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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 58680 ***
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+[Frontispiece: "'To-morrow,' he replied, 'and all the to-morrows!'"
+[Page 334.]]
+
+
+
+  _The_
+  LAND _of_ CONTENT
+
+
+  BY
+
+  EDITH BARNARD DELANO
+
+
+
+  THOMAS LANGTON
+  TORONTO
+  1913
+
+
+
+
+  COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY
+  D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
+
+  Copyright, 1911-1912. by S. H. Moore Co.
+
+
+
+  Printed in the United States of America
+
+
+
+
+To J.
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+"'To-morrow,' he replied, 'and all the to-morrows!'" . . .
+_Frontispiece_
+
+"One thing after another came back to her"
+
+"A small crowd gathered in an incredibly short time"
+
+"It was Rosamund whose eyes smiled into his"
+
+
+
+
+_The_ LAND _of_ CONTENT
+
+
+
+I
+
+It was earliest spring, and almost the close of a day whose sunshine
+and warmth had coaxed into bloom many timid roadside flowers, and sent
+the white petals of farmyard cherries trembling to earth like tiny,
+belated snowfalls.  Already the rays of the setting sun were gilding
+the open space on the top of the mountain where ridge-road and turnpike
+meet.  The ridge-road was only one of the little mountain by-ways that
+wind through woods and up and down dale as the necessities of the
+mountain people wear them; the turnpike was an ancient artery
+connecting North and South, threading cities and villages and farms
+along its length like trophies on a chain.  The shy windings of the
+mountain road knew nothing more modern than the doctor's vehicle drawn
+by White Rosy, nothing more exciting than the little companies of
+armed, silent men who tramped over it by night, or crossed it
+stealthily by day; but along the pike coaches and motor cars pounded
+and rolled, and a generation or so earlier an army had swung northward
+over it in pride and hope and eagerness, to drift southward again, a
+few days later, with only pride left.  If, after that, the part of the
+old road that led from the plain up to the higher valley seemed to lie
+in a torpor, as if stunned by the agony of that retreat, none the less
+it remained one of the strong warp threads in Fate's fabric.
+
+Yet Destiny chooses her own disguises.  A sick baby had kept John
+Ogilvie on a sleepless vigil in the backwoods for the past fifty hours;
+and it was not the view from the crossroads, nor the doctor's habit of
+drawing rein to look out upon it for a moment or two, that made old
+Rosy stop there on this spring afternoon.  It was nothing more than a
+particularly luscious patch of green by the roadside, and the
+consciousness of her long climb having earned such a reward.  Rosy was
+an animal of experience and judgment, well accustomed to the ways of
+her master, knowing as well as he the houses where he stopped, capable
+of taking him home unguided from anywhere, as she would take him home
+this afternoon in her own good time.  She had come thus far unguided;
+for when the sick child's even breathing told the success of his
+efforts, John Ogilvie had almost stumbled out of the cabin and into his
+buggy, to fall asleep before he could do more than say,
+
+"Home, old lady!"
+
+So Rosy had ambled homeward, knowing every turn of the road, while the
+tired man slept on.
+
+The open place where the roads crossed was a famous "look-out."
+Following its own level, the eye of an observer first beheld the tops
+of other mountains at all points of the horizon save one; at this
+season the great masses were all misty green, except for occasional
+patches of the dark of pines, or the white gleam of dogwood, or rusty
+cleared spaces of pastures; the highroad, on its way to the nearer
+valley, at first dropped too abruptly to be seen, but reappeared later
+as a pale white filament gleaming here and there through the trees or
+winding past farmhouses or fields tenderly green with young wheat.
+Through the gap where the mountains broke apart a great plain
+stretched, a plain once drenched with the life of men, now gleaming in
+the rays of a sun already sunk too low to reach over the nearer
+mountains.  All human habitations lay so far below the crossroads that
+no sound of man's activities ever arose to its height; of wild life
+there was sound enough, to ears attuned to it--mostly chattering of
+woodchucks and song of birds, enriched at this season with the melody
+of passing voyagers from the south.  Yet none of these would have
+aroused the tired sleeper in the buggy.  A far different sound came up
+through the forest, and Ogilvie was awake on the instant, with the
+complete consciousness of the man accustomed to sudden calls.
+
+He looked down at the purpling valley, across through the gap to the
+gleaming plain, and laughed.
+
+"Well, Rosy, couldn't you take me home till I admired the view?" he
+asked; and by way of answer the old white mare turned her head to look
+at him, her mouth comfortably filled with young grass.  The doctor
+laughed again.
+
+"Oh, I see!" he said.  "A case of afternoon tea, was it, and not of
+admiring the view?  Well, let's get along home now."
+
+He looked across the valley to the mountain westward of the gap; its
+form was that of a large crouching panther, and high up on its shoulder
+a light twinkled against the shadow.
+
+"Come along!  Mother Cary's already lighted her lamp!" the doctor said.
+"There's bed ahead of us, old girl, bed for me and oats for you!  Bed,
+Rosy!  Think of it!  And may Heaven grant good health to all our
+friends this night!"
+
+He drew up the reins as he spoke, and with a farewell reach at a
+luscious maple leaf Rosy turned into the pike.
+
+But again there echoed through the woods the unaccustomed sound that
+had aroused the doctor.  This time it was too near to be mistaken; not
+even White Rosy's calm could ignore it.
+
+"Hel--lo!" said Ogilvie.  "A big horn and a noiseless car!  Pretty
+early in the season for those fellows.  Make way for your betters,
+White Rosy!"
+
+He drew well into the green of the roadside; for, highway and turnpike
+though it was, the road was narrow enough in this unfrequented part to
+make passing a matter of calculation.  The driver of the automobile had
+evidently discovered that for himself, for he was climbing slowly and
+carefully, sounding his horn as frequently as if driving through a
+village.  As the car came out upon the cleared space of the crossroads,
+Ogilvie turned, with the frank interest of the country dweller in the
+passer-by, and with the countryman's etiquette of the road waved to its
+solitary occupant.
+
+The driver of the car returned the greeting, drew slowly forward, and
+stopped beside the doctor's old buggy.  Ogilvie was not so much of a
+countryman as not to recognize in the machine's powerful outlines the
+costly French racer.  But that was only another of Destiny's disguises.
+The two men met on the mountain-top, took cognizance of each other in
+that high solitude where the things of the world lay below them; and,
+face to face, each measured the other and insensibly recognized his
+worth of character.  Both knew men; both had been trained to the
+necessity of forming quick judgments.  Before they had exchanged a word
+they were sure of each other; before the hour was out their friendship
+was as certain as if it were years old.
+
+The occupant of the car had a smile which was apt to be grimly
+humorous, as Ogilvie noted in the moment before he spoke.
+
+"I'm lost!" the stranger said, as if admitting a joke on himself.
+"I've come around in a circle twice, looking for a place called
+Bluemont Summit, and I've sounded my horn right along, hoping somebody
+would run out to look, somebody I could ask my way of.  But you're the
+first person I've seen this afternoon!"
+
+Ogilvie laughed aloud.  "No wonder, if you've been blowing your horn
+all the way," he said.  "If you had kept still, you might have come on
+someone unawares; but nobody around here would run out to look at you
+in the open."
+
+"Is there anyone to run?" the other asked, again with the grim twist of
+his lips.
+
+"Yes, but they are shy, and too proud to seem curious.  There may be
+eyes on us now, peeping through those woods," said Ogilvie.  "But
+you're not far from the Summit, not far, that is, with that car of
+yours.  This is the Battlesburg Road, and you're ten miles or so to the
+northwest of Bluemont."
+
+The driver of the car had stepped down into the road to do something to
+his lamps; it was already so dark that their gleam shot far ahead.
+White Rosy eyed them dubiously.
+
+"Only ten miles!  Jove, I'm glad of that!  Mountain air does whet a
+man's appetite!  The High Court is the best hotel, isn't it?"
+
+Ogilvie looked at the other for a moment or two before answering:
+looked, indeed, until the stranger glanced questioningly up at him, as
+if wondering at the delay.  Then he said:
+
+"My name's Ogilvie, and I'm the doctor around here.  I wish you'd let
+me prescribe a hot meal at my house for you.  It's this side of the
+Summit."
+
+The other man's smile had lost its grimness.  "That's mighty good of
+you," he said.  "And you won't have to coat that dose with sugar!"
+
+"I wonder," the doctor went on, "if you'd play host first, and give me
+a lift?  I'm as hungry as you are, and White Rosy here likes to choose
+her own gait.  If you'll take me home, we'll be at my house in one
+tenth the time, and Rosy can find her way alone.  She's done it many a
+time."
+
+The other man looked at the old mare, and as he answered stroked her
+nose and gave her shoulder a friendly smack or two.
+
+"Certainly I'll give you a lift," he said.  "Good of you to suggest it.
+This old lady looks as if she knew as much as most of us.  I hope you
+won't hurt her feelings by deserting her!"
+
+Ogilvie had come down to the road, and already deposited his black bags
+and his old brown cap in the automobile; now he was busy unbuckling
+Rosy's reins.
+
+"Not a bit of it," he said.  "She'll come home all the quicker for not
+having me on her mind!  It's home and oats, Rosy, oats, remember," he
+said as he got up into the automobile with the reins in his hand.
+
+"My name is Flood--Benson Flood, and I've been down in Virginia buying
+a little old farm for the shooting they tell me the neighborhood's good
+for.  I never use road maps--like to discover things for myself.
+That's how I got lost to-day."
+
+Ogilvie, leaning back, could inspect the face of the man beside him.
+Involuntarily, his expression had slightly changed at the name.  Benson
+Flood was as well known to readers of the daily papers as Hecla or
+Klondike or Standard Oil, and stood for about the same thing--wealth,
+spectacular wealth.  The name had heretofore interested John Ogilvie
+neither more nor less than any of the others; now, sitting beside its
+possessor, it carried a different and more personal significance.  It
+seemed almost grotesquely unreal that an actual living person, a man to
+be met at a mountain crossroads, could calmly introduce himself as
+Benson Flood, and be as frankly and comfortably hungry as anyone else.
+These thoughts, however, took but an instant.
+
+"Well, you've seen a bit of country, anyway," he replied, quite as if
+his mind were not busy on its separate line of speculation.  Flood's
+face was not what he would have expected to find it.  It had not lost
+its lean ruggedness, nor put on those fleshly signs of indulgence that
+are so apt to follow the early acquisition of great wealth.  The
+well-cut mouth was very firm, and there was something of the idealist,
+the questioner, the seeker of high things, about the eyes and brow that
+Ogilvie found puzzling and interesting.
+
+"Yes; and what a view there was from that crossroads up there!  I wish
+I could transplant my Virginia farm to that mountain-top.
+
+"A good many men have seen that view; the army retreated from
+Battlesburg along this old pike, you know."
+
+"Ah, Battlesburg!  I'm from the West, where history is not much more
+than we fellows have made it; it fairly stirs my blood to come across a
+place like Battlesburg, with its monuments, and its memories, and where
+Lincoln spoke, and all that.  I'm going to run up there to-morrow, if
+the hotel people can set me on my way early enough."
+
+"I'm afraid you'll have to trust me to do that," said Ogilvie.
+"There's my house, there where the light's in the front porch; and--I
+hope you won't think I've kidnapped you, but I'm going to keep you over
+night.  The hotels aren't open at this time of year."
+
+As the car stopped before the doctor's cottage, Flood turned to his
+host.  "Oh, I say!  That's mighty good of you!  Won't I put you out?
+Isn't there some place I can go to?"
+
+But Ogilvie laughed.  "There is not, but I wouldn't tell you if there
+was!  Why, Mr. Flood, I haven't talked to anyone from beyond the
+mountains for six months!"
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+Spring, that stole upon the mountains with an evanescent fragrance, and
+unfolding of delicate greens and shy opening blossoms, swept into the
+city with a blaze of life and color, with a joyous outpouring of people
+and bedizening of shop-windows; and nowhere else was its influence so
+marked as on the Avenue.  Motor vehicles crowded from curb to curb,
+held back or permitted to sweep onward by the uplifted hands of mighty
+creatures in uniform, horseback and afoot, imperturbably calm, lords
+and rulers and receivers of tribute; the sidewalks swarmed with people,
+lines of men and women swinging northward and southward, some buoyantly
+conscious of new-fashioned raiment, their eyes apparently unaware of
+the jostling crowd, some with tiny dogs under their arms, some looking
+at the passing faces, or bowing to people in motor cars, a few glancing
+into the brilliant windows of the shops, a few chatting and laughing
+with companions.
+
+Benson Flood, returned from Virginia the day before, was one of those
+who, marching northward, looked searchingly into the faces of the
+people he passed, and frequently glanced into the automobiles on his
+right.  No one in all that army was more aware than he of the vivid
+beauty of the moving scene.  For three years he had watched the Avenue
+burst into life and color under the recurring influence of Spring; but
+he had lost none of the keenness of his first perception of it, none of
+his delight in its unique splendor, none of the thrill of having
+achieved the right to be a part of it.
+
+Achievement, indeed, was what Benson Flood stood for.  Beginning life
+in a Western town, his subsequent history was one of those spectacular
+dramas common enough in American progress, yet always thrilling in
+their exhibition of daring and courage, in their apparent forcing of
+opportunity, their making and taking of chances, their final conquest
+of power and wealth.  Flood's career differed from many another only in
+two particulars: as early as the age of forty he had reached that point
+where he could afford to lay aside his more public pursuits; and at the
+same time, perhaps because he had grown no older in the cult, the mere
+accumulation of wealth ceased to be the first object in life for him.
+He was the offspring of one of the curious mixtures of race that
+distinguish America; and doubtless from some ancestor of an older
+civilization he inherited a taste and longing for that to which, in his
+youth and early manhood, he had been an absolute stranger.  When he
+left his West behind him, he faced towards those gentler things which,
+in his fine imagination and the perception trained by the exigencies of
+his career, he felt to be more desirable than anything he had yet
+attained to.  Certainly they had become to him, untasted though they
+were at the time, of greater importance.  He valued his experiences,
+his labors, his millions; but they were not enough.  However
+unaccustomed to it he might be, he knew very definitely what he now
+wanted; and a winter in New York, with a year or two in Europe, had put
+him in a fair way of adding the fulfillment of his later ambition to
+his earlier achievements.  A race-winning yacht, a few introductions
+among people who welcome the owners of mines and large fortunes, these
+gave a social background which, with the excellent foundation of his
+millions, served very well in New York, and taught him much about those
+things which he was now so sure of wanting.  It was not strange that he
+believed them to be summed up, embodied, realized to the utmost, in one
+woman.
+
+He was looking for her as he walked up the Avenue on this April
+afternoon; she loved its life and color and change, and was apt to pass
+over some part of it as often as she could.  So Flood watched the
+passing women for the face that could so magically quicken his pulses.
+Many sought his recognition, yet he was oblivious of their number,
+ignoring the various half-invitations that were tentatively made
+him--the leaning forward of one in a limousine, the slight pause or
+lingering look of another.
+
+His thoughts were still full of his journey, and Spring on the Avenue
+only brought up memories--so lately realities--of the breath of the
+woods, the wind in the tree-tops, the brown and green of fields so
+lately seen; and Flood had reached that state of mind where all that
+was sweet in memory, all that was beautiful in the present, all that he
+desired from the future, only reminded him of the one woman.
+
+Several times, through the crowd, he thought he saw her, and went more
+quickly forward; but as often he fell back, disappointed.  Suddenly, in
+answer to a firm grasp on his arm, he turned.
+
+"Ah, Marshall!" he said, not too enthusiastically.
+
+"I say, Benny, is it a wager?  You're stalking up the Avenue without a
+word or a look for anybody, trampling on people, mowing them down by
+the thousand like a Juggernaut from the West!  That's how I traced you,
+by the bodies strewn in your path."
+
+Flood was always amused by Pendleton's nonsense; yet now he smiled and
+said nothing.  To-day it was not Pendleton he wanted to see.  The other
+seemed to divine this.
+
+"You don't seem very sociable," he remarked.  "Did your lone trip to
+Virginia give you a confirmed taste for solitude?"
+
+Again Flood smiled; he could no more resist Pendleton's aimless chatter
+than a large dog can resist the playfulness of a small one.  His
+side-long glance had to go downwards to meet Marshall's.
+
+"Quite the contrary," he said.  "I've bought the old Gore place in
+Berkeley and now I want to fill it up with guests.  I count on you to
+help me out, Marshall."
+
+"Right you are!  Come up to Mrs. Maxwell's with me, and we'll get dear
+Cecilia to help us out, too!"
+
+Flood's face suddenly hardened a little.  It was an unconscious trick
+of his under the stress of any sudden emotion; in effect, it was as if
+a hand had passed over his features, leaving them expressionless.  Many
+a game had he won, mastered many a situation, by means of it.
+
+He paused perceptibly before he answered Pendleton.  Then he said, "I
+shall have to leave that to you!"
+
+"You're too modest, Benny," Pendleton said, shaking his head.
+"Remember your taxes, man, not to mention your bank account, and don't
+let dear Cecilia awe you."
+
+It was presently made evident enough that the dear Cecilia in question
+held nothing of awe for Pendleton himself; for they were no sooner in
+the rather austere little drawing room than he bent over Mrs. Maxwell,
+and, quite deliberately ignoring the five or six earlier comers,
+whispered in her ear:
+
+"Get rid of the crowd, Cecilia; we've great news for you!"
+
+Mrs. Maxwell was apparently oblivious of his whisper, for she made
+herself more charming than ever to the other men; yet presently, almost
+before Flood was aware of it, the others were gone, and she was saying:
+
+"Well, Marshall?  You always bring your little budget with you, don't
+you?  What is it now?"
+
+"If you're going to be, nasty, Cecilia, I won't tell you!"
+
+Flood, who had not so far progressed as to become accustomed to such
+badinage, looked uneasily from Pendleton to their hostess; but Mrs.
+Maxwell seated herself beside him on the sofa, and calmly smiled.
+
+Apparently she was going to ignore Pendleton for the moment.  "I am
+always so glad when I can have my tea comfortably, without having to
+look after a roomful of people," she said.  "You don't take it, I know,
+Mr. Flood, and Marshall can look out for himself.  What do you think of
+this pink lustre cup, Mr. Flood?  It's Rosamund's latest acquisition."
+
+Flood had, after all, learned much in his three years.  He bent forward
+to examine the cup, while Mrs. Maxwell turned its iridescent beauty
+towards the light.
+
+"It is adorable," he said.  "Is Miss Randall hunting for more to-day?"
+
+Again his face had quickly become expressionless, but neither of the
+others were aware of it, and his question was doomed to remain
+unanswered.
+
+Pendleton could no longer withhold his news.  "Benny's just back from
+Virginia, Cecilia," he said.  "He's bought Oakleigh."
+
+"I think it's West Virginia, and it's just a little farm, you know,"
+Flood said, weakly; but his geography was entirely immaterial to the
+others.
+
+"Oakleigh?  The Gore place?"
+
+Flood still found it amazing that so many people knew so many other
+people; his lately made acquaintances in New York always seemed to know
+all about his lately made acquaintances in Florida or Virginia or the
+Berkshires, or, for that matter, in Europe.  It was another of the
+things to which he had not yet become accustomed.
+
+"And he wants you and me to help him fill it up with people," Pendleton
+went on, with the frankness for which he was famous.
+
+Mrs. Maxwell looked quickly over her tea-cup at Flood, raising her
+eyebrows ever so slightly.  For once Flood could not control his
+expression; his face flushed deeply as he leaned towards her.
+
+"If you only would!" he begged.  "I thought--I scarcely dared to
+hope--that perhaps if--if Miss Randall came along, too, you might
+consent to play hostess for a lone man?"
+
+Cecilia was a practiced campaigner, as she had had need to be during
+the dreary years before she had Rosamund's money to count upon;
+instantly she recalled the place Flood could afford to call a "little
+farm," Oakleigh, white-pillared and stately, with its kennels and
+stables and conservatories.  She could not imagine why he had chosen
+her unless it were thanks to Pendleton; yet, to be hostess of Oakleigh,
+even for a week or two, distinctly appealed to her.  It would be
+possible enough, if she were to go as Rosamund's chaperon.  Even Flood
+had seen that; and if it were left to her to fill its rooms with
+guests, how many debts might she not cancel!  The opportunity was
+wonderful, a gift from Heaven; but could she count upon Rosamund?
+Would Rosamund go?  There was a lack of complacency in Rosamund that
+her sister frequently found trying; she wondered how far she might dare
+to commit her to accepting Flood's invitation.  Yet daring and Cecilia
+were not strangers, and the opportunity was unique.
+
+"I am not sure of Rosamund's dates," she said.
+
+Flood hesitated; but Pendleton, too, had been thinking about the
+splendor of Oakleigh.
+
+"Oh, but Benny has no dates for Oakleigh yet!" he said.  "So you may
+set your own time, Cecilia.  Isn't that so, Benny?"
+
+"If you only will," Flood besought her.
+
+After all, Cecilia thought, there was nothing Rosamund could do, if she
+definitely promised for her!
+
+"Then I think June will be quite perfect," she said, and said it none
+too soon; for the door was suddenly framing the vision of Flood's
+desire.
+
+For an instant she seemed almost to sway in the doorway, as if she had
+come to the utmost limit of strength; she was paler than he had ever
+seen her, and, he thought, more lovely.  He could never behold her
+without an immediate sense of abasement.  Her beauty was of that
+indefinable sort which touches the heart and imagination rather than
+storms the senses.  Men did not look upon her as at some beautiful
+creature on exhibition; always they looked, to be sure, but straightway
+the masculine appraisement of their gaze changed to the look one
+bestows upon some high and lovely thing.  Her face had that fullness
+through the temples that Murillo loved; her eyes, hazel or brown or
+gray, changing in color with the responsive widening of the pupils,
+were rather far apart, deeply set, warm with interest when she looked
+directly at you; dark hair, ruddily brown, that broke into curl
+whenever a strand escaped, framed her face closely, and was always worn
+more simply than fashion demanded.  She was tall enough to play a man's
+games well, and the impression that she gave was one of vigor and
+alertness, almost of impatience.  This was the first time Flood had
+seen her tired.
+
+And, as always when he saw her, it swept over him that she was, alone
+and above all others, the woman he wanted.  She was beautiful, but it
+was not her beauty, not her social eminence, certainly not her wealth,
+nor anything that she might be said to represent, that constituted her
+appeal for him.  There was that in her which he had not met elsewhere
+in his countrywomen, though frequently enough in France and England, a
+simplicity, a calmness, a dignity, which he interpreted as a
+consciousness that she needed no pretense, no further struggle or
+ambition to be other than just what she was.  And what she was, was
+what he very much wanted.  For him, she was the bright sum of all
+desire, the embodiment of everything rare and fine, which he now craved
+all the more because they had been denied him in his earlier years.
+Months before, since the first time he saw her, he had known that, and
+accepted it as an inspiration, as he had accepted and lived upon the
+fine flashes of imagination that had led him on to fortune in those
+western days, when imagination and courage had been his stock in trade;
+it was only the ultimate, and by far the most important, of those!
+
+But Miss Randall was certainly unaware that she aroused in anyone in
+her drawing-room stronger feelings than the mild ones which usually
+accompany afternoon tea.  After an instant's survey from the doorway,
+she came into the room, trying to smile through her fatigue.
+
+"Mercy, Rosamund!  You look like a ghost!  Have you been walking
+yourself to death again?" her sister asked.
+
+Flood's greeting was only a silent bow and a touch of her offered hand,
+but Pendleton was never speechless.
+
+"I say, Rose," he cried, "Flood's just been inviting us all down to
+Virginia for June, and dear Cecilia has accepted!  Can you stand the
+joy of having me to talk to for a whole month, Rosamund?"
+
+At a quick spark in her sister's eyes, Cecilia bent towards her and
+spoke somewhat hastily.  "Mr. Flood has bought Oakleigh, the Gore
+place.  Isn't it nice of him to ask us down there, first of all?"
+
+Although to her sister her look seemed to hold many things, to Flood's
+infatuated eyes the girl seemed suddenly more tired, harassed, or
+troubled; and with another of his flashes of intuition he would not
+give her a chance to reply.  He began to tell them about his lone
+journey, talking very well, quite sure of his facts and with a large
+enthusiasm, and in spite of herself Rosamund became more and more
+interested.  She even smiled a little at his account of the mountain
+doctor's old mare and her wisdom; she even found herself willing to
+hear more about the doctor!
+
+"But, I assure you," Flood went on, "it wouldn't have taken anyone long
+to discover that he was not the usual country doctor.  There is
+something about the man that would attract the attention of the world,
+if he lived on a pillar or were buried beneath the sands of Arizona.
+Personality, I suppose, unless you're willing to look the fact in the
+face and admit that a certain force emanates from greatness,
+wherever----"
+
+"Oh, say!" Pendleton protested; and Flood laughed, rather shamefacedly,
+as a man laughs when he is discovered reading a learned book or quoting
+a classic.
+
+But Miss Randall would not have that.  "Please don't mind him, Mr.
+Flood; I want to hear the rest of it."
+
+Again Flood was taken unawares, and his face flushed; but he went on to
+describe the evening before the doctor's fire, the four days he had
+remained, a willing guest, the drives about the mountains in the
+doctor's buggy--lest his own car should startle the shy mountain people.
+
+"And since I've got back, I've been finding out about him.  You know
+how it is--meet a chap you never heard of before, and straightway find
+out that a dozen people you know have known him for years.
+
+"Last night I met Doctor Hiram Wilson in the club; he said it was the
+first time he'd had a chance to run in for months, yet he happened to
+be the first man I saw there.  I was telling him something about this
+chap, and found he knew all about him.  'Keenest young investigator I
+ever knew,' he said, 'and came near working himself to death.  How is
+he now?'  He seemed mighty glad when I told him I could not have
+suspected that Ogilvie had ever been ill.  Then he called Professor
+Grayson over, to repeat what I'd just told him; and I wish you could
+have seen old Grayson's face.  He was delighted, but he could really
+tell more about Ogilvie than I could.  It seems that Ogilvie was under
+him for a time, but had really gone far beyond him; then he made
+himself ill by working day and night in his laboratory, and some of his
+medical friends packed him off to those mountains to get well.  He was
+too far gone to protest, I guess; but before he was well enough to come
+back, he was so interested in the people there that he was willing to
+stay.  Now the big fellows have fallen into the way of sending patients
+down to Bluemont, in the summer, to be near him; and he consults
+everywhere all over the country.  They told me last night that his
+investigations and experiments on the nervous system would do more to
+save the vision than----"
+
+But Miss Randall, at the word, exclaimed, and with parted lips and
+brightening eyes leaned towards him.  Flood stopped, amazed.
+
+"Vision!  His work is for vision?  For the eyes?" she cried.
+
+"His experimental work.  Of course, in the mountains----"
+
+But Mrs. Maxwell was tired of Flood's enthusiasm.  "Dear me!  She is
+going to tell him about Eleanor!  Take pity on me, Marshall, and help
+me to escape!" she exclaimed, jumping up.
+
+But her sister was far too deeply interested to be aware of their
+withdrawing towards the window.  "Oh, Mr. Flood, is he really
+successful?  Can he really help?"
+
+"I am told, and I believe, that he is a great man, Miss Randall.  But
+surely----"
+
+For the first time the weary look had left her face.  "Mr. Flood, if
+you can help me!  I have a friend, the dearest friend I have in the
+world, who believes she is going to be blind.  I don't believe it!  I
+will not!  And yet, it would not be remarkable--she has been through so
+much, so much!  Oh, I cannot bear to think of it!"
+
+Her hands were clasped on her knees, and she bent her head over them to
+hide the tears in her eyes.
+
+"You have been with her this afternoon?" Flood surmised.
+
+"We have spent the afternoon at an oculist's," she said.  "I have
+begged her for weeks, for weeks, to let me take her--but she is so
+proud, oh, so foolishly proud--and to-day--to-day--Oh, it is unbearably
+cruel!"
+
+She arose, and stood half turned from him, to hide her emotion, swaying
+a little; and intensely as he had wanted many things, Flood had never
+wanted anything so keenly as to comfort her--to comfort her by taking
+her in his arms, if he could, but above all, by any means, to comfort
+her.  Hitherto it had seemed impossible, in his modesty, to make her
+realize his existence apart from the multitude; he welcomed this
+heaven-sent opportunity.  Quite suddenly, in his need, he found his
+faith in Ogilvie increased a hundredfold; but he was too much concerned
+to perceive the humor of it.
+
+"Oh, but--" he cried, "but I should never in the world accept one man's
+opinion as final!  And I assure you, Ogilvie is called in consultation
+by Blake, Wilson, Whitred.  I should certainly have her see him!"
+
+She seated herself again, wearily.  "Ah, she is so proud!  It is only
+when she sees I am fairly breaking my heart over her that she will let
+me do anything."
+
+"Then she is not--she has not----?"
+
+"Oh, as for what she has and what she is, those are quite two different
+things, Mr. Flood!  She is the dearest and loveliest and bravest
+creature in the world.  She is more than I could possibly tell you.  I
+have adored her ever since she was one of the big girls in the school
+where I was a tiny one.  My father and mother were abroad, and Cecilia
+was up here in the North, with her father's people, and then married;
+and I was left in Georgia at school, oh, such a lonely little mite!
+Eleanor was everything in the world to me--big sister, little mother,
+friend--everything!  Then she married, and my father died abroad and
+dear Mamma took me over with her.  Eleanor and I wrote to each other,
+and I was godmother for her little boy; but Mamma and I were in France
+until--until Mamma died, three years ago; and it was only last year,
+when I came to live with Cecilia, that I found my Eleanor again."
+
+Unconsciously she was revealing to Flood more of her life than he had
+known before; he was afraid to interrupt by so much as a question.  His
+face had again taken on the expressionless mask which so well covered
+his emotion or interest.
+
+"I had never realized it, Mr. Flood; but all the while I was having
+everything, my precious Eleanor was poor, very poor.  She had no
+relatives near enough to count, and her guardian sent her to school
+with what little money she had.  I'm afraid it did not teach her very
+well how to support herself!  She married the year she left school; she
+has never spoken of him at all, but I don't believe her husband
+was--was all she had believed.  When he died, she brought little Bob to
+New York.
+
+"I heard dear old Mrs. Harley say, only a day or two ago, that there
+are thousands of Southern girls, dear, sweet girls who have never done
+any work at all, who come to New York every year to try to earn a
+living.  Sometimes they think they can sing, sometimes they want to
+become artists, sometimes they just come; and Eleanor was one of them.
+Only, with her, it was worse, for she had Bob.
+
+"I don't know how they got along.  I was in Europe, and she would only
+write when I had sent Bob something.  I never dreamed that people,
+people of my own sort, my own friends even, might be hungry, and not
+have money enough to buy anything to eat."
+
+"You ought not to know it now," Flood said.  But she only shook her
+head.
+
+"I believe Eleanor has been hungry.  And if you could only see her--she
+is so lovely, as lovely as a white lily!"
+
+"Oh, but surely, Miss Randall, she could have got help!  There are no
+end of places----"
+
+"Yes.  But a woman like Eleanor can't seek just any kind of help, you
+know, and--well, as darling Mrs. Harley says, charity doesn't help
+much, when it is only charity.  Even from me, Eleanor says she cannot.
+
+"When I came to New York to live with Cecilia, I went at once to see
+her.  She let me do all I could for little Bob, but it was too late.
+He died.  And now she will not let me do anything for her.  I ask her
+what good my money is to me, if she will not let me use it as I want
+to!  She would not even let me take her to an oculist until she saw
+that I was just breaking my heart over her!  And now----"
+
+Again her head was bent over her clasped hands; again she was too
+moved, for the moment, to speak.  Flood seized his opportunity.
+
+"Believe me, it can be arranged," he said.  "You have taken me into
+your confidence--you will let me--advise, won't you?"  She looked up
+eagerly, and he went quickly on.  "See your friend, Mrs.----"
+
+"Mrs. Reeves."
+
+"See your friend, Mrs. Reeves, and tell her about Ogilvie.  Tell her
+that he is looking for someone--a lady--to help with his work down in
+those mountains.  Prepare her to accept his offer.  I will telegraph
+him."
+
+She looked at him blankly.  "But--would it be true?  I don't think I
+understand!"
+
+He smiled reassuringly.  "It would not be true that I am going to
+Europe to-morrow--but we could make it true!  If we get her away from
+the city, and near Ogilvie, we can leave everything else to him.  He's
+really a good deal of a man, you know."
+
+Rosamund sprang to her feet.  "Cecilia," she said, across the room, to
+her sister, "I am going back to Eleanor's."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+In her enthusiasm at the chance of finding a way out for Eleanor,
+Rosamund seemingly forgot that it was Flood who helped her.  As a
+matter of fact, she considered him so little that she was quite willing
+to make use of his assistance in so good a cause and then to ignore
+him.  She had always found someone at hand to help her in anything she
+wanted to do; she could not remember a time when there was not someone
+ready and willing to gratify her least whim.  It was only in her
+efforts on Eleanor's behalf that she was baffled for the first time, as
+much by Eleanor's own pride as by not knowing to whom to turn, or where
+help was to be found.  It was a new experience for her to find that her
+money could do nothing; for it was precisely her money that her
+cherished Eleanor refused.  If she was to do anything, it must be by
+some other means.
+
+Flood was not as entirely unconscious of her attitude as he appeared.
+He had no intention of pressing himself upon her through making himself
+of use.  He beheld her suffering in sympathy with this unknown friend
+of hers, and her suffering so worked upon his love for her that he
+would have done much more to lessen it.  But he knew humanity; and
+while he took more pleasure in being generous than in any other of the
+powers his wealth had brought him, he gave without thought of benefits
+returned, save in the satisfaction of giving.
+
+His first move was a letter to the mountain doctor.
+
+
+MY DEAR DR. OGILVIE: [he wrote] Since my visit with you a matter has
+been brought to my attention in which I do not hesitate to ask your
+assistance.  Two ladies whom I hold in highest esteem are in great
+anxiety over a friend of theirs whom they have known from childhood.
+This friend is a widow who has lately lost her son, having come to New
+York from the South a few years ago in the hope of supporting herself
+and the child, and being now alone here except for the ladies who are
+my friends and hers.  Her situation, you will perceive, is common
+enough; but what adds to the distress in this instance is that Mrs.
+Reeves' eyes are affected, to what extent I do not know.  I have not
+had the pleasure of meeting the lady myself; but I am told that her
+vision is not entirely to be despaired of; and my friend Doctor Hiram
+Wilson has great confidence in your power.  It would be impossible to
+offer charity to Mrs. Reeves; and it would be equally impossible for
+her to go to the Summit to be near you without assistance; indeed, it
+has been impossible for her to consult an oculist here until the
+entreaties of my friends prevailed upon her to do so with them.  But it
+occurs to me that you might find use for an assistant in your work in
+the mountains--a capable lady who has suffered enough to have sympathy
+with the sufferings of others, and that sort of thing.  Now would you
+be willing to lend yourself to a mild deception for the sake of
+conferring a great benefit?  If you can make use of Mrs. Reeves'
+assistance, I shall be very glad to remit to you whatever remuneration
+you might offer her.  I should also expect to pay the usual fees for
+your attention to Mrs. Reeves' eyes.  You will know best how to take up
+that matter with her, so as not to arouse her suspicions of its having
+been suggested to you.  I should suggest that you write to me, asking
+whether I can advise you of a suitable person to fill the office
+of--whatever is the medical equivalent of parochial assistant.  I am
+sure I may count upon your help; as I understand it, this is one of
+those cases whose claim cannot be denied by any one of us.
+
+
+A few days later Flood went to Miss Randall with Ogilvie's reply:
+
+
+Curiously enough, I have the very place for Mrs. Reeves.  One of my
+patients, who has taken a cottage at the Summit for the summer, is
+looking for a companion.  I am writing her by this mail to apply
+through you to Mrs. Reeves.  We will see what we can do for those
+troublesome eyes; but I can manage it better if I don't have the
+haunting feeling that I am to be paid--you will understand that.  Your
+parochial assistant plan sounded very tempting, but that sort of thing
+would be too good to be true.
+
+
+Flood laughed when Rosamund looked up from reading it.  "My friend
+Ogilvie seems to be as shy of possible charity as your Mrs. Reeves," he
+said.
+
+"What do you mean?" she asked.  Then he remembered that she could not
+know what he had written.
+
+She saw his hesitancy and laughed.  "Oh!  So you've been offering
+charity, have you?  I wish you'd let me see a copy of your letter!"
+
+"Now what for?" he asked.  "Ogilvie's idea beats mine."
+
+"But I'd like to see your literary style," she said, still laughing at
+him.
+
+"Oh, please!" he protested.
+
+"Well, I think you are very good, Mr. Flood.  The role of rescuer of
+dames is very becoming to you!  If you could see my Eleanor you'd feel
+repaid.  She is the loveliest and the dearest----"
+
+"But I haven't done anything at all, I assure you.  I'm sure I hope
+your friend will find this Mrs. Hetherbee a comfortable person to live
+with."
+
+"Mrs. Hetherbee!  Is that Doctor Ogilvie's patient?"
+
+Flood nodded.  "She telephoned me before I'd had my breakfast for Mrs.
+Reeves' address.  That was my excuse for bothering you in the morning."
+
+"You are good," she said.  Then she added, a little ruefully, "I wish
+you could help me to break the news to Eleanor!"
+
+For to persuade her Eleanor, as she had foreseen, was not as easy as to
+persuade Flood and the unknown doctor and his patient.
+
+She knew the lunch-room that Eleanor liked best, and sought her there
+at the noon hour.  They chatted across the small intervening table,
+until Eleanor arose.
+
+"You are not going back to the office," Rosamund declared, when they
+were together on the street.  "Now, Eleanor, please don't be difficult!"
+
+"My dearest child!" Mrs. Reeves began; but Rosamund took her friend's
+arm through her own, and poured forth the story of how she had heard,
+through a Mr. Flood, that Mrs. Hetherbee wanted a companion.
+
+"Who is Mrs. Hetherbee?" Eleanor asked, suspiciously.
+
+"I haven't the least idea," Rosamund frankly admitted.  "But she wants
+a companion, and she is going to spend the summer at Bluemont Summit,
+and----"
+
+She paused, and Eleanor turned to her.  "Rose, tell it all!" she said.
+"You wouldn't be suggesting my leaving one situation for another,
+unless you----"
+
+"No, I wouldn't!  I know it!  I confess!  I am!  But you are so
+peculiar, Eleanor!"
+
+They laughed together, and Rosamund took courage to tell her.  "There
+is a man there who, they say, does wonders for the eyes.  That is why I
+want you to go, Eleanor.  I don't know what Mrs. Hetherbee will pay
+you; and I will not offer to--to--I will not offer anything at all!
+But oh, Eleanor, please, please go!"
+
+They walked in silence to the vestibule of the towering building where
+Eleanor worked.  At the elevator she turned to Rosamund.
+
+"I will go to see Mrs. Hetherbee to-night," she said.  "And I do love
+you!"
+
+Some weeks thereafter Rosamund came home from bidding Mrs. Reeves
+farewell at the station, to find Cecilia once more dispensing tea to
+Pendleton and Flood; and she sent Flood into a state of speechless
+happiness with her thanks.  Eleanor had promised to see Doctor Ogilvie
+about her eyes at once, and Mrs. Hetherbee had taken a tremendous fancy
+to Eleanor, and it was good of Mr. Flood to have sent those lovely
+flowers to the train.  Eleanor had introduced her as a friend of Mr.
+Benson Flood, and was he willing that she should shine in his reflected
+glory?  Because it had tremendously impressed Mrs. Hetherbee!
+
+When the men had left, Cecilia turned to her sister.  "He's in love
+with you, you know!" she said.
+
+"Nonsense!  I've known him all my life, Cissy, and you don't fall in
+love with a person you've seen spanked!"
+
+"You know very well I'm not talking about Marshall," said Mrs. Maxwell.
+"And you know very well that Mr. Flood is tremendously in love with
+you."
+
+"I think you're disgusting," said Rosamund.  "For heaven's sake, don't
+try to follow the fashion of the women of our set in that respect,
+Cissy!  Every man they know has to be in love with somebody--half the
+time with somebody else's wife!  Oh, I loathe it!"
+
+Cecilia remained calm.  "I hope you don't loathe Mr. Flood," she said,
+"because he is."
+
+Rosamund threw herself back in a deep chair, and looked at her sister
+in the exasperation one feels towards the sweetly stubborn.
+
+"Oh, very well!  He is!  But that's nothing to me!"
+
+"Isn't it?  He probably thinks it is!  You've taken his help for your
+precious Eleanor, you know, and you're going to Oakleigh next month."
+
+"I am not going to do anything of the kind!"
+
+That moved Cecilia.  "But my dear child, you certainly are!  He has
+asked me to be hostess for his first house-party, and I have accepted,
+and said you'd go with me."
+
+"Cecilia!"
+
+"Now don't say you've forgotten it!  Why, it was the very day you told
+him about Eleanor."
+
+Cecilia remained provokingly silent; and Rosamund jumped up
+impatiently, only to throw herself down upon another chair.
+
+"Oh, I wish I had never seen the man!" she cried.  "I did tell him
+about Eleanor, and I did let him do something for her.  I would have
+taken help for Eleanor from anybody--from a street-sweeper, or the
+furnace man!  That doesn't give your Mr. Flood any claim on me!"
+
+"Yours, dear!" said Cecilia, smiling.
+
+"He is not!  Why, he is--nobody!"
+
+"Well, that's not his fault.  He wants to be somebody!  He is doing his
+best to marry into our family, love!"
+
+At that Rosamund had to laugh.  "Oh, Cissy!  Don't be such a goose!
+Mr. Flood is perfectly odious to me, and you know it.  I don't see why
+you ever let Marshall introduce him!  I don't see why you ever allowed
+him to so much as dare to invite us to Oakleigh!"
+
+"But, my dear, Oakleigh is--Oakleigh!"
+
+"What if it is?  He ought to have known better than to ask us there,
+and I don't see why you accepted."
+
+Mrs. Maxwell smiled.  "Pity, my dear!" she explained.  "Pity--the crumb
+to a starving dog--the farthing to a beggar!  Besides, he will let me
+invite whom I please and--well, Benson Flood may be a suppliant for one
+thing, Rose, but he has, after all, more money than he can count!"
+
+"Then why don't you marry him yourself?"
+
+Mrs. Maxwell shrugged.  "'Nobody asked me, sir, she said!'  And
+besides, when poor dear Tommy died--oh, well, he did actually die, poor
+darling, so there never was any question of divorce or anything horrid,
+like that--you know how old-fashioned I am in my ideas, Rosamund!  But
+still, there is such a thing as tempting Providence a little too often.
+My hopes are distinctly not matrimonial.  Not that I think Mr. Flood is
+the least bit like Tommy.  If I did, of course I couldn't
+conscientiously--you know!  As it is, I think he'd do very well--in the
+family!"
+
+"You show great respect for the family!"
+
+"Oh, well, Rosamund, the family can stand it!  You must admit that!  I
+am sure the Stanfields and the Berkleys and the Randalls need not mind
+a--a--an alliance with--with the millions of a Benson Flood!"
+
+Rosamund sighed impatiently.  "Oh, dear, Cecilia," she said, "I do wish
+it were in my power to give you half my money!"
+
+Mrs. Maxwell smiled with pursed lips.  "So do I," she declared.  "I'd
+take it in a minute!  But you can't!  You can't do one single thing
+with it until you're twenty-five, except spend the income; and you've
+got six months more before your birthday.  And even then you won't want
+to give me half of it, because now you don't even want me to spend the
+income!  Gracious!  I wish I had a chance at it!"
+
+"I do give you half of my income, Cecilia!"
+
+"No, you don't," Mrs. Maxwell contradicted, in a voice that echoed an
+old complaint.  "You only give me half of the sum you think two people
+ought to spend!  As if it isn't right and one's duty to spend all one
+can!  I know there's something about keeping money in circulation, and
+all that, if only I could remember it!  But nothing would move you!
+Poor dear Mamma used to say that Colonel Randall was obstinate--most
+obstinate, Rosamund; and I must say that you don't take after the
+Stanfields at all, not at all!"
+
+Mrs. Maxwell's grievances, thus expressed, began to be too much for
+her; she spoke through tears.  "I am sure I have tried to do my very
+best by you, Rosamund, since Mamma died!  The accounts the Trust
+Company made me keep all those years were dreadful, perfectly dreadful!
+But I used to struggle through them somehow, because I was sustained by
+the thought that when you were twenty-five we could just spend and
+spend and spend and never have to bother about keeping accounts or
+being economical or anything!  But it will be just the same then!  I
+know it will!  Why, you haven't even one automobile!"
+
+Her sister's tears and the fatuity of her arguments were as unfailing
+an appeal to Rosamund as they would have been to a man; she got up and
+put her arms around Cecilia.
+
+"You silly old darling!" she laughed.  "You shall have an automobile!
+You may have two if you want them, and I will give you every penny of
+my income that we haven't spent in the last three years!  But for
+goodness sake, don't cry!"
+
+Mrs. Maxwell followed up her victory.  "Will you go to Oakleigh?" she
+asked.
+
+Rosamund capitulated.  "Oh, I suppose so!" she said, and shrugged.
+Then she added, with a somewhat malicious little smile, "It goes
+without saying that Marshall goes, too?"
+
+Mrs. Maxwell lifted her chin.  The line of her throat was still very
+pretty.  She smiled at her reflection in the mirror over the mantel.
+
+"Don't be absurd," she said.  "Why shouldn't he?"
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+"The Battlefield Hotel," Marshall Pendleton said, when the question of
+luncheon was brought up, "is a wonderful place, Benny; better take us
+there.  Stopped there with the Willings last summer, and had eleven
+kinds of jam and about a hundred kinds of cake on the table at the same
+time.  Great!"
