It was growing light enough to see the way around her room when Athalie
Greeves, making a queer, hasty little toilet of any garments she found
lying around the room, and not stopping to even wash her poor swollen
face, climbed softly from her window and swung herself down the pergola
trellis, and to the ground.
She hadn’t an idea of where she was going or what she was going to do.
Her one thought was to find her sister. It had come to her in the long
sobbing hours of the night that that was one thing she could do before
she died to atone for all her misdeeds. She could find and give Silver
back to her father and so show him that she had really loved him. For
she did not doubt that she was going to die.
This strange, wild emptiness that filled her being, this utter weakness
and collapse was unlike anything she ever remembered before except
once when she was a very little child with the measles and had cried
herself to sleep because Lilla was afraid to kiss her good night. Lilla
had gone to a party and left her with the nurse. Lilla was afraid of
catching the measles.
She stumbled down the gray morning street like a wraith in her rubber
soled shoes. There was only one way to go, the way she had always gone
on her pilgrimages, out through the town, the long sleeping silent
street, and down the empty road to the bridge. She was a little afraid
of the sound of the water under the bridge in the dark that way but
what did it matter? She would be dead pretty soon and there would be
plenty of things down there to be afraid of. This one thing she must
do. Perhaps if she could get to the city she might find Silver somehow.
She hadn’t an idea what a walk to the city would mean. And there were
no trains so early.
So she walked on through the lifting night into the gray of the morning
hardly able to see out of her swollen eyes, drawing each breath like a
sob, stumbling and hurting her feet, crying out with the pain without
knowing it.
She did not notice two shadowy figures a little way up the hill in the
bushes nor hear a suddenly hushed whisper. She was walking as in a
dream with only one thought in mind, to find Silver.
Suddenly as she swerved unsteadily around the curve of the road
something large and solid and soft like a bag of sand seemed to come
from somewhere up in the air and struck her on the side of the head.
She crumpled like a lily and went down in the road, with everything
growing suddenly dark again about her.
When she roused again she was lying on a hard place like the ground,
only with stone walls all about her and a match was flaring in her
face. She saw two ugly faces above her, one old and lined, with grayish
hair and sagging features, the other round and hairy and wicked
looking, and she heard the old one say:
“It ain’t her at all. It’s the other one!”
“I’ve come to find my sister,” she piped up feebly, and then was gone
again.
A long time after she seemed to see the two men sitting by a box with
about an inch of flaring candle between them, and one was writing with
a stump of pencil.
“Say they must put the money under the stone and go away back up to
town and stay there or the girl won’t ever turn up. Say that, Jerry,
and better make it twelve, it’s no use havin’ all the trouble without
some returns. Seein’ we missed out on the other gal make it twelve
thousand. Not a cent less.”
Later they stumbled out together and a rush of air brought a breath to
her lips. She heard one say to the other as they went out:
“It beats me, Jerry, where the other one went. She must a ben a spirit
fer I had her shut in an’ padlocked and not a stone is touched. Nobody
couldn’t a come an’ let her out fer the lock wasn’t hurt. I don’t know
what to make of it.”
Far off a dog was barking. It made her think of cool water with little
darting fins, and a bank with mosses on it. Nuts falling down and
red branches. A dog barking, coming nearer. Rushing feet, a heavy
body falling. The dog barking wildly. Sounds of a struggling down the
hillside, and then a wild piercing whistle sweet as thrushes. Where
had she heard that whistle before? Ah! Now she knew. The day they went
to the baseball game and Barry—it was Barry! If she only could call
perhaps Barry would help her find Silver, but the sound stuck in her
throat and came out a sob. There it was again, that sweet whistle,
and the sound of an automobile horn down on the road. Voices. Someone
coming on. Voices again!
“Mr. Bannard, come and help me tie up this guy. It’s the old tramp
that’s been going around for several weeks. Got a handkerchief. Sure
that’ll do. Here you hold his hands. Buddie’s got the other fellow by
the seat of his pants. I guess he’ll keep all right. They were sneaking
round here looking mighty suspicious. I wantta see what they’ve got in
that hut. Chief has been looking for a hooch still round these parts.
It might be in there!”
Oh, why couldn’t she cry out! They would go away pretty soon. There.
The dog was coming nearer. He seemed to be just outside the wall.
“Buddie, Buddie!”
Ah! The air again! The door had been broken open! She opened her eyes,
gave a long shuddering sob, and closed them again. It didn’t seem to
matter now they had come. She hadn’t found Silver, and she heard her
father’s voice! She had failed!
And then she heard Silver’s voice. Was she maybe in heaven? No, heaven
was not built of stone walls she was sure. She struggled with her
eyelids once more and looked. It was Silver, looking down with that
sweet smile. With all the power that was left in her body she summoned
her will and crept to her sister’s feet. It seemed a long way, though
it really was only an inch or two, and she laid her tired hands around
Silver’s feet and pressed her hot lips to Silver’s little dusty
slippers. Then she slipped off again, this time she thought for good.
Till she suddenly heard Barry’s voice. He was down on his knees beside
her with an old tin cup of water.
“Say, kid, drink this, it’ll do you good. And say, kid, brace up,
you’ll make it yet!” Then she looked up and they were all smiling, just
as if they loved her, and her father took her hand and smoothed it.
Why, he didn’t hate her any more! The hate was all gone everywhere,
just love left, and she was happy.
They left the tramp and his friend in the hut with the padlock securely
fastened, and carried Athalie down to the car. She wasn’t sure but
that she was dead and they were taking her to her funeral, but she
was happy, so happy. Barry and the minister had made a chair and
were carrying her down the hillside, while her father held her hand
and Silver carried her feet gently, under her arm. It all seemed so
wonderful.
They put her in the car and drove her home, and laid her on a couch in
the library while they all stood around talking, asking her questions
that she couldn’t answer. Barry was telephoning to the chief of police
and the minister talking to Silver with that light in his eyes. Her
father holding her hand and looking at her and saying: “Dear little
girl!” Just like that! “Dear little girl!”
It was all just what she had dreamed a home would be.
Then Bannard:
“Well, I guess we’ll go home now. You all need to get a good sleep, and
then, well, ‘tomorrow about this time,’ let’s celebrate.”
Greeves looked up and smiled.
“That’s all right Bannard, we’ll do it, but I’d just like to begin now
by saying that after this I belong to the Lord, soul and body. I have
been a poor miserable sinner living for myself and railing out that
there wasn’t any God, but He answered my prayer when I was in distress,
and now I mean to live for Him and for my children the rest of my days,
so help me the God that I have blasphemed!”
Anne Truesdale, listening in the offing, said aloud to her soul:
“It’s come, it’s come, it’s come! Th’ verra windows of heaven is open.
Praise be!”