THE BETTER PART
Although Grace had so sturdily asserted her claim on happiness,
nevertheless she quailed secretly before the ordeal of writing to her
friends regarding the change in her plans. Long she pondered before
committing the gloomy information to paper. More than one anguished tear
fell from her eyes as she relentlessly pursued her difficult task. Not
so very long ago she had fondly dreamed of the time when she should
happily send to those she loved the summons to come to her on her
wedding day. But the pile of envelopes which eventually found their way
to the nearest mail-box contained news of a vastly different character.
True to her promise she had conscientiously waited for the word from Mr.
Blaisdell which Mrs. Gray had anticipated. At the end of three days of
suspense she had sought her Fairy Godmother only to meet with a letter
from the investigator which sent hope to the winds. In it he stated that
aside from the station master at the lonely little railway station, he
had encountered no one who recalled seeing a young man of the
description of Tom Gray. He had learned from the former that Tom had
halted him to inquire the way to the camp and to ascertain if he could
obtain any means of conveyance on that day. As it was then four o'clock
in the afternoon and no one from the camp had met the train, the station
master had warned him that a storm was coming and advised him to wait
over until the following morning, offering Tom the hospitality of his
own home. The young man had politely declined his offer, saying that he
must reach the camp that night and would walk. He had said good-bye and
swung off toward the dense growth of forest that rose behind the
straggling hamlet, and nothing further had been seen or heard of him.
Further inquiry at the camp, which Mr. Blaisdell had experienced
considerable difficulty in reaching, had developed the alarming news
that no such person as Tom Gray had been seen in that vicinity. He had
gleaned, however, that the station master's prediction of bad weather
had been verified and that a particularly heavy windstorm had swept that
region early in the evening of the day on which he had talked with the
young man. Torrents of rain had fallen and trees had been broken down
and uprooted. It was possible that Tom had lost his way and been killed
by a falling tree. Blaisdell did not believe this, however, as neither a
dead nor injured man had been found by the various search parties of
lumber men who had been sent out to cover the surrounding territory. So
far as possible the search had been conducted with the utmost secrecy.
He had not divulged Tom's name. As the camp was in an out of the way
place, peopled by a taciturn set of men who asked few questions, it was
not likely that any news would travel farther than its limits.
The day following the receipt of this letter brought a telegraphic
notification from David Nesbit to the effect that he had reached the
lumber camp and was about to start on his search for his chum. With this
small consolation, the patient, tortured souls who awaited news of their
lost one were forced to be content.
Hard as it had been to write to her trusty comrades, it was infinitely
harder for Grace to receive the messages of sympathy and love which
poured in upon her. Yet on the heels of her distress came one letter
which, despite the gravity of her present situation, moved Grace to
half-hearted laughter. On opening an envelope addressed to herself in
Arline Thayer's unmistakable script, Grace was mildly astonished to
read:
"DEAR STANLEY:
"After our talk last evening I am quite certain that I could never
be happy as your wife. It has shown me clearly that our aims and
viewpoints are so entirely different that it would be useless even
to dream of spending the remainder of our lives together. It is
hard to write this, but I feel that no matter what it may cost me I
must be true to myself. I am therefore returning your ring and
letters by express. You may do as you think best in regard to
returning the letters I have written you.
"With a sincere wish for your future happiness,
"Yours sincerely,
"ARLINE THAYER."
Tardily realizing that she had unwittingly perused a communication not
intended for her eyes, Grace lost no time in writing an apologetic
letter to Arline in which she enclosed the fateful missive of rejection.
How Arline had come to mail it to her was a matter for speculation.
But she had only set eyes on the beginning of a drama as she was soon
destined to learn. Late the next afternoon, while seated on the front
veranda with her mother, she viewed with mingled emotions a taxicab
which had come to a full stop before the house. Out of it stepped a
small, golden-haired young woman whose smart pongee traveling coat and
bulging leather bag proclaimed that she had come from afar.
"Arline Thayer!" cried Grace, running down the steps to meet the
newcomer as she passed through the gateway. "Why, Daffydowndilly! This
_is_ a surprise! You are the last person I had dreamed of seeing." Grace
caught the dainty little girl in a warm embrace.
"I know I should have telegraphed you," apologized Arline, "but--well--I
didn't. I made up my mind all in an instant to come to you, and here I
am. Ever since I received your letter you've been constantly in my
thoughts. I replied at once. Of course you received it?"
"Let me take your luggage, Daffydowndilly." Grace evaded Arline's
implied interrogation for the moment. "Come and pay your respects to
Mother, then we'll go upstairs to your room and you can rest a little
before dinner. You must be very tired after your long ride. Then, too,
we can exchange confidences. I have something to say to you about the
letter you just mentioned." Grace could not refrain from smiling a
little. She suspected that Arline had made a mistake, the precise result
of which was yet to be revealed.
"What is the matter, Grace?" was Arline's quick question. She had
instantly detected the unusual in her friend's enigmatic smile and
evasive speech.
Their progress to the veranda, where Mrs. Harlowe waited to greet the
unexpected but heartily-welcome arrival, prevented Grace's reply. It was
not until Arline had been ushered into one of the large, airy upper
chambers which Grace took so much pleasure in reserving for the use of
her frequent guests, that the former again repeated her question in
tones of deepening anxiety.
