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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Man Thou Gavest, by Harriet T. Comstock
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Man Thou Gavest
+
+Author: Harriet T. Comstock
+
+Release Date: February 1, 2005 [EBook #14858]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN THOU GAVEST ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Garcia, Robert Ledger and the PG Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "Do you think I am the sort of girl who would sell
+herself for anything--even for the justice I might think was yours?"]
+
+THE MAN THOU GAVEST
+
+BY
+
+HARRIET T. COMSTOCK
+
+AUTHOR OF JOYCE OF THE NORTH WOODS, A SON OF THE HILLS, ETC.
+
+FRONTISPIECE BY E.F. WARD
+
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+_I dedicate this book of mine to the lovely spot where most of it was
+written_
+
+THE MACDOWELL COLONY PETERBOROUGH NEW HAMPSHIRE
+
+AND
+
+"TO HER WHO UNDERSTANDS"
+
+Deep in the pine woods is the little Studio where work is made supremely
+possible. Around the house the birds and trees sing together and no
+disturbing thing is permitted to trespass.
+
+Within, like a tangible Presence, an atmosphere of loved labour; good
+will and high hopes greet the coming guests and speed the parting.
+
+Little Studio in the pine woods, my appreciation and affection are
+yours!
+
+HARRIET T. COMSTOCK
+
+
+
+
+THE MAN THOU GAVEST
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+The passengers, one by one, left the train but Truedale took no heed. He
+was the only one left at last, but he was not aware of it, and then,
+just as the darkness outside caught his attention, the train stopped so
+suddenly that it nearly threw him from his seat.
+
+"Accident?" he asked the conductor. "No, sah! Pine Cone station. I
+reckon the engineer come mighty nigh forgetting--he generally does at
+the end. The tracks stop here. You look mighty peaked; some one
+expecting yo'?"
+
+"I've been ill. My doctor ordered me to the hills. Yes: some one will
+meet me." Truedale did not resent the interest the man showed; he was
+grateful.
+
+"Well, sah, if yo' man doesn't show up--an' sometimes they don't, owing
+to bad roads--you can come back with us after we load up with the wood.
+I live down the track five miles; we lie thar fur the night. Yo' don't
+look equal to taking to yo' two standing feet."
+
+The entire train force of three men went to gather fuel for the return
+trip and, dejectedly, Truedale sat down in the gloom and silence to
+await events.
+
+No human being materialized and Truedale gave himself up to gloomy
+thoughts. Evidently he must return on the train and to-morrow morning
+take to--just then a spark like a falling star attracted his attention
+and to his surprise he saw, not a dozen feet away, a tall lank man
+leaning against a tree in an attitude so adhesive that he might have
+been a fungus growth or sprig of destroying mistletoe. It never occurred
+to Truedale that this indifferent onlooker could be interested in him,
+but he might be utilized in the emergency, so he saluted cordially.
+
+"Hello, friend!"
+
+By the upward and downward curve of the glowing pipe bowl, Truedale
+concluded the man was nodding.
+
+"I'm waiting for Jim White."
+
+"So?" The one word came through the darkness without interest.
+
+"Do you happen to know him?"
+
+"Sorter."
+
+"Could you--get me to his place?"
+
+"I reckon. That's what I come ter do."
+
+"I--I had a trunk sent on ahead; perhaps it is in that shed?"
+
+"It's up to--to Jim's place. Can you ride behind me on the mare?
+Travelling is tarnation bad."
+
+Once they were on the mare's back, conversation dragged, then died a
+natural death. Truedale felt as if he were living a bit of anti-war
+romance as he jogged along behind his guide, his grip knocking
+unpleasantly against his leg as the way got rougher.
+
+It was nine o'clock when, in a little clearing close by the trail, the
+lights of a cabin shone cheerily and the mare stopped short and
+definitely.
+
+"I hope White is at home!" Truedale was worn to the verge of exhaustion.
+
+"I be Jim White!" The man dismounted and stood ready to assist his
+guest.
+
+"Welcome, stranger. Any one old Doc McPherson sends here brings his
+welcome with him."
+
+About a fortnight later, Conning Truedale stretched his long legs out
+toward Jim White's roaring fire of pine knots and cones. It was a fierce
+and furious fire but the night was sharp and cold. There was no other
+light in the room than that of the fire--nor was any needed.
+
+Jim sat by the table cleaning a gun. Truedale was taking account of
+himself. He held his long, brown hand up to the blaze; it was as steady
+as that of a statue! He had walked ten miles that day and felt
+exhilarated. Night brought sleep, meal time--and often in between
+times--brought appetite. He had made an immense gain in health.
+
+"How long have I been here, Jim?" he asked in a slow, calm voice.
+
+"Come Thursday, three weeks!" When Jim was most laconic he was often
+inwardly bursting with desire for conversation. After a silence Conning
+spoke again:
+
+"Say, Jim, are there any other people in this mountain range, except you
+and me?"
+
+"Ugh! just bristlin' with folks! Getting too darned thick. That's why
+I've got ter get into the deep woods. I just naturally hate folks except
+in small doses. Why"--here Jim put the gun down upon the table--"five
+mile back, up on Lone Dome, is the Greyson's, and it ain't nine miles to
+Jed Martin's place. Miss Lois Ann's is a matter o' sixteen miles; what
+do you call population if them figures don't prove it?"
+
+Something had evidently disturbed White's ideas of isolation and
+independence--it would all come out later. Truedale knew his man fairly
+well by that time; at least he thought he did. Again Jim took up his gun
+and Con thought lazily that he must get over to his shack. He occupied a
+small cabin--Dr. McPherson's property for sleeping purposes.
+
+"Do yo' know," Jim broke in suddenly; "yo' mind me of a burr runnin'
+wild in a flock of sheep--gatherin' as yo' go. Yo' sho are a miracle!
+Now old Doc McPherson was like a shadder when he headed this way--but he
+took longer gatherin', owin' to age an' natural defects o' build. Your
+frame was picked right close, but a kind o' flabby layer of gristle and
+fat hung ter him an' wasn't a good foundation to build on."
+
+Conning gave a delighted laugh. Once Jim White began to talk of his own
+volition his discourse flowed on until hunger or weariness overtook him.
+His silences had the same quality--it was the way Jim began that
+mattered.
+
+"When I first took ter handlin' yo' for ole Doc McPherson, I kinder
+hated ter take my eyes off yo' fearin' yo' might slip out, but Gawd! yo'
+can grapple fo' yo' self now and--I plain hanker fur the sticks."
+
+"The sticks?" This was a new expression.
+
+"Woods!" Jim vouchsafed (he despised the stupidity that required
+interpretation of perfectly plain English), "deep woods! What with Burke
+Lawson suspected of bein' nigh, an' my duty as sheriff consarnin' him
+hittin' me in the face, I've studied it out that it will be a mighty
+reasonable trick fur this here officer of the law to be somewhere else
+till Burke settles with his friends an' foes, or takes himself off,
+'fore he's strung up or shot up."
+
+Truedale turned his chair about and faced Jim.
+
+"Do you know," he said, "you've mentioned more names in the last ten
+minutes than you've mentioned in all the weeks I've been here? You give
+me a mental cramp. Why, I thought you and I had these hills to
+ourselves; instead we're threatened on every side, and yet I haven't
+seen a soul on my tramps. Where do they keep themselves? What has this
+Burke Lawson done, to stir the people?"
+
+"You don't call your santers real tramps, do you? Why folks is as thick
+as ticks up here, though they don't knock elbows like what they do where
+you cum from. They don't holler out ter 'tract yer attention, neither.
+But they're here."
+
+"Let's hear more of Burke Lawson." Truedale gripped _him_ from the
+seething mass of humanity portrayed by White, as the one promising most
+colour and interest. "Just where does Burke live?"
+
+"Burke? Gawd! Burke don't live anywhere. He is a born floater. He
+scrooges around a place and raises the devil, then he just naturally
+floats off. But he nearly always comes back. Since the trap-settin' a
+time back, he has been mighty scarce in these parts; but any day he may
+turn up."
+
+"The trap, eh? What about that?" With this Truedale turned about again,
+for Jim, having finished his work on the gun, had placed the weapon on
+its pegs on the wall and had drawn near the fire. He ran his hand
+through his crisp, gray hair until it stood on end and gave him a
+peculiarly bristling appearance. He was about to enjoy himself. He was
+as keen for gossip as any cabin woman of the hills, but Jim was an
+artist about sharing his knowledge. However, once he decided to share,
+he shared royally.
+
+"I've been kinder waitin' fur yo' to show some interest in us-all," he
+began, "it's a plain sign of yo' gettin' on. I writ the same to old Doc
+McPherson yesterday! 'When he takes to noticin',' I writ, 'he's on the
+mend.'"
+
+Conning laughed good naturedly. "Oh! I'm on the mend, all right," he
+said.
+
+"Now as to that trap business," Jim took up the story, "I'll have to go
+back some and tell yo' about the Greysons and Jed Martin--they all be
+linked like sassages. Pete Greyson lives up to Lone Dome. Pete came from
+stock; he ain't trash by a long come, but he can act like it! Pete's
+forbears drank wine and talked like lords; Pete has ter rely on mountain
+dew and that accounts fur the difference in his goin's-on; but once he's
+sober, he's quality--is Pete. Pete's got two darters--Marg an'
+Nella-Rose. Old Doc McPherson use' ter call 'em types, whatever that
+means. Marg is a type, sure and sartin, but Nella-Rose is a little
+no-count--that's what I say. But blame it all, it's Nella-Rose as has
+set the mountains goin', so far as I can see. Fellers come courtin' Marg
+and they just slip through her fingers an' Nella-Rose gets 'em. She
+don't want 'em 'cept to play with and torment Marg. Gawd! how them two
+gals do get each other edgy. Round about Lone Dome they call Nella-Rose
+the doney-gal--that meaning 'sweetheart'; she's responsible for more
+trouble than a b'ar with a sore head, or Burke Lawson on a tear."
+
+Conning was becoming vitally interested and showed it, to Jim's
+delight; this was a dangerous state for White, he was likely, once
+started and flattered, to tell more than was prudent.
+
+"Jed Martin"--Jim gave a chuckle--"has been tossed between them two gals
+like a hot corn pone. He'd take Nella-Rose quick enough if she'd have
+him, but barrin' her, he hangs to Marg so as ter be nigh Nella-Rose in
+any case. And right here Burke Lawson figgers. Burke's got two naturs,
+same as old Satan. Marg can play on one and get him plumb riled up to
+anythin'; Nella-Rose can twist him around her finger and make him act
+like the Second Coming."
+
+Conning called a halt. "What's the Second Coming?" he asked, his eyes
+twinkling.
+
+"Meaning?--good as a Bible character," Jim explained huffily. "Gawd,
+man! do your own thinkin'. I can't talk an' splanify ter onct."
+
+"Oh! I see. Well, go on, Jim."
+
+"There be times of the moon when I declare that no-count Nella-Rose just
+plain seems possessed; has ter do somethin' and does it! Three months
+ago, come Saturday, or thereabouts, she took it into her head to worst
+Marg at every turn and let it out that she was goin' to round up all the
+fellers and take her pick! She had the blazin' face ter come down here
+and tell _me_ that! Course Marg knew it, but the two most consarned
+didn't--meaning Jed and Burke. Least they suspected--but warn't sure.
+Jed meant to get Burke out o' the way so he could have a clear space to
+co't Nella-Rose, so he aimed to shoot one o' Burke's feet just enough to
+lay him up--Jed is the slow, calculatin' kind and an almighty sure shot.
+He reckoned Burke couldn't walk up Lone Dome with a sore foot, so he
+laid for him, meanin' afterward to say he was huntin' an' took Burke for
+a 'possum. Well, Burke got wind of the plot; I'm thinkin' Marg put a
+flea in his ear, anyway he set a trap just by the path leading from the
+trail to Lone Dome. Gawd! Jed planted his foot inter it same as if he
+meant ter, and what does that Burke do but take a walk with Nella-Rose
+right past the place where Jed was caught! 'Corse he was yellin'
+somethin' terrible. They helped Jed out and I reckon Nella-Rose was
+innocent enough, but Jed writ up the account 'gainst Burke and Burke
+floated off for a spell. He ain't floated back yet--not _yet!_ But so
+long as Nella-Rose is above ground he'll naturally cum back."
+
+"And Nella-Rose, the little no-count; did she repay Jed, the poor cuss?"
+
+"Nella-Rose don't repay no one--she ain't more'n half real, whatever way
+you put it. But just see how this fixes a sheriff, will yo'? Knowing
+what I do, I can't jail either o' them chaps with a cl'ar conscience.
+Gawd! I'd like to pass a law to cage all females and only let 'em out
+with a string to their legs!" Then White laughed reminiscently.
+
+"What now, Jim?"
+
+"Gals!" White fairly spit out the word. "Gals!" There was an eloquent
+pause, then more quietly: "Jest when yo' place 'em and hate 'em proper,
+they up and do somethin' to melt yo' like snow on Lone Dome in May. I
+was harkin' back to the little white hen and Nella-Rose. There ain't
+much chance to have a livin' pet up to Greyson's place. Anything fit to
+eat is et. Pete drinks the rest. But once Nella-Rose came totin' up here
+on a cl'ar, moonlight evenin' with somethin' under her little, old
+shawl. 'Jim' she says--wheedlin' and coaxin'--'I want yo' to keep this
+here hen fo' me. I'll bring its keep, but I love it, and I can't see
+it--killed!' That gal don't never let tears fall--they jest wet her eyes
+and make 'em shine. With that she let loose the most owdacious white
+bantam and scattered some corn on the floor; then she sat down and
+laughed like an imp when the foolish thing hopped up to her and flopped
+onter her lap. Well, I kept the sassy little hen--there wasn't anything
+else ter do--but one day Marg, she followed Nella-Rose up and when she
+saw what was going on, she stamped in and cried out: 'So! yo' can have
+playthings while us-all go starved! Yo' can steal what's our'n,--an'
+with that she took the bantam and fo' I could say a cuss, she wrung that
+chicken's neck right fo' Nella-Rose's eyes!"
+
+"Good Lord!" exclaimed Conning; "the young brute! And the other
+one--what did she do?"
+
+"She jest looked at me--her eyes swimmin'. Nella-Rose don't talk much
+when she's hurt, but she don't forget. I tell yo', young feller, bein' a
+sheriff in this settlement ain't no joke. Yo' know folks too well and
+see the rights and wrongs more'n is good for plain justice."
+
+"Well?" Jim rose and stretched himself, "yo' won't go on the b'ar hunt
+ter-morrer?"
+
+"No, Jim, but I'll walk part of the way with you. When do you start?"
+
+"'Bout two o' the mornin'."
+
+"Then I'll turn in. Good-night, old man! You've given me a great
+evening. I feel as if I were suddenly projected into a crowd with human
+problems smashing into each other for all they're worth. You cannot
+escape, old man; that's the truth. You cannot escape. Life is life no
+matter where you find it."
+
+"Now don't git ter talkin' perlite to me," Jim warned. "Old Doc
+McPherson's orders was agin perlite conversation. Get a scrabble on yer!
+I'll knock yer up 'bout two or thereabouts."
+
+Outside, Truedale stood still and looked at the beauty of the night. The
+moon was full and flooded the open space with a radiance which
+contrasted sharply with the black shadows and the outlines of the near
+and distant peaks.
+
+The silence was so intense that the ear, straining for sound, ached from
+the effort. And just then a bewitched hen in White's shed gave a weird
+cry and Truedale started. He smiled grimly and thought of the little
+no-count and the tragedy of the white bantam. In the shining light
+around him he seemed to see her pitiful face as White had described
+it--the eyes full of tears but never overflowing, the misery and hate,
+the loneliness and impotency.
+
+At two the next morning Jim tapped on Truedale's window with his gun.
+
+"Comin' fur a walk?"
+
+"You bet!" Con was awake at once and alert. Ten minutes later, closing
+the doors and windows of his cabin after him, he joined White on the
+leaf-strewn path to the woods. He went five miles and then bade his host
+good-bye.
+
+"Don't overwork!" grinned Jim sociably. "I'll write to old Doc McPherson
+when I git back."
+
+"And when will that be, Jim?"
+
+"I ain't goin' ter predict." White set his lips. "When I stay, I stay,
+but once I take ter the woods there ain't no sayin'. I'll fetch fodder
+when I cum, and mail, too--but I ain't goin' ter hobble myself when I
+take ter the sticks."
+
+Tramping back alone over the wet autumn leaves, Truedale had his first
+sense of loneliness since he came. White, he suddenly realized, had
+meant to him everything that he needed, but with White unhobbled in the
+deep woods, how was he to fill the time? He determined to force himself
+to study. He had wedged one solid volume in his trunk, unknown to his
+friends. He would brush up his capacity for work--it could not hurt him
+now. He was as strong as he had ever been in his life and the prospect
+ahead promised greater gains.
+
+Yes, he would study. He would write letters, too--real letters. He had
+neglected every one, especially Lynda Kendall. The others did not
+matter, but Lynda mattered more than anything. She always would! And
+thinking of Lynda reminded him that he had also, in his trunk, the play
+upon which he had worked for several years during hours that should have
+been devoted to rest. He would get out the play and try to breathe life
+into it, now that he himself was living. Lynda had said, when last they
+had discussed his work, "It's beautiful, Con; you shall not belittle it.
+It is beautiful like a cold, stone thing with rough edges. Sometime you
+must smooth it and polish it, and then you must pray over it and believe
+in it, and I really think it will repay you. It may not mean anything
+but a sure guide to your goal, but you'd be grateful for that, wouldn't
+you?" Of course he would be grateful for that! It would mean life to
+him--life, not mere existence. He began to hope that Jim White would
+stay away a month; what with study, and the play, and the doing for
+himself, the time ahead was provided for already!
+
+Stalking noiselessly forward, Truedale came into the clearing, passed
+White's shack, and approached his own with a fixed determination. Then
+he stopped short. He was positive that he had closed windows and
+doors--the caution of the city still clung to him--but now both doors
+and windows were set wide to the brilliant autumn day and a curl of
+smoke from a lately replenished fire cheerfully rose in the clear, dry
+air.
+
+"Well, I'll be--!" and then Truedale quietly slipped to the rear of
+the cabin and to a low, sliding window through which he could peer,
+unobserved. One glance transfixed him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+The furnishing of the room was bare and plain--a deal table, a couple of
+wooden chairs, a broad comfortable couch, a cupboard with some
+nondescript crockery, and a good-sized mirror in the space between the
+front door and the window. Before this glass a strange figure was
+walking to and fro, enjoying hugely its own remarkable reflection.
+Truedale's bedraggled bath robe hung like a mantle from the shoulders of
+the intruder--they were very straight, slim young shoulders; an old
+ridiculous fez--an abomination of his freshman year, kept for
+sentimental reasons--adorned the head of the small stranger and only
+partly held in check the mass of shadowy hair that rippled from it and
+around a mischievous face.
+
+Surprise, then wonder, swayed Truedale. When he reached the wonder
+stage, thought deserted him. He simply looked and kept on wondering.
+Through this confusion, words presently reached him. The masquerader
+within was bowing and scraping comically, and in a low, musical voice
+said:
+
+"How-de, Mister Outlander, sir! How-de? I saw your smoke a-curling way
+back from home, sir, and I've come a-visiting 'long o' you, Mister
+Outlander."
+
+Another sweeping curtsey reduced Truedale to helpless mirth and he
+fairly shouted, doubling up as he did so.
+
+The effect of his outburst upon the young person within was tremendous.
+She seemed turned to stone. She stared at the face in the window; she
+turned red and white--the absurd fez dangling over her left ear. Then
+she emitted what seemed to be one word, so lingeringly sweet was the
+drawl.
+
+"Godda'mighty!"
+
+Seeing that there was going to be no other concession, Truedale pulled
+himself together, went around to the front door and knocked,
+ceremoniously. The girl turned, as if on a pivot, but spoke no word.
+
+She had the most wonderful eyes--innocent and pleading; she was a mere
+child and, although she looked awed now, was evidently a forward young
+native who deserved a good lesson. Truedale determined to give her one!
+
+"If you don't mind," he said, "I'll come in and sit down."
+
+This he did while the big, solemn eyes followed him alertly.
+
+"And now will you be kind enough to tell me what you mean by--wearing my
+clothes?"
+
+Still the silence and the blank stare.
+
+"You must answer my questions!" Truedale's voice sounded stern. "I
+suppose you didn't expect me back so soon?"
+
+The deep eyes confirmed this by the drooping of the lids.
+
+"And you broke in--what for?"
+
+No answer.
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+Really the situation was becoming unbearable, so Truedale changed his
+tactics. He would play with the poor little thing and reassure her.
+
+"Now that I look at you I see what you are. You're not a human at all.
+You're a spirit of something or other--probably of one of those perky
+mountains over yonder. The White Maid, I bet! You had to don my clothes
+in order to materialize before my eyes and you had to use that word of
+the hills--so that I could understand you. It's quite plain now and you
+are welcome to my--my bath robe; I dare say that, underneath it, you are
+decked out in filmy clouds and vapours and mists. Oh! come now--" The
+strange eyes were filling--but not overflowing!
+
+"I was only joking. Forgive me. Why--"
+
+The wretched fez fell from the soft hair--the bedraggled robe from the
+rigid shoulders--and there, garbed in a rough home-spun gown, a little
+plaid shawl and a checked apron, stood--
+
+"It's the no-count," thought Truedale. Aloud he said, "Nella-Rose!"
+
+With the dropping of the disguise years and dignity were added to the
+girl and Truedale, who was always at his worst in the presence of
+strange young women, gazed dazedly at the one before him now.
+
+"Perhaps"--he began awkwardly--"you'll sit down. Please do!" He drew a
+chair toward her. Nella-Rose sank into it and leaned her bowed head upon
+her arms, which she folded on the table. Her shoulders rose and fell
+convulsively, and Truedale, looking at her, became hopelessly wretched.
+
+"I'm a beast and nothing less!" he admitted by way of apology and
+excuse. "I--I wish you _could_ forgive me."
+
+Then slowly the head was raised and to Truedale's further consternation
+he saw that mirth, not anguish, had caused the shaking of those
+deceiving little shoulders.
+
+"Oh! I see--you are laughing!" He tried to be indignant.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"At what?"
+
+"Everything--you!"
+
+"Thank you!" Then, like a response, something heretofore unknown and
+unsuspected in Truedale rose and overpowered him. His shyness and
+awkwardness melted before the warmth and glow of the conquering emotion.
+He got up and sat on the corner of the table nearest his shabby little
+guest, and looking straight into her bewitching eyes he joined her in a
+long, resounding laugh.
+
+It was surrender, pure and simple.
+
+"And now," he said at last, "you must stay and have a bite. I am about
+starved. And you?"
+
+The girl grew sober.
+
+"I'm--I'm always hungry," she admitted softly.
+
+They drew the table close to the roaring fire, leaving doors and windows
+open to the crisp, sweet; morning air.
+
+"We'll have a party!" Truedale announced. "I'll step over to Jim's cabin
+and bring the best he's got."
+
+When he returned Nella-Rose had placed cups, saucers, and plates on the
+table.
+
+"Do you--often have parties?" she asked.
+
+"I never had one before. I'll have them, though, from now on if--if you
+will come!"
+
+Truedale paused with his arms full of pitchers and platters of food, and
+held the girl with his admiring eyes.
+
+"And you will let me come and see you--you and your sister and your
+father? I know all about you. White has explained--everything. He--"
+
+Nella-Rose braced herself against the table and quietly and definitely
+outlined their future relations.
+
+"No, you cannot come to see us-all. You don't know Marg. If she doesn't
+find things out, there won't be trouble; when she does find things out
+there's goin' t' be a right smart lot of trouble brewing!"
+
+This was said with such comical seriousness that Truedale laughed
+again, but sobered instantly when he recalled the incident of the white
+bantam which Jim had so vividly portrayed.
+
+"But you see," he replied, "I don't want to let you go after this first
+party, and never see you again!"
+
+The girl shrugged her shoulders and apparently dismissed the matter. She
+sat down and, with charming abandon, began to eat. Presently Truedale,
+amused and interested, spoke again:
+
+"It would be very unkind of you not to let me see you."
+
+"I'm--thinking!" Nella-Rose drew her brows together and nibbled a bit of
+corn bread meditatively. Then--quite suddenly:
+
+"I'm coming here!"
+
+"You--you mean that?" Truedale flushed.
+
+"Yes. And the big woods--you walk in them?"
+
+"I certainly do."
+
+"Sometimes--I am in the big woods."
+
+"Where--specially?" Truedale was playing this new game with the foolish
+skill of the novice.
+
+"There's a Hollow--where--" (Nella-Rose paused) "where the laurel tangle
+is like a jungle--"
+
+Truedale broke in: "I know it! There's a little stream running through
+it, and--trails."
+
+"Yes!" Nella-Rose leaned back and showed her white teeth alluringly.
+
+"I--I should not--permit this!" For a moment Truedale broke through the
+thin ice of delight that was luring him to unknown danger and fell upon
+the solid rock of conservatism.
+
+"Why?" The eyes, so tenderly innocent, confronted him appealingly.
+"There are nuts there and--and other things! You are just teasing;
+you'll let me--show you the way about?"
+
+The girl was all child now and made Truedale ashamed to hold her to any
+absurd course that his standards acknowledged but that hers had never
+conceived.
+
+"Of course. I'll be glad to have you for a guide. Jim White has no ideas
+about nuts and things--he goes to the woods to kill something; he's
+there now. I dare say mere are other things in the mountains
+besides--prey?"
+
+Nella-Rose nodded.
+
+"Let's sit by the fire!" she suddenly said. "I--I want to tell
+you--something, and then I must go."
+
+The lack of shyness and reserve might so easily have become
+boldness--but they did not! The girl was like a creature of the wilds
+which, knowing no reason for fear, was revelling in heretofore
+unsuspected enjoyment. Truedale pulled the couch to the hearth for
+Nella-Rose, piled the pillows on one end and then seated himself on the
+stump of a tree which served as a settee.
+
+"Now, then!" he said, keeping his eyes on his breezy little guest.
+"What have you got to tell me--before you go?"
+
+"It's something that happened--long ago. You will not laugh if I tell
+you? You laugh right much."
+
+"I? You think I laugh a good deal? Good Lord! Some folk think I don't
+laugh enough." He had his friends back home in mind, and somehow the
+memory steadied him for an instant.
+
+"P'r'aps they-all don't know you as well as I do." This with amusing
+conviction.
+
+"Perhaps they don't." Truedale was deadly solemn. "But go on,
+Nella-Rose. I promise not to laugh now."
+
+"It was the beginning of--you!" The girl turned her eyes to the
+fire--she was quaintly demure. "At first when I saw you looking in that
+window, yonder, I was right scared."
+
+Jim White's statement that Nella-Rose wasn't more than half real seemed,
+in the light of present happenings, little less than bald fact.
+
+"It was the way _you_ looked--way back there when I was ten years old. I
+had run away--"
+
+"Are you always running away?" asked Truedale from the hollow depths of
+unreality.
+
+"I run away a smart lot. You have to if you want to--see things and be
+different."
+
+"And you--you want to be different, Nella-Rose?"
+
+"I--why, can't you see?--I _am_ different."
+
+"Of course. I only meant--do you like to be different."
+
+"I have to like it. I was born with a cawl."
+
+"In heaven's name, what's that?"
+
+"Something over your eyes, and when they take it off you see more, and
+farther, than any one else. You're part ha'nt."
+
+Truedale wiped his forehead--the room was getting hot, but the heat
+alone was not responsible for his emotions; he was being carried beyond
+his depth--beyond himself--by the wild fascination of the little
+creature before him. He would hardly have been surprised had a draught
+of air wafted her out of the window like a bit of mountain mist.
+
+"But you mustn't interrupt so much!" She turned a stern face upon him.
+"I ran away that time to see a--railroad train! One of the niggers told
+me about it--he said it was the Bogy Man. I wanted to know, so I went to
+the station. It's a right smart way down and I had to sleep one night
+under the trees. Don't the stars look starry sometimes?"
+
+The interruption made Truedale jump.
+
+"They certainly do," he said, looking at the soft, dark eyes with their
+long lashes.
+
+"I wasn't afraid--and I didn't hurry. It was evening, and the sun just
+a-going down, when I got to the station. There wasn't any one about so
+I--I ran down the big road the train comes on--to meet it. And then"
+(here Nella-Rose clasped her hands excitedly and her breath came short),
+"and then I saw it a-coming and a-coming. The big fire-eye a-glaring and
+the mighty noise a-snorting and I reckoned it was old Master Satan and I
+just--couldn't move!"
+
+"Go on! go on!" Truedale bent close to her--she had caught him in the
+mesh of her dramatic charm.
+
+"I saw it a-coming, and set on--on devouring o' me, and still I couldn't
+stir. Everything was growing black and black except a big square with
+that monster eye a-glaring into the soul o' me!"
+
+The girl's face was set--her eyes vacant and wild; suddenly they
+softened, and her little white teeth showed through the childish, parted
+lips.
+
+"Then the eye went away, there was a blackness in the square place, and
+then a face came--a kind face it was--all a-laughing and it--it kept
+going farther and farther off to one side and I kept a-following and
+a-following and then--the big noise went rushing by me, and there I was
+right safe and plump up against a tree!"
+
+"Good Lord!" Again Truedale wiped his brow.
+
+"Since then," Nella-Rose relaxed, "I can shut my eyes and always there
+is the black square and sometimes--not always, but sometimes--things
+come!"
+
+"The face, Nella-Rose?"
+
+"No, I can't make that come. But things I want to, do and have. I
+always think, when I see things, that I'm going to do a big, fine thing
+some day. I feel upperty and then--poof! off go the pictures and I am
+just--lil' Nella-Rose again!"
+
+A comically heavy sigh brought Truedale back to earth.
+
+"But the face you saw long ago," Truedale whispered, "was it my face, do
+you think?"
+
+Nella-Rose paused--then quietly:
+
+"I--reckon it was. Yes, I'm mighty sure it was your face. When I saw it
+at that window"--she pointed across the room--"I certainly thought my
+eyes were closed and that--it had come--the kind, good face that saved
+me!" A sweet, friendly smile wreathed the girl's lips and she rose with
+rare dignity and held out her thin, delicate hand:
+
+"Mister Outlander, we're going to be neighbours, aren't we?"
+
+"Yes--neighbours!" Truedale took the hand with a distinct sense of
+suffocation, "but why do you call me an outlander?"
+
+"Because--you are! You're not _of_ our mountains."
+
+"No, I wish I were!"
+
+"Wishing can't make you. You are--or you aren't."
+
+Truedale noted the girl's language. Distorted and crude as it often was,
+it was never positively illiterate. This surprised him.
+
+"You--oh! you're not going yet!" He put his hand out, for the definite
+way in which Nella-Rose turned was ominous. Already she seemed to belong
+to the cabin room--to Truedale himself. Not a suggestion of strangeness
+clung to her. It was as if she had always been there but that his eyes
+had been holden.
+
+"I must go!"
+
+"Wait--oh! Nella-Rose. Let me walk part of the way with you. I--I have a
+thousand things to say."
+
+But she was gone out of the door, down the path.
+
+Truedale stood and looked after her until the long shadows reached up to
+Lone Dome's sharpest edge. White's dogs began nosing about, suggesting
+attention to affairs nearer at hand. Then Truedale sighed as if waking
+from a dream. He performed the duties Jim had left to his tender
+mercy--the feeding of the animals, the piling up of wood. Then he forced
+himself to take a long walk. He ate his evening meal late, and finally
+sat down to his task of writing letters. He wrote six to Brace Kendall
+and tore them up; he wrote one to his uncle and put it aside for
+consideration when the effect of his day dreams left him sane enough to
+judge it. Finally he managed a note to Dr. McPherson and one to Lynda
+Kendall.
+
+"I think"--so the letter to Lynda ran--"that I will work regularly, now,
+on the play. With more blood in my own body I can hope to put more into
+that. I'm going to get it out to-morrow and begin the infusion. I wish
+you were here to-night--to see the wonderful effect of the moon on the
+mists--but there! if I said more you might guess where I am. When I come
+back I shall try to describe it and some day you must see it. Several
+times lately I have imagined an existence here with one's work and
+enough to subsist on. No worry, no nerve-racking, and always the
+tremendous beauty to inspire one! Nothing seems wholly real here."
+
+Then Truedale put down his pen. Nella-Rose crowded Lynda Kendall from
+the field of vision; later, he simply signed his name and let the note
+go with that.
+
+As for Nella-Rose, as soon as she left Truedale, her mind turned to
+sterner matters close at hand. She became aware before long of some one
+near by. The person, whoever it was, seemed determined to remain hidden
+but for that very reason it called out all the girl's cunning and
+cleverness. It might be--Burke Lawson! With this thought Nella-Rose
+gasped a little. Then, it might be Marg; and here the dark eyes grew
+hard--the lips almost cruel! She got down upon her knees and crawled
+like a veritable little animal of the wilds. Keeping close to the
+ground, she advanced to where the trail from Lone Dome met the broader
+one, and there, standing undecided and bewildered, was a tall, fair
+girl.
+
+Nella-Rose sprang to her feet, her eyes ablaze.
+
+"Marg! What you--hounding me for?"
+
+"Nella-Rose, where you been?"
+
+"What's that to you?"
+
+"You've been up to Devil-may-come Hollow!"
+
+"Have I? Let me pass, Marg. Have your mully-grubs, if you please; I'm
+going home."
+
+As Nella-Rose tried to pass, Marg caught her by the arm.
+
+"Burke's back!" she whispered, "he's hiding up to Devil-may-come! He's
+been seen and you know it!"
+
+"What if I do?" Nella-Rose never ignored a possible escape for the
+future.
+
+"You've been up there--to meet him. You ought to be licked. If you don't
+let him alone--let him and me alone--I'll turn Jed on him, I will; I
+swear it!"
+
+"What is he--to you!" Nella-Rose confronted her sister squarely. Blue
+eyes--bold, cold blue they were--looked into dark ones even now so soft
+and winning that it was difficult to resist them.
+
+"If you let him alone, he'll be everything to me!" Marg blurted out.
+"What do you want of him, Nella-Rose?--of him or any other man? But if
+you must have a sweetheart, pick and choose and let me have my day."
+
+The rough appeal struck almost brutally on Nella-Rose's ears. She was as
+un-moral, perhaps, as Marg, but she was more discriminating.
+
+"I'm mighty tired of cleaning and cooking for--for father and you!"
+Marg tossed her head toward Lone Dome. "Father's mostly always drunk
+these days and you--what do you care what becomes of me? Leave me to get
+a man of my own and then I'll be human. I've been--killing the hog
+to-day!" Marg suddenly and irrelevantly burst out; "I--I shall never do
+it again. We'll starve first!"
+
+"Why didn't father?" Nella-Rose said, softly.
+
+"Father? Huh! he couldn't have held the knife. He went for the jug--and
+got it full! No, I had to do it, but it's the last time. Nella-Rose,
+tell me where Burke is hidden--tell me! Leave me free to--to win him;
+let me have my chance!"
+
+"And then who'll kill the pig?" Nella-Rose shuddered.
+
+"Who cares?" Marg flung back.
+
+"No! Find him if you can. Fair play--no favours; what I find is open to
+you!" Nella-Rose laughed impishly and, darting past her sister, ran down
+the path.
+
+Marg stood and watched her with baffled rage and hate. For a moment she
+almost decided to take her chances and seek Burke Lawson in the distant
+Hollow. But night was coming--the black, drear night of the low places.
+Marg was desperate, but a primitive conservatism held her. Not for all
+she hoped to gain would she brave Burke Lawson alone in the secret
+places of Devil-may-come Hollow! So she followed after Nella-Rose and
+reached home while her sister was preparing the evening meal.
+
+Peter Greyson, the father, sat huddled in a big chair by the fire. He
+had arrived at that stage of returning consciousness when he felt that
+it was incumbent upon him to explain himself. He had been a handsome
+man, of the dashing cavalry type and he still bore traces of past glory.
+In his worst moments he never swore before ladies, and in his best he
+remembered what was due them and upheld their honour and position with
+fervour.
+
+"Lil' Nella-Rose," he was saying as Marg paused outside the door in the
+dark, "why don't you marry Burke Lawson and settle down here with me?"
+
+"He hasn't asked me, father."
+
+"He isn't in any position now to pick and choose"--this between
+hiccoughs and yawns--"I saw him early this morning; I know his back
+anywhere. I'd just met old Jim White. I reckon Burke was calculating to
+shoot Jim, but my coming upset his plans. Shooting a sheriff ain't safe
+business." What Greyson really had seen was Truedale's retreat after
+parting company with Jim, but not knowing of Truedale's existence he
+jumped to the conclusion which to his fuddled wits seemed probable, and
+had so informed Marg upon his return.
+
+"I tell yo', Nella-Rose," he ran on, "yo' better marry Burke and tame
+him. There ain't nothing as tames a man like layin' responsibilities on
+him."
+
+"Come, father, let me help you to the table. I don't want to talk about
+Burke. I don't believe he's back." She steadied the rolling form to the
+head of the table.
+
+"I tell yo', chile, I saw Burke's back; don't yo' reckon I know Lawson
+when I see him, back or front? Don't yo' want ter marry Lawson,
+Nella-Rose?"
+
+"No, I wouldn't have him if he asked me. It would be like marrying a
+tree that the freshet was rolling about. I'm not going to seek and hide
+with any man."
+
+"Why don't yo' let Marg have 'im then? She'd be a right smart
+responsibility."
+
+"She can have him and welcome, if she can find him!" Then, hearing her
+sister outside, she called:
+
+"Come in, Marg. Shut out the cold and the dark. What's the use of acting
+like a little old hateful?"
+
+Marg slouched in; there was no other word to describe her indifferent
+and contemptuous air.
+
+"He's coming around?" she asked, nodding at her father.
+
+"Yes--he's come," Nella-Rose admitted.
+
+"All right, then, I'm going to tell him something!" She walked over to
+her father and stood before him, looking him steadily in the eyes.
+
+"I--I killed the hog to-day;" she spoke sharply, slowly, as to a dense
+child. Peter Greyson started.
+
+"You--you--did that?"
+
+"Yes. While you were off--getting drunk, and while Nella-Rose was
+traipsing back there in the Hollow I killed the hog; but I'll never do
+it again. It sickened the soul of me. I'm as good as Nella-Rose--just as
+good. If you can't do your part, father, and she _won't_ do hers, that's
+no reason for me being benastied with such work as I did to-day. You
+hear me?"
+
+"Sure I hear you, Marg, and I'm plumb humiliated that--that I let you.
+It--it sha'n't happen again. I'll keep a smart watch next year. A
+gentleman can't say more to his daughter than that--can he?"
+
+"Saying is all very well--it's the doing." Marg was adamant. "I'm going
+to look out for myself from now on. You and Nella-Rose will find out."
+
+"What's come to you, Marg?" Peter looked concerned.
+
+"Something that hasn't ever come before," Marg replied, keeping her eyes
+on Nella-Rose. "There be times when you have to take your life by the
+throat and strangle it until it falls into shape. I'm gripping mine
+now."
+
+"It's the killing of that hog!" groaned Peter. "It's stirred you, and I
+can't blame you. Killing ain't for a lady; but Lord! what a man you'd
+ha' made, Marg!"
+
+"But I ain't!" Marg broke in a bit wildly, "and other things are not
+for--for women to do and bear. I'm through. It's Nella-Rose and me to
+share and share alike, or--"
+
+But there was nothing more to say--the pause was eloquent. The three ate
+in silence for some moments and then talked of trivial things. Peter
+Greyson went early to bed and the sisters washed the dishes, sharing
+equally. They did the out-of-door duties of caring for the scanty live
+stock, and at last Nella-Rose went to her tiny room under the eaves,
+while Marg lay down upon the living-room couch.
+
+When everything was at rest once more Nella-Rose stole to the low window
+of her chamber and, kneeling, looked forth at the peaceful moonlit
+scene. How still and white it was and how safe and strong the high hills
+looked! What had happened? Why, nothing _could_ happen and yet--and
+yet--Then Nella-Rose closed her eyes and waited. With all her might she
+tried to force the "good, kind face" to materialize, but to no purpose.
+Suddenly an owl hooted hideously and, like a guilty thing, the girl by
+the window crept back to bed.
+
+Owls were very wise and they could see things in the dark places with
+their wide-open eyes! Just then Nella-Rose could not have borne any
+investigation of her throbbing heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Lynda Kendall closed her desk and wheeled about in her chair with a
+perplexed expression on her strong, handsome face. Generally speaking,
+she went her way with courage and conviction, but since Conning
+Truedale's breakdown, an element in her had arisen that demanded
+recognition and she had yet to learn how to control it and insist upon
+its subjection.
+
+Her life had been a simple one on the whole, but one requiring from
+early girlhood the constant use of her faculties. Whatever help she had
+had was gained from the dependence of others upon her, not hers upon
+them. She was so strong and sweet-souled that to give was a joy, it was
+a joy too, for them that received. That she was ever tired and longed
+for strong arms to uphold her rarely occurred to any one except,
+perhaps, William Truedale, the invalid uncle of Conning.
+
+At this juncture of Lynda's career, she shrank from William Truedale as
+she never had before. Had Conning died, she knew she would never have
+seen the old man again. She believed that his incapacity for
+understanding Conning--his rigid, unfeeling dealing with him--had been
+the prime factor in the physical breakdown of the younger man. All
+along she had hoped and believed that her hold upon old William Truedale
+would, in the final reckoning, bring good results; for that reason, and
+a secret one that no one suspected, she kept to her course. She paid
+regular visits to the old man--made him dependent upon her, though he
+never permitted her to suspect this. Always her purpose had centred upon
+Con, who had, at first, appealed to her loyalty and justice, but of late
+to something much more personal and tender.
+
+The day's work was done and the workshop, in which the girl sat, was
+beginning to look shadowy in the far corners where evidences of her
+profession cluttered the dim spaces. She was an interior decorator, but
+of such an original and unique kind that her brother explained her as a
+"Spiritual and Physical Interpreter." She had learned her trade, but she
+had embellished it and permitted it to develop as she herself had grown
+and expanded.
+
+Lynda looked now at her wrist-watch; it was four-thirty. The last mail
+delivery had brought a short but inspiring note from Con--per Dr.
+McPherson.
+
+"I've got my grip again, Lynda! The day brings appetite and strength;
+the night, sleep! I wonder whether you know what that means? I begin to
+believe I am reverting to type, as McPherson would say, and I'm
+intensely interested in finding out--what type? Whenever I think of
+study, I have an attack of mental indigestion. There is only one fellow
+creature to share my desolation but I am never lonely--never lacking
+employment. I'm busy to the verge of exhaustion in doing nothing and
+getting well!"
+
+Lynda smiled. "So he's not going to die!" she murmured; "there's no use
+in punishing Uncle William any longer. I'll go up and have dinner with
+him!"
+
+The decision made, and Conning for the moment relegated to second place,
+Lynda rose and smiled relievedly. Then her eyes fell upon her mother's
+photograph which stood upon her desk.
+
+"I'm going, dear," she confided--they were very close, that dead mother
+and the live, vital daughter--"I haven't forgotten."
+
+The past, like the atmosphere of the room, closed in about the girl. She
+was strangely cheerful and uplifted; a consciousness of approval soothed
+and comforted her and she recalled, as she had not for many a day, the
+night of her mother's death--the night when she, a girl of seventeen,
+had had the burden of a mother's confession laid upon her young
+heart....
+
+"Lynda--are you there, dear?"
+
+It had been a frequent, pathetic question during the month of illness.
+Lynda had been summoned from school. Brace was still at his studies.
+
+"Yes, mother, right here!"
+
+"You are always--right here! Lyn, once I thought I could not stand it,
+and I was going to run away--going in the night. As I passed your door
+you awoke and asked for a drink of water. I gave it, trembling lest you
+might notice my hat and coat; but you did not--you only said: 'What
+would I do if I woke up some night and didn't have a mother?' Lyn, dear,
+I went back and--stayed!"
+
+Lynda had thought her mother's mind wandering so she patted the seeking
+hands and murmured gently to her. Then, suddenly:
+
+"Lyn, when I married your father I thought I loved him--but I loved
+another! I've done the best I could for you all; I never let any one
+know; I dared not give a sign, but I want you--by and by--to go
+to--William Truedale! You need not explain--just go; you will be my gift
+to him--my last and only gift."
+
+Startled and horrified, Lynda had listened, understood, and grown old
+while her mother spoke....
+
+Then came the night when she awoke--and found no mother! She was never
+the same. She returned to school but gave up the idea of going to
+college. After her graduation she made a home for the father who now--in
+the light of her secret knowledge--she comprehended for the first time.
+All her life she had wondered about him. Wondered why she and Brace had
+not loved and honoured him as they had their mother. His weakness, his
+superficiality, had been dominated by the wife who, having accepted her
+lot, carried her burden proudly to the end!
+
+Brace went to college and, during his last year there, his father died;
+then, confronting a future rich in debts but little else, he and Lynda
+consequently turned their education to account and were soon
+self-supporting, full of hope and the young joy of life.
+
+Lynda--her mother's secret buried deep in her loyal, tender heart--began
+soon after her return from school to cultivate old William Truedale,
+much to that crabbed gentleman's surprise and apparent confusion. There
+was some excuse for the sudden friendship, for Brace during preparatory
+school and college had formed a deep and sincere attachment for Conning
+Truedale and at vacation time the two boys and Lynda were much together.
+To be sure the visiting was largely one-sided, as the gloomy house of
+the elder Truedale offered small inducement for sociability; but Lynda
+managed to wedge her way into the loneliness and dreariness and
+eventually for reasons best known to herself became the one bright thing
+in the old man's existence.
+
+And so the years had drifted on. Besides Lynda's determination to prove
+herself as her mother had directed, she soon decided to set matters
+straight between the uncle and the nephew. To her ardent young soul,
+fired with ambition and desire for justice, it was little less than
+criminal that William Truedale, crippled and confined to his chair--for
+he had become an invalid soon after Lynda's mother's marriage--should
+misunderstand and cruelly misjudge the nephew who, brilliantly, but
+under tremendous strain, was winning his way through college on a
+pittance that made outside labour necessary in order to get through. She
+could not understand everything, but her mother's secret, her growing
+fondness for the old man, her intense interest in Conning, all held her
+to her purpose. She, single-handed, would right the wrong and save them
+all alive!
+
+Then came Conning's breakdown and the possibility of his death or
+permanent disability. The shock to all the golden hopes was severe and
+it brought bitterness and resentment with it.
+
+Something deep and passionate had entered into Lynda's relations with
+Conning Truedale. For him, though no one suspected it, she had broken
+her engagement to John Morrell--an engagement into which she had drifted
+as so many girls do, at the age when thought has small part in primal
+instinct. But Conning had not died; he was getting well, off in his
+hidden place, and so, standing in the dim workshop, Lynda kissed her
+mother's picture and began humming a glad little tune.
+
+"I'll go and have dinner with Uncle William!" she said--the words
+fitting into the tune--"we'll make it up! It will be all right." And so
+she set forth.
+
+William Truedale lived on a shabby-genteel side street of a
+neighbourhood that had started out to be fashionable but had been
+defeated in its ambitions. It had never lost character, but it certainly
+had lost lustre. The houses themselves were well built and sternly
+correct. William Truedale's was the best in the block and it stood with
+a vacant lot on either side of it. The detachment gave it dignity and
+seclusion.
+
+There had been a time when Truedale hoped that the woman he loved would
+choose and place furniture and hangings to her taste and his, but when
+that hope failed and sickness fell upon him, he ordered only such rooms
+put in order as were necessary for his restricted life. The library on
+the first floor was a storehouse of splendid books and austere luxury;
+beyond it were bath and bedroom, both fitted out perfectly. The long,
+wide hall leading to these apartments was as empty and bare as when
+carpenter and painter left it. Two servants--husband and wife--served
+William Truedale, and rarely commented upon anything concerning him or
+their relations to him. They probably had rooms for themselves
+comfortably furnished, but in all the years Lynda Kendall had never been
+anywhere in the house except in the rooms devoted to her old friend's
+use. Sometimes she had wondered how Con fared, but nothing was ever
+said on the subject and she and Brace had been, in their visiting,
+limited to the downstair rooms.
+
+When Lynda was ushered now into the library from the cold, outer hall it
+was like finding comfort and luxury in the midst of desolation. The
+opening door had not roused the man by the great open fire. He seemed
+lost in a gloomy revery and Lynda had time to note, unobserved, the
+tragic, pain-racked face and the pitifully thin outlines of the figure
+stretched on the invalid chair and covered by a rug of rare silver fox.
+
+There were birds in gilded cages by the large south window--mute little
+mites they were; they rarely if ever sang but they were alive! There
+were plants, too, luxuriously growing in pots and boxes--but not a
+flower on one! They existed, not joyously, but persistently. A Russian
+hound, white as snow, lay before the fire; his soft, mournful eyes were
+fixed upon Lynda, but he did not stir or announce the intrusion. A cat
+and two kittens, also white, were rolled like snowballs on a crimson
+cushion near the hearth; Lynda wondered whether they ever played. Alone,
+like a dead thing amid the still life, William Truedale, helpless--death
+ever creeping nearer and nearer to his bitter heart--passed his weary
+days.
+
+As she stood, watching and waiting, Lynda Kendall's eyes filled with
+quick tears. The weeks of her absence had emphasized every tragic
+detail of the room and the man. He had probably missed her terribly from
+his bare life, but he had made no sign, given no call.
+
+"Uncle William!"
+
+Truedale turned his head and fixed his deep-sunk, brilliant eyes upon
+her.
+
+"Oh! So you've thought better of it?" was all that he said.
+
+"Yes, I've thought better of it. Will you let me stay to dinner?"
+
+"Take off your wraps. There now! draw up the ottoman; so long as you
+have a spine, rely upon it. Never lounge if you can help it."
+
+Lynda drew the low, velvet-covered stool near the couch-chair; the hound
+raised his sharp, beautiful head and nestled against her knee. Truedale
+watched it--animals never came to him unless commanded--why did they go
+to Lynda? Probably for the same reason that he clung to her, watched for
+her and feared, with sickening fear, that she might never come again!
+
+"I suppose, since Con's death isn't on my head, you felt that you could
+forgive me, eh?"
+
+"Well, something like that, Uncle William."
+
+"What business is it of yours what I do with my money--or my nephew?"
+
+These two never approached each other by conventional lines. Their
+absences were periods in which to store vital topics and
+questions--their meetings were a series of explosive outbursts.
+
+"None of my business, Uncle William, but if I could not approve, why--"
+
+"Approve! Huh! Who are you that you should judge, approve, or disapprove
+your elders?"
+
+There was no answer to this. Lynda wanted to laugh, but feared she might
+cry. The hard, indignant words belied the quivering gladness of the
+voice that greeted her in every tone with its relief and surrender.
+
+"I've got a good deal to say to you, girl. It is well you came
+to-day--you might otherwise have been too late. I'm planning a long
+journey."
+
+Lynda started.
+
+"A--long journey?" she said. Through the past years, since the dread
+disease had attacked Truedale, his travelling had been confined to
+passing to and from bedchamber and library in the wheelchair.
