So Cale knew. This was my first thought when I found myself alone in my room. Cale, then, was the husband of my mother's sister, Jemima Morey, who died before I was born, whose name I had heard but two or three times. My Aunt Keziah's mind grew dull in the strain of circumstance; she was never given a full supply of brains, and her memory weakened as she aged. Had she lived,—I shuddered at the thought,—she would have been imbecile like my grandfather and, doubtless, have lived to his age, ninety. In that case there would have been no life for me here.
"But Iamhere. I am going to remain here till I am sent away. Nothing that Cale has said shall influence me in this. All that is past—a part of another generation. I have put it all out of my life, once and for all. I live now and here, in Lamoral. I am not my mother; I am Marcia Farrell. I have not her life to answer for, and her life—oh, what she must have suffered!—shall no longer influence mine.
"I am free! I declare myself free from the bondage of past memories, free, and I will to remain so."'
This was my declaration of independence—independence of heredity and its accredited influence; of memories that control the mentality which governs life; freedom from the actuality of past environment. I drew a long free breath. My individual womanhood, this "I" of me, Marcia Farrell, not a composite of ancestral inheritance, asserted itself.
What if my nose resembles my great-grandmother's? I asked, unfurling my revolutionary flag over the moat—untechnically "ditch"—of the stronghold, considered by some impregnable, of present day scientific discovery.
What if I happen to have a temper like my maternal great-aunt's? What if I have a fighting instinct like my paternal ancestors, who may have come over with William the Conqueror as swordsmen or cooks—I don't care which?
What if I handle my crochet needle in a manner very like the brandished spear of Goths, Vandals, and Huns, from all of whom it is perfectly possible that I may count my descent?
What if I show distinctive animal characteristics? Jamie declares I run like a doe and look like a greyhound!
What do I care if, millions of years ago when things on this earth were stickier and hotter than the worst dog-day in New York, this thing that has, in the end, become Marcia Farrell, this half-perfected mechanism of body and mind, had gills like a fish? What do I care if it had?
This "I" of me is distinct from every other "I" on this inhabited globe. This "I" of me has its special work to do, not another's, not my ancestors'. Humble enough it is. It has to feed and clothe my body by labor, the brain regulating the handicraft. It has eyes to see all the beauty, all the ugliness of Life; ears to hear all its harmonies, all its discords; a mind to comprehend how some detail of chaos may find rebirth in order. This "I" of me, my soul, receives through the instruments of the senses, impressions of infinite chaos ordered into laws, not necessarily final, laws beneficial to man and his universe.—Am I to deny the existence of what is called the strange unknown ether, simply because, for ages, the instrument of the wireless was not on hand to give expression to its transmitting power?
I repeated to myself, that I had my own life to live, not my mother's—oh God, forbid! Not my grandfather's—oh, in mercy not! Not my myriad of ancestors' lives; were this so, the mechanism of the brain would give under the strain. But just my own, mine, Marcia Farrell's, here, from day to day in Lamoral; a life lived in thankfulness of spirit for a shelter that is a home; in thankfulness for the modicum of intellect—with its accompanying physical fitness—that enables me to earn my living; in thankfulness for friends; in thankfulness—yes, I dare say it, even in the shadow of Cale's story of my mother's short life—that I love, that I can love.
This is the full text of my declaration of independence, made at twelve of the clock,—I heard it striking in the kitchen below,—on the night of the twentieth of February, nineteen hundred and ten.
From that hour, I lost all desire to know my parentage, to question Doctor Rugvie, to see the papers; all desire to establish the fact that I was a legitimate child. And I lost it because a greater interest, the dominating interest of love, was claiming all my thoughts, ruling my desires, regulating my wishes. My hour had struck and, knowing it, I regulated my clock by Mr. Ewart's timepiece, which is another way of saying I lived, henceforth, not only in his home, but in him and his interests.
All that Cale told us I had known in part, but never had I known the circumstances in detail, freed from the accumulation of gossip. Now, with Delia Beaseley's relation of my birth and its attendant circumstances, the account, except on two points, seemed complete. On one, I intended to ask explanation from Cale, when an opportunity offered; in the second matter, the identity of my father, I took no interest. But to Cale I would speak. Dear old Cale! Had he known me all these months? Why had n't he spoken to me and told me?
As I thought it over, I saw that I had given him no opportunity to question me, or to speak to me, concerning his surmise. He should have it soon—and again look me squarely in the eyes. Dear old Cale!
It was noticeable the next day, that the Doctor was fairly well occupied with his own thoughts. During the hour in which I took my first lesson with skis, I caught him, more than once, looking at me as if searching for enlightenment on some subject, or object, projected, obscure and undefined, from his consciousness. My own high spirits were seemingly inexplicable to him. How could he know that my elation was due to the fact, that the express from Montreal would arrive in eight hours!
"Cale," he said abruptly, while helping me out of some particularly awkward floundering, "when does the mail leave the house for the south bound trains?"
"We cal'late ter get it off 'bout noon; little Pete takes it over."
The Doctor looked at his watch. "Sorry, Marcia, to cut short this fun, especially after my urgent invitation, but I must get some letters off by that mail. We 'll try it again to-morrow."
"Don't mind me, but I don't want to go in; it's great sport, the best yet. Cale, you can stay a little longer, can't you?"
"To be sure; I ain't nothing special on hand fer the rest of the forenoon."
"Then I 'll cut and run," said the Doctor, without ceremony and evidently pressed for time. He "cut" accordingly, his skis carrying him down the incline with what seemed to me dubious velocity.
I turned to Cale and gave him my mittened hand. He guided me well and carefully. I landed, rather to my own surprise, right side up. I was well pleased with this progress; in all conditions of my partial equilibrium, I found the sport exciting.
"You don't look like the same gal I drove up from the steamboat landing thet night four months ago." He looked down at me admiringly from his great height. "Your cheeks are clear pink and white, and your eyes shine; who 'd ever think they was the faded out brown ones, with great black hollers under 'em, thet I see lookin' 'round to find out what kind of a God's country you was in?"
"I like your compliments. Tell me, Cale,"—I smiled straight up into his rugged face, in order to get a look at the small keen gray eyes beneath the bushy eyebrows—"how did you come to think it was I? Tell me."
The tanned cheeks above the whiskers looked suddenly rather yellow. I could n't see his mouth for the frosted beard, but I saw his eyes fill. The hand that was still holding mine to help me up the incline, tightened its clasp. He hesitated a moment before he could answer:
"I did n't know, Marcia, not for plumb sure; an' yet Ifeltsure, for you was the livin' image of Happy Morey."
"Am I so very like her—in all ways?"
