A few days on a yacht, with a calm sea and sun-cool weather, may be something like a century of bliss for a pair of lovers, if they happen to have taken the lucky hour. The conventions of yacht life allow a companionship from dawn till dark, if they choose to have it; there is a limited amount of outside distraction; if the girl be an outdoor lass, she looks all the sweeter for the wind rumpling her hair; and on shipboard, if anywhere, mental resourcefulness and good temper achieve their full reward.
Aleck had been more crafty than he knew when he carried Mélanie and Madame Reynier off on theSea Gull. Almost at the last moment Mr. Chamberlain had joined them, Aleck's liking for the man and his instinct of hospitality overcoming his desire for something as near as possible to a solitudeà deuxwith Mélanie.
They could not have had a better companion. Mr. Chamberlain was nothing less than perfect in his position as companion and guest. He enjoyed Madame Reynier's grand duchess manners, and spared himself no trouble to entertain both Madame Reynier and Mélanie. He was a hearty admirer, if not a suitor, of the younger woman; but certain it was, that, if he ever had entertained personal hopes in regard to her, he buried them in the depths of his heart by the end of their first day on theSea Gull. He understood Aleck's position with regard to Mélanie without being told, and instantly brought all his loyalty and courtesy into his friend's service.
Madame Reynier had an interest in seeing the smaller towns and cities of America; "something besides the show places," she said. So they made visits ashore here and there, though not many. As they grew to feel more at home on the yacht, the more reluctant they were to spend their time on land. Why have dust and noise and elbowing people, when they might be cutting through the blue waters with the wind fresh in their faces? The weather was perfect; the thrall of the sea was upon them.
The roses came into Mélanie's cheeks, and she forgot all about the professional advice which she had been at such pains to procure in New York. There was happiness in her eyes when she looked on her lover, even though she had repulsed him. As for Mr. Chamberlain, he breathed the very air of content. Madame Reynier, with her inscrutable grand manner, confessed that she had never before been able precisely to locate Boston, and now that she had seen it, she felt much better. Even Aleck's lean bulk seemed to expand and flourish in the atmosphere of happiness about him. His sudden venture was a success, beyond a doubt. The party had many merry hours, many others full of a quiet pleasure, none that were heavy or uneasy.
If Aleck's outer man prospered in this unexpected excursion, it can only be said that his spiritual self flowered with a new and hitherto unknown beauty. It was a late flowering, possibly—though what are thirty-four years to Infinity?—but there was in it a richness and delicacy which was its own distinction and won its own reward.
Mélanie's words, spoken in their long interview in the New York home, had contained an element of truth. There was a poignant sincerity in her saying, "You do not love me enough," which touched Aleck to the center of his being. He was not niggardly by nature; and had he given stintingly of his affection to this woman who was to him the best? His whole nature shrank from such a role, even while he dimly perceived that he had been guilty of acting it. If he had been small in his gift of love, it was because he had been the dupe of his theories; he had forsworn gallantry toward women, and had unwittingly cast aside warmth of affection also.
But such a condition was, after all, more apparent than real. In his heart Aleck knew that he did love Mélanie "enough," however much that might be. He loved her enough to want, not only and not mainly, what she could give to him; but he wanted the happiness of caring for her, cherishing her, rewarding her faith with his own. She had not seen that, and it was his problem to make her see it. There was only one way. And so, in forgetting himself, forgetting his wants, his comforts, his studies and his masculine will—herein was the blossoming of Aleck's soul.
Mélanie instinctively felt the subtle change, and knew in her heart that Aleck had won the day, though she still treated their engagement as an open question. Aleck would read to her in his simple, unaffected manner, sometimes with Madame Reynier and Mr. Chamberlain also for audience, sometimes to her alone. And since they lived keenly and loved, all books spoke to them of their life or their love. A line, a phrase, a thought, would ring out of the record, and each would be glad that the other had heard that thought; sometime they would talk it all over. They learned to laugh at their own whimsical prejudices, and then insisted on them all the harder; they learned, each from the other, some bit of robust optimism, some happiness of vision, some further reach of thought.
After they had read, they would play at quoits, struggling sternly against each other; or Chamberlain would examine Mélanie in nautical lore; or together, in the evening, they would trace the constellations in the heavens. During their first week they were in the edge of a storm for a night and a day; but they put into harbor where they were comfortable and safe, and merry as larks through it all.
So, day by day, Aleck hedged Mélanie about with his love. Was she thoughtful? He let her take, as she would, his thoughts, the best he could give from his mature experience. Was she gay? He liked that even better, and delighted to cap her gaiety with his own queer, whimsical drolleries. Whatever her mood, he would not let her get far from him in spirit. It was not in her heart to keep him from her; but Aleck achieved the supermundane feat of making his influence felt most keenly when she was alone. She dwelt upon him in her thoughts more intensely than she herself knew; and that intenseness was only the reflection of his own thought for her.
They had been sailing a little more than a week, changing the low, placid Connecticut fields for the rougher northern shores, going sometimes farther out to sea, but delighting most in the sweet, pine-fringed coast of Maine. There were no more large cities to visit, only small villages where fishermen gathered after their week's haul or where slow, primitive boat-building was still carried on. Most of the inhabitants of the coast country appeared to be farmers as well as fishermen, even where the soil was least promising. The aspect of the shores was that of a limited but fairly prosperous agricultural community. Under the shadow of the hills were staid little homes, or fresh-painted smart cottages. Sometimes a bold rock-bank formed the shore for miles and miles, and the hills would vanish for a space. Here and there were headlands formed by mighty boulders, against which the waves endlessly dashed and as endlessly foamed back into the sea.
