She again saw herself in a dramatic scene. Northrup would open the door—that one! Kathryn fixed her eyes on the middle door—he would look at her—reel back; call her name, and she would rush to him, fall in his arms; then control herself, lead him to the fire and break the sad news to him gently, sweetly. He would kneel at her feet, bury his face in her lap——

But while Kathryn was mentally rehearsing this and thrilling at the success of her wonderful intuitions, Northrup was striding along the road toward the inn, his head bent forward, his hands in his pockets. He was feeling rather the worse for wear; the consequences of his deeds and promises were hurtling about him like tangible, bruising things.

He was never to see Mary-Clare again! That had sounded fine and noble when it meant her freedom from Larry Rivers, but what a beastly thing it seemed, viewed from Mary-Clare's side. What would she think of him? After those hours of understanding—those hours weighted with happiness and delight that neither of them dared to call by their true names, so beautiful and fragile were they! Those hours had been like bubbles in which all that was real was reflected. They had breathed upon them, watched them, but had not touched them frankly. And now——

How ugly and ordinary it would all seem if he left without one last word!

The past few weeks might become a memory that would enrich and ennoble all the years on ahead or they might, through wrong interpretation, embitter and corrode.

Northrup was prepared to make any sacrifice for Mary-Clare; he had achieved that much, but he chafed at the injustice to his best motives if he carried out, literally, what he had promised. He was face to face with one of those critical crises where simple right seemed inadequate to deal with complex wrong.

To leave Mary-Clare free to live whatever life held for her, without bitterness or regret, was all he asked. As for himself, Northrup had agreed to go back—he thought, as he plunged along, in Manly's terms—to his slit in the wall and keep valiantly to it in the future. But he, no matter what occurred, would always have a wider, purer vision; while Mary-Clare, the one who had made this possible, would——Oh! it was an unbearable thought.

And just then a rustling in the bushes by the road brought him to a standstill.

"Who's that?" he asked roughly.

Jan-an came from behind a clump of sumach. A black shawl over her head and falling to her feet made her seem part of the darkness. Northrup turned his flashlight upon her and only her vague white face was visible.

"What's up?" he asked, as Jan-an came nearer. The girl no longer repelled him—he had seen behind her mask, had known her faithfulness and devotion to them he must leave forever. Northrup was still young enough to believe in that word—forever.

Jan-an came close.

"Say, there's a queer lot to the inn. They're after you!"

Northrup started.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"A toot cart with an image setting up the front—and a dressy piece in the glass cage behind."

So vivid was the picture that Jan-an portrayed that Northrup did not need to question.

"Lord! but she was togged out," Jan-an went on, "but seemed like I felt she had black wings hid underneath." Poor Jan-an's flights of fancy always left her muddled. "If you want that I should tell her anything while you light out——"

Northrup laughed.

"There, there, Jan-an," he comforted. "Why, this is all right. You wanted me to know, in case—oh! but you're a good sort! But see here, everything is safe and sound and"—Northrup paused, then suddenly—"to-morrow, Jan-an, I want you to go to—to Mary-Clare and tell her I left—good-bye for her and Noreen."

"Yer—yer going away?" Jan-an writhed under the flashlight.

"Yes, Jan-an."

"Why——" The girl burst into tears. Northrup tried to comfort her. "I've been so stirred," the girl sobbed. "I had feelin's——"

"So have I, Jan-an. So have I."

They stood in the dark for a moment and then, because there was nothing more to say—Northrup went to meet Kathryn Morris.

He went in at one of the end doors, not the middle one, and so disturbed Kathryn's stage setting. He opened and closed the door so quietly, walked over to the fire so rapidly, that to rise and carry out her programme was out of the question, so Kathryn remained on the hearth and Northrup dropped into the chair beside her.

"Well, little girl," he said—people always lowered their voices when speaking to Kathryn—"what is it?"

Northrup was braced for bad news. Of course Manly had given his address to Kathryn—it was something beyond the realm of letters and telegrams that had occurred; Kathryn had been sent! That Manly was not prime mover in this matter could not occur to Northrup.

"Is it Mother?" he whispered.

Kathryn nodded and her easy tears fell.

"Dead?" The word cut like a knife and Kathryn shivered. For the first she doubted herself; felt like a bungler.

"Oh! no, Brace; Brace, do not look like that—really—really—listen to me."

Northrup breathed heavily.

"An accident?" he demanded. A hard note rang in his words. This turn of affairs was rather more than Kathryn had arranged for. It was like finding herself on the professional stage when she had bargained for an amateur performance.

She ran to cover, abandoning all her well-laid plans. She knew the advantage of being the first in a new situation, so she hurried there.

"Brace dear, I—you know I have been bearing it all alone and I dared not take any further responsibility even to—to shield you, dearest, and your work."

By some dark magic Northrup felt himself a selfish brute; a deserter of duty.

"Kathryn," he said, and his eyes fell, "please tell me. I suppose I have been unforgivable, but—well, there's nothing to say!" Northrup bowed his head to take whatever blow might fall.

"I may be all wrong, dear. You know, when one is alone, is the confidante of another, one as precious as your mother is to you and me, it unnerves one—I did not know what to do. It may not be anything—but how could I know?"

"You went to Manly?" Northrup asked this with a sense of relief while at the same time Kathryn had risen to a plane so high that he felt humbled before her. He was still dazed and in the dark, but all was not lost!

While he had been following his selfish ends, Kathryn had stood guard over all that was sacred to him. He had never before realized the strength and purpose of the pretty child near him. He reached out and laid his hand on the bowed head.

"No, dear, that was it. Your mother would not let me—she thought only of you; you must not be worried, just now—oh! you know how she is! But, dearest, she has had, for years, a strange and dreadful pain. It does not come often, but when it does, it is very, very bad—it comes mostly at night—so she has been able to hide it from you; the day following she always spoke of it as a headache—you know how we have sympathized with her—but never were alarmed?"

Northrup nodded. He recalled those headaches.

"Well, a week ago she called me to come to her—she really looked quite terrible, Brace. I was so frightened, but of course I had to hide my feelings. She says—oh! Brace, she says there is—way back in the family——"

"Nonsense!" Northrup got up and paced the floor. "Manly has told me that was sheer nonsense. Go on, Kathryn."

"Well, dear, she was weak and so pitiful and she—she confided things to me that I am sure she would not have, had she been her brave, dear self."

"What kind of things?"

It was horrible, but Northrup was conscious of being in a net where the meshes were wide enough to permit of his seeing freedom but utterly cutting him off from it.

What he had subconsciously hoped the night before, what his underlying strength had been founded upon, he would never be able to know, for now he felt every line of escape from, heaven knew what, closing upon him; permitting no choice, wiping out all the security of happiness; leaving—chaff. For a moment, he forgot the question he had just asked, but Kathryn was struggling to answer it.

"About you and me, Brace. Oh! help me. It is so hard; so hard, dear, to tell you, but you must realize that because of the things she said, I estimated the seriousness of her condition and I cannot spare myself! Brace, she knows that you and I—have been putting off our marriage because of her!"

There was one mad moment when Northrup felt he was going to laugh; but instantly the desire fled and ended in something approaching a groan.

"Go on!" he said quietly, and resumed his seat by the fire.

"I think we have been careless rather than thoughtful, dear. Older people can be hurt by such kindness—if they are wonderful and proud like your mother. She cannot bear to—to be an obstacle."

"An obstacle? Good Lord!" Northrup jammed a log to its place and so relieved his feelings.

"Well, my dearest, you must see the position I was placed in?"

"Yes, Kathryn, I do. You're a brick, my dear, but—how did you know where I was, if you did not go to Manly?"

Kathryn looked up, and all the childlike confidence and sweetness she could summon lay in her lovely eyes.

"Dearest, I remembered the address on the letter you sent to your mother. Because I wanted to keep this secret about our fear from her—I came alone and I knew that people here could direct me if you had gone away. I was prepared to follow you—anywhere!"—Kathryn suddenly recalled her small hand-bag upstairs—"Brace, I was frightened, bearing it alone. I had to have you. Oh! Brace."

Northrup found the girl in his arms. His face was against hers—her tears were falling and she was sobbing helplessly. The net, it was a purse net now, drew close.

"Brace, Brace, we must make her happy, together. I will share everything with you—I have been so heedless; so selfish—but my life is now yours and—hers!"

Guilt filled the aroused soul of Northrup. As far as in him lay he—surrendered! With characteristic swiftness and thoroughness he closed his eyes and made his dash!

"Kathryn, you mean you will marry me; you will—do this for me and her?"

"Yes."

Just then Aunt Polly came into the room. Her quick, keen eye took in the scene and her gentle heart throbbed in sympathy. She came over to the two and hovered near them, patting Northrup's shoulder and Kathryn's head indiscriminately. She crooned over them and finally got them to the dining-room and the evening meal.

An early start for the morrow was planned, and by nine o'clock Kathryn went to her room.

Northrup was restless and nervous. There was much to be done before he left. He must see Rivers and finish that business—it might have to be hurried, but he felt confident that by raising Larry's price he could secure his ends. And then, because of the finality in the turn of events, Northrup desperately decided upon a compromise with his conscience. Strange as it now seemed he had, before his talk with Kathryn, believed that he was done forever with his experience, but he realized, as he reconsidered the matter, that hope, a strange, blind hope, had fluttered earlier but that now it was dead; dead!

Since that was the case, he would do for a dead man—Northrup gruesomely termed himself that—what the dead man could not do for himself. Surely no one, not even Rivers, would deny him that poor comfort, if all were known. He would write a note to Mary-Clare, go early in the morning to that cabin on the hill and leave it—where her eye would fall upon it when she entered.

That the cabin was sacred to Mary-Clare he very well knew; that she shared it with no one, he also knew; but she would forgive his trespassing, since it was his only way in honour out—out of her life.

Very well, then! At nine-thirty he decided to go over to the Point again and, if he found Larry, finish that business. If Larry were not there, he would lie in wait for him and gain his ends. So he prepared for another night away from the inn, if necessary.

Aunt Polly, hovering on the outskirts of all that was going on, materialized, as he was about leaving the house like a thief of the night.

"Now, son, must you go out?" she pleaded, her spectacles awry on the top of her head, her eyes unnaturally bright.

