Twilight descended. Dick turned from the mirror after a critical survey of his own lean, fever parched, yellow countenance.

"Lord! I look like a peanut," he commenced disgustedly. "I say, Massey, when we get back to New York I think I should choke anybody if I were you who dared to say we looked alike. One must draw the line somewhere at what constitutes a permissible insult." He grinned whimsically at his own expense, turned back to the mirror. "Upon my word, though, I believe it is true. We do look alike. I never saw it until this minute. Funny things—resemblances."

"This isn't so funny," drawled Alan. "We had the same great grandfather."

Dick whirled about staring at the other man as if he thought him suddenly gone mad.

"What! What do you know about my great grandfather? Do you know who I am?"

"I do. You are John Massey, old John's grandson, the chap I told you once was dead and decently buried. I hoped it was true at the time but it wasn't a week before I knew it was a lie. I found out John Massey was alive and that he was going under the name of Dick Carson. Do you wonder I hated you?"

Dick sat down, his face white. He looked and was utterly dazed.

"I don't understand," he said. "Do you mind explaining? It—it is a little hard to get all at once."

And then Alan Massey told the story that no living being save himself knew. He spared himself nothing, apologised for nothing, expressed no regret, asked for no palliation of judgment, forgiveness or even understanding. Quietly, apparently without emotion, he gave back to the other man the birthright he had robbed him of by his selfish and dishonorable connivance with a wicked old man now beyond the power of any vengeance or penalty. Dick Carson was no longer nameless but as he listened tensely to his cousin's revelations he almost found it in his heart to wish he were. It was too terrible to have won his name at such a cost. As he listened, watching Alan's eyes burn in the dusk in strange contrast to his cool, liquid, studiously tranquil voice, Dick remembered a line Alan himself had read him only the other day, "Hell, the shadow of a soul on fire," the Persian phrased it. Watching, Dick Carson saw before him a sadder thing, a soul which had once been on fire and was now but gray ashes. The flame had blazed up, scorched and blackened its path. It was over now, burnt out. At thirty-three Alan Massey was through, had lived his life, had given up. The younger man saw this with a pang which had no reactive thought of self, only compassion for the other.

"That is all, I think," said Alan at last. "I have all the proofs of your identity with me. I never could destroy them somehow though I have meant to over and over again. On the same principle I suppose that the sinning monk sears the sign of the cross on his breast though he makes no outward confession to the world and means to make none. I never meant to make mine. I don't know why I am doing it now. Or rather I do. I couldn't marry Tony with this thing between us. I tried to think I could, that I'd made up to you by saving your life, that I was free to take my happiness with her because I loved her and she loved me. And she does love me. She wrote me yesterday she would marry me whenever I wished. I could have had her. But I couldn't take her that way. I couldn't have made her happy. She would have read the thing in my soul. She is too clean and honest and true herself not to feel the presence of the other thing when it came near her. I have tried to tell myself love was enough, that it would make up to her for the rest. It isn't enough. You can't build life or happiness except on the quarry stuff they keep on Holiday Hill, right, honor, decency. You know that. Tony forgave my past. I believe she is generous enough to forgive even this and go on with me. But I shan't ask her. I won't let her. I—I've given her up with the rest."

The speaker came over to where Dick sat, silent, stunned.

"Enough of that. I have no wish to appeal to you in any way. The next move is yours. You can act as you please. You can brand me as a criminal if you choose. It is what I am, guilty in the eyes of the law as well as in my own eyes and yours. I am not pleading innocence. I am pleading unqualified guilt. Understand that clearly. I knew what I was doing when I did it. I have known ever since. I've never been blind to the rottenness of the thing. At first I did it for the money because I was afraid of poverty and honest work. And then I went on with it for Tony, because I loved her and wouldn't give her up to you. Now I've given up the last ditch. The name is yours and the money is yours and if you can win Tony she is yours. I'm out of the face for good and all. But we have to settle just how the thing is going to be done. And that is for you to say."

