THE SHADOW
"But why must _you_ go, Tom?" Grace's tones rang with nervous dread.
"Can't some one else adjust matters satisfactorily?"
"No." Tom's reply was freighted with gloom. "I understand those men up
there and can get along better with them than a new superintendent
could. It wouldn't be worth while hiring one. Mr. Mackenzie isn't
dangerously ill. He'll be about again in two or three weeks. But it
needs some one who understands Aunt Rose's affairs to look after them
properly, even for that short period of time. If it weren't almost
tragic, it would be funny. Here I am bound heart and soul to the work of
preserving forests. Now duty calls me to handle a crowd of men whose
business it is to cut down forests. It isn't very pleasant to
contemplate. To me trees are almost as much alive as human beings. Worse
still, I hate to leave you, Grace. It's not so very long until the tenth
of September, either, and we've so many plans to carry out yet at Haven
Home."
"I know it." Grace's admission contained resignation. With duty thus
obstinately confronting Tom, she felt that she had no right to
discourage the performance of it. "I don't wish you to go," she
faltered, "but I can't help knowing that you are right. You owe it to
your aunt. She comes first. She's been both father and mother to you,
and I'm glad you are the one to help her now."
"Aunt Rose doesn't want me to go," returned Tom quickly. "She's afraid
something dreadful may happen to me. I don't anticipate any such thing.
I'm too good a woodsman to feel concerned about myself. After that
strenuous expedition to South America, this will be child's play. It's
leaving you that I don't like."
Grace did not reply for a moment. Secretly she, too, was echoing Mrs.
Gray's fears. With the day of their marriage so near, she could not bear
even to dwell on the dire possibility of any occurrence which might
wreck her Golden Summer. Bravely thrusting aside such a contingency she
said with grave sweetness: "I should be a pretty poor sort of comrade if
I were to fly in the face of your duty. It's hard, of course, Tom, but I
can say truthfully that I wish you to go. I shall try not to be sad over
it, or worry. After all, it's only for two or three weeks. One week of
that time I shall be at Elfreda's attending the Semper's reunion. As for
Haven Home, you attended to the really important things to be done there
while I was in New York City. Most of the furniture is there now. Ever
so many of the smaller things yet to be done, I can do or have done. My
trousseau is attended to, so I'll have time to make daily pilgrimages to
our forest retreat."
"I've thought of all that, too. I knew you'd wish to finish the work at
Haven Home. The touring car or my roadster are always at your service to
take you there. You know you love to drive the roadster. It's already as
much yours as mine. You can always take one of your girl friends with
you. It's bully in you to be so brave about it. It helps me more than I
can say." Tom caught Grace's hands in a loving, steadfast clasp.
For an hour or more they sat side by side on the davenport, each
sturdily trying to conceal the blow which the unlooked-for swing in Mrs.
Gray's business affairs had dealt them. Tom's chief cause for sorrow was
in the fact that he must leave the girl he adored, even for so brief an
interval of time. Grace's sadness, which she sternly concealed from him,
lay far deeper. Though Tom was scarcely concerned for his own welfare,
she was filled with a thousand vague alarms as to the disasters which
might perhaps overtake him. Not so long since, in speaking of the vast
lumber region in a northern state where his aunt possessed important
holdings, he had told her of the troubles that frequently ensued by
reason of lawless timber thieves. Then, too, the camp for which he was
bound was large and comprised a rough element of men. From Tom himself
she had learned that the Scotch superintendent, Alec Mackenzie, was
obliged to rule them with an iron hand. During his enforced absence from
them, discipline was sure to grow lax. She wondered whether even
resolute Tom Gray could ably contend with the difficult situation.
Yet she kept all this to herself. It was her place to encourage, not
discourage. If unbounded faith in Tom could help work the wonder of
carrying him safely through his mission and home again to her, then she
would bestow that faith ungrudgingly. Hers was too fine and steadfast a
nature to quail at the first obstacle that rose to impede her highway of
happiness. "Loyalheart" she had been christened and "Loyalheart" she
would remain to the end of her days.
"When must you go, Tom?" she questioned at last. Both had thus far been
sedulously side-stepping direct reference to their moment of parting.
"I ought to go this afternoon." Tom's voice registered his hearty regret
as he made this response. "I can wait until to-morrow if _you_ say so,
Grace. I'd rather you'd decide it. Of course, you know I'd prefer to put
over going until to-morrow. It's only----"
"I understand," came faintly from Grace. "You'd better go to-day. Tom.
It will be even harder for both of us to wait another day before saying
good-bye. Besides," she added, making a valiant effort to be cheerful,
"the sooner you go, the sooner you will return. You may find that you
won't have to stay there as long as you imagine."
"You're a true comrade, Loyalheart." Since the day when Grace had named
their future residence Haven Home, at the same time telling Tom of the
college play in which she had taken part, he had fallen into the habit
of calling her Loyalheart. "That Miss West had the right idea about
you," had been his tender criticism. "There isn't another name in the
whole world that could possibly suit you so well."
"I hope always to be a good comrade," returned Grace, a faint color
stealing into her lately-paling cheeks. "It's a pretty hard contract
always to live up to, though. While everything is lovely, it's not hard.
When things go wrong, it is. It reminds me of a poem I once read that
began, 'It's easy enough to be pleasant when life flows by like a song.'
I can't remember any more of it, except that it conveyed the thought
that the only persons who are really worth while are the ones who can
keep on being pleasant even when everything in their lives goes wrong.
So we ought to try to smile over this little hardship and look at it as
being just one of the vicissitudes that life is bound to bring us."
"But I don't like to see hardship and vicissitudes creeping into our
Golden Summer," protested Tom, not quite satisfied to adjust himself to
Grace's more optimistic view of the situation. "I'm selfish about it,
I'm afraid. When, after a long dark winter, a man is suddenly turned
loose in the sunshine, he is naturally anxious to stay there. Just
because I'm saying that, I don't mean that I would dream of failing Aunt
Rose. I'd go even if it meant we'd have to put off our marriage a few
weeks longer."
"And I would wish you to go," agreed Grace earnestly. "I am glad you
said that. If, when you get to the camp, you find that you will have to
stay quite a while, we can put off our wedding until the last of
September. Only a few of our closest friends know that we have set the
date for the tenth of September, so we needn't feel in the least
embarrassed if we find it necessary to change it."
"Oh, I'll be back before the last of August," was Tom's confident
prediction. "That will give us plenty of time to make all our
arrangements. And now I must go, Grace. I have a good deal to do before
train time. I'll leave Oakdale on that 4.30 express. I'll drive over
here for you in the roadster. I'd like just you to see me off on my
journey. Aunt Rose will understand when I tell her. Then if you will,
you can drive the roadster back to our garage."
[Illustration: Devoted Love Shone in Her Clear Gray Eyes.]
"I will," acquiesced Grace briefly. A swift rush of unbidden emotion
brought her very near to tears. Accompanying Tom to the door, she
watched him wistfully down the walk. She was forcibly reminded of a day,
belonging to the past, when she had seen him go down that same walk,
and, as she then believed, out of her life. On that dark rainy afternoon
of the long ago she had felt only pity as she gazed after his retreating
form. She had gone into the house and cried bitterly, out of sheer
sorrow of the hurt which she had inflicted upon her childhood's friend.
Now all was changed. Devoted love shone through the windows of the clear
gray eyes that followed Tom Gray's tall, broad-shouldered figure, as he
swung through the gate and down the street. And, as she stood there in
the doorway, the triumphant knowledge that she loved and was loved in
return swept away her inclination to tears. Even the shadow of
separation could not dim the glory of the summer that lived in her
heart.