"John Randolph!"
"Rege!"
The two men stood facing each other with hands held in a vice-like
grasp, all unconscious of what was going on around them in the street.
"Where did you come from?"
"Where have you been?"
John laughed. "In and around Marlborough all the time, except when I
went to New York for my degree."
"And never let us hear a word from you all these years!"
"You forget, Rege, your father forbade me to hold any communication with
Hollywood."
Reginald's face grew grave. "Poor father. Well he's done with it all
now."
"You don't mean that he is dead, Rege?"
"Yes--and little Nan."
"Oh!" The exclamation was sharp with pain.
"I think she fretted for you, John. She just seemed to pine away. Every
day we missed her about the same time, and they always found her in the
same place, down by the green road. Then scarlet fever came. She never
spoke of getting well--didn't seem to want to. The night she died she
put her arms around mother's neck and whispered. 'Tell Don me'll be
waitin' at the gate.' That was all."
John wrung Reginald's hand and turned away. Reginald looked after him
with misty eyes. "I used to tell mother it would break his heart. I
never saw any one so wrapped up in a child!"
"And your father, Rege?" John was calm again.
"Had a fit of apoplexy soon after. I think Nan was the only thing in the
world he cared for. It had never struck him that she could die. We sold
Hollywood and went abroad. Mother's health broke down--she was never
very strong, you know. We spent one year in Italy and one in France, but
the shock had been too great. She lies in a lovely spot beside the sea."
"Not your mother too, Rege!"
Reginald's voice broke. "Yes, they are all gone. It was a great deal to
happen in a few years. I am a wealthy man, John, but I am all alone in
the world, except for Elise. Well," he added more lightly, "I have
learned not to rebel at the inevitable. It is only what we have to
expect."
"Elise!" echoed John wonderingly, after the first shock of grief was
over.
"My wife," said Reginald proudly. "You must come home at once and let me
show you the sweetest woman in the world."
"Not just yet, Rege I must pay a visit to Mrs. O'Flannigan, then there
is the hospital, and the dispensary, and I promised to concoct a bed for
a poor fellow in the last stages of heart trouble. But I will come
to-night."
"Always helping somewhere, John. What a grand fellow you are!"
"We are in the world to help the world, else what were the use of
living?"
"I can't do anything," said Reginald, "with this clog." He looked
contemptuously at his ebony crutch as he spoke.
John laid his hand upon his arm. "Rege," he said in his old, tender way.
"I think this very 'clog' as you call it, is a preparation to help those
who are passing through the baptism of pain."
* * * * *
Mrs. Reginald Hawthorne welcomed her husband's friend with a winning
charm. She was very pretty, very graceful and very young. Reginald
idolized her. John saw that as he looked around the sumptuous home whose
every fitting was a tribute to her taste. They had just finished
unpacking the things they had brought from Europe.
"Strangely enough," said Reginald with a laugh, "I told Elise this
morning that now I was going to start out in search of you!"
He had developed wonderfully. John saw that too. Travel and trial had
brought out the good that was in him--but not the best.
The evening passed pleasantly. Mrs. Hawthorne played beautifully, and
Reginald had kept ears and eyes open and talked well.
"How about the other life, Rege?" asked John when they had a few moments
alone. "This one seems very fair."
"All a humbug, John. You Christians are chasing a will o' the wisp, a
jack o' lantern. You remember my fad for mathematics? I have followed it
up, and I find your theory a 'reductio ad absurdum.' I must have
everything demonstrable and clear. This is neither."
"Yet it was a great mathematician who said, 'Omit eternity in your
estimate of area and your solution is wrong.'"
Reginald shook his head. "I have nothing to do with this faith business.
I go as far as I see, no further."
"God calls our wisdom foolishness, Rege. Jesus Christ put a tremendous
premium upon the faith of a little child."
"Things must be tangible for me to believe in them. Reason is king with
me."
"Without faith in your fellow man--and your wife--you would have a poor
time of it, Rege; why should you refuse to have faith in your God? Is
your will tangible, and can you demonstrate the mysterious forces of
nature? You know you can't, Rege, you have to take them on trust; and if
you had seen what I have, you would know that poor human reason is a
pitiful thing! But I won't argue with you. Some day you will
understand."
Reginald Hawthorne went back into the room where his wife was sitting.
"Elise, darling, you have seen one of the grandest men in the world
to-night. The only trouble is that on one subject he is a crank."
"Oh, Reginald, do you mean it! I thought he was splendid. And what a
wonderful face he has!"
Reginald started. "Hah! Am I to be jealous of my old friend? But I might
have known," he added sadly, "no one could care long for such a wreck as
I!"
The girl wife put her arms around his neck and kissed him softly, "You
foolish boy!" she whispered, "you know I shall never love any one but
you!"
And Reginald Hawthorne counted himself a perfectly happy man.