By all the deductions of experience the three people in the little inn
should have, in the light of the morning after, been reduced to common
sense; but the day laughed common sense to scorn and fanned the fires of
the previous evening to bright flame.
"I must write a letter," announced Margaret after breakfast, "a letter so
momentous that it will take me--an hour and a half! But my plans and
yours are all laid. Now, Priscilla, none of your cap and apron look.
You'll do exactly what I tell you to do; and you, too, Doctor Travers."
"I haven't the slightest intention of disobeying. And as for my cap and
apron, I've burned them!" Priscilla tossed her head.
Travers looked at her, and her loveliness seemed enhanced in her trim
white linen gown with its broad collar of Irish lace. How magnificent her
throat was! What a perfect woman she was! And _what_ hair!
"There is a train that leaves here at nine-thirty, a mad little
ramshackle train that goes to The Ghost and back in an hour and a half.
We've all yearned to climb The Ghost, or as much of it as we dared. Now
you two, with Mousey and a servant, are to go on the nine-thirty. I'll
finish my destruction of the social system and catch the eleven o'clock
train. We'll have picnic lunch. They say there's a dreadful cavern at the
base of The Ghost that is corking for picnics, and then we'll explore
until we have to return. Any objections?"
There were none.
"Very well! It's nine now! Priscilla, wear the roughest, heaviest things
you've got. You always have your hours of remorse too late. The Ghost
will chill your blood."
When the little party reached the small station at the mountain foot the
servants started at once to the cavern to build a fire and prepare for
the luncheon.
"Let us walk a bit up the trail," suggested Travers. "I always feel
like the Englishman who said the views halfway up a mountain are more
enjoyable than those on top. At least, you have life enough left to enjoy
them. This particular trail is a mighty wicked one. There ought to be
guides, for safety. I know the way perfectly; my mother and I once stayed
here some years ago. She meant to come here this summer early, but has
decided to wait until Doctor Ledyard joins us. I feel as if I were taking
the cream off the thing. Will you trust me--Priscilla?"
There was challenge and command in the use of her name.
"Absolutely."
"Come, then! I want you to go first. The rise is easy for a half-mile or
so. I can better watch out for you and catch you--if you make a misstep.
The stones are loose and mischievous; the path is ridiculously near the
edge of things. If one should--now do not get nervous, but if you should
go over, just clutch the bushes, the sturdy little clumps, and nothing
can really happen."
"I never get nervous in high places. Being used to dead levels, I have
the courage of the ignorant. Doesn't the air make one----"
"Heady?"
"Yes. I suppose that is it. Heady and--light-hearted."
Travers had his eyes fixed on the form ahead in its dark blue mountain
skirt and corduroy waist.
"I wish you would take off your hat," he said.
Priscilla obeyed.
"Thank you! Will you let me--love you?"
He noticed a tremor run the length of her body.
"Is--that in my giving?" Priscilla meant to play just a little longer,
only a little, and then she must make him see that because this sudden
and great thing had come to them both, they must prove themselves worthy
of it by unselfish recognition of deep truths.
"No. But I would like to have you say--yes! I meant all I said last
evening; you said nothing. I mean to have you, because I love you;
because I know you love me, and because nothing else matters. It's only
fair to warn you. You _do_ love me?"
"Is it love--when everything else is swept aside?"
"Yes."
"All but the longing--for the best?"
"Yes. That is love."
"Then, I love you."
"On ahead there is a tiny bluff, do not speak again until we reach it. A
strange and wonderful thing came to me there once--years ago. I want to
tell you about it, my beloved!"
Travers watched her as he spoke. Again that tremor ran through Priscilla.
It was nearly noon when they stopped, at Travers's word. They had come,
silently, up the trail, only their footsteps and their quicker breathing
breaking the awesome stillness. Their separate thoughts were bringing
them dangerously nearer together, trampling caution, warning, and purpose
beneath their young yearning for the vital meaning of life. When they
faced each other at last it was as if they had indeed been transfigured.
"Mine!" whispered Travers, stretching out his hands. "You are mine! Do
not struggle."
Priscilla put her hands in his, but did not speak.
"And now let us sit here. I want you to understand. You will try to
understand?"
"Yes."
All her life Priscilla was to look back on that moment as the first
perfect one of her life. She felt no shame in taking it. It belonged to
her, and she meant to prove herself to him.
"I feel as if there were a new heaven and a new earth, Priscilla, and
that you and I had just been created--the first man, the first woman.
