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Title: The Shield of Silence

Author: Harriet T. Comstock

Illustrator: George Loughridge

Release Date: April 22, 2006 [EBook #18225]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration: "_Joan rose from her self-appointed task. She looked
at Thornton and throbbed with hate--but as she looked her mood again
changed--she felt such pity as she had never known in her life before._"]






THE SHIELD OF SILENCE

BY HARRIET T. COMSTOCK

AUTHOR OF JOYCE OF THE NORTH WOODS, ETC.


FRONTISPIECE BY GEORGE LOUGHRIDGE


GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS NEW YORK


Made in the United States of America

       *       *       *       *       *

COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
AT
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.

       *       *       *       *       *

TO MY SON
PHILIP S. COMSTOCK

"We will grasp the hands of men and women; and slowly
holding one another's hands we will work our way upwards."

       *       *       *       *       *




THE SHIELD OF SILENCE

_Let us agree at once that_--


We are all on the Wheel. The difference lies in our ability to cling or
let go. Meredith Thornton and old Becky Adams--let go!

Across the world's heart they fell--the heart of the world may be wide
or narrow--and, by the law of attraction, they came to Ridge House and
Sister Angela.

Unlike, and separated by every circumstance that, according to the
expected, should have kept them apart--they still had the same problem
to confront and the solution had its beginning in that pleasant home for
Episcopal Sisters which clings so enchantingly along the north side of
what is known as Silver Gap, a cleft in the Southern mountains.

To say the solution of these women's problems had its beginnings in
Ridge House is true; but that they were ever solved is another matter
and this story deals with that.

Meredith Thornton was young and beautiful. Up to the hour that she let
go she had lived as they live who are drugged. She had looked on life
with her senses blurred and her actions largely controlled by others.

Old Becky, on the other hand, had gripped life with no uncertain hold;
she, according to the vernacular of her hills, "had the call to larn,"
and she learned deeply.

Sister Angela had clung to the Wheel. She had swung well around the
circle and she believed she was nearing the end when the strange demand
was made upon her.

The demand was made by Meredith Thornton and Becky Adams. Meredith, from
her great distance, somewhat prepared Sister Angela by a letter, but
Becky, being unable either to read or write, simply took to the trail
from her lonely cabin on Thunder Peak and claimed a promise made three
years before.

And now, since _The Rock_ played a definite part in what happened, it
should have a word here.

In a land where nearly all the solid substance is rock--not stone, mind
you--_The Rock_ held a peculiar position. It dominated the landscape and
the imagination of Silver Gap, and the superstition as well. It was a
huge, greenish-white mass, a mile to the east of Thunder Peak, and over
its smooth face innumerable waterfalls trickled and shone. With this
colour and motion, like a mighty Artist, the wind and light played,
forming pictures that needed little fancy to discern.

At times cities would be delicately outlined with towers and roofs
rising loftily; then again one might see a deep wood with a road winding
far and away, luring home-tied feet to wander. And sometimes--not often,
to be sure--the Ship would ride at anchor as on a painted sea.

The Ship boded no good to Silver Gap as any one could tell. It had
brought the plague and the flood; it brought bad crops and raids on
hidden stills; it waited until its evil cargo had done its worst and
then it sailed away in the night, bearing its pitiful load of dead, or
its burden of fear and hate. Surely there was good and sufficient reason
for dreading the appearance of The Ship, and on a certain autumn morning
it appeared and soon after the two women, unknown to each other, came to
Ridge House and this story began.




CHAPTER I

"_Wait and thy soul shall speak._"


There is, in the human soul, as in the depths of the ocean, a state of
eternal calm. Around it the waves of unrest may surge and roar but there
peace reigns. In that sanctuary the tides are born and, in their
appointed time, swelling and rising, they carry the poor jetsam and
flotsam of life before them.

The tide was rising in the soul of Meredith Thornton; she was awake at
last. Awake as people are who have lived with their faculties drugged.
The condition was partly due to the education and training of the woman,
and largely to her own ability in the past to close her senses to any
conception of life that differed from her desires. She had always been
like that. She loved beauty and music; she loved goodness and happiness;
she loved them whom she loved so well that she shut all others out.
Consequently, when Life tore her defences away she had no guidance upon
which to depend but that which had lain hidden in the secret place of
her soul.

As a little child Meredith and her older sister, Doris, lived in New
York. Their house had been in the Fletcher family for three generations
and stood at the end of a dignified row, opposite a park whose iron
gates opened only to those considered worthy of owning a key--the
Fletchers had a key!

In the park the little Fletcher girls played--if one could call it
play--under the eye of a carefully selected maid whose glance was
expected to rest constantly upon them. The anxious father tried to do
his double duty conscientiously, for the mother had died at Meredith's
birth.

The children often peered through the high fence (it really was more fun
than the stupid games directed by their elders) and wondered--at least
Doris wondered; Meredith was either amused or shocked; if the latter it
was an easy matter to turn aside. This hurt Doris, and to her plea that
the thing was there, Meredith returned that she did not believe it, and
she did not, either.

Once, shielded by the skirts of an outgoing maid, Doris made her escape
and, for two thrilling and enlightening hours, revelled in the company
of the Great Unknown who were not deemed worthy of keys.

Doris had found them vital, absorbing, and human; they changed the whole
current of her life and thought; she was never the same again, neither
was anything else.

The nurse was at once dismissed and Mr. Fletcher placed his daughters in
the care of Sister Angela, who was then at the head of a fashionable
school for girls--St. Mary's, it was called.

Sister Angela believed in keys but had ideas as to their uses and the
good sense to keep them out of sight.

Under her wise and loving rule Doris Fletcher never suspected the hold
upon her and, while she did not forget the experience she had once had
outside the park, she no longer yearned to repeat it, for the present
was wholesomely full. As for Meredith, she felt that all danger was
removed--for Doris; for herself, what could shatter her joy? It was only
running outside gates that brought trouble.

Just after the Fletcher girls graduated from St. Mary's Sister Angela's
health failed.

Mr. Fletcher at this time proved his gratitude and affection in a
delicate and understanding way. He bought a neglected estate in the
South and provided a sufficient sum of money for its restoration and
upkeep, and this he put in Sister Angela's care.

"There is need of such work as you can do there," he said; "and it has
always been a dream of my life to help those people of the hills.
Sister, make my dream come true."

Angela at once got in touch with Father Noble, who was winning his way
against great odds in the country surrounding Silver Gap, and offered
her services.

"Come and live here," Father Noble replied. "It is all we can do at
present. They do not want us," he had a quaint humour, "but we must
change that."

Mr. Fletcher did not live long enough to see his dream do more than help
prolong Sister Angela's days, for he died a year later leaving, to his
daughters, a large fortune, well invested, and no commands as to its
use. This faith touched both girls deeply.

"I want to travel and see all the beautiful things in the world,"
Meredith said when the time for expression came.

"Yes, dear," Doris replied, "and you must learn what life really means."

Naturally at this critical moment both girls turned to Sister Angela,
but with the rare insight that had not deserted her, she held them from
her, though her heart hungered for them.

"Ridge House is in the making," she wrote. "I am going slow, making no
mistakes. I am asking some Sisters who, like me, have fallen by the way,
to come here and help me with my scheme, and in the confusion of
readjustment, two young girls, who ought to be forming their own plans,
would be sadly in the way.

"Go abroad, my dears, take"--here Sister Angela named a woman she could
trust to help, not hinder--"and learn to walk alone at last."

Doris accepted the advice and the little party went to Italy.

"Here," she said, "Merry shall have the beauty she craves and she shall
learn what life means, as well."

And Meredith's learning began.

They had only been in Italy a month when George Thornton appeared. He
was young, handsome, and already so successful in business that older
men cast approving eyes upon him. He had chosen, at the outset of his
career, to go to the Philippines and accepted an appointment there. He
had devoted himself so rigidly to his duties that his health began to
show the strain and he was taking his first, well-won, vacation when he
met the Fletchers.

Thornton's past had been spent largely with men who, like himself, were
making their way among people, and in an environment in which the finer
aspects of life were disregarded. He had enjoyed himself, made himself
popular, and for the rest he had waited until such a time as his success
would make choice possible. When he met Meredith Fletcher he felt the
time had come. The girl's exquisite aloofness, her fineness and
sweetness, bewitched him. The real meaning of her character did not
interest him at all. Here was something that he wanted; the rest would
be an easy conquest. Thornton had always got what he wanted and lay
siege to Meredith's heart at once.

His approach, while it swept Meredith before it, naturally aroused fear
and apprehension in Doris. To Meredith, Thornton was an ideal
materialized; to Doris, he was a menace to all that she held sacred. She
distrusted him for the very traits that appealed to her sister. But she
dared not oppose, for to every inquiry she hurriedly made--and there was
need of hurry--she received only favourable reports.

Thornton's own fortune and prospects set aside any fears as to mercenary
designs; he had no near relatives, but distant cousins in England were
people of refinement and culture and on excellent terms with Thornton.
Breathlessly Thornton carried everything before him. Six weeks after he
met Meredith he married her.

"Why, you do not know the child," Doris had faltered when the hasty
marriage was proposed, "I'm only learning to know her myself. She has
never grown up. She sees life as she used to see it through the gates of
the park in which she played as a little girl. She has been locked away.
It is appalling. I could not believe, unless I knew, that any one could
be like Merry."

Of course Thornton did not understand.

"Let me have the key," he jokingly said, "let me lead Merry out. It will
be the biggest thing of my life."

And Doris knew that unless the key were given he would break the lock,
so Meredith was married in the little American chapel on the hillside
and she looked as if she were walking in a love-filled dream as she went
out of Doris's life.

Thornton took his wife to the Philippines by way of her New York home.
For a week they stayed in it, and it was there that the first sense of
loss touched Meredith. The stirring effect of all that she had recently
gone through was wearing away, and Doris, and all that Doris meant in
the past, haunted the big, quiet house.

"This will never do," thought Thornton, and for the first time he sensed
the power the older sister had over the younger. It was already making
its way into his kingdom, and Thornton never shared what was his own!

Doris remained abroad for a time, readjusting her life as one does who
is maimed. Her devotion to Meredith, she saw now, had been her one
passion--to what could she turn?

The letters that presently came from Meredith, while they set much of
her fear at rest, made her feel more lonely, nor did they seem to set
her free to make permanent plans. She sank into a waiting mood--waiting
for letters!

"I'll play around Europe for awhile," she whimsically decided. "I'll buy
things for that chapel Sister Angela is planning, and polish my manners.
And," here Doris grew grave, "I'll think of David Martin! I wish I could
love Davey enough to marry him as I feel he wants me to--and let him
blot out this ache for Merry." But that was not to be.

And Meredith wrote her letters to her sister and smiled upon her
husband--for after the third month of her marriage that was the best she
could do for either of them. All the ideals of her self-blinded life
were being swept away in the glaring flame of reality.

Thornton was still infatuated and went to great lengths to prove to his
pale, starry-eyed wife her power over him. He was delighted at the
impression she made upon the rather hectic but exclusive circle in which
he moved; but he dreaded, vaguely to be sure, her hearing, in a gross
way, references to his life before she entered it. So quite frankly and
a bit sketchily he confided it to her himself.

"Of course that is ended forever," he said; "you have led me from
darkness to light, you wonderful child! Why, Merry, you simply have made
a new and better man of me--I understand the real value of things now."

But did he?

Merry was looking at him as if she were doubting her senses. Things she
had heard in her girlhood, things that floated about in the dark corners
of her memory, were pressing close. Dreadful things that had been forced
upon her against her will but which she reasoned could never happen to
her, or to any of her own.

"You mean," she faltered gropingly at last, "that another woman has----"
She could not voice the ugly words and Thornton was obliged to be a
little more explicit.

Then he saw his wife retreat--spiritually. He hastened after her as best
he could.

"You see, darling," he was frightened, "out here, where a fellow is cut
off from home ties and all that, the old code does not hold--how could
it? I'm no exception. Why, good Lord! child----" but Meredith was not
listening. He saw that and it angered him.

She was hearing words spoken long ago--oh! years and years ago it
seemed. Words that had lured her from Doris, from safety, from all the
dangerous peace that had been hers.

"Sweetheart," that voice had said, "there is one right woman for every
man, but few there be who find her. When one does--then there is no time
to be lost. Life is all too short at the best for them. Come, my
beloved, come!"

And she had heeded and, forsaking all else, had trusted him.

According to his lights Thornton had sincerely meant those words when he
spoke them. He was under the spell, still, as he looked at the small
frozen thing before him now.

If he could win her from her absurd, and almost unbelievable, position;
if he could, through her love and his, gain her absolutely; make her
_his_--what a conquest!

"My precious one, I am yours to do with what you will!" he was saying
with all the fervour of his being; but Meredith looked at him from a
great distance.

"You were never mine!" was what she said. Then asked:

"Is that--that woman here? Will I ever--meet her?"

Thornton was growing furiously angry.

"Certainly not!" he replied to her last question, incensed at the
implied lack of delicacy on his part. Then he added, "Don't be a fool,
Merry!"

"No, I won't," she whispered, grimly. "I won't be a fool, whatever else
I am. Do you want me to leave you at once, or stay on?"

Thornton stared at her blankly.

"Good God!" he muttered; "what do you mean, stay on?"

"I mean that if I stay it will be because I don't want to hurt you more
than I must--and because things don't matter much, either way. I have my
own money--but, well, I'll stay on if it will help you in your
business."

Then light dawned.

"You will stay on!" Thornton snapped the words out. "You are my wife,
and you will stay on!"

"Very well. I will stay," Meredith turned and walked away.

Thornton looked after her and his face softened. Something in him was
touched by the spirit under the cold, crude exterior of the girl. It was
worth while--he would try to win her!

And that was the best hour in Thornton's life.

Could he have held to it all might have gone well, but Thornton's
successes had been due to dash and daring--the slow, patient method was
not his, and against his wife's stern indifference he recoiled after a
short time--she bored him; she no longer seemed worth while; not worth
the struggle nor the holding to absurd and rigid demands. Still, by her
smiling acquiescence, Meredith made things possible that otherwise might
not have been so, and she was a charming hostess when occasion demanded.

During the second bleak year of their marriage Meredith accompanied
Thornton to England--he was often obliged to go there on prolonged
business--but she never repeated the experiment.

While it was comparatively easy to play her difficult role in her home,
it was unbearable among her husband's people, who complicated matters by
assuming that she must, of necessity, be honoured and uplifted by the
alliance she had made.

After the return from England Thornton abandoned his puritanical life
and returned to the easy ways of his bachelor days.

Meredith knew perfectly well what was going on, but she had her own
income and lived her own detached and barren life, so she clung to what
seemed to her the last shred of duty she owed to her marriage ties--she
served in her husband's home as hostess, and by her mere presence she
avoided betraying him to the scorn of those who could not know all, and
so might not judge justly.

Then the crisis came that shocked Meredith into consciousness and forced
her to act, for the first time in her life, independently.

Thornton was about to go, again, to England. The day before he sailed he
came into his wife's sitting room, where she lay upon a couch, suffering
from a severe headache.

She never mentioned her pain or loneliness, and to Thornton's careless
glance she appeared as she always did--pale, cold, and self-centred.

"Well, I sail at noon to-morrow!" he said, seating himself astride a
chair, folding his arms and settling his chin on them.

"Yes? Is there anything particular that you want me to look after in
your absence?"

Meredith barely raised her eyes. Her pain was intense, but Thornton saw
only indifference and an unconscious insolence in the words, tone, and
languid glance.

Never before in his life had he been balked and defied and resented as
he was by the pretty creature before him. The devil rose in him--and
generally Thornton rode his devil with courage and control, but
suddenly it reared, and he was thrown!

"Do you know," he said--and he looked handsome and powerful in his white
clothes; he was splendidly correct in every detail--"there are times
when I think you forget that you are my wife."

"I try to." Like all quiet people Meredith could shatter one's poise at
times by her daring. She looked so small and defiant as she lay
there--so secure!

"Suppose I commanded you to come with me to-morrow? Made my rightful
demand after this hellish year--what would you do?"

Thornton's chin projected; his mouth smiled, not pleasantly, and his
eyes held Meredith's with a light that frightened her. She sat up.

"Of course I should refuse to go with you," she replied, "and I do not
acknowledge any rights of yours except those that I give you. You
apparently overlook the fact that--I make no claims."

"Claims?" Thornton laughed, and the sound had a dangerous note that
startled Meredith. "Claims? Good Lord! That's quaintly delicious. You
don't know men, my dear. It would be a deed of charity to--inform you.
Claims, indeed! You drove me, when you might have held me, and you talk
claims."

"I did not want to hold you--after I knew that you had never really been
mine." Meredith's words were shaken by an emotion beyond Thornton's
comprehension; they further aroused the brute in him.

"This comes of locks and bars!" he sneered, recalling Doris's
expression, "but, damn it all, unless you were more fool than most girls
you might have saved yourself."

To this Meredith made no reply, but she crouched on the couch and
gathered her knees in her arms as if clinging to the only support at her
disposal.

"See here!" Thornton bent forward and his eyes blazed. "I'm going to
give you a last chance. You'll come with me to-morrow and have done with
this infernal rot or I'll take the woman with me who has made life
possible, in the past, for you and me. What do you say?"

Horror and repulsion grew in Meredith's eyes. She went deadly white and
stretched her hands wide as if shielding herself from something
defiling.

"Go!" she gasped. "Go with her! By so doing I will not have to explain;
I will be free to return--to Doris."

"So!" And now Thornton got up and paced the floor; "having foresworn
every duty you owe me, having driven me to what you choose to call
wrong, you pack your nice, clean little soul in your bag and go back to
pose as--as--what in God's name will you pose as? You!"

Meredith shrank back. She was conscious now of her danger.

"Well, then!" Thornton came close and laughed down upon the shrinking
form--her terror further roused the brute in him; all that was decent
and fine in him--and both were there--fell into darkness; "you'll pay,
by heaven! before you go. You'll--"

"Leave me alone!" Meredith sprang to her feet. "How dare you?"

And again Thornton laughed.

"Dare? You--you little idiot! You'll come with me to-morrow--by God!"

       *       *       *       *       *

But Meredith did not go with Thornton on the morrow, and if the other
took her place she did not seek to know.

The weeks and months dragged on and she was thankful for time to think
and plot. It took so much time for one who had never acted before. And
then--she knew the worst!

Thornton might return at any time and soon--her child would be born!
First terror, then a growing calmness, possessed Meredith. She forgot
Thornton in her planning, forgot her own misery and sense of wrong. She
did not hate her child as she might have--she learned in the end to
consider it as the one opportunity left to her of saving whatever was
good in her and Thornton. She clung to that good, she was just, at last,
to Thornton as well as herself. Both he and she were victims of
ignorance--the little coming child must be saved from that ignorance;
the father's and--yes, her own, for Meredith was convinced that she
would not live through her ordeal.

Thornton must not have the child--he was unfit for that sacred duty of
giving it the chance that had been denied the parents. The new life must
have its roots in cleaner and purer soil. Doris must save it. Doris!

Then Meredith wrote three notes. One was to Sister Angela:

    You remember how, as a little girl, you let me come to you and tell
    you things that I could not tell even to God? I am coming now,
    Sister--will be there soon after this reaches you; and then--I will
    tell you!

    I want my child to be born with you and Doris near me. I have
    written to Doris.

    And whether I live or die, my husband must not have my child. You
    must help me.

The second letter was longer, for it contained explanations and reasons.
These were stated baldly, briefly, but for that very quality they rang
luridly dramatic.

The third note was left on Thornton's desk and simply informed him that
she was going to Doris and would never return.




CHAPTER II

"_Minds that sway the future like a tide._"


Sister Angela read her letter sitting before the fire in the living room
at Ridge House.

She read it over and over and then, as was common with her, she clasped
the cross that hung from her girdle--and opened her soul. She called it
prayer. Meredith became personally near her--the written words had
materialized her. With the clairvoyance that had been part of her
equipment in dealing with people and events of the past, Angela began
slowly to understand.

So actually was she possessed by reality that her face grew grim and
deadly pale. She was a woman of experience in the worldly sense, but she
was unyielding in her spiritual interpretation of moral codes. She felt
the full weight of the tragedy that had overwhelmed a girl of Meredith
Thornton's type. She had no inclination, nor was there time now, to
consider Thornton's side of this terrible condition. She must act for
Meredith and Meredith's child.

Folding the letter, she dropped it into her pocket and sent for Sister
Janice, the housekeeper.

Angela gave silent thanks for Janice's temperament.

Janice was so cheerful as often to depress others; so grateful that she
gloried in self-abnegation and had no curiosity outside a given command.

"The house must be got ready for visitors," Angela informed Janice. "Two
former pupils--and one of them is ill." When she said this Angela
paused. How did she know Meredith was ill?

"Shall I open the west wing?" asked Janice, alert as to her duties.

"Open everything. Have the place at its best; but I would like the
younger sister, Mrs. Thornton, to have the chamber on the south, the
guest chamber."

When Janice had departed, Sister Constance appeared.

In her early days Constance had been a famous nurse and for years
afterward the head of a school for nurses. Her eyes brightened now as
she listened to her superior. She had long chafed under the strain of
inaction. She listened and nodded.

"Everything shall be done as you wish, Sister," she said at last, and
Angela knew that it would be.

Lastly, old Jed was called from his outside duties and stood, battered
hat in hand, to receive his commands. Jed was old and black and his wool
was white as snow; his strong, perfect teeth glittered with gold
fillings. How the old man had fallen to this vanity no one knew, but
sooner or later all the money he made was converted into fillings.

"They do say," he once explained to Sister Angela, "that 'tain't all
gold as glitters, but dis year yaller in my mouth, ma'am, is right sure
gold an' it's like layin' up treasure in heaven, for no moth nor rust
ain't ever going to distroy anythin' in my mouth. No, ma'am! No
corruption, nuther."

Jed, listening to Sister Angela, now, was beaming and shining.

"I want you to go to Stone Hedgeton to-morrow, Uncle Jed. You better
start early. You must meet every train until you see a young lady--she
will be looking about for someone--and bring her here. In between trains
make yourself and the horses comfortable at the tavern. I'm glad you do
not drink, Jed."

"Yes-m," pondered Jed, "but I 'spect there might be mo' dan one young
lady. I reckon it would be disastering if I fotched the wrong one. Isn't
thar something 'bout her discounterments as might be leading, as yo'
might say, ma'am?"

"Jed, I rely upon you to bring the right young lady!"

There was no use of further arguing. Jed shuffled off.

Alone, of all the household, little Mary Allan was not taken into Sister
Angela's confidence, and this was unfortunate, for Mary ran well in
harness, but was apt to go a bit wild if left to her own devices.
What people did not confide to Mary she generally found out for herself.

Mary was known to Silver Gap as the "last of them Allans." Her father
and mother both died soon after Mary showed signs of persisting--her ten
brothers and sisters had refused to live, and when Mary was left to her
fate Sister Angela rescued her, and the girl had been trained for
entrance into a Sisterhood later on.

She was abnormally keen but discouragingly superstitious; she had moods
when the Sisters believed they had overcome her inheritance of reticence
and aloofness. She would laugh and chat gaily and appear charmingly
young and happy, but without warning she would lapse back to the almost
sullen, suspicious attitude that was so disconcerting. Sister Angela
demanded justice for Mary and received, in return, a kind of loyalty
that was the best the girl had to give.

She regarded, with that strange interpretation of the lonely hills, all
outsiders as foreigners. She was receiving benefits from them, her only
chance of life, and while she blindly repaid in services, Mary's roots
clung to the cabin life; her affections to the fast-decaying hovel from
which she had been rescued.

Jed was the only familiar creature left to Mary's inner consciousness.
He belonged to the hills--if not of them, and while his birthright made
it possible for him to assimilate, he shared with Mary the feeling that
he was among strangers.

Jed thought in strains of "quality"; Mary in terms of "outlanders." But
both served loyally.

The morning that Jed was to start on his mysterious errand--and he
gloried in the mystery--Mary was "minding" bread in the kitchen and
"chuncking" wood in the stove with a lavish hand. The Sisters were at
prayer in the tiny chapel which had been evolved from a small west room;
and old Aunt Becky Adams was plodding down the rugged trail from Thunder
Peak. Meredith Thornton, too, was nearing her destination and The Ship
was on The Rock.

Presently Mary, having tested the state of the golden-brown ovals in the
oven--and she could do it to a nicety--came out of the kitchen,
followed by a delicious smell of crisping wheat, and sat down upon the
step of the porch to watch Jed polishing the harness of Washington and
Lincoln--the grave, reliable team upon whom Jed spared no toil.

Mary looked very brief and slim in her scanty blue cotton frock and the
apron far too large for her. The hair, tidily caught in a firm little
knot, was making brave efforts to escape in wild little curls, and the
girl's big eyes had the expression seen in the eyes of an animal that
has been trapped but not conquered.

"Uncle Jed," she said in an awed tone, and planting her sharp elbows on
her knees in order to prop her serious face, "The Ship is on The Rock."

All the morning Jed had been trying to keep his back to the fact.

"Yo' sure is one triflin' child," he muttered.

"All the same, The Ship is there, Uncle Jed, and that means that
something is going to happen. It is going to happen long o' Ridge
House--and nothing has happened here before. Things have just gone
on--and--on and on----"

The girl's voice trailed vaguely--she was looking at The Ship.

Jed began to have that sensation described by him as "shivers in the
spine of his back." Mary was fascinating him. Suddenly she asked:

"Uncle Jed, what are they-all sending you to--fetch?" Mary almost said
"fotch."

"How you know, child, I is goin' to fotch--anything?" Jed's spine was
affecting his moral fibre.

Mary gave her elfish laugh. She rarely smiled, and her laugh was a mere
sound--not harsh, but mirthless.

"I _know!_" she said, "and it came--no matter what it is on The Ship,
and I 'low it will go--on The Ship."

"Gawd A'mighty!" Jed burst out, "you make me creep like I had pneumonia
fever." With this Jed turned to The Rock and confronted The Ship.

"Gawd!" he murmured, "I sho' am anxious and trubbled."

Then he turned, mounted the step of the creaky carriage, and gave his
whip that peculiar twist that only a born master of horses ever can.

It was like Jed to do that which he was ordained to do promptly.

Mary watched him out of sight and then went indoors. She was depressed
and nervous; her keen ear had heard much not intended for her to hear,
but not enough to control the imagination that was fired by
superstition.

"A happening" was looming near. Something grave threatened. The evil
crew of The Ship was but biding its time to strike, and Mary thrilled
and feared at once.

The bread, as Mary sniffed, was ready to be taken from the oven. The
first loaf was poised nicely on the girl's towel-covered hand when a
dark, bent old woman drifted, rather than walked, into the sunny
kitchen. She came noiselessly like a shadow; she was dirty and in rags;
she looked, all but her eyes, as if she might be a hundred years old,
but her eyes held so much fire and undying youth that they were terrible
set in the crinkled, rust-coloured face.

"I want her!" The words, spoken close to her shoulder caused Mary to
drop the loaf and turn in affright.

"I want--her!"

"Gawd! Aunt Becky!" gasped Mary, dropping, like a cloak, the thin veneer
of all that Ridge House had done for her. "Gawd! Aunt Becky, I done
thought you was--dead and all. I ain't seen you in ages. Won't you set?"

The woman stretched a claw-like hand forth and laid it on the shoulder
of the girl.

"Don't you argify with me--Mary Allan. I want her."

There seemed to be no doubt in Mary's mind as to whom Aunt Becky wanted.

"Sister Angela is at prayer, Aunt Becky," she whispered, trying to
escape from the clutch upon her shoulder.

"Mary Allan--go tell her I want her. Go!" There was that in Becky's tone
that commanded obedience. Mary started to the hall, her feet clattering
as she ran toward the chapel on the floor above.

Becky followed, more slowly. She got as far as the opened door of the
living room, then she paused, glanced about, and went in.

There are some rooms that repel; others that seem to rush forward with
warm welcome. The living room at Ridge House was one that made a
stranger feel as if he had long been expected and desired. It was not
unfamiliar to the old woman who now entered it. Through the windows she
had often held silent and unsuspected vigil. It was her way to know the
trails over which she might be called to travel and since that day,
three years before, when Sister Angela had met her on the road and made
her startling proposition, Becky had subconsciously known that, in due
time, she would be compelled to accept what then she had so angrily
refused.

On that first encounter Sister Angela had said:

"They tell me that you have a little granddaughter--a very pretty
child."

"Yo' mean Zalie?" Becky was on her guard.

"I did not know her name. How old is she?"

"Nigh onter fifteen." The strange eyes were holding Sister Angela's calm
gaze--the old woman was awaiting the time to spring.

"It is wrong to keep a young girl on that lonely peak away from
everyone, as I am told that you do. Won't you let her come to Ridge
House? We will teach her--fit her for some useful work."

Sister Angela at that time did not know her neighbours as well as she
later learned to know them. Becky came nearer, and her thin lips curled
back from her toothless jaws.

"You-all keep yo' hands off Zalie an' me! I kin larn my gal all she
needs to know. All other larnin' would harm her, and no Popish folk
ain't going to tech what's mine."

So that was what kept them apart!

Sister Angela drew back. For a moment she did not understand; then she
smiled and bent nearer.

"You think us Catholics? We are not; but if we were it would be just the
same. We are friendly women who really want to be neighbourly and
helpful."

"You all tote a cross!" Becky was interested.

"Yes. We bear the cross--it is a symbol of what we try to do--you need
not be afraid of us, and if there is ever a time when you need us--come
to Ridge House."

After that Becky had apparently disappeared, but often and often when
the night was stormy, or dark, she had walked stealthily down the trail
and taken her place by the windows of Ridge House. She knew the sunny,
orderly kitchen in which such strange food was prepared; she knew the
long, narrow dining room with its quaint carvings and painted words on
walls and fireplace; she knew the tiny room where the Sisters knelt and
sang. One or two of the tunes ran in Becky's brain like haunting
undercurrents; but best of all, Becky knew the living room upon whose
generous hearth the fire burned from early autumn until the bloom of
dogwood, azalea, and laurel filled the space from which the ashes were
reluctantly swept. Every rug and chair and couch was familiar to the
burning eyes. The rows of bookshelves, the long, narrow table and--The
Picture on the Wall!

To that picture Becky went now. She had never been able to see it
distinctly from any window. It was the Good Shepherd. The noble, patient
face bent over the child on the man's breast had power to still Becky's
distraught mind. She could not understand, but a groping of that part of
her that could still feel and suffer reached the underlying suggestion
of the artist. Here was someone who was doing what, in a vague and
bungling way, Becky herself had always wanted to do--shield the young,
helpless thing that belonged to her.

The old face twitched and the soiled, crinkled arms--so empty and
yearning--hugged the trembling body. And so Sister Angela found her.

The three years since Angela had seen Becky Adams had taught her much of
her people--she called them _her_ people, now.

"I am so glad to see you, Aunt Becky," she said, smiling and pointing to
a chair by the hearth, quite in an easy way. "Are you tired after your
long walk?"

"Sorter." Becky came over to the chair and sank into it. Then she said
abruptly: "Zalie's gone!"

The brief statement had power to visualize the young creature as Angela
had once seen her: pretty as the flower whose name she bore, a little
shy thing with hungry, half-afraid eyes.

"Is she--dead?" Sister Angela's gaze grew deep and sympathetic.

"Not 'zactly--not daid--jes now." Poor Becky, breaking through her own
reserve and agony, made a pitiful appeal.

"She has--gone away? With whom?" Sister Angela began to comprehend and
she lowered her voice, bending toward Becky.

"She ain't gone with any one--she didn't have ter--but she'll fotch up
with someone fore long. She's gone to larn--she got the call, same as
all her kin--it's the curse!"

Now that the wall of reserve was down the pent waters rushed through and
they came on the fanciful, dramatic words peculiar to Becky and her
kind. Angela did not interrupt--she waited while the old, stifled voice
ran on:

"I had to larn, and I went far and saw sights, and when it was larned I
cum back, with Zalie's mother rolled up like she was a bundle. The old
cabin was empty 'cept for wild things as found shelter there--me and her
settled down and no one found out for some time, and then it didn't
matter!

"Zalie's mother, she had to larn and she went with a man as helped her
larn powerful quick. He don killed my gal by his ways an' he left her to
die. It was a stranger as brought Zalie to me, and then I set myself to
the task of keeping her from the curse--but she got the call and she
went! I can see her"--here the strange eyes looked as the eyes of a seer
look--they were following the girl on the "larnin' way"; the tired voice
trailed sadly--"I can see how she went. It was nearing morning and all
the moonlight that the night had left was piled like mist down in the
Gap. Her head was up and she had her hands out--sorter feelin', feelin',
and she would laugh--oh! she would laugh--and then she'd catch the
scent, and be off! Oh! my Gawd, my Gawd!"

Becky swayed back and forth and moaned softly as one does who has
emptied his soul and waits.

Sister Angela got up and bent over the old woman, her thin white hand on
the crouching back.

"When did this happen?" she asked.

"Mos' a year back!"

"And you have only come now to tell me? Why did you wait?"

"Twasn't no use coming before--but now, I 'low she's coming back, same
as all us does, after the larnin'! I had a vision las' night--and this
morning--I saw The Ship on the Rock--she'll come!"

Again the old woman's eyes were lifted and she peered into the depths of
the fire.

"I seed Zalie las' night! She come with hit."

"With what?" Sister Angela had that peculiar pricking sensation of the
skin caused by tense nerves.

"With hit. Her young-un! That's what larnin' means to us-all. Hit! After
that, nothin' counts one way or 'other. Zalie spoke in her vision--clear
like she was in the flesh. She don made me understand that I mus' give
hit a chance; break the curse--there is only one way!"

"What way, Becky?" Angela was whispering as if she and the old woman
near her were conspiring together.

"Hit mus' go where no one knows--no one ever can know. It's the knowin'
that damns us-all. Folks knowin' an' expectin'--an' helpin' the curse.
Hit's got to start fresh an' no one knowin'."

Becky's voice was sepulchral.

"You mean," Angela asked, "that if Zalie comes back with a child that
you want me to take it, find a home for it--where no one will ever
know?"

"You-all don promised to help me," Becky pleaded, for she caught the
doubting tone in Angela's voice; "you-all ain't goin' back on that, air
yo'?"

The burning eyes fell upon the cross at Angela's side.

"No," she said. "No. Becky, I promise to help you. But suppose Zalie,
should she have a child, refused to give it up?"

Becky's face quivered.

"She won't las', Zalie won't." The stricken voice was as confident as if
Zalie already lay dead. "Zalie ain't got stayin' powers, she ain't. She
don have fever an' what-all--an' she won't las' long--she'll go on The
Ship! But if you-all hide hit--so The Ship can't take hit--if you-all
give hit hit's chance--then the curse will be broke."

There was pleading, renunciation, and command in the guttural voice:

"Becky, I will promise to help you. If there is a child and you renounce
all claim to it, I will find a home for it. It shall have its chance.
And now sit here and rest--I am going to bring some food to you."

Sister Angela arose and passed from the room. The doing of the kindly,
commonplace thing restored her to her usual calm.

She was not gone long, but when she returned, bearing the tray, Becky
had departed and the chair in which she had sat was still swaying.




CHAPTER III

"_I brushed all obstructions from my doorsill and stepped into the
road._"


It was just after sunset the following day when Jed turned from the Big
Road into the River Road and thanked God that the next five miles could
be made before early darkness set in.

Beside him sat Meredith Thornton, white lipped and wide-eyed, and her
aristocratic bags rattled around in the space behind.

The smile with which Meredith had faced her past three years lingered
still on the set mouth--the smile was for Jed.

"There seem to be more downs than ups on this road," the girl said, in
order to cover a groan. "It will be awful after dark."

"Dark or light, ma'am," Jed returned, "it's all the same to me, ma'am. I
know dese little ole humps like I know my fingers and toes, ma'am."

"Do--do you always hit the same humps?" Jed was hitting one now,
squarely.

"Mostly, ma'am; but I'm studyin' to get there before dark, ma'am. If
Washington now, ma'am"--Jed indicated the sleeker of the two
horses--"had the ginger, so to speak, ma'am, as Lincoln has got--why,
ma'am, the River Road would be flyin' out behind, ma'am, like it war a
tail of a kite."

Meredith managed to give a weak laugh and, as the wagon hit another
hump, she edged toward Jed. After a few moments he felt her head against
his shoulder--from suffering and exhaustion she fell into a brief and
troubled sleep.

Like one carved from rock, Jed held his position while a reverent
expression grew upon his face.

The glow showed yellow through the western sky, The Gap was growing
purplish and dim, and just then, across a foot bridge over the river, a
hurrying, bent form appeared. It swayed perilously--Jed heard a muttered
curse.

"Gawd A'mighty," he breathed, "it's ole Aunt Becky come back to add to
trubble after us-all hopin' she was daid--or something."

Becky was coming toward the road, bending over the bundle she bore; she
paused, looked down, and then darted ahead right in the path of the
horses. They reared and something snapped.

Meredith awoke and sat up with a cry.

"What is the matter?" she asked. "An accident?"

"'Tain't nothin' so bad as an accident, ma'am," Jed reassured her, "but
I don't take no chances with Lincoln's hind hoofs, ma'am, an' somethin'
done cracked in dat quarter."

The pause gave Aunt Becky time to reach Ridge House and play her part in
the scheme of things.

Panting and well nigh exhausted, the old woman staggered on and was
thankful to see at her journey's end that but one light shone in the
quiet house. The light was in the living room where Angela sat alone
waiting for Meredith Thornton. She had quite forgotten, in her growingly
anxious hours, all about poor Becky and her sorrows. So now, when the
long window, opening on the west porch, swayed inward, she started up
with outstretched arms--and confronted Becky.

"I've brung hit!" Becky staggered to a chair, uninvited, and sat down
with her burden, wrapped in a dirty, old quilt, upon her knees.

Angela sat down also--she was speechless and frightened. She watched the
old woman unfold the coverings, and she saw the form of a sleeping
new-born baby exposed to the heat and light of the fire. She tried to
say something, to get control of herself, but she only succeeded in
bending nearer the apparition.

"Zalie she cum las' night like I told you she would. She's daid
now--Zalie is. I don buried her at sun-up--an' I want it tole--if it
ever is tole--that the child was buried long o' Zalie. She done planned
while she was a-dying.

"I told her what you-all promised an' she went real content-like after
that."

There was sodden despair in Becky's voice.

"Who--is the father of this child?"

The commonplace question, under the strain, sounded trivial--but it was
rung from Angela's dismay.

Becky gave a rough laugh.

"Not the agony o' death an' the fear o' hell could wring that out of
Zalie," she said. Then: "Yo' ain't goin' back on yo' promise, are yo'?"

Sister Angela rallied. At any moment the wheels on the road might end
her time for considering poor Becky.

"You mean," she whispered, "that you renounce--this child; give it to
me, now? You mean--that I must find a home for it?"

"Yo' done promised--an' it eased Zalie at the end."

Angela reached for the child--she was calm and self-possessed at last.
This was not the first child she had rescued.

"It is--a girl?" she asked, lifting the tiny form.

"Hit's a girl. Give hit a chance."

"I will." Then Angela wrapped the child in the old quilt and turned
toward the door.

"Will you wait until I return?" she paused to ask, but Becky, her eyes
on that picture of the Good Shepherd, replied:

"No--I don let go!"

With that she passed as noiselessly from the room as if she were but a
shadow sinking into the darkness outside.

Angela went upstairs and knocked at Sister Constance's door. Sister
Constance was alert at once. Every faculty of hers was trained to
respond intelligently to taps on the door in the middle of the night.

"This is--a child--a mountain child," whispered Sister Angela. "It has
been left here. Take it into the west wing and tell no one of its
presence until we know whether it will be claimed!"

"Very well, Sister." Constance folded the child to her ample breast; the
maternal in her gave the training she had received a divine quality. The
baby stirred, stretched out its little limbs, and opened its vague,
sleep-filled eyes as if at last something worthy of response had
appealed to it.

Sister Angela stood in the cold, dark hall listening, and when the door
of the west wing chamber closed, she felt, once more, secure. Sister
Angela was never able to describe afterward the state of mind that made
the happenings of the next few hours seem like flaming pillars against a
dead blur of sensation.

There was the sound of wheels. That set every nerve tense.

Meredith was in her arms--clinging, sobbing, and repeating:

"He must never have my child, Sister. Promise, promise!"

"I promise, my darling. I promise." Angela heard herself saying the
words as if they proceeded from the lips of a stranger.

"Has Doris come?"

"Not yet. She will be here soon."

"I can trust you and Doris. Doris knows. And now--I let go!"

Where had Sister Angela heard those words before? They went whirling
through her brain as if on a mighty wheel.

"I have--let go!"

Then followed terrible hours in the guest chamber with Sister Constance
repeating over and over: "It is a perfectly plain case. All is well."

Finally, there was quiet, and then that cry that has power to move the
world's heart, a plaintive wail weighted with relinquishment
and--acceptance. Meredith's little daughter was born just as the clock
below chimed four.

"I will take it to the west wing," Constance said. "Call me if you need
me."

But everything seemed settling into calm, and Meredith fell asleep
looking as she used to look in the old days before she had been forced
outside the gates. At daylight she opened her eyes.

"Is it morning?" she asked of Sister Angela who sat beside her.

"Yes, dear heart."

"Raise the shade, Sister." Then, as Angela raised it--"Why, how strange!
What is that, Sister?"

Angela looked and saw The Ship! In that hour when vitality runs low and
with the past horrors of the night still holding her, all the
superstition of The Gap claimed her.

"I--I was afraid I would lose the ship." Meredith's mind wandered back
to her hurried home-leaving; the dread that the ship that was to bear
her from the Philippines might have gone. The mystic Ship upon The Rock
was all that was needed to fix her fancy.

"But--I was in time. I _am_ in time. The Ship--is waiting. Everything is
all right now!--quite all right, Sister?"

Angela went close to the bed.

"My dear one!" she whispered and slipped her arm under Meredith's head.

"It all seems so--plain in the morning, Sister. It is the night that
makes us afraid. The night! I cannot remember--what it was--I dreamed."

"Never mind, little girl"--Angela's tears were dropping on the soft,
smooth hair that was growing clammy; she felt the cold breath on her
face--"never mind, little girl, the dream is past."

"Sister, it was a bad dream. I do not like bad dreams--tell Doris--what
is it that I want you to tell Doris?"

"Try to sleep, beloved." Angela knelt.

Meredith slipped back to her childhood--she gave a short, hurting laugh.
"Tell her--tell Doris--I did try to learn my lesson--but----"

It was the opening of the door that startled Angela into consciousness.
Doris Fletcher stood within the room. Her eyes took in the scene, the
pretty face against Sister Angela's bosom; the sunlight lying full
across the bed and picking out into a gleam the golden cross that hung
to the floor.

"I'm too--late!"

Agony rang in the quiet words.

"And I've travelled day and night! Her letter was forwarded to me."

The letter burned against Doris's bosom like a tangible thing. She
crossed the room and sank beside the bed.

They all slipped through the following days as people do who realize
that troubles do not come to them, but are overtaken on the way. They
seemed always to have been there; some people pass on the other side,
but if one's path lies close, then one must go with what courage
possible--look hard, feel and groan with the understanding, and pass on
as best he can bearing the memory with him.

Father Noble came from many miles back in the hills. Riding his sturdy
little horse, his loose black cloak floating like benignant wings
bearing him on; his radiant old face shining even in the face of death.

He stayed until the wound in the hillside was covered over Meredith's
little form; stayed to see the flowers hide the scar, murmuring again
and again: "In the hope of joyful resurrection." His was the task to
bridge life and death, and there was no doubt in his beautiful soul.

"And now," he said, after four days, "I must go to Cleaver's
Clearing"--the Clearing was twenty hard miles away. "There are children
there who never heard of God until I took some toys to them last
Christmas. Then they thought that I was God. They are sick now, poor
children--bad food; no care--ah! well, they will learn, they will
learn."

And the old man rode away.

And still Doris had not seen Meredith's child.

"I cannot, Sister," she had pleaded. "I can think of it only as George
Thornton's child."

The hate in Doris's heart was so new and appalling a sensation that it
frightened her.

She tried to think of the unseen child with the love that she felt for
all children--but that one! She struggled to overcome the sickening
aversion that grew, instead of lessened, while the days dragged on. But
always the helpless child represented nothing but passion, brutality,
suffering, and disgrace. It was _not_ a child, a piteous, pleading
child--it was the essence of Wrong made visible.

Sister Angela was deeply concerned. The unnatural attitude called forth
her old manner of authority. Sitting alone with Doris before the fire in
the living room the evening of Meredith's funeral and Father Noble's
departure she grew stern and commanding.

"This will never do, my dear," she said. "It cannot be that life has
made of you a cruel, unjust woman."

Doris dropped her eyes--they were wonderful eyes, her real and only
claim to beauty. Dusky eyes they were, with a light in them of amber.

"How much did Merry tell you?" she asked, faintly, for the older woman
looked so frail and pure that it seemed impossible that she knew the
worst.

"My dear, she told me--nothing. Her letter said that she wanted to tell
me things--things that she could not tell to God"--Angela unconsciously
touched her cross--"but there was no time. No time."

"There are things that women cannot tell to God, Sister. Things that
they can only tell to some women!"

A bitterness that she could not control shook Doris's voice. She shrank
from touching the exquisite detachment of Sister Angela by the truth,
and yet she must have as much sympathy as possible and, certainly,
cooeperation.

"Sister, this child should never have been born!"

The words reached where former words had failed. A flush touched
Angela's white face--it was like sunrise on snow. Then, after a pause:

"Did--Meredith--think that?" A growing sternness gave Doris hope that
she might be saved the details that were like poison in her blood.

"Yes. Protected by--by what is law--George Thornton----"

But Angela raised her thin, transparent hand commandingly. It was as if
she were staying the torrents of wrong and shame that threatened to
deluge all that she had gained by her life of renunciation and
repression--and yet in her clear eyes there gleamed the understanding of
the depths.

"May God have mercy upon--the child!" was what she said, and by those
words she took her stand between past wrong and hope of future justice.
"You must take this child, Doris," she said. "All that you know and feel
but make the course imperative and inevitable."

"Sister, how can I--feeling as I do?"

"Can you afford not to? Can you leave it--to such a man?"

"But, Sister, you do not know him. If I should conquer my aversion and
take the child, if I succeeded in loving it--he would bide his time and
claim it. The law that made this horrible thing possible covers his
claim to the child."

Angela drooped back in her chair. She looked old and beaten.

"He must not have the child," she murmured. "It's the only chance for
the salvation of Meredith's little girl. He _shall_ not have it!"

Doris bent toward the fire holding her cold, clasped hands to the heat.
Suddenly she turned.

"I am growing nervous," she said, "I thought I heard someone pressing
against the window--I thought I saw--a shadow drift outside in the
moonlight."

Angela started and sat upright. Every sense was alert--she was
remembering her promise to old Becky!

"I wish," she said, haltingly, "I wish I had consulted Father Noble. I
have undertaken too much."

"Consulted him about what, Sister?" Doris was touched by the quivering
voice and strained eyes; she set her own trouble aside.

Again that pressing sound, and the wind swirling the dead leaves against
the house.

"About a little deserted mountain child upstairs. I have promised to
find a home for it, but I cannot manage such things any more--I am too
old."

The words came plaintively, as if defending against implied neglect.

Doris's eyes grew deep and concerned.

"A deserted child?" she repeated. In the feverish haste and trouble of
the past few days the ordinary life of Ridge House had held no part. It
seemed to be claiming its rights now, pushing her aside.

Then Sister Angela, her tired face set toward the long window whence
came that pressing sound and the swish of the wind, told Becky's story.
She told it as she might if Becky were listening, ready at any lapse to
correct her, but she carefully refrained from mentioning names.

It eased her mind to turn from Doris's trouble to poor Becky's, and she
saw with relief that Doris was listening; was interested.

"It is strange," Sister Angela mused, when the bare telling of the story
was over, "how the deep, cruel things in life are met by people in much
the same way--the ignorant and the wise, when they touch the inscrutable
they let go and turn to a higher power than their own. Meredith felt
that her child's chance in life lay in a new and fresh start. The
mountain woman's curse, as she termed it, could only be conquered, so
she pleaded, by giving her grandchild to those who did not know. It
amounts to the same thing.

"Meredith is--gone; the old woman of the hills cannot last long. I
wonder, as to the children--I wonder!"

Doris's eyes were burning and her voice shook when she spoke. Her words
and tone startled Angela.

"Where is the--the mountain child?" she asked.

"Upstairs, my dear. Why, Doris, you are shaking as if you had a chill.
You are ill--let me call Sister Constance."

But Doris stayed her as she rose.

"No, no, Sister. I am only trembling because my feet are set on a
possible way! I am--I am pushing things aside. Tell me, is this child a
girl?"

"Yes."

"How old is it?"

"It was born the night before Meredith's child. It survived against
grave dangers--it had no care, really, for twenty-four hours."

"You--you think it will live?"

"Yes."

"Do you think--the grandmother will ever reclaim it?"

"No, my dear. She is very old. I do not know how old, but certainly she
cannot last much longer. She is a strange creature, but I am confident
she realizes all that she said."

"And she is right--it is the only way." Doris was now speaking more to
herself than to Angela. It was as if she were arguing, seeking to
convince her conservative self before she stepped out upon a new and
perilous path.

"No one knowing! Then the start could be new. It is the knowing,
expecting, and suggesting that do the harm. We may call it inheritance,
but it may be that we evolve from our knowledge and fears the very thing
we would avert if we were left free."

Sister Angela bent forward. She whispered as if she felt the necessity
of secrecy.

"What do you mean?"

"Sister, can you not see? Suppose it were possible for me to take
Merry's child without the knowledge of its inheritance from the father.
Suppose this little mountain child were given its chance among people
who did not know."

"The children would reveal themselves, my dear." Angela was defending,
she knew not what, but all her nature was up in arms. "It is God's way."

"Or our bungling and lack of faith, Sister, which?"

All the weariness and hopelessness passed from Doris's face; she was
eager, her eyes shone. Presently she stood up, her back to the fire, her
glance on that far window that opened to the starry night and the
narrow, flower-hidden bed on the hill.

"Sister Angela," the words were spoken solemnly as a vow might be taken
before God, "I am going to take--both children. But on one condition--I
am not to know which is Meredith's."

A log rolling from the irons startled the women--their nerves were
strained to the breaking point.

"Impossible!" gasped Angela.

"Why?"

"Your own has claims upon you!"

"None that I am not willing to give--but this is the only way. If, as
you say, it is God's way that they reveal themselves, then I lose; if
God is with me, I win."

"Dare--you?"

Doris stretched her arms as if pushing aside every obstacle.

"I do," she said. "I am not a daring woman: I am a weak and fearful
one--this, though, I dare!"

"But the father----" Angela whispered.

"The--father----" Doris's eyes flamed.

"But he may, as you say, claim the child." Angela hastened breathlessly
as one running.

"How could he, if I did not know which child was his?"

The blinding light began to point the way clearer, now, to the older
woman.

"It's--unheard of," she murmured, "and yet----"

"I will write to Thornton, offer to take his child," Doris was pleading,
rather than explaining. "I think at the first he will agree to the
proposal--what else can he do? The shock--remember, he does not even
know that a child is expected! Dare we refuse Meredith's child this only
and desperate chance--knowing what we do?"

Angela made no reply. She was letting go one after another of her rigid
beliefs. Again Doris spoke, again she pleaded:

"I will abide by your decision, Sister, but only after you have gone to
the chapel--and seen the way. I will wait here."

Angela rose stiffly, holding to her cross as if it were a physical
support. With bowed head she passed from the room and Doris sat down
thinking; demanding justice.

A half hour passed before steps were heard in the hall. Doris stood up,
her eyes fixed on the door.

Sister Angela entered, and in her arms, wrapped in the same blanket,
were two sleeping babies wearing the plain clothing that Ridge House
kept in store for emergencies. Doris ran forward; she bent over the
small creatures.

"Which?" Nature leaped forth in that one palpitating word--it was the
last claim of blood.

"I--forgot--when I brought them to you. We have all--forgot. It _is_ the
only way--the chance."

Doris took both children in her arms.

"I shall name them Joan and Nancy," she whispered, "for my mother and
grandmother. Joan and Nancy--Thornton!"

Then she kissed them, and it was given to her at that moment to forget
her bitter hatred.




CHAPTER IV

"_Just as much of doubt as bade us plant a surer foot upon the
sun-road._"


Doris Fletcher had no turning-back in her nature. She never reached a
goal but by patient effort to understand, and she was able to close her
eyes to by-paths.

Having adopted the children, having foregone her prejudices--good and
evil--having set her feet upon the way, she meant to go unfalteringly
on, and because doubts would assail her at times, she held the surer to
her task.

She remained a month at Ridge House. She wrote to Thornton and in due
time his reply came.

Apparently he had written while bewildered and shocked. The old arrogant
tone was gone. He accepted what Doris offered and set aside a generous
sum of money for his child's expenses.

It was Sister Angela's suggestion that Mary should become the nurse for
the children.

"How much does she know, Sister?"

"Nothing--but what we have permitted her to know. The girl, since
knowing of the children, has astonished me by her interest in them.
Nothing before has so brought her out of her native reserve. I never
suspected it--but the girl has maternal instincts that should not be
starved."

But Sister Angela was mistaken. Mary knew more than she had been
permitted to know.

A closed door to Mary meant seeking access through other channels.
Sister Constance had not screened the windows of the west chamber which
opened on the roof of the porch and were next to the window of Mary's
small chamber. She had forgotten to ward against the startling sound of
a baby's cry. But Mary, the night that Becky had left her burden to the
care of Sister Angela, had heard that cry and it reached to the hidden
depth of the girl's nature. It chilled her, then set her blood racing
hotly. She got up and went to the window--it was moonlight in The Gap
and the night was full of a rising wind that rattled the vines and set
the leaves swirling.

Covering herself with a dark shawl, she crept from her window and,
clinging close to the house, reached the west chamber.

Inside, by the light of a candle, Sister Constance sat, hushing to sleep
a little child! The sight was burned upon Mary's consciousness as if
Fate pressed every detail there so it might not be forgotten. Mary saw
the small, puckered face. It was individual and distinct.

She almost slipped from her place on the roof; her breath came so hard
that she feared Sister Constance might hear, and she groped her way
back.

All next day Mary worked silently but with such haste that Sister Janice
took her sharply to task.

"'Tis the ungodly as leaves the dust under the mats, child," she
cautioned.

"Yes, Sister." Mary attacked the mats!

"And a burnt loaf cries for forgiveness."

"Yes, Sister, but the burnt loaf I will myself eat to the last crust."

"Indeed and you shall--for the carelessness that you show."

Somehow Mary lived through the day with her ears strained and a mighty
fear in her heart.

It was nearing morning of the following day--that darkest hour--when the
girl arose from her sleepless bed and stole forth again.

It was just then that Sister Constance, her face distorted by grief and
the play of candlelight upon it, entered the west chamber with a baby in
her arms!

Mary gripped the shutters--she felt faint and weak. Suppose she should
slip and fall?

And then she saw two children on the bed and Sister Constance--bent in
prayer--her cross pressed to her lips.

All this Mary had seen, but when Sister Angela asked her if she would
like to go with Miss Fletcher and care for the children, so great was
her curiosity that she, mentally, tore her roots from her home hills;
let go her clinging to the deserted cabin where she had been born, and
almost eagerly replied: "I'd like it powerful."

So Mary took her place.

Doris Fletcher had her plans well laid.

"I must have myself well in hand," she said to Sister Angela, "before I
go to New York. There's the little bungalow in California where father
took mother before Merry's birth. It happens to be vacant. I will go
there and work out my plans."

