Billy ate long and uninterruptedly. Peggy supplied his demands before
they were voiced, and Maggie, the small and unimpressed sister, eyed him
from across the table with keen, unsympathetic stare. Occasionally she
made known her opinions with a calm, sisterly detachment that roused no
resentment in the new being who had hurled himself upon them.
"You eat like a real pig," Maggie remarked with a sniff. She was being
trained for the bungalow fête, and she had suffered in the process.
Billy eyed her indifferently.
"Push them 'taters nearer," was all he replied.
"Your father'll kill you," Peggy ventured timidly, as she filled Billy's
cup for the fourth time with a concoction which passed in St. Angé for
coffee, because Leon Tate so declared it.
"No, he won't, neither," Billy said; "nobody ain't ever going to kill
me, never!"
He turned a tense, defiant face to his mother, but there was something
in his eyes that drew tears to Peggy's. She came behind his chair and,
half afraid, let her hand rest upon his thin shoulder.
Wonder of wonders! Billy did not shake off the unfamiliar caress. On
the contrary he smiled into the work-worn face above him.
"Ain't Billy terrible speckled when the tan's off?" Maggie broke in,
"and his hair's as red as my flannel petticoat."
Peggy cast a threatening glance at her daughter.
"Clear off the table!" she commanded, for Billy was at last finished.
Maggie set about the task with relief. Something was afoot that she
could not understand. Maggie was not spiritually constructed, but she
was going to be a woman some day!
"Mother!" Generally Billy addressed her as "say!" "Mother, I'm going
over to Hillcrest to school. I'm going to work when I can, and--make
somewhat of myself."
Maggie dropped a cup, and, because she happened to be near her mother,
Peggy relieved her own feelings by boxing the girl's ears. Then she
turned again to her man-child and stared stupidly.
Poor downtrodden Peggy! She was at a crisis of motherhood that is common
to high and low. Since Mary of Galilee found her son in the Temple
questioning Wisdom, and with awe beheld that he was no longer her little
child, the paralyzing question, "What have I to do with thee?" has set
maternity back upon itself over and over again, in order that the
suddenly arrived Man might be upon "his Father's business."
"Going to--make--something of yourself?"
Peggy's trembling hands groped feebly, and then, thank heaven! Billy
drew near and glorified this new, but lonely place of his own creation.
"You've done your best, mother; I see it now, but I was--I ain't going
to say what I was--but I'm going to be something different; and you're
going to help me now, like you always have."
A pain gripped Peggy's throat, and the room whirled about. Then the mist
cleared from the dim eyes and Hope lighted them.
"Son," she said solemnly, "I am. I don't quite see how, but the way will
be opened. Go in, now, and rest; you look clean done for."
It was humiliating, but Billy had to feel his way to the door of the
bedchamber beyond.
Alone with her daughter, Peggy's Vision on the Mount faded.
"Billy's aged terrible," she said to Maggie, who was still sulking
because of the boxed ear.
"I know what's the matter with him." Maggie's lynx-eyes glittered. "I
found some po'try he writ on the back of the wood-shed door. He thought
nobody but him ever went there. It's grand po'try."
Maggie struck an attitude, and drawled:
My heart feels like a chunk of rock
When I am far from you,
But when you trip acrost my vision
My heart melts same as du.
"I learned that in one morning!" Maggie proudly declared. "I don't care
if he is my brother, that's grand."
Peggy dropped helplessly in her chair. She had never looked for glory in
her modest dream. That Billy should escape the degradation of the Black
Cat, and that Maggie might have a lighter cross than her own to carry,
had been the most she had plead for when she had had time to pray; and
now--why God had crowned her lot by children who were undoubtedly
geniuses! Maggie, too, had a circle of light about her head. And it had
all dawned upon Peggy in a flash of an eye.
"You ain't sick to your stomach, are you, mother?"
Peggy repudiated this with scorn.
"Maggie," she said softly, "I want that you should write that out real
plain for me, in print. I'm going to take it up to the bungalow."
"Billy'll cuss us." Maggie turned coward.
"Oh! I ain't going to let Mr. Drew think Billy done it." Peggy was
waxing bold. "I'm going to tell him it was writ by a noted po'try-maker,
and I want to find out what his views is as to its fineness."
Maggie looked dubious.
"He might guess," she said.
"How _could_ he?" Peggy raised her face ecstatically. Then Maggie came
close to her mother.