"Yes, Aunt Polly." Northrup paused, the knob of the door in hand, and looked down at the little creature.

"Is it fair, son?" Aunt Polly was savagely thinking of the gossip of the Forest—she wildly believed that Northrup might be going to the yellow house. The hurry of departure might blind him to folly.

"Fair—fair to whom, Aunt Polly?" Northrup's brows drew together.

"To yourself, son. Bad news and the sudden going away——" the old voice choked. It was hard to use an enemy's weapon against one's own, even to save him.

"Aunt Polly, look at me." This was spoken sternly.

"I am looking, son, I am looking." And so she was.

"I'm going out, because I must, if I am to do my duty by others. You must trust me. And I want you to know that all my future life will be the stronger, the safer, because of my weeks here with you all! I came to you with no purpose—just a tired, half-sick man, but things were taken out of my hands. I've been used, and I don't know myself just yet for what. I'm going to have faith and you must have it—I'm with you, not against you. Will you kiss me, Aunt Polly?"

From his height Northrup bent to Polly's littleness, but she reached up to him with her frail tender arms and seemed to gather him into her denied motherhood. Without a word she kissed him and—let him go!

Northrup found Rivers in his shack. He looked as if he had been sitting where Northrup left him the night before. He was unkempt and haggard and there were broken bits of food on the untidy table, and stains of coffee.

"I'm going away, Rivers," Northrup explained, sitting opposite Larry. "I couldn't wait to get word from you—my mother is ill. I must put this business through in a sloppy way. It may need a lot of legal patching after, but I'll take my chances. Heathcote has straightened out your wife's part—the Point is yours. I've made sure of that. Now I'm going to write out something that I think will hold—anyway, I want your signature to it and to a receipt for money I will give you. What we both know will after all be the real deed, for if you don't keep your bargain, I'll come back."

Larry stared dully, insolently at Northrup but did not speak. He watched Northrup writing at the table where the food lay scattered. Then, when the clumsy document was finished, Northrup pushed it toward Rivers.

"Sign there!" he said.

"I'll sign where I damn please." Larry showed his teeth. "How much you going to give me for my woman?"

For a moment the sordid room seemed to be swirling in a flood of red and yellow. Northrup got on his feet.

"I don't want to kill you," he muttered, "but you deserve it."

"Ah, have it your own way," Larry cringed. The memory of the night before steadied him. He'd been drinking heavily and was stronger—and weaker, in consequence.

"How much is—is the price for the Point?" he mumbled.

Northrup mastered his rage and sat down. Feeling sure that Rivers would dicker he said quietly:

"A thousand dollars."

"Double that!" Rivers's eyes gleamed. A thousand dollars would take him out of Maclin's reach, but all that he could get beyond would keep him there longer.

"Rivers, I expected this, so I'll name my final price. Fifteen hundred! Hurry up and sign that paper."

Larry signed it unsteadily but clearly.

"Have you seen your wife, Rivers?" Northrup passed a cheque across the table.

"I'm going to see her to-morrow—I have up to Friday, you know."

"Yes, that's true. I must go to-morrow morning, but I'll make sure you keep to your bargain."

"And—you?" Rivers's lips curled.

"I have kept my bargain."

"And you'll get away without talking to my wife?"

Northrup's eyes grew dark.

"Yes. But, Rivers, if I find that you play loose in any way, by God, I'll settle with you if I have to scour the earth for you. Remember, she is to know everything—everything, and after that—you're to get out—quick."

"I'll get out all right."

"I hope, just because of your wife and child, Rivers, that you'll straighten up; that something will get a grip on you that will pull you up—not down further. No man has a right to put the burden of his right living or his going to hell on a woman's conscience, but women like your wife often have to carry that load. You've got that in you which, put to good purpose, might——"

"Oh! cut it out." Rivers could bear no more. "I'm going to get out of your way—what more in hell do you want?"

"Nothing." Northrup rose, white-lipped and stern. "Nothing. We are both of us, Rivers, paying a big price for a woman's freedom. It's only just—we ought not to want anything more."

With that Northrup left the shack and retraced his lonely way to the inn.



CHAPTER XVII

Northrup arose the next morning before daylight and tried to write a note to Mary-Clare. It was the most difficult thing he had ever undertaken. If he could speak, it would be different, but the written word is so rigid.

This last meeting had been so distraught, they had beaten about so in the dark, that his uncertainty as to what really was arrived at confused him.

Could he hope for her understanding if without another word he left her to draw her own conclusions from his future life?

She would be alone. She could confide in no one. She might, in the years ahead, ascribe his actions to the lowest motives, and he had, God knew, meant her no harm.

Then, as it was always to be in the time on ahead, Mary-Clare herself seemed to speak to him.

"It is what one does to love that matters." That was it—"What one does."

With this fixed in his mind Northrup wrote:

I want you to know that I love you. I believe you love me. We couldn't help this—but you have taught me how not to kill it.

There are big, compelling things in your life and mine that cannot be ignored—you showed me that, too. I do not know how I am to go on with my old life—but I am going to try to live it—as you will live yours.

There was a mad moment on the hill that last day we met—you saved it.

There is a greater thing than love—it is truth, and that is why I must bid you good-bye—in this way.

Crude and jagged as the thought was, Northrup, in rereading his words, did not now shrink from Mary-Clare's interpretation. She would understand.

After an early breakfast, at which Kathryn did not appear—Aunt Polly had carried Kathryn's to her room—Northrup went out to see that everything was ready for the journey home. To his grim delight—it seemed almost a postponed sentence—he discovered the chauffeur under the car and in a state of calm excitement. In broken but carefully selected English the man informed Northrup that he could repair what needed repair but must have two hours or more in which to do it.

With his anxiety about his mother lessened, Northrup received this news with a sense of relief. Once the car was in commission they could make good the loss of time. So Northrup started upon his errand, taking the roundabout trail he had broken for himself, and which led to that point back of the cabin from which he had often held his lonely but happy vigils.

Over this trail, leaf-strewn and wet, Northrup now went. He did not pause at the mossy rock that had hitherto marked his limit. He sternly strode ahead over unbroken underbrush and reached the cabin.

The door was open; without hesitation he went in, laid his note on the table, put the Bible over it, and retraced his steps. But once at the clump of laurel a weak, human longing overcame him. Why not wait there and see what happened? There was an hour or more to while away before the car would be in readiness. Again Northrup had that sense of being, after all, an atom in a plan over which he had small control.

So far he could go, no further! After that? Well, after that he would never weaken. He sat down on the rock, held the branches aside so that the cabin was in full view and, unseen himself, waited.

Now it happened that others besides Northrup were astir that morning. Larry, shaved and washed, having had a good breakfast, provided by Peneluna and served by Jan-an, straightened himself and felt more a man than he had felt for many a day. He gave Jan-an money for Peneluna and a dollar for herself. The girl stared at the bill indicated as hers and pushed it back.

"Take it, Jan-an," Larry urged. "I'd like to remember you taking it."

The girl, thus urged, hid the money in her bosom and shuffled out.

Larry was sober and keen. He was going to carry out Northrup's commands, but in his own way! He meant to lay a good deal more in waste than perhaps any one would suspect. And yet, Larry, sober and about to cut loose from all familiar things, had sensations that made him tremble as he stumbled over the debris of the Point.

Never before had he been so surely leaving everything as he was now. In the old days of separation, there had always been home in the background. During that hideous year when he was shut behind bars, his thoughts had clung to home, to his father! He had meant then to go back and reform! Poor Larry! he had nothing to reform, but he had not realized that. Then Maclin caught him and instead of being reformed, Larry was moulded into a new shape—Maclin's tool. Well, Maclin was done with, too! Larry strode on in the semi-darkness. The morning was dull and deadly chill.

Traditional prejudice rose in Rivers and made him hard and bitter. He felt himself a victim of others' misunderstanding.

If he had had a—mother! Never before had this emotion swayed him. He knew little or nothing of his mother. She had been blotted out. But he now tried to think that all this could never have happened to him had he not been deprived of her. In the cold, damp morning Larry reverted to his mother over and over again. Good or bad, she would have stood by him! There was no one now; no one.

"And Mary-Clare!" At this his face set cruelly. "She should have stood by me. What was her sense of duty, anyway?"

She had always eluded him, had never been his. Larry rebelled at this knowledge. She had been cold and demanding, selfish and hard. No woman has a right to keep herself from her husband. All would have been well if she had done her part. And Noreen was his as well as Mary-Clare's. But she was keeping everything. His father's house; the child; the money!

By this time Larry had lashed himself into a virtuous fury. He felt himself wronged and sinned against. He was prepared to hurt somebody in revenge.

Larry went to the yellow house. It was empty. There was a fire on the hearth and a general air of recent occupancy and a hurried departure. A fiendish inspiration came to Rivers. He would go to that cabin of Mary-Clare's and wait for her. She should get her freedom there, where she had forbidden him to come. He'd enter now and have his say.

Larry took a short cut to the cabin and by so doing reached it before Mary-Clare, who had taken Noreen to Peneluna's—not daring to take her to the inn.

Larry came to within a dozen yards of the cabin when he stopped short and became rigid. He was completely screened from view, but, for the moment, he did not give this a thought. There was murder in his heart, and only cowardice held him back.

Northrup was coming out of the cabin! Rivers had not realized that he trusted Northrup, but he had, and he was betrayed! All the bitterness of defeat swept over him and hate and revenge alone swayed him. Suddenly he grew calm. Northrup had passed from sight; the white mists of the morning were rolling and breaking. He would wait—if Mary-Clare was in the cabin, and Larry believed she was, he could afford to bide his time. Indeed, it was the only thing to do, for in a primitive fashion Rivers decided to deal only with his woman, and he meant to have a free hand. He would have no fight for what was not worth fighting for—he would solve things in his own way and be off before any one interfered.

And then he turned sharply. Someone was advancing from the opposite direction. It was Mary-Clare. She came up her own trail, emerging from the mists like a shadowy creature of the woods; she walked slowly, wearily, up to the Place and went inside with the eyes of two men full upon her.

