"Conward!" interrupted Dave.

"He has the manners of a gentleman," she said, in a tone intended to be crushing.

"And the morals of a coyote," Dave returned, hotly.

"O-o-o-h," said Mrs. Hardy, in a low, shocked cry. That Elden should speak of Conward with such disdain seemed to her little less than sacrilege. Then, gathering herself together with some dignity, "If you cannot speak respectfully of Mr. Conward you will please leave the house. I shall not forbid you to see Irene; I know that would be useless. But please do not trouble me with your presence."

When Dave had gone Mrs. Hardy, very angry with him, and almost equally angry with herself owing to a vague conviction that she had had if anything the worse of the interview, hurried to the telephone. She rang up Conward's number.

"Oh, Mr. Conward," she said. "You know who is speaking? Yes. You must come up to-night. I do want to talk with you. I—I've been insulted—in my own house. By that—that Elden. It's all very terrible. I can't tell you over the telephone."

Conward called early in the evening. Irene met him at the door. He greeted her even more cordially than usual, dropping into that soft, confidential note which he had found so potent in capturing such affections as his heart, in a somewhat varied experience, had desired. But there was no time for conversation. Mrs. Hardy had heard the bell, and bustled into the room. She had not yet recovered from her agitation, and made no effort to conceal it.

"Come into my sitting-room, Mr. Conward. I am so glad you have come. Really, I am so upset. It is such a comfort to have some one you can depend on—some one whose advice one can seek, on occasions like this. I never thought—"

Mrs. Hardy had been fingering her handkerchief, which she now pressed to her eyes. Conward laid a soothing hand on her shoulder. "There, there," he said. "You must control yourself. Tell me. It will relieve you, and perhaps I can help."

"Oh, I'm sure you can," she returned. "It's all over Irene and that—that—I will say it—that cow puncher. To think it would have come to this! Mr. Conward, you are not a mother, so you can't understand. Ungrateful girl! But I blame him. And the Doctor. I never wanted him to come west. It was that fool trip, in that fool motor—"

Conward smiled to himself over her unaccustomed violence. Mrs. Hardy must be deeply moved when she forgot to be correct. He had readily surmised the occasion of her distress. It needed no words from Mrs. Hardy to tell him that Irene and Dave were engaged. He had expected it for some time, and the information was not altogether distasteful to him. He had come somewhat under the spell of Irene's attractiveness, but he had no deep attachment for her. He was not aware that he had ever had an abiding attachment for any woman. Attachments were things which he put on and off as readily as a change of clothes. He planned to hit Dave through Irene, but he planned that when he struck it should be a death blow. Their engagement would lend a sharper edge to his shaft.

It may as well be set down that for Mrs. Hardy Conward had no regard whatever. Even while he shaped soft words for her ear he held her in contempt. To him she was merely a silly old woman. From the day he had first seen Mrs. Hardy his attitude toward her had been one of subtle flattery; partly because it pleased his whim, and partly because on that same day he had seen Irene, and he was shrewd enough to know that his approach to the girl's affections must be made by way of the acquaintanceship which he would establish under the guise of friendship for her mother. Since his trouble with Dave, Conward had a double purpose in developing that acquaintanceship. He had no compunctions as to his method of attack. While Dave was manfully laying siege to the front gate, Conward proposed to burglarize the home through the back door of family intimacy. And now that Dave seemed to have won the prize, Conward realized that his own position was more secure than ever. Had he not been called in consultation by the girl's mother? Were not the inner affairs of the family now laid open before him? Did not his position as her mother's advisor permit him to assume toward Irene an attitude which, in a sense, was more intimate than even Dave's could be? He turned these matters over quickly in his mind, and congratulated himself upon the wisdom of his tactics.

"It's very dreadful," Mrs. Hardy was saying, between dabbings of her perfumed handkerchief on eyes that bore witness to the genuineness of her distress. "Irene is not an ordinary girl. She has in her qualities that justified me in hoping that—that she would do—very differently from this. You have been a good friend, Mr. Conward. Need I conceal from you, Mr. Conward, from you, of all men, what have been my hopes for Irene?"

Conward's heart leapt at the confession. He had secretly entertained some doubt as to Mrs. Hardy's purpose in opening her home to him as she had done; absurd as the hypothesis seemed, still there was the hypothesis that Mrs. Hardy saw in Conward a possible comfort to her declining days. He had no doubt that her vanity was equal to that supposition, but he had done her less than justice in supposing that she had had any directly personal ambitions. Her ambitions were for Irene. From her point of view it seemed to Mrs. Hardy that almost anything would be better than that Irene should marry a man who had sprung from the low estate which Elden not only confessed, but boasted. She had hoped that by bringing Conward into the house, by bringing Irene under the influence of a close family acquaintanceship with him, that that young lady might be led to see the folly of the road she was choosing. But now her clever purpose had come to nought, and in her vexation she did not hesitate to humble herself before Conward by confessing, in words that he could not misunderstand, that she had hoped that he would be the successful suitor for Irene. And Conward's heart leapt at the confession. He was sufficiently schooled in the affairs of life to appreciate the advantage of open alliance with Mrs. Hardy in the short, sharp battle that lay before him.

"And I suppose I need not conceal from you," he answered, "what my hopes have been. Those hopes have grown as my acquaintance with you has grown. It is reasonably safe to judge a daughter by her mother, and by that standard Irene is one of the most adorable of young women."

"I have been called attractive in my day," confessed Mrs. Hardy, warming at once to his flattery.

"Have been?" said Conward. "Say rather you are. If I had not been rendered, perhaps, a little partial by my admiration of Irene, I—well, one can scarcely give his heart in two places, you know. And my deep regard for you, Mrs. Hardy—my desire that you shall be spared this—ah—threatened humiliation, will justify me in using heroic measures to bring this unfortunate affair to a close. You may trust me, Mrs. Hardy."

"I was sure of that," she returned, already much comforted. "I was sure of your sympathy, and that you would find a way."

"I shall need your co-operation," he warned her. "Irene is—you will forgive me, Mrs. Hardy, but Irene is, if I may say it, somewhat headstrong. She is—"

"She is her father over again," Mrs. Hardy interrupted. "I told him he should not attempt that crazy trip of his without me along, but he would go. And this is what he has brought upon me, and he not here to share it." Mrs. Hardy's tone conveyed very plainly her grievance over the doctor's behaviour in evading the consequences of the situation which his headstrong folly had created.

"She is set in her own mind," Conward continued. "We must not openly oppose her. You must appear to be resigned, even to the extent of treating Elden with such consideration as you can. To argue with Irene, to attempt to persuade her, or to order Elden off the place, would only deepen their attachment. Lovers are that way, Mrs. Hardy. We must adopt other tactics."

"You are very clever," said Mrs. Hardy. "You have been a student of human nature."

Conward smiled pleasurably. Little as he valued Mrs. Hardy's opinion, her words of praise fell very gratefully upon him. Flatterers are seldom proof against their own poison. "Yes, I have studied human nature," he admitted. "The most interesting—and the most profitable—of all studies. And I know that young couples in love are not governed by the ordinary laws of reason. That is why it is useless to argue with Irene—sensible girl though she is—on a subject like this. We must reach her some other way.

"The way that occurs to me is to create distrust. Love is either absurdly trustful or absurdly suspicious. There is no middle course, no balanced judgment. Everything is in extremes. Everything is seen through a magnifying lens, or missed altogether. In the trustfulness of love little virtues are magnified to angelic qualities, and vices are quite unseen. But change that trust to suspicion, and a hidden, sinister meaning is found behind the simplest word or act."

Conward had risen and was walking about the room. He was conscious of being regarded as a man of very deep insight, and the consciousness pleased him.

"We must cause Irene to distrust Elden—to see him in his true light," he continued. "That may be possible. But if it should fail we must take another course, which I hesitate to mention to you, but which may be necessary if we are to save her from this fatal infatuation. If our efforts to cause Irene to see Elden in his true light were to fail, and she were to discover those efforts, she would be more set in his favour than ever. So we must plan two campaigns; one, which I have already suggested, and one, if that should fail, to cause Elden to distrust Irene. No, no," he said, raising his hand toward Mrs. Hardy, who had started from her seat,—"there must be no vestige of reason, except that the end justifies the means. It is a case of saving Irene, even if we must pain her—and you—in the saving."

"It's very dreadful," Mrs. Hardy repeated. "But you are very thorough; you leave nothing to chance. I suppose that is the way with all big business men."

"You can trust me," Conward assured her. "There is no time to be lost, and I must plan my campaigns at once."



CHAPTER NINETEEN

Conward paused to speak to Irene before leaving the house.

"I owe you my good wishes," he said. "And I give them most frankly, although, perhaps, with more difficulty than you suppose."

"You are very good, Mr. Conward," she acknowledged.

