They rose the next morning and dressed in the room without fire, shivering now as they drew on their stockings, frozen stiff. They had their morning coffee in a chilly room downstairs, where sometimes their slatternly landlady appeared, lugubriously voluble. This morning they ate alone, in silence, and none too happily. Even Annie's buoyant spirits seemed inadequate. A trace of bitterness was in her tone when she spoke.
"I'm sick of it."
"Yes, Annie," said Mary Warren. "And it's cold this morning, awfully."
"Cotton vests, marked down—to what wool used to be. Huh! Call this America?"
"What's wrong, Annie?" suddenly asked Mary Warren, drawing her wrap closer as she sat.
"I'd go to the lake before I'd go to the streets, though you mightn't think it. But how about it with only the discards in Derby hats and false teeth left? If we two are going to get married, Mollie, we got to look around among the remnants and bargains—we can't be too particular when we're hunting bargains. Whether it's all off for you at the store or not ain't for me to say, but you might do worse than listen to me."
Mary Warren looked at her in a sort of horror. "Annie, what do you mean?" she demanded.
The real reply came in the hard little laugh with which Annie Squires drew from the pocket of her coat—in which she also was muffled at the breakfast table—a meager little newspaper, close-folded. She spread it out before she passed it to her companion.
"Hearts Aflame!" said she. "While you have to dry your own socks, while you break the ice in your coffee! Can't you feel your heart flame? Anyway, here you are—bargains in husbands and wives! Take 'em for the asking. Here's a lot of them advertised. Slightly damaged, but serviceable—and marked down within the reach of all.
"Why, us girls over at the shop, we read these things regular," she rattled on in explanation, her mouth full. "Some of the girls answer these ads—it's lots of fun. You ought to see what some of the men write back. Look at this one, Sis!" said she, chuckling. "Some class to it, eh?" She pointed to an advertisement a trifle larger than its fellows, a trifle more boldly displayed in its black type.
"Wanted: A Wife. A well-to-do and chivalrous rancher of abundant means and large holdings in a Western State wishes to correspond with a respectable young woman who will appreciate a good home and loving care. Object—Matrimony."
"How ridiculous," said Mary Warren simply.
"Uh huh! Is it, though? I don't know. I put this thing to my ear, and it sort of sounded as if there was something behind it. That fellow wants a woman of his own to keep house for him. Out there women are scarce. It's supply and demand, Sis, same as in your store. Well, here's a man looking for goods. So'm I. I've been looking him over for myself, because I ain't as strong for Charlie Dorenwald as I might be, even if he's foreman. He talks so damn much Bolshevik, somehow. Of course, the country's rotten, but it's ours! Still and all, I'll tell you what I'll do, Sis, with you!"
She pulled her chair up to the side of her companion, fumbling in her little purse as she did so; drew out a copper coin and held it balanced between her fingers.
"'The one shall be taken and the other left,' Sis," said she. "Two women, grinding at the mill, the same little old mill, as the Bible said; and 'The one shall be taken and the other left.' Which one? One throw, Mary. Heads or tails. It's got to hit the ceiling before it falls."
"Why, nonsense, Annie—— No, no!"
"Heads or tails!" insisted Annie Squires; and as she spoke she flipped the coin against the ceiling. It rolled toward the street window, where neither of them at first could see it.
"Tails!" called Mary Warren faintly, suddenly. It seemed to her she heard some other voice, speaking for her, without her real volition.
"You're on!" said Annie. They both rose and walked toward the darker side of the room.
"I can't see," said Mary. "Strike a match."
Annie did so, and they both bent over the coin.
"Tails—you win!" said Annie Squires. "Well, what do you know about that?"
She was half in earnest about her chagrin—half in earnest as she spoke. "I'd saved him for myself. Sometimes, I say, I don't know about this Charlie Dorenwald, even if he is crazy over me—I'm mostly being beware of foremen, me. And here's a chivalrous and well-to-do ranchman—out West! Gee! Congratulations, Sis!"
They laughed like girls, each with slightly heightened color in spite of all the make-believe. Then Annie ran to a vase of artificial flowers which stood upon the mantel, and pulled out a draggled daisy.
"What's he going to be, Kid—your man? Is he rich or poor? Listen! 'Lawyer—doctor—merchant—chief—rich man—poor man—beggar man—thief——'" She stopped in a certain consternation, the last petal in her hand—"A thief?——"
"Why, Annie, you surely don't believe in such things," said Mary Warren reprovingly. "And of course we oughtn't to have done anything foolish as this. It's—it's awful."
Annie, her mood suddenly changing, drew apart and sat down moodily.
"You couldn't blame a fellow for trying to forget things, Sis," said she. "Look at me. I'm on the street, you might say—they canned me yesterday! Yes! that's the truth. I wasn't going to tell you—you looked so cold last night, and you with your eyes what they are. It—it looks like Charlie had a chance, eh?"
Mary Warren looked at her for a time in silence. "You'll never have to toss a copper for a husband, I'm sure of that. If I were handsome as you——"
"Oh, am I?" said her companion. "Men hang around—what does it get me? Time passes. Where are we pretty soon? Men ain't all husbands that make love."
"How much money you got saved up, Mary?" she asked suddenly.
"Just one hundred thirty-five dollars and eighty cents," said Mary, not needing to consult her pass book. "I can pay for my bond now."
"Got me beat. Best I can do for my life savings is fifty-eight dollars and seventy-five cents. How long will that last you and me?"
"You're despondent, Annie—you mustn't feel blue—why, to-morrow we'll both go out and see what we can do."
"About me? I like that! It'syouwe got to bother about. My Lord! It ain't so far off, this ad inHearts Aflame! What you reallydoneed is a man who'll be kind and chivalrous with you."
"I haven't got to that yet," said Mary Warren, stoutly. Her color rose.
"No? Funnier things have happened. You might do worse."
"I'm notbredthat way, Annie," said Mary Warren slowly; but her color rising yet more as she realized that perhaps she had been cruel.
"You needn't explain anything to me," replied Annie. "I'm not sore. You came of a better family, and so it'll be harder for you to get through life than it is for me."
As she spoke she had risen, and was buttoning her street wraps. Mary Warren sat silent, the dark lenses of her glasses turned toward her companion.
"Beggar man—thief!" she said at last. "I'd be robbing him, even then!" She smiled bitterly. "Who'd takeme?"
When spring came above the icy shores of the inland seas, Mary Warren had been out of work for more than three months. She was ill; ill of body, ill of mind, ill of heart. Her splendid, resilient courage had at last begun to break. She was facing the thought that she could not carry her own weight in the world.
