Having agreed upon this period of probation both Lynda and Truedale
entered upon it with characteristic determination. There were times when
Conning dejectedly believed that no woman could act as Lynda was doing,
if she loved a man. No, it was not in woman's power to forego all Lynda
was foregoing if she loved deeply. Not that Lynda could be said to be
cold or indifferent; she had never been sweeter, truer; but she was so
amazingly serene!
Perhaps she was content, having secured his rights for him, to go on and
be thankful that so little was actually exacted from her.
But such reasoning eventually shamed Truedale, and he acknowledged that
there was something superb in a woman who, while still loving a man, was
able to withhold herself from him until both he and she had sounded the
depths of their natures.
In this state of mind Truedale devoted himself to business, and Lynda,
with a fresh power that surprised even herself, resumed her own tasks.
"And this is _love_," she often thought to herself, "it is the real
thing. Some women think they have love when _love has them_. This
beautiful, tangible something that is making even these days sacred has
proved itself. I can rely upon it--lean heavily upon it."
Sometimes she wondered what she was waiting for. Often she feared, in
her sad moments, that it might last forever--be accepted this poor
counterfeit for the real--and the full glory escape her and Truedale.
But at her best she knew what she was waiting for--what was coming. It
was something that, driving all else away, would carry her and Conning
together without reservations or doubts. They would _know!_ He would
know the master passion of his life; she, that she could count all lost
unless she made his life complete and so crown her own.
The money was never mentioned. In good and safe investments it lay,
awaiting a day, so Truedale told McPherson, when it could be got rid of
without dishonour or disgrace.
"But, good heavens! haven't you any personal ambitions--you and Lynda?"
McPherson had learned to admire Conning, and Lynda had always been one
of his private inspirations.
"None that Lynda and I cannot supply ourselves," Truedale replied. "To
have our work, and the necessity for our work, taken from us would be no
advantage."
"But haven't you a duty to the money?"
"Yes, we have, and I'm trying to find out just what it is."
And living this strange, abnormal life--often wondering why, and
fearing much--three, then four years, passed them by.
It is one thing for two proud, sensitive natures to enter upon a
deliberate course, and quite another for them to abandon it when the
supposed need is past. There was now no doubt in Truedale's heart
concerning Lynda's motive for marrying him; nor did Lynda for one moment
question Truedale's deep affection for her. Yet they waited--quite
subconsciously at first, then with tragic stubbornness--for something to
sweep obstacles aside without either surrendering his position.
"He must want me so that nothing can sway him again," thought Lynda.
"She must know that my love for her can endure anything--even this!"
argued Conning, and his stand was better taken than hers as she was to
find out one day.
It seemed enough, in the beginning, to live their lives close and
confidentially--to feel the tie of dependence that held them; but the
knot cut in deep at times and they suffered in foolish but proud
silence.
Many things occurred during those years that widened the horizon for
them all. Betty's first child came and went, almost taking the life of
the young mother with it. Before the possible calamity Brace stood
appalled, and both Conning and Lynda realized how true a note the girl
was in their lives. She seemed to belong to them in a sense stronger
than blood could have made her. They could not imagine life without her
sunny companionship. Never were they to forget the grim dreariness of
the once cheerful apartment during those days and nights when Death
hovered near, weighing the chances. But Betty recovered and came back
with a yearning look in her eyes that had never been there before.
"You see," she confided to Lynda, "there will always be moments when I
must listen to hear if my baby is calling. At times, Lyn, it seems as if
he were just on ahead--keeping me from forgetting. It doesn't make me
sad, dear, it's really beautiful that he didn't quite escape me."
"And do you go to The Refuge to think and look and listen?" Lynda asked.
For they all worried now when Betty betook herself to the little house.
"Not much!" And here Betty twinkled. "I go there to meet Betty Arnold
face to face, and ask her if she would rather trade back. And then I
come trotting home, almost out of breath, to precious old Brace; I'm so
afraid he won't know he's still the one big thing in the world for me."
