Only fifty miles from a great city, the little station seemed like the
typical lodge in a wilderness; as far as one could see up or down the
track, on either side were wooded hills. A vast silence seemed to be
gathering from unseen fastnesses, to halt in this spot.
There were no houses and no lights to be seen anywhere, except that one
swinging on the pole above, and the moon which was just rising. It was,
in fact, one of those places which consist of the far, back-lying acres
of the great country-owners, and which seem to the casual traveler
forgotten or unknown in their extent and apparently primitive condition.
To the women sitting on the bench, wrapped around by the loneliness and
the intense stillness of the oncoming night, the whole expedition
appeared at last, unveiled in all its grim betrayal.
For the first time since Lois had left home, a wild, seething anxiety
for Justin possessed her. How could she have left him? She must get back
to him at once!
"Oh, Dosia, we must get home again; we must get home!" she cried,
starting up so vehemently that the baby in her arms screamed, and Lois
walked up and down distractedly hushing him, and then, as he still
wailed, sat down once more and bared her white bosom to quiet him. "We
shall have to get back; Dosia, we must start at once."
"We shall have to walk to Haledon," said Dosia.
"Yes, yes. Perhaps we may come to some farm-house where they will let us
have a wagon. It is seven miles to Haledon--that isn't very far! I often
walked five miles with Justin before I was married, and a mile or two
more is nothing. There are plenty of trains from Haledon."
"Oh, we can do it easily enough," said Dosia, though her heart was as
lead within her breast. "You had better eat some of these biscuits
before we start," she advised, taking them out of the bag; and Lois
munched them obediently, and drank some tepid water from a pitcher which
Dosia had found inside. As she put it back again in its place, she
slipped to the side of the platform and looked down the moon-filled,
narrow valley.
Through all this journey Dosia had carried double thoughts; her voice
called where none might hear. It spoke now as she whispered, with hands
outspread:
"Oh, _why_ weren't you in when I went for you? Why didn't you come and
take care of us, when I needed you so much? Why did you let us go off
this way? You might have known! Why _don't_ you come and take care of
us? There's no one to take care of us but you! _You_ could!" A dry sob
stopped the words--the deep, inherent cry of womankind to man for help,
for succor. She stooped over and picked up an oakleaf that had lain on
the ground since the winter, and pressed it to her bosom, and sent it
fluttering off on a gust of wind down the incline, as if it could indeed
take her message with it, before she went back to Lois.
After some hesitation as to the path,--one led across the rails from
where they were sitting,--they finally took that behind the station,
which broadened out into a road that lay along the wooded slope above,
from which they could look down at intervals and see the track below.
One side of that road was bordered by a high wire fencing inclosing
pieces of woodland, sometimes so thick as to be impenetrable, while
along other stretches there would be glimpsed through the trees some
farther, open field. To the right, toward the railway there were only
woods and no fencing.
They two walked off briskly at first, but the road was of a heavy,
loose, shelving soil in which the foot sank at each step; the grass at
the edge was wet with dew and intersected by the ridged, branching roots
of trees; the pace grew, perforce, slower and slower still. They took
turns in carrying the baby, whose small bundled form began to seem as if
weighted with lead.
[Illustration: "LOIS STOLE INTO THE ROOM"]
Far over on what must have been the other side of the track, they
occasionally saw the light of a house; at one place there seemed to be a
little hamlet, from the number of lights. They were clearly on the wrong
bank; they should have crossed over at the station. The only house they
came to was the skeleton of one, the walls blackened and charred with
fire. There was only that endless line of wire fencing along which they
pushed forward painfully, with dragging step; instead of passing any
given point, the road seemed to keep on with them, as if they could
never get farther on. Wire fencing, and moonlight, and silence, and
trees. Trees! They became night-marishly oppressive in those dark,
solemn ranks and groups--those silent thicknesses; the air grew chill
beneath them; terror lurked in the shadows. Oh, to get out from under
the trees, with only the clear sky overhead! If that road to the house
of Eugene Larue had seemed a part of infinity in the dimness of the
unknown, what was this?
