"I'll come if it's London," said Lewis, smiling.

"London first, of course," said Leighton, gravely. "To-day is Tuesday. Say we start on Thursday. That gives us a day to go over and say good-by."

"One day isn't enough," said Lewis. "Make it two."

"All right," agreed Leighton.

For that afternoon Lewis and Natalie had planned a long tramp, but before they had gone a mile from Aunt Jed's a purling brook in the depths of a still wood raised before them an impassable barrier of beauty. By a common, unspoken consent they sat down beside the gurgling water. They talked much and were silent much.

For the first time Lewis had something in mind which he was afraid to tell to Natalie. He was not afraid for her. It was a selfish fear. He was afraid for himself—afraid to tell her that two short days would close the door for them on childhood. He wondered that mere years had been powerless to close that door. He looked on Natalie, and knew that renunciation would be hard.

Natalie had tossed aside her hat. She sat leaning against the crisp trunk of a silver birch. Her hands were in her lap. Her dress was crumpled up, displaying her crossed feet and the tantalizing line of her slim ankles. Against the copper green of the tree trunk the mass of her hair was pressed, gold upon the shadow of gold. Her moist lips were half open. Her eyes were away, playing with memory.

"Bet you can't tell me the first thing you ever said to me," said Lewis.

"My dwess is wumpled," said Natalie, promptly, a single dimple coming and going with her sudden smile. Then she looked down and blushed. She straightened out her skirt, and patted it in place. They looked at each other and laughed.

"Do you remember what came after that?" said Lewis, teasingly. "We kissed each other."

Natalie nodded.

"Nat," said Lewis, "do you remember any kiss after that one?"

"No," said Natalie.

"Funny," said Lewis. "I don't either. Do you want me to kiss you when it comes to saying good-by?"

Natalie turned a wide and questioning look on him.

"No," she said in a tone he had never heard from her before,

Lewis sank back upon one elbow. He had been on the point of telling her that good-by was only two days off. Her tone stopped him. "Do you remember the night of the sunset?" he asked, instead.

Natalie nodded.

"I said I was going to sail to the biggest island. You said you were, too, and I said you couldn't because you were littlest. Do you remember?"

Natalie sank her head slowly in assent. Her lower lip trembled. Suddenly she laughed and sprang to her feet.

"Come on," she cried, "or we'll be late for supper. I'll beat you to the fence." She was off with a rush, but Lewis got to the fence first. He helped her over with mock ceremony. When they came to a wall farther on he helped her over again. This helping Natalie over obstacles was something new. It gave him faint twinges of pleasure.

They came to the foot of the pasture at the back of the house and to the last wall of all. "Come on," said Lewis, smiling and holding out his hand.

"Not this time, silly," said Natalie. "Don't you see the bars are down?"

"Yes, I see," said Lewis, springing into the open gap in the wall, "but you're not coming through here. You're going over."

"Am I?" said Natalie, and rushed at him. With one arm he caught her around the waist and threw her back. She landed on all fours, like a cat. Then, laughing, she sprang up and came at him again, only to be hurled back once more. Lewis was laughing, too, laughing at this last romp in the name of childhood. Natalie was so strong, so stipple, that he handled her roughly without fear of hurting her. They both felt the joy of strength and battle and exulted. Four times Natalie stormed the breach, and four times was she hurled back. Then she stood, panting, and holding her sides, the blood rioting in her cheeks, and fire in her eyes.

"Give up?" asked Lewis.

Natalie shook her head.

"We'll be late for supper."

"I don't care," said Natalie. "I'll never give up; only I'm cold." She shivered.

"Cold, Nat?" cried Lewis. "Here." He started to take off his thick tweed coat. At the exact moment when his arms were imprisoned in the sleeves, Natalie shot by him. She held her skirts above her knees and ran.

Long was the chase before Lewis caught her. He threw his arms around her and held her. Natalie did not struggle.

"You can't carry me back," she gasped. "It's too far." Then suddenly from her eyes a woman looked out—a woman Lewis did not know. His arms dropped to his sides. He felt the blood pumping in his heart—his heart that had been pressed but now against the breast of this strange unknown. By one impulse they turned from each other and walked silently to the house. They were strangers,



CHAPTER XLIX

That evening when Natalie was driving him home Lewis told her that to-morrow was good-by. Gip, as usual, was holding Natalie's attention so that she could scarcely pay heed to what Lewis was saying. But the central fact that he and Leighton were going hung in her mind and sank in slowly, so that when they got to the homestead she could say quite evenly:

"Shall we see you again?"

"Of course," said Lewis, "Dad and I will come over to say good-by."

"Come for supper," said Natalie. "I won't be home in the morning. Good night."

Lewis walked slowly to the house, Natalie had not given him time to ask why she would not be at home in the morning. He grudged giving that morning to any foreign interest. He wondered what he could do to kill all that time alone.

The next afternoon he and Leighton drove over to Aunt Jed's in state. Leighton was still held by his mood—a mood that was not morose so much as distant. Lewis himself was in no good humor. The morning had palled on him even more than he had feared. Now he felt himself chilled when he longed to be warmed. Where his spirit cried out for sunshine, his father's mood threw only shadow. How tangible and real a thing was that shadow he never realized until they reached Aunt Jed's and found that it had got there before them.

Despite mammy's art, the supper was a sad affair. It was not the sadness of close-knitted hearts about to part that seized upon the company. Love can thrive on the bitter-sweet of that pain. It was a deeper sadness—the sadness that in evil hours seizes upon the individual soul and says: "You stand alone. From this desert place of the mind you can flee by the road of any trifling distraction, but into it no companion ever enters. You stand alone." "I myself," cries the soul of man, and recoils from that brink of infinite distance. Such was the mood that Leighton had imposed on those he touched that day, for, while he could take no company into his desert place, by simply going there he could drive the rest each to his far wilderness.

