"I evidently owe you a great deal, Mr. Massey. I am grateful or at leastI presume I shall be later. Just now I feel a little—dumb."
"My dear fellow, nothing would please me better than to have you continue dumb on that subject. I did this thing as I've done most things in my life to please myself. I don't want your thanks. I would like a little of your liking though. You and I are likely to see quite a bit of each other these next few weeks. Could you manage to forget the past and call a kind of truce for a while? You have a good deal to forgive me—perhaps more than you know. If you would be willing to let the little I have done down here—and mind you I don't want to magnify that part—wipe off the slate I should be glad. Could you manage it, Carson?"
"It looks as if it hardly could be magnified," said Dick with sudden heartiness. "I spoke grudgingly just now I am afraid. Please overlook it. I am more than grateful for all you have done and more than glad to be friends if you want it. I don't hate you. How could I when you have saved my life and anyway I never hated you as you used to hate me. I've often wondered why you did, especially at first before you knew how much I cared for Tony. And even that shouldn't have made you hate me because—you won."
"Never mind why I hated you. I don't any more. Will you shake hands with me, Carson, so we can begin again?"
Dick pulled himself weakly up on the pillow. Their hands met.
"Hang it, Massey," Dick said. "I am afraid I am going to like you. I've heard you were hypnotic. I believe on my soul you came down here to make me like you? Did you?"
But Alan only smiled his ironic, noncommital smile and remarked it was time for the invalid to take a nap. He had had enough conversation for the first attempt.
Dick soon drifted off to sleep but Alan Massey prowled the streets of the Mexican city far into the night, with tireless, driven feet. The demons were after him again.
And far away in another city whose bright lights glow all night Tony Holiday was still playing Madge to packed houses, happy in her triumph but with heart very pitiful for her beloved Miss Clay whose sorrow and continued illness had made possible the fruition of her own eager hopes. Tony was sadly lonely without Alan, thought of him far more often and with deeper affection even than she had while she had him at her beck and call in the city, loved him with a new kind of love for his generous kindness to Dick. She made up her mind that he had cleared the shield forever by this splendid act and saw no reason why she should keep him any longer on probation. Surely she knew by this time that he was a man even a Holiday might be proud to marry.
She wrote this decision to her uncle and asked to be relieved from her promise.
"I am sorry," she wrote, "if you cannot approve but I cannot help it. I love him and I am going to be engaged to him as soon as he comes back to New York if he wants it. I am afraid I would have married him and gone to Mexico with him, given up the play and broken my promise to you, if he would have let me. It goes that far and deep with me.
"People are crazy over his pictures. The exhibition came off last week and they say he is one of the greatest living painters with a wonderful future ahead of him. I am so proud and happy. He is fine everyway now, has really sloughed off the past just as he promised he would. So please, dear Uncle Phil, forgive me if I do what you don't want me to. I have to marry him. In my heart I am married to him already."
And this was the letter Philip Holiday found at his place at breakfast on the morning of the day Geoffrey Annersley was expected. He read it gravely. Rash, loving, generous-hearted Tony. Where was she going? Ah well, she was no longer a child to be protected from the storm and stress of life. She was a woman grown, woman enough to love and to be loved greatly, to sacrifice and suffer if need be for love's mighty sake. She must go her way as Ted had gone his, as their father had gone his before them. He could only pray that she was right in her faith that for love of her Alan Massey had been born anew.
His own deep affection for Ned's children seemed at the moment a sadly powerless thing. He had coveted the best things of life for them, happy, normal ways of peace and gentle living. Yet here was Ted at twenty already lived through an experience, tragic enough to leave its scarlet mark for all the rest of his life and even now on the verge of voluntarily entering a terrific conflict from which few returned alive and none came back unchanged. Here was Tony taking upon herself the thraldom of a love, which try as he would Philip Holiday could not see in any other light but as at best a cataclysmic risk. And at this very hour Larry might be learning that the desire of his heart was dust and ashes, his hope a vain thing, himself an exile henceforth from the things that round out a man's life, make it full and rich and satisfying.
And yet thinking of the three Philip Holiday found one clear ray of comfort. With all their vagaries, their rash impulsions, their willful blindness, their recklessness, they had each run splendidly true to type. Not one of the three had failed in the things that really count. He had faith that none of them ever would. They might blunder egregiously, suffer immeasurably, pay extravagantly, but they would each keep that vital spirit which they had in common, untarnished and undaunted, an unconquerable thing.
There were few passengers alighting from the south bound train from Canada. Larry Holiday had no difficulty in picking out Geoffrey Annersley among these, a tall young man, wearing the British uniform and supporting himself with a walking stick. His face was lean and bronzed and lined, the face of a man who has seen things which kill youth and laughter and yet a serene face too as if its owner had found that after all nothing mattered very much if you looked it square in the eye.
Larry went to the stranger at once.
"Captain Annersley?" he asked. "I am Laurence Holiday."
The captain set down his bag, leaned on his stick, deliberately scrutinized the other man. Larry returned the look frankly. They were of nearly the same age but any one seeing them would have set the Englishman as at least five years the senior of the young doctor. Geoffrey Annersley had been trained in a stern school. A man does not wear a captain's bars and four wound stripes for nothing.
Then the Englishman held out his hand with a pleasant and unexpectedly boyish smile.
"So you are Larry," he said. "Your brother sent me to you."
"Ted! You have seen him?" For a minute Larry forgot who Geoffrey Annersley was, forgot Ruth, forgot himself, remembered only Ted and gave his guest a heartier handshake than he had willed for his "Kid" brother's sake.
"Yes, I was with him day before yesterday and the night before that. He was looking jolly well and sent all kinds of greetings to you all. See here, Doctor Holiday, I have no end of things to say to you. Can we go somewhere and talk?"
"My car is outside. You will come up to the house will you not? We are all expecting you." Larry tried hard to keep his voice quiet and emotionless. Not for anything would he have had this gallant soldier suspect how his knees were trembling.
"Delighted," bowed the captain suavely and permitted Larry to take his bag and lead the way to the car. Nothing more was said until the two men were seated and the car had left the station yard.
"I am afraid I should have made my wire a bit more explicit," observed the captain turning to Larry. "My wife says I am too parsimonious with my words in telegrams—a British trait possibly." He spoke deliberately and his keen eyes studied his companion's face as he made the casual remark which set Larry's brain reeling. "See here, Holiday, I'm a blunt brute. I don't know how to break things gently to people. But I am here to tell you if you care to know that Elinor Ruth Farringdon is no more married than you are unless she is married to you. That was her mother's wedding ring. Lord, man, do you always drive a car like this? I've been all but killed once this year and I don't care to repeat the experiment."
