CHAPTER XIVA CHOICE OF ROADSDay after day Donelle looked at her fiddle, but turned away. Day after day she sang the hours through, working beside Jo, or playing with Nick. Something was happening to her; something that frightened her, but thrilled her. She kept remembering the touch of Norval's hand upon hers! In the night, when she thought of it, she trembled. When she saw him she was shy."I wish Tom Gavot would come back," she said to herself, for Tom had been detained. Then, at last, one day she heard that he was on his way. He would leave the little train, five miles below Point of Pines, and would walk the rest of the way. She knew the path so she went to meet him.It was mid afternoon when she saw him coming, swinging along in his rough corduroys and high boots, his cap on the back of his handsome head, his bag slung over his shoulder.She stepped behind a tree, laughing, and when he was close she suddenly appeared and grasped his arm."Donelle, I thought——""Did I frighten you, Tom?""Well, you know there is always the bit of a coward in me. Why are you here?""I came to meet you, Tom.""Has anything gone wrong?" His face darkened; poor Tom never expected things had gone right. His life had not been formed on those lines."No, but I wanted you, Tom. There are so many things to talk about, wonderful things. I've gone to your cabin, Tom, and made it ready for you. Every day I've lighted a fire the nights are cold. I thought you might come at night."Donelle had lighted a fire of which she knew nothing, and Tom could not tell her!"You're kind," was all he said as he looked at her. Then: "I never had a home until I got that cabin, Donelle. While I am away, I see the curtains you and Mam'selle made and the bedspread and all the rest. When I've been shivering in camp, I saw the fire on my own little hearth, and I was warm!"Donelle smiled up to him."Tell me about your road," she said."Well, there's going to be one! I meant to come back ten days ago, but something happened and I decided to start work this fall, not wait for spring, so I stayed on. There was sickness at a settlement back in the woods. Many people almost died, some of them did, because they couldn't get a doctor and proper care. It's criminal to put women and children in such a hole; there's got to be a road connecting those places with—help! A man is a brute to take a woman with him under such conditions. Whathewants goes! He never thinks ofherpart.""But, Tom, maybe she, the woman, wants to go.""He ought not to let her, he knows.""But if she just will go, what then, Tom?""It doesn't make it right for him, he knows.""But it might be worse to stay back, Tom. A woman might choose to go.""Butshedoesn't know;hedoes.""But she may want to know, and be willing to pay.""Donelle, you're a crazy little know-nothing."Tom looked down and laughed. He was wondrously happy. "Always wanting to pay for what isn't worth it.""You're wrong, Tom. It is worth it.""What?""Why, the thing that makes a woman want to go into the woods with a man, even when there are no roads; the thing that makes her willing to pay before she knows."Tom breathed hard."I suppose it is—love, Tom.""It's something worse, often!" Gavot turned his eyes away from the upturned face."Lately, Tom," Donelle came close to him and touched his arm as she walked beside him, "I've been thinking about such a lot of new things and love among them.""Love!" And now Tom stood still, as if an unseen blow had stunned him."Yes, and I had no one to talk to. I couldn't speak to Mamsey. Always I think of you, Tom, whenever thoughts come. You see everything, just as you see your roads in the deep woods. Are you tired, Tom?""No," Gavot got control of himself, "no, not tired.""You see," and now they were going on again, "the big feelings of life just come to everyone. They don't pick, and when you are young, you have young thoughts. That is the way it seems to me, and often, Tom Gavot, the very things that you ought to have an old head to think about come when you haven't any sense at all." This tremendous truth fell from the girlish lips quite irrelevantly. "And then you just take and pay what you must, but often you have to pay more than you ought, because—well, because you are young when you bought——"Donelle sobbed. "I've been thinking of Mamsey," she ended pitifully. Tom stopped short. He flung his pack on the ground and laid his strong, work-hardened hands on Donelle's shoulders."You don't have to pay for Mam'selle," he said in a whisper; "she's paid, God knows.""But I've got to pay for my father, Tom.""What do you mean?""Why, you see, lately I've known that I must be like my father more than like, like Mamsey. She learned and stayed and paid, he ran away. Oh, Tom, it's good to be able to say this to you, out here under the trees, alone. It has been choking me for days and days. You see, Tom, a big feeling comes up in me that wants and wants. And, always, too, there is another feeling. I do not want to pay, as Mamsey did. It would be easier to run and hide! But, Tom, I'm not going to, I'm not! I'm going to pay for my father!""What ails you, Donelle? Has any one been talking?" Tom still held her, his hungry heart yearned to draw her close, but he held her at arm's length."No, it is only—thoughts that have been talking. I just cannot settle down by Mamsey, and know I'm to stay here without that running away feeling. Then I say: 'I don't care, I want to go and I'll go,' and then—why, I cannot, Tom, for I know I must pay for my father.""Go where?""Go, Tom, where my fiddle would take me. Go where people do not know; go and learn things, and then if any one did find out—pay!"Poor Tom was weary almost to the breaking point. Nights in rough camps, days of wood tramping had worn upon him, the fire of which Donelle knew nothing sent the blood racing through his veins. Her touch on his arm made him tremble."See here, Donelle," he said; "would you come along my road with me? Would you, could you, learn enough—that way?"But Donelle smiled her vague smile, "I think I must have my own road, Tom. The trouble is I cannot see my road as you see roads. I only feel my feet aching. But, Tom, surely you must have seen life a little in Quebec, tell me: could a great big strong love keep on loving even if it knew about me and Mamsey?""Yes." The word was more like a groan."Even if it had to keep Mamsey from knowing that we know?""Yes.""Why, Tom, dear Tom, you make me feel wonderful. You always do, you big, safe Tom. I just knew how it would be; that is why I had to come and meet you."She rubbed her cheek against the rough sleeve of his jacket. "I think your mother would just worship you, Tom."Then Gavot laughed, laughed his honest laugh, and picked up his pack."Donelle," he said presently, "you ought to make your music again. You have no right not to.""You, you really mean that, Tom?""Yes, I do.""Well, I think I'll get the fiddle out some day, soon, and come to your cabin. While you draw your roads on your paper, I'll see if the tunes will come back."But Donelle did not speak of Richard Alton.The autumn lingered in Point of Pines; even the gold and red clung to the trees to add to the delusion that winter was far off. The mid-days were warm, and only now and then did the frost nip.Norval kept saying to himself, as he lay on that wonderful bed in Jo Morey's upper chamber, "I must go back!" But he made no move southward. The quiet of the woods, the lure of the river held him, and then he began to ask why heshouldgo back?Law was still in Egypt, Katherine was undoubtedly in her bungalow; why not have what he always had wanted, a winter away from things?Then a letter forwarded by his lawyer clarified his thoughts. It was from Katherine, who had discovered a new set of duties and was hot-footed to perform them.She wrote:JIM, until you are willing to die for something, you have never lived. In letting loose what really was never mine, my own came to me. I have a new book out. Shall I send you a copy? I've called it "The Soul Set Free." I do not want to be too personal, but I find the world loves the close touch.You have not said one word, Jim, about a divorce and I have waited. I think you owe me assistance along this line, and now I must insist. For, Jim, with the rest of what is my own has come a startling realization, that love, understanding love, is to be mine, too. Until I hear from you I will not name the man who discovered my talent before he saw me. He read the manuscript of my first book, he had never heard of me then. Only recently has he come to California. He is my mate, Jim, I know that, and I owe him a great duty. I must go as I see duty, but I must go with a clear conscience. I owe him that, also.Norval read this amazing letter lying on a couch before a blazing fire in his wood-cabin. He read and reread it. He felt as he might have felt had a toy dog—or a fluffy kitten, risen up and smitten him. Katherine had been giving him a series of tremendous thumps ever since she had shown him her awakened soul. Little by little she had receded from his understanding of her; but to come forth now in this stupefying characterization of the untrammeled woman, was—— Norval laughed, a hard, bitter laugh.Then he went to his improvised desk, the cabin was filled with his attempts at furniture making; it was a remarkable place.He wrote rather unsteadily:KIT, do you remember the story of the mouse that ran in the whiskey drippings, licked his legs, got drunk, and then took his stand, crying, "Where's that damned cat I was so afraid of yesterday?" Well, you make me think of that. You were once, unless I was mistaken, a nice little mouse of a thing, pretty well scared of the conventional cat—the world, you know. Then came the whiskey lickings, your talent. I'm afraid you're drunk, child, drunk as a lord. But there you are, all the same, with your back up against the wall, defying the cat. Well, you're thirty-two, and although you were afraid of the cat, you certainly know something about the animal. I agree with you that we were not suited to one another, and I'm ready to let your soulmate have a show. I do not quite know how to do it, but if you think you will not be defrauding him too much—and if your sense of duty will permit, give me time to get my breath and I swear I'll think up some sort of "cause" that will set you free. Just now I am hidden away in the woods, painting as I used to paint when Andy stared and stared. I can tell quality now. I'm on the right road and do not want to be jerked back until I've made sure. Perhaps the law in California would make it easy for you. Anything short of making a villain of me, I'm willing to consider.Then Norval, having written, stalked down to the Post Office, sent his ultimatum off with the Point of Pines official stamp on it, and went to Dan's Place for no earthly reason but to forget. He drank a