Two years and a half following William Truedale's death found things
much as the old gentleman would have liked. Often Lynda Kendall, sitting
beside the long, low, empty chair, longed to tell her old friend all
about it. Strange to say, the recluse in life had become very vital in
death. He had wrought, in his silent, lonely detachment, better even
than he knew. His charities, shorn of the degrading elements of many
similar ones, were carried on without a hitch. Dr. McPherson, under his
crust of hardness, was an idealist and almost a sentimentalist; but
above all he was a man to inspire respect and command obedience. No
hospital with which he had to deal was unmarked by his personality.
Neglect and indifference were fatal attributes for internes and nurses.
"Give the youngsters sleep enough, food and relaxation enough," he would
say to the superintendents, "but after that expect--and get--faithful,
conscientious service with as much humanity as possible thrown in."
The sanatorium for cases such as William Truedale's was already
attracting wide attention. The finest men to be obtained were on the
staff; specially trained nurses were selected; and Lynda had put her
best thought and energy into the furnishing of the small rooms and
spacious wards.
Conning, becoming used to the demands made upon him, was at last
dependable, and grew to see, in each sufferer the representative of the
uncle he had never understood; whom he had neglected and, too late, had
learned to respect. He was almost ashamed to confess how deeply
interested he was in the sanatorium. Recalling at times the loneliness
and weariness of William Truedale's days--picturing the sad night when
he had, as Lynda put it, opened the door himself, to release and
hope--Conning sought to ease the way for others and so fill the waiting
hours that less opportunity was left for melancholy thought. He
introduced amusements and pastimes in the hospital, often shared them
himself, and still attended to the other business that William
Truedale's affairs involved.
The men who had been appointed to direct and control these interests
eventually let the reins fall into the hands eager to grasp them and, in
the endless labour and sense of usefulness, Conning learned to know
content and comparative peace. He grew to look upon his present life as
a kind of belated reparation. He was not depressed; with surprising
adaptability he accepted what was inevitable and, while reserving, in
the personal sense, his past for private hours, he managed to construct
a philosophy and cheerfulness that carried him well on the tide of
events.
It was something of a shock to him one evening, nearly three years after
his visit to Pine Cone, to find himself looking at Lynda Kendall as if
he had never seen her before.
She was going out with Brace and was in evening dress. Truedale had
never seen her gowned so, and he realized that she was extremely
handsome and--something more. She came close to him, drawing on her
long, loose, white gloves.
"I cannot bear to go and leave you--all alone!" she said, raising her
eyes to his.
"You see, John Morrell is showing us his brand-new wife to-night--and I
couldn't resist; but I'll try to break away early."
"You are eager to see--Mrs. Morrell?" Truedale asked, and suddenly
recalled the relation Lynda had once held to Morrell. He had not thought
of it for many a day.
"Very. You see I hope to be great friends with her. I want--"
"What, Lynda?"
"Well, to help her understand--John."
"Let me button your glove, Lyn"--for Truedale saw her hands were
trembling though her eyes were peaceful and happy. And then as the long,
slim hand rested in his, he asked:
"And you--have never regretted, Lyn?"
"Regretted? Does a woman regret when she's saved from a mistake and
gets off scot-free as well?"
They looked at each other for a moment and then Lynda drew away her
hand.
"Thanks, Con, and please miss us a little, but not too much. What will
you do to pass the time until we return?"
"I think"--Truedale pulled himself up sharply--"I think I'll go up under
the eaves and get out--the old play!"
"Oh! how splendid! And you will--let me hear it--some day, soon?"
"Yes. Business is going easier now. I can think of it without neglecting
better things. Good-night, Lyn. Tuck your coat up close, the night's
bad."
And then, alone in the warm, bright room, Truedale had a distinct sense
of Lynda having taken something besides herself away. She had left the
room hideously lonely; it became unbearable to remain there and, like a
boy, Conning ran up to the small room next the roof.
He took the old play out--he had not unpacked it since he came from Pine
Cone! He laid it before him and presently became absorbed in reading it
from the beginning. It was after eleven when he raised his tired eyes
from the pages and leaned back in his chair.
"I'm like--all men!" he muttered. "All men--and I thought things had
gone deeper with me."
What he was recognizing was that the play and the subtle influence that
Nella-Rose had had upon him had both lost their terrific hold. He could
contemplate the past without the sickening sense of wrong and shock that
had once overpowered him. Realizing the full meaning of all that had
gone into his past experience, he found himself thinking of Lynda as she
had looked a few hours before. He resented the lesser hold the past
still had upon him--he wanted to shake it free. Not bitterly--not with
contempt--but, he argued, why should his life be shadowed always by a
mistake, cruel and unpardonable as it was, when she, that little
ignorant partner in the wrong, had gone her way and had doubtless by now
put him forever from her mind?