Larry grinned, flushed, apologized and moderated the speed of his motor. He wondered that he could drive at all. He felt strangely light as if he were stripped of his body and were nothing but spirit.
"Do you mind if we drive about a bit and talk things over before I see Elinor—Ruth, as you call her? I'm funking that a little though I've been trying ever since your brother told me the story to get used to the idea of her being, well not quite right, you know. But I can't stick it somehow."
"She is all right, perfectly normal every way except that she had forgotten things." Larry's voice was faintly indignant. He resented anybody's implying that Ruth was queer, unbalanced in any way. She wasn't. She was absolutely sane, as sane as Captain Annersley himself, considerably more sane than Larry Holiday could take oath he was at this moment.
"Good heavens! Isn't that enough?" groaned Annersley almost equally indignant. "You forget or rather you don't know all she has forgotten. I know. I was brought up with her. Her father was my uncle and guardian. We played together, had the same tutor, rode the same ponies, got into the same jolly old scrapes. Why, Elinor's like my own sister, man. I can't swallow her forgetting me and her brother Rod and all the rest as easily as you seem to do. It—well, it's the limit as you say in the states." The captain wiped his forehead on which great drops of perspiration stood in spite of the January chill in the air. There was agitation, suppressed vehemence in his tone.
"I suppose it is natural that you should feel that way." Larry spoke thoughtfully as he turned the car away from the Hill in response to his guest's request that he be permitted to postpone meeting Elinor Ruth Farringdon a little while. "The remembering part hasn't bothered me so much. Maybe I wasn't very keen on having her remember. Maybe I was afraid she would remember too much," he added coloring a little.
The frown on his companion's stern young face melted at that. The frank, boyish smile appeared again. He liked Larry Holiday none the less for his lack of pretense. He understood all that. The younger Holiday had taken pains to make things perfectly clear to him. He knew precisely what the young doctor was afraid of and why in case Elinor Farringdon's memory returned.
"My uncle thinks and I think too that her memory will come back now that it has the external stimulus to waken it," Larry continued. "I shouldn't be surprised if seeing you would give the necessary impetus. In fact I am counting on that very thing happening, hoping for it with all my might. That was one of the reasons I was glad to have you come. Please believe that I should have been glad even if your coming had made her remember she was your wife. Of course her recovery is the main thing. The rest is—a side issue."
"A jolly important side issue I take it for her and for you. I'm not a stranger, Doctor Holiday. I am Elinor Ruth Farringdon's cousin, in her brother's absence I represent her family and in that capacity I would like to say before I am a minute older that what you and the rest of you Holidays have done for Elinor passes anything I know of for sheer fineness and generosity. I'm not a man of words. War would have knocked them out of me if I had been but when I remember that you not only saved Elinor's life but took care of her afterward when she apparently hadn't a friend in the world—well, there isn't anything I can say but thank you and tell you that if there is ever anything I can do in return for you or yours you have only to ask. Neither Elinor nor I can ever repay you. It is the sort of thing that is—unpayable." And again the captain wiped his perspiring brow. He was deeply moved and emotion went hard with his Anglo-Saxon temperament.
"We did nothing but what anybody would have been glad to do. If there are any thanks coming they are chiefly due to my uncle and his wife. But we don't any of us want thanks. We love Ruth. Please forget the rest. We would rather you would."
The captain nodded quick approval. He had been told Americans were boasters, given to Big-Itis. But either people got the Americans wrong or these Holidays were an exception to the general run. He remembered that other young Holiday whom he had met rather intimately in the Canadian camp. There had been no side there either. His modesty had been one of his chief charms. And here was the brother quietly putting aside credit for a course of conduct which was simply immense in its quixotic generosity. He liked these Holidays. There was something rather magnificent about their simplicity—something almost British he thought.
"That is all very well," he made answer. "I won't talk about it if you prefer but you will pardon me if I don't forget that you saved my cousin's life and looked after her when she was in a desperately unhappy situation and her own people seemed to have utterly deserted her. And I consider my running into your brother at camp one of the sheerest pieces of good luck I've had these many days on all counts."
"How did it happen?" asked Larry.
"I was doing some recruiting work in the vicinity and they asked me to say a few words to the lads in training. I did. Your brother was there and lost no time in getting in touch with me when he heard who I was. And jolly pleased I was to hear his story—all of it."
The speaker smiled at his companion.
"I mean that, Larry Holiday. Elinor and I were kid sweethearts. We used to swear we were going to get married when we grew up. That was when she was eight and I a man of twelve or so. I gave her the locket which made some of the trouble as a sort of hostage for the future. We called her Ruth in those days. It was her own fancy to change it to Elinor later. She thought it more grown up and dignified I remember. Then I went back to England to school. I didn't see her again until we were both grown up and then I married her best friend with her blessing and approval. But that is another story. Just now I am trying to tell you that I am ready to congratulate my cousin with all my heart if it happens that you want to marry her as your brother seems to think."
"There is no doubt about what I want," said Larry grimly. "Whether it is what she wants is another matter. We haven't been exactly in a position to discuss marriage."
"I understand. I'm beastly sorry to have been such an infernal dog in the manger unwittingly. The only thing I can do to make, up is to give my blessing and wish you best of luck in your wooing. Shall we shake on it, Larry Holiday, and on the friendship I hope you and I are going to have?"
And with a cordial man to man grip there was cemented a friendship which was to last as long as they both lived.
To relate briefly the links of the story some of which Larry Holiday now heard as the car sped over the smooth, frost hardened roads which the open winter had left unusually snowless and clean. Geoffrey Annersley had been going his careless, happy go lucky way as an Oxford undergraduate when the sudden firing of a far off shot had startled the world and made war the one inevitable fact. The young man had enlisted promptly and had been in practically continuous service of one sort or another ever since. He had gone through desperate fighting, been four times wounded, and was now at last definitely eliminated from active service by a semi-paralyzed leg, the result of his last visit to "Blighty." He had been invalided the previous spring and had been sent to Australia on a recruiting mission. Here he had renewed his acquaintance with his cousins whom he had not seen for years and promptly fell in love with and married pretty Nancy Hallinger, his cousin Elinor's chum.