She sat alone once more one evening in the little room which after all thus far she and Annie had been able to retain. Her oculist had taken much from her scanty store of money. She held in her hand his last bill—unpaid; and though she had paid a score of his bills, yet her eyesight now was nearly gone. Her doctor called it "retinal failure"; and it had steadily advanced, whatever it was. Now she knew that there was no hope.
She greeted the homecoming of her room-mate each nightfall with eagerness. Annie by this time had found harder and worse paid work in another factory. She came in with her hands scarred and torn, her nails broken and stained. She had grown more reticent of late.
"Well, how are things coming along, Sis?" said she this evening on her return, after she had thrown her wrap across a chair back. "How much money have you got left? You look to me like you was counting it."
"Not very much, Annie—not very much. The doctor—you see, I can't take his time and not pay him."
"You're too thin-skinned. What are doctors for?"
"But, Annie, I don't know what to do. I'm scared. That's the truth about it—I'm scared!"
Her companion smiled, with her new slow and cynical smile. "Some of us go to the lake—or to a man—or to men," said she, succinctly. "Look over the stock of goods that's within your means. Bargains. Odds and Ends."
"What could Ido?"
"Suppose you got married to your gentle and chivalrous rancher out West. Maybe you'd be able to stand it after a while, even if he dyed his hair, or had his neck shaved round. Mostly they have false teeth—before they'll advertise. Probably he's a widower. Object: matrimony; that mostly is a widower's main object in life; and you can't show 'em nothing except when you bury 'em."
"I'd die before I'd answer that sort of a thing!" said Mary Warren hotly.
"You would," replied Annie. "I know that. I knew it all along. That's why I had to take it into my own hands." Again the cynical smile of Annie Squires, twenty-two.
"Your own hands—what do you mean by that?"
"I might as well tell you. I've been writing to him in your name! I've sent him apictureof you—I got it in the bureau drawer. And he's crazy over you!"
Mary Warren looked at her with wrath, humiliation and offended dignity showing in her reddened cheeks.
"You had the audacity to do that, Annie! Howdaredyou? Howcouldyou?"
"Well, I was afraid of the lake for you, and I knew that something had to be done, and you wouldn't do it. I've got quite a batch of letters from him. He's got three hundred and twenty acres of land, eight cows, a horse and a mule. He has a house which is all right except it lacks the loving care of a woman! Well, stack that up against this room. And we can't even keep this for very long.
"Listen, Mary," she said, coming over and putting both her broken hands on her friend's shoulders. "God knows, if I could keep us both going I would, but I don't make money enough for myself, hardly, let alone you. You don't belong where you've been—you wouldn't, even if you was well and fit, which you ain't. Mollie, Mollie, my dear, what is there ahead for you? Wegotto do some thinking. It's up to us right now. You're too good for the lake or the poor farm—or—why, youbelongin a home. Keep house? I wish't I knew as much as you do about that."
"I'll tell you," she resumed suddenly. "I'll tell you what let's do! A stenographer down at our office does all these letters for me—she's a bear, come to correspondence like that. Now, I'll have her get out a letter from you to him that will sort of bring this thing to a head one way or the other. We'll say that you can't think of going out there to marry a man sight-unseen——"
"No," said Mary Warren. "The lake, first." She was wringing her hands, her cheeks hot.
"But now, as a housekeeper——" After a long and perturbed silence Annie spoke again. "That's the real live idea, Sis! That's the dope! You mightthinkof going out there as a housekeeper, just to see how thingslooked—just so that you could look thingsover, couldn't you? You wouldn't marry any man in a hurry. You could say you'd only do your best as a sincere, honest woman—why, I have to tell that stenographer what to write, all the time. She's sloppy."
"Butlookat me, Annie—I wouldn't be worth anything as a housekeeper." Mary Warren was arguing! "As to marrying that way——"
—"Letter'll say you're not asking any pay at all. You don't promise anything. You don't askhimto promise anything. You don't want any wages. You don't let him pay your railroad fare out—not at all! You ain't taking any chances nor asking him to take any chances,—unless she falls in love with you for fair. Which I wouldn't wonder if he did. You're a sweet girl, Mollie. Put fifteen pounds on you, and you'd be a honey. You are anyway. Men always look at you—it's your figure, part, maybe. And you're so good—and you're alady, Sis. And if I——"
"Tell him," said Mary Warren suddenly, pulling herself together with the extremest effort of will and in the suddenest and sharpest decision she had ever known in all her life, "tell him I'm square! Tell him I'll be honest all the time—all the time!"
"As though you could be anything else, you poor dear!" said Annie Squires, coming over and throwing a strong arm about Mary Warren's neck, as though they both had done nothing but agree about this after a dozen conversations. And then she wept, for she knew what Mary Warren's surrender had cost. "And game! Game and square both, you sweet thing," sobbed Annie Squires.
"Give me fifteen pounds on you," she wept, dabbing at her own eyes, "and I wouldn't risk Charlie near you,—not a minute!"
Around the Two Forks Valley the snow still lay white and clean upon the peaks, but the feet of the mountains were bathed in a rising flood of green. On the bottom lands the grasses began to start, the willows renewed their leafery. On the pools of the limpid stream the trout left wrinkles and circles at midday now, as they rose to feed upon the insects swarming in the warmth of the oncoming sun.
On this particular morning Wid Gardner turned down the practically untrod lane along Sim's wire fence. Now and again he glanced at something which he held in his hand.
When he entered Sim Gage's gate, the ancient mule, his head out of the stable window, welcomed him, braying his discontent. Here lay the ragged wood pile, showing the ax work of a winter. At the edge of a gnawed hay stack stood the remnant of Sim's scant cattle herd, not half of which had "wintered through."
No smoke was rising from Sim Gage's chimney. "Feller's hopeless, that's what," complained Wid Gardner to himself. "It gravels me plenty."
A muffled voice answered his knock, and he pushed open the door. Sim Gage was still in bed, and his bed was still on the floor.
"Come in," said he, thrusting a frowsy head out from under his blankets. He used practically the same amount of covering about him in winter and summer; and now, as usual, he had retired practically without removing his daily clothing. His face, stubbled and unshaven, swollen with sleep and surmounted by a tangled fringe of hair, might not by any flight of imagination have been called admirable or inviting, as he now looked out to greet his caller.
"Oh, dang it! Git up, Sim," said Wid, irritated beyond expression. "It's after ten o'clock."
His words cut through the somewhat pachydermatous sensibilities of Sim Gage, who frowned a trifle as, after a due pause, he crawled out and sat down and reached for his broken boots.
"Well, I dunno as it's anybody's damn business whether I git up a-tall or not, except my own," said he. "I'll git up when I please, and not afore."
