It was mid-October when Ralph Drew, his pretty sister Constance and his
devoted maiden aunt--Miss Sally Drew--arrived in St. Angé and took up
their new life in the bungalow which, under Jude Lauzoon's
contractorship, had been made ready.
During his first short stay in St. Angé young Drew had regained not only
his lost strength, but he had gained an insight into the needs of the
men and women of the small place. He had always intended doing something
for the village and its inhabitants after his return to town for they
had appealed strongly to his emotional and sympathetic nature. But what
St. Angé had vouchsafed in the way of restored health, she had
begrudgingly bestowed. To have and to hold what she had given, the
recipient must, in return, vow allegiance to her, and, forsaking all
others, cling to her pines and silent places. He must forswear old
habits and environment--he must give up all else and fling himself upon
her mercy.
It had been hard. Back there in the town, where the pulse of things beat
high, he had fought the knowledge inch by inch.
"Would a year be enough?" It would be useless. "If winters were spent
there--several winters?" The big specialist shook his head.
High, dry mountains, somewhere, were the only hope. St. Angé was
comparatively near, she had given a hint as to what she could do--better
trust her.
One after another the outposts of lingering hope were taken by the grim,
white Spectre. He must abdicate, and accept what terms the enemy
offered.
Wan, and defeated, but still with the high courage that was his only
possession, Drew tried to get the new outlook.
If there were to be--life, then there must be work, God's work; he was
no coward, he would do his part.
Mingled with the many, dear, familiar things of the life that no longer
was to be his, was a slim, pretty, little girl whom he had enshrined in
his college days, and before whom he had laid his heart's sacredest
offerings since. She, and his splendid courage would make even St. Angé
a Paradise.
Raising his eyes to her face, as she sat beside his bed the day the
specialist had given his final command, Drew whispered his hope to her.
The soft, saintly eyes fell before the trusting, pitiful ones.
"Dear," he said, a new doubt faced him--one he had never believed
possible; "they say I will be well--quite well, there if I stay. And
you and I--" but that drooping face drove him back among the shadows.
"We--must--think of others." It was the voice of a self-sacrificing
saint, but the heart-touch was lacking, and Drew received his sentence
then and there.
For a few, weak days he decided to remain and finish it all and forever.
Then his manly faith bade him sternly to gather the poor remnant of his
strength together; grasp the broken blade that was his only weapon, and
finish the fight how and where he could.
"We'll go with you, laddie," Aunt Sally whispered, hanging over this boy
whom she loved as her own.
"And, dear," Constance sobbed on his pillow, "she wasn't worth your
love. I just knew it from the start. She's a selfish--egotistical--" a
thin, feverish hand stayed the girlish outburst.
"Never mind, Connie, we'll fly to the woods, and try to forget all about
it." And taking advantage of the golden October calm, they came to St.
Angé.
Lying upon his bed in the bungalow chamber, looking out over the hills
and meadows, gorgeous in autumn tints, Drew began slowly, interruptedly
to be sure, but perceptibly, to gain strength.
Having relinquished finally the old ideal of life, it was wonderful,
even to Drew himself, to find how much seemed unimportant and trivial.
It was rather shocking, in a mild way, for him to realize that a certain
girl's face was growing less and less vivid. At first he attributed this
to bodily weakness; then to weakness of character; finally, thank God!
to common sense. With that conclusion reached, the present began feebly
to be vital and full of meaning.
Had perfect health been his, a call to serve the cause to which he had
dedicated himself might have taken him farther than St. Angé from his
old life. It was the finality of the decree that had put him in that
panic. Well, he would not permit finality to hold part in his plans. He
would live as if all things _might_ come to him, as to other men. It
should be, day by day, and he would accept these people--if they would
accept him--not as minister and parishioners, but in the larger, deeper
sense--as brothers. With this outlook determined upon, a change for the
better began. Before it, while the old weakness possessed him, Jock
Filmer, sitting daily by his bed, was merely some one who was helping
nurse the fever-racked body; afterward, Jock materialized into the most
important and satisfying personality to be imagined. He was untiring in
his devotion and gentleness. Caught on the rebound from the shock Gaston
had caused him, Filmer went over to the new call to his friendship with
an abandon that proved his own sore need of sympathy.
