She was no exception among the women of her sort; newspapers made uninteresting reading. She looked first with a slight distrust at the flaring headlines on the front page, then turned to the social notes. Those exhausted, an advertisement or two caught her attention; and then there seemed to leap at her the words: "TOBET FREE." She read, almost at a glance, the short paragraph which followed.
"The Federal authorities have failed to obtain sufficient evidence to convict Joseph Tobet, of Long Mountain, of the charge of illicitly distilling the so-called 'White Lightning.' Tobet had been under suspicion for some months, and was arrested last October, but the charge against him has been dismissed, and the man was set at liberty yesterday."
The paper dropped to her feet. She wondered what effect this would have upon Grace, and remembered the note of warning. But, just from New York as she was, such doubts or fears seemed too utterly trivial to be of account. Joe might threaten, Doctor Ogilvie might shake his head, and Grace, poor soul, might tremble; but the arm of the law was, after all, a sure protection. There was really nothing that Joe could do; and she dismissed the thought of him for the more welcome one of Ogilvie.
The day before, her impatience had been boundless. She had not doubted that she should seek him out at once, as the most courageous thing to do, tell him what Pendleton had said, and of Flood's absence in the West; that, she told herself, would surely be enough. He would then understand.
But to-day, as she drew nearer the end of her journey, her resolution faltered. He had been stupid; his doubts had wronged her; his restraint, if such it had been, was unfair to them both, and had stolen something from their love which there would never be time enough to replace. It was not the woman's part to offer apologies; it was the man's part to have faith, or, at the very worst, to seek explanation. If he could so deny himself, if her love was so small a thing to him that he could bring himself to do without it, was it for her to urge it upon him?
Her revulsion of feeling went still farther. Life, she told herself, was after all pretty much the same, wherever it was lived. To give happiness to Eleanor and Tim, to care for Yetta—that was what had justified her spending the winter in the mountains; she could have done as much in town. If she had not found sincerity of purpose and singleness of aim among her earlier friends, it was because she had not learned to look for it. She had only chosen the easier part, not the higher; it was easier to be sincere and simple in the mountains than in town where life was more crowded. It was she who had been at fault in not finding in the old life what was more plainly to be seen in the new; she was so small a creature that she could not reach high purpose through confusing interventions, but must have it laid before her in bareness and singleness. And what was, in truth, her feeling for this man who could so readily doubt her, or, at the very least of his offending, hold himself aloof from her through any consideration whatever? Aside from his belief in her baseness, had he not been willing to sacrifice her for his friend? Would not love, such love as she felt herself worthy of receiving, have put aside without a thought of misgiving anything and everything but the glory and necessity of its own demands?
All the way her mind was busy with such problems of its own making. The journey seemed long. She told herself that her impatience was only to end it, to reassure herself by the sight of him; yet the impatience was there. It was mid-afternoon when she alighted, remembering her last return. She wondered whether White Rosy would be there, and bent, on her way down the car, to look along the platform.
But the only familiar form was the important person who combined the functions of station master, storekeeper and retailer of news. He grinned when he saw her, and came towards her with unusual alacrity.
"Well, I declare," he said, "got the news a'ready, have ye? Bad news sho'ly does travel fast!"
She stood still and looked at him. His eyes brightened still more when he perceived that he was to be the first to inform her.
"Why, ain't ye heard?" he cried. "Yer house was burnt down to the groun' las' night. Thought ye was in it, the doctor did. That's how he so nigh got killed."
There are some hours of human experience so intense with suffering that they return, again and again, living themselves over in the memory, arising in the small hours of the night—haunting specters of pain, meeting us unexpectedly in an unguarded moment of solitude to open and reopen the wounds they have left, following us on through the years with a recurring vindictiveness of pain almost as keen as when it was first inflicted. Joy, happiness, exaltation of spirit, return only in new guises; they, too, make their impression upon the memory, but otherwise. The shock of loss, the agony of parting, the fear and dread of the suffering of loved ones, the bitterness of self-reproach, the message of loss—these are the things that return and return again; and of such as these were the hours of that afternoon to Rosamund. Not only on that first night, once more in the small upper room at Mother Cary's, but often and often during her after life did the shock and agony of those hours return to her.
Past the form of the station master, gloating in his satisfaction at being the first to tell her the evil news, she had seen Father Cary's familiar form descending from his wagon. She scarcely remarked his surprise at her being there, his disappointment that Doctor Blake and the nurse had not come on that train, his helping her into the wagon, and his description of the events of the night before. The drive past the dull little houses and the store, the closed cottages, the big hotels with their uncurtained windows staring like eyeless sockets, the woods, the glimpses of the path where she had faced John Ogilvie; the turn at last toward the brown cottage she had come to love so dearly; the blackened, smoking hole that alone remained of it; then the half mile farther to the house where Ogilvie lay—those were the moments of most intense pain, because of their suspense.
The story was simple enough. The little household had gone to bed early, and toward midnight Grace had awakened with a whispering fear of smoke. She roused the others, and Eleanor had bundled sleepy Tim in blankets, thrown other bed covering out of a window, and gone quietly down with Grace. Matt and Sue, wild with fear, rushed out ahead of them, shouting, and their cries aroused the nearest neighbors. Country folk come quickly to a fire, although there is seldom anything to do but watch and surmise; a small crowd gathered in an incredibly short time, and a few things were rescued from the blazing house. In spite of the pleading of the women, Grace stayed to watch the flames, wringing her hands, and calling Rosamund's name. Eleanor was half frantic herself, with the alternate efforts at calming Timmy and beseeching Grace to go away. But Grace, loving and faithful, was crying at the loss of the house and the things in it that had seemed to her so beautiful, and that were so dear because they belonged to Rosamund. She could not be persuaded to leave, but stood wringing her hands and saying, over and over,
"Oh, Miss Rose! Oh, Miss Rose!"
"A small crowd gathered in an incredibly short time.""A small crowd gathered in an incredibly short time."
After the first alarm, Aunt Sue became calm enough to tell the questioners that all were safe, that Miss Randall and Yetta were in New York. But the man who was urging White Rosy up the long road from the valley, the man who, at last, came running, stumbling, panting up to the little band of watchers, who heard Grace Tobet calling a beloved name and sobbing, did not wait for explanation. He looked among them for one face, and found it missing; then he rushed into the blazing house.
There were brave men who, for the sake of all he had done for their women and children, went after him; there were strong arms to bear him to the nearest shelter, and loving hands to tend him. It was not long before Mother Cary came, bundled up in the wagon beside her big husband, to take command of everything.