+
+"Heavens, Marshall!" Mrs. Maxwell exclaimed.  "You know I can't eat
+sweets!  I'd put on half a pound after such a meal as that!"
+
+Pendleton grinned.  "That was not all, Cecilia," he said.  "I'd meant
+to keep it a secret, and surprise Benny with it.  He's always out for
+gastronomic rarities.  They give you cold cucumbers, cut thick, with
+warmish cream poured over them--real cream, lumpy, kind you used to
+have on grandfather's farm, and all that, you know!  You feel green
+when you first see it.  Then you wonder what it's like, but remember
+that your cousin somebody-or-other, the one you're not on speaking
+terms with, would inherit all you'd leave if you died.  Then you begin
+to reason that other people must have dared and survived, and then you
+taste it and--consume!  It's truly wonderful, Benny; better take us
+there!"
+
+"Are you inviting us to a suicide pact, Marshall?" Flood asked.
+
+The others laughed, and Flood and Mrs. Maxwell exchanged memories of
+queer dishes while Pendleton pointed out to the chauffeur the intricate
+way through the narrow streets.  Only Rosamund was silent, leaning back
+in the cushioned corner, looking abstractedly at the quaint doorways
+and gardens they passed.  During the preceding fortnight, with Oakleigh
+crowded with guests, it had been easy enough to avoid Flood's
+companionship, which was beginning to make her more and more uneasy, in
+spite of his earnest effort to keep it for the present on the level of
+the commonplace.  But, now that they were alone there, a party of four,
+and with Cecilia and Marshall in one of their intervals of mutual
+absorption, there was nothing to do but submit to the situation.  She
+had welcomed Flood's suggestion of the day before that they should
+motor up to Bluemont; with Eleanor at the Summit, and with the others
+in the motor car, Flood's company could be endured for the day.  So
+they had left Oakleigh early, and in Flood's big shining car swung down
+through the mountains, out upon the plain, and into the quaint little
+town of Battlesburg.  Rosamund's imagination peopled again the streets
+and fields with soldiers in blue and gray.  She knew where her father
+had fought and lain wounded.  As they passed swiftly between the
+innumerable monuments her heart throbbed.  From the vast field of
+graves the spirit of the past arose and spoke to her--spoke of the men
+who had fought and died there, spoke of the greater man who had led and
+forgiven.
+
+But during all the journey she had been intensely bored; more, she was
+deeply provoked, and in that state of mind where everything jars and
+trifles loom as mountains.  Pendleton's silly chatter seemed
+unendurable; she resented his nonsense almost as if it were an insult
+thrown at the sacredness of the battlefield.  She hated his story of
+the cucumbers and cream.  When the landlord told them they would have
+half an hour to wait before luncheon, she walked to the farthest end of
+the veranda, and stood, looking down the little narrow street.  Mrs.
+Maxwell threw herself into a large yellow rocking chair, and Flood
+leaned against the veranda railing, facing her.  Pendleton was entering
+their names in the office, and wonderingly inspecting the landlord's
+showcase of battlefield relics.  Flood lighted a cigarette, and as he
+blew out the smoke, turned towards the end of the veranda where
+Rosamund stood.  Cecilia watched his face for a moment or two; then she
+said:
+
+"You must not be offended with Rosamund's ways, you know!  She is not
+like anybody else."
+
+Flood turned his head and smiled into her eyes.  He waited a full
+half-minute before he replied.  "No," he said, slowly.  "No, she is not
+like anyone else!"  He took several deep breaths of his cigarette, then
+spoke with little pauses between each phrase, as if he were thinking
+out what he had to say.  "She's--she's a dream-woman come true!  She's
+the lady of one's imagination!"
+
+"Dear me!" Mrs. Maxwell remarked, with sisterly lack of enthusiasm.
+Flood threw back his head with a little laugh.
+
+"I wonder which surprises you most," he said, "to hear that said of
+your sister, or to find out that I have an imagination?"
+
+Mrs. Maxwell had had time to become an adept at begging the question.
+"Well," she said, "one doesn't usually associate imagination
+and--dream-women, you know, with your type.  I mean, with business men!"
+
+"Oh, pray don't mind saying 'my type'!  It's good for me to hear it,
+because it is just there that I lose.  I _am_ of a different type--or
+class--from you and your sister; even from our friend Pendleton.  Miss
+Randall sees that, and she will not try to look beyond it.  She will
+not let herself know me better, because she doesn't want to; and she
+doesn't want to because I am not--I suppose she'd call it her 'sort.'"
+
+He spoke without a trace of bitterness, and smiled again at Mrs.
+Maxwell's well-executed manner of protest.
+
+"Why, no one knows that better than I do," he went on.  "She's five or
+six generations ahead of me in civilization, you know; her grandmother
+left off where my grand-daughter would have to begin.  That's why I
+want her.  I'm naturally impatient, and I want to see my wife doing and
+feeling and thinking a lot of things that are quite beyond my
+apprehension.  She's just what I've always imagined a woman ought to
+be, and I want her."
+
+"I don't think she'd credit you with any such imagination," Mrs.
+Maxwell said, adding, somewhat dryly, "with any imagination at all!"
+
+"That is just my difficulty," Flood replied.  "She will not give
+herself a chance to find me out."  He smiled as he met her puzzled
+look.  "You know--I am only stating the fact--I have--er--accumulated a
+great deal of money--a great deal, more than I know myself!"
+
+Mrs. Maxwell's fingers curled a little more closely about the arms of
+her chair, and she nodded.
+
+"Well, there are only two ways of doing that.  There used to be three.
+There was a time when a man could accumulate a fortune by saving; but
+in this day and generation no accumulation of savings amounts to what
+we call a fortune.  Nowadays a man can dig up a fortune; or he can so
+follow the daring of his imagination as to make a reality of what only
+existed, before, in his own ambitious dreams.  I think it is safe to
+say that all but one per cent. of the great fortunes that are got
+together nowadays are done so by the exercising and ordering of a man's
+imagination.  Well, I've made such use of mine that I'm a rich man, as
+far as money goes, at forty-three.  Now my imagination is busy along
+new lines.  Money is only the key: I want to enter the garden.  I
+believe she'd realize every ideal I have!  You are quite right.
+There's nobody like her!"
+
+His face flushed deeply as he spoke, but Mrs. Maxwell was not looking
+at him.  "Oh, dear," she sighed, "I do wish she were not quite so--odd!"
+
+"Not odd," Flood contradicted, though pleasantly enough, "but supreme!"
+
+Mrs. Maxwell's eyebrows went up.  Ordinarily she was too conscious of
+what might be expected of her breeding to be disloyal to her sister;
+but Cecilia was not an angel.
+
+"She is supremely full of notions," she remarked.  "How any girl with
+her money can prefer--actually prefer--to dress as she does, and to
+live as she does, and to go about with one maid between us--I cannot
+understand it!  She doesn't spend a thousand a year on her clothes, and
+she doesn't own so much as one motor car!  You may call that sort of
+thing supreme; I call it odd!"
+
+Pendleton had come out and joined Rosamund.  They were obviously
+unaware of Flood's gaze, but Mrs. Maxwell rather disdainfully noticed
+that his look had softened as she spoke.
+
+"Yes," he said, "that is unusual, as far as my experience goes; but I
+rather think she is quite capable of doing the unexpected.  That's
+another part of her charm for me.  I can only guess at what she would
+do or think, you know.  And she's so far beyond me that while money is
+almost the whole show to me, it doesn't count at all, with her!  Jove!
+I wish she might have the spending of mine!"
+
+Mrs. Maxwell fairly shivered at the thought of Flood's millions going
+to waste, as she expressed it to herself; but fortunately for her peace
+of mind luncheon was announced, and they went into the little Dutch
+dining-room to investigate the cucumbers and cream.
+
+At the table Rosamund lost some of her pensiveness; and when they came
+out again to the sight of the fields where the armies had fought and
+died, and were once more in the car, she bent towards Flood with eyes
+burning with excitement, lips parted and hands clasped.
+
+"Oh," she cried, "I am glad, so glad I came, Mr. Flood!  It is going to
+be a wonderful afternoon!  I am thrilling even now!  The suffering and
+the sacrifice and the glory!  They have left their marks everywhere,
+haven't they?"
+
+Flood looked at her with admiration so engrossing as to make him
+scarcely aware of what she said; Pendleton was discussing roads with
+the chauffeur, but Mrs. Maxwell turned in her seat.
+
+"What on earth are you talking about, Rosamund?" she demanded.
+
+"The battlefield!" the girl explained.  "The field and the marking
+stones, the orchard where Father was wounded--all, all of it!  I am
+going over it bit by bit, every inch of it, and I'm going to thrill,
+thrill, thrill!  Probably cry, too!" she added.  "I hope you brought
+your vanity-box along, Cecilia!"
+
+"But, my dear child, we are going to the Summit!  We are going to see
+Eleanor!"
+
+For once Cecilia welcomed the thought of Eleanor, but Rosamund only
+laughed.
+
+"Mr. Flood will bring us another day to see Eleanor," she said, "won't
+you, Mr. Flood?  To-day, Cissy darling, I am going to see
+Battlesburg--just as if I were a tourist!"
+
+Mrs. Maxwell looked at her in amazement.  "Rosamund!" she cried.  "Mr.
+Flood!  Marshall!  Marshall!  Please!  Mr. Flood, you certainly did not
+bring us on this trip to go sight-seeing, did you?  Marshall, did you
+ever hear anything so absurd?  Rosamund wants to go paddling about in
+this--this graveyard!"
+
+Rosamund was unabashed.  "Yes, of course I do!" she said.  "So do you,
+don't you, Mr. Flood?  And, Marshall, you know you've wanted to fight a
+battle over again ever since the last one we had at my ninth birthday
+party, when I pulled your hair and you were too polite to smack me!"
+
+"I never wanted to fight in all my life, Rosamund," Pendleton drawled.
+"Certainly not on a day like this, and after a Dutch midday dinner."
+
+Flood was embarrassed, and looked it; but Mrs. Maxwell gave him no
+chance to reply.  "Rosamund, I hate to speak so plainly," she said,
+"but there are times when you go too far with your absurdities.  Nobody
+goes sight-seeing; we are Mr. Flood's guests, and we have miles of
+steep road to get over this afternoon; you cannot upset his plans in
+this way.  Besides, it's altogether too warm for exertion--and emotion.
+You'll have to get your thrills in some less strenuous way.  I simply
+refuse to be dragged over any battlefield in existence."
+
+Mrs. Maxwell sank back in her corner, and resolutely looked away;
+Rosamund, still smiling, turned towards Flood.
+
+"We'll leave her in the car to amuse Marshall, and we'll take one of
+those funny little carriages, won't we, Mr. Flood?"
+
+Her smile and little air of confidence brought color to Flood's face;
+he opened and closed his hands nervously.  His boasted imagination
+failed him.  The lady of his dreams was doing the unexpected.  His
+voice showed his perplexity.
+
+"My dear Miss Randall, I'd do anything in the world to please you!
+There are some miles of mountain roads to be gone over, if we are to
+get back to-night, but"--he leaned towards her--"when you ask me, you
+know I could not refuse you anything in the world, even at the risk of
+Mrs. Maxwell's displeasure!"
+
+His words and manner instantly accomplished all that Cecilia's
+insistence had failed to do.  Immediately Rosamund's face lost its
+bright eagerness for the same indifferent coldness that she usually
+showed him.
+
+"Oh, by all means, let us remember the mountain roads, Mr. Flood," she
+said, leaning back upon the yielding cushion, turning her head to look
+listlessly out of the car.
+
+"Oh, please!" poor Flood exclaimed.
+
+Cecilia began to chatter gaily, and Marshall bent over his road maps.
+The car flew out of the town, noiselessly except for the faint humming
+of its swift onrush, the modern song of the road.  But, to Rosamund,
+there was no melody in the song; she was out of tune with the day, with
+her companions, with the ride itself.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+Perhaps, if the events of the next few hours had come to pass at any
+other time, they would not have left the same mark upon her life.  As
+it was, Rosamund had come to that state of moral restlessness which is
+bound either to open the windows of the soul to fresher air and wider
+fields of vision, or else to induce the peevish discontent which so
+often falls to the lot of the idle woman.  Although she consciously
+longed for happiness, she knew that she was not sentimentally unhappy;
+neither was she fatuously so, like her sister.  Cecilia was only one of
+many women of her age and class, who imagine that possession brings
+enjoyment.  She often declared that if she had as much as her
+acquaintances she could make herself content, but that if she had more
+than they she could be supremely happy.  Rosamund had no such
+illusions; her clear mind had never been perverted to the futility of
+such ambitions, although there was nothing in her environment to
+suggest a satisfying substitute for them.  If she was restless, it was
+not for something she might not have.  It pleased her pride to think
+that she valued neither wealth nor social eminence, but accepted them
+only as her birthright; but, as in the case of the infatuated Flood,
+she resented any sign of invasion upon the sacred precincts which for
+generations had respected their Berkleys and their Stanfields and
+Randalls.  It was her pride which had induced her to neglect, as
+unimportant, the things Cecilia yearned for; Rosamund Randall was to be
+above manifestations of wealth--although Rosamund Randall was not above
+occasional haughty stubbornness.
+
+The charitable pastimes in which some of her friends indulged held no
+appeal for her; she was too impatient for immediate results to be
+successful in them.  She vaguely felt that some fault must lie with the
+unfortunate, and she could not imagine that the individual might be
+interesting.  Even Eleanor's experience, although it had stirred her
+heart to pity, brought her no closer to the mass of suffering.  She had
+no particular talents, no pet enthusiasms; yet her intelligence was too
+keen to be satisfied with the round of days that constituted life for
+Cecilia, as well as for most of their friends.  Nothing suggested
+itself as a substitute for them, and to-day not even the charms of
+nature satisfied her, however beautiful the country through which the
+big car carried them.  But insensibly it made its effect upon her.
+Away from the scars of battle, through orchard and grass-land, between
+fields of ripening corn and pastures where drowsy cattle were
+ruminating in shady fence-corners; past little white farmhouses with
+red barns at their backs, and tangled gardens where bees feasted in
+front of them; up towards the hills, through stretches of cool
+woodland, where little spring-fed brooklets crossed the road, and where
+the turns were so narrow that the call of the horn had often to pierce
+the stillness; out again upon cleared spaces, and at last far up on the
+mountain-tops--so they traveled, Rosamund alone seeming to notice the
+beauties they passed so swiftly.
+
+Cecilia kept up an easy chatter with the two men.  Flood seemingly had
+eyes for the older woman only, yet he was keenly aware of the girl
+beside him.  All the way he was inwardly cursing himself for the
+ill-timed compliment which had silenced her, and he was too good a
+judge of human nature to follow his first mistake with a second.  If
+Rosamund wished to be silent, no interruption to her revery should come
+from him, at least.  As there was only the one way across the
+mountains, Pendleton had put away his road map and was leaning sideways
+over the back of the seat, facing Cecilia and Flood; the three found
+plenty to talk about, and ignored Rosamund's pensive withdrawal.
+
+For miles they had passed no living thing; even the birds and woodland
+creatures seemed to have gone to sleep; and the chauffeur, taking them
+along at second speed, believed it unnecessary to sound his horn at
+every winding of the road.
+
+Then, so suddenly that no one knew just what had happened, there was a
+shriek from somewhere, a wild cry from the man at the wheel, a stopping
+of the car so quickly as to throw the women forward and Flood to his
+knees.  Pendleton, facing back, was the only one who could see the road
+behind them; with a cry that was either oath or prayer, he leaped from
+the car and ran back, the chauffeur scarcely four yards behind him.
+Flood scrambled up and Rosamund sprang to her feet.  Cecilia covered
+her ears with her hands, and was the only one who could voice her
+horror.
+
+"We have killed someone!" she cried wildly, crouching down to shut out
+sight as well as sound.  "We have killed someone!  Oh, what shall we
+do?  What shall we do?  I cannot see it--I cannot stand the sight of
+it!"
+
+But no one heeded her outcry.  Flood had opened the door and was
+speeding after the others; and Rosamund, too, as quickly as her
+trembling would allow her, ran towards the little group at the roadside.
+
+When she reached them, they were bending over two forms--a boy and a
+young girl.  The boy had been struck by the step of the car, and lay
+huddled where its force had thrown him; the girl lay beside him, her
+face down in the weeds and grass.  Pendleton and the chauffeur, with
+ghastly faces, were feeling for her heart.  As Rosamund came up they
+turned her upon her back.  Rosamund tore off her gloves, and pressed
+her hand against the girl's throat.
+
+"I think she has only fainted," she said.  "Get a cold thermos bottle,
+someone!"
+
+The chauffeur ran to do her bidding, but before he got back the girl
+had opened her eyes.  Rosamund bent closer.
+
+"Are you hurt?" she asked.  "Did we hit you?  Can you speak to me?"
+But the girl could not answer at first; then the iced water and
+something from Flood's pocket flask revived her, and she sat up,
+leaning against Rosamund.
+
+"Gee!" she said.  "I was scared!  What d'yer think of an automobile up
+here!  Where's Tim?"
+
+The men had left the girl to Rosamund, and were kneeling by the child;
+Rosamund glanced over her shoulder at them.  "I'm afraid he is hurt,"
+she said.  "Do you think you can take care of yourself for a moment
+while I see?  I wouldn't try to stand up quite yet, if I were you."
+
+"Oh, sure," the girl replied.  "They ain't anything the matter with me.
+You go right on."
+
+But all of Rosamund's ministrations failed of any response from the
+boy.  Flood's varied experience had given him a passing acquaintance
+with broken bones, but he could find none in the little limbs that were
+thin to emaciation; his search revealed only a few scratches on the
+child's face, and a cut on his head.  At last he looked across the
+little form at Rosamund.
+
+"I'm afraid there's concussion," he said.  "We shall have to take him
+to a doctor."
+
+The girl had risen, and was standing, with arms akimbo, looking down at
+them.  "Doctor Ogilvie," she said at once.  "He's the one.  He's right
+over at the Summit."
+
+Flood looked quickly at Rosamund.  "Ogilvie!  I had no idea his
+territory extended this far!"  Then he turned to the girl.  "So you
+know Doctor Ogilvie?  How far are we from the Summit?"
+
+"Gee!  I dunno!  It's awful far to walk it, I know that!"
+
+Rosamund looked up with troubled eyes.  "There must be some house near
+by," she said, "where we could take him.  I don't believe he ought to
+be carried very far.  Do you live near here?" she asked the girl.
+
+"Laws, no!  We live in the city, him an' me.  We ain't any kin,
+y'understand; he's a tubercler, an' my eyes give out, and we're just
+visitin' Mother Cary."
+
+Flood was becoming impatient.  "Well, where does the Cary woman live?"
+he demanded.  "We don't need your family history, my girl."
+
+Instantly the girl's black eyes flashed, and her chin went up.  "Well,
+an' you ain't goin' to get it, my man!" she returned.  "I know the
+likes of you; seen you by the million!"
+
+She glared up at him belligerently, but Rosamund laid her hand on her
+shoulder.  "Don't," she said quietly.  "Where is this place where
+you're staying?"
+
+"It's just back of the woods there.  The road's on up a piece, about
+two squares; yer can't miss it, 'cause it's the only one there is."
+
+So they lifted the child, and laid him carefully, on the broad back
+seat.  They decided that Mrs. Maxwell and Pendleton should wait beside
+the road, while Rosamund and Flood saw to the boy's safety, and the
+girl rode with the chauffeur to point the way.  She seemed but little
+impressed by the accident, and greatly pleased at the motor ride.
+
+"Laws, but I wish the girls at the factory could see Yetta Weise
+settin' up here," she remarked as she took her place.
+
+As she had told them, the house was not far; and notwithstanding her
+anxiety for the injured boy, Rosamund looked at it in amazement, so
+unlike was it to anything she had ever seen, so quaintly pretty, so
+tidy, so homelike.
+
+It stood on the hillside, a few yards back from the road.  From a
+little red gate set in the middle of the whitest of tiny fences a
+narrow brick path led straight to the front door.  The upper story of
+the house overhung the lower, making a shady space beneath that was
+paved with bricks and made cheery and comfortable with wooden benches
+piled with crocks and bright tin milk pans set out to air; and all
+about the little white farm-buildings wound narrow brick paths bordered
+with flowers--geraniums, nasturtiums, pansies, with, here and there,
+groups of house plants in tin cans and earthen pots, set outside for
+their summer holiday.  Unaccustomed though she was to such ingenuous
+simplicity of decoration, Rosamund could not but recognize it as a
+haven of peace, a little home where love and time had impressed their
+indelible marks of beauty.
+
+The big car drew up to the gate very gently; Yetta called, loudly and
+shrilly; Flood lifted the boy and carried him towards the house, and
+Rosamund followed; but halfway up the path she paused, half in
+amazement, half in repulsion.
+
+Yetta's call had brought to the doorway the strangest of small
+creatures--a tiny, bent old woman.  She braced herself on one side
+against the doorway, on the other with a queer little crutch with
+padded top, held by a strap across her shoulder; as she came forward to
+meet them she moved the crutch, like some strange crab, obliquely,
+grotesquely, yet with the adeptness of the life-long cripple.  She was
+evidently startled, even frightened; but when her eyes met Rosamund's
+she smiled.  At once the girl's feeling of repulsion vanished, for on
+the tiny old face there was none of the suffering and regret that so
+often mark the deformed.  It was not drawn or heavy; plain and homely
+though it was, it was made radiant by a world-embracing mother-love,
+transfigured by that quality of tenderness and sweetness that Rosamund
+had learned to associate with pictured mediæval saints and martyrs.
+With Mother Cary's first smile, something entered the girl's
+consciousness which never again left it.
+
+The old woman paid no attention to Yetta's voluble explanations, nor
+wasted any time on questions.
+
+"Take him into the room on the left and lay him on the sofy," she
+directed, and hobbled along behind the little procession; but when they
+had lain the still unconscious child in the shaded best room, she
+looked from Flood to Rosamund for explanation, with a dignity which
+could not fail to impress them.
+
+"Maybe he's just been knocked senseless," she said, when they had told
+her all they could.  "But anyways, we ought to have Doctor Ogilvie
+here's soon as ever we can.  If the young lady'll help me undress the
+little feller, you can take Yetta, sir, to show you the way."
+
+Flood hesitated; to undress the child would be a strange task for
+Rosamund.  "Can't I do that before we go?" he asked.
+
+But the old woman had no such hesitation.  "No, you can't," she said,
+"an' I wish you'd hurry.  Timmy ain't strong, anyway."
+
+So, with a troubled look, Flood followed Yetta, and in a moment
+Rosamund heard the purr of the motor as the car sped off towards the
+Summit; then, as she afterwards remembered with surprise and wonder,
+she found herself obeying the old woman's directions.
+
+"Now, honey, you jest lift the little feller right up in your arms,
+bein' careful of his head; he don't weigh no more'n a picked chicken.
+We'll get him to bed time the doctor gets here, an' have some water
+b'ilin' an' some ice brought in, case he wants either one.  Here, right
+in here--my house is mostly all on one floor, so's I can manage to
+scramble around in it when Pap's in the fields.  That's the way--no, he
+won't need a piller.  I'll take off his little clo'es whilst you lift
+him--that's right.  My!  Think o' that gentleman wantin' to do for
+him--as if any woman with a heart in her body could let a man handle
+sech a little thing's this!  But he didn't know, did he, honey?"
+
+And strangely enough Rosamund was conscious of a wave of tenderness
+towards the pathetic little figure, limp and emaciated; long afterwards
+she realized that people always did and felt what Mother Cary expected
+them to.  She even bathed the little dusty feet, while the old woman
+hobbled about to bring her different things, talking all the while.
+
+"Pore little soul, seems like he had enough without this--not but what
+I reckon he'll come out o' this a heap sight easier than he will the
+other.  Not a soul on the top o' the yearth to belong to, he hasn't;
+sent here to fatten up an' live out o' doors, 'count o' being a
+tubercler.  No, honey, he ain't nothin' to Pap an' me 'ceptin' jest one
+o' the pore little lambs that have a right to any spare love an'
+shelter an' cuddlin' that's layin' around the world waitin' for sech as
+him.  I used to wonder why the Lord let sech pore little things stay in
+the world, until I found out how much good they do to folks that look
+after 'em.  Land!  I wouldn't be without one of 'em on my hands now,
+not for more'n I can say.  What?  Oh, yes, dearie, I take one or more
+of 'em and build 'em up an' get 'em well, with Doctor Ogilvie's tellin'
+me how; an' when they go back to the city all well again, I jest take
+one or two more.  Pap an' me wouldn't know what to do now, ef we didn't
+have some pore little thing to look after.  I'm jest that selfish, I
+begrudge everybody else that has a bigger house the room they got for
+more of 'em."
+
+When the child had been made clean and cool, and the old woman had
+shown Rosamund how to draw in the blinds and leave the room in pleasant
+shadow, she led the way out to the paved place in front of the house.
+
+"You look all tuckered out, honey," she said, when Rosamund had sunk
+wearily into a rush-seated armchair, "an' I'm goin' to get you some
+fresh milk."
+
+So for a few minutes the girl was alone, with time to think over the
+crowding events of the past half hour, which seemed almost like a day.
+One emotion had come closely upon another, and now she was in this
+strange little harbor where, apparently, only kind winds blew, the
+storms of the world outside, a harbor where weak vessels found repair,
+where passers-by were welcomed and supplied with strength to go on.
+Subconsciously she wondered whether it might not be the harbor of a
+new, fair land, herself the storm-buffeted traveler about to find
+shelter.  Then, more in weariness of spirit than in bodily fatigue, she
+drew the long hatpin from her hat and tossed it aside, leaning her head
+back against the stone of the house, and closed her eyes.
+
+When Mother Cary returned with a glass of creamy milk, she noted the
+girl's pallor, the shadows her long lashes cast on her white cheeks.
+
+"I wouldn't feel too bad about it," she said.  "The little feller can't
+be hurt very bad, and I reckon it was jest bein' so scared an' so weak,
+anyway, that made him go off in his head like that."
+
+Rosamund could not confess that her thoughts had been of herself rather
+than upon the injured child.  "Do you think he will recover?" she asked.
+
+"Well, what Doctor Ogilvie can't do ain't to be done, I know that
+much," Mother Cary replied.  "Folks do say it's an ill wind blows
+nobody any good, an' it cert'n'y was his ill wind blew us good; 'cause
+if he hadn't been that sick he couldn't live in the city, he never
+would 'a' come to the mountings, an' I'm sure I don't see how we ever
+did get along without him.  Why, he's that good a doctor folks still
+come up here from the city to see him; and many's the one stays at the
+Summit just to be where he can look after them; and Widder Speers that
+he lives with told me that doctors from 'way off send for him to talk
+over sick people with them--jest to ask him what to do, like.  Oh,
+Doctor Ogilvie can do anything anybody can!"
+
+Rosamund was amused, in spite of herself, at the old woman's naïveté.
+"He was sick, then, when he came?" she asked, idly.
+
+"Yes, but you'd never 'a' known it," Mother Cary told her.  "Land!  How
+he did get about from place to place, huntin' out other folks that was
+ailin'!  He hadn't been up here more'n a month before he knew every
+soul in these mountings, which is more'n I do, though I've lived here
+forty year an' more.  He jest took right a holt, as you might say.
+That's how come I begun to take care of these pore little helpless city
+things.
+
+"First time he come here, he looked all about the place when he was
+leavin', an' he says to Pap, 'Plenty o' good room an' good air you got
+here, an' I guess there's plenty o' good food, too, ain't there?'  Pap,
+he says, 'Well, we manage to make out, when the ol' lady feels like
+cookin'!'  An' the doctor laughs an' says to me, 'Ain't got quite as
+much to do as ye had when that son an' daughter o' yours were home
+here, have ye?  Don't ye miss 'em?'  At that the tears jest come to my
+eyes, like they always do whenever I think o' my own child'en bein' two
+or three miles away from me on farms o' their own; an' the doctor he
+smiles an' says, 'Well, I'm goin' to supply your want,' he says.
+
+"Pap an' me never thought 'ny more about it tell a week or so later
+when we see him drive up behind that old white horse o' his with the
+puniest little boy alongside o' him ever I set my two eyes on.  'Here's
+something to keep you from bein' lonesome, Mis' Cary,' he says; an'
+ever since then, it bein' goin' on five year, I've had one or another
+o' them pore little--land!  There he comes now, without a sign of a hat
+on his red head!  Ef he ain't that forgetful!"
+
+Flood's big car had whirled rapidly into sight along the woodland road,
+and before it stopped the doctor was out and into the house.  When
+Mother Cary hobbled in, Rosamund remaining to say a word or two to
+Flood, the doctor was already bending over the injured child.
+
+Cecilia was waving a frantic hand from the car, and Rosamund and Flood
+walked down the little path to the red gate.
+
+"Where is your hat?" was the first thing Mrs. Maxwell asked Rosamund.
+"Do get in!  We've miles and miles to go, and we've wasted hours!  I'm
+sure I don't see why they couldn't have sent for the doctor in the
+ordinary way; why, the road back there was something terrible!"
+
+Rosamund was conscious of an absurd longing to slap or pinch Cecilia;
+she was really too vapid for polite endurance.
+
+"We can't possibly leave until we know how badly hurt the child is,"
+she said, and deliberately turned and walked back into the cottage.
+
+After a moment or two Flood followed her, leaving Cecilia to pour out
+her indignation upon Pendleton.
+
+The doctor was just coming out of the little bedroom, and nodded to
+them both in a general way.  Rosamund looked at him curiously.  She
+noted with some amusement that his hair was, as Mother Cary had
+somewhat more than suggested, frankly red; not even the
+best-intentioned politeness could have called it sandy.  He was of
+average height, with keen eyes which looked black, although she
+afterwards knew them to be gray; his breadth of shoulder made him seem
+less tall than he was, and his frame was rather lightly covered,
+although his very evident restless energy seemed more responsible for
+it than any evidence of ill-health.
+
+"Must have jabbed his ribs," he said, looking at Flood with a half
+smile, and seemingly ignoring the presence of this girl from his old
+familiar world.  "Cracked a couple of them, but they're soon mended in
+a kiddie.  Only thing now is this slight concussion; needs careful
+nursing for a few days."
+
+Then he turned, looked squarely into Rosamund's face, and issued his
+orders in precisely the manner of a doctor to a nurse, without a trace
+of hesitation, apparently without a shadow of doubt that she would obey.
+
+"Keep ice on his head, you know, and watch him every minute through the
+night.  He's not likely to move; but if he should become conscious----"
+He continued his directions carefully, explicitly, all the while
+looking at Rosamund intently, as if to impress them upon her.
+
+While he was speaking, Flood's face flushed darkly.  With the doctor's
+last phrase, "Only be sure to watch him every minute," he spoke
+sharply.  "You are making a mistake, Doctor Ogilvie," he said.  "Miss
+Randall is not a nurse."
+
+The doctor instantly replied, "I know she isn't, but we'll have to do
+the best we can with her!"
+
+Flood's face grew redder still; Rosamund smiled a little.  "Miss
+Randall cannot possibly stay here," Flood said.  "That is entirely out
+of the question.  I am willing to do all I can for the child, and I am
+very glad he is not seriously hurt, although the accident was, I think,
+unavoidable.  I will send a nurse to-morrow--two, if you want them.
+But you will have to get along with the help here for to-night."
+
+"Haven't any," said the doctor, briefly.  "Yetta's a child, and Mother
+Cary goes down to her daughter's where there's a new baby."
+
+For a moment no one spoke.  Mother Cary was smiling at Rosamund, and
+her look drew the girl's from the two men.  Then her smile answered the
+old woman's.
+
+In a flash of inspiration she knew that she had found an answer to her
+questions of the earlier hours; something in her heart drew her
+symbolically toward the little silent, helpless child in the darkened
+room behind her, some mother-feeling as new and wonderful as the dawn
+of life.  Both Flood and the doctor remembered, through all their
+lives, the look of exaltation on her face when she spoke.
+
+"I will stay," she said, quietly, and walked into the darkened room.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+During the long silent watches of that night there came to Rosamund one
+of those revelations, fortunately not rare in human experience, by
+means of which the soul is taught some measure of the power of the
+infinite--power to change or to create, to lead, to see more clearly,
+or better to understand.  The afternoon had been crowded with new
+impressions and emotions following each other so swiftly as to preclude
+consideration of them, but during the hours beside the unconscious
+child her mind was busy; one thing after another came back to her, and,
+reviewed in comparison with all the other happenings of the day, took
+its rightful place of importance or unimportance.
+
+[Illustration: "One thing after another came back to her."]
+
+After the car had borne away her irate sister and friends, the
+red-headed doctor carefully went over his directions to her, and she
+had some difficulty in ignoring the twinkle in his eyes; Cecilia's
+horror and Flood's disgust had been as amusing as Pendleton's lazy
+irony.  But before supper the doctor, too, had hurried away.  Flood had
+not offered him a lift, and the walk back to the Summit was long.
+Father Cary, whom she found to be a friendly giant with a
+well-developed rustic sense of humor, had driven off with his tiny wife
+down the mountain to their daughter's home, leaving Yetta to clear away
+the supper.
+
+Until then the black eyes of that other daughter of cities had scarcely
+left Rosamund.  As soon as she had washed and put away the dishes, she
+came to the door of the room where the little boy lay, and after asking
+if 'the lady' were afraid of the quiet and dark, she went upstairs.
+
+Then Rosamund stood at the window and watched the stars come out.  The
+great boles of the oaks and chestnuts in the strip of woods across the
+way drew about themselves mantles of shadow.  An apple fell from a tree
+near the low, white spring-house, and a cricket began to chirp.  From
+some lower mountain slope there sounded the faint tinkle of a cow bell,
+and still farther down the valley twinkling lights marked, in the
+darkness, the places where people were gathered--little beacons of
+home; and she knew that overhead there shone another light, set in a
+window by the old woman before she went down the mountain.  The placing
+of that light in the window, Mother Cary had told her, was the
+uninterrupted custom of the house since her first child was born.  On
+that day of wonder, when the shadows had deepened in the quiet room
+where the miracle had taken place, they had set a lamp on the window
+sill, and a light had burned in the same window every night since then,
+a signal to all who should see it that happiness had come to live on
+the mountain, and still dwelt there.  It was so small a light that,
+even when dark closed in, the girl standing beneath it could scarcely
+discern its rays; yet she knew that it was large enough to be seen far
+off, miles down the valley, across on the other mountains.  Flood had
+told her of seeing it from Doctor Ogilvie's house at the Summit.  She
+felt its symbolism--so small and humble a light, shedding its rays and
+carrying its message so far; and with that thought there came another.
+
+This humble life of love and service, how beautiful it was!  Only that
+morning she had believed her life the real one, her world the only one
+worth living in; but already she was beginning to suspect that there
+might be a life more real, a world less circumscribed.  She looked back
+into the little bedroom, and beyond into the dimly lighted kitchen; it
+was so poor a house, so rich a home!
+
+And of their poverty these mountain folk had given immeasurable
+largesse to how many waifs--dust of the city's greed and sin, taken
+them into this loving shelter, tended them back to usefulness, taught
+them cleanliness of heart and body.  Yet even to the waif so rescued
+the city's power of harm reached out!  How strange it was that the boy
+lying there should have escaped so many of the city's dangers, found
+this safe refuge on the mountain, and then have been injured on a quiet
+country road by one of those very dangers he had dodged every day since
+he first toddled across city streets!
+
+As she watched the child, another thought presented itself, caused her
+cheeks to burn in the dark, sent a wave of disgust and shame over her:
+these people, who had added nothing to the city's harm, recognized
+their responsibility to the city's offspring; whereas Flood and
+Pendleton, her sister and herself, who fed upon the city and its
+workers, would almost have left the boy by the roadside, but for very
+shame of one another.  Her friends believed her whimsical,
+unreasonable, utterly foolish to watch beside him through one night;
+and she had been, in her inmost heart, taking credit to herself for
+doing so!
+
+She asked herself whether, indeed, she would have remained, if it had
+not been for the compelling force of Ogilvie, no less insistent for
+being unvoiced.  She recalled what Flood had told her about him; yet,
+now that she had met him, all of Flood's enthusiasm did not seem to
+explain the man, and she smiled as she remembered how little of that
+enthusiasm poor Flood had shown in his disgust at Ogilvie's quiet
+demand for her assistance.  She felt suddenly ashamed as she admitted
+to herself her secret delight in teasing Flood and Cecilia and Marshall
+by obeying the doctor's appeal.  In her growing humility she was almost
+ready to believe that there had been no impulse of good in her
+remaining.  Yet she knew that she would have had to remain, even if the
+others had not been there.  What manner of man, she wondered, was this
+red-headed country doctor who had first aroused the admiration of a man
+like Benson Flood, and now had forced Rosamund Randall to perform a
+service that, a day before, she would have thought a menial one?
+Certainly he must differ in many respects from the men she had hitherto
+met.
+
+The loudly ticking clock on the kitchen mantel struck off hour after
+hour.  A lusty cock began calling his fellows long before the fading of
+the stars.  Rosamund, standing again at the breast-high casement of the
+little window, for the first time in her life watched the day break.
+Rosy fingers of light reached up from the eastern mountains; valley and
+hillsides threw off their purple and silver wrappings of night, and
+gradually took on their natural colors; little fitful gusts of air,
+sweet with night-drawn fragrance, touched her face at the window; from
+their nests in the near-by fruit-trees faint, sleepy twitterings soon
+increased to a joyful chorus of bird music; the shadows melted, it was
+day, and the world awoke; but it was a new world to Rosamund.  She had
+touched the pulse of life, and with the dawn there was born in her
+heart a purpose, feeble and immature as yet, but as surely purpose as
+the newborn babe is man.
+
+Father Cary came up the mountain early to attend to his cattle,
+bringing word that his daughter was not so well, and that Mother Cary
+could not leave her until later in the day, but that Miss Randall was
+to feel at home, and Yetta was to do all she could for her comfort.  He
+had made breakfast ready by the time Rosamund came into the kitchen;
+and presently Yetta stumbled down the stairs, yawning and sleepy-eyed.
+
+"Gee!" she said, by way of morning greeting, "If this place ain't the
+limit for sleep!  When I first come up here I jist had to set up in bed
+an' listen to the quiet; kept me awake all night, it did.  Now I want
+to sleep all day an' all night, too!  Ain't it the limit?"
+
+"But that's the best thing in the world for you," Rosamund said, and
+smiled at her.  The girl must have divined a difference in the smile,
+for she beamed cheerfully back.
+
+"That's what Doctor Ogilvie says," she replied.  "All's the matter with
+me is m'eyes.  Y'see I been sewin' ever since I's about as big as a
+peanut; first I sewed on buttons to help my mother, an' then I sewed
+beads.  There was my mother an' me an' m'father, on'y he wasn't ever
+there; an' we had four boarders.  Course the boarders had to set next
+to the light, an' I couldn't see very well.  Then after my mother died,
+I sewed collars day-times and beads at night, till I got the job in the
+shirt-waist shop.  Tha's where m'eyes got inspected--they don't never
+inspect you till you get a good job.  It don't do me no good to know my
+eyes is bad; I could a told 'em that m'self--only thing is, that was
+the reason they sent me up here, so I've that much to thank 'em for, I
+guess.  Still, I----"
+
+But Father Cary interrupted the stream of chatter.  "Now look a here,"
+he said, "supposin' you do less talkin' an' more eatin'!  Two glasses
+of milk, two dishes o' oatmeal, and two eggs is what you got to get
+away with before you get up from this table."
+
+But Yetta's tongue was irrepressible.  "You watch me!" she replied, and
+grinned at him, her black eyes sparkling.  "That's another funny thing
+about the country," she informed Rosamund, nodding.  It was evident
+that she believed Miss Randall to be as much a stranger to the country
+as she herself had been.  "In the city all you want to eat in the
+mornin' is a bite o' bread an' some tea; nobody ever heard o' eatin'
+eggs in the mornin', nor oatmeal any other time; but here--Gee!  I can
+stow away eggs while the band plays on, an' tea ain't in it with
+milk--this yere kind o' milk!"
+
+Rosamund's strained ear caught a faint rustle from the inner room; she
+sprang up, followed closely by the others; the child had moved his
+head, and his eyes were closed; before that they had been ever so
+slightly open.  Rosamund laid her hand upon his forehead, bent down so
+that his breath fanned her soft cheek.  Then she looked up at Father
+Cary.
+
+"I believe he is really sleeping, not unconscious," she whispered.  "I
+think we must keep very, very quiet."
+
+Yetta nodded, tiptoed out of the room, and presently Father Cary's
+large form passed the window on the way to the stable.
+
+So again was Rosamund's vigil renewed, unbroken through several hours
+except by faint noises from without, the humming of a locust, the
+chirps of birds, the homely conversation of some chickens, who had
+stolen up to the little house, lonely for Mother Cary.  She must have
+dozed, for it seemed only a short time before the kitchen clock struck
+eleven, and almost at the same moment the doctor stood in the doorway,
+with Mother Cary behind him.
+
+The doctor's hair had been very much blown by the wind, but it would
+have taken more than wind to send his smile awry.
+
+"Morning!" he threw towards Rosamund.
+
+She was at once aware that he thought of her only as the child's nurse,
+oblivious of all that other men saw in her, of her beauty and grace, of
+the signs of wealth and well-being in her garments and bearing.  It
+amused her, though her smile was, perhaps, a little disdainful.
+
+The boy was better; the doctor could find no serious injuries.  "I am
+sure the car barely touched him," Rosamund said, and the doctor nodded.
+
+"But it sometimes takes so little to shock the life out of a little
+underfed, weakened body like this," he said.  "There's nothing to fight
+with, nothing to build on."
+
+Rosamund's hand went over her heart.  "Then you think," she asked, "you
+think that he will not----"
+
+"On the contrary, I am very sure that he will," the doctor smiled at
+her.  "Mother Cary, here, will teach you how to make him well."
+
+Mother Cary laid her wrinkled hand on the girl's arm, but Rosamund's
+eyes filled with tears.  "Poor mite!" she said, bending over the child,
+"we will try to make you well--but I don't know what for!"
+
+Then Mother Cary spoke for the first time since her return.  "Don't you
+trouble yourself about the what for, dearie," she said.  "Folks is got
+plenty to keep 'em busy with the 'what way' and the 'what next' without
+troublin' themselves with the 'what for.'  Ain't it so, Doctor?"
+
+"It most certainly is," the red-headed doctor agreed, running his
+fingers through his already tousled hair.  When he had given her
+further directions for the care of the child and driven off behind his
+jogging old white mare, he seemed to have left with her some of his own
+happy energy and assurance.  Quite suddenly, the fatigue of her
+sleepless night fell from her, and from some unsuspected inner
+store-house of strength there crept a serenity and determination
+hitherto undreamed of.  The boy would sleep, the doctor had told her,
+until late afternoon, probably awake hungry and thirsty, and then ought
+to sleep again; he must be kept very quiet, nourished regularly and
+lightly, made clean and comfortable; such careful and ceaseless nursing
+should, in a week or two, bring him out with even more strength than he
+had had before.  So, until afternoon, there would be little for her to
+do.
+
+She went into the kitchen to be with the old woman, who was moving
+about with her queer, crab-like motion of crutches and hands, preparing
+their dinner; Yetta had taken herself to the fields.
+
+"No, indeedy, you can't help me one mite," Mother Cary declared,
+"exceptin' by settin' in that arm cheer and puttin' your pretty head
+back and restin.' There's nothin' I enjoy more'n a body to talk to
+whilst I'm a gettin' dinner, or supper.  Yetta ain't that kind of a
+body, though!  Land!  The way the child can talk, and the things she
+knows!"  Mother Cary turned about from her biscuit board to emphasize
+her horror.  "Honey," she said, impressively, "that child knows more o'
+the world, the bad side of it, than--well, than I do!"
+
+Rosamund smiled, and the old woman shook her head at her.  "Oh, I was
+brought up in the city, honey," she told her, "so I know more about it
+than you think for.  That's what makes me glad the doctor brought us a
+girl, this time; she's the first girl we've had this summer.  I wisht
+it might be that she could stay up here as I did, but land! they ain't
+but one Pap!  Pap jest made _me_ stay, and me a cripple, too!  He said
+he couldn't be happy without somebody to look after; and whilst it was
+a new idea to me then, I come to see the sense of it many a long year
+ago!  That poor little Yetta!  It's her eyes is bad.  They ain't so bad
+but what they won't do well enough for most things; but all she knows
+how to do is to sew beads and buttons and run a big sewin' machine in a
+shop.  They say her eyes won't hold out for that!  Land!  If I was
+rich, I'd have her taught music, that's what I'd do!  You jest ought to
+hear the child sing, dearie!  To hear her in the evenin's settin' down
+on the fence an' singin', why, it's prettier 'n a whip-poor-will
+a-callin'.  It wouldn't surprise me a mite if Yetta could be learnt to
+sing that well, with some new songs and such, that folks would pay
+money to hear her!"
+
+"Perhaps we could find some way to help her," Miss Randall suggested.
+Mother Cary flashed a keen look at her.
+
+"Do you know any rich folks, honey, that might?" she asked eagerly.
+"Yetta's a good little thing, for all the bad she knows.  An' she jest
+loves an' loves whatever is pretty an' sweet!"
+
+"I think perhaps I do know someone," Rosamund said.  "But I wanted
+especially to ask you to let me board with you here for a while.  Is
+there room for me?"
+
+"Room a plenty, dearie," the old woman said, as she hobbled to the door
+to strike the metal hoop that swung from the over-hanging floor of the
+second story.  "But," she added, when she had sent the summons ringing
+out to Pap and Yetta, and had come back and seated herself near the
+girl, "but there ain't any call for you to pay.  Pap an' me has a
+plenty to share with folks that come our way; and you're helpin' with
+Timmy.  I'd be real pleased to have you stay."
+
+But Rosamund hesitated.  "I'm afraid I cannot do that," she said,
+"unless you will let me pay something.  I can afford it, really," she
+added, smiling.