The speedy wooing accomplished as well as the recruiting job which was dispatched equally expeditiously and thoroughly Geoffrey prepared to return to France to get in some more good work against the Huns while his wife planned to enter Red Cross service as a nurse for which she had been in training for some time. Roderick had entered the Australian air service and was already in Flanders where he had the reputation of being one of the youngest and most reckless aviators flying which was saying considerable.
It was imperative that some arrangement be made for Elinor who obviously could not be left alone in Sydney. It was decided in family conclave that she should go to America and accept the often proffered hospitality of her aunt for a time at least. A cable to this effect had been dispatched to Mrs. Wright which as later appeared never reached that lady as she was already on her way to England and died there shortly after.
Geoffrey had been exceedingly reluctant to have his young cousin take the long journey alone though she had laughed at his fears and his wife had abetted her in her disregard of possible disastrous consequences, telling him that women no longer required wrapping in tissue paper. The war had changed all that.
At his insistence however Ruth had finally consented to wear her mother's wedding ring as a sort of shadowy protection. He had an idea that the small gold band, being presumptive evidence of an existing male guardian somewhere in the offing might serve to keep away the ill intentioned or over bold from his lovely little heiress cousin about whom he worried to no small degree.
They had gone their separate ways, he to the fierce fighting of May, nineteen hundred and sixteen, she to her long journey and subsequent strange adventures. At first no one had thought it unnatural that they heard nothing from Elinor. Letters went easily astray those days. Geoffrey was weeks without news even from his wife and poor Roderick was by this time beyond communication of any kind, his name labeled with that saddest of all tags—missing. It was not until Geoffrey was out of commission with that last worst knock out, lying insensible, more dead than alive in a hospital "somewhere in France" that the others began to realize that Elinor had vanished utterly from the ken of all who knew her. Some one who knew her by sight had chanced to see her in California and had noted the wedding ring, hence the "unsubstantiated rumor" of her marriage in San Francisco, a rumor which Nancy half frantic over her husband's desperate illness was the only person who was in a position to explain.
When Geoffrey came slowly back to the land of the living it was to learn that his cousin Roderick was still reported missing and that Elinor was even more sadly and mysteriously vanished from the face of the earth in spite of all effort to discover her fate. It had been a tragic coming back for the sick man. But an Englishman is hard to down and gradually he got back health and a degree of hope and happiness. There would be no more fighting for him but the War Department assured him there were plenty of other ways in which he could serve the cause and he had readily placed himself at their disposal for the recruiting work in which he had already demonstrated his power to success in Australia.
Which brings us to the Canadian training camp and Ted Holiday. Captain Annersley had been asked as he had told Larry to speak to the boys. He had done so, given a little straight talk of what lay ahead of them and what they were fighting for, bade them get in a few extra licks for him since he was out of it for good, done for, "crocked." In conclusion he had begged them give the Huns hell. It was all he asked of them and from the look of them he jolly well knew they would do it.
While he was speaking he was aware all the time of a tall, blue-eyed youth who stood leaning against a post with a kind of nonchalant grace. The boy's pose had been indolent but his eyes had been wide awake, earnest, responsive. Little by little the captain found himself talking directly to the lad. What he was saying might be over the heads of some of them but not this chap's. He got you as the Americans say. He had the vision, would go wherever the speaker could take him. One saw that.
Afterwards the boy had sought out the recruiter to ask if by any chance he knew a girl named Elinor Ruth Farringdon. It had been rather a tremendous moment for both of them. Each had plenty to say that the other wanted to hear. But the full story had to wait. Corporal Holiday couldn't run around loose even talking to a distinguished British officer. There would have to be special dispensation for that and special dispensations take time in an army world. It would be forthcoming however—to-morrow.
In the meantime Geoffrey Annersley had heard enough to want to know a great deal more and thought he might as well make some inquiries on his own. He wanted to find out who these American Holidays were, one of whom had apparently saved his cousin Elinor's life and all of whom had, one concluded, been amazingly kind to her though the blue-eyed boy had gracefully made light of that side of the thing in the brief synopsis of events he had had time to give to the Englishman. The captain had taken a fancy to the narrator and was not averse to beginning his investigation as to the Holiday family with the young corporal himself.
Accordingly he tackled the boy's commanding officer, a young colonel with whom he chanced to be dining. The colonel was willing to talk and Geoffrey Annersley discovered that young Holiday was rather by way of being a top-notcher. He had enlisted as a private only a short time ago but had been shot speedily into his corporalship. Time pressed. Officers were needed. The boy was officer stuff. He wouldn't stay a corporal. If all went well he would go over as a sergeant.
"We put him through though, just at first handled him rather nasty," the colonel admitted with a reminiscent twinkle. "We do put the Americans through somehow, though it isn't that we have any grudge against 'em. We haven't. We like 'em—most of 'em and we have to admit it's rather decent of them to be here at all when they don't have to. All the same we give 'em an extra twist of the discipline crank on general principles just to see what they are made of. We found out mighty quick with this youngster. He took it all and came back for more with a 'sir,' and a salute and a devilish debonair, you-can't-down-me kind of grin that would have disarmed a Turk."
"He doesn't look precisely meek to me," Annersley had said remembering the answering flash he had caught in those blue eyes when he was begging the boys to get in an extra lick against the Huns for his sake.
"Meek nothing! He has more spirit than any cub we've had to get into shape this many a moon. It isn't that. It is just that he has the right idea, had it from the start however he came by it. You know what it is, captain. It is obedience, first, last and all the time, the will to be willed. A soldier's job is to do what he is told whether he likes it or not, whether it is his job or not, whether it makes sense or not, whether he gets his orders from a man he looks up to and respects or whether he gets them from a low down cur that he knows perfectly well isn't fit to black his boots—none of that makes any difference. It is up to him to do what he is told and he does it without a kick if he's wise. Young Holiday is wise. He'd had his medicine sometime. One sees that. I don't know why he dropped down on us like a shooting star the way he did, some college fiasco I understand. He doesn't talk about himself or his affairs though he is a frank outspoken youngster in other ways. But there was a look in his eyes when he came to us that most boys of twenty don't have, thank the Lord! And it is that look or what is behind it that has made him ace high here. That boy struck bottom somewhere and struck it hard. I'll bet my best belt on that."
This interested Geoffrey Annersley. He thought he understood what the colonel meant. There was something in Ted Holiday's eyes which betrayed that he had already been under fire somehow. He had seen it himself.