little, scorned himself for taking that road out of his perplexity, drank a little more with old, grimy Pierre Gavot, and then started back to the wood-cabin. He did not want to face Jo Morey—or Donelle. He felt unclean; he was, in a befuddled way, paying for Katherine.The sun was setting in a magnificent glory of colour and cloud banks. There was a flurry of snow in the clouds, and until it fell there would be that chill in the air that was vicariously cooling Norval's hot brain.He wanted the seclusion of the cabin more than he wanted anything else just then. He had left a fire on the hearth, he could stretch himself on the couch for the night. He did not want food, but he was frantic to get to his canvas; he had begun a few days ago a fantastic thing, quite out of his ordinary style. While there was light enough he could work. So he pressed on.The clouds quite unexpectedly gave up their burden, and Norval was soon covered with snow as he flew along, taking a short cut to the cabin. But having given up the snow, the clouds disappeared and the daylight was lengthened. Pounding the snow from his feet, shaking himself like a bear, Norval entered the cabin and saw—Donelle standing transfixed before the easel!She did not turn as he came in; she was rigid, her hands holding her violin case."You—you said you were a painter!" she gasped when she felt Norval was near her."And you think I'm not?" Something in the voice startled her, she looked at him."You said you painted houses and barns and——""People sometimes and trees. I spoke the truth, but you think I'm no painter?""Why, I've been—I've been thinking I was dreaming until just now. See these woods," she was gazing at the unfinished thing on the easel, "They are my woods. I know the very paths, they are back of the lumber cutting. See! is there a face, somewhere in the dark, a face back of those silver birches, is there?"Norval, with the Joan of Arc conception in mind, had painted those woods while Donelle's face had haunted him."Can you see a face?" he asked. He was close to the girl now, so close that her young body touched him."Is it only a fancy?""Look again, Donelle. Whose face?""I—I do not know!"But she did know, and she looked mutely at him."Donelle, why did you come here?""I promised I was going to—to play for you.""Then, in God's name, do it! See, go over there by the window." Norval had folded his arms over his breast. He was afraid of himself, of the madness that Katherine and Dan's Place had evolved. "Play, and I'll finish this thing.""I can play best if I move about.""Move, then, but fiddle!""You are sure you want me? I can come again. You are strange, I should not have stolen in, but once I had seen—I couldn't get away.""Donelle, you are to stay. Do you hear? For your sake and mine you are to stay. Now, then."He turned his back on her, flung off his coat, and fell to work.Donelle tuned her violin, tucked it under her chin, and slowly walking to and fro, she played and played until the hunger in her heart grew satisfied. Like a little pale ghost she passed up and down the rude room, smiling and happy.After half an hour Norval looked at her; he was haggard, but quite himself.Then Donelle turned and, nodding over her bow, said:"It's all right, the joy of it has come back and—— Oh! I see the face among the trees. What a beautiful picture! It's like a wood with a heart and soul; it's alive like Tom Gavot's road. Now we must go home, Mr. Richard Alton. We're tired, you and I."Home?" Norval laughed. "Home?""Yes, to Mamsey. I always am so glad of Mamsey when I'm tired.""Donelle, I meant to stay here to-night.""But instead, you are coming with me!" Donelle put out her hand, "Come!"Norval raised the hand to his lips."You little, white wood-spirit," he said, "they did not teach you to play, they only let you free. Donelle, are you a spirit?""No," and now the yellow eyes sought and held his, "I'm a—woman, Mr. Richard Alton."CHAPTER XVTHE LOOKAnd Donelle began to know what love was. Know it as passionate, daring natures know it. She thought of her father, of Mamsey, in a new light. She grew to understand her supposed mother with a tragic realization and she shuddered when she reflected upon her father."To go and leave love!" she thought. "Oh! how could he?"Then Donelle took to gazing upon Jo with the critical eyes of youth, and yet with pity.What manner of girl had Jo been? Had she always been plain?The word caused Donelle pain. It sounded disloyal to Jo; but it sent her to her mirror in the little north chamber beside Mam'selle's.The face that looked back at Donelle puzzled her. Was it pretty? What was the matter with it?The eyes were too large, they looked hungry. The mouth, too, was queer; it did things too easily. It smiled and quivered; it turned up at the corners, it drooped down, all too easily. The nose was rather nice as noses go, but it had tiny freckles on it that you could see if you looked close. Those freckles were, in colour, something like the eyes."I like my hair!" confessed Donelle, and she smoothed the soft, pale braids wound about her delicately poised head. "My throat is too long, but it's white!"Then she tried on her few dresses, one after the other, and chose a heavy dark blue one. Jo had woven the material, it was very fine and warm."I think I will take my fiddle and go up to the wood-cabin," thought Donelle, and then her face grew bright and rose-touched.But instead, Donelle went to Tom Gavot's hut.Once outside the house, she simply could not go to the wood-cabin. She knew Alton was there, he painted constantly when he was not tramping the sunny forests or sitting with Jo and Donelle, reading in the smothering heat of the overworked stove."Some time when he is away, then I'll go."But oh! how she wanted to go. The very thought of Alton made her thrill. Sometimes she saw him looking at her, when Jo was bent over her loom or needles, and the look always called something out of Donelle; something that went straight to Alton and never returned!On that winter day, a still white day, Donelle carried her violin under her long fur coat; she must play to somebody, and Jo had gone to the distant town for the day.The door of Tom's hut was closed, but a curl of smoke rose from the chimney so Donelle knocked rather formally.Tom's step sounded inside, he took down the bar which secured the door and flung it open. His eyes were dark and his brow scowling."Why, Tom," laughed Donelle, "who are you locking and barring out? Maybe you do not want company?""I don't, but I want you.""Tom, who do you call company?""Mam'selle's boarder, that Mr. Alton." Tom had run across Norval once or twice since his return."Don't you like him, Tom?"Donelle had come inside and taken a chair by the hearth, now she flung her coat aside and laid the violin on her knee."Yes, I like him well enough, and that's the trouble. I don't want to like people unless there is a reason. I can't find a reason for this man."Donelle laughed."What is he here for anyway, Donelle?""Why don't you go up to his wood-cabin and see, Tom? He's asked you." She had heard Norval do so rather insistently."Yes. But I'm not going.""Why, Tom?""I'm too busy.""I wish you would go, Tom. I wish you could see his pictures. Why, Tom, you'd feel like taking the shoes off your feet."Tom laughed grimly."Not while the weather's so cold," he said."But, Tom, that's the reason for Mr. Alton. He is getting our woods and skies and river safe on his canvases. He's going to take them back to people who have never seen such things.""Why don't they come and board here, then, and see them for themselves?" Tom threw a log viciously on the fire. "You don't mean he's doing this to give a lot of people pleasure?""Tom, he sells his pictures; he gets a great deal of money for them.""Umph!" Then, "Has he ever put you in the pictures, Donelle?"There was a slight pause. Remembering the faint suggestion in the first picture she had ever seen in the cabin, Donelle said softly:"No, Tom.""I'm glad. I'd hate to have a lot of strangers staring at you.""Tom, you're scrouchy. Let me play for you."And, while she played, growing more rapt and absorbed as she did so, Tom took his drawing board to the window and bent over his blueprints. Gradually the look of doubt and irritation left his face, a flood of happiness swept over him. He began to see roads. Always roads. He wanted to go to Quebec in the spring and tell his firm about something he had discovered lately; and it was on Mam'selle Morey's land, too. If there were a road back among the hills over which to haul that which he had found, haul it by a short cut to the railroad, by and by Mam'selle and Donelle would not have to take objectionable strangers into their home and——Donelle played on unheedingly, but Tom started as a knock fell on the door!"I will not open it!" he thought savagely. "Let him think what he damn pleases."The tune ran glidingly on."You like this tune, Tom?" Donelle was far away from the still cabin."Yes, I like it, Donelle, but play something louder, faster.""Well, then, how about this?" and with a laugh Donelle swung into a new theme.Again the knock! This time softer but more insinuating.Then all was quiet, but the mad music was filling the warm room.Just then the visitor at the door stepped around the house and came in full view of the window before which Tom sat, rigid and defiant. It was Norval, and he paused, came nearer and stood still. Tom got up, and the movement attracted Donelle's attention. She turned and saw the two men glaring at each other, the glass between."Curse him!" muttered Tom, "curse him!"Norval vanished instantly, but not before Donelle had caught the expression in his eyes."Tom," she said affrightedly, "what did he think?""What does it matter what he thought?""But, Tom, tell me, what did he think to make him look like that? Perhaps, perhaps he thinks I should not be here, alone with you.""Damn him. What right has he to stare into my place?""But, Tom, his eyes, I cannot bear to think of the look in his eyes. It—it was laughing, but it hurt.""Who cares about what he thought?" Tom was savage."I do," Donelle whispered. She was putting her violin away. "I do. I couldn't stand having a man look at me like that. Why, Tom, it made me feel ashamed."Again Gavot cursed, but under his breath."You going?" he asked. "Wait, I'll come with you. Wait, Donelle."But the girl did not pause."I'd rather go alone," she called back.But she did not go directly home, she took a round-about way and reached the hill back of the little white house. The tall pines rose black from the untrodden snow, the winter sky was as blue as steel, and as cold. In among the trees, where it was sheltered, Donelle sat down. There she could think!The power of a look is mighty. The mere instant that Norval had gazed upon Donelle through the window was sufficient to carry the meaning in