After supper they sat long in a silence without communion. It became unbearable. In such an hour bodily nearness becomes a repulsion. Lewis rebelled. He looked indignantly at Natalie. She too was young. Why did not her youth revolt? But Natalie wasn't feeling young that night. She did not answer his look.

"Dad," said Lewis, "I think we'd better go. We have to make an early start."

"All right," said Leighton, listlessly. "Tell Silas."

Lewis rose and turned to Natalie.

"Aren't you coming?" he asked.

Natalie got up slowly, and drew a filmy white scarf—a cloud, she called it—about her shoulders. There seemed an alien chill in the air.

As they walked toward the barn, a memory that had been playing hide-and-seek with Lewis's mind throughout the evening suddenly met him full in the face of thought. He stopped and stared at Natalie. She was dressed in red. What was it they had called that birthday dress of long ago? Accordion silk. The breeze caught Natalie's skirt and played with it, opening out the soft pleats and closing them again. The breeze seized upon the ends of the cloud and lifted them fitfully as though they were wings too tired for full flight.

"Nat," whispered Lewis, "You remember the night I left Nadir. Is it the same dress?"

"Silly," said Natalie, smiling faintly. "I've grown ten inches since then."

Lewis reached out slowly and took her hands. How he remembered that good-by, every bit of it! Natalie's hands gripping his shoulders, his arms about her twitching, warm body, his face buried in her fragrant hair! But to-night her hands were cold and trembling to withdrawal. He felt withdrawal in her whole body, so close to him, so far away. Why was she so far away? Suddenly he remembered yesterday—the moment when the stranger woman had looked out at him from Natalie's eyes. She was far away because they two had traveled far from childhood.

His own hands were hot. They were eager to seize Natalie, to drag himself back, and her with him, into childhood's land of faith. But he knew he had not the strength for that. He had only the strength to drop her cold hands and to turn and shout for Silas.

On the way home Lewis plunged rebelliously against his father's mood.

"Dad," he said, "do you think Natalie belongs to the Old Guard?"

"The Old Guard?" repeated Leighton, vacantly. Then a gleam of-light dawned in his eyes. "Your little pal—the Old Guard. No, she doesn't belong in the way of a recruit; she hasn't joined the ranks. Do you want to know why? Because, boy, your little pal and women like her are the foundation, the life's blood, of the Old Guard. She doesn't have to join. She is, was, and always will be the Old Guard itself. In her single heart she holds the seven worlds of women."

"But, Dad," said Lewis, half turning in his seat, "you don't know Natalie. You've never once talked to her."

Leighton shrugged his shoulders.

"I've met lots of men that know God; I've never seen one that could prove him. I know Natalie better—better——" Then suddenly his mind trailed off to its desert place. He would speak no more that night.

The next day they were off. Action and movement brought a measure of relief from the very start. Leighton glanced almost eagerly from the windows of the hurrying train, watching for the sudden turn and the new view. There remained in his eyes, however, a desperate question. Was "going away" still the sovereign cure?

At New York a cable awaited him. He opened it, read it, and turned bruskly to Lewis.

"I'm not going to London," he said. "I'm going to Naples direct. Old Ivory will wait for me there. You'll be going to London, I suppose."

For the first time Lewis felt far away from his father. He flushed. He felt like crying, because it came upon him suddenly that he was far away from his father, that they had been traveling different roads for many days. Pride came to his aid.

"Yes," he said, steadily, "I shall go to London."

Leighton nodded and turned to Nelton. He gave him a string of rapid orders, to which Nelton answered with his frequent and unfailing: "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

"Wait here," said Leighton. "I'm going to answer this."

He hurried away, and Lewis, feeling unaccountably tired, sat down on a divan. Nelton remained on guard beside the bags, repulsing the attacks of too anxious bell-boys. To him came a large, heavy-faced person, pensively plying a toothpick.

"Say, young feller," he said, "how much do you get?"

Nelton stared, dumfounded, at the stranger.

"How much do I get?" he stammered.

"Yep, just that," said the stranger. "What's your pay?"

Helton's face turned a brick red. He glared steadily into the stranger's eyes, but said nothing.

"Well, well, never mind the figure if you're ashamed of it," said the stranger, calmly. "This is my offer. If you'll shake your boss and come to me, I'll double your pay every year so long as you stick to that 'Yes, sir, thank you, sir,' talk and manner. What do you say? Is it a deal?"

"What do I s'y?" repeated Nelton, licking his lips. Lewis, grinning on the lounge, was eavesdropping with all his ears.

"H—m—m," said the stranger, "double your pay every year if you keep it up."

"I s'y this," said Nelton, a slight tremble in his voice, "I've been serving gentlemen so long that I don't think we'd hit it off together, thank you."

The stranger's shrewd eyes twinkled, but he was otherwise unmoved.

"Perhaps you're right," he mumbled, still plying his toothpick. "Anyway, I'm glad you're not a worm." He drew a large business card from his pocket and held it out. "Come to me if you ever want a man's job."

Nelton took the card and held it out as though he had been petrified in the act. His bulging eyes watched the stranger as he sauntered leisurely back to his seat, then they turned to Lewis.

"What do you think of that?" they asked.

Lewis held out his hand for the card and glanced at the name.

"Nelton," he said, "you've made a mistake. Better go over and tell the old boy you've reconsidered his proposition. I'll fix it up with dad. You'll be able to retire in three years."