It seemed a simple solution. The children throve from the start in the
sunshine and climate; the peace and detachment acted like charms, and
Mary, stifling her soul's homesickness, grew stern as to face, but
marvellously tender and capable in her duties. Doris grew accustomed to
her silence and reserve after a time, but she never understood Mary,
although she grew to depend upon her absolutely. To friends in New York,
especially to Doctor David Martin, Doris wrote often. She was never
quite sure how the impression was given that Meredith had left twins;
certainly she had not said that, but she had spoken of "the children"
without laying stress upon the statement, and while debating just what
explanation she would make. After all, it was her own affair. Some day
she would confide in David, but there were more important details to
claim her attention.

The babies were adorable, but in neither could she trace an expression
or suggestion of Meredith. Their childish characteristics gave no
clue--they were simply healthy, normal creatures full of the charm that
all childhood should have in common. And gradually, as time passed,
Doris lost herself in their demanding individualities; she became
absorbed. Joan was larger, stronger, seemed older. She had brown eyes
of that sunny tint which suggest sunshine. Her hair was brown, almost
from the first, with gold glints. She was fair, had little colour unless
the warm glow that rose and fell so sweetly in her face could be called
colour. Excitement brought the flush, disappointment or a chiding word
banished it. At other times Joan had the warm, ivory-tinted skin of
health, not delicacy. Nancy was, from the first, frankly blonde. She
never changed from the lovely, fair promise of her first year. She was
the most feminine creature one could imagine; a doll brought the light
to her violet eyes.

"She takes that rather than her milk," Mary explained, then gravely:
"She'll take her milk if I hold off the doll."

Nature was never quite sure what to do with Joan. She changed with the
years in tint, colouring, and character, but Nancy was fair, fine, and
delicately poised from her baby days.

Both children worshipped Doris--Auntie Dorrie, they were taught to call
her--and it was amusing to watch their relations to her. To please her,
to win her approval, were their highest hopes. Mary clearly preferred
Nancy and, for that reason, gave more attention to Joan.

When the children were nearly two Doris wrote to David Martin:

"I am coming home. I am glad that I have always kept the house in
commission; I feel that I can trust myself there now."

And so the little family travelled east. Mary in trim uniform (and how
she silently hated it) of black, with immaculate cuffs, collars, and
cap; the babies perfect in every way and Doris, herself, happier than
she had ever been in her life--handsomer, too. Her life had developed
normally around the children; she felt a wide and deep interest in
everything, and always the sense of high adventure, a daring in her
relations to the future.

The old Fletcher house set the standard for the others down the long
row. It was brick, with heavy oak, brass-bound doors. The marble steps
and white trim were spotless and glistening and behind it lay a deep
yard hidden by a tall brick wall. The house had reserved, as the family
had, the right, once its civic duty was performed, to develop inwardly
along its own lines.

The three generations, in turn, had set their marks upon it. The first
Fletcher had been a genial soul given to entertaining, and the dining
room, back of the drawing room, gave evidence of the old gentleman's
taste. It was a stately and beautiful room and each article of furniture
had been made to fit into the space and the need by an artist.

Doris's father was not indifferent to his father's tastes, but he was a
student at heart and had a vision as to libraries. He encroached upon
the ample space back of the house and had built an oval room through
whose leaded panes the peach and plum trees could be seen like traceries
on the clear glass. Around the walls of this room the book shelves
ranged at just the right height, and above them hung pictures that
inspired but did not obtrude. The high, carved chimney with its deep,
generous hearth was a benediction.

When Doris had come home from St. Mary's she made known a family
trait--she voiced what to her seemed an inspiration but which to the
father, at first, seemed madness. Still, he complied and spent many
happy hours before his death in what he called "Doris's Daring."

"I want the west wall of the library knocked out, Father," she had said,
but Mr. Fletcher only stared.

"We can have the books and pictures in my room--my sunken room. There is
enough garden to spare and we can save the roses. We'll drop down from
the library by a shallow flight of steps; we'll have a little fountain
and about a mile of nice low window seats rambling around the room. I
don't want nymphs in the fountain but dear, adorable children tossing
water at each other.

"We must have birds in cages, and plants and pictures--it must be a room
where we can all take what is dearest to us--and live."

Of course it was an expensive and daring conception, but it was carried
out by an inspired young architect, and it was Meredith who had posed
for the figures in the fountain.

When Doris returned to New York with her children this room became the
soul of the house.

The year after Doris's adoption of the children Sister Angela died
suddenly. "She simply fell asleep," Sister Constance wrote.

After that the other Sisters could not feel happy and content in the
atmosphere of antagonism that Sister Angela had partially overcome, but
with which they had no sympathy. They returned to the Middle West and
entered a Sisterhood where their duties and environment were more
congenial. Ridge House reverted to the Fletcher estate and Uncle Jed was
put in charge.

"I may use it later," Doris explained, "or I may turn it over to Father
Noble if he ever needs it."

What this all meant to Mary no one ever knew--she saw, now, no return to
her hills, and her longing for them grew as the years passed, and her
curiosity flattened in the dull round of duties and commonplace routine.
Only one emotion largely controlled her thought and that was a dumb
gratitude for what she believed she was receiving. She could not agree
that her devoted service gave ample return. She was under obligation,
and the feeling was blighting to the girl's independence. Work, the
necessity for work, was an accepted state of mind to poor Mary. The
luxury and consideration that were hers in her present life took from
labour, as far as she mentally considered it, all the essential
qualities that gave her independence. She was accepting--so she
reflected in that proud detached logic of the hills--from outsiders what
no mere bodily labour could repay, certainly not such service as she was
giving. Just loving and caring for two little children!

With cautious and suspicious watchfulness through the years Mary
regarded Doris Fletcher still as "foreign." Foreign to all that was born
and bred in the girl's inheritance of mountain aristocracy, but she had
been touched by the justice, the unerring kindness of the woman, who,
to Mary's wrong ideals, gave and gave and constantly made it impossible
for her to make return.

"Some day," the girl vowed, when her manner was most grim and repelling,
"some day I'll do something to pay back!" And then she grew bewildered
in the maze of wondering if the "quality" so precious to her
understanding might not exist in all places? Might it not be?--but here
Mary became lost.

When she recalled, as less and less she did, the unlawful spying of hers
on the west chamber of Ridge House, she set her lips in a firm line. She
had gone far enough on her upward way to detest the cringing, deceitful
methods of her childhood and she sternly sought to right herself, with
her burdening conscience, by putting away forever what possible
significance lay in the strange coming of that first and second child to
Ridge House.

"Were they twins? Were--they?" But Mary always was frightened when she
got into her mental depths.

Three or four vital and significant events marked the years intervening
between Doris's return to New York and the day when Joan and Nancy
entered womanhood.

The first incident seemed slight in itself but proved the truth of the
need for caution when one is on a blind trail. With all her good
intentions and high hopes Doris was bewildered as to her steps. She who
had been the soul of frankness and cheerful friendliness was now
reticent and reserved.

"It is poor Meredith's business," friend after friend decided. Where
little was known, much was suspected. "The Fletchers cannot easily brook
_that_ sort of thing."

Just what that "sort" was depended upon the temperament and character of
the person speaking.

Then among the first to call after Doris's return was Mrs. Tweksbury, an
old and valued family friend, a woman who was worth one's while to gain
as friend, for she could be a desperate foe. She had formed all her
opinions of Meredith Thornton's tragedy upon what she knew and loved
concerning the girl, and what she knew nothing whatever about,
concerning Thornton.

To Mrs. Tweksbury he was a black villain who had murdered--there was no
other word for it--an innocent young creature who belonged to that class
(Mrs. Tweksbury was frank and clear about "class") not supposed to be
subject to the coarser dealings of life.

Mrs. Tweksbury relied absolutely upon what she termed her inherited
intuition. This was quite outside feminine intuition. The Tweksbury male
intellect had been judicial from the first, and "the constant necessity
of knowing men and women," as Mrs. Tweksbury often explained, "had left
its mark upon the family."

"_We know!_ That is all there is to say. We know!"

So Mrs. Tweksbury "knew" all about everything when she folded Doris in
her motherly arms.

"There is no need of a word, my dear," she said, "and you are dealing
with the whole thing superbly. Let me see the children. How fortunate
that they are twins _and_ girls! Girls may inherit from the father, but
thank God! nature saves them from the developing along his line. And
being _twins_ certainly modifies what might otherwise be concentrated."

Doris felt her heart beat fast. She was not prepared to confide in Mrs.
Tweksbury, certainly not at present. She loved the old woman for her
good qualities, but she shrank from putting herself at the mercy of Mrs.
Tweksbury's "inherited intuitions!"

So she said nothing, but sent for the children.

Hidden deep in the old woman's heart were all the denied and suppressed
yearnings of a love that had escaped fulfilment--a love that had entered
in after her marriage to a man utterly without sympathy with her, but
which had been rigidly ignored because of the stern moral fibre that
marked her. After the death of all those who had been concerned in her
secret romance she had taken upon herself the more or less vicarious
guardianship of the son of the man she had loved and foregone.

The boy lived with his mother's people, and Mrs. Tweksbury only visited
him occasionally; but her proud, stern old heart knew only one undying
passion now--her passion for children.

When Nancy and Joan stood before her, she regarded them with almost
tragic, and, at the same time, comic expression. The children were
frightened at her twitching, wrinkled face and glanced at Doris, who
smiled them into calmness.

In Joan, Mrs. Tweksbury saw resemblance to no one she remembered, so she
concluded she must be like the father, physically, whom they must all
ignore absolutely. Try as she valiantly did, the old lady felt her
quick-beating heart falter before Joan's earnest, searching gaze. It was
a relief to turn to Nancy and permit her eyes to dim and soften.

"My dear, my dear," she said to Doris, "how like dear Merry the baby is!
Just so, I recall--"

Doris's face grew strained and ashy. "Please," she implored, "please,
Aunt Emily--don't!"

"Of course, of course, my child. Very indiscreet of me--but I was taken
off my guard." Then--"My dears, will you kiss me?" This to the children
keeping their courage up by clinging together.

"No," Joan replied in a tone entirely free from bad manners but weighted
with simple truth; "Joan likes to kiss Auntie Dorrie." The inference
stiffened Mrs. Tweksbury and caused Doris a qualm.

"And you?" The old lady's tone was pathetic in its appeal to Nancy--her
"intuition" was at stake.

Nancy drew nearer. She was fascinated, afraid, but guided by a strange
impulse. "Nancy will," she panted, "Nancy will kiss you--two times!"

Mrs. Tweksbury's breath caught in her throat--she strangled but
controlled herself and bent as a queen might to the sweet uplifted face
at her knee.

After that visit Doris would have had a difficult task in stemming a
flood that Mrs. Tweksbury directed, having removed the dam. While she
fairly grovelled, emotionally, before Nancy, the old lady defended Joan
by stern insistence upon traits of nobility unsuspected by others in the
child.

"The wretch of a father," she mentally vowed, "shall not have the child
if suggestion can prevent."

Spiritually she fell in line with Doris, and where Mrs. Tweksbury led it
were wiser and easier to follow than to blaze new trails.

The second event that marked a new epoch was the coming of George
Thornton to claim his own.




CHAPTER V

"_And when it fails, fight as we will, we die._"


George Thornton was a man who believed, or thought he did, in two
controlling things in life: Intellect, and the training of intellect, by
education and stern attention, to the task at stake.

He had intellect and he had devoted himself to his task, that of worldly
success, but he had never recognized nor admitted the necessity of the
spiritual in his development, and so it had failed him--and, in a deep,
tragic way, he was dying. Had been dying through the years since his
devil took the reins, in a mad hour, and rode him.

There had been weeks and months after his leaving Meredith when his soul
cried aloud to him but was smothered. He would not heed. He let business
and coarse, pleasurable excitement gain power over him, and when they
lagged he drank his conscience to sleep.

He knew the danger which lay in the last aid to deaden his pain, so he
rarely sought it.

But something new had entered in--something that, in hours when he was
obliged to face facts, frightened him, and after months abroad, months
in which he nursed his resentment against Meredith and felt his defeat
with her, he decided to do the only decent thing left for him to
do--apologize and set her free.

And then he found her note. The bald, naked statement drove all power to
act for the moment from him. Close upon that shock, which he smilingly
covered, by explaining on very commonplace grounds, came Doris's letter.
The purest elements and the most brutal in many natures lie close. They
did in Thornton. Had Meredith been a wiser, a more human and loving
woman, she might have helped Thornton to his full stature; but failing
him by her helpless insufficiency, she drove him to his shoals.

Had she by the turn of Fortune been obliged, as many women are, to have
borne her lot though her heart broke her child might have saved her and
the man also--for Thornton had the paternal instincts, though they were
unsuspected and wholly dormant.

Again Meredith had defeated him. What could he do with a helpless baby
on his hands? What else was there to do but accept Doris's offer? And of
course the child was dead to him except by the cold, legal tie that
bound them together. That, Thornton grimly held to.

He would press it, too, in his good time!

But Thornton's next few years proved to be a succession of mis-steps
with the inevitable results.

He married the woman who could, when she had no actual hold on him,
soothe and comfort--not because of his need, but her own. Once, however,
she was placed in a secure position, she cast any need of his aside and
developed myriads of her own.

If Thornton could not force a social position for her, then he must pay
for the luxury of her exile with him. Thornton paid and paid until every
faculty he had was strained to the snapping point. Finally he resorted
to the last and most dangerous aid he had at his disposal--he drank more
than ever before; but even in his extremity he recognized his danger and
always caught himself before the worst overcame him.

Business began to show the effect of private troubles, and then Thornton
remembered the Fletcher fortune; his child, and the possibilities of
making the child a link between money and a growing necessity.

Whatever natural tie there might have been in Thornton's relations with
his child had perished. There was merely a legal one now.

And Thornton, having explained this at great length to his wife, and
finally getting her to agree to assume a responsibility that he swore
should never embarrass her, travelled to New York.

It was a bright, sunny June day when he rang the bell of the Fletcher
home and was admitted, by a trim maid, to the small reception room that
was a noncommittal link between the hall and the drawing room.

Sitting alone in the quiet place, Thornton was conscious of a silvery
_drip, drip_ of water. Sound, like smell, has a power to arouse memory
and control it. Thornton's thoughts flew back to the week he had spent
in this old house with his girl wife. He recalled the sunken room and
the fountain with those wonderful figures modelled after Meredith.

Without taking into account the years and happenings that had made him
more than a stranger to the family he got up and followed a haunting
desire to see the room and the fountain again.

He passed through the drawing room and shrugged his shoulders. It was
arrogant, self-assured--he hated that sort of thing. The dining room was
better--a fine idea as to colour and furniture; the library,
too--Thornton paused and took a comprehensive glance. He liked the
library, and the fireplace was perfect. He made a mental note. Then he
stepped down into the room with its memory-haunting fountain. He had
never seen it in action before, and so clever was the conceit that he
drew back, fearing that the tossing sprays would reach him. Then he sat
down in a deep chair, crossed his legs, smiled, and looked about.

Here it was that Doris spent much of her time indoors. The window was
open and a rose vine was clinging to the frame, rich in bloom. There was
a work basket on the low, velvet-cushioned seat--a child's sock lay near
it and several ridiculous toys, rigidly propped against the wall, as if
on review. Birds sang outside in the plum and peach trees and birds
inside, not realizing their bondage, answered merrily--the room was
throbbing with life and joy and hope. Thornton smiled, not a pleasant
smile, and felt more important than he had felt in many a day; more
powerful, too.

"Doris must be over thirty," he mused, "and not of the marrying type.
There must be a pretty big pile to back all this." He got quickly to his
feet, for Doris appeared just then at the doorway leading to the
library. She paused at the top of the stairs--there was a strip of green
velvet carpet running down the middle of the marble steps; her white
gown came just to her ankles, and the narrow white-shod feet sank
lightly into the green carpet as if it were moss.

"I am glad to see that you have made yourself comfortable, George," she
said, and smiled her very finest smile. There was no hint of reproof in
the tone, but Thornton instantly wondered if it would not have been
wiser to have kept to the reception room.

"I hope I have not intruded," he went to the steps and held out his
hand, "it _is_ home, you know, after all."

This was meant to be conciliatory, but the appeal went astray.

"Let us sit by the window," Doris remarked, "the air is delightful
to-day."

And then came the pause during which the path leading to an
understanding must be chosen. Doris left the choosing to Thornton. He
took the wrong one.

"It brings so much back," he half whispered, "so much!" He was a fairly
good actor, but Doris was not appreciative.

"So much that had better be left where it rests," she said. "I have
learned that the present needs every energy--the past can take care of
itself."

"You have had the real burden." Thornton meant to be magnanimous. "I
shall always be grateful for your splendid help at a time when so much
was at stake. Your goodness to my child----" For a moment Thornton
could not think whether the child was a girl or a boy. He was confused
and a bit alarmed.

Doris came to his assistance.

"Meredith's little girl was all that made the first bitter year possible
for me. I have done my best, George, my happiest best--she is lovely;
the most joyous thing you can imagine. Remembering how much Meredith and
I needed each other, I adopted a child at the same time I undertook the
care of your baby--the two are inseparable and wonderfully congenial."

Thornton's brow clouded. He could not have described his sensations, but
they were similar to those he had once experienced, standing alone in a
dense Philippine thicket, and suddenly recalling that he was not popular
with the natives. He sensed a menace somewhere.

"You're quite remarkable, Doris," he said, "but was it altogether
wise--the adoption, I mean? I suppose you know everything about the--the
child, but even so, the break now will be difficult for--for everybody."

Doris gave him a long, steady look.

"I know very little about the child I adopted," she said. "The poor waif
was deserted, and as to the wrench now, why, life has taught me, also,
George, to take what joy one can and be willing to pay for it. We cannot
afford to let a great blessing slip because we may have to do without it
bye and bye."

"But--inheritance, Doris! You, of all women, to undervalue that! It was
a bit risky, but of course while children are so young----" Thornton
paused and Doris broke in.

"Inheritance is such a tricky thing," she said, looking out into the
flower-filled garden, "it is such a clever masquerader. Often it is like
those insects that take upon themselves the colour of the leaf upon
which they cling. It isn't what it seems, and when one really
knows--why, one can hardly be just, because of the injustice of
inheritance."

"Queer reasoning," muttered Thornton. "Why, that--kid's father might
be---- well, anything!" Why he said "father" would be hard to tell.

"Exactly!" agreed Doris. "But when I did not know, I could be fair and
unhampered. It has paid--the child is adorable."

"Shows no--no--evil tendencies?" Thornton grew more and more restive.

"On the contrary--only divine ones."

"We're all lucky." The man sighed, then spoke hurriedly: "I'd like to
see my little girl. She is here--of course?"

"Oh! yes. I have never been separated from her. I suppose--you mean
to----" Doris paused.

"I mean to relieve you, Doris, and assume my responsibility--now that I
dare."

"Your wife--is she willing?" Doris longed to say "worthy" but she knew
that the woman was not.

"More than willing." And now Thornton thought that the worst was over.

"I will bring your little girl," Doris said, and went quietly from the
room.

Something of the sweetness and strength of the place seemed to go with
her. Again Thornton became restless, and it came back to him that his
first aversion to Doris Fletcher was connected with this power of hers
to overturn, without effort, his peace of mind and self-esteem. But he
had outwitted her in marrying her sister--she had antagonized him but he
had won then and would win again now! The fountain irritated and annoyed
him. He got up and walked about the room.

"A devilish freakish conception," he muttered, gazing at the fountain
and kicking at a rare rug on the floor, "a kind of madness runs through
the breed, I wager. Too much blood of one sort gets clogged in the human
system." And then he listened.

There were childish voices nearing: sweet, piping voices with little
gurgles of laughter rippling through. The laugh of happy, healthy
childhood.

"She's bringing them both!" thought Thornton, and an ugly scowl came to
his brow. He did not know much about children, knew nothing really,
except that they were noisy and usually messy--some were better looking
than others; gave promise, and he hoped his child would be handsome; it
might help her along, and she would need all the help she could muster.
Then he heard Doris instructing the children:

"See, Joan, dear, hold Nan by the hand like a big, strong sister, this
is going to be another play. Now listen sharp! When we come to the steps
you must stand close together and give that pretty courtesy that Mary
taught you yesterday. Now, darlings--don't forget!"

There are moments and incidents in life that seem out of all proportion
to their apparent significance. Thornton waited for what was about to
happen as he might have the verdict were he on trial for his life. He
was frightened at he knew not what. Would his child look like Meredith?
Would she have those eyes that could find his soul and burn it even
while they smiled? Would she look like him; find in him some thing that
would help him to forget? He looked up. Doris had planned dramatically.
She left the babies alone on the top step and came down to Thornton.

"Aren't they wonderful?" she asked in so calm and ordinary a tone that
it was startling.

They were wonderful--even a hard, indifferent man could see that. Slim,
vigorous little creatures they were with sturdy brown legs showing above
socks and broad-toed sandals. Their short white frocks fell in widening
line from the shoulders, giving the effect of lightness, winginess. Both
children had lovely hair, curly, bobbed to a comfortable length, and
their wide, curious eyes fastened instantly upon Thornton--eyes of
purple-blue and eyes of hazel-gold; strange eyes, frankly confronting
him but disclosing nothing; eyes of utterly strange children; not a
familiar feature or expression to guide him.

"I have called them Joan and Nancy," Doris was saying. "You expressed no
preference, you know."

"Which is--is--mine?" Thornton whispered the question that somehow made
him flush with shame.

"I do not know!" It was whisper meeting whisper.

"You--what?" Thornton turned blazing eyes upon the woman by his side.
Her answer did not seem to shock him so much as it revealed what he had
suspected--Doris was playing with him, making him absurd by that
infernal power of hers that he had all but forgotten. He recalled, too,
with keen resentment her ability to transform a tragic incident into one
of humour--or the reverse.

"I do not know. I never have known," Doris was saying. "You see, I was
afraid of heredity if I had to deal with it. Without knowing it I could
be just to both children; give them the only possible opportunity to
overcome handicaps. I thought they might reveal themselves--but so far
they have not. They are adorable."

"This is damnable! Someone shall be made to speak--to suffer--or by
God!----"

The words were hardly above a whisper, but the tone frightened the
children.

"Auntie Dorrie!" they pleaded, and stretched out entreating arms.

"Come, darlings. The play is over and you did it beautifully."

They ran to her, clambered into her lap, and turned doubting eyes upon
Thornton.

"You--expect me to--to--take both?" he asked, still in that low, thick
tone.

"Certainly not. One is mine. I shall demand my rights, be quite sure of
that."

"This is the most outrageous thing I ever heard of!" Thornton was at
bay; "the most immoral."

"I have often thought that it might be," Doris returned, her lips
against Nancy's fair hair, "but the more you consider it the more you
are convinced that it is not. It is simply--unusual." The tone defied
understanding. "You must consider what I have done, George, step by
step. I did not act rashly. And when we come to actual contact with all
the truth confronting us, you and I will have to be very frank. May I
send the children away? It is time for their nap." Already Doris's
finger was pressing the electric button cunningly set in the coping of
the fountain.

"Yes, do. There is much to say," Thornton muttered and, not having heard
the bell, was startled at seeing the nurse appear at once. He looked up,
and Mary looked at him. The girl felt the atmosphere. Thornton made a
distinct impression upon her.

Left alone with Doris, Thornton drew his chair close to hers and waited
for her to begin.

"Well," he said, "what have you to say? It would seem as if you might
have a great deal, Doris."

"I have nothing to say."

"I suppose you did this to humiliate me--defeat me?" Thornton's lips
twitched.

"On the contrary, after the first I gave you very little thought,
George. I was concerned in making sure the future of Meredith's child."

"Did you forget that she was also mine?"

"I tried to. After a bit, I did--after the identities of the babies
became blurred. If you stop to think and are just, you will understand
that I took a desperate chance to accomplish the most good to Meredith's
child. That is all that seemed to count. Suppose you could claim your
child now, would its future be as secure as it would be with me? Have
you really the child's interest at heart--you, who left its mother
to----"

"The mother--left me! Don't overlook facts, Doris." Thornton's face
flamed angrily.

"Yes. In self-defence she left you!" Doris held him with eyes heavy with
misery. "I knew everything necessary to know, George, that enabled me to
take this step."

"But not enough to make you pause and consider!" A bitterness rang in
the words.

"There are some occasions when one cannot, dare not, consider," said
Doris.

Thornton got up and paced the room. Suddenly he turned like a man at
bay.

"But the inheritance?" he flung out.

"I told you, George, it was the inheritance that forced me to it."

"I mean--" here Thornton's eyes fell--"I mean the money," he stammered.

"I see!" Doris's voice trembled; then she hastened on: "The money you
sent, George, has never been touched. I have waited for this hour."

"And your revenge!" muttered Thornton.

"I had not considered it in that light." A deep contempt throbbed in
the words. "When I remember I am not bitter, but I am filled, anew, with
a desire to save Meredith's child!"

"At the risk of passing her off as the child of--whom?"

And then Doris smiled--a long, strange smile that burnt its way into
Thornton's consciousness.

"It was that doubt that saved, gave hope," she said, and quickly added,
"I will tell you all there is to know, and then I request that you spare
me another interview until you have come to a decision regarding--your
child."

There was pitifully little to tell. A deserted mountain child!

"Who deserted it?" Thornton broke in.

"I did not ask. Sister Angela promised to find a home for it where no
one would know of its sad birth--there are people willing to risk that
much for a little child. I am!"

"And this--this Sister Angela----" Thornton asked.

"She died the year after."

"And the others?"

"I doubt if they ever knew much, but if they did they forgot--they are
like that; besides, I have not heard of them in years."

More and more Thornton realized the hopelessness of personal
investigation, and he was not prepared to take outside counsel,
certainly not yet.

"The Sisters did fairly well for the outcast in this instance," he
sneered, "but we may all have to pay some day. Murder will out, you
know!"

"Of course," Doris agreed, wearily; "we all understand that."

"Do you think the children will?" Thornton's eyes were gloomy and grave.
"How about the hour when they--know?"

Doris felt the pain in her heart that this possibility always awakened.
She raised her glance to the one full of hate and said quietly:

"Who can tell?"

There was a dull pause. Then:

"Well, I guess I have all I want for the present. I'm not out of the
game, Doris, just count on me being in it at every deal of the cards.
Good-bye--for now."

"Good-bye, George. I will not forget."




CHAPTER VI

"_There are two elements that go to the composition of friendship. One
is Truth; the other is Tenderness._"


After Thornton's departure Doris metaphorically, drew a long breath. She
felt that he would make no further move at present--how could he? As one
faces a possible surgical operation with the hope that Nature may
intervene to make it unnecessary, she turned to her blessed duties with
renewed vigour.

Of course, there were hours, there always would be hours, when, alone,
or when the children played near her, Doris wondered and speculated but
always reached the triumphant conclusion that her love, equal and
sincere, for both little girls, had been made possible by her
unprejudiced relations with them. And that must count for much.

Every time she was diverted from her chosen path she courageously took
stock, as it were, of her gains and possible losses.

For instance, when Mrs. Tweksbury had appeared to discern resemblance
between Nancy and Meredith, she wondered if, as often is the case, the
impartial observer could discover what familiarity had screened?

But try as she did, at that time, she could not find the slightest
physical trace of likeness, and she brought old photographs to her aid.
While, on the other hand, the mental and temperamental characteristics
of both little girls were such as were common to healthy childhood.

Again it was possible for Doris to face any fact that might present
itself--she knew that, by her past course, she had not only secured
justice for the children but faith in herself.

Her greatest concern now was the menace of Thornton.

"Think of Nancy," she mused, "sweet, sensitive, and fine, under such
influence! And Joan so high-strung and reckless! It would be a hopeless
condition!"

Looked upon from this viewpoint Doris grew depressed. While her
conscience remained clear as to any real wrong she had done in acting as
she had, there were anxious hours spent in imagining that time when, as
Thornton said, the girls themselves must know.

When must they know?

Doris had not considered that before to any extent.

Thornton might demand at once that they know the truth. He had a right
to that.

Here was a new danger, but as the silence continued the immediate fear
of this lessened. And the children were mere babies. They could not
possibly understand if they were told, now.

Until such time, then, as they must be told, Doris renewed her efforts
in building well the small, healthy minds and bodies.

"When they marry"--this brought a smile--"when they marry! Of course,
then, they must know." With that conclusion reached, anxiety was once
more lulled to rest.

Gradually the old peaceful days merged into new peaceful days. Doris
entered, little by little, into her social duties so long neglected; the
children romped and lived joyously in the old house--"just
children"--until suddenly a small but significant thing occurred when
they were nine years of age that startled Doris into a line of thought
that brought about a radical change in all their lives.

She was sitting in the library one stormy day, reading. The tall back of
the chair hid her from view, the fire and the book were soothing, and
the excuse--that the storm gave her the right to do what she wanted to
do, rather than what she, otherwise, might feel she should do--added to
her enjoyment.

From above she heard the voices of the children and Mary's quiet
intervention now and again.

Then Joan laughed, and the sound struck Doris as if she had never heard
it before. What a peculiar laugh it was--for a child! Silver clear,
musical, but with a note of defiance, recklessness, and yes, almost
abandon.

Joan was teasing Nancy about her dolls--Joan detested dolls, she
declared that it was their stupid stare that made her dislike them. She
only wanted live things: dogs and cats, not even birds--she was sorry
for birds. Nancy's dolls were to her "children," and she was pleading
now for an especial favourite and Joan was praying--rather
mockingly--that God would let it get smashed because of "the proud
nose."

"But God makes children's noses!" Nancy was urging.

"Well! He don't make dolls," Joan insisted, and proceeded with her
petition until Nancy's wails brought Mary upon the scene.

Doris listened. She could not hear what Mary said, but presently peace
reigned above-stairs and the pelting storm and the book resumed their
power.

It might have been a half hour later when she heard soft, stealthy
footsteps in the hall. She sat quite still, believing that one of the
children was hiding and that the other would be on the trail
immediately. The small intruder passed through the library and went into
the sunken room.

Doris, herself unseen, looked from behind her shelter and saw that it
was Joan, and before she could call to her she was held silent by what
the child proceeded to do.

Deftly, quickly she disrobed and stood in her pretty, childish nakedness
in the warm room.

For a moment she poised and listened, then she stepped over the rim of
the fountain, took the exact attitude of one of the figures, and with
rapt, upturned face became rigid.

It was wonderfully lovely, but decidedly startling. Still Doris waited.

The water dripped over the small body; Joan's lips were moving in some
weird incantation, and then with the light all gone from her pretty face
she came out of the basin, pulled her clothing on as best she could, and
flung herself tragically in a deep chair.

For a moment Doris thought the child was crying, but she was not. Her
limp little body relaxed and the eyes were sad.

Doris rose and went to the steps.

"Why are you here alone, Joan?" she asked.

Quite simple the reply came:

"I was--trying to make it come true, Auntie Dorrie," this with a
suspicious break in the voice.

"What, darling?" Doris came down and took the child in her arms.

"Mary says if you believe anything hard enough you can make it come
true. _She_ always can! I wanted to play with the fountain girls--I know
it would be beautiful--but you have to be _like them_. You have to shut
the whole world out--and then you know what they know."

"Why, little girl, do you think the fountain children are happier than
you and Nancy?"

With that groping that all mothers feel when they first confront the
_individual_ in the child they believed they knew Doris asked her
question.

"I've used Nancy and me all up!" was Joan's astonishing reply.

"All up?" the two meaningless words were the most that Doris could
grasp.

"Yes, Aunt Dorrie. Dolls and Mary's silly stories and Nancy's funny
games all over and over and over until they make me--sick!"

Joan actually looked sick, so intense was she.

"Nan is happy always, Aunt Dorrie--she's made like that--but I use
things up and then I want something else. Mary said that, honest true,
things would come if you believed hard enough. Maybe I cannot believe
hard enough--or maybe Mary didn't speak truth. She doesn't always, Aunt
Dorrie."

Doris gasped and drew the child closer. It was like being dragged, by
the little hand, to an unsuspected danger that she, not the child,
understood.

Gradually the inner side of the years was turned out by Doris's careful
questions and Joan's quiet simplicity. She revealed so much now that
she found that her view of life had a dramatic interest. It appeared,
quite innocently, that Nancy could assume any position in order to win
her way.

"She always speaks truth, Auntie Dorrie," Joan loyally defended, "but
she can make truth out of such queer things; it just _is_ truth to
Nancy, for she doesn't want to hurt people's feelings. Mary likes Nancy
best, for I cannot make truth when I want to. Aunt Dorrie--truth
is--a--_a thing_, isn't it?"

"Yes, darling. But we--we see it differently, that is all."

This was comforting to Joan, and she smiled. Then Mary again took the
centre of the stage--Mary's interpretations, all coloured with the
mystery of her desolate childhood; her old superstitions and power to
control by the magic of her imagination. There were certain tales, it
seemed, that were held as bribes. Nancy would always succumb to the
lures; Joan, only to a few.

"What are they, dear? I love fairy stories, you know."

Doris was keeping her voice cool and calm.

"Why, Mary says there is a Rock on a big mountain that is--bewitched!
And everything near it is, too. She says things grow on it and you look
at them and they are alive, and you can--can, well, use them! Mary saw a
road once and just went up on it--it was a bewitched road, and she
got--lost!" Joan's eyes widened. "Mary says she'll have to find her way
back somehow, and if Nancy and I are naughty, she'll go and find it at
once! Nancy is afraid, but I told Mary I'd follow her!

"And then Mary said that once she just longed and longed for a doll--she
had never had one--and she saw The Ship on The Rock and she went up to
it--that was before she got lost on the road--and she asked the captain
of The Ship for a doll, and he said he would send one to her. And she
went home and that very night--that _very_ night, Aunt Dorrie, she
looked in a room where she heard a funny noise and she saw a live doll!
And while she was looking she saw a tall big lady bring in another. You
see, when The Rock gets alive, everything is alive and Mary had forgot
that--and so the dolls were--were babies. Nancy believes that, but
I--tried it on Nancy's dolls--and it isn't true!"

The rain outside beat wildly against the windows; the wind lashed the
vines and roared down the chimney.

"Are--you asleep, Aunt Dorrie?" The silence awed Joan.

"No, dear heart. I am just thinking."

And so Doris was--thinking that she was walking in the dark. Her own
small flashlight had seemed enough to guide her, and here she discovered
that it had only shown her one path, the one she had chosen, and all the
other paths--Mary's, Nancy's, and Joan's--had been disregarded.

Suddenly it seemed as dangerous to have too much faith as too little.

"I want you, Joan, dear, to go up and play, now, with Nancy. See if you
cannot take all the old games and make a new one. That would be such a
pleasant thing to do."

"Must I, Auntie Dorrie? I'd rather stay here close to you. It's a new
game. I like it here."

It was hard to send the small, clinging thing away, but Doris was firm.

Once alone, she closed her eyes and let her hands fall, palms upward, on
her lap. She felt tired and perplexed. There had come a parting of the
ways. Apparently the ninth year was a dangerous year. What must she do?
Was Mary more ignorant than she seemed or--more knowing? What had Mary
known at Ridge House?

The dull, quiet girl, as Doris recalled her, seemed merely a part of the
machinery of the Sisters' Home; she had never taken her into
account--but had she been what she seemed? What was she now?

It was appalling--in the doubt as to what was, or was not--to think that
so much had been taken for granted.

The children had seemed babies. The mere physical care had been the main
consideration, and while that was going on Joan had grown weary of the
old games and Nancy had learned to gain her ends by indirect methods.

Clearly, Doris must have help at this juncture.

"I see," she thought on, heavily, "why fathers _and_ mothers are none
too many where children are concerned."

It was then that she thought of David Martin in a strangely new way--a
way that brought a faint colour to her cheeks.

All the afternoon she thought of him while she, having set Mary to other
tasks, devoted herself to Nancy and Joan. She read to them, scampered
through the house with them, did anything and everything they suggested,
until she had subdued the nervous strain and could laugh a bit at her
bugbears of the morning. Joan, flushed and towzled, Nancy, sweetly
radiant, effaced the menacing images her anxiety had created--but she
still needed help. And David Martin was the one, the only one among her
friends who seemed adequate to her need.

"I've tried to be a mother," she thought, "but I have taken the father
out of their lives--I must supply it."

When the children were in bed and the house quiet, Doris went to the
sunken room and, taking up the telephone receiver, called her number.
She was calm and at peace. She was prepared to lay the whole matter of
the past few years before David Martin, and she was conscious, already,
of relief.

"I am going to let myself--go!" she thought, her ear waiting for a
reply.

It was Martin who answered.

"David, are you quite free for an hour?"

"For the entire evening, Doris. Are the children sick?"

How like Martin that was! What most concerned and interested Doris was
first in his thought.

Doris's face twitched.

"It's my friend," she said, slowly, "that I want. Not my physician."

"I'll be there in a half hour."

The soft drip of the rain outside was soothing. So happy did Doris feel
that she wondered if her fears would not strike Martin as absurd, and
after all, why should she lay her burden of confession upon him in order
to ease her perplexity? Along this line she argued with herself while
she ordered a tray to be sent up as soon as Doctor Martin arrived.

She gave particular instructions as to the preparation of the dainties
Martin enjoyed but which no one but Doris ever set before him.

"I chose the shield of silence," she mused. "Why should I ask another to
help me with it now?"

Still, in the end, her honest soul knew that it was not help for herself
she was seeking, but guidance for the children whose best interests she
must serve.

And then, as one looks back over the path he has travelled while he
pauses before going on, Doris Fletcher saw how the love of David Martin
had been transformed for her sake into friendship that it might brighten
her way. She had never been able to give him what he desired, but so
precious was she to him--and full well she knew it--that he had become
her friend.

Out of such stuff one of two things is evolved--a resentful man, or the
most sacred thing, that can enter a woman's life, a true friend.

Martin had made a success of his profession; his unfulfilled hopes had
seemed to broaden his sympathies instead of damming them.

As the clock struck nine Martin appeared at the doorway--a tall, massive
figure, the shoulders inclined to droop as though prepared for burdens;
the eyes, under shaggy brows, were as tender as a woman's, but the mouth
and chin were like iron.

"David, it was good of you to come." Doris met him on the steps and led
him to his favourite chair, drawn close to the blazing fire.

"To take any chance leisure of yours is selfish--but I had to!"

Martin took the outstretched hands and still held them as he sat down.
After all the silent years the old thrill filled his being.

"This is a great treat," he said in his big, kind voice. "I was just
back in the office. I steered two small craft into port this
afternoon--I need a vacation."

Doris recalled how this phase of Martin's profession always exhausted
him, and she smiled gently into his eyes. Just then the tray she had
ordered was sent up. He looked at it and his tired face relaxed; the
deep eyes betrayed the boyish delight in the thought that had prompted
the act.

"You must need me pretty bad to pay so high!" he said, watching Doris
pour the thick cream into his cup of chocolate.

"I do, David, but really I'm not buying; I'm indulging myself. May I
chatter while you eat? There are three kinds of sandwiches on the plate.
Take them in turn, they are warranted to blend." Then quite suddenly:

"David, it's about the children. They are over nine. What happens,
physiologically, when children--girls--are--are nearly ten?"

"Deviltry, often. At nine they are too old to spank, too young to reason
with--it's the dangerous age, at least the outer circle of the dangerous
age." Martin tested the second sandwich.

"And the prescription? What do you prescribe for the dangerous age?"
Doris felt that it was best to edge toward the vital centre by
circuitous routes.

"Barrels and bungholes or what stands for barrels and bungholes--a good
school where a mixture of discipline with home ideals prevail. I know of
several where giddy little flappers are marvellously licked into shape
without danger of breaking. I've felt for some time that your kids
needed--well, not love and care, surely, but a practical understanding."

"Why didn't you tell me, David?"

"People never appreciate what they do not pay for. Now that you have
offered up this tribute to the animal of me, I know you are ready for
the other."

"The other, David?"

"Yes, the best of me. That always belongs to you."

This was daring, and it sent Doris to cover while she caught her breath.
David calmly ate on. After the sandwiches there was a bit of fruit cake
made from the recipe handed down from the days of Grandfather Fletcher.

"David, do you think mothers, I mean real mothers, have divine
intuitions about their children? Intuitions that, well, say, adopted
mothers never have?"

"No, I don't. The majority of mothers are vamps. They think they have a
strangle hold on their offspring; a right to mould or bully them out of
shape. The best school I know is run by a woman who says it takes her a
year to shake off the average mother; after that the child becomes an
individual and you can get a line on it."

"That's startling, David. It's hard, too, on mothers."

"Oh! I don't know. I often think if mothers could be friends to their
children, _real friends_, I mean, and not claim what no human being has
a right to claim from another, they'd reap a finer reward. I'd hate to
love a person from duty. The fifth commandment is the only one with a
promise. It needs it! What is the stuffing in this third sandwich,
Doris? It comes mighty near perfection."

"I never give away the tricks of my trade, David! And let me tell you,
you are mighty like a sandwich yourself--light and shade in layers; but
I reckon you are right about the friend part in mothers. Then, too, I
think an adopted mother has this to her credit--she doesn't dare
presume."

"No, often she bullies. She thinks she paid for the right. After all,
the best any of us can do for a child is to set it free; point out the
channels and keep the lights burning!"

"David, you are wonderful. You should have had children." The tears were
in Doris's eyes.

"Oh! I don't know--I'd have to have too many other things tacked on. All
children are mine now, in a sense."

David pushed the tray away and leaned luxuriously back in his chair.

"Now," he said, with his peculiar smile that few rarely saw, "let's have
it! The skirmish is over."

Then Doris told him--feeling her way as she poured her confession into
the ears of one who trusted her so fully and who asked so little. She
saw his startled glance when she, beginning with Meredith's death,
struck the high note of the real matter. Martin was not resenting her
past reticence, but he was taken off his guard, and that rarely happened
to him.

Once, having controlled his emotions, he was placid enough. He noted the
outstretched hands in Doris's lap and estimated her weariness and her
need of him. After all, those were the big things of the moment. In
Martin's thought any act of Doris's could easily be explained and
righted. He did not interrupt her, he even saw the humour of her account
of the scene with Thornton, years before, when she presented both
children to his horrified eyes. Martin shook with laughter, and that
trivial act did more to strengthen Doris than anything he could have
done. It relieved the tension.

"How did you manage to create the impression, among us all, that these
children are twins?" Martin, seeing that Doris had finished with the
vital matter, turned to details. "I cannot recall that you ever said
so--and there seems to be no reason why they should be twins."

"That's it, David, there never was a reason, really, and I did not
intend, at first, to give the impression--I simply said nothing. Things
like this grow in silence until they are too big to handle. It was the
telling of plain half-truths that did the mischief--and letting the
conclusions of others pass. Of course I did not hesitate with George
Thornton, he mattered; the others did not seem to count--no one but you,
David. I have felt I wronged your faith, somehow."

Martin, at this, began to defend Doris.

"Oh, I don't agree to that. It was entirely your own affair. You wrote
to me while you were away about Meredith. I realized how cut up you
were, and God knows you had reason to be. Until you needed me, I don't
see but what you had a right to act as you saw fit about the children."

"David, I always need you. It is because I need you so much that I have
decency to keep my hands off!"

Martin's brows drew close, his mouth looked stern, but he was again
controlling the old, undying longing to possess the only woman he had
ever loved, and shield her from herself!

Then he gave his prescription:

"Doris, get rid of Mary. Find a proper place for her and forget whatever
doubts you may have. Remember only her years of service; she gave the
best she had. Then send the children to Miss Phillips'. Of course, you
must write to Thornton. Tell him as much or as little as you choose.
He's rightfully in the game. We're all three playing with a dummy." How
Doris blessed Martin for that "we three!" He had come into the game and,
once in, Martin could be depended upon.

"You've run amuck among accepted codes," he was saying with that curious
chuckle of his, "and yet, by heaven! you seem to have established a
divinely inspired one for the kids."

"You think that, David? You are not trying to comfort me?"

Martin got up. He seemed suddenly in a hurry to be off. He had given
what he could to meet Doris's need--given it briefly, concisely, as was
his way.

Doris brought his coat and held it for him--her face lifted to his with
that yearning in her eyes that always unnerved him. It was the look of
one who must offer an empty cup to another who thirsted. Then she spoke,
after all the silent years:

"David, I have always loved you, but I am beginning to understand at
last about love. I had not the 'call' in my soul. Merry had it, the
mountain mother had it--but it never came to me. Without it, I dared not
offer to pay the cost of marriage. That would have been unjust to you. I
did realize that, but the deeper truth has only come recently. I wonder
if you can understand, dear, if I say now, even _now_, that I would be
glad for you to marry and be happy--as you should be?"

"Doris, I counted that all up years ago. It did not weigh against you!"
Martin's voice was husky.

"Then, David, be my friend and the friend of my little children. For
their sakes, I implore your help along the way."

Martin bent and touched his lips to Doris's head which was bowed before
him.

"Thank you," he said with infinite tenderness; "you are permitting me to
share all that you have, my dear. Good-night."




CHAPTER VII

"_To do our best is one part, but to wash our hands smilingly of the
consequences is the next part, of any sensible virtue._"


In much that frame of mind, Doris arose the day following Martin's call.

By some subtle force the debris of the past seemed to have been disposed
of; the misunderstanding on her part and David's.

"It is the 'call' that makes everything possible or tragically
wretched," she said, "and one cannot be blamed for being born deficient.
Thank God I fitted in, though, when others were called away."

With David's understanding and cooeperation the present could be
confronted and the "hand washing of consequences" undertaken.

"I have done my best," Doris felt sure of this, "_my_ best, and now I
must do a bit of trusting. It has been my one daring adventure. It must
not fail."

After many attempts she wrote and dispatched a letter to George
Thornton, simply stating that she was about to send the children to
school.

While waiting for his reply she turned her attention to Mary, for in any
case, she decided, the children must be placed in another's care. What
Mary felt when Doris explained things to her no one was ever likely to
know. The girl's face became blanker; the lines stiffened.

"It was," Doris confided later to Martin, "as if I were wiping the past
out as I spoke."

The fact was that Doris was rekindling the past--the past that lay back
of the years of plain duty.

"I have not overlooked, Mary," Doris strove to get under the crust of
reserve and find something with which to deal emotionally, "the years of
devotion to us all. You have made no social ties for yourself; have not
taken any pleasures outside--what would you like to do now, Mary?"

"Go home."

"Go--home? Why--where is home, Mary?"

The pathos struck Doris--the pathos of those who, having served others,
find themselves stranded at last.

"Down to Silver Gap." As she spoke, Mary was hearing already the sound
of the river on the rocks and seeing the spring flowers in the crevices
of the hills.

"You mean, go back to Ridge House? You could not stay there alone, Mary,
with old Jed."

Mary stared blankly--she was further back than Ridge House.

"I've been saving," she went slowly on, "all the years. I reckon I have
most enough to buy the cabin where us-all was born." The tone and words
took on the mountain touch. Doris was fascinated.

"You mean your father's old cabin?" she asked.

"Yes. It lies 'cross the river from Ridge House, and when I think of
it," a suggestion of radiance broke on Mary's face, "I get a rising in
my side. I'm aiming to get it back----"

The girl stopped short--something in her threatened to break loose.

The pause gave Doris a moment to consider. She was baffled by Mary, but
she saw clearly that the girl had but one desire.

"Mary," she said, presently, "I have always intended, when the children
no longer needed you, to give you some proof of my appreciation of all
that you have done for us. You seem to have shown me a way. You shall
have the old cabin, if it can be obtained, and it shall be made
comfortable for you. It is not so far but what you can have a little
oversight of Ridge House, too, and that will mean a great deal to me. I
am thinking of opening the house sometime."

Doris got no further for, to her astonishment, Mary rose and came
stiffly toward her. When she was near enough she reached out her hands
and said:

"God hearing me, 'I'll pay you back some day. I will; I will!"

Doris was embarrassed.

"You have paid everything you owe me, Mary," she returned, quietly. "It
is my turn now. I will see about the cabin at once."

Finally a letter came from Thornton. A dictated letter.

He was about to leave for South Africa and would be gone perhaps several
years.

He left everything in Doris's capable hands!

Again Doris took breath for the next stretch of the long way.

And Joan and Nancy went to Dondale and Miss Phillips.

It was a hard break for them all and was taken characteristically. Joan,
tear-stained and quivering, set her face to the change and excitement
with unmistakable delight. Nancy was frightened into silent but smiling
acquiescence. She expected, she told Joan, that it would kill her, but
she would not make Aunt Dorrie feel any worse than she did by showing
what she felt! At this Joan tossed her head and sent two large tears
rolling down her cheeks.

"None of us will die, Nan. We all _feel_ deathly, but this is--life."

At ten Joan had a distinct comprehension of the difference between
living and life. To a certain extent you controlled the former; the
latter "got you."

"I--I don't want life," wailed Nancy, "I want Aunt Dorrie."

"But life--wants you!"

Somewhere Joan had heard that, or read it--the old library was no hidden
place to her--and she brought it forth now with emphasis.

Nancy made no reply. In that mood Joan would show no mercy. It was when
she was suffering the most that Joan could harden and frighten Nancy.
She was lashing herself to duty when she sent the whip cracking.

Martin accompanied Doris to Dondale. He was "Uncle David" to the
children and part of their happy lives.

"Take--take good care of Aunt Dorrie," Nancy pleaded with him at
parting, her poor little face distorted by the effort she was making.

"You bet!" Martin bent and kissed the child. He approved of Nancy.
Martin could never patiently endure complications, and Nancy was simple
and direct. Joan was another matter. At the last she was in high
spirits.

"It's going to be great," she whispered to Doris. "All the girls and the
new games and the comings home for holidays and--and everything."

It was after they were alone that Nancy called down extra suffering upon
herself.

"Aunt Dorrie will think you did not care, Joan, and Uncle David scowled.
You make people think queer things about you."

Joan turned and fixed Nancy with flaming eyes.

"I want Aunt Dorrie to think everything is all right--you didn't! You
did not cheat her. I did--for her sake."

"Perhaps," Nancy sometimes struck a high note, unsuspectingly, "perhaps
Aunt Dorrie would rather _have_ you care."

Joan regarded her intently and then replied:

"Well, then, you're all right, Nan!"

The tone, more than the words, stung Nancy. It hurt her to have any one
misunderstand, but it often occurred to her that it hurt more to be
understood!

In the train en route to New York Doris sat very quiet, thinking of the
two little faces she was leaving--forever! It amounted to that--as every
woman knows.

Nothing but their faces held as the miles were dashed past--faces that
portrayed the spiritual essence of the old, dear years--faces that would
turn, from now on, to others, and take on new expressions, bear the mark
of another's impress.

"Well, thank heaven," Doris presently broke out, "I haven't been a vamp
mother, David."

Martin came from behind his newspaper.

"And because of that, Doris," he said, "you will have those girls coming
back to you. They will want to come." He was thinking of Nancy.

"Yes. I have a sure feeling about that." Then: "How splendid it was of
Joan to act as she did! She'd rather we thought her hard than to let us
see her pain."

Martin stared. "You mean Nancy?" he asked.

"No. Nan, bless her, cannot disguise herself, but Joan can! Joan will
suffer through her strength."

The period, always a dangerous one, the year following school life,
became Doris's great concern while the school time progressed in orderly
fashion under Miss Phillips's guidance.

"I am keeping my hands off," Doris often confided to Martin. "It is only
fair play while the children are at Dondale. You were right--Miss
Phillips is a wonderful woman--I have learned to trust her absolutely.
She has appreciated what I tried to do for the girls; is building on it;
she will return them to me--not different, but--extended! It's the time
after, David, that I am planning. That time which is the link between
restraint and the finding of one's self."

"I declare," Martin would reply to this, "I wonder that you ever get
results, Doris; you harvest while others are sowing."

But deep in us all is the current carrying on and on, and it was
hurrying Doris during the years while the girls were at Dondale.

There were the happy vacations, the new interests, the marvel of
watching the miracle of evolution from the child to the woman. At times
this was breathlessly exciting.

Doris filled her private time with useful and enjoyable hours. She got
into closer touch with old friends, saw and heard the best in music and
drama, permitted herself the luxury of David Martin's friendship, and
shared his confidences about his sister's son in the Far West--a
fatherless boy who promised much but often failed in fulfilment.

"Odd, isn't it, Davey," Doris sometimes said, "that you and I, having,
somehow, lost what is the commonplace road for most men and women, have
been called upon to assume many of the joys and sorrows of that broad
highway?"

"We none of us go scot free," Martin returned. "I'm grateful for every
decent, common job thrown at me."

And so the years passed and Doris had outlined a vague but comprehensive
line of action for the immediate months following the girls' graduation
from Dondale.

"I am going to take them abroad," she announced to Martin; "take them
over the route that Merry and I took--our last journey together. And,
David, in that little Italian town they shall know--about Meredith and
Thornton!"

David started, but made no remark.

"And when we return," Doris went on, "I am going to bring the girls
out--I hate the term, I'd rather say let them out--just as Merry and I
were, in this dear, old house. Mrs. Tweksbury and I have planned rather
a brilliant campaign."

And then came that bleak March day--Joan and Nancy were to graduate in
June--when the hurrying undercurrent in Doris Fletcher's life brought
her to a sharp turn in the stream.

She was sitting in the pleasant old room before a freshly made fire; the
fountain trickled and splashed, the birds sang, defying the outdoor
gloom and chill, and a letter from Miss Phillips lay upon her lap--a
letter that had made her smile then frown. She took it up and read it
again.

"I am deeply interested in your nieces," so Miss Phillips wrote;
"naturally a woman dealing, as I have for years, with youth in the
making, is both blunted and sharpened. Young girls fall into types--are
comfortably classified and regulated for the most part. Occasionally,
however, the rule has its exceptions."

Then Miss Phillips expatiated for a page or so, in her big, forceful
handwriting, on Nancy's beauty, sweetness, and charm.

"A fine, feminine creature, my dear Miss Fletcher. A girl I am proud to
refer to as one of mine; a girl to carry on the traditions of such a
family as yours--a lovely, young American woman!"

This was what brought the smile, but as Doris turned over the sheet the
smile departed; a grave expression took its place.

"You and I are progressive women," so the new theme began; "we know the
game of life. We know that where we once played straight whist we now
play bridge, but we are fully aware that the fundamentals are the same.

"And now I must explain myself. For a young girl with the prospects that
Joan has her mental equipment is a handicap rather than an asset. She
does everything too well--except the drudgery of the class room, she has
managed to endure that, and with credit, but everything else she
accomplishes with distinction. She lacks utterly any suggestion of
amateurishness!

"I hope you will understand. This would be splendid if she, like Sylvia
Reed, for instance, had to look to her wits to solve her life problems;
but it will distract her along the path of obvious demands.

"She, I repeat, does everything too well. She dances with inspiration;
nothing less. She sings with spirit and originality; she acts almost
unbelievably well and she wins, without effort, the admiration and
affection of all with whom she comes in contact. I speak thus openly and
intimately to you, Miss Fletcher, because, frankly, Joan puzzles me--she
always has."

The letter dropped again on Doris's lap. Yes, Doris Fletcher did
understand. She saw Joan, not as she was, a tall young creature
radiantly facing life, but as a tired little child in this very room
stepping' defeated from the fountain, because she could not make her
desires come true! She was listening to the old plaint: "I have used the
old games--I want something new!"

Yes, Doris understood, and sitting alone, she vowed that Joan should not
be defrauded of her own, by misdirected love, prejudice, or luxury.

"She shall have her chance!"

Then it was that something happened. Things--stopped!

For a moment Doris was conscious of making an effort to set them going
again. She glanced at the clock--that had stopped! The fountain no
longer played; nor did the birds sing!

A black silence presently engulfed the whole world. At last Doris opened
her eyes--or had they been open during the eternity when nothing had
occurred? She glanced at the clock, a trivial thing against the carving
of the wall, but upon whose face Truth sat faithfully. Two hours had
passed since she had noticed the clock before!

"But--I have been thinking a long time, planning for the children;
reading the letter----" Doris sought to establish a normal state of
affairs--she saw the letter lying at her feet, but did not bend to pick
it up.

"Only a faint. But I have never fainted before!" she thought on.