the man's mind to the sensitive girl.It took her some time to translate the truth as she sat under the trees on the hilltop, but slowly it all became clear."He does not know, but he thinks wrong of me." Donelle spoke aloud as if repeating a lesson."Why should he think wrong?" questioned the hard teacher.Then Donelle remembered her father and Jo, and the word with which Pierre Gavot had polluted her life."That's why he laughed," shuddered the girl. Her own secret interpreting the hurting look though knowing him only as Richard Alton, she had no reason to believe he knew her story.Then the relentless teacher pointed her back to the look in Dan Kelly's eyes, the look that had frightened her and had made Jo send her away to the Walled House."Unless I save myself," moaned Donelle, "no one can keep people from looking—those looks!"Quietly she got up and walked down the hill, a tall, slim, ghostly form, with eyes haunted by knowledge.That night after the evening meal Norval stayed in the bright living room and tortured Donelle. He knew he was brutal, but something drove him on. He was suffering dumbly, suffering without cause, he believed. Why should he care that a girl about whom he knew too much should hide herself away with a rough young giant behind a locked door in a lonely hut?Then he concluded it was because he knew how Alice Lindsay and Law might feel, that he suffered. They would be so shocked."After all," Norval tried to reason himself into indifference, "blood will cry out. The world may be damned unjust to women, but there is something lacking when a girl like this makes herself—cheap."Then it was that Norval began his torture. Jo was in the kitchen at the moment, Donelle was clearing the table."Where were you this afternoon?" Norval was carefully filling his pipe, sitting astride his chair."Part of the time I was in the woods on the hill," Donelle glanced at Jo through the open door."That's odd!" Norval puffed slowly and Donelle's eyes pleaded unconsciously. For no real reason she did not want Jo to know she had been with Tom. She was haunted by the look!"Why don't you come up to my cabin and play to me?" This in a tone so low that Mam'selle could not hear."I—I don't know. I might be in the way while you work.""On the contrary. Come up to-morrow, Donelle, I'll paint you with your fiddle. You'll make the town stare, the town back home."The colour rose to Donelle's face. She remembered Tom's words."I do not want strangers staring at my face," she said with some spirit."Why not? It's a pretty face, Donelle."Then the girl crossed the room and stood before him."If you talk and look like that," she warned in an undertone, "I'll make Mamsey send you away."Norval laughed."I don't believe you will," he said, and reached out toward her.And, for hours that night, after everything was still, Donelle lay in her dark room and cried while she struggled with her confused emotions."He shall go away! He shallnotdare to look at me so, and whisper!"Then she tossed about."But he must not go until I make him ashamed to look at me—so. But how can I? How can I?"Toward morning sleep came and when Donelle awoke, Norval had had his breakfast and gone.After the morning's work was finished Jo asked Donelle to go on an errand. A poor woman back among the hills was ill and needed food of the right sort."I have a crick in my back, Donelle," Jo explained, "I don't believe I could walk there, and the road is unbroken. Molly is too old to force her way through. If you take the wood path, it won't be too far.""I'd love to go, Mamsey. It's such a still day, and did you ever see such sunlight?"The release was welcome, poor Donelle still was thrashing about in her confused emotions. She was grateful that Alton was gone; she yearned to see him, and so it went."I'll be back as soon as I can, Mamsey. Is the basket packed?"It was only eight o'clock when Donelle set forth. She wore her long, dark fur coat, a cowl-like hood of fur covered her pale hair, her delicate, white face shone sweetly in the soft, dusky setting. The eyes were full of sunlight but her mouth drooped pathetically.Jo remembered the look long after the girl had departed."I mustn't keep her here," she reasoned; "I'm going to write again to that Mr. Law. I will wait until spring; he couldn't come now. I'm going to ask him to come up here and talk things over."Then Mam'selle went to her loom and worked like a Fate; there were piles of wonderful things to sell. Surely they would help Donelle to her own! And so Jo worked and dreamed and feared, while Donelle made her way over the crusty snow, through the silent, holy woods, over the shining hill to the sick woman in her distant cabin.For an hour the girl worked in the lonely house. She built a roaring fire, carried in a store of wood, fed and cheered the poor soul on her hard bed, and then turned her face toward Point of Pines.Almost childishly she dallied by the way, trying to set her feet in the marks she had made on the way up. So interested did she become in this that it made heralmostforget that queer, sad feeling in her heart."I'll make a new path," she decided, and that caused her to think of Tom Gavot and Alton and—the Look!Then she forgot all else and drifted far away. She was unhappy as the young know unhappiness; no perspective, no comparison. Never had there been such a case as hers! Never had any one suffered as she was suffering because no one had ever had the same reason!When Donelle recalled herself, she found that she was on the highway several miles beyond Point of Fines. The sun was sloping down, the west was golden, and a solemn stillness, almost deathly, pervaded space.There was a tall cross close beside Donelle. Black it rose from the unsullied snow, white tipped it was and shining against the glowing sky. Beneath it someone had evidently knelt, for the crust of the snow was broken. What meaning all this had for Donelle, who could tell? But the confusion and hurt of the last few hours clutched at her heart, and she who had never been urged by Jo Morey to consider religion in any form went slowly to the cross and sank down!The teachings of St. Michael's claimed her, the memory of little Sister Mary with the lost look clung to her; then a peace entered into her soul."No one could hurt me there," she sobbed. "No one could look at me—with that look." Then, at the foot of the cross, her head bowed and her tears falling, Donelle shivered and prayed.[image]"At the foot of the cross, her head bowed and her tears falling, Donelle shivered and prayed."Presently she raised her face; it was calm and pale. There was a round teardrop on her cheek that had not fallen with the others. She turned and there by the roadside stood Norval. How long he had been there he could hardly have told himself.When he had gone to the white house for his noon-day meal, Jo had told him, quite inconsequently, of Donelle's errand and he had followed her, for what reason God only knew."Donelle!" he said, "Donelle!"The terrible look in his eyes was gone, gone was the mocking smile of the night before. Pity, divine pity, moved him."Donelle!""Yes, Mr. Richard Alton." The poor girl strove to be her teasing self, but her lips trembled and suddenly a strange, almost an awful, dignity and detachment overcame her. Standing with clasped hands, in her nun-like garb, she seemed to have taken farewell of the world that women crave."What are you doing, Donelle, by that cross?" Norval did not draw near, and a distance of several feet separated them."Thinking and praying.""Thinking what? And praying for what?"The trouble in his eyes met the trouble in hers and called for simple truth."I was thinking of how you looked at me yesterday when I was in Tom Gavot's hut and of how you made me suffer last night. And I was praying to God to help me, help me to stop loving you."So naïve and direct were the words that they made Norval breathe hard. In a flash he saw the true nature of the girl before him. She was old, gravely, inheritedly old; and she was, too, a young and pitiful child.People had only touched the outer surface of her character and personality. Alone she had learned the primitive and desperate lessons of womanhood."Stop loving me?" Norval repeated the words slowly."Yes, I was beginning to love you very much, more than everything else. Then, when you looked as you did yesterday, I remembered and all night I was afraid. Oh! I am glad you did not get to loving me. It hurts so!""How do you know that I have not got to loving you? How do you know but that it was because I love you that I looked as I did yesterday?""Ah, no, Mr. Richard Alton, you couldn't have looked so had you loved me." Donelle tried to smile and made a pitiful showing."You don't know men, Donelle.""But I know love."Now that she had taken her last leave of it, Donelle could talk of it as little Sister Mary might have done, for she had vowed beside the cross to go back to St. Michael's. Long ago Sister Angela had said that she would find peace there. Then she spoke suddenly to Norval."You see, maybe you have heard something about Mamsey and me, but you did not quite understand and you felt you had a right to look as you did. I wonder why men want to make it harder for—for women, when women try to forget?"Norval winced; the shaft had sunk into its rightful place.And still the white-faced girl stood her distance, and tried to smile."I am going to tell you all about Mamsey and me," she said. "I will tell you as we walk along."CHAPTER XVITHE STORYHow little she really knew of life! But how the last year of suffering and renunciation had filled the void with a young but terrible philosophy. Norval did not speak. With bowed head, hands clasped behind him, he walked beside Donelle as she went along, bearing her cross and poor Jo's."You see I could not let Mamsey know that I knew. I could not hurt her so. She would have made me go away, and always I would have remembered her here alone where my father left her. And Tom Gavot has helped me keep the people still. He stays here, and he wanted to go way, way off, and be something so different. That is why I can play for Tom in his cabin. He knows and understands; he couldn't hurt Mamsey and me, he couldn't! Women like Mamsey and me feel a hurt terribly, that's why I am telling you this, I want you to be kind. Don't make things harder, they are bad enough!""Donelle, for God's sake, spare me!"The words were wrung from Norval, but he did not look up."I'm sure now that you know, you never will hurt us again," Donelle's voice soothed and caressed unconsciously. "I!