How small a part it had played with her, poor child. She had been
betrayed by her strange imagination and suddenly awakened passion; she
had followed blindly where he had led, but when catastrophe had
threatened one who had been part of her former life--familiar with all
that was real to her--how readily the untamed instinct had reverted to
its own!
And he--Truedale comforted himself--he had come back to _his_ own, and
his own had made its claim upon him. Why should he not have his second
chance? He wanted love--not friendship; he wanted--Lynda! All else faded
and Lynda, the new Lynda--Lynda with the hair that had learned to curl,
the girl with the pretty white shoulders and sweet, kind eyes--stood
pleadingly close in the shabby old room and demanded recognition. "She
thinks," and here Truedale covered his eyes, "that I am--as I was when I
began my life--here! What would she say--if she knew? She, God bless
her, is not like others. Faithful, pure, she could not forgive the
_truth_!"
Truedale, thinking so of Lynda Kendall, owned to his best self that
because the woman who now filled his life held to her high ideals--would
never lower them--he could honour and reverence her. If she, like him,
could change, and accept selfishly that which she would scorn in
another, she would not be the splendid creature she was. And
yet--without conceit or vanity--Truedale believed that Lynda felt for
him what he felt for her.
Never doubting that he could bring to her an unsullied past, she was,
delicately, in finest woman-fashion, laying her heart open to him. She
knew that he had little to offer and yet--and yet--she was--willing!
Truedale knew this to be true. And then he decided he must, even at this
late day, tell Lynda of the past. For her sake he dare not venture any
further concealment. Once she understood--once she recovered from her
surprise and shock--she would be his friend, he felt confident of that;
but she would be spared any deeper personal interest. It was Lynda's
magnificent steadfastness that now appealed to Truedale. With the
passing of his own season of madness, he looked upon this calm serenity
of her character with deepest admiration.
"The best any man should hope for," he admitted--turning, as he thought,
his back upon his yearning--"any man who has played the fool as I have,
is the sympathetic friendship of a good woman. What right has a man to
fall from what he knows a woman holds highest, and then look to her to
change her ideals to fit his pattern?"
Arriving at this conclusion, Truedale wrapped the tattered shreds of his
self-respect about him and accepted, as best he could, the prospect of
Lynda's adjustment to the future.
Brace and Lynda did not return in time to see Truedale that night. At
twelve, with a resigned sigh, he put away his play and went to his
lonely rooms in the tall apartment farther uptown. His dog was waiting
for him with the reproachful look in his faithful eyes that reminded
Truedale that the poor beast had not had an outing for twenty-four
hours.
"Come on, old fellow," he said, "better late than never," and the two
descended to the street. They walked sedately for an hour. The dog
longed to gambol; he was young enough to associate outdoors with
license; but being a friend as well as a dog, he felt that this was
rather a time for close comradeship, so he pattered along at his
master's heels and once in a while pushed his cold nose into the limp
hand swinging by Truedale's side. "Thank God!" Conning thought,
reaching down to pat the sleek head, "I can keep you without--confession!"
For three days and nights Truedale stayed away from the old home.
Business was his excuse--he offered it in the form of a note and a bunch
of violets. Lynda telephoned on the second day and asked him if he were
quite well. The tone of her voice made him decide to see her at once.
"May I come to dinner to-night, Lyn?" he asked.
"Sorry, Con, but I must dine with some people who have bought a hideous
house and want me to get them out of the scrape by remodelling the
inside. They're awfully rich and impossible--it's a sort of duty to the
public, you know."
"To-morrow then, Lyn?"
"Yes, indeed. Only Brace will be dining with the Morrells; by the way,
she's a dear, Con."
The next night was terrifically stormy--one of those spring storms that
sweep everything before them. The bubbles danced on the pavements, the
gutters ran floods, and fragments of umbrellas and garments floated
incongruously on the tide.
Battling against the wind, Conning made his way to Lynda's. As he drew
near the house the glow from the windows seemed to meet and touch him
with welcome.
"I'll economize somewhere," Lynda often said, "but when darkness comes
I'm always going to do my best to get the better of it."
Just for one blank moment Truedale had a sickening thought: "Suppose
that welcome was never again for him, after this night?" Then he laughed
derisively. Lynda might have her ideals, her eternal reservations, but
she also had her superb faithfulness. After she knew _all_, she would
still be his friend.
When he went into the library Lynda sat before the fire knitting a long
strip of vivid wools. Conning had never seen her so employed and it had
the effect of puzzling him; it was like seeing her--well, smoking, as
some of her friends did! Nothing wrong in it--but, inharmonious.
