Eperson forced himself to eat. Under the stress of his emotions his

appetite had departed, and yet he pretended to be enjoying his food.

Tilly was eating with more relish, it seemed to him, than usual, and he

thought he knew the psychological reason for it. He had never seen her

look so buoyantly ethereal as she did to-night. To have described the

change upon her would have been beyond the power of man. She was like an

older sister to her children. Her love for them seemed to issue from her

like some supernal blending of light and music as she bent to adjust

the bib of the younger one, or sweetly to admonish the older in regard

to his too rapid eating of his mush and milk.

"Don't--don't hurry, Joie darling!" her lilting voice produced. "You

don't want to be like a little piggy at his trough, do you, my sweet

boy?"

When supper was over, Tilly washed the dishes and Eperson put the

children to bed, removing their moist clothing, bathing their bare,

dusty feet and legs, and putting on their nightgowns. What a holy

service of resignation it was to-night! Why was he so depressed with a

sense of his vast paternal unworthiness? Why, unless he was thinking of

John Trott's success? He told himself that his whole life had been a

failure. Many of his personal debts were unpaid and unpayable. There

were men he dreaded meeting because they always asked for the money due

them, or showed by their faces that they were thinking of his

delinquency. And there were others harder to meet who showed by their

faces and the matters they spoke about that they had no thought of ever

being paid. Ah! then there were still other men--men from whom he could

not bring himself to borrow. They were the few, like Cavanaugh, who

wanted to help him, but did not know how to broach so delicate a subject

with so sensitive a man.

The children tucked away in the general sleeping-room, Eperson went

outside to the chairs that stood by the door-step and sat waiting for

Tilly. Would she come to him as promptly as usual? he wondered, his

stare on the blinking stars beyond the hilltops. Perhaps not so readily,

for an ineffable veil seemed to have been lowered between him and her

since her talk with the neighbors in regard to her first husband's

survival. He listened for the clatter of dishes and pans in the

kitchen. It had ceased. That work was over. Now, nothing would detain

her, he told himself, and he tried to brace his courage for the

performance before him.

But she did not come at once. He heard her voice, with its indescribable

gurgle of maternal sweetness, teaching the children to say their

prayers.

"God bless mother," was repeated after her, "God bless father--God bless

Grandmother Trott, and all the good people in the world. Amen."

"_Grandmother Trott!_" Joel's whole weary being throbbed with the mental

utterance of the words. Then he heard Tilly singing a quaint lullaby

sung by the negroes. He wondered if she were purposely delaying her

usual after-supper chat with him. After all, what was there to tell her?

She had evidently heard the main facts of the matter--that was plain

from that irrepressible elation of hers.

She extinguished the light and came out to him, taking the chair he

stood holding for her. The starlight gleamed on his bare brow. It was

like a well-wrought piece of granite. He brushed his hair back with an

unsteady hand as he sat down.

"I was talking with Cavanaugh," he began, and paused to clear the

huskiness from his throat.

"I know," Tilly said. "I've heard everything."

"You have?" Joel said, tremulously.

"Yes, the Creswells told me yesterday. You see, Tom Creswell works in

the post-office, and the postmaster showed him and the other clerks a

letter that Mr. Cavanaugh was sending to John since he got back from New

York. Then the postmaster showed him one answering it. The postmaster

met Mr. Cavanaugh and asked him about it, and Mr. Cavanaugh told him

that it was all a mistake about John and Dora being killed. He says John

is doing well and looks well. Oh, I'm so glad--so glad! Ever since the

report of that wreck it has been on my mind like a horrible dream. Night

and day it would come up to haunt me. Don't you see, I thought-- I felt

that if--if I had not gone away that day with my father John would have

been alive. So now, you see, I haven't _that_ to think about. God spared

him and Dora, and Mattie Creswell says they are both happily married."

"Both?" Joel exclaimed. "You haven't got it right, Tilly. Dora married

and left him all alone. Cavanaugh says John never married."

"Never married?" Tilly's sweet lips hung quivering. "But Mattie Creswell

says her brother told her that Cavanaugh said that John was married to a

wealthy girl in high society."

"It is my duty to tell you the truth," Eperson said, the look of death

deepening on him. "He never married. He has been leading a strange,

lonely life. I think I know why. You can guess."

"_I_ can guess?" Tilly was pale and trembling as she leaned toward him.

"Well, no, perhaps you can't," Joel corrected, "but I know why."

"You know why?" Tilly's voice broke on the last word, and she stared at

him eagerly, her sweet mouth drooping.

"Yes, because no man who was once your husband even for the few days

that you were his could ever marry any other woman."

"You--you rate me too highly," Tilly faltered, putting her hands over

her face. "Why, why, I've always thought that till his death he hated

me for deserting him as I did when all the rest of the world was down on

him."

"He is no fool, and he was not even then, boy though he was. He knew why

you went away so suddenly. Do you hear me? He simply acted as I would

have done in his place. He endeavored to set you free from certain

unbearable conditions, and that is what I would have done. In setting

you free he rescued another girl from a life of degradation and despair,

but that is neither here nor there. John Trott deserves credit, and I

shall give it to him. Dead though you thought he was, he has always had

your heart. I've seen that in a thousand things you have done and said.

Your love for his mother was due to that, and God knows you've had your

reward there, for you awakened an immortal soul and have earned its

eternal gratitude and love. Don't think I am complaining, Tilly. I knew

when you came to me that your heart was not mine. I've never been able

to win it and I never shall."

"Why, you don't think--you don't think--" stammered Tilly. "Surely you

don't think that I still--still--" She suddenly stopped and stared at

her husband in a bewildered way. "You don't suppose, Joel, that I could

believe that he--that all these years John--"

Joel slowly swung his head up and down. "I believe that you both love

each other still. I was wrong to over-persuade you when you held out so

long against me. John Trott acted for your good in leaving, and I should

not have saddled on you myself, the greatest failure among men that ever

lived. I feel to-night as if the blight of an avenging God is on me for

my presumption. I have put two little children on your hands and feel as

incapable of protecting you and them as a crawling infant."

"I won't listen to you!" Tilly stood up. "You shall not abuse yourself

in this way. You acted exactly as you should. No one could blame you.

You are one of the noblest men living. Without you I'd have been lost

after my mother and father died. For you to say that--that John and I

still--I won't say the word. You have no right to utter it when all is

considered--you and me and the children. What right have you to--to

think that you could know John's heart, when you have not seen him for

eleven years? You may think you know mine. You may do so if you insist

on making yourself unhappy, but you have no right to--to pass an opinion

on--on the present feelings of my first husband. What are you going by,

I'd like to know? You don't suppose that John would tell Mr. Cavanaugh

such things, even if they were true? And how could Mr. Cavanaugh come to

you, my husband, and--and even _mention_ such a thing?"

Joel was on his feet also. The childlike and unconscious eagerness of

his wife to make sure of the thing she was secretly craving stabbed him

to the core of his being, and yet he told himself that it was his duty

to withhold nothing concerning his rival from her.

"Reading him as I'd read myself," Joel answered. "I thought he'd remain

constant, but to-day I wormed it out of Mr. Cavanaugh."

"Wormed what out--_what out_?" Tilly sank back into her chair,

open-mouthed, her eyes gleaming portals to breathless expectancy. "You

can't mean that Mr. Cavanaugh thinks--actually thinks that John

still--?"

Joel bowed his head in the relentless starlight, sat down as from sheer

frailty, and was silent. The undulating landscape, the fields, the

meadows, the woodland, the hills and streams seemed to hold their vast

breath with his. Suddenly Tilly rose. It was as if she were about to

stand behind his chair, as was her wont at times, put her hands upon his

shoulders, and kiss his thorn-crowned brow, but she did not. She went

slowly into the cabin. He heard her feet--feet he knew to be winged with

sudden, far-reaching joy--treading the boards as she went to the bed of

the children. What was she doing? he wondered. Her step ceased. He

pictured her as seated by the side of the children's bed. Was she

pitying him or rejoicing? Why ask? He knew. And his love was so divine a

thing that, but for his throes of death-agony, he could have rejoiced

with her.

CHAPTER IX

Cavanaugh had a duty to perform. He had decided to take on himself the

act of informing Mrs. Trott of her son's survival. So, the next morning

after his colloquy with Eperson he walked out to the cabin the widow

occupied near the home of Eperson. As he passed Joel's place he saw from

the distance that Joel was at work in his corn-field, and, watching a

few minutes, he saw Tilly come out and feed her chickens, so he judged

that Mrs. Trott had not yet been told the important news.

Walking on, he soon reached the isolated cabin in the woods that he was

seeking. It had but a single room, one window in front, and a crude

chimney made from unhewn stones and clay. The door facing the little

road was open, and as he drew near, Mrs. Trott, hearing his step, came

to the door and looked out.

