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

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

Doris gave him a long, steady look.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"On the contrary—only divine ones."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I have nothing to say."

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

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

"Did you forget that she was also mine?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"But the inheritance?" he flung out.

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

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

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

"And your revenge!" muttered Thornton.

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

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

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

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

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

"Who deserted it?" Thornton broke in.

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

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

"She died the year after."

"And the others?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Who can tell?"

There was a dull pause. Then:

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

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



CHAPTER VI

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Her greatest concern now was the menace of Thornton.

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

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

When must they know?

Doris had not considered that before to any extent.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Doris rose and went to the steps.

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

Quite simple the reply came:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Joan actually looked sick, so intense was she.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Doris was keeping her voice cool and calm.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Clearly, Doris must have help at this juncture.

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was Martin who answered.

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

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

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

Doris's face twitched.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The other, David?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Martin, at this, began to defend Doris.

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

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

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

Then he gave his prescription:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



CHAPTER VII

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Go home."

"Go—home? Why—where is home, Mary?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Doris was embarrassed.

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

Finally a letter came from Thornton. A dictated letter.

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

He left everything in Doris's capable hands!

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

And Joan and Nancy went to Dondale and Miss Phillips.

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

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

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

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

"But life—wants you!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Joan turned and fixed Nancy with flaming eyes.

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

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

Joan regarded her intently and then replied:

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

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

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

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

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

Martin came from behind his newspaper.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

David started, but made no remark.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"She shall have her chance!"

Then it was that something happened. Things—stopped!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I feared so—and I am forty-nine."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What will Nancy love, David?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You did that, David—how like you!"

The tears still came easily to Doris's eyes.

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

Doris was smiling.

"But the girls!" she faltered.

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



CHAPTER VIII

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

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

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

They were eager to go forward but were half afraid.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nancy flushed, but made no reply.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Begin what, Joan?"

"Begin to live."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"You're silly, Joan."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It happened this way:

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

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

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

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

It was an old English ballad, quaint and rollicking:

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

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

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

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

The ringing girlish voice rose high and true and clear.

"Bravo!" cried a man's voice and then:

"And she'll do it, too!"

It was at this point that Martin took Doris from the room.

In the quiet of the deserted piazza Doris looked up at Martin through tears.

"Joan is feeling her oats." Martin walked to and fro; he had been more moved by the song than he cared to confess.

"The darling!" Doris whispered. Then: "Can't you see what Miss Phillips meant, Davey? The child is talented—she shall never be held back. Wealth can be as cruel and crippling as poverty. Be prepared, David, I mean to let Joan—free."

Martin came close and sat down.

"Go easy, Doris," he cautioned, then asked: "And how about Nancy?"

"David, I'm going to tell Nancy, after we come home from Europe—not all, of course, but enough to make her understand—about me! I cannot quite explain, but I am sure I am right in my decision. Nancy, indeed all of us, will, sooner or later, have to let Joan go! I saw that clearly as she sang. I must fill Nancy's life and she must make up to me what I am about to lose. David, is this what mothers feel?"

"Some of them, Doris. The best of them. I'm glad to see you game."

"Oh! yes. I'm glad, too—for Joan's sake. I will be giving Nancy her best and surest happiness—with me, but not Joan. And so, David, Joan must not have the slightest inkling—she must go, when her time comes, unhampered. You, Nancy, and I must contribute that to her future."

Martin saw that Doris was still trembling, she was excited, too, in her controlled way. He was anxious.

"You're seeing things in broad daylight, Doris. Why, my dear, both the girls will be snapped up before any of us catch our breaths. That is what Miss Phillips' is for. Training for fine American wives and mothers. A good job, too."

Doris smiled and shook her head. Then she said suddenly:

"David, the old spectre stalks! It seems as if I ought to know, as if the knowledge were right here, to-day."

"Come, come, now Doris! If you do not quiet down I'm going to pack you off to the hotel. Why, see here, the kids have not revealed themselves. You're lashing yourself about nothing. Can you not reason it out this way——"

Martin sat close to the couch upon which Doris half reclined; he was almost praying that Joan would have a dozen encores—by request, apparently, she was again chasing the rainbow on her Dog-star.

