Mary stood overwhelmed by the tragedy she had witnessed. For the time her brain refused to record sensations. She had seen too much, felt too much in the past eight hours. Soul and body were numb.
The first impressions of returning consciousness were fixed on Nance. She had risen suddenly from the floor and smoothed the hair back from Jim's forehead with tender touch as if afraid to wake him. She drew the quilt from the kitchen floor, spread it over the body, and lifted her eyes to Mary's. It was only too plain.
Reason had gone.
She tipped close and put her fingers on her lips.
“Sh! We mustn't wake him. He's tired. Let him sleep. It's my boy. He's come home. We'll fix him a fine Christmas dinner. I've got a turkey. I'll bake a cake——” she paused and laughed softly. “I've got eggs too, fresh laid yesterday. We'll make egg-nog all day and all night. I ain't had no Christmas since that devil stole him. We'll have one this time, won't we?”
The girl's wits were again alert. She must run for help. A minute to humor the old woman's delusion and she might return before any harm came to her. Jim had not moved a muscle. It was plain that he was beyond help.
“Yes,” Mary answered cheerfully. “You fix the cake—and I'll get the wood to make a fire.”
Nance laughed again.
“We'll have the dinner all ready for him when he wakes, won't we?”
“Yes. I'll be back in a few minutes.”
Nance hurried into the kitchen humming an old song in a faltering voice that sent the cold chills down the girl's spine.
Mary slipped quietly through the door and ran with swift, sure foot down the narrow road along which the machine had picked its way the afternoon before. The cabin they had passed last could not be more than a mile.
She made no effort to find the logs for pedestrians when the road crossed the brook. She plunged straight through the babbling waters with her shoes, regardless of skirts.
Panting for breath, she saw the smoke curling from the cabin chimney a quarter of a mile away.
“Thank God!” she cried. “They're awake!”
She was so glad to have reached her goal, her strength suddenly gave way and she dropped to a boulder by the wayside to rest. In two minutes she was up and running with all her might.
She rushed to the door and knocked.
A mountaineer in shirt-sleeves and stockings answered with a look of mild wonder.
“For God's sake come and help me. I must have a doctor quick. We spent the night at Mrs. Owens'. She's lost her mind completely—a terrible thing has happened—you'll help me?”
“Cose I will, honey,” the mountaineer drawled. “Jest ez quick ez I get on my shoes.”
“Is there a doctor near?” she asked breathlessly.
He answered without looking up:
“The best one that God ever sent to a sick bed. He don't charge nobody a cent in these parts. He just heals the sick because hit's his callin'. Come from somewhar up North and built hisself a fine log house up on the side of the mountains. Hit's full of all the medicines in the world, too——”
“Will you ask him to come for me?” Mary broke in.
“I'll jump on my hoss an' have him thar in half a' hour. You can run right back, honey, and look out for the po' ole critter till we get thar.”
“Thank you! Thank you!” she answered grate fully.
“Not at all, not at all!” he protested as he swung through the door and hurried to the low-pitched sheds in which his horse and cow were stabled. “Be thar in no time!”
When Mary returned, Nance was still busy in the kitchen. She had built a fire and put the turkey in the oven.
Mary was counting the minutes now until the doctor should come. The old woman's prattle about the return of her lost boy, so big and strong and handsome, had become unendurable. She felt that she should scream and collapse unless help came at once. She looked at her watch. It was just thirty-five minutes from the time she had left the cabin in the valley below.
She sprang to her feet with a smothered cry of joy. The beat of a horse's hoof at full gallop was ringing down the road.
In two minutes the Doctor's firm footstep was heard at the kitchen door.
Nance turned with a look of glad surprise.
“Well, fur the land sake, ef hit ain't Doctor Mulford! Come right in!” she cried.
The Doctor seized her hand.
“And how is my good friend, Mrs. Owens, this morning?” he asked cheerfully.
Mary was studying him with deep interest. She had asked herself the question a hundred times how much she could tell him—what to say and what to leave unsaid. One glance at his calm, intellectual face was enough. He was a man of striking appearance, six feet tall, forty-five years of age, hair prematurely gray and a slight stoop to his broad shoulders. His brown eyes seemed to enfold the old woman in their sympathy.
Nance was chattering her answer to his greeting.
