Produced by Al Haines










[Frontispiece: "'To-morrow,' he replied, 'and all the to-morrows!'"
[Page 334.]]



  _The_
  LAND _of_ CONTENT


  BY

  EDITH BARNARD DELANO



  THOMAS LANGTON
  TORONTO
  1913




  COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY
  D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

  Copyright, 1911-1912. by S. H. Moore Co.



  Printed in the United States of America




To J.




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

"'To-morrow,' he replied, 'and all the to-morrows!'" . . .
_Frontispiece_

"One thing after another came back to her"

"A small crowd gathered in an incredibly short time"

"It was Rosamund whose eyes smiled into his"




_The_ LAND _of_ CONTENT



I

It was earliest spring, and almost the close of a day whose sunshine
and warmth had coaxed into bloom many timid roadside flowers, and sent
the white petals of farmyard cherries trembling to earth like tiny,
belated snowfalls.  Already the rays of the setting sun were gilding
the open space on the top of the mountain where ridge-road and turnpike
meet.  The ridge-road was only one of the little mountain by-ways that
wind through woods and up and down dale as the necessities of the
mountain people wear them; the turnpike was an ancient artery
connecting North and South, threading cities and villages and farms
along its length like trophies on a chain.  The shy windings of the
mountain road knew nothing more modern than the doctor's vehicle drawn
by White Rosy, nothing more exciting than the little companies of
armed, silent men who tramped over it by night, or crossed it
stealthily by day; but along the pike coaches and motor cars pounded
and rolled, and a generation or so earlier an army had swung northward
over it in pride and hope and eagerness, to drift southward again, a
few days later, with only pride left.  If, after that, the part of the
old road that led from the plain up to the higher valley seemed to lie
in a torpor, as if stunned by the agony of that retreat, none the less
it remained one of the strong warp threads in Fate's fabric.

Yet Destiny chooses her own disguises.  A sick baby had kept John
Ogilvie on a sleepless vigil in the backwoods for the past fifty hours;
and it was not the view from the crossroads, nor the doctor's habit of
drawing rein to look out upon it for a moment or two, that made old
Rosy stop there on this spring afternoon.  It was nothing more than a
particularly luscious patch of green by the roadside, and the
consciousness of her long climb having earned such a reward.  Rosy was
an animal of experience and judgment, well accustomed to the ways of
her master, knowing as well as he the houses where he stopped, capable
of taking him home unguided from anywhere, as she would take him home
this afternoon in her own good time.  She had come thus far unguided;
for when the sick child's even breathing told the success of his
efforts, John Ogilvie had almost stumbled out of the cabin and into his
buggy, to fall asleep before he could do more than say,

"Home, old lady!"

So Rosy had ambled homeward, knowing every turn of the road, while the
tired man slept on.

The open place where the roads crossed was a famous "look-out."
Following its own level, the eye of an observer first beheld the tops
of other mountains at all points of the horizon save one; at this
season the great masses were all misty green, except for occasional
patches of the dark of pines, or the white gleam of dogwood, or rusty
cleared spaces of pastures; the highroad, on its way to the nearer
valley, at first dropped too abruptly to be seen, but reappeared later
as a pale white filament gleaming here and there through the trees or
winding past farmhouses or fields tenderly green with young wheat.
Through the gap where the mountains broke apart a great plain
stretched, a plain once drenched with the life of men, now gleaming in
the rays of a sun already sunk too low to reach over the nearer
mountains.  All human habitations lay so far below the crossroads that
no sound of man's activities ever arose to its height; of wild life
there was sound enough, to ears attuned to it--mostly chattering of
woodchucks and song of birds, enriched at this season with the melody
of passing voyagers from the south.  Yet none of these would have
aroused the tired sleeper in the buggy.  A far different sound came up
through the forest, and Ogilvie was awake on the instant, with the
complete consciousness of the man accustomed to sudden calls.

He looked down at the purpling valley, across through the gap to the
gleaming plain, and laughed.

"Well, Rosy, couldn't you take me home till I admired the view?" he
asked; and by way of answer the old white mare turned her head to look
at him, her mouth comfortably filled with young grass.  The doctor
laughed again.

"Oh, I see!" he said.  "A case of afternoon tea, was it, and not of
admiring the view?  Well, let's get along home now."

He looked across the valley to the mountain westward of the gap; its
form was that of a large crouching panther, and high up on its shoulder
a light twinkled against the shadow.

"Come along!  Mother Cary's already lighted her lamp!" the doctor said.
"There's bed ahead of us, old girl, bed for me and oats for you!  Bed,
Rosy!  Think of it!  And may Heaven grant good health to all our
friends this night!"

He drew up the reins as he spoke, and with a farewell reach at a
luscious maple leaf Rosy turned into the pike.

But again there echoed through the woods the unaccustomed sound that
had aroused the doctor.  This time it was too near to be mistaken; not
even White Rosy's calm could ignore it.

"Hel--lo!" said Ogilvie.  "A big horn and a noiseless car!  Pretty
early in the season for those fellows.  Make way for your betters,
White Rosy!"

He drew well into the green of the roadside; for, highway and turnpike
though it was, the road was narrow enough in this unfrequented part to
make passing a matter of calculation.  The driver of the automobile had
evidently discovered that for himself, for he was climbing slowly and
carefully, sounding his horn as frequently as if driving through a
village.  As the car came out upon the cleared space of the crossroads,
Ogilvie turned, with the frank interest of the country dweller in the
passer-by, and with the countryman's etiquette of the road waved to its
solitary occupant.

The driver of the car returned the greeting, drew slowly forward, and
stopped beside the doctor's old buggy.  Ogilvie was not so much of a
countryman as not to recognize in the machine's powerful outlines the
costly French racer.  But that was only another of Destiny's disguises.
The two men met on the mountain-top, took cognizance of each other in
that high solitude where the things of the world lay below them; and,
face to face, each measured the other and insensibly recognized his
worth of character.  Both knew men; both had been trained to the
necessity of forming quick judgments.  Before they had exchanged a word
they were sure of each other; before the hour was out their friendship
was as certain as if it were years old.

The occupant of the car had a smile which was apt to be grimly
humorous, as Ogilvie noted in the moment before he spoke.

"I'm lost!" the stranger said, as if admitting a joke on himself.
"I've come around in a circle twice, looking for a place called
Bluemont Summit, and I've sounded my horn right along, hoping somebody
would run out to look, somebody I could ask my way of.  But you're the
first person I've seen this afternoon!"

Ogilvie laughed aloud.  "No wonder, if you've been blowing your horn
all the way," he said.  "If you had kept still, you might have come on
someone unawares; but nobody around here would run out to look at you
in the open."

"Is there anyone to run?" the other asked, again with the grim twist of
his lips.

"Yes, but they are shy, and too proud to seem curious.  There may be
eyes on us now, peeping through those woods," said Ogilvie.  "But
you're not far from the Summit, not far, that is, with that car of
yours.  This is the Battlesburg Road, and you're ten miles or so to the
northwest of Bluemont."

The driver of the car had stepped down into the road to do something to
his lamps; it was already so dark that their gleam shot far ahead.
White Rosy eyed them dubiously.

"Only ten miles!  Jove, I'm glad of that!  Mountain air does whet a
man's appetite!  The High Court is the best hotel, isn't it?"

Ogilvie looked at the other for a moment or two before answering:
looked, indeed, until the stranger glanced questioningly up at him, as
if wondering at the delay.  Then he said:

"My name's Ogilvie, and I'm the doctor around here.  I wish you'd let
me prescribe a hot meal at my house for you.  It's this side of the
Summit."

The other man's smile had lost its grimness.  "That's mighty good of
you," he said.  "And you won't have to coat that dose with sugar!"

"I wonder," the doctor went on, "if you'd play host first, and give me
a lift?  I'm as hungry as you are, and White Rosy here likes to choose
her own gait.  If you'll take me home, we'll be at my house in one
tenth the time, and Rosy can find her way alone.  She's done it many a
time."

The other man looked at the old mare, and as he answered stroked her
nose and gave her shoulder a friendly smack or two.

"Certainly I'll give you a lift," he said.  "Good of you to suggest it.
This old lady looks as if she knew as much as most of us.  I hope you
won't hurt her feelings by deserting her!"

Ogilvie had come down to the road, and already deposited his black bags
and his old brown cap in the automobile; now he was busy unbuckling
Rosy's reins.

"Not a bit of it," he said.  "She'll come home all the quicker for not
having me on her mind!  It's home and oats, Rosy, oats, remember," he
said as he got up into the automobile with the reins in his hand.

"My name is Flood--Benson Flood, and I've been down in Virginia buying
a little old farm for the shooting they tell me the neighborhood's good
for.  I never use road maps--like to discover things for myself.
That's how I got lost to-day."

Ogilvie, leaning back, could inspect the face of the man beside him.
Involuntarily, his expression had slightly changed at the name.  Benson
Flood was as well known to readers of the daily papers as Hecla or
Klondike or Standard Oil, and stood for about the same thing--wealth,
spectacular wealth.  The name had heretofore interested John Ogilvie
neither more nor less than any of the others; now, sitting beside its
possessor, it carried a different and more personal significance.  It
seemed almost grotesquely unreal that an actual living person, a man to
be met at a mountain crossroads, could calmly introduce himself as
Benson Flood, and be as frankly and comfortably hungry as anyone else.
These thoughts, however, took but an instant.

"Well, you've seen a bit of country, anyway," he replied, quite as if
his mind were not busy on its separate line of speculation.  Flood's
face was not what he would have expected to find it.  It had not lost
its lean ruggedness, nor put on those fleshly signs of indulgence that
are so apt to follow the early acquisition of great wealth.  The
well-cut mouth was very firm, and there was something of the idealist,
the questioner, the seeker of high things, about the eyes and brow that
Ogilvie found puzzling and interesting.

"Yes; and what a view there was from that crossroads up there!  I wish
I could transplant my Virginia farm to that mountain-top.

"A good many men have seen that view; the army retreated from
Battlesburg along this old pike, you know."

"Ah, Battlesburg!  I'm from the West, where history is not much more
than we fellows have made it; it fairly stirs my blood to come across a
place like Battlesburg, with its monuments, and its memories, and where
Lincoln spoke, and all that.  I'm going to run up there to-morrow, if
the hotel people can set me on my way early enough."

"I'm afraid you'll have to trust me to do that," said Ogilvie.
"There's my house, there where the light's in the front porch; and--I
hope you won't think I've kidnapped you, but I'm going to keep you over
night.  The hotels aren't open at this time of year."

As the car stopped before the doctor's cottage, Flood turned to his
host.  "Oh, I say!  That's mighty good of you!  Won't I put you out?
Isn't there some place I can go to?"

But Ogilvie laughed.  "There is not, but I wouldn't tell you if there
was!  Why, Mr. Flood, I haven't talked to anyone from beyond the
mountains for six months!"




II

Spring, that stole upon the mountains with an evanescent fragrance, and
unfolding of delicate greens and shy opening blossoms, swept into the
city with a blaze of life and color, with a joyous outpouring of people
and bedizening of shop-windows; and nowhere else was its influence so
marked as on the Avenue.  Motor vehicles crowded from curb to curb,
held back or permitted to sweep onward by the uplifted hands of mighty
creatures in uniform, horseback and afoot, imperturbably calm, lords
and rulers and receivers of tribute; the sidewalks swarmed with people,
lines of men and women swinging northward and southward, some buoyantly
conscious of new-fashioned raiment, their eyes apparently unaware of
the jostling crowd, some with tiny dogs under their arms, some looking
at the passing faces, or bowing to people in motor cars, a few glancing
into the brilliant windows of the shops, a few chatting and laughing
with companions.

Benson Flood, returned from Virginia the day before, was one of those
who, marching northward, looked searchingly into the faces of the
people he passed, and frequently glanced into the automobiles on his
right.  No one in all that army was more aware than he of the vivid
beauty of the moving scene.  For three years he had watched the Avenue
burst into life and color under the recurring influence of Spring; but
he had lost none of the keenness of his first perception of it, none of
his delight in its unique splendor, none of the thrill of having
achieved the right to be a part of it.

Achievement, indeed, was what Benson Flood stood for.  Beginning life
in a Western town, his subsequent history was one of those spectacular
dramas common enough in American progress, yet always thrilling in
their exhibition of daring and courage, in their apparent forcing of
opportunity, their making and taking of chances, their final conquest
of power and wealth.  Flood's career differed from many another only in
two particulars: as early as the age of forty he had reached that point
where he could afford to lay aside his more public pursuits; and at the
same time, perhaps because he had grown no older in the cult, the mere
accumulation of wealth ceased to be the first object in life for him.
He was the offspring of one of the curious mixtures of race that
distinguish America; and doubtless from some ancestor of an older
civilization he inherited a taste and longing for that to which, in his
youth and early manhood, he had been an absolute stranger.  When he
left his West behind him, he faced towards those gentler things which,
in his fine imagination and the perception trained by the exigencies of
his career, he felt to be more desirable than anything he had yet
attained to.  Certainly they had become to him, untasted though they
were at the time, of greater importance.  He valued his experiences,
his labors, his millions; but they were not enough.  However
unaccustomed to it he might be, he knew very definitely what he now
wanted; and a winter in New York, with a year or two in Europe, had put
him in a fair way of adding the fulfillment of his later ambition to
his earlier achievements.  A race-winning yacht, a few introductions
among people who welcome the owners of mines and large fortunes, these
gave a social background which, with the excellent foundation of his
millions, served very well in New York, and taught him much about those
things which he was now so sure of wanting.  It was not strange that he
believed them to be summed up, embodied, realized to the utmost, in one
woman.

He was looking for her as he walked up the Avenue on this April
afternoon; she loved its life and color and change, and was apt to pass
over some part of it as often as she could.  So Flood watched the
passing women for the face that could so magically quicken his pulses.
Many sought his recognition, yet he was oblivious of their number,
ignoring the various half-invitations that were tentatively made
him--the leaning forward of one in a limousine, the slight pause or
lingering look of another.

His thoughts were still full of his journey, and Spring on the Avenue
only brought up memories--so lately realities--of the breath of the
woods, the wind in the tree-tops, the brown and green of fields so
lately seen; and Flood had reached that state of mind where all that
was sweet in memory, all that was beautiful in the present, all that he
desired from the future, only reminded him of the one woman.

Several times, through the crowd, he thought he saw her, and went more
quickly forward; but as often he fell back, disappointed.  Suddenly, in
answer to a firm grasp on his arm, he turned.

"Ah, Marshall!" he said, not too enthusiastically.

"I say, Benny, is it a wager?  You're stalking up the Avenue without a
word or a look for anybody, trampling on people, mowing them down by
the thousand like a Juggernaut from the West!  That's how I traced you,
by the bodies strewn in your path."

Flood was always amused by Pendleton's nonsense; yet now he smiled and
said nothing.  To-day it was not Pendleton he wanted to see.  The other
seemed to divine this.

"You don't seem very sociable," he remarked.  "Did your lone trip to
Virginia give you a confirmed taste for solitude?"

Again Flood smiled; he could no more resist Pendleton's aimless chatter
than a large dog can resist the playfulness of a small one.  His
side-long glance had to go downwards to meet Marshall's.

"Quite the contrary," he said.  "I've bought the old Gore place in
Berkeley and now I want to fill it up with guests.  I count on you to
help me out, Marshall."

"Right you are!  Come up to Mrs. Maxwell's with me, and we'll get dear
Cecilia to help us out, too!"

Flood's face suddenly hardened a little.  It was an unconscious trick
of his under the stress of any sudden emotion; in effect, it was as if
a hand had passed over his features, leaving them expressionless.  Many
a game had he won, mastered many a situation, by means of it.

He paused perceptibly before he answered Pendleton.  Then he said, "I
shall have to leave that to you!"

"You're too modest, Benny," Pendleton said, shaking his head.
"Remember your taxes, man, not to mention your bank account, and don't
let dear Cecilia awe you."

It was presently made evident enough that the dear Cecilia in question
held nothing of awe for Pendleton himself; for they were no sooner in
the rather austere little drawing room than he bent over Mrs. Maxwell,
and, quite deliberately ignoring the five or six earlier comers,
whispered in her ear:

"Get rid of the crowd, Cecilia; we've great news for you!"

Mrs. Maxwell was apparently oblivious of his whisper, for she made
herself more charming than ever to the other men; yet presently, almost
before Flood was aware of it, the others were gone, and she was saying:

"Well, Marshall?  You always bring your little budget with you, don't
you?  What is it now?"

"If you're going to be, nasty, Cecilia, I won't tell you!"

Flood, who had not so far progressed as to become accustomed to such
badinage, looked uneasily from Pendleton to their hostess; but Mrs.
Maxwell seated herself beside him on the sofa, and calmly smiled.

Apparently she was going to ignore Pendleton for the moment.  "I am
always so glad when I can have my tea comfortably, without having to
look after a roomful of people," she said.  "You don't take it, I know,
Mr. Flood, and Marshall can look out for himself.  What do you think of
this pink lustre cup, Mr. Flood?  It's Rosamund's latest acquisition."

Flood had, after all, learned much in his three years.  He bent forward
to examine the cup, while Mrs. Maxwell turned its iridescent beauty
towards the light.

"It is adorable," he said.  "Is Miss Randall hunting for more to-day?"

Again his face had quickly become expressionless, but neither of the
others were aware of it, and his question was doomed to remain
unanswered.

Pendleton could no longer withhold his news.  "Benny's just back from
Virginia, Cecilia," he said.  "He's bought Oakleigh."

"I think it's West Virginia, and it's just a little farm, you know,"
Flood said, weakly; but his geography was entirely immaterial to the
others.

"Oakleigh?  The Gore place?"

Flood still found it amazing that so many people knew so many other
people; his lately made acquaintances in New York always seemed to know
all about his lately made acquaintances in Florida or Virginia or the
Berkshires, or, for that matter, in Europe.  It was another of the
things to which he had not yet become accustomed.

"And he wants you and me to help him fill it up with people," Pendleton
went on, with the frankness for which he was famous.

Mrs. Maxwell looked quickly over her tea-cup at Flood, raising her
eyebrows ever so slightly.  For once Flood could not control his
expression; his face flushed deeply as he leaned towards her.