"I will tell you when you have made yourself comfortable," stipulated
Grace. Assisting Arline in removing her hat and coat, she applied
herself assiduously to the comfort of her friend.
"You are a truly ideal hostess, Grace," was Arline's tribute as she
finally settled herself in a deep willow chair. "Now I am ready to hear
what you have been keeping from me."
"You asked me if I had received your letter," began Grace as she dropped
into a nearby chair. "Yesterday morning I _did_ receive a letter you
wrote, but it was not for me. The envelope was addressed to me, but the
letter--I read it before I realized that I hadn't that right--was
written to Mr. Stanley Forde. I wrote you an apology, enclosed the other
letter with it and mailed them to you."
"Oh!" Arline gave a horrified gasp. "How perfectly dreadful! How in the
world did I happen to make such a mistake! This is awful!"
"Then you wrote to me at the same time and confused the two letters? I
was afraid of that. But it doesn't matter to me if it doesn't to you."
Grace tried to put on an air of kindly unconcern. Secretly it saddened
her a trifle to know that a stranger had received even an inkling of her
private affairs. Undoubtedly Arline's letter to herself had contained an
expression of sympathy which could not fail to put Mr. Stanley Forde in
possession of certain painful facts relating to her own trouble.
"But it matters a great deal!" exclaimed Arline, flushing deeply. "In
that letter to you I said that I could never be thankful enough that I
had had such a wonderful talk with you. I said, too, that you had made
me see things in a different light and that I knew now that what I had
believed was love wasn't love at all. Worse still, I said that if it had
not been for you I would never have had the courage to break my
engagement, but would have failed to be true to myself. Now, Stanley has
that letter!" Arline made a despairing gesture. "I don't care what he
thinks about _me_, but what will he think about _you_?"
Grace was not prepared to answer this pertinent question from the jilted
Stanley's viewpoint. Personally she had a disagreeably clear idea of
what he was quite likely to think. Yet she was too sturdily honest by
nature to regret the advice she had given Arline in good faith. "I am
sorry this has happened," she returned slowly, "but I am not sorry for
what I said to you. I meant it. I would have said as much to Mr. Forde
had an occasion risen which demanded plain speaking."
"You are Loyalheart, through and through," came impulsively from Arline.
"You would stand by your colors to the death. I couldn't blame you if
you were terribly angry with me for mixing you up so miserably in my
affairs. I should have been more careful, but I was dreadfully upset
when I wrote those letters. You see, Stanley came to my home on the
evening of the day he returned from Oregon. As you know, I had decided
to have a plain talk with him. It began pleasantly enough, but before it
ended we were both very angry. He declared point-blank that after we
were married I would positively _have_ to give up my settlement work. He
said a great many hateful, sneering things about the poor people I've
been trying to help. I was going to give him back his ring then, but I
remembered what you advised about not being too hasty. So I told him I
wouldn't discuss the subject with him any more that evening.
"After that he was very pleasant. I suppose he thought he had won me
over to his point of view. When he had gone I sat for a long time on the
veranda thinking hard. Then I went upstairs to my room and wrote him,
breaking our engagement. Of course I cried a little. I was so unhappy.
Then I thought of you and felt like writing you about it. After I had
written both letters, I read them over; first the one to him, then
yours. It was after midnight and I was so tired. I suppose that is how I
happened to make the mistake of putting your address on his letter and
vice versa. He will be simply furious. I only hope that he doesn't write
you a hateful letter. If he writes to me, I'll send the letter back
unopened. You'd better do the same."
"No; I couldn't do that. It is perfectly proper for you to do so, but it
would appear cowardly on my part. Let us hope he doesn't bother to write
me. Does he know my surname and where I live?"
"Yes; I've told him of you a great many times. I wish now that I hadn't.
I am sure he will write you. It's a shame. I came to Oakdale to comfort
you and be comforted. Now I've landed both of us in a nice muddle."
Arline lifted a pair of mournful blue eyes to Grace.
In the presence of impending tragedy a sudden sense of the ridiculous
swept the two girls. Their eyes meeting, they began to laugh. It was the
first genuine mirth that had stirred Grace Harlowe since the day on
which she had left the Briggs' cottage to return to Oakdale.
"One ought not laugh over such a serious matter," apologized Arline,
with a half hysterical chuckle. "But I can't help thinking how surprised
you must have been to receive that letter to Stanley, and how wrathful
he must be by this time."
"I'd rather laugh over it than cry," smiled Grace. "Don't worry,
Daffydowndilly. I'm not afraid of any letter that Mr. Stanley Forde may
choose to send me. You had better write him another letter at once,
though, and explain matters. You owe him that, at least."
"I will," sighed Arline. "There's just one thing more I have to say. I
shall _never, never_ fall in love again. It's fatal to one's peace of
mind. Now that I've fallen out of love, I feel about a hundred years
younger. I'm going to be a nice, kind, spinster and found a home for
poor children."
Grace smiled at this naïve announcement. She was unselfishly glad that
Arline could thus lightly cast her burden from her dainty shoulders.
Perhaps she, too, would have known greater content, had love not entered
her heart. Yet in the same instant she put away the thought as unworthy
of herself. Come what might she was intensely sure that she had chosen
the better part.