"Well, you might git up this morning, anyhow," said Wid.
"Why?"
"I got a letter for you."
"Look-a-here," said Sim Gage, with sudden preciseness. "What you been doing? Letter? What letter? And how come you by my letters?"
"Well, I been talking with Mis' Davidson—she run the whole correspondence, Sim. We—now—we allowed we'd ought to take care of it fer you. And we done so, that's all."
"Huh!" said Sim Gage. "Fine business, ain't it?"
"Well, she's a-coming on out," said Wid Gardner, suddenly and comprehensively.
"What's that? Who's a-coming on out?"
The face of Sim Gage went pale even under the cold water to which at the moment he was treating his leathery skin in the basin on top the stove.
"Sim," said Wid Gardner, "it was understood that this thing was to run in your name. Now, Mis' Davidson—when it comes to fixing up a love correspondence, she's the ace! It all ain't my fault a-tall, Sim. We advertised—and we got a answer, and we follered it up. And this here letter is there-sult. I allowed we'd ought to tell you too, by now."
"What you been doing—fooling with me, you two?" demanded Sim. "That whole thing was a joke."
"It's one hell of a fine joke now," rejoined Wid Gardner. "She's a-coming on out. Sim, it's up to you.Iain't been advertising fer no wife. This here letter isyours."
"That's a fine thing you done, ain't it?" said Sim Gage, turning on to his neighbor. "When you find the ford's too deep to git acrost, you begin to holler fer help."
"That's neither here nor there. That ain't the worst—I've got her picture here, and her letters too. She's been plumb honest all along. She says she's pretty much broke, and not too well. She says when she sees you she hopes you won't think she's deceived you. She says she knows you're everything you said you was—a gentle and chivalerous ranchman of the West, sure to be kind to a woman. She's scared—she's that honest. But she's a-coming. She's going to try housekeeping though—no more'n that. Rest's all up to you, not her. She balked from the jump on all marrying talk."
"Mis' Davidson ought to take care of this thing," said Sim Gage, his features now working, as usual, in his perplexity.
"Mis' Davidson is due to pull her freight. She's going down on her own homestead. I'm some scared too, Sim. You don't reallyknowhow you been making love to this woman. I didn't know Mis' Davidson had it in her. You got to come through now, Sim."
"Who says I got to come through?"
"You got to go to town to-morrow."
"So you're a-going to make me go in to town tomorrow and marry a woman I never seen, whether I want to or not?"
"No, it ain't right up to that—you needn't think she's coming out here to hunt up a preacher and git married to you right away. Not a-tall, Mr. Gage, not none a-tall! She never onct said she'd do any more'n come out here and keep house fer you one season—that's all. Said she wouldn't deceive you. God knows how you can keep from deceivingher. Look at this place. And you got to bring her here—to-morrow. She'll be at Two Forks station to-morrow morning at eight-thirty, on the Park train. This here thing is up to you right now. You made such a holler about needing a woman to make things human fer you. Well, here you are. There's the cards—play 'em the way they lay. You be human now if you can. You got the chance."
"I ain't got no wagon, Wid," said Sim, weakly. "You know I ain't got none."
"You'll have to take my buckboard."
"And you know I ain't got no team—my horse, he ain't right strong—didn't winter none too well—and I couldn't go there with just one mule, now could I?"
"You'll have to take my team of broncs," said Wid. "You can start out from my place."
"But one thing, Sim Gage," he continued, "when you've started, I'm a-coming down here with a pitch-fork and I'm a-going to clean out this place! It ain't human. We'll do the best we can. Since there ain't a-going to be no marrying right off, you'll have to sleep in your wall tent outside. You'll have to git some wood cut up. You'll have to git a clean bed here in the house,—this bed of yours is going to be burned out in the yard. You'll have to git new blankets when you go to town."
"As fer your clothes"—he turned a contemptuous glance upon Sim as he stood—"they ain'thardlyfit fer a bridegroom! Go to the Golden Eagle, and git yourself a full outfit, top to bottom—new shirts, new underclothes, new pants, new hat, new socks, new gloves, new everything. This girl can't come out here and see you the way you are, and this place the way it's been. She'd start something."
"Well, if you leave it to me," said Sim Gage mildly, "all this here seems kind of sudden. You come in afore I'm up, and tell me to burn my bed, and sleep in a tent, and borry a wagon and team and go to town fer to marry a girl I never seen. That don't look reason'ble to me, especial since I ain't had no hand in it."
"It's up to you now."
"How do I know whether I want that girl or not? I ain't read no letters—nor wrote none. I ain't seen no picture of her——"
"Well," said Wid, and reached a hand into his breast pocket, "here she is."
In a feeling more akin to awe than anything else, Sim Gage bent over, looking down at the clear oval face, the piled dark hair, the tender contour of cheek and chin of Mary Warren, as beautiful a young lady as any man is apt ever to see; so beautiful that this man's inexperienced heart stopped in his bosom. This picture once had been buttoned in the tunic of an aviator who flew for the three flags; her brother; and before his death and its return more than one of Dan Warren's army friends had looked at it reverently as Sim Gage did now.
"Wears glasses, don't she," said he, to conceal his confusion. "Reckon she's a school ma'am?"
"Ask me, and I'll say she's a lady. She says she's a working girl. Says she's had trouble. Says she's up against it now. Says she ain't well, and ain't happy, and—well, here she is."
"My good God A'mighty!" said Sim Gage, his voice awed as he looked at the high-bred, clear-featured face of Mary Warren.
The transcontinental train from the East rarely made its great climb up the Two Forks divide on time, and to-day it was more than usually late. A solitary figure long since had begun to pace the station platform, looking anxiously up and down the track.
It was Sim Gage; and this was the first time he ever had come to meet a train at Two Forks.
Sim Gage, but not the same. He now was in stiff, ill-fitting and exclaimingly new clothing. A new dark hat oppressed his perspiring brow, new and pointed shoes agonized his feet, a new white collar and a tie tortured his neck. He had been owner of these things no longer than overnight. He did not feel acquainted with himself.
He was to meet a woman! Her picture was in his pocket, in his brain, in his blood. A vast shyness, coming to consternation, seized him. He felt a sense of personal guilt; and yet a feeling of indignity and injustice claimed him. But all this and all his sullen anger was wiped out in this great shyness of a man not used to facing women. Sim Gage was product of a womanless land. This was the closest his orbit ever had come to that of the great mystery. And he had been alone so long. A sudden surging longing came to his heart. Sim Gage was shy always, and he was frightened now; but now he felt a longing—a longing to be human.
