There was only a path leading from the highway to John Gaston's shack. A
path wide enough for a single traveller, and the dark pointed pines
guarded it on either side until within ten feet of the house. The house
itself sat cosily in the clearing. It was a log house built by amateur
hands, but roughly artistic without, and mannishly comfortable within.
The broad door opened into the long living room, where a deep fireplace
(happily the chimney had drawn well from the first, or the builder would
have been sore perplexed) gave a look of hospitality to the otherwise
severe furnishings. The fireplace and mantel-shelf were Gaston's pride
and delight. Upon them he had worked his fanciful designs, and the
result was most satisfactory. There was a low, broad couch near the
hearth piled with pine cushions covered with odds and ends of material
that had come into a man's possession from limited sources. A table,
home-made, and some Hillcrest chairs completed the furnishings, except
for the china and cooking utensils that ornamented shelves and hooks
around the room.
An inner door opened into Gaston's bedchamber and sanctum. No one but
himself ever entered there.
There was a broad desk below the one wide window of that room and a
revolving chair before it. A boxed-in affair, filled with fragrant pine
boughs, answered for a bed. This was covered with white sheets and a
pair of fine, handsome, red blankets. An iron-bound chest stood by the
bed with a padlock strong enough to guard a king's treasure, and around
the walls of the room there were rows of books, interrupted here and
there to admit a picture of value and beauty out of all proportion to
the other possessions.
Over the window hung a large-faced clock that kept faultless time, and
announced the fact hourly in a mellow, but convincing, voice. Just below
the window and over the desk, was a pipe-rack with pipes to fit every
mood and fancy of a lonely man. There were the short stumpy ones, with
the small bowls for the brief whiff when one did not choose to keep
company with himself for long, but was willing to be sociable for a
moment. There were the comfortable, self-caring pipes that obligingly
kept lighted between long puffs while the master was looking over old
papers, or considering future plans. Then there were the long-stemmed,
deep-bellied friends for hours when Memory would have her way and wanted
the misty, fragrant setting for her pictures that so comforted or
tormented the man who wooed them.
By the rude desk Gaston was sitting on the evening that Jude and Joyce
were clinging to each other in the house under the maples. His hands
were plunged deep in the pockets of his corduroy trousers, his long legs
extended, and his head thrown back; he was smoking one of his
memory-filled pipes, and his eyes were fixed upon the rafters of the
room.
He was a good-looking fellow in the neighbourhood of thirty-five;
browned by an out-of-door life, but marked by a delicacy of feature and
expression.
The strength that was in Gaston's face might puzzle a keen reader of
character as to whether it were native, or the result of years of
well-fought battles. Once the will was off guard, a certain softness of
the eyes, and a twitching of the mouth muscles came into play; but the
will was rarely off guard during Gaston's waking hours.
An open book lay upon the desk, and the student lamp cast a full light
upon the words that had caught the reader's thoughts after the events of
the day and their outcome.
"In the life of every man there occurs at least one epoch when the
spirit seems to abandon the body, and elevating itself above mortal
affairs just so far as to get a comprehensive and general view, makes
this an estimate of its humanity, as accurate as it is possible, under
the circumstances, to that particular spirit. The soul here separates
itself from its own idiosyncrasy, or individuality, and considers its
own being, not as appertaining solely to itself, but as a portion of the
universal Ego. All important good resolutions of character are brought
about at these crises of life; and thus it is our sense of self which
debases and keeps us debased."
Poe and Gaston were great friends. The living man knew that had he known
Poe in the body he would have feared and detested him, but there was no
doubt he had left trails of glory in his wake, for the comfort of
struggling humanity, if only one could lose sight of the man, in the
spiritual effulgence of his genius.
Gaston, in his detached life, practised many arts upon his individuality
and character. He had time and to spare to "abandon the body," and he
was growing more and more confident, that in these self-imposed crises
he was gaining not only strength, but a keen and absorbing interest in
others. If the sense of self debased, then this detachment was his great
salvation.