—I wanted to be happy just as if nothing had happened, before I was born, to keep me from being happy. I thought about love, just as girls will. They cannot help it. Then you came and I wanted you!"A quivering fierceness shot through the words. Norval gave a quick glance at the face near him and saw that the purest, most primitive statement of a mighty truth held the girl's thought. If she had said, she, the first woman, to him, the first man:"You are mine, I want you," she could not have said it more divinely."I wanted to make you happy; to play for you while you painted your beautiful pictures, and then when you were tired and I was tired, why, our big love would bring us more and more happiness. Then, well, then you looked at me through Tom Gavot's window and somehow I understood!"Donelle and Norval were nearing the little white house, they could see the smoke rising from the chimney. Norval's thoughts were racing madly ahead, crowding upon him, choking him. He meant to make the future safe for this young girl, safe from himself and the sacredest passion of his life which, he now acknowledged, had mastered him. Reason, world-understanding, had no part in it, he wanted her. He must have her, and was prepared to clear the path leading to an honest love. But he could not tell her of Katherine, of himself, there was no time; no time and her experience could not possibly have prepared her for bearing it."I am going to tell you a great secret," Donelle half whispered, "back there by the cross I remembered what the Sisters at the Home used to tell me. They knew, but I did not—then. For girls like me—well, I am going back to St. Michael's-on-the-Rocks and teach the babies. That's why I could tell you what I have just told you."Then Norval turned and took her in his arms. So swiftly, so overpoweringly did he do this, that Donelle lay quiet and frightened, her white face pressed against his breast, her wonderful eyes searching his stern, strange face."No, by God! You are not going back to St. Michael's!" he whispered. "You little white soul, can't you see I love and adore you? Can't you see it was because I couldn't bear another man to—to have you, that I was a brute to you? Do you think that any wrong others have done can keep you from me, from letting me take you where you belong? Donelle! Donelle, kiss me, child."Only the deep eyes moved; they widened and grew dark."May I—kiss you?""No." And Norval did not kiss her!"But you are mine, Donelle, and all the powers in the world cannot alter that. I am going to make you believe me. What do I care for anything but this? You have driven everything but yourself from sight. When you play, great heavens, Donelle, when you play to me, moving about as you did that first and only time in my cabin, you took me into a Great Place. Don't tremble, little girl, don't. Every quiver hurts me. I am going to make you forget the brute in me; I'm going to meet your love, dear heart, with one as fine, so help me God! Trust me, Donelle, trust me and when you can tell me that you do trust me, we will go to Mam'selle. She will understand, she has the mighty soul. Oh, Donelle!"Norval leaned over the tender face, almost touched it with his lips, but did not."My little white love!" he whispered. "But you will come and play for me?" he pleaded."Yes.""And you will, you will give me a fair show?" She smiled wanly."If I ever give you cause again to fear me, I hope——"Then Donelle raised her hand and laid it across his lips."I am so afraid of this wonderful thing that is happening to me," she said, "and you mustn't say—well! what you were going to say just then.""Don't fear the love, my darling. It's the sacredest thing in the world." Norval had taken the hand from his lips and now held it in his own. "And we'll keep it holy, Donelle. That is our part.""Yes, yes; but to think, to think!""Don't think, sweet, here. Come close and try to—to—love for a moment without remembering.""Why, how can I?""Try."And so they stood with the golden light of the west on their faces. Norval did the thinking. He thought of the quickest possible method of setting Katherine free and making it right for him to kiss Donelle. He thought of the wild realization of his true nature—a nature that had been distorted and contracted by inheritance and training. He did not want the beaten tracks, that had always been the trouble. He wanted the unbroken trails, God! how he had thirsted and hungered for just what this little, wild, sweet thing in his arms represented. Love, simple, primitive love, music, understanding! And then Norval thought of Anderson Law! Thought of him, longed for him at that moment as a blind man might long for guiding, not to the right path, but on it."You may kiss me now!" This in a whisper.The quick surrender startled Norval. He bent his head, still thinking of Law."My woman," he said to that uplifted face, "when I have the right, that somehow I forfeited, I will kiss you.""But you said we were not to think; when you think, you remember.""Yes, Donelle, we remember and we look ahead with faith."Gently Norval let her free. He smiled at her, and the look in his eyes made her stand very straight, but she smiled back."I am so happy," she said simply. "And I thought I was never to be happy again.""And I—why, Donelle, you've taught me what happiness means. And you will keep your promise about coming to the wood-cabin?""Yes, Mr. Richard Alton." Donelle made a courtesy."And you'll bring the fiddle?""Of course.""And Donelle, before you, dear child, I beg the pardon and forgiveness of Tom Gavot.""I wish he could know that you are what you are," Donelle's eyes saddened."He shall, child. That, I swear. Next to Mam'selle," here, almost unconsciously Norval raised his cap, "next to Mam'selle, Tom Gavot shall know. Come, little girl, here's home!"And together they went up to Jo's house. It was marvellous how they managed the great thing that had happened. Never outwardly did it overcome them.The winter grew still and hard, the people shrank into their houses. There were trodden paths, like spokes of a wheel, leading from most of the houses to the hub, which was Dan's Place; there were more or less broken paths reaching to the river, where, under the ice, fish were obtainable.Tom Gavot just at that time was called to duty and left his father with money enough to keep him silent; and food and fuel enough to keep him safe.Jo, with a growing content and happiness, cooked for her boarder, revelled in his society during the long evenings, and was perfectly oblivious of the stupendous thing that was going on under her very eyes.Norval sent for books, many of them. Books of travel; Jo grew breathless over them."I can sit in this rocker," she often said to Marcel Longville, "shut my eyes, and there I am in those far places. I see palm groves and I hear the swishing of the sea. Mercy! Marcel, just fancy a body of water as long as the St. Lawrence and as wide as it is long!""I can't," said Marcel. "And I wouldn't want to. Water isn't what I take to most. But I do like the palm countries, Mam'selle. They are, generally speaking, warm. Sometimes I feel as if I never would be warm again as long as I live."While Norval read aloud to Jo and Donelle, he would often lift his eyes to find Donelle looking at him. Over the gulf of silence that separated them they smiled and trusted.Norval wrote to his lawyer, instructed him to take legal steps at once, upon whatever ground he could, legitimately, select. "Leave my wife and me free," he said; "with as decent characters as our stupid laws permit. I don't see why society should feel more moral if we are sullied."But Norval did not write to Katherine. He left that for his lawyers to do. He did, however, send a pretty fair statement of the case of himself and his wife to Anderson Law who, at that time, was basking under Egypt's calm skies, wandering in deserts, forgetting, and pulling himself together.And according to her promise Donelle went often to the cabin in the woods. Because it was winter and Point of Pines in a subnormal state, no one knew of the secret visits. Not even the joyous notes of the violin attracted attention. Norval painted as he never had in his life before. His genius burned bright. He knew the difference now; it made him humble and grateful. He painted the winter woods with an inspired brush. They were asleep, but not dead. His sunlight was alive; his moonlight, pure magic. He caught the frozen river with its strange, shifting colours; he dealt appealingly with the lonely, scattered houses; they seemed, under his hand, to ask for sympathy in their isolation.Guided by Donelle's interpretation, he painted a road full of mystery and delight. A long road leading to a hilltop."Oh!" Donelle cried when she stood close and beheld the picture. "Now I see what Tom saw long ago, but you had to teach me. The road is alive, it is a—a friend! You just would not want to hurt it or make it ashamed. Oh! how the sunlight lies on it. I believe it moves!"Norval lifted his face, his yearning eyes claimed the love he saw in Donelle's."Sweetheart, trot around and play for me," he would suddenly say, his lips closing firm, "play and play while I make Tom Gavot's road ready for him. Child, when I give Tom Gavot this picture, I'll make him understand many things.""And you will give him the Road? He'll be so happy." Donelle was moving about, her eyes dreamy."I wonder!" breathed Norval."Wonder what?" Donelle paused."About a thousand things, my sweet."By and by Norval painted his love; painted it in the splendid picture that afterward hung in a distant gallery and was known as "Fairer than morning, lovelier than the daylight."In it sat Donelle where the western glow fell upon her. With a rapt expression in her yellow eyes, her violin poised, the bow ready, she was looking and smiling at the vision that had caught and held her."I seem to be looking at you," Donelle whispered as, standing beside him, she gazed at the canvas. "Waiting for you to tell me what to play. I believe, I believe you are saying to me, 'play our pretty little French song.' Shall I play it now?""Yes, my beloved, and then," Norval was sternly intent upon his brushes, "then we'll go for a tramp with Nick. That infernal little scamp is like an alarm clock. Look, Donelle, he's coming up the path, coming to tell us the evening meal is ready. Sometimes I wonder if Mam'selle guesses?"After some delay a letter came from Norval's lawyer.It said:
CHAPTER XIV
A CHOICE OF ROADS
Day after day Donelle looked at her fiddle, but turned away. Day after day she sang the hours through, working beside Jo, or playing with Nick. Something was happening to her; something that frightened her, but thrilled her. She kept remembering the touch of Norval's hand upon hers! In the night, when she thought of it, she trembled. When she saw him she was shy.
"I wish Tom Gavot would come back," she said to herself, for Tom had been detained. Then, at last, one day she heard that he was on his way. He would leave the little train, five miles below Point of Pines, and would walk the rest of the way. She knew the path so she went to meet him.