"Ma," she whispered, "don't you know why Billy writ that, and why he
wants to get learning, and what not?"
"No," gasped Peggy, and she felt that the heavens were about to open.
"He wants to be different so he can spark--her!"
"Spark?" Peggy panted inanely as if the word were of foreign tongue.
"Yep, spark."
"Her?"
"Yep. Her. Miss Drew."
Peggy's jaw dropped.
Since the sudden opening of the door, and Billy's unlooked-for entrance,
events had crowded upon Peggy Falstar's horizon.
Her children had been translated. She felt desolate and stricken,
although her heart glowed with pride as she viewed them from afar. In a
last attempt to cling to her familiar attitude toward Maggie at least,
Peggy vaguely remarked:
"I wonder if your being a girl makes you such a plain fool?"
"I 'spose it might," Maggie returned indifferently.
"Well," her mother continued, "don't you go upsetting Billy with any of
your fool ideas."
"I ain't going to hurt 'im." Maggie tossed her head.
"Hurt him!" Peggy sniffed. "You lay this up for future hatching, Maggie
Falstar. You, me, nor nobody ain't ever going to hurt him again and
_know_ it. What hurts he gets, from now on, he ain't going to howl
about."
Just then the supposedly slumbering Billy came out of the inner room.
Mother and sister eyed him critically. He was magnificently attired in
all the meagre finery he could call into service. What he lacked in
attire he made up in the grooming. Billy shone. Billy was plastered.
Billy smelled to high heaven of soap and kerosene. But there was that
about Billy which checked Maggie's ribald jeers, and the mother's
question as to where he was going.
However, Billy was magnanimous in his power. He turned at the outer door
and satisfied his mother's curiosity.
"Anything you want sent up to Joyce's?"
"Joyce's?" gasped Maggie. "Joyce's?"
Billy held her with a glance.
"Joyce's," he repeated. Then receiving no reply, he went out into the
still, cold night.
Billy felt like a man who held the fortune of many in the hollow of his
hand.
Knowing the ways of St. Angé men he felt sure the letter from "the
backwoodsman" to Joyce would be several days, or a week, in
materializing, perhaps much longer. It was for him to be ready and
watchful; but there was no immediate call for action. His sympathies
were so largely aroused for Joyce, that he meant to overcome his
yearning to be with the object of his passion, and on that first night
he intended going to Gaston's shack and setting Joyce right about the
future and his own part in the drama.
Billy realized that he must shield himself. Birkdale and Lauzoon must
never know of his presence in the hut. Joyce, Billy felt sure, would
coöperate with him. If he and she could find Gaston, all might be safe
and well; but while Gaston was absent, danger lurked. However, Joyce
must refuse to meet "the backwoodsman"; after that they two, Billy and
Joyce, must find a path that connected Gaston with them, and make him
secure from the plots of the evil Birkdale and the weak, foolish Jude of
the unerring shot.
All this Billy thought upon as he strode forward whistling comfortably,
and his chest swelling proudly.
It was one thing to whistle on the highway of St. Angé, and quite
another to whistle in the wilds of the North Solitude.
Billy was full of creature comfort, and the scattered lights of the
houses gave cheer and a feeling of security to the boy.
The Black Cat's twinkling eyes had no charm for Billy. They were never
to have a charm for him; but as he neared the bungalow his whistle grew
intermittent and his legs had an inclination in one direction while his
heart sternly bade him follow another. Then, without really being aware
of his weakness, Billy found himself knocking on the bungalow door, and
his heart thumped wildly beneath the old vest of his father's which he
wore closely buttoned under the coat he had painfully outgrown.
In response to his knock, the wide, hospitable door was flung open, and
Billy faced a stranger who quite unnerved him, by the direct and pointed
question:
"Why, good evening, little boy; what do _you_ want?"
The glow from within set Billy's senses in a mad whirl, but the "little
boy" was like a dash of cold water to his pride and egotism.
"I--I--want--her!" Poor Billy was in a lost state.
"It is--I do believe it is my delectable Billy."
It was _her_ voice, and it floated down to the boy at the gate of
Paradise, from the top of a step-ladder. Halfway up the ladder Jock
Filmer stood with his hands full of greens and his eyes full of
laughter.
"Billy, come up and be welcomed. Get down Jock, you've had your turn."
His turn! A fierce hate rose in Billy's heart; but the stranger closed
the door behind him; Aunt Sally and the minister were saying kind things
to him, and informing him that the angel who had admitted him was Mrs.