"If you only would!" he begged.  "I thought--I scarcely dared to
hope--that perhaps if--if Miss Randall came along, too, you might
consent to play hostess for a lone man?"

Cecilia was a practiced campaigner, as she had had need to be during
the dreary years before she had Rosamund's money to count upon;
instantly she recalled the place Flood could afford to call a "little
farm," Oakleigh, white-pillared and stately, with its kennels and
stables and conservatories.  She could not imagine why he had chosen
her unless it were thanks to Pendleton; yet, to be hostess of Oakleigh,
even for a week or two, distinctly appealed to her.  It would be
possible enough, if she were to go as Rosamund's chaperon.  Even Flood
had seen that; and if it were left to her to fill its rooms with
guests, how many debts might she not cancel!  The opportunity was
wonderful, a gift from Heaven; but could she count upon Rosamund?
Would Rosamund go?  There was a lack of complacency in Rosamund that
her sister frequently found trying; she wondered how far she might dare
to commit her to accepting Flood's invitation.  Yet daring and Cecilia
were not strangers, and the opportunity was unique.

"I am not sure of Rosamund's dates," she said.

Flood hesitated; but Pendleton, too, had been thinking about the
splendor of Oakleigh.

"Oh, but Benny has no dates for Oakleigh yet!" he said.  "So you may
set your own time, Cecilia.  Isn't that so, Benny?"

"If you only will," Flood besought her.

After all, Cecilia thought, there was nothing Rosamund could do, if she
definitely promised for her!

"Then I think June will be quite perfect," she said, and said it none
too soon; for the door was suddenly framing the vision of Flood's
desire.

For an instant she seemed almost to sway in the doorway, as if she had
come to the utmost limit of strength; she was paler than he had ever
seen her, and, he thought, more lovely.  He could never behold her
without an immediate sense of abasement.  Her beauty was of that
indefinable sort which touches the heart and imagination rather than
storms the senses.  Men did not look upon her as at some beautiful
creature on exhibition; always they looked, to be sure, but straightway
the masculine appraisement of their gaze changed to the look one
bestows upon some high and lovely thing.  Her face had that fullness
through the temples that Murillo loved; her eyes, hazel or brown or
gray, changing in color with the responsive widening of the pupils,
were rather far apart, deeply set, warm with interest when she looked
directly at you; dark hair, ruddily brown, that broke into curl
whenever a strand escaped, framed her face closely, and was always worn
more simply than fashion demanded.  She was tall enough to play a man's
games well, and the impression that she gave was one of vigor and
alertness, almost of impatience.  This was the first time Flood had
seen her tired.

And, as always when he saw her, it swept over him that she was, alone
and above all others, the woman he wanted.  She was beautiful, but it
was not her beauty, not her social eminence, certainly not her wealth,
nor anything that she might be said to represent, that constituted her
appeal for him.  There was that in her which he had not met elsewhere
in his countrywomen, though frequently enough in France and England, a
simplicity, a calmness, a dignity, which he interpreted as a
consciousness that she needed no pretense, no further struggle or
ambition to be other than just what she was.  And what she was, was
what he very much wanted.  For him, she was the bright sum of all
desire, the embodiment of everything rare and fine, which he now craved
all the more because they had been denied him in his earlier years.
Months before, since the first time he saw her, he had known that, and
accepted it as an inspiration, as he had accepted and lived upon the
fine flashes of imagination that had led him on to fortune in those
western days, when imagination and courage had been his stock in trade;
it was only the ultimate, and by far the most important, of those!

But Miss Randall was certainly unaware that she aroused in anyone in
her drawing-room stronger feelings than the mild ones which usually
accompany afternoon tea.  After an instant's survey from the doorway,
she came into the room, trying to smile through her fatigue.

"Mercy, Rosamund!  You look like a ghost!  Have you been walking
yourself to death again?" her sister asked.

Flood's greeting was only a silent bow and a touch of her offered hand,
but Pendleton was never speechless.

"I say, Rose," he cried, "Flood's just been inviting us all down to
Virginia for June, and dear Cecilia has accepted!  Can you stand the
joy of having me to talk to for a whole month, Rosamund?"

At a quick spark in her sister's eyes, Cecilia bent towards her and
spoke somewhat hastily.  "Mr. Flood has bought Oakleigh, the Gore
place.  Isn't it nice of him to ask us down there, first of all?"

Although to her sister her look seemed to hold many things, to Flood's
infatuated eyes the girl seemed suddenly more tired, harassed, or
troubled; and with another of his flashes of intuition he would not
give her a chance to reply.  He began to tell them about his lone
journey, talking very well, quite sure of his facts and with a large
enthusiasm, and in spite of herself Rosamund became more and more
interested.  She even smiled a little at his account of the mountain
doctor's old mare and her wisdom; she even found herself willing to
hear more about the doctor!

"But, I assure you," Flood went on, "it wouldn't have taken anyone long
to discover that he was not the usual country doctor.  There is
something about the man that would attract the attention of the world,
if he lived on a pillar or were buried beneath the sands of Arizona.
Personality, I suppose, unless you're willing to look the fact in the
face and admit that a certain force emanates from greatness,
wherever----"

"Oh, say!" Pendleton protested; and Flood laughed, rather shamefacedly,
as a man laughs when he is discovered reading a learned book or quoting
a classic.

But Miss Randall would not have that.  "Please don't mind him, Mr.
Flood; I want to hear the rest of it."

Again Flood was taken unawares, and his face flushed; but he went on to
describe the evening before the doctor's fire, the four days he had
remained, a willing guest, the drives about the mountains in the
doctor's buggy--lest his own car should startle the shy mountain people.

"And since I've got back, I've been finding out about him.  You know
how it is--meet a chap you never heard of before, and straightway find
out that a dozen people you know have known him for years.

"Last night I met Doctor Hiram Wilson in the club; he said it was the
first time he'd had a chance to run in for months, yet he happened to
be the first man I saw there.  I was telling him something about this
chap, and found he knew all about him.  'Keenest young investigator I
ever knew,' he said, 'and came near working himself to death.  How is
he now?'  He seemed mighty glad when I told him I could not have
suspected that Ogilvie had ever been ill.  Then he called Professor
Grayson over, to repeat what I'd just told him; and I wish you could
have seen old Grayson's face.  He was delighted, but he could really
tell more about Ogilvie than I could.  It seems that Ogilvie was under
him for a time, but had really gone far beyond him; then he made
himself ill by working day and night in his laboratory, and some of his
medical friends packed him off to those mountains to get well.  He was
too far gone to protest, I guess; but before he was well enough to come
back, he was so interested in the people there that he was willing to
stay.  Now the big fellows have fallen into the way of sending patients
down to Bluemont, in the summer, to be near him; and he consults
everywhere all over the country.  They told me last night that his
investigations and experiments on the nervous system would do more to
save the vision than----"

But Miss Randall, at the word, exclaimed, and with parted lips and
brightening eyes leaned towards him.  Flood stopped, amazed.

"Vision!  His work is for vision?  For the eyes?" she cried.

"His experimental work.  Of course, in the mountains----"

But Mrs. Maxwell was tired of Flood's enthusiasm.  "Dear me!  She is
going to tell him about Eleanor!  Take pity on me, Marshall, and help
me to escape!" she exclaimed, jumping up.

But her sister was far too deeply interested to be aware of their
withdrawing towards the window.  "Oh, Mr. Flood, is he really
successful?  Can he really help?"

"I am told, and I believe, that he is a great man, Miss Randall.  But
surely----"

For the first time the weary look had left her face.  "Mr. Flood, if
you can help me!  I have a friend, the dearest friend I have in the
world, who believes she is going to be blind.  I don't believe it!  I
will not!  And yet, it would not be remarkable--she has been through so
much, so much!  Oh, I cannot bear to think of it!"

Her hands were clasped on her knees, and she bent her head over them to
hide the tears in her eyes.

"You have been with her this afternoon?" Flood surmised.

"We have spent the afternoon at an oculist's," she said.  "I have
begged her for weeks, for weeks, to let me take her--but she is so
proud, oh, so foolishly proud--and to-day--to-day--Oh, it is unbearably
cruel!"

She arose, and stood half turned from him, to hide her emotion, swaying
a little; and intensely as he had wanted many things, Flood had never
wanted anything so keenly as to comfort her--to comfort her by taking
her in his arms, if he could, but above all, by any means, to comfort
her.  Hitherto it had seemed impossible, in his modesty, to make her
realize his existence apart from the multitude; he welcomed this
heaven-sent opportunity.  Quite suddenly, in his need, he found his
faith in Ogilvie increased a hundredfold; but he was too much concerned
to perceive the humor of it.

"Oh, but--" he cried, "but I should never in the world accept one man's
opinion as final!  And I assure you, Ogilvie is called in consultation
by Blake, Wilson, Whitred.  I should certainly have her see him!"

She seated herself again, wearily.  "Ah, she is so proud!  It is only
when she sees I am fairly breaking my heart over her that she will let
me do anything."

"Then she is not--she has not----?"

"Oh, as for what she has and what she is, those are quite two different
things, Mr. Flood!  She is the dearest and loveliest and bravest
creature in the world.  She is more than I could possibly tell you.  I
have adored her ever since she was one of the big girls in the school
where I was a tiny one.  My father and mother were abroad, and Cecilia
was up here in the North, with her father's people, and then married;
and I was left in Georgia at school, oh, such a lonely little mite!
Eleanor was everything in the world to me--big sister, little mother,
friend--everything!  Then she married, and my father died abroad and
dear Mamma took me over with her.  Eleanor and I wrote to each other,
and I was godmother for her little boy; but Mamma and I were in France
until--until Mamma died, three years ago; and it was only last year,
when I came to live with Cecilia, that I found my Eleanor again."

Unconsciously she was revealing to Flood more of her life than he had
known before; he was afraid to interrupt by so much as a question.  His
face had again taken on the expressionless mask which so well covered
his emotion or interest.

"I had never realized it, Mr. Flood; but all the while I was having
everything, my precious Eleanor was poor, very poor.  She had no
relatives near enough to count, and her guardian sent her to school
with what little money she had.  I'm afraid it did not teach her very
well how to support herself!  She married the year she left school; she
has never spoken of him at all, but I don't believe her husband
was--was all she had believed.  When he died, she brought little Bob to
New York.

"I heard dear old Mrs. Harley say, only a day or two ago, that there
are thousands of Southern girls, dear, sweet girls who have never done
any work at all, who come to New York every year to try to earn a
living.  Sometimes they think they can sing, sometimes they want to
become artists, sometimes they just come; and Eleanor was one of them.
Only, with her, it was worse, for she had Bob.

"I don't know how they got along.  I was in Europe, and she would only
write when I had sent Bob something.  I never dreamed that people,
people of my own sort, my own friends even, might be hungry, and not
have money enough to buy anything to eat."

"You ought not to know it now," Flood said.  But she only shook her
head.

"I believe Eleanor has been hungry.  And if you could only see her--she
is so lovely, as lovely as a white lily!"

"Oh, but surely, Miss Randall, she could have got help!  There are no
end of places----"

"Yes.  But a woman like Eleanor can't seek just any kind of help, you
know, and--well, as darling Mrs. Harley says, charity doesn't help
much, when it is only charity.  Even from me, Eleanor says she cannot.

"When I came to New York to live with Cecilia, I went at once to see
her.  She let me do all I could for little Bob, but it was too late.
He died.  And now she will not let me do anything for her.  I ask her
what good my money is to me, if she will not let me use it as I want
to!  She would not even let me take her to an oculist until she saw
that I was just breaking my heart over her!  And now----"

Again her head was bent over her clasped hands; again she was too
moved, for the moment, to speak.  Flood seized his opportunity.

"Believe me, it can be arranged," he said.  "You have taken me into
your confidence--you will let me--advise, won't you?"  She looked up
eagerly, and he went quickly on.  "See your friend, Mrs.----"

"Mrs. Reeves."

"See your friend, Mrs. Reeves, and tell her about Ogilvie.  Tell her
that he is looking for someone--a lady--to help with his work down in
those mountains.  Prepare her to accept his offer.  I will telegraph
him."

She looked at him blankly.  "But--would it be true?  I don't think I
understand!"

He smiled reassuringly.  "It would not be true that I am going to
Europe to-morrow--but we could make it true!  If we get her away from
the city, and near Ogilvie, we can leave everything else to him.  He's
really a good deal of a man, you know."

Rosamund sprang to her feet.  "Cecilia," she said, across the room, to
her sister, "I am going back to Eleanor's."




III

In her enthusiasm at the chance of finding a way out for Eleanor,
Rosamund seemingly forgot that it was Flood who helped her.  As a
matter of fact, she considered him so little that she was quite willing
to make use of his assistance in so good a cause and then to ignore
him.  She had always found someone at hand to help her in anything she
wanted to do; she could not remember a time when there was not someone
ready and willing to gratify her least whim.  It was only in her
efforts on Eleanor's behalf that she was baffled for the first time, as
much by Eleanor's own pride as by not knowing to whom to turn, or where
help was to be found.  It was a new experience for her to find that her
money could do nothing; for it was precisely her money that her
cherished Eleanor refused.  If she was to do anything, it must be by
some other means.

Flood was not as entirely unconscious of her attitude as he appeared.
He had no intention of pressing himself upon her through making himself
of use.  He beheld her suffering in sympathy with this unknown friend
of hers, and her suffering so worked upon his love for her that he
would have done much more to lessen it.  But he knew humanity; and
while he took more pleasure in being generous than in any other of the
powers his wealth had brought him, he gave without thought of benefits
returned, save in the satisfaction of giving.

His first move was a letter to the mountain doctor.


MY DEAR DR. OGILVIE: [he wrote] Since my visit with you a matter has
been brought to my attention in which I do not hesitate to ask your
assistance.  Two ladies whom I hold in highest esteem are in great
anxiety over a friend of theirs whom they have known from childhood.
This friend is a widow who has lately lost her son, having come to New
York from the South a few years ago in the hope of supporting herself
and the child, and being now alone here except for the ladies who are
my friends and hers.  Her situation, you will perceive, is common
enough; but what adds to the distress in this instance is that Mrs.
Reeves' eyes are affected, to what extent I do not know.  I have not
had the pleasure of meeting the lady myself; but I am told that her
vision is not entirely to be despaired of; and my friend Doctor Hiram
Wilson has great confidence in your power.  It would be impossible to
offer charity to Mrs. Reeves; and it would be equally impossible for
her to go to the Summit to be near you without assistance; indeed, it
has been impossible for her to consult an oculist here until the
entreaties of my friends prevailed upon her to do so with them.  But it
occurs to me that you might find use for an assistant in your work in
the mountains--a capable lady who has suffered enough to have sympathy
with the sufferings of others, and that sort of thing.  Now would you
be willing to lend yourself to a mild deception for the sake of
conferring a great benefit?  If you can make use of Mrs. Reeves'
assistance, I shall be very glad to remit to you whatever remuneration
you might offer her.  I should also expect to pay the usual fees for
your attention to Mrs. Reeves' eyes.  You will know best how to take up
that matter with her, so as not to arouse her suspicions of its having
been suggested to you.  I should suggest that you write to me, asking
whether I can advise you of a suitable person to fill the office
of--whatever is the medical equivalent of parochial assistant.  I am
sure I may count upon your help; as I understand it, this is one of
those cases whose claim cannot be denied by any one of us.


A few days later Flood went to Miss Randall with Ogilvie's reply:


Curiously enough, I have the very place for Mrs. Reeves.  One of my
patients, who has taken a cottage at the Summit for the summer, is
looking for a companion.  I am writing her by this mail to apply
through you to Mrs. Reeves.  We will see what we can do for those
troublesome eyes; but I can manage it better if I don't have the
haunting feeling that I am to be paid--you will understand that.  Your
parochial assistant plan sounded very tempting, but that sort of thing
would be too good to be true.


Flood laughed when Rosamund looked up from reading it.  "My friend
Ogilvie seems to be as shy of possible charity as your Mrs. Reeves," he
said.

"What do you mean?" she asked.  Then he remembered that she could not
know what he had written.

She saw his hesitancy and laughed.  "Oh!  So you've been offering
charity, have you?  I wish you'd let me see a copy of your letter!"

"Now what for?" he asked.  "Ogilvie's idea beats mine."

"But I'd like to see your literary style," she said, still laughing at
him.

"Oh, please!" he protested.

"Well, I think you are very good, Mr. Flood.  The role of rescuer of
dames is very becoming to you!  If you could see my Eleanor you'd feel
repaid.  She is the loveliest and the dearest----"

"But I haven't done anything at all, I assure you.  I'm sure I hope
your friend will find this Mrs. Hetherbee a comfortable person to live
with."

"Mrs. Hetherbee!  Is that Doctor Ogilvie's patient?"

Flood nodded.  "She telephoned me before I'd had my breakfast for Mrs.
Reeves' address.  That was my excuse for bothering you in the morning."

"You are good," she said.  Then she added, a little ruefully, "I wish
you could help me to break the news to Eleanor!"

For to persuade her Eleanor, as she had foreseen, was not as easy as to
persuade Flood and the unknown doctor and his patient.

She knew the lunch-room that Eleanor liked best, and sought her there
at the noon hour.  They chatted across the small intervening table,
until Eleanor arose.

"You are not going back to the office," Rosamund declared, when they
were together on the street.  "Now, Eleanor, please don't be difficult!"

"My dearest child!" Mrs. Reeves began; but Rosamund took her friend's
arm through her own, and poured forth the story of how she had heard,
through a Mr. Flood, that Mrs. Hetherbee wanted a companion.

"Who is Mrs. Hetherbee?" Eleanor asked, suspiciously.

"I haven't the least idea," Rosamund frankly admitted.  "But she wants
a companion, and she is going to spend the summer at Bluemont Summit,
and----"

She paused, and Eleanor turned to her.  "Rose, tell it all!" she said.
"You wouldn't be suggesting my leaving one situation for another,
unless you----"

"No, I wouldn't!  I know it!  I confess!  I am!  But you are so
peculiar, Eleanor!"

They laughed together, and Rosamund took courage to tell her.  "There
is a man there who, they say, does wonders for the eyes.  That is why I
want you to go, Eleanor.  I don't know what Mrs. Hetherbee will pay
you; and I will not offer to--to--I will not offer anything at all!
But oh, Eleanor, please, please go!"