"He is as smart as they make 'em," went on the colonel. "Quick as a flash to think and to see and to act, never loses his head. And he's a wonder with the men, jollies 'em along when they are grousing or homesick, sets 'em grinning from ear to ear when they are down-hearted, has a pat on the shoulder for this one and a jeer for that one. Old and young they are all crazy about him. They'd go anywhere he led. I tell you he's the stuff that will take 'em over the top and make the boches feel cold in the pit of their fat tumtums when they see him coming. Lord, but the uselessness of it though! He'll get killed. His kind always does. They are always in front. They are made that way. Can't help it. Sometimes they do come through though." The colonel flashed a quick admiring glance at his guest who had also been the kind that was always in front and yet had somehow by the grace of something come through in spite of the hazards he had run and the deaths he had all but died. "You are a living witness to that little fact," he added. "Lord love us! It's all in the game anyway and a man can die but once."
The next day Corporal Holiday was given a brief leave of absence from camp at the request of the distinguished British officer. Together the two went over the strange story of Elinor Ruth Farringdon and the Holidays' connection with the later chapters thereof. They decided not to write to the Hill as Annersley was planning to go to Boston next day whence he was to return soon to England his mission accomplished, and could easily stop over in Dunbury on his way and set things right in person, perhaps even by his personal presence renew Ruth's memory of things she had forgotten.
All through the pleasant dinner hour Ted kept wishing he could get the captain to talking about himself and his battle experiences and had no idea at all that he himself was being shrewdly studied as they talked. "Good breeding, good blood-quality," the captain summed up. "If he is a fair sample of young America then young America is a bit of all right." And if he is a fair sample of the Holiday family then Elinor had indeed fallen into the best of hands. Praise be! He wondered more than once what the young-corporal's own story was, what was the nature of the fiasco which had driven him into the Canadian training camp and what was behind that unboyish look which came now and then into his boyish eyes.
Later during the intimate evening over their cigarettes both had their curiosity gratified. Captain Annersley was moved to relate some of his hair breadth escapes and thrilling moments to an alert and hero worshiping listener. And later still Ted too waxed autobiographical in response to some clever baiting of which he was entirely unaware though he did wonder afterward how he had happened to tell the thing he had kept most secret to an entire stranger. It was an immense relief to the boy to talk it all out. It would never haunt him again in quite the same way now he had once broken the barriers of his reserve. Geoffrey Annersley served his purpose for Ted as well as Larry Holiday.
Annersley was immensely interested in the confession. It matched very well he thought with that other story of a gallant young Holiday to whom his cousin Elinor owed so much in more than one way. They were a queer lot these Holidays. They had the courage of their convictions and tilted at windmills right valiantly it seemed.
And then he fell to talking straight talk to Ted Holiday, saying things that only a man who has lived deeply can say with any effect. He urged the boy not to worry about that smash of his. It was past history, over and done with. He must look ahead not back and be thankful he had come out as well as he had.
"There is just one other thing I want to say," he added. "You think you have had your lesson. Maybe it is enough but you'll find it a jolly lot easier to slip up over there than it is at home. You lose your sense of values when there is death and damnation going all around you, get to feeling you have a right to take anything that comes your way to even it up. Anyway I felt that way until I met the girl I wanted to marry. Then the rest looked almighty different. I've given Nancy the best I had to give but it wasn't good enough. She deserved more than I could give her. That is plain speaking, Holiday. Men say war excuses justify anything. It doesn't do anything of the sort. Some day you will be wanting to marry a girl yourself. Don't let anything happen in this next year over there that you will regret for a life-time. That is a queer preachment and I'm a jolly rotten preacher. But somehow I felt I had to say it. You can remember it or forget it as you like."
Ted lit another cigarette, looked up straight into Geoffrey Annersley's war lined face.
"Thank you," he said. "I think I'll remember it. Anyway I appreciate your saying it to me that way."
The subject dropped then, went back to war and how men feel on the edge of death, of the unimportance of death anyway.
Larry knocked at Ruth's door. It opened and a wan and pathetically drooping little figure stood before him. Ever since she had been awake Ruth, had been haunted by that unwelcome bit of memory illumination which had come the night before. No wonder she drooped and scarcely dared to lift her eyes to her lover's face. But in a moment he had her in his arms, a performance which banished the droop and brought a lovely color back into the pale cheeks.
"Larry, oh Larry, is it all right? I'm not his wife? He didn't marry me?"
Larry kissed her.
"He didn't marry you. Nobody's going to marry you but me. No, I didn't mean to say that now. Forget it, sweetheart. You are free, and if you want to say so I'll let you go. If you don't want—"
"But I do want," she interrupted. "I want Larry Holiday and he is all I want. Why won't you ever, ever believe I love you? I do, more than anything in the world."
"You darling! Will you marry me? I shouldn't have asked you that other time. I hadn't the right. But I have now. Will you, Ruth? I want you so. And I've waited so long."
"Listen to me, Larry Holiday." Ruth held up a small warning forefinger. "I'll marry you if you will promise never, never to be cross to me again. I have shed quarts of tears because you were so unkind and—faithless. I ought to make you do some terrible penance for thinking the money or anything but you mattered to me. Not even the wedding ring mattered. I told you so but still you wouldn't believe."
Larry shook his head remorsefully.
"Rub it in, sweetheart, if you must. I deserve it. But don't you think I have had purgatory enough because I didn't dare believe to punish me for anything? As for the rest I know I've been behaving like a brute. I've a devil of a disposition and I've been half crazy anyway. Not that that is any excuse. But I'll behave myself in the future. Honest I will, Ruthie. All you have to do is to lift this small finger of yours—" He indicated the digit by a loverly kiss "and I'll be as meek and lowly as—as an ash can," he finished prosaically.
Ruth's happy laughter rang out at this and she put up her lips for a kiss.
"I'll remember," she said. "You're not a brute, Larry. You're a darling and I love you—oh immensely and I'll marry you just as quick as ever I can and we'll be so happy you won't ever remember you have a disposition."
Another interim occurred, an interim occupied by things which are nobody's business and which anybody who has ever been in love can supply ad lib by exercise of memory and imagination. Then hand in hand the two went down to where Geoffrey Annersley waited to bring back the past to Elinor Farringdon.
"Does he know me?" queried Ruth as they descended.
