"I'm going to get out on the steamer. Going to the States, and had to have the stuff to get away with.I—ain't—alone!I'm going down the Channel to board the steamer where it stops for gasoline.Don'tfollow me for God's sake. I'll pay you back and more."
"I'm going to get out on the steamer. Going to the States, and had to have the stuff to get away with.I—ain't—alone!I'm going down the Channel to board the steamer where it stops for gasoline.Don'tfollow me for God's sake. I'll pay you back and more."
Farwell read the words twice, then said:
"Well?"
"Shall I—stop him, Master Farwell?"
"Can you spare what he has taken?"
"'Tain't that, sir."
"Then let him go! Let him have his fling."
"They do say—Long Jean, she do say—it's Glenn's girl. My lad's been crazy for her. I'm afraid of Glenn."
"Let things alone, McAlpin. This is your time to lie low and hold your tongue."
Farwell tore the paper in shreds and cast them to the wind.
The steamer came in at eight. At nine-thirty it left the wharf, and, a mile down the Channel, stopped at the little safety station to take on oil and gasoline. Tom Bluff, a half-breed, had the place in charge, and later that evening he put the finishing touch to the day's gossip.
"'Twas Jerry-Jo, as you live, who jumped aboard, taking the last can I was hauling up with him. So in a hurry was he that he nigh pushed some one down who was in front of him.
"'Where going?' calls I. 'To the States,' he says back, and picks up the young person he nigh knocked down."
Long Jean, to whom Tom was confiding this, drew near.
"Who was the young person?" whispered she, with the fear of Mary McAdam still upon her.
"Her face? I did not see her face."
"'Twas Glenn's girl," panted Long Jean; "Priscilla!"
"Ugh!" grunted Tom as his ancestors had often grunted in the past. "Ugh!"
That was all for the day, and behind closed doors and windows Kenmore slept. The storm of the previous night had been followed by a cold wave, and upon Farwell's hearth a fire crackled cheerily.
"And so, you see, I cannot go back to my father's house."
Farwell bent his head over his folded arms.
"But Mrs. McAdam will take you in, Priscilla. After things calm down and the truth is accepted, your people will forgive and forget. You poor child!"
Priscilla closed her lips sharply. Her eyes were very luminous, very tender, as they rested upon Farwell, but her heart knew no pity for her father.
"How old one grows, Master Farwell, in—a night," she said with a quiver in her voice. "I went happily away with Jerry-Jo, quite, quite a girl, only yesterday. I had the feeling of a child trying to make believe I was a woman. I wanted to show my father he could no longer control me as he always had before. I—I wanted to have my way, and then my way brought me to—those black hours of horror when something in me died forever and something new was born. And how strange, Master Farwell, that when I could think at all clear—you stood out as my only friend. I seemed to know how it would be with my father and my poor mother. My father has always expected evil of me, and something in me seemed ever to work against the good of me, to give him cause for believing me wrong. But you saw the good, my friend, and to you I come—a woman, now. I do not know the language of what I feel here"—she pressed her hands to her heart—"but I feel sure you will understand. I cannot stay in Kenmore! I do not want to. Always I have wanted to have a bigger place, a larger opportunity, and even if Kenmore would take me, I will not have Kenmore! Somehow I feel as if I had never belonged here, really. You do not belong here. Oh, Master Farwell, can you not come, too?"
As she spoke, the old, weary look passed for an instant from her eyes; she was a child, daring, yet fearful! Ready to go forward into the dark, but pleading for a trusted hand to hold. And Farwell, who, could she have known, was clinging more to her than she to him, almost groaned the one word:
"No!"
"Why, oh, why, Mr. Farwell? Like father and daughter we could make our way. I think I have never known what a father might be, but you would show me now in my great need."
"Hush!" Farwell's eyes held hers commandingly, entreatingly. "You must hear what I have to say. Why do you think I have stayed in Kenmore? Why Imuststay? Have you thought?"
"No." And for the first time in her life Priscilla wondered. Before, the man had been but part of her life; now she wondered about him, with the woman-mind that had come so suddenly and tragically to her.
"No, Master Farwell, why?"
"Because—well, because Kenmore is my grave—must always be my grave. I'm dead. Good people, just people said I was dead. I am dead. Alive, I would be a menace, a curse. Dead, I am safe. I've paid my debt, and you, you, the people of my grave, since you do not know, have given me a chance, and I've been a friend among friends! Why, I've even come to a consciousness that—perhaps it is best for me to be dead, for back there, back among the living, the thing I once was might assert itself again."
The bitterness, the pitiful truthfulness, of Farwell's voice and words sank deep into Priscilla's heart. Out of them she instantly accepted one great, vital fact: he was in Kenmore as a refugee; he had been—had done—wrong! With the acceptance of this, a strange thing happened. Curiosity, even interest, departed. For no reason that she could have classified, Priscilla Glenn fiercely desired to—keep Farwell! If she knew what he seemed bent upon telling, he might take away her faith—her only support. She would keep and hold to what she believed him, what he had been since he came to the In-Place. It was childish, blind perhaps, but her words were those of a determined woman.
"Master Farwell, I will not listen to you. If you are dead, and are safe, dead, I will not look into the grave. All my life you have been good to me, been my only friend; you shall not take yourself from me! And I—please let me do this one little thing for you—let me prove that I can love and honour you without—explanation!"
Farwell's face twitched. He struggled to speak, and finally said unsteadily:
"I have been—good, as you say, because I had to be. At any moment I might have been what I once was. Why, girl, without knowing it, Kenmore—all of you—had it in your power to fling me to the dogs had you known, so you see——"
But Priscilla shook her head.
"You did not have to risk your life as you did for the McAdam boys. Perhaps you do not know how you have—grown in your grave, Master Farwell. Trust and liking come hard to us in Kenmore, yet not one of us doubts you. No, no, lie quiet. I do not want to see you as you remember yourself; you are better as you are. I will not hear; I will not have it in my thought when I am far away."
The hardness passed from Farwell's face. Something like relief replaced it, and he said slowly:
"My God! what a woman you will make if they do not harry you to death."
"They will not!" The white, tired face seemed illumined from within. "Last night made me so sure—of myself. It showed me how weak I was, and how strong. Do you know"—and here a flush, not of ignorance, but of strange understanding, struck across Priscilla's face like a flame—"women like my mother, all the women here in Kenmore, do not understand? They just let people take from them what no one has a right to take, what only they should give! It's when this something is taken that they become like my poor mother—afraid and crushed. If I live and die alone and lonely, I shall keep what is my own until I—I give it gladly and because I trust. I am not afraid! But if I had married Jerry-Jo because of—of—what he and my father thought, then I would have been lost, like my mother, don't you see? I—I can—live alone, but I will not be lost."