They walked in silence to the vestibule of the towering building where
Eleanor worked.  At the elevator she turned to Rosamund.

"I will go to see Mrs. Hetherbee to-night," she said.  "And I do love
you!"

Some weeks thereafter Rosamund came home from bidding Mrs. Reeves
farewell at the station, to find Cecilia once more dispensing tea to
Pendleton and Flood; and she sent Flood into a state of speechless
happiness with her thanks.  Eleanor had promised to see Doctor Ogilvie
about her eyes at once, and Mrs. Hetherbee had taken a tremendous fancy
to Eleanor, and it was good of Mr. Flood to have sent those lovely
flowers to the train.  Eleanor had introduced her as a friend of Mr.
Benson Flood, and was he willing that she should shine in his reflected
glory?  Because it had tremendously impressed Mrs. Hetherbee!

When the men had left, Cecilia turned to her sister.  "He's in love
with you, you know!" she said.

"Nonsense!  I've known him all my life, Cissy, and you don't fall in
love with a person you've seen spanked!"

"You know very well I'm not talking about Marshall," said Mrs. Maxwell.
"And you know very well that Mr. Flood is tremendously in love with
you."

"I think you're disgusting," said Rosamund.  "For heaven's sake, don't
try to follow the fashion of the women of our set in that respect,
Cissy!  Every man they know has to be in love with somebody--half the
time with somebody else's wife!  Oh, I loathe it!"

Cecilia remained calm.  "I hope you don't loathe Mr. Flood," she said,
"because he is."

Rosamund threw herself back in a deep chair, and looked at her sister
in the exasperation one feels towards the sweetly stubborn.

"Oh, very well!  He is!  But that's nothing to me!"

"Isn't it?  He probably thinks it is!  You've taken his help for your
precious Eleanor, you know, and you're going to Oakleigh next month."

"I am not going to do anything of the kind!"

That moved Cecilia.  "But my dear child, you certainly are!  He has
asked me to be hostess for his first house-party, and I have accepted,
and said you'd go with me."

"Cecilia!"

"Now don't say you've forgotten it!  Why, it was the very day you told
him about Eleanor."

Cecilia remained provokingly silent; and Rosamund jumped up
impatiently, only to throw herself down upon another chair.

"Oh, I wish I had never seen the man!" she cried.  "I did tell him
about Eleanor, and I did let him do something for her.  I would have
taken help for Eleanor from anybody--from a street-sweeper, or the
furnace man!  That doesn't give your Mr. Flood any claim on me!"

"Yours, dear!" said Cecilia, smiling.

"He is not!  Why, he is--nobody!"

"Well, that's not his fault.  He wants to be somebody!  He is doing his
best to marry into our family, love!"

At that Rosamund had to laugh.  "Oh, Cissy!  Don't be such a goose!
Mr. Flood is perfectly odious to me, and you know it.  I don't see why
you ever let Marshall introduce him!  I don't see why you ever allowed
him to so much as dare to invite us to Oakleigh!"

"But, my dear, Oakleigh is--Oakleigh!"

"What if it is?  He ought to have known better than to ask us there,
and I don't see why you accepted."

Mrs. Maxwell smiled.  "Pity, my dear!" she explained.  "Pity--the crumb
to a starving dog--the farthing to a beggar!  Besides, he will let me
invite whom I please and--well, Benson Flood may be a suppliant for one
thing, Rose, but he has, after all, more money than he can count!"

"Then why don't you marry him yourself?"

Mrs. Maxwell shrugged.  "'Nobody asked me, sir, she said!'  And
besides, when poor dear Tommy died--oh, well, he did actually die, poor
darling, so there never was any question of divorce or anything horrid,
like that--you know how old-fashioned I am in my ideas, Rosamund!  But
still, there is such a thing as tempting Providence a little too often.
My hopes are distinctly not matrimonial.  Not that I think Mr. Flood is
the least bit like Tommy.  If I did, of course I couldn't
conscientiously--you know!  As it is, I think he'd do very well--in the
family!"

"You show great respect for the family!"

"Oh, well, Rosamund, the family can stand it!  You must admit that!  I
am sure the Stanfields and the Berkleys and the Randalls need not mind
a--a--an alliance with--with the millions of a Benson Flood!"

Rosamund sighed impatiently.  "Oh, dear, Cecilia," she said, "I do wish
it were in my power to give you half my money!"

Mrs. Maxwell smiled with pursed lips.  "So do I," she declared.  "I'd
take it in a minute!  But you can't!  You can't do one single thing
with it until you're twenty-five, except spend the income; and you've
got six months more before your birthday.  And even then you won't want
to give me half of it, because now you don't even want me to spend the
income!  Gracious!  I wish I had a chance at it!"

"I do give you half of my income, Cecilia!"

"No, you don't," Mrs. Maxwell contradicted, in a voice that echoed an
old complaint.  "You only give me half of the sum you think two people
ought to spend!  As if it isn't right and one's duty to spend all one
can!  I know there's something about keeping money in circulation, and
all that, if only I could remember it!  But nothing would move you!
Poor dear Mamma used to say that Colonel Randall was obstinate--most
obstinate, Rosamund; and I must say that you don't take after the
Stanfields at all, not at all!"

Mrs. Maxwell's grievances, thus expressed, began to be too much for
her; she spoke through tears.  "I am sure I have tried to do my very
best by you, Rosamund, since Mamma died!  The accounts the Trust
Company made me keep all those years were dreadful, perfectly dreadful!
But I used to struggle through them somehow, because I was sustained by
the thought that when you were twenty-five we could just spend and
spend and spend and never have to bother about keeping accounts or
being economical or anything!  But it will be just the same then!  I
know it will!  Why, you haven't even one automobile!"

Her sister's tears and the fatuity of her arguments were as unfailing
an appeal to Rosamund as they would have been to a man; she got up and
put her arms around Cecilia.

"You silly old darling!" she laughed.  "You shall have an automobile!
You may have two if you want them, and I will give you every penny of
my income that we haven't spent in the last three years!  But for
goodness sake, don't cry!"

Mrs. Maxwell followed up her victory.  "Will you go to Oakleigh?" she
asked.

Rosamund capitulated.  "Oh, I suppose so!" she said, and shrugged.
Then she added, with a somewhat malicious little smile, "It goes
without saying that Marshall goes, too?"

Mrs. Maxwell lifted her chin.  The line of her throat was still very
pretty.  She smiled at her reflection in the mirror over the mantel.

"Don't be absurd," she said.  "Why shouldn't he?"




IV

"The Battlefield Hotel," Marshall Pendleton said, when the question of
luncheon was brought up, "is a wonderful place, Benny; better take us
there.  Stopped there with the Willings last summer, and had eleven
kinds of jam and about a hundred kinds of cake on the table at the same
time.  Great!"

"Heavens, Marshall!" Mrs. Maxwell exclaimed.  "You know I can't eat
sweets!  I'd put on half a pound after such a meal as that!"

Pendleton grinned.  "That was not all, Cecilia," he said.  "I'd meant
to keep it a secret, and surprise Benny with it.  He's always out for
gastronomic rarities.  They give you cold cucumbers, cut thick, with
warmish cream poured over them--real cream, lumpy, kind you used to
have on grandfather's farm, and all that, you know!  You feel green
when you first see it.  Then you wonder what it's like, but remember
that your cousin somebody-or-other, the one you're not on speaking
terms with, would inherit all you'd leave if you died.  Then you begin
to reason that other people must have dared and survived, and then you
taste it and--consume!  It's truly wonderful, Benny; better take us
there!"

"Are you inviting us to a suicide pact, Marshall?" Flood asked.

The others laughed, and Flood and Mrs. Maxwell exchanged memories of
queer dishes while Pendleton pointed out to the chauffeur the intricate
way through the narrow streets.  Only Rosamund was silent, leaning back
in the cushioned corner, looking abstractedly at the quaint doorways
and gardens they passed.  During the preceding fortnight, with Oakleigh
crowded with guests, it had been easy enough to avoid Flood's
companionship, which was beginning to make her more and more uneasy, in
spite of his earnest effort to keep it for the present on the level of
the commonplace.  But, now that they were alone there, a party of four,
and with Cecilia and Marshall in one of their intervals of mutual
absorption, there was nothing to do but submit to the situation.  She
had welcomed Flood's suggestion of the day before that they should
motor up to Bluemont; with Eleanor at the Summit, and with the others
in the motor car, Flood's company could be endured for the day.  So
they had left Oakleigh early, and in Flood's big shining car swung down
through the mountains, out upon the plain, and into the quaint little
town of Battlesburg.  Rosamund's imagination peopled again the streets
and fields with soldiers in blue and gray.  She knew where her father
had fought and lain wounded.  As they passed swiftly between the
innumerable monuments her heart throbbed.  From the vast field of
graves the spirit of the past arose and spoke to her--spoke of the men
who had fought and died there, spoke of the greater man who had led and
forgiven.

But during all the journey she had been intensely bored; more, she was
deeply provoked, and in that state of mind where everything jars and
trifles loom as mountains.  Pendleton's silly chatter seemed
unendurable; she resented his nonsense almost as if it were an insult
thrown at the sacredness of the battlefield.  She hated his story of
the cucumbers and cream.  When the landlord told them they would have
half an hour to wait before luncheon, she walked to the farthest end of
the veranda, and stood, looking down the little narrow street.  Mrs.
Maxwell threw herself into a large yellow rocking chair, and Flood
leaned against the veranda railing, facing her.  Pendleton was entering
their names in the office, and wonderingly inspecting the landlord's
showcase of battlefield relics.  Flood lighted a cigarette, and as he
blew out the smoke, turned towards the end of the veranda where
Rosamund stood.  Cecilia watched his face for a moment or two; then she
said:

"You must not be offended with Rosamund's ways, you know!  She is not
like anybody else."

Flood turned his head and smiled into her eyes.  He waited a full
half-minute before he replied.  "No," he said, slowly.  "No, she is not
like anyone else!"  He took several deep breaths of his cigarette, then
spoke with little pauses between each phrase, as if he were thinking
out what he had to say.  "She's--she's a dream-woman come true!  She's
the lady of one's imagination!"

"Dear me!" Mrs. Maxwell remarked, with sisterly lack of enthusiasm.
Flood threw back his head with a little laugh.

"I wonder which surprises you most," he said, "to hear that said of
your sister, or to find out that I have an imagination?"

Mrs. Maxwell had had time to become an adept at begging the question.
"Well," she said, "one doesn't usually associate imagination
and--dream-women, you know, with your type.  I mean, with business men!"

"Oh, pray don't mind saying 'my type'!  It's good for me to hear it,
because it is just there that I lose.  I _am_ of a different type--or
class--from you and your sister; even from our friend Pendleton.  Miss
Randall sees that, and she will not try to look beyond it.  She will
not let herself know me better, because she doesn't want to; and she
doesn't want to because I am not--I suppose she'd call it her 'sort.'"

He spoke without a trace of bitterness, and smiled again at Mrs.
Maxwell's well-executed manner of protest.

"Why, no one knows that better than I do," he went on.  "She's five or
six generations ahead of me in civilization, you know; her grandmother
left off where my grand-daughter would have to begin.  That's why I
want her.  I'm naturally impatient, and I want to see my wife doing and
feeling and thinking a lot of things that are quite beyond my
apprehension.  She's just what I've always imagined a woman ought to
be, and I want her."

"I don't think she'd credit you with any such imagination," Mrs.
Maxwell said, adding, somewhat dryly, "with any imagination at all!"

"That is just my difficulty," Flood replied.  "She will not give
herself a chance to find me out."  He smiled as he met her puzzled
look.  "You know--I am only stating the fact--I have--er--accumulated a
great deal of money--a great deal, more than I know myself!"

Mrs. Maxwell's fingers curled a little more closely about the arms of
her chair, and she nodded.

"Well, there are only two ways of doing that.  There used to be three.
There was a time when a man could accumulate a fortune by saving; but
in this day and generation no accumulation of savings amounts to what
we call a fortune.  Nowadays a man can dig up a fortune; or he can so
follow the daring of his imagination as to make a reality of what only
existed, before, in his own ambitious dreams.  I think it is safe to
say that all but one per cent. of the great fortunes that are got
together nowadays are done so by the exercising and ordering of a man's
imagination.  Well, I've made such use of mine that I'm a rich man, as
far as money goes, at forty-three.  Now my imagination is busy along
new lines.  Money is only the key: I want to enter the garden.  I
believe she'd realize every ideal I have!  You are quite right.
There's nobody like her!"

His face flushed deeply as he spoke, but Mrs. Maxwell was not looking
at him.  "Oh, dear," she sighed, "I do wish she were not quite so--odd!"

"Not odd," Flood contradicted, though pleasantly enough, "but supreme!"

Mrs. Maxwell's eyebrows went up.  Ordinarily she was too conscious of
what might be expected of her breeding to be disloyal to her sister;
but Cecilia was not an angel.

"She is supremely full of notions," she remarked.  "How any girl with
her money can prefer--actually prefer--to dress as she does, and to
live as she does, and to go about with one maid between us--I cannot
understand it!  She doesn't spend a thousand a year on her clothes, and
she doesn't own so much as one motor car!  You may call that sort of
thing supreme; I call it odd!"

Pendleton had come out and joined Rosamund.  They were obviously
unaware of Flood's gaze, but Mrs. Maxwell rather disdainfully noticed
that his look had softened as she spoke.

"Yes," he said, "that is unusual, as far as my experience goes; but I
rather think she is quite capable of doing the unexpected.  That's
another part of her charm for me.  I can only guess at what she would
do or think, you know.  And she's so far beyond me that while money is
almost the whole show to me, it doesn't count at all, with her!  Jove!
I wish she might have the spending of mine!"

Mrs. Maxwell fairly shivered at the thought of Flood's millions going
to waste, as she expressed it to herself; but fortunately for her peace
of mind luncheon was announced, and they went into the little Dutch
dining-room to investigate the cucumbers and cream.

At the table Rosamund lost some of her pensiveness; and when they came
out again to the sight of the fields where the armies had fought and
died, and were once more in the car, she bent towards Flood with eyes
burning with excitement, lips parted and hands clasped.

"Oh," she cried, "I am glad, so glad I came, Mr. Flood!  It is going to
be a wonderful afternoon!  I am thrilling even now!  The suffering and
the sacrifice and the glory!  They have left their marks everywhere,
haven't they?"

Flood looked at her with admiration so engrossing as to make him
scarcely aware of what she said; Pendleton was discussing roads with
the chauffeur, but Mrs. Maxwell turned in her seat.

"What on earth are you talking about, Rosamund?" she demanded.

"The battlefield!" the girl explained.  "The field and the marking
stones, the orchard where Father was wounded--all, all of it!  I am
going over it bit by bit, every inch of it, and I'm going to thrill,
thrill, thrill!  Probably cry, too!" she added.  "I hope you brought
your vanity-box along, Cecilia!"

"But, my dear child, we are going to the Summit!  We are going to see
Eleanor!"

For once Cecilia welcomed the thought of Eleanor, but Rosamund only
laughed.

"Mr. Flood will bring us another day to see Eleanor," she said, "won't
you, Mr. Flood?  To-day, Cissy darling, I am going to see
Battlesburg--just as if I were a tourist!"

Mrs. Maxwell looked at her in amazement.  "Rosamund!" she cried.  "Mr.
Flood!  Marshall!  Marshall!  Please!  Mr. Flood, you certainly did not
bring us on this trip to go sight-seeing, did you?  Marshall, did you
ever hear anything so absurd?  Rosamund wants to go paddling about in
this--this graveyard!"

Rosamund was unabashed.  "Yes, of course I do!" she said.  "So do you,
don't you, Mr. Flood?  And, Marshall, you know you've wanted to fight a
battle over again ever since the last one we had at my ninth birthday
party, when I pulled your hair and you were too polite to smack me!"

"I never wanted to fight in all my life, Rosamund," Pendleton drawled.
"Certainly not on a day like this, and after a Dutch midday dinner."

Flood was embarrassed, and looked it; but Mrs. Maxwell gave him no
chance to reply.  "Rosamund, I hate to speak so plainly," she said,
"but there are times when you go too far with your absurdities.  Nobody
goes sight-seeing; we are Mr. Flood's guests, and we have miles of
steep road to get over this afternoon; you cannot upset his plans in
this way.  Besides, it's altogether too warm for exertion--and emotion.
You'll have to get your thrills in some less strenuous way.  I simply
refuse to be dragged over any battlefield in existence."

Mrs. Maxwell sank back in her corner, and resolutely looked away;
Rosamund, still smiling, turned towards Flood.

"We'll leave her in the car to amuse Marshall, and we'll take one of
those funny little carriages, won't we, Mr. Flood?"

Her smile and little air of confidence brought color to Flood's face;
he opened and closed his hands nervously.  His boasted imagination
failed him.  The lady of his dreams was doing the unexpected.  His
voice showed his perplexity.

"My dear Miss Randall, I'd do anything in the world to please you!
There are some miles of mountain roads to be gone over, if we are to
get back to-night, but"--he leaned towards her--"when you ask me, you
know I could not refuse you anything in the world, even at the risk of
Mrs. Maxwell's displeasure!"

His words and manner instantly accomplished all that Cecilia's
insistence had failed to do.  Immediately Rosamund's face lost its
bright eagerness for the same indifferent coldness that she usually
showed him.

"Oh, by all means, let us remember the mountain roads, Mr. Flood," she
said, leaning back upon the yielding cushion, turning her head to look
listlessly out of the car.

"Oh, please!" poor Flood exclaimed.

Cecilia began to chatter gaily, and Marshall bent over his road maps.
The car flew out of the town, noiselessly except for the faint humming
of its swift onrush, the modern song of the road.  But, to Rosamund,
there was no melody in the song; she was out of tune with the day, with
her companions, with the ride itself.