"He surely does. He knows all there is to know about you, Miss Elinor Ruth Farringdon. He ought to. He is your cousin and he married your best friend, Nan—"
"Wait!" cried Ruth excitedly, "it's coming back. He married Nancy Hollinger and she gave me some San Francisco addresses of some friends of hers just before I sailed. They were in that envelope. I threw away the addresses when I left San Francisco and tucked my tickets into it. Why, Larry, I'm remembering—really remembering," she stopped short on the stairs to exclaim in a startled incredulous tone.
"Of course you are remembering, sweetheart," echoed Larry happily. "Come on down and remember the rest with Annersley's help. He is some cousin. You'd better be prepared to be horribly proud of him. He is a captain and wears all kinds of honorable and distinguished dingle dangles and decorations as well as a romantic limp and a magnificent gash on his cheek which he evidently didn't get shaving."
Larry jested because he knew Ruth was growing nervous. He could feel her tremble against his arm. He was more than a little anxious as to the outcome of the thing itself. The shock and the strain of meeting Geoffrey Annersley were going to be rather an ordeal he knew.
They entered the living room and paused on the threshold, Larry's arm still around the girl. Doctor Holiday and the captain both rose. The latter limped gallantly toward Ruth who stared at him an instant and then flung herself away from Larry into the other man's arms.
"Geoff! Geoff!" she cried.
For a moment nothing more was said then Ruth drew herself away.
"Geoffrey Annersley, why did you ever, ever make me wear that horrid ring?" she demanded reproachfully. "Larry and I could have married each other months ago if you hadn't. It was the silliest idea anyway and it's all your fault—everything."
He laughed at that, a, big whole-souled hearty laugh that came from the depths of him.
"That sounds natural," he said. "Every scrape you ever enticed me into as a kid was always my fault somehow. Are you real, Elinor? I can't help thinking I am seeing a ghost. Do you really remember me?" anxiously.
"Of course I remember you. Listen, Geoff. Listen hard."
And unexpectedly Ruth pursed her pretty lips and whistled a merry, lilting bar of melody.
"By Jove!" exulted the captain. "That does sound like old times."
"Don't tell me I don't remember," she flashed back happy and excited beyond measure at playing this new remembering game. "That was our special call, yours and Rod's and mine. Oh Rod!" And at that all the joy went out of the eager, flushed face. She went back into her cousin's arms again, sobbing in heart breaking fashion. The turning tide of memory had brought back wreckage of grief as well as joy. In Geoffrey Annersley's arms Ruth mourned her brother's loss for the first time. Larry sent his uncle a quick look and went out of the room. The older doctor followed. Ruth and her cousin were left alone to pick up the dropped threads of the past.
They all met again at luncheon however, Ruth rosy cheeked, excited and red-eyed but on the whole none the worse for her journey back into the land of forgotten things. As Larry had hoped the external stimulus of actually seeing and hearing somebody out of that other life was enough to start the train. What she did not yet remember Geoffrey supplied and little by little the past took on shape and substance and Elinor Ruth Farringdon became once more a normal human being with a past as well as a present which was dazzlingly delightful, save for the one dark blur of her dear Rod's unknown fate.
In the course of the conversation at table Geoffrey addressed his cousin as Elinor and was promptly informed that she wasn't Elinor and was Ruth and that he was to call her by that name or run the risk of being disapproved of very heartily.
He laughed, amused at this.
"Now I know you are real," he said. "It is exactly the tone you used when you issued the contrary command and by Jove almost the same words except for the reversed titles. 'Don't call me Ruth, Geoff,'" he mimicked. "'I am not going to be Ruth any more. I am going to be Elinor. It is a much prettier name.'"
"Well, I don't think so now," retorted Ruth. "I've changed my mind again. I think Ruth is the nicest name there is because—well—" She blushed adorably and looked across the table at the young doctor, "because Larry likes it," she completed half defiantly.
"Is that meant to be an official publishing of the bans?" teased her cousin when the laugh that Ruth's naïve confession had raised subsided leaving Larry as well as Ruth a little hot of cheek.
"If you want to call it that," said Ruth. "Larry, I think you might say something, not leave me everything to do myself. Tell them we are engaged and are going to be married—"
"To-morrow," put in Larry suddenly pushing back his chair and going over to stand behind Ruth, a hand on either shoulder, facing the others gallantly if obviously also embarrassedly over her shyly bent blonde head.
The blonde head went up at that, and was shaken very decidedly.
"No indeed. That isn't right at all," she objected. "Don't listen to him anybody. It isn't going to be tomorrow. I've got to have a wedding dress and it takes at least a week to dream a wedding dress when it is the only time you ever intend to be married. I have all the other things—everything I need down to the last hair pin and powder puff. That's why I went to Boston. I knew I was going to want pretty clothes quick. I told Doctor Holiday so." She sent a charming, half merry, half deprecating smile at the older doctor who smiled back.
"She most assuredly did," he corroborated. "I never suspected it was part of a deep laid plot however. I thought it was just femininity cropping out after a dull season. How was I to know it was because you were planning to run off with my assistant that you wanted all the gay plumage?" he teased.
Ruth made a dainty little grimace at that.
"That isn't a fair way to put it," she declared. "If I had been planning to run away with Larry or he with me we would have done it months ago, plumage or no plumage. I wanted to but he wouldn't anyway," she confessed. "I like this way much, much better though. I don't want to be married anywhere except right here in the heart of the House on the Hill."
She slipped out of her chair and away from Larry's hands at that and went over to where Doctor Philip sat.
"May we?" she asked like a child asking permission to run out and play.
"It is what we all want more than anything in the world, dear child," he said. "You belong with Larry in our hearts as well as in the heart of the House. You know that, don't you?"
"I know you are the dearest man that ever was, not even excepting Larry.And I am going to kiss you, Uncle Phil, so there. I can call you thatnow, can't I? I've always wanted to." And fitting the deed to the wordRuth bent over and gave Doctor Philip a fluttering little butterfly kiss.
They rose from the table at that and Ruth was bidden go off to her room and get a long rest after her too exciting morning. Larry soberly repaired to the office and received patients and prescribed gravely for them just as if his inner self were not executing wild fandangoes of joy. Perhaps his patients did get a few waves of his happiness however for there was not one of them who did not leave the office with greater hope and strength and courage than he brought there.
"The young doctor's getting to be a lot like his uncle," one of them said to his wife later. "Just the very touch of his hand made me feel better today, sort of toned up as if I had had an electrical treatment. Queer how human beings can shoot sparks sometimes."
