All the world admitted that the summer was a trying one, that year. All
the world, with half a dozen exceptions, turned migratory, in the hope
of finding better weather farther on. The exceptions included the
Opdykes who stayed at home on Reed's account; the Keltridges who
remained in mercy to those of the doctor's patients who were too poor
to pay the price of a railway ticket to the seashore, even for a day;
and Brenton who never, since his wife had left him, had slept a night
away from home. That Katharine would one day come back to him, Brenton
was so firmly convinced that he saw no need of insisting on his belief
to other people. It was his one steadfast ambition to keep the home
always ready to welcome her back; always to keep it as nearly as
possible as she had left it, so that her home coming might accomplish
itself without the slightest jar.
In a sense, despite the chasm which had opened out between them, a
chasm, as he now admitted frankly to himself, in part of his own
making, despite even the ugly facts surrounding the baby's death,
Brenton still loved Katharine. Moreover, he still had hours of being
desperately lonely. Back of it all, though, was his strict adherence to
the letter of his marriage bond. Whatever came between them, Katharine
was still his wife; his home was always hers. Whatever other duties lay
ahead of him, one was constant: to hold himself true to this avowed
allegiance, to win her back from what seemed to him a passing madness;
or else, that failing, to take her as she was and forget everything
else besides the one great fact of her wifehood, of her recent
motherhood of their dead baby boy. If he held firm to that, and to some
other things, the future might yet offer untold good to them.
Meanwhile, he would be ready for any event that came.
The other things to which Brenton, all that summer, was holding firmly,
had come out of his association with Reed Opdyke. Opdyke, in all
terseness, had summed up man's whole duty: to play out the game
uprightly, and, out of loyalty to an all-wise Creator, not to lose
touch with the present chance in trying to see too many moves ahead.
The remoter parts of life, so long as they remained remote, would take
care of themselves. And, in the same way, the problems of the
after-life, its meanings, could be left unsolved, if not unstudied,
until the time came when one could take them in a nearer view. Properly
lived, life was too busy to admit of many questions, anyway. Always
there were so many useful things to be done that scanty time remained
for over much philosophizing. And, as for the man knocked down and out,
whether by spiritual doubting, or black powder, it was for him to
choose whether he would lie on his back and wallow limply in the dust
of his emotions, or stiffen himself, ready for new effort.
All through the blazing heat of the worst June ever recorded; all
through the chill of a cold, wet July, Opdyke preached his doctrine
with insistence, preached it in season and out. While he preached, he
practised; often, it must be confessed, a good deal to his own
detriment. The lift and the rolling chair and the down-town office were
still in a future which every one, including Reed himself, knew to be
increasingly nebulous. However, he and Duncan were building up no small
amount of reputation in their work; and, while the loosened screw of
which Opdyke had complained to Olive was throwing all the manual toil
on Duncan, it was an open secret that Opdyke supplied the brains.
However, no amount of professional contentment can quite atone for the
strain of many sleepless nights; and, more than once that summer,
Doctor Keltridge had been strongly tempted to call a halt in the whole
undertaking. Then, at the last minute, he had stayed his prohibition.
Opdyke, in all surety, was working far beyond his strength. None the
less, it seemed to the old doctor that there would be a certain cruelty
in bringing to a sudden halt this sole activity permitted to him, this
sole means of contact with his old profession. The doctor spent his
summer between the horns of a dilemma: his disapproval of Reed's
overworking, his greater disapproval of the need for thrusting Reed
back into his former impotence. And, to all seeming, there was no
middle ground. It would have taxed the strength even of a full-bodied
man to have held together a reputation, under such handicaps as those
beneath which Reed was working. The doctor grumbled in his throat at
Ramsdell; but he spoke out no word to Reed. For the present, he was
well aware, he had power to dominate the situation.
And so the cold, wet July rolled along; and then came an August,
drearier, more chilly. The sweet New England summer was drowned in a
cold, raw fog which only broke at intervals into a day of blazing
sunshine which set all the world a-steam. It was a hideous season, even
for the prosperous vagrants of society. To Reed, imprisoned in his room
and in a town empty of all his friends but two or three, it was
well-nigh insupportable. Brenton dropped in upon him, half a dozen
times a week, and Olive never missed a day, while Duncan was
invaluable. Nevertheless, it was plain that the summer was wearing on
the "puffic' fibbous," although his old-time beauty was bidding fair to
outlast the malign attacks of fortune. Indeed, to Olive Keltridge, it
seemed that Opdyke never had been one half so good to look upon as now,
never one half so virile.
"Most men would be impossible in such a situation," she said to her
father, one morning in early August. "You would be a caricature, and,
as for a man like Mr. Brenton--"
"Hush! Speak of angels!" her father warned her. Then, in another tone,
he added, "Morning, Brenton. You're up early; aren't you?"
But Brenton's face refused to light in answer to the doctor's greeting.
"I've had a telegram from Boston," he said, and his accent was dull,
monotonous. "Katharine is very ill, pneumonia."
"They have sent for you?"
"Yes. And to hurry."
Olive spoke impetuously.
"I am so sorry. But it may be better than you think."
He looked across at her, as if he had not been aware of her presence
until she spoke.
"Good morning, Miss Keltridge," he said hastily. "Yes, it may be. In
pneumonia there's always some hope, till the very last, I imagine. That
is the reason," he turned back to the doctor; "the reason I've come to
you. Can you go to Boston with me?"
The doctor swiftly conned his list of cases.
"This noon? Ye--es. But, Brenton," his keen old eyes were infinitely
kind; "you know it is by no means sure that Mrs. Brenton will let me
see her."
"I think she will," Brenton said quietly. "She has never been in a
place like this--" there came a sudden wave of recollection which made
him glance furtively across at the doctor, then add, "exactly. Besides,
Catie was always very fond of you."
And Olive, hearing, comprehended once again and, comprehending, gave to
Brenton a new sort of loyalty which she had heretofore denied him. She
knew that, in that old-time nickname, coming unbidden to the husband's
lips, there was the proof that all memory of Katharine's disaffection
had been wiped out from Brenton's mind, for evermore.
It was early, the next morning, when Olive carried the final bulletins
to Reed. Her father had just called her up upon the telephone to tell
her that the end had come. Up to the last of her consciousness,
Katharine had refused to see him; only the healer and Brenton had been
allowed inside the room. Then, when she had sunk into the fitful stupor
which could have only the one ending, Brenton had come to summon him;
and they had stood together, hand on hand, while the life before them
ebbed away. It had been a peaceful passing. Just at the very end had
come a moment of full consciousness, when she had turned to smile up at
her husband.
"Scott," she said to him; "I'm sorry. But, in the next world, I think
perhaps you'll understand me just a little better."
And then the earth-light had faded from her eyes and, in its place,
there had dawned the dazzling recognition of the things that are to be.