Sim Gage never in all his life had seen a young woman looking back at him over his shoulder. And now there came accession of all his ancient dread, joined with this growing sense of guilt. A few passengers from the resort hotel back in the town began to appear, lolling at the ticket window or engaged at the baggage room. Sim Gage found a certain comfort in the presence of other human beings. All the time he gazed furtively down the railway tracks.
A long-drawn scream of the laboring engines told of the approaching train at last. Horses and men pricked up their ears. The blood of Sim Gage's heart seemed to go to his brain. He was seized with a panic, but, fascinated by some agency he could not resist, he stood uncertainly until the train came in. He began to tremble in the unadulterated agony of a shy man about to meet the woman to whom he has made love only in his heart.
Sim Gage's team of young and wild horses across the street began to plunge now, and to entangle themselves dangerously, but he did not cross the street to care for them.Shewas coming! The woman from the States was on this very train. In two minutes——
But the crowd thinned and dissipated at length, and Sim Gage had not found her after all. He felt sudden relief that she had not come, mingled with resentment that he had been made foolish. She was not there—she had not come!
But his gaze, passing from one to another of the early tourists, rested at last upon a solitary figure which stood close to the burly train conductor near the station door. The conductor held the young woman's arm reassuringly, as they both looked questioningly from side to side. She was in dark clothing. A dark veil was across her face. As she pushed it back he saw her eyes protected by heavy black lenses.
Sim Gage hesitated. The conductor spoke to him so loudly that he jumped.
"Say, are you Mr. Gage?"
"That's me," said Sim. "I'm Mr. Gage." He could not recall that ever in his life he had been so accosted before; he had never thought of himself as being Mr. Gage, only Sim Gage.
One redeeming quality he had—a pleasant speaking voice. A sudden turn of the head of the young woman seemed to recognize this. She reached out, groping for the arm of the conductor. Consternation urged her also to seek protection. This was the man!
"Lady for you, Mr. Gage," said the conductor. "This young woman caught a cinder down the road. Better see a doctor soon as you can—bad eye. She said she was to meet you here."
"It's all right," said Sim Gage suddenly to him. "It's all right. You can go if you want to."
He saw that the young woman was looking at him, but she seemed to make no sign of recognition.
"I'm Mr. Gage, ma'am," said he, stepping up. "I'm sorry you got a cinder in your eye. We'll go up and see the doctor. Why, I had a cinder onct in my eye, time I was going down to Arizony, and it like to of ruined me. I couldn't see nothing for nearly four days."
He was lying now, rather fluently and beautifully. He had never been in Arizona, and so little did he know of railway travel that he had not noted that this young woman came not from a sleeping car, but from one of the day coaches. The dust upon her garments seemed to him there naturally enough.
She did not answer, stood so much aloof from him that a sudden sense of inferiority possessed him. He could not see that her throat was fluttering, did not know that tears were coming from back of the heavy glasses. He could not tell that Mary Warren had appraised him even now, blind though she was; that she herself suffered by reason of that wrong appraisal.
The throng thinned, the tumult and shouting of the hotel men died away. Sim Gage did not know what to do. A woman seemed to mean a sudden and strangely overwhelming accession of problems. What should he do? Where would he put her? What ought he to say?
"If you'll excuse me," he ventured at last, "I'll go acrosst and git my team. They're all tangled up, like you see."
She spoke, her voice agitated; reached out a hand. "I—I can't see atall, sir!"
"That's too bad, ma'am," said Sim Gage, "but don't you worry none at all. You set right down here on the aidge of the side walk, till I git the horses fixed. They're scared of the cars. Is this your satchel, ma'am?"
"Yes—that's mine."
"You got any trunk for me to git?" he asked, turning back, suddenly and by miracle, recalling that people who traveled usually had trunks.
He could not see the flush of her cheek as she replied, "No, I didn't bring one. I thought—what I had would do." He could not know that nearly all her worldly store was here in this battered cheap valise.
"You ain't a-going to leave us so soon like that, are you?"
She turned to him wistfully, a swift light upon her face. He had said, "leave us"—not "leave me." And his voice was gentle. Surely he was the kind-hearted and chivalrous rancher of his own simple letters. She began to feel a woman's sense of superiority. On the defensive, she replied: "I don't know yet. Suppose we—suppose——"
"Suppose that we wait awhile, eh?" said Sim Gage, himself wistful.
"Why—yes."
"All right, ma'am. We'll do anything you like. You don't need no trunk full of things out here—I hope you'll git along somehow."
Knowing that he ought to assist her, he put out a hand to touch her arm, withdrew it as though he had been stung, and then hastily stood as he felt her hand rest upon his arm. He led her slowly to the edge of the platform. Then she heard his footsteps passing, heard the voices of two men—for now a bystander had gone across to do something for the plunging horses, one of which had thrown itself under the buckboard tongue. She heard the two men as they worked on. "Git up!" said one voice. "Git around there!" Then came certain oaths on the part of both men, and conversation whose import she did not know.
Their voices were as though heard in a dream. There suddenly came an overwhelming sense of guilt to Mary Warren. She had been unfair to this man! He was a trifle crude, yes; but kind, gentle, unpresuming. She felt safer and safer—guilty and more guilty. How could she ever explain it all to him?
"I reckon they're all right now," said Sim Gage, after a considerable battle with his team. "Nothing busted much. Git up on the seat, won't you, Bill, and drive acrosst—I got to help that lady git in."
"Who is she?" demanded the other, who had not failed to note the waiting figure.
"It's none of your damn business," said Sim Gage. "That is, it's my housekeeper—she's going to cook for the hay hands."
"With a two months' start?" grinned the other.
"Drive on acrosst now," said Sim Gage, in grim reply, which closed the other's mouth at once.
Mary Warren heard the crunch of wheels, heard the thump of her valise as Sim Gage caught it up and threw it into the back of the buckboard. Then he spoke again. She felt him standing close at hand. Once more, trembling as in an ague, she placed a hand upon his arm.
"Now, when I tell you," he said gently, "why, you put your foot up on the hub of the wheel here, and grab the iron on the side, and climb in quick—these horses is sort of uneasy."
"I can't see the wheel," said Mary Warren, groping.
She felt his hand steadying her—felt the rim of the wheel under her hand, felt him gently if clumsily try to help her up. Her foot missed the hub of the wheel, the horses started, and she almost fell—would have done so had not he caught her in his arms. It was almost the first time in his life, perhaps the only time, that he had felt the full weight of a woman in his arms. She disengaged herself, apologized for her clumsiness.
"You didn't hurt yourself, any?" said he anxiously.
"No," she said. "But I'm blind—I'm blind! Oh, don't you know?"
He said nothing. How could she know that her words brought to Sim Gage not regret, but—relief!