This little child of Betty's and Brace's had made a deep impression upon
them all. It had lived only three days and while it stayed the black
shadow hanging over the mother had made the baby seem of less account;
but later, they all recalled the pretty, soft mite with the strange,
old look in its wide eyes. He had been beautiful as babies who are not
going to stay often are. There were to be no years for him to change and
grow and so loveliness came with him.
"I reckon the little chap thought we didn't want him," Brace choked as
he spoke over the small, cold body of his first-born, "so he turned back
home before he forgot the way."
"Don't, brother!" Lynda pleaded as she stood with Truedale beside him.
"You know the way home might have been longer and harder, by and by."
"I wish Betty and I might have helped to make it easier; for a time,
anyway." The eternal revolt against seemingly useless suffering rang in
the words.
And that night Truedale had kissed Lynda lingeringly.
"Such things," he said, referring to the day's sad duties, "such things
do drag people together."
After that something new throbbed in their lives--something that had not
held sway before. If Betty looked and listened for the little creature
who had gone on ahead, Lynda listened and looked into what had been a
void in her life before.
She had always loved children in a kindly, detached way, but she had
never appropriated them. But now she could not forget the feeling of
that small, downy head that for a day or so nestled on her breast while
the young mother's feet all but slipped over the brink. She remembered
the strange look in the child's deep eyes the night it died. The
lonely, aged look that, in passing, seemed trying to fix one familiar
object. And when the dim light went out in the little face and only a
dead baby lay in her arms, maternity had been called forth from its
slumber and in following Betty's child, became vitalized and definite.
"I--I think I shall adopt a child." So she had thought while the cold
little head yet lay in the hollow of her arm. She never let go this
thought and only hesitated before voicing it to Truedale because she
feared he could not understand and might cruelly misunderstand. Life was
hard enough and difficult enough for them both just then, and often,
coming into the quiet home at the day's end, Lynda would say, to cheer
her faint heart:
"Oh, well, it's really like coming to a hearth upon which the fire is
not yet kindled. But, thank heaven! it is a clean hearth, not cluttered
with ashes--it is ready for the fire."
But was it? More and more as the time went on and Truedale kept his
faith and walked his way near hers--oh! they were thankful for that--but
still apart, Lynda wondered. It was all so futile, so utterly selfish
and childish--yet neither spoke. Then suddenly came the big thing that
drove them together and swept aside all the barrier of rubbish they had
erected. Like many great and portentous things it seemed very like the
still, small voice in the burning bush--the tiny star in the black
night.
Truedale had had an enlightening conversation with McPherson in the
afternoon. The old doctor was really a soft-hearted sentimentalist and
occasionally he laid himself bare to the eye of some trustworthy friend.
This time it was Truedale.
Up and down the plain, businesslike office McPherson was tramping when
Conning was announced.
"Oh! come in, come in!" called McPherson. "You can better understand
this than some. I've had a devil of a day. One confounded thing after
another to take the soul out of me. And now this letter from old Jim
White!"
Conning started. It had now been years since Pine Cone had touched his
thought sharply.
"What's the matter with White?" he asked.
"Look out of the window!"
Truedale did so, and into the wall-like snow which had been falling all
day.
"They've been having that in the mountains for weeks. Trails blotted
out, folk hiding like beasts, and that good old chap, White, took this
time to break his leg. There he lay for a whole week, damn it all! Two
of his dogs died--he, himself, almost starved. Managed to crawl to the
food while there was any, and then some one ploughed through to get Jim
to organize a hanging or some other trifling thing, and found him! Good
Lord, Truedale, what they need down there is roads! roads! Roads over
which folk can travel to one another and become human. That's all the
world needs anyway!" Here McPherson stopped in front of Truedale and
glared as if about to put the blame of impeded traffic up to him. "Roads
over which folk can travel to one another. See here, you're looking for
some excuse to get rid of your damned money. Why don't you build roads?"