Dale, the Fairy of Christmas, and a great admirer of little boys.
Little boys! Were they bent on insulting him?
Jock descended with that laugh of his that always disturbed Billy's
preconceived ideas. Then Billy was facing _Her_ as she bent to meet him
halfway.
The glad smile passed slowly from Constance Drew's face. The others,
below, were talking and forgetting the two upon the ladder.
"Why--Billy--have you--been sick?"
"No, ma'am."
"Did they let you come home for Christmas?"
"No, ma'am. I jest cum."
Constance looked long at him, and at last the laugh was gone even from
her dear eyes.
"Billy," she said softly, laying her hands on his shoulders, "you've
been keeping your word to me, about swearing, and--and all the rest?"
"Yes'm."
"It's been hard, too, dear, I know; but it has made you into
something--better." And then with a shining look on her face she bent
and kissed him.
The heat rushed all over Billy's body, following a cold perspiration.
His mouth twitched, and a maddening feeling of tears rose to his
smarting eyes.
"I'm--going--over--to--Hillcrest school!" He whispered feebly, "I'm
going--to get--learnin', an' things."
"Oh! Billy!"
"Yes'm."
"Oh! my dear Billy."
But such moments in life are brief. They are only permitted as
propellers for all the other plain moments which are the common lot.
Billy and Constance came down from the heights morally, spiritually and
physically and joined the commonplace things below.
There was corn to pop, and candy to make. There were boxes to unpack,
and goodies to eat; so was it any wonder that Joyce and her poor affairs
should be relegated to a place outside this Eden?
Then, too, Jock complicated matters. He was shameless in his mirth and
jokes. Even the stranger-lady with her wonderful aloofness could not
daunt him, but Billy fiercely resented his attentions to the girl for
whom he, Billy, had forsaken all else.
To leave the field to Jock was beyond the strength of mere man, so they
stayed it out together, and left the bungalow in company just as the
clock struck twelve.
It was then that the events of the past forty-eight hours began most to
tell upon Billy. His exhausted nerves played him false, and cried out
their desperate state.
As he and Jock left the warm, scented room behind them, and faced
the white, still cold of an apparently dead St. Angé, the boy turned
a drawn face upon Jock, and cried tremblingly, "Say, you
better--keep--yer--hands--off!" Jock stood still, and returned Billy's
agonized stare with one equally grim.
"I've just reached that conclusion myself, Billy," he said, with every
trace of his past mirth gone.
Billy was hoisted on his own petard.
Hatred fled before the sympathy he felt flowing from Jock to him. He
wanted to cry; wanted to fling himself upon his companion and "own up,"
but Jock anticipated all his emotions.
"See here, kid," he said in a voice new to St. Angé's knowledge of Jock;
"you're not the fellow to grudge a poor devil an hour or so of heaven.
There's the hope of an eternity of it for you; but for me there's going
to be only--the memory of this hour. Shake hands, old man, and take this
from me, straight. Keep yourself _fit_ to touch. Lay hold of that and
never let go. The more you care, the more you'll curse yourself, if you
don't. It's the only decent offering a man can take to a woman.
Everything else he can hope to gain afterward. A place for her, money,
and all the rest; but if he goes to her with dirty hands and a heart
full of shame, nothing can make up for it--nothing!
"Billy--I'd give you all I ever hoped to have here or hereafter if I
could begin to-night where you are--and with the power to _want_ to keep
straight."
Billy shivered and looked dumbly, pathetically into the sad face above
him. He had nothing to say. When Jock next spoke he was more like
himself.
"Billy, will you see to a little business for me, and keep mum?"
This was quite in the line of the over-burdened Billy, and he accepted
off-hand.
"I may--go--into camp before Christmas."
"Don't yer!" advised the boy magnanimously. "I ain't ever going to care
again. You can stay here." Jock forbore to smile, but he laid his hand
on Billy's shoulder.
"There's two big stacks of young pine trees up to my shack done round in
bagging and ticketed to a place down the State. They're Christmas trees
for poor kids, and I want you to see to getting them off for me
to-morrow or next day, and if Tom Smith airs any remarks, you let on as
how they hailed from the bungalow; for that's God's truth, when all's
told."
"They'll go, Jock, you bet!" Billy gulped.
Curiosity was dead within him. Human suffering gave him an insight that
soared above idle questioning.
