"How did yo' get out?" The words came anxiously and with difficulty, like the words of a deaf mute that had been taught to speak mechanically.

Nancy smiled weakly and looked silently at the speaker.

"Been tryin' to find hit?" the strained voice went on. "Yo' better lie still, Zalie—yo' larned enough, chile!"

And then, because the rigid girl did not speak, the old woman drew nearer.

Nancy, believing herself in the presence of a harmlessly insane creature, rallied her courage and sought to soothe, not excite, the woman.

"I'm lost," she faltered. "I am sorry to have disturbed you; I am going now."

She half turned, keeping her eyes on her companion.

"Come—set a bit," pleaded the crackling voice; "come warm yo'self before I tuck yo' up again. How cold yo' little hands are! Po' little Zalie, jes' naturally—tryin' to find hit."

There are limits of fear beyond which, for self-preservation, a kind of calm strength lies that suggests ways of safety. Nancy did not run or cry out, she did not withdraw her icy hands from the brown, claw-like fingers that held them; she even smiled a faint, ghastly smile that reassured the old woman. Her eyes softened; her voice almost crooned.

"Us-all is safe—no one comes nigh—it's comfortin' ter tech yo', Zalie, an' hit is well placed. Through all the years I done wanted to tell yo'; I've said it by yo' grave many's the time, chile——" Becky waited a moment. She looked cautiously about the sun-lighted place and peered into the gloom of the forest-edge, then she looked again at Nancy, while her thin hand pointed to the mound under the tree across the bit of open. Nancy shuddered.

"What is—that?" she gasped.

"Yo' little grave, Zalie—yo' little bed. I 'tend it loving and proper; I take a look-in onct so often—but yo' is cute, like yo' was when yo' stole out in the moonshine to larn. You done got out yo' grave when I wasn't watching. Come, now, let me put yo' back!"

The old woman turned, and in that instant Nancy fled like a spirit. Noiselessly, swiftly she disappeared. She heard the crackling voice behind her:

"Jes' creep back by yourself, eh, Zalie?" And then came the sound of metal patting down the loose earth on the mound by the solemn trees.

Nancy could never tell what occurred on her descent from Thunder Peak. When she reached The Gap, she found that her dogs had strayed from her: they had either dropped behind or run before. She was not exhausted. She felt strong and calm. The adventure was assuming a thrilling proportion now she was at a safe distance. But she had no intention of telling Doris. Oddly enough, she felt the need of keeping it secret. She shivered as she recalled the touch of the claw-fingers and the sound of the dry, hard voice. She had a growing sense of uncleanness, now that the shock was wearing off. It almost seemed that a poison had been left upon her that was eating its way into depths of her being. She was afraid that someone would know; she trembled when old Jed remarked:

"Dis yere little ole pup don slink back like he seed a hant and he had burrs stickin' to his sorry-lookin' hide—seems he was off the scent. No 'count!"

Jed gave the hound a push with his foot, but he had set Nancy's nerves tingling.

"I lost the scent myself," she said, striving for calmness. And then relying upon the old man's simplicity she asked, pointing across The Gap:

"What did you say was the name of that peak, Uncle Jed?" She wanted to make very sure!

The old man raised his bleary eyes and looked troubled. He was conscious of something stirring in the dark of his mind.

"Thunder," he replied, then he laughed, and the gold in his few remaining teeth glistened. Cackling and shuffling along beside Nancy, he muttered—his mind again on old Becky:

"Her—as was—or her as is! Maybe she ain't a was—'pears like she can't be an is." Then he grew calmer and faced Nancy. "Stay away from Thunder, chile. 'Tain't safe, Thunder ain't—only fer hants."

"I'll stay away, Uncle Jed," Nancy promised fervently, and tried to laugh off the foolish, superstitious fear that the old man's words had aroused.

Jed went off muttering—he was strangely disturbed.

As the first impression of her adventure wore off Nancy was surprised to find that a new fear and restlessness oppressed her. It was like the after effects of a blow that had stunned her.

She slept badly—a terrific electric storm swept through The Gap and there seemed, to the frightened girl in the west chamber, noises never heard before. Creaking steps in the hall; calls in the wind and sharp summons as the branches of the trees lashed the windows and the blazing lightning shattered the darkness with blinding flashes.

Nancy crept downstairs the next morning pale and shaken. She rallied, however, when she saw Doris.

Doris was greatly affected by electric storms and was lying on a couch by the hearth. Doctor Martin was sitting beside her, and the little breakfast tray, laid for the three, was drawn close.

They ate the meal quietly, and then Martin took up a book to read aloud while Nancy went to her loom.

She huddled over it—there was no other word to describe her crouching, lax attitude; her face was drawn and haggard. Doris watched her; she was not listening to Martin. Suddenly she felt a kind of shock as she realized that she was thinking of Nancy as an old woman!

As the spring holds all the promise of autumn in its delicate shading, so youth often depicts the time on ahead when line and colour will take on the aspect of age.

It was startling. Doris almost cried aloud. Nancy old! Nancy lean and shrivelled with her pretty back bent to—the burden of life!

Then Doris laughed nervously, and Martin started. The book he was reading from was no laughing matter.

"Forgive me, David—I was not listening; I was—planning. You know how agile a mind can be after—a bad headache?" This was not convincing to Martin and he scowled.

"What were you planning?" he asked, and Nancy at her wheel turned her head.

"Nancy's winter in town. She must have loads of pretty things, and I will open the old house—perhaps we can lure Joan also, and have the time of our lives. How would you like that Nan, girl?"

The tone was pleading, almost imploring. Doris had a sense of having wronged the girl, somehow.

"Oh, Aunt Dorrie, I should love it!" Nancy came across the room, all suggestion of age gone. "That is—if it will not harm you, dear."

"I think it would do you both good," Martin spoke earnestly; "I begin to realize what you once said, Doris. One has to have the country in his blood to be of the country. You must have change and"—turning to Nancy—"give this child a chance to—to show off."

He reached out and pinched Nancy's pale cheek.

"Run out," he commanded, suddenly; "run out into the sunshine and forget the storm. You're exactly like your aunt—conquer it, conquer it, child, while conquering is part of the programme."

Nancy managed a smile, leaned and kissed Doris, waved a salute to Martin, and fled from the room.

"David, somehow I've hurt that girl." Doris spoke wearily.

"How?" Martin questioned.

Doris looked up and shook her head.

"How have I, Davey? I cannot tell."

"She's not hurt—but she's in line to be sacrificed if we don't look out. I'm the guilty one—I thought only of you."

And then the two planned for the winter.

Nancy took her dogs and went for a walk—a safe and near walk. The colour crept into her pale face, but her eyes had a furtive look and every noise in the bushes set her trembling. She had a conscious feeling of wanting to get away—far, far away. The Gap frightened her; she remembered old stories about it. Suddenly she looked up at The Rock and her breath almost stopped.

Fascinated, she stared; her eyes seemed to be following an invisible finger—The Ship was on The Rock!

Try as she might, Nancy could eat but little lunch. The small table was on the porch. Doris had recovered from her headache and was particularly gay—the planning for Nancy had done more for her than it had for Nancy herself.

"You had better go to your room and lie down," Martin suggested, eyeing the girl.

"Yes, I will, Uncle David."

But once in the dim quiet of the west wing chamber fresh memories assailed her.

This was the room, she recalled, into which Mary had seen—how absurd it was!—the dolls turned to babies. Such foolish, childish memories to cling and grip! How much better to be like Joan and laugh away the idle tales! Joan had always laughed—she was laughing now somewhere, looking her gayest and forgetting troubling things.

Then Nancy cried, not bitterly or enviously, but because she was tired of playing Joan's accompaniment!

Presently she got up and bathed.

"I'm going to Mary's!" she suddenly thought, and then felt as if she had been getting ready to go all day. She felt deceitful, sly, in spite of her constant reiteration that it had just occurred to her.

She left the house unseen; she hid behind a bush when she saw the hounds raise their heads from the sunny porch—she wanted to go alone to the cabin across the river.

It was three o'clock when she reached it, and she had hurried along the short trail, too. Mary was not in sight, but the living-room door was open and Nancy stood looking in with a baffling sense of unreality; the place looked different; almost as if she had never seen it before. She mentally took note of the furniture as though checking the pieces off.

The big bed, gay with patchwork quilts—Nancy knew all the patterns: Sunrise on the Peaks; Drunkard's Path; the Rainbow—Mary was making up for all that her forebears had neglected to do. Early and late she spun and wrought—she piled her bed high with the results of her labours; she covered the floor with marvellous rugs; she filled her chest of drawers with linen—Nancy glanced at the chest and fancied that she smelt the lavender that was spread on the folded treasures.

How the candlesticks shone; how sweet and clean it was, how safe!

Nancy stepped inside and sat down. The logs were laid ready for the lighting on the cracked but dustless hearth.

And then, quite unconsciously, the girl began to croon an old song, swaying back and forth, her arms folded and her eyes peaceful and waiting.

Mary, returning from her garden planting, stood by the door, unnoticed, and grimly took in the scene.

What it was that disturbed and angered her she could not have told, but she could not see Nancy sitting so—and—and—looking as she looked!

Mary strode across the room, causing Nancy to start nervously.

"What ails yo'?" Mary asked, "you look powerful sorry."

"I'm—I'm frightened, Mary."