"Like her in looks, all but the eyes; they 're different. But you ain't much like her in your ways—she was what you might call winnin'er; you have ways of your own."
"Did you open the windows of your life so wide for us last night, Cale, just to entice me to fly in and find refuge with you?"
"Marcia," his voice trembled slightly, "I stood it jest as long as I could. I knewyoudid n't know me from Adam; but I felt as if I could n't live another day in the house with you, 'thout makin' myself known ter you; an' I took thet way ter do it an', meanwhile, satisfy somebody's curiosity 'bout me, fer Jamie can't be beat by any woman forthet. I did n't go off half-cock though, last night, you may bet your life on thet."
"I know you did n't, Cale—and can't we keep this between ourselves?"
"Jest as you say, Marcia. What you say ter me won't go no further. There ain't no one nigher to me than you in all this world—
"Nor than—" I began. I was about to say, "than you to me"; but I cut short the words that would have perjured the new joy in my heart.
Cale apparently took no notice of the unfinished sentence.
"Sometime I want ter know 'bout your life these last ten years—I can't sorter rest easy till I know."
"There is so little to tell. Aunt Keziah died eight years ago; then I went down to New York to earn my living, and worked there till I came here—on a venture."
"It's the best you ever made," he said emphatically. "Get sick of it there?"
"Yes, I should have died if I 'd stayed in that city any longer; it was too much for me."
I felt his hand grasp mine still more closely.
"So 'twas, so 'twas," he said to himself; then to me:
"Guess we won't lose track of one 'nother again, Marcia."
"Not if I can help it, Cale; it is n't my fault that we see each other for the first time in twenty-six years."
"So 't ain't, so 't ain't, poor little soul." I heard a catch in his voice, but I did not spare him.
"How old was I when you left home?"
"'Bout three months, if I remember right."
"Did you ever see me—then?"
"No."
"You did n't have any interest in me?"
"Not much, I 'll own up." Then he added weakly, for he wanted to spare me the truth by gently lying out of it, "I 've heard men don't take to new-born babies as women do; they 're kinder soft ter handle."
"And you saw me for the first time in my life at the steamboat landing?"
"Yes—an' my knees fairly give way beneath me, for I saw Happy standin' before me an' speakin' in the voice I remember so well."
"A long while, twenty-six years, Cale?"
"Don't, Marcia, don't rub it in so!" He was half resentful; and I, having brought him to this point, was satisfied to relent.
"Cale," I said, withdrawing my hand and facing him, as well as I could with my new foot appendages to steer, "I 'll forgive you for not paying any attention to me for twenty-six years, on one condition—"
"What is thet?" His eagerness was almost pathetic.
"That you 'll take me for just what I am, who I am, Marcia Farrell—not Happy Morey; if you don't I shall be unhappy. And you 're to love me for myself, do you hear? Just for myself, and not because I 'm the living image of my mother. Now don't you forget. I give you warning, I shall be insanely jealous if you love me for anybody but myself—and I take it for granted youdolove me, don't you, Cale?"
"You know I do, Marcia."
I had him at my mercy and I was merciful.
"Well, then, if I did n't have all this paraphernalia on my feet, I would venture to throw my arms around your neck and give you a good hug—Uncle Cale. As it is I might flop suddenly and fall upon your breast."
"Guess I could stand it if you did,"—he smiled happily, the creases around his eyes deepening to wrinkles,—"but 'twixt you and me, this ain't exactly the place nor the weather for any palaverin'—"
"Palavering! Well, you are ungallant, Cale; I don't dare to call you 'Uncle' now, for fear I might make a slip before the entire family, and that would complicate matters, would n't it?"
"Guess 't would," he replied earnestly; "complicate 'em in a way 't would take more 'n a lawyer's wits ter uncomplicate."
"Then let's go home and see what the Doctor is doing."
"He 's great!"
"Wait till I tell you sometime a secret about him—and me: you 'll think he is greater."
"You don't mean thet, Marcia!"
"Mean what?" I asked a little shortly, for I felt annoyed at his tone of protest and resentment.
"Mean? Wal, thet the Doctor 's sweet on you—"
"Silas C. Marstin, I am angry with you, yes, angry! Do you want to spoil all my fun,—yes, and my happiness,—by just mentioning such an impossible thing?"
"God knows I don't." He spoke, as it seemed, almost on the verge of tears.
"Then never, never—do you hear?—think or mention such a thing again. Promise me."
"I won't, so help me—"
"That 'll do; that's right. Now be sensible and get these skis off, so I can walk to the house like a woman instead of a penguin."
"You ain't goin' to lay it up against me?" he pleaded, as we neared the house.
"No, of course not; only, remember, you 're under oath. I mean all this." I nodded at him gravely.
"An' I mean it too; you won't have nothing to complain of so fur as I 'm concerned."
"Dear old Cale!" I whispered to him as I entered the house, where I found Jamie in a state of suppressed excitement for I had given him no opportunity to advance his theories about what he had heard the night before from Cale.
"I say, Marcia, come on into the office and let's talk; the Doctor is in the living-room, writing for all he is worth."
"I can't; I 'm busy." At which he went off in a huff.
"Let me take your mail out to little Pete," I said to the Doctor, who was superscribing his last letter, when I came in from the morning's sport.
"Thanks, very much."
He spoke abstractedly; ran over the addresses on several envelopes and handed them to me. I could not help seeing that the one on top was addressed to Delia Beaseley. I fancy he intended I should see it. I felt sure he had written to her for some of the forgotten details of that night in December more than twenty-six years ago.
"He's on the track of that child—me! Cale's story has given him the clew," I said to myself, on noticing his absorption in his own thoughts during dinner and his preoccupation in the afternoon. In the evening he drove over with Cale to meet Mr. Ewart.
I rather enjoyed the course events were taking; it would interest me to watch developments of the Doctor's detective work. In a way, it had all the fascination of a drama of which I felt myself no longer to be an actor, but a spectator.
Jamie cornered me, after the Doctor and Cale drove off to the junction.
"No, you don't!" he said, laughing, as he extended his long arms across the doorway of the living-room to bar my exit. "You will act like a Christian and love your neighbor as yourself this time. Sit down and talk—or I sha'n't be able to finish my last chapter."
Of course I sat down, knowing perfectly well what I was about to hear—at least, I thought I did.
"Marcia—"
"Yes?"
"The more I think of it, the more I am convinced that what Cale told us, and what Doctor Rugvie told us, are two acts in a long drama—tragedy, if you like."
"Well?"
"Youarecool, I must say!" He spoke with irritation. "Do you mean to tell me that life, presented in such a manner as those two men—opposite as the poles in standing—presented it, does n't interest you?"