The rings of smoke curled upward, lost shape and formed a haze of
blueness. The heat became intense, and the noises of the summer night
magnified. The windows and doors were set wide, Gaston's wood-trained
senses were alert even in this abstraction.
"What next?" That was the question. He had just come through a conflict
with flying colours. He was flushed with victory, but the after details
annoyed him. With the waning enthusiasm of achievement, from his point
of vantage of abandonment, he was trying to see beyond this confident
hour--see into the plain common days when a sense of self would control
him, tempt him, lure, and perhaps, betray him. What then?
The realization of Joyce Birkdale's womanhood a time back had shaken him
almost as much as it had the girl herself.
It had all been so peaceful, so elemental and satisfying before: that
companionship with the little lonely, aspiring, neglected child. She was
so responsive and joyous; so eager to learn, so childishly interested in
the fairy tales of another sort of existence that he kept from decay by
repeating to her. And then that sudden, upleaping flame in the
purple-black eyes. The fierce rush of hot, live blood to the pale face.
The grip of those small work-stained hands as they sought dumbly to stay
the trembling until he had taken them into his firm control.
Well, confronted by the blinding flash, he had acted the man. That was
good. He had not acted thoughtlessly, either. He had sent the quivering
little thing away quietly, and with no sense of bitterness, until he had
threshed the matter out. And then in the Long Meadow, he had set the
girlish feet upon the trail he had blazed out for them during the
nights of temptation and days of lonely self-abnegation.
It was a hard, stumbling way he had fixed upon. His heart yearned over
the girl even as he urged her on. But Joyce was demanding her woman's
rights. Demanding them none the less insistently, because she was
unconscious of their nature. He knew, and he must go before her; but
there was small choice of way.
When he had held her in his arms out there in the open, he had bidden
her farewell with much the same feeling that one has who kisses the
unconscious lips of a child, and leaves him to the doubtful issue of a
necessary surgical operation.
But the victory over self was his, and Joyce was on Life's table. There
was a sort of feverish comfort now in contemplating what might have
been. Many a man--and he knew this only too well--would have put up a
strong plea for the opposite course.
What was he resigning her to at the best? There was no conceit in the
thought that, had he beckoned, Joyce would have leaped into the circle
of his love and protection. Not in any low or self-seeking sense would
the girl have responded--of that, too, he was aware; but as a lovely
blossom caressed by favouring sun and light, forgetting the slime and
darkness of its origin, she might have burst into a bloom of beauty.
Yes, beauty! Gaston fiercely thought. Instead--there was honour! His
honour and hers, and the benediction of Society--if Society ever
penetrated to the North Solitude.
Joyce would forget her soul vision, she would marry Jock Filmer--no; it
was Jude Lauzoon who, for some unknown, girlish reason, she had
preferred when she had been cast out from the circle of his, Gaston's
protection.
Yes, she would marry Jude--and Jock might have made her laugh
occasionally--Jude, never! She would live in cramped quarters, and have
a family of children to drag her from her individual superiority to
their everlasting demands upon her. Perhaps Jude would treat her,
eventually, as other St. Angé husbands treated their wives. At that
thought Gaston's throat contracted, but a memory of the girl's strange,
uplifted dignity gave him heart to hope.
Again the reverse of the picture was turned toward him. He saw her
flitting about his home--who was there to hold her back, or care that
she had sought dishonour instead of honour?
He might have trained and guided that keen mind, and cultivated the
delicate, innate taste. Yes; he might have created a rare personality,
and brightened his own life at the same time--and the years and years
would have stretched on, and nothing would have interrupted the pure
passage of their lives until death had taken one or both. Gaston sat
upright, and flung the pipe away. Suppose he should choose to--go back?
Well, in that case it would have gone hard with Joyce. The soul he had
awakened and glorified would have to be flung back into the hell from
which its ignorance shielded it.
That was it. In giving the girl the best--yes, the best, in one
sense--he must forego his own soul's good; forego the hope that he might
some day choose to go back--and in that hope, lay Joyce's damnation.
Through dishonour--as men might have classified it--he might have lifted
Joyce up, but to save her soul alive from the hope he reserved for
himself--his open door--he must drive her back to squalor and even
worse.