Oddly enough, it was easy to speak frankly to the stern, plain woman across the hearth. And it was easy for Mary, after her first glance, to be ready with anything that could comfort the girl near her.

"What frightened yo'—the storm? I thought 'bout you."

"Yes—the storm, but—Mary, who lives on Thunder Peak?"

Some people are unnerved by surprise; Mary was always steadied.

"There ain't any one," she said, quietly, and leaned over to light the fire; the afternoon was growing chilly.

"Who used to live there, Mary? There is a cabin there."

Mary did not flinch, but she was feeling her way, always a little ahead of Nancy.

"There was an old woman lived there—long ago; she died."

"Are you sure, Mary?"

"I'm right certain. She plumb broke down when she was ninety, and that was years back."

"Mary, there's a grave there!"

"Yes; when folks die they just naturally have a grave." A cold, icy light flickered in Mary's eyes; she reached and took up another log and carefully placed it.

"Mary, I went to Thunder Peak, I was following the trail. I came suddenly into the open and I saw an old woman. She touched me"—here Nancy shuddered. "She—she seemed to—to think she knew me. She called me a queer name. I cannot remember it. I was terribly frightened. Are you quite, quite sure the old woman died, Mary?"

"She died, she surely died. Old women ain't such precious sights among the hills. Like as not it was someone from Huckleberry Bald, t'other side of Thunder, as has taken over the deserted cabin and just wants to frighten folks, like you, off. They are mighty cute, those old women on Bald. They want their own place, and—and they sometimes shoot at any one that comes nigh."

The voice and words were cool and even. Nancy drew a long breath.

"Oh, Mary," she said, "you just take all the fear away. I kept feeling that old hand on my arm as if it were dragging me; the feeling is gone now. Jed said"—here Nancy wavered—"he said the place was haunted."

"Jed was a born fool and yo' can't do much with that kind. They grows more fool-like at the end."

Nancy laughed.

"I'm just a silly myself," she said rising and stretching her pretty arms over her head as if awakening from sleep. Then:

"Mary, I'm going to New York next winter. Going to have—a wonderful time."

And now Mary looked up and her eyes brightened.

"At last," she muttered; "you're to have your chance!"

"My—chance, Mary?"

"Your chance—same as Miss Joan."

And a moment later Mary was watching Nancy as she went singing down the river road.

"Gawd!" she muttered, and her yellowish skin paled. "Gawd! What has she come back for?—what?" and Mary's eyes lifted to Thunder Peak. Later she made ready for a long walk—she knew the trail to Thunder Peak would be hard after the storm.



CHAPTER XV

"Every heart vibrates to that iron string."

And Mary's was vibrating to the iron as she plodded up the trail.

There had been much damage done by the storm. Trees were lying across the muddy path; there were washed-out spots, making it necessary to go out of one's way. But Mary did not notice the obstacles further than to make a wide detour. She was thinking, thinking—patching her bits of knowledge together with surmises provided by her vivid imagination.

Beginning with the day when old Becky, looking for Sister Angela, had stolen into the kitchen at Ridge House and demanded "her," Mary patiently fitted her scraps into a pattern as she patched her wonderful quilts.

"Yes; no!" Then a stolid nodding of the head.

The sunset, bye and bye, and then the early shadows, crept up the trail behind the lonely woman plodding along; they seemed to swallow her, and only her quick breathing marked her going.

"I can pay—at last!" She paused and spoke the words aloud.

"Pay back!"

Through the years since her return to The Gap she had saved and saved to return to Doris Fletcher the money advanced to buy the cabin.

Mary had never accepted it as a gift; the cabin could never be really hers until, by the labour of her hands, she had redeemed it.

What matter that her people called her "close" and mean? She knew what she was about, but in her slow, silent way she had learned, while she laboured apart, to feel an undying gratitude to the woman who had made everything possible for her.

And now she was taking her place beside them who had been her friends. No longer were they "foreigners." Surely Mary had come to realize that quality was not confined to places; it was in the heart and soul, and if anything threatened it, why, then—— Here Mary drew herself up and raised her face to the stars.

She had tears in her eyes, but her mouth drew in a hard line. She felt a burning curiosity rising in her consciousness. What did it all mean? What had it meant back in Ridge House long ago?

But as the burning rose higher and fiercer Mary battled with it.

It was their secret! They must keep it—even from her! So would she pay though they might never know; must never know! She would prove herself worthy of the trust they had placed in her; she would even the score and hold danger, whatever the danger was, back. That should be her part to play!

When Mary reached the clearing on Thunder Peak she stood where Nancy had stood the day before and took in the scene.

Two or three times, after her return to The Gap, she had gone to The Peak and searched among the dirt and rubbish for any trace of old Becky. She had come to believe, at last, that the woman was dead—she had never been seen after the death of Sister Angela.

It was years now since Mary had given a thought to the deserted garden and cabin—the clearing was at the trail's end and no one ever took it, for it led nowhere.

But now, to Mary's astonished eyes, the garden appeared almost as well planted as her own, and from the chimney of the tumble-down cabin a lazy curl of smoke rose. Under the dark pine clump the outlines of a narrow mound could be plainly seen, and beside it lay a spade and a spray of withered azaleas.

Mary's throat was dry and painful. People to whom tears are possible never know the agony, but Mary was used to it.

Presently she walked across the open that lay between the edge of the forest and the cabin and stood by the threshold.

The door hung by one hinge, and through the gap Mary saw old Becky! She had hoped against hope that what she had told Nancy might be true, but she was prepared for the worst.

It seemed incredible that this poor, wretched skeleton by the hearth could be Becky—but Mary knew that it was. Back from her wandering the pitiful creature had come—home!

She had come as Mary herself had come—because the call of the hills never dies, but grows with absence.

"Aunt Becky!"

The crone by the hearth paused in her stirring of corn-meal in a pan, but did not turn.

"Aunt Becky!" And then the old woman staggered to her feet and faced Mary.

Not yet was the fire dead in the deep sockets—from out the caverns the last sparks of life were making the eyes terrible.

"Yo'—Mary Allan!" Contempt, more than fear, rang in the tones. "What yo' spyin' on me for, Mary Allan?"

Mary went inside. She was relieved by the fact that Becky knew her—she had feared that she would find no response. She did not intend to question or argue; she meant to control the situation from the start.

"Hit's in the grave 'long o' Zalie!" Becky was on her defence. "Zalie"—here the befogged brain went under a cloud—"Zalie she come a-looking—but hit's in the grave! I tell yo'-all, hit's in the grave!"

The trembling creature wavered in the firelight. She was filled with fear—but of what, who could tell?

Mary's face underwent a marvellous change—it grew tender, wistful.

"Set, Aunt Becky," she said, compassionately, and gently pushed the woman into a deep rocker covered over with a dirty quilt; "set and don't be frightened. I ain't come to hurt yo'—I've come to help."

Becky seemed to shrink.

"Hit's in——" she began, but Mary silenced her.

"No hit ain't in the grave! Zalie she knows it—an' I know it!"

"Where is hit—then?" A cunning crept into Becky's cavernous eyes. "Where is hit?"

"Aunt Becky, no one must know! You want it—that way." Inspiration guided Mary, or was it, perhaps, that iron strain, the strong human strain of her kind that led her true? "Zalie, she done come back; not to look for hit, but to keep you from hit!"

The stroke told. Becky shrank farther in the chair.

"Gawd!" she moaned—"it's that lonely! An' the longin' hurts powerful sharp."

Mary's face twitched. Did she not know?

"But hit!"—she whispered—"don't you love hit strong enough, Aunt Becky, to let hit alone, where hit's happy, not knowing?"

There was something majestic about Mary as she kept her eyes upon the old woman while she pleaded with her.

The past came creeping up on the two women by the ashy hearth—it gave Becky strength; it blinded Mary. In the old woman's memory a picture flashed—the picture that once had hung on the wall of Ridge House!

She folded her bony arms over her bosom and panted:

"Yes—I love hit—well enough!" The last hold was loosening. Then:

"It's powerful lonesome—and the cold and hunger bite cruel hard——"

"Aunt Becky, listen to me!" The woman turned her eyes to the speaker, but her thoughts were far, far away.

"I'll come to you, Gawd hearing me; I'll ward off the cold and hunger. I'll come day after day—if you'll leave hit—where it can't ever know."

Suddenly Becky's face grew sharp and cunning; all that was tender and human in her faded—self-preservation rose supreme.

"I'll leave hit, Mary Allen," she cackled, "but if yo' tell that hit ain't in the grave 'long o' Zalie all the devils o' hell will watch out for yo' soul!"

Mary was not listening. She rose and mechanically moved about the disordered room. Like a sleep walker she set the rickety furniture in place; she began to gather scraps of food together—hunting, hunting in corners and cupboards. She made some black coffee—rank and evil-smelling it was—and finally she set the strange meal before the old woman.

Becky eyed the repast as one might who fancied that she dreamed. Cautiously she touched the food with her lean fingers, then she clutched it and ate ravenously, desperately fearing that it might disappear.

Mary looked on in divine pity, swaying to and fro, never speaking nor going near.

She was thinking; thinking on ahead. She would make the cabin clean and whole; she would wash and clothe the poor creature now eating like a hungry wolf; she would feed her. Becky should become—hers!

Then Mary's mouth relaxed. She was appropriating, adjusting. Something of her very own at last! Something that would wait for her, watch for her, depend upon her. Something to work for and live for; something upon whom she might pour forth the hidden riches that had all but perished in her soul.