+
+"You--you think I jest?" There was a grim humour in the burning eyes.
+
+"I do not know."
+
+"Well, then, I'll tell you. I am quite serious. While I have been exiled
+from your attentions--chained to this rock" (he struck the arms of the
+chair like a passionate child), "I have reached a conclusion I have
+always contemplated, more or less. Now that I have recognized that the
+time will undoubtedly come when you, Con--the lot of you--will clear
+out, I have decided to prove to you all that I am not quite the
+dependant you think me."
+
+"Why--what can you mean, Uncle William?"
+
+This was a new phase and Lynda bent across the dog at her knee and put
+her hand on the arm of the chair. She was frightened, aroused. Truedale
+saw this and laughed a dry, mirthless laugh.
+
+"Oh! a chair that can roll the length of this house can roll the
+distance I desire to go. Money can pay for anything--anything! Thank
+God, I have money, plenty of it. It means power--even to such a thing as
+I am. Power, Lynda, power! It can snarl and unsnarl lives; it can buy
+favour and cause terror. Think what I would have been without it all
+these years. Think! Why, I have bargained with it; crushed with it;
+threatened and beckoned with it--now I am going to play with it! I'm
+going to surprise every one and have a gala time myself. I'm going to
+set things spinning and then I'm going on a journey. It's queer" (the
+sneering voice fell to a murmur), "all my prison-years I've thought of
+this and planned it; the doing of it seems quite the simplest part. I
+wonder now why I have kept behind the bars when, by a little exertion--a
+little indifference to opinion--I might have broadened my horizon. But
+good Lord! I haven't wasted time. I've studied every detail; nothing has
+escaped me. This" (he touched his head--a fine, almost noble head,
+covered by a wealth of white hair), "this has been doing double duty
+while these" (he pointed to his useless legs) "have refused to play
+their part. While I felt conscientiously responsible, I stuck to my job;
+but a man has a right to a little freedom of his own!"
+
+Lynda drew so close that her stool touched the chair. She bent her cheek
+upon the shrivelled hand resting upon the arm. The excitement and
+feverish banter of Truedale affected her painfully. She reproached
+herself bitterly for having left him to the mercy of his loneliness and
+imagination. Her interest in, her resentment for, Conning faded before
+the pitiful display of feeling expressed in every tone and word of
+Truedale.
+
+The touch of the warm cheek against his hand stirred the man. His eyes
+softened, his face twitched and, because the young eyes were hidden, he
+permitted his gaze to rest reverently upon the bowed head. She was the
+only thing on earth he loved--the only thing that cut through his crust
+of hardness and despair and made him human. Then, from out the
+unexpected, he asked:
+
+"Lynda, when did you break your engagement to John Morrell?"
+
+The girl started, but she did not change her position. She never lied or
+prevaricated to Truedale--she might keep her own counsel, but when she
+spoke it was simple truth.
+
+"About six months ago."
+
+"Why didn't you tell me?"
+
+"There was nothing to tell, Uncle William."
+
+"There was the fact, wasn't there?"
+
+"Oh! yes, the fact."
+
+"Why did you do it?"
+
+"That--is--a long story." Lynda looked up, now, and smiled the rare
+smile that only the stricken man understood. Appeal, confusion, and
+detachment marked it. She longed, helplessly, for sympathy and
+understanding.
+
+"Well, long stories are welcome enough here, child; especially after the
+dearth of them. Ring the bell; let's have dinner. Pull down the shades
+and" (Truedale gave a wide gesture) "put the live stock out! An early
+meal, a long evening--what better could we add than a couple of long
+stories?"
+
+In the doing of what Truedale commanded, Lynda found a certain relief.
+These visits were like grim plays, to be sure, but they were also sacred
+duties. This one, after the lapse of time filled with new and strange
+emotions, was a bit grimmer than usual, but it had the effect of a tonic
+upon the ragged nerves of the two actors.
+
+The round table was set by the fire--it was the manservant who attended
+now; silver and glass and linen were perfect, and the simple fare
+carefully chosen and prepared.
+
+Truedale was never so much at his ease as when he presided at these
+small dinners. He ate little; he chose the rarest bits for his guest; he
+talked lightly--sometimes delightfully. At such moments Lynda realized
+what he must have been before love and health failed him.
+
+To-night--shut away from all else, the strain of the past weeks ignored,
+the long stories deliberately pushed aside--Truedale spoke of the books
+he had been reading; Lynda, of her work.
+
+"I have two wonderful houses to do," she said, poising a morsel of food
+gracefully. "One is for a couple recently made rich; they do not dare to
+move for fear of going wrong. I have that place from garret to cellar.
+It's an awful responsibility--but lots of fun!"
+
+"It must be. Spending other people's money and making them as good as
+new at the same time, must be rare sport. And the other contract?"
+
+"Oh! that is another matter." Lynda leaned back and laughed. "I'm toning
+up an old house. Putting false fronts on, a bit of rouge, filling in
+wrinkles; in short, giving a side-tracked old lady something to interest
+her. She doesn't know it, but I'm letting her do the work, and she's
+very happy. She has a kind of rusty good taste. I'm polishing it without
+hurting her. The living room! Why, Uncle William, it is a picture. It is
+a tender dream come true."
+
+"And you are charging for that, you pirate?"
+
+"I do not have to. The dear soul is so grateful that I'm forced to
+refuse favours."
+
+"Lynda, ring for Thomas." Truedale drew his brows close. "I think
+I'll--I'll smoke. It may help me to sleep after the long stories
+and--when I am alone." He rarely indulged in this way--tobacco excited
+instead of soothed him--but the evening must have all the clear thought
+possible!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+Lynda sat again upon her ottoman--her capacity for sitting hours without
+a support to her back had always been one of her charms for William
+Truedale. The old man looked at her now; how strong and fine she was!
+How reliant and yet--how appealing! How she would always give and
+give--be used to the breaking point--and rarely understood. Truedale
+understood her through her mother!
+
+"I want to ask you, Lynda, why do you come here--you of all the world? I
+have often wondered."
+
+"I--I like to come, generally, Uncle William."
+
+"But--other times, out of the general? You come oftener then. Why?"
+
+And now Lynda turned her clear, dark eyes upon him. A sudden resolve had
+been taken. She was going to comfort him as she never had before, going
+to recompense him for the weeks just past when she had failed him while
+espousing Con's cause. She was going to share her secret with him!
+
+"Just before mother went, Uncle William, she told me--"
+
+The hand holding the cigar swayed--it was a very frail, thin hand.
+
+"Told you--what?"
+
+"That you once--loved her."
+
+The old wound ached as it was bared. Lynda meant to comfort, but she was
+causing excruciating pain.
+
+"She--told you that? And you so young! Why should she so burden you--she
+of all women?"
+
+"And--my mother loved you, Uncle William! She found it out too late
+and--and after that she did her best for--for Brace and me and--father!"
+
+The room seemed swaying, as all else in the universe was, at that
+moment, for William Truedale. Everything that had gone to his
+undoing--to the causing of his bitter loneliness and despair--was beaten
+down by the words that flooded the former darkness with almost
+terrifying light. For a moment or two he dared not speak--dared not
+trust his voice. The shock had been great. Then, very quietly:
+
+"And--and why did she--speak at the last?"
+
+Lynda's eyes filled with tears.
+
+"Because," she faltered, "since she could not have come to you without
+dishonour--she sent me! Her confidence has been the sacredest thing in
+my life and I have tried to do as she desired. I--I have failed
+sadly--lately, but try to forgive me for--my mother's sake!"
+
+"And you--have"--the voice trembled pitifully in spite of the effort
+Truedale made to steady it--"kept silence--since she went; why? Oh!
+youth is so ignorant, so cruel!" This was said more to himself than to
+the girl by his knee upon whose bowed head his shrivelled hand
+unconsciously rested.
+
+"First it was for father that I kept the secret. He seemed so stricken
+after--after he was alone. And then--since I was trying to be to you
+what mother wanted me to be--it did not seem greatly to matter. I wanted
+to win my way. I always meant to tell you, and now, after these weeks of
+misunderstanding, I felt you should know that there will always be a
+reason for me, of all the world, to share your life."
+
+"I see! I see!" A great wave of emotion rose and rose, carrying the past
+years of misery with it. The knowledge, once, might have saved him, but
+now it had come too late. By and by he would be able to deal with this
+staggering truth that had been so suddenly hurled upon him, but not now
+while Katherine Kendall's daughter knelt at his side!
+
+"Lynda, I cannot talk to you about this. When you are older--when life
+has done its best or its worst for you--you will understand better than
+you do to-day; but remember this: what you have told me has cut deep,
+but it has cut, by one stroke, the hardness and bitterness from my
+heart. Remember this!"
+
+Then with a sudden reversion to his customary manner he said:
+
+"And now tell me about Morrell."
+
+Lynda started; the situation puzzled her. She had meant to
+comfort--instead she seemed to have hurt and confused her old friend.
+
+"About John Morrell?" she murmured with a rising perplexity; "there
+isn't much to tell."
+
+"I thought it was a long story, Lynda."
+
+"Somehow it doesn't seem long when you get close to it. But surely you
+must see, Uncle William, that after--after father and mother--I would
+naturally be a bit keener than most girls. It would never do for me to
+marry the wrong man and, of course, a girl never really knows until--she
+faces the situation at close quarters. I should never have engaged
+myself to John Morrell--that was the real mistake; and it was only when
+he felt sure of me--that I knew! Uncle William, I must have my own life,
+and John--well, he meant to have his own and mine, too. I couldn't stand
+it! I have struggled up and conquered little heights just as he
+has--just as Con and Brace have; we've all scrambled up together. It
+didn't seem quite fair that they should--well, fly their colours from
+their peaks and that I should" (here Lynda laughed) "cuddle under John's
+standard. I don't always believe in his standard; I don't approve of it.
+Much as I like men, I don't think they are qualified to arrange, sort,
+fix, and command the lives of women. If a woman thinks the abdication
+justifies the gains, that's all right. If I had sold myself,
+honourably, to John Morrell I would have kept to the agreement; I hate
+and loathe women who don't! I'm not belittling the romance and
+sentiment, Uncle William, but when all's told the usual marriage is a
+bargain and half the women whine about holding to it--the others play up
+and, if there is love enough, it pans out pretty well--but I couldn't!
+You see I had lived with father and mother--felt the lack between
+them--and I saw mother's eyes when she--let go and died! No! I mean to
+have my own life!"
+
+"And you are going to forego a woman's heritage--home and children--for
+such a whim? Your mother had recompenses; are you not afraid of
+the--future?"
+
+"Not if I respect it and do not dishonour the present."
+
+"A lonely man or woman--an outcast from the ordinary--is a creature of
+hell!"
+
+Lynda shook her head.
+
+"Go on!" Truedale commanded sternly. "Morrell is a good fellow. From my
+prison I took care to find that out. Brace did me practical service when
+he acted as sleuth before your engagement!"
+
+Lynda coloured and frowned.
+
+"I did not know about that," was all she said.
+
+"It doesn't matter--only I'm glad I can feel sorry for him and angry at
+you. I never knew you could be a fool, Lynda."
+
+"I dare say we all can, if we put our minds to it--sometimes without.
+Well! that's the whole story, Uncle William."
+
+"It's only the preface. See here, Lynda, did it ever strike you that a
+woman like you doesn't come to such a conclusion as you have without an
+experience--a contrast to go by?"
+
+"I--I do not know what you mean, Uncle William."
+
+"I think you do. I have no right to probe, but I have a right to--to
+help you if I can. You've done much for your mother; can you deny me
+the--the honour of doing something for her?"
+
+"There's nothing--to do."
+
+"Let us see! You're just a plain girl when all's said and done. You've
+got a little more backbone and wit than some, but your heart's in the
+same place as other women's and you're no different in the main. You
+want the sane, right things just as they do--home, children, and
+security from the things women dread. A man can give a woman a chance
+for her best development; she ought to recognize that and--yes--appreciate
+it."
+
+"Surely!" this came very softly from the lips screened now by two cold
+shivering hands. "A woman does recognize it; she appreciates it, but
+that does not exclude her from--choice."
+
+"One man--of course within limits and reason--is as good as another when
+he loves a woman and makes her love him. You certainly thought you
+loved Morrell. You had nothing to gain unless you did. You probably
+earned as much as he."
+
+"That's true. All quite true."
+
+"Then something happened!" Truedale flung his half-smoked cigar in the
+fire. "What was it, Lynda?"
+
+"There--was nothing--really--"
+
+"There was something. There was--Con!"
+
+"Oh! how--how can you?" Lynda started back. She meant to say "How dare
+you?"--but the drawn and tortured face restrained her.
+
+"Because I must, Lynda. Because I must. You know I told you I had a
+story? You must bear with me and listen. Sit down again and try to
+remember--I am doing this for your mother! I repeat--there was Con. At
+first you took up arms for him as Brace did; your sex instincts were not
+awakened. You were all good fellows together until you drifted,
+blindfolded, into the trap poor Morrell set for you. You thought I was
+ill-treating Con--disregarding his best interests--starving his soul!
+Oh! you poor little ignoramus; the boy never had a soul worth mentioning
+until it got awakened, in self-defense, and grew its own limit. What did
+you and Brace know of the past--the past that went into Con's making?
+You were free enough with your young condemnation and misplaced
+loyalty--but how about justice?"
+
+Lynda's eyes were fixed upon Truedale's face. She had never seen him in
+this mood and, while he fascinated, he overawed her.
+
+"Why, girl, Con's father, my younger brother, was as talented as Con,
+but he was a scamp. He had money enough to pave the way to his own
+destruction. Until it was gone he spurned me--spurned even his own
+genius. He married a woman as mad as himself and then--without a
+qualm--tossed her aside to die. He had no sense of responsibility--no
+shame. He had temperament--a damnable one--and he drifted on it to the
+end. When it was all over, I brought Conning here. Just at that
+time--well, it was soon after your mother married your father--this
+creeping disease fell upon me. If it hadn't been for the boy I'd have
+ended the whole thing then and there, but with the burden laid upon me I
+couldn't slip out. It has been a kind of race ever since--this menace
+mounting higher and higher and the making of Con keeping pace. I swore
+that if he had talent it must prove itself against hardship, not in
+luxury. I made life difficult in order to toughen and inspire. I never
+meant to kill--you must do me that justice. Only you see, chained here,
+I couldn't follow close enough, and Con had pride, thank God! and he
+thought he had hate--but he hasn't or he'd have starved rather than
+accept what I offered. In his heart he--well, let us say--respects me to
+a certain extent. I saw him widening the space between himself and his
+inheritance--and it has helped me live; you saw him making a man of
+himself and it became more absorbing than the opportunity of annexing
+yourself to a man already made. Oh, I have seen it all and it has helped
+me in my plan."
+
+"Your--plan?" The question was a feeble attempt to grapple with a
+situation growing too big and strong. "Your plan--what is your plan?"
+
+"Lynda, I have made my will! Sitting apart and looking on, the doing of
+this has been the one great excitement of my life. Through the years I
+have believed I was doing it alone; now I see your mother's guiding hand
+has led me on; I want you to believe this as--I do!"
+
+"I--I will try, Uncle William." Lynda no longer struggled against that
+which she could not understand. She felt it must have its way with her.
+
+"This house," Truedale was saying, "was meant for your mother. I left it
+bare and ready for her taste and choice. After--I go, I want you to fit
+it out for her--and me! You must do it at once."
+
+"No! No!" Lynda put up a protesting hand, but Truedale smiled her into
+silence and went on: "I may let you begin to-morrow and not wait! You
+must fill the bare corners--spare no expense. You and I will be quite
+reckless; I want this place to be a--home at last."
+
+And now Lynda's eyes were shining--her rare tears blinded her.
+
+"You have always tried indirectly, Lynda, to secure Con's greatest good;
+you have done it! I mean to leave him a legacy of three thousand a year.
+That will enable him to let up on himself and develop the talent you
+think he has. I have seen to it that the two faithful souls who have
+served me here shall never know want. There will be money, and plenty of
+it, for you to carry out my wishes regarding this house,
+should--well--should anything happen to me! After these details are
+attended to, my fortune, rather a cumbersome one, goes to--Dr.
+McPherson, my old and valued friend!"
+
+Lynda started violently.
+
+"To--to Dr. McPherson?" she gasped, every desire for Conning up in arms.
+
+"There! there! do not get so excited, Lynda. It is only for--three
+years. McPherson and I understand."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"It will go to Conning--if--"
+
+"If what?" Lynda was afraid now.
+
+"If he--marries you!"
+
+"Oh! this is beyond endurance! How could you be so cruel, Uncle
+William?" The hot, passionate tears were burning the indignant face.
+
+"He will not know. The years will test and prove him."
+
+"But I shall know! If you thought best to do this thing, why have you
+told me?"
+
+"There have been hours when I myself did not know why; I understand
+to-night. Your mother led me!"
+
+"My mother could never have hurt me so. Never!"
+
+"You must trust--her and me, Lynda."
+
+"Suppose--oh! suppose--Con does not ... Oh! this is degrading!"
+
+"Then the fortune will--be yours. McPherson and I have worked this
+out--most carefully."
+
+"Mine! Mine! Why"--and here Lynda flung her head back and laughed
+relievedly--"I refuse absolutely to accept it!"
+
+"In that case it goes--to charities."
+
+A hush fell in the room. Baffled and angry, Lynda dared not trust
+herself to speak and Truedale sank back wearily. Then came a rattle of
+wheels in the quiet street--a toot of a taxi horn.
+
+"Thomas has not forgotten to provide for your home trip; but the man can
+wait. The night is mild"--Truedale spoke gently--"and you and I are
+rich."
+
+Lynda did not seem to hear. Her thoughts were rushing wildly over the
+path set for her by her old friend's words.
+
+"Conning would not know!" she grasped and held to that; "he would be
+able to act independently. At first it had seemed impossible. Her
+knowledge could affect no one but herself! If"--and here Lynda breathed
+faster--"if Conning should want her enough to ask her to share his life
+that the three thousand dollars made possible, why then the happiness
+of bringing his own to him would be hers!--hers!"
+
+Again the opposite side of the picture held her. "But suppose he did
+_not_ want her--in that way? Then she, his friend--the one who, in all
+the world, loved him the best--would profit by it; she would be a
+wealthy woman, for her mother's sake or"--the alternative staggered
+her--"she could let everything slip, everything and bear the
+consequences!"
+
+At this point she turned to Truedale and asked pitifully again:
+
+"Oh! why, why did you do this?"
+
+There was no anger or rebellion in the words, but a pathos that caused
+the old man to close his eyes against the pleading in the uplifted face.
+It was the one thing he could not stand.
+
+"Time will prove, child; time will prove. I could not make you
+understand; your mother might have--I could not. But time will show.
+Time is a strange revealer. All my life I have been working in darkness
+until--now! I should have trusted more--you must learn from me.
+
+"There, do not keep the man waiting longer. I wonder--do not do it
+unless you want to, or think it right--but I wonder if you could kiss me
+good-bye?"
+
+Lynda rose and, tear-blinded, bent over and kissed him--kissed him
+twice, once for her mother!--and she felt that he understood. She had
+never touched her lips to his before, and it seemed a strange ceremony.
+
+An hour later Truedale called for Thomas and was wheeled to his bedroom
+and helped to bed.
+
+"Perhaps," he said to the man, "you had better put those drops on the
+stand. If I cannot sleep--" Thomas smiled and obeyed. There had been a
+time when he feared that small, dark bottle, but not now! He believed
+too sincerely in his master's strength of character. Having the medicine
+near might, by suggestion, help calm the restlessness, but it had never
+been resorted to, so Thomas smiled as he turned away with a cheery:
+
+"Very well, sir; but there will be no need, I hope."
+
+"Good-night, Thomas. Raise the shade, please. It's a splendid night,
+isn't it? If they should build on that rear lot I could not see the moon
+so well. I may decide to buy that property."
+
+When Thomas had gone and he was alone at last, Truedale heaved a heavy
+sigh. It seemed to relieve the restraint under which he had been
+labouring for weeks.
+
+All his life the possibility of escape from his bondage had made the
+bondage less unendurable. It was like knowing of a secret passage from
+his prison house--an exit dark and attended by doubts and fears, but
+nevertheless a sure passage to freedom. It had seemed, in the past, a
+cowardly thing to avail himself of his knowledge--it was like going
+with his debts unpaid. But now, in the bright, moonlit room it no
+longer appeared so. He had finished his task, had ended the bungling,
+and had heard a clear call ringing with commendation and approval. There
+was nothing to hold him back!
+
+Over in the cabinet by the window were a photograph and a few letters;
+Truedale turned toward them and wondered if Lynda, instead of his old
+friend McPherson, would find them? He wished he had spoken--but after
+all, he could not wait. He had definitely decided to take the journey!
+But he spoke softly as if to a Presence:
+
+"And so--you played a part? Poor girl! how well--you played it! And
+you--suffered--oh! my God--and I never did you the justice of
+understanding. And you left your girl--to me--I have tried not to fail
+you there, Katherine!"
+
+Then Truedale reached for the bottle. He took a swallow of the contents
+and waited! Presently he took another and a thrill of exhilaration
+stirred his sluggish blood. Weakly, gropingly, he stretched his benumbed
+hand out again; he was well on his way now. The long journey was begun
+in the moonlight and, strange to say, it did not grow dark, nor did he
+seem to be alone. This surprised him vaguely, he had always expected it
+would be so different!
+
+And by and by one face alone confronted him--it was brighter than the
+moonlit way. It smiled understandingly--it, too, had faced the broad
+highway--it could afford to smile.
+
+Once more the heavy, dead-cold hand moved toward the stand beside the
+bed, but it fell nerveless ere it reached what it sought.
+
+The escape had been achieved!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+The days passed and, unfettered, Jim White remained in the deep woods.
+After Nella-Rose's disturbing but thrilling advent, Truedale rebounded
+sharply and, alone in his cabin, brought himself to terms. By a rigid
+arraignment he relegated, or thought he had relegated, the whole matter
+to the realm of things he should not have permitted, but which had done
+no real harm. He brought out the heavy book on philosophy and
+endeavoured to study. After a few hours he even resorted to the wet
+towel, thinking that suggestion might assist him, but Nella-Rose
+persistently and impishly got between his eyes and the pages and flouted
+philosophy by the magic of her superstition and bewitching charm.
+
+Then Truedale attacked his play, viciously, commandingly. This was more
+successful. He reconstructed his plot somewhat--he let Nella-Rose in!
+Curbed and somewhat re-modelled, she materialized and, while he dealt
+strictly with her, writing was possible.
+
+So the first day and night passed. On the second day Truedale's new
+strength demanded exercise and recreation. He couldn't be expected to
+lock himself in until White returned to chaperone him. After all, there
+was no need of being a fool. So he packed a gunny sack with food and a
+book or two, and sallied forth, after providing generously for the live
+stock and calling the dogs after him.
+
+But Truedale was unaware of what was going on about him. Pine Cone
+Settlement had, since the trap episode, been tense and waiting. Not many
+things occurred in the mountains and when they did they were made the
+most of. With significant silence the friends and foes of Burke Lawson
+were holding themselves in check until he returned to his old haunts;
+then there would be considerable shooting--not necessarily fatal, a
+midnight raid or two, a general rumpus, and eventually, a truce.
+
+All this Jim White knew, and it was the propelling factor that had sent
+him to the deep woods. His sentiments conflicted with duty. Guilty as
+Lawson was, the sheriff liked him better than he did Martin and he
+meant, should he come across Burke in "the sticks," to take him off for
+a bear hunt and some good advice. Thus he would justify his conscience
+and legal duties. But White, strange to say, was as ignorant as Truedale
+was of an element that had entered into conditions. It had never
+occurred to Jim to announce or explain his visitor's arrival. To Pine
+Cone a "furriner" aroused at best but a superficial interest and, since
+Truedale had arrived, unseen, at night, why mention him to a community
+that could not possibly have anything in common with him? So it was
+that Greyson and a few others, noting Truedale at a distance and losing
+sight of him at once, concluded that he was Burke, back and in hiding;
+and a growing but stealthy excitement was in the air. He was supposed by
+both factions to be with the sheriff, and feeling ran high. In the final
+estimate, could White have known it, he himself held no small part!
+
+Beloved and hated, Lawson divided the community for and against himself
+about equally. There were those who defended and swore they would kill
+any who harmed the young outlaw--he was of the jovial, dare-devil type
+and as loyal to his friends as he was unyielding to his foes. Others
+declared that the desperado must be "finished"; the trap disagreement
+was but the last of a long list of crimes; it was time to put a quietus
+on one who refused to fall into line--who called the sheriff his friend
+and had been known to hobnob with revenue men! That, perhaps, was the
+blackest deed to be attributed to any native.
+
+So all Pine Cone was on the war path and Truedale, heedless and unaware,
+took his air and exercise at his peril.
+
+The men of the hills had a clear case now, since Peter Greyson had given
+his evidence, which, by the way, became more conclusive hour by hour as
+imagination, intoxication, and the delight of finding himself important,
+grew upon Greyson.
+
+"Jim told me," Peter had confided to Jed Martin, "that he was going to
+get a posse from way-back and round Lawson up."
+
+This was wholly false. White never took any one into his business
+secrets, least of all Greyson for whom he had deep contempt. "But I
+don't call that clean to us-all, Jed. We don't want strangers to catch
+Burke; we don't want them to--to string him up or shoot him full of
+holes; what we-all want is to force White to hand him over to justice,
+give him a fair trial, and then send him to one of them prison traps to
+eat his soul out behind bars. Jed--just you shut your eyes and _see_
+Burke Lawson behind bars--eating sop from a pan, drinking prison
+water--just you call that picture up."
+
+Jed endeavoured to do so and it grew upon his imagination.
+
+"We-all wants to trail him," Greyson continued, "we don't want to give
+him a free passage to Kingdom-Come by rope or shot--we-all want prison
+for Lawson, prison!"
+
+As Jed was the one most concerned, this edict went abroad by mountain
+wireless.
+
+"Catch him alive!" Friend and foe were alert.
+
+"And when all's fixed and done--when Burke's trapped," Greyson said,
+"what you going to do--for me, Jed?"
+
+This was a startling, new development.
+
+"I didn't reckon yo' war doin' this--fur pay!" Jed faltered. Then
+Greyson came forth:
+
+"No pay, Jed. Gawd knows I do my duty as I see it. But being keen about
+duty, I see more than one duty. When you catch and cage Lawson, Jed, I
+want to be something closer to you than a friend."
+
+"Closer than--" Jed gasped.
+
+"And duty drives me to confess to you, Jed, that the happiness of a lady
+is at stake."
+
+Jed merely gaped now. Visions of Nella-Rose made him giddy and
+speechless.
+
+"The day you put Lawson in jail, Jed, that day I'll give you the hand of
+my daughter. She loves you; she has confessed! You shall come here and
+share--everything! The hour that Burke is convicted--Marg is yours!"
+
+"Marg!" The word came on a gasp.
+
+"Not a word!" Greyson waved his hand in a princely way--this gesture was
+an heirloom from his ancestry. "I understand your feelings--I've seen
+what has been going on--but naturally I want my daughter to marry one
+worthy of her. You shall have my Marg when you have proven yourself!
+I've misjudged you, Jed, but this will wipe away old scores."
+
+With a sickening sense of being absorbed, Jed sank into black silence.
+If Marg wanted him and old Greyson was helping her, there was no hope!
+Blood and desire would conquer every time; every mountaineer recognized
+that!
+
+And so things were seething under a surface of deadly calm, when
+Truedale, believing that he had himself well in control, packed his
+gunny sack and started forth for a long tramp. He had no particular
+destination in mind--in fact, the soft, dreamy autumn day lulled him to
+mental inertia--he simply went along, but he went as directly toward the
+rhododendron slick as though he had long planned his actions. However,
+it was late afternoon before he came upon Nella-Rose.
+
+On the instant he realized that he had been searching for her all day.
+His stern standards crumbled and became dry dust. One might as well
+apply standards to flickering sunlight or to swirling trifles of
+mountain mist as to Nella-Rose. She came upon him gaily; the dogs had
+discovered her on one of their ventures and were now quietly
+accompanying her.
+
+"I--I've been looking for you--all day!" Truedale admitted, with truth
+but indiscretion. And then he noted, as he had before, the strange
+impression the girl gave of having been blown upon the scene. The
+pretty, soft hair resting on the cheek in a bewildering curve; the
+large, dreamy eyes and black lashes; the close clinging of her shabby
+costume, as if wrapped about her slim body by the playful gale that had
+wafted her along; all held part in the illusion.
+
+"I had to--to lead Marg to Devil-may-come Hollow. She's hunting there
+now!" Nella-Rose's white teeth showed in a mischievous smile. "We're
+right safe with Marg down there, scurrying around. Come, I know a sunny
+place--I want to tell you about Marg."
+
+Her childish appropriation of him completed Truedale's surrender. The
+absolute lack of self-consciousness drove the last remnant of caution
+away. They found the sunny spot--it was like a dimple in a hill that had
+caught the warmth and brightness and held them always to the exclusion
+of shadows. It almost seemed that night could never conquer the nook.
+
+And while they rested there, Nella-Rose told him of the belief of the
+natives that he was the refugee Lawson.
+
+"And Marg would give you up like--er--this" (Nella-Rose puffed an
+imaginary trifle away with her pretty pursed lips). "She trailed after
+me all day--she lost me in a place where hiding's good--and there I left
+her! She'll tell Jed Martin this evening when she gets back. Marg is
+scenting Burke for Jed and his kind to catch--that's her way and Jed's!"
+Stinging contempt rang in the girl's voice.
+
+"But not your way I bet, Nella-Rose." The fun, not the danger, of the
+situation struck Truedale.
+
+"No!--I'd do it all myself! I'd either warn him and have done with it,
+or I'd stand by him."
+
+"I'm not sure that I like the misunderstanding about me," Truedale half
+playfully remarked, "they may shoot me in the back before they find
+out."
+
+"Do you" (and here Nella-Rose's face fell into serious, dangerously
+sweet, lines), "do you reckon I would leave you to them-all if there was
+that danger? They don't aim to shoot or string Burke up; they reckon
+they'll take him alive and--get him locked up in jail to--to--"
+
+"What, Nella-Rose?"
+
+"Die of longing!"
+
+"Is that what would happen to Burke Lawson?"
+
+The girl nodded. Then the entrancing mischief returned to her eyes and
+she became a child once more--a creature so infinitely young that
+Truedale seemed grandfatherly by comparison.
+
+"Can't you see how mighty funny it will be to lead them and let them
+follow on and then some day--they'll plump right up on you and find out!
+Godda'mighty!"
+
+Irresponsible mirth swayed the girl to and fro. She laughed, silently,
+until the tears stood in the clear eyes. Truedale caught the spirit of
+her mood and laughed with her. The picture she portrayed of setting
+jealousy, malice, and stupidity upon the wrong trail was very funny, but
+suddenly he paused and said seriously:
+
+"But in the meantime this Burke Lawson may return; you may be the death
+of him with your pranks."
+
+Nella-Rose shook her head. "I would know!" she declared confidently. "I
+know everything that's going on in the hills. Burke would let me
+know--first!"
+
+"It's like melodrama," Truedale murmured half to himself. By some trick
+of fancy he seemed to be looking on as Brace Kendall might have. The
+thought brought him to bay. What would good old Brace do in the present
+situation?
+
+"What is melodrama?" Nella-Rose never let a new word or suggestion
+escape her. She was as keen as she was dramatic and mischievous.
+
+"It would be hard to make you understand--but see here"--Truedale drew
+the gunny sack to him--"I bet you're hungry!" He deliberately put Brace
+from his thoughts.
+
+"I reckon I am." The lovely eyes were fixed upon the hand that was
+bringing forth the choicest morsels of the food prepared early that
+morning. As he laid the little feast before her, Truedale acknowledged
+that, in a vague way, he had been saving the morsels for Nella-Rose even
+while he had fed, earlier, upon coarser fare.
+
+"I don't know about giving you a chicken wing!" he said playfully. "You
+look as if you were about to fly away as it is--but unfortunately I've
+eaten both legs!"
+
+"Oh! please"--Nella-Rose reached across the narrow space separating
+them, she was pleading prettily--"I just naturally admire wings!"
+
+"I bet you do! Well, eat plenty of bread with them. And see here,
+Nella-Rose, while you are eating I'm going to read a story to you. It is
+the sort of thing that we call melodrama."
+
+"Oh!" This through the dainty nibbling of the coveted wing. "I'm right
+fond of stories."
+
+"Keep quiet now!" commanded Truedale and he began the spirited tale of
+love and high adventure that, like the tidbits, he knew he had brought
+for Nella-Rose!
+
+The warm autumn sun fell upon them for a full hour, then it shifted and
+the chill of the approaching evening warned the reader of the flight of
+time. He stopped suddenly to find that his companion had long since
+forgotten her hunger and food. Across the debris she bent, absorbed and
+tense. Her hands were clasped close--cold, little hands they were--and
+her big eyes were strained and wonder-filled.
+
+"Is that--all?" she asked, hoarsely.
+
+"Why, no, child, there's more."
+
+"Go on!"
+
+"It's too late! We must get back."
+
+"I--I must know the rest! Why, don't you see, you know how it turns out;
+I don't!"
+
+"Shall I tell you?"
+
+"No, no. I want it here with the warm sun and the pines and
+your--yourself making it real."
+
+"I do not understand, Nella-Rose!" But as he spoke Truedale began to
+understand and it gave him an uneasy moment. He knew what he ought to
+do, but knew that he was not going to do it! "We'll have to come again
+and hear the rest," was what he said.
+
+"Yes? Why"--and here the shadowy eyes took on the woman-look, the look
+that warned and lured the man near her--"I did not know it ever came
+like that--really."
+
+"What, Nella-Rose?"
+
+"Why--love. They-all knew it--and took it. It was just like it was
+something all by itself. That's not the sort us-all have. Does it only
+come that--er--way in mel--melerdrammer?"
+
+"No, little girl. It comes that way in real life when hearts are big
+enough and strong enough to bear it." Truedale watched the effect of his
+words upon the strange, young face before him. They forced their way
+through her ignorance and untrained yearning for love and admiration. It
+was a perilous moment, for conscience, on Truedale's part, seemed
+drugged and sleeping and Nella-Rose was awakening to that which she had
+never known before. Gone, for her, were caprice and mischief; she seemed
+about to see and hear some wonderful thing that eluded but called her
+on.
+
+And after that first day they met often. "Happened upon each other" was
+the way Truedale put it. It seemed very natural. The picturesque spots
+appealed to them both. There was reading, too--carefully selected bits.
+It was intensely interesting to lead the untrained mind into bewildering
+mazes--to watch surprise, wonder, and perplexity merge into
+understanding and enjoyment. Truedale experienced the satisfaction of
+seeing that, for the first time in his life, he was a great power. The
+thought set his brain whirling a bit, but it made him seriously humble
+as well.
+
+Gradually his doubts and introspections became more definite; he lived
+day by day, hour by hour; while Jim White tarried, Nella-Rose remained;
+and the past--Truedale's past--faded almost from sight. He could hardly
+realize, when thinking of it afterward, where and how he decided to cut
+loose from his past, and all it meant, and accept a future almost
+ludicrously different from anything he had contemplated.
+
+One day a reference to Burke Lawson was made and, instead of letting it
+pass as heretofore, he asked suddenly of Nella-Rose:
+
+"What is he to you?"
+
+The girl flushed and turned away.
+
+"Burke?--oh, Burke isn't--anything--now!"
+
+"Was he ever--anything?"
+
+"I reckon he wasn't; I _know_ he wasn't!"
+
+Then, like a flash, Truedale believed he understood what had happened.
+This simple girl meant more to him than anything else--more than the
+past and what it held! A baser man would not have been greatly disturbed
+by this knowledge; a man with more experience and background would have
+understood it and known that it was a phase that must be dealt with
+sternly and uncompromisingly, but that it was merely a phase and as such
+bound to pass. Not so Truedale. He was stirred to the roots of his
+being; every experience was to him a concrete fact and, consequently,
+momentous. In order to keep pure the emotions that overpowered him at
+times, he must renounce all that separated him from Nella-Rose and
+reconstruct his life; or--he must let _her_ go!
+
+Once Truedale began to reason this out, once he saw Nella-Rose's
+dependence upon him--her trust and happiness--he capitulated and
+permitted his imagination to picture and colour the time on ahead. He
+refused to turn a backward glance.
+
+Of course all this was not achieved without struggle and foreboding; but
+he saw no way to hold what once was dear, without dishonour to that
+which now was dearer; and he--let go!
+
+This determined, he strenuously began to prepare himself for the change.
+Day by day he watched Nella-Rose with new and far-seeing interest--not
+always with love and passion-blinded eyes. He felt that she could, with
+his devotion and training, develop into a rarely sweet and fine woman.
+He was not always a fool in his madness; at times he was wonderfully
+clear-sighted. He meant to return home, when once his health was
+restored, and take the Kendalls into his confidence; but the thought of
+Lynda gave him a bad moment now and then. He could not easily depose her
+from the most sacred memories of his life, but gradually he grew to
+believe that her relations to him were--had always been--platonic; and
+that she, in the new scheme, would play no small part in his life and
+Nella-Rose's.
+
+There would be years of self-denial and labour and then, by and by,
+success would be achieved. He would take his finished work, and in this
+he included Nella-Rose, back to his old haunts and prove his wisdom and
+good fortune. In short, Truedale was love-mad--ready to fling everything
+to the ruthless winds of passion. He blindly called things by wrong
+names and steered straight for the rocks.
+
+He meant well, as God knew; indeed all the religious elements, hitherto
+unsuspected in him, came to the fore now. Conventions were absurd when
+applied to present conditions, but, once having accepted the inevitable,
+the way was divinely radiant. He meant to pay the price for what he
+yearned after. He had no other intention.
+
+Now that he was resigned to letting the past go, he could afford to
+revel in the joys of the present with a glad sense of responsibility for
+the future.
+
+Presently his course seemed so natural that he wondered he had ever
+questioned it. More and more men with a vision--and Truedale devoutly
+believed he had the vision--were recognizing the absurdity of old
+ideals.
+
+Back to the soil meant more than the physical; it meant back to the
+primitive, the simple, the real. The artificial exactions of society
+must be spurned if a new and higher morality were to be established.
+
+If Truedale in this state of mind had once seen the actual danger, all
+might have been well; but he had swung out of his orbit.
+
+At this juncture Nella-Rose was puzzling her family to the extent of
+keeping her father phenomenally sober and driving Marg to the verge of
+nerve exhaustion.
+
+The girl had, to put it in Greyson's words, "grown up over night." She
+was dazzling and recalled a past that struck deep in the father's heart.
+
+There had been a time when Peter Greyson, a mere boy, to be sure--and
+before the cruel war had wrecked the fortunes of his family--had been
+surrounded by such women as Nella-Rose now suggested. Women with dancing
+eyes and soft, white hands. Women born and bred for love and homage, who
+demanded their privileges with charm and beauty. There had been one
+fascinating woman, a great-aunt of Nella-Rose's, who had imperilled the
+family honour by taking her heritage of worship with a high hand.
+Disregarding the rights of another, she boldly rode off with the man of
+her choice and left the reconstruction of her reputation to her kith and
+kin who roused instantly to action and lied, like ladies and gentlemen,
+when truth was impossible. Eventually they so toned down and polished
+the deed of the little social highwaywoman as to pass her on in the
+family history with an escutcheon shadowed only, rather than smirched.
+
+Nella-Rose, now that her father considered, was dangerously like her
+picturesque ancestress! The thought kept Peter from the still, back in
+the woods, for many a day. He, poor down-at-heel fellow, was as ready as
+any man of his line to protect women, especially his own, but he was
+sorely perplexed now.
+
+Was it Burke Lawson who, from his hiding place, was throwing a glamour
+over Nella-Rose?
+
+Then Peter grew ugly. The protection of women was one thing; ridding the
+community of an outlaw was another. Men knew how to deal with such
+matters and Greyson believed himself to be very much of a man.
+
+"Nella-Rose," he said one day as he smoked reflectively and listened to
+his younger daughter singing a camp meeting hymn in a peculiarly sweet
+little voice, "when my ship comes in, honey, I'm going to buy you a
+harp. A gold one."
+
+"I'd rather have a pink frock, father, and a real hat; I just naturally
+hate sunbonnets! I'd favour a feather on my hat--flowers fade right
+easy."
+
+"But harps is mighty elegant, Nella-Rose. Time was when your--aunts
+and--and grandmothers took to harps like they was their daily
+nourishment. Don't you ever forget that, Nella-Rose. Harps in families
+mean _blood_, and blood don't run out if you're careful of it."
+
+Nella-Rose laughed, but Marg, in the wash-house beyond, listened
+and--hated!
+
+No one connected _her_ with harps or blood, but she held, in her sullen
+heart and soul, the true elements of all that had gone into the making
+of the best Greysons. And as the winter advanced, Marg, worn in mind and
+body, was brought face to face with stern reality. Autumn was
+gone--though the languorous hours belied it. She must prepare. So she
+gathered her forces--her garden products that could be exchanged for
+necessities; the pork; the wool; all, all that could be spared, she must
+set in circulation. So she counted three dozen eggs and weighed ten
+pounds of pork and called Nella-Rose, who was driving her mad by singing
+and romping outside the kitchen door.
+
+"You--Nella-Rose!" she called, "are you plumb crazy?"
+
+Nella-Rose became demure at once and presented herself at the door.
+
+"Do I look it?" she said, turning her wonderful little face up for
+inspection. Something in the words and in the appealing beauty made Marg
+quiver. Had happiness and justice been meted out to Marg Greyson she
+would have been the tenderest of sisters to Nella-Rose. Several years
+lay between them; the younger girl was encroaching upon the diminishing
+rights of the older. The struggle between them was as old as life
+itself, but it could not kill utterly what should have existed ardently.
+
+"You got to tote these things"--Marg held forth the basket--"down to the
+Centre for trade, and you can fetch back the lil' things like pepper,
+salt, and sugar. Tell Cal Merrivale to fetch the rest and bargain for
+what I've got ready here, when he drives by. If you start now you can be
+back by sundown."
+
+To Marg's surprise, Nella-Rose offered no protest to the seven-mile
+walk, nor to the heavy load. She promptly pulled her sunbonnet to the
+proper angle on her head and gripped the basket.
+
+"Ain't you goin' to eat first?" asked Marg.
+
+"No. Put in a bite; I'll eat it by the way."
+
+As the Centre was in the opposite direction from the Hollow, as seven
+miles going and seven miles coming would subdue the spirits and energy
+even of Nella-Rose, Marg was perplexed. However, she prepared food,
+tucked it in the basket, and even went so far as to pin her sister's
+shawl closely under her chin. Then she watched the slim, straight figure
+depart--still puzzled but at peace for the day, at least.
+
+Nella-Rose, however, was plotting an attack upon Truedale quite out of
+the common. By unspoken consent he and she had agreed that their
+meetings should be in the open. Jim White might return at anytime and
+neither of them wanted at first to include him in the bewildering drama
+of their lives. For different reasons they knew that Jim's cold
+understanding of duty would shatter the sacred security that was all
+theirs. Truedale meant to confide everything to White upon his
+return--meant to rely upon him in the reconstruction of his life; but he
+knew nothing could be so fatal to the future as any conflict at the
+present with the sheriff's strict ideas of conduct. As for Nella-Rose,
+she had reason to fear White's power as woman-hater and upholder of law
+and order. She simply eliminated Jim and, in order to do this, she must
+keep him in the dark.
+
+Early that morning she had looked, as she did every day, from the hill
+behind the house and she had seen but one thin curl of smoke from the
+clearing! If White had not returned the night before the chances were
+that he would make another day of it! Nella-Rose often wondered why
+others did not note the tell-tale smoke--a clue which often played a
+vital part in the news of the hills. Only because thoughts were focussed
+on the Hollow and on White's absence, was Truedale secure in his
+privacy.
+
+"I'll hurry mighty fast to the Centre," Nella-Rose concluded, after
+escaping from Marg's disturbed gaze, "then I'll hide the things by the
+big road and I'll--go to his cabin. I'll--I'll surprise him!"
+
+Truedale had told her the day before, in a moment of caution, that he
+would have to work hard for a time in order to make ready for White's
+return. The fact was he had now got to that point in his story when he
+longed for Jim as he might have longed for safety on a troubled sea.
+With Jim back and fully informed--everything on ahead would be safe.
+
+"I'll surprise him!" murmured Nella-Rose, with the dimples in full play
+at the corners of her mouth; "old Jim White can't keep me away. I'll
+watch out--it's just for a minute; I'll be back by sundown; it will be
+only to say 'how-de?'"
+
+Something argued with the girl as she ran on--something quite new and
+uncontrolled. Heretofore no law but that of the wilds had entered into
+her calculations. To get what she could of happiness and life--to make
+as little fuss as possible--that had been her code; but now, the same
+restraint that had held Marg from going to the Hollow awhile back, when
+she thought that, with night, Burke Lawson might disclose his
+whereabouts, held Nella-Rose! So insistent was the rising argument that
+it angered the girl. "Why? Why?" her longings and desires cried.
+"Because! Because!" was the stern response, and the _woman_ in
+Nella-Rose thrilled and throbbed and trembled, while the girlish spirit
+pleaded for the excitement of joy and sweetness that was making the
+grim stretches of her narrow existence radiant and full of meaning.
+
+On she went doggedly. The dimples disappeared; the mouth fell into the
+pathetic, drooping lines that by and by, unless something saved
+Nella-Rose, would become permanent and mark her as a hill-woman--one to
+whom soul visions were denied.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Wisdom had all but conquered Nella-Rose's folly when she came in sight
+of Calvin Merrivale's store. But--who knows?--perhaps the girl's story
+had been written long since, and she was not entirely free. Be that as
+it may, she paused, for no reason whatever as far as she could tell, and
+carefully took one dozen eggs from the basket and hid them under some
+bushes by the road! Having done this she went forward so blithely and
+lightly that one might have thought her load had been considerably
+eased. She appeared before Calvin Merrivale, presently, like a
+refreshing apparition from vacancy. It was high noon and Merrivale was
+dozing in a chair by the rusty stove, in which a fire, prepared against
+the evening chill, was already burning.
+
+"How-de, Mister Merrivale?" Calvin sprang to his feet.
+
+"If it ain't lil' Nella-Rose. How'se you-all?"
+
+"Right smart. I've brought you three dozen eggs and ten pounds of pork."
+Nella-Rose almost said po'k--not quite! "And you must be mighty generous
+with me when you weigh out--let me see!--oh, yes, pepper, salt, and
+sugar."
+
+"I'll lay a siftin' more in the scale, Nella-Rose, on 'count o' yo'
+enjoyin' ways. But I can't make this out"--he was counting the
+eggs--"yo' said three dozen aigs?"
+
+"Three dozen, and ten pounds of pork!" This very firmly.
+
+Merrivale counted again and as he did so Nella-Rose remembered! The red
+came to her face--the tears to her ashamed eyes.
+
+"Stop!" she said softly, going close to the old man. "I forgot. I took
+one dozen out!"
+
+Merrivale stood and looked at her and then, what he thought was
+understanding, came to his assistance.
+
+"Who fo', Nella-Rose, who fo'?"
+
+There was no reply to this.
+
+"Yo' needn't be afraid to open yo' mind ter me, Nella-Rose. Keeping sto'
+is a mighty help in gettin' an all-around knowin' o' things. Folks jest
+naterally come here an' talk an' jest naterally I listen, an' 'twixt Jim
+White, the sheriff, an' old Merrivale, there ain't much choosin',
+jedgmatically speakin'. I know White's off an' plannin' ter round up
+Burke Lawson from behind, as it war. T'warnt so in my day, lil'
+Nella-Rose. When we-uns had a reckonin comin', we naterally went out an'
+shot our man; but these torn-down scoundrels like Jed Martin an' his
+kind they trap 'em an' send 'em to worse'n hell. Las' night"--and here
+Merrivale bent close to Nella-Rose--"my hen coop was 'tarnally gone
+through, an' a bag o' taters lifted. I ain't makin' no cry-out. I ain't
+forgot the year o' the fever an'--an'--well, yo' know who--took care o'
+me day an' night till I saw faces an' knew 'em! What's a matter o' a hen
+o' two an' a sack o' taters when lined up agin that fever spell? I tell
+yo', Nella-Rose, if _yo'_ say thar war three dozen aigs, thar _war_
+three dozen aigs, an' we'll bargain accordin'!"
+
+And now the dimples came slowly to the relieved face.
+
+"I'll--I'll bring you an extra dozen right soon, Mister Merrivale."
+
+"I ain't a-goin' ter flex my soul 'bout that, Nella-Rose. Aigs is aigs,
+but human nater is human nater; an' keepin' a store widens yo' stretch
+o' vision. Now, watch out, lil' girl, an' don't take too much fo'
+granted. When a gun goes off yo' hear it; but when skunks trail, yo'
+don't get no sign, 'less it's a smell!"
+
+Nella-Rose took her packages, smiled her thanks, and ran on. She ate her
+lunch by the bushes where the eggs lay hidden, then depositing in the
+safe shelter the home bundles Merrivale had so generously weighed, she
+put the eggs in the basket, packed with autumn leaves, and turned into
+the trail leading away from the big road.
+
+Through the bare trees the clear sky shone like a shield of blue-gray
+metal. It was a sky open for storm to come and pass unchecked. The very
+stillness and calm were warnings of approaching disturbance. Nature was
+listening and waiting for the breaking up of autumn and the clutch of
+frost.
+
+It was only two miles from the Centre to White's clearing and the
+afternoon was young when Nella-Rose paused at the foot of the last climb
+and took breath and courage. There was a tangled mass of rhododendrons
+by the edge of the wood and suddenly the girl's eyes became fixed upon
+it and her heart beat wildly. Something alive was crouching there,
+though none but a trained sense could have detected it! They waited--the
+hidden creature and the quivering girl! Then a pair of eager, suspicious
+eyes shone between the dead leaves of the bushes; next a dark, thin face
+peered forth--it was Burke Lawson's! Nella-Rose clutched her basket
+closer--that was all. After a moment she spoke softly, but clearly:
+
+"I'm alone. You're safe. How long have you been back?"
+
+"Mor'n two weeks!"
+
+Nella-Rose started. So they had known all along, and while she had
+played with Marg the hunt might at any moment have become deadly
+earnest.
+
+"More'n two weeks," Lawson repeated.
+
+"Where?" The girl's voice was hard and cold.
+
+"In the Holler. Miss Lois Ann helped--but Lord! you can't eat a helpless
+old woman out of house and home. Last night--"
+
+"Yes, yes; I know. And oh, Burke, Mister Merrivale hasn't forgot--the
+fever and your goodness. He won't give you up."
+
+"He won't need to. I'm right safe, 'cept for food. There's an old hole,
+back of a deserted still--I can even have a bit of fire. The devil
+himself couldn't find me. After a time I'm going--"
+
+"Where? Where, Burke?"
+
+"Nella-Rose, would you come with me? 'Twas you as brought me back--I had
+to come. If you will--oh! my doney-gal--"
+
+"Stop! stop, Burke. Some one might be near. No, no; I couldn't leave the
+hills--I'd die from the longing, you know that!"
