Frank was seated on the lounge beside the window. His attitude was one of tense, hard feeling. His blue eyes were full of bitterness as they stared out at the coppery sheen of the telegraph wires, which caught the winter sunlight, just outside the sitting-room window.
Monica had just finished speaking. For some minutes the low pleading of her voice had reached him across the room. She was as far from him as the limits of the room would permit. Such was her repulsion at the lies she had to tell him that she felt the distance between them could not be too wide.
Her story was told. She had branded herself with her sister's shame. The curious twist of her mind held her to her promise, even to this extent. Now she waited with bowed head for the judgment of this youth of eighteen who had been taught to call her "mother." And as she sat there waiting she felt that her whole life, her whole being was made up of degraded falsehood.
The story was as complete as she could make it. The work was done. Her sister's name, and ill-fame, had been kept from her son.
As the moments passed and no word came in answer, Monica's apprehension grew, and she urged him. She could face his utmost scorn better than this suspense.
"That is all, Frank," she said, with a dignity she was wholly unaware of.
The man stirred. He stretched out his great limbs upon the couch and drew them up again. Then he turned his eyes upon the waiting woman. They were unsmiling, but they had no condemnation in them. He had fought out his little battle with himself.
"So I am a—bastard," he said, slowly and distinctly. "Frank; oh, Frank! Not that word."
The boy laughed, but without any mirth.
"Why not? Why be afraid of the truth? Besides, I have always known—at least suspected it."
Monica suddenly buried her face in her hands. He had known. He had suspected. And all these years she had endeavored to keep the secret from him. The thought of it all hurt her as much as if the shame of it were really hers.
Presently he left his seat and came to her side. "Don't worry, mother, dear," he said, with one hand tenderly laid upon her shoulder. "You see, we never talked much of my father. You were never easy when you spoke of him. I guessed there was something wrong; and being young, and perhaps imaginative, I found the truth without much guessing. Still I didn't ask questions. It was not up to me to hurt you. What was the use. I knew I should hear some day, and quite made up my mind how to act." He smiled. "You see, if you told me I knew I could bear it almost—easily. I should have far less to bear than you who told it, and—and that showed me how small a thing it was for me—by comparison. If it came through other sources I should have acted differently, particularly if the telling of it came from—a man."
He paused, and Monica looked up at him with wondering admiration.
"I want to tell you, mother," he hurried on, blushing painfully with self-consciousness, "that only a great and brave woman could have told her son—what you have told me. And—and I honor you for it. I want to tell you it's not going to make any difference between us, unless it is to increase my—my love. As for me—I don't see that it's going to give me sleepless nights, so—so just let's forget it."
Frank's manner became hurried and ashamed as he finished up. It seemed absurd to him that he should be saying such things to his mother. Yet he wanted to say them. He intended to say them. So he blundered as quickly and shamefacedly through them as he could.
To his enormous relief Monica sighed as though the worst were over. But her sigh was at the wonderful magnanimity of this huge boy. He started to return to the lounge. Half way across the room he came to a sudden stop, and a look of perplexity drew his brows together. In his anxiety for his mother he had forgotten. Now he remembered. Suddenly he turned back.
"You didn't send for me so urgently to tell me this?" he demanded. "This would have kept."
Monica shook her head decidedly. She caught a sharp breath.
"It would not have kept. It—it had to be told—now."
"Now?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I am going to be—married."
"Mother!"
There was no doubt about the man's dismay. He stood there hardly daring to believe his senses. His mother was going to be married after—after——
"But, mother, you don't mean that? You're not serious," he cried, his ingenious face flushed, his whole look incredulous.
Something of the woman's resentment against the unworthy part that had been forced upon her suddenly found expression.
"Yes, I mean it," she cried sharply. "Of course I mean it. I am in no mood to trifle. Why else should I have sent for you now to tell you the miserable story you have just listened to, unless it were that my coming marriage made it imperative?"
The flush deepened upon the man's face.
"But you can't," he cried, with sudden vehemence. "You daren't! Oh, mother, you must be mad to think of marriage now—I mean with—with my existence to be accounted for."
"That's just why I have sent for you."
Monica sprang from her seat and ran to him. She reached up, and placed both hands upon his shoulders and gazed pleadingly into his face.
"Don't fail me, Frank. Don't fail me," she cried, all her woman's heart stirred to a dreadful fear lest, after all, she should lose the happiness she was striving for, had lied for, was ready to do almost anything for. "You don't know what it means to me. How can you? You are only a boy. It means everything. Yes, it means my life. Oh, Frank, think of all the years I have gone through without a home, without any of those things which a woman has a right to, except what I have earned for myself with my own two hands. Think of the loveless life I have been forced to live for all these years. Frank, Frank, I have given up everything in the world for you, and now—now I love this man—I love him with my whole soul."
Her head was bowed, and the agitated boy led her back to her seat. He was beginning to understand things. His honest eyes were beginning to look life in the face, and to see there phases quite undreamed of in his youthful mind.
"I think I am beginning to understand, mother," he said simply. "Tell me more. Tell me what you want of me. I—you see, all this is a bit of a shock. I don't seem to know where I am. Who is the man?"
"Alexander Hendrie."
"Hendrie? The man you work for? The man who owns all those miles of wheat up our way? The millionaire?"
Frank's eyes shone with a sudden enthusiasm as he detailed the achievements of the wheat king. For the moment he had forgotten the reason of the mention of his name.
