After the storm.

Last night the storm waked us. It was a dreadful storm, with the wind booming, and the sea all whipped up into a whirlpool.

But I wasn't frightened, although everybody was awake, and there was a feeling that something might happen. I asked Porter to take me on deck, but he said that no one was allowed, and so we just curled up on chairs and sofas and waited either for the storm to end or for the ship to sink. If you've ever been in a storm at sea, you know the feeling—that the next minute may bring calm and safety, or terror and death.

Porter had tucked a rug around me, and I lay there, looking at the others, wondering whether if an accident happened Delilah would face death as gracefully as she faces everything else. Leila was very white and shivery and clung to her father; it is at such times that she seems such a child.

Aunt Frances was fussy and blamed everybody from the captain down to Aunt Isabelle—as if they could control the warring elements. Surely it is a case of the "ruling passion."

But while I am writing these things, I am putting off, and putting off and putting off the story of what happened after the storm—not because I dread to tell it, but because I don't know quite how to tell it. It involves such intimate things—yet it makes all things clear, it makes everything so beautifully clear, Roger Poole.

It was after the wind died down a bit that I made Porter take me up on deck. The moon was flying through the ragged clouds, and the water was a wild sweep of black and white. It was all quite spectral and terrifying and I shivered. And then Porter said; "Mary, we'd better go down."

And I said, "It wasn't fear that made me shiver, Porter. It was just the thought that living is worse than dying."

He dropped my arm and looked down at me.

"Mary," he said, "what's the matter with you?"

"I don't know," I said. "It is just that my courage is all gone—I can't face things."

"Why not?"

"I don't know—I've lost my grip, Porter."

And then he asked a question. "Is it because of Barry, Mary?"

"Some of it."

"And the rest?"

"I can't tell you."

We walked for a long time after that, and I was holding all the time tight to his arm—for it wasn't easy to walk with that sea on—when suddenly he laid his hand over mine.

"Mary," he said, "I've got to tell you. I can't keep it back and feel—honest. I don't know whether you want Roger Poole in your life—I don't know whether you care. But I want you to be happy. And it was I who sent him away from you."

And now, Roger Poole, what can I say? What can any woman say? I only know this, that as I write this the sun shines over a blue sea, and that the world is—different. There are still things in my heart which hurt—but there are things, too, which make it sing!

MARY.

When Mary Ballard came on deck on the morning after the storm, everybody stared. Where was the girl of yesterday—the frail white girl who had moped so listlessly in her chair, scribbling on little bits of paper? Here was a fair young beauty, with her head up, a clear light shining in her gray eyes—a faint flush on her cheeks.

Colin Quale, meeting her, flickered his lashes and smiled: "Is this what the storm did to you?"

"What?"

"This and this." He touched his cheeks and his eyes. "To-day, if I painted you, I should have to put pink on my palette—yesterday I should have needed only black and white."

Mary smiled back at him. "Do you interpret things always through the medium of your brush?"

"Why not? Life is just that—a little color more or less, and it all depends on the hand of the artist."

"What a wonderful palette He has!" Her eyes swept the sea and the sky. "This morning the world is all gold and blue."

"And yesterday it was gray."

Mary flashed a glance at him. His voice had changed. Delilah was coming toward them. "There's material I like to work with," he said, "there's something more than paint or canvas—living, breathing beauty."

"He's saying things about you," Mary said, as Delilah joined them.

Delilah, coloring faintly, cast down her eyes. "I'm afraid of him, Mary," she said.

Colin laughed. "You're not afraid of any one."

"Yes, I am. You analyze my mental processes in such a weird fashion. You are always reading me like a book."

"A most interesting book," Colin's lashes quivered, "with lovely illustrations."

They laughed, and swept away into a brisk walk, followed by curious eyes.

If to others Mary's radiance seemed a miracle of returning health, to Porter Bigelow it was no miracle. Nothing could have more completely rung the knell of his hopes than this radiance.

Her attitude toward him was irreproachable. She was kinder, indeed, than she had been in the days when he had tried to force his claims upon her. She seemed to be trying by her friendliness to make up for something which she had withdrawn from him, and he knew that nothing could ever make up.

So it came about that he spent less and less of his time with her, and more and more with Leila—Leila who needed comforting, and who welcomed him with such sweet and clinging dependence—Leila who hung upon his advice, Leila who, divining his hurt, strove by her sweet sympathy to help him.

Thus they came in due time to London. And when Leila and her father left for the German baths, Porter went with them.

It was when he said "Good-bye" to Mary that his voice broke.

"Dear Contrary Mary," he said, "the old name still fits you. You never could, and you never would, and now you never will."

Followed for Mary quiet days with Constance and the beautiful baby, days in which the sisters were knit together by the bonds of mutual grief. The little Mary-Constance was a wonderful comfort to both of them; unconscious of sadness, she gurgled and crowed and beamed, winning them from sorrowful thoughts by her blandishments, making herself the center of things, so that, at last, all their little world seemed to revolve about her.

And always in these quiet days, Mary looked for a letter from across the high seas, and at last it came in a blue envelope.

It arrived one morning when she was at breakfast with Constance and Gordon. Handed to her with other letters, she left it unopened and laid it beside her plate.