It was midnight when Mary groped her way from the cabin. Becky was asleep on the miserable bed in the corner; she was breathing softly and evenly like a baby.

Outside, the moonlight lay full upon the open spaces and on the little grave under the pine clump. Mary stood, before entering the woods, and raised her head.

"I'm paying—I'm paying back what—I owe," she murmured, and all the wretched company of her early childhood seemed to hold out imploring hands to her. Her father, her mother, the line of miserable brothers and sisters who never had their chance!

Sister Angela came, too, her cross gleaming, her eyes kind and just. Doris Fletcher and her blessed giving; giving of the marvellous chance at last! And lastly, Nancy, with her beautiful face, Nancy who must not be cheated, Nancy who—trusted her! Nancy who might be—but no! Mary ran on. She would not know! She must not!

And so it was that the last of the Allans redeemed the debt and silently found peace for her proud heart.

She was released! She had proven herself, though no one must ever know. It was the not knowing that would mark her highest success.

On the morrow Mary went to Ridge House quite her usual reserved self.

Nancy met her with the brightest of smiles.

"Doctor Martin has gone away, Mary," she explained, "and now I will be terribly busy, but next winter—oh! next winter, Mary, Joan will be with us in the dear old house. A letter came to-day—she is going to take lessons from a very great teacher. Do you remember how Joan could sing, Mary? I shall play for her again and be so happy. It's wonderful how happy one can be, Mary, when one isn't afraid and just goes singing ahead. I cannot sing like Joan, but I can scare away fears!"

Mary regarded the girl with a hungry craving in her eyes over which the lids were drawn to a slit. There was a fierce intentness in the gaze: the look of the runner who has almost reached the goal but hears his pursuers close.



CHAPTER XVI

"And they planted their feet on the 'Sun Road'."

If the spring has a direct and concentrated effect upon a young man's fancy, it must have equal effect upon a young woman's, else the man's would perish and come to look upon the spring as the lean part of the year. Joan had meant all she said when, in the strength and virtue of her youth, she had drawn herself away from Kenneth Raymond and proudly remarked:

"Certainly not! And I am not afraid."

Both statements were sincere and should have brought her peace and satisfaction. They did neither.

Raymond had, apparently, taken her at her word, and sought other places in which to appease his hunger, and Joan turned to Patricia, for Sylvia was called out of town.

That dream of a frieze that had long smouldered in Sylvia's soul had broken bounds and a rich man, erecting a summer home on the Massachusetts coast, having seen some of Sylvia's work, had invited her down to "talk over" the frieze idea.

"And he'll let me do it!" Sylvia had confided breathlessly to Joan as she packed her suitcase. "I can always tell when a thing is going to come true. Now if I had shown him sketches he might not have taken me—but when I can talk my pictures all along the walls of his big, sunny room it will be another matter.

"Blue background"—Sylvia was forgetting Joan as she rambled on, punching and jamming her clothing into the case—"and a bit of a story running through the frieze—a kind of sea-nymph search for the Holy Grail—stretching from the door back to the door. Can't you see it, Joan?"

Joan could not. She was seeing something else. Something daily becoming visualized. A seeking, yearning desire issuing from her soul and trying to find—what?

"You'll have Pat here?" suddenly asked Sylvia. "I'd rather have someone besides Pat, but the others are either away or worse than Pat. You're good for Pat if she isn't for you. You sort of stiffen her up—she told me so. Pat needs whalebone. When her purse gets flat her morals dwindle; mine always get scared stiff. I'll write twice a week, Joan, my lamb, Sunday and Wednesday. I'll be back before long."

And off Sylvia went with her heavy bag and her light heart, and Joan called Patricia up on the telephone.

"All right," Patricia responded, "but if I get homesick for these rooms, I must be free to come."

"Of course," Joan agreed.

Patricia was in a dangerous mood and Joan was vividly alive to impressions.

Patricia was writing verses as a bird carols—just letting them pour out. She was selling them, too, and running out to New Jersey to talk over with Mr. Burke the publication of a book.

"I cannot see," Patricia had said to Sylvia, "why one should feel it necessary to stick to hot, smelly offices when a library, looking out over acres of country, is at one's disposal."

"Is Mrs. Burke there?"

Sylvia had a terrible way of stepping on toes when she was making her point.

"Certainly!" Patricia flung back—it happened that the lady was there for a brief time—"though," Patricia went on, "she doesn't sit on the arm of my chair while styles of paper are considered. You're low-minded, Syl."

Patricia looked so high-minded just then that everyone laughed at Sylvia's expense.

And Joan, because she was young as the year was, kept remembering the eyes, and feeling the touch of Kenneth Raymond. There were no words to explain her mood, but she remembered the sound of his voice—and she wanted to see him again!

She believed her emotions were grounded upon the fact that she knew a good deal about Raymond—more than he suspected. He was of Aunt Doris's safe and clean world. He was only dipping into a pool outside of his own legitimate preserves to touch, as he thought, a lily that should not be there!

Raymond had suggested this to Joan. He fancied, from his conservative limitations, that the Brier Bush was rather a dubious pool!

"If he only knew!" Joan thought, and was glad that he did not. How humdrum it all would have been had he known! As it was, the wonderful feeling she had was laid upon a very safe foundation—not even Aunt Doris or Sylvia could object—and she would tell them all about it some day, and it would be part of the free, happy life and a proof that no harm can come where one understands the situation and has high motives.

But Raymond did not come to the Brier Bush, and so Joan had to conclude that he had not that unnamable emotion which was taking her appetite away, and he was forgetting, perhaps, all about that line that ran in the palms of both of them!

As a matter of fact, Raymond was trying very diligently to do just that thing. He worked hard and paid extra attention to Mrs. Tweksbury.

"My boy!" Emily Tweksbury urged, "come up to Maine with me for the summer, you look peaked."

Raymond laughed.

"How about business?" he said.

"Of course," Mrs. Tweksbury replied, "no one appreciates more than I do, Ken, your moral fibre. It's a big thing for you to create a business if for no other reason than to give employment to less fortunate young men; but you have other responsibilities. Your position, your fortune, they make demands. I'm not one to underestimate the leisure class; I know the old joke about tramps being the only leisure class in America; it's a silly joke, but it ought to make us think. After a bit, if we don't look out, the leisure class, here, will be all women. They'll dominate art and poetry and society—and I must say I like a good team. I never cared for too much of any one thing. Ken?"

"Yes, Aunt Emily."

"I want you to marry and have—a place."

"A place, Aunt Emily?" Raymond looked puzzled.

"Yes. Make a stand for American aristocracy—though of course you must call it by another name. You're a clean, splendid chap—I know all about you. I've watched apart and prayed over you in my closet. You see your father and I made a ghastly mess of our lives, but we kept to the code—for your sake. We left your path clear, thank God!"

"Yes, Aunt Emily—I've thanked God for that, too, in what stands for my closet."

"What stands for your closet, Ken? I've always wanted to know what takes the place of women's sanctuaries in the lives of men."

Raymond plunged his hands into his pockets—he and Mrs. Tweksbury had just finished breakfast, and the dining room of the old-fashioned house opened, as it should, to the east.

"Oh! I don't know that I can tell you, Aunt Emily," Raymond fidgeted. "Fellows are beginning to think a bit more about the clean places in women's lives. I reckon that we haven't so much an idea about sanctuaries of ours as that we are cultivating an honest-to-God determination to keep from making wrecks of women's shrines. I know this sounds blithering, but, you see, a decent chap wants to ask some girl to give him a better thing than forgiveness when the time comes. He wants to cut out the excuse business. He doesn't want women like you to be ashamed of him—when they come where they have to call things by their right names."

"Ken, I don't believe you're in good form. You'd much better come up to Maine!"

Emily Tweksbury looked as if she wanted to cry; her expression was so comical that Raymond laughed aloud.

"I'll come in August," he said at last. "I'll take the whole month and frivol with you."

Mrs. Tweksbury was, however, not through with what she had to say. She looked at the big, handsome fellow across the room and he seemed suddenly to become very young and helpless, very much needing guidance, and yet she knew how he would resent any such interference in his life.

"What's on your mind, Aunt Emily?"

Raymond had turned the tables—he smiled down upon the old lady with the masterful tenderness of youth.

"Let's have it, dear."

Mrs. Tweksbury resorted to subterfuge.

"Well, having you off my hands," she said, smiling as if she really meant what she said, "I am thinking of Doris Fletcher!"

"Do I know her?" Raymond tried to think.

"No. She left New York just about the time you came to me. She's a wonderful woman, always was. Has a passion for helping others live their lives—she's never had time to live her own."

"Bad business." Raymond shook his head.

"Oh! I don't know, boy. The older I grow the more inclined I am to believe that it is only by helping others live that one lives himself."

This was trite and did not get anywhere, so Mrs. Tweksbury plunged a trifle.

"Doris Fletcher is going to bring her niece out next winter; wants me to help launch her."

Raymond made no response to this. He was not apt to be suspicious, but he waited.

"She has twin nieces. Her younger sister died at their birth—she made a sad marriage, poor girl, and the father of her children seems to have been blotted off the map. The Fletchers were always silent and proud. I greatly fear one of the twins takes after her obliterated parent, for Doris rarely mentions her—it is always Nancy who is on exhibition; the other girl is doing that abominable thing—securing her economic freedom, whatever that may mean. Doris has tried to make me understand, but how girls as rich as those girls are going to be can want to go out and support themselves I do not understand—it's thieving. Nothing less. Taking bread from women who haven't money."