V

Perhaps, if the events of the next few hours had come to pass at any
other time, they would not have left the same mark upon her life.  As
it was, Rosamund had come to that state of moral restlessness which is
bound either to open the windows of the soul to fresher air and wider
fields of vision, or else to induce the peevish discontent which so
often falls to the lot of the idle woman.  Although she consciously
longed for happiness, she knew that she was not sentimentally unhappy;
neither was she fatuously so, like her sister.  Cecilia was only one of
many women of her age and class, who imagine that possession brings
enjoyment.  She often declared that if she had as much as her
acquaintances she could make herself content, but that if she had more
than they she could be supremely happy.  Rosamund had no such
illusions; her clear mind had never been perverted to the futility of
such ambitions, although there was nothing in her environment to
suggest a satisfying substitute for them.  If she was restless, it was
not for something she might not have.  It pleased her pride to think
that she valued neither wealth nor social eminence, but accepted them
only as her birthright; but, as in the case of the infatuated Flood,
she resented any sign of invasion upon the sacred precincts which for
generations had respected their Berkleys and their Stanfields and
Randalls.  It was her pride which had induced her to neglect, as
unimportant, the things Cecilia yearned for; Rosamund Randall was to be
above manifestations of wealth--although Rosamund Randall was not above
occasional haughty stubbornness.

The charitable pastimes in which some of her friends indulged held no
appeal for her; she was too impatient for immediate results to be
successful in them.  She vaguely felt that some fault must lie with the
unfortunate, and she could not imagine that the individual might be
interesting.  Even Eleanor's experience, although it had stirred her
heart to pity, brought her no closer to the mass of suffering.  She had
no particular talents, no pet enthusiasms; yet her intelligence was too
keen to be satisfied with the round of days that constituted life for
Cecilia, as well as for most of their friends.  Nothing suggested
itself as a substitute for them, and to-day not even the charms of
nature satisfied her, however beautiful the country through which the
big car carried them.  But insensibly it made its effect upon her.
Away from the scars of battle, through orchard and grass-land, between
fields of ripening corn and pastures where drowsy cattle were
ruminating in shady fence-corners; past little white farmhouses with
red barns at their backs, and tangled gardens where bees feasted in
front of them; up towards the hills, through stretches of cool
woodland, where little spring-fed brooklets crossed the road, and where
the turns were so narrow that the call of the horn had often to pierce
the stillness; out again upon cleared spaces, and at last far up on the
mountain-tops--so they traveled, Rosamund alone seeming to notice the
beauties they passed so swiftly.

Cecilia kept up an easy chatter with the two men.  Flood seemingly had
eyes for the older woman only, yet he was keenly aware of the girl
beside him.  All the way he was inwardly cursing himself for the
ill-timed compliment which had silenced her, and he was too good a
judge of human nature to follow his first mistake with a second.  If
Rosamund wished to be silent, no interruption to her revery should come
from him, at least.  As there was only the one way across the
mountains, Pendleton had put away his road map and was leaning sideways
over the back of the seat, facing Cecilia and Flood; the three found
plenty to talk about, and ignored Rosamund's pensive withdrawal.

For miles they had passed no living thing; even the birds and woodland
creatures seemed to have gone to sleep; and the chauffeur, taking them
along at second speed, believed it unnecessary to sound his horn at
every winding of the road.

Then, so suddenly that no one knew just what had happened, there was a
shriek from somewhere, a wild cry from the man at the wheel, a stopping
of the car so quickly as to throw the women forward and Flood to his
knees.  Pendleton, facing back, was the only one who could see the road
behind them; with a cry that was either oath or prayer, he leaped from
the car and ran back, the chauffeur scarcely four yards behind him.
Flood scrambled up and Rosamund sprang to her feet.  Cecilia covered
her ears with her hands, and was the only one who could voice her
horror.

"We have killed someone!" she cried wildly, crouching down to shut out
sight as well as sound.  "We have killed someone!  Oh, what shall we
do?  What shall we do?  I cannot see it--I cannot stand the sight of
it!"

But no one heeded her outcry.  Flood had opened the door and was
speeding after the others; and Rosamund, too, as quickly as her
trembling would allow her, ran towards the little group at the roadside.

When she reached them, they were bending over two forms--a boy and a
young girl.  The boy had been struck by the step of the car, and lay
huddled where its force had thrown him; the girl lay beside him, her
face down in the weeds and grass.  Pendleton and the chauffeur, with
ghastly faces, were feeling for her heart.  As Rosamund came up they
turned her upon her back.  Rosamund tore off her gloves, and pressed
her hand against the girl's throat.

"I think she has only fainted," she said.  "Get a cold thermos bottle,
someone!"

The chauffeur ran to do her bidding, but before he got back the girl
had opened her eyes.  Rosamund bent closer.

"Are you hurt?" she asked.  "Did we hit you?  Can you speak to me?"
But the girl could not answer at first; then the iced water and
something from Flood's pocket flask revived her, and she sat up,
leaning against Rosamund.

"Gee!" she said.  "I was scared!  What d'yer think of an automobile up
here!  Where's Tim?"

The men had left the girl to Rosamund, and were kneeling by the child;
Rosamund glanced over her shoulder at them.  "I'm afraid he is hurt,"
she said.  "Do you think you can take care of yourself for a moment
while I see?  I wouldn't try to stand up quite yet, if I were you."

"Oh, sure," the girl replied.  "They ain't anything the matter with me.
You go right on."

But all of Rosamund's ministrations failed of any response from the
boy.  Flood's varied experience had given him a passing acquaintance
with broken bones, but he could find none in the little limbs that were
thin to emaciation; his search revealed only a few scratches on the
child's face, and a cut on his head.  At last he looked across the
little form at Rosamund.

"I'm afraid there's concussion," he said.  "We shall have to take him
to a doctor."

The girl had risen, and was standing, with arms akimbo, looking down at
them.  "Doctor Ogilvie," she said at once.  "He's the one.  He's right
over at the Summit."

Flood looked quickly at Rosamund.  "Ogilvie!  I had no idea his
territory extended this far!"  Then he turned to the girl.  "So you
know Doctor Ogilvie?  How far are we from the Summit?"

"Gee!  I dunno!  It's awful far to walk it, I know that!"

Rosamund looked up with troubled eyes.  "There must be some house near
by," she said, "where we could take him.  I don't believe he ought to
be carried very far.  Do you live near here?" she asked the girl.

"Laws, no!  We live in the city, him an' me.  We ain't any kin,
y'understand; he's a tubercler, an' my eyes give out, and we're just
visitin' Mother Cary."

Flood was becoming impatient.  "Well, where does the Cary woman live?"
he demanded.  "We don't need your family history, my girl."

Instantly the girl's black eyes flashed, and her chin went up.  "Well,
an' you ain't goin' to get it, my man!" she returned.  "I know the
likes of you; seen you by the million!"

She glared up at him belligerently, but Rosamund laid her hand on her
shoulder.  "Don't," she said quietly.  "Where is this place where
you're staying?"

"It's just back of the woods there.  The road's on up a piece, about
two squares; yer can't miss it, 'cause it's the only one there is."

So they lifted the child, and laid him carefully, on the broad back
seat.  They decided that Mrs. Maxwell and Pendleton should wait beside
the road, while Rosamund and Flood saw to the boy's safety, and the
girl rode with the chauffeur to point the way.  She seemed but little
impressed by the accident, and greatly pleased at the motor ride.

"Laws, but I wish the girls at the factory could see Yetta Weise
settin' up here," she remarked as she took her place.

As she had told them, the house was not far; and notwithstanding her
anxiety for the injured boy, Rosamund looked at it in amazement, so
unlike was it to anything she had ever seen, so quaintly pretty, so
tidy, so homelike.

It stood on the hillside, a few yards back from the road.  From a
little red gate set in the middle of the whitest of tiny fences a
narrow brick path led straight to the front door.  The upper story of
the house overhung the lower, making a shady space beneath that was
paved with bricks and made cheery and comfortable with wooden benches
piled with crocks and bright tin milk pans set out to air; and all
about the little white farm-buildings wound narrow brick paths bordered
with flowers--geraniums, nasturtiums, pansies, with, here and there,
groups of house plants in tin cans and earthen pots, set outside for
their summer holiday.  Unaccustomed though she was to such ingenuous
simplicity of decoration, Rosamund could not but recognize it as a
haven of peace, a little home where love and time had impressed their
indelible marks of beauty.

The big car drew up to the gate very gently; Yetta called, loudly and
shrilly; Flood lifted the boy and carried him towards the house, and
Rosamund followed; but halfway up the path she paused, half in
amazement, half in repulsion.

Yetta's call had brought to the doorway the strangest of small
creatures--a tiny, bent old woman.  She braced herself on one side
against the doorway, on the other with a queer little crutch with
padded top, held by a strap across her shoulder; as she came forward to
meet them she moved the crutch, like some strange crab, obliquely,
grotesquely, yet with the adeptness of the life-long cripple.  She was
evidently startled, even frightened; but when her eyes met Rosamund's
she smiled.  At once the girl's feeling of repulsion vanished, for on
the tiny old face there was none of the suffering and regret that so
often mark the deformed.  It was not drawn or heavy; plain and homely
though it was, it was made radiant by a world-embracing mother-love,
transfigured by that quality of tenderness and sweetness that Rosamund
had learned to associate with pictured mediæval saints and martyrs.
With Mother Cary's first smile, something entered the girl's
consciousness which never again left it.

The old woman paid no attention to Yetta's voluble explanations, nor
wasted any time on questions.

"Take him into the room on the left and lay him on the sofy," she
directed, and hobbled along behind the little procession; but when they
had lain the still unconscious child in the shaded best room, she
looked from Flood to Rosamund for explanation, with a dignity which
could not fail to impress them.

"Maybe he's just been knocked senseless," she said, when they had told
her all they could.  "But anyways, we ought to have Doctor Ogilvie
here's soon as ever we can.  If the young lady'll help me undress the
little feller, you can take Yetta, sir, to show you the way."

Flood hesitated; to undress the child would be a strange task for
Rosamund.  "Can't I do that before we go?" he asked.

But the old woman had no such hesitation.  "No, you can't," she said,
"an' I wish you'd hurry.  Timmy ain't strong, anyway."

So, with a troubled look, Flood followed Yetta, and in a moment
Rosamund heard the purr of the motor as the car sped off towards the
Summit; then, as she afterwards remembered with surprise and wonder,
she found herself obeying the old woman's directions.

"Now, honey, you jest lift the little feller right up in your arms,
bein' careful of his head; he don't weigh no more'n a picked chicken.
We'll get him to bed time the doctor gets here, an' have some water
b'ilin' an' some ice brought in, case he wants either one.  Here, right
in here--my house is mostly all on one floor, so's I can manage to
scramble around in it when Pap's in the fields.  That's the way--no, he
won't need a piller.  I'll take off his little clo'es whilst you lift
him--that's right.  My!  Think o' that gentleman wantin' to do for
him--as if any woman with a heart in her body could let a man handle
sech a little thing's this!  But he didn't know, did he, honey?"

And strangely enough Rosamund was conscious of a wave of tenderness
towards the pathetic little figure, limp and emaciated; long afterwards
she realized that people always did and felt what Mother Cary expected
them to.  She even bathed the little dusty feet, while the old woman
hobbled about to bring her different things, talking all the while.

"Pore little soul, seems like he had enough without this--not but what
I reckon he'll come out o' this a heap sight easier than he will the
other.  Not a soul on the top o' the yearth to belong to, he hasn't;
sent here to fatten up an' live out o' doors, 'count o' being a
tubercler.  No, honey, he ain't nothin' to Pap an' me 'ceptin' jest one
o' the pore little lambs that have a right to any spare love an'
shelter an' cuddlin' that's layin' around the world waitin' for sech as
him.  I used to wonder why the Lord let sech pore little things stay in
the world, until I found out how much good they do to folks that look
after 'em.  Land!  I wouldn't be without one of 'em on my hands now,
not for more'n I can say.  What?  Oh, yes, dearie, I take one or more
of 'em and build 'em up an' get 'em well, with Doctor Ogilvie's tellin'
me how; an' when they go back to the city all well again, I jest take
one or two more.  Pap an' me wouldn't know what to do now, ef we didn't
have some pore little thing to look after.  I'm jest that selfish, I
begrudge everybody else that has a bigger house the room they got for
more of 'em."

When the child had been made clean and cool, and the old woman had
shown Rosamund how to draw in the blinds and leave the room in pleasant
shadow, she led the way out to the paved place in front of the house.

"You look all tuckered out, honey," she said, when Rosamund had sunk
wearily into a rush-seated armchair, "an' I'm goin' to get you some
fresh milk."

So for a few minutes the girl was alone, with time to think over the
crowding events of the past half hour, which seemed almost like a day.
One emotion had come closely upon another, and now she was in this
strange little harbor where, apparently, only kind winds blew, the
storms of the world outside, a harbor where weak vessels found repair,
where passers-by were welcomed and supplied with strength to go on.
Subconsciously she wondered whether it might not be the harbor of a
new, fair land, herself the storm-buffeted traveler about to find
shelter.  Then, more in weariness of spirit than in bodily fatigue, she
drew the long hatpin from her hat and tossed it aside, leaning her head
back against the stone of the house, and closed her eyes.

When Mother Cary returned with a glass of creamy milk, she noted the
girl's pallor, the shadows her long lashes cast on her white cheeks.

"I wouldn't feel too bad about it," she said.  "The little feller can't
be hurt very bad, and I reckon it was jest bein' so scared an' so weak,
anyway, that made him go off in his head like that."

Rosamund could not confess that her thoughts had been of herself rather
than upon the injured child.  "Do you think he will recover?" she asked.

"Well, what Doctor Ogilvie can't do ain't to be done, I know that
much," Mother Cary replied.  "Folks do say it's an ill wind blows
nobody any good, an' it cert'n'y was his ill wind blew us good; 'cause
if he hadn't been that sick he couldn't live in the city, he never
would 'a' come to the mountings, an' I'm sure I don't see how we ever
did get along without him.  Why, he's that good a doctor folks still
come up here from the city to see him; and many's the one stays at the
Summit just to be where he can look after them; and Widder Speers that
he lives with told me that doctors from 'way off send for him to talk
over sick people with them--jest to ask him what to do, like.  Oh,
Doctor Ogilvie can do anything anybody can!"

Rosamund was amused, in spite of herself, at the old woman's naïveté.
"He was sick, then, when he came?" she asked, idly.

"Yes, but you'd never 'a' known it," Mother Cary told her.  "Land!  How
he did get about from place to place, huntin' out other folks that was
ailin'!  He hadn't been up here more'n a month before he knew every
soul in these mountings, which is more'n I do, though I've lived here
forty year an' more.  He jest took right a holt, as you might say.
That's how come I begun to take care of these pore little helpless city
things.

"First time he come here, he looked all about the place when he was
leavin', an' he says to Pap, 'Plenty o' good room an' good air you got
here, an' I guess there's plenty o' good food, too, ain't there?'  Pap,
he says, 'Well, we manage to make out, when the ol' lady feels like
cookin'!'  An' the doctor laughs an' says to me, 'Ain't got quite as
much to do as ye had when that son an' daughter o' yours were home
here, have ye?  Don't ye miss 'em?'  At that the tears jest come to my
eyes, like they always do whenever I think o' my own child'en bein' two
or three miles away from me on farms o' their own; an' the doctor he
smiles an' says, 'Well, I'm goin' to supply your want,' he says.

"Pap an' me never thought 'ny more about it tell a week or so later
when we see him drive up behind that old white horse o' his with the
puniest little boy alongside o' him ever I set my two eyes on.  'Here's
something to keep you from bein' lonesome, Mis' Cary,' he says; an'
ever since then, it bein' goin' on five year, I've had one or another
o' them pore little--land!  There he comes now, without a sign of a hat
on his red head!  Ef he ain't that forgetful!"

Flood's big car had whirled rapidly into sight along the woodland road,
and before it stopped the doctor was out and into the house.  When
Mother Cary hobbled in, Rosamund remaining to say a word or two to
Flood, the doctor was already bending over the injured child.

Cecilia was waving a frantic hand from the car, and Rosamund and Flood
walked down the little path to the red gate.

"Where is your hat?" was the first thing Mrs. Maxwell asked Rosamund.
"Do get in!  We've miles and miles to go, and we've wasted hours!  I'm
sure I don't see why they couldn't have sent for the doctor in the
ordinary way; why, the road back there was something terrible!"

Rosamund was conscious of an absurd longing to slap or pinch Cecilia;
she was really too vapid for polite endurance.

"We can't possibly leave until we know how badly hurt the child is,"
she said, and deliberately turned and walked back into the cottage.

After a moment or two Flood followed her, leaving Cecilia to pour out
her indignation upon Pendleton.

The doctor was just coming out of the little bedroom, and nodded to
them both in a general way.  Rosamund looked at him curiously.  She
noted with some amusement that his hair was, as Mother Cary had
somewhat more than suggested, frankly red; not even the
best-intentioned politeness could have called it sandy.  He was of
average height, with keen eyes which looked black, although she
afterwards knew them to be gray; his breadth of shoulder made him seem
less tall than he was, and his frame was rather lightly covered,
although his very evident restless energy seemed more responsible for
it than any evidence of ill-health.

"Must have jabbed his ribs," he said, looking at Flood with a half
smile, and seemingly ignoring the presence of this girl from his old
familiar world.  "Cracked a couple of them, but they're soon mended in
a kiddie.  Only thing now is this slight concussion; needs careful
nursing for a few days."

Then he turned, looked squarely into Rosamund's face, and issued his
orders in precisely the manner of a doctor to a nurse, without a trace
of hesitation, apparently without a shadow of doubt that she would obey.

"Keep ice on his head, you know, and watch him every minute through the
night.  He's not likely to move; but if he should become conscious----"
He continued his directions carefully, explicitly, all the while
looking at Rosamund intently, as if to impress them upon her.

While he was speaking, Flood's face flushed darkly.  With the doctor's
last phrase, "Only be sure to watch him every minute," he spoke
sharply.  "You are making a mistake, Doctor Ogilvie," he said.  "Miss
Randall is not a nurse."

The doctor instantly replied, "I know she isn't, but we'll have to do
the best we can with her!"

Flood's face grew redder still; Rosamund smiled a little.  "Miss
Randall cannot possibly stay here," Flood said.  "That is entirely out
of the question.  I am willing to do all I can for the child, and I am
very glad he is not seriously hurt, although the accident was, I think,
unavoidable.  I will send a nurse to-morrow--two, if you want them.
But you will have to get along with the help here for to-night."