"But, great heavens! you are a woman!"
"Is it so sad a thing to be a—woman? Why?"
To this Farwell made no reply. Shading his gloomy eyes with his thin hand, he turned from the courageous, uplifted face and sighed. Finally he spoke as if the fight had all gone from him.
"Stay here. The thing you want isn't worth the struggle. There is no use arguing, but I urge you to stay. The In-Place is safer for you. What is it that you must have?"
Priscilla laughed—a wild, dreary little sound it was, but it dashed hope from Farwell's mind.
"I want my chance, a woman's chance, and I cannot have it here. I'm not going to hide under Mrs. McAdam's wing, or even yours, Master Farwell. I've left all the comfort with my poor mother that I can. Never let her know the truth, now I am going—going to start on My Road! I do not care where it leads, it is mine, and I am not afraid."
In her ignorance and defiance she was splendid and stirred the dead embers of Farwell's imagination to something like life. If she were bent upon her course, if his hand could not rest upon the tiller of her untested craft when she put out to sea, what could he do for her? To whom turn?
"Is there not one, Master Farwell, just one, out beyond the In-Place, who, for your sake, would help me at first until I learned the way?"
The question chimed in with Farwell's thought.
He leaned across the table separating him from Priscilla Glenn and asked suddenly:
"Can you keep a secret?"
Promptly, emphatically, the answer came. "Yes, I can."
"Then listen! You must stay here, hide yourself, keep yourself as best you may, while I go to—make arrangements. I will be no longer than I can help, but it will take time. The house is well stocked; make yourself comfortable. There are days when no one knows whether I am here or elsewhere. Protect yourself until I return. And when"—Farwell paused and moistened his lips—"when you are over the border, in the whirlpool, the past, this life, must be forgotten. Raise up a high wall, Priscilla, that no one can scale. Begin your new life from the hour you reach the States. The one who will befriend you need know no more than I tell him; others must take you on faith. At any moment your father, or some one like Jerry-Jo, might hound you unless you live behind a shield. You understand?"
He did not plead for his own safety, and he was, at that moment, humanly thinking of hers alone.
"If you get the worst of it, come back; but leave the gate open only for—yourself."
"Yes, yes." And now Priscilla's eyes were shining like stars. "I will do all that you say; I feel so brave and strong and sure. I want the test, and I will leave the door to Kenmore ajar until the day when I can push it wide and enter as I will, taking or bringing my dear friends with me. I see"—she paused and her eyes grew misty—"I see My Road, stretching on and on, and it ends—oh, Master Farwell, it ends in my Heart's Desire!" She was childishly elated and excited.
Farwell was fascinated.
"Your Heart's Desire?" he muttered; "and what is that?"
"Who knows until—she sees it? Hurry! hurry! Master Farwell, I long to set forth."
Forgotten was her recent experience of horror; fading already was Kenmore from her sight. Danger by the way did not daunt her; the man bowed before her was but a blurred speck upon her vanishing horizon; then suddenly a sound caught her ear.
"You—you—are"—she arose and stood beside Farwell, her hand upon his bent shoulder—"you are crying; and for why?"
"Loneliness, remorse, and fear foryou, poor child."
And then Priscilla came back to the grim room and the cowering form.
"I will bring happiness to you," she whispered; "this I swear. In some way you shall be happy."
But Farwell shook his head.
"To bed," he said suddenly; "to bed, girl, and to sleep. I'll take a nap out here on the couch. Before you awake I'll be on my way. Keep the shades drawn; it's my way of saying I do not wish to be disturbed. Good night, and God bless you, Priscilla."
About two in the morning Farwell set out upon his business for Priscilla. He left a safe and roaring fire upon the hearth; the window shades he did not raise, and well he knew that with that signal of desire for privacy his house would be passed by without apparent notice. The smoke might curl from the chimney, the dogs might, or might not, materialize, but with those close-drawn shades the simple courtesy of Kenmore would protect the master.
Priscilla was sleeping when Farwell silently closed the door after him, and, followed by his dogs, provided with food and blankets, he noiselessly took to the shadowy woods. It was a starry, still hour, lying between night and morning, and it partook of both. Dark it was, but with that silvery luminosity which a couple of hours later would be changed to pink glow. The stars shone, and the one great, pulsing planet that hung over the sleeping village seemed more gloriously near than Farwell had ever before noticed it. All nature was waiting for the magic touch of day; soon action and colour and sound would stir; just then the hush and breathlessness were a strange setting for the lonely man moving forward into the deeper shadows followed close by his faithful dogs. This man who, in the mad passion of his blighted youth, had taken life as if it were but one of the many things over which he claimed supremacy, with bowed head and slow steps, was going on an errand of mercy; he was going to claim, for a helpless human creature, assistance from the only man in all God's world upon whom he could call with hope of success.
The program, the next few days, was as clear in Farwell's mind as if he had already followed it from start to finish. By eight Pine would be on his tracks; by noon they would be together, the dogs grumbling and fighting at their heels. Two nights by the fire, smoking in a dull silence, broken now and then, in sheer desperation, by Farwell himself.
In Ledyard's plan there had evidently been but one stipulation: the constant guardianship with explicit reports. Beyond that there seemed to be no exactions. Farwell had tried to make Pine drink more than was good for him on various occasions in order to test the metal of the restraint, but the Indian displayed a wonderful self-control. He knew when and where to begin and stop in any self-indulgence, but having fulfilled his part he showed no interest or curiosity in his companion. Once the trading station was reached, Farwell might buy or seek pleasure as he chose; he might write or receive letters; might sleep or wake. So long as the tangible Farwell was where the guide could locate him at a moment's notice, he was free to think and act to his own satisfaction.
As he plodded on Farwell contemplated, as he never had before, his relations with the Indian; in fact, the Indian himself. A superficial friendliness had sprung up between the two. How deep was it? how much to be depended upon? If Ledyard could buy the fellow, might not a higher price secure his allegiance? This, strange to say, was a new thought to Farwell. Perhaps he had accepted the situation too doggedly; it was his way to cease struggling when the tide turned against him. It was weakness, it was folly, and, after Priscilla went, after the girl opened the doors again into that old life, how could he endure the loneliness, the tugging of her hold upon him from the place he once had called his?
The day came late to the deep woods beyond Kenmore, and Farwell seemed going toward the night instead of facing the morning. At five he paused to feed his dogs and take a bite himself, and, as he sat upon a fallen tree, the mystic stirrings of life thrilled him as they often had before. It was more a sense of rustle and awakening than actual sound. Hidden under the silence of the forest lay the quivering promises, as the rosy light lay just on the border of the woodland. Both were pressing warm and comfortingly close to the lonely man with his patient dogs at his feet. Farwell was a better man, a finer man, than he knew, but only subconsciously did this support him.