She was not frightened, not even excited. She felt as if she had simply
come upon something that she had always known was on the road ahead
awaiting her. She had come upon it sooner than she had expected to, that
was all. She did not want to pass into the silence again if she could
help it, so she lay back in the chair quietly, guardedly, and waited.

Then she heard steps. Outside the family only one person came
unannounced to the sunken room and gladly, thankfully, Doris turned her
eyes and met David Martin's as he paused at the doorway above.

Martin had himself in control before Doris noticed the fear in his eyes.
He came slowly to her, sat down beside her and, while simply taking her
hand in greeting, let his trained touch fall upon her pulse. It told him
the dread secret, but it did not shatter his calm--he even smiled into
the pale face and said lightly:

"Well, what have you been trying to do?"

Doris told him, without emotion, what had occurred. She did not remove
her hand from his--his touch comforted her; held her to the things she
knew and loved and trusted.

"And now, David," she said at last, "I think we have both known that
some day this would occur. We are too good friends to be anything but
frank--I am not afraid, and it is essential that I should know the
truth. The family ogre has caught me--but it has not conquered me yet!"

"Well, Doris--it is the first call!" The man's words hurt like a knife
turned upon himself.

"I feared so--and I am forty-nine."

"A mere child, my dear, if we deal honestly with the fact. Your father
was fifty-five and might have lived to be seventy if he had stopped in
time. Your grandfather----"

"Never mind, David, let's keep to me. How much longer--have I?"

"No man on earth could tell you that, my dear, but I hope--always
granting that you will be wise--that you may count on, say, twenty
years."

They both smiled. After all, what did it matter?

"And--what do you suggest I should do--as a beginning of the--twenty
years?"

"Close this house, Doris, and start another kind of existence--somewhere
else."

"Why, David--I must bring the girls out, you know. They must not be
told--of this."

"They need be told only what you choose to have them know, but as to the
bringing-out farce--that's rot! Those girls will get out by one door or
another, never fear. _You_ are to be kept in--that's the important thing
at present."

"Dear old David!" Doris's eyes dimmed as she looked at the kind face
bending over the hands lying limp, now, on her lap. She noticed that
there was white on the temple where the dark hair had turned; the heavy
shoulders were bent permanently. She longed to do something more for
David during the next--twenty years!

"You must not give way, Doris. A change is good for us all." Martin
noted the tears in the eyes holding his own, but he did not understand
their source.

"I am afraid the girls will be so disappointed," was what Doris said.

"Pampered creatures! It will do them good. But Nancy will love it and
Joan can kick the traces if she wants to--that will do her good."
Martin leaned back and crossed his legs in the old boyish way.

"What will Nancy love, David?"

"Why, the out-of-door country life. She's that kind. Flowers and animals
and quiet."

"Country life?" Doris sat up. "But, David, I could not stand country
life, myself. I love to look at the country, listen to it, play with
it--but I am a citizen to the core. It is simply impossible. One has to
be born with the country in his blood to be part of it."

It was like pleading with the stern expression on Martin's face.

He was not apparently listening, and when he spoke he carried on his own
thought:

"Queer how things dovetail. We drop a stitch and then go back and pick
it up--now there is that place of yours, down South, Ridge House!"

Doris's face twitched and then, because she was in that state closely
bordering upon the unknown, that state open to impressions and
suggestions from sources outside the explainable, Silver Gap seemed to
open alluringly to her imagination. It _was_ like a dropped stitch to be
taken up and woven into the pattern!

She suddenly felt that she had always known she must go back. It was
like the heart trouble--a thing on her road! Doris smiled and David
patted her hands.

"That's the way it strikes me," he said, quite as if he were gaining
his inspiration whence hers came. "After you told me about the--the
children, you know, Doris, years ago, I went down there and gave the
place a look-over. The South always affects me like a--well, a lotus
flower--sleeping but filled with wonderful dreams. It gets me! Why,
after seeing Ridge House I even went so far as to buy a piece of land
known as Blowing Rock Clearing. I've planned, if that scamp of a nephew
of mine ever develops into a sawbones, to leave him in charge here and
go down South myself and put up a shack on my clearing." Martin was
watching Doris now from under his brows; he was talking against the
silence that might engulf her again; seeking to hold her to a future
that he had been vaguely considering in the past. He thankfully saw her
interest growing.

"You did that, David--how like you!"

The tears still came easily to Doris's eyes.

"Oh, well, I have a thrifty streak, and I hated to see a property like
Ridge House lie fallow. It's great. The buying of Blowing Rock was pure
Yankee sense of a bargain. But you see how it all works out. You'll have
the time of your life developing your holdings and, at odd moments, I
can start my shack. Look upon the change as an adventure--nothing
permanent. In a year or so you may be able to spend most of the time on
pavements--though why in God's name you want to is hard to imagine."

Doris was smiling.

"But the girls!" she faltered.

"Forget them. Give them a chance to think of you. Take them abroad--that
will be good for you all, but in the autumn, Doris, go South! You must
escape next winter."




CHAPTER VIII

"_One is assured that there is a Power that fights with us against the
confusion and evil of the world._"


The warm June sunlight lay over the broad lawns and meadows of Dondale;
it touched with luring power the buds to blossom and, by its tricks of
magic, girlhood to womanhood.

Only a month ago Joan and Nancy Thornton and those who, with them, were
about to leave Miss Phillips's school, had seemed little girls, but now
they were changed. There was a gravity when they looked back at the
safe, happy years that not even the glory of the future could dispel.

They were eager to go forward but were half afraid.

Joan and Nancy had left the others and walked across the lawn and were
sitting on a vine-covered wall under a noble magnolia tree. Nancy was
still sweetly fair and she had not outgrown the childish outline of
cheek and chin, the pretty droop of the left eyelid, and the quick habit
of smiling. She was tall and slim and graceful and bore herself with a
touching dignity that was as unconscious as it was distinguished.

Nature had not arrived yet with Joan. She was still in the making, and
the best that could be said for her was that she was undergoing the
ordeal with bewitching charm.

The dusky hair was filled with life and light; the eyes were
yellow-brown and dark-lashed; the skin was creamy and smooth and the
features irregular--eyes and mouth a bit prominent in the thin face.
Joan was thin, not slim. You were conscious of her bones--but they were
pretty bones, and every muscle of her lithe young body was as flexible
and strong as a boy's. She could change from awkwardness to grace by a
turn of thought. Joan was subject to outside control, while Nancy seemed
possessed by innate inheritance. Both girls were in white, and while
Nancy's appearance was immaculate, Joan's was suggestive of
indifference.

"It is wonderful--this going abroad," Joan was saying while her long,
supple fingers wove the stems of daisies into an intricate pattern. "And
to go to that little Italian town where mother was married! Nan, I'm
going to know all about mother and father this summer."

Nancy's head was lifted slightly, and her cool blue eyes fixed
themselves upon Joan. There was no doubt about the colour of Nancy's
eyes--they were blue.

"I do hope, Joan," she said, "that you are not going to spoil everything
by making Aunt Dorrie uncomfortable. If she has not told us things, it
is because she thinks best not to."

"But it's getting on my nerves, Nan. It's ominous. Maybe there is
a--a--tragedy in our young lives"--Joan dramatically set her words into
comedy--"a dark past. How I would adore that!"

"I would loathe it!" Nancy murmured, "and there couldn't be. I know
there is only a deep sadness. I wouldn't hurt Aunt Dorrie by--by
unearthing it."

"Nan," here Joan pointed her finger, "do you know a blessed thing about
your father? I don't!"

Nancy flushed, but made no reply.

"There's where the secret lies--I feel it in my blood!" Joan shuddered
and Nancy laughed. "It didn't seem to matter until _now_, but, Nan,
we're women at last!"

"Of course," Nancy spoke, "I have thought of that. The best families
have such things in them--but they don't talk about them. Now that we
are women we must act like women--such women as Aunt Dorrie."

"Nan, you're a snob. A pitiful, beautiful little snob!" Joan wafted a
kiss. "Your prettiness saves you. If you had a turned-up nose you'd be
an abomination."

"You have no right to call me a snob, Joan!" Nancy's fair face flushed.

"Did I call you a snob, Nan, dear?"

"Yes, you did. It's not being a snob to be true to oneself." Nancy put
up her defences.

"I should say not," Joan agreed, but she laughed.

"Just think of all that Aunt Dorrie represents!" Nancy went on. "She's
all that her father and her grandfather----"

"And her grandmothers," Joan broke in, "made her! Just think of it! And
you and I must carry on the tradition--at least _you_ must--I'm afraid
I'll have to be a quitter. It makes me too hot."

"You'll never be a quitter, you splendid Joan!" Nancy turned her face to
Joan---- the old love had grown with the years, "You _are_ splendid,
Joan--everyone adores you."

But Joan did not seem to hear. Suddenly she said:

"Now do you know, Nan, I hate to go across the ocean this summer. It
seems such a waste of time. I am eager to begin."

"Begin what, Joan?"

"Begin to live."

"You funny Joan, what have you been doing since you were born?"

"Waking up, Nan, and stretching and learning to stand alone. I'm ready
now to--to walk. I dare say I'll wobble, but--I don't care--I want to
begin."

A sense of danger filled Nancy--she often felt afraid of Joan, or _for_
Joan, she was not sure which it was.

"I think you'll do nothing that will trouble and disappoint Aunt
Dorrie," she said, using the weapon of the weak.

"I think Aunt Dorrie would want me to--to live my life," Joan returned.

"Oh! of course, she'd let you--go. That's Aunt Dorrie's idea of justice.
But we have no right to impose on it. People may be willing to suffer,
but that's no excuse for making them suffer." Nancy did battle with the
fear that was in her--her fear that Joan might escape her, and now, as
in the old days, Nancy felt that play lost its keen zest when Joan
withdrew.

Joan made no reply. She looked very young with the sunlight flooding
over her. Her eyes wide apart, her short upper lip and firm, little
round chin were almost childlike when in repose, and her heavy hair rose
and fell in charming curves as the breeze stirred it.

"Joan, what do you want to do, really?" Nancy dropped from her perch
beside Joan and came close, leaning against the swinging feet as if to
stay their restlessness.

"Oh! I don't know--but something real; something like a beginning, not
just a carrying on. I want to dig out of me what is in me
and--and--offer it for sale!" Joan leaned back perilously and laughed at
her own folly and Nancy's shocked face.

"Of course, I may not have anything anybody wants," she went on, "but
I'll never be able to settle down and be comfy until I _know_. Having a
rich somebody behind you is--is--the limit!" she flung out, defiantly.

"I don't know what you mean, Joan." Nancy was aghast. The fear within
her was taking shape; it was like a shrouded figure looming up ready to
cast off its disguise.

"Of course you don't, you blessed little snow-child!"--the laugh struck
rudely on Nancy's discomfort--"why should you; why should any one in
this--this factory where we've all been cut in the same shape? We're all
going to be let out of here to--to be married! They've never taken me
in."

"Oh, Joan!" Nancy looked about nervously. Of course every girl had this
ideal in her brain, but she was not supposed to express it--except
vicariously in the charm-lure.

"It's all right, this marrying," Joan went calmly on. "I want to myself,
some day, it's splendid and all that--but something in me wants to fly
about alone first."

"You're silly, Joan."

"I suppose I am, snow-child. I suppose I'll get frightfully snubbed some
day and come back glad enough to trot along with the rest--but oh! it
must be sublime to have the chance a boy has. He can have
everything--even the try if he _is_ rich--and then he knows what he's
worth. Why, Nancy, I am going to say something awful now--so hold close.
I want to know what my dancing is worth, and my singing, and my making
believe. I feel so powerful sometimes and then again--I am weak as--as a
shadow!"

"Oh! Joan do be careful--you'll fall over the wall."

Nancy flung her arms about Joan, who had tilted backward as she
portrayed her state of weakness.

"You frighten me, Joan, and besides you have no right to disappoint Aunt
Dorrie, and if she should hear you talk she'd be shocked!"

"I wonder," mused Joan, "she is so understanding. I wonder. But come,
Nan, dear, I must go practise the thing I'm to sing at Commencement, and
I have a perfectly new idea for a dance on Class Day."

David Martin and Doris were never to forget the impression Joan made on
the two occasions when she stood forth alone, during the Commencement
week, like a startling and unique figure, with the background of lovely
young girlhood. No one resented her conspicuousness. All gloried in it.
They clapped and cheered her on--she was their Joan, the idol of the
years which she had made vital and electric by her personality.

She danced on Class Day a wonderful dance that she had originated
herself.

Nancy played her accompaniment, keeping her fascinated gaze upon Joan
while her fingers touched the keys in accord with every movement.

Lightly, bewilderingly, the gauzy, green-robed figure was wafted here,
there, everywhere, under the broad elms, apparently on Nancy's tune. She
was a leaf, a petal of a flower, a creature born of light and air.

People forgot they were performing a stilted duty at a school
function--they were frankly delighted and appreciative. Joan rose to the
homage and, at such moments, she was beautiful with a beauty that did
not depend upon feature or colouring.

But it was when she sang on Commencement Day that she achieved her
triumph.

Martin was watching Doris closely. She had had no return of her March
illness; she never spoke of it, nor did he, but for that very reason
Martin kept a more rigid guard upon any excitement. There was that in
Doris's face which, to his trained eye, was significant. It was as if
she had been touched by a passing frost. She had not withered, but she
was changed. The time of blight might be soon or distant, but the frost
had fallen on the woman's life.

It was when Joan had finished her song that Martin took Doris from the
hall.

It happened this way:

The flower-banked platform was empty until the accompanist--it was a
young professor, this time, not Nancy--came on.

The audience waited politely; the rows of girlish faces were turned
expectantly, and then Joan entered!

Without a trace of self-consciousness she looked at her friends--they
were all her friends--with that sweet confidence and understanding of
the true artist. The dainty loose gown covered any angle that might have
proved unlovely, and Joan was at one of her rarely beautiful moments.

She stood at ease while the first notes were played--she appeared
suddenly detached, and then she sang.

It was an old English ballad, quaint and rollicking:

      "I'll sail upon the Dog-star,
    I'll sail upon the Dog-star,
      And then pursue the morning
    And then pursue, and then pursue the morning.

      "I'll chase the moon, till it be noon,
    I'll chase the moon, till it be noon,
      But I'll make her leave her horning.

      "I'll climb the frosty mountain,
    I'll climb the frosty mountain,
      And there I'll coin the weather.

    "I'll tear the rainbow from the sky
      And tie both ends together."

The ringing girlish voice rose high and true and clear.

"Bravo!" cried a man's voice and then:

"And she'll do it, too!"

It was at this point that Martin took Doris from the room.

In the quiet of the deserted piazza Doris looked up at Martin through
tears.

"Joan is feeling her oats." Martin walked to and fro; he had been more
moved by the song than he cared to confess.

"The darling!" Doris whispered. Then: "Can't you see what Miss Phillips
meant, Davey? The child is talented--she shall never be held back.
Wealth can be as cruel and crippling as poverty. Be prepared, David, I
mean to let Joan--free."

Martin came close and sat down.

"Go easy, Doris," he cautioned, then asked: "And how about Nancy?"

"David, I'm going to tell Nancy, after we come home from Europe--not
all, of course, but enough to make her understand--about me! I cannot
quite explain, but I am sure I am right in my decision. Nancy, indeed
all of us, will, sooner or later, have to let Joan go! I saw that
clearly as she sang. I must fill Nancy's life and she must make up to me
what I am about to lose. David, is this what mothers feel?"

"Some of them, Doris. The best of them. I'm glad to see you game."

"Oh! yes. I'm glad, too--for Joan's sake. I will be giving Nancy her
best and surest happiness--with me, but not Joan. And so, David, Joan
must not have the slightest inkling--she must go, when her time comes,
unhampered. You, Nancy, and I must contribute that to her future."

Martin saw that Doris was still trembling, she was excited, too, in her
controlled way. He was anxious.

"You're seeing things in broad daylight, Doris. Why, my dear, both the
girls will be snapped up before any of us catch our breaths. That is
what Miss Phillips' is for. Training for fine American wives and
mothers. A good job, too."

Doris smiled and shook her head. Then she said suddenly:

"David, the old spectre stalks! It seems as if I ought to know, as if
the knowledge were right here, to-day."

"Come, come, now Doris! If you do not quiet down I'm going to pack you
off to the hotel. Why, see here, the kids have not revealed themselves.
You're lashing yourself about nothing. Can you not reason it out this
way----"

Martin sat close to the couch upon which Doris half reclined; he was
almost praying that Joan would have a dozen encores--by request,
apparently, she was again chasing the rainbow on her Dog-star.

"The inheritance, I mean. For I see it is that that is clutching you. My
work brings me close to primitive things--I believe in inheritance down
to the roots--but by heaven, we inherit from the ages, not from our next
of kin alone. Each son and daughter of us comes into port with load
enough to crush us, and if we kept it all we'd go under. We shuffle off
a lot. It is the ability to shuffle, the opportunity to shuffle that
counts. Why, look here, Doris----"

And Doris was looking, holding with all her strength to the man's words.

"That little mountain woman had more daring and courage, according to
what you told me, than poor Merry ever had. She cut a wider circle, got
more out of life, I bet, went out of it more satisfied. Her child, with
your help, could develop into something mighty worth while for she
wouldn't have so much to overcome at the start. On the other hand,
Meredith's child would have to blaze her own trail, as far as any
guidance from her mother is concerned. Can't you see, that's where
inheritance plays the devil with hasty conclusions?"

Doris drew a long breath and sat up. She was seeking to hold to what she
could not see.

"David," she whispered, "is it the knowing, or the not knowing? Could I
have helped more wisely had I not shirked the truth? In there, a moment
ago, it was as if Meredith were demanding. Oh! youth is awful in its
possibilities of success or failure."

Martin was seriously alarmed. He had never seen Doris so shaken, but he
talked on, seeking by a show of calmness to disarm her fears.

"It's the ability to shuffle off inheritance that counts, Doris. You
have given these girls the strength and opportunity--to shuffle. Now, my
dear, be sensible. It is up to the girls and they're all right. Hold
firm to your own belief, Doris. It's about to be proved."

"Hear them." Doris dropped back. "They are still applauding Joan."

The next few months Doris always looked back upon as a connecting
stretch of road between what she had but faintly feared and what became
assured.

From the day Joan graduated she became the dominant influence in what
followed, and Nancy, being non-resistant, was engulfed in the general
rush of affairs; was absorbed and smilingly played her part as once she
had played Joan's accompaniment.

Joan was not more selfish than the young generally are; she had hours of
noble self-renunciation and generosity. Her ego was well developed, but
it never drove her cruelly.

Doris justified what happened, when she took time to consider, by her
determination to be fair to both girls and then, unconsciously focussing
on Joan because Joan was always in evidence. The girl's vitality and
joyousness were unfailing. Everything was of interest, and she seemed to
gather the flowers of life not so much for her own enjoyment as for the
glory of shedding them on others. That is what disarmed people--this
lavishness of the girl. She gave spice to life, and that has its value.
If Nancy ever knew the natural desire to shine in her own light, not
Joan's, she smilingly hid it--not even Doris suspected it.

After Nancy was made to understand her aunt's state of health--and it
was, in the end, Martin who informed her--she rose superbly to what
offered, poor child, an opportunity peculiarly her own. To her was given
the sacred duty of watching the one she loved best in the world; of
warding off anything that threatened her peace and comfort. Here were
power and authority and, though no one suspected, she would rule in her
narrow, detached kingdom. Nothing should defeat her. They should all
look to her!

Almost fiercely Nancy undertook her silent task. She smiled, she learned
new subtleties; she soon became the pretty barrier between Doris and any
troubling thing.

With her half-afraid glance fixed upon the dazzling Joan, it was small
wonder that Doris fell into the trap set for her by Martin and Nancy.

She took the girls abroad--or was it Joan that led the way? She
considered, after reaching the little Italian town from which she had
seen Meredith depart, how best to speak of Thornton. She got so far as
the telling of Meredith's wedding in the unchanged chapel on the hill
when Joan startled her by asking quite as a matter of course:

"Is our father still alive?"

Nancy turned pale and shrank before the question, but she saw that the
cool tone had controlled the situation. Doris looked relieved instead of
shocked.

"We've often talked of it, Nan and I," Joan proceeded; "it did not seem
very vital one way or the other until now."

"As far as I know," Doris was surprised at her own calmness, "he is
still alive."

"I'm glad of that," Joan remarked, and there was a glint in her eyes.
"I'd hate to have him dead--just now."

Quite without reason Doris laughed. After all, what she had conjured up
as a ghost was turning into a human possibility. It was never to
frighten her in the future. Joan had felled the spectre by her first
stroke.

Then Nancy spoke:

"I never want to hear his name again," she said, firmly, relentlessly.

Doris looked at her in amazement. Later she confided to Joan her
surprise.

"I did not know the child had such sternness."

Joan shrugged her shoulders and smiled.

"Nan is like a rock underneath, Aunt Dorrie," she said. "I suppose it
is--what shall I say?--blood! It is concentrated in Nan. She's like
you. Disgrace, or what seemed like disgrace, would kill her--it would
make me fight!"

And after that conversation all inclination to confide further in the
girls as to their relationship or lack of it deserted Doris.

She saw a new cause for caution and went back to the stand she had taken
when the children were babies--but with far less courage.

"When they marry, of course, it must be told."

Doris returned to New York in September, and after a fortnight in which
she closed the old house and made arrangements for the servants, she was
so exhausted that she gladly turned her face southward.

Nancy, already, was her mainstay. The girl had apparently got under the
burden, and held it secure on her firm, young shoulders. She developed
initiative and the healing touch. No one disputed her where Doris was
concerned, and Martin grimly accepted her as the most necessary thing in
the hope that lay in Ridge House.

Their appearance there was marked by two incidents that Doris alone
heeded.

First was the effect Nancy had upon Jed.

The man stared at the girl as if he saw a ghost. Like the very old, his
real sensations lay in the past. Nancy stirred him strangely. The
emotion was like a warm ray of sunlight striking in a dark place. Doris
watched him with interest and concern; but Jed had no words with which
to enlighten her. He only smiled wider, more often, and took to
following Nancy like a wavering, distorted shadow.

The second incident was Mary.

From her cabin across the river she had manipulated the arrangements at
Ridge House so perfectly that the machinery was oiled and running when
the family arrived.

Mary was more reserved, more self-contained than she had ever been, but
again, as Martin said to Doris, she must be judged by what she did, not
by what she suggested, and she had accomplished marvels not only at the
old place, but in her cabin across The Gap. In her once-deserted home
Mary had contrived to resurrect all the ideals that had perished with
her forebears. The rooms shone and glittered; the garden throve; and
Mary spun and wove and designed and made money. She was respected,
feared, and secretly believed to be "low-down mean," but calmly she went
her way.

What she knew lay buried in her stern reserve, and she saw a great deal.

She saw at once what had occurred since she left her years of service.
Mary no longer served--she ruled.

She saw that Joan, as she had given promise of doing, was controlling
the forces of her small world. Doing it as once she had done it in the
nursery, with a radiant witchery that had gained its ends with all but
Mary herself!

While Mary's eyelids drew together, she focussed through the narrow
slits upon Joan and with a hot, deep resolve she took up cudgels for
Nancy.

And she bided her time.

Back and forth from her cabin to the big house she walked daily, and to
Mary's cabin Nancy, presently, went--for comfort and inspiration, though
she did not realize it.

Often, unknown to others, the two would sit near the fire, making a
vivid picture. Mary in her plaid cotton gown, bent over her folded arms,
swaying to and fro, making few comments but conscious of being
understood. Nancy, fair and lovely, speaking more openly to the plain,
silent woman near her than she had ever spoken to any earthly being and
feeling, under her sweet unconsciousness, the underlying confidence.

"Of course," she once whispered to Mary, "I would love all the things
that Joan loves and wants, but my duty to Aunt Dorrie is bigger than
they, Mary. I am sure if Joan saw things as I do, she would act as I am
acting. But we are keeping Joan from knowing."

"Why?" The sharp word startled Nancy--was Mary disapproving?

"Aunt Dorrie and Uncle David think best, Mary."

Mary touched upon the hidden hardness in Nancy's softness and
retreated.

And during that red-and-gold autumn, their first in The Gap, Doris was
soothed strangely to a state of perfect relaxation--a state not pleasing
to Joan, and rather puzzling to David Martin, who postponed a proposed
trip to the West until he felt sure of Doris's health. It seemed that,
having dropped the old life, Doris was not merely willing to step into a
new one--she was drifting in. Without resistance she floated. She would
lie for a whole afternoon on the porch watching the play of colour on
The Rock. She smiled, recalling, rather vaguely to be sure, the
superstitions concerning The Rock.

It was all delightfully restful and beautiful and not a care in the
world!

Mary and Nancy saw to every detail. Joan was frankly interested in every
phase of the experience. "It might be," mused Doris from her pillows,
"that having left everything to that Power that does control, I am to
have my heart's deep desire--keep both Joan and Nancy!"




CHAPTER IX

"_I count life just a stuff to try the Soul's strength on. Learn, nor
count the pang; dare, never grudge the throe._"


No one but Mary, apparently, saw what was to happen. It was the old
nursery problem re-acted.

Joan had tired of her game, had used all the material at hand, and was
burning to be on the adventurous trail.

The old restlessness and defiance were singing in the girl's blood;
mockery rang in her voice and that wonderful laugh of hers. She was
about to smash into the safe joyousness of things as they were! She
threatened Nancy's toys. And Mary, alone, took heed. Joan herself was
unconscious. She always was of her changing mood; she simply realized
that she was lost; somehow, astray.

And Nancy, looking mutely in Mary's eyes, seemed to say:

"It will all be so lonely; so terrible with Joan gone!"

That was it. The old fear of, or for, Joan had materialized--it was Life
with Joan left out!

"And why should one have so much and the other so little?" asked Mary of
that deep knowledge in her busy brain. "Why shouldn't they share
alike--and twins at that!"

Then Mary stopped short in her thinking. Her own words took her back,
back to a dark night--she was peering, aided by a dim light from within,
at a baby lying in the arms of----

Mary drew her breath sharp; her thin, flat bosom heaved and her fingers
clutched her gown.

David Martin had so far classified his perplexity concerning Doris as to
name it "Southern fever."

"Hookworm?" Joan broke in gleefully.

Martin frowned but did not reply.

"Doris," he turned to the couch, "I must go out West." She understood.
Martin never spoke openly about his family affairs. Until he was surer
of that nephew of his he kept him in the background.

"Yes, David." Doris smiled up at him.

"I want you to promise me that you will take more exercise!" Martin
said.

"Why, certainly, David, but I thought you wanted me to--to rest."

"I do--but you are rested. I do not want you to enjoy resting. It's
dangerous."

"Oh! bully for you, Uncle David," Joan broke in, delightedly, "Aunt
Dorrie is just plain flopping and Nan and Mary are abetting her."

For some reason Martin turned to Joan, not Nancy who was standing
patiently by.

"Joan, get your aunt on horseback--lead up to it, of course--and go
slow."

"But--Uncle David----" Nancy drew near. Her kingdom was threatened.

"My dear," Martin always melted to Nancy, "after Joan gets her on
horseback, _you_ ride with her."

And so Doris got off her couch, rather dazedly, as one thinking his legs
have been shot off finds them still attached to him.

She had been actually letting go! She, of all people, and just when
there was so much to do--so long as she had strength to do it!

It was December when Martin started for the West and Joan's restlessness
gained power.

Christmas rather eased the situation, for with it Father Noble appeared.

He startled Doris as Uncle Jed had, by his persistence.

"They cannot be as old as they look," she concluded, and gladly entered
into all the plans for carrying sunshine and joy into the deep places of
the hills.

"Dear me, dear me!" explained Father Noble, whose memory of her was so
blurred that Doris did not venture to refer to it in detail; "I thought
when the Sisters went away this beautiful old house would fall into
disuse. It is a great happiness to feel its welcome once more."

Then the old man raised his hat from his silvered head and, standing so
in the doorway, besought a blessing "on them who waited but to do His
will."

Joan and Nancy rode with him back into the clearings; they revelled in
it all and carried out every suggestion offered. They learned, through
Father Noble's interpretation, to ignore the stolid indifference of the
people; they played for, not with, the shy children, and distributed
marvellous toys that were limply held in small hands that were yet to
learn the blessed sense of ownership.

"When you are gone," Father Noble explained and chuckled delightedly,
"they will watch the trails for your coming back. They never forget;
they are worth the saving--but one must have faith and patience."

Then January settled down in The Gap. The short days were full of clouds
and shadows; the river ran sullenly, and with greater need for sympathy
Joan made ready to demolish Nancy's toys. She came into the living room
one morning in her riding togs. She was splashed with mud and her face
was dull except for the wide, burning eyes.

Nancy was weaving at the window--Mary had taught her, and she gave the
impression, sitting there, of having looms in her blood.

Around the fire lay four hound puppies--they had taken the place of
dolls in Nancy's affections. As Joan entered the dogs raised their
absurd heads and with their flappy ears and padded paws patted the floor
in welcome.

"Where is Aunt Dorrie?" asked Joan, poising herself on the arm of a deep
chair.

"In the chapel," Nancy replied, bent over the snarl she had made of woof
and warp.

"I wish Aunt Dorrie would have that room sealed!" Joan spoke
ill-naturedly; "I know it's haunted. If we don't look out the ghosts
will ooze over the whole house. Ooh!"

Nancy did not answer but set the treadle to its duty. The clacking noise
emphasized Joan's nervousness.

"Aunt Dorrie doesn't know what to do here--that's why she takes to the
chapel. That's why everyone takes to chapels."

Nancy broke her thread and Joan laughed.

"I wonder why Aunt Dorrie came here like a dear, silly old pioneer?" The
laugh still persisted in the mocking words.

"It's--it's quite the thing," Nancy said, fatuously, "to have country
places. I think it's wonderful."

"You may not be able to help being a snob, Nan, but don't be a prig."
Joan's words struck hurtingly. Then suddenly her mood changed.

"Forgive me, snow-child," she whispered, going close to Nancy. "I'm a
beast. Isn't it queer to be conscious, now and then, of the beast in
you?"

"Please don't, Joan, dear. Please don't talk and act so." Nancy's eyes
were blinded by tears.

"Very well, then, I will be good." Joan flung herself in a chair and
presently asked curiously:

"Nan, what are you going to do when you've done all the things down here
millions of times?"

"There will always be new duties," Nancy ventured.

"Duties! Oh! Nan, surely you're too young to play with duties--you'll
hurt yourself." The mockery again entered in.

Just then Jed stumbled into the room with an armful of wood. His bleared
eyes clung to Nancy's face and he nearly fell over a rug.

When he went out Joan seemed to follow him. She spoke musingly as if
voicing her thoughts:

"It's terrible for anything as old as that to be running around," she
said. "It isn't decent. He ought to be tucked up in his nice little
grave. He looks as if he'd been forgotten."

"Joan, you are wicked--you make me afraid!" Nancy came from the loom and
crouched by Joan.

"Snow-child, again forgive me!" Joan bent and drew Nancy's fair head to
her knee. "But oh! I am so--so utterly lost."

"Joan, what is it? What is the matter?"

"I don't know, Nan." Joan was looking into the fire--seeking; seeking.
"Things that quiet you and Aunt Dorrie just drive me on to the rocks. I
feel as if I'd be wrecked if I didn't steer well out into the open. And
when I get as far as that, I know that I couldn't find my way out even
if--if everything let go of me. I suppose I would sink. This isn't my
place, Nan, but I don't know where my place is! I feel sure I have a
place, everyone has--but where is mine?"

There was desperation in the words, the desperation of helpless youth.
No perspective, no light or shade, but terrible vision.

"Joan, darling, why can you not wait until you see the way?" Nancy was
prepared now for battle.

"That's it, Nan. I can't. All I can do is to push off the rocks--then
I'll have to sink or swim. This is killing me!"

Joan flung her head back as if she were choking.

And just then Mary came into the room.

A gray shawl, home-spun--it was made from the wool of Mary's own
sheep--was clutched over her thin body; a huge quilted hood--Mary
herself had quilted it--half hid her dark, expressionless face.

"I met the postman," she announced, "as I came along. He give me this!"

Mary held a letter out to Joan and passed from the room.

The moment, while Joan glanced at the letter, had power to grip Nancy's
imagination and fill it with a vision.

As sure as she ever saw anything, she saw Joan going away! Going away as
she had never gone before. Going to a Far Country.

"Whom is the letter from?" she faltered, and Joan tore open the envelope
while her eyes drank in the words.

"It is from Sylvia Reed, Nan. Her dream has come true. She has her
studio--she wants me!"

"Joan, you will not go--you must not!" All that Nancy dared to put in
her plea she put in it then.

"Why not?" asked Joan impressed. "Why not, Nan?"

"Aunt Dorrie----" Nancy's words ended in a sob.

"Aunt Dorrie shall decide."

And with that Joan, her face radiant, her breath coming quick, walked
from the room and on, on to the little chapel upstairs.

Doris was sitting by the window. The day was going to be clear at its
close, and a rift in the sullen clouds showed the gold behind; the light
lay in a straight line across the chapel floor.

Doris was not in a depressed mood. She often sat for an hour in the
quiet place. She took her tenderest treasures of thought there. She had
been thinking that afternoon of David Martin. How wise he was! What a
friend! How he understood her! How unworthy she was of the richness that
flooded her life!

It was then that Joan came in. She did not go close to Doris--the
physical touch was not the first impulse with either of them.

"Aunt Dorrie, I have a letter from Sylvia Reed."

Instantly Doris was stirred as Nancy had been. Mentally she braced. She
recalled vividly Sylvia Reed, Joan's particular friend at Miss
Phillips's. The girl had genius where Joan had talent. She had inherited
enough to take her comfortably through school, had a small income
besides, but she would have to work and win her way to the success she
promised. Sylvia's ambition was only equalled by her belief in herself
and her eagerness to prove it to others. She was a few years older than
Joan, and a girl of remarkable character and sweetness.

"She wants me, Aunt Dorrie. She wants me to come to her. She has a
studio in New York; not down in that part of the city which Uncle David
doesn't like, the place where he says folks show off with the window
shades up. Sylvia is in the safe uptown where the _real_ thing is!"

The eagerness in Joan's hurrying voice made Doris smile. The girl was
trying to clear all obstacles away before coming to the point. That was
her way.

"Why, Aunt Dorrie, Sylvia has two orders for book covers, already,
besides twelve hundred a year!"

The letter had been packed with ammunition and Joan was using it
recklessly.

"Just listen, Aunt Dorrie."

And Joan spread the letter on her knee; her hands were trembling as she
patted it open.

"This is what Sylvia says:

    The Studio is perfect--north side full of windows; south side full
    of fireplace; your room and mine on the east; stars and sunlight on
    tap from the windows. We are on top of the city and nothing hinders
    our view. We walk up and none come but those worthy of us--come,
    Joan, you always said that you would.

    Your future will be blasted unless you break away from your rich
    relatives. Nothing is such a curse as that which prevents you
    proving yourself; you remember about the poem which dealt with
    proving your soul?--how you spouted it. I know that you are gifted,
    child, but the world doesn't. If we fail, you at least can, after
    you pay proper respects to my remains, go back to that adorable aunt
    of yours and flop in the lap of luxury--but make the attempt to
    reach glory first.

    I suppose Nan will raise a ladylike dust--but come! Come
    empty-handed--it's the only honest way. Come prepared to eat your
    bread by the sweat of your brow--or go hungry.

    I bet your aunt will see the squareness of this offer if you put it
    right. Come!

The light broadened outside--the little chapel was flooded with the
golden glow.

Even while her heart sank and grew heavy, Doris was moved with an almost
terrible understanding of the girl across the room. She wanted to push
her on her way instead of holding her back, and at the same time she
was striving to clutch her as she went her way.

Yes, that was it. Joan was already started; nothing could hold her
back--but still the battle waged, while Doris smiled tremblingly.

"I know, Aunt Dorrie, I know. It hurts--but--but--oh! listen, dear. This
seems my chance; perhaps it isn't--but I can never know until I try.
Dearie--I will do just what you say. I will, and I will think you right.
I want so much to try and find out what is in me that I--I cannot see
clear."

For a moment Doris could not see the girl across the room. The sunlight
fell full on her, and hid her, rather than revealed her.

"I'll try to be worthy of your faith in me, darling. Go on." Doris spoke
quietly.

They did not come together physically, these two. They felt no need of
the affectionate human contact; it was more one soul reaching out to
another with courage and honesty.

Doris listened, following closely. People and places became visualized
as Joan spoke. Sylvia Reed with her strong, purposeful face and eyes of
a young prophet; the new nest of genius where the brave creature,
believing in herself, waited for another in whom she trusted and for
whom she held a deep-founded affection. Doris felt her way in
silence--relinquishing, loving, fearing, but never blinded. She knew the
moment's pain of disappointment caused by the realization that with all
her love and riches she had not, for the time being, anything to offer
this untried soul that could lure it from its vision.

Presently she heard herself speaking as if a third person were in the
room:

"If this means anything it means that it must be met in the spirit with
which Sylvia is meeting it. She has risked all; is willing to pay the
price--are you?"

"Yes, Aunt Dorrie."

"You know, darling, that it would be easier for me to lavish everything
on you?"

"Yes, Aunt Dorrie."

"You understand that if I leave you free to meet this chance in its only
true way--the hard, struggling way--it is not because I desire to sicken
you of it and so regain you for Nancy and me?"

"Oh! yes, Aunt Dorrie, I do understand that."

"I'm sure you do, child, or you would not be here. And so I set you
free, little Joan, I wish you luck and success, but if you find the
chance is not your chance, my darling, will you come as frankly to me as
you have come to-night?"

"Yes--yes, Aunt Dorrie, and you are--well--there is no word for you, but
I feel as if you were my mother and I'd just--found you! You'll never
seem quite the same, Aunt Dorrie--though that always seemed good enough.
Why"--And here Joan slipped to her feet and danced lightly in the sunny
room tossing her hair and swaying gracefully--"why, I'm free to fail
even if I must--fail or succeed--and you understand and love me and
don't begrudge me my freedom--you are setting me free and not even
disapproving."

The dance in that sanctuary did not seem incongruous; Doris watched the
motion as she might a figment loose in the sunlight. It was as much a
prayer of thanks as any ever uttered in the peaceful place.




CHAPTER X

"_Hopes and disappointments, and much need of philosophy._"


A week later Joan started for New York, a closely packed suitcase in her
hand, a closely packed trunk in the baggage car ahead, and some hurting
memories to bear her company on the way.

Memories of Nancy's tears.

How Nancy could cry--once the barriers were down!

And worse than Nancy's tears were Doris's smiles.

Joan understood the psychology of smiles--as she remembered, her proud
head was lowered and she was surprised to find that _she_ was shedding
tears.

"But it's all part of the price of freedom!" At last Joan dried her
eyes. "And I'm willing to pay."

So Joan travelled alone up to town, and it was a wet, slippery night
when she raised the knocker on Sylvia Reed's green-painted door and let
it fall.

The door opened at once and disclosed the battle-ground of young genius.
The old room was dim, for Sylvia had been toasting bacon and bread by
the open fire and she needed no more light than the coals gave. Sylvia
wore a smock and her hair was down her back. She looked about twelve
until she fixed her eyes upon you, then she looked old; too old for a
girl of twenty-four.

"Joan! Joan!" was all she said as she drew Joan in. Then, after a
struggle, "Do you mind if I--sob?"

"No, I'm going to do it myself." And Joan proceeded to do so and
remembered Nancy.

"I'm so--happy!" she gulped. "I was never so happy in my life. I feel as
if I'd got hatched, broken through the shell!"

"You have," cried Sylvia, unevenly. "We're going to--to conquer
everything! Come in your room, Joan, shed as much as you like. I
expected you this morning. I have only bacon and eggs--shall we go out
to eat?"

"Go out? Heavens, no! And I adore bacon and eggs. Sylvia, I have edged
into glory!"

"You have, Joan--edged in, that's about it."

After the meal before the fire they cleared things away, and then they
talked far into the night. Sylvia had already laid emphasis upon her
small order.

"And really, Joan, that's great," she explained; "many a girl has to
wait longer. Some day I'm going to be hung in the best exhibitions in
town, but as a starter a magazine is nothing to be sneered at. I'm
modelling, too--I have a duck of an idea for a frieze--only I'm not
telling anybody about that--it's too ambitious. What are you going to
do, Joan?" This sudden question made Joan stare.

"I--I don't know," she replied, frankly, but with no shade of
despondency. "I'll take a look around to-morrow and, then pack my little
wares in my basket and peddle them, as you have done. If anybody wants a
dancer--here I am! Anybody want funny little songs sung?--here's your
girl! I seem to have only samples. I can be adaptable. That's my big
asset." They both laughed, but Sylvia soon grew serious. Her short
service in reality had already sobered her. It was one thing for the
gifted young girl of a fashionable school to watch the impression she
made by her wits upon people who were paying high for just such
exhibitions, and quite another to convince buyers of goods that they
were what you believed them to be.

"The public is a tightwad," was what she muttered presently, "unless
you're willing to compromise or--prove it to them."

"I--I don't know what you mean," Joan replied. She was groping after the
thing that had made Sylvia's eyes grow old.

"Well, all you need to know, Joan, my lamb, is to prove it to
them--never compromise!" Sylvia was herself again. Too well she knew
the value of starting out with one's shield bright and shining even if
one had to come home _on_ it, all rusted with one's life blood.

Things were not yet very tragic for Sylvia, and her shield was in good
condition, but she had an imagination and a keen sense of
self-protection.

"We're going to be the happiest pair in town," she whispered to Joan
later that night as she bent over the tired girl; "and was there ever
such a spot to live in? See, I'm going to raise your shade high, for the
night is splendid and--the stars! Go to sleep with the stars watching
you, old girl, and you're all right."

Joan slept heavily, dreamlessly, and awoke to--more bacon and eggs with
hot rolls and coffee added.

"I'm going to float about a bit to-day," she said, and her feet were
fairly dancing. "I've only known New York before holding to Aunt
Dorrie's hand or my nurse's. Today I'm going to go back alone and
then--catch up with myself."

Suddenly she began to sing her old graduation song:

    "I'll sail upon the Dog-star
      I'll sail upon the Dog-star;
    I'll chase the moon, till it be noon,
      But I'll make her leave her horning.

    "I'll climb the frosty mountain
      And there I'll coin the weather.
    I'll tear the rainbow from the sky
      And tie both ends together."

Sylvia leaned back, clapping and laughing. This was as it should be.
Fun, youth, gaiety. She went to her easel in the north room, humming
Joan's old ballad, and never did better work in her life than she did
that day.

Joan sallied forth equally happy and her past, thank heaven, had been
brief enough and rosy enough to make the tying of the ends nothing but a
joyous task. She rode downtown on top of a bus. The crisp air stung and
rallied her. She longed to sing from the swaying vehicle--she felt as if
she were on top of the world and that it was keeping time to the tune
she wanted to sing. She looked so lovely that the conductor grinned
delightedly as he remarked:

"Snappy weather, miss!" and Joan nodded in friendly fashion and agreed.
She walked to the old home, standing with drawn blinds by the little,
close-locked park. It looked stately and reserved as one of the family
might have done. It smilingly held its tongue.

"I'd like to see the sunken room and the fountain," Joan thought. "I
cannot imagine it with the fountain and the birds still. They will never
be still for me!"

She was a bit surprised to feel how far she had travelled from the Joan
who was part of Nancy and the sunken room. It was quite shocking to find
that she was not missing Nancy. She wondered if she were heartless and
selfish? But after all, how could one be missed from a life in which she
had never, could never, have part? And full well Joan realized that in
this big venture of hers the old, except as a stepping-stone, was
separated forever.

"If I become famous"--and Joan, tripping along, felt as if fame were as
possible for her as the luncheon she was now feeling the need of--"if I
become famous then they will understand, but even then my life and
theirs will be different."

This point of view made Joan feel important, tragic, but desolate.

"I'm hungry," she thought, seriously, and made her way to a restaurant,
where once she had gone with Doris while on a wonderful shopping
expedition. The place was little changed; it had passed into other
hands, but the menu proudly proclaimed the same enticing dishes.

Joan ordered what once had seemed the food of the gods, but to her now
it was as chaff.

Across the table, made dim by her misty eyes, she seemed to see Doris
smiling fondly, faithfully, at her. Doris's power over people was
largely due to that faith she had in them.

"And I will be all you want me to be, Aunt Dorrie!" Joan promised that
while she choked down the food. "I feel as if I were in the bear's
house," she mused, whimsically. "I'm half afraid that I'll be pounced
upon."

And so she paid her bill and went back, via the bus, to Sylvia. She ran
up the long flights of stairs and burst in upon Sylvia with the
announcement that "nothing would count if you didn't have someone to
come home and tell it to." And then she forgot her glooms while they
prepared an evening meal more conservative than bacon and eggs.

"Yes, my beloved," Sylvia returned as she plunged a wicked-looking
little knife into the heart of a grapefruit: "And that accounts for half
the marriages in life." Sylvia was refraining, just then, from telling
of her own engagement. She wanted and needed Joan for the present--her
secret would keep.

"You funny old Syl," Joan flung back over her shoulder as she drew the
curtain over the closet that screened the housekeeping skeletons from
the wonderful studio. "We won't have to resort to marriage, anyway.
We've solved the eternal question!"

"Exactly! And now give those chops a twist. Thank the Lord, we both love
them crisp."

The experiment in a few days had Joan by the throat. So utterly had she
thrown herself into it, so almost unbelievably had Doris Fletcher
permitted her to do so, that it took on all the attributes of reality
and demanded nothing less than obedience to its laws, or surrender to
defeat.

Doris had given Joan, when she came North, a check for five hundred
dollars. Upon reaching Sylvia she had, after paying her expenses, that,
and fifty dollars in cash left.

It had seemed boundless wealth for the first few days and continued to
seem so until the necessity for bringing the check into action faced the
girl.

"I must find something to do!" she vowed as she made her way to the bank
where she had deposited the check. "No more fooling around."

Sylvia made no suggestions; never appeared to be anything but satisfied
with things as they were. The companionship, the feeling of _home_ that
Joan had introduced into her life, were deep joys to the girl who, like
many women who know not the art of making a home, are soul-sick for the
blessings of one.

"I'd work till my last tube ran dry," she thought to herself, standing
at the wide north window, "if I could keep her singing and dancing about
and--getting meals!"

Joan did not interfere with Sylvia's profession--she gave it new
meaning--but Sylvia realized that Joan was interfering with her own.
Still, Sylvia was never one to usurp the rights of a Higher Power, and
at twenty-four she was intensely, shamefacedly religious and absolutely
lacking in desire to shape the ends of others.

"The thing that's meant for her will slap her in the face soon," Sylvia
comforted herself. "And she's such a wonder!"

But if Sylvia refrained from nudging Joan on her course, even to the
extent of opening her eyes to sign-posts, others were not so obliging.
Into Sylvia's studio youth, in its various forms of expression, floated
naturally. Sylvia attracted women more than men, but her girl friends
brought their male comrades with them and everybody was welcome to
anything that Sylvia had. Fortunately most of the young people were
honestly striving to earn their living; they were sweetly, proudly
unafraid, but when they relaxed and played they made Joan's eyes widen,
until she discovered that they often dressed their ideas, as they did
themselves, rather startlingly while adhering, privately, to a
respectability that they refused to make public.

They were, on the whole, a joyous lot belonging to that new class which
causes older and more conservative folk to hold their breath as people
do who watch children walking near a precipice and dare not call out for
fear of worse danger.

The women attracted and interested Joan immensely. The men amazed her.

"You see," she confided to Sylvia, "the men seem like a new sex--neither
men nor women."

Sylvia stood off regarding her work--she smiled happily and replied:

"They are, dear lamb. The girls will all, eventually, put on; fill
up"--Sylvia added a dab of clay to a doubtful curve--"but men, when they
chip off from the approved design, look like nothing on earth but
daubs!"

"Yes," Joan added, "that's what I mean." Then, with a thoughtful
puckering of the brows, "the girls will be women, somehow, but what will
become of these--this new sex, Syl?"

Sylvia was tense as she eyed her work. She answered vaguely:

"Some of them will crawl up, and _do_ things and justify themselves, the
others will----"

"Will what, Syl?"--for Sylvia was moving like a panther upon her
prey--her prey being the small figure on the pedestal.

"Do this--or have it done for them!" and at this the offending clay was
dashed to atoms.

"Failure!" breathed Sylvia--"mess!"

Then with characteristic quickness she began a new design. Joan watched
her and caught a sudden insight. She realized what it was that marked
Sylvia for success. Presently she asked musingly:

"Does any one ever marry these--these men, Syl?"

"Heavens, no! They only play with them; don't get confused on that line,
lamb."

"Don't worry about me, Syl. I don't even want to play with them. Syl, I
do not think I shall ever marry. I'm like Aunt Dorrie, but if I ever
should marry it would be something to help one grip life, not something
to--to--well, haul along!"

Sylvia turned and eyed Joan.

"My pet lamb," she remarked, "you are all right! Make sure that no one
side-tracks you--give them half, but no more. And, Joan, run along now,
child, and get dinner."

A few days later Sylvia broke into Joan's revery by the smouldering
fire. It was a gray, cold day and Joan's spirits were at low tide.

She had not been successful in any venture as yet, and so vivid was her
imagination, so sincere her determination to play fair, that starvation
and early death seemed the most likely objects on her mental horizon.
She had eliminated Doris and Nancy as life-preservers--they figured only
as blessed memories in a past that was not yet regretted but which was
fast fading into a black present.

"Joan, my darling, suppose you come to the rescue. My model has gone
back on me--let me see you dance! My model had sand bags on her feet
yesterday, anyhow, and my beautiful figure looks as if it had the
beginnings of paralysis."

Joan sprang up. Instantly she was aglow and trembling with delight.

"Here, take this balloon," ordered Sylvia, "it is still gassy enough to
float--it's a bubble, you know."

Through the room Joan floated after the elusive ball. Sylvia watched her
with a light breaking over her own face.

"Great, great!" she cried from her corner, "go it, Joan, you're the real
thing!"

Joan was not listening. What her eyes saw were the figures in the
fountain of the sunken room. She was one of them again--the story was
coming true! It was no longer a golden balloon she was touching,
fondling, reaching for, tossing--it was sparkling water, and birds
seemed singing in the big north studio.

At last it was over. On Sylvia's canvas the figure appeared to have
undergone a marvellous change by a few rapid and bewitched strokes. The
sand-bag impression had been removed--the figure was alive!

"Syl, dear, you are wonderful!"

Joan came and stood close. "What have you done to it?"

"Put you in it. Or," here Sylvia tossed her palette aside and caught
Joan by the shoulders, "you've put yourself in me. I've a line on your
opportunity, Joan, it came to me like a flash of inspiration. I hope you
are game."

"I'm game, all right," Joan returned, quietly. She was thinking of her
next visit to the bank.

"Dress your prettiest, my lamb. Look success from head to foot and then
go to the address I'll give you. I have a friend, Elspeth Gordon, who
is opening a tea room. She may not think you necessary to her scheme of
things, she's Scotch and terribly thrifty, with a dash of nearness, but
you tell her that _I_ say you'll be the making of her."

Joan laughed and darted away to array herself in her best.

"What am I supposed to do there?" she asked. Her brightness and gaiety
had returned.

"Oh! any one of your accomplishments. Of course it was merely a matter
of making things jibe. Elspeth only telephoned about the tea room this
morning."

"You mean I am to wait on tables or cook?" asked Joan, somewhat daunted.

"Lord, child, no! Here, wait. On second thought, I'll go with you. I
might have known you couldn't put it over. Watch me!"

Sylvia was worth watching as she pulled her tam o' shanter over her
head, her face all aglow.

"I've undervalued your 'samples,' as you call them, my lamb," she
chatted on. "Of course you must take lessons and be a legitimate
something some day--a singer, I fancy, but in the meantime we must
utilize what we have."

On the way through the frosty streets Sylvia grew more mystifying.

"It's putting the _punch_ in these days that counts, Joan. You are to
be--the punch. Eats are all right in their way, but folks do not live by
bread alone; they flourish--or tea rooms do--on punch."

Joan, running along beside Sylvia, accepted the rambling talk without
question. Her acquaintance with tea rooms was limited, but she had
caught Sylvia's mood.

"Just imagine," Sylvia was a bit breathless; "a cold, dreary afternoon
outside--a warm, bright tea room with enchanting tables drawn close to
an open fire, and someone--you, my lamb--singing a ballad, when there is
a lull--in the offings! Why, Elspeth is as good as _made_ if she has the
wit to grab you--and Elspeth is no fool."

Joan began to see the opening ahead.

"Oh!" she drawled--the word lasted a half block and ended in a mocking
laugh.

"Could I dance in costume?" she asked, tossing her head, "or tell
fortunes as I used to at school? Do you remember, Syl, how I went to the
kitchen door, once, and took the maids all in, and then Miss Tibbetts
came down to see what was going on, and I read her palm--and----" but
here Joan stopped short physically. "What's the matter, Syl?" she said.

"Why, of course!" Sylvia was regarding Joan impartially. "They might
object to having you break in on their silly tea-talk, the police might
raid the place if you danced--but palm reading! Oh! my dear, you've
struck it in the dark. Hurry!"

And hurry they did, arriving at the Bonny Brier Bush a few minutes later
in rather a breathless but radiant state.

The proprietress, Elspeth Gordon, was a tall, slender woman, no longer
young, but carrying herself with a dignity that amounted almost to
majesty. She was gowned in crisp lavender linen with immaculate white
collars and cuffs and was standing in the middle of her Big Experiment,
as she termed it, when Joan and Sylvia burst in.

"All ready but the opening of the door--legitimately," she said, smiling
on Sylvia and bowing cordially to Joan. "Doesn't it look inviting?" She
gave a broad glance to the sweet, orderly room: the small tables, glass
covered; the rose-chintz covers and draperies; the clear fire on the
broad, old-fashioned hearth, and the blossoming rose bushes on the
window sills.

"It certainly does," Sylvia replied with enthusiasm.

"I've put everything I own into this venture," Elspeth went on; "if I
fail, I'm done for."

For all her years of discretion and her plain common sense, Elspeth
Gordon's mouth and tone betrayed the artistic temperament. Upon that
Sylvia was banking.

"I have a splendid cook--a Scotch woman. I'm going to specialize on
scones, and oat cakes, and such things, but oh! it is the opening of the
door and the awful days of waiting until the public finds out!"

"Exactly!" Sylvia nodded and Joan stared. "You'll have to lure the
public, Elspeth, there's no doubt about that. Tea rooms are no novelty
these days. You'll have to tease it with a bait, and the rest is easy.

"Now, my dear, here's your bait!" With this, Sylvia turned so sharply
upon Joan that Elspeth started nervously and regarded her guest as she
might have a tempting worm: something possibly necessary, but which she
hesitated to touch.

"She can read--palms!"

"Oh! Syl----" Joan panted, but Sylvia scowled her to silence.

"She can read palms," she repeated, holding Elspeth by her firm tone; "a
little more reading up, a bit of experience, and she'll work wonders.
She doesn't know it, but she's psychic--of course this is going to be
fun; not real. Just a lure. We'll have Joan in a long white robe--a girl
I know can design it. We'll have a filmy veil over the lower part of her
face--mystery, you know. Look at her eyes, Elspeth, aren't they great?
Give that 'into-the-future' stare, Joan!"

Joan rose to the fun of it all. She grasped the possibilities, but
Elspeth faltered.

"I don't want to be--ridiculous," she said, slowly. "I'm quite serious,
and my food is going to be above question."

"Of course! And if you think Joan will make you ridiculous, you've got
another guess coming, Elspeth. Now, when do you open?"

"I have planned to open day after to-morrow." Elspeth spoke
hesitatingly, keeping her cool, businesslike glance on Joan.

"All right," Sylvia was tapping her fingers restlessly; "that's
Thursday. I'll get a girl I know to work on the costume to-night; we'll
buy books on palmistry on our way home. We'll give you just four days to
lure your public with scones, and then if you don't call Joan up, she'll
start a tea room herself across the way."