+
+For a long moment the old woman looked at her, keenly, kindly, with the
+faintest, tenderest, most teasing smile on her little wrinkled face
+that was as brown as a nut.  "An' can't you really afford to visit?"
+she asked.  "There's a plenty of folks that can afford to pay and to
+give; there ain't so many as can afford to take and to be done for.
+Ain't you forgettin' which kind you be?"
+
+Rosamund lifted her head, and looked directly into the twinkling, faded
+old eyes.  "No," she said, "I'm not forgetting the kind I am!  I think
+I am only beginning to find out!"
+
+Mother Cary laid her hand over the girl's in her usual gesture of
+caress before she hobbled to the dinner table.  Pap and Yetta had come
+in and were already seating themselves.
+
+It was the sweetest meal that Rosamund had ever tasted; but she had
+still to find out more about herself.  They had not risen from the
+table when a musical view-halloo sounded up from the road below the
+stretch of woods, and in a moment Flood and Pendleton sprang out of the
+big red car and came briskly up the little walk.  Rosamund went forward
+to meet them.
+
+"Why, I say," said Flood, beaming at her, "you're looking right as a
+trivet, you know!"
+
+Pendleton drawled: "Ah, fair knight-errantess!  Miss Nightingale!  Also
+Rose o' the World!  You wouldn't be smiling like that if you knew
+Cecilia's state of mind!"
+
+Rosamund laughed, and held out her hand to them.  "I can imagine it,"
+she said.  "It's plain that I had better keep out of her way for a
+time!"
+
+"I'm at your service," cried Flood bowing low: with mock servility,
+delighted at her merry mood, at her smiles which included even himself.
+
+But Pendleton understood her better.  "Now, what are you up to, Rosy?"
+he asked, severely, uneasily.  She came directly to the point.
+
+"I am going to stay here," she announced.
+
+Both men stared at her.  "How d'ye mean?" asked Flood weakly.
+
+"The deuce you are!" cried Pendleton.
+
+"Oh!  With Mrs. Reeves!" Flood beamed, as if he had found an answer
+even while asking.
+
+"Is that it?  Why didn't you say so?  Where is Eleanor, anyway?"
+Pendleton asked.
+
+Rosamund laughed again.  "I'm sure I don't know!" she said.  "She is at
+Bluemont, and that's miles away, isn't it?  I haven't even asked.  No,
+Marshall, no, Mr. Flood, I am going to stay here, right here, here in
+this house, or this valley, or this mountain, but here, here as long as
+I like--forever, if I want to!  That's what I mean--or part of it!"
+
+It was evident that her laughter carried more conviction than any
+amount of seriousness would have done.  Poor Flood's face got redder,
+and he suddenly, after a stare, turned on his heel, and walked rather
+slowly down the path to his car, standing beside it with his arms
+folded, looking across at the strip of woods, but seeing nothing.
+Pendleton, however, felt it incumbent upon him to remonstrate.
+
+"Of course, we all know you can afford any whim you like, Rosamund," he
+said, in the tone of the old friend who dares, "but I think I ought to
+warn you that this sort of thing is not--not in the best of taste, you
+know!  It is not done, really--in--in--among our sort, you know!"
+
+Rosamund openly showed her amusement.  "That is undoubtedly true, my
+dear Marshall," she said, "but this time it is going to be done!  _I_
+am going to do it!  You think it is a freak, and I'm sure I can say it
+isn't, because I don't in the least know what it is!"
+
+"I think you're mad.  If I had not been an unwilling observer of the
+accident, I should believe it was you had got concussion, and not the
+infant."
+
+"My dear Marshall, your diagnosis is wrong!  I may have a--a disease,
+but it is not madness.  Did you ever hear of people who had suffered
+from loss of memory for years and years and quite suddenly recovered
+it?  Perhaps I'm one of those--I feel as if I had only just come to my
+senses!"
+
+"I don't know what you're talking about!" said Pendleton.
+
+"Don't you?  I thought you wouldn't!"  Again she laughed, and at the
+sound Flood started, looked back towards the house where she stood,
+radiant and lovely, framed in the doorway, and then got into his car.
+
+But Pendleton had one further protest.  "You _can't_ stay in this--this
+hovel, alone, Rosamund!  You can't think of doing it!  Please remember
+_I_ have got to go back to Cecilia!  What on earth am I going to say to
+her?"
+
+"Poor Marshall!  Tell Cecilia, with my love, that I am going to stay
+here for the present.  She may send me some clothes by express, or not,
+as she likes.  Please give her my love, and tell her that I hope she
+will have a pleasant visit with the Whartons--she had better go there
+to-morrow.  And try, my dear Marshall, to assure her of my sanity!
+Good-by!  Don't let me keep you waiting!"
+
+Pendleton pushed back his hat, thrust his hands deep into his pockets,
+and looked at her.  Then he drew a long breath and delivered himself,
+oracularly.  "Rosamund," he said, "you're a fool!  You can't, you
+really can't, do this sort of thing, you know.  Why, my dear girl,
+it--it is not done, you know, in--"
+
+But Rosamund ran back into the house, turned a flashing, smiling look
+upon him over her shoulder, cried, "Good-by, Marshall!  Give my love to
+Cecilia!" and was gone, leaving him there agape.  There was really
+nothing for him to do but rejoin Flood.
+
+Cecilia, however, remained for a time inconsolable.  Flood and
+Pendleton motored back across the mountain, told Mrs. Maxwell of
+Rosamund's decision to remain indefinitely in the little cottage on the
+mountain, and forthwith avoided the presence of the irate lady as much
+as possible.  Fortunately, the newly arriving week-end guests had to be
+entertained.  They were very good and very stupid; but, as Pendleton
+said, anything was better than Cecilia in a temper.
+
+Left to herself, Cecilia's mind was occupied with a veritable
+jack-straw puzzle of events, motives, contingencies.  She had had good
+reason, before this, to know that Rosamund enjoyed unforeseen
+departures; but that anyone should deliberately choose to forego the
+luxuries of Oakleigh, to stay, instead, in what Mrs. Maxwell considered
+a peasant's cottage--such conduct, such a choice, were beyond the
+lady's imagination and experience.  Rosamund must be wild; for surely
+not even pique at Cecilia's generalship, not even annoyance at Flood's
+attentions, not even the desire to be near that tiresome Eleanor
+Reeves, could have determined her to such a move.  As for the accident,
+anyone could have cared for the child.  Rosamund could have paid a
+dozen nurses to stay there, if she was charitably inclined; and
+certainly Mr. Flood had shown that he wanted to do what was right.
+Cecilia could not understand it.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+After the retreat of Pendleton and Flood, Rosamund went back to the
+little boy's room, smiling.  Mother Cary looked up at her with a face
+slightly troubled.
+
+"Seems like your friends ain't willing to have you stay here," she
+said.  "Is there anything calling you home, honey, anything that needs
+you?"
+
+The girl shook her head.  "I think I have never been needed anywhere in
+all my life, until now," she said.  Then, perhaps because of Flood's
+words, she remembered Eleanor.  "Well, perhaps there is one person who
+has needed me, from time to time; and, dear Mother Cary, she is
+somewhere near here.  She came to Bluemont to be near Doctor Ogilvie."
+
+"There's a many a one that does," said Mother Cary.
+
+"My friend is Mrs. Reeves.  Do you know her?"
+
+"Land, honey, rich city folks don't bother to become acquainted with
+the likes of me!" the old woman said, smiling.
+
+"Mrs. Reeves is not 'rich city folks.'  She is working for her living
+all the while she is here in the mountains; she is companion for
+another of the doctor's patients, Mrs. Hetherbee."
+
+"Oh, I know!" Yetta exclaimed.  "I saw her in the post-office one day
+askin' for the mail, while the old one waited outside in the
+automobile.  Gee!  That old one looked cross!"
+
+Rosamund laughed.  "And do you know where they live?"
+
+"Sure!  Want me to show you?"
+
+"I should like it ever and ever so much if you would take a note there
+for me.  Could you do that?  Is it too far?"
+
+Mother Cary patted Yetta's dark hair.  "She can go over with Pap, when
+he goes to the store," she said.  "She'll be real glad to; won't you,
+Yetta?"
+
+So it came to pass that in the late afternoon Eleanor came in Mrs.
+Hetherbee's car.  The boy Tim was resting so quietly that Rosamund had
+gone outside; she went swiftly down the little red path to the gate,
+and the two met, arms entwining, cheek to cheek, with little laughs and
+questions and soft cries.
+
+"Your note said there was an accident!"  These were Eleanor's first
+words.  "Darling, that is not why you are here?  You are not hurt?"
+
+"Why I am here; but it was not I--I was not hurt!  Look at me--feel me!"
+
+"Nor Cecilia?"
+
+"Nor anyone, you precious, that you know!  A tiny mite of a boy,
+Eleanor, and I stayed to take care of him."
+
+"You?"
+
+"Oh, don't say it like that!  And yet I don't wonder!"
+
+Eleanor's arm was about her at once.  "Sweet, I was only wondering that
+Cecilia let you!"
+
+"Cecilia did not let me; and you were wondering, too, why I stayed,
+what really kept me.  You are quite right; of my own accord I shouldn't
+have stayed.  My own impulse would not have moved that way.  I should
+have taken the easy, the obvious course, if I had been left to choose.
+But I wasn't, you see."
+
+Eleanor looked at her keenly.  This note of bitterness was quite new.
+Suddenly she remembered Ogilvie; but almost on the instant Rosamund
+spoke again.
+
+"What manner of man do you find this red-headed doctor of yours?"
+
+Eleanor laughed.  "He gets his own way with people!"  She looked at her
+friend, but Rosamund's face was turned from her.  "I have never met
+anyone else like him.  I thought at first that he was two people--a man
+of heart and a man of science; you know his reputation, and yet he
+stays up here mainly, I am told, to be near these mountain people.  He
+says that they trust him, and seems to think that excuse enough for
+staying."
+
+"I thought he stayed for the air or something?"
+
+"He did, but now he is perfectly well again.  And his character is not
+dual; nothing so romantic.  He is a man of science just because he is a
+man of heart.  He is one of the simplest people I have ever known."
+
+"You seem to know him pretty well."
+
+"Oh, he is the first object of interest to all his patients; we talk of
+nothing else!  I am only a case to him."
+
+Rosamund laughed.  "Very likely, dear!  And what does he think of you,
+as a case?"
+
+Eleanor's face took on its shadow of sadness.  "He--he does not know,"
+she said; and Rosamund drew a swift breath of pain.
+
+Eleanor came daily after that, Mrs. Hetherbee, a worn, eager little
+woman with restless eyes, showing herself entirely complaisant when it
+seemed likely that the very well known Miss Randall would return
+Eleanor's visits.  Her attitude towards her companion had been pleasant
+enough before, but it certainly took on a new warmth after Rosamund's
+arrival in the neighborhood, and when she learned that Mrs. Reeves was
+one of Miss Randall's lifelong friends.
+
+"You will have to drive over and call on Mrs. Hetherbee, Rose," Eleanor
+assured her.  "If you don't I shall feel that I'm using her car under
+false pretenses!"
+
+So Rosamund called, and Mrs. Hetherbee basked in the distinction of
+being the only person at the Summit whom Miss Randall cared to know.
+Thereafter Eleanor came daily across the valley, tenderly sweet as only
+she knew how to be, almost at once becoming fast friends with Mother
+Cary, and hanging over the boy with aching heart and arms weary of
+their emptiness.  Rosamund always felt as if a hand of pain clutched at
+her heart as she watched them.
+
+"Who is he?" Eleanor had asked the first day she saw him.  "Is he the
+child of these people?"
+
+"He is a waif," Rosamund said, and told how Mother Cary made of the
+little white house a refuge of love for the needy ones of the city.
+"And this tiny boy, Doctor Ogilvie says, needs love more than most of
+them.  The Charities have tried to have him adopted; but most people do
+not want boys--not homely little boys, whose fathers were not at all
+good and whose mothers died very young and very forlorn.  Timmy has
+gone begging--and he will have to go back after his summer here is
+over.  The most to be hoped for is that he will go back stronger; then
+perhaps he will be prettier, and some one may want him.  It is really
+unspeakably pathetic."
+
+So Eleanor hung over the child, and gradually there grew up in
+Rosamund's heart and mind a plan, which, as it matured, was to alter
+the course of life for all of them.
+
+But that was not until later; and while to her on the mountain the days
+passed uneventfully enough, they were days of distressful change for
+her sister.  During the first week or two, Cecilia sent her four
+letters and eleven telegrams--the telegrams being duly delivered with
+the letters, whenever Father Cary drove across the valley to the store.
+Rosamund read them all, pondered, smiled, and then sent off a
+reassuring telegram by Eleanor.  Later she wrote two letters; the first
+was to her banker, and in the second she said:
+
+
+DEAREST CISSY:
+
+Don't be too cross!  You've always been an angel to me, and I love you;
+but I am tired, tired, tired of the sort of life we lead; and the other
+day, when Mr. Flood's man so obligingly bumped into the poor little
+boy, I was wondering how on earth I could get out of it for a time, get
+some sort of change.  Then, the people here seemed to take it for
+granted that I would stay to nurse the child.  It was the first time in
+my life that anyone had ever taken for granted that I would do the
+right thing if it meant personal discomfort.  Before, I had always been
+praised and applauded if I merely happened to do it.  I don't suppose I
+can make you understand, dearest Cissy; but just that made all the
+difference in the world to me.  And now I am going to stay here--for
+how long, I do not know.  Until I get tired of it, perhaps, or until I
+can think up something else.  The mountains are so big, Cecilia, and
+the stars so bright, and the sun does such good work!
+
+I have put some money to your credit; I think there will be enough to
+last you for a while.  You can even get the motor car, if you want to.
+And if I were you, I should stop in town and get a few linens and
+perhaps a hat or two and a parasol at Lucille's.  You will need a lot
+of things at Bar Harbor.  I suppose you will go right up to the
+Whartons'.
+
+You say I have broken up Mr. Flood's plans.  I'm afraid I don't
+altogether agree to that.  There was only another week-end left in
+June, and we were not going to stay any longer than that.  I do not
+choose to think that you referred to other plans of his.  If you do,
+please understand that I have no interest in them.
+
+Give my love to the Whartons; they have always thought me queer,
+anyway, so you will not have to account to them for me.  And don't be
+too cross!
+
+
+Cecilia's reply, which the doctor brought up the mountain a week later,
+was dated from Bar Harbor.  It read:
+
+
+DEAR ROSAMUND:
+
+It's no use saying what I think.  But you are exceedingly disagreeable
+about Mr. Flood, and the mountains were just as big at Oakleigh, and
+the sun is just as hot in one place as another at this time of year,
+and it is very selfish of you to break up everybody's plans.  But at
+least I can say that I am glad you remain sane upon some subjects.  I
+hope you got the trunks I sent over to Bluemont Summit; and I took your
+advice about the linens.  There was a white serge, too, that was
+unusually good for the price.  I haven't decided about the car.  We
+play bridge here twice a day, and my game seems rather uncertain, since
+the shock you gave me.  And Minnie has invited Benson Flood for two
+weeks, and a good many things may happen.  I may not buy the car after
+all.  I told Minnie that you were camping in the mountains, and she
+only raised her eyebrows.  Well--all I can say is that poor dear Mamma
+always admitted Colonel Randall was peculiar.  If you are not going to
+wear your opals this summer, you may as well let me have them.
+
+
+Rosamund laughed aloud at the letter.  Doctor Ogilvie was sitting on
+the side of Timmy's bed, and she had gone to the window to read it.  At
+her laugh he looked up.
+
+"Good news?" he asked, cheerfully.  He was always cheerful, as cheerful
+as a half-grown puppy.
+
+"Neither good nor bad," she replied, "only amusing."
+
+"But whatever is amusing is good," he asserted.
+
+She looked up from folding her letter, to see whether he was in
+earnest.  "That," she said, slowly, "is rather a unique point of view!"
+
+He ran his fingers through his hair, and came towards her.  "Unique?  I
+hope not," he replied.  "Oh, I see what you mean--you're taking issue
+with my word 'amusing'!  I'm not thinking of passing the time, as a
+definition of that word; I'm thinking of fun, mirth, that kind of
+amusement--nothing to do with chorus ladies and things to eat and drink
+and that sort of thing, you know!"
+
+She was learning to watch his smile as one watches a barometer; to-day
+the signs were certainly propitious.  There was something of indulgence
+in her look as she replied to him, the indulgence one feels towards the
+young and inexperienced.
+
+"So you think it is a good thing to be amused--in your way?" she asked.
+
+He nodded.  "Most assuredly.  Nothing like it.  And the most amusing
+thing I know is the way we can cheat disease and dirt and a few other
+nice little things like them--turn the joke on them!  Now, there's
+Master Tim--eh, youngster?  Life will seem like a good deal of a joke
+to you, when you get over that ache in your hip, won't it?  Think
+you'll find fun in life then, don't you, old chap?  And there's a girl
+down in the valley--by the way, how'd you like to go down with me and
+make a call?  Do you a lot of good!"
+
+He cocked his head on one side and looked at Rosamund inquiringly,
+persuasively.
+
+She had seen him every day for two weeks, and this was the first moment
+he had looked at her with the least shadow of personal interest.  Until
+now, she had felt that she was no more to him than an article of
+furniture, certainly less of a personage than Mother Cary or Yetta or
+the sick child.  She had a feeling that he tolerated her solely as an
+aid, that she had not even the virtue of being a 'case'; and she told
+herself in secret disgust that while she did not possess the last
+virtue, she at least shared the patients' fault, or absurdity; she had
+to admit that he piqued her interest, and she resented his doing so,
+blaming him even while disgusted at herself.
+
+But, to-day, with the charming woman's intuition, she knew that he was
+seeing her with different eyes, as if she had only just now come within
+his range of vision; yet she knew that his was a look that she had not
+encountered from other men.
+
+Hitherto, the men she knew had been quite evidently aware of her
+beauty.  She had always accepted, quite calmly, the fact that there was
+enough of that to be of first consideration, over and beyond anything
+else that she might possess.  This country doctor was the first man who
+had ever appeared unconscious of the excellence of her femininity; but
+the same pride which had led her to repel Flood's admiration forbade
+her making any conscious appeal for Ogilvie's.  There was, after all,
+very little of the coquette in her.  The amusement that his
+obliviousness caused her, or the interest it excited in her, was only
+increased by his suggestion that she should accompany him on a visit to
+some mountaineer's cottage; he had offered it as likely to do her good,
+and not, as she might not unreasonably have expected, that her going
+would brighten or benefit or honor the mountain girl.  It was a new
+experience, surely, for Rosamund Randall!
+
+On their way down the mountain, which White Rosy knew so well that to
+guide her would have been entirely superfluous, he talked cheerfully,
+as always, of many things--of White Rosy herself, of the mountain
+people, of the view across the valley, of roadside shrubs and flowers.
+It was the first of their drives together, and the woman they went to
+see that day became a most important factor in their destinies.
+
+At first she listened to him with scarcely more interest than she would
+have felt towards the amiable volubility of any of the countrymen; but
+his talk soon rose above the commonplace.  Insensibly he became aware
+that the girl beside him could understand, could sympathize, respond.
+
+"I know you can't put ropes on the world and try to pull back against
+its turning round," the doctor said when at a bend of the road they
+could look down almost upon the roof of a cottage below, a cottage with
+a sadly neglected garden patch at one side and a tumbled-down chimney.
+"It's a good deal better to stand behind and push, or to get in front
+and pull.  I'm fond of pulling, myself!  But when it comes to the
+individual instance, it's sometimes more merciful to stand in the way
+of what we're pleased to call progress.  Now that girl down
+there--daughter of a horse-dealer, the owner of a little store at one
+of the crossroads in the other valley--it would really have been better
+if she had never gone to school, never been away from home, never
+learned of anything beyond what she has.  She has been taught enough to
+make her know how badly off she is.  Her father was ambitious, and sent
+his daughter to board in town and go to the high school.  She stayed
+there two years, and absorbed about as much as she could; then she came
+back home, but her education had taught her something finer and better
+than what she came back to.  She did just what any restless young thing
+would do.  Inside of a year she eloped with the handsomest rascal in
+the mountains.  And Tobet's a moonshiner!"
+
+"Moonshiner!  But I thought the Government had done away with all that
+sort of thing?  I heard a man say, at a place where I was staying
+before I came here, that there was really no more of it left, in these
+mountains.  The men are intimidated, the stills discovered and broken
+up.  Isn't that so?"
+
+A wry smile from the doctor answered her.  "Then there must be some
+natural springs of it about here," he said.  He pointed back over his
+shoulder with his whip.  "See that big pine up there on the left?
+Well, if an empty bottle be left there, at the foot of the tree, at
+night, with a fifty-cent piece under it, the bottle will be filled in
+the morning, and the coin gone.  I don't ask any questions, and I
+suppose she would not answer any; but if she would, Grace Tobet could
+explain how that sort of thing happens."
+
+Rosamund was not greatly impressed.  "Well, there probably is not very
+much of it," she said, "and they must be quite used to it.  I don't
+suppose it does them much harm, does it?"
+
+The doctor was silent for a moment.  Then he said, and his voice was
+very low, "Grace Tobet has lately lost her baby, her little girl.  Joe
+came in one morning, struck by white lightning, as they say around
+here.  He fell on the baby, and Grace came in from the garden too late.
+She told Mother Cary that perhaps it was just as well."
+
+Rosamund paled.  Presently the doctor went on, "And you see, poor Grace
+knows better things; she remembers that town and the school, and the
+little pleasures and gayeties there."
+
+Neither spoke again until White Rosy drew up before the Tobet cottage.
+The front windows and door were closed, but on the sill of the back
+door a woman crouched, a woman in faded brown calico, whose face, when
+she raised it from her arms, showed a dark bruise on one side.  She
+rose and smiled wanly.
+
+"I've brought a lady to see you, Mrs. Tobet," the doctor said.  He
+introduced them as formally as if Grace Tobet had been a duchess.  Then
+he said, "Now you two talk, while I hunt up Joe.  Where is he?"
+
+The woman nodded towards the front of the house, and the doctor went
+indoors.  Rosamund and Mrs. Tobet looked at each other.
+
+To the mountain woman this stranger was a being from another sphere,
+who could not touch her own at any point of intercourse; while Rosamund
+was too deeply moved by the woman's story, by the livid mark on her
+temple, by the squalor of her dress and surroundings contrasting so
+strongly with the intelligence of her face, to find words.  It was Mrs.
+Tobet who first remembered one of those phrases of common coin which
+are the medium of conversation the world over.
+
+"Stranger about here?" she asked.
+
+"I am staying with Mrs. Cary on the mountain," Rosamund replied; and,
+as, in a flash, the other woman's face was lit by a smile scarcely less
+radiant than Mother Cary's own.
+
+"A friend o' Mother Cary's, be ye?  I'm glad to see ye!  I can't ask
+you into the front room, but there's a seat in my spring-house, real
+pleasant and cool; won't ye come try it?"
+
+She led the way through the neglected garden to the little spring-house
+that was built of the rough stone of the hillsides, roofed over with
+sod.  In front of the door-space was a wooden bench, where Rosamund sat
+down, while Grace drew a glass of sparkling water from the cool spring
+inside.  It was a delicious draught.
+
+"My baby could jest pull herself up by that bench," Grace Tobet said,
+as she took the empty glass.  "She used to play here while I tended to
+the milk.  Joe's sold the cow now; but that didn't make any difference;
+there wasn't any reason for keeping her."
+
+The woman's deep-set dark eyes strained out towards the mountain-tops.
+Rosamund felt herself suddenly brought face to face with some primal
+force of which she had hitherto known nothing; for the first time in
+her life she looked upon the agony of bereft mother-love laid bare.
+She had been with Eleanor through her loss, but Eleanor's grief had
+seemed to turn her to white stone; this other mother's was a fiercely
+scorching, consuming flame of anguish before which Rosamund shrank away
+as from the blast of a furnace.  Before she dared to speak, however,
+Grace Tobet's face was smiling again.
+
+"I know you must like it up there," she said.  "I do miss the mountains
+so, livin' down here in the valley.  I don't know what I'd do ef it
+wasn't for Mother Cary's light.  I look up there for it every night of
+my life, an' it's always there.  An' I ain't the only one it talks to,
+neither."
+
+"It has its message for everyone who sees it, I think," Rosamund
+agreed.  "I know, because I am living under it!"
+
+Grace looked into her eyes, and nodded.  "Ain't it so?" she replied.
+"Why, there's never been a night when I was in trouble that her little
+lamp hasn't said to me, 'Here I am, honey, an' I know all about it.
+When it gets so bad you can't stand it, you jest send for me; I'll
+come!'  An' she does come, too!"
+
+There was silence between them for a moment; then Rosamund said, only
+wondering at herself long afterwards, "It says more than that!  It is
+telling me that there is something in life worth while, that there's
+courage and goodness in many a dark corner where we'd never think of
+looking for them; oh, it is teaching me a great deal!"
+
+"Yes," Grace Tobet agreed, and all barriers between them were gone.
+
+They found so much to say that the hour the doctor spent with Joe
+passed like a moment.  When at last he came out of the house and back
+to the spring for a drink of the pure water, the two women walked
+together to the buggy; and before she took her place Rosamund, yielding
+to a sudden impulse of which she knew she would have been incapable a
+fortnight earlier, turned and clasped both of the older woman's hands,
+and looked into her face.
+
+"Will you be friends with me?" she asked simply.
+
+Grace Tobet's eyes widened.  It seemed long before she spoke.  Then,
+"Yes," she said, and both knew that there was something sealed between
+them.
+
+"May I bring a friend of mine to see you?  She lost her baby boy last
+year, and--and we are afraid she is going to be--blind.  Perhaps you
+can comfort her, in some way.  She needs friends.  May I bring her?"
+
+"Pray do," Grace said, in the quaint mountain speech.
+
+When they were slowly climbing the mountain, the doctor turned to
+Rosamund with a quizzical smile.  "You and Grace seemed to progress
+somewhat!" he said.
+
+For a few moments Rosamund pondered; then she met his look, but there
+was no smile on her face.
+
+"Do you know," she said, "I have always thought that the people I lived
+among were the only ones who really knew life, the only ones who felt,
+or thought, or _lived_!  Lately I seem to have come into a new world."
+
+The doctor's smile faded, and he ran his fingers through his hair.
+"No," he said, "it's the same old world!  Human nature's pretty much
+the same, wherever you find it.  Human experience is bounded by life,
+and the boundaries are not very wide, either.  It's the different
+combinations that make things interesting, although the basic elements
+remain the same!"
+
+"Then I almost think there are more basic elements among these people
+than among--my kind!"
+
+"Oh, no!  The difference is that with your kind the surface is rounded
+and polished, and the points of possible contact therefore fewer; with
+the other kind the rougher surfaces offer more points of contact, more
+chances of combinations, that's all.  And," he added, "even that's only
+partly true!"
+
+Afterwards, when she went over in her mind the events of the whole
+afternoon, she wondered how Flood or Pendleton would have expressed
+themselves on the subject; but at the moment she was too deeply
+concerned with her problems to form any mental digression.  For a while
+neither spoke; then she said:
+
+"Reserve seems to have no place here!  I find myself saying what I
+think, describing what I feel, opening my heart to Mother Cary, to Mrs.
+Tobet, to you--to anyone!  I do not know myself!"
+
+The doctor's face changed from one expression to another and another;
+he was about to speak, but her look was intense, rapt, uplifted, and
+very serious; he evidently changed his mind.  Neither spoke again until
+they stopped before the little green gate.  Then, he passed his hand
+over his head as if suddenly missing something.
+
+"Lord bless my soul!" he exclaimed.  "I believe I left my hat at
+Grace's!"
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+Eleanor was most free to motor across the valley--where now a double
+magnet drew her--while Mrs. Hetherbee still slumbered in the mornings.
+Since the first day when Tim's little hand had reached up to touch her
+cheek, she had yearned towards the boy.  Rosamund laughingly accused
+her of coming to see him instead of herself; Eleanor, in reply, held
+the mite to her heart, smiling over his curls through gathering tears,
+at Rosamund.
+
+The summer had done much for Timmy.  The pain in his hip was
+disappearing, and by the end of August there were pink baby curves
+where the skin had been white and drawn over his little bones.  There
+were times, when he was cuddling against Eleanor or tumbling about in
+the sun, that he was almost pretty.  He was glad enough of
+ministrations from Rosamund or Mother Cary, but Eleanor was the bright
+lady of his adoration.
+
+"My White Lady," he called her, taking great pains always to pronounce
+every consonant of the beloved name, though he usually discarded most
+of them as not at all necessary to intelligent conversation.  With the
+inquisitiveness of childhood, he soon discovered that she had once had
+a little boy of her own.
+
+"Where is your little boy?" he asked one day with infantile directness.
+
+"He is gone away," she told him.
+
+But that was not enough.  "_Did_ somebody 'dopt your little boy?" he
+persisted.
+
+Eleanor looked at Rosamund; the same thought was in the minds of both.
+How many times had little Tim been offered for inspection to would-be
+adopters, and refused?  How much of it had he understood?  What had it
+all meant, to his poor little lonely heart?  Eleanor drew him more
+closely to her.
+
+"W'y don't you tell Timmy?  Did somebody 'dopt your little boy?"
+
+She gave him the simplest answer.  "Yes, dear," she said.
+
+Timmy was thoughtful for a moment.  Then he said, "I guess he must have
+been a _pretty_ little boy!"
+
+Neither Eleanor nor Rosamund could speak, but Tim was oblivious of
+their emotion.  A new idea, an entrancing one, had presented itself.
+He climbed upon Eleanor's lap, took her face between his palms, and
+said, smiling divinely,
+
+"If I was a great big man, White Lady, _I_ would 'dopt you!"
+
+It seemed to Rosamund that Eleanor, while reaching out with all the
+ardor of her loneliness, was being daily wrung by seeing him; she spoke
+of it to Ogilvie, after Eleanor herself had denied it.  But he was
+inclined to agree with Mrs. Reeves that it could not harm her.
+
+"Women find comfort in strange things," he said.  "Let her have her own
+way."
+
+Rosamund sighed.  "It does not seem to me that her summer here has
+helped her at all," she said.  "She is more a 'White Lady' than ever.
+I wish you would tell me what you think of her, Doctor Ogilvie!"
+
+"I cannot tell you any more than I have," he replied.  "There is no
+incurable fault of vision, no defect of the eye itself.  If I could
+prescribe a large dose of happiness for her, she would get well.  As it
+is--nerves have very elusive freaks sometimes, you know!"
+
+"Then she will--she will be--oh!  Don't say that!  Not my Eleanor!"
+
+"Now you are taking too much for granted.  I do _not_ say it.  Her eyes
+are no worse than when she came here.  If she were strong they would
+recover; if she were happy she would quickly become strong!  As it
+is--who can say?"
+
+"Oh, how helpless you all are!" she cried.
+
+He ran his fingers through his hair--his cap was apt to be anywhere but
+on his head.  "Helpless!  Good Lord, yes!"
+
+As the weeks passed, they had become very good friends, spending many
+hours together, driving about the countryside as he made his rounds.
+Knowing Eleanor to be there in the mornings, Ogilvie fell into the way
+of making Mother Cary's his first house of visitation in the afternoon.
+They were always waiting for him at the gate--the now inseparable
+three; and if Rosamund left all show of eager greeting to Yetta and
+little Tim, the doctor seemed never to notice the omission.  It was
+enough to find her there.
+
+Hitherto, John Ogilvie had passed his life, first, in study, and later
+in investigation and service.  Women had appeared as people who cooked
+his meals, or as nurses trained to careful obedience, or as those who,
+more or less ill, were apt to be more or less querulous.  There were
+one or two who had seemed to possess different characteristics,
+especially here in the mountains.  There was Mother Cary, who had
+helped him on more than one occasion when more trained assistance, if
+not assistance more experienced, was not to be had; he warmly loved
+Mother Cary, whose indulgent affection persisted in regarding him as a
+boy--a clever boy, to be sure, but not by any means one who had
+outgrown the need of maternal attention.  And there were Grace Tobet,
+and a few other of the mountaineers' wives, who stood out from the mass
+of women as he had known them.
+
+Miss Randall was of still another sort, already beginning to inspire
+him with emotions new and different.  But he was too far past the
+introspective phase that is a part of early youth to analyze his
+emotions.  He was less concerned with the phenomenon of his own heart
+throbs than with the happily recurring hours of their being together,
+and the increasingly dreary intervals when his duties carried him away
+from her.
+
+He knew very well to what world she belonged.  He had had enough
+experience of it among his patients, the overfed, overwrought women who
+came to Bluemont in the summer to be near him--near the young doctor of
+high scientific attainments, who remained in this out-of-the-way place
+of his own choice, "Who can be just as disagreeable and firm, my dear,
+as if his sign hung two doors from Fifth Avenue, and whose fees are
+only one-fifth as high as Dr. Blake's," as one of them wrote home.
+Even if she had not come into the valley as one of Flood's guests, he
+would have known of what class she was a part.  Mrs. Hetherbee, in her
+overflowing complaisance after Rosamund's call, had poured out to his
+bored and impatient ears, in a torrent that was not to be stemmed, the
+facts of the girl's inheritance and position.
+
+"Witherspoon Randall's only daughter!  He made all his money, millions,
+they say, in Georgia pine--only had to go out on the land he had
+inherited and cut down trees!  Think of it!  And left every penny to
+this girl, nothing to the mother, nothing to the mother's daughter by
+her first marriage, nothing to charity--everything, everything to this
+girl!  And you know she is just the smartest of the smart, in town;
+thanks to her sister's marriage, in the very heart of the most
+exclusive----"
+
+So he had, in spite of himself, been told what she was, given some idea
+of what she possessed; yet so wholly did he discard as immaterial the
+material things, and measure her only by the weight of personality,
+that Rosamund was deceived into thinking that he knew nothing about her.
+
+The friends she made while at Mother Cary's had not questioned her; she
+had dropped among them from an automobile, and later her sister had
+sent her some clothes of deceptive simplicity.  Their seeming to accept
+her as she tried to appear deceived her into believing that they were
+not curious; as a matter of fact their code of good manners forbade
+their showing curiosity; nothing could prevent their having it.  She
+believed that Ogilvie, also, had been deceived in like manner.  During
+their drives together she carefully avoided any reference to her
+possessions; it amused her to imagine how surprised he would be when he
+knew.
+
+Yet she found herself becoming more and more contented that he did not
+know.  In her own world she had been unable to ignore her wealth; she
+could read knowledge of it on every face, deference to it in every
+courtesy, and the very fact that it had set her apart was largely the
+cause of her old discontent.  She would not voluntarily have discarded
+it, but she would have welcomed an escape from all but its agreeable
+consequences.
+
+The other men she had known might have been able to command riches
+larger than her own, or possessed that which weighed equally in the
+social scales; yet they remained conscious of what her very name
+signified, and invariably showed it.  Even Mr. Flood, or so she
+believed, although he could have bought all she owned without missing
+what it cost him, showed her the usual deference.
+
+Therefore, there was something fresh and unaccustomed in her growing
+friendship with Ogilvie.  It amused and piqued her; in her ignorance of
+his real state of mind it even touched her.  She found herself eager to
+be real with him, to show him depths of heart and mind which she
+herself had scarcely suspected.  Other men saw only the social glaze
+which hid her real self and reflected themselves; Ogilvie had a way of
+looking at her which pierced the surface, although, because of his
+obvious sincerity, it caused her no resentment.  So, during the glowing
+summer, while the hot noons ripened the corn in the valley and the cold
+nights left early beacons of flame in the young maples on the
+mountains, they grew to know each other; she serene in her belief in
+his unsuspecting simplicity, he ignoring in her what other men would so
+greatly have valued.  As far as the things of the world affected them,
+they might, on their drives, have been alone in a deserted land, or at
+least in one peopled only by aborigines.
+
+For always he had as an objective point some mountain cottage where his
+aid was needed.  At first she was inclined to be curious about the
+mountaineers; theoretically they ought to have been interesting,
+quaint, amusing.  But in reality she scarcely saw them; when she did,
+she found nothing appealing in their lank figures, and faces hidden in
+the depths of slat bonnets or under large straw hats pulled down over
+their eyes.
+
+"They all seem to avoid me," she told Ogilvie one day when he had come
+out of a house with a tiny child in his arms, which had slid down and
+run away at sight of her.  "Do they think I'm the bogey-man or the
+plague?"
+
+He laughed aloud at her petulance.  "They don't stop to think," he
+said.  "They are as timid as chipmunks, or as any other hunted woodland
+creatures."
+
+"Oh, hunted!" she cried, as if to repudiate what he implied.  "I've
+heard you talk like that before!  Do you still believe in that nonsense
+about the secret stills and the Government spies, and all that?"
+
+"Yes, I believe in it."
+
+"I have been here eight weeks, and I have not heard another soul speak
+of it!"
+
+"How many of the 'natives,' as you call them, have you met?"
+
+She pursed her lips.  "I don't believe there are many to see!"
+
+"Allow me to remind you again of my feeble simile of the chipmunks!" he
+laughed.  "And believe me, it is more apt than you think.  For
+instance, have you seen the little Allen children?"
+
+"What, the queer little animals that bend their arms over their eyes
+when you meet them, and live in that shanty back of Father Cary's
+pasture?"
+
+He smiled at her description.  "Precisely!  The Carys' nearest
+neighbors, scarcely a mile away.  And have you seen their mother?"
+
+She seemed to be trying to remember.
+
+"Come now," he teased, "don't tell me you don't believe they have a
+mother!  The eldest child is not yet six, and the youngest of the five
+is two months old!"
+
+She laughed and gave in.  "No, I have not seen the mother, nor the
+father, nor the aunts, nor any of the rest of the family!  But that is
+only one instance."
+
+"There are many; you really may take my word for it, if it interests
+you to.  But if you were to be here after the summer people go, then
+you'd see.  They come out into the open then."
+
+She still looked skeptical, and he pointed up the mountain.  "Do you
+see that path?" he asked.
+
+"No.  Where?"
+
+He laughed.  "Caught, Miss Randall!  A path is there, invisible though
+it is to you--to us.  All through these woods there are paths, often
+little more than trails, well known to the mountaineers and often used.
+Sometimes they run for a mile or more beside the road, screened by the
+undergrowth; sometimes they keep higher up, or cross where a road could
+not, or follow the courses of the streams; but they are there.  It is
+only one of the evidences of the mountaineers' secretiveness."
+
+"Your simile was a good one!  What animals they are!"
+
+"So are we all."
+
+"Oh, of course, you are the doctor, saying that!  But you could
+scarcely class these creatures with ourselves!"
+
+He turned on the seat to look at her, and she met his gaze a little
+defiantly, on the defensive, for she knew him well enough by now to
+guess what his reply would be.  For the first time she encountered in
+his eyes a look of appraisement as if he were weighing her value, even
+questioning it.  Suddenly there arose between them the antagonism of
+their opposite points of view, of those differences in their minds and
+characters which must always arise between a man and a woman, and be
+settled by conquest or compromise, before happiness can be secure
+between them.
+
+As he looked at her, more beautiful in her sudden proud defiance than
+he had ever before seen her, it flashed upon him who and what she was,
+and that what he had chosen to ignore might be none the less placing
+her beyond him.  In his inexperience he was unprepared for the swift
+pain of the idea; instinctively defending himself, his defense was
+cruelly sharp.
+
+The irony of his words stung her cheeks to a quick crimson.
+
+"I am not capable of judging of your class, Miss Randall!" he said.
+
+She might have understood, from the tremor in his voice, but she heard
+nothing but the meaning of the words.  As she still looked into his
+eyes her own widened, and with the widening of their pupils seemed to
+grow black.  For an instant they looked at one another so; but the
+moment was too tense to be one of revelation.  Then she drew a gasping
+breath so sharp that it almost seemed to be a wordless cry of pain, and
+turned away.
+
+Instantly he was filled with shame of having hurt her, and greater
+shame of having doubted her.
+
+"Oh, forgive me," he cried.  "Forgive me!  Won't you forgive me?"
+
+She lifted her head a little, still turned from him, but did not speak.
+
+"Rosamund!" he cried.  "Forgive me!"
+
+It was now unmistakably a cry of pain, appealing and revealing; it
+steadied her, as a woman is always steadied by that tone in a man's
+voice, until the moment when she is prepared to welcome it.  On the
+instant, she was no longer the woman of the past weeks, simple,
+companionable, revealing herself as naturally as a child; she was once
+more the Miss Randall the world knew, haughty, reserved, aloof.  Even
+her eyes, as she turned to smile at him, were not those he had known.
+
+"There is nothing in the world to forgive!  I think we have been a
+little absurd!"
+
+It was his turn to feel how words could lash.
+
+"I am glad you see it so," he said, and wondered, during the rest of
+their drive, filled as it was with the commonplace of small talk, how
+he could have forgotten her likeness to the vapid, futile, fashionable
+women at the Summit; while she, hurt and bewildered, was wondering what
+he had meant, whether he had known her all along for the person she
+was, Colonel Randall's daughter and only heir, and in the stupidity of
+a countryman had failed in the observance due to her position.
+
+When White Rosy stopped at the little red gate, willingly, as always,
+the two children were there to welcome them.  Ogilvie, in spite of
+Timmy's beseeching arms, would not stay to supper, as he often did.
+
+Tim sat down on the brick path and lifted his voice in a wail.  "Oh,
+ev'rybody's gonin' away!" he cried; and his anguish increased by his
+own words, he further declared, "Ev'rybody has went away!"
+
+Rosamund picked up the boy, but he wriggled down from her arms.  In
+spite of her care for him, and the good-fellowship there was between
+her and both the children, who were ordinarily devoted enough, nothing
+of the maternal had as yet been aroused in her; and in the moments when
+he needs the only comfort that satisfies childhood, a child knows
+instinctively whether there is aught of the mother in the arms that
+hold him.
+
+But Rosamund was in need of love to-day.  "Why, Timmy," she cried,
+still holding him to her, "_I_ am here!  _I_ have not gone away!"
+
+"I don't want my White Lady to go away!  I want my White Lady!" was
+Timmy's cry.  "Ev'rybody's gonin' away!"
+
+Now Yetta became voluble in explanation of his cry.  "She is going
+away!  She came over while you were gone, 'cause she said maybe she
+won't be able to come to-morrow.  She says she's got to pack, 'cause
+the old one's going back to town.  Lots o' people have gone already,
+it's so cold; and the old one thinks it's going to set in to rain, so
+she's going home, an' Mis' Reeves has got to go with her."
+
+"My White Lady's gonin' away!" Tim wailed again, with a concentration
+of thought that might have been admirable under other circumstances.
+"Ev'rybody's gonin' away!"
+
+Rosamund had been overwrought on the drive, and the boy's persistent
+cry was rasping her nerves.  "Oh, for goodness' sake, Timmy, don't say
+that again!  It is not true, Tim!  I am here, and Yetta's here, and
+Mother Cary's here.  Aren't we enough!"
+
+"No, she ain't," Yetta cried, still informing.  "She's gone down to her
+daughter's, 'cause the baby's sick.  Pap took her, and maybe he'll stay
+all night, if it rains, an' he says it's going to for sure.  And I know
+what to get for supper, and it's corn puddin' and jam!"
+
+At last they had found the silencing note for Timmy.  "'Ikes jam!" he
+announced.  Then, apparently warming towards Rosamund, he encircled her
+knees with his arms.  "'Ikes you, too!" he declared.  '"Ikes ev'rybody!"
+
+Rosamund was glad to laugh, to carry him, with swings and bounces and
+kisses stolen from the tangle of his curls, into the house, glad to
+make a 'party' out of the simple supper and a ceremony out of the
+lighting of Mother Cary's nightly beacon, glad to hold him up to the
+window to see the trees bend under the wind that came with Father
+Cary's predicted rain, and glad to hold his little warm body to her
+while she undressed him, and to hear him repeat after her, in unison
+with Yetta, the prayer that she was, somewhat shyly, teaching them.
+She was glad when Yetta claimed the privilege of her fifteen years to
+sit up a while longer; glad of anything that might postpone the moments
+when she should be alone with her own thoughts.
+
+The storm was increasing; each gust of wind shrieked louder than the
+last, sending the rain against the little house in sheets that broke
+with a sound as of waves on a shore.  Rosamund, answering Yetta's
+demand for a story, regaled her with the tale of Rip Van Winkle, and
+then, somewhat unwisely, with the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, so that when
+the girl's bed-time could no longer be put off she pleaded to stay
+downstairs with Timmy and herself.
+
+But at last Rosamund must be alone with herself and the storm.  At
+first she could not think of Eleanor's message, and what it might mean
+to her.  She had forgotten that the summer was almost over, forgotten
+that Eleanor's inevitable departure must leave her alone, as far as old
+friends were concerned, in the mountains.  She had even forgotten that
+she herself must return; and now she had to remember that Cecilia's
+clamor might begin again with any letter.  The summer was over.  It had
+warmed into growth some part of her which had laid dormant before; but,
+after this afternoon, she was in no mood to dwell upon that.  She
+thought again of Eleanor, of her parting with the boy.  There must, of
+course, be something provided for the poor little waif, and for Yetta;
+that would be easy enough; she had only to write a check or two.  Yet,
+in spite of the obviousness of that way, something else, quite
+different, seemed to be struggling to formulate itself in her mind; for
+once the writing of a check did not appear to be an adequate solution.
+
+But the sum of it all, for her, seemed to be that she was just where
+she had left her old self, two months before.  The old restlessness,
+the old discontent, swept back upon her with accumulated force, only
+increased by her life here.  The summer had taught her something, given
+her something; how much she was unwilling to admit.
+
+Suddenly there came back to her the sound of Ogilvie's voice, when he
+had called her by name, out of his shame and pain; and with the memory
+there came the reality of his voice, only now it was muffled by the
+storm, and by the sound of his knocking on the door.
