II

Aileen took that picture of intimate love and warmth with her out into

the keen frosty air of late February. But its effect was not to soften,

to warm; it hardened rather. The thought of Maggie with her baby boy at

her breast, of her cosy home, her loyalty to her husband and her love

for him, of her thankfulness for the daily mercy of the wherewithal to

feed the home mouths, reacted sharply, harshly, upon the mood she was

in; for with the thought of that family life and family ties--the symbol

of all that is sane and fruitful of the highest good in our

humanity--was associated by extreme contrast another thought:--

"And _he_ is breaking stones with a 'gang of toughs'--breaking stones!

Not for the sake of the pittance that will procure for him his daily

bread, but because he is forced to the toil like any galley slave. The

prison walls are frowning behind him; the prison cell is his only home;

the tin pan of coarse food, which is handed to him as he lines up with

hundreds of others after the day's work, is the only substitute for the

warm home-hearth, the lighted supper table, the merry give-and-take of

family life that eases a man after his day's toil."

Her very soul was in rebellion.

She stopped short and looked about her. She was on the road to Father

Honore's house. It was just four o'clock, for the long whistle was

sounding from the stone sheds down in the valley. She saw the quarrymen

start homewards. Dark irregular files of them began crawling up over the

granite ledges, many of which were lightly covered with snow. Although

it was February, the winter was mild for this latitude, and the twelve

hundred men in The Gore had lost but a few days during the last three

months on account of the weather. Work had been plenty, and the spring

promised, so the manager said, a rush of business. She watched them for

a while.

"And they are going to their homes--and he is still breaking stones!"

Her thoughts revolved about that one fact.

A sudden rush of tears blinded her; she drew her breath hard. What if

she were to go to Father Honore and tell him something of her trouble?

Would it help? Would it ease the intolerable pain at her heart, lessen

the load on her mind?

She dared not answer, dared not think about it. Involuntarily she

started forward at a quick pace towards the stone house over by the

pines--a distance of a quarter of a mile.

The sun was nearing the rim of the Flamsted Hills. Far beyond them, the

mighty shoulder of Katahdin, mantled with white, caught the red gleam

and lent to the deep blue of the northern heavens a faint rose

reflection of the setting sun. The children, just from school, were

shouting at their rough play--snow-balling, sledding, skating and

tobogganning on that portion of the pond which had been cleared of snow.

The great derricks on the ledges creaked and groaned as the remaining

men made all fast for the night; like a gigantic cobweb their supporting

wires stretched thick, enmeshed, and finely dark over the white expanse

of the quarries. From the power-house a column of steam rose straight

and steady into the windless air.

Hurrying on, Aileen looked upon it with set lips and a hardening heart.

She had come to hate, almost, the sight of this life of free toil for

the sake of love and home.

It was a woman who was thinking these thoughts in her rapid walk to the

priest's house--a woman of twenty-six who for more than seven years had

suffered in silence; suffered over and over again the humiliation that

had been put upon her womanhood; who, despite that humiliation, could

not divest herself of the idea that she still clung to her girlhood's

love for the man who had humiliated her. She told herself again and

again that she was idealizing that first feeling for him, instead of

accepting the fact that, as a woman, she would be incapable, if the

circumstances were to repeat themselves now, of experiencing it.

Since that fateful night in The Gore, Champney Googe's name had never

voluntarily passed her lips. So far as she knew, no one so much as

suspected that she was a factor in his escape--for Luigi had kept her

secret. Sometimes when she felt, rather than saw, Father Honore's eyes

fixed upon her in troubled questioning, the blood would rush to her

cheeks and she could but wonder in dumb misery if Champney had told him

anything concerning her during those ten days in New York.

For six years there had been a veil, as it were, drawn between the

lovely relations that had previously existed between Father Honore and

this firstling of his flock in Flamsted. For a year after his experience

with Champney Googe in New York, he waited for some sign from Aileen

that she was ready to open her heart to him; to clear up the mystery of

the handkerchief; to free herself from what was evidently troubling her,

wearing upon her, changing her in disposition--but not for the better.

Aileen gave no sign. Another year passed, but Aileen gave no sign, and

Father Honore was still waiting.