+
+"If I--dared them all--could you take me, Nella-Rose? I'd run my chances
+with you! Night and day you tug and pull at the heart o' me,
+Nella-Rose."
+
+Fear, and a deeper understanding, drove Nella-Rose to the wrong course.
+
+"When you dare to come out--when they-all let you stay out--then ask me
+again, Burke Lawson. I'm not going to sweetheart with one who dare not
+show his head."
+
+Her one desire was to get Lawson away; she must be free!
+
+"Nella-Rose, I'll come out o' this."
+
+"No! no!" the girl gasped, "they're not after you to shoot you, Burke;
+Jed Martin is for putting you in jail!"
+
+"Good God--the sneaking coward."
+
+"And Jim White is off raising a posse, he means to--to see fair play.
+Wait until Jim comes back; then give yourself up."
+
+"And then--then, Nella-Rose?"
+
+The young, keen face among the dead leaves glowed with a light that sent
+the blood from Nella-Rose's heart.
+
+"See"--she said inconsequently--"I have" (she counted them out), "I have
+a dozen eggs; give them to Miss Lois Ann!"
+
+"Let me touch you, Nella-Rose! Just let me touch your lil' hand."
+
+"Wait until Jim White comes back!"
+
+Then, because a rabbit scurried from its shelter, Burke Lawson sank into
+his, and Nella-Rose in mad haste took to the trail and was gone! A
+moment later Lawson peered out again and tried to decide which way she
+went, but his wits were confused--so he laughed that easy, fearless
+laugh of his and put in his hat the eggs Nella-Rose had left. Then,
+crawling and edging along, he retraced his steps to that hole in the
+Hollow where he knew he was as safe as if he were in his grave.
+
+With distance and reassurance on her side, Nella-Rose paused to take
+breath. She had been thoroughly frightened. Her beautiful plans,
+unsuspected by all the world, had been threatened by an unlooked-for
+danger. She had never contemplated Burke Lawson as a complication. She
+was living day by day, hour by hour. Jim White she had accepted as a
+menace--but Burke never! She was no longer the girl Lawson had known,
+but how could she hope to make him understand that? Her tender,
+love-seeking nature had, in the past, accepted the best the mountains
+offered--and Burke had been the best. She had played with him--teased
+Marg with him--revelled in the excitement, but _now_? Well, the
+blindness had been torn from her eyes--the shackles from her feet. No
+one, nothing, could hold her from her own! She must not be defrauded and
+imprisoned again!
+
+Yes, that was it--imprisoned just when she had learned to use her wings!
+
+Standing in the tangle of undergrowth, Nella-Rose clenched her small
+hands and raised wide eyes to the skies.
+
+"I seem," she panted--and at that moment all her untamed mysticism
+swayed her--"like I was going along the tracks in the dark and something
+is coming--something like that train long ago!"
+
+Then she closed her eyes and her uplifted face softened and quivered.
+Behind the drooping lids she saw--Truedale! Quite vividly he
+materialized to her excited fancy. It was the first time she had ever
+been able to command him in this fashion.
+
+"I'm going to him!" The words were like a passionate prayer rather than
+an affirmation. "I'm going to follow like I followed long ago!" She
+clutched the basket and fled along.
+
+And while this was happening, Truedale, in his cabin, was working as he
+had not worked in years. He had burned all his bridges and outlying
+outposts; he was waiting for White, and his plans were completed. He
+meant to confide everything to his only friend--for such Jim seemed in
+the hazy and desolated present--then he would marry Nella-Rose off-hand;
+there must be a minister somewhere! After that? Well, after that
+Truedale grasped his manuscript and fell to work like one inspired.
+
+Lynda Kendall would never have known the play in its present form.
+Truedale's ideal had always been to portray a free woman--a super-woman;
+one who had evolved into the freedom from shattered chains. He now had a
+heroine free, in that she had never been enslaved. If one greater than
+he had put a soul in a statue, Truedale believed that he could awaken a
+child of nature and show her her own beautiful soul. He had outlined, a
+time back, a sylvan Galatea; and now, as he sat in the still room, the
+framework assumed form and substance; it breathed and moved him
+divinely. It and he were alone in the universe; they were to begin the
+world--he and--
+
+Just then the advance messenger of the coming change of weather entered
+by way of a lowered window. It was a smart little breeze and it
+flippantly sent the ashes flying on the hearth and several sheets of
+paper broadcast in the room. Truedale sprang to recover his treasures;
+he caught four or five, but one escaped his notice and floated toward
+the door, which was ajar.
+
+"Whew!" he ejaculated, "that was a narrow escape," and he began to sort
+and arrange the sheets on the table.
+
+"Sixty, sixty-one, sixty-two. Now where in thunder is that sixty-three?"
+
+A light touch on his arm made him spring to his feet, every nerve
+a-tingle.
+
+"Here it is! It seemed like it came to meet me."
+
+"Nella-Rose!"
+
+The girl nodded, holding out the paper.
+
+"So you have come? Why--did you?"
+
+The dimples came into play and Truedale stood watching them while many
+emotions flayed him; but gradually his weakness passed and he was able
+to assume an extremely stern though kindly manner. He meant to set the
+child right; he meant to see _only_ the _child_ in her until White
+returned; he would ignore the perilously sweet woman-appeal to his
+senses until such time as he could, with safety, let them once more hold
+part in their relations with each other.
+
+But even as he arrived at this wise conclusion, he was noting, as often
+before he had noted, the fascinating colour and quality of Nella-Rose's
+hair. It was both dark and light. If smoke were filled with sunlight it
+would be something like the mass of more or less loosened tendrils that
+crowned the girl's pretty head. Stern resolve began to melt before the
+girlish sweetness and audacity, but Truedale made one last struggle; he
+thought of staunch and true Brace Kendall! And, be it to Brace Kendall's
+credit, the course Conning endeavoured to take was a wise one.
+
+"See here, Nella-Rose, you ought not to come here--alone!"
+
+"Why? Aren't you glad to see me?"
+
+"Of course. But why did you come?" This was risky. Truedale recognized
+it at once.
+
+"Just to say--'how-de'! You certainly do look scroogy."
+
+At this Truedale laughed. Nella-Rose's capacity for bringing forth his
+happier, merrier nature was one of her endearing charms.
+
+"You didn't come just for that, Nella-Rose!" This with stern
+disapproval.
+
+"Take off the scroogy face--then I'll tell you why I came."
+
+"Very well!" Truedale smiled weakly. "Why?"
+
+"I'm right hungry. I--I want a party."
+
+Of course this would never do. White, or one of the blood-and-thunder
+raiders, might appear.
+
+"You must go, Nella-Rose."
+
+"Not"--here she sat down firmly and undid her ridiculous plaid
+shawl--"not till you give me a bite. Just a mighty little bite--I'm
+starving!"
+
+At this Truedale roared with laughter and went hurriedly to his closet.
+The girl must eat and--_go_. Mechanically he set about placing food upon
+the table. Then he sat opposite Nella-Rose while she ate with frank
+enjoyment the remains of his own noon-day meal. He could not but note,
+as he often did, the daintiness with which she accomplished the task.
+Other women, as Truedale remembered, were not prepossessing when
+attacking food; but this girl made a gracious little ceremony of the
+affair. She placed the small dishes in orderly array before her; she
+poised herself lightly on the edge of the chair and nibbled--there was
+no other word for it--as a perky little chipmunk might, the morsels she
+raised gracefully to her mouth. She was genuinely hungry and for a few
+minutes devoted her attention to the matter in hand.
+
+Then, suddenly, Nella-Rose did something that shattered the last scrap
+of self-control that was associated with the trusty Kendall and his good
+example. She raised a bit of food on her fork and held it out to
+Truedale, her lovely eyes looking wistfully into his.
+
+"Please! I feel so ornery eating alone. I want to--share! Please play
+party with me!"
+
+Truedale tried to say "I had my dinner an hour ago"; instead, he leaned
+across his folded arms and murmured, as if quite outside his own
+volition:
+
+"I--I love you!"
+
+Nella-Rose dropped the fork and leaned back. Her lids fell over the wide
+eyes--the smile faded from her lips.
+
+"Do you belong to any one--else, Nella-Rose?"
+
+"No--oh! no." This like a frightened cry.
+
+"But others--some one must have told you--of love. Do you know what love
+means?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"How?"
+
+And now she looked at him. Her eyes were dark, her face deadly pale; her
+lips were so red that in the whiteness they seemed the only trace of
+colour.
+
+"How do I know? Why because--nothing else matters. It seems like I've
+been coming all my life to it--and now it just says: 'Here I am,
+Nella-Rose--here'!"
+
+"I, too, have been coming to it all my life, little girl. I did not
+know--I was driven. I rebelled, because I did not know; but nothing else
+_does_ matter, when--love gets you!"
+
+"No. Nothing matters." The girl's voice was rapt and dreamy. Truedale
+put his hands across the space dividing them and took hold of hers.
+
+"You will be--mine, Nella-Rose?"
+
+"Seems like I must be!"
+
+"Yes. Doesn't it? Do you--you must understand, dear? I mean to live the
+rest of my life here in the hills--your hills. You once said one was of
+the hills or one wasn't; will they let me stay?"
+
+"Yes"--almost fiercely--"but--but your folks--off there--will they let
+you stay?"
+
+"I have no folks, Nella-Rose. I'm lonely and poor--at least I was until
+I found you! The hills have given me--everything; I mean to serve them
+well in return. I want you for my wife, Nella-Rose; we'll make a
+home--somewhere--it doesn't matter; it will be a shelter for our love
+and--" He stopped short. Reality and conventions made a last vain
+appeal. "I don't want you ever again to go out of my sight. You're mine
+and nothing could make that different--but" (and this came quickly,
+desperately) "there must be a minister somewhere--let's go to him! Do
+not let us waste another precious day. When he makes you mine by
+his"--Truedale was going to say "ridiculous jargon" but he modified it
+to--"his authority, no one in all God's world can take you from me.
+Come, come _now_, sweetheart!"
+
+In another moment he would have had her in his arms, but she held him
+off.
+
+"I'm mighty afraid of old Jim White!" she said.
+
+Truedale laughed, but the words brought him to his senses.
+
+"Then you must go, darling, until White returns. After I have explained
+to him I will come for you, but first let me hold you--so! and kiss
+you--so! This is why--you must go, my love!"
+
+She was in his arms, her lifted face pressed to his. She shivered, but
+clung to him for a moment and two tears rolled down her cheeks--the
+first he had ever seen escape her control. He kissed them away.
+
+"Of what are you thinking, Nella-Rose?"
+
+"Thinking? I'm not thinking; I'm--happy!"
+
+"My--sweetheart!" Again Truedale pressed his lips to hers.
+
+"Us-all calls sweetheart--'doney-gal'!"
+
+"My--my doney-gal, then!"
+
+"And"--the words came muffled, for Truedale was holding her still--"and
+always I shall see your face, now. It came to-day like it came long ago.
+It will always come and make me glad."
+
+Truedale lifted her from his breast and held her at arms' length. He
+looked deep into her eyes, trying to pierce through her ignorance and
+childishness to find the elusive woman that could meet and bear its part
+in what lay before. Long they gazed at each other--then the light in
+Nella-Rose's face quivered--her mouth drooped.
+
+"I'm going now," she said, "going till Jim White comes back."
+
+"Wait--my--"
+
+But the girl had slipped from his grasp; she was gone into the misty,
+threatening grayness that had closed in about them while love had
+carried them beyond their depths. Then the rain began to fall--heavy,
+warning drops. The wind, too, was rising sullenly like a monster roused
+from its sleep and slowly gathering power to vent its rage.
+
+Into this darkening storm Nella-Rose fled unheedingly. She was not
+herself--not the girl of the woods, wise in mountain lore; she was
+bewitched and half mad with the bewildering emotions that, at one moment
+frightened her--the next, carried her closer to the spiritual than she
+had ever been.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Alone in his cabin, Truedale was conscious of a sort of groundless
+terror that angered him. The storm could not account for it--he had the
+advantage of ignorance there! Certainly his last half-hour could not be
+responsible for his sensations. He justified every minute of it by terms
+as old as man's desires and his resentment of restrictions. "Our lives
+are our own!" he muttered, setting to work to build a fire and to light
+the lamp. "They will all come around to my way of seeing things when I
+have made good and taken her back to them!"
+
+Still this arguing brought no peace, and more and more Truedale found
+himself relying upon Jim White's opinions. In that troubled hour the
+sheriff stood like a rugged sign post in the path. One unflinching
+finger pointed to the past; the other--to the future.
+
+"Well! I've chosen," thought Truedale; "it's the new way and--thank
+God!" But he felt that the future could be made possible or miserable by
+Jim's favour or disapproval.
+
+Having decided to follow upon White's counsel, Truedale mentally prayed
+for his return, and at once. The fact was, Truedale was drugged and he
+had just sense enough left to know it! He vaguely realized that the
+half-hour with Nella-Rose had been a dangerous epoch in his life. He was
+safe, thank heaven! but he dared not trust himself just now without a
+stronger will to guide him!
+
+While he busied himself at feeding the animals, preparing and clearing
+away his own evening meal, he grew calmer. The storm was gaining in
+fury--and he was thankful for it! He was shut away from possible
+temptation; he even found it easy to think of Kendall and of Lynda, but
+he utterly eliminated his uncle from his mind. Between him and old
+William Truedale the gulf seemed to have become impassable!
+
+And while Truedale sank into an unsafe mental calm, Nella-Rose pushed
+her way into the teeth of the storm and laughed and chattered like a mad
+and lost little nymph. Wind and rain always exhilarated her and the fury
+of the elements, gaining force every minute, did not alarm her while the
+memory of her great experience held sway over her. She shook her hair
+back from her wide, vague eyes. She was undecided where to go for the
+night--it did not matter greatly; to-morrow she would go again to
+Truedale, or he would come to her. At last she settled upon seeking the
+shelter of old Lois Ann, in Devil-may-come Hollow, and turned in that
+direction.
+
+It was eight o'clock then and Truedale, with his books and papers on
+the table before him, declared: "I am quite all right now," and fell to
+work upon the manuscript that earlier had engrossed him.
+
+As the time sped by he was able to visualize the play; _he_ was sitting
+in the audience--he beheld the changing scenes and the tense climax. He
+even began to speculate upon the particular star that would be fitted
+for the leading part. His one extravagance, in the past, had been
+cut-rate seats in the best theatres.
+
+Suddenly the mood passed and all at once Truedale realized that he was
+tired--deadly tired. The perspiration stood on his forehead--he ached
+from the strain of cramped muscles. Then he looked at his watch; it was
+eleven o'clock! The stillness out of doors bespoke a sullen break in the
+storm. A determined drip-drip from roof and trees was like the ticking
+of a huge clock running down, but good for some time. The fire had died
+out, not a bit of red showed in the ashes, but the room was hot, still.
+Truedale decided to go to bed without it, and, having come to that
+conclusion, he bent his head upon his folded arms and sank into a deep
+sleep.
+
+Suddenly he awoke. The room was cold and dark! The lamp had burned
+itself out and the storm was again howling in its second attack. Chilled
+and obsessed by an unnerving sense of danger, Truedale waited for--he
+knew not what! Just then something pressed against his leg and he put
+his hand down thinking one of the dogs was crouching close, but a
+whispered "sh!" set every muscle tense.
+
+"Nella-Rose?"
+
+"Yes--but, oh! be mighty still. They may be here any minute."
+
+"They? Who?"
+
+"All of them. Jed Martin, my father, and the others--the ones who are
+friends of--of--"
+
+"Whom, Nella-Rose?"
+
+"Burke Lawson! He's back--and they think--oh! they think they are on his
+trail--here! I--I was trying to get away but the streams were swollen
+and the big trees were bending and--and I hid behind a rock and--I
+heard!
+
+"First it was Jed and father; they said they were going to shoot--they'd
+given up catching Burke alive! Then they went up-stream and the--the
+others came--the friends, and they 'lowed that Burke was here and they
+meant to get here before Jed and--and da some killing on their side.
+I--I thought it was fun when they-all meant to take Burke alive, but
+now--oh! now can't you see?--they'll shoot and find out afterward! They
+may come any minute! I put the light out. Come, we must leave the cabin
+empty-looking--like you had gone--and hide!"
+
+The breathless whispering stopped and Truedale collected his senses in
+the face of this real danger.
+
+"But you--you must not be here, Nella-Rose!"
+
+Every nerve was alert now. "This is pure madness. Great heavens! what
+am I going to do with you?"
+
+The seriousness of the situation overpowered him.
+
+"Sh!" The warning was caused by the restlessness of the dogs outside.
+Their quick ears were sensing danger or--the coming of their master!
+Either possibility was equally alarming.
+
+"Oh! you do not understand," Nella-Rose was pleading by his knee. "If
+they-all see you, they will have you killed that minute. Burke is the
+only one in their minds--they don't even know that you live; they're too
+full of Burke, and if they see me--why--they'd kill you anyway."
+
+"But what can I do with you?" That thought alone swayed Truedale.
+
+Then Nella-Rose got upon her feet and stood close to him.
+
+"I'm yours! I gave myself to you. You--you wanted me. Are you sorry?"
+
+The simple pride and dignity went straight to Truedale's heart.
+
+"It's because I want you so, little girl, that I must save you."
+
+Somehow Nella-Rose seemed to have lost her fear of the oncoming raiders;
+she spoke deliberately, and above a whisper:
+
+"Save me?--from what?"
+
+There were no words to convey to her his meaning. Truedale felt almost
+ashamed to hold it in his own mind. They so inevitably belonged to each
+other; why should they question?
+
+"I--I shall not go away--again!"
+
+"My darling, you must."
+
+"Where?"
+
+The word brought him to his senses--where, indeed? With the dark woods
+full of armed men ready to fire at any moving thing in human shape, he
+could not let her go! That conclusion reached, and all anchors cut, the
+danger and need of the hour claimed him.
+
+"Yes; you are mine!" he whispered, gathering her to him. "What does
+anything matter but our safety to-night? To-morrow; well, to-morrow--"
+
+"Sh!"
+
+No ear but one trained to the secrets of the still places could have
+detected a sound.
+
+"They are coming! Yes, not the many--it is Jed! Come! While you slept I
+carried a right many things to the rhododendron slick back of the house!
+See, push over the chair--leave the door open like you'd gone away
+before the storm."
+
+Quickly and silently Nella-Rose suited action to word. Truedale watched
+her like one bewitched. "Now!" She took him by the hand and the next
+minute they were out on the wet, sodden leaves; the next they were
+crouching close under the bushes where even the heavy rain had not
+penetrated. Half-consciously Truedale recognized some of his property
+near by--his clothing, two or three books, and--yes--it was his
+manuscript! The white roll was safe! How she must have worked while he
+slept.
+
+Once only did she speak until danger was past. Nestling close in his
+arms, her head upon his shoulder, she breathed:
+
+"If they-all shoot, we'll die together!"
+
+The unreality of the thing gradually wore upon Truedale's tense nerves.
+If anything was going to happen he wanted it to happen! In another
+half-hour he meant to put an end to the farce and move his belongings
+back to the cabin and take Nella-Rose home. It was a nightmare--nothing
+less!
+
+"Sh!" and then the waiting was over. Two dark figures, guns ready, stole
+from the woods behind White's cabin. Where were the dogs? Why did they
+not speak out?--but the dogs were trained to be as silent as the men.
+They were all part and parcel of the secret lawlessness of the hills. In
+the dim light Truedale watched the shadowy forms enter Jim's unlocked
+cabin and presently issue forth, evidently convinced that the prey was
+not there--had not been there! Then as stealthy as Indians they made
+their way to the other cabin--Truedale's late shelter. They kept to the
+bushes and the edge of the woods--they were like creeping animals until
+they reached the shack; then, standing erect and close, they went in the
+doorway. So near was the hiding place of Truedale and his companion
+that they could hear the oaths of the hunters as they became aware that
+their quarry had escaped.
+
+"He's been here, all right!" It was Jed Martin who spoke.
+
+"I reckon he's caught on," Peter Greyson drawled, "he's makin' for Jim
+White. White ain't more'n fifteen miles back; we can cut him off, Jed,
+'fore he reaches safety--the skunk!"
+
+Then the two emerged from the cabin and strode boldly away.
+
+"The others!" whispered Truedale--"will they come?"
+
+"Wait!"
+
+There was a stir--a trampling--but apparently the newcomers did not see
+Martin and Greyson. There was a crackling of underbrush by feet no
+longer feeling need of caution, then another space of silence before
+safety was made sure for the two in the bushes.
+
+At last Truedale dared to speak.
+
+"Nella-Rose!" He looked down at the face upon his breast. She was
+asleep--deeply, exhaustedly asleep!
+
+Truedale shifted his position. He was cramped and aching; still the even
+breathing did not break. He laid her down gently and put a heavy coat
+about her--one that earlier she had carried from the cabin in her effort
+to save him. He went to the house and grimly set to work. First he
+lighted a fire; then he righted the chairs and brought about some order
+from the chaos. He was no longer afraid of any man on God's earth; even
+Jim White was relegated to the non-essentials. Truedale was merely a
+primitive creature caring for his own! There was no turning back now--no
+waiting upon conventions. When he had made ready he was going out to
+bring his own to her home!
+
+The sullen, soggy night, with its bursts of fury and periods of calm,
+had settled down, apparently, to a drenching, businesslike rain. The
+natives knew how to estimate such weather. By daylight the streams would
+be raging rivers on whose currents trees and animals would be carried
+ruthlessly to the lowlands. Roads would be obliterated and human beings
+would seek shelter wherever they could find it.
+
+But Truedale was spared the worry this knowledge might have brought him.
+He concentrated now upon the present and grimly accepted conditions as
+they were. All power or inclination for struggle was past; the
+inheritance of weakness which old William Truedale had feared and with
+which Conning himself had so contended in his barren youth, asserted
+itself and prepared to take unquestioningly what the present offered.
+
+At that moment Truedale believed himself arbiter of his own fate and
+Nella-Rose's. Conditions had forced him to this position and he was
+ready to assume responsibility. There was no alternative; he must
+accept things as they were and make them secure later on. For himself
+the details of convention did not matter. He had always despised them.
+In his youthful spiritual anarchy he had flouted them openly; they made
+no claim upon his attention now, except where Nella-Rose was concerned.
+Appearances were against him and her, but none but fools would allow
+that to daunt them. He, Truedale, felt that no law of man was needed to
+hold him to the course he had chosen, back on the day when he determined
+to forsake the past and fling his fortunes in with the new. Never in his
+life was Conning Truedale more sincere or, he believed, more wise, than
+he was at that moment. And just then Nella-Rose appeared coming down the
+rain-drenched path like a little ghost in the grim, gray dawn. She still
+wore the heavy coat he had put about her, and her eyes were dreamy and
+vague.
+
+Truedale strode toward her and took her in his arms.
+
+"My darling," he whispered, "are you able to come with me now--at
+once--to the minister? It must be now, sweetheart--now!"
+
+She looked at him like a child trying to understand his mood.
+
+"Oh!" she said presently, "I 'most forgot. The minister has gone to a
+burying back in the hills; he'll be gone a right long time. Bill Trim,
+who carries all the news, told me to-day."
+
+"Where is he, Nella-Rose?" Something seemed tightening around
+Truedale's heart.
+
+"Us-all don't know; he left it written on his door."
+
+"Where is there another minister, Nella-Rose?"
+
+"There is no other."
+
+"This is absurd--of course there is another. We must start at once and
+find him."
+
+"Listen!" The face upon Truedale's breast was lifted. "You hear that?"
+
+"Yes. What is it?" Truedale was alarmed.
+
+"It means that the little streams are rivers; it means that the trails
+are full of rocks and trees; it means"--the words sank to an awed
+whisper--"it means that we must _fight_ for what we-all want to keep."
+
+"Good God! Nella-Rose, but where can I take you?"
+
+"There is no place--but here."
+
+It seemed an hour that the silence lasted while Truedale faced this new
+phase and came to his desperate conclusion.
+
+Had any one suggested to him then that his decision was the decision of
+weakness, or immemorial evil, he would have resented the thought with
+bitterest scorn. Unknowingly he was being tempted by the devil in him,
+and he fell; he had only himself to look to for salvation from his
+mistaken impulses, and his best self, unprepared, was drugged by the
+overpowering appeal that Nella-Rose made to his senses.
+
+Standing with the girl in his arms; listening to the oncoming danger
+which, he realized at last, might destroy him and her at any moment;
+bereft of every one--everything that could have held them to the old
+ideals; Truedale saw but one course--and took it.
+
+"There is no place but here--no one but you and me!"
+
+The soft tones penetrated to the troubled place where Truedale seemed to
+stand alone making his last, losing fight.
+
+"Then, by heaven!" he said, "let us accept it--you and I!"
+
+He had crossed his Rubicon.
+
+They ate, almost solemnly; they listened to that awful roar growing more
+and more distinct and menacing. Nella-Rose was still and watchful, but
+Truedale had never been more cruelly alive than he was then when, with
+his wider knowledge, he realized the step he had taken. Whether it were
+for life or death, he had blotted out effectually all that had gone to
+the making of the man he once was. Whatever hope he might have had of
+making Lynda Kendall and Brace understand, had things gone as he once
+had planned, there was no hope now. No--he and Nella-Rose were alone and
+helpless in the danger-haunted hills. He and she!
+
+The sun made an effort to come forth later but the rush and roar of the
+oncoming torrent seemed to daunt it. For an hour it struggled, then gave
+up. But during that hour Truedale led Nella-Rose from the house.
+Silently they made their way to a little hilltop from which they could
+see an open space of dull, leaden sky. There Truedale took the girl's
+hands in his and lifted his eyes while his benumbed soul sought whatever
+God there might be.
+
+"In Thy sight," he said slowly, deeply, "I take this woman for my wife.
+Bless us; keep us; and"--after a pause--"deal Thou with me as I deal
+with her."
+
+Then the earnest eyes dropped to the frightened ones searching his face.
+
+"You are mine!" Truedale spoke commandingly, with a force that never
+before had marked him.
+
+"Yes." The word was a faint, frightened whisper.
+
+"My darling, kiss me!"
+
+She kissed him with trembling lips.
+
+"You love me?"
+
+"I--I love you."
+
+"You--you trust me?"
+
+"I--oh! yes; yes."
+
+"Then come, my doney-gal! For life or death, it is you and I, little
+woman, from now on!"
+
+Like a flash his gloom departed. He was gay, desperate, and free of all
+hampering doubts. In such a mood Nella-Rose lost all fear of him and
+walked by his side as complacently as if the one minister in her sordid
+little world had with all his strange authority said his sacred "Amen"
+over her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+There were five days of terrific storm. Truedale and Nella-Rose had
+fought to save White's live stock--even his cabin itself; for the deluge
+had attacked that while leaving safe the smaller cabin near by. All one
+morning they had worked gathering debris and placing it so that it
+turned the course of a rapid stream that threatened the larger house. It
+had been almost a lost hope, but as the day wore on the torrent
+lessened, the rough barrier held--they were successful! The gate and
+snake-fence were carried away, but the rest was saved!
+
+In the strenuous labour, in the dangerous isolation, the ordinary things
+of life lost their importance. With death facing them their love and
+companionship were all that were left to them and neither counted the
+cost. But on the sixth day the sun shone, the flood was past, and with
+safety and the sure coming of Jim White at hand, they sat confronting
+each other in a silence new and potent.
+
+"Sweetheart, you must go--for a few hours!"
+
+Truedale bent across the table that separated them and took her clasped
+hands in his. He had burned all his social bridges, but poor
+Nella-Rose's progress through life had not been made over anything so
+substantial as bridges. She had proceeded by scrambling down and up
+primitive obstacles; she felt that at last she had come to her Land of
+Promise.
+
+"You are going to send me--away? Where?"
+
+"Only until White returns, little girl. See here, dear, you and I are
+quite gloriously mad, but others are stupidly sane and we've got to
+think of them."
+
+Truedale was talking over her head, but already Nella-Rose accepted this
+as a phase of their new relations. A mountain man might still love his
+woman even if he beat her and, while Nella-Rose would have scorned the
+suggestion that she was a mountain woman, she did seriously believe that
+men were different from women and that was the end of the matter!
+
+"You run along, small girl of mine--the skies are clear, the sun
+warm--but I want you to meet me at three o'clock at the spot where the
+trail joins the road. I will be there and I will wait for you."
+
+"But why?--why?" The blue-gray eyes were troubled.
+
+"Sweetheart, we're going to find that minister of yours if we have to
+travel from one end of the hills to the other!"
+
+"But we-all are married!" This with a little gasp. "Back on the hill,
+when you told God and said He understood; then we-all were married."
+
+"And so we were, my sweet, no minister could make you more mine than
+you already are, but the others--your people. Should they try to
+separate us they might cause trouble and the minister can make it
+impossible for any one to take you away from my love and care."
+
+And at that moment Truedale actually believed what he said. In his heart
+he had always been a rebel--defiant and impotent. He had, in this
+instance, proved his theories; but he did not intend to leave loose ends
+that might endanger the safety of others--of this young girl, most of
+all. He was only going to carry out his original plans for her
+safety--not his own. After the days just past--days of anxiety, relief,
+and the proving of his love and hers--no doubt remained in Truedale's
+heart; he was of the hills, now and forever!
+
+"No one can--_now_!" This came passionately from Nella-Rose as she
+watched him.
+
+"They might make trouble until they found that out. They're too free
+with their guns. There's a lot to explain, little doney-gal." Conning
+smiled down her doubts.
+
+"Until three o'clock!" Nella-Rose pouted, "that's a right long time. But
+I'll--just run along. Always and always I'm going to do what you say!"
+Already his power over her was absolute. She put her arms out with a
+happy, wilful gesture and Truedale held her closer.
+
+"Only until three, sweetheart."
+
+Nella-Rose drew herself away and turned to pick up her little shawl and
+hat from the couch by the fire; she was just reaching for her basket,
+when a shadow fell across the floor. Truedale and the girl turned and
+confronted--Jim White! What he had seen and heard--who could tell from
+his expressionless face and steady voice? The door had been on the latch
+and he had come in!
+
+"Mail, and truck, and rabbits!" he explained, tossing his load upon the
+table. Then he turned toward Truedale as if noticing him for the first
+time.
+
+"How-de?" he said. Finally his gaze shifted to Nella-Rose and seemed to
+burn into her soul.
+
+"Goin', p'r'aps, or--comin'?" he questioned.
+
+"I--I am--going!" Fright and dismay marked the girl's voice. Truedale
+went toward her. The covert brutality in White's words shocked and
+angered him. He gave no thought to the cause, but he resented the
+insult.
+
+"Wait!" he commanded, for Nella-Rose was gone through the open door.
+"Wait!"
+
+Seeing that she had for the moment escaped him, Truedale turned to White
+and confronted him with clear, angry eyes.
+
+"What have you got to say for yourself?" he demanded fiercely.
+
+The shock had been tremendous for Jim. Three weeks previously he had
+left his charge safe and alone; he had come back and found--But shock
+always stiffened Jim White; that was one reason for his success in life.
+He was never so inflexible and deadly self-possessed as he was when he
+could not see the next step ahead.
+
+"Gawd, but I'm tired!" he said, when he had stared at Truedale as long
+as he cared to, "I'm going over to my place to turn in. Seems like I'll
+sleep for a month once I get started."
+
+"You don't go, White, until you explain what you meant by--"
+
+But Truedale mistook his man. Jim, having drawn his own conclusion,
+laughed and strode toward the door.
+
+"I go when I'm damned pleased ter go!" he flung out derisively, "and I
+come the same way, young feller. There's mail for yo' in the sack and--a
+telegram." White paused by the door a moment while Truedale picked the
+yellow envelope from the bag and tore it open.
+
+     "Your uncle died suddenly on the 16th. Come at once. Vitally
+     important. McPHERSON."
+
+For a moment both men forgot the thing that had driven them wide apart.
+
+"Bad news?" asked the sheriff.
+
+Something was happening to Truedale--he felt as if the effect of some
+narcotic were losing its power; the fevered unreality was giving place
+to sensation but the brain was recording it dully.
+
+"What date is this?" he asked, dazed.
+
+"Twenty-fifth," Jim replied as he moved out of the door.
+
+"When can I get a train from the station?"
+
+"There's one as leaves anywhere 'twixt nine and ten ter-night."
+
+"That gives me time to pack. See here, White, while it isn't any of your
+business, I want to explain a thing or two--before I go. I'll be back as
+soon as I can--in a week or ten days at furthest. When I return I intend
+to stay on, probably for the rest of my life."
+
+White still held Truedale by the cold, steely gleam of his eyes which
+was driving lucidity home to the dulled brain. By a power as unyielding
+as death Jim was destroying the screen Truedale had managed to raise
+against the homely codes of life and was leaving his guest naked and
+exposed.
+
+The shock of the telegram--the pause it evolved--had given Truedale time
+to catch the meaning of White's attitude; now that he realized it, he
+knew he must lay certain facts open--he could not wait until his return.
+
+Presently Jim spoke from outside the door.
+
+"I ain't settin' up for no critic. I ain't by nater a weigher or trimmer
+and I don't care a durn for what ain't my business. When I _see_ my
+business I settle it in my own way!"--there was almost a warning in
+this. "I'm dead tired, root and branch. I'm goin' ter take a bite an'
+turn in. I may sleep a couple o' days; put off yo' 'splainifyin' 'til
+yo' come back ter end yo' days. Take the mare an' leave her by the
+trail; she'll come home. Tell old Doc McPherson I was askin' arter him."
+
+By that time Jim had ceased scorching his way to Truedale's soul and was
+on the path to his own cabin.
+
+"Looks like yo' had a tussle with the storm," he remarked. "Any livin'
+thing killed?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Thank yo'!" Then, as if determined not to share any further confidence,
+White strode on.
+
+For a moment Truedale stood and stared after his host in impotent rage.
+Was Jim White such a lily of purity that he presumed to take that
+attitude? Was the code of the hills that of the Romany gypsies? How dare
+any man judge and sentence another without trial?
+
+The effect of the narcotic still worked sluggishly, now that White's
+irritating presence was removed. Truedale shrugged his shoulders and
+turned to his packing. He was feverishly eager to get to Nella-Rose.
+Before nightfall she would be his before the world; in two weeks he
+would be back; the future would shame White and bring him to his senses.
+Jim had a soft heart; he was just, in his brutal fashion. When he
+understood how matters were, he would feel like the fool he was--a fool
+willing to cast a man off, unheard! But Truedale blamed himself for the
+hesitation that meant so much. The telegram--his fear of making a wrong
+step--had caused the grave mistake that could not be righted now.
+
+At two o'clock Truedale started--on Jim's mare! White's cabin had all
+the appearance of being barred against intrusion. Truedale did not mean
+to test this, but it hurt him like a blow. However, there was nothing to
+do but remedy, as soon as possible, the error he had permitted to arise.
+No man on earth could make Nella-Rose more his than his love and good
+faith had made her, still he was eager now to resort to all the
+time-honoured safeguards before he left. Once married he would go with a
+heart almost light. He would confide everything to Kendall and Lynda--at
+least he would his marriage--and urge them to return with him to the
+hills, and after that White and all the others would have an awakening.
+The possibility thus conceived was like a flood of light and sweet air
+in a place dark and bewildering but not evil--no, not that!
+
+As he turned from the clearing Truedale looked back at his cabin.
+Nella-Rose seemed still there. She would always be part of it just as
+she was now part of his life. He would try and buy the cabin--it would
+be sacrilege for others to enter!
+
+So he hurried the mare on, hoping to be at the crossing before
+Nella-Rose.
+
+The crisp autumn air was redolent of pines and the significance of
+summer long past. It had a physical and spiritual power.
+
+Then turning suddenly from the trail, Truedale saw Nella-Rose sitting on
+a rock--waiting! She had on a rough, mannish-looking coat, and a coarse,
+red hood covered her bright head. Nella-Rose was garbed in winter
+attire. She had worn this outfit for five years and it looked it.
+
+Never again was Truedale to see a face of such radiant joy and trust as
+the girl turned upon him. Her eyes were wide and filled with a light
+that startled him. He jumped from the horse and took her in his arms.
+
+"What is it?" he asked, fearing some intangible danger.
+
+"The minister was killed by the flood!" Nella-Rose's tones were
+thrilling. "He was going through Devil-may-come Hollow and a mighty big
+rock struck him and--he's dead!"
+
+"Then you must come with me, Nella-Rose." Truedale set his lips grimly;
+there was no time to lose. Between three and nine o'clock surely they
+could locate a minister or a justice of the peace. "Come!"
+
+"But why, Mister Man?" She laughed up at him. "Where?"
+
+"It doesn't matter. To New York if necessary. Jump up!" He turned to the
+horse, holding the girl close.
+
+"Me go away--in this? Me shame you before--them-all?"
+
+Nella-Rose stood her ground and throwing the rough coat back displayed
+her shabby, shrunken dress.
+
+"I went home--they-all were away. I got my warm things, but I have a
+white dress and a pink ribbon--I'll get them to-morrow. Then--But why
+must we go--away?"
+
+For the first time this thought caught her--she had been whirled along
+too rapidly before to note it.
+
+"I have had word that my uncle is dead. I must go at once, my dear, and
+you--you must come with me. Would you let a little thing like a--a dress
+weigh against our love, and honour?"
+
+Above the native's horror of being dragged from her moorings was that
+subtle understanding of honour that had come to Nella-Rose by devious
+ways from a source that held it sacred.
+
+"Honour?" she repeated softly; "honour? If I thought I had to go in rags
+to make you sure; if I thought I needed to--I'd--"
+
+Truedale saw his mistake. Realizing that if in the little time yet his
+he made her comprehend, he might lose more than he could hope to gain,
+he let her free while he took a card and pen from his pocket. He wrote
+clearly and exactly his address, giving his uncle's home as his.
+
+"Nella-Rose," he said calmly, "I shall be back in two or three weeks at
+the latest, but if at any moment you want me, send word here--telegraph
+from the station--_you_ come first, always! You are wiser than I, my
+sweet; our honour and love are our own. Wait for me, my doney-gal
+and--trust me."
+
+She was all joy again--all sweetness. He kissed her, turned, then came
+back.
+
+"Where will you go, my darling?" he asked.
+
+"Since they-all do not know"--she was lying against his breast, her eyes
+heavy now with grief at the parting--"I reckon I will go home--to wait."
+
+Solemnly Truedale kissed her and turned dejectedly away. Once again he
+paused and looked back. She stood against the tree, small and shabby,
+but the late afternoon sun transfigured her. In the gloomy setting of
+the woods, that fair, little face shone like a gleaming star and so
+Truedale remembered her and took her image with him on his lonely way.
+
+Nella-Rose watched him out of sight and then she turned and did
+something that well might make one wonder if a wise God or a cruel demon
+controls our fates--she ran away from the home path and took the trail
+leading far back to the cabin of old Lois Ann!
+
+There was safety; there were compassion and comprehension. The old woman
+could tell marvellous tales and so could beguile the waiting days.
+Nella-Rose meant to confide in her and ask her to hide her until
+Truedale came for her. It was a sudden inspiration and it brought
+relief.
+
+And that night--it was past midnight and cold as the north land--Burke
+Lawson came face to face with Jed Martin! Lawson was issuing from his
+cranny behind the old still and Martin was nosing about alone. He, like
+a hungry thing of the wilds, had found his foe's trail and meant to bag
+him unaided and have full vengeance and glory. But so unexpectedly, and
+alarmingly unconcerned, did Burke materialize in the emptiness that
+Jed's gun was a minute too late in getting into position. Lawson had the
+drop on him! They were both very quiet for a moment, then Lawson laughed
+and did it so boldly that Jed shrank back.
+
+"Coming to make a friendly call, Martin?"
+
+"Something like that!"
+
+"Well, come in, come right in!"
+
+"I reckon you an' me can settle what we've got ter settle in the open!"
+Jed stuttered. It seemed a hideous, one-sided settlement.
+
+"As yo' please, Jed, as yo' please. I have a leanin' to the open myself.
+I'd just decided ter come out; I was going up ter Jim White's and help
+him mete out justice, but maybe you and me can save him the trouble."
+
+"You--goin' ter shoot me, Burke--like a--like a--hedgehog?"
+
+"No. I'm goin' ter do unto yo' as yo' would have--" Here Burke
+laughed--he was enjoying himself hugely.
+
+"What yo' mean?"
+
+"Well, I'm goin' ter put yer in my quarters and tie yer to a chair.
+Yo'll be able to wiggle out in time, but it will take yer long enough
+fur me to do what I'm set about doin'. Yo' torn down traitor!--yo' were
+'lowing to put me behind bars, wasn't yer? Yo' meant to let outsiders
+take the life out o' me--yo' skunk! Well, instead, Jed--I'm goin' on my
+weddin' trip--me and lil' Nella-Rose. I've seen her; she done promised
+to have me, when I come out o' hidin'. I'm coming out now! Nella-Rose
+an' me are goin' to find a bigger place than Pine Cone Settlement. Yo'll
+wiggle yer blasted hide loose by mornin' maybe; but then her an' me'll
+be where you-all can't ketch us! Go in there, now, you green lizard;
+turn about an' get on yer belly like the crawlin' thing yo' are! That's
+it--go! the way opens up."
+
+Jed was crawling through the bushes, Lawson after him with levelled gun.
+"Now, then, take a seat an' make yerself ter home!" Jed got to the chair
+and turned a green-white face upon his tormentor.
+
+"Yer goin' ter let me starve here?" he asked with shaking voice.
+
+"That depends on yo' power to wiggle. See, I tie you so!" Lawson had
+pounced upon Jed and had him pinioned. "I ain't goin' ter turn a key on
+yer like yo' was aimin' ter do on me! It's up to yo' an' yer wigglin'
+powers, when yo' get free. The emptier yer belly is, the more room
+ye'll have fer wiggling. God bless yer! yer dog-gone hound! Bless yer
+an'--curse yer! I'm off--with the doney-gal!"
+
+And off he was--he and his cruel but gay laugh.
+
+There was no fire in the cave-like place; no light but the indirect
+moonlight which slanted through the opening. It was death or wiggle for
+Jed Martin--so he wiggled!
+
+In the meantime, Burke headed for Jim White's. He meant to play a high
+game there--to fling himself on White's mercy--appeal to the liking he
+knew the sheriff had for him--confess his love for Nella-Rose--make his
+promise for future redemption and then go, scot-free, to claim the girl
+who had declared he might speak when once again he dared walk upright
+among his fellows. So Lawson planned and went bravely to the doing of
+it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+At Washington, Truedale telegraphed to Brace Kendall. He felt, as he
+drew nearer and nearer to the old haunts, like a stranger, and a blind,
+groping one at that. The noises of the city disturbed and confused him;
+the crowds irritated him. When he remembered the few weeks that lay
+between the present and the days when he was part and parcel of this
+so-called life, he experienced a sensation of having died and been
+compelled to return to earth to finish some business carelessly
+overlooked. He meant to rectify the omission as soon as possible and get
+back to the safety and peace of the hills. How different it all would be
+with settled ideas, definite work, and Nella-Rose!
+
+While waiting for his train in the Washington station he was startled to
+find that, of a sudden, he was adrift between the Old and the New. If he
+repudiated the past, the future as sternly repudiated him. He could not
+reconcile his love and desire with his identity. Somehow the man he had
+left, when he went South, appeared now to have been waiting for him on
+his return, and while his plans, nicely arranged, seemed feasible the
+actual readjustment struck him as lurid and impossible. The fact was
+that his experience of life in Pine Cone made him now shrink from
+contact with the outside world as one of its loyal natives might have
+done. It could no more survive in the garish light of a city day than
+little Nella-Rose could have. That conclusion reached, Truedale was
+comforted. He could not lure his recent past to this environment, but so
+long as it lay safe and ready to welcome him when he should return, he
+could be content. So he relegated it with a resigned sigh, as he might
+have done the memory of a dear, absent friend, to the time when he could
+call it forth to some purpose.
+
+It was well he could do this, for with the coming of Brace Kendall upon
+the scene all romantic sensation was excluded as though by an icy-clear,
+north wind. Brace was at the New York station--Brace with the armour of
+familiarity and unbounded friendliness. "Old Top!" he called Truedale,
+and shook hands with him so vigorously that the last remnant of thought
+that clung to the distant mountains was freed from the present.
+
+"Well, of all the miracles! Why, Con, I bet you tip the scales at a
+hundred and sixty. And look at your paw! Why, it's callous and actually
+horny! And the colour you've got! Lord, man! you're made over.
+
+"You're to come to your uncle's house, Con. It's rather a shock, but we
+got you as soon as we could. In the meantime, we've followed directions.
+The will has not been read, of course, but there was a letter found in
+your uncle's desk that commanded--that's the only word to express it,
+really--Lynda and you and me to come to the old house right after the
+funeral. We waited to hear from you, Con, but since you could not get
+here we had to do the best we could. Dr. McPherson took charge."
+
+"I was buried pretty deep in the woods, Ken, and there was a bad hitch
+in the delivery of the telegram. Such things do not count down where I
+was. But I'm glad about the old house--glad you and Lynda are there."
+
+"Con!"--and at this Brace became serious--"I think we rather overdid our
+estimate of your uncle. Since his--his going, we've seen him, Lyn and I,
+in a new light. He was quite--well, quite a sentimentalist! But
+see--here we are!"
+
+"The house looks different already!" Conning said, leaning from the cab
+window.
+
+"Yes, Lyn's had a lot to do, but she's managed to make a home of the
+place in the short time."
+
+Lynda Kendall had heard the sound of wheels in the quiet street--had set
+the door of welcome open herself, and now stood in the panel of light
+with outstretched hands. Like a revelation Truedale seemed to take in
+the whole picture at once. Behind the girl lay the warm, bright hall
+that had always been so empty and drear in his boyhood. It was furnished
+now. Already it had the look of having been lived in for years. There
+were flowers in a tall jar on the table and a fire on the broad hearth.
+And against this background stood the strong, fine form of the young
+mistress.
+
+"Welcome home, Con!"
+
+Truedale, for a moment, dared not trust his voice. He gripped her hands
+and felt as if he were emerging from a trance. Then, of a sudden, a deep
+resentment overpowered him. They could not understand, of course, but
+every word and tone of appropriation seemed an insult to the reality
+that he knew existed. He no longer belonged to them, to the life into
+which they were trying to draw him. To-morrow he would explain; he was
+eager to do so and end the restraint that sprang into being the moment
+he touched Lynda's hands.
+
+Lynda watched the tense face confronting her and believed Conning was
+suffering pangs of remorse and regret. She was filled with pity and
+sympathy shone in her eyes. She led him to the library and there
+familiarity greeted him--the room was unchanged. Lynda had respected
+everything; it was as it always had been except that the long, low chair
+was empty.
+
+They talked together softly in the quiet place until dinner--talked of
+indifferent things, realizing that they must keep on the surface.
+
+"This room and his bedchamber, Con," Lynda explained, "are the same.
+For the rest? Well, I hope you will like it."
+
+Truedale did like it. He gave an exclamation of delight when later they
+entered the dining room, which had never been furnished in the past;
+like much of the house it had been a sad tribute to the emptiness and
+disappointment that had overcome William Truedale's life. Now it shone
+with beauty and cheer.
+
+"It is not merely a place in which to eat," explained Lynda; "a dining
+room should be the heart of the home, as the library is the soul."
+
+"Think of living up to that!"--Brace gave a laugh--"and not having it
+interfere with your appetite!" They were all trying to keep cheerful
+until such time as they dared recall the recent past without restraint.
+
+Such an hour came when they gathered once more in the library. Brace
+seized his pipe in the anticipation of play upon his emotions. By tacit
+consent the low chair was left vacant and by a touch of imagination it
+almost seemed as if the absent master were waiting to be justified.
+
+"And now," Truedale said, huskily, "tell me all, Lynda."
+
+"He and I were sitting here just as we all are sitting now, that last
+night. He had forgiven me for--for staying away" (Lynda's voice shook),
+"and we were very happy and confidential. I told him some things--quite
+intimate things, and he, well, he came out of his reserve and gruffness,
+Con--he let me see the real man he was! I suppose while he had been
+alone--for I had neglected him--he had had time to think, to regret his
+mistakes; he was very just--even with himself. Con"--and here Lynda had
+to pause and get control of herself--"he--he once loved my mother! He
+bought this house hoping she would come and, as its mistress, make it
+beautiful. When my mother married my father, nothing mattered--nothing
+about the house, I mean. Before my mother died she told me--to be kind
+to Uncle William. She, in a sacred way, left him to me; me to him. That
+was one of the things I told him that last night. I wish I had told him
+long ago!" The words were passionate and remorseful. "Oh, it might have
+eased his pain and loneliness. When shall we ever learn to say the right
+thing when it is most needed? Well, after I had told him he--he grew
+very still. It was a long time before he spoke--the joy was sinking in,
+I saw that, and it carried the bitterness away. When he did speak he
+made me understand that he could not trust himself further on that
+subject, but he tried to--to explain about you, Con. Poor man! He
+realized that he had made a failure as a guide; but in his own way he
+had endeavoured to be a guardian. You know his disease developed just
+before you came into his life. Con, he lived all through the years just
+for you--just to stand by!"
+
+From out the shadow where he sat, Brace spoke unevenly:
+
+"Too bad you don't--smoke, old man!" It was the only suggestion he had
+to offer in the tense silence that gripped them all.
+
+"It's all right!" Truedale said heavily. "Go on when you can, Lynda."
+
+"Do you--remember your father, Con?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, your uncle feared that too much ease and money might--"
+
+"I--I begin to understand."
+
+"So he went to the other extreme. Every step of your well-fought way was
+joy to him--the only joy he knew. From his detachment and loneliness he
+planned--almost plotted--for you, but he did not tell you. It would all
+have been so different--oh! so different if we had all known. Then he
+told me a little--about his will."
+
+No one saw the sudden crimson that dyed Lynda's white face and throat.
+"He was very fantastic about that. He made certain arrangements that
+were to take effect at once. He has left you three thousand a year, Con,
+without any restrictions whatever. He told me that. He left his servants
+and employees generous annuities. He left me this house--for my mother's
+sake. He insisted that it should be a home at last. A large sum is
+provided for its furnishing and upkeep--I'm a trustee! The most
+beautiful thing, perhaps, was the thought expressed in these words of
+his, 'I want you to do your mother's work and mine, while still
+following your own rightful desires. Make this house a place of welcome,
+peace, and friendliness!' I mean to do my best, Con."
+
+"And he's left me"--Brace found relief in the one touch of humour that
+presented itself--"he's left me a thousand dollars as a token of his
+appreciation of my loyalty to you, when you most needed it."
+
+But Truedale hardly heeded. His eyes were fixed upon the empty chair
+and, since he had not understood in the past, he could not express
+himself now. He was suffering the torture that all feel when, too late,
+revealment makes clear what never should have been hidden.
+
+"And then"--Lynda's low, even voice went on--"he sent me away and Thomas
+put him to bed. He asked for some medicine that it seems he always had
+in case of need; he took too much--and--"
+
+"So it was suicide!" Truedale broke in desperately. "I feared that. Good
+God!" The tragedy and loneliness clutched his imagination--he seemed to
+see it all, it was unbearable!