"I wish I needn't do anything about it," said Dick slowly after a moment. "I don't want the money. I am almost afraid of it. It seems accursed somehow considering what it did to you. Even the name I don't seem to care so much about just now thought I have wanted a name as I have never wanted anything else in the world except Tony. It was mostly for her I wanted it. See here, Alan, why can't we make a compromise? You say Roberts wrote two letters and you have both. Why can't we destroy the one and send the other to the lawyers, the one that lets you out? It is nobody's business but ours. We can say that the letter has just fallen into your hands with the other proof that I am the John Massey that was stolen. That would straighten the thing out for you. I've no desire to brand you in any way. Why should I after all I owe you? You have made up a million times by saving my life and by the way you have given the thing over now. Anyway one doesn't exact payment from one's friends. And you are my friend, Alan. You offered me friendship. I took it—was proud to take it. I am proud now, prouder than ever."

And rising Dick Carson who was no longer Dick Carson but John Massey held out his hand to the man who had wronged him so bitterly. The paraquet in the corner jibbered harshly. Thunder rumbled heavily outside. An eerily vivid flash of lightning dispelled for a moment the gloom of the dusk as the two men clasped hands.

"John Massey!" Alan's voice with its deep cello quality was vibrant with emotion. "You don't know what that means to me. Men have called me many things but few have ever called me friend except in lip service for what they thought they could get out of it. And from you—well, I can only say, I thank you."

"We are the only Masseys. We ought to stand together," said Dick simply.

Alan smiled though the room was too dark for Dick to see.

"We can't stand together. I have forfeited the right. You chose the high road long ago and I chose the other. We have both to abide by our choices. We can't change those things at will. Spare me the public revelation if you care to. I shall be glad for Tony's sake. For myself it doesn't matter much. I don't expect to cross your path or hers again. I am going to lose myself. Maybe some day you will win her. She will be worth the winning. But don't hurry her if you want to win. She will have to get over me first and that will take time."

"She will never get over you, Alan. I know her. Things go deep with her. They do with all the Holidays. You shan't lose yourself. There is no need of it. Tony loves you. You must stay and make her happy. You can now you are free. She need never know the worst of this any more than the rest of the world need know. We can divide the money. It is the only way I am willing to have any of it."

Alan shook his head.

"We can divide nothing, not the money and not Tony's love. I told you I was giving it all up. You cannot stop me. No man has ever stopped me from doing what I willed to do. I have a letter or two to write now and so I'll leave you. I am glad you don't hate me, John Massey. Shall we shake hands once more and then—good-night?"

Their hands met again. A sharp glare of lightning lit the room with ominous brilliancy for a moment. The paraquet screamed raucously. And then the door closed on Alan Massey.

An hour later a servant brought word to Dick that an American was below waiting to speak to him. He descended with the card in his hand. The name was unfamiliar, Arthur Hallock of Chicago, mining engineer.

The stranger stood in the hall waiting while Dick came down the stairs. He was obviously ill at ease.

"I am Hallock," announced the visitor. "You are Richard Carson?"

Dick nodded. Already the name was beginning to sound strange on his ears. In one hour he had gotten oddly accustomed to knowing that he was John Massey. And no longer needed Tony's name, dear as it was.

"I am sorry to be the bearer of ill news, Mr. Carson," the stranger proceeded. "You have a friend named Alan Massey living here with you?"

Again Dick nodded. He was apprehensive at the mention of Alan's name.

"There was a riot down there." The speaker pointed down the street. "A fuss over an American flag some dirty German dog had spit at. It didn't take long to start a life sized row. We are all spoiling for a chance to stick a few of the pigs ourselves whether we're technically at war or not. A lot of us collected, your friend Massey among the rest. I remember particularly when he joined the mob because he was so much taller than the rest of us and came strolling in as if he was going to an afternoon tea instead of getting into an international mess with nearly all the contracting parties drunk and disorderly. There was a good deal of excitement and confusion. I don't believe anybody knows just what happened but a drunken Mexican drew a dagger somewhere in the mix up and let it fly indiscriminate like. We all scattered like mischief when we saw the thing flash. Nobody cares much for that kind of plaything at close range. But Massey didn't move. It got him, clean in the heart. He couldn't have suffered a second. It was all over in a breath. He fell and the mob made itself scarce. Another fellow and I were the first to get to him but there wasn't anything to do but look in his pockets and find out who he was. We found his name on a card with this address and your name scribbled on it in pencil. I say, Mr. Carson, I am horribly sorry," suddenly perceiving Dick's white face. "You care a lot, don't you?"