"Yes, yes." Something of his enthusiasm found an echo in Monica. "Isn't it wonderful? Isn't it wonderful? Can you wonder that I love him? Such a king among men. All my life I have longed for achievement in the commercial world. To me it is all that is worth while. This man has it. He is it. I have been his chief secretary for two years. I have had a most intimate knowledge of all his affairs, of the man. I have helped in my little way toward his success. I love this man, and he loves me. He will not hear of my refusing him. I intended to because of you, but—but he is too strong for me. He has bent my will to his, and I—I have yielded. Nor was it all unwillingly. Oh, no. I was ready enough to yield in spite of——"
"Does—he know of my existence?" Frank demanded. His eyes were bright with alertness.
Monica's eyes widened.
"Of course not! If he knew of you my poor dream would be shattered for ever. That is the terrible part. That is why—why I have had to tell you everything."
"I see."
The man flung himself on the couch and clasped his hands behind his head. He was thinking hard. Bit by bit all that was in his mother's mind was coming to him. He let her go on talking while he readjusted his new focus.
"Listen to me. Let us look at this thing from your point of view. You know all we have striven for in setting you up in life. We have been scraping and saving that you should be properly equipped. Now we are saving to buy you an adequate farm. You have got to do big things with that farm. You must go further than merely making a living, and marry, and bring up a large family. You must rise. You must become a wheat king, too. If I marry Alexander think of what it will mean to you. I shall be able to do these things for you almost at once. You shall start on the best farm money can buy. There will be no stinting. You can have everything. And you will rise as I want you to; as you want to. You, too, will become a power in the wonderful, wonderful field of commerce. Oh, when I think of it it makes me desperate at the thought of losing it all."
Frank remained lost in thought for some moments longer. Then he suddenly looked up as though he had come to a final decision.
"Look here, mother. I suppose I haven't had experience enough to grasp the moral side of this thing. I—I suppose there is a moral side to it," he said, with something almost like helplessness. "But it seems to me that—that Hendrie's eyes must never light on me, as—as any relation of yours. Is that it? You want me to know just how the position stands, and then hustle into the background, into my hole, like—like any gopher."
Monica sighed. The ready understanding of the boy was saving her worlds of painful explanation.
"I'm afraid that's what it comes to, Frank, though it sounds dreadful put that way. It sounds as if we were conspirators scheming to get the better of Alexander. Yes, it sounds awful. And yet——"
Frank gave the first sign of impatience.
"Does it matter what it sounds like? I don't think so," he said sharply. "You love this man, mother, and you want to marry him. Very well, marry him. I will never jeopardize your happiness. It is small enough return for all the sacrifices you have made for me. I promise you Hendrie shall never know you are my mother. I promise you never to come near——"
"No, no, Frank. I don't want that," Monica cried desperately. "I could not bear that. I must see you sometimes, and later, when—when things have settled down——"
Frank shook his head.
"You are taking a grave risk, mother," he said earnestly. "Far better let me pass out of your life—altogether."
"No, no! I would rather never marry than that. Promise me that you will come and see me, and I will see you whenever opportunity offers. Promise me, or——"
"All right, mother," replied the man, with his gentle, affectionate smile. "You go ahead. You can always rely on me for anything. And I give you my word of honor your husband shall never know that I am your son."
That night Frank Burton leaned back in the upholstered seat of the ordinary car on the west-bound train. He made no attempt to read theWinnipeg Free Presswhich lay open on his lap. He was busy forming conclusions. One of them was that life was by no means the simple affair it had seemed to him two days ago.
But he came to a more important conclusion than that. He tried to view things from his mother's standpoint, from the point of view of her feelings, and, while he deplored the gravity of the risk she, as a woman, was taking, he acknowledged that he would have done the same himself.
He thought of Phyllis Raysun—his Phyllis—and went hot and cold as he tried to picture what his life would be if he were never to see her again. He knew, in the recklessness of his youthful courage, he would take any risk rather than lose her.
Yes, love was a great and wonderful thing. He had just made the discovery. His interview with his mother had opened his eyes to the state of his own feelings. Love? Why it was more than worth any risk. To him, in the first flush of his eighteen years, it was the very essence of life. It was all that really mattered. And he almost laughed when he thought of the shock he had experienced when he had been deliberately told he was a—bastard.
Hendrie stood with one foot on the burnished rail of the anthracite stove which augmented the heating apparatus of Monica's sitting-room. He was smoking a cigarette in the pensive manner of a perfectly contented man. His eyes idly wandered over the simple but dainty furnishing of the room, while his mind, that wonderful mechanism with which he had carved his way to a mighty fortune, was busy dreaming dreams of the future, which, for once, contained no thoughts associated with the amassing of his immense wealth.
He was contemplating rather the spending of money than the making of it. He was thinking pleasantly of those contracts which he had already given out for the colossal alterations which were being made in the mansion he owned out West, upon his wheat lands. He was thinking of the palatial residence which he had just purchased here, in Winnipeg, and of the wonderful decorations that he had already arranged should be executed by the finest decorators in New York.
He intended that nothing should lack for the delight and luxury of his bride. His whole being was permeated with a passion such as he had never believed himself capable of. And, for the moment, he was tasting the ripe delights of a wonderfully successful career. He loved more madly than any youthful lover; he loved for the first time in his strenuous life, and the exquisite joy of being able to give out of his overflowing storehouses intoxicated him.
He was a fine-looking figure as he stood there in his perfectly fitting evening clothes. His spare frame suited the refreshing smartness of such a costume, which softened the harsher lines of his build, and even seemed to add to the fascination of his rugged features.
He was awaiting Monica's pleasure while she arrayed herself in the adjoining room. Nor did he display the least impatience. He was rather enjoying the delay than otherwise. It afforded him those moments of delightful anticipation which rarely enough find their equal in realization. He watched her beautiful personality moving through luxuriously conceived pictures of their future life together. He saw her the head of his princely establishments, the woman of gracious presence and perfect form, a dazzling jewel in the crown of social success he intended eventually to wear. Nor were these dreams the outcome of mere selfish vanity. It pleased him to think that she was to become that perfect pivot upon which his life should revolve. He knew she was a good woman, a phrase he used only in the loftiest sense. He felt that to serve her, to minister to her happiness, was a wonderful delight and privilege, and that, in living for it, he had not lived in vain.
