are mine again--just for to-night."
That settled it. Webb Atchison brought his hand down upon his victim's
shoulder with a resounding friendly blow, calling:
"He's right. We've given him a bad two hours of it. Let's make it up to
him, and let him have the right sort of send-off--since he will go. He
will--there's no possible question of that. So let's part friends."
"I don't know," said Brown, smiling in the midst of the faces which now
gave him back his smile, "but that if you are kind to me you'll test my
endurance still more heavily. But--we'll risk it."
The scene now became a gay one--gay, at least, upon the surface. Brown
was his old self again, the one they had known, and he was the centre of
the good-fellowship which now reigned. So, for a time. Then came the
supreme test of his life--as unexpectedly as such tests come, when a man
thinks he has won through to the thin edge of the struggle.
XIV
BROWN'S TRIAL BY FIRE
He had gone alone into a den of Atchison's, where was kept a medley of
books and pipes and weapons, a bachelor collection of trophies of all
sorts. He was in search of a certain loving-cup which had been mentioned
and asked for, and Atchison himself had for the moment left the apartment
to see an insistent caller below. The den was at some distance from the
place where the company was assembled, and Brown could hear their voices
only in the remote distance as he searched. Suddenly a light sound as
of the movement of silken draperies fell upon his ear, and at the same
instant a low voice spoke. He swung about, to see a figure before him at
sight of which, alone as he had been with it for months, he felt his
unsubdued heart leap in his breast. By her face he knew she had followed
him for a purpose. He let her speak.
"Donald Brown," she said--and she spoke fast and breathlessly, as if she
feared, as he did, instant interruption and this were her only
chance--"what you have said to-night makes me forget everything but what
I want you to know."
Quite evidently her heart was beating synchronously with his, for he
could see how it shook her. He stared at her, at the lovely line and
colour of cheek and chin, at the wonderful shadowed eyes, at the soft
darkness of her heavy hair. She was wearing misty white to-night, with
one great red rose upon her breast; she was such a sight as might well
blind a man, even if he were not already blind with love of her. The
fragrance of the rose was in his nostrils--it assailed his senses as if
it were a part of her, its fragrance hers. But he did not speak.
"You asked me something once," she went on, with an evident effort.
"Would you mind telling me if--if--"
But he would not help her. He could not believe he understood what she
meant to say.
"You make it very hard for me," she murmured. "Yet I believe I understand
why, if this thing is ever said at all, I must be the one to say it. Do
you--Donald--do you--still--care?"
"_O God_!" he cried in his heart. "_O God! Couldn't You have spared
me this_?"
But aloud, after an instant, he said, a little thickly, "I think you know
without asking. I shall never stop caring."
She lifted her eyes. "Then--" and she waited.
He must speak. She had done her part. His head swam with the sudden
astounding revelation that she was his for the taking, if--Ah, but the
_if_! He knew too well what that must mean.
"Are you tempting me, too?" he asked, with sudden fierceness. "Do you
mean--like all the rest--I may have you if--I give up my purpose and
stay here?"
Mutely her eyes searched his. Dumb with the agony of it his searched hers
in return. He turned away.
"Don!" Her voice was all low music. The words vibrated appealingly; she
had seen what it meant to him. She put out one hand as if to touch
him--and drew it back. "Listen to me, please. I know--I know--what a
wonderful sacrifice you are making. I admire and honour you for it--I do.
But--think once more. This great parish--surely there is work for you
here, wonderful work. Won't you do it--_with me_?"
He looked at her with sudden decision on his course.
"You left that photograph?" He spoke huskily.
She nodded.
"You left it there, in my poor house. I've cherished it there. It hasn't
suffered. You wouldn't suffer. Will you live--and work--with
me--_there_?"
"Oh!" She drew back. "How can you--Do you realize what you ask?"
"I don't ask it expecting to receive it. I know it's impossible--from
your viewpoint. But--it's--all I have to ask--"
He broke off, fighting savagely with the desire to seize her in his arms
that was all but overmastering him.