"I care a lot," said Dick woodenly. "He was my cousin and—my best friend."

"I am sorry," repeated the young engineer. "Mr. Carson, there is something else I feel as if I had to say though I shan't say it to any one else. Massey might have dodged with the rest of us. He saw it coming just as we did. He waited for it and I saw him smile as it came—a queer smile at that. Maybe I'm mistaken but I have a hunch he wanted that dagger to find him. That was why he smiled."

"I think you are entirely right, Mr. Hallock," said Dick. "I haven't any doubt but that was why he smiled. He would smile just that way. Where —where is he?" Dick brushed his hands across his eyes as he asked the question. He had never felt so desolate, so utterly alone in his life.

"They are bringing him here. Shall I stay? Can I help anyway?"

Dick shook his head sadly.

"Thank you. I don't think there is anything any one can do. I—I wish there was."

A little later Alan Massey's dead body lay in austere dignity in the house in which he had saved his cousin's life and given him back his name and fortune together with the right to win the girl he himself had loved so well. The smile was still on his face and a strange serenity of expression was there too. He slept well at last. He had lost himself as he had proclaimed his intent to do and in losing had found himself. One could not look upon that calm white sculptured face without feeling that. Alan Massey had died a victor undaunted, a master of fate to the end.



CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE SONG IN THE NIGHT

Tony Holiday sat in the dressing room waiting her cue to go on the stage. It was only a rehearsal however. Miss Clay was back now and Tony was once more the humble understudy though with a heart full of happy knowledge of what it is like to be a real actress with a doting public at her feet.

While she waited she picked up a newspaper and carelessly scanned its pages. Suddenly to the amazement and consternation of the other girl who was dressing in the same room she uttered a sharp little cry and for the first time in her healthy young life slid to the floor in a merciful faint. Her frightened companion called for help instantly and it was only a moment before Tony's brown eyes opened and she pulled herself up from the couch where they had laid her. But she would not speak or tell them what had happened and it was only when they had gotten her off in a cab with a motherly, big hearted woman who played shrew's and villainess' parts always on the stage but was the one person of the whole cast to whom every one turned in time of trouble that the rest searched the paper for the clew to the thing which had made Tony look like death itself. It was not far to seek. Tony looked like death because Alan Massey was dead.

They all knew Alan Massey and knew that he and Tony Holiday were intimate friends, perhaps even betrothed. More than one of them had seen and remembered how he had kissed her before them all on the night of Tony's first Broadway triumph and some of them had wondered why he had not been seen since with her. So he had been in Mexico and now he was dead, his heart pierced by a Mexican dagger. And Tony—Tony of the gay tongue and the quick laughter—had the dagger gone into her heart too? It looked so. The "End of the Rainbow" cast felt very sad and sober that day. They loved Tony and just now she was not an actress to them but a girl who had loved a man, a man who was dead.

Jean Lambert telegraphed at once for Doctor Holiday to come to Tony who was in a bad way. She wouldn't talk. She wouldn't eat. She did not sleep. She did not cry. Jean thought if she cried her grief would not have been so pitiful to behold. It was the stony, white silence of her that was intolerable to witness.

In her uncle's arms Tony's terrible calm gave way and she sobbed herself to utter weariness and finally to sleep. But even to him she would not talk much about Alan. He had not known Alan. He had never understood—never would understand now how wonderful, how lovable, how splendid her lover had been. For several days she was kept in bed and the doctor hardly left her. It was a hard time for him as well as his stricken niece. Even their love for each other did not serve to lighten the pain to any great extent. It was not the same sorrow they had. Doctor Holiday was suffering because his little girl suffered. Tony was suffering because she loved Alan Massey who would never come to her again. Neither could entirely share the grief of the other. Alan Massey was between them still.

Finally Dick came and was able to give what Doctor Philip could not. He could sing Alan's praises, tell her how wonderful he had been, how generous and kind. He could share her grief as no one else could because he had learned to love Alan Massey almost as well as she did herself.

