Northrup flushed. He was foolishly and suddenly angry. If the book must be brought in, he would defend it. It was all that was left to him of this detached interlude of his life. He meant to keep it. It was one thing to live along in his story and daringly see how close he could come to revealment with the keen-witted girl who had inspired him, but quite another, now that he was going, beaten from the field, to have the book, as a book, assailed. As to books, he knew his business!

"You put your words in your woman's mouth," Mary-Clare was saying.

"And whose words, pray, should I put there?" Northrup asked huskily.

"You must let her speak for herself."

"Good Lord!"

Mary-Clare did not notice the interruption. She was doing battle for more than Northrup guessed. She hoped he would never know the truth, but the battle must be fought if all the beautiful weeks of joy were to be saved for the future. The idealism that the old doctor had desperately hoped might save, not destroy, Mary-Clare was to prove itself now.

"There are so many endings in life, that it is hard, in a book, to choose just one. Why should there be an end to a book?" she asked.

The question came falteringly and Northrup almost laughed.

"Go on, please," he said quietly. "You think I've ended my woman by letting her do what any woman in real life would do?"

"All women would not do what your woman does. Such women end men!"

This was audacious, but it caught Northrup's imagination.

"Go on," he muttered lamely.

"Do you think love is everything to a woman?" Mary-Clare demanded ferociously.

"It is the biggest thing!" Northrup was up in arms to defend his code and his work.

"You think it could wipe out honour, all the things that meant honour to her?"

"Love conquers everything for a woman."

"Does it for a man?"

Northrup tried to fling out the affirmative, but he hedged.

"Largely, yes."

"I do not think that. There are some things bigger to him. Maybe not bigger, but things that he would choose instead of love, if he had to. It is what you do to love that matters. If you come and take it when you haven't a right to it; when you'd be stealing it; letting other sacred things go for it—then you would be killing love. But if you honour it, even if it is lonely and often sad, it lives and lives and——"

The universe, at that momentous instant, seemed to rock and tremble. Everything was swept aside as by a Force that but bided its hour and had taken absolute control.

Northrup was never able to connect the two edges of conscious thought that were riven apart by the blinding stroke that left him and Mary-Clare in that space where their souls met. But, thank God, the Force was not evil; it was but revealing.

Northrup drew Mary-Clare to her feet and held her little work-worn hands close.

"You are crying—suffering," he whispered.

"Yes."

"And——"

"Oh! please wait"—the deep sobs shook the girl—"you must wait. I'll try to—to make you see. I was awake that night at the inn—that is why I—trust you now! Why I want you to—to understand."

She seemed pleading with him—it made him wince; she was calling forth his best to help her weakest.

"Your book"—Mary-Clare gripped that again—"your book is a beautiful, live thing—we must keep it so! Your man has grown and grown through every page until he quite naturally believed he was able to—to do more than any man can ever do! Why, this is your chance to be different, stronger." The quick, panting words ran into each other and then Mary-Clare controlled them while, unheeded, the tears rolled down her cheeks. "You must let your woman act for herself! She, too, must learn and know. She made a horrible mistake from not knowing and seeing the first man; no love can help her by taking the solution from her. She must be free—free and begin again. If it is right——"

"Yes, Mary-Clare. If it is right, what then?"

Everything seemed to wait upon the answer. The scurrying wood creatures and the dropping of dead leaves alone broke the silence. Slowly, like one coming into consciousness, Mary-Clare drew one hand from Northrup's, wiped her eyes, and then—let it fall again into his!

"I can see clearer now," she faltered. "Please, please try to understand. It is because love means so much to some women, that when they think it out with their women-minds they will be very careful of it. They will feel about it as men do about their honour. There must be times when love must stand aside if they want to keep it! I know how queer and crooked all this must sound, but men do not stop loving if their honour makes them turn from it. We are all, men and women, too, parts—we cannot act as if—oh! you do understand, I know you do, and some day you will go on with your beautiful book."

"And the end of my book, Mary-Clare? There must be an end."

"I do not know. I do not think a great big book ever ends any more than life ends."

Northrup was swept from his hard-wrought position at this. The next wave of emotion might carry him higher, but for the moment he was drifting, drifting.

"You do not know life, nor men, nor women," he said huskily and clutched her hands in his. "If life cheats and injures you, you have a right to snatch what joy you can. It's not only what you do to love, but what you do to yourself, that counts. For real love can stand anything."

"No, it cannot!" Mary-Clare tried to draw away, but she felt the hold tighten on her hands; "it cannot stand dishonour. That's what kills it."

"Dishonour! What is dishonour?" Northrup asked bitterly. "I'm going to prove as far as I can, in my book, that the right kind of man and woman with a big enough love can throttle life; cheat the cheater." This came defiantly.

But the book no longer served its purpose; it seemed to fall at the feet of the man and woman, standing with clasped hands and hungry, desperate eyes.

The words that might have changed their lives were never spoken, for, down the trail gaily, joyously, came the sound of Noreen's voice, shrilly singing one of the songs Northrup had taught her.

"That's what I mean by honour," Mary-Clare whispered. "Noreen and all that she is! You, you do understand about some women, don't you? You will help, not hurt, such women, won't you?"

"For God's sake, Mary-Clare, don't!"

Northrup bent and touched his lips to the small work-stained hands. The song down the trail rose joyously.

"I have thought of you"—Mary-Clare was catching her breath sharply—"as Noreen has—a man brought by the haunted wind. It has all been like a wonderful play. I have not thought of the place where you belong, but I know there are those in that place who are like Noreen."

"Yes!" Northrup shivered and flinched as a cold, wet leaf fell upon his hands and Mary-Clare's.

"The wind is changing," said the woman. "The lovely autumn has been kind and has stayed long."

"My dear, my dear—don't!" Northrup pleaded.

"Oh! but I must. You see I want you to think back, as I shall—at all this as great happiness. Come, let us go down the trail. I want you to tell me about your city, the place where you belong! I must picture you there now."

Northrup kept the small right hand in his as they turned. It was a cold hand and it trembled in his grasp, but there was a steel-like quality in it, too.

It was tragic, this strength of the girl who had drawn her understanding of life from hidden sources. Northrup knew that she was seeking to smooth his way on ahead; to take the bitterness from a memory that, without her sacrifice, might hold him back from what had been, was, and must always be, inevitable. She was ignoring the weak, tempted moment and linking the past with all that the future must hold for them both.

There was only the crude, simple course for him to follow—to accept the commonplace, turn and face life as one turns from a grave that hides a beautiful thing.

"You have never been to the city?"

There was nothing to do but resort to words. Superficial, foolish words.

"Yes, once. On my wedding trip."

This was unfortunate, but words without thought are wild things.

Mary-Clare hurried along while visions of Larry's city rose like smiting rebukes to her heedlessness. Cheap theatres, noisy restaurants, gaudy lights.

"My dear doctor and I always planned going together," she said brokenly. "I believe there are many cities in the city. One has to find his city for himself."

"Yes, that's exactly what one does." Northrup closed his hand closer over the dead-cold one in his grasp.

"Your city, it must be wonderful."

"It will be a haunted city, Mary-Clare."

"Tell me about it. And tell me a little, if you don't mind, about your people."

The bravery was almost heart-breaking, it caused Northrup's lips to set grimly.

"There is my mother," he replied.

"I'm glad. You love her very much?"

"Very much. She's wonderful. My father died long ago."

Mary-Clare did not ask whether he loved his father or not, and she hurried on:

"And now, when I try to think of you in your city, at your work, just how shall I think of you? Make it like a picture."

Northrup struggled with himself. The girl beside him, in pushing him from her life, was so unutterably sweet and brave.

"My dear, my dear!" he whispered, and remorse, pity, yearning rang in the words.

"Make it like a picture!" Relentlessly the words were repeated. They demanded that he give his best.

"Think of a high little room in a tall tower overlooking all cities," he began slowly, "the cheap, the beautiful, the glad, and the sad. The steam and smoke roll up and seem to make a gauzy path upon which all that really matters comes and goes as one sits and watches."

Mary-Clare's eyes were wide and vision-filled.

"Oh! thank you," she whispered. "I shall always see it and you so. And sometimes, maybe when the sun is going down, as it is now, you will see me on that trail that is just yours, in your city coming to—to wish you well!"

"Good God!" Northrup shook himself. "What's got us two? We've worked ourselves into a pretty state. Talking as, as if—Mary-Clare, I'm not going away. There will be other days. It's that book of mine. Hang it! We've got snarled in the book."

The weak efforts to ignore everything failed pitifully.

"No, it is life." Mary-Clare grew grim as Northrup relaxed. "But I want you always to remember my old doctor's rule. If a thing is going to kill you, die bravely; if it isn't, get over it at once and live the best you can."

"God bless and keep you, Mary-Clare." Absolute surrender marked the tone.

"He will!"

"But this is not good-bye!"

"No, it is not good-bye."



CHAPTER XII

While the days were passing and Mary-Clare and Northrup, with the book between them as a shield, fought their battle and won their victory, they had taken small heed of the undercurrent that was not merely carrying them on, but bearing others, also.