The priest did not believe in forcing open the portals to the secret

chambers of the human heart. He respected the individual soul and its

workings as a part of the divinely organized human. He believed that, in

time, Aileen would come to him of her own accord and seek the help she

so sorely needed. Meanwhile, he determined to await patiently the

fulness of that time. He had waited already six years.

* * * * *

He was looking over and arranging some large photographs of

cathedrals--Cologne, Amiens, Westminster, Mayence, St. Mark's, Chester,

and York--and the detail of nave, chancel, and choir. One showed the

exquisite sculpture on a flying buttress; another the carving of a

choir-stall canopy; a third the figure-crowded facade of a western

porch. Here was the famous rose window in the Antwerp transept; the

statue of one of the apostles in Naumburg; the nave of Cologne; the

conglomerate of chapels about the apse of Mayence; the Angel's Pillar at

Strasburg--they were a joy in line and proportion to the eye, in effect

and spirit of purpose to the understanding mind, the receptive soul.

Father Honore was revelling in the thought of the men's appreciative

delight when he should show them these lovely stones--across-the-sea kin

to their own quarry granite. His semi-monthly talks with the quarrymen

and stone-cutters were assuming, after many years, the proportions of

lectures on art and scientific themes. Already many a professor from

some far-away university had accepted his invitation to give of his best

to the granite men of Maine. Rarely had they found a more fitting or

appreciative audience.

"How divine!" he murmured to himself, his eyes dwelling lovingly--at the

same time his pencil was making notes--on the 'Prentice Pillar in Roslyn

Chapel. Then he smiled at the thought of the contrast it offered to his

own chapel in the meadows by the lake shore. In that, every stone, as in

the making of the Tabernacle of old, had been a free-will offering from

the men--each laid in its place by a willing worker; and, because

willing, the rough walls were as eloquent of earnest endeavor as the

famed 'Prentice Pillar itself.

"I'd like to see such a one as this in our chapel!" He was talking to

himself as was his way when alone. "I believe Luigi Poggi, if he had

kept on in the sheds, would in time have given this a close second."

He took up the magnifying glass to examine the curled edges of the stone

kale leaves.

There was a knock at the door.

He hastily placed the photographs in a long box beside the table, and,

instead of saying "Come in," stepped to the door and opened it.

Aileen stood there. The look in her eyes as she raised them to his, and

said in a subdued voice, "Father Honore, can you spare me a little time,

all to myself?" gave him hope that the fulness of time was come.

"I always have time for you, Aileen; come in. I'll start up the fire a

bit; it's growing much colder."

He laid the wood on the hearth, and with the bellows blew it to a

leaping flame. While he was thus occupied, Aileen looked around her. She

knew this room and loved it.

The stone fireplace was deep and ample, built by Father Honore,--indeed,

the entire one storey house was his handiwork. Above it hung a large

wooden crucifix. On the shelf beneath were ranged some superb specimens

of quartz and granite. The plain deal table, also of ample proportions,

was piled at one end high with books and pamphlets. Two large windows

overlooked the pond, the sloping depression of The Gore, the course of

the Rothel, and the headwaters of Lake Mesantic. Some plain wooden

armchairs were set against the walls that had been rough plastered and

washed with burnt sienna brown. On them was hung an exquisite

engraving--the Sistine Madonna and Child. There were also a few

etchings, among them a copy of Whistler's _The Thames by London Bridge_,

and a view of Niagara by moonlight. A mineral cabinet, filled to

overflowing with fine specimens, extended the entire length of one wall.

The pine floor was oiled and stained; large hooked rugs, genuine

products of Maine, lay here and there upon it.

Many a man coming in from the quarries or the sheds with a grievance, a

burden, or a joy, felt the influence of this simple room. Many a woman

brought here her heavy over-charged heart and was eased in its

fire-lighted atmosphere of welcome. Many a child brought hither its

spring offering of the first mitchella, or its autumn gift of

checkerberries. Many a girl, many a boy had met here to rehearse a

Christmas glee or an Easter anthem. Many a night these walls echoed to

the strains of the priest's violin, when he sat alone by the fireside

with only the Past for a guest. And these combined influences lingered

in the room, mellowed it, hallowed it, and made themselves felt to one

and all as beneficent--even as now to Aileen.

