The morning of John's return Elizabeth asked Hugh to take her as far as Nathan's on his way in to town. Hugh had not sat on the step till midnight the night before to let himself fall into temptation the first thing in the morning, and suggested that since the shafts of the buggy were mended that she drive over to Nathan's alone, giving as his reason that he might be unable to come back promptly. The girl fell into his plan so readily that Hugh in his contradictory frame of mind wondered about it and was half hurt. As he hitched Patsie into the shafts, however, he reasoned it out that Elizabeth Hunter was probably making the same fight that he was making. He tied the mare in the side lane and left her there without going to the house as usual to help with Jack. If she were fighting for her own esteem, as he was doing, Hugh resolved not to be the cause of temptation; it made him feel a little better about meeting John. Could he have known, as Elizabeth did, that it was the first time since her marriage that she had had the privilege of driving alone and that the precedent once established would settle the possibility of demanding a horse whenever she wanted it, it would have put a different complexion on the matter.

In order for Elizabeth to use the buggy, however, Hugh was obliged to drive the strange team. Jake had been using them since John's absence, but had come in from the field the night before with the announcement that he did not intend "to risk his neck with them broncos any more." Before Hugh got to Colebyville he was thoroughly displeased with them, and spoke of his dislike of them to John on the way home.

"A few days on the harvester 'll fix them," John replied.

"Well, they're acting better than they did on the way in. They're hot and tired, and maybe the harvester will do it, but they're a bad lot," Hugh replied wearily. "I feel that I've got to get away to Mitchell County. The cattle have been on my mind for days. You'll have this team on your hands, for none of the men but Jake would try to use them, and he told me last night he'd used them for the last time."

"Aren't you well, Hugh?" John Hunter asked with such concern that Hugh was covered with humiliation and shame.

"Oh, yes-s-s. But you can run the place and I'm not hanging out like I thought I could—and I like it down there; it's more like the life I've been ordered to lead."

"Wait till the rye has been cut. Did you say Silas wanted us to cut his too?" John Hunter asked.

"Yes. He stopped me as I drove over this morning. The boys will lay the early corn by to-day; we can get the binder out to-morrow and see that it is ready by the day after. We might have been through with the corn to-day, but I've been lazy of late. I knocked off and rested and read most of the hot part of yesterday afternoon," Hugh replied slowly. He wished in his heart that he could tell all.

"That's the thing to do. I'm not going to have you going down to Mitchell County while it's so hot. You'll lay around the house and read, that's what You'll do, and I'll run this farm for a while."

The thought of that took Hugh Noland's breath. That was what he was running away from, but he could think of no reason but his health, and dropped the subject to get away from it.

John Hunter asked questions about every feature of the farm work, and as he asked watched Hugh's face, looking anxiously for signs of breaking health. Under no conditions would he let Hugh get sick. Hugh had been the happiest circumstance of this farming experience. There was a discouraged note in Hugh's voice that John did not like.

"Did you see Morgan to-day?" he asked after he had had all the farm work explained to him.

"Oh, now, don't you get to worrying because I happen to mention my health. Yes, I saw Morgan, and he agreed with me that the other place would be better for me. I can run that and you can run this, and with care we ought to make some money pretty soon."

"But that takes you away from us and—and we want you here!" John exclaimed with such fervour that Hugh winced under it.

Hugh smiled so sadly back at the eager, boyish face turned to his that John was more than ever sure he was ill. His hand shot out to him with an almost womanish sympathy.

"We'll see to it that you're kept busy where you belong, and the work won't wear you out either, my boy," he said.

Hugh saw that he was getting deeper in at every word he uttered and went back to a discussion of the farm work.

Elizabeth waited intentionally till she saw the men pass Nathan's house before she started home. Try as she would, she did not yearn for her husband's return. Life was short, her youth was going fast, and her fear of the faded life grew as she looked forward to an old age spent with John Hunter after Hugh's departure. Hugh must go, there was no question about that. He had told her night before last that he thought of it; had spoken of it incidentally enough, but in such wise that the girl knew why he was going. She had felt at the time that Hugh listened for her reply, but there was none she could make, and her silence added the final word to his decision. Elizabeth knew that it was the only honourable course; she consented to it in her mind, and yet, as she looked ahead to a time when she could not have him to take shelter behind with the cream jars of her life, she was sick at what she must face. Even to-day she hoped that he would be present when she drove Patsie into the yard.

Fortune favoured Elizabeth in getting home with the horse and buggy. John had said that he was going to the pasture to look over the stock, and when Hugh saw Elizabeth drive through the gate they had left open, there was nothing for him to do but go forward to take her horse. John had seen her coming and had come back from the pasture gate, and the three met.

"See how brave I have become in your absence," she said.

"Well, I guess you've driven horses as long as I have," John Hunter replied happily, and kissed the astonished wife and the child in her arms with such real pleasure in returning to them that it was good to meet him after all.

"If he'd always be like that," Elizabeth thought wistfully, and Hugh Noland felt more like a criminal in the presence of that kiss than he had ever done in his life.

"Here, I'll tie Patsie up after I give her a drink. You go in with Elizabeth and I'll follow as soon as its done," John said to Hugh, and turning to Elizabeth said, "You haven't taken very good care of him since I've been away, dear. Go on in and get a book and I'll listen for an hour before I go to the pasture."

"I'll do no such thing. I'll go to that pasture with you—that's what I'll do. I'm not sick. Rats! Elizabeth knows I——"

Hugh Noland stopped short, "I beg your pardon, Mrs. Hunter," he added confusedly.

"I don't know why you shouldn't call me by my first name; I do you," Elizabeth answered, glad in spite of herself.

Hugh went away with John, and Elizabeth had a long time to think about it. It was the first time Hugh had ever dropped into the least familiarity in addressing her, and no amount of reasoning could keep her from feeling a thrill of pleasure over it. She did not approve of herself, but the thrill was there. She hated herself, but the thrill remained. She wondered bitterly if she would ever be able to approve of herself again; every turn of life's wheel brought out some new and hitherto unsuspected characteristic, and try as she would she could not make herself do as her code of morals demanded that she should. She thought of her various friends; none of them had ever been guilty of the things Elizabeth found herself culpable of. Sadie had rebelled against her first child, but when shown the consequences had cheerfully applied the lesson, while she, Elizabeth, had been unable to put into practice later the very precepts she had so glibly given her neighbour. None of her friends had ever committed the folly of falling in love with men who were not their husbands.

Elizabeth would not stay for the reading that night, and had a bad hour before she fell asleep. Her love for Hugh looked even worse to her since John's arrival than it had done before. This new phase of her life was even less able to command respect than any which had preceded it. Why was she vexed with such unheard of temptations? It did not comfort her to reason it out that this thing had fallen upon her without any wish of hers, that the thrill which had followed his use of her name was not a thing she had deliberately fostered within herself; she demanded of herself that she should not thrill at his voice, not knowing that she demanded the impossible.

The rye was to be cut at Silas Chamberlain's. John suggested to Elizabeth that she had better go over to help Liza Ann, since she was alone, saying that he would take her over when he went. Hugh was to go with the machine. Jake would drive the extra team over, and the other two men would plow corn at home. A few minutes before nine o'clock John announced that he was ready. He had come in to carry Jack to the buggy for her. John had gone away with the impressions of Elizabeth's illness still upon him, and looked out for her with the same care he had accorded her when an invalid.

"How long?" he asked, dropping down on the foot of the bed beside the machine upon which she had been putting in the spare time.

"Just this one little seam; I'll have it done then."

She stooped over the machine to finish the seam quickly, not liking to keep John waiting when he was already somewhat late.

Jack slipped from his father's lap, and fascinated by the swiftly moving wheel on a level with his face, put out a pudgy little forefinger to feel of it as it went around. His mother saw it and stopped short with a little cry of alarm.

"Don't do that, Jack!" she said sharply. "It'll take your finger right off of your hand if you get it in there."

Jack put his hand behind his little back, and stood in round-eyed wonder watching the wheel as she started to sew again.

John was getting restless and wanted to go.

"Aren't you about——"

Elizabeth looked up at him as he started to speak, and Jack's finger shot out to the forbidden wheel on the instant. Elizabeth saw it at a point when she could not control the pedal with her foot. Mother love brought a scream to her lips, and to save the child she gave him a shove with her hand. Jack fell on the floor in a heap, striking his head on the bedpost as he did so.

John had clutched at him ineffectually as he fell and caught him up as soon as he could get hold of him, turning him over in his arms to see where he was hurt. The blood spurted from the little nose, giving an appearance of serious injury to the matter all out of proportion to the exact nature of the damage sustained, but as usual, when excited, John saw only surface indications.

"What does possess you when you're cross?" he exclaimed as he relinquished his hold on the baby, who, however badly he might be hurt, was struggling to get to his mother's arms.