"And Billy, there's another thing. I want you to go to Gaston's shack;
tote water and wood for Joyce--and keep your mouth shut. And lay this by
in your constitution. Gaston is a man so far above anything God ever
created round here, that you can't understand him, but you _can_ try to
chase off the dirty insects that want to sting him. Catch on?"
"Yes"; murmured Billy, while unfulfilled duty clutched his vitals with
remorse.
"I'm--I'm going up to Gaston's to-morrow," he said.
"And now, you old rip," Filmer shook off his strange mood, "walk up to a
fellow's bunk with him. It's good to keep clean company when you
can--and for as long as you can."
"Shall--shall I stay all night with you?"
Billy asked this doubtfully from the new instinct that was stirring
within him. For an instant a gleam of pleasure lighted Filmer's face. It
almost seemed like a yearning, then he said roughly:
"No, get home! You're afraid? If you are I'll turn back."
"What you take me for?" Billy sniffed scornfully, and then they parted
company.
* * * * *
It was just when the hands of the clock in Drew's study pointed to
half-past twelve, that the young master, sitting before the glowing
logs, bestirred himself preparatory to turning in for the night.
A satisfied feeling had kept him up after the others had bade good
night. He always enjoyed the anticlimax of pleasure, and the day had
been a happy one.
He felt well. The companionship of the widowed wife of his closest
friend, added interest to the new life in the woods. She had brought
news and had awakened memories, but she had timed the Past and the
Present to perfect measure. At last he could hope that the old wound was
healed and that he could live among his people--his people! the thought
thrilled him--with purpose and content. The rough men and women about
him were drawing closer. He knew it in the innermost places of his
heart. He was brightening their lives. He was holding their children for
them, and opening a way for them to seek higher paths. It would all come
out as he desired. It was a splendid field of work that had been given
him--and he had rebelled so in his ignorance!
How he wished that Philip Dale could have lived to see and know. Of all
the men whom he had known, Dale was the one man who could have
comprehended this opening for service. What a noble fellow he had been!
How his personality and charm struck one at the first glance. He had
been one of those men who claimed friends as they came his way, without
pledge of time or intimacy. He knew what was his own in life, and
gripped it without question or explanation. He had been the first to
understand Drew's ambition, so different from the ones of the social set
in which they both moved.
"You'll always find me at your elbow, Drew," he had said, "in any scheme
you start." But when the time came--Dale had slipped out of life as
bravely and cheerfully as he had always lived. "And he had his own deep
trouble," Drew mused as he prepared to bank the fire; "he never talked
about it; but it made him what he was. One must go through some sort of
fire to be of real service."
A light tap on the door startled him. He had been, in thought, far, far
from St. Angé.
"Come!"
The door opened slowly and Ruth Dale entered.
She was all in white--a soft, long, trailing gown. Her hair had been
loosened from the coronet, and fell in two shining braids over her
shoulders. She looked very girlish as she came to the fire and dropped
into a deep chair.
"Please put on more logs," she said softly. "Father Confessor, I've come
to confess." There was something under the playfulness that touched
Drew. "I told Connie that I wanted to talk to you about a plan of mine;
well, so it is, but I want you to put the stamp of your sage approval
upon it."
Drew shook his head.
"Hardly that," he said with a laugh, "but I'm willing to plot with you."
"I always think of you now," Ruth Dale continued, leaning toward the
crackling logs, and holding her little benumbed hands open to the heat,
"as 'the man who lives in his house by the side of the road, and is a
friend to man'. Ralph, I need a friend! I must have one or I shall fail
in that which I have set myself to do."
There was no lightness in the woman's manner now. She looked tragic;
almost desperate.
Ralph Drew waited for her to go on. He was prepared to follow, but he
could not lead.
Her youthfulness of appearance struck him now as it often had before;
but the worn look in the eyes emphasized it to-night.
"You look tired, Ruth," he said kindly; "won't to-morrow--or"--for he
saw it was well on toward one o'clock--"later in the day do?"
"Unless you are too weary to bide with me one little hour?" she replied
wistfully; "it had better be now."
"You know what an owl I am, Ruth. With returning health my old habits
seem to gain strength. I sleep more satisfactorily if I do it after
midnight." He settled back comfortably in his chair, and the fire,
encouraged by several small logs, rose to the occasion.
"I've been thinking about--Philip to-night."