"I could not wish you anything but happiness," he returned. "And had I been so fortunate as Elden, in making your acquaintance first, I might have hoped to contribute to your happiness more directly than I can under the present circumstances." He was speaking in his low, sedulous notes, and his words sent the girl's blood rushing in a strange mixture of gratification and anger. The tribute he implied—that he himself would have been glad to have been her suitor—was skilfully planned to appeal to her vanity, and her anger was due to its success. She told herself she should not listen to such words; she should hate to hear such words. And yet she listened to them, and was not sure that she hated them. She could only say, "You are very good, Mr. Conward."

He pressed her hand at the door, and again that strange mixture of emotions surged through her.

Conward proceeded to the business section of the town, well pleased with the evening's events. He found his way impeded by crowds in front of the newspaper offices. He had paid little attention to the progress of the war scare, attributing it to the skilful publicity of interests connected with the manufacture of armaments. To the last he had not believed that war was possible. "Nobody wants to fight," he had assured his business acquaintances. "Even the armament people don't want to fight. All they want is to frighten more money out of the taxpayers of Europe." To Conward this explanation seemed very complete. It covered the whole ground and left nothing to be said.

But to-night he was aware of a keener tension in the crowd atmosphere. They were good natured crowds, to be sure; laughing, and cheering, and making sallies of heavy wit; but they were in some way more intense than he had ever seen before. There was no fear of war; there was, rather, an adventurous spirit which seemed to fear that the affair would blow over, as had so many affairs in the past, and all the excitement go for nothing. That war, if it came to war, could last, no one dreamed; it would be a matter of a few weeks, a few months, at the most, until a thoroughly whipped Germany would retire behind the Rhine to plan ways of raising the indemnity which outraged civilization would demand. Conward elbowed his way through the crowds, smiling, in his superior knowledge, over their excitement. Newspapers must have headlines.

At his office he used a telephone. Then he walked to a restaurant, where, after a few minutes, he was joined by a young woman. They took a table in a box. Supper was disposed of, and the young woman began to grow impatient.

"Well, you brought me here," she said at last. "You've fed me, and you don't feed anybody, Conward, without a purpose. What's the consideration?"

"Yes, I have a purpose," he admitted. "I'm pulling off a little joke, and I want you to help me."

"You're some joker," she returned. "Who have you got it in for?"

"You know Elden—Dave Elden?"

"Sure. I've known him ever since that jolt put him out of business up in your rooms, ever so many years ago. He was too rural for that mixture. Still, Elden has lots of friends—decent friends, I mean."

"I'm rather sorry you know him," said Conward. "But—what's more to the point—does he know you?"

"Not he. I guess he had no memory the next morning, and would have made a point of forgetting me, even if he had."

"That's all right, then. Now I want you to get him down to your place some night to be agreed upon—I'll fix the date later—and keep him there until I call for him, with his fiancee."

"Some joke," she said, and there was disgust in her voice. "Who is it on: Elden, me, or the girl?"

"Never mind who it's on," Conward returned. "I'm paying for it. Here's something on account, and if you make a good job of it, I won't be stingy."

He handed her a bill, which she kissed and put in her purse. "I need the money, Conward, or I wouldn't take it. Say, don't you know you're wasting your time in this one-horse town? You ought to get into the big league. Your jokes would sure make a hit."

This part of his trap set, Conward awaited a suitable opportunity to spring it. In the meantime he took Mrs. Hardy partially into his confidence. He allowed her to believe, however, that Elden's habits would stand correction, and he had merely arranged to trap him in one of his favorite haunts. She was very much shocked, and thought it was very dreadful, but of course we must save Irene. Mr. Conward was very clever. That's what came of being a man of experience,—and judgment, Mr. Conward, and some knowledge of the world.

But concerning another part of his programme Conward was even less frank with Mrs. Hardy. He was clever enough to know that he must observe certain limitations.

At length all his plans appeared to be complete. The city was in a tumult of excitement over the war, but for Conward a deeper interest centred in the plot he was hatching under the unsuspecting noses of Irene and Elden. If he could trap Dave the rest would be easy. If he failed in this he had another plan to give failure at least the appearance of success. The fact that the nation was now at war probably had an influence in speeding up the plot. Everything was under high tension; powerful currents of thought were bearing the masses along unaccustomed channels; society itself was in a state of flux. If he were to strike at all let the blow fall at once.

On this early August night he ascertained that Dave was working alone in his office. Then he called a number on a telephone.

"This is the night," he explained. "You will find him alone in his office. I will be waiting to hear from you at——"—he quoted Mrs. Hardy's telephone number. Then he drove his car to the Hardy home, exchanged a few words with Irene, and sat down to a hand of cribbage with her mother.

Poring over his correspondence, Dave tried to abstract his mind from the tumultuous doings of these last days. Office organization had been paralyzed; stenographers and clerks were incapable with excitement. It was as though some great excursion had been announced; something wonderful and novel, which divorced the interest from the dull routine of business. And Dave, with his ear cocked for the cry of the latest extra, spent the evening hours in a valiant effort at concentration.

Suddenly he heard a knock at the door; not a business man's knock; not an office girl's knock; a hesitating, timid, apologetic knock.

"Come in," he called. No one entered, but presently he heard the knock again. He arose and walked to the door. Outside stood a young woman. She looked up shyly, her face half concealed beneath a broad hat.

"If you please," she said, "excuse me, but—you are Mr. Elden, aren't you?"

"Yes; can I help you in any way?"

The woman tittered a moment, but resumed soberly, "You will wonder at me coming to you, but I'm from the country. Did you think that?"

"I suspected it," said Dave, with a smile. "You knocked——" He paused.

"Yes?"

"Like a country girl," he said, boldly.

She tittered again. "Well, I'm lost," she confessed. "I got off the train a short time ago. My aunt was to meet me, but there are such crowds in the street—I must have missed her. And I saw your name on the window, and I had heard of you. So I just thought I'd ask—if you wouldn't mind—showing me to this address."

She fumbled in her pocket, and Dave invited her into the office. There she produced a torn piece of paper with an address.

"Why, that's just a few blocks," said Dave. "I'll walk around with you." He turned for his hat, but at that moment there was another timid knock on the door. He opened it. A boy of eight or ten years stood outside.

"Can I come in?" the lad ventured.

"Why, of course you can. What is it, son?"

"Are you Mr. Elden?"

"Yes."

The lad looked shyly about the office. It was evident he was impressed with its magnificence. Suddenly he pulled off his hat, disclosing a shock of brown hair.

"Are you Mr. Elden that sells lots?"

"Yes. Or, rather, I did sell lots, but not many of late. Were you thinking of buying a few lots?"

"Did you sell lots to my father?"

"Well, if I knew your father's name perhaps I could tell you. Who is your father?"

"He's Mr. Merton. I'm his son. And he said to me, before he got so bad, he said, 'There's just one honest man in this city, and that's Mr. Elden.' Is that you, Mr. Elden?"

"Well, I hope it is, but I won't claim such a distinction. I remember your father very well. Did he send you to me?"

"No sir. He's too sick. He don't know anybody now. He didn't know me to-night." The boy's voice went thick, and he stopped and swallowed. "And then I remembered what he said about you, and I just came. Was that all right, Mr. Elden?"

"You say your father is very sick?"

"He don't know anybody."

"Have you help—a doctor—a nurse?"

"No sir. We haven't any money. My father spent it all for the lots that he bought from you."

Dave winced. Then, turning to the young woman, "I'm afraid this is a more urgent case than yours. I'll call a taxi to take you to your address."

To his surprise his visitor broke out in a ribald laugh. She had seated herself on a desk, and was swinging one foot jauntily.

"It's all off," she said. "Say, Dave, you couldn't lose me in this burg. You don't remember me, do you? Well, all the better. I'm rather glad I broke down on this job. I used to be something of an actress, and I'd have put it over if it hadn't been for the kid. The fact is, Dave," she continued, "I was sent up here to decoy you. It wasn't fair fighting, and I didn't like it, but money has been mighty slow of late. I wonder—how much you'd give to know who sent me?"

Dave pulled some bills from his pocket and held them before her. She took them from his hand.

"Conward," she said.

Dave's blood went to his head. "The scoundrel!" he cried. "The low down dog! There's more in this than appears on the surface."

"Sure there is," she said. "There's another woman. There always is."

Elden walked to his desk. From a drawer he took a revolver; toyed with it a moment in his hands; broke it open, crammed it full of cartridges and thrust it in his pocket.

The girl watched him with friendly interest. "Believe me, Dave," she said, "if Conward turns up missing I won't know a thing—not a d—— thing."

For a moment he stood irresolute. He could only guess what Conward's plan had been, but that it had been diabolical and cowardly, and that it concerned Irene, he had no doubt. His impulse was to immediately confront Conward, force a confession, and deal with him as the occasion might seem to require. But his eye fell on the boy, with his shock of brown hair and wistful, half-frightened face.