So short and simple a story of a ruin so great! Rosamund sat dumbly in the kitchen of the little house where Ogilvie lay, while Mother Cary told her, braced beside her on the little padded crutch, her tender old hands smoothing the girl's hair, the sweet old voice speaking words of courage and hope.
"Pap's done telegraphed for Doctor Blake," she said, "him that's his friend, him that sent Yetta up here. He's an eye doctor, but he'll know everything to do for everything else as well. We reckoned he'd come on this train. That's how come Pap was there to meet it. Howsomever, he'll be here before the day's out, you mark me; an' he'll say jest what I'm sayin'—John ain't goin' to die. He's a goin' to get well."
Rosamund looked up at her, and the old woman understood. "I wouldn't, ef I was you, darlin', honey! No, now don't ye go thinkin' that a way; it ain't that he's burnt so bad, 'cause he ain't. Hair grows quick, an' that did get sco'ched a leetle mite. I reckon all ails him is thet he breathed in the smoke."
Half-remembered tales of horror passed through the girl's mind, and she hid her face in her hands.
"Oh, well, honey, ef you goin' to take on about it, maybe you better jest come to the door and peek in at him. I guess when all's said an' done you got more right than anybody else."
"Ah, no," Rosamund cried, "no, I have not!"
But Mother Cary touched her cheek. "Honey, he wouldn't 'a' gone into the house that a way ef so be it he hadn't 'a' thought all he loved best in the world was there. A body don't go into flames for nothin'! An' it wasn't no ways like the doctor to lose his head—now was it? You come right along in here with yo' Ma Cary."
As long as she lived Rosamund could recall that room—the dingy white walls, the oval braided rug upon the floor; the tiny looking-glass and little corner washstand; the bureau with its characteristic assortment of shaving things, a stethoscope and a small photograph in a plush frame of a woman dressed in the fashion of thirty years before; the bedstead of turned yellow wood, the bright patchwork quilt over the feather-bed—and Ogilvie's form lying there, his flushed face, his heavy breathing, his restless hands.
The woman who was watching beside his bed arose, and Rosamund crossed the narrow space. She bent over him a little, put out her hand, but shrank back, restrained perhaps by the fear of an emotion which threatened to be too strong for her.
She turned, went blindly from the little room, and Pa Cary led her out to the wagon. If he talked to her on the way to his house she did not hear him. Tim saw them coming, and ran to meet her. The pressure of his warm little arms about her neck, in the "tight squeeze" that he usually reserved for Eleanor, did more than anything else to bring her back to a normal state of mind.
But after his first embrace, Tim wanted to go to the stable with Father Cary. Eleanor was standing in the little familiar doorway, under the overhanging roof made by the upper floor. She waited, as if spell-bound, while Rosamund walked slowly up the path to the house; it was the look on the girl's face that held her back, for her heart was reaching out in sympathy. At last Rosamund stood before her, and they looked into each other's eyes; then Eleanor opened her arms wide, and with a sob drew Rosamund to her.
"Oh, my sweet, my Rose!" she cried, her tears on Rosamund's cold cheek. "I knew! I knew! I knew it was John! But he'll get well, darling. He will live for your sake!"
But Rosamund went past her into the house, looked about the little familiar room as if she had never seen it before, and seated herself in a chair near the table.
Eleanor took off her hat and unfastened her coat as if she had been a child, instead of the stricken woman that she was; Rosamund looked up at her in a dumb agony of appeal.
Eleanor repeated the story she had already heard from Father Cary; at the end she paused, hesitated, and said,
"But there is one thing more that you've got to know, Rose. The house was set on fire."
Rosamund looked up at her, as if waiting.
"Oh, don't look like that, my darling! Try to understand! Someone set fire to the house—it's so cruel to have to tell you!"
Suddenly Rosamund's face changed from its blankness to a look of horror.
"Then—if—I—had gone away, as he wanted me to—Oh! Eleanor, then he would not—"
But Eleanor's arms were around her. "Don't, Rosamund! Don't let yourself do that! There's not one of us could live and be sane, if we dwelt on our 'ifs'!"
"But it is true!"
"It is not true. It is not! Because there was no 'if'; there could not have been! You had to stay; you had to obey your own reasoning, not his. We all have to decide for ourselves. It is when we don't, that we get into trouble. I can assure you of that, I of all others. I married because I was told it was the best thing to do—but you must forget I told you that!"
At least it brought Rosamund to a thought of something else. "Eleanor!" she exclaimed, her hand reaching out towards her friend.
But it was not the moment for Eleanor to think of herself. "Rose, listen to me," she said. "Someone set fire to the house. There is no doubt of that. Now you will have to make up your mind what to do—there will have to be an inquiry, they say."
"Why?"
"Why? Because the people who look after those things will want to find out who did it. They will want to fix the blame."
"But I don't understand! It is my house! What difference does it make to anyone else?"
"And you don't care?"
Rosamund arose, and mercifully burst into tears. "Oh, Eleanor!" she sobbed, "how can you ask me that? Do you think I care for the mere loss of a few sticks and stones and things, when he——"
Again Eleanor's comforting arms were around her, and Eleanor's hand on her hair. "Oh, you darling! I knew you'd say that! I knew you would! They cannot do anything without your consent!"
Apparently in relief from some doubt or fear, she even laughed. Rosamund looked at her in amazement.
"What on earth do you mean?" she began.
But before there could be time for explanation the door opened, and Father Cary brought his little wife into the room in his arms, and set her down in a chair.
Mother Cary always brought an atmosphere of happiness with her, but this time, it seemed to Rosamund, she was also the personification of all that was angelic and beautiful, a messenger of hope, a bearer of glad tidings.
"Well," she began, as soon as Pap had set her down and unbundled her, "they come! My, that young woman knows jest how to go about things! I been nursin' all my life, seems like, and that girl can't be more than twenty-five; but the way she took a holt o' things did beat me! My! I wasn't one bit worried at leavin' him with her, not one bit! An' Doctor Blake's goin' to set up all night."
She smiled into Rosamund's beseeching eyes.
"Doctor Blake says they ain't a doubt but he'll be all right in no time!" she said, and mentally asked forgiveness for stretching the truth. "He says his eyes ain't hurt a bit, far as he can tell, an' it's only the smoke got into them, that's all. An' anybody knows that ain't much! Land! Think how many smokin' chimblys there be, an' nobody givin' a thought to 'em!"
It was not until after supper, when Tim had been sent to bed, rather joyful than otherwise in his excitement over the return to the Carys', and Eleanor was trying to put him to sleep by telling him a story, that Rosamund went upstairs to the room that had been Yetta's, to be alone with her thoughts. She was never one of those, usually members of a large family, who can take council with themselves while others are in the room; she needed solitude, if she would adjust herself and set the chambers of her mind in order. Now she had much to think of, for the events of the past three days had been incongruous enough. She smiled as she remembered that, scarcely forty-eight hours before, she had been sitting in an opera box listening to Pendleton's inanities; but there was no smile when she thought of Ogilvie.