He had chosen for her and for himself. He had his hope; Joyce was to
have her honour; and now, what next?
His renunciation had strengthened him. His good resolutions steadied
him; in the regained empire of his self-respect he contemplated the
loneliness of exile, self-imposed, but none the less dreary. He was so
human in his inclinations, so pitifully dependent upon his environment;
and since he had stepped from the train three years ago, these rough
people had taken him at his face value; desired nor cared for nothing
but what he chose to give. Desolate St. Angé was dear to him.
No, he would remain. There was really no reason why he should abdicate
the little that was his own. All should be as it was, except for Joyce,
and even she, now that he was sure of himself and had the rudder in
hand, even she might claim his friendship and sympathy in her new life.
He started. His quick ear detected the slow step outside.
"Hello, Jude," he called without getting up. "Step in; I'll fetch a
light."
"How did you know 'twas me?" Jude asked from the outer darkness. The
salutation made him feel anew the awe of constant supervision.
"I thought you'd drop in," Gaston carried the lamp into the living room
and set it upon the table.
Jude shambled in, drew a chair up to the table and sat down. Gaston took
his place opposite and kept his eyes upon his caller. Jude grew restless
under the calm inspection. He had come with a goodly stock of
self-assertion and sudden-gained dignity, but they withered under the
inquiring gaze.
"You've come from Joyce Birkdale's? I congratulate you, Jude."
So he knew that too! Jude felt a superstitious aversion to this man he
had but recently begun to have any feeling toward whatever outside the
ordinary give and take of village life.
Over the ground he had come laboriously to discuss, Gaston strode with
unerring instinct. There were no words ready for this friendly advance,
so Jude halted. He had meant to approach the announcement of his
engagement to Joyce by telling Gaston what he had seen from the hilltop
that afternoon and what he had gained since, and then he had intended,
in man-fashion, to warn Gaston off his preserves. Instead, he sat
twirling his cap and foolishly staring.
"Smoke?" Gaston felt his guest's discomfort and tried to ease the
strain. He pushed the tobacco-jar forward; no St. Angé man ever
travelled without his own pipe.
"Given it up," muttered Jude, "and cards likewise, and--and drink; I'm
going to get married right away."
This was rather startling. Gaston had expected some faltering on Joyce's
part, some dallying with the past. The smoke of his burning bridges was
still in Gaston's consciousness. He had lighted the fuse, to be sure,
but had not expected the demoralization to be so prompt.
For a minute his gaze faltered, then he said cordially:
"Good! And you won't drink to it--or smoke over it? Well, then, shake,
old man."
For the life of him Jude could not decline. So their hands met over the
bare table.
An awkward pause followed. Gaston took refuge in smoke. He drew the
inevitable pipe from his pocket, filled and lighted it, and during the
time of grace, got himself in hand.
"Jude," he said between puffs, "I want to see her married."
Jude's anger rose. The words and the tone brought back his suspicions
and jealousies.
"I want that girl to have a chance at life." Gaston looked over Jude's
head, and drew hard upon his pipe. "She's never really waked up. Just
got the call, you know. Before this, she's been dreaming, and God alone
knows where she got her dream material. Like the rest of us, until she
finds out, she's going to expect her dream to come true. In heaven's
name, Lauzoon, help her to make it true."
The import of all this touched Jude not at all, but the meddling of this
outsider did mightily stir him to depths he had never fathomed before.
Suddenly a kind of courage came to him, partly worthy, but wholly
unreasonable.
"I ain't no wooden-head, as some thinks I am," he blurted out, while his
dull eyes flashed; "and, by gosh, I want that darn well understood
between you and me, Mr. Gaston! I don't want any interference in my
affairs; but as to what you're drivin' at, perhaps, I'll say this. I'm
going to let Joyce have her head--in reason."
"You better," Gaston laughed unpleasantly. He rather liked Jude the
better for his uprising; but he had no intention of showing a flag of
truce now.
"Why?" asked Lauzoon; the laugh irritated him.