At that moment the sun broke through the mists; it flooded the cabin and touched warmly the girl who sank down beside the table. Instantly her glance fell upon the note by the Bible. She took it up, read it once, twice, and—understood more, far more than Northrup could guess.

Perhaps a soul awakening from the experience of death might know the sensation that throbbed through the consciousness of Mary-Clare at that moment. The woman of her had been born in the cabin the day before, but the birth pains had exhausted her. She had not censured Northrup in her woman-thought; she had believed something of what now she knew, and understood. She raised the note and held it out on her open palms—almost it seemed as if she were showing it to some unseen Presence as proof of all she trusted. With the sheet of paper still held lightly, Mary-Clare walked to the door of her cabin. She had no purpose in mind—she wanted the air; the sunlight. And so she stood in the full glow, her face uplifted, her arms outspread.

Northrup from his hidden place watched her for a moment, bowed his head, and turned to the inn. Larry watched her; in a dumb way he saw revealed the woman he had never touched; never owned. Well, he would have his revenge.

Mary-Clare turned back after her one exalted moment; she took her place by the table and spread again the note before her. She did not notice the footsteps outside until Larry was on the threshold and then she turned, gripping, intuitively, the sheet of paper in her hand. Larry saw the gesture, saw the paper, and half understood.

Mary-Clare looked at her husband distantly but not unkindly. She did not resent his being there—the Place was no longer hers alone.

"A nice lot you are!" Rivers blurted this out and came in. He sat down on the edge of the table near Mary-Clare. "What's that?" he demanded, his eyes on the note.

"A letter."

"Full of directions, I suppose?" Larry smiled an ugly, keen smile.

"Directions? What do you mean?"

"I guess that doesn't matter, does it?" he asked. "Don't let us waste time. See here, my girl, the game's up! Now that letter—I want that. It will be evidence when I need it. He's broken his bargain. I mean to take the advantage I've got."

Mary-Clare stared at Rivers in helpless amazement—but her fingers closed more firmly upon the note.

"When he—he bought you—he promised me that he'd never see you again. He wanted you free—for yourself. Free!" Larry flung his head back and indulged in a harsh laugh. "I got the Point—he bought the Point and you! Paid high for them, too, but he'll pay higher yet before I get through with him."

Mary-Clare sat very quiet; her face seemed frozen into an expression of utter bewilderment. That, and the memory of her as she had stood at the door a few moments ago, maddened Rivers and he ruthlessly proceeded to batter down all the background that had stood, in Mary-Clare's life, as a plea for her loyalty, faith, and gratitude.

"Do you know why my father kept me from home and put you in my place?" he demanded.

"No, Larry."

"He was afraid of me—afraid of himself. He left me to others—and others helped me along. Others like Maclin who saw my ability!" Again Larry gave his mirthless, ugly laugh and this time Mary-Clare shuddered.

She made no defence for her beloved doctor—the father of the man before her. She simply braced herself to bear the blows, and she shuddered because she intuitively felt that Larry was in no sense realizing his own position; he was so madly seeking to destroy that of others.

"I'm a counterfeiter—I've been in prison—I've——" but here Rivers paused, struck at last by the face opposite him. It was awakening; it flushed, quivered, and the eyes darkened and widened. What was happening was this—Larry was setting Mary-Clare free in ways that he could not realize. Every merciless blow he struck was rending a fetter apart. He was making it possible for the woman, close to him physically, to regard him at last as—a man; not a husband that mistaken loyalty must shield and suffer for. He was placing her among the safe and decent people, permitting her at last to justify her instincts, to trust her own ideals.

And from that vantage ground of spiritual freedom, released from all false ties of contract and promise, Mary-Clare looked at Larry with divine pity in her eyes. She seemed to see the veiled form of his mother beside him—they were like two outcasts defiantly accusing her, but toward whom she could well afford to feel merciful.

"Don't, Larry"—Mary-Clare spoke at last and there were tears in her eyes—"please don't. You've said enough."

She felt as though she were looking at the dying face of a suicide.

"Yes, I think I have said enough about myself except this: I wrote all those letters you—you had. Not one was my father's—they were counterfeits—there are more ways than one of—of getting what you want."

Again Mary-Clare shuddered and sank into the dull state of amazement. She had to think this over; go slowly. She looked at Larry, but she was not listening. At last she asked wonderingly:

"You mean—that he did not want me to marry you? And that last night—he did not say—what you said you understood?"

Larry laughed—but it was not the old assured laugh of brutality—he had stripped himself so bare that at last he was aware of his own nakedness.

"Oh!" The one word was like a blighting shaft that killed all that was left to kill.

Larry put forth a pitiful defence.

"You've been hard and selfish, Mary-Clare. Another sort might have helped me—I got to caring, at first. You've taken everything and given mighty little. And now, when you see a chance of cutting loose, you wipe me off the map and betray me into the hands of a man who has lied to me, made sport of me, and thinks he's going to get away with it. Now listen. I want that letter. When I have used up the hush money I have now, I'm coming back for more—more—and you and he are going to pay."

By this time Larry had worked himself again into a blind fury. He felt this but could not control it. He had lost nearly everything—he must clutch what was left.

"Give that to me!" he commanded, and reached for the clenched hand on the table.

"No, Larry. If you could understand, I would let you have it, but you couldn't! Nothing matters now between you and me. I am free, free!"

The radiant face, the clenched hand, blinded Larry. Sitting again on the edge of the table, looking down at the woman who had eluded him, was defying him, he struck out! He had no thought at all for the moment—something was in his way; before he could escape he must fling it aside.

Mary-Clare drooped; dropped from her chair and lay quiet upon the floor. Her hand, holding the paper, was spread wide, the note was unprotected.

For a moment Larry gazed at his work with horrified eyes. Never before had he meted physical brutality to man or woman. He was a coward at heart, and he was thoroughly cowed as he stood above the girl at his feet. He saw that she was breathing; there was almost at once a fluttering of the lids. There were two things for a coward to do—seize the note and make his escape.

Larry did both and Mary-Clare took no heed.

A little red squirrel came into the sunny room and darted about; the sunlight grew dim, for there was a storm rising, and the clouds were heavy on its wings.

And while the deathly silence reigned in the cabin, Northrup and Kathryn were riding rapidly from the inn. As the car passed the yellow house, Kathryn pathetically drew down the shades—her eyes were tear-filled.

"Brace, dear," she whispered, "I'm so afraid. The storm; everything frightens me. Take me in your arms."

And at that moment Kathryn believed that she loved Northrup, had saved him from a great peril, and she was prepared to act the part, in the future, of a faithful wife.



CHAPTER XVIII

Noreen and Jan-an late that afternoon returned to the yellow house. They were both rather depressed and forlorn, for they knew that Northrup was gone and had taken away with him much that had stimulated and cheered.

Finding the yellow house empty, the two went up the opposite hill and leisurely made their way to the brook that marked the limit of free choice. Here they sat down, and Noreen suggested that they sing Northrup's old songs and play some of his diverting games. Jan-an solemnly agreed, shaking her head and sighing as one does who recalls the dead.

So Noreen piped out the well-beloved words of "Green Jacket" and, rather heavily, acted the jovial part. But Jan-an refused to be comforted. She cried distractedly, and always when Jan-an wept she made such abnormal "faces" that she disturbed any onlookers.

"All right!" Noreen said at last. "We'll both do something."

This clever psychological ruse brought Jan-an to her normal state.

"Let's play Eve's Other Children," Noreen ran on. "I'll be Eve and hide my children, the ones I don't like specially. You be God, Jan-an."

This was a great concession on Noreen's part, for she revelled in the leading role, as it gave full play to her dramatic sense of justice.

However, the play began with Noreen hiding some twisted and dry sticks under stones and in holes in trees and then proceeding to dress, in gay autumn leaves, more favoured twigs. She crooned over them; expatiated upon their loveliness, and, at a given signal, poor Jan-an clumsily appeared and in most unflattering terms accused Noreen of depravity and unfaithfulness, demanding finally, in most picturesque and primitive language, the hidden children. At this point Noreen rose to great heights. Fear, remorse, and shame overcame her. She pleaded and denied; she confessed and at last began, with the help of her accuser, to search out the neglected offspring. So wholly did the two enjoy this part of the game that they forgot their animosity, and when the crooked twigs were discovered Jan-an became emphatically allegorical with Noreen and ruthlessly destroyed the "other children" on the score that they weren't worth keeping.

But the interest flagged at length, and both Jan-an and Noreen became silent and depressed.

"I've got feelin's!" Jan-an remarked, "in the pit of my stomach. Besides, it's getting cold and a storm's brewing. Did yer hear thunder?"

Noreen was replacing her favoured children in the crannies of the rocks, but she turned now to Jan-an and said wistfully:

"I want Motherly."

"She's biding terrible long up yonder."

"P'raps, oh! Jan-an, p'raps that lady you were telling about has taken Motherly!"

Noreen became agitated, but Jan-an with blind intuition scoffed.

"No; whatever she took, she wouldn't take her! But she took Mr. Northrup, all right. Her kind takes just fierce! I sense her."

Noreen looked blank.

"Tell me about the heathen, Jan-an," she said. "What did he eat when Uncle Peter wouldn't let him have Ginger?"

"I don't know, but I did miss two rabbits."

"Live ones, Jan-an?" Noreen's eyes widened.

"Sure, live ones. Everything's live till it's killed. I ain't saying he et 'em 'live."

"Maybe the rabbits got away," Noreen suggested hopefully.

"The Lord knows! Maybe they did." Then Jan-an added further information: "I guess your father has gone for good!"

"Took?" Noreen was not now overcome by grief.

"No, just gone. He gave me a dollar."

"A dollar, Jan-an? A whole dollar?" This was almost unbelievable. Jan-an produced the evidence from her loose and soiled blouse.

"He left his place terribly tidy, too," she ran on, "and when a man does that Peneluna says it's awful suspicious."

"Jan-an, you wait here—I'm going up to the cabin!"

Noreen stood up defiantly. She was possessed by one of her sudden flashes of inspiration.

"Yer ain't been called," warned Jan-an.

"I know, but I must go. I'll only peep in. Maybe Motherly took a back way to the inn."

To this Jan-an had nothing to say and she sat down upon a wet rock to wait, while Noreen darted up the trail like a small, distracted animal of the woods.