"Master Lewis," said Nelton, gravely, "there's lots of people besides you and the governor that thinks we serving-men says 'Yes, sir, thank you, sir,' to any one for the syke of a guinea a week and keep. Now you and the stout party eating the toothpick over yonder knows better."



CHAPTER L

On the following day, while Leighton and Lewis were sorting out their things and Nelton was packing, Leighton said:

"Nelton, you'd better go back to London with Mr. Lewis."

"Beg your pardon, sir," said Nelton from the depths of a trunk, "but I'd like to go with you, sir."

"Where to?" asked Leighton, surprised. "Africa?"

"Yes, sir, Africa, sir."

Leighton paused for a moment before he said:

"Nelton, you can't go to Africa, not as a serving-man. You wouldn't be useful and you wouldn't be comfortable. Africa's a queer place, the cradle of slavery and the land of the free. A place," he continued, half to himself, "where masters become men. They are freed from their servants by the law that says white shall not serve white while the black looks on lest he be amazed that the gods should wait upon each other."

He turned back to Nelton and added with a smile that was kindly:

"What would you do in a land where just to be white spells kingship—a kingship held by the power to stand up to your thirty miles a day, to bear hunger and thirst without whimpering, to stand steady in danger, and to shoot straight and keep clean always? It's a land where all the whites sit down to the same table, but it isn't every white that can get to the table. You mustn't think I'm picking on you, Nelton. The man that's going with me is always hard up, but I heard him refuse an offer of Lord Dubbley's of all expenses and a thousand pounds down to take him on a trip."

"Lord Dubbley!" repeated Nelton, impressed. "Is there anything w'at a lord can't 'ave?"

"Yes," said Leighton. "There are still tables you can't sit down at for just money or name, but they are getting further and further away."

"Mr. Lewis Leighton and servant" attracted considerable attention on the Laurentia, but let it be said to Lewis's credit, or, rather, to the credit of his abstraction, that he did not notice it. Never before had Lewis had so much to think about. His parting with his father ought to have been more than a formality. Why had it been a mere incident—an incident scarcely salient among the happenings of a busy day? As he looked back, Lewis began to see that it was not yesterday or the day before that he had parted from his father. When was it, then? Suddenly it came upon him that their real farewell had been said in that still, deserted lane overlooking his father's land of dreams.

The realization depressed him. He did not know why. He did not know that the physical partings in this world are as nothing compared with those divisions of the spirit that come to us unawares, that are never seen in anticipation, but are known all too poignantly when, missing from beside us some long familiar soul, we look back and see the parting of the ways.

Then there was another matter that had come to puzzle his inexperience. He knew nothing of his father's theory that there is no erotic affection that can stand a separation of six months in conjunction with six thousand miles. To youth erotic affection is nonexistent; all emotional impulse is love. Along this road the race would have come to utter marital disaster long ago were it not for the fact that youth takes in a new impulse with every breath.

In certain aspects Lewis had the maturity of his age. People who looked at him saw a man, not a boy. But there was a shy and hidden side of him that was very young indeed. He was one of those men in whom youth is inherent, a legion that cling long to dreams and are ever ready to stand and fall by some chosen illusion. Reason can not rob them of God, nor women rob them of woman.

To Lewis's youth had come a new impulse so entangled with contact with H lne, with Leighton, and with Natalie that he could not quite define it. He only knew that it had pushed Folly back in his vision—so far back that his mind could not fasten upon and hold her in the place to which he had given her a right. The realization troubled him. He worried over it, but comforted himself with the thought that once his eyes could feast again upon her living self, she would blot out, as before, all else in life.

He should have arrived in London on Saturday night, but a heavy fog held the steamer to the open sea over night, and it was only late on Sunday morning that he disembarked at Plymouth. Well on in the afternoon he reached town and rushed to the flat for a wash and a change before seeking Folly.

Eager to taste the pleasures of surprising the lady of his choice, he had sent her no word of his coming, and as a consequence he found her apartment empty—empty for him, for Folly was not in. Marie opened the door, and after a few gasping words of welcome told him that Folly had just gone out, that she was driving in the park; but wouldn't he come in and wait?

At first he said "Yes," but his impatience did not let him even cross the threshold. It drove him out to the park with the assurance that it was better to hunt for a needle in a haystack than to sit down and wait for the needle to crawl out to him. For a while he stood at a point of vantage and watched the long procession of private motor-cars and carriages, but he watched in vain. Depressed, he started to walk, and his mood carried him away from the throng.

He was walking head down when a lonely carriage standing by the curb drew his eye. At first he thought desire had deceived his senses. The equipage looked very like Folly's smart little victoria, but it was empty, and the man on the box was a stranger. Lewis approached him doubtfully. "Is this Miss Delaires's carriage?" he asked.

The man looked him over before he answered:

"Yes, sir."

"Where is Miss Delaires?" asked Lewis, his face brightening.

"Doin' 'er mile," replied the coachman.

Lewis waved his hand toward a path to the right questioningly. The man nodded. Feeling suddenly young again, Lewis hurried along the path with a long and eager stride. He had not gone far when he saw a dainty figure, grotesquely accompanied by a ragamuffin, coming toward him. He did not have to ask himself twice if the dainty figure was Folly's. If he had been blind, the singing of the blood in his veins would have spelled her name.

He stepped behind a screening bush and waited to spring out at her. His eyes fastened curiously upon the ragamuffin. He could see that he was speaking to Folly, and that she was paying no regard to him. Presently Lewis could hear what he was saying:

"Aw, naow, lydy, give us a penny, won't cher?"

"I won't," replied Folly, sharply. "I said I wouldn't, and I won't. I'll give you up to the first officer we come to, though, if you don't clear."