"I have n't the imagination of genius, Jamie."
"Now you know perfectly well there is no imagination about it. It's life, just as Cale said; and it's my belief the Doctor will, in the end, get some track of that girl. If he does, it will be all up with the farm. Did you think of that?"
"No!" I spoke the truth. I was amazed. It never occurred to me to connect the farm project with anything Cale had said.
"I 'll wager he 'll compare notes with Cale on the way over to the station, and I 'm going to refer to the farm plan, if I have the chance after they get back, to see what he 'll say."
"He won't think you 're interfering, will he?"
"He can't." He spoke decidedly. "The farm project affectsme, don't you see?"
"Not exactly; how?"
"Why, if—of course it's only an 'if'—the Doctor should find this girl, he would n't for a moment think of taking that money, which in justice if not in the law belongs to her, to further any of his plans. He is n't that kind of a man."
"Of course not; but I don't see how—"
"That's where you are obtuse. Look here, Marcia, how long do you suppose I can stand it to vegetate here in Canada? It's healthy, I agree to that, and doing me no end of good; but I can't see myself living here—existing, yes; but living, no! I'm better, stronger; and even if I were n't, I would n't play the coward either in life or death. As it is, I want to live my life full in my own way, among my own. I want to be in the thick of the fray, even if by being there I should go under a little sooner. I want to mingle with the multitude of men—see into their lives, give them something of mine in reality and through the imagination, and get their point of view into my life. I can't stay on indefinitely here in Canada; and if—if—"
"If what?"
"If the girl should be found, the farm project would amount to nothing. The Doctor sees, just as you and I see, that Ewart is not enthusiastic about it, and he is n't going to settle on Ewart's land with an unwelcome philanthropic scheme. And then—"
"What?" I was becoming impatient.
"Why, then, if it should fall through,—and I 'm selfishly hoping it may,—I'm not in the least bound, don't you know, to stay on here as Ewart's guest. I can go home."
"Home!" I echoed. The thought of losing Jamie had never occurred to me. And if he went, then his mother, also, would go. If they both went, I should have necessarily to leave Lamoral, for I was merely an entail of their presence. Leave Lamoral! I sickened at the thought.
"Oh, no, no, Jamie!" I cried out, rebelling against the prospect of a new upheaval in my life. "I can't spare you—I can't live here without you—"
With every thought centered in Mr. Ewart at that moment, and comprehending as I did the logical result of Mrs. Macleod's leaving the manor and all that it would mean to me, I did not realize what impression my impulsive words might make on her son. In the silence that followed my protest, I had time to realize what I had said.
"I did n't for a moment suppose you felt like this, Marcia."
In a flash I understood the twist in his interpretation of my words and feeling.
"You don't understand—" I began vehemently, then found myself hesitating like a schoolgirl who does not know her lesson. I was ashamed of myself, for Jamie was on the wrong track and must be put right at all costs.
"I think I do." He spoke gently, almost pityingly as it seemed to me then. I boiled inwardly.
"No, you don't; but there 's no time to explain now—I hear the bells—"
"You have good ears; I don't."
"They 're coming! Where 's Mrs. Macleod?"
"Well, they 're not returning from an ocean voyage, even if they are coming; there is no need to run up the Union Jack— Hold on a minute!" He barred the door again with his long arms.
"Let me out—they 're at the door—"
"What if they are?"
I slipped quickly under his arm into the passageway. The dogs were frantic with joy. I wanted to show mine as plainly, perhaps then Jamie might understand! I flung open the door, and, as it happened my voice was the only one to welcome them.
"You 're back so soon!"
"You may well say that," said the Doctor, running up the steps and seeming to bring the whole Arctic region of cold in with him; "I drove over and made good time, I thought; but Ewart took the reins on the way back, and we came home at a clip—nine miles in fifty-two minutes! That's a record. Now, Ewart," he turned to speak to his friend who had stopped to give some order to Cale, "see how well I have heeded your injunction to 'look out' for Miss Farrell."
"And the horses did n't bolt," I said, as I put my hand into his outstretched one.
"Have you gotten over the effects of the aurora?"
The hearty gladness in his voice was reward enough for the restraint I put on myself. I wanted to give him both hands and tell him in so many words that, with his coming, I was "at home" again.
"No, and never shall," I responded joyfully.
"Nor I either.— Where 's Jamie? Oh, Mrs. Macleod," he said, spying her on the upper landing, "I 've taken you unawares for the first time.—Down, comrades, down!—Jamie Macleod, is this the way you welcome a wanderer to his own hearth?"
Jamie's hand grasped his and pumped it well.
"It's queer, Gordon, but you seem to look at your three days of absence from the same point of view that Marcia does."
"How 's that?" he asked quickly, turning to me.
"Just Jamie's nonsense; it's only that I was on the lookout for you, and heard the bells when he failed to."
I knew I was growing reckless, but I did not care—why should I?—if he knew I was glad to see him at home again. I did not care if they all knew it—I must put Jamie right somehow. And what was there to hide? Not my gladness, not my joy, the new elements in my new life—this something I had never before experienced. Somehow, all my resolutions to keep this joy "to myself" went to the winds.
Mr. Ewart made no reply, but I knew I added to his evident pleasure in his return, by my ready and frankly expressed acknowledgement that I was "on the lookout" for him.
That evening was one never to be forgotten. It was a time when the friendship of the four men, Mr. Ewart, Cale, Doctor Rugvie, and Jamie Macleod, towards me, found expression both in jest and earnest; a time when Mrs. Macleod's kindly, if always a little remote interest in me was doubly grateful, for sure of it and its protection I could let the new life, that shortly before had awakened in me, flood my whole being and expand heart, soul and mind with its vital flux. I felt that I made my own place in this household; that I pleased them all; that they liked my speech, whether merry or grave; that they liked my ways because mine, whether I was lighting cigars and pipes for them, or frying griddlecakes at ten o'clock at night on the top of the soapstone stove, in redemption of my promise made months past. The truth is I felt at home, wholly, completely; and they, recognizing it, were glad for me.
With Cale, that evening, I was tender, teasing, arrogant by turns; I had him at my mercy—and his lips were sealed! With Jamie I was absolutely nonsensical, as I dared to be in view of his twisted interpretation of my apparently sentimental, "I can't live without you here etc." I bothered and puzzled him, much to the others' amusement. Into the Doctor's spirit of banter I entered with the enjoyment of a not very "old" girl. I caught him looking at me with the same perplexed expression that he wore when I first smiled at him three months before—and I kept on smiling, as I had cause, hoping the message, oft repeated, would carry in time to his consciousness the recognition that I was, indeed, the daughter of her whom he had befriended more than a quarter of a century ago. The emphatic statement made by Cale and Delia Beaseley that I was her "living image", encouraged me in this line of procedure. To the Master of Lamoral I gave willing service, frying for him delectable griddlecakes, turning them till a golden brown, flapping them over skilfully on his warm plate, and deluging them with incomparable maple syrup from his own sugar "bush". He received this service in the spirit in which I gave it, and the cakes with the appreciation of a man and connoisseur. Mrs. Macleod seconded my efforts in this special line of cooking and enjoyed the fun as much as any one of us.
