The whole world seemed a friendly sphere whose entire action was merely to bring them together, and they were utterly oblivious to Philip and his new attitude. It seemed so impossible that anything serious could arise to separate them from each other.
It was late when Philip returned, and he was instantly aware of the change in his guests. The old, serious silence was gone from Lawrence; he was not the speculative man to whom Philip was accustomed.His talk was light, pleasantly humorous, and very genial. He was, in short, the lover. Claire, too, shone with a new radiance.
Doubt rearose in Philip's heart, and grew rapidly into suspicion. He became less responsive to their chatter. His dark eyes grew somber with misgiving, and love swelled into longing that made him feel sure that Claire was necessary to his life. Without her there could be no living for him. He wondered if she and Lawrence had found love. "If they have," he argued, "there can be but one explanation. Claire is unreliable, vicious, and dangerous." His aching desire to possess her did not lessen, however. It became deeper, in fact, with each succeeding thought of her as a wanton at heart, and he set his teeth over his will, assuring himself that all would be well when Lawrence was gone.
He took to avoiding absences, and to watching furtively for some confirmation of his suspicion. Claire was instinctively cautious, and he saw nothing that could actually be construed against her. He was of that type of man whose love, burning into jealousy, does battle with ideals which stand against his suspicions and demand actual physical proof before retiring and allowing the beast to run riot.
He knew no middle ground. Once he had seen that which would condemn Claire, he would be utterly savage. His soul anguished to bitterness at every thought against her purity and truth. He could not accept her as she was. His suspicion painted her black with the sticky ink of a morbid idealist, while his faith, rising from the same ideals, made her seem almost ethereal. His longing for her was an acute physical pain, and he never allowed his ideals to stop his romancing. He insisted that his desire be stated in masking phrases and deceiving glories of chivalrous prattle. He was so torn by his conflicting emotions and ideals that he was fast arriving at a state where his action would be that of a wounded beast at bay. He did not know and would not admit that his own distorted view of Claire was back of his own condition. True to his type, he carried this war in silence, and sought support for his fast-weakening ideals in argument. He was wise. Defend your faith if you would keep it glowing.
The time of their departure was at hand. There had been two days of intense packing of the food and clothing necessary for their two-hundred-mile walk. Now that was behind them, and after a short trip which Philip must take the following morning, they would be off for the ten or fifteen miles they hoped to cover that day.
When night came they were overjubilant, and they sat before the cabin watching the lake as it shimmered in the moonlight. Claire was pensively silent, though her heart sang. She was dreaming out her days, painting them on the moonlit water, and she paid very little heed to the two men, though unconsciously her whole personality leaned toward Lawrence. What they were saying she did not at first know, but gradually her attention was caught and she listened earnestly with an ever-growing fear in her heart.
She saw the deep fire that burned in Philip's eyes, and she realized that Lawrence was unaware of how his provocative, half-humorous ironies were stirring the volcano within the man who sat beside him.
"No man has a right," Philip was saying, "to think of a woman in his house unless he can think of her as altogether trustworthy, pure, and beyond temptation. If he does think of her differently, he is a beast, and wants a mistress, not a wife."
Lawrence laughed carelessly. "The average man wants both in one," he said. "Personally, so far as your talk about suspicion goes, who needs to think either way? I'm sure I don't. I'm quite content to live with a woman, giving and taking what we can enjoy together, and not asking that she limit her time and devotion to me. She may have various outside interests of her own. In fact, I would prefer that life should hold a separate work for her."
"Oh, you do not care. You are tooselfish to feel any responsibility for a woman's soul. I would feel depraved if I did not guard my wife's soul by my very faith in her."
"Why should you guard her soul? Isn't the average woman intelligent enough to look out for herself? What she does, she does because she wants to, and for Heaven's sake, man, let her have the right to freedom of being."
"But real freedom of being lies in her dependence on me as the head of the house," Philip protested.
"If you happen to be the head of the house," Lawrence added jestingly.
"But I would be the head of the house. It is my right and my duty."
"Poor Mrs. Ortez, if there ever is one," Lawrence continued, joking. "She is to be guarded by a great, aggressive, possessing husband. What if she happens to want something you don't approve of?"