"Ah, ga-am!" said the youth, whose head scarcely reached to Folly's waist. "Course you won't give me no penny. You ain't no lydy."

Folly stopped in her tracks. Her face went suddenly livid with rage.

"No lydy!" she cried in the most directly expressive of all idioms. "If I wasn't a perfect lydy, I'd slap your blankety blank little blank."

At each word of the virile repartee of Cockneydom coming so incongruously from those soft lips, Lewis's heart went down and down in big, jolting bumps. Scarcely aware of what he was doing, he stepped out into the path. Folly looked up and saw him. The look of amazement in his face, eyes staring and mouth open and gulping, struck and held her for a second before she realized who it was that stood before her.

For just the fraction of a moment longer she was frightened and puzzled by Lewis's dumfounded mien; then her mind harked back for the clue and got it. No one had to tell her that the game was up so far as Lewis was concerned. She knew it. Her face suddenly crinkled up with mirth. With a peal of laughter, she dodged him and ran improperly for her very proper little turnout. He did not follow except with his eyes.

"Larfin' at us, governor," jibed the diminutive cockney, putting a rail between himself and Lewis. "The 'uzzy! The minute I lays my heye on that marm, I says, 'Blime yer, you ain't no lydy'! I say, governor, give us a penny."

Lewis turned away and took a few steps gropingly, head down, as though he walked in a trance. Presently he stopped and came back, feeling with finger and thumb in his waistcoat pocket. He drew out a gold coin, looked at it gravely, and flipped it across the rail at the ragamuffin. Then he turned and walked off with a rapid stride.

The little cockney snatched at the coin, and popped it into his mouth. Too overwhelmed to speak his gratitude, he stood on his head until Lewis was out of sight. It was the first time in his life that he had handled, much less possessed, a "thick un."



CHAPTER LI

The expert surgeon, operating for blindness on the membranes of the eye, is denied the bulwark of an anesthetic. Such a one will tell you that the moment of success is the moment most pregnant with disaster. To the patient who has known only the fraction of life that lies in darkness, the sudden coming of light is a miracle beyond mere resurrection from the dead. But he is warned he must avoid any spasm of joy. Should he cry out and start at the coming of the dawn, in that moment he bids farewell forever to the light of day.

Something of this shock of sudden sight had come to Lewis, but it came to him with no spasm of joy. A man who has been drugged does not awake to joy, but to pain. Liberation and suffering too often walk hand in hand. Lewis had felt no bondage; consequently his freedom was as terrible as it was sudden. It plunged him into depths of depression he had never before sounded.

From the park he went mechanically to the flat, and sat for hours by the window looking out upon the dead Sunday gray of London. Darkness came, and with it Nelton and lights. Nelton remarked that there was nothing to eat in the house.

"I know," said Lewis, and sat on, too abject to dress and go out for dinner. In his depression his thoughts turned naturally to his father. He thought of joining him, and searched time-tables and sailings, only to find that he could not catch up with the expedition. Besides, as he looked back on their last days in America, he doubted whether his father would have welcomed his coming.

The next few days were terrible indeed, for Lady Derl, as he had feared, was out of town. He wrote to her, begging her to let him know where she was and when she would come to London. For three days he waited for an answer, and then the emptiness of the whole world, the despair of isolation, drove him to his studio and to work.

He had had an impulse to write to Natalie, even to go to her; but there was a fineness in his nature that stopped him, a shame born of the realization of his blindness and of the pity in which H lne and Leighton and perhaps even Natalie must have held him.

Suddenly the full import of H lne's intimate sacrifice in the disrobing of the palpitating sorrow of her life and of his father's immolation of his land of dreams struck him. They had done these things to make him see, and he had remained blind. They had struck the golden chords of the paean of mighty love, and he had clung, smiling and unhearing, to his penny whistle.

For the first time, and with Folly farther away than ever before, he saw her as she was. Once he had thought that she and youth were inseparable, that Folly was youth. Now, in the power of sudden vision, he saw as his father had seen all along, that Folly was as old as woman, that she had never been young.

These things did not come to Lewis in a single day, but in long hours of work spread over many weeks. He was laboring at a frieze, a commission that had come to him through Le Brux, and upon which he had done considerable work before going to America. What he had done had not been altogether pleasing to his father. Lewis had felt it, though Leighton had said little beyond damning it to success.

Now Lewis saw the beginning he had made through his father's eyes. He saw the facile riot and exaggerations of youth, and contrasted their quick appeal to a hurried age with the modesty of the art that hides behind the vision and reveals itself not to an age or to ages, but in the long, slow measure of life everlasting. He undid all but the skeleton of what he had done, and on the bare frame built the progression of repressed beauty which was to escape the glancing eye only to find a long abiding-place in the hearts of those who worship seldom, but worship long.

At last he got word from H lne. Has letter had followed her to the Continent and from there to Egypt. She wrote that she was tired of travel, and was coming home. In a postscript she mentioned a glimpse of Leighton at Port Said. Lewis was impatient to see her. He had begun to know his liberation.

The revelation that had come to him in the park was not destined to stand alone. Between such women as Folly and their victims exists an almost invariable camaraderie that forbids the spoiling of sport. The inculcation of this questionable loyalty is considered by some the last attribute of the finished adventuress, and by others it is said to be due to the fact that such women draw and are drawn by men whose major rule is to "play fair." Both conclusions are erroneous, as any victim can testify.

The news that Lewis no longer followed in Folly's train permeated his world with a rapidity that has no parallel outside of London except in the mental telegraphy of aboriginal Africa. Men soon began to talk to him, to tell him things. He turned upon the first with an indignant question, "Why didn't you tell me this before?" and the informer stared at him and smiled until Lewis found the answer for himself and flushed. Ten thousand pointing fingers cannot show the sunrise to the blind.