"Poor girl. It was a year ago! To remember Phil best, we should be
cheerful, but the subconscious sadness ran through all the evening's fun
for you--and me, Ruth."
"Yes. Ralph, you only knew Phil a few years--never before he was
married?"
"No, but he was one of those men who do not belong to time limit nor
letters of introduction. His own knew him at a glance. There was no time
to be lost with Phil. I've often noticed that faculty for deep and
ready friendship among people who are here for only a short life. Others
can afford to weigh and consider; they must garner quickly, and the
Master seems to have equipped them."
"Ralph, was Phil a man that you felt you knew, really knew, I mean?"
"Yes; as to essentials. I never saw any one so positive as to the high
lights. Honesty, truth, good faith, and a broad humanity. I always knew
he had trouble that he did not talk about; he hinted that much to me
once or twice, but the silence regarding it only intensified his own
personality, of which he gave lavishly."
The woman bending toward the fire, shivered, and as her head sank lower,
one shining braid of hair dropped forward, shielding her face.
"Ralph--I sometimes think the thing I have to do is the--hardest that
ever woman had to do." The words were uttered with a moan that drove
Drew into a silence more eloquent than any question he could have put.
He realized that the woman beside him must tread the rough path of
confession alone, and as she could. In his heart he prayed for strength
to be beside her when all was done.
"If ever a sin saved, Philip's sin saved him, and yet he counted it as
nothing at the last. He bade me do for him what he could not do for
himself--I have never been able to begin until--to-night. He said--he
had no right to friends nor the trust and favour of love. But he never
was able to renounce them; I must strike them down one by one--now he is
gone.
"I must do as he would have me do--I see the justice, if the end is to
be obtained, but thank God, I, who loved him--can still love him--and he
has been dead a year!"
The pain-racked eyes looked straight into Drew's with a sort of
challenge. But Drew was too sincere a man to give, even to friendship, a
blind comfort and assurance. He merely smiled at the troubled glance,
and said quietly:
"I am sure where you loved, there was much to love."
"Yes; yes; that is true; and I begin to think the nobility of it all lay
in his unconsciousness of the splendid character he builded so patiently
and laboriously out of all the wreck.
"Philip had a brother, Ralph! His name was never spoken. He was two
years older than Philip, and as different as it was possible for a
brother to be.
"John was all strength and concentration; Philip all brightness and
charm--in the beginning! Their mother adored Philip; she never
understood John, and yet he was a good son, brave and faithful. But he
could not show his nature--it lay so far below the surface. It was
always easy for Philip. His charm attracted nearly everyone. My father
always liked John better. He said there was splendid power in him,
and--I must keep nothing from you, Ralph--I loved John--loved him, oh!
how I loved him. I pitied him because he could not win what should have
been his--I loved him for myself, and for all the others who were too
dull to realize his worth. It was like mother love and all the rest, in
one."
"Yes; the most God-like love of all. Only women know it, I fancy," Drew
murmured.
"And then"; the agonized eyes seemed to plead even while they confessed,
"then the awful thing happened. John took--he stole many thousands of
dollars from men who trusted and honoured him."
"Ruth!"
"I could never have believed it, but he told me so himself. To the day
of his death my father believed the half had never been told, but how
could I think that, when John told me himself that he was guilty? Father
was a judge--he was to have been the judge before whom John Dale was
tried, but they relieved him of that horrible duty. John Dale was
sentenced to five years--in prison! They said it was a light sentence."
"My God! Poor Phil! How terrible for you all!"
"Don't! don't!" Ruth Dale put out her hands as if warding off a blow.
"Haven't you guessed? Can you not think?"
Drew shook his head slowly. He did not seem to be able to think at all.
"Mrs. Dale died soon after. She had a weak heart--it killed her. Philip
was everything to her--he was heavenly good in his attention and
devotion. Somehow, I wonder what you will think of me, but suddenly I
became possessed with a passion for making happier them whom John had
blighted. I grappled with my own love--I knew it would kill me if I let
it gain power over me. I knew I never could be anything to John--I was
not the sort of woman, Ralph, who could love the sinner--forgetting the
sin. I could forgive--I thought I could--but I remembered all the more
sharply.
"Philip had always loved me. I saw my way. I would ignore the stigma on
the family, I would marry Philip and carry what joy I could to him and
his mother. My father tried to restrain me. He called me martyr,
sacrifice, and all the rest, but I married--and I know I took comfort
into poor Mrs. Dale's life, and--I never doubted what I did for Philip.