She moved away a step in her turn, standing, with down-bent head, the
partial line of her profile, the curve of her neck and beautiful
shoulder, presenting an even greater appeal to the devouring flame of his
longing than her eyes had done. It seemed to him that he would give the
heart out of his body even to press his lips upon that fair flesh just
below the low-drooping masses of her hair, flesh exquisite as a child's
in contrast with the dark locks above it. All the long months of his
exile pressed upon him with mighty force to urge him to assuage his
loneliness with this divine balm.
Suddenly she spoke, just above a whisper. "I wonder," she said, "if any
woman ever humiliated herself--like this--to be so refused."
He answered that with swift, eager words: "It is the most womanly, the
most wonderful thing, any woman could do for a man. I shall never forget
it, or cease to honour you for it. I love you--_love you_--for it--ten
thousand times more than I loved you before, if that can be. I _must_ say
it. I must put it into words that you and I can both remember, or I think
my heart will burst. But--Helena--I have vowed this vow to my God. I have
put my hand to this plow. I can't turn back--not even for you. No man,
having done that, '_and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God_.' He
isn't fit for the kingdoms of earth, either. He isn't fit for--hell!"
Very slowly she moved away from him, her head still drooping. At the
door she did not pause and look back, actress-like, to try him with one
more look. She went like a wounded thing. And at the sight, the wild
impulse to rush after her and cry to her that nothing in the wide
universe mattered, so that she should lift that head and lay it on his
breast, gripped him and wrung him, till drops of moisture started out
upon his forehead, and he turned sick. Then she was out of sight, and he
stood grasping the back of a chair, fighting for control. This was a
dinner-party--a dinner-party! Kind God in heaven! And he and she must go
back to those other people and smile and talk, must somehow cover it all
up. How was it conceivably to be done?
She could do it, perhaps. After all, it could not be the soul-stirring
thing to her that it was to him. She loved him enough to be his
wife--under the old conditions. She did not love him enough to go with
him as his wife into the new conditions. Then she could not be suffering
as he was suffering. Wounded pride--she was feeling that, no doubt of
it--wounded pride is not a pleasant thing to feel. She loved him
somewhat, loved him enough to take the initiative in this scene to-night.
But real love--she could not know what that was, or she would follow him
to the ends of the earth. It was the woman's part to follow, not the
man's. Hers to give up her preference for his duty. Since she could not
do this, she did not really love him. This was the bitterest drop in the
whole bitter cup!
Footsteps came rapidly along the corridor, Webb Atchison appeared in the
doorway. At the first sound of his return Brown had wheeled and was found
standing before a cabinet, in which behind glass doors was kept a choice
collection of curios from all parts of the world. He was trying to summon
words to explain that he was looking for a certain loving-cup--_a
loving-cup_--when one had just been presented, full to overflowing, to
his thirsty lips, and he had refused to drink!
But Atchison was full of his message.
"Don, I've done my best to put the fellow off, but he will see you. Hang
it!--to-night of all nights! I don't know why that following of yours
should pursue you to this place. I suspect it will be considerable of a
jolt to that chap to see you in an expanse of white shirt-front. But it
seems somebody has been taken worse since you left, and insists on seeing
you. Why in thunder did you leave an address for them to find you at?"
By the time Atchison had delivered himself of all this Brown had hold of
himself, could turn and speak naturally. The news had been like a dash of
cold water in the face of a fainting man.
"Who is worse--Mr. Benson?"
"Think that was the name--an old man. The messenger's waiting, though I
told him you certainly couldn't go back to-night."
"I certainly shall go back to-night. Where is he?"
Expostulating uselessly, Atchison led the way. Brown found Andrew
Murdison standing with a look of dogged determination on his face, which
changed to one of relief when he saw Brown. Old Benson, the watchmaker,
who had been convalescing from illness when Brown came away, had suffered
a relapse and had probably but few hours to live.
With a brief leave-taking, in the course of which Brown held for an
instant the hand of Helena Forrest and found it cold as ice in his grasp,
he went away. As the train bore him swiftly back to the place he had left
so recently, certain words came to him and stayed by him, fitting
themselves curiously to the rhythmic roar of the train:
"_God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye
are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye
may be able to bear it_."