Such a headland loomed up on their starboard one evening when the sun was low; and as the plumes of spray from the incoming waves rose high in the air a rainbow formed itself in the fleeting mist. It was a fairy picture, repeating itself two or three times, no more.
"That's my symbol of hope," said Aleck quite impersonally, to anybody who chose to hear.
Mr. Chamberlain turned to Aleck with his ready courtesy. "Not the only one you have received, I hope, on this charming voyage."
Madame Reynier was ready with her pleasant word. "Aren't we all symbols for you—if not of hope, then of your success as a host? We've lost our aches and our pains, our nerves and our troubles; all gone overboard from theSea Gull."
"You're all tremendously good to me, I know that," said Aleck, his slow words coming with great sincerity.
Mélanie kept silence, but she remembered the rainbow.
The headland was the landward end of a small island, one part of which was thickly wooded. A large unused house stood in a clearing, evidently once a rather pretentious summer residence, though now there were many signs of delapidation. The pier on the beach had been almost entirely beaten down by storms, and a small, flimsy slip had taken its place, running far down into the water. A thin line of smoke rose from the chimney of one of the outbuildings; and while they looked and listened the raucous cry of a peacock came to them over the still water. Presently Chamberlain suggested:
"I feel it in my bones that there'll be lobsters over there to be had for the asking. I heard your man say he wanted lobsters, Van; and I believe I'll row over there and see. I'm feeling uncommonly fit and need some exercise."
"All right, I'll go too," said Aleck.
"I'll bet a bouquet that I beat you rowing over—Miss Reynier to furnish the bouquet!" was Chamberlain's next proposition. "Do you agree to that, my lady?"
"And pray, where should I get a bouquet?"
"Oh, the next time we get on land. And we won't put up with any old bouquet of juniper bushes and rocks, either. We want a good, old-fashioned round bouquet of garden posies, with mignonette round the edge and a rose in the middle; a sure-enough token of esteem—that kind of thing, you know. Is it a bargain, Miss Reynier?"
"Very well, it is a bargain," agreed Mélanie; "but I shall choose bachelors' buttons!"
So they took the tender and got off, with a great show of exactness as to time and strictness of rules. Madame Reynier was to hold the watch, and Aleck was to wave a white handkerchief the minute they touched sand. Mr. Chamberlain was to give a like signal when they started back. The yacht slowed down, and held her place as nearly as possible.
Chamberlain pulled a great oar, and was, in fact, far superior to Aleck in point of skill; but his stroke was not well adapted to the choppy waves inshore. He had learned it on the sleepy Cam, where the long, gliding blade counts best. The men stayed ashore a long time, disappearing entirely beyond the clump of trees that screened the outbuildings. When they reappeared, an old man was with them, following them down to the boat. Then the white handkerchief appeared, and the boat started on its return.
Aleck profited by Chamberlain's work, and made the boat leap forward by a shorter, almost jerky stroke. He came back easily with five minutes to spare.
"Good work!" said Mr. Chamberlain. "You have me beaten, and you'll get the bachelors' buttons; but you had the tide with you."
"Nonsense! I had the lobsters extra!" asserted Aleck.
"Well, if you had been born an Englishman, we'd make an oarsman out of you yet!"
"Huh!" said Aleck.
But they had news to tell the ladies, and while they were having their dinner their thoughts were turned to another matter. The island, it appeared, had for some years been abandoned by its owner, and its only inhabitant was a gray and grizzly old man, known to the region as the hermit. His fancy was to keep a light burning always by night in the landward window of his cabin, so as to warn sailors off the dangerous headland. There was no lighthouse in the vicinity, and by a kindly consent the people on the neighboring islands and on the mainland opposite encouraged his benevolent delusion, if delusion it might be called. They contrived to send him provisions at least once a week; and they had supplied him with a flag which, it was understood, he would fly in case he was in actual need. So, alone with his cow and his fowls, the old hermit spent his days, winter and summer, tending his lamp when the dark came on.
Aleck and Mr. Chamberlain had picked up some of this information at the last port which theSea Gullmade; but what was of new and real interest to them now was the story which the old man told them of a castaway on the island a few days before.
"All hands had abandoned the yacht just before she went down, it appears. The owner was robbed by his own men and marooned on the hermit's island—that's the gist of it," said Aleck.
"The hermit said the man wouldn't eat off his table," went on Mr. Chamberlain; "but asked him for raw eggs and ate them outdoors. Said that except when he asked for eggs he never spoke without cursing. At least, the hermit couldn't understand what he said, so he thought it was cursing. And while the old man was talking," added Chamberlain resentfully, "that blooming peacock squawked like a demon."
"The yacht that went down, according to the man, was theJeanne D'Arc," said Aleck, who had been grave enough between all their light-hearted talk. "I didn't tell you, Chamberlain, that my cousin, my old chum, went off quite unexpectedly on a boat called theJeanne D'Arc. Where he went or what for, I don't know. Of course, it may have been anotherJeanne D'Arc; it probably was. But it troubles me."
Mélanie was instantly aroused. "Oh, I had an uncanny feeling when you first mentioned theJeanne D'Arc!" she cried. "But could you not find out more? What became of the man that was marooned?"
"He got off the island a day or two ago," said Aleck. "The people that brought provisions to the old man took him to the mainland, to Charlesport."
"The beggar left without so much as thanking the old man for his eggs," added Chamberlain.