"Haven't any," said the doctor, briefly.  "Yetta's a child, and Mother
Cary goes down to her daughter's where there's a new baby."

For a moment no one spoke.  Mother Cary was smiling at Rosamund, and
her look drew the girl's from the two men.  Then her smile answered the
old woman's.

In a flash of inspiration she knew that she had found an answer to her
questions of the earlier hours; something in her heart drew her
symbolically toward the little silent, helpless child in the darkened
room behind her, some mother-feeling as new and wonderful as the dawn
of life.  Both Flood and the doctor remembered, through all their
lives, the look of exaltation on her face when she spoke.

"I will stay," she said, quietly, and walked into the darkened room.




VI

During the long silent watches of that night there came to Rosamund one
of those revelations, fortunately not rare in human experience, by
means of which the soul is taught some measure of the power of the
infinite--power to change or to create, to lead, to see more clearly,
or better to understand.  The afternoon had been crowded with new
impressions and emotions following each other so swiftly as to preclude
consideration of them, but during the hours beside the unconscious
child her mind was busy; one thing after another came back to her, and,
reviewed in comparison with all the other happenings of the day, took
its rightful place of importance or unimportance.

[Illustration: "One thing after another came back to her."]

After the car had borne away her irate sister and friends, the
red-headed doctor carefully went over his directions to her, and she
had some difficulty in ignoring the twinkle in his eyes; Cecilia's
horror and Flood's disgust had been as amusing as Pendleton's lazy
irony.  But before supper the doctor, too, had hurried away.  Flood had
not offered him a lift, and the walk back to the Summit was long.
Father Cary, whom she found to be a friendly giant with a
well-developed rustic sense of humor, had driven off with his tiny wife
down the mountain to their daughter's home, leaving Yetta to clear away
the supper.

Until then the black eyes of that other daughter of cities had scarcely
left Rosamund.  As soon as she had washed and put away the dishes, she
came to the door of the room where the little boy lay, and after asking
if 'the lady' were afraid of the quiet and dark, she went upstairs.

Then Rosamund stood at the window and watched the stars come out.  The
great boles of the oaks and chestnuts in the strip of woods across the
way drew about themselves mantles of shadow.  An apple fell from a tree
near the low, white spring-house, and a cricket began to chirp.  From
some lower mountain slope there sounded the faint tinkle of a cow bell,
and still farther down the valley twinkling lights marked, in the
darkness, the places where people were gathered--little beacons of
home; and she knew that overhead there shone another light, set in a
window by the old woman before she went down the mountain.  The placing
of that light in the window, Mother Cary had told her, was the
uninterrupted custom of the house since her first child was born.  On
that day of wonder, when the shadows had deepened in the quiet room
where the miracle had taken place, they had set a lamp on the window
sill, and a light had burned in the same window every night since then,
a signal to all who should see it that happiness had come to live on
the mountain, and still dwelt there.  It was so small a light that,
even when dark closed in, the girl standing beneath it could scarcely
discern its rays; yet she knew that it was large enough to be seen far
off, miles down the valley, across on the other mountains.  Flood had
told her of seeing it from Doctor Ogilvie's house at the Summit.  She
felt its symbolism--so small and humble a light, shedding its rays and
carrying its message so far; and with that thought there came another.

This humble life of love and service, how beautiful it was!  Only that
morning she had believed her life the real one, her world the only one
worth living in; but already she was beginning to suspect that there
might be a life more real, a world less circumscribed.  She looked back
into the little bedroom, and beyond into the dimly lighted kitchen; it
was so poor a house, so rich a home!

And of their poverty these mountain folk had given immeasurable
largesse to how many waifs--dust of the city's greed and sin, taken
them into this loving shelter, tended them back to usefulness, taught
them cleanliness of heart and body.  Yet even to the waif so rescued
the city's power of harm reached out!  How strange it was that the boy
lying there should have escaped so many of the city's dangers, found
this safe refuge on the mountain, and then have been injured on a quiet
country road by one of those very dangers he had dodged every day since
he first toddled across city streets!

As she watched the child, another thought presented itself, caused her
cheeks to burn in the dark, sent a wave of disgust and shame over her:
these people, who had added nothing to the city's harm, recognized
their responsibility to the city's offspring; whereas Flood and
Pendleton, her sister and herself, who fed upon the city and its
workers, would almost have left the boy by the roadside, but for very
shame of one another.  Her friends believed her whimsical,
unreasonable, utterly foolish to watch beside him through one night;
and she had been, in her inmost heart, taking credit to herself for
doing so!

She asked herself whether, indeed, she would have remained, if it had
not been for the compelling force of Ogilvie, no less insistent for
being unvoiced.  She recalled what Flood had told her about him; yet,
now that she had met him, all of Flood's enthusiasm did not seem to
explain the man, and she smiled as she remembered how little of that
enthusiasm poor Flood had shown in his disgust at Ogilvie's quiet
demand for her assistance.  She felt suddenly ashamed as she admitted
to herself her secret delight in teasing Flood and Cecilia and Marshall
by obeying the doctor's appeal.  In her growing humility she was almost
ready to believe that there had been no impulse of good in her
remaining.  Yet she knew that she would have had to remain, even if the
others had not been there.  What manner of man, she wondered, was this
red-headed country doctor who had first aroused the admiration of a man
like Benson Flood, and now had forced Rosamund Randall to perform a
service that, a day before, she would have thought a menial one?
Certainly he must differ in many respects from the men she had hitherto
met.

The loudly ticking clock on the kitchen mantel struck off hour after
hour.  A lusty cock began calling his fellows long before the fading of
the stars.  Rosamund, standing again at the breast-high casement of the
little window, for the first time in her life watched the day break.
Rosy fingers of light reached up from the eastern mountains; valley and
hillsides threw off their purple and silver wrappings of night, and
gradually took on their natural colors; little fitful gusts of air,
sweet with night-drawn fragrance, touched her face at the window; from
their nests in the near-by fruit-trees faint, sleepy twitterings soon
increased to a joyful chorus of bird music; the shadows melted, it was
day, and the world awoke; but it was a new world to Rosamund.  She had
touched the pulse of life, and with the dawn there was born in her
heart a purpose, feeble and immature as yet, but as surely purpose as
the newborn babe is man.

Father Cary came up the mountain early to attend to his cattle,
bringing word that his daughter was not so well, and that Mother Cary
could not leave her until later in the day, but that Miss Randall was
to feel at home, and Yetta was to do all she could for her comfort.  He
had made breakfast ready by the time Rosamund came into the kitchen;
and presently Yetta stumbled down the stairs, yawning and sleepy-eyed.

"Gee!" she said, by way of morning greeting, "If this place ain't the
limit for sleep!  When I first come up here I jist had to set up in bed
an' listen to the quiet; kept me awake all night, it did.  Now I want
to sleep all day an' all night, too!  Ain't it the limit?"

"But that's the best thing in the world for you," Rosamund said, and
smiled at her.  The girl must have divined a difference in the smile,
for she beamed cheerfully back.

"That's what Doctor Ogilvie says," she replied.  "All's the matter with
me is m'eyes.  Y'see I been sewin' ever since I's about as big as a
peanut; first I sewed on buttons to help my mother, an' then I sewed
beads.  There was my mother an' me an' m'father, on'y he wasn't ever
there; an' we had four boarders.  Course the boarders had to set next
to the light, an' I couldn't see very well.  Then after my mother died,
I sewed collars day-times and beads at night, till I got the job in the
shirt-waist shop.  Tha's where m'eyes got inspected--they don't never
inspect you till you get a good job.  It don't do me no good to know my
eyes is bad; I could a told 'em that m'self--only thing is, that was
the reason they sent me up here, so I've that much to thank 'em for, I
guess.  Still, I----"

But Father Cary interrupted the stream of chatter.  "Now look a here,"
he said, "supposin' you do less talkin' an' more eatin'!  Two glasses
of milk, two dishes o' oatmeal, and two eggs is what you got to get
away with before you get up from this table."

But Yetta's tongue was irrepressible.  "You watch me!" she replied, and
grinned at him, her black eyes sparkling.  "That's another funny thing
about the country," she informed Rosamund, nodding.  It was evident
that she believed Miss Randall to be as much a stranger to the country
as she herself had been.  "In the city all you want to eat in the
mornin' is a bite o' bread an' some tea; nobody ever heard o' eatin'
eggs in the mornin', nor oatmeal any other time; but here--Gee!  I can
stow away eggs while the band plays on, an' tea ain't in it with
milk--this yere kind o' milk!"

Rosamund's strained ear caught a faint rustle from the inner room; she
sprang up, followed closely by the others; the child had moved his
head, and his eyes were closed; before that they had been ever so
slightly open.  Rosamund laid her hand upon his forehead, bent down so
that his breath fanned her soft cheek.  Then she looked up at Father
Cary.

"I believe he is really sleeping, not unconscious," she whispered.  "I
think we must keep very, very quiet."

Yetta nodded, tiptoed out of the room, and presently Father Cary's
large form passed the window on the way to the stable.

So again was Rosamund's vigil renewed, unbroken through several hours
except by faint noises from without, the humming of a locust, the
chirps of birds, the homely conversation of some chickens, who had
stolen up to the little house, lonely for Mother Cary.  She must have
dozed, for it seemed only a short time before the kitchen clock struck
eleven, and almost at the same moment the doctor stood in the doorway,
with Mother Cary behind him.

The doctor's hair had been very much blown by the wind, but it would
have taken more than wind to send his smile awry.

"Morning!" he threw towards Rosamund.

She was at once aware that he thought of her only as the child's nurse,
oblivious of all that other men saw in her, of her beauty and grace, of
the signs of wealth and well-being in her garments and bearing.  It
amused her, though her smile was, perhaps, a little disdainful.

The boy was better; the doctor could find no serious injuries.  "I am
sure the car barely touched him," Rosamund said, and the doctor nodded.

"But it sometimes takes so little to shock the life out of a little
underfed, weakened body like this," he said.  "There's nothing to fight
with, nothing to build on."

Rosamund's hand went over her heart.  "Then you think," she asked, "you
think that he will not----"

"On the contrary, I am very sure that he will," the doctor smiled at
her.  "Mother Cary, here, will teach you how to make him well."

Mother Cary laid her wrinkled hand on the girl's arm, but Rosamund's
eyes filled with tears.  "Poor mite!" she said, bending over the child,
"we will try to make you well--but I don't know what for!"

Then Mother Cary spoke for the first time since her return.  "Don't you
trouble yourself about the what for, dearie," she said.  "Folks is got
plenty to keep 'em busy with the 'what way' and the 'what next' without
troublin' themselves with the 'what for.'  Ain't it so, Doctor?"

"It most certainly is," the red-headed doctor agreed, running his
fingers through his already tousled hair.  When he had given her
further directions for the care of the child and driven off behind his
jogging old white mare, he seemed to have left with her some of his own
happy energy and assurance.  Quite suddenly, the fatigue of her
sleepless night fell from her, and from some unsuspected inner
store-house of strength there crept a serenity and determination
hitherto undreamed of.  The boy would sleep, the doctor had told her,
until late afternoon, probably awake hungry and thirsty, and then ought
to sleep again; he must be kept very quiet, nourished regularly and
lightly, made clean and comfortable; such careful and ceaseless nursing
should, in a week or two, bring him out with even more strength than he
had had before.  So, until afternoon, there would be little for her to
do.

She went into the kitchen to be with the old woman, who was moving
about with her queer, crab-like motion of crutches and hands, preparing
their dinner; Yetta had taken herself to the fields.

"No, indeedy, you can't help me one mite," Mother Cary declared,
"exceptin' by settin' in that arm cheer and puttin' your pretty head
back and restin.' There's nothin' I enjoy more'n a body to talk to
whilst I'm a gettin' dinner, or supper.  Yetta ain't that kind of a
body, though!  Land!  The way the child can talk, and the things she
knows!"  Mother Cary turned about from her biscuit board to emphasize
her horror.  "Honey," she said, impressively, "that child knows more o'
the world, the bad side of it, than--well, than I do!"

Rosamund smiled, and the old woman shook her head at her.  "Oh, I was
brought up in the city, honey," she told her, "so I know more about it
than you think for.  That's what makes me glad the doctor brought us a
girl, this time; she's the first girl we've had this summer.  I wisht
it might be that she could stay up here as I did, but land! they ain't
but one Pap!  Pap jest made _me_ stay, and me a cripple, too!  He said
he couldn't be happy without somebody to look after; and whilst it was
a new idea to me then, I come to see the sense of it many a long year
ago!  That poor little Yetta!  It's her eyes is bad.  They ain't so bad
but what they won't do well enough for most things; but all she knows
how to do is to sew beads and buttons and run a big sewin' machine in a
shop.  They say her eyes won't hold out for that!  Land!  If I was
rich, I'd have her taught music, that's what I'd do!  You jest ought to
hear the child sing, dearie!  To hear her in the evenin's settin' down
on the fence an' singin', why, it's prettier 'n a whip-poor-will
a-callin'.  It wouldn't surprise me a mite if Yetta could be learnt to
sing that well, with some new songs and such, that folks would pay
money to hear her!"

"Perhaps we could find some way to help her," Miss Randall suggested.
Mother Cary flashed a keen look at her.

"Do you know any rich folks, honey, that might?" she asked eagerly.
"Yetta's a good little thing, for all the bad she knows.  An' she jest
loves an' loves whatever is pretty an' sweet!"

"I think perhaps I do know someone," Rosamund said.  "But I wanted
especially to ask you to let me board with you here for a while.  Is
there room for me?"

"Room a plenty, dearie," the old woman said, as she hobbled to the door
to strike the metal hoop that swung from the over-hanging floor of the
second story.  "But," she added, when she had sent the summons ringing
out to Pap and Yetta, and had come back and seated herself near the
girl, "but there ain't any call for you to pay.  Pap an' me has a
plenty to share with folks that come our way; and you're helpin' with
Timmy.  I'd be real pleased to have you stay."

But Rosamund hesitated.  "I'm afraid I cannot do that," she said,
"unless you will let me pay something.  I can afford it, really," she
added, smiling.

For a long moment the old woman looked at her, keenly, kindly, with the
faintest, tenderest, most teasing smile on her little wrinkled face
that was as brown as a nut.  "An' can't you really afford to visit?"
she asked.  "There's a plenty of folks that can afford to pay and to
give; there ain't so many as can afford to take and to be done for.
Ain't you forgettin' which kind you be?"

Rosamund lifted her head, and looked directly into the twinkling, faded
old eyes.  "No," she said, "I'm not forgetting the kind I am!  I think
I am only beginning to find out!"

Mother Cary laid her hand over the girl's in her usual gesture of
caress before she hobbled to the dinner table.  Pap and Yetta had come
in and were already seating themselves.

It was the sweetest meal that Rosamund had ever tasted; but she had
still to find out more about herself.  They had not risen from the
table when a musical view-halloo sounded up from the road below the
stretch of woods, and in a moment Flood and Pendleton sprang out of the
big red car and came briskly up the little walk.  Rosamund went forward
to meet them.

"Why, I say," said Flood, beaming at her, "you're looking right as a
trivet, you know!"

Pendleton drawled: "Ah, fair knight-errantess!  Miss Nightingale!  Also
Rose o' the World!  You wouldn't be smiling like that if you knew
Cecilia's state of mind!"

Rosamund laughed, and held out her hand to them.  "I can imagine it,"
she said.  "It's plain that I had better keep out of her way for a
time!"

"I'm at your service," cried Flood bowing low: with mock servility,
delighted at her merry mood, at her smiles which included even himself.

But Pendleton understood her better.  "Now, what are you up to, Rosy?"
he asked, severely, uneasily.  She came directly to the point.

"I am going to stay here," she announced.

Both men stared at her.  "How d'ye mean?" asked Flood weakly.

"The deuce you are!" cried Pendleton.

"Oh!  With Mrs. Reeves!" Flood beamed, as if he had found an answer
even while asking.

"Is that it?  Why didn't you say so?  Where is Eleanor, anyway?"
Pendleton asked.

Rosamund laughed again.  "I'm sure I don't know!" she said.  "She is at
Bluemont, and that's miles away, isn't it?  I haven't even asked.  No,
Marshall, no, Mr. Flood, I am going to stay here, right here, here in
this house, or this valley, or this mountain, but here, here as long as
I like--forever, if I want to!  That's what I mean--or part of it!"

It was evident that her laughter carried more conviction than any
amount of seriousness would have done.  Poor Flood's face got redder,
and he suddenly, after a stare, turned on his heel, and walked rather
slowly down the path to his car, standing beside it with his arms
folded, looking across at the strip of woods, but seeing nothing.
Pendleton, however, felt it incumbent upon him to remonstrate.

"Of course, we all know you can afford any whim you like, Rosamund," he
said, in the tone of the old friend who dares, "but I think I ought to
warn you that this sort of thing is not--not in the best of taste, you
know!  It is not done, really--in--in--among our sort, you know!"

Rosamund openly showed her amusement.  "That is undoubtedly true, my
dear Marshall," she said, "but this time it is going to be done!  _I_
am going to do it!  You think it is a freak, and I'm sure I can say it
isn't, because I don't in the least know what it is!"

"I think you're mad.  If I had not been an unwilling observer of the
accident, I should believe it was you had got concussion, and not the
infant."

"My dear Marshall, your diagnosis is wrong!  I may have a--a disease,
but it is not madness.  Did you ever hear of people who had suffered
from loss of memory for years and years and quite suddenly recovered
it?  Perhaps I'm one of those--I feel as if I had only just come to my
senses!"

"I don't know what you're talking about!" said Pendleton.

"Don't you?  I thought you wouldn't!"  Again she laughed, and at the
sound Flood started, looked back towards the house where she stood,
radiant and lovely, framed in the doorway, and then got into his car.

But Pendleton had one further protest.  "You _can't_ stay in this--this
hovel, alone, Rosamund!  You can't think of doing it!  Please remember
_I_ have got to go back to Cecilia!  What on earth am I going to say to
her?"

"Poor Marshall!  Tell Cecilia, with my love, that I am going to stay
here for the present.  She may send me some clothes by express, or not,
as she likes.  Please give her my love, and tell her that I hope she
will have a pleasant visit with the Whartons--she had better go there
to-morrow.  And try, my dear Marshall, to assure her of my sanity!
Good-by!  Don't let me keep you waiting!"

