XXI

There are some hours of human experience so intense with suffering that

they return, again and again, living themselves over in the memory,

arising in the small hours of the night--haunting specters of pain,

meeting us unexpectedly in an unguarded moment of solitude to open and

reopen the wounds they have left, following us on through the years

with a recurring vindictiveness of pain almost as keen as when it was

first inflicted. Joy, happiness, exaltation of spirit, return only in

new guises; they, too, make their impression upon the memory, but

otherwise. The shock of loss, the agony of parting, the fear and dread

of the suffering of loved ones, the bitterness of self-reproach, the

message of loss--these are the things that return and return again; and

of such as these were the hours of that afternoon to Rosamund. Not

only on that first night, once more in the small upper room at Mother

Cary's, but often and often during her after life did the shock and

agony of those hours return to her.

Past the form of the station master, gloating in his satisfaction at

being the first to tell her the evil news, she had seen Father Cary's

familiar form descending from his wagon. She scarcely remarked his

surprise at her being there, his disappointment that Doctor Blake and

the nurse had not come on that train, his helping her into the wagon,

and his description of the events of the night before. The drive past

the dull little houses and the store, the closed cottages, the big

hotels with their uncurtained windows staring like eyeless sockets, the

woods, the glimpses of the path where she had faced John Ogilvie; the

turn at last toward the brown cottage she had come to love so dearly;

the blackened, smoking hole that alone remained of it; then the half

mile farther to the house where Ogilvie lay--those were the moments of

most intense pain, because of their suspense.

The story was simple enough. The little household had gone to bed

early, and toward midnight Grace had awakened with a whispering fear of

smoke. She roused the others, and Eleanor had bundled sleepy Tim in

blankets, thrown other bed covering out of a window, and gone quietly

down with Grace. Matt and Sue, wild with fear, rushed out ahead of

them, shouting, and their cries aroused the nearest neighbors. Country

folk come quickly to a fire, although there is seldom anything to do

but watch and surmise; a small crowd gathered in an incredibly short

time, and a few things were rescued from the blazing house. In spite

of the pleading of the women, Grace stayed to watch the flames,

wringing her hands, and calling Rosamund's name. Eleanor was half

frantic herself, with the alternate efforts at calming Timmy and

beseeching Grace to go away. But Grace, loving and faithful, was

crying at the loss of the house and the things in it that had seemed to

her so beautiful, and that were so dear because they belonged to

Rosamund. She could not be persuaded to leave, but stood wringing her

hands and saying, over and over,

"Oh, Miss Rose! Oh, Miss Rose!"

[Illustration: "A small crowd gathered in an incredibly short time."]

After the first alarm, Aunt Sue became calm enough to tell the

questioners that all were safe, that Miss Randall and Yetta were in New

York. But the man who was urging White Rosy up the long road from the

valley, the man who, at last, came running, stumbling, panting up to

the little band of watchers, who heard Grace Tobet calling a beloved

name and sobbing, did not wait for explanation. He looked among them

for one face, and found it missing; then he rushed into the blazing

house.

There were brave men who, for the sake of all he had done for their

women and children, went after him; there were strong arms to bear him

to the nearest shelter, and loving hands to tend him. It was not long

before Mother Cary came, bundled up in the wagon beside her big

husband, to take command of everything.

So short and simple a story of a ruin so great! Rosamund sat dumbly in

the kitchen of the little house where Ogilvie lay, while Mother Cary

told her, braced beside her on the little padded crutch, her tender old

hands smoothing the girl's hair, the sweet old voice speaking words of

courage and hope.

"Pap's done telegraphed for Doctor Blake," she said, "him that's his

friend, him that sent Yetta up here. He's an eye doctor, but he'll

know everything to do for everything else as well. We reckoned he'd

come on this train. That's how come Pap was there to meet it.

Howsomever, he'll be here before the day's out, you mark me; an' he'll

say jest what I'm sayin'--John ain't goin' to die. He's a goin' to get

well."

Rosamund looked up at her, and the old woman understood. "I wouldn't,

ef I was you, darlin', honey! No, now don't ye go thinkin' that a way;

it ain't that he's burnt so bad, 'cause he ain't. Hair grows quick,

an' that did get sco'ched a leetle mite. I reckon all ails him is thet

he breathed in the smoke."

Half-remembered tales of horror passed through the girl's mind, and she

hid her face in her hands.

"Oh, well, honey, ef you goin' to take on about it, maybe you better

jest come to the door and peek in at him. I guess when all's said an'

done you got more right than anybody else."

"Ah, no," Rosamund cried, "no, I have not!"