He steadied her foot so that it might find the hub of the wheel, steadied her arm, cared for her as she clambered into the seat.
"All right," she heard him say, not to her; and then he replaced the other man on the high seat. The horses plunged forward. She felt herself helpless, alone, swept away. And she was blind.
All the way across the Middle West, across the great plains, Mary Warren had been able to see somewhat. Perhaps it was the knitting—hour after hour of it, in spite of all, done in sheer self-defense. But at the western edge of the great Plains, it had come—what she had dreaded. Both eyes were gone! Since then she had not seen at all, and having in mind her long warning, accepted her blindness as a permanent thing.
She passed now through a world of blackness. She could not see the man who had written those letters to her. She could catch only the wine of a high, clean air, the breath of pine trees, the feeling of space, appreciable even by the blind.
Suddenly she began to sob. Sim Gage by now had somewhat quieted his wild team, and he looked at her, his face puckered into a perturbed frown.
"Now, now," he said, "don't you take on, little woman." He was abashed at his daring, but himself felt almost like tears, as things now were. "It'll all come right. Don't you worry none. Don't be scared of these horses a-tall, ma'am; I can handle 'em all right. We got to see that doctor."
But when presently they had driven the half mile to the village, he learned that the doctor was not in town.
"We can't do anything," said she. "Drive on—we'll go. I don't think the doctor could help me very much."
All the time she knew she had in part been lying to him. It was not merely a cinder in her eye—this was a helpless blindness, a permanent thing. The retina of each eye now was ruined, gone. So she had been warned. Again she reached out her hand in spite of all to touch his arm. He remained silent. She cruelly misunderstood him.
At last she turned fully towards him, and spoke suddenly. "Listen!" said she. "I believe you're a good man. I'll not deceive you."
"God knows I ain't no good man," said Sim Gage suddenly, "and God knows I'm sorry I deceived you like I have. But I'll take care of you until you can do something better, and until you want to go back home."
"Home?" she said. "I haven't any home. I tell you I've deceived you. I'm sorry—oh, it's all so terrible."
"It shore is," said Sim Gage. "I didn't really write them letters—but it's my fault you're here. You can blame me fer everything. Why, almost I was a notion never to come near this here place this morning. I felt guilty, like I'd shot somebody—I didn't know. I feel that way now."
"You're all your letters said you were," said Mary Warren, weeping now. "Any woman who would deceive such a man——"
"You ain't deceived me none," said Sim Gage. "But it's wrong of me to fool a woman such as you, and I'm sorry. Only, just don't you git scared too much. I'm a-going to take care of you the best I know how."
"But it wasn't true!" she broke out—"what the conductor said! It isn't just a cinder in my eye—it's worse. My eyes have been getting bad right along. I couldn't seeanythingto-day. You didn't know. I lost my place. I have no relatives—there wasn't any place in the world for me. I was afraid I was going blind—and yesterday Ididgo blind. I'll never see again. And you're kind to me. I wish—I wish—why, what shall Ido?"
"Ma'am," said Sim Gage, "I didn't know, and you didn't know. Can you ever forgive me fer what I've done to you?"
"Forgive you—what do you mean?" she said. "Oh, my God, what shall I do!"
Sim Gage's face was frowning more than ever.
"Now, you mustn't take on, ma'am," said he. "I'm sorry as I can be fer you, but I got to drive these broncs. But fer as I'm concerned—it ain't just what I want to say, neither—Ican'tmake it right plain to you, ma'am. It ain't right fer me to say I'm almostgladyou can't see—but somehow, that's right the way I do feel! It's mercifuler toyouthat way, ma'am."
"What do you mean?" said Mary Warren. She caught emotion in this man's voice. "Whatever can youmean?"
"Well," said Sim Gage, "take me like I am, setting right here, I ain't fitten to be setting here. But I don'twantyou to see. I got that advantage of you, ma'am. I canseeyou, ma'am"; and he undertook a laugh which made a wretched failure.
"How far is it to your—our—the place where we're going?" she asked after a time.
"About twenty-three mile, ma'am," he answered cheerfully. "Road's pretty fair now. I wish't you could see how pretty the hills is—they're gitting green now some."
"And the sky is blue?" Her eyes turned up, sensible of no more than a feeling that light was somewhere.
"Right blue, ma'am, with leetle white clouds, not very big. I wish't you could see our sky."
"And trees?"
"Dark green, ma'am—pine trees always is."
She heard the rumble of the wheels on planks, caught the sound of rushing waters.
"This is the bridge over the West Fork, ma'am," said her companion. "It's right pretty here—the water runs over the rocks like."
"And what is the country like on ahead, where—where we're going?"
"It's in a valley like, ma'am," said Sim Gage.
"There's mountains on each side—they come closest down to the other fork, near in where I live. That fork's just as clean as glass, ma'am—you can see right down into it, twenty feet——" Then suddenly he caught himself. "That is, I wish't you could. Plenty of fish in it—trout and grayling—I'll catch you all you want, ma'am. They're fine to eat."
"And are there things about the place—chickens or something?"
"There's calves, ma'am," said Sim Gage. "Not many. I ain't got no hens, but I'll git some if you want 'em. We'd ought to have some eggs, oughtn't we? And I got several cattle—not many as I'd like, but some. This ain't my wagon. These ain't my horses; I got one horse and a mule."
"What sort is it—the house?"
Sim Gage spoke now like a man and a gentleman.
"I ain't got no house fitten to call one, ma'am," said he, "and that's the truth. I've got a log cabin with one room. I've slept there alone fer a good many years, holding down my land."
"But," he added quickly, "that's a-going to be your place. Me—I'm out a leetle ways off, in the flat, beyond the first row of willers between the house and the creek—I always sleep in a tent in the summer time. I allow you'd feel safer in a house."
"I've always read about western life," said she slowly, in her gentle voice. "If only—I wish——"
"So do I, ma'am," said Sim Gage.
But neither really knew what was the wish in the other's heart.
The sweet valley, surrounded by its mountains, was now a sight to quicken the pulse of any heart alive to beauty, as it lay in its long vistas before them; but neither of these two saw the mountains or the trees, or the green levels that lay between. Long silences fell, broken only by the crackling clatter of the horses' hoofs on the hard roadway.
It was Mary Warren who at last spoke, after a deep breath, as though summoning her resolution. "You're an honest man," said she. "I ought to be honest with you."
"I reckon that's so enough, ma'am," said Sim Gage. "But I just told you I ain't been honest with you. I never wrote one of them letters that you got—it was some one else."
"But you came to meet me—you're here——"
"Yes, but I didn't write them letters. That was all done by friends of mine."