"We'll put into Charlesport to-night, if you don't mind," said Aleck. "If I can find the man that was marooned, I may be able to learn something about Jim, if he really was on the yacht. You can all go ashore, if you like. There's a big summer hotel near by, and it's a lovely country."
"We'll stay wherever it's most convenient for you to have us," said Mélanie, looking at Aleck; for once, with more than a friendly interest in her eyes.
"And perhaps I can help you, Van; two heads, you know," said Chamberlain.
Aleck, troubled as he was, could not help being grateful to his friends. So theSea Gull, turned suddenly from her holiday mood, headed into the harbor of Charlesport.
The village still rang, if so staid a community could be said to ring, with reports of the event of the week before. Doctor Thayer had been sphinx-like, and Little Simon had been imaginative and voluble; and it would have been difficult to say which had teased the popular curiosity the more. Aleck found a tale ready for his ears about the launch and its three passengers, with many conflicting details. Some said that a great singer had been wrecked off Ram's Head, others that it was the captain and mate of theJeanne D'Arc, others that it was a daughter of old Parson Thayer's sweetheart and two sailors that came ashore. Little or nothing was known about the island castaway. Aleck followed the only clue he could find, thinking to get at least some inkling of the truth.
Little Simon drove leisurely up the long, rugged hill over which Agatha and James had so recently traveled, and drew rein in the shade at a distance of a long city block from his destination. He pointed with his whip while he addressed Aleck, his sole passenger.
"Yonder's the old red house, Mister. The parson, he hated to have his trees gnawed, and Major here's a great horse for gnawing the bark offer trees. So I never go no nearer the house than this."
"All right, Simon; you wait for me here."
Aleck walked slowly along the country road, enjoying the fragrant fields, the quiet beauty of the place. It was still early in the day, for he had lost no time in following the clues gathered from the village as to the survivors of theJeanne D'Arc. The air was fresh and clean, with a tang of the distant salt marshes.
A long row of hemlocks and Norway spruce bordered the road, and, with the aid of a stone wall, shut off from the highway a prosperous-looking vegetable garden. Farther along, a flower garden glowed in the fantastic coloring which gardens acquire when planted for the love of flowers rather than for definite artistic effects. Farther still, two lilac bushes stood sentinel on either side of a gateway; and behind, a deep green lawn lay under the light, dappled shade of tall trees. It was a lawn that spoke of many years of care; and in the middle of its velvet green, under the branches of two sheltering elms, stood the old red house. It looked comfortable and secure, in its homely simplicity; something to depend on in the otherwise mutable scenes of life. Aleck felt an instantaneous liking for it, and was glad that his errand, sad as it might possibly be, had yet led him thither.
Long French windows in the lower part of the house opened upon the piazza, and from the second story ruffled white curtains fluttered to the breeze. As the shield-shaped knocker clanged dully to Aleck's stroke, a large, melancholy hound came slowly round the corner of the house, approached the visitor with tentative wags of the tail, and after sniffing mildly, lay down on the cool grass. It wasn't a house to be hurried, that was plain. After a wait of five or ten minutes Aleck was about to knock again, when a face appeared at one of the side-lights of the door. Presently the door itself opened a few inches, and elderly spinsterhood, wrapped in severe inquiry, looked out at him.
"Can I see the lady, or either of the gentlemen, who recently arrived here from the yacht, theJeanne D'Arc?"
Aleck's voice and manner were friendly enough to disarm suspicion itself; Sallie Kingsbury looked at him for a full second.
"Come in."
Aleck followed her into the wide, dim hall, and waited while she pulled down the shade of the sidelight which she had lifted for observation. Then she opened a door on the right and said:
"Set down in the parlor while I go and take my salt risin's away from the stove. I ain't had time to call my soul my own since the folks came, what with callers at all times of the day."
Sallie's voice was not as inhospitable as her words. She was mildly hurt and grieved, rather than offended. She disappeared and presently came back with a white apron on in place of the colored gingham she had worn before; but it is doubtful if Aleck noticed this tribute to his sex. Sallie looked withered and pinched, but more by nature and disposition than by age. She stood with arms akimbo near the center-table, regarding Aleck with inquisitiveness not unmixed with liking.
"You can set down, sir," she said politely, "but I don't know as you can see any of the folks. The man, he's up-stairs sick, clean out of his head; and the young man, he's nursing him. Can't leave him alone a minute, or he'd be up and getting out the window, f'rall I know."
Aleck listened sympathetically. "A sad case! And what is the name, if I may ask, of the young man who is so ill?"
"Lor', I don't know," said Sallie. "The new mistress, her name's Redmond; some kin of Parson Thayer's, and she's got this house and a lot of money. The lawyer was here yesterday and got the will all fixed up. She's a singer, too—one of those opery singers down below, she is."
Sallie made this announcement as if she was relating a bewildering blow of Providence for which she herself was not responsible. Aleck, who began to fear that he might be the recipient of more confidences than decorum dictated, hastily proffered his next question.
"Can I see the lady, Miss Redmond? Or is it Mrs. Redmond?"
Sallie gave a scornful, injured sniff.
"MissRedmond, sir, though she's old enough to be a Mrs. I wouldn't so much mind her coming in here and using the parson's china that I always washed with my own hands if she was a Mrs. But what can she, an unmarried woman and an opery singer, know about Parson Thayer's ways and keeping this house in order, when I've been with him going on seventeen years and he took me outer the Home when I was no more than a child?"
Aleck's heart would have been stone had he resisted this all but passionate plea.