It was mid afternoon when she saw him coming, swinging along in his rough corduroys and high boots, his cap on the back of his handsome head, his bag slung over his shoulder.
She stepped behind a tree, laughing, and when he was close she suddenly appeared and grasped his arm.
"Donelle, I thought——"
"Did I frighten you, Tom?"
"Well, you know there is always the bit of a coward in me. Why are you here?"
"I came to meet you, Tom."
"Has anything gone wrong?" His face darkened; poor Tom never expected things had gone right. His life had not been formed on those lines.
"No, but I wanted you, Tom. There are so many things to talk about, wonderful things. I've gone to your cabin, Tom, and made it ready for you. Every day I've lighted a fire the nights are cold. I thought you might come at night."
Donelle had lighted a fire of which she knew nothing, and Tom could not tell her!
"You're kind," was all he said as he looked at her. Then: "I never had a home until I got that cabin, Donelle. While I am away, I see the curtains you and Mam'selle made and the bedspread and all the rest. When I've been shivering in camp, I saw the fire on my own little hearth, and I was warm!"
Donelle smiled up to him.
"Tell me about your road," she said.
"Well, there's going to be one! I meant to come back ten days ago, but something happened and I decided to start work this fall, not wait for spring, so I stayed on. There was sickness at a settlement back in the woods. Many people almost died, some of them did, because they couldn't get a doctor and proper care. It's criminal to put women and children in such a hole; there's got to be a road connecting those places with—help! A man is a brute to take a woman with him under such conditions. Whathewants goes! He never thinks ofherpart."
"But, Tom, maybe she, the woman, wants to go."
"He ought not to let her, he knows."
"But if she just will go, what then, Tom?"
"It doesn't make it right for him, he knows."
"But it might be worse to stay back, Tom. A woman might choose to go."
"Butshedoesn't know;hedoes."
"But she may want to know, and be willing to pay."
"Donelle, you're a crazy little know-nothing."
Tom looked down and laughed. He was wondrously happy. "Always wanting to pay for what isn't worth it."
"You're wrong, Tom. It is worth it."
"What?"
"Why, the thing that makes a woman want to go into the woods with a man, even when there are no roads; the thing that makes her willing to pay before she knows."
Tom breathed hard.
"I suppose it is—love, Tom."
"It's something worse, often!" Gavot turned his eyes away from the upturned face.
"Lately, Tom," Donelle came close to him and touched his arm as she walked beside him, "I've been thinking about such a lot of new things and love among them."
"Love!" And now Tom stood still, as if an unseen blow had stunned him.
"Yes, and I had no one to talk to. I couldn't speak to Mamsey. Always I think of you, Tom, whenever thoughts come. You see everything, just as you see your roads in the deep woods. Are you tired, Tom?"
"No," Gavot got control of himself, "no, not tired."
"You see," and now they were going on again, "the big feelings of life just come to everyone. They don't pick, and when you are young, you have young thoughts. That is the way it seems to me, and often, Tom Gavot, the very things that you ought to have an old head to think about come when you haven't any sense at all." This tremendous truth fell from the girlish lips quite irrelevantly. "And then you just take and pay what you must, but often you have to pay more than you ought, because—well, because you are young when you bought——"
Donelle sobbed. "I've been thinking of Mamsey," she ended pitifully. Tom stopped short. He flung his pack on the ground and laid his strong, work-hardened hands on Donelle's shoulders.
"You don't have to pay for Mam'selle," he said in a whisper; "she's paid, God knows."
"But I've got to pay for my father, Tom."
"What do you mean?"
"Why, you see, lately I've known that I must be like my father more than like, like Mamsey. She learned and stayed and paid, he ran away. Oh, Tom, it's good to be able to say this to you, out here under the trees, alone. It has been choking me for days and days. You see, Tom, a big feeling comes up in me that wants and wants. And, always, too, there is another feeling. I do not want to pay, as Mamsey did. It would be easier to run and hide! But, Tom, I'm not going to, I'm not! I'm going to pay for my father!"
"What ails you, Donelle? Has any one been talking?" Tom still held her, his hungry heart yearned to draw her close, but he held her at arm's length.
"No, it is only—thoughts that have been talking. I just cannot settle down by Mamsey, and know I'm to stay here without that running away feeling. Then I say: 'I don't care, I want to go and I'll go,' and then—why, I cannot, Tom, for I know I must pay for my father."
"Go where?"
"Go, Tom, where my fiddle would take me. Go where people do not know; go and learn things, and then if any one did find out—pay!"
Poor Tom was weary almost to the breaking point. Nights in rough camps, days of wood tramping had worn upon him, the fire of which Donelle knew nothing sent the blood racing through his veins. Her touch on his arm made him tremble.
"See here, Donelle," he said; "would you come along my road with me? Would you, could you, learn enough—that way?"
But Donelle smiled her vague smile, "I think I must have my own road, Tom. The trouble is I cannot see my road as you see roads. I only feel my feet aching. But, Tom, surely you must have seen life a little in Quebec, tell me: could a great big strong love keep on loving even if it knew about me and Mamsey?"
"Yes." The word was more like a groan.
"Even if it had to keep Mamsey from knowing that we know?"
"Yes."
"Why, Tom, dear Tom, you make me feel wonderful. You always do, you big, safe Tom. I just knew how it would be; that is why I had to come and meet you."
She rubbed her cheek against the rough sleeve of his jacket. "I think your mother would just worship you, Tom."
Then Gavot laughed, laughed his honest laugh, and picked up his pack.
"Donelle," he said presently, "you ought to make your music again. You have no right not to."
"You, you really mean that, Tom?"
"Yes, I do."
"Well, I think I'll get the fiddle out some day, soon, and come to your cabin. While you draw your roads on your paper, I'll see if the tunes will come back."
But Donelle did not speak of Richard Alton.
The autumn lingered in Point of Pines; even the gold and red clung to the trees to add to the delusion that winter was far off. The mid-days were warm, and only now and then did the frost nip.
Norval kept saying to himself, as he lay on that wonderful bed in Jo Morey's upper chamber, "I must go back!" But he made no move southward. The quiet of the woods, the lure of the river held him, and then he began to ask why heshouldgo back?
Law was still in Egypt, Katherine was undoubtedly in her bungalow; why not have what he always had wanted, a winter away from things?
Then a letter forwarded by his lawyer clarified his thoughts. It was from Katherine, who had discovered a new set of duties and was hot-footed to perform them.
She wrote:
JIM, until you are willing to die for something, you have never lived. In letting loose what really was never mine, my own came to me. I have a new book out. Shall I send you a copy? I've called it "The Soul Set Free." I do not want to be too personal, but I find the world loves the close touch.
You have not said one word, Jim, about a divorce and I have waited. I think you owe me assistance along this line, and now I must insist. For, Jim, with the rest of what is my own has come a startling realization, that love, understanding love, is to be mine, too. Until I hear from you I will not name the man who discovered my talent before he saw me. He read the manuscript of my first book, he had never heard of me then. Only recently has he come to California. He is my mate, Jim, I know that, and I owe him a great duty. I must go as I see duty, but I must go with a clear conscience. I owe him that, also.
Norval read this amazing letter lying on a couch before a blazing fire in his wood-cabin. He read and reread it. He felt as he might have felt had a toy dog—or a fluffy kitten, risen up and smitten him. Katherine had been giving him a series of tremendous thumps ever since she had shown him her awakened soul. Little by little she had receded from his understanding of her; but to come forth now in this stupefying characterization of the untrammeled woman, was—— Norval laughed, a hard, bitter laugh.
Then he went to his improvised desk, the cabin was filled with his attempts at furniture making; it was a remarkable place.
He wrote rather unsteadily:
KIT, do you remember the story of the mouse that ran in the whiskey drippings, licked his legs, got drunk, and then took his stand, crying, "Where's that damned cat I was so afraid of yesterday?" Well, you make me think of that. You were once, unless I was mistaken, a nice little mouse of a thing, pretty well scared of the conventional cat—the world, you know. Then came the whiskey lickings, your talent. I'm afraid you're drunk, child, drunk as a lord. But there you are, all the same, with your back up against the wall, defying the cat. Well, you're thirty-two, and although you were afraid of the cat, you certainly know something about the animal. I agree with you that we were not suited to one another, and I'm ready to let your soulmate have a show. I do not quite know how to do it, but if you think you will not be defrauding him too much—and if your sense of duty will permit, give me time to get my breath and I swear I'll think up some sort of "cause" that will set you free. Just now I am hidden away in the woods, painting as I used to paint when Andy stared and stared. I can tell quality now. I'm on the right road and do not want to be jerked back until I've made sure. Perhaps the law in California would make it easy for you. Anything short of making a villain of me, I'm willing to consider.
Then Norval, having written, stalked down to the Post Office, sent his ultimatum off with the Point of Pines official stamp on it, and went to Dan's Place for no earthly reason but to forget. He drank a little, scorned himself for taking that road out of his perplexity, drank a little more with old, grimy Pierre Gavot, and then started back to the wood-cabin. He did not want to face Jo Morey—or Donelle. He felt unclean; he was, in a befuddled way, paying for Katherine.
The sun was setting in a magnificent glory of colour and cloud banks. There was a flurry of snow in the clouds, and until it fell there would be that chill in the air that was vicariously cooling Norval's hot brain.