Northrup was comfortably conscious of Aunt Polly and old Peter, at the days' ends. The sense of going home to them was distinctly a joy, a fitting and safe interlude.

Noreen and Jan-an supplied the light-comedy touch, for the two were capable of supplying no end of fun when there were hours that could not be utilized in work or devoted to that thrilling occupation of walking the trails with Mary-Clare.

The real, sordid tragedy element played small part in the autumn idyl, but it was developing none the less.

Larry on the Point was showing more patient persistence than one could have expected. He went about Maclin's business with his usual reticence and devotion; occasionally he was away for a few days; when he was at home in Peneluna's shack he was a quiet, rather pathetic figure of a man at loose ends, but casting no slurs. It was that pacific attitude of his that got on the nerves of his doubters and those who believed they understood him.

Peneluna, torn between her loyalty to Mary-Clare and the decency she felt called upon to show the old doctor's son, was becoming irritable and jerky. Jan-an shrank from her and whimpered:

"What have I done? Ain't I fetching and carrying for him?"—she nodded heavily toward Larry's abiding place. "Ain't I watching and telling yer all that he does? Writing and tearing up what he writes! Ain't I showing you his scraps what don't get burned? Ain't I acting square?"

Peneluna softened.

"Yes, you are!" she admitted. "But I declare, after finding nothing agin him, one gets to wondering if there is anything agin him. I don't like suspecting my feller creatures."

"Suspectin' ain't like murdering!" Jan-an blurted out.

"If you don't stop talking like that, Jan-an——" But Peneluna paused, for she saw the frightened look creeping into Jan-an's dull eyes.

It was while the Point was agitated about Larry that Twombley brought forth his gun and took to cleaning it and fondling it by his doorway. This action of Twombley's fascinated Jan-an.

"What yer going to shoot?" she asked.

"Ducks, maybe." Twombley leered pleasantly.

"I wish yer wouldn't."

"Why, Jan-an?"

"Ducks ain't so used to it as chickens. I hate to see flying things as can fly popped over."

At this Twombley laughed aloud.

"All right, girl, I'll hunt up something else to aim at—something that's used to it. I ain't saying I'll hit anything, but aimin' and finding out how steady yer hand is ain't lacking in sport."

So Twombley erected a target and enlivened and startled the Point by his practise. Maclin, after a few weeks of absence from the Point, called occasionally on his private agent and he was displeased by Twombley's new amusement.

"What in thunder are you up to?" he asked.

"Not much—yet!" Twombley admitted. "Don't hit the hole more than once out of four."

"But the noise is bad for folks, Twombley."

"They like it," Twombley broke in. "Makes 'em jump and know they're alive. It's like fleas on dogs."

"When I'm talking business with Rivers," Twombley insisted, "I hate the racket."

"All right, when I see you there, I'll hold off."

But Maclin did not want always to be seen at the shack. It was one thing to stroll down to the Point, now and again, with that air of having made mistakes in the past and greeting the Pointers pleasantly, and quite another to find out, secretly, just what progress Larry was making in his interests and knowing what Larry was doing with his long days and nights.

So, after a fortnight of consideration, Maclin walked with Rivers from the mines one night determined to spend several hours in the shack and "use his eyes." Larry did not seem particularly pleased with this intention and paused several times on the rough, dusky road, giving Maclin an opportunity to bid him good-night. But Maclin stuck like the little brown devil-pitchforks that decorated the trousers of both men as they strode on the woodside of the road.

"I'm like a rat in a hole," Larry confided, despairing of shaking Maclin off. "I wish to God you'd send me away somewhere—overseas, if you can. You once promised that."

Maclin's eyes contracted, but it was too dark for Rivers to notice.

"Too late, just now, Rivers. That hell of a time they're having over there keeps peaceful folks to their own waters."

"Sometimes"—Larry grew moody—"I've thought I'd like to tumble into that mess and either——"

"What?" Abruptly Maclin caught Rivers up.

"Oh! go under or—come to the top." This was to laugh—so both men laughed.

Laughing and talking in undertones, they came to the dark shack and Larry, irritated at his inability to drop Maclin, unlocked the door and went in, followed by his unwelcome guest.

"What in thunder do you lock this old rookery up for?" Maclin asked, stumbling over a chair.

"I've got a notion lately that folks peep and pry. I've seen footprints around the house."

"Well, why shouldn't they pry and tramp about? The Point's getting dippy. And that blasted gun of Twombley's! See here, Rivers!"

By this time Larry had lighted the smelly lamp and closed the door and locked it.

"You're getting nervous and twisted, Rivers."

The two sat down by the paper-strewn table.

"Well, who wouldn't?" snapped Rivers. "Hiding in this junk, knowing that your wife——" he paused abruptly, but Maclin nodded sympathetically. "It's hell, Maclin."

"Sure! Got anything to drink?"

Larry went to the closet and brought out a bottle and glasses.

"This helps!" Maclin said, pouring out the best brand from the Cosey.

The men drained their glasses and became, after a few minutes, more cheerful. Maclin stretched out his legs—he had to do this in order to adjust his fat and put his hands in his pockets.

"Larry, I want to tell you that you won't have to hide in your hole much longer. I'm one too many for that fellow Northrup. I hold the cards now."

"The devil you do!" Rivers's eyes brightened.

"Yes, sir. He wants the Point, old man, and the Heathcotes gave him the knowledge that your wife owns it. He's getting her where he can handle her. Damn shame, I say—using a woman and taking advantage of her weak side. If we don't act spry he'll get what he wants."

Larry's face flushed a purple-red.

"What do you mean, Maclin? Talk out straight and clear."

"Well, I weigh it this way and that. Northrup might—I hate to use brutal terms—he might compromise your wife and get her to sell and shut him up, or he might get her so bedazzled that she'd feel real set up to negotiate with him. A man like Northrup is pretty flattering to a woman like your wife, Rivers. You see, she's carrying such a big cargo of learning and fancy rot that she can't properly sail. That kind gets stranded always, Larry. They just naturally make for rocks."

Larry had a sensation of choking and loosened his collar, then he surprised Maclin by turning and lighting a fire in the stove before he further surprised him by asking, with dangerous calmness:

"What in all that's holy do you—this Northrup—any one, want this damned Point for?"

Maclin was rarely in a position to fence with Rivers, but he was now.

"Larry, old man, did you ever have in your life an ideal, or what stands for it, that you would work for, and suffer for?"

"No!" Rivers could not stand delay.

"Well, I have, Larry. I'm an old sentimentalist, when you know me proper. I took a fancy to you, and while I can't show my feelings as many can, I have stood by you and you've been a proposition, off and on. I bought those mines because I saw the chance they offered, and I shared with you. I've got big men interested. I've let you carry results to them—but the results are slow, Rivers, and they're getting restive. I'm afraid some one of them has blabbed and this Northrup is the result. Why, man, I've got inventions over at the mines that will revolutionize this rotten, lazy Forest. I wanted to win the folks—but they wouldn't be won. I wanted to save them in spite of themselves, but damn 'em, they won't be saved. In a year I could make Heathcote a rich man, if he'd wake up and keep an inn instead of a kennel. But I've got to have this Point. I want to build a bridge from here to the railroad property on the other shore—this is the narrowest part of the lake; I want to build cottages here, instead of—of rat holes. I've got to get this Point by hook or crook—and I can't shilly-shally with this Northrup on to the game."

Suddenly, while he was talking, Maclin's eyes fell upon the untidy mass of papers on the table. He pulled his fat hands out of his tight pockets and let them fall like paperweights on the envelopes and sheets.

"What are these?" he asked.

Larry started guiltily.

"Old letters," he said.

"What you doing with them?" As he spoke Maclin was sorting and arranging the papers—the old he put to one side; the newer ones on the other. Some of the new ones were astonishingly good copies of the old!

"Playing the old game, eh?" Maclin scowled. "I thought you'd had enough of that, after——"

"For God's sake, Maclin, shut up."

"Been carrying these mementos around with you all these years?"

Maclin was reading a letter of Larry's father—an old one.

"No, I brought them with me from the old house. Mary-Clare had them, but they were mine." Larry's face was white and set into hard lines.

"Sure, so I see." And Maclin was seeing a great deal.

He saw that Rivers had torn off, where it was possible, half pages from the old and yellowed letters; these were carefully banded together, while on fresh sheets of paper, the old letters in part, or in whole, were cleverly copied.

There was one yellowed half sheet in the old doctor's handwriting bearing a new form of expression—there was no original of this. Maclin made sure of that. He read this new form once, twice, three times.

"If the time should ever come, my girl, when you and Larry could not agree, he'll give you this letter. It is all I could do for him; it will prove that I trust you, at every turn, to do the right and just thing. Stand by Larry, as I have done."

Maclin puffed out his cheeks. They looked like a child's red balloon. "What in hell!" he ejaculated.

Larry's face was gray. Guilt is always quick to hold up its hands when it thinks the enemy has the drop on it.