"I'll go with you first," he said, with quick decision. Then to the girl, "Sorry I must turn you out, but this case is urgent."

"That's all right," she said. Suddenly there was a little catch in her voice. "I'm used to being turned out."

He shot a sharp glance at her. Her face was laughing. "You're too decent for your job," he said, abruptly.

"Thanks, Dave," she answered, and he saw her eyes glisten. "That helps—some." And before he knew it she was into the street.

"All right, son," said Dave, taking up the matter now in hand. "What's your name—your first name?"

"Charlie."

"And your address?"

The boy mentioned a distant subdivision.

"That is out, isn't it? Well, we'll take the car. We'll run right out and see what is to be done. I guess I'd better call a doctor at once."

He went to the telephone and gave some directions. Then he and the boy walked to a garage, and in a few moments were humming along the by-streets into the country. Dave had already become engrossed in his errand of mercy, and his rage at Conward, if not forgotten, was temporarily dismissed from his mind. He chatted with the boy as he drove.

"You go to school?"

"Not this year. Father has been too sick. Of course, this is holidays, and he says he'll be all right before they're over."

Dave smiled grimly. "The incurable optimism of it," he murmured to himself. Then outwardly, "Of course he will. We'll fix him up in no time with a good doctor and a good nurse."

They drove on through the calm night, leaving the city streets behind and following what was little more than a country trail. This was crossed in every direction, and at every possible angle, by just such other country trails, unravelling themselves into the darkness. Here and there they bumped over pieces of graded street, infinitely rougher than the natural prairie; once Dave dropped his front wheels into a collapsing water trench; once he just grazed an isolated hydrant. The city lights were cut off by a shoulder of foothill; only their dull glow hung in the distant sky.

"And this is one of our 'choice residential subdivisions,'" said Dave to himself, as with Charlie's guidance and his own in-born sense of location he threaded his way through the maze of diverging trails. "Fine business; fine business."

As the journey continued the sense of self-reproach which had been static in him for many months became more insistent, and he found himself repeating the ironical phrase, "Fine business, fine business. Yes, I let Conward 'weigh the coal' all right." The intrusion of Conward into his mind sent the blood to his head, but at that moment his reflections were cut short by the boy.

"We will have to get out here," he said. "The bridge is down."

Investigation proved him to be right. A bridge over a small stream had collapsed, and was slowly disintegrating amid its own wreckage. Dave explored the stream bottom, getting muddy boots for his pains. Then he ran the car a little to one side of the road, locked the switch, and walked on with the boy.

"Pretty lonely out here, isn't it?" he ventured.

"Oh, no. There is a street light we can see in a little while; it is behind the hill now. We see it from the corner of our shack. It's very cheery."

"Fine business," Dave repeated to himself. "And this is how our big success was made. Well, the 'success' has vanished as quickly as it came. I suppose there is a Law somewhere that is not mocked."

They were passing through a settlement of crude houses, dimly visible in the starlight and by occasional yellow blurs from their windows. Before one of the meanest of these the boy at last stopped. The upper hinge of the door was broken, and a feeble light struggled through the space where it gaped outward. Charlie pulled the door open, and Dave entered. At first his eyes could not take in the dim outlines before him; he was conscious of a very small and stuffy room, with a peculiar odour which he attributed to an oil lamp burning on a box. He walked over and turned the lamp up, but the oil was consumed; a red, sullen, smoking wick was its only response. Then he felt in his pocket, and struck a match.

The light revealed the dinginess of the little room. There was a bed, covered with musty, ragged clothing; a table, littered with broken and dirty dishes and pieces of stale food; a stove, cracked and greasy, and one or two bare boxes serving as articles of furniture. But it was to the bed Dave turned, and, with another match, bent over the shrunken form that lay almost concealed amid the coarse coverings. He brought his face down close, then straightened up and steadied himself for a moment.

"He'll soon be well, don't you think, Mister? He said he would be well when the holidays——" But Dave's expression stopped the boy, whose own face went suddenly wild with fear.

"He is well now, Charlie," he said, as steadily as he could. "It is all holidays now for him."

The match had burnt out, and the room was in utter darkness. Dave heard the child drawing his feet slowly across the floor, then suddenly whimpering like a thing that had been mortally hurt. He groped toward him, and at length his fingers found his shock of hair. He drew the boy slowly into his arms; then very, very tight. . . . After all, they were orphans together.

"You will come with me," he said, at length. "I will see that you are provided for. The doctor will soon be here, or we will meet him on the way, and he will make the arrangements for—the arrangements that have to be made, you know."

They retraced their steps toward the town, meeting the doctor at the broken bridge. Dave exchanged a few words with him in low tones, and they passed on. Soon they were swinging again through the city streets, this time through the busy thoroughfares, which were almost blocked with tense, excited crowds about the bulletin boards. Even with the developments of the evening pressing heavily upon his mind, Dave could not resist the temptation to stop and listen for a moment to bulletins being read through a megaphone.

"The Kaiser has stripped off his British regalia," said the announcer. "He says he will never again wear a British uniform."

A chuckle of derisive laughter ran through the mob; then some one struck up a well-known refrain,—"What the hell do we care?" Up and down the street voices caught up the chorus. . . . Within a year the bones of many in that thoughtless crowd, bleaching on the fields of Flanders, showed how much they cared.

Dave literally pressed his machine through the throng, which opened slowly to let it pass, and immediately filled up the wake behind. Then he drove direct to the Hardy home.

After some delay Irene met him at the door, and Dave explained the situation in a few words. "We must take care of him, Reenie," he said. "I feel a personal responsibility."

"Of course we will take him," she answered. "He will live here until we have a—some place of our own." Her face was bright with something which must be tenderness. "Bring him upstairs. We will allot him a room, and introduce him, first, to—the bath-room. And tomorrow we shall have an excursion down town, and some new clothes for Charlie—Elden."

As they moved up the stairs Conward, who had been in another room in conversation with Mrs. Hardy, followed them unseen. The evening had been interminable for Conward. For three hours he had waited word that his victim had been trapped, and for three hours no word had come. He had smoked numberless cigarettes, and nibbled impatiently at his nails, and tried to appear at ease before Mrs. Hardy. If his plans had miscarried; if Dave had discovered the plot; well—— And here at length was Dave, engrossed in a very different matter. Conward followed them up the stairs.

Irene and Dave chatted with the boy for a few moments, trying to make him feel at home in his strange surroundings; then Irene turned to some arrangements for his comfort, and Dave started down stairs. In the passage he was met by Conward. Conward seemed at last to have dropped the mask; he leered insolently, triumphantly, in Dave's face.

"What are you doing here?" Dave demanded, as he felt his head beginning to swim in anger.

Conward leered only the more offensively, and walked down the stairs beside him. At the foot he coolly lit another cigarette. If he was conscious of the hate in Dave's eyes he hid his emotions under a mask of insolence. He held the match before him and calmly watched it burn out. Then he extended it toward Dave.

"You remember our wager, Elden. I present you with—a burnt-out match."

"You liar!" cried Dave. "You infamous liar!"

"Ask her," Conward replied. "She will deny it, of course. All women do."

Dave felt his muscles tighten, and knew that in a moment he would tear his victim to pieces. As his clenched fist came to the side of his body it struck something hard. His revolver! He had forgotten; he was not in the habit of carrying it. In an instant he had Conward covered.

Dave did not press the trigger at once. He took a fierce delight in torturing the man who had wrecked his life,—even while he told himself he could not believe his boast. Now he watched the colour fade from Conward's cheek; the eyes stand out in his face; the livid blotches more livid still; the cigarette drop from his nerveless lips.

"You are a brave man, Conward," he said, and there was the rasp of hate and contempt in his voice. "You are a very brave man."

Mrs. Hardy, sensing something wrong, came out from her sitting-room. With a little cry she swooned away.

Conward tried to speak, but words stuck in his throat. With a dry tongue he licked his drier lips.

"Do you believe in hell, Conward?" Dave continued. "I've always had some doubt myself, but in thirty seconds—you'll know."

Irene, attracted by her mother's cry, appeared on the stairway. For a moment her eyes refused to grasp the scene before them; Conward cowering, terror-stricken; Dave fierce, steely, implacable, with his revolver lined on Conward's brain. Through some strange whim of her mind her thought in that instant flew back to the bottles on the posts of the Elden ranch, and Dave breaking five out of six on the gallop. Then, suddenly, she became aware of one thing only. A tragedy was being enacted before her eyes, and Dave would be held responsible. In a moment every impulse within her beat forth in a wild frenzy to save him from such a consequence.

"Oh, don't, Dave, don't, don't shoot him," she cried, flying down the remaining steps. Before Dave could grasp her purpose she was upon him; had clutched his revolver; had wrapped her arms about his. "Don't, don't, Dave," she pleaded. "For my sake, don't do—that."