He wanted the seclusion of the cabin more than he wanted anything else just then. He had left a fire on the hearth, he could stretch himself on the couch for the night. He did not want food, but he was frantic to get to his canvas; he had begun a few days ago a fantastic thing, quite out of his ordinary style. While there was light enough he could work. So he pressed on.
The clouds quite unexpectedly gave up their burden, and Norval was soon covered with snow as he flew along, taking a short cut to the cabin. But having given up the snow, the clouds disappeared and the daylight was lengthened. Pounding the snow from his feet, shaking himself like a bear, Norval entered the cabin and saw—Donelle standing transfixed before the easel!
She did not turn as he came in; she was rigid, her hands holding her violin case.
"You—you said you were a painter!" she gasped when she felt Norval was near her.
"And you think I'm not?" Something in the voice startled her, she looked at him.
"You said you painted houses and barns and——"
"People sometimes and trees. I spoke the truth, but you think I'm no painter?"
"Why, I've been—I've been thinking I was dreaming until just now. See these woods," she was gazing at the unfinished thing on the easel, "They are my woods. I know the very paths, they are back of the lumber cutting. See! is there a face, somewhere in the dark, a face back of those silver birches, is there?"
Norval, with the Joan of Arc conception in mind, had painted those woods while Donelle's face had haunted him.
"Can you see a face?" he asked. He was close to the girl now, so close that her young body touched him.
"Is it only a fancy?"
"Look again, Donelle. Whose face?"
"I—I do not know!"
But she did know, and she looked mutely at him.
"Donelle, why did you come here?"
"I promised I was going to—to play for you."
"Then, in God's name, do it! See, go over there by the window." Norval had folded his arms over his breast. He was afraid of himself, of the madness that Katherine and Dan's Place had evolved. "Play, and I'll finish this thing."
"I can play best if I move about."
"Move, then, but fiddle!"
"You are sure you want me? I can come again. You are strange, I should not have stolen in, but once I had seen—I couldn't get away."
"Donelle, you are to stay. Do you hear? For your sake and mine you are to stay. Now, then."
He turned his back on her, flung off his coat, and fell to work.
Donelle tuned her violin, tucked it under her chin, and slowly walking to and fro, she played and played until the hunger in her heart grew satisfied. Like a little pale ghost she passed up and down the rude room, smiling and happy.
After half an hour Norval looked at her; he was haggard, but quite himself.
Then Donelle turned and, nodding over her bow, said:
"It's all right, the joy of it has come back and—— Oh! I see the face among the trees. What a beautiful picture! It's like a wood with a heart and soul; it's alive like Tom Gavot's road. Now we must go home, Mr. Richard Alton. We're tired, you and I.
"Home?" Norval laughed. "Home?"
"Yes, to Mamsey. I always am so glad of Mamsey when I'm tired."
"Donelle, I meant to stay here to-night."
"But instead, you are coming with me!" Donelle put out her hand, "Come!"
Norval raised the hand to his lips.
"You little, white wood-spirit," he said, "they did not teach you to play, they only let you free. Donelle, are you a spirit?"
"No," and now the yellow eyes sought and held his, "I'm a—woman, Mr. Richard Alton."
CHAPTER XV
THE LOOK
And Donelle began to know what love was. Know it as passionate, daring natures know it. She thought of her father, of Mamsey, in a new light. She grew to understand her supposed mother with a tragic realization and she shuddered when she reflected upon her father.
"To go and leave love!" she thought. "Oh! how could he?"
Then Donelle took to gazing upon Jo with the critical eyes of youth, and yet with pity.
What manner of girl had Jo been? Had she always been plain?
The word caused Donelle pain. It sounded disloyal to Jo; but it sent her to her mirror in the little north chamber beside Mam'selle's.
The face that looked back at Donelle puzzled her. Was it pretty? What was the matter with it?
The eyes were too large, they looked hungry. The mouth, too, was queer; it did things too easily. It smiled and quivered; it turned up at the corners, it drooped down, all too easily. The nose was rather nice as noses go, but it had tiny freckles on it that you could see if you looked close. Those freckles were, in colour, something like the eyes.
"I like my hair!" confessed Donelle, and she smoothed the soft, pale braids wound about her delicately poised head. "My throat is too long, but it's white!"
Then she tried on her few dresses, one after the other, and chose a heavy dark blue one. Jo had woven the material, it was very fine and warm.
"I think I will take my fiddle and go up to the wood-cabin," thought Donelle, and then her face grew bright and rose-touched.
But instead, Donelle went to Tom Gavot's hut.
Once outside the house, she simply could not go to the wood-cabin. She knew Alton was there, he painted constantly when he was not tramping the sunny forests or sitting with Jo and Donelle, reading in the smothering heat of the overworked stove.
"Some time when he is away, then I'll go."
But oh! how she wanted to go. The very thought of Alton made her thrill. Sometimes she saw him looking at her, when Jo was bent over her loom or needles, and the look always called something out of Donelle; something that went straight to Alton and never returned!
On that winter day, a still white day, Donelle carried her violin under her long fur coat; she must play to somebody, and Jo had gone to the distant town for the day.
The door of Tom's hut was closed, but a curl of smoke rose from the chimney so Donelle knocked rather formally.
Tom's step sounded inside, he took down the bar which secured the door and flung it open. His eyes were dark and his brow scowling.
"Why, Tom," laughed Donelle, "who are you locking and barring out? Maybe you do not want company?"
"I don't, but I want you."
"Tom, who do you call company?"
"Mam'selle's boarder, that Mr. Alton." Tom had run across Norval once or twice since his return.
"Don't you like him, Tom?"
Donelle had come inside and taken a chair by the hearth, now she flung her coat aside and laid the violin on her knee.
"Yes, I like him well enough, and that's the trouble. I don't want to like people unless there is a reason. I can't find a reason for this man."
Donelle laughed.
"What is he here for anyway, Donelle?"
"Why don't you go up to his wood-cabin and see, Tom? He's asked you." She had heard Norval do so rather insistently.
"Yes. But I'm not going."
"Why, Tom?"
"I'm too busy."
"I wish you would go, Tom. I wish you could see his pictures. Why, Tom, you'd feel like taking the shoes off your feet."
Tom laughed grimly.
"Not while the weather's so cold," he said.
"But, Tom, that's the reason for Mr. Alton. He is getting our woods and skies and river safe on his canvases. He's going to take them back to people who have never seen such things."
"Why don't they come and board here, then, and see them for themselves?" Tom threw a log viciously on the fire. "You don't mean he's doing this to give a lot of people pleasure?"
"Tom, he sells his pictures; he gets a great deal of money for them."
"Umph!" Then, "Has he ever put you in the pictures, Donelle?"
There was a slight pause. Remembering the faint suggestion in the first picture she had ever seen in the cabin, Donelle said softly:
"No, Tom."
"I'm glad. I'd hate to have a lot of strangers staring at you."
"Tom, you're scrouchy. Let me play for you."
And, while she played, growing more rapt and absorbed as she did so, Tom took his drawing board to the window and bent over his blueprints. Gradually the look of doubt and irritation left his face, a flood of happiness swept over him. He began to see roads. Always roads. He wanted to go to Quebec in the spring and tell his firm about something he had discovered lately; and it was on Mam'selle Morey's land, too. If there were a road back among the hills over which to haul that which he had found, haul it by a short cut to the railroad, by and by Mam'selle and Donelle would not have to take objectionable strangers into their home and——
Donelle played on unheedingly, but Tom started as a knock fell on the door!
"I will not open it!" he thought savagely. "Let him think what he damn pleases."
The tune ran glidingly on.
"You like this tune, Tom?" Donelle was far away from the still cabin.
"Yes, I like it, Donelle, but play something louder, faster."
"Well, then, how about this?" and with a laugh Donelle swung into a new theme.
Again the knock! This time softer but more insinuating.
Then all was quiet, but the mad music was filling the warm room.
Just then the visitor at the door stepped around the house and came in full view of the window before which Tom sat, rigid and defiant. It was Norval, and he paused, came nearer and stood still. Tom got up, and the movement attracted Donelle's attention. She turned and saw the two men glaring at each other, the glass between.
"Curse him!" muttered Tom, "curse him!"
Norval vanished instantly, but not before Donelle had caught the expression in his eyes.
"Tom," she said affrightedly, "what did he think?"
"What does it matter what he thought?"
"But, Tom, tell me, what did he think to make him look like that? Perhaps, perhaps he thinks I should not be here, alone with you."
"Damn him. What right has he to stare into my place?"
"But, Tom, his eyes, I cannot bear to think of the look in his eyes. It—it was laughing, but it hurt."
"Who cares about what he thought?" Tom was savage.
"I do," Donelle whispered. She was putting her violin away. "I do. I couldn't stand having a man look at me like that. Why, Tom, it made me feel ashamed."
Again Gavot cursed, but under his breath.
"You going?" he asked. "Wait, I'll come with you. Wait, Donelle."
But the girl did not pause.
"I'd rather go alone," she called back.
But she did not go directly home, she took a round-about way and reached the hill back of the little white house. The tall pines rose black from the untrodden snow, the winter sky was as blue as steel, and as cold. In among the trees, where it was sheltered, Donelle sat down. There she could think!