Mrs. Tweksbury sniffed scornfully and Raymond laughed. He wasn't interested.

Mrs. Tweksbury saw she was losing ground and made a third attempt.

"But this Nancy seems another matter. I remember her, off and on. I was often away when the Fletchers were home, and the girls were at school a good many years, but this Nancy is the sort of child that one doesn't forget. She's lovely—very fair—and exquisite. Her poor mother was always charming, and I imagine Doris Fletcher means to see that Nancy gets into no such snarl as poor Meredith's—Meredith was Doris's sister. Ken——!"

"Yes'm!" Raymond was looking at his watch.

"I wish you'd lend a hand next winter with this Nancy Thornton."

Raymond gave a guffaw and came around to Mrs. Tweksbury.

"You're about as opaque," he said, "as crystal. Of course I'll lend a hand, Aunt Emily—lend one, but don't count upon anything more. I—I do not want to marry—at least not for many years. My father and mother did not leave a keen desire in me for marriage."

"Oh! Ken, can't you forget?"

"I haven't yet, Aunt Emily, but I'm not a conceited ass; your Miss Nancy would probably think me a dub; girls don't fly at my head, but I'm safe as a watchdog and errand boy—so I'll fit in, Aunt Emily."

He bent and kissed her.

A week later the old house was draped and covered with ghostly linen and every homelike touch eliminated according to the sacred rites of the old regime; and man, that most domestic of all animals, was left to the contemplation of a smothered ideal—the ideal of home.

Mrs. Tweksbury, with two servants, started by motor for Maine.

"I may not be progressive in some ways," she proudly declared, "but a motor car keeps one from much that is best avoided—crowds, noise, and confusion. And I always insist that I am progressive where progress is worth while."

But, alone in the still house, Raymond felt as if a linen cover also enshrouded him—he lost his appetite and took to lying at night with his hands clasped under his head—thinking! Thinking, he called it—but he was only drifting. He was abdicating thought. He got so that he could see himself as if detached from himself——

"And a dub of a chap, too, I look to myself," he reflected, ambiguously. "I wonder just what stuff is in me, anyway? I've been trained to the limit, and I have a decent idea about most things, but I wonder if I could pull it off, if I were up against it like some other fellows who have rowed their own boats? Having had Dad and Aunt Emily in my blood, has given me a twist, and the money has tied the knot. I don't know really what's in me—in the rough—and there is a rough in every fellow—maybe it's sand and maybe it's plain dirt."

This was all as wild and vague as anything Patricia or Joan could evolve. It came of the season and the everlasting youth of life.

"I'm going to talk over the rot with that little white thing down at the Brier Bush," Raymond declared one night to that self of his that stood off on inspection; "what's the harm? She's got the occult bug, and I'm keen about it just now. No one will be the worse for me having the talk—she's all right and that veil of hers leaves us a lot freer to speak out than face to face would." And then Raymond switched on the lights and read certain books that held him rigid until he heard the milkman in the street below.

In those nights Raymond learned to know that sounds have shades, as objects have. Below, following, encompassing there were vague, haunting echoes. Even the rattling of milk cans had them; the steps of the watchman; the wind of early morning that stirs the darkness!

And then in the end Raymond did quite another thing from what he had planned. He left the office one day at four-thirty and walked uptown. He paced the block on which the Brier Bush was situated until he began to feel conscious—then he walked around the block, always hurrying until he came in sight of the tea room. He felt that all the summer inhabitants of the city were drinking tea there that afternoon, and he began to curse them for their folly.

It was five-forty-five when Joan came down the steps.

Raymond knew her at once by her walk. He had always noted that swing of hers under her white robe. He did not believe another girl in the world moved in just that way—it was like the laugh that belonged with it. Indifferent, pleading, sweet, and brave—a bit daring, too. Joan was all in white now. A trim linen suit; white stockings and shoes; a white silk hat with a wide bow of white—Patricia kept her touch on Joan's wardrobe.

Raymond waited until the girl before him had pulled on her long gloves and reached the corner of Fifth Avenue, then he walked rapidly and overtook her. He feared that he was leaping; he felt crude and rough; but he had never been simpler and more sincere in his life. The elemental was overpowering him, that was all.

"Good afternoon!" he blurted into Joan's astonished ears; "where are you going?"

Joan turned and confronted him, not in alarm, but utter rout. Naturally there was but one course for a girl to take at such a juncture—but Joan did not take it. Her elementals were alert, too, and she, too, had reached the stage when sounds know shades, and above any cautious appeal was the fear of sending this man adrift again.

"I wonder"—Raymond spoke hurriedly; he wanted to drive that startled look out of the golden eyes—"I wonder if you're the sort that knows truth when she sees it—even if it has to cover itself with the rags of things that aren't truth?"

At this Joan laughed.

"I am afraid the heat has affected you," was what she said, gently.

"Well, anyway, you're not afraid of me!" Raymond saw that her eyes had grown steady.

"Oh! no. I'm not afraid of you. I'm not often afraid of anything."

"I thought that. You wouldn't be doing that stunt at the Brier Bush if you were the scary kind." Raymond accompanied his step to Joan's as naturally as if she had permitted him to do so.

"I don't see why you speak as you do of my business," Joan interjected. "It's how one interprets what one does that matters. I make a very good income of what you term my stunt. Perhaps you're accustomed to girls who use such means—wrongfully."

Joan felt quite proud of her small sting, but Raymond broke in joyously:

"You're mighty clever; you've struck on just what I mean. See here, you don't know me and I don't know you——" At this Joan turned her face away. "And I'm jolly glad we don't. It makes it all easier. I know very little about girls—I dance with them and things like that when I have to, but as a class I never cottoned to them much, nor they to me. I know the ugly names tacked to things that might be innocent and happy enough. Now your business—it could be a cover for something rather different——?"

"But it isn't!" Joan broke in, hotly.

"I'm sure of that, but hear me out. There's something about you that—that's got me. I can't forget you. I only want to know what you care to give—the part that escapes the disguise that you wear! I want to talk to you. I bet we have a lot to say to each other. Don't you see it would be like fencing behind a shield? But how can we make this out unless we utilize chances that might, if people were not decent and honest, be wrong? I know I'm getting all snarled up—but I'm trying to make you understand."

"You're not doing it very well." Joan was sweetly composed.

"Now suppose you and I were introduced—you with your veil off—that would be all right, wouldn't it?"

Raymond was collecting his scattered wits.

"Presumably. Yes—it would," Joan returned.

"And then we could have all the talks we wanted to, couldn't we?"

"Within proper limitations," Joan nodded, comically prim under the circumstances.

"But for reasons best known to you," Raymond went on, slowly, "you want to keep the shield up? All right. But then if we want the talks——"

"I don't want them!" Joan's voice shook. Poor, lonely little thing, she wanted exactly that!

"I bet that's not true!" ventured Raymond. Then suddenly:

"Why do you laugh as you do?"

"What's the matter with my laugh?"

"I don't know. It's old and it's awfully kiddish—it's rather upsetting. I keep remembering it as I always shall your face now that I have seen it!"

Truth can take care of itself if it has half a chance. It was beginning to grip Joan through the mists that shrouded her—mists that life has evolved for the protection of those who might never be able to distinguish between the wolf in sheep's skin and sheep in wolf hide.

Joan knew the ancient code of propriety, but she knew, also, the ring of truth and she was young and lonely. She knew she ought not to be playing with wild animals, but she was also sure in the deepest and most sincere parts of her brain that the man beside her, strange as it might seem, was really a very nice and well-behaved domestic animal and was making rather a comical exhibition of himself in the skin of the beast of prey.

"You haven't told me where you are going," Raymond said, presently.

"Home!" The one word had the dreary, empty sound that it could not help having when Joan considered the studio with Sylvia gone and Patricia an uncertain element.

"Are you?" Raymond asked, lamely. One had to say something or turn back. Joan felt like crying. Then suddenly Raymond said:

"I wish you'd come and have dinner with me, and I'm not going to excuse myself or explain anything. I know I'm using all the worn-out tricks of fellows that are anything but decent; but I know that you know—though how you do I'm blest if I know—but I know that you understand. The thing's too big for me. I've just got to risk it! I'm lonely and I bet you are; we've got to eat—why not eat together?"

The words sounded like explosives, and Joan mentally dodged, but at the end felt that she knew all there was to know and she caught her breath and said very slowly:

"I'm going to be quite as honest as you are. I will have dinner with you because I'm as lonely as can be; my people, like yours, are out of town, and I do understand though I cannot say just how I do. One thing I want you to promise: You will never, under any circumstances, try to find out more about me than I freely give. Now or—ever! When I disappear, I want really to be safe from intrusion."

Raymond promised, and so they set out on the Sun Road.



CHAPTER XVII

"It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own."

The trouble with the Sun Road is this: one is apt to be blinded by the glare.

In their solitude, the solitude of a big city, Raymond and Joan trod the shining way with high courage.

This was romance in an age when romance was supposed to be dead! Here they were, they two, nameless—for they decided upon remaining so—living according to their own codes; feeling more and more secure, as time passed, that they were safe and were wisely enjoying what so easily might have been lost had they been limited in faith.

"It's the line in our hands!" Raymond declared. "It means something, all right. Think what we must have missed had we been unjust to each other and ourselves."

Joan nodded.