Her words were tragically unfortunate. For a moment Dave stood as one paralyzed; then his heart dried up within him.

"So that's the way of it," he said, as he broke her grip, and the horror in his own eyes would not let him read the sudden horror in hers. "All right; take it," and he placed the revolver in her hand. "You should know what to do with it." And before she could stop him he had walked out of the house.

She rushed to the gate, but already the roar of his motor was lost in the hum of the city's traffic.



CHAPTER TWENTY

When Dave sprang into his car he gave the motor a full head and drove through the city streets in a fury of recklessness. His mind was numbed; it was incapable of assorting thoughts and placing them in proper relationship to each other. His muscles guided the machine apparently without any mental impulse. He rode it as he had ridden unbroken bronchos in his far-away boyhood. Only this difference; then he had no sense of danger; now he knew the danger, and defied it. If he killed himself, so much the better; if he killed others, so much the better still. The world was a place without purpose; a chaos of blind, impotent, struggling creatures, who struggled only because they did not know they were blind and impotent. Life was a farce and death a big bluff set up that men might take the farce seriously.

He was soon out of the city, roaring through the still Autumn night with undiminished speed. Over tortuous country roads, across sudden bridges, along slippery hillsides, through black bluffs of scrub-land—in some strange way he tried to drown the uproar in his soul in the frenzy of the steel that quivered beneath him. On and on, into the night. Bright stars gleamed overhead; a soft breeze pressed against his face; it was such a night as he had driven, a year ago, with Bert Morrison. Was that only a year ago? And what had happened? Where had he been? Oh, to bring the boy—Charlie, the boy. When was that? Under the calm heaven his mind was already attempting to establish a sequence; to set its outraged home again in order.

Suddenly the car skidded on a slippery hillside, turned from the road, plowed through a clump of scrub, ricochetted against a dark obstruction, poised a moment on two wheels, turned around and stopped. The shock brought Dave to his senses; he got out and walked about the car, feeling the tires with his hands in the darkness. He could appraise no serious damage. Then he sat on the running board and stared for a long while into the darkness. "No use being a damned fool, anyway, Dave," he said to himself, at length. "I got it—where I didn't expect it—but I guess that's the way with every one. The troubles we expect, don't happen, and then the trouble that we didn't expect gets us when we're not watching." He tried to philosophize; to get a fresh grip on himself. "Where are we, anyway?" he continued. "This country looks familiar." He got up again and walked about, finding his way back to the road. He went along it a little way. Vague impressions suggested that he should know the spot, and yet he could not identify it. Listen! There was a sound of water. There was a sighing of the wind in trees; a very low sighing, rather a whispering, of a gentle wind in trees. The place seemed alive with spirits; spirits tapping on the door of some long sealed chamber of his memory.

Then, with a sudden shock, it came to him. It was the hillside on which Dr. Hardy had come to grief; the hillside on which he had first seen her bright face, her wonderful eyes—— A poignancy of grief engulfed him, sweeping away his cheap philosophies. Here she stood, young and clean and entrancing, thrust before him in an instant out of the wonderful days of the past. And would she always follow him thus; would she stand at every road corner, every street corner, on every prairie hill, in every office hour; must he catch her fragrance in every breeze; see the glint of her hair in every sunbeam; meet her eyes for ever—soft eyes now veiled in tears and flashing glimpses of what might have been? With an unutterable sinking he knew that that was so; that the world was not big enough to hide him from Irene Hardy. There was no way out.

He started his motor and, even in his despair, felt a thrill of pride as the faithful gears engaged, and the car climbed back to its place on the trail. Was all faithfulness, then, in things of steel and iron, and none in flesh and blood? He followed the trail. Why stop now? The long-forgotten ranch buildings lay across the stream and behind the tongue of spruce trees, unless some wandering foothill fire had destroyed them. He forded the stream without difficulty. That was where he had carried her out. . . . He felt his way slowly along the old fence. That was where she had set up bottles for his marksmanship. . . . He stopped where the straggling gate should be, and walked carefully into the yard. That was where she had first called him Dave. . . . Then he found the doorstep, and sat down to wait.

When the sun was well up he rose and walked about. His lips were parched; he found himself nibbling them with his teeth, so he went to the stream. He was thirsty, but he drank only a mouthful; the water was flat and insipid. . . . The old cabin was in better repair than he would have thought. He sprung the door open. It was musty and strung with cobwebs; that was the room she had occupied. He did not go in, but sat down and tried to think.

Later he walked up the canyon. He must have walked swiftly, for the sun was not yet at the meridian when he found himself at the little nook in the rock where he and Irene had sat that afternoon when they had first laid their hearts open to each other. He tried to recall that long-forgotten conversation, lacerating himself with the pain of its tenderness. Suddenly one remark stood up in his memory. "The day is coming," she had said, "when our country will want men who can shoot and ride." And he had said, "Well, when it does, it can call on me." And to-day the country did want men who could shoot and ride, and he had flown into the foothills to nurse a broken heart. . . . Broken hearts can fight as well as whole ones. Better, perhaps, because they don't care. He felt his frame straighten as this thought sank home. He could be of some use yet. At any rate, there was a way out.

Some whim led him through the grove of spruce trees on his way back to the ranch. Here, in an open space, he looked about, kicking in the dry grass. At length his toe disturbed a few bleached bones, and he stood and looked with unseeing eyes far across the shimmering valley.

"Brownie," he said at length. "Brownie." The whole scene came back upon him; the moonlight, and Irene's distress, and the little bleeding body. And he had said he didn't know anything about the justice of God; all he knew was the crittur that couldn't run was the one that got caught. . . . And he had said that was life. . . . He had said it was only nature.

And then they had stood among the trees and beneath the white moon and pledged their faith. . . .

Again his head went up, and the old light flashed in his eyes. "The first thing is to kill the wolf," he said aloud. "No other innocent shall fall to his fangs. Then—my country."

Darkness had again fallen before Dave found his car threading the streets of the city, still feverish with its new-born excitement of war. He returned his car to the garage; an attendant looked up curiously,—it was evident from his glance that Dave had already been missed—but no words were exchanged. He stood for a moment in the street collecting his thoughts and rehearsing his resolves. He was amazed to find that, even in his bitterness, the city reached a thousand hands to him—hands of habit, and association, and custom of mind—all urging him back into the old groove; all saying, "The routine is the thing; be a spoke in the wheel; go 'round with the rest of us."

"No," he reminded himself. "No, I can't do that. I have business on hand. First—to kill the wolf."

He remembered that he had given his revolver to Irene. And suddenly she sat with him again at the tea table. . . . Where was he? Yes, he had given his revolver to Irene. Well, there was another in his rooms. First to kill the wolf.

In the hallway of the block in which he had his bachelor apartments Dave almost collided with a woman. He drew back, and the light fell on his face, but hers was in the shadow. And then he heard her voice. "Oh, Dave, I'm so glad—why, what has happened?" The last words ran into a little treble of pain as she noted his haggard face; he had not eaten for twenty-four hours, nor slept for thirty-six.

"You—Edith," he managed to say. "Whatever——"

She came toward him and placed her hands on his. "I've been here a hundred times—ever since morning—ever since Bert Morrison called up to say you had disappeared—that there was some mystery. There isn't, is there, Dave? You're all right, Dave, aren't you, Dave?"

"I guess I'm all right," he managed to answer, "but I got a job on—an important job on. I must get it done. There is not time——"

But her woman's intuition had gone far below his idle words. "There is something wrong, Dave," she said. "You never looked like this before. Tell me what it is. Tell me, Dave; not that I want to know, for knowing's sake, but just that I—perhaps I—can help."

Dave was silent for a moment, watching her. She had changed her position, and he could see her face. Suddenly it occurred to him that Edith Duncan was beautiful. If she had not quite the fine features of Irene, she had a certain softness of expression, a certain mellowness, even tenderness, of lip and eye; a certain womanly delicacy——

"Edith," he said, "you're white. Why is it that the woman a man loves will fail him, and the woman he only likes—stays true?"

"Oh!" she cried, and he could not guess the depths from which her cry was wrung. . . . "I should not have asked you, Dave," she said. "I'm sorry."

They stood a moment, neither wishing to move away. "You said you had something must be done at once," she reminded him at length.

"Yes," he answered. "I have to kill a man. Then I'm going to join up with the army."

Her hands were again upon him. "But you mustn't, Dave," she pleaded. "No matter—no matter what—you mustn't do that. That is the one thing you must not do."

"Edith, you are not a man. You don't understand. That is the one thing I must do."

"But you can't fight for your country, then. You will only increase its troubles in these troubled times. Don't think I'm pleading for him, Dave, but for you, for the sake of us—for the sake of those—who care."