"Can't you understand?" he whispered through dry lips. "I want to outwit them. I'm as keen as you, Maclin, and I'm working for you, old man, working for you! I was going to take this to her—she'll do anything when she reads that—and I was going to tell her why the old man stood by me. That would shut her mouth and make her pay."

There is in the shield of every man a weak spot. There was one in the shield of Maclin's brutal villainy. For a moment he felt positively virtuous; perhaps the sensation proved the embryo virtue in all.

"Are any of these things real?" he asked with a rough catch in his voice; "and don't lie to me—it wouldn't be healthy."

"No."

"You got your wife by letting her think your old father wanted it, wrote about it?"

"Yes. I had to outwit them some way. I was just free and couldn't choose. They had no right to cut me out."

"Well, by God, you are a rotter, Rivers." The lines at which criminals balk are confusing. "And she never guessed?"

"No, she'd never seen Father's writing in letters."

Then Maclin's outraged virtue took a curious turn.

"And you never cared for her after you got her?"

"I might have if she'd been the right sort—but she's as hard as flint, Maclin. A man can't stand her sort and keep his own self-respect."

Maclin indulged in a weak laugh at this and Larry's face burned.

"I might have gone straight if she'd been square, but she wasn't. A man can't put up with her type. And now—well! She ought to pay now."

Maclin was gripping the loose sheets in his fat, greasy hands.

"Hold on there." Larry pointed. "You're getting them creased and dirty!"

Again Maclin laughed.

"I'll leave enough copy," he muttered. Then he fixed his little eyes on his prey while his fat neck wrinkled in the back. His emotion of virtue flickered and died, he was the alert man of business once more. "I told you after you got out of prison, Rivers, that I'd never stand for any more of that counterfeiting stuff. It's too risky, and the talent can be put to better purpose. I've stood by you, I like you, and I need you. When we all pony up you'll get your share—I mean when we build up the Forest, you'll have a fat berth, but you've got to play a card now for me and play it damn quick. Here, take this gem of yours"—he tossed Larry's latest production to him—"and go to your wife to-morrow, and tell her why your old man stood by you; shut her mouth with that choice bit and then tell her—you want the Point! You've got her cornered, Rivers. She can't escape. If she tries to, hurl Northrup at her."

Larry wiped his lips with his hot hand.

"I haven't quite finished this," he muttered; "it will take a day or two."

"Rivers, if you try any funny work on me——" Maclin looked dangerous. He felt the fear that comes from not trusting those he must use.

"I'm not going to double-cross you, Maclin."

"Here, take a nifter." Maclin pushed the bottle toward Rivers. "You look all in," he ventured.

"I am, just about."

"Well, after this piece of business, I'll send you off for as long as you want to stay. You need a change."

Larry revived after a moment or two and some colour crept into his cheeks.

"I'm going now," Maclin said, getting up and releasing the tools of Larry's trade. "Better get a good night's rest and be fresh for to-morrow. A day or so won't count, so long as we understand the game. Good-night!"

Outside in the darkness Maclin stood still and listened. His iron nerves were shaken and he had his moment of far vision. If he succeeded—well! at that thought Maclin felt his blood run riotously in his veins. Glory! Glory! His name ringing out into fame.

But!—the cold sweat broke over the fat man standing in the dark. Still, he would not have been the man he was if he permitted doubt to linger. He must succeed. Right was back of him; with him. Unyielding Right. It must succeed.

Maclin strode on, picking his way over the ash heaps and broken bottles. A pale moon was trying to make itself evident, but piles of black clouds defeated it at every attempt. The wind was changing. From afar the chapel bell struck its warning. It rang wildly, gleefully, then sank into silence only to begin once more. Seeking, seeking a quarter in which it might rest.

Maclin, head down, plunged into the night and reached the road to the mines. He saw to it that the road was so bad that no one would use it except from necessity, but he cursed it now. He all but fell several times, he thanked God—God indeed!—when the lights of the Cosey Bar came in sight.

He did not often drink of his public whiskey, or drink with his foreigners, but he chose to do so to-night. His men welcomed him thickly—they had been wallowing in beer for hours; the man at the bar drew forth a bottle of whiskey—he knew Maclin rarely drank beer.

An hour later, Maclin, master of the place and the men, was talking slowly, encouragingly, in a tongue that they all understood. Their dull eyes brightened; their heavy faces twitched under excitement that amounted to inspiration. Now and again they raised their mugs aloft and muttered something that sounded strangely like prayer.

Dominated by a man and an emotion they were, not the drudging machines of the mines, but a vital force ready for action.



CHAPTER XIII

Northrup decided to turn back at once to his own place in life after that revealing afternoon with Mary-Clare. He was not in any sense deceived by conditions. He had, after twenty-four hours, been able to classify the situation and reduce it to its proper proportions. As it stood, it had, he acknowledged, been saved by the rare and unusual qualities of Mary-Clare. But it could not bear the stress and strain of repeated tests. Unless he meant to be a fool and fill his future with remorse, for he was decent and sane, he could do nothing but go away and let the incidents of King's Forest bear sanctifying fruits, not draughts of wormwood.

Something rather big had happened to him—he must not permit it to become small. He recalled Mary-Clare's words and face and a great tenderness swept over him.

"Poor little girl," he thought, "part of a commonplace, dingy tragedy. What is there for her? But what could I have done for her, in God's name, to better her lot? She saw it clear enough."

No, there was nothing to do but turn his back on the whole thing and go home! Shorn of the spiritual and uplifting qualities, the situation was bald and dangerous. He must be practical and wise, but deciding to leave and actually leaving were different matters.

The weather jeered at him by its glorious warmth and colour. It held day after day with occasional sharp storms that ended in greater beauty. The thought of the city made Northrup shudder. He tried to work: it was still warm enough in the deserted chapel to write, but he knew that he was accomplishing nothing. There was a gap in the story—the woman part. Every time Northrup came to that he felt as if he were laying a wet cloth over the soft clay until he had time finally to mould it. And he kept from any chance of meeting Mary-Clare.

"I'll wait until this marvellous spell of weather breaks," he compromised with his lesser—or better—self. "Then I'll beat it!"

Looking to this he asked Uncle Peter what the chances were of a cold spell.

"There was a time"—Peter sniffed the air. He was husking golden corn by the kitchen fire—"when I could calculate about the weather, but since the weather man has got to meddling he's messed things considerable. He's put in the Middle States, and what-not, until it's like doing subtraction and division—and by that time the change of weather is on you."

Northrup laughed.

"Well," he said, getting up and stretching, "I think I'll take a turn before I go to bed. Bank the fire, Uncle Peter; I may prowl late."

Heathcote asked no questions, but those prowls of Northrup's were putting his simple faith to severe tests. Peter was above gossip, but when it swirled too near him he was bound to watch out.

"All right, son," he muttered, and ran his hand through his bristling hair.

The night was a dark one. A soft darkness it was, that held no wind and only a hint of frost. Stepping quickly along the edge of the lake, Northrup felt that he was being absorbed by the still shadows and the sensation pleased and comforted him. He was not aware of thought, but thought was taking him into control, as the night was. There would be moments of seeming blank and then a conclusion! A vivid, final conclusion. Of course Mary-Clare occupied these moments of seeming mental inaction. Northrup now wanted to set her free from—what?

"That young beast of a husband!" So much for that conclusion. If the end had come between him and Mary-Clare, Northrup wondered if he could free her from Rivers.

"What for?"

This brought a hurtling mass of conclusions.

"No man has a right to get a stranglehold on a woman. If she has, as the old darkey said, lost her taste for him, why in thunder should he want to cram himself down her throat?"

This was more common sense than moral or legal, and Northrup bent his head and plunged along. He walked on, believing that he was master of his soul and his actions at last, while, in reality, he was but part of the Scheme of Things and was acting under orders.

Presently, he imagined that he had decided all along to go to the Point and have a talk with Twombley. So he kept straight ahead.

Twombley delighted his idle hours. The man, apparently, never went to bed until daylight, and his quaint unmorality was as diverting as that of an impish boy.

"Now, sir," he had confided to Northrup at a recent meeting, "there's Peneluna Sniff. Good cook; good manager. I held off while she played up to old Sniff, women are curious! But now that woman ought to be utilized legitimate-like. She's running to waste and throwing away her talents on that young Rivers as is giving this here Point the creeps. Peneluna and me together could find things out!"

Northrup, hurrying on, believed there was no better way to drive off the blue devils that were torturing him than to pass the evening with Twombley.

Just then he heard quick, light footsteps coming toward him. He hid behind some bushes by the path and waited.

The oncomer was Larry Rivers on his way from the Point. His hat was pulled down over his face and his hands were plunged in his pockets. A lighted cigar in his mouth illumined his features—Larry rarely needed his hands to manipulate his cigar; a shift seemed to be all that was essential, until the ashes fell and the cigar was almost finished.

Larry walked on, and when he was beyond sound Northrup proceeded on his way.

The Point seemed wrapped in decent slumber. A light frankly burned in Twombley's hovel, but for the rest, darkness!

Oddly enough, Northrup passed Twombley's place without halting, and presently found himself nearing Rivers's. This did not surprise him. He had quite forgotten his plan.