But Mother Cary touched her cheek. "Honey, he wouldn't 'a' gone into

the house that a way ef so be it he hadn't 'a' thought all he loved

best in the world was there. A body don't go into flames for nothin'!

An' it wasn't no ways like the doctor to lose his head--now was it?

You come right along in here with yo' Ma Cary."

As long as she lived Rosamund could recall that room--the dingy white

walls, the oval braided rug upon the floor; the tiny looking-glass and

little corner washstand; the bureau with its characteristic assortment

of shaving things, a stethoscope and a small photograph in a plush

frame of a woman dressed in the fashion of thirty years before; the

bedstead of turned yellow wood, the bright patchwork quilt over the

feather-bed--and Ogilvie's form lying there, his flushed face, his

heavy breathing, his restless hands.

The woman who was watching beside his bed arose, and Rosamund crossed

the narrow space. She bent over him a little, put out her hand, but

shrank back, restrained perhaps by the fear of an emotion which

threatened to be too strong for her.

She turned, went blindly from the little room, and Pa Cary led her out

to the wagon. If he talked to her on the way to his house she did not

hear him. Tim saw them coming, and ran to meet her. The pressure of

his warm little arms about her neck, in the "tight squeeze" that he

usually reserved for Eleanor, did more than anything else to bring her

back to a normal state of mind.

But after his first embrace, Tim wanted to go to the stable with Father

Cary. Eleanor was standing in the little familiar doorway, under the

overhanging roof made by the upper floor. She waited, as if

spell-bound, while Rosamund walked slowly up the path to the house; it

was the look on the girl's face that held her back, for her heart was

reaching out in sympathy. At last Rosamund stood before her, and they

looked into each other's eyes; then Eleanor opened her arms wide, and

with a sob drew Rosamund to her.

"Oh, my sweet, my Rose!" she cried, her tears on Rosamund's cold cheek.

"I knew! I knew! I knew it was John! But he'll get well, darling.

He will live for your sake!"

But Rosamund went past her into the house, looked about the little

familiar room as if she had never seen it before, and seated herself in

a chair near the table.

Eleanor took off her hat and unfastened her coat as if she had been a

child, instead of the stricken woman that she was; Rosamund looked up

at her in a dumb agony of appeal.

Eleanor repeated the story she had already heard from Father Cary; at

the end she paused, hesitated, and said,

"But there is one thing more that you've got to know, Rose. The house

was set on fire."

Rosamund looked up at her, as if waiting.

"Oh, don't look like that, my darling! Try to understand! Someone set

fire to the house--it's so cruel to have to tell you!"

Suddenly Rosamund's face changed from its blankness to a look of horror.

"Then--if--I--had gone away, as he wanted me to--Oh! Eleanor, then he

would not--"

But Eleanor's arms were around her. "Don't, Rosamund! Don't let

yourself do that! There's not one of us could live and be sane, if we

dwelt on our 'ifs'!"

"But it is true!"

"It is not true. It is not! Because there was no 'if'; there could

not have been! You had to stay; you had to obey your own reasoning,

not his. We all have to decide for ourselves. It is when we don't,

that we get into trouble. I can assure you of that, I of all others.

I married because I was told it was the best thing to do--but you must

forget I told you that!"

At least it brought Rosamund to a thought of something else.

"Eleanor!" she exclaimed, her hand reaching out towards her friend.

But it was not the moment for Eleanor to think of herself. "Rose,

listen to me," she said. "Someone set fire to the house. There is no

doubt of that. Now you will have to make up your mind what to

do--there will have to be an inquiry, they say."

"Why?"

"Why? Because the people who look after those things will want to find

out who did it. They will want to fix the blame."

"But I don't understand! It is my house! What difference does it make

to anyone else?"

"And you don't care?"

Rosamund arose, and mercifully burst into tears. "Oh, Eleanor!" she

sobbed, "how can you ask me that? Do you think I care for the mere

loss of a few sticks and stones and things, when he----"

Again Eleanor's comforting arms were around her, and Eleanor's hand on

her hair. "Oh, you darling! I knew you'd say that! I knew you would!

They cannot do anything without your consent!"

Apparently in relief from some doubt or fear, she even laughed.

Rosamund looked at her in amazement.

"What on earth do you mean?" she began.

But before there could be time for explanation the door opened, and

Father Cary brought his little wife into the room in his arms, and set

her down in a chair.

Mother Cary always brought an atmosphere of happiness with her, but

this time, it seemed to Rosamund, she was also the personification of

all that was angelic and beautiful, a messenger of hope, a bearer of

glad tidings.