He took her hands in his and raised them to his shoulders and drew her face close to his. Then, speaking very slowly, and with each word by itself, "Do you really care?" he said.

"Oh, Dave!"

"Then come to my room and talk to me. Talk to me! Talk to me! For God's sake talk to me. I must talk to some one."

She followed him. Inside the room he had himself under control again. The street lights flooded through the windows, so he did not press the switch. He motioned her to a chair.

And then he told her the story, all he knew.

When he had finished she arose and walked to one of the windows and stood looking with unseeing eyes upon the street. For the second time in his life Dave Elden had laid his heart bare to her, and again after all these years he still talked as friend to friend. That was it. She was under no delusion. Dave's eyes were as blind to her love as they had been that night when he had first told her of Irene Hardy. And she could not tell him. Most of all, she could not tell him now. . . . Yes, she was very sure of that. If she should tell him now—if she should let him know—he would turn to her in his grief. He would be clay in her hands. And afterwards he would despise her for having taken advantage of his hour of weakness. She had waited all these years, and still she must wait.

Dave's eyes were upon her form, silhouetted against the window. It occurred to him that in form Edith was very much like Irene. He recalled that in those dead past days when they used to ride together Edith had reminded him of Irene. When she stood silent so long he spoke again.

"I'm afraid I haven't played a very heroic part," he said, somewhat shamefacedly. "I should have buried my secret in my heart; buried it even from you; perhaps most of all from you. I should have faced the world with a smile, as one who rises above the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. People do that kind of thing in books; perhaps some do in real life. I suppose you can't tell from the outside what may be carried within—even by your closest friend. But—you can advise me, Edith. I will value whatever you say."

She trembled until she thought he must see her, and she feared to trust her voice, but she could delay a reply no longer.

"You are right, Dave," she said at length. "You never can tell what other people are carrying; perhaps, even, as you say, your closest friends. The first thing is to get rid of the idea that your experience is unique; that your lot is harder than that of other people. It may be different, but it is not harder. When you get that point of view you will be able to pass sane judgments.

"'And when you can pass sane judgment you may see that the evidence is not, even at the worst, very conclusive. Why should you take Conward's word in such a matter as this?"

"I didn't take Conward's word. That's why I didn't kill him at once. It wasn't his word—it was the insult—that cut. But she tried to save him. She threw herself upon me. She would have taken the bullet herself rather than let it find him. That was what—that was what——"

"I know, Dave." She had to hold herself in check lest the tenderness that welled within her, and would shape words of endearing sympathy in her mind, should find utterance in speech. "I know, Dave," she said. "The next thing then is to make sure in your own mind whether you ever really loved Irene Hardy."

He sprang to his feet. "Loved Irene!" he exclaimed, and she was in a turmoil of fear and hope that he would approach her. But he paced his own side of the room.

"Edith," he said, "there is no way of explaining this. You can't understand. I know you have given yourself up to a life of service, and I honour you very much, and all that, but there are some things you won't be able to understand. You can't understand just how much I loved Irene."

"I think I can," she answered, quietly. "You have kept your love faithful and single for a dozen years, and I—I think I can understand. But that isn't why I asked. Because if you loved Irene a week ago you love her to-night."

"Have you never known of love being turned to hate?"

"No. Other impulses may be, but not love. Love can no more turn to hate than sunlight can turn to darkness. Believe me, Dave, if you hate Irene now you never loved her. Listen:

"'Love beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things!'"

"Not all things, Edith; not all things."

"It says all things."

Dave was silent for some time. When he spoke again she caught a different sound in his voice; a tone as though his soul in those few moments had gone through a life-time of experience.

"Edith," he said, "when you repeated those words I knew you had something that I have not. I knew it, not by the words, but by the way you said them. You made me feel that you were not setting a higher standard for me than you would accept for yourself. You made me know that in your own life, if you loved, you would be ready to endure all things. Tell me, Edith, how may this thing be done?"

She trembled with delight at the new tone in his voice, for she knew that in that hour Dave had crossed a boundary of his life and entered into a new and richer field of existence. She knew that for him life would never again be the empty, flippant, selfish, irresponsible thing which in the past he had called life. He was already beginning to taste of that wine of compensation provided for those who pass through the valley of sorrow.

"In your case," she said, "the course is simple. It is just a case of forgiving."

He gazed for a time into the street, while thoughts of bitterness and revenge fought for domination of his mind. "Edith," he said at length, "must I—forgive?"

"I do not say you must," she answered. "I merely say if you are wise you will. Forgiveness is the balm of our moral life, by which we keep the wounds of the soul from festering and poisoning the spirit. Nothing, it seems to me, is so much misunderstood as forgiveness. The popular idea is that the whole benefit of forgiveness is to the person who is forgiven. Really, there is a very much greater benefit to the person who forgives. The one who is forgiven may merely escape punishment, but the one who forgives experiences a positive spiritual expansion. Believe me, Dave, it is the only philosophy which rings true under the most critical tests; which is absolutely dependable in every emergency."

"Is that Christianity?" he ventured.

"It is one side of Christianity. The other side is service. If you are willing to forgive and ready to serve I don't think you need worry much over the details of your creed. Creeds, after all, are not expressed in words, but in lives. When you know how a man lives you know what he believes—always."

"Suppose I forgive—what then?"

"Service. You are needed right now, Dave—forgive my frankness—your country needs you right now. You have the qualities which make you extremely valuable. You must dismiss this grievance from your mind, at least dismiss your resentment over it, and then place yourself at the disposal of your country. The way is so clear that it cannot be misunderstood."

"That is what I had been thinking of," he said. "At least that part about serving my country, although I don't think my motives were as high as you would make them. But the war can't last. It'll be all over before I can take a hand. Civilization has gone too far for such a thing as this to last. It is unbelievable."

"I'm not so sure," she answered, gravely. "Of course, I know nothing about Germany. But I do know something about our own people. I know how selfish and individualistic and sordid and money-grabbing we have been; how slothful and incompetent and self-satisfied we have been, and I fear it will take a long war and sacrifices and tragedies altogether beyond our present imagination to make us unselfish and public-spirited and clean and generous; it will take the strain and emergency of war to make us vigorous and efficient; it will take the sting of many defeats to impose that humility which will be the beginning of our regeneration. I am not worrying about the defeat of Germany. If our civilization is better than that of Germany we shall win, ultimately, and if our civilization is worse than that of Germany we shall be defeated, ultimately,—and we shall deserve to be defeated. But I rather think that neither of these alternatives will be the result. I rather think that the test of war will show that there are elements in German civilization which are better than ours, and elements in our civilization which are better than theirs, and that the good elements will survive and form the basis of a new civilization better than either."

"If that is so," Dave replied, "if this war is but the working out of immutable law which proposes to put all the elements of civilization to the supreme test and retain only those which are justifiable by that test, why should I—or any one else—fight? And," he added as an after-thought, "what about that principle of forgiveness?"

"We must fight," she answered, "because it is the law that we must fight; because it is only by fighting that we can justify the principles for which we fight. If we hold our principles as being not worth fighting for the new civilization will throw those principles in the discard. And that, too, covers the question of forgiveness. Forgiveness, in fact, does not enter into the consideration at all. We must fight, not because we hate Germany, but because we love certain principles which Germany is endeavouring to overthrow. The impulse must be love, not hate."

She had turned and faced him while she spoke, and he felt himself strangely carried away by the earnestness and fervour of her argument. What a wonderful woman she was! How she had stripped the issue of the detail and circumstance which was confusing even statesmen, and laid it before him in positive terms which he could find no argument to dispute! And how in his hour of distress, when he stood on the verge of utter recklessness and indifference, she had infused into him a strange and new ambition—an ambition which deepened and enriched every phase of life, and yet which held life itself less worthy than its own attainment! And as he looked at her he again thought of Irene, and suddenly he felt himself engulfed in a great tenderness, and he knew that even yet——

"What am I to do?" he said. "I am willing to accept your philosophy. I admit that mine has broken down, and I am willing to try yours. What am I to do?"

In the darkness of her own shadow she set her teeth for that answer. It was to be the crowning act of her self-renunciation, and it strained every fibre of her resolution. She could not allow him to stay where he was, even in uniform. The danger was two-fold. In a moment of weakness he would probably shoot Conward, and in a moment of weakness she would probably disclose her love. And if Dave should ever marry her he must win her first.

"You had better go overseas and enlist in England," she told him calmly, although her nails were biting her palms. "You will get quicker action that way. And when you come back you must see Irene, and you must learn from your own heart whether you really loved her or not. And if you find you did not, then—then you will be free to—to—to think of some other woman."

"I am afraid I shall never care to think of any other woman," he answered. "Except you. But some way you're different. I don't think of you as a woman, you know; not really, in a way. I can't explain it, Edith, but you're something more—something better than all that."