She was now quite gray, and wore a plain dress of homespun unadorned in

any way save for a neat white collar and an old cameo pin which had been

a gift of her husband's. A touch of her old beauty still lingered in the

contour of her face and good basic features. Her eyes had a placid

expression, and her voice had become that of a child who loves to be led

and petted. She smiled on recognizing the unexpected visitor, and gave

him a seat in the cabin.

"I didn't expect to see you out this way," she said. "Joel told me a

couple of weeks ago that you'd gone off somewhere."

He nodded. It was difficult to introduce the topic on his mind, and he

chatted with her about the land in the neighborhood, Joel's prospective

crop, and the fear some of the farmers had of a harmful drought if rain

did not fall within a week or so. He had not been able to come to the

matter in hand when a sound outside was heard.

"Grandmother Trott," a small voice piped up, "sister won't come on. She

keeps stopping and picking flowers and leaves."

Mrs. Trott laughed, and her face beamed. "It is Joel's children," she

explained. "The little darlings come with milk for me every bright day.

Tilly sends it."

Rising, she stood in the doorway. "Come on; but, no, Joie, don't pull

her hand so hard! You might jerk her little arm out of joint. Come on by

yourself. She will come when she feels like it."

The boy soon appeared with the pail of milk and set it in the door.

"Mother said tell you she'd have some fresh butter for you in the

morning and some eggs. The hens have started again. Tilly and I found

six eggs in the hay last night. Grandmother, where are the kittens?"

"Right around behind the cabin, dearie," Mrs. Trott answered, taking the

pail. "The mother-cat is nursing them in the sun. Show them to your

little sister. You may have them when they are larger."

Cavanaugh heard the children as they went behind the house and bent over

the cat and kittens. He heard them uttering endearing words to the

animals. "Don't, don't, you little stupid!" Joel cried. "She may scratch

you! Don't you see her claws?"

Mrs. Trott laughed softly as she emptied the pail and washed it out.

"They are the sweetest children in the world," she said to Cavanaugh, as

she put the pail on the door-step and sat down again. "They stayed with

me a week last month when Joel and Tilly went to camp-meeting over the

mountain. They were not one bit of trouble, and, oh, I did love to have

them about! I never let on to Tilly and Joel, but when they took the

darlings away I was awfully blue. Short as the time was, you see, I got

accustomed to them."

The children had gone home and still Cavanaugh had not reached the

object of his visit. It was the shadow of vague wonderment in the

widow's eyes, and her lagging talk, that compelled him to introduce it.

He first spoke, and rather adroitly, of Todd Williams's encounter in New

York with the man who resembled her son, and, pausing, he heard her

sigh.

"Poor boy! poor boy!" she muttered, sadly. "And they said he and Dora

were on the way to New York when that awful thing happened. Mr.

Cavanaugh, you are a good man. You've always been considered a good man

by everybody that knows you. I understand that you never had any

children, but you may know the human heart well enough to know that no

regret ever heard of can be deeper than that which is brought on by the

sort of thing that happened to me. I don't talk this way to Tilly and

Joel, because I owe them too much to let them dream that I am not

thoroughly happy. But if I could live a thousand years I'd never be able

to rid my mind of the positive knowledge that by--by--I _will_ say

it--I'll say it to you as I'd say it to a priest, if I was a Catholic.

I've often wished I was one, so that I could let what I feel out of me.

Maybe saying it like this to you will do a little good. I don't know,

but I will say that nothing on earth can rid my mind of the fact that

by my thoughtless way of acting when I was young I-- I--"

"Stop! I know what you mean, my poor friend," Cavanaugh broke in, "and

you are getting all wrought up. Listen to me. Why not look on the

hopeful side, the bright side? How do you know but that John and Dora

are still alive, and none the worse; in fact--"

He suddenly checked himself, for a sickly, greenish pallor had

overspread the listener's face, and she leaned forward as if about to

swoon. In a moment, however, she had recovered herself, and, sitting

erect, her white, shapely hands pressed to her breast, she smiled

feebly.

"Oh, I know what you mean, Mr. Cavanaugh. I did try that. I summed up

every hope, everything that held out the slightest promise. I used to

lie awake at night and declare over and over that it couldn't be--that

the laws of life wouldn't let such an unjust thing happen to them,

innocent as they were, and with their right to live, but it didn't do

any good. I didn't let anybody know about it, but one after another I

got three different papers with John's name in them. I went to Atlanta

and visited the editors of all the papers and asked their advice. They

were sorry, but they said the list had never been disputed and ought to

have been even bigger than it was. Then I gave up."

A shrewd, half-fearful gleam was in the contractor's shifting eyes.

"I know, I know, Mrs. Trott," he gently persisted, "but many and many an

account like that has turned out afterward to be incorrect. You don't

know it, but maybe all three of those papers got their information from

one report. You see, a reporter representing a lot of papers in a sort

of combine goes to a spot like that was and his account is telegraphed

all about over the country. So you see, even if you had seen it in a

hundred papers you wouldn't have to take it as law and gospel."

Mrs. Trott slowly shook her head and moaned softly.

"I wonder if I dare tell her," Cavanaugh debated with himself. "She

almost fainted just now. She may have a weak heart. I must be careful.

I've heard of sudden joy killing." He was silent for a moment; then he

began again: "Mrs. Trott, you are welcome to your opinion, and I reckon

you'll let me have mine. But, to tell you the truth, I never have been

_fully convinced_ that John and Dora was lost in that wreck. I have my

reasons, and they are pretty good ones."

He saw her arched brows meet in a little frown of polite wonderment, and

she was about to speak when little Joel suddenly reappeared at the door.

"Oh, grandmother," he half lisped, in breathless haste, for he had been

running, "I forgot to tell you what mother told me to say. She said for

me to be sure not to forget. She said tell you that she is coming over

after dinner to tell you the best news you ever heard."

"Ah, tell her I'm glad, darling!" Mrs. Trott said, with a smile. And she

went and stooped down before the child and added: "Won't you give old

grandmother a sweet little hug? There! there! that's a darling little

man!" And Cavanaugh saw her pressing the boy to her breast and kissing

his cheeks.

When the child had left she came back to her chair, her face filled with

a rare maternal glow. "If you were a younger man, Mr. Cavanaugh, and

childless, as you now are, I'd advise you to adopt children. I don't

know why or how it is, but I know that persons can love other children

than their own and love them deeply, too. I love Tilly's two-- I really

do. That child there, that little boy with all his cute ways and moods,

takes me back to the childhood of my own son. But I neglected him. How I

could have done it only God knows, but I did, and you know it better

than any one else besides myself. You gave him a fine start, and if he

had lived he would have made a great success. But I must stop-- I must

stop! I think I know what Tilly's good news is. Joel has been trying to

rent the Marsden farm. He put in a bid for it. It is a big place, and

Mr. Marsden furnishes supplies. Maybe Joel has got it. I hope so, for he

is at the end of his rope."

"The good news is not for poor Joel, Mrs. Trott. The truth is that Tilly

wants to tell you the same thing I've come to tell you. You know I said

that I never was fully convinced about John. Now what if I was to tell

you that I went to New York to make sure?"

"Make sure? Make sure that--that John--" she began and stopped.

He nodded, holding her bewildered stare by his fixed eyes. "I found out

enough up there to be sure, Mrs. Trott."

"You mean that John-- Why, you _can't_ mean that--?"

Again he nodded. "I've been afraid to shock you with the good news, but

he is alive and prospering. I was with him a week."

She was convinced. She sat white and limp. She put her thin hands to her

face as if to hide her joy from him. He saw her breast heaving. He heard

her sob in an effort to control her emotion, and then she became quiet.

* * * * *

That night at home Cavanaugh wrote a long letter to John. "Something

must be done," he wrote, in one place. "If you had seen that

transformed human soul as I saw her there in her lonely log hut and

heard her talk of you and your babyhood and the thousands of regrets she

has for what she has done and left undone, your kind heart would have

melted with pity as mine did. My old mother's passed on, John, but if I

could call her back I'd give my last breath to furnish her with a

minute's joy. You could give yours years of comfort and happiness. Do

you know what I'd do if I was you? I'd come here and get her and take

her back to New York with me, and let her have some of the things she

used to hunger for and which may have caused her to do as she did. She

is poor; she needs you; the two good friends who have been helping her

so long really haven't the means to keep it up. You must come--you

really must. If you don't it will darken the end of your life. I love

you too much to let you neglect this sublime duty. Men of the greatest

brains have married repentant women and never regretted it; surely a man

as noble as you are, and as able as you are, can afford to pardon the

woman who gave him his very life."

Mrs. Cavanaugh read the letter when it was finished. She made no comment

on it, but her opinion of her husband had never been so high. Deep pools

of his inner being for the first time in his life were exposed to the

light of her understanding.

"May I?" she asked, taking the pen into her hand, and laying his letter

open on the table.

"Yes," he nodded. "Add anything you like."

"Dear John," she wrote on the margin, in the cramped style of one who

writes but seldom, "come to your mother. Do as Sam says. He knows what

is best."