They sat down now every little while to rest, Dosia's voice coaxing and
cheering, and then got up to shake the earth out of their shoes and
struggle on once more--bending, shivering, leaning against each other
for support; two silent and puny figures, outside of any connection with
other lives, toiling, as it seemed, against the universe, as women do
toil, apparently futile of result.
Once the loud blare of a horn sent them over to the side of the road,
clinging to the wire fencing, as an automobile shot by--a cheerful
monster that spoke of life in towns, leaving a new and sharp desolation
behind it. Why hadn't they seen it before? Why hadn't they tried to hail
it when they _did_ see? To have had such a chance and lost it! Once they
were frightened almost uncontrollably by a group approaching with
strange sounds--Italian laborers, cheerful and unintelligible when Dosia
intrepidly questioned them. They passed on, still jabbering; two
bedraggled women and a baby were no novelty to them. Then there was more
long, high fencing, and moonlight, and silence, and shadows, and
trees--and trees----
"Do you suppose we'll _ever_ get out of here?" asked Lois at last,
dully.
"Why, of course; we can't help getting out, if we keep on," said Dosia,
in a comfortingly matter-of-fact tone.
It was she who was helper and guide now.
"Oh, if I had never left Justin! Why, why did I leave him? How far do
you think we have walked, Dosia?"
"It seems so endless, I can't tell; but we must be nearly at Haledon,"
said Dosia. "Let's sit down and rest awhile here. Oh, Lois, Lois
_dear_!" She had taken off her jacket and spread it on the damp grass
for them both to sit on, huddled close together, and now pressed the
older woman's head down on her shoulder, holding both mother and child
in her young arms.
Lois lay there without stirring. Far off in the stillness, there came
the murmur of the brook they had passed in the train--so long since, it
seemed! The moon hung high above now, pouring a flood of light down
through the arching branches of the trees upon her beautiful face with
its closed eyes, and the tiny features of the sleeping child. Something
in the utter relaxation of the attitude and manner began to alarm the
girl.
"Lois, we must go on," she said, with an anxious note in her voice.
"Lois! You mustn't give up. We can't stay here!"
"Yes, I know," said Lois. She struggled to her feet, and began to walk
ahead slowly. Dosia, behind her, flung out her arms to the
shadow-embroidered road over which they had just passed.
"Oh, why _don't_ you come!" she whispered again intensely, with
passionate reproach; and then, swiftly catching up with Lois, took the
child from her, and again they stumbled on together, haltingly, to the
accompaniment of that far-off brook.
The wire fencing ceased, but the road became narrower, the walls of
trees darker, closer together, though the soil underfoot grew firmer.
They had to stop every few minutes to rest. Lois saw ever before her the
one objective point--a dimly lighted room, with Justin stretched out
upon the bed, dying, while she could not get there.
"Hark!" said Dosia suddenly, standing still. The sound of a voice
trolling drunkenly made itself heard, came nearer, while the women stood
terrified. The thing they had both unspeakably dreaded had happened; the
moonlight brought into view the unmistakable figure of a tramp, with a
bundle swung upon his shoulder. No terror of the future could compare
with this one, that neared them with the seconds, swaying unsteadily
from side to side of the road, as the tipsy voice alternately muttered
and roared the reiterated words:
For I have come from Pad-dy land,
The land--I do adore!
They had fled, crouching into the bushes at the edge of the path, and he
passed with his eyes on the ground, or he must have seen--a blotched,
dark-visaged, leering creature, living in an insane world of his own.
They waited until he was far out of sight before creeping, all of a
tremble, from their shelter, only to hear another footfall unexpectedly
near:--the pad, pad, pad of a runner, a tall figure as one saw it
through the lights and shadows under the trees, capless and coatless,
with sleeves rolled up, arms bent at the elbows, and head held forward.
