Northrup arose the next morning before daylight and tried to write a
note to Mary-Clare. It was the most difficult thing he had ever
undertaken. If he could speak, it would be different, but the written
word is so rigid.
This last meeting had been so distraught, they had beaten about so in
the dark, that his uncertainty as to what really was arrived at
confused him.
Could he hope for her understanding if without another word he left
her to draw her own conclusions from his future life?
She would be alone. She could confide in no one. She might, in the
years ahead, ascribe his actions to the lowest motives, and he had,
God knew, meant her no harm.
Then, as it was always to be in the time on ahead, Mary-Clare herself
seemed to speak to him.
"It is what one does to love that matters." That was it--"What one
does."
With this fixed in his mind Northrup wrote:
I want you to know that I love you. I believe you love me. We
couldn't help this--but you have taught me how not to kill it.
There are big, compelling things in your life and mine that cannot
be ignored--you showed me that, too. I do not know how I am to go
on with my old life--but I am going to try to live it--as you will
live yours.
There was a mad moment on the hill that last day we met--you saved
it.
There is a greater thing than love--it is truth, and that is why I
must bid you good-bye--in this way.
Crude and jagged as the thought was, Northrup, in rereading his words,
did not now shrink from Mary-Clare's interpretation. She _would_
understand.
After an early breakfast, at which Kathryn did not appear--Aunt Polly
had carried Kathryn's to her room--Northrup went out to see that
everything was ready for the journey home. To his grim delight--it
seemed almost a postponed sentence--he discovered the chauffeur under
the car and in a state of _calm_ excitement. In broken but carefully
selected English the man informed Northrup that he could repair what
needed repair but must have two hours or more in which to do it.
With his anxiety about his mother lessened, Northrup received this
news with a sense of relief. Once the car was in commission they could
make good the loss of time. So Northrup started upon his errand,
taking the roundabout trail he had broken for himself, and which led
to that point back of the cabin from which he had often held his
lonely but happy vigils.
Over this trail, leaf-strewn and wet, Northrup now went. He did not
pause at the mossy rock that had hitherto marked his limit. He sternly
strode ahead over unbroken underbrush and reached the cabin.
The door was open; without hesitation he went in, laid his note on the
table, put the Bible over it, and retraced his steps. But once at the
clump of laurel a weak, human longing overcame him. Why not wait there
and see what happened? There was an hour or more to while away before
the car would be in readiness. Again Northrup had that sense of being,
after all, an atom in a plan over which he had small control.
So far he could go, no further! After that? Well, after that he would
never weaken. He sat down on the rock, held the branches aside so that
the cabin was in full view and, unseen himself, waited.
Now it happened that others besides Northrup were astir that morning.
Larry, shaved and washed, having had a good breakfast, provided by
Peneluna and served by Jan-an, straightened himself and felt more a
man than he had felt for many a day. He gave Jan-an money for Peneluna
and a dollar for herself. The girl stared at the bill indicated as
hers and pushed it back.
"Take it, Jan-an," Larry urged. "I'd like to remember you taking it."
The girl, thus urged, hid the money in her bosom and shuffled out.
Larry was sober and keen. He was going to carry out Northrup's
commands, but in his own way! He meant to lay a good deal more in
waste than perhaps any one would suspect. And yet, Larry, sober and
about to cut loose from all familiar things, had sensations that made
him tremble as he stumbled over the débris of the Point.
Never before had he been so surely leaving everything as he was now.
In the old days of separation, there had always been _home_ in the
background. During that hideous year when he was shut behind bars, his
thoughts had clung to home, to his father! He had meant then to go
back and reform! Poor Larry! he had nothing to reform, but he had not
realized that. Then Maclin caught him and instead of being reformed,
Larry was moulded into a new shape--Maclin's tool. Well, Maclin was
done with, too! Larry strode on in the semi-darkness. The morning was
dull and deadly chill.
Traditional prejudice rose in Rivers and made him hard and bitter. He
felt himself a victim of others' misunderstanding.
If he had had a--mother! Never before had this emotion swayed him. He
knew little or nothing of his mother. She had been blotted out. But he
now tried to think that all this could never have happened to him had
he not been deprived of her. In the cold, damp morning Larry reverted
to his mother over and over again. Good or bad, she would have stood
by him! There was no one now; no one.
"And Mary-Clare!" At this his face set cruelly. "She should have stood
by me. What was her sense of duty, anyway?"