Father Honore placed two of the wooden chairs before the blazing fire.

Aileen took one.

"Draw up a little nearer, Aileen; you look chilled." He noticed her

extreme pallor and the slight trembling of her shoulders.

She glanced out of the window at some quarrymen who were passing.

"You don't think we shall be interrupted, do you?" she asked rather

nervously.

"Oh, no. I'll just step to the kitchen and give a word to Therese. She

is a good watchdog when I am not to be disturbed." He opened a door at

the back of the room.

"Therese."

"On y va."

An old French Canadian appeared in answer to his call. He addressed her

in French.

"If any one should knock, Therese, just step to the kitchen porch door

and say that I am engaged for an hour, at least."

"Oui, oui, Pere Honore."

He closed the door.

"There, now you can have your chat 'all to yourself' as you requested,"

he said smiling. He sat down in the other chair he had drawn to the

fire.

"I've been over to Maggie's this afternoon--"

She hesitated; it was not easy to find an opening for her long pent

trouble.

Father Honore spread his hands to the blaze.

"She has a fine boy. I'm glad McCann is back again, and I hope anchored

here for life. He's trying to buy his home he tells me."

"So Maggie said--Father Honore;" she clasped and unclasped her hands

nervously; "I think it's that that has made me come to you to-day."

"That?--I think I don't quite understand, Aileen."

"The home--I think I never felt so alone--so homeless as when I was

there with her--and the baby--"

She looked down, struggling to keep back the tears. Despite her efforts

the bright drops plashed one after the other on her clasped hands. She

raised her eyes, looking almost defiantly through the falling tears at

the priest; the blood surged into her white cheeks; the rush of words

followed:--

"I have no home--I've never had one--never shall have one--it's not for

me, that paradise; it's for men and women like Jim McCann and

Maggie.--Oh, why did I come here!" she cried out wildly; "why did you

put me there in that house?--Why didn't Mr. Van Ostend let me alone

where I was--happy with the rest! Why," she demanded almost fiercely,

"why can't a child's life be her own to do with what she chooses? Why

has any human being a right to say to another, whether young or old,

'You shall live here and not there'? Oh, it is tyrannical--it is tyranny

of the worst kind, and what haven't I had to suffer from it all! It is

like Hell on earth!"

Her breath caught in great sobs that shook her; her eyes flashed through

blinding tears; her cheeks were crimson; she continued to clasp and

unclasp her hands.

The peculiar ivory tint of the strong pock-marked face opposite her took

on, during this outburst, a slightly livid hue. Every word she uttered

was a blow; for in it was voiced misery of mind, suffering and hardness

of heart, despair, ingratitude, undeserved reproach, anger, defiance and

the ignoring of all facts save those in the recollection of which she

had lost all poise, all control--And she was still so young! What was

behind these facts that occasioned such a tirade?

This was the priest's problem.

He waited a moment to regain his own control. The ingratitude, the

bitter injustice had shocked him out of it. Her mood seemed one of

defiance only. The woman before him was one he had never known in the

Aileen Armagh of the last fourteen years. He knew, moreover, that he

must not speak--dare not, as a sacred obligation to his office, until he

no longer felt the touch of anger he experienced upon hearing her

unrestrained outburst. It was but a moment before that touch was

removed; his heart softened towards her; filled suddenly with a pitying

love, for with his mind's eye he saw the small blood-stained

handkerchief in his hand, the initials A. A., the man on the cot from

whose arm he had taken it more than six years before. Six years! How she

must have suffered--and in silence!

"Aileen," he said at last and very gently, "whatever was done for you at

that time was done with the best intentions for your good. Believe me,

could Mr. Van Ostend and I have foreseen such resulting wretchedness as

this for our efforts, we should never have insisted on carrying out our

plan for you. But, like yourself, we are human--we could not foresee

this any more than you could. There is, however, one course always open

to you--"

"What?" she demanded; her voice was harsh from continued struggle with

her complex emotions. She was past all realization of what she owed to

the dignity of his office.

"You have long been of age; you are at liberty to leave Mrs. Champney

whenever you will."

