She loosened the canoe noiselessly, a lithe figure in her wet brown skirt and stockings. The mellow glow enveloped her as she moved in the shadows; and she seemed, in the soft forest light, part of the woodland harmony, blending with it as tawny-tinted shadows blend.
The canoe slipped into the pool; she knelt in the stern; then, with one silent push, sent it like an arrow across the water. He caught and steadied the frail craft; she stepped form it and sprang without a sound into the green shadows beside him.
He was muttering to himself: "I’ve forgotten some things -- but not how to throw a fly, I think. Let us see -- let us see."
She stood motionless as he embarked, watching him raise his rod and send the tiny brightly colored flies out over the water. The delicate accuracy seemed to fascinate her; her dark eyes followed the long upward loop of the back cast, the whistling flight of the silken line, the instant’s suspense as the leader curved, straightened out, and fell, dropping three flies softly on the still surface of the pool.
As the canoe drifted nearer, nearer to the spot where the trout had leaped, the sharp dry click of the reel, the windlike whistle of the line, grew fainter. Suddenly, far ahead of the floating flies, a dark lump broke the water; there came a spatter of spray, a flash of pink and silver, and that was all -- all, though for two hours the silken line darted out across the water, and many feathered flies of many hues fell vainly across the glassy mirror of the Golden Pool.
She was still standing in the same place when he returned. He drew a long deep breath of disappointment as he stepped ashore, and she echoed his sigh. The tension had ended.
"Showed color, but wouldn’t fight," he said in a low voice. "Biggest trout I ever saw."
"Can’t you possibly do something?" she asked tremulously.
"Not now; I must rest him. You can’t force a fish like that by persistent worry. There’s a chance he may come again; he’s not serious yet. I dare not bother him for an hour or two."
He looked into her sensitive face; then, suddenly conscious of its youthful beauty, he fell silent, reeling in his wet line inch by inch.
Through the heated stillness dragon flies darted; the mounting perfume of brake and fern, the almost imperceptible odor of earth and water, seemed to envelop him in a delicate spell, soothing, healing, while pulseless moments drifted away in the smooth flow of a summer hour.
The rod slipped from his hand; his musing eyes rested on her. She was seated on a mossy log, head bent, slender stockinged feet trailing in the pool.
"All this has happened before," he said quietly. But there was no conviction in his voice.
She raised her dreamy eyes, the color came and went in throat and cheeks; through her half-parted lips the breath scarcely stirred.
"Can’t you help me?" he said wistfully.
"Can you not remember?" she breathed.
"Then we -- we have known one another. Have we?"
"I once knew a friend of yours -- a close friend -- named Escourt."
"Escourt," he repeated blankly.
"It does not matter," she said; "nothing matters on a summer day like this ... I did not mean to trouble you."
He turned in his steps and stood looking at her. "You say my friend’s name was Escourt? Is my friend dead?"
"Please don’t let it matter."
"It does matter. I -- it is a fancy, perhaps, but the name Escourt was once familiar -- and pleasant. It is not your name, is it?"
"Yes," she said.
At last he began fretfully: "That is the strangest thing in the world. I have never before seen you, and yet I am perfectly conscious that your name has haunted me for years. Escourt -- Escourt! -- for years. I tell you," he went on in a sort of impatient astonishment; "ever since I can remember anything I can remember that name."
"And my first name?" Flushed, voice scarcely steady, she avoided his troubled gaze.
And as he did not answer, she said: "You once knew my husband. Can you not remember?"
He shook his head, studying her intently.
"No," he said in a dull voice, I have forgotten; I have been very ill. The name troubles me; it is strange how the name troubles me."
"If it troubles you, let us talk of other things, will you? she asked, almost timidly. "I did not think to awaken the memory of anything sad."
"It is not sad," resting his sunken, perplexed eyes on her: "it is something intimate -- almost part of my life that I seem to have forgotten --" His hand sought the same spot over his right eye. "What were we doing when you interrupted everything?" His wandering glance fell on the canoe and the rod lying in the bottom, and his face cleared.
"I ought to be worrying that trout again," he said. "You won’t go away, will you?"
"No; but I wish you would go," she said, laughing; "I’d dress if you would give me half an hour."
"You won’t go -- you will wait?" he repeated almost childishly.
"Yes, I will wait."
She shook her head, watching him embark; standing there looking out across the water where the paddle bubbles marked his course long after the canoe had vanished around the curved shore of the Golden Pool.
Suddenly her eyes filled; but she set her lops resolutely, groping with white hands for her knotted hair; the heavy shining twist, loosened, fell, veiling face and shoulders -- a golden mask for sorrow and falling tears.
It was high noon when his far hail brought her to the water’s edge, and she answered with a clear, prettily modulated call.
"Do you observe?" she asked, as he climbed the bank; and she made a little gesture of invitation toward a white napkin spread upon the moss.
A jug of milk, lettuce, bread, and a great bunch of hothouse grapes -- and a hostess in a summer gown, smiling an invitation; what wonder that the haggard lines in his visage softened till something of the afterglow of youth lay like a ray of sun across his face.