No, he was not impatient. There was no reason for impatience, even in face of that truly feminine delay to which Monica was treating him. He had come for the verdict she had promised him, and he knew that it was to be favorable to his desires. So he had made his arrangements with the decision of a man who is unaccustomed to denial. They would dine out together, and afterward spend the evening at the theater.
He threw his cigarette end into the stove. He was about to light a fresh one when a sound caught his ear. He suddenly dashed the unlighted cigarette after the other, and stood erect, waiting. Yes, the soft rustle of skirts moving toward the dividing doors was unmistakable. Monica had completed her toilet, and was coming to him.
A frank delight shone in his steady eyes as they turned to the folding doors. His lips were parted in a smile. Such was the ecstasy of his feelings that it seemed as if the whole earth, the whole universe were acclaiming his happiness.
Her hand was upon the door handle. He strode hastily to her assistance, and flung the doors wide. Nor was his action one of mere conventional politeness. It was the impulse of one who felt that the future could hold no happier service than the care of this woman's well-being.
Monica was in full evening dress, an exquisite picture of perfect womanhood. From the crown of her beautiful head, with its wonderful halo of soft, waving fair hair, to the soles of her satin slippers there was not a detail in her figure or gown that could offend. In Hendrie's eyes there was nothing on earth comparable with her.
Her eyes shone with suppressed excitement, and her usually delicately tinted cheeks were a trifle pale. Her bosom, so deliciously rounded, rose and fell a shade more rapidly than usual with the emotions of the moment, but these were the only outward signs she gave of the great love stirring her woman's heart.
Hendrie stepped forward.
"Mon!"
In a moment she lay panting in his arms, and his kisses melted the pallor of her cheek.
"Mine! Mine!" he cried, with a deep note of emotion in his voice. "Mine for ever!" he went on, his powerful arms crushing her yielding body to him.
There was no verbal answer. Monica remained passive. The joy of those protecting arms had left her speechless. But her warm lips were nevertheless eloquent, and he was satisfied.
After a few delirious moments his embrace relaxed. Quite abruptly his hands unclasped about her. He raised them to the warm flesh of her shoulders, and, gently grasping them, held her at arms' length from him.
His head was bent forward, and his passionate eyes searched her face, but they could not penetrate the fringed lids which were lowered before her eyes lest he should see too deeply into the secrets of her woman's soul.
"Mon, my Mon," he cried, in a low voice. "Look up. Look up into my eyes and tell me. Look up, and tell me you—love me, with all your soul. Look up, and tell me that you'll give up all the world—everything—for me. I can't do with less," he went on hotly. "If you could only see into my heart you'd understand. But you can't. There's nothing and no one in the world for me but you, and I want you—all. D'you understand, Mon? I want no less, and you must tell me now—now—that this is your love for me, as it is mine for you."
He paused, waiting for his answer, but remained gazing with devouring eyes upon the beauty that so ravished his senses. At last the eyelids slowly lifted. The doors of the woman's soul were opened, and he gazed within. And while he gazed her opening lips thrilled him as his ears drank in the answer that came from them.
"I love you, dear," she murmured, with a softness indescribable. "I love you—best in all the world."
Then a shy smile lit her fair face, and she clung to him, hiding it against his breast.
"Best in all the world," he repeated ardently. "Mon, it's good to hear. So good. Say, and you'remybest in all the world. You always will be. You are before all things in my life."
Then came long, silent moments, moments in which heart beat to heart and no spoken word but must have robbed them of something of their rapture. They were moments never to come again as long as both might live. With all the strength of mature years they loved for the first time, and the ripeness of imagination swept them with a perfect storm of delirious joy. They were moments when soul is laid bare to soul, and every nerve and sense is tuned in perfect sympathy. They were moments when the glad outpourings of two hearts mingled in a common flood which swept unchecked, unguided, speeding on to that far dreamland of perfect bliss.
Such moments are mercifully brief, or the balance of mind would soon stand in mortal jeopardy. So it came that later on the harmonious flood, speeding distantly from its source, lessened its frantic speed, and gently fell to a stream of calm delight.
They sat together talking, talking joyously of all those things which concerned the merging of their two lives. For Monica all her troubles, all her self-inflicted tortures were past and done with. There were no shadows. There was nothing on the horizon of her life to mar the sheen of a perfect, sunlit sky.
For the man those moments meant the crowning of his life's ambitions, the crowning of all that was best in him. He asked no more of the gods of fortune. So the tension of the force which always spurred him was relaxed, and, for the time, at least, he lay supine in the arms of his own dreaming senses, basking in the realms of Love's pleasant sunlight.
Then the spell was finally broken. Sanity was reawakened by the ticking clock, which stood among the trifling ornaments upon Monica's desk. The man became aware of its hands. The irresistible march of time would not be denied. He nodded at the accusing face without any enthusiasm.
"It's nearly seven," he said, with a smile. "Shall we go, or shall we——?"
His voice was caressing, and its caress was hard for the woman to resist. She knew that it was only for her to shake her head, and these moments of delight would be prolonged indefinitely.
The temptation was great. Then, with all a loving woman's understanding of such things, she decided that the sparing of such moments would keep the store longer.
"We'd better go," she said decidedly. Then she deferred to him. "Don't you think so?"
Hendrie smiled happily. It was a new pleasure to find himself obedient to another's whim.