Elizabeth carried the screaming child to the kitchen to bathe the bruised nose and apply a wet cloth to the nasty blue ridge beginning to form where the little cheek had encountered the bedpost.

"I never saw any one act like you do with a child," John said with his usual irritation.

"I didn't intend to knock him over, but I couldn't stop my foot and I thought he'd get his little finger taken right off before my very eyes."

"Well, you shouldn't go at him so rough. You always treat him as if he were a block of wood."

Elizabeth's lips closed down tight, and to keep Jack from hearing further criticisms of her management she went back to the bedroom. When John was ready to go he called to her from the lane, and she carried Jack to the door instead of laying him down.

"Take Hepsie with you. Tell Mrs. Chamberlain that I got ready to come. He'd probably be cross if I went now. Hepsie's in the potato patch," Elizabeth said in a low voice, and went back so promptly that John could not reply.

John took Hepsie with him, and explained to Liza Ann, as Elizabeth requested, that she was unable to come because Jack had hurt himself.

The day was dry and hot, and John Hunter consumed water like a fish upon all occasions. The discovery that the water-jugs had been left at home called for instant action when he arrived in the field. Silas had put his team on the binder and Patsie was free for use on just such errands as this. The machine had just been driven up to where Hugh could ask for water also. John crossed over and laid his hand on the lines.

"Here, you take the horse and go for the water. I forgot the jugs; You'll have to go clear home after them."

"Why don't you do it?" Hugh asked.

John Hunter looked him over rather sharply and replied:

"Because I'm going to drive this binder to-day. I don't like your voice very well since I got home, Hugh."

"You won't hear very much more of it if I can get away day after to-morrow," Hugh replied, smiling at the turn he had given to John's sympathy.

John Hunter grinned back at him, but kept his hand on the lines, and Hugh got down.

"You can't start day after to-morrow, for we won't get this rye done, and you won't start then, my boy, with such a note in your voice as that. I've spoken to Jake about it and he'll go. I don't propose to have you that far away when you are not well—it ain't what we want you for. Go on and get that water," he added when he saw the expression of protest in Hugh's face.

Hugh went without argument, but his determination was as strong as ever. Instead of going around the road he drove across the field to the fence between the two places, and, tying Patsie, walked through the cornfield to the pasture and on toward the house.

The hot sun blazed fiercely down on his thinly clad back, and he noticed as he struggled through the tasselling corn that the leaves were already firing about the roots. Rain was essential, but he reflected that enough rain to do the corn any good would ruin the small grain now ready to cut. "Kansas luck," he muttered as he crossed the deep ridges thrown up by his own cultivator a few days before. Not a breath of air was stirring, and by the time he had reached the house he was hot and tired. Reflecting that John had taken Elizabeth to Chamberlain's, he decided to rest before he started back with the heavy water-jugs. He stopped in the kitchen for a drink and took a small bottle out of his pocket.

"Two, I guess, this time," he said as he poured the tablets into his hand. He dropped his finger on the other wrist a moment, and then swallowed both pellets.

Elizabeth heard him settle himself in a rocking chair with a long-drawn breath of comfort. She was giving Jack little pats to ease him off to sleep and the house was very quiet. She decided to keep still and let him return to the field without seeing her tear-stained face, but Jack roused with a low whimpering cry which she felt sure Hugh must have heard, and as soon as the child was asleep she walked out without further effort at concealment.

At the noise of the opening door Hugh Noland sprang to his feet in surprise; he had been half-asleep.

"Why, I didn't know that you were here!" he exclaimed when he saw that it was Elizabeth. "I thought you went to Chamberlain's."

His eyes riveted themselves upon her swollen eyelids, and when she stood embarrassed before him and did not reply readily, conscious only of his searching gaze, he misunderstood and added gravely:

"Elizabeth, there is something I must speak about. I cannot have you worried over matters between us——"

Elizabeth Hunter's eyes ceased to be shy and troubled and came up to his in such complete astonishment that he broke off in confusion.

There was a pause for one short second, and then Elizabeth spoke in nervous haste, and as if to ward off something.

"I—I—I wasn't crying about—that is, I hurt Jack accidentally and—and John misunderstood."

Even while the words were still in her mouth, she realized by his expression that what she was saying sounded like a complaint, as if she were exposing a difference between herself and her husband, and that was the one thing that under no circumstances had she ever done. She made a frightened stop without ending the sentence.

As if to save his mother from needless embarrassment, Jack slipped to the floor and came stumbling out on sleepy legs, tired and cross, and rubbing his sweaty little face with hot, sweaty little fists, and demanding his mother's attention. Elizabeth turned to him with a relief beyond words.

Hugh Noland, who had always loved the child, was never so glad to see him, and slipped away while he was being soothed and petted out of his tears and discomfort. Both Hugh and Elizabeth knew that but for Jack's timely interruption words would have escaped Hugh that they both preferred should not be uttered. Both knew the situation, but both saw that it would be easier, as well as safer and more honourable, not to discuss it.

"I'll not think any more about going away—I wouldn't do it if I had money," she decided as she watched Hugh return with his jug. "I married John Hunter in good faith, and I'll live with him in good faith and straighten things out." The thought of her love for Hugh came up and she added, "I don't care! I didn't go out to hunt up a love for him and I can't help it if it has come to me; but I hope he gets away to Mitchell County day after to-morrow."



CHAPTER XXI

BOUND TO THE STAKE

The harvesting dragged out to the third day, and Silas, who had a felon, could not give help when John came to the point of cutting his own grain. It was almost impossible to get help, for the reason that the dry weather had hastened the reaping of all early crops. It was decided that Elizabeth should drive back and forth with the water, and John take a hand at the shocking. This left Hugh on the machine, a thing John disliked to do, but Hugh made no complaints and accepted the post readily. Hugh had seen that he could not refer to his health without endangering his chance of getting away. John looked him over critically as he mounted the binder, realizing fully that he was unfit to ride in the hot sun all day.

"I'll take his place this afternoon if the shocking never gets done," was his mental resolve as he turned to his own share of the work.

The men had taken one jug of water with them, so that it was not necessary for Elizabeth to go with a fresh one till ten o'clock. She tied Patsie to the fence and, taking Jack with her, crawled under and started across the field to a point where she could meet the oncoming binder, so that Hugh could take the heavy jug on the machine around to the other side of the field where the shockers were. Jack's short legs had hard work in the stubble, and she kept a tight hold on him with one hand while she carried the jug with the other.

Hugh saw them coming and called to her to wait till he could come for the jug. Doctor Morgan had especially cautioned against heavy lifting.

The new team which John had bought was hitched to the pole of the harvester, and as he drew them up, a botfly buzzed suddenly about the forelegs of the off-wheel horse. The animal struck at it angrily with its foot, giving a shrill snort. Its mate threw itself to the other side, rattling the double-trees of the leaders against their heels. There was a frightened spring on the part of one of the horses in front, and at that the wild and half-broken wheel horses began to plunge ahead.

Thoroughly frightened, the four horses became unmanageable at once, and the one nearest the revolving reel got its tail over the line, where it held firmly to it as it reared and kicked. Almost before it was clear what had happened, the horses were on a full run down the field, with a barbed-wire fence ahead. Hugh could do but one thing. He circled them about toward the outside of the field by the one line he could control, while he frantically jammed the lever down, which threw the machine out of gear, but at the speed at which the machine was going the lever would not act. The one line swung the horses around in a short circle, and as the thoroughly alarmed man raised his head he was horrified to find that Elizabeth, encumbered with the jug, and so thoroughly frightened that she held on to it and to Jack's hand with equal tenacity, was within the radius of the circle.

The baby, the mother, and the heavy water-jug were in the centre of that narrowing ring, and the natural and spontaneous thing to do was to run in the direction away from the careening harvester. They ran, but only for a few yards, for by the time they thought that they were nearing a point of safety at the circumference of the circle, the horses were nearing that point also, and to attempt to cross it was suicidal.

"Go back!" shouted Hugh, his whole body breaking into a cold sweat as the woman and child turned to run in the opposite direction.

Had presence of mind been possible at that moment, Elizabeth could have slipped quickly behind the binder and passed outside the ring the charging animals were making, but as it was, she simply ran blindly back once more to another and more dangerous point inside their lessening orbit. One more such run and both mother and child would be exhausted.

With the cold sweat of terror breaking over him, Hugh Noland slackened his hold on the line and flung himself off the high seat to run to her assistance. As he jumped, the horses of their own accord turned sharper yet, and the bull-wheel, striking a badger hole, threw the machine over sidewise and completely upside down. The wheel horses, released by the coupling-pin falling from the main clevis, kicked themselves loose from the other team and tore madly across the uncut grain.