"There 's no use, I 'm 'full up'," said Jamie with a sigh of exhaustion; he dropped into the sofa corner.
"I kept tally for you, Boy," said the Doctor.
"How many?"
"Eighteen! Apply to me if you 're in trouble at one-thirty to-night." He looked at his watch.
"You scored seventeen fully ten minutes ago, mon vieux," said Mr. Ewart laughing.
"Slander, Marcia! Don't believe it. Three of mine would make only one of yours, Gordon Ewart;—I 've camped enough with you to know your 'capacity', as the freight cars have it. Marcia Farrell, your last 'batch' has been 'petering out', as we say at home. You dropped only one small spoonful for each of the last twenty cakes; the ones you made for Ewart had a complement of two big spoonfuls—they were corkers, no mistake. Hold up your head, Boy!" he admonished the collapsed object on the sofa. "Never say die—here are just four more for us four, amen."
A dismal groan was his only answer. Mr. Ewart, taking turner and bowl from me, declared a truce. The Doctor set the plates on the table. When all was clear about the hearth, on which Cale laid a pine log for a treat, Mr. Ewart announced that he had a surprise in his pocket.
"Jamie, your birthday falls on the twelfth of August, does n't it?"
"Yes; how did you remember that, Gordon?"
"You had a birthday when I was in Crieff with you seventeen years ago—and we celebrated. Have you forgotten?"
"Forgotten!" Jamie came bolt upright, the cakes were as naught, the remembrance of them faded. "Do you think I could ever forget that? You took, or rather trotted me for a long walk over the moors—oh, the pink and the purple heather of them, the black blackness of their bogs, the green greenery of their bracken higher than my head!—to the 'Keltie'; and you held me over the pool to see the whirl and dash of the plunging torrent. I remember the spray made me catch my breath. Then you took me down to the bank of the 'burnie', and found a place to camp—my first camp with you—under a big elm; and there you discovered a flat stone, and two crooked branches for crotches. You took from your mysterious game-basket a gypsy kettle and, filling it at the 'burnie' with the water that tastes like no other in the world, you hung it from the crotch over the flat stone that was our hearth. You made heaven on that spot for a seven-year-old boy, because you let him touch off the fagots. You boiled the water, made tea—such tea!—and brought out of that same basket bannocks and fresh gooseberry jam— Oh, don't, don't mention that birthday! You make me homesick for it; even Marcia's griddlecakes can't help me!"
"We 'll celebrate again this year in the wilds of the Upper Saguenay." Mr. Ewart took from his pocket a paper and, unfolding it, read the terms of a lease of a fish and game preserve in the northern wilderness.
"And the Andrés, father and son, shall be our guides, our cooks, our factotums. The son is half Montagnais; his mother was of that tribe."
"Oh, Ewart!" Jamie's eyes glistened, but his volubility was checked; he felt his friend's thought of him too deeply.
"I secured it while I was away; I have wanted it for the last five years. The Doctor has promised us six weeks, and the camp will be more attractive"—he looked at Mrs. Macleod—"and keep us longer, if you and Miss Farrell will be my guests, and make a home for us in the wilderness. Will you?"
For once in her life Mrs. Macleod did not balk at this direct question involving a decision. I record it to her credit.
"And you?" He turned to me without apparent eagerness, but I caught the flash of pleasure in his eyes when I answered promptly, with enthusiasm:
"It will be something to dream of till it is a reality. I 'll begin making my camp outfit to-morrow; and André père shall teach me to fish and paddle a canoe; his son shall teach me woodcraft, and some Montagnais squaw shall show me how to weave baskets. In those same baskets I will gather the mountain berries for such of the family as may crave them, and—and that wilderness shall be made to blossom like the rose and prove to us, at least, a land flowing with milk and honey."
Mr. Ewart's question about a "home in the wilderness" was the motor power for my flight.
"Amen and amen," cried the Doctor, approving of my soaring. "We 'll return to the Arcadia of the woodsman's simple life."
"Humph!" said Cale. "You'd better add all them contraptions of veils, an' nettin's, and smudge kettles, an' ointments, an' forty kinds of made-up bait—so made-up thet I 've seen a trout, a three pounder, wink at me when he see some of it and wag away up stream as sassy as you please—an' a gross of joss sticks. By George, I 've seen mosquitoes as big as mice—"
"Cale," I made protest; "you spoil all."
"Better wait till you are there, Marcia, before you rhapsodize any more; you did it well, though, I 'll admit," said Jamie, with his most patronizing air.
"So did you rhapsodize over Scotland," I retorted; "and I 'll rhapsodize if I never go; and you 're not to quench my enthusiasm with any of your Scotch mist that I am told is nothing less than a downpour."
"By the way, when is your birthday, Marcia?" said the Doctor, carefully, oh, so carefully, knocking the ash from his cigar into the fireplace. The act was so very cautious that it betrayed to me his restrained expectancy of my answer! "I have an idea it's the last of June."
How light I was of heart in answering him, in giving him the clew he was seeking as I would have made him a gift, fully, freely—for what was it to me now, whether he knew or not?
"Next December, when the north wind blows over the Canada snows, you may remember me, if you will."
"What date?"
I waited intentionally for him to ask that question. I felt that Cale was holding his breath; but I did n't care, and replied without hesitation:
"The third—twenty-seven years. What an age!"
They laughed at me, one and all, the Doctor perhaps a little more heartily than the others. After that he sat, with one exception, silent; but Jamie spoke half impatiently:
"Why did n't you give us a chance to celebrate last December?"
"Nobody asked me about it."
The Doctor spoke for the only time then. "I 'll make a mem of it," he said gayly, taking out his notebook and writing in it. And I saw through his every move—the dear man!
"You might have given us the pleasure of remembering it," said Mrs. Macleod reproachfully.
"Oh, I celebrated it in my own way—and for the first time in my life," I replied, treasuring in my heart that hour in the office with Mr. Ewart when he took my gift of service "gratis".
"Might a common mortal, who has both eyes and ears and generally can see through a barn door if it is wide open, ask in what manner you celebrated that you escaped notice of every member of this household?" Jamie spoke ironically.