"Yes," he said, promptly acquiescing. "You run along and get your wraps, while I go and see if the car is ready downstairs."
With a final embrace Monica hurried into her bedroom.
Hendrie prepared to depart downstairs. But a final glance at the clock arrested him, and he stood staring at the desk.
Slowly a flush crept into his lean cheeks, and the softness of his steady eyes gave place to the usual cold light with which the man was accustomed to face his world. The coldness changed again to a curious sparkle—a sparkle which would not have found its way there with any other eyes to witness it.
He took a step toward the desk and picked up an embossed silver photograph frame and stared down at the picture it contained. For a moment he only noted the details of the face it portrayed.
It was the picture of a man, a handsome, powerfully built young man, dressed in flannels. The sweater he wore enhanced his wonderfully athletic figure, and added a fine setting for the well-poised head. The photographer had done his work well, for never had Alexander Hendrie looked upon a more perfect picture of magnificent manhood.
The glitter in his eyes hardened, and slowly a deep intense fire grew in their depths. His brows drew together, and he glowered with something like deadly hatred upon the offending picture. Suddenly he replaced it upon the desk, and, with a nervous thrust, his hands sought his trousers pockets, while he deliberately took a step toward the door. But he went no further. He swung about, and picked up the frame again.
At that moment Monica re-entered from the bedroom.
A sudden terror leaped into her eyes as she recognized the silver frame in his hand. One swift glance of his hot eyes left her terror apparent to him. He needed no more. A furious rage mounted to his brain. It was a rage of jealousy. The first passion of jealousy he had ever known, and he felt as though he were going mad.
But a powerful restraint, the habit of years, served him. With one jerk of his muscular fingers the back of the frame was torn out, and the photograph removed. Then the frame fell to the floor, and its glass was shattered.
"Who's picture is this?" he demanded.
Monica strove to steady her shaking limbs. She cleared her throat.
"Why—that's—that's the son of an old friend of mine," she cried desperately. "I've known him all his life."
The man deliberately tore the picture across. He tore it across again. Then he walked over to the stove. He opened it. One by one he dropped the fragments of Frank Burton's picture into the heart of the glowing coal. Then he reclosed the door.
The next moment Monica was in his arms, and his eyes were devouring her beautiful, frightened face.
"Guess you'll know him no more," he cried, with a laugh, which only seemed to accentuate the fury of his jealousy. "No more. There's just one man in this world for you now, and that man is——"
He broke off and released her. Then, with a sudden return to his normal manner, and all sign of his mad jealousy passed, he led her toward the door.
"Say, there's going to be no more shadows around, no more shadows to—spoil things. The car's waiting—ready."
A gray twilight stealing across the sky heralded the coming of day. It was spring upon the flooded prairielands of Canada; a season which is little more than a mere break between an almost sub-tropical summer and the harshest winter the world knows.
In the shadows of dawn the country looked like one vast marshland, rather than the rich pastures and fertile wheat country, which, in days yet to come, will surely fill the stomach of the whole human world. Wide stretches of water filled the shallow hollows; those troughs between the mountainous rollers of grass, where the land rose like the swell of a wind-swept ocean.
These wide expanses of water were all that was left of snow to the depth of several feet; and in their turn would soon enough be licked up by a thirsty summer sun. This was the annual fertilizing process which left these hundreds of thousands of square miles capable of a harvest which might well set weeping with envy the toil-worn husbandman of older countries.
Just now it was the feed ground of migratory visitors from the feathered world. Also it had consequently become the happy hunting-ground of every man and boy in the neighborhood capable of carrying a gun. They were all there, waiting in perfect silence, waiting with a patience which nothing else could inspire, for the golden light of day, and the winging of the unsuspecting birds.
The dim, yellow streak on the eastern horizon widened, and the clacking of perhaps a hundred thousand tongues screamed out their joy of life. Doubtless the affairs of the day were being discussed, quarrels were being satisfactorily adjusted, courtships were in progress, hasty meals and fussy toilets were being attended to. Doubtless in such a vast colony as had settled in the long hay slough, which looked like a broad, sluggish river, the affairs of life were as important as they are among the human denizens of a city. The clatter and hubbub went on, and left the rest of the world indifferent, as such clatter generally does.
Old Sam Bernard and his pupil, Frank Burton, were among the waiting guns. The light was not yet sufficient, and the geese had not yet begun to rise. They were both armed with ten-bore, double-choke guns, the only weapons calculated to penetrate the heavy feathers of such magnificent game. Both were lying full-length upon the sodden highlands which lined the slough, thrilling with the inspiring tension of keen sportsmen. Their half-bred spaniels crouched between them, their silky bodies quivering with joyous excitement, but their well-trained minds permitting no other demonstration. It was a moment worth living for, both for men and dogs.
At last there came a heavy whirring sound down at the water. In a moment a great gray bird sailed up, winging in a wide circle toward Frank's deadly gun. It was the signal waited for. The dogs beat a tattoo with their feathered front feet. A thrill shot down the two men's spines. Both raised their guns, but it was the sharp crack of the younger man's which sent the bird somersaulting to the ground.
Now the whole length of the slough became alive with whirring wings and snapping guns. The panic of the birds was complete. The air was full of cumbersome speeding creatures, winging their way across the danger zone in their unhappy quest of safety. Everywhere they paid the heavy toll demanded of them; and in less than half an hour five hundred brace and more had fallen to the forty-odd guns waiting for them.
But the shoot did not finish there. That was the first rush. That was the pot hunting. The real sport of the morning came with the scattering and high flying of the terrified birds, shooting which required the greatest keenness and skill. Here the older hand had all the best of it, for coolness and judgment alone could fill the bag. The shoot went on well into the morning, and not until the birds became so wild that they utterly refused to come within range did the counting of the bag begin.