"This is perfectly charming," he said, dropping to his knees beside her. "I -- I am very happy that you waited for me."
She sat silent for a moment, with lowered eyes, then raised them shyly. "Let us eat bread and salt together, will you? -- that nothing break our friendship." "From your hands," he said.
She leaned over, took a tiny pinch of salt between her thumb and forefinger, and offered it to him on a bit of bread. He gravely broke the bread, returned half to her, and they ate, watching one another in silence.
"By the bread and salt I have shared with you,: he said, half seriously, half smiling, "I promise to cherish this forest friendship. Let this day begin it."
"Let it," she said.
"Let pleasant years continue it."
"Yes -- the coming years. So be it."
"Let nothing end it -- nothing -- not even ----"
"Nothing -- and, amen," she said faintly.
Again, unbidden, the ghosts of the past stirred, whispering together within him; echoes of unquiet days awoke, blind consciousness of that somber year where darkness dwelt, where memory lay slain forever.
She sat watching him there on the moss, supporting her weight on one arm,.
"I am striving," he said, "to trace my thoughts." There was dull apology in his voice. "All this is not accident -- you and I here together. I am haunted by something long forgotten, something that I am almost conscious of.
When your voice sounds I seem to be quivering. on the verge of memory . . . . Do you know what it is I have forgotten?"
She trembled to her lips. "Have you forgotten?"
"Yes -- a great deal. Is it you I have forgotten?"
"Try to remember," she said under her breath.
"Remember? God knows I am trying. Begin with me, will you?"
"Yes; let us begin together. You were hurt."
"Yes. I was hurt."
"In a battle."
"I was hurt in a skirmish."
"Where?" she whispered.
"Why, on the Subig, " he answered, surprised; "I was in the Philippine scouts."
He sat bolt upright, electrified, and struck his knee sharply with the flat of his wasted hand.
"Do you know," he said excitedly, "that until this very instant I have not thought of the Philippine scouts. Isn’t that extraordinary?"
He sat there, head drooping, passing his hand repeatedly across the scar over his right temple.
She waited, whitening under the tension. His face became placid; he looked up at her; and a smile touched her wet lashes in response.
The contentment of convalescence seemed to banish his restlessness; her voice broke the silence, and its low, even tones satisfied the half-aroused longing for dead echoes.
So the ghost of happiness arose and sat between them; and she lay back, resting against a tree, smiling replies to his lazy badinage. And after a long while her laughter awoke to echo his, laughter as delicate as the breeze stirring her bright hair.
And afterward, long afterward, when the sunshine painted orange patches on the westward tree trunks and haze veiled the taller spires, she reminded him of the great trout; but he would not go without her; so together they descended to the stream’s edge.
"Fate is a dragon,
She smiled, singing carelessly:
"Who art thou, young and brave?
"How do you know?"
"I know that song. I remember it, and there is more to it!"
"Life is but slumber,
He sat for a long while, very still, head buried in his hands. A violet mist veiled water and trees; through it the setting sun sent fiery shafts through the mountain cleft. And when the last crimson shaft was sped and tree and water faded into darker harmony, the canoe had drifted far downstream, and now lay still in the shoreward sands ; and they stood together on the water’s edge.
Her fingers had become interlocked with his ; she half withdrew them, eyes lowered.
"It is strange that our names should be the same," he said.
"Yes ; I know it now. . . . I have been ill -- very ill. God alone knows what my hurt has done to me. There is a doctor at the house ; he’s been with me for a long time -- a long time. I -- I wonder why? I wonder if it was because I had forgotten -- even my own name. . . . Who are you who bear my name?"
She swayed almost imperceptibly where she stood ; he lifted both her hands and laid then against his lips, looking deep into her eyes.
"Who are you, bearing my name?" he whispered. "Unclose your eyes."
In the twilight her dark eyes opened ; she was in his arms now, her head fallen a little backward, yielding to his embrace crushing her.
"I do remember! -- Helen! Helen!"
Her lips on his stifled the cry ; a long sigh, a sob, and she lay quivering in her husband’s arms.
He rose with a restless laugh, and stood a moment, his thin hand pressed across his forehead. Her eyes fell, were lifted to his, then fell again.
And after a long silence he turned away with a gesture that seemed to frighten her. But into her face came a flash of determination, reddening her cheeks again.
Floating in the canoe there through the mellow light, he remembered that he had left his rod ashore, but would not go back, and she laughed outright, through the thread of the song she had been humming:
Faith the slim shape that braves it:
Hope holds the stirrup-cup --
Drain it who craves it!"
La vie est un sommeil : l’amour en est le rêve!
"There is more," he said, watching her intently.
"Is it this, then?" and she sang again:
Love the sad dream that haunts it,
Death is thy waking gift ;
Take it who wants it!
"Who art thou, young and brave?
La vie est un sommeil : l’amour en est le rêve!"
"Is your name Escourt, too?" she faltered.
"Try -- try to remember -- before you kiss me," she breathed. "I wish you to love me -- I desire it -- but not like this. Oh, try to remember before -- before it is too late!"
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