“Oh, I'm feelin' fine, Doctor—” she dropped her voice confidentially—“and you're just in time for a good dinner. My boy that was lost has come home. He's a great big fellow, wears fine clothes and come up the mountain all the way in a devil wagon.” She put her hand to her mouth. “Sh! He's asleep! We won't wake him till dinner! He's all tired out.”
The Doctor nodded understandingly and turned toward Mary.
“And this young lady?”
“Oh, that's his wife from New York—ain't she purty?”
The Doctor saw the delicate hands trembling and extended his.
No word was spoken. None was needed. There was healing in his touch, healing in his whole being. No man or woman could resist the appeal of his personality. Their secrets were yielded with perfect faith.
“Come with me quickly,” Mary whispered.
“I understand,” he answered carelessly.
Turning again to Nance, he said with easy confidence:
“I'll not disturb you with your cooking, Mrs. Owens. Go right on with it. I'll have a little chat with your son's wife. If she's from New York I want to ask her about some of my people up there——”
“All right,” Nance answered, “but don't you wake HIM! Go with her inter the shed-room.”
“We'll go on tip-toe!” the Doctor whispered.
Nance nodded, smiled and bent again over the oven.
Mary led him quickly through the living-room, head averted from the couch, and into the prison cell in which she had passed the night. The physician glanced with a startled look at the gold still scattered on the floor.
She seized his hand and swayed.
He touched the brown hair of her bared head gently and pressed her hand.
“Steady, now, child, tell me quickly.”
“Yes, yes,” she gasped, “I'll tell you the truth——”
He held her gaze.
“And the whole truth—it's best.”
Mary nodded, tried to speak and failed. She drew her breath and steadied herself, still gripping his hand.
“I will,” she began faintly. “He's dead——”
She paused and nodded toward the living-room.
“The man—her son?”
“Yes. We came last night from Asheville. We were on our honeymoon. We haven't been married but three weeks. I never knew the truth about his life and character until last night when he told me that this old woman was his mother. I found a case of jewels in the bag he carried—jewels that belonged to a man in New York who was robbed and shot. I recognized the case. He confessed to me at last in cold, brutal words that he was a thief. I couldn't believe it at first. I tried to make him give up his criminal career. He laughed at me. He gloried in it. I tried to leave him. He choked me into insensibility and drove me into this cell, where I spent the night. He brought the gold that you saw on the floor which he had honestly made to give to his old mother—but for a devilish purpose. He showed it to her last night to rouse her avarice and make her first agree to hide his stolen goods. He succeeded too well. Before he had revealed himself she slipped into the room at daylight while he slept in a drunken stupor, murdered him and took the money. The struggle waked me and I rushed in. She gripped her knife to kill me. I told her that she had murdered her own son and she went mad——”
She paused for breath and her lips trembled piteously.
“You know what to do, Doctor?”
“Yes!”
“And you'll help me?”
He smiled tenderly and nodded his head.
“God knows you need it, child!”
The nerves snapped at last, and she sank a limp heap at his feet.
The Doctor threw off his coat and took charge of the stricken house. He sent his waiting messenger for a faithful nurse, a mountain woman whom he had trained, and began the fight for Mary's life. The collapse into which she had fallen would require weeks of patient care. There was no immediate danger of death, and while he awaited the arrival of help, he turned into the living-room to examine the body of the slain husband.
The head had fallen backward over the side of the lounge and a pool of blood, still warm and red, lay on the floor in a widening circle beneath it. His quick eye took in its significance at a glance. He sprang forward, ripped the shirt wide open and applied his ear to the breast.
“He's still alive!” he cried excitedly.
He examined the ugly wound in the left side and found that the knife had penetrated the lung. The heart had not been touched. The blow on the neck had not been fatal. The shock of the final stroke had merely choked the wounded man into collapse from the hemorrhage of the left lung. The position into which the body had fallen across the couch had gradually cleared the accumulated blood. There was a chance to save his life.
In ten minutes he had applied stimulants and restored respiration, but the deep wheeze from the stricken lung told only too plainly the dangerous character of the wound. It would be a bitter fight. His enormous vitality might win. The chances were against him.
Jim's lips moved and he tried to speak.
The Doctor placed his hand on his mouth and shook his head. The drooping eyelids closed in grateful obedience.