But--" Ruth whispered the horrible secret--"John Dale _took_ the money
for--Philip! He never wanted it for himself. He never used one dollar of
it. It was Philip who ran the family honour, and his own, into
danger--he made it seem to John that to tide him over the critical hour
would be to save them all and bring no harm. But he was wrong. The
crash came. John never cringed under the blow. To his simple nature the
mere act was enough. He did not try to shield himself by one word of
explanation--he went away!"
Drew's throat and eyes burned. He seemed to know all this like an
oft-told tale that still had power to awe and control him.
"Then the years of agonized consecration began for Philip. I never knew
until a week before his death, but the memory scorches into my soul day
by day now.
"You see I thought it was love for his brother, and the shame, that had
changed Philip--and _that_ endeared him to me. All the lightness and
carelessness of manner departed. A great, strong, tenderness took their
place. But you know, it was so that he came into your life. He had a
wide sympathy and charity, for all--oh! how it drew people to him. But
think of his suffering--alone and through all those years!
"The money that was John's ruin was the force that brought success to
Philip. You see--he could not explain--at least he thought he could not,
he was too cowardly--and the knowledge spurred him on. Wealth flowed in
and in. He paid, and with interest, all that had been taken. How the
world praised him--and how he suffered as they applauded him! He gave
great sums to charity--mostly to those charities that mitigate the
misery of--the outcasts. Men and women who come under the law. Can you
understand?"
"Yes! yes!" Drew's head was buried in his thin hands. His voice was full
of anguish.
"They used to come to him, those sad creatures,--and he never turned
them away. I have seen and heard them bless him as they knelt beside
him. He helped them so wisely because--oh! because he was--one of them,
and they never knew! Then the disease came--the cancer. I think he
welcomed it--it was so sure to open the door for him--and I think he
even loved the suffering as a kind of expiation.
"Never once did a murmur escape him of impatience or regret. It was he
who cheered us. It was he who stood by my father's death-bed and
comforted him, and strengthened me. Always cheerful, always helpful
until--just before he went. When he knew the days were few--when the
coward in him--his last enemy--died, he told me everything.
"He said--" a sob choked the words--"that I must find--John. I must lay
waste the beautiful memory of him. Show the _coward_ who had not been
able to stand before men! I must redeem the past as best I could. I must
begin with you--the friend he most loved--for you must help me
find--John."
Ralph Drew rose weakly to his feet. Something had gone out of him.
Something that he groped after, but could not grasp. He felt as if he
and the stricken woman before him were lost upon a black and dangerous
road. Their only salvation was to cling together spiritually and bodily.
He caught the back of her chair for support, and bent over her.
"Is there no one, who kept in touch with--the brother? Was he utterly
forsaken? God help him!"
"They said it was his desire. But there was one--I never knew who it
was; that was part of the mystery--but some one claimed and claimed
money for him, for John. I knew sums of money were paid regularly, I
used to think it was another of Philip's charities--but I know now that
there was a constant lash laid upon him. Oh! if they had only known all.
"Ralph, Philip left nearly all his fortune to his brother. There is only
my portion reserved for me. So you see I must find him. I was left sole
executor."
"I will help you, Ruth."
"I was sure you would. Philip spoke your name last; he said you could
see the man he tried to be, even in the man he was."
"Yes! yes, a thousand times more than he ever hoped. What was the poor
crumbling shell compared to the splendid soul that he builded through
those horrible years? Years when he could not quite free himself from
the craven thing that was his curse--the fear! fear! fear!"
The two were silent for a moment while the red glow showed them haggard
and worn. Then it was the woman who spoke.
"Ralph--do you think a woman can love--really love--two men?"
He stared at her.
"Perhaps," he faltered; "perhaps, but in different ways."
"I loved them both. When--when I find John--if he wants me--if he asks
me--I shall marry him." She shuddered.
"Ruth!"
"Yes; I think Philip would give him even--me. His renunciation was wide
and deep. He, the great, strong soul of him, went on--alone. It had no
real part with his weakness and all that was bound up in his
weakness--he wanted John to have everything of which he had deprived
him. You can understand, can you not? At the last, when fear had no
further power, he was almost mad in his abandon of recompense.
"He did not tell me this, that awful night when he told me--the rest;
but I felt it. I saw that I, with all else that had meant anything to
him, was included in his shame; and the new nature that had evolved from
the agony and remorse--had nothing to do with us any more!"