"You have been faithfulness itself, I am sure. But do you think Miss Redmond would see me, at least for a few minutes?"
Sallie recovered her dignity, which had been near a collapse in tears, and assumed her official tone. "I don't know as you can, and I don't knowasyou can. She's sick, too; fell overboard somehow or other, offer one of those pesky boats, and got neuralagy and I don't know what all. But I'll go and see how she's feeling."
"Stay, wait a minute," said Aleck, seized with a new thought. "I'll write a message to Miss Redmond and then she'll know just what I want. If you'll be so good as to take it to her?"
"Why, certainly, of course I will," Said Sallie Kingsbury. "Only you needn't take allthattrouble. I can tell her what you want myself." Sallie was one of those persons who regard the pen as the weapon of last resort, not to be used until necessity compels. But Aleck continued writing on a blank leaf of his note-book. The message was this:
"Can you give me any information concerning my cousin, James Hambleton, who was thought to be aboard theJeanne D'Arc?"
He tore the leaf out, extracted a card from his pocketbook, and handed leaf and card to Sallie. "Will you please give those to Miss Redmond?"
Sallie wiped her hands, which were perfectly clean, on her white apron, took the card and bit of paper and departed, sniffing audibly. When she returned, it was to say, with a slightly more interested air, that Miss Redmond wished to see him up-stairs. She stood at the bottom of the wide stairway and pointed to a corner of the upper floor. "She's in there—room on the right!" and so she stalked off to the kitchen.
Aleck Van Camp sought the region indicated by Sallie's gaunt finger with some misgivings; but he was presently guided further by a clear voice.
"Come in this way, Mr. Van Camp, if you please!"
The voice led him to an open door, before which he stood, looking into a large, old-fashioned bedroom, from whose windows the white curtains fluttered in the breeze. Miss Redmond was propped up with pillows on a horsehair-covered lounge, which stood along the foot of a monstrous bed. She was clothed in some sort of wool wrapper, and over her feet was thrown a faded traveling rug. By her side stood a chair on which were writing materials, Aleck's note and card, and a half-written letter. Agatha sat up as she greeted Aleck.
"I am glad to see you, Mr. Van Camp. Will you come in? I ask your pardon for not coming downstairs to see you, but I have been ill, and am not strong yet."
She was about to motion Aleck to a chair, but stopped in the midst of her speech, arrested by his expression. Aleck stood rooted to the door-sill, with a look of surprise on his face which amounted to actual amazement. Thus apparently startled out of himself, he regarded Agatha earnestly.
"Will you come in?" Agatha repeated at last.
"Pardon me," he said finally in his precise drawl, "but I confess to being startled. You—you bear such an extraordinary resemblance to some one I know, that I thought it must really be she, for a moment."
Agatha smiled faintly. "You looked as if you had seen a ghost."
Aleck gazed at her again, a long, scrutinizing look. "Itdoesmake one feel queer, you know."
"It does make one feel queer, you know."[Illustration: "Itdoesmake one feel queer, you know."]
"It does make one feel queer, you know."[Illustration: "Itdoesmake one feel queer, you know."]
"But now that you are assured that I'm not a ghost, will you sit down? That chair by the window, please. And I can't tell you how glad I am to see you; for James Hambleton, your cousin, if he is your cousin, is here in this house, and he is ill—very ill indeed."
Aleck's nonchalance had already disappeared, in the series of surprises; but at Agatha's words a flush of pleasure and relief overspread his face. He strode quickly over toward Agatha's couch.
"Oh, I say—old Jim—I thought, I was afraid—"
Agatha was touched by the evidences of his emotion, and her voice became very gentle. "I fancy it is the same—James Hambleton of Lynn?" Aleck nodded and she went on: "That's what he told me, the night we were wrecked."
Agatha looked at Aleck, as if she would discover whether he were trustworthy or not, before giving him more of her story. Presently she continued:
"He's a very brave, a very wonderful man. He jumped overboard to save me, after I fell from the ladder; and then they left us and we swam ashore. But long before we got there I fainted, and he brought me in, all the way, though he was nearly dead of exhaustion himself. He had hemorrhage from overexertion, and afterward a chill. And now there is fever."
Agatha's voice was trembling. Aleck watched her as she told her tale, the flush of happiness and joy still lighting up his face. As she finished relating the meager facts which to her denoted so many heart-throbs, a sob drowned her voice. As Aleck followed the story, his own eyes wavered.
"That's Jim, down to the ground. Good old boy!" he said.
There was silence for a minute, then he heard Agatha's voice, grown little and faint. "If he should die—!"
Aleck, still standing by Agatha's couch, suddenly shook himself. "Where is he? Can I see him now?"
Agatha got up slowly and led the way down the hall, pointing to a door that stood ajar. It was evident that she was weak.
"I can't go in—I can't bear to see him so ill," she whispered; and as Aleck looked at her before entering the sick-room, he saw that her eyes were filled with tears.
Agatha went back to her couch, feeling that the heavens had opened. Here was a friend come to her from she knew not where, whose right it was to assume responsibility for the sick man. He was kind and good, and he loved her rescuer with the boyish devotion of their school-days. He would surely help; he would work with her to keep death away. Whatever love and professional skill could do, should be done; there had been no question as to that, of course, from the beginning. But here was some one who would double, yes, more than double her own efforts; some one who was strong and well and capable. Her heart was thankful.