It was three of the afternoon before he heard the quick, measured steps on the trail behind him. He did not turn his head, but he called back a genial "Hello!" which was answered by a grunt not devoid of friendliness.
The evening meal was eaten together, and the two arranged their blankets near the fire for the night's rest. Farwell's two dogs and Pine's one faithful henchman lay down in peace a short distance away. It was as it had been for a time back, except that the Indian had become, suddenly, either an obstacle to be overcome or a friend to assist. Not realizing his new importance, the guide grunted a good night and fell into that sleep of his that never seemed to capture his senses entirely.
At the small town, which was reached late the following day, Farwell engaged two rooms at the ramshackle tavern and informed Pine that he was to share the luxuries.
This was unusual. In the past a day at the station sufficed for business transactions, and night found them in the woods again. Pine was confused but alert. However, things progressed comfortably enough. The expected mail was awaiting Farwell, and he greedily bought all the newspapers he could get. His purchases at the store did not interest the Indian and he was not even aware that several garments for a woman were included in Farwell's list. A telegram sent, and another received, did perturb the fellow a good deal, but when Farwell tore the one he got into shreds, the simple mind of the guide concluded that the matter was unimportant, and he forgot it before they reached Kenmore. He could not burden his poor intellect with unnecessary rubbish, and the whole business was getting on to what stood for nerves in the Indian's anatomy.
What really had occurred was this: Farwell had reached across the desolate stretches that divided him from his one friend and got a response. He had impressed upon John Boswell that he could not come in person to Kenmore, but he could meet a certain needy young person and convey her to safety in the States. And he had asked a question that for months had never risen to the surface—he had been too crushed to give it place.
"Is Joan Moss still alive?"
Boswell was ready to aid him in any way, would even deny himself the longing of seeing his old friend face to face, since that seemed desirable. He would meet the young woman at a place called Little Corners and would do what he could for her.
"Joan Moss is still alive."
A strong light and a new hope came into Farwell's sad eyes. He had a hold on the future! With the possibility of supplanting Ledyard in Pine's ideas of loyalty and economics what might not happen?
And so they started back.
It was midnight, four days after Farwell had left home, that he entered his own door again. The return trip had been rushed, much to Pine's approbation. Priscilla was quietly sewing at the table when Farwell, having loudly bidden the Indian good night, came into the living-room.
The girl's alarmed glance turned to one of relieved welcome when she saw Farwell. She had some food ready for him—every night she had been prepared—and he ate it ravenously. She noted how white and weary he looked, but the triumphant expression in his sad eyes did not escape her, either.
"You have good news?" she asked as soon as Farwell had rested a bit by his fireside.
"Yes. And you?"
"Oh! I have done famously. Only two knocks at the door, and I was well hidden. Once it was Mrs. McAdam and once old Jerry. They did not try to enter."
"They would not. And there was food and fuel enough?"
"Food—yes; I went out three times for wood, and I took one wild, mad walk. I ran, while all the world slept, to Lonely Farm. I looked in at my father's window; he was dozing by the fire, and—my mother——"
"Well, Priscilla?"
"My mother—was crying! I shall always remember her—crying. I did not know there were so many tears in the world!"
"You—you still insist upon going away?"
"Yes. There is no other way for me. Already I seem a stranger, a passerby. Not even for my mother can I stay; it could work no good for her or me. Perhaps, by and by——" Priscilla paused. Now that she was about to turn her back on all that was familiar to her, she became serious and intense, but she knew no shadow of wavering.
Then Farwell told her the arrangements he had made.
"I have a hundred dollars for you, Priscilla. I wish it were more. My friend Boswell will meet you at Little Corners. This is Friday; he will be there on Sunday and will wait for you at the inn; there is only one. Ask for it and go straight to it. From here to Little Corners is the hardest part. I will go as far as I dare with you; the rest you must make alone. Halfway, there is a deserted shanty near the old factory; there you can make yourself comfortable for the night. Are you afraid?"
Priscilla was white and intent, but she answered:
"No, I shall not be afraid."
"You ought to cover the distance in a couple of days and a night; the walking is not hard, and the woods are fairly well cleared. Once you reach Boswell you are safe. He will not question you, but you can trust him. He's a strange man—younger than I; he stands, has always stood, for all that is noble and good in my life. I have told him that you are some one in whom I am interested."
The feeling of adventure closed in and clutched the girl. Now that the hour had actually come, the hour up to which all her preparations tended, she quivered with excitement tinged with sadness.
"This way of leaving Kenmore is safer," Farwell was saying. "If any one were to see you and know you, your father would find you out and bring you back. No one will know you at Little Corners. That's a place which most honest people let alone. You'll like Boswell—every one does—after the first. He'll put you in the way of helping yourself, and your people may still hold their belief about you and Jerry-Jo, since it makes things easier for them."
"Yes; they must believe that until——" But Priscilla did not finish the sentence.
The two sat silent for a few minutes while the tired dogs upon the hearth breathed loud and evenly. Then at last Priscilla asked:
"When do we start, Master Farwell?"
"Start? Oh, to be sure. I had forgotten." Farwell roused himself from his lethargy. "We start at once; in an hour or two at the latest. I will nap here on the couch; you must rest as best you can. There's a long coat and a hat in yonder bundle. They must serve you until you meet Boswell. He'll rig you out in some town before you reach civilization. Here's the money; take wallet and all. Hide it somewhere, Priscilla." Farwell was on his feet and active once more.
"Go in an hour or two?" gasped Priscilla absentmindedly, following Farwell's words and accepting the money with a long, tender look of gratitude. "In an hour or two? Why, you've only just come in, Master Farwell!"
"What matters? After to-morrow I shall have time to rest and sleep to my fill."
"You will—miss me, Master Farwell?" Priscilla's eyes were dim. "I would like to have some one—miss me!"
"I shall, indeed, miss you! You can never understand what you have meant to me, Priscilla. I cannot make you understand; I shall not try; but in helping you I have perhaps helped myself. I cannot walk out of the In-Place beside you, as I would like to do—not now. Maybe a long time hence, some day, I may follow!"
Farwell's excitement showed in his eyes and voice and wiped out the weariness of his face.
"You mean that, Master Farwell? You are not trying to comfort me?"
"No; I am comforting myself!"
Then, forgetful of the need for sleep, he went on rapidly:
"Out where you are going, Priscilla, there is a—a woman I love; she once loved me. This must seem queer to you who have only known me as—as I now seem. I will seem different to you when you have wakened up—seen other kinds of men and women."