Pendleton pushed back his hat, thrust his hands deep into his pockets,
and looked at her.  Then he drew a long breath and delivered himself,
oracularly.  "Rosamund," he said, "you're a fool!  You can't, you
really can't, do this sort of thing, you know.  Why, my dear girl,
it--it is not done, you know, in--"

But Rosamund ran back into the house, turned a flashing, smiling look
upon him over her shoulder, cried, "Good-by, Marshall!  Give my love to
Cecilia!" and was gone, leaving him there agape.  There was really
nothing for him to do but rejoin Flood.

Cecilia, however, remained for a time inconsolable.  Flood and
Pendleton motored back across the mountain, told Mrs. Maxwell of
Rosamund's decision to remain indefinitely in the little cottage on the
mountain, and forthwith avoided the presence of the irate lady as much
as possible.  Fortunately, the newly arriving week-end guests had to be
entertained.  They were very good and very stupid; but, as Pendleton
said, anything was better than Cecilia in a temper.

Left to herself, Cecilia's mind was occupied with a veritable
jack-straw puzzle of events, motives, contingencies.  She had had good
reason, before this, to know that Rosamund enjoyed unforeseen
departures; but that anyone should deliberately choose to forego the
luxuries of Oakleigh, to stay, instead, in what Mrs. Maxwell considered
a peasant's cottage--such conduct, such a choice, were beyond the
lady's imagination and experience.  Rosamund must be wild; for surely
not even pique at Cecilia's generalship, not even annoyance at Flood's
attentions, not even the desire to be near that tiresome Eleanor
Reeves, could have determined her to such a move.  As for the accident,
anyone could have cared for the child.  Rosamund could have paid a
dozen nurses to stay there, if she was charitably inclined; and
certainly Mr. Flood had shown that he wanted to do what was right.
Cecilia could not understand it.




VII

After the retreat of Pendleton and Flood, Rosamund went back to the
little boy's room, smiling.  Mother Cary looked up at her with a face
slightly troubled.

"Seems like your friends ain't willing to have you stay here," she
said.  "Is there anything calling you home, honey, anything that needs
you?"

The girl shook her head.  "I think I have never been needed anywhere in
all my life, until now," she said.  Then, perhaps because of Flood's
words, she remembered Eleanor.  "Well, perhaps there is one person who
has needed me, from time to time; and, dear Mother Cary, she is
somewhere near here.  She came to Bluemont to be near Doctor Ogilvie."

"There's a many a one that does," said Mother Cary.

"My friend is Mrs. Reeves.  Do you know her?"

"Land, honey, rich city folks don't bother to become acquainted with
the likes of me!" the old woman said, smiling.

"Mrs. Reeves is not 'rich city folks.'  She is working for her living
all the while she is here in the mountains; she is companion for
another of the doctor's patients, Mrs. Hetherbee."

"Oh, I know!" Yetta exclaimed.  "I saw her in the post-office one day
askin' for the mail, while the old one waited outside in the
automobile.  Gee!  That old one looked cross!"

Rosamund laughed.  "And do you know where they live?"

"Sure!  Want me to show you?"

"I should like it ever and ever so much if you would take a note there
for me.  Could you do that?  Is it too far?"

Mother Cary patted Yetta's dark hair.  "She can go over with Pap, when
he goes to the store," she said.  "She'll be real glad to; won't you,
Yetta?"

So it came to pass that in the late afternoon Eleanor came in Mrs.
Hetherbee's car.  The boy Tim was resting so quietly that Rosamund had
gone outside; she went swiftly down the little red path to the gate,
and the two met, arms entwining, cheek to cheek, with little laughs and
questions and soft cries.

"Your note said there was an accident!"  These were Eleanor's first
words.  "Darling, that is not why you are here?  You are not hurt?"

"Why I am here; but it was not I--I was not hurt!  Look at me--feel me!"

"Nor Cecilia?"

"Nor anyone, you precious, that you know!  A tiny mite of a boy,
Eleanor, and I stayed to take care of him."

"You?"

"Oh, don't say it like that!  And yet I don't wonder!"

Eleanor's arm was about her at once.  "Sweet, I was only wondering that
Cecilia let you!"

"Cecilia did not let me; and you were wondering, too, why I stayed,
what really kept me.  You are quite right; of my own accord I shouldn't
have stayed.  My own impulse would not have moved that way.  I should
have taken the easy, the obvious course, if I had been left to choose.
But I wasn't, you see."

Eleanor looked at her keenly.  This note of bitterness was quite new.
Suddenly she remembered Ogilvie; but almost on the instant Rosamund
spoke again.

"What manner of man do you find this red-headed doctor of yours?"

Eleanor laughed.  "He gets his own way with people!"  She looked at her
friend, but Rosamund's face was turned from her.  "I have never met
anyone else like him.  I thought at first that he was two people--a man
of heart and a man of science; you know his reputation, and yet he
stays up here mainly, I am told, to be near these mountain people.  He
says that they trust him, and seems to think that excuse enough for
staying."

"I thought he stayed for the air or something?"

"He did, but now he is perfectly well again.  And his character is not
dual; nothing so romantic.  He is a man of science just because he is a
man of heart.  He is one of the simplest people I have ever known."

"You seem to know him pretty well."

"Oh, he is the first object of interest to all his patients; we talk of
nothing else!  I am only a case to him."

Rosamund laughed.  "Very likely, dear!  And what does he think of you,
as a case?"

Eleanor's face took on its shadow of sadness.  "He--he does not know,"
she said; and Rosamund drew a swift breath of pain.

Eleanor came daily after that, Mrs. Hetherbee, a worn, eager little
woman with restless eyes, showing herself entirely complaisant when it
seemed likely that the very well known Miss Randall would return
Eleanor's visits.  Her attitude towards her companion had been pleasant
enough before, but it certainly took on a new warmth after Rosamund's
arrival in the neighborhood, and when she learned that Mrs. Reeves was
one of Miss Randall's lifelong friends.

"You will have to drive over and call on Mrs. Hetherbee, Rose," Eleanor
assured her.  "If you don't I shall feel that I'm using her car under
false pretenses!"

So Rosamund called, and Mrs. Hetherbee basked in the distinction of
being the only person at the Summit whom Miss Randall cared to know.
Thereafter Eleanor came daily across the valley, tenderly sweet as only
she knew how to be, almost at once becoming fast friends with Mother
Cary, and hanging over the boy with aching heart and arms weary of
their emptiness.  Rosamund always felt as if a hand of pain clutched at
her heart as she watched them.

"Who is he?" Eleanor had asked the first day she saw him.  "Is he the
child of these people?"

"He is a waif," Rosamund said, and told how Mother Cary made of the
little white house a refuge of love for the needy ones of the city.
"And this tiny boy, Doctor Ogilvie says, needs love more than most of
them.  The Charities have tried to have him adopted; but most people do
not want boys--not homely little boys, whose fathers were not at all
good and whose mothers died very young and very forlorn.  Timmy has
gone begging--and he will have to go back after his summer here is
over.  The most to be hoped for is that he will go back stronger; then
perhaps he will be prettier, and some one may want him.  It is really
unspeakably pathetic."

So Eleanor hung over the child, and gradually there grew up in
Rosamund's heart and mind a plan, which, as it matured, was to alter
the course of life for all of them.

But that was not until later; and while to her on the mountain the days
passed uneventfully enough, they were days of distressful change for
her sister.  During the first week or two, Cecilia sent her four
letters and eleven telegrams--the telegrams being duly delivered with
the letters, whenever Father Cary drove across the valley to the store.
Rosamund read them all, pondered, smiled, and then sent off a
reassuring telegram by Eleanor.  Later she wrote two letters; the first
was to her banker, and in the second she said:


DEAREST CISSY:

Don't be too cross!  You've always been an angel to me, and I love you;
but I am tired, tired, tired of the sort of life we lead; and the other
day, when Mr. Flood's man so obligingly bumped into the poor little
boy, I was wondering how on earth I could get out of it for a time, get
some sort of change.  Then, the people here seemed to take it for
granted that I would stay to nurse the child.  It was the first time in
my life that anyone had ever taken for granted that I would do the
right thing if it meant personal discomfort.  Before, I had always been
praised and applauded if I merely happened to do it.  I don't suppose I
can make you understand, dearest Cissy; but just that made all the
difference in the world to me.  And now I am going to stay here--for
how long, I do not know.  Until I get tired of it, perhaps, or until I
can think up something else.  The mountains are so big, Cecilia, and
the stars so bright, and the sun does such good work!

I have put some money to your credit; I think there will be enough to
last you for a while.  You can even get the motor car, if you want to.
And if I were you, I should stop in town and get a few linens and
perhaps a hat or two and a parasol at Lucille's.  You will need a lot
of things at Bar Harbor.  I suppose you will go right up to the
Whartons'.

You say I have broken up Mr. Flood's plans.  I'm afraid I don't
altogether agree to that.  There was only another week-end left in
June, and we were not going to stay any longer than that.  I do not
choose to think that you referred to other plans of his.  If you do,
please understand that I have no interest in them.

Give my love to the Whartons; they have always thought me queer,
anyway, so you will not have to account to them for me.  And don't be
too cross!


Cecilia's reply, which the doctor brought up the mountain a week later,
was dated from Bar Harbor.  It read:


DEAR ROSAMUND:

It's no use saying what I think.  But you are exceedingly disagreeable
about Mr. Flood, and the mountains were just as big at Oakleigh, and
the sun is just as hot in one place as another at this time of year,
and it is very selfish of you to break up everybody's plans.  But at
least I can say that I am glad you remain sane upon some subjects.  I
hope you got the trunks I sent over to Bluemont Summit; and I took your
advice about the linens.  There was a white serge, too, that was
unusually good for the price.  I haven't decided about the car.  We
play bridge here twice a day, and my game seems rather uncertain, since
the shock you gave me.  And Minnie has invited Benson Flood for two
weeks, and a good many things may happen.  I may not buy the car after
all.  I told Minnie that you were camping in the mountains, and she
only raised her eyebrows.  Well--all I can say is that poor dear Mamma
always admitted Colonel Randall was peculiar.  If you are not going to
wear your opals this summer, you may as well let me have them.


Rosamund laughed aloud at the letter.  Doctor Ogilvie was sitting on
the side of Timmy's bed, and she had gone to the window to read it.  At
her laugh he looked up.

"Good news?" he asked, cheerfully.  He was always cheerful, as cheerful
as a half-grown puppy.

"Neither good nor bad," she replied, "only amusing."

"But whatever is amusing is good," he asserted.

She looked up from folding her letter, to see whether he was in
earnest.  "That," she said, slowly, "is rather a unique point of view!"

He ran his fingers through his hair, and came towards her.  "Unique?  I
hope not," he replied.  "Oh, I see what you mean--you're taking issue
with my word 'amusing'!  I'm not thinking of passing the time, as a
definition of that word; I'm thinking of fun, mirth, that kind of
amusement--nothing to do with chorus ladies and things to eat and drink
and that sort of thing, you know!"

She was learning to watch his smile as one watches a barometer; to-day
the signs were certainly propitious.  There was something of indulgence
in her look as she replied to him, the indulgence one feels towards the
young and inexperienced.

"So you think it is a good thing to be amused--in your way?" she asked.

He nodded.  "Most assuredly.  Nothing like it.  And the most amusing
thing I know is the way we can cheat disease and dirt and a few other
nice little things like them--turn the joke on them!  Now, there's
Master Tim--eh, youngster?  Life will seem like a good deal of a joke
to you, when you get over that ache in your hip, won't it?  Think
you'll find fun in life then, don't you, old chap?  And there's a girl
down in the valley--by the way, how'd you like to go down with me and
make a call?  Do you a lot of good!"

He cocked his head on one side and looked at Rosamund inquiringly,
persuasively.

She had seen him every day for two weeks, and this was the first moment
he had looked at her with the least shadow of personal interest.  Until
now, she had felt that she was no more to him than an article of
furniture, certainly less of a personage than Mother Cary or Yetta or
the sick child.  She had a feeling that he tolerated her solely as an
aid, that she had not even the virtue of being a 'case'; and she told
herself in secret disgust that while she did not possess the last
virtue, she at least shared the patients' fault, or absurdity; she had
to admit that he piqued her interest, and she resented his doing so,
blaming him even while disgusted at herself.

But, to-day, with the charming woman's intuition, she knew that he was
seeing her with different eyes, as if she had only just now come within
his range of vision; yet she knew that his was a look that she had not
encountered from other men.

Hitherto, the men she knew had been quite evidently aware of her
beauty.  She had always accepted, quite calmly, the fact that there was
enough of that to be of first consideration, over and beyond anything
else that she might possess.  This country doctor was the first man who
had ever appeared unconscious of the excellence of her femininity; but
the same pride which had led her to repel Flood's admiration forbade
her making any conscious appeal for Ogilvie's.  There was, after all,
very little of the coquette in her.  The amusement that his
obliviousness caused her, or the interest it excited in her, was only
increased by his suggestion that she should accompany him on a visit to
some mountaineer's cottage; he had offered it as likely to do her good,
and not, as she might not unreasonably have expected, that her going
would brighten or benefit or honor the mountain girl.  It was a new
experience, surely, for Rosamund Randall!

On their way down the mountain, which White Rosy knew so well that to
guide her would have been entirely superfluous, he talked cheerfully,
as always, of many things--of White Rosy herself, of the mountain
people, of the view across the valley, of roadside shrubs and flowers.
It was the first of their drives together, and the woman they went to
see that day became a most important factor in their destinies.

At first she listened to him with scarcely more interest than she would
have felt towards the amiable volubility of any of the countrymen; but
his talk soon rose above the commonplace.  Insensibly he became aware
that the girl beside him could understand, could sympathize, respond.

"I know you can't put ropes on the world and try to pull back against
its turning round," the doctor said when at a bend of the road they
could look down almost upon the roof of a cottage below, a cottage with
a sadly neglected garden patch at one side and a tumbled-down chimney.
"It's a good deal better to stand behind and push, or to get in front
and pull.  I'm fond of pulling, myself!  But when it comes to the
individual instance, it's sometimes more merciful to stand in the way
of what we're pleased to call progress.  Now that girl down
there--daughter of a horse-dealer, the owner of a little store at one
of the crossroads in the other valley--it would really have been better
if she had never gone to school, never been away from home, never
learned of anything beyond what she has.  She has been taught enough to
make her know how badly off she is.  Her father was ambitious, and sent
his daughter to board in town and go to the high school.  She stayed
there two years, and absorbed about as much as she could; then she came
back home, but her education had taught her something finer and better
than what she came back to.  She did just what any restless young thing
would do.  Inside of a year she eloped with the handsomest rascal in
the mountains.  And Tobet's a moonshiner!"

"Moonshiner!  But I thought the Government had done away with all that
sort of thing?  I heard a man say, at a place where I was staying
before I came here, that there was really no more of it left, in these
mountains.  The men are intimidated, the stills discovered and broken
up.  Isn't that so?"

A wry smile from the doctor answered her.  "Then there must be some
natural springs of it about here," he said.  He pointed back over his
shoulder with his whip.  "See that big pine up there on the left?
Well, if an empty bottle be left there, at the foot of the tree, at
night, with a fifty-cent piece under it, the bottle will be filled in
the morning, and the coin gone.  I don't ask any questions, and I
suppose she would not answer any; but if she would, Grace Tobet could
explain how that sort of thing happens."

Rosamund was not greatly impressed.  "Well, there probably is not very
much of it," she said, "and they must be quite used to it.  I don't
suppose it does them much harm, does it?"

The doctor was silent for a moment.  Then he said, and his voice was
very low, "Grace Tobet has lately lost her baby, her little girl.  Joe
came in one morning, struck by white lightning, as they say around
here.  He fell on the baby, and Grace came in from the garden too late.
She told Mother Cary that perhaps it was just as well."

Rosamund paled.  Presently the doctor went on, "And you see, poor Grace
knows better things; she remembers that town and the school, and the
little pleasures and gayeties there."

Neither spoke again until White Rosy drew up before the Tobet cottage.
The front windows and door were closed, but on the sill of the back
door a woman crouched, a woman in faded brown calico, whose face, when
she raised it from her arms, showed a dark bruise on one side.  She
rose and smiled wanly.

"I've brought a lady to see you, Mrs. Tobet," the doctor said.  He
introduced them as formally as if Grace Tobet had been a duchess.  Then
he said, "Now you two talk, while I hunt up Joe.  Where is he?"

The woman nodded towards the front of the house, and the doctor went
indoors.  Rosamund and Mrs. Tobet looked at each other.

To the mountain woman this stranger was a being from another sphere,
who could not touch her own at any point of intercourse; while Rosamund
was too deeply moved by the woman's story, by the livid mark on her
temple, by the squalor of her dress and surroundings contrasting so
strongly with the intelligence of her face, to find words.  It was Mrs.
Tobet who first remembered one of those phrases of common coin which
are the medium of conversation the world over.

"Stranger about here?" she asked.

"I am staying with Mrs. Cary on the mountain," Rosamund replied; and,
as, in a flash, the other woman's face was lit by a smile scarcely less
radiant than Mother Cary's own.

"A friend o' Mother Cary's, be ye?  I'm glad to see ye!  I can't ask
you into the front room, but there's a seat in my spring-house, real
pleasant and cool; won't ye come try it?"

She led the way through the neglected garden to the little spring-house
that was built of the rough stone of the hillsides, roofed over with
sod.  In front of the door-space was a wooden bench, where Rosamund sat
down, while Grace drew a glass of sparkling water from the cool spring
inside.  It was a delicious draught.

"My baby could jest pull herself up by that bench," Grace Tobet said,
as she took the empty glass.  "She used to play here while I tended to
the milk.  Joe's sold the cow now; but that didn't make any difference;
there wasn't any reason for keeping her."

The woman's deep-set dark eyes strained out towards the mountain-tops.
Rosamund felt herself suddenly brought face to face with some primal
force of which she had hitherto known nothing; for the first time in
her life she looked upon the agony of bereft mother-love laid bare.
She had been with Eleanor through her loss, but Eleanor's grief had
seemed to turn her to white stone; this other mother's was a fiercely
scorching, consuming flame of anguish before which Rosamund shrank away
as from the blast of a furnace.  Before she dared to speak, however,
Grace Tobet's face was smiling again.