Elizabeth Hunter escaped death by the overturning of the heavy binder, but when she arrived at the twisted and broken harvester, Hugh Noland lay pinned under the wreckage, white and insensible.

It took but a few moments for the men, who had come running at the first sounds of the commotion, to lift the heavy machinery from the limp body and lay the wounded man down under the shade of a large shock of rye. While Luther bent to examine the senseless form, John rushed one of the men frantically off for Doctor Morgan.

"No! Wait—I'll go myself!" he called as the man was driving away, and flinging himself into the buggy, which Elizabeth had left at the fence, laid the whip on the back of the frightened Patsie.

It was not till John was halfway to Colebyville that Hugh Noland opened his eyes. Luther was stooping over him, bathing his face with water from the jug which Elizabeth had so unconsciously provided. The girl also knelt at his side rendering such assistance as was in her power, and when Hugh actually showed signs of being alive she buried her face in her hands and sobbed with an abandon which Luther Hansen could not mistake. The hired men had gone to get the leaders, which, being reliable horses, had got over their fright and were nibbling the fresh grass by the fence. The other team was completely out of sight. They covered Hugh from the scorching sun till the men could bring the wagon from the barn, and then the sad little cavalcade returned to the house with the injured man.

Doctor Morgan arrived with John in his own buggy two hours later, and then a strange thing was discovered. No bones were broken, and no internal injuries were in evidence which would necessarily give cause for alarm. The examination pointed to an excited heart chiefly, the weakest link in Hugh Noland's system and the place where new troubles centred and aggravated old ones. That the man's life had not been instantaneously crushed out was due to the fact that the long steel levers had stuck in the hard earth and held the machine up. But the trouble with the heart had been accentuated acutely before the binder had even capsized, for that horrible nightmare of galloping down upon the girl had evidently begun what the later catastrophe had carried to a farther and really dangerous stage.

Hugh was placed in the downstairs bedroom by the men, whose hearts were wrung at every step they carried him, and, as Luther remarked, because Elizabeth would have the care of him and stairs were deadly things in case of sickness.

Doctor Morgan came again before night, intending to stay with the patient till morning. John met him at the gate. With the feeling that he had been responsible for this terrible accident to Hugh, whom he loved as he had never loved any other human being, John had spent an afternoon of agony. The rest of the men could look for a neighbour to finish the grain with another machine, but for him, he spent the time at Hugh's side.

"How is he?" Doctor Morgan asked almost before he was within speaking distance.

"Resting. We don't trouble him, but he seems quiet."

"That's good!" the old man exclaimed. He had come with his heart in his mouth, as they say in that country. "I wish I had as good a report for you," he added.

"Why—what's happened to me?" John asked in surprise.

"The young mare you drove in died in the stable. It's hot weather, and I guess you were pretty badly excited. I told the men in the livery to shut the colt up; it kept nosing around the carcass and it isn't good for it. You'd better get in as early as you can and look after it yourself. Those stable men don't care for anything that ain't their own."

John Hunter stood speechless till the end of the story, and then helped tie the doctor's team.

"That all comes from that miserable team! I'm glad one of them did have to be shot. I've half a notion to shoot the other one; it's all cut up by the wire and 'll take no end of trouble to cure. Hugh said horses and dogs talked with their tails, and I guess they do. Say, will you tell Elizabeth about the horse? It's one I got from her father and she's terribly fond of it."

Elizabeth met Doctor Morgan as he came from Hugh's room a few minutes later with the unspoken question so plainly evident in her face that he answered it without waiting to be asked.

"No signs of further trouble, little woman, thank God! They tell me you were near being run over by that binder too."

Elizabeth evaded the last remark.

"That's nothing. But are you sure about Hugh?" she asked in a voice that quavered a little.

"Now look here," the doctor said, concerned at once for her welfare. "We can't have you go and get upset. It looks as if Noland got out of that pretty lucky. The only thing that's worrying me is that infernal heart of his."

John came in at that point and the old doctor addressed himself to him.

"This woman'll have to take care of Noland, Hunter, and I want you to see to it that she don't have another thing to do. She can't have that child dragging on her, and we'll have to look out that she don't overdo, or we'll have her down on our hands too. The trouble with peritonitis is that it don't get well as fast as it looks to. A slight thing will often start it up anew, and peritonitis is the devil if it gets to recurring."

"We'll all help take care of Hugh," John promised readily.

Doctor Morgan looked at John Hunter and back to Elizabeth dubiously. He reflected that the same lack of caution which had killed the mare yesterday might kill a man in case of excitement.

"It isn't necessarily help that she's going to need. It won't be so hard to take care of him, if she isn't worried by a lot of other things. I don't want another soul to touch that medicine. We've got to be mighty careful about that. Heart remedies are poison and as quick as lightning in their action, and we can't afford to take any chances on that kind of stuff. I'm right glad to put your wife at the helm in this thing; she's definite and dependable, two things we doctors don't often find when we need them most."

Turning to Elizabeth he said:

"It may be rather hard on you, but our main care is to pull this man through the next ten days. If he don't have some one to look after him right, he may slip through our fingers."

"Why—I thought you said he was all right," Elizabeth faltered.

In his efforts to impress the need of care with the medicine, Doctor Morgan had gone over the mark and added to the fears he had started out to allay. Elizabeth was as white as if all the blood in her body had been taken away.

"Now don't begin to worry till I tell you there's need, child," he said half irritably. "All that's necessary is for you to look after that medicine. Noland 'll come out all right with you to nurse him. I wouldn't mind being sick myself, Hunter, with her to hold the spoon," he said, trying to put a merry face on the matter. "Did it ever occur to you that you were a lucky dog to come into this country and run off with the nicest girl in it the first year you were here?"

As the doctor drove home the next morning, he said to himself:

"I guess I fixed it about that medicine;" then, his mind reverting to the conversation at the gate, he added, "I wasn't goin' to tell her about that horse; let him tell her himself. Blamed fool! I think I headed off his issuing orders about that sick-bed too. Poor little girl! Now if she'd only married Noland!"

The old doctor gave a long, low whistle as a sudden thought struck him, but he put it away, and being a busy man thought no more about it for weeks.



CHAPTER XXII

"THERE ARE SOME THINGS WE HAVE TO SETTLE FOR OURSELVES"

John's being away from home those first days of Hugh's illness—he had gone to Colebyville to dispose of Patsie's body and secure a new team to finish harvesting—kept him from getting the run of the affairs of the sickroom, and enabled Elizabeth to assume the care of the invalid in her own way. An idea once fixed in John Hunter's head was fixed, and having accepted the plan of Doctor Morgan that Elizabeth was to be in sole charge of care and medicine, he went his way without thrusting his suggestions upon her, and Elizabeth, having learned not to discuss things with him, did not speak of her work nor of anything connected with the invalid. In fact, as soon as John entered the sickroom she went out, as one of the best ways she knew of to avoid accidents of conversation. John came to Hugh's bedside but little, supposing that he needed rest, and willing to sacrifice his all to the comfort of the pale invalid. With the tears of a woman in his heart if not in his eyes, John watched from afar the face of the man he had been the unconscious means of injuring, and tiptoed about the outer rooms with a fear of death which only John could feel. Another thing kept him out of the sickroom: impressed with the idea that his carelessness in the purchase of the first team had led up to this trouble, he had gone to the other extreme in replacing them, and had paid three hundred and twenty-five dollars for one of the best and most thoroughly proven teams in the country. There were no available funds and he had been obliged to give a note for them; this must in time come to Hugh's notice, and John had a distinct remembrance of a former note, and did not wish to repeat the experience. Luther, who came often to see Hugh, had spoken to John of Patsie's death in Elizabeth's presence, and after the first pained expression of surprise and grief, Elizabeth had never mentioned it again. John had noticed also that Elizabeth had never asked the price of the last team, nor seemed to take any interest in them, and he hoped by the same means to avoid confessing to Hugh.

John Hunter was glad at this time to escape discussions of an unpleasant nature; he was more broken by the accident than he ever admitted; he accused himself more bitterly than any one would ever accuse him; he had broken up a working team, he had killed his best horse, and he had been all but responsible for the death of his best friend, and when John Hunter's own misdeeds hit hard enough, he would face things squarely, and no matter how hard he worked to avoid owning up to others, would acknowledge to himself that he was in the wrong. Hugh's white face grew whiter each day and accused him enough without further words. To escape it, John worked busily, and there was need of work, for the rapidly drying fields required his entire attention during the day, and he left Hugh to his wife's care, glad to do so.