The beat of horses' hoofs echoed down the mountain road. His nurse and messenger were coming. He decided at once to move Mary to his own house. She must regain consciousness in new surroundings or her chance of survival would be slender. To awake in this miserable cabin, the scene of the tragedy she had witnessed, might be instantly fatal. Besides she must not yet know that the brute who had choked her was alive and might still hold the power of life and death over her frail body. She believed him dead. It was best so. He might be dead and buried before she recovered consciousness. The fever that burned her brain would completely cloud reason for days.
He hastily improvised a stretcher with a blanket and two strong quilting-poles which stood in the corner of the room. Nance helped him without question. She obeyed his slightest suggestion with childlike submission.
He placed Mary on the stretcher, wrapped her body in another warm blanket and turned to his nurse and messenger:
“Carry her to my house. Walk slowly and rest whenever you wish. Don't wake her. Tell Aunt Abbie to put her to bed in the south room overlooking the valley. Don't leave her a minute, Betty. She's in the first collapse of brain fever. You know what to do. I'll be there in an hour. You come back here, John. I want you.”
The mountaineer nodded and seized one end of the stretcher. The nurse took up the other and the Doctor held wide the cabin door as they passed out.
For three weeks he fought the grim battle with Death for the two young lives the Christmas tragedy had thrust into his hands. He gave his entire time day and night to the desperate struggle.
When pneumonia had developed and Jim's life hung by a hair, he slept on the couch in the living-room of the cabin and had Nance make for herself a bed on the floor of the kitchen.
The old woman remained an obedient child. She cooked the Doctor's meals and did the work about the house and yard as if nothing had disturbed her habits of lonely plodding. She believed implicitly all that was told her. Her son had pneumonia from cold he had taken in the long drive from Asheville. The house must be kept quiet. John Sanders was helping her nurse him. She was sure the Doctor would save him.
Even the knife with which she had stabbed him made no impression on her numbed senses. The Doctor had scoured every trace of blood from the blade and put it back in its place on the shelf, lest she should miss it and ask questions. She used it daily without the slightest memory of the frightful story it might tell.
Each morning before going to the cabin the Doctor watched with patience for the first signs of returning consciousness in Mary's fever-wracked body. The day she lifted her grateful eyes to his and her lips moved in a tremulous question he raised his hand gently.
“Sh! Child—don't talk! It's all right. You're getting better. I've been with you every day. You're in my house now. You'll soon be yourself again.”
She smiled wanly, put her delicate hand on his and pressed it gratefully.
“I understand. You thank me—you say that I am good to you. But I'm not. This is my life. I heal the sick because I must. I love this battle royal with Death. He beats me sometimes—but I never quit. I'm always tramping on his trail, and I've won this fight!”
The calm brown eyes held her in a spell and she smiled again.
“Sleep now,” he said soothingly. “Sleep day and night. Just wake to take a little food—that's all and Nature will do the rest.”
He stroked her hand gently until her eyelids closed.
Two days later Jim clung to the Doctor's hand and insisted on talking.
“Better wait a little longer, boy,” the physician answered kindly. “You're not out of the woods yet——”
“I can't wait—Doc——” Jim pleaded. “I've just got to ask you something.”
“All right. You can talk five minutes.”
“My wife, Doc, how is she? You took her to your house, John told me. She'll get well?”
“Yes. She's rapidly recovering now.”
“What does she say about me?”
“She thinks you're dead.”
“You haven't told her?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“She had all she could stand——”
Jim stared in silence.
“You think she'd be sorry to know I am alive?” he asked slowly.
“It would be a great shock.”
The steel blue eyes slowly filled with tears.
“God! I am rotten, ain't I?”
“There's no doubt about that, my son,” was the firm answer.
“Why did you fight so hard to save me—I wonder?”
“An old feud between Death and me.”
Jim suddenly seized the Doctor's hand.
“Say, you can't fool me—you're a good one, Doc. You've been a friend to me and you've got to help now—you've just got to. You're the only one on earth who can. You've a great big heart and you can't go back on a fellow that's down and out. Give me a chance! You will—won't you?”
The hot fingers gripped the Doctor's hand with pleading tenderness.
The brown eyes searched Jim's soul.
“If you can show me it's worth while——”
The fingers tightened their grip in silence.