"Roads?" Truedale did not know whether to laugh or take his man
seriously.
"Yes, roads. I'm going down to Jim. I haven't much money; I've made a
good deal, but somehow I never seem able to be caught with the goods on
me. But what little I've got now goes to Jim for the purpose of forging
a connecting link between him and the Centre. But here's a job for you.
You can grasp this need. I've got a boy in the hospital; he caved in
from over-study. Trying to get an education while starving himself to
death and doing without underclothes. You ought to know how to hew a
short cut to him, Truedale; you did some hacking through underbrush
yourself. If I didn't believe folk would travel to one another over
roads, if there _were_ roads, I'd go out and cut my throat."
The big man, troubled and as full of sympathy as a tender woman, paused
in his strides and ejaculated:
"Damn it all, Truedale!" Had he been a woman he would have dissolved in
tears.
Truedale at last caught his meaning. Here was a possible chance to set
the accumulating money free. For two hours, while the sun travelled down
to the west, the men talked over plans and projects.
"Of course I'll look after the boy in the hospital, Dr. McPherson. I
know the short cut to him and he probably can lead me to others, but I
want"--and here Truedale's eyes grew gloomy--"I want you to take with
you down to Pine Cone some checks signed in blank. I know the need of
roads down there," did he not? and for an instant his brows grew
furrowed as he reflected how different his own life might have been, had
travelling been easy, back in the time when he was at the mercy of the
storm.
"I'd like to do something for Pine Cone. Make the roads, of course, but
back up those men and women who are doing God's work down there with
little help or money. They know the people--Jim has explained them to
me. They're not 'extry polite,' Jim says, but they understand the needs.
I don't care to have my name known--I'm rather poor stuff for a
philanthropist--but I want to do something as a starter, and this seems
an inspiration."
McPherson had been listening, and gradually his long strides became less
nervous.
"Until to-day, I haven't wished your uncle back, Truedale, since he
went. He was a poor, inarticulate fellow, but I've learned to realize
that he had a wide vision."
"Thank you, Dr. McPherson, but I have often wished him back."
Once outside McPherson's house, Truedale raised his head and sniffed the
clear, winter air with keen enjoyment. A sense of achievement possessed
him; the joy of feeling he had solved a knotty problem. He found he
could think of Pine Cone--and, yes, of Nella-Rose--without a hurting
smart. He was going to do something for her--for her people! He was
going to make life easier--happier--for them, so he prayed in his
silent, wordless way. He had a new and strange impulse to go to Lynda
and tell her that at last he was released from any hold of the past. He
was going to do what he could and there was no longer any dragging of
the anchors. He wanted her to help him--to work out some questions from
the woman's point of view. So he hurried on and entered the house with a
light, boyish step.
Thomas, bent but stately, was laying the table in the cheerful dining
room. There were flowers in a deep green bowl, pale golden asters.
Long afterward Truedale recalled everything as if it had been burned in
his mind.
"Is Miss Lynda in?" he asked, for they all clung to the titles of the
old days.
"Not yet, Mister Con. She went out in a deal of a hurry long about
three o'clock. She didn't say a word--and that's agin her pleasant
fashion--so I took it that she had business that fretted her. She's been
in the workshop all day." Thomas put the plates in place. They were
white china, with delicate gold edges. "Hum! hum! Mister Con, your uncle
used to say, when he felt talkative, that Miss Lynda ought to have some
one to hold her back when she took to running."
"I'll look her up, Thomas!"
Conning went up to the workshop and turned on the electricity. A
desolate sensation overcame the exhilaration of the afternoon. Lynda
seemed strangely, ominously distant--as if she had gone upon a long,
long journey.
There was a dying fire on the hearth and the room was in order except
for the wide table upon which still lay the work Lynda had been engaged
with before she left the house.