"Oh, it's plain common sense to be with her, instead of against her,
when she gets fully awake. Her kind goes well enough in harness if the
other one pulls a fair share--if he doesn't--why, the chances are--she'd
break the traces and--clip it alone."
"Alone, hey?" It was Jude's turn to laugh now. "You ain't got the lay of
the country yet, Mr. Gaston, not so far as the women is concerned. How
in thunder is a woman to go alone, I'd like to know, in St. Angé? Once
she's married, she's married, and she knows it. Go alone? I'd like to
know where she'd go to?"
A breeze was now stirring outside. Gaston felt it and he shivered
slightly.
"Jude," he continued after a moment, "they sometimes go to the devil,
you know. Even St. Angé's ideals do not prevent that, judging from
things I've heard."
"Not her kind," Jude muttered. He was harking back to Lola Laval. How
the girl rose and haunted him to-night! "Not her kind, Mr. Gaston."
"No, you're right, Jude--not her kind as she is now. That's just the
point. It's poor work, though, to draw on your bank account without
noting how your balance stands. If you do, you'll get a surprise some
day. Joyce wants the best she can get out of life. She's had a vision,
poor little girl, and she's making for that vision, believing it a
reality. We all do that, old man, and it's up to you to give her as much
of what she wants as you can. She's been building a place for her
soul"--Gaston was thinking aloud. Jude had vanished from his
horizon--"and she's going up to take possession some day. God, how that
woman is going to love--something!"
And just then Jude shifted into view again upon the line of Gaston's
perceptions. He had risen to his feet and was glaring at his companion.
There was an ugly look on his face, and his hands trembled with the
effort he made to restrain himself.
"Say, Mr. Gaston," he blurted out, "all that talk is damned moonshine,
and I ain't such a fool but what I know it. Such gaff ain't nourishing.
Now as to Joyce, I'm going to do the square thing by her. Her
book-learning is all right if she keeps it to herself, and don't let it
get mixed up with her duties 'long of me. And right here, Mr. Gaston,"
Jude choked miserably, "I guess her and me don't want no coaching from
you. No harm intended, understand, but just a clean showing."
Indignation and a realization of his own insignificance, had hurled Jude
along up to this point, but he was suddenly landed high and dry by the
calm, amused look in Gaston's eyes.
"Too bad you don't smoke, Jude," Gaston said quietly, refilling his
pipe. "But sit down, and loosen your collar. The room is infernally
close. I've been thinking some of leaving St. Angé--"
"When are you going?" Jude broke in with an eagerness that intensified
the smile on Gaston's face, and bade the devil in him awake. The same
devil that in boyhood days had made him such an irritant to the bullies
of his class.
"Oh, I'm not going," he replied, puffing luxuriously upon his pipe;
"I've changed my mind. All I wanted was new scenes and occupations. I've
decided to stay on awhile. But I've been thinking, Jude, you don't want
to take Joyce into your shack. Let's build her another up on the sunny
slope beyond the Long Meadow on the Hillcrest side. I'm gaining strength
each year; I like to keep myself busy and the work would be a godsend to
me. What do you say? I can lend you a little money, too, if you need
it."
Need it? Unconsciously Gaston had touched the spring that unlocked the
evilest part of Jude's nature. Jealousy, love, hate, were blotted out by
this unlooked-for suggestion. His dark face flushed and his dull eyes
gleamed. Money! Money! To handle it, spend it and enjoy it without great
bodily effort in earning it. This had ever been a consuming passion
with Jude. A passion that had remained smouldering because no favouring
chance had ever fanned it. Lazy and hot-blooded, Jude, in a prosperous
community, might have developed criminal tendencies young; in St. Angé
there had been nothing to tempt him--until now.
"Thank you," he said, and Gaston saw the change in him. "I--I may be
glad of a small loan--just at the start, you know, and before I get my
pay from the camp boss. It's almighty kind of you, Mr. Gaston, to think
of this here building and all. Me and Joyce will take it grateful, I can
tell you."
"Going?" Gaston asked, for Jude had risen and was awkwardly shifting
from foot to foot. "Well, so long! Good luck--and a speedy marriage."