"The inheritance, I mean. For I see it is that that is clutching you. My work brings me close to primitive things—I believe in inheritance down to the roots—but by heaven, we inherit from the ages, not from our next of kin alone. Each son and daughter of us comes into port with load enough to crush us, and if we kept it all we'd go under. We shuffle off a lot. It is the ability to shuffle, the opportunity to shuffle that counts. Why, look here, Doris——"

And Doris was looking, holding with all her strength to the man's words.

"That little mountain woman had more daring and courage, according to what you told me, than poor Merry ever had. She cut a wider circle, got more out of life, I bet, went out of it more satisfied. Her child, with your help, could develop into something mighty worth while for she wouldn't have so much to overcome at the start. On the other hand, Meredith's child would have to blaze her own trail, as far as any guidance from her mother is concerned. Can't you see, that's where inheritance plays the devil with hasty conclusions?"

Doris drew a long breath and sat up. She was seeking to hold to what she could not see.

"David," she whispered, "is it the knowing, or the not knowing? Could I have helped more wisely had I not shirked the truth? In there, a moment ago, it was as if Meredith were demanding. Oh! youth is awful in its possibilities of success or failure."

Martin was seriously alarmed. He had never seen Doris so shaken, but he talked on, seeking by a show of calmness to disarm her fears.

"It's the ability to shuffle off inheritance that counts, Doris. You have given these girls the strength and opportunity—to shuffle. Now, my dear, be sensible. It is up to the girls and they're all right. Hold firm to your own belief, Doris. It's about to be proved."

"Hear them." Doris dropped back. "They are still applauding Joan."

The next few months Doris always looked back upon as a connecting stretch of road between what she had but faintly feared and what became assured.

From the day Joan graduated she became the dominant influence in what followed, and Nancy, being non-resistant, was engulfed in the general rush of affairs; was absorbed and smilingly played her part as once she had played Joan's accompaniment.

Joan was not more selfish than the young generally are; she had hours of noble self-renunciation and generosity. Her ego was well developed, but it never drove her cruelly.

Doris justified what happened, when she took time to consider, by her determination to be fair to both girls and then, unconsciously focussing on Joan because Joan was always in evidence. The girl's vitality and joyousness were unfailing. Everything was of interest, and she seemed to gather the flowers of life not so much for her own enjoyment as for the glory of shedding them on others. That is what disarmed people—this lavishness of the girl. She gave spice to life, and that has its value. If Nancy ever knew the natural desire to shine in her own light, not Joan's, she smilingly hid it—not even Doris suspected it.

After Nancy was made to understand her aunt's state of health—and it was, in the end, Martin who informed her—she rose superbly to what offered, poor child, an opportunity peculiarly her own. To her was given the sacred duty of watching the one she loved best in the world; of warding off anything that threatened her peace and comfort. Here were power and authority and, though no one suspected, she would rule in her narrow, detached kingdom. Nothing should defeat her. They should all look to her!

Almost fiercely Nancy undertook her silent task. She smiled, she learned new subtleties; she soon became the pretty barrier between Doris and any troubling thing.

With her half-afraid glance fixed upon the dazzling Joan, it was small wonder that Doris fell into the trap set for her by Martin and Nancy.

She took the girls abroad—or was it Joan that led the way? She considered, after reaching the little Italian town from which she had seen Meredith depart, how best to speak of Thornton. She got so far as the telling of Meredith's wedding in the unchanged chapel on the hill when Joan startled her by asking quite as a matter of course:

"Is our father still alive?"

Nancy turned pale and shrank before the question, but she saw that the cool tone had controlled the situation. Doris looked relieved instead of shocked.

"We've often talked of it, Nan and I," Joan proceeded; "it did not seem very vital one way or the other until now."

"As far as I know," Doris was surprised at her own calmness, "he is still alive."

"I'm glad of that," Joan remarked, and there was a glint in her eyes. "I'd hate to have him dead—just now."

Quite without reason Doris laughed. After all, what she had conjured up as a ghost was turning into a human possibility. It was never to frighten her in the future. Joan had felled the spectre by her first stroke.

Then Nancy spoke:

"I never want to hear his name again," she said, firmly, relentlessly.