+
+"Con!" Lynda laid her firm hand upon his arm, "I have learned to call it
+something else. It has helped me; perhaps it will help you. He had
+waited wearily on this side of the door of release; he--he told me that
+he was going on a long journey he had often contemplated--I did not
+understand then! I fancy the--the journey was very short. There was no
+suffering. I wish you could have seen the peace and majesty of his face!
+He could wait no longer. Nothing mattered here, and all that he yearned
+for called loudly to him. He simply opened the door himself--and went
+out!"
+
+Truedale clasped the hand upon his arm. "Thank you, Lynda. I did not
+realize how kind you could be," was all he said.
+
+The logs fell apart and filled the room with a rich glow. Brace shook
+the ashes from his pipe upon the hearth--he felt now that he could trust
+himself.
+
+"For the future," Lynda's calm voice almost startled the two men by its
+practicability and purpose, "this is home--in the truest, biggest sense.
+No one shall even enter here and feel--friendless. This is my trust; it
+shall be as _he_ wished it, and I mean to have my own life, too! Why,
+the house is big enough for us all to live our lives and not interfere
+with each other. I mean to bring my private business here in the rooms
+over the extension. I'll keep the uptown office for interviews. And you,
+Con?"
+
+Truedale almost sprang to his feet, then, hands plunged in pockets, he
+said:
+
+"There does not seem to be anything for me to do; at least not until the
+will is read. I think I shall go back--I left things at loose ends;
+there will be time to consider--later."
+
+"But, Con, there is something for you to do. You will understand after
+you see the lawyers in the morning. There is a great deal of business:
+many interests of your uncle's that he expected you to represent in his
+name--to see that they were made secure. Dr. McPherson has told me
+something about the will--enough to help me to begin."
+
+Truedale looked blankly at Lynda. "Very well, after that--I will go
+back," he spoke almost harshly. "I will arrange affairs somehow. I'm no
+business man, but I daresay Uncle William chose wise assistants."
+
+"What's the matter with you, Con?" Brace eyed his friend critically;
+"you look fit as a fellow can. This has demanded a good deal of
+self-denial and faith from us all, but somehow this duty was the biggest
+thing in sight; we rather owe him that, I fancy. You know you cannot run
+to cover just now, old man. This has been a jog, but by morning you'll
+reconsider and play your part." There was a new note in Kendall's voice.
+It was a call to something he hoped was in his friend, but which he had
+never tested. There was a sudden fear, too, of the change that had come
+to Truedale. It was not all physical. There was a baffling suggestion of
+unreality about him that made him almost a stranger.
+
+"I dare say you are right, Ken." Truedale walked the length of the room
+and back. "I own to being cut up over this. I never did my part--I see
+that now--and of course I'll endeavour to do what I should. My body's
+all right but my nerves still jangle at a shock. To-morrow the whole
+thing will settle into shape. You and Lynda have been--well--I cannot
+express what I feel." He paused. The hour was late, and for the first
+time he seemed to realize that the old home was not his in the sense it
+once had been. Lynda understood the moment's hesitation and smiled
+slightly.
+
+"Con, there's one other thing in the house that remains as it was. Under
+the eaves the small room that was yours is yours still. I saw to it
+myself that not a book or picture was displaced. There are other rooms
+at your disposal--to share with us--but that room is yours, always."
+
+Truedale stood before Lynda and put out his hands in quite the old way.
+His eyes were dim and he said hoarsely: "That's about the greatest thing
+you've done yet, Lyn. Thank you. Good-night."
+
+At the door he hesitated--he felt he must speak, but to bring his own
+affairs into the tense and new conditions surrounding him seemed
+impossible. To-morrow he would explain everything. It was this slowness
+in reaching a decision that most defeated Truedale's best interest.
+While he deplored it--he seemed incapable of overcoming it.
+
+Alone in the little room, later, he let himself go. Burying his tired
+head upon his folded arms he gave himself up to waves of recollection
+that threatened to engulf him. Everything was as it always had been--a
+glance proved that. When he had parted from his uncle he had taken only
+such articles as pertained to his maturer years. The pictures on the
+walls--the few shabby books that had drifted into his lonely and
+misunderstood childhood--remained. There was the locked box containing,
+Conning knew full well, the pitiful but sacred attempts at
+self-expression. The key was gone, but he recollected every scrap of
+paper which lay hidden in the old, dented tin box. Presently he went to
+the dormer window and opened it wide. Leaning out he tried to find his
+way back to Pine Cone--to the future that was to be free of all these
+cramping memories and hurting restrictions--but the trail was too
+cluttered; he was lost utterly!
+
+"It is because they do not know," he thought. "After to-morrow it will
+be all right."
+
+Then he reflected that the three thousand dollars Lynda had mentioned
+would clear every obstacle from his path and Nella-Rose's. He no longer
+need struggle--he could give his time and care to her and his work. He
+did not consider the rest of his uncle's estate, it did not matter.
+Lynda was provided for and so was he. And then, for the first time in
+many days, Truedale speculated upon bringing Nella-Rose away from her
+hills. He found himself rather insisting upon it, until he brought
+himself to terms by remembering her as he had seen her last--clinging to
+her own, vehemently, passionately.
+
+"No, I've made my choice," he finally exclaimed; "the coming back
+unsettled me for the moment but her people shall be my people."
+
+Below stairs Lynda was humming softly an old tune--"The Song of
+To-morrow," it was called. It caught and held Truedale's imagination. He
+tried to recall the lines, but only the theme was clear. It was the
+everlasting Song of To-morrow, always the one tune set to changing
+ideals.
+
+It was the same idea as the philosophy about each man's "interpretation"
+of the story already written, which Conning had reflected upon so often.
+
+At this time Truedale believed he firmly accepted the principle of
+foreordination, or whatever one chose to call it. One followed the path
+upon which one's feet had been set. One might linger and wander, within
+certain limits, but always each must return to his destined trail!
+
+A distant church clock struck one; the house was still at last--deathly
+still. Two sounded, but Truedale thought on.
+
+He finally succeeded in eliminating the entangling circumstances that
+seemed to lie like a twisted skein in the years stretching between his
+going forth from his uncle's house to this night of return. He tried to
+understand himself, to estimate the man he was. In no egotistical sense
+did he do this, but sternly, deliberately, because he felt that the
+future demanded it. He must account to others, but first he must account
+to himself.
+
+He recalled his boyhood days when his uncle's distrust and apparent
+dislike of him had driven him upon himself, almost taking self-respect
+with it. He re-lived the barren years when, longing for love and
+companionship, he found solace in a cold pride that carried him along
+through school and into college, with a reputation for hard, unyielding
+work, and unsocial habits.
+
+How desperately lonely he had been--how cruelly underestimated--but he
+had made no outcry. He had lived his years uncomplainingly--not even
+voicing his successes and achievements. Through long practise in
+self-restraint, his strength lay in deliberate calculation--not
+indifferent action. He hid, from all but the Kendalls, his private
+ambitions and hopes. He studied in order that he might shake himself
+free from his uncle's hold upon him. He meant to pay every cent he had
+borrowed--to secure, by some position that would supply the bare
+necessities of life, time and opportunity for developing the talent he
+secretly believed was his. He was prepared, once loose from obligation
+to old William Truedale, to starve and prove his faith. And then--his
+breakdown had come!
+
+Cast adrift by loss of health, among surroundings that appealed to all
+that was most dangerous in his nature--believing that his former
+ambitions were defeated--old longings for love, understanding and
+self-revealment arose and conquered the weak creature he was. But they
+had appealed to the best in him--not the evillest--thank God! And now?
+Truedale raised his head and looked about in the dim room, as if to find
+the boy he once had been and reassure him.
+
+"There is no longer any excuse for hesitation and the damnable weakness
+of considering the next step," thought Truedale. "I have chosen my own
+course--chosen the simple and best things life has to offer. No man in
+God's world has a right to question my deeds. If they cannot understand,
+more's the pity."
+
+And in that hour and conclusion, the indifference and false pride that
+had upheld Truedale in the past fell from him as he faced the demands of
+the morrow. He was never again to succumb to the lack of confidence his
+desolate youth had developed; physically and spiritually he roused to
+action now that exactions were made upon him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+The following day Truedale heard the will read. Directly after, he felt
+like a man in a quicksand. Every thought and motion seemed but to sink
+him deeper until escape appeared impossible.
+
+He had felt, for a moment, a little surprise that the bulk of his
+uncle's great fortune had gone to Dr. McPherson--an already rich and
+prosperous man; then he began to understand. Although McPherson was left
+free to act as he chose, there had evidently been an agreement between
+him and William Truedale as to the carrying out of certain affairs and,
+what was more startling and embarrassing, Conning was hopelessly
+involved in these. Under supervision, apparently, he was to be
+recognized as his uncle's representative and, while not his direct heir,
+certainly his respected nephew.
+
+Truedale was confounded. Unless he were to disregard his uncle's wishes,
+there was no way open for him but to follow--as he was led. Far from
+being dissatisfied with the distribution of the fortune, he had been
+relieved to know that he was responsible for only a small part of it;
+but, on the other hand, should he refuse to cooperate in the schemes
+outlined by McPherson, he knew that he would be miserably
+misunderstood.
+
+Confused and ill at ease he sought McPherson later in the day and that
+genial and warm-hearted man, shrinking always behind so stern an
+exterior that few comprehended him, greeted him almost affectionately.
+
+"I ordered six months for you, Truedale," he exclaimed, viewing the
+result of his prescription keenly, "and you've made good in a few weeks.
+You're a great advertisement for Pine Cone. And White! Isn't he God's
+own man?"
+
+"I hadn't thought of him in just that way"--Conning reverted to his last
+memory of the sheriff--"but he probably showed another side to you. He
+has a positive reverence for you and I imagine he accepted me as a duty
+you had laid upon him."
+
+"Nonsense, boy! his health reports were eulogies--he was your friend.
+
+"But isn't he a freebooter with all his other charms? His contempt for
+government, as we poor wretches know it, is sublime; and yet he is the
+safest man I know. The law, he often told me, was like a lie; useful
+only to scoundrels--torn-down scoundrels, he called them.
+
+"I tell you it takes a God's man to run justice in those hills! White's
+as simple and direct as a child and as wise as a judge ought to be. I
+wouldn't send some folk I know to White, they might blur his vision;
+but I could trust him to you."
+
+Silently Truedale contemplated this image of White; then, as McPherson
+talked on, the dead uncle materialized so differently from the stupid
+estimate he had formed of him that a sense of shame overpowered him.
+Lynda had somewhat opened Truedale's eyes, but Lynda's love and
+compassion unconsciously coloured the picture she drew. Here was a
+hard-headed business man, a man who had been close to William Truedale
+all his life, proving him now, to his own nephew, as a far-sighted,
+wise, even patient and merciful friend.
+
+Never had Truedale felt so small and humble. Never had his past
+indifference and false pride seemed so despicable and egotistical--his
+return for the silent confidence reposed in him, so pitifully shameful.
+
+He must bear his part now! There was no way but that! If he were ever to
+regain his own self-respect or hope to hold that of others, he must, to
+the exclusion of private inclination, rise as far as in him lay to the
+demands made upon him.
+
+"Your uncle," McPherson was saying, "tied hand and foot as he was,
+looked far and wide during his years of illness. I thought I knew,
+thought I understood him; but since his death I have almost felt that he
+was inspired. It's a damnable pity that our stupidity and callousness
+prevent us realizing in life what we are quick enough to perceive in
+death--when it is too late! Truedale's faith in me, when I gave him so
+little to go by, is both flattering and touching. He knew he could trust
+me--and that knowledge is the best thing he bequeathed to me. But I
+expect you to do your part, boy, and by so doing to justify much that
+might, otherwise, be questioned. To begin with, as you have just heard,
+the sanatorium for cases like your uncle's is to be begun at once. Now
+there is a strip of land, which, should it suit our purpose, can be had
+at great advantage if taken at once, and for cash. We will run down to
+see it this week and then we'll know better where we stand."
+
+"I'd like," Truedale coloured quickly, "to return to Pine Cone for a few
+days. I could start at once. You see I left rather suddenly and
+brought--"
+
+But McPherson laughed and waved his hand in the wide gesture that
+disposed of hope and fear, lesser business and even death itself, at
+times.
+
+"Oh! Jim won't tamper with anything. Certainly your traps are safe
+enough there. Such things can wait, but this land-deal cannot. Besides
+there are men to see: architects, builders, etc. The wishes of your
+uncle were most explicit. The building, you recall, was to be begun
+within three months of his death. Having all the time there was,
+himself, he has left precious little for others."
+
+Again the big laugh and wide gesture disposed of Pine Cone and the
+tragic affairs of little Nella-Rose. Unless he was ready to lay bare his
+private reasons, Truedale saw he must wait a few days longer. And he
+certainly had no intention of confiding in McPherson.
+
+"Very well, doctor," he said after a slight pause, "set me to work. I
+want you to know that as far as I can I mean--too late, as you say--to
+prove my good intentions at least to--my uncle."
+
+"That's the way to talk!" McPherson rose and slapped Conning on the
+back. "I used to say to old Truedale, that if he had taken you more into
+his confidence, he might have eased life for us all; but he was timid,
+boy, timid. In many ways he was like a woman--a woman hurt and
+sensitive."
+
+"If I had only known--only imagined"; Conning was walking toward the
+door; "well, at least I'm on the job now, Dr. McPherson."
+
+And then for an hour or two Truedale walked the city streets perplexed
+and distraught. He was being absorbed without his own volition. By a
+subtle force he was convinced that he was part of a scheme bigger and
+stronger than his own desires and inclinations. Unless he was prepared
+to play a coward's role he must adjust his thoughts and ideas to
+coincide with the rules and regulations of the game of life and men.
+With this knowledge other and more blighting convictions held part. In
+his defiance and egotism he had muddled things in a desperate way. In
+the cold, clear light of conventional relations the past few weeks,
+shorn of the glamour cast by his romantic love and supposed contempt for
+social restrictions, stood forth startlingly significant. At the moment
+Truedale could not conceive how he had ever been capable of playing the
+fool as he had! Not for one instant did this realization affect his love
+and loyalty to Nella-Rose; but that he should have been swept from his
+moorings by passion, reduced him to a state of contempt for the folly he
+had perpetrated. And, he thought, if he now, after a few days, could so
+contemplate his acts how could he suppose that others would view them
+with tolerance and sympathy?
+
+No; he must accept the inevitable results of his action. His love, his
+earnest intention of some day living his own life in his own way, were
+to cost him more than he, blinded by selfishness and passion in the
+hills, had supposed.
+
+Well, he was ready to pay to the uttermost though it cost him the
+deepest heart-ache. As he was prepared to undertake the burden his
+uncle's belief in him entailed, so he was prepared, now that he saw
+things clearly, to forego the dearest and closest ties of his old life.
+
+He wondered how he could ever have dreamed that he could go to Lynda and
+Brace with his amazing confession and expect them, in the first moment
+of shock, to open their hearts and understand him. He almost laughed,
+now, as he pictured the absurdity. And just then he drew himself up
+sharply and came to his conclusion.
+
+He could not lay himself bare to any one as a sentimental ass; he must
+arrange things as soon as possible to return South; he would, just
+before starting, tell Lynda and Brace of his attachment for Nella-Rose.
+They would certainly understand why, in the stress and strain of recent
+events, he had not intruded his startling news before. He would neither
+ask nor expect sympathy or cooperation. He must assume that they could
+not comprehend him. This was going to be the hardest wrench of his life,
+Truedale recognized that, but it was the penalty he felt he must pay.
+
+Then he would go--for his wife! He would secure her privately, by all
+the necessary conventions he had spurned so madly--he would bring her to
+his people and leave to her sweetness and tender charm the winning of
+that which he, in his blindness, had all but lost.
+
+So, in this mood, he returned to his uncle's house and wrote a long
+letter to Nella-Rose. He phrased it simply, as to a little child. He
+reminded her of the old story she had once told him of her belief that
+some day she was to do a mighty big thing.
+
+"And now you have your chance!" he pleaded. "I cannot live in your
+hills, dear, though often you and I will return to them and be happy in
+the little log house. But you must come with me--your husband. Come
+down the Big Road, letting me lead you, and you must trust me and oh! my
+doney-gal, by your blessed sweetness and power you must win for me--for
+us both--what I, alone, can never win."
+
+There was more, much more, of love and longing, of tender loyalty and
+passionate reassurance, and having concluded his letter he sealed it,
+addressed it, and putting it in an envelope with a short note of
+explanation to Jim White as to its delivery, etc., he mailed it with
+such a sense of relief as he had not known in many a weary day.
+
+He prepared himself for a period of patient waiting. He knew with what
+carelessness mail matter was regarded in the hills, and winter had
+already laid its hold upon Pine Cone, he felt sure. So while he waited
+he plunged eagerly into each day's work and with delight saw how
+everything seemed to go through without a hitch. It began to look as if,
+when Nella-Rose's reply came, there would be no reason for delay in
+bringing her to the North.
+
+But this hope and vision did not banish entirely Truedale's growing
+sorrow for the part he must inevitably take when the truth was known to
+Lynda and Brace. Harder and harder the telling of it appeared as the
+time drew near. Never had they seemed dearer or more sacred to him than
+now when he realized the hurt he must cause them. There were moments
+when he felt that he could not bear the eyes of Lynda--those friendly,
+trusting eyes. Would she ever be able, in the years to come, to forgive
+and forget? And Brace--how could that frank, direct nature comprehend
+the fever of madness that had, in the name of love, betrayed the
+confidence and faith of a lifetime? Well, much lay in the keeping of the
+little mountain girl whose fascination and loveliness would plead
+mightily. Of Nella-Rose's power Truedale held no doubt.
+
+Then came White's devastating letter at the close of an exhausting day
+when Conning was to dine with the Kendalls.
+
+That afternoon he had concluded the immediate claims of business, had
+arranged with McPherson for a week's absence, and meant in the evening
+to explain to Brace and Lynda the reason for his journey. He was going
+to start South on the morrow, whether a letter came or not. He had
+steeled himself for the crucial hour with his friends; had already, in
+his imagination, bidden farewell to the relations that had held them
+close through the past years. He believed, because he was capable of
+paying this heavy price for his love, that no further proof would be
+necessary to convince even Lynda of its intensity.
+
+They dined cheerfully and alone and, as they crossed the hall afterward,
+to the library, Lynda asked casually:
+
+"Did you get the letters for you, Con? The maid laid them on the stand
+by the door."
+
+Then she went on into the bright room with its long, vacant chair,
+singing "To-morrow's Song" in that sweet contralto of hers that deserved
+better training.
+
+There were three letters--one from a man whose son Truedale had tutored
+before he went away, one from the architect of the new hospital, and a
+bulky one from Dr. McPherson. Truedale carried them all into the library
+where Brace sat comfortably puffing away before the fire; and Lynda,
+some designs for interior decoration spread out before her on a low
+table, still humming, rocked gently to and fro in a very feminine
+rocker. Conning drew up a chair opposite Kendall and tore open the
+envelope from his late patron.
+
+"I tell you, Brace," he said, "if any one had told me six weeks ago that
+I should ever be indifferent to a possible offer to tutor, I would have
+laughed at him. But so it is. I must turn down the sure-paying Mr. Smith
+for lack of time."
+
+Lynda laughed merrily. "And six weeks ago if any one had come to me in
+my Top Shelf where I carried on my profession, and outlined this for
+me"--she waved her hand around the room--"I'd have called the janitor to
+put out an unsafe person. Hey-ho!" And then the brown head was bent over
+the problem of an order which had come in that day.
+
+"Oh! I say, Lyn!" Truedale turned from his second letter. "Morgan
+suggests that _you_ attend to the decorating and furnishing of the
+hospital. I told him to choose his man and he prefers you if I have no
+objection. Objection? Good Lord, I never thought of you. I somehow
+considered such work out of your line, but I'm delighted."
+
+"Splendid!" Lynda looked up, radiant. "How I shall revel in those broad,
+clean spaces! How I shall see Uncle William in every room! Thank him,
+Con, and tell him I accept--on his terms!"
+
+Then Truedale opened the third envelope and an enclosed letter fell out,
+bearing the postmark of the Junction near Pine Cone!
+
+There was a small electric reading lamp on the arm of Truedale's chair;
+he turned the light on and, while his face was in shadow, the words
+before him stood out illumined.
+
+"Sir--Mister Truedale." The sheriff had evidently been sorely perplexed
+as to the proper beginning of the task he had undertaken.
+
+"I send this by old Doc McPherson, not knowing any better way."
+
+(Jim's epistle was nearly innocent of punctuation, his words ran on
+almost unbroken and gave the reader some trouble in following.)
+
+     Your letter to a certain young person has come and been destroyed
+     owing to my thinking under the present circumstances, some folks
+     what don't know about you, better not hear now. I took the letter
+     to Lone Dome as you set down for me to do meaning to give it to
+     Nella-Rose like what you said, but she wasn't there. Pete was there
+     and Marg--she's Nella-Rose's sister, and getting ready to marry
+     that torn-down scamp Jed Martin which to my way of thinking is
+     about the best punishment what could be dealt out to him. Pete was
+     right sober for him and spruced up owing to facts I am now coming
+     to and when Pete's sober there ain't a more sensible cuss than what
+     he is nor a gentlemaner. Well, I asked natural like for Nella-Rose
+     and Marg scrooged up her mouth, knowing full well as how I knew Jed
+     was second choice for her--but Pete he done tell me that Nella-Rose
+     had married Burke Lawson and run to safer parts and when I got over
+     the shock I was certainly thankful for being a sheriff ain't all it
+     might be when your ideas of justice and liking gets crossed. I
+     didn't ask any more questions. Peter was sober--he only lies when
+     he's drunk and not having any wish to rouse Marg I just come away
+     and burned the letter what you sent. But I've done some thinking on
+     my own 'count since your letter came and I reckon I've studied the
+     thing clear on circumstantial evidence which is what I mostly have
+     to go on in the sticks. I certainly done you a black insult that
+     day I came upon you and Nella-Rose. I didn't let on, and I never
+     will, about her being to my place, but no wonder the poor child was
+     terrible upset when I came in. She had come to me, so I study out,
+     and found you--stark stranger! How you ever soothed the poor little
+     thing I don't know--her being wild as a flea--but on top of that,
+     in I slam and lit out on you both and 'corse she couldn't 'splain
+     about Burke before you and that's plain enough what she had come to
+     do, and I didn't leave either one of you a leg to stand on. I've
+     been pretty low in my spirits I can tell you and I beg your pardon
+     humble, young feller, and if ever I can do Nella-Rose a turn by
+     letting Burke free, no matter what he does--I will! But 'tain't
+     likely he'll act up for some time. Nella-Rose always could tame him
+     and he's been close on her trail ever since she was a toddler. I'm
+     right glad they took things in their own hands and left. She didn't
+     sense the right black meaning I had in my heart that day when she
+     ran--but you did and I sure am ashamed of the part I done played.
+
+     If you can overlook what no man has a call to overlook in
+     another--your welcome is red hot here for you at any time.
+
+     JIM WHITE
+
+     Sheriff.
+
+Truedale read and reread this amazing production until he began to feel
+his way through the tangle of words and catch a meaning--false,
+ridiculously false of course, but none the less designed as an
+explanation and excuse. Then the non-essentials dropped away and one
+bald fact remained! Truedale sank back in his chair, turned off the
+electric light, and closed his eyes.
+
+"Tired, old man?" Kendall asked from across the hearth.
+
+"Yes. Dead tired."
+
+"You'll travel easier when you get the gait."
+
+"Undoubtedly."
+
+"Take a bit of a nap," Lynda suggested.
+
+"Thanks, Lyn, I will." Then Truedale, safe from intrusion, tried to make
+his way out of the maze into which he had been thrown. Slowly he
+recovered from the effect of the staggering blow and presently got to
+the point where he felt it was all a cruel lie or a stupid jest. There
+he paused. Jim was not the kind to lie or joke about such a thing. It
+was a mistake--surely a mistake. He would go at once to Pine Cone and
+make everything right. Nella-Rose could not act alone. Tradition,
+training, conspired to unfit her for this crisis; but that she had gone
+from his love and faith into the arms of another man was incredible. No;
+she was safe, probably in hiding; she would write him. She had the
+address--she was keen and quick, even though she was helpless to cope
+with the lawlessness of her mountain environment. Truedale saw the
+necessity of caution, not for himself, but for Nella-Rose. He could not
+go, unaided, to search for her. Evidently there had been wild doings
+after he left; no one but White and Nella-Rose knew of his actual
+existence--he must utilize White in assisting him, but above all he must
+expect that Nella-Rose would make her whereabouts known. Never for a
+moment did he doubt her or put any credence in the conclusions White had
+drawn. How little Jim really knew! By to-morrow word would come from
+Nella-Rose; somehow she would manage, once she was safe from being
+followed, to get to the station and telegraph. But there could be no
+leaving the girl in the hills after this; he must, as soon as he located
+her, bring her away; bring her into his life--to his home and hers!
+
+A cold sweat broke out on Truedale's body as he lashed himself
+unmercifully in the still room where his two friends, one believing him
+asleep, waited for his awakening.
+
+Well, he was awake at last, thank God! The only difference between him
+and a creature such as good men and women abhor was that he meant to
+retrieve, as far as in him lay, the past error and injustice. All his
+future life should prove his purpose. And then, like a sweet fragrance
+or a spirit touch, his love pleaded for him. He had been weak, but not
+vicious. The unfettered life had clouded his reason, and his senses had
+played him false, but love was untarnished--and it _was_ love. That girl
+of the hills was the same now as she had always been. She would accept
+him and his people and he would make her life such that, once the
+homesickness for the hills was past, she would have no regrets.
+
+Then another phase held Truedale's thought. In that day when Nella-Rose
+accepted, in the fullest sense, his people and his people's code--how
+would he stand in her eyes? A groan escaped him, then another, and he
+started nervously.
+
+"Con, what is it--a bad dream?" Lynda touched his arm to arouse him.
+
+"Yes--a mighty bad one!"
+
+"Tell it to me. Tell it while it is fresh in your mind. They say once
+you have put a dream in words, its effect is killed forever."
+
+Truedale turned dark, sorrowful eyes upon Lynda.
+
+"I--I wish I could tell it," he said with a seriousness that made her
+laugh, "but it was the kind that eludes--words. The creeping, eating
+impression--sort of nightmare. Good Lord! how nerves play the deuce with
+you."
+
+Brace Kendall did not speak. From his place he had been watching
+Truedale, for the firelight had betrayed the truth. Truedale had not
+been sleeping: Truedale had been terribly upset by that last letter of
+his!
+
+And just then Conning leaned forward and threw his entire mail upon the
+blazing logs!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+For Truedale to await, calmly, further developments was out of the
+question. He did, however, force himself to act as sanely as possible.
+He felt confident that Nella-Rose, safely hidden and probably enjoying
+it in her own elfish way, would communicate with him in a few days at
+the latest, now that things had, according to White, somewhat settled
+into shape after the outlaw Lawson had taken himself off the scene.
+
+To get to the station and telegraph would mean quite a feat for
+Nella-Rose at any time, and winter was in all likelihood already
+gripping the hills. To write and send a letter might be even more
+difficult. So Truedale reasoned; so he feverishly waited, but he was not
+idle. He rented a charming little suite of rooms, high up in a new
+apartment house, and begged Lynda to set them in order at once. Somehow
+he believed that in the years ahead, after she understood, Lynda would
+be glad that he had asked this from her.
+
+"But why the hurry, Con?" she naturally questioned; "if people are going
+to be so spasmodic I'll have to get a partner. It may be all right,
+looked at financially, but it's the ruination of art."
+
+"But this is a special case, Lyn."
+
+"They're all special cases."
+
+"But this is a--welcome."
+
+"For whom?"
+
+"Well, for me! You see I've never had a real home, Lyn. It's one of the
+luxuries I've always dreamed of."
+
+"I had thought," Lynda's clear eyes clouded, "that your uncle's house
+would be your home at last. It is big enough for us all--we need not run
+against each other."
+
+"Keep my room under the roof, Lyn." Truedale looked at her yearningly
+and she--misunderstood! "I shall often come to that--to you and
+Brace--but humour me in this fancy of mine."
+
+So she humoured him--working early and late--putting more of her own
+heart in it than he was ever to know, for she believed--poor girl--that
+he would offer it to her some day and then--when he found out about the
+money--how exactly like a fairy tale it all would be! And Lynda had had
+so few fairy tales in her life.
+
+And while she designed and Conning watched and suggested, they talked of
+his long-neglected work.
+
+"You'll have time soon, Con, to give it your best thought. Did you do
+much while you were away?"
+
+"Yes, Lyn, a great deal!" Truedale was sitting by the tiny hearth in his
+diminutive living room. He and Lynda had demanded, and finally
+succeeded in obtaining an open space for real logs; disdaining, much to
+the owner's amazement, an asbestos mat or gas monstrosity. "I really put
+blood in the thing."
+
+"And when may I hear some of it? I'm wild to get back to our beaten
+tracks."
+
+Truedale raised his eyes, but he was looking beyond Lynda; he was seeing
+Nella-Rose in the nest he was preparing for her.
+
+"Soon, Lyn. Soon. And when you do--you, of all the world, will
+understand, sympathize, and approve."
+
+"Thank you, Con, thank you. Of course I will, but it is good to have you
+know it! Let me see, what colour scheme shall we introduce in the living
+room?"
+
+"Couldn't we have a sort of blue-gray; a rather smoky tint with sunshine
+in it?"
+
+"Good heavens, Con! And it is a north room, too."
+
+"Well, then, how about a misty, whitish--"
+
+"Worse and worse. Con, in a north room there must be warmth and real
+colour."
+
+"There will be. But put what you choose, Lyn, it will surely be all
+right."
+
+"Suppose, then, we make it golden brown, or--dull, soft reds?"
+
+Truedale recalled the shabby little shawl that Nella-Rose had worn
+before she donned her winter disguise.
+
+"Make it soft dull red, Lyn--but not _too_ dull."
+
+Truedale no longer meant to lay his secret bare before departing for the
+South. While he would not acknowledge it to his anxious heart, he
+realized that he must base the future on the outcome of his journey.
+Once he laid hands upon Nella-Rose, he would act promptly and hopefully,
+but--he must be sure, now, before he made a misstep. There had been
+mistakes enough, heaven knew; he must no longer play the fool.
+
+And then when the little gilded cage was ready, Truedale conceived his
+big and desperate idea. Two weeks had passed since Jim White's letter
+and no telegram or note had come from Nella-Rose. Neither love nor
+caution could wait longer. Truedale decided to go to Pine Cone. Not as a
+returned traveller, certainly not--at first--to White, but to Lone Dome,
+and there, passing himself off as a chance wayfarer, he would gather as
+much truth as he could, estimate the value of it, and upon it take his
+future course. In all probability, he thought--and he was almost gay now
+that he was about to take matters into his own hands--he would ferret
+out the real facts and be back with his quarry before another week. It
+was merely a matter of getting the truth and being on the spot.
+
+Nella-Rose's family might, for reasons of their own, have deceived Jim
+White. Certainly if they did not know at the time of Nella-Rose's
+whereabouts they would, like others, voice the suspicion of the hills;
+but by now they would either have her with them or know positively where
+she was. For all his determination to believe this, Truedale had his
+moments of sickening doubt. The simple statement in White's letter,
+burned, as time went on, into his very soul.
+
+But, whatever came--whatever there was to know--he meant to go at once
+to headquarters. He would remain, too, until Peter Greyson was sober
+enough to state facts. He recalled clearly Jim's estimate of Greyson and
+his dual nature depending so largely upon the effect of the mountain
+whisky.
+
+It was late November when Truedale set forth. No one made any objection
+to his going now. Things were running smoothly and if he had to go at
+all to straighten out any loose ends, he had better go at once.
+
+To Lynda the journey seemed simple enough. Truedale had left, among
+other belongings, his manuscript and books. Naturally he would not trust
+them to another's careless handling.
+
+At Washington, Truedale bought a rough tramping rig and continued his
+journey with genuine enjoyment of the adventure. Now that he was nearing
+the scene of his past experience he could better understand the delay.
+Things moved so slowly among the hills and naturally Nella-Rose,
+trusting and fond, was part of the sluggish life. How she would show her
+small, white teeth when, smiling in his arms, she told him all about it!
+It would not take long to make her forget the weary time of absence and
+White's misconception.
+
+Truedale proceeded by deliberate stages. He wanted to gather all he
+possibly could as a foundation upon which to build. The first day after
+he left the train at the station--and it had bumped at the end of the
+rails just as it had on his previous trip--he walked to the Centre and
+there encountered Merrivale.
+
+"Well, stranger," the old man inquired, "whar yer goin', if it ain't
+askin' too much?"
+
+And Truedale expansively explained. He was tramping through the
+mountains for pure enjoyment; had heard of the hospitality he might
+expect and meant to test it.
+
+Merrivale was pleased but cautious. He was full of questions himself,
+but ran to cover every time his visitor ventured one. Truedale soon
+learned his lesson and absorbed what was offered without openly claiming
+more. He remained over night with Merrivale and stocked up the next
+morning from the store.
+
+He had heard much, but little to any purpose. He carried away with him a
+pretty clear picture of Burke Lawson who, by Merrivale's high favour,
+appeared heroic. The storm, the search, Lawson's escape and supposed
+carrying off of Nella-Rose, were the chief topics of conversation.
+Merrivale chuckled in delight over this.
+
+The afternoon of the second day Truedale reached Lone Dome and came upon
+Peter, sober and surprisingly respectable, sunning himself on the west
+side of the house.
+
+The first glance at the stately old figure, gone to decay like a tree
+with dead rot, startled and amazed Truedale and he thanked heaven that
+the master of Lone Dome was himself and therefore to be relied upon; no
+one could possibly suspect Peter of cunning or deceit in his present
+condition.
+
+Greyson greeted the stranger cordially. He was in truth desperately
+forlorn and near the outer edge of endurance. An hour more and he would
+have defied the powers that had recently taken control of him, and made
+for the still in the deep woods; but the coming of Truedale saved him
+from that and diverted his tragic thoughts.
+
+The fact was Marg and Jed had gone away to be married. Owing to the
+death of the near-by minister in the late storm, they had to travel a
+considerable distance in order to begin life according to Marg's strict
+ideas of propriety. Before leaving she had impressed upon her father the
+necessity of his keeping a clear head in her absence.
+
+"We-all may be gone days, father," she had said, "and yo' certainly do
+drop in owdacious places when you're drunk. Yo' might freeze or starve.
+Agin, a lurking beast, hunting fo' food, might chaw yo' fo' yo' got yo'
+senses."
+
+Something of this Greyson explained to his guest while setting forth the
+evening meal and apologizing for the lack of stimulant.
+
+"Being her marriage trip I let Marg have her way and a mind free o'
+worry 'bout me. But women don't understand, God bless 'em! What's a drop
+in yo' own home? But fo' she started forth Marg spilled every jug onto
+the wood pile. When I see the flames extry sparkling I know the reason!"
+
+Greyson chuckled, walking to and fro from table to pantry, with steady,
+almost dignified strides.
+
+"That's all right," Truedale hastened to say, "I'm rather inclined to
+agree with your daughter; and--" raising the concoction Peter had
+evolved--"this tea--"
+
+"Coffee, sir."
+
+"Excuse me! This coffee goes right to the spot."
+
+They ate and grew confidential. Edging close, but keeping under cover,
+Truedale gained the confidence of the lonely, broken man and, late in
+the evening, the hideous truth, as Truedale was compelled to believe,
+was in his keeping.
+
+For an hour Greyson had been nodding and dozing; then, apologetically,
+rousing. Truedale once suggested bed, but for some unexplainable reason
+Peter shrank from leaving his guest. Then, risking a great deal,
+Truedale asked nonchalantly:
+
+"Have you other children besides this daughter who is on her wedding
+trip? It's rather hard--leaving you alone to shift for yourself."
+
+Greyson was alert. Not only did he share the mountain dweller's wariness
+of question, but he instantly conceived the idea that the stranger had
+heard gossip and he was in arms to defend his own. His ancestors, who
+long ago had shielded the recreant great-aunt, were no keener than Peter
+now was to protect and preserve the honour of the little girl who, by
+her recent acts--and Greyson had only Jed's words and the mountain talk
+to go by--had aroused in him all that was fine enough to suffer. And
+Greyson was suffering as only a man can who, in a rare period of
+sobriety, views the wrecks of his own making.
+
+Ordinarily, as White truly supposed, Peter lied only when he was drunk;
+but the sheriff could not estimate the vagaries of blood and so, at
+Truedale's question, the father of Nella-Rose, with the gesture
+inherited from a time of prosperity, rallied his forces and lied! Lied
+like a gentleman, he would have said. Broken and shabby as Greyson was,
+he appeared, at that moment, so simple and direct, that his listener,
+holding to the sheriff's estimate, was left with little doubt concerning
+what he heard. He, watching the weak and agonized face, believed Greyson
+was making the best of a sad business; but that he was weaving from
+whole cloth the garment that must cover the past, Truedale in his own
+misery never suspected. While he listened something died within him
+never to live again.
+
+"Yes, sir. I have another daughter--lil' Nella-Rose."
+
+Truedale shaded his face with his hand, but kept his eyes on Greyson's
+distorted face.
+
+"Lil' Nella-Rose. I have to keep in mind her youth and enjoying ways or
+I'd be right hard on Nella-Rose. Yo' may have heard, while travelling
+about--o' Nella-Rose?" This was asked nervously--searchingly.
+
+"I've--I've heard that name," Truedale ventured. "It's a name
+that--somehow clings and, being a writer-man, everything interests me."
+
+Then Greyson gave an account of the trap episode tallying so exactly
+with White's version that it established a firm structure upon which to
+lay all that was to follow.
+
+"And there ain't nothing as can raise a woman's tenderness and loyalty
+to a man," Greyson went on, "like getting into a hard fix, and sho'
+Burke Lawson was in a right bad fix.
+
+"I begin to see it all now. Nella-Rose went to Merrivale's and he told
+her Burke had come back. Merrivale told me that. Naturally it upset her
+and she followed him up to warn him. Think o' that lil' girl tracking
+'long the hills, through all that storm, to--to save the man she had
+played with and flouted but loved, without knowing it! Nella-Rose was
+like that. She lit on things and took her fun--but in the big parts she
+always did come out strong."
+
+Truedale shifted his position.
+
+"I reckon I'm wearying you with my troubles?" Greyson spoke
+apologetically.
+
+"No, no. Go on. This interests me very much."
+
+"Well, sir, Burke Lawson and Jed Martin came on each other in the deep
+woods the night of the big storm and Burke and Jed had words and a
+scene. Jed owned up to that. It was life and death and I ain't blaming
+any one and I have one thing to thank Burke for--he might have done
+different and left a stain on a lady's name, sir! He told Jed how he had
+seen Nella-Rose and how she had scorned him for being a coward, but how
+she would take her words back if he dared come out and show his head.
+And he 'lowed he was going to come out then and there, which he did, and
+he and Nella-Rose was going off to Cataract Falls where the Lawsons
+hailed from, on the mother's side."
+
+"But--how do you know that your daughter kept her word? This Lawson may
+have been obliged to make away with himself--alone." Truedale grew more
+daring. He saw that Greyson, absorbed by his trouble, was less on guard.
+But Greyson was keenly observant.
+
+"He's heard the gossip," thought the old man, "it's ringing through the
+hills. Well, a dog as can fetch a bone can carry one!" With that
+conclusion reached, Peter made his master stroke.
+
+"I've heard from her," he half whispered.
+
+"Heard from her?" gasped Truedale, and even then Greyson seemed unaware
+of the attitude of the stranger. "How--did you hear from her?"
+
+"She wrote and sent the letter long of--of Bill Trim, a half-wit--but
+trusty. Nella-Rose went with Lawson--she 'lowed she had to. He came on
+her in the woods and held her to her word. She said as how she wanted
+to--to come home, but Lawson set forth as how an hour might mean his
+life--and put it up to lil' Nella-Rose! He--he swore as how he'd shoot
+himself if she didn't go with him--and it was like Burke to do it. He
+was always crazy mad for Nella-Rose, and there ain't anything he
+wouldn't do when he got balked. She--she had ter go--or see Lawson kill
+himself; so she went--but asked my pardon fo' causing the deep trouble.
+Lawson married her at the first stopping place over the ridge. He ain't
+worthy o' my lil' Nella-Rose--but us-all has got to make the best o'
+it. Come spring--she'll be back, and then--I'll forgive her--my lil'
+Nella-Rose!"
+
+From the intensity of his emotions Greyson trembled and the weak tears
+ran down his lined face. Taking advantage of the tense moment Truedale
+asked desperately:
+
+"Will you show me that letter, Mr. Greyson?"
+
+So direct was the request, so apparently natural to the old man's
+unguarded suffering, that it drove superficialities before it and merely
+confirmed Greyson in his determination to save Nella-Rose's reputation
+at any cost. Ignoring the unwarrantable curiosity, alert to the
+necessity of quick defense, he said:
+
+"I can't. I wish to Gawd I could and then I could stop any tongue what
+dares to tech my lil' gal's name."
+
+"Why can you not show me the letter?" Truedale was towering above the
+old man. By some unknown power he had got control of the situation. "I
+have a reason for--asking this, Mr. Greyson."
+
+"Marg burned it! It was allus Marg or lil' Nella-Rose for Lawson, and
+Nella-Rose got him! When Marg knew this fur certain, there was no length
+to which she--didn't go! This is my home, sir; I'm old--Marg is a good
+girl and the trouble is past now; her and Jed is making me comfortable,
+but we-all don't mention Nella-Rose. It eases me, though, to tell the
+truth for lil' Nella-Rose. I know how the tongues are wagging and I have
+to sit still fo'--since Marg and Jed took up with each other--my future
+lies 'long o' them. I'm an old man and mighty dependent; time was
+when--" Greyson rose unsteadily and swayed toward the fireplace.
+
+"Gawd a'mighty!" he flung out desperately, "how I want--whisky!"
+
+Truedale saw the wildness in the old man's eyes--saw the trembling and
+twitching of the outstretched hands, and feared what might be the result
+of trouble and enforced sobriety. He pulled a large flask from his
+pocket and offered it.
+
+"Here!" he said, "take a swallow of this and pull yourself together."
+
+Greyson, with a cry, seized the liquor and drained every drop before
+Truedale could control him.
+
+"God bless yo'!" whined Greyson, sinking back into his chair, "bless
+and--and keep yo'!"
+
+Truedale dared not leave the house though his soul recoiled from the
+sight before him. He waited an hour, watching the effect of the
+stimulant. Greyson grew mellow after a time--at peace with the world; he
+smiled foolishly and became maudlinly familiar. Finally, Truedale
+approached him again. He bent over him and shook him sharply.
+
+"Did you tell me--the truth--about--Nella-Rose?" he whispered to the
+sagging, blear-eyed creature.
+
+"Yes, sir!" moaned Peter, "I sho' did!"
+
+And Truedale did not reflect that when Greyson was-drunk--he lied!
+
+Truedale never recalled clearly how he spent the hours between the time
+he left Greyson's until he knocked on the door of White's cabin; but it
+was broad daylight and bitingly cold when Jim flung the door open and
+looked at the stranger with no idea, for a moment, that he had ever seen
+him before. Then, putting his hand out wonderingly, he muttered:
+
+"Gawd!" and drew Truedale in. Breakfast was spread on the table; the
+dogs lay before the blazing fire.
+
+"Eat!" commanded Jim, "and keep yer jaws shet except to put in food."
+
+Conning attempted the feat but made a pitiful showing.
+
+"Come to stay on?"
+
+White's curiosity was betraying him and the sympathy in his eyes filled
+Truedale with a mad desire to take this "God's man" into his confidence.
+
+"No, Jim. I've come to pack and go back to--to my job!"
+
+"Gosh! it can't be much of a job if you can tackle it--lookin' like what
+you do!"
+
+"I've been tramping for--for days, old man! Rather overdone the thing.
+I'm not so bad as I look."
+
+"Glad to hear it!" laconically.
+
+"I'll put up with you to-night, Jim, if you'll take me in." Truedale
+made an effort to smile.
+
+"Provin' there ain't any hard feeling?"
+
+"There never was, White. I--understood."
+
+"Shake!"
+
+They got through the day somehow. The crust was forming over Truedale's
+suffering; he no longer had any desire to let even White break through
+it. Once, during the afternoon, the sheriff spoke of Nella-Rose and
+without flinching Truedale listened.
+
+"That gal will have Burke eatin' out o' her hand in no time. Lawson is
+all right at the kernel, all he needed was some one ter steady him. Once
+I made sure he'd married the gal, I felt right easy in my mind."
+
+"And you--did make sure, Jim? There was no doubt? I--I remember the
+pretty little thing; it would have been damnable to--to hurt her."
+
+"I scrooged the main fact out o' old Pete, her father. There was a
+mighty lot o' talk in the hills, but I was glad ter get the facts and
+shut the mouths o' them that take ter--ter hissin' like all-fired
+scorpions! Nella-Rose had writ to her father, but Marg, the sister, tore
+the letter up in stormin' rage 'cause Nella-Rose had got the man she had
+sot her feelin's on. Do you happen to call ter mind what I once told you
+'bout those two gals and a little white hen?"
+
+Truedale nodded.
+
+"Same old actin' up!" Jim went on. "But when Greyson let out what war in
+the letter--knowin' Burke like what I do--I studied it out cl'ar enough.
+Nella-Rose was sure up agin blood and thunder whatever way yo' put
+it--so she ran her chances with Burke. There ain't much choosin' fo'
+women in the hills and Burke is an owdacious fiery feller, an' he ain't
+ever set his mind to no woman but Nella-Rose."
+
+That night Truedale went to his old cabin. He built a fire on the
+hearth, drew the couch before it, and then the battle was on--the
+fierce, relentless struggle. In it--Nella-Rose escaped. Like a bit of
+the mist that the sun burns, so she was purified--consumed by the fire
+of Truedale's remorse and shame. Not for a moment did he let the girl
+bear a shadow of blame--he was done with that forever!--but he held
+himself before the judgment seat of his own soul and he passed sentence
+upon himself in terms that stern morality has evolved for its own
+protection. But from out the wreck and ruin Truedale wrenched one sacred
+truth to which he knew he must hold--or sink utterly. He could not
+expect any one in God's world to understand; it must always be hidden in
+his own soul, but that marriage of his and Nella-Rose's in the gray dawn
+after the storm had been holy and binding to him. From now on he must
+look upon the little mountain girl as a dear, dead wife--one whose
+childish sweetness was part of a time when he had learned to laugh and
+play, and forget the hard years that had gone to his un-making, not his
+upbuilding.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Truedale travelled back to the place of his new life bearing his books,
+his unfinished play, and his secret sorrow with him. His books and
+papers were the excuse for his journey; for the rest, no one suspected
+nor--so thought Truedale--was any one ever to know. That part of his
+life-story was done with; it had been interpreted bunglingly and
+ignorantly to be sure, but the lesson, learned by failure, had sunk deep
+in his heart.
+
+He arranged his private work in the little room under the eaves. He
+intended, if time were ever his again, to begin where he had left off
+when broken health interrupted.
+
+In the extension room over William Truedale's bedchamber Lynda carried
+on her designing and her study; her office, uptown, was reserved for
+interviews and outside business. Her home workshop had the feminine
+touch that the other lacked. There were her tea table by the hearth,
+work bags of dainty silk, and flowers in glass vases. The dog and the
+cats were welcome in the pleasant room and sedately slept or rolled
+about while the mistress worked.
+
+But Truedale, while much in the old home, still kept his five-room
+flat. He bought a good, serviceable dog that preferred a bachelor life
+to any other and throve upon long evening strolls and erratic feeding.
+There were plants growing in the windows--and these Conning looked after
+with conscientious care.
+
+When the first suffering and sense of abasement passed, Truedale
+discovered that life in his little apartment was not only possible, but
+also his salvation. All the spiritual essence left in him survived best
+in those rooms. As time went by and Nella-Rose as an actuality receded,
+her memory remained unembittered. Truedale never cast blame upon her,
+though sometimes he tried to view her from the outsider's position. No;
+always she eluded the material estimate.
+
+"Not more than half real," so White had portrayed her, and as such she
+gradually became to Truedale.
+
+He plunged into business, as many a man had before him, to fill the gaps
+in his life; and he found, as others had, that the taste of power--the
+discovery that he could meet and fulfil the demands made upon
+him--carried him out of the depths and eventually secured a place for
+him in the world of men that he valued and strove to prove himself
+worthy of. He wisely went slowly and took the advice of such men as
+McPherson and his uncle's old lawyer. He grew in time to enjoy the
+position of trust as his duties multiplied, and he often wondered how
+he could ever have despised the common lot of his fellows. He
+deliberately, and from choice, set his personal tastes aside--time
+enough for his reading and writing when he had toughened his mental
+muscles, he thought. Lynda deplored this, but Truedale explained:
+
+"You see, Lyn, when I began to carve the thing out--the play, you
+know--I had no idea how to handle the tools; like many fools with a
+touch of talent, I thought I could manage without preparation. I've
+learned better. You cannot get a thing over to people unless you know
+something of life--speak the language. I'm learning, and when I feel
+that I cannot _help_ writing--I'll write."
+
+"Good!" Lynda saw his point; "and now let's haunt the theatres--see the
+machinery in running order. We'll find out what people want and _why_."
+
+So they went to the theatre and read plays. Brace made the wholesome
+third and their lives settled into calm enjoyment that was charming but
+which sometimes--not often, but occasionally--made Lynda pause and
+consider. It would not do--for Con--to fall into a pace that might
+defeat his best good.
+
+But this thought brought a deep crimson to the girl's cheeks.
+
+And then something happened. It was so subtle that Lynda Kendall, least
+of all, realized the true significance.
+
+Once in the early days of her secured self-support, William Truedale had
+said to her:
+
+"You give too much attention, girl, to your tailor and too little to
+your dressmaker."
+
+Lynda had laughingly called her friend frivolous and defended her
+wardrobe.
+
+"One cannot doll up for business, Uncle William."
+
+"Is business your whole life, Lynda? If so you had better reform it. If
+women are going to pattern their lives after men's they must go the
+whole way. A sensible man recognizes the need of shutting the office
+door sometimes and putting on his dress suit."
+
+"Well, but Uncle William, what is the matter with this perfectly built
+suit? I always slip a fresh blouse on when I am off duty. I hate to be
+always changing."
+
+"If you had a mother, Lynda, she would make you see what I mean. An old
+fungus like me cannot be expected to command respect from such an
+up-to-date humbug as you!"
+
+They had laughed it off and Lynda had, once or twice, donned a house
+gown to please her critical friend, but eventually had slipped back into
+suits and blouses.
+
+All of a sudden one day--it was nearing holiday time--she left her
+workroom at midday and, almost shamefacedly, "went shopping." As the
+fever got into her blood she became reckless, and by five o'clock had
+bought and ordered home more delicate and exquisite finery than she had
+ever owned in all her life before.
+
+"It's scandalous!" she murmured to her gay, young heart, "an awful waste
+of good money, but for the first time, I see how women can get
+clothes-mad."
+
+She devoted the hour and a half before dinner to locating an artistic
+dressmaker and putting herself in her hands.