Before Aleck returned from the sick-room, Doctor Thayer's step sounded on the stairs, followed by the mildly complaining voice of Sallie Kingsbury. Presently the two men were in a low-voiced conference in the hall. Agatha waited while they talked, feeling grateful afresh that Doctor Thayer's grim professional wisdom was to be reinforced by Mr. Van Camp's resources. When the doctor entered Agatha's room, her face had almost the natural flush of health.
"Ah, Miss Agatha Redmond"—the doctor continued frequently to address her by her full name, half in affectionate deference and half with some dry sense of humor peculiar to himself—"Miss Agatha Redmond, so you're beginning to pick up! A good thing, too; for I don't want two patients in one house like the one out yonder. He's a very sick man, Miss Agatha."
"I know, Doctor. I have seen him grow worse, hour by hour, ever since we came. What can be done?"
"He needs special nursing now, and your man in there will be worn out presently."
"Oh, that can be managed. Send to Portland, to Boston, or somewhere. We can get a nurse here soon. Do not spare any trouble. Doctor. I can arrange—"
Doctor Thayer squared himself and paced slowly up and down Agatha's room. He did not reply at once, and when he did, it was with one of his characteristic turns toward an apparently irrelevant topic.
"Have you seen Sister Susan?" he inquired, stopping by the side of Agatha's couch and looking down on her with his shrewd gaze. It was a needless question, for he knew that Agatha had not seen Mrs. Stoddard. She had been too weak and ill to see anybody. Agatha shook her head.
"Well, Miss Agatha Redmond, Susan's the nurse we need for that young gentleman over there. It's constant care he must have now, day and night; and if he gets well, it will be good nursing that does it. There isn't a nurse in this country like Susan, when she once takes hold of a case. That Mr. Hand in there is all right, but he can't sit up much longer night and day, as he has been doing. And he isn't a woman. Don't know why it is, but the Lord seems bent on throwing sick men into women's hands—as if they weren't more than a match for us when we're well!"
Agatha's humorous smile rewarded the doctor's grim comments, if that was what he wanted.
"No, Doctor," she said, with a fleeting touch of her old lightness, "we're never a match for you. We may entertain you or nurse you or feed you, or possibly once in a century or two inspire you; but we're never a match for you."
"For which Heaven be praised!" ejaculated the doctor fervently.
Agatha watched him as he fumbled nervously about the room or clasped his hands behind him under his long coat-tails. The greenish-black frock-coat hung untidily upon him, and his white fringe of hair was anything but smooth. She perceived that something other than medical problems troubled him.
"Would your sister—would Mrs. Stoddard—be willing to come here to take care of Mr. Hambleton?" she ventured.
"Ask methat," snapped the doctor, "when no man on earth could tell whether she'll come or not. She says she won't. She's hurt and she's outraged; or at least she thinks she is. But if you could get her to think that it was her duty to take care of that poor boy in there, she'd come fast enough."
Agatha was puzzled. She felt as if there were a dozen ways to turn and only one way that would lead her aright; and she could not find the clue to that one right way. At last she attacked the doctor boldly.
"Tell me, Doctor Thayer," she said earnestly, "just what it is that causes Mrs. Stoddard to feel hurt and outraged. Is it simply because I have inherited the money and the house? She can not possibly know anything about me personally."
The old doctor thrust his under jaw out more belligerently than ever, while turning his answer over in his mind. He took two lengths of the room before stopping again by Agatha's side and looking down on her.
"She says it isn't the money, but that it's the slight Hercules put upon her for leaving the place, our old home, out of the family. That's one thing; but that isn't the worst. Susan's orthodox, you know, very orthodox; and she has a prejudice against your profession—serving Satan, she calls it. She thinks that's what actresses and opera singers do, though how she knows anything about it, I don't see." The grim smile shone in the doctor's eyes even while he looked, half anxiously, to see how Agatha was taking his explanation of Mrs. Stoddard's attitude. Agatha meditated a moment.
"If it's merely a prejudice in the abstract against my being an opera singer, I think she will overcome that. Besides, Mr. Hambleton is neither an actor nor an opera singer; he isn't 'serving Satan.'"
"Well—" the doctor hesitated, and then went on hastily with a great show of irritation, "Susan's a little set in her views. She disapproves of the way you came here; says you shouldn't have been out in a boat with two men, and that it's a judgment for sin, your being drowned, or next door to it. I'm only saying this, my dear Miss Agatha, to explain to you why Susan—"
But Agatha was enlightened at last, and roused sufficiently to cause two red spots, brighter than they had ever been in health, to burn on her cheeks. She sat up very straight, facing Doctor Thayer's worried gaze, and interrupted him in tones ringing with anger.
"Do you mean to tell me, Doctor Thayer, that your sister, the sister of my mother's lifelong friend, sits in her house and imagines scandalous stories about me, when she knows nothing at all about the facts or about me? That she thinks I was out in a boat alone with two men? That she is mean enough to condemn me without knowing the first thing about this awful accident? Oh, I have no words!" And Agatha covered her burning face with her hands, unable, by mere speech, to express her outraged feelings. Doctor Thayer edged uneasily about Agatha's couch, with a manner resembling that of a whipped dog.
"Why, my dear Miss Agatha, Susan will come round in time. She's not so bad, really. She'll come round in time, only just now we haven't any time to spare. Don't feel so badly; Susan is too set in her views—"
"'Set!'" cried Agatha. "She's a horrid, un-Christian woman!"
"Oh, no," remonstrated the doctor. "Susan's all right, when you once get used to her. She's a trifle old-fashioned in her views—"
But Agatha was not listening to the doctor's feeble justification of Susan. She was thinking hard.