There were times, however, when John was alone with Hugh, and at such times, because he was full of self-blame and humiliation, he listened to what Hugh said with a peculiar attention. Hugh saw that John worried himself half sick over his misfortune, and reached out the hand of love and fellowship for which John hungered at this time. He talked of his possible death as if it were but a journey, which always convulsed John's face with child-like emotions. He talked of the farm work, and kept close track of what was done. He knew that John had had to go into debt for the team, and he wanted John to tell him, without being asked, that a note had been given. When he did not, Hugh passed the matter over without reference and with a sigh. Hugh Noland was not criticising John Hunter or any of his actions these days, but Hugh studied John and found his weaknesses, and tried to give him such help as he thought possible. Hugh had long days to think, and he began to yearn over this man to whom he had been a sort of traitor. He saw John's wilfulness with Elizabeth—heard many things without being able to avoid hearing them, being pinned to his bed—he saw where John's irritability lost good help during the busy season and left double duty for faithful Jake, his supercilious attitude toward Luther, and his illy concealed contempt for the farmers about them, and one of his ways of keeping his mind off John's wife was to keep it on John and John's needs. Hugh kept Luther with him whenever Luther could be spared from his home in the evenings, and he spoke to John of Luther with growing affection. When he grew stronger, he discussed farm work and farmers with John in a way that savoured of interest in their problems; he asked Nathan and Silas and Carter and Bob Warren in and talked to them of fertilizers and drainage, and when John insisted that those things were in the future, he said:

"Yes, but they will come up in our time; you see I come from a place where those things were already a necessity to the farmers. I am a farmer myself now and I think about those things."

Hugh knew that his consideration of fertilizers was superfluous in a country that was hardly past the sod-corn stage, but he longed to dignify this work to John Hunter, since John would give his formative years here and be unable to do other things if he ever made money enough to get away, as he hoped. Hugh had had enough work in the agricultural department of an eastern university before he had come to Kansas, to make it possible for him to interest these men in the future development of their state. Doctor Morgan, who had been rather unwilling that serious subjects should be discussed in the sickroom, asked curiously one day:

"What the devil do you want to prate such nonsense as that to these folks for? They won't need any kind of fertilizers in this country for twenty years. You'd better be resting instead of shooting such useless stuff as that at them."

"I want to talk farming to John Hunter as if it were a respectable business to engage in, Doctor. I don't have to tell you how he views it."

"What in Sam Hill's the difference how he views it?" the doctor asked in astonishment. "He's nothing but a cheap skate, and you can't make anything else out of him."

Hugh Noland looked at the doctor and made no reply; he understood that the unfortunate vision of John Hunter which Doctor Morgan had got would prevent him from seeing the point he was trying to make, and so let the matter drop, but he kept John with him evenings and worked along on his own lines and with persistence. He wanted to feel right about his stay in John's home, and one of the ways of doing it was to get close to John's heart on important matters. He spoke of Jack as a future farmer, and when John indignantly resented the implication and said that he expected his son to be an educated man, Hugh replied:

"Why, of course you do, but an educated farmer is exactly the thing to make of him. Look at the clean life you'd place him in."

And so the days ran on in the sick-chamber. If John was with Hugh, Elizabeth busied herself about the house elsewhere, and John rarely saw them together, unless there was medicine to administer, and then the girl gave it without remark. A growing fear had taken possession of her lest John should fly out at her in unpleasant fashion before Hugh. The situation between the two had been made so much more acute by Hugh's accidental reference to it when he had thought that she was crying about him, that she was supersensitive regarding her half-formed complaint in explanation. But for that reference, they could have gone along indefinitely with a pretence of indifference, but enough had been said to tear away the veil and leave them self-conscious and mutually humiliated. Their little avoidances of touch or tenderness spoke in a language not to be misunderstood, and their eyes told unconsciously all that they refused to say with their tongues.

Elizabeth, in her own way, worried herself half sick in her endeavours to care for him gently and yet give him no cause to think she was making a demand for a love of which neither approved, but which having once been put into words was a constant factor in their association. Once when she was bathing his face, Hugh thought she lingered longer over it than was necessary and drew himself back on his pillow suddenly, saying:

"Don't Elizabeth. I should have my arms about you in a minute if you did that, and you are John's wife—and I couldn't look him in the face if I did a thing of that sort."

Elizabeth turned away without replying, her eyes full of tears. He had misunderstood her cruelly. The one thing Elizabeth Hunter was trying to do was not to show her affection for this man who was not her husband, but as she became worn and tired from duty at the sick-bed it became more and more evident that she could not accomplish it.

Hugh had the daily fear of her peritonitis coming back upon her; Doctor Morgan had warned him while John was away. Unable to lift his head from his pillow without assistance, Hugh saw her growing thin and discouraged, and knew that it was the enforced condition of caring for him which made her so; yet when she tried to avoid his sympathetic eyes, he instantly misunderstood her and was hurt. That she was not really strong enough to assume the care of him added to his uneasiness, and often when he was on the point of saying so, she mistook his glance and was so distant that it died on his lips. And so the days ran into each other with the pair. If for any reason one advanced, the other retreated, and at last the condition became unbearable.

Elizabeth gave much and consuming thought to the issue brought about by the fact that her husband, still living in the house with her, had no idea that she could be in love with another man, even though her husband no longer loved her. Any sort of love-making was a violation of her marriage vows, and for her to put love for another man into words was to fall to a level to which she had never in her life thought of doing.

What was she to do? John never saw anything except in the light of his own instincts and emotions, and an idea or a prejudice once fixed in his mind could be uprooted by nothing but death; therefore to confess to him and thereby make it possible to get away from Hugh would prejudice him against Hugh, whom he would be certain to think had stolen something to which he alone had the right, and against her whom he felt that he possessed, and upon whom he could wreak almost any form of public revenge. Hugh had tried to get away and John had himself held him, but John could not remember that nor listen to it if told. Every effort had been made by Hugh to avoid Elizabeth since he had found out the true situation, but nothing would convince John of that. Had John Hunter the right then, being the kind of man he was, to a confession from her that would confuse the whole issue and do vital wrong to everybody concerned, including the baby, who must suffer with the mother who would be made to seem much worse than she was. This Elizabeth Hunter asked herself daily, and with the fear that her conscience would force her to confession should she permit any demonstration of affection, and to avoid any possibility of it, she became colder and colder in her manner toward the sick man.

The effort to keep off dangerous ground was disastrous, for Hugh instantly misunderstood it, and the gloom which settled over him increased the difficulties with which Elizabeth had to contend. Doctor Morgan saw that his patient, who had seemed slightly better, fell back again, and he worried about his despondent condition.

"Cheer him up, Mrs. Hunter! Read to him! Anything!" he would exclaim. "He's got to have peace of mind, or there's no hope in the world of his recovery. Something more 'n staved-in ribs is keeping him down," the doctor urged, not knowing that he laid impossible burdens on shoulders too young to bear them.

The two duties, the one to her husband and the one to her patient, stared her in the face, and she had no one with whom to advise or consult.

"I don't care! His life's worth more than for me to approve of myself as a wife," she decided at last, and yet when she gave Hugh his next dose of medicine she was colder and more on her guard than ever.

Luther Hansen came to see Hugh that afternoon. Elizabeth received an inspiration when he started away and followed him out of the house.

"Luther, will he die?" she asked.

"I don't know, Lizzie," Luther said quietly, not knowing what to say to such a question, and too honest to evade.

At the time of the accident to the binder, when Elizabeth knelt, broken with exhaustion and terror, looking at the man she loved who lay under the mass of machinery with the colour of death upon him, no one but a blind man could have mistaken the utter abandonment of her grief, and certainly of all men Luther was not blind. Now he recognized the heartache back of Elizabeth's question and with an instinct to cheer was almost persuaded to answer in the negative. In his heart he thought Hugh would die. The rapidly failing strength of the man indicated that he would do so unless something came to buoy him up.

"I don't know, Lizzie," he added, as if squaring his conscience, "he looks so weak and troubled like."

Luther realized the moment it was out of his mouth that he had said the wrong thing. Elizabeth's lips grew white and she held her breath a moment as if preparing to accept what she knew must be the truth.

"Lizzie," asked Luther gently, "would you like to talk to me about it?"

The girl's face tensed strangely and her quivering lips refused to do her bidding for a full minute, the relief was so great.

"I—I came out for that," she said simply when she could speak. "It's so good of you to understand and make it easy for me. I'll walk over toward home with you."

They walked slowly through the barnyard, across the creek, and over the pleasant pasture land. Neither spoke. Elizabeth, now that she had decided to talk to Luther about the circumstances with which she contended, could not bring herself readily to do so. Luther had always the insight of true wisdom, which let others gauge their own inclinations. When they came to the fence which was the boundary line between Luther's and John Hunter's farms, they stopped. There was a line of willow trees running at intervals down the fence, and Luther waved his hand in the direction of a shady spot beside them.

"Set down, Lizzie," he said, seating himself half-facing her.