The sun and the dust of the pleasant highway had blinded her completely by the end of a week.

Patricia was a missing quantity most of the time. Patricia had taken to the Sun Road, also, but with her eyes wide open. If Patricia ever turned aside it would be because she knew the danger, not because she did not.

She never explained her absences nor her private affairs to Joan. When she did appear at Sylvia's studio she was quiet and nervous.

"It's the heat," she explained. "I'm not hot, but I cannot get enough air to breathe."

Meanwhile, Sylvia was basking in success and cool breezes on the Massachusetts coast. Her letters had the tang of the sea.

And Raymond was always on hand, now, at the dinner hour. He was like a boy, and took great pride in his knowledge of just the right places to eat. Quiet, but not too quiet; good food, and, occasionally, good music, and if the night was not too hot, a dance with Joan which set his very soul to keeping time.

"Gee!" he said, after their first dance; "I wonder what you are, anyway? Do you do everything—to perfection?"

Joan twinkled.

"Every man must decide that for himself," she replied with a charming turn of her head.

"Every—man?" Raymond's face fell.

"Certainly. You don't think you are the only man, do you?"

"Well, the only one left in town."

Raymond gave a little laugh and changed the subject. He had no intention of getting behind his companion's screen. With a wider conception of his path, he more diligently kept to the middle.

After the first fortnight he even went so far as to arrange for business engagements, now and then, in order to keep his brain clear.

Joan always met these empty spaces in her days with a keen sense of loss which she hid completely from Raymond.

His business demands were offset by her skilfully timed escapes from the Brier Bush. She would either be too early or too late for Raymond, and so while he paid homage to his code, Joan appeared to make the code unnecessary.

And the weather became hotter and moister and the moral and physical fibre of the city-bound became limper.

After a week of not seeing each other Joan and Raymond made up for lost time by galloping instead of trotting along.

"Stevenson and O. Henry couldn't beat this adventure of ours," Raymond exclaimed one evening, wiping the moisture from his forehead. "And I bet thousands of folks would think better of one another if——"

"If—they had the line in their hands," Joan broke in; "but they haven't, you know!"

"Exactly."

Just then Raymond made a bad break. He asked Joan if she did not trust him well enough to give him her telephone number.

"Something might occur," he said, "business pops up unexpectedly. I hate to lose a chance of seeing you—and I hate to wait on street corners."

"I am sorry," Joan replied, "but that would spoil everything."

Raymond flushed. It was just such plunges as this that made him recoil.

"I understand," he replied, coolly; "I had hoped that you could trust me."

"It is not a matter of trust. It's keeping to the bargain."

There was nothing more to say. But, quite naturally, several days elapsed before they saw each other again.

Fierce, broiling days without even the debilitating moisture to ease the suffering citizens.

Joan, alone in the dark, hot studio, thought of Doris and Nancy and wondered!

"Of course, what I am doing would be horrid if I didn't know all about him," and then Joan tossed about. "Some day—it will be such a lark to tell them—and think of his surprise when he—knows! I'll see him with all barriers down next winter," for at this time Joan had written and accepted all Doris's plans for her. She was to study music determinedly—she had a proud little bank account—and she would live at the old house and revel in Nancy's social triumphs.

And Raymond, in his shrouded house, had his restless hours and with greater reason, for he was playing utterly in the dark and had to acknowledge to his grim, off-standing self that, except for the fact that he was in the dark, he would not dare play the very amusing game he was playing.

"If she is masquerading," Raymond beat about with his conscience, "it's the biggest lark ever, and she and I will have many a good laugh over it."

"But if she—isn't?" demanded the shadowy self.

"Well, if she isn't, she jolly well knows how to take care of herself! Besides, I'm not going to hurt her. Why, in thunder, can't two fellow creatures enjoy innocent things without having evil suggestions?"

"They can!" thundered the Other Self, "but this isn't innocent—at least it is dangerous."

"Oh! be hanged!" Raymond flung back and the Shadow sank into oblivion.

Left to himself—one of his selves—Raymond resorted to sentiment.

"Of course we both know—under what might be—what is. She's like Kipling's girl in the Brushwood Boy."

But that did not take in the Other Self in the least. It laughed.

When July came the heat settled down in earnest on the panting city.

"Aren't you going to take any vacation?" asked Raymond. He and Joan were sauntering up Fifth Avenue to a certain haven in a backyard where the fountain played and the birds sang.

"No. I'm going to stay in town and let Miss Gordon have her outing. The Brier Bush is too young to be left alone this year. Next year it will be my turn."

"I'm afraid you'll wilt," Raymond looked at the blooming creature beside him. "Funny, isn't it, how things turn out? I expected to go in August to—to that lady with whom you first saw me" (Joan looked divinely innocent); "but only yesterday she informed me that she had resolved to go abroad, and asked if it would make any difference to me. She's like that. Her procedure resembles jumping off a diving plank."

"Well, does it make any difference?" Joan asked.

"You bet it does! It makes me free to stay in town."

"I'm afraid you'll wilt," Joan twinkled.

"We must take precautions against that." Raymond looked deadly in earnest.

The meetings of these two were now set, like clear jewels in the round of common days. They were not too frequent and they were always managed like chance happenings. Always there was a sense of surprise, a thrill of unbelievable good luck attending them; but there was, also, a growing sense of assurance and understanding.

"I wonder," Joan said once, pressing hard against the shield that protected them, "I wonder if you and I would have played so delightfully had we been—well—introduced! Miss Jones and Mr. Black."

"No!" Raymond burst in positively. "Miss Jones would have been enveloped in the things expected of Miss Jones, and Mr. Black would have been kept busy—keeping off the grass!"

"Aren't you ever afraid," Joan mused on, "that some day we'll suddenly come across each other when our shields are left behind in—in the secret tower?"

"I try not to think of it," Raymond leaned toward the girl; "but if we did we'd know each other a lot better than most girls and fellows are ever allowed to know each other," he said.

"Do you think so?" Joan looked wistfully at him. "You see this isn't real; it's play, and I'm afraid Miss Jones and Mr. Black would be awfully suspicious of each other—just on account of the play."

"And so—we'll make sure that shields are always in commission," Raymond reassured her. "In this small world of ours we cannot run any risks with Miss Jones and Mr. Black. They have no part here."

"No, they haven't!" Joan leaned back. That subtle weakness was touching her; the aftermath of strained imagination. She was often homesick for Doris and Nancy—she was getting afraid that she might not be able to find her way back to them when the time came to go.

"Poor little girl!" Raymond was saying over the table, and his words fitted into the tune the fountain sang—it was the same tune the fountain sang in the sunken room of long ago; all fountains, Joan had grown to think, sang the same lovely, drippy song.

"I wonder just how brave and free a little girl it is?"

Joan screwed up her lips.

"Limitless," she whispered, daringly.

"You're played out, child!" Raymond went on; "there are blue shadows under your eyes. I wish you'd let me do something for you."

"You are doing something," the words came slowly, caressingly; "you're making a hard time very beautiful; you're making me believe—in—in fairies, or what stands for fairies, nowadays; you're making me trust myself and for ever after when—when I slip back where I belong—I'm going to remember, and be—so glad! You see, I know, now, that in the world of grown-ups you can make things come true."

"Where you belong?" Raymond gripped his hands close. "Just where do you belong? Are you Miss Jones or are you the sweet nameless thing that I am looking at?"

"Oh! I'm Miss Jones!" Joan sat up promptly, "and I'm going to make sure that Miss Jones doesn't get hurt while I play with her."

And as she spoke Joan was thinking of the ugly interpretation of this beautiful play which Patricia would give. Patricia couldn't make things come true because she never tried hard enough.

"I wonder"—and the fountain made Joan dizzy as she listened to Raymond—"I wonder, now since I'm to stay in town, if you'd let me bring my car in? We'd have some great old rides. We'd cool off and have picnics by roadsides and—and get the best of this blasted heat."

"I think it would be heavenly!" Joan saw, already, cool woods and felt the refreshing air on her face.

Raymond was taken aback. He had expected protest.

But the car materialized and so did the picnics and the cool breezes on young, unafraid faces.

At each new venture reassurance waxed stronger—things could be made true in the world; it was only children who failed, in spite of tradition.

Just at this time Sylvia came to town radiating success and happiness.

The result was disastrous. There are times when one cannot endure the prosperity of his friends! Had Sylvia come back with her banners trailing, Joan and Patricia would have rallied to her standard, but she was cool, crisp, and her eyes were fixed upon a successful future.

She was going to do, not only the frieze, but a dozen other things. People whom she had met had been impressed. Things were coming her way with a vengeance. One order was in the Far West—a glorified cabin in a canyon.

"I'm to do all the interior decorating," Sylvia bubbled; "a little out of my line, but they feel I can do it. And"—here the girl looked blissful—"it will be near enough for my John to come and take a vacation."

Patricia and Joan, at that moment, knew the resentment of the unattached woman for the protected one. Sylvia appeared the child of the gods while they were merely permitted to sit at the gates and envy her triumphs.

"I suppose," Patricia burst in, "that this means the end?"

"End?" Sylvia looked puzzled.

"Yes. Plain John will gobble you, Art and all. But your duties here——" Patricia with a tragic gesture pointed to Joan. "What of Miss Lamb, not to mention me?"

Sylvia looked serious.

"Joan is to study music next winter," she said; "haven't you told Pat, Joan?"

Joan shook her head. She had almost forgotten it herself.