And the car wheels, as they turned, seemed to be saying, mile after mile:
"_A way to escape--a way to escape--a way to escape_!"
XV
BROWN'S BROWN STUDY
Standing in his kitchen doorway, Brown looked out into his back yard.
It was, in one way, an unusual back yard for that quarter of the city,
and in that one way it differed from the back yards of his neighbours.
While theirs were bounded on all sides by high and ugly board fences,
his was encompassed by a stone wall standing even higher, and enclosing
the small area of possibly forty feet by thirty in a privacy quite
unknown elsewhere in the district. This stone wall had been laid by the
Englishman who had built the house, his idea of having things to himself
being the product of his early life in a country where not only is every
man's house his castle, but the surrounding ground thereof, as well, his
domain, from which he would keep out every curious eye.
It was an evening in mid-April. Brown had opened the big oak door to let
the late western light of the spring day flood his kitchen, while he
washed and put away the dishes lately used for his supper--and for that
of a forlorn and ill-used specimen of tramp humanity who had arrived as
he was sitting down.
He was presently to address a gathering of factory girls in a near-by
schoolhouse; and he was trying, as he stood in the door, with the soft
spring air touching gratefully his face, to gather his thoughts
together for the coming talk. But he was weary with a long day's
labours, and somehow his eyes could summon no vision of the faces he
was to see. Instead--
"There ought to be a garden back here," he said to himself. "If I'm to
stay here for the coming year--as it looks as if I must--I should
cultivate this little patch and make it smile a bit. As it is, it's doing
no good to anybody, not even Bim. He's pretty careless about his bones
out here, and leaves them around instead of burying 'em decently. I must
teach him better. This would be a good place to bring the children into,
if it had some flowers in it."
The notion cheered him a little, as the thought of flowers in the spring
has a way of doing. He made a rough plan of the garden, in his mind,
laying out beds of sturdy bloom, training vines to cover the bleak
expanse of stone, even planting a small tree or two of rapid growth--for
the benefit of whomever should follow him as a tenant of the old house.
Presently he closed the door with some sense of refreshment, mental and
physical, and forced his thoughts into the channel it was now imperative
they should occupy.
He took his way to the meeting in the schoolhouse, however, with a step
less rapid than was usually his. It might have been the enervating
influence of the mild spring air; it might have been the pressure of
certain recollections which he had not yet succeeded, in the two months
which had passed since the farewell dinner at Webb Atchison's, in so
putting aside that they should not often depress and at times even
dominate his spirit. Though he had left the old life completely behind
him, and had settled into the new with all the conviction and purpose he
could summon, he was subject, especially when physically weary, as
to-night, to a heaviness of heart which would not be mastered.
"But I must--_I must_--stiffen my back," he said sternly to himself, as
he neared the dingy schoolhouse toward which, from all directions, he
could see his audience making its way. It was not the first time he had
addressed these girls and women, in so informal and unostentatious a
manner that no one of his hearers had so much as suspected his
profession, but had taken him for one of their own class. "He's got a way
with him," they put it, "that makes you feel like you could listen to him
all night." The sight of them now provided the stimulus he needed, and as
he smiled and nodded at two or three whom he had personally met he felt
the old interest in his task coming to his aid.
And in a brief space he was standing before them telling them the things
he had come to tell. It was not his message he had lacked--that had been
made ready long before the hour--it was only the peculiar power and
magnetism of speech and manner which had been the treasure of St.
Timothy's, that he had felt himself unable to summon as he came to this
humble audience. But now, as almost always, he was able to use every art
at his command to capture their attention, to hold it, to carry it from
point to point, and finally to drive his message home with appealing
force. And this message was, as always, the simple message of belief in
the things which make for righteousness.
Not all his auditors could arrive on time; they were obliged to come when
they could. Brown's talks had to be subject to constant though
painstakingly muffled interruptions, as one after another stole into the
room. His attraction for his hearers, however, once he was fairly
launched, was so great that there were few wandering eyes or minds.
Therefore, to-night, when he had been speaking for a quarter of an hour,
the quiet entrance of two figures which found places near the door at the
back of the room disturbed nobody, and caused only a few heads to turn in
their direction.