Not so queer. Larry Holiday had just been himself electrified by love and joy. No wonder he had new power that day and was a better healer than he had ever been before.
In the living room Doctor Philip and Captain Annersley held converse. The captain expressed his opinion that Ruth should go at once to Australia.
"If her brother is dead as we have every reason to fear, Elinor—Ruth—is the sole owner of an immense amount of property. The lawyers are about crazy trying to keep things going without either Roderick or Ruth. They have been begging me to come out and take charge of things for months but I haven't been able to see my way clear owing to one thing or another. Somebody will have to go at once and of course it should be Ruth."
"How would it do for her and Laurence both to go?"
"Magnificent. I was hoping you would think that was a feasible project. They will be glad to have a man to represent the family. My cousin knows nothing about the business end of the thing. She has always approached it exclusively from the spending side. Do you think your nephew would care to settle there?"
"Possibly," said the Doctor. "That will develop later. They will have to work that out for themselves. I am rather sorry he is going to marry a girl with so much money but I suppose it cannot be helped."
"Some people wouldn't look at it that way, Doctor Holiday," grinned the captain. "But I am prepared to accept the fact that you Holidays are in a class by yourselves. We have always been afraid that Elinor would be a victim of some miserable fortune hunter. I can't tell you what a relief it is to have her marry a man like your nephew. I am only sorry he had to go through such a punishing period of suspense waiting for his happiness. Since there wasn't really the slightest obstacle I rather wish he had cut his scruples and married her long ago."
"I don't agreed with you, Captain Annersley.. They are neither of them worse off for waiting and being absolutely sure that this is what they both want. If he had taken the risk and married her when he knew he hadn't the full right to do it he would have been miserable and made her more so. Larry is an odd chap. There is a morbid streak in him. He wouldn't have forgiven himself if he had done it. And losing his own self-respect would have been the worst thing that could have happened to him. No amount of actual legality could have made up for starting out on a spiritually illegal basis. We Holidays have to keep on moderately good terms with ourselves to be happy," he added with a quiet smile.
"I suppose you are right," admitted the Englishman. "Anyway the thing is straight and clear now. He has earned every bit of happiness that is coming to him and I hope it is going to be a great deal. My own sense of indebtness for all you Holidays have done for Ruth is enormous. I wish there were some way of making adequate returns for it all. But it is too big to be repaid. I may be able to keep an eye on your other nephew when he gets over. I certainly should like to. I don't know when I've taken such a fancy to a lad. My word he is a ripping sort."
"Ted?" Doctor Holiday smiled a little. "Well, yes, I suppose he is what you Britishers call ripping. It has been rather ripping in another sense being his guardian sometimes."
"I judge so by his own account of himself. Yoxi mustn't let that smash of his worry you. He'll find something over there that will be worth a hundred times what any college can give him, and as for the rest half the lads of mettle in the world come to earth with a jolt over a girl sooner or later and they don't all rise up out of the dust as clean as he did by, a long shot."
"So he told you about that affair? You must have gotten under his skin rather surprisingly Ted doesn't talk much about himself and I fancy he hasn't talked about that thing at all to any one. It went deep."
"I know. He shows that in a hundred ways. But it hasn't crushed him or made him reckless. It simply steadied him and I infer he needed some steadying."
Doctor Holiday nodded assent to that and asked if he thought the boy was doing well up there.
"Not a doubt of it," said the Englishman heartily. And he added a brief synopsis of the things that the colonel had said in regard to his youngest corporal.
"That is rather astonishing," remarked Doctor Holiday. "Obedience hasn't ever been one of Ted's strong points. In fact he has been a rebel always."
"Most boys are until they perceive that there is sense instead of tyranny in law. Your nephew has had that knocked into him rather hard and he is all the better for it tough as it was in the process. He is making good up there. He will make good over seas. He is a born leader—a better leader of men than his brother would be though maybe Larry is finer stuff. I don't know."
"They are very different but I like to think they are both rather fine stuff. Maybe that is my partial view but I am a bit proud of them both, Ted as well as Larry."
"You have every reason," approved the captain heartily. "I have seen a good many splendid lads in the last four years and these two measure up in a way which is an eye opener to me. In my stupid insular prejudice maybe I had fallen to thinking that the particular quality that marks them both was a distinctly British affair. Apparently you can breed it in America too. I'm glad to see it and to own it. And may I say one other thing, Doctor Holiday? I have the D.S.C. and a lot of other junk like that but I'd surrender every bit of it this minute gladly if I thought that I would ever have a son that would worship me the way those lads of yours worship you. It is an honor any man might well covet."
While Ruth and Larry steered their storm tossed craft of love into smooth haven at last; while Ted came into his own in the Canadian training camp and Tony played Broadway to her heart's content, the two Masseys down in Mexico drifted into a strange pact of friendship.
Had there been no other ministrations offered save those of creature comfort alone Dick would have had cause to be immensely grateful to Alan Massey. To good food, good nursing and material comfort the young man reacted quickly for he was a healthy young animal and had no bad habits to militate against recovery.
But there was more than creature comfort in Alan's service. Without the latter's presence loneliness, homesickness and heartache would have gnawed at the younger man retarding his physical gains. With Alan Massey life even on a sick bed took on fascinating colors like a prism in sunlight.
For the sick lad's delectation Alan spun long thrilling tales, many of them based on personal experience in his wide travels in many lands. He was a magnificent raconteur and Dick propped up among his pillows drank it all in, listening like another Desdemona to strange moving accidents of fire and flood which his scribbling soul recognized as superb copy.
Often too Alan read from books, called in the masters of the pen to set the listener's eager mind atravel through wondrous, unexplored worlds. Best of all perhaps were the twilight hours when Alan quoted long passages of poetry from memory, lending to the magic of the poet's art his own magic of voice and intonation. These were wonderful moments to Dick, moments he was never to forget. He drank deep of the soul vintage which the other man offered him out of the abundance of his experience as a life long pilgrim in the service of beauty.
It was a curious relation—this growing friendship between the two men. In some respects they were as master and pupil, in others were as man and man, friend and friend, almost brother and brother. When Alan Massey gave at all he gave magnificently without stint or reservation. He did now. And when he willed to conquer he seldom if ever failed. He did not now. He won, won first his cousin's liking, respect, and gratitude and finally his loyal friendship and something else that was akin to reverence.