"And live with her people," Sylvia went on and then, noticing Patricia's pale little face, she burst forth:

"Pat, take that offer from Chicago that you've been thinking about! It's a big thing—designing for that firm. It will make you independent, leave you time to scribble, and give you a change. Pat, do be sensible."

Patricia drew herself up. She felt that she was being disposed of simply to get her out of the way. She resented it and she was hurt.

"I do not have to decide just now," she said, coldly; "and don't fuss about me, Syl. Now that you and Joan are provided for I can jog along at my own free will, and no one will have to pay but me!"

"Pat!" Joan broke in, "you and I will stick together. And it's all right about Syl. What is this one life for, anyway, if it does not leave us free? Syl, marry your John—your art won't suffer! Pat, where I go you go next winter."

But Patricia lighted a cigarette, and while the smoke issued from her pretty little nose she sighed.

What happened was this: Patricia shopped and sewed for Sylvia and made her radiantly ready for her trip West. And Joan, feeling the break final, although she did not admit it, forsook her own pleasures while she helped Patricia and clung to Sylvia.

"Pat has sublet her rooms," she confided to Sylvia one day, "and is coming here until our lease is up; so you are foot-loose, my precious Syl, and God bless you!"

In August Sylvia departed and Joan and Patricia set up housekeeping together. But at the end of the first week, and the beginning of a new hot spell, Joan found a note on her pillow one night when she came in, exhausted:

Had to get cool somewhere. I'm not responsible for losing my breath. Take care of yourself.

"This seems the last straw!" sobbed Joan, for Raymond had told her that day at the Brier Bush that important business was taking him out of town.

"He has to catch his breath," poor Joan cried, miserably, quite as if her own background was eliminated; "but what of my breath? And to-day is Saturday, and——" The bleak emptiness of a hot Sunday in the stifling studio stretched ahead wretchedly, like a parched desert.

That night Joan pulled her shade down. She hated the stars. They looked complacent and distant. She pushed memories of Doris and Nancy resolutely from her. Her world was not their world—that was sure. If this desperate loneliness couldn't drive her to them, nothing could. She must make her own life! Lying on her hot bed, Joan thought and thought. Of what did she want to make her life?

"I only want a decent amount of fun," she cried, turning her pillow over, "and I will not have strings tied to all my fun, either."

This struck her as funny even in her misery. She sat up in bed and counted her losses—what were they?

Ridge House and that dear, sweet life—sheltered and safe. Yes; she was sure she had lost them, for she could not go back beaten before she had really tried her luck, and if she succeeded she could never have them in a sense of ownership.

"And I will succeed!" Even in that hard hour Joan rose up in arms.

"And I have earned enough to begin real work in the autumn." She counted her gains. "And I can live close to Aunt Dorrie's beautiful life even if I am not of it. And I am sure of myself as dear Nancy never could be—because I have proved myself in ways that girls like Nancy never can."

Toward morning Joan fell asleep. When she awoke it was nearly noon time and half the desert of Sunday was passed.

Then Joan, refreshed and comforted, planned a wholesome afternoon and evening.

"I'll go out and get a really sensible dinner; take a walk in the Park, and come home and practise. Monday will be here before I know it."

Joan carried out her programme, and it was five o'clock when she returned, at peace with the whole world.

She took off her pretty street gown and slipped into a thin, airy little dress and comfortable sandals. The sandals made her think of her dancing; she always wore them unless she danced shoeless.

"And before I go to bed," she promised her gay little self, "I'll have a dance to prove that nothing can down me—for long!

"I wonder—" here Joan looked serious as if a thought wave had struck her—"I wonder where Pat is?"

This seemed a futile conjecture. Patricia was too elusive to be followed, even mentally.

As a matter of fact, Patricia was, at that hour, confronting the biggest question of her life.

Heretofore she had always left her roads of retreat open, had, in fact, availed herself of them at critical periods; but this time she had, she believed, so cluttered them that they were practically impassable and she said she "didn't care."

The heat and her rudderless life had been too much for her; she had, too, been honestly stirred by beautiful things—although they were not hers nor could ever rightfully be hers. She had slipped into the danger, that seemed now about to engulf her, on a gradual decline.

Her connection with the Burke home life was, apparently, innocent enough at first. No one but Patricia herself sensed what really was threatening, but the conditions were ripe for what occurred.

Mrs. Burke, bent upon her own pleasure, utterly indifferent to the rights of others, was glad enough to leave her house and family to the charm of Patricia while she could, at the same time, as she smilingly declared, give a bit of happiness to that poor, gifted young creature.

The gifted young creature responded with all the hunger of her empty heart—she played with the children, who adored her; there was safety with the eyes of housekeeper and governess upon her—but when the eyes of a tired, disillusioned, and lonely man became fixed upon her, it was time for Patricia to flee. But she did not. Instead she gripped her philosophy of "grab"—and really managed to justify it to a certain extent—while she grew thinner and paler.

On the Sunday when Joan stopped short and wondered where Patricia was, Patricia was up the Hudson awaiting, on a charming hotel piazza, the arrival of the Burke automobile.

It was sunset time and beautiful beyond words. Something in the peaceful loveliness stirred Patricia—she wished that the day were dark and grim. It seemed incongruous to take to the down path—Patricia was not blinded by her lure—while the whole world was flooded with gold and azure.

Then Patricia's angel had a word to say.

"Who would care, anyway?" the girl questioned her upstanding angel—"in all the world, who would care? Why shouldn't I have—what I can get?"

And then, quite forcibly, Patricia thought of Joan! Joan seemed calling, calling. The thought brought a passionate yearning. Joan had the look in her eyes that children and dogs had when they regarded Patricia—a look that cut under the superficial disguise without seeing it, and clung to what they knew was there! The something that they loved and trusted and played with.

In a moment Patricia felt herself growing cold and hard as if almost, but not quite, a power outside herself had threatened the one and only thing in life that she held sacred.

"That Look!" Full well Patricia knew that the Look would no longer be hers to command if she held to her course!

Then, her strength rising with her determination, she glanced back over her cluttered trail. She had written a letter to Joan—it would be delivered to-morrow. A black, scorching statement that would leave not a trace of beauty for the old friendship to rest upon. She had also written a letter to the firm in Chicago definitely refusing to accept its offer—but that letter was not yet mailed!

The Burke automobile, like a devastating flood, might at any moment tear down the hill to the left. With this fear growing in her a strange perverted sense of justice rose and combated it. She had deliberately put herself in the way of the flood; she knew all about the risks of floods, and it seemed knavish to promise and then—leave the field.

"Better an hour of raging against the absence of me," she said, pitifully, "than years of regretting my presence. He'll hate me a little sooner, that's all. So—good-bye!" Patricia almost ran inside; left a hasty, badly written note, and, metaphorically, scrambled over the disordered path of retreat; she seemed to be racing against that letter on its way to Joan. She would write later to the man who was drawing near. Only one thing did Patricia pause to do: It was like driving the last nail in the old life. She telegraphed to Chicago, accepting the position of designer!



CHAPTER XVIII

"Ours, if we be strong."

Joan had sung herself into an exalted mood. She had floated along on the wings of music, touching happy memories and tender, nameless yearnings. Her loved ones seemed crowding about her—Doris, dear, sweet Nancy, and pretty Pat. They were pressing against her heart and calling to her.

She began to feel a dull ache for them, a growing impulse stirred deep in her unawakened nature such as always drives the Prodigal unto his Father! The superficial life of the past year seemed husks indeed. It was the beautiful music that mattered and that she could have had with her blessed, safe, loved ones. She need not have left them lonely; she had been shamelessly selfish. Freedom! What was her freedom? Just a tugging against the sweetest thing in life—the false against the true!

Joan felt the tears falling down her cheeks while she sang on—and suddenly it was Patricia who seemed closest to her.

"I will not desert Pat," she actually sang the words into her song fiercely, resolutely. "Patricia must come into safety with me."

With this vowed to her soul, Joan dried her tears and sprang to her feet. She had never felt so lonely, so happy, so free as she did that moment when her spirit turned homeward again.

She kicked off her sandals and began to dance about the studio, lightly, joyfully.

The late afternoon was fading into a sudden darkness—a storm was coming; black, copper-dashed clouds were rolling on rapidly, full of noise and electricity; in a short time they would break over the city—but Joan danced on and on!

In that hour not one thought of Kenneth Raymond disturbed her. He belonged to the time of mistaken freedom; he was one who had helped her to think she could make unreal things true. He had no place here and now. She somehow felt that he had passed from her life.

Joan was abnormally young and only superficially old; her experiences had but developed her spiritually—aroused her better self; and in that self lay her womanhood, her knowledge of sex relations; there it rested unharmed, unheeding.

And then came a knock on the door!

The whirling figure paused on the tips of its toes; the brooding face broke into smiles.

"It's Pat! Come!"

The word "come" was all that reached the waiting man outside—and when he entered he gathered to himself the glad, joyous welcome meant for Patricia, and smiled at the poised figure.

"Why!" gasped Joan, and in her excitement almost spoke Raymond's name.

"How—did you find your way here? How did you know?"

"Forgive me; I had to come. I telephoned to the Brier Bush—they gave me your number."

Raymond closed the door behind him and came to the centre of the big room, and there he stood smiling at Joan.

"So your name is Sylvia?" he said.

Then Joan understood—Elspeth had respected her wish to be unknown outside her business, she had given Sylvia's name, had made Sylvia responsible.