Those who did note the arrivals saw that they were strangers to the
assembly. They saw something else, also, though they could not have told
what it was. The two women, one young, one of middle age, were plainly
dressed in cheap suits of dark serge, such as many of the working-women
were wearing. Their hats were of the simplest and most inexpensive
design, though lacking any of the commonplace finery to be seen
everywhere throughout the room. But there was about the pair an
undeniable since unconcealable air of difference, of refinement if it
were only in the manner in which they slipped into their seats and fixed
their eyes upon the speaker, with no glances to right or left. The eyes
which noted them noted also that both were possessed of faces such as
need no accessories of environment to make them hold the gaze of all
about them.
"Settlement folks," guessed one girl to another, with a slight curl
of the lip.
"_Sh-h--_! Who cares what they are when _he's_ talkin'?" gave back the
other--and settled again to listening.
Brown had seen the newcomers, but they were far back in the room, which
was by no means brilliantly lighted, and beneath the shadows of their
hats there was for him no hint of acquaintance. He therefore proceeded,
untrammelled by a knowledge which would surely have been his undoing had
he possessed it at that stage of the evening. He went on interesting,
touching, appealing to his listeners, waging war upon their hearts with
all the skill known to the valiant, forceful speaker. Yet such was his
apparent simplicity of method that he seemed to all but two of those who
heard him to be merely talking with them about the things which
concerned them.
His was not the ordinary effort of the amateur social worker--such though
he felt himself to be. He had not a word to say to his hearers about
"conditions"; he gave them no impression of having studied them and their
environment till he knew more about it all than they did--or thought he
did. He brought to them only what they felt, consciously or
unconsciously, to be an intimate understanding of the human heart,
whether it were found beating under the coarse garments of the factory
hand or the silken ones of the "swells up-town." Gently but searchingly
he showed them their own hearts, showed them the ugly things, the strange
things, the wonderful things, of their own hearts--and then, when he had
those hearts beating heavily and painfully before him, applied the
healing balm of his message. Hard eyes grew soft, weary faces
brightened, despairing mouths set with new resolve, and when the hour
ended there seemed a clearer atmosphere, a different spirit, in the
crowded room, than that which earlier had pervaded it.
"Say, ain't he what I told you?" One girl, passing near the two strangers
as the company dispersed, inquired of another. "Don't it seem like he
knows what you don't know yourself about how you're feelin'?"
"You can't be so down in the mouth when you're listenin' to him," was
another comment which reached ears strained to attention. "You feel like
there was some good livin', after all. Did Liz come, d'ye know? She needs
somethin' to make her buck up. If she'd jest hear him--"
Brown remained in the room till almost the last were gone. The two
strangers waited at the door, their backs turned to the room, as if in
conference. Several women stayed to speak with the man who had talked to
them, and the waiting ones could hear his low tones, the same friendly,
comprehending, interested tones to which St. Timothy's had grown so
happily accustomed. At length the last lingerer passed the two by the
door, and Brown, approaching, spoke to them.
"Did you want to see me? Is there anything I can do?" he began--and the
two strangers turned.
His astonished gaze fell first upon Mrs. Brainard, her fine and glowing
eyes fixed upon him with both mirth and tenderness in their look. She had
been deeply touched by the sights and sounds of the hour just passed, yet
the surprise she had in store for her friend, Donald Brown, was moving
her also, and her smile at him from under the plain little hat she wore
was a brilliant one. But he stared at her for a full ten seconds before
he could believe the testimony of his eyes. Was this--could this possibly
be--the lady of the distinguished dress and bearing, who stood before him
in her cheap suit of serge, with a little gray cotton glove upon the hand
she held out to him?
He seized the hand and wrung it, as if the very contact was much to him.
His face broke into a smile of joy as he said fervently, "I don't know
how this happens, but it's enough for me that it does."
"I'm not the only one present, Don," said the lady, laughing, and turned
to her companion.
If he had given the second figure a thought as he recognized his old
friend, it was to suppose her some working-girl who had conducted the
stranger to the place. But now he looked, and saw Helena Forrest.