Dick talked freely of Alan, told her of the strange discovery which they had made that he and Alan were cousins and that he himself was John Massey, the kidnapped baby whom he had been so sorry for when he had looked up the Massey story at the time of the old man's death. Dick was not an apt liar but he lied gallantly now for Alan's sake and for Tony's. He told her that it was only since Alan had been in Mexico that he had known who his cousin was and had immediately possessed the other of the facts and turned over to him the proofs of his identity as John Massey.

It was a good lie, well conceived and well delivered but the liar had not reckoned on that fatal Holiday gift of intuition. Tony listened to the story, shut her eyes and thought hard for a moment. Then she opened her eyes again and looked straight at Dick.

"That is not the truth," she said. "Alan knew before he went to Mexico. He knew long before. That was the other ghost—the one he could not lay. Don't lie to me. I know."

And then yielding to her command Dick began again and told her the truth, serving Alan's memory well by the relation. One thing only he kept back. After all he had no proof that the young engineer had been right in his conjecture that Alan had wanted the dagger to find him. There was no need of hurting Tony with that.

"Dick—I can't call you John yet. I can't even think about you to-night though I am so thankful to have you back safe and well. I can't be glad yet for you. I can't remember any one but Alan. You will forgive me, I know. But tell me. It was a terrible thing he did to you. Do you forgive him really?" The girl's deep shadowed eyes searched the young man's face, challenging him to speak the truth and only that.

He met the challenge willingly. He had nothing to conceal here. Tony might read him through and through and she would find in him neither hate nor rancor, nor condemnation.

"Of course I forgive him, Tony. He did a terrible thing to me you say. He did a much more terrible thing to himself. And he made up for everything over and over by what he did for me in Mexico. He might have let me die. I should have died if he had not come. There is no doubt in the world of that. He could not have done more if he had been my own brother. He meant me to like him. He did more. He made me love him. He was my friend. We parted as friends with a handshake which was his good-by though I didn't know it."

It was a fatal speech. Too late Dick realized it as he saw Tony's face.

"Dick, he meant to let himself get killed. I've thought so all along and now I know you think so too."

"I didn't mean to let that out. Maybe I am mistaken. We shall never know. But I believe he was not sorry to let the dagger get him. He had given up everything else. It wasn't so hard for him to give up the one thing more—the thing he didn't want anyway—life. Life wasn't much to him after he gave you up, Tony. His love was the biggest thing about him. I love you myself but I am not ashamed to say that his love was a bigger thing than mine every way, finer, more magnificent, the love of a genius whereas mine is just the love of an every day man. It was love that saved him."

"Dick, do you believe that the real Alan is dust—nothing but dust down in a grave?" demanded Tony suddenly.

"No, Tony, I don't. I can't. The essence of what was best in him is alive somewhere. I know it. It must be. His love for you—for all beauty—they couldn't die, dear. They were big enough to be immortal."

"And his dancing," sighed Tony. "His dancing couldn't die. It had a soul."

If she had not been sure already that Alan had meant to go out of her life even if he had not meant to go to his death when he left New York she would have been convinced a little later. Alan's Japanese servant brought two gifts to her from his honorable master according to his honorable master's orders should he not return from his journey. His honorable master being unfortunately dead his unworthy servant laid the gifts at Mees Holiday's honorable feet. Whereupon the bearer had departed as quietly as death itself might come.

One of the gifts was a picture, a painting which Tony had seen, and which was she thought the most beautiful of all his beautiful creations. Its sheer loveliness would have hurt her even if it had had no other significance and it did have a very real message.

At first sight the whole scene seemed enveloped in translucent, silver mist. As one looked more closely however there was revealed the figure of a man, black clad in pilgrim guise, kneeling on the verge of a precipitous cliff which rose out of a seemingly bottomless abyss of terrific blackness. Though in posture of prayer the pilgrim's head was lifted and his face wore an expression of rapt adoration. Above a film of fog in the heavens stretched a clear space of deep blue black sky in which hung a single luminous star. From the star a line of golden light of unearthly radiance descended and finding its way to the uplifted transfigured face of the kneeling pilgrim ended there.