"I assure you I am very much a woman—"

But he had sprung to his feet. "Edith, I can never thank you enough for what you have said to me to-night. You have put some spirit back into my body. I am going to follow your advice. There's a train east in two hours and I'm going on it. Fortunately my property, or most of it, has dissolved the way it came. I must pack a few things, and have a bath and shave and dress."

She moved toward him with extended hand. "Good-bye, Dave," she said.

He held her hand fast in his. "Good-bye, Edith. I can never forget—I can never repay—all you have been. It may sound foolish to you after all I have said, but I sometimes wonder if—if I had not met Irene—if——" He paused and went hot with embarrassment. What would she think of him? An hour ago he had been ready to kill or be killed in grief over his frustrated love, and already he was practically making love to her. Had he brought her to his rooms for this? What a hypocrite he was!

"Forgive me, Edith," he said, as he released her. "I am not quite myself. . . . I hold you in very high respect as one of God's good women. Good-bye."



CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

When Irene Hardy pursued Dave from the house the roar of his motor car was already drowned in the hum of the city streets. Hatless she ran the length of a full block; then, realizing the futility of such a chase, returned with almost equal haste to her home. She burst in and discovered Conward holding a bottle of smelling salts to the nose of her mother, who had sufficiently recovered to sit upright in her chair.

"What is the meaning of this?" she demanded of Conward. "Why did he threaten to shoot, and why did he leave as he did? You know; tell me."

"I am sure I wish I could tell you," said Conward, with all his accustomed suavity. In truth Conward, having somewhat recovered from his fright, was in rather good spirits. Things had gone better than he had dared to hope. Elden was eliminated, for the present at any rate, and now was the time to win Irene. Not just now, perhaps, but soon, when the shock of her interrupted passion turned her to him for companionship.

She stood before him, flushed and vibrating, and with flashing eyes. "You're lying, Conward," she said, deliberately. "First you lied to him and now you lie to me. There can be no other explanation. Where is that gun? He said I would know what to do with it."

"I have it," said Conward, partly carried off his feet by her violence. "I will keep it until you are a little more reasonable, and, perhaps, a little more respectful."

"Irene," said Mrs. Hardy, sharply, "what way is that to speak to Mr. Conward? You are out of your head, child. Such a scene, Mr. Conward. Such a scene in my house! That cow puncher! I always knew it would come out some time. It is breeding that tells, Mr. Conward. Oh, if the papers should learn of this!"

"That's all you think of," Irene retorted. "A scene, and the papers. You don't trouble to even wonder what was the occasion of the scene. You and this—this biped, are at the bottom of it. You have been planning to force me along a course I will not go, and you have done something, something horrible—I don't know what—to cause Dave to act as he did. But I'm going to know. I'm going to find out. You're afraid of the papers. I'm not. I'll give the whole story to them to-morrow. I'll tell that you insulted him, Conward, and how you stood there, a grinning, gaping coward under the muzzle of his gun. How I wish I had a photograph of it," she exclaimed, with a little hysterical laugh. "It would look fine on the front page." She broke into peals of laughter and rushed up the stairs.

In the morning she was very sober and pale, and marks of distress and sleeplessness were furrowed in her face. She greeted her mother with cold civility, and left her breakfast untouched. She gave part of her morning to Charlie; it was saving balm to her to have some one upon whom she could pour affection. Then she went to the telephone. She called Dave's office; nothing was known of Mr. Elden; he had been working there last night; he was not down yet. She called his apartments; there was no answer. Then, with a bright thought, she called the garage. Mr. Elden's car was out; had not been in at all during the night. Then she tried a new number.

"Hello, is that the office of The Call? Will you let me speak to——"

Her mother interrupted almost frantically. "Irene, you are not going to tell the papers? You mustn't do that. Think of what it means—the disgrace—a shooting affair, almost, in our home. Think of me, your mother——"

"I'll think of you on one consideration—that you explain what happened last night, and tell me where Dave Elden is."

"I can't explain. I don't know. And I don't know——"

"And you don't want to know. And you don't care, so long as you can keep it out of the papers. I do. I'm going to find out the facts about this, if every paper in the country should print them. Hello? Yes, I want to speak to Miss Morrison."

In a few words she explained Dave's sudden disappearance, stripping the incident of all but vital facts. Bert Morrison was all sympathy. "It's a big story, you know," she said, "but we won't think of it that way. Not a line, so far as I am concerned. Edith Duncan is the girl we need. A sort of adopted sister to Dave. She may know more than any of us."

But Edith knew absolutely nothing; nothing, except that her own heart was thrown into a turmoil of emotions. She spent the day and the evening down town, rotating about the points where Dave might likely be found. And the next morning she called on Irene Hardy.

In spite of all her efforts at self-control she trembled as she pressed the bell; trembled violently as she waited for the door to open. She had never met Irene Hardy; it was going to be a strange experience, introducing herself to the woman who had been preferred over her, and who had, apparently, proven so unworthy of that preference. She had difficult things to say, and even while she said them she must fight a battle to the death with the jealousy of her natural womanhood. And she must be very, very careful that in saying things which were hard to say she did not say hard things. And, most difficult of all, she must try to pave the way to a reconciliation between Dave and the woman who stood between her and happiness.

Irene attended the door, as was her custom. Her eyes took in Edith's face and figure with mild surprise; Edith was conscious of the process of a quick intellect endeavouring to classify her;—solicitor, music teacher, business girl? And in that moment of pause she saw Irene's eyes, and a strange commotion of feeling surged through her. There was something in those eyes that suggested to Edith a new side to Dave's nature; it was as though the blind had suddenly been drawn from strange chambers of his soul. So this was the woman Dave had chosen to love. No; one does not choose whom one will love; one loves without choosing. Edith was conscious of that; she knew that in her own life. And even as she looked this first time upon Irene she became aware of a subtle attraction gathering about her; she felt something of that power which had held Dave to a single course through all these years. And suddenly a great new truth was born in Edith Duncan. Suddenly she realized that if the steel at any time prove unfaithful to the magnet the fault lies not in the steel, but in the magnet. What a change of view, what a reversion of all accepted things, came with the realization of that truth which roots down into the bedrock of all nature! . . .

"Won't you come in?" Irene was saying. Her voice was sweet and musical, but there was a note of sadness in it which set responsive chords atremble all through Edith's heart. Must she love this woman? Must she, in spite of herself, love this, of all women?

"I am Edith Duncan," she managed to say. "I—I think I have something to say that may interest you."

There was a quick leap in Irene's eyes; the leap of that intuitive feminine sense of danger which so seldom errs in dealing with its own sex, and is yet so unreliable a defence from the dangers of the other. Mrs. Hardy was in the living-room. "Won't you come up to my work shop?" Irene answered without change of voice, and they ascended the stairs together.

"I draw a little," Irene was saying, talking fast. "Oh yes, I have quite commercialized my art, such as it is. I draw pictures of shoes, and shirt waists, and other women's wear which really belong to the field of a feminine artist. But I haven't lost my soul altogether. I daub in colour a little—yes, daub, that's the word. But it keeps one's soul alive. You will hardly recognize that," she said, indicating an easel, "but here is the original." She ran up the blind of the window which looked from the room out to the westward, and far over the brown shoulders of the foothills rose the Rockies, majestic, calm, imperturbable, their white summits flashing in the blaze of autumn sunshine. "No warfare there," Irene went on. "No plotting, no cruelty, no cowardice, no misunderstanding. And to think that they will stand there forever; forever, as we know time; when our city, our civilization, the very memory of our age shall have gone out. I never look at them without feeling how—how—how——"

She trembled, and her voice choked; she put out her arm to a chair. When she turned her face there were tears on it. . . . "Tell me,—Edith," she said. . . . "You know" . . .

"I know some things," Edith managed to say. "I know, now, that I do not know all. Dave and I are old friends—my father took a liking to him and he used often to be in our house—he made him think of our own boy that was killed and would have been just his age—and we got to know each other very well and he told me about you, long ago. And last night I found him at his rooms, almost mad, and swearing to shoot Conward. And then he told me that—that——"

"Yes? Yes? What did he tell you? I am not afraid——"

Edith turned her eyes to where the white crests of the mountains cut like a crumpled keel through a sea of infinite blue. "He told me he saw Conward here . . . upstairs . . . and Conward made a boast . . . and he would have shot him but you rushed upon him and begged him not to. He said you would have taken the bullet yourself rather than it should find Conward."

"Oh, oh," the girl cried, in the pain of one mortally hurt. "How could he think that? I didn't care for him—for Conward—but for Dave. I knew there had been a quarrel—I didn't know why—and I knew if Dave shot him—and he can shoot—I've seen him break six bottles out of six on the gallop—it wasn't self-defence—whatever it was he couldn't plead that—and they'd hang him, and that was all I saw, Edith, that was all I saw, and I would—yes I would rather have taken the bullet myself than that that should happen——"

"You poor girl!" said Edith. "You poor girl," and her arms found the other's neck. "You have been hurt, hurt." And then, under her breath, "More than me."