+
+The result was both startling and exciting. The first gown to come home
+was a dull, golden-brown velvet thing so soft and clinging and
+individual that it put its wearer into quite a flutter. She "did" and
+undid her hair, and, in the process, discovered that if she pulled the
+"sides" loose there was a tendency to curl and the effect was distinctly
+charming--with the strange gown, of course! Then, marshalling all her
+courage, she trailed down to the library and thanked heaven when she
+found the room empty. It would be easier to occupy the stage than to
+make a late entrance when the audience was in position. So Lynda sat
+down, tried to read, but was so nervous that her eyes shone and her
+cheeks were rosy.
+
+Brace and Conning came in together. "Look who's here!" was Kendall's
+brotherly greeting. "Gee! Con, look at our lady friend!" He held his
+sister off at arms' length and commented upon her "points."
+
+"I didn't know your hair curled, Lyn."
+
+"I didn't, myself, until this afternoon. You see," she trembled a bit,
+"now that I do not have to go in the subway to business there's no
+reason for excluding--this sort of thing" (she touched the pretty gown),
+"and once you let yourself go, you do not know where you will land.
+Curls go with these frills; slippers, too--look!"
+
+Then she glanced up at Conning.
+
+"Do you think I'm very--frivolous?" she asked.
+
+"I never knew"--he was gazing seriously at her--"how handsome you are,
+Lyn. Wear that gown morning, noon and night; it's stunning."
+
+"I'm glad you both like it. I feel a little unusual in it--but I'll
+settle down. I have been a trifle prim in dress."
+
+Like the giant's robe, Lynda Kendall's garments seemed to transform her
+and endow her with the attributes peculiar to themselves. So gradually,
+that it caused no wonder, she developed the blessed gift of charm and it
+coloured life for herself and others like a glow from a hidden fire.
+
+All this did not interfere with her business. Once she donned her
+working garb she was the capable Lynda of the past. A little more
+sentiment, perhaps, appeared in her designs--a wider conception; but
+that was natural, for happiness had come to her--and a delicious sense
+of success. She, womanlike, began to rejoice in her power. She heard of
+John Morrell's marriage to a young western girl, about this time, with
+genuine delight. Her sky was clearing of all regrets.
+
+"Morrell was in the office to-day," Brace told his sister one evening,
+"it seemed to me a bit brash for him to lay it on so thick about his
+happiness and all that sort of rot."
+
+"Brace!"
+
+"Well, it might be all right to another fellow, but it sounded out of
+tune, somehow, to me. He says she is the kind that has flung herself
+body and soul into love; I wager she's a fool."
+
+Lynda looked serious at once.
+
+"I hope not," she said thoughtfully, "and she'll be happier with John,
+in the long run, if she has some reservations. I did not think that
+once; I do now."
+
+"But--you, Lyn? You had reservations to burn."
+
+"I had--too many. That was where the mistake began."
+
+"You--do not regret?"
+
+Lynda came close to him.
+
+"Brace, I regret nothing. I am learning that every step leads to the
+next--if you don't stumble. If you do--you have to pick yourself up and
+go back. If John learned from me, I, too, have learned from him. I'm
+going to try to--love his wife."
+
+"I bet she's a cross, somehow, between a cowboy and an idiot. John
+protested too much about her charms. She's got a sister--sounds a bit to
+me as if Morrell had married them both. She's coming to live with them
+after awhile. When I fall in love, it's going to be with an orphan out
+of an asylum."
+
+Lynda laughed and gave her brother a hug. Then she said:
+
+"Our circle is widening and, by the way Brace, I'm going to begin to
+entertain a little."
+
+"Good Lord, Lyn!"
+
+"Oh! modestly--until I can use my stiff little wings. A dinner now and
+then and a luncheon occasionally when I know enough nice women to make a
+decent showing. Clothes and women, when adopted late in life, are
+difficult. But oh! Brace, it is great--this blessed home life of mine!
+The coming away from my beloved work to something even better."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The pulse of a city throbs faster in the winter. All the vitality of
+well-nourished men and women is at its fullest, while for them who fall
+below the normal, the necessity of the struggle for existence keys them
+to a high pitch. Not so in the deep, far mountain places. There, the
+inhabitants hide from the elements and withdraw into themselves. For
+weeks at a time no human being ventures forth from the shelter and
+comparative comfort of the dull cabins. Families, pressed thus close and
+debarred from the freedom of the open, suffer mentally and spiritually
+as one from the wider haunts of men can hardly conceive.
+
+When Nella-Rose turned away from Truedale that golden autumn day, she
+faced winter and the shut-in terrors of the cold and loneliness. In two
+weeks the last vestige of autumn would be past, and the girl could not
+contemplate being imprisoned with Marg and her father while waiting for
+love to return to her. She paused on the wet, leafy path and considered.
+She had told Truedale that she would go home, but what did it matter.
+She would go to Miss Lois Ann's. She would know when Truedale returned;
+she could go to him. In the meantime no human being would annoy her or
+question her in that cabin far back in the Hollow. And Lois Ann would
+while away the long hours by story and song. It seemed to her there was
+but one thing to do--and Nella-Rose did it! She fled to the woman whose
+name Truedale had barely heard.
+
+It took her three good hours to make the distance to the Hollow and it
+was quite dark when she tapped on the door of the little cabin. To all
+appearances the place was deserted; but after the second knock a shutter
+to the right of the door was pushed open and a long, lean hand appeared
+holding a lighted candle, while a deep, rich voice called:
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Jes' Nella-Rose!"
+
+The hand withdrew, the shutter was closed, and in another minute the
+door was flung wide and the girl drawn into the warm, comfortable room.
+Supper, of a better sort than most hill-women knew, was spread out on a
+clean table, and in the cheer and safety Nella-Rose expanded and decided
+to take the old woman into her confidence at once and so secure present
+comfort until Truedale came back to claim her.
+
+This Lois Ann, in whose sunken eyes eternal youth burned and glowed, was
+a mystery in the hills and was never questioned. Long ago she had come,
+asked no favours, and settled down to fare as best she could. There was
+but one sure passport to her sanctuary. That was--trouble! Once
+misfortune overtook one, sex was forgotten, but at other times it was
+understood that Miss Lois Ann had small liking or sympathy for men,
+while on the other hand she brooded over women and children with the
+everlasting strength of maternity.
+
+It was suspected, and with good reason, that many refugees from justice
+passed through Miss Lois Ann's front door and escaped by other exits.
+Officers of the law had, more than once, traced their quarry to the
+dreary cabin and demanded entrance for search. This was always promptly
+given, but never had a culprit been found on the premises! White
+understood and admired the old woman; he always halted justice, if
+possible, outside her domain, but, being a hill-man, Jim had his
+suspicions which he never voiced.
+
+"So now, honey, what yo' coming to me fo' this black night?" said Lois
+Ann to Nella-Rose after the evening meal was cleared away, the fire
+replenished, and "with four feet on the fender" the two were content.
+"Trouble?" The wonderful eyes searched the happy, young face and at the
+glance, Nella-Rose knew that she was compelled to confide! There was no
+choice. She felt the power closing in about her, she found it not so
+easy as she had supposed, to explain. She sparred for time.
+
+"Tell me a right, nice story, Miss Lois Ann," she pleaded, "and of
+course it's no trouble that has brought me here! Trouble! Huh!"
+
+"What then?" And now Nella-Rose sank to the hearthstone and bent her
+head on the lap of the old woman. It was more possible to speak when she
+could escape those seeking eyes. She closed her own and tried to call
+Truedale to the dark space and to her support--but he would not come.
+
+"So it is trouble, then?"
+
+"No, no! it's--oh! it's the--joy, Miss Lois Ann."
+
+"Ha! ha! And you've found out that the young scamp is back--that
+Lawson?" Lois Ann, for a moment, knew relief.
+
+"It--it isn't Burke," the words came lingeringly. "Yes, I know he's
+back--is he here?" This affrightedly.
+
+"No--but he's been. He may come again. His maw's always empty, but I
+will say this for the scoundrel--he gives more than he takes, in the
+long run. But if it isn't Lawson, who then? Not that snake-in-the-grass,
+Jed?" Love and trouble were synonymous with Lois Ann when one was young
+and pretty and a fool.
+
+"Jed? Jed indeed!"
+
+"Child, out with it!"
+
+"I--I am going to tell you, Miss Lois Ann."
+
+Then the knotted old hand fell like a withered leaf upon the soft
+hair--the woman-heart was ready to bear another burden. Not a word did
+the closed lips utter while the amazing tale ran on and on in the gentle
+drawl. Consternation, even doubt of the girl's sanity, held part in the
+old woman's keen mind, but gradually the truth of the confession
+established itself, and once the fact was realized that a stranger--and
+_such_ a one--had been hidden in the hills while this thing, that the
+girl was telling, was going on--the strong, clear mind of the listener
+interpreted the truth by the knowledge gained through a long, hard life.
+
+"And so, you see, Miss Lois Ann, it's like he opened heaven for me; and
+I want to hide here till he comes to take me up, up into heaven with
+him. And no one else must know."
+
+Lois Ann had torn the cawl from Nella-Rose's baby face--had felt, in her
+superstitious heart, that the child was mysteriously destined to see
+wide and far; and now, with agony that she struggled to conceal, she
+knew that to her was given the task of drawing the veil from the soul of
+the girl at her feet in order that she might indeed see far and wide
+into the kingdom of suffering women.
+
+For a moment the woman fenced, she would put the cup from her if she
+could, like all humans who understand.
+
+"You--are yo' lying to me?" she asked faintly, and oh, but she would
+have given much to hear the girl's impish laugh of assent. Instead, she
+saw Nella-Rose's eyes grow deadly serious.
+
+"It's no lie, Miss Lois Ann; it's a right beautiful truth."
+
+"And for days and nights you stayed alone with this man?"
+
+The lean hand, with unrelenting strength, now gripped the drooping face
+and held it firmly while the firelight played full upon it, meanwhile
+the keen old eyes bored into Nella-Rose's very soul.
+
+"But he--he is my man! You forget the--marrying on the hill, Miss Lois
+Ann!"
+
+The voice was raised a bit and the colour left the trembling lips.
+
+"Your man!" And a bitter laugh rang out wildly.
+
+"Stop, Miss Lois Ann! Yo' shall not look at me like that!"
+
+The vision was dulled--Nella-Rose shivered.
+
+"You shall not look at me like that; God would not--why should you?"
+
+"God!"--the cracked voice spoke the word bitterly. "God! What does God
+care for women? It's the men as God made things for, and us-all has to
+fend them off--men and God are agin us women!"
+
+"No, no! Let me free. I was so happy until--Oh! Miss Lois Ann, you
+shall not take my happiness away."
+
+"Yo' came to the right place, yo' po' lil' chile."
+
+The eyes had seen all they needed to see and the hand let drop the
+pretty, quivering face.
+
+"We'll wait--oh! certainly we-all will wait a week; two weeks; then
+three. An' we-all will hide close and see what we-all shall see!" A
+hard, pitiful laugh echoed through the room. "And now to bed! Take the
+closet back o' my chamber. No one can reach yo' there, chile. Sleep and
+dream and--forget."
+
+And that night Burke Lawson, after an hour's struggle, determined to
+come forth among his kind and take his place. Nella-Rose had decided
+him. He was tired of hiding, tired of playing his game. One look at the
+face he had loved from its babyhood had turned the tide. Lawson had
+never before been so long shut away from his guiding star. And she had
+said that he might ask again when he dared--and so he came forth from
+his cave-place. Once outside, he drew a deep, free breath, turned his
+handsome face to the sky, and _felt_ the prayer that another might have
+voiced.
+
+He thought of Nella-Rose, remembered her love of adventure, her
+splendid courage and spirit. Nothing so surely could win her as the
+proposal he was about to make. To ask her to remain at Pine Cone and
+settle down with him as her hill-billy would hold small temptation, but
+to take her away to new and wider fields--that was another matter! And
+go they would--he and she. He would get a horse somewhere, somehow. With
+Nella-Rose behind him, he would never stop until a parson was reached,
+and after that--why the world would be theirs from which to choose.
+
+And it was at that point of Lawson's fervid, religious state that Jed
+Martin had materialized and made it imperative that he be dealt with
+summarily and definitely.
+
+After confiding his immediate future to the subjugated Martin--having
+forced him to cover at the point of a pistol--Burke, with his big,
+wholesome laugh, crawled again out of the cave. Then, raising himself to
+his full height, he strode over the sodden trail toward White's cabin
+with the lightest, purest heart he had carried for many a day. But Fate
+had an ugly trick in store for him. He was half way to White's when he
+heard steps. Habit was strong. He promptly climbed a tree. The moon came
+out just then and disclosed the follower. "Blake's dawg," muttered
+Lawson and, as the big hound took his stand under the tree, he
+understood matters. Blake was his worst enemy; he had a score to settle
+about the revenue men and a term in jail for which Lawson was
+responsible. While the general hunt was on, Blake had entered in,
+thinking to square things, while not bringing himself into too much
+prominence.
+
+"Yo' infernal critter!" murmured Lawson, "in another minute you'll howl,
+yo' po' brute. I hate ter shoot yo'--yo' being what yo' are--but here
+goes."
+
+After that White's was impossible for a time and Nella-Rose must wait.
+In a day or so, probably--so Burke quickly considered--he could make a
+dash back, get White to help him, and bear off his prize, but for the
+moment the sooner he reached safety beyond the ridge, the better.
+Shooting a dog was no light matter.
+
+Lawson reached safety but with a broken leg; for, going down-stream, he
+had met with misfortune and, during that long, hard winter, unable to
+fend for himself, he was safely hidden by a timely friend and served by
+a doctor who was smuggled to the scene and well paid for his help and
+silence.
+
+And in Lois Ann's cabin Nella-Rose waited, at first with serene hope,
+and then, with pitiful longing. She and the old woman never referred to
+the conversation of the first night but the girl was sure she was being
+watched and shielded and she felt the doubt and scorn in the attitude of
+Lois Ann.
+
+"I'll--I'll send for my man," at last she desperately decided at the
+end of the second week. But she dared not risk a journey to the far
+station in order to send a telegram. So she watched for a chance to send
+a letter that she had carefully and painfully written.
+
+     "I'm to Miss Lois Ann's in Devil-may-come Hollow. I'm trusting and
+     loving you, but Miss Lois Ann--don't believe! So please, Mister Man
+     come and tell her and then go back and I will wait--most truly
+
+     Your Nella-Rose."
+
+then she crossed the name out and scribbled "Your doney-gal."
+
+It was early in the third week that Bill Trim came whistling down the
+trail, on a cold, bitterly cold, November morning. He bore a load of
+"grateful gifts" to Lois Ann from men and women whom she had succoured
+in times of need and who always remembered her, practically, when winter
+"set."
+
+Bill was a half-wit but as strong as an ox; and, once set upon a task,
+managed it in a way that had given him a secure position in the
+community. He carried mail into the remotest districts--when there was
+any to carry. He "toted" heavy loads and gathered gossip and spilled it
+liberally. He was impersonal, ignorant, and illiterate, but he did his
+poor best and grovelled at the feet of any one who showed him the least
+affection. He was horribly afraid of Lois Ann for no reason that he
+could have given; he was afraid of her eyes--her thin, claw-like hands.
+As he now delivered the bundles he had for her he accepted the food she
+gave and then darted away to eat it in comfort beyond the reach of those
+glances he dreaded.
+
+And there Nella-Rose sought him and sat beside him with a choice morsel
+she had saved from her finer fare.
+
+"Trim," she whispered when he was about to start, "here is a
+letter--Miss Lois Ann wants you to mail."
+
+The bright eyes looked yearningly into the dull, hopeless face.
+
+"I--hate the ole 'un!" confided Bill.
+
+"But yo' don't hate me, Bill?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, then, do it for me, but don't tell a living soul that you saw me.
+See, Bill, I have a whole dollar--I earned it by berry-picking. Pay for
+the letter and then keep the rest. And if you ever see Marg, and she
+asks about me--and whether you've seen me--tell her" (and here
+Nella-Rose's white teeth gleamed in the mischievous smile), "tell her
+you saw me walking in the Hollow with Burke Lawson!"
+
+The dull fellow shook with foolish laughter. "I sho' will!" he said, and
+then tucked the letter and dollar bill in the breast of his shirt. "And
+now, lil' doney-gal, let me touch yo' hand," he pleaded,
+"this--er--way." And like a poor frayed, battered knight he pressed his
+lips to the small, brown hand of the one person who had always been kind
+to him.
+
+At sunset Bill halted to eat his supper and warm his stiffened body. He
+tried to build a fire but the wood was wet and in desperation he took,
+at last, the papers from inside his thin coat, they had helped to shield
+him from the cold, and utilized them to start the pine cones. He rested
+and feasted and later went his way. At the post office he searched among
+his rags for the letter and the money. Then his face went white as
+ashes:
+
+"Gawd a'mighty!" he whimpered.
+
+"What's wrong?" Merrivale came from behind the counter.
+
+"I done burn my chest protector. I'll freeze without the papers." Then
+Bill explained the fire building but, recalling Lois Ann, withheld any
+further information.
+
+"Here, you fool," Merrivale said not unkindly, "take all the papers you
+want. And take this old coat, too. And look, lad, in yo' wandering have
+yo' seen Greyson's lil' gal?"
+
+Bill looked cunning and drawing close whispered:
+
+"Her--and him, I seed 'im, back in the sticks! Her--and him!" Then he
+laughed his foolish laugh.
+
+"I thought as much!" Merrivale nodded, with the trouble a good man knows
+at times in his eyes; but his faith in Burke coming to his aid. "You
+mean--Lawson?" he asked.
+
+Bill nodded foolishly.
+
+"Then keep yo' mouth shut!" warned Merrivale. "If I hear yo'
+gabbing--I'll flax the hide o' yo', sure as I keep store."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+A month, then two, passed in the desolate cabin in the Hollow. Winter
+clutched and held Pine Cone Settlement in a deadly grip. Old people died
+and little children were born. Lois Ann, when it was physically
+possible, got to the homes of suffering and eased the women, while she
+berated the men for bringing poor souls to such dread passes. But always
+Nella-Rose hid and shrank from sight. No need, now, to warn her. A new
+and terrible look had come into her eyes, and when Lois Ann saw that
+creeping terror she knew that her hour had come. To save Nella-Rose, she
+believed, she must lay low every illusion and, with keen and deliberate
+force, she pressed the apple of the knowledge of life between the
+girlish lips. The bitter truth at last ate its way into the girl's soul
+and gradually hate, such as she had never conceived, grew and consumed
+her.
+
+"She will not die," thought the old woman watching her day by day.
+
+And Nella-Rose did not die, at least not outwardly, but in her, as in
+Truedale, the fine, first glow of pure faith and passion, untouched by
+the world's interpretation, faded and shrivelled forever.
+
+The long winter hid the secret in the dreary cabin. The roads and
+trails were closed; none drew near for shelter or succour.
+
+By springtime Nella-Rose was afraid of every living creature except the
+faithful soul who stood guard over her. She ran and trembled at the
+least sound; she was white and hollow-eyed, but her hate was stronger
+and fiercer than ever.
+
+Early summer came--the gladdest time of the year. The heat was broken by
+soft showers; the flowers bloomed riotously, and in July the world-old
+miracle occurred in Lois Ann's cabin--Nella-Rose's child was born! With
+its coming the past seemed blotted out; hate gave place to reverent awe
+and tenderness. In the young mother the woman rose supreme and she would
+not permit her mind to hold a harmful thought.
+
+Through the hours of her travail, when Lois Ann, desperate and
+frightened, had implored, threatened, and commanded that she should tell
+the name of the father of her child, she only moaned and closed her lips
+the firmer. But when she looked upon her baby she smiled radiantly and
+whispered to the patient old creature beside her:
+
+"Miss Lois Ann, this lil' child has no father. It is my baby and God
+sent it. I shall call her Ann--cuz you've been right good to me--you
+sholy have."
+
+So it was "lil' Ann" and, since the strange reticence and misunderstood
+joyousness remained, Lois Ann, at her wit's end, believing that death
+or insanity threatened, went secretly to the Greyson house to confess
+and get assistance.
+
+Peter was away with Jed. The two hung together now like burrs. Whatever
+of relaxation Martin could hope for lay in Greyson; whatever of material
+comfort Peter could command, must come through Jed, and so they
+laboured, in slow, primitive fashion, and edged in a little pleasure
+together. Marg, having achieved her ambition, was content and, for the
+first time in her life, easy to get along with. And into this
+comparative Eden Lois Ann came with words that shattered the peace and
+calm.
+
+In Marg's private thought she had never doubted that her sister had
+often been with Burke Lawson in the Hollow. When he disappeared, she
+believed Nella-Rose was with him, but she had supported and embellished
+her father's story concerning them because it secured her own
+self-respect and covered the tracks of the degenerate pair with a shield
+that they in no wise deserved, but which put their defenders in a truly
+Christian attitude.
+
+Marg was alone in the cabin when Lois Ann entered. She looked up flushed
+and eager.
+
+"How-de," she said genially. "Set and have a bite."
+
+"I ain't got no time," the old woman returned pantingly. "Nella-Rose is
+down to my place."
+
+The warm, sunny room grew stifling to Marg.
+
+"What a-doing?" she said, half under her breath.
+
+"She's got a--lil' baby."
+
+The colour faded from Marg's face, leaving it pasty and heavy.
+
+"Burke--thar?"
+
+"He ain't been thar all winter. I hid Nella-Rose and her shame but I
+dare not any longer. I reckon she's going off."
+
+"Dying?"
+
+"May be; or--" and here Lois Ann tapped her head.
+
+"And he--he went and left her?" groaned Marg--"the devil!"
+
+Lois Ann watched the terrible anger rising in the younger woman and of a
+sudden she realized how useless it would be to voice the wild tale
+Nella-Rose held to. So she only nodded.
+
+"I'll come with you," Marg decided at once, "and don't you let on to
+father or Jed--they'd do some killing this time, sure!"
+
+Together the two made their way to the Hollow and found Nella-Rose in
+the quiet room with her baby nestling against her tender breast. The
+look on her face might well stay the reproaches on Marg's lips--she
+almost reeled back as the deep, true eyes met hers. All the smothered
+sisterliness came to the surface for an instant as she trembled and drew
+near to the two in the old chintz-covered rocker.
+
+"See! my baby, Marg. She is lil' Ann."
+
+"Ann--what?" whispered Marg.
+
+"Just lil' Ann for--Miss Lois Ann."
+
+"Nella-Rose" (and now Marg fell on her knees beside her sister), "tell
+me where he is. Tell me and as sure as God lives I'll bring him back!
+I'll make him own you and--and the baby or he'll--he'll--"
+
+And then Nella-Rose laughed the laugh that drove Lois Ann to
+distraction.
+
+"Send Marg away, Miss Lois Ann," Nella-Rose turned to her only friend,
+"she makes me so--so tired and--I do not want any one but you."
+
+Marg got upon her feet, all the tenderness and compassion gone.
+
+"You are--" she began, but Lois Ann was between her and Nella-Rose.
+
+"Go!" she commanded with terrible scorn. "Go! You are not fit to touch
+them. Go! Dying or mad--the girl belongs to me and not to such as has
+viper blood in their veins. Go!" And Marg went with the sound of
+Nella-Rose's crooning to her child ringing in her ears.
+
+Things happened dramatically after that in the deep woods. Marg kept the
+secret of the Hollow cabin in her seething heart. She was frightened,
+fearing her father or Jed might discover Nella-Rose. But she was, at
+times, filled with a strange longing to see her sister and touch that
+wonderful thing that lay on the guilty mother-breast.
+
+Was Nella-Rose forever to have the glory even in her shame, while she,
+Marg, with all the rights of womanhood, could hold no hope of maternity?
+
+For one reason or another Marg often stole to the woods as near the
+Hollow as she dared to go. She hoped for news but none came; and it was
+late August when, one sunny noon, she confronted Burke Lawson!
+
+Lawson's face was strange and awful to look on. Marg drew away from him
+in fear. She could not know but Burke had had a terrific experience that
+day and he was on the path for revenge and any one in his way must
+suffer. Freed at last from his captivity, he had travelled across the
+range and straight to Jim White. And the sheriff, ready for the
+recreant, greeted him without mercy, judging him guilty until he proved
+himself otherwise.
+
+"What you done with Nella-Rose?" he asked, standing before Burke with
+slow fire in his deep eyes.
+
+Lawson could never have been the man he was if he were not capable of
+holding his own council and warding off attack.
+
+"What makes you think I've done anything with her?" he asked.
+
+"None o' that, Burke Lawson," Jim warned. "I've been yo' friend, but I
+swear I'll toss yo' ter the dogs, as is after you, with as little
+feelin' as I would if yo' were a chunk o' dead meat--if you've harmed
+that lil' gal."
+
+"Well, I ain't harmed her, Jim. And now let's set down and talk it
+over. I want to--to bring her home; I want ter live a decent life 'mong
+yo'-all. Jim, don't shoot 'til yo' make sure yo' ought ter shoot."
+
+Thus brought to reason Jim sat down, shared his meal with his reinstated
+friend, and gave him the gossip of the hills. Lawson ate because he was
+well-nigh starved and he knew he had some rough work ahead; he listened
+because he needed all the guiding possible and he shielded the name and
+reputation of Nella-Rose with the splendid courage that filled his young
+heart and mind. And then he set forth upon his quest with these words:
+
+"As Gawd A'mighty hears me, Jim White, I'll fetch that lil' Nella-Rose
+home and live like a man from now on. Wipe off my sins, Jim; make a
+place for me, old man, and I'll never shame it--or God blast me!"
+
+White took the strong young hand and felt his eyes grow misty.
+
+"Yo' place is here, Burke," he said, and then Lawson was on his way.
+
+A half hour later he encountered Marg. In his own mind Burke had a
+pretty clear idea of what had occurred. Not having heard any suggestion
+of Truedale, he was as ignorant of him as though Truedale had never
+existed. Jed, then, was the only man to hold guilty. Jed had, in passion
+and revenge, wronged Nella-Rose and had after, like the sneak and
+coward he was, sought to secure his own safety by marrying Marg. But
+what had they done with Nella-Rose? She had, according to White,
+disappeared the night that Jed had been tied in the cave. Well, Jed must
+confess and pay!--pay to the uttermost. But between him and Jed Marg now
+stood!
+
+"You!" cried Marg. "You! What yo' mean coming brazen to us-all?"
+
+"Get out of my way!" commanded Burke, "Where's Jed?"
+
+"What's that to you?"
+
+"You'll find out soon enough. Let me by."
+
+But Marg held her ground and Lawson waited. The look in his eyes awed
+Marg, but his presence enraged her.
+
+"What you-all done with Nella-Rose?" Lawson asked.
+
+"You better find out! You've left it long enough."
+
+"Whar is she, I say? And I tell you now, Marg--every one as has wronged
+that lil' girl will answer to me. Whar is she?"
+
+"She--she and her young-un are up to Lois Ann's. They've been hid all
+winter. No one but me knows; you've time to make good--before--before
+father and Jed get yo'."
+
+Lawson took this like a blow between the eyes. He could not speak--for a
+moment he could not think; then a lurid fire of conviction burned into
+his very soul.
+
+"So--that's it!" he muttered, coming so close to Marg that she shrank
+back afraid. "So that's it! Yo'-all have damned and all but killed the
+po' lil' girl--then flung her to--to the devil! You've taken the
+leavings--you! 'cause yo' couldn't get anything else. Yo' and Jed" (here
+Lawson laughed a fearless, terrifying laugh), "yo' and Jed is honourably
+married, you two, and she--lil' Nella-Rose--left to--" Emotion choked
+Lawson; then he plunged on: "He--he wronged her--the brute, and you took
+him to--to save him and yourself you--! And she?--why, she's the only
+holy thing in the hills; you couldn't damn her--you two!"
+
+"For the love o' Gawd!" begged Marg, "keep yo' tongue still and off us!
+We ain't done her any wrong; every one, even Jed, thinks she is with
+you. Miss Lois Ann hid her--I only knew a week ago. I ain't told a
+soul!"
+
+A look of contempt grew upon Burke's face and hardened there. He was
+thinking quick and desperately. In a vague way he realized that he had
+the reins in his hands; his only concern was to know whither he should
+drive. But, above and beyond all--deep true, and spiritual--were his
+love and pity for Nella-Rose.
+
+They had all betrayed and deserted her. Not for an instant did Lawson
+doubt that. Their cowardice and duplicity neither surprised nor daunted
+him; but his pride--his sense of superiority--bade him pause and reflect
+before he plunged ahead. Finally he said:
+
+"So you-all depend upon her safety for your safety! Take it--and be
+damned! She's been with me--yo' followin' me? She's been with me,
+rightful married and happy--happy! From now on I'll manage lil'
+Nella-Rose's doings, and the first whisper from man or woman agin her
+will be agin me--and God knows I won't be blamed for what I do then!
+Tell that skunk of yours," Lawson glared at the terrified Marg, "I'm
+strong enough to outbid him with the devil, but from now on him and
+you--mind this well, Marg Greyson--him and you are to be our loving
+brother and sister. See?"
+
+With a wild laugh Burke took to the woods.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+Two years and a half following William Truedale's death found things
+much as the old gentleman would have liked. Often Lynda Kendall, sitting
+beside the long, low, empty chair, longed to tell her old friend all
+about it. Strange to say, the recluse in life had become very vital in
+death. He had wrought, in his silent, lonely detachment, better even
+than he knew. His charities, shorn of the degrading elements of many
+similar ones, were carried on without a hitch. Dr. McPherson, under his
+crust of hardness, was an idealist and almost a sentimentalist; but
+above all he was a man to inspire respect and command obedience. No
+hospital with which he had to deal was unmarked by his personality.
+Neglect and indifference were fatal attributes for internes and nurses.
+
+"Give the youngsters sleep enough, food and relaxation enough," he would
+say to the superintendents, "but after that expect--and get--faithful,
+conscientious service with as much humanity as possible thrown in."
+
+The sanatorium for cases such as William Truedale's was already
+attracting wide attention. The finest men to be obtained were on the
+staff; specially trained nurses were selected; and Lynda had put her
+best thought and energy into the furnishing of the small rooms and
+spacious wards.
+
+Conning, becoming used to the demands made upon him, was at last
+dependable, and grew to see, in each sufferer the representative of the
+uncle he had never understood; whom he had neglected and, too late, had
+learned to respect. He was almost ashamed to confess how deeply
+interested he was in the sanatorium. Recalling at times the loneliness
+and weariness of William Truedale's days--picturing the sad night when
+he had, as Lynda put it, opened the door himself, to release and
+hope--Conning sought to ease the way for others and so fill the waiting
+hours that less opportunity was left for melancholy thought. He
+introduced amusements and pastimes in the hospital, often shared them
+himself, and still attended to the other business that William
+Truedale's affairs involved.
+
+The men who had been appointed to direct and control these interests
+eventually let the reins fall into the hands eager to grasp them and, in
+the endless labour and sense of usefulness, Conning learned to know
+content and comparative peace. He grew to look upon his present life as
+a kind of belated reparation. He was not depressed; with surprising
+adaptability he accepted what was inevitable and, while reserving, in
+the personal sense, his past for private hours, he managed to construct
+a philosophy and cheerfulness that carried him well on the tide of
+events.
+
+It was something of a shock to him one evening, nearly three years after
+his visit to Pine Cone, to find himself looking at Lynda Kendall as if
+he had never seen her before.
+
+She was going out with Brace and was in evening dress. Truedale had
+never seen her gowned so, and he realized that she was extremely
+handsome and--something more. She came close to him, drawing on her
+long, loose, white gloves.
+
+"I cannot bear to go and leave you--all alone!" she said, raising her
+eyes to his.
+
+"You see, John Morrell is showing us his brand-new wife to-night--and I
+couldn't resist; but I'll try to break away early."
+
+"You are eager to see--Mrs. Morrell?" Truedale asked, and suddenly
+recalled the relation Lynda had once held to Morrell. He had not thought
+of it for many a day.
+
+"Very. You see I hope to be great friends with her. I want--"
+
+"What, Lynda?"
+
+"Well, to help her understand--John."
+
+"Let me button your glove, Lyn"--for Truedale saw her hands were
+trembling though her eyes were peaceful and happy. And then as the long,
+slim hand rested in his, he asked:
+
+"And you--have never regretted, Lyn?"
+
+"Regretted? Does a woman regret when she's saved from a mistake and
+gets off scot-free as well?"
+
+They looked at each other for a moment and then Lynda drew away her
+hand.
+
+"Thanks, Con, and please miss us a little, but not too much. What will
+you do to pass the time until we return?"
+
+"I think"--Truedale pulled himself up sharply--"I think I'll go up under
+the eaves and get out--the old play!"
+
+"Oh! how splendid! And you will--let me hear it--some day, soon?"
+
+"Yes. Business is going easier now. I can think of it without neglecting
+better things. Good-night, Lyn. Tuck your coat up close, the night's
+bad."
+
+And then, alone in the warm, bright room, Truedale had a distinct sense
+of Lynda having taken something besides herself away. She had left the
+room hideously lonely; it became unbearable to remain there and, like a
+boy, Conning ran up to the small room next the roof.
+
+He took the old play out--he had not unpacked it since he came from Pine
+Cone! He laid it before him and presently became absorbed in reading it
+from the beginning. It was after eleven when he raised his tired eyes
+from the pages and leaned back in his chair.
+
+"I'm like--all men!" he muttered. "All men--and I thought things had
+gone deeper with me."
+
+What he was recognizing was that the play and the subtle influence that
+Nella-Rose had had upon him had both lost their terrific hold. He could
+contemplate the past without the sickening sense of wrong and shock that
+had once overpowered him. Realizing the full meaning of all that had
+gone into his past experience, he found himself thinking of Lynda as she
+had looked a few hours before. He resented the lesser hold the past
+still had upon him--he wanted to shake it free. Not bitterly--not with
+contempt--but, he argued, why should his life be shadowed always by a
+mistake, cruel and unpardonable as it was, when she, that little
+ignorant partner in the wrong, had gone her way and had doubtless by now
+put him forever from her mind?
+
+How small a part it had played with her, poor child. She had been
+betrayed by her strange imagination and suddenly awakened passion; she
+had followed blindly where he had led, but when catastrophe had
+threatened one who had been part of her former life--familiar with all
+that was real to her--how readily the untamed instinct had reverted to
+its own!
+
+And he--Truedale comforted himself--he had come back to _his_ own, and
+his own had made its claim upon him. Why should he not have his second
+chance? He wanted love--not friendship; he wanted--Lynda! All else faded
+and Lynda, the new Lynda--Lynda with the hair that had learned to curl,
+the girl with the pretty white shoulders and sweet, kind eyes--stood
+pleadingly close in the shabby old room and demanded recognition. "She
+thinks," and here Truedale covered his eyes, "that I am--as I was when I
+began my life--here! What would she say--if she knew? She, God bless
+her, is not like others. Faithful, pure, she could not forgive the
+_truth_!"
+
+Truedale, thinking so of Lynda Kendall, owned to his best self that
+because the woman who now filled his life held to her high ideals--would
+never lower them--he could honour and reverence her. If she, like him,
+could change, and accept selfishly that which she would scorn in
+another, she would not be the splendid creature she was. And
+yet--without conceit or vanity--Truedale believed that Lynda felt for
+him what he felt for her.
+
+Never doubting that he could bring to her an unsullied past, she was,
+delicately, in finest woman-fashion, laying her heart open to him. She
+knew that he had little to offer and yet--and yet--she was--willing!
+Truedale knew this to be true. And then he decided he must, even at this
+late day, tell Lynda of the past. For her sake he dare not venture any
+further concealment. Once she understood--once she recovered from her
+surprise and shock--she would be his friend, he felt confident of that;
+but she would be spared any deeper personal interest. It was Lynda's
+magnificent steadfastness that now appealed to Truedale. With the
+passing of his own season of madness, he looked upon this calm serenity
+of her character with deepest admiration.
+
+"The best any man should hope for," he admitted--turning, as he thought,
+his back upon his yearning--"any man who has played the fool as I have,
+is the sympathetic friendship of a good woman. What right has a man to
+fall from what he knows a woman holds highest, and then look to her to
+change her ideals to fit his pattern?"
+
+Arriving at this conclusion, Truedale wrapped the tattered shreds of his
+self-respect about him and accepted, as best he could, the prospect of
+Lynda's adjustment to the future.
+
+Brace and Lynda did not return in time to see Truedale that night. At
+twelve, with a resigned sigh, he put away his play and went to his
+lonely rooms in the tall apartment farther uptown. His dog was waiting
+for him with the reproachful look in his faithful eyes that reminded
+Truedale that the poor beast had not had an outing for twenty-four
+hours.
+
+"Come on, old fellow," he said, "better late than never," and the two
+descended to the street. They walked sedately for an hour. The dog
+longed to gambol; he was young enough to associate outdoors with
+license; but being a friend as well as a dog, he felt that this was
+rather a time for close comradeship, so he pattered along at his
+master's heels and once in a while pushed his cold nose into the limp
+hand swinging by Truedale's side. "Thank God!" Conning thought,
+reaching down to pat the sleek head, "I can keep you without--confession!"
+
+For three days and nights Truedale stayed away from the old home.
+Business was his excuse--he offered it in the form of a note and a bunch
+of violets. Lynda telephoned on the second day and asked him if he were
+quite well. The tone of her voice made him decide to see her at once.
+
+"May I come to dinner to-night, Lyn?" he asked.
+
+"Sorry, Con, but I must dine with some people who have bought a hideous
+house and want me to get them out of the scrape by remodelling the
+inside. They're awfully rich and impossible--it's a sort of duty to the
+public, you know."
+
+"To-morrow then, Lyn?"
+
+"Yes, indeed. Only Brace will be dining with the Morrells; by the way,
+she's a dear, Con."
+
+The next night was terrifically stormy--one of those spring storms that
+sweep everything before them. The bubbles danced on the pavements, the
+gutters ran floods, and fragments of umbrellas and garments floated
+incongruously on the tide.
+
+Battling against the wind, Conning made his way to Lynda's. As he drew
+near the house the glow from the windows seemed to meet and touch him
+with welcome.
+
+"I'll economize somewhere," Lynda often said, "but when darkness comes
+I'm always going to do my best to get the better of it."
+
+Just for one blank moment Truedale had a sickening thought: "Suppose
+that welcome was never again for him, after this night?" Then he laughed
+derisively. Lynda might have her ideals, her eternal reservations, but
+she also had her superb faithfulness. After she knew _all_, she would
+still be his friend.
+
+When he went into the library Lynda sat before the fire knitting a long
+strip of vivid wools. Conning had never seen her so employed and it had
+the effect of puzzling him; it was like seeing her--well, smoking, as
+some of her friends did! Nothing wrong in it--but, inharmonious.
+
+"What are you making, Lyn?" he asked, taking the ottoman and drawing
+close to her.
+
+"It--it isn't anything, Con. No one wants trash like this. It fulfils
+its mission when it is ravelled and knitted, then unravelled. You know
+what Stevenson says: 'I travel for travel's sake; the great affair is to
+move.' I knit for knitting's sake; it keeps my hands busy while my--my
+soul basks."
+
+She looked up with a smile and Truedale saw that she was ill at ease. It
+was the one thing that unnerved him. Had she been her old,
+self-contained self he could have depended upon her to bear her part
+while he eased his soul by burdening hers; but now he caught in her the
+appealing tenderness that had always awakened in old William Truedale
+the effort to save her from herself--from the cares others laid upon
+her.
+
+Conning, instead of plunging into his confession, looked at her in such
+a protecting, yearning way that Lynda's eyes fell, and the soft colour
+slowly crept in her cheeks.
+
+In the stillness, that neither knew how to break, Truedale noticed the
+gown Lynda wore. It was blue and clinging. The whiteness of her slim
+arms showed through the loose sleeves; the round throat was bare and
+girlish in its drooping curve.
+
+For one mad moment Truedale tried to stifle his conscience. Why should
+he not have this love and happiness that lay close to him? In what was
+he different from the majority of men? Then he thought--as others before
+him had thought--that, since the race must be preserved, the primal
+impulses should not be denied. They outlived everything; they rallied
+from shock--even death; they persisted until extinction; and here was
+this sweet woman with all her gracious loveliness near him. He loved
+her! Yes, strange as it seemed even then to him, Truedale acknowledged
+that he loved her with the love, unlike yet like the love that had been
+too rudely awakened in the lonely woods when he had been still incapable
+of understanding it.
+
+Then the storm outside reached his consciousness and awakened memories
+that hurt and stung him.
+
+No. He was not as many men who could take and take and find excuse. The
+very sincerity of the past and future must prove itself, now, in this
+throbbing, vital present. Only so could he justify himself and his
+belief in goodness. He must open his heart and soul to the woman beside
+him. There was no other alternative.
+
+But first they dined together across the hall. Truedale noted every
+special dish--the meal was composed of his favourite viands. The
+intimacy of sitting opposite Lynda, the smiling pleasure of old Thomas
+who served them, combined to lure him again from his stern sense of
+duty.
+
+Why? Why? his yearning pleaded. Why should he destroy his own future
+happiness and that of this sweet, innocent woman for a whim--that was
+what he tried to term it--of conscience? Why, there were men, thousands
+of them, who would call him by a harsher name than he cared to own, if
+he followed such a course; and yet--then Truedale looked across at
+Lynda.
+
+"A woman should have clear vision and choice," his reason commanded, and
+to this his love agreed.
+
+But alone with Lynda, in the library later, the conflict was renewed.
+Never had she been so sweet, so kind. The storm beat against the house
+and instead of interfering, seemed to hold them close and--together. It
+no longer aroused in Truedale recollections that smarted. It was like an
+old familiar guide leading his thought into ways sacred and happy. Then
+suddenly, out of a consciousness that knew neither doubt nor fear, he
+said:
+
+"You and I, Lyn, were never afraid of truth, were we?"
+
+"Never."
+
+She was knitting again--knitting feverishly and desperately.
+
+"Lyn--I want to tell you--all about it! About something you must know."
+
+Very quietly now, Lynda rolled her work together and tossed it, needles
+and all, upon the glowing logs. She was done, forever, with subterfuge
+and she knew it. The wool curled, blackened, and gave forth a scorched
+smell before the red coals subdued it. Then, with a straight, uplifted
+look:
+
+"I'm ready, Con."
+
+"Just before I broke down and went away, Brace once told me that my life
+had no background, no colour. Lynda, it is of that background about
+which you do not know, that I want to speak." He waited a moment, then
+went on:
+
+"I went away--to the loneliest, the most beautiful place I had ever
+seen. For a time there seemed to be nobody in the world but the man with
+whom I lived and me. He liked and trusted me--I betrayed his trust!"
+
+Lynda caught her breath and gave a little exclamation of dissent,
+wonder.
+
+"You--betrayed him, Con! I cannot believe that. Go on."
+
+"Yes. I betrayed his trust. He left me and went into the deep woods to
+hunt. He put everything in my care--everything. He was gone nearly three
+weeks. No one knew of my existence. They are like that down there. If
+you are an outsider you do not matter. I had arrived at dark; I was sent
+for a certain purpose; that was all that mattered. I began and ended
+with the man who was my host and who had been told to--to keep me
+secret." Truedale was gripping the arms of his chair and his words came
+punctuated by sharp pauses.
+
+"And then, into that solitude, came a young girl. Remember, she did not
+know of my existence. We--discovered each other like creatures in a new
+world. There are no words to describe her--I cannot even attempt it,
+Lynda. I ruined her life. That's all!"
+
+The bald, crushing truth was out. For a moment the man Lynda Kendall
+knew and loved seemed hiding behind this monster the confession had
+called forth. A lesser woman would have shrunk in affright, but not
+Lynda.
+
+"No. That is not all," she whispered hoarsely, putting her hands out as
+though pushing something tangible aside until she could reach Conning.
+"I demand the rest."
+
+"What matters it?" Truedale spoke bitterly. "If I tell how and why, can
+that alter the--fact? Oh! I have had my hours of explaining and
+justifying and glossing over; but I've come at last to the point where
+I see myself as I am and I shall never argue the thing again."
+
+"Con, you have shown me the man as man might see him; I must--I must
+have him as a woman--as his God--must see him!"
+
+"And you think it possible for me to grant this? You--you, Lynda, would
+you have me put up a defense for what I did?"
+
+"No. But I would have you throw all the light upon it that you can. I
+want to see--for myself. I will not accept the hideous skeleton you have
+hung before me. Con, I have never really known but five men in my life;
+but women--women have lain heart deep along my way ever since--I learned
+to know my mother! Not only for yourself, but for that girl who drifted
+into your solitude, I demand light--all that you can give me!"
+
+And now Truedale breathed hard and the muscles of his face twitched. He
+was about to lay bare the inscrutable, the holy thing of his life,
+fearing that even the woman near him could not be just. He had accepted
+his own fate, so he thought; he meant not to whine or complain, but how
+was he to live his life if Lynda failed to agree with him--where
+Nella-Rose was concerned?
+
+"Will you--can you--do what I ask, Con?"
+
+"Yes--in a minute."
+
+"You--loved her? She loved you--Con?" Lynda strove to smooth the way,
+not so much for Truedale as for herself.
+
+"Yes! I found her in my cabin one day when I returned from a long tramp.
+She had decked herself out in my bathrobe and the old fez. Not knowing
+anything about me, she was horribly frightened when I came upon her. At
+first she seemed nothing but a child--she took me by storm. We met in
+the woods later. I read to her, taught her, played with her--I, who had
+never played in my life before. Then suddenly she became a woman! She
+knew no law but her own; she was full of courage and daring and a
+splendid disregard for conventions as--as we all know them. For her,
+they simply did not exist. I--I was willing and eager to cast my future
+hopes of happiness with hers--God knows I was sincere in that!
+
+"Then came a night of storm--such as this. Can you imagine it in the
+black forests where small streams become rivers in a moment, carrying
+all before them as they plunge and roar down the mountain sides? Dangers
+of all sorts threatened and, in the midst of that storm, something
+occurred that involved me! I had sent Nella-Rose--that was her
+name--away earlier in the day. I could not trust myself. But she came
+back to warn me. It meant risking everything, for her people were abroad
+that night bent on ugly business; she had to betray them in order to
+save me. To have turned her adrift would have meant death, or worse.
+She remained with me nearly a week--she and I alone in that cabin and
+cut off from the world--she and I! There was only myself to depend
+upon--and, Lynda, I failed again!"
+
+"But, Con--you meant to--to marry her; you meant that--from the first?"
+Lynda had forgotten herself, her suffering. She was struggling to save
+something more precious than her love; she was holding to her faith in
+Truedale.
+
+"Good God! yes. It was the one thing I wanted--the one thing I planned.
+In my madness it did not seem to matter much except as a safeguard for
+her--but I had no other thought or intention. We meant to go to a
+minister as soon as the storm released us. Then came the telegram about
+Uncle William, and the minister was killed during the storm. Lynda, I
+wanted to bring Nella-Rose to you just as she was, but she would not
+come. I left my address and told her to send for me if she needed me--I
+meant to return as soon as I could, anyway. I would have left anything
+for her. She never sent for me--and the very day I left--she--"
+
+"What, Con? I must know all."
+
+"Lynda, before God I believe something drove the child to it; you must
+not--you shall not judge her. But she went, the very night I left, to a
+man--a man of the hills--who had loved her all his life. He was in
+danger; he escaped, taking her with him!"
+
+"I--I do _not_ believe it!" The words rang out sharply, defiantly.
+Woman was in arms for woman. The loyalty that few men admit confronted
+Truedale now. It seemed to glorify the darkness about him. He had no
+further fear for Nella-Rose and he bowed his head before Lynda's blazing
+eyes.
+
+"God bless you!" he whispered, "but oh! Lyn, I went back to make sure. I
+had the truth from her own father. And with all--she stands to this day,
+in my memory, guiltless of the monstrous wrong she seemed to commit; and
+so she will always stand.
+
+"Since then, Lynda, I have lived a new piece of life; the past lies back
+there and it is dead, dead. I would not have told you this but for one
+great and tremendous thing. You will not understand this; no woman
+could. A man could, but not a woman.
+
+"As I once loved--in another way--that child of the hills, I love you,
+the one woman of my manhood's clearer vision. Because of that love--I
+had to speak."
+
+Truedale looked up and met the eyes that searched his soul.
+
+"I believe you," Lynda faltered. "I do not understand, but I believe
+you. Go away now, Con, I want to think."
+
+He rose at once and bent over her. "God bless you, Lyn," was all he
+said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+Two days, then three passed. Lynda tried to send for Truedale--tried to
+believe that she saw clearly at last, but having decided that she was
+ready she was again lost in doubt and plunged into a new struggle.
+
+She neglected her work and grew pale and listless. Brace was worried and
+bewildered. He had never seen his sister in like mood and, missing
+Conning from the house, he drew, finally, his own conclusions.
+
+One day, it was nearly a week after Truedale's call, Brace came upon his
+sister in the workshop over the extension. She was sitting on the
+window-ledge looking out into the old garden where a magnolia tree was
+in full bloom.
+
+"Heigho, boy!" she said, welcoming him with her eyes. "I've just
+discovered that spring is here. I've always been ready for it before.
+This year it has taken me by surprise."
+
+Brace came close to her and put his hands on her shoulders.
+
+"What's the matter, girl?" he asked in his quick, blunt way.
+
+The tears came to Lynda's eyes, but she did not shrink.
+
+"Brother," she said slowly, "I--I want to marry Con and--I do not
+dare."
+
+Kendall dropped in the nearest chair, and stared blankly at his sister.
+
+"Would you mind being a bit more--well, more explicit?" he faltered.
+
+"I'm going to ask you--some questions, dear. Will you--tell me true?"
+
+"I'll do my best." Kendall passed his hand through his hair; it seemed
+to relieve the tension.
+
+"Brace, can a man truly love many times? Perhaps not many--but
+twice--truly?"
+
+"Yes--he can!" Brace asserted boldly. "I've been in love a dozen times
+myself. I always put it to the coffee-urn test--that settles it."
+
+"Brace, I am in earnest. Do not joke."
+
+"Joke? Good Lord! I tell you, Lyn, I am in _deadly_ earnest--deadlier
+than you know. When a man puts his love three hundred and sixty-five
+times a year, in fancy, behind his coffee-urn, he gets his bearings."
+
+"You've never grown up, Brace, and I feel as old--as old as both your
+grandmothers. I do not mean--puppy-love; I mean the love that cuts deep
+in a man's soul. Can it cut twice?"
+
+"If it couldn't, it would be good-bye to the future of the race!" And
+now Kendall had the world's weary knowledge in his eyes.
+
+"A woman--cannot understand that, Lyn. She must trust if she loves."
+
+"Yes." The universal language of men struck Lynda like a strange
+tongue. Had she been living all her life, she wondered, like a
+foreigner--understanding merely by signs? And now that she was
+close--was confronting a situation that vitally affected her
+future--must she, like other women, trust, trust?
+
+"But what has all this to do with Con?" Kendall's voice roused Lynda
+sharply.
+
+"Why--everything," she said in her simple, frank way, "he--he is
+offering me a second love, Brace."
+
+For a moment Kendall thought his sister was resorting to sarcasm or
+frivolity. But one look at her unsmiling face and shadow-touched eyes
+convinced him.