Tony Holiday's name was seldom mentioned between the two. Perhaps they feared that with the name of the girl they both loved there might return also the old antagonistic forces which had already wrought too much havoc. Both sincerely desired peace and amity and therefore the woman who held both their hearts in her keeping was almost banished from the talk of the sick room though she was far from forgotten by either.
So things went on. In time Dick was judged by the physician well enough to take the long journey back to New York. Alan secured the tickets, made all the arrangements, permitting Dick not so much as the lifting of a finger in his own behalf. And just then came Tony Holiday's letter to Alan telling him she was his whenever he wanted her since he had cleared the shield forever in her eyes by what he had done for Dick. She trusted him, knew he would not ask her to marry him unless he was quite free morally and every other way to ask her. She wanted him, could not be surer of his love or her own if she waited a dozen years. He meant more to her than her work, more than her beloved freedom more even than Holiday Hill itself although she felt that she was not so much deserting the Hill as bringing Alan to it. The others would learn to love him too. They must, because she loved him so much! But even if they did not she had made her choice. She belonged to him first of all.
"But think, dear," she finished. "Think well before you take me. Don't come to me at all unless you can come free, with nothing on your soul that is going to prevent your being happy with me. I shall ask no questions if you come. I trust you to decide right for us both because you lave me in the high way as well as all the other ways."
Alan took this letter of Tony's out into the night, walked with it through flaming valleys of hell. She was his. Of her own free will she had given herself to him, placed him higher in her heart at last than even her sacred Hill. And yet after all the Hill stood between them, in the challenge she flung at him. She was his to take if he could come free. She left the decision to him. She trusted him.
Good God! Why should he hesitate to take what she was willing to give? He had atoned, saved his cousin's life, lived decently, honorably as he had promised, kept faith with Tony herself when he might perhaps have won her on baser terms than he had made himself keep to because he loved her as she said "in the high way as well as all the other ways." He would contrive some way of giving his cousin back the money. He did not want it. He only wanted Tony and her love. Why in the name of all the devils should he who had sinned all his life, head up and eyes open, balk at this one sin, the negative sin of mere silence, when it would give him what he wanted more than all the world? What was he afraid of? The answer he would not let himself discover. He was afraid of Tony Holiday's clear eyes but he was more afraid of something else—his own soul which somehow Tony had created by loving and believing in him.
All the next day, the day before they were to leave on the northern journey, Alan behaved as if all the devils of hell which he had invoked were with him. The old mocking bitterness of tongue was back, an even more savage light than Dick remembered that night of their quarrel was in his green eyes. The man was suddenly acidulated as if he had over night suffered a chemical transformation which had affected both mind and body. A wild beast tortured, evil, ready to pounce, looked out of his drawn, white face.
Dick wondered greatly what had caused the strange reaction and seeing the other was suffering tremendously for some reason or other unexplained and perhaps inexplicable was profoundly sorry. His friendship for the man who had saved his life was altogether too strong and deep to be shaken by this temporary lapse into brutality which he had known all along was there although held miraculously in abeyance these many weeks. The man was a genius, with all the temperamental fluctuations of mood which are comprehensible and forgivable in a genius. Dick did not begrudge the other any relief he might find in his debauch of ill humor, was more than willing he should work it off on his humble self if it could do any good though he would be immensely relieved when the old friendly Alan came back.
Twilight descended. Dick turned from the mirror after a critical survey of his own lean, fever parched, yellow countenance.
"Lord! I look like a peanut," he commenced disgustedly. "I say, Massey, when we get back to New York I think I should choke anybody if I were you who dared to say we looked alike. One must draw the line somewhere at what constitutes a permissible insult." He grinned whimsically at his own expense, turned back to the mirror. "Upon my word, though, I believe it is true. We do look alike. I never saw it until this minute. Funny things—resemblances."
"This isn't so funny," drawled Alan. "We had the same great grandfather."
Dick whirled about staring at the other man as if he thought him suddenly gone mad.
"What! What do you know about my great grandfather? Do you know who I am?"
"I do. You are John Massey, old John's grandson, the chap I told you once was dead and decently buried. I hoped it was true at the time but it wasn't a week before I knew it was a lie. I found out John Massey was alive and that he was going under the name of Dick Carson. Do you wonder I hated you?"
Dick sat down, his face white. He looked and was utterly dazed.
"I don't understand," he said. "Do you mind explaining? It—it is a little hard to get all at once."
And then Alan Massey told the story that no living being save himself knew. He spared himself nothing, apologised for nothing, expressed no regret, asked for no palliation of judgment, forgiveness or even understanding. Quietly, apparently without emotion, he gave back to the other man the birthright he had robbed him of by his selfish and dishonorable connivance with a wicked old man now beyond the power of any vengeance or penalty. Dick Carson was no longer nameless but as he listened tensely to his cousin's revelations he almost found it in his heart to wish he were. It was too terrible to have won his name at such a cost. As he listened, watching Alan's eyes burn in the dusk in strange contrast to his cool, liquid, studiously tranquil voice, Dick remembered a line Alan himself had read him only the other day, "Hell, the shadow of a soul on fire," the Persian phrased it. Watching, Dick Carson saw before him a sadder thing, a soul which had once been on fire and was now but gray ashes. The flame had blazed up, scorched and blackened its path. It was over now, burnt out. At thirty-three Alan Massey was through, had lived his life, had given up. The younger man saw this with a pang which had no reactive thought of self, only compassion for the other.
"That is all, I think," said Alan at last. "I have all the proofs of your identity with me. I never could destroy them somehow though I have meant to over and over again. On the same principle I suppose that the sinning monk sears the sign of the cross on his breast though he makes no outward confession to the world and means to make none. I never meant to make mine. I don't know why I am doing it now. Or rather I do. I couldn't marry Tony with this thing between us. I tried to think I could, that I'd made up to you by saving your life, that I was free to take my happiness with her because I loved her and she loved me. And she does love me. She wrote me yesterday she would marry me whenever I wished. I could have had her. But I couldn't take her that way. I couldn't have made her happy. She would have read the thing in my soul. She is too clean and honest and true herself not to feel the presence of the other thing when it came near her. I have tried to tell myself love was enough, that it would make up to her for the rest. It isn't enough. You can't build life or happiness except on the quarry stuff they keep on Holiday Hill, right, honor, decency. You know that. Tony forgave my past. I believe she is generous enough to forgive even this and go on with me. But I shan't ask her. I won't let her. I—I've given her up with the rest."
The speaker came over to where Dick sat, silent, stunned.