CHAPTER X

Among the farmers of that locality it was considered somewhat beneath

the dignity of the men to milk the cows, but Joel Eperson had never

permitted his little wife to lay her hands to that particularly arduous

part of the day's duties. And to-night at dusk he was at this work in

the stable-yard, Tilly and the children still being at Mrs. Trott's

cabin. He knew why his wife had gone there, and painfully he was

comprehending why she was so late in getting back. There would naturally

be much to say on a subject like that by the two women in all the world

whom such a startling revelation touched so closely. Joel took his pail

of milk into the cabin. He put some more wood into the stove that it

might be hot and ready for use when Tilly arrived, and then he walked to

and fro in the yard, his dull eyes on the dewy fields. On his right, a

half-mile distant, the fires of the lime-kilns and brickyards were

beginning to glow against the cliffs in the coming darkness, and the

songs of the negro stokers and the thwacks of their axes fell on his

ears. He emptied the water in the pail and brought up some more from the

spring at the foot of the slope. Still his family did not come, and he

started out to meet them. He crossed the meadow, skirted his corn, which

till only the other day he had looked on with pride, walked between the

rows of his cotton-plants to curtail the distance, and finally reached

the wood through which ran the path to Mrs. Trott's cabin. As he stood

there for a moment he heard voices. Both Tilly and Mrs. Trott were

speaking, but he could not see them for the thickened darkness beneath

the trees.

"I must hurry now." It was Tilly's voice, and it rang with the lilting

tones of triumphant joy. "It is late. Joel will be looking for me."

"Yes, I'll turn back," Mrs. Trott was heard saying. "Let me kiss them

once more. Oh, I am so wonderfully happy! Really, dear girl, I'd like to

die feeling as I do to-night. You see, I never expected it-- I never

dreamt that such a thing could be possible. I thought all chance of ever

begging his forgiveness was gone, and now maybe, some day or other, I

can. I wouldn't ask him to take me back, you understand, but only to say

that he wouldn't hold it against me the rest of his life. But I'd want

him to know one thing, Tilly, my sweet child, and that is the things you

have done for me on account of--on account of--you know what I mean?"

"Hush, grandmother," Tilly answered, in the tremulous tone which

indicated emotions firmly checked. "You must not forget who I now am.

You must not forget that I'm the mother of those darling children."

"No, my child, nor can I forget their noble father. I wouldn't wound him

for the whole world. I love him as--as--yes, I love him as much as I do

John, but in a different way, that is all. John was my baby, Joel is my

grown-up son. You must never forsake Joel in thought, word, or act.

Remember that."

What Tilly answered Joel refused to hear. He was too honorable a man to

listen further, and he turned back and with slow, weighty steps reached

his home again. He stood in the kitchen doorway, waiting. He heard

Tilly and the children coming. They were singing merrily and romping

like sprites across the meadow.

"I'm coming! I'm coming! I'll catch you! Boo!" Tilly cried. "Hide from

him, darling--hide behind the bushes! Where is she, brother? She must be

lost. Oh, there she is!" This was followed by childish screams of

delight and the mother's cooing words.

Joel went to meet them, advancing across the yard and taking little

Tilly into his arms.

"I know we are late," his wife said, regretfully, "but grandmother came

part of the way back, and you know she walks slowly."

"It is all right," Joel said, pressing little Tilly's cheek to his. "It

is not very late."

"Well, I'll hurry with the supper," Tilly answered. It was significant,

he reflected, that she did not mention then the reception of the

startling news by Mrs. Trott. Even while they all sat at the table Tilly

failed to bring it up, and a general air of repression brooded over

them.

Indeed, the children had been put to bed, the dishes washed, and husband

and wife were alone together in the moonlight at the door, and still the

subject in the minds of both had been avoided. He wondered if she

expected him to mention the matter. Surely she ought to know that it was

not exactly the thing that he, a mere outsider, had the right to pry

into. An awkward silence fell between them, the sort of silence that

surely boded ill for their future harmony of intercourse. Tilly seemed

to sense this, and suddenly put her shoulder to the wheel of duty.

"I didn't get to tell grand-- I didn't get to tell Mrs. Trott, after

all." It was significant that she abruptly discarded a formerly accepted

term of endearment. "Mr. Cavanaugh was there this morning for that

purpose, so--so the greater part of her excitement was over when I got

there."

"But she was happy, of course," Joel got out, well knowing that his

remark was an empty one.

"Oh yes, of course." Tilly was silent for several minutes. Then she

added: "The poor woman is afraid that John will not forgive her. She

doesn't want help from him, she declares, and she thinks it would be

unwise for them ever again to meet face to face, but she says she would

like for him to know how sorry she is for many things. I think, myself,

Joel, that it would be inadvisable for--for them to meet, just at

present, anyway. Don't you?"

"I don't know. I can't say. I'm not in a position to decide," Joel

floundered. "It would depend on him. It is unfortunate that so many

miles separate them. He evidently has some established way of living

into which she might not fit so well. The mere fact of his being still

alive reached her by accident and through no effort on his part."

"I'm sure she has no idea of making any advancement." Tilly seemed to

Joel, as she spoke, quite another woman from the one who had been his

wife all those years, and Joel simply sat, bent forward, his every nerve

and muscle drawn taut by vast swirling forces within him.

"Then you don't think that he would--would forgive her?" asked Tilly,

with obvious anxiety which she was striving to minimize.

Joel's prompt reply surprised her. "I know he would," said Joel, "if he

knew all the circumstances. I have never known a nobler man. I don't

believe a nobler man ever lived. In trying to help his mother I was only

doing what I was sure he would have done for me under the same

conditions. If I only knew how to show him what his mother now is I'd do

it."

They were silent for a while; then, suddenly, Tilly stood behind him and

put her hands on his shoulders. "Joel," she said, "you are blue

to-night." She toyed with the hair on his brow; she bent almost as low

as when in that posture she sometimes kissed him, but she did not kiss

him to-night, and he noted the fact as a man dying unattended in a

dungeon might test his own pulse. He longed to take the little hand so

close to his cheek and press it to his famished lips, but something told

him that she would (not openly, but inwardly) now actually shrink from

such a caress.

"No, don't think I am blue," he protested, fighting forward on his black

billows, and grimly smiling. "You are happy and I shall be for your

sake. You mustn't observe my cranky ways too closely. I'm all right."

"Somehow I can't exactly believe it." Tilly twisted a lock of his hair

between her slow, reluctant fingers. "You seem changed, a little,

anyway, and I think we ought to come to a thorough understanding right

now. You have an imagination, Joel. You used to write poetry to me, you

remember, and for all I know you may now be fancying all sorts of really

absurd things. Now be sensible. John and I _did_ love each other away

back there, but we were parted and for years I have thought of him as

dead. But now he is away off up there, and I am here with you and our

darling children. You love them, they love you--and--and you love me,

and I--love you. Now be sensible. Can you, even with a crazy flight of

your imagination, fancy that John and I ever again will or could be--be

like we once were? Throw the idea away if you have it. Of course, I must

be happy in discovering that my hasty desertion back there did not cost

him his life and Dora's. Oh, that thought worried me! I never let you

know how much it worried me! I guess I would have married you much

sooner than I did if I had not had that on my mind. But all that is past

and gone now. I'm here and John is away off up there. Your idea that he

still loves me is ridiculous on the face of it. What was I, even when he

was here? Only an ignorant country girl, while he has no doubt grown and

learned and altered in a thousand ways. I've seen successful men from

big cities. They don't seem to think as we do, or act or speak like us.

I'd be a silly dowdy to such a man. I think, of course, if it comes

about naturally, that his mother ought to go to him, but I don't think

he ever ought to--to come back here, and I am sure that he won't. I am

sure of that--I'm sure of it. He has been burnt once, as the saying is,

and that will be enough. But I predict that she will go to him. No, I'll

take that back. I said that, but I am not sure. Do you know, it is God's

truth, Joel, that the sweet old soul loves you and me and the children

so much now that she would not leave us even--even for John. She let

that out this afternoon while Tilly was sleeping in her lap. The very

thought of going started her to crying, and it was some time before I

got her quiet."

Tilly's hand actually touched his neck, but Joel still felt that he had

no right to clasp it. The wild thought of grasping it and drawing his

wife's lips down to his possessed him, but he promptly killed the

impulse. Grimly he told himself that he would be fondling a shadow,

feasting on a husk.

Suddenly she drew her hand away. "I'm awfully tired to-night," she

sighed. "I'll go to bed, but you needn't hurry. Shall I fill your

pipe?"

"No, thank you," he said, rising as courteously as of old. "I sha'n't

smoke any more to-night."

"Well, good night," she said.

"Good night," he echoed.

The flare from the lime-kilns and the brickyards lit the cliffs, hills,

and sky. He beard the town clock striking ten. Little Joel had waked,

and his mother was gently telling him to go to sleep. The child wanted

water. Tilly went to the kitchen for it, and the father heard her

sweetly cooing as she held the cup for his son to drink. What a marvel

that--_his son and hers_.