It was seeing Larry that had suggested this new move, probably; at any rate, Northrup was curiously interested in the fact that Larry was headed away from the Point and toward the yellow house.

The loose rubbish and garbage presently got into Northrup's consciousness and made him think, as they always did, of Maclin's determination to get possession of the ugly place.

"It is the very devil!" he muttered, almost tumbling over a smelly pile. "What's that?" He crouched in the darkness. His eyes were so accustomed to the gloom now that he saw quite distinctly the door of Peneluna's shack open, close softly, and someone tiptoeing toward Rivers's shanty. Keeping at a distance, Northrup followed and when he was about twenty feet behind the other prowler, he saw that it was Jan-an and that she was cautiously going from window to window of Larry's empty house, peeping, listening, and then finally muttering and whimpering.

"Well, what in thunder!" Northrup decided to investigate but keep silent as long as he could.

A baby in the distance broke into a cry; a man's rough voice stilled it with a threat and then all was quiet once more.

The next thing that occurred was the amazing sight of Jan-an nimbly climbing into the window of Larry's kitchen! Jan-an had either pried the sash up or Larry had been careless. Northrup went up to the house and listened. Jan-an was moving rapidly about inside and presently she lighted a lamp, and through the slit between the shade and the window ledge Northrup could watch the girl's movements.

Jan-an wore an old coat, a man's, over a coarse nightgown; her hair straggled down her back; her vacant face was twitching and worried, but a decent kind of dignity touched it, too. She was bent upon a definite course, but was confused and uncertain as to details.

Over the papers scattered on the table Jan-an bent like a hungry beast of prey. Her long fingers clutched the loose sheets; her devouring eyes scanned them, compared them with others, while over and again a muttered curse escaped the girl's lips.

Northrup took a big chance. He went to the door and tapped.

He heard a quick, frightened move toward the window—Jan-an was escaping as she had entered. As the sash was raised, Northrup was close to the window and the girl reeled back as she saw him.

"Jan-an," he said quietly, controllingly, "let me in. You can trust me. Let me in."

Poor Jan-an was in sore need of someone in whom she might trust and she could not afford to waste time. She raised the sash again, climbed in, and then opened the door. Northrup entered and locked the door after him.

"Now, then," he said, sitting opposite to the girl who dropped, rather than seated herself, in her old place. "Jan-an, what are you up to?"

To his surprise, the girl burst into tears.

"My God," she moaned, "what did I have feelin's for—and no sense? I can't read!" she blurted. "I can't read."

This was puzzling, but Northrup saw that the girl had confidence in him—a desperate, unknowing confidence that had grown slowly.

"Why do you want to read, Jan-an?" he asked in a low, kindly tone.

"I know you ain't his friend, are you?" The wet, pitiful face was lifted. Old fears and distrust rose grimly.

"Whose?"

"Maclin's, ole divil-man Maclin?"

"Certainly not! You know better than to ask that, Jan-an."

"Nor his—Larry Rivers?"

"No, I am not his friend."

Thus reassured once more, Jan-an ventured nearer:

"You don't aim to hurt—her?"

"Whom do you mean?" Northrup was perplexed by the growing intelligence in the face across the table. It was like a slow revealing of a groping power.

"I mean them—Mary-Clare and Noreen."

"Hurt them? Why, Jan-an, I'd do anything to help them, make them safe and happy." Northrup felt as if he and the girl opposite were rapidly becoming accomplices in a tense plot. "What does all this mean?"

"As God seeing yer, yer mean that?" Jan-an leaned forward.

"God seeing me! Yes, Jan-an."

"Yer ain't hanging around her to do her—dirt?"

"Good Lord, no!" Northrup recoiled. Apparently new anxiety was overcoming the girl.

Then, by a sudden dash, Jan-an swept the untidy mass of papers over to him; she abdicated her last stronghold.

"What's them?" she demanded huskily. Northrup brought the smelly kerosene lamp nearer and as he read he was conscious of Jan-an's mutterings.

"Stealing her letters—what is letters, anyway? And I've counted and watched—he's took one to her to-night. Just one. One he has made. Writing day in and out—tearing up writing—sneaking and lying. God! And new letters looking like old ones, till I'm fair crazy."

For a few moments Northrup lost the sound of Jan-an's guttural whimpers, then he caught the words:

"And her crying and wanting the letters. Just letters!" Northrup again became absorbed.

He placed certain old sheets on one side of the table; newer sheets on the other; some half sheets in the middle. It was like an intricate puzzle, and the same one that Maclin had recently tackled.

That he was meddling with another's property and reading another's letters did not seem to occur to Northrup. He was held by a determined force that was driving him on and an intense interest that justified any means at his disposal.

"Some day I will read my old doctor's letters to you—I have kept them all!"

Northrup looked up. Almost he believed Jan-an had voiced the words, but they had been spoken days ago by Mary-Clare during one of those illuminating talks of theirs and here were some old letters of the doctor's. Were these Mary-Clare's letters? Why were they here and in this state?

Suddenly Northrup's face stiffened. The old, yellowed letters were, apparently, from Doctor Rivers to his son! But there were other letters on bits of fresh paper, the handwriting identical, or nearly so. Northrup's more intelligent eye saw differences. The more recent letters were, evidently, exercises; one improved on the other; in some cases parts of the letters were repeated. All these Northrup sorted and laid in neat piles.

"She set a store by them old letters," Jan-an was rambling along. "I'd have taken them back to her, but I 'clar, 'fore God, I don't know which is which, I'm that cluttered. Why did he want to pest her by taking them and then making more and more?"

"I'm trying to find out." Northrup spoke almost harshly. He wanted to quiet the girl.

The last scrap of paper had been torn from an old, greasy bag and bore clever imitation. It was the last copy, Northrup believed, of what Jan-an said he had just carried away with him.

Northrup grew hot and cold. He read the words and his brain reeled. It was an appeal, or supposed to be one, from a dead man to one whom he trusted in a last emergency.

"So he's this kind of a scoundrel!" muttered Northrup, dazed by the blinding shock of the fear that became, moment by moment, more definite. "And he's taken the thing to her in order to get money."

Northrup could grope along, but he could not see clearly. By temperament and training he had evolved a peculiar sensitiveness in relation to inanimate things. If he became receptive and passive, articles which he handled or fixed his eyes upon often transmitted messages for him.

So, now, disregarding poor Jan-an, who rambled on, Northrup gazed at the letters near him, and held close the brown-paper scrap which was, he believed, the final copy before the finished production which was undoubtedly being borne to Mary-Clare now. Rivers would have a scene with his wife in the yellow house. With no one to interfere! Northrup started affrightedly, then realized that before he could get to the crossroads whatever was to occur would have occurred.

Larry would return to the shack. There was every evidence that he had not departed finally. Believing that no one would disturb his place so late at night he had taken a chance and—been caught by the last person in the world one would have suspected.

As an unconscious sleuth Jan-an was dramatic. Northrup let his eyes fall upon the girl with new significance. She had given him the power to set Mary-Clare free!

Her dull, tear-stained face was turned hopefully to him; her straight, coarse hair hung limply on her shoulders—the old coat had slipped away and the ugly nightgown but partly hid the thin, scraggy body. Lost to all self-consciousness, the poor creature was but an evidence of faith and devotion to them who had been kind to her. Something of nobility crowned the girl. Northrup went around to her and pulled the old coat close under her chin.

"It's all right, Jan-an," he comforted, patting the unkempt head.

"Are them the letters he stole?"

"Some of them, yes, Jan-an."

"Kin I take 'em back to her?"

"Not to-night. I think Rivers will take them back."

"S'pose he won't."

"He will."

"You, you're going to fetch him one?" The instinct of the savage rose in the girl.

"If necessary, yes!" Northrup shared the primitive instinct at that moment. "And now you trot along home, my girl, and don't open your lips to any one."

"And you?"

"I'll wait for Mr. Larry Rivers here!"

"My God!" Jan-an burst forth. Then: "There's a sizable log back of the stove. Yer can fetch a good one with that."

"Thanks, Jan-an. Go now."

Jan-an rose stiffly and shuffled to the door, unlocked it, and went into the blackness outside.

Then Northrup sat down and prepared to wait.

The stove was rusty and cold, but Rivers had evidently had a huge fire on the hearth during the day. Now that he noticed, Northrup saw that there were scraps of burned paper fluttering like wings of evil omens stricken in their flight.

He went over to the hearth, poked the ashes, and discovered life. He laid on wood, slowly feeding the hungry sparks, then he took his old place by the table, blew out the light of the lamp and in the dark room, shot by the flares of the igniting logs, he resigned himself to what lay before.

Rivers might return with Maclin. This was a new possibility and disconcerting; still it must be met.

"I may kill a flock of birds by one interview," Northrup grimly thought and then drifted off on Maclin's trail. The ever-recurring wonder about the Point was intensified; he must leave that still in doubt.

"I'll get the damned thing in my own control, if I can," he concluded at length. "Buy it up for safety; keep still about it and watch how Maclin reacts when he knocks against the fact, eventually. That will make things safe for the present."