"I know you must like it up there," she said.  "I do miss the mountains
so, livin' down here in the valley.  I don't know what I'd do ef it
wasn't for Mother Cary's light.  I look up there for it every night of
my life, an' it's always there.  An' I ain't the only one it talks to,
neither."

"It has its message for everyone who sees it, I think," Rosamund
agreed.  "I know, because I am living under it!"

Grace looked into her eyes, and nodded.  "Ain't it so?" she replied.
"Why, there's never been a night when I was in trouble that her little
lamp hasn't said to me, 'Here I am, honey, an' I know all about it.
When it gets so bad you can't stand it, you jest send for me; I'll
come!'  An' she does come, too!"

There was silence between them for a moment; then Rosamund said, only
wondering at herself long afterwards, "It says more than that!  It is
telling me that there is something in life worth while, that there's
courage and goodness in many a dark corner where we'd never think of
looking for them; oh, it is teaching me a great deal!"

"Yes," Grace Tobet agreed, and all barriers between them were gone.

They found so much to say that the hour the doctor spent with Joe
passed like a moment.  When at last he came out of the house and back
to the spring for a drink of the pure water, the two women walked
together to the buggy; and before she took her place Rosamund, yielding
to a sudden impulse of which she knew she would have been incapable a
fortnight earlier, turned and clasped both of the older woman's hands,
and looked into her face.

"Will you be friends with me?" she asked simply.

Grace Tobet's eyes widened.  It seemed long before she spoke.  Then,
"Yes," she said, and both knew that there was something sealed between
them.

"May I bring a friend of mine to see you?  She lost her baby boy last
year, and--and we are afraid she is going to be--blind.  Perhaps you
can comfort her, in some way.  She needs friends.  May I bring her?"

"Pray do," Grace said, in the quaint mountain speech.

When they were slowly climbing the mountain, the doctor turned to
Rosamund with a quizzical smile.  "You and Grace seemed to progress
somewhat!" he said.

For a few moments Rosamund pondered; then she met his look, but there
was no smile on her face.

"Do you know," she said, "I have always thought that the people I lived
among were the only ones who really knew life, the only ones who felt,
or thought, or _lived_!  Lately I seem to have come into a new world."

The doctor's smile faded, and he ran his fingers through his hair.
"No," he said, "it's the same old world!  Human nature's pretty much
the same, wherever you find it.  Human experience is bounded by life,
and the boundaries are not very wide, either.  It's the different
combinations that make things interesting, although the basic elements
remain the same!"

"Then I almost think there are more basic elements among these people
than among--my kind!"

"Oh, no!  The difference is that with your kind the surface is rounded
and polished, and the points of possible contact therefore fewer; with
the other kind the rougher surfaces offer more points of contact, more
chances of combinations, that's all.  And," he added, "even that's only
partly true!"

Afterwards, when she went over in her mind the events of the whole
afternoon, she wondered how Flood or Pendleton would have expressed
themselves on the subject; but at the moment she was too deeply
concerned with her problems to form any mental digression.  For a while
neither spoke; then she said:

"Reserve seems to have no place here!  I find myself saying what I
think, describing what I feel, opening my heart to Mother Cary, to Mrs.
Tobet, to you--to anyone!  I do not know myself!"

The doctor's face changed from one expression to another and another;
he was about to speak, but her look was intense, rapt, uplifted, and
very serious; he evidently changed his mind.  Neither spoke again until
they stopped before the little green gate.  Then, he passed his hand
over his head as if suddenly missing something.

"Lord bless my soul!" he exclaimed.  "I believe I left my hat at
Grace's!"




VIII

Eleanor was most free to motor across the valley--where now a double
magnet drew her--while Mrs. Hetherbee still slumbered in the mornings.
Since the first day when Tim's little hand had reached up to touch her
cheek, she had yearned towards the boy.  Rosamund laughingly accused
her of coming to see him instead of herself; Eleanor, in reply, held
the mite to her heart, smiling over his curls through gathering tears,
at Rosamund.

The summer had done much for Timmy.  The pain in his hip was
disappearing, and by the end of August there were pink baby curves
where the skin had been white and drawn over his little bones.  There
were times, when he was cuddling against Eleanor or tumbling about in
the sun, that he was almost pretty.  He was glad enough of
ministrations from Rosamund or Mother Cary, but Eleanor was the bright
lady of his adoration.

"My White Lady," he called her, taking great pains always to pronounce
every consonant of the beloved name, though he usually discarded most
of them as not at all necessary to intelligent conversation.  With the
inquisitiveness of childhood, he soon discovered that she had once had
a little boy of her own.

"Where is your little boy?" he asked one day with infantile directness.

"He is gone away," she told him.

But that was not enough.  "_Did_ somebody 'dopt your little boy?" he
persisted.

Eleanor looked at Rosamund; the same thought was in the minds of both.
How many times had little Tim been offered for inspection to would-be
adopters, and refused?  How much of it had he understood?  What had it
all meant, to his poor little lonely heart?  Eleanor drew him more
closely to her.

"W'y don't you tell Timmy?  Did somebody 'dopt your little boy?"

She gave him the simplest answer.  "Yes, dear," she said.

Timmy was thoughtful for a moment.  Then he said, "I guess he must have
been a _pretty_ little boy!"

Neither Eleanor nor Rosamund could speak, but Tim was oblivious of
their emotion.  A new idea, an entrancing one, had presented itself.
He climbed upon Eleanor's lap, took her face between his palms, and
said, smiling divinely,

"If I was a great big man, White Lady, _I_ would 'dopt you!"

It seemed to Rosamund that Eleanor, while reaching out with all the
ardor of her loneliness, was being daily wrung by seeing him; she spoke
of it to Ogilvie, after Eleanor herself had denied it.  But he was
inclined to agree with Mrs. Reeves that it could not harm her.

"Women find comfort in strange things," he said.  "Let her have her own
way."

Rosamund sighed.  "It does not seem to me that her summer here has
helped her at all," she said.  "She is more a 'White Lady' than ever.
I wish you would tell me what you think of her, Doctor Ogilvie!"

"I cannot tell you any more than I have," he replied.  "There is no
incurable fault of vision, no defect of the eye itself.  If I could
prescribe a large dose of happiness for her, she would get well.  As it
is--nerves have very elusive freaks sometimes, you know!"

"Then she will--she will be--oh!  Don't say that!  Not my Eleanor!"

"Now you are taking too much for granted.  I do _not_ say it.  Her eyes
are no worse than when she came here.  If she were strong they would
recover; if she were happy she would quickly become strong!  As it
is--who can say?"

"Oh, how helpless you all are!" she cried.

He ran his fingers through his hair--his cap was apt to be anywhere but
on his head.  "Helpless!  Good Lord, yes!"

As the weeks passed, they had become very good friends, spending many
hours together, driving about the countryside as he made his rounds.
Knowing Eleanor to be there in the mornings, Ogilvie fell into the way
of making Mother Cary's his first house of visitation in the afternoon.
They were always waiting for him at the gate--the now inseparable
three; and if Rosamund left all show of eager greeting to Yetta and
little Tim, the doctor seemed never to notice the omission.  It was
enough to find her there.

Hitherto, John Ogilvie had passed his life, first, in study, and later
in investigation and service.  Women had appeared as people who cooked
his meals, or as nurses trained to careful obedience, or as those who,
more or less ill, were apt to be more or less querulous.  There were
one or two who had seemed to possess different characteristics,
especially here in the mountains.  There was Mother Cary, who had
helped him on more than one occasion when more trained assistance, if
not assistance more experienced, was not to be had; he warmly loved
Mother Cary, whose indulgent affection persisted in regarding him as a
boy--a clever boy, to be sure, but not by any means one who had
outgrown the need of maternal attention.  And there were Grace Tobet,
and a few other of the mountaineers' wives, who stood out from the mass
of women as he had known them.

Miss Randall was of still another sort, already beginning to inspire
him with emotions new and different.  But he was too far past the
introspective phase that is a part of early youth to analyze his
emotions.  He was less concerned with the phenomenon of his own heart
throbs than with the happily recurring hours of their being together,
and the increasingly dreary intervals when his duties carried him away
from her.

He knew very well to what world she belonged.  He had had enough
experience of it among his patients, the overfed, overwrought women who
came to Bluemont in the summer to be near him--near the young doctor of
high scientific attainments, who remained in this out-of-the-way place
of his own choice, "Who can be just as disagreeable and firm, my dear,
as if his sign hung two doors from Fifth Avenue, and whose fees are
only one-fifth as high as Dr. Blake's," as one of them wrote home.
Even if she had not come into the valley as one of Flood's guests, he
would have known of what class she was a part.  Mrs. Hetherbee, in her
overflowing complaisance after Rosamund's call, had poured out to his
bored and impatient ears, in a torrent that was not to be stemmed, the
facts of the girl's inheritance and position.

"Witherspoon Randall's only daughter!  He made all his money, millions,
they say, in Georgia pine--only had to go out on the land he had
inherited and cut down trees!  Think of it!  And left every penny to
this girl, nothing to the mother, nothing to the mother's daughter by
her first marriage, nothing to charity--everything, everything to this
girl!  And you know she is just the smartest of the smart, in town;
thanks to her sister's marriage, in the very heart of the most
exclusive----"

So he had, in spite of himself, been told what she was, given some idea
of what she possessed; yet so wholly did he discard as immaterial the
material things, and measure her only by the weight of personality,
that Rosamund was deceived into thinking that he knew nothing about her.

The friends she made while at Mother Cary's had not questioned her; she
had dropped among them from an automobile, and later her sister had
sent her some clothes of deceptive simplicity.  Their seeming to accept
her as she tried to appear deceived her into believing that they were
not curious; as a matter of fact their code of good manners forbade
their showing curiosity; nothing could prevent their having it.  She
believed that Ogilvie, also, had been deceived in like manner.  During
their drives together she carefully avoided any reference to her
possessions; it amused her to imagine how surprised he would be when he
knew.

Yet she found herself becoming more and more contented that he did not
know.  In her own world she had been unable to ignore her wealth; she
could read knowledge of it on every face, deference to it in every
courtesy, and the very fact that it had set her apart was largely the
cause of her old discontent.  She would not voluntarily have discarded
it, but she would have welcomed an escape from all but its agreeable
consequences.

The other men she had known might have been able to command riches
larger than her own, or possessed that which weighed equally in the
social scales; yet they remained conscious of what her very name
signified, and invariably showed it.  Even Mr. Flood, or so she
believed, although he could have bought all she owned without missing
what it cost him, showed her the usual deference.

Therefore, there was something fresh and unaccustomed in her growing
friendship with Ogilvie.  It amused and piqued her; in her ignorance of
his real state of mind it even touched her.  She found herself eager to
be real with him, to show him depths of heart and mind which she
herself had scarcely suspected.  Other men saw only the social glaze
which hid her real self and reflected themselves; Ogilvie had a way of
looking at her which pierced the surface, although, because of his
obvious sincerity, it caused her no resentment.  So, during the glowing
summer, while the hot noons ripened the corn in the valley and the cold
nights left early beacons of flame in the young maples on the
mountains, they grew to know each other; she serene in her belief in
his unsuspecting simplicity, he ignoring in her what other men would so
greatly have valued.  As far as the things of the world affected them,
they might, on their drives, have been alone in a deserted land, or at
least in one peopled only by aborigines.

For always he had as an objective point some mountain cottage where his
aid was needed.  At first she was inclined to be curious about the
mountaineers; theoretically they ought to have been interesting,
quaint, amusing.  But in reality she scarcely saw them; when she did,
she found nothing appealing in their lank figures, and faces hidden in
the depths of slat bonnets or under large straw hats pulled down over
their eyes.

"They all seem to avoid me," she told Ogilvie one day when he had come
out of a house with a tiny child in his arms, which had slid down and
run away at sight of her.  "Do they think I'm the bogey-man or the
plague?"

He laughed aloud at her petulance.  "They don't stop to think," he
said.  "They are as timid as chipmunks, or as any other hunted woodland
creatures."

"Oh, hunted!" she cried, as if to repudiate what he implied.  "I've
heard you talk like that before!  Do you still believe in that nonsense
about the secret stills and the Government spies, and all that?"

"Yes, I believe in it."

"I have been here eight weeks, and I have not heard another soul speak
of it!"

"How many of the 'natives,' as you call them, have you met?"

She pursed her lips.  "I don't believe there are many to see!"

"Allow me to remind you again of my feeble simile of the chipmunks!" he
laughed.  "And believe me, it is more apt than you think.  For
instance, have you seen the little Allen children?"

"What, the queer little animals that bend their arms over their eyes
when you meet them, and live in that shanty back of Father Cary's
pasture?"

He smiled at her description.  "Precisely!  The Carys' nearest
neighbors, scarcely a mile away.  And have you seen their mother?"

She seemed to be trying to remember.

"Come now," he teased, "don't tell me you don't believe they have a
mother!  The eldest child is not yet six, and the youngest of the five
is two months old!"

She laughed and gave in.  "No, I have not seen the mother, nor the
father, nor the aunts, nor any of the rest of the family!  But that is
only one instance."

"There are many; you really may take my word for it, if it interests
you to.  But if you were to be here after the summer people go, then
you'd see.  They come out into the open then."

She still looked skeptical, and he pointed up the mountain.  "Do you
see that path?" he asked.

"No.  Where?"

He laughed.  "Caught, Miss Randall!  A path is there, invisible though
it is to you--to us.  All through these woods there are paths, often
little more than trails, well known to the mountaineers and often used.
Sometimes they run for a mile or more beside the road, screened by the
undergrowth; sometimes they keep higher up, or cross where a road could
not, or follow the courses of the streams; but they are there.  It is
only one of the evidences of the mountaineers' secretiveness."

"Your simile was a good one!  What animals they are!"

"So are we all."

"Oh, of course, you are the doctor, saying that!  But you could
scarcely class these creatures with ourselves!"

He turned on the seat to look at her, and she met his gaze a little
defiantly, on the defensive, for she knew him well enough by now to
guess what his reply would be.  For the first time she encountered in
his eyes a look of appraisement as if he were weighing her value, even
questioning it.  Suddenly there arose between them the antagonism of
their opposite points of view, of those differences in their minds and
characters which must always arise between a man and a woman, and be
settled by conquest or compromise, before happiness can be secure
between them.

As he looked at her, more beautiful in her sudden proud defiance than
he had ever before seen her, it flashed upon him who and what she was,
and that what he had chosen to ignore might be none the less placing
her beyond him.  In his inexperience he was unprepared for the swift
pain of the idea; instinctively defending himself, his defense was
cruelly sharp.

The irony of his words stung her cheeks to a quick crimson.

"I am not capable of judging of your class, Miss Randall!" he said.

She might have understood, from the tremor in his voice, but she heard
nothing but the meaning of the words.  As she still looked into his
eyes her own widened, and with the widening of their pupils seemed to
grow black.  For an instant they looked at one another so; but the
moment was too tense to be one of revelation.  Then she drew a gasping
breath so sharp that it almost seemed to be a wordless cry of pain, and
turned away.

Instantly he was filled with shame of having hurt her, and greater
shame of having doubted her.

"Oh, forgive me," he cried.  "Forgive me!  Won't you forgive me?"

She lifted her head a little, still turned from him, but did not speak.

"Rosamund!" he cried.  "Forgive me!"

It was now unmistakably a cry of pain, appealing and revealing; it
steadied her, as a woman is always steadied by that tone in a man's
voice, until the moment when she is prepared to welcome it.  On the
instant, she was no longer the woman of the past weeks, simple,
companionable, revealing herself as naturally as a child; she was once
more the Miss Randall the world knew, haughty, reserved, aloof.  Even
her eyes, as she turned to smile at him, were not those he had known.

"There is nothing in the world to forgive!  I think we have been a
little absurd!"

It was his turn to feel how words could lash.

"I am glad you see it so," he said, and wondered, during the rest of
their drive, filled as it was with the commonplace of small talk, how
he could have forgotten her likeness to the vapid, futile, fashionable
women at the Summit; while she, hurt and bewildered, was wondering what
he had meant, whether he had known her all along for the person she
was, Colonel Randall's daughter and only heir, and in the stupidity of
a countryman had failed in the observance due to her position.

When White Rosy stopped at the little red gate, willingly, as always,
the two children were there to welcome them.  Ogilvie, in spite of
Timmy's beseeching arms, would not stay to supper, as he often did.

Tim sat down on the brick path and lifted his voice in a wail.  "Oh,
ev'rybody's gonin' away!" he cried; and his anguish increased by his
own words, he further declared, "Ev'rybody has went away!"

Rosamund picked up the boy, but he wriggled down from her arms.  In
spite of her care for him, and the good-fellowship there was between
her and both the children, who were ordinarily devoted enough, nothing
of the maternal had as yet been aroused in her; and in the moments when
he needs the only comfort that satisfies childhood, a child knows
instinctively whether there is aught of the mother in the arms that
hold him.

But Rosamund was in need of love to-day.  "Why, Timmy," she cried,
still holding him to her, "_I_ am here!  _I_ have not gone away!"

"I don't want my White Lady to go away!  I want my White Lady!" was
Timmy's cry.  "Ev'rybody's gonin' away!"

Now Yetta became voluble in explanation of his cry.  "She is going
away!  She came over while you were gone, 'cause she said maybe she
won't be able to come to-morrow.  She says she's got to pack, 'cause
the old one's going back to town.  Lots o' people have gone already,
it's so cold; and the old one thinks it's going to set in to rain, so
she's going home, an' Mis' Reeves has got to go with her."

"My White Lady's gonin' away!" Tim wailed again, with a concentration
of thought that might have been admirable under other circumstances.
"Ev'rybody's gonin' away!"

Rosamund had been overwrought on the drive, and the boy's persistent
cry was rasping her nerves.  "Oh, for goodness' sake, Timmy, don't say
that again!  It is not true, Tim!  I am here, and Yetta's here, and
Mother Cary's here.  Aren't we enough!"

"No, she ain't," Yetta cried, still informing.  "She's gone down to her
daughter's, 'cause the baby's sick.  Pap took her, and maybe he'll stay
all night, if it rains, an' he says it's going to for sure.  And I know
what to get for supper, and it's corn puddin' and jam!"