"_You_!" he breathed, and stood transfixed.
Miss Forrest had always been, though never conspicuously dressed, such a
figure of quiet elegance that one who knew her could almost recognize her
with her face quite out of sight. Now, without a single accessory of the
sort which stands for high-bred fashion, her beauty flashed at Brown like
that of one bright star in a sky of midnight gloom. She was not smiling,
she was looking straight at him with her wonderful eyes, and in them was
a strange and bewildering appeal.
For a moment he could not speak--he, who had been so eloquent within her
hearing for the hour past. He looked at her, and looked again at Mrs.
Brainard, and back at Helena again, and then he stammered, "I
can't--quite--believe it is you--either of you!" and laughed at his own
confusion, his face flushing darkly under the skin, clear to the roots of
the heavy locks on his forehead.
"But you see it is," said Helena's low voice. "We are confident of that
ourselves, for the journey has seemed a long one, under two smothering
veils. And we hadn't the easiest time finding you."
Brown recovered himself. "You didn't motor over this time, then?"
"The last time we were here," Mrs. Brainard reminded him, "you told us
quite frankly that you didn't care to have your friends arrive in
limousines, or in velvet and sables. So--we have left both behind."
"I see you have. It was wonderfully kind of you, though the disguise is
by no means a perfect one. I wonder if you can possibly think, either of
you, that you looked like the rest of my audience!"
"Did you know us when we came in?" questioned Mrs. Brainard, with a merry
glance. "I think you did not, Mr. Donald Brown!"
"How long have you been here?"
"We must have come in near the beginning of your talk. You didn't even
see us then, did you?"
"I saw two figures which looked strange to me--but--the lights--"
"Oh, yes," agreed the lady, gayly, "the lights were poor. And you saw
two working-women who were merely strangers to you, so you didn't
look again."
"I'm glad I didn't recognize you."
"Why? We rather hoped you would--didn't we, dear?"
She looked at her companion, who nodded, smiling.
"We both hoped and feared, I think," Helena said.
"I couldn't have gone stumbling on," Brown explained. "I should have had
to dismiss the meeting, telling them I had a rush of blood to the
head--or to the heart!"
At this moment he was helped out by the abrupt opening of the door
beside him. A grimy-faced janitor looked in, wearing an expression of
surly dissatisfaction. When he saw Brown the expression softened
slightly, as if he knew a friend when he beheld him, but he did not
withdraw. Brown rallied his absorbed faculties to appreciate what late
hours meant to that busy janitor.
"Just leaving, Mr. Simpson," he said cheerfully, and led his visitors out
into the school's anteroom.
"Are you at a hotel?" he asked, with eagerness, of Mrs. Brainard. "How
can I--where can I--"
"We ran away," explained that lady promptly. "Not a soul knows where we
are. We did not register at a hotel, for this is a secret expedition. We
take the eleven-fifteen train back. Meanwhile, Don, am I not an
acceptable chaperon? And won't my presence make it entirely proper for us
to break a bit of bread with you in your bachelor home? We had only
afternoon tea before we left. We are very hungry--or I am!"
"Oh, if you will only do that!" he said with an inflection of great
pleasure. "I shall be so tremendously honoured I shall hardly know how to
express it. I hope I have something for you fit to eat. If I haven't--"
"Bacon and eggs," said Mrs. Brainard, with twinkling eyes, "are what your
sister Sue insists you live on. Never in my life did I have such a
longing for bacon and eggs!"
"Then you shall have them--or an omelet garnished with bacon. And the
corner grocery has some lettuce and radishes. I believe I can even
achieve a salad."
Brown led the way through the ill-lighted streets, not talking as he
might have done in another quarter of the city, but hurrying them past
places he could not bear to have them see, and making one detour to avoid
taking them through the poorest part of the neighbourhood. It was by no
means a dangerous neighbourhood, but somehow he felt with these two rare
women on his hands, as if he must guard them even from the ordinary
sights to be had in the districts of the working class. And as he walked
by their side it came upon him, as it had never done with such force
before, that he could never seriously ask any woman from his own world to
come and face such a life as the one he had chosen for the active years
of his own.