This made them all laugh, but there was an earnestness in their eyes.

And on Sunday night Elspeth spoke over the telephone.

"Could you come to-morrow at two, Miss Thornton?"

Joan, sitting close to the telephone, winked at Sylvia. They had all
been sitting up nights working, reading, and praying for that question.

"I think so," was the reply in quite an unmoved and businesslike tone.

"And remember, Joan," Sylvia cautioned later, "this is but a means to
fit you for a profession!"

"I'll remember," Joan twinkled, "in the meantime, I am going to enjoy
myself."




CHAPTER XI

"_Let us live happily, free from care among the busy._"


There was one of Sylvia's friends who, from the first, caught and held
Joan's imagination. That was Patricia Leigh.

Patricia rarely got further than the imagination--after that she was
idealized or suspected according to the person dealing with her.

Joan idealized Patricia--"Pat," she was always called.

The girl was fair and delicately frail, but never ill. She wrote verse,
when moved to do so, and did it excellently, and she never thought of it
as poetry.

When she was not moved to verse--and she had a good market for it--she
designed the most astonishing garments for her friends. She could, at
any time, have secured a fine position in this line and was frequently
turning away offers. When the designing palled upon Pat she fell back
upon her personal charm and enjoyed herself!

Patricia had, outwardly, a blood-curdling philosophy which she frankly
avowed she believed in, absolutely, though Sylvia warned Joan that it
was "bunk!"

What really was the case was this: Patricia was an adept at playing with
fire. Lightly she tossed the flame from hand to hand; gaily she laughed,
but at the critical moment Patricia ran!

She revelled in portraying the fire danger, but she covered her retreats
by masterful silence.

"My code is this," she would proclaim: "In passing, snatch! You can
discard at leisure."

There was no doubt but that Patricia did more than her share of
snatching. When she played, she played wildly, but she was a coward when
pay time came.

But who was there to show Patricia in her true light? Her good
qualities, and they were many, pleaded for her. She was too little and
sweet to be held to brutal exactions, and she was such a gay, blithesome
creature, at her maddest, that when she ran one felt more like
commending her speed than hurling epithets of scorn at her.

"If she wasn't a thousand times better than she makes herself out to
be," Sylvia confided to Joan, "I'd never let her into my studio; but Pat
is golden at heart, and she ought to be spanked for acting as she does."

"Hasn't she any family?" asked Joan. "No one whom she may--hurt?"

"That's it, my lamb, she hasn't. Mother died when she was four years
old; father, an actor, but devoted to her, and insisted upon trotting
her around with him. She was confided to the care of cheap
boarding-house women; she ran away from school once and travelled miles
alone to get to her father, and when he died--Pat was eighteen then--she
began her career, as she calls it. Snatch and skip!"

"Poor, dear, little Pat!" said Joan, and her eyes filled.

"There, now!" Sylvia exclaimed, "she's caught your imagination."

That was true, and by the magic Joan began to see life as Patricia said
_she_ saw it: a place of detached opportunities and no obligations.

"I believe," Patricia would say, looking her divinest, "that in
developing ourselves we most serve others. We relieve others of our
responsibilities; we express ourselves and have no gnawing ambitions to
sour us. Self-sacrifice is folly--it makes others mean and selfish,
others who may not hold a candle to us for usefulness. Now"--and here
Patricia, smoking her cigarette, would look impishly at Sylvia, quite
forgetting Joan--"take, for instance, Teddy Burke!"

"Pat!" Sylvia was in arms, "I will not hear of your actions with Mr.
Burke. They're disgraceful. You should be ashamed of them."

"On the other hand," Patricia always looked like a young saint, rather a
wild one, to be sure, when she spoke of Burke, "I'm proud of my defiance
of stupid limitations and fogyish ideals. Here is a man, a corker, Joan,
with a wife who, acting upon tribal instinct, never dreams that she may
be set aside. She travels the world over, foot loose, but with her
little paw dug deep in her husband's purse. Here are two ducks of
kiddies living with governesses and nurses over on a Jersey estate and
pining for the higher female touch. Here am I with a batch of verses
going quite innocently into Mr. Burke's office--he's an editor, you
know--and he buys my stuff and howls for more. I grow white and thin
providing more, and in weak moments show my beautiful inner soul to him.
He, being a gentleman and an understanding one, asks me out to Jersey,
and those children just cram into the hungry corners of my life. They
play with me; they--they"--here a subtle touch of truth struck through
Patricia's ironic tones--"they _teach_ me to play. Haven't I a right to
snatch--what was snatched from me?"

Sylvia cried out: "Rot!" But Joan made no reply.

Often would Sylvia, deeply serious, urge Patricia to turn her talents to
designing.

"Verses only take you near danger, Pat, dear," she would say; "and look
at the things you can make for people! Why, dear, you bring out all
their good points."

"You would have me stick my precious little soul full of needles and
pins? Oh! you black-hearted creature. Not on your life, Syl! Designing
is my job--it gets enough for me to fly on--but I mean to fly! And as I
fly, I pause to sip and feed, but fly I must."

For Joan, Patricia felt a strange attraction. The child that was so
persistent in Joan appealed to Patricia while it irritated her.

"She'll get hurt if she doesn't grow up!" the girl thought, and began at
once rather crude forcing measures.

"A professional woman," she imparted to Joan, "is a different breed from
the household pet--you must learn to scrimmage for yourself and take
what helps your profession. You cannot stop and nurse the _you_ of you.
One's Art is the thing. Now love helps--love the whole world, Joan, it
keeps you young. Play with it, but don't make the mistake of letting it
take you in. The thing that threatens Sylvia is her--Plain John!"

Joan and Patricia laughed now. Sylvia's love affair was tenderly
old-fashioned. Her man was on the Pacific Coast, making ready for her;
she was going to keep right on with her work--her John had planned her
studio before he had the house!

"'Love and fly!' is my motto," Patricia rambled on; "fly while the
flying is good. Get your wings clipped, and where are you? Sylvia will
have children and they will mess up her studio and her career--and look
at her promise!" It was Patricia that had forced Sylvia's engagement
into the open.

In some vague way Patricia felt that she was educating Joan, not
weakening her foundations; but gradually Joan succumbed to the
philosophy of snatch-and-fly, and the Brier Bush gave ample opportunity
for her to practise it.

From the first she was a success. In her loose, flowing robe of
white--Patricia had wrought that with inspiration--she was a witching
figure. The filmy veil over the lower part of her face did but emphasize
the beauty and size of her golden eyes. The lovely bronze hair was
coiled gracefully around the little head, and after a week or so the
gravity with which she read palms gave the play a real touch of
interest.

People dropped in, sipped tea, and paid well to play with the pretty
disguised young creature who was "guessing so cleverly." They departed
and sent, or brought, others. The Brier Bush became popular and
successful; Elspeth Gordon secured for it a most respectable standing.

"Why, Miss Gordon is the granddaughter of a bishop!" it was whispered,
"and take my word for it that little priestess there with her is either
a professional, finding the game lucrative, or a society girl out on a
lark behind a screen."

Most people believed the latter conjecture was true and then the Brier
Bush became fashionable.

Joan reaped what seemed to her a harvest, for Elspeth was as just as she
was canny.

"After a year," Joan promised Sylvia, "I will begin to study music
seriously. Why, I have decided to specialize, Syl--English and Scotch
ballads"; and then off she rippled on her "Dog-star"--the song was a
favourite in the studio; so was the Bubble Dance.

       *       *       *       *       *

And about this time Joan's letters to Ridge House made the hearts there
lighter.

"A job!" Nancy repeated, reading the announcement of Joan's success.

"I thought only workingmen had jobs. And in a restaurant, too! Aunt
Dorrie, I don't think you ought to let Joan do such things."

"Joan is earning her living," Doris said, calmly, though her heart beat
quicker. "These fad things are often successes, financially, and I can
trust Joan perfectly."

Christmas was a disappointment.

"I cannot leave this year, Aunt Dorrie," Joan wrote; "this is our busy
time. Next year I will be free and studying music."

Doctor Martin was to have been back from the West, but was detained, so
Nancy and Doris again helped Father Noble with his hill people, and Mary
came over to Ridge House and decorated the rooms to surprise them when
they came back from the longest trip of all.

Doris had discarded, largely, her couch. With her inward anxiety about
Joan to be controlled, she was more at ease in action and it was good
for her.

Nancy's devotion was taken for granted, as was her happiness. What more
could Nancy want?

It was Mary who resented this.

"'Tain't fair!" she muttered as she went about her self-imposed tasks,
"'tain't fair." And scowlingly Mary still bided her time.

Early in the new year David Martin returned from the West bearing about
him the impression of battle crowned by victory. He was jovial and
boyishly delighted with Doris's improvement.

"I haven't long to stay," he confided to her, "but I had to see how
things were going here before I settled down in New York. Nancy looks
fine! She's happy, too." This to Nancy, who was fondling the pups by the
fire.

"Well, then, how about Joan?"

Doris, her hands folded in her lap, did not reply.

At this Martin took to striding up and down the long, sunny room. The
thought of Nancy rested him; Joan always irritated him.

"When is she coming back?" he asked suddenly.

"She's got----" Nancy hesitated at the word; "she's got a job. She won't
come home until she's lost that."

Martin turned on Doris a perplexed and awakened face.

"What's this?" His voice had the ring of the primitive male.

"Well, you know Joan is with Sylvia Reed, David. You remember that girl
who painted so beautifully at Dondale? Sylvia has a studio, now, and is
regularly launched. She's doing extremely good work. Nan, show Doctor
Martin that magazine cover that Sylvia did."

David took the magazine indifferently from the obedient Nancy and
dropped it at once.

"Who's looking after them?" he inquired, leaping, in his deadly rigid
way, over much debatable ground.

"They're looking after themselves, David." Doris metaphorically got into
position for a severe bout.

"You don't mean," Martin came close and glowered over Doris, "you cannot
possibly mean that Joan is going in for that loose, smudgy stunt that
some girls are doing down in that part of town known as Every Man's
Land?"

Nancy ran to the window and bent over her loom. She was always
frightened when David Martin looked as if he were going to perform an
operation.

"Certainly not," Doris replied; "the girls have a place uptown in a
perfectly respectable quarter. Joan shares the expense. This is very
real and fine, David. And you are not going to blame me for permitting
Joan to do this--it was the only thing to be done. The girl has a right
to her life and the use of her talents; this was an opening that we
could not ignore. Sylvia Reed is older than Joan."

"How much?" David's voice was like steel.

"Four years." In spite of her anxiety, Doris had to laugh.

"Is this a joke, Doris?" Martin was confused.

"Why, no, David, it isn't."

"Were you mad, Doris? Why, don't you know that many girls are simply
crooked while they call themselves emancipated? I am amazed at you. How
did you dare! Have you thought what an injustice you've done the girl?
Keeping her in cotton wool, feeding her on specialized food, and then
letting her loose among--among garbage pails?"

Nancy fled from the room. The operation was on!

Doris got up and linked her arm in David's--they paced the floor slowly,
getting control of themselves as they went. Presently Doris spoke:

"You see, dear, I have always held certain beliefs--I have always been
willing to test them--and pay."

"But dare you let Joan pay?" Martin was calm now.

"Not for mine, but for her own--yes. Aren't you going to let this boy of
yours try his own flight, David?"

"That's different."

"It won't be always, David, dear--someone must make the break--our dear
young things in the big cities are breasting the waves, David. I glory
in them, and even while I tremble, I urge them on. You should have seen
Joan when she came to me with her great desire burning and throbbing.
Why, it would have been murder to kill in her what I saw in her eyes
then. It was her _Right_ demanding to be free."

"It's the maddest thing I ever heard of!" Martin broke in. "I wonder if
you have counted the cost, Doris?"

"Yes, David, through many long days and wakeful nights. I have shuddered
and felt that it was different for Joan; that _she_ should have been
kept in--in bondage. It would have been bondage for her. But, David,
the only thing I dared _not_ do was to keep freedom from the child."

"And suppose"--Martin's face grew grimmer--"suppose she goes under?"

"She will come to me--she promised. I am prepared to go as far as I can
with my girls on their way; not mine. That was part of my bargain with
God when I took them."

"You're a very strange and risky woman, Doris."

"And you are going to be fair, David, dear. Now tell me about your boy."

Instantly Martin was taken off guard. He smiled broadly and patted
Doris's hand, which lay upon his arm.

"Bud's coming out on top!" he said--Clive Cameron was always Bud to
Martin. "I've kept closemouthed about the boy," he went on, forgetting
Joan; "he's meant a lot to me, but I've always recognized the
possibility of failure with him and felt the least I could do, if things
came to the worst, was to leave an exit for him to slip out of,
unnoticed. He's always kept us guessing--my sister and I. He never knew
his father. From a silent, observing child he ran into a stormy, vivid
youth that often threatened disaster if not positive annihilation--but
he's of the breed that dashes to the edge, grinds his teeth, plants his
feet, and looks over!--then, breathing hard, draws back. After a while I
got to banking on that balking trick of his. Once I got used to the fact
that the boy meant to know life--not abuse it--I knew a few easy years
while he plodded or, at times, plunged, through college.

"He couldn't settle, though, on a job, and that upset us at last. He ran
the gamut of professions in his mind--but none of them appealed to him.
When he was nineteen he suddenly took an interest in his father--we'd
never told him much about him. Cameron wasn't a bad chap--he simply
hadn't character enough to _be_ bad--he was a floater! When Bud got that
into his system, it sobered him more than if he'd been told his father
was a scamp. A year later the boy came to me and said: 'Uncle David, if
you don't think I'd queer your profession--I'm going to make a try at
it.'"

Martin's face beamed and then he went on:

"That was a big day for me, Doris, but even when the chap went into it,
I kept quiet. I feared he might balk. But he hasn't! He's big
stuff--that boy of mine. He confided everything to me this time. Certain
phases of the work almost drove him off--dissecting and, well, the
grimmer aspects! Often, he told me, he had to put up a stiff fight with
himself before he could enter a dissecting room--but that does one of
two things, Doris: makes a doctor human or a brute. It has humanized
Bud. He'll be through now, in a year or so, and I'm going to throw him
neck and crop into my practice. I'll stand by for awhile, but I have
great faith in my boy!"

Doris looked up at the grave, happy face above her own.

For a moment a sensation she had never experienced before touched
her--it was like jealousy!

"How he would have adored a son of his own," she thought, "and what a
father he would have been!"

She faltered before speaking, then she said quietly:

"If--if I have deprived you of much, David, at least I have not killed
the soul of you."

"I'm learning as I go along, my dear," Martin replied.

"We're not all developed in the same way."

"And, David," Doris trembled as she spoke, "as you feel for your boy, so
I feel for my Joan. You must trust me."

"That is different," Martin stiffened.

"It is the same."




CHAPTER XII

"_In all directions gulfs and yawning abysses._"


That was what David Martin felt was encompassing Joan. He wanted to take
a hand in her affairs, but before he left Ridge House Doris made him
promise that unless she changed her mind, he would not even call upon
Joan.

"If she knows that you have your eye on her, David, much of what I hope
for will be threatened. You have quite a dreadful eye, dear man, and
Joan is sensitive. She may look you up--I will write to her about you.
If she doesn't, she does not want you to--well, Davey, meddle! And she
has a perfect right to her freedom. She is self-supporting now!"

Doris could but show her pride in Joan's cleverness.

"Very well, Doris. I wash my hands of the matter, but I think it sheer
madness!"

With that Martin returned to town and waited, hopefully, for a summons
from Joan. It did not come!

He did go so far, one evening, as to walk on the block where the studio
was, but he got no satisfaction from that except the proof of its
respectability.

"I cannot look back just now!" Joan had thought when considering Martin,
"and Uncle David would tell me things about Aunt Dorrie and Nancy that
would rumple all my calm, and I dare not risk it."

In this she was wise--for there were times when, the novelty and freedom
of self-support worn off, the temptation to return to the waiting
flesh-pots was very great. At such moments of weakness Patricia rallied
her.

"Don't be one of the women who are ready to sell their birthrights for
a meal ticket," Patricia urged, looking her daintiest and saintliest.

"But what _is_ one's birthright?" Joan asked.

"The self-expression of--yourself," Patricia smiled serenely.

This always reinstated Joan in her old resolve.

"To come to town and cut capers at the Brier Bush," she confided to
Sylvia, once Patricia was off the scene, "is poor proof of anything.
Syl, I'm going to get to work seriously soon with my music."

"We'll get a piano," practical Sylvia suggested; "there is no need to
grow rusty while you're making money."

And so they secured the piano, and the studio had another charm.

The Brier Bush, in the meantime, was waxing great in popularity and
financial success. Elspeth Gordon from her position of assurance gave it
a unique touch. No one could take liberties with her tea room. Presently
delicious luncheons were added to the scheme, and, while Joan's part was
regarded with amused complacency, the excellent food and service
commanded respect.

At first women came largely to the pretty, attractive rooms; then,
occasionally, men, rather timidly, presented themselves, but finding
themselves taken for granted and the food above reproach, they appeared
in numbers and enjoyed it.

And then one rather gloomy, early spring day Mrs. Tweksbury came upon
the scene.

Joan knew her at once, although the old face was more wrinkled and
delicate.

Of course Mrs. Tweksbury had not the slightest inkling concerning Joan's
movements, and she looked upon the veiled young creature moving about
the tea room with a cool, calm stare of amused disapproval.

"Quite a faddish thing you're making of your venture," she said to
Elspeth Gordon, for of course with a bishop for a grandfather Miss
Gordon was taken for granted. Elspeth smiled her most dignified smile
and replied graciously:

"Just a bit of amusement, Mrs. Tweksbury. It helps digestion and,
incidentally, helps business."

"But the--the young woman, Miss Gordon--is she a professional?"

"Have you tested her, Mrs. Tweksbury?"

"Oh! no, my dear Miss Gordon." Mrs. Tweksbury had beautiful old hands
and she turned the palms up while she considered them.

"Suppose you judge for yourself, Mrs. Tweksbury." Elspeth was charmingly
easy in her manner.

"Who is she?" bluntly asked the old lady.

"Ah!" And here Elspeth recoiled. "My palmist and my best recipes are
sacred to me, Mrs. Tweksbury. But may I call my little seer to you?"

Mrs. Tweksbury consented, and when Joan looked at the pink, soft palm a
spirit of mischief possessed her.

Skirting as near as she dared to the facts in her possession, she
gently, but startlingly, took the owner of the hand at a disadvantage.

At first Mrs. Tweksbury was confirmed in her idea that the girl before
her was a society girl--her general knowledge could be explained by
that, but suddenly Joan became more daring--she vividly recalled much
that she had heard Doris say in defence of the old woman whom Nancy and
she feared and often ridiculed.

It took but a twist to change a private incident into a blurred but
amazing suggestion.

Mrs. Tweksbury was frankly and angrily impressed.

When passing from the room Miss Gordon spoke to her:

"Do you believe in my Veiled Lady?" she asked.

"Certainly not, Miss Gordon, but I'm--afraid of her! You had better
guard her somewhat--or she'll be taken seriously."

"We'll never see _her_ again!" prophesied Joan, chuckling over her
victory with the old lady; "I've evened up for Nan and me!" she thought,
and then the incident passed from her mind.

But not so easily did the matter go from the confused thoughts of Mrs.
Tweksbury.

"I dare say," she finally concluded, "that if one could tear the veil
from the face of that impudent little minx one would discover the
smartest of the objectionable Smart Set. The girl should be curbed--how
dare she!"--here Emily Tweksbury flushed a rich mahogany red as she
recalled some of the cleverly concealed details of, what seemed to her,
the most private affairs.

"Outrageous!" she snorted, and vowed that she deserved all that she had
received for supporting the new-fangled nonsense that was spreading like
a new social evil in the heart of all she held sacred.

Patricia Leigh had not been so interested in years as she was in Joan's
affairs at the Brier Bush. They smacked of high adventure and thrilled
the girl.

To Sylvia they were rather grovelling means to a legitimate end. She
scowled at Joan's vivid description of her experiences and warned her to
trust not too fully to her veil.

"But it's a splendid lark!" Patricia burst in, defensively; "it's Art
spelled in capitals. Joan, take my advice and get points about the
swells and scare them stiff!"

"Pat, you should be ashamed!" Sylvia scowled darkly.

"Yes?" purred Patricia. Then: "I see the finish of Plain John's romance,
my sinister Syl, if you don't limber up your spine. Genius, love, and
unbending virtue never pull together."

And then--it was when March was dreariest and drippiest--Kenneth Raymond
strode--that was the only word to describe his long-legged advance--into
the Brier Bush for luncheon with Mrs. Tweksbury.

He had listened to variations of Mrs. Tweksbury's first visit to the tea
room with varying degrees of impatience.

He hated tea rooms; he had little interest in young women, and
particularly disapproved of the type bordering on license; but he had
consented to go in order to lay the old lady's growing nervousness
concerning the details of her first visit.

"My dear," Mrs. Tweksbury had said to Raymond, "the more I think of it
the more I am puzzled."

"Exactly," Raymond replied; "the more you think of it the more puzzles
you introduce. Undoubtedly the young woman is a girl playing outside her
legitimate preserves. She's taking an unfair advantage. They always do.
Presuming on sex and social position. Unless the girl is an outlaw,
she'll confine her antics to the safe outer edge."

In this mood Raymond strode into the Brier Bush with Mrs. Tweksbury at
his heels. They took a table near the fireplace and, rather arrogantly,
Raymond looked about.

"No one was going to take him in!" was what his stern young eyes and
dominant chin proclaimed.

He was of that type of man that gives the impression of being handsome
without any of the damaging features so often included. He was handsome
because he was strong, well set up, and completely unconscious of
himself.

He was always willing to pay the right price for what he wanted, but he
meant to get good value! He was lavish with what was his own, as Mrs.
Tweksbury almost tearfully asserted, but about that he never spoke and
always frowned down any reference to it.

He expected the usual thing at the Brier Bush, and was just enough to
show some appreciation when he did not find it.

The rooms were unique and charming. Elspeth Gordon was impressive as she
walked about among her guests. She might permit them to be amused; help,
indeed, to give them a cheery hour in the busy day, but not for a moment
would she admit what could be questionable in her scheme.

That being proved, Raymond critically attacked the bill of fare. Its
promise was like the atmosphere of the place, honest and wholesome.

No man is proof against such dishes as were presently set before him.
Raymond was so engrossed by their merit and so surprised by it that he
forgot the main thing that had brought him to the Brier Bush until he
felt Mrs. Tweksbury's foot firmly and insistently pressing his. He
looked up.

Joan was passing their table and very slightly she inclined her head
toward it.

Her eyes were what startled Raymond. If eyes in themselves have no
expression, then the soul, looking through, has full play.

All Joan's youth and ignorance and unconscious wisdom shone forth. Mrs.
Tweksbury amused her, but the man at the table disturbed her. She
misinterpreted the calm glance he fixed upon her. It was a disapproving
glance, to be sure, and Joan shrank from that, but she felt that he was
cruelly misjudging her and was so sure of himself that he dared to do
it--without even knowing!

This she resented with a flash of her wonderful eyes.

What Raymond really meant was--doubt. Not of her, but himself.

"Saucy witch!" whispered Mrs. Tweksbury; "Ken, test her, for my sake!"
Again the foot under the table steered Raymond's thoughts.

He found himself smiling up at Joan and, rising, offered her the third
chair at his table.

She sat down quite indifferently, but graciously, and spread out her
pretty hands. Joan's hands were lovely--Raymond was susceptible to
hands. To him they indicated fineness or the reverse. Art could do much
for hands, but Nature could do more.

Quite as graciously and simply as Joan had done Raymond spread his own
hands forth with the remark: "At your mercy, Sibyl."

Now Joan, through much study of books and with a certain intuition that
stood her in good stead, had cleverly conquered her tricks. For what
they were worth, she offered them charmingly, seriously, and with
impressiveness.

Then, too, from much guessing, with astonishing results, she had grown
to half believe in what she was doing. Patricia aided her in this.
Patricia had a superstitious streak and took to fads as she took to her
verse--on her flying trips.

"You are a business man," Joan began, fixing her splendid eyes on the
frankly upturned hands--she was comparing them with the hands of the
Third Sex, those studio-haunting men whose hands, like their linen and
morals, were too often off-colour.

"An honest business man!" Joan thought that, but did not voice it.

"You will succeed--if----" This she spoke aloud and then looked up. She
was ready now to punish her prey for that look of doubt in his eyes.

"If--what?" Raymond was conscious of the "feel" of the hand which held
his--Joan's other hand was lying open beside his on the table.

"If----" and now Joan traced delicately a line in his palm--a faint,
wavering line running hither and thither among the more strongly marked
ones; "if you strengthen this line," she said. "You are too sure of--of
your inherited traits. This line indicates individuality; it will rule
in the end, but you are making personality your god now. That is unwise.
As a well-trained servant it is wonderful, but as a master it will run
you off your best course."

How Patricia would have gloried could she have heard her words mouthed
by Joan!

Raymond stared. He felt Mrs. Tweksbury's foot on his and, mentally,
clung to it as a familiar and safe landmark.

"Just what difference lies between individuality and personality?" he
asked so seriously that Joan's mouth twitched under her life-saving
veil. She brought Patricia's philosophy into more active action.

"The difference is the meaning of life. One comes into this
consciousness with his individuality--or soul, or whatever one cares to
call it--intact. It accepts or repudiates what the personality--that is
intellect--learns through the five senses. If it is _truth_, then it
becomes part of the individuality--if it is untruth, it is discarded.
Individuality is never in doubt--it _knows_. It is not bound by foolish
laws evolved from the five-sensed personality; it will, in the end, have
its way. You will have to listen more to your individuality; be
controlled less by your personality. The latter is too fully
developed"--at this broad slash Raymond coloured in spite of
himself--"the former has been pitifully ignored."

The pause that followed was made normal only by the pressure on
Raymond's foot.

Presently he said, boldly:

"You have the same line in your own hand, Sibyl!"

Joan started and looked down. She had not considered a home thrust
possible. Instinctively her long, slim fingers clutched the secret of
her palm.

"I am not reading my own lines," she said, quietly; "I am learning from
them, however!"

Then she rose with dignity and passed to another table where a broad,
flat, commonplace hand lay ready.

"Well?" Mrs. Tweksbury pounced into the arena like a released gladiator.
"What do you make of it, Ken?"

Raymond laughed. He saw that Mrs. Tweksbury was more impressed than she
cared to acknowledge.

"I don't know what she told you, Aunt Emily," he said, taking up the
check beside his plate, "but it was rather cleverly concealed rot, as
far as I am concerned. Drivel; faddy drivel, but the girl's a lady, or
whatever that word stands for. I half believe the child takes herself
seriously--she has wonderful eyes. She should wear blinders--it isn't
fair to leave them outside the veil. Comical little beggar!"

"But, Ken," Emily Tweksbury followed her companion from the room, "you
are like that--you really are! You just take life by the throat and you
are sure of yourself in a way that frightens me."

"Oh, come, Aunt Emily, that girl has caught you by her nonsense. See
here, let us do a bit of sleuthing! I bet the sibyl often is at dinners
where we go--and I'm not so sure but what I would know those hands of
hers anywhere--they were not ordinary hands. Two can play at her little
game."

This seemed to offer some inducement to Mrs. Tweksbury and she
brightened.

"Her walk, too, Ken. Did you notice that?"

"Yes--I did, by Jove! Longer strides than most girls take and a swing
from the hips like a graceful dance motion. Yes, that walk should be a
dead give-away."

"And her eyes, Ken, she _has_ eyes!"

"Yes," rather musingly, "she has eyes!"

"Ken, we mustn't give further countenance to this silly, faddy place."

This with conviction.

"Why should we, Aunt Emily? I only went at your request, you know."

"Of course. The girl got on my nerves." Mrs. Tweksbury could smile now.

"Well, I'm going to get on hers!" Raymond set his jaw.

Two days later Kenneth Raymond went to the Brier Bush again for
luncheon. This time Mrs. Tweksbury did not accompany him.

He took a table at the far end of the room near the windows--he wanted
light. He ordered his luncheon, read his paper, and to all intents and
purposes gave the impression of a business man who, having discovered a
place of good food, repaired to it with confidence. Of course Elspeth
Gordon did not remember him--why should she? But Joan did--and why
should she? She was reading the palms of a hilarious group near the
table at which Raymond sat reading the stock reports; she was in a gale
of high spirits but, when she was aware of Raymond's glance, she paused
and caught her breath.

"Anything bad in my hand?" asked the girl whose palm Joan was scanning.

"Oh, no! Something splendid. You are never to make mistakes, because
your caution is stronger than your desire," Joan murmured.

"I think _that_ is stupid," the girl returned; "no fun in that kind of
thing."

Joan prolonged each reading at the safe, jolly table; she planned, when
she was done, to ignore the man near her and go in the opposite
direction, but while she planned she was aware that she would do no such
thing. The bird and the snake know this force, so do the moon and the
tides.

And at last Joan got up and turned toward Raymond. As she passed his
table--he was busy with his soup then--her head was high and her eyes
fixed upon Miss Gordon at the other end of the room. She was estimating
her chances of reaching Elspeth with the limited self-control at her
command. Then she heard words and paused without turning her head.

"I wish you would stop a moment. I have a question to ask you."

Joan had a sudden fear that if she did not stop the question would be
shouted.

"Very well," she said, quietly, and sat down opposite Raymond.

She clasped her pretty hands before her and--waited.

It is not easy to laugh away the moments in life that we cannot account
for--they often seem the only moments of tremendous import; they are the
channels which, once entered, give access to wide experiences. Joan felt
her breath coming hard; she was frightened. Raymond pushed his plate
aside and, leaning forward a bit over his clasped hands, said casually:

"Just how much of this rot do you believe?"

"None of it."

"Why do you do it?"

"I am earning my bread and butter and--dessert."

"Especially--the dessert?"

"No. Especially bread and butter. It is only a bit of fun, you
know--this reading of the palms. Miss Gordon thinks it--it aids
digestion," Joan was speaking hardly above a whisper.

"She does, eh?" Raymond had an insane desire to snatch the shielding
veil from the face across the table. He wondered what would happen if he
did?

"I wish," he said instead, "I wish you'd cut it out, you know."

"What--my bread and butter?"

"No--this tomfoolery. I don't believe you have to earn your living. I'd
lay a wager that you are doing it as a stunt to vary the monotony of a
dull existence, but there are other and better ways of doing that, you
know."

Raymond was deadly earnest and did not stop to consider the absurdity of
his words and tones.

"What ways?" asked Joan, and Raymond detected the suggestion of a smile
behind the vapoury veil.

"I don't think I need to tell you that," he said.

"Perhaps not--but after consideration I've chosen this way. I like it."
Joan was getting control of herself, and in proportion to her gain
Raymond lost.

"I suppose you think me an impudent ass," he ventured.

"I'm--thinking of something else," Joan answered.

"What, for instance?"

"That line--in your hand."

"I thought you said this was only fun; that you did not believe in it?"
Raymond frowned as he saw his next course advancing toward him.

"There are exceptions," and Joan helped him arrange his dishes.

"Some day, if you are interested, come and I'll tell you more about that
line in your hand." She rose with quiet grace and moved away.

"Oh! I say--" Raymond followed her with his eyes--"why not to-day?"

"There are others," Joan tossed back and was gone.

That night she went to Patricia Leigh's. Patricia had had a busy and
prosperous day. She had written some verses that she felt were
good--they had a tang that always gave Patricia the belief in their
quality; she had sold two other small things. She was, therefore, at her
flightiest, and greeted Joan with delight.

"I'm so glad Syl is not tagging on, Joan," she said. "Syl is the best
they make, but she does somehow get under the skin and make people feel
themselves 'seconds'."

Joan sank into a chair.

"Syl is writing reams to her John," she explained. "I doubt if she
noticed my leaving. She probably thinks I'm still singing."

And then Joan told Patricia about the man who, for some unknown reason,
had made himself permanent in her interest.

"I wish I knew about him," she murmured; "I cannot recall any one in the
least like him in Mrs. Tweksbury's life. I don't want to ask Aunt
Doris--besides, he may just be a chance acquaintance of Mrs.
Tweksbury's. I hardly think that, though--for she looks volumes at him
and he sort of appropriates her."

Patricia was frankly interested--she was flying, and at such moments her
bird's-eye view was a wide and sympathetic one.

Joan, too, in this mood was bewitching.

"All Joan needs," thought Patricia, "is to discover her sex appeal; get
it on a leash and take it out walking. She's like a marionette
now--hopping about, doing stunts, but not conscious of her performance."

"Lamb!" Patricia lighted a fresh cigarette, "a week from to-night you
breeze in here and what I do not know about your young man, by that
time, will not count for or against him."

"But, Pat, do be careful!" Joan was frightened by what she had set in
motion.

"Careful, lamb? Why, if carefulness wasn't my keynote, I'd be--well! I
wouldn't be here."




CHAPTER XIII

"_Joyous we launch out on trackless seas carolling free, singing our
songs._"


A week from that night Joan again eluded Sylvia. She did it by not going
to the studio for dinner. She felt deceitful and mean, but there were
heights--or were they depths?--that Sylvia could not reach, and
intuitively Joan felt that Sylvia would disapprove of what she was now
doing.

Patricia was not in when Joan reached her rooms--they were small, dim
rooms and rather cluttered.

Sitting alone, waiting, Joan thought of Patricia more intimately than
she often did. She recalled what Sylvia had told of her; remembered the
warnings, and her eyes dimmed.

"Poor old Pat!" she mused, "she's like a pretty bird--just lighting on
things, or"--and here Joan thought she had struck on something rather
expressive--"or like a lovely, bright cloud casting a shadow. No matter
what colour the cloud is, the shadow's dark. Dear old Pat! Well--I see
the colour."

This was satisfying and brought up her feeling about Patricia, which had
been depressed.

And just then Patricia tripped in, humming and rippling and stumbling
over a rug as she felt her way in the gloom--Joan had not turned on the
lights. Presently she stopped short and asked sharply:

"Who is here?"

Joan bubbled over and Patricia gave a relieved laugh.

"Lordy!" she gasped, "you gave me a bad minute. I thought----"

"What, Pat?" Joan touched the switch.

"I--I thought--it might be someone else. I haven't had a thing to eat
since breakfast," Patricia announced, dropping on a couch and pulling
the cushions into all the crevices surrounding her thin, weary little
body.

"I'll get the nicest little meal for you in a jiffy!" Joan sprang to her
feet. "Is there anything _to_ fix?" she added, quickly.

"There's always something"--Patricia closed her eyes--"eggs and milk
and--and canned horrors." Then, with a radiant smile:

"I've been on the trail of your man, Joan, and it was some trail."

"Pat, darling," Joan hung over the couch, "you take a couple of winks.
I'm going out to get--a steak."

"A what?" Patricia regarded Joan gravely. "A brand-new steak for me?
Joan, you must be mad!"

"Pat, lie down and dream a minute or two. A steak, fried potatoes, a
vegetable, and dessert with coffee, cheese, crackers--and--and----" Joan
was putting on her hat while she spoke and Patricia was sniffing
adorably.

A half hour later Joan crept noiselessly back, her arms full of bundles.
Patricia lay fast asleep on the couch.

Sleep does revealing things, and in spite of her hurry, Joan stopped and
looked at the girl lying in the full glare of the electric light.

She was like a weary child. All the hard lines on the thin face were
obliterated; the soft hair fell in cunning curls about the neck and
ears; the long lashes rested delicately on the fair skin.

All the world stains were covered by the sweet presence of Patricia's
youth, which had stolen forth in slumber time.

Then it was that Joan discovered that she was crying. Big tears were
rolling down her cheeks, and in her heart was growing a new, vital
emotion--a selfless, nameless, urging tide of protection for something
weak and helpless.

When the meal was prepared Joan kissed Patricia awake.

The girl sat up and gazed dazedly at the small table drawn to the couch,
at the candles burning on it, at the covered dishes from which crept the
most bewildering smells.

"The god of the famishing--bless you!" whispered Patricia and fell to
the joy of the meal with the abandon of the starved.

She ate and drank and smoked. She let Joan wait upon her and dispose of
the debris. She even directed Joan to the closet where her kimono and
slippers were; she let Joan undress her and put them on.

"How thin you are, Pat lovey!" Here Joan kissed a white shoulder.

"A mere bag of bones, Joan lamb, but they are easy to carry around."

"And such ducks of feet, Pat, I never saw such cunning feet. They do not
look big enough to be of use."

"They'll carry me as far as I have to go, Joan, and take it from me, I'm
not keen for a prolonged trip. It's too much trouble to keep yourself
alive to want to spin it out."

"Oh, Pat! Hasn't my dinner done you any good?" Joan smoothed the soft,
fluffy curls tenderly.

"Why, you old darling," Patricia broke forth, "you've given me a glimpse
of what would make it worth while--the trip, I mean. That's the trouble.
I get the glimpse, acquire the taste, and then I wake up to--sawdust.
Oh! good God, Joan."

Joan rose and turned off the lights; she left the candles burning and
sat down on a stool by Patricia.

After a while Patricia reached for her cigarettes and spoke as if
several big things had not occurred. She gurgled as a mischievous child
might who had stolen jam and escaped detection.

"Your man, Joan," she began puffing away, "is named Kenneth Raymond. In
tracking him I resorted first to Hannah Leland, society editor of
_Froth_. Hannah stores up items about the upper crust as a squirrel does
nuts. Her articles always have background; she's let in everywhere
because folks are afraid to shut her out. She can see more through
keyholes than others do through barn doors, and her scent
is--phenomenal!"

Joan hugged her knees and looked grave.

"I--I hate to snoop, Pat," she whispered.

"You don't have to--I got Hannah's snoops for you. They're innocent
enough--really, they're the soundest of sound little nuts.

"Mrs. Tweksbury had a romance! Don't grin, Joan. She didn't always look
like a squaw in front of a tobacco shop--they say she was rather a
stunner. She married Tweksbury before she got the bit in her
mouth--afterward she clutched it good and proper and trotted the course
according to the rules.

"Then came Raymond--this man's father. He somehow got it over to Mrs.
Tweksbury--the real thing, you know, and she reached and got it over to
_him_, that it was up to them to--keep it clean. Gee! Joan, her past
sounds like a tract with all the sobs left out and a lot of iron put in.

"Raymond, in a year or two, married a woman who lived only long enough
to produce this man upon whose trail we're scouting. This Kenneth was a
measly little offspring and his mother's people undertook to give him a
chance to live. He picked up and he and his father became pals--Hannah
rooted out a picture of them riding horseback. Then the father was
thrown from his horse and killed right before the eyes of the boy, and
that put him back years--he barely escaped. I don't believe he would
have, from accounts, if Mrs. Tweksbury hadn't butted in at that point
and made it a matter of honour to the boy to--to--carry on!

"Well, once he mounted _that_ horse he rode it as he did all
others--hard and grim. He never played in all his life. He's been making
good. Society he loathes; women do not exist for him, outside of Mrs.
Tweksbury. I bet he knows _her_ past and is paying back for his
dad--he's like that.

"Well, when I'd got everything Hannah had in her safe I had a burning
desire to have a look at Mr. Kenneth Raymond myself. So this afternoon I
went to his office----"

"Pat!" cried Joan. "Oh! Pat, how could you?"

"Easiest thing in the world, my lamb. You see, the chance of viewing a
human being--with one fortune in his pocket and another coming to him
when Mrs. Tweksbury lets go--actually on a job holding it down like
grim death--was a sight to gladden the heart of a tramp like me. I
sallied down to Wall Street and had some fun.

"I found his building without a moment's delay and I casually asked the
elevator boy where Mr. Raymond's office was, and the little chap grew
effusive--either Mr. Raymond is lavish with tips, or the human touch,
for his goings and comings are meat to that kid.

"He told me I had better hustle, for at four-thirty every day Mr.
Raymond beat it! The boy was an artist in word-painting. He described my
man as a real toff, none of your little yappers. He's going to haul in
the pile and playing honest-to-God--fair, too!"

Joan burst out laughing. Patricia mimicked the ribald manner of the boy
deliciously.

Patricia nodded her thanks and went on:

"Well, I hung around his corridor for ten minutes, Joan; and at
four-thirty exactly his door opened and I had timed myself so perfectly
that he tumbled over me and nearly knocked me down.

"He has better manners than you might expect from such a deadly prompt
person. He steadied me and looked positively concerned when he realized
what a pretty, helpless little thing I am!" Patricia gave a wicked wink
and lighted her fifth cigarette.

"I told him I was looking for ---- and I made up a preposterous name; and
he puckered his lofty brow and said he couldn't recall any such name in
the building, and then I told him I had about concluded that I had the
wrong address, and he offered to look the name up for me, but I sighed
and said that it was too late. My man always left his office at
three-forty-five and that I would have to come again.

"We went down in the elevator together, the boy winking all the way down
at me--and--that's all, Joan, except that you've got to go careful with
Mr. Kenneth Raymond. You don't want to hurt that fairy godmother of his;
she hasn't had many things of her own in life, and I do insist that
while one is grabbing it's better to grab where there is a flock than
pick a ewe-lamb. Besides, this Kenneth Raymond hasn't begun to
understand himself--he's been too busy understanding life. Have a heart,
Joan!"

Joan looked up sedately.

"Isn't it queer, Pat, but now that I know him he doesn't seem
interesting in the least. He's priggish and conceited; he's a poser,
too. It is too bad, Pat, for you to tire yourself out and get such a--a
dry stick for your pains."

Patricia regarded Joan for a full minute and then she remarked:

"You had better go home and get to bed, child. And look here--I give you
this advice free: a fire lighted by an idiot can do as much damage as
any other kind of a fire."

"Thanks, Pat. I'll remember that when I--play around dry sticks.
Good-night, you old, funny Pat, and thank you."

Joan bent and kissed the top of Patricia's head.

After that evening with Patricia Joan clung to Sylvia with unusual
tenacity. She also went to see a well-known teacher of music and got his
opinion of her voice.

"Your voice needs nearly everything to be done for it that can be done
to a voice," the professor frankly told her, "but you _have_ a voice,
beyond doubt. You have feeling, too, almost too much of it; it is
feeling uncontrolled, perhaps not understood.

"If you are willing to give years to it you will be a singer."

The man thought that he was killing hope in the girl before him, but to
his surprise she raised her eyes seriously to him and said:

"I am a working girl, but I am saving for the chance of doing what you
suggest. I will begin next winter. I think I know that I shall never be
great, but I believe I will sing some day."

The man bowed her out with deep respect.

When Joan told of her interview Sylvia was delighted, and Patricia, who
had happened in for a cup of tea, looked relieved.

"Of course you'll sing, Joan," she said, enthusiastically, "and if you
don't turn your talent to account you'll bring the wrath of God down
upon you. That Brier Bush is well enough to start you--but you're pretty
well through with it, I fancy."

Patricia was arraigning herself with Sylvia for reasons best known to
herself. She had the air of a very discreet young woman.

Long did Joan lie awake that night on her narrow bed. She had raised the
shade, and the stars were splendid in the blue-black sky.

She was happier, sadder, than she had ever been in her life before--more
confused.

She wanted Doris and Nancy and the shelter and care; she wanted her own
broad path and the thrill that her own sense of power gave her. She
wanted to cling close to Sylvia; she was afraid of Patricia but felt the
girl's influence in her deepest depths.

In short, Joan was waking to the meaning of life, and it had taken very
little to awaken her, for her time had come.

Three days later Kenneth Raymond ate his luncheon at the Brier Bush and
spoke no word to Joan. The following day he nodded to her, and the day
after that he said, in a low voice as she passed:

"I want to have you read my palm again."

"Once is enough," Joan replied.

"I have forgotten what you said," Raymond broke in; "besides, I have
another reason. You've set me on a line of thought--you've got to clear
the track."

"Oh, very well." And Joan sat down and took the broad hand in hers.

"I've read a lot of stuff since I saw you first," Raymond began. "There
is something in this palmistry."

"I just take the words and play with them," Joan replied. "I truly do
not know whether there is anything in it--or not. It is only fun here."

"Look at me!"

This Joan refused to do.

"There is that line in my hand like yours"--Raymond was in dead
earnest--"what--does it mean?"

"I told you what it means," Joan faltered.

"Do you want me to read your palm?" Raymond bent farther across the
table.

"Yes, if you can!" Joan was on her mettle. She instantly spread her
hands to the bent gaze and prayed that no one would take the tables near
by. It was late; the rush was over and Elspeth Gordon, for the moment,
had left the room.

"You're not what you appear," Raymond began.

"Who _is_?" Joan flung this out defiantly.

"You're daring a good deal--to taste life. You're testing your line;
making it prove itself--_I_ haven't dared!"

Joan did not speak, and her small hands were as quiet as little dead
hands in the strong ones which held them.

"Does it pay--the daring, the testing?" Raymond's eyes, dark and
unfaltering, tried to pierce the veil.

"Yes--I think so."

"You make me want to try--do you dare me?"

"It does not interest me at all what you do." Joan was like ice now.
"You evidently misunderstand our play here. Let go of my hands!"

"I haven't finished yet. You've got to hear me out."

"Let go of my hands!"

"All right--but will you stay here?"

"I'll stay until I want to go."

"Very well. I know I'm a good deal of a fool--but sometimes a slight
thing turns the stream. I thought it was all rot--a play that you'd made
up--this line business." Raymond spoke hurriedly. "Of course I'd heard
of it, but I never gave it a thought. Just for sport, after that first
day, I got bushels of books and I've been sitting up nights reading.
There's something in it!"

Joan laughed. The man looked like an excited boy who had started a toy
engine going.

"See here! They say your left hand is what you start with; your right
hand what you have made of yourself--that line that you have and I have
is in my right hand--is yours in both?"

Joan tried not to look--but ended in looking.

"No," she replied. "I reckon it only comes in the right hand with
anybody."

"No, it doesn't; the lady I was with the other day hadn't it in either
hand!"

"Isn't she lucky?" Joan laughed.

"No, she isn't!" Raymond spoke solemnly. "Only the people who have
it--are."

"I'm going now." Joan got up; and so did Raymond.

"See here," he said, bluntly. "I've never had a bit of adventure in my
life--I'm a stick. I don't know what you will think of me; I don't care
much; but you've started something in me; it's nothing I'm ashamed of,
either, and you needn't be afraid. But won't you talk to me some
time--about--well, this stunt and some other things?"

"Certainly not!" Joan drew back and added: "and I am not in the least
afraid."




CHAPTER XIV

"_But after it comes our lives are changed._"


And just when winter was turning to spring in the southern hills
something happened to Nancy.

The winter at Ridge House had revealed many things. It had been lonely,
and it had brought conviction about Joan's absence. The girl was not
coming back to them, that must be an accepted fact. She would,
undoubtedly, when she became adjusted, return on visits--but they must
not expect her as a fixture, for she was succeeding! This realization
had caused Doris many silent hours of thought, but never once had she
known bitterness or a sense of injustice. Joan had as much right as any
other human soul to her own development. Doris was glad that Joan had
never known what Nancy knew about the need for coming to The Gap. The
knowing would have held Joan back. With Nancy it was different. Nancy
was not held from anything she wanted.

David Martin spent as much time as he could at Ridge House. He came to
the hard conclusion, at length, that Doris, in her new environment, had
reached her high-water mark. Detached from strain and care, living
quietly, and largely in the open, she had responded almost at once--to
her limit, and there she remained. How long this improved state would
hold was the main thing to be considered; nothing more comforting could
be looked for.

"Then, what next?" thought David, and his jaw grew grim.

And Nancy, with a winter far too quiet and uneventful even for her, had
contrived to do some thinking for herself. Not for the world would the
girl have accepted Joan's choice. The safe and sheltered life was wholly
to her taste, but she wanted others to fall into line. Like many
another, she was not content to hold her own views, she was unhappy
unless she was approved and imitated. She wanted the spice and thrill of
Joan in her life; Joan was part of it all--the rightful part. With this
Nancy took to self-pity in order to establish her claim.

"Why should I be taken for granted and be obliged to give up all the fun
and brightness while Joan does as she pleases?"

Doctor Martin, even Doris, expected Nancy to come when she was called
and go to bed when the clock struck ten, while Joan could follow her own
sweet will.

At this point Nancy re-read Joan's letters--all letters from Joan were
common property. If ever there was innocent jugglery Joan's letters
were. They were vivid and interesting; they carried one along on a
stream as clear as crystal, but they arrived at nothing.

The studio was left to the imagination of the reader. Doris saw it as a
safe and artistic home for earnest young girlhood; Nancy saw it as an
open sesame to fun, rather wilder than school bats, but with the same
delicious tang. Doctor Martin viewed the place as most dangerous, and
those young people gathered there as perilous offsprings of a
much-deplored departure from conservative youth.

"Fancy Joan helping in a restaurant!" groaned Nancy when Joan had
particularized about her "job." "Joan, of all people!"

"It will be good practice," Doris remarked in reply. "When Joan marries,
she will have had some experience."

"Marry?" David Martin broke in--he was on one of his flying visits. "If
anything could unfit a girl for marriage, the thing Joan is doing is
that."

"Very well," Doris said, quietly; "marriage isn't everything, David."

Doris was beginning to defend Joan, and it hurt her to be obliged to do
so. She did not regret the relinquishing of the girl, but she had hoped,
in her deepest love, that the experiment might either prove a failure or
that it might carry Joan to a peak--not a dead level. It was beginning
to seem that the sacrifice on her part meant simply separating Joan
from her--not giving Joan to anything worth while.

There were moments, rather vague, elusive ones, to be sure, when Doris
turned from Joan and contemplated Nancy.

"The child is perfectly content and happy," she thought; "but ought she
to be so--at her age? Nancy should marry--she will, of course, some
day.----" Then Doris wondered whom Nancy could marry.

"Next winter I may be able to go to New York," she comforted herself;
"or I'll send Nancy to Emily Tweksbury; the child shall have her life
chance."

But with Doris the inevitable was happening: she was sliding gracefully
down the inclined plane which others had arranged for her. She was
making no effort, because none was required of her. The peace and
comfort of the old house in restoring comparative health had placed its
mark upon her. It was wonderful to lie on the porch and watch the beauty
of The Gap change from season to season. The sound of the river was
always in her ears, and there was a dramatic appeal in kneeling at the
altar in the tiny chapel to pray for them whom she loved so tenderly.

And Nancy was so sweet and companionable! Poor little Nancy! She was
playing Doris's minor accompaniment as once she had played Joan's more
vivid one. But the youth in her was surging and rebelling--not against
love and service, but inequality.

"Joan should bear half, anyway!"

Just what it was that Joan should share Nancy could not have told, she
simply knew that she wanted Joan--wanted what Joan represented.

With the passing of winter and the early coming of spring Nancy and
Doris reacted to the charm of The Gap. The shut-in days were past.
Almost before one could hope for it, the dogwood and laurel and azalea
burst into bloom and the windows and doors were flung back in welcome to
spring.

The grounds around Ridge House needed much attention, and Doris
contrived to make Uncle Jed believe that he was the gardener. Nancy,
surrounded by dogs, no longer pups, wandered on the Little Road and
timidly took to the trails. It was quite exciting to go a little farther
each day into the mysterious gloom that was pierced by the golden
sunlight. Gradually the girl felt the joy of the mountaineer; vaguely
the emotion took shape.

What lay just around the curve ahead? What could one see from that
mysterious top? Was there a "top"? If one went on, overcoming obstacles,
what might there not be? These ambitions were quite outside the by-paths
once or twice taken with Father Noble.

Doris was glad to see the light and colour in Nancy's pretty face; she
was grateful, but inclined to be anxious when Nancy wandered far.

"Is it quite safe?" she questioned Jed.

"Dat chile is as safe as she is with Gawd," Jed reverently replied--and
perhaps she was, for God's ways are often like the trails of the high
places--hidden until one treads them.

Nancy, by May, had lost all fear of the solitude, and with seeking eyes
she wandered farther and higher day by day. She brought back wonderful
flowers and ferns to Ridge House; she grew eloquent about the "lost
cabins" as she called them, secreted from any gaze but that which, like
hers, sought them out. She took gifts to the old people and timid
children.

"It's such fun, Aunt Dorrie," she explained, "to win the baby things. At
first they are so frightened. They run and hide--they never cry or
scream, and bye and bye they come to meet me; they bring me little
treasures, the darlings! One gave me a tiny chicken just hatched."

But beyond the last cabin that Nancy conquered was a hard, rocky trail
that led, apparently, to the sharp crest called by Uncle Jed Thunder
Peak.

"Does any one live on Thunder Peak?" asked Nancy of Jed.

The old man wrinkled his brow. He had not thought of Becky Adams for
years; at best the woman had been but a landmark, and landmarks had a
habit of disappearing.

"No, there ain't no reason for folks to live on Thunder Peak. It's a
right sorry place for living."

Jed found comfort, now he came to think of it, in knowing that Becky had
departed.

"Whar?" he asked himself, when Nancy, followed by two of her dogs, went
away; "whar dat old Aunt Becky disappeared to?" Then he pulled himself
together and went to deliver the message Nancy had confided to him.

"Tell Aunt Doris I'm going for a long walk and not to worry if I'm not
home for luncheon."

Jed repeated this message over and over aloud. He fumbled it, corrected
it, and then finally gripped it long enough to speak the words
automatically to Doris and Doctor Martin.

"That old fellow," Martin said, looking keenly after him, "is going to
go all to pieces some day like the one-hoss shay. He looks about a
hundred. I wonder how old he is?"

Doris smiled.

"I imagine," she said, "that he is not as old as he looks. He told me
that his grandfather was married in short trousers and never lived to
get in long ones. They begin life so early and just shuffle through it."

"You find that thing in the South more than anywhere else." Martin was
nodding understandingly. "It's like a dream--more like looking at life
than living it. I suppose when they die they wake up and stretch and
have a laugh at what they feared and passed through in their sleep."

"We will all do that, more or less, Davey."

"More or less--yes!" Then suddenly:

"Doris, I think you can plan on three months in New York next winter. My
boy is coming on from the West. I'm going to take my shingle down and
hang his up."

"Really, David? Take yours _down_?" Doris looked dubious.

"Yes. I'll stay around with him, but I'm going to put my shack on the
map right under Blowing Rock. I've brought the plans to show you."

Martin took them from his pocket and sat down beside Doris, and while
they became absorbed, Nancy was climbing her way up Thunder Trail.

Before she realized that she had come so far, she was in the open, the
sunlight almost blinding her. She started back and screwed her eyes to
make sure that she saw aright. Not only was she out of the woods but she
was on the edge of a trim garden plot; there was a dilapidated cabin
just beyond it, and an ancient creature standing in the doorway.

At first Nancy could not make out whether it was a man or a woman. She
had never seen any one so old, and the eyes in the shrunken face were
like burning holes--caverns with fire in them!

Nancy was too stunned to move or speak. Her knowledge of the hills
forbade the usual fear, but a supernatural terror seized her and she
waited for the old woman--she decided it was a woman--to make the first
advance. This the woman presently did. She turned, and with trembling
haste took up a rusty spade by the door; she shuffled toward a corner of
the opening and began to dig at a mound that was covered with loose
earth. Weakly, fearfully, the claw-like hands worked while Nancy stood
fascinated and bewildered. Finally the old woman came toward her and
there was a tragic pathos on the wrinkled face that tended to quiet the
girl's rising fear. The cracked voice was pleading:

"How did yo' get out?" The words came anxiously and with difficulty,
like the words of a deaf mute that had been taught to speak
mechanically.

Nancy smiled weakly and looked silently at the speaker.

"Been tryin' to find hit?" the strained voice went on. "Yo' better lie
still, Zalie--yo' larned enough, chile!"

And then, because the rigid girl did not speak, the old woman drew
nearer.

Nancy, believing herself in the presence of a harmlessly insane
creature, rallied her courage and sought to soothe, not excite, the
woman.

"I'm lost," she faltered. "I am sorry to have disturbed you; I am going
now."

She half turned, keeping her eyes on her companion.