Presently she was aware, through the silence, of a timid hand on the door. She had scarcely had time to do more than speak to Grace, who had sat, through the earlier part of the evening, as if turned to stone; now something told her she was there.
Grace, white and wan, came over the threshold and threw her arms about her friend, resting her head on Rosamund's shoulder. For a few moments they stood so, clasped in the sympathy that women convey to each other in that silent manner. Then Grace released herself a little, looked into Rosamund's face, and whispered.
"Miss Rose, he did it!"
Rosamund's thoughts had been of Ogilvie alone; for a moment she did not understand. Then Eleanor's words came back to her; and all the while she protested, she knew the truth of what Grace said.
But, out of pity, protest she must. "Oh, no, Grace! No! Don't think that! Don't let yourself think it!"
But Grace, even whiter than before, met her eyes steadily. "I don't have to think it," she said, quietly. "I know it. You know it, too."
At the agony in the poor creature's eyes Rosamund forgot all her own. "No," she cried, almost aloud. Their lowered voices in the silence of the house seemed to add to the horror of it. "No, I do not know, and neither do you! Don't say it, Grace. Don't think it. Grace! Oh, my poor, dear Grace!"
But Grace shook her head impatiently, as if it were not the time for sympathy. She clasped Rosamund's two hands, looked at her intently, and said, "Miss Rose, I tell you I don't have to think; I know!"
Rosamund gasped, but Grace went on. "I saw him from my window, an' Rob Tobet and Nels' Dunn were with him. They were skulkin' in the shadow, but I made 'em out. It was the first time I'd seen Joe, since—the first time, and to see him that a way!"
"Grace!" Rosamund cried. Grace might have held her hand in a flame, and seemed to suffer less. Rosamund thought it was more than she could bear to witness. But Grace went on ruthlessly,
"They were watchin' and watchin' the house; an' after a while I saw Joe wavin' his arms at the other two, an' then they went off. It wasn't very long after that—maybe half an hour or so—that I smelled smoke. An', Miss Rose, when we got down an' out, I saw what nobody else seemed to take any notice of—I saw three corners of the house all blazin' up at the same time."
Rosamund had drawn her down to the side of the bed; now Grace paused, grasped Rosamund's hand, bent towards her, and whispered, hoarsely,
"Miss Rose, houses don't catch on fire that a way less'n somebody sets 'em!"
They looked at each other mutely for what seemed an eternity, sharing and accepting the horrid significance of it. At last Rosamund, shaking off the spell with a sharp indrawing of the breath, drew Grace to her, held her, everything else forgotten save that here was an agony greater than her own.
For a long hour they sat there talking, planning. Grace was torn between her sense of righteousness and her love for Joe, fanned anew as it was by his present need of her protection.
"I thought I had stopped carin' for him," she whispered. "But this—this ain't like the—other thing—you know what I mean. That didn't hurt anybody but himself, and it wasn't anybody else's business, not the Gov'ment's nor anybody's. But this is different. They—they hang for this, I reckon!"
Rosamund shuddered. "Grace, no one must know of it! No one must know!"
"I heard Pap Cary say they was to be an inquiry."
"It is my house. I can stop anything of that sort. I have no insurance on it, and there will be no one to press the inquiry if I don't. No one must know, Grace."
For a moment Grace looked at her. Then she said, "But what if—hedies?"
Rosamund had forgotten her own anxiety in Grace's. Now, with a little moan of pain, she hid her face in her hands.
"That's the way," Grace whispered, hopelessly. "You're bound to see it different, when it's your own man."
They sat in silence for a while, each so occupied with thoughts of her own love as to forget all else. Presently Grace stood up, as if to admit that there was nothing further to be said. "Well," she sighed hopelessly.
But Rosamund stood up, too, and laid her hands on Grace's shoulders.
"No matter what happens, Grace, nobody must know that Joe was so much as seen near there."
"But supposin' Doctor Ogilvie——?"
"Not even then," Rosamund said, with white, trembling lips. "He has given all his thought to saving life. Do you think he would want—? No!"
But Grace shook her head. "I think Mis' Reeves suspicions," she said.
"She does," Rosamund said, "and she has already been warning me against the investigation. I know she wants to shield Joe."
But Grace's conscience was made all the keener by her reawakened love. "Well, I'm goin' to tell Ma Cary," she said. "She knows more'n all of us put together."
They stopped at Eleanor's door, and the three found Mother Cary alone in the room that was kitchen and dining-room and confessional, as need arose. Pap had gone back to the doctor's house, too anxious to remain away.
Mother Cary heard all Grace had to tell, asked a few questions of her and Eleanor, then sat with her worn old hands clasped in her lap, thinking it over. Grace's attitude was one of hopeless waiting. Rosamund watched her, pitying; grief brings no outward beauty to the lowly, she thought, yet much—how much—of that beauty of soul which perishes not!
At last Mother Cary spoke. "Miss Rose is right," she said, looking at Grace. "Nobody must know what we know 'ceptin' jest our own selves. I wouldn't even say a word of it to Pap; 'cause the better men folks be, the more they hold on to the letter o' the law. An' fur as I can make out, this here is one o' the times when the letter o' the law is better forgotten. Tellin' on Joe ain't goin' to help Doctor Ogilvie any, that I can see, nor anybody else; an' there's jest a chanct that keepin' silence may help Joe."
"But Joe did it," Grace said. "I reckon he's man enough to take his punishment."
"I reckon he is," Mother Cary agreed. "He's a-takin' it right this minute, too, knowing what his act has done to the doctor. I sure do believe that's all the punishmint Joe needs. The other kind would be different, 'cause what he's done is done. I ain't never had time to puzzle out the whys an' whyfors o' lots o' things, punishmint among 'em; but one thing I know, an' have known ever sence the dear Lord entrusted me with little child'en o' my own. When punishmint is jest hittin' back, it don't do anybody a mite o' good. Less'n it helps 'em not to do it again, it ain't any use whatsoever. Better jest leave it in the hands o' the dear Lord, Who sees further'n we can, ef you ain't sure it's goin' to help, not hender. An' tellin' on Joe ain't goin' to help the doctor nor Joe neither, 'cause Joe ain't the kind that punishmint helps."
Again there was a silence, until Grace moved a little, unclasped and clasped her hands, and spoke. "I must go back to my own house," she said.
Rosamund, startled, was about to protest, but Mother Cary nodded. "Of course," she said, "he'll be needin' you awful bad now, honey."