Doris looked at her in amazement. Later she confided to Joan her surprise.

"I did not know the child had such sternness."

Joan shrugged her shoulders and smiled.

"Nan is like a rock underneath, Aunt Dorrie," she said. "I suppose it is—what shall I say?—blood! It is concentrated in Nan. She's like you. Disgrace, or what seemed like disgrace, would kill her—it would make me fight!"

And after that conversation all inclination to confide further in the girls as to their relationship or lack of it deserted Doris.

She saw a new cause for caution and went back to the stand she had taken when the children were babies—but with far less courage.

"When they marry, of course, it must be told."

Doris returned to New York in September, and after a fortnight in which she closed the old house and made arrangements for the servants, she was so exhausted that she gladly turned her face southward.

Nancy, already, was her mainstay. The girl had apparently got under the burden, and held it secure on her firm, young shoulders. She developed initiative and the healing touch. No one disputed her where Doris was concerned, and Martin grimly accepted her as the most necessary thing in the hope that lay in Ridge House.

Their appearance there was marked by two incidents that Doris alone heeded.

First was the effect Nancy had upon Jed.

The man stared at the girl as if he saw a ghost. Like the very old, his real sensations lay in the past. Nancy stirred him strangely. The emotion was like a warm ray of sunlight striking in a dark place. Doris watched him with interest and concern; but Jed had no words with which to enlighten her. He only smiled wider, more often, and took to following Nancy like a wavering, distorted shadow.

The second incident was Mary.

From her cabin across the river she had manipulated the arrangements at Ridge House so perfectly that the machinery was oiled and running when the family arrived.

Mary was more reserved, more self-contained than she had ever been, but again, as Martin said to Doris, she must be judged by what she did, not by what she suggested, and she had accomplished marvels not only at the old place, but in her cabin across The Gap. In her once-deserted home Mary had contrived to resurrect all the ideals that had perished with her forebears. The rooms shone and glittered; the garden throve; and Mary spun and wove and designed and made money. She was respected, feared, and secretly believed to be "low-down mean," but calmly she went her way.

What she knew lay buried in her stern reserve, and she saw a great deal.

She saw at once what had occurred since she left her years of service. Mary no longer served—she ruled.

She saw that Joan, as she had given promise of doing, was controlling the forces of her small world. Doing it as once she had done it in the nursery, with a radiant witchery that had gained its ends with all but Mary herself!

While Mary's eyelids drew together, she focussed through the narrow slits upon Joan and with a hot, deep resolve she took up cudgels for Nancy.

And she bided her time.

Back and forth from her cabin to the big house she walked daily, and to Mary's cabin Nancy, presently, went—for comfort and inspiration, though she did not realize it.

Often, unknown to others, the two would sit near the fire, making a vivid picture. Mary in her plaid cotton gown, bent over her folded arms, swaying to and fro, making few comments but conscious of being understood. Nancy, fair and lovely, speaking more openly to the plain, silent woman near her than she had ever spoken to any earthly being and feeling, under her sweet unconsciousness, the underlying confidence.

"Of course," she once whispered to Mary, "I would love all the things that Joan loves and wants, but my duty to Aunt Dorrie is bigger than they, Mary. I am sure if Joan saw things as I do, she would act as I am acting. But we are keeping Joan from knowing."

"Why?" The sharp word startled Nancy—was Mary disapproving?

"Aunt Dorrie and Uncle David think best, Mary."

Mary touched upon the hidden hardness in Nancy's softness and retreated.

And during that red-and-gold autumn, their first in The Gap, Doris was soothed strangely to a state of perfect relaxation—a state not pleasing to Joan, and rather puzzling to David Martin, who postponed a proposed trip to the West until he felt sure of Doris's health. It seemed that, having dropped the old life, Doris was not merely willing to step into a new one—she was drifting in. Without resistance she floated. She would lie for a whole afternoon on the porch watching the play of colour on The Rock. She smiled, recalling, rather vaguely to be sure, the superstitions concerning The Rock.

It was all delightfully restful and beautiful and not a care in the world!

Mary and Nancy saw to every detail. Joan was frankly interested in every phase of the experience. "It might be," mused Doris from her pillows, "that having left everything to that Power that does control, I am to have my heart's deep desire—keep both Joan and Nancy!"