"Well," she began, as soon as Pap had set her down and unbundled her,

"they come! My, that young woman knows jest how to go about things! I

been nursin' all my life, seems like, and that girl can't be more than

twenty-five; but the way she took a holt o' things did beat me! My! I

wasn't one bit worried at leavin' him with her, not one bit! An'

Doctor Blake's goin' to set up all night."

She smiled into Rosamund's beseeching eyes.

"Doctor Blake says they ain't a doubt but he'll be all right in no

time!" she said, and mentally asked forgiveness for stretching the

truth. "He says his eyes ain't hurt a bit, far as he can tell, an'

it's only the smoke got into them, that's all. An' anybody knows that

ain't much! Land! Think how many smokin' chimblys there be, an'

nobody givin' a thought to 'em!"

It was not until after supper, when Tim had been sent to bed, rather

joyful than otherwise in his excitement over the return to the Carys',

and Eleanor was trying to put him to sleep by telling him a story, that

Rosamund went upstairs to the room that had been Yetta's, to be alone

with her thoughts. She was never one of those, usually members of a

large family, who can take council with themselves while others are in

the room; she needed solitude, if she would adjust herself and set the

chambers of her mind in order. Now she had much to think of, for the

events of the past three days had been incongruous enough. She smiled

as she remembered that, scarcely forty-eight hours before, she had been

sitting in an opera box listening to Pendleton's inanities; but there

was no smile when she thought of Ogilvie.

Presently she was aware, through the silence, of a timid hand on the

door. She had scarcely had time to do more than speak to Grace, who

had sat, through the earlier part of the evening, as if turned to

stone; now something told her she was there.

Grace, white and wan, came over the threshold and threw her arms about

her friend, resting her head on Rosamund's shoulder. For a few moments

they stood so, clasped in the sympathy that women convey to each other

in that silent manner. Then Grace released herself a little, looked

into Rosamund's face, and whispered.

"Miss Rose, he did it!"

Rosamund's thoughts had been of Ogilvie alone; for a moment she did not

understand. Then Eleanor's words came back to her; and all the while

she protested, she knew the truth of what Grace said.

But, out of pity, protest she must. "Oh, no, Grace! No! Don't think

that! Don't let yourself think it!"

But Grace, even whiter than before, met her eyes steadily. "I don't

have to think it," she said, quietly. "I know it. You know it, too."

At the agony in the poor creature's eyes Rosamund forgot all her own.

"No," she cried, almost aloud. Their lowered voices in the silence of

the house seemed to add to the horror of it. "No, I do not know, and

neither do you! Don't say it, Grace. Don't think it. Grace! Oh, my

poor, dear Grace!"

But Grace shook her head impatiently, as if it were not the time for

sympathy. She clasped Rosamund's two hands, looked at her intently,

and said, "Miss Rose, I tell you I don't have to think; I know!"

Rosamund gasped, but Grace went on. "I saw him from my window, an' Rob

Tobet and Nels' Dunn were with him. They were skulkin' in the shadow,

but I made 'em out. It was the first time I'd seen Joe, since--the

first time, and to see him that a way!"

"Grace!" Rosamund cried. Grace might have held her hand in a flame,

and seemed to suffer less. Rosamund thought it was more than she could

bear to witness. But Grace went on ruthlessly,

"They were watchin' and watchin' the house; an' after a while I saw Joe

wavin' his arms at the other two, an' then they went off. It wasn't

very long after that--maybe half an hour or so--that I smelled smoke.

An', Miss Rose, when we got down an' out, I saw what nobody else seemed

to take any notice of--I saw three corners of the house all blazin' up

at the same time."

Rosamund had drawn her down to the side of the bed; now Grace paused,

grasped Rosamund's hand, bent towards her, and whispered, hoarsely,

"Miss Rose, houses don't catch on fire that a way less'n somebody sets

'em!"

They looked at each other mutely for what seemed an eternity, sharing

and accepting the horrid significance of it. At last Rosamund, shaking

off the spell with a sharp indrawing of the breath, drew Grace to her,

held her, everything else forgotten save that here was an agony greater

than her own.

For a long hour they sat there talking, planning. Grace was torn

between her sense of righteousness and her love for Joe, fanned anew as

it was by his present need of her protection.

"I thought I had stopped carin' for him," she whispered. "But

this--this ain't like the--other thing--you know what I mean. That

didn't hurt anybody but himself, and it wasn't anybody else's business,

not the Gov'ment's nor anybody's. But this is different. They--they

hang for this, I reckon!"