"Jamie, I outwitted even you that time. Of course I 'll tell you: I made a gift to some one, which was a good deal more satisfactory than to receive one myself."
"The deuce you did! Perhaps you 'll tell me what it was and who was the man? I was n't aware of any extra purchases in the village."
"Not now." I spoke decidedly. "Let's talk about the camp. I can't wait for the spring. When can we go?" I asked Mr. Ewart.
"Not before the first of July, but we can remain until into September."
The words were commonplace enough; but the tone in which they were spoken belonged to another day, another hour, to that moment when he accepted my gift of service "gratis". He, at least, knew how I celebrated that third of December!
Content, satisfied, I began to jest with Jamie. We made and enlarged upon the most ideal plans it ever befell mortals to make. The others listened to our chaffing and found amusement in it, for we tried to outdo each other in camp-hyperbole. The Doctor, Mr. Ewart and Cale, whose presence Mr. Ewart insisted upon having the entire evening, smoked in silence. I knew where the Doctor's thoughts were. I would have given a half-hour of that evening's enjoyment—at least I think I would—to have read Mr. Ewart's.
Late, very late, Cale rose, put a chunk into the soapstone, and said good night. I followed him into the kitchen. I wanted to speak with him, for I saw something was out of gear.
"What's the matter, Cale?" I whispered, as he fumbled about for the candle somewhere on the kitchen dresser.
"Marcia," he whispered in turn, "I 've pretty nigh lied myself inter hell for you ter-night. On the way over ter the junction the Doctor put his probe inter what's 'twixt you an' me mighty deep; but I was a match fer him! An' then I come home jest ter hear you give yourself all away! What in thun—"
"Sh, Cale! Somebody 's coming—"
"Wal, a gal's 'bout the limit when—" I heard him say in a tone of utter disgust, and, laughing to myself, I ran up stairs.
After the Doctor's departure on the Saturday of that week, I wrote to Delia Beaseley, telling her how far I had ventured upon the disclosure of the fact that I was the daughter of her whom she had helped to save, and that she was now free to tell him whatever he might ask in regard to me, as far as she could answer; but that on no consideration was she to speak of the papers in his possession; and if he spoke to her of them, she was to say that he must settle that with me; that on no account was she to learn anything of their contents. I wrote her this as a precautionary measure only, for I was convinced the Doctor would not mention those papers. They belonged to me, to me alone. It was a matter of business.
She wrote in answer that she would do as I requested.
The spring was both long and late in coming. Day after day, week after week the wind held steadily from the east or northeast. When, at last, it turned right about face, and the sun, climbing high in the north, warmed the breast of mother-earth, already swelling with its hidden abundance, the waters were loosened and the great river and all its tributaries were in ice-throes, travailling for deliverance.
Then it was that the plank sidewalks throughout the length and breadth of Richelieu-en-Bas were securely chained to each householder's fence or tree, to prevent them from sailing away on the rising flood. Then it was that rowboats were in evidence in many a front yard. The creek was impassable; the high-road bridge was threatened. Cale and Mr. Ewart seemed to live in rubber boots, both by day and by night. Pierre called frantically on all the protecting saints to withhold rain at the time of the "débâcle": the breaking up of the river. His son came in twice a day, on an average, with soaked stockings and knickerbockers wet through and through; was duly castigated—lightly, I say to his father's credit—and as regularly comforted by Angélique with flagons of spiced hot milk or very sweet ginger tea. It finally dawned upon us that the youngster deliberately waded through slush to obtain the creature comforts. After that, they were withheld.
Cale looked grim and Mr. Ewart anxious for one twenty-four hours. All night they were out on horseback with lanterns and ropes. Then the heavy rainclouds dispersed without the dreaded deluge; the sun shone clear and warm; the small ice jams gave way, and the great floes went charging down on the black waters towards the sea.
During this time of east wind, rain and snow, Jamie often chafed inwardly, for the weather kept him housed; but he busied himself with his work and soon became wholly absorbed, lost to what went on around him.
And what was going on around him? Just this: two lives, a man's and a woman's, long bound by the frost of circumstance, like the ice-bound river in full view from the manor, were in the process of being warmed through and through, thawed out; the ice obstructing each channel was beginning to move, that the courses of their lives, under the power of love's rays, might, at last, flow unhindered each into the other. So it seemed to me, at least, during those weeks of waiting for the spring.
Did I know he loved me? Yes, I knew it; was sure of it; but no word was spoken, for no word was needed then. We understood each other. We were man and woman, not boy and girl. We recognized what each of us was becoming to the other in the daily intimate household ways of life—an enduring test; in the community of our human interests, in the common wealth of our friends, of our books. His best friends were mine; mine were his—all except Delia Beaseley; sometime I intended he should know her.
I thought at first that would come about through the farm project; but Mrs. Macleod, Jamie and I had to acknowledge, soon after the Doctor returned, that the development of this plan was at a standstill. Naturally this pleased both mother and son. For them it meant the prospect of a return in the near future to their home in Scotland; finally to England, and London. Jamie confided to me he should cast anchor there for a time, his second book having been accepted by a good publisher in that city.
He found opportunity in my presence to ask Doctor Rugvie, just before he left us, about his further plans for the farm scheme, and was told rather brusquely that certain complications had arisen, which must be cleared up before he could proceed to develop them. Not once did he drive over to the farm on his last visit. As for Mr. Ewart, he never mentioned the subject. Jamie was wise enough to refrain from asking questions of him.
The Doctor's announcement kept Jamie guessing for weeks, his curiosity being unsatisfied; but as for me—I laughed in my sleeve, for I knew how that "third of December" birthday on my innocent part, had disarranged the good Doctor's philanthropic scheme, for the present at least. I was curious to know how he would proceed to "clear away" those complications.
The fear of leaving Lamoral for good was diminishing; I knew that what held me there, held Mr. Ewart also. I rested content in this knowledge.
It was the second week in May when the seigniory farmers began to arrive and closet themselves with Mr. Ewart in the office. The "going" was atrocious, and the appearance at the side door of the clay-clogged cariole, buggy,calècheand farm-cart, bore witness to this fact.
Jamie and I were on the watch for each arrival. We knew nearly all of these habitant-farmers. They hitched their "team", and spent hours with Mr. Ewart. Sometimes, when we were in the living-room, we could hear voices from the office in lively and earnest discussion. We remarked the air of pride and satisfaction with which each one unhitched his horse, climbed into his special conveyance, slapped the reins on his animal's back and was off with a merry "Bonnes nouvelles!" to his habitant-wife who, while waiting for her husband, had been in the kitchen exchanging courtesies with Angélique, and feasting on freshly fried doughnuts and hot coffee. The notary from Richelieu-en-Bas, as well as the county surveyor, were also closeted with Mr. Ewart; they arrived after breakfast and left before supper. At dinner they were our guests, but no business topics were mentioned.