The family, grateful for the signs of returning health in the sick man,
thankful for Jock's assistance and enlivening humour, disregarded
conventions, and admitted the new friend to the holy of holies in their
bungalow life.
Jock had not been so supremely happy in years. The companionship healed
the wound Gaston had given his faith, and he found himself shielding and
defending both Gaston and Joyce against his own crude judgments.
Before coming to St. Angé, Drew had been kept in touch with all that the
men who were working for him considered his legitimate business.
Anything pertaining to his house was fully explained; village scandal,
however, had been ignored, and when Drew was able to be moved in a
steamer-chair to his broad porch facing the west, he had many astounding
things to learn.
One morning, lying luxuriously back among his cushions and inhaling the
pine-filled air with relish, Drew electrified Filmer, who sat near him
on the porch railing, by observing calmly:
"Filmer, I've a load of questions I want to ask."
"Heave 'em out." Jock sighed resignedly. Of course, he had anticipated
this hour, and he knew that he must be the high priest. "Heave 'em out,
and then settle down 'mong facts."
"Where is Jude Lauzoon?" This was hitting the bull's eye with a
vengeance.
"Gone off for change of air and scene--somewhere." Jock presented a
stolid, blank face to his inquisitor.
"Gone where?"
"Now how in--how do you expect I know? Just gone."
"Taken that pretty little wife of his to new scenes, eh? Well, she never
seemed to me to belong here rightfully. I hope they'll do well."
Jock hitched uncomfortably.
"Well," he broke in, feeling it was inevitable, "Joyce didn't, as you
might say, go with Jude. She's stopping on here."
"With the baby? There was a baby, I recall. My sister talked of it a
good deal. She was interested in Joyce Lauzoon from what I told her."
"Well," Filmer felt his way, "there was, as you say, a--a baby, at least
a kind of--a--baby. It was about as near a failure as _I_ ever saw; but
Joyce was plain crazy about it."
"Was? Is--the child dead?" Drew's big eyes were full of sympathy.
"Well, I should say so! And women is queer creatures, Drew. Now any one
with an open mind would have been blamed glad when that poor little cuss
cut loose. It never would have had a show in life; it was a big mistake
from the beginning, but after it went, and was comfortably planted
behind the shack, what do you think? Why, she came back one night and
dug him up and put him--" In his endeavour to keep Drew from more unsafe
topics, Filmer had plunged straight into an abyss.
"Put him where?" Drew felt the gripping of life. It hurt, but it
stimulated him. He was suffering with his people--his people! Joyce's
lovely face, as he remembered it, pleaded with him for sympathy. It was
her face that had first given him assurance. She should not call in
vain.
"Oh! back of where she is stopping now. They've made the spot quite a
little garden plot, and--"
"Filmer, see here, tell me all about it!"
"Well, by thunder, then, here is the yarn. You see in the first place,
you didn't marry Jude and Joyce as tight as an older and more
experienced hand would have done. I ain't blaming you, but I've used the
thought to help me to be more Christian in my views about what happened.
The knot you tied was a slipknot all right."
A shadow passed over the sick man's face.
"You mean--" he began.
"I certainly do. There was a hell of a--excuse me--there was a rumpus of
some sort the night the kid was buried. It ended up with a general
smash-a-reen of furniture, pictures and such--and I guess Joyce came in
for a share of bruises, from what has leaked out since. But the outcome
was, she walked up to Gaston's shack that same evening, and what
happened there hasn't got into the society news yet; but when Jude and
me and Tate went up to straighten out what _I_ thought was a drunken lie
of Lauzoon's, there she was all right, wrapped up in Gaston's red
blanket, his arm around her, and him asking what we was going to do
about it?"