+
+Startled though she was at its coming in apparent answer to her
+thoughts, she sprang to the door and opened it.  Then, in a quick heat
+of shame, she realized that he was far from calling upon her.
+
+He stood under the overhang of the upper story, water dripping from him
+onto the brick paving, hatless as usual, tossing the rain from his
+eyes.  He was exceedingly far from being a beautiful figure as he stood
+there; rather, he seemed a creature of the storm, wind-swept,
+rain-soaked, forceful, insistent.
+
+"Mother Cary!" he demanded almost before Rosamund had opened the door.
+"Mother Cary!  Where is she?"
+
+Rosamund drew back, as if repelled from the dripping figure.
+Unconsciously she had, expected something else.
+
+"Mother Cary is not here," she said, coldly.
+
+"Not here?" he cried.  Then, like a man who finds himself suddenly
+stopped, repeating, "Not here?  To-night?"
+
+"She went to her daughter's, before the storm broke.  The baby is sick."
+
+"Then Father Cary--I must have someone!"
+
+"He is with her," said Rosamund, and made as though she would close the
+door, although, if truth be told, no power on earth would have made her
+do so.  But Ogilvie stepped, still dripping, across the threshold,
+while she stood before him in her dress of thin blue, silhouetted
+against the lamp-light.
+
+For a moment they faced each other, again, as earlier on that day,
+their natures and all the difference in their training and traditions
+ranged in opposing forces.
+
+The appeal of her beauty, the memory of their hours together, swept
+over him like the breath of a dream; but the doctor in him was
+uppermost.
+
+"It's the Allen woman," he said.  "That boy, six years old, came all
+the way to my house to tell me.  Jim Allen is in the woods, and there's
+no telling how long she's been that way.  The baby is starving; and if
+I don't operate now she will die, and the baby, too."
+
+The words had poured out.  He barely paused, hesitated only to give her
+a glance more piercing.  Yet when he spoke again he voiced a new
+insistence.
+
+"I have _got_ to have help.  Get on your things," he commanded.
+
+"I?" she gasped.
+
+"Yes, you!  And quickly.  I have no time to lose."
+
+The haste of his words only made her own seem slower.  "Then you will
+certainly have to go for someone else.  You are losing time waiting for
+me."
+
+He came a step or two closer.  "You have got to come," he said,
+clearly, speaking his words very distinctly, as if trying to make
+himself understood beyond question.  "There is no time to go for
+someone else.  And I have got to operate on that woman at once, _at
+once_, or she will die."  As Rosamund still stood, head up, eyes upon
+him coldly, he repeated: "Don't you understand?  The woman will die,
+and then the baby will starve...."
+
+Her eyes seemed to darken; Cecilia would have recognized the sign of
+wrath.  "Certainly I understand," she said.  "But you must see that it
+is perfectly impossible for me--_me_--to help you!  I don't know what
+you can be thinking of!"
+
+"Impossible?  I say you have got to help me!  I can't wait for anyone
+else!"
+
+"I?  Help you--help you--operate--cut--oh!"
+
+She shrank farther back towards the table.  "Oh, I think you are
+perfectly brutal!"
+
+He watched her in silence for a moment, a silence that burned, so
+charged with meaning was it.  Then he said,
+
+"I am asking you to help me save a woman's life!"
+
+"It would kill _me_ to see it!"
+
+He threw his hand out towards her.  "Then live!" he cried.  "Live on,
+and shield your pretty eyes from the beautiful works of the Almighty,
+draw your dainty skirts aside from the contamination of suffering
+humanity, cover your ears against the cries of those little children
+whose mother is dying.  Dance with your friends, laugh your life away;
+live for yourself--yourself!  My God!  What kind of a thing are you?
+Do you call yourself a woman?"
+
+He did not wait to see what effect his words would have upon her.  He
+rushed across the door sill, and the door, which he drew behind him,
+was slammed by the wind as from the force of a blow.
+
+For a moment she stood watching the door, lips parted, eyes opened wide
+in horror.  It seemed as if the blood pulsing in her throat would choke
+her; or was it the wild hammering of her heart?
+
+She looked around Mother Cary's little room as if she had never seen it
+before.  Was the whole world different, or was it only herself?  Was
+she still dreaming, or was she awake?  Had he come at all, had he
+called her, had he--had he thrown his bitter scorn at her----?
+
+Was that the wind?  Her hand rose from her heart to her white cheek.
+Was that the voice of the storm, or the voice of children,
+children--calling--crying for----
+
+From her frozen horror she sprang to life.  She ran to the room where
+Tim and Yetta were.  Yetta was sitting up in bed, wide-eyed.
+
+"What went off?" she demanded, excitedly.
+
+Rosamund was already getting into her rain-coat.  "Doctor Ogilvie has
+been here, Yetta, and I have got to help him.  Mrs. Allen is sick, and
+I have got to go."
+
+Yetta interrupted.  "Was that him slammed the door?  Gee!  He must a
+been mad about somethin'!"
+
+But Rosamund would not be interrupted.  "Hush, Yetta!  Listen to me!  I
+have got to go to Mrs. Allen's.  Do you hear?"
+
+"My land!  If you was to meet one o' the goberlins or one o' them
+fellers with their heads under their arms, Miss Rose, you'd drop down
+dead with fright!"
+
+Rosamond remembered the absurdity of it afterwards, but there was no
+time to laugh.  "Yetta!  Oh, hush!  Listen to me!  You will not be
+afraid, here with Timmy, will you?"
+
+"Land!  No!  I ain't afraid of anything when a door's between me an'
+it!"
+
+"Father Cary will be up the mountain early!"  She turned in the door of
+the bed-room to look back at the two her care had made comfortable;
+then she closed it, and went out of the other door into the storm.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+She never forgot that night.  When the door of Mother Cary's house
+closed behind her, and she faced the wind and blinding rain, she awoke.
+That was the way she always thought of it--as an awakening.
+
+The Allen house lay beyond Father Cary's pasture; she knew the way by
+day--down through the garden, then through the woods to the rock-ribbed
+clearing where the cattle were, then up, into woods again; but in the
+dark it was for her but a wild, instinctive rush, a stumbling over
+rock-broken ground, a splashing through pools of water; on through the
+darkness, on from one darkness to another, turning from time to time to
+look back at Mother Cary's light as a guide to direction.  Yet on she
+flew, impelled by a conquering fear that drove out all lesser fears,
+over rough places, through woods, up the ascent of hills, running as
+much of the way as she could, bending against the wind that seemed
+trying to force her back, praying that she might find the way, praying
+that she might be in time.
+
+At last, though she could never tell how she had come to it, a light
+gleamed faintly through the dark and the rain.  At last--the Allen
+house!  She tumbled to the door, paused a moment for breath, and opened
+it.
+
+It was the usual one-room cabin of the mountaineer; there were strange,
+shelf-like beds against the farthest wall, and in a corner a wooden
+bedstead.  It was from there that John Ogilvie looked up as she opened
+the door.
+
+"Quick!  That largest bottle--saturate something--anything--and hold it
+over her face!"
+
+She worked with him, obeying blindly, while he struggled through the
+night for a woman's life, while the poor hungry baby awoke at intervals
+to wail its complaint from the other bed, while the storm shook the
+house and the rain swept down unceasingly.  Once he bade her get more
+light.  There were no more lamps; she knelt down on the hearth to blow
+into the flame the scraps she had gathered up in her bare hands from
+the wood-box; those lighted, and lacking more, somehow she broke the
+box itself--a task ordinarily as far beyond her strength as her
+imagination.  It was by the light of that blaze that he finished his
+work, leaving Rosamund free to do what she could for the baby.
+
+But, when at last there was time for speech, neither found anything to
+say.  He remembered too well the brutal words he had thrown at her a
+few hours before; he could not but fear that her silence meant that
+she, too, was recalling them.  He saw her there beside the hearth, the
+baby on her knees; but he saw her also in the doorway, her hair
+wind-blown and wet, and her eyes wide with fear and dread,
+determination and hope.  He could have grovelled at her feet, had not
+her silence held him back; but speak he could not; great emotion was
+always to leave him inarticulate.
+
+But as for Rosamund, she was unaware of his silence or her own.  She
+was like a woman after her travail, who is content to lie in silence,
+because the purpose of the world has been revealed to her.  Life--that
+was it--to further life, to prolong it, to minister to it!  How futile
+was all else!  How valueless were the things she had been taught to
+value most!  Her shielded ignorance, her--her refinement--of what use
+were they, when they could not face such an emergency as last night's?
+Her money, that could have bought a hospital--what had it bought last
+night, when only the service of her own two hands could help to save a
+woman's life?  The pursuits of her kind--she smiled, remembering
+Ogilvie's orderly haste, as unerringly he cut, and tied and sewed,
+while she as unfalteringly watched him, even assisted.  No!  For her
+there was nothing to say; she knew now what life was for.  It was not
+the empty, useless existence she had known.  It had a deeper meaning, a
+purpose worthier its Maker.  It was wonderful beyond words.  She had
+nothing to say.
+
+Neither of them was aware that the dawn had come, until someone knocked
+on the door.  Then Ogilvie opened it to Father Cary, and to the
+grayness of a still driving rain.
+
+The stalwart old man stepped inside and looked about the cabin, at the
+quietly breathing woman on the bed, at Ogilvie, at Rosamund beside the
+fire trying to persuade the baby to take something warm from a spoon.
+
+"So!" he said.  "And where's Jim Allen?"
+
+Ogilvie threw up both his hands, hopelessly.  "Where he always is--back
+in the woods at one of the stills, dead drunk, like as not."
+
+"More'n likely," Father Cary acquiesced.  Then, nodding towards the
+bed, he asked, "What's the matter with _her_?"
+
+"Nothing now.  She would have been dead, though, if I had operated half
+an hour later.  Lord knows how long she's been lying there.  The baby's
+nearly dead, too--half-starved and half-poisoned by his mother's
+illness."
+
+"How'd you happen to come?" the old man asked.
+
+"The oldest boy came for me--all the way over to the Summit, and he's
+not six.  He's at my house in bed now."
+
+Then Father Cary crossed the room, and stood beside Rosamund, looking
+down at her.  She met his look with a quiet smile.
+
+"New work for you, ain't it?" he asked.  "Ma Cary'll be real proud o'
+ye!"
+
+And answering the question in her eyes, he went on, "Oh, she'll be home
+again in time to get dinner.  Wasn't nothin' the matter with the baby;
+but Nancy's that nervous, an' so's Ma Cary."  He chuckled.  "I reckon
+it takes some experience and a right smart o' ca'm to be a real
+successful granny."
+
+The doctor was becoming impatient.  "Will you stay here with Miss
+Randall, Cary?  I must get someone to come; she"--nodding towards the
+bed--"will need watching until we can find Allen."
+
+So for an hour or so Pa Cary sat opposite Rosamund or busied himself
+preparing for breakfast the little food to be found in the house.  The
+other children awoke, tumbling down backwards from the high box-bed,
+looking across at their mother with scared faces, and distrustfully at
+Rosamund.
+
+At last Ogilvie returned, bringing Grace Tobet with him, and Rosamund
+was free to go home with Father Cary.
+
+But there must first be the inevitable moment when she and Ogilvie
+should stand face to face.  It happened simply enough.  Grace had taken
+Rosamund's place beside the fire, replenished now through Father Cary's
+efforts in the outer shed; the old man had gone out for a last armful
+of wood, and Rosamund was about to take down her coat from its nail on
+the door.
+
+Then, somehow, Ogilvie was standing before her.  He looked at her with
+trembling lips; he did not dare to trust himself to speak.  He could
+only hold out his hands.
+
+She turned her tired face up to him, looking, searchingly, it seemed,
+into his eyes.  Then, smiling, she laid her hands for the breath of a
+moment in his, and with a little gasp reached for her coat and ran out
+to join Father Cary.
+
+She was glad that Eleanor's departure, and the rain, kept them apart
+for a few days after that.  She dreaded the restraint that she thought
+they both must feel when they should meet; but, when the meeting came
+at last, there was no embarrassment at all.
+
+Father Cary had left her at the Summit and she meant to walk back to
+the house on the mountain, to make the most of the first clear day
+after the rain.  There was a little brown house, set on the brow of the
+hill overlooking the valley, almost opposite the mountain whence Mother
+Cary's light shone every night.  Rosamund had often noticed the little
+place, and to-day, at the store, she had heard the men talking about
+it.  The man who owned it had come from the city a year or so before,
+with his wife, to be near Doctor Ogilvie.  They were young, and the
+young do not see very far ahead.  It had seemed to them in their
+distress that they would have to stay there forever; they had done many
+things to the little house, and put into it many of the comforts they
+had been used to.  Now the man was well, and they were going back to
+the city.
+
+"Want to sell out," the postmaster had told her.  "Humph!  Wouldn't
+mind sellin' out myself!  Like to know who's going to buy prop'ty up
+here, this time o' year!"
+
+So, as she approached the little house on her way home, Rosamund was
+busily thinking about it.  Perhaps, subconsciously, the idea had been a
+long time growing in her mind; but when she turned the last bend in the
+road that hid the house from her view, a plan seemed to burst upon her
+with all the novelty of a revelation.  She stood still, looking first
+at the house, then across the valley towards the place which had
+sheltered her all summer.  She was not aware that a vehicle drawn by a
+familiar white horse was just turning out of a wood-road into the
+highway, scarcely ten yards behind her.
+
+But Ogilvie, in the sudden gladness of thus unexpectedly coming upon
+her, called out.
+
+"Oh, good luck!  Let me give you a lift, won't you?"
+
+The embarrassment that she had been dreading was not there!  They were
+as simply glad to see each other as two children; laughing, she took
+the place beside him in the buggy.
+
+He had never looked more cheerful.  "So I caught you staring into the
+Marvens' windows!" he accused her.
+
+She laughed again.  "I am tempted to buy that little house," she told
+him.
+
+"Why don't you?" he asked, lightly.  "And go there to live, and take
+Timmy and Yetta with you!"  He smiled down at her, indulgently, as at
+the fancies of a child.
+
+"That was just precisely what I was thinking of doing," she replied.
+"We could be perfectly comfortable there during the winter.  I don't
+want to go back to town one bit!"
+
+"So you could," he agreed, still in his bantering tone.  "And I
+wouldn't stop with Tim and Yetta.  I'd take in a few more.  You might
+borrow some little Allens, or get someone to lend you an orphan asylum."
+
+Rosamund put her head back and laughed aloud, merrily.  "But I am
+perfectly in earnest!" she cried; and was, from that moment.
+
+But if the doctor refused to take the idea seriously, it was quite
+otherwise with Mother Cary.  When Rosamund disclosed to her the
+half-formed plan--she had come to discuss nearly everything with that
+fount of human wisdom--the dear soul did not seem surprised at all, but
+at once made a thoroughly feminine mental leap into the very middle of
+arrangements.
+
+"Why, of course, dearie, it will be just splendid!  And you won't need
+so very many furnishin's.  There's some cheers up in our loft you might
+take, and you can have things up from the city.  Yetta's learned a good
+deal this summer.  I can bake for you for a while, till the child gets
+more used to the work, and I reckon you can manage the rest of it
+betwixt you."
+
+"Do you suppose," Rosamund asked, "that Grace Tobet would come, too?"
+
+Mother Cary sat down in her little low rocking chair, and laid her
+crutch on the brick floor of the front walk, always a sign of her
+settling down for a real talk.  Things had been going worse and worse
+with the Tobets; Rosamund and Yetta went down almost daily, but beyond
+their friendly visits there seemed little they could do.  The
+Government's suspicions were centering on Joe, the big, born leader of
+rough elements, and on his band of four or five other men, who would
+follow him to death or worse.  Jim Allen was one; but now, repentant
+and sobered by the baby's death, he was at home nursing his wife.
+Grace had sped through the woods in the night to warn Joe and his
+followers more than once; yet even to Ogilvie she denied any knowledge
+of Joe's business.
+
+"It's squirrels he's after," she said, "and sometimes drink; all this
+talk of moonshine's jest foolishness.  I'd know it ef 'twas so.  It
+ain't so!"
+
+"Well, Mrs. Tobet," the doctor replied, "your squirrel stew would not
+be to my liking!  Better keep the lid on the pot while it's cooking!"
+
+He saw too many evidences of the moonshine's work to believe her; but
+he had seen Joe Tobet come home, and he honored Grace, too familiar
+with human nature to marvel at her faithfulness.  Mother Cary alone
+knew all that Grace Tobet knew; all secrets were safe in her kind old
+heart, and even from Pap she hid this one, for Father Cary was not one
+of those who hold councils of compromise with the Evil One.  Therefore,
+when Rosamund suggested Grace Tobet, Mother Cary sat down to think it
+out.
+
+After a few minutes' silent pondering, she said, "Honey, I've never
+been one to advise the partin' of husband and wife!  Howsomever, if
+there's any good left in Joe Tobet, it may be the surest way o'
+bringin' him back to straight ways o' livin', ef we can coax Grace to
+leave him for a while."
+
+"I'm afraid I can't give a thought to Joe's salvation," Rosamund
+declared.  "But Grace--oh, she's too fine to be left there!  I should
+like to give her one winter of comfort!"
+
+"Well, you haven't got a holt of her yet," Mother Cary reminded her,
+"an' it wouldn't be but half comfort for her, the outside half,
+anyways, away from her man.  But I can't see what anybody could do
+better than to keep little Tim and Yetta up here out o' harm's way, and
+maybe save Grace Tobet an' Joe, too.  Land's sake, dearie, you must be
+quite well off!"
+
+It seemed to come to Mother Cary suddenly, and was the first spark of
+curiosity Rosamund had ever known her to show.  Until now her wisdom
+had seemed all-embracing; but that a young woman, that Rosamund, who
+had lived so quietly in her house all summer, could carry out a
+suddenly formed plan of buying a house and sheltering three
+people--this was evidently quite outside of her experience.  She looked
+up with unwonted surprise in her face.  Rosamund bent and kissed the
+wrinkled pink cheek.
+
+"Dear, dear Mother Cary," she said, "I am so well off that I could
+probably buy every house at the Summit, and build as many more!  I am
+so well off that I have never in all my life, until this summer, had a
+chance to find out how well off I am!  I am so well off that I did not
+know how poor I have been, nor how much people can need the wretched
+mere money, nor how very, very little it can really do!  I have only
+begun to find out what life is made of, and so I'm not well off at all!"
+
+Tears came into her eyes as she spoke, and she turned her head away;
+but Mother Cary's hand was stretched towards her, instantly.  Presently
+she said, in the low tone which was the tenderest and sweetest of all:
+
+"Dearie child, when the young folks come an' tell me things like you're
+tellin' me now, I reckon there ain't anybody in the world as well off
+as me!  An' I'll tell you jest what it is makes you do it--it's because
+I'm so happy!  An' I'll tell you jest what makes me so happy.  I let
+Pap take keer o' me, an' I try to take keer o' him an' jest as many
+other folks as I can!  That's the whole of it!"  After a pause she
+added, "You're goin' to do jest the same as me, both in keering for
+someone, an' in bein' took keer of!"
+
+Rosamund's eyes opened wide; she paled a little and pressed her hand
+against her trembling lips.  "I don't know," she whispered.  "I'm
+afraid!  Oh, I'm afraid!"
+
+Mother Cary patted the hand she held, and knew too much to speak.
+Their thoughts, in the silence, wandered far; came back and dwelt upon
+the things that were, the things to be; there is no way of knowing
+whether they went hand in hand, but after a while Mother Cary said:
+
+"Dearie, I wouldn't tell him, if I was you, about--about all you have,
+the money an'--you know!--I wouldn't tell the doctor yet a while!"
+
+Rosamund drew her breath sharply, and her face flamed; she was too
+startled to answer, but in a moment she left her place on the bench and
+knelt beside the old woman, hiding her face on the knees where so many
+had found comfort.  Mother Cary smoothed her hair, and after a while
+began to talk, almost as if to herself.
+
+"There's a friend o' mine sometimes spends her summers up around here;
+she's married to a eye doctor--that's how come Yetta got sent up here
+to me.  Her husband knew Doctor Ogilvie down in the city.  She told me
+there never was one they thought more of, down there; they said he
+found out more about nerves than anybody else in the world, and he used
+to work day and night and in between times, trying to discover more.
+They said there never was such a one with little child'en; he could
+almost make 'em over new, seemed like.  They said he never cared
+whether folks could pay him or not for what he did--all he cared for
+was the curin' of 'em.  I can well believe it, too, for many's the time
+I see him almost starved without knowin' what's the matter with him,
+and he ain't a mite particler about his clo'es.  Well, he worked an' he
+worked; and one day my friend's husband, that was one o' his friends,
+went into his little room where he kept his bottles and things, and
+found him layin' on the floor.  They thought he surely would die, but
+praise the Lord, that wasn't to be; only, he had to give up his work
+down in the big horspital.  I often think on what that must 'a' been to
+him.  I reckon it must 'a' been worse than it would be for Pap to give
+up a raisin' them white hogs o' his he's so proud of.  Anyway, he come
+up here, an' he got well!  And now he says he hasn't got time to go
+back there again--there's too much for him to do up here all the time.
+So he jest rides around the country with that Rosy horse.  Somebody
+asked him once why he didn't buy an automobile.  He said for one thing
+he hadn't the money for it; and for another, he needed White Rosy to
+remind him where he was going!"
+
+Mother Cary stopped to laugh; Rosamund raised her head, with an
+answering smile that was half tears.
+
+"Land sakes," Mother Cary went on, "I do believe if it wasn't for Rosy
+he'd sometimes forget to come home!  When they get to one o' the houses
+where he visits, Rosy stops and turns her head around; ef he don't say
+anything to her, there she stands; but if he tells her he don't have to
+get out there that day, Rosy jogs along to the next place!  I'm real
+fond o' humans, but sometimes I do wish't they all knew as much as the
+doctor's Rosy!"
+
+This time Rosamund joined in the laugh.  But the old woman had more to
+tell.  "Time was when I might 'a' wondered how come he stays on here,
+him bein' the great doctor he is; but I'm so old now that I know too
+much to wonder about anything any more!  There's folks in this world
+that never can find any work to do, and there's folks that makes work
+for themselves, and then again there's folks that are so busy with the
+work right at hand that they never get time to find out whether they're
+workin' or not.  That's Doctor Ogilvie's kind.  He's so busy workin' up
+here in the mountings, that he never stops to think about whether he is
+doing the work he likes best or not; it's just work he has to do,
+because it's here to be done, and that's all there is to it for him.
+He works so hard at it, inside his own head, that he forgets most
+everything else.  Land, I remember the time he sat up with me all night
+long, workin' over Milly Grate's baby that had the membranious
+croup--dipthery, he called it.  Come mornin', an' he told Milly the
+baby'd get well, he suddenly went out and sat right down on the
+doorstep; come to find out, he'd brought two babies into the world the
+day before and driven twenty-two miles and walked about a dozen--and
+forgotten to take a bite to eat!  Another time, somebody sent a little
+boy over the mounting for him in a hurry; he was at a house where a man
+had broke his leg, and White Rosy was waitin' for him at the gate; but
+when he heard how bad off the little girl was he'd been sent for,
+didn't he jest set out and run all the way there, forgettin' that there
+was such a thing as a wagon to ride in, and White Rosy still a waitin'!
+
+"And he boards with the Widder Speers, where it ain't likely she can
+make him very comfortable, she bein' well past eighty; but he found out
+soon after he come up here that she would have to be moved to--the
+place where nobody likes to go!--she not having any support; so he
+boards there, an' she doesn't have to leave her home, that her husband
+built for her when they was married, and where her only son died.  You
+might hunt the world over, honey-bird, without findin' any better man
+than Doctor Ogilvie!  But, somehow or other, ef I was you, I wouldn't
+let on to him that I had as much money as you say you have.  Money's a
+dreadful stumblin'-block to some people!  And you never can tell which
+way men folks'll jump!"
+
+It had been long since Rosamund, trained in self-control as she had
+been, was so keenly aware of intense embarrassment.  Her first impulse
+was to feel affront at Mother Cary's taking so much for granted in her
+relations with the doctor; but no one could really be angry with Mother
+Cary.  She was abashed that the old woman had divined more than she
+herself had been aware of; and then there arose the doubt that she had
+so often felt of the doctor's personal interest in herself or her
+affairs.  She yielded to the maiden's inevitable longing for
+reassurance.
+
+"What makes you think," she whispered, her cheek against Mother Cary's
+hand, "what makes you think that he--would be--interested?"
+
+"Darlin'!" Mother Cary cried, "John Ogilvie thinks a heap o' you--but
+he ain't got hardly a suspicion of it yet--any more than you know how
+much you're goin' to care for him!"
+
+Then, with the usual coincidence, the object of their talk came into
+view, driving White Rosy toward the little green gate, Yetta on one
+side of him and Tim on the other; they waved to the two in front of the
+house, but Rosamund sprang to her feet and fled indoors.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+Rosamund awoke the next morning with her mind joyously full of her new
+plans; but it was little Tim who suggested that which crowned them.
+Tim was always the first member of the household, after Father Cary, to
+go out of doors in the mornings; to-day he brought back a tight handful
+of stemless blossoms to present to Rosamund.  Dewy and rosy-cheeked, he
+had never before appeared as much the baby as on this morning, standing
+in front of her with his feet apart, holding up his floral offering.
+
+"It was all ve pretty flowers 'at was awake," he announced.  "Here--I
+'ikes you!"
+
+"Land!  I hope he ain't been in my geraniums!" said Mother Cary, from
+the stove; but Rosamund grasped the chubby hand, with its blossoms, and
+kissed it.
+
+"They are beautiful, Tim!  I 'ike you, too!  And Tim, how would you
+like to live with me all the time?"
+
+He stared at her for a moment.  "Oh!  O-o-oh!  Is you gonin' to 'dopt
+me?"
+
+Mother Cary, with an exclamation, turned quickly to watch the two;
+Rosamund met her eyes over the boy's head.  Her plan was coming to
+birth.
+
+"Do you want me to, Tim?" she asked.
+
+The child's lips began to quiver.  Then he dumped himself down upon the
+floor, and howled.  "Want my White Lady!" he cried.  "Want to 'dopt my
+White Lady!"
+
+Swiftly he was lifted in Rosamund's arms.  "Good for you, Tim!  Good
+for you, old man!  I'm glad you know your own mind!" she cried.
+
+She gathered him up, threw herself into a big rocking chair, set him
+astride on her knees and rocked him wildly back and forth, down until
+his curls nearly touched the floor, then up again, up in a bubble of
+laughter and kisses, Timmy forgetting his tears to shout with glee,
+down and up again, down and up, the child screaming with joy.  Father
+Cary and Yetta coming in from the barn to breakfast, stood in the
+doorway laughing, Yetta wondering a little at Miss Rose's unwonted
+exuberance.  Mother Cary had already taken her place at the table, and
+was laughing in sympathy with them.
+
+When Rosamund stopped, breathless, with aching arms, Tim still demanded
+"More!  More! do it 'den!"
+
+"Land's sakes, honey-bird, what ails ye?" Mother Cary cried.  "I never
+suspected you _could_ be so lively!"
+
+For reply Rosamund looked at Yetta.  "When Tim adopts the 'White Lady,'
+and I go to live with them, will you come, too, Yetta?" she asked.
+
+"Is that a conundrum?  I ain't much good at riddles!" Yetta declared.
+
+Rosamund laughed; she would have laughed at anything to-day.  "Not a
+riddle--an answer, Yetta!  You and Timmy, Mrs. Reeves and I, are all
+going to live together in the brown house at the Summit!  What do you
+think of that?"
+
+"Sho', now!  That's the very ticket!" said Mother Cary.  "How come you
+didn't think o' Mis' Reeves yesterday, lamb?  But--ain't she held by
+that Mis' Hetherbee?"
+
+"Yes, she is; but I think we can persuade Mrs. Hetherbee to let her
+come."
+
+"Gee!  I'd be glad to get away from that old one, if 'twas me!" said
+Yetta, in an aside which the others thought best to ignore.
+
+"Pap," said Mother Cary, "if so be you'll put the harness on Ben, Miss
+Rose and me'll drive over an' begin cleanin' the house this mornin'!"
+
+The old man put down his knife and fork, looked from his wife to Miss
+Randall, and back again.  "It do beat all how you women-folks jump into
+the middle o' things the minute you get started," he said.  "The house
+ain't even empty yet!"
+
+"Land, I forgot all about them Marvens," said Mother Cary.  "No matter!
+It gives us all the more time to get good an' ready, honey-bird!"
+
+Rosamund very soon began to realize that she needed time.  First of
+all, she sent for her man of business, an excellent person who lacked
+imagination, and was later found to disapprove of purchases of little
+brown houses or of anything else that could never bring interest or
+increase in value.  But his disapproval of that investment was as
+nothing to the objections he made to another.  It was not until
+Rosamund reminded him that her twenty-fifth birthday had come and gone,
+releasing the Randall property from all trust and making it now her
+own, and declared that if he refused to obey her directions she would
+be obliged to ask someone else to look after her interests, that he
+reluctantly consented to it.
+
+Then there was the delicate matter of bringing Eleanor to consent to
+her plans.
+
+
+DARLING ELEANOR [she wrote]: I have decided that Timmy must be adopted.
+I make the announcement first of all, because I know that if I did not
+mention him at once, you would skip all the first part of my letter
+until you found his name, and only read on from there.  And I have a
+proposition which needs to be presented right end foremost.  So--Tim
+_must_ be adopted.  He has his heart set upon it; and he has turned out
+to be such a darling little boy.  He cannot be sent back to the
+Charities, to be looked over and refused by people who would not
+appreciate him, anyway.  Doctor Ogilvie says that he must stay here
+another year, if he is to be made entirely well; but unless he has the
+best of care after that, and is made happy, he will not live to be the
+good and useful man we should like to see him.  Doctor Ogilvie is a
+great believer in the curative powers of happiness; and you know he is
+a very good doctor.  Well--I have already made over to Tim some money,
+to be held in trust for him until he is twenty-five.  The entire
+interest is to be given, until said time, to the adopted parent of said
+Tim, according to said agreement, for the use and maintenance of said
+parent and said Tim, the entire amount to be paid over to him
+twenty-one years after the execution of the deed of trust.  I do hope
+you are properly impressed by that legal phraseology, Eleanor darling.
+I put in all the 'saids' I could, just as the lawyers do.  I want you
+to see what a fine and wonderful thing it is for Timmy, Timmy the waif,
+to be the subject of anything so impressive; and the sum of money I
+have given him will provide simple comfort for him and his
+parent-by-adoption; only, of course, I must be sure that his parent is
+a person whom I can trust to spend it as it should be spent, and so to
+bring up the boy that he will be worthy of his--let's call it his
+inheritance--when he finally receives it.  So it has all been done
+subject to one condition.  Unless that condition should be fulfilled,
+the child will have to go back to the Charities; I had a great
+discussion about it all with Mr. Leeds, my lawyer; and he only
+consented to draw up the paper subject to that condition.  It is
+that--oh, Eleanor, don't say 'no'!--it is that you will adopt little
+Tim, let him fill that empty place in your heart, teach him to be a
+good man, and--I shall spoil it if I write another word, dear White
+Lady, sweet White Lady, White Lady that Timmy loves!  See this blur,
+Eleanor--it is where he has pressed a kiss, to send to his White Lady.
+R.
+
+
+To this Eleanor replied, "I have your letter.  I must think."  Rosamund
+tried to be satisfied with that for a while; but as the days passed and
+Eleanor wrote nothing more, and as Cecilia must be persuaded and her
+trustees interviewed, she sent her sister a night letter, begging her
+to join her in New York immediately.  She told Ogilvie and the others
+that she was going to buy furniture for the house, which was true
+enough.
+
+There was that in the interview with the lawyers that put Cecilia into
+a most complaisant state of mind; when she thought of Rosamund's having
+put the greater part of the Randall income at her disposal she could
+not find it in her heart to show disapproval of anything else that
+Rosamund might choose to do.  The only protest she made was at the gift
+to the little waif.
+
+"Pure Quixotism, my dear, never gains you a thing.  It is the most
+utter madness I ever heard of."
+
+"Well, it will gain Timmy something, and Eleanor something; and you
+know very well, Cecilia, that I shall never miss it."
+
+"We won't discuss it," Cecilia said, "but I am sure that not even
+Colonel Randall would have done anything so wildly impulsive."
+
+Rosamund could find very little to say to that; she knew well enough
+that nothing but her faith in Eleanor could make it seem anything but a
+hazardous experiment.  Mother Cary had seen nothing but good in the
+plan, but here in New York idealism seemed out of place; what had
+appeared fine there looked foolish here.  She was beginning to doubt
+the excellence of her plan, when word came from Eleanor that Mrs.
+Hetherbee was back in town.  Rosamund called at once, presenting
+Cecilia's cards with her own, as the first move in the little social
+campaign that she foresaw.  Eleanor, in her white gown, looked
+strangely out of place in Mrs. Hetherbee's florid apartment that
+overlooked the Hudson, and had every splendor known to apartments, even
+to an up-and-down-stairs of its own.
+
+Eleanor kissed her, then held her off for a long look.
+
+"Rose, Rose!  How can you tempt me so?" she cried.  "It is only a
+scheme for giving the money to me!"
+
+"Eleanor, tell me the truth.  Did you and Tim fall in love with each
+other at first sight, or not?"
+
+"Ah!  Little Tim!"
+
+"Precisely!  Little Tim!  Would you deprive him of such an opportunity
+as this?"
+
+"Oh, you would never take the money away from him, Rose--now?"
+
+"But it is not his, yet!  It never can be, unless you will take him for
+your son--for your own little boy, Eleanor!  Think of it!"
+
+"I do think of it!  I haven't thought of anything else."
+
+"Except, my dear, that you, too, will benefit by the plan!  So you are
+trying to refuse.  Don't be selfish, Eleanor!"
+
+"Selfish?  To deny myself what I want most in the world?"
+
+"You and Tim seem to know your own minds!  When I asked him if _I_
+should adopt him, he plumped down on the floor and yelled for his White
+Lady."
+
+"Rose!  Don't make it so hard!"
+
+"It is you who are making it hard!  I have grown very fond of Timmy,
+and I should hate, just hate to see him go back to the Charities.
+Think of the poor mite being scrubbed up and dressed in a clean striped
+gingham, and brought out to be inspected by possible adopters!  Think
+how he will feel when they say, 'Oh, I don't think we want a little boy
+with hip disease!' or 'Haven't you any--er--prettier children?'
+
+"Oh, Rose!"  Eleanor put her hands over her eyes, while Rosamund drew
+her down to one of Mrs. Hetherbee's Louis Quinze settees.
+
+"Eleanor," she said, seriously, "let us admit, if you want to, that I
+am giving the money to you.  Of course it will be practically your own
+until you have had Tim twenty-one years.  I have such faith in what you
+will do with him that I give the whole amount to Tim, outright, after
+then.  I have such faith in the son he will be to you, that I am
+willing to let him have the joy of taking care of his mother after that
+time.  Do you suppose I would give him money, if he were going to a
+stranger?  Cecilia calls me Quixotic, but I assure you I am not as far
+gone as all that." Eleanor was weakening.  "It is a great deal of
+money, Rosamund," she said.
+
+"Oh, if that's all that's troubling you!  It does not seem much to me.
+Besides, I owe the world something!"
+
+"Ah!"  Eleanor put her hand to the girl's cheek, turning her face until
+she could look into her eyes.  "Rose, what else has the summer taught
+you?"
+
+Rosamund's eyes widened a little.  "We have no time to talk of that now
+while Timmy is waiting for his mother!"
+
+"His mother!  Oh, how you tempt me, Rose!"
+
+"Listen, Eleanor!  I have bought that little house at the Summit that
+the Marvens lived in.  Mr. Marven is cured, and they have gone back to
+the city.  I am going to live in it this winter, with you and Tim and
+Yetta; I have already sent down to Augusta for my old Mammy Susan and
+her husband, Matt, to meet me there two weeks from now.  The Charities
+will not let you or me or anyone else adopt Timmy without a year's
+probation first.  Come with me for this winter, and see how we all feel
+about it when the year is out.  Come as my housekeeper.  Put away your
+selfish pride, White Lady--and let your salary be what Timmy's interest
+would be if you had already adopted him.  A year will help us all to
+wisdom perhaps."
+
+Eleanor, with head bent, and hands clasped in her lap, thought for a
+long moment.
+
+"I am asking you to take too much responsibility upon yourself, I
+suppose!" Rosamund said at last, slyly watching her friend.  Eleanor
+turned at once, swift to deny.
+
+"How can you insinuate such a thing!  Are they open, at the Charities
+building, in the afternoon?"
+
+Rosamund threw her arms about the White Lady's neck in a
+half-strangling embrace.  "You darling!  Yes, we will go there at once!
+I told them we'd be there this afternoon!"
+
+"Rose!" Eleanor cried.  "How could you?"
+
+"Oh, I knew you could never in the world send Tim back to them!"
+
+They forgot Mrs. Hetherbee until they had signed the provisional papers
+of adoption for the child, and were on their way uptown in Cecilia's
+new limousine, which she had loaned Rosamund for the afternoon.  It was
+disconcerting to find that Mrs. Hetherbee had no intention of releasing
+Eleanor; but Cecilia allowed herself to be persuaded to join in the
+campaign.  When at last Cecilia sent for a society reporter who had
+never before succeeded in penetrating to her, and gave out the
+interesting item that she was to dine, _en famille_, with Mrs.
+Hetherbee on the twenty-second, the little lady capitulated, even
+adding her blessing.
+
+To Cecilia, admiration was an incense always acceptable; Mrs. Hetherbee
+amused her, and one had to do something to amuse one's self.  There was
+nothing exciting in Rosamund's shopping expeditions.  The city might
+have been deserted, so few of their own friends were in town.  Some
+lingered at their country places, others were in Lenox for the hunting,
+or still abroad.  The effect of New York's social emptiness was to draw
+more closely together than was possible during the busier season the
+comparative few who for one reason or another were in town.  There was
+more time for lunching together and going afterwards for a spin toward
+the Westchester hills or over to one of the Long Island golf courses;
+and for one of the week-ends, which were torrid with the humidity of
+late September, they stood out to sea aboard one of the steam yachts
+that were beginning to bring their owners back to the North River.
+Sometimes a longing for her mountains would sweep so strongly over
+Rosamund that she would have a sense of unreality, as if she were in a
+strange land, among strange people, instead of having just returned to
+the familiar noise and glitter of New York.
+
+One morning, when they had been shopping about for things that refused
+to be discovered, and clothes which should be simple enough for the
+brown house, and Cecilia had refused to go farther until she had had
+something to eat, they went to their favorite lunching place, now
+curiously deserted except by people who seemed to have come from
+another world, who spoke in strange accents and stared about them as if
+still under the spell of the man with the megaphone.  In a corner of
+the overdecorated room near a window which was still shielded by awning
+and window boxes from the Avenue's glare, Cecilia sank back, weary, and
+frankly out of sorts with everything.
+
+"It is a most horrible time of year for shopping," she said, after she
+had ordered their luncheon with great precision.  "There is not a thing
+left in the shops.  I wonder what they do with the clothes that were
+left over?  Does somebody wear them, or do they just throw them out, or
+what?  Or is it because you are hunting for such queer things,
+Rosamund?"
+
+Rosamund laughed.  "But they won't be queer in the mountains, Cecilia,"
+she said.
+
+"I am glad I shall not have to look at them," Mrs. Maxwell replied.
+"But if you are going to do the peculiar, I suppose you may as well be
+consistently peculiar all the way along.  Only, don't expect me to like
+it, nor approve of it; and don't think I'm encouraging you in it.  I am
+going about with you because someone has to; I think you are foolish,
+_very_, and I really do _NOT_ believe even Colonel Randall would have
+approved of your going off like this!"
+
+Hunger and fatigue had worn on poor Cecilia's nerves; but if she had
+dreamed of having any other audience than her sister, the scolding
+would have been subdued.  Flood and Pendleton, finishing their luncheon
+in a distant corner, had seen the two and made their ways towards them.
+The sharpness of Cecilia's tone seemed to amuse Marshall.
+
+"Dear me, Cecilia," he said, so close behind her that she fairly
+jumped, while Rosamund smiled, "what's going off?"
+
+Cecilia's eyes looked dangerous, and Flood, laughing, came to the
+rescue.  "Come off with us, won't you?" he asked, so genially that for
+the first time Rosamund felt some warmth of response to his smile.  "We
+thought of running up Westchester way for the afternoon; won't you come
+with us?"
+
+His lover's quick perception told him that Rosamund was not averse to
+the interruption of the _tête-à-tête_, and he looked at her rather than
+at Cecilia for response.  "There's a bit of woods back of Pocantico
+that always reminds me of those Virginia places where the leaves remain
+pale green, and the sunlight comes through and touches the ferns; you
+know!"
+
+His own eloquence rather abashed him; but Rosamund's tired face
+flushed; his words recalled to her the very scent of the woods;
+suddenly, there overlooking the Avenue, amid the vibrating undertone of
+noises, in the place of all others where the wealth of the metropolis
+and its cosmopolitanism that is unlike any other cosmopolitanism
+manifests itself most impressively, she was homesick for the mountains
+and her friends there.  She could have cried out with longing; and
+Flood's offer of a glimpse of woods was to her what the blossom is to
+the man in a hospital.
+
+"Oh, yes!" she said, leaning towards him with a little air of
+eagerness.  "Oh, yes, do take us!  I'd rather get out to the woods than
+do anything else in the world this afternoon!"
+
+Flood's face reddened deeply with the satisfaction of having scored at
+last.  He and Pendleton drew up chairs and chatted while the two women
+disposed of their skillfully combined luncheons.
+
+"I say, Flood, make her promise not to desert us again," cried
+Pendleton.
+
+"It is rather brave of you, Marshall, to talk about desertions!"
+Cecilia remarked.
+
+Pendleton grinned.  "I haven't deserted you, Cecilia," he said.  "I
+retreated!  You know I'm afraid of you, Cecilia, when you're in a
+temper."
+
+Flood was beginning to look distressed, but Rosamund smiled at him.
+"Let them squabble, Mr. Flood!  I want to tell you about Timmy!"
+
+Flood's look brightened.  "Ah!  The little chap we bumped into!  Yes!
+And do tell me about Ogilvie.  Didn't you find him a good fellow?"
+
+She told him of her plans for the child and for her winter; Flood
+listened, saying little.  It put him to shame that she should be doing
+everything for the two waifs, but her doing so only set her on a higher
+throne in the heaven of his longing.  So intent was he on listening to
+every word, catching every intonation, watching every fleeting
+expression, that he was unaware of her not answering his question about
+Ogilvie.
+
+At last Flood was driving his own car northward out of the city.  A
+hope that fortune would continue further to smile upon him had prompted
+his asking a third man, who came up to speak to them, to join their
+party, so that he could release his chauffeur for the afternoon; and it
+was either an undefined wish to be rid of Cecilia for a few hours, or
+else a latent sense of gratitude, which prompted Rosamund to take her
+place beside him, smiling divinely--or so he fondly thought--at him,
+and roguishly at Cecilia and her attendant swains.  Cecilia thoroughly
+enjoyed having two men to herself, especially as Marshall had been none
+too faithful since their parting in Virginia, and the situation offered
+an opportunity for discipline.  The third man was benignly unaware of
+complications, and Rosamund openly laughed at Pendleton's expression of
+disgust.
+
+They had passed out of the place side by side, while Flood went ahead
+to see to the car.  "What's the matter with its little nose?" Rosamund
+laughed at Pendleton.  "All out of joint?"
+
+"You are perfectly disgusting, Rosamund," he replied in a most
+matter-of-fact tone, quite as if he were saying the sun was warm or the
+car was there.  "Your manners have become contaminated, and your
+complexion has suffered, and you are a most disagreeable person.  I
+hope you'll be stout before you are thirty!  There!"
+
+Rosamund's laugh was so frankly merry that Cecilia turned on a quick
+impulse of repression.  Rosamund ought to know better than to laugh
+aloud in the door of a restaurant!  But Flood was beside them, the
+other man might misunderstand a sisterly admonition, and Pendleton's
+raised eyebrows of disgust quite satisfied her.  She allowed herself to
+be helped into the tonneau, happy in her own situation.
+
+Flood knew better than to attempt small talk; he divined that he could
+better make himself felt by saying nothing than by saying the wrong
+thing.  They passed swiftly northward out of the city, following upland
+roads that gave enchanting glimpses of the river and of nearer gardens;
+after an hour or so he brought his car to slow speed.  They were beyond
+Sleepy Hollow, in woods of new growth, ferny depths, scarcely touched
+by sunlight, roadsides where pale asters set themselves like stars.
+
+"Isn't it like Virginia?" Flood asked.
+
+Rosamund only nodded; but presently she almost whispered, "I love it!
+Oh, I love it!"
+
+"You are really going to spend the winter there?" Flood asked.
+
+"Yes," she told him.  "It somehow seems like home to me."
+
+He knew that he must move carefully into her thoughts.  "I understand
+how that can be," he said, after a pause.  "There was a place in Idaho
+that used to make me choke every time I passed it; I never knew why,
+until one day an English fellow happened to say as we rode by, 'Jove,
+there must be trout in that brook!'  Then I knew it made me homesick,
+because every boy has something in him that makes him want to fish.  I
+had wanted to, worst sort, when I was a youngster--though I was born in
+an inland city, and never had a chance to.  It just made me homesick
+for the boyhood I ought to have had!"
+
+Rosamund looked at him in amazement.  Subtlety and imagination from
+Flood she had never foreseen; her own imagination was fired at once,
+and her face flushed a little with shame at what she had thought of him
+before.  Flood looked straight ahead, but he was more keenly aware of
+the girl beside him than she of him.  His heart was pounding as if he
+were setting out on a race; and indeed he beheld a stake before him as
+clearly as ever in his life.  She answered, and he knew that he had
+scored; at last he had made her aware of him!