By Saturday, the routine of visitation was concluded. The notary departed with his green baize bag apparently bursting with documents. It was Angélique who informed us after his departure that the seignior had been receiving the seignioral rents with his own hand.
The next morning at the breakfast table, Mr. Ewart asked me if I would help him to audit some accounts, the farmers having just paid their half-yearly rents.
"At what hour?" I asked.
"I shall need your help for the entire forenoon and probably for an hour or two after dinner. Shall we say at nine?"
"Can't I help?" said Jamie, rather half-heartedly I must confess.
Mr. Ewart took in the situation by the tone, and smiled as he answered:
"No; you 're too busy with your work; the prose of figures would n't appeal to you just now."
"Would n't they though! Try me on a check from my publisher."
"It's the point of view, after all, that changes proportions, is n't it? Are you going to work in here?"
"Yes; I need about four by eight feet of surface to keep my ideas from jostling one another, and this dining-room table is about the right fit when I 'm comparing pages of manuscript with first galley proofs."
"Good luck, then; we 'll not disturb you till dinner."
An hour later when I went into the office, I found Mr. Ewart at his desk. Beside him was a large tin box, twice as large as a bread-box. On top lay two pairs of his thick driving-gloves. I must have looked my surprise, for he laughed as he rose to place two chairs, one on each side of the only table in the room—a fine old square one of ancient curly birch, generally bare, but now covered with a square of oil cloth.
"What next? I can't wait for developments to explain all this paraphernalia," I said; my curiosity was thoroughly roused.
"These." He held out a pair of the driving-gloves. "You are to put them on, please, and not to take them off till I give you permission."
Mystified, I obeyed. He set down the tin box on the table between us; opened wide both windows to let in the tonic air, that began to hint of real spring, and, drawing on the other pair of gloves, took his seat opposite me at the table. I could not help laughing.
"How does this performance strike you?" he asked, amused at my amusement.
"Like the prelude to some absolutely ridiculous rite, unknown to me."
"That is just what it is." He spoke so emphatically, so earnestly, that I was still further mystified. "You have hit the bull's-eye. It is a ridiculous rite, and, thank God, it's for the last time that I am chief mummer in it. Here in this box, Miss Farrell," he went on unlocking it and displaying a conglomerate mass of silver and soiled paper money, "are rents, seigniorial rents, paid by men who farm it on the seigniory, whose fathers and fathers' fathers have worked this ground before them, men who should own this land, to a man who should not own it in the existing conditions—conditions that have no place in the body politic, here or anywhere else. It's a left-over from medievalism—and I am about to do away with this order of things, to prove myself a man."
"You believe, then, in the ownership of the land by the many?" I asked eagerly. I was glad to get his point of view. The discussions between him, Doctor Rugvie and Jamie, were always of great interest to me. Although I knew something of his plans from the other two, he had never mentioned them to me. I saw he was speaking with great feeling.
"Believe in it! It's the first article in my political and sociological creed. I 've come back here to Canada, where I was born, to incorporate it in action.— And you 're wondering where you come in, in this experiment, I 'll wager," he said gayly.
I answered him in the same vein: "I confess, I fail to see the connection between your driving-gloves on my hands, your strong box between us—and the first article of your creed."
"Of course you don't!" He laughed aloud at my mental plight and his own manner of announcing his special tenet. "I 'll begin at the beginning and present the matter by the handle. I want you to grasp it right in the first place."
"Thank you," I said meekly; "not being a feminine John Stuart Mill, I need all the enlightenment I can have on the presence of this worldly dross that lies between us. Facts contradict theories."
With a sudden, almost passionate movement, he shoved the box to one side on the table; it was no longer between us. I knew there was significance in his impulsive action, but I failed to understand what it indicated.
"It's taking rather a mean advantage of a woman, I own, to ask her on the spur of the moment to share a man's political and sociological views—but I want you to share mine, and enlightenment is your due."
"And in the meantime am I to keep on the gloves?"
He laughed again. "Yes; keep them on and help me out of this scrape—I have never felt so humiliated in my life as I have taking this money. Now I 'll be rational. You see, smallpox roams at times through Canada. This money has been stored in stockings, instead of banks, after having been hoarded, handled, greased, soiled by a generation or more. You 'll find dates of issue on these notes that are a good deal older than you, and silver minted in the early sixties. Now I want your help in counting over—auditing, we 'll call it—this mass of corruption. And I don't intend you shall run any risk in handling even a small part of it—hence the gloves and the fresh air. After we 're through with it, we will pack the filthy lucre in the box and express it to a Montreal bank. It is n't mine—at least I do not consider it so."
"Why not?"
"Because I am going to apply these half-yearly rents in reducing the interest on the money I am loaning these farmers, in order to enable them to buy the best implements and cultivate their land more intelligently. This I may say to you, but to no one else."
"You are going to sell them the land?"
"The greater part of it. The forest I keep, because I love that work and hope in time to make a sufficient income from it, in case of actual need. In fact, I 've been working all the week with the notary to get the deeds in order."
"So that was their 'bonnes nouvelles'?"
"You heard them?"
"Yes. They looked so happy—"
"Oh, I am glad; glad too, that you could see something of their pleasure in this special work of mine. Do you know,"—he leaned towards me over the table,—"that I have asked you to help me with this as a matter of pure sentiment?"
His eyes sought mine, but I am sure they found only an enquiring turn of mind in them, for I could not imagine where the sentiment was in evidence.
"I see I 'll have to explain," he said smiling. "I want you, an American with all the free inheritance of the American, to share with me in this last rite of mediævalism, in order that in the future we may look back to it—and mark our own progress."
Oh, that word "our"! Used so freely, it rejoiced me. He intended this affair to mark some epoch in his life and mine. I waited for him to say something further. But, instead, he turned to the business in hand and we set to work. To be sure the "auditing" on my part was a mere farce; for not only did Mr. Ewart do most of the counting, and making into bundles of a hundred, but he insisted on my not bending close over the currency to watch him. As I told him, "After asking me to help you, you keep me at arm's distance."
Whereupon he smiled in an amused way, and said engagingly, but firmly:
"There is no question of my keeping you at a distance. Don't mind my crotchets, Miss Farrell, I have a fancy to have you here with me at the obsequies of all this sixteenth-in-the-twentieth century nonsense. At forty-six, I still have my dreams. You 'll be good enough to indulge me, won't you?"
"If that's all, I think I can indulge you. But is there nothing I can do to be of some real help?"