"What have you--done?" the even words came slowly.
"Nothing. Jude evaporated. I got a bit of a jog about Gaston; I ain't
over virtuous, but Gaston was a sort of pattern to me, and I'd got him
into my system while we was working on your house. He made me--believe
in something clean and big--and I didn't enjoy seeing him spattered with
mud of his own kicking up. But Lord! It ain't any of my business."
"And the others here? Do they make her and him--feel it?"
Filmer laughed.
"You forget," he replied; "Gaston's got about all the floating capital
there is around here. Where he gets it, is his own affair, and him and
Joyce don't ask no favours. The whole thing has settled into shape. You
needn't get excited over it. Of course, the women folks have warned your
aunt and sister off. I believe they call Joyce the worst woman in the
place--when they're whispering--but they don't take any chances of
giving offence by speaking out loud."
"Poor little girl!" Drew's eyes were misty. He shivered slightly and
pulled his fur coat closer about his chin. "How does she look, Filmer?"
"As handsome as--well, a queen would give her back teeth to look like
Joyce. I never seen the like. Head up, back as straight as a pine
sapling, eyes shining and hair like--like mist with sunlight in it.
Gaston has taught her to speak like he does. You know he always kept his
language up-to-date and stylish? Well, she's caught the trick now. You'd
think she'd travelled the way she hugs her g's and d's. She trips over
the grammar rules occasionally--but I always said they had to be born in
your blood to make you sure, and even then--you have to exercise them
daily."
"Poor little Joyce! I always felt she was only half awake, as she stood
that day before me. If I had it to do now--I would wake her up, before I
made the tie fast."
"Lord help us!" Jock felt the relief of an unburdened mind; "is it in
your religion to tie anything fast?"
"Yes; yes." Drew was looking over the sunlighted hills and thinking of
that lovely, dreaming face of a year ago.
"And now," Filmer was drawling on, "while you and me are on this sort of
house-cleaning spell, let me drop another item of interest into your
think-tank. We-all up here ain't going to stand for any preaching
business. I say this outspoken and friendly, meaning no ill feeling;
just plain, what's what. You see them ideas of yours what you handed out
last year set folks thinking. They sounded so blasted innercent and easy
that we all chewed on 'em for a time, and some of us got stung. Now them
as is native here can't think without suffering; and them as came here,
came to get rid of thinking, and so you see none of us want to be riled
along that _line_. See?"
"I see." Drew smiled, and stretched his thin white hand out to Filmer.
"Thanks. But if they'll let me live--that's all I want. It's my only way
of preaching, anyhow--and Filmer, I _am_ going to live. I feel the
blood running to my heart and brain. I feel it bringing back hope and
interest--a man can make a place for himself anywhere if there are men
and women about. _I_ thought first--back there--when I dropped
everything, that there never could be anything else worth while, but I
tell you old man, if you take even a remnant of life and love to Death's
portal you're always mighty glad to get the chance to come back and see
the game out. It's when you go empty-handed, that you long to slip in
and have done with it. Filmer, there's something yet left for me to
do."
Jock was holding the boyish hand in a grim grip. He tried to speak, but
could not. He stared silently at the muffled figure in the long chair,
then with an impatient grunt, dropped his hold and actually fled in
order to hide the feelings that surged in his heart.
Left alone, Drew sank wearily back and closed his eyes. The
lately-acquired strength proved often a deserter when it was tested, and
for the moment the sick man felt all the depression and inertia of the
past. He _felt_, and that was his only gain. Before, he had been too
indifferent to feel or care.
"Poor, little, pretty thing!" he thought, with Joyce's face before him
against the closed eyelids. "She couldn't stand it. She didn't look as
if she could. I'm sorry she had to find her way out by such a
commonplace path. What was Gaston thinking of to let her? He knew--he
should have kept his hands off and not blasted what little hope might
have been hers."