+
+So well had they progressed by the time they had got back to town that
+he felt he could dare to say, before he left her, "I want to know those
+Maryland and Virginia woods of yours better, myself."
+
+He wondered afterwards whether he had said too much.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+After the Westchester afternoon there were two dinners with Flood as
+host; and do what she would, she could not altogether escape his daily,
+almost hourly attentions, without wounding his feelings and her own.
+He did nothing she might not accept without in the least seeming to
+bind herself by any obligation; the very intensity of his love urged
+him to caution.  But when he suggested to Cecilia that, since her
+sister had decided to go down by train, he should perhaps be going as
+far as Washington on the same day, he would have divined Cecilia better
+if he had not been so absorbed in his dreams of Rosamund; for Mrs.
+Maxwell's ambitions had enlarged since early summer, and she did not
+hesitate to divulge his plan.  Rosamund was to have taken the
+Congressional; instead, she slipped away at nine o'clock; so anxious
+was she to put distance between herself and Flood, that she would not
+even wait for Eleanor.
+
+On the way down, she wondered at something in Cecilia's expression when
+she had made known her intention of running away from Flood's
+companionship, but there was too much else in her mind to permit of her
+spending much thought upon those she had just left; there was a warmth
+in her heart as of the traveler's returning to the land of his
+affection.  She had called New York her home for most of her life, and
+lived in the mountains three months; yet behind her she left little
+that she loved, and before her lay smiling fields of imagination; and
+she found the vision sweet.  She planned the placing of the furniture
+in the little house, made out a list of the things that should go in
+each room, and wondered what she had forgotten.  She was carrying
+little presents back with her, and she took them out of her bag, opened
+their boxes to make sure they were quite right, put them back into
+their wrappings, and with the pencil on her chatelaine wrote messages
+on each.  Only for Ogilvie she had no gift; she had spent more time in
+hunting something for him than in choosing her dining-room furniture,
+and had come away with--nothing!  There was really nothing in all New
+York that she could take back to the doctor!
+
+When he met her at the little station in the October darkness of early
+evening, she looked about for Yetta and Tim.
+
+"I thought you would bring the children to welcome me!" she exclaimed,
+and was glad that she had it to say.
+
+But the doctor, who was walking beside her with her small hand bag,
+only said, quietly, "No, you didn't!" and Rosamund's cheeks burned as
+he helped her to her place behind White Rosy.
+
+He asked her about her days in the city, but she had little to say of
+them; what interested her now was the new home she was going to make.
+As they approached it she peered through the darkness at the little
+brown cottage, and they stopped for a moment to make sure that Mother
+Cary's light could be seen from there.  She told him that Mrs. Reeves
+was going to be with her, and that she had arranged with the Charities
+to keep Timmy for a while longer; of the possible adoption she said
+nothing, having bound Eleanor also to silence, ignoring the question in
+his eyes.  When she spoke of her hope of having Grace live with them,
+the doctor's face became grave.
+
+"It would be the best thing in the world for Grace, in one way, and
+perhaps for you; but--I am not thinking of anything specific--but Joe
+Tobet, if angered, might be a dangerous enemy.  If he should resent
+Grace's defection, and blame it on you----"
+
+Rosamund laughed.  "Oh, but I am not in the least afraid of any Joe
+Tobets, you know!" she said.  "What on earth could he do to me?"
+
+"I suppose you mean what could a man of his class do to injure a woman
+of yours?"
+
+Her face flushed a little.  "Well, what if I do?"
+
+"I think you'd find that he is unaware of class distinctions.  He
+certainly would not regard them.  He might be vindictive; he might make
+all sorts of trouble for you, and is sure to for Grace."
+
+"Oh, but that's just the point!  I want to protect her from him!"
+
+"It is not your place to!"  But then he turned towards her, and she
+knew he smiled through the darkness.  "Play Lady Bountiful, if you
+will, but do take my advice and let poor Grace work out her own
+salvation."
+
+She had no answering smile.  "Oh," she said, "I thought you were above
+such phrases."
+
+"Well, I thought so, too; but I'm not above anything when it's a
+question of danger to--you."
+
+The slight deepening of his tone was enough to make her hold her
+breath; but she would not let emotion affect her desire to make her
+intention clear to him.
+
+"I do not believe there is any danger," she said, "but if there is I
+think I cannot regard it.  I--I am not sure I can make you
+understand--but I want to!  It is not just an idle whim that makes me
+stay here this winter; it is not because I am tired of other things,
+things I've always had.  I have been restless, I confess, but it is not
+restlessness that has made me decide to stay here.  I have no theories
+of life.  I'm afraid I've rather scorned the people who have; but
+somehow I know that I have something to do here.  I cherish the belief
+that I have.  I have never had any special thing to do, before, you
+see!  So even if I knew that there was danger in my living in that
+little brown house, and having poor Grace with me, I should ignore the
+danger, because--well, because there is something for me to do here,
+and I am going to try to do it."
+
+They were down in the valley by this time, Mother Cary's lamp twinkling
+far above them; there was light enough from the starlit sky for her to
+see that he had taken off his old cap, worn out of deference to her
+arrival, and that he ran his fingers backward through his hair, as
+always when he was troubled.  He did not reply until they turned into
+the shadow of the wooded road and Rosy was climbing the last half mile
+of their drive.
+
+"God knows, there's work a-plenty for every comer," he said.  "It is
+not for me to tell you to keep out of it.  But I hadn't thought of it
+in that way--for you."
+
+"Perhaps I ought to tell you," she said, "that I can help in another
+way.  I have heard Mother Cary talk about the people farther back in
+the mountains--the people you see, but that only come out, she says,
+when the 'summer folks' are gone.  Grace has told me about them, too.
+I--I have some money at my disposal--I know where I can get a good
+deal.  I thought perhaps you might--and Grace--use it in some way--you
+would know how, wouldn't you?"
+
+The thought of her deception, if such it was, made her hesitate in her
+speech; but her disappointment was quick and keen that he did not at
+once accept her suggestion.  When at last he spoke, his voice sounded
+tired, and she did not understand his answer until she had pondered it
+that night in her own room at Mother Cary's.
+
+"I am afraid," he said, "that even with what you think is a good deal,
+we should need another miracle of the loaves and fishes."
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+In the weeks before they moved into the cottage, there were moments
+when life presented itself to Rosamund in more difficult guise than she
+had dreamed it ever wore.  Hitherto, it had been easy enough for her to
+take up her abode in one place or another, as fancy led her; in New
+York, in Georgia, in Europe, there were always people to smooth the
+way--servants to make everything ready and comfortable, mother or
+sister or one person or another to set in motion the many wheels of the
+household clockwork.  She had never given a thought to the machinery of
+life; it had seemed as simple as to breathe the free air.  Not even
+Cecilia's warnings had touched upon the rudimentary difficulties she
+found she had to meet.  Before the furniture arrived, there was the
+first cleaning of the little house to be done, and no one to do it!
+The summer people and their servants had departed; the hotels were
+closed; the mountaineers held themselves haughtily aloof from domestic
+service.  Eleanor would have known, but Mrs. Hetherbee kept her from
+day to day; and Aunt Sue was taking her own time in leaving Georgia.
+Grace Tobet and Yetta were always ready to do what they could, but they
+were as untrained as Rosamund herself in the methods of doing things as
+she had been used to having them.  Yet they were the only ones she
+could find to help her, and she spent her days in a toil so
+unaccustomed as to leave her breaking with fatigue.  She was ashamed to
+find how inadequate she was for such elemental things; and disgust at
+her own limitations, added to aching fatigue of body, left her little
+able to stand against the opposition she was beginning to encounter
+from everyone.
+
+Pa Cary, gentlest of souls, became set in disapproval as firmly as the
+doctor; and some undivulged, disquieting information increased
+Ogilvie's first distrust of the plan.  At last even Mother Cary
+somewhat shamefacedly agreed with them.
+
+"I don't know as it wouldn't be better to shut up the house and stay
+right here with us, honey," she said.  "Pap keeps tellin' me it ain't
+safe for ye there alone, jest women and children.  I reckon that
+colored man wouldn't skeer anybody off.  There's rough people in the
+mountings.  They're used to folks summerin' here; but Pap says, what
+with all this talk of the Gov'ment's men bein' around, some are sayin'
+you know too much about the doin's o' this part of the country."
+
+Rosamund knew the futility of expressing her indignation.  She only
+felt that her die was cast, arrangements irrevocably made, that she
+must go on.  Surely it was innocent enough to spend a winter in the
+mountains, to keep a waif of a girl out of harm's way, and give healing
+happiness to a child and a beloved woman.  That her heart held other
+motive only the secret flaming of her cheeks attested.  She told
+herself that the mountain people could not be so foolish as to
+disbelieve their own senses, and determined to prove herself to them.
+In time they must come to believe in her honesty and sincerity of
+purpose, in her friendship for them and her loyalty.  It was largely
+their distrust of the world beyond their close horizon that held them
+in bondage to their own passions.  To enlighten them, to free them,
+would be well worth while for anyone.  She said as much to Ogilvie, who
+nevertheless continued to shake his head and warn her.
+
+With the departure of the last "foreigner" the mountaineers were more
+frequently seen.  During the summer Rosamund and Yetta had walked miles
+on the strange, dimly marked paths through the woods, paths as vague
+and deserted as if trodden only by timid wild feet trembling towards
+secret drinking places; never had they met another soul upon them.  But
+now, occasionally, they encountered lank women or timid children, who
+peered with half-frightened eyes out of the depths of slat bonnets, and
+sometimes said "howdy" in passing.  The Allen children no longer ran
+away at sight of her, and their mother, now well enough to be about the
+house, watched eagerly for Rosamund's visits; she had hopes of making
+more friends among the women, through Mrs. Allen and Grace Tobet.
+Several times, too, Mother Cary had visitors; and a little school in
+the valley drew children from the hillsides in varying numbers.  As she
+went back and forth between the little brown house and the Carys', the
+people she passed stared at her curiously; the women, she thought, were
+not unfriendly, but the men seemed distrustful and surly.
+
+"Why do they look at me in that way?" she asked Grace Tobet, on an
+afternoon when they were hastening homeward in the twilight.  "The men
+all look at me as if I were some hateful thing--a spy, perhaps, or a--a
+snake!  It hurts me to have them look at me in that way!  No one ever
+did before!  I don't deserve it!"
+
+But before Grace could reply a thing happened that hurt Rosamund far
+more, that shook her to the depths of her pride and courage.  Something
+struck her upon the arm, something that stung and bruised--a stone,
+thrown from the wood-side bushes with accurate aim.  She cried out with
+physical pain and pain that was also mental, and sprang towards Grace.
+Someone moved off up the mountain, careless of the crackling
+undergrowth.
+
+Grace had her arms about Rosamund on the instant, and her answering cry
+was almost as quick.
+
+"What is it?  What ails ye?" she besought the trembling one within her
+sheltering arms.
+
+Rosamund's breath was coming in little sobbing gasps.  "Oh--o--oh!
+Something--struck me--a stone, I think!"
+
+From the wan spiritless creature that she usually was, Grace flashed
+into a wild passion of anger.  Often before she had reminded Rosamund
+of a sodden leaf, wind-blown and colorless; now she was a flame, vivid,
+devouring, like the hot blasts that mow down the mountain forests.
+
+"I'll KILL anyone that harms ye!" she cried; and raising her voice to a
+shriek called to the woods that hid the thrower of the stone:
+
+"Come out!  Come out in the open!  Coward!  Ye coward!  Come out here
+and let yerself be seen!"
+
+A jeering laugh answered, and Grace would have sprung in pursuit; but
+Rosamund grasped her.
+
+"No, no!" she cried.  "Don't, Grace!  Don't!  Let him go!"
+
+The mountain woman, panting, fiery, would have broken away from the
+restraining hands; but Rosamund, inspired, cried:
+
+"You wouldn't leave me here alone?"
+
+And as a forest creature, quick to defend her young, is quick to
+caress, Grace forebore vengeance to hold her friend in a closer embrace.
+
+"He struck ye!  You come up here to live with us, and make friends with
+us, like Doctor Ogilvie, and they go and say you spy out on them!
+Oh--" her voice echoed from the mountains--"I'll KILL anyone that harms
+ye!"
+
+"Don't say that!  Perhaps he did not mean to----"
+
+"He meant it, whoever it was!  Stones don't fly up from the ground, do
+they?  I know--I know what they say, the lazy cowards--I know, I've
+heerd 'em----"
+
+She paused; a new terror came into her eyes.  "Miss Rose!  Miss Rose!
+Don't ye go thinkin' 'twas Joe throwed----"
+
+Suddenly her head dropped upon Rosamund's shoulder, and the straining
+arms held her more closely.  "Miss Rose, even if 'twas Joe----"
+
+"Grace!  Oh, hush!  You don't know what you are saying!  You must not
+think that--it couldn't be true!"
+
+"Couldn't it?  You never saw my baby.  _He_ came home drunk, 'struck by
+lightnin''--that's what they call it, so's not to lay blame on
+themselves.  He fell on her.  That's how 'twas.  She was a-crawlin'
+over the sill to meet him--her daddy.  An' he fell on her----"
+
+"Put away those thoughts, Grace!  Put away that memory!  Grace--look at
+me!  You must--not----"
+
+"I'm lookin' at ye.  That's what makes me remember.  It ain't much to
+you, maybe, to be friends with me.  But it's a heap to me, to be
+friends with you.  Oh--" she threw her arms above her head, and her
+bitter cry rang out.  "Oh, curse the stills!  Curse 'em, curse 'em!
+First 'twas my baby, an' now--if anyone harms you, even so be 'twas
+Joe, I'll kill him!"
+
+It was a devotion undreamed of.  Their friendship had progressed
+insensibly.  There had been long talks, when Grace's apparent
+simplicity had made it easy for Rosamund to open her heart, as far as
+in her lay; and she had been glad enough to feed the other's hunger for
+knowledge with tales of the things she had seen in the world, as Grace
+called all that lay beyond the barrier of the mountains.  Yet it had
+been, as Grace herself had rightly said, not a very large part of life
+to Rosamund; all the stranger was the revelation of what their
+friendship meant to Grace.
+
+It was long before she could bind Grace to secrecy; for Grace believed
+that safety lay in making known the dastardly attack of the afternoon.
+Rosamund denied that actual danger could exist, that the attacks--if
+such there might be--could possibly go farther; and she very well knew
+that if to-day's were made known it would put an end to all her plans
+for the winter, now progressed so far.
+
+Yet all that night she lay awake.  It was a dreadful thing to know
+herself suspected, distrusted, perhaps hated; why, she asked herself,
+could the mountaineers not read her innocence in the very fact of her
+remaining openly among them?  They did not suspect Ogilvie; why, then,
+should they look upon her innocent self as a spy?
+
+But morning found her with all terrors gone.  Pride of race and
+knowledge of good intentions had come to sustain her.
+
+In gold, in gems, it is friction which produces brilliancy; in the
+finer grades of humanity it is opposition, anxiety, suffering, even
+misfortune, which bring out inherent noble qualities that might else
+remain undiscovered.  The fine courage of high race Rosamund had always
+possessed, but it lay hidden within her until the sting of an unseen
+enemy brought it to light.  Fatigue and doubts and half-developed fears
+fell from her in the night; with the coming of the day she found
+herself strong in courage, in resourcefulness.
+
+Ogilvie met her, later in the morning, coming from the post office at
+the Summit, and White Rosy stopped of her own accord until Rosamund had
+seated herself in the buggy.
+
+"You look less tired," he said.
+
+She laughed.  "I'm not tired at all!  I feel as if I could move
+mountains, even these mountains; I believe I could even move the people
+on them!"
+
+He looked at her more keenly, and wondered what had caused her elation.
+His anxiety for her--and something else--was too great to permit of a
+smile in answer to hers.
+
+"It is never too late to mend your ways!" he suggested.  "I hope it's a
+change of mind that's making you so pleased with yourself!"
+
+She laughed again, merrily.  "It may be a change of mind," she said,
+"but it isn't a change of intention."
+
+She waited for his question, but he only looked grimly at White Rosy's
+joggling ears.
+
+"Don't you want to know what I mean?" she asked.
+
+"Yes," he said shortly.
+
+Rosamund glanced at him.  "Dear me!" she remarked, and was provokingly
+silent until, at last, he turned towards her.
+
+"Please!" he begged.
+
+"Let's talk of something else," she said, and turned her face away from
+him to hide her dimples.  "I don't in the least want to bore you with
+my affairs.  You've been so kind!"
+
+At that he shook his head, tumbled the old cap into the back of the
+buggy, and ran his fingers through his hair.  He heaved a deep breath,
+and said, in the helpless tone of the bewildered male, "Oh, Lord!"
+
+Then she turned towards him and laughed aloud.  "I won't tease any
+more," she cried.  "You and Father Cary almost frightened me, for a day
+or two, with your warnings and forebodings.  Last night I was ready to
+give up the brown house and telegraph Mrs. Reeves not to come.  This
+morning I have telegraphed her to hurry!"
+
+His face became more stern.  "I don't like it.  I don't approve of it.
+You may take my word for it, there will be trouble if you go to live in
+that place, an unprotected household of women."
+
+"Oh, but we shall not be an unprotected household of women!  We are
+going to have good old Uncle Matt, my old nurse's husband!  Surely I
+told you?  Although," she thought to herself, "if old Matt saw a man
+with a gun I believe he'd crawl under the bed!"
+
+The doctor looked a little relieved.  "Well, that is the best thing
+you've planned yet," he said.  "I had intended coming twice a day and
+taking care of your furnace myself; but Matt--did you say the man's
+name was Matt?--will be on the spot."
+
+"Mercy!" she exclaimed.  "I never once thought of the furnace!"
+
+"I imagined as much," he said, dryly.
+
+"Oh, well," she retorted, as he stopped before the brown cottage, "you
+would never have remembered to come!  White Rosy would have had just
+one more thing on her mind!"
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+The result of Rosamund's increased determination was that, by the end
+of the week, a curiously assorted household was taxing the capacity of
+the cottage almost to the utmost.  Grace Tobet, however, was not there.
+Rosamund had many long talks with her about other things; the poor soul
+had been miserably uneasy since the episode of the stone-throwing, and
+besought Rosamund to release her from her bond of silence.  But that
+their friendship might bring trouble upon herself she denied, and when
+Rosamund tried to persuade her to take shelter in the brown house she
+would do no more than shake her head or raise the girl's hand to her
+own cheek in caress, or look off to the hills with unseeing eyes
+tear-brimmed, as on the first day she had spoken of her baby; and
+Rosamund could not urge her farther after that.
+
+"It's often that a way," Mother Cary said, when Rosamund told her about
+it.  "It binds 'em to a place faster than ropes could.  You can break
+through most anything you can see, honey-bud; it's the things you can't
+see that you can't get away from.  And they holds you all the tighter
+when they're the things you useter have and haven't any
+more--'specially little child'en."
+
+Eleanor, too, had a word to say on Grace's side.  "Can't you see,
+sweet, that if she leaves her Joe, she will be admitting his
+unworthiness?"
+
+"But since he plainly is unworthy----?"
+
+"What he is has very little to do with it.  It is what she must believe
+him to be, as long as she can."
+
+"How can she believe him to be anything that is good?  He killed their
+baby--and you know very well that she has had to go through the woods
+all alone at night to warn him when the Government men are out."
+
+Eleanor shook her head.  "We don't know that, Rose.  And as long as
+Grace stays with him and says nothing, we can't know it.  She is
+keeping that fact from being knowledge--if it is fact.  Don't you see
+that she just has to hold on to that vague 'if'?"
+
+"But she cannot possibly love the man, Eleanor!"
+
+Eleanor looked at her curiously, and for some hidden reason which she
+could not define Rosamund's heart, under that long look, began to beat
+faster.
+
+"Ah, Rosamund, which of us can understand love?" Eleanor asked.  After
+a pause she added, "I have wondered sometimes whether they really and
+truly love--the people who question 'why'!"
+
+Rosamund was beginning to be afraid of the turn the conversation was
+taking.  "Oh, Eleanor!" she exclaimed, somewhat impatiently, "your
+subtleties are beyond me!"
+
+While they talked, Tim had been tramping back and forth on the front
+veranda of the house, himself the horse of a little iron wagon that was
+one of his new toys.  He was seldom willing that Eleanor should waste
+time in uninteresting conversation with grown-ups.  He had taken her
+for his own; and Rosamund, Yetta, Mother Cary--everyone who had
+ministered to him before--were all but forgotten.  Eleanor must now do
+everything for him; nothing less than complete possession could satisfy
+his hungry little heart.  And Eleanor's hunger for Tim went beyond his
+for her; as she talked, her eyes followed him, her look brooding upon
+him as if he were new-born and her own.
+
+At Rosamund's last exclamation she laughed, and bending towards Timmy
+on one of his turnings, gathered him into her arms, in spite of his
+indignantly protesting squirms and thrusts.
+
+"My subtleties, indeed!" she said, while burrowing for kisses under the
+curls on his neck.  "I'm the most elemental creature alive!  I'm
+nothing more than a mother hen!"
+
+"Matt chopped ve chicken's head off wif a ax," said Tim, "an' it hopped
+an' hopped an' hopped.  An' Sue took all its fevvers off.  But chickens
+don't catch cold.  An' anyway its head was gone."
+
+"Mercy!" said Rosamund.  "Matt ought not to have let the child see
+that!  And I do wish he wouldn't be so--so explicit!"
+
+They laughed, but Eleanor could not ignore the opportunity for a lesson
+in good manners.  She had tried in vain to impress it upon Tim before;
+now she repeated, "You must call her _Aunt_ Sue, Timmy!  I call her
+that, and Miss Rose does.  You want to be polite, too, don't you?"
+
+But Tim knew what he wanted; he had thought it out for himself.  "She
+ain't," he said, frowning.  "An' I don't want her.  I got a muvver."
+
+"Oh!  The darling!" cried Eleanor, and let him swagger back to his
+march with the wagon.
+
+So the boy was provided for, and Eleanor daily gained in health.
+Ogilvie was delighted.
+
+"Just let it go on for a few months," said he, "and she'll forget she
+has any eyes.  Pity she'll have to go back to work, though," he added.
+
+He had been away for a few days, on some consultation, and so could
+notice the change in her all the more for his absence.  They were
+driving through the golden woods; the first heavy frost had fallen the
+night before.
+
+Her breath fluttered a little as she answered.  "She will not have to
+work any more--not as she used to--if she decides really to adopt
+Timmy," she said, palpitating in wonder as to how he would take the
+disclosure of her gift and what it implied.
+
+He turned quickly to look at her, all interest.  "So that's what Flood
+meant!" he said.
+
+She returned his look rather blankly.  "Mr. Flood?  What on earth do
+you mean?"
+
+"I stayed with him in New York, you know.  He told me the kiddie's
+future was provided for, but he was too modest to tell me how.  That's
+one of the things I like about him--his modesty.  He's a fine fellow,
+Flood is."
+
+It was something more than disconcerting to have her generosity
+attributed to someone else; that he should give the credit of it to
+Flood, of all people, was plainly provoking.
+
+"Did he give you to understand that he had done the providing?" she
+asked.
+
+"Why, no!  I've just told you he was too modest!"  Then, perhaps at
+something in her look of disdain, he understood.  "Oh, I see!  I'm sure
+I beg your pardon!  It is you who are doing it?"
+
+She did not reply nor look at him, but flushed deeply.
+
+But he did not seem to think it mattered either way.  "Well, it'll be
+the best thing in the world for them both," he said.
+
+So there was to be no word of praise for herself!  She forgot to wonder
+at his unquestioning acceptance of the fact that she should have enough
+to spare for such a gift; it did not occur to her until afterward that
+he must have known of her fortune all along.
+
+In her disappointment and dismay she spoke with a little tremor of
+anger which did not escape him.
+
+"I suppose you think it is no more than I ought to do!" she said.
+
+He ran his fingers through his hair.  "Well!  Is it?" he questioned.
+
+She did not reply to that, and he asked, "You will not miss what you
+give, will you?"  By his tone he might have been asking, "Well, what of
+it?  What's money good for, anyway?"
+
+At that she turned to him, head lifted, eyes aflame.  "I suppose you
+are one of those people who think that we ought to divide everything
+equally--number the people and give them equal shares--so many pennies
+apiece!"
+
+He laughed good-humoredly.  "O Lord, no!  If the wealth of the nations
+were equally divided on a Monday, it would be back in the pockets it
+was taken from by the first Saturday night!  The smart ones would get
+it all back again."
+
+"I am not one of the--'smart'--ones.  But I suppose it wouldn't matter
+if I went hungry----"
+
+Whatever she had hoped for from that, his reply was certainly
+unexpected.  He looked at her for a moment, then put his head back and
+roared--laughed until the woods rang, until White Rosy turned her head
+to look at him, until Rosamund, her anger melting, laughed with him.
+
+"Oh, I say!" he cried at last.  "I'm awfully sorry!  Miss
+Randall--you'll forgive me for being so utterly stupid, won't you?"
+
+"I did want you to praise me," she admitted, dimpling.
+
+Instantly he became serious.  "To praise you would be like praising the
+sunlight, or the blessed rain, or any other of the crowning works of
+God Almighty," he said.
+
+"We were talking of Timmy," she reminded him, not quite truthfully, but
+grasping at anything that might turn him from that strain, "and Mr.
+Flood!"
+
+The ruse succeeded.  "Flood!  Yes.  He's a big man."
+
+"I don't think I quite realized that you were such friends!"
+
+"I like him," said Ogilvie.  "I like him mighty well.  He's a chap
+who's not afraid to be fine.  I tell you, it was a surprise to me to
+find him that sort--Benson Flood.  You know, the name seems to suggest
+bonanzas, show and glitter, crudeness, perhaps a little--well--not what
+he is, anyway."
+
+"But, surely, you have only seen him--twice, three times, isn't it?
+How can you possibly know all that about him?"
+
+He smiled.  "Oh, men don't always have to _learn_ each other, as they
+would lessons, you know.  I know what Flood is as well as if I had
+known him for years--and I like him as well, too!"
+
+She looked at his enthusiastic face a little wonderingly.  "Women are
+not like that," she said.  "We--I don't think we--believe in our
+friends, as men do!"
+
+"Oh, come now!  Why don't you?"
+
+"Because we don't.  And because we don't deserve it.  Why, you talk
+about Mr. Flood, who is certainly a new friend, to say the least, as if
+you would make any sacrifice for him!  Women wouldn't do that for each
+other."
+
+He could not guess that her touch of bitterness was due to her new
+humility--the humility she was so rapidly learning through her
+experiences here in the mountains; certainly he was far from seeing
+that he had himself done much to teach it to her, even during the past
+hour, when he had seemed to look upon her wealth as of small
+significance; now he was putting far more emphasis upon the fineness of
+character of Flood, the man she had so lightly esteemed.
+
+"I fancy Mrs. Reeves would have something to say to that," said Ogilvie.
+
+"Oh, Eleanor!  Eleanor is my exception, of course!  We all have our
+exceptions.  But aside from Eleanor, there is no one else for whom I
+would make a sacrifice; yet you would do so for Mr. Flood, wouldn't
+you?"
+
+Now he was rumpling his hair until it stood on end.  "Why, yes, I
+suppose so!  Yes, of course," he said, as if he were wondering where
+the talk was leading.  Then he put it aside, and turned towards her.
+
+"How little you know yourself!" he said.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+Before long there were ominous signs in the Tobet cottage.  Mother Cary
+would shake her head whenever Grace's name was mentioned.
+
+"It's bad now, land knows!" she said.  "But it'll be worse, come
+spring.  It ain't for me to deny that them the Lord sends He looks out
+for; but a body can't help wonderin' sometimes, at His choice o' the
+places He sends 'em to.  Yet it's a livin' wonder how things do work
+out, honey."
+
+The doctor openly berated Joe, and the two would have come to blows but
+for Grace's pleadings; afterwards he told Rosamund that Mother Cary had
+roundly scolded him for his interference, which of course ended the
+little influence he had over the man.  Joe, indeed, swore that he would
+'hurt' him if he found him again in his house, and it was only at the
+brown cottage or the Carys' that he could see poor Grace and give her
+what help he could.  Tobet had also, of course, forbidden his wife to
+hold communication with 'the stranger woman'; but Grace knew his ways
+and times well enough to go occasionally to both her friends' houses.
+She herself could not have told from which she derived more comfort.
+
+For a while Rosamund was unaware of any further evidences of the
+mountaineers' distrust; then, in the third week, came the most
+disquieting thing that had yet happened.
+
+Their evenings at the cottage were usually placid enough.  Rosamund had
+engaged the services of the young teacher of the district school to
+give lessons to Yetta, who, with the mental avidity of her race, was
+fairly absorbing knowledge, and rapidly acquiring the speech and manner
+of the world.  She worshiped Rosamund, and tried to copy her in
+everything; she was urged onward, too, by her awakened ambition to
+sing, it being understood that her general education must be well on
+the way before the promised singing lessons should begin.  The girl
+would have spent hours at her books, but Ogilvie had forbidden her
+reading at night; and Rosamund would read aloud to her for an hour or
+two after the lamps were lighted.
+
+To-night Yetta had begged, as usual, for a later bed hour, and for once
+had been indulged.  The wind had blown from the east all day, bleak and
+cold.  Rosamund had been more and more restless with each passing hour,
+and now had a longing for company which made her lenient with Yetta.
+But at last the girl had reluctantly gone upstairs; and after a while
+Rosamund went up, too, in search of Eleanor.
+
+She had not been the only one in the house to be made restless by the
+wind; Tim had been cross all day, and even Eleanor was glad at last to
+see him safely tucked into bed.  But, having done so, she had scarcely
+taken her place on the opposite side of the table from Rosamund and
+Yetta, than a little white-clad figure appeared in the doorway.
+
+"O Timmy!" Eleanor had cried, protesting.
+
+"Well, I forgot to God-bless Pa Cary," said Tim, as if that justified
+his reappearance.
+
+"Tim!  Go right back to bed!" said Eleanor, with a conscientious
+attempt at sternness.  Tim hesitated, wavered on the threshold, and she
+gained in courage.  "Go back at once!" she said.
+
+His under lip began to tremble.  "I can't God-bless wivout somebody to
+say it to!" he said, and Eleanor got up, took him by the hand, and led
+him up to bed and his devotions.
+
+Since then she had not come down again, and when Rosamund went in
+search of her it was to find her on her knees beside Tim's bed, asleep,
+her pale gold hair mingling with the yellow of his, her arms across his
+little body, one of his hands on her cheek.
+
+Rosamund crept downstairs again, the loneliness of a moment ago
+pressing now upon her heart like a pain.  The sitting-room was warm and
+cosy, with its open fire and the lamp with a yellow shade; but it was
+empty, for all that.  She crossed the room to the window that faced the
+valley and rolled up the shade.  Through the wind-swept air Mother
+Cary's light twinkled brightly on the opposite mountain; that was a
+home, too.  It added to her sense of loneliness.  She went back to her
+place by the table, her thoughts wandering--from the happy two in the
+room overhead, to her plans for Yetta; from Ogilvie, to Flood; from the
+present----
+
+But, gradually, insensibly, into her mental atmosphere, there crept a
+shadowy, indefinable influence, something malevolent and strangely
+disquieting.  She had never known fear; but as she sat there she
+shuddered, became cold with an unearthly chill, as if some premonition
+of horror were laying its clammy hand upon her.  She said afterward
+that she felt herself in a cloud of dread and apprehension such as one
+might feel before the apparition of something ghostly or uncanny.  It
+was intolerable.  She must shake off such mental cowering, and forced
+herself to turn towards the window through which Mother Cary's light
+could be seen, thinking the friendly beacon would reassure her.
+
+Then, although her heart seemed for an instant to stop beating, she
+sprang up; but her knees refused their burden, and she sank again into
+her chair, leaning forward with straining eyes, clutching its arms; for
+the light on the mountain was blotted out by a hideous thing, a white
+face set in shaggy hair, a sneering face, a face where drink and hate
+and fear had set their marks.  As she sprang up and sank down again the
+wicked glare of hate turned into a more frightful leer; then the
+creature raised a horrid fist, shook it towards her--and vanished into
+the night.
+
+It was Eleanor who came running downstairs at the cry she tried to
+choke back.
+
+The two kept watch through the night, and morning found Rosamund shaken
+and feverish, but firmly determined to lay aside her dread, and at all
+hazards to keep her friends in the city in ignorance of it.
+
+She shuddered at the thought of what the newspapers would make of it,
+and of Cecilia's raging, and Pendleton's taunting comments.  She and
+Eleanor, in the reassuring daylight, tried to laugh away each other's
+fears; and both agreed that they would not be frightened away from the
+brown house; they agreed, too, that Ogilvie must not know.
+
+But to keep the doctor in ignorance of what had happened was not so
+easy as Rosamund had hoped.  He had many opportunities of hearing
+rumors that did not reach her; if he had not constantly persisted in
+his warnings it was not because he no longer feared for her, but
+because it seemed best to watch, rather than to warn.  He went to the
+cottage every day on one pretext or another; if it was not fear alone
+which took him there, he admitted to himself no other reason.
+
+It was not altogether because he was too busy with his mountaineer
+patients, as Mother Cary had told Rosamund, that he had remained among
+them; now and again he had consulted his friends, and his vigorous
+enjoyment of the days as they passed also told unmistakably of his
+recovery; but another year of mountain practice would doubly insure his
+safety in going back to his investigations in the confinement of the
+laboratory.  Meanwhile he had thrown himself into the work here with
+ardor, as he must always do with work or play; but now just at the time
+when he was beginning to think of his return to the city there came
+into his thoughts an influence as disturbing as it was novel.
+
+Early in the summer one of his classmates, the Doctor Blake who was
+Mother Cary's old friend, had come from the city for a visit of a day
+or two, and to him Rosamund's name was unmistakably well known.  He had
+seen her, too, in town.  There could be no mistake; she was the only
+daughter of old Randall, the "king" of Georgia pine.  It seemed to
+Blake a wild freak which kept such a girl here in the mountains, away
+from her kind, a freak to be distrusted.  He watched Ogilvie rather
+keenly when they met Rosamund at Mother Cary's that afternoon, but it
+was evident that Ogilvie was master of whatever emotions he might have
+towards her.  As a matter of fact, her money counted no more in his
+estimate of her than a scar on her cheek, or a strand of gray hair, or
+an ignorance of German would have counted.  He knew himself for a man,
+and more; he knew, as they who possess the embryo of greatness never
+fail to know, that he had that to offer which all her money could not
+buy; the belief that she, too, knew as much was fast becoming the
+essence of life for him.
+
+The thought of her filled his days and half his nights.  Her swinging
+step along the frozen roads, the tired child nestling in her arms, the
+cadence of her voice as she greeted him, the look of shy withdrawal
+that he sometimes surprised in her eyes--all would set him inwardly
+trembling, longing, worshiping.  Yet love was new to him, and he
+feared; inexperience had left him with nothing for comparison.  He
+could not know how far to venture.  Masculine instinct warned him to
+display to her the brightest plumage of his mind and heart, and their
+walks and drives together were full of talk and intimate silences; but
+of that which was uppermost in his desire he feared to speak.
+
+Yet his fears no less than his love made him keen to notice every shade
+of expression on her face, and on the morning after her fright at the
+hideous vision at the window he saw at once that something was amiss.
+He had been over the mountain earlier in the day to set a man's broken
+arm, and several things had made him more than usually suspicious that
+the underworld of the woods was stirring uneasily.  A storm of some
+sort was certainly in the air; the people showed themselves distrustful
+even of him, and the very children shrank into reserve at his approach.
+
+Rosamund had walked across the valley to Mother Cary's, to confide to
+her the strange disturbing happening of the night; then she had gone
+home again, hoping for that day to escape Ogilvie's keen eyes.  The
+tale had been most disquieting to the old woman, and when Rosamund had
+gone, she sent Pap to the main road to hail the doctor as he passed.
+She had been bound to secrecy, but she could at least, without breach
+of trust, send him a message.
+
+"You tell Doctor Ogilvie that I say when wolves are out, lambs 're in
+danger.  Jest that; don't say another word.  Ef he's all I take him for
+he'll understand."
+
+Pap repeated the message word for word and the two men looked into each
+other's eyes for a moment, in a look that told far more than the
+message; then Ogilvie whipped up White Rosy with unprecedented
+emphasis, and the old mare gallantly responded, as if she knew that an
+emergency prompted the unaccustomed touch.  Ogilvie was sure that one
+glance at Rosamund's face would tell him whether she were the lamb
+Mother Cary had in mind; and the girl's pale cheeks, that flushed so
+treacherously when he entered the brown cottage, disclosed the secret
+she would have kept.  But Mother Cary must not be betrayed, and he
+greeted her as if he suspected nothing.
+
+"I saw Aunt Sue at the clothesline," he said, "so I used the doctor's
+privilege and just walked in!  Tell me if I'm in the way."
+
+She turned a large chair towards the blaze in the fireplace and moved
+her own a little back, as if to credit her bright color to the heat of
+the flames.
+
+"Doctors are always welcome," she said.
+
+But that did not satisfy him, and with characteristic directness he
+pursued the question.  "Am I not welcome as a friend, too?"
+
+She bent forward to reach the tongs, and lifted a glowing ember.
+"You're welcome in every rôle!  But you are very formal to-day, aren't
+you, in spite of your just walking in?  Why?"
+
+She was always mistress of herself when she could tease.  Ogilvie,
+however, would not respond to her levity.
+
+"Because doctors may prescribe, and friends may advise; as it happens,
+I want to do both!"
+
+She sat up very straight and looked at him mockingly.  "Dear me!" she
+said, in the dry tone which usually provoked all his Scotch
+combativeness.
+
+But to-day that, also, he ignored.
+
+"Where are Mrs. Reeves and the children?" he asked.
+
+"Eleanor has taken Tim on a hunt for nuts, and Yetta is at her lessons."
+
+He frowned.  "Which way have they gone?"
+
+"I have not the least idea."
+
+"Have you seen Grace lately?"
+
+"I have not," she replied.  "Pray don't mind asking about anything you
+want to know!"
+
+He would not notice her flippancy even to frown.  "Because," he said,
+"she is not at her own house, nor the Allens', and she has not been to
+the Carys' since yesterday morning; if she has not been here either,
+there is only one thing possible--or at all likely----"
+
+At last Rosamund became serious; if Grace had gone into the woods it
+could, indeed, mean but one thing.  "Oh, dear!" she cried.  "Does that
+mean--do you think?--that Joe is out again?"
+
+The doctor nodded.  "And has been for several days.  The trouble is
+coming to a head somewhere.  I wish I knew where.  The very air is full
+of it, and these people are so mysterious that even I cannot get
+anything definite.  Pa Cary says they all believe there are spies
+about."
+
+At the word, Rosamund's hand went to her throat, and her lips paled.
+"Oh, then----" she began, and stopped.
+
+Ogilvie leaned forward and laid his hand on the arm of her chair.
+
+"Then?" he repeated, looking closely at her.
+
+His intentness forced the tale from her.  He listened without
+interrupting, and when she had finished, sat for a while in deep
+meditation.
+
+At last he drew a long breath, rose, took a turn or two about the
+little room, and came and stood before her, frowning.
+
+"You shall not stay here," he said.
+
+Of all words he could have chosen none more unfortunate.  A tone of
+fear, a phrase of hidden tenderness, even an appeal to her own sense of
+the futility of braving the hovering danger--almost anything but the
+words and tone he used would have induced her to submit to his wishes;
+but this imperative command of words and voice touched off some quick,
+foolish spark within her.
+
+"Ah, but that is precisely what I am going to do," she calmly declared.
+"They will find out sooner or later that I am not a spy.  I shall
+remain here until they do."
+
+Unconsciously, as once before, her name escaped him.  "Rosamund," he
+cried, "I cannot stand it!  I cannot bear to think of your being in
+danger!"
+
+If she heard, she gave no sign of it.  "I do not believe there is the
+slightest danger," she said, "but what if there is?  I have taken up my
+life here; there are always difficulties to be overcome whenever one
+wants really to do anything.  Why should I run away from my share of
+them?"
+
+He had turned toward the fire, his arm resting upon the mantel-shelf,
+and his forehead upon his clenched hand.
+
+"I wish I could make you understand how it is with me," she went on.
+"I have chosen, deliberately chosen, to take this way of living.  I
+have come here to stay, for a time anyway.  You would tell me, I know,
+that I could have the same little family somewhere else.  I know I
+could; but I am not staying only on their account, any more than I am
+for a mere whim of my own.  The place is more my home than any I have
+ever known since I was a little girl.  I love it, and I see so many
+things to be done, things I can do; and I want to do them.  I don't
+always know how, but I am learning.  These mountain people are
+distrustful of everyone; but all wild creatures can be tamed, if one
+has patience.  When they have learned to trust me I can help them.  I
+am not going to be driven away.  Besides, when all else is said, I
+don't see the need of it!"
+
+"You had warning last night.  Whoever that ruffian was, his coming here
+meant no good to you."
+
+For a while she was silent, and when she spoke he looked at her, and
+saw that there were tears in her eyes.
+
+"Oh, I cannot argue it out," she cried.  "Of course, you can array fact
+upon fact to prove me wrong and foolish.  Oh--Doctor Ogilvie, be fair!
+Credit me with a purpose!  I have never before had a chance to go on in
+a simple, clearly defined line of action.  It would not seem very much
+to most people, I suppose--merely to stay here, to live in this little
+cottage with Eleanor and the children.  But it's the only real life
+I've ever known, as far as I can remember.  I was dropped into this
+place by accident, and I found something to do.  What is more, I found
+myself among real people.  It is not much--but to live my own
+life--that is what I want!"  In her emotion she stood before him,
+straight and purposeful.  "Won't you give me credit for the strength of
+it, and not believe me merely willful?"
+
+He was deeply moved; she laid her own in the hand he held out to her.
+"I will credit you with everything that is brave and good," he said,
+with utmost seriousness.  "If you are really determined to remain here,
+I will not interfere.  If this is what you choose, I will try to
+believe it is the best thing for you--the only thing."
+
+Her earnestness had fanned in his heart an altar-flame of worship and
+new faith; its glow shone in his eyes, and her face paled under his
+look.  In the tenseness of the moment there could be no speech, but it
+seemed as if their souls sped toward each other on a bridge of
+understanding.  They were hushed before the vision of great elemental
+truth; and although later they came to believe that they had been
+deluded, that vision of truth remained as having passed between them, a
+revelation and a message.
+
+Afterward, in the hours when doubt and pain and loneliness were her
+companions, she often wondered what the outcome might have been; but
+she could only wonder, for at the highest moment of their silent
+communion there sounded a well-remembered view-halloo, and a quick turn
+of the head showed the flash of a big red car that was stopping before
+the house.
+
+With a low cry she drew away the hand that had been held in his, turned
+from him, and for an instant hid her face in her two palms, needing the
+moment to recall her soul from the heights.  When she turned at the
+sound of steps upon the veranda Ogilvie was gone; she stooped to pick
+up his worn brown cap, left unheeded upon the hearth, put it quickly
+into a drawer, and turned the key in the lock.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+The revulsion of feeling was so sharp as to demand all the effort she
+was capable of making to move at all.  Her self-control had never
+before been so severely tested; the strain was so great that she forgot
+to smile, until Pendleton, drawing off his gloves and toasting his back
+at the fire, which he first took pains to rearrange with as serene
+assurance as if it had been his own house, said:
+
+"Dear me, Rosamund!  Why this exuberant gayety of welcome?"
+
+It was easy enough to laugh, and she felt secretly grateful for his
+nonsense.  She had almost forgotten the time when she had found such
+banter on her own part a veritable shield and buckler.
+
+"I'm stunned with joy, Marshall," she laughed.  Then, turning to Flood,
+"Have my woods brought you?"
+
+He flushed with joy that she should have remembered their talk on the
+Pocantico ride.  "Your woods and what's in them," he told her.  "I've
+brought down a couple of young dogs, and we thought we'd try for some
+shooting before the snow.  That's due any day now, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, the season has been unusually late, they say.  But, Mr. Flood,
+you must not try to do any shooting around here!"
+
+"Why not?" Pendleton put in, raising his eyebrows; he succeeded in
+trying to look teasing only so far as to appear malicious.  "Tame
+birds, Rose?"
+
+She ignored his impudence.  "You'd get me into greater disfavor than
+ever," she said, speaking to Flood.  "You know there are said to be
+illicit stills in these mountains; there have been some lawless things
+done within a year or two, and the Government is watching the people
+here, or so they believe.  They are distrustful of everybody--my poor
+innocent self included."
+
+"I hope there's nothing unpleasant?" Flood asked, looking disturbed.
+
+"No!  Oh, dear, no!  But there might be, if you went about in the woods
+with your guns, and were known to be my friends."
+
+"Your fears are quite groundless, my dear," said Pendleton.  "We were
+not going to stop here, anyway, but Flood hesitates to disillusion you.
+There's no hotel in your neighborhood, you know."
+
+"I'm so glad!" she cried, and then joined the two men in their laugh.
+"Oh, Marshall, you're always making me absurd!  You know perfectly well
+what I mean!  I had horrible visions of your being murdered in the
+woods; naturally, I'm not glad there's no place for you to stay!  I
+wish I could put you up here, but----"
+
+"Certainly!" said Flood, to her expressive pause.  "We understand how
+impossible it would be.  Fact is, we thought we'd run down to Oakleigh
+for a few days, and we found we wanted to come a bit out of the path
+and call on you!  Hope you don't mind?"
+
+To her surprise she realized that she was really very glad to see them.
+She had within the hour been declaring that she had put away the old
+life, yet here were these two dropped from the skies of chance, to
+remind her of it; and she was undeniably glad to see them!