But to own the Point meant to hold on to King's Forest just when he had decided to turn from it forever—after setting Mary-Clare free.

The sense of a spiritual overlord for an instant daunted Northrup. It was humiliating to realize how he had been treading, all along, one course while believing he was going another. And then—it was close upon midnight and vitality ran sluggish—Northrup became part of one of those curious mental experiences that go far to prove how narrow the boundary is that lies between the things we understand and those that are yet to be understood.

For some moments—or was it hours?—Northrup was not conscious of time or place; not even conscious of himself as a body; he seemed to be a condition, over which a contest of emotions swept. He was not asleep. He recalled later, that he had kept his eyes on the fire; had once attended to it, casting on a heavy log that dimmed its ferocious ardour.

Where Jan-an had recently sat, struggling with her doubts and fears, Mary-Clare seemed to be. And yet it was not so much Mary-Clare, visually imagined, as that which had gone into the making of the woman.

The black, fierce night of her birth; her isolated up-bringing with a man whose mentality had overpowered his wisdom; the contact with Larry Rivers; the forced marriage and the determined effort to live up to a bargain made in the dark, endured in the dark. It came to Northrup, drifting as he was, that a man or woman can go through slime and torment and really escape harm. The old, fiery furnace legend was based on an eternal truth; that and the lions' den! It put a new light on that peculiar quality of Mary-Clare. She had never been burnt or wounded—not the real woman of her. That explained the maddening thing about her—her aloofness. What would she be now when she stood alone? For she was going to stand alone! Then Northrup felt new sensations driving across that state which really was himself shorn of prejudice and limitations. His relation to Mary-Clare was changed!

There were primitive forces battling for expression in his lax hour. Setting the woman free from bondage—what for?

That was the world-old call. Not free for herself, but free that another might claim her. He, sitting there, wanted her. She had not altered that by her heroism. Who would help her free herself, for herself? Who would cut her loose and make no claims? Would it be possible to help her and not put her under obligation? Could any one trust a higher Power and go one's way unasking, refusing everything? Was there such a thing as freedom for a woman when two men were so welded into her life?

Northrup set his teeth hard together. In the stillness he had his fight! And just then a shuffling outside brought him back to reality.

Rivers came in, not noticing the unlocked door; he had been drinking. Northrup's eyes, accustomed to the gloom, marked his unsteady gait; smiled as Larry, unconscious of his presence, sank into a chair—the one in which Jan-an had sat—reached out toward the lamp, struck a match, lighted the wick and then, appalled, fixed his eyes upon Northrup!



CHAPTER XIV

"Hello, Rivers! I'm something of a surprise, eh?"

"Hell!" The word escaped Rivers as might a cry that followed a stunning blow.

A guilty person, taken by surprise, always imagines the worst. Rivers knew what he believed the man before him knew, he also believed much that Maclin had insinuated, or stated as fact, and he was thoroughly frightened and at a disadvantage.

His nerve was shattered by the recent interview with Mary-Clare; the earlier one with Maclin. Drink was befuddling him. It was like being in quicksand. He dared not move, but he felt himself sinking.

"Oh! don't take it too seriously, Rivers." Northrup felt a decent sympathy for the fellow across the table; his fear was agonizing. "We might as well get to an understanding without a preamble. I reckon there are a lot of things we can pass over while we tackle the main job."

"You damned——" Larry spluttered the words, but Northrup raised his hand as if staying further waste of time. He hated to take too great an advantage of a caged man.

"Of course, Rivers," he said, "I wouldn't have broken into your house and read your letters if there wasn't something rather big-sized at stake. So do not switch off on a siding—let's get through with this."

The tone and words were like a dash of icy water; Rivers moistened his lips and sank, mentally, into that position he loathed and yet could not escape. Someone was again getting control of him. He might writhe and strain, but he was caught once more—caught! caught!

"In God's name," he whispered, "who are you, anyway? What are you after?"

"That's what I'm here to tell you, Rivers."

"Go ahead then, go ahead!" Larry again moistened his dry lips—he felt that he was choking. He was ready to turn state's evidence as soon as he saw an opportunity. Debonair and clever, crafty and unfaithful, Larry had but one clear thought—he would not go behind bars again if one avenue of escape remained open!

Maclin—Maclin's secret business, loomed high, but at that moment Mary-Clare held no part in his desperate fear.

"What do you want?"

Then, as if falling into his mood, Northrup said calmly:

"First, I want the Point."

Larry's jaw dropped; but he felt convinced that it was Maclin or he who faced destruction and he meant to let Maclin suffer now as Maclin had once permitted him to suffer. If there was dirty work at the mines Maclin should pay. That was justice—Maclin had made a tool of him.

"I don't own the Point." Rivers heard his own voice as if from a distance. He had Mary-Clare's word that she would help him; the letter had done its overpowering work, but he had left confession and detail until later. Mary-Clare had pleaded for time, and he had come from her with his business unsettled.

"I think after we've finished with our talk you can prevail upon your wife to sell the Point to me and say nothing about it."

Rivers clutched the edge of the table. To his inflamed brain Northrup seemed to know all and everything—he dared not haggle.

"Who are you?" he repeated stammeringly. "What right have you to break into my place and read my papers? All I want to know is, what right have you? I cannot be expected to—to come to terms unless I know that. I should think you might see that." The bravado was so pitiful and weak that Northrup barely repressed a laugh.

"I don't want to turn the screws, Rivers," he said; "and of course you have a right to an answer to your question. I want the Point because I don't want Maclin to have it. Why he wants it, I'll find out after. I'm illegally demanding things from you, but there are times when I believe such a course is justifiable in order to save everybody trouble. You could kick me out, or try to, but you won't. You could have the law on me—but I don't believe you will want it. Of course you know that I know pretty well what I am about or I would not put myself in your power. So let's cut out the theatricals. Rivers, this Maclin isn't any good. Just how rotten he is can be decided later. He's making a fool of you and you'll get a fool's pay. You know this. I'm going to help you, Rivers, if I can. You need all the time there is for—getting away!"

Larry's face was livid. He was prepared to betray Maclin, but the old power held him captive.

"I dare not!" he groaned.

"Oh! yes, you dare. Brace up, Rivers. There is more than one way to tackle a bad job." Then, so suddenly that it took Rivers's breath, Northrup swept everything from sight by asking calmly: "What did you do with that letter you manufactured?"

So utterly unexpected was this attack, so completely aside from what seemed to be at stake, that Rivers concluded everything was known; that the very secrets of his innermost thoughts were in this man's knowledge. The quicksands all but engulfed him. With unblinking eyes he regarded Northrup as though hypnotized.

"I took it to her," he gasped.

"Your wife?"

"Yes."

"She does not suspect?"

"No."

"What did your wife say when she read the letter?"

"She's going to help me out."

"I see. All right, you're going to tell her that you want the Point and then you're going to sell it to me. Heathcote can fix this up in a few days—the money I pay you will get you out of Maclin's reach. If he makes a break for you, I'll grab him. I guess he's susceptible to scare, too, if the truth were known."

"My God! I want a drink." Larry looked as if he did; he rose and reeled over to the closet.

Northrup regarded his man closely and his fingers reached out and drew the scattered papers nearer.

"Take only enough to stiffen you up, a swallow or two, Rivers."

Larry obeyed mechanically and when he returned to his chair he was firmer.

"Rivers, I'm going to give you a chance by way of the only decent course open to you—or to me. God knows, it's smudgy enough at the best and crooked, but it's all I can muster. I don't expect you to understand me, or my motives—I'm going to talk as man to man, stripped bare. In the future you can work it out any way you're able to. What I want at the present is to clear the rubbish away that's cluttering the soul of a woman. That's enough and you can draw what damned conclusions you want to."

There was an ugly gleam in Larry's eyes. Men stripped bare show brutish traits, but he felt the straps that were binding him close.

"Go on!" he growled.

"You are to get your wife to give you this Point, Rivers. She may not want to, but you must force her a bit there by confessing to her the whole damned truth from start to finish about—these!"

Both men looked at the mass of papers.

"What all these things represent, you know." Larry did not move; he believed that Northrup knew, too. Knew of that year back in the past when his trick had been his ruin. "And your simply getting out of sight won't do. Your wife has got to be free—free, do you understand? So long as she doesn't know the truth she'd have pity for you—women are like that—she's going to know all there is to know, and then she'll fling you off!"

In the hidden depths of Rivers's nature there heaved and roared something that, had Northrup not held the reins, would have meant battle to the death. It was not outraged honour, love, or justice that blinded and deafened Larry; it was simply the brutish resentment of the savage who, bound and gagged, watches a strong foe take all that he had believed was his by right of conquest. At that moment he hated Mary-Clare as he hated Northrup.

"You damned scoundrel!" he gasped. "And if I do what you suggest, what then?" He meant to force Northrup as far as he dared.

A look that Rivers was never to forget spread over Northrup's face; it was the look of one who had lived through experiences he knew he could not make clear. The impossibility of making Rivers comprehend him presently overcame Northrup. He spread his hands wide and said hopelessly:

"Nothing!"