She had always eluded him, had never been his. Larry rebelled at this
knowledge. She had been cold and demanding, selfish and hard. No woman
has a right to keep herself from her husband. All would have been well
if she had done her part. And Noreen was his as well as Mary-Clare's.
But she was keeping everything. His father's house; the child; the
money!
By this time Larry had lashed himself into a virtuous fury. He felt
himself wronged and sinned against. He was prepared to hurt somebody
in revenge.
Larry went to the yellow house. It was empty. There was a fire on the
hearth and a general air of recent occupancy and a hurried departure.
A fiendish inspiration came to Rivers. He would go to that cabin of
Mary-Clare's and wait for her. She should get her freedom there, where
she had forbidden him to come. He'd enter now and have his say.
Larry took a short cut to the cabin and by so doing reached it before
Mary-Clare, who had taken Noreen to Peneluna's--not daring to take her
to the inn.
Larry came to within a dozen yards of the cabin when he stopped short
and became rigid. He was completely screened from view, but, for the
moment, he did not give this a thought. There was murder in his heart,
and only cowardice held him back.
Northrup was coming out of the cabin! Rivers had not realized that he
trusted Northrup, but he had, and he was betrayed! All the bitterness
of defeat swept over him and hate and revenge alone swayed him.
Suddenly he grew calm. Northrup had passed from sight; the white mists
of the morning were rolling and breaking. He would wait--if Mary-Clare
was in the cabin, and Larry believed she was, he could afford to bide
his time. Indeed, it was the only thing to do, for in a primitive
fashion Rivers decided to deal only with his woman, and he meant to
have a free hand. He would have no fight for what was not worth
fighting for--he would solve things in his own way and be off before
any one interfered.
And then he turned sharply. Someone was advancing from the opposite
direction. It was Mary-Clare. She came up her own trail, emerging from
the mists like a shadowy creature of the woods; she walked slowly,
wearily, up to the Place and went inside with the eyes of two men full
upon her.
At that moment the sun broke through the mists; it flooded the cabin
and touched warmly the girl who sank down beside the table. Instantly
her glance fell upon the note by the Bible. She took it up, read it
once, twice, and--understood more, far more than Northrup could
guess.
Perhaps a soul awakening from the experience of death might know the
sensation that throbbed through the consciousness of Mary-Clare at
that moment. The woman of her had been born in the cabin the day
before, but the birth pains had exhausted her. She had not censured
Northrup in her woman-thought; she had believed something of what now
she knew, and understood. She raised the note and held it out on her
open palms--almost it seemed as if she were showing it to some unseen
Presence as proof of all she trusted. With the sheet of paper still
held lightly, Mary-Clare walked to the door of her cabin. She had no
purpose in mind--she wanted the air; the sunlight. And so she stood in
the full glow, her face uplifted, her arms outspread.
Northrup from his hidden place watched her for a moment, bowed his
head, and turned to the inn. Larry watched her; in a dumb way he saw
revealed the woman he had never touched; never owned. Well, he would
have his revenge.
Mary-Clare turned back after her one exalted moment; she took her
place by the table and spread again the note before her. She did not
notice the footsteps outside until Larry was on the threshold and then
she turned, gripping, intuitively, the sheet of paper in her hand.
Larry saw the gesture, saw the paper, and half understood.
Mary-Clare looked at her husband distantly but not unkindly. She did
not resent his being there--the Place was no longer hers alone.
"A nice lot you are!" Rivers blurted this out and came in. He sat down
on the edge of the table near Mary-Clare. "What's that?" he demanded,
his eyes on the note.
"A letter."
"Full of directions, I suppose?" Larry smiled an ugly, keen smile.
"Directions? What do you mean?"
"I guess that doesn't matter, does it?" he asked. "Don't let us waste
time. See here, my girl, the game's up! Now that letter--I want that.
It will be evidence when I need it. He's broken his bargain. I mean to
take the advantage I've got."
Mary-Clare stared at Rivers in helpless amazement--but her fingers
closed more firmly upon the note.
"When he--he bought you--he promised me that he'd never see you again.
He wanted you free--for yourself. Free!" Larry flung his head back and
indulged in a harsh laugh. "I got the Point--he bought the Point and
you! Paid high for them, too, but he'll pay higher yet before I get
through with him."
