A Prologue To Love Read Online Free

or not, I’ll leave. I’m that hard.”
     
    “I’m not a tattler,” said Beth proudly. “But goodness! You must hate him.”
     
    “Always did,” said Kate, placidly chewing a small cake.
     
    Though it was growing much colder and the light was very dull now, Beth Knowles forgot the child watching the sea outside. She was absorbed in the strange story she had been hearing. She said, “How old was Miss Esmond when she married him ?”
     
    Kate’s face changed, became tight, almost evil. “She was only twenty. And he was thirty-four, almost old enough to be her father. He’s forty-five now; he never changes. Those that are wicked never change; the devil’s with them, taking care of his own.”
     
    A thin long plume of smoke, far out on the ocean, divided the sky and sea like the stroke of a pencil. Caroline sat higher on her boulder. “Oh,” she murmured aloud, “let that be Papa’s ship! Please, good Jesus.” She clasped her small broad hands tightly on her knees and watched the smoke. For a few moments it dwindled, then became larger. But she could not as yet see the ship.
     
    No one but Beth had ever taught her any religion or had taken her to any church. She did not remember her young mother well, nor if that mother had taught her any prayers. The name of God was not spoken in the houses of John Ames, except in a whisper at night, beside Caroline’s bed. As Beth’s theology was simple and her knowledge little, Caroline knew only that the Christ had died on a cross in some far country which she mingled in her mind with the fairy tales she read hungrily. He, too, was somewhat mythological in the child’s thoughts. When she thought of Him, which was seldom except at bedtime and on such occasions as this, she visualized Him as a knight in armor, with a pennanted spear and an iron shield.
     
    “Good Jesus,” repeated Caroline again, straining her eyes across the plain of furious water. Then she hugged herself with joy. The dim shadow of a ship could now be seen. Was her father on that ship? He had been gone a long time, ever since she had been brought here in June after school was closed. (Only Kate had heard from him, a single curt letter. “A shame!” Beth had cried to the old woman indignantly. “Never a word about his child, either, you said!” “Don’t be sentimental,” Kate had chuckled.)
     
    The silent shadow of the ship streamed toward Boston Harbor. Now it disappeared around the side of the great rocks on the beach. If it could be docked that night, John Ames would arrive home in the morning. Still, Caroline sat on her boulder, watching the gulls now. The blur of silver which was the sun moved far down to the west. Suddenly one long colorless ray pierced the gaseous clouds and shot down like a long sword onto the sea. Where it pierced it turned the water to an arctic turquoise, like a brilliant pool in the midst of a gray and turbulent plain. The gulls screamed louder. The wind tore at the girl’s shawl, whipped her face savagely, almost blew her from her seat.
     
    “Hello!” said a strange voice at her shoulder. She started violently, then caught at the sides of the boulder to prevent herself from falling. She turned her head, for she abjectly feared strangers. A boy of about twelve was standing beside her, laughing, a big boy with a face bright red from cold and wind, a handsome boy whose bare head was covered with a thick cap of strong black hair.
     
    Caroline did not reply. She stared at him anxiously. He kicked a wet stone. He was poorly dressed, even more poorly than herself; his wrists extended far below his short sleeves, and the trousers he wore were stretched hard to meet his knees, so that he had a long, lithe look, somewhat wild and unkempt. The wind blew his hair from his ears, and they had a faunlike shape, pointed and pale, contrasting with the color on his wide cheekbones and on his full, smiling lips. He had eyes as blue as a winter sky, and his nose was short and