“Just give me a chance, Doc,” he said at last, “and I'll show you! I ain't never had a chance to really know what was right and what was wrong. If I'd a lived here with my old mother she'd have told me. You know what it is to be a stray dog on the streets of New York? Even then, I'd have kept straight if I hadn't been robbed by a lawyer and his pal. I didn't know what I was doin' till that night here in this cabin—honest to God, I didn't——”
He paused for breath and a tear stole down his cheek. He fought for control of his emotions and went on in low tones.
“I didn't know—till I saw my old mother creepin' on me in the shadows with that big knife gleamin' in her hand! I tried to stop her and I couldn't. I tried to yell and strangled with blood. I saw the flames of hell in her eyes and I had kindled them there—God! I never knew until that minute! I'm broken and bruised lyin' on the rocks now in the lowest pit—— Give me your hand, Doc! You're my only friend—I'm goin' straight from now on—so help me God!”
He paused again for breath and sought the actor's eyes.
“You'll stand by me, won't you?”
A friendly grip closed on the trembling fingers.
“Yes—I'll help you—if I can.”
Mary was resting in the chair beneath the southern windows of the sun-parlor of the Doctor's bungalow. He had built his home of logs cut from the mountainside. Its rooms were supplied with every modern convenience and comfort. Clear spring water from the cliff above poured into the cypress tank constructed beneath the roof. An overflow pipe sent a sparkling, bubbling and laughing through the lawn, refreshing the wild flowers planted along its edges.
The view from the window looking south was one of ravishing beauty and endless charm. Perched on a rising spur of the Black Mountain the house commanded a view of the long valley of the Swannanoa opening at the lower end into the wide, sunlit sweep of the lower hills around Asheville. Upward the balsam-crowned peaks towered among the clouds and stars.
No two hours of the day were just alike. Sometimes the sun was raining showers of diamonds on the trembling tree-tops of the valleys while the blackest storm clouds hung in ominous menace around Mount Mitchell and the Cat-tail. Sometimes it was raining in the valley—the rain cloud a level sheet of gray cloth stretching from the foot of the lawn across to the crags beyond, while the sun wrapped the little bungalow in a warm, white mantle.
Mary had never tired of this enchanted world during the days of her convalescence. The Doctor, with firm will, had lifted every care from her mind. She had gratefully submitted to his orders, and asked no questions.
She began to wonder vaguely about his life and people and why he had left the world in which a man of his culture and power must have moved, to bury himself in these mountain wilds. She wondered if he had married, separated from his wife and chosen the life of a recluse. He volunteered no information about himself.
When not attending his patients he spent his hours in the greenhouse among his flowers or in the long library extension of the bungalow. More than five thousand volumes filled the solid shelves. A massive oak table, ten feet in length and four feet wide, stood in the center of the room, always generously piled with books, magazines and papers. At the end of this table he kept the row of books which bore immediately on the theme he was studying.
Beside the window opening on the view of the valley stood his old-fashioned desk—six feet long, its top a labyrinth of pigeon-holes and tiny drawers.
He pursued his studies with boyish enthusiasm and chattered of them to Mary by the hour—with never a word passing his lips about himself.
Aunt Abbie, the cook, brought her a cup of tea, and Mary volunteered a question.
“Do you know the Doctor's people, Auntie?” she asked hesitatingly.
“Lord, child, he's a mystery to everybody! All we know is that he's the best man that ever walked the earth. He won't talk and the mountain folks are too polite to nose into his business. He saved my boy's life one summer, and when he was strong and well and went back to Asheville to his work, I had nothin' to do but to hold my hands, and I come here to cook for him. He tries to pay me wages but I laugh at him. I told him if he could save my boy's life for nothin' I reckon I could cook him a few good meals without pay——”
Her eyes filled with tears. She brushed them off, laughed and added:
“He lets me alone now and don't pester me no more about money.”
Her tea and toast finished, Mary placed the tray on the table, rose with a sudden look of pain, and made her way slowly to the library.
A warm fire of hardwood logs sparkled in the big stone fireplace. The Doctor was out on a visit to a patient. He had given her the freedom of the place and had especially insisted that she use his books and make his library her resting place whenever her mind was fagged. She had spent many quiet hours in its inspiring atmosphere.
She seated herself at his desk and studied the calendar which hung above it. A sudden terror overwhelmed her; she buried her face in her arms and burst into tears.
She was still lying across the desk, sobbing, when the Doctor walked into the room.
He touched her hair reproachfully with his firm hand.
“Why, what's this? My little soldier has disobeyed orders?”
“I don't want to live now,” she sobbed.