Tony Holiday understood, got the message as clearly as if Alan himself stood beside her to interpret it. She knew that he was telling her through the picture that she had saved his soul, kept him out of the abyss, that to the end she was what he had so often called her—his star.

With tear blinded eyes she turned from the canvas to the little silver box which the servant had placed in her hands together with a sealed envelope. In the box was a gorgeous, unset ruby, the gem of Alan's collection as Tony well knew having worshiped often at its shrine. It lay there now against the austere purity of its white satin background—the symbol of imperishable passion.

Reverently Tony closed the little box and opened the sealed envelope dreading yet longing to know its contents. Alan had sent her no word of farewell, had not written to her that night before he went out into the storm to meet his death, had made no response to the letter she herself had written offering herself and her love and faith for his taking. At first these things had hurt her. But these gifts of his were beginning to make her understand his silence. Selfish and spectacular all his life at his death Alan Massey had been surpassingly generous and simple. He had chosen to bequeath his love to her not as an obsession and a bondage but as an elemental thing like light and air.

The message in the envelope was in its way as impersonal as the ruby had been but Tony found it more hauntingly personal than she had ever found his most impassioned love letter. Once more the words were couched in the symbol tongue of the poet in India—in only two sentences, but sentences so poignant that they stamped themselves forever on Tony Holiday's mind as they stood out from the paper in Alan's beautiful, striking handwriting.

"When the lighted lamp is brought into the room I shall go. And then perhaps you will listen to the night, and hear my song when I am silent."

The lines were dated on that unforgettable night when Tony had played Broadway and danced her last dance with her royal lover. So he had known even then that he was giving her up. Realizing this Tony realized as she never had before the high quality of his love. She could guess a little of what that night had meant to him, how passionately he must have desired to win through to the full fruition of his love before he gave her up for all the rest of time. And she herself had been mad that night Tony remembered. Ah well! He had been strong for them both. And now their love would always stay upon the high levels, never descend to the ways of earth. There would never be anything to regret, though Tony loving her lover's memory as she did that moment was not so sure but she regretted that most of all.

Yet tragic as Alan's death was and bitterly and sincerely as she mourned his loss Tony could see that he had after all chosen the happiest way out for himself as well as for her and his cousin. It was not hard to forgive a dead lover with a generous act of renunciation his last deed. It would have been far less easy to forgive a living lover with such a stain upon his life. Even though he tried to wash it away by his surrender and she by her forgiveness the stain would have remained ineradicable. There would always have been a barrier between them for all his effort and her own.

And his love would ill have borne denial or frustration. Without her he would have gone down into dark pits if he had gone on living. Perhaps he had known and feared this himself, willing to prevent it at any cost. Perhaps he had known that so long as he lived she, Tony, would never have been entirely her own again. His bondage would have been upon her even if he never saw her again. Perhaps he had elected death most of all for this reason, had loved her well enough to set her free. He had told her once that love was twofold, a force of destruction and damnation but also a force of purification and salvation. Alan had loved her greatly, perhaps in the end his love had taken him in his own words "to the gate of Heaven." Tony did not know but she thought if there really was a God he would understand and forgive the soul of Alan Massey for that last splendid sacrifice of his in the name of love.

And whatever happened Tony Holiday knew that she would bear forever the mark of Alan Massey's stormy, strange, and in the end all-beautiful love. Perhaps some day the lighted lamp might be brought in. She did not know, would not attempt to prophesy about that. She did not know that she would always listen to the night for Alan Massey's sake and hear his song though he was silent forever.

The next day Richard Carson officially disappeared from the world and John Massey appeared in his place. The papers made rather a striking story of his romantic history and its startling denouement which had come they said through the death bed confessions of the man Roberts which had only just reached the older Massey's hands, strangely enough on the eve of his own tragic death, which was again related to make the tale a little more of a thriller. That was all the world knew, was ever to know for the Holidays and John Massey kept the dead man's secret well.