A deep sob shook the slim form. For a moment Ruth Dale rocked to and fro
in her misery, then she let the wild confession again have its way.
"For myself--" the haunted eyes fixed themselves upon Drew's rigid
face--"for myself--in a strange fashion--and oh! you shall _not_
misunderstand me, I want to give to him that which I withheld from him
when he needed it most. I want to bring back the gladness of life to
him--if I can," she gasped; "it has all been such a hideous nightmare.
If he wants me--if he wants me, he shall have me!" The words were flung
out defiantly, fiercely.
Drew started to his feet, and went quickly to her. In all his life he
had never seen on a woman's face such desperation and remorse.
As his friend's wife he had loved her as a sister. Her beauty had always
fascinated and charmed him. To see her now, cast adrift on this troubled
sea of love and fear, was a bitter, almost a terrifying sight.
He bent over her, and raised her face firmly and gently with one
trembling hand. He felt that he must calm and steady her by physical
control.
"Ruth," he said gently, but distinctly, "why do you look as you do? Tell
me, what is in your heart?"
The woman tried to shrink from the hold he had upon her. He saw that the
vital point of her confession she would keep from him unless he
commanded, and, if the future were to be saved from the grip of the
miserable past, he and she must thoroughly understand each other.
"Ruth, you must tell me everything."
She panted, but no longer struggled mentally or bodily.
"Because," she said, "even now, I could accept the man who was the true
sinner easier than the man who was sinned against! Not because of a
greater love; but because of the slime of the punishment that the one
was doomed to suffer.
"That's what life has done for him--and me!" Again she shuddered. "Don't
you see, even when my heart is breaking with love for him--and the old
love is growing stronger as--as Philip seems to be going further from
me--I shall always think of the hideous--detail that--he suffered. It
was what Philip could not face--it is what I--must!"
The words came pantingly, grudgingly and full of soul-terror.
Drew sought for comfort to give to this poor, distracted woman whose
white, still face rested in the hollow of his hand, like a dead thing.
"Ruth, you shall not lash yourself unnecessarily. God knows you have
borne the scourge of others bravely enough. It is not the detail alone
that rises before you, and keeps you from what you have set up as your
duty--it is the weakness of the man. That is the pitiful difference. The
sin is the sin--but the man who _planned_ was more the master, than he
who became the slave. Do not blame yourself entirely--can you not see,
it is the instinctive homage humanity pays to even an evil
interpretation of the Creator!"
A blur, for an instant, shimmered over the beautiful, solemn eyes.
"No." The woman would not shield herself in this hour. "No; for you
forget Philip's cowardice--and weakness. But he was not--smirched with
society's remedy for wrong-doing. No; even if I found John had come out
of the--the detail, strong and purified, I know, as God hears me, I
should always, when most he needed me, see the _prisoner_ instead
of--him. Oh! Oh! Oh!"
She closed her eyes, and the great tears were pressed from under the
quivering lids.
Drew for very pity released the suffering face, but his hand rested on
the bent shoulder. Then out of the strain of the black hour, he asked a
question that seemed to have no part in the present trouble; no meaning.
"Ruth have you ever loved just for yourself--just because _you_ wanted
what you loved?"
"Just for myself? Who ever does in this world, I wonder?"
She sighed deeply, and sank back in the chair.
It was over at last. There was nothing now to do but to take up her
cross and follow as she could; there was no more to be said.
Drew waited for her a moment, still standing behind the chair. Then he
spoke clearly and firmly:
"Ruth, in Phil's going he left our love to us; for we are permitted to
remember the splendid man in spite of the weakness which crippled him.
We must carry out every wish of his. I think when this is done--his
brave soul will be free from every earthly stain. The good he did; the
man he was, must claim recognition as well as the sin that stamped him.
Both are actual and real.
"We'll find John Dale if he is to be found. We'll give him all that is
his own--his own. But I pray God he is still man enough to claim no
more.
"And now, go to bed. You may sleep safely, for you have made yourself
ready even for--sacrifice."
"No! no! Ralph."
"Yes! yes!"
He opened the door of the study, and with bowed head she passed out.
Then Drew turned and mechanically banked the fire, and left the room
orderly, as was his habit.
As he followed a few moments later, the little clock struck the
half-hour of one. Much had been lost and gained in an hour's time.