“And why not?”
“I—I—am going to be a mother,” she whispered.
“So?”
“The mother of a criminal! Oh, Doctor, it's horrible! Why did you let me live? The hell I passed through that night was enough—God knows! This will be unendurable. I've made up my mind—I'll die first——”
“Rubbish, child! Rubbish!” he answered with a laugh. “Where did you get all this misinformation?”
“You know what my husband was. How can you ask?”
“Because I happen to know also his wife—the mother-to-be of this supposed criminal who has just set sail for the shores of our planet—and I know that she is one of the purest and sweetest souls who ever lost her way in the jungles of the world. If you were the criminal, dear heart, the case might be hopeless. But you're not. You are only the innocent victim of your own folly. That doesn't count in the game of Nature——”
“What do you mean?” she asked breathlessly.
“Simply this: The part which the male plays in the reproduction of the race is small in comparison with the role of the female. He is merely a supernumerary who steps on the stage for a moment and speaks one word announcing the arrival of the queen. The queen is the mother. She plays the star role in the drama of Heredity. She is never off the stage for a single moment. We inherit the most obvious physical traits from our male ancestors but even these may be modified by the will of the mother.”
“Modified by the will of the mother?” she repeated blankly.
“Certainly. There are yet long days and weeks and months before your babe will be born—at least seven months. There's not a sight or sound of earth or heaven that can reach or influence this coming human being save through your eyes and ears and touch and soul. Almighty God can speak His message only through you. You are his ambassador on earth in this solemn hour. What your husband was, is of little importance. There is not a moment, waking or sleeping, day or night, that does not bring to you its divine opportunity. This human life is yours—absolutely to mold and fashion in body and mind as you will.”
“You're just saying this to keep me from suicide,” Mary interrupted.
“I am telling you the simplest truth of physical life. You can even change the contour of your baby's head if you like. You think in your silly fears that the bull neck and jaw of the father will reappear in the child. It might be so unless you see fit to change it. All any father can do is to transmit general physical traits unless modified by the will of the mother.”
“You mean that I can choose even the personal appearance of my child?” she asked in blank amazement.
“Exactly that. Choose the type of man you wish your babe to be and it shall be so. Who in all the world would you prefer that he resemble?”
“You,” she answered promptly.
He smiled gently.
“That pays me for all my trouble, child! No doctor ever got a bigger fee than that. Banks may fail, but I'll never lose it. Your choice simplifies that matter very much. You won't need a picture in your room——”
“A picture could determine the features of an unborn babe?” she asked incredulously.
“Beyond a doubt, and it will determine character sometimes. I knew a mother in the mountains of Vermont who hung the picture of a ship under full sail in her living-room. She bore seven sons. Not one of them ever saw the ocean until he was grown and yet all of them became sailors. This was not an accident. In her age and loneliness she blamed God for taking her children from her. Yet she had made sailors of them all by the selection of a single piece of furniture in her room. Nature has a way of starting her children on their journey through this world very nearly equal—each a bundle of possibilities in the hands of a mother. A father may transmit physical disease, if his body is unsound. Such marriages should be prohibited by law. But nine-tenths of the spiritual traits out of which character is formed are the work of the mother. A criminal mother will bring into the world only criminals. A criminal male may be the father of a saint. The responsibility of shaping the destiny of the race rests with the mother——”
The Doctor sprang to his feet and paced the floor, his arms gripped behind his back in deep thought. He paused before the enraptured listener and hesitated to speak the thought in his mind.
He lifted his hand suddenly, his decision apparently made.
“It is of the utmost importance to the race that our mothers shall be pure. Better certainly if both father and mother are so. It is indispensable that the mother shall be! On this elemental fact rests the dual standard of sex morals. On this fact rests the hope of a glorified humanity through the development of an intelligent motherhood. Stay here with me until your child is born and I'll prove the truth of every word I've spoken——”
“Oh, if I only could!”
“Why not?”
“I couldn't impose such a burden on you!” she faltered.
“You would confer on me the highest honor, if you will allow me to direct you in this experiment.”
There was no mistaking his honesty and earnestness. There was no refusing the appeal.
“You really wish me to stay?” she asked.
“I beg of you to stay! You will bring to me a new inspiration—new faith—new courage to fight. Will you?”
She extended her hand.
“Yes.”