By ten o'clock Sam Bernard and his pupil were returning home to the old man's farm in a buckboard laden down with nearly a hundred birds. It had been a great shoot, and Frank's enthusiasm was almost feverish.
"It's the greatest game," he declared. "Forty-seven brace! Say, Sam, shall we get any more of 'em to-morrow?"
Sam flicked the mare with the whip as he shook his gray head.
"Guess not," he said, slowly rolling a chew of tobacco into the other cheek. "They've smelled powder, an' I'd sure say it's a bokay they ain't yearnin' to sniff again. They'll be miles away by mornin'."
"Seems a pity," murmured the blue-eyed giant beside him.
The old man's eyes twinkled.
"Maybe so," he observed. "I used to feel like that. Guess I don't now.
"You mean a second go wouldn't be so—fine."
The gray head nodded.
"Guess when I die I don't fancy no resurrectin' racket. I can't say but what I've lived most every day of my life—but ther's nothin' on this earth worth repeatin'—not even shootin' up a flock o' foolhead geese."
Frank's eyes became pensive.
"P'raps you're right."
The farmer chirruped at his horse.
"It's jest a notion," he said indifferently. Then he pointed out ahead with his whip. His wife was standing waiting for them at the door of the farm house.
"There's the gentlest soul living," he observed, with a smile. "Guess she couldn't wring a chicken's neck to save her life. But she'll sure handle these birds, an' reckon 'em up, with as much delight as a cannibal nigger smacks his lips over a steak off his pa's quarters."
This man who was teaching him the business of farming was always a source of amusement to young Frank, and he laughed cordially at the absurdity of his comparison. Nor could he help watching the old farm-wife as they drove up. True enough the sight of the well-filled carry-all gladdened her eyes.
"Guess I don't need to ask no fool questions about your sport," she cried. "Say, ain't they great? Look at 'em, all bustin' with fat. They'll make real elegant eatin'. They surely will. How many? Forty-seven brace? Why don't you say it right? Ninety-four birds. The pore harmless birdies. I'd surely say you're the two worstest villains on two legs. But they'll make elegant eatin'. They will that."
The two men exchanged smiling glances as they unloaded the buckboard. Then, as the choreman took it away to the barn, Mrs. Bernard remembered what was, perhaps, the most interesting thing in the life of the Canadian farmer. A neighbor had brought out their mail from Gleber that morning. She dived into a capacious pocket in her ample print skirt, and her russet face smiled up into Frank's blue eyes.
"My, but them birds has surely set me daft an' forgettin'," she cried. "Here's your mail, boy Frank," she added, pulling out a bulky envelope. "Jest one letter. An' it's a female writin' on it. Always a female writin'. You surely are some with the gals."
Frank took his letter with a smile at the old woman's genial chaff. As he was about to pass into the house to change his wet clothes Sam called out—
"You don't need to hurry. Jest read your mail, an' when you're through changin', guess we'll get right on down to the forty-acre patch. We'll need to finish seedin' there this week. Say——"
"Yes." Frank paused in the doorway.
The old man grinned as he glanced in the direction of the cold storehouse, whither his wife had gone with some of the birds.
"It don't make no difference to a woman," he said. "Don't matter if it was your Gran'ma instead of your Ma that was writin' you, she'd guess it was a sparkin' letter from some gal. Women is queer most ways."
"Sure, Sam," Frank replied soberly. "Guess that's why we like 'em."
"Like 'em? Well, I'd smile."
Up in the attic, in the pitch of the roof, which served Frank as a bedroom, he sat down on the side of his bed to read his letter. The little place was homely and clean, but there were no comforts. There was not even a chair. Just the bare necessities, and they were ample for a youth as plain and cleanly living as its present occupant.
For some moments the letter remained unopened in Frank's hand, and it was, perhaps, the first time in his life that he had reluctantly contemplated his mother's handwriting. He certainly was reluctant now. It was not that he was not at all times delighted to receive word from her, but he knew, and was apprehensive of the contents of this bulky package. It was the first letter he had received from Monica since her marriage to Hendrie, which he knew had taken place nearly a month previously.
How many times had he tried to convince himself of his pleasure in his mother's contemplated happiness? How many times had he argued and debated with himself, pointing out the naturalness, the desirability of it from a worldly point of view? How much his mother deserved the happiness he knew was now hers. He looked at the whole thing without thought of self; he looked at it with all the generosity of a goodly nature; he looked at it with eyes just beginning to open upon the life moving about him; and though he reassured himself again and again, he knew that he regretted her action, and regretted it more than all for her own sake. It oppressed him with a sense of coming disaster which he could not shake off.
He had not had an easy time since his flying visit to Winnipeg. Far from it. His devotion to his mother had fought and conquered the natural resentment and bitterness her story of his birth had inspired. But the effect of that battle remained. He knew that he was not as other men, he knew that he was not entitled to the same privileges as they. In a measure he was an outcast among his kind, and the finger of pitying scorn must always be leveled at him wherever the truth of his parentage became known.
It was a painful blight under which to set out to face the world, and he felt like the leper of old, driven by the rest of a wholesome world to hide in the dim recesses of a wilderness, whither the eyes of man might not see him, and contact with his fellows became impossible.
These were his feelings, but he had no thought of putting such ideas into practice. Nor had he any intention of allowing them to embitter him. He was young, his life, and a great capacity for its enjoyment, lay all before him. He would forget. He would make himself forget. He would live like all those others he saw about him. He would work, play; he would love. For in spite of the accident of his birth all these things were part of the life given him.
At last he tore open the envelope, and, in a moment, became absorbed in its contents. Here were the same warm words of affection he was accustomed to. The same ardent desire for his welfare; and, through it all, and through the sober accounts of her marriage, and the progress of her new life, which was all she could desire, ran that thrilling note of joy which told him of the completeness of her happiness.