And in spite of Rosamund's pleading, Grace refused Eleanor's offer to go with her, and took her way, alone, through the night, down the mountain, to her dark, lonely little house. Afterward, Rosamund often marveled at Mother Cary's allowing it, even urging it, for usually she was the gentlest of souls, protecting everyone, careful of everyone's comfort; and surely Grace was now in no condition to go.
But no more than Grace herself did Mother Cary hesitate. She hobbled about the kitchen, packing a little basket of food; she had Eleanor bring in one of Pap's lanterns, and lighted it; she bade Rosamund make Grace some tea, and forced the trembling creature to drink it; and at last she opened the door for her.
Grace started out, but came back into the room to kiss them, and they saw that she was smiling; it had been long since poor Grace had smiled!
"I'll go up to my chamber and wave the lantern when I get there, ef all's well," she told them. "An' I can always see your light, Ma Cary!"
They watched, standing shivering in the doorway, until her lantern disappeared at the bend of the road. Tim, aroused by their voices, cried out, and Eleanor went to him.
Mother Cary and Rosamund began to straighten the room, putting away the boxes and pails that had been opened for Grace's basket. Rosamund was so intent on her thoughts that she would not have noticed that her own cheeks were wet, if she had not seen Mother Cary's eyes brimming with tears. After a while she cried,
"Oh, I don't see how she can walk that far, and at night, too! Why wouldn't you let her wait for Pa Cary?"
The old woman shook her head. "Honey," she said, "ef all is as I make it out to be, Grace won't go all that way alone and un'tended. The woods around here have years an' eyes, an' ef her foot stumbles, there'll be someone there to hold her up, you mark my words."
"Oh, she is not strong enough!" the girl still protested.
Then Mother Cary leaned towards her, took the white hand in both her own, and asked, "Honey, ef 'twasyourman, wouldn'tyougo?"
Rosamund threw back her head with a sob, and Mother Cary opened her arms.
Fortunately for Rosamund the succeeding days were so busy that she had but little time to be alone with her thoughts of Ogilvie. The morning after Grace's departure, Father Cary had come home with disquieting news. Pneumonia had set in; but Doctor Blake would stay at the Summit until the crisis was passed, and he had sent for another nurse—the one who was at the head of his own private hospital, Pap proudly told Rosamund in a pitying attempt at reassuring her.
She had, first of all, to make some arrangement for Yetta. Cecilia rose to the occasion and found the suitable governess, who proved to be an elderly woman to whom Yetta took an immediate liking. Miss Gates had been something of a singer in her day, and she had a family of nieces and nephews that she was helping to bring up, all of whom were musical. She took Yetta with her to stay at their house until other plans could be made. Cecilia had, indeed, shown energy and good judgment, and something more; she sailed for the Mediterranean to join the Whartons at Algiers only after she saw Yetta installed in the Gates home—having been so good-natured as to let the yacht go without her in order to do so.
Matt and Aunt Sue were sent back to Georgia. Secretly they were quite reconciled to going, for they were to stop in Baltimore and replace their burned wardrobes with entire new ones, with which they looked forward to dazzling their friends in Augusta; but Sue felt obliged to use the prerogative of the negro servant to make a grumbling protest.
"I suttinly wouldn't 'a' journeyed 'way up to dis yer Gord-fo'saken corner ob de yearth," she declared to Rosamund, "whar dey ain't nothin' but a passel o' Yankee white trash, ef I had 'a' known I was a goin' to see my best Paisley shawl what Miss Lucy done give me when she was ma'ied bu'nt up wid flames befo' my ve'y eyes. Et don' do nobody no good traipsin' aroun' dis yer way, nohow. You better come along back home wid yer Aunt Susan, whar you b'longs at, chile."
After they left, the routine of life was simple enough; yet the days were laden with what anxiety, what care, what fears, and trembling hopes! Yet living as she was on news from the doctor's house, Rosamund was not altogether oblivious of what was passing in the hearts of her friends. She went every morning to the Tobet cottage, sometimes with Eleanor, sometimes alone. For several days Grace watched and waited for one who did not come. But at last Rosamund made a suggestion, which in a day or two brought its return.
"You know the little boy who brought that note to us at the brown house, last fall," she said to Grace. "Why not give him a note to Joe?"
"What to say?" Grace asked.
"That whatever happens, no one shall suspect him. Tell him you have my word, and Mother Cary's, for that."
"I'd be afraid to write words like those," Grace said. "They might go to the wrong one—and then no need to tell!"
"Then say them over to the boy, and make him remember them," said Rosamund; and that was the advice which Grace, in the desperate necessity of her heart, followed. A few mornings afterward, when Rosamund came in sight of the cottage, Joe was leaning against the door. He went inside when he saw her, and Rosamund turned back. She told herself that in Grace's place she would want no visitors for a while.
But she had not gone far before Grace came hastening after her. She threw her arms about Rosamund's neck.
"I got my man back," she whispered. "I'm prayin' every minute to the good Lord, Miss Rose, that you'll get yours back, too, all safe an' sound."
But the secret of Eleanor's heart was not so readily disclosed, although Rosamund suspected, from the number of telegrams and letters that were coming, and from Eleanor's frequent look of abstraction, that she was beginning to have a good deal to think about. But how far matters had progressed, she did not suspect; for Eleanor's heart was troubled as it had never been, and she would not add to Rosamund's burden of care by confiding her own.
That she was suffering could not escape the keen eyes of Mother Cary, however.
"Ain't you troubled about somethin', dearie?" the old woman asked, one day when Rosamund and Tim were out of doors, and dinner was cooking, and they two were alone.
Eleanor looked at her dumbly; a quiver passed over her face, seeming to leave it whiter than ever.
"Land!" said Mother Cary. "Don't look that a way, honey! No wonder little Timmy used to call you 'White Lady'!"
She seated herself in the little chair with the legs that Father Cary had sawed off to suit her, and drew another up beside it.
"Now you come set down here by your Ma Cary, lamb, an' tell me what's the matter."
Eleanor seated herself, and put her hand on the old woman's lap.
"I am in trouble, Mother Cary," she said. "But it cannot do any good to talk about it."
"Well, it cert'n'y don't do one mite o' good to let it eat in, dearie. It don't make you die any sooner, much as you'd like to sometimes, when trouble is real bad; it don't make you forget; nor it don't show you any way out. It jest makes the way seem longer."
"That is true," Eleanor said. Then she pondered for a while. Presently she asked, "Do you remember Mr. Flood, Mother Cary?"
"The rich gentleman that run over Timmy? Yes, lamb, I always remember them I like."
Eleanor smiled. "He did run over Timmy, didn't he? Or run into him! So indirectly I owe him my precious baby!"