By the time H lne came back, Lewis not only knew his liberation, but had begun to bless Folly as we bless the stroke of lightning that strikes at us and just misses. He complied with H lne's summons promptly, but with a deliberation that surprised him, for it was not until he was on the way to her house that he realized that he had no troubles to pour out to her ear.

Nevertheless, a sense of peace fell upon him as he entered the familiar room of cheerful blue chintzes and light. H lne was as he had ever known her. She gave him a slow, measuring welcome, and then sat back and let him talk. Woman's judgment may err in clinging to the last word, but never is her finesse at fault in ceding the first.

H lne heard Lewis's tale from start to finish with only one interruption. It took her five minutes to find out just what it was Folly had said in her own tongue to the little cockney in his, and even at that there were one or two words she had to guess. When she thought she had them all, she sat up straight and laughed.

Lewis stared at her.

"Do you think it's funny?" he demanded.

"Oh, no, of course not," gasped Lady Derl, trying to gulp down her mirth. "Not at all." And then she laughed again.

Lewis waited solemnly for her to finish, then he told her of some of the things he had heard at the club.

"H lne," he finished, "I want you to know that I don't only see what a fool I was. I see more than that. I see what you and dad sacrificed to my blindness. I want you to know that you didn't do it in vain. Six months ago, if I had found Folly out, I would have gone to the dogs, taken her on her own terms, and said good-by to honor and my word to dad. It's—it's from that that you have saved me."

H lne waved her hand deprecatingly.

"I did little enough for you, Lew. Not half what I would willingly have done. But—but your dad—I wrote you I'd seen him just for an hour at Port Said. Your dad, Lew, he's given you all he had."

"What do you mean?" asked Lewis, troubled.

"Nothing," said H lne, her thoughts wandering; "nothing that telling will show you." She turned back to him and smiled. "Let's talk about your pal Natalie. We're great friends."

"Friends?" said Lewis. "Have you been writing to her?"

"Oh, no," said H lne. "Women don't have to know each other to be friends."

"Why, there's nothing more to tell about Natalie," said Lewis.

H lne looked him squarely in the eyes.

"Tell me honestly," she said; "haven't you wanted to go back to Natalie?"

Lewis flushed. He rose and picked up his hat and stick.

"'You can give a new hat to a king, but it isn't everybody that will take your cast-off clothes,' That's one of dad's, of course."



CHAPTER LII

Through that winter Lewis worked steadily forward to a goal that he knew his father could not cavil at. He knew it instinctively. His grasp steadied to expression with repression, or, as one of his envious, but honest, competitors put it, genius had bowed to sanity.

It is usual to credit these rebirths in individual art to some great grief, but no great grief had come to Lewis. His work fulfilled its promise in just such measure as he had fulfilled himself. In as much as he had matured, in so much had his art. Man is not ripened by a shock, but by those elements that develop him to the point of feeling and knowing the shock when it comes to him. In a drab world, drab would have been Lewis's end; but, little as he realized it, his world had not been drab.

Three steady, but varying, lights had shone upon him. The influence of Natalie, as soft and still as reflected light; of H lne, worldly before the world, but big of heart; and of Leighton, who had been judged in all things that he might judge, had drawn Lewis up above his self-chosen level, given sight to his eyes, and reduced Folly to the proportions of a little final period to the paragraph of irresponsible youth.

To maturity Lewis had added a gravity that had come to him with the realization that in distancing himself from youth he had also unwittingly drawn away from the hearts that had done most toward bringing him emancipation. He had no psychological turn of mind. He could not penetrate the sudden reserve that had fallen upon his father or the apparent increasing distraction with which H lne met his visits. He did not know that it is in youth and in age that hearts attain their closest contact and that the soul that finds itself, generally does so in solitude.

He was hurt by the long silence of his father—a silence unbroken now in months, and by H lne's withdrawal, which was marked enough to make him prolong the intervals between his visits to her, and baffled him on those rare occasions when they met.

His life became somber and, as lightning comes only to clouds, so to his clouded skies came the flash and the blow of a letter from Africa. It was not from his father, but from Old Ivory. He found it on the breakfast table and started to open it, but some premonition arrested him. He laid it aside, tried to finish his meal, and failed. A thickness in his throat would not let him eat. He left the table and went into the living-room, closing the door behind him.

He opened the letter and read the first few words, then he sat and stared for many a long minute into the fire, the half-crumpled sheets held tightly in his hand.

Nelton opened the door.

"Excuse me, sir," he said; "you have an engagement at ten."

"Break it by telephone," said Lewis. "Don't come in again unless I ring. I'm out if anybody calls."

When Nelton had closed the door, Lewis spread the letter on his knee and read:

Dear Lew:

All is well with your dad at last. I'm a poor hand to talk and a poorer to write, for my finger is crooked to hold a trigger, not a pen. But he gave me it to do. Don't take it too hard that a man with only plain words is blunt. Your father is gone.

I don't have to tell you that in the last few weeks before he left you your dad grew old. He's grown old before, but never as old as that. The other times, the mere sight and smell of Africa started his blood again. But this time he stayed old—until to-day.

To-day we were out after elephant, and your dad had won the toss for first shot. We hadn't gone a mile from camp when a lone bull buffalo crossed the trail, and your dad tried for him—a long, quick shot. The bullet only plowed his rump. The bull charged up the wind straight for us, and before the thunder of him got near enough to drown a shout, your dad yelled out "He's mine, Ive! He's mine!" I held my fire, God help me; so did your dad—held it till the bull had passed the death-line. You know with charging buffalo there's more to stop than just life. There's weight and momentum and there's a rage that no other, man or beast, can equal.

