked it. It was not a Woodlands rose. All the Woodlands roses were smaller and less double.
She was a stranger to me, yet I felt that I had seen her or someone very like her before. Possibly she was one of Mr. Lawrence’s many nieces who might have come up to Woodlands upon hearing of his illness.
As I opened the gate I felt an odd chill of positive fear. Then she smiled as if I had spoken my thought.
“Do not be frightened,” she said. “There is no reason you should be frightened. I have only come to keep a tryst.”
The words reminded me of something, but I could not recall what it was. The strange fear that was on me deepened. I could not speak.
She came through the gateway and stood for a moment at my side.
“It is strange that you should have seen me,” she said, “but now behold how strong and beautiful a thing is faithful love–strong enough to conquer death. We who have loved truly love always–and this makes our heaven.”
She walked on after she had spoken, down the long rose path. I watched her until she reached the house and went up the steps. In truth I thought the girl was someone not quite in her right mind. When I reached home I did not speak of the matter to anyone, not even to inquire who the girl might possibly be. There seemed to be something in that strange meeting that demanded my silence.
The next morning word came that old Mr. Lawrence was dead. When I hurried down to Woodlands I found all in confusion, but Mrs. Yeats took me into the blue parlour and told me what little there was to tell.
“He must have died soon after you left him, Miss Jeanette,” she sobbed, “for Mrs. Stewart wakened at ten o’clock and he was gone. He lay there, smiling, with such a strange look on his face as if he had just seen something that made him wonderfully happy. I never saw such a look on a dead face before.”
“Who is here besides Mrs. Stewart?” I asked.
“Nobody,” said Mrs. Yeats. “We have sent word to all his friends but they have not had time to arrive here yet.”
“I met a young girl in the garden last night,” I said slowly. “She came into the house. I did not know her but I thought she must be a relative of Mr. Lawrence’s.”
Mrs. Yeats shook her head.
“No. It must have been somebody from the village, although I didn’t know of anyone calling after you went away.”
I said nothing more to her about it.
After the funeral Mrs. Stewart gave me Margaret’s miniature. I had never seen it or any picture of Margaret before. The face was very lovely–also strangely like my own, although I am not beautiful. It was the face of the young girl I had met at the gate!