The Tidal Wave by Ethel May Dell (mobi reader TXT) 📖

be this:
"Don't let yourself get dazzled by the outside shine of any
man's actions! A man isn't necessarily a hero because he
doesn't run away. It is the true-hearted, steady-going chaps
like Fisher who keep the world wagging. They are the solid
material. The others are only a sort of trimming stuck on for
effect and torn off when the time comes for something new. So
marry the man you love, Molly, and forget that anyone else ever
made a fool of himself for your sweet sake!
"Your friend for ever,
"Charlie."

Thus ended, with a simplicity sublime, the few words of fatherly advice which as a legacy this boy had left behind him.
Fisher laid the note reverently aside and spoke with a great gentleness.
"Tell me, dear," he said, "will it make it any easier for you if I go away? If so--you have only to say so."
The words cost him greater resolution than any he had ever uttered. Yet he said them without apparent effort.
Molly did not answer him for many seconds. Her head drooped a little lower.
"I have been--dazzled," she said at last, and there was a piteous quiver in her voice. "I do not know if I shall ever make you understand."
"You need never attempt it, Molly," he answered very steadily. "I make no claim upon you. Simply, I am yours to keep or to throw away. Which are you going to do?"
He paused for her answer. But she made none. Only in her trouble it seemed to him that she clung to his support.
He drew her a little closer to him.
"Molly," he said very tenderly, "do you want me, child? Shall I stay?"
And at length she answered him, realising that it was to this man, hero or no hero, she had given her heart.
"Yes, stay, Gerald!" she whispered earnestly. "I want you."
* * *


Perhaps he understood her better than she thought. Perhaps Charlie's last words to him had taught him a wisdom to which he had not otherwise attained. Or perhaps his love was large enough to cover and hide all that might be lacking in that which she offered to him.
But at least neither then nor later did he ever seek to know how deeply the glamour of another man's heroism had pierced her heart. She tried to whisper an explanation, but he hushed the words unuttered.
"It is all right, child," he said. "I am satisfied. It is only the lookers-on who are allowed to see all the cards. I think when we meet him again he will tell us that we played them right."
There was a deep quiver in his voice as he spoke, but there was no lack of confidence in his words. Looking upwards, Molly saw that his eyes were full of tears.