"Is she young—pretty?"
The senseless words escaped Priscilla's lips because quivering interest and a strange embarrassment held her thought.
"I—I do not know—how she is now. Shewaspretty. Good God! how pretty she was, and young, and kind, too. It was the kindness that mattered most. You see, she thinks me dead; it was best so. I—I had to be dead for a while and then I meant to go to her myself. But—something happened. I was obliged to stay on here, and she might not have understood. I'd like——" Farwell paused and looked pleadingly at the white girl-face across the rude table, where the fragments of food still lay: "I'd like you to go and see her. Boswell could take you. He's done everything for her, God bless him! I'd—I'd like to have you tell her gently, kindly, that I am alive. You might say it so as to spare her shock; you might, better than any one else!"
The longing in the man's eyes was almost more than Priscilla could endure. Crude as she was, wrong and sinful as the man near her may at one time have been, she knew intuitively that the love for that woman in the States had been his consuming and uplifting passion. If he had sinned for her, he had also died for her, and now he pleaded for resurrection in her life.
"I will do anything in all the world for you, Master Farwell; anything!"
And Priscilla stretched her hands out impulsively. Farwell took them in his cold, thin ones and clung to her grimly.
"I'd like to know she'd welcome me!" he whispered. "Unless she could, I'd rather stay—dead!"
Another silence fell between the man and girl while he relived the past and she sought to enter the future.
The clock struck the half-hour of one and Farwell sprang up.
"Get ready!" he said. "No time for napping now. It is—it is Saturday morning! We must be off! I'll go with you as far as I can. For the rest——" He stopped suddenly and looked blankly at Priscilla.
A little after two they started away from the small, darkened house. It was a cloudy morning; day would be long in coming, and the two made the most of the darkness. They were well in the deep woods by six o'clock; at seven they ate some food Farwell had hurriedly prepared, and were on their way again by eight. They did not talk much. Priscilla found that she needed all her strength, now that she must soon depend upon herself, and Farwell had nothing more to say but—good-bye!
Anton Farwell had got ahead of his spy for once! Not even so indefatigable an Indian as Pine could be expected to watch a man who had just returned from a long tramp. But Farwell knew full well that by high noon his guard would have sensed danger and be uncommonly active, so he pushed the march to Priscilla's utmost limit.
At four o'clock they reached the deserted hut near the old factory. A fire was made upon the hearth and a broken-down settle drawn close.
"I'd rest until early morning," advised Farwell in a hard, constrained voice. "Good Lord, Priscilla, it's a cruel place to leave you—alone!"
"I shall not mind, Master Farwell." All that was brave and unselfish in the girl rose now to the fore. She recognized that Farwell, even more than she, needed comfort.
"I shall never forget you," she said, holding her hands out to him; "never forget you or cease to—love you!"
The last words made him wince.
"Good-bye, Priscilla."
"Good-bye, Master Farwell."
When the door closed upon the man, for a moment Priscilla stood with horrified glance following him. The sense of high adventure perished at his going. Alone in the woods, in the ghostly hut, the night to face, and the blank future stretching beyond! It was more than she could bear, and a cry escaped her parted lips. But Farwell did not hear, and the paroxysm passed.
Priscilla slept that night, slept well and safely, and the early light of Sunday morning found her refreshed and full of courage. She never knew that two hours after leaving her Farwell met Pine and found in him—a friend!
They had come face to face on a side trail.
"Here I am!" said Farwell cheerfully; then he took his place in front of the guide. That had always been the unspoken understanding.
"See here, Pine, we've never said much to each other about what—all this means, but I want to say something now. I won't give you much trouble in the future. I shall not go often for my mail, or necessaries. In return, forgetthisjourney. I went to let a—a poor little devil of a creature out of a trap. That is all. I just couldn't—leave it to suffer—and I hadn't time to call you up after our long tramp of yesterday."
"Ugh!" came from behind.
"Pine, can you trust me?"
"Ugh!" But the grunt was affirmative.
"Smoke on it, Tough?"
And they smoked while they plodded wearily back into bondage.
Little corners, lying on the borderland of Canada and the States, stretched like a hand, the thumb and small finger of which belonged to the Dominion, the three digits, in between, to the sister country. Of course it was comparatively easy to bring merchandise, and what not, by way of the thumb and little finger and send the same forth by the three exits, known to Timothy Goodale as "furrin parts." Timothy was excessively British, as so many Canadians are, but he was a broad-minded man in his sympathies, and a friend to all—when it paid. He was a man of keen perceptions, of conveniently short memory, and had the capacity for giving a lie all the virtuous appearance of truth and frankness. Goodale had no family, and, as far as possible, served his guests himself. A half-breed cooked for him; a half-witted French-Canadian girl did unimportant tasks about the bedchambers, but the host himself took his patrons into his own safekeeping and their secrets along with them.
Little Corners was not a town of savoury reputation. Law-abiding folks gave it a wide berth; tourists found nothing interesting there, and newcomers, of a permanent type, were discouraged. For these reasons it was the place of all places for Mr. John Boswell to enter, by way of the long, middle finger, and meet Priscilla Glenn, who advanced via the thumb. No one would know them; no one would remember them an hour after they departed.
Timothy was bustling about on a certain Sunday morning, ruminating on the thanklessness of the task of getting ready for people who might never appear, when, to his delight, he saw a team of weary horses advancing. He had time only to put his features in order for business when a man entered the room.
No one but Goodale could have taken the shock of the traveller's personality in just the way he did. The smile froze on his face, his eyes beamed, and his stiff, red hair seemed bristling with welcome. "Advance agent of a circus," he thought; "sort of advertising guy."
The man who had entered was about three feet tall, horribly twisted as to legs, and humped as to back and chest. The long, thin arms reached below the bent knees, and large, white hands dangled from them as if attached by wires. The big head, set low on the shoulders, seemed to have no connecting link of neck. It was a great, shaggy head with deep-set, wonderful eyes, sensitive mouth and chin, and a handsome nose.
"Ah, sir, delighted," said Goodale. "Shall I tell your driver to go to the stables?"
"I'm my own driver, but I'd like your man to see to the horses. I'm John Boswell from New York, though you'll probably forget that an hour after I leave."
Goodale nodded. This was quite in his line, and he suddenly became aware of the exquisite texture and quality of the stranger's clothing; the fineness of the piping voice. All sorts came to the inn, but this last comer was a gentleman, for all his defects.
"I'm expecting a young woman, a distant relative, from farther back in Canada. I shall await her here. My stay is uncertain. Make me as comfortable as you can; I like to be comfortable."
"You—you are alone, sir?"