It was growing dark and heavy with storm; the thunder was more distinct—there was a hush and a breathless suggestion of wind held in check by a mighty force.

Noreen reached the shack and peeped in at the vine-covered window. What she saw marked a turning-point in the child's life.

Mary-Clare was still stretched upon the floor. Several things had happened to her since Larry fled; she was never clearly to account for them.

She had been conscious and had drifted into unconsciousness several times. She had tried, she recalled that later, to get to the couch, but her aching head had driven the impulse into oblivion. She had fallen back on the floor. Then, again, she roused and there was blood—near her. Not much, but she had not noticed it before, and she must have fainted. Again, she could remember thinking of Noreen, of the others; and the necessity of keeping forever hidden the thing that had happened.

But again Mary-Clare, from exhaustion or faintness, slipped into silence, and so Noreen found her!

The child went swiftly into the still cabin and knelt beside her mother. She was quite calm, at first, and unafraid. She took the dear head on her lap and patted the white cheek where the little cut had let out the blood—there was dry blood on it now and that caused Noreen to gasp and cry out.

Back and forth the child swayed, mumbling comforting words; and then she spoke louder, faster—her words became wild, disconnected. She laughed and cried and called for every one of her little world in turn.

Uncle Peter!

Aunt Polly!

Peneluna! And then Jan-an! Jan-an!

As she sobbed and screamed Mary-Clare's eyes opened and she smiled. At that moment Jan-an came stumbling into the room.

One look and the dull, faithful creature became a machine carrying out the routine that she had often shared with others on the Point.

"She ain't dead!" she announced after one terrified glance, and then she dragged Mary-Clare to the couch; ran for water; took a towel from a nail and bathed the white, stained face. During this Noreen's sobs grew less and less, she became quieter and was able, presently, to assist Jan-an.

"She's had a fall," Jan-an announced. Mary-Clare opened her eyes—the words found an echo in her heavy brain.

"Yes," she whispered.

"And on an empty stummick!" Jan-an had a sympathetic twinge.

"Yes," again Mary-Clare whispered and smiled.

"Noreen, you go on sopping her face—I'm going to get something hot."

And while Noreen bathed and soothed the face upon the pillow into consciousness and reason, Jan-an made a fire on the hearth, carried water from a spring outside, and brought forth tea and some little cakes from the cupboard. The girl's face was transfigured; she was thinking, thinking, and it hurt her to think consecutively—but she thought on.

"Norrie darling, I am all right. Quite all right." At last Mary-Clare was able to assert herself; she rose unsteadily and Jan-an sprang to her side.

"Lay down," she commanded in a new and almost alarming tone. "Can't yer see, yer must hold on ter yerself a spell? Let me take the lead—I know, I know!"

And Mary-Clare realized that she did! Keenly the two gazed at each other, Eve's two children! Mary-Clare sank back; her face quivered; her eyes filled with weak tears.

Outside the darkness of the coming storm pressed close, the wind was straining at the leash, the lightning darted and the thunder rolled.

"The storm," murmured Mary-Clare, "the storm! It is the breaking up of summer!"

The stale cakes and the hot tea refreshed the three, and after an hour Mary-Clare seemed quite herself. She went to the door and looked out into the heart of the storm. The red lightning ran zigzag through the blackness. It seemed like the glad summer, mad with fear, seeking a way through the sleet and rain.

Bodily bruised and weary, mentally exhausted and groping, Mary-Clare still felt that strange freedom she had experienced while Larry was devastating all that she had believed in, and for which she had given of her best.

She felt as one must who, escaping from an overwhelming flood, looks upon the destruction and wonders at her own escape. But she had escaped! That became, presently, the one gripping fact. She had escaped and she would find safety somewhere.

The late sunset after the storm was glorious. The clear gold that a mighty storm often leaves in its wake was like a burnished shield. The breeze was icy in its touch; the bared trees startled one by the sudden change in their appearance—the gale had torn their colour and foliage from them. Starkly they stood forth against the glowing sky.

And then Mary-Clare led the way down the trail—her leaf-strewn, hidden trail. She held Noreen's hand in hers but she leaned upon Jan-an. As they descended Mary-Clare planned.

"When we get home, Jan-an, home to the yellow house, I want you to go for Peneluna."

From all the world, Mary-Clare desired the old understanding woman.

"I guess you mean Aunt Polly," Jan-an suggested.

"No. To-morrow, Aunt Polly, Jan-an. To-day I want Peneluna."

"All right." Jan-an nodded.

"And, Noreen dear."

"Yes, Motherly."

"Everything is all right. I had a—queer fall. It was quite dark in the cabin—I hit my face on the edge of the table. And, Noreen."

"Yes, Motherly."

"I may have to rest a little, but you must not be worried—you see, Mother hasn't rested in a long while."

Peneluna responded to the call. It was late evening when she and Jan-an came to the yellow house. Before starting for the Point Jan-an had insisted upon getting a meal and afterward she had helped Mary-Clare put Noreen to bed. All this had delayed her.

"Now," she said at last, "I'll go. I guess you're edging to the limit, ain't yer?"

Mary-Clare nodded.

"I've never been sick, not plain sick, in all my life," she murmured, "and why should I be now?"

But left alone, she made ready, in a strange way, for what she felt was coming upon her. She undressed carefully and put her room in order. Then she lay down upon her bed and drifted lightly between the known and the unknown.

She touched Noreen's sleeping face so gently that the child did not heed the caress. Then:

"Perhaps I am going to die—people die so easily at times—just flare out!"

And so Peneluna found her and knelt beside her.

"You hear me, Mary-Clare?"

"Yes. I hear you, of course."

"Well, then, child, take this along with you, wherever you bide for a time. I'm here and God Almighty's here and things is safe! You get that?"

"Yes, Peneluna."

"Then listen—'The solitary place shall be glad—and a highway shall be there—and a way.'" The confused words fell into a crooning song.

"Solitary Place——" Mary-Clare drifted to it, her eyes closed wearily, but she smiled and Peneluna believed that she had found The Way. Whether it wound back or out—well! Peneluna turned to her task of nursing. She had the gift of healing and she had an understanding heart, and so she took command.

It was a rough and difficult Way and beset with dangers. A physician came and diagnosed the case.

"Bad fall—almost concussion."

Aunt Polly came and shared the nursing. Jan-an mechanically attended to the house while Uncle Peter took Noreen under his care.

The dull, uneventful days dragged on before Mary-Clare came back to her own. One day she said to Jan-an, "I—I want you to go to the cabin, Jan-an. I have given it—back to God. Close the windows and doors—for winter has come!"

Jan-an nodded. She believed Mary-Clare was "passing out"—she was frightened and superstitious. She did not pause to explain to Peneluna, in the next room, where she was going, but covering her head and shoulders with an old shawl, she rushed forth.

It was bitingly cold and the dry twigs struck against the girl's face like ice. The ghost-wind added terror to the hour, but Jan-an struggled on.

When she reached the cabin it was nearly dark—the empty room was haunted by memories and there were little scurrying creatures darting about. Standing in the centre of the room, Jan-an raised her clenched hands and extended them as if imploring a Presence. If Mary-Clare had given the Place back to God, then it might be that God was there close and—listening. Jan-an became possessed by the spiritual. She lifted her faithful, yearning eyes and spoke aloud.

"God!" She waited. Then: "God, I'm trusting and I ain't afraid—much! God, listen! I fling this to Your face. Yer raised Lazarus and others from the dead and Mary-Clare ain't dead yet—can't Yer—save her? Hear me! hear me!"

Surely God heard and made answer, for that night Mary-Clare's Way turned back again toward the little yellow house.

When she was able, Aunt Polly insisted that she be moved to the inn.

"It will make less trouble all around and Peneluna will stay on."

So they went to the inn, and the winter settled down upon the Forest and the Point and the mines. The lake was frozen and became a glittering highway; children skated; sleighs darted here and there. The world was shut away and things sank into the old grooves.

During her convalescence Mary-Clare had strange visionary moments. She seemed to be able at times to detach herself from her surroundings and, guided by almost forgotten words of Northrup's, find herself—with him. And always he was alone. She never visualized his mother; she could, thank heaven, eliminate Kathryn.

She was alone with Northrup in a high place. They did not speak or touch each other—but they knew and were glad! There seemed to be mists below them, surrounding them; mists that now and then parted, and she and Northrup would eagerly try to—see things! Mary-Clare imagined herself in that high place as she did Northrup, a personality quite outside her own.

After awhile those moments took more definite shape and form. She and Northrup were trying to see their city in the mists; trying to create their city.

This became a thrilling mental exercise to Mary-Clare, and in time she saw a city. Once or twice she almost felt him as she, that girl of her own creation, reached out to the man whom she loved; who loved her, but who knew, as she did, that love asks renunciation at times as well as acceptance if one were to keep—truth.

Presently Mary-Clare was able to walk in the sunshine and then she often went to the deserted chapel and sat silent for hours.

And there Maclin found her one day—a smiling, ingratiating Maclin. Maclin had been much disturbed by Larry's abrupt and, up to the present, successful escape. Of course Maclin's very one-track mind had at the hour of Rivers's disappearance accounted for things in a primitive way. Northrup had bought Larry off! That was simple enough until Northrup himself disappeared.

At this Maclin was obliged to do some original conjecturing. There must have been a scene—likely enough in that wood cabin. Northrup's woman had got the whip hand and Northrup had accepted terms—leaving Mary-Clare. That would account for the illness.

So far, so good. But with both Larry and Northrup off the ground, the Heathcotes would have to take responsibility. This would be the psychological moment to buy the Point! So Maclin, keeping watch, followed Mary-Clare to chapel island.

"Well, well!" he exclaimed as if surprised to see the girl in the angle of the old church. "Decided to get well, eh? Taking a sun bath?"

Mary-Clare gathered her cloak closer, as if shrinking from the smiling, unwholesome-looking man.

"Yes, I'm getting well fast," she said.

"Hear anything from Larry?" It seemed best to hide his own feelings as to Larry.

"No."

"Some worried, I expect?"

"No, I do not worry much, Mr. Maclin." Mary-Clare was thinking of her old doctor's philosophy. She wasn't going to die, so she must live at once!