"I tried to get you earlier by telephone."

"I was not home." Joan was thinking hard and fast. Something was very wrong, but she could not make out what it was.

"Forgive me for breaking rules: I wanted to see you so that rules did not seem to count. Go on with your dance. You look like the spirit of twilight. Dance. Dance."

Joan grew more and more perplexed. The anger she felt was less than the sense of unreality about it all. Raymond was a stranger; he repelled her; in a way, shocked her.

"I'm through dancing," she said. "Since you are here, sit down. I will turn on the lights."

"Please don't. And you are angry. I'm awfully sorry, but it was this way: I was having dinner with some friends and suddenly I seemed to hear you calling to me. It gave me quite a shock. I thought you might be in danger, might be needing me."

Joan kept her eyes on Raymond's face. She was trying to overcome the growing aversion which alarmed her.

"No, I was not calling to you," she said. "I was bidding you good-bye—really, though I did not know it myself."

"Oh! come now!" Raymond bent forward over his clasped hands; "you are peeved! Not a bit like the little sport with that line in her hand."

"I—I wish you wouldn't talk like that." Joan frowned. "And I know it will sound rude—but I—wish you would go."

"You are—surly!" Raymond laughed again, and just then a deep, rumbling note of thunder followed a vivid flash.

"Come," he went on; "dance for me. There's going to be a devil of a storm—keep time to it. I'm here—I ask pardon for being here—but you can't turn me out in the storm. Come, let us have another big memory for our adventure."

Still Joan sat contemplating the man near her, her hands lightly clasped on her lap, her slim feet crossed and at ease—little stocking-shod feet to which Raymond's eyes turned. She had never looked, to Raymond, so provoking and tempting.

"What's up, really?" he asked, "you're not going to spoil everything by a silly tantrum, are you?"

Joan hadn't the slightest appearance of temper—she was quite at ease, apparently, though her heart almost choked her by its beating.

"You have spoiled everything," she said, "not I. You somehow have made our play end abruptly by coming here. I don't think I ever can play again. It's like knowing there isn't—any—any Santa Claus; I can't explain. But something has happened. Something so awful that I cannot put it into words."

Raymond got up and stood before Joan. He looked down and smiled, and at that moment she knew that he was not his old self and she knew what had changed him! And yet with the understanding a deeper emotion swept over her, one of familiarity. It was like finding someone she had known long ago in Raymond's place; as if she had lived through this scene before.

She summoned a latent power to deal with the new conditions.

"You pretty little thing!" Raymond whispered, and touched Joan's shoulder. She got up quickly and moved across the room.

"I always want light when there is a storm," she said, and touched the switch.

Raymond, in the glare, looked flushed and impatient. A crash of thunder shook the old house.

"Will you dance for me?" he said.

Joan stiffened—she was dealing with the strange personality, not the man who was part of the happy past.

"No," she said, evenly. "And you have no right to be here. I wish you would go at once."

"Out in this storm, you little pagan?"

"You could go downstairs and wait in the hall."

"You are afraid of me?"

"Not in the least."

"Afraid of yourself, then?"

"Certainly not. Why should I be afraid of myself?"

"Afraid for yourself, then?"

Raymond was enjoying himself hugely.

"No, but I'm a bit afraid—for you!" Joan was watching the stranger across the room, and she shivered as peal after peal of thunder tore the brief lulls in the storm.

"Oh! that's all right—about me!" Raymond said, mistaking the trembling that he saw; "you know, while I was at dinner to-day I got to thinking what fools we were—not to—to take what fun there is in life—and not count the costs like mean-spirited misers. You've got more dash and courage than I have—you must have thought me, many a time, a—— What did you think me, little girl?"

With the overpowering new knowledge that was possessing her Joan spoke hesitatingly. It seemed pitifully futile and untruthful; but her own thought was to get this stranger from her presence.

"I thought you—well, I thought about you just as I thought about myself. Someone who was strong enough and splendid enough to make something we both wanted come true! It was believing that we two grown-up, lonely people could—play—without hurting—anything—or each other. I see, now, just as I used to see when I was a little girl—that one can never, never do that."

Tears dimmed Joan's eyes and she tried to smile.

The whole weird and unbelievable experience was making her distrust herself, and the storm was more and more unnerving her. She feared she could not hold out much longer.

"You're a—damned good little actress!" Raymond gave a hard, loud laugh so unlike his own wholesome laugh that Joan started back.

"I want you to go away at once!" her eyes flashed. "I think you must be mad."

"But—the storm." Raymond walked across the room.

"I do not care—about the storm. I want you to go!" and now Joan retreated and unconsciously took her stand behind a chair.

A sudden, blinding flash, a deafening crash and—the lights went out!

In the terrifying blackness Joan felt Raymond's arms about her.

So frightened was she now that for an instant the human touch was a blessing. She relaxed, panting and trembling. In that moment she felt kisses upon her lips, her eyes, her throat!

She sprang away, dashing against the furniture and then, as suddenly as they had failed, the lights were blazing and in the revealment Joan faced the man across the room.

Her face was flaming, but his was as white as if death had marked it.

"You—coward!" she flung out.

The words stung and hurt.

Raymond did not move bodily, but his eyes seemed to be coming nearer the girl.

"If you do not go at once," Joan said, slowly, "I will call for help."

"Oh! no, you won't, and I am not going to-night."

The beast in Raymond had never risen before, had never been suspected, never been trained: it was the more dangerous because of that.

"What?" Joan stared at him aghast.

"I said that I am not going to-night."

The awful feeling of familiarity again swept over Joan. She felt that she must have lived through the scene: had made a mistake that must not be made a second time.

"You have been drinking," she said, and her voice shook. She had hoped that she might save him the degradation of knowing that she understood.

"Well! Suppose I have? It has made me live. Set me free. I wonder if you have ever lived?"

"I am afraid not." Joan could not repress the sob that rose in her throat.

"We can live, I bet." Raymond gave his ugly laugh. "That line in our hands gives us the right."

For a moment Joan contemplated escape. Any escape open to her. The telephone, the door, even a call from the window in the heart of the storm. Then the desire was gone and with it all personal fear. She wanted again, in a vague way, to save this man who had once been her friend. She felt that she must save him.

Somehow, she had wronged him. She must find out just how, and then he might once more be as she had known him.

Presently it came to her. She should have known that he could not understand the past. He had pretended to, while they had played their foolish game, but when restraint was set aside he showed the deadly truth. She had cheapened herself, cheapened all women—she could not fly now, not until she had made him see the mistake.

Raymond was crossing the room. He laughed, and insanity flashed in his eyes.

"What shall I call you from now on?" he said: "Sylvia?—or shall we make up another name?"

"My name is not Sylvia. And there is to be no time ahead for us."

"You are mistaken. A girl has no right to lead a man on as you have led me, and then run. It isn't the game, my dear. You must not be afraid to play the game."

Raymond reached his hand toward her and said pleadingly:

"Don't be afraid. I hate to see you flinch."

"You must not touch me." Joan's eyes flashed.

"I see. You've raised the devil in me—and you do not want to pay?" The brute was rearing dangerously.

"I do not want to pay more than I owe."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that as true as God hears me I meant no wrong. I've done things that girls should not do. I see that now. But I believed that you understood. I thought that, in a way, you were like me—you were so fine and happy. I still have faith that when you are yourself again you will realize this. Oh! it is horrible that drink can do such an awful thing to you."

"Whatever ideals I may have had," Raymond broke in, "you have destroyed. Perhaps you think men have no ideals? Some women do."

"Oh! I believe with all my soul that they have. It was because I did think that, that I dared to trust you." Joan was pleading; she could not own defeat; she was appealing to him for himself.

But Raymond gave a sneering laugh.

"You trusted so much," he said, "that you hid behind a veil and would not tell your name."

Raymond was hearing himself speak as if he were an eavesdropper. He trembled and breathed hard as a runner does who is near the goal.

"What's one night in a life?" he asked, as if it were being dragged from him.

Again his voice startled him. He looked around, hoping he might discover who it was that spoke.

It was Joan now who was speaking:

"I think that in me as well as in you there is something that neither of us knew. I cannot explain it—but it was something that we should have known before——"

"Before what?" Raymond asked.

"Before I—anyway—was left to go free! It is the knowing that makes it safe, safe for such as you and me! I do not believe you ever knew what you could be—and neither did I."

Raymond gripped his hands together and his face was ghastly.

"My God!" he breathed, and sank on the couch covering his eyes from Joan's pitiful look. He was coming to himself, trying to realize what had occurred as one does who becomes conscious of having spoken in delirium.

Outside, the storm was dying down—it sounded tired and defeated.

Joan looked at the bent form near her and then went to a chair and leaned her head back. She knew the feeling of desperate exhaustion. She had never fainted, was not going to faint now, but she had come to the end of a dangerous stretch of road and there was no strength left in her. Surprise, shock, the storm—all had combined to bring her to where she was now. The tears rolled unheeded down her cheeks; all her hope and faith were gone—she had left them in the struggle and could not even estimate her loss.

The clock ticked away the minutes—who was there to notice or care? Joan was thankful to have nothing happen! She closed her eyes and waited.

Presently Raymond spoke. His hands dropped from his haggard face and his eyes were filled with shame and remorse.

"Will you listen to me?" he said.