"Until the young lady comes, yes. She is to return to the States with me. It depends upon her how soon we travel back."
This did away with the show business, but it added romance to the adventure.
Goodale made Boswell extremely comfortable, surprisingly so. Two bedrooms were got in order as if by magic; a little sitting-room emerged from behind closed doors; an apartment quite detached and cozy, with a generous fireplace and accommodations for private meals.
After a good dinner Boswell went for a stroll, telling his host to make the young lady welcome upon her arrival.
At half-past four Priscilla Glenn walked into the office of the inn. She was tired and worn, rather unkempt as to appearance, but she stepped erect and with some dignity.
"Is—is Mr. Boswell here?" she asked.
"He is, and then again he ain't," smiled Timothy, who was always playful with women when he wasn't brutal. None knew better than he the use and abuse of chivalry.
"You are to make yourself at home, Miss; then I'll serve tea in the sitting parlour; all quite your own and no fear of intrusion. I'm host and servant to my guests. I never trust them to—to menials."
"Where's my room?" Priscilla broke in abruptly. She was near the breaking-point and she longed for privacy and shelter before she collapsed. Her tone and manner antagonized Goodale. He understood and recognized only two classes of women, and this girl's attitude did not fit either class. In silence he showed her to her bedchamber, and once the door separated him from her his smile departed and he relieved his feelings by muttering a name not complimentary to Mr. Boswell's relative.
The sense of safety, warmth, and creature comforts speedily brought about courage and hope to Priscilla; a childish curiosity consumed her; she was disappointed that Boswell did not present himself, but his absence gave her time for rallying her forces. She found her way to the little sitting-room by six o'clock, and, to her delight, saw that tea things were on a table by the hearth and a kettle was boiling over the fire.
"And so—this is Miss Priscilla Glenn?"
So noiselessly had the man entered the room through the open door, so kind and gentle his voice, that, though the girl started, she felt no fear until her eyes fell upon the speaker. Boswell waited. He knew what must follow. Readjustment always took time. In this case the time might be longer because of the crudity of the girl.
"Ah!" The shuddering word escaped the trembling lips and the tightly clasped hands that had instinctively gone to the face. "Ah!"
The man by the door sent forth a pitiful appeal for mercy and acceptance in so sweet and rare a smile that for very shame Priscilla stood up and smiled back wanly and apologetically.
Boswell liked the attempt and ready willingness; they showed character.
"Now that that is over," he said in his strange, fine voice, "we may sit down and be friends. May we not?"
"I will make fresh tea for you—please let me!" for Boswell was waving aside the suggestion.
"Very well! Weak—just flavoured water. Now, then!"
The sidling form edged to the deep chair beside the hearth and scrambled up, using both hands as a child does. Priscilla kept her eyes upon her task and struggled for composure.
"I—I suppose Max—I mean Farwell—did not describe me?"
"No, sir."
"It was mistaken kindness. My friends have a habit of doing that. They think to spare me; it only makes it harder. Try to forget, as soon as you can, my ugly shell; I am commonplace beneath."
The pathos of this almost brought tears to Priscilla Glenn's eyes. Her warm, sympathetic nature responded generously.
"I—I am very sorry I gave you pain, sir. Forgive me!"
"We will not mention it again. If you can think of me as—a man, a friend who wishes to help you for another friend's sake, you will honour me and make easier your own position. You see, you are no stranger to me; I have the advantage of you. Farwell has kept me in touch with you from your childhood up. You have amused him, helped him to bear many things that would have been harder for him without you. I thank you for this. I am Farwell's friend. Why, do you know"—and now the deep eyes glowed kindly—"he has even told me of that original religion you evolved from your needs; he pictured the strange god you worshipped. I've laughed over that many times."
"Your tea is getting cold, sir."
Priscilla was gaining control of her emotions, and John Boswell's evident determination to place her in a comfortable position won her gratitude and admiration.
"I like cold tea; the colder and weaker the better. Thank you. Let the cup stand on the table; I will help myself presently. I sincerely hope we, you and I, are going to be friends. It would hurt Farwell so if we were not."
"How good you are!"
"Yes. Goodness is—my profession." The drollery in the voice was more touching than amusing. "I call myself the Property Man. I help people artistically, when I can. It is my one pleasure, and I find it most exciting. You will learn, now that you have taken your place on the stage of life, that the Property Man is very important."
In this light talk, half serious, half playful, he reassured Priscilla and claimed for himself what his deformity often retarded.
"Already you seem my friend. Mr. Farwell said you would be."
Priscilla's eyes did not shrink now. The soul of the man had, in some subtle fashion, transformed him. She began to succumb to that power of Boswell's that had held many men and women even against their wills.
"Farwell was always a dramatic fellow," the weak voice continued. "When he sent me word, I wanted to go direct to Kenmore; I wanted to see him after all these years. But he had made his own plans in his own way. There were—reasons."
Priscilla looked bravely in the thin, kindly face. She remembered that Farwell had said that she need tell nothing more than she cared to, but an overpowering desire was growing upon her to confide everything to this friend of an hour. His deep, true eyes, fixed upon her, were challenging every doubt, every reserve.
"Farwell says you dance like a sprite."
At this Priscilla started as if from sleep.
"Ah! a childish bit of play," she said. "I—I have almost forgotten how to dance."
"I hope you will never forget. To dance and sing and laugh should be the heritage of all young things. You must forget to be serious, past the safety point! That's where danger lies. It does not pay to take our parts ponderously. I learned that long ago."
"I shall be—happy after a while." And now, quite simply and frankly, Priscilla cast away her anchors of caution and timidity and spoke openly:
"I—I have been so troubled. Things have happened to me that should not have happened if—if my mother and father could have trusted in me. They believed—wrong of me when really they should have pitied me. You trust me?"
"Absolutely."
"Master Farwell trusted me. As things were, the only comfort I could give my poor parents was to let them think I left Kenmore with—with a young man. Something had occurred that—looked wrong. It was only a terrible experience. No one helped me but Master Farwell. My—my people turned from me."
"It was Farwell's way: to help where he had faith," murmured Boswell.
The deep eyes were so perilously kind that Priscilla had to struggle to keep back her tears. A sense of security and peace flooded her heart, but the past strain had left its mark.
"My father would have been glad to have me marry the—the man. I would rather have died after what happened! They—my father and mother—must believe I have gone with him. It will at least make them feel I have not disgraced them. Now—you can understand!"
"Perfectly."
"I want to go into training. I want to be a nurse. I am sure I can succeed."