CHAPTER XI

"John is not coming. I see that plain enough from this letter,"

Cavanaugh announced to his wife at noon one day, as he entered the

sitting-room where she sat sewing on a machine.

"Why, what's wrong?" the old woman asked, in a tone of disappointment.

"I can't tell exactly," Cavanaugh answered. "It is all round about, with

this reason and that. He seems to have a mistaken idea that it will stir

up an awful rumpus in the papers. He wants to help his mother, and says

for me to see her and tell her so. He is willing to make a substantial

settlement on her, but she wouldn't take it. Do you hear me? She

wouldn't have scraps thrown at her like that. If he came here and made

it up she might let him help, but she'll never accept it that way. I am

disappointed in him. After the way I wrote, he ought to have come and

been done with it."

Mrs. Cavanaugh adjusted her glasses, took the letter and read it, moving

her wrinkled lips as she slowly intoned the words. Then she handed it

back.

"Man that you are," she sniffed, "you don't see what ails him. He

doesn't once mention Tilly, but in every line there he is thinking of

her and her happiness. He'd love to come back here and see the old place

and all of us, but he is afraid it will upset Tilly. You said you

thought he still loves her-- I _know_ he does. I can see it all through

that letter, and I'm sorry for him, poor fellow!"

"Oh, I see what you mean," Cavanaugh said, in a mollified tone, "and I

believe you are right, too. He was thinking of her happiness when he ran

away, and he is doing it now. Yes, yes, he still loves her. I saw it in

a hundred ways when me and him was together up there. He never had room

for but one woman in his heart, and she fills it still. She is the

drawback in the case, I'll bet. He thinks she is happy with Joel and the

children and he doesn't want to break in at this late day. But he will

come. Mark my words, he will come to help his mother when I write him

more fully. I'll explain, too, that I'll keep it from the papers, and

when he gets here he can stay out here with us and keep away from old

acquaintances as much as he likes. Yes, he will come."

It ended in accordance with this prediction. One evening at dusk John

arrived in town and was delivered by a street-hack at Cavanaugh's door.

He was received with open arms by the old couple and treated as a

much-loved son. And he was glad that he came. For the first time since

the departure of Dora and the loss of Binks he felt restful and at home.

The delightful old-fashioned room, filled with the very perfume of

cleanliness, to which he was assigned, at once charmed and soothed him.

Till late that night the three friends sat talking on the porch. Several

times Mrs. Trott was mentioned, but Tilly not once. That she and Joel

lived near by and had been the widow's stanch friends John was not yet

aware, and the Cavanaughs wondered, half fearfully, what effect that

knowledge would have on their guest.

John was waked the next morning by the long, resonant blowing of the

whistles at the mills. It was scarcely light, and, only partly conscious

at first, he fancied that it was his old signal for rising. He thought

he was in his dismal room at his mother's house, and that little ragged

Dora was clattering about in the kitchen below. Slowly he came to full

comprehension and lay back on his bed and closed his eyes. But it was

not to sleep. What a tangle of sordid memories wrapped him about! How

profoundly wise, by comparison, had he become! He wondered if the tiny

cottage in which he and Tilly had passed those few days of blinded bliss

were still extant. If so, would he dare visit it? He thought not.

Neither would he care to see again his mother's old home.

Later, when the sun was up, he heard Cavanaugh on the porch, and he

rose, dressed, and joined him. Presently breakfast was announced. How

the cozy table in its snowy expanse appealed to him--the food he used to

like, the open door looking out on a flower-garden, a plot of dewy

grass, and a row of beehives! He had a sense of wanting to live that way

always. He was weary of the life that he had just left, and the

ephemeral things he had won. His desire for rest was that of an old man

whose years are spent. Somehow he felt that he and the Cavanaughs were

on a par as to age and experience. They had suffered mildly through long

lives--he had suffered keenly in a shorter one.

It was understood between him and Cavanaugh that the first thing to be

done was for him to visit his mother. So, when breakfast was over, they

fared forth in the cool, brisk air for that walk in the country. As they

neared the cabin Cavanaugh saw Joel's house in the distance. He might

have descried either Joel or Tilly about the place by careful looking,

but was afraid that even a glance in that direction might attract John's

attention. Presently Mrs. Trott's cabin was before them, and, leaving

his companion in the edge of the wood, Cavanaugh went ahead to prepare

the widow for the surprise before her. Presently he came back.

"I must say she was awfully excited," he began. "I was sorry for her.

She turned as white as a sheet and shook powerful; but she wants to see

you, and said tell you to come right on. Now you know the way home,

John, and so I'll turn back."

"A cabin--a mere log cabin, such as the poorest negroes live in!" John

reflected, and yet it was the abode of the woman who used to demand so

many luxuries, and that woman, looked at from any angle, was his mother.

He was conscious of no tenderness or pity. Those things were reserved

for the instant of his first view of her. Great soul that he was, it

required but the downcast eyes of the repentant woman to melt him into

streams of sympathy when she appeared in the low doorway, a pitiful

flush of embarrassment struggling out of the pallor of her cheeks and

surrounding her still beautiful eyes.

"Mother!" he cried, huskily, and he advanced to her, his arms

outstretched. "I had to come to you. I heard you were in need, but I

didn't know it was like this."

She seemed unable to say a word. She hid her shamed face, her childlike

face, so full of timid remorse, on his shoulder, and he felt her sobs

shaking her breast. He led her to a chair inside the cabin and gently

eased her down to it, his fingers, filially hungry for the first time in

his life, gently and consolingly playing about her hair and brow.

Presently she found her voice. "I was afraid you'd never come," she

faltered, still with that shrinking humility which had so completely won

him to her. "But here you are. Oh, I don't know what to say, John-- I

don't know what to say, except that I am not the same silly woman I

used to be. I used to think that the way I lived when you was here was

the only way I could live, but now I'd rather die than take back a

single day of it. Strange as it may seem, I like this. I like the still

woods out there, the rocks, grass, and wild flowers, and being alone.

Yes, I like to be all alone. When I'm all alone, even in the dead of

night, something seems to come to me and pity me and give me the

sweetest rest and peace. There wasn't but one thing that haunted me, and

that was thinking you were dead. When I heard that was a mistake I felt

very happy, though I didn't think I'd ever see you again."

It seemed to him, as he sat in that crude hut, that nothing stranger had

ever happened to him than seeing her in such surroundings.

"Is it possible," he asked, "that you spend the nights here in this

place?"

"For six years now, winter and summer." She smiled wistfully. "I've got

my little garden behind the cabin, and my chickens and my cats, and they

keep me busy. Then I read a lot of books and stories. The Cavanaughs

send them to me off and on, and--and"--she started visibly--"some other

people do, too."

"Other people?" he repeated to himself. "Then she _has_ friends, after

all."

Presently a patter of feet sounded outside and a child's voice came in

at the open door. "Grandmother Trott! Where are you?"

"Here, here!" Mrs. Trott called out in a flurried tone. She made a start

as if to rise, and yet it seemed to John that she had lost the power to

move. Then a little boy appeared at the door, two tin pails in his

hands. "Here's the milk, grandmother, and some fresh butter. Mother said

keep the pie and biscuits warm. She just took them from the stove

before I started. Grandmother, sister wants to see the kittens. May

she?"

"Yes, yes, of course." Mrs. Trott, still agitated, got up. Little Tilly

was now in the doorway, and she took her into her arms. As for Joel, he

had espied one of the kittens, and was crossing the room after it, when

for the first time he saw John and paused, somewhat abashed.

"Come here." John smiled, holding out his hands, and the boy went to him

trustingly. "My, my! what a solid boy you are!" John went on, taking him

on his knee. "How old are you?"

"Six, and sister's four," was the answer.

Mrs. Trott, still with the look of concern on her face, was putting

Tilly down, that she might empty the pails, and while her back was

turned the little girl crept confidingly to John's disengaged knee. With

a laugh, he took her up also. He was strongly drawn to them both, and

why he couldn't have said, unless it was because they were friends of

his mother and had given her such an endearing appellation.

Mrs. Trott brought the pails back. She still wore an embarrassed look,

which, in his preoccupation over the children, he failed to note.

"They are very nice and friendly," he smiled up at her, an arm about the

body of each child. "Whose are they?"

"Now you must go back," Mrs. Trott said, with obvious evasion, holding

out the pails to Joel. "Tell your mother that I am very much obliged."

"But mother said we must rest awhile here and not come right back," the

boy answered, leaning on John's shoulder.

"No. I's tired, grandmother." Tilly drew back also into her snug

retreat. "Where's the tittens, brother?"

But Joel could see kittens any day, and John was now showing him his

new gold watch and chain and Tilly was admiring his scarf and pin,

daintily touching the rich silk with her tiny sun-browned fingers.

With something like a sigh of resignation Mrs. Trott sank into her chair

and listened to the chat of the trio. That her son was charmed with the

children of his former wife she saw plainly. What would he do or say

when told the truth?--and that it was due him to be told she did not

doubt.