"I am going to." The response came prompt and hard.

"And what then?"

"I don't know--yet--;" her speech faltered; "but I want to try the

stage. Every one says I have the voice for it, and I suppose I could

make a hit in light operetta or vaudeville as well now as when I was a

child. A few years more and I shall be too old."

"And you think you can enter into such publicity without protection?"

"Oh, I'm able to protect myself--I've done that already." She spoke with

bitterness.

"True, you are a woman now--but still a young woman--"

Father Honore stopped there. He was making no headway with her. He knew

only too well that, as yet, he had not begun to get beneath the surface.

When he spoke it was as if he were merely thinking aloud.

"Somehow, I hadn't thought that you would be so ready to leave us

all--so many friends. Are we nothing to you, Aileen? Will you make

better, truer ones among strangers? I can hardly think so."

She covered her face with her hands and began to sob again, but

brokenly.

"Aileen, my daughter, what is it? Is there any new trouble preparing for

you at The Bow?"

She shook her head. The tears trickled through her fingers.

"Does Mrs. Champney know that you are going to leave her?"

"No."

"Has it become unbearable?"

Another shake of the head. She searched blindly for her handkerchief,

drew it forth and wiped her eyes and face.

"No; she's kinder than she's been for a long time--ever since that last

stroke. She wants me with her most of the time."

"Has she ever spoken to you about remaining with her?"

"Yes, a good many times. She tried to make me promise I would stay

till--till she doesn't need me. But, I couldn't, you know."

"Then why--but of course I know you are worn out by her long invalidism

and tired of the fourteen years in that one house. Still, she has been

lenient since you were twenty-one. She has permitted you--although of

course you had the undisputed right--to earn for yourself in teaching

the singing classes in the afternoon and evening school, and she pays

you something beside--fairly well, doesn't she? I think you told me you

were satisfied."

"Oh yes, in a way--so far as it goes. She doesn't begin to pay me as she

would have to pay another girl in my position--if I have any there. I

haven't said anything about it to her, because I wanted to work off my

indebtedness to her on account of what she spent on me in bringing me

up--she never let me forget that in those first seven years! I want to

give more than I've had," she said proudly, "and sometime I shall tell

her of it."

"But you have never given her any love?"

"No, I couldn't give her that.--Do you blame me?"

"No; you have done your whole duty by her. May I suggest that when you

leave her you still make your home with us here in Flamsted? You have no

other home, my child."

"No, I have no other home," she repeated mechanically.

"I know, at least, two that are open to you at any time you choose to

avail yourself of their hospitality. Mrs. Caukins would be so glad to

have you both for her daughters' sake and her own. The Colonel desires

this as much as she does and--" he hesitated a moment, "now that Romanzo

has his position in the New York office, and has married and settled

there, there could be no objection so far as I can see."

There was no response.

"But if you do not care to consider that, there is another. About seven

months ago, Mrs. Googe--"

"Mrs. Googe?"

She turned to him a face from which every particle of color had faded.

"Yes, Mrs. Googe. She would have spoken to you herself long before this,

but, you know, Aileen, how she would feel in the circumstances--she

would not think of suggesting your coming to her from Mrs. Champney. I

feel sure she is waiting for you to take the initiative."

"Mrs. Googe?" she repeated, continuing to stare at him--blankly, as if

she had heard but those two words of all that he was saying.

"Why, yes, Mrs. Googe. Is there anything so strange in that? She has

always loved you, and she said to me, only the other day, 'I would love

to have her young companionship in my house'--she will never call it

home, you know, until her son returns--'to be as a daughter to me'--"

"Daughter!--I--want air--"

She swayed forward in speaking. Father Honore sprang and caught her or

she would have fallen. He placed her firmly against the chair back and

opened the window. The keen night air charged with frost quickly revived

her.

"You were sitting too near the fire; I should have remembered that you

had come in from the cold," he said, delicately regarding her feelings;

"let me get you a glass of water, Aileen."

She put out her hand with a gesture of dissent. She began to breathe

freely. The room chilled rapidly. Father Honore closed the window and

took his stand on the hearth. Aileen raised her eyes to him. It seemed

as if she lifted the swollen reddened lids with difficulty.