CHAPTER IX

"I count life just a stuff to try the Soul's strength on. Learn, nor count the pang; dare, never grudge the throe."

No one but Mary, apparently, saw what was to happen. It was the old nursery problem re-acted.

Joan had tired of her game, had used all the material at hand, and was burning to be on the adventurous trail.

The old restlessness and defiance were singing in the girl's blood; mockery rang in her voice and that wonderful laugh of hers. She was about to smash into the safe joyousness of things as they were! She threatened Nancy's toys. And Mary, alone, took heed. Joan herself was unconscious. She always was of her changing mood; she simply realized that she was lost; somehow, astray.

And Nancy, looking mutely in Mary's eyes, seemed to say:

"It will all be so lonely; so terrible with Joan gone!"

That was it. The old fear of, or for, Joan had materialized—it was Life with Joan left out!

"And why should one have so much and the other so little?" asked Mary of that deep knowledge in her busy brain. "Why shouldn't they share alike—and twins at that!"

Then Mary stopped short in her thinking. Her own words took her back, back to a dark night—she was peering, aided by a dim light from within, at a baby lying in the arms of——

Mary drew her breath sharp; her thin, flat bosom heaved and her fingers clutched her gown.

David Martin had so far classified his perplexity concerning Doris as to name it "Southern fever."

"Hookworm?" Joan broke in gleefully.

Martin frowned but did not reply.

"Doris," he turned to the couch, "I must go out West." She understood. Martin never spoke openly about his family affairs. Until he was surer of that nephew of his he kept him in the background.

"Yes, David." Doris smiled up at him.

"I want you to promise me that you will take more exercise!" Martin said.

"Why, certainly, David, but I thought you wanted me to—to rest."

"I do—but you are rested. I do not want you to enjoy resting. It's dangerous."

"Oh! bully for you, Uncle David," Joan broke in, delightedly, "Aunt Dorrie is just plain flopping and Nan and Mary are abetting her."

For some reason Martin turned to Joan, not Nancy who was standing patiently by.

"Joan, get your aunt on horseback—lead up to it, of course—and go slow."

"But—Uncle David——" Nancy drew near. Her kingdom was threatened.

"My dear," Martin always melted to Nancy, "after Joan gets her on horseback, you ride with her."

And so Doris got off her couch, rather dazedly, as one thinking his legs have been shot off finds them still attached to him.

She had been actually letting go! She, of all people, and just when there was so much to do—so long as she had strength to do it!

It was December when Martin started for the West and Joan's restlessness gained power.

Christmas rather eased the situation, for with it Father Noble appeared.

He startled Doris as Uncle Jed had, by his persistence.

"They cannot be as old as they look," she concluded, and gladly entered into all the plans for carrying sunshine and joy into the deep places of the hills.

"Dear me, dear me!" explained Father Noble, whose memory of her was so blurred that Doris did not venture to refer to it in detail; "I thought when the Sisters went away this beautiful old house would fall into disuse. It is a great happiness to feel its welcome once more."

Then the old man raised his hat from his silvered head and, standing so in the doorway, besought a blessing "on them who waited but to do His will."

Joan and Nancy rode with him back into the clearings; they revelled in it all and carried out every suggestion offered. They learned, through Father Noble's interpretation, to ignore the stolid indifference of the people; they played for, not with, the shy children, and distributed marvellous toys that were limply held in small hands that were yet to learn the blessed sense of ownership.

"When you are gone," Father Noble explained and chuckled delightedly, "they will watch the trails for your coming back. They never forget; they are worth the saving—but one must have faith and patience."

Then January settled down in The Gap. The short days were full of clouds and shadows; the river ran sullenly, and with greater need for sympathy Joan made ready to demolish Nancy's toys. She came into the living room one morning in her riding togs. She was splashed with mud and her face was dull except for the wide, burning eyes.

Nancy was weaving at the window—Mary had taught her, and she gave the impression, sitting there, of having looms in her blood.

Around the fire lay four hound puppies—they had taken the place of dolls in Nancy's affections. As Joan entered the dogs raised their absurd heads and with their flappy ears and padded paws patted the floor in welcome.