"Come--set a bit," pleaded the crackling voice; "come warm yo'self
before I tuck yo' up again. How cold yo' little hands are! Po' little
Zalie, jes' naturally--tryin' to find hit."

There are limits of fear beyond which, for self-preservation, a kind of
calm strength lies that suggests ways of safety. Nancy did not run or
cry out, she did not withdraw her icy hands from the brown, claw-like
fingers that held them; she even smiled a faint, ghastly smile that
reassured the old woman. Her eyes softened; her voice almost crooned.

"Us-all is safe--no one comes nigh--it's comfortin' ter tech yo', Zalie,
an' hit is well placed. Through all the years I done wanted to tell yo';
I've said it by yo' grave many's the time, chile----" Becky waited a
moment. She looked cautiously about the sun-lighted place and peered
into the gloom of the forest-edge, then she looked again at Nancy, while
her thin hand pointed to the mound under the tree across the bit of
open. Nancy shuddered.

"What is--that?" she gasped.

"Yo' little grave, Zalie--yo' little bed. I 'tend it loving and proper;
I take a look-in onct so often--but yo' is cute, like yo' was when yo'
stole out in the moonshine to larn. You done got out yo' grave when I
wasn't watching. Come, now, let me put yo' back!"

The old woman turned, and in that instant Nancy fled like a spirit.
Noiselessly, swiftly she disappeared. She heard the crackling voice
behind her:

"Jes' creep back by yourself, eh, Zalie?" And then came the sound of
metal patting down the loose earth on the mound by the solemn trees.

Nancy could never tell what occurred on her descent from Thunder Peak.
When she reached The Gap, she found that her dogs had strayed from her:
they had either dropped behind or run before. She was not exhausted. She
felt strong and calm. The adventure was assuming a thrilling proportion
now she was at a safe distance. But she had no intention of telling
Doris. Oddly enough, she felt the need of keeping it secret. She
shivered as she recalled the touch of the claw-fingers and the sound of
the dry, hard voice. She had a growing sense of uncleanness, now that
the shock was wearing off. It almost seemed that a poison had been left
upon her that was eating its way into depths of her being. She was
afraid that someone would know; she trembled when old Jed remarked:

"Dis yere little ole pup don slink back like he seed a hant and he had
burrs stickin' to his sorry-lookin' hide--seems he was off the scent. No
'count!"

Jed gave the hound a push with his foot, but he had set Nancy's nerves
tingling.

"I lost the scent myself," she said, striving for calmness. And then
relying upon the old man's simplicity she asked, pointing across The
Gap:

"What did you say was the name of that peak, Uncle Jed?" She wanted to
make very sure!

The old man raised his bleary eyes and looked troubled. He was conscious
of something stirring in the dark of his mind.

"Thunder," he replied, then he laughed, and the gold in his few
remaining teeth glistened. Cackling and shuffling along beside Nancy, he
muttered--his mind again on old Becky:

"Her--as was--or her as is! Maybe she ain't a _was_--'pears like she
can't be an _is_." Then he grew calmer and faced Nancy. "Stay away from
Thunder, chile. 'Tain't safe, Thunder ain't--only fer hants."

"I'll stay away, Uncle Jed," Nancy promised fervently, and tried to
laugh off the foolish, superstitious fear that the old man's words had
aroused.

Jed went off muttering--he was strangely disturbed.

As the first impression of her adventure wore off Nancy was surprised to
find that a new fear and restlessness oppressed her. It was like the
after effects of a blow that had stunned her.

She slept badly--a terrific electric storm swept through The Gap and
there seemed, to the frightened girl in the west chamber, noises never
heard before. Creaking steps in the hall; calls in the wind and sharp
summons as the branches of the trees lashed the windows and the blazing
lightning shattered the darkness with blinding flashes.

Nancy crept downstairs the next morning pale and shaken. She rallied,
however, when she saw Doris.

Doris was greatly affected by electric storms and was lying on a couch
by the hearth. Doctor Martin was sitting beside her, and the little
breakfast tray, laid for the three, was drawn close.

They ate the meal quietly, and then Martin took up a book to read aloud
while Nancy went to her loom.

She huddled over it--there was no other word to describe her crouching,
lax attitude; her face was drawn and haggard. Doris watched her; she was
not listening to Martin. Suddenly she felt a kind of shock as she
realized that she was thinking of Nancy as an old woman!

As the spring holds all the promise of autumn in its delicate shading,
so youth often depicts the time on ahead when line and colour will take
on the aspect of age.

It was startling. Doris almost cried aloud. Nancy old! Nancy lean and
shrivelled with her pretty back bent to--the burden of life!

Then Doris laughed nervously, and Martin started. The book he was
reading from was no laughing matter.

"Forgive me, David--I was not listening; I was--planning. You know how
agile a mind can be after--a bad headache?" This was not convincing to
Martin and he scowled.

"What were you planning?" he asked, and Nancy at her wheel turned her
head.

"Nancy's winter in town. She must have loads of pretty things, and I
will open the old house--perhaps we can lure Joan also, and have the
time of our lives. How would you like that Nan, girl?"

The tone was pleading, almost imploring. Doris had a sense of having
wronged the girl, somehow.

"Oh, Aunt Dorrie, I should love it!" Nancy came across the room, all
suggestion of age gone. "That is--if it will not harm you, dear."

"I think it would do you both good," Martin spoke earnestly; "I begin to
realize what you once said, Doris. One has to have the country in his
blood to be of the country. You must have change and"--turning to
Nancy--"give this child a chance to--to show off."

He reached out and pinched Nancy's pale cheek.

"Run out," he commanded, suddenly; "run out into the sunshine and forget
the storm. You're exactly like your aunt--conquer it, conquer it, child,
while conquering is part of the programme."

Nancy managed a smile, leaned and kissed Doris, waved a salute to
Martin, and fled from the room.

"David, somehow I've hurt that girl." Doris spoke wearily.

"How?" Martin questioned.

Doris looked up and shook her head.

"How have I, Davey? I cannot tell."

"She's not hurt--but she's in line to be sacrificed if we don't look
out. I'm the guilty one--I thought only of you."

And then the two planned for the winter.

Nancy took her dogs and went for a walk--a safe and near walk. The
colour crept into her pale face, but her eyes had a furtive look and
every noise in the bushes set her trembling. She had a conscious feeling
of wanting to get away--far, far away. The Gap frightened her; she
remembered old stories about it. Suddenly she looked up at The Rock and
her breath almost stopped.

Fascinated, she stared; her eyes seemed to be following an invisible
finger--The Ship was on The Rock!

Try as she might, Nancy could eat but little lunch. The small table was
on the porch. Doris had recovered from her headache and was particularly
gay--the planning for Nancy had done more for her than it had for Nancy
herself.

"You had better go to your room and lie down," Martin suggested, eyeing
the girl.

"Yes, I will, Uncle David."

But once in the dim quiet of the west wing chamber fresh memories
assailed her.

This was the room, she recalled, into which Mary had seen--how absurd it
was!--the dolls turned to babies. Such foolish, childish memories to
cling and grip! How much better to be like Joan and laugh away the idle
tales! Joan had always laughed--she was laughing now somewhere, looking
her gayest and forgetting troubling things.

Then Nancy cried, not bitterly or enviously, but because she was tired
of playing Joan's accompaniment!

Presently she got up and bathed.

"I'm going to Mary's!" she suddenly thought, and then felt as if she had
been getting ready to go all day. She felt deceitful, sly, in spite of
her constant reiteration that it had just occurred to her.

She left the house unseen; she hid behind a bush when she saw the hounds
raise their heads from the sunny porch--she wanted to go alone to the
cabin across the river.

It was three o'clock when she reached it, and she had hurried along the
short trail, too. Mary was not in sight, but the living-room door was
open and Nancy stood looking in with a baffling sense of unreality; the
place looked different; almost as if she had never seen it before. She
mentally took note of the furniture as though checking the pieces off.

The big bed, gay with patchwork quilts--Nancy knew all the patterns:
Sunrise on the Peaks; Drunkard's Path; the Rainbow--Mary was making up
for all that her forebears had neglected to do. Early and late she spun
and wrought--she piled her bed high with the results of her labours; she
covered the floor with marvellous rugs; she filled her chest of drawers
with linen--Nancy glanced at the chest and fancied that she smelt the
lavender that was spread on the folded treasures.

How the candlesticks shone; how sweet and clean it was, how safe!

Nancy stepped inside and sat down. The logs were laid ready for the
lighting on the cracked but dustless hearth.

And then, quite unconsciously, the girl began to croon an old song,
swaying back and forth, her arms folded and her eyes peaceful and
waiting.

Mary, returning from her garden planting, stood by the door, unnoticed,
and grimly took in the scene.

What it was that disturbed and angered her she could not have told, but
she could not see Nancy sitting so--and--and--looking as she looked!

Mary strode across the room, causing Nancy to start nervously.

"What ails yo'?" Mary asked, "you look powerful sorry."

"I'm--I'm frightened, Mary."

Oddly enough, it was easy to speak frankly to the stern, plain woman
across the hearth. And it was easy for Mary, after her first glance, to
be ready with anything that could comfort the girl near her.

"What frightened yo'--the storm? I thought 'bout you."

"Yes--the storm, but--Mary, who lives on Thunder Peak?"

Some people are unnerved by surprise; Mary was always steadied.

"There ain't any one," she said, quietly, and leaned over to light the
fire; the afternoon was growing chilly.

"Who used to live there, Mary? There is a cabin there."

Mary did not flinch, but she was feeling her way, always a little ahead
of Nancy.

"There was an old woman lived there--long ago; she died."

"Are you sure, Mary?"

"I'm right certain. She plumb broke down when she was ninety, and that
was years back."

"Mary, there's a grave there!"

"Yes; when folks die they just naturally have a grave." A cold, icy
light flickered in Mary's eyes; she reached and took up another log and
carefully placed it.

"Mary, I went to Thunder Peak, I was following the trail. I came
suddenly into the open and I saw an old woman. She touched me"--here
Nancy shuddered. "She--she seemed to--to think she knew me. She called
me a queer name. I cannot remember it. I was terribly frightened. Are
you _quite_, quite sure the old woman died, Mary?"

"She died, she surely died. Old women ain't such precious sights among
the hills. Like as not it was someone from Huckleberry Bald, t'other
side of Thunder, as has taken over the deserted cabin and just wants to
frighten folks, like you, off. They are mighty cute, those old women on
Bald. They want their own place, and--and they sometimes shoot at any
one that comes nigh."

The voice and words were cool and even. Nancy drew a long breath.

"Oh, Mary," she said, "you just take all the fear away. I kept feeling
that old hand on my arm as if it were dragging me; the feeling is gone
now. Jed said"--here Nancy wavered--"he said the place was haunted."

"Jed was a born fool and yo' can't do much with that kind. They grows
more fool-like at the end."

Nancy laughed.

"I'm just a silly myself," she said rising and stretching her pretty
arms over her head as if awakening from sleep. Then:

"Mary, I'm going to New York next winter. Going to have--a wonderful
time."

And now Mary looked up and her eyes brightened.

"At last," she muttered; "you're to have your chance!"

"My--chance, Mary?"

"Your chance--same as Miss Joan."

And a moment later Mary was watching Nancy as she went singing down the
river road.

"Gawd!" she muttered, and her yellowish skin paled. "Gawd! What has she
come back for?--what?" and Mary's eyes lifted to Thunder Peak. Later she
made ready for a long walk--she knew the trail to Thunder Peak would be
hard after the storm.




CHAPTER XV

"_Every heart vibrates to that iron string._"


And Mary's was vibrating to the iron as she plodded up the trail.

There had been much damage done by the storm. Trees were lying across
the muddy path; there were washed-out spots, making it necessary to go
out of one's way. But Mary did not notice the obstacles further than to
make a wide detour. She was thinking, thinking--patching her bits of
knowledge together with surmises provided by her vivid imagination.

Beginning with the day when old Becky, looking for Sister Angela, had
stolen into the kitchen at Ridge House and demanded "her," Mary
patiently fitted her scraps into a pattern as she patched her wonderful
quilts.

"Yes; no!" Then a stolid nodding of the head.

The sunset, bye and bye, and then the early shadows, crept up the trail
behind the lonely woman plodding along; they seemed to swallow her, and
only her quick breathing marked her going.

"I can pay--at last!" She paused and spoke the words aloud.

"Pay back!"

Through the years since her return to The Gap she had saved and saved to
return to Doris Fletcher the money advanced to buy the cabin.

Mary had never accepted it as a gift; the cabin could never be really
hers until, by the labour of her hands, she had redeemed it.

What matter that her people called her "close" and mean? She knew what
she was about, but in her slow, silent way she had learned, while she
laboured apart, to feel an undying gratitude to the woman who had made
everything possible for her.

And now she was taking her place beside them who had been her friends.
No longer were they "foreigners." Surely Mary had come to realize that
quality was not confined to places; it was in the heart and soul, and if
anything threatened it, why, then---- Here Mary drew herself up and
raised her face to the stars.

She had tears in her eyes, but her mouth drew in a hard line. She felt a
burning curiosity rising in her consciousness. What did it all mean?
What had it meant back in Ridge House long ago?

But as the burning rose higher and fiercer Mary battled with it.

It was their secret! They must keep it--even from her! So would she pay
though they might never know; _must_ never know! She would prove herself
worthy of the trust they had placed in her; she would even the score and
hold danger, whatever the danger was, back. That should be her part to
play!

When Mary reached the clearing on Thunder Peak she stood where Nancy had
stood the day before and took in the scene.

Two or three times, after her return to The Gap, she had gone to The
Peak and searched among the dirt and rubbish for any trace of old Becky.
She had come to believe, at last, that the woman was dead--she had never
been seen after the death of Sister Angela.

It was years now since Mary had given a thought to the deserted garden
and cabin--the clearing was at the trail's end and no one ever took it,
for it led nowhere.

But now, to Mary's astonished eyes, the garden appeared almost as well
planted as her own, and from the chimney of the tumble-down cabin a lazy
curl of smoke rose. Under the dark pine clump the outlines of a narrow
mound could be plainly seen, and beside it lay a spade and a spray of
withered azaleas.

Mary's throat was dry and painful. People to whom tears are possible
never know the agony, but Mary was used to it.

Presently she walked across the open that lay between the edge of the
forest and the cabin and stood by the threshold.

The door hung by one hinge, and through the gap Mary saw old Becky! She
had hoped against hope that what she had told Nancy might be true, but
she was prepared for the worst.

It seemed incredible that this poor, wretched skeleton by the hearth
could be Becky--but Mary knew that it was. Back from her wandering the
pitiful creature had come--home!

She had come as Mary herself had come--because the call of the hills
never dies, but grows with absence.

"Aunt Becky!"

The crone by the hearth paused in her stirring of corn-meal in a pan,
but did not turn.

"Aunt Becky!" And then the old woman staggered to her feet and faced
Mary.

Not yet was the fire dead in the deep sockets--from out the caverns the
last sparks of life were making the eyes terrible.

"Yo'--Mary Allan!" Contempt, more than fear, rang in the tones. "What
yo' spyin' on me for, Mary Allan?"

Mary went inside. She was relieved by the fact that Becky knew her--she
had feared that she would find no response. She did not intend to
question or argue; she meant to control the situation from the start.

"Hit's in the grave 'long o' Zalie!" Becky was on her defence.
"Zalie"--here the befogged brain went under a cloud--"Zalie she come
a-looking--but hit's in the grave! I tell yo'-all, hit's in the grave!"

The trembling creature wavered in the firelight. She was filled with
fear--but of what, who could tell?

Mary's face underwent a marvellous change--it grew tender, wistful.

"Set, Aunt Becky," she said, compassionately, and gently pushed the
woman into a deep rocker covered over with a dirty quilt; "set and
don't be frightened. I ain't come to hurt yo'--I've come to help."

Becky seemed to shrink.

"Hit's in----" she began, but Mary silenced her.

"No hit ain't in the grave! Zalie she knows it--an' I know it!"

"Where is hit--then?" A cunning crept into Becky's cavernous eyes.
"Where is hit?"

"Aunt Becky, no one must know! You want it--that way." Inspiration
guided Mary, or was it, perhaps, that iron strain, the strong human
strain of her kind that led her true? "Zalie, she done come back; not to
look for hit, but to keep you from hit!"

The stroke told. Becky shrank farther in the chair.

"Gawd!" she moaned--"it's that lonely! An' the longin' hurts powerful
sharp."

Mary's face twitched. Did she not know?

"But hit!"--she whispered--"don't you love hit strong enough, Aunt
Becky, to let hit alone, where hit's happy, not knowing?"

There was something majestic about Mary as she kept her eyes upon the
old woman while she pleaded with her.

The past came creeping up on the two women by the ashy hearth--it gave
Becky strength; it blinded Mary. In the old woman's memory a picture
flashed--the picture that once had hung on the wall of Ridge House!

She folded her bony arms over her bosom and panted:

"Yes--I love hit--well enough!" The last hold was loosening. Then:

"It's powerful lonesome--and the cold and hunger bite cruel hard----"

"Aunt Becky, listen to me!" The woman turned her eyes to the speaker,
but her thoughts were far, far away.

"I'll come to you, Gawd hearing me; I'll ward off the cold and hunger.
I'll come day after day--if you'll leave hit--where it can't ever know."

Suddenly Becky's face grew sharp and cunning; all that was tender and
human in her faded--self-preservation rose supreme.

"I'll leave hit, Mary Allen," she cackled, "but if yo' tell that hit
ain't in the grave 'long o' Zalie all the devils o' hell will watch out
for yo' soul!"

Mary was not listening. She rose and mechanically moved about the
disordered room. Like a sleep walker she set the rickety furniture in
place; she began to gather scraps of food together--hunting, hunting in
corners and cupboards. She made some black coffee--rank and
evil-smelling it was--and finally she set the strange meal before the
old woman.

Becky eyed the repast as one might who fancied that she dreamed.
Cautiously she touched the food with her lean fingers, then she clutched
it and ate ravenously, desperately fearing that it might disappear.

Mary looked on in divine pity, swaying to and fro, never speaking nor
going near.

She was thinking; thinking on ahead. She would make the cabin clean and
whole; she would wash and clothe the poor creature now eating like a
hungry wolf; she would feed her. Becky should become--hers!

Then Mary's mouth relaxed. She was appropriating, adjusting. Something
of her very own at last! Something that would wait for her, watch for
her, depend upon her. Something to work for and live for; something upon
whom she might pour forth the hidden riches that had all but perished in
her soul.

It was midnight when Mary groped her way from the cabin. Becky was
asleep on the miserable bed in the corner; she was breathing softly and
evenly like a baby.

Outside, the moonlight lay full upon the open spaces and on the little
grave under the pine clump. Mary stood, before entering the woods, and
raised her head.

"I'm paying--I'm paying back what--I owe," she murmured, and all the
wretched company of her early childhood seemed to hold out imploring
hands to her. Her father, her mother, the line of miserable brothers and
sisters who never had their chance!

Sister Angela came, too, her cross gleaming, her eyes kind and just.
Doris Fletcher and her blessed giving; giving of the marvellous chance
at last! And lastly, Nancy, with her beautiful face, Nancy who must not
be cheated, Nancy who--trusted her! Nancy who _might_ be--but no! Mary
ran on. She would not know! She must not!

And so it was that the last of the Allans redeemed the debt and silently
found peace for her proud heart.

She was released! She had proven herself, though no one must ever know.
It was the not knowing that would mark her highest success.

On the morrow Mary went to Ridge House quite her usual reserved self.

Nancy met her with the brightest of smiles.

"Doctor Martin has gone away, Mary," she explained, "and now I will be
terribly busy, but next winter--oh! next winter, Mary, Joan will be with
us in the dear old house. A letter came to-day--she is going to take
lessons from a very great teacher. Do you remember how Joan could sing,
Mary? I shall play for her again and be so happy. It's wonderful how
happy one can be, Mary, when one isn't afraid and just goes singing
ahead. I cannot sing like Joan, but I can scare away fears!"

Mary regarded the girl with a hungry craving in her eyes over which the
lids were drawn to a slit. There was a fierce intentness in the gaze:
the look of the runner who has almost reached the goal but hears his
pursuers close.




CHAPTER XVI

"_And they planted their feet on the 'Sun Road'._"


If the spring has a direct and concentrated effect upon a young man's
fancy, it must have equal effect upon a young woman's, else the man's
would perish and come to look upon the spring as the lean part of the
year. Joan had meant all she said when, in the strength and virtue of
her youth, she had drawn herself away from Kenneth Raymond and proudly
remarked:

"Certainly not! And I am not afraid."

Both statements were sincere and should have brought her peace and
satisfaction. They did neither.

Raymond had, apparently, taken her at her word, and sought other places
in which to appease his hunger, and Joan turned to Patricia, for Sylvia
was called out of town.

That dream of a frieze that had long smouldered in Sylvia's soul had
broken bounds and a rich man, erecting a summer home on the
Massachusetts coast, having seen some of Sylvia's work, had invited her
down to "talk over" the frieze idea.

"And he'll let me do it!" Sylvia had confided breathlessly to Joan as
she packed her suitcase. "I can always tell when a thing is going to
come true. Now if I had shown him sketches he might not have taken
me--but when I can _talk_ my pictures all along the walls of his big,
sunny room it will be another matter.

"Blue background"--Sylvia was forgetting Joan as she rambled on,
punching and jamming her clothing into the case--"and a bit of a story
running through the frieze--a kind of sea-nymph search for the Holy
Grail--stretching from the door back _to_ the door. Can't you see it,
Joan?"

Joan could not. She was seeing something else. Something daily becoming
visualized. A seeking, yearning desire issuing from her soul and trying
to find--what?

"You'll have Pat here?" suddenly asked Sylvia. "I'd rather have someone
besides Pat, but the others are either away or worse than Pat. You're
good for Pat if she isn't for you. You sort of stiffen her up--she told
me so. Pat needs whalebone. When her purse gets flat her morals dwindle;
mine always get scared stiff. I'll write twice a week, Joan, my lamb,
Sunday and Wednesday. I'll be back before long."

And off Sylvia went with her heavy bag and her light heart, and Joan
called Patricia up on the telephone.

"All right," Patricia responded, "but if I get homesick for these rooms,
I must be free to come."

"Of course," Joan agreed.

Patricia was in a dangerous mood and Joan was vividly alive to
impressions.

Patricia was writing verses as a bird carols--just letting them pour
out. She was selling them, too, and running out to New Jersey to talk
over with Mr. Burke the publication of a book.

"I cannot see," Patricia had said to Sylvia, "why one should feel it
necessary to stick to hot, smelly offices when a library, looking out
over acres of country, is at one's disposal."

"Is Mrs. Burke there?"

Sylvia had a terrible way of stepping on toes when she was making her
point.

"Certainly!" Patricia flung back--it happened that the lady was there
for a brief time--"though," Patricia went on, "she doesn't sit on the
arm of my chair while styles of paper are considered. You're low-minded,
Syl."

Patricia looked so high-minded just then that everyone laughed at
Sylvia's expense.

And Joan, because she was young as the year was, kept remembering the
eyes, and feeling the touch of Kenneth Raymond. There were no words to
explain her mood, but she remembered the sound of his voice--and she
wanted to see him again!

She believed her emotions were grounded upon the fact that she knew a
good deal about Raymond--more than he suspected. He was of Aunt Doris's
safe and clean world. He was only dipping into a pool outside of his own
legitimate preserves to touch, as he thought, a lily that should not be
there!

Raymond had suggested this to Joan. He fancied, from his conservative
limitations, that the Brier Bush was rather a dubious pool!

"If he only knew!" Joan thought, and was glad that he did not. How
humdrum it all would have been had he known! As it was, the wonderful
feeling she had was laid upon a very safe foundation--not even Aunt
Doris or Sylvia could object--and she would tell them all about it some
day, and it would be part of the free, happy life and a proof that no
harm can come where one understands the situation and has high motives.

But Raymond did not come to the Brier Bush, and so Joan had to conclude
that he had not that unnamable emotion which was taking her appetite
away, and he was forgetting, perhaps, all about that line that ran in
the palms of both of them!

As a matter of fact, Raymond was trying very diligently to do just that
thing. He worked hard and paid extra attention to Mrs. Tweksbury.

"My boy!" Emily Tweksbury urged, "come up to Maine with me for the
summer, you look peaked."

Raymond laughed.

"How about business?" he said.

"Of course," Mrs. Tweksbury replied, "no one appreciates more than I do,
Ken, your moral fibre. It's a big thing for you to create a business if
for no other reason than to give employment to less fortunate young men;
but you have other responsibilities. Your position, your fortune, they
make demands. I'm not one to underestimate the leisure class; I know the
old joke about tramps being the only leisure class in America; it's a
silly joke, but it ought to make us think. After a bit, if we don't look
out, the leisure class, here, will be all women. They'll dominate art
and poetry and society--and I must say I like a good _team_. I never
cared for too much of any one thing. Ken?"

"Yes, Aunt Emily."

"I want you to marry and have--a place."

"A place, Aunt Emily?" Raymond looked puzzled.

"Yes. Make a stand for American aristocracy--though of course you must
call it by another name. You're a clean, splendid chap--I know all about
you. I've watched apart and prayed over you in my closet. You see your
father and I made a ghastly mess of our lives, but we kept to the
code--for your sake. We left your path clear, thank God!"

"Yes, Aunt Emily--I've thanked God for that, too, in what stands for
_my_ closet."

"What stands for your closet, Ken? I've always wanted to know what takes
the place of women's sanctuaries in the lives of men."

Raymond plunged his hands into his pockets--he and Mrs. Tweksbury had
just finished breakfast, and the dining room of the old-fashioned house
opened, as it should, to the east.

"Oh! I don't know that I can tell you, Aunt Emily," Raymond fidgeted.
"Fellows are beginning to think a bit more about the clean places in
women's lives. I reckon that we haven't so much an idea about
sanctuaries of ours as that we are cultivating an honest-to-God
determination to keep from making wrecks of women's shrines. I know this
sounds blithering, but, you see, a decent chap wants to ask some girl to
give him a better thing than forgiveness when the time comes. He wants
to cut out the excuse business. He doesn't want women like you to be
ashamed of him--when they come where they have to call things by their
right names."

"Ken, I don't believe you're in good form. You'd much better come up to
Maine!"

Emily Tweksbury looked as if she wanted to cry; her expression was so
comical that Raymond laughed aloud.

"I'll come in August," he said at last. "I'll take the whole month and
frivol with you."

Mrs. Tweksbury was, however, not through with what she had to say. She
looked at the big, handsome fellow across the room and he seemed
suddenly to become very young and helpless, very much needing guidance,
and yet she knew how he would resent any such interference in his life.

"What's on your mind, Aunt Emily?"

Raymond had turned the tables--he smiled down upon the old lady with the
masterful tenderness of youth.

"Let's have it, dear."

Mrs. Tweksbury resorted to subterfuge.

"Well, having you off my hands," she said, smiling as if she really
meant what she said, "I am thinking of Doris Fletcher!"

"Do I know her?" Raymond tried to think.

"No. She left New York just about the time you came to me. She's a
wonderful woman, always was. Has a passion for helping others live their
lives--she's never had time to live her own."

"Bad business." Raymond shook his head.

"Oh! I don't know, boy. The older I grow the more inclined I am to
believe that it is only by helping others live that one lives himself."

This was trite and did not get anywhere, so Mrs. Tweksbury plunged a
trifle.

"Doris Fletcher is going to bring her niece out next winter; wants me to
help launch her."

Raymond made no response to this. He was not apt to be suspicious, but
he waited.

"She has twin nieces. Her younger sister died at their birth--she made a
sad marriage, poor girl, and the father of her children seems to have
been blotted off the map. The Fletchers were always silent and proud. I
greatly fear one of the twins takes after her obliterated parent, for
Doris rarely mentions her--it is always Nancy who is on exhibition; the
other girl is doing that abominable thing--securing her economic
freedom, whatever that may mean. Doris has tried to make me understand,
but how girls as rich as those girls are going to be can want to go out
and support themselves I do not understand--it's thieving. Nothing less.
Taking bread from women who haven't money."

Mrs. Tweksbury sniffed scornfully and Raymond laughed. He wasn't
interested.

Mrs. Tweksbury saw she was losing ground and made a third attempt.

"But this Nancy seems another matter. I remember her, off and on. I was
often away when the Fletchers were home, and the girls were at school a
good many years, but this Nancy is the sort of child that one doesn't
forget. She's lovely--very fair--and exquisite. Her poor mother was
always charming, and I imagine Doris Fletcher means to see that Nancy
gets into no such snarl as poor Meredith's--Meredith was Doris's sister.
Ken----!"

"Yes'm!" Raymond was looking at his watch.

"I wish you'd lend a hand next winter with this Nancy Thornton."

Raymond gave a guffaw and came around to Mrs. Tweksbury.

"You're about as opaque," he said, "as crystal. Of course I'll lend a
hand, Aunt Emily--_lend_ one, but don't count upon anything more. I--I
do not want to marry--at least not for many years. My father and mother
did not leave a keen desire in me for marriage."

"Oh! Ken, can't you forget?"

"I haven't yet, Aunt Emily, but I'm not a conceited ass; your Miss Nancy
would probably think me a dub; girls don't fly at my head, but I'm safe
as a watchdog and errand boy--so I'll fit in, Aunt Emily."

He bent and kissed her.

A week later the old house was draped and covered with ghostly linen and
every homelike touch eliminated according to the sacred rites of the old
regime; and man, that most domestic of all animals, was left to the
contemplation of a smothered ideal--the ideal of home.

Mrs. Tweksbury, with two servants, started by motor for Maine.

"I may not be progressive in some ways," she proudly declared, "but a
motor car keeps one from much that is best avoided--crowds, noise, and
confusion. And I always insist that I am progressive where progress is
worth while."

But, alone in the still house, Raymond felt as if a linen cover also
enshrouded him--he lost his appetite and took to lying at night with his
hands clasped under his head--thinking! Thinking, he called it--but he
was only drifting. He was abdicating thought. He got so that he could
see himself as if detached from himself----

"And a dub of a chap, too, I look to myself," he reflected, ambiguously.
"I wonder just what stuff is in me, anyway? I've been trained to the
limit, and I have a decent idea about most things, but I wonder if I
could pull it off, if I were up against it like some other fellows who
have rowed their own boats? Having had Dad and Aunt Emily in my blood,
has given me a twist, and the money has tied the knot. I don't know
really what's in me--in the rough--and there _is_ a rough in every
fellow--maybe it's sand and maybe it's plain dirt."

This was all as wild and vague as anything Patricia or Joan could
evolve. It came of the season and the everlasting youth of life.

"I'm going to talk over the rot with that little white thing down at the
Brier Bush," Raymond declared one night to that self of his that stood
off on inspection; "what's the harm? She's got the occult bug, and I'm
keen about it just now. No one will be the worse for me having the
talk--she's all right and that veil of hers leaves us a lot freer to
speak out than face to face would." And then Raymond switched on the
lights and read certain books that held him rigid until he heard the
milkman in the street below.

In those nights Raymond learned to know that sounds have shades, as
objects have. Below, following, encompassing there were vague, haunting
echoes. Even the rattling of milk cans had them; the steps of the
watchman; the wind of early morning that stirs the darkness!

And then in the end Raymond did quite another thing from what he had
planned. He left the office one day at four-thirty and walked uptown. He
paced the block on which the Brier Bush was situated until he began to
feel conscious--then he walked around the block, always hurrying until
he came in sight of the tea room. He felt that all the summer
inhabitants of the city were drinking tea there that afternoon, and he
began to curse them for their folly.

It was five-forty-five when Joan came down the steps.

Raymond knew her at once by her walk. He had always noted that swing of
hers under her white robe. He did not believe another girl in the world
moved in just that way--it was like the laugh that belonged with it.
Indifferent, pleading, sweet, and brave--a bit daring, too. Joan was all
in white now. A trim linen suit; white stockings and shoes; a white silk
hat with a wide bow of white--Patricia kept her touch on Joan's
wardrobe.

Raymond waited until the girl before him had pulled on her long gloves
and reached the corner of Fifth Avenue, then he walked rapidly and
overtook her. He feared that he was leaping; he felt crude and rough;
but he had never been simpler and more sincere in his life. The
elemental was overpowering him, that was all.

"Good afternoon!" he blurted into Joan's astonished ears; "where are you
going?"

Joan turned and confronted him, not in alarm, but utter rout. Naturally
there was but one course for a girl to take at such a juncture--but Joan
did not take it. Her elementals were alert, too, and she, too, had
reached the stage when sounds know shades, and above any cautious appeal
was the fear of sending this man adrift again.

"I wonder"--Raymond spoke hurriedly; he wanted to drive that startled
look out of the golden eyes--"I wonder if you're the sort that knows
truth when she sees it--even if it has to cover itself with the rags of
things that aren't truth?"

At this Joan laughed.

"I am afraid the heat has affected you," was what she said, gently.

"Well, anyway, you're not afraid of me!" Raymond saw that her eyes had
grown steady.

"Oh! no. I'm not afraid of you. I'm not often afraid of anything."

"I thought that. You wouldn't be doing that stunt at the Brier Bush if
you were the scary kind." Raymond accompanied his step to Joan's as
naturally as if she had permitted him to do so.

"I don't see why you speak as you do of my business," Joan interjected.
"It's how one interprets what one does that matters. I make a very good
income of what you term my stunt. Perhaps you're accustomed to girls who
use such means--wrongfully."

Joan felt quite proud of her small sting, but Raymond broke in joyously:

"You're mighty clever; you've struck on just what I mean. See here, you
don't know me and I don't know you----" At this Joan turned her face
away. "And I'm jolly glad we don't. It makes it all easier. I know very
little about girls--I dance with them and things like that when I have
to, but as a class I never cottoned to them much, nor they to me. I know
the ugly names tacked to things that might be innocent and happy enough.
Now your business--it could be a cover for something rather
different----?"

"But it isn't!" Joan broke in, hotly.

"I'm sure of that, but hear me out. There's something about you
that--that's got me. I can't forget you. I only want to know what you
care to give--the part that escapes the disguise that you wear! I want
to talk to you. I bet we have a lot to say to each other. Don't you see
it would be like fencing behind a shield? But how can we make this out
unless we utilize chances that might, if people were not decent and
honest, be wrong? I know I'm getting all snarled up--but I'm trying to
make you understand."

"You're not doing it very well." Joan was sweetly composed.

"Now suppose you and I were introduced--you with your veil off--that
would be all right, wouldn't it?"

Raymond was collecting his scattered wits.

"Presumably. Yes--it would," Joan returned.

"And then we could have all the talks we wanted to, couldn't we?"

"Within proper limitations," Joan nodded, comically prim under the
circumstances.

"But for reasons best known to you," Raymond went on, slowly, "you want
to keep the shield up? All right. But then if we want the talks----"

"I don't want them!" Joan's voice shook. Poor, lonely little thing, she
wanted exactly that!

"I bet that's not true!" ventured Raymond. Then suddenly:

"Why do you laugh as you do?"

"What's the matter with my laugh?"

"I don't know. It's old and it's awfully kiddish--it's rather upsetting.
I keep remembering it as I always shall your face now that I have seen
it!"

Truth can take care of itself if it has half a chance. It was beginning
to grip Joan through the mists that shrouded her--mists that life has
evolved for the protection of those who might never be able to
distinguish between the wolf in sheep's skin and sheep in wolf hide.

Joan knew the ancient code of propriety, but she knew, also, the ring of
truth and she was young and lonely. She knew she ought not to be playing
with wild animals, but she was also sure in the deepest and most sincere
parts of her brain that the man beside her, strange as it might seem,
was really a very nice and well-behaved domestic animal and was making
rather a comical exhibition of himself in the skin of the beast of prey.

"You haven't told me where you are going," Raymond said, presently.

"Home!" The one word had the dreary, empty sound that it could not help
having when Joan considered the studio with Sylvia gone and Patricia an
uncertain element.

"Are you?" Raymond asked, lamely. One had to say something or turn back.
Joan felt like crying. Then suddenly Raymond said:

"I wish you'd come and have dinner with me, and I'm not going to excuse
myself or explain anything. I know I'm using all the worn-out tricks of
fellows that are anything but decent; but I know that you know--though
how you do I'm blest if _I_ know--but I know that you understand. The
thing's too big for me. I've just got to risk it! I'm lonely and I bet
you are; we've got to eat--why not eat together?"

The words sounded like explosives, and Joan mentally dodged, but at the
end felt that she knew all there was to know and she caught her breath
and said very slowly:

"I'm going to be quite as honest as you are. I will have dinner with you
because I'm as lonely as can be; my people, like yours, are out of town,
and I _do_ understand though I cannot say just how I do. One thing I
want you to promise: You will never, under any circumstances, try to
find out more about me than I freely give. Now or--ever! When I
disappear, I want really to be safe from intrusion."

Raymond promised, and so they set out on the Sun Road.




CHAPTER XVII

"_It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy
in solitude to live after our own._"


The trouble with the Sun Road is this: one is apt to be blinded by the
glare.

In their solitude, the solitude of a big city, Raymond and Joan trod the
shining way with high courage.

This was romance in an age when romance was supposed to be dead! Here
they were, they two, nameless--for they decided upon remaining
so--living according to their own codes; feeling more and more secure,
as time passed, that they were safe and were wisely enjoying what so
easily might have been lost had they been limited in faith.

"It's the line in our hands!" Raymond declared. "It means something, all
right. Think what we must have missed had we been unjust to each other
and ourselves."

Joan nodded.

The sun and the dust of the pleasant highway had blinded her completely
by the end of a week.

Patricia was a missing quantity most of the time. Patricia had taken to
the Sun Road, also, but with her eyes wide open. If Patricia ever turned
aside it would be because she knew the danger, not because she did not.

She never explained her absences nor her private affairs to Joan. When
she did appear at Sylvia's studio she was quiet and nervous.

"It's the heat," she explained. "I'm not hot, but I cannot get enough
air to breathe."

Meanwhile, Sylvia was basking in success and cool breezes on the
Massachusetts coast. Her letters had the tang of the sea.

And Raymond was always on hand, now, at the dinner hour. He was like a
boy, and took great pride in his knowledge of just the right places to
eat. Quiet, but not too quiet; good food, and, occasionally, good music,
and if the night was not too hot, a dance with Joan which set his very
soul to keeping time.

"Gee!" he said, after their first dance; "I wonder what you are, anyway?
Do you do everything--to perfection?"

Joan twinkled.

"Every man must decide that for himself," she replied with a charming
turn of her head.

"Every--man?" Raymond's face fell.

"Certainly. You don't think you are the only man, do you?"

"Well, the only one left in town."

Raymond gave a little laugh and changed the subject. He had no intention
of getting behind his companion's screen. With a wider conception of his
path, he more diligently kept to the middle.

After the first fortnight he even went so far as to arrange for business
engagements, now and then, in order to keep his brain clear.

Joan always met these empty spaces in her days with a keen sense of loss
which she hid completely from Raymond.

His business demands were offset by her skilfully timed escapes from the
Brier Bush. She would either be too early or too late for Raymond, and
so while he paid homage to his code, Joan appeared to make the code
unnecessary.

And the weather became hotter and moister and the moral and physical
fibre of the city-bound became limper.

After a week of not seeing each other Joan and Raymond made up for lost
time by galloping instead of trotting along.

"Stevenson and O. Henry couldn't beat this adventure of ours," Raymond
exclaimed one evening, wiping the moisture from his forehead. "And I bet
thousands of folks would think better of one another if----"

"If--they had the line in their hands," Joan broke in; "but they
haven't, you know!"

"Exactly."

Just then Raymond made a bad break. He asked Joan if she did not trust
him well enough to give him her telephone number.

"Something might occur," he said, "business pops up unexpectedly. I hate
to lose a chance of seeing you--and I hate to wait on street corners."

"I am sorry," Joan replied, "but that would spoil everything."

Raymond flushed. It was just such plunges as this that made him recoil.

"I understand," he replied, coolly; "I had hoped that you could trust
me."

"It is not a matter of trust. It's keeping to the bargain."

There was nothing more to say. But, quite naturally, several days
elapsed before they saw each other again.

Fierce, broiling days without even the debilitating moisture to ease the
suffering citizens.

Joan, alone in the dark, hot studio, thought of Doris and Nancy and
wondered!

"Of course, what I am doing would be horrid if I didn't know all about
_him_," and then Joan tossed about. "Some day--it will be such a lark to
tell them--and think of his surprise when he--knows! I'll see him with
all barriers down next winter," for at this time Joan had written and
accepted all Doris's plans for her. She was to study music
determinedly--she had a proud little bank account--and she would live at
the old house and revel in Nancy's social triumphs.

And Raymond, in his shrouded house, had his restless hours and with
greater reason, for he was playing utterly in the dark and had to
acknowledge to his grim, off-standing self that, except for the fact
that he was in the dark, he would not dare play the very amusing game he
was playing.

"If she is masquerading," Raymond beat about with his conscience, "it's
the biggest lark ever, and she and I will have many a good laugh over
it."

"_But if she--isn't?_" demanded the shadowy self.

"Well, if she isn't, she jolly well knows how to take care of herself!
Besides, I'm not going to hurt her. Why, in thunder, can't two fellow
creatures enjoy innocent things without having evil suggestions?"

"_They can!_" thundered the Other Self, "_but this isn't innocent--at
least it is dangerous_."

"Oh! be hanged!" Raymond flung back and the Shadow sank into oblivion.

Left to himself--one of his selves--Raymond resorted to sentiment.

"Of course we both know--under what might be--what _is_. She's like
Kipling's girl in the Brushwood Boy."

But that did not take in the Other Self in the least. It laughed.

When July came the heat settled down in earnest on the panting city.

"Aren't you going to take any vacation?" asked Raymond. He and Joan were
sauntering up Fifth Avenue to a certain haven in a backyard where the
fountain played and the birds sang.

"No. I'm going to stay in town and let Miss Gordon have her outing. The
Brier Bush is too young to be left alone this year. Next year it will be
my turn."

"I'm afraid you'll wilt," Raymond looked at the blooming creature beside
him. "Funny, isn't it, how things turn out? I expected to go in August
to--to that lady with whom you first saw me" (Joan looked divinely
innocent); "but only yesterday she informed me that she had resolved to
go abroad, and asked if it would make any difference to me. She's like
that. Her procedure resembles jumping off a diving plank."

"Well, does it make any difference?" Joan asked.

"You bet it does! It makes me free to stay in town."

"I'm afraid you'll wilt," Joan twinkled.

"We must take precautions against that." Raymond looked deadly in
earnest.

The meetings of these two were now set, like clear jewels in the round
of common days. They were not too frequent and they were always managed
like chance happenings. Always there was a sense of surprise, a thrill
of unbelievable good luck attending them; but there was, also, a growing
sense of assurance and understanding.

"I wonder," Joan said once, pressing hard against the shield that
protected them, "I wonder if you and I would have played so delightfully
had we been--well--introduced! Miss Jones and Mr. Black."

"No!" Raymond burst in positively. "Miss Jones would have been enveloped
in the things expected of Miss Jones, and Mr. Black would have been kept
busy--keeping off the grass!"

"Aren't you ever afraid," Joan mused on, "that some day we'll suddenly
come across each other when our shields are left behind in--in the
secret tower?"

"I try not to think of it," Raymond leaned toward the girl; "but if we
did we'd know each other a lot better than most girls and fellows are
ever allowed to know each other," he said.

"Do you think so?" Joan looked wistfully at him. "You see this isn't
real; it's play, and I'm afraid Miss Jones and Mr. Black would be
awfully suspicious of each other--just on account of the play."

"And so--we'll make sure that shields are always in commission," Raymond
reassured her. "In this small world of ours we cannot run any risks with
Miss Jones and Mr. Black. They have no part here."

"No, they haven't!" Joan leaned back. That subtle weakness was touching
her; the aftermath of strained imagination. She was often homesick for
Doris and Nancy--she was getting afraid that she might not be able to
find her way back to them when the time came to go.

"Poor little girl!" Raymond was saying over the table, and his words
fitted into the tune the fountain sang--it was the same tune the
fountain sang in the sunken room of long ago; all fountains, Joan had
grown to think, sang the same lovely, drippy song.

"I wonder just how brave and free a little girl it is?"

Joan screwed up her lips.

"Limitless," she whispered, daringly.

"You're played out, child!" Raymond went on; "there are blue shadows
under your eyes. I wish you'd let me do something for you."

"You are doing something," the words came slowly, caressingly; "you're
making a hard time very beautiful; you're making me believe--in--in
fairies, or what stands for fairies, nowadays; you're making me trust
myself and for ever after when--when I slip back where I belong--I'm
going to remember, and be--so glad! You see, I know, now, that in the
world of grown-ups you _can_ make things come true."

"Where you belong?" Raymond gripped his hands close. "Just where do you
belong? _Are_ you Miss Jones or are you the sweet nameless thing that I
am looking at?"

"Oh! I'm Miss Jones!" Joan sat up promptly, "and I'm going to make sure
that Miss Jones doesn't get hurt while I play with her."

And as she spoke Joan was thinking of the ugly interpretation of this
beautiful play which Patricia would give. Patricia couldn't make things
come true because she never tried hard enough.

"I wonder"--and the fountain made Joan dizzy as she listened to
Raymond--"I wonder, now since I'm to stay in town, if you'd let me bring
my car in? We'd have some great old rides. We'd cool off and have
picnics by roadsides and--and get the best of this blasted heat."

"I think it would be heavenly!" Joan saw, already, cool woods and felt
the refreshing air on her face.

Raymond was taken aback. He had expected protest.

But the car materialized and so did the picnics and the cool breezes on
young, unafraid faces.

At each new venture reassurance waxed stronger--things could be made
true in the world; it was only children who failed, in spite of
tradition.

Just at this time Sylvia came to town radiating success and happiness.

The result was disastrous. There are times when one cannot endure the
prosperity of his friends! Had Sylvia come back with her banners
trailing, Joan and Patricia would have rallied to her standard, but she
was cool, crisp, and her eyes were fixed upon a successful future.

She was going to do, not only the frieze, but a dozen other things.
People whom she had met had been impressed. Things were coming her way
with a vengeance. One order was in the Far West--a glorified cabin in a
canyon.

"I'm to do all the interior decorating," Sylvia bubbled; "a little out
of my line, but they feel I can do it. And"--here the girl looked
blissful--"it will be near enough for my John to come and take a
vacation."

Patricia and Joan, at that moment, knew the resentment of the unattached
woman for the protected one. Sylvia appeared the child of the gods while
they were merely permitted to sit at the gates and envy her triumphs.

"I suppose," Patricia burst in, "that this means the end?"

"End?" Sylvia looked puzzled.

"Yes. Plain John will gobble you, Art and all. But your duties here----"
Patricia with a tragic gesture pointed to Joan. "What of Miss Lamb, not
to mention me?"

Sylvia looked serious.

"Joan is to study music next winter," she said; "haven't you told Pat,
Joan?"

Joan shook her head. She had almost forgotten it herself.

"And live with her people," Sylvia went on and then, noticing Patricia's
pale little face, she burst forth:

"Pat, take that offer from Chicago that you've been thinking about! It's
a big thing--designing for that firm. It will make you independent,
leave you time to scribble, and give you a change. Pat, do be sensible."

Patricia drew herself up. She felt that she was being disposed of simply
to get her out of the way. She resented it and she was hurt.

"I do not have to decide just now," she said, coldly; "and don't fuss
about me, Syl. Now that you and Joan are provided for I can jog along at
my own free will, and no one will have to pay but me!"

"Pat!" Joan broke in, "you and I will stick together. And it's all right
about Syl. What is this one life for, anyway, if it does not leave us
free? Syl, marry your John--your art won't suffer! Pat, where I go you
go next winter."

But Patricia lighted a cigarette, and while the smoke issued from her
pretty little nose she sighed.

What happened was this: Patricia shopped and sewed for Sylvia and made
her radiantly ready for her trip West. And Joan, feeling the break
final, although she did not admit it, forsook her own pleasures while
she helped Patricia and clung to Sylvia.

"Pat has sublet her rooms," she confided to Sylvia one day, "and is
coming here until our lease is up; so you are foot-loose, my precious
Syl, and God bless you!"

In August Sylvia departed and Joan and Patricia set up housekeeping
together. But at the end of the first week, and the beginning of a new
hot spell, Joan found a note on her pillow one night when she came in,
exhausted:

    Had to get cool somewhere. I'm not responsible for losing my
    breath. Take care of yourself.

"This seems the last straw!" sobbed Joan, for Raymond had told her that
day at the Brier Bush that important business was taking him out of
town.

"He has to catch his breath," poor Joan cried, miserably, quite as if
her own background was eliminated; "but what of my breath? And to-day is
Saturday, and----" The bleak emptiness of a hot Sunday in the stifling
studio stretched ahead wretchedly, like a parched desert.

That night Joan pulled her shade down. She hated the stars. They looked
complacent and distant. She pushed memories of Doris and Nancy
resolutely from her. Her world was not their world--that was sure. If
this desperate loneliness couldn't drive her to them, nothing could. She
must make her own life! Lying on her hot bed, Joan thought and thought.
Of what did she want to make her life?

"I only want a decent amount of fun," she cried, turning her pillow
over, "and I will not have strings tied to all my fun, either."

This struck her as funny even in her misery. She sat up in bed and
counted her losses--what were they?

Ridge House and that dear, sweet life--sheltered and safe. Yes; she was
sure she had lost them, for she could not go back beaten before she had
really tried her luck, and if she succeeded she could never have them in
a sense of ownership.

"And I will succeed!" Even in that hard hour Joan rose up in arms.

"And I have earned enough to begin real work in the autumn." She counted
her gains. "And I can live close to Aunt Dorrie's beautiful life even if
I am not of it. And I _am_ sure of myself as dear Nancy never could
be--because I have proved myself in ways that girls like Nancy never
can."

Toward morning Joan fell asleep. When she awoke it was nearly noon time
and half the desert of Sunday was passed.

Then Joan, refreshed and comforted, planned a wholesome afternoon and
evening.

"I'll go out and get a really sensible dinner; take a walk in the Park,
and come home and practise. Monday will be here before I know it."

Joan carried out her programme, and it was five o'clock when she
returned, at peace with the whole world.

She took off her pretty street gown and slipped into a thin, airy little
dress and comfortable sandals. The sandals made her think of her
dancing; she always wore them unless she danced shoeless.

"And before I go to bed," she promised her gay little self, "I'll have a
dance to prove that nothing can down me--for long!

"I wonder--" here Joan looked serious as if a thought wave had struck
her--"I wonder where Pat is?"

This seemed a futile conjecture. Patricia was too elusive to be
followed, even mentally.

As a matter of fact, Patricia was, at that hour, confronting the biggest
question of her life.

Heretofore she had always left her roads of retreat open, had, in fact,
availed herself of them at critical periods; but this time she had, she
believed, so cluttered them that they were practically impassable and
she said she "didn't care."

The heat and her rudderless life had been too much for her; she had,
too, been honestly stirred by beautiful things--although they were not
hers nor could ever rightfully be hers. She had slipped into the danger,
that seemed now about to engulf her, on a gradual decline.

Her connection with the Burke home life was, apparently, innocent enough
at first. No one but Patricia herself sensed what really was
threatening, but the conditions were ripe for what occurred.

Mrs. Burke, bent upon her own pleasure, utterly indifferent to the
rights of others, was glad enough to leave her house and family to the
charm of Patricia while she could, at the same time, as she smilingly
declared, give a bit of happiness to that poor, gifted young creature.

The gifted young creature responded with all the hunger of her empty
heart--she played with the children, who adored her; there was safety
with the eyes of housekeeper and governess upon her--but when the eyes
of a tired, disillusioned, and lonely man became fixed upon her, it was
time for Patricia to flee. But she did not. Instead she gripped her
philosophy of "grab"--and really managed to justify it to a certain
extent--while she grew thinner and paler.

On the Sunday when Joan stopped short and wondered where Patricia was,
Patricia was up the Hudson awaiting, on a charming hotel piazza, the
arrival of the Burke automobile.

It was sunset time and beautiful beyond words. Something in the peaceful
loveliness stirred Patricia--she wished that the day were dark and grim.
It seemed incongruous to take to the down path--Patricia was not blinded
by her lure--while the whole world was flooded with gold and azure.

Then Patricia's angel had a word to say.

"Who would care, anyway?" the girl questioned her upstanding angel--"in
all the world, who would care? Why shouldn't I have--what I can get?"

And then, quite forcibly, Patricia thought of Joan! Joan seemed calling,
calling. The thought brought a passionate yearning. Joan had the look in
her eyes that children and dogs had when they regarded Patricia--a look
that cut under the superficial disguise without seeing it, and clung to
what they knew was there! The something that they loved and trusted and
played with.

In a moment Patricia felt herself growing cold and hard as if almost,
but not quite, a power outside herself had threatened the one and only
thing in life that she held sacred.

"That Look!" Full well Patricia knew that the Look would no longer be
hers to command if she held to her course!

Then, her strength rising with her determination, she glanced back over
her cluttered trail. She had written a letter to Joan--it would be
delivered to-morrow. A black, scorching statement that would leave not a
trace of beauty for the old friendship to rest upon. She had also
written a letter to the firm in Chicago definitely refusing to accept
its offer--but that letter was not yet mailed!

The Burke automobile, like a devastating flood, might at any moment tear
down the hill to the left. With this fear growing in her a strange
perverted sense of justice rose and combated it. She had deliberately
put herself in the way of the flood; she knew all about the risks of
floods, and it seemed knavish to promise and then--leave the field.

"Better an hour of raging against the absence of me," she said,
pitifully, "than years of regretting my presence. He'll hate me a little
sooner, that's all. So--good-bye!" Patricia almost ran inside; left a
hasty, badly written note, and, metaphorically, scrambled over the
disordered path of retreat; she seemed to be racing against that letter
on its way to Joan. She would write later to the man who was drawing
near. Only one thing did Patricia pause to do: It was like driving the
last nail in the old life. She telegraphed to Chicago, accepting the
position of designer!




CHAPTER XVIII

"_Ours, if we be strong._"


Joan had sung herself into an exalted mood. She had floated along on the
wings of music, touching happy memories and tender, nameless yearnings.
Her loved ones seemed crowding about her--Doris, dear, sweet Nancy, and
pretty Pat. They were pressing against her heart and calling to her.

She began to feel a dull ache for them, a growing impulse stirred deep
in her unawakened nature such as always drives the Prodigal unto his
Father! The superficial life of the past year seemed husks indeed. It
was the beautiful music that mattered and that she could have had with
her blessed, safe, loved ones. She need not have left them lonely; she
had been shamelessly selfish. Freedom! What was her freedom? Just a
tugging against the sweetest thing in life--the false against the true!

Joan felt the tears falling down her cheeks while she sang on--and
suddenly it was Patricia who seemed closest to her.

"I will not desert Pat," she actually sang the words into her song
fiercely, resolutely. "Patricia must come into safety with me."

With this vowed to her soul, Joan dried her tears and sprang to her
feet. She had never felt so lonely, so happy, so free as she did that
moment when her spirit turned homeward again.

She kicked off her sandals and began to dance about the studio, lightly,
joyfully.

The late afternoon was fading into a sudden darkness--a storm was
coming; black, copper-dashed clouds were rolling on rapidly, full of
noise and electricity; in a short time they would break over the
city--but Joan danced on and on!

In that hour not one thought of Kenneth Raymond disturbed her. He
belonged to the time of mistaken freedom; he was one who had helped her
to think she could make unreal things true. He had no place here and
now. She somehow felt that he had passed from her life.

Joan was abnormally young and only superficially old; her experiences
had but developed her spiritually--aroused her better self; and in that
self lay her womanhood, her knowledge of sex relations; there it rested
unharmed, unheeding.

And then came a knock on the door!

The whirling figure paused on the tips of its toes; the brooding face
broke into smiles.

"It's Pat! Come!"

The word "come" was all that reached the waiting man outside--and when
he entered he gathered to himself the glad, joyous welcome meant for
Patricia, and smiled at the poised figure.