. . . "What has he done?"

"He talked his problems over with me, and after he had talked awhile he became more reasonable. He had already been convinced that he should offer his services to his country, in these times. And I think I persuaded him that it was better to leave vengeance where it belonged. He said he couldn't remain here, and he has already left for England. I am afraid I encouraged him to leave at once. You see, I didn't understand."

Irene had taken a chair, and for some minutes she sat in silence. "I don't blame you," she said at length. "You gave him good advice. And I don't blame him, although he might have been less ready to jump at conclusions. There remains only one thing for me to do."

"What?" said Edith, after a moment's hesitation.

"Follow him! I shall follow him, and make him understand. If he must go into battle—with all that that means—he must go in knowing the truth. You have been very kind, Miss Duncan. You have gone out of your way to do me a great service, and you have shown more kindness than I have any right to claim from a stranger. . . . I feel, too, the call for vengeance," she exclaimed, springing to her feet, "but first I must find Dave. I shall follow him at once. I shall readily locate him in some way through the military service. Everything is organized; they will be able to find his name."

She accompanied her visitor to the door. They shook hands and looked for a moment in each other's eyes. And then Edith burst away and hurried down the street.

Irene had searched London for two weeks. The confidence of her earlier inquiries had diminished with each successive blind trail, which, promising results at first, led her into a maze of confusion and disappointment. The organization of the military service commanded less enthusiasm than she had felt a month before. She saw it struggling with the apparently impossible; it was as though she, in her little studio, had been suddenly called upon to paint all the portraits in the world . . . In some degree she understood the difficulties. In equal degree she sympathized with those who were striving to overcome them and she hung on from day to day in her search with a dogged determination which set its teeth against admitting that the search was hopeless. Her little store of money was fast dwindling away; she looked into the face of every man in uniform with a pathetic earnestness that more than once caused her to be misunderstood.

At last one great fear had settled on her heart. It came upon her first suddenly on shipboard; she had resolutely thrown it out of her mind; but it had been knocking ever since for admittance, and more than once she had almost let it in. Suppose Dave should not enlist under his right name? In such a case her chance of finding him was the mere freak of accidental meeting; a chance not to be banked upon in a country already swarming with its citizen soldiery. . . . And yet there was nothing to do but keep on.

She had sought a park bench where groups of soldiers were continually moving by. The lights shone on their faces, and her own tired eyes followed them incessantly. Always her ear was alert for a voice that should set her heart a-pounding, and more than once she had thought she heard that, voice; more than a score of times she had thought she had seen that figure with its stride of self-reliance, with strength bulging in every muscle. And always it had been to learn that she had been mistaken; always it had been to feel the heart sink just a little lower than before. And still she kept on. There was nothing to do but keep on.

Often she wondered how he would receive her. That cold look which had frozen his features when she seized the revolver in his hand; would it still sit there, too distant and detached to be even scornful? Would she have it to break down; must she, with the fire of her own affection, thaw out an entrance through his icy aloofness? What cost of humiliation would be the price, and would even any price be accepted? She could not know; she could only hope and pray and go on.

As she turned her eyes to follow a group of men in uniform she became aware of a soldier sitting alone in the shadow a short distance away. Some quality about him caught her attention; his face was not discernible, and his figure was too much in the shadow to more than suggest its outline, but she found herself regarding him with an intentness that set her pulses racing. Some strange attraction raised her from her seat; she took a step toward him, then steadied herself. Should she dare risk it again? And yet there was something. . . . She had a sudden plan. She would make no inquiry, no apology; she would walk near by and call him by name. If that name meant nothing to him he would not even notice her presence, but if it should be——

She was within three paces. Still she could discern nothing definitely, but her pulses were raging more wildly than ever. They had deceived her before; could it be that they were deceiving her again?

"Dave," she said.

He turned quickly in his seat; the light fell on her face and he saw her; he was on his feet and had taken a step toward her. Then he stopped, and she saw his features harden as they had on that dreadful occasion which now seemed so long ago. Would he turn on his heel? If he did she must rush upon him. She must tell him now, she must plead with him, reason with him, prevail upon him at all costs.

"Well?" he said. His voice was mechanical, but in it was something which quickened her hope; something which suggested that he was making it mechanical because he dared not let it express the human emotion which was struggling for utterance.

"Let me talk to you, Dave," she pleaded. "I have followed you around the world for this. Let me talk. I can explain everything."

He stood still so long that she wondered if he never would speak. She dared not reach her hands to him, she could only stand and wait.

"Irene," he said, "why did you follow me here?"

"There is only one answer, Dave. Because I love you, and would follow you anywhere. No one can stop me doing that; no one, Dave—except you."



And again he stood, and she knew that he was turning over in his mind things weightier than life and death, and that when he spoke again his course would be set. Then, in the partial shadow, she saw his arms slowly extend; they rose, wide and strong, and extended toward her. There was a quick step, and they met about her, and the world swooned and went by. . . .

"I can explain everything," she said, when she could talk.

"You need explain nothing," he returned. "I have lived the torments of the damned. Edith Duncan was right; she said if it were real love it would never give up. 'Endureth all things,' she said. 'All things,' she said. . . . There is no limit."

She caressed his cheeks with her fingers, and knew by the touch that they were brown again as they had been in those great days of the foothills. "But I must tell you, dear," she said, "so that you may understand." And then she patched together the story, from what she knew, and from what Edith Duncan had told her, and Dave filled in what neither had known, including the incident earlier on that fateful evening. She could see his jaws harden as they pieced the plot together, and she knew what he was thinking.

"Your country needs you more," she whispered. "It is better that way. And what a man you are in uniform! I think I see you smashing heads instead of bottles. Six out of six, Dave! It's awful, but you must do it. Already we know what has happened in Belgium. You will forget your own wrongs in the greater wrongs of others. . . . And I shall join the service as a nurse. My father was a doctor, and I can soon pick it up."

She chatted on, but he had become suddenly grave. "I don't think that is your course, Irene," he said. "This is going to be a bigger job than it looked. The Government will get soldiers and nurses; the popular imagination turns to such things. But it will be neither soldiers nor nurses that will win the war. I feel sure of that now. It has come to me, perhaps as a kind of presentiment, but I feel absolutely sure. The determining factor will be food. The world's margin is narrow enough in normal times, and now we are plunged into the abnormal. Millions of men will be taken from production and turned to purposes of destruction. They will be taken from offices, where they need little food, and put in the trenches, where they need much food. Countries will be devastated; armies will retreat, destroying all food as they go. Ships will go down with cargoes of wheat; incendiary fires will swallow warehouses of food. I do not regret my decision, I believe my place is in the trenches; but those less fit for the fight than I must, in some form or other, produce food. That includes the women; it includes you."

"Me? But what can I do?"

"Since I left home I've thought a good deal of the old ranch. I despised it in those prosperous days—those days we thought we were prosperous—but the prosperity is gone and the ranch remains. It still lies out there, just as it did when you and your father motored down that afternoon a dozen years ago. I think you'll have to go back there, Reenie. I think you'll have to take the boy Charlie, and what other help you can get, and go back to the old ranch and raise something for the soldiers to eat. You can do it. There are good men to be had; men who can't very well carry a rifle, but can drive a plow. And believe me, Reenie, it's the plow that's going to win. Go back and put them at it. Think of every furrow as another trench in the defences which shall save your home from the fate of Belgium's homes. It's not as easy as going to the front; it hasn't got the heroic ring to it, and I suppose there are many who will commercialize it. Let them. We shall need their profits after the war to pay our debts. But it's the thing that must be done. And you'll do it, won't you?"

"I'll do what ever needs to be done, Dave. I'd rather be by your side, or as near as may be, but if you say that my duty lies back on the old ranch I shall go back to the old ranch and raise food for my soldier. And when it's all over we shall ride those old hillsides again. . . . Up the canyon, you remember, Dave? The little niche in the wall of the canyon, and all the silence and the sunlight? . . . Forever. . . ."



CHAPTER XXII

Any philosophy which accepts the principle that the great, over-shadowing events of life are subject to an intelligent controlling influence must of necessity grant that the same principle applies to the most commonplace and every-day experiences. It is impossible to believe that the World War, for example, has a definite place in the eternal scheme of the universe without believing the same of the apparently most trivial incident in the life of Kaiser Wilhelm, Lloyd George, or Woodrow Wilson, or, for that matter, of the humblest soldier in the ranks. The course of the greatest stream of events may well be deflected by incidents so commonplace as to quite escape the notice of the casual observer.