Gordon finished his breakfast, kissed his wife, and went away. Constance, looking over her mail, read bits of news to Mary. Mary, in return, read bits of news to Constance. But the blue envelope by her plate lay untouched, until, catching her sister's eye, she flushed.

"Constance," she said, "it is from Roger Poole."

"Oh, Mary, and was that why Porter went away?"

"Yes." It came almost defiantly.

For a moment the young matron hesitated, then she held out her arms. "Dearest girl," she said, "we want you to be happy."

Mary, with eyes shining, came straight to that loving embrace.

"I am going to be happy," she said, almost breathlessly, "and perhaps my way of being happy won't be yours, Con, darling. But what difference does it make, so long as we are both—happy?"

The letter, read at last in the shelter of her own room, was not long.

Among the Pines.

Even now I can't quite believe that your letter is true—I have read it and reread it—again and again, reading into it each time new meanings, new hope. And to-night it lies on my desk, a precious document, tempting me to say things which perhaps I should not say—tempting me to plead for that which perhaps I should not ask.

Dear woman—what have I to offer you? Just a home down here among the sand-hills—a little church that will soon stand in a circle of young pines, a life of work in a little rectory near the little church—for your dreams and mine are to come true, and the little church will be built within a year.

Yet, I have a garden. A garden of souls. Will you come into it? And make it bloom, as you have made my life bloom? All that I am you have made me. When I sat in the Tower Rooms hopeless, you gave me hope. When I lost faith in myself, it shone in your eyes. When I saw your brave young courage, my courage came back to me. It was you who told me that I had a message to deliver.

And I am delivering the message—and somehow I cannot feel that it is a little thing to offer, when I ask you to share in this, my work.

Other men can offer you a castle—other men can give to you a life of ease. I can bring to you a life in which we shall give ourselves to each other and to the world. I can give you love that is equal to any man's. I can give you a future which will make you forget the past.

Not to every woman would I dare offer what I have to give—-but you are different from other women. From the night when you first met me frankly with your brave young head up and your eyes shining, I have known that you were different from the rest—a woman braver and stronger, a woman asking more of life than softness.

And now, will you fight with me, shoulder to shoulder? And win?

Somehow I feel that you will say "Yes." Is that the right attitude for a lover? But surely I can see a little way into your heart. Your letter let me see.

If I seem over-confident, forgive me. But I know what I want for myself. I know what I want for you. I am not the Roger Poole of the Tower Rooms, beaten and broken. I am Roger Poole of the Garden, marching triumphantly in tune with the universe.

As I write, I have a vision upon me of a little white house not far from the little white church in the circle of young pines—a house with orchards sweeping up all pink behind it in April, and with violets in the borders of the walk in January, and with roses from May until December.

And I can see you in that little house. I shall see you in it until you say something which will destroy that vision. But you won't destroy it. Surely some day you will hear the mocking-birds sing in the moonlight—as I am hearing them, alone, to-night.

I need you, I want you, and I hope that it is not a selfish cry. For your letter has told me that you, too, are wanting—what? Is it Love, Mary dear, and Life?

ROGER.



CHAPTER XXVI

In Which a Strange Craft Anchors in a Sea of Emerald Light; and in Which Mocking-Birds Sing in the Moonlight.

Sweeping through a country of white sand and of charred trees run hard clay highways. When motor cars from the cities and health resorts began to invade the pines, it was found that the old wagon trails were inadequate; hence there followed experiments which resulted in intersecting orange-colored roads, throughout the desert-like expanse.

It was on a day in April that over the road which led up toward the hills there sailed the snowy-white canopy of one of the strange land-craft of that region—a schooner-wagon drawn by two fat mules who walked at a leisurely but steady pace, seemingly without guidance from any hand.

Yet that, beneath the hooded cover, there was a directing power, was demonstrated, as the mules turned suddenly from the hot road to a wagon path beneath the shelter of the pines.

It was strewn thick with brown needles, and the sharp hoofs of the little animals made no sound. Deeper and deeper they went into the wood, until the swinging craft and its clumsy steeds seemed to swim in a sea of emerald light.

On and on breasting waves of golden gloom, where the sunlight sifted in, to anchor at last in a still space where the great trees sang overhead.

Then from beneath the canopy emerged a man in khaki.

He took off his hat, and stood for a moment looking up at the great trees, then he called softly, "Mary."

She came to the back of the wagon and he lifted her down.

"This is my cathedral," he said; "it is the place of the biggest pines."

She leaned against him and looked up. His arm was about her. She wore a thin silk blouse and a white skirt. Her soft fair hair was blown against his cheek.

"Roger," she said, "was there ever such a honeymoon?"

"Was there ever such a woman—such a wife?"

After that they were silent. There was no need for words. But presently he spread a rug for her, and built their fire, and they had their lunch. The mules ate comfortably in the shade, and rested throughout the long hot hours of the afternoon.

Then once more the strange craft sailed on. On and on over miles of orange roadway, passing now and then an orchard, flaunting the rose-color of its peach trees against the dun background of sand; passing again between drifts of dogwood, which shone like snow beneath the slanting rays of the sun—sailing on and on until the sun went down. Then came the shadowy twilight, with the stars coming out in the warm dusk—then the moonlight—and the mocking-birds singing.

THE END