"They are beautiful and lovely," John said, when they both left his lap

and went behind the cabin to see the kittens. "Whose children are they?"

"I see that I must tell you and be done with it," Mrs. Trott said, with

a warm flush. "Can't you guess?"

"Why, how could I guess?" he asked, wonderingly. "They call you

grandmother, too--how is that?"

"John," she gulped, "they are Tilly's and Joel's!"

His moving lips seemed to frame the words she had spoken, but without

the issue of sound. They were both silent for an awkward pause; then he

said, haltingly, "I did not know that they were in this neighborhood."

"Mr. Cavanaugh told me that you didn't know about them and me," she

answered, all but apologetically. "Oh, John, I hope you won't blame me,

but I simply could not have lived without them! They are responsible for

what I now am. They came to my aid immediately after you were reported

dead, and have stuck to me ever since."

"Then they are the friends Sam mentioned!" John said.

"Yes, they are the ones. They wanted me to come live with them after

they married, but I couldn't-- I simply couldn't; but I did consent to

live near them like this, and I am glad, for they have been like loving

children to me. John, you don't know how noble and unselfish poor Joel

is. Nothing has ever prospered with him. He has always had bad luck, and

yet he never thinks of himself. I was with Tilly when both her children

were born. She seems now like a daughter, and Joel a son. As for the

little ones, I love them with all my heart. I owe it to you to tell you

the truth. Had I thought you alive, of course, I could not have been so

intimate with them, but we all three thought you were dead, and,

somehow, drifted together."

"I know, and that is all right," John said, a shadow of his old brooding

despair in his eyes. The prattle of the children behind the house came

to his ears. Through the doorway the midday sun beat yellow and warm on

a crude bed of flowers close by. Mrs. Trott continued her recital of

past happenings. She told even of Tilly's visit to the old house; of her

occupying his room, of her own and Joel's vigil on the outside. She

spoke of the saddened years in which Tilly had refused to think of

marriage, and how she herself had worked with Joel to bring it about.

"If I knew one thing," she presently said, gravely studying his face, "I

might feel that I had a right to tell you something particular about

Tilly. I mean if I knew _one certain thing_ about you yourself."

"Me myself?" he cried, groping for her meaning.

"Yes, you, John. Mr. Cavanaugh hinted at what he thought your present

feeling for Tilly is, but I'd have to know for myself before--before I'd

feel at liberty to tell you what I have in mind. Mr. Cavanaugh said you

hadn't said so in so many words, but that he was sure that you still

feel the same toward Tilly that you did before you and her parted."

He had lowered his head. He now interlaced his fingers between his

knees, and she saw them shaking.

"She is the same and more to me," he said. "As long as I live I shall

love her."

"Do you really mean that, John?"

"Yes, and much more," he answered, firmly. "I don't blame her for

anything that she has done. She had every right to marry. I counted on

it happening even earlier."

"I see you are in earnest, and I'll tell you," Mrs. Trott said. "John,

she finally married Joel, but she did it only out of gratitude and pity.

She was grateful to him for helping _me_, do you understand? After you

left, she actually looked on me as her mother, because--because I was

_yours_. Then she pitied Joel because he was so unhappy without her.

But, la me! the other day, when she found out that you were alive, no

angel in heaven could have been happier. She tries to hide it--she

hardly knows what it means--but she can't hide it. It shows in her face,

in her laugh, in her dancing movements. She has no idea she will ever

see you again, and she doesn't dream of leaving Joel or the children,

but knowing that you are alive and doing well has made her blissfully

happy. Hers is a great, unselfish love, if there ever was one.

"You can't mean what you say," John faltered, his eyes beaming, his face

aflame, his breast heaving.

"Yes, I do," his mother assured him. "I don't know that I'm doing

exactly right to tell you, but I have told you. I can't fully make her

out on one thing, and that is whether she believes you still care for

her or not. Sometimes I think she believes that you still love her. I

don't know why she is so happy unless that is at the bottom of it."

CHAPTER XII

John rose to go. Promising to return the next day, he started back to

town. By choice he went through a strip of forest-land. In some places

the growth of trees, bushes, and vines was dense. Small streams trickled

through the moss and grass over pebbled beds, clear and cool in the

shade and warm in the open sunshine. Above the blue sky arched, with

here and there a white cloud against which some buzzards were circling

in majestic calmness. For the first time in many years he felt that he

had not loved in vain. Tilly loved him. He loved her. She had suffered;

so had he. The world had mistreated them, that was all. He remembered

something she had once said about love being eternal. How sweet the

thought now was!

* * * * *

The next morning he was at his mother's cabin again. He had a plan to

unfold to her. He described his life in New York, and spoke of the many

advantages of living there. He wanted her to come with him. He would

give her every comfort that could be thought of. His income was ample.

They would be company for each other. The things she wanted to forget

would never follow her there. She would make good, new friends and end

her days in contentment and comfort.

She listened to him attentively, a warm stare of maternal pride in her

meek eyes, but when he paused she slowly shook her head. She seemed

embarrassed; then she said: "I couldn't do that, John. You may think it

odd of anybody, but I really wouldn't like a bustling life like that

now. I've got a taste of this, and I think I'd rather keep it. Then I

must be honest with you. I mustn't keep back anything. The truth is I

don't want to leave Tilly and Joel and the children. I've got used to

them, I reckon. I think they want me, too, I really do; at least I hope

so. I've found this out, John; people either like one sort of life or

the other. When I was living like--like I used to live, I wanted that

and nothing else, but now I want this and nothing else. I wish you could

live here, but you know best about that. It would be wrong in some ways,

for, considering the way you and Tilly feel about each other, and her

duty to Joel and the children, it wouldn't be best for you to be close

together. I was thinking about that last night and wondering whether you

and her ought to meet even once again. It seems to me that it would be

awkward for you both, and hard on poor Joel."

"I had no idea of--of meeting her," John said, in a tone which sank

beneath his breath. "I must spare her that."

"It is a pity--a pity, but it will be best!" Mrs. Trott sighed. "I wish

I could see some other way, but I can't. How long are you going to

stay?"

"Not longer than a week," he answered. "Are you sure that you won't go

with me?"

She slowly shook her head. "No, I must stay here, John. I couldn't leave

them-- I really couldn't. They have wound themselves about my tired old

heart and I want to stay near them. I wish I could help them out of

their terrible poverty. The children ought to be educated. They are

wonderfully bright."

They sat without speaking for several minutes; then John said,

suddenly: "Do you think we could, between us, devise any way by which I

might help them substantially? I assure you I have plenty of money for

which I have no need."

"Oh, that would never do, John!" Mrs. Trott exclaimed. "Neither Joel nor

Tilly would accept it. That is out of the question."

John's face fell. "I was afraid you'd say that," he sighed. Then, with a

start and an eager searching of her face, he said: "Will you answer me a

direct question? If you, yourself, were to come into some money, at your

death would you want them to have it?"

"Why, of course!" she answered. "That is all I'd want money for now."

"Then the way is clear," John beamed, and his voice throbbed with

excitement. "You are my mother. You can't keep me from making you

comfortable out of my useless means. I have some absolutely safe

securities that bring in good dividends. Before I return to New York

they will be in your name at one of the banks in town, with a cash

deposit to your credit. The income on the stocks amounts to about three

thousand a year. Remember, I am in no way suggesting to you what you

should do with the principal or the interest, but legally to be on the

safe side, you ought at once to make a will."

"Why, John-- John, you astound me!" his mother cried. "Mr. Cavanaugh

intimated that you were not particularly well off, and here you say--you

say that I am to have three thousand dollars a year from you.

Why--why--"

"It is nothing," he said, smiling. "I want to do it, and you must help

me. If you should decide to do so, you can convert some of the stocks

into money and buy Joel a farm on which he could make a good living.

After I am gone they won't refuse it from you, for you owe it to them,

considering all they have done for you."

Without knowing it, Mrs. Trott was weeping. Great crystal tears were on

her cheeks. Her still beautiful lips were quivering; her slender hands

were clasped in her lap.

"Oh, John, John, can it be possible to do this for them?" she half

whimpered. "I want to do it. I want to help them, but poor Joel is so

sensitive and proud that--that--"

"You owe it to him, and I, as your son, who left you unprotected, owe it

to him also. When I am gone he will see that it had to be. Let him know

about the will in his children's favor, but give him to understand that

the money is from _you_, not from _me_, and tell him, too, if you can do

so adroitly, that I shall never come this way again. This is his home,

not mine. As for Til--as for his wife, I shall not meet her while I am

here. You are going to help them substantially--that is the main thing.

_You_, no one else."

"Oh, it would be glorious--glorious!" Mrs. Trott dried her eyes on her

apron. "As for Tilly, Tilly--it may seem to you a strange idea of mine,

John, but somehow I believe, actually believe that she would accept the

money from you as readily as she'd give her last cent to you under the

same circumstances. She is a strange, strange little woman, more of the

next life, it seems to me, than this. She has been an angel of light to

me and I couldn't leave her; even if you were an emperor offering me a

throne I'd stay here. In taking your money, John, I am taking it on her

account. She will see through your plan, but it will only make her the

happier, for she thinks your soul and hers are united for all time, and

it may be so, John--it may be so. Love like yours and hers ought not to

die. How could it?"