“And you will agree to follow my instructions?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good. We begin from this moment. I give you my first orders. Forget that James Anthony ever lived. Forget the tragedy of Christmas Eve. You are going to be a mother. All other events in life pale before this fact. God has conferred on you the highest honor He can give to mortal. Keep your soul serene, your body strong. You are to worry about nothing——”
“I must pay you for this extra expense I impose, Doctor. I have a thousand dollars in bank in New York,” she interrupted.
“Certainly, if you will be happier. My home is now your sanitarium. You are my patient. Your board will cost me about eight dollars a week. All right. You can pay that if you wish.
“Take no thought now except on the business of being a mother. I will make myself your father, your brother, your guardian, your physician, your friend and companion. I will give you at once a course of reading. You are to think only beautiful thoughts, see beautiful things, dream beautiful dreams, hear beautiful music. I'm going to make you climb these mountain peaks with me for the next three months and live among the clouds. I'm going to refit your room with new furniture and pictures and place in it a phonograph with the best music. When you are strong enough you can work for me three hours a day as my secretary. You use the typewriter?”
“I'm an expert——”
“Good! I'm writing a book which I'm going to call `The Rulers of the World.' It is a study of Motherhood. I am one who believes that the redemption of humanity awaits the realization by woman of her divine call. When woman knows that she is really a co-creator with God in the reproduction of the race, a new era will dawn for mankind. You promise me faithfully to obey my instructions?”
“Faithfully.”
“You're a wonderful subject on which to make an experiment. You are young—in the first dawn of the glory of womanhood. Your body is beautiful, your mind singularly pure and sweet. You must give me at once the full power of your will in its concentration on Truth and Beauty. The success or failure of this experiment will depend almost entirely on your mentality and the use you make of it during these months in which your babe is being formed. Whatever the shape of the body there is one eternal certainty—only YOUR mind can reach the soul of this child. If the father were the veriest fiend who ever existed and should concentrate his mind to the task, not one thought from his darkened soul could reach your babe! YOUR mind will be the ever-brooding, enfolding spirit forming and fashioning character.”
He paused and his deep brown eyes flashed with enthusiasm.
“Think of it! You are now creating an immortal being whose word may bend a million wills to his. And you are doing this mighty work solely by your mind. The physical processes are simple and automatic.
“The first lesson you must learn and hold with deathless grip is that thoughts are things. A thought can kill the body. A thought can heal the body. If I am successful as a physician it is because I use this power with my patients. With some I use drugs, with others none. With all I use every ounce of mental power which God has given me. You will remember this?”
“Yes.”
He walked to the shelves and drew down a volume of poetry.
“Read these poems until you are tired today—then sleep. I'll give you a good novel tomorrow and when you've read it, a volume of philosophy. When we climb the peaks, I'll give you a study of these rocks that will tell you the story of their birth, their life, and their coming death. We'll learn something of the birds and flowers next spring. We'll dream great dreams and think great thoughts—you and I—in these wonderful days and weeks and months which God shall give us together.”
She looked up at him through her tears:
“Oh, Doctor, you have not only saved a miserable life: you have saved my soul!”
It was more than a month after the experiment began before the Doctor ventured to hint of Jim's survival. He had waited patiently until Mary's strength had been fully restored and her mind filled with the new enthusiasm for motherhood. He could tell her now with little risk. And yet he ventured on the task with reluctance. He found her seated at her favorite window overlooking the deep blue valley of the Swannanoa, a volume of poetry in her lap.
He touched her shoulder and she smiled in cheerful response.
“You are content?” he asked.
“A strange peace is slowly stealing into my heart,” she responded reverently. “I shall learn to love life again when my baby comes to help me.”
“You remember your solemn promise?”
“Have I not kept it?” she murmured.
“Faithfully—and I remind you of it that you may not forget today for a moment that your work is too high and holy to allow a shadow to darken your spirit even for an hour. I have something to tell you that may shock a little unless I warn you——”
She lifted her eyes with a quick look of uneasiness, and studied his immovable face.
“You couldn't guess?” he laughed.
She shook her head in puzzled silence.
“Suppose I were to tell you,” he went on evenly, “that I found a spark of life in your husband's body that morning and drew him back from the grave?”
Her eyes closed and she stretched her hand toward the Doctor.
He clasped the fingers firmly between both his palms, held and stroked them gently.
“You did save him?” she breathed.