Truedale sat down before it and gradually became absorbed, while not
really taking in the meaning of what he saw. He had often studied and
appreciated Lynda's original way of solving her problems. It was not
enough for her to place upon paper the designs her trained talent
evolved; she always, as she put it, lived in the rooms she conceived.
Here were real furniture--diminutive, but perfect, and real
hangings--colour and form ideal, and arranged so that they could be
shifted in order that light effects might be tested.
It was no wonder Truedale had often remarked that Lynda's work was so
individual and personal--she breathed the breath of life in it before
she let it go from her. Truedale had always been thankful that marriage
had not taken from Lynda her joy in her profession. He would have hated
to know that he interfered with so real and vital a gift.
But this room upon which he was now looking was different from anything
he had ever before seen in the workshop. It interested and puzzled him.
Lynda's specialties were libraries and living rooms; there were two or
three things she never attempted--and this? Truedale looked closer. How
pretty it was--like a child's playroom--and how fanciful! There was a
fireplace off in a corner, before which stood a screen with a most
benign goblin warning away, with spread claws, any heedless, toddling
feet. The broad window-seats might serve as boxes for childish treasure.
There were delectable, wee chairs and conveniently low stools; there was
a tiny bed set in a dim corner over which, on a protecting shield,
angels with folded wings and rapt faces were outlined.
"Why, this must be a--nursery!" Truedale exclaimed half aloud; "and she
said she would never design one."
Clearly he recalled Lynda's reason. "If a father and a mother cannot
conceive and carry out the needs of a nursery, they do not deserve one.
I could never bring myself to intrude there."
"What does this mean?" Truedale bent closer. The table had been painted
white to serve as a floor for the dainty setting, and now, as he looked
he saw stains--dark, tell-tale stains on the shining surface.
They were tear-stains; Lynda, who so joyously put her heart and soul in
the ideals for other homes, had wept over the nursery of another woman's
child!
For some reason Truedale was that day particularly open to impression.
As he sat with the toy-like emblems before him, the holiest and
strongest things of life seized upon him with terrific meaning. He drew
out his watch and saw that it was the dinner hour and the still house
proved that the mistress was yet absent.
"There is only one person to whom she would go," he murmured. "I'll go
to Betty's and bring Lynda home."
He made an explanation to Thomas that covered the situation.
"I found what the trouble was, Thomas," he said. "It will be all right
when we get back. But don't keep dinner."
He took a cab to Brace's. He was too distraught to put himself on
exhibition in a public conveyance. Brace sat in lonely but apparently
contented state at the head of his table.
"Bully for you, old man," he greeted. "You were never more welcome. I'll
have a plate put on for you at once. What's the matter? You look--"
"Ken, where's Betty?"
"Run away to herself, Con. Went yesterday. Goes less and less often, but
she cut yesterday."
"Has--has Lynda been here to-day?"
"Yes. About three. When she found Betty gone, she wouldn't stay. Sit
down, old man. You'll learn, as I have, to appreciate Lyn more if she
isn't always where we men have thought women ought to be."
Truedale sat down opposite Kendall but said he would take only a cup of
coffee. When it was finished he rose, more steadily, and said quietly:
"I know it's unwritten law, Ken, that we shouldn't follow Betty up
without an invitation; but I've got to go over there to-night."
"It's dangerous, old man. I advise against it. What's up?"
"I must see Lyn. I believe she is there."
"Rather a large-sized misunderstanding?"
"I hope, Ken, God helping me, it's going to be the biggest
_understanding_ Lynda and I have ever had."
Kendall was impressed--and, consequently, silent.
"I'm sure Betty will forgive me. Good-night."
"Good-night, old chap, and--and whatever it is, I fancy it will come out
all right."
And then, into the night Truedale plunged--determined to master the
absurd situation that both he and Lynda had permitted to exist. He felt
like a man who had been suffering in a nightmare and had just awakened
and shaken off the effect of the unholy dream.