Dear heart, rest your head, so, against my knee." He was sitting above
her. "Your hair holds all the glory of the sunlight, and how white and
warm your throat is!" His fingers touched it reverently. "Let us cling
to this one hour that has given us to each other. Are you happy?"
"It means--something more than that--this moment----" Priscilla spoke as
if held by a dream.
"You are--content?"
"Yes. That is it. I am--content. I shall never ask for anything more,
anything better. I have everything--the world and--and God, has to give."
"My darling! Now let me tell you. Years ago I came here after a hard
struggle for health. I had never had childhood or boyhood, in the real
sense; but I was well at last! I saw that I was going to have a man's
life, with all that that means, and for months the emotions and cravings,
that generally go to the years of making a child and boy, had been
crowding and pushing me to a sense of having been defrauded, and I meant
to have my turn at last: my joy and pleasure. It seemed just and right to
me that I should taste and revel in all that I had been deprived of. I
had even been deprived of the longing, had not even had the glory of
conquest. I had been such a meaningless creature, I thought I could
afford even to be selfish. I shrank from being _different_--I had been
forced to in the past--but I meant to make up for lost time and take my
place among my fellows.
"One morning, just such a morning as this, I found myself alone--here!
Then I had it out with myself. More distinctly than anything had ever
come to me before I realized that life meant one thing, and one thing
only: the biggest fight or the meanest defeat! I knew that every passion
that burned and flayed me was a warhorse that, if controlled, would carry
me safely through the battle; if succumbed to, would trample me under its
relentless feet. This I knew with my brain, while tradition, inclination,
and longing called me--fool! Well, I was given strength to follow my
head; but every year has been a struggle. I found that to be different
meant contempt often, misunderstanding always. Sometimes it has not
seemed worth while; the victories were so lonely and useless; but I
thanked God last night, when I saw your face as you danced, that I could
offer you a love that need not make the pitiful plea for mercy from your
love. Through temptation and the long fight it has always seemed to me
that no man should ask for pure love without the equivalent to offer in
return.
"Can you understand when I say that this battle of mine has brought me
closer to men and women, with no bitterness in my heart; has left me
free, not to despise them, but to help them?"
"Yes, oh, yes; all my life I could understand those who--fight. I, too,
have fought and fought."
Travers's hand was pressing upward the head against his knee so that he
could look in the uplifted eyes.
"My love! as free man and woman, let us give ourselves to each other!"
Then he bent and kissed the smiling mouth.
"Speak to me, my--wife."
"Yes! But let me think, dear heart. I must speak; the half has only been
told." She moved a bit away from him. Travers let her go with no fear.
"Now, strange little thing, since you cannot speak in my arms, have your
will!" he whispered.
"There is a to-morrow." The even voice had no strain of pain or sorrow in
it. "And we must not forget that. We have played and played until we have
made ourselves believe--such wonderful things; but to-morrow--we will
wake up and be what we have been made! I have heard, oh! so many people,
tell of your future, your honours. I have seen Doctor Ledyard's eyes upon
you; I know you have a mother who adores you. I do not know your world; I
could not touch your place but to mar it, and, because I love you so--oh!
so absolutely, and because I would want, and must have, glory in my own
love--we must stop playing! We have not"--and now the eyes dimmed--"we
have not played for keeps!"
"You poor, little girl! How you use the old, foolish arguments, thinking
yourself--wise. Do you imagine I could let you dim the sacred thing that
has come to us--by such idle prating? There are only you and I and--the
future. You darling child, come here!"
In reaching toward her, Travers's foot pressed too heavily against the
stone upon which she sat; it moved, slipped, and Priscilla escaped his
clutch. Not realizing her danger, she smiled up at him radiantly. She
meant what she had said, but youth could not relinquish its rights
without a struggle, and his eyes were so heavenly kind.
"My God! Clutch the bushes, Priscilla!"
"What--is the matter?" But with the question came the knowledge. She was
going down, down, and every effort he made to save her sent her farther
along the awful slope! She held to a nearby bush but uprooted it by the
force with which she gripped it. Faster, faster, with that terrified face
above her!
"My precious one! Try again! Do not be afraid!"
"No."
And then they both heard the hoarse whistle of the little shuttle train
nearing The Ghost, with Margaret Moffatt on board!
Travers realized the new danger. Very steep was the grade of the
mountain, and it ended on--the tracks!
He shut his eyes; he could do no more. Every move he made imperilled the
woman he would give his life to save. The only comfort he knew was that
he, too, was losing, losing. They would be together at the last.