"That's very strange. That's just the reason I wanted to tellyouthat I hadn't been honest—I never wrote the letters thatyougot! It was my room-mate, Annie Squires."
"So? That's funny, ain't it? Some folks has funny idees of jokes. I reckon they thought this was a joke. It ain't."
"Your letters seemed like you seem now," she broke in. "It seems to me you must have written every word."
"Ma'am——" said Sim Gage; and broke down.
"Yes, sir?"
"Them is the finest words I ever heard in my life! I ain't been much. If I could only live up to them words, now——
"Besides," he went on, a rising happiness in his tones, "seems like you and me was one just as honest as the other, and both meaning fair. That makes me feel a heap easier. If it does you, you're welcome."
Blind as she was, Mary Warren knew now the gulf between this man's life and hers. But his words were so kind. And she so much needed a friend.
"You're a forgiving man, Mr. Gage," said she.
"No, I ain't. I'm a awful man. When you learn more about me you'll think I'm the worst man you ever seen."
"We'll have to wait," was all that Mary Warren could think to say. But after a time she turned her face toward him once more.
"Do you know," said she, "I think you're a gentleman!"
"Oh, my Lord!" said Sim Gage, his eyes going every which way. "Oh, my good Lord!"
"Well, it's true. Look—you haven't said a word or done a thing—you haven't touched me—or laughed—or—or hinted—not once. That's being a gentleman, in a time like this. This—this is a very hard place for a woman."
"It ain't so easy fer a man! But I couldn't have done no other way, could I?"
She made no answer. "Are there many other women in this valley, Mr. Gage?" she asked after a time. "Who are they? What are they like?"
"Five, in twenty-two miles between my place and town, ma'am," he answered, "when they're home. The nearedest one to us is about couple miles, unless you cut through the fields."
"Who is she? What is she like?"
"That is Mis' Davidson, our school ma'am— She's the only woman I seen a'most all last summer, unlessen onct in a while a woman would come out with some fishing party in a automobile. Most of them crosses up above on the bridge and comes down the other side of the creek from us. Seems to me sometimes women has always been just acrosst the creek from me, ma'am. I don't know much about them. Now, Wid—Wid Gardner—he's the next rancher to me, this side—he sometimes has folks come there in the fishing season."
"Your log house is all painted and nice, isn't it?"
"Painted, ma'am? Lord, no! You don't paint a log house none."
"I never saw one in my life," said she contritely; then, sighing. "I never will, now."
"Do men come to your place very much, then?" she asked at length.
"Why, Wid, he sometimes comes over."
"And who is Wid?"
"Like I said, he's got the next ranch to mine. He's maybe a forwarder sort of man than me."
"Did he have anything to do with—that advertisement?"
"How can you guess things like that?"
"He thought you were all alone?"
"We did have some talk. But I want to tell you one thing, ma'am—if I had ever thought onct that we'd a-brung a woman likeyouhere, I'd never of been part nor party to it. I guess not!"
"And yet you can't see why you're a gentleman!" said she again slowly.
"You said you'd be going back home again before long?" It was the first thing Sim Gage could say.
"I haven't any home."
"Nor no folks neither?"
"There's not a soul in the world that I could go back to, Mr. Gage. So now, I've told you the truth."
"But there was oncet, maybe?" he said shrewdly. "How old are you?" He flushed suddenly at this question, which he asked before he thought.
"I'm twenty-five."
"You don't look that old. Me, I'm thirty-seven. I'm too old to marry. Now I never will."
"How do you know?" she said. "What do you mean?" As she spoke she felt the tears come again on her cheeks, felt her hands trembling.
"Well, ma'am, I know mighty well I'll never marry now. Of course, if one sort of woman had came out here—big and strong enough to be a housekeeper and nothing else, and all that, and one thing with another—I won't say what might have happened. Strange things has happened that way—right out of them damnHearts Aflameads—right around along in here, in this here valley, too, I know. Well, of course, a man can't get along so well, ranching, unless he has a wife——"
"Or a housekeeper?"
"Why, yes. That's what we advertised fer. I didn't know it."
Mary Warren pondered for a long time.
"Look at me," she said at last. "There's no place for me back home, and none here. What sort of housekeeper would I make—and what sort of—of—wife? I'm disappointing you; and you're disappointing me. What shall we both do?"
"Why, how do you mean?" said Sim Gage, wonderingly. "Disappoint you? Of course I couldn't marry a woman like you! You don't want me to dothat? That wouldn't be right."
"Oh, I don't mean that! I don't know what I did mean!"
Some sense of her perturbation must have come to him. "Now don't you worry, ma'am. Don't you git troubled none a-tall. I'm a-goin' to take care of you myself until everything gits all right."
"I'm a thief! I'm a beggar!" was all she could say.
"The same here, ma'am! You've got nothing on me," said Sim Gage. "What I said is, we're in the same boat, and we got to go the best way we can till things shapes out. It ain't very much I got to offer you. Us sagebrushers has to take the leavings."
"You've said the truth for me—the very truth. I'm of the discard—I can't earn my living. Leavings! And I wanted to earn my living."
"You've earned it now, ma'am," said Sim Gage; and perhaps made the largest speech of all his life.
"Well, anyways, we're going to come to my land right now," he added after a time. "We've passed the school house, only couple mile from my place. On ahead here is Wid Gardner's ranch, on the left hand side. I don't reckon he's at home. I told you the school ma'am had maybe went off to her homestead, didn't I? Maybe Nels Jensen, he's maybe driving her to the Big Springs station down below. This here is Wid Gardner's team and buckboard, ma'am. I ain't got around to fixing mine up this spring. I've got to drive back after a while and take these things back to Wid."
Her situation grew more tense. They were coming now to the end of the journey—to her home—to his home. She did not speak. To her ears the sound of the horses' feet seemed less, as though they were passing on a road not so much used.
"This is a sort of alley, like, down along between the willers and the rail fence," explained Sim Gage. "It's about half a mile of this. Then we come to my gate."
And presently they did come to his gate, where the silver-edged willows came close on the one side and the wide hay meadows reached out on the other toward the curving pathway of the river. He pulled up.
"Could you hold these horses, ma'am, fer a minute? I got to open the gate."
He handed her the reins, it never occurring to him that there was any one in the world who had never driven horses. She was frightened, but resolved to appear brave and useful.
Sim Gage began to untwist the short club which bound the wire gate shut. He pulled it back, and clucked to the horses, seeing that she did not start them.
Mary Warren knew nothing of horses. It seemed to her that the correct thing to do was to drop the reins loosely, shaking them a little. The half wild horses, with their uncanny brute sense, knew the absence of a master, and took instant advantage of the knowledge. With one will they sprang, lunged, and started forward, plunging. Mary Warren dropped the lines.