Elizabeth Hunter crumpled up on the grass with her back against a fence post, and thought while Luther got out his knife and looked for something to whittle.

"Tell me about it," he said at last. "You want to—and—and I'm a safe person."

She looked up at him, glad that he had assumed it, and smoothed the path to confession.

"I know you're safe, Luther. You're more than that, God bless you!"

And to this man whom she had always trusted Elizabeth poured out all her fears, her feelings, and her frantic cry for help.

"I've had no one to talk to, Luther," she ended, "and I don't believe a human being can go on always and not put things into words."

They talked on and on. Having started, she let him see the consuming struggle between right and wrong which she waged every day.

"Doctor Morgan says, 'Cheer him up! Cheer him up,' and what am I to do?" she closed in desperation.

Elizabeth Hunter had told far more than she supposed. She had bared a yearning, struggling heart to Luther's gaze, a soul seeking a right path where there seemed no sure road, nothing but confusion.

Luther longed to help, but the problem presented insurmountable difficulties; to adopt a rigid code of morals as such was to come out at the end of the journey with something in herself and society satisfied, and Hugh Noland's life sacrificed, as Doctor Morgan had said; to adopt a sympathetic attitude would spare the life of a useful man, but with her code shattered. If only she could take John into her confidence both might be possible.

"Lizzie, you couldn't tell Hunter, could you?" Even as he asked it he knew it could not be done.

"I would tell John instantly if he were like you, Luther," was her reply. "I think Hugh himself would have been glad to. If he could have explained, he could have got away. No—John isn't the kind of man. He wouldn't understand, and he'd make it a great deal worse than it is to everybody. He'd accuse me and spoil Jack's life, and——"

The hopelessness of it left her silent for a minute, and then Doctor Morgan's warnings came up to be reckoned with.

"The doctor says he'll die if he's worried, Luther. What am I to do?" she demanded, wanting him to settle the question for her, and letting the tears run unrestrained down her cheeks.

Luther Hansen looked at her pityingly and shook his head.

"There are some things we have to settle for ourselves, Lizzie, and this is one of them for you. I do know," he said trustfully, "whatever you do 'll be right."

The interview was ended. Luther helped Elizabeth to her feet, and went away to his own house and waiting chores, leaving the question with her—Elizabeth Hunter—whose life had been punctuated with interrogation points.

Elizabeth walked back slowly, going over every hint and suggestion to be gained from Luther's discussion of her situation. Nothing was clear except that whatever her decision, it must be the nearest right of anything she was able to understand. She remembered as she stopped to fasten the barnyard gate behind her that Luther had said as he left her:

"He'll go away as soon as he is able, you say, Lizzie," and she remembered the lingering tones of fondness in Luther's voice when Hugh's name was mentioned.

It was not easy for Luther to say, let him die, either.

Elizabeth remembered at that point that Hugh's medicine was long overdue, that medicine was more important just now than any of the questions with which she had been struggling. With a frightened little cry she ran to the house and to the sick-chamber.

"Never mind, Elizabeth," Hugh said when he saw her shuffling the papers about in search of the bottle. "Jack came in and I had Hepsie give it to me. I've decided that it isn't a good plan to have it there, and I'll keep it under my pillow hereafter."

"I—I went out with Luther, Hugh, and I didn't realize that I was gone so long. You've missed two doses!" She noticed that Hugh called her by her given name altogether now.

Hugh laughed a sad little laugh.

"Well, I've had the one for this hour at least. I—I tried to take it alone. I guess I won't try that again. It stuck in my throat and I got a strangling spell. I coughed till—well, I thought I was going to get out of taking medicine altogether. It's a terrible fear that grips a fellow when he gets something stuck in his throat and knows that he can't lift his head off his pillow. It isn't so much that he's afraid to die—it's the death struggle he's afraid of."

Absorbed in his own thoughts, Hugh Noland closed his eyes and did not see the effect his words produced upon Elizabeth. By some sort of psychological process he had placed that death struggle before her very eyes. Hugh, all unconscious that he had made any impression, unconscious that her attitude toward death differed from his own, or that his death could mean much more to her than deliverance from the presence and care of him, lay with his eyes closed, thinking his own bitter thoughts.

There was indeed enough in Hugh Noland's appearance to terrify the girl as he lay before her, wasted and woebegone, his low forehead blue-veined and colourless, his hands blue-veined and transparent, and all his shrunken figure sharply outlined under the thin summer covering of the bed with ghastly and suggestive significance. Instantly she wanted to go down by his side and with her arms about him give him the sympathy and comfort his lonely heart craved, but because it was so deliciously tempting she distrusted the impulse and, turning hastily, walked out of the room and out of the house, going on a run to her refuge in the willows. But though she agonized till dark she found herself no nearer a solution than before.

Hugh felt the distance Elizabeth maintained and also the fact that she was not well. How he hated it when she had to lift him for his medicine. Doctor Morgan had especially talked about her lifting when she was at first convalescing. His heart was very bad that night.

About three o'clock the next afternoon Elizabeth tiptoed in to see if he slept.

"I'm awake," he said without opening his eyes.

Always when Hugh did not open his eyes Elizabeth was filled with premonitions. He was very pinched and wan to-day. With a pain at her own heart, Elizabeth brought a fresh glass of water for his medicine. She had to speak to him to get him ready to take it from her hand. Kneeling, she put her arm under the pillow to raise his head while he drank.

Hugh fumbled with the little bottle as he tried to return the extra disks he had accidentally poured out into his hand. Elizabeth waited till he had the cork in place, with her arm still under the pillow. He turned his face toward her as he thrust the bottle back, and accidentally touched her hand under his head. He glanced up consciously. Her breath, fresh, warm, full of the life man adores, came to him from her parted lips, and to get away from the impulse to say things he was resolved not to say, he closed his eyes and turned his head feebly.

A gasp of fright came from the girl as she saw the contortion of his haggard face.

"Hugh!" she exclaimed.

The glass she held fell from her fingers and rolled to the foot of the bed, scattering its contents abroad unobserved, as she threw her other arm across him and lifted him for the air she supposed he needed. Their breaths mingled. Human nature is but human nature, man is but man and woman is but woman in the final analysis: they were in the hands of a fate stronger than either of them at that moment.

Elizabeth struggled no more; right or wrong, it had happened, and she brought her rocking chair and with her free hand clasped in his, read and took life as it came. After that, sin nor sickness could keep them from being happy. If the girl talked of the better course of restoring the old reserve, Hugh's hand would reach out imploringly:

"Only till I get well, dearest; I won't trouble your conscience after that. I know you don't feel right about this, but I can't go back to a life without any affection again while I'm here," and Elizabeth always responded to that call. She reflected that even Luther could not condemn her for it.

Yet when John was in the house or whenever she was obliged to be careful about Hepsie, as she often was, she was outraged in her own sight, and her colours trailed in the dust of humiliation, for she saw that the path she was treading was one of unaccustomed duplicity.

"If I could only approve of myself," she said to Hugh, and then was sorry she had spoken, for Hugh Noland's face grew more white and he closed his eyes with a little sob.

"Oh, my darling," he said when he could speak again, "you long for that and I like you for it too, but I'm weak. I want to be loved and petted, and—I'm so tired that I don't want to think about it at all. Kiss me, sweet," and Elizabeth kissed him, and was glad in spite of herself.

"You shall not have to think till you're well," she promised, and the days ran on throughout the blazing summer, and Hugh improved, and Elizabeth won Doctor Morgan's admiration as a nurse.

In the midst of the deceptions which Elizabeth Hunter was called upon to practise, however, she followed the natural trend of her character in ways which proved how fundamental truth and outrightness were in her make-up. Having discussed Hugh with Luther, she told Hugh that she had done so. This gave Hugh a wrong impression of affairs between the two which she was obliged to set right.

"No, Luther never loved me—that is, he never said that he did. That isn't the way we feel about each other. We've just been good friends always. We herded cattle together and told each other things all our lives. I could tell Luther anything."

"Well, he couldn't love that black-eyed thing he lives with," Hugh said.

"I don't know how it is myself, but he does, and Luther never lies. You can see that he's square with her. He gives her a kind of companionship that will keep her out of the position I'm in, too," she said with conviction, and then saw the kind of blow that she had dealt, and covered her face with her hands for shame.

Elizabeth heard the invalid sigh deeply. When she could speak again, she slid down on her knees by his bed and, laying her arm across the shoulders of the man she had hurt, faced herself and her deeds squarely, as was her way.

"It's of no use, Hugh. We've got to face it. I didn't intend to hurt you, but I'm in a serious position. I must think of this thing all my life—and I shall shrink whenever I do. I shall see everybody in the light of my own life. I made no comparison between you and Luther. There's love and love in this world, as I've found out. John thought he loved me and I thought I loved him—and look at us! I don't know what Luther would do if he were placed where we are, but that is not the question. I hurt you just now; but, oh, Hugh! I love you too—God help me, and in the midst of it all I want my self-respect back till I could almost die to get it. Sometimes I think I'll go and tell John yet."