Priscilla understood also. She looked up and saw him close his eyes; then
fear fled, as it does when the last hope takes it. It would soon be over
for them, and--nothing in all the world could separate them. There was
nothing but him and her! He had seen that; but now she saw it, too. Him
and her! him and her!
"I--love you so!" she whispered. "I am not afraid. I'm sorry. I would
have given myself to you! I would indeed!"
She wanted him to know. He opened his eyes and smiled a twisted, hideous
smile.
"I--meant--to have you." The words came to her faintly. A nearer shriek
of the whistle, and a deafening clang of the bell! Some one at the
throttle of the engine had an inspiration and sent the crazy thing
shooting ahead.
Then it was past, and upon the tracks over which the car had but just
gone lay Priscilla Glenn quite unconscious!
Travers came to himself at once, and took her head on his knee where but
a short time ago it had lain so happily.
"You, Priscilla!" It was Margaret Moffatt who spoke. The train had
stopped; the few passengers had come back to see what had happened.
"Yes; my God! Yes! Miss Moffatt, will you see if she is dead? I dare not
trust--myself."
* * * * *
It was late that night, in Priscilla's room at the inn, that she and
Margaret had their talk.
Priscilla lay upon her bed weak and bruised, but otherwise safe. Margaret
sat beside her, her hand in Priscilla's.
"Doctor Travers has pulled himself together at last," she said. "I never
saw a strong man so shattered. And you, dear, you are sure you have told
me the truth--you are not suffering?"
"No, only a little dazed. That's natural after looking death in the face
for hours and hours while everything slipped away from you--things you
had always thought meant something."
"Yes, poor girl!"
"And they--meant nothing. They never do."
"No. You found that at death's door; I found it at life's. I want to tell
you something, dear, that will make you forget yourself--and think of me.
You are sure you cannot sleep?"
"I do not want to sleep."
"Priscilla, I have given myself to love! You can understand. Travers has
just told me--about him and you!"
A faint colour touched the face on the pillow.
"It was the telling that brought him around. He's superb, and you're a
daffy little goose, Cilla. Imagine a man like Travers letting a girl like
you slip through his fingers."
"He did!" weakly interrupted Priscilla.
"But he followed you right down, and into--hell!"
"Into life and joy, you mean, Margaret--life!"
"Well, at any rate, he was with you. It is magnificent to see a man,
or a woman, big enough, brave enough, and sensible enough to sweep the
senseless rubbish of life aside, and get each other! Oh! it's life as God
meant it. Priscilla, the letter I wrote to-day was to--_my_ man. He's as
splendid as yours. I told you once how I--I loved children. I had taken
that love for granted until something happened. A friend of mine
married--one of the girls my people thought was the kind for me to know.
She didn't understand life any more than I did; she just took one of the
men who wore the same label she did. Her child came--a year after; a
horrible little creature--diseased; dreadful--can you understand?"
"Yes"--Priscilla had turned toward the girl by her side--"yes, I know
what you mean. I have been a nurse."
"That was the first time things we should have known--were known by my
friend and me!" Margaret's voice was low and hard.
"She--she cursed him, her husband--and left him! It was terrible! I was
frightened, more frightened than I had ever been. Everything seemed
tottering around me. I thought--I must die; I dared trust nothing. Just
then--some one told me--he loved me; and I--I had loved him. But I was
more afraid of him than of any one in God's world. I thought I was going
mad, and then--I went to Doctor Ledyard and told him all about it. I just
threw my whole burden of doubt and ignorance upon him--he is such a
_good_ man! Sometimes I weep when I think of him. He was father, friend,
and physician, all in one. He understood. He told me to go away; he got
you for me. He told me to play like a little girl, with only the real and
beautiful things of life; to forget the worries, and he would make sure!
"Priscilla, he has made sure! My love is safe. I can give myself to my
love and let it have its way with me, and in the beautiful future, our
future, his and mine, little children cannot--curse us by their suffering
and deformity.
"This _must_ be the heritage a woman should be able to give her children,
or she has no right to her own love. God has been so good to me--he has
not asked for sacrifice; but"--here she spoke fiercely--"I was ready to
sacrifice my love--for I had seen my friend's baby!
"I had never known God before as I know him now. He came to me with love
and faith and my glorious life. Before, my God was a prayer-book God; a
dead thing that only rustled when we touched him; and now, oh! Cilla, he
is alive and breathing in good men and women, in little children, in all
the beautiful, real things. They did not bury my God, or yours, long ago;
they only set him free for us to find and love and follow."
They clung to each other in a passion of reverence and happiness, and
then kissed each other good night.