Mary-Clare sat very quiet; her face seemed frozen into an expression
of utter bewilderment. That, and the memory of her as she had stood at
the door a few moments ago, maddened Rivers and he ruthlessly
proceeded to batter down all the background that had stood, in
Mary-Clare's life, as a plea for her loyalty, faith, and gratitude.
"Do you know why my father kept me from home and put you in my place?"
he demanded.
"No, Larry."
"He was afraid of me--afraid of himself. He left me to others--and
others helped me along. Others like Maclin who saw my ability!" Again
Larry gave his mirthless, ugly laugh and this time Mary-Clare
shuddered.
She made no defence for her beloved doctor--the father of the man
before her. She simply braced herself to bear the blows, and she
shuddered because she intuitively felt that Larry was in no sense
realizing his own position; he was so madly seeking to destroy that of
others.
"I'm a counterfeiter--I've been in prison--I've----" but here Rivers
paused, struck at last by the face opposite him. It was awakening; it
flushed, quivered, and the eyes darkened and widened. What was
happening was this--Larry was setting Mary-Clare free in ways that he
could not realize. Every merciless blow he struck was rending a fetter
apart. He was making it possible for the woman, close to him
physically, to regard him at last as--a man; not a husband that
mistaken loyalty must shield and suffer for. He was placing her among
the safe and decent people, permitting her at last to justify her
instincts, to trust her own ideals.
And from that vantage ground of spiritual freedom, released from all
false ties of contract and promise, Mary-Clare looked at Larry with
divine pity in her eyes. She seemed to see the veiled form of his
mother beside him--they were like two outcasts defiantly accusing her,
but toward whom she could well afford to feel merciful.
"Don't, Larry"--Mary-Clare spoke at last and there were tears in her
eyes--"please don't. You've said enough."
She felt as though she were looking at the dying face of a suicide.
"Yes, I think I have said enough about myself except this: I wrote all
those letters you--you had. Not one was my father's--they were
counterfeits--there are more ways than one of--of getting what you
want."
Again Mary-Clare shuddered and sank into the dull state of amazement.
She had to think this over; go slowly. She looked at Larry, but she
was not listening. At last she asked wonderingly:
"You mean--that he did not want me to marry you? And that last
night--he did not say--what you said you understood?"
Larry laughed--but it was not the old assured laugh of brutality--he
had stripped himself so bare that at last he was aware of his own
nakedness.
"Oh!" The one word was like a blighting shaft that killed all that was
left to kill.
Larry put forth a pitiful defence.
"You've been hard and selfish, Mary-Clare. Another sort might have
helped me--I got to caring, at first. You've taken everything and
given mighty little. And now, when you see a chance of cutting loose,
you wipe me off the map and betray me into the hands of a man who has
lied to me, made sport of me, and thinks he's going to get away with
it. Now listen. I want that letter. When I have used up the hush
money I have now, I'm coming back for more--more--and you and he are
going to pay."
By this time Larry had worked himself again into a blind fury. He felt
this but could not control it. He had lost nearly everything--he must
clutch what was left.
"Give that to me!" he commanded, and reached for the clenched hand on
the table.
"No, Larry. If you could understand, I would let you have it, but you
couldn't! Nothing matters now between you and me. I am free, free!"
The radiant face, the clenched hand, blinded Larry. Sitting again on
the edge of the table, looking down at the woman who had eluded him,
was defying him, he struck out! He had no thought at all for the
moment--something was in his way; before he could escape he must fling
it aside.
Mary-Clare drooped; dropped from her chair and lay quiet upon the
floor. Her hand, holding the paper, was spread wide, the note was
unprotected.
For a moment Larry gazed at his work with horrified eyes. Never before
had he meted physical brutality to man or woman. He was a coward at
heart, and he was thoroughly cowed as he stood above the girl at his
feet. He saw that she was breathing; there was almost at once a
fluttering of the lids. There were two things for a coward to
do--seize the note and make his escape.
Larry did both and Mary-Clare took no heed.
A little red squirrel came into the sunny room and darted about; the
sunlight grew dim, for there was a storm rising, and the clouds were
heavy on its wings.
And while the deathly silence reigned in the cabin, Northrup and
Kathryn were riding rapidly from the inn. As the car passed the yellow
house, Kathryn pathetically drew down the shades--her eyes were
tear-filled.
"Brace, dear," she whispered, "I'm so afraid. The storm; everything
frightens me. Take me in your arms."
And at that moment Kathryn believed that she loved Northrup, had saved
him from a great peril, and she was prepared to act the part, in the
future, of a faithful wife.