"Father Honore," she said in a low voice, tense with suppressed feeling,

"dear Father Honore, the only father I have ever known, don't you know

_why_ I cannot go to Mrs. Googe's?--why I must not stay too long in

Flamsted?"

And looking into those eyes, that were incapable of insincerity, that,

in the present instance, attempted to veil nothing, the priest read all

that of which, six years ago on that never to be forgotten November

night in New York, he had had premonition.

"My daughter--is it because of Champney's prospective return within a

year that you feel you cannot remain longer with us?"

Her quivering lips gave an almost inaudible assent.

"Why?" He dared not spare her; he felt, moreover, that she did not wish

to be spared. His eyes held hers.

Bravely she answered, bracing soul and mind and body to steadfastness.

There was not a wavering of an eyelid, not a suggestion of faltering

speech as she spoke the words that alone could lift from her

overburdened heart the weight of a seven years' silence:

"Because I love him."

The answer seemed to Father Honore supreme in its sacrificial

simplicity. He laid his hand on her head. She bowed beneath his touch.

"I have tried so hard," she murmured, "so hard--and I cannot help it. I

have despised myself for it--if only he hadn't been put _there_, I think

it would have helped--but he is there, and my thoughts are with him

there--I see him nights--in that cell--I see him daytimes _breaking

stones_--I can't sleep, or eat, without comparing--you know. Oh, if he

hadn't been put _there_, I could have conquered this weakness--"

"Aileen, _no_! It is no weakness, it is strength."

Father Honore withdrew his hand, that had been to the broken woman a

silent benediction, and walked up and down the long room. "You would

never have conquered; there was--there is no need to conquer. Such love

is of God--trust it, my child; don't try any longer to thrust it forth

from your heart, your life; for if you do, your life will be but a poor

maimed thing, beneficial neither to yourself nor to others. I say,

cherish this supreme love for the man who is expiating in a prison; hold

it close to your soul as a shield and buckler to the spirit against the

world; truly, you will need no other if you go forth from us into a

world of strangers--but why, why need you go?"

He spoke gently, but insistently. He saw that the girl was hanging upon

his every word as if he bespoke her eternal salvation. And, in truth,

the priest was illumining the dark and hidden places of her life and

giving her courage to love on which, to her, meant courage to live

on.--Such were the demands of a nature, loyal, impulsive, warmly

affectionate, sincere, capable of an all-sacrificing love that could

give without return if need be, but a nature which, without love

developing in her of itself just for the sake of love, would shrivel,

become embittered, and like withered fruit on a tree drop useless to the

ground to be trodden under the careless foot of man.

In the darkening room the firelight leaped and showed to Father Honore

the woman's face transfigured under the powerful influence of his words.

She smiled up at him--a smile so brave in its pathos, so winning in its

true womanliness, that Father Honore felt the tears bite his eyeballs.

"Perhaps I don't need to go then."

"This rejoices me, Aileen--it will rejoice us all," he answered heartily

to cover his emotion.

"But it won't be easy to stay where I am."

"I know--I know; you speak as one who has suffered; but has not Champney

suffered too? Think of his home-coming!"

"Yes, he has suffered--in a way--but not my way."

Father Honore had a vision at that moment of Champney Googe's face when

he said, "But you loved her with your whole manhood." He made no reply,

but waited for Aileen to say more if she should so choose.

"I believed he loved me--and so I told him my love--I shall never, never

get over that!" she exclaimed passionately. "But I know now--I knew

before he went away the last time, that I was mistaken; no man could

say what he did and know even the first letter of love."

Her indignation was rising, and Father Honore welcomed it; it was a

natural trait with her, and its suppression gave him more cause for

anxiety than its expression.

"He didn't love me--not really--"

"Are you sure of this, Aileen?"

"Yes, I am sure."

"You have good reason to know that you are telling a fact in asserting

this?"

"Yes, altogether too good a reason." There was a return of bitterness in

her answer.

Father Honore was baffled. Aileen spoke without further questioning.