He sat silent. All the morbid hauntings of his past seemed to be

withdrawing like shadows before some vast supernal light. His body felt

imponderable. A delicious pain clutched his throat and pierced his

breast. He was ashamed of his weakness and tried to shake it off, but it

continued to thrill and sob in every nook and cranny of his hitherto

unexplored being. The woman before him seemed more than mere flesh,

blood, and bone. A veritable nimbus hovered over her transfigured head

and shone against the unbarked logs behind her.

CHAPTER XIII

By choice, he started home through the wood. He wanted the feel of the

grass, heather, and moss beneath his feet; the scent of wild flowers in

his nostrils; the bending boughs of great trees over him; the minute

sounds of insects in his ears; the flight of winged things in his sight.

Deeper and deeper into the wood he plunged. There seemed something to be

drunken like an impalpable spiritual elixir. He held out the arms of his

being to it; he opened the pores of his body and soul to it. The far-off

hum of the town's commerce and traffic seemed an insistent denial of the

intangible thing for which he hungered, and he closed his ears to it.

Presently he heard the sound of breaking twigs and the stirring of dry

leaves behind the vines and boulders close by on his right, and he

paused to listen. Then there fell upon his ears the soft voices of

children, and, carefully parting the pliant branches of some willows, he

saw in a little grassy glade Tilly's daughter and son. They were

gathering flowers and ferns. Little Tilly had her chubby arms full, and

Joel was plucking more.

It was a beautiful sight, and yet it drenched him with infinite pain. He

was tempted to attract their attention, to take them into his arms

again, but he checked the impulse.

"What is the use?" he muttered. "They are hers, not mine--_his_ and

hers, not _mine_ and hers."

Softly he moved away. Presently he came to a fallen tree and sat down

on it. He could no longer hear the children's voices. However, another

sound broke the stillness about him. It was the rapid tread of some one

hurrying through the wood in his direction. The branches of the bushes

in front of him parted and Tilly stood facing him, her cheeks and brow

flushed and damp from rapid walking. That she could be so beautiful as

now he had never dreamed possible. The years had added indescribable

charm and grace to her every movement, feature, and expression.

"Oh, John!" she cried, holding out her hands as appealingly and naively

as of old, "the children are lost! They started for your mother's cabin,

but haven't been there. There are dangerous places in this wood, and--"

He smiled reassuringly as he took her hands. "They are all right," he

said. "They are just over there. I saw them only a moment ago."

Their hands clung together, but neither of them was cognizant of the

fact. It was as if not a day had elapsed since they had parted.

Forgetting every law of propriety, he drew her into his arms. Her

uncovered head went as of old to his shoulder, and he was about to kiss

her throbbing lips when, with her hand to his mouth, she suddenly

checked him.

"No, no, John!" she said, and she disengaged herself from his embrace

with a firm, resolute movement. "I understand how you feel, but you

mustn't-- I mustn't. I want to--yes, yes, I want to kiss you, but it

would be wrong."

"Yes, it would be wrong," he groaned, and turned white. He sat down on

the trunk of the tree. She stood before him. Neither spoke for a while,

and the prattling voices of the children sounded on the warm, still

air.

"I'm afraid I have pained you," Tilly said, after a moment, and she put

her hand on his shoulder as if to make him look at her. "I wish I knew

some other way, but I know of none."

"There is no other way," he declared, his hungry eyes now on her face,

the marvel of which still held him enthralled. In all his dreams of her

she had never appeared so transcendently wonderful.

"How could she ever have been mine--actually mine?" he asked himself

from the abyss into which he was sinking.

"You see," she went on, now taking his hand into hers, "I'd have to tell

Joel. I'm his wife, the mother of his children, and there can be nothing

in my life that is not open to him. He is the soul of honor, John."

"I know it," John answered, simply.

"This thing is killing him, John," she went on, rapidly, as if taking no

heed of what she was saying. "The world was against him, anyway, and the

news of your being here so prosperous and successful by contrast to

himself has bowed his head to the earth. I don't know what to do or what

to say. He knows how I feel. You see, I couldn't hide from him the joy I

felt when I heard you were living. I can bear anything now--anything!

You see, Joel thinks that you--he has no reason for thinking so, of

course, for you have lived up there and he here--but he thinks--it is

stupid of him--but he thinks that you feel--exactly the same toward me

as you did when we were married. Exactly! Exactly!"

"It wouldn't take a wise man to know that," John said, bitterly, his

lips awry, his stare dull with agony.

"You mean to say that you _do_?" Tilly urged, her little hand pressing

his spasmodically, her eyes glistening with moisture.

He nodded slowly. "How could I help it? You have done nothing to alter

my feeling toward you except to deepen it. How can I overlook the fact

that you befriended my mother (after I deserted her) and made her what

she now is?"

"That was nothing but my duty, and my love for her," Tilly answered. She

paused for a moment, and went on:

"Then you don't blame me for _marrying again_?" This was tremulously

uttered, and the speaker's eyes were now downcast.

"No, I expected it. In a way, you owed it to Joel. In fact, I owe him

more now than I can ever repay."

Tilly released his hand and sat down on the log beside him. Her little

feet were thrust out from her, and he saw her poor tattered shoes and

noted the coarse dress she wore.

"I've always wanted to know one thing," she faltered. "A thousand times

after the report of your death I wondered if you died understanding how

it was that I left you. Did you know why I left our little home so

suddenly, John?"

"Why, to escape the awful scandal that was in the air; but what is the

good of bringing that up now?"

"Ah, I see, you didn't quite know the truth," Tilly cried. "John, my

father was practically out of his mind that day. He died not long

afterward of softening of the brain. He had a revolver, and would have

shot you if he had met you. I was expecting you home every minute, and

when I saw that I could pacify him by going right back with him I did

it."

"Oh, I see!" A great light broke on John. "Then it was really to save my

life."

"As I saw it, yes," Tilly replied. "I wrote to you once, after I got to

Cranston, but I learned afterward that father stopped the letter. I was

kept like a prisoner at home, John, until the court, under my father's

influence, and a narrow-minded jury had annulled our marriage. In spite

of that, I was ready to go to you and only waiting for a chance, when

the news of your death came. I didn't blame you for leaving. I knew that

you did it in despair of any other solution, and also to help poor

little Dora. That was a glorious thing to do, and God blessed your

effort. How is she, John?"

"Well, and happy--both of them. I had a letter yesterday. They like

their work and believe they are doing good."

"And you did that, John--you did it. When your own troubles were

greatest, you thought of that poor child. It was the noblest thing a man

ever did."

John shrugged his shoulders. "It was selfish enough. I needed a

companion, and she became one. For years we were like real brother and

sister."

"And then she left you all alone," Tilly sighed. "Oh, John, John, the

world has been unkind to you! You see, I have my children. Only a mother

can know what that means. I don't hear their voices now. Will you show

me where they were?"

He led her through the wood to the glade. A great deadening chagrin was

on him. He told himself that she had suddenly bethought herself of the

need of the protection of her children's presence. Parting the bushes on

the edge of the glade, he looked around and presently espied them asleep

in the shade of a tree. Little Tilly's head lay on a heap of flowers and

ferns, and Joel lay coiled on the grass at her feet.

"They often do that," Tilly beamed up at John. "We needn't wake them

yet--not just yet. I have a thousand things to say and ask, but my

thoughts are all in a jumble. How strange it seems to be here like this

with you again! I wonder, can there be any harm (in God's sight) in

telling the simple, honest truth? I've never done a conscious wrong in

my life, John. I did what I thought was right when I married you--when I

left you to go home with my father--when I secretly visited your

mother--when I finally married Joel--and now while I am here with you

like this telling you that--that--"

She broke off, her all but etherealized face paling and growing more

rigid.

He clutched her hands. He held them passionately, desperately to his

breast. "Go on!" he panted. "For God's sake, go on! I am starving for a

word from your lips. I've heard you speak a million times in my dreams.

Night after night I've lived with you in our little cottage, only to

wake and find it a damnable mockery, with nothing but the dull grind of

life before me."

"What I say I would say to Joel's face if I could do so without killing

him." Tilly smiled wistfully. "John, I don't believe a true woman can

love but once in the way I loved you. She can many; she can have

children when she thinks it can bring no harm to her dead lover, but, if

she is a genuine woman, she will exult when that lover rises from the

grave and stands before her again. Dear John, I could take your

suffering face between my hands and kiss your lips as no woman ever

kissed a man's lips before. Yes, I could do it, and I'd die to be able

to do it again, but it is not to be. My body may not love, but my soul

may, and it is an eternal thing, John, and so is your soul. Those

children have a right to the care of a mother who is untainted in the

sight of the world. Their poor, patient, unfortunate father deserves as

clean a wife as the earth can produce. I know you love me-- I know it.