When for sheer want of breath Elizabeth stopped and looked at Hugh Noland inquiringly, he asked eagerly:

"Could we?"

And for a long time she looked at him, till her eyes took on a faraway look which said that she was going over details and experiences of the past. In the light of those experiences she finally shook her head.

"No," she said with simple conviction. "You don't know John. He'd never understand that—— Well, he'd mix everything uselessly. It would fall hardest on Jack; his future would be spoiled by the humiliation of having everybody think I was worse than I——"

Elizabeth could not finish her sentence for the pain on the face before her, and hid her face on the same pillow and cried out her grief and heartache till Hugh had to warn her that Hepsie might come in.

It was well that Elizabeth's mind was occupied with Hepsie while she bathed and cooled her swollen eyelids. Long afterward she remembered Hugh had laid his arm across his white face at that moment, but she was never to know the fulness of the self-reproach nor the depths of the despair which Hugh Noland suffered—Hugh, who loved her. For himself, he did not so much care, being a man and accustomed to the life of men in those things, but he saw the endless round of her days, carrying with her through them all the secrecy and shame of it; she who loved openness! If she had been a woman who looked herself less squarely in the face it would have been less hard.

"I think I'll talk to Luther too," he said at last. "You couldn't drive Patsie over for him this evening, could you?" he asked.

Elizabeth looked down at him in surprise as she wiped her hands.

"Why—why, I thought you knew about Patsie," she said hesitatingly. "Patsie's dead."

"Dead?"

"Yes. She died the night you were hurt. John drove her for Doctor Morgan," the girl said, wishing that she could keep the news from him.

After that first startled exclamation Hugh did not remark on the mare's death; he noticed that Elizabeth never blamed John for things when talking of him, and he liked her for it.

"What became of the horses that day—the ones on the binder? You kept me so stupefied at first that I sort of forgot about them."

He forced from her all the vital details of the purchase of the new horses. After he had received the answers she felt obliged to give he did not comment upon any feature of the story. They never criticised anything John did between them; in fact, they rarely mentioned his name, but Hugh was struck with the necessity of knowing methods and facts regarding the business and asking such simple questions as he was warranted in asking. When the discussion was finished he asked again for Luther, and she promised to get him as soon as possible.

Hugh Noland had a long afternoon to think out the situation into which he had thrust Elizabeth, for when Elizabeth arrived at Luther's house he had gone to town and the sun was so hot that she rested before starting home. Hugh was only disturbed by Hepsie, who came once an hour to give him the drink necessary when medicine time came around. It was lonesome with Elizabeth away, but it let him think more clearly. Hugh saw that he had entangled Elizabeth in a life which contained something altogether extraneous to her whole character. Because she was perfectly open, the greater would be the damage which must result to her if this life went on. One wild moment of hope had been granted him when they had discussed the possibility of telling John. How well Hugh remembered the searching thought Elizabeth had given his question before she had shaken her head. The time taken to think soberly of confession told more plainly than all her words how much she desired it. The one thing in life which Elizabeth most disliked was duplicity, and yet so long as he remained an invalid their relations would be kept up. For this alone he would have been glad to crawl on his knees to Colebyville, though he died on the way. Something must be done to free the girl and put her back into a life of which she could approve. With self-respect restored, Elizabeth was the kind of woman who would take hold of the merely unpleasant features of her life, and in time find a way of overcoming them. A plan began to formulate in Hugh Noland's head.

The next morning Hepsie came and asked for a few days off to get some needed sewing done. With Hugh's illness and the extra work of it she had let her own work drag till she felt that she could neglect it no longer. Elizabeth let her go, thinking guiltily that there would be less danger of the discovery she seemed to be ever fearing these days. How they had gone so long without it she could not understand. To get her dinner dishes out of the way early she put Jack to sleep immediately after they were through eating and then hurried the dishes so as to get in a long afternoon's reading. The dishes took a long time in spite of her efforts to hurry. When at last she did finish she hastened to the bedroom with a glass of water in her hand. Hugh had been thinking seriously and was worn out with the tangle of wrongdoing in which he found himself, the solution of which involved such unsatisfactory changes, and now just weakly wanted to be loved. He did not speak, but after the tablet was swallowed invited a kiss by a glance of the eye, and when it was given, drew her head down on his breast and lay patting it.

Jack had wakened and toddled into the room on his sleepy little legs. The child staggered over to his mother and laid his head against her arm, murmuring sleepily:

"Love oo too!"

Elizabeth Hunter sprang to her feet as if a clap of thunder had unexpectedly sent its report through the hot afternoon air. Her guilty eyes sought Hugh's. Jack encircled her knees with his fat little arms and, standing on his tiptoes to be taken, repeated:

"Love oo too!"

There was a noise at the well and Elizabeth, glad of a chance to escape from the room, went out. John was pumping water over a jug to cool it before he filled it. The sight of the man who was her husband had a curious effect on Elizabeth; everything in her, mentally and physically, became chaotic, her ears buzzed, her temples throbbed, and there was an inner shrinking which could scarcely be controlled. John had seen her and waited for her to come out to the well.

When the jug was full, John leaned forward to kiss Jack and a sick sort of fear took hold of her lest he would offer to kiss her also. His breath fell hot on her neck as he sought Jack's face on her shoulder, but he did not offer to kiss her, and she turned away with an unspeakable relief.

"Take Jack and I'll carry the jug out to the boys while you have a chat with Hugh," Elizabeth said suddenly.

John was very tired, the field where they had been cutting shock corn was very hot, and the house looked cool and inviting.

"Well, I guess I will."

The jug was heavier than Elizabeth had thought and she sat down to rest on the way, observing as she did so that Doctor Morgan was driving into the lane.

"I am not absolved from blame because he scolds," she told herself.

As she thought of her duties in life, Jack's affectionate little speech of half an hour ago came to mind. Aye! there was the crux of the whole difficulty. She was Jack's mother! A line of Emerson's which she had read with Hugh once came to her mind: "In my dealings with my child, my Latin and my Greek, my accomplishments and my money, stead me nothing. They are all lost upon him: but as much soul as I have avails." Her whole mind was taken up with the quotation as soon as it came before her.

"As much soul as I have avails!" Over and over she repeated it, and when she at last saw John bearing down upon her she got up guiltily and waited instead of going on with the jug alone.

"Was it too heavy?" he asked. "I'll take it over and come back for you. Doctor Morgan wants to see you. I'll come back; it's too hot for me; I'm going to rest."

The cool house had appealed to John Hunter.

At the house Hugh Noland was asking searching questions of the old doctor.

"When do you intend to let me get out of here, Doctor?" he asked.

"Out of here?" the doctor exclaimed. "Not till you're well enough. Just what do you mean by 'out of here?'" he asked in return.

"Just what I said. When will I be well enough to go to Mitchell County?"

There was an intensity about it which caught the doctor's attention.

"Now look here, Noland, you won't go to Mitchell County for a year with such a heart as that—it's too far from your friends, my boy. Be good and don't you get to worrying. You've got to stand it. Be a man."

Had Doctor Morgan shown any tenderness Hugh Noland would have told him the real reason for wanting to get away, but something in the banter of being admonished to be a man took away the thing which made it possible.

"Then can't I be taken into town?" Hugh asked when he had had time to swallow the bitter pill.

"Into town? Now? Well, not that anybody knows of at this time. Now look here, you've got a splendid place to stay; why can't you be sensible and lay here and get well? You worry till I might as well go and turn this medicine down the gullet of one of Hunter's pigs. Be a man," he repeated, hoping to whip the discouraged patient into line with good sense.

"It isn't a case of being a man, when a woman's got to take care of you that had better be taking care of herself," Hugh said bitterly.

"Is Mrs. Hunter getting down on our hands too? That won't do. I'm glad we sent for her."

Hugh Noland knew that he had played his last card, and he knew that he had lost. Elizabeth walked in at that moment, followed by John. Doctor Morgan addressed himself to her, taking her aside while they talked.

"All moonshine, Noland, old boy," he exclaimed when he followed Elizabeth back to the sickroom a few minutes later. "This girl's as sound as a dollar. Noland's been thinking he's too much trouble, Mrs. Hunter."

Doctor Morgan saw Hugh Noland's colour die out, and dropped his finger on the patient's wrist apprehensively. Neither spoke. To change the subject, and also to get a chance to observe the sick man under less conscious circumstances, Doctor Morgan addressed John:

"By the way, Hunter, that man you bought the team of got in a pinch and asked me to shave the note for him. It's all right, is it?"