So very humble and modest was the ambition that it quite took Boswell by surprise. Priscilla did not notice the uplifting of the shaggy brows. She went on eagerly, thoughtfully:
"You see, I have only such education as Master Farwell has given me, but I have a ready mind, he says. I am sure I could watch and tend the sick. A lady staying in Kenmore at one time told me I had the—the touch of a skilled hand. I want—to help the world, somehow, and this seems the only way open to a girl like me. I am strong; I never tire. Yes; I want to be a nurse, the best one I can be."
Boswell understood the deeper truth. This girl, original, artistic, was foregoing much in accepting this safe, humble course. She expected no charity, nothing but a helpful interest. It was unusual and delightful.
"I have a hundred dollars that Master Farwell gave me. It will help, and I can repay it by and by. I know it will be years before I can do so, but he understands. While I am studying there will be little expense, the lady told me. And oh!"—here Priscilla interrupted herself suddenly—"I have an errand to do for Master Farwell as soon as I get to New York. He told me you—would help me."
"An errand?"
"Yes. There is a—woman he once—loved; loves still. She thinks he—is dead. It was best so in the past. There was a reason for letting her believe so; but now he wants her—to know!"
Boswell sprang up in his chair as if he were on a strong spring.
"Wants you to go and tell her—that he still lives?"
"Yes. It will be hard, but I will do it for him."
Boswell settled back in his seat.
"I thought he only meant her to know—when he could go himself," he said quietly.
"He made me promise."
Boswell leaned forward and drew the cup from the table, and in one long draught drank the cold, weak tea. When he spoke again the conversation was set in a different channel.
"I hardly know what I expected to find you, Miss Glenn," he said with his rare, sweet smile. "You evidently seemed more a child to Farwell than you do to me. That was natural. Now that we have become acquainted I hope you will accept my help and hospitality until your own plans are formed. I can make you very comfortable in my town home. I am sure I can place you in the best training school in the city; I have some influence there. But before you settle to your hard work you will let me play host, as Farwell would in my place? This would be a great pleasure to me."
What there was in the words and tone Priscilla could never tell, but at once the future seemed secure, and the present placed on a sound foundation. Every disturbing element was eliminated and the whole situation put upon a perfectly commonplace basis. By a quick transition the unreality was swept aside.
"Indeed, I will be glad to accept."
They smiled quite frankly and happily at each other.
"An odd story occurs to me." Boswell pressed back in his chair and his face was in shadow. "You must get used to my stories and plays. The Property Man must have his sport. There was once a garden, very beautiful, very desirable, but full of traps to the unwary. Quite unexpectedly, one day, a particularly fine butterfly found herself poised on the branch of a tree with a soaring ambition in her heart, but a blind sense of danger, also. It was a wise butterfly, by way of change. While it hesitated, a beetle crawled along and offered its services as guide. The pretty, bright thing was sane enough to accept. Do you follow?"
Priscilla started. She had been caught in the mesh of the story, and now with a sudden realization of its underlying thought she flushed and laughed.
"I still have my childish delight in stories, you see," she said. Then, "I—I do see what you mean. Again I repeat, I am so glad to accept your—your kindness."
"Middle life has its disadvantages." The voice from out the shadows sounded weary. "It has none of the blindness of youth and none of the assurance of old age. If I were twenty, you and I could play together in the Garden; if I were ninety I could tuck you safely away in my nest and feed you on dainties, and no one could say a word. As it is—well, we'll do the best we can, and, after you are in your training, you'll be glad enough to have my nest to fly to for a change of air and an opportunity to chat with me. The Property Man will come in handy. Hark! the wind is rising. How it blows!"
The ashes were flying about on the hearth and the trees outside beat their branches against the windows.
"It never roars like that in the In-Place," whispered Priscilla, awed by the sound and fury that were rapidly gaining power.
"The In-Place?" Boswell sighed. "What a blessed name! To think of any one fluttering about in the dangerous Garden when he or she might remain in the In-Place!"
There was a tap on the door, and in reply to Boswell's "Come!" Goodale entered.
"Shall I serve supper now, sir?"
"Yes."
"In here?"
"No; in the dining-room." Then, "How far is it to the railway station?"
"Twenty-six miles, sir."
"It seemed like a hundred. Can the team make it to-morrow if the storm ceases?"
"They look capable, sir."
"Then we will start to-morrow for the States."
Priscilla Glenn always looked back on the next four weeks of her life as a transition stage between one incarnation and another. Kenmore, and that which had gone to the making of her life previous to her meeting with John Boswell, seemed to have accomplished their purpose and left her detached and finished, up to a certain point, for the next period of her existence. In the severing of all the ties of the past, even affection, gratitude, and memory, for the time being, were held in abeyance. This was a merciful state, for, had ordinary emotions and sentiments held her, she would have been unfitted for the difficult task of readjustment which she gradually achieved, simply because of her dulled mental and spiritual sensations.
The noise and flash of the big city bewildered and dazzled the girl from the In-Place and encrusted her with an unreality that spared her many a pang of loss, and also fear for the future. Boswell's apartment, high above the street and overlooking the Hudson River and Palisades, became a veritable sanctuary from which she dreaded to emerge and to which she clung in a passion of self-preservation. The gray wall of stone across the sparkling stream grew to be, in her vivid fancy, the barrier between the past and future. Against it, unseen, faint, but persistent, beat what once had been—her grim father, her weak, tearful mother, lonely, kindly Master Farwell, and all the lesser folk of Kenmore. Pressing close and straining to hold her, these dim, shadowy memories clustered, but she no longer appeared a part of them, like them, or in any way connected with them. On the other hand, below the eyrie dwelling in which she was temporarily sheltered, lay the whirlpool of sound and motion into which, sooner or later, she must plunge.
With keen appreciation and understanding of this phase of her development, John Boswell kept conversation and life upon the surface, and rarely permitted a letting-down of thought. Cautiously, and not too often, he took his guest on tours of inspection and watched her while she underwent new ordeals or experienced pain from unknown thrills. He had never been more interested or amused in his life, and, in his enthusiasm, exaggerated Priscilla's capabilities. He revelled in her frankness and her confidence; he learned from her more of Farwell than he could have learned in any other way, and his faithful heart throbbed in pity, pride, and affection for the lonely master of the In-Place, who, little heeding his own progress, had triumphed over his old and lesser self at last.
The home of Boswell was a large and sunny apartment high up in the huge building. Only one servant, a marvellously silent and efficient Japanese, ran the economic machinery, awesomely defended Boswell's library when the master retired to perform his mystic rites, and in all relations was exemplary. Poor Boswell's rites comprised a devouring appetite for reading and a rather happy talent for turning off a short story as unique and human as he was himself.