And yet he was not satisfied.
The shadow was there lurking about him. It was in the corners of his sunny room, it floated about his head like an invisible pall, the presence of which depressed him. Nor could he rid himself of its oppressive weight.
The last page of his letter he read twice over, and, at the second reading, he knew the source whence the shadow had sprung. The danger for his mother lay in him. In his simple existence. He knew it. Not only did he know that her danger lay in him, but he knew that some sort of disaster would come through him. He rose and paced the floor, and as he paced he swore to himself that he would destroy his life rather than she should ever suffer through him.
After a while, his feelings became relieved, and he turned again to that ominous last page, so full of kindly thought for him.
"I believe I am on the track of the very farm for you. It is a fine place, my agent tells me, dear boy. It consists of a whole section of land, with more to be acquired adjoining. Furthermore, it has three hundred and twenty acres already fenced, and some excellent buildings. It also has a water front of half a mile on Fish Creek with plenty of excellent timber. This is going for $7000. The agent assures me it is a gift at the price. It was built by two rich English boys who got tired of it, and went back home. Now, I shall be at Deep Willows, our great farm, on May 15by myself. Alexander has to be in Chicago then. He wanted me to go with him, but I persuaded him to let me go to Deep Willows by myself that I might enjoy exploring its magnificence. This, of course, was just an excuse so that I could meet you there and discuss the farm, and see about these things. You must run over as soon after that date as possible. It's less than thirty miles from Gleber, so you can easily manage it."
There was more of it, much more, but Frank did not read further. He looked up with troubled eyes. Here, here was the threat overshadowing them both. He saw it in the subterfuge by which his mother was seeking to meet him. He saw it in the fearless manner in which she deliberately refused to shut him out of her life. Why not send him the money, and let him conduct his own affairs independently of her? It would, at least, be safe. And, in the midst of all his trouble, absurdly enough, he remembered Sam Bernard's remark: "Women is queer most ways."
He smiled in spite of himself, but his smile did not for a moment ease his anxiety for his mother.
Suddenly he heard the familiar voice of Sam calling up the narrow stairs to him—
"Ho, Frank! You ready?"
Frank thrust the letter in his pocket, and, regardless of the fact he had not yet changed his clothes, hastily called back—
"Coming right along!"
Downstairs the old man's twinkling eyes greeted him.
"Guess your mail took a heap o' readin'—you ain't changed."
Frank smiled back at him.
"No," he said abstractedly, for he was thinking of other things.
"Jest so," retorted the old man promptly. Then, with a shrug: "Anyway, love letters are warm enough to dry most things. Say——"
"It was from my mother."
"Ah."
"And I want to ask you if you'll give me the afternoon off. I'd like to go across to the Raysun's."
The old man eyed him shrewdly.
"I didn't reckon to, lad," he said, after a moment's thought. "You see the seedin' needs to get on. But I guess you best go. Letters from your Ma generly need talkin' over with your best gal—'fore you're married."
The old man's quiet geniality was quite irresistible, and Frank thanked him warmly. The more surely because he had come very near to guessing the purpose he had in making this visit. But his purpose was rather in consequence of, than to discuss his mother's letter. It was a purpose he had impulsively decided upon for no better reason than that all subterfuge was utterly repulsive to him, and he felt that before it was too late Phyllis must be told the painful truth about himself.
In some measure his sudden decision comforted him, as he thought of the secret fashion in which it was demanded of him that he should visit his mother. At least there should be no such lack of openness between himself and the girl he hoped some day to make his wife.
Phyllis Raysun was quite a remarkable girl when her parentage and simple, yet strenuous, upbringing were considered. Her beauty was quite decided, and was admitted even by those female souls who were really fond of her. She was dark, with large, dark eyes, deeply fringed with black lashes, almost Celtic in their depth and sleepy fire. And with it all she wore an expression of keenness and decision at all times. She was tall, of a height which always goes so well with a purposeful face such as hers; and the delightful contours of her figure were all the more gracefully natural for the absence of corsets. But wherein lay the unusual side of her personality was the unconventional views of life she already possessed at the age of eighteen years. The breadth of them was often quite disconcerting in one so young, and frequently it made her the despair of her plump and doting, and very ordinarily helpless mother.
Perhaps her mother's helplessness may have accounted in some measure for Phyllis's unusual mental development. It may have had a pronounced influence upon her, for they two were quite alone. Years ago, when she was an infant, her father had died, leaving her mother in sorely straitened circumstances.
From her earliest years Phyllis had had to think for herself, and help in the struggle against poverty. Then, as she grew older, she realized that they possessed a wholly neglected property which should yield them a living. So she set to work on the farm, and, little by little, she wrested from the soil that profit, which, as the years went on, gradually lifted them both from the depths of penury to a frugal comfort. Now the farm was nearing prosperity, and, with the aid of a hired man, Phyllis worked it with all the skill of an expert and widely experienced farmer.
Her mother was simply a chorewoman; a capable enough woman in this lowly capacity. She could never hope to rise above it. Nor was Phyllis ever disturbed by the knowledge. She valued the usefulness of her mother's work too well, and, besides, she loved the helpless old body, and delighted in the care of her as though she were some small child of her own.
Phyllis had spent her morning out seeding, as every other farmer in the district was doing, while her hired man was busy with plough and team breaking the last year's fallows. The work was arduous and monotonous, but the girl felt neither of these things. She loved her little homestead with its hundred and sixty acres, and she asked nothing better than to tend it, and watch, and reap the results. She was robust in mind and body, and none of the claims of this agricultural life came amiss to her.