A sort of electric thrill ran from each to all in the room. Doctor Morgan understood that he had unwittingly opened Pandora's box; Hugh gave no sign, but though John answered promptly and positively in the one word, "Surely," a warning was somehow conveyed to John that this was more than a merely unfortunate moment. He had been uncomfortable about the note, and under ordinary circumstances would have been glad to have the first knowledge of it come to Hugh in the presence of a third party, but now, by some indefinable thing which was neither sight nor sound, he knew that the news was not news to Hugh, and by the same intangible, vague thing, by some prophetic premonition, John knew that this matter of the note was a disaster.

There was a long pause, finally broken by Hugh.

"Will you be going home by Hansen's to-night, Doctor?"

"I can as well as any other way," the doctor said, glad to hear voices again.

"Will you ask Hansen to come over in the morning, then?" Hugh asked.

Both Doctor Morgan and John Hunter looked over at Hugh sharply, wondering what he could want of Luther, but the sick man closed his eyes as a way of ending the argument. Doctor Morgan dropped his finger on the patient's wrist again and looked at John warningly:

"I think I'll be going. You stay with Noland, Hunter. I want a word with Mrs. Hunter before I go. I'll stop at Hansen's, Noland."

Doctor Morgan took Elizabeth out and questioned her closely about the diet and other important matters, but was able to elicit nothing new.

"I've been encouraged of late," the old doctor said, shaking his head, "but here he is as bad as ever—that is, as discouraged and restless. Have you been reading to him lately? What's on his nerves, anyhow?"

When the doctor could get no additional information regarding Hugh's condition from Elizabeth, he gave it up and turned his attention to the girl herself.

"I told him you were as fine as a dollar, but I'm not sure about you. I'm going to bring you a tonic to-morrow. I'll be out in the morning, early, and I'll try and see him to-morrow night late. I don't like the way he looked to-night. Say, you don't know what he wants of Hansen do you?"

"No. He asked me to go over yesterday afternoon after him, but Luther wasn't there and hasn't come in since. It's a busy time and he probably thought very little of it. Hugh often sends for him. Do you think he's worse, Doctor?" she asked anxiously.

"No, not specially," the old doctor answered gruffly, as he turned toward Luther Hansen's house. He was a bit annoyed because he thought Hugh showed too little backbone, as he termed it.

John Hunter sat long beside the invalid, cut to the quick by the languid air and shrunken frame. He wanted to talk about the note now that it was not a secret, but Hugh lay absolutely silent and did not open his eyes until the lamp was brought in. At that he shifted uneasily and asked that it be kept in the other room till needed at medicine time. John finally gave it up and went softly out, convinced that Hugh wanted rest and quiet. John was broken in many ways by the continued illness for which he felt himself responsible, and had particularly wanted a chance to talk to-night.

When all had gone to bed but Elizabeth, Hugh called her to him.

Elizabeth answered the call, but stood at a distance from the bed. It had come. Hugh had always known it would, but now that it was here it was hard to face.

"You mean it, I know you do, Elizabeth," he said. "I want you to do it, but—O God! how hard it's going to be!"

He held out his empty arms to her for a last embrace.

Elizabeth shook her head.

"Now's the time to begin, Hugh. 'Too,' Jack says. That tells the whole story. I shall pollute his life also. I shall stand, not for what I think I am, but for what I am, in that child's sight. I reasoned it out when you were so ill, and I thought this was justifiable, and oh, Hugh! I've dragged myself down in my own sight and I've dragged you down with me. It isn't enough for me to seem to be right, I've got to be right," she said in a low tone, and with added shame because she had to keep her voice from John's ears—John who slept upstairs and trusted them.

"It would be easier for you, Elizabeth, if I were not here," Hugh Noland said sadly. "You could kill it out alone."

"But I am not alone. You are here, and have got to help me. Tell me that you will—at any cost," she leaned forward, and in her eagerness raised her voice till he pointed upward warningly.

When she had given his medicine without a touch of tenderness, he said to her:

"You have bid my soul forth. I will give you that help, at any cost."

He made the last sentence stand out, but in her earnestness she did not notice it or think of it again till it was significant. She went back to her bed on the sitting-room couch and to the broken rest allowed to those who watch with the sick.



CHAPTER XXIII

"AT ANY COST"

The old doctor delivered the message to Luther, and the next morning he appeared at the sickroom door.

While he was talking to Hugh, Nathan Hornby came and was called into the sickroom also. Elizabeth was too busy with her own work to think much about this visit, and before it was finished Doctor Morgan was with her questioning her about the night spent by her patient.

Nathan came to the kitchen while they were talking.

"I think I'll take that youngster home with me if you're goin' t' be alone t' day," he announced.

Doctor Morgan looked relieved.

"That's about the kindest thing you could do for this girl," he said. "Noland isn't as well as I'd like to have him, and she's up every hour in the night. It takes a hired girl to run off at a time like this."

Elizabeth defended Hepsie at once. "Hepsie's pure gold. She waited a long time for Hugh to get well. Please, Doctor, don't make any such remark as that outside of this house or some one 'll tell her I said it. Really, she's the best help a woman ever had. She'll come back the first of next week. She said she'd come back any day I'd send for her. She'd do anything for me."

"I guess you're right, little woman," Doctor Morgan laughed. "I wish all the same that you had some one with you so that you could stay right with that boy."

All through the forenoon Elizabeth kept out of the sickroom except when the medicine was due, and then got away as fast as she could, though it was not easy to do so, for Doctor Morgan had urged her to entertain the invalid and keep him cheered up, letting her see that he was more than usually worried. She meant to live up to her resolutions, but in the afternoon Hugh was so quiet that it seemed ominous and began to worry her.

"Oh, Hugh! how can I do right if you take it this way?" she cried in despair, and would have stroked his hair if he had not shrunk from her hand.

"Don't, Elizabeth. You have asked for help. I have to give it in my own way. I have done harm enough to your life. Make it as easy for me as you can, for I'm only a man and—well, I've promised to help you—at any cost. You've nothing to worry about. I'm no worse than I've been," he ended in a whisper, and closed his eyes, as was his way when he did not want to talk.

The girl tiptoed out, and left him to his thoughts. Her own were anything but satisfactory. He was more wan and tragic than ever before, and Doctor Morgan had especially cautioned her. She worked in the kitchen most of the evening, keeping out of his presence, and so the long, hard, unsatisfactory day passed, was recorded in the annals of time, and forever gone from the opportunity to alter or change its record.

Luther Hansen came in after dark. Elizabeth answered his knock.

"Alone?" he asked in astonishment when he entered the sitting room.

"Yes. Mr. Chamberlain wanted John to bring the men over and load hogs for him. It's been too hot to take them to town in the daytime. Hugh's asleep, I think," she said in a low tone. "I didn't take a light in, because he likes to be in the dark, but I spoke to him two or three times and he didn't answer. Are you in a hurry? I hate to waken him."

Doctor Morgan came as they talked. He stopped to look Elizabeth over before going to the sickroom, and then took the lamp she handed him and, followed by Luther, left Elizabeth standing in the dining room. She heard the doctor's sharp order, "Take this light, Hansen," and ran to help.

The horror, the anguish, the regret of that hour are best left untold. The number of disks gone from the bottle under the pillow gave the doctor his clue. One final effort must have been made by the desperate invalid to secure for himself the drink which would wash them down without the dreaded coughing spell.

The old doctor, who loved them both, and Luther Hansen also, witnessed Elizabeth's despair, and listened to her story. As Luther had said a few weeks before, he was a safe person, and her secret remained a secret. Luther led her away into the night and sat silently by while her grief spent itself in tears; it was a necessary stage. When John and the men came, he led her back, and himself met them at the gate to explain.

The morning and the evening were the first day; the comings and goings of the inquisitive and the sympathetic were alike unremarked by Elizabeth. Only for that first hour did her grief run to tears; it was beyond tears. At the coroner's inquest she answered penetrating questions as if they related to the affairs of others, and when at last the weary body, whose spirit had been strong enough to lay it aside, had been buried on the bare hillside, the neighbours and those who came to the funeral from curiosity agreed that Elizabeth Hunter could stand anything. So little evidence of emotion had she given that Mrs. Crane remarked to Mrs. Farnshaw as they rode home together:

"I declare, Lizzie's th' coolest hand I ever met. She couldn't 'a' liked Mr. Noland very much. She wasn't near as broke up as Mr. Hunter was, an' when I asked her if she wouldn't feel kind of spooky in that house after such a thing, she just looked at me, funny-like, an' says 'Why?' an' didn't seem t' care a bit."

Doctor Morgan drove home from the graveyard with the family.

"I suppose you know, Hunter, that there's a will," he said before he helped Elizabeth into the buggy.

"No! Who's got it?" John exclaimed.