"Like hell, nothing!" Larry was desperate and brutal. Under all his bravado rang the note of defeat; terror, and a barren hope of escape that he loathed while he clung to it. "I don't know what Maclin's game is—I've played fair. Whatever you've got on him can't touch me, when the truth's out." Rivers was breathing hard; the sweat stood on his forehead. "But when it comes to selling your wife for hush money——"

"Stop that!" Northrup's face was livid. He wanted to throttle Rivers but he could not shake off the feeling of pity for the man he had so tragically in his grip.

There was a heavy pause. It seemed weighted with tangible things. Hate; pity; distrust; helpless truth. They became alive and fluttering. Then truth alone was supreme.

"I told you, Rivers, that I knew you couldn't believe me—you cannot. Partly this is due to life, as we men know it; partly to your interpretation of it, but at least I owe it to you and myself to speak the truth and let truth take care of itself. By the code that is current in the world, I might claim all that you believe I am after, for I think your wife might learn to love me—I know I love her. If I set her free from you, permit her to see you as you are, in her shock and relief she might turn to me and I might take her and, God helping me, make a safe place for her; give her what her hungry soul craves, and still feel myself a good sort. That would be the common story—the thing that might once have happened. But, Rivers, you don't know me and you don't know—your wife. I've only caught the glimmer of her, but that has caused me to grow—humble. She's got to be free, because that is justice, and you and I must give it to her. When you free her—it's up to me not to cage her!" Northrup found expression difficult—it all sounded so utterly hopeless with that doubting, sneering face confronting him; and his late distrust of himself—menacing.

"Besides, your wife has her own ideals. That's hard for us men to understand. Ideals quite detached from us; from all that we might like to believe is good for us. I have my own life, Rivers. Frankly, I was tempted to turn my back on it and with courage set sail for a new port. I had contemplated that, but I'm going back to it and, by God's help, live it!"

And now Northrup's face twitched. He waited a moment and then went hopelessly on:

"What the future holds—who knows? Life is a thundering big thing, Rivers, if we play it square, and I'm going to play it square as it's given me to see it. You don't believe me?" Almost a wistfulness rang in the words. Larry leaned back and laughed a hollow, ugly laugh.

"Believe you?" he said. "Hell, no!"

"I thought you couldn't." Northrup got up.

Around the edges of the lowered shades, a gray, drear light gave warning of coming day. The effect of Larry's last drink was wearing off—he looked near the breaking point.

"Rivers, I'll make a pact with you. Set your wife free—in my way. If you do that, I'll leave the place; never see her again unless a higher power than yours or mine decrees otherwise in the years on ahead. Take your last chance, man, to do the only decent thing left you to do: start afresh somewhere else. Forget it all. I know this sounds devilish easy and I know it's devilish hard, but"—and here the iron was driven into Rivers's consciousness—"either you or I set Mary-Clare free before"—he hesitated; he wanted to give all that he humanly could—"before another forty-eight hours."

Larry felt the cold perspiration start on his forehead; his stomach grew sick.

Faint and fear-filled, he seemed to feel Maclin after him; Mary-Clare confronting him, smileless, terrifying. On the other hand he saw freedom; money; a place in which he could breathe, once more, with Maclin's hands off his throat and Mary-Clare's coldness forgotten.

"I'll go to her; I'll do your hell-work, but give me another day." He gritted his teeth.

"Rivers, this is Tuesday. On Friday you must be gone, and remember this: I've got it in my power to set your wife free and imprison you and I'll not hesitate to do it if you try any tricks. I'd advise you to keep clear of Maclin and leave whiskey alone. You'll need all the power of concentration you can summon." Then Northrup turned to the table and gathered up the scattered papers.

"What——" Larry put out a trembling hand.

"I'll take charge of these," Northrup said. "I am going to give them to the Heathcotes. They'll keep them with the other papers belonging to your wife."

"Curse you!"

"Good morning, Rivers! I mean it, good morning! You won't believe this either, but it's so. For the sake of your wife and your little girl, I wish you well. When you send word to the inn that you are ready for the business deal I'll have the money for you."

Then Northrup opened the door and stepped out into the chill light of the coming day. He shivered and stumbled over a mass of rubbish. A clock struck in a quiet house.

"Five o'clock," counted Northrup, and plunging his hands in his pockets he made his way to Twombley's shack.



CHAPTER XV

Kathryn Morris had her plans completed, and if the truth were known she had never felt better pleased with herself—and she was not utterly depraved, either.

She was far more the primitive female than was Mary-Clare. She was simply claiming what she devoutly believed was her own; reclaiming it, rather, for she sagely concluded that on this runaway trip Northrup was in great danger and only the faith and love of a good woman could save him! Kathryn believed herself good and noble.

Mary-Clare had her Place in which she had been fed through many lonely, yearning years, but Kathryn had no such sanctuary. The dwelling-places of her fellow creatures were good enough for her and she never questioned the codes that governed them—though sometimes she evaded them!

After her talk with Helen Northrup, Kathryn did a deal of thinking, but she moved cautiously. She had never forgotten the address on Northrup's letter to his mother and she believed he was still there. She again looked up road maps, located King's Forest, and made some clever calculations. She could go in the motor. The autumn was just the time for such a trip. It would be easy to satisfy her aunt, Kathryn very well knew. The mere statement that she was going to meet Northrup and return with him would account for everything and relieve the situation existing at present with Sandy Arnold in daily evidence. "And if Brace is not playing in some messy puddle in his old Forest, I can get on his trail from there," she reasoned secretly.

But, for some uncanny cause, Kathryn was confident that Northrup was at his first address. It was so like him to creep into a hole and be very dramatic and secretive. It was his temperament, Kathryn felt, and she steeled herself against him.

On the morning that Northrup staggered over the rubbish of Hunter's Point toward Twombley's, Kathryn took her place in her limousine—her nice little travelling bag at her feet—and viewed with complacency the back of her Japanese chauffeur who had absorbed and digested all her directions and would be, henceforth, a well-oiled, safe-running part of the machinery, without curiosity or opinions.

They stopped for luncheon at a comfortable road-house, rested for an hour, and then went on. It was mid-afternoon when the yellow house at the crossroads made its appeal to be questioned.

"I'll run in and ask the way," Kathryn explained, and slowly went up to the door that once opened so humorously to Northrup's touch. Again the door responded, and a bit startled, Kathryn found herself in the presence of a dull-faced girl seated by the table apparently doing nothing.

"I beg your pardon. Really, I did knock—the door just opened." Kathryn was confused and stepped back.

In all her dun-coloured life Jan-an had never seen anything so wonderful as the girl on the doorstep. She was not at all sure but that she was one of Noreen's fiction creatures. There was a story that Northrup had told Noreen about Eve's Other Children, and for an instant Jan-an estimated the likelihood of the stranger being one—she wasn't altogether wrong, either!

"What you want?" she asked cautiously. Jan-an was, as she put it, "all skew-y," for the work of the evening before had brought her to a more confused state than usual.

The world was widening—she included Northrup now in her circle of protection and she wasn't sure what Eve's Other Children were capable of doing.

"I want to find out the way to the inn, Heathcote Inn." Kathryn smiled alluringly.

"Why don't you look at the sign?" There was witchery about that sign, certainly.

"I did not see the sign. Please excuse me." Then, "Do you happen to know if there is a Mr. Northrup at the inn?"

"He sleeps there!" Jan-an looked stupid but honest. "Days, he takes to the woods."

Jan-an meant, as soon as the unearthly visitor departed, to find Northrup and give the alarm. Kathryn thanked the girl sweetly and returned to her car. As she did so she saw the sign-board as Northrup had before her, and felt a bit foolish, but she also recalled that Northrup might be in the woods!

"You may go on to the inn," she said to her man, "and make arrangements. I am going to remain over night and start back early to-morrow morning. Explain that I am walking and will be there shortly."

The quiet man at the door of the car touched his cap and took his place at the wheel.

This was to Kathryn a thrilling adventure. The silence and beauty were as novel as any experience she had ever known, and her pulses quickened. The solitude of the woods was not restful to her, but it stimulated every sense. The leaves were dropping from the trees; the sunlight slanted through the lacy boughs in exquisite design, and the sky was as blue as midsummer. There was a smell of wood smoke in the crisp air; the feel of the sweet leaves, underfoot, was delightful. Kathryn "scruffed" along, unmindful of her high heels and thin silk stockings. She did not know that she could be so excited.

She crossed the road and turned to the hill. An impish impulse swayed her. If she came upon Northrup! Well, how romantic and thrilling it would be! She fancied his surprise; his——Here she paused. Would it be joy or consternation that would betray Northrup?

Now, as it happened, Mary-Clare had given her morning up to the business of the Point and she was worn and super-sensitive. An underlying sense of hurry was upon her. When she had done all that she could do, she meant to go to her Place and lay her tired soul open to the influence that flooded the quiet sanctuary. All day this had sustained her. She would leave Noreen at the inn; send Jan-an back there, and would, after her hour in the cabin, seek Larry out and give him what he asked—the Point.