Some such thought as this comforted me—or, at least, would have comforted me, had I thought it—when a leaking gasoline tank left me, literally as well as figuratively, high and dry in the foothills. The sun of an August afternoon blazed its glory from a cloudless sky; far across the shimmering hills copper-colored patches of ripening wheat stood out ruddy and glowing like twentieth century armour on the brown breast of the prairie; low in a valley to the left a ribbon of silver-green mountain water threaded its way through fringes of spruce and cottonwood, while on the uplands beyond sleek steers drowsed in the sunshine, and far to the westward the Rockies slept unconcerned in their draperies of afternoon purple. All these scenes the eye took in without enthusiasm, almost without approval; and then fell on the whitewashed ranch buildings almost in the shadow underneath. And in these days a ranch—almost any ranch—means gasoline.

I soon was at the door. The walls had been recently white-washed; there were new shingles of red cedar on the roof; flowers bloomed by the path that led down to the corrals. My knock attracted a little chap of two-and-a-half or three years; his stout hands shoved the screen back, and I found myself ushered into his company. There evidently was no one else about, so I visited, and we talked on those things which are of importance in the world of three-year-olds.

"Muvver's don to the wiver," he confided. "She tum back pwetty soon."

"And Father?" I asked. "Where is he?"

Into the dark eyes came a deeper look; they suddenly shone with the spirituality of a life only three years removed from the infinite. By what instruction, I afterwards wondered, by what almost divine charm had she been able to instil into his young mind the honour and the glory and the pride of it? For there was pride, and something more than pride; adoration, perhaps, in his words as he straightened up and said in perfect English, "My father was a soldier. He was killed at Courcelette."

I looked in his little, sunburned face; in his dark, proud eyes; and presently a strange mist enveloped the room. How many little faces, how many pairs of eyes! It was just fading away when a step sounded on the walk, and I arose as she reached the door.

"The Man of the House has made me at home," I managed to say. "I am shipwrecked on the hill, for a little gasoline."

"There is plenty out in the field, where the tractor is," she replied. "You will find it without difficulty. Or if you care to wait here, Charlie may be along presently."

Her voice had sweet, modulated tones, with just that touch of pathos which only the Angel of Suffering knows how to add. And her face was fair, and gentle, and a little sad, and very sweet.

"He has told me," I said. There seemed no reason why I should not say it. She had entered into the sisterhood—that universal sisterhood of suffering which the world has known in these long, lonely years. . . . And it was between us, for we were all in the family. There was no occasion to scrape acquaintance by slow, conventional thrust and parry.

"Yes," she said, sitting down, and motioning me to a chair. "I was bitter at first. I was dreadfully bitter at first. But gradually I got a different view of it. Gradually I came to feel and know that all we can feel and know here is on the surface; on the outside, as you might say, and we can't know the purpose until we are inside. It is as though life were a riddle, and the key is hidden, and the door behind which the key is hidden is called Death. And I don't believe it's all for nothing; I won't believe it's all for nothing. If I believed it was all for nothing I would quit; we would all quit.

"Then there is the suffering," she continued, after a pause. "I don't know why there should be suffering, but I know if there were no suffering there would be no kindness. It is not until you are hit—hard hit—that you begin to think of other people. Until then all is selfishness. But we women—we women of the war—we have nothing left to be selfish for. But we have the whole world to be unselfish for. It's all different, and it can never go back. We won't let it go back. We've paid too much to let it go back."

It was hard to find a reply. "I think I knew your husband, a little," I ventured. "He was a—a man."

"He was all that," she said. She arose and stood for a moment in an attitude of hesitation; her fingers went to her lips as though enjoining caution. Then, with quick decision, she went into an inner room, from which she returned with a letter.

"If you knew him you may care to read this," she said. "It's very personal, and yet, some way, everything is impersonal now, in a sense. There has been such a common cause, and such a wave of common suffering, that it seems to flood out over the individual and embrace us all. Individualism is gone. It's the community now; the state; mankind, if you like, above everything. I suppose, so far as German kultur stands for that, it has been imposed upon the world. . . . So this is really, in a sense, your letter as well as mine."

I took it and read:

I have had many letters to write since my service began as a nurse in the war, but never have I approached the task with such mixed emotions. The pain I must give you I would gladly bear myself if I could; but it is not all pain; underneath it, running through it in some way I cannot explain, is a note so much deeper than pain that it must be joy.

You will already have been advised that David Elden was among those who fell at Courcelette. It is trite to say that you have the sympathy of a grateful nation. How grateful the nation really is we shall know by its treatment of the heroes who survive the war, and of the dependents of those who have crossed over. But nothing can rob you of the knowledge that he played a man's part. Nothing can debar you from that universal fellowship of sympathy which is springing up wherever manhood is valued at its worth.

A new Order has been born into the world; the Order of Suffering. Not that it is new, either; it has been with us since the first mother went into the shadow for her first child; but always suffering has been incidental; a matter of the individual; a thing to be escaped if possible. But now it is universal, a thing not to be escaped, but to be accepted, readily, bravely, even gladly. And all who so accept it enter into the new Order, and wear its insignia, which is unselfishness and sympathy and service. And in that Order you shall not be least, measured by either your sacrifice or the spirit in which you accept it.

But you are yearning for his last word; for some voice that will seem to you now almost a voice out of the grave, and I am happy to be able to bring you that word. It was something more than chance that guided me that night, as it is every night.

We were well behind the line of actual fighting, but still in the danger zone of artillery fire. Night had settled in; all was darkness save for occasional distant flares. I had become detached from my party in moving to another station; lost, if you like, yet not lost; never have I gone so directly to so great a destination. While trying to get my location I became aware of a presence; it will sound strange to you, but I became intensely aware of your presence. Of course I knew it could not be you, in the flesh, but you it seemed to be, nevertheless. I moved as though led by an invisible hand, and presently I found a bit of shattered wall. In the gloom I could just discern the form of a man lying in the shelter of the wall—if you could call it shelter—it rose scarce a foot above the ground.

I knelt beside him and turned my torch on to his face. It was pale even through the brown skin; the eyes were closed; the hair was wet and plastered on the forehead; there were smears of blood in it and on his cheeks. As my light fell on his lips they framed a smile.

"Reenie," he said. "It was good of you to come. I knew you would come."

"I am here, Dave," I answered, and I think you will forgive me the impersonation. "Now let me find out where you are hurt, and we'll fix you up, and get you moved presently."

He opened his eyes and looked at me with the strange look of a man whose thread of consciousness is half unravelled. "Oh, it's you, Edith," he said, when he had taken me in. "Funny, I thought it was Irene. I must have been dreaming."

I questioned him again about his wound, and began feeling his hair. "It's not there," he said. "Guess I got it all over my hands. They got me this time. Shrapnel, in the body. Don't waste time on me. Some other fellow may have a chance."

I found, with a little examination, that the case was as bad as he supposed. Fortunately, the wound had induced a local paralysis, and he was not suffering to any great degree. I placed my hand in his and felt his grip tighten on it.

"I'm going to stay till it's over, Dave. We'll see it out together."

"That's decent," he answered, and then was still for quite a time.

"I've often wondered what was on the other side," he said at length. "I shall know presently."

"You are not afraid?" I whispered.

"No. Only sort of—curious. And—reverent. I guess it's reverent. . . You know I haven't been much on religion. Never seemed to get the formula. What is the formula? I mean the key—the thing that gives it all in one word?"

"In one word—sacrifice."

"I walked out of church once because of some doctrine about sacrifice," he continued. "I couldn't go it. . . And yet—there may be something in it. It's sacrifice here, Edith. War is sacrifice. Sacrifice for other people. It's not all on the surface. There's something deeper than we know."

"'He that loseth his life shall find it,'" I quoted.

He did not answer, but I could see his lips smiling again. His breath was more labored. A few drops of rain fell, and some of them spattered on his face.

Presently he chuckled. It was an eerie sensation, out on that broad plain of death, alone by the side of this man who was already far into the shadow,—to hear him chuckle.

"That splash of water—you remember—it made me think of the time we pulled the old car into the stream, and the harness broke, or something, and I had to carry you. You remember that, Reenie?" I could only say "Yes," and press his hand. His mind was back on the old, old trails.

He became suddenly sober. "And when Brownie was killed," he went on, "I said it was the innocent thing that got caught. Perhaps I was right. But perhaps it's best to get caught. Not for the getting caught, but for the—the compensations. It's the innocent men that are getting killed. And perhaps it's best. Perhaps there are compensations worth while."

His voice was weaker, and I had to lean close to catch his words.

"I'm going—out," he said. "Kiss me, Reenie."

And then I kissed him—for you.

Suddenly he sat up.

"The mountains!" he exclaimed, and his voice was a-thrill with the pride of his old hills. "See, the moonlight—on the mountains!"

Then his strength, which seemed to have gathered itself for this one last vision of the place of his boyhood, gave way, and he fell back. And he did not speak any more.

THE END