+
+"You hardly are the woman to whom dregs should be offered," he said
+slowly, and then, "But Con! Good Lord!"
+
+"Brace, now I am speaking the woman's language, perhaps you may not be
+able to understand me, but I know Con is not offering me dregs--I do not
+think he has any dregs in his nature; he is offering me the best, the
+truest love of his life. I know it! I know it! The love that would bring
+my greatest joy and his best good and--yet I am afraid!"
+
+Kendall went over and stood close beside his sister again.
+
+"You know that?" he asked, "and still are afraid? Why?"
+
+The clear eyes looked up pathetically. "Because Con may not know, and I
+may not be able to make him know--make him--forget!"
+
+There was a moment's silence. Kendall was never to forget the magnolia
+tree in its gorgeous, pink bloom; the droop of his strong, fine sister!
+Sharply he recalled the night long ago when Truedale groaned and threw
+his letters on the fire.
+
+"Lyn, I hardly dare ask this, knowing you as I do--you are not the sort
+to compromise with honour selfishly or idiotically--but, Lyn, the--the
+other love, it was not--an evil thing?"
+
+The tears sprang to Lynda's eyes and she flung her arms around her
+brother's neck and holding him so whispered:
+
+"No! no! At least I can understand that. It was the--the most beautiful
+and tender tragedy. That is the trouble. It was so--wonderful, that I
+fear no man can ever quite forget and take the new love without a
+backward look. And oh! Brace, I must have--my own! Men cannot always
+understand women when they say this. They think, when we say we want our
+own lives, that it means lives running counter to theirs. This is not
+so. We want, we must choose--but the best of us want the common life
+that draws close to the heart of things; we want to go with our men and
+along their way. Our way and theirs are the _same_ way, when love is big
+enough."
+
+"Lyn--there isn't a man on God's earth worthy of--you!"
+
+"Brace, look at me--answer true. Am I such that a man could really want
+me?"
+
+He looked long at her. Bravely he strove to forget the blood tie that
+held them. He regarded her from the viewpoint that another man might
+have. Then he said:
+
+"Yes. As God hears me, Lyn--yes!"
+
+She dropped her head upon his shoulder and wept as if grief instead of
+joy were sweeping over her. Presently she raised her tear-wet face and
+said:
+
+"I'm going to marry Con, dear, as soon as he wants me. I hate to say
+this, Brace, but it is a little as if Conning had come home to me from
+an honourable war--a bit mutilated. I must try to get used to him and I
+will! I will!"
+
+Kendall held her to him close. "Lyn, I never knew until this moment how
+much I have to humbly thank God for. Oh! if men only could see ahead,
+young fellows I mean, they would not come to a woman--mutilated. I
+haven't much to offer, heaven knows, but--well, Lyn, I can offer a clear
+record to some woman--some day!"
+
+All that day Lynda thought of the future. Sitting in her workshop with
+the toy-like emblems of her craft at hand she thought and thought. It
+seemed to her, struggling alone, that men and women, after all, walked
+through life--largely apart. They had built bridges with love and
+necessity and over them they crossed to touch each other for a space,
+but oh! how she longed for a common highway where she and Con could walk
+always together! She wanted this so much, so much!
+
+At five o'clock she telephoned to Truedale. She knew he generally went
+to his apartment at that hour.
+
+"I--I want to see you, Con," she said.
+
+"Yes, Lyn. Where?"
+
+She felt the answer meant much, so she paused.
+
+"After dinner, Con, and come right up to--to my workshop."
+
+"I will be there--early."
+
+Lynda was never more her merry old self than she was at dinner; but she
+was genuinely relieved when Brace told her he was going out.
+
+"What are you going to do, Lyn?" he asked.
+
+"Why--go up to my workshop. I've neglected things horribly, lately."
+
+"I thought that night work was taboo?"
+
+"I rarely work at night, Brace. And you--where are you going?"
+
+"Up to Morrell's."
+
+Lynda raised her eyebrows.
+
+"Mrs. Morrell's sister has come from the West, Lyn. She's very
+interesting. She's _voted_, and it hasn't hurt her."
+
+"Why should it? And"--Lynda came around the table and paused as she was
+about to go out of the room "I wonder if she could pass the coffee-urn
+test, on a pinch?"
+
+Kendall coloured vividly. "I've been thinking more of my end of the
+table since I saw her than I ever have before in my life. It isn't all
+coffee-urn, Lyn."
+
+"Indeed it isn't! I must see this little womanly Lochinvar at once. Is
+she pretty--pretty as Mrs. John?"
+
+"Why--I don't know. I haven't thought. She's so different from--every
+one. She's little but makes you think big. She's always saying things
+you remember afterward, but she doesn't talk much. She's--she's got
+light hair and blue eyes!" This triumphantly.
+
+"And I hope she--dresses well?" This with a twinkle, for Kendall was
+keen about the details of a woman's dress.
+
+"She must, or I would have noticed." Then, upon reflection, "or perhaps
+I wouldn't."
+
+"Well, good-night, Brace, and--give Mrs. John my love. Poor dear! she
+came up to ask me yesterday if I could make a small room _look_
+spacious! You see, John likes to have everything cluttered--close to his
+touch. She wants him to have his way and at the same time she wants to
+breathe, too. Her West is in her blood."
+
+"What are you going to do about it, Lyn?" Kendall lighted a cigar and
+laughed.
+
+"Oh, I managed to give a prairie-like suggestion of openness to her
+living-room plan and I told her to make John reach for a few things. It
+would do him good and save her soul alive."
+
+"And she--what did she say to that?"
+
+"Oh, she laughed. She has such a pretty laugh. Good-night, brother."
+
+And then Lynda went upstairs to her quiet, dim room. It was a warmish
+night, with a moon that shone through the open space in the rear. The
+lot had not been built upon and the white path that had seemed to lure
+old William Truedale away from life now stretched before Lynda Kendall,
+leading into life. Whatever doubts and fears she had known were put
+away. In her soft thin dress, standing by the open window, she was the
+gladdest creature one could wish to see. And so Truedale found her. He
+knew that only one reason had caused Lynda to meet him as she was now
+doing. It was--surrender! Across the moon-lighted room he went to her
+with opened arms, and when she came to meet him and lifted her face he
+kissed her reverently.
+
+"I wonder if you have thought?" he whispered.
+
+"I have done nothing else in the ages since I last saw you, Con."
+
+"And you are not--afraid? You, who should have the best the world has to
+offer?"
+
+"I am not afraid; and I--have the best--the very best."
+
+Again Truedale kissed her.
+
+"And when--may I come home--to stay?" he asked presently, knowing full
+well that the old home must be theirs.
+
+Lynda looked up and smiled radiantly. "I had hoped," she said, "that I
+might have the honour of declining the little apartment. I'm so glad,
+Con, dear, that you want to come home to stay and will not have to
+be--forced here!" And at that moment Lynda had no thought of the money.
+Bigger, deeper things held her.
+
+"And--our wedding day, Lyn? Surely it may be soon."
+
+"Let me see. Of course I'm a woman, Con, and therefore I must think of
+clothes. And I would like--oh! very much--to be married in a certain
+little church across the river. I found it once on a tramp. There are
+vines running wild over it--pink roses. And roses come in early June,
+Con."
+
+"But, dearest, this is only--March."
+
+"I must have--the roses, Con."
+
+And so it was decided.
+
+Late that night, in the stillness of the five little rooms of the big
+apartment, Truedale thought of his past and his future.
+
+How splendid Lynda had been. Not a word of all that he had told her, and
+yet full well he realized how she had battled with it! She had accepted
+it and him! And for such love and faith his life would be only too
+short to prove his learning of his hard lesson. The man he now was
+sternly confronted the man he had once been, and then Truedale renounced
+the former forever--renounced him with pity, not with scorn. His only
+chance of being worthy of the love that had come into his life now, was
+to look upon the past as a stepping stone. Unless it could be that, it
+would be a bottomless pit.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+The roses came early that June. Truedale and Lynda went often on their
+walks to the little church nestling deep among the trees in the Jersey
+town. They got acquainted with the old minister and finally they set
+their wedding day. They, with Brace, went over early on the morning.
+Lynda was in her travelling gown for, after a luncheon, she and Truedale
+were going to the New Hampshire mountains. It was such a day as revived
+the reputation of June, and somehow the minister, steeped in the
+conventions of his office, could not let things rest entirely in the
+hands of the very eccentric young people who had won his consent to
+marry them. An organist, practising, stayed on, and always Lynda was to
+recall, when she thought of her wedding day, those tender notes that
+rose and fell like a stream upon which the sacred words of the simple
+service floated.
+
+"The Voice That Breathed O'er Eden" was what the unseen musician played.
+He seemed detached, impersonal, and only the repeated strains gave
+evidence of his sympathy. An old woman had wandered into the church and
+sat near the door with a rapt, wistful look on her wrinkled face. Near
+the altar was a little child, a tiny girl with a bunch of wayside
+flowers in her fat, moist hand.
+
+Lynda paused and whispered something to the little maid and then, as she
+went forward, Truedale noticed that the child was beside Lynda, a
+shabby, wee maid of honour!
+
+It was very quaint, very touchingly pretty, but the scene overawed the
+baby and when the last words were said and Truedale had kissed his wife
+they noticed that the little one was in tears. Lynda bent over her full
+of tenderness.
+
+"What is it, dear?" she whispered.
+
+"I--I want--my mother!"
+
+"So do I, sweetheart; so do I!"
+
+The wet eyes were raised in wonder.
+
+"And where is your mother, baby?"
+
+"Up--up--the hill!"
+
+"Why, so is mine, but you will find yours--first. Don't cry, sweetheart.
+See, here is a little ring. It is too large for you now, but let your
+mother keep it, and when you are big enough, wear it--and remember--me."
+
+Dazzled by the gift, the child smiled up radiantly. "Good-bye," she
+whispered, "I'll tell mother--and I won't forget."
+
+Later that same golden day, when Kendall bade his sister and Truedale
+good-bye at the station he had the look on his face that he used to have
+when, as a child, he was wont to wonder why he had to be brave because
+he was a boy.
+
+It made Lynda laugh, even while a lump came in her throat. Then, as in
+the old days, she sought to recompense him, without relenting as to the
+code.
+
+"Of course you'll miss us, dear old fellow, but we'll soon be back
+and"--she put her lips to his ear and whispered--"there's the little
+sister of the Morrells; play with her until we come home."
+
+There are times in life that stand forth as if specially designed, and
+cause one to wonder, if after all, a personal God isn't directing
+affairs for the individual. They surely could not have just happened,
+those weeks in the mountains. So warm and still and cloudless they were
+for early June. And then there was a moon for a little while--a calm,
+wonderful moon that sent its fair light through the tall trees like a
+benediction. After that there were stars--millions of them--each in its
+place surrounded by that blue-blackness that is luminous and unearthly.
+Securing a guide, Truedale and Lynda sought their own way and slept, at
+night, in wayside shelters by their own campfires. They had no definite
+destination; they simply wandered like pilgrims, taking the day's dole
+with joyous hearts and going to their sleep at night with healthy
+weariness.
+
+Only once during those weeks did they speak of that past of Truedale's
+that Lynda had accepted in silence.
+
+"My wife," Truedale said--she was sitting beside him by the outdoor
+fire--"I want you always to remember that I am more grateful than words
+can express for your--bigness, your wonderful understanding. I did not
+expect that even you, Lyn, could be--so!"
+
+She trembled a little--he remembered that afterward--he felt her against
+his shoulder.
+
+"I think--I know," she whispered, "that women consider the _effect_ of
+such--things, Con. Had the experience been low, it would have left its
+mark; as it is I am sure--well, it has not darkened your vision."
+
+"No, Lyn, no!"
+
+"And lately, I have been thinking of her, Con--that little Nella-Rose."
+
+"You--have? You _could_, Lyn?"
+
+"Yes. At first I couldn't possibly comprehend--I do not now, really, but
+I find myself believing, in spite of my inability to understand, that
+the experience has cast such a light upon her way, poor child, that--off
+in some rude mountain home--she has a little fairer space than some.
+Con, knowing you, I believe you could not have--lowered her. She went
+back to her natural love--it must have been a strong call--but I shall
+never believe her depraved."
+
+"Lyn," Truedale's voice was husky, "once you made me reconciled to my
+uncle's death--it was the way you put it--and now you have made me dare
+to be--happy."
+
+"Men never grow up!" Lynda pressed her face to his shoulder, "they make
+a bluff at caring for us and defending us and all the rest--but we
+understand, we understand! I think women mother men always even when
+they rely upon them most, as I do upon you! It's so splendid to think,
+when we go home, of the great things we are going to do--together."
+
+A letter from Brace, eventually, made them turn their faces homeward. It
+was late July then.
+
+     LYN, DEAR:
+
+     When you can conveniently give me a thought, do. And when are you
+     coming back? I hope I shall not shock you unduly--but it's that
+     little sister of the Morrells that is the matter, Elizabeth
+     Arnold--Betty we call her. I've got to marry her as soon as I can.
+     I'll never be able to do any serious business again until I get her
+     behind the coffee-urn. She haunts me day and night and then when I
+     see her--she laughs at me! We've been over to look at that church
+     where you and Con were married. Betty likes it, but prefers her own
+     folk to stray old women and lost kids. We think September would be
+     a jolly month to be married in, but Betty refuses to set a day
+     until she finds out if she approves of my people! That's the way
+     _she_ puts it. She says she wants to find out if you believe in
+     women's voting, for if you don't, she knows she never could get on
+     with you. She believes that the thing that makes women opposed,
+     does other things to them--rather unpleasant, unfriendly things.
+
+     I told her your sentiments and then she asked about Con. She says
+     she wouldn't trust the freest woman in the East if she were married
+     to a slave-believing man.
+
+     By all this you will judge what a comical little cuss Betty is,
+     but all the same I am quite serious in urging you to come home
+     before I grow desperate.
+
+     BRACE.
+
+Truedale looked at Lynda in blank amazement. "I'd forgotten about the
+sister," he said, inanely.
+
+"I think, dear, we'll _have_ to go home. I remember once when we were
+quite little, Brace and I, mother had taken me for a visit and left him
+at home. He sent a letter to mother--it was in printing--'You better
+come back,' he said; 'You better come in three days or I'll do
+something.' We got there on the fourth day and we found that he had
+broken the rocking chair in which mother used to put him to sleep when
+he was good!"
+
+"The little rowdy!" Truedale laughed. "I hope he got a walloping."
+
+"No. Mother cried a little, had the chair mended, and always said she
+was sorry that she had not got home on the third day."
+
+"I see. Well, Lyn, let's go home to him. I don't know what he might
+break, but perhaps we couldn't mend it, so we'll take no chances."
+
+Truedale and Lynda had walked rather giddily upon the heights; the
+splendour of stars and the warm touch of the sun had been very near
+them; but once they descended to the paths of plain duty they were not
+surprised to find that they lay along a pleasant valley and were warmed
+by the brightness of the hills.
+
+"It's--home, now!" whispered Truedale as he let himself and Lynda in at
+the front door, "I wish Uncle William were here to welcome us. How he
+loved you, Lyn."
+
+Like a flood of joy memory overcame Lynda. This was how William Truedale
+had loved her--this luxury of home--and then she looked at Truedale and
+almost told him of the money, the complete assurance of the old man's
+love and trust. But of a sudden it became impossible, though why, Lynda
+could not have said. She shrank from what she had once believed would be
+her crowning joy; she decided to leave the matter entirely with Dr.
+McPherson.
+
+After all, she concluded, it should be Con's right to bring to her this
+last touching proof of his uncle's love and desire. How proud he would
+be! How they would laugh over it all when they both knew the secret!
+
+So the subject was not referred to and a day or so later Betty Arnold
+entered their lives, and so intense was their interest in her and her
+affairs that personal matters were, for the moment, overlooked.
+
+Lynda went first to call upon Betty alone. If she were to be
+disappointed, she wanted time to readjust herself before she encountered
+other eyes. Betty Arnold, too, was alone in her sister's drawing room
+when Lynda was announced. The two girls looked long and searchingly at
+each other, then Lynda put her hands out impulsively:
+
+"It's really too good to be true!" was all she could manage as she
+looked at the fair, slight girl and cast doubt off forever.
+
+"Isn't it?" echoed Betty. "Whew! but this is the sort of thing that ages
+one."
+
+"Would it have mattered, Betty, whether I was pleased or not?"
+
+"Lynda, it would--awfully! You see, all my life I've been independent
+until I met Brace and now I want everything that belongs to him. His
+love and mine collided but it didn't shock us to blindness, it awakened
+us--body and soul. When that happens, everything matters--everything
+that belongs to him and me. I knew you liked Mollie, and John is an old
+friend; they're all I've got, and so you see if you and I hadn't--liked
+each other, it would have been--tragic. Now let's sit down and have tea.
+Isn't it great that we won't have to choke over it?"
+
+Betty presided at the small table so daintily and graciously that her
+occasional lapses into slang were like the dartings of a particularly
+frisky little animal from the beaten track of conventions. She and Lynda
+grew confidential in a half hour and felt as if they had known each
+other for years at the close of the call. Just as Lynda was reluctantly
+leaving, Mrs. Morrell came in. She was darker, more dignified than her
+sister, but like her in voice and laugh.
+
+"Mollie, I wish I had told you to stay another hour," Betty exclaimed,
+going to her sister and kissing her. "And oh! Mollie, Lynda likes me!
+I'll confess to you both now that I have lain awake nights dreading this
+ordeal."
+
+When Lynda met Brace that evening she was amused at his drawn face and
+tense voice.
+
+"How did you like her?" he asked feebly and at that moment Lynda
+realized how futile a subterfuge would have been.
+
+"Brace, I love her!"
+
+"Thank God!"
+
+"Why, Brace!"
+
+"I mean it. It would have gone hard with me if you hadn't."
+
+To Truedale, Betty presented another aspect.
+
+"You can trust women with your emotions about men," she confided to
+Lynda, "but not men! I wouldn't let Brace know for anything how my love
+for him hobbles me; and if your Con--by the way, he's a great deal nicer
+than I expected--should guess my abject state, he'd go to Brace and--put
+him wise! That's why men have got where they are to-day--standing
+together. And then Brace might begin at once to bully me. You see,
+Lynda, when a husband gets the upper hand it's often because he's
+reinforced by all the knowledge his male friends hand out to him."
+
+Truedale met Betty first at the dinner--the little family dinner Lynda
+gave for her. Morrell and his wife. Brace and Betty, himself and Lynda.
+
+In a trailing blue gown Betty looked quite stately and she carried her
+blond head high. She sparkled away through dinner and proved her happy
+faculty of fitting in, perfectly. It was a very merry meal, and later,
+by the library fire, Conning found himself tete-a-tete with his future
+sister-in-law. She amused him hugely.
+
+"I declare," he said teasingly, "I can hardly believe that you believe
+in the equality of the sexes." They were attacking that problem at the
+moment.
+
+"I--don't!" Betty looked quaintly demure. "I believe in the superiority
+of men!"
+
+"Good Lord!"
+
+"I do. That's why I want all women to have the same chance that men have
+had to get superior. I--I want my sisters to get there, too!"
+
+"There? Just where?" Truedale began to think the girl frivolous; but her
+charm held.
+
+
+"Why, where their qualifications best fit them to be. I'm going to tell
+you a secret--I'm tremendously religious! I believe God knows, better
+than men, about women; I want--well, I don't want to seem flippant--but
+truly I'd like to hear God speak for himself!"
+
+Truedale smiled. "That's a common-sense argument, anyway," he said. "But
+I suppose we men are afraid to trust any one else; we don't want
+to--lose you."
+
+"As if you could!" Betty held her small, white hand out to the dog
+lying at her feet. "As if we didn't know, that whatever we don't want,
+we do want you. Why, you are our--job."
+
+Truedale threw his head back and laughed. "You're like a whiff of your
+big mountain air," he said.
+
+"I hope I always will be," Betty replied softly and earnestly, "I must
+keep--free, no matter what happens. I must keep what I am, or how can I
+expect to keep--Brace? He loved _this_ me. Marriage doesn't perform a
+miracle, does it--Conning? please let me call you that. Lynda has told
+me how she and you believe in two lives, not one narrow little life.
+It's splendid. And now I am going to tell you another secret. I'll have
+to let Lynda in on this, too, she must help me. I have a little money of
+my very own--I earned every cent of it. I am going to buy a tiny bit of
+ground, I've picked it out--it's across the river in the woods. I'm
+going to build a house, not much of a one, a very small one, and I'm
+going to call it--The Refuge. When I cannot find myself, when I get
+lost, after I'm married, and am trying to be everything to Brace, I'm
+going to run away to--The Refuge!" The blue eyes were shining "And
+nobody can come there, not even Brace, except by invitation. I
+think"--very softly--"I think all women should have a--a Refuge."
+
+Truedale found himself impressed. "You're a very wise little woman," he
+said.
+
+"One has to be, sometimes," came the slow words. And at that moment all
+doubt of Betty's serious-mindedness departed.
+
+Brace joined them presently. He looked as if he had been straining at a
+leash since dinner time.
+
+"Con," he said, laying his hand on the light head bending over the dog,
+"now that you have talked and laughed with Betty, what have you got to
+say?"
+
+"Congratulations, Ken, with all my heart."
+
+"And now, Betty"--there was a new tone in Kendall's voice--"Mollie has
+said you may walk back with me. The taxi would stifle us. There's a
+moon, dear, and a star or two--"
+
+"As if that mattered!" Betty broke in. "I'm very, very happy. Brace,
+you've got a nice, sensible family. They agree with me in everything."
+
+The weeks passed rapidly. Betty's affairs absorbed them all, though she
+laughingly urged them to leave her alone.
+
+"It's quite awful enough to feel yourself being carried along by a
+deluge," she jokingly said, "without hearing the cheers from the banks."
+
+But Mollie Morrell flung herself heart and soul into the arranging of
+the wardrobe--playing big sister for the first and only time in her
+life. She was older than Betty, but the younger girl had always swayed
+the elder.
+
+And Lynda became fascinated with the little bungalow across the river,
+known as The Refuge.
+
+The original fancy touched her imagination and she put other work aside
+while she vied with Betty for expression.
+
+"I've found an old man and woman, near by," Betty said one day, "they
+were afraid they would have to go to the poor-house, although both are
+able to do a little. I'm going to put them in my bungalow--the two
+little upstair rooms shall be theirs. When I run down to find myself it
+will be homey to see the two shining, old faces there to greet me. They
+are not a bit cringing; I think they know how much they will mean to me.
+They consider me rather immoral, I know, but that doesn't matter."
+
+And then in early October Brace and Betty were married in the church
+across the river. Red and gold autumn leaves were falling where earlier
+the roses had clambered; it was a brisk, cool day full of sun and shade
+and the wedding was more to the old clergyman's taste. The organist was
+in his place, his music discriminately chosen, there were guests and
+flowers and discreet costumes.
+
+"More as it should be," thought the serene pastor; but Lynda missed the
+kindly old woman who had drifted in on her wedding day, and the small,
+tearful girl who had wanted her mother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+There are spaces in all lives that seem so surrounded by safety and
+established conditions that one cannot conceive of change. Those
+particular spots may know light and shade of passing events but it seems
+that they cannot, of themselves, be affected. So Truedale and Lynda had
+considered their lives at that period. They were supremely happy, they
+were gloriously busy--and that meant that they both recognized
+limitations. They took each day as it came and let it go at the end with
+a half-conscious knowledge that it had been too short.
+
+Then one late October afternoon Truedale tapped on the door of Lynda's
+workshop and to her cheery "come," entered, closed the door after him,
+and sat down. He was very white and sternly serious. Lynda looked at him
+questioningly but did not speak.
+
+"I've seen Dr. McPherson," Conning said presently, "he sent for me. He's
+been away, you know."
+
+"I had not known--but--" Then Lynda remembered!
+
+"Lynda, did you know--of my uncle's--will before his death?"
+
+"Why, yes, Con."
+
+Something cold and death-like clutched Lynda's heart. It was as if an
+icy wave had swept warmth and safety before it, leaving her aghast and
+afraid.
+
+"Yes, I knew."
+
+"Will you tell me--I could not go into this with McPherson, somehow; he
+didn't see it my way, naturally--will you tell me what would have become
+of the--the fortune had I not married you?"
+
+The deathly whiteness of Lynda's face did not stay Truedale's hard
+words; he was not thinking of her--even of himself; he was thinking of
+the irony of fate in the broad sense.
+
+"The money would have--come to me." Then, as if to divert any further
+misunderstanding. "And when I refused it--it would have reverted to
+charities."
+
+"I see. And you did this for me, Lyn! How little even you understood.
+Now that I have the cursed money I do not know what to do with it--how
+to get rid of it. Still it was like you, Lynda, to sacrifice yourself in
+order that I might have what you thought was my due. You always did
+that, from girlhood. I might have known no other woman could have done
+what you have done, no such woman as you, Lyn, without a mighty motive;
+but you did not know me, really!"
+
+And now, looking at Lynda, it was like looking at a dead face--a face
+from which warmth and light had been stricken.
+
+"I--do not know what you--mean, Con," she said, vaguely.
+
+"Being you, Lyn, you couldn't have taken the money, yourself,
+particularly if you had declined to marry me. A lesser woman would have
+done it without a qualm, feeling justified in outwitting so cruel a
+thing as the bequest; but not you! You saw no other way, so you--you
+with your high ideals and clear beliefs--you married the man I am--in
+order to--to give me--my own. Oh, Lyn, what a sacrifice!"
+
+"Stop!" Lynda rose from her chair and, by a wide gesture, swept the
+marks of her trade far from her. In so doing she seemed to make space to
+breathe and think.
+
+"Do you think I am the sort of girl who would sell herself for
+anything--even for the justice I might think was yours?"
+
+"Sell yourself? Thank God, between us, Lynda, that does not enter in."
+
+"It would have, were I the woman your words imply. I had nothing to gain
+by marrying you, nothing! Nothing--that is--but--but--what you are
+unable to see." And then, so suddenly that Truedale could not stop her,
+Lynda almost ran from the room.
+
+For an hour Truedale sat in her empty shop and waited. He dared not seek
+her and he realized, at last, that she was not coming back to him. His
+frame of mind was so abject and personal that he could not get Lynda's
+point of view. He could not, as yet, see the insult he had offered,
+because he had set her so high and himself so low. He saw her only as
+the girl and woman who, her life through, had put herself aside and
+considered others. He saw himself in the light such a woman as he
+believed Lynda to be would regard him. He might have known, he bitterly
+acknowledged, that Lynda could not have overlooked in her pure woman
+soul the lapse of his earlier life. He remembered how, that night of his
+confession, she had begged to be alone--to think! Later, her
+silence--oh! he understood it now. It was her only safeguard. And that
+once, in the woods, when he had blindly believed in his great joy--how
+she had solemnly made the best of the experience that was too deep in
+both hearts to be resurrected. What a fool he had been to dream that so
+wrong a step as he had once taken could lead him to perfect peace.
+Thinking these thoughts, how could he, as yet, comprehend the wrong he
+was doing Lynda? Why, he was grieving over her, almost breaking his
+heart in his desire to do something--anything--to free her from the
+results of her useless sacrifice.
+
+At six o'clock Truedale went downstairs, but the house was empty. Lynda
+had gone, taking all sense of home with her. He did not wait to see what
+the dinner hour might bring about; he could not trust himself just
+then. Indeed--having blasted every familiar landmark--he was utterly and
+hopelessly lost. He couldn't imagine how he was ever to find his way
+back to Lynda, and yet they would have to meet--have to consider.
+
+Lynda, after leaving her workshop, had only one desire--she wanted Betty
+more than she wanted anything else. She put on her hat and coat and
+started headlong for her brother's apartment farther uptown. She felt
+she must get there before Brace arrived and lay her trouble before the
+astoundingly clear, unfaltering mind and heart of the little woman who,
+so short a time ago, had come into their lives. But after a few blocks,
+Lynda's steps halted. If this were just her own trouble--but what
+trouble is just one's own?--she need not hesitate; but how could she
+reveal what was deepest and most unfailing in her soul to any living
+person--even to Betty of the unhesitating vision?
+
+Presently Lynda retraced her steps. The calm autumn night soothed and
+protected her. She looked up at the stars and thought of the old words:
+"Why so hot, little man, why so hot?" Why, indeed? And then in the still
+dimness--for she had turned into the side streets--she let Truedale come
+into her thoughts to the exclusion, for the moment, of her own bitter
+wrong. She looked back at his strange, lonely boyhood with so little in
+it that could cause him to view justly his uncle's last deed. She
+remembered his pride and struggle--his reserve and almost abnormal
+sensitiveness. Then--the experience in the mountain! How terribly deep
+that had sunk into Truedale's life; how unable he had been to see in it
+any wrong but his own. Lynda had always honoured him for that. It had
+made it possible for her to trust him absolutely. She had respected his
+fine position and had never blurred it by showing him how she, as a
+woman, could see the erring on the woman's part. No, she had left
+Nella-Rose to him as his high-minded chivalry had preserved her--she had
+dared do all that because she felt so secure in the love and sincerity
+of the present.
+
+"And now--what?"
+
+The bitterness was past. The shock had left her a bit weak and helpless
+but she no longer thought of the human need of Betty. She went home and
+sat down before the fire in the library and waited for light. At ten
+o'clock she came to a conclusion. Truedale must decide this thing for
+himself! It was, after all, his great opportunity. She could not, with
+honour and self-respect, throw herself upon him and so complicate the
+misunderstanding. If her life with him since June had not convinced him
+of her simple love and faith--her words, now, could not. He must seek
+her--must realize everything. And in this decision Lynda left herself so
+stranded and desolate that she looked up with wet eyes and saw--William
+Truedale's empty chair! A great longing for her old friend rose in her
+breast--a longing that not even death had taken from her. The clock
+struck the half-hour and Lynda got up and with no faltering went toward
+the bedroom door behind which the old man had started forth on his
+journey to find peace.
+
+And just as she went, with blinded eyes and aching heart, to shut
+herself away from the dreariness of the present, Truedale entered the
+house and, from the hall, watched her. He believed that she had heard
+him enter, he hoped she was going to turn toward him--but no! she went
+straight to the never-used room, shut the door, and--locked it!
+
+Truedale stood rooted to the spot. What he had hoped--what trusted--he
+could hardly have told. But manlike he was the true conservative and
+with the turning of that key his traditions and established position
+crumbled around him.
+
+Lynda and he were married and, unless they decided upon an open break,
+they must live their lives. But the turning of the key seemed to
+proclaim to the whole city a new dispensation. A declaration of
+independence that spurned--tradition.
+
+For a moment Truedale was angry, unsettled, and outraged. He strode into
+the room with stern eyes; he walked half way to the closed--and
+locked--door; he gazed upon it as if it were a tangible foe which he
+might overcome and, by so doing, reestablish the old ideals. Then--and
+it was the saving grace--Truedale smiled grimly. "To be sure," he
+muttered. "Of course!" and turned to his room under the eaves.
+
+But the following day had to be faced. There were several things that
+had to be dealt with besides the condition arising from the locking of
+the door of William Truedale's room.
+
+Conning battled with this fact nearly all night, little realizing that
+Lynda was feeling her way to the same conclusion in the quiet room
+below.
+
+"I'm not beaten, Uncle William," she whispered, kneeling beside the bed.
+"If I could only see how to meet to-morrow I would be all right."
+
+And then a queer sort of comfort came to her. The humour with which her
+old friend would have viewed the situation pervaded the room, bringing
+strength with it.
+
+"I know," she confided to the darkness in which the old man seemed
+present, in a marvellously real way, "I know I love Conning. A
+make-believe love couldn't stand this--but the true thing can. And he
+loves _me!_ I know it through and through. The other love of his
+wasn't--what this is. But he must find this out for himself. I've always
+been close when he needed me; he must come to me now--for his sake even
+more than for mine. I am deserving of that, am I not, Uncle William?"
+
+The understanding friendship did not fail the girl kneeling by the empty
+bed. It seemed to come through the rays of moonlight and rest like a
+helpful touch upon her.
+
+"Little mother!"--and in her soul Lynda believed William Truedale and
+her mother had come together--"little mother, you did your best without
+love; I will do mine--with it! And now I am going to bed and I am going
+to sleep."
+
+The next morning Truedale and Lynda were both so precipitate about
+attacking the situation that they nearly ran into each other at the
+dining-room door. They both had the grace to laugh. Then they talked of
+the work at hand for the morning.
+
+"I have a studio to evolve," Lynda said, passing a slice of toast to
+Truedale from the electric contrivance before her, "a woman wants a
+studio, she feels it will be an inspiration. She's a nice little society
+woman who is bored to death. She's written an article or two for a
+fashion paper and she believes she has discovered herself. I wish I knew
+what to put in the place. She'd scorn the real thing and I hate to
+compromise when it comes to such things. And you, Con, what have you
+that must be done?"
+
+Truedale looked at her earnestly. "I must meet the lawyer and
+McPherson," he said, "but may I come--for a talk, Lyn, afterward?"
+
+"I shall be in my workshop all day, Con, until dinner time to-night."
+
+The day was a hard one for them both, but womanlike Lynda accepted it
+and came to its close with less show of wear and tear than did
+Truedale. She was restless and nervous. She worked conscientiously until
+three and accomplished something in the difficult task the society woman
+had entrusted her with; then she went to her bedroom and, removing every
+sign of her craft, donned a pretty house dress and went back to her
+shop. She meant to give Truedale every legitimate assistance, but she
+was never prouder or firmer in her life. She called the dogs and the
+cats in; she set the small tea table by the hearth and lighted just fire
+enough to take the chill from the room and yet leave it sweet and fresh.
+
+At five there was a tap on the door.
+
+"Just in time, Con, for the tea," she called and welcomed him in.
+
+To find her so calm, cheerful, and lovely, was something of a shock to
+Truedale. Had she been in tears, or, had she shown any trace of the
+suffering he had endured, he would have taken her in his arms and
+relegated the unfortunate money to the scrap-heap of non-essentials. But
+the scene upon which he entered had the effect of chilling him and
+bringing back the displeasing thought of Lynda's sacrifice.
+
+"Have you had a hard day, Con?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Drink the tea, and--let me see, you like bread and butter, don't you,
+instead of cakes?"
+
+They were silent for a moment while they sipped the hot tea. Then,
+raising their eyes, they looked suddenly at each other.
+
+"Lyn, I cannot do without you!"
+
+She coloured deeply. She knew he did not mean to be selfish--but he was.
+
+"You would be willing even to--accept my sacrifice?" she asked so softly
+that he did not note the yearning in the tones--the beseeching of him to
+abdicate the position that, for her, was untenable.
+
+"Anything--anything, Lynda. The day without you has been--hell. We'll
+get rid of the money somehow. Now that we both know how little it means,
+we'll begin again and--free from Uncle William's wrong conceptions--Lyn--"
+He put his cup down and rose quickly.
+
+"Wait!" she whispered, shrinking back into her low armchair and holding
+him off by her smile of detachment more than by her word of command.
+
+"I--I cannot face life without you," Truedale spoke hoarsely, "I never
+really had to contemplate it before. I need you--must have you."
+
+He came a step nearer, but Lynda shook her head.
+
+"Something has happened to us, Con. Something rather tremendous. We must
+not bungle."
+
+"One thing looms high. Only one, Lyn."
+
+"Many things do, Con. They have been crowding thick around me all day.
+There are worse things than losing each other!"
+
+"No!" Truedale denied, vehemently.
+
+"Yes. We could lose ourselves! This thing that makes you fling aside
+what went before, this thing that makes me long--oh! how I long, Con--to
+come to you and forget, this thing--what is it? It is the holiest thing
+we know, and unless we guard it sacredly we shall hurt and kill it and
+then, by and by, Con, we shall look at each other with frightened
+eyes--over a dead, dead love."
+
+"Lynda, how--can you? How dare you say these things when you
+confess--Oh! my--wife!"
+
+"Because"--and she seemed withdrawing from Truedale as he
+advanced--"because I have confessed! You and I, Con, have reached
+to-day, by different routes, the most important and vital problem. All
+my life I have been pushing doors open as I came along. Sometimes I have
+only peered in and hurried on; sometimes I have stayed and learned a
+lesson. It will always be so with me. I must know. I think you are
+willing not to know unless you are forced."
+
+Truedale winced and went back slowly to his chair.
+
+"Con, dear, unless you wish it otherwise, I want, as far as possible, to
+begin from to-day and find out just how much we do mean to each other.
+Let us push open the doors ahead until we make sure we both want the
+same abiding place. Should you find a spot better, safer for you than
+this that we thought we knew, I will never hold you by a look or word,
+dear."
+
+"And you--Lyn?" Truedale's voice shook.
+
+"For myself I ask the same privilege."
+
+"You mean that we--live together, yet apart?"
+
+"Unless you will it otherwise, dear. In that case, we will close this
+door and say--good-bye, now."
+
+Her strength, her tenderness, unmanned Truedale. Again he felt that call
+upon him which she had inspired the night of his confession. Again he
+rallied to defend her--from her own pitiless sense of honour.
+
+"By heaven!" he cried. "It shall not be good-bye. I will accept your
+terms, live up to them, and dare the future."
+
+"Good, old Con! And now, please, dear, go. I think--I think I am going
+to cry--a little and"--she looked up quiveringly--"I mustn't have red
+eyes at dinner time. Brace and Betty are coming. Thank heaven, Con,
+Betty will make us laugh."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+Having agreed upon this period of probation both Lynda and Truedale
+entered upon it with characteristic determination. There were times when
+Conning dejectedly believed that no woman could act as Lynda was doing,
+if she loved a man. No, it was not in woman's power to forego all Lynda
+was foregoing if she loved deeply. Not that Lynda could be said to be
+cold or indifferent; she had never been sweeter, truer; but she was so
+amazingly serene!
+
+Perhaps she was content, having secured his rights for him, to go on and
+be thankful that so little was actually exacted from her.
+
+But such reasoning eventually shamed Truedale, and he acknowledged that
+there was something superb in a woman who, while still loving a man, was
+able to withhold herself from him until both he and she had sounded the
+depths of their natures.
+
+In this state of mind Truedale devoted himself to business, and Lynda,
+with a fresh power that surprised even herself, resumed her own tasks.
+
+"And this is _love_," she often thought to herself, "it is the real
+thing. Some women think they have love when _love has them_. This
+beautiful, tangible something that is making even these days sacred has
+proved itself. I can rely upon it--lean heavily upon it."
+
+Sometimes she wondered what she was waiting for. Often she feared, in
+her sad moments, that it might last forever--be accepted this poor
+counterfeit for the real--and the full glory escape her and Truedale.
+
+But at her best she knew what she was waiting for--what was coming. It
+was something that, driving all else away, would carry her and Conning
+together without reservations or doubts. They would _know!_ He would
+know the master passion of his life; she, that she could count all lost
+unless she made his life complete and so crown her own.
+
+The money was never mentioned. In good and safe investments it lay,
+awaiting a day, so Truedale told McPherson, when it could be got rid of
+without dishonour or disgrace.
+
+"But, good heavens! haven't you any personal ambitions--you and Lynda?"
+McPherson had learned to admire Conning, and Lynda had always been one
+of his private inspirations.
+
+"None that Lynda and I cannot supply ourselves," Truedale replied. "To
+have our work, and the necessity for our work, taken from us would be no
+advantage."
+
+"But haven't you a duty to the money?"
+
+"Yes, we have, and I'm trying to find out just what it is."
+
+And living this strange, abnormal life--often wondering why, and
+fearing much--three, then four years, passed them by.
+
+It is one thing for two proud, sensitive natures to enter upon a
+deliberate course, and quite another for them to abandon it when the
+supposed need is past. There was now no doubt in Truedale's heart
+concerning Lynda's motive for marrying him; nor did Lynda for one moment
+question Truedale's deep affection for her. Yet they waited--quite
+subconsciously at first, then with tragic stubbornness--for something to
+sweep obstacles aside without either surrendering his position.
+
+"He must want me so that nothing can sway him again," thought Lynda.
+
+"She must know that my love for her can endure anything--even this!"
+argued Conning, and his stand was better taken than hers as she was to
+find out one day.
+
+It seemed enough, in the beginning, to live their lives close and
+confidentially--to feel the tie of dependence that held them; but the
+knot cut in deep at times and they suffered in foolish but proud
+silence.
+
+Many things occurred during those years that widened the horizon for
+them all. Betty's first child came and went, almost taking the life of
+the young mother with it. Before the possible calamity Brace stood
+appalled, and both Conning and Lynda realized how true a note the girl
+was in their lives. She seemed to belong to them in a sense stronger
+than blood could have made her. They could not imagine life without her
+sunny companionship. Never were they to forget the grim dreariness of
+the once cheerful apartment during those days and nights when Death
+hovered near, weighing the chances. But Betty recovered and came back
+with a yearning look in her eyes that had never been there before.
+
+"You see," she confided to Lynda, "there will always be moments when I
+must listen to hear if my baby is calling. At times, Lyn, it seems as if
+he were just on ahead--keeping me from forgetting. It doesn't make me
+sad, dear, it's really beautiful that he didn't quite escape me."
+
+"And do you go to The Refuge to think and look and listen?" Lynda asked.
+For they all worried now when Betty betook herself to the little house.
+
+"Not much!" And here Betty twinkled. "I go there to meet Betty Arnold
+face to face, and ask her if she would rather trade back. And then I
+come trotting home, almost out of breath, to precious old Brace; I'm so
+afraid he won't know he's still the one big thing in the world for me."
+
+This little child of Betty's and Brace's had made a deep impression upon
+them all. It had lived only three days and while it stayed the black
+shadow hanging over the mother had made the baby seem of less account;
+but later, they all recalled the pretty, soft mite with the strange,
+old look in its wide eyes. He had been beautiful as babies who are not
+going to stay often are. There were to be no years for him to change and
+grow and so loveliness came with him.
+
+"I reckon the little chap thought we didn't want him," Brace choked as
+he spoke over the small, cold body of his first-born, "so he turned back
+home before he forgot the way."
+
+"Don't, brother!" Lynda pleaded as she stood with Truedale beside him.
+"You know the way home might have been longer and harder, by and by."
+
+"I wish Betty and I might have helped to make it easier; for a time,
+anyway." The eternal revolt against seemingly useless suffering rang in
+the words.
+
+And that night Truedale had kissed Lynda lingeringly.
+
+"Such things," he said, referring to the day's sad duties, "such things
+do drag people together."
+
+After that something new throbbed in their lives--something that had not
+held sway before. If Betty looked and listened for the little creature
+who had gone on ahead, Lynda listened and looked into what had been a
+void in her life before.
+
+She had always loved children in a kindly, detached way, but she had
+never appropriated them. But now she could not forget the feeling of
+that small, downy head that for a day or so nestled on her breast while
+the young mother's feet all but slipped over the brink. She remembered
+the strange look in the child's deep eyes the night it died. The
+lonely, aged look that, in passing, seemed trying to fix one familiar
+object. And when the dim light went out in the little face and only a
+dead baby lay in her arms, maternity had been called forth from its
+slumber and in following Betty's child, became vitalized and definite.
+
+"I--I think I shall adopt a child." So she had thought while the cold
+little head yet lay in the hollow of her arm. She never let go this
+thought and only hesitated before voicing it to Truedale because she
+feared he could not understand and might cruelly misunderstand. Life was
+hard enough and difficult enough for them both just then, and often,
+coming into the quiet home at the day's end, Lynda would say, to cheer
+her faint heart:
+
+"Oh, well, it's really like coming to a hearth upon which the fire is
+not yet kindled. But, thank heaven! it is a clean hearth, not cluttered
+with ashes--it is ready for the fire."
+
+But was it? More and more as the time went on and Truedale kept his
+faith and walked his way near hers--oh! they were thankful for that--but
+still apart, Lynda wondered. It was all so futile, so utterly selfish
+and childish--yet neither spoke. Then suddenly came the big thing that
+drove them together and swept aside all the barrier of rubbish they had
+erected. Like many great and portentous things it seemed very like the
+still, small voice in the burning bush--the tiny star in the black
+night.
+
+Truedale had had an enlightening conversation with McPherson in the
+afternoon. The old doctor was really a soft-hearted sentimentalist and
+occasionally he laid himself bare to the eye of some trustworthy friend.
+This time it was Truedale.
+
+Up and down the plain, businesslike office McPherson was tramping when
+Conning was announced.
+
+"Oh! come in, come in!" called McPherson. "You can better understand
+this than some. I've had a devil of a day. One confounded thing after
+another to take the soul out of me. And now this letter from old Jim
+White!"
+
+Conning started. It had now been years since Pine Cone had touched his
+thought sharply.
+
+"What's the matter with White?" he asked.
+
+"Look out of the window!"
+
+Truedale did so, and into the wall-like snow which had been falling all
+day.
+
+"They've been having that in the mountains for weeks. Trails blotted
+out, folk hiding like beasts, and that good old chap, White, took this
+time to break his leg. There he lay for a whole week, damn it all! Two
+of his dogs died--he, himself, almost starved. Managed to crawl to the
+food while there was any, and then some one ploughed through to get Jim
+to organize a hanging or some other trifling thing, and found him! Good
+Lord, Truedale, what they need down there is roads! roads! Roads over
+which folk can travel to one another and become human. That's all the
+world needs anyway!" Here McPherson stopped in front of Truedale and
+glared as if about to put the blame of impeded traffic up to him. "Roads
+over which folk can travel to one another. See here, you're looking for
+some excuse to get rid of your damned money. Why don't you build roads?"
+
+"Roads?" Truedale did not know whether to laugh or take his man
+seriously.
+
+"Yes, roads. I'm going down to Jim. I haven't much money; I've made a
+good deal, but somehow I never seem able to be caught with the goods on
+me. But what little I've got now goes to Jim for the purpose of forging
+a connecting link between him and the Centre. But here's a job for you.
+You can grasp this need. I've got a boy in the hospital; he caved in
+from over-study. Trying to get an education while starving himself to
+death and doing without underclothes. You ought to know how to hew a
+short cut to him, Truedale; you did some hacking through underbrush
+yourself. If I didn't believe folk would travel to one another over
+roads, if there _were_ roads, I'd go out and cut my throat."
+
+The big man, troubled and as full of sympathy as a tender woman, paused
+in his strides and ejaculated:
+
+"Damn it all, Truedale!" Had he been a woman he would have dissolved in
+tears.
+
+Truedale at last caught his meaning. Here was a possible chance to set
+the accumulating money free. For two hours, while the sun travelled down
+to the west, the men talked over plans and projects.
+
+"Of course I'll look after the boy in the hospital, Dr. McPherson. I
+know the short cut to him and he probably can lead me to others, but I
+want"--and here Truedale's eyes grew gloomy--"I want you to take with
+you down to Pine Cone some checks signed in blank. I know the need of
+roads down there," did he not? and for an instant his brows grew
+furrowed as he reflected how different his own life might have been, had
+travelling been easy, back in the time when he was at the mercy of the
+storm.
+
+"I'd like to do something for Pine Cone. Make the roads, of course, but
+back up those men and women who are doing God's work down there with
+little help or money. They know the people--Jim has explained them to
+me. They're not 'extry polite,' Jim says, but they understand the needs.
+I don't care to have my name known--I'm rather poor stuff for a
+philanthropist--but I want to do something as a starter, and this seems
+an inspiration."
+
+McPherson had been listening, and gradually his long strides became less
+nervous.
+
+"Until to-day, I haven't wished your uncle back, Truedale, since he
+went. He was a poor, inarticulate fellow, but I've learned to realize
+that he had a wide vision."
+
+"Thank you, Dr. McPherson, but I have often wished him back."
+
+Once outside McPherson's house, Truedale raised his head and sniffed the
+clear, winter air with keen enjoyment. A sense of achievement possessed
+him; the joy of feeling he had solved a knotty problem. He found he
+could think of Pine Cone--and, yes, of Nella-Rose--without a hurting
+smart. He was going to do something for her--for her people! He was
+going to make life easier--happier--for them, so he prayed in his
+silent, wordless way. He had a new and strange impulse to go to Lynda
+and tell her that at last he was released from any hold of the past. He
+was going to do what he could and there was no longer any dragging of
+the anchors. He wanted her to help him--to work out some questions from
+the woman's point of view. So he hurried on and entered the house with a
+light, boyish step.
+
+Thomas, bent but stately, was laying the table in the cheerful dining
+room. There were flowers in a deep green bowl, pale golden asters.
+
+Long afterward Truedale recalled everything as if it had been burned in
+his mind.
+
+"Is Miss Lynda in?" he asked, for they all clung to the titles of the
+old days.
+
+"Not yet, Mister Con. She went out in a deal of a hurry long about
+three o'clock. She didn't say a word--and that's agin her pleasant
+fashion--so I took it that she had business that fretted her. She's been
+in the workshop all day." Thomas put the plates in place. They were
+white china, with delicate gold edges. "Hum! hum! Mister Con, your uncle
+used to say, when he felt talkative, that Miss Lynda ought to have some
+one to hold her back when she took to running."
+
+"I'll look her up, Thomas!"
+
+Conning went up to the workshop and turned on the electricity. A
+desolate sensation overcame the exhilaration of the afternoon. Lynda
+seemed strangely, ominously distant--as if she had gone upon a long,
+long journey.
+
+There was a dying fire on the hearth and the room was in order except
+for the wide table upon which still lay the work Lynda had been engaged
+with before she left the house.
+
+Truedale sat down before it and gradually became absorbed, while not
+really taking in the meaning of what he saw. He had often studied and
+appreciated Lynda's original way of solving her problems. It was not
+enough for her to place upon paper the designs her trained talent
+evolved; she always, as she put it, lived in the rooms she conceived.
+Here were real furniture--diminutive, but perfect, and real
+hangings--colour and form ideal, and arranged so that they could be
+shifted in order that light effects might be tested.
+
+It was no wonder Truedale had often remarked that Lynda's work was so
+individual and personal--she breathed the breath of life in it before
+she let it go from her. Truedale had always been thankful that marriage
+had not taken from Lynda her joy in her profession. He would have hated
+to know that he interfered with so real and vital a gift.
+
+But this room upon which he was now looking was different from anything
+he had ever before seen in the workshop. It interested and puzzled him.
+
+Lynda's specialties were libraries and living rooms; there were two or
+three things she never attempted--and this? Truedale looked closer. How
+pretty it was--like a child's playroom--and how fanciful! There was a
+fireplace off in a corner, before which stood a screen with a most
+benign goblin warning away, with spread claws, any heedless, toddling
+feet. The broad window-seats might serve as boxes for childish treasure.
+There were delectable, wee chairs and conveniently low stools; there was
+a tiny bed set in a dim corner over which, on a protecting shield,
+angels with folded wings and rapt faces were outlined.
+
+"Why, this must be a--nursery!" Truedale exclaimed half aloud; "and she
+said she would never design one."
+
+Clearly he recalled Lynda's reason. "If a father and a mother cannot
+conceive and carry out the needs of a nursery, they do not deserve one.
+I could never bring myself to intrude there."
+
+"What does this mean?" Truedale bent closer. The table had been painted
+white to serve as a floor for the dainty setting, and now, as he looked
+he saw stains--dark, tell-tale stains on the shining surface.