"Nothing but to lend me your companionship during this trying ordeal. You might fill out some labels—you 'll find them in that handy-box on the desk—with the words 'hundred' and 'fifty', and I 'll gum them on to these slips for the money rolls."
For a few minutes I busied myself with the labels. After that, I watched his swift counting of bills and silver, and his ordering them into neat packages and rolls. Before long, however, I took matters into my own gloved hand and, without so much as "by your leave", began the recount, labelling as I went on. Within an hour the work was finished and a smaller tin box packed.
"How much did you make it?" he asked, before locking the box.
"Three thousand four hundred and twenty-two, just."
"The rate of interest I charge them is two per cent, and this amount will reduce that greatly."
"Do you mean that you are letting them have the land, supplying money to help them cultivate it, and charging only two per cent interest?"
"Why should I charge more? They are the ones who are doing the land good. You see, the use of this rent-accumulation to reduce their interest rate for the first year or two, is a part of my general scheme. They are to apply their half-yearly rents as purchase money for their land; this is in the deeds. Within a comparatively short period, this assures to each of them a freehold. The valuation I have put on their land is regulated by the amount of work they have put out on it, and the time they have lived on it.
"Take old Mère Guillardeau, for instance. She has an 'arpent' now of her very own. She, and her father, and her father's father have lived on these seigniory lands for nearly two hundred years. I value that land by discounting the value of the service rendered to it in four generations. Her little 'cabane' is her own, having been built by her father. The land is worth to her all the accumulated value of those generations of toil; to me, who have never done anything for it, neither I nor my fathers, it is worth exactly ten dollars—now, don't laugh!—her yearly rent."
"And that buys it!" I exclaimed, wondering what kind of finance this might be, frenzied or sane.
"It is hers—and I have the pleasure of knowing it is hers while I am living. She and her old daughter of seventy drove out here the other day in Farmer Boucher's cart, and when she went home she carried the deed with her to have it registered. Old André's sister is a hundred years old in January—a hundred years, the product of one piece of land, for, practically they have lived from it with a yearly pig, a cow, a few hens and a garden. Ninety years of toil she has spent upon it. Would you, in the circumstances, have dared to make the time of purchase one year, six months even, and she nearly a centenarian?"
"No." I was beginning to understand.
"And take old Jo Latour. You know him well, for I hear from him how many times you have been there on snow-shoes to take him something 'comforting and warming', as he says. Jo has rheumatism, the kind that catches him when he is sitting in his chair or stooping, and prevents his getting up; and at last, when he manages to stand upright, it won't let him bend or sit down again until after painful effort. What can he do? Boil maple syrup once a year, or chop a cord or two of wood at a dollar a cord? He is seventy-two and has no family as you know. What is he going to do when the pinch becomes too hard? He has a small woodlot, a little garden, a patch of tobacco—is happy all day long with his dog and pipe, despite that rheumatic crippling. I have valued his lot at twenty dollars, and a year's rent will pay for it—with the help of this," he added, touching the box.
"I am learning how to take hold of the matter by the handle. Enlighten me some more, please."
"I could go on for hours into more detail, but I am going to mention only two other families, to show how my plan works. There are Dominique Montferrand and Maxime Longeman, men of thirty or thereabouts, fine strong men with their broods of six and eight. They marry young; work hard and faithfully; shun the cabarets; save their surplus earnings. They were born on the land; they love it and give it of their best toil; it responds to good treatment. Their dairy is one of the best; their stock superior. They have seventy-five acres each. I asked them to value it themselves. They showed they appreciated the worth of the land by the price they set: four thousand dollars—four thousand 'pièces'. They would not cheapen it—not even for the sake of getting it more quickly. A man appreciates that spirit. I have set the period for half-yearly payments at ten years—and I will help out with improved farm implements at the rate of interest I mentioned.
"In less than ten years, if the crops are good, it is theirs. If the crops are poor, they can still pay for it in the period set. They are young. They have something to work for during the best years of their lives."
"But how do you feel about parting with all this land that was your ancestors? Are n't you, too, bound to it by ties of value given?"
"Me? My ancestors!" he exclaimed. "Where did you get that idea? Who told you that this was ancestral land of mine?"
"Mrs. Macleod, or Jamie, intimated it was yours by inheritance."
"Hm—I must undeceive them. Butyouare not to harbor such a thought for a moment."
"I won't if you say so—but I would like to know how things stand." I grew bold to ask, at the thought of his expressed confidence in me.
"Why, it's all so simple—"
"More simple, I hope, than all that matter of seigniorial rights and transferences I read upon, in the Library before I came—and was no wiser than before."
"And you thought— Oh, this is rich!" he said, thoroughly amused.
I nodded. "Yes; I thought you were a seignior. I dreamed dreams, before coming here of course, of retainers and ancestral halls, and then—I was met by Cale at the boat landing!"
Mr. Ewart fairly shouted as he sensed my disappointment on the romantic side upon discovering Cale.
"And the first thing you did, poor girl, was to lay a rag carpet strip in the passageway for my seigniorial boots—spurred, of course, in your imagination—to make wet snow tracks on! Oh, go on, go on; tell me some more. I would n't miss this for anything."
Before I could speak there was a decided rap on the door.
"That's Jamie," I said; "he has come for the fun."
"Come in," cried Mr. Ewart. Jamie intruded his head; his rueful face caused an outburst on my part.
"I say, Ewart, is it playing fair to a man to have all this unwonted hilarity in business hours, and keep me out?"
"No more it is n't, mon vieux. Come in and hear about Miss Farrell's seigniorial romancing."
"Go on, Marcia," said Jamie, sitting down by me.
"You 've misled me, Jamie. Did n't you, or Mrs. Macleod, tell me when I first came that this Seigniory of Lamoral was Mr. Ewart's by inheritance?"
"Well, it was in a way, was n't it, Gordon? It was a Ewart's?"
"Not in a way, even. I never thought enough about your view of the matter to speak of it. Let's have a cigar, if Miss Farrell does n't object, and I 'll tell what there is to tell—there 's so little!"
Jamie looked at me when Mr. Ewart rose to get the cigars—and looked unutterable things. I read his thought: "Now is our time to find out the truth of things heard and rumored."
"I was born in Canada, Miss Farrell," he said, between puffs, "as Jamie knows, and educated in England. My mother's great-uncle, on her mother's side, was a Ewart of Stoke Charity, a little place in the south of England. While I was there, I was much with this great-uncle; I bear his name. He owned this estate of Lamoral in Canada, that is, two-thirds of the original seigniory; the other third belongs to the present seignior and seignioress in Richelieu-en-Bas. He purchased it from a Culbertson who inherited it from his grandfather, an officer of prominence in the French and Indian wars. At that time, many of the old French seigniories fell into the conqueror's hands, and, by the power of a might that makes right, were allotted to various English officers for distinguished services. The original Culbertson never lived here. His grandson, my great-uncle's friend, never cared enough for it to manage it himself; he left all to an agent and found it paid him but little—so little that he was willing enough to sell two-thirds of it, the neglected two-thirds, to my great-uncle.