And the grass grew green on Alan Massey's grave. The sun and dew and rain laid tender fingers upon it and great crimson and gold hearted roses strewed their fragrant petals upon it year by year. The stars he had loved so well shone down upon the lonely spot where his body slept quiet at last after the torment of his brief and stormy life. But otherwise, as John Massey and Tony Holiday believed, his undefeated spirit fared on splendidly in its divine quest of beauty.



CHAPTER XXXIX

IN WHICH THE TALE ENDS IN THE HOUSE ON THE HILL

The winter had at last decided to recapture its forsaken role of the Snow King. For two days and as many nights the air had been one swirl of snow which shut out earth and sky. But on the third morning the Hill woke to a dazzling world of cloudless blue and trackless white. A resplendent bride-like day it was and fitly so for before sundown the old House on the Hill was to know another bride. Elinor Ruth Farringdon's affairs required her immediate attention in Australia and she was leaving to-night for that far away island which was again now dear to her heart as the home of her happy childhood, the memory of which had now all returned after months of strange obliteration. But she would not go as Elinor Ruth Farringdon. That name was to be shed as absolutely as her recollection of it had once been shed. She would go as Mrs. Laurence Holiday with a real wedding ring all her own and a real husband also all her own by her side.

There were to be no guests outside the family except for the Lamberts, Carlotta and Dick—John Massey, as they were now trying to learn to call him. The wedding was to be very quiet not only because of Granny but because they were all very pitiful of Tony's still fresh grief, the more so because she bore it so bravely and quietly, anxious lest she cast any shadow upon the happiness of the others, especially that of Larry and Ruth. In any case a quiet wedding would have been the choice of the two who were most concerned. They wanted only their near and dear about them when they took upon themselves the rites which were to unite them for the rest of their two lives.

Aside from Tony's sorrow the only two regrets which marred the household joy that bride white day were Ted's absence and imminent departure for France and that other even soberer remembrance of that other gallant young soldier, Ruth's brother Roderick of whom no news had come, though Ruth insisted that Rod wasn't dead, that he would came back just as her vivid memory of him had returned.

And it happened that her faith was rewarded and on the very day of days when one drop more of happiness made the cup fairly spill over. Larry was summoned to the telephone just as he had been once before on a certain memorable occasion to be told that a cabled message awaited him. The message was from Geoffrey Annersley and bore besides his love and congratulations the wonderful news that Roderick Farringdon had escaped from a German prison camp and was safe in England.

Ruth shed many happy tears over this best of all bridal gifts, not enough to dim the shining blue of her eyes but enough to give them a lovely, misty tenderness which made her sweeter than ever Larry thought, and who should have magic eyes if not a bridegroom?

A little later came Carlotta and Dick, the latter well and strong again but thin and pale and rather sober. Tony loved him for grieving for Alan as she knew he did. He too had known and loved the dead man and understood him perhaps better than she had herself. For after all no man and woman can ever fully understand each other especially if they are in love. So many faint nuances of doubt and fear and pride and passion and jealousy are forever drifting between lovers obscuring clarity of vision.

Carlotta was prettier than ever with a new sweetness and womanliness which her love had wrought in her during the year. People who had known her mother said she was growing daily more like Rose though always before they had traced a greater resemblance to the other side of the house, to her Aunt Lottie particularly. She and Philip were to be married in the spring. "When the orioles come" Carlotta had said remembering her father's story of that other brief mating.

Tony and Carlotta slipped away from the others to talk by themselves. Carlotta too had known and liked Alan and to all such Tony clung just now.

"He was so different at the end," she said to her friend. "I wish you could have known him that way—so dear and gentle and wonderful. He kept his promise everyway, lived absolutely straight and clean and fine."

"He did it for you, Tony. He never could have done it for himself. He wouldn't have thought it worth while. Don't tell me if you don't want to but I have guessed a good many things since I knew about Dick and I have wondered if he wasn't rather glad—to get killed."

"Yes, Dick thinks and I think too that he let the dagger find him. I have always called him my royal lover. His death was the most royal part of all."

Carlotta was silent. She hoped that somewhere Alan was finding the happiness he seemed always to have missed on earth. Then seeing her friend's lovely eyes with the heavy shadow in them where there had been only sunshine before her heart rebelled. Poor Tony! Why must she suffer like this? She was so young. Was life really over for her? For Carlotta in her own happiness life and love were synonymous terms. Something of what was in her mind she said to her friend.