Half dreamily he recalled what Filmer had just told him. His weakened
body held no firm clutch on his imagination at that time of his life--it
ran riot, often giving him abnormal pleasure by its vivid touches;
occasionally causing him excruciating pain as he suffered, in an
exaggerated way, with suffering.
He saw Joyce, bruised and shuddering as a result of Jude's cruelty; he
saw her poor little idols dashed to pieces before her eyes; he felt her
grief for the dead baby, and when he remembered Jock's account of her
taking the small casket to the only spot where she herself was safe, the
weak tears rolled down his cold, thin face. He was too exhausted and
full of pain to wipe them away.
He heard his aunt and sister come out of the house.
"Asleep!" whispered the older woman in a glad tone.
"I'll go for a walk," Constance added, tip-toeing away. "Have the milk
and egg ready when he wakes, auntie. Did you ever see such a day? I feel
as if I had just been made, and placed in a world that hadn't been used
up by millions of people."
They were gone, and Drew sighed relievedly.
Presently he opened his eyes, if he had slept he was not conscious of
it, and there sat the girl of his dreams near him.
"Mrs.--" he faltered, "Mrs. Lauzoon, how good of you to come and see me.
I hope you know I would have come to you as soon as I was able?"
Joyce had been studying his face--nothing had escaped her: its wanness,
the sharp outline, and the tears congealed in the hollows of his cheeks.
She pulled her chair nearer, and took his extended hand.
"I'm sorry you've been sick," she said simply.
Then they smiled at each other.
[Illustration: PRESENTLY HE OPENED HIS EYES ... AND THERE SAT THE GIRL
OF HIS DREAMS NEAR HIM]
It was hard for Drew to readjust his ideas and fit this beautiful woman
into the guise of the Magdalene of his late thoughts.
Vaguely he saw that whatever she had undergone, she had brought from her
experiences new beauty; a new force, and a power to guard her
possessions with marvellous calm. She was being made as she went along
in life. Her spiritual and mental architecture, so to speak, could not
be properly estimated until all was finished. This conclusion chilled
Drew's enthusiasm. He would have felt kinder had she been less sure of
herself.
"You are looking--well, Mrs. Lauzoon." Drew felt the awkwardness of the
situation growing.
"Please, Mr. Drew, I'm just Joyce again. Perhaps you have not heard?"
Her great eyes were still smiling that contented, peaceful smile.
"I've heard. Need we talk of it, Joyce?"
"Unless you're too weak, we must; now or at some other time. You see I
have been waiting to talk to you. I've been saying over and over, 'He'll
understand. He'll make me sure that I've done right.'"
Drew, for the life of him, could not repress a feeling of repulsion.
Joyce noticed this, and leaned back, folding her hands in her lap.
Drew saw that her hands were white and smooth. Then she gathered her
heavy, red cloak around her, and hid those silent marks of her new
refinement.
"They call me"--the old, half-childish smile came to the face looking
full at Drew--"the worst woman in town. At least, they call me that when
they think I won't hear. You know they were always afraid of Mr. Gaston
a little. But I hear and it makes me laugh."
The listener closed his eyes for a moment. He could better steady his
moral sense when that sweet beauty did not interfere with his judgment.
"You see, if I had stayed on--with Jude, and lived--that--awful life": a
sudden awe stole into her voice--"then, if they had thought of me at
all, they would have thought of me as--good. It would have been--good
for me to have--poor, sad little children--like--like my--my
baby--You've heard?" Her lips were quivering. The play of expression on
her face, the varying tones of her voice unnerved Drew. He nodded to her
question.
"It was such a--dreadful, little, crooked form, Mr. Drew--such--a
hideous thing to hold a--a--soul. Just once, the _soul_ smiled at me
through the big, dark eyes--it wanted me to know it _was_ a soul--then
it went away."