"Yes." Joan looked at him—her eyes widened; she tried to smile. She longed to cry out at what she saw, wanted to say: "You have come back. Come back." Instead she said slowly:

"Yes."

"I can never expect to have your forgiveness. I thank God that it is possible for us to part and, alone, seek to forget this horror. I will never intrude. I promise you that. Back in my college days I found out that I could not drink. It did something to me that it does not do to others. I never quite knew what until to-day. When I saw you standing there—the devil got loose. I know now. My God! To think that all one's life does not count when the devil takes hold."

"Oh! Yes, it does, and it is the knowing that will help." Joan was crying softly. "You will have the right to trust yourself hereafter because you know."

"I will always think of women as I see you now." Raymond spoke reverently.

"You must not. Some women do not have to learn—I did. I think the best women know."

"You must not say that."

"Yes, I feel it. Had I shown you a better self while we played all would have been different. You would not have misunderstood. Women must not expect what they are not willing to give. I had done things that no girl can safely do and be understood and then—when you lost control—you thought of me as you really believed me. I can see it all now, see how I hurt you; hurt myself and hurt other girls; but it was because—not because I am a bad girl—but because I did not know myself any more than you knew yourself. How could we hope to know each other? I seem so old, now—so old! And I understand—at last."

Raymond looked at her and pity filled his eyes, for she looked so touchingly young.

"I think," he said, "that I shall see all girls for ever as I see you at this minute."

"Oh, you must not." Joan gave a sob. "They are not like me, really."

There was an awkward silence. Then:

"Will you tell me your name? Will you try to trust me—just a little? It would prove it, if you only would."

"I do not want you to know my name. You must promise to keep from knowing. It is all I ask."

"Will you let me tell you—mine?"

"No! no!" Joan put up her hands as if to ward off something tangible.

"I only meant"—Raymond dropped his eyes—"that there isn't anything under heaven I wouldn't do to prove to you my sense of remorse. I thought if you knew you might call upon me some day to prove myself. I'm bungling, I know, but I wish I could make you understand how I feel."

"I do." And now Joan got up rather unsteadily. "And some day—I—I may call upon you—for—for I have known your name—always!"

"What!"

"Please—forgive me. I was taking an advantage—but it did not seem to matter then, and I must keep the advantage now—for your sake as well as mine. And now, before we say good-bye, I want to tell you that I know you are going to have your ideals again. You will try to get them back, won't you?"

"I will get them back, yes! I only lost them when the devil in me drove me mad."

"And bye and bye, try to believe that although one cannot make the unreal real, still there are some foolish people that think they can—and be kind to such people. Help them, do not hurt them."

"Will you—take my hand?" Raymond stretched his own forth.

"Why—of course—and tell you that I am glad, oh, so glad because—you have come back! Glad because it was I not another who saw that other you—for I can forget it!"

"And—and we are—to see each other some day?" This came hopefully. "Some day—as we left ourselves—back before this?"

"Some day—some day? Perhaps. If we do—we will understand better than we did then."

"Yes. We'll understand some things."

Raymond bent and touched Joan's hand with his lips and went quickly from the room.

He was conscious of passing, on the stairs, a wet and draggled young woman, but he did not pause to see the frightened look she cast upon him.

A moment later Joan raised her head from the pillow on which she was weeping the weakest—and the strongest—tears of her life.

"Oh! Pat," she sobbed. "Oh! Pat."

Patricia came to the couch and sat down. She was thinking fast and hard. Life had not been make-believe to Patricia; she had builded whatever towers had been hers with hard facts.

She drew wrong and bitter conclusions now—but she dealt with them divinely.

"You poor kid," she whispered, "and I left you—to this. I! Joan, I told you not to trust men. It's when you trust them that you get hurt.

"Listen, you poor little lamb, I felt you calling me, tugging at me. The storm delayed me, or I would have been here sooner. Joan, I had nearly run off the track myself—it was the thought of you that got me. I kept remembering that night you made the little dinner for me—no one had ever taken care of me like that—and, child, I've accepted that job in Chicago. If I go alone, remembering that dinner you got for me, I don't know what I'll do. Come with me, Joan, will you? No man in the world is worth such tears as these. You don't have to tell me anything. We'll begin anew. You'll have your music—I'll have my work—and we'll have a dinner every night."

Patricia was shivering in her wet clothing.

Joan put her arms about her. At that moment nothing so much appealed to her as to get away—get away to think and make sure of herself. Get away from the place where her idols lay shattered.

"Yes, Pat. I will go. But"—and here she took Patricia's face in her hot palms—"don't you believe that any man can be trusted?"

"No, I don't. It isn't their fault. They are not made for trust—they're made to do things."

"Pat, you're all wrong. It's girls like you and me that cannot be trusted. I—I didn't know myself that was the trouble. Pat—you mustn't—think what you are thinking—you are mistaken."

"I saw him—on the stairs," gasped Patricia.

"Suppose you did?"

"Joan, do you know what time it is?"

"No. I do not care. It takes time to have the world tumble about your ears."

"You—you—do not—love him, do you?"

Joan paused and considered this as if it were a startlingly new idea.

"Love him?—why, no. I'm sure I don't. But, Pat, what is it that seems like love, but isn't—you're sure it isn't—but it hurts and almost kills you?"

The two young faces confronted each other blankly.

"I don't know," Patricia said.

"Nor I, Pat. But we've got to know. All women have unless they want to mess their own lives and the lives of men. They cannot be free until they do."

Then Joan took hold of Patricia and exclaimed:

"Pat, you are dripping wet. Come to bed." While helping Patricia to undress she talked excitedly of going away.

"It's the only thing to do. This silly life is a waste of time. Why, Pat, we have been making all kinds of locks to keep ourselves shut away from freedom and the things we want. Some day we would want to get out and we could not. I am going to be free, Pat—not smudgy."

Patricia paused in the act of getting into bed and remarked demurely:

"My God! Out of the mouths of babes and pet lambs—— Come, child, shut your eyes. You make me crawl."



CHAPTER XIX

"Queer—to think no day is like to a day that is past."

When Joan and Patricia arose the following day they confronted life as two criminals might who realized that their only safety lay in flight, and that they must escape without running risks.

Patricia shuddered when the first mail was delivered. She rescued her own letter—addressed to Joan—and raised her heart in gratitude that no letter of angered remonstrance came from Burke.

But he might come; he might telegraph!

"My God!" Patricia exclaimed at noon time, "I cannot stand this, Joan, we must vacate."

Joan was quivering with excitement, too—she was wild-eyed and shook with terror at every step on the stairs.

Her ordeal of the day before had not merely devastated her beautiful dreams, but it had, in a marvellous fashion, created an entirely new outlook on life. She felt that once she was safe from any possible chance of meeting Raymond, he might, spiritually, rise from the ashes and eventually overcome the impression that would cling in spite of all she could do. Intellectually she understood—but her hurt and shocked sensibilities shrank from bodily contact with one who had forced the fruit of knowledge so crudely upon her. The youth in her seemed to have died, and it held all the charm and delight. The woman of Joan made a plea for the man, but as yet he was a stranger. More strange, even, than the unnamable creature who had, for an hour, while the storm raged, stood in her imagination like some evil thing between the woman who had not fully understood and the woman who was never again to misunderstand.

While she feared and trembled Joan could, already, recall the moment when Raymond began to gain the victory over his fallen self. She knew that he was always to be the master in the future. How she knew this she could not have explained, but she knew! In all the years to come Raymond would be the better for that hour that proved to him his weakness. And with this knowledge, poor Joan found comfort in her own part. He and she had learned together the strength of their hidden foes. She realized with a sense of hot remorse that she had wanted freedom not so much for the opportunity of expressing that which was fine and worth while, but that which she, herself, had not been conscious of.

But she had been awakened in time. She, like Raymond, had faced her worst self, and now the most desirable thing to do was to get away. Anywhere, separated from all that had led to the shock, she would look back and forward and know herself well enough to make the next step a safer one.

To go with Patricia for a few months would not interfere with her winter plans; so she decided not to write fully to Doris, but to state merely that she was going to see Patricia settled in her new venture—or, should the business not appeal, bring Patricia back with her.

"But," she said to Patricia while they restlessly moved about the studio, "what can we do about—this," Joan spread her arms wide, "the furniture and all Syl's beloved things?"

Patricia sighed.

"Has it ever struck you, my lamb," she said, "that our dear Syl is a selfish pig?"

Joan started in surprise.

"Oh, I know," Patricia went on, "her respectability and genius protect her, but she is selfish. How long did she stop to consider us when her own plans loomed high? She dumped everything on us and went! It was business, pleasure, art, and John. For the rest—'poof!'" Patricia spoke the last sound like a knife cutting through something crisp and hard.

Joan continued to stare. Unformed impressions were taking shape—she felt disloyal, but she was not deceived.

"Syl brought you here," Patricia was going on, "because she was lonely and you fitted in; she never changed her own course. She has engaged herself to her John because he fits in and will never interfere. I've seen him—and I grieve over him. He'll think, bye and bye, that he's gone into partnership with God in giving Syl and her art to the world! But he'll never have any nice little fire to warm the empty corners of his life by. I hope he'll never discover them—poor chap! He's as good as gold and Syl has pulled it all over him without knowing it. She's made him believe that he was specially designed to further a good cause—she is the good cause.

"And the best, or the worst, of it is that Syl will make good. That kind does. It is such fools as you and I who fail because we have imagination and find ourselves at the crucial moment in the other fellow's shoes."