"I don't know," confessed Tony. "It is too soon to tell. Just now Alan fills every nook and cranny of me. I can't think of any other man or imagine myself loving anybody else as I loved him. But I am a very much alive person. I don't believe I shall give myself to death forever. Alan himself wouldn't want it so. A part of me will always be his but there are other margins of me that Alan never touched and these maybe I shall give to some one else when the time comes."

"Does that mean Dick—John Massey?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. I have told him not to speak of love for a long, long time. We must both be free. He is going to France as a war correspondent next week."

"Don't you hate to have him go?"

"Yes, I do. But I can't be selfish enough to keep him hanging round me forever on the slim chance that some time I shall be willing to marry him. He is too fine to be treated like that. He wants to go overseas unless I will marry him now and I can't do that. It is better that we should be apart for a while. As for me I have my work and I am going to plunge into it as deep and hard as I can. I am not going to be unhappy. You can't be unhappy when you love your work as I love mine. Don't be sorry for me, Carlotta. I am not sorry for myself. Even if I never loved again and never was loved I should still have had enough for a life time. It is more than many women have, more than I deserve."

The bride white day wore on to twilight and as the clock struck the hour of five Ruth Farringdon came down the broad oak staircase clad in the shining splendor of the bridal gown she had "dreamed," wearing her grandmother's pearls and the lace veil which Larry's lovely mother had worn as Ned Holiday's bride long and long ago. At the foot of the stairs Larry waited and took her hand. Eric and Hester flanking the living room door pushed aside the curtains for the two who still hand in hand walked past the children into the room where the others were assembled. Gravely and brimming with importance the guard of honor followed, the latter bearing the bride's bouquet, the former squeezing the wedding ring in his small fist. Ruth took her place beside the senior doctor. The minister opened his mouth to proceed with the ceremony, shut it again with a little gasp.

For suddenly the curtains were swept aside again, this time with a breezier and less stately sweep and Ted Holiday in uniform and sergeant's regalia plunged into the room, a thinner, browner, taller Ted, with a new kind of dignity about him but withal the same blue-eyed lad with the old heart warming smile, still always Teddy the beloved.

"Don't mind me," he announced. "Please go on." And he slipped into a place beside Tony drawing her hand in his with a warm pressure as he did so.

They went on. Laurence LaRue Holiday and Elinor Ruth Farringdon were made man and wife till death did them part. The old clock on the mantel which had looked down on these two on a less happy occasion looked on still, ticking away calmly, telling no tales and asking no questions. What was a marriage more or less to time?

The ceremony over it was the newly arrived sergeant rather than the bride and groom who was the center of attraction and none were better pleased than Larry and Ruth to have it so.

It was a flying visit on Ted's part. He had managed to secure a last minute leave just before sailing from Montreal at which place he had to report the day after to-morrow.

"So let's eat, drink, and be merry," he finished his explanation gayly. "But first, please, Larry, may I kiss the bride?"

"Go to it," laughed his brother. "I'm so hanged glad to see you Kid, I've half a mind to kiss you myself."

Needing no further urging Ted availed himself of the proffered privilege and kissed the bride, not once but three times, once on each rosy cheek, and last full on her pretty mouth itself.

"There!" he announced standing off to survey her, both her hands still in his possession. "I've always wanted to do that and now I've done it. I feel better."

Everybody laughed at that not because what he said was so very amusing as because their hearts were so full of joy to have the irrepressible youngest Holiday at home again after the long anxious weeks of his absence.

Under cover of the laugh he whispered in Ruth's ear, "Gee! But I'm glad you are all right again, sweetness. And your Geoffrey Annersley is some peach of a cousin, I'm telling you, though I'm confoundedly glad he decided he was married to somebody else and left the coast clear for Larry."

He squeezed her hand again, a pressure which meant more than his words as Ruth knew and then he turned to Larry. The hands of the two brothers met and each looked into the other's face, for once unashamed of the emotion that mastered them. Characteristically Ted was the first to recover speech.