Even while the smile trembled on the girl's lips the tears stood in her
eyes.
"You see," she went on, "no one would have blamed me if I had gone on
like that--the misshapen children, and soon they would have stopped
having souls--and Jude's cruelty,"--again that fearsome catch in the
voice--"they would have called me good--if I had stayed on--but you will
understand?" She bent toward him with pleading and yearning in her face.
"Oh! how I have just hungered to talk it over with you--and to feel
sure! There isn't any one else in all the world, you know, to whom I
could say this."
"How about Gaston?" Drew heard his own words, and they sounded brutal,
but they were forced from him.
Joyce stared surprisedly.
"Why--we never talk of--of that. How could we? But I read--and Mr.
Gaston has taught me to think--straight--and don't you notice how much
better I talk?"
"Yes--and dress." All that was hard in Drew rose in arms. This girl was
like the rest of her kind for all her wood-setting and strange beauty.
The only puzzling thing in the matter was her desire to talk it out with
him.
"I have lots of pretty things to wear." Joyce smoothed her heavy cloak.
"He's the kindest man I ever knew. That's another reason I had for
wanting to come to you. I want you to show him just _how_ you
understand. I begin to see how lonely he is--how lonely he has always
been up here--there is no one quite like him--but you. But Mr. Drew, do
you remember what you preached that day you--married us--Jude and me, I
mean?"
"I'm afraid not--so many things have happened since." Drew tried to keep
his feelings in check.
"Well, I remember every word." The glowing face again bent toward Drew.
"Can't you think back? It was about what we've brought into the world,
what we get here and shape into _our_ lives, and then what we leave when
we go--away. The blazed trail, you know, and clearing the way for
others. Oh, it was the sort of thing that when you thought about it you
didn't _dare_ go on being careless."
"I do--recall." Her intensity was gripping Drew in spite of himself. "It
was an old fancy. But it has helped me to live."
"It has _made_ me live. I tried it fair and honest with Jude, Mr. Drew,
but no one could do it with him. The trail got choked with--awful
things--and I only had strength enough to run away, after one year. If I
had stayed--I--I would have rotted as I stood." She breathed thick and
fast. Her old life, even in memory, smothered her. Drew caught a slight
impression of what it must have been for this strange-natured woman. He
began to think she was not yet awake, and the thought made him kinder in
his estimate of her.
"But," he said gently, "was there no other way out of your difficulty?"
She looked pityingly at him.
"I didn't go to Mr. Gaston to--to stay," she whispered: "there was a
reason for my going--a reason about Jude--then things happened that I
guess were meant to happen. There was no other way out for me--but I had
not thought that far. I guess if God ever took care of any one, he took
care of me that night."
This utterly pagan outlook on the proprieties positively stirred Drew to
unholy mirth. But it did something else--it made him realize that the
girl before him was quite outside the reach of any of his preconceived
ideas. He could afford to sit down upon her plane and feel no moral
indignation. Perhaps, after all, she had brought his work to him when
she came herself.
"You see, after Jude and Mr. Tate and Jock Filmer found me there late at
night--there was nothing else for me to do. Jude would have killed
me--if I had gone away alone--he was--awful. Besides, where could I have
gone?"
"Gaston should have acted for you. He knew what he was doing to you."
The righteous indignation confused the girl.
"Why, he did act for me." The fire sprang to the wondering eyes. "He is
the best man on earth. There are more ways of being good than one. The
people here can't see that--but surely you can. Mr. Gaston made my
life safe and clean. I could grow better every day. Why, look at me."
She flung her arms wide as if by the gesture she laid bare her new life.
"He has taught me until I can see and think, wide and sure. He is always
gentle--and he never lets me work until--until I'm too tired to want to
live.