"It's a damned mean way to treat a little woman the way you've been treated."

Maclin stepped nearer and his neck wrinkled. Mary-Clare made no reply to this. Maclin was conscious of the back of his neck—it irritated him.

"Left you strapped?" he asked.

"What is that?" Mary-Clare was interested.

"Short of money."

"Oh! no. My wishes are very simple—there's money enough for them."

"See here, Mrs. Rivers, let's get down to business. Of course you know I want the Point. I'll tell you why. The mines are all right as mines, but I have some inventions over there ripe for getting into final shape. Now, I haven't told a soul about this before—not even Larry—but I always hold that a woman can keep her tongue still. I'm not one of the men who think different. I want to put up a factory on the Point; some model cottages and—and make King's Forest. Now what would you take for the Point, and don't be too modest. I don't grind the faces of women."

Maclin smiled. The fat on his face broke into lines—that was the best a smile could do for him. Mary-Clare looked at him, fascinated.

"Speak up, Mrs. Rivers!" This came like a poke in the ribs—Mary-Clare recoiled as from a physical touch.

"I do not own the Point any longer," she said.

"What in thunder!" Maclin now recoiled. "Who then?"

"I gave it to Larry."

"How the devil could Larry pay you for it?"

"Larry gave me no money."

"Do you expect me to believe this, Mrs. Rivers?" The fat now resumed its flaccid lines.

"It doesn't interest me in the least, Mr. Maclin, whether you do or not."

Then Mary-Clare rose, rather weakly, and turned toward the bridge.

And there stood Maclin alone! Like all people who have much that they fear to have known, Maclin considered now how much Larry really knew? Did he know what the Point meant? Had he ever opened letters? This brought the sweat out on Maclin.

Had he copied letters with that devilish trick of his? Could he sell the Point to—to——?

Maclin could bear no longer his unanswered questions. He went back to the mines and was not seen in King's Forest for many a day.



CHAPTER XIX

Once back in the old environment, Northrup went, daily, through the sensations of his haunting dream, without the relief of awakening. The corridor of closed doors was an actuality to him now. Behind them lay experiences, common enough to most men, undoubtedly, but, as yet, unrevealed to him.

In one he had dwelt for a brief time—good Lord! had it only been for weeks? Well, the memory, thank heaven, was secure; unblemished. He vowed that he would reserve to himself the privilege of returning, in thought, to that memory-haunted sanctuary as long as he might live, for he knew, beyond any doubt, that it could not weaken his resolve to take up every duty that he had for a time abandoned. It should be with him as Manly had predicted.

This line of thought widened Northrup's vision and developed a new tie between him and other men. He found himself looking at them in the street with awakened interest. He wondered how many of them, stern, often hard-featured men, had realized their souls in private or public life, and how had they dealt with the revelation? He grew sensitive as to expressions; he believed, after a time, that he could estimate, by the look in the eyes of his fellowmen, by the set of their jaws, whether they had faced the ordeal, as he was trying to do, or had denied the soul acceptance. It was like looking at them through a magnifying lens where once he had regarded them through smoked glass.

And the women? Well, Northrup was very humble about women in those days. He grew restive when he contemplated results and pondered upon the daring that had assumed responsibility where complete understanding had never been attempted. It seemed, in his introspective state, that God, even, had been cheated. Women were, he justly concluded, pretty much a response to ideals created for them, not by them.

Mary-Clare was having her way with Northrup!

Something of all this crept into his book for, after a fortnight at home, he set his own jaw and lips rather grimly, went to his small office room in the tower of a high building, and paid the elevator boy a goodly sum for acting as buffer during five holy hours of each day.

It was like being above the world, sitting in that eyrie nook of his. Northrup often recalled a day, years before, when he had stood on a mountain-peak bathed in stillness and sunlight, watching the dramatic play of the elements on the scene below. Off to the right a violent shower spent itself mercilessly; to the left, rolling mists were parting and revealing pleasant meadows and clustering hamlets. And with this recollection, Northrup closed his eyes and, from his silent watch tower, saw, as no earthly thing could make him see, the hideous tragedy across the seas.

Since his return his old unrest claimed him. It was blotting out all that he had believed was his—ideals; the meaning of life; love; duty; even his city—his—was threatened. Nothing any longer seemed safe unless it were battled for. There was something he owed—what was it?

Try as he valiantly did, Northrup could put little thought in his work—it eluded him. He began, at first unconsciously, to plan for going away, while, consciously, he deceived himself by thinking that he was readjusting himself to his own widened niche in the wall!

When Northrup descended from his tower, he became as other men and the grim lines of lips and jaws relaxed. He was with them who first caught the wider vision of brotherhood.

At once, upon his return, he had taken Manly into his confidence about his mother, and that simple soul brushed aside the sentimental rubbish with which Kathryn had cluttered the situation.

"It's all damned rot, Brace," he snapped. "You had a grandmother who did work that was never meant for women to do—laid a carpet or tore one up, I forget which, I heard the story from my father—and she developed cancer—more likely it wasn't cancer—I don't think my father was ever sure. But, good Lord! why should her descendants inherit an accident? I thought I'd talked your mother out of that nonsense."

Thus reassured, Northrup told Kathryn that all the secret diplomacy was to be abandoned and that his mother must work with them.

"But, Brace dear, you don't blame me for my fright? I was so worried!"

"No, little girl, you were a trump. I'll never forget how you stood by!"

So Helen Northrup put herself in Manly's hands—those strong, faithful hands. She went to a hospital for various tests. She was calm but often afraid. She sometimes looked at the pleasant, thronged streets and felt a loneliness, as if she missed herself from among her kind. Manly pooh-poohed and shrugged his broad shoulders.

"Women! women!" he ejaculated, but there were hours when he, too, had his fears.

But in the end, black doubt was driven away.

"Of course, my dear lady," Manly said relievedly, patting her hand, "we cannot sprint at fifty-odd as we did at twenty. But a more leisurely gait is enjoyable and we can take time to look around at the pleasant things; do the things we've always wanted to do—but didn't have time to do. Brace must get married—he'll have children and you'll begin all over with them. Then I'd like to take in some music with you this winter. I've rather let my pet fads drop from sheer loneliness. Let's go to light opera—we're all getting edgy over here. I tell you, Helen, it's up to us older fry to steer the youngsters away from what does not concern them."

Poor Manly! He could not deafen his conscience to the growing call from afar and already he saw the trend. So he talked the more as one does to keep his courage up in grave danger.

With his anxiety about Helen Northrup removed, Manly gave attention to Brace. Brace puzzled him. He acknowledged that Northrup had never looked better; the trip had done wonders for him. Yes; that was it—something rather wonderful had been done.

He attacked Northrup one day in his sledge-hammer style.

"What in thunder has got mixed up in your personality?" he asked.

"Oh! I suppose anxiety about Mother, Manly. And the thought that I had slipped from under my responsibilities. Had she died—well! it's all right now."

But this did not satisfy Manly.

"Hang it all, I don't mean anxiety," he blurted out. "The natural stuff I can estimate and label. But you look somehow as if you had been switched off the side track to the main line."

"Or the other way about, old man?" Northrup broke in and laughed.

"No, sir; you're on the main line, all right; but you don't look as if you knew where you were going. Keep the headlight on, Brace."

"Thanks, Manly; I do not fully understand just where I may land, but I'm going slow. Now this—this horror across seas——" Always it was creeping in, these days.

"Oh! that's their business, Northrup. They're always scrapping—this isn't our war, old man," Manly broke in roughly, but Northrup shook his head.

"Manly, I cannot look at it as a war—just a plain war, you know. I've had a queer experience that I will tell you about some day, but it convinced me that above all, and through all, there is a Power that forces us, often against our best-laid plans, and I believe that Power can force the world as well. Manly, take it from me, this is no scrap over there, it's a soul-finder; a soul-creator, more like. Before we get through, a good many nations and men will be compelled to look, as you once did, at bare, gaunt souls or"—a pause—"set to work and make souls."

Manly twisted in his seat uneasily. Northrup went on.

"Manly"—he spoke quietly, evenly—"do you remember our last talk in this office before I left?"

"Well, some of it. Yes."

"Jogs, you know. Mountain peaks, baby hands, women faces, and souls?"

"Oh! yes. Sick talk to a sick man." Manly snapped his fingers.

"Manly, what did you mean by saying that you had once seen your soul?" Northrup was in dead earnest. Manly swung around in his swivel chair.

"I meant that I saw mine once," he said sharply, definitely.

"How did it look?"

"As if I had neglected it. A shrunken, shivering thing." Manly stopped suddenly, then added briefly: "You cannot starve that part of you, Northrup, without a get-back some day."

"No. And that's exactly what I am up against—the get-back!"

After that talk with Manly, Northrup, singularly enough, felt as if he had arrived at some definite conclusion; had received instructions as to his direction. He was quietly elated and, sitting in his office, experienced the peace and satisfaction of one who spiritually submits to a higher Power.

The globe of light on the peak of his tower seemed, humorously, to have become his headlight—Manly's figures of speech clung—its white and red flashes, its moments of darkness, were like the workings of his mind, but he knew no longer the old depression. He was on the main line, and he had his orders—secret ones, so far, but safe ones.

Kathryn grew more charming as time passed. She did not seem to resent Northrup's detachment, though the tower room lured him dangerously. Once she had hinted that she'd love to see his workshop; hear some of his work. But Northrup had put her off.

"Wait, dear, until I've finished the thing, and then you and I will have a regular gorge of it, up in my tower."

Kathryn at this put up her mouth to be kissed while behind her innocent smile she was picturing the girl of King's Forest in those awful muddy trousers! She had heard the book in the making; she had not been pushed aside.

More and more Mary-Clare became a stumbling block to Kathryn. She felt she was a dangerous type; the kind men never could understand, until it was too late, and never forgot. And Brace was changed. The subtle unrest did not escape Kathryn.

"I wonder——" And Kathryn did wonder. Wondered most at the possibility of Mary-Clare ever appearing on the surface again. For—and this was a humiliating thought to Kathryn—she realized she was no match for that girl of the Forest!

However, Kathryn, as was her wont when things went wrong, pulled down the shade mentally, as once she had done physically, against the distasteful conditions Brace had evolved.