"She won't. A good woman doesn't."
"But suppose your woman isn't good, and does?"
"I should have to explain to her her mistake."
"And then when she says, 'But I don't regard it as a mistake, I think it was quite right,' what will you do?"
"I wouldn't have a woman who would hold such views."
"What is it you want for a wife, Philip? A brainless feminine body who is content to be your slave?"
"I should be ashamed to speak of any woman I cared for in those terms. One doesn't marry a woman who can be thought of in terms of sex."
"Perhaps 'one doesn't.' I would. I should want her to be very well aware of her exact physical potentialities, and to think enough about them to understand herself."
"Then you would want an unwholesome wife, my friend."
"Not at all. I want a natural one, that's all. Moreover," he added joyously, "I shall have one."
Philip glanced at him quickly. Into his mind flashed the memory of Claire's words in the room that fatal afternoon.
"I shall never marry such a woman," he declared, and added: "But I mean to have one whose devotion is so pure that even her talk to me of such things will be holy."
Lawrence laughed heartily.
"Philip," he said, still chuckling, "you seem to think we human beings are half supernatural and half stinking dirt. Why, in Heaven's name, don't you once see us as plain, healthy, intelligent animals?"
"Because we're half gods, half beasts."
"So I was once told by the son of an ancient mind whose farthest mental frontier reachedA.D.1123."
Philip rose and faced Lawrence, then looked shamefacedly at Claire, and sat down again.
"You think you are advanced because you are still unaware of anything but beasthood!"
Lawrence grinned complacently.
"I am always amused at the way men speak of beasts as if they were something base," he said. "'Beast' should not be a term of opprobrium. The average dog or elephant, for example, is fairly wholesome and quite naturally proper in his fulfilment of instincts. It is more than one can say for men. Yes, I am a beast, if by that you you mean a physical being; and if humanity ever does get anywhere in quest for a soul I suspect it will have to start from that very admission."
"Of course"—Philip hesitated a little—"we are animals in that sense. But who can think of us as nothing more? Take Claire, for example. We both know her better than any one else. I could scarcely think of her as an animal, subject only to its instincts. Even allowing that she is a very intelligent animal, it isn't all or even the better part of her, any more than it is of any good woman."
The speech was self-revealing, and Lawrence smiled.
"Now, it is strange," he observed; "that is precisely the way I should think of Claire if I wanted to see her in the best possible light, as the most splendidly intelligent, healthy animal I ever knew."
"You are more insulting than you intend. I am glad that you do not mean to be," Philip growled.
"Tra-la-la. I shouldn't insult her for a good deal."
"Yet your attitude is debasing," Philip retorted.
"Oh, well, perhaps. She has my apology if she thinks so."
"But you can't actually mean what you say," Philip went on. "Your attitude would lead you to make a cave of your home, and a mere lair of your bed."
"Which, by the way, very elaborately arranged, and embellished with thousands of psychological phases, products of the most highly specialized part of me, is exactly what my home would be."
"Well, I certainly should deplore your household."
"Go as far as you like. It ought to be a fairly comfortable home, with its basis on frankness, oughtn't it, Claire?"
Philip's eyes flashed.
Claire hesitated, fearing lest she provoke him further, and said cautiously: "Yes, it ought to be based on frankness."
"But frankness doesn't mean an attitude of mind like that," Philip protested.
"What does it mean?" Lawrence asked.
"It means an established order where love makes it possible for two beings to speak their thoughts freely one to the other," Philip said, with the air of defining infinity.
"Does it? Well, if that is frankness by definition, I have known many women with whom I was in love, but neither they nor I knew it until this minute."
Lawrence laughed. Philip flushed, shrugged his shoulders, and stood up.
"I thank goodness I do not see things as you do," he said.
"Even the parable of the Pharisee has its modern aspect," Lawrence murmured chucklingly.
Philip stood looking moodily across the lake, and fortunately did not catch his words.
"I think I shall walk a little," he said coldly. "I can't sleep until I have walked some of your conversation out of my soul."
"Go to it," Lawrence said with a smile. "I didn't mean to corrupt you."
"You didn't. You simply make me angry. I'm sorry, but you do."
"Yes? So am I. However, it won't last much longer, Philip."
Both men smiled at the thoughts that came with those words.
"I think I shall go in," Lawrence went on. "I shall want sleep for the big start to-morrow."
Philip looked hopefully at Claire. She rose with a sigh of weariness, pretending not to see him.
"So shall I," she said. "Good night, both of you."
She was gone into the cabin, and Philip looked disappointed. He turned down the lake shore, dreaming of the end of his journey, rebelling at the necessity for Claire to listen to Lawrence's talk, and rejoicing at how different his life with her would be.
Inside the cabin, Lawrence closed the door and stepped into the room. Claire stood waiting silently before him, and when he came to her, she threw her arms happily around his neck. He laughed and caught her up.
"So you lie in wait for me, do you?" he teased.
"Why not? I want to capture my man," she said softly.
"You have him, dearest. And, by the way"—he sat down and drew her on to the arm of his chair—"permit me to extend you my sympathy for the suffering you must have experienced at the thought of living with Philip."
She shuddered a little, and laughed.
"Such frankness as his home would permit!" she said. "I'm afraid our hearth would not radiate warmth."
"Nothing could warm such a home into anything like the real thing," Lawrence mused. "It was my privilege when in college to stay for a time in a home where the people had really attained the ideal. It was the only home that ever made me envious."
"I shall make you such a home, dear," she whispered.
"No, we will have a mere cave, a lair," he laughed.
She shook her long hair down over his face playfully.
"Will you be a savage old cave man?" she asked.
"I shall. As savage as they ever made them in the golden age," he answered, and drew her down against him.
"I shall like that," she said, her eyes full of a warm, dreamy light.
"You will be terribly abused by your beast husband," Lawrence said gaily.
"I think sometimes, Lawrence, that I could enjoy being hurt by your hands—having them really cause me pain."
He gripped her tightly against him and his hands tightened.
"Claire," he said, "a man never knows what there is in his nature till a woman like you whispers in his ear. You make me afraid at what I feel within me."
"I know," she said. "I'm afraid, too, of what there is in you, but just the same I'm going to be the happiest woman in the world."
"I hope so," he said. "But you will have to defend yourself against selfishness."
"I have to do that already," she laughed, "but I don't mind. I can, and that is the main thing. Besides, when you really want anything very much, you have a way of forcing me to want it, too, my master-lover!"
He laughed joyously. "Claire," he said, "if we ever do go to smash, you and I, there will have been a glorious day and a glorious house to smash with. It won't be a petty breaking of toy dishes!"
"No," she whispered, "it will be the breaking of life's foundations."
She slipped from his arms and into her room. Philip was coming in. Lawrence sat down in a chair and Philip threw himself on his bed in silence.
He was caught in the inevitable result of his beliefs. He had argued with Lawrence because he was troubled. His whole being was filled with a great fear. Remembering how Lawrence and Claire had acted lately, he had been thrown into a fever of jealous rage. He was utterly beyond his depth now, and he was silent because to speak would have meant to break into accusation. His imagination had pictured Claire in Lawrence's arms while he was gone; if he had actually known the truth it would have been less agonizing than the picture.
He lay there filled with his own thoughts and dreading the moment when Lawrence would come and lie down beside him. Behind her curtain he heard Claire moving about, humming a little song, and it added to his torture. He turned restlessly on his bed and groaned.
Lawrence raised his head. He, too, was dreaming of Claire, but his imaginings, vividly alluring in their appeal, were filled with the content of happiness. Claire was his. That was certain, and those sweet dreams should be fulfilled again and again in his life, with a growing depth that would make them the more beautiful. What a creature of wonder she was—and she was his—his, to love, to enjoy, to master, and to work for. Yes, and to work with. He would find her the needed impulse and idea to form his great work. She would make him the creative artist, the sculptor that he felt he had the power to be.
Philip muttered something, and Lawrence turned toward him.
"Feeling bad?" he asked genially.
Philip did not answer.
"You aren't ill, are you?" Lawrence's voice was full of real concern. He was thinking that it would be bad if they had to stay here a while longer.
"No. Only in spirit. I will be all right to-morrow."
Philip turned over, and Lawrence sat down again to dream.
For a long time he remained there, meditating, and at last he arose to go to bed. Philip was asleep and breathing heavily. Claire was moving a little. Lawrence stopped to listen. The curtain parted, her arms slipped around his neck, and silently there in the darkness she kissed him passionately, eagerly. He held her tightly, her soft, warm figure thrilling him with joy.
Philip turned restlessly, and she hastily drew back, stealing a last swift kiss. Lawrence walked toward his bed. He heard a low, stifling little laugh, then all was still in the cabin. Claire had laughed for very joy at her love. He smiled tenderly. Dear little woman, she was indeed a wealth untold to him. What a life theirs would be after they got away from Philip!
Poor Philip, his would indeed be a sadfate, with his ideals here to worry him after they were gone. Well, he wasn't the sort that one could help. Let him work out his own destiny. Lawrence lay down comfortably, and sending a thousand dear thoughts flying across the silent room, he fell asleep while he smiled at his own romancing.
The last morning at the cabin was bright and sunny, with the warm mystery of the day promising an infinity of strength for the future. All three of them felt it and were carried along in dreams of anticipated relief. Breakfast over, Philip helped Lawrence and Claire get their packs ready. When everything was done, he said cheerily: "I will be gone less than an hour in getting that farthest trap—I am going to make quick speed—and then we will be off."
They laughed with the joy that was filling their hearts.
"Don't be longer than you can help, Philip," Claire admonished, and Lawrence added: "Every minute that divides us from our life ahead seems an eternity."
Claire smiled at the dear thoughts his words provoked.
"Good," said Philip in the doorway. "I'll hurry." And he was gone.
Claire and Lawrence stood in the doorway while Philip went singing down the lake shore. Her eyes filled with a warm light, and she slipped her hand into Lawrence's.
"At this moment, dear," she said, "I feel only pity for him. He is going to be hurt."
"Who wouldn't be, dearest, at losing you?"
"Always flattering," she teased. They stood arm in arm, leaning against the door-casing.
"Claire," he said, "let's take a last walk around our estate. The place where I first found the real, you will always be beautiful to me. I'm less blind this morning than I've been in my life."
"Of course you are," she said gaily. "You've acquired two good eyes."
"And two dear hands and a very wonderful personality that makes me doubly able," he said softly.
They wandered out across the plateau in the direction from which they had first entered it. Their conversation was broken and often meaningless, but eminently pleasing to them both.
"Dear heart," Claire mused softly, "you don't know what that poor, freezing, underfed woman in your naked arms felt when she heard you muttering that you needed her, as you stumbled down this ravine."
"How did she feel?"
Claire was dreaming back, and she wanted to tell him, but she found her emotions too complex and too rapid for expression.
"And then when you added that it was to use her as a subject for a stone image," laughed Claire, "she was furious with you, and yet she was very sure that she didn't want you to care about her in any other way."
"Then perhaps I am making a mistake," he jested.
"Perhaps, my dearest, but I am so glad of it that I don't care if you are."
He caught her in his arms. They were very near the great point in lovers' lives when emotions always tend to break all restraint. She clung to him passionately, her lips yielding and holding his in a rapture of love. Together they swayed toward a great tree and sat down.
When they returned to the cabin, they were surprised to find Philip still gone. With the whimsicality of lovers, they dismissed him from their thoughts and sat down in the armchair together, laughing and talking of the past. Their conversation ran gradually into a clearly defined discussion in which both minds were compelled to think quickly, and they found new joy in their love. Even now, when their whole minds were swayed by emotion, they were able to think, to talk, and to be alive to everything in the world of intellect.
Art, religion, and life, all in a grand mix-chaotic tangle. Lawrence was talking for the joy of his thought to the woman who he knew would enjoy it.
"You see, Claire," he said after a long discussion, "in the religious instinct we find very little besides a fear of the unknown. What else there is in it is the more valuable part, and it is this lesser section that we can develop and use to advantage."
"What is this lesser section?" she asked.
"The vital desire to create for our God's sake. If we could build that into its real place, stimulated as it is by the overwhelming appreciation of beauty in nature, we could establish something far more worth while than a mere deceiving of men about their own kind, their faults, and their relations."
"You aren't quite fair, Lawrence," she protested. "In so far as the church makes for a stronger socialization, it is a good."
"But does it always promote that very effectively? Most of the socialization could be better carried on where really educated people were educators. The few of them there are in our schools now are hampered as much as they are helped by the church."
"I don't agree," she said. "The church does hamper education in higher branches, undoubtedly, but in the kindergartens and grades it is a good."
"I don't know," he responded; "I never saw it."
"Well," she cried suddenly, and laughed, "whatever we think of the church, I agree that religion isn't always there, and when it is, barring a few liberal exceptions, it is generally misdirected."
"And here you and I sit in the Andes Mountains talking when we might be making love," he laughed.
"And here we are making love under the pretense of being intellectual," she rejoined. "What would we do without the dear deceptions that make us such pitiably delightful animals?"
"We'd be a hopelessly unimaginative set of eaters." His answer was quick. "I am convinced that it is our very power to deceive, plan grand follies, though petty in deeds, that makes us artists, dreamers, thinkers, and statesmen."
"Perhaps," she agreed, and then slipped her arms around him suddenly. "Is that what makes us able lovers, too?"
He laughed. "By Jove, I believe it is!" he exclaimed. "Well, old universal tangle, I do truly thank you for the power to be a foolish, deceived, human being. Hurrah for the instinct that makes me call you my divine necessity, Claire."
She laughed happily and leaned against his shoulder.
"For any instinct or deception that makes you more enjoyable, let us give thanks," he repeated.
"And for all the dear bodily claims that make me your adored one I do give thanks, Lawrence," she whispered.
Their lips met again. She drew back startled, and sprang to her feet with a cry of terror.
Philip stood in the doorway, looking at them with a face from which all human sentiment was gone. He was a raging beast.
"Lawrence," she screamed. "Philip!"
Her lover sprang to his feet. Now he realized his blindness and its true handicap. Philip was there, somewhere before him, thinking what he could not know. He waited, every muscle strained with expectant fear and anger.
Claire was staring at Philip with abject terror in her face. Lawrence could not know that, he only heard her breathing heavily, and instinctively his arm went out to her.
"Don't be afraid, dear," he said tenderly.
The man in the door uttered an exclamation. "So"—and his words were sharp as icicles—"that is your damned wanton way. You are the second harlot I have loved."
Lawrence started forward angrily.
"Fool!" he ejaculated.
Claire's warning scream gave him just time to brace his body. Philip had sprung at him like a wild beast, and the impact of his weight sent Lawrence staggering backward. In that moment the Spaniard's hand closed on his throat. The blind man was paying the price of his defect in his long-talked-of primitive battle for life.
Even then he thought of the scene as it must be, and smiled bitterly, while his handwent to his throat and tore at the wrist that was steeling itself to rob him of breath.
Had he been able to see, the fight would still have been unequal. Philip was taller, wirier, and quicker on his feet. Lawrence's one advantage lay in his keen, quick response to touch sensation, and that gave him his sense of direction and ability to move rightly.
With one hand he tore at Philip's wrist, while with the other he reached steadily for Philip's face.
They had knocked over the chairs and were staggering against the table.
From the corner by the fireplace Claire watched them in an agony of dread. It was indeed her time of test.
She saw Lawrence's hand clutching at the flesh of Philip's cheek. They were panting like two beasts. It was the primitive battle of males for the female of their choice.
Philip's hand was torn free from Lawrence's throat. The blind man laughed as his lungs filled with air. She heard him mutter between clenched teeth: "By God, I'll spoil your advantage."
They were struggling again for throat holds.
Lawrence was protecting his own, but the hand he had wrenched free closed around his arm, bending it back slowly, irresistibly toward the point where it must break. She screamed and covered her eyes for a second at what her lover was doing—she saw him deliberately gouge at Philip's eyes with his thumb held hard.
She heard both men fall, and looked again in spite of herself. They were on the floor writhing, their bodies against each other, clawing, striking, digging, and biting like two wild gorillas.
Now Lawrence was on top, now underneath, but she could not help but see that Philip was slowly gaining. Though badly injured in one eye, he still fought on unhesitatingly, forcing Lawrence nearer and nearer to death. The artist was even now ceasing to resist, his struggle had become spasmodic. Her lover was being choked to death. She sprang to her feet.
"Lawrence!" she screamed. "Lawrence!"
He was being killed in a battle for the possession of her. Could she stand still and see the man she loved murdered? Her hair fell about her shoulders in a mass. She swept it back from her face, looked frantically around her, then rushed to the wall-cupboard on the other side of the cabin and drew out a long meat-knife.
The touch of the steel in her hand carried her out beyond the last barrier of civilized thought. For a moment she was the savage through and through. With a scream like that of a wounded lioness whose cub is in danger, she sprang toward them, the knife uplifted.
Then she stopped. Something paralyzed her—generations of inherited inhibition, conscience, what you will. "O God!" she moaned miserably, as the weapon fell from her hand.
It clattered on the wooden floor close beside the two men. Philip looked up, and his white teeth gleamed in a grim smile. Claire realized what she had done—she had placed the means of certain triumph within reach of her lover's enemy. She stooped to regain the knife, but it was too late. Philip released his grip on Lawrence's throat, leaned over, and seized the blade.
It was a mistake. Lawrence was far past consciousness of what he was doing, but his body still instinctively obeyed his will. As the weight from his chest was eased for a moment, he writhed his body into a freer position and his arms struck out wildly.
Philip saw his danger and raised the knife. The scene passed in a second, but to Claire it was as if they were petrified for hours in that position—she half-kneeling there, her arm outstretched, and Philip astride Lawrence's body, holding the knife in midair. In that last picture, carved upon Claire's agonized gaze, all the Spaniard's beauty was gone forever—he was a monster, his face distorted, one eye closed, his smile broadening into a hideous dog-like grin.
Philip's arm came down. As it did so, it was struck from above by Lawrence's, swinging aimlessly in a wide sweep. The blade, deflected with double force, entered deep into Philip's breast.
For just one instant an expression ofangry and almost ludicrous surprise leaped across the Spaniard's face as his teeth snapped shut. Then his whole body twisted round violently, rolled over, and lay still beside Lawrence's equally motionless form.
Claire tottered back into a chair, and stared at them stupidly. Silence reigned in the cabin where there had been chaos. Slowly from under Philip's body a red line spread to a blotch on the floor. Lawrence was lying there, his head almost touching it.
Claire gazed and gazed, while she felt as if she must faint from the dreadful illness which seized her. Suddenly Lawrence was sitting up, his blackened face growing less terrible to look upon. He put his hands to his throat, and then, as the pain in his lungs decreased, he rose unsteadily. For a moment he balanced himself carefully, rubbing his throat.
Then he cried hoarsely: "Claire!"
She moistened her lips with her tongue, but could not answer.
He stooped and began to feel across the floor. She saw his hands, those sensitive hands, move toward Philip's dead body. They would be in his blood presently.
She started forward. "Lawrence!" she screamed.
He stopped abruptly. Her tone had filled him with dread wonder.
"What is it, Claire?" he whispered.
She stood a moment, silently looking at him.
He straightened and stepped toward her, "What is it?" he demanded.
She swayed unsteadily and sank into his arms, sobbing, her body wrenched with the agony.
"Take me outside," she whispered fearfully.
He lifted her and carried her out into the sunlight.
She sat down on the ground and wept bitterly, while he sat silently beside her, seeking to comfort her with his arms.
At last she said in an awed tone: "Lawrence, he is dead. Killed by his own blow—with his own knife. But I might have done it. I—I thought of it."
She remembered the touch of the knife in her hands, the sight of Philip's blood seeping out around his own body.
"It is terrible," she moaned. "I—I might have done it."
Her lover's hands tightened spasmodically. His face went white, then became normal again. She watched him, hypnotized. Would he tell her that she was as good as a murderer, that he could not love her now?
He wet his lips, then suddenly laughed aloud. Claire could have screamed at the sound. She clutched his arm and shook him.
"Stop it!" she commanded. "What is it, Lawrence?"
He stood up and lifted her beside him.
"I must have a drink," he said calmly.
She stared at him, then brought him some water from beside the cabin. He drank it easily, but with some pain. Finally he dropped the cup at his feet.
"Life is a wonderful thing, Claire."
She was still too shaken to do aught but gaze at him.
"What now?" she asked at last, falteringly.
He heard the fear, half anguish and half hope, in her voice, and suddenly he caught her to him and cried buoyantly: "What now? Life, Claire, life! We have the whole world before us. It was my life or his. I am glad it was not mine." He smiled. "Well, we have staged the great animal stunt. I have fought for the possession of life."
She let her head fall on his shoulder.
"Then—then I am not repulsive to you?" she choked.
"Repulsive! Why?" His voice was full of wonder.
"I—I thought of murdering him," she whispered.
"Claire," he answered tenderly, "human beings think many things they don't and can't do. That is part of our old heritage. But let's get away from here, Claire. Staying here won't do either of us any good. What is done is done. We cannot help it. Very well, then the best thing to do is to forget it. Shall we start?"
She stepped back and looked at him. He was all energy, clear-countenanced, free, frank, and normal.
"Yes, I am ready."
She stooped and took up her pack frombeside the door. He took his and threw it over his shoulder. Hand-in-hand they started forward and out toward civilization.
All that day they talked little. Both were occupied with their own thoughts. Lawrence was dreaming of his work, his future with Claire, and the home that was to be. Claire was pondering Lawrence's words, "Human beings think many things they don't and can't do." To her these words had been both a great comfort and a startling awakening. Almost instantly had returned an idea which she had thought forever gone, and all day it kept growing.
That night they camped beside a stream under great trees where tiny blue flowers winked up at them from the deep grass. After supper they sat beside their fire dreaming. At last Lawrence took her in his arms, and she laid her shoulder against his.
"Lawrence," she said thoughtfully, "isn't it strange how little we know ourselves when we think we know most?"
"Yes, I sometimes think we are nearer folly then than at any other time."
"Do you know what I have been thinking to-day?"
"No. But I know what I have been thinking." He drew her tight, laughing. "I have thought of you, always you, my wife to be."
She patted his hand tenderly.
"I can scarcely wait till we get out, Claire."
"I know, dear."
They listened to the purling of the stream and dreamed.
Days followed in uneventful sequence. Each brought them nearer to the railroad, towns, and escape. Lawrence was freely merry. At times Claire was caught in his gaiety, but more and more often he noticed that she was quiet. He attributed her silences at first to the charming strain of diffidence he had learned to know as part of this woman, but gradually he grew fearful lest all was not well.
"If she wants me to know, she will tell me," he thought.
She seemed to divine what he was thinking, but she did not speak. She wanted to be sure of herself before she said anything. Lawrence's words came again and again, and each time they brought with them a stronger feeling that there was yet one thing they must do. This feeling increased as they neared the town toward which they journeyed. The night came when they were more than ever silent.
"To-morrow," Lawrence said at last. "To-morrow we reach civilization. Oh, Claire, Claire, with civilization come you, home, our real life!"
She moved uneasily. There was a sudden overwhelming sense of her need, and she resolved to tell him everything.
"Lawrence," she began, "to-morrow we do reach civilization, and I—I am finding out things about myself."
He knew she was going to tell him what troubled her. For an instant he was filled with terror lest she say she could not love him after all. Perhaps his fight with Philip had sickened her, killed her love. Tense and fearful, he waited.
"Go on, Claire. I have noticed something."
"It isn't that I don't love you," she cried, seeing his fear in his drawn face. "Oh, I do love you!"
He laughed with relief.
"Then speak away. Nothing else in the world can frighten me."
"I'm afraid that it will displease you."
"Not if it is something real to you."
"Well then—oh, it seems so hard to explain. I—I am finding myself out."
"That ought to be pleasant."
"Yes, it is—yet, I don't know—you see, back there in the wilderness I thought nothing mattered but you. It was so hard and uncertain. The future was so far off. But now it's different. Every day I have neared civilization I have grown less sure that our way is the right way."
"Why not? It all seems clear to me."
"But, Lawrence, are we quite fair? Are we quite right with ourselves?"
"I try to be. I certainly try to be fair to you."
"I know. That's it. You would want me to be fair to—to every one, wouldn't you, and above all, to myself?"
"You must be that, Claire."
She did not continue at once. He waited, holding her hand very tight between his own.
"Go on, Claire."
The deep earnestness of the faith in her that rang through his words gave her courage.
"It is Howard and—and my vows to him."
Lawrence sat, his brows knit. She watched him.
"I see," he answered. "I see, but—"
"After all, I promised to be his wife forever, you know."
"But you don't love him now."
"No. I love you—and for your sake as well as my own I've got to straighten things out between Howard and myself."
"I thought they were straight. He thinks you are dead."
"But I know that I'm not dead, and all my life I would know that I had been unfair to myself as well as to him. I must go and get things right before—before I marry you."
Her voice dropped and lingered caressingly yet with gracious reverence over these last words, as one's does in speaking of holy things.
"I see," he said. Her tone told him more than her words.
"I think you do."
"Yes, I do. But when did you begin thinking of this?"
"When you said, 'Human beings think many things they don't and can't do.'"
"I understand." He threw back his head.
"You see, dearest, it is that everything in our lives may be clean."
"Good enough, Claire." He was hearty in his agreement. To his alert mind the problem seemed very clear.
"Yes," he went on, "you are right. It isn't going to be easy. It will hurt him to have you tell him that you no longer love him, but I suppose it can't be helped, and it is best."
"I knew you would say so." Her cry was full of relief.
"To-morrow morning we'll start early," he laughed. "Noon will get us to the railroad if Ortez was right about distances, and then—home and the last clearing-up before we start life."
The matter was settled. Claire lay down in her blankets happily. She did not sleep at once, however. Gazing through the fire, she let her eyes rest tenderly on the strong face of the sleeping man opposite. She had seen much of him, and always he was fair, just, and she loved him. Her eyes filled with tears as she thought of the suffering she must cause her husband, yet it was right and she could do no less. She would tell him everything. He was big and he would understand. Since her whole nature, primal and spiritual, cried out that Lawrence was her mate, Howard would free her. She fell asleep sure that everything would work out right, and then—life and love, as Lawrence said with that exuberant lift in his voice.
At noon of the next day they stopped on the brow of a high hill.
"Lawrence," Claire cried exultantly. "It is there—below us—a town!"
"Hurrah!"
They laughed like children who had discovered a long-sought treasure, then hand-in-hand as they had walked so far, they dropped down the steep slope and into a quaint mining village.
The sound of men, the scent of smoke, and above all, the clang and puff of a locomotive, sent their blood racing. Too happy to speak, they ran along the street scarcely noticing the people, and found the station.
That night they were speeding toward the coast, and a few days later found them northward-bound on a liner.
It was decided that Lawrence should not go with her to her home. He would wait in San Francisco till she had seen her husband and was free. They parted with eager yet hesitating hearts in that city. Claire found it harder than she had imagined to go alone, but her will was master and she did not falter. To Lawrence, waiting for word from her, time was dead and moved not at all.
When Claire arrived, the old familiar city seemed strangely desolate. She foundherself wondering with a little flush of shame how she could have loved it so. Then came her testing time. She had arrived late at night and gone to a hotel. No one had noticed her. The next morning as she went into the breakfast-room, some one rose hastily, with an exclamation. It was her husband's business partner.
How she ever got through her own explanations she did not know, then she heard him speaking.
"Yes, Mrs. Barkley, we had given you up for lost with the others on that fated ship. And I cannot express my regret at the sorrow you have returned to meet."
"I—sorrow—why?" She stared at him wonderingly.
He looked surprised, then understood. Claire listened silently to his brief, sincere sympathy as he told her how her husband had died during the winter of pneumonia.
"It has been nearly six months now," he finished, "and, of course, I am very sorry for you. If I can do anything to help you, don't hesitate to call on me, please."
"Thank you. I—I won't."
She heard her own voice change. Stifled, she fled up-stairs.
Her grief was sincere, unshaded by any selfish thought that it made her own course easier or more justifiable in the eyes of society. To her, Howard Barkley's death changed nothing save that the man whom she had once loved sincerely was now no more.
But the living remained, and to the call of the living her life was henceforth joyfully dedicated.
(The end.)