“Yes.”
“Thank God his poor old mother is not a murderer! But he is dead to me. I shall never see him again—never!”
“I thought you would feel that way,” the Doctor quietly replied.
“You won't let him come here?” she asked suddenly.
“He won't try unless you consent——”
Mary shuddered.
“You don't know him——”
The Doctor smiled.
“I'm afraid you don't know him now, my child.”
“He has changed?”
“The old, old miracle over again. He has been literally born again—this time of the spirit.”
“It's incredible!”
“It's true. He's a new man. I think his reformation is the real thing. He's young. He's strong. He has brains. He has personality——”
Mary lifted her hand.
“All I ask of him is to keep out of my sight. The world is big enough for us both. The past is now a nightmare. If I live to be a hundred years old, with my dying breath I shall feel the grip of his fingers on my throat——”
She paused and closed her eyes.
“Forget it! Forget it!” the Doctor laughed. “We have more important things to think of now.”
“He wishes to see me?”
“Begs every day that I ask you.”
“And you have hesitated these long weeks?”
“Your strength and peace of mind were of greater importance than his happiness, my dear. Let him wait until you please to see him.”
“He'll wait forever,” was the firm answer.
Jim smiled grimly when his friend bore back the message.
“I'll never give up as long as there's breath in my body,” he cried, bringing his square jaws together with a snap.
“That's the way to talk, my boy,” the Doctor responded.
“Anyhow you believe in me, Doc, don't you?”
“Yes.”
“And you'll help me a little on the way if it gets dark—won't you?”
“If I can—you may always depend on me.”
Jim clasped his outstretched hand gratefully.
“Well, I'm going to make good.”
There was something so genuine and manly in the tones of his voice, he compelled the Doctor's respect. A smaller man might have sneered. The healer of souls and bodies had come to recognize with unerring instinct the true and false note in the human voice.
His heart went out in a wave of sympathy for the lonely, miserable young animal who stood before him now, trembling with the first sharp pains of the immortal thing that had awaked within. He slipped his arm about Jim's shoulders and whispered:
“I'll tell you something that may help you when the way gets dark—the wife is going to bear you a child.”
“No!”
“Yes.”
“God!—— That's great, ain't it?”
Jim choked into silence and looked up at the Doctor with dimmed eyes.
“Say, Doc, you hit me hard when you brought what she said—but that's good news! Watch me work my hands to the bone—you know it's my kid and she can't keep me from workin' for it if she tries now can she?”
“No.”
“There's just one thing that'll hang over me like a black cloud,” he mused sorrowfully.
“I know, boy—your mother's darkened mind.”
Jim nodded.
“When I see that queer glitter in her eyes it goes through me like a knife. Will she ever get over it?”
“We can't tell yet. It takes time. I believe she will.”
“You'll do the best you can for her, Doc?” he pleaded pathetically. “You won't forget her a single day? If you can't cure her, nobody can.”
“I'll do my level best, boy.”
Jim pressed his hand again.
“Gee, but you've been a friend to me! I didn't know that there were such men in the world as you!”
For six months the Doctor watched the transplanted child of the slums grow into a sturdy manhood in his new environment. He snapped at every suggestion his friend gave and with quick wit improved on it. He not only discovered and developed a mica mine on his mother's farm, he invented new machinery for its working that doubled the market output. Within six weeks from the time he began his shipments the mine was paying a steady profit of more than five hundred dollars a month. He had made just one trip to New York and secretly returned to the police every stolen jewel and piece of plunder taken, with a full confession of the time and place of the crime. He had shipped his tools and machinery from the workshop on the east side before his sensational act and made good his departure for the South.
The tools and machinery he installed in a new workshop which he built in the yard of Nance's cabin. Here he worked day and night at his blacksmith forge making the iron hinges, and irons, shovels, tongs, fire sets and iron work complete for a log bungalow of seven rooms which he was building on the sunny slope of the mountain which overlooks the valley toward Asheville.
The Doctor had lent Jim the blue-prints of his own home and he was quietly duplicating it with loving care. His wife might refuse to see him but he could build a home for their boy. For his sake she couldn't refuse it.
With childlike obedience Nance followed him every day and watched the workmen rear the beautiful structure under Jim's keen eyes and skillful hands. The man's devotion to his mother was pathetic. Only the Doctor knew the secret of his pitiful care, and he kept his own counsel.