"On my great-uncle's death, his grandson, my contemporary, inherited it. I bought it of him ten years ago; but I have used it only as a camping-place when I have been over from England or the Island Continent. I paid for it with a part of what I earned on my sheep ranch in Australia—so linking two parts of the Empire in my small way—and I have never regretted it. That's all there is to tell of the 'inheritance' romance, Miss Farrell."
"Gordon—" Jamie stopped short; blew the smoke vigorously from his lips, and began again. "Would you mind telling me how you came to want to settle here?"
"Why? Because I am a Canadian, not an Englishman."
"Why do you always take pains to make that distinction?"
"That's easy to explain. Because a Canadian is never an Englishman; he is Canadian heart and soul. You can't make him over into an Englishman, no matter if you plant him in Oxford and train him in Australia. I 've been enough in England to know that we are looked upon for what we are—colonials, Canadians, just the other side of the English pale although within the bounds of the British Empire. You feel it in the air, social, political and economic. No drawing-room in England accepts me as an Englishman—and I enter no drawing-room with any wish to be other than a Canadian of the purest brand. We 're not even English in our political rights over there. We are English only in the law, as is the pariah of India. We want to be just Canadians, inheritors of a land unequalled in its possibilities for human growth, for human progress, for the carrying out of just, wise laws, for a far-reaching economical largesse undreamed of in other lands—not excepting yours," he said, turning to me.
"And would you mind telling me," I asked, emboldened by Jamie's personal question, "how it has come about that you look upon your special land ownership with such a broad human outlook?"
"And this really interests you?" He asked me in some surprise.
"It really interests me—why should n't it when I have my own livelihood to earn? The economic question, so-called, seems to me to resolve itself into the question: How are we, I and my brothers and sisters, who work in one way and another, going to feed and clothe ourselves—and yet not live by bread alone? But, I don't suppose you know that side of it, only theoretically?"
"Yes, and no. I got all my inspiration about this land question in England."
"In England!" Jamie repeated, showing his surprise. "That would seem the last place for the advancement of such theories about land as I have heard you explain more than once."
"In this way. The object lesson came from England—but was upside down on my national retina. I had to re-adjust it in Canada. It's just here; the condition of England is this—I have seen it with both bodily and spiritual eyes:—That snug little, tight little island is what you might call in athletic parlance 'muscle bound'. I 'll explain. For more than a century she has colonized. What is left now? Her land owned by the few; her population, that which is left, rapidly pauperizing. England, with a land for the sustenance of millions, is powerless to help, to succor her own. She has too much unused land, as the muscle-bound athlete has too much muscle. It handicaps her in all progress. Her classes are now two: the very poor, and the poor who have no land; the rich who have practically all the land. In this condition of things her economical and political system is drained of it best.
"Scotch, English, Irish—the clearest brains, the best muscle, the highest hearts, are coming over here to Canada. This land is the great free land for the many. In settling here, I wanted to add my quota of effort in the right direction. And I cannot see but that this little piece of earth, three thousand acres in all, on which, for two hundred years, men, women and children have succeeded one another, multiplying as generation after generation, have gone on caring for the land, living from it,—but never owning a foot of it,—is the best kind of an experiment station for working out my principles. I am about to apply the result of my English object lesson here in Lamoral. I have been telling Miss Farrell about the disposition I intend to make of it, gradually, of course. Perhaps you would like to hear sometime."
"Will you tell me about it in detail?" Jamie asked eagerly.
"I am only too pleased to find a listener, an interested one. Miss Farrell has proven a good one—I've kept you already two hours." He rose.
"Is it possible!" I was genuinely surprised. "The time had seemed so short. I must go now and help Angélique with her new cake recipe—a cake we eat only in the States, and a good object lesson on the economic side." I rose and laid the gloves on the table. I had kept them on just a little longer than was necessary—because they were his! Foolish? Oh, yes, I knew it to be; but it was such a pleasure to indulge myself in foolishness that concerned nobody's pleasure but my own.
"Sometime I want to ask you a few questions, Miss Farrell," said Mr. Ewart, as I turned to the door.
"What about?" I was a little on the defensive.
"I want to know how you came to have any such economic ideas in your thinking-box?"
I turned again from the door to face him. "Have you ever lived in New York?"
"No."
"Have you ever been there?" There was a moment's hesitancy before he replied, thoughtfully:
"Yes; I have been through it several times."
"Then you must know something of the economic conditions of those four millions?"
"Yes."
"Do I answer you, when I tell you I was one four-millionth for seven years? That I struggled for my daily bread with the other four millions; that after seven years I found myself going under in the struggle, poor, alone, ill, with just twenty-two dollars to show for the seven years of work? Can you wonder that I am interested in your work aftermyobject lesson?"
For a moment there was silence in the office. I broke it.
"My two friends," I said lightly, "I have upstairs in my purse a little sum of fourteen dollars that I received from Mrs. Macleod when I was in New York; that was my passage money to Lamoral. I was too proud to owe anything to any one unknown to me, so took fourteen dollars of my twenty-two—all I possessed after the seven years' struggle—and paid my own passage. I 've wondered again and again to whom I should return this money. I have never had the courage to ask. Will you tell me now?"
"I knew nothing of the money, Miss Farrell, or of you." Mr. Ewart spoke at last in a steady, but strained voice. Jamie's eyes were reddened. He held out his hand and I put mine into it.
"That was n't friendly of you, Marcia—you should have told us."
"Whose money is it, Jamie?"
"It's the Doctor's."
"His own?"
"His very own; he told me. Why?"
"Because I am so thankful to know that it is not from that accumulated sum; you know what he said. I would not like to touch it, coming from such an unknown source, besides—"
"Pardon me," said Mr. Ewart rising abruptly. Going to the side door he called to Cale who was passing round the house. "I have to speak with Cale."
He left the room, and Jamie and I stared at each other, an interrogation point in the eyes of each.
The tin box still stood on the table.
"What's in that?" Jamie demanded.
"Filthy lucre," I said, turning for the second time to leave the room.
"Well, if Ewart's queer sometimes, as witness his abrupt departure, you 're queerer with your ideas of money."
I laughed back at him as I went out of the office:
"I can pay the Doctor now, Jamie. I 'm rich, you know."