The power of a look is mighty. The mere instant that Norval had gazed upon Donelle through the window was sufficient to carry the meaning in the man's mind to the sensitive girl.
It took her some time to translate the truth as she sat under the trees on the hilltop, but slowly it all became clear.
"He does not know, but he thinks wrong of me." Donelle spoke aloud as if repeating a lesson.
"Why should he think wrong?" questioned the hard teacher.
Then Donelle remembered her father and Jo, and the word with which Pierre Gavot had polluted her life.
"That's why he laughed," shuddered the girl. Her own secret interpreting the hurting look though knowing him only as Richard Alton, she had no reason to believe he knew her story.
Then the relentless teacher pointed her back to the look in Dan Kelly's eyes, the look that had frightened her and had made Jo send her away to the Walled House.
"Unless I save myself," moaned Donelle, "no one can keep people from looking—those looks!"
Quietly she got up and walked down the hill, a tall, slim, ghostly form, with eyes haunted by knowledge.
That night after the evening meal Norval stayed in the bright living room and tortured Donelle. He knew he was brutal, but something drove him on. He was suffering dumbly, suffering without cause, he believed. Why should he care that a girl about whom he knew too much should hide herself away with a rough young giant behind a locked door in a lonely hut?
Then he concluded it was because he knew how Alice Lindsay and Law might feel, that he suffered. They would be so shocked.
"After all," Norval tried to reason himself into indifference, "blood will cry out. The world may be damned unjust to women, but there is something lacking when a girl like this makes herself—cheap."
Then it was that Norval began his torture. Jo was in the kitchen at the moment, Donelle was clearing the table.
"Where were you this afternoon?" Norval was carefully filling his pipe, sitting astride his chair.
"Part of the time I was in the woods on the hill," Donelle glanced at Jo through the open door.
"That's odd!" Norval puffed slowly and Donelle's eyes pleaded unconsciously. For no real reason she did not want Jo to know she had been with Tom. She was haunted by the look!
"Why don't you come up to my cabin and play to me?" This in a tone so low that Mam'selle could not hear.
"I—I don't know. I might be in the way while you work."
"On the contrary. Come up to-morrow, Donelle, I'll paint you with your fiddle. You'll make the town stare, the town back home."
The colour rose to Donelle's face. She remembered Tom's words.
"I do not want strangers staring at my face," she said with some spirit.
"Why not? It's a pretty face, Donelle."
Then the girl crossed the room and stood before him.
"If you talk and look like that," she warned in an undertone, "I'll make Mamsey send you away."
Norval laughed.
"I don't believe you will," he said, and reached out toward her.
And, for hours that night, after everything was still, Donelle lay in her dark room and cried while she struggled with her confused emotions.
"He shall go away! He shallnotdare to look at me so, and whisper!"
Then she tossed about.
"But he must not go until I make him ashamed to look at me—so. But how can I? How can I?"
Toward morning sleep came and when Donelle awoke, Norval had had his breakfast and gone.
After the morning's work was finished Jo asked Donelle to go on an errand. A poor woman back among the hills was ill and needed food of the right sort.
"I have a crick in my back, Donelle," Jo explained, "I don't believe I could walk there, and the road is unbroken. Molly is too old to force her way through. If you take the wood path, it won't be too far."
"I'd love to go, Mamsey. It's such a still day, and did you ever see such sunlight?"
The release was welcome, poor Donelle still was thrashing about in her confused emotions. She was grateful that Alton was gone; she yearned to see him, and so it went.
"I'll be back as soon as I can, Mamsey. Is the basket packed?"
It was only eight o'clock when Donelle set forth. She wore her long, dark fur coat, a cowl-like hood of fur covered her pale hair, her delicate, white face shone sweetly in the soft, dusky setting. The eyes were full of sunlight but her mouth drooped pathetically.
Jo remembered the look long after the girl had departed.
"I mustn't keep her here," she reasoned; "I'm going to write again to that Mr. Law. I will wait until spring; he couldn't come now. I'm going to ask him to come up here and talk things over."
Then Mam'selle went to her loom and worked like a Fate; there were piles of wonderful things to sell. Surely they would help Donelle to her own! And so Jo worked and dreamed and feared, while Donelle made her way over the crusty snow, through the silent, holy woods, over the shining hill to the sick woman in her distant cabin.
For an hour the girl worked in the lonely house. She built a roaring fire, carried in a store of wood, fed and cheered the poor soul on her hard bed, and then turned her face toward Point of Pines.
Almost childishly she dallied by the way, trying to set her feet in the marks she had made on the way up. So interested did she become in this that it made heralmostforget that queer, sad feeling in her heart.
"I'll make a new path," she decided, and that caused her to think of Tom Gavot and Alton and—the Look!
Then she forgot all else and drifted far away. She was unhappy as the young know unhappiness; no perspective, no comparison. Never had there been such a case as hers! Never had any one suffered as she was suffering because no one had ever had the same reason!
When Donelle recalled herself, she found that she was on the highway several miles beyond Point of Fines. The sun was sloping down, the west was golden, and a solemn stillness, almost deathly, pervaded space.
There was a tall cross close beside Donelle. Black it rose from the unsullied snow, white tipped it was and shining against the glowing sky. Beneath it someone had evidently knelt, for the crust of the snow was broken. What meaning all this had for Donelle, who could tell? But the confusion and hurt of the last few hours clutched at her heart, and she who had never been urged by Jo Morey to consider religion in any form went slowly to the cross and sank down!
The teachings of St. Michael's claimed her, the memory of little Sister Mary with the lost look clung to her; then a peace entered into her soul.
"No one could hurt me there," she sobbed. "No one could look at me—with that look." Then, at the foot of the cross, her head bowed and her tears falling, Donelle shivered and prayed.
[image]"At the foot of the cross, her head bowed and her tears falling, Donelle shivered and prayed."
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"At the foot of the cross, her head bowed and her tears falling, Donelle shivered and prayed."
Presently she raised her face; it was calm and pale. There was a round teardrop on her cheek that had not fallen with the others. She turned and there by the roadside stood Norval. How long he had been there he could hardly have told himself.
When he had gone to the white house for his noon-day meal, Jo had told him, quite inconsequently, of Donelle's errand and he had followed her, for what reason God only knew.
"Donelle!" he said, "Donelle!"
The terrible look in his eyes was gone, gone was the mocking smile of the night before. Pity, divine pity, moved him.
"Donelle!"
"Yes, Mr. Richard Alton." The poor girl strove to be her teasing self, but her lips trembled and suddenly a strange, almost an awful, dignity and detachment overcame her. Standing with clasped hands, in her nun-like garb, she seemed to have taken farewell of the world that women crave.
"What are you doing, Donelle, by that cross?" Norval did not draw near, and a distance of several feet separated them.
"Thinking and praying."
"Thinking what? And praying for what?"
The trouble in his eyes met the trouble in hers and called for simple truth.
"I was thinking of how you looked at me yesterday when I was in Tom Gavot's hut and of how you made me suffer last night. And I was praying to God to help me, help me to stop loving you."
So naïve and direct were the words that they made Norval breathe hard. In a flash he saw the true nature of the girl before him. She was old, gravely, inheritedly old; and she was, too, a young and pitiful child.
People had only touched the outer surface of her character and personality. Alone she had learned the primitive and desperate lessons of womanhood.
"Stop loving me?" Norval repeated the words slowly.
"Yes, I was beginning to love you very much, more than everything else. Then, when you looked as you did yesterday, I remembered and all night I was afraid. Oh! I am glad you did not get to loving me. It hurts so!"
"How do you know that I have not got to loving you? How do you know but that it was because I love you that I looked as I did yesterday?"
"Ah, no, Mr. Richard Alton, you couldn't have looked so had you loved me." Donelle tried to smile and made a pitiful showing.
"You don't know men, Donelle."
"But I know love."
Now that she had taken her last leave of it, Donelle could talk of it as little Sister Mary might have done, for she had vowed beside the cross to go back to St. Michael's. Long ago Sister Angela had said that she would find peace there. Then she spoke suddenly to Norval.
"You see, maybe you have heard something about Mamsey and me, but you did not quite understand and you felt you had a right to look as you did. I wonder why men want to make it harder for—for women, when women try to forget?"
Norval winced; the shaft had sunk into its rightful place.
And still the white-faced girl stood her distance, and tried to smile.
"I am going to tell you all about Mamsey and me," she said. "I will tell you as we walk along."
CHAPTER XVI
THE STORY
How little she really knew of life! But how the last year of suffering and renunciation had filled the void with a young but terrible philosophy. Norval did not speak. With bowed head, hands clasped behind him, he walked beside Donelle as she went along, bearing her cross and poor Jo's.
"You see I could not let Mamsey know that I knew. I could not hurt her so. She would have made me go away, and always I would have remembered her here alone where my father left her. And Tom Gavot has helped me keep the people still. He stays here, and he wanted to go way, way off, and be something so different. That is why I can play for Tom in his cabin. He knows and understands; he couldn't hurt Mamsey and me, he couldn't! Women like Mamsey and me feel a hurt terribly, that's why I am telling you this, I want you to be kind. Don't make things harder, they are bad enough!"