"Isn't it being good when you are growing into the thing God meant you
to be? Ought you not to take any way God offers to reach that kind of
life?" Joyce flung the questions out fiercely. She was perplexed by
Drew's attitude. If he were as much like Gaston as she had believed, why
did he look and act as he was doing?
"If--if you have, and if you are, all that you say, why do you question
me so?" Drew asked. He was feeling his way blindly through this new
moral, or unmoral, thicket.
"Because sometimes a queer thought comes to me. I know it is because
these people can not understand; but _you_ can, and when you have told
me it is all right--I shall never have the thought again."
"What _is_ the thought, Joyce?"
"You see," she almost touched him now in her intensity, "I do not know
anything about Mr. Gaston--really. About what he was, what his life was
before he came here. I would not hurt him for anything God could give to
me--and sometimes I have wondered if--if in that life that was; the
life that _might_ come again to him, you know,--for for he is _so_
different from any one here--I wonder if what he has done for me, could
hurt him? Could anything that is so heavenly good for me--hurt
him?--tell me, tell me!"
And now Drew dropped his eyes and sent a swift prayer to God for
forgiveness.
He had thought her without conscience, without soul. He felt himself in
a dim valley, and he hardly dared to raise his eyes to her.
"I am perfectly happy." The words quivered to him, and belied
themselves. "And he says he--is--but would he be if he were back
there--where he came from? In my getting of _my_ life, am I taking from
_his_?"
"Good God!"
"You--you do not understand, either?"
"Yes; I do, Joyce--I understand. I understand."
"Am I hurting him?"
"He must answer that, Joyce, no one else can. He must face that some
day, and also whether he is hurting you or not. We cannot any of us
choose a little sunny spot in life for ourselves and shut out the past
and future by a high wall. The present faces both ways, Joyce, and light
is let in from all sides. Light and blackest gloom, God help us!
"What Gaston's other life was--he alone knows--he ought to tell you if
he hopes to help you really. If he's the good man he seems to you,
Joyce, he _will_ tell you, and give you a chance to play the game."
Suddenly an inspiration came to Drew. "Tell him," he said slowly, "that
I have friends coming here--friends who will probably build summer homes
and introduce a new life. It's none of my business, perhaps, but you've
come to me for help--and as God shows me, I must help you. Gaston has no
right to injure your future by playing a game with you that you in no
wise understand. It isn't fair--and he knows it, if he stops to think.
Perhaps there was no way for him to help you that night, but the way he
took. Perhaps he nobly did the only thing he could--I hope to God this
is true; but there are other ways now, Joyce--he must know and give you
a choice."
"I--I--do not see--what you mean?" A frightened look spread over Joyce's
face, and she shivered even in the full glow of the autumn sunlight. "I
feel--you make me feel--as if I had been--as if I am--shut in a little
room, with the doors and windows about to be opened. What is coming in,
Mr. Drew? What am I going to see? You--you frighten me. I cannot--I will
not believe--anything dreadful could happen to him or me--when I am so
happy and safe."
The excitement was wearing upon Drew frightfully. His ghastly face
appealed suddenly to Joyce as she looked at him through her own growing
doubt.
"I'm going," she said, starting up; "I've made you worse. What can I
do?"
Drew smiled wanly and held out a trembling hand.
"Come again," he whispered. "It's all right, I'm much better--than when
you came."
And so he was, spiritually, for he had retained his belief in God's
goodness, somehow. Just why, he could not have told, but had the girl
been what he had, for a moment, believed, it would all have seemed so
uselessly hopeless and crude.
From the strange confession he had obtained but a blurred impression,
but that impression saved his faith in Joyce, at least. She was not a
bad, ignoble woman. Whatever she had done, had been done from the best
that was in her, and if Gaston had accepted her sacrifice he had, in
some way, managed to keep himself noble in her sight.
It was a baffling thing all around. A thing that he must approach from a
new standpoint; the one, the only comfort was, the girl's own evolution.
It was not possible Drew thought, that all was evil which had produced
what he had just seen.