"Larry, dear old chap, I wish I could tell you how happy I am that it has come out so ripping right for you and Ruth. You deserve all the luck and love in the world. I only wish mother and dad could be here now. Maybe they are. I believe they must know somehow. Dad seems awfully close to me lately especially since I've been in this war business." Then seeing Larry's face shadow he added, "And you mustn't worry about me, old man. I am going to come through and it is all right anyway whatever happens. You know yourself death isn't so much—not such a horrible calamity as we talk as if it were."

"I know. But it is horribly hard to reconcile myself to your going. I can't seem to make up my mind to accept it especially as you needn't have gone."

"Don't let that part bother you. The old U.S.A. will be in it herself before you know it and then I'd have gone anyway. Nothing would have kept me. What is the odds? I am glad to be getting in on the front row myself. I am going to be all right I tell you. Going to have a bully time and when we have the Germans jolly well licked I'm coming home and find me as pretty a wife as Ruth if there is one to be found in America and marry her quick as lightning."

Larry smiled at that. It was so like Ted it was good to hear. And irrationally enough he found himself more than a little reassured and comforted because the other lad declared he was going to be all right and have a bully time and come back safe when the job was done.

"And I say, Larry." Ted's voice was soberer now. "I have always wanted to tell you how I appreciated your standing by me so magnificently in that horrible mess of mine. I wouldn't have blamed you if you had felt like throwing me over for life after my being such a tarnation idiot and disgracing the family like that. I'll never forget how white you and Uncle Phil both were about it every way and maybe you won't believe it but there'll never be anything like that again. There are some things I'm through with—at least if I'm not I'm even more of a fool than I think I am."

"Don't, Ted. I haven't been such a model of virtue and wisdom that I can afford to sit in judgment on you. I've learned a few things myself this year and I am not so cock sure in my views as I was by a long shot. Anyway you have more than made up by what you have done since and what you are going to do over there. Let's forget the rest and just remember that we are both Holidays, and it is up to both of us to measure up to Dad and Uncle Phil, far as we can."

"Some stunt, what?" Thus Ted flippantly mixed his familiar American and newly acquired British vernacular. "You are dead right, Larry. I am afraid I'm doomed to land some nine miles or so below the mark but I'm going to make a stab at it anyway."

Later there was a gala dinner party, an occasion almost as gay as that Round Table banquet over eight years ago had been when Dick Carson had been formally inducted into the order and Doctor Holiday had announced that he was going to marry Miss Margery. And as before there was laughter and gay talk and teasing, affectionate jest and prophecy mingled with the toasting.

There were toasts to the reigning bride and groom, Larry and Ruth, to the coming bride and groom Philip and Carlotta, to Tony, the understudy that was, the star that was to be; to Dick Carson that had been, John Massey that was, foreign correspondent, and future famous author. There was a particularly stirring toast to Sergeant Ted who would some day be returning to his native shore at least a captain if not a major with all kinds of adventures and honors to his credit. Everybody smiled gallantly over this toast. Not one of them would let a shadow of grief or dread for Teddy the beloved cloud this one happy home evening of his before he left the Hill perhaps forever. The Holidays were like that.

And then Larry on his feet raised his hand for silence.

"Last and best of all," he said, "I give you—the Head of the House of Holiday—the best friend and the finest man I know—Uncle Phil!"

Larry smiled down at his uncle as he spoke but there was deep feeling in his fine gray eyes. Better than any one else he knew how much of his present happiness he owed to that good friend and fine man Philip Holiday.

The whole table rose to this toast except the doctor, even to the small Eric and Hester who had no idea what it was all about but found it all very exciting and delightful and beautifully grown up. As they drank the toast Ted's free hand rested with affectionate pressure on his uncle's and Tony on the other side set down her glass and squeezed his hand instead. They too were trying to tell him that what Larry had spoken in his own behalf was true for them also. They wanted to have him know how much he meant to them and how much they wanted to do and be for his dear sake.

Perhaps Philip Holiday won his order of distinguished service then and there. At any rate with his own children and Ned's around him, with the wife of his heart smiling down at him from across the table with proud, happy, tear wet eyes, the Head of the House of Holiday was content.

THE END