And there was much to be attended to—so Kathryn, with great efficiency, set to work. She must make provision for her aunt's future. This was not difficult, for poor Anna was so relieved that any provision was to be considered, that she accepted Kathryn's lowest figure.

Then there was Arnold. Sandy, at the moment, was disgusted at Northrup's return. It interfered with his plans. Sandy had a long and keen scent. The trouble overseas had awakened a response in him, he meant to serve the cause—but in his own way. Secretly he was preparing. He was buying up old vessels, but old vessels were expensive and the secrecy prevented his borrowing money. He wanted to get married, too. Kathryn, with only his protection and he with Kathryn's little fortune, would create, at the moment, a situation devoutly to be desired.

Kathryn had to deal with this predicament cautiously. Sandy was so horribly matter-of-fact—not a grain of Northrup's idealism about him! But for that very reason, in the abominably upset state of the world, he was not lightly to be cast on the scrap-heap. One never could tell! Brace might act up sentimentally, but Sandy could be depended upon always—he was a rock!

So Kathryn, embroidering her wedding linen—for she meant to be married soon—prayed for guidance.

On the whole, the situation was most gratifying. No wonder Kathryn felt well pleased with herself and more fully convinced that, with such wits as hers, life was reduced to a common factor. Once married she would be able to draw a long breath. Marriage was such a divine institution for women. It gave them such a stranglehold—with the right sort of men—and Brace was the right sort.

To be sure he was not entirely satisfying at the present moment. His attentions smacked too much of duty. He could not deceive Kathryn. He sent flowers and gifts in such profusion that they took on the aspect of blood money. Well, marriage would adjust all that.

Helen urged an early date for the wedding and even Manly, who did not like Kathryn, gripped her as the saviour of a critical situation.

King's Forest had had a sinister effect upon Manly; it made him doubt himself.

And so life, apparently, ran along smoothly on the surface. It was the undercurrents that were really carrying things along at a terrific rate.

It was in his tower room that most of Northrup's struggle went on. Daily he confronted that which Was and Had To Be! With all his old outposts being taken day by day, he was left bare and unprotected for the last assault. And it came!

It came as death does, quite naturally for the most part, and found him—ready. Like the dying—or the reborn—Northrup put his loved ones to the acid test. His mother would understand. Kathryn? It was staggering, at this heart-breaking moment, to discover, after all the recent proving of herself, that Kathryn resolved into an Unknown Quantity.

This discovery filled Northrup with a sense of disloyalty and unreality. What right had he to permit the girl who was to be his wife, the mother of his children, to be relegated to so ignominious a position? Had she not proved herself to him in faithfulness and understanding? Had she not, setting aside her own rights, looked well to his?

The days dragged along and each one took its toll of Northrup's vitality while it intensified that crusading emotion in his soul.

He did not mention all this to those nearest him until the time for departure came, and he tried, God knew, to work while he performed the small, devotional acts to his mother and Kathryn that would soon stand forth, to one of them at least, as the most courageous acts of his life.

He had come to that part of his book where his woman must take her final stand—the stand that Mary-Clare had so undermined. If he finished the book before he went—and he decided that it might be possible—his woman must rise supreme over the doubts with which she had been invested. But when he came to the point, the decision, if he followed his purpose, looked cheap and commonplace—above everything, obvious. In his present mood his book would be just—a book; not the Big Experience.

This struggle to finish his work in the face of the stubborn facts at moments obliterated the crusading spirit; the doubts of Kathryn and even Mary-Clare's pervading insistence. He hated to be beaten at his own job.

Love's supreme sacrifice and glory, as portrayed in woman—must be man's ideal, of course!

The ugly business of the world had to be got through, and man often had to set love aside—for honour. "But, good Lord!" Northrup argued, apparently to his useless right hand, what would become of the spiritual, if woman got to setting up little gods and bowing down before them? Why, she would forego her God-given heritage. To her, love must be all. Above all else. Why, the very foundations of life were founded upon that. What could be higher to a woman? Man could look out for the rest, but he must be sure of his woman's love! The rest would be in their own hands—that was their individual affair.

And then, at this crucial moment, Mary-Clare would always intrude.

"It's what one does to love!" That was her stern ultimatum. "Love's best proof might be renunciation, not surrender!"

"Nonsense!" Northrup flung back. "How then could a man be sure? No book with such an ending would stand a chance."

"You must not harm your book by such a doubt. That book must be true, and you know the truth. Women must be made glad by it, men stronger because someone understands and is brave enough to say it."

But Northrup steeled his heart against this command. He meant to finish his book; finish it with a flaming proof that, while men offered their lives for duty, women offered theirs for love and did not count the cost, like misers or—lenders.

One afternoon Northrup, the ink still wet upon the last sheet of his manuscript, leaned back wearily in his chair. He could not conquer Mary-Clare. He let his eyes rest upon his awakening city. For him it rose at night. In the day it belonged to others—the men and women, passing to and fro with those strange eyes and jaws. But when they all passed to their homes, then the lone city that was his started like a thing being born upon a hill.

It may have been at one of these strained moments that Northrup slept; he was never able to decide. He seemed to hold to the twinkling lights; he thought he heard sounds—the elevator just outside his door; the rising wind.

However that may be, as clearly as any impression ever fixed itself upon his consciousness, he saw Mary-Clare beside him in her stained and ugly garb, her lovely hair ruffled as if she had been travelling fast, and her great eyes turned upon him gladly. She was panting a bit; smiling and thankful that she had found him, at last in his city!

It was like being with her on that day when they stood on the mountain near her cabin and talked.

Northrup was spellbound. He understood, though no word passed between him and the girl so close to him. She did not try to touch him, but she did, presently, move a step nearer and lay her little work-worn hand upon the pile of manuscript in that quaint way of hers that had so often made Northrup smile. It was a reverent touch.

Standing so, she sealed from him those last chapters! She would not argue or be set aside—she claimed her woman-right; the right to the truth as some women saw it, as more would see it; as, God willing, Northrup himself would see it some day! He would know that it was because of love that she had turned him and herself to duty.

Northrup suddenly found himself on his feet.

The little room was dark; the city was blazing about him—under him. His city! His hand lay upon his manuscript.

Quietly he took it up and locked it in his safe. Slowly, reverently, he set the bare room in order without turning on the electricity. He worked in the dark but his vision was never clearer. He went out, locked the door, as one does upon a chamber, sacred and secret.

He did not think of Mary-Clare, his mother, or Kathryn—he was setting forth to do that which had to be done; he was going to give what was his to give to that struggle across the ocean for right; the proving of right.

All along, his unrest had been caused by the warring elements in himself—there was only one way out—he must take it and be proved as the world was being proved.



CHAPTER XX

"Mother, I must go!"

Helen Northrup did not tremble, but she looked white, thin-lipped.

"You have given me the twenty-four hours, son. You have weighed the question—it is not emotional excitement?"

"No, Mother, it is conscience. I'm not in the least under an illusion. If I thought of this thing as war—a mere fight—I know I would be glad to avail myself of any honourable course and remain here. But it's bigger than war, that Thing that is deafening and blinding the world. Sometimes"—Northrup went over to the window and looked out into the still white mystery of the first snowstorm—"sometimes I think it is God Almighty's last desperate way to awaken us."

Helen Northrup came to the window and stood beside her son. She did not touch him; she stood close—that was all.

"I cannot see God in this," she whispered. "God could have found another way. I have—lost God. I fear most of us have."

"Perhaps we never had Him," Northrup murmured.

"But there is God—somewhere." Helen's voice quivered. "I shall always be near you, beloved, always, and perhaps—God will."

"I know that, Mother. And I want you to know that if this call wasn't mightier than anything else in all the world, I would not leave you."

"Yes, I know that, dear son."

For a moment they stood in silence by the window and then turned, together, to the fireside.

They were in Helen's writing-room. The room where so often she had struggled to put enough life into her weak little verses to send them winging on their way. The drawers of her desk were full of sad fancies that had been still-born, or had come fluttering back to her ark without even the twig of hope to cheer her. But at all this she had never repined—she had her son! And now? Well, he was leaving her. Might never——

Sitting in the warmth and glow the woman looked at her son. With all the yearning of her soul she wanted to keep him; she had so little; so little. And then she recognized, as women do, in the Temple where the Most High speaks to them, that if he turned a deaf ear to the best that was in him, she could not honour him.

"You have been happy, dear son? I mean you have had a happy life on the whole?"

Helen had wanted that above all else. His life had been so short—it might be so soon over, and the trivial untalked-of things rose sharply now to the surface.

"Yes, Mother. Far too happy and easy."

"I've been thinking." Helen's thought went slowly over the backward road—she must not break! But she must go back to the things they had left unspoken. "I've been thinking, during the last twenty-four hours, of all the happenings, dear, that I wish had been different. Your father, Brace! I—I tried not to deprive you of your father—I knew the cost. It—it wasn't all his fault, dear; it was no real fault of either of us; it was my misfortune, you see—he was asking what—what he had a perfect right to ask—but I was, well, I had nothing to give him that he wanted."

Northrup went across the space between him and his mother and laid his hand upon hers.

"Mother, I understand. Lately I have felt a new sympathy for Father, and a new contempt. He missed a lot that was worth while, but he did not know. It was damnable; he might have—kept you."

"No, Brace. It is the world's thought. I have never been bitter. I only wish he could have been happy—after—after he went away."

"And he wasn't?" This had never been discussed between them.

"No, dear. He married a woman who seemed to be what he wanted. She wearied of him. He died a lonely, a bitter man. I was saved the bitterness, at least, and I had you."

Another pause. Then:

"Brace, I know it will seem foolish, but perhaps when you are far away it won't seem so foolish. I want to tell you, dear, that I wish I had never spoken a harsh word to you. Life hurts so at the best—many women are feeling this as I do, dear. Once—you must humour me, Brace—once, after I punished you, I regretted it. I asked your pardon and you said, 'Don't mention it, Mother, I understood.' I want you to say it now, son; it will be such a comfort."

"I believe, God hearing me, Mother, that I have understood; have always known that you were the best and dearest of mothers."

"Thank you."

"And now, Mother, there is one thing more. We may not have another opportunity for a real house-cleaning. It's about King's Forest."