Your dad got him—got him with the perfect shot,—but not before the bull had passed the death-line. And so, dear boy, they broke even, a life for a life. And your dad was glad. With the bones of his body crushed to a pulp, he could smile as I've never seen him smile before. He pulled me down close to him and he said: "Bury me here—right here, Ive, and tell my boy I stopped to take on a side-tracked car. That's a part of our language. He'll understand."



Lewis's eyes went blind over his father's words, his father's message. "Tell my boy I stopped to take on a side-tracked car." Half across the world those words carried him back and back over half of life to a rattling train, a boy, and the wondrous stranger, speaking: "Every man who goes through the stress of life has need of an individual philosophy... Life to me is like this train; a lot of sections and a lot of couplings... Once in a while your soul looks out of the window and sees some long-forgotten, side-tracked car beckoning to be coupled on again. If you try to go back and pick it up, you're done."

Not in Africa had his father stopped to take on a side-tracked car, but on a day that was already months ago when, standing in a still, deserted lane, he turned to face forever that moment of his life that had nearest touched divinity.

Lewis sat pondering for hours. It was not grief he was feeling so much as an immeasurable loss. One grieves at death when it seems futile, when it robs youth or racks old age, when it devastates hopes or wrecks a vision. But death had not come so to his father. It had come as a fulfilment. Lewis knew instinctively that thus and thus only would his father have wished to strike into the royal road.

But the loss seized upon his heart and made it ache. He thought despondently, as which one of us has not, face to face with the fact of death, of things undone and of words unsaid. How cruel seemed their last hurried farewell, how hard that his father could not have known that his sacrifice had told for his boy's liberty, that his wisdom had rightly seen the path his art must follow to its land of promise! "Hard for you—only for you," whispered the voice of his new-found maturity.

It was natural that with reaction should come to Lewis a desire to talk, to seek comfort and sympathy, and it was natural that he should turn to H lne. He walked slowly to her house. The doorman turned from him to pick up a note from the hall table. He handed it to Lewis.

"Her ladyship is not in, sir, to-day. Her ladyship told me to give you the note when you called."

Lewis took the note and walked out. He opened it absently and read:

Lew darling, I have heard. They will tell you that I am out. I'm not out, but I am broken. I cannot let you see me. Dear, I have given you all that I had to give.



He stood stock-still and read the words again, then he raised his eyes and looked slowly about him. Street, faces, trees, walls, and towers faded from his view. He stood in the midst of an illimitable void. A terror of loneliness fell upon him. He felt as though his full heart must speak or break, but in all his present world there was no ear to hear. Suddenly the impulse of a lifetime, often felt, seldom answered, came to him with an insistence that would not be denied. Go to Natalie. Tell Natalie.



CHAPTER LIII

Spring was in the very act of birth when Lewis found himself once more in the old carryall threading the River Road. This time he sat beside Old William, and the horses plodded along slowly, tamed by the slack reins lying neglected on their backs. Old William was not driving. His hands, loosely holding the lines, lay on his knees. Down his pink cheeks and into his white beard crawled tears from his wide blue eyes.

"Glen dead! Little Glen Leighton dead!" he said aloud from time to time, and Lewis knew himself forgotten. He forgave the old man for the sake of the picture he conjured—a picture of that other boyhood when "little Glen Leighton" and the wood-cutter had hunted and fished and roamed these crowding hills together.

The next day was one of pouring showers. Twice Lewis left the house, only to be turned back by the rain. He was not afraid of getting wet, but he was afraid of having to talk to Natalie indoors. He could not remember ever having talked to her hemmed in by four walls.

But on the morrow he awoke to clean-washed skies and a fuzzy pale-green carpet that spread across the fields and rose in bumps and mounds over trees and budding shrubs. He left the homestead early, and struck out for Aunt Jed's. As he approached the house, a strange diffidence fell upon him. He was afraid to go in. For an hour he sat on the top rail of a fence and watched.

At last Natalie came out. She started to walk toward him, but presently turned to the right. Lewis followed her. At first she walked fast, but soon she began to pause beside some burst of green or tempting downy mass of pussy-willow, as though she were in two minds whether to fill her arms and rush back, carrying spring into the house or to go on. She went on slowly until she reached the barrier of rails that closed the entrance to Leighton's land of dreams. Here Lewis came up with her.

"Nat," he said, "shall I help you over?"

Natalie whirled round at the sound of his voice. Just for a second there was fright in her eyes; then color mounted swiftly into her pale cheeks, and her lips opened to speak, but she said nothing. There was something in Lewis's face that stopped her—a look of age and of hunger. She wanted to ask him why he had come back, but her heart was beating so fast that she dared not trust her voice.

Lewis was frightened, too. He was frightened lest he should find the strange woman when he needed just the oldest pal he had in the world.

"Nat," he blurted out, "dad is dead."

When a man thinks he is being clumsy and tactless with a woman, he is generally making a master stroke. At Lewis's words, so simple, so child-like, the conscious flush died from Natalie's cheeks, her heart steadied down, and her eyes filled with the sudden tears of sympathy.

"Dead, Lew? Your dad dead?"

She put her arms around him and kissed him softly; then she drew him to a low rock. They sat down side by side.

"Tell Natalie," she said.

Lewis could never remember that hour with Natalie except as a whole. Between the bursting of a dam and the moment when the pent-up waters stretch to their utmost level and peace there is no division of time. He knew only that it was like that with him. He had come in oppression, he had found peace.