"What are you making, Lyn?" he asked, taking the ottoman and drawing
close to her.
"It--it isn't anything, Con. No one wants trash like this. It fulfils
its mission when it is ravelled and knitted, then unravelled. You know
what Stevenson says: 'I travel for travel's sake; the great affair is to
move.' I knit for knitting's sake; it keeps my hands busy while my--my
soul basks."
She looked up with a smile and Truedale saw that she was ill at ease. It
was the one thing that unnerved him. Had she been her old,
self-contained self he could have depended upon her to bear her part
while he eased his soul by burdening hers; but now he caught in her the
appealing tenderness that had always awakened in old William Truedale
the effort to save her from herself--from the cares others laid upon
her.
Conning, instead of plunging into his confession, looked at her in such
a protecting, yearning way that Lynda's eyes fell, and the soft colour
slowly crept in her cheeks.
In the stillness, that neither knew how to break, Truedale noticed the
gown Lynda wore. It was blue and clinging. The whiteness of her slim
arms showed through the loose sleeves; the round throat was bare and
girlish in its drooping curve.
For one mad moment Truedale tried to stifle his conscience. Why should
he not have this love and happiness that lay close to him? In what was
he different from the majority of men? Then he thought--as others before
him had thought--that, since the race must be preserved, the primal
impulses should not be denied. They outlived everything; they rallied
from shock--even death; they persisted until extinction; and here was
this sweet woman with all her gracious loveliness near him. He loved
her! Yes, strange as it seemed even then to him, Truedale acknowledged
that he loved her with the love, unlike yet like the love that had been
too rudely awakened in the lonely woods when he had been still incapable
of understanding it.
Then the storm outside reached his consciousness and awakened memories
that hurt and stung him.
No. He was not as many men who could take and take and find excuse. The
very sincerity of the past and future must prove itself, now, in this
throbbing, vital present. Only so could he justify himself and his
belief in goodness. He must open his heart and soul to the woman beside
him. There was no other alternative.
But first they dined together across the hall. Truedale noted every
special dish--the meal was composed of his favourite viands. The
intimacy of sitting opposite Lynda, the smiling pleasure of old Thomas
who served them, combined to lure him again from his stern sense of
duty.
Why? Why? his yearning pleaded. Why should he destroy his own future
happiness and that of this sweet, innocent woman for a whim--that was
what he tried to term it--of conscience? Why, there were men, thousands
of them, who would call him by a harsher name than he cared to own, if
he followed such a course; and yet--then Truedale looked across at
Lynda.
"A woman should have clear vision and choice," his reason commanded, and
to this his love agreed.
But alone with Lynda, in the library later, the conflict was renewed.
Never had she been so sweet, so kind. The storm beat against the house
and instead of interfering, seemed to hold them close and--together. It
no longer aroused in Truedale recollections that smarted. It was like an
old familiar guide leading his thought into ways sacred and happy. Then
suddenly, out of a consciousness that knew neither doubt nor fear, he
said:
"You and I, Lyn, were never afraid of truth, were we?"
"Never."
She was knitting again--knitting feverishly and desperately.
"Lyn--I want to tell you--all about it! About something you must know."
Very quietly now, Lynda rolled her work together and tossed it, needles
and all, upon the glowing logs. She was done, forever, with subterfuge
and she knew it. The wool curled, blackened, and gave forth a scorched
smell before the red coals subdued it. Then, with a straight, uplifted
look:
"I'm ready, Con."
"Just before I broke down and went away, Brace once told me that my life
had no background, no colour. Lynda, it is of that background about
which you do not know, that I want to speak." He waited a moment, then
went on:
"I went away--to the loneliest, the most beautiful place I had ever
seen. For a time there seemed to be nobody in the world but the man with
whom I lived and me. He liked and trusted me--I betrayed his trust!"
Lynda caught her breath and gave a little exclamation of dissent,
wonder.
"You--betrayed him, Con! I cannot believe that. Go on."
"Yes. I betrayed his trust. He left me and went into the deep woods to
hunt. He put everything in my care--everything. He was gone nearly three
weeks. No one knew of my existence. They are like that down there. If
you are an outsider you do not matter. I had arrived at dark; I was sent
for a certain purpose; that was all that mattered. I began and ended
with the man who was my host and who had been told to--to keep me
secret." Truedale was gripping the arms of his chair and his words came
punctuated by sharp pauses.
"And then, into that solitude, came a young girl. Remember, she did not
know of my existence. We--discovered each other like creatures in a new
world. There are no words to describe her--I cannot even attempt it,
Lynda. I ruined her life. That's all!"
The bald, crushing truth was out. For a moment the man Lynda Kendall
knew and loved seemed hiding behind this monster the confession had
called forth. A lesser woman would have shrunk in affright, but not
Lynda.