"Doctor Thayer," she urged, "do you want that woman to come here to take care of Mr. Hambleton? Isn't there any one else in this whole countryside who can nurse a sick man? Why, I can do it myself; or Mr. Van Camp, his cousin, could do it. Why should you want her, of all people, when she feels so toward us?"
The moment his professional judgment came into question Doctor Thayer slipped out from the cloud of embarrassment which had engulfed him in his recent conversation, and assumed the authoritative voice that Agatha had first heard.
"My dear Miss Agatha Redmond, that is foolish talk. You are half sick, even now; and it requires a strong person, with no nerves, to do what I desire done. Mr. Van Camp may be his cousin, but the chances are that he wouldn't know a bromide from a blister; and good nurses don't grow on bushes in Ilion, nor in Charlesport, either. There isn't one to be had, so far as I know, and we can't wait to send to Augusta or Portland. The next few days, especially the next twenty-four hours, are critical."
Agatha listened intently, and a growing resolution shone in her eyes.
"Would Mrs. Stoddard come, if it were not for what you said—about me?" she asked.
"The Lord only knows, but I think she would," replied the poor, harassed doctor. "She's always been a regular Dorcas in this neighborhood."
"Dorcas!" cried Agatha, her anger again flaring up. "I should say Sapphira."
"Oh, now, Susan isn't so bad, when you once know her," urged the doctor.
Agatha got up and went to the window, trailing her traveling rug after her. "She shall come—I'll bring her. And sometime she shall mend her words about me—but that can wait. If she will only help to save James Hambleton's life now! Where does she live?" Suddenly, as she stood at the window, she saw her opportunity. "There's Little Simon down there now under the trees; and his buggy must be somewhere near. Will you stay here, Doctor Thayer, with Mr. Hambleton, while I go to see your sister?"
"Hadn't I better drive you over to see Susan myself?" feebly suggested the doctor.
"No, I'll go alone." There was anger, determination, gunpowder in Agatha's voice.
"But mind you, don't offer her any money," the doctor warned, as he watched her go down the hall and disappear for an instant in the bedroom where James Hambleton lay. She came out almost immediately and without a word descended the wide stairway, opened the dining-room door, and called softly to Sallie Kingsbury.
Doctor Thayer returned to the sick-room. Ten minutes later he heard the wheels of Little Simon's buggy rolling rapidly up the road in the direction of Susan Stoddard's place.
There was a wide porch, spotlessly scrubbed, along the front of the house, and two hydrangeas blooming gorgeously in tubs, one on either side of the walk. The house looked new and modern, shiny with paint and furnished with all the conveniences offered by the relentless progress of our day.
Little Simon had informed Agatha, during their short drive, that Deacon Stoddard had achieved this "residence" shortly before his death; and his tone implied that it was the pride of the town, its real treasure. Even to Agatha's absorbed and preoccupied mind it presented a striking contrast to the old red house, which had received her so graciously into its spacious comfort. She marveled that anything so fresh and modish as the house before her could have come into being in the old town. It was next to a certainty that there was a model laundry with set tubs beyond the kitchen, and equally sure that no old horsehair lounge subtly invited the wearied traveler to rest.
A cool draft came through the screen door. Within, it was cleaner than anything Agatha had ever seen. The stair-rail glistened, the polished floors shone. A neat bouquet of sweet peas stood exactly in the center of a snow-white doily, which was exactly in the middle of a shiny, round table. The very door-mat was brand new; Agatha would never have thought of wiping her shoes on it.
Agatha's ring was answered by a half-grown girl, who looked scared when she saw a stranger at the door. Agatha walked into the parlor, in spite of the girl's hesitation In inviting her, and directed her to say to Mrs. Stoddard that Miss Redmond, from the old red house, wished particularly to see her. The girl's face assumed an expression of intelligent and ecstatic curiosity.
"Oh!" she breathed. Then, "She's putting up plums, but she can come out in a few minutes." She could not go without lingering to look at Agatha, her wide-eyed gaze taking note of her hair, her dress, her hands, her face. As Agatha became conscious of the ingenuous inspection to which she was subjected, she smiled at the girl—one of her old, radiant, friendly smiles.
"Run now, and tell Mrs. Stoddard, there's a good child! And sometime you must come to see me at the red house; will you?"
The girl's face lighted up as if the sun had come through a cloud. She smiled at Agatha in return, with a "Yes" under her breath. Thus are slaves made.
Left alone in the cool, dim parlor, so orderly and spotless, Agatha had a presentiment of the prejudice of class and of religion against which she was about to throw herself. Susan Stoddard's fanaticism was not merely that of an individual; it represented the stored-up strength of hardy, conscience-driven generations. The Stoddards might build themselves houses with model laundries, but they did not thereby transfer their real treasure from the incorruptible kingdom. If they were not ruled by aesthetic ideals, neither were they governed by thoughts of worldly display. This fragrant, clean room bespoke character and family history. Agatha found herself absently looking down at a white wax cross, entwined with wax flowers, standing under a glass on the center-table. It was a strange piece of handicraft. Its whiteness was suggestive of death, not life, and the curving leaves and petals, through which the vital sap once flowed, were beautiful no longer, now that their day of tender freshness was so inappropriately prolonged. As Agatha, with mind aloof, wondered vaguely at the laborious patience exhibited in the work, her eye caught sight of an inscription molded in the wax pedestal: "Brother." Her mind was sharply brought back from the impersonal region of speculation. What she saw was not merely a sentimental, misguided attempt at art; it was Susan Stoddard's memorial of her brother, Hercules Thayer—the man who had so unexpectedly influenced Agatha's own life. To Susan Stoddard this wax cross was the symbol of the companionship of childhood, and of all the sweet and bitter involved in the inexplicable bond of blood relationship. Agatha felt more kindly toward her because of this mute, fantastic memorial. She looked up almost with her characteristic friendly smile as she heard slow, steady steps coming down the hall.