Through the hours at the inn she had feared Northrup's appearance, but when she learned that he had been away all night, she feared for him. Her uneventful days seemed gone forever, and yet Mary-Clare knew that soon—oh, very soon—there would be to-morrows, just plain to-morrows running one into another.

She was distressed, too, that Larry was to have the Point. Aunt Polly had shaken her head over it and remarked that it seemed like dropping the Pointers into Maclin's mouth. But Peter reassured her.

"I see your side, child," he comforted. "What the old doc said goes with you."

"But it was Larry, not the doctor, as specified the Point," Polly insisted.

"All right, all right," Peter patted Polly's shoulder. "Have it your own way, but I see it at this angle. Give Larry what he wants; Maclin has Larry, anyway, but if he keeps him here where we can watch what's going on, I'll feel easier. He'll show his hand on the Point, take my word for it. Larry gallivanting is one thing, Larry with Twombley and Peneluna, not to mention us all, is another. You let go, Mary-Clare, and see what happens."

"Well, I hold"—Aunt Polly was curiously stubborn—"that Larry Rivers don't want that Point any more than a toad wants a pocket."

"All right, all right!" Peter grew red and his hair sprang up. "Put it as you choose. This may bring things to a head. I swear the whole world is like a throbbing and thundering boil—it's got to bust, the world and King's Forest. I say, then, let 'em bust and have done with it."

At four o'clock the business of the day was over and Mary-Clare was ready to start. Then Noreen, with the perversity of children, complicated matters.

"Motherly, let me go, too," she pleaded.

"Childie, Mother wants to be alone."

"Why for?"

"Because, well, I must think."

"Then let me stay home with Jan-an."

"Dearie, I'm going to send Jan-an back here."

"Why for?"

"Mary-Clare," Peter broke in, "that child is perishing for a paddling."

Noreen ran to Peter and hugged him.

"You old grifferty-giff!" she whispered, falling into her absurd jargon, "just gifferting."

Then she went back to her mother and said impishly:

"I know! You don't want me to see my father!" Then, pointing a finger at Mary-Clare, she demanded: "Why didn't you pick a nice father for me when you were picking?"

The irrelevancy of the question only added to its staggering effect. Mary-Clare looked hopelessly at her child.

"I didn't have any choice, Noreen," she said.

"You mean God gave him to you?"

"See here, Noreen"—Polly Heathcote rose to the call—"stop pestering your mother with silly talk. Come along with me, we'll make a mess of taffy."

"All right!" Noreen turned joyously to this suggestion, but paused to add: "If God gave my father to us, I s'pose we must make the best of it. God knows what He is doing—Jan-an says He even knew what He was doing when He nearly spoiled her."

With this, Aunt Polly dragged Noreen away and Mary-Clare left the house haunted by what Noreen had said. Children can weave themselves into the scheme of life in a vivid manner, and this Noreen had done. In her dealings with Larry, Mary-Clare knew she must not overlook Noreen.

Now, if fools rush in where angels fear to tread, surely they often rush to their undoing. Kathryn followed the trail to the cabin in the woods, breathlessly and in momentary danger of breaking her ankles, for she teetered painfully on her French heels and humorously wished that when the Lord was making hills He had made them all down-grade; but at last she came in sight of the vine-covered shack and stood still to consider.

It was characteristic of Kathryn that she never doubted her intuitions until she was left high and dry by their incapacity to hold her up.

"Ho! ho!" she murmured. "So this is where he burrows? Another edition of the East Side tenement room where he hid while writing his abominable book!"

Kathryn went nearer, stepping carefully—Northrup might be inside! No; the strange room was empty! Kathryn recalled the one visit she had made to the tenement while Northrup was writing. There had been a terrible woman with a mop outside the door there who would not let her pass; who had even cast unpleasant suggestions at her—suggestions that had made Kathryn's cheeks burn.

She had never told Northrup about that visit; she would not tell him about this one, either, unless her hand were forced. In case he came upon her, she saw, vividly, herself in a dramatic act—she would be a beautiful picture of tender girlhood nestling in his environment, led to him by sore need and loving intuition.

Kathryn, thus reinforced by her imagination, went boldly in, sat down by the crude table, smiled at the Bible lying open before her—then she raised her eyes to Father Damien. The face was familiar and Kathryn concluded it must be a reproduction of some famous painting of the Christ!

That, and the Bible, made the girl smile. Temperament was insanity, nothing less!

Kathryn looked about for evidences of Northrup's craft.

"I suppose he takes his precious stuff away with him. Afraid of fires or wild beasts."

This latter thought wasn't pleasant and Kathryn turned nervously to the door. As she did so her arm pushed the Bible aside and there, disclosed to her ferret glance, were the pages of Northrup's manuscript, duplicate sheets, that Mary-Clare had been rereading.

"Ho! ho!" Kathryn spread them before her and read greedily—not sympathetically—but amusedly.

There were references to eyes, hair, expressions; even "mud-stained breeches." With elbows on the table, daintily gloved hands supporting her chin, Kathryn read and thought and wove her plot with Northrup's words, but half understood, lying under her gaze.

Suddenly Kathryn's eyes widened—her ears caught a sound. Never while she lived was Kathryn Morris to forget her sensations of that moment, for they were coloured and weighted by events that followed rapidly, dramatically.

In the doorway stood Mary-Clare, a very embodiment of the girl described in the pages on the table. The tall, slim, boyish figure in rough breeches, coat, and cap, was a staggering apparition. The beauty of the surprised face did not appeal to Kathryn, but she was not for one instant deceived as to the sex of the person on the threshold, and her none-too-pure mind made a wild and dangerous leap to a most unstable point of disadvantage.

The girl in the doorway in some stupefying fashion represented the "Fight" and the "Puddle" of Northrup's adventure. If Kathryn thought at all, it was to the effect that she had known from start to finish the whole miserable business, and she acted upon this unconscious conclusion with never a doubt in her mind. The two women, in silence, stared at each other for one of those moments that can never be measured by rule. During the palpitating silence they were driven together, while yet separated by a great space.

Kathryn's conclusion drove her on the rocks; Mary-Clare's startled her into a state of clear vision. She recovered her poise first. She smiled her perturbing smile; she came in and sat down and said quietly:

"I was surprised. I am still."

Kathryn felt a wave of moral repugnance rise to her assistance. The clothes might disguise the real state of affairs—but the voice betrayed much. This was no crude country girl; here was something rather more difficult to handle; one need not be pitiful and condoning; one must not flinch.

"You expected, I suppose, to find Mr. Northrup?"

When Kathryn was deeply moved she spoke out of the corner of her mouth. It was an unpleasant trick—her lips became hard and twisted.

"Oh! no, I did not, nor anyone else." The name seemed to hurt and Mary-Clare leaned back. "May I ask who you are?" she said. Mary-Clare was indignant at she hardly knew what; hurt, too, by what was steadying her. She knew beyond doubt that the woman near her was one of Northrup's world!

"I am Miss Morris. I am engaged to be married to Mr. Northrup."

It were better to cut deep while cutting, and Kathryn's nerve was now set to her task. She unrelentingly eyed her victim. She went on:

"I can see how this must shock you. I sent my car on to the inn. I wanted a walk and—well! I came upon this place. Fate is such a strange thing."

Kathryn ran her words along rather wildly. The silence of her companion, the calm way in which she was regarding her, were having an unpleasant effect. When Kathryn became aware of her own voice she was apt to talk too much—she grew confidential.

"Mr. Northrup's mother is ill. She needs him. The way I have known all this right along is simply a miracle."

How much more Kathryn might have said she was never to know, for Mary-Clare raised a hand as though to stay the inane torrent.

"What can you possibly mean," she asked, and her eyes darkened, "by knowing this all along? I do not understand—what have you known?"

Then Kathryn sank in a morass.

"Oh! do be sensible," she said, and her voice was hard and cold. "You must see I have found you out—why pretend? When a man like Mr. Northrup leaves home and forgets his duties—does not even write, buries himself in such a place as this and stays on—what does it mean? What can it possibly mean?"

Mary-Clare was spared much of what Kathryn was creating because she was so far away—so far, far away from the true significance of it all. She was seeing Northrup as Kathryn had never seen him; would never see him. She realized his danger. It was all so sudden and revolting. Only recently had she imagined his past, his environment; she had taken him as a wonderful experience in her barren, sterile life, but now she considered him as threatened from an unsuspected source. A natural revulsion from the type that Kathryn Morris represented for a moment oppressed her, but she dared not think of that nor of her own right to resent the hateful slurs cast upon her. She must do what she could for Northrup—do it more or less blindly, crudely, but she must go as she saw light and was given time.

"You are terribly wrong about—everything." Mary-Clare spoke quietly but her words cut like bits of hail. "If you are going, as you say, to be Mr. Northrup's wife, you must try and believe what I am saying now for your own sake, but more for his."

Kathryn tried to say "Insolence!" but could not; she merely sat back in her chair and flashed an angry glance that Mary-Clare did not heed.

"Mr. Northrup is writing a beautiful book. The book is himself. He does not realize how much it is——"

"Indeed!" Kathryn did utter the one word, then added: "I suppose he's read it to you?"