"And now he wants you to pay him?" the old woman asked.
"Put it that way!" Eleanor replied. "But I cannot pay him, Mother Cary—not as he wants me to! I—I may become blind, some day."
Mother Cary's hand tightened over hers. "Ain't your poor eyes any better?" she asked.
"Yes. Oh, yes, they are better. But I am afraid. Think of burdening a man with a blind wife! And—and he is such a splendid man, Mother Cary! He deserves the very best."
"I ain't doubtin' it. He's John Ogilvie's friend, and that's enough to satisfy me that he's worth a good deal."
They sat in silence for a while; then Mother Cary said, "Darlin', I'm a-goin' to tell you a little story. I ain't takin' it on me to advise you; but I jest want to tell you how, though you wouldn't guess it, maybe, I was once in the same kind of a shadder you be in now."
"Do tell me," Eleanor said.
"Well, when I was a little girl, lamb, I fell an' hurt my back, an' when I got better, two or three years afterward, I couldn't do nothin' but scrabble aroun', not even as good as I can now. An' I growed all crooked. It didn't make much difference for a while, I was that glad to be movin' at all. But as I growed up an' the other girls began to go places, an' I couldn't an' wasn't asked to, it did seem to me I jest couldn't live at all. There wasn't anythin' to look for'ard to. Then my father died, an' I went into the tin shop.
"It wasn't nice work, an' the big machines like to scared me to death at first, 'n I got cut, 'n once one o' the girls near me got some of her fingers cut off. In winter I had to go before light in the mornin' an' stay workin' till long after dark. Then I had sech a cough, an' one spring I had to quit work. The doctor, he asked me if I hadn't any kin in the country, an' I not knowin' what he was aimin' at told him I didn't know o' none 'xcept Ma's own aunt 't I'd never seen nor wrote to.
"Unbeknownst to me the doctor he wrote up here an' found out 't Aunt Marthy was a-keepin' house for her husband's nephew, an' she wrote back 't I was to come up an' spend the summer in the mountains. I cried at first, for I hadn't ever seen the country an' I didn't know Aunt Marthy, an' I was jest afeared to come. But the doctor he put me on the train, an' when I got to the station over there it was most dark—'bout as dark as it is now, I guess. There was a man on the platform, 'n I thought he was the biggest man I'd ever seen. When he come up to me he said, 'Why, youarea little mite! Guess they haven't been feedin' you much where you come from.' He had a big quilt in the wagon, an' he jest wrapped me all up in it an' lifted me in like I was a baby. I was that tired an' scared, an' I hadn't ever been taken keer of before, an' I jest up an' cried. He didn't ask me what was the matter, but he jest laughed at me an' made fun o' me, an' said if I acted like a baby he'd treat me like one, 'n he patted my hand, 'n tucked me all up, 'n talked to me all the way home. When Aunt Marthy met us at the door an' he carried me in the house in his arms, he said to her, 'Well, now, Aunt Marthy,' he said, 'we've jest got a baby to keer for, an' I'm a-goin' to help you do it.' An', honey, there hasn't been a day sence then that he hasn't taken keer o' me.
"There never was a summer like that one; seems like I never had been alive before. I never knew before how spring come, but I found out that year, Jim showin' me the first bluebirds an' bringin' in flowers. I jest thought he was next to God A'mighty, honey, an' I never once give a thought to me bein' a woman an' he bein' a man. I hadn't never had none o' the good times girls have, an' I guess I had come to forget I was a girl. By the time end o' summer come, Jim had gotten in the way o' carryin' me out with him everywheres, out to the barn, out to the wood-lot, out to the fields where he was a-workin'. I had grown strong enough to get aroun' like I do now, but Jim jest carried me 'roun' like he'd done that first night, an' Aunt Marthy 'n he wouldn't let me do a mite o' work.
"Then, when I'd got real well, I said somethin' one night about goin' back to the factory. We was at supper, an' Jim he jest put down his knife an' looked at me a minute. Aunt Marthy reached over an' put her hand over his, an' then he got up an' went out. I was that scared, not knowin' what I'd done, an' Aunt Marthy told me I'd better go out an' find him.
"So I up an' followed him, an' he was a-standin' outside, lookin' so big against that yaller sky, an' straight an' tall with his arms folded on his chest, a-frownin', with his lips drawn in like he does when somethin's upset him right smart.
"I touched him on the arm an' said, 'Jim!' an' with that he turned him right aroun' quick.
"An' then, after a bit, he set me down an' held on to my hands, an' told me how he wasn't goin' to let me go back to the city any more, 'n how it was goin' to be. I told him I wasn't fit for him, bein' crooked, an' he jest laughed at me an' fixed it all his way, 'n called Aunt Marthy out 'n told her. She laughed at him an' told him he was more of a baby 'n I ever was. He always was that bright an' willful, an' he didn't give me a chance to say anything. But the more he talked, the more I found I loved him, an' the more I loved him the harder I made up my mind 't he shouldn't tie himself to a cripple.
"So that night when they was asleep, I got up an' took the money I had for my ticket home, an' I started to walk to the station. You know how far that is. By time mornin' come I wasn't halfway. I went into an old barn an' hid all day. I heard 'em callin' me, an' I saw Jim go by on horseback, an' other men, too, huntin' for me.
"Lat the nex' night I started for the station again, an' I got there jest about daybreak, thinkin' I'd be in time for the early mornin' train. When I got up on the platform, there was Jim a-waitin'! Course I jest set right down an' cried, but Jim he made me understand what he'd been through while I was hid, an' talked to me so right then and there that I never once after that doubted in my mind but what it would be right for me to marry him. An' honey, I haven't ever had reason to doubt it since. I scarcely ever remember bein' a cripple, 'xcept when I do get good an' mad sometimes at not bein' able to get aroun' as spry as other folks. Sometimes I think it's been a real comfort to Jim, an' better 't I was so.
"There's some folks as can't be happy 'nless they're doin' for somebody else; an' when it happens to be a man, an' he can do for what's his own, he's boun' to be a good deal better off than ef he had to go a-huntin' for somethin' to take up his mind. It grows on 'em, too. I don't ever regret bein' a cripple; my bein' helpless has been sech an occupation for Jim!"
The door had opened while she was saying the last words, and Timmy burst in, joyous and cold, to climb into Eleanor's lap and begin to pour forth an account of the mild adventures of his walk. But Eleanor, taking off his coat and leggings, hushed him. Mother Cary looked up at Rosamund and smiled.
"So you and Timmy had a fine walk, did ye? Well, I'm real glad. It'll do you good to get out, honey-bud. I was jest tellin' Mis' Reeves how-come Pap and me got married!"