The eyes that returned Agatha's look were not smiling, though they did not look unkind. They gazed, without embarrassment, as without pride, into Agatha's face, as if they would probe at once to the covered springs of action. Mrs. Stoddard was a thick-set woman, rather short, looking toward sixty, with iron-gray hair parted in the middle and drawn back in an old-fashioned, pretty way.
It was to the credit of Mrs. Stoddard's breeding that she took no notice of Agatha's peculiar dress, unsuited as it was to any place but the bedroom, even in the morning. Mrs. Stoddard herself was neat as a pin in a cotton gown made for utility, not beauty. She stood for an instant with her clear, untroubled gaze full upon Agatha, then drew forward a chair from its mathematical position against the wall. When she spoke, her voice was a surprise, it was so low and deep, with a resonance like that of the 'cello. It was not the voice of a young woman; it was, rather, a rare gift of age, telling how beautiful an old woman's speech could be. Moreover, it carried refinement of birth and culture, a beauty of phrase and enunciation, which would have marked her with distinction anywhere.
"How do you do, Miss Redmond?"
Agatha, standing by the table with the cross, made no movement toward the chair. She was not come face to face with Mrs. Stoddard for the purpose of social visitation, but because, in the warfare of life, she had been sent to the enemy with a message. That, at least, was Agatha's point of view. Officially, she was come to plead with Mrs. Stoddard; personally, she was hot and resentful at her unjust words. Her reply to her hostess' greeting was brief and her attitude unbending.
"I have come to ask you, Mrs. Stoddard," Agatha began, though to her chagrin, she found her voice was unsteady—"I have come personally to ask you, Mrs. Stoddard, if you will help us in caring for our friend, who is very ill. Your brother, Doctor Thayer, wishes it. It is a case of life and death, maybe; and skilful nursing is difficult to find."
Agatha's hand, that rested on the table, was trembling by the time she finished her speech; she was vividly conscious of the panic that had come upon her nerves at a fresh realization of the wall of defense and resistance which she was attempting to assail. It spoke to her from Mrs. Stoddard's calm, other-worldly eyes, from her serene, deep voice.
"No, Miss Redmond, that work is not for me."
"But please, Mrs. Stoddard, will you not reconsider your decision? It is not for myself I ask, but for another—one who is suffering."
Mrs. Stoddard's gaze went past Agatha and rested on the white cross with the inscription, "Brother." She slowly shook her head, saying again, "No, that work is not for me. The Lord does not call me there."
As the two women stood there, with the funeral cross between them, each with her heart's burden of griefs, convictions and resentments, each recoiled, sensitively, from the other's touch. But life and the burden life imposes were too strong.
"How can yon say, Mrs. Stoddard, 'that work is not for me,' when there is suffering you can relieve, sickness that you can cure? I am asking a hard thing, I know; but we will help to make it as easy as possible for you, and we are in great need."
"Should the servants of the Lord falter in doing His work?" Mrs. Stoddard's voice intoned reverently, while she looked at Agatha with her sincere eyes. "No. He gives strength to perform His commands. But sickness and sorrow and death are on every hand; to some it is appointed for a moment's trial, to others it is the wages of sin. We can not alter the Lord's decrees."
Agatha stared at the rapt speaker with amazed eyes, and presently the anger she had felt at Doctor Thayer's words rose again within her breast, doubly strong. The doctor had given but a feeble version of the judgment; here was the real voice hurling anathema, as did the prophets of old. But even as she listened, she gathered all her force to combat this sword of the spirit which had so suddenly risen against her.
"You are a hard and unjust woman, to talk of the 'wages of sin.' What do you know of my life, or of him who is sick over at the red house? Who are you, to sit in judgment upon us?"
"I am the humblest of His servants," replied Susan Stoddard, and there was no shadow of hypocrisy in her tones. She went on, almost sorrowfully: "But we are sent to serve and obey. 'Keep ye separate and apart from the children of this world,' is His commandment, and I have no choice but to obey. Besides," and she looked up fearlessly into Agatha's face, "wedoknow about you. It is spoken of by all how you follow a wicked and worldly profession. You can't touch pitch and not be defiled. The temple must be purged and emptied of worldliness before Christ can come in."
Agatha was baffled by the very simplicity and directness of Mrs. Stoddard's words, even though she felt that her own texts might easily be turned against her. But she had no heart for argument, even if it would lead her to verbal triumph over her companion. Instinctively she felt that not thus was Mrs. Stoddard to be won.
"Whatever you may think about me or about my profession, Mrs. Stoddard," she said, "you must believe me when I say that Mr. Hambleton is free from your censure, and worthy of your sincerest praise. He is not an opera singer—of that I am convinced—"
Susan Stoddard here interpolated a stern "Don't you know?"
"Listen, Mrs. Stoddard!" cried Agatha in desperation. "When the yacht, theJeanne D'Arc, began to sink, there was panic and fear everywhere. While I was climbing down into one of the smaller boats, the rope broke, and I fell into the water. I should have drowned, then and there, if it had not been for this man; for all the rest of the ship's load jumped into the boats and rowed away to save themselves. He helped me to come ashore, after I had become exhausted by swimming. He is ill and near to death, because he risked his life to save mine. Is not that a heaven-inspired act?"