"Why!" gasped Joan, and in her excitement almost spoke Raymond's name.

"How--did you find your way here? How did you know?"

"Forgive me; I had to come. I telephoned to the Brier Bush--they gave me
your number."

Raymond closed the door behind him and came to the centre of the big
room, and there he stood smiling at Joan.

"So your name is Sylvia?" he said.

Then Joan understood--Elspeth had respected her wish to be unknown
outside her business, she had given Sylvia's name, had made Sylvia
responsible.

"I tried to get you earlier by telephone."

"I was not home." Joan was thinking hard and fast. Something was very
wrong, but she could not make out what it was.

"Forgive me for breaking rules: I wanted to see you so that rules did
not seem to count. Go on with your dance. You look like the spirit of
twilight. Dance. Dance."

Joan grew more and more perplexed. The anger she felt was less than the
sense of unreality about it all. Raymond was a stranger; he repelled
her; in a way, shocked her.

"I'm through dancing," she said. "Since you are here, sit down. I will
turn on the lights."

"Please don't. And you are angry. I'm awfully sorry, but it was this
way: I was having dinner with some friends and suddenly I seemed to hear
you calling to me. It gave me quite a shock. I thought you might be in
danger, might be needing me."

Joan kept her eyes on Raymond's face. She was trying to overcome the
growing aversion which alarmed her.

"No, I was not calling to you," she said. "I was bidding you
good-bye--really, though I did not know it myself."

"Oh! come now!" Raymond bent forward over his clasped hands; "you are
peeved! Not a bit like the little sport with that line in her hand."

"I--I wish you wouldn't talk like that." Joan frowned. "And I know it
will sound rude--but I--wish you would go."

"You are--surly!" Raymond laughed again, and just then a deep, rumbling
note of thunder followed a vivid flash.

"Come," he went on; "dance for me. There's going to be a devil of a
storm--keep time to it. I'm here--I ask pardon for being here--but you
can't turn me out in the storm. Come, let us have another big memory for
our adventure."

Still Joan sat contemplating the man near her, her hands lightly clasped
on her lap, her slim feet crossed and at ease--little stocking-shod feet
to which Raymond's eyes turned. She had never looked, to Raymond, so
provoking and tempting.

"What's up, really?" he asked, "you're not going to spoil everything by
a silly tantrum, are you?"

Joan hadn't the slightest appearance of temper--she was quite at ease,
apparently, though her heart almost choked her by its beating.

"You have spoiled everything," she said, "not I. You somehow have made
our play end abruptly by coming here. I don't think I ever can play
again. It's like knowing there isn't--any--any Santa Claus; I can't
explain. But something has happened. Something so awful that I cannot
put it into words."

Raymond got up and stood before Joan. He looked down and smiled, and at
that moment she knew that he was not his old self and she knew what had
changed him! And yet with the understanding a deeper emotion swept over
her, one of familiarity. It was like finding someone she had known long
ago in Raymond's place; as if she had lived through this scene before.

She summoned a latent power to deal with the new conditions.

"You pretty little thing!" Raymond whispered, and touched Joan's
shoulder. She got up quickly and moved across the room.

"I always want light when there is a storm," she said, and touched the
switch.

Raymond, in the glare, looked flushed and impatient. A crash of thunder
shook the old house.

"Will you dance for me?" he said.

Joan stiffened--she was dealing with the strange personality, not the
man who was part of the happy past.

"No," she said, evenly. "And you have no right to be here. I wish you
would go at once."

"Out in this storm, you little pagan?"

"You could go downstairs and wait in the hall."

"You are afraid of me?"

"Not in the least."

"Afraid of yourself, then?"

"Certainly not. Why should I be afraid of myself?"

"Afraid _for_ yourself, then?"

Raymond was enjoying himself hugely.

"No, but I'm a bit afraid--for you!" Joan was watching the stranger
across the room, and she shivered as peal after peal of thunder tore the
brief lulls in the storm.

"Oh! that's all right--about me!" Raymond said, mistaking the trembling
that he saw; "you know, while I was at dinner to-day I got to thinking
what fools we were--not to--to take what fun there is in life--and not
count the costs like mean-spirited misers. You've got more dash and
courage than I have--you must have thought me, many a time, a---- What
did you think me, little girl?"

With the overpowering new knowledge that was possessing her Joan spoke
hesitatingly. It seemed pitifully futile and untruthful; but her own
thought was to get this stranger from her presence.

"I thought you--well, I thought about you just as I thought about
myself. Someone who was strong enough and splendid enough to make
something we both wanted come true! It was believing that we two
grown-up, lonely people could--play--without hurting--anything--or each
other. I see, now, just as I used to see when I was a little girl--that
one can never, never do that."

Tears dimmed Joan's eyes and she tried to smile.

The whole weird and unbelievable experience was making her distrust
herself, and the storm was more and more unnerving her. She feared she
could not hold out much longer.

"You're a--damned good little actress!" Raymond gave a hard, loud laugh
so unlike his own wholesome laugh that Joan started back.

"I want you to go away at once!" her eyes flashed. "I think you must be
mad."

"But--the storm." Raymond walked across the room.

"I do not care--about the storm. I want you to go!" and now Joan
retreated and unconsciously took her stand behind a chair.

A sudden, blinding flash, a deafening crash and--the lights went out!

In the terrifying blackness Joan felt Raymond's arms about her.

So frightened was she now that for an instant the human touch was a
blessing. She relaxed, panting and trembling. In that moment she felt
kisses upon her lips, her eyes, her throat!

She sprang away, dashing against the furniture and then, as suddenly as
they had failed, the lights were blazing and in the revealment Joan
faced the man across the room.

Her face was flaming, but his was as white as if death had marked it.

"You--coward!" she flung out.

The words stung and hurt.

Raymond did not move bodily, but his eyes seemed to be coming nearer the
girl.

"If you do not go at once," Joan said, slowly, "I will call for help."

"Oh! no, you won't, and I am not going to-night."

The beast in Raymond had never risen before, had never been suspected,
never been trained: it was the more dangerous because of that.

"What?" Joan stared at him aghast.

"I said that I am not going to-night."

The awful feeling of familiarity again swept over Joan. She felt that
she must have lived through the scene: had made a mistake that must not
be made a second time.

"You have been drinking," she said, and her voice shook. She had hoped
that she might save him the degradation of knowing that she understood.

"Well! Suppose I have? It has made me live. Set me free. I wonder if you
have ever lived?"

"I am afraid not." Joan could not repress the sob that rose in her
throat.

"We can live, I bet." Raymond gave his ugly laugh. "That line in our
hands gives us the right."

For a moment Joan contemplated escape. Any escape open to her. The
telephone, the door, even a call from the window in the heart of the
storm. Then the desire was gone and with it all personal fear. She
wanted again, in a vague way, to save this man who had once been her
friend. She felt that she must save him.

Somehow, she had wronged him. She must find out just how, and then he
might once more be as she had known him.

Presently it came to her. She should have known that he could not
understand the past. He had pretended to, while they had played their
foolish game, but when restraint was set aside he showed the deadly
truth. She had cheapened herself, cheapened all women--she could not fly
now, not until she had made him see the mistake.

Raymond was crossing the room. He laughed, and insanity flashed in his
eyes.

"What shall I call you from now on?" he said: "Sylvia?--or shall we make
up another name?"

"My name is not Sylvia. And there is to be no time ahead for us."

"You are mistaken. A girl has no right to lead a man on as you have led
me, and then run. It isn't the game, my dear. You must not be afraid to
play the game."

Raymond reached his hand toward her and said pleadingly:

"Don't be afraid. I hate to see you flinch."

"You must not touch me." Joan's eyes flashed.

"I see. You've raised the devil in me--and you do not want to pay?" The
brute was rearing dangerously.

"I do not want to pay more than I owe."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that as true as God hears me I meant no wrong. I've done things
that girls should not do. I see that now. But I believed that you
understood. I thought that, in a way, you were like me--you were so fine
and happy. I still have faith that when you are yourself again you will
realize this. Oh! it is horrible that drink can do such an awful thing
to you."

"Whatever ideals I may have had," Raymond broke in, "you have destroyed.
Perhaps you think men have no ideals? Some women do."

"Oh! I believe with all my soul that they have. It was because I did
think that, that I dared to trust you." Joan was pleading; she could not
own defeat; she was appealing to him for himself.

But Raymond gave a sneering laugh.

"You trusted so much," he said, "that you hid behind a veil and would
not tell your name."

Raymond was hearing himself speak as if he were an eavesdropper. He
trembled and breathed hard as a runner does who is near the goal.

"What's one night in a life?" he asked, as if it were being dragged from
him.

Again his voice startled him. He looked around, hoping he might discover
who it was that spoke.

It was Joan now who was speaking:

"I think that in me as well as in you there is something that neither of
us knew. I cannot explain it--but it was something that we should have
known before----"

"Before what?" Raymond asked.

"Before I--anyway--was left to go free! It is the _knowing_ that makes
it safe, safe for such as you and me! I do not believe you ever knew
what you could be--and neither did I."

Raymond gripped his hands together and his face was ghastly.

"My God!" he breathed, and sank on the couch covering his eyes from
Joan's pitiful look. He was coming to himself, trying to realize what
had occurred as one does who becomes conscious of having spoken in
delirium.

Outside, the storm was dying down--it sounded tired and defeated.

Joan looked at the bent form near her and then went to a chair and
leaned her head back. She knew the feeling of desperate exhaustion. She
had never fainted, was not going to faint now, but she had come to the
end of a dangerous stretch of road and there was no strength left in
her. Surprise, shock, the storm--all had combined to bring her to where
she was now. The tears rolled unheeded down her cheeks; all her hope and
faith were gone--she had left them in the struggle and could not even
estimate her loss.

The clock ticked away the minutes--who was there to notice or care? Joan
was thankful to have nothing happen! She closed her eyes and waited.

Presently Raymond spoke. His hands dropped from his haggard face and his
eyes were filled with shame and remorse.

"Will you listen to me?" he said.

"Yes." Joan looked at him--her eyes widened; she tried to smile. She
longed to cry out at what she saw, wanted to say: "You have come back.
Come back." Instead she said slowly:

"Yes."

"I can never expect to have your forgiveness. I thank God that it is
possible for us to part and, alone, seek to forget this horror. I will
never intrude. I promise you that. Back in my college days I found out
that I could not drink. It did something to me that it does not do to
others. I never quite knew what until to-day. When I saw you standing
there--the devil got loose. I know now. My God! To think that all one's
life does not count when the devil takes hold."

"Oh! Yes, it does, and it is the knowing that will help." Joan was
crying softly. "You will have the right to trust yourself hereafter
because you know."

"I will always think of women as I see you now." Raymond spoke
reverently.

"You must not. Some women do not have to learn--I did. I think the best
women know."

"You must not say that."

"Yes, I feel it. Had I shown you a better self while we played all would
have been different. You would not have misunderstood. Women must not
expect what they are not willing to give. I had done things that no girl
can safely do and be understood and then--when you lost control--you
thought of me as you really believed me. I can see it all now, see how I
hurt you; hurt myself and hurt other girls; but it was because--not
because I am a bad girl--but because I did not know myself any more than
you knew yourself. How could we hope to know each other? I seem so old,
now--so old! And I understand--at last."

Raymond looked at her and pity filled his eyes, for she looked so
touchingly young.

"I think," he said, "that I shall see all girls for ever as I see you at
this minute."

"Oh, you must not." Joan gave a sob. "They are not like me, really."

There was an awkward silence. Then:

"Will you tell me your name? Will you try to trust me--just a little? It
would prove it, if you only would."

"I do not want you to know my name. You must promise to keep from
knowing. It is all I ask."

"Will you let me tell you--mine?"

"No! no!" Joan put up her hands as if to ward off something tangible.

"I only meant"--Raymond dropped his eyes--"that there isn't anything
under heaven I wouldn't do to prove to you my sense of remorse. I
thought if you knew you might call upon me some day to prove myself. I'm
bungling, I know, but I wish I could make you understand how I feel."

"I do." And now Joan got up rather unsteadily. "And some day--I--I may
call upon you--for--for I have known your name--always!"

"What!"

"Please--forgive me. I was taking an advantage--but it did not seem to
matter then, and I must keep the advantage now--for your sake as well as
mine. And now, before we say good-bye, I want to tell you that I know
you are going to have your ideals again. You will try to get them back,
won't you?"

"I will get them back, yes! I only lost them when the devil in me drove
me mad."

"And bye and bye, try to believe that although one cannot make the
unreal real, still there are some foolish people that think they
can--and be kind to such people. Help them, do not hurt them."

"Will you--take my hand?" Raymond stretched his own forth.

"Why--of course--and tell you that I am glad, oh, so glad because--you
have come back! Glad because it was I not another who saw that other
you--for I can forget it!"

"And--and we are--to see each other some day?" This came hopefully.
"Some day--as we left ourselves--back before this?"

"Some day--some day? Perhaps. If we do--we will understand better than
we did then."

"Yes. We'll understand some things."

Raymond bent and touched Joan's hand with his lips and went quickly from
the room.

He was conscious of passing, on the stairs, a wet and draggled young
woman, but he did not pause to see the frightened look she cast upon
him.

A moment later Joan raised her head from the pillow on which she was
weeping the weakest--and the strongest--tears of her life.

"Oh! Pat," she sobbed. "Oh! Pat."

Patricia came to the couch and sat down. She was thinking fast and hard.
Life had not been make-believe to Patricia; she had builded whatever
towers had been hers with hard facts.

She drew wrong and bitter conclusions now--but she dealt with them
divinely.

"You poor kid," she whispered, "and I left you--to this. I! Joan, I told
you not to trust men. It's when you trust them that you get hurt.

"Listen, you poor little lamb, I felt you calling me, tugging at me. The
storm delayed me, or I would have been here sooner. Joan, I had nearly
run off the track myself--it was the thought of you that got me. I kept
remembering that night you made the little dinner for me--no one had
ever taken care of me like that--and, child, I've accepted that job in
Chicago. If I go alone, remembering that dinner you got for me, I don't
know what I'll do. Come with me, Joan, will you? No man in the world is
worth such tears as these. You don't have to tell _me_ anything. We'll
begin anew. You'll have your music--I'll have my work--and we'll have a
dinner every night."

Patricia was shivering in her wet clothing.

Joan put her arms about her. At that moment nothing so much appealed to
her as to get away--get away to think and make sure of herself. Get away
from the place where her idols lay shattered.

"Yes, Pat. I will go. But"--and here she took Patricia's face in her hot
palms--"don't you believe that any man can be trusted?"

"No, I don't. It isn't their fault. They are not made for trust--they're
made to do things."

"Pat, you're all wrong. It's girls like you and me that cannot be
trusted. I--I didn't know myself that was the trouble. Pat--you
mustn't--think what you are thinking--you are mistaken."

"I saw him--on the stairs," gasped Patricia.

"Suppose you did?"

"Joan, do you know what time it is?"

"No. I do not care. It takes time to have the world tumble about your
ears."

"You--you--do not--love him, do you?"

Joan paused and considered this as if it were a startlingly new idea.

"Love him?--why, no. I'm sure I don't. But, Pat, what is it that seems
like love, but isn't--you're sure it isn't--but it hurts and almost
kills you?"

The two young faces confronted each other blankly.

"I don't know," Patricia said.

"Nor I, Pat. But we've got to know. All women have unless they want to
mess their own lives and the lives of men. They cannot be free until
they do."

Then Joan took hold of Patricia and exclaimed:

"Pat, you are dripping wet. Come to bed." While helping Patricia to
undress she talked excitedly of going away.

"It's the only thing to do. This silly life is a waste of time. Why,
Pat, we have been making all kinds of locks to keep ourselves shut away
from freedom and the things we want. Some day we would want to get out
and we could not. I am going to be free, Pat--not smudgy."

Patricia paused in the act of getting into bed and remarked demurely:

"My God! Out of the mouths of babes and pet lambs---- Come, child, shut
your eyes. You make me crawl."




CHAPTER XIX

"_Queer--to think no day is like to a day that is past._"


When Joan and Patricia arose the following day they confronted life as
two criminals might who realized that their only safety lay in flight,
and that they must escape without running risks.

Patricia shuddered when the first mail was delivered. She rescued her
own letter--addressed to Joan--and raised her heart in gratitude that no
letter of angered remonstrance came from Burke.

But he might _come_; he might telegraph!

"My God!" Patricia exclaimed at noon time, "I cannot stand this, Joan,
we must vacate."

Joan was quivering with excitement, too--she was wild-eyed and shook
with terror at every step on the stairs.

Her ordeal of the day before had not merely devastated her beautiful
dreams, but it had, in a marvellous fashion, created an entirely new
outlook on life. She felt that once she was safe from any possible
chance of meeting Raymond, he might, spiritually, rise from the ashes
and eventually overcome the impression that would cling in spite of all
she could do. Intellectually she understood--but her hurt and shocked
sensibilities shrank from bodily contact with one who had forced the
fruit of knowledge so crudely upon her. The youth in her seemed to have
died, and it held all the charm and delight. The _woman_ of Joan made a
plea for the man, but as yet he was a stranger. More strange, even, than
the unnamable creature who had, for an hour, while the storm raged,
stood in her imagination like some evil thing between the woman who had
not fully understood and the woman who was never again to
misunderstand.

While she feared and trembled Joan could, already, recall the moment
when Raymond began to gain the victory over his fallen self. She knew
that he was always to be the master in the future. How she knew this she
could not have explained, but she knew! In all the years to come Raymond
would be the better for that hour that proved to him his weakness. And
with this knowledge, poor Joan found comfort in her own part. He and she
had learned together the strength of their hidden foes. She realized
with a sense of hot remorse that she had wanted freedom not so much for
the opportunity of expressing that which was fine and worth while, but
that which she, herself, had not been conscious of.

But she had been awakened in time. She, like Raymond, had faced her
worst self, and now the most desirable thing to do was to get away.
Anywhere, separated from all that had led to the shock, she would look
back and forward and know herself well enough to make the next step a
safer one.

To go with Patricia for a few months would not interfere with her winter
plans; so she decided not to write fully to Doris, but to state merely
that she was going to see Patricia settled in her new venture--or,
should the business not appeal, bring Patricia back with her.

"But," she said to Patricia while they restlessly moved about the
studio, "what can we do about--this," Joan spread her arms wide, "the
furniture and all Syl's beloved things?"

Patricia sighed.

"Has it ever struck you, my lamb," she said, "that our dear Syl is a
selfish pig?"

Joan started in surprise.

"Oh, I know," Patricia went on, "her respectability and genius protect
her, but she is selfish. How long did she stop to consider us when her
own plans loomed high? She dumped everything on us and went! It was
business, pleasure, art, and John. For the rest--'poof!'" Patricia spoke
the last sound like a knife cutting through something crisp and hard.

Joan continued to stare. Unformed impressions were taking shape--she
felt disloyal, but she was not deceived.

"Syl brought you here," Patricia was going on, "because she was lonely
and you fitted in; she never changed her own course. She has engaged
herself to her John because _he_ fits in and will never interfere. I've
seen him--and I grieve over him. He'll think, bye and bye, that he's
gone into partnership with God in giving Syl and her art to the world!
But he'll never have any nice little fire to warm the empty corners of
his life by. I hope he'll never discover them--poor chap! He's as good
as gold and Syl has pulled it all over him without knowing it. She's
made him believe that he was specially designed to further a good
cause--she is the good cause.

"And the best, or the worst, of it is that Syl will make good. That kind
does. It is such fools as you and I who fail because we have imagination
and find ourselves at the crucial moment in the other fellow's shoes."

"Oh, Pat!" It was all that Joan could think of saying.

Patricia was rushing on.

"Very well, then! Now, listen, lamb, you and I are going to skip and
skip at once. I'm done up. A change is all that will save me--and you've
got to go with me!"

"Yes, yes, Pat!"

"Why, child, a step on the stairs is giving us electric shocks. This
lease is up in October. I'll telegraph Syl to-day. She can make her own
arrangements after that--we'll leave things safe here and get out
to-morrow!"

Suddenly Joan got up and threw her hands over her head.

"Thank heaven!" was what she cried aloud.

There was much rush and flurry after that, and in the excitement the
nervous tension relaxed.

A note, a most bewildering one, was posted to Elspeth Gordon. It came at
a moment when Miss Gordon greatly needed Joan and was most annoyed at
her non-appearance. It simply stated:

    Something has happened--I'm going at once to Chicago with Pat.

Now as Patricia had been an unknown quantity to Miss Gordon--her
relations with Joan being purely those of business--she raised her brows
with all the inherited conservatism of her churchly ancestors and
steeled her heart--as they often had.

"Temperamental!" sniffed Miss Gordon, "utterly lacking in honour. Just
as I might have expected. A poor prospect for--Pat! I do not envy the
gentleman."

Miss Gordon had contempt instead of passion, but her resentment was none
the less.

And it was at high tide when Raymond came in at four-thirty for a cup of
tea and what comfort he could obtain by seeing how Joan had survived the
storm. He was met by blank absence and a secret and unchristian desire
on Miss Gordon's part to hurt Joan.

Miss Gordon had not been entirely unobservant of all that had been going
on. She had had her qualms, but business must be business, and so long
as Joan did not interfere with that she had not felt called upon to
remonstrate with her on her growing friendliness with the protege of
Mrs. Tweksbury.

But now things were changed and by Joan's own bad behaviour.

Raymond looked sadly in need of tea and every other comfort
available--he was positively haggard.

While he sipped his tea he was watching, watching. So was Miss Gordon.
Finally, he could stand it no longer and he spoke to her as she was
passing.

"Your little sibyl--she is not here? On a vacation, I suppose?"

This was futile and cheap and Raymond felt that he flushed.

Miss Gordon poised for action. Her face grew grave and hard--she
believed she was quite within her just rights when she sought to protect
this very handsome and worth-while young man. She really should have
done it before! She was convinced of that now.

"My assistant," she said, "has left without giving the usual notice. She
has left me in a most embarrassing position but I suppose she felt her
own personal affairs were paramount.

"I--I think she has made a hasty marriage." On the whole, this seemed
more kind than Joan deserved.

"A--what?" Raymond almost forgot himself. "A--what--did you say?"

"Well, I presume it was marriage. She simply stated that something had
occurred that was taking her to Chicago at once with a young man."

Elspeth Gordon watched the face of Mrs. Tweksbury's adopted son. She
felt she was serving a righteous cause. If any worthy young man came to
harm from the folly she had permitted she could never forgive herself!
Miss Gordon had an elastic conscience.

Raymond's countenance grew suddenly blank. He had recovered his
self-control. He laughed presently--it was a light, well-modulated
laugh, not the laugh of a shocked or very much interested man.

Miss Gordon was relieved--but disappointed.

And then Raymond went out to do his thinking alone. He walked the
streets as people often do who are lonely and can find relief in action.

He had never been so confused in his life, but then, he reflected, what
did he really know about the girl with whom he had spent so many happy,
sweet, unforgettable hours? The one black hour through which she had,
somehow, stood as the only tangible safe thing he could recall, had
shattered his faith in himself, in everything.

What was she? Who was she? And now she had gone--with some man! It
sounded cruel and harsh--but it could not, it never could, blot out
certain memories which lay deep in Raymond's mind. He was miserable
beyond words. He deplored his own part in the unhappy affair; he could
not adjust himself to the inevitable--the end of the amazing and
romantic episode.

Of course he had always known that it must end some time, but while he
drifted damnably he had not given much thought to that. But now he had
finished it by his own beastiality when, had he kept his head, it might
have passed as it came--a thing undefiled; a beautiful, tender memory.

Perhaps--and at this Raymond shuddered--perhaps he had driven the girl
upon a reef. He had heard of such things. In despair she had violently
taken herself out of his reach. He could not believe she had been
seriously involved while she played with him. Whatever she was, he could
but believe that she was innocent in her regard for him--else why this
mad flight? And he could not believe that her regard for him was
serious. He was humble enough.

After leaving Joan the night before Raymond had met his Other Self
squarely in the shrouded house. Toward morning he had come to a
conclusion: he was prepared to pay to the uttermost for his folly,
whatever the demand might be. She must be the judge.

He would go to the tea room--not to the house that he had so brutally
invaded. He would again talk to the girl and watch her--he would make
her understand that he was not as weak as he might seem. If he had
misunderstood, that should not exempt him from responsibility. But if
she should spurn any attempt of his to remedy the evil he could regard
himself with a comparatively clean conscience.

Raymond could not get away from the idea that the girl was of his
world--the world where he was supposed, by Mrs. Tweksbury and her kind,
to constantly be.

But then the empty tea room--and how empty it was!--stared him blankly
in the face. Miss Gordon's manner angered him beyond expression. Almost
he felt he must tell her of his own low part in the tragedy in order to
place her beside the girl he had insulted, instead of beside him, as he
felt she was.

Raymond was hurt, disappointed, and disgusted; but as the day wore on a
grave and common-sense wave of relief flooded his consciousness. Bad as
things had been, they might, God knows, have been worse. As it was, with
the best of intentions, he was set aside by the girl's own conduct of
her affairs.

To seek her further would be the greatest of folly and then, toward
night, lonely, half ill, Raymond undertook that time-honoured custom of
turning over a new leaf only to find that it stuck to the old
persistently!

Then he resorted to a sensible alternative--he read and re-read the old
page. He tried to understand it line by line. He was humbled; filled
with shame at his meaningless attitude of the past, and acknowledged
that the grit in him, that he had hoped was sand, was, after all, the
dirt that could easily defile. He must begin anew and rebuild. He must
take nothing for granted in himself. Having arrived at that conclusion,
the leaf turned!

And Joan, in like manner, thrashed about. It was not so much her actions
that caused her alarm--she had played most sincerely--but it was the
power behind the play that caused her to tremble and grow hot and cold.
What was it within her that had driven her where wiser girls would fear
to stray? What was it that was not love in the least and yet had caused
her heart to beat at Raymond's touch or glance? Whatever it was, Joan
concluded, it could not be depended upon. It could lay waste every holy
spot unless it were understood and controlled, and Joan set herself to
the task.

The first step was to get away. That was inevitable.

After a few months--and Joan was sure Patricia could not run in harness
longer than that--they could both come back, saner and better women.
Then Doris would be called into action; no more butting against the
pricks and calling it freedom!

In the meantime, Patricia and Joan worked madly to get away and still
secure Sylvia's interests.

Telegrams passed to and fro. Sylvia was fair enough to see both sides,
and while she was irritated at being disturbed she did not resent it and
even bade Patricia and Joan success with honest enthusiasm.

"I'll run back and see to things," she wrote; "I'm making a lot of
money."

And then Patricia tucked Joan, so to speak, under her frail wing and
took to flight.

Chicago was new territory to both the girls but Patricia, from the
necessity, as she told Joan, of grubbing, had become an adept at finding
shelter.

After a week at a hotel, while she settled herself in business, Patricia
had free hours for home-hunting, and she and Joan made a lark of it.

Patricia had the enviable power of shutting business from her own time,
and she quickly discerned that Joan needed prompt and definite interests
to hold her to what they had undertaken.

And the venture had suddenly assumed gigantic proportions to Patricia.
She feverishly desired it to be a success.

She realized that Joan was being torn by conflicting emotions while she
was idle and alone. She asked no questions; appeared not to notice
Joan's teary eyes and pensive mouth. Wisely she made Joan feel her own
need of her--to that Joan responded at once.

"Joan, I never had a home in my life before," she confided while they
flitted from one apartment to another. "I used to walk around in strange
cities and peep in people's windows, just to see homes!

"After my father died, I rustled about on the little money he left, and
I got to sneaking into other women's homes. I didn't mean harm at first,
but after awhile it seemed so easy to sneak and so hard to--make good!
But down in my heart, as truly as God hears me, I've been homesick
for--what I never had."

"Pat! Of all things--you are crying!" Joan looked frightened.

"Well, let me cry!" sniveled Patricia. "I've never given myself that
luxury, either."

For a moment there was silence broken only by Patricia's sniffs. Then:

"What do your folks say about it, Joan?"

"I haven't sent the big letter yet--it's written. I don't want them to
say anything until I'm fixed. I only told them of our leaving New York."

"Whew!" ejaculated Patricia. "You certainly run your career
free-handed."

"Aunt Dorrie will take it like the darling she is," Joan mused on, "and
she'll make Nan and Doctor Martin see it. When she gave me my chance she
did not tie a string to me--not even the string of her love. We
understand each other perfectly."

"I suppose you know," Patricia gave a sigh, "but I don't think an
explanation would hurt any and I don't want her to blame me more than I
deserve, Joan."

"Blame you, Pat? Why, how could she?"

"Oh, I don't know. She might get to thinking on her own hook if you
don't give her the facts. Joan, send the letter at once!"

So Joan dispatched the letter, and it had the effect of depressing Nancy
to an alarming degree and, in consequence, of spurring Doris to renewed
effort.

She was perturbed by the lack of what she knew. She had her doubts of
Patricia; the sudden flight had an aspect of rout--what did it mean?

Her reply to Joan, however, was much what Martin's would have been to
his nephew.

She accepted and took on faith what Joan had explained--or failed to
explain.

She laid emphasis on plans for the coming winter and referred to Joan's
promise to give herself seriously to her music.

"Either in New York or there, my dear, begin your real work. It is all
well enough to look about before you decide, but there is a time for
decision."

This letter put Joan on her mettle.

"Pat, I'm going to begin as soon as we've settled," she declared, and
her wet eyes shone. "Aunt Dorrie is quite right."

The girls finally secured four pretty, sunny rooms overlooking the lake,
and reverently selected the furniture for them.

"Let's get things artistic," Patricia wisely explained, "we'll make the
place unique and then"--for Patricia always left, if possible, a way
open for retreat--"if we should ever want to dispose of it, we'd have a
good market."

But as the days passed it looked as if the venture were turning out
better than one could have hoped. Joan had never felt so important in
her life, and, to her surprise, developed possibilities never suspected
before. She prepared for Patricia's homecomings with the keenest
delight. The cozy, charming little dinners, the evenings by the open
fire--for they had selected the rooms largely on account of the
fireplace--or the occasional theatre or concert grew in delight.
Patricia was the merriest of comrades, the most appreciative of
partners. She also, to her own surprise, became deeply interested in her
work and, while the hours and confinement sometimes irritated her, her
field of invention was wide enough to employ her real talent, and her
success was assured from the first.

And when things were running smoothly and there were hours too empty for
comfort in the lonely day, Joan discovered a professor of music who gave
her much encouragement and some good advice.

After this interview she wrote to Doris more frankly than she had done
for a long time. She explained her financial situation and quite simply
asked for help:

     It's very expensive learning _not_ to be a fool, Aunt Doris. I have
     proved that. I am very serious now and Chicago, with Pat, is better
     for me than New York with Sylvia.

     What I really want is to prove myself a bit before I come back to
     you. I'm sorry about this winter, dear, but a year more and I will
     be able to come to you not _on_ my shield, I hope, but with it in
     fairly good condition.

"I think you ought to make her keep her promise about this winter,"
Nancy quivered; "she is always upsetting things."

"Why, my little Nan!" Doris drew the girl to her. Oddly enough, she felt
as if Nancy was all that she was ever to have. Never before had Joan
sounded so determined.

"Instead," Doris comforted, "I am going to help Joan prove herself and
you and I, little girl, will go up to town and have a very happy, a very
wonderful winter, and next summer, if Joan does not come to us, we will
go to her. I think we all see things very clearly now."

Nancy was not so sure of this but she, like Joan and Patricia, had felt
the lash upon her back and was chafing at delay.

Mary worked early and late to hasten the departure from The Gap. Always
in Mary's consciousness was that threatening old woman on Thunder Peak.

With care and comfort old Becky was more alert; more suspicious. She was
wondering _why_. And Mary felt that at any time she might defeat what
daily was gaining a hold on Mary's suspicions. The woman tried hard to
shield the secret from her own curiosity, but under all else lay the
conviction that it was Nancy's toys which were in peril. And gradually
the love that the silent, morose woman felt for the girl absorbed all
other emotions. It was like having banked everything on a desired hope
she was prepared to defend it. If her suspicions were true, then all the
more must the secret be hid.

And so in November Doris and Nancy went to New York and Mary, apparently
unmoved, saw them depart while she counted anew her assumed duties.

There was The Peak--and with winter to complicate her duties, it loomed
ominously.

"And I'll have to back letters for old Jed." Mary had promised to write
for the old man and to read from the Bible to him, as Nancy had always
done. "And keep the old man alive as well." Mary sighed wearily. "And
when there's a minute to rest--keep my own place decent." The cabin was
the one bright thought and, because of that which had made the cabin
possible, Mary bowed her back to her burdens.

"A strange woman is Mary," Doris confided to Nancy; "nothing seems to
make any impression upon her."

Nancy opened her lovely blue eyes wide at this.

"Why, Aunt Dorrie," she replied, "Mary would die for us--and never
mention it. She's made that still, faithful way."

Doris smiled, but did not change her mind. The people of the hills were
never to be to her what they had been to Sister Angela--her people.




CHAPTER XX

"_It Is Felicity on Her Wings._"


The old New York house was once more opened and the fountain set free.
Birds sang and flowers bloomed, but Joan was not there and for a blank
but silent moment both Doris and Nancy wondered if the lack were to
defeat them. The moment was appalling but it passed.

Felicity brooded over them and her wings did not droop.

Martin, with his sound common sense, came to the fore among the first.
He was never more alert. His nephew, Clive Cameron, was entrenched in
Martin's office and home--his name, alone, shone on the new sign.

"I've flung you in neck and crop, Bud, because I believe in you and have
told my patients so. Sink or swim, but you've got clear water to do it
in. I'll hang around--make my city headquarters with you; lend myself to
you; but for the rest I'm going to do exactly what I want to do--for a
time."

Cameron regarded his uncle as the young often do the older--yearningly,
covetously, tenderly.

"I--I think I understand about Miss Fletcher, Uncle Dave," he said.

"I had hoped you did, boy. And remember this--it's only when a woman
gets so into your system that she cannot be purged out, that you dare to
be sure."

"But, Uncle Dave, the knowledge--what has it done for you?"

"You'll never be able to understand that, Bud, until you're past the age
of asking the question."

And having settled that to his satisfaction, Martin turned resolutely to
what threatened Doris and Nancy.

He meant to see fair play. Doris could be depended upon for a few
strenuous months if her friends turned to and helped her as they should.

Nancy must no longer be sacrificed!

"If there is any sense in this tomfoolery about Joan," Martin mused, "it
must apply to Nancy also."

Martin was extremely fond of Nancy. He often wished she would not lean
so heavily, but then his spiritual ideal of a woman was after Nancy's
design. Of Joan he disapproved, and Doris was a type apart.

"If we can marry Nancy off," plotted Martin--and he had his mind's eye
on his nephew--"I'll bring Sister on from the West and get Doris to
share Ridge House with us. Queer combination, but safe!"

And then he saw, as in a vision, the peaceful years on ahead. He would
hold Doris's hand down the westering way. Hold it close and warm; never
looking for more than the blessed companionship. And his sister, happy
and content, would share the way with them and Nancy's children--would
they be Clive's also?--would gladden all their hearts. And Joan?--well,
Martin did not feel that Joan needed his architectural aid--she was
chopping and hacking her own design.

At this point Martin sought Emily Tweksbury and bullied her into action.

Mrs. Tweksbury had not unpacked her trunks yet and was sorely depressed
about Raymond.

"I wish I had stuck to Maine," she deplored, "and devoted myself to the
boy. He looks like a fallen angel.

"Ken, what have you been doing to yourself?" she had asked.

"Just pegging away, Aunt Emily."

"Ken," Mrs. Tweksbury had an awful habit of felling the obvious by a
blow of her common-sense hatchet; "Ken, you've got to be married. You're
not the kind to float around town and enjoy it--and you are the kind
that would enjoy the other."

"Oh! I'm having a bully time, Aunt Emily."

"That's not true, Ken. Life lacks salt; you look the need of it and I
blame myself for going abroad."

"I'm glad you went!" fervently said Raymond.

"You are, eh? Well, I'm not going again until you're safely married."

At this Raymond found that he could laugh, and just then the hatchet
fell, for Doctor Martin had entered the arena and Mrs. Tweksbury had
agreed to help.

"Do you remember my speaking of that niece of Miss Fletcher's last
spring?" she asked.

"Yes. I do recall it. Wasn't she to come here--or something like that?"

"Yes, she was, but she isn't. Doris Fletcher has brought her girl up to
town herself and the old house is opened. I called there the other day.
Ken, that girl is the loveliest thing I ever saw!"

"Is she?" Raymond was sitting on the edge of the table in Mrs.
Tweksbury's dressing room. When she got through talking he was going to
bed. He had to stifle a yawn.

"Yes, she is. She's not only the prettiest girl I've seen for many a
year, but she's _the girl_."

"For what?" Raymond swung his lifted foot while he balanced with the
other.

"For you, Ken!" The crash unsettled Raymond and he brought his free foot
to the floor.

"Oh! come," he blurted; "don't begin that sort of rubbish, Aunt Emily. I
thought you were above that."

"I'm not, Ken. I would go slow if I dared, but this girl will be snapped
up before we get in touch with her, unless we act quick."

"Aunt Emily! For heaven's sake, is the girl hanging about open-mouthed
for the first hook tossed to her?"

"No. But, Ken, she is the kind that men want--the kind they hold sacred
in their souls and hardly dare hope ever to see in the flesh. The girl
made me want to grab her. I remember as a child she was charming--she's
a perfect, but very human, woman now."

With this Mrs. Tweksbury dilated upon what Doris had confided of Nancy's
loyal and devoted life.

"You see, Ken," Mrs. Tweksbury ran on, "the girl is like a rare thing
that you cannot debate much about, and once lost, the opportunity will
never come again. I've gone off about her, Ken."

"I should say you had! Will you smoke, Aunt Emily?"

"Yes!"

To see Emily Tweksbury smoke was about as incongruous as to see an
antique remodelled to bring it up to date; but the smoke calmed her.

"You will call with me upon her, won't you, Ken?"

"With pleasure."

Raymond felt that any compromise would be well to offer.

"I'll do my best by her, too, Aunt Emily. I rather shy at perfect types;
girls, at the best, make me skittish. They make me think of myself and
then I get gawky."

"You'll forget yourself when you see Nancy Thornton."

"Nancy--queer old name for a modern girl!" The two puffed away like old
cronies--Raymond had got into a chair now and Mrs. Tweksbury had
relaxed, also.

"She isn't modern!"

"No? What then, Aunt Emily?"

"Ken, she's just woman. She appears just once so often, like a prophet
or something, that keeps your faith alive. She's the kind that the Bible
calls 'blessed,' and if she didn't reappear now and then I think the
race would perish."

"Ugh!" grunted Raymond. Then added: "Calm down, Aunt Emily, go slow.
When you lose your head you're apt to buck."

Mrs. Tweksbury laughed at this and helped herself to another cigarette.

It was a week later that Raymond met Nancy at his aunt's dinner table.
He knew she was coming. At least he thought he knew--but when he saw her
he felt that he had not expected her at all.

It was a small party: Doris Fletcher, Doctor Martin, young Doctor
Cameron, and Nancy.

Nancy came into the dim old drawing room behind young Cameron. It was
that fact that attracted Raymond first. He recalled what Mrs. Tweksbury
had said about the type being the ideal of man--or something like
that--and Cameron, whom he had just met a few weeks before, had
apparently got into action.

After Nancy came Doctor Martin--it was as if the male element surrounded
the girl.

She was rather breath-taking and radiant. She wore a coral-pink satin
gown, very short and narrow. Her pretty feet were shod in pink stockings
and satin slippers. Her dainty arms and neck were white and smooth, and
her glorious fair hair was held in place by a string of coral beads.

There are a good many platitudes that are really staggering facts.

"Caught on the rebound," is one.

Raymond was more open to certain emotions than he had ever been in his
life. He was sore and bruised; he had lost several beliefs in
himself--and was completely ignorant of the big thing that had given him
new strength.

He had had the vision of passion through the wrong lens; he had been
blinded by the close range, but he _knew_ what the vision was. In that
he had the advantage of poor Joan.

His youth cried out for Youth; he wanted what he had all but lost the
right to have. But he in no sense just then wanted Nancy; it was what
she represented. She was what Mrs. Tweksbury had said, the kind of girl
that men enshrine in their souls and never replace even when they gladly
accept a substitute.

"If only----" and then Raymond's eyes looked queer. He was living over
the black hour which he did not realize was the hour of his soul's
birth. He'd never have that battle again, he inwardly swore, but that
was poor comfort.

And then, while talking to Nancy, he grew very gay and light-hearted,
like someone who had made a safe passage past the siren's rocks. Not
that it mattered, except that one did not want to be shipwrecked. Of
course, Raymond knew, he wouldn't forget while he lived, the other
thing just past, but it had not wrecked him.

After that dinner nothing would have happened if all sorts of pressure
had not been brought to bear. Raymond was affectionately inclined to be
kind to Mrs. Tweksbury because he knew he had wronged her faith in him,
though she would never know; so he accompanied her whenever she
beckoned, and she beckoned frequently and always toward Nancy.

Then Clive Cameron happened, at the crucial moment, to be on the middle
of the stage for the same reasons that Raymond was there. Cameron
followed Martin's vigorous beckoning, although he was bored to the
limit. He liked Nancy and thought her very beautiful, but Cameron had
not enshrined any type of woman--a few men are like that. He knew,
because he was young and vital and sane, that he had a shrine, or
pedestal, in his make-up and if, at any time, he saw a girl that made
him forget, for a moment, the profession that was absorbing him just
then, he'd humbly implore her to fill the empty niche and after that he
would do the glorifying. But if it pleased his uncle to trot him about,
he went with charming grace; and because it did not affect him in the
least, he played almost boisterously with Nancy and made her jollier
than she had ever been in her life.

He made her forget things! Forget The Gap!

Cameron simply knocked unpleasant memories into limbo; he was like a
fresh northwest wind--he revived everyone. He made Doris think of David
Martin as she first knew him--and naturally Doris adored Cameron. She
came near praying that Nancy might, after a fashion, pay her debts for
her. But no! she would not influence Nancy--she must be respected in her
beautiful freedom as Joan was in hers.

So Doris widened the field of Nancy's vision, and old friends came
happily to the front.

It is not wholly ignoble, the marriage market. To understand the game of
life is to be prepared, and women like Doris Fletcher were not entirely
self-seeking when they presented their best to what they believed should
be the best. Nancy was worthy, as Martin often said, to carry on the
truest American tradition of womanhood, so it became a reverent concern
to help this matter personally, and nationally, on its course.

Young men swarmed about Nancy because, as Mrs. Tweksbury truly said, the
_ideal_ was in their hearts and they were stirred by it.

And Nancy was radiant and lovely. She blossomed and throbbed--she was
happy and appreciative. She was charming to everyone, but ran to Cameron
for safety and kept her sweet eyes on Raymond.

So secretly did she do this that no one but Cameron suspected it. The
perfectly serene atmosphere that surrounded him and Nancy permitted him
to understand the state of affairs.

When a girl uses a man as a buffer between her and others he does not
confuse things.

For a short time Cameron debated as to which particular man Nancy wanted
him to save her for while he was preserving her from the mass. It did
not take him long to decide. He grinned at the truth when it struck him.
He was surprised, as men usually are, at a woman's choice of males.
Cameron liked Raymond; thought him a good sort, but herd-bound.

"But Nancy's got the brand mark, too," he reflected. "They're both
headed in the same direction, only Raymond doesn't know it--a woman
always finds things out first, and it's up to me, I guess, to lasso
Raymond for her."

So Cameron took up the "big brother" burden and steered the unsuspecting
Raymond to his fate.

Cameron did this in a masterly way. He blinded everyone except Nancy.

Doris sighed with content, and Martin lifted his eyes in praise and
gratitude. Mrs. Tweksbury, like a war-horse smelling powder, saw danger
to her plans and quickened Raymond to what was going on.

At first Raymond was relieved--he wished Cameron good luck. Having done
that, he began to wonder if he really did?

There was something unutterably sweet about Nancy: she was so purely
the kind of woman that made life a success. Why should he play straight
into Cameron's hand? If Nancy really preferred Cameron, why, then--but
did she?

This was interesting. He took to watching; presently he concluded that
Cameron was a conceited ass.

After a short time Raymond began to feel the pressure of Nancy's little
body in his arms--when their dance was over. He began to resent other
arms about her. Her eyes were lovely--so blue and sympathetic. She never
set a man guessing. Raymond had had enough of guessing!

About that time Mrs. Tweksbury added an urge to her heart's desire that
she little suspected.

"Ken," she remarked one morning, "I dropped into the Brier Tea Room
yesterday." It was the _brier_ that signified the meaning of the place
to the old lady.

"Do you remember?"

Raymond nodded. Did he _not_ remember!

"The place is quite ordinary now--but the food is still superior. Miss
Gordon has come to her senses."

"Has she?" Raymond asked, lamely.

"Yes. And that girl--do you remember her, Ken?"

Raymond nodded again.

"Just as one might expect," Mrs. Tweksbury rattled on, keeping to her
one-tracked idea of things, "the minx ran off with a man, never
considering Miss Gordon at all."

"I doubt if Miss Gordon could see any one's side but her own," ventured
Raymond.

"Ken, that's unjust. The girl was a little fraud, and I think Miss
Gordon is heartily ashamed of herself for having resorted to such cheap
methods to get trade. She has young Scotch girls helping her now. No
more tricks, says Miss Gordon."

There was a pause.

"I thought for a time, Ken, that that girl was one of our kind--risking
far too much. I'm not usually mistaken in blood, but--the creature was a
good counterfeit; I'm glad she's gone. Say what you will, we older women
know the young man needs protection as well as the young women."

"Oh! Aunt Emily, cut it out!"

Raymond got up and stalked about. This added to Mrs. Tweksbury's
uneasiness.

For days after that talk Raymond had his uncomfortable hours. He wished
he knew about the girl of the tea room. It was "the girl" now. If she
were only unscathed the future would be safer for everyone.

But how could he--Raymond was getting into the meshes--how could he run
to safety and happiness and forget, if he had really harmed, in any way,
a girl who might have cared? The difference between playing with fire
and being burned by fire was clear now.

Had that hour, when the beast in him rampaged, killed forever the ideal
she had had? Was she saved by his madness? Or had she been driven on the
rocks? If he only knew!

Raymond still had moments when he believed that the girl would
materialize in his own safeguarded world. He had seen a resemblance now
and then that turned him cold, but when all was said and done there was
no reason, no unforgivable reason, for him to exile himself from life.

And when he was in this state of mind, Cameron was like vinegar on a raw
wound to him. Cameron's joyousness, born of indifference, passed for
assurance based, as Raymond believed, on his asinine conceit.

"He takes Nancy for granted," Raymond grumbled, "and he need not be too
sure--why, only last night----"

Then Raymond recalled the look in Nancy's eyes.

As a matter of fact, while Raymond was no better nor worse than the
average young man visiting the marriage market, Nancy had selected him
for worship and glorification. He loomed high and then, suddenly, he
loomed alone!

There is that in woman which selects for its own. It is not merely the
instinct of mating, it is choice, in the main, and makes either for
success or failure--but it always has its compensations in that vague,
groping sense that calls for its own. The world may look on wondering or
dismayed, but the woman, under the crude exterior, clings to the ideal
she sought.

With Nancy and Raymond conditions favoured the moment. Nancy had a wide
choice and she was radiantly happy. Doris saw to it that the girl should
see and hear the best of everything and be free to live her days
unfettered.

Raymond had inherited the purest desires for family and home--he had
never seen them gratified in his parents' life, so they still lay
dormant in his heart. Nancy presently awakened them and Cameron's
mistaken attitude drove them into action.

Raymond counted Nancy's charms. Her devotion to her aunt, her unselfish
service while her twin sister followed her own devices, Doctor Martin's
very pronounced admiration, and Mrs. Tweksbury's ardent affection all
carried him along like favouring winds. And presently the constant
appearance of Cameron with Nancy lashed Raymond to the amazing
conviction that he was in love!

He grew pale and abstracted; the revealment was pouring like light and
sun into the depths of his nature. He wished that he was a better man;
he thanked whatever god he reverenced that he was not a worse one. He
recalled the one foolish episode of his youth with contempt for his
weakness and gratitude for the escape--not only for himself but for the
unknown girl.

As a proof of the sincerity of his present change of heart he wished
above everything that he might find the girl and confess to her, for he
felt, beyond doubt, that it would give her joy.

He believed this, not because he wanted to believe it, but because he
felt the truth of it, and presently it gave him courage.

But there was Cameron!

Finally Raymond discovered that his business was suffering. He grew
indifferent to the exact hour of leaving his office; took no pride in
his well-regulated habits. He began to dislike Cameron and he dreamed of
Nancy. Day and night he saw her as the safe and sweet solution of all
that was best in him. She held sacred what his inheritance reverenced;
she was human and divine; she was his salvation--or Cameron's.

At this point Mrs. Tweksbury gave him an unlooked-for stab.

"Well!" she remarked with a groan--she never sighed, "I guess Clive
Cameron has got in at the death!"

She looked gruesome and defeated. Raymond grew hot and cold.

"What do you mean?" he asked, and glared shamelessly.

"I mean," Mrs. Tweksbury confronted Raymond as if repudiating him
forever, "I mean that you've let the chance of your life slip through
your fingers and fall into the gaping mouth of that Clive Cameron. It's
disgusting, nothing less!"

"Aunt Emily! What in thunder do you mean? Nancy Thornton has only been
here a month; if she's so easily gobbled"--the discussion waxed
crude--"I'm sure I could not prevent it--I'm not a gobbler."

"No--you're a fool!"

"Come, come, Aunt Emily." Raymond flushed and Mrs. Tweksbury grew
mahogany-tinted.

"Oh! I know"--two tears--they were like solid balls--rolled down the
deep red cheeks. Almost it seemed that they would make a noise when they
landed on the expansive bosom.--"I sound brutal, but I'm the female of
the species and it hurts to know defeat the--the second time."

"The--second--time?" gasped Raymond.

"Yes--your father! I could--oh! Ken, it is no shame to say it to
you--but I could have made him happy, but it came, the chance, too late.
Then when you came I pledged my soul that I would try to secure your
happiness. I know what you want, need, and deserve, and here is this
perfect child--the one woman for you, snatched from under your nose by
Clive Cameron who will--" Emily Tweksbury sought for a figure of
speech--"who will, without doubt, end in dissecting her!"

"Good Lord!" gasped Raymond. The dramatic choice of words was unnerving
him.

"Oh! you men," spluttered Mrs. Tweksbury. "You make me weary--disgusted;
you're no more fit to manage your affairs than babies, and your
monumental conceit drives sensible women crazy. We ought to ask you to
marry us. We ought not wait to see you ruin yourselves and us, too."

"But, Aunt Emily, why in thunder do you think Nancy Thornton cares for
me? If she wants Cameron, why shouldn't she have him?"

At this Emily Tweksbury flung her head back and regarded Raymond with
flaming eyes.

"You--well!--just what are you? Can't you see? Could you possibly
believe any girl would take Cameron if she had you to choose?"

At this Raymond laughed. He laughed with abandon, going the gamut of
emotions like a scale. But presently he became quiet, and a rare
tenderness overspread his face. He went over to Mrs. Tweksbury and bent
to kiss her.

"I never knew before, Aunt Emily," he said, "just what a mother meant.
I'm sorry, dear. Upon my word, I'm deadly sorry, but I'm made slow and
cautious and mechanical--I'm afraid of making mistakes--and if I have
lost because of my weakness, why, you and I must cling the closer."

"Oh! Ken. When you talk like that I feel that I must go and have it out
with Nancy!"

"Aunt Emily, hands off!"

Raymond was suddenly stern, and Mrs. Tweksbury bowed before the tone.

But Raymond meant to make sure before he accepted defeat. He spurred
himself to the test with the name of Emily Tweksbury on his lips. That
name seemed to hold all his responsibilities and hopes--his long-ago
past; the only claim upon the future except---- And in this Raymond was
sincere. His own honest love for the girl who had entered his life so
soon after his doubt of himself had had birth made him fear to put his
feet upon the broad highway.

But he braced himself for effort and on a stormy, sleety January
afternoon he telephoned to Nancy and asked her if she were to be free
that evening.

She was. And--to his shame Raymond heard it gleefully--she had a "sniffy
little cold" that made going out impossible.

"Are you afraid of sniffy colds?" asked Nancy, "they say they are
catching!"

"I particularly like them," Raymond returned.

"We'll have a big fire in the sunken room and," here Nancy gurgled over
the telephone, "we'll toast marshmallows."

Raymond presented himself as early as he dared and was told by the maid
to go to the sunken room. Believing that Nancy was there awaiting him,
he approached with a beaming countenance.

Cameron stood with his back to the roaring fire.

"Hello, Ken!" he blurted, cheerfully. "You look like a gargoyle."

"Thanks!" All the light and joy fled at the sight of the big fellow by
the hearth. Dispiritedly, Raymond sat down and resigned himself to what
he believed was the inevitable.

Cameron regarded him critically as he might have a puzzling case. Then,
having made a diagnosis, he prescribed:

"Sorry to see me here, old chap?"

"Why in thunder should I be?" Raymond glared.

"No reason--but then reason isn't everything. Nancy's a bit off--I'd
hate to have her confront that mug of yours, Ken, if I can soften it up
any. I came to bring some medicine from Uncle David--he's worried about
colds these days. Nancy told me you were coming, she went upstairs to
take her dose in private--she told me to stay and give you the glad hand
and explain. Somehow you don't look exactly appreciative."

"Sorry!" Raymond found himself relaxing. "Want me to kiss you?"

"Try it! I'd like to have a fling at you. What's up, anyway, Ken? See
here, old man, you know there might be any one of twenty fellows here
to-night--you ought to be on your knees thanking heaven that it's I--not
one of the twenty."

"What the devil do you mean?" Raymond got up, tried to feel resentment
but could not.

"Nothing, only I'm going and--well, Ken, don't be an ass. It don't
pay."

Raymond tried to think of something to say, but before the right thing
occurred he heard Cameron's cheerful whistle cut off by the closing of
the heavy front door.

Then he sat down by the fire and did some thinking. It was the kind of
concentrated thought that separates the chaff and wheat; foregoes the
glitter of romance and reaches out for the guiding, unfailing light of
reality.

How long he sat alone Raymond never realized. It seemed like years, then
like a moment--but it brought him to Nancy as she stood at the top of
the flight of steps leading to the warm, fire-lighted room while the
fountain splashed cheerfully and a restless, curious little bird
twittered in its cage.

Nancy wore the faintest of blue gowns; a cloudlike scarf fell from her
shoulders; her eyes held the full confession of her love as they met the
groping in Raymond's.

He opened his arms.

"My darling!" he said, "will you come?"

Slowly, radiantly, Nancy stepped down.

"It seems as if I'd always been coming," she was saying. "I--I don't
want to hurry now that I--I see you."

"I--I think I've always been coming, too," Raymond would not take a
step, "but I was walking in the dark."

"And I----" but Nancy did not finish her sentence--she had found her
heart's desire.

"I'm not worthy," murmured Raymond, pressing the light hair with his
lips.

"Neither am I. We'll grow worthy together. It's like finding a beautiful
thing we both were seeking. It isn't you or I--alone--it is something
outside us that we are going to make--ours."

Spiritually Raymond got upon his knees, humanly he pressed the girl
close.

"It's--you--the Thing is--_you_" he whispered, and at that moment knew
the last, definite difference between what he now felt and--all that had
gone before.




CHAPTER XXI

"_To suffer sets a keen edge on what remains of the agreeable. This is a
great truth that has to be learned in the fire._"


It was all so exactly as it should be--the love affair of Nancy and
Raymond--that it lacked excitement. There was a moment when Doris and
David Martin looked into each other's eyes and sadly smiled; but that
was past as it came.

"It's all right, Davey!"

"Of course, Doris, and Bud wasn't in it after all. It was our
desire--not his. He seems to feel he ought to be cheered for whooping
the thing on; making Raymond jealous, you know."

"Dear boy!"

"Thanks, Doris. He is something worth while."

Mrs. Tweksbury was so expansive in her happiness that she embarrassed
Nancy. She fairly bounded over the fragrant garden of new love and
scanned the wide pastures beyond.

"Ken, if I can see children in this old house, I'll thank God and depart
in peace. Say that you will come here, boy. You know I'm always
scuttling overseas. I won't be in the way--but it is the one desire of
my shrivelled old heart."

"Aunt Emily, go slow and don't be ridiculous. The idea of your being in
the way in your own house!"

"Ken, make Nancy love me. I know I'm gnarled and crusty, but I need what
she has to give all the more because of that. I have no pride--I want
that girl's love so--that I'd--I'd humble myself."

Raymond kissed her.

"Has she told you of her--her sister--yet?" Mrs. Tweksbury asked.

"Yes. Nancy says that until Joan, that's the name I believe, comes home
she cannot leave Miss Fletcher. Nancy must not sacrifice herself."

Raymond was quickly assuming the charms of ownership.

"She always has been," snapped Mrs. Tweksbury, "an unconscious offering.
Where is her gad-about sister?"

"I forget--out West somewhere, I believe."

"What is she doing?"

"The Lord knows. I got a very disagreeable impression of her. I didn't
do much questioning--Nancy was on the defensive. She adores her sister."

"Bless the child! I have an unpleasant remembrance of the girl, too."
Mrs. Tweksbury smiled grimly. "She was always a pert chit, and I believe
she is like her disreputable father--you know about him, Ken?"

"Yes--something. Miss Fletcher mentioned him--she says she wants to have
a talk later on. But what do I care, Aunt Emily?"

"I should rather like to know, myself." Mrs. Tweksbury sniffed scandal.
"I never have been sure about him, but I know he was socially above
reproach. If he personally went wrong it is deplorable, but, Ken, if he
had his roots in good soil instead of mud, it isn't fatal."

"Bosh! Aunt Emily."

"Bosh! all you want to, boy. It's easy to bosh when you're on the safe
side--but neither you nor I can afford to ignore the difference."

"Nancy speaks for herself, Aunt Emily."

"Yes, thank God, and redeems her father. Wait until you see the sister.
She was a lovely, distracting imp--but with a queer twist. I shouldn't
be surprised a bit if she needs a deal of explaining and excusing."

But when Nancy's wonderful news reached Joan in the tiny Chicago home it
made her very tender and wistful.

"Think, Pat, of dear little Nan--going to be married. Married!"

Patricia, who shared all Joan's letters, lighted a cigarette and puffed
for a moment, looking into the glowing grate, then she quoted
eloquently:

    "There was a little woman,
      So I've heard tell,
    Who went to market,
      Her eggs for to sell!"

Joan stared.

"My lamb, for this cause came Nancy and her kind into the world."

"I don't understand, Pat." Joan's eyes were shining and misty.

"Well, what on earth would you do with Nancy if you didn't marry her
off? If she were homely she'd have to fill in chinks in other people's
lives, but with her nice little basket of eggs, good looks, money, not
too much wit, and a desire to please, she just naturally is put up for
sale and off she goes!"

"Pat, you are vulgar! Nancy is the finest, sweetest of girls. She would
only marry for love."

"Sure thing, my lamb. And she could make love out of--anything."

Joan was thinking of Nancy's capacity for making truth.

"Dear, little, sweet Nan," she whispered.

"Just the right stuff out of which to make successful marriages. Who is
the collector, Joan?"

"Pat, you make me angry!" Joan really was hurt.

"She doesn't tell me his name. She says----" here Joan referred to the
letter; "'I am going to try and keep him until you come and see him.
Joan, he is worth a trip from Chicago.'"

"You are--going?" asked Patricia.

"Pat--I am. Only for a visit, but suddenly I find myself crazy hungry
for them all.

"I'll be back in a couple of weeks; I'll only lose three lessons and
surely, Pat, you'll forgive me if I desert you for that one glimpse of
my darling Nan and her man?"

"I suppose so. But, Joan, don't stay long. I know how the reformed
drunkard feels when he's left to his lonesome. He doubts his
reformation."

"Pat!" Joan felt the tug of responsibility.

The next night Patricia came home with a bedraggled little dog in her
arms.

"Where did you find that, Pat?" Joan paused in her task of getting
dinner and fondled the absurd creature.

"Oh! he was browsing along like a lost soul, sniffing to find--not a
scent, I wager he never had one of his own, but a possible one. Out of
all the mob, Joan, he chose me! He came up, nosed around my feet, and
then whined delightedly--the old fraud! I picked him up and looked in
his eyes--I know the look, Joan. He might be my never-had-brother, there
is a family resemblance."

"Pat, how silly."

"No joking, lamb. I couldn't ignore the appeal--besides, he'll keep me
straight while you are away."

"Pat--come with me!" Joan bent over the dog, who already showed his
preference for Patricia.

"I cannot, Joan. The trade is growing--I am planning an exhibition. I'm
ashamed to say it, but the business is getting into my gray matter.
No--go to your duty, lamb--the pup and I will get acquainted and make up
for lost time."

And while Joan made preparations to go to New York, and while Doris and
Nancy planned to make her visit a success, something occurred that
changed all their lives. It was the epidemic of influenza. The shrouded
and menacing Thing approached like the plague that it was to prove
itself. It was no discerner of people; its area was limitless, it
harvested whence it would and, while it was named, it was not
understood.

David Martin ordered Doris and Nancy out of town at once.

"You may not escape," he said, "but your best chance is in the open.
Besides, you'll leave us freer here."

"But Joan--David!"

"Joan be hanged! Can't she get to Ridge House?"

"Of course. But I wanted to have her here to--to justify herself. Emily
Tweksbury is trying to make a tragedy of Joan. I'm afraid Ken suspects
her--his awful silences are insulting--I wanted to--to show her off."

"Nonsense, Doris! But this is no time for squibbling. Scoot!"

"But--you, David!"

"I? Oh! I'm all right. Remember I have Bud. Why, the chap is pulling up
his sleeves and baring his breast to the foe. I'm going to stand close
by him."

Martin's eyes shone.

"David, if anything should happen to you----" Doris paused.

"I'll run down now and then," Martin took the thin, delicate hands in
his. "I'll come--when I feel tired."

"You promise, David?"

"I--swear it."

So Doris took Nancy away. A tearful, woe-begone Nancy who clung to
Raymond with the tenacity of a love that faces a desperate situation.

"Beloved," whispered Raymond, "I'm going to get Aunt Emily out of the
danger zone and then I'll come to you. If this Joan of yours has
arrived--we'll be married, you and I, at once. We don't care for the
society fizz. This epidemic makes you think about--taking joy while you
can."

"Yes, Ken--if--if Joan will stay with Aunt Dorrie."

"Well, by heaven! She'll have to stay. I'm not going to let them cheat
me!"

To this Nancy gave a look that thrilled Raymond as he had never been
thrilled before--it was supreme surrender.

And presently in the stricken city gaiety and laughter seemed to die
away in the black, swooping shadow.

"When you use up all you know," Clive Cameron said one night to David,
"you still keep hunting about for something else, don't you?"

Martin nodded. Both men were worn and haggard. They were fighting in the
front ranks with the men of their profession--fighting an unknown foe,
but bravely gaining confidence.

"The death rate is lower to-day, Bud. Hang to that!"

"I do, Uncle Dave. If it still goes down, will you take a vacation?"

"You are willing to go it alone, boy?"

"Yes!" grimly. "I know I must."

The two men relaxed and smoked peacefully, their feet stretched out to
the fire. Their long day warranted this pause. They were strangely
alike; strangely unlike. Occasionally their eyes met and then their lips
smiled.

They were friends. The blood tie was incidental.

"You ought to be married, Clive."

"Why, especially?"

"A man should; a doctor especially. A wife and children are better to
come home to than a pipe--and a housekeeper."

"You managed to buck along, Uncle Dave."

"Yes--buck along! I couldn't make up my mind to----"

"I understand, Uncle Dave. Miss Fletcher is great stuff--she makes other
women look cheap."

"Bud, some women are like that."

"I suppose so."

Both men shook the ashes from their pipes--there was a night's work
ahead.

Martin stared at the young face opposite. It was a strong, kind face--a
face waiting for the high waves to strike it. Martin seemed never to
have known the boy, really, before.

"Bud, suppose you never find your woman?" he asked, huskily.

"All right, then I'll peg along with that much lacking. Oh! I know what
you are thinking of, Uncle Dave. I've been through it--and turned it
down! Ever since I can remember I've kept a grip on myself by
remembering you!"

"Good God, boy!" Martin choked; "I'm a poor model. At the best I've
been--neutral."

"Like hell you have!" irreverently ejaculated Cameron, pleasantly. "Why,
Uncle Dave, you've got muscle all over you from fighting the demon in
you, but you have no ugly scars. We can look each other in the eyes as
we couldn't--if there were scars. It's all right, Uncle Dave. We'll get
Mother here before long and have a bully time."

Martin could not speak for a moment; he was looking ahead to the time
when he'd have only this boy and his mother!

"Well, what's up, Uncle Dave?"

"Bud, have you suspected anything about Miss Fletcher? Her health, I
mean?"

"Yes. I've studied about her, too."

"And kept quiet, eh?"

"Sure! But, Uncle Davie, if we--" Martin blessed him for that "we"--"if
we could get her outside of herself, it would do a lot for her. I've a
hunch that you have let her get on the shelf. I wouldn't if I were you!
I know it may be necessary to keep her to rules, but she thinks too much
about the rules; they cramp her. When Nancy marries--what then?"

"The Lord knows!"

"Where's that other girl--Joan?"

Martin's face hardened.

"Living her life. _Her_ life," he said.

"Anything--dirty about it?" Cameron asked.

"No. So far as I can find out, she's just taking what she calls _her
own_."

"Well, why shouldn't she, Uncle Dave? By all that's holy why shouldn't a
woman have her own as well as a fellow? Just because she was born to
petticoats doesn't mean that she's born to all the jobs men don't want."

"There are certain things the world exacts of a woman, Bud."

"What, for instance, Uncle Dave?"

Martin considered. He was a just man, but he was prejudiced.

"Self-sacrifice, for one thing!"

"Who says so? Who benefits most by her self-sacrifice?" Cameron flushed
as he rambled on. "We may split on this rock, Uncle," he blurted. "Think
of my mother--I sort of resent it, because I _am_ a man, that we
idealize virtues and plaster them on women when we know jolly well, if
we lathered them on ourselves, we'd cave in under them. It's up to the
woman! That's what I say. Let her select her own little virtues and see
to it that she squares it with her soul and then men--well, men keep to
the right and keep moving!"

Having flared forth, Cameron laughed at his own fireworks.

"Joan is selfish, Nancy quite the reverse." Martin's brows drew
together. "Don't be an ass, Bud!"

"What's this Joan doing?"

"Thinking she's gifted," snapped Martin.

"How is she to find out if she doesn't try? Is Miss Fletcher paying for
the racket?"

"No. That's the rub. The girl's paying for it herself. Smudging herself
doing it, too. A woman can't escape the smudge."

"Oh! well"--Cameron was tiring of it all--"it's when the smudge sticks
that counts. If it is only skin deep, it doesn't matter."

"But--a woman, Bud--well, skin matters in a woman."

"Who says so? Oh! chuck it, Uncle Dave. Which shall it be--bed for an
hour or a rarebit at Tumbles and then--on to the fight?"

"What time is it?"

"Eleven-thirty."

"Bud, let us have another look at our salvage before we choose; if we
find them sleeping, we'll take the rarebit as a recompense for a night's
sleep."

And together they went out into the night. Two tired men who had done a
stiff day's work--but felt that they must make sure before they sought
rest for themselves.

       *       *       *       *       *

And Joan and Patricia faced the epidemic as so many of the young
did--nothing really _could_ happen to them, they believed--and Chicago
was not paying so heavy a toll.

"We'll take a little extra care with food and sleep and wet feet," Joan
cautioned, "and I'll put off my visit, Pat, for awhile."

"And, Joan," Patricia said, laughingly, "keep your mouth shut in the
street!"

The four little rooms were sunshiny and warm; Joan sang hour by hour;
worked at her music and "made the home," while Patricia kept to her
rigid hours and designed marvellous things in which other women
revelled.

Since Nancy had gone South and her beloved was absent, Joan felt that
her duty was to Patricia. Without being able to classify her feeling she
clung to Patricia with a nameless anxiety.

She taught the little dog to fetch Patricia's slippers to the
living-room fire; she always had dinner ready when, tired and frail,
Patricia appeared with that glad light in her eyes.

"You act as if I, not you, were going away, my lamb," Patricia often
said; "but you are a blessing! And Cuff"--she leaned down and gathered
the small, quivering dog in her arms--"and Cuff runs you a close
second."

Cuff wagged his stubby tail excitedly. He was a proud creature, a proof
of what could be done with a bad job, and he had all the snobbishness
that is acquired, not bred in the bone. He slept on the foot of
Patricia's bed and forgot back alleys. He selected tidbits with the air
of one who knew not garbage cans, but he redeemed all shortcomings by
his faithful love to her who had rescued him. The melting brown eyes
found their highest joy in Patricia's approval, and a harsh word from
her brought his diminutive tail between his legs for an hour.

It was April when Patricia came up the stairs, one night, laggingly.
Cuff was on the landing with his token of devotion. The girl picked him
up, kissed his smooth body and went on, more slowly. Joan had the table
set for the dainty dinner by the broad western window. She turned when
Patricia entered.

"What's the matter, Pat?" she asked.

"Nothing, only Cuff is growing heavy."

"Are you tired?"

"Not a bit. What a wonder you are, Joan! That table is a dream with
those daffodils in the green bowl. Old Syl was right--you put the punch
in home!"

"There's chicken to-night, Pat. I plunged on the strength of what my
Professor said to-day."

There were times when Joan wondered if Patricia was not insisting upon
home more for her sake than her own.

"What did she say, Joan?"

"That next winter I might--sing!"

"Bully! But you sing now--like several kinds of seraphs. Warble while I
make ready for dinner, Joan."

So Joan sang as she flitted from kitchen to dining room.

    "I'll take the high road and you take the low road
    And I'll get to Scotland before you----"

she rippled, and Patricia joined in:

    "I'll get to Scotland before you!"

Then she said, from the bedroom beyond:

"I know what it is in your singing that gets us, Joan. It's the whole
lot more than words can express."

"Of course! That's high art, Pat! Come on, dearie-thing, you must
carve."

"Now, Scotland"--Patricia issued forth in a lovely gown and Joan dropped
her long apron and appeared a happy reflection of Patricia's
magnificence--"Scotland stands for everything your soul wants when you
sing. Not a place--but--everything."

"Yes. That's what I feel," Joan replied, quite seriously.

Patricia did not eat much that evening, but she gave the impression that
she was doing so.

The girls always disposed of the dishes, after dinner, in a wizard-like
manner. They disappeared until morning--and no questions were asked!

Then, when the meal was over this night, Patricia flung herself on the
couch, clasped Cuff in her arms, and asked Joan to sing her to sleep.

"You _are_ tired, Pat. Was it a hard day?"

Joan came wistfully to the couch.

"No, not hard, only bracing. They're going to raise me in the summer,
Joan. We'll be fat and lazy next winter--and just think: the summer in
The Gap lies between!" For that was what Joan's deferred visit had
resolved itself into.

"Pat, your cheeks are--red!"

"Joan, don't be silly. I touched them up. I never could see the
difference between rouge and dyes and powder and false teeth! They're
all aimed at the same thing--and it isn't mastication, either. It's how
you handle the aids to beauty."

"Dear, funny, pretty old Pat!"

"Joan, go and sing!"

That night Cuff was dreaming the old haunting dream about waking up in
the gutter when something startled him. It was a very soft call.

"Come up here, Cuff, I want you--close!"

Cuff needed no second invitation! But the closer he got the more nervous
he became.

"Cuff, look at me!"

Cuff looked.

"Cuff--once--you wouldn't have looked!"

Cuff denied this by a vigorous whack of his stumpy tail.

There were a few minutes more during which Patricia said some very
remarkable things about being glad that children and dogs could look at
her; and that Joan felt happy with her, and that love had something to
say for itself if you didn't wrong it, and then Cuff voluntarily jumped
from the bed and scampered into Joan's room. Joan was sleeping and Cuff
had to tug rather savagely at her sleeve before he attracted her
attention. But when Joan was awake every sense was alert.

"What's the matter?" she asked, but while she was speaking she was on
her way to Patricia's room.

Patricia was tossing about and laughing gently; she was insisting that
she was going up the Climbing Way and that the travelling was hard and
the weather hot! For a moment Joan stood still. All her strength
deserted her, but in that instant she knew the worst, as people do at
times--when the end is near!

It was only three days for Patricia and she never realized the truth for
herself. A nurse, a weary but faithful doctor, and Joan kept her company
on the Climbing Way which got easier toward the top.

    "You take the high road and I'll take the low road
    But I'll get to Scotland before you----"

It was Patricia who sang, not Joan, and then she laughed gaily.

"I bet I will beat you out, Joan--but it wasn't--Scotland, you know
it--was--home!"

Just before the top was reached Patricia grew quiet and grave. She clung
to Joan with one hand and patted Cuff with the other.

"I think," she whispered, "that when dogs and little children can look
you in the eye, God can!"

She did not speak much after that--but she sang in fragments, hummed
when very tired, and murmured--"Nice little old Joan and Cuff," just
before she reached--home!

It was all so crushingly sudden that Joan was dazed and could not feel
at all. Fortunately, the nurse arranged to stay with her for a week, and
the doctor acted, through all his burdened days, as if an extra load was
really a comfort to him. He asked Joan what steps he should take about
Patricia, and Joan stared at him.

"You see, Pat just belonged to me," she explained; "and--and well! must
I decide anything just now?"

"I think we must--about the body--you know!" The doctor felt his heart
beat quicker as he gazed into the wide, tearless eyes.

"The--the body? Oh! I see what you mean. I--I was going to take Pat home
next summer; this summer--but----"

"Perhaps we can arrange to have the body remain here in Chicago until
you make plans."

"Oh! if you only could." Joan looked her gratitude.

And so Patricia Leigh was laid to rest in the vault of strangers until
the girl who had loved her could realize the thing that had overtaken
her.

In the lonely rooms the empty stillness acted like a drug upon Joan. She
mechanically performed the small services she used to perform so gladly
for Patricia. She held Cuff in her arms as she repeated:

"It cannot be, Cuff, dear, it cannot! Such a terrible thing couldn't
happen--not without warning. She _will_ come back; she will,
Cuff--please don't look so sad!"

It was three weeks after Patricia went that Cuff met Joan as she entered
the room--with Patricia's slippers which he had found where Joan had
hidden them! The sight of the pathetic little figure touched something
in Joan and it sprang to hurting, suffering life.

For hours the girl wept in the dark rooms. She begged for death;
anything to dull forever the pain that she could not understand. But the
grief saved her and she began to think for herself, since no one was
there to think for her. The city was full of sickness and death. Those
who could, must do for themselves. Joan had not written home; she
wondered what she had done in all the ages since Pat went.

All Patricia's small affairs were in order. Her money and Joan's were
banked under both names, and the dreary little home was but an empty
shell.

"I've failed--utterly," the girl sobbed over Cuff in her arms; "I told
Aunt Dorrie when I found that out--I would go to her."

So Joan sold the furniture and sublet the rooms; she paid her small
debts and promised her music teacher that she would continue her work in
New York. Then she turned wearily, aimlessly--homeward, with Cuff in her
arms.




CHAPTER XXII

"_Love, hope, fear, faith--these make humanity!_"


The trip to New York was always marked in later years, to Joan, by the
most trivial occurrences.

The passing to and fro to the baggage car where Cuff, a crumpled and
quivering mass, seemed to ask her what it all meant; the sense of
eagerness to get to The Gap before it was too late; the determination
not to frighten any one she meant to telegraph from New York; she would
leave her trunks in the station and take a bag to a little hotel where
she and Pat had stayed the night before they fled from New York. So far,
all was clear.

So she planned; forgot, and planned again. Between these wanderings and
the care of Cuff there were long hours of forgetfulness and a sound of
rushing water--or was it the train plunging through the dark?

Once in New York, with Cuff trotting behind, Joan seemed to gather
strength--but not clear vision. She went to the small hotel and secured
a room. She meant to telegraph and buy her ticket South--but instead she
fed Cuff, took a little food herself, and fell asleep. It was late when
she awakened to a realization of acute suffering that seemed confused
and spasmodic. It was like being partially conscious. She was frightened
and tried to fix upon some direct and immediate means of securing help
for herself. She did not want to call assistance from the office, so she
got up and dressed and half staggered downstairs. It needed all her
effort to hold to one thought long enough to accomplish anything.

First there was Cuff. She must get Cuff, quiet his nervousness, and feed
him. Then with that in mind she took food herself--as much as she could
swallow. It was while she was forcing herself to this task that Doctor
Martin came, like an actual presence, to her consciousness.

Why had she not thought of him before?

"Uncle Davey!" she murmured and her eyes filled with tears. Of course!
She would take a cab to Doctor Martin's office and then everything would
be solved. He would take care of her; send word to The Gap; protect Aunt
Doris and Nancy from shock. She began to laugh quietly, tremblingly--she
was safe at last. Safe!

It was after ten o'clock when she paid her taxi driver in front of
Martin's office and dismissed him. Gathering Cuff in one aching arm and
clutching her bag she slowly, painfully mounted the steps without
noticing the sign bearing a new name.

If anything were needed to prove how detached Joan had been for the past
year or two it was this ignorance concerning the arrangement between
Martin and his nephew. Had she not been on the border of delirium she
would have recalled certain things which would have guided her; as it
was she felt, dazedly, for the bell, pressed the button, and to the maid
who responded she faintly said:

"I--I want the doctor." She looked, indeed, as if this were shockingly
true.

"It's past office hours," stammered the girl, a little scared; "but
perhaps if you come in----"

Joan staggered in and, seeing a door open at the end of the hall,
reached it, entered, and sank down in a chair with the astonished eyes
of Clive Cameron upon her!

He was ready for his rounds--was on the way, then, to his hospital; it
was Martin's pet institution and Cameron's first care in the morning.

"I'm--tired," Joan informed him. "Please take care of--Cuff!"

And then everything went black and quiet.

Never in all his life had Cameron had anything so surprising happen to
him. He looked at the girl, whom he managed to carry to the couch; he
turned to the dog whose faithful eyes rather steadied him, then he
applied all the remedies that one does at such times. Eventually Joan
revived, but she stared vacantly at the face above her and did not
attempt to speak.

Presently Cameron called in his nurse.

"I think it is brain fever," he explained to the cool, capable woman who
asked naturally:

"Who is she?"

"The Lord knows."

"Where did she come from? Where does she belong?"

"The Lord knows. She just came in with the dog and then dropped after
asking me to care for--for Cuff--yes, that's what she called him--then
she went off."

"It's a duck of a dog," the nurse remarked as one does make inane
remarks at a critical time. Then:

"Have you looked in her bag?"

"Certainly not!"

"We had better." And they did.

There was a trunk key, seventy-five dollars, and a letter signed "Syl,"
and frivolously dilating upon a man named John and loads of love to Miss
Lamb!

"Well!" said the nurse, "and as one might expect, no heading, date, or
any sensible clue--and the envelope missing. We must label this patient,
I suppose, as Miss Lamb. The articles of clothing are unmarked. Queer
all around!"

"We must get her into the hospital at once," Cameron replied. The doctor
in him was getting into action.

"Can we manage her in my car?"

"Yes, Doctor."

"Then get busy. Call her Miss Lamb when you have to answer questions. We
can find out about her later. Where's that dog?"

Cuff was making himself invisible. He was under the couch.

"Have him fed and taken care of, Miss Brown--tell the maid."

Joan leaned against Cameron on the way to the hospital while Miss Brown
kept a finger on her pulse. The girl's body acted mechanically, but the
brain was clogged.

Day by day in the white, quiet hospital room the battle for her life
went on; day by day outside effort was made to trace her and find her
friends.

"You wise-looking brute," Cameron often thought as he regarded Cuff at
the day's end; "why can't you tell what you know?"

But Cuff simply wagged his stump and slunk off. Life was becoming too
puzzling for him.

Cameron studied advertisements and certain columns in the papers, but no
one seemed to have missed the pretty young creature in the Martin
Sanatorium.

"It's the very devil of a case!" Cameron declared, and set about
erecting some sort of foundation upon which "Miss Lamb" might repose
without causing too much unhealthy curiosity.

Eventually, Joan was simply a bad case of Doctor Cameron's. One from out
of town. Her folks trusted him, but were too distant to visit the girl.

Cameron considered telegraphing for Martin, who was at The Gap, but he
knew that sooner or later he must rely upon himself alone, and so he
began with "Miss Lamb."

The days and weeks dragged on. There were ups and downs, hopes and
discouragements, but through them all Joan looked dazedly at Cameron,
and if she ever showed intelligence it was when he spoke to her in a
perfectly new set of tones that were being incorporated into his voice
and which seemed to disturb her. To all questions, as to names, the girl
in the dim room returned a dull stare and silence, but there were times
when she deliriously rambled intimate confidences. When these times
occurred, Cameron, if he chanced to be present, ordered the nurse from
the room and listened alone. He was relieved to hear that the patient
rarely spoke when he was not with her.

Joan dwelt upon her failure--her longing to go to Pat.

These items Cameron recorded in a small red book, for his memory was
none too good and he was busy to a dangerous degree.

Then, again, the sick girl depicted the night of the storm--the shock
and consequent flight.

"But," she pleaded piteously, holding the strong hand that anchored her
to life, "he won! he won, and it is always going to be all right. Oh! if
he could only know!"

There would be a pause always ending in: "I want Pat."

"Where is--Pat?" Cameron ventured.

"Home!" And then, weakly, but with a wrenching pathos, Joan sang--"_I'll
get to--Scotland_--no! _home_--before you!"

"Come, come, now!" Cameron pressed the thin form down. "You know you've
got to live--for Pat."

"Yes--for Pat." And then Joan would sleep.

It was a day in late May that Cameron noticed a change in his case. She
was weaker, but steadier. She seemed to connect him with something in
the recent past, and that encouraged him. All her previous conscious
moments had been like detached flashes.

"What was it you said I must live for?" she asked Cameron. "I've
forgotten."

"For everything," he replied, throwing off his coat and gripping the
promising moment. "You're not the kind to slink out. Besides, you've got
to tell me about your folks. Give them a chance to prove themselves and
set things straight." Cameron watched the struggle on the thin face.
"And there is--Pat!" he added.

Joan looked amazed and then quivered.

"Yes, Pat, of course!"

There was a long pause, the consciousness was seeking something to which
it might cling. Something forever eluding it.

A day or two later Cameron brought the dog into the sick room. Joan
turned as she heard steps.

"Cuff!" she cried and then, as the dog leaped on to her, she sobbed and
murmured over and over: "Pat's little Cuff; Pat's little Cuff."

Her way on ahead was safer after that--safer but more secretive.

As Joan got control of her thoughts she became more silent and
watchful. She questioned the nurse and found out where she was and how
long she had been there; she smiled with her old touch of humour when
she was called Miss Lamb but gave thanks that she had a name not her
own!

She regarded Cameron with deep gratitude, but drove him to a corner by
insisting that he tell her how much she owed him.

Cameron, having her purse under lock and key, at home, told her she owed
the hospital fifty dollars.

At that Joan laughed, and the sound gave Cameron more hope than he had
known for some time, but it seemed to mark, also, Joan's complete
self-control.

Often she lay for hours with closed eyes and wondered with a bit of
self-pity why she had not been discovered? Had she so completely dropped
from the lives of those she loved that they had forgotten her? She did
not know, for some time to come, of the letters to her that were
returned to The Gap! She was never to know, fully, the anguish that
Doris Fletcher was enduring in her mistaken determination not to hamper
the girl who was testing her strength.

While David Martin rated her for ingratitude and carelessness; while
Nancy's face set in resentment and disapproval, Doris smiled and
insisted that she would not judge until Joan explained.

"Of course," she added, "if anything were really wrong Joan or Patricia
would write. They are probably away on business--and at the worst they
will soon let me know when to expect them. Joan was always a poor
correspondent."

"Would you like to have me go to Chicago?" Martin asked.

"David, would you go if--it were your boy?" Doris hung on his answer.

"I jolly well wouldn't! I'd let the scamp learn the whole lesson."

"Very well, then I do not want you to go to Chicago!"

Joan, slowly recovering, could hardly have explained to herself why she
was so secretive, but more and more she determined not to go to The Gap
and open her heart to Doris until she was able to command the situation.
Since she had, for some reason, dropped from their lives, she would
wait. Meanwhile, her heart ached with the pity of it all.

She wondered how the name of Lamb had ever been attached to her, and
finally she decided to ask Cameron about it.

It was Cameron's custom, now, to delay his call upon Joan until late
afternoon. When he was on his way to dinner he took a half hour or more
to sit beside her bed and indulge in various emotions.

So long as Joan had been a desperate case she had no individuality at
all, except scientifically.

She was bathed, and eventually her hair was cut, not shaved--the nurse
put in a plea at the cutting point--and she was fed and made to sleep;
but gradually, as she emerged from the shadowy boundary, she assumed
different proportions.

Cameron concluded that her reticence, now her brain was growing clearer,
came from a determined effort to cover her tracks and perhaps those of a
man--unworthy, undoubtedly, and Cameron believed this man to be the
"Pat" to whom his patient had so frantically referred in her raving.

There had evidently been a strenuous scene in which Pat had figured and
through which he and the girl had emerged rather deplorably.

Cameron also arrived at the conclusion that the young woman in his care
must be made to take a keener interest in life than she seemed to be
taking, or her recovery would be slower than it ought to be, according
to physical indications. The growing silence worried him; he wished that
he could gain her confidence, not in order to gratify curiosity, but to
enable him to be of real service.

One afternoon he called at the hospital reinforced with a box of roses.

The flowers had an immediate effect upon Joan. She buried her face in
them and closed her eyes, and then Cameron saw large, slow tears
escaping the close-shut lids. He welcomed these. Presently Joan asked:

"How is--is--Cuff?"

"Oh! he's ripping," Cameron replied; "after seeing you he seemed to size
up the situation and come to terms."

"How--how did you happen to know his name?" This had been a burning
curiosity for the past week.

"You happened to mention it when you keeled over in my office. Cuff was
apparently your one responsibility. We found your name in a letter--Miss
Lamb."

The roses hid the quivering face while a new and hurting question for
the first time entered in. Then:

"Did--did I go to your office? I thought I--was brought here from----"

"You were brought here, all right," Cameron felt his way slowly along
the opening path; "Miss Brown and I had rather a vigorous trip with
you--in my automobile."

"Cuff belonged to--to Pat!" Joan remarked, irrelevantly. She was forcing
her thought back to the blank period lying between the hotel and the
hospital. Gradually it brightened and a smothered sob found place in the
roses.

"So that is why they have left me alone!" Joan reflected; "but oh! how
frightened they must be!"

"I rather imagine Pat must be fairly well used up wondering about you,"
Cameron was saying as if the whole matter were an everyday affair, but
rather annoying; "queer things happen in a big city. We've done our best
to locate your friends; I think some of the officials I have consulted
have their doubts as to my mental condition. I kept under cover as well
as I could until you were well enough to act for yourself."

"Thank you--oh! thank you." This very faintly and brokenly.

"You see, you are one of the cases that prove that an impossibility
is--possible. Truth-stronger-than-fiction idea. But if you would like me
to communicate with Pat, I'll be glad to help you."

"No--I will wait now." Joan drew her lips close.

Cameron controlled his features while he listened, but he never referred
to Pat again.

"I've sometimes thought," Cameron spoke calmly, "that you might have
been looking for my uncle, Doctor Martin, when you stumbled into his old
office. I could not flatter myself that you were bent upon obtaining my
services."

At this Joan astonished Cameron almost as much as if she had sat up in
her coffin.

She rose, as though propelled by a spring, she stared at him and then,
as slowly, sank back, still holding him with her eyes that seemed
preternaturally large.

"Oh! come now!" Cameron exclaimed. "What's up?" He took her hand and
bent over her and to his amaze discovered that she was laughing! He
touched the bell. Things were bewildering him--Miss Brown always managed
trying situations by reducing them to normal. She responded at once;
cool, serene, and capable.

"Nerves?" she asked. And then took command. She raised Joan and settled
the pillows into new lines; she removed the roses almost sternly--she
disliked the nuisance of flowers in a sick room.

"There, now!" she whispered to Joan, "take this drink and go to sleep
like a good girl."

In the face of this sound common sense laughing was out of the question.
Joan pretended sleep rather than risk another: "There, now!"

But her recovery was rapid after that day. Like a veil withdrawn she
reflected upon the past as if it were, not a story that was told, but a
preface to the real story that her life must be.

The folly, the irresponsibility, no longer dismayed her, but gave her
reasons and arguments.

She wanted to live at last! She wanted to go home and separate herself
forever from the cheap, theatrical thing she had believed was freedom!
She saw the folly of it all; she seemed an old woman regarding the
dangerous passage of a younger one.

She realized her own selfishness in her demand for self-expression. What
had she expressed while others fixed their faithful eyes on duty?

Nancy shone high and clear in those dull hospital days. Nancy who
demanded so little, but who trod, with divine patience, the truer
course.

"Well, Nan shall have her own!" Joan thought, and gripped her thin hands
under the bedclothes. "I'll strive for Nan as I never have for myself."

Out of the debris of the feverish past Joan held alone to Patricia.
Strange, it seemed to her, that the dead girl should have grown to such
importance, but so it was. Patricia was the real, the sacred thing, and
she planned the home-bringing of the dear body and the placing of it on
the hillside in The Gap.

And through the convalescing days Cameron had his place, like a fixed
star.

Often worn by the day's silent remorse and earnest promise as to the
future, Joan looked to that hour when Cameron, calm, serious but
cheerful, sat by her bedside--a strong link between the folly of the
past and the hope of the times on ahead.

Vaguely she recalled the blurred weeks of fever and pain, and always his
quiet voice and cool touch held part.

"And to think," Joan could but smile, "that he does not know me--but I
know who he is just as I knew about----" She could not name Raymond
yet--she could only think kindly of him when she held to the days before
that last, tragic night.

And Cameron, meanwhile, was drawing wrong conclusions. Not that they
changed his personal attitude toward the girl whose life he had helped
save. To him she was a human creature whose faith in her future must be
restored as her body was in the process of being. Cameron believed in
stepping-stones and was utterly opposed to waste of any kind.

"She's paid her debt and his, too, I wager," Cameron often muttered;
"that's the devil of it all, and she'll go on and perhaps down--if she
doesn't get a start up. If I could only get hold of her folks--it would
help!"

But Joan held him at bay when he ventured on that line.

"When I am quite well," she said with gentle dignity, "I am going home
and do my own explaining."

"Are you considering--them?" Cameron frowned at her.

"I am--as I never have before!"

To this silence was the only reply.

Presently Joan made her first big stride toward complete recovery. She
forsook her bed during the day and, in pink gown and dainty
cap--procured by Miss Brown--she passed from a "case" to an individual.

The twilight hour now became something of a function and Cameron dropped
his professional manner with his outdoor trappings and appeared, often,
as a tired but very humanly interesting young man.

He talked of safe, ordinary things, he brought books and flowers, and
while Miss Brown kept a rigid appearance, she inwardly sniffed--or the
equivalent.

And then came the Sunday before Joan was to leave the hospital. It
happened to be Easter, and a woman was singing in the little chapel down
the hall. The room doors were open and the sweet words and melody
floated in to the silent listeners--Joan pictured them as she sat and
felt her tears roll down her cheeks.

"Some--are going out!" she thought, "and others, like me, must go on.
And here we all are with walls between, but our doors open to:

    "He weaves the shining garments
      Unceasingly and still
    Along the quiet waters
      In niches of the hills."

The words seemed to paint, in the narrow room, the dim Gap. The sound of
the river was in Joan's ears and she knew that the niches of the safe
hills where her loved ones waited, were full of the spring blossoms.

    No leaf that dawns to petal,
      But hints the Angel-plan.

Joan looked up and saw Cameron at the doorway. He almost filled it, and
his eyes grew troubled as he noted the thin, white, tear-wet face.

"Shall I close the door?" he asked.

"No. Please do not. I like to think that all the others, down the
corridor, and I are together--listening, growing better!"

"Oh! I see." Cameron tossed aside his coat and sat down.

"I--I don't think you do," Joan smiled at him; "I think I puzzle you
terribly, but some day I am going to explain everything. All my life I
have been, as I am now, in a narrow little room--peeping out and never
touching others any more than I am touching"--she pointed to the right
and left--"my neighbours, here. But we were all listening to much the
same thing then as now.

"I am going"--here Joan dashed her tears off--"I am going somehow to
pull the walls down and know really!"

"Bully!" Cameron had a peculiar feeling in his throat. Then added: "I
cut something out of a paper the other day that seemed to me to hold all
the philosophy necessary for this tug-of-war we call life. Here it is!"

"Read it, please," Joan dropped her eyes.

    "A shipwrecked sailor, buried here, bids you set sail.
    Full many a gallant bark, when he was lost, weathered the gale."

"Isn't that good, gripping stuff? I've caught the sense of it, and when
I get to thinking--well, of such as lie in many of these little rooms,
I'm glad--you're--setting sail!"

"Thank you, Doctor Cameron. I am setting sail! I thought I was before--I
see the difference now. And to-morrow----"

"And to-morrow--where are you going--to-morrow?"

Cameron was ill at ease.

"To a little hotel--I will give you the address in the morning. It is
from there that I will set sail."




CHAPTER XXIII

"_No one can travel that road for you, you must travel it for
yourself._"


David Martin came into the living room of Ridge House bringing, as it
seemed, the Spring with him. He left the door open and sat down. He was
in rough clothes; he was brown and rugged. He was building, with his own
hands, much of the cabin at Blowing Rock. He had never been more content
in his life. He often paused, as he was now doing, and thought of it.

The hard winter's work was over and Martin felt the spring in his blood
as he had not felt it in many a year.

Things were going to suit him--and they had had a way of eluding him in
the past. Perhaps, he thought, because he had always wanted them just
his way.

Somewhere, above stairs, Doris was singing, and Nancy from another part
of the house was calling out little joyous remarks.

"Two telegrams in one day, Aunt Doris. Such riches!"

Doris paused in her song long enough to reply:

"Joan may come any day, Nan, dear. It is so like her to act, once she
decides."

Martin, sitting by the hearth, reflected upon the injustice of Prodigal
Sons and Daughters--but he smiled.

"They don't deserve it--but it's damnably true that they get it," he
mused, irrelevantly.

"Joan's room is a dream, Nan, come and see it!" called Doris, and Nancy
could be heard running and laughing to inspect the Prodigal's quarters.

"It looks divine!" she ejaculated. "Push that pink dogwood back a
little, Aunt Dorrie--make it like a frame around the mirror for the
dear's face."

"How's that, Nan?"

"Exactly--right. Aunt Dorrie?"

"Yes, my dear girl."

"I have the dearest plan--I feel that Ken would love it, but I hate to
be the one to propose it."

From his armchair Martin smiled more broadly.

"Perhaps I can do it for you, Nan." Doris spoke abstractedly--she was,
apparently, giving more thought to the decorations for the returning
wanderer than to the plans of the good child who had remained at her
post.

"Well, Aunt Doris, I don't want to wait until next winter to be married.
Ken writes that he will have Mrs. Tweksbury safely settled in New York
by the first of June----" Emily Tweksbury had fled the influenza and
gone to Bermuda only to fall victim to pneumonia. Kenneth Raymond had
been summoned, to what was supposed to be her death-bed, but which she
indignantly refused to accept as such.

"When women are as old as I, Ken," she had whispered as he bent over
her, "they consign them to death-beds too easily. Give me a month, boy,
and I'll go back with you."

Kenneth had given her a month, then two weeks extra; he was bringing her
back now--a frail old woman, but one in whose heart the determination to
live was yet strong.

"But, darling, we'd have to give up the beautiful wedding--Mrs.
Tweksbury could never stand the excitement now, or even this summer."

Doris's voice was more suggestive of attention as she now spoke. Martin
waited.

"I know, Aunt Dorrie, but I am sure she would rather have me and Ken
married than come to our wedding. Listen, duckie! Suppose, after Joan
comes, we plan the dearest little service in the Chapel--I'm sure we
could snatch Father Noble as he flits by. There would be you and Uncle
David and Joan, and perhaps Clive could wrench himself away, and Mary
and Uncle Jed--and," a tender pause, "and--Ken and me! We could make the
Chapel beautiful with flowers from The Gap--our flowers--and then I
could help Ken with Mrs. Tweksbury--for you, Aunt Dorrie, will have
Joan."

Martin blinked his eyes. He never admitted a mistiness to the extent of
wiping them. He listened for Doris's next words.

"Childie, it sounds enticing and just like you. I will talk it over with
Uncle David."

The voices upstairs fell into a silence and Martin got up and paced the
room.

A few minutes later Doris came down the stairs and, singing softly,
entered the living room.

There was welcome in her eyes; the languor and helpless expression had
faded from her face.

"Davey," she said, "I felt the draught--you have left the door open--I
knew you were here.

"Oh! Davey, to-day the twenty-year limit seems quite the possible thing.
My dear, my dear, Joan is coming home!"

Martin met Doris midway of the big room. He was startled at the change
in her.

"I heard that a telegram had come. It's great news, Doris."

"Queer, isn't it, Davey, how one can brace and bear a good deal while
there is the necessity, and then realize the strain only when the need
is past? Joan says only 'coming home,' but I know as surely as I ever
knew anything that it has been for the best and she is coming gladly to
me--coming home! I could not have endured the silence much longer."

Martin put his arm around Doris and led her to the hearth. A mild little
fire was crackling cheerfully, rather shyly, between the tall jars of
dogwood that seemed to question the necessity of the small blaze.

"Davey, I want to talk to you. There are so many things to say if you
are absent twenty-four hours. How goes the cabin?"

"Like magic. It will be livable by June or before. The men like to have
me pothering around, and I've discovered that one never really has a
house unless he helps build it. I'm going to get Bud down the minute I
can put a bed up. And, Doris----"

"Yes, Davey."

"I've been eavesdropping, I've been here a half hour. I heard what Nancy
said--let the child have her wish!"

"You feel that way, David? I had hoped to have everything rather
splendid--to make up for what I could not do for--Merry."

"All stuff and nonsense! Give the girl her head. She knows her path and
will not make mistakes. What she wants is Raymond and her own life.
Nancy is simple and direct; no complications about her. Don't make any
for her."

"David, her happiness and peace almost frighten me. You remember how she
drooped last summer? Taking her to New York has done more than give her
love and happiness. She is quite another girl, so resourceful and clear
visioned."

"She's on her own trail, Doris, that's all. Things are right with Nancy.
The rule holds."

"But, David, I have not told her yet----"

"Told her?--oh! I see--about the birth mix-up?"

Martin smiled--he always did when the subject was referred to. The
humour and daring of it had never lost their zest.

"It is no laughing matter, Davey; as the time draws near when I must
tell I am in a kind of panic. I always thought it would be easy; if it
had been right why should I know this fear?"

Martin was serious enough now. He folded his arms and leaned back in his
chair--he held Doris with his calm gray eyes.

"It seems to me," he spoke thoughtfully, "that you should stand by your
guns. You did what you did from the highest motives; you have succeeded
marvellously--why upset the kettle of fish, my dear?"

Doris's face softened.

"I think if I had committed murder," she said, "you would try to defend
the deed."

"I certainly would!"

They smiled into each other's eyes at this.

"But, David, I am afraid to tell Nancy. Somehow I think the doubt would
hurt her more cruelly than the real truth might have. It has always been
the not knowing that mattered to Nan--unless what was to be known was a
happy thing. Merry was like that, you remember."

"Then why run a risk with Nancy, Doris?"

Martin had the look in his eyes with which he scanned the face of a
patient who could not be depended upon to describe his own symptoms.

"I--think--Ken should know."

"What?"

"Why--why--what there is to know!"

"Just muddle him. Nancy would be the same girl, but he'd get to puzzling
over her and tagging ideas on her--and to what end, Doris? The girl has
the right to her own path and you have, by the grace of God, pushed
obstacles from before her, in heaven's name give her fair play and
don't--flax out at this stage of the game."

"But, Davey, if in the future anything should disclose the truth, might
Ken not resent?"

"I don't see why he should. When the hour struck you could call him into
the family circle and share the news. By that time he'd feel secure in
his own right about Nancy."

"I'm not afraid of, or for, Joan, Davey." Doris lifted her head proudly.
"And, David, I want to tell you now that my coming to The Gap was more
on the children's account than my own. I have always felt that here, if
anywhere, the truth might be exposed. At first I was anxious; fearful
yet hopeful. I know now that The Gap has no suspicions, and I am more
and more confident that George Thornton has passed from our lives."

"Very good!" Martin sat up and bent forward in order to take Doris's
hands in his own.

"My dear," he said, gently, "have you never thought that--Nancy is--your
own?"

"Yes, Davey, I have grown to believe it. She is very like Meredith--not
in looks, but in her character and habits. She is stronger, happier than
Merry, and oh! Davey, for that very reason I hesitate to touch the
beautiful faith and love of the child. I do not want her disillusioned.
It would kill her as it did Merry."

"Then, again I caution against risks, especially when the odds are with
Nancy, not against her."

The fire burned low--a mere twinkle in the white ashes, then David asked
as one does ask a useless question:

"Are those words over the fireplace, Doris?" He puckered his
near-sighted eyes.

"I think so. There are carvings and paintings everywhere through the
house. One of the Sisters did them. This one is so blackened by smoke
that it is all but destroyed--some day I will see what can be done to
restore it."

"I like the idea," Martin said. "I mean to have something over my
fireplace. It sort of strikes one in the face."

Presently Doris spoke, going back past the interruption:

"Davey, the wonderful thing to me is that while believing Nancy to be
Merry's child I find my heart clinging passionately to Joan. I know how
you disapprove of her--but I glory in her. Through this anxious time I
have been able to follow her, understand her better, even, than I have
Nan. Joan has often seemed like--well, like myself set free. I might
have been like Joan in many ways. And, Davey, this could not have
happened had I known the real truth concerning the girls."

"No, I do not think it could. And it goes to prove my theory that two
thirds of the inherited traits are common to us all. The whole business
lies in the handling of them by the one third that does come down the
line. The thing we know as the ancient law of inheritance. Doris, take
my advice and keep your hands off."

"Oh! Davey. To keep my hands off is so easy that it doesn't seem safe or
right."

David smiled, then said:

"There are times, Doris, when I fear that you should be taken by the
roots and--transplanted. The old soil is used up."

"I--I do not understand, David."

"Don't try! Come, now, I want you to take a rest. Go on the porch in the
sun, I'll wrap you warm. I'm going to take Nancy over to the cabin for
lunch and plan her wedding with her. This afternoon you and I are going
for a drive--the roads have settled somewhat and I want your advice
about things to put in my garden."

As he spoke Martin was leading Doris to the piazza, gathering rugs and
pillows in one arm as he went.

"I am so happy, David, so unspeakably happy." Doris sank into her
pillows and smiled up at the face bending over her. "It's beautiful, all
this care and love, and I have a feeling that I will be able, soon, to
really live. I have had so much without paying the price."

"And you'd mess it all, would you, Doris, when you don't know what the
price is?"

"No, David, I wouldn't."

Martin walked into the house and whistled to Nancy. She responded, so
did the hounds and a new litter of long-eared pups.

Doris, with closed eyes, smiled and then she thought. She, too, was
planning for Nancy's wedding--she saw the small altar in the Chapel
flower-decked; they must have some music, perhaps Joan would sing one of
her lovely, quaint songs--and then Doris slept while the sun lay on her
peaceful face and the sound of the busy river soothed her.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was like Joan to do exactly what she did.

After two deplorable days in the little hotel--days devoted to
collecting her belongings and eating and sleeping--she suddenly found
herself so strong that she sent the telegram to The Gap.

Having sent it, she meant to prepare carefully against shock at her
appearance by buying a rather giddy hat and coat to offset her short
hair and thin body. Cameron had insisted, at the last, that she reserve
her cash for emergencies and repay him later.

Joan accepted this solution, and having arrayed herself frivolously she
bought Cuff a most remarkable collar which embarrassed the dog
considerably. In all the changing events of Cuff's life a collar had not
figured, and it was harder to adjust himself to it than to foots of beds
and meals served on plates. However, Cuff rose to the emergency and bore
himself with credit.

Twice Cameron came to the hotel; twice he took Joan for a drive--"It
will help you get on your feet," he explained.

"I--I don't quite see how," she faltered and, as they were driving where
once she and Raymond had driven, her eyes were tear-filled. The old,
dangerous, foolish past had a most depressing effect upon her.

At Cameron's second attempt to put her on her feet he succeeded, for
when he paid his third call, a quaint little note greeted him at the
office:

    Thank you--thank you for all that you have done. I will explain
    everything soon, in the meantime, morally and physically, I am
    wobbling home.

Cameron's jaw set as he read.

"I'll wait," was what he inwardly swore. And at that moment he was
conscious that, for the first time in his career, a woman had got into
his system!

When Joan reached Stone Hedgeton she feared that she and Cuff would have
to overcome many obstacles before they reached The Gap, for no one was
willing to travel the roads.

"There is holes in the river road mighty nigh a yard deep," one man
confided. "I ain't going to risk my hoss, nor my mule, nuther!"

It was the mail man who, at last, solved the problem. He had a small car
whose appearance was disreputable but whose record was marvellous.

"If you-all," he included Cuff in the general remark, "ain't sot 'bout
reaching The Gap at any 'pinted time, I'll scrooge you in. There's a
couple of stops to make, and I reckon I'll have to dig us-all out of
holes now and then--that shovel ain't in yo' way, is it, Miss?" he
asked.

For Joan and Cuff were already among the mail bags and merchandise.

"Nothing is in the way!" Joan replied, "and I'll help you dig us out."

It was just daylight when they started.

It was past noon when, stiff and rather shaken, Joan scrambled out of
the old car and, followed by Cuff, noiselessly made her way over the
lawn to Ridge House.

She went lightly up the steps, then stood still. Doris Fletcher lay
sleeping in the full, warm glow. So quiet was she, so pale and delicate,
that for a moment Joan knew a fear that had had its beginning when
Patricia passed from life.

The awful uncertainty, the narrow pass over which all travel, were newly
realized perils to Joan, and her breath came sharp and quick.

So this was what had happened while she was learning her lessons! She
had not learned alone.

"Oh! Aunt Dorrie," she murmured. "You and I have paid and paid--but you
never held me back!"

Joan sat down and waited. It was always to be so with her from now on.
In that hour a great and tender patience was born that was to calm and
guide her future life. She was given, then and there, to draw upon the
strength and vision that do not err. And it may have been that in sleep
Doris Fletcher, too, was prepared, for when suddenly she opened her eyes
upon Joan she was not startled: a gladness that was almost painful
overspread her face.

"My darling! You have come at last!" was what she said.

And, as on that night when she had come to plead for freedom, Joan did
not, now, rush into human touch. She nodded and whispered:

"I've come as I promised to, Aunt Dorrie. It--it wasn't my chance! Not
my big chance, anyhow, but I had to find out, dearie."

"My little girl!"

Joan went nearer; she bent and kissed again and again that radiant face;
then, sitting on the floor by the couch, with Cuff huddled close, she
touched lightly the high peaks that lay between the parting and this
home-coming, but Doris, with that deep understanding, followed
laboriously, silently, through the dark valleys.

"I'm rather battered and cropped, Aunt Dorrie--but here I am!"

With this Joan tossed off her hat and voluminous coat.

"Your--hair, Joan? Your beautiful hair!"

"I have been very sick, Aunt Dorrie, my hair and my fat had to go--just
enough bones left to hold my soul. But I'm all right now."

"Don't be sorry for me," Joan was pleading, "I'm the gladdest thing
alive to-day. I've dropped all the old husks; I've found out just what
they are worth, but some of them that seem like husks, dear, are
not--I've learned that, too."

"Yes, Joan--and now go on, in just your own way. For a little while I
have you to myself. Nancy will take lunch at Uncle David's new
bungalow."

There was a good deal of explanation necessary in dealing with Sylvia's
part in the past--Doris had banked on Sylvia. The tea room was easier,
but Joan slipped over that experience so glibly that Doris made a mental
reservation concerning it.

Patricia was the critical test. At the mention of her name Cuff whined
pathetically, and Joan bent and gathered him in her arms.

"I--I can't talk much about Pat, dearie, not now"; Joan bent her head;
"she was so wonderful. Just a beautiful, lost spirit in the
world--trying to find its way home. There was only one way for Pat--I
shall always be glad that I could go part of it with her."

"Yes, yes--I am glad, too!" Doris whispered, for she had caught up with
Joan now. She did not know all that lay in the valleys--but she felt the
chill and darkness through which her child had come up to the light.
Strange as it might seem, she was thinking of that time, long ago, when
she had escaped from the Park and had touched life in the open.

The hospital experience Joan could describe with a touch of humour that
eventually brought a smile to Doris's face. She took for granted that it
had been in Chicago, and when Joan told of flitting away from the young
doctor who had saved her, Doris laughingly said:

"Joan, that was cruel. You should have explained."

"No, Aunt Dorrie, it was wise. Of course I'm going to explain to him and
send him the money, but I wanted to shut the door on my silly past
first. I shall only let in, hereafter, that part of it that I choose.
When I saw a man looking at me, Aunt Dorrie, where before I had been
seeing a doctor, there was nothing to do but scamper. He hadn't the
least idea what was happening--he saw only the bag of bones that he had
rescued, but I wasn't going to let him run any risks. You see, I've
learned more than some girls."

And then Joan, mentally, turned her back on the past. With that power
she had for holding to the thing she desired, the thing she wanted to
make true, she laughed her merry, carefree laugh--she recalled only the
joyous, amusing incidents and she watched with hungry, loving eyes the
effect she was creating.

It was while this was going on that Mary came upon the piazza to
announce luncheon. There were days when no one saw Mary, when her cabin
was closed and locked; but after such absences she came to Ridge House
and worked with a fervour that flavoured of apology.

She gazed long upon Joan before she spoke. It was not surprise she
showed, but a slow understanding.

"Miss Joan," she said at last, "seems like you ain't got the world by
the tail like you uster have."

Joan threw her head back and laughed.

"No, Mary," she presently replied, "it swung so fast that I fell
off--but I'll catch hold soon."

The quiet little luncheon in the quaint dining room did much to restore
the long-past relations of Joan with the family. Uncle Jed came in and
chuckled with delight. The old man lived mostly in the past now, and
followed Mary like a poor crumpled shadow. What held the two together
was difficult to understand--but it was the kinship of the hills, the
stolid sense of familiarity.

After the meal was over Joan wandered about through the living rooms for
a few moments, touching Nancy's loom, but speaking seldom of Nancy.

"I want to hear all about it from her," she explained; and Doris, with
Joan's affairs chiefly in her thought, referred merely to Nancy's
happiness, their perfect sympathy with it; and if Kenneth's name was
mentioned, Joan did not notice it.

At last she went up to her room to rest.

"Quite as if I had never been away, Aunt Doris," she said, "and you
don't mind if I take Cuff? The poor little chap has had so many changes
that I fear for his nerves!"

Joan went upstairs to the west wing chamber singing a gay little
song--her own voice seemed to hold her to the safe, happy present--so
she sang.

She paused at the door of her room to read the words carved there long
ago by Sister Constance:

    =And the Hills Shall Bring Peace=

It was like someone speaking a welcome.

"Oh! it is all so dear," Joan murmured, "how could it ever have seemed
dull!"

Flowers filled the vases, and there was a small, fragrant fire on the
hearth--a mere thing of beauty, there was no need of it, for the windows
were open to the gentle spring day.