"Yes, he has."

"Here, I suppose? By the fire, alone with you?"

"No, under the trees, out there."

Mary-Clare turned and glanced at the pure, open woods. "It is a beautiful book," she repeated.

"Oh! go on, do! Really this is too utterly ridiculous." Kathryn laughed impatiently. "We'll take for granted the beauty of the book."

"No, I cannot go on. You would not understand. It does not matter. What I want you to know is this—he could not do an ugly, low thing. If you wrong him there, you will never be forgiven, for it would hurt the soul of him; the part of him that no one—not even you who will be his wife—has a right to hurt or touch. You must make him believe in women. Oh! I wish I could make you see—that was the matter with his beautiful book—I can understand now. He did not know women; but if you believe what I am saying, all will be right; you can make him know the truth. I can imagine how you might think wrong—it never occurred to me before—the woods, the loneliness, all the rest, but, because everything has been right, it makes him all the finer. You do believe me! You must! Tell me that you do!"

Mary-Clare was desperate. It was like trying to save someone from a flood that was carrying him to the rapids. The unreality of the situation alone made anything possible, but Kathryn suddenly reduced the matter to the deadly commonplace.

"No, I do not believe you," she said bitterly. "I am a woman of the world. I hate to say what I must, but there is so little time now, and there will be no time later on, so you'll have to take what you have brought upon yourself. This whole thing is pitifully cheap and ordinary—the only gleam of difference in it is that you are rather unusual—more dangerous on that account. I simply cannot account for you, but it doesn't really interest me. When Mr. Northrup writes his books, he always does what he has done now. It's rather brutal and cold-blooded but so it is. He has used you—you have been material for him. If there is nothing worse"—Kathryn flushed here—"it is because I have come in time. May I ask you now to leave me here in Mr. Northrup's"—Kathryn sought the proper word—"study?" she said lamely. "I will rest awhile; try to compose myself. If he comes I will meet him here. If not, I will go to the inn later."

Kathryn rose. So did Mary-Clare. The two girls faced each other. The table lay between them, but it seemed the width of the whole world.

"I would have helped you and him, if I could." Mary-Clare's voice sounded like the "ghost wind" seeking wearily, in a lost way, rest. "But I see that I cannot. This is not Mr. Northrup's Place—it is mine. I built it myself—no foot but mine—and now yours—has ever entered here. I have always come here to—to think; to read. I wonder if I ever will be able to again, for you have done something very dreadful to it. You will do it to his life unless God keeps you from it." Mary-Clare was thinking aloud, taking no heed of her companion.

"How dare you!" Kathryn's face flamed and then turned pale as death.

Mary-Clare was moving toward the door. When she reached it she stood as a hostess might while a guest departed.

"Please go!" she said simply, but it had the effect of taking Kathryn by the shoulders and forcing her outside. With flaming face, dyeing the white anger, she flung herself along. Once outside she turned, looking cheap and mean for all the trappings of her station in life.

"I want you to understand," she said, "that you are dealing with a woman of the world, not a sentimental fool."

Mary-Clare inclined her head. She did not speak. She watched her uninvited guest go down the trail, pass out of sight. Then she went back to her chair to recover from the shock that had dazed her.

The atmosphere of the little cabin could not long be polluted by so brief an experience as had just occurred, and presently Mary-Clare was enfolded by the old comfort and vision.

She could weigh and estimate things now, and this she did bravely, justly. Like Northrup in Larry's cabin the night before, she became more a sensitive plate upon which pictures flashed, than a personality that was thinking and suffering. Such things as had now happened to her, she knew, happened in books. Always books, books, for Mary-Clare, and the old doctor's philosophy that gave strength but no assurance. The actual relation existing between Northrup and herself became a solid and immovable fact. She had not fully accepted it before; neither had he. They had played with it as they had the golden hours that they would not count or measure.

Nothing mattered but the truth. Mary-Clare knew that the wonderful thing had had no part in her decision as to Larry—others would not believe that, but she must not be swayed; she knew she had taken her steps faithfully as she had seen them—she must not stumble now because of any one, anything.

"It's what you do to love that counts!" Almost fiercely Mary-Clare grasped this. And in that moment Noreen, Northrup's mother, even Larry and the girl who had just departed, put in their claim. She must consider them; they were all part with Northrup and her.

"There is nothing for me to do but wait." Mary-Clare seemed to hear herself speaking the words. "I can do nothing now but wait. But I will not fear the Truth."

The bared Truth stood revealed; before it Mary-Clare did not flinch.

"This is what it has all meant. The happiness, the joy, the strange intensity of common things."

Then Mary-Clare bowed her head upon her folded arms while the warm sunlight came into the doorway and lay full upon her. She was absorbed in something too big to comprehend. She felt as if she was being born into—a woman! The birth-pains were wrenching; she could not grasp anything beyond them, but she counted every one and gloried in it.

The Big Thing that poor Peneluna had known was claiming Mary-Clare. It could not be denied; it might be starved but it would not die.

Somewhere, on beyond——

But oh! Mary-Clare was young, young, and her beyond was not the beyond of Peneluna; or if it were, it lay far, far across a desert stretch.



CHAPTER XVI

Northrup had cast himself upon Twombley's hospitality with the plea of business. He outlined a programme and demanded silence.

"I'm going to buy this Point," he confided, "and I'm going to go away, Twombley. I'm going to leave things exactly as they are until—well, perhaps always. Just consider yourself my superintendent."

Twombley blinked.

"Snatching hot cakes?" he asked. "Spoiling Maclin's meal?"

"Something like that, yes. I don't know what all this means, Twombley, but I'm going to take no chances. I want to be in a position to hit square if anything needs hitting. If no one knows that I'm in on this deal, I'll be better pleased—but I want you to keep me informed."

Twombley nodded.

About noon Northrup departed, but he did not reach the inn until nearly dark.

Heathcote and Polly had been tremendously agitated by the appearance of the Morris car and the Japanese. They were in a sad state of excitement. The vicious circle of unbelievable happenings seemed to be drawing close.

"I guess I'll put the Chinese"—Peter was not careful as to particulars—"out in the barn to sleep," he said, but Polly shook her head.

"No, keep him where you can watch 'im," she cautioned. "There'll be no sleeping for me while this unchristian business is afoot. Peter, what do you suppose the creature eats?"

"I ain't studying about that"—Peter shook with nervous laughter—"but I'm going to chain Ginger up. I've heard these Chinese-ers lean to animals."

"Nonsense, brother! But do you suppose the young woman what's on her way here is a female Chinese?"

"The Lord knows!" Peter bristled. "I wish Northrup would fetch up and handle these items of his. My God! Polly, we have been real soft toward this young feller. Appearances and our dumb feelings about folks may have let us all in for some terrible results. Maclin's keener than us, perhaps."

"Now, brother"—Polly was bustling around—"this is no time to set my nerves on edge. Here we be; here all this mess is. We best hold tight."

So Peter and Polly "held tight" while inwardly they feared that King's Forest was in deadly peril and that they had let the unsuspecting people in for who could tell—what?

About five o'clock Kathryn came upon the scene. Her late encounter had left her careless as to her physical appearance; she was a bit bedraggled and her low shoes and silk hose—a great deal of the latter showing—were evidences against her respectability.

"I'm Mr. Northrup's fiancee," she explained, and sank into a chair by the hearth.

Aunt Polly did not know what she meant, but in that she belonged to Northrup, she must be recognized, and plainly she was not Chinese!

Peter fixed his little, sparkling eyes on his guest and his hair rose an inch while his face reddened.

"Perhaps you better go to your room," he suggested as he might to a naughty child. He wanted to get the girl out of his sight and he hated to see Polly waiting upon her. Kathryn detected the tone and it roused her. No man ever made an escape from Kathryn when he used that note! Her eyes filled with tears; her lips quivered.

"Mr. Northrup's mother is dying," she faltered; a shade more or less did not count now—"help me to be brave and calm for his sake. Please be my friend as you have been his!"

This was a wild guess but it served its purpose. Peter felt like a brute and Aunt Polly was all a-tremble.

"Dear me!" she said, hovering over the girl, "somehow we never thought about Brace's folks and all that. Just you come upstairs and rest and wash. I'll fetch you some nice hot tea. It's terrible—his mother dying—and you having to break it to him." Polly led Kathryn away and Peter sat wretchedly alone.

When Polly returned he was properly contrite and set to work assisting with the evening meal. Polly was silent for the most part, but she was deeply concerned.

"She says she's going to marry Brace," she confided.

"Well, I reckon if she says she is, she is!" Peter grunted. "She looks capable of doing it."

"Peter, you mustn't be hard."

"I hope to the Lord I can be hard." Peter looked grim. "It's being soft and easy as has laid us open to—what?"

"Peter, you give me the creeps."

Peter and Polly were in the kitchen when Kathryn came downstairs. She had had a bath and a nap. She had resorted to her toilet aids and she looked pathetically lovely as she crouched by the hearth in the empty room and waited for Northrup's return. Every gesture she made bespoke the sweet clinging woman bent on mercy's task.