Suddenly the pace slackened, stopped.
"Great _heavens_!" said the voice of Bailey Girard.
"Oh, it's you, it's you!" cried Dosia, running to him with an ineffable,
revealing gesture, a lovely motion of her upflinging arms, a passion of
joy in the face upraised to his, that called forth an instantly
flashing, all-embracing light in his.
In that moment there was an acknowledgment in each of an intimacy that
went back of all words, back of all action. The arm that upheld her
gripped her close to him as one who defends his own, as he said tensely:
"That beast ahead, did he touch you?"
"Oh, no; he didn't see us. We hid!" She tried to explain in hurrying,
disconnected sentences. "I've been longing and _praying_ for you to
come! I tried to let you know before we started, and you weren't there.
Lois was half crazy about Justin. Come to her now! She wanted to see Mr.
Larue, and he was gone. We've walked from Collingswood; we have the baby
with us."
"The _baby_!"
"Yes; she couldn't leave him behind. Oh, it's been so terrible! If you
had only known!"
"Oh, why didn't I?" he groaned. "I ought to have known--I _ought_ to
have known! I was in that motor that must have passed you; it was just a
chance that I got out to walk." They had reached the place where Lois
sat, and he bent over her tenderly. She smiled into his anxious eyes,
though her poor face was sunken and wan.
"I'm glad it's you," she whispered. "You'll help me to get home!"
"Dear Mrs. Alexander! I want to help you to more than that. I want you
to tell me everything." He pressed her hand, and stood looking
irresolutely down the road.
"I could go to Haledon, and send back a carriage for you; it's three
miles further on."
"No, no, no! Don't leave us!" the accents came in terror from both. "We
can walk with you. Only don't leave us!"
"Very well; we'll try it, then."
He took the warm bundle that was the sleeping child from Lois, saying,
as she half demurred, "It's all right; I've carried 'em in the
Spanish-American war in Cuba," holding it in one arm, while with the
other he supported Lois. The dragging march began again, Dosia,
stumbling sometimes, trying to keep alongside of him, so that when he
turned his head anxiously to look for her she would be there, to meet
his eyes with hers, bravely scorning fatigue.
The trees had disappeared now from the side of the road; long, swelling,
wild fields lay on the slopes of the hillside, broken only by solitary
clumps of bushes--fields deserted of life, broad resting-places for the
moonlight, which illumined the farthest edge of the scene, although the
moon itself was hidden by the crest of a hill. And as they went on,
slowly perforce, he questioned Lois gently; and she, with simple words,
gradually laid the facts bare.
"Oh, why didn't Alexander tell me all this?" he asked pitifully, and she
answered:
"He said it was no use; he said you had no money."
"No; but I can sometimes get it for other people! I could have gone to
Rondell Brothers and got it."
"Rondell Brothers? I thought they were difficult to approach."
"That depends. I was with Rondell's boy in Cuba when he had the fever,
and he's always said--but that's neither here nor there. Apart from
that, they've had their eye on your husband lately. You can't hide the
quality of a man like him, Mrs. Alexander; it shows in a hundred ways
that he doesn't think of. They have had dealings with him, though he
doesn't know it--it's been through agents. Mr. Warren, one of their best
men, has, it seems, taken a fancy to him. I shouldn't wonder if they'd
take over the typometer as it stands, and work Alexander in with it. If
Rondell Brothers really take up any one!"--Girard did not need to
finish.
Even Lois and Dosia had heard of Rondell Brothers, the great firm that
was known from one end of the country to the other--a commercial house
whose standing was as firm, as unquestioned, as the Bank of England, and
almost as conservative. Apart from this, their reputation was unique. It
was more than a commercial house: it was an institution, in which for
three generations the firm known as Rondell Brothers had carried on
their business to high advantage--on the principles of personal honor
and honesty and fair dealing.
