CHAPTER VIII.

THE HEAVENLY CANAAN.

Nearly two months later Beth returned home.  Marie had broken off her visit abruptly, and Clarence had gone away.  It was a rainy Saturday, and Beth sat waiting for her father to finish his rounds.  Her visit had refreshed her, and she looked fairly well again.  After all, she had so many bright prospects!  She was young and talented.  Her novel was finished.  She would read it through at once, making minor corrections, and then publish it.  With all youth’s hopefulness, she was sure of fame and worldly success, perhaps of wealth too.  She seemed to see a rich harvest-field before her as she sat listening to the rain beat on the roof that summer afternoon.  But, after all, she was not happy.  Somehow, life was all so hollow!  So much tangle and confusion!  Her young feet were weary.  It was not simply that her love was unreturned.  That pained her far less than she would have thought.  It was that her idol was shattered.  Only in the last few weeks had she begun to see Clarence Mayfair as he really was.  It was a wonderfully deep insight into human nature that Beth had; but she had never applied it where Clarence was concerned before, and now that she did, what was it she saw?—­a weak, wavering, fickle youth, with a good deal of fine sentiment, perhaps, but without firm, manly strength; ambitious, it was true, but never likely to fulfil his ambitions.  The sight pained her.  And yet this was the one she had exalted so, and had believed a soaring genius.  True, his mind had fine fibre in it, but he who would soar must have strength as well as wings.  Beth saw clearly just what Clarence lacked, and what can pain a woman more deeply than to know the object she has idealized is unworthy?

Beth had not told her father yet that all was at an end between her and Clarence.  She dreaded telling him that, but she knew he must have learned it from the Mayfairs during her absence.  She sighed as she thought of it all, and just then Dr. Woodburn came in and sat down on the couch beside her.  They talked until the twilight of that rainy afternoon began to deepen.  Then they were silent for a while, and Beth saw her father looking at her with a tender look in his eyes.

“Beth, my dear child, what is wrong between you and Clarence?”

She had believed she could tell him all with perfect calmness, but there was something so very gentle in his look and voice that it disarmed her, and she threw both arms about his neck, and burst into tears.

“Oh, father, dear, I could not marry him.  It would not be right.  He loves Marie de Vere.”

Dr. Woodburn turned away his face, tenderly stroking her hair as she leaned upon his breast.  He spoke no word, but she knew what he felt.

“Oh, daddy, dear, don’t think anything about it,” she said, giving him a warm embrace as she looked up at him, smiling through her tears.  “I’m not unhappy.  I have so many things to think of, and I have always you, you dear old father.  I love you better than anyone else on earth.  I will be your own little daughter always.”