"I don't know what to put in this letter, or how to make you understand. I loved your father. He was not a bad man. I am sure he never harmed anyone. He would have taken care of me all his life. But he didn't live. It was Dr. Farr who found out about the English wife. He pointed out that you would have no name and offered to give you his.

"I did you a great wrong. His name—better far to have no name than his! I am sure it is a wicked name. So I want you to know that it is not yours. You have no name by law, but I think, now, that there are worse things. Your father's name was Harry Strangeways. His people are English, a good family but very strict. I could not let them know about us. They would never have forgiven Harry. It would have been like slandering the dead. Do not blame him, little Desire, for I am sure he meant to do right. He was always light-hearted. And kind—always kind. Your laugh is just like his. Think of us both, if you can, with kindness—your unhappy Mother."

Long before Desire came to the end of the crumpled sheets her tears were falling hot and thick upon them. Tears which she had not been able to shed for her own broken hope came easily now for this long vanished sorrow. Her mother! How pitifully bare lay the shortened story of that smothered life. Desire's heart, so much stronger than the heart of her who gave it birth, filled with a great tenderness. She saw herself once more a little frightened child. She felt again that sense of Presence in the room. And knew that, for a child's sake, a gentle soul had not made haste to happiness.

For that gay scamp, her father, Desire had no tear. And no condemnation. Her mother had loved him. Her gentleness had seen no flaw. Lightly he had taken a woman to protect through life—to neglect, as lightly, the little matter of living. Desire let his picture slip unhindered from her mind.

There was relief, though, in the knowledge that she owed no duty there—or here. The instinct which had always balked at kinship with the strange old man who had held her youth in bondage had not been the abnormal thing she once had feared it was. She had fought through—but it was good to know that she had fought with Nature, not against her. At least she could start upon her new life clean and free....

A pity, though, that life should lie like ashes on her lips!



CHAPTER XXXIX

Nevertheless, and despite the taste of ashes, one must live and take one's morning bath. Desire thought, not without pleasure, of the pool beneath the tree. Wrapped in her blue kimona, her leaf-brown hair braided tightly into a thick pigtail and both hands occupied with towels and soap, she pushed back the tent flap and stepped out into the green and gold of morning.

The first thing she saw was Benis sitting on a fallen log and waiting. He had been waiting a long time. In the flashing second before he saw her, Desire had time to draw one long breath of wonder. After that, there was no time for anything. The professor's patience suddenly gave out.

He had intended to begin with an explanation. But it is a poor lover who can't find a better beginning than that ... And what could Desire do, with towels in one hand and soap in the other?

When he released her at last, blushing and glowing, it was to find the most urgent need for explanation past.

"Idiots, weren't we?" asked Benis happily.

Desire agreed. But her eyes questioned.

"There isn't any Mary, you see," he told her hastily. "Never was; never could be. (Let me take your soap?) Mary was a figment—mortal mind, you know. Your fault entirely."

"But—"

"Yes, I know. But I did it to please you. I am a truthful person, really. (Let me take your towels?) And I thought you had more sense—Oh, Desire, darling!"

"But—"

"Oh, I was a fool, too. I admit it. I thought you were fretting about John. Fancy your fretting about dear old Bones! I thought—oh well, it seems silly enough now. But the day I found you crying over his photo-graph—"

"Her photograph," interposed Desire shakily.

"Eh?"

"It was Mary's photograph. I found it on your desk."

"It was John's, when I saw it."

"Yes—but you didn't see it soon enough."

"Oh—you young deceiver! But once you went to John's office and came away smiling."

"Why not? I went to find Mary. And I didn't find her. When the real Mary came—"

"There is no real Mary."

"Oh, Benis—isn't she?"

"She positively isn't."

"But you said—"

"I lied, my dear. It was a jolly good lie, though."

"A lie is never—"

"No, but this one was. You wouldn't have married me if I hadn't. And you told a whopper yourself once. You said that children—" but Desire refused to listen.

Later on, as they sat together on the log with a squirrel hiding provender in one of Desire's slippers and another chattering agreeably in Benis's ear, he told her briefly the history of the night. That is, he told her all that he thought it needful she should know. Of the scraps of diary in his pocket he said nothing,—some day, perhaps, when she had become used to happiness, and the cottage on the mountain was far away. But now—of what use to drag out the innermost horror or add an awful query to her memory of her mother's death? The old man was gone—let the past go with him.

Desire listened silently. Sorrow she could not pretend. The suddenness of the end was shocking and death is ever awful to the young. But the eyes she lifted to her husband, though solemn, were not sad. When he had finished, she slipped into his hand, with new, sweet shyness, the letter which lifted forever the shadow of the dead man from across their path.

Benis Spence read it with deep thankfulness. Fate was indeed making full amends. No dread inheritance now need narrow the way before them. It meant—he stole a glance at Desire who was industriously emptying her slipper. The curve of her averted cheek was faintly flushed. The professor's whimsical smile crept out.

"Let me!" he said. He took her slipper from her and, kneeling, felt her breath like flowers brush his cheek.

"It was a whopper, Benis," Desire whispered.

Looking up, he saw the open gladness of her face.



THE END