"Sit still there!" she heard a voice call out imperatively. Then, "Whoa! damn you, whoa now!"
She could see nothing, but sensed combat. Sim Gage had sprung forward and caught the cheek strap of the nearest horse. It reared and struck out wildly. She heard an exclamation, as though of pain, but could not see him as he swung across to the other horse and caught his fingers in its nostrils, still calling out to them, imperiously, in the voice of a commander.
At length they halted, quieted. She heard his voice speaking brokenly. "Set still where you are, ma'am. I'll tie 'em."
"You're hurt!" she called out. "It was my fault."
"I'm all right. Just you set still."
Apparently he finished fastening the horses to something. She heard him come to the end of the seat, knew that he was reaching up his arms to help her down. But when she swung her weight from the seat she felt him wince.
"One of 'em caught me on the knee," he admitted. "It was my new pants, too."
She could not see his face, gray with pain now under the dust.
"It's all my fault—I didn't dare tell you—I don't know anything about horses. I don't know anything about anything out here!"
"Take hold of my left hand coat sleeve," he answered to her confession. "We'll walk on into the yard. Keep hold of me, and I'll keep hold of them horses. I'll look out if they jump."
For some reason of their own the team became less fractious. He limped along the road, his hand at the bit of the more vicious. She could feel him limp.
"You're hurt—they did jump on you!" she reiterated.
"Knee's busted some, but we'll git along. Don't you mind. Anyhow, we're here. Now, you go off, a little ways—it's all level here—and I'll unhitch these critters."
"That's the barn over there," he added, pointing in a direction which she could not see. "Plain trail between the house and the corral gate. On beyond is my hay lands and the willers along the creek. There's a sort of spring thataway"—again he pointed, invisibly to her—"and along it runs a band of willers—say a hundred yards from the house. It all ain't much. I never ought to of brought you here a-tall, but like I said, we'll do the best we can. Please don't be afraid, or nothing."
Stripped of their harness, the wild team turned and made off at a run down the road, through the gate and back to their own home.
"Good riddance," said Sim Gage, stooping, his hands at his cut knee-cap. "Wid can come over here fer his own buckboard, fer all of me."
"Take right a-holt of my arm tight, and go easy now," he added, turning to Mary Warren. She felt his hand on her arm.
They passed around the corner of the cabin. She reached out a hand to touch the side post as she heard the door open.
"It's a right small little place inside," said Sim Gage, "only one bunk in it. I've got some new blankets and I'll fix it all up. Maybe you'll want to lay down and rest a while before long.
"Over at the left is the stove—when I git the fire going you can tell where it is, all right. Between the stove and the bunk is the table, where we eat—I mean where I used to eat. It all ain't so big. Pretty soon you'll learn where the things all is. It's like learning where things is in the dark, ma'am, I suppose?"
"Yes. What time is it?" she asked suddenly. "You see, I can't tell."
"Coming on evening, ma'am. I reckon it's around three or four o'clock. You see, I ain't got a clock. I ain't got round to gitting one yet. Mine's just got busted recent.
"This here's a chair, ma'am," he said. "Jest set down and take it right easy. Lay off your wraps, and I'll put 'em on the bunk. You mustn't worry about nothing. We're here now."
By and by she felt his hand touch her sleeve.
"Here's a couple of poker sticks," said he. "I reckon maybe you'll need to use one onct in a while to kind of feel around with. Well, it's the same with me—I'm going to need something, kind of, my own self. That knee's going to leave me lame a while,Ibelieve."
A sudden feeling that they two were little better than lost children came to her as she turned toward him. A strange, swift feeling of companionship rose in her heart. Her vague fears began to vanish.
"You're hurt," said she. "What can I do? Can't you put some witch hazel on your knee?"
"I ain't got none, ma'am."
"Isn't there some alcohol, or anything, in the place?"
"No, ma'am—why, yes, there is too! I got some whiskey left. Whiskey is good fer most anything. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll just go round the house, and I'll rub some of that whiskey on my knee."
She heard him pass out of the door. She was alone. Absolutely she welcomed the sound of his foot again. He might have seen her face almost light up.
"When you git kicked on a bone," he said, "it hurts worse. She's swelled up some, but I reckon she'll get well in a few days or weeks. I don't think she's busted much, though at first I thought he'd knocked the knee cap plump off. There's a cut in above there. Cork of the shoe must of hit me there."
The gravity of her face was her answer. She could see nothing.
"I reckon you can smell that whiskey," said he, "but I ain't drunk none—it's just on my leg, that's all."
"You're not a drinking man?" she asked.
"Why, yes, of course I am. All of us people out here drinks more or less when they can git it—this is a dry state. But I allow I'll cut it out fer a while, now, ma'am."
"Ain't you hungry now, ma'am?" he added. "We didn't have a bite to eat all day."
"Yes," said she. "But how can I help cook supper—what can I do?"
"There ain't much you need to do, ma'am. If I've lived here alone all this time, and lived alone everywhere else fer thirty-seven years, I reckon I can cook one more meal."
"For your housekeeper!" she said, smiling bitterly.
"Well, yes," he replied. "You don't know where things is yet. I got some bacon here, and aigs too. I brought out some oranges from town—fer you." She did not see him color shyly. Oranges were something Sim Gage never had brought to his ranch before. He had bought them of the Park commissary at the station.
"Then I got some canned tomatoes—they're always good with bacon. Out under my straw pile I got some potatoes that ain't froze so very bad anyways, and you know spuds is always good. I didn't bring no more flour, because I had plenty. I can make all sorts of bread, ma'am—flapjacks, or biscuits, or even sour dough—even dough-gods. I ain't so strong when it comes to making the kind of bread you put in the oven."
"Why, I can make that—I know I can do that!" she said, pleased at the thought.
"We'll start in on that to-morrow," said he. "I'll just cook you one meal—as bad as I can, ma'am—so as to show you how bad I needed a housekeeper out here."
The chuckle in his tones was contagious, so that she almost laughed herself. "All right," said she.
She heard him bustling around here and there, rattling pans, stumbling over sticks of wood on the floor.
"Haven't you any chickens?" she asked.
"No, ma'am, I ain't got around to it. I was a-going to have some."
"I'd like awfully well to have some chickens. Those little yellow things, in my hands——"
"We can get plenty, ma'am. I can drive out just a leetle ways, about forty miles, to where the Mormons is at, and I can get plenty of 'em, even them yeller ones."
"Where is the dog? Haven't you got a dog?"