After Priscilla Glenn arrived, Toky, as the servant was called, was tested to the uttermost. Never before had Boswell introduced a woman into the sphere sacred to Man. Toky disapproved, was utterly disgusted; he lost his implicit faith in his master's wisdom, but he adopted a manner at once so magnanimous and charming that Boswell set to work and planned future gifts of appreciation for his servant.
No other woman came to the apartment; Boswell shrank from them, not bitterly or resentfully, but sensitively. Men took him more or less for granted when he touched their lives; women overdid the determination, on their parts, to set him at ease. Long since he had turned his poor, misshapen back upon the very natural and legitimate desire for the happy mingling of both sexes, but after Priscilla Glenn became his guest he recognized the need of women friends in a sharp and painful manner. They could have helped him so much; could have solved so many problems for him and the girl; but as it was he had to do the best he could alone.
The hundred dollars, still to be repaid to Farwell, worked wonders in the week following the arrival of the Beetle and the Butterfly, as Boswell insisted upon calling himself and Priscilla. Having no power at court, Boswell cast himself on the mercy of lesser folks and managed, by way of secret nods and whispers, to gain the coöperation of sympathetic-looking shop girls in order to array Priscilla in garments that would secure her and him from impudent stares and offensive leers. The evenings following these shopping expeditions were devoted to "casting up accounts." Priscilla was absolutely lacking in worldly wisdom, but she had a sense of accuracy that drove Boswell to the outer edge of veracity. Never having bought an article of clothing for herself, Priscilla attacked this new problem with perfectly blank faith. Prices often surprised and startled her by their smallness, but the results obtained were gloriously gratifying.
"I can better understand the lure of the States now, Mr. Boswell," she said one evening as the two sat in the library with the wind howling down Boswell's exaggerations and the fire illuminating the girl's face. "Kenmore prices were impossible, but one can go wild here for so little. Just fancy! That whole beautiful suit for two dollars and eighty-seven——"
"Eighty-nine!" Boswell severely broke in, shaking his pencil at her as he sat perched, like a benign gargoyle, by his study table. "I'll not have Farwell defrauded while he cannot protect his own interests."
"Two eighty-nine," Priscilla agreed, with a laugh so merry and carefree that the listener dropped his tired eyes. "And how much does that leave of the hundred, Mr. Boswell? I tremble when I think of the silk gown so soft and pretty, the slippers and stockings to match, and the storm coat, umbrella, heavy shoes, and—and—other things."
Boswell referred to his notes and long lines of figures.
"All told, and in round numbers, there are forty-seven dollars and three cents left."
"It's marvellous! wonderful!" Priscilla exclaimed. "You are sure, Mr. Boswell?"
"Do you doubt me?"
"Sometimes I do, you are so kind, so generous, and under ordinary circumstances it would seem impossible to buy things so cheap. You must select your shops carefully."
"One has to on a moderate allowance."
Then quite suddenly Priscilla Glenn spoke quickly and breathlessly:
"Mr. Boswell, I—I must begin my training. Have you made any arrangements? And, when I go, will they pay me from the start?"
Boswell grew grave as he thought of the knowledge that would come concerning dollars and cents later on.
"I have started operations," he replied; "in a short time you will be able to begin your studies, and I hear they will pay you the princely sum of ten dollars a month from the day you are accepted. Canadians are greatly in demand."
"Ten dollars!" gasped Priscilla, "Ten dollars a month! when I think what this hundred has done, and the twelve months in each year, it—it dazzles me!"
Boswell gave an uncomfortable laugh. In the light of nearby disillusionment his practical joke looked mean and ghastly.
Then, with another abrupt change of thought, Priscilla brought Boswell again at bay.
"Before I go into training," she said, "I must go and see Master Farwell's friend—his old friend, you know. I feel very guilty and ungrateful, but it has all been so strange and bewildering, I have seemed dead and done for and then born again, I could not help myself; but I can now. Please tell me all about her, Mr. Boswell, and how I can find her."
Boswell dropped the pencil upon the mahogany desk and looked blankly at Priscilla.
"Let us sit by the fire," he said presently, "I am cold and—tired. Turn down the lights."
They took their positions near the hearth: the dwarf in his low, deep leather chair with its wide "wings" that hid him so mercifully; Priscilla in the small rocker that from the first had seemed to meet every curve and line of her long, young body with restful welcome.
"And now," Priscilla urged, "please tell me. I feel, to-night, like myself once more. I am adjusted to the new life, I hope, ready to do my part."
When John Boswell cast aside his whimsical phase he was a very simple and direct man. He, too, was becoming adjusted to Priscilla's presence in his home and her rightful demands upon him.
"Yes, I will tell you," he said slowly, wearily.
"Perhaps you are too tired to-night, Mr. Boswell? To-morrow will do."
"No. I never sleep when the wind howls; it gets into my imagination. I'd rather talk. The thing I have to tell you—is what I shall tell Farwell if I ever see him again. It's rather a bungling thing I've done. I'll receive my reward, doubtlessly, but I would do the same, were I placed in the same position, over and over again.
"Farwell Maxwell, known to you as Anton Farwell, has been part, the biggest part, of my life since we were young boys. We were about as pitiful a contrast as can be imagined, and for that reason met each other's needs more completely. We had only one thing in common—money. He was a straight, handsome fellow, while I was—what you see before you—a crooked, distorted creature, but one in whose heart and soul dwelt all the cravings and aspirations of youth and intelligence. I was alone in the world. My father died before my birth, and I cost my mother—her life. Farwell had, until he was twenty, an adoring though foolish mother, who laid undue emphasis upon his rights and privileges. She, and an older brother, died when he was twenty-one—died before the trouble came, but not before they had done all they could to train him for it. At twenty-one he was a selfish, hot-headed fellow with a fortune at his command, a confused sense of right and wrong, an ungoverned, artistic nature swayed by impulse, and, yes, honest affection and generous flashes. And I? Well, I found I could buy with my money what otherwise I must have gone without, but the shadow never counted for the substance with me. The fawning favour, which held its sneer in check, filled me with disgust, and I would have been a bitter, lonely fellow but—for Farwell.
"I never could quite understand him; I do not to-day, but he, from the beginning, did not seem to recognize or admit my limitations. Through preparatory school and college we went side by side. He called me by the frank and brutal names that boys and men only use to equals. I wonder if you can understand when I say that to hear him address me as an infernal coward, when I shrank from certain things, was about the highest compliment I knew?"
"Yes," murmured Priscilla, "I can understand that." She could not see Boswell; the low, impassioned words came from out the shadows like thoughts. "Yes, I can quite understand how you felt."