* * * * *


THE SECOND FIDDLE

A low whistle floated through the slumbrous silence and died softly away among the sand-dunes.
The man who sat in the little wooden summer-house that faced the sea raised his head from his hand and stared outwards. The signal had scarcely penetrated to his inner consciousness, but it had vaguely disturbed his train of thought. His eyes were dull and emotionless as he stared across the blue, smiling water to the long, straight line of the horizon. They were heavy also as if he had not slept for weeks, and there were deep lines about his clean-shaven mouth.
Before him on the rough, wooden table lay a letter--a letter that he knew by heart, yet carried always with him. The writing upon it was firm and regular, but unmistakably a woman's. It began: "Dear Hugh," and it ended: "Yours very sincerely," and it had been written to tell him that because he was crippled for life the writer could no longer entertain the idea of sharing hers with him.
There had been a ring enclosed with the letter, but this he had not kept. He had dropped it into the heart of a blazing fire on the day that he had first been able to move without assistance. He had not done it in anger. Simply the consciousness of possessing it had been a pain intolerable to him. So he had destroyed it; but the letter he had kept through all the dreary months that had followed that awful time. It was all that was left to him of one whom he had loved passionately, blindly, foolishly, and who had ceased to love him on the day, now nearly a year ago, when his friends had ceased to call him by the nickname of Hercules, that had been his from his boyhood.
And this was her wedding-day--a day of entrancing sunshine, of magic breezes, of perfect June.
He was picturing her to himself as he sat there, just as he had pictured her often--ah, often--in the old days.
From his place near the altar he watched her coming towards him up the great, white-decked church. Her eyes were shining with unclouded happiness. Behind her bridal veil he caught a glimpse of the exquisite beauty that chained his heart. Straight towards him the vision moved, and he--he braced himself to meet it.
A sharp pang of physical pain suddenly wrung his nerves, and in a moment the vision had passed from his eyes. He groaned and once more covered his face. Yes, it was her wedding-day. She was there before the altar in all the splendour of her youth and her loveliness. But he was alone with his suffering, his broken life, and the long, long, empty years stretching away before him.
He awoke to the soft splashing of the summer tide, out beyond the sand-dunes, and he heard again the clear, low whistle which before had disturbed his dream.
He remained motionless, and a dim, detached wonder crossed his mind. He had thought himself quite alone.
Again the whistle sounded. It seemed to come from immediately below him. Slowly and painfully he raised himself.
The next instant an enormous Newfoundland dog rushed panting into his retreat and proceeded to search every inch of the place with violent haste. The man on the bench sat still and watched him, but when the animal with a sudden, clumsy movement knocked his crutches on to the floor and out of his reach, he uttered an exclamation of annoyance.
The dog gave him a startled glance and continued his headlong investigation. He was very wet, and he left a trail of sea water wherever he went. Finally he bounded out as hurriedly as he had entered, and Hugh Durant was left a prisoner, the nearest of his crutches a full yard away.
He sat and stared at them with a heavy frown. His helplessness always oppressed him far more than the pain he had to endure. He cursed the dog under his breath.
"Oh, I am sorry!" a voice said suddenly some seconds later. "Let me get them for you!"
Durant looked round sharply. A brown-faced girl in a short, cotton dress stood in the doorway. Her head was bare and covered with short, black, curly hair that shone wet in the sunshine. Her eyes were very blue. For some reason she looked rather ashamed of herself.
She moved forward barefooted and picked up Durant's crutches.
"I'm sorry, sir," she said again. "I didn't know there was any one here till I heard Caesar knock something down."
She dusted the tops of the crutches with her sleeve and propped them against the table.
"Thanks!" said Durant curtly. He was not feeling sociable--he could not feel sociable--on that day of all days in his life's record.
Yet, as if attracted by something, the girl lingered.
"It's lovely down on the shore," she said half shyly.
"No doubt," said Durant, and again his tone was curt to churlishness.
Then abruptly he felt that he had been unnecessarily surly, and wondered if he was getting querulous.
"Been bathing?" he asked, with a brief glance at her wet hair.
She gave him a quick, friendly smile.
"Yes, sir," she said; and added: "Caesar and I."
"Fond of the sea, eh?" said Durant.
The soft eyes shone, and the man, who had been a sailor, told himself that they were deep-sea eyes.
"I love it," the girl said very earnestly.
Her intensity surprised him a little. He had not expected it in one who, to judge by her dress, must be a child of the humble fisher-folk. His interest began to awaken.
"You live near here?" he questioned.
She pointed a brown hand towards the sand-dunes.
"On the shore, sir," she said. "We hear the waves all night."
"So do I," said Durant, and his voice was suddenly sharp with a pain he could not try to silence. "All night and all day."
She did not seem to notice his tone.
"You live in the cottage on the cliff?" she asked.
He nodded.
"I came last week," he said. "I hadn't seen the sea for nearly a year. I wanted to be alone. And--so I am."
"All alone?" she queried quickly.
He nodded again.
"With my servant," he said. He repeated with a certain doggedness: "I wanted to be alone."
There was a pause. The girl was standing in the doorway. Her dog was basking in the sunshine not a yard away. She looked at the cripple with thoughtful eyes.
"I live alone, too," she said. "That is--Caesar and I."
That successfully aroused Durant's curiosity.
"You!" he said incredulously.
She put up her hand with a quick movement and pushed the short curls back from her forehead.
"I am used to it," she said, with an odd womanly dignity. "I have been practically alone all my life."
Durant looked at her closely. She spoke in a very low voice, but there were rich notes in it that caught his attention.
"Isn't that very unusual for a girl of your age?" he said.
She smiled again without answering. A blue sunbonnet dangled on her arm. In the silence that followed she put it on. The great dog arose at the action, stretched himself, and went to her side. She laid her hand on his head.
"We play hide-and-seek, Caesar and I," she said, "among the dunes."
Durant took his crutches and stumbled with difficulty to his feet. The lower part of his body was terribly crippled and weak. Only the broad shoulders of the man testified to the splendid strength that had once been his, and could never be his again as long as he lived. He saw the girl turn her head aside as he moved. The sunbonnet completely hid her face. A sharp spasm of pain set his own like a stone mask.
Suddenly she looked round.
"Will you--will you come and see me some day?" she asked him shyly.
Her tone was rather of request than invitation, and Durant was curiously touched. He had a feeling that she awaited his reply with eagerness.
He smiled for the first time.
"With pleasure," he said courteously, "if the path is easy and the distance not too great for my powers."
"It is quite close," she said readily, "hardly a stone's throw from here--a little wooden cottage--the first you come to."
"And you live quite alone?" Durant said.
"I like it best," she assured him.
"Will you tell me your name?" he asked.
"My name is Molly," she answered quietly.
"Nothing else?" said Durant with a puzzled frown.
"Nothing