"No. That is not all," she whispered hoarsely, putting her hands out as
though pushing something tangible aside until she could reach Conning.
"I demand the rest."
"What matters it?" Truedale spoke bitterly. "If I tell how and why, can
that alter the--fact? Oh! I have had my hours of explaining and
justifying and glossing over; but I've come at last to the point where
I see myself as I am and I shall never argue the thing again."
"Con, you have shown me the man as man might see him; I must--I must
have him as a woman--as his God--must see him!"
"And you think it possible for me to grant this? You--you, Lynda, would
you have me put up a defense for what I did?"
"No. But I would have you throw all the light upon it that you can. I
want to see--for myself. I will not accept the hideous skeleton you have
hung before me. Con, I have never really known but five men in my life;
but women--women have lain heart deep along my way ever since--I learned
to know my mother! Not only for yourself, but for that girl who drifted
into your solitude, I demand light--all that you can give me!"
And now Truedale breathed hard and the muscles of his face twitched. He
was about to lay bare the inscrutable, the holy thing of his life,
fearing that even the woman near him could not be just. He had accepted
his own fate, so he thought; he meant not to whine or complain, but how
was he to live his life if Lynda failed to agree with him--where
Nella-Rose was concerned?
"Will you--can you--do what I ask, Con?"
"Yes--in a minute."
"You--loved her? She loved you--Con?" Lynda strove to smooth the way,
not so much for Truedale as for herself.
"Yes! I found her in my cabin one day when I returned from a long tramp.
She had decked herself out in my bathrobe and the old fez. Not knowing
anything about me, she was horribly frightened when I came upon her. At
first she seemed nothing but a child--she took me by storm. We met in
the woods later. I read to her, taught her, played with her--I, who had
never played in my life before. Then suddenly she became a woman! She
knew no law but her own; she was full of courage and daring and a
splendid disregard for conventions as--as we all know them. For her,
they simply did not exist. I--I was willing and eager to cast my future
hopes of happiness with hers--God knows I was sincere in that!
"Then came a night of storm--such as this. Can you imagine it in the
black forests where small streams become rivers in a moment, carrying
all before them as they plunge and roar down the mountain sides? Dangers
of all sorts threatened and, in the midst of that storm, something
occurred that involved me! I had sent Nella-Rose--that was her
name--away earlier in the day. I could not trust myself. But she came
back to warn me. It meant risking everything, for her people were abroad
that night bent on ugly business; she had to betray them in order to
save me. To have turned her adrift would have meant death, or worse.
She remained with me nearly a week--she and I alone in that cabin and
cut off from the world--she and I! There was only myself to depend
upon--and, Lynda, I failed again!"
"But, Con--you meant to--to marry her; you meant that--from the first?"
Lynda had forgotten herself, her suffering. She was struggling to save
something more precious than her love; she was holding to her faith in
Truedale.
"Good God! yes. It was the one thing I wanted--the one thing I planned.
In my madness it did not seem to matter much except as a safeguard for
her--but I had no other thought or intention. We meant to go to a
minister as soon as the storm released us. Then came the telegram about
Uncle William, and the minister was killed during the storm. Lynda, I
wanted to bring Nella-Rose to you just as she was, but she would not
come. I left my address and told her to send for me if she needed me--I
meant to return as soon as I could, anyway. I would have left anything
for her. She never sent for me--and the very day I left--she--"
"What, Con? I must know all."
"Lynda, before God I believe something drove the child to it; you must
not--you shall not judge her. But she went, the very night I left, to a
man--a man of the hills--who had loved her all his life. He was in
danger; he escaped, taking her with him!"
"I--I do _not_ believe it!" The words rang out sharply, defiantly.
Woman was in arms for woman. The loyalty that few men admit confronted
Truedale now. It seemed to glorify the darkness about him. He had no
further fear for Nella-Rose and he bowed his head before Lynda's blazing
eyes.
"God bless you!" he whispered, "but oh! Lyn, I went back to make sure. I
had the truth from her own father. And with all--she stands to this day,
in my memory, guiltless of the monstrous wrong she seemed to commit; and
so she will always stand.
"Since then, Lynda, I have lived a new piece of life; the past lies back
there and it is dead, dead. I would not have told you this but for one
great and tremendous thing. You will not understand this; no woman
could. A man could, but not a woman.
"As I once loved--in another way--that child of the hills, I love you,
the one woman of my manhood's clearer vision. Because of that love--I
had to speak."
Truedale looked up and met the eyes that searched his soul.
"I believe you," Lynda faltered. "I do not understand, but I believe
you. Go away now, Con, I want to think."
He rose at once and bent over her. "God bless you, Lyn," was all he
said.