Evidently she was desirous of making her position as well as Champney's

plain to him and to herself. Her voice grew more gentle as she

continued:--

"Father Honore, I've loved him so long--and so truly, without hope, you

know--never any hope, and hating myself for loving where I was not

loved--that I think I do know what love is--"

Father Honore smiled to himself in the half-dark; this voice was still

young, and its love-wisdom was young-wise, also. There was hope, he told

himself, that all would come right in the end--work together for good.

"But Mr. Googe never loved me as I loved him--and I couldn't accept

less."

The priest caught but the lesser part of her meaning. Even his wisdom

and years failed to throw light on the devious path of Aileen's thoughts

at this moment. Of the truth contained in her expression, he had no

inkling.

"Aileen, I don't know that I can make it plain to you, but--a man's

love is so different from a woman's that, sometimes, I think such a

statement as you have just made is so full of flaws that it amounts to

sophistry; but there is no need to discuss that.--Let me ask you if you

can endure to stay on with Mrs. Champney for a few months longer? I have

a very special reason for asking this. Sometime I will tell you."

"Oh, yes;" she spoke wearily, indifferently; "I may as well stay there

as anywhere now." Then with more interest and animation, "May I tell you

something I have kept to myself all these years? I want to get rid of

it."

"Surely--the more the better when the heart is burdened."

He took his seat again, and with pitying love and ever increasing

interest and amazement listened to her recital of the part she played on

that October night in the quarry woods--of her hate that turned to love

again when she found the man she had both loved and hated in the extreme

of need, of the 'murder'--so she termed it in her contrition--of Rag, of

her swearing Luigi to silence. She told of herself--but of Champney

Googe's unmanly temptation of her honor, of his mad passion for her, she

said never a word; her two pronounced traits of chastity and loyalty

forbade it, as well as the desire of a loving woman to shield him she

loved in spite of herself.

Of the little handkerchief that played its part in that night's

threatened tragedy she said nothing--neither did Father Honore;

evidently, she had forgotten it.

Suddenly she clasped her hands hard over her heart.

"That dear loving little dog's death has lain here like a stone all

these years," she said, and rose to go.

"You are absolved, Aileen," he said smiling. "It was, like many others,

a little devoted life sacrificed to a great love."

He reached to press the button that turned on the electric lights. Their

soft brilliance caught in sparkling gleams on the points of a small

piece of almost pure white granite among the specimens on the shelf

above them. Father Honore rose and took it from its place.

"This is for you, Aileen," he said handing it to her.

"For me?" She looked at him in wonder, not understanding what he meant

by this insignificant gift at such a time.

He smiled at her look of amazement.

"No wonder you look puzzled. You must be thinking you have 'asked me for

bread and I am giving you a stone.' But this is for remembrance."

He hesitated a moment.

"You said once this afternoon, that for years it had been a hell on

earth for you--a strong expression to fall from a young woman's lips;

and I said nothing. Sometime, perhaps, you will see things differently.

But if I said nothing, it was only because I thought the more; for just

as you spoke those words, my eye caught the glitter of this piece of

granite in the firelight, and I said to myself--'that is like what

Aileen's life will be, and through her life what her character will

prove to be.' This stone has been crushed, subjected to unimaginable

heat, upheaved, submerged, ground again to powder, remelted,

overwhelmed, made adamant, rent, upheaved again,--and now, after aeons,

it lies here so near the blue above our Flamsted Hills, worthy to be

used and put to all noble uses; fittest in all the world for foundation

stone--for it is the foundation rock of our earth crust--for all

lasting memorials of great deed and noble thought; for all temples and

holies of holies. Take it, Aileen, and--remember!"

"I will, oh, I will; and I'll try to fit myself, too; I'll try, dear,

dear Father Honore," she said humbly, gratefully.

He held out his hand and she placed hers in it. He opened the door.

"Good night, Aileen, and God bless you."

"Good night, Father Honore."

She went out into the clear winter starlight. The piece of granite, she

held tightly clasped in her hand.

* * * * *

The priest, after closing the door, went to the pine table and opening a

drawer took out a letter. It bore a recent date. It was from the

chaplain of the prison and informed him there was a strong prospect of

release for Champney Googe at least three months before the end of his

term. Father Honore smiled to himself. He refolded it and laid it in the

drawer.