I feel it. I see it. But we've got to part. I believe in God. When I

doubt God I suffer and am forced back to faith by the pain I feel.

Believing in God, I also believe that the greater the cross put upon us

the more patiently it must be borne. My cross is to live without

you--yours is to live without me. But, oh, my heart aches--aches--aches

for you! It seems to me that your burden will be heavier even than mine,

for I have my children and you are all alone. John, John, you are young

yet. Don't you think that if you were to marry some good girl and have

children of your own--"

"No," he broke in, shuddering. "Leave that out! I couldn't do

it--knowing your heart as I now know it."

"I see, I understand, and--yes, I'm glad. Oh, I can't help it, John. I'm

glad. When do you leave here?"

"Very soon now--in a few days."

"How strange, oh, how strange!" she mused, aloud. "And after this--after

this brief moment I am not to see you again, or hear from you--yes, I'll

hear through your mother, for she tells me she is not to leave with you.

How odd that is, too! Joel and I and the children have robbed you even

of the mother who bore you. You never knew her as she now is, John, and

that is a pity, too. In her rebirth she is as saintly as a consecrated

nun. She does not know that she believes in God, but she does. There is

a streak of doubt in her as there was in you. Are you still an

unbeliever, John?"

He lowered his head, shrugged, and contracted his brows. "I don't like

to say--to _you_, at least," he faltered. "Not to you, Tilly."

"But you may, John--it won't pain me at all. I used to think that the

worst sinners were those who denied the existence of God, but I now

think there may be persons so godlike that they can't realize the

existence of any God outside of themselves. John, you are godlike. If I

could think of you as sinning, I'd sin in that thought alone. Go on

calling yourself an atheist, and the angels will treat it as a holy

jest."

"I don't follow you," he said, wearily, as if he would dismiss the

subject. "You are mistaken about me. I am just an average man. But I

don't believe as you do. It may be beautiful--it no doubt is, but I

can't grasp it. It never came my way, somehow."

The wood was very still. Under the beating sun, the wild flowers and

tender leaves of plants were the shelter of myriads of moving things

visible and invisible. Suddenly a locust sang in the top of a

persimmon-tree. A crow flew cawing over a distant field. The rumble of a

farmer's wagon was heard on the road. Tilly's face was steadily raised

to John's. She put her hand on his arm, the arm she used to lean on so

lovingly in their walks on the mountain road.

"You can live without conscious faith, John," she said, in the sweet

treble tone he had loved so long, "but I cannot. If I doubted, as I did

once when we thought Tilly was dying, I'd wither up in despair. You may

as well know the truth. I live only for my children, John. Joel has to

suffer in not having all my heart-- I can't help that. He must suffer,

too, because he makes no headway in life and is unable to provide well

for me and his children. I can't help that, either. That is his cross

and he is bearing it like a saint. But as for me, I have two things to

live for--my children and your mother. God has put them in my hands and

I must care for them. Do you think I could live without faith now? Why,

I know God must help me care for them. I am praying for that. Night

after night--day after day I plead with God to provide for those three.

I want to see the children educated. I want to keep your mother as happy

and peaceful as she now is. She is my mother now--she is also Joel's;

she is the grandmother of my children. Don't you think my prayer will be

answered, John?"

"I know it," he said, suddenly, recalling the compact just made with his

mother. "I know it."

"Then you believe, too," she cried, eagerly, wonderingly.

"Yes, I believe that," he admitted, reluctantly. "Something will

happen--something will turn up. You must never lose faith and hope."

Tilly looked up at the sun. "It is eleven o'clock at least," she said.

"I must be going. I have to get Joel's dinner ready. I shall tell him

about this, of course, and now"--she choked up--"this must be good-by.

How can it be? It doesn't seem possible--that is, _forever_. For, if it

were possible, the God I adore would be a fiend. We are going to meet in

another life. As sure as you and I stand here loving each other as we

do, we are going to be reunited. A stream of spirit will connect us even

while alive. If it were otherwise, there'd be no law and order in the

universe, and law and order are everywhere. Yes, we'll meet again,

someway, somehow, somewhere."

She held out her hands. He took them into his. He was drawing her to

him, the old fire of divine passion filling him, when he felt the

muscles of her fingers stiffen defensively, and she turned her eyes to

the sleeping children.

"No, no! No, my darling," she said, a fluttering sob in her throat, her

eyes filling. "We must be honorable. Good-by. Leave me here with them,

please. I'll let them sleep a moment longer and then take them home."

"Good-by," he said, turning away. The bending branches of the bushes

came between her and him. Like a plodder who has become suddenly blind

he staggered forward. The earth seemed to sink as he trod upon it.

Wild-grape vines whipped his brow and cheeks. Stones slipped and rolled

beneath his feet as he groped along. He was panting like a wild animal

long and closely pursued.

He had turned away from the town's direction. He told himself that he

could not just now meet Cavanaugh and his wife with the meaningless

platitudes of daily life. A rugged, wooded hill rose before him. He

paused, rested awhile, and then began to climb its steep side. Half-way

to the summit, he stopped and looked about him.

There lay the growing town where his boyhood was spent. There loomed up

the graveyard, with its ghostly slabs and shafts. There was the old

house which had haunted his dreariest dreams, and there--yes, there was

the cottage which had been the shrine of his sole joy in life. Drawn

close together in perspective and full of meaning they stood--his House

of Despair, and his Cottage of Delight. From both he tore his clinging

gaze. Beyond his mother's cabin lay an undulating meadow and another log

cabin. Along a narrow path walked a woman holding the hands of two

children. Across the furrows of a corn-field to meet the three trudged a

man without a coat, an ax on his shoulder. They met. The man took the

younger child up in his arms, and the three others walked onward through

the yellow veil of light.

The observer groaned, filled, and sobbed. Through a mist of

unrestrainable tears he watched fixedly till the group had vanished in

the cabin. Then he started toward the town.

CHAPTER XIV

A few days later Joel Eperson stopped his wagon, which was loaded with

wood to be taken to town, at Mrs. Trott's cabin. He left his horse

unhitched and stood before the door. Mrs. Trott, who was within, heard

him and came out smiling.

"The children told me," Eperson began, "that you wanted to see me."

"Yes, Joel," she answered, taking one of the chairs in front of the

cabin and indicating the other with a wave of her hand. "We've got to

have a talk, and what do you think? It is business this time."

"Business?" he echoed, puzzled by her mood and mien.

"Yes, and I am going to say in advance, Joel, that you have got to lay

aside some of your old-fashioned notions for once in your life and be

sensible. Joel, John is going back to New York very soon, and he is not

coming here anymore."

"You say--you say--?" Eperson's moist lips hung loosely from his

yellowing teeth, and he broke off, only to begin again. "But why do you

tell _me_ of it, Mrs. Trott?"

"_Mrs. Trott!_" the woman cried. "Why do you call me that for the first

time? Hasn't it been 'Grandmother Trott' all these years? Listen, Joel.

You are too touchy for your own good. I am telling you about John

because you ought to know it. You may be silly enough to think that he

wants to come between you and Tilly, but he doesn't, and she wouldn't

encourage it, even if he did. So that is the end of that. The next

thing is my own business with you. Joel, John is better off than we had

any idea of, and what do you think he has done? He has turned over to me

in my name a big lot of stocks that bring in a fine income, and, besides

that, he has placed to my credit in the bank several thousand dollars to

invest as I like. I am a rich woman, now, Joel."

"Fine! Fine! Splendid! Splendid!" Joel cried, impulsively, and then his

face began to settle back into perplexed rigidity as he sat and waited.

"Yes, it is fine," Mrs. Trott went on, "and what I want to see you

about, Joel, is this: As you know, there are several splendid farms

around here with good houses on them that are offered for sale. Now I

want to buy one of them, and I want you to help me do it."

"I'll do anything I can," he answered, lamely, for he well knew that she

had not finished what she had to say. "I am afraid that I am not a good

business man, however, and that the judgment of others--"

"I really want the Louden farm," Mrs. Trott said. "Mr. Cavanaugh says it

is a bargain. He built the big house that is on it and says that it was

decidedly well made out of the best materials. It is a beautiful place,

as you may know, with the fine spring and fruit and shade trees and

stables and barn!"

"Yes, it is splendid in every way," Eperson said; "and you think that

you can get it?"

She smiled broadly. "Through the lawyers I have already a binding option

on it. The final papers will be signed to-day."

"But how can I help you?" Joel asked, still shrinkingly.

Mrs. Trott hesitated, as if to decide exactly how she should make her

next move. Then, with a half-fearful smile, she said: "You remember,

Joel, how you pleaded with me, just after you and Tilly were married, to

come live with you and her?"

"Yes, for we wanted you--we've always wanted you to be closer to us."

"Well, I want to go to you now, Joel," was the slow reply. "I'm lonely.