Helen started, but she stiffened at once.

"Yes, Brace," she said simply.

"There is a girl, a woman there. Such things as relate to that woman and me often happen to men and women. It's what one does to the happening that counts. I realize that my life has had much in it; but much was left out of it. Much that is common stuff to most fellows; they take it in portions. It came all at once to me, but she was strong enough, fine enough to help me; not drift with me. I wanted you to know."

"Thank you. I understand. Is there anything you would like to have me do?"

"No. Nothing, Mother. It is all right; it had to happen, I suppose. I wanted you to know. We did not dishonour the thing—she's quite wonderful." A pause; then:

"She has a brute of a husband—I hope I freed her of him, in a way; I'm glad to think of that now. She has a child, a little girl, and there were some dead children."

This detail seemed tragically necessary to tell; it seemed to explain all else.

"And now, Mother, I must go around to Kathryn's. Do not sit up, dear. I'll come to your room."

"Very well." Then Helen stood up and laid her hands on his shoulders. "Some sons and daughters," she said slowly, convincingly, "learn how to bear life, in part, from their parents—I have learned from my son."

Then she raised her hands and drew his head down to hers and rested her cheek against his. Without a word more Northrup left the house. He was deeply moved by the scene through which he and his mother had just passed. It had consisted of small and trivial things; of overwhelmingly big things, but it had been marked by a complete understanding and had brought them both to a point where they could separate with faith and hope.

But as Northrup neared Kathryn's house this exalted feeling waned. Again he was aware of the disloyal doubt of Kathryn that made him hesitate and weigh his method of approach. He stood, before touching the bell of the Morris house, and shook the light snow from his coat; he was glad of delay. When at last he pushed the button he instinctively braced. The maid who admitted him told him that he was to go to the library.

This was the pleasantest room in the house, especially at night. The lighting was perfect; the old books gave forth a welcoming fragrance and, to-night, a generous cannel coal fire puffed in rich, glowing bursts of heat and colour upon the hearth. Kathryn was curled up in the depths of a leather chair, her pretty blonde head just showing above the top. She did not get up but called merrily:

"Here, dear! Come and be comfy. This is a big chair and a very little me."

Northrup came around in front of the chair, his back to the fire, and looked down upon the small figure. The blue blur of the evening gown, the exquisite whiteness of arms, neck, and face sank into his consciousness. Unconsciously he was fixing scenes in his memory, as one secures pictures in a scrap-book, for the future.

"Been dining out, dear?"

The dress suggested this, but Kathryn was alert.

"Don't be a silly old cave thing, Brace. One cannot throw an old friend overboard in cold blood, now can one? Sandy is going away for a week, but I told him to-night that never, never again would I dine with him alone. Now will you be good?"

Still Northrup did not smile. He was not concerned about Arnold, but he seemed such a nuisance at this moment.

Kathryn, regarding Northrup's face, sat up and her eyes widened.

"What's the matter, Brace?" she asked, and the hard, metallic ring was in her voice. Northrup misunderstood the change. He felt that he had startled her. He sat down upon the arm of the chair.

"Poor little girl," he whispered. Kathryn also misunderstood, she nestled against him.

"Big man," she murmured, "he is going to be nice. Kiss me here—close behind my right ear—always and always that is going to be just your place."

Northrup did not seem to hear. He bent closer until his face pressed the soft, scented hair, but he did not kiss the spot dedicated to him. Instead he said:

"Darling, I am going away!"

"Away—where?" Kathryn became rigid.

"Overseas."

"Overseas? What for, in heaven's name?"

"Oh! anything they'll let me do. I'm going as soon as I can be sent—but——"

"You mean, without any reason whatever, you're going to go over there?"

"Hardly without something that stands for reason, Kathryn."

"But no one, not even Doctor Manly, thinks that it is our fight, Brace. The men who have gone are simply adventurers; men who love excitement or men who want to cut responsibilities and don't dare confess it."

Kathryn's face flamed hot.

"Their lives must be pretty damnable," Northrup broke in, "if they take such a method to fling them aside. Do try to understand, dear; our women must, you know." There was pleading in the words.

Then by one of those sudden reversions of her nimble wits, Kathryn recalled things she had heard recently—and immediately she took the centre of her well-lighted stage, and horrible as it might seem, saw herself, a ravishing picture in fascinating widow's weeds! While this vision was holding, Kathryn clung to Northrup and was experiencing actual distress—not ghoulish pleasure.

"Oh! you must not leave me," she quivered.

"You will help me, Kathryn; be a woman like my mother?" Again Northrup pleaded. This was unfortunate. It steadied Kathryn, but it hardened her.

"You want me to marry you at once, Brace?" she whispered.

"No, dear. That would not be fair to you. I want you to understand; I want to know that you will—will keep Mother company. That is all, until I come home. I could not feel justified in asking a woman to marry such a—such a chance as I am about to be."

Now there was cause for what Kathryn suddenly felt, but not the cause she suspected. Had Northrup loved deeply, faithfully, understandingly, he might, as others did, see that to the right woman the "chance," as he termed himself, would become her greatest glory and hope, but as it was Northrup considered only Kathryn's best good and, gropingly, he realized that her interests and his were not, at the present, identical.

But Kathryn, her ever-present jealousy and apprehension rising, was carried from her moorings. She recalled the evidences of "duty" in Northrup's attitude toward her since his return from King's Forest; his abstraction and periods of low spirits.

"He cannot stand it any longer," she thought resentfully; "he's willing to do anything, take any chance."

A hot wave of anger enveloped Kathryn, but she did not speak.

"Kathryn"—Northrup grew restive at her silence—"haven't you anything to say to me? Something I can remember—over there? I'd like to think of you as I see you now, little, pretty, and loving. The blue gown, the jolly fire, this fine old room—I reckon there will be times when my thoughts will cling to the old places and my own people rather fiercely."

"What can I say, Brace? You never see my position. Men are selfish always, even about their horrible fights. What do they care about their women, when the call of blood comes? Oh! I hate it all, I hate it! Everything upset—men coming back, heaven only knows how! even if they come at all—but we women must let them go and smile so as to send them off unworried. We must stay home and be nothings until the end and then take what's left—joyfully, gratefully—oh! I hate it all."

Northrup got up and stood again with his back to the fire. He loomed rather large and dark before Kathryn's angry eyes. She feared he was going to say the sentimental regulation thing, but he did not. Sorrowfully he said:

"What you say, dear, is terribly true. It isn't fair nor decent and there are times when I feel only shame because, after all these centuries, we have thought out no better way; but, Kathryn, women are taking part in this trouble—perhaps you——"

"You mean that I may go over into that shambles—if I want to?" With this Kathryn sprang to her feet. "Well, thanks! I do not want to. I'm not the kind of girl who takes her dissipation that way. If I ever let go, I'll take my medicine and not expect to be shielded by this sentimentality."

"Kathryn, how can you? My dear, my dear! Say what you want to about my folly—men's mistakes—but do not speak so of your—sisters!"

"Sisters?" Kathryn laughed her mirthless but musical laugh. "You are funny, Brace!"

Then, as was her way when she lost control, Kathryn made straight for the rocks while believing she was guided by divine intuition. She faced Northrup, looking up at him from her lower level.

"I think I understand the whole matter," she said slowly, all traces of excitement gone. "I am going to prove it. Will you marry me before you go?"

"No, Kathryn. This is a matter of principle with me."

"You think they might not let you go—you'd have to provide for my protection?"

"No, I am not afraid of that. You'd be well provided for; I would go under any circumstances, but I will not permit you to take a leap in the dark."

"That sounds very fine, but I do not believe it!"

The black wings that poor Jan-an had suspected under Kathryn's fine plumage were flapping darkly now. Kathryn was awed by Northrup's silence and aloofness. She was afraid, but still angry. What was filling her own narrow mind, she believed, was filling Northrup's and she lost all sense of proportion.

"Is she going over there?" she asked.

Northrup, if possible, looked more bewildered and dazed.

"She—whom do you mean, Kathryn?"

"Oh! I never meant to tell you! You drive me to it, Brace. I always meant to blot it out——"

Kathryn got no further just then. Northrup came close to her and with folded arms fixed his eyes upon her flushed face.

"Kathryn, you're excited; you've lost control of yourself, but there's something under all this that we must get at. Just answer my questions. Whom do you mean—by 'she'?"

Kathryn mentally recoiled and with her back to her wall replied, out of the corner of her mouth:

"That girl in King's Forest!"

From sheer astonishment Northrup drew back as from a blow. Kathryn misunderstood and gained courage.

"I forgave it because I love you, Brace." She gathered her cheap little charms together—her sex appeals. "I understood from the moment I saw her."

"When did you see her? Where?"

Northrup had recovered himself; he was able to think. He knew he must act quickly, emphatically, and he generously tried to be just.

Keen to take advantage of what she believed was guilt, Kathryn responded, dragging her lures along with her.

"Please, dear Brace, do not look at me so sternly. I could not help what happened and I suffered so, although I never meant to let you know. You see, I walked in the woods that day that I went to King's Forest to tell you about your mother. A queer-looking girl told me that you lived at the inn, but were then in the woods. I went to find you; to meet you—can you not understand?"

The tears stood in Kathryn's eyes, her mouth quivered. Northrup softened.

"Go on, Kathryn. I do understand."

"Well, I came to a cabin in the woods, I don't know why, but something made me think it was yours. You would be so likely to take such a place as that, dear. I went in—to wait for you; to sit and think about you, to calm myself—and then——"

"Yes, Kathryn!" Northrup was seeing it all—the cabin, the silent red-and-gold woods.

"And then—she came! Oh! Brace, a man can never know how a woman feels at such a moment—you see there were some sheets of your manuscript on the table—I was looking at them when the girl came in. Brace, she was quite awful; she frightened me terribly. She asked who I was and I told her—I thought that would at least make her see my side; explain things—but it did not! She was—she was"—Kathryn ventured a bolder dash—"she was quite violent. I cannot remember all she said—she said so much—a girl does when she realizes what she must have realized. Oh! Brace, I tried to be kind, but I had to take your part and she turned me out!"