"I'm goin' to get married to my muvver when I grows up," said Tim.
Rosamund smiled back at Mother Cary; but her smiles had lost their old merriment. The old woman went on:
"I was jest a-sayin' how Pap built this house for me jest like I wanted it, an' we come into it when we were married. Aunt Marthy lived here with us tell she died. Pap's made my flower beds every spring, an' I've planted the seeds. Seems like it's been that a way in everything. Pap does most o' the work, but I never get a chance to forget how glad he is 't I'm here. Whensoever he comes in all worned out, he always knows where to find me, me not bein' able to get far away; 'n I've never seen the time 't he didn't feel fresh an' strong again after he'd set an' talked a spell, an' had a bite o' somethin' I'd fixed for him. I ain't never been afeared to show him how much I loved him. When the children was little 'an toddlin' aroun', they'd run to meet him an' hang aroun' him, but he always looked over their heads to me first. When John was married an' went away, an' I felt so bad, Pap jest used to laugh at me; an' when Lizzie got married, too, an' went off with her husband, Pap jest said he'd have me all to himself again. The time when the child'en were little was best to me, but I know the best time to Pap is whenever he can find somethin' to be a-doin' for me."
The sweetness of her words seemed to fall on them all like a blessing; for a while no one spoke; but to Rosamund, watching Eleanor, it seemed as if the lovely face were slowly melting from its usual sadness to a rosy glow. As she looked, Eleanor put the child down from her lap and knelt before Rosamund.
"Rose, my sweet," she said, her voice a song of love and tenderness, "would you think me deserting you, if I went to New York to-morrow?"
Rosamund half divined something of her meaning; she took Eleanor's face between her palms, looking into the eyes that were glowing as she had never seen them.
"Eleanor!" she cried.
Mother Cary gave a low laugh of delight. "Here, Timmy," she said, "you come with Ma Cary an' see what I got in the pantry!"
During the first week of Ogilvie's illness Rosamund went once or twice to the house at the Summit where he lay. Doctor Blake had heard the story of the fire, and in the deliberate courtesy of his manner Rosamund suspected a veiled distrust; she imagined that he was wondering, whenever he looked at her, what manner of woman it was for whom Ogilvie had risked his life, and whether she were worthy of his possible sacrifice. She told herself that she would have felt the same, in his place; while, in her humility, she secretly reiterated her own unworthiness. But she knew herself guiltless of actual blame or wrong-doing, and found it hard to endure Doctor Blake's scrutiny, which seemed both to accuse and weigh and find wanting. Yet even that was easier to bear than the tolerant manner of the young woman in the white dress and coquettish cap, who came out of Ogilvie's room to assure her, with the tolerant air that seems to be an attribute of street-car conductors, policemen and trained nurses, that there was really no immediate prospect of change in the patient's condition, as pneumonia had to run its definite course.
For all the longing of her heart, and for all the courage with which she started out, Rosamund allowed herself to be snubbed into retreat. Mother Cary alone braved the authoritative one whenever she pleased, or whenever Pap would take her across the valley; and it was on the ninth night after the fire that she did what Rosamund and Ogilvie always declared to be the most merciful and courageous act of all her beautiful life.
"Now," she said, after supper, when Pap had gone out to the barn to harness the horse for his nightly pilgrimage, "Now, honey, this bein' the night when he'll come to, or—when he'll come to, surely—don't you think he ain't goin' to come to, 'cause he is—and you're goin' over with Pap to be there!"
Rosamund rose from her place beside the table, her hands clasped against her heart, pale, then flushed, then pale again.
Mother Cary looked up at her. "Darlin', come here to yo' Ma Cary," she said, and, when the girl knelt beside her, she put her arms about her and laid her withered, soft old cheek against Rosamund's hair.
"Honey," she said, "Ma Cary knows how you're feelin'! You're a young maid, an' by words unasked; but he's your man, an' you're his woman, in the sight o' God and the knowledge o' your own hearts. Ain't it so? Yes—but don't cry, my lamb! Don't cry like that! This ain't the time to cry. Look at me, dearie! That's right! Well, I didn't tell you to go, before to-night, because I knew 'twasn't for the best; but now your place is over there, alongside o' him. Let him open his eyes on you, ef so be it he is to open them knowin'ly in this world again. An' ef he ain't to be permitted to do that—then, my lamb, it's for you to be there to close 'em. There! That's right! Put it all back—grief keeps, an' maybe you won't need it, after all. Sho'! Hyear me talkin'! Why, I jest downright know you won't need it!"
Rosamund lifted her white, white face. "But——" she began.
"I know what you're thinkin'," Mother Cary said. "I once thought that a way, too, befo' Pap made me see what was right. Put all sech doubts away from you. Your love an' his love are worth more than that. Look Ma Cary in the face, lamb, an' tell me—ain't they? There, there, now don't let the tears rise up again. You ain't got time for tears to-night."
"But the nurse—Doctor Blake—what will they—Oh, how can I?"
"It'll be all right with Doctor Blake. He knows you're comin'! An' as for the nurse, she's a paid hirelin', and you're his woman. Jest you bear that in mind, honey—hurry, there's Pap's wheels!"
So it came to pass, in that critical hour before dawn when souls so often waver upon the threshold of life, when John Ogilvie's breathing became less labored and his eyes opened—tired, to be sure, but with unmistakable consciousness in them—it was Rosamund who was bending over him, while the strange woman in the white gown and cap looked at him, felt his pulse, smiled as if satisfied, and went out and closed the door behind her. It was Rosamund whose eyes smiled into his with the pitiful, brave effort of trying to make believe that there had never been any danger at all to frighten her. His hand moved toward her, his lips formed her name; and it was Rosamund's warm palm which closed over his hand, and her cheek which rested against his as he went to sleep.
"It was Rosamund whose eyes smiled into his.""It was Rosamund whose eyes smiled into his."
It was late April, and the snow was gone from the mountains save in a few sheltered places under some rock or overhanging tangle of roots. In the valley the apple trees were abloom; in the woods the dogwood was falling; the roadsides were turning from mellow brown to green, here and there carpeted with violets; a line of emerald showed where some willows caressed the stream. Great puffs of cloud floated slowly across the deep blue of the sky, their cool shadows passing reluctantly over the plowed fields, the few bright patches of wheat, and the brown ribbon of road—gray in summer and lately white with snow—that wound up from the lowland. Even the weather-worn buildings bore signs of spring. Barn doors were thrown back, and little calves tied in the barn yards protested their infant loneliness; while from upper windows of the houses, windows that had been kept closed during all the long winter, flapping curtains waved outward to the breeze.