Mrs. Stoddard's eyes glistened at Agatha's tale, which had at last got behind the older woman's armor. But her next attack took a form that Agatha had not foreseen. In her reverent voice, so suited to exhortation, she demanded:
"And what will you do with your life, now that you have been saved by the hand of God? Will you dedicate it to Him, whose child you are?"
Agatha, chafing in her heart, paused a moment before she answered:
"My life has not been without its tests of faith and of conscience, Mrs. Stoddard; and who of us does not wish, with the deepest yearning, to know the right and to do it?"
"Knowledge comes from the Lord," came Mrs. Stoddard's words, like an antiphonal response in the litany.
"My way has been different from yours; and It is a way that would be difficult for you to understand, possibly. But you shall not condemn me without reason."
"Are you going to marry that man you have been living with these many days?" was the next stern inquiry.
A stinging blush—a blush of anger and outraged pride as much as of modesty—surged up over Agatha's face. She was silent a moment, and in that moment learned what it was to control anger.
"I have not been 'living with' this man, in any sense of the term, Mrs. Stoddard. I will say this once for all to you, though I never would, in any other conceivable situation, reply to such a question and such an implication. You have no right to say or think such things."
"Wickedness must be rebuked of the Lord," intoned Mrs. Stoddard.
"Are you His mouthpiece?" said Agatha scornfully. But she was rebuked for her scorn by Mrs. Stoddard's look. Her eyes rested on Agatha's face with pleading and patience, as if she were a world-mother, agonizing for the salvation of her children.
"It is His command to pluck the brand from the burning," said Susan Stoddard. "Ungodly example is a sin, and earthly love often a snare for youthful feet."
As Agatha listened to Mrs. Stoddard's strange plea, the instinct within her which, from the first moment of the interview, had recoiled from this fanatical but intensely spiritual woman, found its way, as it were, into the light. Such was the power of her sincerity, that, in spite of the extraordinary character of the interview, Agatha's heart throbbed with a new comprehension which was almost love. She stepped closer to Susan Stoddard, her tall figure overtopping the other's sturdy one, and took one of her strong, work-hardened hands.
"Mrs. Stoddard, this man has never spoken a word of love to me. But if I ever marry, it will be a man like him—a plain, high-hearted gentleman. There! You have a woman's secret. And now come with me, and help us to save a life. You can not, you must not, refuse me now."
The subtle changes of the mind are hard to trace and are often obscure even to the eye of science; but every day those changes make or mar our joy. Susan Stoddard looked for a long minute up into the vivid face bending over hers, while her spirit, even as Agatha's had done, pierced the hedge which separated them, and comprehended something of the goodness in the other's soul. Finally she laid her other hand over Agatha's, enclosing it in a strong clasp. Then, with a certain pathetic pride in her submission, she said:
"I have been wrong, Agatha; I will come." Agatha's grateful eyes dwelt on hers, but the strain of the interview was beginning to count. She sank down in the chair that Mrs. Stoddard had offered at the beginning of their meeting, and covered her eyes with one hand. The elder woman kept the other.
"We will not go to our task alone," she said, "we will ask God's help. The prayer of faith shall heal the sick." Then falling to her knees by Agatha's side, with rapt, lifted face and closed eyes, she made her confession and her petition to the Lord. Her ringing voice intoned the phrases of the Bible as if they had been music and bore the burden of her deepest soul. She said she had been sinful in imputing unrighteousness to others, and that she had been blinded by her own wilfulness. She prayed for the stranger within her gates, for the sick man over yonder, and implored God's blessing on the work of her hands; and praise should be to the Lord. Amen.
"And now, Angie," she said practically, as she rose to her feet, addressing the girl who instantly appeared from around the doorway, "go and tell Little Simon to drive up to the horse-block. Agatha, you go home and rest, and I'll get hitched up and be over there almost as soon as you are. Angie will help me get the ice-bag and all the other things, in case you might not have them handy. Come, Agatha!"
But they paused yet a moment, stopping as if by a common instinct to look at the white cross. Susan Stoddard gazed down on it with a grief in her eyes that was the more heartbreaking because it was inarticulate. Agatha remembered the doctor's words, and understood something of the friction that could exist between this evangelistic sister and the finer, more intellectual brother.
"I've never been inside the old red house since he died," said Mrs. Stoddard.
"I'm sorry!" cried Agatha. "It is hard for you to come there, I know."
"He maketh the rough places plain," chanted Susan Stoddard. "Hercules was a good brother and a good man!"
Agatha laid her arm about the older woman's shoulder, and thus was led out to Little Simon's buggy. Susan helped her in, and Agatha leaned back, with closed eyes, indifferent to the beauty of early afternoon on a cool summer's day. Little Simon let her ride in quiet, but landed her in the dust on the opposite side of the road from the lilac bushes.
"Those trees!" said Doctor Thayer's voice, as he came out to meet her. "How did you make out with Susan?"
"She's coming," said Agatha. "Is your patient any better?"
"I don't think he's any worse," answered the doctor dubiously, "but I'm glad Susan's coming. I'd be glad to know how you got round her."
Agatha paused a moment before replying, "I wrestled with her."
The doctor smiled grimly, "I've known the wrestling to come out the other way."
"I can believe that!" said Agatha.
"Well, it's fairly to your credit!" And perhaps this was as near praise as his New England speech ever came.