Joan slipped into a loose gown and then stood in the middle of the room
leisurely taking in the comfort and joy of every proof of love that she
saw.

On the desk by the window lay a pile of unopened letters--she took them
up. They were the letters from Doris and Nancy which had been returned
from Chicago. Pitiful things that had been so hopefully sent forth only
to come back like blighted hopes!

For a moment Joan contemplated throwing them all on the fire. She did
not feel equal to re-living the past. It was only by laughing and
singing that she could hold her own.

But on second thought she opened the first one--it was from Nancy.

"I better have all I can get to begin on," she reflected; "it will save
time."

She sat down in a deep chair and presently she was aware of combating
something that was being impressed upon her; she was not conscious of
reading it.

"Such things do not happen--not in life----" her sane, cautious self
seemed to say. For a second Joan believed her tired brain was playing
her false as it had during those awful weeks in the hospital. She closed
her eyes; grew calm--then tried again:

    Since you are not coming to see Ken now, Joan, I will try to
    describe him. You remember old Mrs. Tweksbury? Well, my dear boy
    belongs, in a way, to her----

Again Joan closed her eyes while a faintness saved her from too acute
shock. She felt the soft air upon her face; she was conscious of that
bewildered whine of poor Cuff. Vaguely she thought that he must be
hungry; thirsty--then there was a moment's blank and--the sickening
weakness was gone!

With the strength and clarity that sometimes comes at a critical moment
Joan's mind worked fast and carried her where hours of quiet thought
could not have done.

It was natural, of course, that Nancy should meet Raymond--the most
natural thing in the world.

His loving her--so soon after what had happened! That was the thing that
gripped and hurt. Joan tried to connect the date of that night in the
studio and the one on Nancy's letter. She seemed powerless to do so--the
time between was a blank; there was no time! Everything belonged to a
previous incarnation.

With a shudder, Joan presently realized the insignificant part she had
borne in Kenneth Raymond's life.

The humiliation turned her hot and cold. He had always held but one
opinion of her; his loss of self-control had simply torn down the
defences behind which he had played with her, amused himself with her,
during the dull summer.

She was, to him, one of the women not to be considered, while Nancy
was--the other kind!

Joan regarded, as she never had before, the freedom and safety of such
girls as Nancy. She could realize the pressure, the favouring
environment that surrounded so desirable a thing as this coming together
of Raymond and Nancy!

She knew how the same force could blot such as she was supposed to be
from the inner circle! How little they counted!

Oh! the bitterness of the knowledge that it was such girls as
Patricia--as Raymond believed her--who were not free; who must snatch
what they can from life and not resent what goes with it. They must--not
care! Outside the code there was no real freedom--because there was no
choice! It was a place of chains and bars compared to the other.

The waves of humiliation and shame swept over Joan, but each time she
emerged she held her head higher.

"And he left me--to go my way and he went--to Nancy! He did not care!"
It was anger now; proud, life-saving anger. "If he had only cared!"

"And why--should he?" The thought was like a dash of cold water in her
face.

After all, why should he? It _was_ only play until that awful night!
That was the revealing hour of real danger.

Clutching her hands, Joan went over every step of the way upon which
Raymond had gone with her.

It had all been a mad escapade in that time of mistaken freedom. He and
she had both been brought to the realization of the folly by a blow that
had awakened them, not stunned them. They had been forced to acknowledge
the danger hidden in themselves. It was in such whirlpools many were
lost, but they----

And at this point Joan recalled, as if he were before her now, the look
in Raymond's face when he gained control of himself!

Always, since that night, Joan had felt, when thinking of Raymond, that
she never wanted to see him again. She knew that he had never held any
real part in her life and he would always hold her back, as she might
him--from proving the best that was in each other if they came into
contact.

With this conclusion reached Joan had gained a secure footing. As a man,
detached from herself and her past, she knew that Raymond was worthy of
love and happiness, just as, in her heart, she knew that she herself
was. But could others understand? Others, like Nancy?

While she had been buffeted on a rough sea, since that stormy night in
the studio, Raymond had drifted into his safe harbour, sooner. There was
nothing to hold him back--and here Joan began to sob in self-pity; in
pity for all girls, like Patricia and her, who were so lightly
considered.

"We do not matter!" she murmured. Then she dashed her tears away. "But
we _must_ matter!"

She sprang up. She flung the letters upon the embers; she gathered Cuff
to her bosom and--laughed!

It was her old, old laugh. The laugh that held in its depth, not scorn
of life, but an appreciation of it.

"It's how we take it all, Cuff, my dear, just how we take it! And,
Cuff"--here Joan held the little animal off at arms' length and looked
into his deep, serious eyes--"I'm going to get the world by the tail
again--_you watch me!_"




CHAPTER XXIV

"_O, friend never strike sail to a fear._"


Because the woman in Joan had not been hurt by her experiences, because
it was only the wildness of youth that had carried her to the verge of
making mistakes and then sent her reeling back, she reacted quickly. She
was no longer the reckless, heedless Joan--the change made Martin frown.
He put full value on her cropped hair and thin body--he had grappled
with the scourge, and he knew!

He presently found himself in friendly sympathy with this new, patient,
tender Joan--they had much to say to each other.

Nancy was not so keen about the change. Joan had come back--Joan was
putting into life all that it lacked. This was enough for Nancy! The
spring days were dreams of bliss and she radiated joy.

"Ken will adore you, Joan!" she confided. "You see, he has a twisted
idea about you just because you weren't with us all, but when he sees
you, darling, he'll be on his knees before you as we all are!"

"I'd love to get my first view of him in that attitude," Joan laughingly
replied, "but on the whole, I'd rather take him standing."

During those waiting days, until Raymond came to marry Nancy, Ridge
House quivered with excited preparation.

"Of course!" Joan had agreed to the quiet wedding idea, "we must have it
as Nancy wishes, but it must be perfect."

So Joan sewed and designed--some of Patricia's gift was hers--and often
her face fell into pensive lines as she worked, for she seemed to see
Patricia as she used to sit, well into the night, planning and evolving
the dainty garments that others were to wear.

"My turn!" Joan comforted herself with the thought; "my turn now, dear
Pat."

And then the day came when Kenneth Raymond was to arrive. Mrs. Tweksbury
could be safely left in New York. She was resigned to the wedding but
deplored the necessity of being absent.

"I know something will go wrong," she said to Kenneth; "do be careful
and make sure that you are really married, Ken! They are so sloppy in
the South, and it would be quite like Doris Fletcher, if she couldn't
get that candlestick preacher of hers, to let Dave Martin or any one
else read the service. Doris never could put the emphasis of life where
it belonged."

Kenneth laughed merrily.

"Nancy and I will see to it, Aunt Emily," he replied, "that we are tied
up close. Just use your time, until I bring her back, in thinking of the
good days on ahead--when we'll have her always, you and I."

Mrs. Tweksbury relaxed.

"She's a blessed child, Ken. She always was."

Raymond arrived late one May afternoon. Joan was dressing for dinner,
dressing slowly, tremblingly--she did not mean to go downstairs until
dinner was served if she could avoid it.

She had worked late, worked until she was weary enough to plead an
hour's rest, and now she stood by the window overlooking The Gap.

"I've got the world in my grip," she thought, "but the whirl makes me
dizzy."

Silver River was rushing along rather noisily--there had been a big
storm the night before and the water had not yet calmed down; the rocks
shone in the last rays of the sun, and just then Joan looked up at The
Rock!

There it was--The Ship! Sails set and the western light full upon it.

For a moment Joan gazed, trying to remember the old superstition. Then
her face grew tender.

"Whatever happens," she murmured, "it shall not happen to Nancy. I've
spoiled enough of her plays--she shall not be hurt now."

The thought held all the essentials of a prayer and it gave an uplift.

Then Joan turned to her toilet. Recalling Patricia's theory about the
artistic helps to one's appearance, she worked fervently with her slim
little body and delicate face.

A bit of fluffing and the lovely hair rose like an aura about the
smiling face. The eyes did not seem too large when one smiled--so Joan
practised a smile! The gowns, one by one, were laid out upon the bed and
regarded religiously; finally, one was chosen that Patricia had loved.

"My lamb," Joan recalled the words and look, "a true artist knows her
high marks. This gown is a revealment of my genius."

It was a pale blue crepe, silver-touched and graceful; a long, heavy,
silver cord held it at the waistline, and the loose, lacy sleeves made
the slim arms look very lovely.

"If ever I needed bucking, Pat, dear, I need it now!" whispered Joan,
and her eyes dimmed.

She heard the pleasant bustle below; the light laughter, the cheery
calls. She heard Raymond's voice when he greeted Nancy--it startled her
by its familiarity and its strangeness.

"He sounds as if he were in church," mused Joan. She felt as the old do
as they re-live their youth.

There was candlelight in the dining room when Joan entered. The family
were all assembled, for Doris had sent for Joan only at the last moment.

"Ken, dear, this is Joan."

Nancy said it as if she were flouting all the foolish things any one had
ever felt about Joan. Pride, deep affection, rang in her voice. "This is
Joan!"

Joan went slowly, smilingly forward. She saw Raymond's knuckles grow
white and hard as his hands gripped the back of his chair. His eyes
dilated, and for a moment he could not speak. Finally he managed:

"So this--is Joan!" and went forward to greet her.

"I reckon they will all get this shock," thought Doris; "what they have
thought about the child ought to shame them. Emily Tweksbury was always
a snob."

Martin, from under his shaggy brows, watched the scene curiously. He,
like everyone else, was, unconsciously, on guard where Nancy was
concerned. This frank surprise was gratifying for Joan, but it placed
Nancy, for a moment, to one side.

Joan had never looked lovelier; never more self-controlled. She was
holding herself, and Raymond, too, by firm will power. He must not
betray anything--he owed her and Nancy that! There was no wrong. No
suggestion of it must enter in.

In another moment the danger was over; the colour rose to Raymond's
face.

"I--I hadn't expected anything quite so--splendid," he said.

"You are very kind," Joan had her hands in his, now; "you see--I've been
wandering in strange places; I am rather an outlaw and the best any one
could do for me was to wait and let me speak for myself. I'm glad you
approve!"

"I certainly do!" Raymond said, and gratefully joined the circle as it
sat down.

As the time passed the situation caught Joan's feverish imagination; she
dared much; she was cruel but fascinating. She proposed, after dinner,
to read palms--explaining that she and Pat had learned the tricks.

At the name of "Pat" Raymond's grave eyes fixed themselves upon her.
Joan saw the firm lips draw together, and she paused in her gaiety,
sensing something she did not quite understand.

In the living room by the fire Joan again grew witchy. She insisted upon
proving her cleverness at palm-reading. Raymond dared not refuse, but he
showed plain disapproval.

"It's rot!" Martin broke in, "but here goes, Joan!" And spread his
honest hand upon the altar.

Joan had a good field now for her wit, and she set the company in a
merry mood. When she touched upon Martin's nephew, which, of course, she
wickedly did, she made an impression.

"See here," Martin broke in, "this isn't palm-reading, you little
fraud--you're trying to be funny trading on what you've heard but
couldn't know for yourself."

"That's part of the trick, Uncle David. Now, Nan, dear, let me have that
small paw of yours."

Frankly Nancy extended the left hand upon which glittered Raymond's
diamond.

"The right one, too, Nan darling! What dear, soft, pink things!" Joan
bent and kissed them. "Such happy hands; good, true hands. Every
line--unbroken. Running from start to finish--as it should run."

"A stupid pair of hands, I call them." Nancy puckered her lips.

"They are blessed hands, Nan."

Raymond went behind Nancy's chair and fixed his eyes upon Joan--he was
almost pleading with her to have done with the dangerous play.

"Aunt Dorrie?" Joan turned to her, ignoring Raymond.

"My hands can tell you nothing, Joan, dear," Doris said; "I've been a
coward. See, my hands are flabby inside--the hands of a woman who has
had much too easy a time. 'Who has reached forth--but never grasped.'"

At this Martin came and stood over Doris. Joan looked up and suddenly
her eyes dimmed. She seemed alone. Alone among them all. There was no
one beside her--they seemed, Martin and Raymond, to be defending their
loved ones from her.

"And now, my brother Ken!" The words were like a call.

"Oh, let me off!" Raymond tried to speak lightly.

"No, indeed! The safety of my family is at stake!"

Raymond was inwardly angry, but he sat down and defiantly spread his
hands.

Joan regarded them silently for a dramatic moment, then she quietly
opened her own.

"Isn't this odd," she said, "there is a line in your hand and
mine--alike!"

Every eye was fixed on the four hands.

"Right here----" Joan traced it.

"What does it mean?" Martin asked.

"Capacity for friendship; that we are rather daring; not afraid of many
things--but canny enough to know----"

"What, Joan?--out with it!" It was Doris who spoke.

"Canny enough--to distrust ourselves once in awhile."

Martin gave a guffaw.

"Joan," he said, "you ought to be sent to bed. Your eyes are too big and
your colour too high. Stop this foolishness and let us take a turn on
the river road. The moonlight is filling it--it's too rare to be
overlooked."

So they went out, keeping together and talking happily until it was time
to return to the house; there, Raymond managed to say to Joan, just as
they were parting:

"This has been rather a shock, you know, I wish I could see you
alone--for a moment."

She looked up at him, and all the mad daring was gone from her eyes.

"Is there anything to say?" she whispered. "Now or--ever?"

"Yes."

And Raymond knew that Joan would come back.

He sat on the broad porch, opening to The Gap, and smoked. The house
grew still with that holy quietness that holds all love safe.

Then came a slight noise; someone was coming!

It was significant that Raymond should know at once who it was. All the
love and yearning in the world would not have drawn Nancy through the
sleeping house to him. The knowledge made him smile grimly, happily.

Doris, once having said good-night, meant it, and Martin had gone to his
bungalow.

"Well--here I am." Joan appeared and sat down, looking as if she were
doing the most commonplace thing in life. It was the old daring that had
led to dangerous ways.

"Is it--safe?"

"Why not?" It was the same frank, childlike look.

"But--Nancy; your Aunt----"

Joan twisted her mouth humorously.

"We'll have to risk them--you said you had something to say."

"Joan! Good Lord! but it's great to have a name to call you by--you
drove me pretty hard to-night. I make no complaint--except----" He
paused.

"For Nancy?" Joan asked.

"Yes! Joan, she's wonderful. She's the sort that makes a man rather
afraid until he realizes that he means to keep her as she is--forever."
This was spoken with a definiteness of purpose that made Joan recoil.
Again he was defending Nancy from what he had believed Joan to have
been!

"I wonder"--she looked away--"I wonder if any one could do that? Or if
it would be wise if he could?"

"Joan, when I saw you to-night, after the shock--I could have fallen on
my knees in gratitude--there have been hours when the fear I had about
you nearly drove me crazy; made me feel I had no right--to Nancy."

"So you--did remember, for a little time?"

"Yes. I went to the Brier Bush--Miss Gordon gave me to understand that
you had gone away with someone--married, she thought.

"Joan--who was--Pat?"

For a moment Joan could not understand, then, as was the way with her,
the whole truth flooded in.

Raymond had taken thought for her--Elspeth had deceived him--oh! how
hard Elspeth could be. Joan recalled scenes behind closed doors when
Elspeth Gordon dealt with her assistants!

"And when you thought--I had--gone away--you felt free?" Joan's face
quivered. Raymond nodded. How easy it was to talk to Joan. How quick she
was to comprehend and help one over a hard stretch!

"Joan--who was Pat?" That seemed to be the vital thing now. And then
Joan told him. As she spoke in low, trembling tones, she saw his head
bow in his hands; she knew that he was suffering with her, for her; as
good men do for their women. Joan was conscious of this attitude of
Raymond's--she was reinstated; fixed, at last, where she could be
understood: she belonged to his world!

"Poor little girl! After the beast in me dashed your card house to atoms
you made another try--alone!" Raymond raised his face.

"No--I had Pat." At that instant Patricia symbolized the link between
the unreal and the real.

"Yes, for a little while--but, Joan, it didn't pay--the danger you ran
and all that--did it? Such girls as you cannot afford such experiences."

"Yes. Having had Pat, I am able to see--wider."

Joan was thinking of the girls whom Raymond could _not_ have understood
or sympathized with! Girls such as she might so easily have been
like--unless---- Unless what?

"Joan, you and I always said we could speak plain truth, didn't we?"
Kenneth's words brought her back.

"Of course!"

"Well," Raymond dropped his eyes and flushed, "you really didn't
care--not in the one, particular way, did you? It was only play; you
meant that?"

"It was only play, Ken. The suffering came because we did not know what
we were playing with. It's the not knowing that matters."

"Joan, you have seen the worst in me----?"

"Yes, and the best, Ken. It was like seeing you come back from
hell--unharmed."

"Do you think I should tell Nancy? Put her on her guard? There _is_
something in me----"

At this Joan leaned forward with a new light on her face--it was the
maternal taking shape.

"No, Ken, you must _not_ tell Nan. With her it is the _not_ knowing that
matters. She must be guarded; not put on guard. I know now that Nan will
be safe with you; I wasn't sure before; but if you raised a doubt in
her mind all would go wrong. She was always like that."

"But----" for a moment a beaten terror rose in Raymond's eyes.

Joan nodded bravely to him.

"You and I, Ken, must never give fear a chance. Once we know, we must
not turn back."

She stood up, looking tall and commanding.

Raymond rose also and took her hands.

"You're great, Joan," he said, "simply great. You understand--though how
you do, the Lord only knows.

"Joan!" Raymond flung out the question that was tormenting him. "Joan,
why didn't we--care the other way?"

"I think," Joan looked ancient, but pathetically young, "I think men and
women don't, when they understand too well. And the line in our hands
explains that, perhaps," she smiled wanly. "You see, Miss Jones and Mr.
Black are--paying!"

"Joan, go now, dear. Others might not understand." Raymond at that
moment grimly shut the door on his one playtime!

"And you--would hate to have them misunderstand about me--for Nancy's
sake?"

"No, Joan, for your own. You're too big and fine--to have any more
hurting things knock you. May I kiss--you good-night?"

For a moment something in Joan shrank, then she raised her face.

"Yes. Good-night--brother Ken."

For another moment they stood silent. Then:

"What was it that made you so hard at dinner, Joan, and makes you so
sweet now?"

"Ken, I thought that you--had not tried to find out about me--after that
night!"

"Did the mere going back really matter?"

"It meant everything, Ken."

"How?"

"Oh! can you not understand? If you had just--not cared I would have
been afraid to-night for Nancy! Ken, I believe you went back to pay for
all our folly--had I been willing to accept; had I--cared in the
way--you suspected."

"Yes, Joan. I would have." Raymond said this solemnly. "That's what I
went for."

"And you should not have paid! Girls--must not--let others pay more than
is owed--I've learned that, Ken. But it was the going back that made
it--right for you to--go on. Ken, for Nancy's dear sake I am glad it
was--you and I!"

"For that I thank God!" Again Raymond bent his head. This time his lips
fell on the open palms of the hands with those lines in them--lines like
his own!

"Some day you are going to be happy, Joan."

"I am happy now. I was never happy, really, before. You see, I was
always looking for myself in the past; now I think I have found
myself--rather a dilapidated self, but mine own. It's going to be very
interesting, this getting acquainted, and"--here Joan was thinking of
the last day in the hospital and the rooms opening to the sweet
singer--"and I'm going to touch and feel life instead of merely looking
out through my own small door. And so--good-night."

She was gone as she had come--not stealthily, but noiselessly; not
afraid, but cautious.




CHAPTER XXV

"_This shall be thy reward--the ideal shall be real to thee._"


Doris and Joan were in the living room of Ridge House trying to make
things look "as usual" in the pathetic way people do after a loved one
has gone forth never to return in quite the same relation.

Doris paused by Nancy's loom and touched gently the unfinished pattern.

"Dear little Nan," she said; "she used to make such dreadful tangles,
but she learned to do beautiful work. This is quite perfect--as far as
the child has gone."

Joan was on her knees polishing away at the fireboard. The smoke-covered
wood with its motto she meant to restore. She looked up brightly as
Doris spoke. Joan was accepting many things besides Nancy's going away
as Raymond's wife; accepting them without question, without explanation,
but with perfect understanding. She understood fully about David Martin
and Doris--her heart beat quick at Martin's lifelong devotion; at
Doris's withholding. She understood, too, she believed, why the coming
to the South had been necessary--the look in Doris's eyes was the same
that had haunted Patricia's--the look that holds the unfailing message.

"Aunt Dorrie, Nancy is the belonging kind. No matter how many places and
people share her she will always belong to us and the hills. She told me
that before she went. She meant it, too. She'll finish the weaving quite
naturally, soon--New York is not far."

Doris gave a soft laugh. Almost she resented the constant tone of
comfort, Joan's attitude of authority.

"No; it seems nearer and nearer all the time--since my strength has
returned. We will have part of the winter in New York and Nan and Ken
will be coming here, and there is your music, Joan!" Doris assumed
authority and Joan submitted sweetly.

"Yes, Aunt Dorrie, and you and I will scour these hills and get
acquainted with our people and have trips abroad, perhaps. It is simply
splendid--the stretch on ahead."

The sun-lighted room was still radiant with the decorations of Nancy's
wedding. Tall jars of roses woodbine and "rhoderdeners," as old Jed
called them, were everywhere. Nancy had only departed two days before.

"What a charming wedding it was!" Doris mused, patting the loom; "every
time I think of it something new and unusual recurs."

Joan rubbed away and laughed gaily.

"Father Noble looked like a precious old saint," she said. "I declare
when he told about Mary I was almost afraid he'd be translated before he
had a chance to marry Nan."

How little Joan realized that she was touching upon a mighty thing; how
little either she or Doris were really ever to know.

Doris came to the hearth and sat down in a deep chair, her face had
suddenly grown serious.

"I was thinking of that incident," she said.

"Joan, I have always misjudged Mary. She has always puzzled me. I have
thought her hard and selfish--the people here have thought her mean."
Doris paused, and Joan looked around and remarked:

"She's a blessed trump. Nan always understood Mary better than I; Mary
liked Nan the best of all, but I'm going to cultivate Mary. There is
something about her like these hidden words--it must be brought out."

"To think of her caring for and loving that poor, deserted creature on
that lonely peak all this time!" Doris went back to the story. "Father
Noble says the trail up there is the worst on the mountain, yet Mary
went every day. She mended the cabin and kept the old woman clean and
clothed and happy--to the very end. Think of her alone in that cabin at
night when the poor soul passed away! Mary was always so timid, too,
and superstitious--and we never suspecting!"

"And then," Joan took up the thread, "those ten miles to get Father
Noble so that there might be a proper funeral, and Nancy's wedding
having to wait while they saw the thing properly through. Oh! Aunt
Dorrie, it's like a glorious old comedy with so much humanity in it that
it hurts. Can you not just _see_ that funeral as Father Noble described
it?"

Joan stood up, her eyes shining; the polishing cloth held out daintily
from the pretty blue gown.

"'Twilight and evening star' effect, and those silent, amazed folks that
Mary had compelled to come up the trail; the children and dogs and that
comical boy tolling an old, cracked dinner bell; the procession to the
clump of trees where the old women's children and grandchildren are
buried--why, Aunt Doris, I see it all like a wonderful picture! There's
no place on earth like these hills."

Doris saw it, too, as Joan graphically portrayed it--but she was
thinking still of Mary; she was baffled.

"And yet," she said, thoughtfully, "you cannot get Mary to talk about
it, and she turned quite fiercely upon poor old Jed when he asked his
simple questions. She's hard as well as gentle."

"And old Jed"--Joan waved her cloth--"here's to him! Think of him crying
because The Ship wouldn't sail off The Rock and insisting that the old
woman on Thunder Peak had something in her arms--that ought to have gone
on The Ship, not in the ground. The place and the people, Aunt Dorrie,
are like a Grimm fairy tale. I'm going to have the time of my life
reading them and playing with them."

Joan was thinking, as she often did now, of touching the lives of
others--all others who pressed close to her. She had never been so keen
or vivid before--the calls upon her were awakening the depths of her
nature. She had travelled far only to come home to find Truth.

"I am afraid I shall never be able to understand these silent,
unresponsive folk, Joan." Doris shook her head--she was realizing her
own shortcomings; her incapacity for new undertakings; "they frighten
me. I have always been able to make an ideal seem real, dear, but I am
afraid I fail utterly when it comes to making the real seem
ideal--particularly when it is not lovely."

"Well, then, duckie, just let me do the interpreting. Father Noble is
going to take me under his big, flapping capes and speak a good word for
me."

Doris smiled. In the growing conviction that Joan had indeed come back
to her she was happy and content. She rarely rebelled now. Her one great
adventure was turning out perfectly; she was thankful she had taken
David Martin's advice and kept her secret. She had been fair; she had
made no personal claims, but she had done what Martin had once suggested
that all mothers should do--"point out the channel and keep the lights
burning." There were moments when she wished that Joan were more
communicative--but she must accept what was offered. Nancy had gone
forth radiant to her chosen life and Joan had come back--not defeated
but clearer of vision. What more could any woman ask of her children?
Her children!

Doris bent and touched Joan's pretty hair.

"I love to think of the look on Ken's face and Nancy's," she said.

"Yes, Aunt Dorrie, it was wonderful. Your opening the window and letting
the west light in did the trick. It was inspiration--nothing less."

Doris nodded, recalling why she had opened the window--Meredith had
seemed nearer!

"You sang beautifully, Joan," for Joan had sung at Nancy's request a
wedding hymn. "Your voice has gained a richness, dear. Next winter----"

"Yes--Aunt Dorrie!" Joan broke in nervously, then suddenly she dropped
on her knees by Doris's chair and said softly:

"Aunt Dorrie, I'm going to ask some very--queer questions. You see,
while I was away--I missed a lot--and I want to catch up.

"If--if--Nan hadn't loved Ken, wouldn't you and Uncle David have wanted
her to care for Clive Cameron?"

Joan felt that Nancy had garnered all that she had sown during her
learning time, and often the thought made her lonely, detached her from
them. She believed that Cameron's absence from the wedding covered a
hurt that her loved ones hid from her.

"Yes, Joan," Doris replied very simply, "but--we feel now that it is
best as it is."

"Why, Aunt Dorrie?"

"I cannot explain. When you meet Clive Cameron"--Joan winced--"you will
understand."

"Did--did Clive Cameron--care?"

Doris laughed.

"No. It was quite comic, Joan, the whole proceeding. Mrs. Tweksbury,
Uncle David, and I played matchmakers with a vengeance--but we bungled
frightfully, and then Clive Cameron wedged his big body in between Nancy
and several young men who might have made trouble, and--and--" Doris
thought for an illuminating word. Then--"whistled Ken on!"

"Why, that's awfully funny, Aunt Dorrie--I rather imagined that Ken
plunged!"

"No, he always felt attracted by Nancy--she was wonderfully attractive
to men, Joan, but I honestly believe it was Clive who made Ken realize.
Ken is the slow, sure sort; while Clive is rather devastating, you know.
He doesn't waste time or energy--when he sees his way he goes! He is
very like what his uncle was when I first knew him--only surer of
himself." Doris's lips trembled.

"More bumptious, maybe!" Joan laughed. She was again in high spirits,
though why she could hardly have told.

"No, he isn't, Joan!" Doris took up cudgels for the absent Cameron. "You
mustn't get that idea. He's the most humble of fellows--but he has a
vision. David says he plods along after his dreams and ideals, but when
he grips them--well, he grips! I see now how right he was about Nancy
and Ken. They are suited to each other."

"Yes--they're the carrying-on sort, Aunt Dorrie"; Joan looked wise and
confident. "They're like their kind--Nan is like you. Away back in the
Dondale days she used to gloat over all that went to your making, all
your grandfathers and grandmothers. She was fore-ordained to carry on,
and so was Ken. They'd be done for on paths without signboards. Aunt
Dorrie----"

"Yes, dear."

"I wonder why it was in me to--to well, not to carry on?"

Doris bent and laid her thin, fair cheek against the short, bright hair
again.

"Your way, little girl," she whispered, "was to fly. You had to try
wings."

"Well, I'm a homing pigeon, I reckon." And Joan tossed her short hair
back.

Just then there was the toot of a horn outside.

"Uncle David!" Joan exclaimed, jumping up; "and by the manner of his
toot I get an impression of exhilaration.

"Hello, Uncle Davey!" For Martin was filling the long window with his
big presence.

He smiled on Joan--he did it very naturally these days. The girl was
becoming strangely dear and companionable; then he looked at Doris as he
always did, eagerly, gratefully.

"Jump into your coat and hat," he said to her with a ring in his voice;
"I've just had a telegram. Bud's coming!"

"Oh! David," Doris's face flushed rosily. "And you want me to go with
you to meet him. I _am_ glad."

"Yes," Martin replied. Doris was already on her way from the room. Joan
dropped to the hearth and resumed her rubbing.

So the inevitable was upon her! She must not flinch! She wondered if
this was the last dropped stitch she must take up?

"Want me to go, too, Uncle David?" she asked, keeping her back rigid.

"No," Martin was regarding the straight set shoulders and the pretty
cropped hair. "No! You have too shocking an effect upon young men. They
look as if they had seen you before! They must take you gradually."
Martin laughed and lighted a cigar. He was recalling Raymond's face the
night Joan had first appeared before him.

Joan struggled to keep control of the situation--she suddenly smeared
her face with her sooty fingers and turned with a grimace.

"Am I discovered even in this disguise?" she said. Then:

"Uncle Davey, I believe you have your private opinion of me still."

"I have. I'll tell you now what it is--your face needs washing."

"I mean--really!" the smudges acted as a mask and diverted attention.
"I wager you think girls like me--the me that _was_, the working
girls--are, generally speaking, hounding young men on the matrimonial
trail."

"Not necessarily _that_ trail," Martin was teasing.

"You're all wrong, Uncle Davey, as far as most of them are concerned.
They're young and love a good time and some of them have to learn a
lot--learn not to play on volcanoes. But for downright, running-to-earth
methods, look to such girls as Nan. They have the tide with them. Men,
unless they're there to be caught, better watch out!"

"Oh! come, child, don't be sinister."

"I'm not, Uncle David," Joan's eyes shone; she was thinking of Patricia;
"but you, everybody, lose a lot if they do not really know the truth
about women--the real truth."

"My dear," David was quite serious, "I'm no longer hard or misjudging--I
was frightened at your aunt's methods with you, but you're proving me
wrong every day."

"You should have trusted her more, Uncle David."

"Yes, you are right, in part. I should have trusted her less--in some
ways."

"About me?"

"No. About herself." Martin flecked the ashes from his cigar. "And now,"
he said with a huge sigh that seemed to sweep all regrets before it, "go
and wash your face!"

Joan ran away, and when she came back the room was empty and the
_honk-honk_ of Martin's horn sounded down the river road.

Then, as often happens when one stands in an empty room, Joan was
conscious of a supersensitiveness. She, quite naturally, attributed it
to the ordeal she was about to undergo--the meeting with Clive Cameron
and her late talk with Martin. Must she always be on the defensive? Must
she always feel that her volcano had blown her up when really she had
escaped by its light?

While there was a certain amount of pleasurable excitement in the
meeting with Cameron, while it lacked all that her meeting with Raymond
had held, still her past experiences were of so uncommon a nature that
she could not contemplate them without nervous strain, and she wished
that she might have had a longer reprieve before Cameron came.

"With nothing really to be ashamed of," she thought, "I feel like a
criminal dodging justice. I wish something so big would come that I
could lose myself in it."

Then she walked to the window overlooking The Gap.

"It's no easy matter, Joan my lamb!" almost it seemed as if it were
Patricia speaking, "to tie both ends of the rainbow together." Joan
smiled at her thought.

"Dear, dear old Pat!" she spoke the words aloud. "The very thought of
you--braces me."

Joan was still on the backward trail. She did not often tread it, but
when she did she always returned starry-eyed and brave-hearted. That was
her reward: the reward that she could share with no one--except as it
helped her to live.

Presently she turned to her task of restoring the motto on the
fireboard. She worked vigorously, intently, and then leaned back to get
a better view.

Suddenly, as if they were alive, the words emerged from the last sweep
of the cloth.

"Aha, I am warm. I have seen the fire."

The meaning broke like sunshine from the clouds. It made Joan laugh.

"Well, of all the funny things," she said aloud, "and from the Bible,
too," for "Isaiah" was brought into evidence by another rub. "This house
is certainly haunted."

Just then a sharp knock on the panels of the door, set wide to the
sweet summer day, startled Joan and brought her to her feet, with that
quivering of the nerves that betokened an almost psychic state.

A tall man stood in the doorway. His clothes--good ones, well
fashioned--were wrinkled and travel stained. They gave the impression of
having been slept in. The man was like his garments--the worse for wear
but, originally, of good material.

Joan recognized that at once--after she got over the surprise of finding
that he was not Clive Cameron.

"Good morning," she said, quietly, while a familiarity about the
stranger puzzled her. "Come in and sit down, please."

The man came in, walking stiffly, his eyes fixed upon Joan in a way that
confused her. She felt that she ought to remember him, but could not.

"I've tied my horse down by the road," the stranger said, sitting down
by the long table, "I got the beast at the station. The distance was
longer than I imagined and the roads are--to say the least--not oiled."
He laughed and flecked the dust from his coat--still keeping his eyes on
Joan.

"Is your aunt at home?" he continued. So then, the man should be
recognized--but he still eluded Joan's memory.

"No, she is not. She will not be back for some time. I am sorry that I
cannot recall you--I am sure I have seen you--but----"

"You'd have a remarkable memory if you did recall me," there was a sneer
in the laugh that followed the words; "you were very young when you saw
me before. Perhaps I can help you--you are--Joan, are you not?"

"Yes." Joan sat down opposite the man--her hands were clasped close.

"I'm George Thornton, formerly of the Philippines, later of South
Africa, more recently of New York, where I stayed long enough to learn
my way here. Incidentally, I am your father."

Had Joan been standing she would have fallen. As it was, she quickly
overcame the dizziness that made the speaker seem to dance about and,
by gripping her hands closer, she steadied herself.

"I suppose you have never heard of me before?"

"Oh! yes!" Joan listened to her own voice critically; "Aunt Doris told
Nancy and me all about you."

"All, eh?" Thornton could barely keep the surprise and relief from his
voice. This simplified matters and he could talk freely.

"What do you want?" The question as Joan spoke it sounded brutal. "I do
not suppose you have come here, after all these years, for nothing."

Thornton flushed angrily, and his resentment of old flamed into speech.

"I've come to make your aunt--pay. When I saw you before--you and your
supposed sister--your aunt had all the cards in her hands, but I told
her then that murder would out--and by God! it has--and now it is pay
day." The years had coarsened Thornton.

Joan stared at the man across the table as if he had suddenly gone mad
before her eyes. She was frightened; she heard distant voices--the cook
speaking to Jed--she wanted to call out; meant to--but instead she asked
dully:

"What do you mean by--my supposed sister?"

Thornton shifted his position and leaned forward over the table.

"So--eh? She didn't tell you all? I see. She confined the story to--me.
And--you've believed all your life--that--that the girl, Nancy, was your
sister? Well--by heaven! Doris has taken a chance."

"You have got to tell me what you mean!"

Joan was no longer filled with personal fear--it was wider, deeper than
that.

"And you must not lie," she added, fiercely--anger was giving her
strength. Thornton regarded her through half-closed eyes.

"Lying isn't my big line," he said, roughly, "if it had seen, I might
have escaped the infernal mess that I hatched by--telling the truth in
the first place. Since your aunt has neglected her duty--I will tell you
the truth!"

Thornton took small heed of the stricken girl near him. Hate and revenge
for the moment swayed him, but not for an instant did Joan disbelieve
what was burning into her consciousness. Truth rang in every word of the
almost unbelievable story. And while she listened and shrank back she
was conscious of inanimate things taking on human attributes that
pleaded with her. The chair by the hearth where Doris had but recently
sat smiling so happily because her ideals had been real to her! Nancy
and she, Joan seemed to know, were the ideals--Nancy and she! For them
Doris had done the one, big, daring thing in her life. The loom by the
window suddenly cried out, too, as if Nancy were bending over
it--working on her unfinished but perfect pattern.

"Oh!" The word escaped Joan and found its way to Thornton's sympathy at
last. He paused as he watched the suffering his words were causing.

"It's a damned ugly thing she did to you," he said, "a damned ugly one.
I warned her about the time when you would have to know. I've travelled
a long distance to set you straight. She'll pay--now!"

Joan tried to speak--failed--then tried again.

"What are you going to do?" she asked, huskily, at last.

Thornton regarded her with a dark frown.

"Do?" he repeated, "claim my own--and let her pay."

"What good--would that do--now?"

Thornton stared. Where had he heard words like those before? Why should
they seem to defy him? defeat him?

"I'm going to have the truth known at last or----"

"Or--what?"

Shame held Thornton silent for a moment, but life had him at close
grip--he was beaten unless help were given.

"You think they will enjoy--the Tweksbury crowd--I mean--to know the
parentage or--lack of it--of--the girl just palmed off on them as a
Thornton? I may not be all that could be desired, but such as I am--I'm
the saving clause." Thornton's coarseness was more and more evident.
"I wonder if you can justify this mess?" he asked, suddenly, with a new
interest.

Joan was not trying to justify it--she was seeing it only as the
beautiful thing Doris had accomplished by that power of hers to make
real her ideal. It had been, still was, her one hold on life.

"It's too late to talk about that now," she answered, slowly, and
thinking fast and far, far ahead.

"I imagine it will be expensive not to think of it; but she'll pay!"
Thornton was braced for definite action. The girl opposite confused him.
She looked so young; so agonized--so brave. She was so like---- At this
Thornton turned away his eyes. Only by so doing could he hold to his
course.

Slowly, like one dragging a heavy load, Joan was reaching a place of
clear understanding. Flashed upon her aching brain were blinding
pictures.

"One child was a forsaken waif of these hills----" Thornton had said.
"_Thunder Peak! The old woman! Mary's silent and secret mission!_" rang
the echo. Joan's eyes widened; her breath caught in her throat while she
compelled herself to weigh and consider--though she did it in the dark.
Then suddenly Mary became a tower of strength. Mary!

Then Nancy's loveliness and charm gave their convincing evidence against
Joan's own characteristics. At this she shuddered.

"Doris said she never knew which child was mine," Thornton's words still
echoed.

"But she must have known!" Joan bowed her head, and all the loneliness
of her life gathered in this moment of supreme acceptance. She knew,
now, why she was, as she was; she knew why they could all cling
together. There was something that could hold them together; something
stronger than Doris could command. There _was_ a pay day! It had come!

"I do not see," Joan spoke at last, and her voice was heavy and even,
"why you should think you can harm Nancy. If what you have told is--I
mean, _because_ what you have told is true--Nancy cannot be hurt--Nancy
is--is yours! You would never doubt that if you saw her. I suppose you
think"--here Joan's eyes flamed--"you can get more by attacking Nancy."

At this Thornton startled Joan by throwing his head back and laughing
aloud, fearlessly, roughly.

She was alarmed. The servants--what would they think? Mary--suppose Mary
should appear? But above all else Joan wanted to get this hideous thing
over before Doris returned. Never for an instant did she falter there.

But the laugh continued, less noisy but more reckless.

"Well, by heaven, you are game!" Thornton managed to form the words, and
in his eyes there was a glint of admiration. His old sporting spirit
awakened--he knew the genuine ring of metal.

"Why, see here, my girl," he drew from his pocket a gold locket and an
old daguerreotype; "you don't suppose I came without evidence, do you?"

Mechanically Joan reached across the table and took the articles--her
fingers were stiff and cold, but she managed to unclasp the cases.
Thornton was watching her; he had stopped laughing.

In the locket were two miniatures--one of Meredith Fletcher, one of
Thornton painted just after their marriage--Doris had the duplicate of
Meredith's.

"That," Thornton spoke deliberately, as Joan turned to the other, "is my
mother! She and I were very like."

Joan drew her breath in sharp.

Once, back in the Dondale days, she had sung some of her old English
ballads in costume--a quaint picture of her had been taken at the time
and, for an instant, she thought this was it--she vaguely wondered how
Thornton had got it--she could not think clearly--her brain was growing
cloudy. Then she turned the old case over in her hand and looked at it
mutely.

"They discounted your resemblance to my side of the house." There was
something almost pathetic underlying the sneer in Thornton's voice. "I
did not know myself until I came in the door--but when I saw you, it was
as if my mother stood here."

Joan could not speak, but, as a change of wind turned the mists in The
Gap _to_ the east instead of _from_ the east, so her clouds were
drifting; drifting, and a flood of light was blinding her. She looked
up--her eyes were shining with tears that did not fall; her lips
twitched nervously, but she was happy; happy. The sensation brought
strength and purpose. She did not seem alone--she was close, close to
them who, unseen, but vital, were pressing near; waiting for her
decision--now that she understood! What had her unconscious preparation
done for her?

Oh! she would not fail them. She was almost ready to prove herself. In a
moment she could master her emotions and be worthy.

Then she looked at Thornton and throbbed with hate; but as she looked
her mood again changed--she felt such pity as she had never known in her
life before.

It repelled; it did not attract--but it was pity that called forth a
desire to help. Clasping the silent witnesses of the truth in her cold
hands Joan spoke:

"No! Aunt Doris and Nancy shall not pay," she said, quietly.

"Who--then?" Thornton felt the ground slipping from under him. The young
creature opposite looked so old and hard that she impressed him in spite
of himself.

"You and I--will pay!"

By those words Joan took her stand with Thornton, not against him. He
winced.

"Think--think what all this means," she faltered.

Thornton did think. He thought back of the girl confronting him with his
mother's eyes. The backward path was black and wreck-strewn; it
led--where?

"Aunt Doris has told me of--of my mother! You and I owe my mother----"
here Joan choked and Thornton burst in:

"But is it right and decent--that this imposition should be put upon
innocent people? That girl--may turn out to be----"

But Joan was not heeding. She paused and looked at the unfinished but
perfect work upon the loom!

"It is too late now to consider that," she whispered, brokenly. Then:
"Aunt Doris has saved Nancy. You need have no fear.

"Oh! can you not see what a chance you have to--to help this wonderful
thing Aunt Doris did?"

"Help? How?" Thornton sunk back in his chair. He was crushed--but in the
depths of his soul something was stirring; something that he believed
had died when he heard of the birth of the girl across the table who was
pleading with him for those who had made her what she was!

"How?"

"Why--by simply--going away!"

Thornton almost broke again into that maddening laugh, but caught
himself in time.

"That sounds--devilish easy!" he said, furiously, but the flare of
passion died at birth, for Joan was saying:

"I have some money of my own--I will send it all to you. I will get
money for you--as long as you need it--but after a time you will--not
need it! And then"--here Joan stretched out her clasped hands--"I know
it sounds almost impossible--but it can be made true--you can come back
to us all; help us keep the secret, and--watch with us. You and I owe
this--to Aunt Doris; to my mother! It may be your--your--recompense."

Thornton got upon his feet. He held to the table to steady himself, and
a subtle dignity grew upon him.

"I am going away," he said, slowly, "until I can think over this
infernal business by myself. The time to act hasn't come yet--that's
certain. I don't want--your money; not now. If I do, I'll send for it.
If I ever come again it will be to--" he paused, flung his head up--"to
see you; to look on at the working out of the damned mess."

He reached out for the locket and case.

"Good-bye," he said, gruffly. "You need not be afraid--not now."

"I am not afraid." Joan rose weakly. "I shall wait for you. I am sure
you will come.

"Good-bye; good-bye!"

Outside Thornton stumbled against old Jed.

"The Ship's sailing!" the quavering, foolish words startled Thornton;
"you best get aboard, sir, anchor's lifting!" Jed staggered away,
grinning and muttering.

Thornton stared after the swaying figure. Then he thought of the
Philippines, his old battle ground--he would go back! The idea caught
and held him.

On the river road his horse stood nibbling the grass; a woman was beside
it--a lean, stooping woman with a home-spun shawl clutched over her
sunken breasts by one hand, in the other was a massive, rusty gun!

She turned and confronted Thornton. She knew him at once, but he merely
frowned at her as he eyed the weapon uneasily.

"Who are you?" he asked. The place, the experience were getting to be
too much for his shaken nerves.

"That don't matter," Mary raised her deep eyes, they were burning with
superstitious intentness; "but I have a message for you--you best heed
it. We don't stand for strangers hanging around here. See there!" Mary
pointed to The Rock--Thornton's excited fancy caught the wavering
outlines of The Ship.

"All that's wise--goes with that." Mary turned away. "You best heed!"
she muttered as Jed had, and slunk off.

Thornton shivered. He had not eaten for many hours; he was weary and
beaten.

"My God!" he muttered as he mounted the horse; "what--a conspiracy! What
a hole to get away from. She thinks I'm looking for stills. Stills!" he
gave a weak laugh.

Joan stood until she heard the sound of the horse's hoofs on the road,
then she turned to the freshly brushed but empty hearth and knelt,
shivering.

"Aha, I am warm. I have seen the fire." Her eyes clung to the words as
if they were living flames. She was not conscious of thought, but she
seemed to _know_ that she had only _seen_ the fire before but that now
she was to feel it. A glow was stirring within her--a bright, flaming
thing that lighted her way, on before--the long, long splendid way on
which responsibility rested like a halo.

She held within her soul all that had gone into her making--she
belonged, in a great and demanding significance, to--Doris and Doris's
people. Doris's and her own! Her own! She must prove herself--behind the
shield; she must make the _real_ her ideal. She must not be afraid. Fear
was the only thing that mattered.

Her whole life had been but an outline up to now; she must fill it in!
She must not be afraid to set sail.

Who had said that to her?

"Set sail. Bids--you set sail!"

So engrossed was Joan in the flooding tide of thought, so entirely was
she abandoning herself to it, that it was only when she heard Doris
speak that she turned.

"Joan, we've brought Clive! We met him on the way."

Joan did not rise. With hands clasped in her lap she faced the little
group in the doorway.

Her eyes were filled with the golden light of day--she waited; all her
life, she knew, she had been preparing for this moment. She saw
Cameron's start of surprise; his wonder and doubt. Then she saw him
gathering strength as for the last lap of a hard race.

"So I have found you!" he said, and pushing past Martin and Doris he
came across the room with outstretched hands.

Something was calling in the tone which words could not convey, and Joan
could not answer. It was like hearing a voice where before there had
been but echoes.

"I always knew that I would find you!"

Cameron had reached the girl on the floor; he bent and drew her to her
feet. His eyes were laughing; he saw her effort to answer him; her
seeking to--understand what _he_ had already learned.

"It's--all right now," he comforted.

"Yes--of course!"

How futile were the words, but they opened the way for truth to flood
in.

Joan, her hands still in Cameron's, her eyes clinging to his, murmured
again, "Yes; of course--now!"

Then she turned to the two silent, amazed people in the doorway and, by
some magic, they were making her realize that she was facing her Big
Chance. Hers!

She must not be afraid. Fear was the only thing that could harm.

Where they had been weak, she must be strong; where they had been
blinded, she must--see!

Why, that was what her life and Cameron's meant, and the two, standing
apart, together--but alone--had made it possible.

She, like Nancy, must "carry on," not mistakenly, not held on leash, but
with a freedom born of choice and understanding; of failures, and the
learning of the true from the false.

To her--and again Joan turned to Cameron--and to him, was given the
glorious opportunity of making the _real_, ideal.

It was then that Joan threw her head back and laughed that laugh of hers
that meant but one thing: An acceptance of life; a faith in its freedom;
a conviction that it could be lived gladly and without fear.

THE END

       *       *       *       *       *

BOOTH TARKINGTON'S NOVELS

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list


SEVENTEEN. Illustrated by Arthur William Brown.

No one but the creator of Penrod could have portrayed the immortal young
people of this story. Its humor is irresistible and reminiscent of the
time when the reader was Seventeen.


PENROD. Illustrated by Gordon Grant.

This is a picture of a boy's heart, full of the lovable, humorous,
tragic things which are locked secrets to most older folks. It is a
finished, exquisite work.


PENROD AND SAM. Illustrated by Worth Brehm.

Like "Penrod" and "Seventeen," this book contains some remarkable phases
of real boyhood and some of the best stories of juvenile prankishness
that have ever been written.


THE TURMOIL. Illustrated by C. E. Chambers.

Bibbs Sheridan is a dreamy, imaginative youth, who revolts against his
father's plans for him to be a servitor of big business. The love of a
fine girl turns Bibb's life from failure to success.


THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA. Frontispiece.

A story of love and politics,--more especially a picture of a country
editor's life in Indiana, but the charm of the book lies in the love
interest.


THE FLIRT. Illustrated by Clarence P. Underwood.

The "Flirt," the younger of two sisters, breaks one girl's engagement,
drives one man to suicide, causes the murder of another, leads another
to lose his fortune, and in the end marries a stupid and unpromising
suitor, leaving the really worthy one to marry her sister.


_Ask for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_

GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK

       *       *       *       *       *

KATHLEEN NORRIS' STORIES

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list


SISTERS. Frontispiece by Frank Street.

The California Redwoods furnish the background for this beautiful story
of sisterly devotion and sacrifice.


POOR, DEAR, MARGARET KIRBY. Frontispiece by George Gibbs.

A collection of delightful stories, including "Bridging the Years" and
"The Tide-Marsh." This story is now shown in moving pictures.


JOSSELYN'S WIFE. Frontispiece by C. Allan Gilbert.

The story of a beautiful woman who fought a bitter fight for happiness
and love.


MARTIE, THE UNCONQUERED. Illustrated by Charles E. Chambers.

The triumph of a dauntless spirit over adverse conditions.


THE HEART OF RACHAEL. Frontispiece by Charles E. Chambers.

An interesting story of divorce and the problems that come with a second
marriage.


THE STORY OF JULIA PAGE. Frontispiece by C. Allan Gilbert.

A sympathetic portrayal of the quest of _a_ normal girl, obscure and
lonely, for the happiness of life.


SATURDAY'S CHILD. Frontispiece by F. Graham Cootes.

Can a girl, born in rather sordid conditions, lift herself through sheer
determination to the better things for which her soul hungered?


MOTHER. Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.

A story of the big mother heart that beats in the background of every
girl's life, and some dreams which came true.


_Ask for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_

GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK

       *       *       *       *       *

FLORENCE L. BARCLAY'S NOVELS

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.


THE WHITE LADIES OF WORCESTER

A novel of the 12th Century. The heroine, believing she had lost her
lover, enters a convent. He returns, and interesting developments
follow.


THE UPAS TREE

A love story of rare charm. It deals with a successful author and his
wife.


THROUGH THE POSTERN GATE

The story of a seven day courtship, in which the discrepancy in ages
vanished into insignificance before the convincing demonstration of
abiding love.


THE ROSARY

The story of a young artist who is reputed to love beauty above all else
in the world, but who, when blinded through an accident, gains life's
greatest happiness. A rare story of the great passion of two real people
superbly capable of love, its sacrifices and its exceeding reward.


THE MISTRESS OF SHENSTONE

The lovely young Lady Ingleby, recently widowed by the death of a
husband who never understood her, meets a fine, clean young chap who is
ignorant of her title and they fall deeply in love with each other. When
he learns her real identity a situation of singular power is developed.


THE BROKEN HALO

The story of a young man whose religious belief was shattered in
childhood and restored to him by the little white lady, many years older
than himself, to whom he is passionately devoted.


THE FOLLOWING OF THE STAR

The story of a young missionary, who, about to start for Africa, marries
wealthy Diana Rivers, in order to help her fulfill the conditions of her
uncle's will, and how they finally come to love each other and are
reunited after experiences that soften and purify.


GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK

       *       *       *       *       *

ETHEL M. DELL'S NOVELS

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.


THE LAMP IN THE DESERT

The scene of this splendid story is laid in India and tells of the lamp
of love that continues to shine through all sorts of tribulations to
final happiness.


GREATHEART

The story of a cripple whose deformed body conceals a noble soul.


THE HUNDREDTH CHANCE

A hero who worked to win even when there was only "a hundredth chance."


THE SWINDLER

The story of a "bad man's" soul revealed by a woman's faith.


THE TIDAL WAVE

Tales of love and of women who learned to know the true from the false.


THE SAFETY CURTAIN

A very vivid love story of India. The volume also contains four other
long stories of equal interest.


GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK

       *       *       *       *       *

ELEANOR H. PORTER'S NOVELS

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.


JUST DAVID

The tale of a loveable boy and the place he comes to fill in the hearts
of the gruff farmer folk to whose care he is left.


THE ROAD TO UNDERSTANDING

A compelling romance of love and marriage.


OH, MONEY! MONEY!

Stanley Fulton, a wealthy bachelor, to test the dispositions of his
relatives, sends them each a check for $100,000, and then as plain John
Smith comes among them to watch the result of his experiment.


SIX STAR RANCH

A wholesome story of a club of six girls and their summer on Six Star
Ranch.


DAWN

The story of a blind boy whose courage leads him through the gulf of
despair into a final victory gained by dedicating his life to the
service of blind soldiers.


ACROSS THE YEARS

Short stories of our own kind and of our own people. Contains some of
the best writing Mrs. Porter has done.


THE TANGLED THREADS

In these stories we find the concentrated charm and tenderness of all
her other books.


THE TIE THAT BINDS

Intensely human stories told with Mrs. Porter's wonderful talent for
warm and vivid character drawing.


GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK

       *       *       *       *       *

STORIES OF RARE CHARM BY GENE STRATTON-PORTER

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.


MICHAEL O'HALLORAN. Illustrated by Frances Rogers.

Michael is a quick-witted little Irish newsboy, living in Northern
Indiana. He adopts a deserted little girl, a cripple. He also assumes
the responsibility of leading the entire rural community upward and
onward.


LADDIE. Illustrated by Herman Pfeifer.

This is a bright, cheery tale with the scenes laid in Indiana. The story
is told by Little Sister, the youngest member of a large family, but it
is concerned not so much with childish doings as with the love affairs
of older members of the family. Chief among them is that of Laddie and
the Princess, an English girl who has come to live in the neighborhood
and about whose family there hangs a mystery.


THE HARVESTER. Illustrated by W. L. Jacobs.

"The Harvester," is a man of the woods and fields, and if the book had
nothing in it but the splendid figure of this man it would be notable.
But when the Girl comes to his "Medicine Woods," there begins a romance
of the rarest idyllic quality.


FRECKLES. Illustrated.

Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens, but the way in which he
takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms in the great
Limberlost Swamp; the manner in which everyone who meets him succumbs to
the charm of his engaging personality; and his love-story with "The
Angel" are full of real sentiment.


A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST. Illustrated.

The story of a girl of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, loveable type of
the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and kindness
towards all things; her hope is never dimmed. And by the sheer beauty of
her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from barren and
unpromising surroundings those rewards of high courage.


AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW. Illustrations in colors.

The scene of this charming love story is laid in Central Indiana. The
story is one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing love.
The novel is brimful of the most beautiful word painting of nature, and
its pathos and tender sentiment will endear it to all.


THE SONG OF THE CARDINAL. Profusely illustrated.

A love ideal of the Cardinal bird and his mate, told with delicacy and
humor.


GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK

       *       *       *       *       *

Transcriber's Notes:

Punctuation adjusted to be consistent with contemporary standards.

Page 100, "genuis" changed to "genius" (the girl had genius).

Page 173, "undestand" changed to "understand" (make you understand).

Page 176, "Massachusett" changed to "Massachusetts" (Massachusetts coast.)

Page 201, "pleassure" changed to "pleasure" (business, pleasure, art).

Page 261, "hopefuly" changed to "hopefully" (hopefully sent).

Page 75, "diguise" changed to "disguise" (cannot disguise herself).

Page 111, "pallette" changed to "palette" (tossed her palette aside).

Page 128, "virture" changed to "virtue" (unbending virtue).

Page 128, "assinine" changed to "asinine" (his asinine conceit).

Page 228, "browzing" changed to "browsing" (browsing along).

Page 281, "volcanos" changed to "volcanoes" (to play on volcanoes).






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