"Enough of that. I have no wish to appeal to you in any way. The next move is yours. You can act as you please. You can brand me as a criminal if you choose. It is what I am, guilty in the eyes of the law as well as in my own eyes and yours. I am not pleading innocence. I am pleading unqualified guilt. Understand that clearly. I knew what I was doing when I did it. I have known ever since. I've never been blind to the rottenness of the thing. At first I did it for the money because I was afraid of poverty and honest work. And then I went on with it for Tony, because I loved her and wouldn't give her up to you. Now I've given up the last ditch. The name is yours and the money is yours and if you can win Tony she is yours. I'm out of the face for good and all. But we have to settle just how the thing is going to be done. And that is for you to say."
"I wish I needn't do anything about it," said Dick slowly after a moment. "I don't want the money. I am almost afraid of it. It seems accursed somehow considering what it did to you. Even the name I don't seem to care so much about just now thought I have wanted a name as I have never wanted anything else in the world except Tony. It was mostly for her I wanted it. See here, Alan, why can't we make a compromise? You say Roberts wrote two letters and you have both. Why can't we destroy the one and send the other to the lawyers, the one that lets you out? It is nobody's business but ours. We can say that the letter has just fallen into your hands with the other proof that I am the John Massey that was stolen. That would straighten the thing out for you. I've no desire to brand you in any way. Why should I after all I owe you? You have made up a million times by saving my life and by the way you have given the thing over now. Anyway one doesn't exact payment from one's friends. And you are my friend, Alan. You offered me friendship. I took it—was proud to take it. I am proud now, prouder than ever."
And rising Dick Carson who was no longer Dick Carson but John Massey held out his hand to the man who had wronged him so bitterly. The paraquet in the corner jibbered harshly. Thunder rumbled heavily outside. An eerily vivid flash of lightning dispelled for a moment the gloom of the dusk as the two men clasped hands.
"John Massey!" Alan's voice with its deep cello quality was vibrant with emotion. "You don't know what that means to me. Men have called me many things but few have ever called me friend except in lip service for what they thought they could get out of it. And from you—well, I can only say, I thank you."
"We are the only Masseys. We ought to stand together," said Dick simply.
Alan smiled though the room was too dark for Dick to see.
"We can't stand together. I have forfeited the right. You chose the high road long ago and I chose the other. We have both to abide by our choices. We can't change those things at will. Spare me the public revelation if you care to. I shall be glad for Tony's sake. For myself it doesn't matter much. I don't expect to cross your path or hers again. I am going to lose myself. Maybe some day you will win her. She will be worth the winning. But don't hurry her if you want to win. She will have to get over me first and that will take time."
"She will never get over you, Alan. I know her. Things go deep with her. They do with all the Holidays. You shan't lose yourself. There is no need of it. Tony loves you. You must stay and make her happy. You can now you are free. She need never know the worst of this any more than the rest of the world need know. We can divide the money. It is the only way I am willing to have any of it."
Alan shook his head.
"We can divide nothing, not the money and not Tony's love. I told you I was giving it all up. You cannot stop me. No man has ever stopped me from doing what I willed to do. I have a letter or two to write now and so I'll leave you. I am glad you don't hate me, John Massey. Shall we shake hands once more and then—good-night?"
Their hands met again. A sharp glare of lightning lit the room with ominous brilliancy for a moment. The paraquet screamed raucously. And then the door closed on Alan Massey.
An hour later a servant brought word to Dick that an American was below waiting to speak to him. He descended with the card in his hand. The name was unfamiliar, Arthur Hallock of Chicago, mining engineer.
The stranger stood in the hall waiting while Dick came down the stairs.He was obviously ill at ease.
"I am Hallock," announced the visitor. "You are Richard Carson?"
Dick nodded. Already the name was beginning to sound strange on his ears.In one hour he had gotten oddly accustomed to knowing that he was JohnMassey. And no longer needed Tony's name, dear as it was.
"I am sorry to be the bearer of ill news, Mr. Carson," the stranger proceeded. "You have a friend named Alan Massey living here with you?"
Again Dick nodded. He was apprehensive at the mention of Alan's name.
"There was a riot down there." The speaker pointed down the street. "A fuss over an American flag some dirty German dog had spit at. It didn't take long to start a life sized row. We are all spoiling for a chance to stick a few of the pigs ourselves whether we're technically at war or not. A lot of us collected, your friend Massey among the rest. I remember particularly when he joined the mob because he was so much taller than the rest of us and came strolling in as if he was going to an afternoon tea instead of getting into an international mess with nearly all the contracting parties drunk and disorderly. There was a good deal of excitement and confusion. I don't believe anybody knows just what happened but a drunken Mexican drew a dagger somewhere in the mix up and let it fly indiscriminate like. We all scattered like mischief when we saw the thing flash. Nobody cares much for that kind of plaything at close range. But Massey didn't move. It got him, clean in the heart. He couldn't have suffered a second. It was all over in a breath. He fell and the mob made itself scarce. Another fellow and I were the first to get to him but there wasn't anything to do but look in his pockets and find out who he was. We found his name on a card with this address and your name scribbled on it in pencil. I say, Mr. Carson, I am horribly sorry," suddenly perceiving Dick's white face. "You care a lot, don't you?"
"I care a lot," said Dick woodenly. "He was my cousin and—my best friend."
"I am sorry," repeated the young engineer. "Mr. Carson, there is something else I feel as if I had to say though I shan't say it to any one else. Massey might have dodged with the rest of us. He saw it coming just as we did. He waited for it and I saw him smile as it came—a queer smile at that. Maybe I'm mistaken but I have a hunch he wanted that dagger to find him. That was why he smiled."
"I think you are entirely right, Mr. Hallock," said Dick. "I haven't any doubt but that was why he smiled. He would smile just that way. Where —where is he?" Dick brushed his hands across his eyes as he asked the question. He had never felt so desolate, so utterly alone in his life.
"They are bringing him here. Shall I stay? Can I help anyway?"
Dick shook his head sadly.
"Thank you. I don't think there is anything any one can do. I—I wish there was."
A little later Alan Massey's dead body lay in austere dignity in the house in which he had saved his cousin's life and given him back his name and fortune together with the right to win the girl he himself had loved so well. The smile was still on his face and a strange serenity of expression was there too. He slept well at last. He had lost himself as he had proclaimed his intent to do and in losing had found himself. One could not look upon that calm white sculptured face without feeling that. Alan Massey had died a victor undaunted, a master of fate to the end.