"Where is Aunt Dorrie?" asked Joan, poising herself on the arm of a deep chair.

"In the chapel," Nancy replied, bent over the snarl she had made of woof and warp.

"I wish Aunt Dorrie would have that room sealed!" Joan spoke ill-naturedly; "I know it's haunted. If we don't look out the ghosts will ooze over the whole house. Ooh!"

Nancy did not answer but set the treadle to its duty. The clacking noise emphasized Joan's nervousness.

"Aunt Dorrie doesn't know what to do here—that's why she takes to the chapel. That's why everyone takes to chapels."

Nancy broke her thread and Joan laughed.

"I wonder why Aunt Dorrie came here like a dear, silly old pioneer?" The laugh still persisted in the mocking words.

"It's—it's quite the thing," Nancy said, fatuously, "to have country places. I think it's wonderful."

"You may not be able to help being a snob, Nan, but don't be a prig." Joan's words struck hurtingly. Then suddenly her mood changed.

"Forgive me, snow-child," she whispered, going close to Nancy. "I'm a beast. Isn't it queer to be conscious, now and then, of the beast in you?"

"Please don't, Joan, dear. Please don't talk and act so." Nancy's eyes were blinded by tears.

"Very well, then, I will be good." Joan flung herself in a chair and presently asked curiously:

"Nan, what are you going to do when you've done all the things down here millions of times?"

"There will always be new duties," Nancy ventured.

"Duties! Oh! Nan, surely you're too young to play with duties—you'll hurt yourself." The mockery again entered in.

Just then Jed stumbled into the room with an armful of wood. His bleared eyes clung to Nancy's face and he nearly fell over a rug.

When he went out Joan seemed to follow him. She spoke musingly as if voicing her thoughts:

"It's terrible for anything as old as that to be running around," she said. "It isn't decent. He ought to be tucked up in his nice little grave. He looks as if he'd been forgotten."

"Joan, you are wicked—you make me afraid!" Nancy came from the loom and crouched by Joan.

"Snow-child, again forgive me!" Joan bent and drew Nancy's fair head to her knee. "But oh! I am so—so utterly lost."

"Joan, what is it? What is the matter?"

"I don't know, Nan." Joan was looking into the fire—seeking; seeking. "Things that quiet you and Aunt Dorrie just drive me on to the rocks. I feel as if I'd be wrecked if I didn't steer well out into the open. And when I get as far as that, I know that I couldn't find my way out even if—if everything let go of me. I suppose I would sink. This isn't my place, Nan, but I don't know where my place is! I feel sure I have a place, everyone has—but where is mine?"

There was desperation in the words, the desperation of helpless youth. No perspective, no light or shade, but terrible vision.

"Joan, darling, why can you not wait until you see the way?" Nancy was prepared now for battle.

"That's it, Nan. I can't. All I can do is to push off the rocks—then I'll have to sink or swim. This is killing me!"

Joan flung her head back as if she were choking.

And just then Mary came into the room.

A gray shawl, home-spun—it was made from the wool of Mary's own sheep—was clutched over her thin body; a huge quilted hood—Mary herself had quilted it—half hid her dark, expressionless face.

"I met the postman," she announced, "as I came along. He give me this!"

Mary held a letter out to Joan and passed from the room.

The moment, while Joan glanced at the letter, had power to grip Nancy's imagination and fill it with a vision.

As sure as she ever saw anything, she saw Joan going away! Going away as she had never gone before. Going to a Far Country.

"Whom is the letter from?" she faltered, and Joan tore open the envelope while her eyes drank in the words.

"It is from Sylvia Reed, Nan. Her dream has come true. She has her studio—she wants me!"

"Joan, you will not go—you must not!" All that Nancy dared to put in her plea she put in it then.

"Why not?" asked Joan impressed. "Why not, Nan?"

"Aunt Dorrie——" Nancy's words ended in a sob.

"Aunt Dorrie shall decide."

And with that Joan, her face radiant, her breath coming quick, walked from the room and on, on to the little chapel upstairs.

Doris was sitting by the window. The day was going to be clear at its close, and a rift in the sullen clouds showed the gold behind; the light lay in a straight line across the chapel floor.