But during the past six months a new interest had come into her life in the shape of a blue-eyed male giant of her own age; and from the moment she first set eyes upon him an added glow lit the heavens of her consciousness. She did not recognize its meaning at first. Only she realized that somehow the winter days were less dark and irksome, and an added zest became apparent in the everlasting looking forward.
But by degrees he became an intimate in her life, and, finally, almost part of it. It was a wonderful time for Phyllis. Through it all he was always associated with the first apparition she had had of him. In her dreaming mind, as she went about her work, she always saw him as she had seen him then, sitting on the back of a beautiful East-bred, golden chestnut horse, disconsolately viewing the distance with questioning blue eyes, seeking a direction he had absolutely lost.
That was her first meeting with Frank Burton, and somehow she had been glad, from the first moment she set eyes on him, that hers had been the opportunity of relieving him from the dilemma in which he had found himself.
Since then their friendship had ripened quickly. The pulses of youth had been quickly stirred, and almost before Phyllis was aware of it that glorious early spring day had dawned when the great golden sun of love had burst upon her horizon, and turned a chill, snow-clad world into a perfect poet's dream of delight.
Without a second thought she engaged herself to the boy, and the boy engaged himself to her. They loved, so what mattered anything else in the world? Their blood ran hot in healthy veins, and the whole wide world lay before them.
Phyllis was returning at midday with the old mare that hauled her seeder. As she came she was reckoning up the time which the rest of the seeding would take. This year an added twenty-five acres was to be put under crop, and time in spring was always the farmer's nightmare. She had completed her figures by the time she drew near the house, when, looking up, with satisfied eyes, she beheld the figure of the man, whose presence never failed to raise a smile of delight in her eyes, standing at the door talking to her mother.
"Ho, Frank!" she cried out joyously.
The man turned at once and answered her greeting, but the smile on his handsome face had little of the girl's unqualified joy in it. Her sensitive feelings quickly detected the lack, and she understood that there was something amiss. Frank came swiftly across to her, and relieved her of the mare, which he led to the barn while Phyllis walked at his side.
"I just felt I had to come over, Phyl," he said impulsively. "I couldn't pass another night until I had seen you and told you all. I'm—I'm utterly miserable. I——"
They had reached the barn and Phyllis halted.
"You put the mare in, and feed her hay," she interrupted him quickly. "Dan will feed her oats and water her when he comes in."
Her manner was studiously matter of fact. She had realized at once that Frank's condition must not be encouraged. So she remained outside the barn, and waited for him.
The boy found her sitting on the tongue of the wagon which stood close by, and the misery in his eyes deepened as he surveyed the charming, pensive face he loved so dearly.
"Come and sit here, Frank. Then you can tell me about it."
Phyllis looked up at him in that tender, mothering way she had learned in her years of care for her only parent.
The man obeyed, and, for the first time since he had left Sam Bernard's farm that morning, a genuine smile of something like contentment lit his hitherto somber face.
"Phyl," he cried suddenly, "you—you make me feel better already. You—oh, it's wonderful the influence you exercise over me. I——"
He broke off, and, seizing her two hands, bent over and kissed her on the lips.
"That's better," the girl exclaimed happily, when he had released her. "When two people really love each other they can generally manage to set the worst of any shadows scooting off to the dark places they belong."
The man smiled in spite of himself.
"But—but it's serious. It really is. It's simply awful."
The girl's eyes were just a shade anxious, but her manner was lightly tender.
"Of course it is. It surely is. Say, Frank, everything's awful that makes us unhappy. And I guess something's made you real unhappy. Now, just get very busy and tell me all about it."
The man sat with his great body drooping forward, and his hands clasped, and hanging between his parted knees.
"Unhappy? It's—it's worse than that. I—I came over here to tell you that—that you can have your promise back—if you want it."
It was out. He had blurted it clumsily he knew, but it was out. And now he sat fearing to look up into the truthful eyes he loved so dearly.
Phyllis drew a sharp breath. She looked straight ahead of her for one brief moment while her sunny cheeks paled. Then the soft color came back to them, and, presently, a very tender, very wise pair of eyes studied his dejected profile.
"And if I don't want it—back?" she said gently.
Frank raised his miserable eyes and looked straight into hers.
"But you will when you know all," he cried, almost passionately. "I know it. I feel it. I know that a good, honest girl like you could not bear disgrace. No disgrace has ever touched you, and, through me, no disgrace ever shall. When I asked for your promise I did not know all I know now. If I had I would rather have cut off my right hand than attempt to win your love. And now—now I know that I had no right to it. I have no right to any good woman's love. I—I have no right to anything. Not even to my name."
"Frank!"
Another sharp intake of breath came with the girl's exclamation.
"Yes, I mean it," the boy went on, with passionate misery. "I have known it for six weeks, and I should have told you before, but—but I hadn't the courage, the honesty. I—I have no legitimate father. I—I am a bastard."
He made his final statement with his eyes upon the ground. To see this great, honest boy bowed with such a sincerity of misery was too much for Phyllis.
"You didn'twinmy love, Frank," she said, with eyes that were tenderly smiling. "I gave it to you—quite unasked. I gave it to you such a long—long time ago. I think I must sure have given it you before ever I saw you. And—and as for my promise, I guess that was given most at the same time—only I just didn't know 'bout it. I don't think I could take my promise back if I felt that way. But I don't—not if you'd like to keep it."
"Phyl, Phyl!" The boy's eyes were shining, but his sense of right made him protest. "You don't know what you're doing. You surely don't. Think of it. I—I have no real name. Think what folks'll say when they know. Think of the disgrace for you. Think of your girl friends. Phyllis Raysun marrying a—bastard. Oh, it's awful."
"You do love me, Frank, don't you?"