+
+They were tear-stains; Lynda, who so joyously put her heart and soul in
+the ideals for other homes, had wept over the nursery of another woman's
+child!
+
+For some reason Truedale was that day particularly open to impression.
+As he sat with the toy-like emblems before him, the holiest and
+strongest things of life seized upon him with terrific meaning. He drew
+out his watch and saw that it was the dinner hour and the still house
+proved that the mistress was yet absent.
+
+"There is only one person to whom she would go," he murmured. "I'll go
+to Betty's and bring Lynda home."
+
+He made an explanation to Thomas that covered the situation.
+
+"I found what the trouble was, Thomas," he said. "It will be all right
+when we get back. But don't keep dinner."
+
+He took a cab to Brace's. He was too distraught to put himself on
+exhibition in a public conveyance. Brace sat in lonely but apparently
+contented state at the head of his table.
+
+"Bully for you, old man," he greeted. "You were never more welcome. I'll
+have a plate put on for you at once. What's the matter? You look--"
+
+"Ken, where's Betty?"
+
+"Run away to herself, Con. Went yesterday. Goes less and less often, but
+she cut yesterday."
+
+"Has--has Lynda been here to-day?"
+
+"Yes. About three. When she found Betty gone, she wouldn't stay. Sit
+down, old man. You'll learn, as I have, to appreciate Lyn more if she
+isn't always where we men have thought women ought to be."
+
+Truedale sat down opposite Kendall but said he would take only a cup of
+coffee. When it was finished he rose, more steadily, and said quietly:
+
+"I know it's unwritten law, Ken, that we shouldn't follow Betty up
+without an invitation; but I've got to go over there to-night."
+
+"It's dangerous, old man. I advise against it. What's up?"
+
+"I must see Lyn. I believe she is there."
+
+"Rather a large-sized misunderstanding?"
+
+"I hope, Ken, God helping me, it's going to be the biggest
+_understanding_ Lynda and I have ever had."
+
+Kendall was impressed--and, consequently, silent.
+
+"I'm sure Betty will forgive me. Good-night."
+
+"Good-night, old chap, and--and whatever it is, I fancy it will come out
+all right."
+
+And then, into the night Truedale plunged--determined to master the
+absurd situation that both he and Lynda had permitted to exist. He felt
+like a man who had been suffering in a nightmare and had just awakened
+and shaken off the effect of the unholy dream.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+Lynda, that winter day, had undertaken her task with unwonted energy.
+She had never done a similar piece of work before. In her early
+beginning she had rather despised the inadequacy of women who, no matter
+what might be said in defense of their ignorance regarding the rest of
+their homes, did not know how to design and plan their own nurseries.
+Later she had eliminated designing of this kind because so few asked for
+it, and it did not pay to put much time on study in preparation for the
+rare occasions when nurseries were included in the orders. But this was
+an exception. A woman who had lost three children was expecting the
+fourth, and she had come to Lynda with a touching appeal.
+
+"You helped make a home of my house, Mrs. Truedale, but I always managed
+the nursery--myself before; now I cannot. I want you to put joy and
+welcome in it for me. If I were to undertake it I should fail miserably,
+and evolve only gloom and fear. It will be different--afterward. But you
+understand and--you will?"
+
+Lynda had understood and had set herself to her work with the new, happy
+insight that Betty's little baby had made possible. It had all gone
+well until the "sleeping corner" was reached, and then--something
+happened. A memory of one of Betty's confessions started it. "Lyn," she
+had said, just before her baby came, "I kneel by this small, waiting
+crib and pray--as only mothers know how to pray--and God teaches them
+afresh every time! I do so want to be worthy of the confidence of--God."
+
+"And I--am never to know!" Lynda bowed her head. "I with my love--with
+my desire to hear God speak--am never to hear. Why?"
+
+Then it was that Lynda wept. Wept first from a desolate sense of defeat;
+then--and God sometimes speaks to women kneeling beside the beds of
+children not their own--she raised her head and trembled at the flood of
+joy that overcame her. It was like a mirage, seen in another woman's
+world, of her own blessed heritage.
+
+Filled with this vision she had fled to Betty's, only to find that Betty
+had fled on her own account!
+
+There was no moment of indecision; welcome or not, Lynda had to reach
+Betty--and at once!
+
+She had tarried, after setting her face to the river. She even stopped
+at a quiet little tea room and ate a light meal. Then she waited until
+the throng of business men had crossed the ferry to their homes. It was
+quite dark when she reached the wooded spot where, hidden deep among the
+trees, was Betty's retreat.
+
+There was a light in the house--the living room faced the path--and
+through the uncurtained window Lynda saw Betty sitting before the fire
+with her little dog upon her lap.
+
+"Oh, Betty," she whispered, stretching her arms out to the lonely little
+figure in the low, deep chair. "Betty! Betty!" She waited a moment, then
+she tapped lightly upon the glass. The dog sprang to the floor, its
+sharp ears twitching, but he did not bark. Betty came to the door and
+stood in the warm, lighted space with arms extended. She knew no fear,
+there was only doubt upon her face.
+
+"Lyn, is it you?"
+
+"Yes! How did you guess?"
+
+"All day I've been thinking about you--wanting you. Sometimes I can
+bring people that way."
+
+"And I have wanted you! Betty, may I stay--to-night?"
+
+"Why, yes, dear. Stay until you want to go home. I've been pulling
+myself together; I'm almost ready to go back to Brace. Come in!
+Why--what is it, dear? Come, let me take off your things! There! Now lie
+back in the chair and tell Betty all about it."
+
+"No, no! Betty, I want to sit so--at your feet. I want to learn all that
+you can teach me. You have never had your eyes blinded--or you would
+know how the light hurts."
+
+"Well, then. Put your blessed, tired head on my knee. You're my little
+girl to-night, Lyn, and I am your--mother."
+
+For a moment Lynda cried as a child might who had reached safety at
+last. Betty did not check or soothe the heavy sobs--she waited. She knew
+Lynda was saved from whatever had troubled her. It was only the telling
+of it now. And presently the dark head was lifted.
+
+"Betty, it is Con and I!"
+
+"Yes, dear."
+
+"I've loved him all my life; and I believe--I _know_--he loved me! Women
+do not make mistakes about the real thing."
+
+"Never, Lyn, never."
+
+"Betty, once when I thought Con had wronged me, I wanted to come to
+you--I almost did--but I couldn't then! Now that I am sure I have
+wronged him, it is easy to come to you--you are so understanding!" The
+radiance of Lynda's face rather startled Betty. Abandon, relief,
+glorified it until it seemed a new--a far more beautiful face.
+
+"All my life, Betty, I've been controlling myself--conquering myself. I
+got started that way and--and I've kept on. I've never done anything
+without considering and weighing; but now I'm going to fling myself into
+love and life and--pay whatever there is to pay."
+
+"Why, Lyn, dear, please go slower." Betty pressed her face to the head
+at her knee.
+
+"Betty, there was another love in Con's life--one that should never
+have been there."
+
+This almost took Betty's breath. She was thankful Lynda's eyes were
+turned away; but by some strange magic the words raised Truedale in
+Betty's very human imagination.
+
+"I sometimes think the--the thing that happened--was the working out of
+an old inheritance; Con has overcome much, but that caught him in its
+snare. He was ready to let it ruin his whole future. He would never have
+flinched--never have known, or admitted if he had known--what he had
+foregone. But the thing was taken out of his control altogether--the
+girl married another man!
+
+"When Con came to himself again, he told me, Betty--told me so simply,
+so tragically, that I saw what a deep cut the experience had made in his
+life--how it had humbled him. Never once did he blame any one else. I
+loved him for the way he looked upon it; so many men could not have done
+so. That made the difference with me. It was what the thing had done to
+Con that made it possible for me to love him the more!
+
+"He wanted the best things in life but didn't think he was worthy! And
+I? Well, I thought I saw enough for us both, and so I married him! Then
+something happened--it doesn't matter what it was--it was a foolish,
+ugly thing, but it had to be something. And Con thought I had never
+forgiven the--the first love--that I had sacrificed myself for him--in
+marriage! And no woman could bear that."
+
+"My poor, dear Lyn."
+
+"Can't you see, Betty, it all comes from the idiotic idea that men--some
+men--have about women. They put us on a toppling pedestal; when we fall
+they are surprised, and when we don't they--are afraid of us! And all
+the time--you know this, Betty--we ought not to be on pedestals at all;
+we don't--we _don't_ belong on them! We want to be close and go along
+together."
+
+"Yes, Lyn; we do! we do!"
+
+"Well--after Con misunderstood, I just let him go along thinking I
+was--well, the kind of woman who could sacrifice herself. I thought he
+would want me so that he would--find out. And so we've been eating our
+hearts out--for ages!"
+
+"Why, Lyn! you cruel, foolish girl."
+
+"Yes--and because I knew you would say that--I could come to you.
+You--do not blame Con?"
+
+"Blame _him_! Why, Lyn, a gentleman doesn't take a woman off her beastly
+pedestal; she comes down herself--if she isn't a fool."
+
+"Well, Betty, I'm down! I'm down, and I'm going to crawl to Con, if
+necessary, and then--I think he'll lift me up."
+
+"He'll never pull you down, that's one sure thing!"
+
+"Oh! thank you, Betty. Thank you."
+
+"But, Lyn--what has so suddenly brought you to your senses?"
+
+"Your little baby, Betty!"
+
+"My--baby!" The words came in a hard, gasping breath.
+
+"I held him when he died, Betty. I had never been close to a baby
+before--never! A strange thing happened to me as I looked at him. It was
+like knowing what a flower would be while holding only the bud. The
+baby's eyes had the same expression I have seen in Con's eyes--in
+Brace's; I know now it is the whole world's look. It was full of
+wonder--full of questions as to what it all meant. I am sure that it
+comes and goes but never really is answered--here, Betty."
+
+"Oh! Lyn. And I have been bitter--miserable--because I felt that it
+wasn't fair to take my baby until he had done some little work in the
+world! And now--why, he did a great thing. My little, little baby!"
+Betty was clinging to Lynda, crying as if all the agony were swept away
+forever.
+
+"Sometimes"--Lynda pressed against Betty--"sometimes, lately, in Con's
+eyes I have seen the look! It was as if he were asking me whether he had
+yet been punished enough! And I've been thinking of myself--thinking
+what Con owed _me;_ what _I_ wanted; _when_ I should have it! I hate and
+despise myself for my littleness and prudery; why, he's a thousand times
+finer than I! That's what pedestals have done for women. But now,
+Betty, I'm down; and I'm down to stay. I'm--"
+
+"Wait, Lyn, dear." Betty mopped her wet face and started up. She had
+seen a tall form pass the window, and she felt as if something
+tremendous were at stake. "Just a minute, Lyn. I must speak to Mrs.
+Waters if you are to stay over night. She's old, you know, and goes
+early to bed."
+
+Lynda still sat on the floor--her face turned to the red glow of the
+fire that was growing duller and duller. Presently the door opened, and
+her words flowed on as if there had been no interruption.
+
+"I'm going to Con to-morrow. I had to make sure--first; but I know now,
+I know! I'm going to tell him all about it--and ask him to let me walk
+beside him. I'm going to tell him how lonely I've been in the place he
+put me--how I've hated it! And some time--I feel as sure as sure can
+be--there will be something I can do that will prove it."
+
+"My--darling!"
+
+Arms stronger than Betty's held her close--held her with a very human,
+understanding strength.
+
+"You've done the one big thing, Lyn!"
+
+"Not yet, not yet, Con, dear."
+
+"You have made me realize what a wrong--a bitter wrong--I did you, when
+I thought you could be less than a loving woman."
+
+"Oh, Con! And have you been lonely, too?"
+
+"Sweet, I should have died of loneliness had something not told me I
+was still travelling up toward you. That has made it possible."
+
+"Instead"--Lynda drew his face down to hers--"instead, I've been
+struggling up toward _you!_! Dear, dear Con, it isn't men and women;
+it's _the_ man--_the_ woman. Can't you see? It's the sort of thing life
+makes of us that counts; not the steps we take on the way. You--you know
+this, Con?"
+
+"I know it, now, from the bottom of my soul."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was one of Betty's quaint sayings that some lives were guided by
+flashlights, others by a steady gleam. Hers had always been by the
+former method. She made her passage from one illumination to another
+with great faith, high courage, and much joyousness. After the night
+when Lynda made her see what her dear, dead baby had accomplished in his
+brief stay, she rose triumphant from her sorrow. She was her old, bright
+self again; she sang in her home, transfigured Brace by her happiness,
+and undertook her old interests and duties with genuine delight.
+
+But for Lynda and Truedale the steady gleam was necessary. They never
+questioned--never doubted--after the night when they came home from the
+little house in the woods. To them both happiness was no new thing; it
+was a precious old thing given back after a dark period of testing. The
+days were all too short, and when night brought Conning running and
+whistling to the door, Lynda smiled and realized that at last the fire
+was burning briskly on her nice, clean hearth. They had so much in
+common--so much that demanded them both in the doing of it.
+
+"No bridges for us, here and there, over which to reach each other,"
+thought Lynda; "it's the one path for us both." Then her eyes grew
+tenderly brooding as she remembered how 'twas a little child that had
+led them--not theirs, but another's.
+
+The business involved in setting old William Truedale's money in
+circulation was absorbing Conning at this time. Once he set his feet
+upon the way, he did not intend to turn back; but he sometimes wondered
+if the day would ever come when he could, with a clear conscience, feel
+poor enough to enjoy himself, selfishly, once more.
+
+From McPherson he heard constantly of the work in the southern hills.
+Truedale was, indeed, a strong if silent and unsuspected force there. As
+once he had been an unknown quantity, so he remained; but the work went
+on, supervised by Jim White, who used with sagacity and cleverness the
+power placed in his hands.
+
+Truedale's own particular interests were nearly all educational. Even
+here, he held himself in reserve--placed in more competent hands the
+power they could wield better than he. Still, he was personally known
+and gratefully regarded by many young men and women who were
+struggling--as he once had struggled--for what to them was dearer than
+all else. He always contrived to leave them their independence and
+self-respect. Naturally all this was gratifying and vital to Lynda.
+Achievement was dear to her temperament, and the successes of others,
+especially those nearest to her, were more precious to her than her own.
+She saw Truedale drop his old hesitating, bewildered manner like a
+discarded mantle. She grew to rely upon his calm strength that developed
+with the demands made upon it. She approved of him so! And that
+realization brought out the best in her.
+
+One November evening she and Con were sitting in the library, Truedale
+at his desk, Lynda idly and luxuriously rocking to and fro, her hands
+clasped over her head. She had learned, at last, the joy of absolute
+relaxation.
+
+"There's a big snow-storm setting in," she said, smiling softly. Then,
+apropos of nothing: "Con, we've been married four years and over!"
+
+"Only that, Lyn? It seems to me like my whole life."
+
+"Oh, Con--so long as that?"
+
+"Blessedly long."
+
+After another pause Lynda spoke merrily: "Con, I want some of Uncle
+William's money. A lot of it."
+
+Truedale tossed her a new check book. "Now that you see there is no
+string tied to it," he said, "may I ask what for? Just sympathetic
+interest, you know."
+
+"Of course. Well, it's this way. Betty and I are broke. It's fine for
+you to make roads and build schools and equip the youth of America for
+getting all the learning they can carry, but Betty and I are after the
+babies. We've been agonizing over the Saxe Home--Betty's on the
+Board--and before Christmas we are going to undress all those poor
+standardized infants and start their cropped hair to growing."
+
+Truedale laughed heartily. "Intimacy with Betty," he said, "has coloured
+your descriptive powers, Lyn, dear."
+
+"Oh, all happy women talk one tongue."
+
+"And you _are_ happy, Lyn?"
+
+"Happy? Yes--happy, Con!"
+
+They smiled at each other across the broad table.
+
+"Betty has told the superintendent that if there is a blue stripe or a
+cropped head on December twenty-fourth, she's going to recommend the
+dismissal of the present staff."
+
+"Good Lord! Does any one ever take Betty seriously? I should think one
+of those board meetings would bear a strong family resemblance to an
+afternoon tea--rather a frivolous one."
+
+"They don't. And, honestly, people are tremendously afraid of Betty. She
+makes them laugh, but they know she gets what she wants--and with a
+joke she drives her truths home."
+
+"There's something in that." Truedale looked earnest. "She's a great
+Betty."
+
+"So it's up to Betty and me, now," Lynda went on. "We can take off the
+shabby, faded little duds, but we've got to have something to put on at
+once, or the kiddies will take cold."
+
+"Surely."
+
+"We think that to start a child out in stripes is almost as bad as
+finishing him in them. To make a child feel--different--is sure to damn
+him."
+
+"And so you are going to make the Saxe Home an example and set the ball
+rolling."
+
+"Exactly, Con. And we're going to slam the door in the faces of the
+dramatic rich this Christmas. The lambies at the Saxe are going to have
+a nice, old-fashioned tree. They are going to dress it themselves the
+night before, and whisper up the chimney what they want--and there is
+not going to be a speech on Christmas Day within a mile of that Home!"
+
+"That's great. I'd like to come in on that myself."
+
+"You can, Con, we'll need you."
+
+"Christmas always does set the children in one's thoughts, doesn't it? I
+suppose Betty is particularly keen--having had her baby for a day or
+so." Truedale's eyes were tender. Betty's baby and its fulfilled mission
+were sacred to him and Lynda.
+
+"Betty is going to adopt a child, Con."
+
+"Really?"
+
+"Yes. She says she cannot stand Christmas without one. It's a rebuke
+to--to her boy."
+
+"Poor little Bet!"
+
+"Oh! it makes me so--so humble when I see her courage. She says if she
+has a dozen children of her own it will make no difference; she must
+have her first child's representative. She's about decided upon the
+one--he's the most awful of them all. She's only hesitating to see if
+anything awfuller will turn up. She says she's going to take a baby no
+one else will have--she's going to do the biggest thing she can for her
+own dead boy. As if her baby ever could be dead! Sometimes I think he is
+more alive than if he had stayed here and got all snarled up in earthly
+things--as so many do!"
+
+Conning came close to Lynda and drew her head back against his breast.
+
+"You are--crying, darling!" he said.
+
+"It's--it's Betty. Con, what is it about her that sort of brightens the
+way for us all, yet dims our eyes?"
+
+"She's very illuminating. It's a big thing--this of adopting a child.
+What does Brace think of it?"
+
+"He adores everything Betty does. He says"--Lynda smiled up into the
+face above her--"he says he wishes Betty had chosen one with hair a
+little less crimson, but that doubtless he'll grow to like that tint
+better than any other."
+
+"Lyn, have you ever thought of adopting a child?"
+
+"Oh!--sometimes. Yes, Con."
+
+"Well, if you ever feel that you ought--that you want to--I will be glad
+to--to help you. I see the risk--the chance, and I think I would like a
+handsome one. But it is Christmas time, and a man and woman, if they
+have their hearts in the right places, do think of children and trees
+and all the rest at this season. Still"--and with that Truedale pressed
+his lips to Lynda's hair--"I'm selfish, you seem already to fill every
+chink of my life."
+
+"Con, that's a blessed thing to say to a woman--even though the woman
+knows you ought not to say it. And now, I'm going to tell you something
+else, Con. It's foolish and trifling, perhaps, but I've set my heart
+upon it ever since the Saxe Home got me to thinking."
+
+"Anything in the world, Lyn! Can I help?"
+
+"I should say you could. You'll have to be about the whole of it.
+Starting this Christmas, I'm going to have a tree--right here in this
+room--close to Uncle William's chair!"
+
+"By Jove! and for--for whom?"
+
+"Why, Con, how unimaginative you are! For you, for me, for Uncle
+William, for any one--any really right person, young or old--who needs a
+Christmas tree. Somehow, I have a rigid belief that some one will
+always be waiting. It may not be an empty-handed baby. Perhaps you and I
+may have to care for some dear _old_ soul that others have forgotten. We
+could do this for Uncle William, couldn't we, Con?"
+
+"Yes, my darling."
+
+"The children cannot always know what they are missing, but the old can,
+and my heart aches for them often--aches until it really hurts."
+
+"My dear girl!"
+
+"They are so alike, Con, the babies and the very aged. They need the
+same things--the coddling, the play, the pretty toys to amuse
+them--until they fall asleep."
+
+"Lynda, you are all nerves and fancies. Pretty ones--but dangerous.
+We'll have our tree--we'll call it Uncle William's. We'll take any
+one--every one who is sent to us--and be grateful. And that makes me
+think, we must have a particularly giddy celebration up at the
+Sanatorium. McPherson and I were speaking of it to-day."
+
+"Con, I wonder how many secret interests you have of which I do not
+know?"
+
+"Not many."
+
+"I wonder!"
+
+Truedale laughed, a bit embarrassed. "Well," he said, suddenly changing
+the subject, "talking about nerves reminds me that when the holidays are
+over you and I are going away on a honeymoon. After this we are to have
+one a year. We'll drop everything and indulge in the heaven-given luxury
+of loafing. You need it. Your eyes are too big and your face too pale. I
+don't see what has ailed me not to notice before. But right after
+Christmas, dear, I'm going to run away with you.... What are you
+thinking about, Lyn?"
+
+"Oh, only the blessedness of being taken care of! It's strange, but I
+know now that all my life--before this--I was gazing at things through
+closed windows. Alone in my cell I looked out--sometimes through
+beautiful stained glass, to be sure--at trees waving and people passing.
+Now and then some one paused and spoke to me, but always with the
+barrier between. Now--I touch people--there is nothing to keep us apart.
+I'm just like everybody else; and your love and care, Con, have set the
+windows wide!"
+
+"This will never do, Lyn. Such fancies! I may have to take you away
+_before_ Christmas." Truedale spoke lightly but his look was anxious.
+
+"In the meantime, let us go out for a walk in the snow. There's enough
+wind to make it a tussle. Come, dear!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+Two days later Lynda came down from her workshop by the back stairs, and
+passed through William Truedale's bedchamber on the way to the library.
+It was only ten o'clock in the morning but Truedale had a habit, if he
+happened to be in the neighbourhood, of dropping in for a moment at this
+hour. If he should to-day Lynda wanted to confer with him about some
+details concerning the disrobing of the Saxe infants. She was
+particularly light hearted and merry. A telephone call from Betty had
+put her in the sunniest humour.
+
+To her surprise, as she entered the library, she saw a small, most
+peculiar-looking woman sitting quite straight on the edge of a chair in
+the middle of the room.
+
+It was a cast-iron rule that Lynda must not be disturbed at her morning
+work. Thomas generally disposed of visitors without mercy.
+
+"Good morning!" Lynda said kindly. "Can I do anything for you? I am
+sorry you had to wait."
+
+She concluded it was some one connected with the Saxe Home. That was
+largely in her mind at the moment.
+
+"I want to see"--and here the strange little figure came to Lynda and
+held out a very dirty, crumpled piece of paper on which was written
+Truedale's name and address.
+
+"Mr. Truedale may not be home until evening," Lynda said. And now she
+thought that this must be one of the private and pet dependents of Con's
+with whom she would deal very gently and tactfully. "I wonder if you
+won't tell me all about it and I will either tell Mr. Truedale or set a
+time for you to see him."
+
+Glad of any help in this hour of extremity, the stranger said:
+
+"I'm--I'm Nella-Rose. Do you know about me?"
+
+Know about her? Why, after the first stunning shock, she seemed to be
+the _only_ thing Lynda did know about--ever had known! She stared at the
+little figure before her for what seemed an hour. She noted the worried,
+pitiful child face that, screened behind the worn and care-lined
+features, looked forth like a pretty flower. Then Lynda said, weakly:
+
+"Yes, I know about you--all about you, Nella-Rose."
+
+The pitiful eyes brightened. What Nella-Rose had been through since
+leaving her hills only God understood.
+
+"I'm right glad! And you--you are--"
+
+"I'm Conning Truedale's--wife."
+
+Somehow Lynda expected this to be a devastating shock, but it was not.
+Nella-Rose was past reservations or new impressions.
+
+"I--I reckoned so," was all she said.
+
+"You must sit down. You look very tired." Lynda had forgotten Truedale's
+possible appearance.
+
+"I _am_ right tired. It's a mighty long way from Pine Cone. And I was
+so--so frightened, but folks was certainly good and just helped me--to
+here! One old lady came to the door with me."
+
+"Why--have you come, Nella-Rose?" Lynda drew her own chair close to the
+stranger's and as she did so, she could but wonder, now that she was
+herself again, how exactly Nella-Rose seemed to fit into the scene. She
+was like a recurrence--like some one who had played her part before--or
+were the scene and Nella-Rose but the materialization of something Lynda
+had always expected, always dreaded, but which she had always known must
+come some day? She was prepared now--terribly prepared! Everything
+depended upon her management of the crucial moments. Her kindness did
+not desert her, nor her merciful justice, but she meant to shield
+Truedale with her life--hers and Nella-Rose's, if necessary. "Why--have
+you--come?" she asked again, and Nella-Rose, taking for granted that
+this pale, strange woman did know all about her--knew everything and
+every one pertaining to her--fixed her sweet eyes, tear-filled but not
+overflowing, upon her face.
+
+"I want--to tell him that I'm right sorry I hated him. I--I didn't know
+until Bill Trim died. I want to ask him to--to forgive me, and--then I
+can go back."
+
+"What--did--Bill Trim tell you?" Lynda tried with all her strength to
+keep her mind cool, her thoughts steady. She wanted to lead Nella-Rose
+on and on, without losing the way herself.
+
+"That he burned--he didn't mean to--he burned the letter I
+sent--asking--"
+
+"I see! You wrote--a letter, then?"
+
+"Yes. He told me, if I wanted him--and I did--Godda'mighty! how I wanted
+him then!" Nella-Rose clasped her poor little work-hardened hands close,
+and her small white teeth showed through the parted lips while she
+struggled to regain her calm.
+
+"You see--when I gave the letter to Bill Trim, I--I told him--I had
+to--that it was Miss Lois Ann's, so he didn't think it mattered to me;
+but when he was dying--he was hurt on the big road they are making in
+the hills--he was brought to us-all, and Miss Lois Ann and I took care
+of him, and he grew right sorry for hating her and not telling about the
+letter--and then--he spoke it out!"
+
+"I see. I see. And that was--how long ago--that you wrote the letter?"
+
+Nella-Rose looked back over the weary way she had travelled, to this
+moment in the warm, sun-filled room.
+
+"It was befo' lil' Ann came that I sent the letter," she faltered.
+
+"Little Ann?" Lynda repeated the name and something terrible rose within
+her--something that would kill her unless she conquered it. So she asked
+quickly, desperately:
+
+"Your--your child? I see. Go on--Nella-Rose."
+
+"I wrote the letter and--sent it. I was hid in Miss Lois Ann's cabin--it
+was winter--and no one found out! Miss Lois Ann wouldn't believe what I
+told; she said when him and me was married under the trees and God
+understood, it didn't make me--right! She--helped me, but she
+hated--him! And then when he--didn't come, she taught me to--to hate,
+and it was right _black_ hate until lil' Ann came. When God let her down
+to me--He took the hate away."
+
+Lynda was blinded by her tears. She could hardly see the small figure
+crouching in the low chair by the fire.
+
+"And then--Miss Lois Ann went and told my folks--told Marg, my sister.
+Marg was married to Jed and she was mighty scornful of me and lil' Ann.
+She wouldn't tell Jed and my father--she came alone to me. She told me
+what folks thought. They-all thought I'd gone away with Burke Lawson and
+Marg felt sorry to see me alive--with lil' Ann. But Miss Lois Ann
+wouldn't let her sting me with her tongue--she drove her away.
+Then--Burke came! He'd been a right long way off--he'd broken his leg;
+he came as soon as he could, and Marg told him and--and laid lil' Ann to
+him!"
+
+"And you--never spoke? You never told?" Lynda had drawn very close--her
+words were barely above a whisper.
+
+"No. It was this-er-way. First, love for him held my tongue mighty
+still; then hate; and afterwards I couldn't!"
+
+"But now, Nella-Rose, _now_--why have you spoken--now?"
+
+"I haven't yet. Not to them-all. I had to come here--to him first. I
+reckon you don't know about Burke and me?"
+
+Lynda shook her head. She had thought she knew--but she had wandered
+sadly.
+
+"When Marg laid my trouble to Burke he just took it! First I couldn't
+understand. But he took my trouble--and me! He took lil' Ann and me out
+of Miss Lois Ann's cabin into--peace and safety. He tied every one's
+tongue--it seemed like he drove all the--the wrong away by his big,
+strong love--and set me free, like he was God! He didn't ask nothing for
+a right long time, not 'til I grew to--believe him and trust him. Then
+we went--when no one knew--and was married. Now he's my man and he's
+always been lil' Ann's father till--till--"
+
+A log fell upon the hearth and both women started guiltily and
+affrightedly.
+
+"Go on! go on!" breathed Lynda. "Go on!"
+
+"Till the twins came--Burke's and mine! Then he knew the
+difference--even his love for me couldn't help him--it hindered; and
+while I--I feared, I understood!"
+
+"Oh! oh! oh!" Lynda covered her aching eyes with her cold hands. She
+dared not look at Nella-Rose. That childish yet old face was crowding
+everything but pity from the world. Truedale, herself--what did they
+matter?
+
+"He--he couldn't bear to have lil' Ann touch--the babies. I could see
+him--shiver! And lil' Ann--she's like a flower--she fades if you don't
+love her. She grew afraid and--and hid, and it seemed like the soul of
+me would die; for, don't you see, Burke thinks that Marg's man is--is
+the father, and Marg and Jed lays the trouble to Burke and they think
+her--his! And--and it has grown more since the big road brought us-all
+closer. The big road brought trouble as well as good. Once"--and here
+the haggard face whitened--"once Burke and Jed fought--and a fight in
+the hills means more fights! Just then Bill Trim was hurt and told me
+before he died; it was like opening a grave! I 'most died 'long with
+Bill Trim--'til I studied about lil' Ann! And then--I saw wide, and
+right far, like I hadn't since--since before I hated. I saw how I must
+come and--tell you-all, and how maybe you'd take lil' Ann, and then I
+could go back to--to my man and--there'll be peace when he knows--at
+last! Will you--oh! will you be with me, kind lady, when I--tell
+your--your--man?" Nella-Rose dropped at Lynda's feet and was pleading
+like a distraught child. "I've been so afraid. I did not know his world
+was so full of noise and--and right many things. And he will
+be--different--and I may not be able to make him understand. But you
+will--_you_ will! I must get back to the hills. I done told Burke I--I
+was going to prove myself to his goodness--by putting lil' Ann with them
+as would be mighty kind to her. I seemed to know how it would turn
+out--and I dared to say it; but now--now I am mighty--'fraid!"
+
+The tears were falling from the pain-racked eyes--falling upon Lynda's
+cold, rigid hands--and they seemed to warm her heart and clear her
+vision.
+
+"Nella-Rose," she said, "where is little Ann?"
+
+"Lil' Ann? Why, there's lil' Ann sleeping her tire off under your
+pillows. She was cold and mighty wore out." Nella-Rose turned toward the
+deep couch under the broad window across the room.
+
+Silently, like haunted creatures, both women stole toward the couch and
+the mother drew away the sheltering screen of cushions. As she did so,
+the little child opened her eyes, and for a moment endeavoured to find
+her place in the strangeness. She looked at her mother and smiled a
+slow, peculiar smile. Then she fixed her gaze upon Lynda. It was an old,
+old look--but young, too--pleading, wonder-filled. The child was so like
+Truedale--so unmercifully, cruelly like him--that, for a moment, reason
+deserted Lynda and she covered her face with both hands and swayed with
+silent laughter.
+
+Nella-Rose bent over her child as if to protect her. "Lil' Ann," she
+whispered, "the lady is a right kind lady--right kind!" She felt she
+must explain and justify.
+
+After a moment or two Lynda gained control of her shaken nerves. She
+suddenly found herself calm, and ready to undertake the hardest, the
+most perilous thing that had ever come into her life. "Bring little Ann
+to the fire;" she said, "I'm going to order some lunch, and then--we can
+decide, Nella-Rose."
+
+Nella-Rose obeyed, dumbly. She was completely under the control of the
+only person, who, in this perplexed and care-filled hour, seemed able to
+guide and guard her.
+
+Lynda watched the two eat of the food Thomas brought in. There was no
+fear of Truedale coming now. There was safety ahead for some hours.
+Lynda herself made a pretext of eating, but she hardly took her eyes
+from little Ann's face. She wanted familiarity to take the place of
+shock. She must grow accustomed to that terrible resemblance, for she
+knew, beyond all doubt, that it was to hold a place in all her future
+life.
+
+When the last drop of milk went gurgling down the little girl's throat,
+when Nella-Rose pushed her plate aside, when Thomas had taken away the
+tray, Lynda spoke:
+
+"And now, Nella-Rose, what are you going to--to do with us all?"
+
+The tired head of little Ann was pressed against her mother's breast.
+The food, the heat, were lulling her weary senses into oblivion again.
+Lynda gave a swift thought of gratitude for the momentary respite as she
+watched the small, dark face sink from her direct view.
+
+"We are all in your hands," she continued.
+
+"In _my_ hands--_mine_?"
+
+"Yes. Yours."
+
+"I--I must--tell him--and then go home."
+
+"Must you, Nella-Rose?"
+
+"What else is there for me?"
+
+"You must decide. You, alone."
+
+"You"--the lips quivered--"you will not go with me?"
+
+"I--cannot, Nella-Rose."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because"--and with all her might Lynda sought words that would lay low
+the difference between her and the simple, primitive woman close to
+her--felt she _must_ use ideas and terms that would convey her meaning
+and not drive her and Nella-Rose apart--"because, while he is my man
+now, he was first yours. Because you were first, you must go alone--if
+go you must. Then he shall decide."
+
+Nella-Rose grasped the deep meaning after a moment and sank back
+shivering. The courage and endurance that had borne her to this hour
+deserted her. The help, that for a time had seemed to rise up in Lynda,
+crumbled. Alone, drifting she knew not where, Nella-Rose waited.
+
+"I'm--afraid!" she repeated over and over. "I'm right afraid. He's not
+the same; it's all, all gone--that other life--and yet I cannot let him
+think--!"
+
+The two women looked at each other over all that separated
+them--and each comprehended! The soul of Nella-Rose demanded
+justification--vindication--and Lynda knew that it should have it, if
+the future were to be lived purely. There was just one thing Lynda had
+to make clear in this vital moment, one truth that must be understood
+without trespassing on the sacred rights of others. Surely Nella-Rose
+should know all that there was to know before coming to her final
+decision. So Lynda spoke:
+
+"You think he"--she could not bring herself, for all her bravery and
+sense of justice, to speak her husband's name--"you think he remembers
+you as something less than you were, than you are? Nella-Rose, he never
+has! He did not understand, but always he has held you sacred. Whatever
+blame there may have been--he took it all. It was because he could;
+because it was possible for him to do so, that I loved him--honoured
+him. Had it been otherwise, as truly as God hears me, I could not have
+trusted him with my life. That--that marriage of yours and his was as
+holy to him as, I now see, it was to you; and he, in his heart, has
+always remembered you as he might a dear, dead--wife!"
+
+Having spoken the words that wrung her heart, Lynda sank back exhausted.
+Then she made her first--her only claim for herself.
+
+"It was when everything was past and his new life began--his man's
+life--that I entered in. He--he told me everything."
+
+Nella-Rose bent over her sleeping child, and a wave of compassion
+overflooded her thought.
+
+"I--I must think!" she whispered, and closed her lovely eyes. What she
+saw in the black space behind the burning lids no one could know, but
+her tangled little life must have been part of it. She must have seen it
+all--the bright, sunlit dream fading first into shadow, then into the
+dun colour of the deserted hills. Burke Lawson must have stood boldly
+forth, in his supreme unselfishness and Godlike power, as her
+redeemer--her man! The gray eyes suddenly opened and they were calm and
+still.
+
+"I--I only wanted him--to remember me--like he once did," she faltered.
+She was taking her last look at Truedale. "So long as he--he didn't
+think me--less; I reckon I don't want him--to think of me as I
+am--now."
+
+"Suppose"--the desperate demand for full justice to Nella-Rose drove
+Lynda on--"suppose it were in your power and mine to sweep everything
+aside; suppose I--I went away. What would you do, Nella-Rose?"
+
+Again the eyes closed. After a moment:
+
+"I--would go back to--my man!"
+
+"You mean that--as truly as God hears you?--you mean that, Nella-Rose?"
+
+"Yes. But lil' Ann?"
+
+Now that she had made the great decision about Truedale, there was still
+"lil' Ann."
+
+Lynda fought for mastery over the dread thing that was forcing its way
+into her consciousness. Then something Nella-Rose was saying caught her
+fevered thought.
+
+"When I was a lil' child I used to dream that some day I would do a
+mighty big thing--maybe this is it. I don't want to hurt his life
+and--yours; I couldn't hurt my man and--and--the babies waiting back
+there for me. But--lil' Ann!"
+
+The name came like a sob. And somehow Lynda thought of Burke Lawson!
+Burke, who had done his strong best, and still could not keep himself in
+control because of--lil' Ann! The helpless baby was--oh! yes, yes--it
+was Truedale's responsibility. If she, Lynda, were to keep her life--her
+sacred love--she, too, must do a "big thing"--perhaps the biggest a
+woman is ever called upon to do--to prove her faith.
+
+For another moment she struggled; then, like a blind woman, she
+stretched out her hands and laid them upon the child.
+
+"Nella-Rose, will you give--_me_ little Ann?"
+
+"Give her--to--you?" There was anguish, doubt, but hope, in the words.
+
+"I want--the child! She shall have her father--her father's home--his
+love, God willing! And I, Nella-Rose, as I hope for God's mercy, I will
+do my duty by little Ann."
+
+And now Lynda was on the floor beside the shabby pair, shielding them as
+best she could from the last wrench and renunciation.
+
+"Are you doing this for--for your man?" whispered Nella-Rose.
+
+"Yes. For my--man!" They looked long into each other's eyes. Then
+solemnly, slowly, Nella-Rose relinquished her hold of the child.
+
+"I--give you--lil' Ann." So might she have spoken if, in religious
+fervour, she had been resigning her child to death. "I--I--give you lil'
+Ann." Gently she kissed the sleeping face and laid her burden in the
+aching, strained arms that had still to learn their tender lesson of
+bearing. Ann opened her eyes, her lips quivered, and she turned to her
+mother.
+
+"Take--lil' Ann!" she pleaded. Then Nella-Rose drank deep of the bitter
+cup, but she smiled--and spoke one of the lies over which angels have
+wept forgivingly since the world began.
+
+"Lil' Ann, the kind lady is going to keep yo' right safe and happy 'til
+mother makes things straight back there with--with yo'--father, in the
+hills. Jes' yo' show the lady how sweet and pretty yo' can be 'til
+mother comes fo' yo'! Will yo'--lil' Ann?"
+
+"How long?"
+
+"A mighty lil' while."
+
+All her life the child had given up--shrunk from that which she feared
+but did not understand; and now she accepted it all in the dull,
+hopeless way in which timid children do. She received her mother's
+kiss--gave a kiss in return; then she looked gloomily, distrustingly, at
+Lynda. After that she seemed complacent and obeyed, almost stupidly,
+whatever she was told to do.
+
+Lynda took Nella-Rose to the station, saw to her every comfort, put a
+sum of money in her hand with the words:
+
+"You must take it, Nella-Rose--to prove your trust in me; and it will
+buy some--some things for--the other babies. But"--and here she went
+close to Nella-Rose, realizing for the first time that the most
+difficult part, for her, was yet to come--"how will it be with--with
+your man--when he knows?"
+
+Nella-Rose looked up bravely and something crept into her eyes--the
+look of power that only a woman who recognizes her hold on a man ever
+shows.
+
+"He'll bear it--right grateful--and it'll wipe away the hate for Jed
+Martin. He'll do the forgiving--since I've given up lil' Ann; and if he
+doubts--there's Miss Lois Ann. She's mighty powerful with men--when it's
+women that matters."
+
+"It's very wonderful!" murmured Lynda. "More wonderful than I can
+understand." And yet as she spoke she knew that she _did_ understand.
+Between her and Burke Lawson, a man she was never to know, there was a
+common tie--a deep comprehension.
+
+Late that afternoon Lynda drove to Betty's with little Ann sitting
+rigidly on the seat beside her. The child had not spoken since she had
+seen the train move out of the station bearing her mother away. She had
+not cried or murmured. She had gone afterward, holding Lynda's hand,
+through amazing experiences. She had seen her shabby garments discarded
+in dazzling shops, and fine apparel replace them. Once she had caught a
+glimpse of her small, transformed self in a long mirror and her dark
+eyes had widened. That was all. Lynda had watched her feverishly. She
+had hoped that with the change of clothing the startling likeness would
+lessen, but it did not. Robed in the trappings of her father's world,
+little Ann seemed to become more wholly his.
+
+"Do you like yourself, little Ann?" Lynda had asked when, at last, a
+charming hat was placed upon the dark curls.
+
+There was no word of reply--only the wide, helpless stare--and, to cover
+her confusion, Lynda hurried away to Betty.
+
+The maid who admitted her said that "Mrs. Kendall was upstairs in the
+nursery with the baby."
+
+Lynda paused on the stairs and asked blankly: "The baby? What baby?"
+
+The maid was a trusted one and close to Betty.
+
+"The little boy from the Home, Mrs. Truedale," she replied, "and already
+the house is cheerfuller."
+
+Lynda felt a distinct disappointment. She had hoped that Betty would
+care for little Ann for a few days, but how could she ask it of her now?
+
+In the sunny room upstairs Betty sat in a low rocker, crooning away to a
+restless bundle in her arms.
+
+"You, Lyn?" Lynda stood in the doorway; Betty's back was to her.
+
+"Yes, Betty."
+
+"Come and see my red-headed boy--my Bobilink! He's going to be Robert
+Kendall."
+
+Then Lynda drew near with Ann. Betty stopped rocking and confronted the
+two with her far-reaching, strangely penetrating gaze.
+
+"What a beautiful little girl," she whispered.
+
+"Is she beautiful, Betty?"
+
+"She's--lovely. Come here, dear, and see my baby." Betty put forth a
+welcoming hand to the child, but Ann shrank away and her long silence
+was broken.
+
+"I jes' naturally hate babies!" she whispered, in the soft drawl that
+betrayed her.
+
+"Lyn, who is she? Why--what is the matter?"
+
+Lynda came close and her words did not reach past Betty's strained
+hearing. "I--I'm going to--adopt her. I--I must prepare, Con. I hoped
+you'd keep her for a few days."
+
+"Of course I will, Lyn. I'm ready--but Lyn, tell me!"
+
+"Betty, look at her! She has come out of--of Con's past. He doesn't
+know, he mustn't know--not now! She belongs to--to the future. Can
+you--can you understand? I never suspected until to-day. I've got to get
+used to it!" Then, fiercely: "But I'm going to do it, Betty! Con's road
+is my road; his duty my duty; it's all right--only just at first--I've
+got to--steady my nerves!"
+
+Without a word Betty rose and laid the now-sleeping baby in a crib; then
+she came back to the low chair and opened her arms to little Ann with
+the heaven-given gesture that no child resists--especially a suffering,
+lonely child.
+
+"Come here, little girl, to--to Aunt Betty," she said.
+
+Fascinated, Ann walked to the shelter offered.
+
+"Will you kiss me?" Betty asked. The kiss was given mutely.
+
+"Will you tell Aunt Betty your name?"
+
+"Ann."
+
+"Ann what?"
+
+"Jes' lil' Ann."
+
+Then Betty raised her eyes to Lynda's face and smiled at its tragic
+suffering.
+
+"Poor, old Lyn!" she said, "run home to Con. You need him and God knows
+he needs you. It will take the big love, Lyn, dear, the big love; but
+you have it--you have it!"
+
+Without a word Lynda turned and left Betty with the children.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+Potential motherhood can endure throes of travail other than physical;
+and for the next week Lynda passed through all the phases of spiritual
+readjustment that enabled her, with blessed certainty of success, to
+accept what she had undertaken.
+
+She did not speak to Truedale at once, but she went daily to Betty's and
+with amazement watched the miracle Betty was performing. She never
+forgot the hour, when, going softly up the stairs, she heard little Ann
+laugh gleefully and clap her hands.
+
+Betty was playing with the baby and telling Ann a story at the same
+time. Lynda paused to listen.
+
+"And now come here, little Ann, and kiss Bobilink. Isn't he smelly-sweet
+and wonderful?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"That's right. Kiss him again. And you once said you just naturally
+didn't like babies! Little Ann, you are a humbug. And now tell me how
+much you like Bobilink."
+
+"Heaps and lickwigs."
+
+"Now kiss me, you darling, and come close--so we will not waken Bobbie.
+Let me see, this is going to be the story of the little girl who adopted
+a--mother! Yesterday it was Bobbie's story of how a mother adopted a
+little boy. You remember, the mother had to have a baby to fill a big
+empty space, so she went to a house where some lost kiddies were and
+found just the one that fitted in and--and--but this is Ann's story
+to-day!
+
+"Once there was a little girl--a very dear and good little girl--who
+knew all about a mother, and how dear a mother was; because she had one
+who was obliged to go away--"
+
+"For a right lil' time?" Ann broke in.
+
+"Of course," Betty agreed, "a right little time; but the small girl
+thought, while she waited, that she would adopt a mother and not tell
+her about the other one, for fear she might not understand, and she'd
+teach the adopted mother how to be a real mother. And now one must
+remember all the things little girls do to--to adopted mothers. First--"
+
+At this point Lynda entered the room, but Betty went on calmly:
+
+"First, what do little girls do, Ann?"
+
+"Teach them how to hold lil' girls."
+
+"Splendid! What next?"
+
+"Kiss them and cuddle them right close."
+
+"Exactly! Next?"
+
+"They make mothers glad and they make them laugh--by being mighty good."
+
+Then both Betty and Ann looked at Lynda. The sharp, outer air had
+brought colour to her cheeks, life to her eyes. She was very handsome
+in her rich furs and dark, feathered hat.
+
+"Now, little Ann, trot along and do the lesson, don't forget!" Betty
+pushed the child gently toward Lynda.
+
+With a laugh, lately learned and a bit doubtful, Ann ran to the opened
+arms.
+
+"Snuggle!" commanded Betty.
+
+"I'm learning, little Ann," Lynda whispered, "you're a dear teacher. And
+now I have something to tell you."
+
+Ann leaned back and looked with suspicion at Lynda. Her recent past had
+been so crowded with events that she was wary and overburdened.
+
+"What?" she asked, with more dread than interest.
+
+"Ann, I'm going to take you to a big house that is waiting for a--little
+girl."
+
+The child turned to Betty.
+
+"I don't want to go," she said, and her pretty mouth quivered. Was she
+always to be sent away?--always to have to go when she did not want to
+go?
+
+Betty smiled into the worried little face. "Oh! we'll see each other
+every day," she comforted; "and besides, this is the only way you can
+truly adopt a mother and play fair. It will be another dear place for
+Bobilink to go for a visit, and best of all--there's a perfectly
+splendid man in the big house--for a--for--a father!"
+
+Real fear came into Ann's eyes at this--fear that lay at the root of
+all her trouble.
+
+"No!" she cried. "I can't play father!"
+
+Lynda drew her to her closely. "Ann, little Ann, don't say that!" she
+pleaded passionately: "I'll help you, and together we'll make it come
+true. We must, we must!"
+
+Her vehemence stilled the child. She put her hands on either side of
+Lynda's face and timidly faltered: "I'll--I'll try."
+
+"Thank you, dear. And now I want to tell you something else--we're going
+to have a Christmas tree."
+
+This meant nothing to the little hill-child, so she only stared.
+
+"And you must come and help."
+
+"You have something to teach her, Lyn," Betty broke in. There were tears
+in her eyes. "Just think of a baby-thing like that not knowing the
+thrills of Christmas."
+
+Then she turned to Ann: "Go, sweetheart," she said, "and make a nest for
+Bobbie on the bed across the hall." And then when Ann trotted off to do
+the bidding, Betty asked: "What did he say, Lyn, when you told him?"
+
+"He said he was glad, very glad. He has been willing, for a long time,
+that I should take a child--when I saw one I wanted. He naturally
+connects Ann with the Saxe Home; her being with you has strengthened
+this belief. I shall let it go at that--for a time, Betty."
+
+"Yes. It is better so. After he learns to know and love the child,"
+Betty mused, "the way will be opened. And oh! Lyn, Ann is so wonderful.
+She has the most remarkable character--so deep and tenderly true for
+such a mite."
+
+"Suppose, Betty--suppose Con notices the likeness!"
+
+At this Betty smiled reassuringly.
+
+"He won't. Men are so stupidly humble. A pretty little girl would escape
+them every time."
+
+"But her Southern accent, Betty. It is so pronounced."
+
+"My dear Lyn, it is! She sometimes talks like a little darkey; but to my
+certain knowledge there are ten small Southerners at the Saxe, of
+assorted ages and sexes, waiting for adoption."
+
+"And she may speak out, Betty. Her silence as to the past will disappear
+when she has got over her fear and longing."
+
+Betty looked more serious. "I doubt it. Not a word has passed her lips
+here--of her mother or home. It has amazed me. She's the most unusual,
+the most fascinating creature I ever saw, for her age. Brace is wild
+about her--he wants me to keep her. But, Lyn, if she does break her
+strange silence, it will be your big hour! Whatever Con is or isn't--and
+sometimes I feel like hugging him, and again, like shaking him--he's
+the tenderest man with women--not even excepting Brace--that I have ever
+seen. It never has occurred to him to reason out how much you love
+him--he's too busy loving you. But when he finds this out! Well, Lyn, it
+makes me bow my head and speak low."
+
+"Don't, Betty! Don't suggest pedestals again," Lynda pleaded.
+
+"No pedestal, Lyn; no pedestal--but the real, splendid _you_ revealed at
+last! And now--forget it, dear. Here comes lil' Ann."
+
+The child tiptoed in with outstretched arms.
+
+"The nest is made right soft," she whispered, "and now let me carry
+Bobilink to--to the sleepy dreams."
+
+"Where did you learn to carry babies?" Betty hazarded, testing the
+silence. The small, dark face clouded; the fear-look crept to the large
+eyes.
+
+"I--I don't know," was the only reply, and Ann turned away--this time
+toward Lynda!
+
+"And suppose he never knows?" Lynda spoke with her lips pressed to Ann's
+soft hair--the child was in her arms.
+
+"Then you and Con will have something to begin heaven with." Betty's
+eyes were wet. "We all have something we don't talk about much on
+earth--we do not dare. Brace and I have our--baby!"
+
+Two days later Lynda took Ann home. They went shopping first and the
+child was dazzlingly excited. She forgot her restraint and shyness in
+the fascinating delirium of telling what she wanted with a pretty sure
+belief that she would get it. No wonder that she was taken out of
+herself and broke upon Truedale's astonished gaze as quite a different
+child from the one Lynda had described.
+
+The brilliant little thing came into the hall with Lynda, her arms
+filled with packages too precious to be consigned to other hands; her
+eyes were dancing and her voice thrilling with happiness.
+
+"And now I'll call you muvver-Lyn 'cause you're mighty kind and this is
+your house! It's a right fine house."