"He gave it to me, with a note asking me not to read it till after he was buried, if he should die."

John and Elizabeth followed the doctor's rig home across the long stretch of prairie.

"Did you know that Hugh left a will?" John Hunter asked Elizabeth, after driving a long time in silence.

"Luther told me last night. I didn't think much about it and I forgot to tell you," Elizabeth returned briefly, and fell back into her own sad thoughts again.

John Hunter looked at his wife in surprise.

"Luther!" he exclaimed.

"Yes," she answered indifferently, not looking up, and unaware that John was regarding her with a surprise which amounted almost to suspicion.

John let the subject drop, but as they rode home he had an uncomfortable sense of unpleasant things to come: first of all why had the presence of the will been concealed from him, Hugh Noland's partner and closest friend? secondly, why had Luther Hansen been told? thirdly, why had Elizabeth declined just now to discuss it with him after knowing about it for some time? He could not put his finger on the exact trouble, but John Hunter was affronted.

The truth of the matter was that Elizabeth had only heard of the will the night before, and had been too stunned by other things to care much about it. If she had thought about it at all she would have supposed that John had been told also, but Elizabeth had been occupied with troubles quite aside from material things, and now did not talk because she was concerned with certain sad aspects of the past and almost as sad forebodings for the future.

"You better come in too, Hansen," Doctor Morgan said to Luther, when they arrived at the Hunter house.

Sadie had stayed with Hepsie at the house, and Luther had expected to take her and go straight home. The two women had been busy in the three hours since the body of Hugh Noland had been taken from the house. The mattress which had been put out in the hot sun for two days had been brought in, and order had been restored to the death chamber. There was a dinner ready for the party of sorrowing friends who had loved the man that had been laid to his final rest, and it was not till after it was eaten that the subject of the will was mentioned again.

They sat about the table and listened to Doctor Morgan's remarks and the reading of the important document.

"I have," Doctor Morgan began, "a letter from Mr. Noland written the day before his death, in which he tells me that he has made a will of which I am to be made the sole executor. In that letter he enclosed another sealed one on which he had written instructions that it was not to be opened till after his death. I opened the latter this morning, and in it he states frankly that he has decided to voluntarily leave his slowly dissolving body, and spare further pain to those he loves. Perhaps—perhaps I could have helped him, if I'd known. I can't tell," the old doctor said brokenly. "He asked me to do something for him that I guess I ought to have done, but I thought he was all right as he was, and I wouldn't do it. However, he asked me as his executor to see to it that every provision of this will, which I have never seen, be carried out to the letter. Hansen, here, is one of the witnesses he tells me, and Hornby is the other. It is unnecessary for me to say that I shall have to carry out these instructions as I have been commanded to do."

Turning to John, he added:

"I hope, Hunter, that there's nothing in this that will work any inconvenience to you, and I hardly think it will."

John Hunter sat through the opening of the envelope and the rapid survey which Doctor Morgan gave its contents before he began to read, stirred by varying emotions. Suspicion crawled through his brain, leaving her slimy trail; why had there been need of secrecy? Why had all these people been told, and he, John Hunter alone, left out? Nathan Hornby and Luther Hansen witnesses! But most of all, as was to be expected, his suspicions were directed toward Elizabeth. She had known—she probably knew from the beginning. She was in the conspiracy. Of the fact of a conspiracy John Hunter felt certain when Doctor Morgan cleared his throat and began to read:

Hunter's Farm, Colebyville, Kansas, August 22, 18—

Know all men by these presents that I, Hugh Noland, being of sound mind and memory, not acting under duress, menace, fraud, or undue influence of any person whatsoever, do make, publish, and declare this my last will and testament.

First, I order and direct that all my just debts be paid by my executor, hereinafter named.

Second, I expressly provide, order, and direct that all my estate, consisting of one half of the lands and chattels of the firm of "Hunter and Noland" shall be settled by my executor, hereinafter named, without the intervention of the courts, and given, whole and entire, to Elizabeth Hunter, and to her heirs and assigns forever, and that the division be a legal division, so arranged that all deeds to the land and all rights to the personal property shall be legally hers.

This I do as an inadequate return for all she has done and tried to do for me.

Lastly, I hereby nominate and appoint George W. Morgan, M. D., sole executor of this my last will and testament, to serve without bonds or the intervention of any court.

In testimony whereof I hereunto set my hand and seal, and publish and declare this my last will and testament, on this twenty-second day of August, in the year of our Lord 18——

Signed, Hugh Noland.

Witnesses: Luther Hansen, Nathan Hornby.

There was a pause. Surprise held every person present, for the witnesses had seen only their signatures up to now, not the will, and Doctor Morgan was no less astonished than the rest. At last he reached his hand across the table to Elizabeth saying:

"It's an instrument that I shall get some pleasure at least from administering, Mrs. Hunter. You deserve it. I'm glad it goes to you. It's like the boy! God rest his weary soul, and forgive his impatience to be off! we'll miss him," he added brokenly.

Elizabeth sat with her hands clasped on the table in front of her, neither hearing nor seeing more. She was unaware that she was the object of everybody's attention and that all eyes were turned on her. The merely material items contained in that instrument were of little moment to her just then; to every one else, except perhaps Luther, they were all that there was of importance. Sadie Hansen looked at her young neighbour, overcome by the fact that she was to have several thousand dollars all her own; Luther's gray eyes dwelt upon her affectionately, glad that this last evidence of Hugh Noland's sacrifice was hers; Doctor Morgan thought of the power it would give her to control the financial side of her life, and John Hunter was glad that at least the money was to remain in the business, and ready to forget the supposed plot.

Elizabeth was aroused by Doctor Morgan placing a sealed envelope in her hand and saying:

"This seems to be for you, Mrs. Hunter. It was in this big envelope with the will, and I didn't see it till just now."

The girl was so surprised that she turned the envelope over two or three times and read her name carefully to realize that the letter was for her, and from Hugh's own hand. When at last it was clear to her, her face flushed with confusion, and the first tears which had dimmed her eyes since the hour of his death came to her relief. But the tears did not fall. Realizing that the eyes of all present were upon her, she controlled herself, and rising said:

"Excuse me one moment, till I have read it," and passed into her own bedroom, where, with the sense of his presence, she clasped it to her tenderly an instant, and still standing, broke the seal.

It was simple, sincere, and so formal that all the world might have read it, and yet, it said all that she would have wanted him to say.

My Dear Elizabeth [it began]: When this reaches your hand, my heart will have ceased to trouble either of us. I will have fought my little fight; I will have kept the faith—which I started out too late to keep. The little I leave you will be small recompense for all I have cost you, but it is all I have, and will, I hope, help toward emancipating you from care. My one earnest bit of advice to you is, keep it free from debts.

I wish I might have spared you these last few days and their various burdens, but I am sure they will be less heavy than if I chose to wait.

Hugh.

Elizabeth Hunter returned to the table with the open letter, which she handed to Doctor Morgan saying:

"Read it aloud, Doctor," and stood behind her chair with her head bowed while it was being done.

When it was finished, she looked about her, measuring the different members of the group, wondering if it said the things to them which it cried aloud to her. The survey was satisfactory, till she suddenly realized that John was not there.

"Where's John," she asked.

"Gone out to see Nate Hornby—he's brought the baby," Luther answered.

Doctor Morgan started for home, taking the will with him to have it legally probated, and Elizabeth took Jack from his father's arms, and went back to put away her letter, forgetting that John had not heard it read. Nathan came to spend the rest of the day. He knew from personal experience the cheerlessness of the house which has but lately harboured the dead.



CHAPTER XXIV

FACING CONSEQUENCES

The next Sunday John was thrown in upon Elizabeth for entertainment. He had been a little more tender with her since the funeral, reflecting that women were easily upset by death and that this death had been particularly tragic in its sadness and disturbing features. He missed Hugh, and an intangible something about the will made him uncomfortable; but they would be rich in time and he could simply oversee the business, and life would be more satisfactory. If he thought of Luther and Nathan as witnesses, the thought was made partially acceptable since they could see that Hugh had placed the property in his, John Hunter's, hands. When the uncomfortable things wormed their way forward and would be considered, he tried to reason them out. Some features of it could be accounted for; for instance, he, John Hunter, had probably not been consulted by Hugh for legal reasons, since the money was to come to them. Hugh must have considered that. But Elizabeth had known! He had forgotten that. Right there John went into a brown study. Had she known before Hugh's death? It was queer, but she never mentioned Hugh these days, nor the will, nor—no, she did not speak of the letter, much less offer to show it to him. Still, the money was theirs. That was the solid rock under John Hunter's feet. Whatever else happened, the money was theirs. Now he could open out and farm on a scale befitting a man of his parts. They would make something yet. This farming venture had not turned out so badly after all.