Then he looked up into Natalie's speaking face and knew that he had found more. He had found again his old pal. "A pal is one who can't do wrong who can't go wrong, who can't grow wrong." Who had said that? H lne—H lne, who, never having seen Natalie save with the inner vision, knew her for a friend. To Folly his body had cried, "Let us stay young together!" To Natalie his blood, his body, and his soul were ready to cry out, "Let us grow old together!"

Natalie had not followed the turn of his emotion. She broke in upon his thought and brought him back.

"I never talked to your dad, but—we knew each other, we liked each other."

Lewis started.

"That's funny," he said.

"Is it?" said Natalie. "I suppose it sounds odd, but—"

"No," interrupted Lewis, "that's not what I mean. It's odd because H lne said just the same thing about you. She said you were great friends—that women didn't have to know each other to be friends."

"They don't have to know men to be friends, either," said Natalie, "unless—"

"Unless what?"

"Unless they love them. If they love them, they've got to know them through and through to be friends. Love twists a woman's vision. Lots of women are ruined because they can't wait to see through and through."

"Why, Nat," said Lewis, "you're talking like dad. Dad never talks—talked—without turning on the light."

"Doesn't he?" said Natalie.

Lewis nodded.

"There are people that think of dad as a bad man. He has told me so. But he wasn't bad to me or to H lne or Nelton or Old William, and we're the ones that knew him best."

For a time they were silent, then Natalie said: "Lew, you're older than you ever were before. Is it just losing your dad?"

Lewis shook his head.

"No," he said, "it wasn't that. I finished growing up just after I got back to London. I'm not the only thing that has grown. My work—sometime I'll show you my work before and after. I wish I could have shown it to dad,—I wish I could have told him that I've said good-by to Folly."

"Good-by to Folly?" cried Natalie, with a leap of the heart. Then her heart sank back. "You mean you've said good-by to foolishness, to childish things?"

"Both," said Lewis. "Folly Delaires and childish things."

"Why?" asked Natalie, shortly.

"Because," said Lewis, "it was given me to see her through and through."

"And now?" breathed Natalie, drawing slightly away from him lest he hear the thumping of her heart.

Lewis turned his head and looked at her. The flush was back in her cheeks, her eyes were wide and staring far away, her moist lips were half open, and her bosom rose and fell in the long, halting swell of tremulous breath.

There is a beauty that transcends the fixed bounds of flesh, that leaps to the eye of love when all the world is blind. The flower that opens slowly, the face grown dear through half of life, needs no tenure in memory. It lives. Tears can not dim its beauty nor age destroy its grace, for the vision is part of him who sees.

The vision came to Lewis. His arms trembled to grip Natalie, to outrage her trust, and seize too lightly the promise of the years.

"Now, Nat?" he said hoarsely. He raised his hands slowly, took off her hat, and tossed it aside. Then with trembling fingers he let down her hair. It tumbled about her shoulders in a gold and copper glory of light and shade. Natalie did not stir. Lewis caught up a handful of her hair and held it against his cheek. "Now," he said, "I stay here. Since long before the day you said that you and I would sail together to the biggest island you've held my hand, and I've held yours. Sometimes I've forgotten, but—but I've never really let go. I'll not let go now. I'll cling to you, walk beside you, live with you, hand in hand, until the day you know me through and through.

"And then?" whispered Natalie.

"Then I'll love you," said Lewis, gravely. "For me you hold all the seven worlds of women. I've—I've been walking with my back to the light."

Natalie laughed—the soft laughter with which women choke back tears. She put up her hands and drew Lewis's head against her breast.



THE END



JOHN FOX, JR'S.

STORIES OF THE KENTUCKY MOUNTAINS

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset and Dunlap's list.

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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE. Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.



The "lonesome pine" from which the story takes its name was a tall tree that stood in solitary splendor on a mountain top. The fame of the pine lured a young engineer through Kentucky to catch the trail, and when he finally climbed to its shelter he found not only the pine but the footprints of a girl. And the girl proved to be lovely, piquant, and the trail of these girlish foot-prints led the young engineer a madder chase than "the trail of the lonesome pine."

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.

This is a story of Kentucky, in a settlement known as "Kingdom Come." It is a life rude, semi-barbarous; but natural and honest, from which often springs the flower of civilization.

"Chad." the "little shepherd" did not know who he was nor whence he came—he had just wandered from door to door since early childhood, seeking shelter with kindly mountaineers who gladly fathered and mothered this waif about whom there was such a mystery—a charming waif, by the way, who could play the banjo better that anyone else in the mountains.

A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND. Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.

The scenes are laid along the waters of the Cumberland, the lair of moonshiner and feudsman. The knight is a moonshiner's son, and the heroine a beautiful girl perversely christened "The Blight." Two impetuous young Southerners' fall under the spell of "The Blight's" charms and she learns what a large part jealousy and pistols have in the love making of the mountaineers.

Included in this volume is "Hell fer-Sartain" and other stories, some of Mr. Fox's most entertaining Cumberland valley narratives.

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THE NOVELS OF WINSTON CHURCHILL

THE INSIDE OF THE CUP. Illustrated by Howard Giles.

The Reverend John Hodder is called to a fashionable church in a middle-western city. He knows little of modern problems and in his theology is as orthodox as the rich men who control his church could desire. But the facts of modern life are thrust upon him; an awakening follows and in the end he works out a solution.

A FAR COUNTRY. Illustrated by Herman Pfeifer.

This novel is concerned with big problems of the day. As The Inside of the Cup gets down to the essentials in its discussion of religion, so A Far Country deals in a story that is intense and dramatic, with other vital issues confronting the twentieth century.

A MODERN CHRONICLE. Illustrated by J. H. Gardner Soper.