+
+Truedale had well timed his return home. He was ready to greet the two
+in the library. The prattling voice charmed him with its delightful
+mellowness and he went forward gladly to meet Lynda and the new little
+child. Ann was ahead; Lynda fell back and, with fast-throbbing heart
+waited by the doorway.
+
+Ann had had a week and more of Brace Kendall to wipe away the impression
+Burke Lawson had imprinted upon her mind. But she was shy of men and
+weighed them carefully before showing favours. She stood still when she
+saw Truedale; she dropped, unheeded, a package; she stared at him, while
+he waited with extended hands. Then slowly--as if drawn against her
+will--Ann advanced and laid her hands in his.
+
+"So this is the little girl who has come to help us make Christmas?"
+
+"Yes." Still that fixed look. It seemed to Lynda the most unnatural
+thing she had ever seen. And oh! how alike the two were, now that they
+were together!
+
+"You are little Ann and you are going to play with"--Truedale looked
+toward Lynda and drew her to him by the love in his eyes--"You are going
+to play with us, and you will call us mother and father, won't you,
+little Ann?" He meant to do his part in full. He would withhold nothing,
+now that Lynda had decided to take this step.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And do you suppose you could kiss me--to begin with?"
+
+Quaintly the child lifted herself on her toes--Truedale was half
+kneeling before her--and gave him a lingering kiss.
+
+"We're going to be great friends, eh, little Ann?" Truedale was pleased,
+Lynda saw that. The little girl was making a deep impression.
+
+"Yes." Then--deliberately: "Shall I have to teach you to be a father?"
+
+"What does she mean?" Truedale looked at Lynda who explained Betty's
+charming foolery.
+
+"I see. Well, yes, Ann, you must teach me to be a father."
+
+And so they began their lives together. And after a few days Lynda saw
+that during the child's stay with Betty the crust of sullen reserve had
+departed--the little creature was the merriest, sweetest thing
+imaginable, once she could forget herself. Protected, cared for, and
+considered, she developed marvellously and soon seemed to have been with
+them years instead of days. The impression was almost startling and both
+Lynda and Truedale remarked upon it.
+
+"There are certain things she does that appear always to have been
+waiting for her to do," Conning said, "it makes her very charming. She
+brushes the dogs and cats regularly, and she's begun to pick up books
+and papers in my den in a most alarming way--but she always manages to
+know where they belong."
+
+"That's uncanny," Lynda ventured; "but she certainly has fitted in,
+bless her heart!"
+
+There had been moments at first when Lynda feared that Thomas would
+remember the child, but the old eyes could hardly be expected to
+recognize, in the dainty little girl, the small, patched, and soiled
+stranger of the annoying visit. Many times had Thomas explained and
+apologized for the admittance of the two "forlornities," as he called
+them.
+
+No, everything seemed mercifully blurred; and Ann, in her new home,
+apparently forgot everything that lay behind her. She never even asked
+to go back to Betty's though she welcomed Betty, Brace, and Bobbie with
+flattering joy whenever they came to visit. She learned to be very fond
+of Lynda--was often sweetly affectionate with her; but in the wonderful
+home, her very own, waited upon and cared for, it was Conning who most
+appealed to her. For him she watched and waited at the close of day, and
+if she were out with Lynda she became nervous and worried if they were
+delayed as darkness crept on.
+
+"I want father to see me waiting," she would urge; "I like to see his
+gladness."
+
+"And so do I!" Lynda would say, struggling to overcome the unworthy
+resentment that occasionally got the better of her when the child too
+fervently appropriated Conning.
+
+But this trait of Ann's flattered and delighted Truedale; often he was
+amused, but he knew that it was the one thing above all else in the
+little girl that endeared her to him.
+
+"What a darling she is!" he often said to Lynda when they were alone
+together. "Is she ever naughty?"
+
+"Yes, often--the monkey!"
+
+"I'm glad to hear it. I hate a flabby youngster. Does she ever speak of
+her little past, Lyn?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"Isn't that strange?"
+
+"Yes, but I'm glad she doesn't. I want her to forget. She's very happy
+with us--but she's far from perfect." "To what form of cussedness does
+she tend, Lyn? With me she's as lamblike as can be."
+
+"Oh! she has a fiery temper and, now that I think of it, she generally
+shows it in reference to you."
+
+"To me?" Truedale smiled.
+
+"Yes. Thomas found her blacking your shoes the other day. She was making
+an awful mess of it and he tried to take them from her. She gave him a
+real vicious whack with the brush. What she said was actually comical:
+'He's mine; if I want to take the dirt from his shoes, I can. He
+_shan't_ walk on dirt--and he's mine!'"
+
+"The little rascal. And what did Thomas do?"
+
+"Oh! he let her. People always let her. I do myself."
+
+"She's a fascinating kid," Truedale said with a laugh. Then, very
+earnestly: "I'm rather glad we do not know her antecedents, Lyn; it's
+safer to take her as we find her and build on that. But I'd be willing
+to risk a good deal that much love and goodness are back of little Ann,
+no matter how much else got twisted in. And the love and goodness must
+be her passport through life."
+
+"Yes, Con, and they are all that are worth while."
+
+But every change was a period of struggle to Ann and those who dealt
+with her. She had a passionate power of attachment to places and people,
+and readjustment caused her pain and unrest.
+
+When school was considered, it almost made her ill. She clung to
+Truedale and implored him not to make her go away.
+
+"But it's only for the day time, Ann," he explained, "and you will have
+children to play with--little girls like yourself."
+
+"No; no! I don't want children--only Bobbie! I only want my folks!"
+
+Lynda came to her defense.
+
+"Con, we'll have a governess for a year or so."
+
+"Is it wise, Lyn, to give way to her?"
+
+"Yes, it is!" Ann burst in; "it is wise, I'd die if I had to go."
+
+So she had a governess and made gratifying strides in learning. The
+trait that was noticeable in the child was that she developed and
+thrived most when not opposed. She wilted mentally and physically when
+forced. She had a most unusual power of winning and holding love, and
+under a shy and gentle exterior there were passion and strength that at
+times were pathetic. While not a robust child she was generally well and
+as time passed she gained in vigour. Once, and once only, was she
+seriously ill, and that was when she had been with Truedale and Lynda
+about two years. During all that time, as far as they knew, she had
+never referred to the past and both believed that, for her, it was dead;
+but when weakness and fever loosened the unchildlike control, something
+occurred that alarmed Lynda, but broke down forever the thin barrier
+that, for all her effort, had existed between her and Ann. She was
+sitting alone with the child during a spell of delirium, when suddenly
+the little hot hands reached up passionately, and the name "mother"
+quivered on the dry lips in a tone unfamiliar to Lynda's ears. She bent
+close.
+
+"What, little Ann?" she whispered.
+
+The big, burning eyes looked puzzled. Then: "Take me to--to the
+Hollow--to Miss Lois Ann!"
+
+"Sh!" panted Lynda, every nerve tingling. "See, little Ann--don't you
+know me?"
+
+The child seemed to half understand and moaned plaintively:
+
+"I'm lost! I'm lost!"
+
+Lynda took her in her arms and the sick fancy passed, but from that hour
+there was a new tie between the two--a deeper dependence.
+
+There was one day when they all felt little Ann was slipping from them.
+Dr. McPherson had come as near giving up hope as he ever, outwardly,
+permitted himself to do.
+
+"You had better stay at home," he said to Conning; "children are
+skittish little craft. The best of them haul up anchor sometimes when
+you least expect it."
+
+So Truedale remained at home and, wandering through the quiet house,
+wondered at the intensity of his suffering as he contemplated the time
+on ahead without the child who had so recently come into his life from
+he knew not where. He attributed it all to Ann's remarkable
+characteristics.
+
+Late in the afternoon of the anxious day he went into the sick room and
+leaned over the bed. Ann opened her eyes and smiled up at him, weakly.
+
+"Make a light, father," she whispered, and with a fear-filled heart
+Truedale touched the electric button. The room was already filled with
+sunlight, for it faced the west; but for Ann it was cold and dark.
+
+Then, as if setting the last pitiful scene for her own departure, she
+turned to Lynda: "Make a mother-lap for Ann," she said. Lynda tenderly
+lifted the thin form from the bed and held it close.
+
+"I--I taught you how to be a mother, didn't I, mommy-Lyn?" she had never
+called Lynda simply "mother," while "father" had fallen naturally from
+her lips.
+
+"Yes, yes, little Ann." Lynda's eyes were filled with tears and in that
+moment she realized how much the child meant to her. She had done her
+duty, had exceeded it at times, in her determination not to fall short.
+She had humoured Ann, often taking sides against Conning in her fear of
+being unjust. But oh! there had always been something lacking; and now,
+too late, she felt that, for all her struggle, she had not been true to
+the vow she had made to Nella-Rose!
+
+But Ann was gazing up at her with a strange, penetrating look.
+
+"It's the comfiest lap in the world," she faltered, "for little, tired
+girls."
+
+"I--I love her!" Lynda gazed up at Truedale as if confessing and, at the
+end, seeking forgiveness.
+
+"Of course you do!" he comforted, "but--be brave, Lyn!" He feared to
+excite Ann. Then the weary eyes of the child turned to him.
+
+"Mommy-Lyn does love me!" the weak voice was barely audible; "she does,
+father, she does!"
+
+It was like a confirmation--a recognition of something beautiful and
+sacred.
+
+"I felt," Lynda said afterward to Betty, "as if she were not only
+telling Con, but God, too. I had not deserved it--but it made up for all
+the hard struggle, and swept everything before it."
+
+But Ann did not die. Slowly, almost hesitatingly, she turned back to
+them and brought a new power with her. She, apparently, left her baby
+looks and nature in the shadowy place from which she had escaped. Once
+health came to her, she was the merriest of merry children--almost noisy
+at times--in the rollicking fashion of Betty's irrepressible Bobilink.
+And the haunting likeness to Truedale was gone. For a year or two the
+lean, thready little girl looked like no one but her own elfish self;
+and then--it was like a revealment--she grew to be like Nella-Rose!
+
+Lynda, at times, was breathless as she looked and remembered. She had
+seen the mother only once; but that hour had burned the image of face,
+form, and action into her soul. She recalled, too, Conning's graphic
+description of his first meeting with Nella-Rose. The quaint, dramatic
+power that had marked Ann's mother, now developed in the little
+daughter. She had almost entirely lost the lingering manner of
+speech--the Southern expressions and words--but she was as different
+from the children with whom she mingled as she had ever been.
+
+When she was strong enough she resumed her studies with the governess
+and also began music. This she enjoyed with the passion that marked her
+attitude toward any person or thing she loved.
+
+"Oh, it lets something in me, free!" she confided to Truedale. "I shall
+never be naughty or unkind again--I wouldn't dare!"
+
+"Why?" Conning was no devotee of music and was puzzled by Ann's
+intensity.
+
+"Why," she replied, puckering her brows in the effort to make herself
+clear, "I--I wouldn't be worthy of--of the beautiful music, if I were
+horrid."
+
+Truedale laughed and patted her pretty cropped head, over which the new
+little curls were clustering.
+
+Life in the old house was full and rich at that time. Conning was, as he
+often said, respectably busy and important enough in the affairs of men
+to be content; he would never be one who enjoyed personal power.
+
+Lynda, during Ann's first years, had taken a partner who attended to
+interviews, conferences, and contracts; but in the room over the
+extension the creative work went on with unabated interest. Little Ann
+soon learned to love the place and had her tiny chair beside the hearth
+or table. There she learned the lessons of consideration for others, and
+self-control.
+
+"If the day comes," Lynda told Betty, "when my work interferes with my
+duty to Con and Ann, it will go! But more and more I am inclined to
+think that the interference is a matter of choice. I prefer my
+profession to--well, other things."
+
+"Of course," Betty agreed; "women should not be forever coddling their
+offspring, and when they learn to call things by their right names and
+develop some initiative, they won't whine so much."
+
+Lynda and Truedale had sadly abandoned the hope of children of their
+own. It was harder for Lynda than for Con, but she accepted what seemed
+her fate and thanked heaven anew for little Ann and the sure sense that
+she could love her without reserve.
+
+And then, after the years of change and readjustment, Lynda's boy was
+born! He seemed to crown everything with a sacred meaning. Not without
+great fear and doubt did Lynda go down into the shadow; not without an
+agony of apprehension did Truedale go with her to the boundary over
+which she must pass alone to accept what God had in store for her. They
+remembered with sudden and sharp anxiety the peril that Betty had
+endured, though neither spoke of it; and always they smiled courageously
+when most their hearts failed.
+
+Then came the black hours of suffering and doubt. A wild storm was
+beating outside and Truedale, hearing it, wondered whether all the great
+events of his life were to be attended by those outbursts of nature. He
+walked the floor of his room or hung over Lynda's bed, and at midnight,
+when she no longer knew him or could soothe him by her brave smile, he
+went wretchedly away and upon the dim landing of the stairs came upon
+Ann, crouching white and haggard.
+
+His nerves were at the breaking point and he spoke sharply.
+
+"Why are you not in bed?" he asked.
+
+"While--mommy-Lyn is--in--there?" gasped the girl, turning reproachful
+eyes up to him. "How--could I?"
+
+"How long have you been here?"
+
+"Always; always!"
+
+"Ann, you must go to your room at once! Come, I will go with you." She
+rose and took his hand. There was fear in her eyes.
+
+"Is--is mommy-Lyn--" she faltered, and Truedale understood.
+
+"Good God!--no!" he replied; "not that!"
+
+"I was to--to stay close to you." Ann was trembling as she walked
+beside him. "She gave you--to me! She gave you to me--to keep for her!"
+
+Truedale stopped short and looked at Ann. Confusedly he grasped the
+meaning of the tie that held this child to Lynda--that held them all to
+the strong, loving woman who was making her fight with death, for a
+life.
+
+"Little Ann," was all he could say, but he bent and kissed the child
+solemnly.
+
+When morning dawned, Lynda came back--bringing her little son with her.
+God had spoken!
+
+Truedale, sitting beside her, one hand upon the downy head that had
+nearly cost so much, saw the mother-lips move.
+
+"You--want--the baby?" he asked.
+
+"I--I want little Ann." Then the white lids fell, shutting away the weak
+tears.
+
+"Lyn, the darling has been waiting outside your door all night--I
+imagine she is there now."
+
+"Yes, I know. I want her."
+
+"Are you able--just now, dear?"
+
+"I--must have little Ann."
+
+So Ann came. She was white--very much awed; but she smiled. Lynda did
+not open her eyes at once; she was trying to get back some of the old
+self-control that had been so mercilessly shattered during the hours of
+her struggle, but presently she looked up.
+
+"You--kept your word, Ann," she said. Then: "You--you made a place for
+my baby. Little Ann--kiss your--brother."
+
+They named the baby for William Truedale and they called him Billy, in
+deference to his pretty baby ways.
+
+"He must be Uncle William's representative," said Lynda, "as Bobbie is
+the representative of Betty's little dead boy."
+
+"I often think of--the money, Lyn." Truedale spoke slowly and seriously.
+"How I hated it; how I tried to get rid of it! But when it is used
+rightly it seems to secure dignity for itself. I've learned to respect
+it, and I want our boy to respect it also. I want to put it on a firm
+foundation and make it part of Billy's equipment--a big trust for which
+he must be trained."
+
+"I think I would like his training to precede his knowledge of the money
+as far as possible," Lynda replied. "I'd like him to put up a bit of a
+fight--as his father did before him."
+
+"As his father did _not_!" Truedale's eyes grew gloomy. "I'm afraid,
+Lyn, I'm constructed on the modelling plan--added to, built up. Some
+fellows are chiselled out. I wonder--about little Billy."
+
+"Somehow"--Lynda gave a little contented smile--"I am not afraid for
+Billy. But I would not take the glory of conflict from him--no! not for
+all Uncle William's money! He must do his part in the world and find
+his place--not the place others may choose for him."
+
+"You're going to be sterner with him than you are with Ann, aren't you,
+Lyn?" Truedale meant this lightly, but Lynda looked serious.
+
+"I shall be able to, Con, for Billy brought something with him that Ann
+had to find."
+
+"I see--I see! That's where a mother comes in strong, my dear."
+
+"Oh! Con, it's where she comes in with fear and trembling--but with an
+awful comprehension."
+
+This "comprehension" of the responsibilities of maternity worked forward
+and backward with Lynda much to Truedale's secret amusement. Confident
+of her duty to her son, she interpreted her duty to Ann. While Billy,
+red-faced and roving-eyed, gurgled or howled in his extreme youth, Lynda
+retraced her steps and commandingly repaired some damages in her
+treatment of Ann.
+
+"Ann," she said one day, "you must go to school."
+
+"Why?" Ann naturally asked. She was a conscientious little student and
+extremely happy with the governess who came daily to instruct her.
+
+"You study and learn splendidly, Ann, but you must have--have children
+in your life. You'll be queer."
+
+"I've got Bobbie, and now Billy."
+
+"Ann, do not argue. When Billy is old enough to go to school he is
+going, without a word! I've been too weak with you, Ann--you'll
+understand by and by."
+
+The new tone quelled any desire on Ann's part to insist further; she was
+rather awed by this attitude. So, with a lofty, detached air Miss Ann
+went to school. At first she imbibed knowledge under protest, much as
+she might have eaten food she disliked but which she believed was good
+for her. Then certain aspects of the new experience attracted and
+awakened her. From the mass of things she ought to know, she clutched at
+things she wanted to know. From the girls who shared her school hours,
+she selected congenial spirits and worshipped them, while the others,
+for her, did not exist.
+
+"She's so intense," sighed Lynda; "she's just courting suffering. She
+lavishes everything on them she loves and grieves like one without hope
+when things go against her."
+
+"She's the most dramatic little imp." Truedale laughed reminiscently as
+he spoke--he had seen Ann in two or three school performances. "I
+shouldn't wonder if she had genius."
+
+Betty looked serious when she heard this. "I hope not!" was all she
+said, and from then on she watched Ann with brooding eyes; she urged
+Lynda to keep her much out of doors in the companionship of Bobbie and
+Billy who were normal to a relieving extent. Ann played and enjoyed the
+babies--she adored Billy and permitted him to rule over her with no
+light hand--but when she could, she read poetry and talked of strange,
+imaginative things with the few girls in whose presence she became rapt
+and reverent.
+
+Brace was the only one who took Ann as a joke.
+
+"She's working out her fool ideas, young," he comforted; "let her alone.
+A boy would go behind some barn and smoke and revel in the idea that he
+was a devil of a fellow. Annie"--he, alone, called her that--"Annie is
+smoking her tobacco behind her little barns. She'll get good and sick of
+it. Let her learn her lesson."
+
+"That's right," Betty admitted, "girls ought to learn, just as boys
+do--but if I ever find _Bobbie_ smoking--"
+
+"What will you do to him, Betty?"
+
+"Well, I'm not sure, but I _do_ know I'd insist upon his coming from
+behind barns."
+
+And that led them all to consider Ann from the barn standpoint. If she
+wanted the tragic and sombre she should have it--in the sunlight and
+surrounded with love. So she no longer was obliged to depend on the
+queer little girls who fluttered like blind bats in the crude of their
+adolescent years. Lynda, Betty, Truedale, and Brace read bloodcurdling
+horrors to her and took her to plays--the best. And they wedged in a
+deal of wholesome, commonplace fun that presently awoke a response and
+developed a sense of humour that gave them all a belief that the worst
+was past.
+
+"She has forgotten everything that lies back of her sickness," Lynda
+once said to Betty; "it's strange, but she appears to have begun from
+that."
+
+Then Betty made a remark that Lynda recalled afterward:
+
+"I don't believe she has, Lyn. I'm not worried about Ann as you and Con
+are. Her Lady Macbeth pose is just plain girl; but she has depths we
+have never sounded. Sometimes I think she hides them to prove her
+gratitude and affection, and because she is so helpless. She was nearly
+five when she came to you, Lyn, and I believe she does remember the
+hills and her mother!"
+
+"Why, Betty, what makes you think this?" Lynda was appalled.
+
+"It is her eyes. There are moments when she is looking back--far back.
+She is trying to hold to something that is escaping her. Love her, Lyn,
+love her as you never have before."
+
+"If I thought that, Betty!" Lynda was aghast. "Oh! Betty--the poor
+darling! I cannot believe she could be so strong--so--terrible."
+
+"It's more or less subconscious--such things always are--but I think Ann
+will some day prove what I say. In a way, it's like the feeling I have
+for--for my own baby, Lyn. I see him in Bobbie; I feel him in Bobbie's
+dearness and naughtiness. Ann holds what went before in what is around
+her now. Sometimes it puzzles her as Bobbie puzzles me."
+
+About this time--probably because he was happier than he had ever been
+before, possibly because he had more time that he could conscientiously
+call his own than he had had for many a well-spent year--Truedale
+repaired to his room under the eaves, sneaking away, with a half-guilty
+longing, to his old play! So many times had he resurrected it, then cast
+it aside; so many hopes and fears had been born and killed by the
+interruption to his work, that he feared whatever strength it might once
+have had must be gone now forever.
+
+Still he retreated to his attic room once more--and Lynda asked no
+questions. With strange understanding Ann guarded that door like a
+veritable dragon. When Billy's toddling steps followed his father Ann
+waylaid him; and many were the swift, silent struggles near the portal
+before the rampant Billy was carried away kicking with Ann's firm hand
+stifling his outraged cries.
+
+"What Daddy doing there?" Billy would demand when once conquered.
+
+"That's nobody's business but Daddy's," Ann unrelentingly insisted.
+
+"I--I want to know!" Billy pleaded.
+
+"Wait until Daddy wants you to know."
+
+Under the eaves, hope grew in Truedale's heart. The old play had
+certainly the subtle human interest that is always vital. He was sure of
+that. Once, he almost decided to take Ann into his confidence. The child
+had such a dramatic sense. Then he laughed. It was absurd, of course!
+
+No! if the thing ever amounted to anything--if, by putting flesh upon
+the dry bones and blood into the veins, he could get it over--it was to
+be his gift to Lynda! And the only thing that encouraged him as he
+worked, rather stiffly after all the years, was the certainty that at
+times he heard the heart beat in the shrunken and shrivelled thing! And
+so--he reverently worked on.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+Among the notes and suggestions sprinkled through the old manuscript
+were lines that once had aroused the sick and bitter resentment of
+Truedale in the past:
+
+  "Thy story hath been written long since.
+  Thy part is to read and interpret."
+
+Over and over again he read the words and pondered upon his own change
+of mind. Youth, no matter how lean and beggared it may be, craves and
+insists upon conflict--upon the personal loss and gain. But as time
+takes one into its secrets, the soul gets the wider--Truedale now was
+sure it was the wider--outlook. Having fought--because the fight was
+part of the written story--the craving for victory, of the lesser sort,
+dwindled, while the higher call made its appeal. To be part of the
+universal; to look back upon the steps that led up, or even down, and
+hold the firm belief that here, or elsewhere--what mattered in the
+mighty chain of many links--the "interpretation" told!
+
+Truedale came to the conclusion that fatalism was no weak and spineless
+philosophy, but one for the making of strong souls.
+
+Failure, even wrong, might they not, if unfettered by the narrow
+limitations of here and now, prove miracle-working elements?
+
+Then the effect upon others entered into Truedale's musings as it had in
+the beginning. The "stories" of others! He leaned his head at this
+juncture upon his clasped hands and thought of Nella-Rose! Thought of
+her as he always did--tenderly, gently, but as holding no actual part in
+his real life. She was like something that had gained power over an
+errant and unbridled phase of his past existence. He could not make her
+real in the sense of the reality of the men, women, and affairs that now
+sternly moulded and commanded him. She was--she always would be to
+him--a memory of something lovely, dear, but elusive. He could no longer
+place and fix her. She belonged to that strange period of his life when,
+in the process of finding himself, he had blindly plunged forward
+without stopping to count the cost or waiting for clear-sightedness.
+
+"What has she become?" he thought, sitting apart with his secret work.
+And then most fervently he hoped that what Lynda had once suggested
+might indeed be true. He prayed, as such men do pray, that the
+experience which had enabled him to understand himself and life better
+might also have given Nella-Rose a wider, freer space in which to play
+her chosen part.
+
+He recalled his knowledge of the hill-women as Jim White had described
+them--women to whom love, in its brightest aspect, is denied. Surely
+Nella-Rose had caught a glimpse more radiant than they. Had it pointed
+her to the heaven of good women--or--?
+
+And eventually this theme held and swayed the play--this effect of a
+deep love upon such a nature as Nella-Rose's, the propelling power--the
+redeeming and strengthening influence. In the end Truedale called his
+work "The Interpretation."
+
+And while this was going on behind the attic door, a seemingly slight
+incident had the effect of reinforcing Truedale's growing belief in his
+philosophy.
+
+He and Lynda went one day to the studio of a sculptor who had suddenly
+come into fame because of a wonderful figure, half human, half divine,
+that had startled the sophisticated critics out of their usual calm.
+
+The man had done much good work before, but nothing remarkable; he had
+taken his years of labour with patient courage, insisting that they were
+but preparation. He had half starved in the beginning--had gradually
+made his way to what every one believed was a mediocre standstill; but
+he kept his faith and his cheerful outlook, and then--he quietly
+presented the remarkable figure that demanded recognition and
+appreciation.
+
+The artist had sold his masterpiece for a sum that might reasonably have
+caused some excitement in his life--but it had not!
+
+"I'm sorry I let the thing go," he confided to a chosen few; "come and
+help me bid it good-bye."
+
+Lynda and Conning were among the chosen, and upon the afternoon of their
+call they happened to be alone with him in the studio.
+
+All other pieces of work had been put away; the figure, in the best
+possible light, stood alone; and the master, in the most impersonal way,
+stood guard over it with reverent touch and hushed voice.
+
+Had his attitude been a pose it would have been ridiculous; but it was
+so detached, so sincere, so absolutely humble, that it rose to the
+height of dignified simplicity.
+
+"Thornton, where did you get your inspiration--your model?" Truedale
+asked, after the beauty of the thing had sunk into his heart.
+
+"In the clay. Such things are always in the clay," was the quiet reply.
+
+Lynda was deeply moved, not only by the statue, but by its creator.
+"Tell us, please," she said earnestly, "just what you mean. I think it
+will help us to understand."
+
+Thornton gave a nervous laugh. He was a shy, retiring man but he thought
+now only of this thing he had been permitted to portray.
+
+"I always"--he began hesitatingly--"take my plaster in big lumps,
+squeeze it haphazard, and then sit and look at it. After that, it is a
+mere matter of choice and labour and--determination. When this"--he
+raised his calm eyes to the figure--"came to me--in the clay--I saw it
+as plainly as I see it now. I couldn't forget, or, if I did, I began
+again. Sometimes, I confess, I got weird results as I worked; once,
+after three days of toil, a--a devil was evolved. It wasn't bad, either,
+I almost decided to--to keep it; but soon again I caught a glimpse of
+the vision, always lurking close. So I pinched and smoothed off and
+added to, and, in the end, the vision stayed. It was in the
+clay--everything is, with me. If I cannot see it there, I might as well
+give up."
+
+"Thornton, that's why you never lost courage!" Truedale exclaimed.
+
+"Yes, that's the reason, old man."
+
+Lynda came close. "Thank you," she said with deep feeling in her voice,
+"I do understand; I thought I would if you explained, and--I think your
+method is--Godlike!"
+
+Thornton flushed and laughed. "Hardly that," he returned, "it's merely
+my way and I have to take it."
+
+It was late summer when Truedale completed the play. Lynda and the
+children were away; the city was hot and comparatively empty. It was a
+time when no manager wanted to look at manuscripts, but if one was
+forced upon him, he would have more leisure to examine it than he would
+have later on.
+
+Taking advantage of this, Truedale--anxious but strangely
+insistent--fought his way past the men hired to defeat such a course,
+and got into the presence of a manager whose opinion he could trust.
+
+After much argument--and the heat was terrific--the great man promised,
+in order to rid himself of Truedale's presence, to read the stuff. He
+hadn't the slightest intention of doing so, and meant to start it on its
+downward way back to the author as soon as the proper person--in short
+his private secretary--came home from his vacation.
+
+But that evening an actress who was fine enough and charmingly
+temperamental enough to compel attention, bore down through the heat
+upon the manager, with the appalling declaration that she was tired to
+death of the part selected for her in her play, and would have none of
+it!
+
+"But good Lord!" cried the manager, fanning himself with his
+panama--they were at a roof garden restaurant--"this is August--and you
+go on in October."
+
+"Not as a depraved and sensual woman, Mr. Camden; I want to be for once
+in my life a character that women can remember without blushing."
+
+"But, my poor child, that's your splendid art. You are a--an
+angel-woman, but you can play a she-devil like an inspired creature. You
+don't mean that you seriously contemplate ruining _my_ reputation and
+your own--by--"
+
+"I mean," said the angel-woman, sipping her sauterne, "that I don't care
+a flip for your reputation or mine--the weather's too hot--but I'm not
+going to trail through another slimy play! No; I'll go into the movies
+first!"
+
+Camden twisted his collar; he felt as if he were choking. "Heaven
+forbid!" was all he could manage.
+
+"I want woods and the open! I want a character with a little, twisted,
+unawakened soul to be unsnarled and made to behave itself. I don't mind
+being a bit naughty--if I can be spanked into decorum. But when the
+curtain goes down on my next play, Camden, the women are going out of
+the theatre with a kind thought of me, not throbbing with
+disapproval--good women, I mean!"
+
+And then, because Camden was a bit of a sentimentalist with a good deal
+of superstition tangled in his make-up, he took Truedale's play out of
+his pocket--it had been spoiling the set of his coat all the
+evening--and spread it out on the table that was cleared now of all but
+the coffee and the cigarettes which the angel-woman--Camden did not
+smoke--was puffing luxuriously.
+
+"Here's some rot that a fellow managed to drop on me to-day. I didn't
+mean to undo it, but if it has an out-of-door setting, I'll give it a
+glance!"
+
+"Has it?" asked the angel, watching the perspiring face of Camden.
+
+"It has! Big open. Hills--expensive open."
+
+"Is it rot?"
+
+"Umph--listen to this!" Camden's sharp eye lighted on a vivid sentence
+or two. "Not the usual type of villain--and the girl is rather unique.
+Up to tricks with her eyes shut. I wonder how she'll pan out?" Camden
+turned the pages rapidly, overlooking some of Con's best work, but
+getting what he, himself, was after.
+
+"By Jove! she doesn't do it!"
+
+"What--push those matches this way--what doesn't she do?" asked the
+angel.
+
+"Eternally damn the man and claim her sex privilege of unwarranted
+righteousness!"
+
+"Does she damn herself--like an idiot?" The angel was interested.
+
+"She does not! She plays her own little role by the music of the
+experience she lived through. It's not bad, by the lord Harry! It's got
+to be tinkered--and painted up--but it's original. Just look it over."
+
+Truedale's play was pushed across the table and the angel-woman seized
+upon it. The taste Camden had given her--like caviar--sharpened her
+appetite. She read on in the swift, skipping fashion that would have
+crushed an author's hopes, but which grasped the high lights and caught
+the deep tones. Then the woman looked up and there were genuine tears in
+her eyes.
+
+"The little brick!" said the voice of loveliness and thrills, "the
+splendid little trump! Why, Camden, she had her ideals--real, fresh,
+woman-ideals--not the ideals plastered on us women by men, who would
+loathe them for themselves! She just picked up the scraps of her damaged
+little affairs and went, without a whimper, to the doing of the only job
+she could ever hope to succeed in. And she let the man-who-learned go!
+Gee! but that was a big decision. She might so easily have muddled the
+whole scheme of things, but she didn't! The dear, little, scrimpy,
+patched darling.
+
+"Oh! Camden, I want to be that girl for as long a run as you can force.
+After the first few weeks you won't have to bribe folks to come--it'll
+take hold, after they have got rid of bad tastes in their mouths and
+have found out what we're up to! Don't count the cost, Camden. This is a
+chance for civic virtue."
+
+"Do you want more cigarettes, my dear?"
+
+"No. I've smoked enough."
+
+Camden drew the manuscript toward him. "It's a damned rough diamond," he
+murmured.
+
+"But you and I know it is a diamond, don't we, Camby?"
+
+"Well, it sparkles--here and there."
+
+"And it mustn't be ruined in the cutting and setting, must it?" The
+angel was wearing her most devout and flattering expression. She was
+handling her man with inspired touch.
+
+"Umph! Well, no. The thing needs a master hand; no doubt of that. But
+good Lord! think of the cost. This out-of-door stuff costs like all
+creation. Your gowns will let you out easy--you can economize on _this_
+engagement--but have a heart and think of me!"
+
+"I--I do think of you, Camby. You know as well as I that New York is at
+your beck and call. What you say--goes! Call them now to see something
+that will make them sure the world isn't going to the devil, Camden. In
+this scene"--and here the woman pulled the manuscript back--"when that
+little queen totes her heavy but sanctified heart up the trail, men and
+women will shed tears that will do them good--tears that will make them
+see plain duty clearer. Men and--yes, women, too, Camby--_want_ to be
+decent, only they've lost the way. This will help them to find it!"
+
+"We've got to have two strong men." Camden dared not look at the
+pleading face opposite. But something was already making him agree with
+it.
+
+"And, by heavens, I don't know of but one who isn't taken."
+
+"There's a boy--he's only had minor parts so far--but I want him for the
+man-who-learned-his-lesson. You can give the big wood-giant to John
+Harrington--I heard to-day that he was drifting, up to date--but I want
+Timmy Nichols for the other part."
+
+"Nichols? Thunder! He's only done--what in the dickens has he done? I
+remember him, but I can't recall his parts."
+
+"That's it! That's it! Now I want him to drive his part home--with
+himself!"
+
+Camden looked across at the vivid young face that a brief but brilliant
+career had not ruined.
+
+"I begin to understand," he muttered.
+
+"Do you, Camden? Well, I'm only beginning to understand myself!"
+
+"Together, you'll be corking!" Camden suddenly grew enthusiastic.
+
+"Won't we? And he did so hate to have me slimy. No one but Timmy and my
+mother ever cared!"
+
+"We'll have this--this fellow who wrote the play--what's his name?"
+
+"Truedale." The woman referred to the manuscript.
+
+"Yes. Truedale. We'll have him to dinner to-morrow. I'll get Harrington
+and Nichols. Where shall we go?"
+
+"There's a love of a place over on the East Side. They give you such
+good things to eat--and leave you alone."
+
+"We'll go there!"
+
+It was November before the rush and hurry of preparation were over and
+Truedale's play announced. His name did not appear on it so his people
+were not nerve-torn and desperate. Truedale often was, but he managed to
+hide the worst and suffer in silence. He had outlived the anguish of
+seeing his offspring amputated, ripped open, and stuffed. He had come to
+the point where he could hear his sacredest expressions denounced as rot
+and supplanted by others that made him mentally ill. But in the end he
+acknowledged, nerve-racked as he was, that the thing of which he had
+dreamed--the thing he had tried to do--remained intact. His eyes were
+moist when the curtain fell upon his "Interpretation" at the final
+rehearsal.
+
+Then he turned his attention to his personal drama. He chose his box;
+there were to be Lynda and Ann, Brace and Betty, McPherson and himself
+in it. Betty, Brace, and the doctor were to have the three front
+chairs--not because of undue humility on the author's part, but because
+there would, of course, be a big moment of revelation--a moment when
+Lynda would know! When that came it would be better to be where curious
+eyes could not behold them. Perhaps--Truedale was a bit anxious over
+this--perhaps he might have to take Lynda away after the first act, and
+before the second began, in order to give her time and opportunity to
+rally her splendid serenity.
+
+And after the play was over--after he knew how the audience had taken
+it--there was to be a small supper--just the six of them--and during
+that he would confess, for better or worse. He would revel in their joy,
+if success were his, or lean upon their sympathy if Fate proved unkind.
+
+Truedale selected the restaurant, arranged for the flowers, and then
+grew so rigidly quiet and pale that Lynda declared that the summer in
+town had all but killed him and insisted that he take a vacation.
+
+"We haven't had our annual honeymoon trip, Con," she pleaded; "let's
+take it now."
+
+"We'll--we'll go, Lyn, just before Christmas."
+
+"Not much!" Lynda tossed her head. "It will take our united efforts from
+December first until after Christmas to meet the demands of Billy and
+Ann."
+
+"But, Lyn, the theatre season has just opened--and--"
+
+"Don't be a silly, Con. What do we care for that? Besides, we can go to
+some place where there are theatres. It's too cold to go into the
+wilds."
+
+"But New York is _the_ place, Lyn."
+
+"Con, I never saw you so obstinate and frivolous. Why, you're thin and
+pale, and you worry me. I will never leave you again during the summer.
+Ann was edgy about it this year. She told me once that she felt all the
+hotness you were suffering. I believe she did! _Now_ will you come away
+for a month?"
+
+"I--I cannot, Lyn."
+
+"For two weeks, then? One?"
+
+"Darling, after next week, yes! For a week or ten days."
+
+"Good old Con! Always so reasonable and--kind," Lynda lifted her happy
+face to his....
+
+But things did not happen as Truedale arranged--not all of them. There
+was a brief tussle, the opening night of the play, with McPherson. He
+didn't see why he should be obliged to sit in the front row.
+
+"I'm too tall and fat!" he protested; "it's like putting me on
+exhibition. Besides, my dress suit is too small for me and my
+shirt-front bulges and--and I'm not pretty. Put the women in front,
+Truedale. What ails you, anyway?"
+
+Conning was desperate. For a moment it looked as if the burly doctor
+were going to defeat everything.
+
+"I hate plays, you know!" McPherson was mumbling; "why didn't you bring
+us to a musical comedy or vaudeville? Lord! but it's hot here."
+
+Betty, watching Truedale's exasperated face, came to his assistance.
+
+"When at a party you're asked whether you will have tea or coffee, Dr.
+McPherson," she said, tugging at his huge arm, "you mustn't say
+'chocolate,' it isn't polite. If Con wants to mix up the sexes he has a
+perfect right to, after he's ruined himself buying this box. Do sit down
+beside me, doctor. When the audience looks at my perfectly beautiful
+new gown they'll forget your reputation and shirt-front."
+
+So, muttering and frowning, McPherson sat down beside Betty, and Brace
+in lamblike mood dropped beside him.
+
+"It's wicked," McPherson turned once more; "I don't believe Ann can see
+a thing."
+
+"Yes, I can, Dr. McPherson--if you keep put! I want to sit between
+father and mommy-Lyn. When I thrill, I have to have near me some one
+particular, to hold on to."
+
+"You ought to be in bed!"
+
+Little Ann leaned against his shoulder. "Don't be grumpy," she
+whispered, "I like you best of all--when you're not the doctor."
+
+"Umph!" grunted McPherson, but he stayed "put" after that, until the
+curtain went down on the first act. Then he turned to Truedale. He had
+been laughing until the tears stood in his eyes.
+
+"Did that big woodsman make you think of any one?" he asked.
+
+"Did he remind _you_ of any one?" Truedale returned. He was weak with
+excitement. Lynda, sitting beside him, was almost as white as the gown
+she wore--for she had remembered the old play!
+
+"He's enough like old Jim White to be his twin! I haven't laughed so
+much in a month. I feel as if I'd had a vacation in the hills."
+
+Then the curtain went up on the big scene! Camden had spared no
+expense. That was his way. The audience broke into appreciative applause
+as it gazed at the realistic reproduction of deep woods, dim trails, and
+a sky of gold. It was an empty stage--a waiting moment!
+
+In the first act the characters had been more or less subservient to the
+big honest sheriff, with his knowledge of the people and his amazing
+interpretation of justice. He had been so wise--so deliciously
+anarchistic--that the real motive of the play had only begun to appear.
+But now into the beautiful, lonely woods the woman came! The shabby,
+radiant little creature with her tremendous problem yet to solve.
+Through the act she rose higher, clearer; she won sympathy, she revealed
+herself; and, at the end, she faced her audience with an appeal that was
+successful to the last degree.
+
+In short, she had got Truedale's play over the footlights! He knew it;
+every one knew it. And when the climax came and the decision was
+made--leaving the man-who-had-learned-his-lesson unaware of the divine
+renunciation but strong enough to take up his life clear-sightedly; when
+the little heroine lifted her eyes and her empty arms to the trail
+leading up and into the mysterious woods--and to all that she knew they
+held--something happened to Truedale! He felt the clutch of a small cold
+hand on his. He looked around, and into the wide eyes of Ann! The child
+seemed hypnotized and, as if touched by a magic power, her resemblance
+to her mother fairly radiated from her face. She was struggling for
+expression. Seeking to find words that would convey what she was
+experiencing. It was like remembering indistinctly another country and
+scene, whose language had been forgotten. Then--and only Lynda and
+Truedale heard--little Ann said:
+
+"It's Nella-Rose! Father, it's Nella-Rose!"
+
+Betty had been right. The shock had, for a moment, drawn the veil aside,
+the child was looking back--back; she heard what others had called the
+one she now remembered--the sacreder name had escaped her!
+
+"Father, it's Nella-Rose!"
+
+Truedale continued to look at Ann. Like a dying man--or one suddenly
+born into full life--he gradually understood! As Ann looked at that
+moment, so had Nella-Rose looked when, in Truedale's cabin, she turned
+her eyes to the window and saw his face!
+
+This was Nella-Rose's child, but why had Lynda--? And with this thought
+such a wave of emotion swept over Truedale that he feared, strong as he
+was, that he was going to lose consciousness. For a moment he struggled
+with sheer physical sensation, but he kept his eyes upon the small, dark
+face turned trustingly to his. Then he realized that people were moving
+about; the body of the house was nearly empty; McPherson, while helping
+Betty on with her cloak, was commenting upon the play.
+
+"Good stuff!" he admitted. "Some muscle in that. Not the usual appeal to
+the uglier side of life. But come, come, Mrs. Kendall, stop crying. It's
+only a play, after all."
+
+"Oh! I know," Betty quiveringly replied, "but it's so human, Dr.
+McPherson. That dear little woman has almost broken my heart; but she'd
+have broken it utterly if she had acted differently. I don't believe the
+author ever _guessed_ her! Somewhere she _lived_ and played her part. I
+just know it!"
+
+Truedale heard all this while he watched the strained look fading from
+Ann's face. The past was releasing her, giving her back to the safe,
+normal present. Presently she laughed and said: "Father, I feel so
+queer. Just as if I'd been--dreaming."
+
+Then she turned with a deep, relieving sigh to Lynda. "Thank you for
+bringing me, mommy-Lyn," she said, "it was the best play I've ever seen
+in all my life. Only I wish that nice actress-lady had gone with the man
+who didn't know. I--I feel real sorry for him. And why didn't she
+go?--I'd have gone as quick as anything."
+
+The door had closed between Ann's past and her future! Truedale got upon
+his feet, but he was still dazed and uncertain as to what he should do
+next. Then he heard Lynda say, and it almost seemed as if she spoke
+from a distance she could not cross, "Little Ann, bring father."
+
+He looked at Lynda and her white face startled him, but she smiled the
+kind, true smile that called upon him to play his part.
+
+Somehow the rest of the plan ran as if no cruel jar had preceded it. The
+supper was perfect--the guests merry--and, when he could command
+himself, Truedale--keeping his eyes on Lynda's face--confessed.
+
+For a moment every one was quiet. Surprise, delight, stayed speech. Then
+Ann asked: "And did you do it behind the locked door, father?"
+
+"Yes, Ann."
+
+"Well, I'm glad I kept Billy out!"
+
+"And Lyn--did you know?" Betty said, her pretty face aglow.
+
+"I--I guessed."
+
+But the men kept still after the cordial handshakes. McPherson was
+recalling something Jim White had said to him recently while he was with
+the sheriff in the hills.
+
+"Doc, that thar chap yo' once sent down here--thar war a lot to him
+us-all didn't catch onter."
+
+And Brace was thinking of the night, long, long ago, when Conning threw
+some letters upon the glowing coals and groaned!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+They were home at last in old William Truedale's quiet house. Conning
+went upstairs with Ann. Generally Lynda went with him to kiss Ann
+good-night before they bent over Billy's crib beside their own bed. But
+now, Lynda did not join them and Ann, starry-eyed, prattled on about the
+play and her joy in her father's achievement. She was very quaint and
+droll. She ran behind a screen and dropped her pretty dress, and issued
+forth, like a white-robed angel, in her long gown, her short brown curls
+falling like a beautiful frame around her gravely sweet face.
+
+Truedale, sitting by the shaded lamp, looked at her as if, in her true
+character, she stood revealed.
+
+"Little Ann," he said huskily, "come, let me hold you while we wait for
+mommy-Lyn."
+
+Ann came gladly and nestled against his breast.
+
+"To think it's my daddy that made the splendid play!" she whispered,
+cuddling closer. "I can tell the girls and be so proud." Then she yawned
+softly.
+
+"Mommy-Lyn, I suppose, had to go and whisper the secret to Billy," she
+went on, finding as usual an excuse instead of a rebuke. "Billy's missed
+the glory of his life because he's so young!"
+
+Another--a longer yawn. Then the head lay very still and Truedale saw
+that she was asleep. Reverently he kissed her. Then he bore her to the
+little bed behind the white screen, with its tall angels with brooding
+eyes. As he laid her down she looked up dreamily:
+
+"I'm a pretty big girl to be carried," she whispered, "but my daddy is
+strong and--and great!"
+
+Again Truedale kissed her, then went noiselessly to find Lynda.
+
+He went to their bedchamber, but Lynda was not there. Billy, rosy and
+with fat arms raised above his pretty blond head, was sleeping--unconscious
+of what was passing near. Truedale went and looked yearningly down at
+him.
+
+"My boy!" he murmured over and over again; "my boy." But he did not kiss
+Billy just then.
+
+There was no doubt in Truedale's mind, now, as to where he would find
+Lynda. Quietly he went downstairs and into the dim library. The fire was
+out upon the hearth. The gray ashes gave no sign of life. The ticking of
+the clock was cruelly loud; and there, beside the low, empty chair,
+knelt Lynda--her white dress falling about her in motionless folds.
+
+Truedale, without premeditation, crossed the room and, sitting in his
+uncle's chair--the long-empty chair, lifted Lynda's face and held it in
+his hand.
+
+"Lyn," he said, fixing his dark, troubled eyes upon hers, "Lyn, who is
+Ann's father?"
+
+Lynda had not been crying; her eyes were dry and--faithful!
+
+"You, Con," she said, quietly.
+
+During the past years had Lynda ever permitted herself to imagine how
+Conning would meet this hour she could not have asked more than now he
+gave. He was ready, she saw that, to assume whatever was his to bear.
+His face whitened; his mouth twitched as the truth of what he heard sunk
+into his soul; but his gaze never fell from that which was raised to
+his.
+
+"Can you--tell me all about it, Lyn?" he asked.
+
+For an instant Lynda hesitated. Misunderstanding, Truedale added:
+
+"Perhaps you'd rather not to-night! I can wait. I trust you absolutely.
+I am sure you acted wisely."
+
+"Oh! Con, it was not I--not I. It was Nella-Rose who acted wisely. I
+left it all to her! It was she who decided. I have always wanted, at
+least for years, to have you know; but it was Nella-Rose's wish that you
+should not. And now, little Ann has made it possible."
+
+And then Lynda told him. He had relinquished his hold upon her and sat
+with tightly clenched hands gazing at the ashes on the hearth. Lynda
+pressed against him, watching--watching the effect of every word.
+
+"And, Con, at first, when I knew, every fibre of my being claimed you!
+I wanted to push her and--and Ann away, but I could not! Then I tried to
+act for you. I saw that since Nella-Rose had been first in your life she
+should have whatever belonged to her; I knew that you would have it so.
+When I could bring myself to--to stand aside, I put us all into her
+keeping. She was very frightened, very pitiable, but she closed her eyes
+and I knew that she saw truth--the big truth that stood guard over all
+our lives and had to be dealt with honestly--or it would crush
+everything. I could see, as I watched her quiet face, that she was
+feeling her way back, back. Then she realized what it all meant. Out of
+the struggle--the doubt--that big, splendid husband of hers rose
+supreme--her man! He had saved her when she had been most hopelessly
+lost. Whatever now threatened him had to go! Her girlhood dream faded
+and the safe reality of what he stood for remained. Then she opened her
+eyes and made her great decision. Since you had never dishonoured her in
+your thought, she would not have you know her as she then was!
+But--there remained little Ann! Oh! Con, I never knew, until Billy came,
+what Nella-Rose's sacrifice meant! I thought I did--but afterward, I
+knew! One has to go down into the Valley to find the meaning of
+motherhood. I had done, or tried to do, my duty before, but Billy taught
+me to love Ann and understand--the rest!"
+
+There was silence for a moment. Among the white ashes a tiny red spark
+was showing. It glowed and throbbed; it was trying hard to find
+something upon which to live.
+
+"And, Lyn, after she went back to the hills--how was it with her?"
+
+"She laid everything but your name upon the soul of her man. He never
+exacted more. His love was big enough--divine enough--to accept. Oh!
+Con, through all the years when I have tried to--to do my part, the
+husband of Nella-Rose has helped me to do it! Nella-Rose never looked
+back--to Ann and me. Having laid the child upon the altar,
+she--trusted."
+
+"Yes, that would be her way." Truedale's voice broke a bit.
+
+"But, Con, I kept in touch with her through that wonderful old
+woman--Lois Ann. I--oh! Con, I made life easier, brighter for them all;
+just as--as you would have done. Lois Ann has told me of the happiness
+of the little cabin home, of the children--there are three--"
+
+A sharp pause caused Truedale to turn and look at Lynda.
+
+"And--now?" he asked.
+
+"Con, Nella-Rose died last year!"
+
+The stillness in the room pressed close; even the clock's ticking was
+unnoticed. The spark upon the hearth had become a flame; it had found
+something upon which to feed. Like a radiant hope it rose, faded, then
+leaped higher among the white ashes.
+
+"She went, Con, like a child tired of its play. She was with Lois Ann;
+it was the hill-fever, and she was mercifully spared the knowledge of
+suffering or--renunciation. She kept repeating that she saw beautiful
+things; she was glad--glad to the last minute. Her children and husband
+have gone to Nella-Rose's old home. Lois Ann says they are saving
+everybody! That's all, Con--all."
+
+Then Truedale, his eyes dim but undaunted, leaned and drew Lynda up
+until, kneeling before him, her hands upon his shoulders, they faced
+each other.
+
+"And this is the way women--save men!" he said.
+
+"It is the way they try to save--themselves," Lynda replied.
+
+"Oh, Con, Con, when will our men learn that it is the one life, the one
+great love that we women want?--the full knowledge and--responsibility?"
+
+"My darling!" Truedale kissed the tender mouth. Then drawing her close,
+he asked:
+
+"Do you remember that day in Thornton's studio--and his words? Looking
+back at my life, I cannot understand--I may never understand--what the
+Creator meant, but I do know that it was all in the clay!"
+
+Lynda drew away--her hands still holding him. Her brave smile was
+softening her pale face.
+
+"Oh! the dear, dear clay!" she whispered. "The clay that has been
+pressed and moulded--how I love it. I also do not understand, Con, but
+this I know: the Master never lost the vision in the clay."
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Man Thou Gavest, by Harriet T. Comstock
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