Two months and more had passed since the night when John Ogilvie returned to consciousness to find the face he loved bending above him, and on this particular morning Father Cary had driven Rosamund to the post office at the Summit, on his way to sell a calf, and she was taking a leisurely homeward way, reading, as she went, the handful of letters the mail had brought her. Every now and then the betraying fragrance of arbutus lured her from the road to little excursions among the trees. Sometimes she looked up at the flash of a brilliant wing, or stopped to listen to an outburst of bird-music. It was plain to be seen that she was living in the hour; the present satisfied; she was taking it as unquestioningly as a child, caring neither to hasten its passing nor to hold it back. To past and future she was giving no thought; the moment was enough.
She smiled often over her letters.
Yetta's was a pæon of joy. She had been for two months under the care of the governess chosen by Mrs. Maxwell, working hard at all her lessons, devouring them, Rosamund thought—and going twice a week to an advanced pupil of a great master for singing lessons. She wrote that she had just received a letter from Mrs. Flood, saying that when the master declared her ready to study in Paris or Berlin, she would make it possible for her to go. "How funny it seems," she wrote, "to call dear Mrs. Reeves by that name!"
There was a long envelope from an architect, enclosing various blue-prints which she tried to unfold, but which so resisted the breeze that they were soon put back for later inspection. There was a thin letter from Cecilia, bearing a foreign stamp, which Rosamund read more than once, with varying emotions. It ran:
DEAR ROSAMUND:
Your letter has made me very happy. I had no right to expect anything from Colonel Randall's will, although he was always so good to me that I thought of him as a father. But I was hurt, and it would be foolish not to admit that I was disappointed, when I found that he had left me nothing. So was mamma; it was not easy for us to be dependent upon you. I don't mean to hurt you in saying that. Especially now! Because, Rose, dear, you have made me see that my stepfather was right when he left everything to you. He could trust you!
You have really been magnificent. Your gift—for that is what it is—will make the world a different place for me. I had to go to bed for two days after I got your letter. I was overcome!
Now I do hope you won't be too much surprised, dear, and I don't want you to disapprove. I suppose you know that Mr. Flood sent over his yacht, the Esperanza, so that it would be ready for Kiel. But perhaps you don't know that he told Marshall to make use of it until he wanted it himself. Well, he did; it was nice of him, wasn't it? So Marshall brought it to Algiers, and the Whartons—and I—saw a good deal of him. It is all over now, so I may as well confess that Marshall and I were very unhappy for a time. We didn't have five thousand a year between us! But when I got your letter, and the papers—and the note from the bank—oh, Rosamund, you will never, never know how the world changed for me. And we were married yesterday, at the American Consulate in Lisbon, and I am your happy, happy, happy sister,
CECILIA PENDLETON.
Rosamund held the letter to her heart, when she had read it; it was all just as she had hoped. She wondered what Ogilvie would say—but that could wait!
The last letter was in Eleanor's handwriting.
MY OWN DEAR ROSE:
Your letter told me nothing that I was not prepared for. But I don't know how to put into words even a small part of my hopes for you. John is—excepting my own dear husband—the best man in the world. You will be happy, and proud, as I am happy and proud; we both send our love, and wish we might be with you on that beautiful morning that is coming so soon. But we cannot, for almost as soon as we get back to New York from this lovely Columbia Valley we shall have to sail for Europe. So we can only send our love, my darling; and Timmy is sending something else by express.
I am so happy that I cannot help wondering whether this is really myself; yet ever and always, sweet, I know that I am I—YOUR ELEANOR.
Rosamund had kept that letter to read last; and as she folded it back into its envelope there were tears in her eyes, so that for a moment she did not see the familiar figure of a white horse, that was coming upon her with the gentle ambling trot that White Rosy fell into when her master was in one of his absent-minded moods. It was a sort of up-and-downness of a trot, one of Rosy's great achievements. Ogilvie always said that it was worthy of everyone's admiration, since it made a remarkably good effect with the minimum of effort.
When she had come up to the place where Rosamund waited, White Rosy stopped of her own accord, edged toward the side of the road, and began to nibble at the young green things already burgeoning there.
Ogilvie looked, without speaking, at the girl waiting for him at the roadside. She was not smiling, yet her whole look seemed a smile. She was standing with her chin uplifted, her eyelids a little drooped; he thought she was the most beautiful thing in all the beauty of the spring-kissed world.
"Don't move!" he said. "I just want to look at you!"
Then slowly the smile came. She turned her head away to look at him roguishly, sideways.
"Is that all you want?" she asked.
"No!" he cried, explosively; and with a little bubbling laugh she sprang up to the empty place at his side, and turned her face towards him.
Presently he asked, looking off to the mountain with a very casual air.
"Have you seen Grace to-day?"
Rosamund looked at him anxiously. "Not to-day! Isn't she well?"
"Oh, I thought you might like to see her. I'm on my way there now," he said.
"Oh, do you remember," she asked, "the first day you took me there?"
"Do I remember?" he repeated. "I remember a good many things."
"Don't tease—be serious! Do you remember, that was the first of all our drives together, and this is——"
"Well, not quite the last, I hope!"
"No! But—the last—until there will be a difference!"
"It's a difference I welcome, sweet!" he declared; and at the look in his eyes she put up her hands to ward him away.
"No, no! Not now!" she said, in one of the sudden shy reserves that he adored, for all their tormenting him. "I want to tell you about my letters."
He read them, smiling with her over each one; but there was no time for comment then, for they were stopping before the Tobets' house, and White Rosy was looking inquiringly around at them.
Ogilvie led the way into the cottage. It seemed strangely quiet. Joe came from the inner room, grinned at them in a friendly way, and Ogilvie motioned to Rosamund to go in.
The quiet, the presence of Joe at that time of day, something in the doctor's manner, all made her pause; Ogilvie held the door open for her, but he was looking at Joe as men look when they understand each other.
"Oh! What is it?" Rosamund breathed, and he turned to her, still smiling.
"Go in," he said. "It's the loveliest sight in God's world, isn't it, Joe?"
The smile left Joe's face, but not his eyes. "It be," he agreed, emphatically, and began very vigorously to rattle the stove.
Within the darkened room Grace lay; and although the little place was decked with its gayest of quilt and curtain, although Grace's face shone with a radiance as of heaven itself, Rosamund saw only the wee brown head in the hollow of her arm.
She went slowly forward, awed in the presence of the newly awakened soul in such a tiny form. Grace smiled up at her.
"Joe says he's that glad he favors me!" she whispered, and nestled her cheek against the downy head.