"Donelle, for God's sake, spare me!"
The words were wrung from Norval, but he did not look up.
"I'm sure now that you know, you never will hurt us again," Donelle's voice soothed and caressed unconsciously. "I!—I wanted to be happy just as if nothing had happened, before I was born, to keep me from being happy. I thought about love, just as girls will. They cannot help it. Then you came and I wanted you!"
A quivering fierceness shot through the words. Norval gave a quick glance at the face near him and saw that the purest, most primitive statement of a mighty truth held the girl's thought. If she had said, she, the first woman, to him, the first man:
"You are mine, I want you," she could not have said it more divinely.
"I wanted to make you happy; to play for you while you painted your beautiful pictures, and then when you were tired and I was tired, why, our big love would bring us more and more happiness. Then, well, then you looked at me through Tom Gavot's window and somehow I understood!"
Donelle and Norval were nearing the little white house, they could see the smoke rising from the chimney. Norval's thoughts were racing madly ahead, crowding upon him, choking him. He meant to make the future safe for this young girl, safe from himself and the sacredest passion of his life which, he now acknowledged, had mastered him. Reason, world-understanding, had no part in it, he wanted her. He must have her, and was prepared to clear the path leading to an honest love. But he could not tell her of Katherine, of himself, there was no time; no time and her experience could not possibly have prepared her for bearing it.
"I am going to tell you a great secret," Donelle half whispered, "back there by the cross I remembered what the Sisters at the Home used to tell me. They knew, but I did not—then. For girls like me—well, I am going back to St. Michael's-on-the-Rocks and teach the babies. That's why I could tell you what I have just told you."
Then Norval turned and took her in his arms. So swiftly, so overpoweringly did he do this, that Donelle lay quiet and frightened, her white face pressed against his breast, her wonderful eyes searching his stern, strange face.
"No, by God! You are not going back to St. Michael's!" he whispered. "You little white soul, can't you see I love and adore you? Can't you see it was because I couldn't bear another man to—to have you, that I was a brute to you? Do you think that any wrong others have done can keep you from me, from letting me take you where you belong? Donelle! Donelle, kiss me, child."
Only the deep eyes moved; they widened and grew dark.
"May I—kiss you?"
"No." And Norval did not kiss her!
"But you are mine, Donelle, and all the powers in the world cannot alter that. I am going to make you believe me. What do I care for anything but this? You have driven everything but yourself from sight. When you play, great heavens, Donelle, when you play to me, moving about as you did that first and only time in my cabin, you took me into a Great Place. Don't tremble, little girl, don't. Every quiver hurts me. I am going to make you forget the brute in me; I'm going to meet your love, dear heart, with one as fine, so help me God! Trust me, Donelle, trust me and when you can tell me that you do trust me, we will go to Mam'selle. She will understand, she has the mighty soul. Oh, Donelle!"
Norval leaned over the tender face, almost touched it with his lips, but did not.
"My little white love!" he whispered. "But you will come and play for me?" he pleaded.
"Yes."
"And you will, you will give me a fair show?" She smiled wanly.
"If I ever give you cause again to fear me, I hope——"
Then Donelle raised her hand and laid it across his lips.
"I am so afraid of this wonderful thing that is happening to me," she said, "and you mustn't say—well! what you were going to say just then."
"Don't fear the love, my darling. It's the sacredest thing in the world." Norval had taken the hand from his lips and now held it in his own. "And we'll keep it holy, Donelle. That is our part."
"Yes, yes; but to think, to think!"
"Don't think, sweet, here. Come close and try to—to—love for a moment without remembering."
"Why, how can I?"
"Try."
And so they stood with the golden light of the west on their faces. Norval did the thinking. He thought of the quickest possible method of setting Katherine free and making it right for him to kiss Donelle. He thought of the wild realization of his true nature—a nature that had been distorted and contracted by inheritance and training. He did not want the beaten tracks, that had always been the trouble. He wanted the unbroken trails, God! how he had thirsted and hungered for just what this little, wild, sweet thing in his arms represented. Love, simple, primitive love, music, understanding! And then Norval thought of Anderson Law! Thought of him, longed for him at that moment as a blind man might long for guiding, not to the right path, but on it.
"You may kiss me now!" This in a whisper.
The quick surrender startled Norval. He bent his head, still thinking of Law.
"My woman," he said to that uplifted face, "when I have the right, that somehow I forfeited, I will kiss you."
"But you said we were not to think; when you think, you remember."
"Yes, Donelle, we remember and we look ahead with faith."
Gently Norval let her free. He smiled at her, and the look in his eyes made her stand very straight, but she smiled back.
"I am so happy," she said simply. "And I thought I was never to be happy again."
"And I—why, Donelle, you've taught me what happiness means. And you will keep your promise about coming to the wood-cabin?"
"Yes, Mr. Richard Alton." Donelle made a courtesy.
"And you'll bring the fiddle?"
"Of course."
"And Donelle, before you, dear child, I beg the pardon and forgiveness of Tom Gavot."
"I wish he could know that you are what you are," Donelle's eyes saddened.
"He shall, child. That, I swear. Next to Mam'selle," here, almost unconsciously Norval raised his cap, "next to Mam'selle, Tom Gavot shall know. Come, little girl, here's home!"
And together they went up to Jo's house. It was marvellous how they managed the great thing that had happened. Never outwardly did it overcome them.
The winter grew still and hard, the people shrank into their houses. There were trodden paths, like spokes of a wheel, leading from most of the houses to the hub, which was Dan's Place; there were more or less broken paths reaching to the river, where, under the ice, fish were obtainable.
Tom Gavot just at that time was called to duty and left his father with money enough to keep him silent; and food and fuel enough to keep him safe.
Jo, with a growing content and happiness, cooked for her boarder, revelled in his society during the long evenings, and was perfectly oblivious of the stupendous thing that was going on under her very eyes.
Norval sent for books, many of them. Books of travel; Jo grew breathless over them.
"I can sit in this rocker," she often said to Marcel Longville, "shut my eyes, and there I am in those far places. I see palm groves and I hear the swishing of the sea. Mercy! Marcel, just fancy a body of water as long as the St. Lawrence and as wide as it is long!"
"I can't," said Marcel. "And I wouldn't want to. Water isn't what I take to most. But I do like the palm countries, Mam'selle. They are, generally speaking, warm. Sometimes I feel as if I never would be warm again as long as I live."
While Norval read aloud to Jo and Donelle, he would often lift his eyes to find Donelle looking at him. Over the gulf of silence that separated them they smiled and trusted.
Norval wrote to his lawyer, instructed him to take legal steps at once, upon whatever ground he could, legitimately, select. "Leave my wife and me free," he said; "with as decent characters as our stupid laws permit. I don't see why society should feel more moral if we are sullied."
But Norval did not write to Katherine. He left that for his lawyers to do. He did, however, send a pretty fair statement of the case of himself and his wife to Anderson Law who, at that time, was basking under Egypt's calm skies, wandering in deserts, forgetting, and pulling himself together.
And according to her promise Donelle went often to the cabin in the woods. Because it was winter and Point of Pines in a subnormal state, no one knew of the secret visits. Not even the joyous notes of the violin attracted attention. Norval painted as he never had in his life before. His genius burned bright. He knew the difference now; it made him humble and grateful. He painted the winter woods with an inspired brush. They were asleep, but not dead. His sunlight was alive; his moonlight, pure magic. He caught the frozen river with its strange, shifting colours; he dealt appealingly with the lonely, scattered houses; they seemed, under his hand, to ask for sympathy in their isolation.
Guided by Donelle's interpretation, he painted a road full of mystery and delight. A long road leading to a hilltop.
"Oh!" Donelle cried when she stood close and beheld the picture. "Now I see what Tom saw long ago, but you had to teach me. The road is alive, it is a—a friend! You just would not want to hurt it or make it ashamed. Oh! how the sunlight lies on it. I believe it moves!"
Norval lifted his face, his yearning eyes claimed the love he saw in Donelle's.
"Sweetheart, trot around and play for me," he would suddenly say, his lips closing firm, "play and play while I make Tom Gavot's road ready for him. Child, when I give Tom Gavot this picture, I'll make him understand many things."
"And you will give him the Road? He'll be so happy." Donelle was moving about, her eyes dreamy.
"I wonder!" breathed Norval.
"Wonder what?" Donelle paused.
"About a thousand things, my sweet."
By and by Norval painted his love; painted it in the splendid picture that afterward hung in a distant gallery and was known as "Fairer than morning, lovelier than the daylight."
In it sat Donelle where the western glow fell upon her. With a rapt expression in her yellow eyes, her violin poised, the bow ready, she was looking and smiling at the vision that had caught and held her.
"I seem to be looking at you," Donelle whispered as, standing beside him, she gazed at the canvas. "Waiting for you to tell me what to play. I believe, I believe you are saying to me, 'play our pretty little French song.' Shall I play it now?"
"Yes, my beloved, and then," Norval was sternly intent upon his brushes, "then we'll go for a tramp with Nick. That infernal little scamp is like an alarm clock. Look, Donelle, he's coming up the path, coming to tell us the evening meal is ready. Sometimes I wonder if Mam'selle guesses?"
After some delay a letter came from Norval's lawyer.
It said: