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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Shield of Silence, 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 Shield of Silence
+
+Author: Harriet T. Comstock
+
+Illustrator: George Loughridge
+
+Release Date: April 22, 2006 [EBook #18225]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SHIELD OF SILENCE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "_Joan rose from her self-appointed task. She looked
+at Thornton and throbbed with hate--but as she looked her mood again
+changed--she felt such pity as she had never known in her life before._"]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SHIELD OF SILENCE
+
+BY HARRIET T. COMSTOCK
+
+AUTHOR OF JOYCE OF THE NORTH WOODS, ETC.
+
+
+FRONTISPIECE BY GEORGE LOUGHRIDGE
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
+
+
+Made in the United States of America
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY
+DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
+
+ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
+INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
+
+PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES
+AT
+THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+TO MY SON
+PHILIP S. COMSTOCK
+
+"We will grasp the hands of men and women; and slowly
+holding one another's hands we will work our way upwards."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE SHIELD OF SILENCE
+
+_Let us agree at once that_--
+
+
+We are all on the Wheel. The difference lies in our ability to cling or
+let go. Meredith Thornton and old Becky Adams--let go!
+
+Across the world's heart they fell--the heart of the world may be wide
+or narrow--and, by the law of attraction, they came to Ridge House and
+Sister Angela.
+
+Unlike, and separated by every circumstance that, according to the
+expected, should have kept them apart--they still had the same problem
+to confront and the solution had its beginning in that pleasant home for
+Episcopal Sisters which clings so enchantingly along the north side of
+what is known as Silver Gap, a cleft in the Southern mountains.
+
+To say the solution of these women's problems had its beginnings in
+Ridge House is true; but that they were ever solved is another matter
+and this story deals with that.
+
+Meredith Thornton was young and beautiful. Up to the hour that she let
+go she had lived as they live who are drugged. She had looked on life
+with her senses blurred and her actions largely controlled by others.
+
+Old Becky, on the other hand, had gripped life with no uncertain hold;
+she, according to the vernacular of her hills, "had the call to larn,"
+and she learned deeply.
+
+Sister Angela had clung to the Wheel. She had swung well around the
+circle and she believed she was nearing the end when the strange demand
+was made upon her.
+
+The demand was made by Meredith Thornton and Becky Adams. Meredith, from
+her great distance, somewhat prepared Sister Angela by a letter, but
+Becky, being unable either to read or write, simply took to the trail
+from her lonely cabin on Thunder Peak and claimed a promise made three
+years before.
+
+And now, since _The Rock_ played a definite part in what happened, it
+should have a word here.
+
+In a land where nearly all the solid substance is rock--not stone, mind
+you--_The Rock_ held a peculiar position. It dominated the landscape and
+the imagination of Silver Gap, and the superstition as well. It was a
+huge, greenish-white mass, a mile to the east of Thunder Peak, and over
+its smooth face innumerable waterfalls trickled and shone. With this
+colour and motion, like a mighty Artist, the wind and light played,
+forming pictures that needed little fancy to discern.
+
+At times cities would be delicately outlined with towers and roofs
+rising loftily; then again one might see a deep wood with a road winding
+far and away, luring home-tied feet to wander. And sometimes--not often,
+to be sure--the Ship would ride at anchor as on a painted sea.
+
+The Ship boded no good to Silver Gap as any one could tell. It had
+brought the plague and the flood; it brought bad crops and raids on
+hidden stills; it waited until its evil cargo had done its worst and
+then it sailed away in the night, bearing its pitiful load of dead, or
+its burden of fear and hate. Surely there was good and sufficient reason
+for dreading the appearance of The Ship, and on a certain autumn morning
+it appeared and soon after the two women, unknown to each other, came to
+Ridge House and this story began.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+"_Wait and thy soul shall speak._"
+
+
+There is, in the human soul, as in the depths of the ocean, a state of
+eternal calm. Around it the waves of unrest may surge and roar but there
+peace reigns. In that sanctuary the tides are born and, in their
+appointed time, swelling and rising, they carry the poor jetsam and
+flotsam of life before them.
+
+The tide was rising in the soul of Meredith Thornton; she was awake at
+last. Awake as people are who have lived with their faculties drugged.
+The condition was partly due to the education and training of the woman,
+and largely to her own ability in the past to close her senses to any
+conception of life that differed from her desires. She had always been
+like that. She loved beauty and music; she loved goodness and happiness;
+she loved them whom she loved so well that she shut all others out.
+Consequently, when Life tore her defences away she had no guidance upon
+which to depend but that which had lain hidden in the secret place of
+her soul.
+
+As a little child Meredith and her older sister, Doris, lived in New
+York. Their house had been in the Fletcher family for three generations
+and stood at the end of a dignified row, opposite a park whose iron
+gates opened only to those considered worthy of owning a key--the
+Fletchers had a key!
+
+In the park the little Fletcher girls played--if one could call it
+play--under the eye of a carefully selected maid whose glance was
+expected to rest constantly upon them. The anxious father tried to do
+his double duty conscientiously, for the mother had died at Meredith's
+birth.
+
+The children often peered through the high fence (it really was more fun
+than the stupid games directed by their elders) and wondered--at least
+Doris wondered; Meredith was either amused or shocked; if the latter it
+was an easy matter to turn aside. This hurt Doris, and to her plea that
+the thing was there, Meredith returned that she did not believe it, and
+she did not, either.
+
+Once, shielded by the skirts of an outgoing maid, Doris made her escape
+and, for two thrilling and enlightening hours, revelled in the company
+of the Great Unknown who were not deemed worthy of keys.
+
+Doris had found them vital, absorbing, and human; they changed the whole
+current of her life and thought; she was never the same again, neither
+was anything else.
+
+The nurse was at once dismissed and Mr. Fletcher placed his daughters in
+the care of Sister Angela, who was then at the head of a fashionable
+school for girls--St. Mary's, it was called.
+
+Sister Angela believed in keys but had ideas as to their uses and the
+good sense to keep them out of sight.
+
+Under her wise and loving rule Doris Fletcher never suspected the hold
+upon her and, while she did not forget the experience she had once had
+outside the park, she no longer yearned to repeat it, for the present
+was wholesomely full. As for Meredith, she felt that all danger was
+removed--for Doris; for herself, what could shatter her joy? It was only
+running outside gates that brought trouble.
+
+Just after the Fletcher girls graduated from St. Mary's Sister Angela's
+health failed.
+
+Mr. Fletcher at this time proved his gratitude and affection in a
+delicate and understanding way. He bought a neglected estate in the
+South and provided a sufficient sum of money for its restoration and
+upkeep, and this he put in Sister Angela's care.
+
+"There is need of such work as you can do there," he said; "and it has
+always been a dream of my life to help those people of the hills.
+Sister, make my dream come true."
+
+Angela at once got in touch with Father Noble, who was winning his way
+against great odds in the country surrounding Silver Gap, and offered
+her services.
+
+"Come and live here," Father Noble replied. "It is all we can do at
+present. They do not want us," he had a quaint humour, "but we must
+change that."
+
+Mr. Fletcher did not live long enough to see his dream do more than help
+prolong Sister Angela's days, for he died a year later leaving, to his
+daughters, a large fortune, well invested, and no commands as to its
+use. This faith touched both girls deeply.
+
+"I want to travel and see all the beautiful things in the world,"
+Meredith said when the time for expression came.
+
+"Yes, dear," Doris replied, "and you must learn what life really means."
+
+Naturally at this critical moment both girls turned to Sister Angela,
+but with the rare insight that had not deserted her, she held them from
+her, though her heart hungered for them.
+
+"Ridge House is in the making," she wrote. "I am going slow, making no
+mistakes. I am asking some Sisters who, like me, have fallen by the way,
+to come here and help me with my scheme, and in the confusion of
+readjustment, two young girls, who ought to be forming their own plans,
+would be sadly in the way.
+
+"Go abroad, my dears, take"--here Sister Angela named a woman she could
+trust to help, not hinder--"and learn to walk alone at last."
+
+Doris accepted the advice and the little party went to Italy.
+
+"Here," she said, "Merry shall have the beauty she craves and she shall
+learn what life means, as well."
+
+And Meredith's learning began.
+
+They had only been in Italy a month when George Thornton appeared. He
+was young, handsome, and already so successful in business that older
+men cast approving eyes upon him. He had chosen, at the outset of his
+career, to go to the Philippines and accepted an appointment there. He
+had devoted himself so rigidly to his duties that his health began to
+show the strain and he was taking his first, well-won, vacation when he
+met the Fletchers.
+
+Thornton's past had been spent largely with men who, like himself, were
+making their way among people, and in an environment in which the finer
+aspects of life were disregarded. He had enjoyed himself, made himself
+popular, and for the rest he had waited until such a time as his success
+would make choice possible. When he met Meredith Fletcher he felt the
+time had come. The girl's exquisite aloofness, her fineness and
+sweetness, bewitched him. The real meaning of her character did not
+interest him at all. Here was something that he wanted; the rest would
+be an easy conquest. Thornton had always got what he wanted and lay
+siege to Meredith's heart at once.
+
+His approach, while it swept Meredith before it, naturally aroused fear
+and apprehension in Doris. To Meredith, Thornton was an ideal
+materialized; to Doris, he was a menace to all that she held sacred. She
+distrusted him for the very traits that appealed to her sister. But she
+dared not oppose, for to every inquiry she hurriedly made--and there was
+need of hurry--she received only favourable reports.
+
+Thornton's own fortune and prospects set aside any fears as to mercenary
+designs; he had no near relatives, but distant cousins in England were
+people of refinement and culture and on excellent terms with Thornton.
+Breathlessly Thornton carried everything before him. Six weeks after he
+met Meredith he married her.
+
+"Why, you do not know the child," Doris had faltered when the hasty
+marriage was proposed, "I'm only learning to know her myself. She has
+never grown up. She sees life as she used to see it through the gates of
+the park in which she played as a little girl. She has been locked away.
+It is appalling. I could not believe, unless I knew, that any one could
+be like Merry."
+
+Of course Thornton did not understand.
+
+"Let me have the key," he jokingly said, "let me lead Merry out. It will
+be the biggest thing of my life."
+
+And Doris knew that unless the key were given he would break the lock,
+so Meredith was married in the little American chapel on the hillside
+and she looked as if she were walking in a love-filled dream as she went
+out of Doris's life.
+
+Thornton took his wife to the Philippines by way of her New York home.
+For a week they stayed in it, and it was there that the first sense of
+loss touched Meredith. The stirring effect of all that she had recently
+gone through was wearing away, and Doris, and all that Doris meant in
+the past, haunted the big, quiet house.
+
+"This will never do," thought Thornton, and for the first time he sensed
+the power the older sister had over the younger. It was already making
+its way into his kingdom, and Thornton never shared what was his own!
+
+Doris remained abroad for a time, readjusting her life as one does who
+is maimed. Her devotion to Meredith, she saw now, had been her one
+passion--to what could she turn?
+
+The letters that presently came from Meredith, while they set much of
+her fear at rest, made her feel more lonely, nor did they seem to set
+her free to make permanent plans. She sank into a waiting mood--waiting
+for letters!
+
+"I'll play around Europe for awhile," she whimsically decided. "I'll buy
+things for that chapel Sister Angela is planning, and polish my manners.
+And," here Doris grew grave, "I'll think of David Martin! I wish I could
+love Davey enough to marry him as I feel he wants me to--and let him
+blot out this ache for Merry." But that was not to be.
+
+And Meredith wrote her letters to her sister and smiled upon her
+husband--for after the third month of her marriage that was the best she
+could do for either of them. All the ideals of her self-blinded life
+were being swept away in the glaring flame of reality.
+
+Thornton was still infatuated and went to great lengths to prove to his
+pale, starry-eyed wife her power over him. He was delighted at the
+impression she made upon the rather hectic but exclusive circle in which
+he moved; but he dreaded, vaguely to be sure, her hearing, in a gross
+way, references to his life before she entered it. So quite frankly and
+a bit sketchily he confided it to her himself.
+
+"Of course that is ended forever," he said; "you have led me from
+darkness to light, you wonderful child! Why, Merry, you simply have made
+a new and better man of me--I understand the real value of things now."
+
+But did he?
+
+Merry was looking at him as if she were doubting her senses. Things she
+had heard in her girlhood, things that floated about in the dark corners
+of her memory, were pressing close. Dreadful things that had been forced
+upon her against her will but which she reasoned could never happen to
+her, or to any of her own.
+
+"You mean," she faltered gropingly at last, "that another woman has----"
+She could not voice the ugly words and Thornton was obliged to be a
+little more explicit.
+
+Then he saw his wife retreat--spiritually. He hastened after her as best
+he could.
+
+"You see, darling," he was frightened, "out here, where a fellow is cut
+off from home ties and all that, the old code does not hold--how could
+it? I'm no exception. Why, good Lord! child----" but Meredith was not
+listening. He saw that and it angered him.
+
+She was hearing words spoken long ago--oh! years and years ago it
+seemed. Words that had lured her from Doris, from safety, from all the
+dangerous peace that had been hers.
+
+"Sweetheart," that voice had said, "there is one right woman for every
+man, but few there be who find her. When one does--then there is no time
+to be lost. Life is all too short at the best for them. Come, my
+beloved, come!"
+
+And she had heeded and, forsaking all else, had trusted him.
+
+According to his lights Thornton had sincerely meant those words when he
+spoke them. He was under the spell, still, as he looked at the small
+frozen thing before him now.
+
+If he could win her from her absurd, and almost unbelievable, position;
+if he could, through her love and his, gain her absolutely; make her
+_his_--what a conquest!
+
+"My precious one, I am yours to do with what you will!" he was saying
+with all the fervour of his being; but Meredith looked at him from a
+great distance.
+
+"You were never mine!" was what she said. Then asked:
+
+"Is that--that woman here? Will I ever--meet her?"
+
+Thornton was growing furiously angry.
+
+"Certainly not!" he replied to her last question, incensed at the
+implied lack of delicacy on his part. Then he added, "Don't be a fool,
+Merry!"
+
+"No, I won't," she whispered, grimly. "I won't be a fool, whatever else
+I am. Do you want me to leave you at once, or stay on?"
+
+Thornton stared at her blankly.
+
+"Good God!" he muttered; "what do you mean, stay on?"
+
+"I mean that if I stay it will be because I don't want to hurt you more
+than I must--and because things don't matter much, either way. I have my
+own money--but, well, I'll stay on if it will help you in your
+business."
+
+Then light dawned.
+
+"You will stay on!" Thornton snapped the words out. "You are my wife,
+and you will stay on!"
+
+"Very well. I will stay," Meredith turned and walked away.
+
+Thornton looked after her and his face softened. Something in him was
+touched by the spirit under the cold, crude exterior of the girl. It was
+worth while--he would try to win her!
+
+And that was the best hour in Thornton's life.
+
+Could he have held to it all might have gone well, but Thornton's
+successes had been due to dash and daring--the slow, patient method was
+not his, and against his wife's stern indifference he recoiled after a
+short time--she bored him; she no longer seemed worth while; not worth
+the struggle nor the holding to absurd and rigid demands. Still, by her
+smiling acquiescence, Meredith made things possible that otherwise might
+not have been so, and she was a charming hostess when occasion demanded.
+
+During the second bleak year of their marriage Meredith accompanied
+Thornton to England--he was often obliged to go there on prolonged
+business--but she never repeated the experiment.
+
+While it was comparatively easy to play her difficult role in her home,
+it was unbearable among her husband's people, who complicated matters by
+assuming that she must, of necessity, be honoured and uplifted by the
+alliance she had made.
+
+After the return from England Thornton abandoned his puritanical life
+and returned to the easy ways of his bachelor days.
+
+Meredith knew perfectly well what was going on, but she had her own
+income and lived her own detached and barren life, so she clung to what
+seemed to her the last shred of duty she owed to her marriage ties--she
+served in her husband's home as hostess, and by her mere presence she
+avoided betraying him to the scorn of those who could not know all, and
+so might not judge justly.
+
+Then the crisis came that shocked Meredith into consciousness and forced
+her to act, for the first time in her life, independently.
+
+Thornton was about to go, again, to England. The day before he sailed he
+came into his wife's sitting room, where she lay upon a couch, suffering
+from a severe headache.
+
+She never mentioned her pain or loneliness, and to Thornton's careless
+glance she appeared as she always did--pale, cold, and self-centred.
+
+"Well, I sail at noon to-morrow!" he said, seating himself astride a
+chair, folding his arms and settling his chin on them.
+
+"Yes? Is there anything particular that you want me to look after in
+your absence?"
+
+Meredith barely raised her eyes. Her pain was intense, but Thornton saw
+only indifference and an unconscious insolence in the words, tone, and
+languid glance.
+
+Never before in his life had he been balked and defied and resented as
+he was by the pretty creature before him. The devil rose in him--and
+generally Thornton rode his devil with courage and control, but
+suddenly it reared, and he was thrown!
+
+"Do you know," he said--and he looked handsome and powerful in his white
+clothes; he was splendidly correct in every detail--"there are times
+when I think you forget that you are my wife."
+
+"I try to." Like all quiet people Meredith could shatter one's poise at
+times by her daring. She looked so small and defiant as she lay
+there--so secure!
+
+"Suppose I commanded you to come with me to-morrow? Made my rightful
+demand after this hellish year--what would you do?"
+
+Thornton's chin projected; his mouth smiled, not pleasantly, and his
+eyes held Meredith's with a light that frightened her. She sat up.
+
+"Of course I should refuse to go with you," she replied, "and I do not
+acknowledge any rights of yours except those that I give you. You
+apparently overlook the fact that--I make no claims."
+
+"Claims?" Thornton laughed, and the sound had a dangerous note that
+startled Meredith. "Claims? Good Lord! That's quaintly delicious. You
+don't know men, my dear. It would be a deed of charity to--inform you.
+Claims, indeed! You drove me, when you might have held me, and you talk
+claims."
+
+"I did not want to hold you--after I knew that you had never really been
+mine." Meredith's words were shaken by an emotion beyond Thornton's
+comprehension; they further aroused the brute in him.
+
+"This comes of locks and bars!" he sneered, recalling Doris's
+expression, "but, damn it all, unless you were more fool than most girls
+you might have saved yourself."
+
+To this Meredith made no reply, but she crouched on the couch and
+gathered her knees in her arms as if clinging to the only support at her
+disposal.
+
+"See here!" Thornton bent forward and his eyes blazed. "I'm going to
+give you a last chance. You'll come with me to-morrow and have done with
+this infernal rot or I'll take the woman with me who has made life
+possible, in the past, for you and me. What do you say?"
+
+Horror and repulsion grew in Meredith's eyes. She went deadly white and
+stretched her hands wide as if shielding herself from something
+defiling.
+
+"Go!" she gasped. "Go with her! By so doing I will not have to explain;
+I will be free to return--to Doris."
+
+"So!" And now Thornton got up and paced the floor; "having foresworn
+every duty you owe me, having driven me to what you choose to call
+wrong, you pack your nice, clean little soul in your bag and go back to
+pose as--as--what in God's name will you pose as? You!"
+
+Meredith shrank back. She was conscious now of her danger.
+
+"Well, then!" Thornton came close and laughed down upon the shrinking
+form--her terror further roused the brute in him; all that was decent
+and fine in him--and both were there--fell into darkness; "you'll pay,
+by heaven! before you go. You'll--"
+
+"Leave me alone!" Meredith sprang to her feet. "How dare you?"
+
+And again Thornton laughed.
+
+"Dare? You--you little idiot! You'll come with me to-morrow--by God!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But Meredith did not go with Thornton on the morrow, and if the other
+took her place she did not seek to know.
+
+The weeks and months dragged on and she was thankful for time to think
+and plot. It took so much time for one who had never acted before. And
+then--she knew the worst!
+
+Thornton might return at any time and soon--her child would be born!
+First terror, then a growing calmness, possessed Meredith. She forgot
+Thornton in her planning, forgot her own misery and sense of wrong. She
+did not hate her child as she might have--she learned in the end to
+consider it as the one opportunity left to her of saving whatever was
+good in her and Thornton. She clung to that good, she was just, at last,
+to Thornton as well as herself. Both he and she were victims of
+ignorance--the little coming child must be saved from that ignorance;
+the father's and--yes, her own, for Meredith was convinced that she
+would not live through her ordeal.
+
+Thornton must not have the child--he was unfit for that sacred duty of
+giving it the chance that had been denied the parents. The new life must
+have its roots in cleaner and purer soil. Doris must save it. Doris!
+
+Then Meredith wrote three notes. One was to Sister Angela:
+
+    You remember how, as a little girl, you let me come to you and tell
+    you things that I could not tell even to God? I am coming now,
+    Sister--will be there soon after this reaches you; and then--I will
+    tell you!
+
+    I want my child to be born with you and Doris near me. I have
+    written to Doris.
+
+    And whether I live or die, my husband must not have my child. You
+    must help me.
+
+The second letter was longer, for it contained explanations and reasons.
+These were stated baldly, briefly, but for that very quality they rang
+luridly dramatic.
+
+The third note was left on Thornton's desk and simply informed him that
+she was going to Doris and would never return.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+"_Minds that sway the future like a tide._"
+
+
+Sister Angela read her letter sitting before the fire in the living room
+at Ridge House.
+
+She read it over and over and then, as was common with her, she clasped
+the cross that hung from her girdle--and opened her soul. She called it
+prayer. Meredith became personally near her--the written words had
+materialized her. With the clairvoyance that had been part of her
+equipment in dealing with people and events of the past, Angela began
+slowly to understand.
+
+So actually was she possessed by reality that her face grew grim and
+deadly pale. She was a woman of experience in the worldly sense, but she
+was unyielding in her spiritual interpretation of moral codes. She felt
+the full weight of the tragedy that had overwhelmed a girl of Meredith
+Thornton's type. She had no inclination, nor was there time now, to
+consider Thornton's side of this terrible condition. She must act for
+Meredith and Meredith's child.
+
+Folding the letter, she dropped it into her pocket and sent for Sister
+Janice, the housekeeper.
+
+Angela gave silent thanks for Janice's temperament.
+
+Janice was so cheerful as often to depress others; so grateful that she
+gloried in self-abnegation and had no curiosity outside a given command.
+
+"The house must be got ready for visitors," Angela informed Janice. "Two
+former pupils--and one of them is ill." When she said this Angela
+paused. How did she know Meredith was ill?
+
+"Shall I open the west wing?" asked Janice, alert as to her duties.
+
+"Open everything. Have the place at its best; but I would like the
+younger sister, Mrs. Thornton, to have the chamber on the south, the
+guest chamber."
+
+When Janice had departed, Sister Constance appeared.
+
+In her early days Constance had been a famous nurse and for years
+afterward the head of a school for nurses. Her eyes brightened now as
+she listened to her superior. She had long chafed under the strain of
+inaction. She listened and nodded.
+
+"Everything shall be done as you wish, Sister," she said at last, and
+Angela knew that it would be.
+
+Lastly, old Jed was called from his outside duties and stood, battered
+hat in hand, to receive his commands. Jed was old and black and his wool
+was white as snow; his strong, perfect teeth glittered with gold
+fillings. How the old man had fallen to this vanity no one knew, but
+sooner or later all the money he made was converted into fillings.
+
+"They do say," he once explained to Sister Angela, "that 'tain't all
+gold as glitters, but dis year yaller in my mouth, ma'am, is right sure
+gold an' it's like layin' up treasure in heaven, for no moth nor rust
+ain't ever going to distroy anythin' in my mouth. No, ma'am! No
+corruption, nuther."
+
+Jed, listening to Sister Angela, now, was beaming and shining.
+
+"I want you to go to Stone Hedgeton to-morrow, Uncle Jed. You better
+start early. You must meet every train until you see a young lady--she
+will be looking about for someone--and bring her here. In between trains
+make yourself and the horses comfortable at the tavern. I'm glad you do
+not drink, Jed."
+
+"Yes-m," pondered Jed, "but I 'spect there might be mo' dan one young
+lady. I reckon it would be disastering if I fotched the wrong one. Isn't
+thar something 'bout her discounterments as might be leading, as yo'
+might say, ma'am?"
+
+"Jed, I rely upon you to bring the right young lady!"
+
+There was no use of further arguing. Jed shuffled off.
+
+Alone, of all the household, little Mary Allan was not taken into Sister
+Angela's confidence, and this was unfortunate, for Mary ran well in
+harness, but was apt to go a bit wild if left to her own devices.
+What people did not confide to Mary she generally found out for herself.
+
+Mary was known to Silver Gap as the "last of them Allans." Her father
+and mother both died soon after Mary showed signs of persisting--her ten
+brothers and sisters had refused to live, and when Mary was left to her
+fate Sister Angela rescued her, and the girl had been trained for
+entrance into a Sisterhood later on.
+
+She was abnormally keen but discouragingly superstitious; she had moods
+when the Sisters believed they had overcome her inheritance of reticence
+and aloofness. She would laugh and chat gaily and appear charmingly
+young and happy, but without warning she would lapse back to the almost
+sullen, suspicious attitude that was so disconcerting. Sister Angela
+demanded justice for Mary and received, in return, a kind of loyalty
+that was the best the girl had to give.
+
+She regarded, with that strange interpretation of the lonely hills, all
+outsiders as foreigners. She was receiving benefits from them, her only
+chance of life, and while she blindly repaid in services, Mary's roots
+clung to the cabin life; her affections to the fast-decaying hovel from
+which she had been rescued.
+
+Jed was the only familiar creature left to Mary's inner consciousness.
+He belonged to the hills--if not of them, and while his birthright made
+it possible for him to assimilate, he shared with Mary the feeling that
+he was among strangers.
+
+Jed thought in strains of "quality"; Mary in terms of "outlanders." But
+both served loyally.
+
+The morning that Jed was to start on his mysterious errand--and he
+gloried in the mystery--Mary was "minding" bread in the kitchen and
+"chuncking" wood in the stove with a lavish hand. The Sisters were at
+prayer in the tiny chapel which had been evolved from a small west room;
+and old Aunt Becky Adams was plodding down the rugged trail from Thunder
+Peak. Meredith Thornton, too, was nearing her destination and The Ship
+was on The Rock.
+
+Presently Mary, having tested the state of the golden-brown ovals in the
+oven--and she could do it to a nicety--came out of the kitchen,
+followed by a delicious smell of crisping wheat, and sat down upon the
+step of the porch to watch Jed polishing the harness of Washington and
+Lincoln--the grave, reliable team upon whom Jed spared no toil.
+
+Mary looked very brief and slim in her scanty blue cotton frock and the
+apron far too large for her. The hair, tidily caught in a firm little
+knot, was making brave efforts to escape in wild little curls, and the
+girl's big eyes had the expression seen in the eyes of an animal that
+has been trapped but not conquered.
+
+"Uncle Jed," she said in an awed tone, and planting her sharp elbows on
+her knees in order to prop her serious face, "The Ship is on The Rock."
+
+All the morning Jed had been trying to keep his back to the fact.
+
+"Yo' sure is one triflin' child," he muttered.
+
+"All the same, The Ship is there, Uncle Jed, and that means that
+something is going to happen. It is going to happen long o' Ridge
+House--and nothing has happened here before. Things have just gone
+on--and--on and on----"
+
+The girl's voice trailed vaguely--she was looking at The Ship.
+
+Jed began to have that sensation described by him as "shivers in the
+spine of his back." Mary was fascinating him. Suddenly she asked:
+
+"Uncle Jed, what are they-all sending you to--fetch?" Mary almost said
+"fotch."
+
+"How you know, child, I is goin' to fotch--anything?" Jed's spine was
+affecting his moral fibre.
+
+Mary gave her elfish laugh. She rarely smiled, and her laugh was a mere
+sound--not harsh, but mirthless.
+
+"I _know!_" she said, "and it came--no matter what it is on The Ship,
+and I 'low it will go--on The Ship."
+
+"Gawd A'mighty!" Jed burst out, "you make me creep like I had pneumonia
+fever." With this Jed turned to The Rock and confronted The Ship.
+
+"Gawd!" he murmured, "I sho' am anxious and trubbled."
+
+Then he turned, mounted the step of the creaky carriage, and gave his
+whip that peculiar twist that only a born master of horses ever can.
+
+It was like Jed to do that which he was ordained to do promptly.
+
+Mary watched him out of sight and then went indoors. She was depressed
+and nervous; her keen ear had heard much not intended for her to hear,
+but not enough to control the imagination that was fired by
+superstition.
+
+"A happening" was looming near. Something grave threatened. The evil
+crew of The Ship was but biding its time to strike, and Mary thrilled
+and feared at once.
+
+The bread, as Mary sniffed, was ready to be taken from the oven. The
+first loaf was poised nicely on the girl's towel-covered hand when a
+dark, bent old woman drifted, rather than walked, into the sunny
+kitchen. She came noiselessly like a shadow; she was dirty and in rags;
+she looked, all but her eyes, as if she might be a hundred years old,
+but her eyes held so much fire and undying youth that they were terrible
+set in the crinkled, rust-coloured face.
+
+"I want her!" The words, spoken close to her shoulder caused Mary to
+drop the loaf and turn in affright.
+
+"I want--her!"
+
+"Gawd! Aunt Becky!" gasped Mary, dropping, like a cloak, the thin veneer
+of all that Ridge House had done for her. "Gawd! Aunt Becky, I done
+thought you was--dead and all. I ain't seen you in ages. Won't you set?"
+
+The woman stretched a claw-like hand forth and laid it on the shoulder
+of the girl.
+
+"Don't you argify with me--Mary Allan. I want her."
+
+There seemed to be no doubt in Mary's mind as to whom Aunt Becky wanted.
+
+"Sister Angela is at prayer, Aunt Becky," she whispered, trying to
+escape from the clutch upon her shoulder.
+
+"Mary Allan--go tell her I want her. Go!" There was that in Becky's tone
+that commanded obedience. Mary started to the hall, her feet clattering
+as she ran toward the chapel on the floor above.
+
+Becky followed, more slowly. She got as far as the opened door of the
+living room, then she paused, glanced about, and went in.
+
+There are some rooms that repel; others that seem to rush forward with
+warm welcome. The living room at Ridge House was one that made a
+stranger feel as if he had long been expected and desired. It was not
+unfamiliar to the old woman who now entered it. Through the windows she
+had often held silent and unsuspected vigil. It was her way to know the
+trails over which she might be called to travel and since that day,
+three years before, when Sister Angela had met her on the road and made
+her startling proposition, Becky had subconsciously known that, in due
+time, she would be compelled to accept what then she had so angrily
+refused.
+
+On that first encounter Sister Angela had said:
+
+"They tell me that you have a little granddaughter--a very pretty
+child."
+
+"Yo' mean Zalie?" Becky was on her guard.
+
+"I did not know her name. How old is she?"
+
+"Nigh onter fifteen." The strange eyes were holding Sister Angela's calm
+gaze--the old woman was awaiting the time to spring.
+
+"It is wrong to keep a young girl on that lonely peak away from
+everyone, as I am told that you do. Won't you let her come to Ridge
+House? We will teach her--fit her for some useful work."
+
+Sister Angela at that time did not know her neighbours as well as she
+later learned to know them. Becky came nearer, and her thin lips curled
+back from her toothless jaws.
+
+"You-all keep yo' hands off Zalie an' me! I kin larn my gal all she
+needs to know. All other larnin' would harm her, and no Popish folk
+ain't going to tech what's mine."
+
+So that was what kept them apart!
+
+Sister Angela drew back. For a moment she did not understand; then she
+smiled and bent nearer.
+
+"You think us Catholics? We are not; but if we were it would be just the
+same. We are friendly women who really want to be neighbourly and
+helpful."
+
+"You all tote a cross!" Becky was interested.
+
+"Yes. We bear the cross--it is a symbol of what we try to do--you need
+not be afraid of us, and if there is ever a time when you need us--come
+to Ridge House."
+
+After that Becky had apparently disappeared, but often and often when
+the night was stormy, or dark, she had walked stealthily down the trail
+and taken her place by the windows of Ridge House. She knew the sunny,
+orderly kitchen in which such strange food was prepared; she knew the
+long, narrow dining room with its quaint carvings and painted words on
+walls and fireplace; she knew the tiny room where the Sisters knelt and
+sang. One or two of the tunes ran in Becky's brain like haunting
+undercurrents; but best of all, Becky knew the living room upon whose
+generous hearth the fire burned from early autumn until the bloom of
+dogwood, azalea, and laurel filled the space from which the ashes were
+reluctantly swept. Every rug and chair and couch was familiar to the
+burning eyes. The rows of bookshelves, the long, narrow table and--The
+Picture on the Wall!
+
+To that picture Becky went now. She had never been able to see it
+distinctly from any window. It was the Good Shepherd. The noble, patient
+face bent over the child on the man's breast had power to still Becky's
+distraught mind. She could not understand, but a groping of that part of
+her that could still feel and suffer reached the underlying suggestion
+of the artist. Here was someone who was doing what, in a vague and
+bungling way, Becky herself had always wanted to do--shield the young,
+helpless thing that belonged to her.
+
+The old face twitched and the soiled, crinkled arms--so empty and
+yearning--hugged the trembling body. And so Sister Angela found her.
+
+The three years since Angela had seen Becky Adams had taught her much of
+her people--she called them _her_ people, now.
+
+"I am so glad to see you, Aunt Becky," she said, smiling and pointing to
+a chair by the hearth, quite in an easy way. "Are you tired after your
+long walk?"
+
+"Sorter." Becky came over to the chair and sank into it. Then she said
+abruptly: "Zalie's gone!"
+
+The brief statement had power to visualize the young creature as Angela
+had once seen her: pretty as the flower whose name she bore, a little
+shy thing with hungry, half-afraid eyes.
+
+"Is she--dead?" Sister Angela's gaze grew deep and sympathetic.
+
+"Not 'zactly--not daid--jes now." Poor Becky, breaking through her own
+reserve and agony, made a pitiful appeal.
+
+"She has--gone away? With whom?" Sister Angela began to comprehend and
+she lowered her voice, bending toward Becky.
+
+"She ain't gone with any one--she didn't have ter--but she'll fotch up
+with someone fore long. She's gone to larn--she got the call, same as
+all her kin--it's the curse!"
+
+Now that the wall of reserve was down the pent waters rushed through and
+they came on the fanciful, dramatic words peculiar to Becky and her
+kind. Angela did not interrupt--she waited while the old, stifled voice
+ran on:
+
+"I had to larn, and I went far and saw sights, and when it was larned I
+cum back, with Zalie's mother rolled up like she was a bundle. The old
+cabin was empty 'cept for wild things as found shelter there--me and her
+settled down and no one found out for some time, and then it didn't
+matter!
+
+"Zalie's mother, she had to larn and she went with a man as helped her
+larn powerful quick. He don killed my gal by his ways an' he left her to
+die. It was a stranger as brought Zalie to me, and then I set myself to
+the task of keeping her from the curse--but she got the call and she
+went! I can see her"--here the strange eyes looked as the eyes of a seer
+look--they were following the girl on the "larnin' way"; the tired voice
+trailed sadly--"I can see how she went. It was nearing morning and all
+the moonlight that the night had left was piled like mist down in the
+Gap. Her head was up and she had her hands out--sorter feelin', feelin',
+and she would laugh--oh! she would laugh--and then she'd catch the
+scent, and be off! Oh! my Gawd, my Gawd!"
+
+Becky swayed back and forth and moaned softly as one does who has
+emptied his soul and waits.
+
+Sister Angela got up and bent over the old woman, her thin white hand on
+the crouching back.
+
+"When did this happen?" she asked.
+
+"Mos' a year back!"
+
+"And you have only come now to tell me? Why did you wait?"
+
+"Twasn't no use coming before--but now, I 'low she's coming back, same
+as all us does, after the larnin'! I had a vision las' night--and this
+morning--I saw The Ship on the Rock--she'll come!"
+
+Again the old woman's eyes were lifted and she peered into the depths of
+the fire.
+
+"I seed Zalie las' night! She come with hit."
+
+"With what?" Sister Angela had that peculiar pricking sensation of the
+skin caused by tense nerves.
+
+"With hit. Her young-un! That's what larnin' means to us-all. Hit! After
+that, nothin' counts one way or 'other. Zalie spoke in her vision--clear
+like she was in the flesh. She don made me understand that I mus' give
+hit a chance; break the curse--there is only one way!"
+
+"What way, Becky?" Angela was whispering as if she and the old woman
+near her were conspiring together.
+
+"Hit mus' go where no one knows--no one ever can know. It's the knowin'
+that damns us-all. Folks knowin' an' expectin'--an' helpin' the curse.
+Hit's got to start fresh an' no one knowin'."
+
+Becky's voice was sepulchral.
+
+"You mean," Angela asked, "that if Zalie comes back with a child that
+you want me to take it, find a home for it--where no one will ever
+know?"
+
+"You-all don promised to help me," Becky pleaded, for she caught the
+doubting tone in Angela's voice; "you-all ain't goin' back on that, air
+yo'?"
+
+The burning eyes fell upon the cross at Angela's side.
+
+"No," she said. "No. Becky, I promise to help you. But suppose Zalie,
+should she have a child, refused to give it up?"
+
+Becky's face quivered.
+
+"She won't las', Zalie won't." The stricken voice was as confident as if
+Zalie already lay dead. "Zalie ain't got stayin' powers, she ain't. She
+don have fever an' what-all--an' she won't las' long--she'll go on The
+Ship! But if you-all hide hit--so The Ship can't take hit--if you-all
+give hit hit's chance--then the curse will be broke."
+
+There was pleading, renunciation, and command in the guttural voice:
+
+"Becky, I will promise to help you. If there is a child and you renounce
+all claim to it, I will find a home for it. It shall have its chance.
+And now sit here and rest--I am going to bring some food to you."
+
+Sister Angela arose and passed from the room. The doing of the kindly,
+commonplace thing restored her to her usual calm.
+
+She was not gone long, but when she returned, bearing the tray, Becky
+had departed and the chair in which she had sat was still swaying.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+"_I brushed all obstructions from my doorsill and stepped into the
+road._"
+
+
+It was just after sunset the following day when Jed turned from the Big
+Road into the River Road and thanked God that the next five miles could
+be made before early darkness set in.
+
+Beside him sat Meredith Thornton, white lipped and wide-eyed, and her
+aristocratic bags rattled around in the space behind.
+
+The smile with which Meredith had faced her past three years lingered
+still on the set mouth--the smile was for Jed.
+
+"There seem to be more downs than ups on this road," the girl said, in
+order to cover a groan. "It will be awful after dark."
+
+"Dark or light, ma'am," Jed returned, "it's all the same to me, ma'am. I
+know dese little ole humps like I know my fingers and toes, ma'am."
+
+"Do--do you always hit the same humps?" Jed was hitting one now,
+squarely.
+
+"Mostly, ma'am; but I'm studyin' to get there before dark, ma'am. If
+Washington now, ma'am"--Jed indicated the sleeker of the two
+horses--"had the ginger, so to speak, ma'am, as Lincoln has got--why,
+ma'am, the River Road would be flyin' out behind, ma'am, like it war a
+tail of a kite."
+
+Meredith managed to give a weak laugh and, as the wagon hit another
+hump, she edged toward Jed. After a few moments he felt her head against
+his shoulder--from suffering and exhaustion she fell into a brief and
+troubled sleep.
+
+Like one carved from rock, Jed held his position while a reverent
+expression grew upon his face.
+
+The glow showed yellow through the western sky, The Gap was growing
+purplish and dim, and just then, across a foot bridge over the river, a
+hurrying, bent form appeared. It swayed perilously--Jed heard a muttered
+curse.
+
+"Gawd A'mighty," he breathed, "it's ole Aunt Becky come back to add to
+trubble after us-all hopin' she was daid--or something."
+
+Becky was coming toward the road, bending over the bundle she bore; she
+paused, looked down, and then darted ahead right in the path of the
+horses. They reared and something snapped.
+
+Meredith awoke and sat up with a cry.
+
+"What is the matter?" she asked. "An accident?"
+
+"'Tain't nothin' so bad as an accident, ma'am," Jed reassured her, "but
+I don't take no chances with Lincoln's hind hoofs, ma'am, an' somethin'
+done cracked in dat quarter."
+
+The pause gave Aunt Becky time to reach Ridge House and play her part in
+the scheme of things.
+
+Panting and well nigh exhausted, the old woman staggered on and was
+thankful to see at her journey's end that but one light shone in the
+quiet house. The light was in the living room where Angela sat alone
+waiting for Meredith Thornton. She had quite forgotten, in her growingly
+anxious hours, all about poor Becky and her sorrows. So now, when the
+long window, opening on the west porch, swayed inward, she started up
+with outstretched arms--and confronted Becky.
+
+"I've brung hit!" Becky staggered to a chair, uninvited, and sat down
+with her burden, wrapped in a dirty, old quilt, upon her knees.
+
+Angela sat down also--she was speechless and frightened. She watched the
+old woman unfold the coverings, and she saw the form of a sleeping
+new-born baby exposed to the heat and light of the fire. She tried to
+say something, to get control of herself, but she only succeeded in
+bending nearer the apparition.
+
+"Zalie she cum las' night like I told you she would. She's daid
+now--Zalie is. I don buried her at sun-up--an' I want it tole--if it
+ever is tole--that the child was buried long o' Zalie. She done planned
+while she was a-dying.
+
+"I told her what you-all promised an' she went real content-like after
+that."
+
+There was sodden despair in Becky's voice.
+
+"Who--is the father of this child?"
+
+The commonplace question, under the strain, sounded trivial--but it was
+rung from Angela's dismay.
+
+Becky gave a rough laugh.
+
+"Not the agony o' death an' the fear o' hell could wring that out of
+Zalie," she said. Then: "Yo' ain't goin' back on yo' promise, are yo'?"
+
+Sister Angela rallied. At any moment the wheels on the road might end
+her time for considering poor Becky.
+
+"You mean," she whispered, "that you renounce--this child; give it to
+me, now? You mean--that I must find a home for it?"
+
+"Yo' done promised--an' it eased Zalie at the end."
+
+Angela reached for the child--she was calm and self-possessed at last.
+This was not the first child she had rescued.
+
+"It is--a girl?" she asked, lifting the tiny form.
+
+"Hit's a girl. Give hit a chance."
+
+"I will." Then Angela wrapped the child in the old quilt and turned
+toward the door.
+
+"Will you wait until I return?" she paused to ask, but Becky, her eyes
+on that picture of the Good Shepherd, replied:
+
+"No--I don let go!"
+
+With that she passed as noiselessly from the room as if she were but a
+shadow sinking into the darkness outside.
+
+Angela went upstairs and knocked at Sister Constance's door. Sister
+Constance was alert at once. Every faculty of hers was trained to
+respond intelligently to taps on the door in the middle of the night.
+
+"This is--a child--a mountain child," whispered Sister Angela. "It has
+been left here. Take it into the west wing and tell no one of its
+presence until we know whether it will be claimed!"
+
+"Very well, Sister." Constance folded the child to her ample breast; the
+maternal in her gave the training she had received a divine quality. The
+baby stirred, stretched out its little limbs, and opened its vague,
+sleep-filled eyes as if at last something worthy of response had
+appealed to it.
+
+Sister Angela stood in the cold, dark hall listening, and when the door
+of the west wing chamber closed, she felt, once more, secure. Sister
+Angela was never able to describe afterward the state of mind that made
+the happenings of the next few hours seem like flaming pillars against a
+dead blur of sensation.
+
+There was the sound of wheels. That set every nerve tense.
+
+Meredith was in her arms--clinging, sobbing, and repeating:
+
+"He must never have my child, Sister. Promise, promise!"
+
+"I promise, my darling. I promise." Angela heard herself saying the
+words as if they proceeded from the lips of a stranger.
+
+"Has Doris come?"
+
+"Not yet. She will be here soon."
+
+"I can trust you and Doris. Doris knows. And now--I let go!"
+
+Where had Sister Angela heard those words before? They went whirling
+through her brain as if on a mighty wheel.
+
+"I have--let go!"
+
+Then followed terrible hours in the guest chamber with Sister Constance
+repeating over and over: "It is a perfectly plain case. All is well."
+
+Finally, there was quiet, and then that cry that has power to move the
+world's heart, a plaintive wail weighted with relinquishment
+and--acceptance. Meredith's little daughter was born just as the clock
+below chimed four.
+
+"I will take it to the west wing," Constance said. "Call me if you need
+me."
+
+But everything seemed settling into calm, and Meredith fell asleep
+looking as she used to look in the old days before she had been forced
+outside the gates. At daylight she opened her eyes.
+
+"Is it morning?" she asked of Sister Angela who sat beside her.
+
+"Yes, dear heart."
+
+"Raise the shade, Sister." Then, as Angela raised it--"Why, how strange!
+What is that, Sister?"
+
+Angela looked and saw The Ship! In that hour when vitality runs low and
+with the past horrors of the night still holding her, all the
+superstition of The Gap claimed her.
+
+"I--I was afraid I would lose the ship." Meredith's mind wandered back
+to her hurried home-leaving; the dread that the ship that was to bear
+her from the Philippines might have gone. The mystic Ship upon The Rock
+was all that was needed to fix her fancy.
+
+"But--I was in time. I _am_ in time. The Ship--is waiting. Everything is
+all right now!--quite all right, Sister?"
+
+Angela went close to the bed.
+
+"My dear one!" she whispered and slipped her arm under Meredith's head.
+
+"It all seems so--plain in the morning, Sister. It is the night that
+makes us afraid. The night! I cannot remember--what it was--I dreamed."
+
+"Never mind, little girl"--Angela's tears were dropping on the soft,
+smooth hair that was growing clammy; she felt the cold breath on her
+face--"never mind, little girl, the dream is past."
+
+"Sister, it was a bad dream. I do not like bad dreams--tell Doris--what
+is it that I want you to tell Doris?"
+
+"Try to sleep, beloved." Angela knelt.
+
+Meredith slipped back to her childhood--she gave a short, hurting laugh.
+"Tell her--tell Doris--I did try to learn my lesson--but----"
+
+It was the opening of the door that startled Angela into consciousness.
+Doris Fletcher stood within the room. Her eyes took in the scene, the
+pretty face against Sister Angela's bosom; the sunlight lying full
+across the bed and picking out into a gleam the golden cross that hung
+to the floor.
+
+"I'm too--late!"
+
+Agony rang in the quiet words.
+
+"And I've travelled day and night! Her letter was forwarded to me."
+
+The letter burned against Doris's bosom like a tangible thing. She
+crossed the room and sank beside the bed.
+
+They all slipped through the following days as people do who realize
+that troubles do not come to them, but are overtaken on the way. They
+seemed always to have been there; some people pass on the other side,
+but if one's path lies close, then one must go with what courage
+possible--look hard, feel and groan with the understanding, and pass on
+as best he can bearing the memory with him.
+
+Father Noble came from many miles back in the hills. Riding his sturdy
+little horse, his loose black cloak floating like benignant wings
+bearing him on; his radiant old face shining even in the face of death.
+
+He stayed until the wound in the hillside was covered over Meredith's
+little form; stayed to see the flowers hide the scar, murmuring again
+and again: "In the hope of joyful resurrection." His was the task to
+bridge life and death, and there was no doubt in his beautiful soul.
+
+"And now," he said, after four days, "I must go to Cleaver's
+Clearing"--the Clearing was twenty hard miles away. "There are children
+there who never heard of God until I took some toys to them last
+Christmas. Then they thought that I was God. They are sick now, poor
+children--bad food; no care--ah! well, they will learn, they will
+learn."
+
+And the old man rode away.
+
+And still Doris had not seen Meredith's child.
+
+"I cannot, Sister," she had pleaded. "I can think of it only as George
+Thornton's child."
+
+The hate in Doris's heart was so new and appalling a sensation that it
+frightened her.
+
+She tried to think of the unseen child with the love that she felt for
+all children--but that one! She struggled to overcome the sickening
+aversion that grew, instead of lessened, while the days dragged on. But
+always the helpless child represented nothing but passion, brutality,
+suffering, and disgrace. It was _not_ a child, a piteous, pleading
+child--it was the essence of Wrong made visible.
+
+Sister Angela was deeply concerned. The unnatural attitude called forth
+her old manner of authority. Sitting alone with Doris before the fire in
+the living room the evening of Meredith's funeral and Father Noble's
+departure she grew stern and commanding.
+
+"This will never do, my dear," she said. "It cannot be that life has
+made of you a cruel, unjust woman."
+
+Doris dropped her eyes--they were wonderful eyes, her real and only
+claim to beauty. Dusky eyes they were, with a light in them of amber.
+
+"How much did Merry tell you?" she asked, faintly, for the older woman
+looked so frail and pure that it seemed impossible that she knew the
+worst.
+
+"My dear, she told me--nothing. Her letter said that she wanted to tell
+me things--things that she could not tell to God"--Angela unconsciously
+touched her cross--"but there was no time. No time."
+
+"There are things that women cannot tell to God, Sister. Things that
+they can only tell to some women!"
+
+A bitterness that she could not control shook Doris's voice. She shrank
+from touching the exquisite detachment of Sister Angela by the truth,
+and yet she must have as much sympathy as possible and, certainly,
+cooeperation.
+
+"Sister, this child should never have been born!"
+
+The words reached where former words had failed. A flush touched
+Angela's white face--it was like sunrise on snow. Then, after a pause:
+
+"Did--Meredith--think that?" A growing sternness gave Doris hope that
+she might be saved the details that were like poison in her blood.
+
+"Yes. Protected by--by what is law--George Thornton----"
+
+But Angela raised her thin, transparent hand commandingly. It was as if
+she were staying the torrents of wrong and shame that threatened to
+deluge all that she had gained by her life of renunciation and
+repression--and yet in her clear eyes there gleamed the understanding of
+the depths.
+
+"May God have mercy upon--the child!" was what she said, and by those
+words she took her stand between past wrong and hope of future justice.
+"You must take this child, Doris," she said. "All that you know and feel
+but make the course imperative and inevitable."
+
+"Sister, how can I--feeling as I do?"
+
+"Can you afford not to? Can you leave it--to such a man?"
+
+"But, Sister, you do not know him. If I should conquer my aversion and
+take the child, if I succeeded in loving it--he would bide his time and
+claim it. The law that made this horrible thing possible covers his
+claim to the child."
+
+Angela drooped back in her chair. She looked old and beaten.
+
+"He must not have the child," she murmured. "It's the only chance for
+the salvation of Meredith's little girl. He _shall_ not have it!"
+
+Doris bent toward the fire holding her cold, clasped hands to the heat.
+Suddenly she turned.
+
+"I am growing nervous," she said, "I thought I heard someone pressing
+against the window--I thought I saw--a shadow drift outside in the
+moonlight."
+
+Angela started and sat upright. Every sense was alert--she was
+remembering her promise to old Becky!
+
+"I wish," she said, haltingly, "I wish I had consulted Father Noble. I
+have undertaken too much."
+
+"Consulted him about what, Sister?" Doris was touched by the quivering
+voice and strained eyes; she set her own trouble aside.
+
+Again that pressing sound, and the wind swirling the dead leaves against
+the house.
+
+"About a little deserted mountain child upstairs. I have promised to
+find a home for it, but I cannot manage such things any more--I am too
+old."
+
+The words came plaintively, as if defending against implied neglect.
+
+Doris's eyes grew deep and concerned.
+
+"A deserted child?" she repeated. In the feverish haste and trouble of
+the past few days the ordinary life of Ridge House had held no part. It
+seemed to be claiming its rights now, pushing her aside.
+
+Then Sister Angela, her tired face set toward the long window whence
+came that pressing sound and the swish of the wind, told Becky's story.
+She told it as she might if Becky were listening, ready at any lapse to
+correct her, but she carefully refrained from mentioning names.
+
+It eased her mind to turn from Doris's trouble to poor Becky's, and she
+saw with relief that Doris was listening; was interested.
+
+"It is strange," Sister Angela mused, when the bare telling of the story
+was over, "how the deep, cruel things in life are met by people in much
+the same way--the ignorant and the wise, when they touch the inscrutable
+they let go and turn to a higher power than their own. Meredith felt
+that her child's chance in life lay in a new and fresh start. The
+mountain woman's curse, as she termed it, could only be conquered, so
+she pleaded, by giving her grandchild to those who did not know. It
+amounts to the same thing.
+
+"Meredith is--gone; the old woman of the hills cannot last long. I
+wonder, as to the children--I wonder!"
+
+Doris's eyes were burning and her voice shook when she spoke. Her words
+and tone startled Angela.
+
+"Where is the--the mountain child?" she asked.
+
+"Upstairs, my dear. Why, Doris, you are shaking as if you had a chill.
+You are ill--let me call Sister Constance."
+
+But Doris stayed her as she rose.
+
+"No, no, Sister. I am only trembling because my feet are set on a
+possible way! I am--I am pushing things aside. Tell me, is this child a
+girl?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"How old is it?"
+
+"It was born the night before Meredith's child. It survived against
+grave dangers--it had no care, really, for twenty-four hours."
+
+"You--you think it will live?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Do you think--the grandmother will ever reclaim it?"
+
+"No, my dear. She is very old. I do not know how old, but certainly she
+cannot last much longer. She is a strange creature, but I am confident
+she realizes all that she said."
+
+"And she is right--it is the only way." Doris was now speaking more to
+herself than to Angela. It was as if she were arguing, seeking to
+convince her conservative self before she stepped out upon a new and
+perilous path.
+
+"No one knowing! Then the start could be new. It is the knowing,
+expecting, and suggesting that do the harm. We may call it inheritance,
+but it may be that we evolve from our knowledge and fears the very thing
+we would avert if we were left free."
+
+Sister Angela bent forward. She whispered as if she felt the necessity
+of secrecy.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Sister, can you not see? Suppose it were possible for me to take
+Merry's child without the knowledge of its inheritance from the father.
+Suppose this little mountain child were given its chance among people
+who did not know."
+
+"The children would reveal themselves, my dear." Angela was defending,
+she knew not what, but all her nature was up in arms. "It is God's way."
+
+"Or our bungling and lack of faith, Sister, which?"
+
+All the weariness and hopelessness passed from Doris's face; she was
+eager, her eyes shone. Presently she stood up, her back to the fire, her
+glance on that far window that opened to the starry night and the
+narrow, flower-hidden bed on the hill.
+
+"Sister Angela," the words were spoken solemnly as a vow might be taken
+before God, "I am going to take--both children. But on one condition--I
+am not to know which is Meredith's."
+
+A log rolling from the irons startled the women--their nerves were
+strained to the breaking point.
+
+"Impossible!" gasped Angela.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Your own has claims upon you!"
+
+"None that I am not willing to give--but this is the only way. If, as
+you say, it is God's way that they reveal themselves, then I lose; if
+God is with me, I win."
+
+"Dare--you?"
+
+Doris stretched her arms as if pushing aside every obstacle.
+
+"I do," she said. "I am not a daring woman: I am a weak and fearful
+one--this, though, I dare!"
+
+"But the father----" Angela whispered.
+
+"The--father----" Doris's eyes flamed.
+
+"But he may, as you say, claim the child." Angela hastened breathlessly
+as one running.
+
+"How could he, if I did not know which child was his?"
+
+The blinding light began to point the way clearer, now, to the older
+woman.
+
+"It's--unheard of," she murmured, "and yet----"
+
+"I will write to Thornton, offer to take his child," Doris was pleading,
+rather than explaining. "I think at the first he will agree to the
+proposal--what else can he do? The shock--remember, he does not even
+know that a child is expected! Dare we refuse Meredith's child this only
+and desperate chance--knowing what we do?"
+
+Angela made no reply. She was letting go one after another of her rigid
+beliefs. Again Doris spoke, again she pleaded:
+
+"I will abide by your decision, Sister, but only after you have gone to
+the chapel--and seen the way. I will wait here."
+
+Angela rose stiffly, holding to her cross as if it were a physical
+support. With bowed head she passed from the room and Doris sat down
+thinking; demanding justice.
+
+A half hour passed before steps were heard in the hall. Doris stood up,
+her eyes fixed on the door.
+
+Sister Angela entered, and in her arms, wrapped in the same blanket,
+were two sleeping babies wearing the plain clothing that Ridge House
+kept in store for emergencies. Doris ran forward; she bent over the
+small creatures.
+
+"Which?" Nature leaped forth in that one palpitating word--it was the
+last claim of blood.
+
+"I--forgot--when I brought them to you. We have all--forgot. It _is_ the
+only way--the chance."
+
+Doris took both children in her arms.
+
+"I shall name them Joan and Nancy," she whispered, "for my mother and
+grandmother. Joan and Nancy--Thornton!"
+
+Then she kissed them, and it was given to her at that moment to forget
+her bitter hatred.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+"_Just as much of doubt as bade us plant a surer foot upon the
+sun-road._"
+
+
+Doris Fletcher had no turning-back in her nature. She never reached a
+goal but by patient effort to understand, and she was able to close her
+eyes to by-paths.
+
+Having adopted the children, having foregone her prejudices--good and
+evil--having set her feet upon the way, she meant to go unfalteringly
+on, and because doubts would assail her at times, she held the surer to
+her task.
+
+She remained a month at Ridge House. She wrote to Thornton and in due
+time his reply came.
+
+Apparently he had written while bewildered and shocked. The old arrogant
+tone was gone. He accepted what Doris offered and set aside a generous
+sum of money for his child's expenses.
+
+It was Sister Angela's suggestion that Mary should become the nurse for
+the children.
+
+"How much does she know, Sister?"
+
+"Nothing--but what we have permitted her to know. The girl, since
+knowing of the children, has astonished me by her interest in them.
+Nothing before has so brought her out of her native reserve. I never
+suspected it--but the girl has maternal instincts that should not be
+starved."
+
+But Sister Angela was mistaken. Mary knew more than she had been
+permitted to know.
+
+A closed door to Mary meant seeking access through other channels.
+Sister Constance had not screened the windows of the west chamber which
+opened on the roof of the porch and were next to the window of Mary's
+small chamber. She had forgotten to ward against the startling sound of
+a baby's cry. But Mary, the night that Becky had left her burden to the
+care of Sister Angela, had heard that cry and it reached to the hidden
+depth of the girl's nature. It chilled her, then set her blood racing
+hotly. She got up and went to the window--it was moonlight in The Gap
+and the night was full of a rising wind that rattled the vines and set
+the leaves swirling.
+
+Covering herself with a dark shawl, she crept from her window and,
+clinging close to the house, reached the west chamber.
+
+Inside, by the light of a candle, Sister Constance sat, hushing to sleep
+a little child! The sight was burned upon Mary's consciousness as if
+Fate pressed every detail there so it might not be forgotten. Mary saw
+the small, puckered face. It was individual and distinct.
+
+She almost slipped from her place on the roof; her breath came so hard
+that she feared Sister Constance might hear, and she groped her way
+back.
+
+All next day Mary worked silently but with such haste that Sister Janice
+took her sharply to task.
+
+"'Tis the ungodly as leaves the dust under the mats, child," she
+cautioned.
+
+"Yes, Sister." Mary attacked the mats!
+
+"And a burnt loaf cries for forgiveness."
+
+"Yes, Sister, but the burnt loaf I will myself eat to the last crust."
+
+"Indeed and you shall--for the carelessness that you show."
+
+Somehow Mary lived through the day with her ears strained and a mighty
+fear in her heart.
+
+It was nearing morning of the following day--that darkest hour--when the
+girl arose from her sleepless bed and stole forth again.
+
+It was just then that Sister Constance, her face distorted by grief and
+the play of candlelight upon it, entered the west chamber with a baby in
+her arms!
+
+Mary gripped the shutters--she felt faint and weak. Suppose she should
+slip and fall?
+
+And then she saw two children on the bed and Sister Constance--bent in
+prayer--her cross pressed to her lips.
+
+All this Mary had seen, but when Sister Angela asked her if she would
+like to go with Miss Fletcher and care for the children, so great was
+her curiosity that she, mentally, tore her roots from her home hills;
+let go her clinging to the deserted cabin where she had been born, and
+almost eagerly replied: "I'd like it powerful."
+
+So Mary took her place.
+
+Doris Fletcher had her plans well laid.
+
+"I must have myself well in hand," she said to Sister Angela, "before I
+go to New York. There's the little bungalow in California where father
+took mother before Merry's birth. It happens to be vacant. I will go
+there and work out my plans."
+
+It seemed a simple solution. The children throve from the start in the
+sunshine and climate; the peace and detachment acted like charms, and
+Mary, stifling her soul's homesickness, grew stern as to face, but
+marvellously tender and capable in her duties. Doris grew accustomed to
+her silence and reserve after a time, but she never understood Mary,
+although she grew to depend upon her absolutely. To friends in New York,
+especially to Doctor David Martin, Doris wrote often. She was never
+quite sure how the impression was given that Meredith had left twins;
+certainly she had not said that, but she had spoken of "the children"
+without laying stress upon the statement, and while debating just what
+explanation she would make. After all, it was her own affair. Some day
+she would confide in David, but there were more important details to
+claim her attention.
+
+The babies were adorable, but in neither could she trace an expression
+or suggestion of Meredith. Their childish characteristics gave no
+clue--they were simply healthy, normal creatures full of the charm that
+all childhood should have in common. And gradually, as time passed,
+Doris lost herself in their demanding individualities; she became
+absorbed. Joan was larger, stronger, seemed older. She had brown eyes
+of that sunny tint which suggest sunshine. Her hair was brown, almost
+from the first, with gold glints. She was fair, had little colour unless
+the warm glow that rose and fell so sweetly in her face could be called
+colour. Excitement brought the flush, disappointment or a chiding word
+banished it. At other times Joan had the warm, ivory-tinted skin of
+health, not delicacy. Nancy was, from the first, frankly blonde. She
+never changed from the lovely, fair promise of her first year. She was
+the most feminine creature one could imagine; a doll brought the light
+to her violet eyes.
+
+"She takes that rather than her milk," Mary explained, then gravely:
+"She'll take her milk if I hold off the doll."
+
+Nature was never quite sure what to do with Joan. She changed with the
+years in tint, colouring, and character, but Nancy was fair, fine, and
+delicately poised from her baby days.
+
+Both children worshipped Doris--Auntie Dorrie, they were taught to call
+her--and it was amusing to watch their relations to her. To please her,
+to win her approval, were their highest hopes. Mary clearly preferred
+Nancy and, for that reason, gave more attention to Joan.
+
+When the children were nearly two Doris wrote to David Martin:
+
+"I am coming home. I am glad that I have always kept the house in
+commission; I feel that I can trust myself there now."
+
+And so the little family travelled east. Mary in trim uniform (and how
+she silently hated it) of black, with immaculate cuffs, collars, and
+cap; the babies perfect in every way and Doris, herself, happier than
+she had ever been in her life--handsomer, too. Her life had developed
+normally around the children; she felt a wide and deep interest in
+everything, and always the sense of high adventure, a daring in her
+relations to the future.
+
+The old Fletcher house set the standard for the others down the long
+row. It was brick, with heavy oak, brass-bound doors. The marble steps
+and white trim were spotless and glistening and behind it lay a deep
+yard hidden by a tall brick wall. The house had reserved, as the family
+had, the right, once its civic duty was performed, to develop inwardly
+along its own lines.
+
+The three generations, in turn, had set their marks upon it. The first
+Fletcher had been a genial soul given to entertaining, and the dining
+room, back of the drawing room, gave evidence of the old gentleman's
+taste. It was a stately and beautiful room and each article of furniture
+had been made to fit into the space and the need by an artist.
+
+Doris's father was not indifferent to his father's tastes, but he was a
+student at heart and had a vision as to libraries. He encroached upon
+the ample space back of the house and had built an oval room through
+whose leaded panes the peach and plum trees could be seen like traceries
+on the clear glass. Around the walls of this room the book shelves
+ranged at just the right height, and above them hung pictures that
+inspired but did not obtrude. The high, carved chimney with its deep,
+generous hearth was a benediction.
+
+When Doris had come home from St. Mary's she made known a family
+trait--she voiced what to her seemed an inspiration but which to the
+father, at first, seemed madness. Still, he complied and spent many
+happy hours before his death in what he called "Doris's Daring."
+
+"I want the west wall of the library knocked out, Father," she had said,
+but Mr. Fletcher only stared.
+
+"We can have the books and pictures in my room--my sunken room. There is
+enough garden to spare and we can save the roses. We'll drop down from
+the library by a shallow flight of steps; we'll have a little fountain
+and about a mile of nice low window seats rambling around the room. I
+don't want nymphs in the fountain but dear, adorable children tossing
+water at each other.
+
+"We must have birds in cages, and plants and pictures--it must be a room
+where we can all take what is dearest to us--and live."
+
+Of course it was an expensive and daring conception, but it was carried
+out by an inspired young architect, and it was Meredith who had posed
+for the figures in the fountain.
+
+When Doris returned to New York with her children this room became the
+soul of the house.
+
+The year after Doris's adoption of the children Sister Angela died
+suddenly. "She simply fell asleep," Sister Constance wrote.
+
+After that the other Sisters could not feel happy and content in the
+atmosphere of antagonism that Sister Angela had partially overcome, but
+with which they had no sympathy. They returned to the Middle West and
+entered a Sisterhood where their duties and environment were more
+congenial. Ridge House reverted to the Fletcher estate and Uncle Jed was
+put in charge.
+
+"I may use it later," Doris explained, "or I may turn it over to Father
+Noble if he ever needs it."
+
+What this all meant to Mary no one ever knew--she saw, now, no return to
+her hills, and her longing for them grew as the years passed, and her
+curiosity flattened in the dull round of duties and commonplace routine.
+Only one emotion largely controlled her thought and that was a dumb
+gratitude for what she believed she was receiving. She could not agree
+that her devoted service gave ample return. She was under obligation,
+and the feeling was blighting to the girl's independence. Work, the
+necessity for work, was an accepted state of mind to poor Mary. The
+luxury and consideration that were hers in her present life took from
+labour, as far as she mentally considered it, all the essential
+qualities that gave her independence. She was accepting--so she
+reflected in that proud detached logic of the hills--from outsiders what
+no mere bodily labour could repay, certainly not such service as she was
+giving. Just loving and caring for two little children!
+
+With cautious and suspicious watchfulness through the years Mary
+regarded Doris Fletcher still as "foreign." Foreign to all that was born
+and bred in the girl's inheritance of mountain aristocracy, but she had
+been touched by the justice, the unerring kindness of the woman, who,
+to Mary's wrong ideals, gave and gave and constantly made it impossible
+for her to make return.
+
+"Some day," the girl vowed, when her manner was most grim and repelling,
+"some day I'll do something to pay back!" And then she grew bewildered
+in the maze of wondering if the "quality" so precious to her
+understanding might not exist in all places? Might it not be?--but here
+Mary became lost.
+
+When she recalled, as less and less she did, the unlawful spying of hers
+on the west chamber of Ridge House, she set her lips in a firm line. She
+had gone far enough on her upward way to detest the cringing, deceitful
+methods of her childhood and she sternly sought to right herself, with
+her burdening conscience, by putting away forever what possible
+significance lay in the strange coming of that first and second child to
+Ridge House.
+
+"Were they twins? Were--they?" But Mary always was frightened when she
+got into her mental depths.
+
+Three or four vital and significant events marked the years intervening
+between Doris's return to New York and the day when Joan and Nancy
+entered womanhood.
+
+The first incident seemed slight in itself but proved the truth of the
+need for caution when one is on a blind trail. With all her good
+intentions and high hopes Doris was bewildered as to her steps. She who
+had been the soul of frankness and cheerful friendliness was now
+reticent and reserved.
+
+"It is poor Meredith's business," friend after friend decided. Where
+little was known, much was suspected. "The Fletchers cannot easily brook
+_that_ sort of thing."
+
+Just what that "sort" was depended upon the temperament and character of
+the person speaking.
+
+Then among the first to call after Doris's return was Mrs. Tweksbury, an
+old and valued family friend, a woman who was worth one's while to gain
+as friend, for she could be a desperate foe. She had formed all her
+opinions of Meredith Thornton's tragedy upon what she knew and loved
+concerning the girl, and what she knew nothing whatever about,
+concerning Thornton.
+
+To Mrs. Tweksbury he was a black villain who had murdered--there was no
+other word for it--an innocent young creature who belonged to that class
+(Mrs. Tweksbury was frank and clear about "class") not supposed to be
+subject to the coarser dealings of life.
+
+Mrs. Tweksbury relied absolutely upon what she termed her inherited
+intuition. This was quite outside feminine intuition. The Tweksbury male
+intellect had been judicial from the first, and "the constant necessity
+of knowing men and women," as Mrs. Tweksbury often explained, "had left
+its mark upon the family."
+
+"_We know!_ That is all there is to say. We know!"
+
+So Mrs. Tweksbury "knew" all about everything when she folded Doris in
+her motherly arms.
+
+"There is no need of a word, my dear," she said, "and you are dealing
+with the whole thing superbly. Let me see the children. How fortunate
+that they are twins _and_ girls! Girls may inherit from the father, but
+thank God! nature saves them from the developing along his line. And
+being _twins_ certainly modifies what might otherwise be concentrated."
+
+Doris felt her heart beat fast. She was not prepared to confide in Mrs.
+Tweksbury, certainly not at present. She loved the old woman for her
+good qualities, but she shrank from putting herself at the mercy of Mrs.
+Tweksbury's "inherited intuitions!"
+
+So she said nothing, but sent for the children.
+
+Hidden deep in the old woman's heart were all the denied and suppressed
+yearnings of a love that had escaped fulfilment--a love that had entered
+in after her marriage to a man utterly without sympathy with her, but
+which had been rigidly ignored because of the stern moral fibre that
+marked her. After the death of all those who had been concerned in her
+secret romance she had taken upon herself the more or less vicarious
+guardianship of the son of the man she had loved and foregone.
+
+The boy lived with his mother's people, and Mrs. Tweksbury only visited
+him occasionally; but her proud, stern old heart knew only one undying
+passion now--her passion for children.
+
+When Nancy and Joan stood before her, she regarded them with almost
+tragic, and, at the same time, comic expression. The children were
+frightened at her twitching, wrinkled face and glanced at Doris, who
+smiled them into calmness.
+
+In Joan, Mrs. Tweksbury saw resemblance to no one she remembered, so she
+concluded she must be like the father, physically, whom they must all
+ignore absolutely. Try as she valiantly did, the old lady felt her
+quick-beating heart falter before Joan's earnest, searching gaze. It was
+a relief to turn to Nancy and permit her eyes to dim and soften.
+
+"My dear, my dear," she said to Doris, "how like dear Merry the baby is!
+Just so, I recall--"
+
+Doris's face grew strained and ashy. "Please," she implored, "please,
+Aunt Emily--don't!"
+
+"Of course, of course, my child. Very indiscreet of me--but I was taken
+off my guard." Then--"My dears, will you kiss me?" This to the children
+keeping their courage up by clinging together.
+
+"No," Joan replied in a tone entirely free from bad manners but weighted
+with simple truth; "Joan likes to kiss Auntie Dorrie." The inference
+stiffened Mrs. Tweksbury and caused Doris a qualm.
+
+"And you?" The old lady's tone was pathetic in its appeal to Nancy--her
+"intuition" was at stake.
+
+Nancy drew nearer. She was fascinated, afraid, but guided by a strange
+impulse. "Nancy will," she panted, "Nancy will kiss you--two times!"
+
+Mrs. Tweksbury's breath caught in her throat--she strangled but
+controlled herself and bent as a queen might to the sweet uplifted face
+at her knee.
+
+After that visit Doris would have had a difficult task in stemming a
+flood that Mrs. Tweksbury directed, having removed the dam. While she
+fairly grovelled, emotionally, before Nancy, the old lady defended Joan
+by stern insistence upon traits of nobility unsuspected by others in the
+child.
+
+"The wretch of a father," she mentally vowed, "shall not have the child
+if suggestion can prevent."
+
+Spiritually she fell in line with Doris, and where Mrs. Tweksbury led it
+were wiser and easier to follow than to blaze new trails.
+
+The second event that marked a new epoch was the coming of George
+Thornton to claim his own.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+"_And when it fails, fight as we will, we die._"
+
+
+George Thornton was a man who believed, or thought he did, in two
+controlling things in life: Intellect, and the training of intellect, by
+education and stern attention, to the task at stake.
+
+He had intellect and he had devoted himself to his task, that of worldly
+success, but he had never recognized nor admitted the necessity of the
+spiritual in his development, and so it had failed him--and, in a deep,
+tragic way, he was dying. Had been dying through the years since his
+devil took the reins, in a mad hour, and rode him.
+
+There had been weeks and months after his leaving Meredith when his soul
+cried aloud to him but was smothered. He would not heed. He let business
+and coarse, pleasurable excitement gain power over him, and when they
+lagged he drank his conscience to sleep.
+
+He knew the danger which lay in the last aid to deaden his pain, so he
+rarely sought it.
+
+But something new had entered in--something that, in hours when he was
+obliged to face facts, frightened him, and after months abroad, months
+in which he nursed his resentment against Meredith and felt his defeat
+with her, he decided to do the only decent thing left for him to
+do--apologize and set her free.
+
+And then he found her note. The bald, naked statement drove all power to
+act for the moment from him. Close upon that shock, which he smilingly
+covered, by explaining on very commonplace grounds, came Doris's letter.
+The purest elements and the most brutal in many natures lie close. They
+did in Thornton. Had Meredith been a wiser, a more human and loving
+woman, she might have helped Thornton to his full stature; but failing
+him by her helpless insufficiency, she drove him to his shoals.
+
+Had she by the turn of Fortune been obliged, as many women are, to have
+borne her lot though her heart broke her child might have saved her and
+the man also--for Thornton had the paternal instincts, though they were
+unsuspected and wholly dormant.
+
+Again Meredith had defeated him. What could he do with a helpless baby
+on his hands? What else was there to do but accept Doris's offer? And of
+course the child was dead to him except by the cold, legal tie that
+bound them together. That, Thornton grimly held to.
+
+He would press it, too, in his good time!
+
+But Thornton's next few years proved to be a succession of mis-steps
+with the inevitable results.
+
+He married the woman who could, when she had no actual hold on him,
+soothe and comfort--not because of his need, but her own. Once, however,
+she was placed in a secure position, she cast any need of his aside and
+developed myriads of her own.
+
+If Thornton could not force a social position for her, then he must pay
+for the luxury of her exile with him. Thornton paid and paid until every
+faculty he had was strained to the snapping point. Finally he resorted
+to the last and most dangerous aid he had at his disposal--he drank more
+than ever before; but even in his extremity he recognized his danger and
+always caught himself before the worst overcame him.
+
+Business began to show the effect of private troubles, and then Thornton
+remembered the Fletcher fortune; his child, and the possibilities of
+making the child a link between money and a growing necessity.
+
+Whatever natural tie there might have been in Thornton's relations with
+his child had perished. There was merely a legal one now.
+
+And Thornton, having explained this at great length to his wife, and
+finally getting her to agree to assume a responsibility that he swore
+should never embarrass her, travelled to New York.
+
+It was a bright, sunny June day when he rang the bell of the Fletcher
+home and was admitted, by a trim maid, to the small reception room that
+was a noncommittal link between the hall and the drawing room.
+
+Sitting alone in the quiet place, Thornton was conscious of a silvery
+_drip, drip_ of water. Sound, like smell, has a power to arouse memory
+and control it. Thornton's thoughts flew back to the week he had spent
+in this old house with his girl wife. He recalled the sunken room and
+the fountain with those wonderful figures modelled after Meredith.
+
+Without taking into account the years and happenings that had made him
+more than a stranger to the family he got up and followed a haunting
+desire to see the room and the fountain again.
+
+He passed through the drawing room and shrugged his shoulders. It was
+arrogant, self-assured--he hated that sort of thing. The dining room was
+better--a fine idea as to colour and furniture; the library,
+too--Thornton paused and took a comprehensive glance. He liked the
+library, and the fireplace was perfect. He made a mental note. Then he
+stepped down into the room with its memory-haunting fountain. He had
+never seen it in action before, and so clever was the conceit that he
+drew back, fearing that the tossing sprays would reach him. Then he sat
+down in a deep chair, crossed his legs, smiled, and looked about.
+
+Here it was that Doris spent much of her time indoors. The window was
+open and a rose vine was clinging to the frame, rich in bloom. There was
+a work basket on the low, velvet-cushioned seat--a child's sock lay near
+it and several ridiculous toys, rigidly propped against the wall, as if
+on review. Birds sang outside in the plum and peach trees and birds
+inside, not realizing their bondage, answered merrily--the room was
+throbbing with life and joy and hope. Thornton smiled, not a pleasant
+smile, and felt more important than he had felt in many a day; more
+powerful, too.
+
+"Doris must be over thirty," he mused, "and not of the marrying type.
+There must be a pretty big pile to back all this." He got quickly to his
+feet, for Doris appeared just then at the doorway leading to the
+library. She paused at the top of the stairs--there was a strip of green
+velvet carpet running down the middle of the marble steps; her white
+gown came just to her ankles, and the narrow white-shod feet sank
+lightly into the green carpet as if it were moss.
+
+"I am glad to see that you have made yourself comfortable, George," she
+said, and smiled her very finest smile. There was no hint of reproof in
+the tone, but Thornton instantly wondered if it would not have been
+wiser to have kept to the reception room.
+
+"I hope I have not intruded," he went to the steps and held out his
+hand, "it _is_ home, you know, after all."
+
+This was meant to be conciliatory, but the appeal went astray.
+
+"Let us sit by the window," Doris remarked, "the air is delightful
+to-day."
+
+And then came the pause during which the path leading to an
+understanding must be chosen. Doris left the choosing to Thornton. He
+took the wrong one.
+
+"It brings so much back," he half whispered, "so much!" He was a fairly
+good actor, but Doris was not appreciative.
+
+"So much that had better be left where it rests," she said. "I have
+learned that the present needs every energy--the past can take care of
+itself."
+
+"You have had the real burden." Thornton meant to be magnanimous. "I
+shall always be grateful for your splendid help at a time when so much
+was at stake. Your goodness to my child----" For a moment Thornton
+could not think whether the child was a girl or a boy. He was confused
+and a bit alarmed.
+
+Doris came to his assistance.
+
+"Meredith's little girl was all that made the first bitter year possible
+for me. I have done my best, George, my happiest best--she is lovely;
+the most joyous thing you can imagine. Remembering how much Meredith and
+I needed each other, I adopted a child at the same time I undertook the
+care of your baby--the two are inseparable and wonderfully congenial."
+
+Thornton's brow clouded. He could not have described his sensations, but
+they were similar to those he had once experienced, standing alone in a
+dense Philippine thicket, and suddenly recalling that he was not popular
+with the natives. He sensed a menace somewhere.
+
+"You're quite remarkable, Doris," he said, "but was it altogether
+wise--the adoption, I mean? I suppose you know everything about the--the
+child, but even so, the break now will be difficult for--for everybody."
+
+Doris gave him a long, steady look.
+
+"I know very little about the child I adopted," she said. "The poor waif
+was deserted, and as to the wrench now, why, life has taught me, also,
+George, to take what joy one can and be willing to pay for it. We cannot
+afford to let a great blessing slip because we may have to do without it
+bye and bye."
+
+"But--inheritance, Doris! You, of all women, to undervalue that! It was
+a bit risky, but of course while children are so young----" Thornton
+paused and Doris broke in.
+
+"Inheritance is such a tricky thing," she said, looking out into the
+flower-filled garden, "it is such a clever masquerader. Often it is like
+those insects that take upon themselves the colour of the leaf upon
+which they cling. It isn't what it seems, and when one really
+knows--why, one can hardly be just, because of the injustice of
+inheritance."
+
+"Queer reasoning," muttered Thornton. "Why, that--kid's father might
+be---- well, anything!" Why he said "father" would be hard to tell.
+
+"Exactly!" agreed Doris. "But when I did not know, I could be fair and
+unhampered. It has paid--the child is adorable."
+
+"Shows no--no--evil tendencies?" Thornton grew more and more restive.
+
+"On the contrary--only divine ones."
+
+"We're all lucky." The man sighed, then spoke hurriedly: "I'd like to
+see my little girl. She is here--of course?"
+
+"Oh! yes. I have never been separated from her. I suppose--you mean
+to----" Doris paused.
+
+"I mean to relieve you, Doris, and assume my responsibility--now that I
+dare."
+
+"Your wife--is she willing?" Doris longed to say "worthy" but she knew
+that the woman was not.
+
+"More than willing." And now Thornton thought that the worst was over.
+
+"I will bring your little girl," Doris said, and went quietly from the
+room.
+
+Something of the sweetness and strength of the place seemed to go with
+her. Again Thornton became restless, and it came back to him that his
+first aversion to Doris Fletcher was connected with this power of hers
+to overturn, without effort, his peace of mind and self-esteem. But he
+had outwitted her in marrying her sister--she had antagonized him but he
+had won then and would win again now! The fountain irritated and annoyed
+him. He got up and walked about the room.
+
+"A devilish freakish conception," he muttered, gazing at the fountain
+and kicking at a rare rug on the floor, "a kind of madness runs through
+the breed, I wager. Too much blood of one sort gets clogged in the human
+system." And then he listened.
+
+There were childish voices nearing: sweet, piping voices with little
+gurgles of laughter rippling through. The laugh of happy, healthy
+childhood.
+
+"She's bringing them both!" thought Thornton, and an ugly scowl came to
+his brow. He did not know much about children, knew nothing really,
+except that they were noisy and usually messy--some were better looking
+than others; gave promise, and he hoped his child would be handsome; it
+might help her along, and she would need all the help she could muster.
+Then he heard Doris instructing the children:
+
+"See, Joan, dear, hold Nan by the hand like a big, strong sister, this
+is going to be another play. Now listen sharp! When we come to the steps
+you must stand close together and give that pretty courtesy that Mary
+taught you yesterday. Now, darlings--don't forget!"
+
+There are moments and incidents in life that seem out of all proportion
+to their apparent significance. Thornton waited for what was about to
+happen as he might have the verdict were he on trial for his life. He
+was frightened at he knew not what. Would his child look like Meredith?
+Would she have those eyes that could find his soul and burn it even
+while they smiled? Would she look like him; find in him some thing that
+would help him to forget? He looked up. Doris had planned dramatically.
+She left the babies alone on the top step and came down to Thornton.
+
+"Aren't they wonderful?" she asked in so calm and ordinary a tone that
+it was startling.
+
+They were wonderful--even a hard, indifferent man could see that. Slim,
+vigorous little creatures they were with sturdy brown legs showing above
+socks and broad-toed sandals. Their short white frocks fell in widening
+line from the shoulders, giving the effect of lightness, winginess. Both
+children had lovely hair, curly, bobbed to a comfortable length, and
+their wide, curious eyes fastened instantly upon Thornton--eyes of
+purple-blue and eyes of hazel-gold; strange eyes, frankly confronting
+him but disclosing nothing; eyes of utterly strange children; not a
+familiar feature or expression to guide him.
+
+"I have called them Joan and Nancy," Doris was saying. "You expressed no
+preference, you know."
+
+"Which is--is--mine?" Thornton whispered the question that somehow made
+him flush with shame.
+
+"I do not know!" It was whisper meeting whisper.
+
+"You--what?" Thornton turned blazing eyes upon the woman by his side.
+Her answer did not seem to shock him so much as it revealed what he had
+suspected--Doris was playing with him, making him absurd by that
+infernal power of hers that he had all but forgotten. He recalled, too,
+with keen resentment her ability to transform a tragic incident into one
+of humour--or the reverse.
+
+"I do not know. I never have known," Doris was saying. "You see, I was
+afraid of heredity if I had to deal with it. Without knowing it I could
+be just to both children; give them the only possible opportunity to
+overcome handicaps. I thought they might reveal themselves--but so far
+they have not. They are adorable."
+
+"This is damnable! Someone shall be made to speak--to suffer--or by
+God!----"
+
+The words were hardly above a whisper, but the tone frightened the
+children.
+
+"Auntie Dorrie!" they pleaded, and stretched out entreating arms.
+
+"Come, darlings. The play is over and you did it beautifully."
+
+They ran to her, clambered into her lap, and turned doubting eyes upon
+Thornton.
+
+"You--expect me to--to--take both?" he asked, still in that low, thick
+tone.
+
+"Certainly not. One is mine. I shall demand my rights, be quite sure of
+that."
+
+"This is the most outrageous thing I ever heard of!" Thornton was at
+bay; "the most immoral."
+
+"I have often thought that it might be," Doris returned, her lips
+against Nancy's fair hair, "but the more you consider it the more you
+are convinced that it is not. It is simply--unusual." The tone defied
+understanding. "You must consider what I have done, George, step by
+step. I did not act rashly. And when we come to actual contact with all
+the truth confronting us, you and I will have to be very frank. May I
+send the children away? It is time for their nap." Already Doris's
+finger was pressing the electric button cunningly set in the coping of
+the fountain.
+
+"Yes, do. There is much to say," Thornton muttered and, not having heard
+the bell, was startled at seeing the nurse appear at once. He looked up,
+and Mary looked at him. The girl felt the atmosphere. Thornton made a
+distinct impression upon her.
+
+Left alone with Doris, Thornton drew his chair close to hers and waited
+for her to begin.
+
+"Well," he said, "what have you to say? It would seem as if you might
+have a great deal, Doris."
+
+"I have nothing to say."
+
+"I suppose you did this to humiliate me--defeat me?" Thornton's lips
+twitched.
+
+"On the contrary, after the first I gave you very little thought,
+George. I was concerned in making sure the future of Meredith's child."
+
+"Did you forget that she was also mine?"
+
+"I tried to. After a bit, I did--after the identities of the babies
+became blurred. If you stop to think and are just, you will understand
+that I took a desperate chance to accomplish the most good to Meredith's
+child. That is all that seemed to count. Suppose you could claim your
+child now, would its future be as secure as it would be with me? Have
+you really the child's interest at heart--you, who left its mother
+to----"
+
+"The mother--left me! Don't overlook facts, Doris." Thornton's face
+flamed angrily.
+
+"Yes. In self-defence she left you!" Doris held him with eyes heavy with
+misery. "I knew everything necessary to know, George, that enabled me to
+take this step."
+
+"But not enough to make you pause and consider!" A bitterness rang in
+the words.
+
+"There are some occasions when one cannot, dare not, consider," said
+Doris.
+
+Thornton got up and paced the room. Suddenly he turned like a man at
+bay.
+
+"But the inheritance?" he flung out.
+
+"I told you, George, it was the inheritance that forced me to it."
+
+"I mean--" here Thornton's eyes fell--"I mean the money," he stammered.
+
+"I see!" Doris's voice trembled; then she hastened on: "The money you
+sent, George, has never been touched. I have waited for this hour."
+
+"And your revenge!" muttered Thornton.
+
+"I had not considered it in that light." A deep contempt throbbed in
+the words. "When I remember I am not bitter, but I am filled, anew, with
+a desire to save Meredith's child!"
+
+"At the risk of passing her off as the child of--whom?"
+
+And then Doris smiled--a long, strange smile that burnt its way into
+Thornton's consciousness.
+
+"It was that doubt that saved, gave hope," she said, and quickly added,
+"I will tell you all there is to know, and then I request that you spare
+me another interview until you have come to a decision regarding--your
+child."
+
+There was pitifully little to tell. A deserted mountain child!
+
+"Who deserted it?" Thornton broke in.
+
+"I did not ask. Sister Angela promised to find a home for it where no
+one would know of its sad birth--there are people willing to risk that
+much for a little child. I am!"
+
+"And this--this Sister Angela----" Thornton asked.
+
+"She died the year after."
+
+"And the others?"
+
+"I doubt if they ever knew much, but if they did they forgot--they are
+like that; besides, I have not heard of them in years."
+
+More and more Thornton realized the hopelessness of personal
+investigation, and he was not prepared to take outside counsel,
+certainly not yet.
+
+"The Sisters did fairly well for the outcast in this instance," he
+sneered, "but we may all have to pay some day. Murder will out, you
+know!"
+
+"Of course," Doris agreed, wearily; "we all understand that."
+
+"Do you think the children will?" Thornton's eyes were gloomy and grave.
+"How about the hour when they--know?"
+
+Doris felt the pain in her heart that this possibility always awakened.
+She raised her glance to the one full of hate and said quietly:
+
+"Who can tell?"
+
+There was a dull pause. Then:
+
+"Well, I guess I have all I want for the present. I'm not out of the
+game, Doris, just count on me being in it at every deal of the cards.
+Good-bye--for now."
+
+"Good-bye, George. I will not forget."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+"_There are two elements that go to the composition of friendship. One
+is Truth; the other is Tenderness._"
+
+
+After Thornton's departure Doris metaphorically, drew a long breath. She
+felt that he would make no further move at present--how could he? As one
+faces a possible surgical operation with the hope that Nature may
+intervene to make it unnecessary, she turned to her blessed duties with
+renewed vigour.
+
+Of course, there were hours, there always would be hours, when, alone,
+or when the children played near her, Doris wondered and speculated but
+always reached the triumphant conclusion that her love, equal and
+sincere, for both little girls, had been made possible by her
+unprejudiced relations with them. And that must count for much.
+
+Every time she was diverted from her chosen path she courageously took
+stock, as it were, of her gains and possible losses.
+
+For instance, when Mrs. Tweksbury had appeared to discern resemblance
+between Nancy and Meredith, she wondered if, as often is the case, the
+impartial observer could discover what familiarity had screened?
+
+But try as she did, at that time, she could not find the slightest
+physical trace of likeness, and she brought old photographs to her aid.
+While, on the other hand, the mental and temperamental characteristics
+of both little girls were such as were common to healthy childhood.
+
+Again it was possible for Doris to face any fact that might present
+itself--she knew that, by her past course, she had not only secured
+justice for the children but faith in herself.
+
+Her greatest concern now was the menace of Thornton.
+
+"Think of Nancy," she mused, "sweet, sensitive, and fine, under such
+influence! And Joan so high-strung and reckless! It would be a hopeless
+condition!"
+
+Looked upon from this viewpoint Doris grew depressed. While her
+conscience remained clear as to any real wrong she had done in acting as
+she had, there were anxious hours spent in imagining that time when, as
+Thornton said, the girls themselves must know.
+
+When must they know?
+
+Doris had not considered that before to any extent.
+
+Thornton might demand at once that they know the truth. He had a right
+to that.
+
+Here was a new danger, but as the silence continued the immediate fear
+of this lessened. And the children were mere babies. They could not
+possibly understand if they were told, now.
+
+Until such time, then, as they must be told, Doris renewed her efforts
+in building well the small, healthy minds and bodies.
+
+"When they marry"--this brought a smile--"when they marry! Of course,
+then, they must know." With that conclusion reached, anxiety was once
+more lulled to rest.
+
+Gradually the old peaceful days merged into new peaceful days. Doris
+entered, little by little, into her social duties so long neglected; the
+children romped and lived joyously in the old house--"just
+children"--until suddenly a small but significant thing occurred when
+they were nine years of age that startled Doris into a line of thought
+that brought about a radical change in all their lives.
+
+She was sitting in the library one stormy day, reading. The tall back of
+the chair hid her from view, the fire and the book were soothing, and
+the excuse--that the storm gave her the right to do what she wanted to
+do, rather than what she, otherwise, might feel she should do--added to
+her enjoyment.
+
+From above she heard the voices of the children and Mary's quiet
+intervention now and again.
+
+Then Joan laughed, and the sound struck Doris as if she had never heard
+it before. What a peculiar laugh it was--for a child! Silver clear,
+musical, but with a note of defiance, recklessness, and yes, almost
+abandon.
+
+Joan was teasing Nancy about her dolls--Joan detested dolls, she
+declared that it was their stupid stare that made her dislike them. She
+only wanted live things: dogs and cats, not even birds--she was sorry
+for birds. Nancy's dolls were to her "children," and she was pleading
+now for an especial favourite and Joan was praying--rather
+mockingly--that God would let it get smashed because of "the proud
+nose."
+
+"But God makes children's noses!" Nancy was urging.
+
+"Well! He don't make dolls," Joan insisted, and proceeded with her
+petition until Nancy's wails brought Mary upon the scene.
+
+Doris listened. She could not hear what Mary said, but presently peace
+reigned above-stairs and the pelting storm and the book resumed their
+power.
+
+It might have been a half hour later when she heard soft, stealthy
+footsteps in the hall. She sat quite still, believing that one of the
+children was hiding and that the other would be on the trail
+immediately. The small intruder passed through the library and went into
+the sunken room.
+
+Doris, herself unseen, looked from behind her shelter and saw that it
+was Joan, and before she could call to her she was held silent by what
+the child proceeded to do.
+
+Deftly, quickly she disrobed and stood in her pretty, childish nakedness
+in the warm room.
+
+For a moment she poised and listened, then she stepped over the rim of
+the fountain, took the exact attitude of one of the figures, and with
+rapt, upturned face became rigid.
+
+It was wonderfully lovely, but decidedly startling. Still Doris waited.
+
+The water dripped over the small body; Joan's lips were moving in some
+weird incantation, and then with the light all gone from her pretty face
+she came out of the basin, pulled her clothing on as best she could, and
+flung herself tragically in a deep chair.
+
+For a moment Doris thought the child was crying, but she was not. Her
+limp little body relaxed and the eyes were sad.
+
+Doris rose and went to the steps.
+
+"Why are you here alone, Joan?" she asked.
+
+Quite simple the reply came:
+
+"I was--trying to make it come true, Auntie Dorrie," this with a
+suspicious break in the voice.
+
+"What, darling?" Doris came down and took the child in her arms.
+
+"Mary says if you believe anything hard enough you can make it come
+true. _She_ always can! I wanted to play with the fountain girls--I know
+it would be beautiful--but you have to be _like them_. You have to shut
+the whole world out--and then you know what they know."
+
+"Why, little girl, do you think the fountain children are happier than
+you and Nancy?"
+
+With that groping that all mothers feel when they first confront the
+_individual_ in the child they believed they knew Doris asked her
+question.
+
+"I've used Nancy and me all up!" was Joan's astonishing reply.
+
+"All up?" the two meaningless words were the most that Doris could
+grasp.
+
+"Yes, Aunt Dorrie. Dolls and Mary's silly stories and Nancy's funny
+games all over and over and over until they make me--sick!"
+
+Joan actually looked sick, so intense was she.
+
+"Nan is happy always, Aunt Dorrie--she's made like that--but I use
+things up and then I want something else. Mary said that, honest true,
+things would come if you believed hard enough. Maybe I cannot believe
+hard enough--or maybe Mary didn't speak truth. She doesn't always, Aunt
+Dorrie."
+
+Doris gasped and drew the child closer. It was like being dragged, by
+the little hand, to an unsuspected danger that she, not the child,
+understood.
+
+Gradually the inner side of the years was turned out by Doris's careful
+questions and Joan's quiet simplicity. She revealed so much now that
+she found that her view of life had a dramatic interest. It appeared,
+quite innocently, that Nancy could assume any position in order to win
+her way.
+
+"She always speaks truth, Auntie Dorrie," Joan loyally defended, "but
+she can make truth out of such queer things; it just _is_ truth to
+Nancy, for she doesn't want to hurt people's feelings. Mary likes Nancy
+best, for I cannot make truth when I want to. Aunt Dorrie--truth
+is--a--_a thing_, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, darling. But we--we see it differently, that is all."
+
+This was comforting to Joan, and she smiled. Then Mary again took the
+centre of the stage--Mary's interpretations, all coloured with the
+mystery of her desolate childhood; her old superstitions and power to
+control by the magic of her imagination. There were certain tales, it
+seemed, that were held as bribes. Nancy would always succumb to the
+lures; Joan, only to a few.
+
+"What are they, dear? I love fairy stories, you know."
+
+Doris was keeping her voice cool and calm.
+
+"Why, Mary says there is a Rock on a big mountain that is--bewitched!
+And everything near it is, too. She says things grow on it and you look
+at them and they are alive, and you can--can, well, use them! Mary saw a
+road once and just went up on it--it was a bewitched road, and she
+got--lost!" Joan's eyes widened. "Mary says she'll have to find her way
+back somehow, and if Nancy and I are naughty, she'll go and find it at
+once! Nancy is afraid, but I told Mary I'd follow her!
+
+"And then Mary said that once she just longed and longed for a doll--she
+had never had one--and she saw The Ship on The Rock and she went up to
+it--that was before she got lost on the road--and she asked the captain
+of The Ship for a doll, and he said he would send one to her. And she
+went home and that very night--that _very_ night, Aunt Dorrie, she
+looked in a room where she heard a funny noise and she saw a live doll!
+And while she was looking she saw a tall big lady bring in another. You
+see, when The Rock gets alive, everything is alive and Mary had forgot
+that--and so the dolls were--were babies. Nancy believes that, but
+I--tried it on Nancy's dolls--and it isn't true!"
+
+The rain outside beat wildly against the windows; the wind lashed the
+vines and roared down the chimney.
+
+"Are--you asleep, Aunt Dorrie?" The silence awed Joan.
+
+"No, dear heart. I am just thinking."
+
+And so Doris was--thinking that she was walking in the dark. Her own
+small flashlight had seemed enough to guide her, and here she discovered
+that it had only shown her one path, the one she had chosen, and all the
+other paths--Mary's, Nancy's, and Joan's--had been disregarded.
+
+Suddenly it seemed as dangerous to have too much faith as too little.
+
+"I want you, Joan, dear, to go up and play, now, with Nancy. See if you
+cannot take all the old games and make a new one. That would be such a
+pleasant thing to do."
+
+"Must I, Auntie Dorrie? I'd rather stay here close to you. It's a new
+game. I like it here."
+
+It was hard to send the small, clinging thing away, but Doris was firm.
+
+Once alone, she closed her eyes and let her hands fall, palms upward, on
+her lap. She felt tired and perplexed. There had come a parting of the
+ways. Apparently the ninth year was a dangerous year. What must she do?
+Was Mary more ignorant than she seemed or--more knowing? What had Mary
+known at Ridge House?
+
+The dull, quiet girl, as Doris recalled her, seemed merely a part of the
+machinery of the Sisters' Home; she had never taken her into
+account--but had she been what she seemed? What was she now?
+
+It was appalling--in the doubt as to what was, or was not--to think that
+so much had been taken for granted.
+
+The children had seemed babies. The mere physical care had been the main
+consideration, and while that was going on Joan had grown weary of the
+old games and Nancy had learned to gain her ends by indirect methods.
+
+Clearly, Doris must have help at this juncture.
+
+"I see," she thought on, heavily, "why fathers _and_ mothers are none
+too many where children are concerned."
+
+It was then that she thought of David Martin in a strangely new way--a
+way that brought a faint colour to her cheeks.
+
+All the afternoon she thought of him while she, having set Mary to other
+tasks, devoted herself to Nancy and Joan. She read to them, scampered
+through the house with them, did anything and everything they suggested,
+until she had subdued the nervous strain and could laugh a bit at her
+bugbears of the morning. Joan, flushed and towzled, Nancy, sweetly
+radiant, effaced the menacing images her anxiety had created--but she
+still needed help. And David Martin was the one, the only one among her
+friends who seemed adequate to her need.
+
+"I've tried to be a mother," she thought, "but I have taken the father
+out of their lives--I must supply it."
+
+When the children were in bed and the house quiet, Doris went to the
+sunken room and, taking up the telephone receiver, called her number.
+She was calm and at peace. She was prepared to lay the whole matter of
+the past few years before David Martin, and she was conscious, already,
+of relief.
+
+"I am going to let myself--go!" she thought, her ear waiting for a
+reply.
+
+It was Martin who answered.
+
+"David, are you quite free for an hour?"
+
+"For the entire evening, Doris. Are the children sick?"
+
+How like Martin that was! What most concerned and interested Doris was
+first in his thought.
+
+Doris's face twitched.
+
+"It's my friend," she said, slowly, "that I want. Not my physician."
+
+"I'll be there in a half hour."
+
+The soft drip of the rain outside was soothing. So happy did Doris feel
+that she wondered if her fears would not strike Martin as absurd, and
+after all, why should she lay her burden of confession upon him in order
+to ease her perplexity? Along this line she argued with herself while
+she ordered a tray to be sent up as soon as Doctor Martin arrived.
+
+She gave particular instructions as to the preparation of the dainties
+Martin enjoyed but which no one but Doris ever set before him.
+
+"I chose the shield of silence," she mused. "Why should I ask another to
+help me with it now?"
+
+Still, in the end, her honest soul knew that it was not help for herself
+she was seeking, but guidance for the children whose best interests she
+must serve.
+
+And then, as one looks back over the path he has travelled while he
+pauses before going on, Doris Fletcher saw how the love of David Martin
+had been transformed for her sake into friendship that it might brighten
+her way. She had never been able to give him what he desired, but so
+precious was she to him--and full well she knew it--that he had become
+her friend.
+
+Out of such stuff one of two things is evolved--a resentful man, or the
+most sacred thing, that can enter a woman's life, a true friend.
+
+Martin had made a success of his profession; his unfulfilled hopes had
+seemed to broaden his sympathies instead of damming them.
+
+As the clock struck nine Martin appeared at the doorway--a tall, massive
+figure, the shoulders inclined to droop as though prepared for burdens;
+the eyes, under shaggy brows, were as tender as a woman's, but the mouth
+and chin were like iron.
+
+"David, it was good of you to come." Doris met him on the steps and led
+him to his favourite chair, drawn close to the blazing fire.
+
+"To take any chance leisure of yours is selfish--but I had to!"
+
+Martin took the outstretched hands and still held them as he sat down.
+After all the silent years the old thrill filled his being.
+
+"This is a great treat," he said in his big, kind voice. "I was just
+back in the office. I steered two small craft into port this
+afternoon--I need a vacation."
+
+Doris recalled how this phase of Martin's profession always exhausted
+him, and she smiled gently into his eyes. Just then the tray she had
+ordered was sent up. He looked at it and his tired face relaxed; the
+deep eyes betrayed the boyish delight in the thought that had prompted
+the act.
+
+"You must need me pretty bad to pay so high!" he said, watching Doris
+pour the thick cream into his cup of chocolate.
+
+"I do, David, but really I'm not buying; I'm indulging myself. May I
+chatter while you eat? There are three kinds of sandwiches on the plate.
+Take them in turn, they are warranted to blend." Then quite suddenly:
+
+"David, it's about the children. They are over nine. What happens,
+physiologically, when children--girls--are--are nearly ten?"
+
+"Deviltry, often. At nine they are too old to spank, too young to reason
+with--it's the dangerous age, at least the outer circle of the dangerous
+age." Martin tested the second sandwich.
+
+"And the prescription? What do you prescribe for the dangerous age?"
+Doris felt that it was best to edge toward the vital centre by
+circuitous routes.
+
+"Barrels and bungholes or what stands for barrels and bungholes--a good
+school where a mixture of discipline with home ideals prevail. I know of
+several where giddy little flappers are marvellously licked into shape
+without danger of breaking. I've felt for some time that your kids
+needed--well, not love and care, surely, but a practical understanding."
+
+"Why didn't you tell me, David?"
+
+"People never appreciate what they do not pay for. Now that you have
+offered up this tribute to the animal of me, I know you are ready for
+the other."
+
+"The other, David?"
+
+"Yes, the best of me. That always belongs to you."
+
+This was daring, and it sent Doris to cover while she caught her breath.
+David calmly ate on. After the sandwiches there was a bit of fruit cake
+made from the recipe handed down from the days of Grandfather Fletcher.
+
+"David, do you think mothers, I mean real mothers, have divine
+intuitions about their children? Intuitions that, well, say, adopted
+mothers never have?"
+
+"No, I don't. The majority of mothers are vamps. They think they have a
+strangle hold on their offspring; a right to mould or bully them out of
+shape. The best school I know is run by a woman who says it takes her a
+year to shake off the average mother; after that the child becomes an
+individual and you can get a line on it."
+
+"That's startling, David. It's hard, too, on mothers."
+
+"Oh! I don't know. I often think if mothers could be friends to their
+children, _real friends_, I mean, and not claim what no human being has
+a right to claim from another, they'd reap a finer reward. I'd hate to
+love a person from duty. The fifth commandment is the only one with a
+promise. It needs it! What is the stuffing in this third sandwich,
+Doris? It comes mighty near perfection."
+
+"I never give away the tricks of my trade, David! And let me tell you,
+you are mighty like a sandwich yourself--light and shade in layers; but
+I reckon you are right about the friend part in mothers. Then, too, I
+think an adopted mother has this to her credit--she doesn't dare
+presume."
+
+"No, often she bullies. She thinks she paid for the right. After all,
+the best any of us can do for a child is to set it free; point out the
+channels and keep the lights burning!"
+
+"David, you are wonderful. You should have had children." The tears were
+in Doris's eyes.
+
+"Oh! I don't know--I'd have to have too many other things tacked on. All
+children are mine now, in a sense."
+
+David pushed the tray away and leaned luxuriously back in his chair.
+
+"Now," he said, with his peculiar smile that few rarely saw, "let's have
+it! The skirmish is over."
+
+Then Doris told him--feeling her way as she poured her confession into
+the ears of one who trusted her so fully and who asked so little. She
+saw his startled glance when she, beginning with Meredith's death,
+struck the high note of the real matter. Martin was not resenting her
+past reticence, but he was taken off his guard, and that rarely happened
+to him.
+
+Once, having controlled his emotions, he was placid enough. He noted the
+outstretched hands in Doris's lap and estimated her weariness and her
+need of him. After all, those were the big things of the moment. In
+Martin's thought any act of Doris's could easily be explained and
+righted. He did not interrupt her, he even saw the humour of her account
+of the scene with Thornton, years before, when she presented both
+children to his horrified eyes. Martin shook with laughter, and that
+trivial act did more to strengthen Doris than anything he could have
+done. It relieved the tension.
+
+"How did you manage to create the impression, among us all, that these
+children are twins?" Martin, seeing that Doris had finished with the
+vital matter, turned to details. "I cannot recall that you ever said
+so--and there seems to be no reason why they should be twins."
+
+"That's it, David, there never was a reason, really, and I did not
+intend, at first, to give the impression--I simply said nothing. Things
+like this grow in silence until they are too big to handle. It was the
+telling of plain half-truths that did the mischief--and letting the
+conclusions of others pass. Of course I did not hesitate with George
+Thornton, he mattered; the others did not seem to count--no one but you,
+David. I have felt I wronged your faith, somehow."
+
+Martin, at this, began to defend Doris.
+
+"Oh, I don't agree to that. It was entirely your own affair. You wrote
+to me while you were away about Meredith. I realized how cut up you
+were, and God knows you had reason to be. Until you needed me, I don't
+see but what you had a right to act as you saw fit about the children."
+
+"David, I always need you. It is because I need you so much that I have
+decency to keep my hands off!"
+
+Martin's brows drew close, his mouth looked stern, but he was again
+controlling the old, undying longing to possess the only woman he had
+ever loved, and shield her from herself!
+
+Then he gave his prescription:
+
+"Doris, get rid of Mary. Find a proper place for her and forget whatever
+doubts you may have. Remember only her years of service; she gave the
+best she had. Then send the children to Miss Phillips'. Of course, you
+must write to Thornton. Tell him as much or as little as you choose.
+He's rightfully in the game. We're all three playing with a dummy." How
+Doris blessed Martin for that "we three!" He had come into the game and,
+once in, Martin could be depended upon.
+
+"You've run amuck among accepted codes," he was saying with that curious
+chuckle of his, "and yet, by heaven! you seem to have established a
+divinely inspired one for the kids."
+
+"You think that, David? You are not trying to comfort me?"
+
+Martin got up. He seemed suddenly in a hurry to be off. He had given
+what he could to meet Doris's need--given it briefly, concisely, as was
+his way.
+
+Doris brought his coat and held it for him--her face lifted to his with
+that yearning in her eyes that always unnerved him. It was the look of
+one who must offer an empty cup to another who thirsted. Then she spoke,
+after all the silent years:
+
+"David, I have always loved you, but I am beginning to understand at
+last about love. I had not the 'call' in my soul. Merry had it, the
+mountain mother had it--but it never came to me. Without it, I dared not
+offer to pay the cost of marriage. That would have been unjust to you. I
+did realize that, but the deeper truth has only come recently. I wonder
+if you can understand, dear, if I say now, even _now_, that I would be
+glad for you to marry and be happy--as you should be?"
+
+"Doris, I counted that all up years ago. It did not weigh against you!"
+Martin's voice was husky.
+
+"Then, David, be my friend and the friend of my little children. For
+their sakes, I implore your help along the way."
+
+Martin bent and touched his lips to Doris's head which was bowed before
+him.
+
+"Thank you," he said with infinite tenderness; "you are permitting me to
+share all that you have, my dear. Good-night."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+"_To do our best is one part, but to wash our hands smilingly of the
+consequences is the next part, of any sensible virtue._"
+
+
+In much that frame of mind, Doris arose the day following Martin's call.
+
+By some subtle force the debris of the past seemed to have been disposed
+of; the misunderstanding on her part and David's.
+
+"It is the 'call' that makes everything possible or tragically
+wretched," she said, "and one cannot be blamed for being born deficient.
+Thank God I fitted in, though, when others were called away."
+
+With David's understanding and cooeperation the present could be
+confronted and the "hand washing of consequences" undertaken.
+
+"I have done my best," Doris felt sure of this, "_my_ best, and now I
+must do a bit of trusting. It has been my one daring adventure. It must
+not fail."
+
+After many attempts she wrote and dispatched a letter to George
+Thornton, simply stating that she was about to send the children to
+school.
+
+While waiting for his reply she turned her attention to Mary, for in any
+case, she decided, the children must be placed in another's care. What
+Mary felt when Doris explained things to her no one was ever likely to
+know. The girl's face became blanker; the lines stiffened.
+
+"It was," Doris confided later to Martin, "as if I were wiping the past
+out as I spoke."
+
+The fact was that Doris was rekindling the past--the past that lay back
+of the years of plain duty.
+
+"I have not overlooked, Mary," Doris strove to get under the crust of
+reserve and find something with which to deal emotionally, "the years of
+devotion to us all. You have made no social ties for yourself; have not
+taken any pleasures outside--what would you like to do now, Mary?"
+
+"Go home."
+
+"Go--home? Why--where is home, Mary?"
+
+The pathos struck Doris--the pathos of those who, having served others,
+find themselves stranded at last.
+
+"Down to Silver Gap." As she spoke, Mary was hearing already the sound
+of the river on the rocks and seeing the spring flowers in the crevices
+of the hills.
+
+"You mean, go back to Ridge House? You could not stay there alone, Mary,
+with old Jed."
+
+Mary stared blankly--she was further back than Ridge House.
+
+"I've been saving," she went slowly on, "all the years. I reckon I have
+most enough to buy the cabin where us-all was born." The tone and words
+took on the mountain touch. Doris was fascinated.
+
+"You mean your father's old cabin?" she asked.
+
+"Yes. It lies 'cross the river from Ridge House, and when I think of
+it," a suggestion of radiance broke on Mary's face, "I get a rising in
+my side. I'm aiming to get it back----"
+
+The girl stopped short--something in her threatened to break loose.
+
+The pause gave Doris a moment to consider. She was baffled by Mary, but
+she saw clearly that the girl had but one desire.
+
+"Mary," she said, presently, "I have always intended, when the children
+no longer needed you, to give you some proof of my appreciation of all
+that you have done for us. You seem to have shown me a way. You shall
+have the old cabin, if it can be obtained, and it shall be made
+comfortable for you. It is not so far but what you can have a little
+oversight of Ridge House, too, and that will mean a great deal to me. I
+am thinking of opening the house sometime."
+
+Doris got no further for, to her astonishment, Mary rose and came
+stiffly toward her. When she was near enough she reached out her hands
+and said:
+
+"God hearing me, 'I'll pay you back some day. I will; I will!"
+
+Doris was embarrassed.
+
+"You have paid everything you owe me, Mary," she returned, quietly. "It
+is my turn now. I will see about the cabin at once."
+
+Finally a letter came from Thornton. A dictated letter.
+
+He was about to leave for South Africa and would be gone perhaps several
+years.
+
+He left everything in Doris's capable hands!
+
+Again Doris took breath for the next stretch of the long way.
+
+And Joan and Nancy went to Dondale and Miss Phillips.
+
+It was a hard break for them all and was taken characteristically. Joan,
+tear-stained and quivering, set her face to the change and excitement
+with unmistakable delight. Nancy was frightened into silent but smiling
+acquiescence. She expected, she told Joan, that it would kill her, but
+she would not make Aunt Dorrie feel any worse than she did by showing
+what she felt! At this Joan tossed her head and sent two large tears
+rolling down her cheeks.
+
+"None of us will die, Nan. We all _feel_ deathly, but this is--life."
+
+At ten Joan had a distinct comprehension of the difference between
+living and life. To a certain extent you controlled the former; the
+latter "got you."
+
+"I--I don't want life," wailed Nancy, "I want Aunt Dorrie."
+
+"But life--wants you!"
+
+Somewhere Joan had heard that, or read it--the old library was no hidden
+place to her--and she brought it forth now with emphasis.
+
+Nancy made no reply. In that mood Joan would show no mercy. It was when
+she was suffering the most that Joan could harden and frighten Nancy.
+She was lashing herself to duty when she sent the whip cracking.
+
+Martin accompanied Doris to Dondale. He was "Uncle David" to the
+children and part of their happy lives.
+
+"Take--take good care of Aunt Dorrie," Nancy pleaded with him at
+parting, her poor little face distorted by the effort she was making.
+
+"You bet!" Martin bent and kissed the child. He approved of Nancy.
+Martin could never patiently endure complications, and Nancy was simple
+and direct. Joan was another matter. At the last she was in high
+spirits.
+
+"It's going to be great," she whispered to Doris. "All the girls and the
+new games and the comings home for holidays and--and everything."
+
+It was after they were alone that Nancy called down extra suffering upon
+herself.
+
+"Aunt Dorrie will think you did not care, Joan, and Uncle David scowled.
+You make people think queer things about you."
+
+Joan turned and fixed Nancy with flaming eyes.
+
+"I want Aunt Dorrie to think everything is all right--you didn't! You
+did not cheat her. I did--for her sake."
+
+"Perhaps," Nancy sometimes struck a high note, unsuspectingly, "perhaps
+Aunt Dorrie would rather _have_ you care."
+
+Joan regarded her intently and then replied:
+
+"Well, then, you're all right, Nan!"
+
+The tone, more than the words, stung Nancy. It hurt her to have any one
+misunderstand, but it often occurred to her that it hurt more to be
+understood!
+
+In the train en route to New York Doris sat very quiet, thinking of the
+two little faces she was leaving--forever! It amounted to that--as every
+woman knows.
+
+Nothing but their faces held as the miles were dashed past--faces that
+portrayed the spiritual essence of the old, dear years--faces that would
+turn, from now on, to others, and take on new expressions, bear the mark
+of another's impress.
+
+"Well, thank heaven," Doris presently broke out, "I haven't been a vamp
+mother, David."
+
+Martin came from behind his newspaper.
+
+"And because of that, Doris," he said, "you will have those girls coming
+back to you. They will want to come." He was thinking of Nancy.
+
+"Yes. I have a sure feeling about that." Then: "How splendid it was of
+Joan to act as she did! She'd rather we thought her hard than to let us
+see her pain."
+
+Martin stared. "You mean Nancy?" he asked.
+
+"No. Nan, bless her, cannot disguise herself, but Joan can! Joan will
+suffer through her strength."
+
+The period, always a dangerous one, the year following school life,
+became Doris's great concern while the school time progressed in orderly
+fashion under Miss Phillips's guidance.
+
+"I am keeping my hands off," Doris often confided to Martin. "It is only
+fair play while the children are at Dondale. You were right--Miss
+Phillips is a wonderful woman--I have learned to trust her absolutely.
+She has appreciated what I tried to do for the girls; is building on it;
+she will return them to me--not different, but--extended! It's the time
+after, David, that I am planning. That time which is the link between
+restraint and the finding of one's self."
+
+"I declare," Martin would reply to this, "I wonder that you ever get
+results, Doris; you harvest while others are sowing."
+
+But deep in us all is the current carrying on and on, and it was
+hurrying Doris during the years while the girls were at Dondale.
+
+There were the happy vacations, the new interests, the marvel of
+watching the miracle of evolution from the child to the woman. At times
+this was breathlessly exciting.
+
+Doris filled her private time with useful and enjoyable hours. She got
+into closer touch with old friends, saw and heard the best in music and
+drama, permitted herself the luxury of David Martin's friendship, and
+shared his confidences about his sister's son in the Far West--a
+fatherless boy who promised much but often failed in fulfilment.
+
+"Odd, isn't it, Davey," Doris sometimes said, "that you and I, having,
+somehow, lost what is the commonplace road for most men and women, have
+been called upon to assume many of the joys and sorrows of that broad
+highway?"
+
+"We none of us go scot free," Martin returned. "I'm grateful for every
+decent, common job thrown at me."
+
+And so the years passed and Doris had outlined a vague but comprehensive
+line of action for the immediate months following the girls' graduation
+from Dondale.
+
+"I am going to take them abroad," she announced to Martin; "take them
+over the route that Merry and I took--our last journey together. And,
+David, in that little Italian town they shall know--about Meredith and
+Thornton!"
+
+David started, but made no remark.
+
+"And when we return," Doris went on, "I am going to bring the girls
+out--I hate the term, I'd rather say let them out--just as Merry and I
+were, in this dear, old house. Mrs. Tweksbury and I have planned rather
+a brilliant campaign."
+
+And then came that bleak March day--Joan and Nancy were to graduate in
+June--when the hurrying undercurrent in Doris Fletcher's life brought
+her to a sharp turn in the stream.
+
+She was sitting in the pleasant old room before a freshly made fire; the
+fountain trickled and splashed, the birds sang, defying the outdoor
+gloom and chill, and a letter from Miss Phillips lay upon her lap--a
+letter that had made her smile then frown. She took it up and read it
+again.
+
+"I am deeply interested in your nieces," so Miss Phillips wrote;
+"naturally a woman dealing, as I have for years, with youth in the
+making, is both blunted and sharpened. Young girls fall into types--are
+comfortably classified and regulated for the most part. Occasionally,
+however, the rule has its exceptions."
+
+Then Miss Phillips expatiated for a page or so, in her big, forceful
+handwriting, on Nancy's beauty, sweetness, and charm.
+
+"A fine, feminine creature, my dear Miss Fletcher. A girl I am proud to
+refer to as one of mine; a girl to carry on the traditions of such a
+family as yours--a lovely, young American woman!"
+
+This was what brought the smile, but as Doris turned over the sheet the
+smile departed; a grave expression took its place.
+
+"You and I are progressive women," so the new theme began; "we know the
+game of life. We know that where we once played straight whist we now
+play bridge, but we are fully aware that the fundamentals are the same.
+
+"And now I must explain myself. For a young girl with the prospects that
+Joan has her mental equipment is a handicap rather than an asset. She
+does everything too well--except the drudgery of the class room, she has
+managed to endure that, and with credit, but everything else she
+accomplishes with distinction. She lacks utterly any suggestion of
+amateurishness!
+
+"I hope you will understand. This would be splendid if she, like Sylvia
+Reed, for instance, had to look to her wits to solve her life problems;
+but it will distract her along the path of obvious demands.
+
+"She, I repeat, does everything too well. She dances with inspiration;
+nothing less. She sings with spirit and originality; she acts almost
+unbelievably well and she wins, without effort, the admiration and
+affection of all with whom she comes in contact. I speak thus openly and
+intimately to you, Miss Fletcher, because, frankly, Joan puzzles me--she
+always has."
+
+The letter dropped again on Doris's lap. Yes, Doris Fletcher did
+understand. She saw Joan, not as she was, a tall young creature
+radiantly facing life, but as a tired little child in this very room
+stepping' defeated from the fountain, because she could not make her
+desires come true! She was listening to the old plaint: "I have used the
+old games--I want something new!"
+
+Yes, Doris understood, and sitting alone, she vowed that Joan should not
+be defrauded of her own, by misdirected love, prejudice, or luxury.
+
+"She shall have her chance!"
+
+Then it was that something happened. Things--stopped!
+
+For a moment Doris was conscious of making an effort to set them going
+again. She glanced at the clock--that had stopped! The fountain no
+longer played; nor did the birds sing!
+
+A black silence presently engulfed the whole world. At last Doris opened
+her eyes--or had they been open during the eternity when nothing had
+occurred? She glanced at the clock, a trivial thing against the carving
+of the wall, but upon whose face Truth sat faithfully. Two hours had
+passed since she had noticed the clock before!
+
+"But--I have been thinking a long time, planning for the children;
+reading the letter----" Doris sought to establish a normal state of
+affairs--she saw the letter lying at her feet, but did not bend to pick
+it up.
+
+"Only a faint. But I have never fainted before!" she thought on.
+
+She was not frightened, not even excited. She felt as if she had simply
+come upon something that she had always known was on the road ahead
+awaiting her. She had come upon it sooner than she had expected to, that
+was all. She did not want to pass into the silence again if she could
+help it, so she lay back in the chair quietly, guardedly, and waited.
+
+Then she heard steps. Outside the family only one person came
+unannounced to the sunken room and gladly, thankfully, Doris turned her
+eyes and met David Martin's as he paused at the doorway above.
+
+Martin had himself in control before Doris noticed the fear in his eyes.
+He came slowly to her, sat down beside her and, while simply taking her
+hand in greeting, let his trained touch fall upon her pulse. It told him
+the dread secret, but it did not shatter his calm--he even smiled into
+the pale face and said lightly:
+
+"Well, what have you been trying to do?"
+
+Doris told him, without emotion, what had occurred. She did not remove
+her hand from his--his touch comforted her; held her to the things she
+knew and loved and trusted.
+
+"And now, David," she said at last, "I think we have both known that
+some day this would occur. We are too good friends to be anything but
+frank--I am not afraid, and it is essential that I should know the
+truth. The family ogre has caught me--but it has not conquered me yet!"
+
+"Well, Doris--it is the first call!" The man's words hurt like a knife
+turned upon himself.
+
+"I feared so--and I am forty-nine."
+
+"A mere child, my dear, if we deal honestly with the fact. Your father
+was fifty-five and might have lived to be seventy if he had stopped in
+time. Your grandfather----"
+
+"Never mind, David, let's keep to me. How much longer--have I?"
+
+"No man on earth could tell you that, my dear, but I hope--always
+granting that you will be wise--that you may count on, say, twenty
+years."
+
+They both smiled. After all, what did it matter?
+
+"And--what do you suggest I should do--as a beginning of the--twenty
+years?"
+
+"Close this house, Doris, and start another kind of existence--somewhere
+else."
+
+"Why, David--I must bring the girls out, you know. They must not be
+told--of this."
+
+"They need be told only what you choose to have them know, but as to the
+bringing-out farce--that's rot! Those girls will get out by one door or
+another, never fear. _You_ are to be kept in--that's the important thing
+at present."
+
+"Dear old David!" Doris's eyes dimmed as she looked at the kind face
+bending over the hands lying limp, now, on her lap. She noticed that
+there was white on the temple where the dark hair had turned; the heavy
+shoulders were bent permanently. She longed to do something more for
+David during the next--twenty years!
+
+"You must not give way, Doris. A change is good for us all." Martin
+noted the tears in the eyes holding his own, but he did not understand
+their source.
+
+"I am afraid the girls will be so disappointed," was what Doris said.
+
+"Pampered creatures! It will do them good. But Nancy will love it and
+Joan can kick the traces if she wants to--that will do her good."
+Martin leaned back and crossed his legs in the old boyish way.
+
+"What will Nancy love, David?"
+
+"Why, the out-of-door country life. She's that kind. Flowers and animals
+and quiet."
+
+"Country life?" Doris sat up. "But, David, I could not stand country
+life, myself. I love to look at the country, listen to it, play with
+it--but I am a citizen to the core. It is simply impossible. One has to
+be born with the country in his blood to be part of it."
+
+It was like pleading with the stern expression on Martin's face.
+
+He was not apparently listening, and when he spoke he carried on his own
+thought:
+
+"Queer how things dovetail. We drop a stitch and then go back and pick
+it up--now there is that place of yours, down South, Ridge House!"
+
+Doris's face twitched and then, because she was in that state closely
+bordering upon the unknown, that state open to impressions and
+suggestions from sources outside the explainable, Silver Gap seemed to
+open alluringly to her imagination. It _was_ like a dropped stitch to be
+taken up and woven into the pattern!
+
+She suddenly felt that she had always known she must go back. It was
+like the heart trouble--a thing on her road! Doris smiled and David
+patted her hands.
+
+"That's the way it strikes me," he said, quite as if he were gaining
+his inspiration whence hers came. "After you told me about the--the
+children, you know, Doris, years ago, I went down there and gave the
+place a look-over. The South always affects me like a--well, a lotus
+flower--sleeping but filled with wonderful dreams. It gets me! Why,
+after seeing Ridge House I even went so far as to buy a piece of land
+known as Blowing Rock Clearing. I've planned, if that scamp of a nephew
+of mine ever develops into a sawbones, to leave him in charge here and
+go down South myself and put up a shack on my clearing." Martin was
+watching Doris now from under his brows; he was talking against the
+silence that might engulf her again; seeking to hold her to a future
+that he had been vaguely considering in the past. He thankfully saw her
+interest growing.
+
+"You did that, David--how like you!"
+
+The tears still came easily to Doris's eyes.
+
+"Oh, well, I have a thrifty streak, and I hated to see a property like
+Ridge House lie fallow. It's great. The buying of Blowing Rock was pure
+Yankee sense of a bargain. But you see how it all works out. You'll have
+the time of your life developing your holdings and, at odd moments, I
+can start my shack. Look upon the change as an adventure--nothing
+permanent. In a year or so you may be able to spend most of the time on
+pavements--though why in God's name you want to is hard to imagine."
+
+Doris was smiling.
+
+"But the girls!" she faltered.
+
+"Forget them. Give them a chance to think of you. Take them abroad--that
+will be good for you all, but in the autumn, Doris, go South! You must
+escape next winter."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+"_One is assured that there is a Power that fights with us against the
+confusion and evil of the world._"
+
+
+The warm June sunlight lay over the broad lawns and meadows of Dondale;
+it touched with luring power the buds to blossom and, by its tricks of
+magic, girlhood to womanhood.
+
+Only a month ago Joan and Nancy Thornton and those who, with them, were
+about to leave Miss Phillips's school, had seemed little girls, but now
+they were changed. There was a gravity when they looked back at the
+safe, happy years that not even the glory of the future could dispel.
+
+They were eager to go forward but were half afraid.
+
+Joan and Nancy had left the others and walked across the lawn and were
+sitting on a vine-covered wall under a noble magnolia tree. Nancy was
+still sweetly fair and she had not outgrown the childish outline of
+cheek and chin, the pretty droop of the left eyelid, and the quick habit
+of smiling. She was tall and slim and graceful and bore herself with a
+touching dignity that was as unconscious as it was distinguished.
+
+Nature had not arrived yet with Joan. She was still in the making, and
+the best that could be said for her was that she was undergoing the
+ordeal with bewitching charm.
+
+The dusky hair was filled with life and light; the eyes were
+yellow-brown and dark-lashed; the skin was creamy and smooth and the
+features irregular--eyes and mouth a bit prominent in the thin face.
+Joan was thin, not slim. You were conscious of her bones--but they were
+pretty bones, and every muscle of her lithe young body was as flexible
+and strong as a boy's. She could change from awkwardness to grace by a
+turn of thought. Joan was subject to outside control, while Nancy seemed
+possessed by innate inheritance. Both girls were in white, and while
+Nancy's appearance was immaculate, Joan's was suggestive of
+indifference.
+
+"It is wonderful--this going abroad," Joan was saying while her long,
+supple fingers wove the stems of daisies into an intricate pattern. "And
+to go to that little Italian town where mother was married! Nan, I'm
+going to know all about mother and father this summer."
+
+Nancy's head was lifted slightly, and her cool blue eyes fixed
+themselves upon Joan. There was no doubt about the colour of Nancy's
+eyes--they were blue.
+
+"I do hope, Joan," she said, "that you are not going to spoil everything
+by making Aunt Dorrie uncomfortable. If she has not told us things, it
+is because she thinks best not to."
+
+"But it's getting on my nerves, Nan. It's ominous. Maybe there is
+a--a--tragedy in our young lives"--Joan dramatically set her words into
+comedy--"a dark past. How I would adore that!"
+
+"I would loathe it!" Nancy murmured, "and there couldn't be. I know
+there is only a deep sadness. I wouldn't hurt Aunt Dorrie by--by
+unearthing it."
+
+"Nan," here Joan pointed her finger, "do you know a blessed thing about
+your father? I don't!"
+
+Nancy flushed, but made no reply.
+
+"There's where the secret lies--I feel it in my blood!" Joan shuddered
+and Nancy laughed. "It didn't seem to matter until _now_, but, Nan,
+we're women at last!"
+
+"Of course," Nancy spoke, "I have thought of that. The best families
+have such things in them--but they don't talk about them. Now that we
+are women we must act like women--such women as Aunt Dorrie."
+
+"Nan, you're a snob. A pitiful, beautiful little snob!" Joan wafted a
+kiss. "Your prettiness saves you. If you had a turned-up nose you'd be
+an abomination."
+
+"You have no right to call me a snob, Joan!" Nancy's fair face flushed.
+
+"Did I call you a snob, Nan, dear?"
+
+"Yes, you did. It's not being a snob to be true to oneself." Nancy put
+up her defences.
+
+"I should say not," Joan agreed, but she laughed.
+
+"Just think of all that Aunt Dorrie represents!" Nancy went on. "She's
+all that her father and her grandfather----"
+
+"And her grandmothers," Joan broke in, "made her! Just think of it! And
+you and I must carry on the tradition--at least _you_ must--I'm afraid
+I'll have to be a quitter. It makes me too hot."
+
+"You'll never be a quitter, you splendid Joan!" Nancy turned her face to
+Joan---- the old love had grown with the years, "You _are_ splendid,
+Joan--everyone adores you."
+
+But Joan did not seem to hear. Suddenly she said:
+
+"Now do you know, Nan, I hate to go across the ocean this summer. It
+seems such a waste of time. I am eager to begin."
+
+"Begin what, Joan?"
+
+"Begin to live."
+
+"You funny Joan, what have you been doing since you were born?"
+
+"Waking up, Nan, and stretching and learning to stand alone. I'm ready
+now to--to walk. I dare say I'll wobble, but--I don't care--I want to
+begin."
+
+A sense of danger filled Nancy--she often felt afraid of Joan, or _for_
+Joan, she was not sure which it was.
+
+"I think you'll do nothing that will trouble and disappoint Aunt
+Dorrie," she said, using the weapon of the weak.
+
+"I think Aunt Dorrie would want me to--to live my life," Joan returned.
+
+"Oh! of course, she'd let you--go. That's Aunt Dorrie's idea of justice.
+But we have no right to impose on it. People may be willing to suffer,
+but that's no excuse for making them suffer." Nancy did battle with the
+fear that was in her--her fear that Joan might escape her, and now, as
+in the old days, Nancy felt that play lost its keen zest when Joan
+withdrew.
+
+Joan made no reply. She looked very young with the sunlight flooding
+over her. Her eyes wide apart, her short upper lip and firm, little
+round chin were almost childlike when in repose, and her heavy hair rose
+and fell in charming curves as the breeze stirred it.
+
+"Joan, what do you want to do, really?" Nancy dropped from her perch
+beside Joan and came close, leaning against the swinging feet as if to
+stay their restlessness.
+
+"Oh! I don't know--but something real; something like a beginning, not
+just a carrying on. I want to dig out of me what is in me
+and--and--offer it for sale!" Joan leaned back perilously and laughed at
+her own folly and Nancy's shocked face.
+
+"Of course, I may not have anything anybody wants," she went on, "but
+I'll never be able to settle down and be comfy until I _know_. Having a
+rich somebody behind you is--is--the limit!" she flung out, defiantly.
+
+"I don't know what you mean, Joan." Nancy was aghast. The fear within
+her was taking shape; it was like a shrouded figure looming up ready to
+cast off its disguise.
+
+"Of course you don't, you blessed little snow-child!"--the laugh struck
+rudely on Nancy's discomfort--"why should you; why should any one in
+this--this factory where we've all been cut in the same shape? We're all
+going to be let out of here to--to be married! They've never taken me
+in."
+
+"Oh, Joan!" Nancy looked about nervously. Of course every girl had this
+ideal in her brain, but she was not supposed to express it--except
+vicariously in the charm-lure.
+
+"It's all right, this marrying," Joan went calmly on. "I want to myself,
+some day, it's splendid and all that--but something in me wants to fly
+about alone first."
+
+"You're silly, Joan."
+
+"I suppose I am, snow-child. I suppose I'll get frightfully snubbed some
+day and come back glad enough to trot along with the rest--but oh! it
+must be sublime to have the chance a boy has. He can have
+everything--even the try if he _is_ rich--and then he knows what he's
+worth. Why, Nancy, I am going to say something awful now--so hold close.
+I want to know what my dancing is worth, and my singing, and my making
+believe. I feel so powerful sometimes and then again--I am weak as--as a
+shadow!"
+
+"Oh! Joan do be careful--you'll fall over the wall."
+
+Nancy flung her arms about Joan, who had tilted backward as she
+portrayed her state of weakness.
+
+"You frighten me, Joan, and besides you have no right to disappoint Aunt
+Dorrie, and if she should hear you talk she'd be shocked!"
+
+"I wonder," mused Joan, "she is so understanding. I wonder. But come,
+Nan, dear, I must go practise the thing I'm to sing at Commencement, and
+I have a perfectly new idea for a dance on Class Day."
+
+David Martin and Doris were never to forget the impression Joan made on
+the two occasions when she stood forth alone, during the Commencement
+week, like a startling and unique figure, with the background of lovely
+young girlhood. No one resented her conspicuousness. All gloried in it.
+They clapped and cheered her on--she was their Joan, the idol of the
+years which she had made vital and electric by her personality.
+
+She danced on Class Day a wonderful dance that she had originated
+herself.
+
+Nancy played her accompaniment, keeping her fascinated gaze upon Joan
+while her fingers touched the keys in accord with every movement.
+
+Lightly, bewilderingly, the gauzy, green-robed figure was wafted here,
+there, everywhere, under the broad elms, apparently on Nancy's tune. She
+was a leaf, a petal of a flower, a creature born of light and air.
+
+People forgot they were performing a stilted duty at a school
+function--they were frankly delighted and appreciative. Joan rose to the
+homage and, at such moments, she was beautiful with a beauty that did
+not depend upon feature or colouring.
+
+But it was when she sang on Commencement Day that she achieved her
+triumph.
+
+Martin was watching Doris closely. She had had no return of her March
+illness; she never spoke of it, nor did he, but for that very reason
+Martin kept a more rigid guard upon any excitement. There was that in
+Doris's face which, to his trained eye, was significant. It was as if
+she had been touched by a passing frost. She had not withered, but she
+was changed. The time of blight might be soon or distant, but the frost
+had fallen on the woman's life.
+
+It was when Joan had finished her song that Martin took Doris from the
+hall.
+
+It happened this way:
+
+The flower-banked platform was empty until the accompanist--it was a
+young professor, this time, not Nancy--came on.
+
+The audience waited politely; the rows of girlish faces were turned
+expectantly, and then Joan entered!
+
+Without a trace of self-consciousness she looked at her friends--they
+were all her friends--with that sweet confidence and understanding of
+the true artist. The dainty loose gown covered any angle that might have
+proved unlovely, and Joan was at one of her rarely beautiful moments.
+
+She stood at ease while the first notes were played--she appeared
+suddenly detached, and then she sang.
+
+It was an old English ballad, quaint and rollicking:
+
+      "I'll sail upon the Dog-star,
+    I'll sail upon the Dog-star,
+      And then pursue the morning
+    And then pursue, and then pursue the morning.
+
+      "I'll chase the moon, till it be noon,
+    I'll chase the moon, till it be noon,
+      But I'll make her leave her horning.
+
+      "I'll climb the frosty mountain,
+    I'll climb the frosty mountain,
+      And there I'll coin the weather.
+
+    "I'll tear the rainbow from the sky
+      And tie both ends together."
+
+The ringing girlish voice rose high and true and clear.
+
+"Bravo!" cried a man's voice and then:
+
+"And she'll do it, too!"
+
+It was at this point that Martin took Doris from the room.
+
+In the quiet of the deserted piazza Doris looked up at Martin through
+tears.
+
+"Joan is feeling her oats." Martin walked to and fro; he had been more
+moved by the song than he cared to confess.
+
+"The darling!" Doris whispered. Then: "Can't you see what Miss Phillips
+meant, Davey? The child is talented--she shall never be held back.
+Wealth can be as cruel and crippling as poverty. Be prepared, David, I
+mean to let Joan--free."
+
+Martin came close and sat down.
+
+"Go easy, Doris," he cautioned, then asked: "And how about Nancy?"
+
+"David, I'm going to tell Nancy, after we come home from Europe--not
+all, of course, but enough to make her understand--about me! I cannot
+quite explain, but I am sure I am right in my decision. Nancy, indeed
+all of us, will, sooner or later, have to let Joan go! I saw that
+clearly as she sang. I must fill Nancy's life and she must make up to me
+what I am about to lose. David, is this what mothers feel?"
+
+"Some of them, Doris. The best of them. I'm glad to see you game."
+
+"Oh! yes. I'm glad, too--for Joan's sake. I will be giving Nancy her
+best and surest happiness--with me, but not Joan. And so, David, Joan
+must not have the slightest inkling--she must go, when her time comes,
+unhampered. You, Nancy, and I must contribute that to her future."
+
+Martin saw that Doris was still trembling, she was excited, too, in her
+controlled way. He was anxious.
+
+"You're seeing things in broad daylight, Doris. Why, my dear, both the
+girls will be snapped up before any of us catch our breaths. That is
+what Miss Phillips' is for. Training for fine American wives and
+mothers. A good job, too."
+
+Doris smiled and shook her head. Then she said suddenly:
+
+"David, the old spectre stalks! It seems as if I ought to know, as if
+the knowledge were right here, to-day."
+
+"Come, come, now Doris! If you do not quiet down I'm going to pack you
+off to the hotel. Why, see here, the kids have not revealed themselves.
+You're lashing yourself about nothing. Can you not reason it out this
+way----"
+
+Martin sat close to the couch upon which Doris half reclined; he was
+almost praying that Joan would have a dozen encores--by request,
+apparently, she was again chasing the rainbow on her Dog-star.
+
+"The inheritance, I mean. For I see it is that that is clutching you. My
+work brings me close to primitive things--I believe in inheritance down
+to the roots--but by heaven, we inherit from the ages, not from our next
+of kin alone. Each son and daughter of us comes into port with load
+enough to crush us, and if we kept it all we'd go under. We shuffle off
+a lot. It is the ability to shuffle, the opportunity to shuffle that
+counts. Why, look here, Doris----"
+
+And Doris was looking, holding with all her strength to the man's words.
+
+"That little mountain woman had more daring and courage, according to
+what you told me, than poor Merry ever had. She cut a wider circle, got
+more out of life, I bet, went out of it more satisfied. Her child, with
+your help, could develop into something mighty worth while for she
+wouldn't have so much to overcome at the start. On the other hand,
+Meredith's child would have to blaze her own trail, as far as any
+guidance from her mother is concerned. Can't you see, that's where
+inheritance plays the devil with hasty conclusions?"
+
+Doris drew a long breath and sat up. She was seeking to hold to what she
+could not see.
+
+"David," she whispered, "is it the knowing, or the not knowing? Could I
+have helped more wisely had I not shirked the truth? In there, a moment
+ago, it was as if Meredith were demanding. Oh! youth is awful in its
+possibilities of success or failure."
+
+Martin was seriously alarmed. He had never seen Doris so shaken, but he
+talked on, seeking by a show of calmness to disarm her fears.
+
+"It's the ability to shuffle off inheritance that counts, Doris. You
+have given these girls the strength and opportunity--to shuffle. Now, my
+dear, be sensible. It is up to the girls and they're all right. Hold
+firm to your own belief, Doris. It's about to be proved."
+
+"Hear them." Doris dropped back. "They are still applauding Joan."
+
+The next few months Doris always looked back upon as a connecting
+stretch of road between what she had but faintly feared and what became
+assured.
+
+From the day Joan graduated she became the dominant influence in what
+followed, and Nancy, being non-resistant, was engulfed in the general
+rush of affairs; was absorbed and smilingly played her part as once she
+had played Joan's accompaniment.
+
+Joan was not more selfish than the young generally are; she had hours of
+noble self-renunciation and generosity. Her ego was well developed, but
+it never drove her cruelly.
+
+Doris justified what happened, when she took time to consider, by her
+determination to be fair to both girls and then, unconsciously focussing
+on Joan because Joan was always in evidence. The girl's vitality and
+joyousness were unfailing. Everything was of interest, and she seemed to
+gather the flowers of life not so much for her own enjoyment as for the
+glory of shedding them on others. That is what disarmed people--this
+lavishness of the girl. She gave spice to life, and that has its value.
+If Nancy ever knew the natural desire to shine in her own light, not
+Joan's, she smilingly hid it--not even Doris suspected it.
+
+After Nancy was made to understand her aunt's state of health--and it
+was, in the end, Martin who informed her--she rose superbly to what
+offered, poor child, an opportunity peculiarly her own. To her was given
+the sacred duty of watching the one she loved best in the world; of
+warding off anything that threatened her peace and comfort. Here were
+power and authority and, though no one suspected, she would rule in her
+narrow, detached kingdom. Nothing should defeat her. They should all
+look to her!
+
+Almost fiercely Nancy undertook her silent task. She smiled, she learned
+new subtleties; she soon became the pretty barrier between Doris and any
+troubling thing.
+
+With her half-afraid glance fixed upon the dazzling Joan, it was small
+wonder that Doris fell into the trap set for her by Martin and Nancy.
+
+She took the girls abroad--or was it Joan that led the way? She
+considered, after reaching the little Italian town from which she had
+seen Meredith depart, how best to speak of Thornton. She got so far as
+the telling of Meredith's wedding in the unchanged chapel on the hill
+when Joan startled her by asking quite as a matter of course:
+
+"Is our father still alive?"
+
+Nancy turned pale and shrank before the question, but she saw that the
+cool tone had controlled the situation. Doris looked relieved instead of
+shocked.
+
+"We've often talked of it, Nan and I," Joan proceeded; "it did not seem
+very vital one way or the other until now."
+
+"As far as I know," Doris was surprised at her own calmness, "he is
+still alive."
+
+"I'm glad of that," Joan remarked, and there was a glint in her eyes.
+"I'd hate to have him dead--just now."
+
+Quite without reason Doris laughed. After all, what she had conjured up
+as a ghost was turning into a human possibility. It was never to
+frighten her in the future. Joan had felled the spectre by her first
+stroke.
+
+Then Nancy spoke:
+
+"I never want to hear his name again," she said, firmly, relentlessly.
+
+Doris looked at her in amazement. Later she confided to Joan her
+surprise.
+
+"I did not know the child had such sternness."
+
+Joan shrugged her shoulders and smiled.
+
+"Nan is like a rock underneath, Aunt Dorrie," she said. "I suppose it
+is--what shall I say?--blood! It is concentrated in Nan. She's like
+you. Disgrace, or what seemed like disgrace, would kill her--it would
+make me fight!"
+
+And after that conversation all inclination to confide further in the
+girls as to their relationship or lack of it deserted Doris.
+
+She saw a new cause for caution and went back to the stand she had taken
+when the children were babies--but with far less courage.
+
+"When they marry, of course, it must be told."
+
+Doris returned to New York in September, and after a fortnight in which
+she closed the old house and made arrangements for the servants, she was
+so exhausted that she gladly turned her face southward.
+
+Nancy, already, was her mainstay. The girl had apparently got under the
+burden, and held it secure on her firm, young shoulders. She developed
+initiative and the healing touch. No one disputed her where Doris was
+concerned, and Martin grimly accepted her as the most necessary thing in
+the hope that lay in Ridge House.
+
+Their appearance there was marked by two incidents that Doris alone
+heeded.
+
+First was the effect Nancy had upon Jed.
+
+The man stared at the girl as if he saw a ghost. Like the very old, his
+real sensations lay in the past. Nancy stirred him strangely. The
+emotion was like a warm ray of sunlight striking in a dark place. Doris
+watched him with interest and concern; but Jed had no words with which
+to enlighten her. He only smiled wider, more often, and took to
+following Nancy like a wavering, distorted shadow.
+
+The second incident was Mary.
+
+From her cabin across the river she had manipulated the arrangements at
+Ridge House so perfectly that the machinery was oiled and running when
+the family arrived.
+
+Mary was more reserved, more self-contained than she had ever been, but
+again, as Martin said to Doris, she must be judged by what she did, not
+by what she suggested, and she had accomplished marvels not only at the
+old place, but in her cabin across The Gap. In her once-deserted home
+Mary had contrived to resurrect all the ideals that had perished with
+her forebears. The rooms shone and glittered; the garden throve; and
+Mary spun and wove and designed and made money. She was respected,
+feared, and secretly believed to be "low-down mean," but calmly she went
+her way.
+
+What she knew lay buried in her stern reserve, and she saw a great deal.
+
+She saw at once what had occurred since she left her years of service.
+Mary no longer served--she ruled.
+
+She saw that Joan, as she had given promise of doing, was controlling
+the forces of her small world. Doing it as once she had done it in the
+nursery, with a radiant witchery that had gained its ends with all but
+Mary herself!
+
+While Mary's eyelids drew together, she focussed through the narrow
+slits upon Joan and with a hot, deep resolve she took up cudgels for
+Nancy.
+
+And she bided her time.
+
+Back and forth from her cabin to the big house she walked daily, and to
+Mary's cabin Nancy, presently, went--for comfort and inspiration, though
+she did not realize it.
+
+Often, unknown to others, the two would sit near the fire, making a
+vivid picture. Mary in her plaid cotton gown, bent over her folded arms,
+swaying to and fro, making few comments but conscious of being
+understood. Nancy, fair and lovely, speaking more openly to the plain,
+silent woman near her than she had ever spoken to any earthly being and
+feeling, under her sweet unconsciousness, the underlying confidence.
+
+"Of course," she once whispered to Mary, "I would love all the things
+that Joan loves and wants, but my duty to Aunt Dorrie is bigger than
+they, Mary. I am sure if Joan saw things as I do, she would act as I am
+acting. But we are keeping Joan from knowing."
+
+"Why?" The sharp word startled Nancy--was Mary disapproving?
+
+"Aunt Dorrie and Uncle David think best, Mary."
+
+Mary touched upon the hidden hardness in Nancy's softness and
+retreated.
+
+And during that red-and-gold autumn, their first in The Gap, Doris was
+soothed strangely to a state of perfect relaxation--a state not pleasing
+to Joan, and rather puzzling to David Martin, who postponed a proposed
+trip to the West until he felt sure of Doris's health. It seemed that,
+having dropped the old life, Doris was not merely willing to step into a
+new one--she was drifting in. Without resistance she floated. She would
+lie for a whole afternoon on the porch watching the play of colour on
+The Rock. She smiled, recalling, rather vaguely to be sure, the
+superstitions concerning The Rock.
+
+It was all delightfully restful and beautiful and not a care in the
+world!
+
+Mary and Nancy saw to every detail. Joan was frankly interested in every
+phase of the experience. "It might be," mused Doris from her pillows,
+"that having left everything to that Power that does control, I am to
+have my heart's deep desire--keep both Joan and Nancy!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+"_I count life just a stuff to try the Soul's strength on. Learn, nor
+count the pang; dare, never grudge the throe._"
+
+
+No one but Mary, apparently, saw what was to happen. It was the old
+nursery problem re-acted.
+
+Joan had tired of her game, had used all the material at hand, and was
+burning to be on the adventurous trail.
+
+The old restlessness and defiance were singing in the girl's blood;
+mockery rang in her voice and that wonderful laugh of hers. She was
+about to smash into the safe joyousness of things as they were! She
+threatened Nancy's toys. And Mary, alone, took heed. Joan herself was
+unconscious. She always was of her changing mood; she simply realized
+that she was lost; somehow, astray.
+
+And Nancy, looking mutely in Mary's eyes, seemed to say:
+
+"It will all be so lonely; so terrible with Joan gone!"
+
+That was it. The old fear of, or for, Joan had materialized--it was Life
+with Joan left out!
+
+"And why should one have so much and the other so little?" asked Mary of
+that deep knowledge in her busy brain. "Why shouldn't they share
+alike--and twins at that!"
+
+Then Mary stopped short in her thinking. Her own words took her back,
+back to a dark night--she was peering, aided by a dim light from within,
+at a baby lying in the arms of----
+
+Mary drew her breath sharp; her thin, flat bosom heaved and her fingers
+clutched her gown.
+
+David Martin had so far classified his perplexity concerning Doris as to
+name it "Southern fever."
+
+"Hookworm?" Joan broke in gleefully.
+
+Martin frowned but did not reply.
+
+"Doris," he turned to the couch, "I must go out West." She understood.
+Martin never spoke openly about his family affairs. Until he was surer
+of that nephew of his he kept him in the background.
+
+"Yes, David." Doris smiled up at him.
+
+"I want you to promise me that you will take more exercise!" Martin
+said.
+
+"Why, certainly, David, but I thought you wanted me to--to rest."
+
+"I do--but you are rested. I do not want you to enjoy resting. It's
+dangerous."
+
+"Oh! bully for you, Uncle David," Joan broke in, delightedly, "Aunt
+Dorrie is just plain flopping and Nan and Mary are abetting her."
+
+For some reason Martin turned to Joan, not Nancy who was standing
+patiently by.
+
+"Joan, get your aunt on horseback--lead up to it, of course--and go
+slow."
+
+"But--Uncle David----" Nancy drew near. Her kingdom was threatened.
+
+"My dear," Martin always melted to Nancy, "after Joan gets her on
+horseback, _you_ ride with her."
+
+And so Doris got off her couch, rather dazedly, as one thinking his legs
+have been shot off finds them still attached to him.
+
+She had been actually letting go! She, of all people, and just when
+there was so much to do--so long as she had strength to do it!
+
+It was December when Martin started for the West and Joan's restlessness
+gained power.
+
+Christmas rather eased the situation, for with it Father Noble appeared.
+
+He startled Doris as Uncle Jed had, by his persistence.
+
+"They cannot be as old as they look," she concluded, and gladly entered
+into all the plans for carrying sunshine and joy into the deep places of
+the hills.
+
+"Dear me, dear me!" explained Father Noble, whose memory of her was so
+blurred that Doris did not venture to refer to it in detail; "I thought
+when the Sisters went away this beautiful old house would fall into
+disuse. It is a great happiness to feel its welcome once more."
+
+Then the old man raised his hat from his silvered head and, standing so
+in the doorway, besought a blessing "on them who waited but to do His
+will."
+
+Joan and Nancy rode with him back into the clearings; they revelled in
+it all and carried out every suggestion offered. They learned, through
+Father Noble's interpretation, to ignore the stolid indifference of the
+people; they played for, not with, the shy children, and distributed
+marvellous toys that were limply held in small hands that were yet to
+learn the blessed sense of ownership.
+
+"When you are gone," Father Noble explained and chuckled delightedly,
+"they will watch the trails for your coming back. They never forget;
+they are worth the saving--but one must have faith and patience."
+
+Then January settled down in The Gap. The short days were full of clouds
+and shadows; the river ran sullenly, and with greater need for sympathy
+Joan made ready to demolish Nancy's toys. She came into the living room
+one morning in her riding togs. She was splashed with mud and her face
+was dull except for the wide, burning eyes.
+
+Nancy was weaving at the window--Mary had taught her, and she gave the
+impression, sitting there, of having looms in her blood.
+
+Around the fire lay four hound puppies--they had taken the place of
+dolls in Nancy's affections. As Joan entered the dogs raised their
+absurd heads and with their flappy ears and padded paws patted the floor
+in welcome.
+
+"Where is Aunt Dorrie?" asked Joan, poising herself on the arm of a deep
+chair.
+
+"In the chapel," Nancy replied, bent over the snarl she had made of woof
+and warp.
+
+"I wish Aunt Dorrie would have that room sealed!" Joan spoke
+ill-naturedly; "I know it's haunted. If we don't look out the ghosts
+will ooze over the whole house. Ooh!"
+
+Nancy did not answer but set the treadle to its duty. The clacking noise
+emphasized Joan's nervousness.
+
+"Aunt Dorrie doesn't know what to do here--that's why she takes to the
+chapel. That's why everyone takes to chapels."
+
+Nancy broke her thread and Joan laughed.
+
+"I wonder why Aunt Dorrie came here like a dear, silly old pioneer?" The
+laugh still persisted in the mocking words.
+
+"It's--it's quite the thing," Nancy said, fatuously, "to have country
+places. I think it's wonderful."
+
+"You may not be able to help being a snob, Nan, but don't be a prig."
+Joan's words struck hurtingly. Then suddenly her mood changed.
+
+"Forgive me, snow-child," she whispered, going close to Nancy. "I'm a
+beast. Isn't it queer to be conscious, now and then, of the beast in
+you?"
+
+"Please don't, Joan, dear. Please don't talk and act so." Nancy's eyes
+were blinded by tears.
+
+"Very well, then, I will be good." Joan flung herself in a chair and
+presently asked curiously:
+
+"Nan, what are you going to do when you've done all the things down here
+millions of times?"
+
+"There will always be new duties," Nancy ventured.
+
+"Duties! Oh! Nan, surely you're too young to play with duties--you'll
+hurt yourself." The mockery again entered in.
+
+Just then Jed stumbled into the room with an armful of wood. His bleared
+eyes clung to Nancy's face and he nearly fell over a rug.
+
+When he went out Joan seemed to follow him. She spoke musingly as if
+voicing her thoughts:
+
+"It's terrible for anything as old as that to be running around," she
+said. "It isn't decent. He ought to be tucked up in his nice little
+grave. He looks as if he'd been forgotten."
+
+"Joan, you are wicked--you make me afraid!" Nancy came from the loom and
+crouched by Joan.
+
+"Snow-child, again forgive me!" Joan bent and drew Nancy's fair head to
+her knee. "But oh! I am so--so utterly lost."
+
+"Joan, what is it? What is the matter?"
+
+"I don't know, Nan." Joan was looking into the fire--seeking; seeking.
+"Things that quiet you and Aunt Dorrie just drive me on to the rocks. I
+feel as if I'd be wrecked if I didn't steer well out into the open. And
+when I get as far as that, I know that I couldn't find my way out even
+if--if everything let go of me. I suppose I would sink. This isn't my
+place, Nan, but I don't know where my place is! I feel sure I have a
+place, everyone has--but where is mine?"
+
+There was desperation in the words, the desperation of helpless youth.
+No perspective, no light or shade, but terrible vision.
+
+"Joan, darling, why can you not wait until you see the way?" Nancy was
+prepared now for battle.
+
+"That's it, Nan. I can't. All I can do is to push off the rocks--then
+I'll have to sink or swim. This is killing me!"
+
+Joan flung her head back as if she were choking.
+
+And just then Mary came into the room.
+
+A gray shawl, home-spun--it was made from the wool of Mary's own
+sheep--was clutched over her thin body; a huge quilted hood--Mary
+herself had quilted it--half hid her dark, expressionless face.
+
+"I met the postman," she announced, "as I came along. He give me this!"
+
+Mary held a letter out to Joan and passed from the room.
+
+The moment, while Joan glanced at the letter, had power to grip Nancy's
+imagination and fill it with a vision.
+
+As sure as she ever saw anything, she saw Joan going away! Going away as
+she had never gone before. Going to a Far Country.
+
+"Whom is the letter from?" she faltered, and Joan tore open the envelope
+while her eyes drank in the words.
+
+"It is from Sylvia Reed, Nan. Her dream has come true. She has her
+studio--she wants me!"
+
+"Joan, you will not go--you must not!" All that Nancy dared to put in
+her plea she put in it then.
+
+"Why not?" asked Joan impressed. "Why not, Nan?"
+
+"Aunt Dorrie----" Nancy's words ended in a sob.
+
+"Aunt Dorrie shall decide."
+
+And with that Joan, her face radiant, her breath coming quick, walked
+from the room and on, on to the little chapel upstairs.
+
+Doris was sitting by the window. The day was going to be clear at its
+close, and a rift in the sullen clouds showed the gold behind; the light
+lay in a straight line across the chapel floor.
+
+Doris was not in a depressed mood. She often sat for an hour in the
+quiet place. She took her tenderest treasures of thought there. She had
+been thinking that afternoon of David Martin. How wise he was! What a
+friend! How he understood her! How unworthy she was of the richness that
+flooded her life!
+
+It was then that Joan came in. She did not go close to Doris--the
+physical touch was not the first impulse with either of them.
+
+"Aunt Dorrie, I have a letter from Sylvia Reed."
+
+Instantly Doris was stirred as Nancy had been. Mentally she braced. She
+recalled vividly Sylvia Reed, Joan's particular friend at Miss
+Phillips's. The girl had genius where Joan had talent. She had inherited
+enough to take her comfortably through school, had a small income
+besides, but she would have to work and win her way to the success she
+promised. Sylvia's ambition was only equalled by her belief in herself
+and her eagerness to prove it to others. She was a few years older than
+Joan, and a girl of remarkable character and sweetness.
+
+"She wants me, Aunt Dorrie. She wants me to come to her. She has a
+studio in New York; not down in that part of the city which Uncle David
+doesn't like, the place where he says folks show off with the window
+shades up. Sylvia is in the safe uptown where the _real_ thing is!"
+
+The eagerness in Joan's hurrying voice made Doris smile. The girl was
+trying to clear all obstacles away before coming to the point. That was
+her way.
+
+"Why, Aunt Dorrie, Sylvia has two orders for book covers, already,
+besides twelve hundred a year!"
+
+The letter had been packed with ammunition and Joan was using it
+recklessly.
+
+"Just listen, Aunt Dorrie."
+
+And Joan spread the letter on her knee; her hands were trembling as she
+patted it open.
+
+"This is what Sylvia says:
+
+    The Studio is perfect--north side full of windows; south side full
+    of fireplace; your room and mine on the east; stars and sunlight on
+    tap from the windows. We are on top of the city and nothing hinders
+    our view. We walk up and none come but those worthy of us--come,
+    Joan, you always said that you would.
+
+    Your future will be blasted unless you break away from your rich
+    relatives. Nothing is such a curse as that which prevents you
+    proving yourself; you remember about the poem which dealt with
+    proving your soul?--how you spouted it. I know that you are gifted,
+    child, but the world doesn't. If we fail, you at least can, after
+    you pay proper respects to my remains, go back to that adorable aunt
+    of yours and flop in the lap of luxury--but make the attempt to
+    reach glory first.
+
+    I suppose Nan will raise a ladylike dust--but come! Come
+    empty-handed--it's the only honest way. Come prepared to eat your
+    bread by the sweat of your brow--or go hungry.
+
+    I bet your aunt will see the squareness of this offer if you put it
+    right. Come!
+
+The light broadened outside--the little chapel was flooded with the
+golden glow.
+
+Even while her heart sank and grew heavy, Doris was moved with an almost
+terrible understanding of the girl across the room. She wanted to push
+her on her way instead of holding her back, and at the same time she
+was striving to clutch her as she went her way.
+
+Yes, that was it. Joan was already started; nothing could hold her
+back--but still the battle waged, while Doris smiled tremblingly.
+
+"I know, Aunt Dorrie, I know. It hurts--but--but--oh! listen, dear. This
+seems my chance; perhaps it isn't--but I can never know until I try.
+Dearie--I will do just what you say. I will, and I will think you right.
+I want so much to try and find out what is in me that I--I cannot see
+clear."
+
+For a moment Doris could not see the girl across the room. The sunlight
+fell full on her, and hid her, rather than revealed her.
+
+"I'll try to be worthy of your faith in me, darling. Go on." Doris spoke
+quietly.
+
+They did not come together physically, these two. They felt no need of
+the affectionate human contact; it was more one soul reaching out to
+another with courage and honesty.
+
+Doris listened, following closely. People and places became visualized
+as Joan spoke. Sylvia Reed with her strong, purposeful face and eyes of
+a young prophet; the new nest of genius where the brave creature,
+believing in herself, waited for another in whom she trusted and for
+whom she held a deep-founded affection. Doris felt her way in
+silence--relinquishing, loving, fearing, but never blinded. She knew the
+moment's pain of disappointment caused by the realization that with all
+her love and riches she had not, for the time being, anything to offer
+this untried soul that could lure it from its vision.
+
+Presently she heard herself speaking as if a third person were in the
+room:
+
+"If this means anything it means that it must be met in the spirit with
+which Sylvia is meeting it. She has risked all; is willing to pay the
+price--are you?"
+
+"Yes, Aunt Dorrie."
+
+"You know, darling, that it would be easier for me to lavish everything
+on you?"
+
+"Yes, Aunt Dorrie."
+
+"You understand that if I leave you free to meet this chance in its only
+true way--the hard, struggling way--it is not because I desire to sicken
+you of it and so regain you for Nancy and me?"
+
+"Oh! yes, Aunt Dorrie, I do understand that."
+
+"I'm sure you do, child, or you would not be here. And so I set you
+free, little Joan, I wish you luck and success, but if you find the
+chance is not your chance, my darling, will you come as frankly to me as
+you have come to-night?"
+
+"Yes--yes, Aunt Dorrie, and you are--well--there is no word for you, but
+I feel as if you were my mother and I'd just--found you! You'll never
+seem quite the same, Aunt Dorrie--though that always seemed good enough.
+Why"--And here Joan slipped to her feet and danced lightly in the sunny
+room tossing her hair and swaying gracefully--"why, I'm free to fail
+even if I must--fail or succeed--and you understand and love me and
+don't begrudge me my freedom--you are setting me free and not even
+disapproving."
+
+The dance in that sanctuary did not seem incongruous; Doris watched the
+motion as she might a figment loose in the sunlight. It was as much a
+prayer of thanks as any ever uttered in the peaceful place.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+"_Hopes and disappointments, and much need of philosophy._"
+
+
+A week later Joan started for New York, a closely packed suitcase in her
+hand, a closely packed trunk in the baggage car ahead, and some hurting
+memories to bear her company on the way.
+
+Memories of Nancy's tears.
+
+How Nancy could cry--once the barriers were down!
+
+And worse than Nancy's tears were Doris's smiles.
+
+Joan understood the psychology of smiles--as she remembered, her proud
+head was lowered and she was surprised to find that _she_ was shedding
+tears.
+
+"But it's all part of the price of freedom!" At last Joan dried her
+eyes. "And I'm willing to pay."
+
+So Joan travelled alone up to town, and it was a wet, slippery night
+when she raised the knocker on Sylvia Reed's green-painted door and let
+it fall.
+
+The door opened at once and disclosed the battle-ground of young genius.
+The old room was dim, for Sylvia had been toasting bacon and bread by
+the open fire and she needed no more light than the coals gave. Sylvia
+wore a smock and her hair was down her back. She looked about twelve
+until she fixed her eyes upon you, then she looked old; too old for a
+girl of twenty-four.
+
+"Joan! Joan!" was all she said as she drew Joan in. Then, after a
+struggle, "Do you mind if I--sob?"
+
+"No, I'm going to do it myself." And Joan proceeded to do so and
+remembered Nancy.
+
+"I'm so--happy!" she gulped. "I was never so happy in my life. I feel as
+if I'd got hatched, broken through the shell!"
+
+"You have," cried Sylvia, unevenly. "We're going to--to conquer
+everything! Come in your room, Joan, shed as much as you like. I
+expected you this morning. I have only bacon and eggs--shall we go out
+to eat?"
+
+"Go out? Heavens, no! And I adore bacon and eggs. Sylvia, I have edged
+into glory!"
+
+"You have, Joan--edged in, that's about it."
+
+After the meal before the fire they cleared things away, and then they
+talked far into the night. Sylvia had already laid emphasis upon her
+small order.
+
+"And really, Joan, that's great," she explained; "many a girl has to
+wait longer. Some day I'm going to be hung in the best exhibitions in
+town, but as a starter a magazine is nothing to be sneered at. I'm
+modelling, too--I have a duck of an idea for a frieze--only I'm not
+telling anybody about that--it's too ambitious. What are you going to
+do, Joan?" This sudden question made Joan stare.
+
+"I--I don't know," she replied, frankly, but with no shade of
+despondency. "I'll take a look around to-morrow and, then pack my little
+wares in my basket and peddle them, as you have done. If anybody wants a
+dancer--here I am! Anybody want funny little songs sung?--here's your
+girl! I seem to have only samples. I can be adaptable. That's my big
+asset." They both laughed, but Sylvia soon grew serious. Her short
+service in reality had already sobered her. It was one thing for the
+gifted young girl of a fashionable school to watch the impression she
+made by her wits upon people who were paying high for just such
+exhibitions, and quite another to convince buyers of goods that they
+were what you believed them to be.
+
+"The public is a tightwad," was what she muttered presently, "unless
+you're willing to compromise or--prove it to them."
+
+"I--I don't know what you mean," Joan replied. She was groping after the
+thing that had made Sylvia's eyes grow old.
+
+"Well, all you need to know, Joan, my lamb, is to prove it to
+them--never compromise!" Sylvia was herself again. Too well she knew
+the value of starting out with one's shield bright and shining even if
+one had to come home _on_ it, all rusted with one's life blood.
+
+Things were not yet very tragic for Sylvia, and her shield was in good
+condition, but she had an imagination and a keen sense of
+self-protection.
+
+"We're going to be the happiest pair in town," she whispered to Joan
+later that night as she bent over the tired girl; "and was there ever
+such a spot to live in? See, I'm going to raise your shade high, for the
+night is splendid and--the stars! Go to sleep with the stars watching
+you, old girl, and you're all right."
+
+Joan slept heavily, dreamlessly, and awoke to--more bacon and eggs with
+hot rolls and coffee added.
+
+"I'm going to float about a bit to-day," she said, and her feet were
+fairly dancing. "I've only known New York before holding to Aunt
+Dorrie's hand or my nurse's. Today I'm going to go back alone and
+then--catch up with myself."
+
+Suddenly she began to sing her old graduation song:
+
+    "I'll sail upon the Dog-star
+      I'll sail upon the Dog-star;
+    I'll chase the moon, till it be noon,
+      But I'll make her leave her horning.
+
+    "I'll climb the frosty mountain
+      And there I'll coin the weather.
+    I'll tear the rainbow from the sky
+      And tie both ends together."
+
+Sylvia leaned back, clapping and laughing. This was as it should be.
+Fun, youth, gaiety. She went to her easel in the north room, humming
+Joan's old ballad, and never did better work in her life than she did
+that day.
+
+Joan sallied forth equally happy and her past, thank heaven, had been
+brief enough and rosy enough to make the tying of the ends nothing but a
+joyous task. She rode downtown on top of a bus. The crisp air stung and
+rallied her. She longed to sing from the swaying vehicle--she felt as if
+she were on top of the world and that it was keeping time to the tune
+she wanted to sing. She looked so lovely that the conductor grinned
+delightedly as he remarked:
+
+"Snappy weather, miss!" and Joan nodded in friendly fashion and agreed.
+She walked to the old home, standing with drawn blinds by the little,
+close-locked park. It looked stately and reserved as one of the family
+might have done. It smilingly held its tongue.
+
+"I'd like to see the sunken room and the fountain," Joan thought. "I
+cannot imagine it with the fountain and the birds still. They will never
+be still for me!"
+
+She was a bit surprised to feel how far she had travelled from the Joan
+who was part of Nancy and the sunken room. It was quite shocking to find
+that she was not missing Nancy. She wondered if she were heartless and
+selfish? But after all, how could one be missed from a life in which she
+had never, could never, have part? And full well Joan realized that in
+this big venture of hers the old, except as a stepping-stone, was
+separated forever.
+
+"If I become famous"--and Joan, tripping along, felt as if fame were as
+possible for her as the luncheon she was now feeling the need of--"if I
+become famous then they will understand, but even then my life and
+theirs will be different."
+
+This point of view made Joan feel important, tragic, but desolate.
+
+"I'm hungry," she thought, seriously, and made her way to a restaurant,
+where once she had gone with Doris while on a wonderful shopping
+expedition. The place was little changed; it had passed into other
+hands, but the menu proudly proclaimed the same enticing dishes.
+
+Joan ordered what once had seemed the food of the gods, but to her now
+it was as chaff.
+
+Across the table, made dim by her misty eyes, she seemed to see Doris
+smiling fondly, faithfully, at her. Doris's power over people was
+largely due to that faith she had in them.
+
+"And I will be all you want me to be, Aunt Dorrie!" Joan promised that
+while she choked down the food. "I feel as if I were in the bear's
+house," she mused, whimsically. "I'm half afraid that I'll be pounced
+upon."
+
+And so she paid her bill and went back, via the bus, to Sylvia. She ran
+up the long flights of stairs and burst in upon Sylvia with the
+announcement that "nothing would count if you didn't have someone to
+come home and tell it to." And then she forgot her glooms while they
+prepared an evening meal more conservative than bacon and eggs.
+
+"Yes, my beloved," Sylvia returned as she plunged a wicked-looking
+little knife into the heart of a grapefruit: "And that accounts for half
+the marriages in life." Sylvia was refraining, just then, from telling
+of her own engagement. She wanted and needed Joan for the present--her
+secret would keep.
+
+"You funny old Syl," Joan flung back over her shoulder as she drew the
+curtain over the closet that screened the housekeeping skeletons from
+the wonderful studio. "We won't have to resort to marriage, anyway.
+We've solved the eternal question!"
+
+"Exactly! And now give those chops a twist. Thank the Lord, we both love
+them crisp."
+
+The experiment in a few days had Joan by the throat. So utterly had she
+thrown herself into it, so almost unbelievably had Doris Fletcher
+permitted her to do so, that it took on all the attributes of reality
+and demanded nothing less than obedience to its laws, or surrender to
+defeat.
+
+Doris had given Joan, when she came North, a check for five hundred
+dollars. Upon reaching Sylvia she had, after paying her expenses, that,
+and fifty dollars in cash left.
+
+It had seemed boundless wealth for the first few days and continued to
+seem so until the necessity for bringing the check into action faced the
+girl.
+
+"I must find something to do!" she vowed as she made her way to the bank
+where she had deposited the check. "No more fooling around."
+
+Sylvia made no suggestions; never appeared to be anything but satisfied
+with things as they were. The companionship, the feeling of _home_ that
+Joan had introduced into her life, were deep joys to the girl who, like
+many women who know not the art of making a home, are soul-sick for the
+blessings of one.
+
+"I'd work till my last tube ran dry," she thought to herself, standing
+at the wide north window, "if I could keep her singing and dancing about
+and--getting meals!"
+
+Joan did not interfere with Sylvia's profession--she gave it new
+meaning--but Sylvia realized that Joan was interfering with her own.
+Still, Sylvia was never one to usurp the rights of a Higher Power, and
+at twenty-four she was intensely, shamefacedly religious and absolutely
+lacking in desire to shape the ends of others.
+
+"The thing that's meant for her will slap her in the face soon," Sylvia
+comforted herself. "And she's such a wonder!"
+
+But if Sylvia refrained from nudging Joan on her course, even to the
+extent of opening her eyes to sign-posts, others were not so obliging.
+Into Sylvia's studio youth, in its various forms of expression, floated
+naturally. Sylvia attracted women more than men, but her girl friends
+brought their male comrades with them and everybody was welcome to
+anything that Sylvia had. Fortunately most of the young people were
+honestly striving to earn their living; they were sweetly, proudly
+unafraid, but when they relaxed and played they made Joan's eyes widen,
+until she discovered that they often dressed their ideas, as they did
+themselves, rather startlingly while adhering, privately, to a
+respectability that they refused to make public.
+
+They were, on the whole, a joyous lot belonging to that new class which
+causes older and more conservative folk to hold their breath as people
+do who watch children walking near a precipice and dare not call out for
+fear of worse danger.
+
+The women attracted and interested Joan immensely. The men amazed her.
+
+"You see," she confided to Sylvia, "the men seem like a new sex--neither
+men nor women."
+
+Sylvia stood off regarding her work--she smiled happily and replied:
+
+"They are, dear lamb. The girls will all, eventually, put on; fill
+up"--Sylvia added a dab of clay to a doubtful curve--"but men, when they
+chip off from the approved design, look like nothing on earth but
+daubs!"
+
+"Yes," Joan added, "that's what I mean." Then, with a thoughtful
+puckering of the brows, "the girls will be women, somehow, but what will
+become of these--this new sex, Syl?"
+
+Sylvia was tense as she eyed her work. She answered vaguely:
+
+"Some of them will crawl up, and _do_ things and justify themselves, the
+others will----"
+
+"Will what, Syl?"--for Sylvia was moving like a panther upon her
+prey--her prey being the small figure on the pedestal.
+
+"Do this--or have it done for them!" and at this the offending clay was
+dashed to atoms.
+
+"Failure!" breathed Sylvia--"mess!"
+
+Then with characteristic quickness she began a new design. Joan watched
+her and caught a sudden insight. She realized what it was that marked
+Sylvia for success. Presently she asked musingly:
+
+"Does any one ever marry these--these men, Syl?"
+
+"Heavens, no! They only play with them; don't get confused on that line,
+lamb."
+
+"Don't worry about me, Syl. I don't even want to play with them. Syl, I
+do not think I shall ever marry. I'm like Aunt Dorrie, but if I ever
+should marry it would be something to help one grip life, not something
+to--to--well, haul along!"
+
+Sylvia turned and eyed Joan.
+
+"My pet lamb," she remarked, "you are all right! Make sure that no one
+side-tracks you--give them half, but no more. And, Joan, run along now,
+child, and get dinner."
+
+A few days later Sylvia broke into Joan's revery by the smouldering
+fire. It was a gray, cold day and Joan's spirits were at low tide.
+
+She had not been successful in any venture as yet, and so vivid was her
+imagination, so sincere her determination to play fair, that starvation
+and early death seemed the most likely objects on her mental horizon.
+She had eliminated Doris and Nancy as life-preservers--they figured only
+as blessed memories in a past that was not yet regretted but which was
+fast fading into a black present.
+
+"Joan, my darling, suppose you come to the rescue. My model has gone
+back on me--let me see you dance! My model had sand bags on her feet
+yesterday, anyhow, and my beautiful figure looks as if it had the
+beginnings of paralysis."
+
+Joan sprang up. Instantly she was aglow and trembling with delight.
+
+"Here, take this balloon," ordered Sylvia, "it is still gassy enough to
+float--it's a bubble, you know."
+
+Through the room Joan floated after the elusive ball. Sylvia watched her
+with a light breaking over her own face.
+
+"Great, great!" she cried from her corner, "go it, Joan, you're the real
+thing!"
+
+Joan was not listening. What her eyes saw were the figures in the
+fountain of the sunken room. She was one of them again--the story was
+coming true! It was no longer a golden balloon she was touching,
+fondling, reaching for, tossing--it was sparkling water, and birds
+seemed singing in the big north studio.
+
+At last it was over. On Sylvia's canvas the figure appeared to have
+undergone a marvellous change by a few rapid and bewitched strokes. The
+sand-bag impression had been removed--the figure was alive!
+
+"Syl, dear, you are wonderful!"
+
+Joan came and stood close. "What have you done to it?"
+
+"Put you in it. Or," here Sylvia tossed her palette aside and caught
+Joan by the shoulders, "you've put yourself in me. I've a line on your
+opportunity, Joan, it came to me like a flash of inspiration. I hope you
+are game."
+
+"I'm game, all right," Joan returned, quietly. She was thinking of her
+next visit to the bank.
+
+"Dress your prettiest, my lamb. Look success from head to foot and then
+go to the address I'll give you. I have a friend, Elspeth Gordon, who
+is opening a tea room. She may not think you necessary to her scheme of
+things, she's Scotch and terribly thrifty, with a dash of nearness, but
+you tell her that _I_ say you'll be the making of her."
+
+Joan laughed and darted away to array herself in her best.
+
+"What am I supposed to do there?" she asked. Her brightness and gaiety
+had returned.
+
+"Oh! any one of your accomplishments. Of course it was merely a matter
+of making things jibe. Elspeth only telephoned about the tea room this
+morning."
+
+"You mean I am to wait on tables or cook?" asked Joan, somewhat daunted.
+
+"Lord, child, no! Here, wait. On second thought, I'll go with you. I
+might have known you couldn't put it over. Watch me!"
+
+Sylvia was worth watching as she pulled her tam o' shanter over her
+head, her face all aglow.
+
+"I've undervalued your 'samples,' as you call them, my lamb," she
+chatted on. "Of course you must take lessons and be a legitimate
+something some day--a singer, I fancy, but in the meantime we must
+utilize what we have."
+
+On the way through the frosty streets Sylvia grew more mystifying.
+
+"It's putting the _punch_ in these days that counts, Joan. You are to
+be--the punch. Eats are all right in their way, but folks do not live by
+bread alone; they flourish--or tea rooms do--on punch."
+
+Joan, running along beside Sylvia, accepted the rambling talk without
+question. Her acquaintance with tea rooms was limited, but she had
+caught Sylvia's mood.
+
+"Just imagine," Sylvia was a bit breathless; "a cold, dreary afternoon
+outside--a warm, bright tea room with enchanting tables drawn close to
+an open fire, and someone--you, my lamb--singing a ballad, when there is
+a lull--in the offings! Why, Elspeth is as good as _made_ if she has the
+wit to grab you--and Elspeth is no fool."
+
+Joan began to see the opening ahead.
+
+"Oh!" she drawled--the word lasted a half block and ended in a mocking
+laugh.
+
+"Could I dance in costume?" she asked, tossing her head, "or tell
+fortunes as I used to at school? Do you remember, Syl, how I went to the
+kitchen door, once, and took the maids all in, and then Miss Tibbetts
+came down to see what was going on, and I read her palm--and----" but
+here Joan stopped short physically. "What's the matter, Syl?" she said.
+
+"Why, of course!" Sylvia was regarding Joan impartially. "They might
+object to having you break in on their silly tea-talk, the police might
+raid the place if you danced--but palm reading! Oh! my dear, you've
+struck it in the dark. Hurry!"
+
+And hurry they did, arriving at the Bonny Brier Bush a few minutes later
+in rather a breathless but radiant state.
+
+The proprietress, Elspeth Gordon, was a tall, slender woman, no longer
+young, but carrying herself with a dignity that amounted almost to
+majesty. She was gowned in crisp lavender linen with immaculate white
+collars and cuffs and was standing in the middle of her Big Experiment,
+as she termed it, when Joan and Sylvia burst in.
+
+"All ready but the opening of the door--legitimately," she said, smiling
+on Sylvia and bowing cordially to Joan. "Doesn't it look inviting?" She
+gave a broad glance to the sweet, orderly room: the small tables, glass
+covered; the rose-chintz covers and draperies; the clear fire on the
+broad, old-fashioned hearth, and the blossoming rose bushes on the
+window sills.
+
+"It certainly does," Sylvia replied with enthusiasm.
+
+"I've put everything I own into this venture," Elspeth went on; "if I
+fail, I'm done for."
+
+For all her years of discretion and her plain common sense, Elspeth
+Gordon's mouth and tone betrayed the artistic temperament. Upon that
+Sylvia was banking.
+
+"I have a splendid cook--a Scotch woman. I'm going to specialize on
+scones, and oat cakes, and such things, but oh! it is the opening of the
+door and the awful days of waiting until the public finds out!"
+
+"Exactly!" Sylvia nodded and Joan stared. "You'll have to lure the
+public, Elspeth, there's no doubt about that. Tea rooms are no novelty
+these days. You'll have to tease it with a bait, and the rest is easy.
+
+"Now, my dear, here's your bait!" With this, Sylvia turned so sharply
+upon Joan that Elspeth started nervously and regarded her guest as she
+might have a tempting worm: something possibly necessary, but which she
+hesitated to touch.
+
+"She can read--palms!"
+
+"Oh! Syl----" Joan panted, but Sylvia scowled her to silence.
+
+"She can read palms," she repeated, holding Elspeth by her firm tone; "a
+little more reading up, a bit of experience, and she'll work wonders.
+She doesn't know it, but she's psychic--of course this is going to be
+fun; not real. Just a lure. We'll have Joan in a long white robe--a girl
+I know can design it. We'll have a filmy veil over the lower part of her
+face--mystery, you know. Look at her eyes, Elspeth, aren't they great?
+Give that 'into-the-future' stare, Joan!"
+
+Joan rose to the fun of it all. She grasped the possibilities, but
+Elspeth faltered.
+
+"I don't want to be--ridiculous," she said, slowly. "I'm quite serious,
+and my food is going to be above question."
+
+"Of course! And if you think Joan will make you ridiculous, you've got
+another guess coming, Elspeth. Now, when do you open?"
+
+"I have planned to open day after to-morrow." Elspeth spoke
+hesitatingly, keeping her cool, businesslike glance on Joan.
+
+"All right," Sylvia was tapping her fingers restlessly; "that's
+Thursday. I'll get a girl I know to work on the costume to-night; we'll
+buy books on palmistry on our way home. We'll give you just four days to
+lure your public with scones, and then if you don't call Joan up, she'll
+start a tea room herself across the way."
+
+This made them all laugh, but there was an earnestness in their eyes.
+
+And on Sunday night Elspeth spoke over the telephone.
+
+"Could you come to-morrow at two, Miss Thornton?"
+
+Joan, sitting close to the telephone, winked at Sylvia. They had all
+been sitting up nights working, reading, and praying for that question.
+
+"I think so," was the reply in quite an unmoved and businesslike tone.
+
+"And remember, Joan," Sylvia cautioned later, "this is but a means to
+fit you for a profession!"
+
+"I'll remember," Joan twinkled, "in the meantime, I am going to enjoy
+myself."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+"_Let us live happily, free from care among the busy._"
+
+
+There was one of Sylvia's friends who, from the first, caught and held
+Joan's imagination. That was Patricia Leigh.
+
+Patricia rarely got further than the imagination--after that she was
+idealized or suspected according to the person dealing with her.
+
+Joan idealized Patricia--"Pat," she was always called.
+
+The girl was fair and delicately frail, but never ill. She wrote verse,
+when moved to do so, and did it excellently, and she never thought of it
+as poetry.
+
+When she was not moved to verse--and she had a good market for it--she
+designed the most astonishing garments for her friends. She could, at
+any time, have secured a fine position in this line and was frequently
+turning away offers. When the designing palled upon Pat she fell back
+upon her personal charm and enjoyed herself!
+
+Patricia had, outwardly, a blood-curdling philosophy which she frankly
+avowed she believed in, absolutely, though Sylvia warned Joan that it
+was "bunk!"
+
+What really was the case was this: Patricia was an adept at playing with
+fire. Lightly she tossed the flame from hand to hand; gaily she laughed,
+but at the critical moment Patricia ran!
+
+She revelled in portraying the fire danger, but she covered her retreats
+by masterful silence.
+
+"My code is this," she would proclaim: "In passing, snatch! You can
+discard at leisure."
+
+There was no doubt but that Patricia did more than her share of
+snatching. When she played, she played wildly, but she was a coward when
+pay time came.
+
+But who was there to show Patricia in her true light? Her good
+qualities, and they were many, pleaded for her. She was too little and
+sweet to be held to brutal exactions, and she was such a gay, blithesome
+creature, at her maddest, that when she ran one felt more like
+commending her speed than hurling epithets of scorn at her.
+
+"If she wasn't a thousand times better than she makes herself out to
+be," Sylvia confided to Joan, "I'd never let her into my studio; but Pat
+is golden at heart, and she ought to be spanked for acting as she does."
+
+"Hasn't she any family?" asked Joan. "No one whom she may--hurt?"
+
+"That's it, my lamb, she hasn't. Mother died when she was four years
+old; father, an actor, but devoted to her, and insisted upon trotting
+her around with him. She was confided to the care of cheap
+boarding-house women; she ran away from school once and travelled miles
+alone to get to her father, and when he died--Pat was eighteen then--she
+began her career, as she calls it. Snatch and skip!"
+
+"Poor, dear, little Pat!" said Joan, and her eyes filled.
+
+"There, now!" Sylvia exclaimed, "she's caught your imagination."
+
+That was true, and by the magic Joan began to see life as Patricia said
+_she_ saw it: a place of detached opportunities and no obligations.
+
+"I believe," Patricia would say, looking her divinest, "that in
+developing ourselves we most serve others. We relieve others of our
+responsibilities; we express ourselves and have no gnawing ambitions to
+sour us. Self-sacrifice is folly--it makes others mean and selfish,
+others who may not hold a candle to us for usefulness. Now"--and here
+Patricia, smoking her cigarette, would look impishly at Sylvia, quite
+forgetting Joan--"take, for instance, Teddy Burke!"
+
+"Pat!" Sylvia was in arms, "I will not hear of your actions with Mr.
+Burke. They're disgraceful. You should be ashamed of them."
+
+"On the other hand," Patricia always looked like a young saint, rather a
+wild one, to be sure, when she spoke of Burke, "I'm proud of my defiance
+of stupid limitations and fogyish ideals. Here is a man, a corker, Joan,
+with a wife who, acting upon tribal instinct, never dreams that she may
+be set aside. She travels the world over, foot loose, but with her
+little paw dug deep in her husband's purse. Here are two ducks of
+kiddies living with governesses and nurses over on a Jersey estate and
+pining for the higher female touch. Here am I with a batch of verses
+going quite innocently into Mr. Burke's office--he's an editor, you
+know--and he buys my stuff and howls for more. I grow white and thin
+providing more, and in weak moments show my beautiful inner soul to him.
+He, being a gentleman and an understanding one, asks me out to Jersey,
+and those children just cram into the hungry corners of my life. They
+play with me; they--they"--here a subtle touch of truth struck through
+Patricia's ironic tones--"they _teach_ me to play. Haven't I a right to
+snatch--what was snatched from me?"
+
+Sylvia cried out: "Rot!" But Joan made no reply.
+
+Often would Sylvia, deeply serious, urge Patricia to turn her talents to
+designing.
+
+"Verses only take you near danger, Pat, dear," she would say; "and look
+at the things you can make for people! Why, dear, you bring out all
+their good points."
+
+"You would have me stick my precious little soul full of needles and
+pins? Oh! you black-hearted creature. Not on your life, Syl! Designing
+is my job--it gets enough for me to fly on--but I mean to fly! And as I
+fly, I pause to sip and feed, but fly I must."
+
+For Joan, Patricia felt a strange attraction. The child that was so
+persistent in Joan appealed to Patricia while it irritated her.
+
+"She'll get hurt if she doesn't grow up!" the girl thought, and began at
+once rather crude forcing measures.
+
+"A professional woman," she imparted to Joan, "is a different breed from
+the household pet--you must learn to scrimmage for yourself and take
+what helps your profession. You cannot stop and nurse the _you_ of you.
+One's Art is the thing. Now love helps--love the whole world, Joan, it
+keeps you young. Play with it, but don't make the mistake of letting it
+take you in. The thing that threatens Sylvia is her--Plain John!"
+
+Joan and Patricia laughed now. Sylvia's love affair was tenderly
+old-fashioned. Her man was on the Pacific Coast, making ready for her;
+she was going to keep right on with her work--her John had planned her
+studio before he had the house!
+
+"'Love and fly!' is my motto," Patricia rambled on; "fly while the
+flying is good. Get your wings clipped, and where are you? Sylvia will
+have children and they will mess up her studio and her career--and look
+at her promise!" It was Patricia that had forced Sylvia's engagement
+into the open.
+
+In some vague way Patricia felt that she was educating Joan, not
+weakening her foundations; but gradually Joan succumbed to the
+philosophy of snatch-and-fly, and the Brier Bush gave ample opportunity
+for her to practise it.
+
+From the first she was a success. In her loose, flowing robe of
+white--Patricia had wrought that with inspiration--she was a witching
+figure. The filmy veil over the lower part of her face did but emphasize
+the beauty and size of her golden eyes. The lovely bronze hair was
+coiled gracefully around the little head, and after a week or so the
+gravity with which she read palms gave the play a real touch of
+interest.
+
+People dropped in, sipped tea, and paid well to play with the pretty
+disguised young creature who was "guessing so cleverly." They departed
+and sent, or brought, others. The Brier Bush became popular and
+successful; Elspeth Gordon secured for it a most respectable standing.
+
+"Why, Miss Gordon is the granddaughter of a bishop!" it was whispered,
+"and take my word for it that little priestess there with her is either
+a professional, finding the game lucrative, or a society girl out on a
+lark behind a screen."
+
+Most people believed the latter conjecture was true and then the Brier
+Bush became fashionable.
+
+Joan reaped what seemed to her a harvest, for Elspeth was as just as she
+was canny.
+
+"After a year," Joan promised Sylvia, "I will begin to study music
+seriously. Why, I have decided to specialize, Syl--English and Scotch
+ballads"; and then off she rippled on her "Dog-star"--the song was a
+favourite in the studio; so was the Bubble Dance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And about this time Joan's letters to Ridge House made the hearts there
+lighter.
+
+"A job!" Nancy repeated, reading the announcement of Joan's success.
+
+"I thought only workingmen had jobs. And in a restaurant, too! Aunt
+Dorrie, I don't think you ought to let Joan do such things."
+
+"Joan is earning her living," Doris said, calmly, though her heart beat
+quicker. "These fad things are often successes, financially, and I can
+trust Joan perfectly."
+
+Christmas was a disappointment.
+
+"I cannot leave this year, Aunt Dorrie," Joan wrote; "this is our busy
+time. Next year I will be free and studying music."
+
+Doctor Martin was to have been back from the West, but was detained, so
+Nancy and Doris again helped Father Noble with his hill people, and Mary
+came over to Ridge House and decorated the rooms to surprise them when
+they came back from the longest trip of all.
+
+Doris had discarded, largely, her couch. With her inward anxiety about
+Joan to be controlled, she was more at ease in action and it was good
+for her.
+
+Nancy's devotion was taken for granted, as was her happiness. What more
+could Nancy want?
+
+It was Mary who resented this.
+
+"'Tain't fair!" she muttered as she went about her self-imposed tasks,
+"'tain't fair." And scowlingly Mary still bided her time.
+
+Early in the new year David Martin returned from the West bearing about
+him the impression of battle crowned by victory. He was jovial and
+boyishly delighted with Doris's improvement.
+
+"I haven't long to stay," he confided to her, "but I had to see how
+things were going here before I settled down in New York. Nancy looks
+fine! She's happy, too." This to Nancy, who was fondling the pups by the
+fire.
+
+"Well, then, how about Joan?"
+
+Doris, her hands folded in her lap, did not reply.
+
+At this Martin took to striding up and down the long, sunny room. The
+thought of Nancy rested him; Joan always irritated him.
+
+"When is she coming back?" he asked suddenly.
+
+"She's got----" Nancy hesitated at the word; "she's got a job. She won't
+come home until she's lost that."
+
+Martin turned on Doris a perplexed and awakened face.
+
+"What's this?" His voice had the ring of the primitive male.
+
+"Well, you know Joan is with Sylvia Reed, David. You remember that girl
+who painted so beautifully at Dondale? Sylvia has a studio, now, and is
+regularly launched. She's doing extremely good work. Nan, show Doctor
+Martin that magazine cover that Sylvia did."
+
+David took the magazine indifferently from the obedient Nancy and
+dropped it at once.
+
+"Who's looking after them?" he inquired, leaping, in his deadly rigid
+way, over much debatable ground.
+
+"They're looking after themselves, David." Doris metaphorically got into
+position for a severe bout.
+
+"You don't mean," Martin came close and glowered over Doris, "you cannot
+possibly mean that Joan is going in for that loose, smudgy stunt that
+some girls are doing down in that part of town known as Every Man's
+Land?"
+
+Nancy ran to the window and bent over her loom. She was always
+frightened when David Martin looked as if he were going to perform an
+operation.
+
+"Certainly not," Doris replied; "the girls have a place uptown in a
+perfectly respectable quarter. Joan shares the expense. This is very
+real and fine, David. And you are not going to blame me for permitting
+Joan to do this--it was the only thing to be done. The girl has a right
+to her life and the use of her talents; this was an opening that we
+could not ignore. Sylvia Reed is older than Joan."
+
+"How much?" David's voice was like steel.
+
+"Four years." In spite of her anxiety, Doris had to laugh.
+
+"Is this a joke, Doris?" Martin was confused.
+
+"Why, no, David, it isn't."
+
+"Were you mad, Doris? Why, don't you know that many girls are simply
+crooked while they call themselves emancipated? I am amazed at you. How
+did you dare! Have you thought what an injustice you've done the girl?
+Keeping her in cotton wool, feeding her on specialized food, and then
+letting her loose among--among garbage pails?"
+
+Nancy fled from the room. The operation was on!
+
+Doris got up and linked her arm in David's--they paced the floor slowly,
+getting control of themselves as they went. Presently Doris spoke:
+
+"You see, dear, I have always held certain beliefs--I have always been
+willing to test them--and pay."
+
+"But dare you let Joan pay?" Martin was calm now.
+
+"Not for mine, but for her own--yes. Aren't you going to let this boy of
+yours try his own flight, David?"
+
+"That's different."
+
+"It won't be always, David, dear--someone must make the break--our dear
+young things in the big cities are breasting the waves, David. I glory
+in them, and even while I tremble, I urge them on. You should have seen
+Joan when she came to me with her great desire burning and throbbing.
+Why, it would have been murder to kill in her what I saw in her eyes
+then. It was her _Right_ demanding to be free."
+
+"It's the maddest thing I ever heard of!" Martin broke in. "I wonder if
+you have counted the cost, Doris?"
+
+"Yes, David, through many long days and wakeful nights. I have shuddered
+and felt that it was different for Joan; that _she_ should have been
+kept in--in bondage. It would have been bondage for her. But, David,
+the only thing I dared _not_ do was to keep freedom from the child."
+
+"And suppose"--Martin's face grew grimmer--"suppose she goes under?"
+
+"She will come to me--she promised. I am prepared to go as far as I can
+with my girls on their way; not mine. That was part of my bargain with
+God when I took them."
+
+"You're a very strange and risky woman, Doris."
+
+"And you are going to be fair, David, dear. Now tell me about your boy."
+
+Instantly Martin was taken off guard. He smiled broadly and patted
+Doris's hand, which lay upon his arm.
+
+"Bud's coming out on top!" he said--Clive Cameron was always Bud to
+Martin. "I've kept closemouthed about the boy," he went on, forgetting
+Joan; "he's meant a lot to me, but I've always recognized the
+possibility of failure with him and felt the least I could do, if things
+came to the worst, was to leave an exit for him to slip out of,
+unnoticed. He's always kept us guessing--my sister and I. He never knew
+his father. From a silent, observing child he ran into a stormy, vivid
+youth that often threatened disaster if not positive annihilation--but
+he's of the breed that dashes to the edge, grinds his teeth, plants his
+feet, and looks over!--then, breathing hard, draws back. After a while I
+got to banking on that balking trick of his. Once I got used to the fact
+that the boy meant to know life--not abuse it--I knew a few easy years
+while he plodded or, at times, plunged, through college.
+
+"He couldn't settle, though, on a job, and that upset us at last. He ran
+the gamut of professions in his mind--but none of them appealed to him.
+When he was nineteen he suddenly took an interest in his father--we'd
+never told him much about him. Cameron wasn't a bad chap--he simply
+hadn't character enough to _be_ bad--he was a floater! When Bud got that
+into his system, it sobered him more than if he'd been told his father
+was a scamp. A year later the boy came to me and said: 'Uncle David, if
+you don't think I'd queer your profession--I'm going to make a try at
+it.'"
+
+Martin's face beamed and then he went on:
+
+"That was a big day for me, Doris, but even when the chap went into it,
+I kept quiet. I feared he might balk. But he hasn't! He's big
+stuff--that boy of mine. He confided everything to me this time. Certain
+phases of the work almost drove him off--dissecting and, well, the
+grimmer aspects! Often, he told me, he had to put up a stiff fight with
+himself before he could enter a dissecting room--but that does one of
+two things, Doris: makes a doctor human or a brute. It has humanized
+Bud. He'll be through now, in a year or so, and I'm going to throw him
+neck and crop into my practice. I'll stand by for awhile, but I have
+great faith in my boy!"
+
+Doris looked up at the grave, happy face above her own.
+
+For a moment a sensation she had never experienced before touched
+her--it was like jealousy!
+
+"How he would have adored a son of his own," she thought, "and what a
+father he would have been!"
+
+She faltered before speaking, then she said quietly:
+
+"If--if I have deprived you of much, David, at least I have not killed
+the soul of you."
+
+"I'm learning as I go along, my dear," Martin replied.
+
+"We're not all developed in the same way."
+
+"And, David," Doris trembled as she spoke, "as you feel for your boy, so
+I feel for my Joan. You must trust me."
+
+"That is different," Martin stiffened.
+
+"It is the same."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+"_In all directions gulfs and yawning abysses._"
+
+
+That was what David Martin felt was encompassing Joan. He wanted to take
+a hand in her affairs, but before he left Ridge House Doris made him
+promise that unless she changed her mind, he would not even call upon
+Joan.
+
+"If she knows that you have your eye on her, David, much of what I hope
+for will be threatened. You have quite a dreadful eye, dear man, and
+Joan is sensitive. She may look you up--I will write to her about you.
+If she doesn't, she does not want you to--well, Davey, meddle! And she
+has a perfect right to her freedom. She is self-supporting now!"
+
+Doris could but show her pride in Joan's cleverness.
+
+"Very well, Doris. I wash my hands of the matter, but I think it sheer
+madness!"
+
+With that Martin returned to town and waited, hopefully, for a summons
+from Joan. It did not come!
+
+He did go so far, one evening, as to walk on the block where the studio
+was, but he got no satisfaction from that except the proof of its
+respectability.
+
+"I cannot look back just now!" Joan had thought when considering Martin,
+"and Uncle David would tell me things about Aunt Dorrie and Nancy that
+would rumple all my calm, and I dare not risk it."
+
+In this she was wise--for there were times when, the novelty and freedom
+of self-support worn off, the temptation to return to the waiting
+flesh-pots was very great. At such moments of weakness Patricia rallied
+her.
+
+"Don't be one of the women who are ready to sell their birthrights for
+a meal ticket," Patricia urged, looking her daintiest and saintliest.
+
+"But what _is_ one's birthright?" Joan asked.
+
+"The self-expression of--yourself," Patricia smiled serenely.
+
+This always reinstated Joan in her old resolve.
+
+"To come to town and cut capers at the Brier Bush," she confided to
+Sylvia, once Patricia was off the scene, "is poor proof of anything.
+Syl, I'm going to get to work seriously soon with my music."
+
+"We'll get a piano," practical Sylvia suggested; "there is no need to
+grow rusty while you're making money."
+
+And so they secured the piano, and the studio had another charm.
+
+The Brier Bush, in the meantime, was waxing great in popularity and
+financial success. Elspeth Gordon from her position of assurance gave it
+a unique touch. No one could take liberties with her tea room. Presently
+delicious luncheons were added to the scheme, and, while Joan's part was
+regarded with amused complacency, the excellent food and service
+commanded respect.
+
+At first women came largely to the pretty, attractive rooms; then,
+occasionally, men, rather timidly, presented themselves, but finding
+themselves taken for granted and the food above reproach, they appeared
+in numbers and enjoyed it.
+
+And then one rather gloomy, early spring day Mrs. Tweksbury came upon
+the scene.
+
+Joan knew her at once, although the old face was more wrinkled and
+delicate.
+
+Of course Mrs. Tweksbury had not the slightest inkling concerning Joan's
+movements, and she looked upon the veiled young creature moving about
+the tea room with a cool, calm stare of amused disapproval.
+
+"Quite a faddish thing you're making of your venture," she said to
+Elspeth Gordon, for of course with a bishop for a grandfather Miss
+Gordon was taken for granted. Elspeth smiled her most dignified smile
+and replied graciously:
+
+"Just a bit of amusement, Mrs. Tweksbury. It helps digestion and,
+incidentally, helps business."
+
+"But the--the young woman, Miss Gordon--is she a professional?"
+
+"Have you tested her, Mrs. Tweksbury?"
+
+"Oh! no, my dear Miss Gordon." Mrs. Tweksbury had beautiful old hands
+and she turned the palms up while she considered them.
+
+"Suppose you judge for yourself, Mrs. Tweksbury." Elspeth was charmingly
+easy in her manner.
+
+"Who is she?" bluntly asked the old lady.
+
+"Ah!" And here Elspeth recoiled. "My palmist and my best recipes are
+sacred to me, Mrs. Tweksbury. But may I call my little seer to you?"
+
+Mrs. Tweksbury consented, and when Joan looked at the pink, soft palm a
+spirit of mischief possessed her.
+
+Skirting as near as she dared to the facts in her possession, she
+gently, but startlingly, took the owner of the hand at a disadvantage.
+
+At first Mrs. Tweksbury was confirmed in her idea that the girl before
+her was a society girl--her general knowledge could be explained by
+that, but suddenly Joan became more daring--she vividly recalled much
+that she had heard Doris say in defence of the old woman whom Nancy and
+she feared and often ridiculed.
+
+It took but a twist to change a private incident into a blurred but
+amazing suggestion.
+
+Mrs. Tweksbury was frankly and angrily impressed.
+
+When passing from the room Miss Gordon spoke to her:
+
+"Do you believe in my Veiled Lady?" she asked.
+
+"Certainly not, Miss Gordon, but I'm--afraid of her! You had better
+guard her somewhat--or she'll be taken seriously."
+
+"We'll never see _her_ again!" prophesied Joan, chuckling over her
+victory with the old lady; "I've evened up for Nan and me!" she thought,
+and then the incident passed from her mind.
+
+But not so easily did the matter go from the confused thoughts of Mrs.
+Tweksbury.
+
+"I dare say," she finally concluded, "that if one could tear the veil
+from the face of that impudent little minx one would discover the
+smartest of the objectionable Smart Set. The girl should be curbed--how
+dare she!"--here Emily Tweksbury flushed a rich mahogany red as she
+recalled some of the cleverly concealed details of, what seemed to her,
+the most private affairs.
+
+"Outrageous!" she snorted, and vowed that she deserved all that she had
+received for supporting the new-fangled nonsense that was spreading like
+a new social evil in the heart of all she held sacred.
+
+Patricia Leigh had not been so interested in years as she was in Joan's
+affairs at the Brier Bush. They smacked of high adventure and thrilled
+the girl.
+
+To Sylvia they were rather grovelling means to a legitimate end. She
+scowled at Joan's vivid description of her experiences and warned her to
+trust not too fully to her veil.
+
+"But it's a splendid lark!" Patricia burst in, defensively; "it's Art
+spelled in capitals. Joan, take my advice and get points about the
+swells and scare them stiff!"
+
+"Pat, you should be ashamed!" Sylvia scowled darkly.
+
+"Yes?" purred Patricia. Then: "I see the finish of Plain John's romance,
+my sinister Syl, if you don't limber up your spine. Genius, love, and
+unbending virtue never pull together."
+
+And then--it was when March was dreariest and drippiest--Kenneth Raymond
+strode--that was the only word to describe his long-legged advance--into
+the Brier Bush for luncheon with Mrs. Tweksbury.
+
+He had listened to variations of Mrs. Tweksbury's first visit to the tea
+room with varying degrees of impatience.
+
+He hated tea rooms; he had little interest in young women, and
+particularly disapproved of the type bordering on license; but he had
+consented to go in order to lay the old lady's growing nervousness
+concerning the details of her first visit.
+
+"My dear," Mrs. Tweksbury had said to Raymond, "the more I think of it
+the more I am puzzled."
+
+"Exactly," Raymond replied; "the more you think of it the more puzzles
+you introduce. Undoubtedly the young woman is a girl playing outside her
+legitimate preserves. She's taking an unfair advantage. They always do.
+Presuming on sex and social position. Unless the girl is an outlaw,
+she'll confine her antics to the safe outer edge."
+
+In this mood Raymond strode into the Brier Bush with Mrs. Tweksbury at
+his heels. They took a table near the fireplace and, rather arrogantly,
+Raymond looked about.
+
+"No one was going to take him in!" was what his stern young eyes and
+dominant chin proclaimed.
+
+He was of that type of man that gives the impression of being handsome
+without any of the damaging features so often included. He was handsome
+because he was strong, well set up, and completely unconscious of
+himself.
+
+He was always willing to pay the right price for what he wanted, but he
+meant to get good value! He was lavish with what was his own, as Mrs.
+Tweksbury almost tearfully asserted, but about that he never spoke and
+always frowned down any reference to it.
+
+He expected the usual thing at the Brier Bush, and was just enough to
+show some appreciation when he did not find it.
+
+The rooms were unique and charming. Elspeth Gordon was impressive as she
+walked about among her guests. She might permit them to be amused; help,
+indeed, to give them a cheery hour in the busy day, but not for a moment
+would she admit what could be questionable in her scheme.
+
+That being proved, Raymond critically attacked the bill of fare. Its
+promise was like the atmosphere of the place, honest and wholesome.
+
+No man is proof against such dishes as were presently set before him.
+Raymond was so engrossed by their merit and so surprised by it that he
+forgot the main thing that had brought him to the Brier Bush until he
+felt Mrs. Tweksbury's foot firmly and insistently pressing his. He
+looked up.
+
+Joan was passing their table and very slightly she inclined her head
+toward it.
+
+Her eyes were what startled Raymond. If eyes in themselves have no
+expression, then the soul, looking through, has full play.
+
+All Joan's youth and ignorance and unconscious wisdom shone forth. Mrs.
+Tweksbury amused her, but the man at the table disturbed her. She
+misinterpreted the calm glance he fixed upon her. It was a disapproving
+glance, to be sure, and Joan shrank from that, but she felt that he was
+cruelly misjudging her and was so sure of himself that he dared to do
+it--without even knowing!
+
+This she resented with a flash of her wonderful eyes.
+
+What Raymond really meant was--doubt. Not of her, but himself.
+
+"Saucy witch!" whispered Mrs. Tweksbury; "Ken, test her, for my sake!"
+Again the foot under the table steered Raymond's thoughts.
+
+He found himself smiling up at Joan and, rising, offered her the third
+chair at his table.
+
+She sat down quite indifferently, but graciously, and spread out her
+pretty hands. Joan's hands were lovely--Raymond was susceptible to
+hands. To him they indicated fineness or the reverse. Art could do much
+for hands, but Nature could do more.
+
+Quite as graciously and simply as Joan had done Raymond spread his own
+hands forth with the remark: "At your mercy, Sibyl."
+
+Now Joan, through much study of books and with a certain intuition that
+stood her in good stead, had cleverly conquered her tricks. For what
+they were worth, she offered them charmingly, seriously, and with
+impressiveness.
+
+Then, too, from much guessing, with astonishing results, she had grown
+to half believe in what she was doing. Patricia aided her in this.
+Patricia had a superstitious streak and took to fads as she took to her
+verse--on her flying trips.
+
+"You are a business man," Joan began, fixing her splendid eyes on the
+frankly upturned hands--she was comparing them with the hands of the
+Third Sex, those studio-haunting men whose hands, like their linen and
+morals, were too often off-colour.
+
+"An honest business man!" Joan thought that, but did not voice it.
+
+"You will succeed--if----" This she spoke aloud and then looked up. She
+was ready now to punish her prey for that look of doubt in his eyes.
+
+"If--what?" Raymond was conscious of the "feel" of the hand which held
+his--Joan's other hand was lying open beside his on the table.
+
+"If----" and now Joan traced delicately a line in his palm--a faint,
+wavering line running hither and thither among the more strongly marked
+ones; "if you strengthen this line," she said. "You are too sure of--of
+your inherited traits. This line indicates individuality; it will rule
+in the end, but you are making personality your god now. That is unwise.
+As a well-trained servant it is wonderful, but as a master it will run
+you off your best course."
+
+How Patricia would have gloried could she have heard her words mouthed
+by Joan!
+
+Raymond stared. He felt Mrs. Tweksbury's foot on his and, mentally,
+clung to it as a familiar and safe landmark.
+
+"Just what difference lies between individuality and personality?" he
+asked so seriously that Joan's mouth twitched under her life-saving
+veil. She brought Patricia's philosophy into more active action.
+
+"The difference is the meaning of life. One comes into this
+consciousness with his individuality--or soul, or whatever one cares to
+call it--intact. It accepts or repudiates what the personality--that is
+intellect--learns through the five senses. If it is _truth_, then it
+becomes part of the individuality--if it is untruth, it is discarded.
+Individuality is never in doubt--it _knows_. It is not bound by foolish
+laws evolved from the five-sensed personality; it will, in the end, have
+its way. You will have to listen more to your individuality; be
+controlled less by your personality. The latter is too fully
+developed"--at this broad slash Raymond coloured in spite of
+himself--"the former has been pitifully ignored."
+
+The pause that followed was made normal only by the pressure on
+Raymond's foot.
+
+Presently he said, boldly:
+
+"You have the same line in your own hand, Sibyl!"
+
+Joan started and looked down. She had not considered a home thrust
+possible. Instinctively her long, slim fingers clutched the secret of
+her palm.
+
+"I am not reading my own lines," she said, quietly; "I am learning from
+them, however!"
+
+Then she rose with dignity and passed to another table where a broad,
+flat, commonplace hand lay ready.
+
+"Well?" Mrs. Tweksbury pounced into the arena like a released gladiator.
+"What do you make of it, Ken?"
+
+Raymond laughed. He saw that Mrs. Tweksbury was more impressed than she
+cared to acknowledge.
+
+"I don't know what she told you, Aunt Emily," he said, taking up the
+check beside his plate, "but it was rather cleverly concealed rot, as
+far as I am concerned. Drivel; faddy drivel, but the girl's a lady, or
+whatever that word stands for. I half believe the child takes herself
+seriously--she has wonderful eyes. She should wear blinders--it isn't
+fair to leave them outside the veil. Comical little beggar!"
+
+"But, Ken," Emily Tweksbury followed her companion from the room, "you
+are like that--you really are! You just take life by the throat and you
+are sure of yourself in a way that frightens me."
+
+"Oh, come, Aunt Emily, that girl has caught you by her nonsense. See
+here, let us do a bit of sleuthing! I bet the sibyl often is at dinners
+where we go--and I'm not so sure but what I would know those hands of
+hers anywhere--they were not ordinary hands. Two can play at her little
+game."
+
+This seemed to offer some inducement to Mrs. Tweksbury and she
+brightened.
+
+"Her walk, too, Ken. Did you notice that?"
+
+"Yes--I did, by Jove! Longer strides than most girls take and a swing
+from the hips like a graceful dance motion. Yes, that walk should be a
+dead give-away."
+
+"And her eyes, Ken, she _has_ eyes!"
+
+"Yes," rather musingly, "she has eyes!"
+
+"Ken, we mustn't give further countenance to this silly, faddy place."
+
+This with conviction.
+
+"Why should we, Aunt Emily? I only went at your request, you know."
+
+"Of course. The girl got on my nerves." Mrs. Tweksbury could smile now.
+
+"Well, I'm going to get on hers!" Raymond set his jaw.
+
+Two days later Kenneth Raymond went to the Brier Bush again for
+luncheon. This time Mrs. Tweksbury did not accompany him.
+
+He took a table at the far end of the room near the windows--he wanted
+light. He ordered his luncheon, read his paper, and to all intents and
+purposes gave the impression of a business man who, having discovered a
+place of good food, repaired to it with confidence. Of course Elspeth
+Gordon did not remember him--why should she? But Joan did--and why
+should she? She was reading the palms of a hilarious group near the
+table at which Raymond sat reading the stock reports; she was in a gale
+of high spirits but, when she was aware of Raymond's glance, she paused
+and caught her breath.
+
+"Anything bad in my hand?" asked the girl whose palm Joan was scanning.
+
+"Oh, no! Something splendid. You are never to make mistakes, because
+your caution is stronger than your desire," Joan murmured.
+
+"I think _that_ is stupid," the girl returned; "no fun in that kind of
+thing."
+
+Joan prolonged each reading at the safe, jolly table; she planned, when
+she was done, to ignore the man near her and go in the opposite
+direction, but while she planned she was aware that she would do no such
+thing. The bird and the snake know this force, so do the moon and the
+tides.
+
+And at last Joan got up and turned toward Raymond. As she passed his
+table--he was busy with his soup then--her head was high and her eyes
+fixed upon Miss Gordon at the other end of the room. She was estimating
+her chances of reaching Elspeth with the limited self-control at her
+command. Then she heard words and paused without turning her head.
+
+"I wish you would stop a moment. I have a question to ask you."
+
+Joan had a sudden fear that if she did not stop the question would be
+shouted.
+
+"Very well," she said, quietly, and sat down opposite Raymond.
+
+She clasped her pretty hands before her and--waited.
+
+It is not easy to laugh away the moments in life that we cannot account
+for--they often seem the only moments of tremendous import; they are the
+channels which, once entered, give access to wide experiences. Joan felt
+her breath coming hard; she was frightened. Raymond pushed his plate
+aside and, leaning forward a bit over his clasped hands, said casually:
+
+"Just how much of this rot do you believe?"
+
+"None of it."
+
+"Why do you do it?"
+
+"I am earning my bread and butter and--dessert."
+
+"Especially--the dessert?"
+
+"No. Especially bread and butter. It is only a bit of fun, you
+know--this reading of the palms. Miss Gordon thinks it--it aids
+digestion," Joan was speaking hardly above a whisper.
+
+"She does, eh?" Raymond had an insane desire to snatch the shielding
+veil from the face across the table. He wondered what would happen if he
+did?
+
+"I wish," he said instead, "I wish you'd cut it out, you know."
+
+"What--my bread and butter?"
+
+"No--this tomfoolery. I don't believe you have to earn your living. I'd
+lay a wager that you are doing it as a stunt to vary the monotony of a
+dull existence, but there are other and better ways of doing that, you
+know."
+
+Raymond was deadly earnest and did not stop to consider the absurdity of
+his words and tones.
+
+"What ways?" asked Joan, and Raymond detected the suggestion of a smile
+behind the vapoury veil.
+
+"I don't think I need to tell you that," he said.
+
+"Perhaps not--but after consideration I've chosen this way. I like it."
+Joan was getting control of herself, and in proportion to her gain
+Raymond lost.
+
+"I suppose you think me an impudent ass," he ventured.
+
+"I'm--thinking of something else," Joan answered.
+
+"What, for instance?"
+
+"That line--in your hand."
+
+"I thought you said this was only fun; that you did not believe in it?"
+Raymond frowned as he saw his next course advancing toward him.
+
+"There are exceptions," and Joan helped him arrange his dishes.
+
+"Some day, if you are interested, come and I'll tell you more about that
+line in your hand." She rose with quiet grace and moved away.
+
+"Oh! I say--" Raymond followed her with his eyes--"why not to-day?"
+
+"There are others," Joan tossed back and was gone.
+
+That night she went to Patricia Leigh's. Patricia had had a busy and
+prosperous day. She had written some verses that she felt were
+good--they had a tang that always gave Patricia the belief in their
+quality; she had sold two other small things. She was, therefore, at her
+flightiest, and greeted Joan with delight.
+
+"I'm so glad Syl is not tagging on, Joan," she said. "Syl is the best
+they make, but she does somehow get under the skin and make people feel
+themselves 'seconds'."
+
+Joan sank into a chair.
+
+"Syl is writing reams to her John," she explained. "I doubt if she
+noticed my leaving. She probably thinks I'm still singing."
+
+And then Joan told Patricia about the man who, for some unknown reason,
+had made himself permanent in her interest.
+
+"I wish I knew about him," she murmured; "I cannot recall any one in the
+least like him in Mrs. Tweksbury's life. I don't want to ask Aunt
+Doris--besides, he may just be a chance acquaintance of Mrs.
+Tweksbury's. I hardly think that, though--for she looks volumes at him
+and he sort of appropriates her."
+
+Patricia was frankly interested--she was flying, and at such moments her
+bird's-eye view was a wide and sympathetic one.
+
+Joan, too, in this mood was bewitching.
+
+"All Joan needs," thought Patricia, "is to discover her sex appeal; get
+it on a leash and take it out walking. She's like a marionette
+now--hopping about, doing stunts, but not conscious of her performance."
+
+"Lamb!" Patricia lighted a fresh cigarette, "a week from to-night you
+breeze in here and what I do not know about your young man, by that
+time, will not count for or against him."
+
+"But, Pat, do be careful!" Joan was frightened by what she had set in
+motion.
+
+"Careful, lamb? Why, if carefulness wasn't my keynote, I'd be--well! I
+wouldn't be here."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+"_Joyous we launch out on trackless seas carolling free, singing our
+songs._"
+
+
+A week from that night Joan again eluded Sylvia. She did it by not going
+to the studio for dinner. She felt deceitful and mean, but there were
+heights--or were they depths?--that Sylvia could not reach, and
+intuitively Joan felt that Sylvia would disapprove of what she was now
+doing.
+
+Patricia was not in when Joan reached her rooms--they were small, dim
+rooms and rather cluttered.
+
+Sitting alone, waiting, Joan thought of Patricia more intimately than
+she often did. She recalled what Sylvia had told of her; remembered the
+warnings, and her eyes dimmed.
+
+"Poor old Pat!" she mused, "she's like a pretty bird--just lighting on
+things, or"--and here Joan thought she had struck on something rather
+expressive--"or like a lovely, bright cloud casting a shadow. No matter
+what colour the cloud is, the shadow's dark. Dear old Pat! Well--I see
+the colour."
+
+This was satisfying and brought up her feeling about Patricia, which had
+been depressed.
+
+And just then Patricia tripped in, humming and rippling and stumbling
+over a rug as she felt her way in the gloom--Joan had not turned on the
+lights. Presently she stopped short and asked sharply:
+
+"Who is here?"
+
+Joan bubbled over and Patricia gave a relieved laugh.
+
+"Lordy!" she gasped, "you gave me a bad minute. I thought----"
+
+"What, Pat?" Joan touched the switch.
+
+"I--I thought--it might be someone else. I haven't had a thing to eat
+since breakfast," Patricia announced, dropping on a couch and pulling
+the cushions into all the crevices surrounding her thin, weary little
+body.
+
+"I'll get the nicest little meal for you in a jiffy!" Joan sprang to her
+feet. "Is there anything _to_ fix?" she added, quickly.
+
+"There's always something"--Patricia closed her eyes--"eggs and milk
+and--and canned horrors." Then, with a radiant smile:
+
+"I've been on the trail of your man, Joan, and it was some trail."
+
+"Pat, darling," Joan hung over the couch, "you take a couple of winks.
+I'm going out to get--a steak."
+
+"A what?" Patricia regarded Joan gravely. "A brand-new steak for me?
+Joan, you must be mad!"
+
+"Pat, lie down and dream a minute or two. A steak, fried potatoes, a
+vegetable, and dessert with coffee, cheese, crackers--and--and----" Joan
+was putting on her hat while she spoke and Patricia was sniffing
+adorably.
+
+A half hour later Joan crept noiselessly back, her arms full of bundles.
+Patricia lay fast asleep on the couch.
+
+Sleep does revealing things, and in spite of her hurry, Joan stopped and
+looked at the girl lying in the full glare of the electric light.
+
+She was like a weary child. All the hard lines on the thin face were
+obliterated; the soft hair fell in cunning curls about the neck and
+ears; the long lashes rested delicately on the fair skin.
+
+All the world stains were covered by the sweet presence of Patricia's
+youth, which had stolen forth in slumber time.
+
+Then it was that Joan discovered that she was crying. Big tears were
+rolling down her cheeks, and in her heart was growing a new, vital
+emotion--a selfless, nameless, urging tide of protection for something
+weak and helpless.
+
+When the meal was prepared Joan kissed Patricia awake.
+
+The girl sat up and gazed dazedly at the small table drawn to the couch,
+at the candles burning on it, at the covered dishes from which crept the
+most bewildering smells.
+
+"The god of the famishing--bless you!" whispered Patricia and fell to
+the joy of the meal with the abandon of the starved.
+
+She ate and drank and smoked. She let Joan wait upon her and dispose of
+the debris. She even directed Joan to the closet where her kimono and
+slippers were; she let Joan undress her and put them on.
+
+"How thin you are, Pat lovey!" Here Joan kissed a white shoulder.
+
+"A mere bag of bones, Joan lamb, but they are easy to carry around."
+
+"And such ducks of feet, Pat, I never saw such cunning feet. They do not
+look big enough to be of use."
+
+"They'll carry me as far as I have to go, Joan, and take it from me, I'm
+not keen for a prolonged trip. It's too much trouble to keep yourself
+alive to want to spin it out."
+
+"Oh, Pat! Hasn't my dinner done you any good?" Joan smoothed the soft,
+fluffy curls tenderly.
+
+"Why, you old darling," Patricia broke forth, "you've given me a glimpse
+of what would make it worth while--the trip, I mean. That's the trouble.
+I get the glimpse, acquire the taste, and then I wake up to--sawdust.
+Oh! good God, Joan."
+
+Joan rose and turned off the lights; she left the candles burning and
+sat down on a stool by Patricia.
+
+After a while Patricia reached for her cigarettes and spoke as if
+several big things had not occurred. She gurgled as a mischievous child
+might who had stolen jam and escaped detection.
+
+"Your man, Joan," she began puffing away, "is named Kenneth Raymond. In
+tracking him I resorted first to Hannah Leland, society editor of
+_Froth_. Hannah stores up items about the upper crust as a squirrel does
+nuts. Her articles always have background; she's let in everywhere
+because folks are afraid to shut her out. She can see more through
+keyholes than others do through barn doors, and her scent
+is--phenomenal!"
+
+Joan hugged her knees and looked grave.
+
+"I--I hate to snoop, Pat," she whispered.
+
+"You don't have to--I got Hannah's snoops for you. They're innocent
+enough--really, they're the soundest of sound little nuts.
+
+"Mrs. Tweksbury had a romance! Don't grin, Joan. She didn't always look
+like a squaw in front of a tobacco shop--they say she was rather a
+stunner. She married Tweksbury before she got the bit in her
+mouth--afterward she clutched it good and proper and trotted the course
+according to the rules.
+
+"Then came Raymond--this man's father. He somehow got it over to Mrs.
+Tweksbury--the real thing, you know, and she reached and got it over to
+_him_, that it was up to them to--keep it clean. Gee! Joan, her past
+sounds like a tract with all the sobs left out and a lot of iron put in.
+
+"Raymond, in a year or two, married a woman who lived only long enough
+to produce this man upon whose trail we're scouting. This Kenneth was a
+measly little offspring and his mother's people undertook to give him a
+chance to live. He picked up and he and his father became pals--Hannah
+rooted out a picture of them riding horseback. Then the father was
+thrown from his horse and killed right before the eyes of the boy, and
+that put him back years--he barely escaped. I don't believe he would
+have, from accounts, if Mrs. Tweksbury hadn't butted in at that point
+and made it a matter of honour to the boy to--to--carry on!
+
+"Well, once he mounted _that_ horse he rode it as he did all
+others--hard and grim. He never played in all his life. He's been making
+good. Society he loathes; women do not exist for him, outside of Mrs.
+Tweksbury. I bet he knows _her_ past and is paying back for his
+dad--he's like that.
+
+"Well, when I'd got everything Hannah had in her safe I had a burning
+desire to have a look at Mr. Kenneth Raymond myself. So this afternoon I
+went to his office----"
+
+"Pat!" cried Joan. "Oh! Pat, how could you?"
+
+"Easiest thing in the world, my lamb. You see, the chance of viewing a
+human being--with one fortune in his pocket and another coming to him
+when Mrs. Tweksbury lets go--actually on a job holding it down like
+grim death--was a sight to gladden the heart of a tramp like me. I
+sallied down to Wall Street and had some fun.
+
+"I found his building without a moment's delay and I casually asked the
+elevator boy where Mr. Raymond's office was, and the little chap grew
+effusive--either Mr. Raymond is lavish with tips, or the human touch,
+for his goings and comings are meat to that kid.
+
+"He told me I had better hustle, for at four-thirty every day Mr.
+Raymond beat it! The boy was an artist in word-painting. He described my
+man as a real toff, none of your little yappers. He's going to haul in
+the pile and playing honest-to-God--fair, too!"
+
+Joan burst out laughing. Patricia mimicked the ribald manner of the boy
+deliciously.
+
+Patricia nodded her thanks and went on:
+
+"Well, I hung around his corridor for ten minutes, Joan; and at
+four-thirty exactly his door opened and I had timed myself so perfectly
+that he tumbled over me and nearly knocked me down.
+
+"He has better manners than you might expect from such a deadly prompt
+person. He steadied me and looked positively concerned when he realized
+what a pretty, helpless little thing I am!" Patricia gave a wicked wink
+and lighted her fifth cigarette.
+
+"I told him I was looking for ---- and I made up a preposterous name; and
+he puckered his lofty brow and said he couldn't recall any such name in
+the building, and then I told him I had about concluded that I had the
+wrong address, and he offered to look the name up for me, but I sighed
+and said that it was too late. My man always left his office at
+three-forty-five and that I would have to come again.
+
+"We went down in the elevator together, the boy winking all the way down
+at me--and--that's all, Joan, except that you've got to go careful with
+Mr. Kenneth Raymond. You don't want to hurt that fairy godmother of his;
+she hasn't had many things of her own in life, and I do insist that
+while one is grabbing it's better to grab where there is a flock than
+pick a ewe-lamb. Besides, this Kenneth Raymond hasn't begun to
+understand himself--he's been too busy understanding life. Have a heart,
+Joan!"
+
+Joan looked up sedately.
+
+"Isn't it queer, Pat, but now that I know him he doesn't seem
+interesting in the least. He's priggish and conceited; he's a poser,
+too. It is too bad, Pat, for you to tire yourself out and get such a--a
+dry stick for your pains."
+
+Patricia regarded Joan for a full minute and then she remarked:
+
+"You had better go home and get to bed, child. And look here--I give you
+this advice free: a fire lighted by an idiot can do as much damage as
+any other kind of a fire."
+
+"Thanks, Pat. I'll remember that when I--play around dry sticks.
+Good-night, you old, funny Pat, and thank you."
+
+Joan bent and kissed the top of Patricia's head.
+
+After that evening with Patricia Joan clung to Sylvia with unusual
+tenacity. She also went to see a well-known teacher of music and got his
+opinion of her voice.
+
+"Your voice needs nearly everything to be done for it that can be done
+to a voice," the professor frankly told her, "but you _have_ a voice,
+beyond doubt. You have feeling, too, almost too much of it; it is
+feeling uncontrolled, perhaps not understood.
+
+"If you are willing to give years to it you will be a singer."
+
+The man thought that he was killing hope in the girl before him, but to
+his surprise she raised her eyes seriously to him and said:
+
+"I am a working girl, but I am saving for the chance of doing what you
+suggest. I will begin next winter. I think I know that I shall never be
+great, but I believe I will sing some day."
+
+The man bowed her out with deep respect.
+
+When Joan told of her interview Sylvia was delighted, and Patricia, who
+had happened in for a cup of tea, looked relieved.
+
+"Of course you'll sing, Joan," she said, enthusiastically, "and if you
+don't turn your talent to account you'll bring the wrath of God down
+upon you. That Brier Bush is well enough to start you--but you're pretty
+well through with it, I fancy."
+
+Patricia was arraigning herself with Sylvia for reasons best known to
+herself. She had the air of a very discreet young woman.
+
+Long did Joan lie awake that night on her narrow bed. She had raised the
+shade, and the stars were splendid in the blue-black sky.
+
+She was happier, sadder, than she had ever been in her life before--more
+confused.
+
+She wanted Doris and Nancy and the shelter and care; she wanted her own
+broad path and the thrill that her own sense of power gave her. She
+wanted to cling close to Sylvia; she was afraid of Patricia but felt the
+girl's influence in her deepest depths.
+
+In short, Joan was waking to the meaning of life, and it had taken very
+little to awaken her, for her time had come.
+
+Three days later Kenneth Raymond ate his luncheon at the Brier Bush and
+spoke no word to Joan. The following day he nodded to her, and the day
+after that he said, in a low voice as she passed:
+
+"I want to have you read my palm again."
+
+"Once is enough," Joan replied.
+
+"I have forgotten what you said," Raymond broke in; "besides, I have
+another reason. You've set me on a line of thought--you've got to clear
+the track."
+
+"Oh, very well." And Joan sat down and took the broad hand in hers.
+
+"I've read a lot of stuff since I saw you first," Raymond began. "There
+is something in this palmistry."
+
+"I just take the words and play with them," Joan replied. "I truly do
+not know whether there is anything in it--or not. It is only fun here."
+
+"Look at me!"
+
+This Joan refused to do.
+
+"There is that line in my hand like yours"--Raymond was in dead
+earnest--"what--does it mean?"
+
+"I told you what it means," Joan faltered.
+
+"Do you want me to read your palm?" Raymond bent farther across the
+table.
+
+"Yes, if you can!" Joan was on her mettle. She instantly spread her
+hands to the bent gaze and prayed that no one would take the tables near
+by. It was late; the rush was over and Elspeth Gordon, for the moment,
+had left the room.
+
+"You're not what you appear," Raymond began.
+
+"Who _is_?" Joan flung this out defiantly.
+
+"You're daring a good deal--to taste life. You're testing your line;
+making it prove itself--_I_ haven't dared!"
+
+Joan did not speak, and her small hands were as quiet as little dead
+hands in the strong ones which held them.
+
+"Does it pay--the daring, the testing?" Raymond's eyes, dark and
+unfaltering, tried to pierce the veil.
+
+"Yes--I think so."
+
+"You make me want to try--do you dare me?"
+
+"It does not interest me at all what you do." Joan was like ice now.
+"You evidently misunderstand our play here. Let go of my hands!"
+
+"I haven't finished yet. You've got to hear me out."
+
+"Let go of my hands!"
+
+"All right--but will you stay here?"
+
+"I'll stay until I want to go."
+
+"Very well. I know I'm a good deal of a fool--but sometimes a slight
+thing turns the stream. I thought it was all rot--a play that you'd made
+up--this line business." Raymond spoke hurriedly. "Of course I'd heard
+of it, but I never gave it a thought. Just for sport, after that first
+day, I got bushels of books and I've been sitting up nights reading.
+There's something in it!"
+
+Joan laughed. The man looked like an excited boy who had started a toy
+engine going.
+
+"See here! They say your left hand is what you start with; your right
+hand what you have made of yourself--that line that you have and I have
+is in my right hand--is yours in both?"
+
+Joan tried not to look--but ended in looking.
+
+"No," she replied. "I reckon it only comes in the right hand with
+anybody."
+
+"No, it doesn't; the lady I was with the other day hadn't it in either
+hand!"
+
+"Isn't she lucky?" Joan laughed.
+
+"No, she isn't!" Raymond spoke solemnly. "Only the people who have
+it--are."
+
+"I'm going now." Joan got up; and so did Raymond.
+
+"See here," he said, bluntly. "I've never had a bit of adventure in my
+life--I'm a stick. I don't know what you will think of me; I don't care
+much; but you've started something in me; it's nothing I'm ashamed of,
+either, and you needn't be afraid. But won't you talk to me some
+time--about--well, this stunt and some other things?"
+
+"Certainly not!" Joan drew back and added: "and I am not in the least
+afraid."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+"_But after it comes our lives are changed._"
+
+
+And just when winter was turning to spring in the southern hills
+something happened to Nancy.
+
+The winter at Ridge House had revealed many things. It had been lonely,
+and it had brought conviction about Joan's absence. The girl was not
+coming back to them, that must be an accepted fact. She would,
+undoubtedly, when she became adjusted, return on visits--but they must
+not expect her as a fixture, for she was succeeding! This realization
+had caused Doris many silent hours of thought, but never once had she
+known bitterness or a sense of injustice. Joan had as much right as any
+other human soul to her own development. Doris was glad that Joan had
+never known what Nancy knew about the need for coming to The Gap. The
+knowing would have held Joan back. With Nancy it was different. Nancy
+was not held from anything she wanted.
+
+David Martin spent as much time as he could at Ridge House. He came to
+the hard conclusion, at length, that Doris, in her new environment, had
+reached her high-water mark. Detached from strain and care, living
+quietly, and largely in the open, she had responded almost at once--to
+her limit, and there she remained. How long this improved state would
+hold was the main thing to be considered; nothing more comforting could
+be looked for.
+
+"Then, what next?" thought David, and his jaw grew grim.
+
+And Nancy, with a winter far too quiet and uneventful even for her, had
+contrived to do some thinking for herself. Not for the world would the
+girl have accepted Joan's choice. The safe and sheltered life was wholly
+to her taste, but she wanted others to fall into line. Like many
+another, she was not content to hold her own views, she was unhappy
+unless she was approved and imitated. She wanted the spice and thrill of
+Joan in her life; Joan was part of it all--the rightful part. With this
+Nancy took to self-pity in order to establish her claim.
+
+"Why should I be taken for granted and be obliged to give up all the fun
+and brightness while Joan does as she pleases?"
+
+Doctor Martin, even Doris, expected Nancy to come when she was called
+and go to bed when the clock struck ten, while Joan could follow her own
+sweet will.
+
+At this point Nancy re-read Joan's letters--all letters from Joan were
+common property. If ever there was innocent jugglery Joan's letters
+were. They were vivid and interesting; they carried one along on a
+stream as clear as crystal, but they arrived at nothing.
+
+The studio was left to the imagination of the reader. Doris saw it as a
+safe and artistic home for earnest young girlhood; Nancy saw it as an
+open sesame to fun, rather wilder than school bats, but with the same
+delicious tang. Doctor Martin viewed the place as most dangerous, and
+those young people gathered there as perilous offsprings of a
+much-deplored departure from conservative youth.
+
+"Fancy Joan helping in a restaurant!" groaned Nancy when Joan had
+particularized about her "job." "Joan, of all people!"
+
+"It will be good practice," Doris remarked in reply. "When Joan marries,
+she will have had some experience."
+
+"Marry?" David Martin broke in--he was on one of his flying visits. "If
+anything could unfit a girl for marriage, the thing Joan is doing is
+that."
+
+"Very well," Doris said, quietly; "marriage isn't everything, David."
+
+Doris was beginning to defend Joan, and it hurt her to be obliged to do
+so. She did not regret the relinquishing of the girl, but she had hoped,
+in her deepest love, that the experiment might either prove a failure or
+that it might carry Joan to a peak--not a dead level. It was beginning
+to seem that the sacrifice on her part meant simply separating Joan
+from her--not giving Joan to anything worth while.
+
+There were moments, rather vague, elusive ones, to be sure, when Doris
+turned from Joan and contemplated Nancy.
+
+"The child is perfectly content and happy," she thought; "but ought she
+to be so--at her age? Nancy should marry--she will, of course, some
+day.----" Then Doris wondered whom Nancy could marry.
+
+"Next winter I may be able to go to New York," she comforted herself;
+"or I'll send Nancy to Emily Tweksbury; the child shall have her life
+chance."
+
+But with Doris the inevitable was happening: she was sliding gracefully
+down the inclined plane which others had arranged for her. She was
+making no effort, because none was required of her. The peace and
+comfort of the old house in restoring comparative health had placed its
+mark upon her. It was wonderful to lie on the porch and watch the beauty
+of The Gap change from season to season. The sound of the river was
+always in her ears, and there was a dramatic appeal in kneeling at the
+altar in the tiny chapel to pray for them whom she loved so tenderly.
+
+And Nancy was so sweet and companionable! Poor little Nancy! She was
+playing Doris's minor accompaniment as once she had played Joan's more
+vivid one. But the youth in her was surging and rebelling--not against
+love and service, but inequality.
+
+"Joan should bear half, anyway!"
+
+Just what it was that Joan should share Nancy could not have told, she
+simply knew that she wanted Joan--wanted what Joan represented.
+
+With the passing of winter and the early coming of spring Nancy and
+Doris reacted to the charm of The Gap. The shut-in days were past.
+Almost before one could hope for it, the dogwood and laurel and azalea
+burst into bloom and the windows and doors were flung back in welcome to
+spring.
+
+The grounds around Ridge House needed much attention, and Doris
+contrived to make Uncle Jed believe that he was the gardener. Nancy,
+surrounded by dogs, no longer pups, wandered on the Little Road and
+timidly took to the trails. It was quite exciting to go a little farther
+each day into the mysterious gloom that was pierced by the golden
+sunlight. Gradually the girl felt the joy of the mountaineer; vaguely
+the emotion took shape.
+
+What lay just around the curve ahead? What could one see from that
+mysterious top? Was there a "top"? If one went on, overcoming obstacles,
+what might there not be? These ambitions were quite outside the by-paths
+once or twice taken with Father Noble.
+
+Doris was glad to see the light and colour in Nancy's pretty face; she
+was grateful, but inclined to be anxious when Nancy wandered far.
+
+"Is it quite safe?" she questioned Jed.
+
+"Dat chile is as safe as she is with Gawd," Jed reverently replied--and
+perhaps she was, for God's ways are often like the trails of the high
+places--hidden until one treads them.
+
+Nancy, by May, had lost all fear of the solitude, and with seeking eyes
+she wandered farther and higher day by day. She brought back wonderful
+flowers and ferns to Ridge House; she grew eloquent about the "lost
+cabins" as she called them, secreted from any gaze but that which, like
+hers, sought them out. She took gifts to the old people and timid
+children.
+
+"It's such fun, Aunt Dorrie," she explained, "to win the baby things. At
+first they are so frightened. They run and hide--they never cry or
+scream, and bye and bye they come to meet me; they bring me little
+treasures, the darlings! One gave me a tiny chicken just hatched."
+
+But beyond the last cabin that Nancy conquered was a hard, rocky trail
+that led, apparently, to the sharp crest called by Uncle Jed Thunder
+Peak.
+
+"Does any one live on Thunder Peak?" asked Nancy of Jed.
+
+The old man wrinkled his brow. He had not thought of Becky Adams for
+years; at best the woman had been but a landmark, and landmarks had a
+habit of disappearing.
+
+"No, there ain't no reason for folks to live on Thunder Peak. It's a
+right sorry place for living."
+
+Jed found comfort, now he came to think of it, in knowing that Becky had
+departed.
+
+"Whar?" he asked himself, when Nancy, followed by two of her dogs, went
+away; "whar dat old Aunt Becky disappeared to?" Then he pulled himself
+together and went to deliver the message Nancy had confided to him.
+
+"Tell Aunt Doris I'm going for a long walk and not to worry if I'm not
+home for luncheon."
+
+Jed repeated this message over and over aloud. He fumbled it, corrected
+it, and then finally gripped it long enough to speak the words
+automatically to Doris and Doctor Martin.
+
+"That old fellow," Martin said, looking keenly after him, "is going to
+go all to pieces some day like the one-hoss shay. He looks about a
+hundred. I wonder how old he is?"
+
+Doris smiled.
+
+"I imagine," she said, "that he is not as old as he looks. He told me
+that his grandfather was married in short trousers and never lived to
+get in long ones. They begin life so early and just shuffle through it."
+
+"You find that thing in the South more than anywhere else." Martin was
+nodding understandingly. "It's like a dream--more like looking at life
+than living it. I suppose when they die they wake up and stretch and
+have a laugh at what they feared and passed through in their sleep."
+
+"We will all do that, more or less, Davey."
+
+"More or less--yes!" Then suddenly:
+
+"Doris, I think you can plan on three months in New York next winter. My
+boy is coming on from the West. I'm going to take my shingle down and
+hang his up."
+
+"Really, David? Take yours _down_?" Doris looked dubious.
+
+"Yes. I'll stay around with him, but I'm going to put my shack on the
+map right under Blowing Rock. I've brought the plans to show you."
+
+Martin took them from his pocket and sat down beside Doris, and while
+they became absorbed, Nancy was climbing her way up Thunder Trail.
+
+Before she realized that she had come so far, she was in the open, the
+sunlight almost blinding her. She started back and screwed her eyes to
+make sure that she saw aright. Not only was she out of the woods but she
+was on the edge of a trim garden plot; there was a dilapidated cabin
+just beyond it, and an ancient creature standing in the doorway.
+
+At first Nancy could not make out whether it was a man or a woman. She
+had never seen any one so old, and the eyes in the shrunken face were
+like burning holes--caverns with fire in them!
+
+Nancy was too stunned to move or speak. Her knowledge of the hills
+forbade the usual fear, but a supernatural terror seized her and she
+waited for the old woman--she decided it was a woman--to make the first
+advance. This the woman presently did. She turned, and with trembling
+haste took up a rusty spade by the door; she shuffled toward a corner of
+the opening and began to dig at a mound that was covered with loose
+earth. Weakly, fearfully, the claw-like hands worked while Nancy stood
+fascinated and bewildered. Finally the old woman came toward her and
+there was a tragic pathos on the wrinkled face that tended to quiet the
+girl's rising fear. The cracked voice was pleading:
+
+"How did yo' get out?" The words came anxiously and with difficulty,
+like the words of a deaf mute that had been taught to speak
+mechanically.
+
+Nancy smiled weakly and looked silently at the speaker.
+
+"Been tryin' to find hit?" the strained voice went on. "Yo' better lie
+still, Zalie--yo' larned enough, chile!"
+
+And then, because the rigid girl did not speak, the old woman drew
+nearer.
+
+Nancy, believing herself in the presence of a harmlessly insane
+creature, rallied her courage and sought to soothe, not excite, the
+woman.
+
+"I'm lost," she faltered. "I am sorry to have disturbed you; I am going
+now."
+
+She half turned, keeping her eyes on her companion.
+
+"Come--set a bit," pleaded the crackling voice; "come warm yo'self
+before I tuck yo' up again. How cold yo' little hands are! Po' little
+Zalie, jes' naturally--tryin' to find hit."
+
+There are limits of fear beyond which, for self-preservation, a kind of
+calm strength lies that suggests ways of safety. Nancy did not run or
+cry out, she did not withdraw her icy hands from the brown, claw-like
+fingers that held them; she even smiled a faint, ghastly smile that
+reassured the old woman. Her eyes softened; her voice almost crooned.
+
+"Us-all is safe--no one comes nigh--it's comfortin' ter tech yo', Zalie,
+an' hit is well placed. Through all the years I done wanted to tell yo';
+I've said it by yo' grave many's the time, chile----" Becky waited a
+moment. She looked cautiously about the sun-lighted place and peered
+into the gloom of the forest-edge, then she looked again at Nancy, while
+her thin hand pointed to the mound under the tree across the bit of
+open. Nancy shuddered.
+
+"What is--that?" she gasped.
+
+"Yo' little grave, Zalie--yo' little bed. I 'tend it loving and proper;
+I take a look-in onct so often--but yo' is cute, like yo' was when yo'
+stole out in the moonshine to larn. You done got out yo' grave when I
+wasn't watching. Come, now, let me put yo' back!"
+
+The old woman turned, and in that instant Nancy fled like a spirit.
+Noiselessly, swiftly she disappeared. She heard the crackling voice
+behind her:
+
+"Jes' creep back by yourself, eh, Zalie?" And then came the sound of
+metal patting down the loose earth on the mound by the solemn trees.
+
+Nancy could never tell what occurred on her descent from Thunder Peak.
+When she reached The Gap, she found that her dogs had strayed from her:
+they had either dropped behind or run before. She was not exhausted. She
+felt strong and calm. The adventure was assuming a thrilling proportion
+now she was at a safe distance. But she had no intention of telling
+Doris. Oddly enough, she felt the need of keeping it secret. She
+shivered as she recalled the touch of the claw-fingers and the sound of
+the dry, hard voice. She had a growing sense of uncleanness, now that
+the shock was wearing off. It almost seemed that a poison had been left
+upon her that was eating its way into depths of her being. She was
+afraid that someone would know; she trembled when old Jed remarked:
+
+"Dis yere little ole pup don slink back like he seed a hant and he had
+burrs stickin' to his sorry-lookin' hide--seems he was off the scent. No
+'count!"
+
+Jed gave the hound a push with his foot, but he had set Nancy's nerves
+tingling.
+
+"I lost the scent myself," she said, striving for calmness. And then
+relying upon the old man's simplicity she asked, pointing across The
+Gap:
+
+"What did you say was the name of that peak, Uncle Jed?" She wanted to
+make very sure!
+
+The old man raised his bleary eyes and looked troubled. He was conscious
+of something stirring in the dark of his mind.
+
+"Thunder," he replied, then he laughed, and the gold in his few
+remaining teeth glistened. Cackling and shuffling along beside Nancy, he
+muttered--his mind again on old Becky:
+
+"Her--as was--or her as is! Maybe she ain't a _was_--'pears like she
+can't be an _is_." Then he grew calmer and faced Nancy. "Stay away from
+Thunder, chile. 'Tain't safe, Thunder ain't--only fer hants."
+
+"I'll stay away, Uncle Jed," Nancy promised fervently, and tried to
+laugh off the foolish, superstitious fear that the old man's words had
+aroused.
+
+Jed went off muttering--he was strangely disturbed.
+
+As the first impression of her adventure wore off Nancy was surprised to
+find that a new fear and restlessness oppressed her. It was like the
+after effects of a blow that had stunned her.
+
+She slept badly--a terrific electric storm swept through The Gap and
+there seemed, to the frightened girl in the west chamber, noises never
+heard before. Creaking steps in the hall; calls in the wind and sharp
+summons as the branches of the trees lashed the windows and the blazing
+lightning shattered the darkness with blinding flashes.
+
+Nancy crept downstairs the next morning pale and shaken. She rallied,
+however, when she saw Doris.
+
+Doris was greatly affected by electric storms and was lying on a couch
+by the hearth. Doctor Martin was sitting beside her, and the little
+breakfast tray, laid for the three, was drawn close.
+
+They ate the meal quietly, and then Martin took up a book to read aloud
+while Nancy went to her loom.
+
+She huddled over it--there was no other word to describe her crouching,
+lax attitude; her face was drawn and haggard. Doris watched her; she was
+not listening to Martin. Suddenly she felt a kind of shock as she
+realized that she was thinking of Nancy as an old woman!
+
+As the spring holds all the promise of autumn in its delicate shading,
+so youth often depicts the time on ahead when line and colour will take
+on the aspect of age.
+
+It was startling. Doris almost cried aloud. Nancy old! Nancy lean and
+shrivelled with her pretty back bent to--the burden of life!
+
+Then Doris laughed nervously, and Martin started. The book he was
+reading from was no laughing matter.
+
+"Forgive me, David--I was not listening; I was--planning. You know how
+agile a mind can be after--a bad headache?" This was not convincing to
+Martin and he scowled.
+
+"What were you planning?" he asked, and Nancy at her wheel turned her
+head.
+
+"Nancy's winter in town. She must have loads of pretty things, and I
+will open the old house--perhaps we can lure Joan also, and have the
+time of our lives. How would you like that Nan, girl?"
+
+The tone was pleading, almost imploring. Doris had a sense of having
+wronged the girl, somehow.
+
+"Oh, Aunt Dorrie, I should love it!" Nancy came across the room, all
+suggestion of age gone. "That is--if it will not harm you, dear."
+
+"I think it would do you both good," Martin spoke earnestly; "I begin to
+realize what you once said, Doris. One has to have the country in his
+blood to be of the country. You must have change and"--turning to
+Nancy--"give this child a chance to--to show off."
+
+He reached out and pinched Nancy's pale cheek.
+
+"Run out," he commanded, suddenly; "run out into the sunshine and forget
+the storm. You're exactly like your aunt--conquer it, conquer it, child,
+while conquering is part of the programme."
+
+Nancy managed a smile, leaned and kissed Doris, waved a salute to
+Martin, and fled from the room.
+
+"David, somehow I've hurt that girl." Doris spoke wearily.
+
+"How?" Martin questioned.
+
+Doris looked up and shook her head.
+
+"How have I, Davey? I cannot tell."
+
+"She's not hurt--but she's in line to be sacrificed if we don't look
+out. I'm the guilty one--I thought only of you."
+
+And then the two planned for the winter.
+
+Nancy took her dogs and went for a walk--a safe and near walk. The
+colour crept into her pale face, but her eyes had a furtive look and
+every noise in the bushes set her trembling. She had a conscious feeling
+of wanting to get away--far, far away. The Gap frightened her; she
+remembered old stories about it. Suddenly she looked up at The Rock and
+her breath almost stopped.
+
+Fascinated, she stared; her eyes seemed to be following an invisible
+finger--The Ship was on The Rock!
+
+Try as she might, Nancy could eat but little lunch. The small table was
+on the porch. Doris had recovered from her headache and was particularly
+gay--the planning for Nancy had done more for her than it had for Nancy
+herself.
+
+"You had better go to your room and lie down," Martin suggested, eyeing
+the girl.
+
+"Yes, I will, Uncle David."
+
+But once in the dim quiet of the west wing chamber fresh memories
+assailed her.
+
+This was the room, she recalled, into which Mary had seen--how absurd it
+was!--the dolls turned to babies. Such foolish, childish memories to
+cling and grip! How much better to be like Joan and laugh away the idle
+tales! Joan had always laughed--she was laughing now somewhere, looking
+her gayest and forgetting troubling things.
+
+Then Nancy cried, not bitterly or enviously, but because she was tired
+of playing Joan's accompaniment!
+
+Presently she got up and bathed.
+
+"I'm going to Mary's!" she suddenly thought, and then felt as if she had
+been getting ready to go all day. She felt deceitful, sly, in spite of
+her constant reiteration that it had just occurred to her.
+
+She left the house unseen; she hid behind a bush when she saw the hounds
+raise their heads from the sunny porch--she wanted to go alone to the
+cabin across the river.
+
+It was three o'clock when she reached it, and she had hurried along the
+short trail, too. Mary was not in sight, but the living-room door was
+open and Nancy stood looking in with a baffling sense of unreality; the
+place looked different; almost as if she had never seen it before. She
+mentally took note of the furniture as though checking the pieces off.
+
+The big bed, gay with patchwork quilts--Nancy knew all the patterns:
+Sunrise on the Peaks; Drunkard's Path; the Rainbow--Mary was making up
+for all that her forebears had neglected to do. Early and late she spun
+and wrought--she piled her bed high with the results of her labours; she
+covered the floor with marvellous rugs; she filled her chest of drawers
+with linen--Nancy glanced at the chest and fancied that she smelt the
+lavender that was spread on the folded treasures.
+
+How the candlesticks shone; how sweet and clean it was, how safe!
+
+Nancy stepped inside and sat down. The logs were laid ready for the
+lighting on the cracked but dustless hearth.
+
+And then, quite unconsciously, the girl began to croon an old song,
+swaying back and forth, her arms folded and her eyes peaceful and
+waiting.
+
+Mary, returning from her garden planting, stood by the door, unnoticed,
+and grimly took in the scene.
+
+What it was that disturbed and angered her she could not have told, but
+she could not see Nancy sitting so--and--and--looking as she looked!
+
+Mary strode across the room, causing Nancy to start nervously.
+
+"What ails yo'?" Mary asked, "you look powerful sorry."
+
+"I'm--I'm frightened, Mary."
+
+Oddly enough, it was easy to speak frankly to the stern, plain woman
+across the hearth. And it was easy for Mary, after her first glance, to
+be ready with anything that could comfort the girl near her.
+
+"What frightened yo'--the storm? I thought 'bout you."
+
+"Yes--the storm, but--Mary, who lives on Thunder Peak?"
+
+Some people are unnerved by surprise; Mary was always steadied.
+
+"There ain't any one," she said, quietly, and leaned over to light the
+fire; the afternoon was growing chilly.
+
+"Who used to live there, Mary? There is a cabin there."
+
+Mary did not flinch, but she was feeling her way, always a little ahead
+of Nancy.
+
+"There was an old woman lived there--long ago; she died."
+
+"Are you sure, Mary?"
+
+"I'm right certain. She plumb broke down when she was ninety, and that
+was years back."
+
+"Mary, there's a grave there!"
+
+"Yes; when folks die they just naturally have a grave." A cold, icy
+light flickered in Mary's eyes; she reached and took up another log and
+carefully placed it.
+
+"Mary, I went to Thunder Peak, I was following the trail. I came
+suddenly into the open and I saw an old woman. She touched me"--here
+Nancy shuddered. "She--she seemed to--to think she knew me. She called
+me a queer name. I cannot remember it. I was terribly frightened. Are
+you _quite_, quite sure the old woman died, Mary?"
+
+"She died, she surely died. Old women ain't such precious sights among
+the hills. Like as not it was someone from Huckleberry Bald, t'other
+side of Thunder, as has taken over the deserted cabin and just wants to
+frighten folks, like you, off. They are mighty cute, those old women on
+Bald. They want their own place, and--and they sometimes shoot at any
+one that comes nigh."
+
+The voice and words were cool and even. Nancy drew a long breath.
+
+"Oh, Mary," she said, "you just take all the fear away. I kept feeling
+that old hand on my arm as if it were dragging me; the feeling is gone
+now. Jed said"--here Nancy wavered--"he said the place was haunted."
+
+"Jed was a born fool and yo' can't do much with that kind. They grows
+more fool-like at the end."
+
+Nancy laughed.
+
+"I'm just a silly myself," she said rising and stretching her pretty
+arms over her head as if awakening from sleep. Then:
+
+"Mary, I'm going to New York next winter. Going to have--a wonderful
+time."
+
+And now Mary looked up and her eyes brightened.
+
+"At last," she muttered; "you're to have your chance!"
+
+"My--chance, Mary?"
+
+"Your chance--same as Miss Joan."
+
+And a moment later Mary was watching Nancy as she went singing down the
+river road.
+
+"Gawd!" she muttered, and her yellowish skin paled. "Gawd! What has she
+come back for?--what?" and Mary's eyes lifted to Thunder Peak. Later she
+made ready for a long walk--she knew the trail to Thunder Peak would be
+hard after the storm.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+"_Every heart vibrates to that iron string._"
+
+
+And Mary's was vibrating to the iron as she plodded up the trail.
+
+There had been much damage done by the storm. Trees were lying across
+the muddy path; there were washed-out spots, making it necessary to go
+out of one's way. But Mary did not notice the obstacles further than to
+make a wide detour. She was thinking, thinking--patching her bits of
+knowledge together with surmises provided by her vivid imagination.
+
+Beginning with the day when old Becky, looking for Sister Angela, had
+stolen into the kitchen at Ridge House and demanded "her," Mary
+patiently fitted her scraps into a pattern as she patched her wonderful
+quilts.
+
+"Yes; no!" Then a stolid nodding of the head.
+
+The sunset, bye and bye, and then the early shadows, crept up the trail
+behind the lonely woman plodding along; they seemed to swallow her, and
+only her quick breathing marked her going.
+
+"I can pay--at last!" She paused and spoke the words aloud.
+
+"Pay back!"
+
+Through the years since her return to The Gap she had saved and saved to
+return to Doris Fletcher the money advanced to buy the cabin.
+
+Mary had never accepted it as a gift; the cabin could never be really
+hers until, by the labour of her hands, she had redeemed it.
+
+What matter that her people called her "close" and mean? She knew what
+she was about, but in her slow, silent way she had learned, while she
+laboured apart, to feel an undying gratitude to the woman who had made
+everything possible for her.
+
+And now she was taking her place beside them who had been her friends.
+No longer were they "foreigners." Surely Mary had come to realize that
+quality was not confined to places; it was in the heart and soul, and if
+anything threatened it, why, then---- Here Mary drew herself up and
+raised her face to the stars.
+
+She had tears in her eyes, but her mouth drew in a hard line. She felt a
+burning curiosity rising in her consciousness. What did it all mean?
+What had it meant back in Ridge House long ago?
+
+But as the burning rose higher and fiercer Mary battled with it.
+
+It was their secret! They must keep it--even from her! So would she pay
+though they might never know; _must_ never know! She would prove herself
+worthy of the trust they had placed in her; she would even the score and
+hold danger, whatever the danger was, back. That should be her part to
+play!
+
+When Mary reached the clearing on Thunder Peak she stood where Nancy had
+stood the day before and took in the scene.
+
+Two or three times, after her return to The Gap, she had gone to The
+Peak and searched among the dirt and rubbish for any trace of old Becky.
+She had come to believe, at last, that the woman was dead--she had never
+been seen after the death of Sister Angela.
+
+It was years now since Mary had given a thought to the deserted garden
+and cabin--the clearing was at the trail's end and no one ever took it,
+for it led nowhere.
+
+But now, to Mary's astonished eyes, the garden appeared almost as well
+planted as her own, and from the chimney of the tumble-down cabin a lazy
+curl of smoke rose. Under the dark pine clump the outlines of a narrow
+mound could be plainly seen, and beside it lay a spade and a spray of
+withered azaleas.
+
+Mary's throat was dry and painful. People to whom tears are possible
+never know the agony, but Mary was used to it.
+
+Presently she walked across the open that lay between the edge of the
+forest and the cabin and stood by the threshold.
+
+The door hung by one hinge, and through the gap Mary saw old Becky! She
+had hoped against hope that what she had told Nancy might be true, but
+she was prepared for the worst.
+
+It seemed incredible that this poor, wretched skeleton by the hearth
+could be Becky--but Mary knew that it was. Back from her wandering the
+pitiful creature had come--home!
+
+She had come as Mary herself had come--because the call of the hills
+never dies, but grows with absence.
+
+"Aunt Becky!"
+
+The crone by the hearth paused in her stirring of corn-meal in a pan,
+but did not turn.
+
+"Aunt Becky!" And then the old woman staggered to her feet and faced
+Mary.
+
+Not yet was the fire dead in the deep sockets--from out the caverns the
+last sparks of life were making the eyes terrible.
+
+"Yo'--Mary Allan!" Contempt, more than fear, rang in the tones. "What
+yo' spyin' on me for, Mary Allan?"
+
+Mary went inside. She was relieved by the fact that Becky knew her--she
+had feared that she would find no response. She did not intend to
+question or argue; she meant to control the situation from the start.
+
+"Hit's in the grave 'long o' Zalie!" Becky was on her defence.
+"Zalie"--here the befogged brain went under a cloud--"Zalie she come
+a-looking--but hit's in the grave! I tell yo'-all, hit's in the grave!"
+
+The trembling creature wavered in the firelight. She was filled with
+fear--but of what, who could tell?
+
+Mary's face underwent a marvellous change--it grew tender, wistful.
+
+"Set, Aunt Becky," she said, compassionately, and gently pushed the
+woman into a deep rocker covered over with a dirty quilt; "set and
+don't be frightened. I ain't come to hurt yo'--I've come to help."
+
+Becky seemed to shrink.
+
+"Hit's in----" she began, but Mary silenced her.
+
+"No hit ain't in the grave! Zalie she knows it--an' I know it!"
+
+"Where is hit--then?" A cunning crept into Becky's cavernous eyes.
+"Where is hit?"
+
+"Aunt Becky, no one must know! You want it--that way." Inspiration
+guided Mary, or was it, perhaps, that iron strain, the strong human
+strain of her kind that led her true? "Zalie, she done come back; not to
+look for hit, but to keep you from hit!"
+
+The stroke told. Becky shrank farther in the chair.
+
+"Gawd!" she moaned--"it's that lonely! An' the longin' hurts powerful
+sharp."
+
+Mary's face twitched. Did she not know?
+
+"But hit!"--she whispered--"don't you love hit strong enough, Aunt
+Becky, to let hit alone, where hit's happy, not knowing?"
+
+There was something majestic about Mary as she kept her eyes upon the
+old woman while she pleaded with her.
+
+The past came creeping up on the two women by the ashy hearth--it gave
+Becky strength; it blinded Mary. In the old woman's memory a picture
+flashed--the picture that once had hung on the wall of Ridge House!
+
+She folded her bony arms over her bosom and panted:
+
+"Yes--I love hit--well enough!" The last hold was loosening. Then:
+
+"It's powerful lonesome--and the cold and hunger bite cruel hard----"
+
+"Aunt Becky, listen to me!" The woman turned her eyes to the speaker,
+but her thoughts were far, far away.
+
+"I'll come to you, Gawd hearing me; I'll ward off the cold and hunger.
+I'll come day after day--if you'll leave hit--where it can't ever know."
+
+Suddenly Becky's face grew sharp and cunning; all that was tender and
+human in her faded--self-preservation rose supreme.
+
+"I'll leave hit, Mary Allen," she cackled, "but if yo' tell that hit
+ain't in the grave 'long o' Zalie all the devils o' hell will watch out
+for yo' soul!"
+
+Mary was not listening. She rose and mechanically moved about the
+disordered room. Like a sleep walker she set the rickety furniture in
+place; she began to gather scraps of food together--hunting, hunting in
+corners and cupboards. She made some black coffee--rank and
+evil-smelling it was--and finally she set the strange meal before the
+old woman.
+
+Becky eyed the repast as one might who fancied that she dreamed.
+Cautiously she touched the food with her lean fingers, then she clutched
+it and ate ravenously, desperately fearing that it might disappear.
+
+Mary looked on in divine pity, swaying to and fro, never speaking nor
+going near.
+
+She was thinking; thinking on ahead. She would make the cabin clean and
+whole; she would wash and clothe the poor creature now eating like a
+hungry wolf; she would feed her. Becky should become--hers!
+
+Then Mary's mouth relaxed. She was appropriating, adjusting. Something
+of her very own at last! Something that would wait for her, watch for
+her, depend upon her. Something to work for and live for; something upon
+whom she might pour forth the hidden riches that had all but perished in
+her soul.
+
+It was midnight when Mary groped her way from the cabin. Becky was
+asleep on the miserable bed in the corner; she was breathing softly and
+evenly like a baby.
+
+Outside, the moonlight lay full upon the open spaces and on the little
+grave under the pine clump. Mary stood, before entering the woods, and
+raised her head.
+
+"I'm paying--I'm paying back what--I owe," she murmured, and all the
+wretched company of her early childhood seemed to hold out imploring
+hands to her. Her father, her mother, the line of miserable brothers and
+sisters who never had their chance!
+
+Sister Angela came, too, her cross gleaming, her eyes kind and just.
+Doris Fletcher and her blessed giving; giving of the marvellous chance
+at last! And lastly, Nancy, with her beautiful face, Nancy who must not
+be cheated, Nancy who--trusted her! Nancy who _might_ be--but no! Mary
+ran on. She would not know! She must not!
+
+And so it was that the last of the Allans redeemed the debt and silently
+found peace for her proud heart.
+
+She was released! She had proven herself, though no one must ever know.
+It was the not knowing that would mark her highest success.
+
+On the morrow Mary went to Ridge House quite her usual reserved self.
+
+Nancy met her with the brightest of smiles.
+
+"Doctor Martin has gone away, Mary," she explained, "and now I will be
+terribly busy, but next winter--oh! next winter, Mary, Joan will be with
+us in the dear old house. A letter came to-day--she is going to take
+lessons from a very great teacher. Do you remember how Joan could sing,
+Mary? I shall play for her again and be so happy. It's wonderful how
+happy one can be, Mary, when one isn't afraid and just goes singing
+ahead. I cannot sing like Joan, but I can scare away fears!"
+
+Mary regarded the girl with a hungry craving in her eyes over which the
+lids were drawn to a slit. There was a fierce intentness in the gaze:
+the look of the runner who has almost reached the goal but hears his
+pursuers close.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+"_And they planted their feet on the 'Sun Road'._"
+
+
+If the spring has a direct and concentrated effect upon a young man's
+fancy, it must have equal effect upon a young woman's, else the man's
+would perish and come to look upon the spring as the lean part of the
+year. Joan had meant all she said when, in the strength and virtue of
+her youth, she had drawn herself away from Kenneth Raymond and proudly
+remarked:
+
+"Certainly not! And I am not afraid."
+
+Both statements were sincere and should have brought her peace and
+satisfaction. They did neither.
+
+Raymond had, apparently, taken her at her word, and sought other places
+in which to appease his hunger, and Joan turned to Patricia, for Sylvia
+was called out of town.
+
+That dream of a frieze that had long smouldered in Sylvia's soul had
+broken bounds and a rich man, erecting a summer home on the
+Massachusetts coast, having seen some of Sylvia's work, had invited her
+down to "talk over" the frieze idea.
+
+"And he'll let me do it!" Sylvia had confided breathlessly to Joan as
+she packed her suitcase. "I can always tell when a thing is going to
+come true. Now if I had shown him sketches he might not have taken
+me--but when I can _talk_ my pictures all along the walls of his big,
+sunny room it will be another matter.
+
+"Blue background"--Sylvia was forgetting Joan as she rambled on,
+punching and jamming her clothing into the case--"and a bit of a story
+running through the frieze--a kind of sea-nymph search for the Holy
+Grail--stretching from the door back _to_ the door. Can't you see it,
+Joan?"
+
+Joan could not. She was seeing something else. Something daily becoming
+visualized. A seeking, yearning desire issuing from her soul and trying
+to find--what?
+
+"You'll have Pat here?" suddenly asked Sylvia. "I'd rather have someone
+besides Pat, but the others are either away or worse than Pat. You're
+good for Pat if she isn't for you. You sort of stiffen her up--she told
+me so. Pat needs whalebone. When her purse gets flat her morals dwindle;
+mine always get scared stiff. I'll write twice a week, Joan, my lamb,
+Sunday and Wednesday. I'll be back before long."
+
+And off Sylvia went with her heavy bag and her light heart, and Joan
+called Patricia up on the telephone.
+
+"All right," Patricia responded, "but if I get homesick for these rooms,
+I must be free to come."
+
+"Of course," Joan agreed.
+
+Patricia was in a dangerous mood and Joan was vividly alive to
+impressions.
+
+Patricia was writing verses as a bird carols--just letting them pour
+out. She was selling them, too, and running out to New Jersey to talk
+over with Mr. Burke the publication of a book.
+
+"I cannot see," Patricia had said to Sylvia, "why one should feel it
+necessary to stick to hot, smelly offices when a library, looking out
+over acres of country, is at one's disposal."
+
+"Is Mrs. Burke there?"
+
+Sylvia had a terrible way of stepping on toes when she was making her
+point.
+
+"Certainly!" Patricia flung back--it happened that the lady was there
+for a brief time--"though," Patricia went on, "she doesn't sit on the
+arm of my chair while styles of paper are considered. You're low-minded,
+Syl."
+
+Patricia looked so high-minded just then that everyone laughed at
+Sylvia's expense.
+
+And Joan, because she was young as the year was, kept remembering the
+eyes, and feeling the touch of Kenneth Raymond. There were no words to
+explain her mood, but she remembered the sound of his voice--and she
+wanted to see him again!
+
+She believed her emotions were grounded upon the fact that she knew a
+good deal about Raymond--more than he suspected. He was of Aunt Doris's
+safe and clean world. He was only dipping into a pool outside of his own
+legitimate preserves to touch, as he thought, a lily that should not be
+there!
+
+Raymond had suggested this to Joan. He fancied, from his conservative
+limitations, that the Brier Bush was rather a dubious pool!
+
+"If he only knew!" Joan thought, and was glad that he did not. How
+humdrum it all would have been had he known! As it was, the wonderful
+feeling she had was laid upon a very safe foundation--not even Aunt
+Doris or Sylvia could object--and she would tell them all about it some
+day, and it would be part of the free, happy life and a proof that no
+harm can come where one understands the situation and has high motives.
+
+But Raymond did not come to the Brier Bush, and so Joan had to conclude
+that he had not that unnamable emotion which was taking her appetite
+away, and he was forgetting, perhaps, all about that line that ran in
+the palms of both of them!
+
+As a matter of fact, Raymond was trying very diligently to do just that
+thing. He worked hard and paid extra attention to Mrs. Tweksbury.
+
+"My boy!" Emily Tweksbury urged, "come up to Maine with me for the
+summer, you look peaked."
+
+Raymond laughed.
+
+"How about business?" he said.
+
+"Of course," Mrs. Tweksbury replied, "no one appreciates more than I do,
+Ken, your moral fibre. It's a big thing for you to create a business if
+for no other reason than to give employment to less fortunate young men;
+but you have other responsibilities. Your position, your fortune, they
+make demands. I'm not one to underestimate the leisure class; I know the
+old joke about tramps being the only leisure class in America; it's a
+silly joke, but it ought to make us think. After a bit, if we don't look
+out, the leisure class, here, will be all women. They'll dominate art
+and poetry and society--and I must say I like a good _team_. I never
+cared for too much of any one thing. Ken?"
+
+"Yes, Aunt Emily."
+
+"I want you to marry and have--a place."
+
+"A place, Aunt Emily?" Raymond looked puzzled.
+
+"Yes. Make a stand for American aristocracy--though of course you must
+call it by another name. You're a clean, splendid chap--I know all about
+you. I've watched apart and prayed over you in my closet. You see your
+father and I made a ghastly mess of our lives, but we kept to the
+code--for your sake. We left your path clear, thank God!"
+
+"Yes, Aunt Emily--I've thanked God for that, too, in what stands for
+_my_ closet."
+
+"What stands for your closet, Ken? I've always wanted to know what takes
+the place of women's sanctuaries in the lives of men."
+
+Raymond plunged his hands into his pockets--he and Mrs. Tweksbury had
+just finished breakfast, and the dining room of the old-fashioned house
+opened, as it should, to the east.
+
+"Oh! I don't know that I can tell you, Aunt Emily," Raymond fidgeted.
+"Fellows are beginning to think a bit more about the clean places in
+women's lives. I reckon that we haven't so much an idea about
+sanctuaries of ours as that we are cultivating an honest-to-God
+determination to keep from making wrecks of women's shrines. I know this
+sounds blithering, but, you see, a decent chap wants to ask some girl to
+give him a better thing than forgiveness when the time comes. He wants
+to cut out the excuse business. He doesn't want women like you to be
+ashamed of him--when they come where they have to call things by their
+right names."
+
+"Ken, I don't believe you're in good form. You'd much better come up to
+Maine!"
+
+Emily Tweksbury looked as if she wanted to cry; her expression was so
+comical that Raymond laughed aloud.
+
+"I'll come in August," he said at last. "I'll take the whole month and
+frivol with you."
+
+Mrs. Tweksbury was, however, not through with what she had to say. She
+looked at the big, handsome fellow across the room and he seemed
+suddenly to become very young and helpless, very much needing guidance,
+and yet she knew how he would resent any such interference in his life.
+
+"What's on your mind, Aunt Emily?"
+
+Raymond had turned the tables--he smiled down upon the old lady with the
+masterful tenderness of youth.
+
+"Let's have it, dear."
+
+Mrs. Tweksbury resorted to subterfuge.
+
+"Well, having you off my hands," she said, smiling as if she really
+meant what she said, "I am thinking of Doris Fletcher!"
+
+"Do I know her?" Raymond tried to think.
+
+"No. She left New York just about the time you came to me. She's a
+wonderful woman, always was. Has a passion for helping others live their
+lives--she's never had time to live her own."
+
+"Bad business." Raymond shook his head.
+
+"Oh! I don't know, boy. The older I grow the more inclined I am to
+believe that it is only by helping others live that one lives himself."
+
+This was trite and did not get anywhere, so Mrs. Tweksbury plunged a
+trifle.
+
+"Doris Fletcher is going to bring her niece out next winter; wants me to
+help launch her."
+
+Raymond made no response to this. He was not apt to be suspicious, but
+he waited.
+
+"She has twin nieces. Her younger sister died at their birth--she made a
+sad marriage, poor girl, and the father of her children seems to have
+been blotted off the map. The Fletchers were always silent and proud. I
+greatly fear one of the twins takes after her obliterated parent, for
+Doris rarely mentions her--it is always Nancy who is on exhibition; the
+other girl is doing that abominable thing--securing her economic
+freedom, whatever that may mean. Doris has tried to make me understand,
+but how girls as rich as those girls are going to be can want to go out
+and support themselves I do not understand--it's thieving. Nothing less.
+Taking bread from women who haven't money."
+
+Mrs. Tweksbury sniffed scornfully and Raymond laughed. He wasn't
+interested.
+
+Mrs. Tweksbury saw she was losing ground and made a third attempt.
+
+"But this Nancy seems another matter. I remember her, off and on. I was
+often away when the Fletchers were home, and the girls were at school a
+good many years, but this Nancy is the sort of child that one doesn't
+forget. She's lovely--very fair--and exquisite. Her poor mother was
+always charming, and I imagine Doris Fletcher means to see that Nancy
+gets into no such snarl as poor Meredith's--Meredith was Doris's sister.
+Ken----!"
+
+"Yes'm!" Raymond was looking at his watch.
+
+"I wish you'd lend a hand next winter with this Nancy Thornton."
+
+Raymond gave a guffaw and came around to Mrs. Tweksbury.
+
+"You're about as opaque," he said, "as crystal. Of course I'll lend a
+hand, Aunt Emily--_lend_ one, but don't count upon anything more. I--I
+do not want to marry--at least not for many years. My father and mother
+did not leave a keen desire in me for marriage."
+
+"Oh! Ken, can't you forget?"
+
+"I haven't yet, Aunt Emily, but I'm not a conceited ass; your Miss Nancy
+would probably think me a dub; girls don't fly at my head, but I'm safe
+as a watchdog and errand boy--so I'll fit in, Aunt Emily."
+
+He bent and kissed her.
+
+A week later the old house was draped and covered with ghostly linen and
+every homelike touch eliminated according to the sacred rites of the old
+regime; and man, that most domestic of all animals, was left to the
+contemplation of a smothered ideal--the ideal of home.
+
+Mrs. Tweksbury, with two servants, started by motor for Maine.
+
+"I may not be progressive in some ways," she proudly declared, "but a
+motor car keeps one from much that is best avoided--crowds, noise, and
+confusion. And I always insist that I am progressive where progress is
+worth while."
+
+But, alone in the still house, Raymond felt as if a linen cover also
+enshrouded him--he lost his appetite and took to lying at night with his
+hands clasped under his head--thinking! Thinking, he called it--but he
+was only drifting. He was abdicating thought. He got so that he could
+see himself as if detached from himself----
+
+"And a dub of a chap, too, I look to myself," he reflected, ambiguously.
+"I wonder just what stuff is in me, anyway? I've been trained to the
+limit, and I have a decent idea about most things, but I wonder if I
+could pull it off, if I were up against it like some other fellows who
+have rowed their own boats? Having had Dad and Aunt Emily in my blood,
+has given me a twist, and the money has tied the knot. I don't know
+really what's in me--in the rough--and there _is_ a rough in every
+fellow--maybe it's sand and maybe it's plain dirt."
+
+This was all as wild and vague as anything Patricia or Joan could
+evolve. It came of the season and the everlasting youth of life.
+
+"I'm going to talk over the rot with that little white thing down at the
+Brier Bush," Raymond declared one night to that self of his that stood
+off on inspection; "what's the harm? She's got the occult bug, and I'm
+keen about it just now. No one will be the worse for me having the
+talk--she's all right and that veil of hers leaves us a lot freer to
+speak out than face to face would." And then Raymond switched on the
+lights and read certain books that held him rigid until he heard the
+milkman in the street below.
+
+In those nights Raymond learned to know that sounds have shades, as
+objects have. Below, following, encompassing there were vague, haunting
+echoes. Even the rattling of milk cans had them; the steps of the
+watchman; the wind of early morning that stirs the darkness!
+
+And then in the end Raymond did quite another thing from what he had
+planned. He left the office one day at four-thirty and walked uptown. He
+paced the block on which the Brier Bush was situated until he began to
+feel conscious--then he walked around the block, always hurrying until
+he came in sight of the tea room. He felt that all the summer
+inhabitants of the city were drinking tea there that afternoon, and he
+began to curse them for their folly.
+
+It was five-forty-five when Joan came down the steps.
+
+Raymond knew her at once by her walk. He had always noted that swing of
+hers under her white robe. He did not believe another girl in the world
+moved in just that way--it was like the laugh that belonged with it.
+Indifferent, pleading, sweet, and brave--a bit daring, too. Joan was all
+in white now. A trim linen suit; white stockings and shoes; a white silk
+hat with a wide bow of white--Patricia kept her touch on Joan's
+wardrobe.
+
+Raymond waited until the girl before him had pulled on her long gloves
+and reached the corner of Fifth Avenue, then he walked rapidly and
+overtook her. He feared that he was leaping; he felt crude and rough;
+but he had never been simpler and more sincere in his life. The
+elemental was overpowering him, that was all.
+
+"Good afternoon!" he blurted into Joan's astonished ears; "where are you
+going?"
+
+Joan turned and confronted him, not in alarm, but utter rout. Naturally
+there was but one course for a girl to take at such a juncture--but Joan
+did not take it. Her elementals were alert, too, and she, too, had
+reached the stage when sounds know shades, and above any cautious appeal
+was the fear of sending this man adrift again.
+
+"I wonder"--Raymond spoke hurriedly; he wanted to drive that startled
+look out of the golden eyes--"I wonder if you're the sort that knows
+truth when she sees it--even if it has to cover itself with the rags of
+things that aren't truth?"
+
+At this Joan laughed.
+
+"I am afraid the heat has affected you," was what she said, gently.
+
+"Well, anyway, you're not afraid of me!" Raymond saw that her eyes had
+grown steady.
+
+"Oh! no. I'm not afraid of you. I'm not often afraid of anything."
+
+"I thought that. You wouldn't be doing that stunt at the Brier Bush if
+you were the scary kind." Raymond accompanied his step to Joan's as
+naturally as if she had permitted him to do so.
+
+"I don't see why you speak as you do of my business," Joan interjected.
+"It's how one interprets what one does that matters. I make a very good
+income of what you term my stunt. Perhaps you're accustomed to girls who
+use such means--wrongfully."
+
+Joan felt quite proud of her small sting, but Raymond broke in joyously:
+
+"You're mighty clever; you've struck on just what I mean. See here, you
+don't know me and I don't know you----" At this Joan turned her face
+away. "And I'm jolly glad we don't. It makes it all easier. I know very
+little about girls--I dance with them and things like that when I have
+to, but as a class I never cottoned to them much, nor they to me. I know
+the ugly names tacked to things that might be innocent and happy enough.
+Now your business--it could be a cover for something rather
+different----?"
+
+"But it isn't!" Joan broke in, hotly.
+
+"I'm sure of that, but hear me out. There's something about you
+that--that's got me. I can't forget you. I only want to know what you
+care to give--the part that escapes the disguise that you wear! I want
+to talk to you. I bet we have a lot to say to each other. Don't you see
+it would be like fencing behind a shield? But how can we make this out
+unless we utilize chances that might, if people were not decent and
+honest, be wrong? I know I'm getting all snarled up--but I'm trying to
+make you understand."
+
+"You're not doing it very well." Joan was sweetly composed.
+
+"Now suppose you and I were introduced--you with your veil off--that
+would be all right, wouldn't it?"
+
+Raymond was collecting his scattered wits.
+
+"Presumably. Yes--it would," Joan returned.
+
+"And then we could have all the talks we wanted to, couldn't we?"
+
+"Within proper limitations," Joan nodded, comically prim under the
+circumstances.
+
+"But for reasons best known to you," Raymond went on, slowly, "you want
+to keep the shield up? All right. But then if we want the talks----"
+
+"I don't want them!" Joan's voice shook. Poor, lonely little thing, she
+wanted exactly that!
+
+"I bet that's not true!" ventured Raymond. Then suddenly:
+
+"Why do you laugh as you do?"
+
+"What's the matter with my laugh?"
+
+"I don't know. It's old and it's awfully kiddish--it's rather upsetting.
+I keep remembering it as I always shall your face now that I have seen
+it!"
+
+Truth can take care of itself if it has half a chance. It was beginning
+to grip Joan through the mists that shrouded her--mists that life has
+evolved for the protection of those who might never be able to
+distinguish between the wolf in sheep's skin and sheep in wolf hide.
+
+Joan knew the ancient code of propriety, but she knew, also, the ring of
+truth and she was young and lonely. She knew she ought not to be playing
+with wild animals, but she was also sure in the deepest and most sincere
+parts of her brain that the man beside her, strange as it might seem,
+was really a very nice and well-behaved domestic animal and was making
+rather a comical exhibition of himself in the skin of the beast of prey.
+
+"You haven't told me where you are going," Raymond said, presently.
+
+"Home!" The one word had the dreary, empty sound that it could not help
+having when Joan considered the studio with Sylvia gone and Patricia an
+uncertain element.
+
+"Are you?" Raymond asked, lamely. One had to say something or turn back.
+Joan felt like crying. Then suddenly Raymond said:
+
+"I wish you'd come and have dinner with me, and I'm not going to excuse
+myself or explain anything. I know I'm using all the worn-out tricks of
+fellows that are anything but decent; but I know that you know--though
+how you do I'm blest if _I_ know--but I know that you understand. The
+thing's too big for me. I've just got to risk it! I'm lonely and I bet
+you are; we've got to eat--why not eat together?"
+
+The words sounded like explosives, and Joan mentally dodged, but at the
+end felt that she knew all there was to know and she caught her breath
+and said very slowly:
+
+"I'm going to be quite as honest as you are. I will have dinner with you
+because I'm as lonely as can be; my people, like yours, are out of town,
+and I _do_ understand though I cannot say just how I do. One thing I
+want you to promise: You will never, under any circumstances, try to
+find out more about me than I freely give. Now or--ever! When I
+disappear, I want really to be safe from intrusion."
+
+Raymond promised, and so they set out on the Sun Road.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+"_It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy
+in solitude to live after our own._"
+
+
+The trouble with the Sun Road is this: one is apt to be blinded by the
+glare.
+
+In their solitude, the solitude of a big city, Raymond and Joan trod the
+shining way with high courage.
+
+This was romance in an age when romance was supposed to be dead! Here
+they were, they two, nameless--for they decided upon remaining
+so--living according to their own codes; feeling more and more secure,
+as time passed, that they were safe and were wisely enjoying what so
+easily might have been lost had they been limited in faith.
+
+"It's the line in our hands!" Raymond declared. "It means something, all
+right. Think what we must have missed had we been unjust to each other
+and ourselves."
+
+Joan nodded.
+
+The sun and the dust of the pleasant highway had blinded her completely
+by the end of a week.
+
+Patricia was a missing quantity most of the time. Patricia had taken to
+the Sun Road, also, but with her eyes wide open. If Patricia ever turned
+aside it would be because she knew the danger, not because she did not.
+
+She never explained her absences nor her private affairs to Joan. When
+she did appear at Sylvia's studio she was quiet and nervous.
+
+"It's the heat," she explained. "I'm not hot, but I cannot get enough
+air to breathe."
+
+Meanwhile, Sylvia was basking in success and cool breezes on the
+Massachusetts coast. Her letters had the tang of the sea.
+
+And Raymond was always on hand, now, at the dinner hour. He was like a
+boy, and took great pride in his knowledge of just the right places to
+eat. Quiet, but not too quiet; good food, and, occasionally, good music,
+and if the night was not too hot, a dance with Joan which set his very
+soul to keeping time.
+
+"Gee!" he said, after their first dance; "I wonder what you are, anyway?
+Do you do everything--to perfection?"
+
+Joan twinkled.
+
+"Every man must decide that for himself," she replied with a charming
+turn of her head.
+
+"Every--man?" Raymond's face fell.
+
+"Certainly. You don't think you are the only man, do you?"
+
+"Well, the only one left in town."
+
+Raymond gave a little laugh and changed the subject. He had no intention
+of getting behind his companion's screen. With a wider conception of his
+path, he more diligently kept to the middle.
+
+After the first fortnight he even went so far as to arrange for business
+engagements, now and then, in order to keep his brain clear.
+
+Joan always met these empty spaces in her days with a keen sense of loss
+which she hid completely from Raymond.
+
+His business demands were offset by her skilfully timed escapes from the
+Brier Bush. She would either be too early or too late for Raymond, and
+so while he paid homage to his code, Joan appeared to make the code
+unnecessary.
+
+And the weather became hotter and moister and the moral and physical
+fibre of the city-bound became limper.
+
+After a week of not seeing each other Joan and Raymond made up for lost
+time by galloping instead of trotting along.
+
+"Stevenson and O. Henry couldn't beat this adventure of ours," Raymond
+exclaimed one evening, wiping the moisture from his forehead. "And I bet
+thousands of folks would think better of one another if----"
+
+"If--they had the line in their hands," Joan broke in; "but they
+haven't, you know!"
+
+"Exactly."
+
+Just then Raymond made a bad break. He asked Joan if she did not trust
+him well enough to give him her telephone number.
+
+"Something might occur," he said, "business pops up unexpectedly. I hate
+to lose a chance of seeing you--and I hate to wait on street corners."
+
+"I am sorry," Joan replied, "but that would spoil everything."
+
+Raymond flushed. It was just such plunges as this that made him recoil.
+
+"I understand," he replied, coolly; "I had hoped that you could trust
+me."
+
+"It is not a matter of trust. It's keeping to the bargain."
+
+There was nothing more to say. But, quite naturally, several days
+elapsed before they saw each other again.
+
+Fierce, broiling days without even the debilitating moisture to ease the
+suffering citizens.
+
+Joan, alone in the dark, hot studio, thought of Doris and Nancy and
+wondered!
+
+"Of course, what I am doing would be horrid if I didn't know all about
+_him_," and then Joan tossed about. "Some day--it will be such a lark to
+tell them--and think of his surprise when he--knows! I'll see him with
+all barriers down next winter," for at this time Joan had written and
+accepted all Doris's plans for her. She was to study music
+determinedly--she had a proud little bank account--and she would live at
+the old house and revel in Nancy's social triumphs.
+
+And Raymond, in his shrouded house, had his restless hours and with
+greater reason, for he was playing utterly in the dark and had to
+acknowledge to his grim, off-standing self that, except for the fact
+that he was in the dark, he would not dare play the very amusing game he
+was playing.
+
+"If she is masquerading," Raymond beat about with his conscience, "it's
+the biggest lark ever, and she and I will have many a good laugh over
+it."
+
+"_But if she--isn't?_" demanded the shadowy self.
+
+"Well, if she isn't, she jolly well knows how to take care of herself!
+Besides, I'm not going to hurt her. Why, in thunder, can't two fellow
+creatures enjoy innocent things without having evil suggestions?"
+
+"_They can!_" thundered the Other Self, "_but this isn't innocent--at
+least it is dangerous_."
+
+"Oh! be hanged!" Raymond flung back and the Shadow sank into oblivion.
+
+Left to himself--one of his selves--Raymond resorted to sentiment.
+
+"Of course we both know--under what might be--what _is_. She's like
+Kipling's girl in the Brushwood Boy."
+
+But that did not take in the Other Self in the least. It laughed.
+
+When July came the heat settled down in earnest on the panting city.
+
+"Aren't you going to take any vacation?" asked Raymond. He and Joan were
+sauntering up Fifth Avenue to a certain haven in a backyard where the
+fountain played and the birds sang.
+
+"No. I'm going to stay in town and let Miss Gordon have her outing. The
+Brier Bush is too young to be left alone this year. Next year it will be
+my turn."
+
+"I'm afraid you'll wilt," Raymond looked at the blooming creature beside
+him. "Funny, isn't it, how things turn out? I expected to go in August
+to--to that lady with whom you first saw me" (Joan looked divinely
+innocent); "but only yesterday she informed me that she had resolved to
+go abroad, and asked if it would make any difference to me. She's like
+that. Her procedure resembles jumping off a diving plank."
+
+"Well, does it make any difference?" Joan asked.
+
+"You bet it does! It makes me free to stay in town."
+
+"I'm afraid you'll wilt," Joan twinkled.
+
+"We must take precautions against that." Raymond looked deadly in
+earnest.
+
+The meetings of these two were now set, like clear jewels in the round
+of common days. They were not too frequent and they were always managed
+like chance happenings. Always there was a sense of surprise, a thrill
+of unbelievable good luck attending them; but there was, also, a growing
+sense of assurance and understanding.
+
+"I wonder," Joan said once, pressing hard against the shield that
+protected them, "I wonder if you and I would have played so delightfully
+had we been--well--introduced! Miss Jones and Mr. Black."
+
+"No!" Raymond burst in positively. "Miss Jones would have been enveloped
+in the things expected of Miss Jones, and Mr. Black would have been kept
+busy--keeping off the grass!"
+
+"Aren't you ever afraid," Joan mused on, "that some day we'll suddenly
+come across each other when our shields are left behind in--in the
+secret tower?"
+
+"I try not to think of it," Raymond leaned toward the girl; "but if we
+did we'd know each other a lot better than most girls and fellows are
+ever allowed to know each other," he said.
+
+"Do you think so?" Joan looked wistfully at him. "You see this isn't
+real; it's play, and I'm afraid Miss Jones and Mr. Black would be
+awfully suspicious of each other--just on account of the play."
+
+"And so--we'll make sure that shields are always in commission," Raymond
+reassured her. "In this small world of ours we cannot run any risks with
+Miss Jones and Mr. Black. They have no part here."
+
+"No, they haven't!" Joan leaned back. That subtle weakness was touching
+her; the aftermath of strained imagination. She was often homesick for
+Doris and Nancy--she was getting afraid that she might not be able to
+find her way back to them when the time came to go.
+
+"Poor little girl!" Raymond was saying over the table, and his words
+fitted into the tune the fountain sang--it was the same tune the
+fountain sang in the sunken room of long ago; all fountains, Joan had
+grown to think, sang the same lovely, drippy song.
+
+"I wonder just how brave and free a little girl it is?"
+
+Joan screwed up her lips.
+
+"Limitless," she whispered, daringly.
+
+"You're played out, child!" Raymond went on; "there are blue shadows
+under your eyes. I wish you'd let me do something for you."
+
+"You are doing something," the words came slowly, caressingly; "you're
+making a hard time very beautiful; you're making me believe--in--in
+fairies, or what stands for fairies, nowadays; you're making me trust
+myself and for ever after when--when I slip back where I belong--I'm
+going to remember, and be--so glad! You see, I know, now, that in the
+world of grown-ups you _can_ make things come true."
+
+"Where you belong?" Raymond gripped his hands close. "Just where do you
+belong? _Are_ you Miss Jones or are you the sweet nameless thing that I
+am looking at?"
+
+"Oh! I'm Miss Jones!" Joan sat up promptly, "and I'm going to make sure
+that Miss Jones doesn't get hurt while I play with her."
+
+And as she spoke Joan was thinking of the ugly interpretation of this
+beautiful play which Patricia would give. Patricia couldn't make things
+come true because she never tried hard enough.
+
+"I wonder"--and the fountain made Joan dizzy as she listened to
+Raymond--"I wonder, now since I'm to stay in town, if you'd let me bring
+my car in? We'd have some great old rides. We'd cool off and have
+picnics by roadsides and--and get the best of this blasted heat."
+
+"I think it would be heavenly!" Joan saw, already, cool woods and felt
+the refreshing air on her face.
+
+Raymond was taken aback. He had expected protest.
+
+But the car materialized and so did the picnics and the cool breezes on
+young, unafraid faces.
+
+At each new venture reassurance waxed stronger--things could be made
+true in the world; it was only children who failed, in spite of
+tradition.
+
+Just at this time Sylvia came to town radiating success and happiness.
+
+The result was disastrous. There are times when one cannot endure the
+prosperity of his friends! Had Sylvia come back with her banners
+trailing, Joan and Patricia would have rallied to her standard, but she
+was cool, crisp, and her eyes were fixed upon a successful future.
+
+She was going to do, not only the frieze, but a dozen other things.
+People whom she had met had been impressed. Things were coming her way
+with a vengeance. One order was in the Far West--a glorified cabin in a
+canyon.
+
+"I'm to do all the interior decorating," Sylvia bubbled; "a little out
+of my line, but they feel I can do it. And"--here the girl looked
+blissful--"it will be near enough for my John to come and take a
+vacation."
+
+Patricia and Joan, at that moment, knew the resentment of the unattached
+woman for the protected one. Sylvia appeared the child of the gods while
+they were merely permitted to sit at the gates and envy her triumphs.
+
+"I suppose," Patricia burst in, "that this means the end?"
+
+"End?" Sylvia looked puzzled.
+
+"Yes. Plain John will gobble you, Art and all. But your duties here----"
+Patricia with a tragic gesture pointed to Joan. "What of Miss Lamb, not
+to mention me?"
+
+Sylvia looked serious.
+
+"Joan is to study music next winter," she said; "haven't you told Pat,
+Joan?"
+
+Joan shook her head. She had almost forgotten it herself.
+
+"And live with her people," Sylvia went on and then, noticing Patricia's
+pale little face, she burst forth:
+
+"Pat, take that offer from Chicago that you've been thinking about! It's
+a big thing--designing for that firm. It will make you independent,
+leave you time to scribble, and give you a change. Pat, do be sensible."
+
+Patricia drew herself up. She felt that she was being disposed of simply
+to get her out of the way. She resented it and she was hurt.
+
+"I do not have to decide just now," she said, coldly; "and don't fuss
+about me, Syl. Now that you and Joan are provided for I can jog along at
+my own free will, and no one will have to pay but me!"
+
+"Pat!" Joan broke in, "you and I will stick together. And it's all right
+about Syl. What is this one life for, anyway, if it does not leave us
+free? Syl, marry your John--your art won't suffer! Pat, where I go you
+go next winter."
+
+But Patricia lighted a cigarette, and while the smoke issued from her
+pretty little nose she sighed.
+
+What happened was this: Patricia shopped and sewed for Sylvia and made
+her radiantly ready for her trip West. And Joan, feeling the break
+final, although she did not admit it, forsook her own pleasures while
+she helped Patricia and clung to Sylvia.
+
+"Pat has sublet her rooms," she confided to Sylvia one day, "and is
+coming here until our lease is up; so you are foot-loose, my precious
+Syl, and God bless you!"
+
+In August Sylvia departed and Joan and Patricia set up housekeeping
+together. But at the end of the first week, and the beginning of a new
+hot spell, Joan found a note on her pillow one night when she came in,
+exhausted:
+
+    Had to get cool somewhere. I'm not responsible for losing my
+    breath. Take care of yourself.
+
+"This seems the last straw!" sobbed Joan, for Raymond had told her that
+day at the Brier Bush that important business was taking him out of
+town.
+
+"He has to catch his breath," poor Joan cried, miserably, quite as if
+her own background was eliminated; "but what of my breath? And to-day is
+Saturday, and----" The bleak emptiness of a hot Sunday in the stifling
+studio stretched ahead wretchedly, like a parched desert.
+
+That night Joan pulled her shade down. She hated the stars. They looked
+complacent and distant. She pushed memories of Doris and Nancy
+resolutely from her. Her world was not their world--that was sure. If
+this desperate loneliness couldn't drive her to them, nothing could. She
+must make her own life! Lying on her hot bed, Joan thought and thought.
+Of what did she want to make her life?
+
+"I only want a decent amount of fun," she cried, turning her pillow
+over, "and I will not have strings tied to all my fun, either."
+
+This struck her as funny even in her misery. She sat up in bed and
+counted her losses--what were they?
+
+Ridge House and that dear, sweet life--sheltered and safe. Yes; she was
+sure she had lost them, for she could not go back beaten before she had
+really tried her luck, and if she succeeded she could never have them in
+a sense of ownership.
+
+"And I will succeed!" Even in that hard hour Joan rose up in arms.
+
+"And I have earned enough to begin real work in the autumn." She counted
+her gains. "And I can live close to Aunt Dorrie's beautiful life even if
+I am not of it. And I _am_ sure of myself as dear Nancy never could
+be--because I have proved myself in ways that girls like Nancy never
+can."
+
+Toward morning Joan fell asleep. When she awoke it was nearly noon time
+and half the desert of Sunday was passed.
+
+Then Joan, refreshed and comforted, planned a wholesome afternoon and
+evening.
+
+"I'll go out and get a really sensible dinner; take a walk in the Park,
+and come home and practise. Monday will be here before I know it."
+
+Joan carried out her programme, and it was five o'clock when she
+returned, at peace with the whole world.
+
+She took off her pretty street gown and slipped into a thin, airy little
+dress and comfortable sandals. The sandals made her think of her
+dancing; she always wore them unless she danced shoeless.
+
+"And before I go to bed," she promised her gay little self, "I'll have a
+dance to prove that nothing can down me--for long!
+
+"I wonder--" here Joan looked serious as if a thought wave had struck
+her--"I wonder where Pat is?"
+
+This seemed a futile conjecture. Patricia was too elusive to be
+followed, even mentally.
+
+As a matter of fact, Patricia was, at that hour, confronting the biggest
+question of her life.
+
+Heretofore she had always left her roads of retreat open, had, in fact,
+availed herself of them at critical periods; but this time she had, she
+believed, so cluttered them that they were practically impassable and
+she said she "didn't care."
+
+The heat and her rudderless life had been too much for her; she had,
+too, been honestly stirred by beautiful things--although they were not
+hers nor could ever rightfully be hers. She had slipped into the danger,
+that seemed now about to engulf her, on a gradual decline.
+
+Her connection with the Burke home life was, apparently, innocent enough
+at first. No one but Patricia herself sensed what really was
+threatening, but the conditions were ripe for what occurred.
+
+Mrs. Burke, bent upon her own pleasure, utterly indifferent to the
+rights of others, was glad enough to leave her house and family to the
+charm of Patricia while she could, at the same time, as she smilingly
+declared, give a bit of happiness to that poor, gifted young creature.
+
+The gifted young creature responded with all the hunger of her empty
+heart--she played with the children, who adored her; there was safety
+with the eyes of housekeeper and governess upon her--but when the eyes
+of a tired, disillusioned, and lonely man became fixed upon her, it was
+time for Patricia to flee. But she did not. Instead she gripped her
+philosophy of "grab"--and really managed to justify it to a certain
+extent--while she grew thinner and paler.
+
+On the Sunday when Joan stopped short and wondered where Patricia was,
+Patricia was up the Hudson awaiting, on a charming hotel piazza, the
+arrival of the Burke automobile.
+
+It was sunset time and beautiful beyond words. Something in the peaceful
+loveliness stirred Patricia--she wished that the day were dark and grim.
+It seemed incongruous to take to the down path--Patricia was not blinded
+by her lure--while the whole world was flooded with gold and azure.
+
+Then Patricia's angel had a word to say.
+
+"Who would care, anyway?" the girl questioned her upstanding angel--"in
+all the world, who would care? Why shouldn't I have--what I can get?"
+
+And then, quite forcibly, Patricia thought of Joan! Joan seemed calling,
+calling. The thought brought a passionate yearning. Joan had the look in
+her eyes that children and dogs had when they regarded Patricia--a look
+that cut under the superficial disguise without seeing it, and clung to
+what they knew was there! The something that they loved and trusted and
+played with.
+
+In a moment Patricia felt herself growing cold and hard as if almost,
+but not quite, a power outside herself had threatened the one and only
+thing in life that she held sacred.
+
+"That Look!" Full well Patricia knew that the Look would no longer be
+hers to command if she held to her course!
+
+Then, her strength rising with her determination, she glanced back over
+her cluttered trail. She had written a letter to Joan--it would be
+delivered to-morrow. A black, scorching statement that would leave not a
+trace of beauty for the old friendship to rest upon. She had also
+written a letter to the firm in Chicago definitely refusing to accept
+its offer--but that letter was not yet mailed!
+
+The Burke automobile, like a devastating flood, might at any moment tear
+down the hill to the left. With this fear growing in her a strange
+perverted sense of justice rose and combated it. She had deliberately
+put herself in the way of the flood; she knew all about the risks of
+floods, and it seemed knavish to promise and then--leave the field.
+
+"Better an hour of raging against the absence of me," she said,
+pitifully, "than years of regretting my presence. He'll hate me a little
+sooner, that's all. So--good-bye!" Patricia almost ran inside; left a
+hasty, badly written note, and, metaphorically, scrambled over the
+disordered path of retreat; she seemed to be racing against that letter
+on its way to Joan. She would write later to the man who was drawing
+near. Only one thing did Patricia pause to do: It was like driving the
+last nail in the old life. She telegraphed to Chicago, accepting the
+position of designer!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+"_Ours, if we be strong._"
+
+
+Joan had sung herself into an exalted mood. She had floated along on the
+wings of music, touching happy memories and tender, nameless yearnings.
+Her loved ones seemed crowding about her--Doris, dear, sweet Nancy, and
+pretty Pat. They were pressing against her heart and calling to her.
+
+She began to feel a dull ache for them, a growing impulse stirred deep
+in her unawakened nature such as always drives the Prodigal unto his
+Father! The superficial life of the past year seemed husks indeed. It
+was the beautiful music that mattered and that she could have had with
+her blessed, safe, loved ones. She need not have left them lonely; she
+had been shamelessly selfish. Freedom! What was her freedom? Just a
+tugging against the sweetest thing in life--the false against the true!
+
+Joan felt the tears falling down her cheeks while she sang on--and
+suddenly it was Patricia who seemed closest to her.
+
+"I will not desert Pat," she actually sang the words into her song
+fiercely, resolutely. "Patricia must come into safety with me."
+
+With this vowed to her soul, Joan dried her tears and sprang to her
+feet. She had never felt so lonely, so happy, so free as she did that
+moment when her spirit turned homeward again.
+
+She kicked off her sandals and began to dance about the studio, lightly,
+joyfully.
+
+The late afternoon was fading into a sudden darkness--a storm was
+coming; black, copper-dashed clouds were rolling on rapidly, full of
+noise and electricity; in a short time they would break over the
+city--but Joan danced on and on!
+
+In that hour not one thought of Kenneth Raymond disturbed her. He
+belonged to the time of mistaken freedom; he was one who had helped her
+to think she could make unreal things true. He had no place here and
+now. She somehow felt that he had passed from her life.
+
+Joan was abnormally young and only superficially old; her experiences
+had but developed her spiritually--aroused her better self; and in that
+self lay her womanhood, her knowledge of sex relations; there it rested
+unharmed, unheeding.
+
+And then came a knock on the door!
+
+The whirling figure paused on the tips of its toes; the brooding face
+broke into smiles.
+
+"It's Pat! Come!"
+
+The word "come" was all that reached the waiting man outside--and when
+he entered he gathered to himself the glad, joyous welcome meant for
+Patricia, and smiled at the poised figure.
+
+"Why!" gasped Joan, and in her excitement almost spoke Raymond's name.
+
+"How--did you find your way here? How did you know?"
+
+"Forgive me; I had to come. I telephoned to the Brier Bush--they gave me
+your number."
+
+Raymond closed the door behind him and came to the centre of the big
+room, and there he stood smiling at Joan.
+
+"So your name is Sylvia?" he said.
+
+Then Joan understood--Elspeth had respected her wish to be unknown
+outside her business, she had given Sylvia's name, had made Sylvia
+responsible.
+
+"I tried to get you earlier by telephone."
+
+"I was not home." Joan was thinking hard and fast. Something was very
+wrong, but she could not make out what it was.
+
+"Forgive me for breaking rules: I wanted to see you so that rules did
+not seem to count. Go on with your dance. You look like the spirit of
+twilight. Dance. Dance."
+
+Joan grew more and more perplexed. The anger she felt was less than the
+sense of unreality about it all. Raymond was a stranger; he repelled
+her; in a way, shocked her.
+
+"I'm through dancing," she said. "Since you are here, sit down. I will
+turn on the lights."
+
+"Please don't. And you are angry. I'm awfully sorry, but it was this
+way: I was having dinner with some friends and suddenly I seemed to hear
+you calling to me. It gave me quite a shock. I thought you might be in
+danger, might be needing me."
+
+Joan kept her eyes on Raymond's face. She was trying to overcome the
+growing aversion which alarmed her.
+
+"No, I was not calling to you," she said. "I was bidding you
+good-bye--really, though I did not know it myself."
+
+"Oh! come now!" Raymond bent forward over his clasped hands; "you are
+peeved! Not a bit like the little sport with that line in her hand."
+
+"I--I wish you wouldn't talk like that." Joan frowned. "And I know it
+will sound rude--but I--wish you would go."
+
+"You are--surly!" Raymond laughed again, and just then a deep, rumbling
+note of thunder followed a vivid flash.
+
+"Come," he went on; "dance for me. There's going to be a devil of a
+storm--keep time to it. I'm here--I ask pardon for being here--but you
+can't turn me out in the storm. Come, let us have another big memory for
+our adventure."
+
+Still Joan sat contemplating the man near her, her hands lightly clasped
+on her lap, her slim feet crossed and at ease--little stocking-shod feet
+to which Raymond's eyes turned. She had never looked, to Raymond, so
+provoking and tempting.
+
+"What's up, really?" he asked, "you're not going to spoil everything by
+a silly tantrum, are you?"
+
+Joan hadn't the slightest appearance of temper--she was quite at ease,
+apparently, though her heart almost choked her by its beating.
+
+"You have spoiled everything," she said, "not I. You somehow have made
+our play end abruptly by coming here. I don't think I ever can play
+again. It's like knowing there isn't--any--any Santa Claus; I can't
+explain. But something has happened. Something so awful that I cannot
+put it into words."
+
+Raymond got up and stood before Joan. He looked down and smiled, and at
+that moment she knew that he was not his old self and she knew what had
+changed him! And yet with the understanding a deeper emotion swept over
+her, one of familiarity. It was like finding someone she had known long
+ago in Raymond's place; as if she had lived through this scene before.
+
+She summoned a latent power to deal with the new conditions.
+
+"You pretty little thing!" Raymond whispered, and touched Joan's
+shoulder. She got up quickly and moved across the room.
+
+"I always want light when there is a storm," she said, and touched the
+switch.
+
+Raymond, in the glare, looked flushed and impatient. A crash of thunder
+shook the old house.
+
+"Will you dance for me?" he said.
+
+Joan stiffened--she was dealing with the strange personality, not the
+man who was part of the happy past.
+
+"No," she said, evenly. "And you have no right to be here. I wish you
+would go at once."
+
+"Out in this storm, you little pagan?"
+
+"You could go downstairs and wait in the hall."
+
+"You are afraid of me?"
+
+"Not in the least."
+
+"Afraid of yourself, then?"
+
+"Certainly not. Why should I be afraid of myself?"
+
+"Afraid _for_ yourself, then?"
+
+Raymond was enjoying himself hugely.
+
+"No, but I'm a bit afraid--for you!" Joan was watching the stranger
+across the room, and she shivered as peal after peal of thunder tore the
+brief lulls in the storm.
+
+"Oh! that's all right--about me!" Raymond said, mistaking the trembling
+that he saw; "you know, while I was at dinner to-day I got to thinking
+what fools we were--not to--to take what fun there is in life--and not
+count the costs like mean-spirited misers. You've got more dash and
+courage than I have--you must have thought me, many a time, a---- What
+did you think me, little girl?"
+
+With the overpowering new knowledge that was possessing her Joan spoke
+hesitatingly. It seemed pitifully futile and untruthful; but her own
+thought was to get this stranger from her presence.
+
+"I thought you--well, I thought about you just as I thought about
+myself. Someone who was strong enough and splendid enough to make
+something we both wanted come true! It was believing that we two
+grown-up, lonely people could--play--without hurting--anything--or each
+other. I see, now, just as I used to see when I was a little girl--that
+one can never, never do that."
+
+Tears dimmed Joan's eyes and she tried to smile.
+
+The whole weird and unbelievable experience was making her distrust
+herself, and the storm was more and more unnerving her. She feared she
+could not hold out much longer.
+
+"You're a--damned good little actress!" Raymond gave a hard, loud laugh
+so unlike his own wholesome laugh that Joan started back.
+
+"I want you to go away at once!" her eyes flashed. "I think you must be
+mad."
+
+"But--the storm." Raymond walked across the room.
+
+"I do not care--about the storm. I want you to go!" and now Joan
+retreated and unconsciously took her stand behind a chair.
+
+A sudden, blinding flash, a deafening crash and--the lights went out!
+
+In the terrifying blackness Joan felt Raymond's arms about her.
+
+So frightened was she now that for an instant the human touch was a
+blessing. She relaxed, panting and trembling. In that moment she felt
+kisses upon her lips, her eyes, her throat!
+
+She sprang away, dashing against the furniture and then, as suddenly as
+they had failed, the lights were blazing and in the revealment Joan
+faced the man across the room.
+
+Her face was flaming, but his was as white as if death had marked it.
+
+"You--coward!" she flung out.
+
+The words stung and hurt.
+
+Raymond did not move bodily, but his eyes seemed to be coming nearer the
+girl.
+
+"If you do not go at once," Joan said, slowly, "I will call for help."
+
+"Oh! no, you won't, and I am not going to-night."
+
+The beast in Raymond had never risen before, had never been suspected,
+never been trained: it was the more dangerous because of that.
+
+"What?" Joan stared at him aghast.
+
+"I said that I am not going to-night."
+
+The awful feeling of familiarity again swept over Joan. She felt that
+she must have lived through the scene: had made a mistake that must not
+be made a second time.
+
+"You have been drinking," she said, and her voice shook. She had hoped
+that she might save him the degradation of knowing that she understood.
+
+"Well! Suppose I have? It has made me live. Set me free. I wonder if you
+have ever lived?"
+
+"I am afraid not." Joan could not repress the sob that rose in her
+throat.
+
+"We can live, I bet." Raymond gave his ugly laugh. "That line in our
+hands gives us the right."
+
+For a moment Joan contemplated escape. Any escape open to her. The
+telephone, the door, even a call from the window in the heart of the
+storm. Then the desire was gone and with it all personal fear. She
+wanted again, in a vague way, to save this man who had once been her
+friend. She felt that she must save him.
+
+Somehow, she had wronged him. She must find out just how, and then he
+might once more be as she had known him.
+
+Presently it came to her. She should have known that he could not
+understand the past. He had pretended to, while they had played their
+foolish game, but when restraint was set aside he showed the deadly
+truth. She had cheapened herself, cheapened all women--she could not fly
+now, not until she had made him see the mistake.
+
+Raymond was crossing the room. He laughed, and insanity flashed in his
+eyes.
+
+"What shall I call you from now on?" he said: "Sylvia?--or shall we make
+up another name?"
+
+"My name is not Sylvia. And there is to be no time ahead for us."
+
+"You are mistaken. A girl has no right to lead a man on as you have led
+me, and then run. It isn't the game, my dear. You must not be afraid to
+play the game."
+
+Raymond reached his hand toward her and said pleadingly:
+
+"Don't be afraid. I hate to see you flinch."
+
+"You must not touch me." Joan's eyes flashed.
+
+"I see. You've raised the devil in me--and you do not want to pay?" The
+brute was rearing dangerously.
+
+"I do not want to pay more than I owe."
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+"I mean that as true as God hears me I meant no wrong. I've done things
+that girls should not do. I see that now. But I believed that you
+understood. I thought that, in a way, you were like me--you were so fine
+and happy. I still have faith that when you are yourself again you will
+realize this. Oh! it is horrible that drink can do such an awful thing
+to you."
+
+"Whatever ideals I may have had," Raymond broke in, "you have destroyed.
+Perhaps you think men have no ideals? Some women do."
+
+"Oh! I believe with all my soul that they have. It was because I did
+think that, that I dared to trust you." Joan was pleading; she could not
+own defeat; she was appealing to him for himself.
+
+But Raymond gave a sneering laugh.
+
+"You trusted so much," he said, "that you hid behind a veil and would
+not tell your name."
+
+Raymond was hearing himself speak as if he were an eavesdropper. He
+trembled and breathed hard as a runner does who is near the goal.
+
+"What's one night in a life?" he asked, as if it were being dragged from
+him.
+
+Again his voice startled him. He looked around, hoping he might discover
+who it was that spoke.
+
+It was Joan now who was speaking:
+
+"I think that in me as well as in you there is something that neither of
+us knew. I cannot explain it--but it was something that we should have
+known before----"
+
+"Before what?" Raymond asked.
+
+"Before I--anyway--was left to go free! It is the _knowing_ that makes
+it safe, safe for such as you and me! I do not believe you ever knew
+what you could be--and neither did I."
+
+Raymond gripped his hands together and his face was ghastly.
+
+"My God!" he breathed, and sank on the couch covering his eyes from
+Joan's pitiful look. He was coming to himself, trying to realize what
+had occurred as one does who becomes conscious of having spoken in
+delirium.
+
+Outside, the storm was dying down--it sounded tired and defeated.
+
+Joan looked at the bent form near her and then went to a chair and
+leaned her head back. She knew the feeling of desperate exhaustion. She
+had never fainted, was not going to faint now, but she had come to the
+end of a dangerous stretch of road and there was no strength left in
+her. Surprise, shock, the storm--all had combined to bring her to where
+she was now. The tears rolled unheeded down her cheeks; all her hope and
+faith were gone--she had left them in the struggle and could not even
+estimate her loss.
+
+The clock ticked away the minutes--who was there to notice or care? Joan
+was thankful to have nothing happen! She closed her eyes and waited.
+
+Presently Raymond spoke. His hands dropped from his haggard face and his
+eyes were filled with shame and remorse.
+
+"Will you listen to me?" he said.
+
+"Yes." Joan looked at him--her eyes widened; she tried to smile. She
+longed to cry out at what she saw, wanted to say: "You have come back.
+Come back." Instead she said slowly:
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I can never expect to have your forgiveness. I thank God that it is
+possible for us to part and, alone, seek to forget this horror. I will
+never intrude. I promise you that. Back in my college days I found out
+that I could not drink. It did something to me that it does not do to
+others. I never quite knew what until to-day. When I saw you standing
+there--the devil got loose. I know now. My God! To think that all one's
+life does not count when the devil takes hold."
+
+"Oh! Yes, it does, and it is the knowing that will help." Joan was
+crying softly. "You will have the right to trust yourself hereafter
+because you know."
+
+"I will always think of women as I see you now." Raymond spoke
+reverently.
+
+"You must not. Some women do not have to learn--I did. I think the best
+women know."
+
+"You must not say that."
+
+"Yes, I feel it. Had I shown you a better self while we played all would
+have been different. You would not have misunderstood. Women must not
+expect what they are not willing to give. I had done things that no girl
+can safely do and be understood and then--when you lost control--you
+thought of me as you really believed me. I can see it all now, see how I
+hurt you; hurt myself and hurt other girls; but it was because--not
+because I am a bad girl--but because I did not know myself any more than
+you knew yourself. How could we hope to know each other? I seem so old,
+now--so old! And I understand--at last."
+
+Raymond looked at her and pity filled his eyes, for she looked so
+touchingly young.
+
+"I think," he said, "that I shall see all girls for ever as I see you at
+this minute."
+
+"Oh, you must not." Joan gave a sob. "They are not like me, really."
+
+There was an awkward silence. Then:
+
+"Will you tell me your name? Will you try to trust me--just a little? It
+would prove it, if you only would."
+
+"I do not want you to know my name. You must promise to keep from
+knowing. It is all I ask."
+
+"Will you let me tell you--mine?"
+
+"No! no!" Joan put up her hands as if to ward off something tangible.
+
+"I only meant"--Raymond dropped his eyes--"that there isn't anything
+under heaven I wouldn't do to prove to you my sense of remorse. I
+thought if you knew you might call upon me some day to prove myself. I'm
+bungling, I know, but I wish I could make you understand how I feel."
+
+"I do." And now Joan got up rather unsteadily. "And some day--I--I may
+call upon you--for--for I have known your name--always!"
+
+"What!"
+
+"Please--forgive me. I was taking an advantage--but it did not seem to
+matter then, and I must keep the advantage now--for your sake as well as
+mine. And now, before we say good-bye, I want to tell you that I know
+you are going to have your ideals again. You will try to get them back,
+won't you?"
+
+"I will get them back, yes! I only lost them when the devil in me drove
+me mad."
+
+"And bye and bye, try to believe that although one cannot make the
+unreal real, still there are some foolish people that think they
+can--and be kind to such people. Help them, do not hurt them."
+
+"Will you--take my hand?" Raymond stretched his own forth.
+
+"Why--of course--and tell you that I am glad, oh, so glad because--you
+have come back! Glad because it was I not another who saw that other
+you--for I can forget it!"
+
+"And--and we are--to see each other some day?" This came hopefully.
+"Some day--as we left ourselves--back before this?"
+
+"Some day--some day? Perhaps. If we do--we will understand better than
+we did then."
+
+"Yes. We'll understand some things."
+
+Raymond bent and touched Joan's hand with his lips and went quickly from
+the room.
+
+He was conscious of passing, on the stairs, a wet and draggled young
+woman, but he did not pause to see the frightened look she cast upon
+him.
+
+A moment later Joan raised her head from the pillow on which she was
+weeping the weakest--and the strongest--tears of her life.
+
+"Oh! Pat," she sobbed. "Oh! Pat."
+
+Patricia came to the couch and sat down. She was thinking fast and hard.
+Life had not been make-believe to Patricia; she had builded whatever
+towers had been hers with hard facts.
+
+She drew wrong and bitter conclusions now--but she dealt with them
+divinely.
+
+"You poor kid," she whispered, "and I left you--to this. I! Joan, I told
+you not to trust men. It's when you trust them that you get hurt.
+
+"Listen, you poor little lamb, I felt you calling me, tugging at me. The
+storm delayed me, or I would have been here sooner. Joan, I had nearly
+run off the track myself--it was the thought of you that got me. I kept
+remembering that night you made the little dinner for me--no one had
+ever taken care of me like that--and, child, I've accepted that job in
+Chicago. If I go alone, remembering that dinner you got for me, I don't
+know what I'll do. Come with me, Joan, will you? No man in the world is
+worth such tears as these. You don't have to tell _me_ anything. We'll
+begin anew. You'll have your music--I'll have my work--and we'll have a
+dinner every night."
+
+Patricia was shivering in her wet clothing.
+
+Joan put her arms about her. At that moment nothing so much appealed to
+her as to get away--get away to think and make sure of herself. Get away
+from the place where her idols lay shattered.
+
+"Yes, Pat. I will go. But"--and here she took Patricia's face in her hot
+palms--"don't you believe that any man can be trusted?"
+
+"No, I don't. It isn't their fault. They are not made for trust--they're
+made to do things."
+
+"Pat, you're all wrong. It's girls like you and me that cannot be
+trusted. I--I didn't know myself that was the trouble. Pat--you
+mustn't--think what you are thinking--you are mistaken."
+
+"I saw him--on the stairs," gasped Patricia.
+
+"Suppose you did?"
+
+"Joan, do you know what time it is?"
+
+"No. I do not care. It takes time to have the world tumble about your
+ears."
+
+"You--you--do not--love him, do you?"
+
+Joan paused and considered this as if it were a startlingly new idea.
+
+"Love him?--why, no. I'm sure I don't. But, Pat, what is it that seems
+like love, but isn't--you're sure it isn't--but it hurts and almost
+kills you?"
+
+The two young faces confronted each other blankly.
+
+"I don't know," Patricia said.
+
+"Nor I, Pat. But we've got to know. All women have unless they want to
+mess their own lives and the lives of men. They cannot be free until
+they do."
+
+Then Joan took hold of Patricia and exclaimed:
+
+"Pat, you are dripping wet. Come to bed." While helping Patricia to
+undress she talked excitedly of going away.
+
+"It's the only thing to do. This silly life is a waste of time. Why,
+Pat, we have been making all kinds of locks to keep ourselves shut away
+from freedom and the things we want. Some day we would want to get out
+and we could not. I am going to be free, Pat--not smudgy."
+
+Patricia paused in the act of getting into bed and remarked demurely:
+
+"My God! Out of the mouths of babes and pet lambs---- Come, child, shut
+your eyes. You make me crawl."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+"_Queer--to think no day is like to a day that is past._"
+
+
+When Joan and Patricia arose the following day they confronted life as
+two criminals might who realized that their only safety lay in flight,
+and that they must escape without running risks.
+
+Patricia shuddered when the first mail was delivered. She rescued her
+own letter--addressed to Joan--and raised her heart in gratitude that no
+letter of angered remonstrance came from Burke.
+
+But he might _come_; he might telegraph!
+
+"My God!" Patricia exclaimed at noon time, "I cannot stand this, Joan,
+we must vacate."
+
+Joan was quivering with excitement, too--she was wild-eyed and shook
+with terror at every step on the stairs.
+
+Her ordeal of the day before had not merely devastated her beautiful
+dreams, but it had, in a marvellous fashion, created an entirely new
+outlook on life. She felt that once she was safe from any possible
+chance of meeting Raymond, he might, spiritually, rise from the ashes
+and eventually overcome the impression that would cling in spite of all
+she could do. Intellectually she understood--but her hurt and shocked
+sensibilities shrank from bodily contact with one who had forced the
+fruit of knowledge so crudely upon her. The youth in her seemed to have
+died, and it held all the charm and delight. The _woman_ of Joan made a
+plea for the man, but as yet he was a stranger. More strange, even, than
+the unnamable creature who had, for an hour, while the storm raged,
+stood in her imagination like some evil thing between the woman who had
+not fully understood and the woman who was never again to
+misunderstand.
+
+While she feared and trembled Joan could, already, recall the moment
+when Raymond began to gain the victory over his fallen self. She knew
+that he was always to be the master in the future. How she knew this she
+could not have explained, but she knew! In all the years to come Raymond
+would be the better for that hour that proved to him his weakness. And
+with this knowledge, poor Joan found comfort in her own part. He and she
+had learned together the strength of their hidden foes. She realized
+with a sense of hot remorse that she had wanted freedom not so much for
+the opportunity of expressing that which was fine and worth while, but
+that which she, herself, had not been conscious of.
+
+But she had been awakened in time. She, like Raymond, had faced her
+worst self, and now the most desirable thing to do was to get away.
+Anywhere, separated from all that had led to the shock, she would look
+back and forward and know herself well enough to make the next step a
+safer one.
+
+To go with Patricia for a few months would not interfere with her winter
+plans; so she decided not to write fully to Doris, but to state merely
+that she was going to see Patricia settled in her new venture--or,
+should the business not appeal, bring Patricia back with her.
+
+"But," she said to Patricia while they restlessly moved about the
+studio, "what can we do about--this," Joan spread her arms wide, "the
+furniture and all Syl's beloved things?"
+
+Patricia sighed.
+
+"Has it ever struck you, my lamb," she said, "that our dear Syl is a
+selfish pig?"
+
+Joan started in surprise.
+
+"Oh, I know," Patricia went on, "her respectability and genius protect
+her, but she is selfish. How long did she stop to consider us when her
+own plans loomed high? She dumped everything on us and went! It was
+business, pleasure, art, and John. For the rest--'poof!'" Patricia spoke
+the last sound like a knife cutting through something crisp and hard.
+
+Joan continued to stare. Unformed impressions were taking shape--she
+felt disloyal, but she was not deceived.
+
+"Syl brought you here," Patricia was going on, "because she was lonely
+and you fitted in; she never changed her own course. She has engaged
+herself to her John because _he_ fits in and will never interfere. I've
+seen him--and I grieve over him. He'll think, bye and bye, that he's
+gone into partnership with God in giving Syl and her art to the world!
+But he'll never have any nice little fire to warm the empty corners of
+his life by. I hope he'll never discover them--poor chap! He's as good
+as gold and Syl has pulled it all over him without knowing it. She's
+made him believe that he was specially designed to further a good
+cause--she is the good cause.
+
+"And the best, or the worst, of it is that Syl will make good. That kind
+does. It is such fools as you and I who fail because we have imagination
+and find ourselves at the crucial moment in the other fellow's shoes."
+
+"Oh, Pat!" It was all that Joan could think of saying.
+
+Patricia was rushing on.
+
+"Very well, then! Now, listen, lamb, you and I are going to skip and
+skip at once. I'm done up. A change is all that will save me--and you've
+got to go with me!"
+
+"Yes, yes, Pat!"
+
+"Why, child, a step on the stairs is giving us electric shocks. This
+lease is up in October. I'll telegraph Syl to-day. She can make her own
+arrangements after that--we'll leave things safe here and get out
+to-morrow!"
+
+Suddenly Joan got up and threw her hands over her head.
+
+"Thank heaven!" was what she cried aloud.
+
+There was much rush and flurry after that, and in the excitement the
+nervous tension relaxed.
+
+A note, a most bewildering one, was posted to Elspeth Gordon. It came at
+a moment when Miss Gordon greatly needed Joan and was most annoyed at
+her non-appearance. It simply stated:
+
+    Something has happened--I'm going at once to Chicago with Pat.
+
+Now as Patricia had been an unknown quantity to Miss Gordon--her
+relations with Joan being purely those of business--she raised her brows
+with all the inherited conservatism of her churchly ancestors and
+steeled her heart--as they often had.
+
+"Temperamental!" sniffed Miss Gordon, "utterly lacking in honour. Just
+as I might have expected. A poor prospect for--Pat! I do not envy the
+gentleman."
+
+Miss Gordon had contempt instead of passion, but her resentment was none
+the less.
+
+And it was at high tide when Raymond came in at four-thirty for a cup of
+tea and what comfort he could obtain by seeing how Joan had survived the
+storm. He was met by blank absence and a secret and unchristian desire
+on Miss Gordon's part to hurt Joan.
+
+Miss Gordon had not been entirely unobservant of all that had been going
+on. She had had her qualms, but business must be business, and so long
+as Joan did not interfere with that she had not felt called upon to
+remonstrate with her on her growing friendliness with the protege of
+Mrs. Tweksbury.
+
+But now things were changed and by Joan's own bad behaviour.
+
+Raymond looked sadly in need of tea and every other comfort
+available--he was positively haggard.
+
+While he sipped his tea he was watching, watching. So was Miss Gordon.
+Finally, he could stand it no longer and he spoke to her as she was
+passing.
+
+"Your little sibyl--she is not here? On a vacation, I suppose?"
+
+This was futile and cheap and Raymond felt that he flushed.
+
+Miss Gordon poised for action. Her face grew grave and hard--she
+believed she was quite within her just rights when she sought to protect
+this very handsome and worth-while young man. She really should have
+done it before! She was convinced of that now.
+
+"My assistant," she said, "has left without giving the usual notice. She
+has left me in a most embarrassing position but I suppose she felt her
+own personal affairs were paramount.
+
+"I--I think she has made a hasty marriage." On the whole, this seemed
+more kind than Joan deserved.
+
+"A--what?" Raymond almost forgot himself. "A--what--did you say?"
+
+"Well, I presume it was marriage. She simply stated that something had
+occurred that was taking her to Chicago at once with a young man."
+
+Elspeth Gordon watched the face of Mrs. Tweksbury's adopted son. She
+felt she was serving a righteous cause. If any worthy young man came to
+harm from the folly she had permitted she could never forgive herself!
+Miss Gordon had an elastic conscience.
+
+Raymond's countenance grew suddenly blank. He had recovered his
+self-control. He laughed presently--it was a light, well-modulated
+laugh, not the laugh of a shocked or very much interested man.
+
+Miss Gordon was relieved--but disappointed.
+
+And then Raymond went out to do his thinking alone. He walked the
+streets as people often do who are lonely and can find relief in action.
+
+He had never been so confused in his life, but then, he reflected, what
+did he really know about the girl with whom he had spent so many happy,
+sweet, unforgettable hours? The one black hour through which she had,
+somehow, stood as the only tangible safe thing he could recall, had
+shattered his faith in himself, in everything.
+
+What was she? Who was she? And now she had gone--with some man! It
+sounded cruel and harsh--but it could not, it never could, blot out
+certain memories which lay deep in Raymond's mind. He was miserable
+beyond words. He deplored his own part in the unhappy affair; he could
+not adjust himself to the inevitable--the end of the amazing and
+romantic episode.
+
+Of course he had always known that it must end some time, but while he
+drifted damnably he had not given much thought to that. But now he had
+finished it by his own beastiality when, had he kept his head, it might
+have passed as it came--a thing undefiled; a beautiful, tender memory.
+
+Perhaps--and at this Raymond shuddered--perhaps he had driven the girl
+upon a reef. He had heard of such things. In despair she had violently
+taken herself out of his reach. He could not believe she had been
+seriously involved while she played with him. Whatever she was, he could
+but believe that she was innocent in her regard for him--else why this
+mad flight? And he could not believe that her regard for him was
+serious. He was humble enough.
+
+After leaving Joan the night before Raymond had met his Other Self
+squarely in the shrouded house. Toward morning he had come to a
+conclusion: he was prepared to pay to the uttermost for his folly,
+whatever the demand might be. She must be the judge.
+
+He would go to the tea room--not to the house that he had so brutally
+invaded. He would again talk to the girl and watch her--he would make
+her understand that he was not as weak as he might seem. If he had
+misunderstood, that should not exempt him from responsibility. But if
+she should spurn any attempt of his to remedy the evil he could regard
+himself with a comparatively clean conscience.
+
+Raymond could not get away from the idea that the girl was of his
+world--the world where he was supposed, by Mrs. Tweksbury and her kind,
+to constantly be.
+
+But then the empty tea room--and how empty it was!--stared him blankly
+in the face. Miss Gordon's manner angered him beyond expression. Almost
+he felt he must tell her of his own low part in the tragedy in order to
+place her beside the girl he had insulted, instead of beside him, as he
+felt she was.
+
+Raymond was hurt, disappointed, and disgusted; but as the day wore on a
+grave and common-sense wave of relief flooded his consciousness. Bad as
+things had been, they might, God knows, have been worse. As it was, with
+the best of intentions, he was set aside by the girl's own conduct of
+her affairs.
+
+To seek her further would be the greatest of folly and then, toward
+night, lonely, half ill, Raymond undertook that time-honoured custom of
+turning over a new leaf only to find that it stuck to the old
+persistently!
+
+Then he resorted to a sensible alternative--he read and re-read the old
+page. He tried to understand it line by line. He was humbled; filled
+with shame at his meaningless attitude of the past, and acknowledged
+that the grit in him, that he had hoped was sand, was, after all, the
+dirt that could easily defile. He must begin anew and rebuild. He must
+take nothing for granted in himself. Having arrived at that conclusion,
+the leaf turned!
+
+And Joan, in like manner, thrashed about. It was not so much her actions
+that caused her alarm--she had played most sincerely--but it was the
+power behind the play that caused her to tremble and grow hot and cold.
+What was it within her that had driven her where wiser girls would fear
+to stray? What was it that was not love in the least and yet had caused
+her heart to beat at Raymond's touch or glance? Whatever it was, Joan
+concluded, it could not be depended upon. It could lay waste every holy
+spot unless it were understood and controlled, and Joan set herself to
+the task.
+
+The first step was to get away. That was inevitable.
+
+After a few months--and Joan was sure Patricia could not run in harness
+longer than that--they could both come back, saner and better women.
+Then Doris would be called into action; no more butting against the
+pricks and calling it freedom!
+
+In the meantime, Patricia and Joan worked madly to get away and still
+secure Sylvia's interests.
+
+Telegrams passed to and fro. Sylvia was fair enough to see both sides,
+and while she was irritated at being disturbed she did not resent it and
+even bade Patricia and Joan success with honest enthusiasm.
+
+"I'll run back and see to things," she wrote; "I'm making a lot of
+money."
+
+And then Patricia tucked Joan, so to speak, under her frail wing and
+took to flight.
+
+Chicago was new territory to both the girls but Patricia, from the
+necessity, as she told Joan, of grubbing, had become an adept at finding
+shelter.
+
+After a week at a hotel, while she settled herself in business, Patricia
+had free hours for home-hunting, and she and Joan made a lark of it.
+
+Patricia had the enviable power of shutting business from her own time,
+and she quickly discerned that Joan needed prompt and definite interests
+to hold her to what they had undertaken.
+
+And the venture had suddenly assumed gigantic proportions to Patricia.
+She feverishly desired it to be a success.
+
+She realized that Joan was being torn by conflicting emotions while she
+was idle and alone. She asked no questions; appeared not to notice
+Joan's teary eyes and pensive mouth. Wisely she made Joan feel her own
+need of her--to that Joan responded at once.
+
+"Joan, I never had a home in my life before," she confided while they
+flitted from one apartment to another. "I used to walk around in strange
+cities and peep in people's windows, just to see homes!
+
+"After my father died, I rustled about on the little money he left, and
+I got to sneaking into other women's homes. I didn't mean harm at first,
+but after awhile it seemed so easy to sneak and so hard to--make good!
+But down in my heart, as truly as God hears me, I've been homesick
+for--what I never had."
+
+"Pat! Of all things--you are crying!" Joan looked frightened.
+
+"Well, let me cry!" sniveled Patricia. "I've never given myself that
+luxury, either."
+
+For a moment there was silence broken only by Patricia's sniffs. Then:
+
+"What do your folks say about it, Joan?"
+
+"I haven't sent the big letter yet--it's written. I don't want them to
+say anything until I'm fixed. I only told them of our leaving New York."
+
+"Whew!" ejaculated Patricia. "You certainly run your career
+free-handed."
+
+"Aunt Dorrie will take it like the darling she is," Joan mused on, "and
+she'll make Nan and Doctor Martin see it. When she gave me my chance she
+did not tie a string to me--not even the string of her love. We
+understand each other perfectly."
+
+"I suppose you know," Patricia gave a sigh, "but I don't think an
+explanation would hurt any and I don't want her to blame me more than I
+deserve, Joan."
+
+"Blame you, Pat? Why, how could she?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know. She might get to thinking on her own hook if you
+don't give her the facts. Joan, send the letter at once!"
+
+So Joan dispatched the letter, and it had the effect of depressing Nancy
+to an alarming degree and, in consequence, of spurring Doris to renewed
+effort.
+
+She was perturbed by the lack of what she knew. She had her doubts of
+Patricia; the sudden flight had an aspect of rout--what did it mean?
+
+Her reply to Joan, however, was much what Martin's would have been to
+his nephew.
+
+She accepted and took on faith what Joan had explained--or failed to
+explain.
+
+She laid emphasis on plans for the coming winter and referred to Joan's
+promise to give herself seriously to her music.
+
+"Either in New York or there, my dear, begin your real work. It is all
+well enough to look about before you decide, but there is a time for
+decision."
+
+This letter put Joan on her mettle.
+
+"Pat, I'm going to begin as soon as we've settled," she declared, and
+her wet eyes shone. "Aunt Dorrie is quite right."
+
+The girls finally secured four pretty, sunny rooms overlooking the lake,
+and reverently selected the furniture for them.
+
+"Let's get things artistic," Patricia wisely explained, "we'll make the
+place unique and then"--for Patricia always left, if possible, a way
+open for retreat--"if we should ever want to dispose of it, we'd have a
+good market."
+
+But as the days passed it looked as if the venture were turning out
+better than one could have hoped. Joan had never felt so important in
+her life, and, to her surprise, developed possibilities never suspected
+before. She prepared for Patricia's homecomings with the keenest
+delight. The cozy, charming little dinners, the evenings by the open
+fire--for they had selected the rooms largely on account of the
+fireplace--or the occasional theatre or concert grew in delight.
+Patricia was the merriest of comrades, the most appreciative of
+partners. She also, to her own surprise, became deeply interested in her
+work and, while the hours and confinement sometimes irritated her, her
+field of invention was wide enough to employ her real talent, and her
+success was assured from the first.
+
+And when things were running smoothly and there were hours too empty for
+comfort in the lonely day, Joan discovered a professor of music who gave
+her much encouragement and some good advice.
+
+After this interview she wrote to Doris more frankly than she had done
+for a long time. She explained her financial situation and quite simply
+asked for help:
+
+     It's very expensive learning _not_ to be a fool, Aunt Doris. I have
+     proved that. I am very serious now and Chicago, with Pat, is better
+     for me than New York with Sylvia.
+
+     What I really want is to prove myself a bit before I come back to
+     you. I'm sorry about this winter, dear, but a year more and I will
+     be able to come to you not _on_ my shield, I hope, but with it in
+     fairly good condition.
+
+"I think you ought to make her keep her promise about this winter,"
+Nancy quivered; "she is always upsetting things."
+
+"Why, my little Nan!" Doris drew the girl to her. Oddly enough, she felt
+as if Nancy was all that she was ever to have. Never before had Joan
+sounded so determined.
+
+"Instead," Doris comforted, "I am going to help Joan prove herself and
+you and I, little girl, will go up to town and have a very happy, a very
+wonderful winter, and next summer, if Joan does not come to us, we will
+go to her. I think we all see things very clearly now."
+
+Nancy was not so sure of this but she, like Joan and Patricia, had felt
+the lash upon her back and was chafing at delay.
+
+Mary worked early and late to hasten the departure from The Gap. Always
+in Mary's consciousness was that threatening old woman on Thunder Peak.
+
+With care and comfort old Becky was more alert; more suspicious. She was
+wondering _why_. And Mary felt that at any time she might defeat what
+daily was gaining a hold on Mary's suspicions. The woman tried hard to
+shield the secret from her own curiosity, but under all else lay the
+conviction that it was Nancy's toys which were in peril. And gradually
+the love that the silent, morose woman felt for the girl absorbed all
+other emotions. It was like having banked everything on a desired hope
+she was prepared to defend it. If her suspicions were true, then all the
+more must the secret be hid.
+
+And so in November Doris and Nancy went to New York and Mary, apparently
+unmoved, saw them depart while she counted anew her assumed duties.
+
+There was The Peak--and with winter to complicate her duties, it loomed
+ominously.
+
+"And I'll have to back letters for old Jed." Mary had promised to write
+for the old man and to read from the Bible to him, as Nancy had always
+done. "And keep the old man alive as well." Mary sighed wearily. "And
+when there's a minute to rest--keep my own place decent." The cabin was
+the one bright thought and, because of that which had made the cabin
+possible, Mary bowed her back to her burdens.
+
+"A strange woman is Mary," Doris confided to Nancy; "nothing seems to
+make any impression upon her."
+
+Nancy opened her lovely blue eyes wide at this.
+
+"Why, Aunt Dorrie," she replied, "Mary would die for us--and never
+mention it. She's made that still, faithful way."
+
+Doris smiled, but did not change her mind. The people of the hills were
+never to be to her what they had been to Sister Angela--her people.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+"_It Is Felicity on Her Wings._"
+
+
+The old New York house was once more opened and the fountain set free.
+Birds sang and flowers bloomed, but Joan was not there and for a blank
+but silent moment both Doris and Nancy wondered if the lack were to
+defeat them. The moment was appalling but it passed.
+
+Felicity brooded over them and her wings did not droop.
+
+Martin, with his sound common sense, came to the fore among the first.
+He was never more alert. His nephew, Clive Cameron, was entrenched in
+Martin's office and home--his name, alone, shone on the new sign.
+
+"I've flung you in neck and crop, Bud, because I believe in you and have
+told my patients so. Sink or swim, but you've got clear water to do it
+in. I'll hang around--make my city headquarters with you; lend myself to
+you; but for the rest I'm going to do exactly what I want to do--for a
+time."
+
+Cameron regarded his uncle as the young often do the older--yearningly,
+covetously, tenderly.
+
+"I--I think I understand about Miss Fletcher, Uncle Dave," he said.
+
+"I had hoped you did, boy. And remember this--it's only when a woman
+gets so into your system that she cannot be purged out, that you dare to
+be sure."
+
+"But, Uncle Dave, the knowledge--what has it done for you?"
+
+"You'll never be able to understand that, Bud, until you're past the age
+of asking the question."
+
+And having settled that to his satisfaction, Martin turned resolutely to
+what threatened Doris and Nancy.
+
+He meant to see fair play. Doris could be depended upon for a few
+strenuous months if her friends turned to and helped her as they should.
+
+Nancy must no longer be sacrificed!
+
+"If there is any sense in this tomfoolery about Joan," Martin mused, "it
+must apply to Nancy also."
+
+Martin was extremely fond of Nancy. He often wished she would not lean
+so heavily, but then his spiritual ideal of a woman was after Nancy's
+design. Of Joan he disapproved, and Doris was a type apart.
+
+"If we can marry Nancy off," plotted Martin--and he had his mind's eye
+on his nephew--"I'll bring Sister on from the West and get Doris to
+share Ridge House with us. Queer combination, but safe!"
+
+And then he saw, as in a vision, the peaceful years on ahead. He would
+hold Doris's hand down the westering way. Hold it close and warm; never
+looking for more than the blessed companionship. And his sister, happy
+and content, would share the way with them and Nancy's children--would
+they be Clive's also?--would gladden all their hearts. And Joan?--well,
+Martin did not feel that Joan needed his architectural aid--she was
+chopping and hacking her own design.
+
+At this point Martin sought Emily Tweksbury and bullied her into action.
+
+Mrs. Tweksbury had not unpacked her trunks yet and was sorely depressed
+about Raymond.
+
+"I wish I had stuck to Maine," she deplored, "and devoted myself to the
+boy. He looks like a fallen angel.
+
+"Ken, what have you been doing to yourself?" she had asked.
+
+"Just pegging away, Aunt Emily."
+
+"Ken," Mrs. Tweksbury had an awful habit of felling the obvious by a
+blow of her common-sense hatchet; "Ken, you've got to be married. You're
+not the kind to float around town and enjoy it--and you are the kind
+that would enjoy the other."
+
+"Oh! I'm having a bully time, Aunt Emily."
+
+"That's not true, Ken. Life lacks salt; you look the need of it and I
+blame myself for going abroad."
+
+"I'm glad you went!" fervently said Raymond.
+
+"You are, eh? Well, I'm not going again until you're safely married."
+
+At this Raymond found that he could laugh, and just then the hatchet
+fell, for Doctor Martin had entered the arena and Mrs. Tweksbury had
+agreed to help.
+
+"Do you remember my speaking of that niece of Miss Fletcher's last
+spring?" she asked.
+
+"Yes. I do recall it. Wasn't she to come here--or something like that?"
+
+"Yes, she was, but she isn't. Doris Fletcher has brought her girl up to
+town herself and the old house is opened. I called there the other day.
+Ken, that girl is the loveliest thing I ever saw!"
+
+"Is she?" Raymond was sitting on the edge of the table in Mrs.
+Tweksbury's dressing room. When she got through talking he was going to
+bed. He had to stifle a yawn.
+
+"Yes, she is. She's not only the prettiest girl I've seen for many a
+year, but she's _the girl_."
+
+"For what?" Raymond swung his lifted foot while he balanced with the
+other.
+
+"For you, Ken!" The crash unsettled Raymond and he brought his free foot
+to the floor.
+
+"Oh! come," he blurted; "don't begin that sort of rubbish, Aunt Emily. I
+thought you were above that."
+
+"I'm not, Ken. I would go slow if I dared, but this girl will be snapped
+up before we get in touch with her, unless we act quick."
+
+"Aunt Emily! For heaven's sake, is the girl hanging about open-mouthed
+for the first hook tossed to her?"
+
+"No. But, Ken, she is the kind that men want--the kind they hold sacred
+in their souls and hardly dare hope ever to see in the flesh. The girl
+made me want to grab her. I remember as a child she was charming--she's
+a perfect, but very human, woman now."
+
+With this Mrs. Tweksbury dilated upon what Doris had confided of Nancy's
+loyal and devoted life.
+
+"You see, Ken," Mrs. Tweksbury ran on, "the girl is like a rare thing
+that you cannot debate much about, and once lost, the opportunity will
+never come again. I've gone off about her, Ken."
+
+"I should say you had! Will you smoke, Aunt Emily?"
+
+"Yes!"
+
+To see Emily Tweksbury smoke was about as incongruous as to see an
+antique remodelled to bring it up to date; but the smoke calmed her.
+
+"You will call with me upon her, won't you, Ken?"
+
+"With pleasure."
+
+Raymond felt that any compromise would be well to offer.
+
+"I'll do my best by her, too, Aunt Emily. I rather shy at perfect types;
+girls, at the best, make me skittish. They make me think of myself and
+then I get gawky."
+
+"You'll forget yourself when you see Nancy Thornton."
+
+"Nancy--queer old name for a modern girl!" The two puffed away like old
+cronies--Raymond had got into a chair now and Mrs. Tweksbury had
+relaxed, also.
+
+"She isn't modern!"
+
+"No? What then, Aunt Emily?"
+
+"Ken, she's just woman. She appears just once so often, like a prophet
+or something, that keeps your faith alive. She's the kind that the Bible
+calls 'blessed,' and if she didn't reappear now and then I think the
+race would perish."
+
+"Ugh!" grunted Raymond. Then added: "Calm down, Aunt Emily, go slow.
+When you lose your head you're apt to buck."
+
+Mrs. Tweksbury laughed at this and helped herself to another cigarette.
+
+It was a week later that Raymond met Nancy at his aunt's dinner table.
+He knew she was coming. At least he thought he knew--but when he saw her
+he felt that he had not expected her at all.
+
+It was a small party: Doris Fletcher, Doctor Martin, young Doctor
+Cameron, and Nancy.
+
+Nancy came into the dim old drawing room behind young Cameron. It was
+that fact that attracted Raymond first. He recalled what Mrs. Tweksbury
+had said about the type being the ideal of man--or something like
+that--and Cameron, whom he had just met a few weeks before, had
+apparently got into action.
+
+After Nancy came Doctor Martin--it was as if the male element surrounded
+the girl.
+
+She was rather breath-taking and radiant. She wore a coral-pink satin
+gown, very short and narrow. Her pretty feet were shod in pink stockings
+and satin slippers. Her dainty arms and neck were white and smooth, and
+her glorious fair hair was held in place by a string of coral beads.
+
+There are a good many platitudes that are really staggering facts.
+
+"Caught on the rebound," is one.
+
+Raymond was more open to certain emotions than he had ever been in his
+life. He was sore and bruised; he had lost several beliefs in
+himself--and was completely ignorant of the big thing that had given him
+new strength.
+
+He had had the vision of passion through the wrong lens; he had been
+blinded by the close range, but he _knew_ what the vision was. In that
+he had the advantage of poor Joan.
+
+His youth cried out for Youth; he wanted what he had all but lost the
+right to have. But he in no sense just then wanted Nancy; it was what
+she represented. She was what Mrs. Tweksbury had said, the kind of girl
+that men enshrine in their souls and never replace even when they gladly
+accept a substitute.
+
+"If only----" and then Raymond's eyes looked queer. He was living over
+the black hour which he did not realize was the hour of his soul's
+birth. He'd never have that battle again, he inwardly swore, but that
+was poor comfort.
+
+And then, while talking to Nancy, he grew very gay and light-hearted,
+like someone who had made a safe passage past the siren's rocks. Not
+that it mattered, except that one did not want to be shipwrecked. Of
+course, Raymond knew, he wouldn't forget while he lived, the other
+thing just past, but it had not wrecked him.
+
+After that dinner nothing would have happened if all sorts of pressure
+had not been brought to bear. Raymond was affectionately inclined to be
+kind to Mrs. Tweksbury because he knew he had wronged her faith in him,
+though she would never know; so he accompanied her whenever she
+beckoned, and she beckoned frequently and always toward Nancy.
+
+Then Clive Cameron happened, at the crucial moment, to be on the middle
+of the stage for the same reasons that Raymond was there. Cameron
+followed Martin's vigorous beckoning, although he was bored to the
+limit. He liked Nancy and thought her very beautiful, but Cameron had
+not enshrined any type of woman--a few men are like that. He knew,
+because he was young and vital and sane, that he had a shrine, or
+pedestal, in his make-up and if, at any time, he saw a girl that made
+him forget, for a moment, the profession that was absorbing him just
+then, he'd humbly implore her to fill the empty niche and after that he
+would do the glorifying. But if it pleased his uncle to trot him about,
+he went with charming grace; and because it did not affect him in the
+least, he played almost boisterously with Nancy and made her jollier
+than she had ever been in her life.
+
+He made her forget things! Forget The Gap!
+
+Cameron simply knocked unpleasant memories into limbo; he was like a
+fresh northwest wind--he revived everyone. He made Doris think of David
+Martin as she first knew him--and naturally Doris adored Cameron. She
+came near praying that Nancy might, after a fashion, pay her debts for
+her. But no! she would not influence Nancy--she must be respected in her
+beautiful freedom as Joan was in hers.
+
+So Doris widened the field of Nancy's vision, and old friends came
+happily to the front.
+
+It is not wholly ignoble, the marriage market. To understand the game of
+life is to be prepared, and women like Doris Fletcher were not entirely
+self-seeking when they presented their best to what they believed should
+be the best. Nancy was worthy, as Martin often said, to carry on the
+truest American tradition of womanhood, so it became a reverent concern
+to help this matter personally, and nationally, on its course.
+
+Young men swarmed about Nancy because, as Mrs. Tweksbury truly said, the
+_ideal_ was in their hearts and they were stirred by it.
+
+And Nancy was radiant and lovely. She blossomed and throbbed--she was
+happy and appreciative. She was charming to everyone, but ran to Cameron
+for safety and kept her sweet eyes on Raymond.
+
+So secretly did she do this that no one but Cameron suspected it. The
+perfectly serene atmosphere that surrounded him and Nancy permitted him
+to understand the state of affairs.
+
+When a girl uses a man as a buffer between her and others he does not
+confuse things.
+
+For a short time Cameron debated as to which particular man Nancy wanted
+him to save her for while he was preserving her from the mass. It did
+not take him long to decide. He grinned at the truth when it struck him.
+He was surprised, as men usually are, at a woman's choice of males.
+Cameron liked Raymond; thought him a good sort, but herd-bound.
+
+"But Nancy's got the brand mark, too," he reflected. "They're both
+headed in the same direction, only Raymond doesn't know it--a woman
+always finds things out first, and it's up to me, I guess, to lasso
+Raymond for her."
+
+So Cameron took up the "big brother" burden and steered the unsuspecting
+Raymond to his fate.
+
+Cameron did this in a masterly way. He blinded everyone except Nancy.
+
+Doris sighed with content, and Martin lifted his eyes in praise and
+gratitude. Mrs. Tweksbury, like a war-horse smelling powder, saw danger
+to her plans and quickened Raymond to what was going on.
+
+At first Raymond was relieved--he wished Cameron good luck. Having done
+that, he began to wonder if he really did?
+
+There was something unutterably sweet about Nancy: she was so purely
+the kind of woman that made life a success. Why should he play straight
+into Cameron's hand? If Nancy really preferred Cameron, why, then--but
+did she?
+
+This was interesting. He took to watching; presently he concluded that
+Cameron was a conceited ass.
+
+After a short time Raymond began to feel the pressure of Nancy's little
+body in his arms--when their dance was over. He began to resent other
+arms about her. Her eyes were lovely--so blue and sympathetic. She never
+set a man guessing. Raymond had had enough of guessing!
+
+About that time Mrs. Tweksbury added an urge to her heart's desire that
+she little suspected.
+
+"Ken," she remarked one morning, "I dropped into the Brier Tea Room
+yesterday." It was the _brier_ that signified the meaning of the place
+to the old lady.
+
+"Do you remember?"
+
+Raymond nodded. Did he _not_ remember!
+
+"The place is quite ordinary now--but the food is still superior. Miss
+Gordon has come to her senses."
+
+"Has she?" Raymond asked, lamely.
+
+"Yes. And that girl--do you remember her, Ken?"
+
+Raymond nodded again.
+
+"Just as one might expect," Mrs. Tweksbury rattled on, keeping to her
+one-tracked idea of things, "the minx ran off with a man, never
+considering Miss Gordon at all."
+
+"I doubt if Miss Gordon could see any one's side but her own," ventured
+Raymond.
+
+"Ken, that's unjust. The girl was a little fraud, and I think Miss
+Gordon is heartily ashamed of herself for having resorted to such cheap
+methods to get trade. She has young Scotch girls helping her now. No
+more tricks, says Miss Gordon."
+
+There was a pause.
+
+"I thought for a time, Ken, that that girl was one of our kind--risking
+far too much. I'm not usually mistaken in blood, but--the creature was a
+good counterfeit; I'm glad she's gone. Say what you will, we older women
+know the young man needs protection as well as the young women."
+
+"Oh! Aunt Emily, cut it out!"
+
+Raymond got up and stalked about. This added to Mrs. Tweksbury's
+uneasiness.
+
+For days after that talk Raymond had his uncomfortable hours. He wished
+he knew about the girl of the tea room. It was "the girl" now. If she
+were only unscathed the future would be safer for everyone.
+
+But how could he--Raymond was getting into the meshes--how could he run
+to safety and happiness and forget, if he had really harmed, in any way,
+a girl who might have cared? The difference between playing with fire
+and being burned by fire was clear now.
+
+Had that hour, when the beast in him rampaged, killed forever the ideal
+she had had? Was she saved by his madness? Or had she been driven on the
+rocks? If he only knew!
+
+Raymond still had moments when he believed that the girl would
+materialize in his own safeguarded world. He had seen a resemblance now
+and then that turned him cold, but when all was said and done there was
+no reason, no unforgivable reason, for him to exile himself from life.
+
+And when he was in this state of mind, Cameron was like vinegar on a raw
+wound to him. Cameron's joyousness, born of indifference, passed for
+assurance based, as Raymond believed, on his asinine conceit.
+
+"He takes Nancy for granted," Raymond grumbled, "and he need not be too
+sure--why, only last night----"
+
+Then Raymond recalled the look in Nancy's eyes.
+
+As a matter of fact, while Raymond was no better nor worse than the
+average young man visiting the marriage market, Nancy had selected him
+for worship and glorification. He loomed high and then, suddenly, he
+loomed alone!
+
+There is that in woman which selects for its own. It is not merely the
+instinct of mating, it is choice, in the main, and makes either for
+success or failure--but it always has its compensations in that vague,
+groping sense that calls for its own. The world may look on wondering or
+dismayed, but the woman, under the crude exterior, clings to the ideal
+she sought.
+
+With Nancy and Raymond conditions favoured the moment. Nancy had a wide
+choice and she was radiantly happy. Doris saw to it that the girl should
+see and hear the best of everything and be free to live her days
+unfettered.
+
+Raymond had inherited the purest desires for family and home--he had
+never seen them gratified in his parents' life, so they still lay
+dormant in his heart. Nancy presently awakened them and Cameron's
+mistaken attitude drove them into action.
+
+Raymond counted Nancy's charms. Her devotion to her aunt, her unselfish
+service while her twin sister followed her own devices, Doctor Martin's
+very pronounced admiration, and Mrs. Tweksbury's ardent affection all
+carried him along like favouring winds. And presently the constant
+appearance of Cameron with Nancy lashed Raymond to the amazing
+conviction that he was in love!
+
+He grew pale and abstracted; the revealment was pouring like light and
+sun into the depths of his nature. He wished that he was a better man;
+he thanked whatever god he reverenced that he was not a worse one. He
+recalled the one foolish episode of his youth with contempt for his
+weakness and gratitude for the escape--not only for himself but for the
+unknown girl.
+
+As a proof of the sincerity of his present change of heart he wished
+above everything that he might find the girl and confess to her, for he
+felt, beyond doubt, that it would give her joy.
+
+He believed this, not because he wanted to believe it, but because he
+felt the truth of it, and presently it gave him courage.
+
+But there was Cameron!
+
+Finally Raymond discovered that his business was suffering. He grew
+indifferent to the exact hour of leaving his office; took no pride in
+his well-regulated habits. He began to dislike Cameron and he dreamed of
+Nancy. Day and night he saw her as the safe and sweet solution of all
+that was best in him. She held sacred what his inheritance reverenced;
+she was human and divine; she was his salvation--or Cameron's.
+
+At this point Mrs. Tweksbury gave him an unlooked-for stab.
+
+"Well!" she remarked with a groan--she never sighed, "I guess Clive
+Cameron has got in at the death!"
+
+She looked gruesome and defeated. Raymond grew hot and cold.
+
+"What do you mean?" he asked, and glared shamelessly.
+
+"I mean," Mrs. Tweksbury confronted Raymond as if repudiating him
+forever, "I mean that you've let the chance of your life slip through
+your fingers and fall into the gaping mouth of that Clive Cameron. It's
+disgusting, nothing less!"
+
+"Aunt Emily! What in thunder do you mean? Nancy Thornton has only been
+here a month; if she's so easily gobbled"--the discussion waxed
+crude--"I'm sure I could not prevent it--I'm not a gobbler."
+
+"No--you're a fool!"
+
+"Come, come, Aunt Emily." Raymond flushed and Mrs. Tweksbury grew
+mahogany-tinted.
+
+"Oh! I know"--two tears--they were like solid balls--rolled down the
+deep red cheeks. Almost it seemed that they would make a noise when they
+landed on the expansive bosom.--"I sound brutal, but I'm the female of
+the species and it hurts to know defeat the--the second time."
+
+"The--second--time?" gasped Raymond.
+
+"Yes--your father! I could--oh! Ken, it is no shame to say it to
+you--but I could have made him happy, but it came, the chance, too late.
+Then when you came I pledged my soul that I would try to secure your
+happiness. I know what you want, need, and deserve, and here is this
+perfect child--the one woman for you, snatched from under your nose by
+Clive Cameron who will--" Emily Tweksbury sought for a figure of
+speech--"who will, without doubt, end in dissecting her!"
+
+"Good Lord!" gasped Raymond. The dramatic choice of words was unnerving
+him.
+
+"Oh! you men," spluttered Mrs. Tweksbury. "You make me weary--disgusted;
+you're no more fit to manage your affairs than babies, and your
+monumental conceit drives sensible women crazy. We ought to ask you to
+marry us. We ought not wait to see you ruin yourselves and us, too."
+
+"But, Aunt Emily, why in thunder do you think Nancy Thornton cares for
+me? If she wants Cameron, why shouldn't she have him?"
+
+At this Emily Tweksbury flung her head back and regarded Raymond with
+flaming eyes.
+
+"You--well!--just what are you? Can't you see? Could you possibly
+believe any girl would take Cameron if she had you to choose?"
+
+At this Raymond laughed. He laughed with abandon, going the gamut of
+emotions like a scale. But presently he became quiet, and a rare
+tenderness overspread his face. He went over to Mrs. Tweksbury and bent
+to kiss her.
+
+"I never knew before, Aunt Emily," he said, "just what a mother meant.
+I'm sorry, dear. Upon my word, I'm deadly sorry, but I'm made slow and
+cautious and mechanical--I'm afraid of making mistakes--and if I have
+lost because of my weakness, why, you and I must cling the closer."
+
+"Oh! Ken. When you talk like that I feel that I must go and have it out
+with Nancy!"
+
+"Aunt Emily, hands off!"
+
+Raymond was suddenly stern, and Mrs. Tweksbury bowed before the tone.
+
+But Raymond meant to make sure before he accepted defeat. He spurred
+himself to the test with the name of Emily Tweksbury on his lips. That
+name seemed to hold all his responsibilities and hopes--his long-ago
+past; the only claim upon the future except---- And in this Raymond was
+sincere. His own honest love for the girl who had entered his life so
+soon after his doubt of himself had had birth made him fear to put his
+feet upon the broad highway.
+
+But he braced himself for effort and on a stormy, sleety January
+afternoon he telephoned to Nancy and asked her if she were to be free
+that evening.
+
+She was. And--to his shame Raymond heard it gleefully--she had a "sniffy
+little cold" that made going out impossible.
+
+"Are you afraid of sniffy colds?" asked Nancy, "they say they are
+catching!"
+
+"I particularly like them," Raymond returned.
+
+"We'll have a big fire in the sunken room and," here Nancy gurgled over
+the telephone, "we'll toast marshmallows."
+
+Raymond presented himself as early as he dared and was told by the maid
+to go to the sunken room. Believing that Nancy was there awaiting him,
+he approached with a beaming countenance.
+
+Cameron stood with his back to the roaring fire.
+
+"Hello, Ken!" he blurted, cheerfully. "You look like a gargoyle."
+
+"Thanks!" All the light and joy fled at the sight of the big fellow by
+the hearth. Dispiritedly, Raymond sat down and resigned himself to what
+he believed was the inevitable.
+
+Cameron regarded him critically as he might have a puzzling case. Then,
+having made a diagnosis, he prescribed:
+
+"Sorry to see me here, old chap?"
+
+"Why in thunder should I be?" Raymond glared.
+
+"No reason--but then reason isn't everything. Nancy's a bit off--I'd
+hate to have her confront that mug of yours, Ken, if I can soften it up
+any. I came to bring some medicine from Uncle David--he's worried about
+colds these days. Nancy told me you were coming, she went upstairs to
+take her dose in private--she told me to stay and give you the glad hand
+and explain. Somehow you don't look exactly appreciative."
+
+"Sorry!" Raymond found himself relaxing. "Want me to kiss you?"
+
+"Try it! I'd like to have a fling at you. What's up, anyway, Ken? See
+here, old man, you know there might be any one of twenty fellows here
+to-night--you ought to be on your knees thanking heaven that it's I--not
+one of the twenty."
+
+"What the devil do you mean?" Raymond got up, tried to feel resentment
+but could not.
+
+"Nothing, only I'm going and--well, Ken, don't be an ass. It don't
+pay."
+
+Raymond tried to think of something to say, but before the right thing
+occurred he heard Cameron's cheerful whistle cut off by the closing of
+the heavy front door.
+
+Then he sat down by the fire and did some thinking. It was the kind of
+concentrated thought that separates the chaff and wheat; foregoes the
+glitter of romance and reaches out for the guiding, unfailing light of
+reality.
+
+How long he sat alone Raymond never realized. It seemed like years, then
+like a moment--but it brought him to Nancy as she stood at the top of
+the flight of steps leading to the warm, fire-lighted room while the
+fountain splashed cheerfully and a restless, curious little bird
+twittered in its cage.
+
+Nancy wore the faintest of blue gowns; a cloudlike scarf fell from her
+shoulders; her eyes held the full confession of her love as they met the
+groping in Raymond's.
+
+He opened his arms.
+
+"My darling!" he said, "will you come?"
+
+Slowly, radiantly, Nancy stepped down.
+
+"It seems as if I'd always been coming," she was saying. "I--I don't
+want to hurry now that I--I see you."
+
+"I--I think I've always been coming, too," Raymond would not take a
+step, "but I was walking in the dark."
+
+"And I----" but Nancy did not finish her sentence--she had found her
+heart's desire.
+
+"I'm not worthy," murmured Raymond, pressing the light hair with his
+lips.
+
+"Neither am I. We'll grow worthy together. It's like finding a beautiful
+thing we both were seeking. It isn't you or I--alone--it is something
+outside us that we are going to make--ours."
+
+Spiritually Raymond got upon his knees, humanly he pressed the girl
+close.
+
+"It's--you--the Thing is--_you_" he whispered, and at that moment knew
+the last, definite difference between what he now felt and--all that had
+gone before.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+"_To suffer sets a keen edge on what remains of the agreeable. This is a
+great truth that has to be learned in the fire._"
+
+
+It was all so exactly as it should be--the love affair of Nancy and
+Raymond--that it lacked excitement. There was a moment when Doris and
+David Martin looked into each other's eyes and sadly smiled; but that
+was past as it came.
+
+"It's all right, Davey!"
+
+"Of course, Doris, and Bud wasn't in it after all. It was our
+desire--not his. He seems to feel he ought to be cheered for whooping
+the thing on; making Raymond jealous, you know."
+
+"Dear boy!"
+
+"Thanks, Doris. He is something worth while."
+
+Mrs. Tweksbury was so expansive in her happiness that she embarrassed
+Nancy. She fairly bounded over the fragrant garden of new love and
+scanned the wide pastures beyond.
+
+"Ken, if I can see children in this old house, I'll thank God and depart
+in peace. Say that you will come here, boy. You know I'm always
+scuttling overseas. I won't be in the way--but it is the one desire of
+my shrivelled old heart."
+
+"Aunt Emily, go slow and don't be ridiculous. The idea of your being in
+the way in your own house!"
+
+"Ken, make Nancy love me. I know I'm gnarled and crusty, but I need what
+she has to give all the more because of that. I have no pride--I want
+that girl's love so--that I'd--I'd humble myself."
+
+Raymond kissed her.
+
+"Has she told you of her--her sister--yet?" Mrs. Tweksbury asked.
+
+"Yes. Nancy says that until Joan, that's the name I believe, comes home
+she cannot leave Miss Fletcher. Nancy must not sacrifice herself."
+
+Raymond was quickly assuming the charms of ownership.
+
+"She always has been," snapped Mrs. Tweksbury, "an unconscious offering.
+Where is her gad-about sister?"
+
+"I forget--out West somewhere, I believe."
+
+"What is she doing?"
+
+"The Lord knows. I got a very disagreeable impression of her. I didn't
+do much questioning--Nancy was on the defensive. She adores her sister."
+
+"Bless the child! I have an unpleasant remembrance of the girl, too."
+Mrs. Tweksbury smiled grimly. "She was always a pert chit, and I believe
+she is like her disreputable father--you know about him, Ken?"
+
+"Yes--something. Miss Fletcher mentioned him--she says she wants to have
+a talk later on. But what do I care, Aunt Emily?"
+
+"I should rather like to know, myself." Mrs. Tweksbury sniffed scandal.
+"I never have been sure about him, but I know he was socially above
+reproach. If he personally went wrong it is deplorable, but, Ken, if he
+had his roots in good soil instead of mud, it isn't fatal."
+
+"Bosh! Aunt Emily."
+
+"Bosh! all you want to, boy. It's easy to bosh when you're on the safe
+side--but neither you nor I can afford to ignore the difference."
+
+"Nancy speaks for herself, Aunt Emily."
+
+"Yes, thank God, and redeems her father. Wait until you see the sister.
+She was a lovely, distracting imp--but with a queer twist. I shouldn't
+be surprised a bit if she needs a deal of explaining and excusing."
+
+But when Nancy's wonderful news reached Joan in the tiny Chicago home it
+made her very tender and wistful.
+
+"Think, Pat, of dear little Nan--going to be married. Married!"
+
+Patricia, who shared all Joan's letters, lighted a cigarette and puffed
+for a moment, looking into the glowing grate, then she quoted
+eloquently:
+
+    "There was a little woman,
+      So I've heard tell,
+    Who went to market,
+      Her eggs for to sell!"
+
+Joan stared.
+
+"My lamb, for this cause came Nancy and her kind into the world."
+
+"I don't understand, Pat." Joan's eyes were shining and misty.
+
+"Well, what on earth would you do with Nancy if you didn't marry her
+off? If she were homely she'd have to fill in chinks in other people's
+lives, but with her nice little basket of eggs, good looks, money, not
+too much wit, and a desire to please, she just naturally is put up for
+sale and off she goes!"
+
+"Pat, you are vulgar! Nancy is the finest, sweetest of girls. She would
+only marry for love."
+
+"Sure thing, my lamb. And she could make love out of--anything."
+
+Joan was thinking of Nancy's capacity for making truth.
+
+"Dear, little, sweet Nan," she whispered.
+
+"Just the right stuff out of which to make successful marriages. Who is
+the collector, Joan?"
+
+"Pat, you make me angry!" Joan really was hurt.
+
+"She doesn't tell me his name. She says----" here Joan referred to the
+letter; "'I am going to try and keep him until you come and see him.
+Joan, he is worth a trip from Chicago.'"
+
+"You are--going?" asked Patricia.
+
+"Pat--I am. Only for a visit, but suddenly I find myself crazy hungry
+for them all.
+
+"I'll be back in a couple of weeks; I'll only lose three lessons and
+surely, Pat, you'll forgive me if I desert you for that one glimpse of
+my darling Nan and her man?"
+
+"I suppose so. But, Joan, don't stay long. I know how the reformed
+drunkard feels when he's left to his lonesome. He doubts his
+reformation."
+
+"Pat!" Joan felt the tug of responsibility.
+
+The next night Patricia came home with a bedraggled little dog in her
+arms.
+
+"Where did you find that, Pat?" Joan paused in her task of getting
+dinner and fondled the absurd creature.
+
+"Oh! he was browsing along like a lost soul, sniffing to find--not a
+scent, I wager he never had one of his own, but a possible one. Out of
+all the mob, Joan, he chose me! He came up, nosed around my feet, and
+then whined delightedly--the old fraud! I picked him up and looked in
+his eyes--I know the look, Joan. He might be my never-had-brother, there
+is a family resemblance."
+
+"Pat, how silly."
+
+"No joking, lamb. I couldn't ignore the appeal--besides, he'll keep me
+straight while you are away."
+
+"Pat--come with me!" Joan bent over the dog, who already showed his
+preference for Patricia.
+
+"I cannot, Joan. The trade is growing--I am planning an exhibition. I'm
+ashamed to say it, but the business is getting into my gray matter.
+No--go to your duty, lamb--the pup and I will get acquainted and make up
+for lost time."
+
+And while Joan made preparations to go to New York, and while Doris and
+Nancy planned to make her visit a success, something occurred that
+changed all their lives. It was the epidemic of influenza. The shrouded
+and menacing Thing approached like the plague that it was to prove
+itself. It was no discerner of people; its area was limitless, it
+harvested whence it would and, while it was named, it was not
+understood.
+
+David Martin ordered Doris and Nancy out of town at once.
+
+"You may not escape," he said, "but your best chance is in the open.
+Besides, you'll leave us freer here."
+
+"But Joan--David!"
+
+"Joan be hanged! Can't she get to Ridge House?"
+
+"Of course. But I wanted to have her here to--to justify herself. Emily
+Tweksbury is trying to make a tragedy of Joan. I'm afraid Ken suspects
+her--his awful silences are insulting--I wanted to--to show her off."
+
+"Nonsense, Doris! But this is no time for squibbling. Scoot!"
+
+"But--you, David!"
+
+"I? Oh! I'm all right. Remember I have Bud. Why, the chap is pulling up
+his sleeves and baring his breast to the foe. I'm going to stand close
+by him."
+
+Martin's eyes shone.
+
+"David, if anything should happen to you----" Doris paused.
+
+"I'll run down now and then," Martin took the thin, delicate hands in
+his. "I'll come--when I feel tired."
+
+"You promise, David?"
+
+"I--swear it."
+
+So Doris took Nancy away. A tearful, woe-begone Nancy who clung to
+Raymond with the tenacity of a love that faces a desperate situation.
+
+"Beloved," whispered Raymond, "I'm going to get Aunt Emily out of the
+danger zone and then I'll come to you. If this Joan of yours has
+arrived--we'll be married, you and I, at once. We don't care for the
+society fizz. This epidemic makes you think about--taking joy while you
+can."
+
+"Yes, Ken--if--if Joan will stay with Aunt Dorrie."
+
+"Well, by heaven! She'll have to stay. I'm not going to let them cheat
+me!"
+
+To this Nancy gave a look that thrilled Raymond as he had never been
+thrilled before--it was supreme surrender.
+
+And presently in the stricken city gaiety and laughter seemed to die
+away in the black, swooping shadow.
+
+"When you use up all you know," Clive Cameron said one night to David,
+"you still keep hunting about for something else, don't you?"
+
+Martin nodded. Both men were worn and haggard. They were fighting in the
+front ranks with the men of their profession--fighting an unknown foe,
+but bravely gaining confidence.
+
+"The death rate is lower to-day, Bud. Hang to that!"
+
+"I do, Uncle Dave. If it still goes down, will you take a vacation?"
+
+"You are willing to go it alone, boy?"
+
+"Yes!" grimly. "I know I must."
+
+The two men relaxed and smoked peacefully, their feet stretched out to
+the fire. Their long day warranted this pause. They were strangely
+alike; strangely unlike. Occasionally their eyes met and then their lips
+smiled.
+
+They were friends. The blood tie was incidental.
+
+"You ought to be married, Clive."
+
+"Why, especially?"
+
+"A man should; a doctor especially. A wife and children are better to
+come home to than a pipe--and a housekeeper."
+
+"You managed to buck along, Uncle Dave."
+
+"Yes--buck along! I couldn't make up my mind to----"
+
+"I understand, Uncle Dave. Miss Fletcher is great stuff--she makes other
+women look cheap."
+
+"Bud, some women are like that."
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+Both men shook the ashes from their pipes--there was a night's work
+ahead.
+
+Martin stared at the young face opposite. It was a strong, kind face--a
+face waiting for the high waves to strike it. Martin seemed never to
+have known the boy, really, before.
+
+"Bud, suppose you never find your woman?" he asked, huskily.
+
+"All right, then I'll peg along with that much lacking. Oh! I know what
+you are thinking of, Uncle Dave. I've been through it--and turned it
+down! Ever since I can remember I've kept a grip on myself by
+remembering you!"
+
+"Good God, boy!" Martin choked; "I'm a poor model. At the best I've
+been--neutral."
+
+"Like hell you have!" irreverently ejaculated Cameron, pleasantly. "Why,
+Uncle Dave, you've got muscle all over you from fighting the demon in
+you, but you have no ugly scars. We can look each other in the eyes as
+we couldn't--if there were scars. It's all right, Uncle Dave. We'll get
+Mother here before long and have a bully time."
+
+Martin could not speak for a moment; he was looking ahead to the time
+when he'd have only this boy and his mother!
+
+"Well, what's up, Uncle Dave?"
+
+"Bud, have you suspected anything about Miss Fletcher? Her health, I
+mean?"
+
+"Yes. I've studied about her, too."
+
+"And kept quiet, eh?"
+
+"Sure! But, Uncle Davie, if we--" Martin blessed him for that "we"--"if
+we could get her outside of herself, it would do a lot for her. I've a
+hunch that you have let her get on the shelf. I wouldn't if I were you!
+I know it may be necessary to keep her to rules, but she thinks too much
+about the rules; they cramp her. When Nancy marries--what then?"
+
+"The Lord knows!"
+
+"Where's that other girl--Joan?"
+
+Martin's face hardened.
+
+"Living her life. _Her_ life," he said.
+
+"Anything--dirty about it?" Cameron asked.
+
+"No. So far as I can find out, she's just taking what she calls _her
+own_."
+
+"Well, why shouldn't she, Uncle Dave? By all that's holy why shouldn't a
+woman have her own as well as a fellow? Just because she was born to
+petticoats doesn't mean that she's born to all the jobs men don't want."
+
+"There are certain things the world exacts of a woman, Bud."
+
+"What, for instance, Uncle Dave?"
+
+Martin considered. He was a just man, but he was prejudiced.
+
+"Self-sacrifice, for one thing!"
+
+"Who says so? Who benefits most by her self-sacrifice?" Cameron flushed
+as he rambled on. "We may split on this rock, Uncle," he blurted. "Think
+of my mother--I sort of resent it, because I _am_ a man, that we
+idealize virtues and plaster them on women when we know jolly well, if
+we lathered them on ourselves, we'd cave in under them. It's up to the
+woman! That's what I say. Let her select her own little virtues and see
+to it that she squares it with her soul and then men--well, men keep to
+the right and keep moving!"
+
+Having flared forth, Cameron laughed at his own fireworks.
+
+"Joan is selfish, Nancy quite the reverse." Martin's brows drew
+together. "Don't be an ass, Bud!"
+
+"What's this Joan doing?"
+
+"Thinking she's gifted," snapped Martin.
+
+"How is she to find out if she doesn't try? Is Miss Fletcher paying for
+the racket?"
+
+"No. That's the rub. The girl's paying for it herself. Smudging herself
+doing it, too. A woman can't escape the smudge."
+
+"Oh! well"--Cameron was tiring of it all--"it's when the smudge sticks
+that counts. If it is only skin deep, it doesn't matter."
+
+"But--a woman, Bud--well, skin matters in a woman."
+
+"Who says so? Oh! chuck it, Uncle Dave. Which shall it be--bed for an
+hour or a rarebit at Tumbles and then--on to the fight?"
+
+"What time is it?"
+
+"Eleven-thirty."
+
+"Bud, let us have another look at our salvage before we choose; if we
+find them sleeping, we'll take the rarebit as a recompense for a night's
+sleep."
+
+And together they went out into the night. Two tired men who had done a
+stiff day's work--but felt that they must make sure before they sought
+rest for themselves.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And Joan and Patricia faced the epidemic as so many of the young
+did--nothing really _could_ happen to them, they believed--and Chicago
+was not paying so heavy a toll.
+
+"We'll take a little extra care with food and sleep and wet feet," Joan
+cautioned, "and I'll put off my visit, Pat, for awhile."
+
+"And, Joan," Patricia said, laughingly, "keep your mouth shut in the
+street!"
+
+The four little rooms were sunshiny and warm; Joan sang hour by hour;
+worked at her music and "made the home," while Patricia kept to her
+rigid hours and designed marvellous things in which other women
+revelled.
+
+Since Nancy had gone South and her beloved was absent, Joan felt that
+her duty was to Patricia. Without being able to classify her feeling she
+clung to Patricia with a nameless anxiety.
+
+She taught the little dog to fetch Patricia's slippers to the
+living-room fire; she always had dinner ready when, tired and frail,
+Patricia appeared with that glad light in her eyes.
+
+"You act as if I, not you, were going away, my lamb," Patricia often
+said; "but you are a blessing! And Cuff"--she leaned down and gathered
+the small, quivering dog in her arms--"and Cuff runs you a close
+second."
+
+Cuff wagged his stubby tail excitedly. He was a proud creature, a proof
+of what could be done with a bad job, and he had all the snobbishness
+that is acquired, not bred in the bone. He slept on the foot of
+Patricia's bed and forgot back alleys. He selected tidbits with the air
+of one who knew not garbage cans, but he redeemed all shortcomings by
+his faithful love to her who had rescued him. The melting brown eyes
+found their highest joy in Patricia's approval, and a harsh word from
+her brought his diminutive tail between his legs for an hour.
+
+It was April when Patricia came up the stairs, one night, laggingly.
+Cuff was on the landing with his token of devotion. The girl picked him
+up, kissed his smooth body and went on, more slowly. Joan had the table
+set for the dainty dinner by the broad western window. She turned when
+Patricia entered.
+
+"What's the matter, Pat?" she asked.
+
+"Nothing, only Cuff is growing heavy."
+
+"Are you tired?"
+
+"Not a bit. What a wonder you are, Joan! That table is a dream with
+those daffodils in the green bowl. Old Syl was right--you put the punch
+in home!"
+
+"There's chicken to-night, Pat. I plunged on the strength of what my
+Professor said to-day."
+
+There were times when Joan wondered if Patricia was not insisting upon
+home more for her sake than her own.
+
+"What did she say, Joan?"
+
+"That next winter I might--sing!"
+
+"Bully! But you sing now--like several kinds of seraphs. Warble while I
+make ready for dinner, Joan."
+
+So Joan sang as she flitted from kitchen to dining room.
+
+    "I'll take the high road and you take the low road
+    And I'll get to Scotland before you----"
+
+she rippled, and Patricia joined in:
+
+    "I'll get to Scotland before you!"
+
+Then she said, from the bedroom beyond:
+
+"I know what it is in your singing that gets us, Joan. It's the whole
+lot more than words can express."
+
+"Of course! That's high art, Pat! Come on, dearie-thing, you must
+carve."
+
+"Now, Scotland"--Patricia issued forth in a lovely gown and Joan dropped
+her long apron and appeared a happy reflection of Patricia's
+magnificence--"Scotland stands for everything your soul wants when you
+sing. Not a place--but--everything."
+
+"Yes. That's what I feel," Joan replied, quite seriously.
+
+Patricia did not eat much that evening, but she gave the impression that
+she was doing so.
+
+The girls always disposed of the dishes, after dinner, in a wizard-like
+manner. They disappeared until morning--and no questions were asked!
+
+Then, when the meal was over this night, Patricia flung herself on the
+couch, clasped Cuff in her arms, and asked Joan to sing her to sleep.
+
+"You _are_ tired, Pat. Was it a hard day?"
+
+Joan came wistfully to the couch.
+
+"No, not hard, only bracing. They're going to raise me in the summer,
+Joan. We'll be fat and lazy next winter--and just think: the summer in
+The Gap lies between!" For that was what Joan's deferred visit had
+resolved itself into.
+
+"Pat, your cheeks are--red!"
+
+"Joan, don't be silly. I touched them up. I never could see the
+difference between rouge and dyes and powder and false teeth! They're
+all aimed at the same thing--and it isn't mastication, either. It's how
+you handle the aids to beauty."
+
+"Dear, funny, pretty old Pat!"
+
+"Joan, go and sing!"
+
+That night Cuff was dreaming the old haunting dream about waking up in
+the gutter when something startled him. It was a very soft call.
+
+"Come up here, Cuff, I want you--close!"
+
+Cuff needed no second invitation! But the closer he got the more nervous
+he became.
+
+"Cuff, look at me!"
+
+Cuff looked.
+
+"Cuff--once--you wouldn't have looked!"
+
+Cuff denied this by a vigorous whack of his stumpy tail.
+
+There were a few minutes more during which Patricia said some very
+remarkable things about being glad that children and dogs could look at
+her; and that Joan felt happy with her, and that love had something to
+say for itself if you didn't wrong it, and then Cuff voluntarily jumped
+from the bed and scampered into Joan's room. Joan was sleeping and Cuff
+had to tug rather savagely at her sleeve before he attracted her
+attention. But when Joan was awake every sense was alert.
+
+"What's the matter?" she asked, but while she was speaking she was on
+her way to Patricia's room.
+
+Patricia was tossing about and laughing gently; she was insisting that
+she was going up the Climbing Way and that the travelling was hard and
+the weather hot! For a moment Joan stood still. All her strength
+deserted her, but in that instant she knew the worst, as people do at
+times--when the end is near!
+
+It was only three days for Patricia and she never realized the truth for
+herself. A nurse, a weary but faithful doctor, and Joan kept her company
+on the Climbing Way which got easier toward the top.
+
+    "You take the high road and I'll take the low road
+    But I'll get to Scotland before you----"
+
+It was Patricia who sang, not Joan, and then she laughed gaily.
+
+"I bet I will beat you out, Joan--but it wasn't--Scotland, you know
+it--was--home!"
+
+Just before the top was reached Patricia grew quiet and grave. She clung
+to Joan with one hand and patted Cuff with the other.
+
+"I think," she whispered, "that when dogs and little children can look
+you in the eye, God can!"
+
+She did not speak much after that--but she sang in fragments, hummed
+when very tired, and murmured--"Nice little old Joan and Cuff," just
+before she reached--home!
+
+It was all so crushingly sudden that Joan was dazed and could not feel
+at all. Fortunately, the nurse arranged to stay with her for a week, and
+the doctor acted, through all his burdened days, as if an extra load was
+really a comfort to him. He asked Joan what steps he should take about
+Patricia, and Joan stared at him.
+
+"You see, Pat just belonged to me," she explained; "and--and well! must
+I decide anything just now?"
+
+"I think we must--about the body--you know!" The doctor felt his heart
+beat quicker as he gazed into the wide, tearless eyes.
+
+"The--the body? Oh! I see what you mean. I--I was going to take Pat home
+next summer; this summer--but----"
+
+"Perhaps we can arrange to have the body remain here in Chicago until
+you make plans."
+
+"Oh! if you only could." Joan looked her gratitude.
+
+And so Patricia Leigh was laid to rest in the vault of strangers until
+the girl who had loved her could realize the thing that had overtaken
+her.
+
+In the lonely rooms the empty stillness acted like a drug upon Joan. She
+mechanically performed the small services she used to perform so gladly
+for Patricia. She held Cuff in her arms as she repeated:
+
+"It cannot be, Cuff, dear, it cannot! Such a terrible thing couldn't
+happen--not without warning. She _will_ come back; she will,
+Cuff--please don't look so sad!"
+
+It was three weeks after Patricia went that Cuff met Joan as she entered
+the room--with Patricia's slippers which he had found where Joan had
+hidden them! The sight of the pathetic little figure touched something
+in Joan and it sprang to hurting, suffering life.
+
+For hours the girl wept in the dark rooms. She begged for death;
+anything to dull forever the pain that she could not understand. But the
+grief saved her and she began to think for herself, since no one was
+there to think for her. The city was full of sickness and death. Those
+who could, must do for themselves. Joan had not written home; she
+wondered what she had done in all the ages since Pat went.
+
+All Patricia's small affairs were in order. Her money and Joan's were
+banked under both names, and the dreary little home was but an empty
+shell.
+
+"I've failed--utterly," the girl sobbed over Cuff in her arms; "I told
+Aunt Dorrie when I found that out--I would go to her."
+
+So Joan sold the furniture and sublet the rooms; she paid her small
+debts and promised her music teacher that she would continue her work in
+New York. Then she turned wearily, aimlessly--homeward, with Cuff in her
+arms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+"_Love, hope, fear, faith--these make humanity!_"
+
+
+The trip to New York was always marked in later years, to Joan, by the
+most trivial occurrences.
+
+The passing to and fro to the baggage car where Cuff, a crumpled and
+quivering mass, seemed to ask her what it all meant; the sense of
+eagerness to get to The Gap before it was too late; the determination
+not to frighten any one she meant to telegraph from New York; she would
+leave her trunks in the station and take a bag to a little hotel where
+she and Pat had stayed the night before they fled from New York. So far,
+all was clear.
+
+So she planned; forgot, and planned again. Between these wanderings and
+the care of Cuff there were long hours of forgetfulness and a sound of
+rushing water--or was it the train plunging through the dark?
+
+Once in New York, with Cuff trotting behind, Joan seemed to gather
+strength--but not clear vision. She went to the small hotel and secured
+a room. She meant to telegraph and buy her ticket South--but instead she
+fed Cuff, took a little food herself, and fell asleep. It was late when
+she awakened to a realization of acute suffering that seemed confused
+and spasmodic. It was like being partially conscious. She was frightened
+and tried to fix upon some direct and immediate means of securing help
+for herself. She did not want to call assistance from the office, so she
+got up and dressed and half staggered downstairs. It needed all her
+effort to hold to one thought long enough to accomplish anything.
+
+First there was Cuff. She must get Cuff, quiet his nervousness, and feed
+him. Then with that in mind she took food herself--as much as she could
+swallow. It was while she was forcing herself to this task that Doctor
+Martin came, like an actual presence, to her consciousness.
+
+Why had she not thought of him before?
+
+"Uncle Davey!" she murmured and her eyes filled with tears. Of course!
+She would take a cab to Doctor Martin's office and then everything would
+be solved. He would take care of her; send word to The Gap; protect Aunt
+Doris and Nancy from shock. She began to laugh quietly, tremblingly--she
+was safe at last. Safe!
+
+It was after ten o'clock when she paid her taxi driver in front of
+Martin's office and dismissed him. Gathering Cuff in one aching arm and
+clutching her bag she slowly, painfully mounted the steps without
+noticing the sign bearing a new name.
+
+If anything were needed to prove how detached Joan had been for the past
+year or two it was this ignorance concerning the arrangement between
+Martin and his nephew. Had she not been on the border of delirium she
+would have recalled certain things which would have guided her; as it
+was she felt, dazedly, for the bell, pressed the button, and to the maid
+who responded she faintly said:
+
+"I--I want the doctor." She looked, indeed, as if this were shockingly
+true.
+
+"It's past office hours," stammered the girl, a little scared; "but
+perhaps if you come in----"
+
+Joan staggered in and, seeing a door open at the end of the hall,
+reached it, entered, and sank down in a chair with the astonished eyes
+of Clive Cameron upon her!
+
+He was ready for his rounds--was on the way, then, to his hospital; it
+was Martin's pet institution and Cameron's first care in the morning.
+
+"I'm--tired," Joan informed him. "Please take care of--Cuff!"
+
+And then everything went black and quiet.
+
+Never in all his life had Cameron had anything so surprising happen to
+him. He looked at the girl, whom he managed to carry to the couch; he
+turned to the dog whose faithful eyes rather steadied him, then he
+applied all the remedies that one does at such times. Eventually Joan
+revived, but she stared vacantly at the face above her and did not
+attempt to speak.
+
+Presently Cameron called in his nurse.
+
+"I think it is brain fever," he explained to the cool, capable woman who
+asked naturally:
+
+"Who is she?"
+
+"The Lord knows."
+
+"Where did she come from? Where does she belong?"
+
+"The Lord knows. She just came in with the dog and then dropped after
+asking me to care for--for Cuff--yes, that's what she called him--then
+she went off."
+
+"It's a duck of a dog," the nurse remarked as one does make inane
+remarks at a critical time. Then:
+
+"Have you looked in her bag?"
+
+"Certainly not!"
+
+"We had better." And they did.
+
+There was a trunk key, seventy-five dollars, and a letter signed "Syl,"
+and frivolously dilating upon a man named John and loads of love to Miss
+Lamb!
+
+"Well!" said the nurse, "and as one might expect, no heading, date, or
+any sensible clue--and the envelope missing. We must label this patient,
+I suppose, as Miss Lamb. The articles of clothing are unmarked. Queer
+all around!"
+
+"We must get her into the hospital at once," Cameron replied. The doctor
+in him was getting into action.
+
+"Can we manage her in my car?"
+
+"Yes, Doctor."
+
+"Then get busy. Call her Miss Lamb when you have to answer questions. We
+can find out about her later. Where's that dog?"
+
+Cuff was making himself invisible. He was under the couch.
+
+"Have him fed and taken care of, Miss Brown--tell the maid."
+
+Joan leaned against Cameron on the way to the hospital while Miss Brown
+kept a finger on her pulse. The girl's body acted mechanically, but the
+brain was clogged.
+
+Day by day in the white, quiet hospital room the battle for her life
+went on; day by day outside effort was made to trace her and find her
+friends.
+
+"You wise-looking brute," Cameron often thought as he regarded Cuff at
+the day's end; "why can't you tell what you know?"
+
+But Cuff simply wagged his stump and slunk off. Life was becoming too
+puzzling for him.
+
+Cameron studied advertisements and certain columns in the papers, but no
+one seemed to have missed the pretty young creature in the Martin
+Sanatorium.
+
+"It's the very devil of a case!" Cameron declared, and set about
+erecting some sort of foundation upon which "Miss Lamb" might repose
+without causing too much unhealthy curiosity.
+
+Eventually, Joan was simply a bad case of Doctor Cameron's. One from out
+of town. Her folks trusted him, but were too distant to visit the girl.
+
+Cameron considered telegraphing for Martin, who was at The Gap, but he
+knew that sooner or later he must rely upon himself alone, and so he
+began with "Miss Lamb."
+
+The days and weeks dragged on. There were ups and downs, hopes and
+discouragements, but through them all Joan looked dazedly at Cameron,
+and if she ever showed intelligence it was when he spoke to her in a
+perfectly new set of tones that were being incorporated into his voice
+and which seemed to disturb her. To all questions, as to names, the girl
+in the dim room returned a dull stare and silence, but there were times
+when she deliriously rambled intimate confidences. When these times
+occurred, Cameron, if he chanced to be present, ordered the nurse from
+the room and listened alone. He was relieved to hear that the patient
+rarely spoke when he was not with her.
+
+Joan dwelt upon her failure--her longing to go to Pat.
+
+These items Cameron recorded in a small red book, for his memory was
+none too good and he was busy to a dangerous degree.
+
+Then, again, the sick girl depicted the night of the storm--the shock
+and consequent flight.
+
+"But," she pleaded piteously, holding the strong hand that anchored her
+to life, "he won! he won, and it is always going to be all right. Oh! if
+he could only know!"
+
+There would be a pause always ending in: "I want Pat."
+
+"Where is--Pat?" Cameron ventured.
+
+"Home!" And then, weakly, but with a wrenching pathos, Joan sang--"_I'll
+get to--Scotland_--no! _home_--before you!"
+
+"Come, come, now!" Cameron pressed the thin form down. "You know you've
+got to live--for Pat."
+
+"Yes--for Pat." And then Joan would sleep.
+
+It was a day in late May that Cameron noticed a change in his case. She
+was weaker, but steadier. She seemed to connect him with something in
+the recent past, and that encouraged him. All her previous conscious
+moments had been like detached flashes.
+
+"What was it you said I must live for?" she asked Cameron. "I've
+forgotten."
+
+"For everything," he replied, throwing off his coat and gripping the
+promising moment. "You're not the kind to slink out. Besides, you've got
+to tell me about your folks. Give them a chance to prove themselves and
+set things straight." Cameron watched the struggle on the thin face.
+"And there is--Pat!" he added.
+
+Joan looked amazed and then quivered.
+
+"Yes, Pat, of course!"
+
+There was a long pause, the consciousness was seeking something to which
+it might cling. Something forever eluding it.
+
+A day or two later Cameron brought the dog into the sick room. Joan
+turned as she heard steps.
+
+"Cuff!" she cried and then, as the dog leaped on to her, she sobbed and
+murmured over and over: "Pat's little Cuff; Pat's little Cuff."
+
+Her way on ahead was safer after that--safer but more secretive.
+
+As Joan got control of her thoughts she became more silent and
+watchful. She questioned the nurse and found out where she was and how
+long she had been there; she smiled with her old touch of humour when
+she was called Miss Lamb but gave thanks that she had a name not her
+own!
+
+She regarded Cameron with deep gratitude, but drove him to a corner by
+insisting that he tell her how much she owed him.
+
+Cameron, having her purse under lock and key, at home, told her she owed
+the hospital fifty dollars.
+
+At that Joan laughed, and the sound gave Cameron more hope than he had
+known for some time, but it seemed to mark, also, Joan's complete
+self-control.
+
+Often she lay for hours with closed eyes and wondered with a bit of
+self-pity why she had not been discovered? Had she so completely dropped
+from the lives of those she loved that they had forgotten her? She did
+not know, for some time to come, of the letters to her that were
+returned to The Gap! She was never to know, fully, the anguish that
+Doris Fletcher was enduring in her mistaken determination not to hamper
+the girl who was testing her strength.
+
+While David Martin rated her for ingratitude and carelessness; while
+Nancy's face set in resentment and disapproval, Doris smiled and
+insisted that she would not judge until Joan explained.
+
+"Of course," she added, "if anything were really wrong Joan or Patricia
+would write. They are probably away on business--and at the worst they
+will soon let me know when to expect them. Joan was always a poor
+correspondent."
+
+"Would you like to have me go to Chicago?" Martin asked.
+
+"David, would you go if--it were your boy?" Doris hung on his answer.
+
+"I jolly well wouldn't! I'd let the scamp learn the whole lesson."
+
+"Very well, then I do not want you to go to Chicago!"
+
+Joan, slowly recovering, could hardly have explained to herself why she
+was so secretive, but more and more she determined not to go to The Gap
+and open her heart to Doris until she was able to command the situation.
+Since she had, for some reason, dropped from their lives, she would
+wait. Meanwhile, her heart ached with the pity of it all.
+
+She wondered how the name of Lamb had ever been attached to her, and
+finally she decided to ask Cameron about it.
+
+It was Cameron's custom, now, to delay his call upon Joan until late
+afternoon. When he was on his way to dinner he took a half hour or more
+to sit beside her bed and indulge in various emotions.
+
+So long as Joan had been a desperate case she had no individuality at
+all, except scientifically.
+
+She was bathed, and eventually her hair was cut, not shaved--the nurse
+put in a plea at the cutting point--and she was fed and made to sleep;
+but gradually, as she emerged from the shadowy boundary, she assumed
+different proportions.
+
+Cameron concluded that her reticence, now her brain was growing clearer,
+came from a determined effort to cover her tracks and perhaps those of a
+man--unworthy, undoubtedly, and Cameron believed this man to be the
+"Pat" to whom his patient had so frantically referred in her raving.
+
+There had evidently been a strenuous scene in which Pat had figured and
+through which he and the girl had emerged rather deplorably.
+
+Cameron also arrived at the conclusion that the young woman in his care
+must be made to take a keener interest in life than she seemed to be
+taking, or her recovery would be slower than it ought to be, according
+to physical indications. The growing silence worried him; he wished that
+he could gain her confidence, not in order to gratify curiosity, but to
+enable him to be of real service.
+
+One afternoon he called at the hospital reinforced with a box of roses.
+
+The flowers had an immediate effect upon Joan. She buried her face in
+them and closed her eyes, and then Cameron saw large, slow tears
+escaping the close-shut lids. He welcomed these. Presently Joan asked:
+
+"How is--is--Cuff?"
+
+"Oh! he's ripping," Cameron replied; "after seeing you he seemed to size
+up the situation and come to terms."
+
+"How--how did you happen to know his name?" This had been a burning
+curiosity for the past week.
+
+"You happened to mention it when you keeled over in my office. Cuff was
+apparently your one responsibility. We found your name in a letter--Miss
+Lamb."
+
+The roses hid the quivering face while a new and hurting question for
+the first time entered in. Then:
+
+"Did--did I go to your office? I thought I--was brought here from----"
+
+"You were brought here, all right," Cameron felt his way slowly along
+the opening path; "Miss Brown and I had rather a vigorous trip with
+you--in my automobile."
+
+"Cuff belonged to--to Pat!" Joan remarked, irrelevantly. She was forcing
+her thought back to the blank period lying between the hotel and the
+hospital. Gradually it brightened and a smothered sob found place in the
+roses.
+
+"So that is why they have left me alone!" Joan reflected; "but oh! how
+frightened they must be!"
+
+"I rather imagine Pat must be fairly well used up wondering about you,"
+Cameron was saying as if the whole matter were an everyday affair, but
+rather annoying; "queer things happen in a big city. We've done our best
+to locate your friends; I think some of the officials I have consulted
+have their doubts as to my mental condition. I kept under cover as well
+as I could until you were well enough to act for yourself."
+
+"Thank you--oh! thank you." This very faintly and brokenly.
+
+"You see, you are one of the cases that prove that an impossibility
+is--possible. Truth-stronger-than-fiction idea. But if you would like me
+to communicate with Pat, I'll be glad to help you."
+
+"No--I will wait now." Joan drew her lips close.
+
+Cameron controlled his features while he listened, but he never referred
+to Pat again.
+
+"I've sometimes thought," Cameron spoke calmly, "that you might have
+been looking for my uncle, Doctor Martin, when you stumbled into his old
+office. I could not flatter myself that you were bent upon obtaining my
+services."
+
+At this Joan astonished Cameron almost as much as if she had sat up in
+her coffin.
+
+She rose, as though propelled by a spring, she stared at him and then,
+as slowly, sank back, still holding him with her eyes that seemed
+preternaturally large.
+
+"Oh! come now!" Cameron exclaimed. "What's up?" He took her hand and
+bent over her and to his amaze discovered that she was laughing! He
+touched the bell. Things were bewildering him--Miss Brown always managed
+trying situations by reducing them to normal. She responded at once;
+cool, serene, and capable.
+
+"Nerves?" she asked. And then took command. She raised Joan and settled
+the pillows into new lines; she removed the roses almost sternly--she
+disliked the nuisance of flowers in a sick room.
+
+"There, now!" she whispered to Joan, "take this drink and go to sleep
+like a good girl."
+
+In the face of this sound common sense laughing was out of the question.
+Joan pretended sleep rather than risk another: "There, now!"
+
+But her recovery was rapid after that day. Like a veil withdrawn she
+reflected upon the past as if it were, not a story that was told, but a
+preface to the real story that her life must be.
+
+The folly, the irresponsibility, no longer dismayed her, but gave her
+reasons and arguments.
+
+She wanted to live at last! She wanted to go home and separate herself
+forever from the cheap, theatrical thing she had believed was freedom!
+She saw the folly of it all; she seemed an old woman regarding the
+dangerous passage of a younger one.
+
+She realized her own selfishness in her demand for self-expression. What
+had she expressed while others fixed their faithful eyes on duty?
+
+Nancy shone high and clear in those dull hospital days. Nancy who
+demanded so little, but who trod, with divine patience, the truer
+course.
+
+"Well, Nan shall have her own!" Joan thought, and gripped her thin hands
+under the bedclothes. "I'll strive for Nan as I never have for myself."
+
+Out of the debris of the feverish past Joan held alone to Patricia.
+Strange, it seemed to her, that the dead girl should have grown to such
+importance, but so it was. Patricia was the real, the sacred thing, and
+she planned the home-bringing of the dear body and the placing of it on
+the hillside in The Gap.
+
+And through the convalescing days Cameron had his place, like a fixed
+star.
+
+Often worn by the day's silent remorse and earnest promise as to the
+future, Joan looked to that hour when Cameron, calm, serious but
+cheerful, sat by her bedside--a strong link between the folly of the
+past and the hope of the times on ahead.
+
+Vaguely she recalled the blurred weeks of fever and pain, and always his
+quiet voice and cool touch held part.
+
+"And to think," Joan could but smile, "that he does not know me--but I
+know who he is just as I knew about----" She could not name Raymond
+yet--she could only think kindly of him when she held to the days before
+that last, tragic night.
+
+And Cameron, meanwhile, was drawing wrong conclusions. Not that they
+changed his personal attitude toward the girl whose life he had helped
+save. To him she was a human creature whose faith in her future must be
+restored as her body was in the process of being. Cameron believed in
+stepping-stones and was utterly opposed to waste of any kind.
+
+"She's paid her debt and his, too, I wager," Cameron often muttered;
+"that's the devil of it all, and she'll go on and perhaps down--if she
+doesn't get a start up. If I could only get hold of her folks--it would
+help!"
+
+But Joan held him at bay when he ventured on that line.
+
+"When I am quite well," she said with gentle dignity, "I am going home
+and do my own explaining."
+
+"Are you considering--them?" Cameron frowned at her.
+
+"I am--as I never have before!"
+
+To this silence was the only reply.
+
+Presently Joan made her first big stride toward complete recovery. She
+forsook her bed during the day and, in pink gown and dainty
+cap--procured by Miss Brown--she passed from a "case" to an individual.
+
+The twilight hour now became something of a function and Cameron dropped
+his professional manner with his outdoor trappings and appeared, often,
+as a tired but very humanly interesting young man.
+
+He talked of safe, ordinary things, he brought books and flowers, and
+while Miss Brown kept a rigid appearance, she inwardly sniffed--or the
+equivalent.
+
+And then came the Sunday before Joan was to leave the hospital. It
+happened to be Easter, and a woman was singing in the little chapel down
+the hall. The room doors were open and the sweet words and melody
+floated in to the silent listeners--Joan pictured them as she sat and
+felt her tears roll down her cheeks.
+
+"Some--are going out!" she thought, "and others, like me, must go on.
+And here we all are with walls between, but our doors open to:
+
+    "He weaves the shining garments
+      Unceasingly and still
+    Along the quiet waters
+      In niches of the hills."
+
+The words seemed to paint, in the narrow room, the dim Gap. The sound of
+the river was in Joan's ears and she knew that the niches of the safe
+hills where her loved ones waited, were full of the spring blossoms.
+
+    No leaf that dawns to petal,
+      But hints the Angel-plan.
+
+Joan looked up and saw Cameron at the doorway. He almost filled it, and
+his eyes grew troubled as he noted the thin, white, tear-wet face.
+
+"Shall I close the door?" he asked.
+
+"No. Please do not. I like to think that all the others, down the
+corridor, and I are together--listening, growing better!"
+
+"Oh! I see." Cameron tossed aside his coat and sat down.
+
+"I--I don't think you do," Joan smiled at him; "I think I puzzle you
+terribly, but some day I am going to explain everything. All my life I
+have been, as I am now, in a narrow little room--peeping out and never
+touching others any more than I am touching"--she pointed to the right
+and left--"my neighbours, here. But we were all listening to much the
+same thing then as now.
+
+"I am going"--here Joan dashed her tears off--"I am going somehow to
+pull the walls down and know really!"
+
+"Bully!" Cameron had a peculiar feeling in his throat. Then added: "I
+cut something out of a paper the other day that seemed to me to hold all
+the philosophy necessary for this tug-of-war we call life. Here it is!"
+
+"Read it, please," Joan dropped her eyes.
+
+    "A shipwrecked sailor, buried here, bids you set sail.
+    Full many a gallant bark, when he was lost, weathered the gale."
+
+"Isn't that good, gripping stuff? I've caught the sense of it, and when
+I get to thinking--well, of such as lie in many of these little rooms,
+I'm glad--you're--setting sail!"
+
+"Thank you, Doctor Cameron. I am setting sail! I thought I was before--I
+see the difference now. And to-morrow----"
+
+"And to-morrow--where are you going--to-morrow?"
+
+Cameron was ill at ease.
+
+"To a little hotel--I will give you the address in the morning. It is
+from there that I will set sail."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+"_No one can travel that road for you, you must travel it for
+yourself._"
+
+
+David Martin came into the living room of Ridge House bringing, as it
+seemed, the Spring with him. He left the door open and sat down. He was
+in rough clothes; he was brown and rugged. He was building, with his own
+hands, much of the cabin at Blowing Rock. He had never been more content
+in his life. He often paused, as he was now doing, and thought of it.
+
+The hard winter's work was over and Martin felt the spring in his blood
+as he had not felt it in many a year.
+
+Things were going to suit him--and they had had a way of eluding him in
+the past. Perhaps, he thought, because he had always wanted them just
+his way.
+
+Somewhere, above stairs, Doris was singing, and Nancy from another part
+of the house was calling out little joyous remarks.
+
+"Two telegrams in one day, Aunt Doris. Such riches!"
+
+Doris paused in her song long enough to reply:
+
+"Joan may come any day, Nan, dear. It is so like her to act, once she
+decides."
+
+Martin, sitting by the hearth, reflected upon the injustice of Prodigal
+Sons and Daughters--but he smiled.
+
+"They don't deserve it--but it's damnably true that they get it," he
+mused, irrelevantly.
+
+"Joan's room is a dream, Nan, come and see it!" called Doris, and Nancy
+could be heard running and laughing to inspect the Prodigal's quarters.
+
+"It looks divine!" she ejaculated. "Push that pink dogwood back a
+little, Aunt Dorrie--make it like a frame around the mirror for the
+dear's face."
+
+"How's that, Nan?"
+
+"Exactly--right. Aunt Dorrie?"
+
+"Yes, my dear girl."
+
+"I have the dearest plan--I feel that Ken would love it, but I hate to
+be the one to propose it."
+
+From his armchair Martin smiled more broadly.
+
+"Perhaps I can do it for you, Nan." Doris spoke abstractedly--she was,
+apparently, giving more thought to the decorations for the returning
+wanderer than to the plans of the good child who had remained at her
+post.
+
+"Well, Aunt Doris, I don't want to wait until next winter to be married.
+Ken writes that he will have Mrs. Tweksbury safely settled in New York
+by the first of June----" Emily Tweksbury had fled the influenza and
+gone to Bermuda only to fall victim to pneumonia. Kenneth Raymond had
+been summoned, to what was supposed to be her death-bed, but which she
+indignantly refused to accept as such.
+
+"When women are as old as I, Ken," she had whispered as he bent over
+her, "they consign them to death-beds too easily. Give me a month, boy,
+and I'll go back with you."
+
+Kenneth had given her a month, then two weeks extra; he was bringing her
+back now--a frail old woman, but one in whose heart the determination to
+live was yet strong.
+
+"But, darling, we'd have to give up the beautiful wedding--Mrs.
+Tweksbury could never stand the excitement now, or even this summer."
+
+Doris's voice was more suggestive of attention as she now spoke. Martin
+waited.
+
+"I know, Aunt Dorrie, but I am sure she would rather have me and Ken
+married than come to our wedding. Listen, duckie! Suppose, after Joan
+comes, we plan the dearest little service in the Chapel--I'm sure we
+could snatch Father Noble as he flits by. There would be you and Uncle
+David and Joan, and perhaps Clive could wrench himself away, and Mary
+and Uncle Jed--and," a tender pause, "and--Ken and me! We could make the
+Chapel beautiful with flowers from The Gap--our flowers--and then I
+could help Ken with Mrs. Tweksbury--for you, Aunt Dorrie, will have
+Joan."
+
+Martin blinked his eyes. He never admitted a mistiness to the extent of
+wiping them. He listened for Doris's next words.
+
+"Childie, it sounds enticing and just like you. I will talk it over with
+Uncle David."
+
+The voices upstairs fell into a silence and Martin got up and paced the
+room.
+
+A few minutes later Doris came down the stairs and, singing softly,
+entered the living room.
+
+There was welcome in her eyes; the languor and helpless expression had
+faded from her face.
+
+"Davey," she said, "I felt the draught--you have left the door open--I
+knew you were here.
+
+"Oh! Davey, to-day the twenty-year limit seems quite the possible thing.
+My dear, my dear, Joan is coming home!"
+
+Martin met Doris midway of the big room. He was startled at the change
+in her.
+
+"I heard that a telegram had come. It's great news, Doris."
+
+"Queer, isn't it, Davey, how one can brace and bear a good deal while
+there is the necessity, and then realize the strain only when the need
+is past? Joan says only 'coming home,' but I know as surely as I ever
+knew anything that it has been for the best and she is coming gladly to
+me--coming home! I could not have endured the silence much longer."
+
+Martin put his arm around Doris and led her to the hearth. A mild little
+fire was crackling cheerfully, rather shyly, between the tall jars of
+dogwood that seemed to question the necessity of the small blaze.
+
+"Davey, I want to talk to you. There are so many things to say if you
+are absent twenty-four hours. How goes the cabin?"
+
+"Like magic. It will be livable by June or before. The men like to have
+me pothering around, and I've discovered that one never really has a
+house unless he helps build it. I'm going to get Bud down the minute I
+can put a bed up. And, Doris----"
+
+"Yes, Davey."
+
+"I've been eavesdropping, I've been here a half hour. I heard what Nancy
+said--let the child have her wish!"
+
+"You feel that way, David? I had hoped to have everything rather
+splendid--to make up for what I could not do for--Merry."
+
+"All stuff and nonsense! Give the girl her head. She knows her path and
+will not make mistakes. What she wants is Raymond and her own life.
+Nancy is simple and direct; no complications about her. Don't make any
+for her."
+
+"David, her happiness and peace almost frighten me. You remember how she
+drooped last summer? Taking her to New York has done more than give her
+love and happiness. She is quite another girl, so resourceful and clear
+visioned."
+
+"She's on her own trail, Doris, that's all. Things are right with Nancy.
+The rule holds."
+
+"But, David, I have not told her yet----"
+
+"Told her?--oh! I see--about the birth mix-up?"
+
+Martin smiled--he always did when the subject was referred to. The
+humour and daring of it had never lost their zest.
+
+"It is no laughing matter, Davey; as the time draws near when I must
+tell I am in a kind of panic. I always thought it would be easy; if it
+had been right why should I know this fear?"
+
+Martin was serious enough now. He folded his arms and leaned back in his
+chair--he held Doris with his calm gray eyes.
+
+"It seems to me," he spoke thoughtfully, "that you should stand by your
+guns. You did what you did from the highest motives; you have succeeded
+marvellously--why upset the kettle of fish, my dear?"
+
+Doris's face softened.
+
+"I think if I had committed murder," she said, "you would try to defend
+the deed."
+
+"I certainly would!"
+
+They smiled into each other's eyes at this.
+
+"But, David, I am afraid to tell Nancy. Somehow I think the doubt would
+hurt her more cruelly than the real truth might have. It has always been
+the not knowing that mattered to Nan--unless what was to be known was a
+happy thing. Merry was like that, you remember."
+
+"Then why run a risk with Nancy, Doris?"
+
+Martin had the look in his eyes with which he scanned the face of a
+patient who could not be depended upon to describe his own symptoms.
+
+"I--think--Ken should know."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Why--why--what there is to know!"
+
+"Just muddle him. Nancy would be the same girl, but he'd get to puzzling
+over her and tagging ideas on her--and to what end, Doris? The girl has
+the right to her own path and you have, by the grace of God, pushed
+obstacles from before her, in heaven's name give her fair play and
+don't--flax out at this stage of the game."
+
+"But, Davey, if in the future anything should disclose the truth, might
+Ken not resent?"
+
+"I don't see why he should. When the hour struck you could call him into
+the family circle and share the news. By that time he'd feel secure in
+his own right about Nancy."
+
+"I'm not afraid of, or for, Joan, Davey." Doris lifted her head proudly.
+"And, David, I want to tell you now that my coming to The Gap was more
+on the children's account than my own. I have always felt that here, if
+anywhere, the truth might be exposed. At first I was anxious; fearful
+yet hopeful. I know now that The Gap has no suspicions, and I am more
+and more confident that George Thornton has passed from our lives."
+
+"Very good!" Martin sat up and bent forward in order to take Doris's
+hands in his own.
+
+"My dear," he said, gently, "have you never thought that--Nancy is--your
+own?"
+
+"Yes, Davey, I have grown to believe it. She is very like Meredith--not
+in looks, but in her character and habits. She is stronger, happier than
+Merry, and oh! Davey, for that very reason I hesitate to touch the
+beautiful faith and love of the child. I do not want her disillusioned.
+It would kill her as it did Merry."
+
+"Then, again I caution against risks, especially when the odds are with
+Nancy, not against her."
+
+The fire burned low--a mere twinkle in the white ashes, then David asked
+as one does ask a useless question:
+
+"Are those words over the fireplace, Doris?" He puckered his
+near-sighted eyes.
+
+"I think so. There are carvings and paintings everywhere through the
+house. One of the Sisters did them. This one is so blackened by smoke
+that it is all but destroyed--some day I will see what can be done to
+restore it."
+
+"I like the idea," Martin said. "I mean to have something over my
+fireplace. It sort of strikes one in the face."
+
+Presently Doris spoke, going back past the interruption:
+
+"Davey, the wonderful thing to me is that while believing Nancy to be
+Merry's child I find my heart clinging passionately to Joan. I know how
+you disapprove of her--but I glory in her. Through this anxious time I
+have been able to follow her, understand her better, even, than I have
+Nan. Joan has often seemed like--well, like myself set free. I might
+have been like Joan in many ways. And, Davey, this could not have
+happened had I known the real truth concerning the girls."
+
+"No, I do not think it could. And it goes to prove my theory that two
+thirds of the inherited traits are common to us all. The whole business
+lies in the handling of them by the one third that does come down the
+line. The thing we know as the ancient law of inheritance. Doris, take
+my advice and keep your hands off."
+
+"Oh! Davey. To keep my hands off is so easy that it doesn't seem safe or
+right."
+
+David smiled, then said:
+
+"There are times, Doris, when I fear that you should be taken by the
+roots and--transplanted. The old soil is used up."
+
+"I--I do not understand, David."
+
+"Don't try! Come, now, I want you to take a rest. Go on the porch in the
+sun, I'll wrap you warm. I'm going to take Nancy over to the cabin for
+lunch and plan her wedding with her. This afternoon you and I are going
+for a drive--the roads have settled somewhat and I want your advice
+about things to put in my garden."
+
+As he spoke Martin was leading Doris to the piazza, gathering rugs and
+pillows in one arm as he went.
+
+"I am so happy, David, so unspeakably happy." Doris sank into her
+pillows and smiled up at the face bending over her. "It's beautiful, all
+this care and love, and I have a feeling that I will be able, soon, to
+really live. I have had so much without paying the price."
+
+"And you'd mess it all, would you, Doris, when you don't know what the
+price is?"
+
+"No, David, I wouldn't."
+
+Martin walked into the house and whistled to Nancy. She responded, so
+did the hounds and a new litter of long-eared pups.
+
+Doris, with closed eyes, smiled and then she thought. She, too, was
+planning for Nancy's wedding--she saw the small altar in the Chapel
+flower-decked; they must have some music, perhaps Joan would sing one of
+her lovely, quaint songs--and then Doris slept while the sun lay on her
+peaceful face and the sound of the busy river soothed her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was like Joan to do exactly what she did.
+
+After two deplorable days in the little hotel--days devoted to
+collecting her belongings and eating and sleeping--she suddenly found
+herself so strong that she sent the telegram to The Gap.
+
+Having sent it, she meant to prepare carefully against shock at her
+appearance by buying a rather giddy hat and coat to offset her short
+hair and thin body. Cameron had insisted, at the last, that she reserve
+her cash for emergencies and repay him later.
+
+Joan accepted this solution, and having arrayed herself frivolously she
+bought Cuff a most remarkable collar which embarrassed the dog
+considerably. In all the changing events of Cuff's life a collar had not
+figured, and it was harder to adjust himself to it than to foots of beds
+and meals served on plates. However, Cuff rose to the emergency and bore
+himself with credit.
+
+Twice Cameron came to the hotel; twice he took Joan for a drive--"It
+will help you get on your feet," he explained.
+
+"I--I don't quite see how," she faltered and, as they were driving where
+once she and Raymond had driven, her eyes were tear-filled. The old,
+dangerous, foolish past had a most depressing effect upon her.
+
+At Cameron's second attempt to put her on her feet he succeeded, for
+when he paid his third call, a quaint little note greeted him at the
+office:
+
+    Thank you--thank you for all that you have done. I will explain
+    everything soon, in the meantime, morally and physically, I am
+    wobbling home.
+
+Cameron's jaw set as he read.
+
+"I'll wait," was what he inwardly swore. And at that moment he was
+conscious that, for the first time in his career, a woman had got into
+his system!
+
+When Joan reached Stone Hedgeton she feared that she and Cuff would have
+to overcome many obstacles before they reached The Gap, for no one was
+willing to travel the roads.
+
+"There is holes in the river road mighty nigh a yard deep," one man
+confided. "I ain't going to risk my hoss, nor my mule, nuther!"
+
+It was the mail man who, at last, solved the problem. He had a small car
+whose appearance was disreputable but whose record was marvellous.
+
+"If you-all," he included Cuff in the general remark, "ain't sot 'bout
+reaching The Gap at any 'pinted time, I'll scrooge you in. There's a
+couple of stops to make, and I reckon I'll have to dig us-all out of
+holes now and then--that shovel ain't in yo' way, is it, Miss?" he
+asked.
+
+For Joan and Cuff were already among the mail bags and merchandise.
+
+"Nothing is in the way!" Joan replied, "and I'll help you dig us out."
+
+It was just daylight when they started.
+
+It was past noon when, stiff and rather shaken, Joan scrambled out of
+the old car and, followed by Cuff, noiselessly made her way over the
+lawn to Ridge House.
+
+She went lightly up the steps, then stood still. Doris Fletcher lay
+sleeping in the full, warm glow. So quiet was she, so pale and delicate,
+that for a moment Joan knew a fear that had had its beginning when
+Patricia passed from life.
+
+The awful uncertainty, the narrow pass over which all travel, were newly
+realized perils to Joan, and her breath came sharp and quick.
+
+So this was what had happened while she was learning her lessons! She
+had not learned alone.
+
+"Oh! Aunt Dorrie," she murmured. "You and I have paid and paid--but you
+never held me back!"
+
+Joan sat down and waited. It was always to be so with her from now on.
+In that hour a great and tender patience was born that was to calm and
+guide her future life. She was given, then and there, to draw upon the
+strength and vision that do not err. And it may have been that in sleep
+Doris Fletcher, too, was prepared, for when suddenly she opened her eyes
+upon Joan she was not startled: a gladness that was almost painful
+overspread her face.
+
+"My darling! You have come at last!" was what she said.
+
+And, as on that night when she had come to plead for freedom, Joan did
+not, now, rush into human touch. She nodded and whispered:
+
+"I've come as I promised to, Aunt Dorrie. It--it wasn't my chance! Not
+my big chance, anyhow, but I had to find out, dearie."
+
+"My little girl!"
+
+Joan went nearer; she bent and kissed again and again that radiant face;
+then, sitting on the floor by the couch, with Cuff huddled close, she
+touched lightly the high peaks that lay between the parting and this
+home-coming, but Doris, with that deep understanding, followed
+laboriously, silently, through the dark valleys.
+
+"I'm rather battered and cropped, Aunt Dorrie--but here I am!"
+
+With this Joan tossed off her hat and voluminous coat.
+
+"Your--hair, Joan? Your beautiful hair!"
+
+"I have been very sick, Aunt Dorrie, my hair and my fat had to go--just
+enough bones left to hold my soul. But I'm all right now."
+
+"Don't be sorry for me," Joan was pleading, "I'm the gladdest thing
+alive to-day. I've dropped all the old husks; I've found out just what
+they are worth, but some of them that seem like husks, dear, are
+not--I've learned that, too."
+
+"Yes, Joan--and now go on, in just your own way. For a little while I
+have you to myself. Nancy will take lunch at Uncle David's new
+bungalow."
+
+There was a good deal of explanation necessary in dealing with Sylvia's
+part in the past--Doris had banked on Sylvia. The tea room was easier,
+but Joan slipped over that experience so glibly that Doris made a mental
+reservation concerning it.
+
+Patricia was the critical test. At the mention of her name Cuff whined
+pathetically, and Joan bent and gathered him in her arms.
+
+"I--I can't talk much about Pat, dearie, not now"; Joan bent her head;
+"she was so wonderful. Just a beautiful, lost spirit in the
+world--trying to find its way home. There was only one way for Pat--I
+shall always be glad that I could go part of it with her."
+
+"Yes, yes--I am glad, too!" Doris whispered, for she had caught up with
+Joan now. She did not know all that lay in the valleys--but she felt the
+chill and darkness through which her child had come up to the light.
+Strange as it might seem, she was thinking of that time, long ago, when
+she had escaped from the Park and had touched life in the open.
+
+The hospital experience Joan could describe with a touch of humour that
+eventually brought a smile to Doris's face. She took for granted that it
+had been in Chicago, and when Joan told of flitting away from the young
+doctor who had saved her, Doris laughingly said:
+
+"Joan, that was cruel. You should have explained."
+
+"No, Aunt Dorrie, it was wise. Of course I'm going to explain to him and
+send him the money, but I wanted to shut the door on my silly past
+first. I shall only let in, hereafter, that part of it that I choose.
+When I saw a man looking at me, Aunt Dorrie, where before I had been
+seeing a doctor, there was nothing to do but scamper. He hadn't the
+least idea what was happening--he saw only the bag of bones that he had
+rescued, but I wasn't going to let him run any risks. You see, I've
+learned more than some girls."
+
+And then Joan, mentally, turned her back on the past. With that power
+she had for holding to the thing she desired, the thing she wanted to
+make true, she laughed her merry, carefree laugh--she recalled only the
+joyous, amusing incidents and she watched with hungry, loving eyes the
+effect she was creating.
+
+It was while this was going on that Mary came upon the piazza to
+announce luncheon. There were days when no one saw Mary, when her cabin
+was closed and locked; but after such absences she came to Ridge House
+and worked with a fervour that flavoured of apology.
+
+She gazed long upon Joan before she spoke. It was not surprise she
+showed, but a slow understanding.
+
+"Miss Joan," she said at last, "seems like you ain't got the world by
+the tail like you uster have."
+
+Joan threw her head back and laughed.
+
+"No, Mary," she presently replied, "it swung so fast that I fell
+off--but I'll catch hold soon."
+
+The quiet little luncheon in the quaint dining room did much to restore
+the long-past relations of Joan with the family. Uncle Jed came in and
+chuckled with delight. The old man lived mostly in the past now, and
+followed Mary like a poor crumpled shadow. What held the two together
+was difficult to understand--but it was the kinship of the hills, the
+stolid sense of familiarity.
+
+After the meal was over Joan wandered about through the living rooms for
+a few moments, touching Nancy's loom, but speaking seldom of Nancy.
+
+"I want to hear all about it from her," she explained; and Doris, with
+Joan's affairs chiefly in her thought, referred merely to Nancy's
+happiness, their perfect sympathy with it; and if Kenneth's name was
+mentioned, Joan did not notice it.
+
+At last she went up to her room to rest.
+
+"Quite as if I had never been away, Aunt Doris," she said, "and you
+don't mind if I take Cuff? The poor little chap has had so many changes
+that I fear for his nerves!"
+
+Joan went upstairs to the west wing chamber singing a gay little
+song--her own voice seemed to hold her to the safe, happy present--so
+she sang.
+
+She paused at the door of her room to read the words carved there long
+ago by Sister Constance:
+
+    =And the Hills Shall Bring Peace=
+
+It was like someone speaking a welcome.
+
+"Oh! it is all so dear," Joan murmured, "how could it ever have seemed
+dull!"
+
+Flowers filled the vases, and there was a small, fragrant fire on the
+hearth--a mere thing of beauty, there was no need of it, for the windows
+were open to the gentle spring day.
+
+Joan slipped into a loose gown and then stood in the middle of the room
+leisurely taking in the comfort and joy of every proof of love that she
+saw.
+
+On the desk by the window lay a pile of unopened letters--she took them
+up. They were the letters from Doris and Nancy which had been returned
+from Chicago. Pitiful things that had been so hopefully sent forth only
+to come back like blighted hopes!
+
+For a moment Joan contemplated throwing them all on the fire. She did
+not feel equal to re-living the past. It was only by laughing and
+singing that she could hold her own.
+
+But on second thought she opened the first one--it was from Nancy.