"I am glad that you can, for then you will see—why I have done—what I could for Farwell—when he needed me. Back in those old days he was not content to shame me into playing my part; by that power of his, that worked both good and evil, he compelled others, in accepting him, to accept me on equal terms. There was a seat for me at the tables to which he was invited; he discovered my poor talent for telling a story, and somehow hypnotized others into considering me a wit! A wit!"
A silence fell between the two by the fire. Priscilla's throat was hard and dry, her heart aching with pity.
"And then," Boswell continued drearily, "the crash came when he was only twenty-five! I suppose he was savagely primitive. That was why externals did not count so much with him. He could not brook opposition, especially if injustice marked it; he was never able to estimate or eliminate. He was like a child when an obstacle presented itself. If he could not get around it, he attacked it with blind passion.
"It was part of his nature to espouse the cause of the weak and needy; that was what held him, unconsciously, to me; it was what attracted him to Joan Moss."
The name fell upon Priscilla's mind like a shock. The story was nearing the crisis.
"She was outwardly beautiful; inwardly she was as deformed—as I! But in neither case was he ever able to get the right slant. He loved us both in his splendid, uncritical way. His love brought me to his feet in abject devotion: it lured the woman to accomplish his destruction. Something, some one, menaced her! He tried to sweep the evil aside, but——"
"Yes, yes, please go on!" Priscilla was breathless.
"Well, he couldn't sweep it aside; so he committed—murder."
"Oh! Mr. Boswell!"
The shuddering cry drew Boswell to the present. He remembered that his listener knew Farwell only as a friend and gentle comrade. Her shock was natural.
"You—you never guessed? Why do you think he, that brilliant fellow, stayed hidden like a dead thing all these years?"—there was a quiver in Boswell's voice—"hidden so deep that—not even I dared to go to him for fear I would be followed and he again trapped! Oh! 'twas an ugly thing he did; but he was driven to insanity—even his judges believed that—at the last; but his victim was too big a man to go unavenged, so they hunted Farwell down, caught him in a trap, and tried to finish him, but he got away and they thought him—dead."
"Yes, yes," moaned Priscilla, "yes, I know. And the woman—did her heart break?"
At this Boswell leaned forward, and, in the fire's glow, Priscilla saw his face grow cruel and hard.
"Her heart break? No, she went promptly to the devil, once she was sure she had lost Farwell and his money. Down to the last hope she made him believe in her. How she acted! But when he was reported dead, well!"—and Boswell gave a harsh laugh—"her heart did not break!"
A sound brought Boswell back to the dim room.
"You are—crying?" he said slowly; "crying for him?"
"For him, yes, and for you!"
"For me?"—a wonderful tenderness stole into the man's voice—"for me? I do not think any one before—ever cried for me. Thank you. You understand what all this meant to me? What a—woman you will be—if——"
Priscilla raised her tear-stained face and her lips quivered as she recalled that Farwell had said almost exactly the same words to her back there in the In-Place. She understood because she had been lonely and known the suffering of the lonely. She must never forget, never fail those who needed her! But Boswell was talking on again with a new note of feeling in his voice.
"While I thought him dead I sank back into my shell, sank lower than I had ever been before. I wanted to die; wanted it so truly that I planned it; grew interested in arranging my affairs. Preparing to die became my excitement, and when everything was ready, Farwell spoke to me—from his grave! That letter from your In-Place worked a miracle upon me. While he lived there would always be something for me to do. He had made a place in the world for me; I could keep his place ready for him. It was a small return, but it meant life—for me.
"There were years when Farwell felt he was coming back. I heard from him spring and autumn, and there were hope and promise each time. When people forgot, he would return, and he wanted to go to—to Joan Moss himself with his story. So long as he knew that she was alive and faithful it was enough, and, besides, he realized that had she or I gone to him just then it might have been fatal. He believed that if she knew where he was she would hasten to him!
"Well, just at first I thought that he might come at any time and might rescue—Joan Moss. I was even willing for him to have her if it could add any happiness to him. Then there was the money—his money. I kept his belief in that, too. Everything of his went at the time of the trial, but mine was his, so that was a small matter. I suppose all the sentiment and passion that most men spread over their entire lives were, in me, concentrated on Farwell. When I thought of him caged and alone, in the wilds, I found lying to him about the only thing I could do. So I kept his belief in Joan Moss and his fortune. Then something happened to him. I never knew what it was, but it seemed to take all the hope and courage from him. He wanted me to see that Joan Moss was well taken care of, and in case of his death she must have all that he died possessed of. Just at that time Joan Moss came to me, a wreck! She lived only six months, but for his sake I saw that she had all that he would have had for her. She thought that he gave it to her, too, or at least she thought his money gave it, since it was in his will that she should have it. His name was on her lips when the end came. I will tell him that some day. It will help him to forgive me. After that I wrote and wrote to him, making frantic efforts to secure to him, until he were free, what existed no longer on earth! That is all."
The fire had died down and become ashy; the wind no longer howled; the night had fallen into peace at last.
Priscilla got up stiffly, for she was cold and nerve-worn. She walked unsteadily to Boswell, her tear-stained face twitching with emotion, her hands outstretched. In her eyes was the look that only once or twice in his life had Boswell ever seen directed toward him by any human being—the look that claimed the hidden and best in him, forgetting the deformities that limited him.
"I think you are the best man on earth, the noblest friend. Oh! what can we do for Master Farwell?"
Quite simply Boswell took the hands in his. Her eyes made him brave and strong, and her "we" throbbed in his thoughts like a warm and tender caress.
"You must leave that to me," he said gently, giving his kindly smile. "I cannot share this burden with you. So long have I borne it that it has become sacred to me. It means only making the story a little longer, a little stronger. Some day he will have to know—some day; but not now! not now!"
Just then a distant church bell struck the midnight hour. Solemnly, insistently, the twelve strokes rose and fell.
"The wind has passed," whispered Boswell.
"Yes, and the fire is dead. You are very, very tired, I am sure," Priscilla murmured.
Something new and maternal had entered into her thought and voice. While life lasted she was always to see in the crippled man a brave and patient soul who played with sternest problems because he had no other toys with which to while away his dreary years; no other offerings for them he loved.
"Yes. The play is over for—to-night. The Property Man can take his rest until—to-morrow. Turn on the lights, Priscilla Glenn. You and I must find our way out of the darkness."
"Let me help you, Mr. Boswell."
"Help me? That sounds very kind. I will make believe that I am ninety! Yes, you may help me. Thank you! And now good night. You need not write of—Joan Moss to Farwell. I am grateful because you understand and appreciate my—my attempt. I can bring the tale to a close in great style. I was a bit discouraged, but it seems clear and convincing now. That is often the way in my trade of story-maker. We come against a blank wall, only to find there a gateway that opens to our touch."