Then the door closed upon the transformed Jude.
"Now, what in thunder," mused Gaston in the hot, smoky room, "has got
into that fellow, I wonder!" Could they know of his money? The amount,
and manner of getting it? Was he, in offering Jude this assistance,
letting the leak in upon his own safety?
A cloud gathered on Gaston's face. A sensation of coming evil possessed
him. He felt as if, in an unguarded moment, he had given an enemy a
power over him.
The memory of the look in Jude's face when the money cast a gleam over
his hate, repelled him. Gaston was as fully alive to the possibilities
now as Jude was--perhaps more so; but there stood the pale, innocent
girl between them. He recalled her hurt, quivering face when he had
urged her into Jude's keeping. It had seemed her only salvation--hers
and his! But it began to look now like a hideous damnation.
"Poor little devil," he murmured taking the lamp and going back into his
bedroom.
The window of this room he closed carefully, and set the lamp upon the
rude desk. He drew the pistol from the drawer, and laid it conveniently
at hand, then he turned to the chest with the mighty lock and, having
unfastened it, drew forth a small package and went back to the chair
before the desk.
The package contained a photograph and some letters. The letters were
tied together, and these the man placed beside the pistol. The
photograph he took from its various wrappings of tissue paper and braced
it against the lamp.
The big clock hanging over the window frame struck one. The heat in the
little room became stifling, and the lamp flickered in its duty--for the
oil was running low.
With arms folded before him Gaston gazed upon the pictured face. It
broke upon the senses like a revelation of womanhood. At the first
glance it seemed as if just that type had never been conceived before.
The artist had grasped that conception evidently, for with no shading or
background, with only a filmy scarf outlining the form from the
colourless paper, the compelling features started vividly upon the
vision, as the individuality of the girl did upon the imagination. An
irritation followed the first impression. Was this child, or woman? What
was she to become, or what had she become already? Was she a soul
reaching out for realization, or a well-developed personality, having
gained, with all its other attainments, a power of self-concealment from
the inquisitive eye?
The brow, low and broad, bespoke gracious womanhood and a possible
radiant maternity, rather than intellectuality. The masses of hair were
braided and wound coronet-style about the small uplifted head. The eyes,
deep, dark, and mystical gave no clue to the inner woman; but the mouth,
while it was tender in its curves, had a rigidity of purpose in its
expression that fixed the attention. A pretty, rounded chin, a slender,
slightly tilted nose, an exquisite throat set off by the cloud of
lace--such was the face that Gaston beheld, and presently it wrung a
groan from him.
"Ruth, Ruth, Ruth," he muttered, and then his mind took to the
memory-haunted highway that led back, back of the lonely years of St.
Angé; past a certain black horror that had stood, and would always
stand, as a thing that should not have existed; but which had been, and
would always remain, an object that cast a shadow before it and behind
it.
"Did you do this thing?"
"I did."
Question and answer made up the vital happening in Gaston's life.
Everything before led up to them, and all that had occurred since was
the outcome.
They had admitted--or so he once thought--of no shading nor explanation.
The questioner was not the type to deal unsteadily with a problem, and
Gaston had been too simple and direct to note fine points or shadings.
Perhaps neither of them had understood. Life had been so fair until the
terrible thing had loomed up. It had come like a cataclysm--how could
they, young and inexperienced as they had been, deal with the situation
justly?
Suppose _now_ she stood before him, wonder-eyes raised, seeking his
soul's truth; hands resting in his until he should speak. Would he speak
again those two crude, fatal words? Would she drop her hands letting his
soul sink, by so doing, into the blackness which had engulfed it?
That was the torturing problem that Gaston was working out up in the
lonely St. Angé woods; but he seemed no nearer the answer than when he
had come to the place, by mistake, a few years back, and decided to stay
there simply because it was as desirable as any other forsaken spot,
while he was debarred from the Paradise of life.
The lamp flickered fretfully, and the spasmodic flare showed the rigid
face torn with the emotions that were racking the soul laid bare before
its God and its own consciousness.