Another change seems to have come over me. I have learned to love the

children so much that I am restless without them. Their little visits

seem too short, and on rainy days and in the winter they can't come.

Yes, I want to be with you all, and I am asking you to take me at last,

Joel."

"Asking me--asking me?" he stammered, comprehending her trend in part.

"Why, you know--you ought to know that I--that we--"

"Well, it is for you to take me or refuse me," Mrs. Trott put in, with a

wistful smile. "I want to live on the farm. I can't manage it by myself

and I want you to take charge of it for me--and let us all live in that

big, fine house together."

"But I-- Why, I--" Joel broke down again, his patrician face awry from

sheer torture, and then sat twisting his gaunt hands over his ragged,

quivering knee. "I see, it is good and kind of you, but--but-- I don't

see how I, myself, could possibly accept your offer."

"You have to, Joel," she retorted, still with her motherly smile. "You

can't refuse a thing that will give me and your wife and children so

much happiness."

"But I'd be on--on your son's bounty," Joel flashed from the very embers

of his humiliation.

"Absurd!" exclaimed Mrs. Trott. "He says he owes you more than he ever

could repay. He says you cared for me when he deserted me, and that you

played the part of a man while he was a coward. But that is neither

here nor there. Joel, I have willed all my new possessions to you and

your wife and children. When I'm dead and gone you will have to have

them, anyway, so why not make me happy the remainder of my life?"

He was unable to formulate a logical reply, but beneath the revelation

she had made he sat limp and bruised as a flower drenched and beaten by

abnormal rain and wind.

"Does Tilly know all this?" he asked, timidly, a cowed expression in his

dull eyes.

"Yes, Joel, and she wants you to accept my plan. She will be happy when

you do, for your sake and for the sake of the children."

He got up. His tanned face above his clean but frayed collar looked like

the mask of some Indian chieftain thwarted in his last patriotic hope.

His poor, underfed horse, in reaching for the grass near his bitted

mouth, had drawn the reins beneath his hoofs and was about to break

them.

"Excuse me," Joel said, and he went to the animal and tied up the reins.

He came back. His face was still rigid, his lips were quivering.

"You wish it, you say," he faltered. "Tilly wants it, but how about your

son? Would he care for me to share in the benefits of his gifts to you?"

Mrs. Trott deliberated for an instant, then she said: "He is doing it

more for you, perhaps, than us, Joel. He declares he owes it to you.

I've told him how you have often stinted yourself to pay my bills. I

have told him, too, that but for you I'd have remained in the life he so

detested. Not one man in a thousand would have treated me as you have

done. You can't avoid it, Joel--we are all going to live in that fine

house and be comfortable and happy at last."

He bowed silently. That was his answer. He accepted her proposal as a

proud man might a shameful verdict of death. He went back to his wagon,

raised his tattered hat, and mounted upon his load of wood.

CHAPTER XV

The details of the business were all settled. John was ready to leave

for New York. He was to take the midnight train and was finishing his

packing in his room at about nine o'clock when Cavanaugh came in.

"I have something to tell you that you may or may not like," the old man

faltered. "I don't know how you'll feel about it, but Joel Eperson is at

the gate and says he wants to speak to you."

"Eperson!" John exclaimed, with a start.

"Yes, and the poor fellow looks awful, John. He could barely speak. He

leaned on the gate like he could hardly stand up. I hope you will be

kind and gentle with him. I have never seen such a pitiful sight. It's

his pride, I reckon, and it has been cut to the quick."

John said nothing. It was an encounter he had hoped to avoid. He put

some things into his bag and pressed them down. How could he confer on

any terms with that man of all men? And yet he plainly saw that the

meeting was inevitable.

"It wouldn't do to turn him away," Cavanaugh advised, gingerly. "You

see, it would upset all the other plans, for I know him well enough to

know that if you treat him roughly to-night he will not live on that

farm. He would kill himself first."

"He and I will make out all right," John said, turning resolutely to the

door. "Will he not come in?"

"I don't think he wants to," Cavanaugh said. "He kept in the shadow

while I was talking to him and had his hat pulled down over his eyes."

As John went outside he saw Eperson at the fence. A thing that touched

him sharply was the fact that Eperson unlatched the gate and swung it

open, as a servant might have done for his master, while he still kept

his eyes hidden under the broad brim of his slouch-hat.

"I came to see you-- I _had_ to see you, Mr. Trott," Eperson muttered,

jerkingly. "I heard you were going away to-night and I couldn't--well, I

had to see you."

"I understand, Eperson," John said, wondering over his own stilted tone

to a man whom he so profoundly pitied. "Will you come in--or shall

we--?"

"Yes, we can walk, if you don't mind," Eperson answered, quickly. "I

really think it would be better. Curious people pass along and look in

windows sometimes, but back here in the wood there is no light and it is

quiet."

"Yes, that is better," John agreed. And side by side the two men walked

along Cavanaugh's lot fence till they were in the thicket of stunted

trees behind the property. Presently Eperson paused, raised his head,

and spoke again:

"This will do, Mr. Trott. I really don't know what to say in beginning,

for it seems to me that a million things come up, but your mother told

me about the property you gave her--the farm and all the rest."

"Yes, yes, I know-- I hoped that she would mention it to you," John

said, out of a sympathy he didn't dream he possessed. "That was really

part of the--the understanding. She needs a comfortable home and she

could not look after it herself. She knows, and I know, that you can

manage it well, and so--"

"But--but don't you see--can't you understand?" Eperson pushed his hat

back and his great, all but bloodshot eyes gleamed piteously in the

starlight. "Don't you see that I can't be put on a rack like that and

live under it? Do you think I have no pride or manhood left? I am a

failure--worse than a beggar. I aspired for that of which I was

unworthy--your wife--and I've come to tell you something to-night which

no proud man ever in the history of the world told another. I've come to

tell you that--"

"Stop, Joel, you mustn't," John broke in, and he gently laid his hand on

the shoulder of the other. "That is a thing neither of us must ever hold

in mind for a moment. Listen to me. You and I are in the swirl of great

laws we can't understand. Of one thing we can be certain, and that is

that we love the same woman. Don't come to me to-night with the idea

that you are about to get in my debt. I'm in yours. I was a coward. I

deserted my post of duty under the first great blight that fell upon me.

I was only a poor, bewildered, stung boy, but I fled while you remained,

advised, protected, and cared for both my wife and my mother. By so

doing, and through your children, you tied the hearts of those two

beings to you forever. My mother is a transformed woman through you--my

former wife through you is a glorified mother. Don't think I am fooling

myself with romantic ideals. I know where I stand. If I were to dare

to-day to lay claim to your place, Tilly would turn upon me in disgust

and hatred. And why? Because the price to be paid would be the happiness

of the father of her children. That is a holy thing in her eyes, and I,

myself, profoundly respect it."

"My God! My God!" moaned Eperson, "you can say this--you can be all

this to a man like me?" Eperson's great eyes were filling; his rough

breast was heaving; the shoulder under John's gentle hand was quivering.

"Yes, because I admire you from the depths of my soul," was the reply.

"Your wife is not for me. My mother is not for me. Your children are

theirs and yours. My mother is making a gift to you-- I am not doing it.

I shouldn't say _gift_. She is trying to pay a debt that she owes you."

A sob broke from Joel. He caught John's hand and stared into his eyes.

"I now know why Tilly still loves you," he gulped. "She loves you

because you are more of God than man. I don't know what to say to you

further, but I will say this--and as the Almighty is my witness I mean

it. I'll do my duty as the father of my children, as the husband _before

the law_ of my wife, and as the manager of your mother's property, but

I'll never try to win my wife's heart from you."

John's arm slid around the neck of the bowed and broken man. He started

to speak, but his voice clogged with a pain that was delicious. It was

as if both he and his companion somehow had stood aside from their

bodies and were floating among the trees in the dim starlight.

Presently, and without a word, Joel turned and walked away. He plunged

again into the wood as if to avoid contact with any one from the streets

of the town. On he went, his face turned homeward. There was a hill to

ascend, a vale to cross. He reached the top of the hill. His step had

become sluggish. He groaned aloud. He folded his arms and stood staring

into the moonlight.

"It is incomplete--unfinished, not rounded out," he muttered. "It cannot

remain as it is. I haven't the strength to put it through. I know where

I'd fail. I'd continue to suffer, and so would he. He is noble to the

core of his being. He is doing his best to help me and her, but he is

giving more than he is getting, and that isn't fair. After all, after

all, _there is one thing that I can do for him that he could not do for

me_!"

THE END

BOOKS BY

ZANE GREY

* * * * *

_THE U. P. TRAIL_

_THE DESERT OF WHEAT_

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WILL N. HARBEN

"His people talk as if they had not been in books before,

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* * * * *

_THE HILLS OF REFUGE_.

_THE INNER LAW_.

_ABNER DANIEL._

_ANN BOYD. Illustrated_

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_MAM' LINDA._

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_WESTERFELT._

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End of Project Gutenberg's The Cottage of Delight, by Will N. Harben