"No, ma'am, I ain't. The wolves got mine last winter, and I ain't got round to getting another one yet. What kind would you like?"
"Why, a collie—aren't they nice?"
"Yes, ma'am, I reckon. Only thing is, they might take me fer a sheep man. I'd hate that."
"Well—even a little dog?"
"I'll get you one, any kind you want. I allow myself, a dog is a heap of comfort. I'm about the only homesteader in this valley that ain't got one right now. Some has sever'l."
"I can make the coffee, I'm sure," she said, still endeavoring to be of use. But she was skimpy in her measurement, and he reproached her.
"That won't make it strong enough. Don't you like it right strong?"
"Well, Annie and I," said she honestly, "couldn't afford to make it very strong. Annie was my roommate, you see."
"We can afford anything we want out here, ma'am. I got a credit at the store. We're going to make six hundred tons of hay right out there in them medders this summer. We're going to have plenty of money. Hay is mighty high. I can get eight dollars a ton standing out there, and not put a machine into it myself. Wheat is two dollars and twenty cents a bushel, the lowest."
"Why, that's fine, that's fine!" said she. "I'm so glad." She knew nothing in the world about hay or wheat.
The odors from the stove appealed pleasantly enough to the tired woman who sat on the box chair, in the same place she originally had taken. "Draw up," said Sim Gage. But it was clumsy work for her to eat, newly blind. She was so sensitive that she made no pretence of concealing her tears.
"I wouldn't worry none, ma'am," said Sim Gage, "if I could help it. I wouldn't worry any more'n I could help, anyways. I'll put things where you can find 'em, and pretty soon you'll get used to it."
"But at least I can wash the dishes."
"That's so," said he. "That's so. I reckon you could do that. It ain't hard." And indeed in due course he made arrangements for that on the table in front of her, so that she might feel easier in being useful.
"Why, that isn't the dish pan," said she.
Sim Gage flushed with great guiltiness.
"No, ma'am, it ain't. It's only the wash pan. Fact is, some one has been in this place since I been away, and they stole my dish pan, the low-down pups. I didn't know as you'd notice the wash pan."
"Well, it will do for once," she said dubiously, and so she went on, making good shift, wiping the dishes carefully and placing them before her on the table. Then she laughed. "It was the same with Annie and me—we only had the one pan. Yours is much larger than ours was. I always helped with the dishes."
"That's fine," said he. "Do you know, that's the part of keeping house I always hated more'n anything else, just washing dishes."
"I almost always did that for Annie and me," said Mary Warren, feeling out with her hands gently and trying to arrange the battered earthenware upon the table.
"Now," said Sim Gage, "I reckon I'd better get them new blankets in and make up that bed. Come along, ma'am, and I'll show you." And in spite of all he took her arm and led her to the side of the rude bunk.
"I'm so tired," she said. "Do you know, I'm awfully scared out here." Her lips were quivering.
"Ain't a woman a funny thing, though?" said Sim Gage. "No use to be scared, none a-tall. I'll show you how us folks makes a bed. There's willer branches and pine underneath, and hay on top. Over that is the tarp, and now I'm spreading down the blankets. You can feel 'em—soft ones—goodblankets, I can tell you! Whole bed's kind of soft and springy, ma'am. You reckon you can sleep?"
Responsively she stretched out a hand and felt across the surface of the soft new blankets.
"Why, where are the sheets?" said she.
"Sheets!" said Sim Gage in sudden consternation. "Now, look at that! That ornery low-down pup that come and stole my dish pan must of took all my sheets too! Fact is, I just made it up with blankets, like you see. But you needn't mind—they're plumb new and clean. Besides, it gets cold here along toward morning, even in the summer time. Blankets is best, along toward morning."
She stood hesitant as she heard his feet turning away.
"I'm going away fer a hour or so," said he. "I got to take care of my horse and things. Now, you feel around with your stick, sort of. I reckon I better go over before long and make up my own bed—my tent is beyond the willers yonder."
She could not know that Sim Gage's bed that night would be composed of nothing better than a pile of willow boughs. He had given her the last of the new blankets—and his own old bed was missing now. Wid had fulfilled his threat and burned it.
She stood alone, her throat throbbing, hesitant, at the side of the rude bunk.
"He's a kind man," said she to herself, half aloud, after a time. "Oh, if only I could see!"
She began to feel her way about, stood at the door for a time, looking out. Something told her that the darkness of night was coming on. She turned, felt her way back to the edge of the bunk, and knelt down, her head in her hands. Mary Warren prayed.
She paused after a long time—half-standing, a hand upon the soft-piled blankets, her eyes every way. Yes, she was sure it was dark. And above all things she was sure that she was weary, unutterably, unspeakably weary. The soft warmth of the blankets about her was comforting.
Sim Gage in his own place of rest was uneasy. Darkness came on late by the clock in that latitude. Something was on Sim's mind. He had forgotten to tell his new housekeeper how to make safe the door! He wondered whether she had gone to bed or whether she was sitting there in the dark—an added darkness all around her. He was sure that if he told her how to fasten the door she would sleep better.
Timidly, he got up out of his own comfortless couch, and groped for the electric flash-light which sometimes may be seen in places such as his to-day. He tiptoed along the path through the willows, across the yard, and knocked timidly at the door. He heard no answer. A sudden fear came to him. Had she in terror fled the place—was she wandering hopelessly lost, somewhere out there in the night? He knocked more loudly, pushed open the door, turned the flash light here and there in the room.
He saw her lying, the blankets piled up above her, a white arm thrown out, her eyes closed, her face turned upon her other arm, deep in the stupor of exhaustion. She was a woman, and very beautiful.
Suddenly frightened, he cut off the light. But the glare had wakened her. She started up, called out, "Who's there?" Her voice was vibrant with terror. "Who'sthere?" she repeated.
"It's only me, ma'am," said Sim Gage, his voice trembling.
"You said you wouldn't come!—Go away!"
"I wanted to tell you——"
"Go away!"
He went outside, but continued stubbornly, gently.
"—I wanted to say to you, ma'am," said he, "you can lock this here door on the inside. You come around, and you'll find a slat that drops into the latch. Now, there's a nail on a string, fastened to that latch. You can find that nail, and if you'll just drop that bar and push the nail in the hole up above it—why, you'll be safe as can be, and there can'tnoone get in."
He stood waiting, fumbling at the button of the flash light. By accident it was turned on again.
He saw her then sitting half upright in the bed, both her white arms holding the clothing about her, the piled mass of her dark hair framing a face which showed white against the background. Her eyes, unseeing, were wide open, dark, beautiful. Sim Gage's heart stopped in his bosom. She was a woman. She had come, of her own volition. They were utterly alone.