The girl's question came so simply that Frank turned in astonishment. The next moment she was in his arms, and the joy of his hot kisses pervaded her whole body.
"Love you? Love you?" he cried. "You're all the world to me."
Presently she released herself from his embrace and smiled up into his face.
"Then what in the world else matters to—us?" she demanded frankly.
Then she went on, looking straight before her at the tumbled-down sod house which had been her home ever since her birth.
"Listen," she said. "You are illegitimate. I won't have that other word. It's brutal, and it's not right anyway. Do you ever think of our poor little lives? I do—often. Guess I've thought so much I wonder folks make all the to-do they do about lots of things that can't possibly matter. What is life? Why, it's a great big machine sort of thing that none of us, the wisest, don't know a thing about. Why is it? Where does it come from? What is it? Is it? No, not the wisest man in all the world can answer one of those questions right. He can't. He can't. And yet everybody gets busy making crazy little regulations for running it. Do you see? We're built and developed by this wonderful, wonderful machine thing, and then we turn right around and tell anybody, even, yes, the wonderful machine thing that made us itself, how we should live the life which has already been arranged for.
"Frank dear," she hurried on eagerly, "it's almost funny, only it's all so plumb crazy. Do you ever go to Meeting? I mean church?"
"I'm afraid I don't," Frank admitted ruefully.
"I do," cried the girl. "Oh yes, I do." Then she laughed. "It's more funny than you'd expect, if—if you only think about it. I always think a lot when I go. It makes me think, but not in the way the parson would have me. I always start thinking about him. It seems so queer, him standing up there talking Bible stuff, and telling you what it means, just, for all the world, as if he'd wrote it, and knew all about it; just as if he was a personal friend of that great machine thing that keeps this world buzzing around and sets us feeling, and doing, and happy, and miserable. Then he gets paid like any hired man for talking to us all, just as if we were silly folk who couldn't think just as well as him. But he don't really think far. He just tells you what he's told to tell you by those who pay him his wages, and if he told you anything else he'd lose his job, and maybe have to plow for a living, and then be told by some other feller every seventh day he was a fool and a sinner.
"Then you go to another church—or meeting house. It used to make me real bad one time. But it doesn't now, because I'm getting to understand better. Well, at the other place they tell you all different. And while you're listening it makes you think the other feller's a fool, and—and ought to be making hay, or maybe eating it. Then you get mazed up with so much contradiction about Life, and God, and all the other things, so you find another church. Then that feller gets up and tells you that none of the others have got it right—no one else in the world but him, as the representative of his particular religion. And he asks you to help him send out missionaries, and things, to tell everybody that don't think the same as him they're fools and worse, and—and—they're all going plumb to hell—wherever that is.
"Now what does it all come to, Frank?" she cried, with eyes glowing and cheeks flushed with enthusiasm. "Why, just this. We're born into this world, which is a wonderful, wonderful place, through none of our doing. A big God, somewhere, gives us our life, and implants in us a wonderful sense of right and wrong, and we've just got to use it the best we know. We don't know anything beyond the limits of understanding He's given us, and He doesn't intend us to know more. He just seems to say, 'Go right along and work out your own salvation; and when you've done, I'll come along and see how you've been doing, and, maybe, I'll fix it so your failures won't happen in the newer lives I set going.' That's how it seems to me. So you don't need to listen more than you want to what other folks, no wiser than yourself, tell you of what's right and what's wrong. You don't; because they don't know any better than you—and that's a fact. So when you come and tell me you're disgraced, just because your pa and momma weren't preached at by a feller all dressed in white, and they didn't have bells ringing, and she didn't have a trousseau, and the folks didn't get around and make speeches, and pile a shower of paper stuff down their backs, I say you're not. None of it matters. Nothing in the whole wide world matters—so long as we don't let go our hold on that sense of right and wrong which the good God gave us. That's all that really does matter to us. It's no concern of ours what folks who came before us did, or the doings of folks who're coming after. We've got to do our work. We've got to love and live till it pleases our great big God to tell us to stop. And I'm most sure if we do that, and hold tight to our sense of right and wrong, and act as it prompts us, we're just doing His Will—as He wants us to do it."
Frank sat staring in wide astonishment at the girl's flushed face and bright, enthusiastic eyes. But the effect of her words, her understanding of things, upon him was none the less. He felt the great underlying truth in all she said, and it brought him a measure of comfort which his own lack of real thought had left him without.
"Phyl!" he almost gasped.
The girl broke into happy laughter.
"Say, Frank," she cried, "don't tell me I'll—I'll go to hell for it all. I—I couldn't stand that—from you."
The boy shook his head. He, too, joined in the laugh. He felt he wanted to laugh. It was as though she had suddenly relieved him of an intolerable burden.
"I wouldn't tell you that, Phyl," he said, with heavy earnestness. "You'll go somewhere, but it won't be—to hell."
"And—and you don't want me to take my promise back?" she asked him, her gray eyes sobering at once.
"No, dear, I just love you more than ever." He sighed in great contentment. "And we'll get married as soon—as soon as mother buys me the farm she's going to. She's written me about it to-day."
"Ah, yes, that farm." Phyllis rested her chin upon her hand, and gazed out at the old house abstractedly.
"It's to be a swell place," the boy went on.
"I'm so glad, Frank," she replied absently. Then she recalled her dreaming faculties. "And—your momma's giving it to you? She must be very rich."
Frank flushed and turned his eyes away.
"She has a good deal of money," he said awkwardly.
The girl seemed to understand. She questioned him no further.
"She must be a good and kind woman," she said gently. "I hope some day I may get—to know her."
"I——"
Frank broke off. The promise he was rashly about to make remained unspoken. He knew he could not promise anything in his mother's name—now.