+
+It ended in their staying to the midday dinner, when Aunt Sue surpassed
+the standard of her own fried chicken and beaten biscuits, and Matt
+could be heard turning the ice-cream freezer all during the first part
+of the meal, and Tim had to be suppressed by Eleanor because he would
+persist in trying to describe how the chickens they were eating had
+hopped and hopped and hopped when Matt had chopped their heads off.
+
+It was the first time Flood had met Eleanor, and it was immediately
+evident that she impressed him very much.  His look was upon her more
+than upon Rosamund; he watched her every move with a light of pleasure
+in his eyes, and his manner toward her was exquisite--holding something
+of the deference of a young man toward a very charming, very old lady,
+something of the tenderness of a physician toward a courageous patient,
+something of a courtier's manner toward a queen, a little of the look
+of the lover of beauty at something unexpectedly lovely.  And since
+Eleanor was neither old nor ill nor yet a queen, it must have been her
+loveliness, fragile and gentle and rare, that had attracted him, since
+attracted he so plainly was.
+
+He would look from Eleanor to Rosamund from time to time as if trying
+to convey, silently, to the woman whom he held above all others how
+lovely he found her friend; and Rosamund, understanding and liking him
+for it, drew Eleanor out of the little tiredness of manner that was apt
+to fall upon her before strangers, and Flood brought the color to
+Eleanor's cheeks when he noticed how Timmy had blossomed under her
+care.  Indeed, the little boy, with the quick adaptability of babyhood,
+might have been petted and adored all his life, so complacently did he
+accept his new mother's care and ignore the comments of Flood; for the
+moment he was absorbed in the celery family which he had spread out
+before him on the tablecloth.
+
+"It's me an' my muvver," he said to himself, as he arrayed a short
+stalk and some longer ones before him, "an' it's Miss Rose, an' it's
+Yetta, an' it's Matt.  An' vey ain't any Sue!"  Tim could not be
+prevailed upon to accept Aunt Susan, apparently feeling that in order
+to repudiate the relationship which he thought her title of courtesy
+implied he must repudiate her entirely.
+
+After dinner Rosamund managed so that a rather reluctant Flood and
+Eleanor should be led off by Tim to inspect the chickens.  Pendleton
+was by no means disdaining to pay homage to Yetta's black eyes, and for
+a while Rosamund watched the two with amusement.
+
+It was the first opportunity Rosamund had found for measuring the
+girl's improvement.  It was amusing to see how well Yetta had learned
+to imitate Eleanor's manners and her own, how seldom she lapsed into
+the speech of the streets, yet how much of her native quickness and
+assurance she had retained.  She was never at a loss for an answer to
+Pendleton's banter; and Pendleton, soaring to farther and farther
+heights of absurdity, was enjoying himself immensely, when Rosamund
+decided that Yetta had had enough, and sent the girl off to her lessons.
+
+"Now what did you break it up for, Rose?" Pendleton protested, adding,
+"It's wonderful how jealous all you women are of me!"
+
+She laughed.  "Marshall!  Your absurdity is only exceeded by your
+modesty!"
+
+"Oh, I know my worth," said he, folding his hands and looking down,
+with his head on one side.  Apparently he never tired of playing the
+clown.
+
+"Tell me about Cecilia," said Rosamund.
+
+"Ah, dear Cecilia!  She's looking very well this autumn, very well
+indeed.  And young!  And slim!  I admire dear Cecilia's slimness
+exceedingly.  It's a monument to perseverance and self-denial."
+
+Rosamund understood, and smiled with him.  "Her letters have sounded
+very happy, so I've taken it for granted that things have gone well
+with her," she said.
+
+"Well, you're responsible for that, aren't you?  'Pon my word, if
+Cecilia had money enough--or I had--to make her contented----"  He
+sighed.  "But Cecilia's up to something.  She doesn't seem to--er--to
+care as much for my company as she did.  Why, Rose, would you believe
+it, she even sent down word to me the other day that she had a
+headache!"
+
+"Perhaps she had," Rosamund suggested.
+
+"Oh, no.  No.  If she had, she would have let me see her.  I'm good for
+headaches.  No, it wasn't that.  Besides, it was the very day after
+Flood told her he was coming here, and asked if she had any messages
+for you.  No.  Cecilia's up to something."
+
+He wilted sideways in his chair, and tried to look pensive and
+pathetic.  Rosamund watched him, amused as always, and not in the least
+understanding what he was trying to imply.
+
+Suddenly he leaned toward her.  "And you're up to something, too,
+Rosy!" he said, as if throwing the words at her.  "What's your game in
+staying down here, anyway?"
+
+She flushed angrily.  "Marshall!  You go too far, you know!"
+
+"Oh, come along, don't get mad!" he said.  "What's your little game?
+Are you staying up here to draw old Flood on, or is it something else?
+I won't tell!"
+
+She felt herself enveloped in a hot wave of anger and disgust, as if
+the fetid breath of some foul creature had blown toward her.  She
+sprang from her chair and went swiftly toward the long window, and
+throwing it open stepped down to the piazza.
+
+Pendleton followed as calmly as if nothing had been said to arouse her;
+but she was spared an answer, even a look, for Eleanor and Flood were
+coming back to the house, Flood declaring that it was time for their
+adieux.
+
+Rosamund was glad; she had been unexpectedly glad to see them, but now
+her pleasure was gone.  She felt sick at heart, and wanted to be alone.
+Yet her pride sustained her until they were gone; she stood on the
+veranda to wave farewell to them as if nothing had happened, one arm
+about Yetta's shoulders, framed against the background of the little
+brown house that Flood thought so inadequate a shelter for a creature
+so beloved and so rare.
+
+Flood felt that he had been discretion itself.  He had learned his
+lesson, and was now too anxious for ultimate success to risk alarming
+her; but every move she made, every look, every tone had been as meat
+and drink to his longing.
+
+On their way back past the Summit his mind and heart were full of her,
+from her first silent greeting to the last glimpse of her with her arm
+across the child's shoulders.  How like her unerring taste, he thought,
+to have chosen as friend so exquisite a creature as that Mrs. Reeves;
+and how right Mrs. Reeves had been in all her praise of Rosamund!  It
+had seemed to him to-day that her face had been more than ever full of
+dancing play of color; certainly her cheeks had flamed when she had
+come out of that long window to meet him.
+
+But Pendleton broke in on his dreams.  "Our Rosy was looking
+exceedingly blooming," said he.  "Wonder what's up?"
+
+He managed to throw something of insinuation into his tone.
+
+"Oh, shut up, you ass!" said Flood.
+
+Whereupon Mr. Pendleton raised his eyebrows, smiled, and proceeded to
+whistle the "Merry Widow Waltz," which he knew Flood detested, for one
+immortal hour.
+
+
+Later in the evening, when Tim and Yetta had been long in bed, Rosamund
+and Eleanor were in the sitting-room before the fire, the table with
+its yellow-shaded lamp drawn up between them.  Since the night of
+Rosamund's fright the shades were kept drawn at night; now the room, in
+its seclusion, was warm and cosy with the sense of home.  Eleanor
+smiled over a garment of Timmy's that she was mending; she stopped,
+from time to time, to look into the fire, laying the work in her lap as
+if it were a task over which she loved to linger.
+
+Rosamund sat back in her big chair, her eyes partly closed, deep in
+thought.  The day had been full of crowding emotions.  She mentally
+recalled first one and then another, trying to marshal them into some
+sequence of cause and event.
+
+On the last moments between herself and John Ogilvie she dwelt least;
+even in memory they were too palpitating.  It is only after surrender,
+or after loss, that a woman loves to dwell upon such moments; before,
+they hold too much of fear, not to call forth the feminine withdrawal
+of the unwon.  His looks she dared recall; his pale intensity, the
+flame in his eyes, the fear and anger there as she described the wicked
+face at the window, his look before he left her, when Pendleton's step
+was already on the veranda.
+
+That brought her thoughts to Pendleton, to his insinuations and the
+slight leer in his look.  She shuddered all the more because she knew
+that, a few months before, she would have parried his impertinence with
+a laugh, instead of with the scorn and anger she had not been able to
+hide to-day.  She was at least that far from the old life, the old
+state of mind!  She knew now how intolerable she would find the people
+who had seemed only commonplace before!  Looking back, secure in her
+new life in this purer air, she could say to herself how much she hated
+their suspicions of everyone, their petty gossip, their searching for
+hidden, unworthy motives in every least action, their expecting the
+base to emerge from every innocence, their smiling, flattering faces.
+
+She was glad, she told herself, so glad to be away from all that--all
+the more glad because she could remember the time when it had not
+especially displeased her.  Yet in fairness she reminded herself that
+Flood was different.  He had been very nice, indeed, to-day--and he had
+liked Eleanor.  It spoke well for him that Eleanor, too, liked him!
+She looked across at Eleanor's tenderly brooding face, and smiled; how
+suitable it would be, she thought, if Flood and Eleanor--that would
+relieve herself of Flood's intentions.  It was the first time she had
+been willing to admit that she knew what they were--and intentions on
+Flood's part would be quite delightful if Eleanor were their object----
+
+So her thoughts passed, from one thing to another, until, suddenly, as
+if a shot had broken her dream, her heart stood still with fear, then
+seemed to leap into her throat.
+
+She and Eleanor were on their feet in an instant, hands grasping hands,
+startled eyes searching each other's and then turning toward the door.
+This time it was no stealthy presence which had crept upon the house to
+peer in at the window.  Even while they held each other, there in their
+safety before the fire, something stumbled across the piazza, fell
+against the door, cried out, seemed to fall farther, as if at the limit
+of strength--and was still.
+
+Even the negroes in the kitchen heard the noise, and came running in
+with scared faces.
+
+Rosamund moved quickly and quietly to the door, silently slid back the
+bolt, and flung it open.
+
+There was no lurking enemy to surprise.  Instead, a huddled form lay,
+as if crushed, before the doorsill.  Between them they managed to lift
+it and bear it upstairs.  All the way up Eleanor, though trembling and
+very white, carried her full share of the burden, and kept saying over
+and over to Rosamund:
+
+"It's all right, sweet!  Don't be frightened!  It's all right, sweet!
+Don't be frightened!"
+
+And Rosamund was saying over and over, on sobbing breath, "O Grace!
+Poor Grace!  O Grace!"
+
+They laid her on a bed and undressed her.  The poor cut feet were
+soiled with blood and seemed frozen; the forehead beneath the pale
+strands of hair--those pathetic strands of the woman in whom pride and
+vanity are dead--was cut and bruised; on her body they found larger
+bruises.  They bathed her, and wrapped her in clean linen, and made her
+as comfortable as they could.  Aunt Sue and Eleanor exchanged looks,
+and shook their heads.  They sent Matt after the doctor.  Then Timmy
+called out, and Eleanor went to him.  Aunt Sue said something about
+more hot water, and descended to the kitchen.
+
+Rosamund knelt beside the bed, and presently Grace fluttered back to a
+dim consciousness.
+
+"Miss Rose!  Miss Rose!" were her first words, uttered in a tone of
+fright.
+
+"Yes, dear!  I am here," said Rosamund, laying one of her cool hands on
+Grace's forehead.
+
+Grace closed her eyes as if satisfied.  "I had to come," she whispered.
+"It wasn't only for me."
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+The doctor promptly, in his most professional manner, turned Rosamund
+out of the room as soon as he got there.  He preferred the old colored
+woman even to Eleanor as assistant; and he showed no sign of
+remembering that night in the Allen house when Rosamund had fought
+beside him, through the heavy hours, for a woman's life.  When he
+closed the door of Grace's room upon her, she was keenly hurt; she
+could not know that while he worked over poor Grace he was recalling
+every moment of that earlier scene, viewing it now through the glamor
+of his later knowledge of her.
+
+Aunt Sue was installed as supreme power in the sick-room.  Grace's life
+hung by a thread for days, and before the doctor could be sure that all
+would be well the disquieting news of Joe Tobet's arrest came to
+disturb them still further.
+
+Snow lay deep over everything before Grace came down among them, a pale
+wraith of a woman, but with a deepened sweetness of expectation in her
+face.  They feared to tell her of Joe's predicament, but knew afterward
+that it would have been better to do so; for she was to discover it in
+one of those unforeseen, brutal ways that so often accompany the
+disasters of the poor.  One day a shivering small boy brought a note to
+the back door, and Grace herself happened to be the one to take it in.
+It would have been less cruel to give her a coal of living fire.
+
+The folded paper was soiled, as if it had been passed from hand to
+hand.  Its pencilled words were:
+
+
+"You or she told Youl be got even with Curs you JOE."
+
+
+Grace waited to speak of it until the doctor came.  Then her dignity of
+manner was a revelation to Rosamund, who had yet to discover that
+elemental passions can sometimes be as silent as the ages that create
+them.
+
+Grace looked unfalteringly at Ogilvie as she spoke.  "Where have they
+got Joe?" she asked.
+
+Rosamund exclaimed, and motioned to him not to reply; but he was wiser
+than she.  His answer, as simple and direct as her question, gave no
+evidence of surprise.  "In the city.  The jail is stronger there."
+
+"Will they let him out?"
+
+"The evidence may not be enough to hold him.  He is awaiting trial."
+
+"Will we know if they let him out?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+Then she gave him the soiled paper, which he read and passed on to
+Rosamund.  "He wrote that," she said.  "Miss Rose hadn't ought to be
+here when he gets out."
+
+She gave Rosamund a look of agonized tenderness, then left them.
+Presently they heard her walking in her room upstairs, up and down, up
+and down.  Ogilvie shook his head when Rosamund asked him to go up to
+her.
+
+"She must work it out alone," he said.  "She's strong enough."
+
+But Rosamund, uneasy, went to Mother Cary.
+
+"Yes, she's strong enough," the old woman said, when she had heard all
+about it.  "Land!  She's got to be!  An' she's jest got to fight it out
+by herself.  Don't you try to cross her, honey, nor say anything to
+ease her, 'cause that ain't the way to treat hurts like that.  Joe's
+her man, an' she'd lay down her life for him, ef 'twas only her own
+life; an' I reckon even ef she thought 'twould save his soul she
+couldn't 'a' found stren'th to tell on him.  Yet that's what he thinks
+she done!  Eh, me!  The contrairy fools men like him can be when they
+sets out!"
+
+"He's not worth her caring for!  He's not worth it!"
+
+"Land, no!  I shouldn't think he was!  But that ain't got a mite to do
+with it!  Women folks don't care for them they ought to care for, jest
+because they ought to; nor they don't stop carin' when they ought to
+stop, neither.  An' Joe bein' her man, she can't give a thought to
+whether he's worth it or not; she's jest got to go on lovin' him."
+
+"But, oh!" the girl cried, "shouldn't you think his distrust would make
+her loathe him?  To know herself a true and faithful wife, and to be
+distrusted!  Oh!"
+
+Mother Cary's eyes were very bright as she looked out of the window
+across the snowy field to where Pap was cutting down a tree for
+firewood.  She took one of Rosamund's hands in hers before she spoke,
+and patted it.
+
+"Yes, I reckon distrust must be about one of the hardest things to set
+down under," she said.  "I know somethin' about it, 'cause time was
+when I distrusted Pap, though 'twas before we was married, o' course.
+I distrusted Pap's love, like poor Joe distrusts Grace's.  I thought he
+couldn't possibly love me enough to last for ever an' always, me bein'
+crippled up like I be; an' I thought it wasn't fair to let him try.  So
+I up an' run away.  I tried to get to the station an' so back to the
+city.  It was a long ol' walk for me, an' I had to hide all one night
+in a barn.  But betwixt walkin' an' hobblin' an' crawlin' I got to the
+station at last; an' there was Pap a-waitin' to take me into his arms,
+which he did then an' there, good an' strong.  I ain't never tried to
+get far from 'em sence!"
+
+Rosamund was afraid to break the thread of the story by a question, and
+the old woman mused a while before she went on.
+
+"I reckon there's a door o' distrust that most of us have to open and
+pass through an' shet fast behind us, before we get to the place
+where's only content, an' love, an' trust.  It ain't confined to jest a
+few; 'pears to me most everybody has to go through it."
+
+Again she paused, while the girl waited.
+
+"When your time comes, honey--an' I hope it will come, 'cause you can't
+rightly feel the glory tell you know the shadder--when your time comes
+to feel distrust, or have it felt against you, jest you do as your Ma
+Cary tells you!  You take a firm holt o' your heart and your thoughts,
+an' don't you let 'em turn all topsy-turvy!  You jest take a firm holt
+on 'em an' wait.  WAIT!  Don't run away, like I did; 'cause they ain't
+any more Pap Carys in the world!  It ain't everybody you'd find ahead
+of you at the station, waitin'.  You jest remember that it ain't but a
+door, even though the doorsill does seem dretful wide.  It'll shet
+behind you, when the right time comes, an' you'll find yo'self
+a-standin' in the land o' content.  That's the best dwellin'-place
+there is, I'm a-tellin' you!"
+
+Rosamund had not been alone with John Ogilvie since the afternoon,
+three weeks earlier, when Flood's automobile interrupted them; but
+during the interval she was conscious of an uplift of the soul, a new
+serenity.
+
+One of the great memories of her life was of an hour of her childhood
+when for the first time a revelation of something beyond her childish
+world was vouchsafed to her.  She had been awakened at night by a touch
+of light upon her face; the full moon shone through her window, and its
+rays had called her from sleep.  In her little bare feet she slipped
+from bed and went toward the casement, drawn by the moon-magic to look
+upon the beauty her early bedtime had left undiscovered.  Great dark
+masses of cloud floated across the face of the golden disc, black on
+the side that hung over the shadowy fields and woods, but shining with
+a marvelous radiance where the moonlight touched them from above.
+
+The child had watched them floating, forming, massing, until they had
+passed away to the horizon, and left the moon, a floating ship of
+light, far, far up in the sky, dimming the brilliance of the stars.
+She had crept back to her little bed with a new sense of things
+hitherto undreamed of in her childish imaginings, yet never again to be
+entirely lost--a sense of majesty, of order and immutability, of
+strange beauty, and of the Greatness that kept watch while she, a
+little child, safely slumbered.
+
+The hour left its mark upon her entire life; and now once more such an
+impression of security, of beauty, and perhaps of destiny had been laid
+upon her in the moment when she had faced his soul through John
+Ogilvie's eyes.
+
+There was no need to hasten further revelation.  Indeed, she did not
+wish for it.  She was more than content to rest for a while in the calm
+of unspoken assurance.  It was enough, as much as the hours would hold,
+until they could grow used to it and expand to the greater glory that
+was to come.
+
+Ogilvie, too, had something of the same sense of uplift.  He, too, had
+had his revelation.  But, man-like, he would have grasped at once at
+something more definite, more dear, if he had not, with a lover's
+keenness of intuition, seen that Rosamund was satisfied to wait.  He
+had no fear, no misconception; he felt, rather, a reverence which
+forbade his hastening her toward the avowal which would bring the
+surrender he so ardently desired.  The same force of love which made
+him long for it, made him also too tender to urge it.  His coming to
+the brown cottage every day was too much a matter of custom to be
+remarked upon.  There were Eleanor and Grace, Yetta and Timmy to talk
+to, as well as Rosamund; and he fell into the way of arriving in time
+for the mid-day dinner, just as Tim fell into the way of waiting for
+him with the announcement of what good things Aunt Susan was going to
+give them to eat.  Rosamund teased Ogilvie about it a little, but
+Eleanor, the ostensible hostess, remembered the ancient person with
+whom he lived, took pity on him, and kept him as often as she could.
+Indeed, Eleanor, like Mother Cary, regarded him as an overgrown boy,
+very much in need of maternal attentions; if she suspected the state of
+affairs between him and Rosamund, she tactfully gave no sign of it.  So
+Ogilvie came and went as naturally as if he were a member of the
+household, and his daily sight of Rosamund lent him patience.
+
+But always he was on the watch for signs of the distrust that still
+muttered against "the stranger woman."  Grace's taking refuge in the
+brown house had affected the mountaineers in two ways.  One
+faction--for so strongly did each side feel that there were, indeed,
+definite factions--held that Rosamund had only offered her the shelter
+which any woman would have given to another in such sore need, and
+declared that all of Grace's friends were bound to Rosamund by the
+obligation of gratitude.  The other faction, and perhaps the larger,
+held that if Grace had not actually betrayed her husband to the
+authorities, she had run away from him and so failed in her duty of
+hiding him, and that Rosamund shared her guilt, if, indeed, she was not
+directly responsible for it.  Mother Cary, whom all adored, came in for
+a share of blame, for being friends with the guilty ones, and even the
+doctor, though he was known to be faithfully in sympathy with all his
+mountain patients, and though no one suspected his integrity toward
+them, found many faces turned away from him which had hitherto shown
+only confidence and affection.
+
+That Rosamund was aware of the state of things he could only guess; she
+gallantly denied any uneasiness, although there were many evidences of
+the bad feeling against her.  They were only trivial things, little
+annoyances, surly answers, eyes that would not see her; yet they told
+their story with unmistakable plainness.
+
+It was while things were in this unsettled state that she was surprised
+by a second visit from Flood and Pendleton; not, this time, in the car,
+for the roads were impassable.  They drove up in the only sleigh that
+was for hire at the Summit.
+
+Pendleton had hardly got out of his great fur coat before he opened
+fire; he had evidently come primed.
+
+"What's all this about arrests and moonshiners, Rosamund?" he demanded.
+"Cecilia's very uneasy.  Had a letter from her day before yesterday,
+saying she'd come herself if she could do any good, and wouldn't I run
+up and look around a bit.  So here we are, both of us, because Flood
+wouldn't be left behind!"
+
+"That wasn't quite fair of Cecilia," Rosamund said, flushing angrily.
+Pendleton had promptly got on her nerves with the alacrity that only an
+old friend is capable of.  "I thought I had made it plain that I mean
+to be let alone."
+
+"Oh, please!" Flood, the peacemaker, besought them; and Rosamund had
+come to like his helpless "Oh, please!" so well that she smiled at him,
+though her eyes were still bright with anger.
+
+"I say, Pendleton," he went on, "you're always trying to fight with
+Miss Randall."  Pendleton only grinned at him.  "Really, Miss Randall,
+we haven't come to interfere, not in the very least, I assure you!
+Mrs. Maxwell did write; but we wanted very much to see you.  That is
+why _I_ came, anyway!"
+
+So far he dared venture, and at the very bathos of his distress
+Rosamund laughed, and peace reigned again.  She told them of Tobet's
+arrest, and that his wife was now a member of her household.  She
+declared that there remained no possible danger, with Joe out of the
+way.
+
+Pendleton appealed to Eleanor; and Flood, too, gave her a questioning
+look.  She could not hide her anxiety; but that she was not afraid to
+admit it gave Flood a feeling of security that he would have missed if
+she had shown herself, like Rosamund, inclined to deny the danger.  For
+Flood believed that the newspaper accounts of trouble present and to
+come must be the smoke of some fire; yet he feared only a possible
+unpleasantness for Rosamund, rather than any actual danger.
+
+Ogilvie came in while they were still discussing it.  To-day there were
+no traces of tell-tale emotion to be hidden.  He had seen the sleigh
+before the house, guessed who were within, and now showed himself
+unaffectedly glad to see Flood.  Rosamund inwardly trembled lest
+Ogilvie should express himself on the subject of the mountaineers'
+suspicions; she could not know that a look, passed between himself and
+Flood, was enough to set Flood on the alert.
+
+She talked feverishly while they were at dinner, and her heart sank
+when, afterwards, Pendleton announced that he was hit with an idea.  He
+was standing at the window, taking in the white sweeps and stretches of
+snow, the black trunks of the leafless trees, the dark pyramids of the
+spruces, the more distant shadow of pines.
+
+"Jove!" he cried.  "Just look at those slopes for skiing and
+tobogganing!  It's better than Davos!"
+
+Then he turned from the window, his hands deep in his pockets, and
+stood in front of Rosamund, his head on one side, tipping backward and
+forward from heels to toes.
+
+"I say, Rosy," he said, "the best way you can convince us, and poor
+dear Cecilia, that you are safe up here is to let us stay for a while
+and see for ourselves!"
+
+Rosamund flushed; he was so wilfully provoking.  "Marshall!  How can
+you?  You know very well I can't have two men in my house!  Why do you
+want to make me appear so inhospitable?"
+
+Flood, too, looked as if he would like to express himself forcibly.
+"Oh, I say, Pendleton----" he began.
+
+But Ogilvie, apparently, saw something of good in the suggestion.
+"That's a capital idea, Mr. Pendleton," he said.  "Stay up here a
+while, and see for yourselves.  I'll be very glad to put you up, if
+Mrs. Reeves will invite us over to dinner once in a while!  My landlady
+isn't much of a chef!"
+
+Flood had turned to him quickly, with a keen look of questioning.
+"Could you really, old man?" he asked.
+
+"Bully!" Pendleton cried, grinning at Rosamund.  "Bet I can beat you in
+a snow fight, Rose!"
+
+But Rosamund, biting her lip in dismay, would not look at him.
+
+"I can snow-fight!" Tim announced.  "I know how to make a snow man,
+too!  My muvver showed me!"
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+It ended in their remaining ten gala days.  Flood telegraphed for the
+implements of winter sports, and got them the next day.  They opened
+them on the brow of the hill, and Pendleton, who took it upon himself
+to be master of ceremonies, "dared" Rosamund to lead off on the skis.
+
+"What for is vey long sticks?" Tim asked.  And when he saw Miss Rose
+walk off on them he shrieked, and hid his face in Eleanor's skirts.
+
+The entire household had come to look on.  Matt and Sue stood at the
+corner of the cottage, he leaning on a snow-shovel to keep him in
+countenance, Aunt Sue with one apron over her turbaned head and her
+hands rolled up in another.  Grace, as white as the snow itself, sat
+bundled up in rugs on a sunny corner of the piazza; Ogilvie had seen to
+that.
+
+Eleanor and Rosamund were in scarlet caps and long blanket coats.  When
+Pendleton had fastened on her skis, Rosamund threw aside the coat, and
+stood, a figure of white against the vaster white, save for the red of
+her cap and the warm brightness of her hair and face.
+
+She had known many Alpine winters, and was as much at home on skis and
+snowshoes as in a ball-room.
+
+She turned away from the interested little group to look across the
+unbroken slope gleaming in sunlight that kissed it to a rosy glow in
+places, in others turned its frozen crystals to a myriad sparkling
+points of light.  In the hollows and under the shadow of drifts and
+pines the snow looked blue.  She knew where the fields lay, now under
+their blanket, patterned by fences in the summer.  The road wound off
+to the left, then down, down----
+
+It was only a step or two to the crest of the hill; the leap would be
+glorious!  She turned a laughing glance over her shoulder; Eleanor,
+Ogilvie, Flood, were watching her intently.
+
+"I dare you!" Pendleton cried again; and she was off, off in one
+splendid rush and leap, a leap that carried her out and down, far down.
+
+Again Timmy shrieked, and Yetta fell on her knees.  Eleanor's face
+flushed in admiration, and Pendleton called out,
+
+"Good girl!  Never knew you to take a dare!"
+
+It was a phase of her new to the two men who loved her.  Ogilvie had
+seen her in many situations, Flood in more; each believed that he knew
+the full excellence of her, yet, oddly enough, neither had thought of
+her as this wild, boyish, graceful creature of the out-of-doors.  The
+sudden discovery of it came as a shock to both; for both were by nature
+men of the open, notwithstanding the fact of Flood's accumulated
+millions and Ogilvie's eminence in the laboratory.  Now, in their
+surprise, they stood above, on the edge of the slope, and watched her,
+each thrilling, each showing his emotion in his own way.
+
+Flood, in his surprise, had called out, then thrust one clenched fist
+into the other palm with a resounding smack; but in a moment his face
+took on its expressionless mask--expressionless save for the gleam from
+the half-closed eyes.
+
+Ogilvie had made no sound; he stood perfectly still, with out-thrust
+under lip, the corners of his eyes wrinkling to a smile; his face wore
+something of the indulgent, restrained look of a mother when she sees
+an adored child perform some wonder, yet refrains from praise of that
+which is so intimately her own; his first move was to run his fingers
+through his hair.
+
+The two stood there as if spellbound until Rosamund reached the valley
+and waved up to them.  Then Flood and Ogilvie turned, and met each
+other's eyes.  There was something of a shock; instantly each looked
+away again, with an unspoken feeling of apology, as if he had looked
+upon a disclosure that was not meant for him.
+
+Neither analyzed what he had seen; until that moment neither had
+suspected that the thought of Rosamund might be living in the heart and
+desire of the other.  Instantly each put the suspicion aside, as if it
+were an unworthy one; yet, through the hours that followed, it
+persisted in returning again and again.  Each man acknowledged that if
+it were true of himself, it might well be true of his friend; but each
+tried to assure himself of its impossibility, even while admitting
+that, if it were true, there could have been nothing of unfairness on
+the part of the other.
+
+From their first meeting on the mountain-top Flood and Ogilvie had
+intuitively liked each other.  Through a knowledge of varied types of
+men, they had learned to look beneath the surface; each recognized in
+the other many qualities to respect.  Men are by nature
+hero-worshipers, from the time that they look with covetous admiration
+on the policeman's brass buttons and the motorman's thrilling power,
+through the period when they worship the home league's star pitcher and
+third-base-man, the captain of their college foot-ball eleven, and on
+to their political enthusiasms.  There is far more of pure hero-worship
+in the friendships of men than the world gives them credit for.  Flood
+and Ogilvie had met on a mountain-top, and on a height their friendship
+was to remain.  Each saw in the other "a splendid fellow"; neither
+would have admitted in his friend the least shadow of baseness.  So,
+after the unforeseen disclosure of that look, each man felt generously
+on his honor to appear unaware of any possible feeling on the part of
+his friend toward Rosamund, even going so far, in his heart and hopes,
+as to deny that such might exist.
+
+But while this ardent liking existed between Flood and Ogilvie, there
+was something far different between each of them and Pendleton.
+
+Pendleton liked Flood.  He liked him for the virile strength of his
+personality, as well as for his possessions; he knew him only in his
+hours of leisure, and might not have liked him so well, nor at all, if
+he had known him only when he was engrossed in business.  But toward
+Ogilvie he could not disguise an antagonism which would have shown
+itself openly if he had been more courageous, and which as it was,
+appeared in countless small spitefulnesses.
+
+To the man who does nothing there are no creatures less interesting
+than those whose every moment is taken up with affairs.  Between the
+deliberate idler and the man of absorbing occupation there can be
+nothing in common; indeed, there often arises more or less antipathy.
+The business man is apt to retain a hearty disrespect for the idler; to
+him, the man of leisure must always appear an anomaly, an excrescence,
+a parasite of civilization.  And even when the worker has developed
+toward the plane of the connoisseur, the collector, the lover of sports
+and arts, he seldom does more than tolerate the man who has begun where
+he finds himself only toward the end of an active career.
+
+Yet Flood found Marshall amusing and likable enough.  He was perfectly
+aware of Pendleton's qualities of the sycophant, the flatterer, the
+gatherer of crumbs from the rich man's table.  He thought of them
+rather pityingly as a natural outgrowth of the life of that class in
+which Pendleton was so much at his ease, and regarded them leniently
+because he believed that there was also to be found in that class so
+much that was desirable, so much that he himself coveted.  He was
+willing to accept its evil with its good, its defects with its
+excellence; if it had brought forth a Pendleton, it had also borne the
+perfect flower that was Rosamund.
+
+But to Ogilvie Pendleton was altogether an abomination; he could see no
+good in him; his very palms itched to smite him!
+
+They were fortunate in their weather.  It seemed as if nature,
+satisfied with her latest marvel, were holding her breath.  Every day
+of their ten was brilliantly clear and cold and windless.  Their voices
+rang far across the white silence of valley and mountain in that hushed
+atmosphere.  The frozen snow crunched even under Timmy's little
+trudging feet; and the mountain people apparently felt that it was
+useless to lurk among the spruces when every step they took told where
+they would be hidden.  They came from far and wide to stare at the
+strange antics of the "foreigners," and grinned at Rosamund, more
+friendly than they had ever been before.
+
+Pap drove Mother Cary across the valley to look on at the sports;
+Rosamund called her attention to the new friendliness of the other
+spectators.  The old woman smiled rather grimly.  "Land!  No wonder!"
+she said.  "Nobody could suspicion those young fellers were spies,
+cuttin' up sech capers as them, sliding down hill head foremost on
+their stummicks, an' prancin' around on slappers.  I never saw such
+goin's on, myself--and John Ogilvie one of 'em!"
+
+They laughingly compared notes afterward, and decided that Mother Cary
+had been quite scandalized by their "capers;" Ogilvie admitted that she
+had been very severe toward him the day after her drive across the
+valley.
+
+But for themselves they were glorious hours.  Rosamund threw aside the
+burden of care that had enveloped her during the past weeks, and became
+as merry as a child, more gay and joyous, than Ogilvie had ever seen
+her.  She skimmed down the slopes on her toboggan with Tim holding on
+behind her, his curls blowing out in the onrush of their swift descent;
+and she would carry him back up the hill again, "pick-a-back," to show
+him how strong a horse she was.  She could outdistance them all on
+skis, but Ogilvie proved himself the best on snowshoes--thanks to his
+boyhood in northern Vermont, although Flood, who had faced many a
+blizzard on the plains, was not far behind him.
+
+On the last day of the joyful ten Flood had gone with Rosamund on
+snowshoes across the valley to carry something to Mrs. Allen.  Snow had
+fallen during the night, and every bough of pine and spruce and fir had
+its burden of downy white.  The two paused, when they had come past
+Father Cary's wood-lot, to look down upon the valley.
+
+They stood for a moment or so without speech.  Flood looked from the
+snow-covered fields to the face beside him, as if to compare one
+loveliness with another; then he drew a deep breath.
+
+"Well," he said, as they went on again, "I'm sorry to be leaving all
+this!"
+
+For a moment she did not reply; she looked up at him once or twice, and
+he divined that she had something to say which she did not quite dare
+to put into words.  They had become very good friends, thanks to the
+freedom of the out-of-door life of the past days.  He laughed.
+
+"Go on, please!  Don't mind saying it!  I haven't any feelings!"
+
+"Oh," she protested, laughing, "I was not dreaming of hurting your
+feelings!  I was only thinking how--how curious it is that you
+should--should care so much for what you are going back to."
+
+But he did, nevertheless, show himself a little hurt at that.  "Why
+shouldn't I like it?" he asked.  "Do I seem such a savage?"
+
+"Oh, precisely not!"  Her mood was kind.  "You are not a savage.  You
+are very nice--I'm very glad I've found out how nice you are.  But
+that's just what makes me wonder, you see, how you can like it!"
+
+"Like being nice?"
+
+"No--of course not!  Like what you're going back to.  New York.
+Cecilia!  Oh--all of that--you know what I mean, don't you?"
+
+"Why," he said, a little puzzled, "I'm afraid I don't see anything
+wrong with it--with your 'all of that!'  Do you think I ought to?"
+
+"Oh, it isn't so much what is wrong with it.  It's only that it doesn't
+satisfy--does it?  It is chaff--husks--a bubble--it has no substance."
+
+He considered it for a moment.  Then he submitted: "Has this?"
+
+"Well, at least this has substance.  It isn't empty."
+
+"Isn't it?" he asked.  "Do you know, I should just have reversed that
+opinion.  I should have said there was a good deal more in the life
+you've deserted this winter than in the life you're choosing to live
+here!"
+
+She laughed.  "Perhaps I've reverted!  Or perhaps we are in different
+phases of evolution!  You have reached your--we'll call it your New
+York--and I have passed through it and come on to something better.  Or
+if that sounds impolite we'll say that I have reached it and tumbled
+down again!"
+
+"Oh, there's no impoliteness in the truth!  You are generations,
+infinite ages, ahead of me!"
+
+She made no answer to his humility, and for a while neither spoke
+again.  Their talk was, of necessity, largely broken by intervals when
+all their attention was needed for the task in hand.  The light snow
+made the going uncertain; they were taking the shorter way home, along
+the upper slopes, instead of crossing the valley, and they had, more or
+less, alternately to feel their way and to rush swiftly on across
+possible dangers.
+
+At the crest of the last slope Rosamund paused, and they turned to look
+back at the way they had come.  Flood watched her with eyes of
+devotion, as she stood there with her head thrown a little upwards,
+breathing deeply, her face warm with her delight in the beauty of the
+scene before her.
+
+"How lovely it is!" she said, in the vibrating tone that always
+thrilled him.
+
+"Yes, it is lovely," he said, "but only for a time.  It is too much
+like the real thing!"
+
+"Isn't it the real thing?" she asked, surprised.
+
+He laughed, and shook himself a little.  "I mean the real thing that I
+used to know, the drifts on the plains, sleet in the face, the numbness
+in your feet that tells you they're frozen--that's the real thing!
+Believe me!"
+
+She looked up at him, interested.  "And you have really felt that?"
+
+"Oh, yes," he said.  "I've felt it--but it's a long time ago.  I'm glad
+it is, too.  A very little of it satisfies.  Nowadays my real thing
+is--well, what you called a while ago, New York, though that's only a
+manner of speaking, you know."
+
+"Yes, I know.  We've talked back in a circle!  I am still wondering why
+you like it as you do!"
+
+They had crossed their last hummock, and had come to the place not far
+from the brown house where Matt now spread rugs and cushions every
+morning; but no one was there to greet them.  Far down the long slope
+of white they could see Eleanor and Tim, moving slowly over the crust;
+Yetta was already at home on snowshoes, and her crimson-clad figure was
+skimming over the snow-covered fields.  Apparently she was playing a
+game of ball with Pendleton--something they had invented for
+themselves; Ogilvie, also on snowshoes, was with them.
+
+Rosamund sent a clear Valkyrie call down to them.  They all looked up,
+and waved.  Ogilvie moved closer to Pendleton's side, and the game of
+ball went on.
+
+Rosamund threw herself down on one of the blankets, and Flood took his
+place beside her.  She still wore her snowshoes, and sat with her knees
+drawn up, her arms clasped about them, boy fashion.  She was watching
+the others at their game down below, but Flood looked no farther than
+her face.
+
+Suddenly she became intensely aware of the man beside her; she could
+not tell how the change came, or whether there were a change at all,
+except in her intense consciousness of him.  She did not turn to look
+at him; she did not so much as tremble from her position; but slowly,
+as if the blood were retreating to her heart, her face grew white.
+
+Flood saw the change in her face, and knew that he was the cause of it.
+His heart beat triumphantly faster.
+
+"Why did you say that you wonder at my liking--New York?" he asked.
+
+She tried, vainly, to speak.
+
+"You know what it represents, to me.  It's something better than I ever
+had before.  It's friends, it's music, and art, and the whirl on the
+Avenue.  It is 'up and on'--and--Rosamund, don't you know what it is
+above all else?  It is you."
+
+He had meant to say a great deal, when this moment should have arrived;
+he had often wondered just how it would come, when he should find
+courage where they two should be.  He had tried to teach himself the
+words he thought would be most sure to move her, words that would best
+disclose the fullness of his faith and his desire; yet now that the
+moment for speaking was upon him he reverted to the man that was his
+inmost self, forgetting his practiced phrases, not speaking the words
+he had rehearsed, but telling his longing in short, rushing sentences
+of pleading, voicing to her silence the cry of the strong soul to its
+chosen mate, the appeal, even the demand, of the man who had won a high
+place to the woman who could lead him up to even greater altitudes of
+the spirit.  He pleaded as a man who has much to offer, but who is yet
+begging for the crowning gift.  Unconsciously he disclosed his own
+greatness of soul, while making her understand that he held her
+supreme, beyond all that was beautiful, above all that was high.
+
+Before he was done speaking, her head had bent itself until her face
+was on her knees.  Never had she felt herself so unworthy; never had
+her humility been so great.  Yet when he paused, she did not answer;
+even for his last strong appeal she had no word.  He had shown her the
+depths of his heart, and hers was shaken to its own depths.  But yield
+she could not, turn to him she could not.  It was as if two great
+elemental forces met, and clashed, and refused to combine.  She could
+not altogether repudiate his appeal, yet she must be true to the
+stronger one which held possession of her heart.
+
+As he watched her in a silence that seemed still to vibrate with the
+strength of his words, she raised her head to look at the figures now
+coming toward them up the long slope.  Suddenly she saw that Ogilvie
+stopped short, and, apparently at some word from Pendleton, looked up
+toward herself and Flood.  He took a hesitating step or two, came on at
+a wave from Pendleton; then he turned away, leaving the others to
+return without him.
+
+Some silent message had come up the mountain to her; Rosamund had found
+her answer to poor Flood.  The others were out of sight for the moment
+behind a low growth of pine; only Ogilvie was visible as he made his
+way along the other ridge, taking his steps heavily, seeming suddenly
+to have become weary.
+
+Rosamund watched him for a moment; then she turned her white face,
+pitiful with the knowledge of the hurt that she must give him, toward
+Flood.  He must have read something there, for, startled, he bent a
+little closer; then, following her look, he glanced from her to
+Ogilvie, and back again.  Her eyes did not waver from him, and when
+they had to answer the question in his, the paleness left her face, and
+a great wave of color flooded it.  He held his breath, and his unspoken
+question must have become imperative; for she nodded, her parted lips
+refusing to form words.  Then, withdrawing her look, she hid her face
+in her arms.
+
+Neither of them ever realized that she spoke no word at all.  Her reply
+had been too well-defined to need speech.  Flood understood.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+The morning after the departure of Flood and Pendleton, Eleanor and
+Rosamund went out to the veranda for their usual after-breakfast
+"breath of air," and stood arm in arm, looking over the long slopes
+which had been the theater of their wonderful ten days' sport.
+Apparently the same thought came to them simultaneously.  They looked
+at each other and smiled.
+
+"Did you ever see any place so empty?" Eleanor asked.
+
+Rosamund shook her head.  "I never did," she said.  "Isn't it absurd?"
+
+"It's like being in a room when the clock stops!" said Eleanor, and
+Rosamund laughed.
+
+"Isn't it curious how much of the city feeling those two brought with
+them?  Before they came I felt as if New York were miles--oh,
+continents--away.  This place was home, the center of the universe.
+Now--well, now this is 'way off in the country'!"
+
+Eleanor laughed understandingly.  "I know!  And yet not once while they
+were here did we do anything we should have done in town!  No one so
+much as mentioned bridge!"
+
+"It must have been Marshall's presence," said Rosamund.  "Certainly Mr.
+Flood never suggests town to me!"  She flushed, remembering what their
+last talk of New York had led to.  He had taken it so well, proved
+himself so completely the master of his emotions, shown her so gently
+that he held her blameless and still supreme, that she had never liked
+him so much as after having shown him how little she liked him!
+
+Eleanor looked at her curiously, for she suspected something of what
+had passed the day before; but she had cause to look at her wonderingly
+more and more, in the days that followed, days which, for Rosamund,
+soon became filled with mixed emotions.
+
+"I want to see my doctor," Tim said at dinner one day.
+
+The three women looked at one another as if it had just occurred to
+them that Ogilvie had not, indeed, been to the brown cottage that day,
+nor the day before, nor the one before that.  Nearly a week in fact,
+had passed since the departure of the two men, and not once in that
+time had White Rosy stopped before the house.
+
+"Why, he has not been here since Mr. Flood left!  He must be ill," said
+Eleanor, trying to speak as if the idea had just occurred to her.
+
+"No, he ain't," said Yetta, always willing to give information.  "I saw
+him driving around by the other road yesterday.  He ain't sick."
+
+"Why, it's five days since he was here," Grace said.  "He must 'a'
+forgot you, Timmy!"
+
+Tim's lip began to tremble, and he turned to the ever ready Eleanor to
+be comforted.
+
+It had been a week of restlessness for Rosamund.  The visit of Flood
+and Pendleton had recalled enough of the old familiar atmosphere of
+cities to make the solitude of the mountains seem strange.  She had
+been so sure that the new life was the best one!  Now she was disgusted
+with herself to find that something of the old restlessness had
+returned.  She told herself, with increasing determination, as the
+empty days wore on, that she had become dissatisfied with the pleasant
+monotony of the new life because a breath of the old one had blown
+toward her.  For her admission to Flood, drawn from her unawares, as it
+had been, even before Ogilvie himself had demanded it, gave her a
+self-consciousness which was hard to bear.  But apparently her secret
+was to remain with Flood.  Ogilvie did not come to claim it.  It had
+long become his habit to stop at the cottage whenever he passed there.
+For the first few days of his absence, she was only sorry that he did
+not find time to come.  She could have no doubts of him.  For weeks she
+had been happily sure that he was only waiting for a sign from her to
+put into words what his eyes and manner were always saying.  To have
+doubted him would have been to doubt the foundations of the world.
+
+But gradually she became anxious at his prolonged absence.  All sorts
+of womanish fears began to crowd upon her.  Although for a long time
+she had heard no mutterings of trouble from among the mountaineers, yet
+now she imagined all sorts of horrors, with Ogilvie as their victim.
+When Mother Cary told her, one day, that the doctor certainly must be
+sick, her fears went beyond bounds.  She knew herself to be his own,
+she believed him to be hers; courageously she ignored her maidenly
+hesitancies, and went forth to meet him.
+
+All night she had lain awake nerving herself to seek him out; but when
+morning brought the hour of their meeting she forgot everything save
+her anxiety for him.  She had convinced herself that he was in trouble,
+and staying away so that no shadow of it should fall on her.
+
+She knew which way White Rosy would bring him.  It was snowing, but she
+put on her warm red coat and cap, and went quietly out of the house,
+walking down the road toward the Summit, to meet his sleigh on its way
+to the valley.  She waved to him when he came in sight, but apparently
+he did not see her; as he drew nearer she waved again, and called.
+
+He answered, for such a greeting had passed between them many times
+before, and was not to be ignored.  But when the sleigh stopped beside
+her she cried out at the drawn whiteness of his face.
+
+"Oh!" she cried, her hand over her heart, "you are ill!"