What had the dreary, desolated years done for him? He was a fool. Why
had he not taken what was possible, since the ideal was dashed from him?
This girl, way off there behind the hideous shadow, had been wiser. She
had replaced his memory by living love; why should not he take the poor
substitute that the Solitude offered, and warm the barren places of his
heart and life with the faint glow?
It was a bad hour for Temptation to assail John Gaston.
The armour of self-wrought strength was off. Suffering was flaying the
naked despair and yearning; and just then Temptation knocked softly and
pitifully at the door of the outer room!
Gaston had done more while he had hidden in the woods than he was aware
of. He had developed something akin to second sight. Loneliness and
empty hours had strengthened this as blindness intensifies other senses
to abnormal keenness. Gradually he had grown to believe that a man's
life, complete and prearranged, lies stretched before, and occasionally
some, when the circumstances are propitious and the soul has a certain
detachment that ignores the bodily claims, can leap over the _now_ and
here, and catch a glimpse of the future and what it holds. This vague
sense had come to Gaston more than once during the past year or two--the
seeing and hearing of that which had held no part in what was, at the
moment, occurring, but which he noted later had become a fact in his
life.
That feeble knock dragged the man's consciousness away from the pictured
face; away from his wavering indecision; away from the darkening room
with its foul smell of oil: he knew who stood outside in the
moonlighted, fragrant summer night, and he wondered if he were going to
open that barred door to her. He waited for a glimpse of what was in
store for them both.
But his spiritual sight was blinded by a firm, deadening blankness!
Whatever was to be the outcome must be of his own choosing.
Again she knocked, that poor little temptress in the dark. What had Fate
decreed that he was to do? Gaston knew as well as if Joyce had told him,
_why_ she had come. Her soul had revolted from her concession to Jude.
In the bewitched hours of darkness, the primitive, savage instinct had
driven the girl to the only one who could change her future. Worn,
weary, defiant, she had come to him; not questioning further than her
despair and his power.
Well, why not? Who would be the worse, and who the better--if he drew
her within and closed the door upon--St. Angé?
Another tap--this time upon the wooden shutter of the bedchamber!
Gaston shivered and trembled. He was not outside; he was stifling in the
dark room. The light had gone entirely, and he was struggling to free
himself from an intangible enemy or friend; a thing that had, unknown to
himself, evolved during those isolated years among the pines, and was
restraining his lower nature now.
He battled to get to that little, insistent girl. He heard her sob, a
childish sob, half desire, half fear. The veins stood out on his
forehead and his hands gripped the edge of his desk as he got upon his
feet.
The sob outside was echoed by a stifled groan from within--then all was
still.
Slow retreating steps presently sounded without. She, that sad, broken,
little temptress, was going to meet the fore-ordained future that lay
before. There was nothing else left for her to do. All her reserves were
taken.
Then Gaston, when all was beyond his power of recall or desire, opened
the window.
Softly, sweetly, the fresh morning air entered. It was a young and good
morning. A morning cool and faintly tinted, a morning to soothe a hurt
heart, not to stimulate it too harshly.
Gaston's lined face smoothed under the caress. His armour arose as if
unseen hands guided it, and placed it again upon him. Once more he was
the strong, quiet man that St. Angé had taken upon faith, and accepted
without question.
As he looked at the scene, his self-respect giving him courage to meet
the day, Jude Lauzoon's soft-stepping figure materialized upon the edge
of the pine woods.
The humour of the situation for a moment gripped Gaston's senses. Had
all St. Angé stayed awake and been on guard while the night passed? But
the smile faded. How long had Jude been there? Long enough to _know
all_, or just long enough to know half?
What should he do? If Jude knew but half, no explanation could possibly
avail. If he knew all; if he had been on guard before Joyce came--been
camping out with no definite purpose, since his late talk in the
shack--why, then it was simply a matter to be settled between Lauzoon
and Joyce. God help her! He, Gaston, could serve best by retiring. This
he did physically.
He put away his treasures and locked them fast; then, flinging himself
upon the pine-bough bed, dressed as he was, he soon fell into a troubled
sleep.