+
+"I better have all I can get to begin on," she reflected; "it will save
+time."
+
+She sat down in a deep chair and presently she was aware of combating
+something that was being impressed upon her; she was not conscious of
+reading it.
+
+"Such things do not happen--not in life----" her sane, cautious self
+seemed to say. For a second Joan believed her tired brain was playing
+her false as it had during those awful weeks in the hospital. She closed
+her eyes; grew calm--then tried again:
+
+    Since you are not coming to see Ken now, Joan, I will try to
+    describe him. You remember old Mrs. Tweksbury? Well, my dear boy
+    belongs, in a way, to her----
+
+Again Joan closed her eyes while a faintness saved her from too acute
+shock. She felt the soft air upon her face; she was conscious of that
+bewildered whine of poor Cuff. Vaguely she thought that he must be
+hungry; thirsty--then there was a moment's blank and--the sickening
+weakness was gone!
+
+With the strength and clarity that sometimes comes at a critical moment
+Joan's mind worked fast and carried her where hours of quiet thought
+could not have done.
+
+It was natural, of course, that Nancy should meet Raymond--the most
+natural thing in the world.
+
+His loving her--so soon after what had happened! That was the thing that
+gripped and hurt. Joan tried to connect the date of that night in the
+studio and the one on Nancy's letter. She seemed powerless to do so--the
+time between was a blank; there was no time! Everything belonged to a
+previous incarnation.
+
+With a shudder, Joan presently realized the insignificant part she had
+borne in Kenneth Raymond's life.
+
+The humiliation turned her hot and cold. He had always held but one
+opinion of her; his loss of self-control had simply torn down the
+defences behind which he had played with her, amused himself with her,
+during the dull summer.
+
+She was, to him, one of the women not to be considered, while Nancy
+was--the other kind!
+
+Joan regarded, as she never had before, the freedom and safety of such
+girls as Nancy. She could realize the pressure, the favouring
+environment that surrounded so desirable a thing as this coming together
+of Raymond and Nancy!
+
+She knew how the same force could blot such as she was supposed to be
+from the inner circle! How little they counted!
+
+Oh! the bitterness of the knowledge that it was such girls as
+Patricia--as Raymond believed her--who were not free; who must snatch
+what they can from life and not resent what goes with it. They must--not
+care! Outside the code there was no real freedom--because there was no
+choice! It was a place of chains and bars compared to the other.
+
+The waves of humiliation and shame swept over Joan, but each time she
+emerged she held her head higher.
+
+"And he left me--to go my way and he went--to Nancy! He did not care!"
+It was anger now; proud, life-saving anger. "If he had only cared!"
+
+"And why--should he?" The thought was like a dash of cold water in her
+face.
+
+After all, why should he? It _was_ only play until that awful night!
+That was the revealing hour of real danger.
+
+Clutching her hands, Joan went over every step of the way upon which
+Raymond had gone with her.
+
+It had all been a mad escapade in that time of mistaken freedom. He and
+she had both been brought to the realization of the folly by a blow that
+had awakened them, not stunned them. They had been forced to acknowledge
+the danger hidden in themselves. It was in such whirlpools many were
+lost, but they----
+
+And at this point Joan recalled, as if he were before her now, the look
+in Raymond's face when he gained control of himself!
+
+Always, since that night, Joan had felt, when thinking of Raymond, that
+she never wanted to see him again. She knew that he had never held any
+real part in her life and he would always hold her back, as she might
+him--from proving the best that was in each other if they came into
+contact.
+
+With this conclusion reached Joan had gained a secure footing. As a man,
+detached from herself and her past, she knew that Raymond was worthy of
+love and happiness, just as, in her heart, she knew that she herself
+was. But could others understand? Others, like Nancy?
+
+While she had been buffeted on a rough sea, since that stormy night in
+the studio, Raymond had drifted into his safe harbour, sooner. There was
+nothing to hold him back--and here Joan began to sob in self-pity; in
+pity for all girls, like Patricia and her, who were so lightly
+considered.
+
+"We do not matter!" she murmured. Then she dashed her tears away. "But
+we _must_ matter!"
+
+She sprang up. She flung the letters upon the embers; she gathered Cuff
+to her bosom and--laughed!
+
+It was her old, old laugh. The laugh that held in its depth, not scorn
+of life, but an appreciation of it.
+
+"It's how we take it all, Cuff, my dear, just how we take it! And,
+Cuff"--here Joan held the little animal off at arms' length and looked
+into his deep, serious eyes--"I'm going to get the world by the tail
+again--_you watch me!_"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+"_O, friend never strike sail to a fear._"
+
+
+Because the woman in Joan had not been hurt by her experiences, because
+it was only the wildness of youth that had carried her to the verge of
+making mistakes and then sent her reeling back, she reacted quickly. She
+was no longer the reckless, heedless Joan--the change made Martin frown.
+He put full value on her cropped hair and thin body--he had grappled
+with the scourge, and he knew!
+
+He presently found himself in friendly sympathy with this new, patient,
+tender Joan--they had much to say to each other.
+
+Nancy was not so keen about the change. Joan had come back--Joan was
+putting into life all that it lacked. This was enough for Nancy! The
+spring days were dreams of bliss and she radiated joy.
+
+"Ken will adore you, Joan!" she confided. "You see, he has a twisted
+idea about you just because you weren't with us all, but when he sees
+you, darling, he'll be on his knees before you as we all are!"
+
+"I'd love to get my first view of him in that attitude," Joan laughingly
+replied, "but on the whole, I'd rather take him standing."
+
+During those waiting days, until Raymond came to marry Nancy, Ridge
+House quivered with excited preparation.
+
+"Of course!" Joan had agreed to the quiet wedding idea, "we must have it
+as Nancy wishes, but it must be perfect."
+
+So Joan sewed and designed--some of Patricia's gift was hers--and often
+her face fell into pensive lines as she worked, for she seemed to see
+Patricia as she used to sit, well into the night, planning and evolving
+the dainty garments that others were to wear.
+
+"My turn!" Joan comforted herself with the thought; "my turn now, dear
+Pat."
+
+And then the day came when Kenneth Raymond was to arrive. Mrs. Tweksbury
+could be safely left in New York. She was resigned to the wedding but
+deplored the necessity of being absent.
+
+"I know something will go wrong," she said to Kenneth; "do be careful
+and make sure that you are really married, Ken! They are so sloppy in
+the South, and it would be quite like Doris Fletcher, if she couldn't
+get that candlestick preacher of hers, to let Dave Martin or any one
+else read the service. Doris never could put the emphasis of life where
+it belonged."
+
+Kenneth laughed merrily.
+
+"Nancy and I will see to it, Aunt Emily," he replied, "that we are tied
+up close. Just use your time, until I bring her back, in thinking of the
+good days on ahead--when we'll have her always, you and I."
+
+Mrs. Tweksbury relaxed.
+
+"She's a blessed child, Ken. She always was."
+
+Raymond arrived late one May afternoon. Joan was dressing for dinner,
+dressing slowly, tremblingly--she did not mean to go downstairs until
+dinner was served if she could avoid it.
+
+She had worked late, worked until she was weary enough to plead an
+hour's rest, and now she stood by the window overlooking The Gap.
+
+"I've got the world in my grip," she thought, "but the whirl makes me
+dizzy."
+
+Silver River was rushing along rather noisily--there had been a big
+storm the night before and the water had not yet calmed down; the rocks
+shone in the last rays of the sun, and just then Joan looked up at The
+Rock!
+
+There it was--The Ship! Sails set and the western light full upon it.
+
+For a moment Joan gazed, trying to remember the old superstition. Then
+her face grew tender.
+
+"Whatever happens," she murmured, "it shall not happen to Nancy. I've
+spoiled enough of her plays--she shall not be hurt now."
+
+The thought held all the essentials of a prayer and it gave an uplift.
+
+Then Joan turned to her toilet. Recalling Patricia's theory about the
+artistic helps to one's appearance, she worked fervently with her slim
+little body and delicate face.
+
+A bit of fluffing and the lovely hair rose like an aura about the
+smiling face. The eyes did not seem too large when one smiled--so Joan
+practised a smile! The gowns, one by one, were laid out upon the bed and
+regarded religiously; finally, one was chosen that Patricia had loved.
+
+"My lamb," Joan recalled the words and look, "a true artist knows her
+high marks. This gown is a revealment of my genius."
+
+It was a pale blue crepe, silver-touched and graceful; a long, heavy,
+silver cord held it at the waistline, and the loose, lacy sleeves made
+the slim arms look very lovely.
+
+"If ever I needed bucking, Pat, dear, I need it now!" whispered Joan,
+and her eyes dimmed.
+
+She heard the pleasant bustle below; the light laughter, the cheery
+calls. She heard Raymond's voice when he greeted Nancy--it startled her
+by its familiarity and its strangeness.
+
+"He sounds as if he were in church," mused Joan. She felt as the old do
+as they re-live their youth.
+
+There was candlelight in the dining room when Joan entered. The family
+were all assembled, for Doris had sent for Joan only at the last moment.
+
+"Ken, dear, this is Joan."
+
+Nancy said it as if she were flouting all the foolish things any one had
+ever felt about Joan. Pride, deep affection, rang in her voice. "This is
+Joan!"
+
+Joan went slowly, smilingly forward. She saw Raymond's knuckles grow
+white and hard as his hands gripped the back of his chair. His eyes
+dilated, and for a moment he could not speak. Finally he managed:
+
+"So this--is Joan!" and went forward to greet her.
+
+"I reckon they will all get this shock," thought Doris; "what they have
+thought about the child ought to shame them. Emily Tweksbury was always
+a snob."
+
+Martin, from under his shaggy brows, watched the scene curiously. He,
+like everyone else, was, unconsciously, on guard where Nancy was
+concerned. This frank surprise was gratifying for Joan, but it placed
+Nancy, for a moment, to one side.
+
+Joan had never looked lovelier; never more self-controlled. She was
+holding herself, and Raymond, too, by firm will power. He must not
+betray anything--he owed her and Nancy that! There was no wrong. No
+suggestion of it must enter in.
+
+In another moment the danger was over; the colour rose to Raymond's
+face.
+
+"I--I hadn't expected anything quite so--splendid," he said.
+
+"You are very kind," Joan had her hands in his, now; "you see--I've been
+wandering in strange places; I am rather an outlaw and the best any one
+could do for me was to wait and let me speak for myself. I'm glad you
+approve!"
+
+"I certainly do!" Raymond said, and gratefully joined the circle as it
+sat down.
+
+As the time passed the situation caught Joan's feverish imagination; she
+dared much; she was cruel but fascinating. She proposed, after dinner,
+to read palms--explaining that she and Pat had learned the tricks.
+
+At the name of "Pat" Raymond's grave eyes fixed themselves upon her.
+Joan saw the firm lips draw together, and she paused in her gaiety,
+sensing something she did not quite understand.
+
+In the living room by the fire Joan again grew witchy. She insisted upon
+proving her cleverness at palm-reading. Raymond dared not refuse, but he
+showed plain disapproval.
+
+"It's rot!" Martin broke in, "but here goes, Joan!" And spread his
+honest hand upon the altar.
+
+Joan had a good field now for her wit, and she set the company in a
+merry mood. When she touched upon Martin's nephew, which, of course, she
+wickedly did, she made an impression.
+
+"See here," Martin broke in, "this isn't palm-reading, you little
+fraud--you're trying to be funny trading on what you've heard but
+couldn't know for yourself."
+
+"That's part of the trick, Uncle David. Now, Nan, dear, let me have that
+small paw of yours."
+
+Frankly Nancy extended the left hand upon which glittered Raymond's
+diamond.
+
+"The right one, too, Nan darling! What dear, soft, pink things!" Joan
+bent and kissed them. "Such happy hands; good, true hands. Every
+line--unbroken. Running from start to finish--as it should run."
+
+"A stupid pair of hands, I call them." Nancy puckered her lips.
+
+"They are blessed hands, Nan."
+
+Raymond went behind Nancy's chair and fixed his eyes upon Joan--he was
+almost pleading with her to have done with the dangerous play.
+
+"Aunt Dorrie?" Joan turned to her, ignoring Raymond.
+
+"My hands can tell you nothing, Joan, dear," Doris said; "I've been a
+coward. See, my hands are flabby inside--the hands of a woman who has
+had much too easy a time. 'Who has reached forth--but never grasped.'"
+
+At this Martin came and stood over Doris. Joan looked up and suddenly
+her eyes dimmed. She seemed alone. Alone among them all. There was no
+one beside her--they seemed, Martin and Raymond, to be defending their
+loved ones from her.
+
+"And now, my brother Ken!" The words were like a call.
+
+"Oh, let me off!" Raymond tried to speak lightly.
+
+"No, indeed! The safety of my family is at stake!"
+
+Raymond was inwardly angry, but he sat down and defiantly spread his
+hands.
+
+Joan regarded them silently for a dramatic moment, then she quietly
+opened her own.
+
+"Isn't this odd," she said, "there is a line in your hand and
+mine--alike!"
+
+Every eye was fixed on the four hands.
+
+"Right here----" Joan traced it.
+
+"What does it mean?" Martin asked.
+
+"Capacity for friendship; that we are rather daring; not afraid of many
+things--but canny enough to know----"
+
+"What, Joan?--out with it!" It was Doris who spoke.
+
+"Canny enough--to distrust ourselves once in awhile."
+
+Martin gave a guffaw.
+
+"Joan," he said, "you ought to be sent to bed. Your eyes are too big and
+your colour too high. Stop this foolishness and let us take a turn on
+the river road. The moonlight is filling it--it's too rare to be
+overlooked."
+
+So they went out, keeping together and talking happily until it was time
+to return to the house; there, Raymond managed to say to Joan, just as
+they were parting:
+
+"This has been rather a shock, you know, I wish I could see you
+alone--for a moment."
+
+She looked up at him, and all the mad daring was gone from her eyes.
+
+"Is there anything to say?" she whispered. "Now or--ever?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+And Raymond knew that Joan would come back.
+
+He sat on the broad porch, opening to The Gap, and smoked. The house
+grew still with that holy quietness that holds all love safe.
+
+Then came a slight noise; someone was coming!
+
+It was significant that Raymond should know at once who it was. All the
+love and yearning in the world would not have drawn Nancy through the
+sleeping house to him. The knowledge made him smile grimly, happily.
+
+Doris, once having said good-night, meant it, and Martin had gone to his
+bungalow.
+
+"Well--here I am." Joan appeared and sat down, looking as if she were
+doing the most commonplace thing in life. It was the old daring that had
+led to dangerous ways.
+
+"Is it--safe?"
+
+"Why not?" It was the same frank, childlike look.
+
+"But--Nancy; your Aunt----"
+
+Joan twisted her mouth humorously.
+
+"We'll have to risk them--you said you had something to say."
+
+"Joan! Good Lord! but it's great to have a name to call you by--you
+drove me pretty hard to-night. I make no complaint--except----" He
+paused.
+
+"For Nancy?" Joan asked.
+
+"Yes! Joan, she's wonderful. She's the sort that makes a man rather
+afraid until he realizes that he means to keep her as she is--forever."
+This was spoken with a definiteness of purpose that made Joan recoil.
+Again he was defending Nancy from what he had believed Joan to have
+been!
+
+"I wonder"--she looked away--"I wonder if any one could do that? Or if
+it would be wise if he could?"
+
+"Joan, when I saw you to-night, after the shock--I could have fallen on
+my knees in gratitude--there have been hours when the fear I had about
+you nearly drove me crazy; made me feel I had no right--to Nancy."
+
+"So you--did remember, for a little time?"
+
+"Yes. I went to the Brier Bush--Miss Gordon gave me to understand that
+you had gone away with someone--married, she thought.
+
+"Joan--who was--Pat?"
+
+For a moment Joan could not understand, then, as was the way with her,
+the whole truth flooded in.
+
+Raymond had taken thought for her--Elspeth had deceived him--oh! how
+hard Elspeth could be. Joan recalled scenes behind closed doors when
+Elspeth Gordon dealt with her assistants!
+
+"And when you thought--I had--gone away--you felt free?" Joan's face
+quivered. Raymond nodded. How easy it was to talk to Joan. How quick she
+was to comprehend and help one over a hard stretch!
+
+"Joan--who was Pat?" That seemed to be the vital thing now. And then
+Joan told him. As she spoke in low, trembling tones, she saw his head
+bow in his hands; she knew that he was suffering with her, for her; as
+good men do for their women. Joan was conscious of this attitude of
+Raymond's--she was reinstated; fixed, at last, where she could be
+understood: she belonged to his world!
+
+"Poor little girl! After the beast in me dashed your card house to atoms
+you made another try--alone!" Raymond raised his face.
+
+"No--I had Pat." At that instant Patricia symbolized the link between
+the unreal and the real.
+
+"Yes, for a little while--but, Joan, it didn't pay--the danger you ran
+and all that--did it? Such girls as you cannot afford such experiences."
+
+"Yes. Having had Pat, I am able to see--wider."
+
+Joan was thinking of the girls whom Raymond could _not_ have understood
+or sympathized with! Girls such as she might so easily have been
+like--unless---- Unless what?
+
+"Joan, you and I always said we could speak plain truth, didn't we?"
+Kenneth's words brought her back.
+
+"Of course!"
+
+"Well," Raymond dropped his eyes and flushed, "you really didn't
+care--not in the one, particular way, did you? It was only play; you
+meant that?"
+
+"It was only play, Ken. The suffering came because we did not know what
+we were playing with. It's the not knowing that matters."
+
+"Joan, you have seen the worst in me----?"
+
+"Yes, and the best, Ken. It was like seeing you come back from
+hell--unharmed."
+
+"Do you think I should tell Nancy? Put her on her guard? There _is_
+something in me----"
+
+At this Joan leaned forward with a new light on her face--it was the
+maternal taking shape.
+
+"No, Ken, you must _not_ tell Nan. With her it is the _not_ knowing that
+matters. She must be guarded; not put on guard. I know now that Nan will
+be safe with you; I wasn't sure before; but if you raised a doubt in
+her mind all would go wrong. She was always like that."
+
+"But----" for a moment a beaten terror rose in Raymond's eyes.
+
+Joan nodded bravely to him.
+
+"You and I, Ken, must never give fear a chance. Once we know, we must
+not turn back."
+
+She stood up, looking tall and commanding.
+
+Raymond rose also and took her hands.
+
+"You're great, Joan," he said, "simply great. You understand--though how
+you do, the Lord only knows.
+
+"Joan!" Raymond flung out the question that was tormenting him. "Joan,
+why didn't we--care the other way?"
+
+"I think," Joan looked ancient, but pathetically young, "I think men and
+women don't, when they understand too well. And the line in our hands
+explains that, perhaps," she smiled wanly. "You see, Miss Jones and Mr.
+Black are--paying!"
+
+"Joan, go now, dear. Others might not understand." Raymond at that
+moment grimly shut the door on his one playtime!
+
+"And you--would hate to have them misunderstand about me--for Nancy's
+sake?"
+
+"No, Joan, for your own. You're too big and fine--to have any more
+hurting things knock you. May I kiss--you good-night?"
+
+For a moment something in Joan shrank, then she raised her face.
+
+"Yes. Good-night--brother Ken."
+
+For another moment they stood silent. Then:
+
+"What was it that made you so hard at dinner, Joan, and makes you so
+sweet now?"
+
+"Ken, I thought that you--had not tried to find out about me--after that
+night!"
+
+"Did the mere going back really matter?"
+
+"It meant everything, Ken."
+
+"How?"
+
+"Oh! can you not understand? If you had just--not cared I would have
+been afraid to-night for Nancy! Ken, I believe you went back to pay for
+all our folly--had I been willing to accept; had I--cared in the
+way--you suspected."
+
+"Yes, Joan. I would have." Raymond said this solemnly. "That's what I
+went for."
+
+"And you should not have paid! Girls--must not--let others pay more than
+is owed--I've learned that, Ken. But it was the going back that made
+it--right for you to--go on. Ken, for Nancy's dear sake I am glad it
+was--you and I!"
+
+"For that I thank God!" Again Raymond bent his head. This time his lips
+fell on the open palms of the hands with those lines in them--lines like
+his own!
+
+"Some day you are going to be happy, Joan."
+
+"I am happy now. I was never happy, really, before. You see, I was
+always looking for myself in the past; now I think I have found
+myself--rather a dilapidated self, but mine own. It's going to be very
+interesting, this getting acquainted, and"--here Joan was thinking of
+the last day in the hospital and the rooms opening to the sweet
+singer--"and I'm going to touch and feel life instead of merely looking
+out through my own small door. And so--good-night."
+
+She was gone as she had come--not stealthily, but noiselessly; not
+afraid, but cautious.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+"_This shall be thy reward--the ideal shall be real to thee._"
+
+
+Doris and Joan were in the living room of Ridge House trying to make
+things look "as usual" in the pathetic way people do after a loved one
+has gone forth never to return in quite the same relation.
+
+Doris paused by Nancy's loom and touched gently the unfinished pattern.
+
+"Dear little Nan," she said; "she used to make such dreadful tangles,
+but she learned to do beautiful work. This is quite perfect--as far as
+the child has gone."
+
+Joan was on her knees polishing away at the fireboard. The smoke-covered
+wood with its motto she meant to restore. She looked up brightly as
+Doris spoke. Joan was accepting many things besides Nancy's going away
+as Raymond's wife; accepting them without question, without explanation,
+but with perfect understanding. She understood fully about David Martin
+and Doris--her heart beat quick at Martin's lifelong devotion; at
+Doris's withholding. She understood, too, she believed, why the coming
+to the South had been necessary--the look in Doris's eyes was the same
+that had haunted Patricia's--the look that holds the unfailing message.
+
+"Aunt Dorrie, Nancy is the belonging kind. No matter how many places and
+people share her she will always belong to us and the hills. She told me
+that before she went. She meant it, too. She'll finish the weaving quite
+naturally, soon--New York is not far."
+
+Doris gave a soft laugh. Almost she resented the constant tone of
+comfort, Joan's attitude of authority.
+
+"No; it seems nearer and nearer all the time--since my strength has
+returned. We will have part of the winter in New York and Nan and Ken
+will be coming here, and there is your music, Joan!" Doris assumed
+authority and Joan submitted sweetly.
+
+"Yes, Aunt Dorrie, and you and I will scour these hills and get
+acquainted with our people and have trips abroad, perhaps. It is simply
+splendid--the stretch on ahead."
+
+The sun-lighted room was still radiant with the decorations of Nancy's
+wedding. Tall jars of roses woodbine and "rhoderdeners," as old Jed
+called them, were everywhere. Nancy had only departed two days before.
+
+"What a charming wedding it was!" Doris mused, patting the loom; "every
+time I think of it something new and unusual recurs."
+
+Joan rubbed away and laughed gaily.
+
+"Father Noble looked like a precious old saint," she said. "I declare
+when he told about Mary I was almost afraid he'd be translated before he
+had a chance to marry Nan."
+
+How little Joan realized that she was touching upon a mighty thing; how
+little either she or Doris were really ever to know.
+
+Doris came to the hearth and sat down in a deep chair, her face had
+suddenly grown serious.
+
+"I was thinking of that incident," she said.
+
+"Joan, I have always misjudged Mary. She has always puzzled me. I have
+thought her hard and selfish--the people here have thought her mean."
+Doris paused, and Joan looked around and remarked:
+
+"She's a blessed trump. Nan always understood Mary better than I; Mary
+liked Nan the best of all, but I'm going to cultivate Mary. There is
+something about her like these hidden words--it must be brought out."
+
+"To think of her caring for and loving that poor, deserted creature on
+that lonely peak all this time!" Doris went back to the story. "Father
+Noble says the trail up there is the worst on the mountain, yet Mary
+went every day. She mended the cabin and kept the old woman clean and
+clothed and happy--to the very end. Think of her alone in that cabin at
+night when the poor soul passed away! Mary was always so timid, too,
+and superstitious--and we never suspecting!"
+
+"And then," Joan took up the thread, "those ten miles to get Father
+Noble so that there might be a proper funeral, and Nancy's wedding
+having to wait while they saw the thing properly through. Oh! Aunt
+Dorrie, it's like a glorious old comedy with so much humanity in it that
+it hurts. Can you not just _see_ that funeral as Father Noble described
+it?"
+
+Joan stood up, her eyes shining; the polishing cloth held out daintily
+from the pretty blue gown.
+
+"'Twilight and evening star' effect, and those silent, amazed folks that
+Mary had compelled to come up the trail; the children and dogs and that
+comical boy tolling an old, cracked dinner bell; the procession to the
+clump of trees where the old women's children and grandchildren are
+buried--why, Aunt Doris, I see it all like a wonderful picture! There's
+no place on earth like these hills."
+
+Doris saw it, too, as Joan graphically portrayed it--but she was
+thinking still of Mary; she was baffled.
+
+"And yet," she said, thoughtfully, "you cannot get Mary to talk about
+it, and she turned quite fiercely upon poor old Jed when he asked his
+simple questions. She's hard as well as gentle."
+
+"And old Jed"--Joan waved her cloth--"here's to him! Think of him crying
+because The Ship wouldn't sail off The Rock and insisting that the old
+woman on Thunder Peak had something in her arms--that ought to have gone
+on The Ship, not in the ground. The place and the people, Aunt Dorrie,
+are like a Grimm fairy tale. I'm going to have the time of my life
+reading them and playing with them."
+
+Joan was thinking, as she often did now, of touching the lives of
+others--all others who pressed close to her. She had never been so keen
+or vivid before--the calls upon her were awakening the depths of her
+nature. She had travelled far only to come home to find Truth.
+
+"I am afraid I shall never be able to understand these silent,
+unresponsive folk, Joan." Doris shook her head--she was realizing her
+own shortcomings; her incapacity for new undertakings; "they frighten
+me. I have always been able to make an ideal seem real, dear, but I am
+afraid I fail utterly when it comes to making the real seem
+ideal--particularly when it is not lovely."
+
+"Well, then, duckie, just let me do the interpreting. Father Noble is
+going to take me under his big, flapping capes and speak a good word for
+me."
+
+Doris smiled. In the growing conviction that Joan had indeed come back
+to her she was happy and content. She rarely rebelled now. Her one great
+adventure was turning out perfectly; she was thankful she had taken
+David Martin's advice and kept her secret. She had been fair; she had
+made no personal claims, but she had done what Martin had once suggested
+that all mothers should do--"point out the channel and keep the lights
+burning." There were moments when she wished that Joan were more
+communicative--but she must accept what was offered. Nancy had gone
+forth radiant to her chosen life and Joan had come back--not defeated
+but clearer of vision. What more could any woman ask of her children?
+Her children!
+
+Doris bent and touched Joan's pretty hair.
+
+"I love to think of the look on Ken's face and Nancy's," she said.
+
+"Yes, Aunt Dorrie, it was wonderful. Your opening the window and letting
+the west light in did the trick. It was inspiration--nothing less."
+
+Doris nodded, recalling why she had opened the window--Meredith had
+seemed nearer!
+
+"You sang beautifully, Joan," for Joan had sung at Nancy's request a
+wedding hymn. "Your voice has gained a richness, dear. Next winter----"
+
+"Yes--Aunt Dorrie!" Joan broke in nervously, then suddenly she dropped
+on her knees by Doris's chair and said softly:
+
+"Aunt Dorrie, I'm going to ask some very--queer questions. You see,
+while I was away--I missed a lot--and I want to catch up.
+
+"If--if--Nan hadn't loved Ken, wouldn't you and Uncle David have wanted
+her to care for Clive Cameron?"
+
+Joan felt that Nancy had garnered all that she had sown during her
+learning time, and often the thought made her lonely, detached her from
+them. She believed that Cameron's absence from the wedding covered a
+hurt that her loved ones hid from her.
+
+"Yes, Joan," Doris replied very simply, "but--we feel now that it is
+best as it is."
+
+"Why, Aunt Dorrie?"
+
+"I cannot explain. When you meet Clive Cameron"--Joan winced--"you will
+understand."
+
+"Did--did Clive Cameron--care?"
+
+Doris laughed.
+
+"No. It was quite comic, Joan, the whole proceeding. Mrs. Tweksbury,
+Uncle David, and I played matchmakers with a vengeance--but we bungled
+frightfully, and then Clive Cameron wedged his big body in between Nancy
+and several young men who might have made trouble, and--and--" Doris
+thought for an illuminating word. Then--"whistled Ken on!"
+
+"Why, that's awfully funny, Aunt Dorrie--I rather imagined that Ken
+plunged!"
+
+"No, he always felt attracted by Nancy--she was wonderfully attractive
+to men, Joan, but I honestly believe it was Clive who made Ken realize.
+Ken is the slow, sure sort; while Clive is rather devastating, you know.
+He doesn't waste time or energy--when he sees his way he goes! He is
+very like what his uncle was when I first knew him--only surer of
+himself." Doris's lips trembled.
+
+"More bumptious, maybe!" Joan laughed. She was again in high spirits,
+though why she could hardly have told.
+
+"No, he isn't, Joan!" Doris took up cudgels for the absent Cameron. "You
+mustn't get that idea. He's the most humble of fellows--but he has a
+vision. David says he plods along after his dreams and ideals, but when
+he grips them--well, he grips! I see now how right he was about Nancy
+and Ken. They are suited to each other."
+
+"Yes--they're the carrying-on sort, Aunt Dorrie"; Joan looked wise and
+confident. "They're like their kind--Nan is like you. Away back in the
+Dondale days she used to gloat over all that went to your making, all
+your grandfathers and grandmothers. She was fore-ordained to carry on,
+and so was Ken. They'd be done for on paths without signboards. Aunt
+Dorrie----"
+
+"Yes, dear."
+
+"I wonder why it was in me to--to well, not to carry on?"
+
+Doris bent and laid her thin, fair cheek against the short, bright hair
+again.
+
+"Your way, little girl," she whispered, "was to fly. You had to try
+wings."
+
+"Well, I'm a homing pigeon, I reckon." And Joan tossed her short hair
+back.
+
+Just then there was the toot of a horn outside.
+
+"Uncle David!" Joan exclaimed, jumping up; "and by the manner of his
+toot I get an impression of exhilaration.
+
+"Hello, Uncle Davey!" For Martin was filling the long window with his
+big presence.
+
+He smiled on Joan--he did it very naturally these days. The girl was
+becoming strangely dear and companionable; then he looked at Doris as he
+always did, eagerly, gratefully.
+
+"Jump into your coat and hat," he said to her with a ring in his voice;
+"I've just had a telegram. Bud's coming!"
+
+"Oh! David," Doris's face flushed rosily. "And you want me to go with
+you to meet him. I _am_ glad."
+
+"Yes," Martin replied. Doris was already on her way from the room. Joan
+dropped to the hearth and resumed her rubbing.
+
+So the inevitable was upon her! She must not flinch! She wondered if
+this was the last dropped stitch she must take up?
+
+"Want me to go, too, Uncle David?" she asked, keeping her back rigid.
+
+"No," Martin was regarding the straight set shoulders and the pretty
+cropped hair. "No! You have too shocking an effect upon young men. They
+look as if they had seen you before! They must take you gradually."
+Martin laughed and lighted a cigar. He was recalling Raymond's face the
+night Joan had first appeared before him.
+
+Joan struggled to keep control of the situation--she suddenly smeared
+her face with her sooty fingers and turned with a grimace.
+
+"Am I discovered even in this disguise?" she said. Then:
+
+"Uncle Davey, I believe you have your private opinion of me still."
+
+"I have. I'll tell you now what it is--your face needs washing."
+
+"I mean--really!" the smudges acted as a mask and diverted attention.
+"I wager you think girls like me--the me that _was_, the working
+girls--are, generally speaking, hounding young men on the matrimonial
+trail."
+
+"Not necessarily _that_ trail," Martin was teasing.
+
+"You're all wrong, Uncle Davey, as far as most of them are concerned.
+They're young and love a good time and some of them have to learn a
+lot--learn not to play on volcanoes. But for downright, running-to-earth
+methods, look to such girls as Nan. They have the tide with them. Men,
+unless they're there to be caught, better watch out!"
+
+"Oh! come, child, don't be sinister."
+
+"I'm not, Uncle David," Joan's eyes shone; she was thinking of Patricia;
+"but you, everybody, lose a lot if they do not really know the truth
+about women--the real truth."
+
+"My dear," David was quite serious, "I'm no longer hard or misjudging--I
+was frightened at your aunt's methods with you, but you're proving me
+wrong every day."
+
+"You should have trusted her more, Uncle David."
+
+"Yes, you are right, in part. I should have trusted her less--in some
+ways."
+
+"About me?"
+
+"No. About herself." Martin flecked the ashes from his cigar. "And now,"
+he said with a huge sigh that seemed to sweep all regrets before it, "go
+and wash your face!"
+
+Joan ran away, and when she came back the room was empty and the
+_honk-honk_ of Martin's horn sounded down the river road.
+
+Then, as often happens when one stands in an empty room, Joan was
+conscious of a supersensitiveness. She, quite naturally, attributed it
+to the ordeal she was about to undergo--the meeting with Clive Cameron
+and her late talk with Martin. Must she always be on the defensive? Must
+she always feel that her volcano had blown her up when really she had
+escaped by its light?
+
+While there was a certain amount of pleasurable excitement in the
+meeting with Cameron, while it lacked all that her meeting with Raymond
+had held, still her past experiences were of so uncommon a nature that
+she could not contemplate them without nervous strain, and she wished
+that she might have had a longer reprieve before Cameron came.
+
+"With nothing really to be ashamed of," she thought, "I feel like a
+criminal dodging justice. I wish something so big would come that I
+could lose myself in it."
+
+Then she walked to the window overlooking The Gap.
+
+"It's no easy matter, Joan my lamb!" almost it seemed as if it were
+Patricia speaking, "to tie both ends of the rainbow together." Joan
+smiled at her thought.
+
+"Dear, dear old Pat!" she spoke the words aloud. "The very thought of
+you--braces me."
+
+Joan was still on the backward trail. She did not often tread it, but
+when she did she always returned starry-eyed and brave-hearted. That was
+her reward: the reward that she could share with no one--except as it
+helped her to live.
+
+Presently she turned to her task of restoring the motto on the
+fireboard. She worked vigorously, intently, and then leaned back to get
+a better view.
+
+Suddenly, as if they were alive, the words emerged from the last sweep
+of the cloth.
+
+"Aha, I am warm. I have seen the fire."
+
+The meaning broke like sunshine from the clouds. It made Joan laugh.
+
+"Well, of all the funny things," she said aloud, "and from the Bible,
+too," for "Isaiah" was brought into evidence by another rub. "This house
+is certainly haunted."
+
+Just then a sharp knock on the panels of the door, set wide to the
+sweet summer day, startled Joan and brought her to her feet, with that
+quivering of the nerves that betokened an almost psychic state.
+
+A tall man stood in the doorway. His clothes--good ones, well
+fashioned--were wrinkled and travel stained. They gave the impression of
+having been slept in. The man was like his garments--the worse for wear
+but, originally, of good material.
+
+Joan recognized that at once--after she got over the surprise of finding
+that he was not Clive Cameron.
+
+"Good morning," she said, quietly, while a familiarity about the
+stranger puzzled her. "Come in and sit down, please."
+
+The man came in, walking stiffly, his eyes fixed upon Joan in a way that
+confused her. She felt that she ought to remember him, but could not.
+
+"I've tied my horse down by the road," the stranger said, sitting down
+by the long table, "I got the beast at the station. The distance was
+longer than I imagined and the roads are--to say the least--not oiled."
+He laughed and flecked the dust from his coat--still keeping his eyes on
+Joan.
+
+"Is your aunt at home?" he continued. So then, the man should be
+recognized--but he still eluded Joan's memory.
+
+"No, she is not. She will not be back for some time. I am sorry that I
+cannot recall you--I am sure I have seen you--but----"
+
+"You'd have a remarkable memory if you did recall me," there was a sneer
+in the laugh that followed the words; "you were very young when you saw
+me before. Perhaps I can help you--you are--Joan, are you not?"
+
+"Yes." Joan sat down opposite the man--her hands were clasped close.
+
+"I'm George Thornton, formerly of the Philippines, later of South
+Africa, more recently of New York, where I stayed long enough to learn
+my way here. Incidentally, I am your father."
+
+Had Joan been standing she would have fallen. As it was, she quickly
+overcame the dizziness that made the speaker seem to dance about and,
+by gripping her hands closer, she steadied herself.
+
+"I suppose you have never heard of me before?"
+
+"Oh! yes!" Joan listened to her own voice critically; "Aunt Doris told
+Nancy and me all about you."
+
+"All, eh?" Thornton could barely keep the surprise and relief from his
+voice. This simplified matters and he could talk freely.
+
+"What do you want?" The question as Joan spoke it sounded brutal. "I do
+not suppose you have come here, after all these years, for nothing."
+
+Thornton flushed angrily, and his resentment of old flamed into speech.
+
+"I've come to make your aunt--pay. When I saw you before--you and your
+supposed sister--your aunt had all the cards in her hands, but I told
+her then that murder would out--and by God! it has--and now it is pay
+day." The years had coarsened Thornton.
+
+Joan stared at the man across the table as if he had suddenly gone mad
+before her eyes. She was frightened; she heard distant voices--the cook
+speaking to Jed--she wanted to call out; meant to--but instead she asked
+dully:
+
+"What do you mean by--my supposed sister?"
+
+Thornton shifted his position and leaned forward over the table.
+
+"So--eh? She didn't tell you all? I see. She confined the story to--me.
+And--you've believed all your life--that--that the girl, Nancy, was your
+sister? Well--by heaven! Doris has taken a chance."
+
+"You have got to tell me what you mean!"
+
+Joan was no longer filled with personal fear--it was wider, deeper than
+that.
+
+"And you must not lie," she added, fiercely--anger was giving her
+strength. Thornton regarded her through half-closed eyes.
+
+"Lying isn't my big line," he said, roughly, "if it had seen, I might
+have escaped the infernal mess that I hatched by--telling the truth in
+the first place. Since your aunt has neglected her duty--I will tell you
+the truth!"
+
+Thornton took small heed of the stricken girl near him. Hate and revenge
+for the moment swayed him, but not for an instant did Joan disbelieve
+what was burning into her consciousness. Truth rang in every word of the
+almost unbelievable story. And while she listened and shrank back she
+was conscious of inanimate things taking on human attributes that
+pleaded with her. The chair by the hearth where Doris had but recently
+sat smiling so happily because her ideals had been real to her! Nancy
+and she, Joan seemed to know, were the ideals--Nancy and she! For them
+Doris had done the one, big, daring thing in her life. The loom by the
+window suddenly cried out, too, as if Nancy were bending over
+it--working on her unfinished but perfect pattern.
+
+"Oh!" The word escaped Joan and found its way to Thornton's sympathy at
+last. He paused as he watched the suffering his words were causing.
+
+"It's a damned ugly thing she did to you," he said, "a damned ugly one.
+I warned her about the time when you would have to know. I've travelled
+a long distance to set you straight. She'll pay--now!"
+
+Joan tried to speak--failed--then tried again.
+
+"What are you going to do?" she asked, huskily, at last.
+
+Thornton regarded her with a dark frown.
+
+"Do?" he repeated, "claim my own--and let her pay."
+
+"What good--would that do--now?"
+
+Thornton stared. Where had he heard words like those before? Why should
+they seem to defy him? defeat him?
+
+"I'm going to have the truth known at last or----"
+
+"Or--what?"
+
+Shame held Thornton silent for a moment, but life had him at close
+grip--he was beaten unless help were given.
+
+"You think they will enjoy--the Tweksbury crowd--I mean--to know the
+parentage or--lack of it--of--the girl just palmed off on them as a
+Thornton? I may not be all that could be desired, but such as I am--I'm
+the saving clause." Thornton's coarseness was more and more evident.
+"I wonder if you can justify this mess?" he asked, suddenly, with a new
+interest.
+
+Joan was not trying to justify it--she was seeing it only as the
+beautiful thing Doris had accomplished by that power of hers to make
+real her ideal. It had been, still was, her one hold on life.
+
+"It's too late to talk about that now," she answered, slowly, and
+thinking fast and far, far ahead.
+
+"I imagine it will be expensive not to think of it; but she'll pay!"
+Thornton was braced for definite action. The girl opposite confused him.
+She looked so young; so agonized--so brave. She was so like---- At this
+Thornton turned away his eyes. Only by so doing could he hold to his
+course.
+
+Slowly, like one dragging a heavy load, Joan was reaching a place of
+clear understanding. Flashed upon her aching brain were blinding
+pictures.
+
+"One child was a forsaken waif of these hills----" Thornton had said.
+"_Thunder Peak! The old woman! Mary's silent and secret mission!_" rang
+the echo. Joan's eyes widened; her breath caught in her throat while she
+compelled herself to weigh and consider--though she did it in the dark.
+Then suddenly Mary became a tower of strength. Mary!
+
+Then Nancy's loveliness and charm gave their convincing evidence against
+Joan's own characteristics. At this she shuddered.
+
+"Doris said she never knew which child was mine," Thornton's words still
+echoed.
+
+"But she must have known!" Joan bowed her head, and all the loneliness
+of her life gathered in this moment of supreme acceptance. She knew,
+now, why she was, as she was; she knew why they could all cling
+together. There was something that could hold them together; something
+stronger than Doris could command. There _was_ a pay day! It had come!
+
+"I do not see," Joan spoke at last, and her voice was heavy and even,
+"why you should think you can harm Nancy. If what you have told is--I
+mean, _because_ what you have told is true--Nancy cannot be hurt--Nancy
+is--is yours! You would never doubt that if you saw her. I suppose you
+think"--here Joan's eyes flamed--"you can get more by attacking Nancy."
+
+At this Thornton startled Joan by throwing his head back and laughing
+aloud, fearlessly, roughly.
+
+She was alarmed. The servants--what would they think? Mary--suppose Mary
+should appear? But above all else Joan wanted to get this hideous thing
+over before Doris returned. Never for an instant did she falter there.
+
+But the laugh continued, less noisy but more reckless.
+
+"Well, by heaven, you are game!" Thornton managed to form the words, and
+in his eyes there was a glint of admiration. His old sporting spirit
+awakened--he knew the genuine ring of metal.
+
+"Why, see here, my girl," he drew from his pocket a gold locket and an
+old daguerreotype; "you don't suppose I came without evidence, do you?"
+
+Mechanically Joan reached across the table and took the articles--her
+fingers were stiff and cold, but she managed to unclasp the cases.
+Thornton was watching her; he had stopped laughing.
+
+In the locket were two miniatures--one of Meredith Fletcher, one of
+Thornton painted just after their marriage--Doris had the duplicate of
+Meredith's.
+
+"That," Thornton spoke deliberately, as Joan turned to the other, "is my
+mother! She and I were very like."
+
+Joan drew her breath in sharp.
+
+Once, back in the Dondale days, she had sung some of her old English
+ballads in costume--a quaint picture of her had been taken at the time
+and, for an instant, she thought this was it--she vaguely wondered how
+Thornton had got it--she could not think clearly--her brain was growing
+cloudy. Then she turned the old case over in her hand and looked at it
+mutely.
+
+"They discounted your resemblance to my side of the house." There was
+something almost pathetic underlying the sneer in Thornton's voice. "I
+did not know myself until I came in the door--but when I saw you, it was
+as if my mother stood here."
+
+Joan could not speak, but, as a change of wind turned the mists in The
+Gap _to_ the east instead of _from_ the east, so her clouds were
+drifting; drifting, and a flood of light was blinding her. She looked
+up--her eyes were shining with tears that did not fall; her lips
+twitched nervously, but she was happy; happy. The sensation brought
+strength and purpose. She did not seem alone--she was close, close to
+them who, unseen, but vital, were pressing near; waiting for her
+decision--now that she understood! What had her unconscious preparation
+done for her?
+
+Oh! she would not fail them. She was almost ready to prove herself. In a
+moment she could master her emotions and be worthy.
+
+Then she looked at Thornton and throbbed with hate; but as she looked
+her mood again changed--she felt such pity as she had never known in her
+life before.
+
+It repelled; it did not attract--but it was pity that called forth a
+desire to help. Clasping the silent witnesses of the truth in her cold
+hands Joan spoke:
+
+"No! Aunt Doris and Nancy shall not pay," she said, quietly.
+
+"Who--then?" Thornton felt the ground slipping from under him. The young
+creature opposite looked so old and hard that she impressed him in spite
+of himself.
+
+"You and I--will pay!"
+
+By those words Joan took her stand with Thornton, not against him. He
+winced.
+
+"Think--think what all this means," she faltered.
+
+Thornton did think. He thought back of the girl confronting him with his
+mother's eyes. The backward path was black and wreck-strewn; it
+led--where?
+
+"Aunt Doris has told me of--of my mother! You and I owe my mother----"
+here Joan choked and Thornton burst in:
+
+"But is it right and decent--that this imposition should be put upon
+innocent people? That girl--may turn out to be----"
+
+But Joan was not heeding. She paused and looked at the unfinished but
+perfect work upon the loom!
+
+"It is too late now to consider that," she whispered, brokenly. Then:
+"Aunt Doris has saved Nancy. You need have no fear.
+
+"Oh! can you not see what a chance you have to--to help this wonderful
+thing Aunt Doris did?"
+
+"Help? How?" Thornton sunk back in his chair. He was crushed--but in the
+depths of his soul something was stirring; something that he believed
+had died when he heard of the birth of the girl across the table who was
+pleading with him for those who had made her what she was!
+
+"How?"
+
+"Why--by simply--going away!"
+
+Thornton almost broke again into that maddening laugh, but caught
+himself in time.
+
+"That sounds--devilish easy!" he said, furiously, but the flare of
+passion died at birth, for Joan was saying:
+
+"I have some money of my own--I will send it all to you. I will get
+money for you--as long as you need it--but after a time you will--not
+need it! And then"--here Joan stretched out her clasped hands--"I know
+it sounds almost impossible--but it can be made true--you can come back
+to us all; help us keep the secret, and--watch with us. You and I owe
+this--to Aunt Doris; to my mother! It may be your--your--recompense."
+
+Thornton got upon his feet. He held to the table to steady himself, and
+a subtle dignity grew upon him.
+
+"I am going away," he said, slowly, "until I can think over this
+infernal business by myself. The time to act hasn't come yet--that's
+certain. I don't want--your money; not now. If I do, I'll send for it.
+If I ever come again it will be to--" he paused, flung his head up--"to
+see you; to look on at the working out of the damned mess."
+
+He reached out for the locket and case.
+
+"Good-bye," he said, gruffly. "You need not be afraid--not now."
+
+"I am not afraid." Joan rose weakly. "I shall wait for you. I am sure
+you will come.
+
+"Good-bye; good-bye!"
+
+Outside Thornton stumbled against old Jed.
+
+"The Ship's sailing!" the quavering, foolish words startled Thornton;
+"you best get aboard, sir, anchor's lifting!" Jed staggered away,
+grinning and muttering.
+
+Thornton stared after the swaying figure. Then he thought of the
+Philippines, his old battle ground--he would go back! The idea caught
+and held him.
+
+On the river road his horse stood nibbling the grass; a woman was beside
+it--a lean, stooping woman with a home-spun shawl clutched over her
+sunken breasts by one hand, in the other was a massive, rusty gun!
+
+She turned and confronted Thornton. She knew him at once, but he merely
+frowned at her as he eyed the weapon uneasily.
+
+"Who are you?" he asked. The place, the experience were getting to be
+too much for his shaken nerves.
+
+"That don't matter," Mary raised her deep eyes, they were burning with
+superstitious intentness; "but I have a message for you--you best heed
+it. We don't stand for strangers hanging around here. See there!" Mary
+pointed to The Rock--Thornton's excited fancy caught the wavering
+outlines of The Ship.
+
+"All that's wise--goes with that." Mary turned away. "You best heed!"
+she muttered as Jed had, and slunk off.
+
+Thornton shivered. He had not eaten for many hours; he was weary and
+beaten.
+
+"My God!" he muttered as he mounted the horse; "what--a conspiracy! What
+a hole to get away from. She thinks I'm looking for stills. Stills!" he
+gave a weak laugh.
+
+Joan stood until she heard the sound of the horse's hoofs on the road,
+then she turned to the freshly brushed but empty hearth and knelt,
+shivering.
+
+"Aha, I am warm. I have seen the fire." Her eyes clung to the words as
+if they were living flames. She was not conscious of thought, but she
+seemed to _know_ that she had only _seen_ the fire before but that now
+she was to feel it. A glow was stirring within her--a bright, flaming
+thing that lighted her way, on before--the long, long splendid way on
+which responsibility rested like a halo.
+
+She held within her soul all that had gone into her making--she
+belonged, in a great and demanding significance, to--Doris and Doris's
+people. Doris's and her own! Her own! She must prove herself--behind the
+shield; she must make the _real_ her ideal. She must not be afraid. Fear
+was the only thing that mattered.
+
+Her whole life had been but an outline up to now; she must fill it in!
+She must not be afraid to set sail.
+
+Who had said that to her?
+
+"Set sail. Bids--you set sail!"
+
+So engrossed was Joan in the flooding tide of thought, so entirely was
+she abandoning herself to it, that it was only when she heard Doris
+speak that she turned.
+
+"Joan, we've brought Clive! We met him on the way."
+
+Joan did not rise. With hands clasped in her lap she faced the little
+group in the doorway.
+
+Her eyes were filled with the golden light of day--she waited; all her
+life, she knew, she had been preparing for this moment. She saw
+Cameron's start of surprise; his wonder and doubt. Then she saw him
+gathering strength as for the last lap of a hard race.
+
+"So I have found you!" he said, and pushing past Martin and Doris he
+came across the room with outstretched hands.
+
+Something was calling in the tone which words could not convey, and Joan
+could not answer. It was like hearing a voice where before there had
+been but echoes.
+
+"I always knew that I would find you!"
+
+Cameron had reached the girl on the floor; he bent and drew her to her
+feet. His eyes were laughing; he saw her effort to answer him; her
+seeking to--understand what _he_ had already learned.
+
+"It's--all right now," he comforted.
+
+"Yes--of course!"
+
+How futile were the words, but they opened the way for truth to flood
+in.
+
+Joan, her hands still in Cameron's, her eyes clinging to his, murmured
+again, "Yes; of course--now!"
+
+Then she turned to the two silent, amazed people in the doorway and, by
+some magic, they were making her realize that she was facing her Big
+Chance. Hers!
+
+She must not be afraid. Fear was the only thing that could harm.
+
+Where they had been weak, she must be strong; where they had been
+blinded, she must--see!
+
+Why, that was what her life and Cameron's meant, and the two, standing
+apart, together--but alone--had made it possible.
+
+She, like Nancy, must "carry on," not mistakenly, not held on leash, but
+with a freedom born of choice and understanding; of failures, and the
+learning of the true from the false.
+
+To her--and again Joan turned to Cameron--and to him, was given the
+glorious opportunity of making the _real_, ideal.
+
+It was then that Joan threw her head back and laughed that laugh of hers
+that meant but one thing: An acceptance of life; a faith in its freedom;
+a conviction that it could be lived gladly and without fear.
+
+THE END
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BOOTH TARKINGTON'S NOVELS
+
+May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list
+
+
+SEVENTEEN. Illustrated by Arthur William Brown.
+
+No one but the creator of Penrod could have portrayed the immortal young
+people of this story. Its humor is irresistible and reminiscent of the
+time when the reader was Seventeen.
+
+
+PENROD. Illustrated by Gordon Grant.
+
+This is a picture of a boy's heart, full of the lovable, humorous,
+tragic things which are locked secrets to most older folks. It is a
+finished, exquisite work.
+
+
+PENROD AND SAM. Illustrated by Worth Brehm.
+
+Like "Penrod" and "Seventeen," this book contains some remarkable phases
+of real boyhood and some of the best stories of juvenile prankishness
+that have ever been written.
+
+
+THE TURMOIL. Illustrated by C. E. Chambers.
+
+Bibbs Sheridan is a dreamy, imaginative youth, who revolts against his
+father's plans for him to be a servitor of big business. The love of a
+fine girl turns Bibb's life from failure to success.
+
+
+THE GENTLEMAN FROM INDIANA. Frontispiece.
+
+A story of love and politics,--more especially a picture of a country
+editor's life in Indiana, but the charm of the book lies in the love
+interest.
+
+
+THE FLIRT. Illustrated by Clarence P. Underwood.
+
+The "Flirt," the younger of two sisters, breaks one girl's engagement,
+drives one man to suicide, causes the murder of another, leads another
+to lose his fortune, and in the end marries a stupid and unpromising
+suitor, leaving the really worthy one to marry her sister.
+
+
+_Ask for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+KATHLEEN NORRIS' STORIES
+
+May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list
+
+
+SISTERS. Frontispiece by Frank Street.
+
+The California Redwoods furnish the background for this beautiful story
+of sisterly devotion and sacrifice.
+
+
+POOR, DEAR, MARGARET KIRBY. Frontispiece by George Gibbs.
+
+A collection of delightful stories, including "Bridging the Years" and
+"The Tide-Marsh." This story is now shown in moving pictures.
+
+
+JOSSELYN'S WIFE. Frontispiece by C. Allan Gilbert.
+
+The story of a beautiful woman who fought a bitter fight for happiness
+and love.
+
+
+MARTIE, THE UNCONQUERED. Illustrated by Charles E. Chambers.
+
+The triumph of a dauntless spirit over adverse conditions.
+
+
+THE HEART OF RACHAEL. Frontispiece by Charles E. Chambers.
+
+An interesting story of divorce and the problems that come with a second
+marriage.
+
+
+THE STORY OF JULIA PAGE. Frontispiece by C. Allan Gilbert.
+
+A sympathetic portrayal of the quest of _a_ normal girl, obscure and
+lonely, for the happiness of life.
+
+
+SATURDAY'S CHILD. Frontispiece by F. Graham Cootes.
+
+Can a girl, born in rather sordid conditions, lift herself through sheer
+determination to the better things for which her soul hungered?
+
+
+MOTHER. Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.
+
+A story of the big mother heart that beats in the background of every
+girl's life, and some dreams which came true.
+
+
+_Ask for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+FLORENCE L. BARCLAY'S NOVELS
+
+May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.
+
+
+THE WHITE LADIES OF WORCESTER
+
+A novel of the 12th Century. The heroine, believing she had lost her
+lover, enters a convent. He returns, and interesting developments
+follow.
+
+
+THE UPAS TREE
+
+A love story of rare charm. It deals with a successful author and his
+wife.
+
+
+THROUGH THE POSTERN GATE
+
+The story of a seven day courtship, in which the discrepancy in ages
+vanished into insignificance before the convincing demonstration of
+abiding love.
+
+
+THE ROSARY
+
+The story of a young artist who is reputed to love beauty above all else
+in the world, but who, when blinded through an accident, gains life's
+greatest happiness. A rare story of the great passion of two real people
+superbly capable of love, its sacrifices and its exceeding reward.
+
+
+THE MISTRESS OF SHENSTONE
+
+The lovely young Lady Ingleby, recently widowed by the death of a
+husband who never understood her, meets a fine, clean young chap who is
+ignorant of her title and they fall deeply in love with each other. When
+he learns her real identity a situation of singular power is developed.
+
+
+THE BROKEN HALO
+
+The story of a young man whose religious belief was shattered in
+childhood and restored to him by the little white lady, many years older
+than himself, to whom he is passionately devoted.
+
+
+THE FOLLOWING OF THE STAR
+
+The story of a young missionary, who, about to start for Africa, marries
+wealthy Diana Rivers, in order to help her fulfill the conditions of her
+uncle's will, and how they finally come to love each other and are
+reunited after experiences that soften and purify.
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ETHEL M. DELL'S NOVELS
+
+May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.
+
+
+THE LAMP IN THE DESERT
+
+The scene of this splendid story is laid in India and tells of the lamp
+of love that continues to shine through all sorts of tribulations to
+final happiness.
+
+
+GREATHEART
+
+The story of a cripple whose deformed body conceals a noble soul.
+
+
+THE HUNDREDTH CHANCE
+
+A hero who worked to win even when there was only "a hundredth chance."
+
+
+THE SWINDLER
+
+The story of a "bad man's" soul revealed by a woman's faith.
+
+
+THE TIDAL WAVE
+
+Tales of love and of women who learned to know the true from the false.
+
+
+THE SAFETY CURTAIN
+
+A very vivid love story of India. The volume also contains four other
+long stories of equal interest.
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ELEANOR H. PORTER'S NOVELS
+
+May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.
+
+
+JUST DAVID
+
+The tale of a loveable boy and the place he comes to fill in the hearts
+of the gruff farmer folk to whose care he is left.
+
+
+THE ROAD TO UNDERSTANDING
+
+A compelling romance of love and marriage.
+
+
+OH, MONEY! MONEY!
+
+Stanley Fulton, a wealthy bachelor, to test the dispositions of his
+relatives, sends them each a check for $100,000, and then as plain John
+Smith comes among them to watch the result of his experiment.
+
+
+SIX STAR RANCH
+
+A wholesome story of a club of six girls and their summer on Six Star
+Ranch.
+
+
+DAWN
+
+The story of a blind boy whose courage leads him through the gulf of
+despair into a final victory gained by dedicating his life to the
+service of blind soldiers.
+
+
+ACROSS THE YEARS
+
+Short stories of our own kind and of our own people. Contains some of
+the best writing Mrs. Porter has done.
+
+
+THE TANGLED THREADS
+
+In these stories we find the concentrated charm and tenderness of all
+her other books.
+
+
+THE TIE THAT BINDS
+
+Intensely human stories told with Mrs. Porter's wonderful talent for
+warm and vivid character drawing.
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+STORIES OF RARE CHARM BY GENE STRATTON-PORTER
+
+May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list.
+
+
+MICHAEL O'HALLORAN. Illustrated by Frances Rogers.
+
+Michael is a quick-witted little Irish newsboy, living in Northern
+Indiana. He adopts a deserted little girl, a cripple. He also assumes
+the responsibility of leading the entire rural community upward and
+onward.
+
+
+LADDIE. Illustrated by Herman Pfeifer.
+
+This is a bright, cheery tale with the scenes laid in Indiana. The story
+is told by Little Sister, the youngest member of a large family, but it
+is concerned not so much with childish doings as with the love affairs
+of older members of the family. Chief among them is that of Laddie and
+the Princess, an English girl who has come to live in the neighborhood
+and about whose family there hangs a mystery.
+
+
+THE HARVESTER. Illustrated by W. L. Jacobs.
+
+"The Harvester," is a man of the woods and fields, and if the book had
+nothing in it but the splendid figure of this man it would be notable.
+But when the Girl comes to his "Medicine Woods," there begins a romance
+of the rarest idyllic quality.
+
+
+FRECKLES. Illustrated.
+
+Freckles is a nameless waif when the tale opens, but the way in which he
+takes hold of life; the nature friendships he forms in the great
+Limberlost Swamp; the manner in which everyone who meets him succumbs to
+the charm of his engaging personality; and his love-story with "The
+Angel" are full of real sentiment.
+
+
+A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST. Illustrated.
+
+The story of a girl of the Michigan woods; a buoyant, loveable type of
+the self-reliant American. Her philosophy is one of love and kindness
+towards all things; her hope is never dimmed. And by the sheer beauty of
+her soul, and the purity of her vision, she wins from barren and
+unpromising surroundings those rewards of high courage.
+
+
+AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW. Illustrations in colors.
+
+The scene of this charming love story is laid in Central Indiana. The
+story is one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing love.
+The novel is brimful of the most beautiful word painting of nature, and
+its pathos and tender sentiment will endear it to all.
+
+
+THE SONG OF THE CARDINAL. Profusely illustrated.
+
+A love ideal of the Cardinal bird and his mate, told with delicacy and
+humor.
+
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+Punctuation adjusted to be consistent with contemporary standards.
+
+Page 100, "genuis" changed to "genius" (the girl had genius).
+
+Page 173, "undestand" changed to "understand" (make you understand).
+
+Page 176, "Massachusett" changed to "Massachusetts" (Massachusetts coast.)
+
+Page 201, "pleassure" changed to "pleasure" (business, pleasure, art).
+
+Page 261, "hopefuly" changed to "hopefully" (hopefully sent).
+
+Page 75, "diguise" changed to "disguise" (cannot disguise herself).
+
+Page 111, "pallette" changed to "palette" (tossed her palette aside).
+
+Page 128, "virture" changed to "virtue" (unbending virtue).
+
+Page 128, "assinine" changed to "asinine" (his asinine conceit).
+
+Page 228, "browzing" changed to "browsing" (browsing along).
+
+Page 281, "volcanos" changed to "volcanoes" (to play on volcanoes).
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Shield of Silence, by Harriet T. Comstock
+
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