+
+But he managed to smile, and threw aside his worn old fur rug with an
+inviting gesture.  "Ill?  Not a bit of it!  Let me give you a lift to
+the cottage!"
+
+Mechanically she took her place beside him, and he urged White Rosy on.
+She looked at him with anxious eyes and parted lips, feeling all the
+while as if she were in some bewildered dream, where the real was
+unreal, where everything was distorted--like itself, yet strangely
+unlike.
+
+Always before they had talked as fancy led them, or were comfortably
+silent; now he was so unlike himself as to manufacture small-talk,
+commonplaces, nothings.  There was no reference to his not having been
+to the cottage, no hint of having missed her, no least word, in fact,
+of anything personal between them.  He talked on, almost feverishly,
+without looking at her, while she sat there numbly, dazed at the change
+in him, but wounded far beyond other thought or speculation.
+
+He stopped the sleigh in front of the brown house, and she got down
+without looking at him; and still without speaking she went inside.  He
+had not so much as suggested her driving on with him, as she had done
+half a hundred times before!
+
+Grace, in a deep basket chair, was smilingly watching the pretty group
+before the fire--Eleanor, teaching the two children how to pop corn,
+with Tim on her knee vigorously shaking the wire basket.  They looked
+up as Rosamund entered, and at sight of the girl's face Eleanor put
+Timmy quickly down from her lap and jumped up, with a little anxious
+cry.
+
+But Rosamund blindly, unheeding, went past them and up to her own room.
+She closed the door and locked it, and made some incoherent answer to
+Eleanor's entreaties.  She never knew how long she sat there, silent,
+motionless, without removing her hat or coat, dumbly trying to control
+the mingled shame and longing that surged through her.  Vainly she
+searched through her memory for an explanation; she had done nothing to
+offend him, no least thing that should estrange him.  Even now she
+could not believe that he would wantonly hurt her; her faith in their
+love had rooted itself too deep in her heart to be easily disturbed.
+
+At last she called upon her pride for help, only to find that pride
+itself lay sorely wounded.  But it was that which enabled her at last
+to lay aside hat and coat, to bathe her face and rearrange her hair,
+even to dress herself in her most becoming gown--that sure refuge of a
+suffering woman!--and go downstairs to meet Eleanor's questioning,
+anxious eyes.  It was not until Ogilvie came back later in the day, for
+a hasty call at an hour when he knew the entire household would be
+assembled, that anger came, mercifully, to her relief.  She saw that he
+wished to make it seem as if he had always come at that hour, as if his
+visits were habitually that far apart; she understood that he was
+determined to make it impossible for her to ask wherein he suspected
+her of offense.  He meant to give her no opportunity to explain or
+demand explanation; instead, he was taking this way of turning back the
+hands of the clock.  He was deliberately withdrawing from their
+intimacy, putting their friendship back upon a plane of formality.  It
+would seem as if he were trying to show her that his feelings had
+changed.  Yet she had faced her own love too frankly, in her heart's
+secret communings, to be able to deny it now.  She could only, in an
+agony of shame, tell herself at last that she had been deceived in his.
+
+The days that followed were full of misery for her.  All her life she
+had been the center of a little world of love and admiration.  For the
+first time some one had turned from her; the pain of it was not
+lessened because the one who spurned her had come to hold first place
+in her heart.  Yet such was her attitude that not even Eleanor dared
+say a word which might touch upon the subject ever so remotely.
+Eleanor did, indeed, watch her with yearning eyes, and Rosamund,
+sensitive in her suffering, believed that she talked of her with Grace
+and Mother Cary; but it was only by their avoidance of Ogilvie's name
+that they showed any suspicion of what was in her heart.  Had Eleanor
+dared to speak, Rosamund would not have been able to silence her; for
+she needed every atom of her strength to appear unconscious and natural
+whenever Ogilvie came.  She would not avoid him.  She could only be
+feverishly gay before him; and Eleanor noticed how much more grimly his
+face set itself after each visit.
+
+The weeks passed, quickly for the rest of the household, slowly enough
+for Rosamund.  She took long walks with Yetta; as Grace grew in
+strength she went with them, taking them to call on her mountain
+friends, who had shown themselves more friendly toward Rosamund since
+they had watched her at play--and since the arrest of Joe Tobet, always
+a disturbing personality.  They came to see Grace at the brown house,
+where Rosamund made them feel at home, and gave them coffee and cake
+and talked to them about their children, and loaned them patterns,
+which she bought for the purpose, and which Eleanor showed them how to
+use.  Rosamund's greatest comfort lay in the fact that she was coming
+to be of use to them, thus fulfilling the desire which had been her
+excuse for remaining among them.
+
+For other exercise she had no desire; she could not put on snowshoes or
+skis without recalling a time which she was trying to forget; besides,
+she had no heart for play.  And soon even the walks became not
+unalloyed pleasure.  Although no further warnings had come, either to
+herself or Grace, and although the mountain people continued to show
+themselves more and more friendly, Rosamund was conscious of a feeling
+of uneasiness, a dread of ominous, unseen horrors hovering near, of
+stealthy presences following her, of eyes peering at her from the
+leafless undergrowth or through the branches of the scrub pine.  She
+tried to persuade herself that it was all a part of the foolish
+imaginings of a timid woman, yet had to admit that she had never been
+timid before; gradually the feeling of uneasiness became almost
+unbearable, in her increasing nervousness.
+
+She welcomed the relief of Christmas, although it was Eleanor who went
+to New York for their Christmas shopping.  Rosamund resolved with
+herself that she would not leave the Summit until she had overcome the
+vague fear that was now present with her whenever she left the house.
+She would conquer that, or find out the reason for it, even though the
+relations between herself and Ogilvie were at an end forever.  So she
+sent Eleanor in her place, reigning alone for two weeks in the house
+which had come to seem more Eleanor's than her own.
+
+Eleanor returned on Christmas eve, all prepared to be a most munificent
+Santa Claus.  It was only after the tree was trimmed, and they had
+filled bulging stockings for everybody--including the Carys and John
+Ogilvie--that she had a moment alone with Rosamund.
+
+At last, however, Grace went upstairs, and Sue and Matt beamingly bade
+them good night; Tim had not yet awakened with the first of his
+repeated demands to go downstairs and see whether "Santy" had come.
+Eleanor threw herself wearily into a big chair, and Rosamund perched on
+its arm.
+
+"Well, who did you see, and where did you go, and what did you do?" she
+demanded.
+
+Eleanor laughed.  "I saw Mrs. Maxwell, for one, and she was looking
+exceedingly pretty and youthful."
+
+"Was she in a good humor?"
+
+"Well, she invited me to luncheon!"
+
+"Oh, then she was!  I suppose she had gotten my Christmas check.  I've
+sent to Tiffany's for some emeralds for her, besides.  She'll get them
+as a surprise, to-morrow morning."
+
+"Emeralds!  How munificent you are!"
+
+Rosamund laughed.  "I'm afraid I'm only following the line of least
+resistance, Eleanor!  Cissy's an angel when she's pleased.  But didn't
+you see her more than once?"
+
+Eleanor's pause was scarcely perceptible.  "Mr. Flood asked us all to
+dinner at the Ritz," she said.
+
+"How nice of him!  You and Cissy--and Marshall, I suppose?"
+
+"Of course!"
+
+"Then you saw them together.  Tell me, Eleanor, do Cissy and Marshall
+really care for each other, do you think?"
+
+"Oh, my dear!  Don't ask me such a question as that!"
+
+"Why not?  I've wondered sometimes whether they would marry, if there
+were more money between them.  I'd like Cissy to be happy; but, of
+course, she'd have to be happy in her way!"  She thought for a while,
+then added, "Marshall intimated that 'dear Cecilia' was setting her cap
+for Mr. Flood!  What do you think about that?"
+
+"I don't think anything at all, and it's bed-time," Eleanor answered,
+trying to rise.
+
+But Rosamund's arm across her shoulder restrained her.  "Not yet!  I
+want a long talk.  I have missed you so dreadfully, old precious!"
+
+Eleanor reached up for the hand on her shoulder, and looked up into the
+girl's face.  "I didn't miss you, sweet!  I took you with me!"
+
+Rosamund laughed, more joyously than in weeks.  "Oh, what a lover-like
+speech from Eleanor!" she cried.  "Who has been coaching you?"
+
+It was the most innocent of questions; but instantly Eleanor's usual
+whiteness vanished.  A wave of pink crept up from her throat to her
+cheeks, to her temples, to the line of her gold hair.  Rosamund
+watched, amazed beyond expression.  Then Eleanor sprang up.
+
+"We really must go to bed!" she cried.
+
+But Rosamond had her by the shoulders.  "Eleanor!" she gasped.
+"Why--Eleanor--who?"
+
+But Eleanor had broken away, and was running up the stairs, leaving
+Rosamund to a bewilderment which ended in a little gasp of
+understanding and delight.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+The first weeks of the new year passed rather drearily.  Christmas had
+been a day of disappointment for her, although she threw herself into
+the carefully planned festivities with a feverish gayety.  The Carys
+had come across the valley to see the tree, and before dinner-time
+every gift had found its way to the one it was intended for, except the
+big net stocking which the children had filled for the doctor.  He had
+promised Tim to come that morning; yet the day passed without him.  He
+sent word that he was called over the mountain; yet, legitimate though
+the excuse was, Rosamund became gayer than before--for anger always
+acted as a goad to her self-control.
+
+After Christmas his calls grew farther and farther apart; sometimes a
+week passed without his coming at all.  When they met upon the road
+their greeting was cheerful enough--too cheerful!  Eleanor watched her,
+wondered, and said nothing.  Rosamund was aware that something new had
+come into her friend's life, and rejoiced, for Eleanor fell into the
+way of wanting to go for the mail; or if any one else brought it, she
+would take the letter that was addressed to herself in a characteristic
+handwriting that Rosamund knew, and ran off with it to read it alone.
+Had it not been for Grace's growing need of her, and for the new
+friendliness of the mountain people, Rosamund would have deserted the
+brown house, for a time at least.  But the increasing confidence of her
+neighbors was unmistakable; and she told herself that she would remain
+throughout the winter, if only to prove John Ogilvie's forebodings
+wrong.
+
+But all the while, as time passed, more and more, on her walks and in
+her own house at night, she was becoming haunted with that feeling of
+being watched and followed.  She spoke of it to no one.  Grace alone,
+her most constant companion, might have offered some explanation; but
+Joe Tobet's trial was approaching, and Grace was in no condition to be
+needlessly alarmed.  Mother Cary was showing herself increasingly
+anxious about Ogilvie; and the teething grandchild kept her away from
+home much of the time.  So Rosamund confided in no one; but especially
+whenever she was out alone, or towards twilight, she was possessed by
+the sense of a shadowy something watching, following, haunting her.  It
+amounted to an obsession, a fear that was all the more terrifying
+because it could not be faced.  She tried to persuade herself that it
+was a trick of overwrought nerves, a wild phantasy of the imagination;
+and the better to convince herself of that she laid little
+traps--sprinkling fresh snow over the path to the house, for one thing,
+only to find a man's footprints on it in the morning.
+
+When the time came that she would wake in the night in horror, from a
+dream of something unseen creeping upon her out of the dark, she knew
+that she must somehow find and face the elusive presence, whatever it
+might be, or become utterly unnerved.  Moved by the impulse of a
+frightened creature at bay, she had tried to do so before, but in vain;
+now, however, in her determination she laid a plan which was more
+likely to succeed.
+
+There were two ways from the brown house to the post-office; by the
+road it was a countryman's long mile, and until the leaves fell she had
+not discovered that there was a shorter way by one of the hidden paths
+worn by the mountaineers.  This little path ran along beside the
+highway at times, though higher up on the mountain-side, so that anyone
+walking upon it could look down, unseen, on the road; now and again it
+cut across turns, through woods, often with sharp turnings to avoid
+some bowlder or fallen tree.
+
+Although at the thought of it her heart beat with something more
+closely related to fear than she cared to admit, Rosamund determined to
+take the little frozen path, and when she felt the presence lurking
+back of her to turn, at one of the points where the path bent aside,
+and, her movements hidden by the nature of the path, to retrace her
+steps and face whatever was following her.
+
+At first she thought the Thing must in some ghostly way have divined
+her purpose; all the way to the Summit she knew that she was
+unfollowed.  But on the way back, scarcely had she turned into the path
+when her heart gave a leap.  There was the sound, so detestably
+familiar of late, of a stealthy footstep, which stopped when hers did,
+and which came on, quietly, relentlessly, when she started forward
+again.  Nerving herself to courage, she walked quickly on until she
+came to a place where the path turned sharply; there for a moment or
+two she paused, to let the pursuer gain upon her, then quietly and
+quickly retraced her steps.
+
+The ruse was successful.  She could hear the footsteps come on, the man
+plainly unaware of her returning.  Suddenly she stepped a little out of
+the path and waited.  The man came nearer, was opposite her--and with a
+cry, her hand on her heart, she faced--John Ogilvie.
+
+For a long minute they stared at each other.  She could scarcely
+believe the evidence of her eyes, yet it was surely Ogilvie.  "Is it
+you who have been following me?" she gasped.
+
+His shoulders drooped as guiltily as a schoolboy's caught in mischief;
+he looked at her dumbly, wistfully.
+
+"I--it--Yes!" he stammered.
+
+For a moment she could not speak, so amazed was she.  When she did, he
+flushed deeply at the scorn in her voice, but at once grew pale again.
+
+"Has it amused you to frighten me?" she demanded.
+
+He took off his cap, and ran his fingers through his hair in the old
+perturbed gesture.  There was a pale intensity of yearning on his face,
+a dark gleam of hungering pain, something of the bewildered misery of
+the lost child, an agony of renunciation with none of that exaltation
+which makes renunciation beautiful.  Despite the sharp cold of the
+closing day he looked hot, disheveled, as one hard pressed.  His breath
+came quickly and painfully, as if he had been running a race.  Every
+vestige of color left his face as he stood there, his look not
+faltering from hers.
+
+"Oh, how could you do it?" she cried, tears starting to her eyes.
+
+"I didn't think you knew," he said, hoarsely.
+
+"Not know?  Not know!" she gave a little laugh that was half a sob.  "I
+have gone in terror--for weeks!"
+
+"I am sorry," was all he found strength to say; and it seemed as if the
+words could scarcely pass his lips.
+
+In the sudden revulsion of feeling she was becoming shaken with anger.
+He saw that she misjudged him; but she had never seemed to him so
+beautiful as in her scorn and anger and resentment.  The appeal of her
+beauty only added to his distress.  The moment was as tense as that
+earlier one when their hearts had been disclosed; but now no one came
+to break the spell.  Instead, Rosamund turned, and walked away from him.
+
+He had believed, during these weeks, that he had schooled himself to
+silence and restraint; but she heard him call, hoarsely, chokingly,
+
+"Rosamund!  I had to--know you were safe!  I had to--see you!"
+
+Then, for her, the world threw off the horror that had befogged it for
+weeks, and once more opened to light and life.  Anger, resentment,
+doubt, all--all were swept away at his cry, were as if they had never
+existed.  She heard the love in his voice, and with a little answering
+cry of her own she turned and ran toward him.  Shyness and restraint
+had no place in this new happiness.
+
+In a moment she would have been in his arms, for they were opened
+toward her.  But before she had quite reached him he threw them upward,
+across his face, as if to shut off the sight of her, and with a cry she
+could never forget turned and ran, stumbling down from the little path
+to the highway, crashing through the bushes, running, running, in the
+desperate haste of a man fleeing from temptation, over the frozen ruts,
+sometimes stumbling, almost falling, recovering, running still--running
+away from her.
+
+She could never tell how she got back to the cottage, how she found her
+way to her own room through the blind agony of the hour.  What stood
+between them she could not surmise; yet now she knew, beyond all doubt,
+that he loved her.  His cry still rang in her ears.  There might remain
+wonder, distress, sorrow, even separation; but doubt had been forever
+swept away.
+
+Somehow she got through the evening, and, later, slept.  She awoke
+before dawn as if someone were calling; and, as in answer, she slipped
+from the bed and went to her window.  She thrust her feet into her
+fur-lined bedroom slippers; the heavy coat she used for driving lay
+across a chair; she fastened it around her, and turned the full collar
+up about her bare white throat.  The air was very cold, but so still
+that it held no sting.  Over the sleeping whiteness of the valley, the
+snowy steeps of the lower hillsides, the dark crests of the mountains,
+myriads of stars shone with a pale radiance more lovely far than
+moonlight.  Mother Cary's lamp burned, small and clear, on the side of
+the opposite mountain, which at night seemed so like a huge crouching
+beast; little farmsteads in the valley and the nearer cottages were
+alike dark and slumbering patches of shadow.  She watched the steady
+brilliance of a planet pass towards the horizon and sink over the
+mountain.  A star fell.  After a while, from somewhere far away, a cock
+crowed.  The earth was waiting for the day.
+
+Then a subtle change began.  The stars grew dim; the sky deepened its
+blue, and again slowly paled.  The western mountains were faintly
+crowned with light, and under the base of those to the eastward shadows
+gathered more closely.  Again a cock called, and was answered from near
+at hand.  Over the eastern mountain tops an iridescent wave of color
+spread upward.  So still was the air, so silent lay the earth, that it
+might have been the expectant hush of creation, the quiet of some new
+thing forming in the Thought which gives love birth.  Dawn was there;
+and through the stillness something stirred, or dimly echoed; almost a
+pulse it seemed, or the first faint throbs of life.  Then gaining
+strength, or coming nearer, the sound came up to her more clearly.  She
+knew where the road lay, white on white; along its winding lift
+something was moving.  Surely the sound came from there!  Nearer, more
+clearly, beat upon beat, she heard it.  At last she made out the form,
+and watched it with straining eyes and heart that yearned toward it.
+
+From some night errand of ministration his old white mare was wearily
+bringing him homeward.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+Yetta, a pretty girlish figure in soft gray, was leaning on the rail of
+the box, lost in the absorption of her first opera.  For three or four
+exciting days they had been in the city, and Yetta felt as if she had
+been swept into fairyland.  Everything was wonderful.  Miss Randall had
+blossomed into a princess in marvelous raiment.  The most beautiful
+lady in the world, Miss Randall's sister, had taken her to shops and
+bought her various garments as fine as Miss Randall's own.  She had
+been whirled about in warm, closed automobiles.  Footmen at whom, less
+than a year ago, she would have been pleased to smile, had opened doors
+for her while she haughtily passed through, outwardly oblivious of
+their magnificence.  Miss Randall's friends, while they asked various
+questions about her as if she had possessed neither eyes nor ears, were
+mostly very kind and gentle to her.  It was wonderful, and Yetta felt
+that the greatest day of her life had been the one when Miss Randall,
+coming down to breakfast, had surprised them all by declaring that she
+was going to New York that afternoon for a week or two, that Yetta was
+to accompany her, and that neither Mrs. Reeves, nor Grace, nor Timmy,
+nor Aunt Sue, nor Matt must divulge to a soul among their neighbors
+that she had gone, because she would be back before they had had time
+to think twice about it.  And the crowning glory of it all was this,
+that to-night she was in the great Opera House in a box, leaning out
+toward the stage, and listening, listening, listening!  She was
+certainly herself, Yetta; but it seemed as if she must also be someone
+else--someone in a lovely soft gray gown to whom Miss Randall's
+friends, coming into the box from time to time, bowed formally, as if
+she were a lady, and asked how she was enjoying herself; and quite
+secretly, though with all the intensity of her soul and her imagination
+she knew it, she was still another person who should, some day, be
+there on the stage, charming these hundreds of people as she herself
+was now bewitched, by the joy and beauty of a voice--her voice,
+Yetta's!  But to-night it was enough to be a fairy princess!
+
+Rosamund had not stopped to speculate upon Yetta's readiness for the
+great experience until they were on the north-bound train, on the day
+after her last encounter with Ogilvie.  Her own need had been too
+pressing to admit of any other speculation or demand.  She knew, when
+she turned back from the window after her vigil of the dawn, that she
+must get away for a time, away from the very thought of him, if she was
+to be able to continue to think at all.  So she had bound the remaining
+members of the household to secrecy, and, with Yetta, started for New
+York.
+
+The girl was really presentable, she thought.  A child of no other race
+could have adjusted herself so quickly to the new demands; she believed
+that Yetta was now ready for a wider horizon, for she spoke and moved
+so well that Rosamund was sure even Cecilia's fastidiousness could find
+little fault in her.  She meant to give her a glimpse of the larger
+world, to have her voice "tried" by a competent critic, and then to
+return to the little brown house, perhaps with a governess for the
+girl, someone who could do more for her education than the little
+school-teacher.  At any rate, the trip would give her time to recover
+herself, to think, perhaps to decipher something of the puzzle of John
+Ogilvie's conduct.
+
+So, to-night, Yetta was listening to her first opera, and Cecilia was
+chattering away at her side, their friends coming in from time to time
+to greet the returned one.  It all seemed as unreal to Rosamund as to
+Yetta, so sudden had been the transposition.
+
+Pendleton came late into a box across the semi-circle; Cecilia shrugged
+and pretended to be unaware of him.  It was the first time Rosamund had
+seen him since her return, and she was beginning to wonder with some
+amusement whether he had transferred his attentions from Cecilia of his
+own accord or at the lady's suggestion, when she saw him hastily borrow
+his hostess's glass, take one look through it, and dart from the box.
+She knew what was coming.
+
+"Rosy!" he cried, with his familiar impertinence, only grinning at
+Cecilia, who in turn just raised her eyebrows and became absorbed in
+the aria.  But he, unabashed, bent over Rosamund.  "Rosy!  It can't be
+you!  And--by all the saints, is that, is that the creature who yelped
+at Benny a few short months ago?"
+
+"Be quiet," Rosamund whispered, laughing, in spite of herself, at his
+nonsense.  "Don't be so absurd, Marshall!"
+
+"Absurd!" he cried, in mock indignation.  "Is it absurd to greet the
+dawn?  Here we've all been living in the darkness of your absence, and
+now you're back at last, and you tell me not to be absurd!  I like
+that!"
+
+At his voice Yetta had turned for an instant to smile a recognition.
+
+"Good Heavens!" he whispered, "what have you done to her?"
+
+"It's nothing to what I am going to do," Rosamund told him.  "But you
+are not to make love to Yetta, my dear Marshall; I'm not going to have
+the child told she's beautiful.  Who knows but she might take you in
+earnest?"
+
+Pendleton grinned cheerfully, and drew a little chair to her side.
+"All right, my dear," he said, "I won't say 'boo' to her!"
+
+There were other visitors off and on, but for two acts he flagrantly
+deserted the woman he had come with, and sat back of Rosamund's chair,
+talking over her shoulder.
+
+"How's Eleanor?" he asked.
+
+Rosamund thought of Eleanor in the quiet room in the brown house, while
+she was here, with the song of the goose-girl in her ears--and her
+heart warmed as our hearts are apt to warm toward those we have left
+behind.
+
+"Eleanor is well, and lovelier than ever," she told him.
+
+Pendleton screwed up his face.  "You aren't the only one who thinks she
+is lovely, old lady!  If you don't watch out she'll spike your guns
+with Benny!  He followed her around like Mary's lamb when she was up
+before Christmas; and I've known too many men and women in my time,
+Rosy dear, to believe they found nothing better to do than to sing your
+praises!"
+
+Rosamund looked at him, and smiled tantalizingly.  "Oh, we all know how
+experienced you are, Marshall," she teased him.
+
+"Why don't you ask after Flood?" he pursued, ignoring her taunt; she
+smiled, and meekly said, "Well, how is he?"
+
+"Bloody-thirsty!" he said, in a sepulchral tone.
+
+"What?" she laughed.  "What on earth do you mean?"
+
+"Fact.  He's had a lust for killing, a sort of Berserker rage against
+everything and everyone, ever since we got back from your place, except
+while your Eleanor was here.  Finally he got into a regular fury with
+me, said he'd do various things to me--sort of speech you'd expect from
+a navvy, you know.  Queer how those fellows revert.  I told him to go
+west and shoot wild beasts, and, d'you know, he took me at my word!
+Now what do you think of that?"
+
+Rosamund was greatly amused.  "I think everyone ought to take your word
+with a grain of salt," she said.
+
+He shook his head at her with mock reproach.  "What makes you so
+incredulous, Rose?" he asked, sadly.  "It's a lamentable trait in a
+woman!"
+
+"I, at least, don't fly into rages with you," she retorted.
+
+At that, he put on an air of intense depression.  "It's well you
+don't," he said.  "Two rages on your account are enough."
+
+"On my account?  Two?"
+
+"Oh, yes, yes, wholly on your account.  You little know, Rosamund, what
+I've tried to do for you!"
+
+"Marshall, you are too absurd!"
+
+"Now there's that lamentable trait of yours again, Rose!  Really, it's
+time you came down from your mountains, if that's what they do to you!"
+
+"Oh, well, Marshall, I'll believe anything you tell me!  What have you
+been doing now?"
+
+He drew his chair a little closer to hers, and lowered his voice to a
+more confidential tone.  "Rosamund, I'm a misunderstood man," he said,
+mournfully.  "Whenever I try to do anything for you, people seem to
+turn against me.  Now there's Cecilia--look at those shoulders, will
+you?  Did you ever see anything so frigid?  Make me feel as if there's
+a draught on my neck, just to look at them.  That's the way she treats
+me, ever since I told her to let Flood alone, because he's your
+preserve!"
+
+Rosamund laughed; the mystery was made clear.  "Good gracious,
+Marshall!  You never did that?"
+
+But he pretended the utmost seriousness.  "That wasn't all," he
+declared.  "One day I tried to jolly Benny along, cheer him up a bit,
+you know!  He'd been so awfully down.  I tried to tell him something
+about the best fruit hanging high, that there was nothing like
+perseverance, and all that sort of thing.  He told me to mind only my
+own business.  Yes, he really did, Rose!  Wasn't it perfectly shocking
+of him?  I told him it was, and he said he'd like to knock some sense
+into me.  That's when I suggested his going off and shooting things."
+
+"You had a fortunate escape," she said dryly.
+
+"Yes, hadn't I?" he agreed.  "But something disagreeable always happens
+when I try to do you a kindness, Rose!  There was that chap Ogilvie; he
+seemed to turn against me from the moment I put him wise."
+
+At the unexpected mention of the name, her heart seemed to stand still;
+but a flash of insight warned her that she was upon the clue to the
+mystery that had so tormented her.  She managed to smile at Pendleton,
+and to ask, "How was that?"
+
+"Oh, that last afternoon, you know, you've no idea how well you and
+Benny looked, seated up there on that red blanket.  I called Ogilvie's
+attention to it--awfully hard to make conversation with a fellow like
+him, you know.  I said something about you and Flood being well suited
+to each other, and he seemed rather surprised, and actually had the
+nerve to ask me what I meant.  The way he spoke, or something, put it
+into my head that he--er--he--well, that I would be doing you a good
+turn by telling him a thing or two.  I did."
+
+"What?" she managed to ask, to his dramatic pause.
+
+"Oh, I believe I said that you and Flood must be finding it very good
+to be together these few days; that of course nothing had been
+announced yet, and something of that sort.  I remember he said I must
+be misinformed, which quite provoked me.  A fellow doesn't like to be
+contradicted, you know.  What?  I assured him I was in a position to
+know, and threw in a word or two about your--er--millions being joined
+to Benny's, or something of that sort.  Most combative chap, Ogilvie!
+Tried to tell me that a woman of your type would not be likely to stay
+up in the mountains so far from a fiancé.  'Pon my word, I almost
+thought the fellow must be really hit, himself!  I said he probably
+hadn't had much experience with women of your type; never can tell what
+freak you girls will take to next.  Oh, we had quite a word or two, I
+assure you.  Ended in his being huffy.  Wouldn't walk up the hill
+beside me, and all that, you know.  What?"
+
+Rosamund was never more grateful in her life than to the unsuspecting
+man whose coming into the box ended Pendleton's chatter.  During the
+rest of the evening she dared not let herself think of his revelations.
+On the way home, however, she made herself sure of the truth of part of
+them.
+
+"What happened between Marshall and Mr. Flood?" she asked Cecilia.
+
+Mrs. Maxwell gave an exclamation of impatience.  "Oh, my dear!
+Marshall has been altogether too insufferable!  Mr. Flood has spoiled
+him.  He got to the point where he thought he owned Mr. Flood.  Oh,
+yes, there was a fight, of course."  She raised her eyebrows towards
+Yetta, who, opposite them, was peering out at the receding
+street-lights with eyes still bright with wonder.  Rosamund, catching
+the signal, said,
+
+"It is perfectly safe to talk."
+
+Then Cecilia, rather more circumstantially than Pendleton, told her of
+the triangular quarrel.  "And now," she said, "Marshall is absurd
+enough to think I mind his dangling after that Mrs. Halley!  She's
+welcome to him!  Did he happen to say where Mr. Flood had gone?"
+
+"He said he had gone west to shoot things," Rosamund told her, and
+Cecilia became very thoughtful.  Later, while Rosamund was undressing,
+she came into her room, and said,
+
+"Rose, the Whartons have asked me to go on their yacht to the
+Mediterranean.  If you are sure you will not need me for a month or two
+I believe I'll go."
+
+They talked for a while of plans, with no mention of Flood.  Rosamund
+had small difficulty in adding the sum of two and two; it was plain
+enough that her sister had accepted the hint of the defeat of any hopes
+she might have had, and now was aiming somewhere else; but Cecilia, in
+a blue negligée, her hair down and her cheeks still delicately flushed,
+looking intently at the toe of her silver slipper, was bewitchingly
+pretty, and she had not the heart to laugh.  When Rosamund announced
+her intention of leaving New York next morning, Cecilia, in turn,
+ignored any suspicions she might have had.  She even offered to keep
+Yetta for a week, to take her to the master who was to hear her voice,
+to find the suitable governess and to send her back in the governess's
+charge before she sailed.  She had taken a strange liking to the girl;
+perhaps the adoration in the black eyes had something to do with it.
+
+Then, at last, Rosamund was alone.  Do we ever, she wondered, look back
+upon our doubts and misunderstandings, when once they are dissolved,
+with anything but scorn and disgust for our own stupidity, our
+blindness?  Pendleton's part in the affair was too mean to be given a
+second thought.  Such people, she supposed, there must be, content to
+feed upon the crumbs of society, winning their way by their very
+silliness, which amuses more by its vociferous nonsense than by
+inherent wit.  She could dismiss him as a meddler, knowing him too well
+to credit him with worse intentions; he was not bad at heart, and she
+knew that he would not have been merely spiteful toward herself.  He
+had meant her no harm.  It was her own part in it, and above all
+Ogilvie's, that were hard to think about.  It was not for the woman to
+move with courage high enough to overcome misunderstandings; it was
+Ogilvie who had failed there.  He at least had known what Pendleton had
+said, while she had been unaware of it.  After that hour of wordless
+revelation, she asked herself, how could he have doubted her?  In their
+walks and drives she had been so sincerely herself with him, had given
+him so many opportunities of knowing her character--even, she
+blushingly told herself, of knowing her heart.  Was it possible that
+any man, after that, could so misunderstand her as to believe her
+capable of such deception?  How could he have believed her engaged to
+Flood?  Yet she realized that if he did indeed believe it, he would not
+have pressed his own claims.  Whatever his feeling for her, he would
+not have tried to win her from the friend whom he placed so high, whom
+he knew to be so worthy a man, for whom he had told her that he would
+make any sacrifice.  She was sorely wounded; yet there was that quality
+in her blood which refused to be vanquished.  It would have been
+natural enough to scorn him for his doubt, to punish him for his
+neglect, to condemn him for his lack of courage, when a word or two,
+scarcely a question, would have made everything clear between them.  To
+blame him, she told herself, would be the easier way.  But her courage
+was higher than that.  Beyond every other consideration, she knew very
+well that she must give precedence to the love that was in his heart
+and hers.
+
+She recalled Mother Cary's words, "I reckon there's a door o' distrust
+most of us has to pass through, before we can stand in the land where
+there's only content, an' love, an' trust."  Her heart warmed anew to
+the wise, tender old woman whose wisdom was large and loving enough to
+illumine every shadow.
+
+She fell asleep pondering upon it all, and carried the same thoughts
+with her to the train next morning.  She left New York before Yetta was
+awake, having said farewell to a very drowsy and very charming Cecilia.
+
+It seemed strange that here the busy life of the city could be rushing
+on, crowding and grinding and shrieking, while there, in her mountains,
+as she knew so well, only quiet stretches of snow and lines of black
+pines and bare treetops, only the sun and the stars, only the few
+slowly moving people, an old white mare bringing home a tired man, the
+call of the man or boy crossing the fields, the lowing of cattle from
+the barnyards--only these made up the world!  Here every second was
+crowded with activity; the deeper workings of human hearts were drowned
+in noise.  There, nothing ever hastened; life matured normally, like
+the winter wheat; grew slowly, and to a largeness impossible in the
+cities.
+
+She had forgotten that the trains, in winter, were less frequent.  She
+missed the last one, and had to spend the night in Baltimore, and make
+a late start the next morning.  She had been thinking, thinking, during
+every waking moment since the hour of Pendleton's disclosure, and in
+the station she bought an armful of papers and magazines; even pictures
+of criminals, financiers and actresses were better company than her own
+thoughts!  There was no Pullman car on the train in winter, and she
+welcomed the changing company of the day-coach; but passengers happened
+to be few, and she was soon forced to take up her papers.
+
+She was no exception among the women of her sort; newspapers made
+uninteresting reading.  She looked first with a slight distrust at the
+flaring headlines on the front page, then turned to the social notes.
+Those exhausted, an advertisement or two caught her attention; and then
+there seemed to leap at her the words: "TOBET FREE."  She read, almost
+at a glance, the short paragraph which followed.
+
+"The Federal authorities have failed to obtain sufficient evidence to
+convict Joseph Tobet, of Long Mountain, of the charge of illicitly
+distilling the so-called 'White Lightning.'  Tobet had been under
+suspicion for some months, and was arrested last October, but the
+charge against him has been dismissed, and the man was set at liberty
+yesterday."
+
+The paper dropped to her feet.  She wondered what effect this would
+have upon Grace, and remembered the note of warning.  But, just from
+New York as she was, such doubts or fears seemed too utterly trivial to
+be of account.  Joe might threaten, Doctor Ogilvie might shake his
+head, and Grace, poor soul, might tremble; but the arm of the law was,
+after all, a sure protection.  There was really nothing that Joe could
+do; and she dismissed the thought of him for the more welcome one of
+Ogilvie.
+
+The day before, her impatience had been boundless.  She had not doubted
+that she should seek him out at once, as the most courageous thing to
+do, tell him what Pendleton had said, and of Flood's absence in the
+West; that, she told herself, would surely be enough.  He would then
+understand.
+
+But to-day, as she drew nearer the end of her journey, her resolution
+faltered.  He had been stupid; his doubts had wronged her; his
+restraint, if such it had been, was unfair to them both, and had stolen
+something from their love which there would never be time enough to
+replace.  It was not the woman's part to offer apologies; it was the
+man's part to have faith, or, at the very worst, to seek explanation.
+If he could so deny himself, if her love was so small a thing to him
+that he could bring himself to do without it, was it for her to urge it
+upon him?
+
+Her revulsion of feeling went still farther.  Life, she told herself,
+was after all pretty much the same, wherever it was lived.  To give
+happiness to Eleanor and Tim, to care for Yetta--that was what had
+justified her spending the winter in the mountains; she could have done
+as much in town.  If she had not found sincerity of purpose and
+singleness of aim among her earlier friends, it was because she had not
+learned to look for it.  She had only chosen the easier part, not the
+higher; it was easier to be sincere and simple in the mountains than in
+town where life was more crowded.  It was she who had been at fault in
+not finding in the old life what was more plainly to be seen in the
+new; she was so small a creature that she could not reach high purpose
+through confusing interventions, but must have it laid before her in
+bareness and singleness.  And what was, in truth, her feeling for this
+man who could so readily doubt her, or, at the very least of his
+offending, hold himself aloof from her through any consideration
+whatever?  Aside from his belief in her baseness, had he not been
+willing to sacrifice her for his friend?  Would not love, such love as
+she felt herself worthy of receiving, have put aside without a thought
+of misgiving anything and everything but the glory and necessity of its
+own demands?
+
+All the way her mind was busy with such problems of its own making.
+The journey seemed long.  She told herself that her impatience was only
+to end it, to reassure herself by the sight of him; yet the impatience
+was there.  It was mid-afternoon when she alighted, remembering her
+last return.  She wondered whether White Rosy would be there, and bent,
+on her way down the car, to look along the platform.
+
+But the only familiar form was the important person who combined the
+functions of station master, storekeeper and retailer of news.  He
+grinned when he saw her, and came towards her with unusual alacrity.
+
+"Well, I declare," he said, "got the news a'ready, have ye?  Bad news
+sho'ly does travel fast!"
+
+She stood still and looked at him.  His eyes brightened still more when
+he perceived that he was to be the first to inform her.
+
+"Why, ain't ye heard?" he cried.  "Yer house was burnt down to the
+groun' las' night.  Thought ye was in it, the doctor did.  That's how
+he so nigh got killed."
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+There are some hours of human experience so intense with suffering that
+they return, again and again, living themselves over in the memory,
+arising in the small hours of the night--haunting specters of pain,
+meeting us unexpectedly in an unguarded moment of solitude to open and
+reopen the wounds they have left, following us on through the years
+with a recurring vindictiveness of pain almost as keen as when it was
+first inflicted.  Joy, happiness, exaltation of spirit, return only in
+new guises; they, too, make their impression upon the memory, but
+otherwise.  The shock of loss, the agony of parting, the fear and dread
+of the suffering of loved ones, the bitterness of self-reproach, the
+message of loss--these are the things that return and return again; and
+of such as these were the hours of that afternoon to Rosamund.  Not
+only on that first night, once more in the small upper room at Mother
+Cary's, but often and often during her after life did the shock and
+agony of those hours return to her.
+
+Past the form of the station master, gloating in his satisfaction at
+being the first to tell her the evil news, she had seen Father Cary's
+familiar form descending from his wagon.  She scarcely remarked his
+surprise at her being there, his disappointment that Doctor Blake and
+the nurse had not come on that train, his helping her into the wagon,
+and his description of the events of the night before.  The drive past
+the dull little houses and the store, the closed cottages, the big
+hotels with their uncurtained windows staring like eyeless sockets, the
+woods, the glimpses of the path where she had faced John Ogilvie; the
+turn at last toward the brown cottage she had come to love so dearly;
+the blackened, smoking hole that alone remained of it; then the half
+mile farther to the house where Ogilvie lay--those were the moments of
+most intense pain, because of their suspense.
+
+The story was simple enough.  The little household had gone to bed
+early, and toward midnight Grace had awakened with a whispering fear of
+smoke.  She roused the others, and Eleanor had bundled sleepy Tim in
+blankets, thrown other bed covering out of a window, and gone quietly
+down with Grace.  Matt and Sue, wild with fear, rushed out ahead of
+them, shouting, and their cries aroused the nearest neighbors.  Country
+folk come quickly to a fire, although there is seldom anything to do
+but watch and surmise; a small crowd gathered in an incredibly short
+time, and a few things were rescued from the blazing house.  In spite
+of the pleading of the women, Grace stayed to watch the flames,
+wringing her hands, and calling Rosamund's name.  Eleanor was half
+frantic herself, with the alternate efforts at calming Timmy and
+beseeching Grace to go away.  But Grace, loving and faithful, was
+crying at the loss of the house and the things in it that had seemed to
+her so beautiful, and that were so dear because they belonged to
+Rosamund.  She could not be persuaded to leave, but stood wringing her
+hands and saying, over and over,
+
+"Oh, Miss Rose!  Oh, Miss Rose!"
+
+[Illustration: "A small crowd gathered in an incredibly short time."]
+
+After the first alarm, Aunt Sue became calm enough to tell the
+questioners that all were safe, that Miss Randall and Yetta were in New
+York.  But the man who was urging White Rosy up the long road from the
+valley, the man who, at last, came running, stumbling, panting up to
+the little band of watchers, who heard Grace Tobet calling a beloved
+name and sobbing, did not wait for explanation.  He looked among them
+for one face, and found it missing; then he rushed into the blazing
+house.
+
+There were brave men who, for the sake of all he had done for their
+women and children, went after him; there were strong arms to bear him
+to the nearest shelter, and loving hands to tend him.  It was not long
+before Mother Cary came, bundled up in the wagon beside her big
+husband, to take command of everything.
+
+So short and simple a story of a ruin so great!  Rosamund sat dumbly in
+the kitchen of the little house where Ogilvie lay, while Mother Cary
+told her, braced beside her on the little padded crutch, her tender old
+hands smoothing the girl's hair, the sweet old voice speaking words of
+courage and hope.
+
+"Pap's done telegraphed for Doctor Blake," she said, "him that's his
+friend, him that sent Yetta up here.  He's an eye doctor, but he'll
+know everything to do for everything else as well.  We reckoned he'd
+come on this train.  That's how come Pap was there to meet it.
+Howsomever, he'll be here before the day's out, you mark me; an' he'll
+say jest what I'm sayin'--John ain't goin' to die.  He's a goin' to get
+well."
+
+Rosamund looked up at her, and the old woman understood.  "I wouldn't,
+ef I was you, darlin', honey!  No, now don't ye go thinkin' that a way;
+it ain't that he's burnt so bad, 'cause he ain't.  Hair grows quick,
+an' that did get sco'ched a leetle mite.  I reckon all ails him is thet
+he breathed in the smoke."
+
+Half-remembered tales of horror passed through the girl's mind, and she
+hid her face in her hands.
+
+"Oh, well, honey, ef you goin' to take on about it, maybe you better
+jest come to the door and peek in at him.  I guess when all's said an'
+done you got more right than anybody else."
+
+"Ah, no," Rosamund cried, "no, I have not!"
+
+But Mother Cary touched her cheek.  "Honey, he wouldn't 'a' gone into
+the house that a way ef so be it he hadn't 'a' thought all he loved
+best in the world was there.  A body don't go into flames for nothin'!
+An' it wasn't no ways like the doctor to lose his head--now was it?
+You come right along in here with yo' Ma Cary."
+
+As long as she lived Rosamund could recall that room--the dingy white
+walls, the oval braided rug upon the floor; the tiny looking-glass and
+little corner washstand; the bureau with its characteristic assortment
+of shaving things, a stethoscope and a small photograph in a plush
+frame of a woman dressed in the fashion of thirty years before; the
+bedstead of turned yellow wood, the bright patchwork quilt over the
+feather-bed--and Ogilvie's form lying there, his flushed face, his
+heavy breathing, his restless hands.
+
+The woman who was watching beside his bed arose, and Rosamund crossed
+the narrow space.  She bent over him a little, put out her hand, but
+shrank back, restrained perhaps by the fear of an emotion which
+threatened to be too strong for her.
+
+She turned, went blindly from the little room, and Pa Cary led her out
+to the wagon.  If he talked to her on the way to his house she did not
+hear him.  Tim saw them coming, and ran to meet her.  The pressure of
+his warm little arms about her neck, in the "tight squeeze" that he
+usually reserved for Eleanor, did more than anything else to bring her
+back to a normal state of mind.
+
+But after his first embrace, Tim wanted to go to the stable with Father
+Cary.  Eleanor was standing in the little familiar doorway, under the
+overhanging roof made by the upper floor.  She waited, as if
+spell-bound, while Rosamund walked slowly up the path to the house; it
+was the look on the girl's face that held her back, for her heart was
+reaching out in sympathy.  At last Rosamund stood before her, and they
+looked into each other's eyes; then Eleanor opened her arms wide, and
+with a sob drew Rosamund to her.
+
+"Oh, my sweet, my Rose!" she cried, her tears on Rosamund's cold cheek.
+"I knew!  I knew!  I knew it was John!  But he'll get well, darling.
+He will live for your sake!"
+
+But Rosamund went past her into the house, looked about the little
+familiar room as if she had never seen it before, and seated herself in
+a chair near the table.
+
+Eleanor took off her hat and unfastened her coat as if she had been a
+child, instead of the stricken woman that she was; Rosamund looked up
+at her in a dumb agony of appeal.
+
+Eleanor repeated the story she had already heard from Father Cary; at
+the end she paused, hesitated, and said,
+
+"But there is one thing more that you've got to know, Rose.  The house
+was set on fire."
+
+Rosamund looked up at her, as if waiting.
+
+"Oh, don't look like that, my darling!  Try to understand!  Someone set
+fire to the house--it's so cruel to have to tell you!"
+
+Suddenly Rosamund's face changed from its blankness to a look of horror.
+
+"Then--if--I--had gone away, as he wanted me to--Oh!  Eleanor, then he
+would not--"
+
+But Eleanor's arms were around her.  "Don't, Rosamund!  Don't let
+yourself do that!  There's not one of us could live and be sane, if we
+dwelt on our 'ifs'!"
+
+"But it is true!"
+
+"It is not true.  It is not!  Because there was no 'if'; there could
+not have been!  You had to stay; you had to obey your own reasoning,
+not his.  We all have to decide for ourselves.  It is when we don't,
+that we get into trouble.  I can assure you of that, I of all others.
+I married because I was told it was the best thing to do--but you must
+forget I told you that!"
+
+At least it brought Rosamund to a thought of something else.
+"Eleanor!" she exclaimed, her hand reaching out towards her friend.
+
+But it was not the moment for Eleanor to think of herself.  "Rose,
+listen to me," she said.  "Someone set fire to the house.  There is no
+doubt of that.  Now you will have to make up your mind what to
+do--there will have to be an inquiry, they say."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Why?  Because the people who look after those things will want to find
+out who did it.  They will want to fix the blame."
+
+"But I don't understand!  It is my house!  What difference does it make
+to anyone else?"
+
+"And you don't care?"
+
+Rosamund arose, and mercifully burst into tears.  "Oh, Eleanor!" she
+sobbed, "how can you ask me that?  Do you think I care for the mere
+loss of a few sticks and stones and things, when he----"
+
+Again Eleanor's comforting arms were around her, and Eleanor's hand on
+her hair.  "Oh, you darling!  I knew you'd say that!  I knew you would!
+They cannot do anything without your consent!"
+
+Apparently in relief from some doubt or fear, she even laughed.
+Rosamund looked at her in amazement.
+
+"What on earth do you mean?" she began.
+
+But before there could be time for explanation the door opened, and
+Father Cary brought his little wife into the room in his arms, and set
+her down in a chair.
+
+Mother Cary always brought an atmosphere of happiness with her, but
+this time, it seemed to Rosamund, she was also the personification of
+all that was angelic and beautiful, a messenger of hope, a bearer of
+glad tidings.
+
+"Well," she began, as soon as Pap had set her down and unbundled her,
+"they come!  My, that young woman knows jest how to go about things!  I
+been nursin' all my life, seems like, and that girl can't be more than
+twenty-five; but the way she took a holt o' things did beat me!  My!  I
+wasn't one bit worried at leavin' him with her, not one bit!  An'
+Doctor Blake's goin' to set up all night."
+
+She smiled into Rosamund's beseeching eyes.
+
+"Doctor Blake says they ain't a doubt but he'll be all right in no
+time!" she said, and mentally asked forgiveness for stretching the
+truth.  "He says his eyes ain't hurt a bit, far as he can tell, an'
+it's only the smoke got into them, that's all.  An' anybody knows that
+ain't much!  Land!  Think how many smokin' chimblys there be, an'
+nobody givin' a thought to 'em!"
+
+It was not until after supper, when Tim had been sent to bed, rather
+joyful than otherwise in his excitement over the return to the Carys',
+and Eleanor was trying to put him to sleep by telling him a story, that
+Rosamund went upstairs to the room that had been Yetta's, to be alone
+with her thoughts.  She was never one of those, usually members of a
+large family, who can take council with themselves while others are in
+the room; she needed solitude, if she would adjust herself and set the
+chambers of her mind in order.  Now she had much to think of, for the
+events of the past three days had been incongruous enough.  She smiled
+as she remembered that, scarcely forty-eight hours before, she had been
+sitting in an opera box listening to Pendleton's inanities; but there
+was no smile when she thought of Ogilvie.
+
+Presently she was aware, through the silence, of a timid hand on the
+door.  She had scarcely had time to do more than speak to Grace, who
+had sat, through the earlier part of the evening, as if turned to
+stone; now something told her she was there.
+
+Grace, white and wan, came over the threshold and threw her arms about
+her friend, resting her head on Rosamund's shoulder.  For a few moments
+they stood so, clasped in the sympathy that women convey to each other
+in that silent manner.  Then Grace released herself a little, looked
+into Rosamund's face, and whispered.
+
+"Miss Rose, he did it!"
+
+Rosamund's thoughts had been of Ogilvie alone; for a moment she did not
+understand.  Then Eleanor's words came back to her; and all the while
+she protested, she knew the truth of what Grace said.
+
+But, out of pity, protest she must.  "Oh, no, Grace!  No!  Don't think
+that!  Don't let yourself think it!"
+
+But Grace, even whiter than before, met her eyes steadily.  "I don't
+have to think it," she said, quietly.  "I know it.  You know it, too."
+
+At the agony in the poor creature's eyes Rosamund forgot all her own.
+"No," she cried, almost aloud.  Their lowered voices in the silence of
+the house seemed to add to the horror of it.  "No, I do not know, and
+neither do you!  Don't say it, Grace.  Don't think it.  Grace!  Oh, my
+poor, dear Grace!"
+
+But Grace shook her head impatiently, as if it were not the time for
+sympathy.  She clasped Rosamund's two hands, looked at her intently,
+and said, "Miss Rose, I tell you I don't have to think; I know!"
+
+Rosamund gasped, but Grace went on.  "I saw him from my window, an' Rob
+Tobet and Nels' Dunn were with him.  They were skulkin' in the shadow,
+but I made 'em out.  It was the first time I'd seen Joe, since--the
+first time, and to see him that a way!"
+
+"Grace!" Rosamund cried.  Grace might have held her hand in a flame,
+and seemed to suffer less.  Rosamund thought it was more than she could
+bear to witness.  But Grace went on ruthlessly,
+
+"They were watchin' and watchin' the house; an' after a while I saw Joe
+wavin' his arms at the other two, an' then they went off.  It wasn't
+very long after that--maybe half an hour or so--that I smelled smoke.
+An', Miss Rose, when we got down an' out, I saw what nobody else seemed
+to take any notice of--I saw three corners of the house all blazin' up
+at the same time."
+
+Rosamund had drawn her down to the side of the bed; now Grace paused,
+grasped Rosamund's hand, bent towards her, and whispered, hoarsely,
+
+"Miss Rose, houses don't catch on fire that a way less'n somebody sets
+'em!"
+
+They looked at each other mutely for what seemed an eternity, sharing
+and accepting the horrid significance of it.  At last Rosamund, shaking
+off the spell with a sharp indrawing of the breath, drew Grace to her,
+held her, everything else forgotten save that here was an agony greater
+than her own.
+
+For a long hour they sat there talking, planning.  Grace was torn
+between her sense of righteousness and her love for Joe, fanned anew as
+it was by his present need of her protection.
+
+"I thought I had stopped carin' for him," she whispered.  "But
+this--this ain't like the--other thing--you know what I mean.  That
+didn't hurt anybody but himself, and it wasn't anybody else's business,
+not the Gov'ment's nor anybody's.  But this is different.  They--they
+hang for this, I reckon!"
+
+Rosamund shuddered.  "Grace, no one must know of it!  No one must know!"
+
+"I heard Pap Cary say they was to be an inquiry."
+
+"It is my house.  I can stop anything of that sort.  I have no
+insurance on it, and there will be no one to press the inquiry if I
+don't.  No one must know, Grace."
+
+For a moment Grace looked at her.  Then she said, "But what if--_he_
+dies?"
+
+Rosamund had forgotten her own anxiety in Grace's.  Now, with a little
+moan of pain, she hid her face in her hands.
+
+"That's the way," Grace whispered, hopelessly.  "You're bound to see it
+different, when it's your own man."
+
+They sat in silence for a while, each so occupied with thoughts of her
+own love as to forget all else.  Presently Grace stood up, as if to
+admit that there was nothing further to be said.  "Well," she sighed
+hopelessly.
+
+But Rosamund stood up, too, and laid her hands on Grace's shoulders.
+
+"No matter what happens, Grace, nobody must know that Joe was so much
+as seen near there."
+
+"But supposin' Doctor Ogilvie----?"
+
+"Not even then," Rosamund said, with white, trembling lips.  "He has
+given all his thought to saving life.  Do you think he would want--?
+No!"
+
+But Grace shook her head.  "I think Mis' Reeves suspicions," she said.
+
+"She does," Rosamund said, "and she has already been warning me against
+the investigation.  I know she wants to shield Joe."
+
+But Grace's conscience was made all the keener by her reawakened love.
+"Well, I'm goin' to tell Ma Cary," she said.  "She knows more'n all of
+us put together."
+
+They stopped at Eleanor's door, and the three found Mother Cary alone
+in the room that was kitchen and dining-room and confessional, as need
+arose.  Pap had gone back to the doctor's house, too anxious to remain
+away.
+
+Mother Cary heard all Grace had to tell, asked a few questions of her
+and Eleanor, then sat with her worn old hands clasped in her lap,
+thinking it over.  Grace's attitude was one of hopeless waiting.
+Rosamund watched her, pitying; grief brings no outward beauty to the
+lowly, she thought, yet much--how much--of that beauty of soul which
+perishes not!
+
+At last Mother Cary spoke.  "Miss Rose is right," she said, looking at
+Grace.  "Nobody must know what we know 'ceptin' jest our own selves.  I
+wouldn't even say a word of it to Pap; 'cause the better men folks be,
+the more they hold on to the letter o' the law.  An' fur as I can make
+out, this here is one o' the times when the letter o' the law is better
+forgotten.  Tellin' on Joe ain't goin' to help Doctor Ogilvie any, that
+I can see, nor anybody else; an' there's jest a chanct that keepin'
+silence may help Joe."
+
+"But Joe did it," Grace said.  "I reckon he's man enough to take his
+punishment."
+
+"I reckon he is," Mother Cary agreed.  "He's a-takin' it right this
+minute, too, knowing what his act has done to the doctor.  I sure do
+believe that's all the punishmint Joe needs.  The other kind would be
+different, 'cause what he's done is done.  I ain't never had time to
+puzzle out the whys an' whyfors o' lots o' things, punishmint among
+'em; but one thing I know, an' have known ever sence the dear Lord
+entrusted me with little child'en o' my own.  When punishmint is jest
+hittin' back, it don't do anybody a mite o' good.  Less'n it helps 'em
+not to do it again, it ain't any use whatsoever.  Better jest leave it
+in the hands o' the dear Lord, Who sees further'n we can, ef you ain't
+sure it's goin' to help, not hender.  An' tellin' on Joe ain't goin' to
+help the doctor nor Joe neither, 'cause Joe ain't the kind that
+punishmint helps."
+
+Again there was a silence, until Grace moved a little, unclasped and
+clasped her hands, and spoke.  "I must go back to my own house," she
+said.
+
+Rosamund, startled, was about to protest, but Mother Cary nodded.  "Of
+course," she said, "he'll be needin' you awful bad now, honey."
+
+And in spite of Rosamund's pleading, Grace refused Eleanor's offer to
+go with her, and took her way, alone, through the night, down the
+mountain, to her dark, lonely little house.  Afterward, Rosamund often
+marveled at Mother Cary's allowing it, even urging it, for usually she
+was the gentlest of souls, protecting everyone, careful of everyone's
+comfort; and surely Grace was now in no condition to go.
+
+But no more than Grace herself did Mother Cary hesitate.  She hobbled
+about the kitchen, packing a little basket of food; she had Eleanor
+bring in one of Pap's lanterns, and lighted it; she bade Rosamund make
+Grace some tea, and forced the trembling creature to drink it; and at
+last she opened the door for her.
+
+Grace started out, but came back into the room to kiss them, and they
+saw that she was smiling; it had been long since poor Grace had smiled!
+
+"I'll go up to my chamber and wave the lantern when I get there, ef
+all's well," she told them.  "An' I can always see your light, Ma Cary!"
+
+They watched, standing shivering in the doorway, until her lantern
+disappeared at the bend of the road.  Tim, aroused by their voices,
+cried out, and Eleanor went to him.
+
+Mother Cary and Rosamund began to straighten the room, putting away the
+boxes and pails that had been opened for Grace's basket.  Rosamund was
+so intent on her thoughts that she would not have noticed that her own
+cheeks were wet, if she had not seen Mother Cary's eyes brimming with
+tears.  After a while she cried,
+
+"Oh, I don't see how she can walk that far, and at night, too!  Why
+wouldn't you let her wait for Pa Cary?"
+
+The old woman shook her head.  "Honey," she said, "ef all is as I make
+it out to be, Grace won't go all that way alone and un'tended.  The
+woods around here have years an' eyes, an' ef her foot stumbles,
+there'll be someone there to hold her up, you mark my words."
+
+"Oh, she is not strong enough!" the girl still protested.
+
+Then Mother Cary leaned towards her, took the white hand in both her
+own, and asked, "Honey, ef 'twas _your_ man, wouldn't _you_ go?"
+
+Rosamund threw back her head with a sob, and Mother Cary opened her
+arms.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+Fortunately for Rosamund the succeeding days were so busy that she had
+but little time to be alone with her thoughts of Ogilvie.  The morning
+after Grace's departure, Father Cary had come home with disquieting
+news.  Pneumonia had set in; but Doctor Blake would stay at the Summit
+until the crisis was passed, and he had sent for another nurse--the one
+who was at the head of his own private hospital, Pap proudly told
+Rosamund in a pitying attempt at reassuring her.
+
+She had, first of all, to make some arrangement for Yetta.  Cecilia
+rose to the occasion and found the suitable governess, who proved to be
+an elderly woman to whom Yetta took an immediate liking.  Miss Gates
+had been something of a singer in her day, and she had a family of
+nieces and nephews that she was helping to bring up, all of whom were
+musical.  She took Yetta with her to stay at their house until other
+plans could be made.  Cecilia had, indeed, shown energy and good
+judgment, and something more; she sailed for the Mediterranean to join
+the Whartons at Algiers only after she saw Yetta installed in the Gates
+home--having been so good-natured as to let the yacht go without her in
+order to do so.
+
+Matt and Aunt Sue were sent back to Georgia.  Secretly they were quite
+reconciled to going, for they were to stop in Baltimore and replace
+their burned wardrobes with entire new ones, with which they looked
+forward to dazzling their friends in Augusta; but Sue felt obliged to
+use the prerogative of the negro servant to make a grumbling protest.
+
+"I suttinly wouldn't 'a' journeyed 'way up to dis yer Gord-fo'saken
+corner ob de yearth," she declared to Rosamund, "whar dey ain't nothin'
+but a passel o' Yankee white trash, ef I had 'a' known I was a goin' to
+see my best Paisley shawl what Miss Lucy done give me when she was
+ma'ied bu'nt up wid flames befo' my ve'y eyes.  Et don' do nobody no
+good traipsin' aroun' dis yer way, nohow.  You better come along back
+home wid yer Aunt Susan, whar you b'longs at, chile."
+
+After they left, the routine of life was simple enough; yet the days
+were laden with what anxiety, what care, what fears, and trembling
+hopes!  Yet living as she was on news from the doctor's house, Rosamund
+was not altogether oblivious of what was passing in the hearts of her
+friends.  She went every morning to the Tobet cottage, sometimes with
+Eleanor, sometimes alone.  For several days Grace watched and waited
+for one who did not come.  But at last Rosamund made a suggestion,
+which in a day or two brought its return.
+
+"You know the little boy who brought that note to us at the brown
+house, last fall," she said to Grace.  "Why not give him a note to Joe?"
+
+"What to say?" Grace asked.
+
+"That whatever happens, no one shall suspect him.  Tell him you have my
+word, and Mother Cary's, for that."
+
+"I'd be afraid to write words like those," Grace said.  "They might go
+to the wrong one--and then no need to tell!"
+
+"Then say them over to the boy, and make him remember them," said
+Rosamund; and that was the advice which Grace, in the desperate
+necessity of her heart, followed.  A few mornings afterward, when
+Rosamund came in sight of the cottage, Joe was leaning against the
+door.  He went inside when he saw her, and Rosamund turned back.  She
+told herself that in Grace's place she would want no visitors for a
+while.
+
+But she had not gone far before Grace came hastening after her.  She
+threw her arms about Rosamund's neck.
+
+"I got my man back," she whispered.  "I'm prayin' every minute to the
+good Lord, Miss Rose, that you'll get yours back, too, all safe an'
+sound."
+
+
+But the secret of Eleanor's heart was not so readily disclosed,
+although Rosamund suspected, from the number of telegrams and letters
+that were coming, and from Eleanor's frequent look of abstraction, that
+she was beginning to have a good deal to think about.  But how far
+matters had progressed, she did not suspect; for Eleanor's heart was
+troubled as it had never been, and she would not add to Rosamund's
+burden of care by confiding her own.
+
+That she was suffering could not escape the keen eyes of Mother Cary,
+however.
+
+"Ain't you troubled about somethin', dearie?" the old woman asked, one
+day when Rosamund and Tim were out of doors, and dinner was cooking,
+and they two were alone.
+
+Eleanor looked at her dumbly; a quiver passed over her face, seeming to
+leave it whiter than ever.
+
+"Land!" said Mother Cary.  "Don't look that a way, honey!  No wonder
+little Timmy used to call you 'White Lady'!"
+
+She seated herself in the little chair with the legs that Father Cary
+had sawed off to suit her, and drew another up beside it.
+
+"Now you come set down here by your Ma Cary, lamb, an' tell me what's
+the matter."
+
+Eleanor seated herself, and put her hand on the old woman's lap.
+
+"I am in trouble, Mother Cary," she said.  "But it cannot do any good
+to talk about it."
+
+"Well, it cert'n'y don't do one mite o' good to let it eat in, dearie.
+It don't make you die any sooner, much as you'd like to sometimes, when
+trouble is real bad; it don't make you forget; nor it don't show you
+any way out.  It jest makes the way seem longer."
+
+"That is true," Eleanor said.  Then she pondered for a while.
+Presently she asked, "Do you remember Mr. Flood, Mother Cary?"
+
+"The rich gentleman that run over Timmy?  Yes, lamb, I always remember
+them I like."
+
+Eleanor smiled.  "He did run over Timmy, didn't he?  Or run into him!
+So indirectly I owe him my precious baby!"
+
+"And now he wants you to pay him?" the old woman asked.
+
+"Put it that way!" Eleanor replied.  "But I cannot pay him, Mother
+Cary--not as he wants me to!  I--I may become blind, some day."
+
+Mother Cary's hand tightened over hers.  "Ain't your poor eyes any
+better?" she asked.
+
+"Yes.  Oh, yes, they are better.  But I am afraid.  Think of burdening
+a man with a blind wife!  And--and he is such a splendid man, Mother
+Cary!  He deserves the very best."
+
+"I ain't doubtin' it.  He's John Ogilvie's friend, and that's enough to
+satisfy me that he's worth a good deal."
+
+They sat in silence for a while; then Mother Cary said, "Darlin', I'm
+a-goin' to tell you a little story.  I ain't takin' it on me to advise
+you; but I jest want to tell you how, though you wouldn't guess it,
+maybe, I was once in the same kind of a shadder you be in now."
+
+"Do tell me," Eleanor said.
+
+"Well, when I was a little girl, lamb, I fell an' hurt my back, an'
+when I got better, two or three years afterward, I couldn't do nothin'
+but scrabble aroun', not even as good as I can now.  An' I growed all
+crooked.  It didn't make much difference for a while, I was that glad
+to be movin' at all.  But as I growed up an' the other girls began to
+go places, an' I couldn't an' wasn't asked to, it did seem to me I jest
+couldn't live at all.  There wasn't anythin' to look for'ard to.  Then
+my father died, an' I went into the tin shop.
+
+"It wasn't nice work, an' the big machines like to scared me to death
+at first, 'n I got cut, 'n once one o' the girls near me got some of
+her fingers cut off.  In winter I had to go before light in the mornin'
+an' stay workin' till long after dark.  Then I had sech a cough, an'
+one spring I had to quit work.  The doctor, he asked me if I hadn't any
+kin in the country, an' I not knowin' what he was aimin' at told him I
+didn't know o' none 'xcept Ma's own aunt 't I'd never seen nor wrote to.
+
+"Unbeknownst to me the doctor he wrote up here an' found out 't Aunt
+Marthy was a-keepin' house for her husband's nephew, an' she wrote back
+'t I was to come up an' spend the summer in the mountains.  I cried at
+first, for I hadn't ever seen the country an' I didn't know Aunt
+Marthy, an' I was jest afeared to come.  But the doctor he put me on
+the train, an' when I got to the station over there it was most
+dark--'bout as dark as it is now, I guess.  There was a man on the
+platform, 'n I thought he was the biggest man I'd ever seen.  When he
+come up to me he said, 'Why, you _are_ a little mite!  Guess they
+haven't been feedin' you much where you come from.'  He had a big quilt
+in the wagon, an' he jest wrapped me all up in it an' lifted me in like
+I was a baby.  I was that tired an' scared, an' I hadn't ever been
+taken keer of before, an' I jest up an' cried.  He didn't ask me what
+was the matter, but he jest laughed at me an' made fun o' me, an' said
+if I acted like a baby he'd treat me like one, 'n he patted my hand, 'n
+tucked me all up, 'n talked to me all the way home.  When Aunt Marthy
+met us at the door an' he carried me in the house in his arms, he said
+to her, 'Well, now, Aunt Marthy,' he said, 'we've jest got a baby to
+keer for, an' I'm a-goin' to help you do it.'  An', honey, there hasn't
+been a day sence then that he hasn't taken keer o' me.
+
+"There never was a summer like that one; seems like I never had been
+alive before.  I never knew before how spring come, but I found out
+that year, Jim showin' me the first bluebirds an' bringin' in flowers.
+I jest thought he was next to God A'mighty, honey, an' I never once
+give a thought to me bein' a woman an' he bein' a man.  I hadn't never
+had none o' the good times girls have, an' I guess I had come to forget
+I was a girl.  By the time end o' summer come, Jim had gotten in the
+way o' carryin' me out with him everywheres, out to the barn, out to
+the wood-lot, out to the fields where he was a-workin'.  I had grown
+strong enough to get aroun' like I do now, but Jim jest carried me
+'roun' like he'd done that first night, an' Aunt Marthy 'n he wouldn't
+let me do a mite o' work.
+
+"Then, when I'd got real well, I said somethin' one night about goin'
+back to the factory.  We was at supper, an' Jim he jest put down his
+knife an' looked at me a minute.  Aunt Marthy reached over an' put her
+hand over his, an' then he got up an' went out.  I was that scared, not
+knowin' what I'd done, an' Aunt Marthy told me I'd better go out an'
+find him.
+
+"So I up an' followed him, an' he was a-standin' outside, lookin' so
+big against that yaller sky, an' straight an' tall with his arms folded
+on his chest, a-frownin', with his lips drawn in like he does when
+somethin's upset him right smart.
+
+"I touched him on the arm an' said, 'Jim!' an' with that he turned him
+right aroun' quick.
+
+"An' then, after a bit, he set me down an' held on to my hands, an'
+told me how he wasn't goin' to let me go back to the city any more, 'n
+how it was goin' to be.  I told him I wasn't fit for him, bein'
+crooked, an' he jest laughed at me an' fixed it all his way, 'n called
+Aunt Marthy out 'n told her.  She laughed at him an' told him he was
+more of a baby 'n I ever was.  He always was that bright an' willful,
+an' he didn't give me a chance to say anything.  But the more he
+talked, the more I found I loved him, an' the more I loved him the
+harder I made up my mind 't he shouldn't tie himself to a cripple.
+
+"So that night when they was asleep, I got up an' took the money I had
+for my ticket home, an' I started to walk to the station.  You know how
+far that is.  By time mornin' come I wasn't halfway.  I went into an
+old barn an' hid all day.  I heard 'em callin' me, an' I saw Jim go by
+on horseback, an' other men, too, huntin' for me.
+
+"Lat the nex' night I started for the station again, an' I got there
+jest about daybreak, thinkin' I'd be in time for the early mornin'
+train.  When I got up on the platform, there was Jim a-waitin'!  Course
+I jest set right down an' cried, but Jim he made me understand what
+he'd been through while I was hid, an' talked to me so right then and
+there that I never once after that doubted in my mind but what it would
+be right for me to marry him.  An' honey, I haven't ever had reason to
+doubt it since.  I scarcely ever remember bein' a cripple, 'xcept when
+I do get good an' mad sometimes at not bein' able to get aroun' as spry
+as other folks.  Sometimes I think it's been a real comfort to Jim, an'
+better 't I was so.
+
+"There's some folks as can't be happy 'nless they're doin' for somebody
+else; an' when it happens to be a man, an' he can do for what's his
+own, he's boun' to be a good deal better off than ef he had to go
+a-huntin' for somethin' to take up his mind.  It grows on 'em, too.  I
+don't ever regret bein' a cripple; my bein' helpless has been sech an
+occupation for Jim!"
+
+The door had opened while she was saying the last words, and Timmy
+burst in, joyous and cold, to climb into Eleanor's lap and begin to
+pour forth an account of the mild adventures of his walk.  But Eleanor,
+taking off his coat and leggings, hushed him.  Mother Cary looked up at
+Rosamund and smiled.
+
+"So you and Timmy had a fine walk, did ye?  Well, I'm real glad.  It'll
+do you good to get out, honey-bud.  I was jest tellin' Mis' Reeves
+how-come Pap and me got married!"
+
+"I'm goin' to get married to my muvver when I grows up," said Tim.
+
+Rosamund smiled back at Mother Cary; but her smiles had lost their old
+merriment.  The old woman went on:
+
+"I was jest a-sayin' how Pap built this house for me jest like I wanted
+it, an' we come into it when we were married.  Aunt Marthy lived here
+with us tell she died.  Pap's made my flower beds every spring, an'
+I've planted the seeds.  Seems like it's been that a way in everything.
+Pap does most o' the work, but I never get a chance to forget how glad
+he is 't I'm here.  Whensoever he comes in all worned out, he always
+knows where to find me, me not bein' able to get far away; 'n I've
+never seen the time 't he didn't feel fresh an' strong again after he'd
+set an' talked a spell, an' had a bite o' somethin' I'd fixed for him.
+I ain't never been afeared to show him how much I loved him.  When the
+children was little 'an toddlin' aroun', they'd run to meet him an'
+hang aroun' him, but he always looked over their heads to me first.
+When John was married an' went away, an' I felt so bad, Pap jest used
+to laugh at me; an' when Lizzie got married, too, an' went off with her
+husband, Pap jest said he'd have me all to himself again.  The time
+when the child'en were little was best to me, but I know the best time
+to Pap is whenever he can find somethin' to be a-doin' for me."
+
+The sweetness of her words seemed to fall on them all like a blessing;
+for a while no one spoke; but to Rosamund, watching Eleanor, it seemed
+as if the lovely face were slowly melting from its usual sadness to a
+rosy glow.  As she looked, Eleanor put the child down from her lap and
+knelt before Rosamund.
+
+"Rose, my sweet," she said, her voice a song of love and tenderness,
+"would you think me deserting you, if I went to New York to-morrow?"
+
+Rosamund half divined something of her meaning; she took Eleanor's face
+between her palms, looking into the eyes that were glowing as she had
+never seen them.
+
+"Eleanor!" she cried.
+
+Mother Cary gave a low laugh of delight.  "Here, Timmy," she said, "you
+come with Ma Cary an' see what I got in the pantry!"
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+During the first week of Ogilvie's illness Rosamund went once or twice
+to the house at the Summit where he lay.  Doctor Blake had heard the
+story of the fire, and in the deliberate courtesy of his manner
+Rosamund suspected a veiled distrust; she imagined that he was
+wondering, whenever he looked at her, what manner of woman it was for
+whom Ogilvie had risked his life, and whether she were worthy of his
+possible sacrifice.  She told herself that she would have felt the
+same, in his place; while, in her humility, she secretly reiterated her
+own unworthiness.  But she knew herself guiltless of actual blame or
+wrong-doing, and found it hard to endure Doctor Blake's scrutiny, which
+seemed both to accuse and weigh and find wanting.  Yet even that was
+easier to bear than the tolerant manner of the young woman in the white
+dress and coquettish cap, who came out of Ogilvie's room to assure her,
+with the tolerant air that seems to be an attribute of street-car
+conductors, policemen and trained nurses, that there was really no
+immediate prospect of change in the patient's condition, as pneumonia
+had to run its definite course.
+
+For all the longing of her heart, and for all the courage with which
+she started out, Rosamund allowed herself to be snubbed into retreat.
+Mother Cary alone braved the authoritative one whenever she pleased, or
+whenever Pap would take her across the valley; and it was on the ninth
+night after the fire that she did what Rosamund and Ogilvie always
+declared to be the most merciful and courageous act of all her
+beautiful life.
+
+"Now," she said, after supper, when Pap had gone out to the barn to
+harness the horse for his nightly pilgrimage, "Now, honey, this bein'
+the night when he'll come to, or--when he'll come to, surely--don't you
+think he ain't goin' to come to, 'cause he is--and you're goin' over
+with Pap to be there!"
+
+Rosamund rose from her place beside the table, her hands clasped
+against her heart, pale, then flushed, then pale again.
+
+Mother Cary looked up at her.  "Darlin', come here to yo' Ma Cary," she
+said, and, when the girl knelt beside her, she put her arms about her
+and laid her withered, soft old cheek against Rosamund's hair.
+
+"Honey," she said, "Ma Cary knows how you're feelin'!  You're a young
+maid, an' by words unasked; but he's your man, an' you're his woman, in
+the sight o' God and the knowledge o' your own hearts.  Ain't it so?
+Yes--but don't cry, my lamb!  Don't cry like that!  This ain't the time
+to cry.  Look at me, dearie!  That's right!  Well, I didn't tell you to
+go, before to-night, because I knew 'twasn't for the best; but now your
+place is over there, alongside o' him.  Let him open his eyes on you,
+ef so be it he is to open them knowin'ly in this world again.  An' ef
+he ain't to be permitted to do that--then, my lamb, it's for you to be
+there to close 'em.  There!  That's right!  Put it all back--grief
+keeps, an' maybe you won't need it, after all.  Sho'!  Hyear me
+talkin'!  Why, I jest downright know you won't need it!"
+
+Rosamund lifted her white, white face.  "But----" she began.
+
+"I know what you're thinkin'," Mother Cary said.  "I once thought that
+a way, too, befo' Pap made me see what was right.  Put all sech doubts
+away from you.  Your love an' his love are worth more than that.  Look
+Ma Cary in the face, lamb, an' tell me--ain't they?  There, there, now
+don't let the tears rise up again.  You ain't got time for tears
+to-night."
+
+"But the nurse--Doctor Blake--what will they--Oh, how can I?"
+
+"It'll be all right with Doctor Blake.  He knows you're comin'!  An' as
+for the nurse, she's a paid hirelin', and you're his woman.  Jest you
+bear that in mind, honey--hurry, there's Pap's wheels!"
+
+So it came to pass, in that critical hour before dawn when souls so
+often waver upon the threshold of life, when John Ogilvie's breathing
+became less labored and his eyes opened--tired, to be sure, but with
+unmistakable consciousness in them--it was Rosamund who was bending
+over him, while the strange woman in the white gown and cap looked at
+him, felt his pulse, smiled as if satisfied, and went out and closed
+the door behind her.  It was Rosamund whose eyes smiled into his with
+the pitiful, brave effort of trying to make believe that there had
+never been any danger at all to frighten her.  His hand moved toward
+her, his lips formed her name; and it was Rosamund's warm palm which
+closed over his hand, and her cheek which rested against his as he went
+to sleep.
+
+[Illustration: "It was Rosamund whose eyes smiled into his."]
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+It was late April, and the snow was gone from the mountains save in a
+few sheltered places under some rock or overhanging tangle of roots.
+In the valley the apple trees were abloom; in the woods the dogwood was
+falling; the roadsides were turning from mellow brown to green, here
+and there carpeted with violets; a line of emerald showed where some
+willows caressed the stream.  Great puffs of cloud floated slowly
+across the deep blue of the sky, their cool shadows passing reluctantly
+over the plowed fields, the few bright patches of wheat, and the brown
+ribbon of road--gray in summer and lately white with snow--that wound
+up from the lowland.  Even the weather-worn buildings bore signs of
+spring.  Barn doors were thrown back, and little calves tied in the
+barn yards protested their infant loneliness; while from upper windows
+of the houses, windows that had been kept closed during all the long
+winter, flapping curtains waved outward to the breeze.
+
+Two months and more had passed since the night when John Ogilvie
+returned to consciousness to find the face he loved bending above him,
+and on this particular morning Father Cary had driven Rosamund to the
+post office at the Summit, on his way to sell a calf, and she was
+taking a leisurely homeward way, reading, as she went, the handful of
+letters the mail had brought her.  Every now and then the betraying
+fragrance of arbutus lured her from the road to little excursions among
+the trees.  Sometimes she looked up at the flash of a brilliant wing,
+or stopped to listen to an outburst of bird-music.  It was plain to be
+seen that she was living in the hour; the present satisfied; she was
+taking it as unquestioningly as a child, caring neither to hasten its
+passing nor to hold it back.  To past and future she was giving no
+thought; the moment was enough.
+
+She smiled often over her letters.
+
+Yetta's was a pæon of joy.  She had been for two months under the care
+of the governess chosen by Mrs. Maxwell, working hard at all her
+lessons, devouring them, Rosamund thought--and going twice a week to an
+advanced pupil of a great master for singing lessons.  She wrote that
+she had just received a letter from Mrs. Flood, saying that when the
+master declared her ready to study in Paris or Berlin, she would make
+it possible for her to go.  "How funny it seems," she wrote, "to call
+dear Mrs. Reeves by that name!"
+
+There was a long envelope from an architect, enclosing various
+blue-prints which she tried to unfold, but which so resisted the breeze
+that they were soon put back for later inspection.  There was a thin
+letter from Cecilia, bearing a foreign stamp, which Rosamund read more
+than once, with varying emotions.  It ran:
+
+
+DEAR ROSAMUND:
+
+Your letter has made me very happy.  I had no right to expect anything
+from Colonel Randall's will, although he was always so good to me that
+I thought of him as a father.  But I was hurt, and it would be foolish
+not to admit that I was disappointed, when I found that he had left me
+nothing.  So was mamma; it was not easy for us to be dependent upon
+you.  I don't mean to hurt you in saying that.  Especially now!
+Because, Rose, dear, you have made me see that my stepfather was right
+when he left everything to you.  He could trust you!
+
+You have really been magnificent.  Your gift--for that is what it
+is--will make the world a different place for me.  I had to go to bed
+for two days after I got your letter.  I was overcome!
+
+Now I do hope you won't be too much surprised, dear, and I don't want
+you to disapprove.  I suppose you know that Mr. Flood sent over his
+yacht, the Esperanza, so that it would be ready for Kiel.  But perhaps
+you don't know that he told Marshall to make use of it until he wanted
+it himself.  Well, he did; it was nice of him, wasn't it?  So Marshall
+brought it to Algiers, and the Whartons--and I--saw a good deal of him.
+It is all over now, so I may as well confess that Marshall and I were
+very unhappy for a time.  We didn't have five thousand a year between
+us!  But when I got your letter, and the papers--and the note from the
+bank--oh, Rosamund, you will never, never know how the world changed
+for me.  And we were married yesterday, at the American Consulate in
+Lisbon, and I am your happy, happy, happy sister,
+
+CECILIA PENDLETON.
+
+
+Rosamund held the letter to her heart, when she had read it; it was all
+just as she had hoped.  She wondered what Ogilvie would say--but that
+could wait!
+
+The last letter was in Eleanor's handwriting.
+
+
+MY OWN DEAR ROSE:
+
+Your letter told me nothing that I was not prepared for.  But I don't
+know how to put into words even a small part of my hopes for you.  John
+is--excepting my own dear husband--the best man in the world.  You will
+be happy, and proud, as I am happy and proud; we both send our love,
+and wish we might be with you on that beautiful morning that is coming
+so soon.  But we cannot, for almost as soon as we get back to New York
+from this lovely Columbia Valley we shall have to sail for Europe.  So
+we can only send our love, my darling; and Timmy is sending something
+else by express.
+
+I am so happy that I cannot help wondering whether this is really
+myself; yet ever and always, sweet, I know that I am I--YOUR ELEANOR.
+
+
+Rosamund had kept that letter to read last; and as she folded it back
+into its envelope there were tears in her eyes, so that for a moment
+she did not see the familiar figure of a white horse, that was coming
+upon her with the gentle ambling trot that White Rosy fell into when
+her master was in one of his absent-minded moods.  It was a sort of
+up-and-downness of a trot, one of Rosy's great achievements.  Ogilvie
+always said that it was worthy of everyone's admiration, since it made
+a remarkably good effect with the minimum of effort.
+
+When she had come up to the place where Rosamund waited, White Rosy
+stopped of her own accord, edged toward the side of the road, and began
+to nibble at the young green things already burgeoning there.
+
+Ogilvie looked, without speaking, at the girl waiting for him at the
+roadside.  She was not smiling, yet her whole look seemed a smile.  She
+was standing with her chin uplifted, her eyelids a little drooped; he
+thought she was the most beautiful thing in all the beauty of the
+spring-kissed world.
+
+"Don't move!" he said.  "I just want to look at you!"
+
+Then slowly the smile came.  She turned her head away to look at him
+roguishly, sideways.
+
+"Is that all you want?" she asked.
+
+"No!" he cried, explosively; and with a little bubbling laugh she
+sprang up to the empty place at his side, and turned her face towards
+him.
+
+Presently he asked, looking off to the mountain with a very casual air.
+
+"Have you seen Grace to-day?"
+
+Rosamund looked at him anxiously.  "Not to-day!  Isn't she well?"
+
+"Oh, I thought you might like to see her.  I'm on my way there now," he
+said.
+
+"Oh, do you remember," she asked, "the first day you took me there?"
+
+"Do I remember?" he repeated.  "I remember a good many things."
+
+"Don't tease--be serious!  Do you remember, that was the first of all
+our drives together, and this is----"
+
+"Well, not quite the last, I hope!"
+
+"No!  But--the last--until there will be a difference!"
+
+"It's a difference I welcome, sweet!" he declared; and at the look in
+his eyes she put up her hands to ward him away.
+
+"No, no!  Not now!" she said, in one of the sudden shy reserves that he
+adored, for all their tormenting him.  "I want to tell you about my
+letters."
+
+He read them, smiling with her over each one; but there was no time for
+comment then, for they were stopping before the Tobets' house, and
+White Rosy was looking inquiringly around at them.
+
+Ogilvie led the way into the cottage.  It seemed strangely quiet.  Joe
+came from the inner room, grinned at them in a friendly way, and
+Ogilvie motioned to Rosamund to go in.
+
+The quiet, the presence of Joe at that time of day, something in the
+doctor's manner, all made her pause; Ogilvie held the door open for
+her, but he was looking at Joe as men look when they understand each
+other.
+
+"Oh!  What is it?" Rosamund breathed, and he turned to her, still
+smiling.
+
+"Go in," he said.  "It's the loveliest sight in God's world, isn't it,
+Joe?"
+
+The smile left Joe's face, but not his eyes.  "It be," he agreed,
+emphatically, and began very vigorously to rattle the stove.
+
+Within the darkened room Grace lay; and although the little place was
+decked with its gayest of quilt and curtain, although Grace's face
+shone with a radiance as of heaven itself, Rosamund saw only the wee
+brown head in the hollow of her arm.
+
+She went slowly forward, awed in the presence of the newly awakened
+soul in such a tiny form.  Grace smiled up at her.
+
+"Joe says he's that glad he favors me!" she whispered, and nestled her
+cheek against the downy head.
+
+Such simple words, and so momentous an event!  Just humble pride that
+the father of her child rejoiced in his son's likeness to his mother!
+A cheek against a baby's forehead, an old agony forgotten!  The
+master-marvel of all creation sleeping upon the breast so lately wrung
+in torture!  Such innocence, such purity, blessing and cleansing the
+house of all sin and sorrow, of shame and bitterness!  God's breath in
+the new life, His ever recurring purpose of Love redeeming!
+
+Rosamund could find no fitting words before the miracle.  The joyous
+words of an ancient song echoed in her heart, "Mine eyes have seen Thy
+Salvation!"
+
+But she was far from ready for her own _Nunc Dimittis_.  The future
+drew her, life was welcoming her to its fulfillment.  She kissed the
+pale, smiling mother, went swiftly from the room, past the two men whom
+she saw through a blur of tears, and out to the road where spring was
+waiting.
+
+There, presently, Ogilvie joined her.  Her look deeply stirred him.
+Her eyes were darker than he had ever seen them, darker than he thought
+they could be--or was it, he wondered, that he lost the sense of their
+color in sounding the promise that welled up from their depths?  The
+promise he read there was a reflection of the revelation of those
+moments in Grace's room.  So might Mary's eyes have looked when she
+bowed before the angel.  For a moment they looked silently at each
+other; then, with a little sobbing indrawn breath, she withdrew her
+gaze and he took his place beside her.
+
+He urged White Rosy's reluctant feet toward a rough wood-road that led
+up the mountain.  For a while neither spoke.  The air was full of
+little fitful pauses and quickly blown breaths of fragrance.  A white
+petal fluttered from somewhere and caught, trembling, in her hair.  A
+bee passed so near their faces, in his eager quest for sweetness, that
+they drew quickly back.  Against the blue of the sky a hawk circled
+slowly, with no visible motion of pinion, seeking in vain in the
+unfolding life of earth for something dead to feast upon.  The woods
+were hushed, and from their moist recesses faint vapors rose,
+wraithlike spirits of departing winter, and melted off in the warm
+sweetness of the air.
+
+After a while they came to an open space, the scar of some old fire,
+from which they could look across the great plain below, back toward
+the Summit and the blackened spot that had been Rosamund's cherished
+home a few weeks before, and down upon the roof of the little house
+that sheltered Grace and her baby.  White Rosy stopped, looked down at
+the faint green of the fields and whinnied; then she took up her
+roadside feasting.  "See that bluebird," Ogilvie presently said,
+pointing.  "See the blue flash of his wing!  See--ah, there's his mate!"
+
+They watched the flight of the bird until his mate had lured him out of
+sight.  Then Ogilvie turned to her.  "Rosamund," he said, "I have
+something to tell you--something to ask."
+
+She smiled at him.  "Something more?"
+
+"Oh, there will always be something more!  There always is--human love
+being not only human!  But--I have had an offer of a professorship--a
+new chair that has lately been given in the University of the North."
+
+He paused, as if waiting for a question from her; but she said nothing.
+
+"You will go with me?"  It was scarcely a question; she smiled,
+remembering how he always took for granted that she would do his will.
+
+"Of course," she said, quietly.
+
+"It would mean great things for me," he went on, as one reading from an
+open page.  "The university, the quickening life there; the unlimited
+power to search out; everything to work with, and then--success,
+success and--fame!"
+
+He paused, and drew a deep breath or two before he went on.  When he
+spoke again a new quality had come into his voice.
+
+"But what if I do not go?  What if I give it up?  What if I stay here?"
+
+He turned to her now, his eyes burning with his question; for, this
+time, question indeed it was, and not the old demand.
+
+"Will you stay with me?"
+
+Her look grew softer, holding almost the reassuring sweetness of a
+mother.  It was as if she wished to smile away his doubt.
+
+"Of course," she said, again.
+
+She had long since come to know that he was the least given to
+expressing his feelings when they were most deeply stirred.  The very
+intensity of his emotion seemed to bind him.  Now he looked at her, and
+he flushed very deeply; yet still he made no move to embrace her.
+
+"You are made for the highest and best, Rosamund.  I am offering you
+only the commonplace!"
+
+She looked off over the valley with unseeing eyes.  She, too, had her
+vision.
+
+"'Only the commonplace!'  What is that, John?  Is it life, and love,
+and service?"
+
+"It may be," he said, and drew her to him.
+
+She felt for his hand, and let her own creep under its warmth.
+Together they looked again at the familiar scene before them, colored
+now with their own dreams.  Presently, recalling something of an
+earlier time, she said.
+
+"It's the land of content, John!"
+
+He repeated the words, as if their music, but half understood, sounded
+sweet in his ears.  "The land of content?"
+
+"They are Mother Cary's words," she told him.  "Aren't they like
+her--so quaint and true, and so wise!  She told me once that we must
+all know doubt and pain and sorrow, if we would cross the threshold of
+happiness, into the land of content."
+
+He said nothing; but she knew from his look that he was sharing her
+vision.
+
+"Cecilia--Eleanor--they think they know it, too, I suppose--poor dears!"
+
+Ogilvie threw back his head and laughed.  Then he looked at her with a
+smile in his eyes--the smile, half tenderness and half pity, that we
+give to a beloved child who thinks he has just discovered a new truth.
+
+"And you are the only one who knows anything about it?" he teased.
+
+"Oh, you, too!" she said.
+
+"Thanks!  I'm glad you let me in!"  But he grew serious again.  "Do you
+know," he said, "I have a suspicion that your land of content is
+wherever love is?"
+
+She brushed his shoulder with her cheek.  "I shouldn't wonder!" she
+said.
+
+
+But White Rosy was not interested in such speculation.  Evidently
+having decided that dinner was more to be desired than the view, she
+set off down the road, at her briskest trot, toward the valley.  They
+laughed; but neither would have thought of restraining White Rosy when
+she had taken the control of affairs upon herself.
+
+"But I hate to come down from the high places," Ogilvie protested.
+"She's an old tyrant, a materialist!"
+
+He had brought from the intensity of his emotions all a lover's
+clamoring to prolong the hour alone with the beloved.  His visions now
+went no farther than the sweet reality beside him.
+
+She laughed back at him.  "I'm not going to let you offend her, though;
+I want to keep her always on my side.  And we can take our high places
+with us!"
+
+That turned him serious again for the moment.
+
+"Are you sure," he asked her, "that you can be satisfied to remain
+here?"
+
+"Here, or anywhere----"  She paused, and he, reassured, smiled at her.
+
+"Go on," he urged.  "Go on!  You were going to say something very nice
+to me!  I want to hear it!"
+
+But she looked curiously embarrassed.  "I--I was not going to say
+anything of the kind!  I was thinking of--something!"
+
+Then she took her courage firmly in hand.  "John," she said, "did you
+guess that--that it was I--who--gave that professorship?"
+
+His eyes opened wide.  "Why, no!" he said.  "Did you?  Well, now, I
+think that was a very good thing to do!  How did you happen to think of
+it?"
+
+"Oh--it was a sort of thank-offering--and a sort of experiment."
+
+He looked around at her.  "Oh!  It was!  Well, don't you try any more
+of your experiments on me!"
+
+"John--have you known, all along, about--about my horrid money?"
+
+He looked at her quizzically.  "Well--yes.  I knew.  Oh, I knew, of
+course!  But--it isn't one of the things that counts, is it?"
+
+He smiled at her, sure of her agreeing.  She drew a long breath.
+
+"No," she said, "it doesn't seem to be one of the things that count."
+
+There seemed to be no further need for words; neither spoke again until
+White Rosy stopped before Mother Cary's gate.  Then Rosamund turned her
+face toward Ogilvie.
+
+"To-morrow!" she said.
+
+His lips trembled.  "To-morrow," he replied, "and all the to-morrows!"
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Land of Content, by Edith Barnard Delano
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 58680 ***