In all this Northrup felt his way as one does along a narrow passage beset on either side with dangers. Characteristically he saw his own wrong in originally creating the situation. Not for an instant did he doubt Kathryn's story; indeed, she rose in his regard; for he felt for her deeply. He had, unwittingly, set a trap for her innocent, girlish feet; brought her to bay with what she could not possibly understand; and the belief that she had been merciful, had accepted, in silence, at a time when his trouble absorbed her, touched and humiliated him; and yet, try as he did to consider only Kathryn, he could not disregard Mary-Clare. He could not picture her in a coarse rage; the idea was repellent, but he acknowledged that the dramatic moment, lived through by two stranger-women with much at stake, was beyond his powers of imagination. The great thing that mattered now was that his duty, since a choice must be made, was to Kathryn. By every right, as he saw it, she must claim his allegiance. And yet, what was there to be done?

Northrup was silent; his inability to express himself condemned him in her eyes, and yet, strangely enough, he had never been more desirable to her.

"Marry me, dear. Let me prove my love to you. No matter what lies back there, I forgive everything! That is what love means to a woman like me."

Love! This poor, shabby counterfeit.

With a sickening sense of repulsion Northrup drew back, and maddeningly his book, not Kathryn, seemed to fill his aching brain. With this conception of love revealed—how blindly he had misunderstood. He tried to speak; did speak at last—he heard his words, but was not conscious of their meaning.

"You are wrong, child. Whatever folly was committed in King's Forest was mine, not that girl's. I suppose I was a bit mad without knowing it, but I will not accept your sacrifice, Kathryn, I will not ask for forgiveness. When I come home, if you still love me, I will devote my life to you. We will start afresh—the whole world will."

"You are going at once?" Kathryn clutched at what was eluding her.

"Yes, my dear."

"And you won't marry me? Won't—prove to me?"

"No."

"Oh! how can you leave me to think——"

"Think what, Kathryn?"

"Oh! things—about her. It would be such a proof of what you've just said—if only you would marry me now."

"Kathryn, I cannot. I am—I wish that you could understand—I am stepping out into the dark. I must go alone."

"That is absurd, Brace. Absurd." A baffled, desperate note rang in Kathryn's voice. It was not for Northrup, but for her first sense of failure. Then she looked up. All the resentment gone from her face, she was the picture of despair.

"I will wait for you, Brace. I will prove to you what a woman's real love is!"

So, cleverly, did she bind what she intuitively felt was the highest in Northrup. And he bent and laid his lips on the smooth girlish forehead, sorrowfully realizing how little he had to offer.

A few moments later Northrup found himself on the street. The snow was falling thicker, faster. It had the smothering quality that is so mysterious. People thudded along as if on padded feet; the lights were splashed with clinging flakes and gleamed yellow-red in the whiteness. Sounds were muffled; Northrup felt blotted out.

He loved the sensation—it was like a great, absorbing Force taking him into its control and erasing forever the bungling past. He purposely drifted for an hour in the storm. He was like a moving part of it, and when at last he reached home, he stood in the vestibule for many moments extricating himself—it was more that than shaking the snow off. He felt singularly free.

Once within the house, he went directly to his mother's room. She was lying on a couch by the fire. In the shelter of her warm, quiet place Helen seemed to have gained what Brace had won in the storm. She was smiling, almost eager.

"Yes, dear?" she said.

Northrup sat down in the chair that was his by his mother's hearth.

"Kathryn wanted to marry me, Mother, at once."

"That would be like her, bless her heart!"

"I could not accept the sacrifice, Mother."

"That would be like you—but is it a sacrifice?"

"It seems so to me."

"You see, son, to many women this is the supreme offering. All they can give, vicariously, at this great demanding hour."

"Women must learn to stop that rubbish, Mother. We men must refuse it."

"Why, Brace!" Then: "Are you quite, quite sure it was all for Kathryn, son?"

"No, partly for myself; but that must include and emphasize Kathryn's share."

"I see—at least I think I do."

"But you have faith, Mother?"

"Yes, faith! Surely, faith."

After a silence, broken only by the sputtering of the fire and that soft, mystic pattering of the snow on the window glass, Northrup asked gently:

"And you, Mother, what will you do? I cannot bear to think of you waiting here alone."

Helen Northrup rose slowly from the couch; her long, loose gown trailed softly as she walked to the fireplace and stood leaning one elbow on the shelf.

"I'm not going to—wait, dear, in the sense you mean. I'm going to work and get ready for your return."

"Work?" Northrup looked anxious. Helen smiled down upon him.

"While you have been preparing," she said, "so have I. There is something for me to do. My poor little craft that I have pottered at, keeping it alive and praying over it—my writing job, dear; I have offered for service. It has been accepted. It is my great secret—I've kept it for you as my last gift. When you come home, I'll tell you about it. While you are away you must think of me, busy—busy!"

Then she bent and laid her pale fine face against the dark bowed head.

"You are tired, dear, very, very tired. You must go to bed and rest—there is so much to do; so much."



CHAPTER XXI

In King's Forest many strange and awe-inspiring things had happened—but, as far as the Forest people knew, they were so localized that, like a cancer, they were eating in, deeper and deeper—to the death.

The winter, with its continuous snow and cruel ice, had obliterated links; only certain centres glowed warm and alive, though even they ached with the pain of blows they had endured.

The Mines. The Point. The Inn. The Little Yellow House. These throbbed and pulsated and to them, more often than of old—or so it seemed—the bell in the deserted chapel sent its haunting messages—messages rung out by unseen hands.

"There's mostly lost winds this winter," poor Jan-an whimpered to Peneluna. "I have feelin's most all the time. I'm scared early and late, and that cold my bones jingle."

Peneluna, softened and more silent than ever, comforted the girl, wrapped her in warmer clothes, and sent her scurrying across the frozen lake to the yellow house.

"And don't come back till spring!" she commanded.

"Spring?" Jan-an paused as she was strapping on an old pair of skates that once belonged to Philander Sniff. "Spring? Gawd!"

It was a terrific winter. The still, intense kind that grips every snowstorm as a miser does his money, hiding it in secret places of the hills where the divine warmth of the sun cannot find it.

The wind, early in November, set in the north! Occasionally the "ha'nt wind" troubled it; wailed a bit and caught the belfry bell, and then gave up and sobbed itself away.

At the inn a vague something—was it old age or lost faith?—was trying to conquer Peter's philosophy and Aunt Polly's spiritual vision. The Thing, whatever it was, was having a tussle, but it made its marks. Peter sat oftener by the fire with Ginger edging close to the leg that the gander had once damaged and which, now, acted as an indicator for Peter's moods. When he did not want to talk his "leg ached." When his heart sank in despair his "leg ached." But Polly, a little thinner, a little more dim as to far-off visions, caught every mood of Peter's and sent it back upon him like a boomerang. She met his silent hours with such a flare of talk that Peter responded in self-defence. His black hours she clutched desperately and held them up for him to look at after she had charged them with memories of goodness and love.

As for herself? Well, Aunt Polly nourished her own brave spirit by service and an insistent, demanding cry of justice.

"'Tain't fair and square to hold anything against the Almighty," she proclaimed, "till you've given Him a chance to show what He did things for."

Polly waxed eloquent and courageous; she kept her own faith by voicing it to others; it grew upon reiteration.

Peter was in one of his worst combinations—silence and low spirits—when Polly entered the kitchen one early afternoon. A glance at the huddling form by the red-hot range had the effect of turning Polly into steel. She looked at Ginger, who reflected his master's moods pathetically, and her steel became iron.

"I suppose if I ask you, Peter, how you're feeling," she said slowly, calmly, "you'll fling your leg in my face! It's monstrous to see how an able-bodied man can use any old lie to save his countenance."

"My leg——" Peter began, but Polly stopped him. She had hung her coat and hood in the closet and came to the fire, patting her thin hair in order and then stretching her small, blue-veined hands to the heat.

"Don't leg me, Peter Heathcote, I'm terrible ashamed of you. Terrible. So long as you have legs, brother—and you have!—I say use 'em. Half the troubles in this world are think troubles, laid to legs and backs and what not."

"Where you been?" Peter eyed the stern little face glowering at him. "You look tuckered."

"I wasn't tuckered until I set my eyes on you, Peter. I've been considerable set up to-day. I went to Mary-Clare's. She is mighty heartening. She's gathered all the children she can get and she's teaching them. She's mimicking the old doctor's plan—making him live again, she calls it—and the Lord knows we need someone in the Forest who doesn't set chewing his own troubles, but gets out and does things!"

Peter winced and Polly rambled on:

"It's really wonderful the way that slip of a thing handles those children. She has made the yellow house like a fairy story—evergreens, red leaves and berries hanging about, and all the dogs with red-ribbon collars. They look powerful foolish, but they don't look like poor Ginger, who acts as if he was being smothered!"

Peter regarded the dog by his side and remarked sadly:

"I guess we better change this dog's name. Ginger is like an insult to him. Ginger! Lord-a-mighty, there ain't no ginger left in him."

"Peter, you're all wrong. There are times when I think Ginger is more gingery than ever. You don't have to dash around after yer tail to prove yer ginger, the thinking part of you can be terrible nimble even when yer bones stiffen up. Ginger does things, brother, that sometimes makes my flesh creepy. Do you know what he does when he can get away from you?"

"No." Peter's hair sprang up; his face reddened. Polly noted the good signs and took heart.

"Why, he joins Mary-Clare's dogs and fetches the littlest children to the yellow house. Carries lunch pails, pulls sleds, and I've seen that little crippled tot of Jonas Mills' on Ginger's back. Ain't that ginger fur yer? I tell you, Peter, it's you as ails that dog—he's what you make him. I reckon the Lord, that isn't unmindful of sparrows, takes notice of dogs." Then suddenly, Polly demanded: "Peter, what is it, just?"

Polly drew her diminutive rocker to the stove and settled back against its gay cretonne cushions—a vivid bird of Paradise flamed just where her aching head rested.

"Well, Polly"—Peter slapped the leg that he had lied about—"you and I came to the Forest half a century ago and felt real perky. We thought, under God, we'd make the Forest something better; the people more like people. We came from a city with all sorts of patterns of folks; we had ideas. The Forest gave me health and we were grateful and chesty. It all keeps coming back and—and swamping me."