Such simple words, and so momentous an event! Just humble pride that the father of her child rejoiced in his son's likeness to his mother! A cheek against a baby's forehead, an old agony forgotten! The master-marvel of all creation sleeping upon the breast so lately wrung in torture! Such innocence, such purity, blessing and cleansing the house of all sin and sorrow, of shame and bitterness! God's breath in the new life, His ever recurring purpose of Love redeeming!
Rosamund could find no fitting words before the miracle. The joyous words of an ancient song echoed in her heart, "Mine eyes have seen Thy Salvation!"
But she was far from ready for her ownNunc Dimittis. The future drew her, life was welcoming her to its fulfillment. She kissed the pale, smiling mother, went swiftly from the room, past the two men whom she saw through a blur of tears, and out to the road where spring was waiting.
There, presently, Ogilvie joined her. Her look deeply stirred him. Her eyes were darker than he had ever seen them, darker than he thought they could be—or was it, he wondered, that he lost the sense of their color in sounding the promise that welled up from their depths? The promise he read there was a reflection of the revelation of those moments in Grace's room. So might Mary's eyes have looked when she bowed before the angel. For a moment they looked silently at each other; then, with a little sobbing indrawn breath, she withdrew her gaze and he took his place beside her.
He urged White Rosy's reluctant feet toward a rough wood-road that led up the mountain. For a while neither spoke. The air was full of little fitful pauses and quickly blown breaths of fragrance. A white petal fluttered from somewhere and caught, trembling, in her hair. A bee passed so near their faces, in his eager quest for sweetness, that they drew quickly back. Against the blue of the sky a hawk circled slowly, with no visible motion of pinion, seeking in vain in the unfolding life of earth for something dead to feast upon. The woods were hushed, and from their moist recesses faint vapors rose, wraithlike spirits of departing winter, and melted off in the warm sweetness of the air.
After a while they came to an open space, the scar of some old fire, from which they could look across the great plain below, back toward the Summit and the blackened spot that had been Rosamund's cherished home a few weeks before, and down upon the roof of the little house that sheltered Grace and her baby. White Rosy stopped, looked down at the faint green of the fields and whinnied; then she took up her roadside feasting. "See that bluebird," Ogilvie presently said, pointing. "See the blue flash of his wing! See—ah, there's his mate!"
They watched the flight of the bird until his mate had lured him out of sight. Then Ogilvie turned to her. "Rosamund," he said, "I have something to tell you—something to ask."
She smiled at him. "Something more?"
"Oh, there will always be something more! There always is—human love being not only human! But—I have had an offer of a professorship—a new chair that has lately been given in the University of the North."
He paused, as if waiting for a question from her; but she said nothing.
"You will go with me?" It was scarcely a question; she smiled, remembering how he always took for granted that she would do his will.
"Of course," she said, quietly.
"It would mean great things for me," he went on, as one reading from an open page. "The university, the quickening life there; the unlimited power to search out; everything to work with, and then—success, success and—fame!"
He paused, and drew a deep breath or two before he went on. When he spoke again a new quality had come into his voice.
"But what if I do not go? What if I give it up? What if I stay here?"
He turned to her now, his eyes burning with his question; for, this time, question indeed it was, and not the old demand.
"Will you stay with me?"
Her look grew softer, holding almost the reassuring sweetness of a mother. It was as if she wished to smile away his doubt.
"Of course," she said, again.
She had long since come to know that he was the least given to expressing his feelings when they were most deeply stirred. The very intensity of his emotion seemed to bind him. Now he looked at her, and he flushed very deeply; yet still he made no move to embrace her.
"You are made for the highest and best, Rosamund. I am offering you only the commonplace!"
She looked off over the valley with unseeing eyes. She, too, had her vision.
"'Only the commonplace!' What is that, John? Is it life, and love, and service?"
"It may be," he said, and drew her to him.
She felt for his hand, and let her own creep under its warmth. Together they looked again at the familiar scene before them, colored now with their own dreams. Presently, recalling something of an earlier time, she said.
"It's the land of content, John!"
He repeated the words, as if their music, but half understood, sounded sweet in his ears. "The land of content?"
"They are Mother Cary's words," she told him. "Aren't they like her—so quaint and true, and so wise! She told me once that we must all know doubt and pain and sorrow, if we would cross the threshold of happiness, into the land of content."
He said nothing; but she knew from his look that he was sharing her vision.
"Cecilia—Eleanor—they think they know it, too, I suppose—poor dears!"
Ogilvie threw back his head and laughed. Then he looked at her with a smile in his eyes—the smile, half tenderness and half pity, that we give to a beloved child who thinks he has just discovered a new truth.
"And you are the only one who knows anything about it?" he teased.
"Oh, you, too!" she said.
"Thanks! I'm glad you let me in!" But he grew serious again. "Do you know," he said, "I have a suspicion that your land of content is wherever love is?"
She brushed his shoulder with her cheek. "I shouldn't wonder!" she said.
But White Rosy was not interested in such speculation. Evidently having decided that dinner was more to be desired than the view, she set off down the road, at her briskest trot, toward the valley. They laughed; but neither would have thought of restraining White Rosy when she had taken the control of affairs upon herself.
"But I hate to come down from the high places," Ogilvie protested. "She's an old tyrant, a materialist!"
He had brought from the intensity of his emotions all a lover's clamoring to prolong the hour alone with the beloved. His visions now went no farther than the sweet reality beside him.
She laughed back at him. "I'm not going to let you offend her, though; I want to keep her always on my side. And we can take our high places with us!"
That turned him serious again for the moment.
"Are you sure," he asked her, "that you can be satisfied to remain here?"
"Here, or anywhere——" She paused, and he, reassured, smiled at her.
"Go on," he urged. "Go on! You were going to say something very nice to me! I want to hear it!"
But she looked curiously embarrassed. "I—I was not going to say anything of the kind! I was thinking of—something!"
Then she took her courage firmly in hand. "John," she said, "did you guess that—that it was I—who—gave that professorship?"
His eyes opened wide. "Why, no!" he said. "Did you? Well, now, I think that was a very good thing to do! How did you happen to think of it?"
"Oh—it was a sort of thank-offering—and a sort of experiment."
He looked around at her. "Oh! It was! Well, don't you try any more of your experiments on me!"
"John—have you known, all along, about—about my horrid money?"
He looked at her quizzically. "Well—yes. I knew. Oh, I knew, of course! But—it isn't one of the things that counts, is it?"
He smiled at her, sure of her agreeing. She drew a long breath.
"No," she said, "it doesn't seem to be one of the things that count."
There seemed to be no further need for words; neither spoke again until White Rosy stopped before Mother Cary's gate. Then Rosamund turned her face toward Ogilvie.
"To-morrow!" she said.
His lips trembled. "To-morrow," he replied, "and all the to-morrows!"
THE END