This, Mr. Churchill's first great presentation of the Eternal Feminine, is throughout a profound study of a fascinating young American woman. It is frankly a modern love story.

MR. CREWE'S CAREER. Illus. by A. I. Keller and Kinneys.

A new England state is under the political domination of a railway and Mr, Crewe, a millionaire, seizes a moment when the cause of the people is being espoused by an ardent young attorney, to further his own interest in a political way. The daughter of the railway president plays no small part in the situation.

THE CROSSING. Illustrated by S. Adamson and L. Baylis.

Describing the battle of Fort Moultrie, the blazing of the Kentucky wilderness, the expedition of Clark and his handful of followers in Illinois, the beginning of civilization along the Ohio and Mississippi, and the treasonable schemes against Washington.

CONISTON. Illustrated by Florence Scovel Shinn.

A deft blending of love and politics. A New Englander is the hero, a crude man who rose to political prominence by his own powers, and then surrendered all for the love of a woman.

THE CELEBRITY. An episode.

An inimitable bit of comedy describing an interchange of personalities between a celebrated author and a bicycle salesman. It is the purest, keenest fun—and is American to the core.

THE CRISIS. Illustrated with scenes from the Photo-Play.

A book that presents the great crisis in our national life with splendid power and with a sympathy, a sincerity, and a patriotism that are inspiring.

RICHARD CARVEL. Illustrated by Malcolm Frazer.

An historical novel which gives a real and vivid picture of Colonial times, and is good, clean, spirited reading in all its phases and interesting throughout.

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ZANE GREY'S NOVELS

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THE LIGHT OF WESTERN STARS Colored frontispiece by W. Herbert Dunton.

Most of the action of this story takes place near the turbulent Mexican border of the present day. A New York society girl buys a ranch which becomes the center of frontier warfare. Her loyal cowboys defend her property from bandits, and her superintendent rescues her when she is captured by them. A surprising climax brings the story to a delightful close.

DESERT GOLD Illustrated by Douglas Duer.

Another fascinating story of the Mexican border. Two men, lost in the desert, discover gold when, overcome by weakness, they can go no farther. The rest of the story describes the recent uprising along the border, and ends with the finding of the gold which the two prospectors had willed to the girl who is the story's heroine.

RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE Illustrated by Douglas Duer.

A picturesque romance of Utah of some forty years ago when Mormon authority ruled. In the persecution of Jane Withersteen, a rich ranch owner, we are permitted to see the methods employed by the invisible hand of the Mormon Church to break her will.

THE LAST OF THE PLAINSMEN Illustrated with photograph reproductions.

This is the record of a trip which the author took with Buffalo Jones, known as the preserver of the American bison, across the Arizona desert and of a hunt in "that wonderful country of yellow crags, deep canons and giant pines." It is a fascinating story.

THE HERITAGE OF THE DESERT Jacket in color. Frontispiece.

This big human drama is played in the Painted Desert. A lovely girl, who has been reared among Mormons, learns to love a young New Englander. The Mormon religion, however, demands that the girl shall become the second wife of one of the Mormons—Well, that's the problem of this sensational, big selling story.

BETTY ZANE Illustrated by Louis F. Grant.

This story tells of the bravery and heroism of Betty, the beautiful young sister of old Colonel Zane, one of the bravest pioneers. Life along the frontier, attacks by Indians, Betty's heroic defense of the beleaguered garrison at Wheeling, the burning of the Fort, and Betty's final race for life, make up this never-to-be-forgotten story.

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JACK LONDON'S NOVELS

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JOHN BARLEYCORN. Illustrated by H. T. Dunn.

This remarkable book is a record of the author's own amazing experiences. This big, brawny world rover, who has been acquainted with alcohol from boyhood, comes out boldly against John Barleycorn. It is a string of exciting adventures, yet it forcefully conveys an unforgetable idea and makes a typical Jack London book.

THE VALLEY OF THE MOON. Frontispiece by George Harper.

The story opens in the city slums where Billy Roberts, teamster and ex-prize fighter, and Saxon Brown, laundry worker, meet and love and marry. They tramp from one end of California to the other, and in the Valley of the Moon find the farm paradise that is to be their salvation.

BURNING DAYLIGHT. Four illustrations.

The story of an adventurer who went to Alaska and laid the foundations of his fortune before the gold hunters arrived. Bringing his fortunes to the States he is cheated out of it by a crowd of money kings, and recovers it only at the muzzle of his gun. He then starts out as a merciless exploiter on his own account. Finally he takes to drinking and becomes a picture of degeneration. About this time he falls in love with his stenographer and wins her heart but not her hand and then—but read the story!

A SON OF THE SUN. Illustrated by A. O. Fischer and C. W. Ashley.

David Grief was once a light-haired, blue-eyed youth Who came from England to the South Seas in search of adventure. Tanned like a native and as lithe as a tiger, he became a real son of the sun. The life appealed to him and he remained and became very wealthy.

THE CALL OF THE WILD. Illustrations by Philip R. Goodwin and Charles Livingston Bull. Decorations by Charles E. Hooper.

A book of dog adventures as exciting as any man's exploits could be. Here is excitement to stir the blood and here is picturesque color to transport the reader to primitive scenes.

THE SEA WOLF. Illustrated by W. J. Aylward.

Told by a man whom Fate suddenly swings from his fastidious life into the power of the brutal captain of a sealing schooner. A novel of adventure warmed by a beautiful love episode that every reader will hail with delight.

WHITE FANG. Illustrated by Charles Livingston Bull.

"White Fang" is part dog, part wolf and all brute, living in the frozen north; he gradually comes under the spell of man's companionship, and surrenders all at the last in a fight with a bull dog. Thereafter he is man's loving slave.

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THE END