No boy or man of good character, intelligence, and industry was ever
connected with Rondell's without its making for his advancement; to get
a position there was to be assured of his future. Their young men stayed
with them, and rose steadily higher as they stayed, or went out from
them strong to labor, backed with a solid backing. The number of young
firms whom they had started and made, and whose profit also afterward
profited them, was more than had ever been counted. They were never
deceived, for they had an unerring faculty for knowing their own kind.
No firm was keener. Straight on the nail themselves, they exacted the
same quality in others. What they traded in needed no other guaranty
than the name of Rondell.
If Rondell Brothers took Justin's affairs in hand! Lois felt a hope that
sent life through her veins.
"Oh, let us hurry home!" she pleaded, and tried to quicken her pace,
though it was Girard who supported her, else she must have fallen, while
Dosia slipped a little behind, trying to keep her place by his side, so
that when he looked for her she would be there.
"You're so tired," he whispered, with a break in his voice, "and I can't
help you!" and she tried to beat back that dear pity and longing with
her comforting "No, no, no! I'm not really tired"; her voice thrilled
with life, though her feet stumbled.
In that walk beside him, toiling slowly on and on in the bright, far
solitude of those empty fields, where even their hands might not touch,
they two were so heart-close--so heavenly, so fulfillingly near!
Once he whispered in a yearning distress, "Why are you crying?" And she
answered through those welling tears:
"I'm only crying because I'm so glad you're here!"
After a while there was a sound of wheels--wheels! Only a sulky, it
proved to be--a mere half-wagon set low down in the springs, and a
trotting horse in front, driven by a round-faced boy in a derby hat, the
turnout casting long, thin shadows ahead before Girard stopped it.
"You'll have to take another passenger," he said, after explaining
matters to the half-unwilling boy, who crowded himself at last to the
farthest edge of the seat, so that Lois might take possession of the six
inches allotted to her.
She held out her arms hastily. "My boy!" she said, but it was a voice
that had hope in it once more.
"Oh, yes, I forgot; here's the baby," said Girard, looking curiously at
the bundle before handing it to her. "We'll meet you at the Haledon
station very soon now."
In another moment the little vehicle was out of sight, jogging around a
bend of the road.
So still was the night! Only that long, curving runnel of the brook
again accompanied the silence. Not a leaf moved on the bushes of those
far-swelling fields or on the hill that hid their summit; the air was
like the moonlight, so fragrantly cool with the odors of the damp fern
and birch. The straight, supple figure of Girard still stood in the
roadway, bareheaded, with that powerful effect which he had, even here,
of absorbing all the life of the scene.
Dosia experienced the inexplicable feeling of the girl alone, for the
first time, with the man who loves her and whom she loves. At that
moment she loved him so much that she would have fled anywhere in the
world from him.
The next moment he said in a matter-of-fact tone:
"Sit down on that stone, and let me shake out your shoes before we go
on; they're full of sand."
She obeyed with an open-eyed gaze that dwelt on him, while he knelt
down and loosened the bows, and took off the little clumpy low shoes,
shaking them out carefully, and then put them on once more, retying the
bows neatly with long, slowly accomplishing fingers.
"They'll get full of earth again," she protested, her voice half lost in
the silence.
"Then I'll take them off and shake them out over again."
He stood up, brushing the earth from his palms, smiling down at her as
she stood up also. "I've always dreamed of doing that," he said simply.
"I've dreamed of taking you in my arms and carrying you off through the
night--as I couldn't that first time! I've longed so to do it, there
have been times when I couldn't _stand_ it to see you, because you
weren't mine." Then--her hands were in his, his dear, protecting hands,
the hands she loved, with their thrilling, long-familiar touch, claiming
as well as giving.
"Oh--_Dosia_!" he said below his breath.
As their eyes dwelt on each other in that long look, all that had hurt
love rose up between them, and passed away, forgiven. She previsioned a
time when all her life before he came into it would have dropped out of
remembrance as a tale that is told. And now----
It seemed that he was going to be a very splendid lover!