At last they had found the silencing note for Timmy.  "'Ikes jam!" he
announced.  Then, apparently warming towards Rosamund, he encircled her
knees with his arms.  "'Ikes you, too!" he declared.  '"Ikes ev'rybody!"

Rosamund was glad to laugh, to carry him, with swings and bounces and
kisses stolen from the tangle of his curls, into the house, glad to
make a 'party' out of the simple supper and a ceremony out of the
lighting of Mother Cary's nightly beacon, glad to hold him up to the
window to see the trees bend under the wind that came with Father
Cary's predicted rain, and glad to hold his little warm body to her
while she undressed him, and to hear him repeat after her, in unison
with Yetta, the prayer that she was, somewhat shyly, teaching them.
She was glad when Yetta claimed the privilege of her fifteen years to
sit up a while longer; glad of anything that might postpone the moments
when she should be alone with her own thoughts.

The storm was increasing; each gust of wind shrieked louder than the
last, sending the rain against the little house in sheets that broke
with a sound as of waves on a shore.  Rosamund, answering Yetta's
demand for a story, regaled her with the tale of Rip Van Winkle, and
then, somewhat unwisely, with the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, so that when
the girl's bed-time could no longer be put off she pleaded to stay
downstairs with Timmy and herself.

But at last Rosamund must be alone with herself and the storm.  At
first she could not think of Eleanor's message, and what it might mean
to her.  She had forgotten that the summer was almost over, forgotten
that Eleanor's inevitable departure must leave her alone, as far as old
friends were concerned, in the mountains.  She had even forgotten that
she herself must return; and now she had to remember that Cecilia's
clamor might begin again with any letter.  The summer was over.  It had
warmed into growth some part of her which had laid dormant before; but,
after this afternoon, she was in no mood to dwell upon that.  She
thought again of Eleanor, of her parting with the boy.  There must, of
course, be something provided for the poor little waif, and for Yetta;
that would be easy enough; she had only to write a check or two.  Yet,
in spite of the obviousness of that way, something else, quite
different, seemed to be struggling to formulate itself in her mind; for
once the writing of a check did not appear to be an adequate solution.

But the sum of it all, for her, seemed to be that she was just where
she had left her old self, two months before.  The old restlessness,
the old discontent, swept back upon her with accumulated force, only
increased by her life here.  The summer had taught her something, given
her something; how much she was unwilling to admit.

Suddenly there came back to her the sound of Ogilvie's voice, when he
had called her by name, out of his shame and pain; and with the memory
there came the reality of his voice, only now it was muffled by the
storm, and by the sound of his knocking on the door.

Startled though she was at its coming in apparent answer to her
thoughts, she sprang to the door and opened it.  Then, in a quick heat
of shame, she realized that he was far from calling upon her.

He stood under the overhang of the upper story, water dripping from him
onto the brick paving, hatless as usual, tossing the rain from his
eyes.  He was exceedingly far from being a beautiful figure as he stood
there; rather, he seemed a creature of the storm, wind-swept,
rain-soaked, forceful, insistent.

"Mother Cary!" he demanded almost before Rosamund had opened the door.
"Mother Cary!  Where is she?"

Rosamund drew back, as if repelled from the dripping figure.
Unconsciously she had, expected something else.

"Mother Cary is not here," she said, coldly.

"Not here?" he cried.  Then, like a man who finds himself suddenly
stopped, repeating, "Not here?  To-night?"

"She went to her daughter's, before the storm broke.  The baby is sick."

"Then Father Cary--I must have someone!"

"He is with her," said Rosamund, and made as though she would close the
door, although, if truth be told, no power on earth would have made her
do so.  But Ogilvie stepped, still dripping, across the threshold,
while she stood before him in her dress of thin blue, silhouetted
against the lamp-light.

For a moment they faced each other, again, as earlier on that day,
their natures and all the difference in their training and traditions
ranged in opposing forces.

The appeal of her beauty, the memory of their hours together, swept
over him like the breath of a dream; but the doctor in him was
uppermost.

"It's the Allen woman," he said.  "That boy, six years old, came all
the way to my house to tell me.  Jim Allen is in the woods, and there's
no telling how long she's been that way.  The baby is starving; and if
I don't operate now she will die, and the baby, too."

The words had poured out.  He barely paused, hesitated only to give her
a glance more piercing.  Yet when he spoke again he voiced a new
insistence.

"I have _got_ to have help.  Get on your things," he commanded.

"I?" she gasped.

"Yes, you!  And quickly.  I have no time to lose."

The haste of his words only made her own seem slower.  "Then you will
certainly have to go for someone else.  You are losing time waiting for
me."

He came a step or two closer.  "You have got to come," he said,
clearly, speaking his words very distinctly, as if trying to make
himself understood beyond question.  "There is no time to go for
someone else.  And I have got to operate on that woman at once, _at
once_, or she will die."  As Rosamund still stood, head up, eyes upon
him coldly, he repeated: "Don't you understand?  The woman will die,
and then the baby will starve...."

Her eyes seemed to darken; Cecilia would have recognized the sign of
wrath.  "Certainly I understand," she said.  "But you must see that it
is perfectly impossible for me--_me_--to help you!  I don't know what
you can be thinking of!"

"Impossible?  I say you have got to help me!  I can't wait for anyone
else!"

"I?  Help you--help you--operate--cut--oh!"

She shrank farther back towards the table.  "Oh, I think you are
perfectly brutal!"

He watched her in silence for a moment, a silence that burned, so
charged with meaning was it.  Then he said,

"I am asking you to help me save a woman's life!"

"It would kill _me_ to see it!"

He threw his hand out towards her.  "Then live!" he cried.  "Live on,
and shield your pretty eyes from the beautiful works of the Almighty,
draw your dainty skirts aside from the contamination of suffering
humanity, cover your ears against the cries of those little children
whose mother is dying.  Dance with your friends, laugh your life away;
live for yourself--yourself!  My God!  What kind of a thing are you?
Do you call yourself a woman?"

He did not wait to see what effect his words would have upon her.  He
rushed across the door sill, and the door, which he drew behind him,
was slammed by the wind as from the force of a blow.

For a moment she stood watching the door, lips parted, eyes opened wide
in horror.  It seemed as if the blood pulsing in her throat would choke
her; or was it the wild hammering of her heart?

She looked around Mother Cary's little room as if she had never seen it
before.  Was the whole world different, or was it only herself?  Was
she still dreaming, or was she awake?  Had he come at all, had he
called her, had he--had he thrown his bitter scorn at her----?

Was that the wind?  Her hand rose from her heart to her white cheek.
Was that the voice of the storm, or the voice of children,
children--calling--crying for----

From her frozen horror she sprang to life.  She ran to the room where
Tim and Yetta were.  Yetta was sitting up in bed, wide-eyed.

"What went off?" she demanded, excitedly.

Rosamund was already getting into her rain-coat.  "Doctor Ogilvie has
been here, Yetta, and I have got to help him.  Mrs. Allen is sick, and
I have got to go."

Yetta interrupted.  "Was that him slammed the door?  Gee!  He must a
been mad about somethin'!"

But Rosamund would not be interrupted.  "Hush, Yetta!  Listen to me!  I
have got to go to Mrs. Allen's.  Do you hear?"

"My land!  If you was to meet one o' the goberlins or one o' them
fellers with their heads under their arms, Miss Rose, you'd drop down
dead with fright!"

Rosamond remembered the absurdity of it afterwards, but there was no
time to laugh.  "Yetta!  Oh, hush!  Listen to me!  You will not be
afraid, here with Timmy, will you?"

"Land!  No!  I ain't afraid of anything when a door's between me an'
it!"

"Father Cary will be up the mountain early!"  She turned in the door of
the bed-room to look back at the two her care had made comfortable;
then she closed it, and went out of the other door into the storm.




IX

She never forgot that night.  When the door of Mother Cary's house
closed behind her, and she faced the wind and blinding rain, she awoke.
That was the way she always thought of it--as an awakening.

The Allen house lay beyond Father Cary's pasture; she knew the way by
day--down through the garden, then through the woods to the rock-ribbed
clearing where the cattle were, then up, into woods again; but in the
dark it was for her but a wild, instinctive rush, a stumbling over
rock-broken ground, a splashing through pools of water; on through the
darkness, on from one darkness to another, turning from time to time to
look back at Mother Cary's light as a guide to direction.  Yet on she
flew, impelled by a conquering fear that drove out all lesser fears,
over rough places, through woods, up the ascent of hills, running as
much of the way as she could, bending against the wind that seemed
trying to force her back, praying that she might find the way, praying
that she might be in time.

At last, though she could never tell how she had come to it, a light
gleamed faintly through the dark and the rain.  At last--the Allen
house!  She tumbled to the door, paused a moment for breath, and opened
it.

It was the usual one-room cabin of the mountaineer; there were strange,
shelf-like beds against the farthest wall, and in a corner a wooden
bedstead.  It was from there that John Ogilvie looked up as she opened
the door.

"Quick!  That largest bottle--saturate something--anything--and hold it
over her face!"

She worked with him, obeying blindly, while he struggled through the
night for a woman's life, while the poor hungry baby awoke at intervals
to wail its complaint from the other bed, while the storm shook the
house and the rain swept down unceasingly.  Once he bade her get more
light.  There were no more lamps; she knelt down on the hearth to blow
into the flame the scraps she had gathered up in her bare hands from
the wood-box; those lighted, and lacking more, somehow she broke the
box itself--a task ordinarily as far beyond her strength as her
imagination.  It was by the light of that blaze that he finished his
work, leaving Rosamund free to do what she could for the baby.

But, when at last there was time for speech, neither found anything to
say.  He remembered too well the brutal words he had thrown at her a
few hours before; he could not but fear that her silence meant that
she, too, was recalling them.  He saw her there beside the hearth, the
baby on her knees; but he saw her also in the doorway, her hair
wind-blown and wet, and her eyes wide with fear and dread,
determination and hope.  He could have grovelled at her feet, had not
her silence held him back; but speak he could not; great emotion was
always to leave him inarticulate.

But as for Rosamund, she was unaware of his silence or her own.  She
was like a woman after her travail, who is content to lie in silence,
because the purpose of the world has been revealed to her.  Life--that
was it--to further life, to prolong it, to minister to it!  How futile
was all else!  How valueless were the things she had been taught to
value most!  Her shielded ignorance, her--her refinement--of what use
were they, when they could not face such an emergency as last night's?
Her money, that could have bought a hospital--what had it bought last
night, when only the service of her own two hands could help to save a
woman's life?  The pursuits of her kind--she smiled, remembering
Ogilvie's orderly haste, as unerringly he cut, and tied and sewed,
while she as unfalteringly watched him, even assisted.  No!  For her
there was nothing to say; she knew now what life was for.  It was not
the empty, useless existence she had known.  It had a deeper meaning, a
purpose worthier its Maker.  It was wonderful beyond words.  She had
nothing to say.

Neither of them was aware that the dawn had come, until someone knocked
on the door.  Then Ogilvie opened it to Father Cary, and to the
grayness of a still driving rain.

The stalwart old man stepped inside and looked about the cabin, at the
quietly breathing woman on the bed, at Ogilvie, at Rosamund beside the
fire trying to persuade the baby to take something warm from a spoon.

"So!" he said.  "And where's Jim Allen?"

Ogilvie threw up both his hands, hopelessly.  "Where he always is--back
in the woods at one of the stills, dead drunk, like as not."

"More'n likely," Father Cary acquiesced.  Then, nodding towards the
bed, he asked, "What's the matter with _her_?"

"Nothing now.  She would have been dead, though, if I had operated half
an hour later.  Lord knows how long she's been lying there.  The baby's
nearly dead, too--half-starved and half-poisoned by his mother's
illness."

"How'd you happen to come?" the old man asked.

"The oldest boy came for me--all the way over to the Summit, and he's
not six.  He's at my house in bed now."

Then Father Cary crossed the room, and stood beside Rosamund, looking
down at her.  She met his look with a quiet smile.

"New work for you, ain't it?" he asked.  "Ma Cary'll be real proud o'
ye!"

And answering the question in her eyes, he went on, "Oh, she'll be home
again in time to get dinner.  Wasn't nothin' the matter with the baby;
but Nancy's that nervous, an' so's Ma Cary."  He chuckled.  "I reckon
it takes some experience and a right smart o' ca'm to be a real
successful granny."

The doctor was becoming impatient.  "Will you stay here with Miss
Randall, Cary?  I must get someone to come; she"--nodding towards the
bed--"will need watching until we can find Allen."

So for an hour or so Pa Cary sat opposite Rosamund or busied himself
preparing for breakfast the little food to be found in the house.  The
other children awoke, tumbling down backwards from the high box-bed,
looking across at their mother with scared faces, and distrustfully at
Rosamund.

At last Ogilvie returned, bringing Grace Tobet with him, and Rosamund
was free to go home with Father Cary.

But there must first be the inevitable moment when she and Ogilvie
should stand face to face.  It happened simply enough.  Grace had taken
Rosamund's place beside the fire, replenished now through Father Cary's
efforts in the outer shed; the old man had gone out for a last armful
of wood, and Rosamund was about to take down her coat from its nail on
the door.

Then, somehow, Ogilvie was standing before her.  He looked at her with
trembling lips; he did not dare to trust himself to speak.  He could
only hold out his hands.

She turned her tired face up to him, looking, searchingly, it seemed,
into his eyes.  Then, smiling, she laid her hands for the breath of a
moment in his, and with a little gasp reached for her coat and ran out
to join Father Cary.

She was glad that Eleanor's departure, and the rain, kept them apart
for a few days after that.  She dreaded the restraint that she thought
they both must feel when they should meet; but, when the meeting came
at last, there was no embarrassment at all.

Father Cary had left her at the Summit and she meant to walk back to
the house on the mountain, to make the most of the first clear day
after the rain.  There was a little brown house, set on the brow of the
hill overlooking the valley, almost opposite the mountain whence Mother
Cary's light shone every night.  Rosamund had often noticed the little
place, and to-day, at the store, she had heard the men talking about
it.  The man who owned it had come from the city a year or so before,
with his wife, to be near Doctor Ogilvie.  They were young, and the
young do not see very far ahead.  It had seemed to them in their
distress that they would have to stay there forever; they had done many
things to the little house, and put into it many of the comforts they
had been used to.  Now the man was well, and they were going back to
the city.

"Want to sell out," the postmaster had told her.  "Humph!  Wouldn't
mind sellin' out myself!  Like to know who's going to buy prop'ty up
here, this time o' year!"

So, as she approached the little house on her way home, Rosamund was
busily thinking about it.  Perhaps, subconsciously, the idea had been a
long time growing in her mind; but when she turned the last bend in the
road that hid the house from her view, a plan seemed to burst upon her
with all the novelty of a revelation.  She stood still, looking first
at the house, then across the valley towards the place which had
sheltered her all summer.  She was not aware that a vehicle drawn by a
familiar white horse was just turning out of a wood-road into the
highway, scarcely ten yards behind her.

But Ogilvie, in the sudden gladness of thus unexpectedly coming upon
her, called out.

"Oh, good luck!  Let me give you a lift, won't you?"

The embarrassment that she had been dreading was not there!  They were
as simply glad to see each other as two children; laughing, she took
the place beside him in the buggy.

He had never looked more cheerful.  "So I caught you staring into the
Marvens' windows!" he accused her.

She laughed again.  "I am tempted to buy that little house," she told
him.

"Why don't you?" he asked, lightly.  "And go there to live, and take
Timmy and Yetta with you!"  He smiled down at her, indulgently, as at
the fancies of a child.

"That was just precisely what I was thinking of doing," she replied.
"We could be perfectly comfortable there during the winter.  I don't
want to go back to town one bit!"

"So you could," he agreed, still in his bantering tone.  "And I
wouldn't stop with Tim and Yetta.  I'd take in a few more.  You might
borrow some little Allens, or get someone to lend you an orphan asylum."

Rosamund put her head back and laughed aloud, merrily.  "But I am
perfectly in earnest!" she cried; and was, from that moment.

But if the doctor refused to take the idea seriously, it was quite
otherwise with Mother Cary.  When Rosamund disclosed to her the
half-formed plan--she had come to discuss nearly everything with that
fount of human wisdom--the dear soul did not seem surprised at all, but
at once made a thoroughly feminine mental leap into the very middle of
arrangements.

"Why, of course, dearie, it will be just splendid!  And you won't need
so very many furnishin's.  There's some cheers up in our loft you might
take, and you can have things up from the city.  Yetta's learned a good
deal this summer.  I can bake for you for a while, till the child gets
more used to the work, and I reckon you can manage the rest of it
betwixt you."

"Do you suppose," Rosamund asked, "that Grace Tobet would come, too?"

Mother Cary sat down in her little low rocking chair, and laid her
crutch on the brick floor of the front walk, always a sign of her
settling down for a real talk.  Things had been going worse and worse
with the Tobets; Rosamund and Yetta went down almost daily, but beyond
their friendly visits there seemed little they could do.  The
Government's suspicions were centering on Joe, the big, born leader of
rough elements, and on his band of four or five other men, who would
follow him to death or worse.  Jim Allen was one; but now, repentant
and sobered by the baby's death, he was at home nursing his wife.
Grace had sped through the woods in the night to warn Joe and his
followers more than once; yet even to Ogilvie she denied any knowledge
of Joe's business.

"It's squirrels he's after," she said, "and sometimes drink; all this
talk of moonshine's jest foolishness.  I'd know it ef 'twas so.  It
ain't so!"

"Well, Mrs. Tobet," the doctor replied, "your squirrel stew would not
be to my liking!  Better keep the lid on the pot while it's cooking!"

He saw too many evidences of the moonshine's work to believe her; but
he had seen Joe Tobet come home, and he honored Grace, too familiar
with human nature to marvel at her faithfulness.  Mother Cary alone
knew all that Grace Tobet knew; all secrets were safe in her kind old
heart, and even from Pap she hid this one, for Father Cary was not one
of those who hold councils of compromise with the Evil One.  Therefore,
when Rosamund suggested Grace Tobet, Mother Cary sat down to think it
out.

After a few minutes' silent pondering, she said, "Honey, I've never
been one to advise the partin' of husband and wife!  Howsomever, if
there's any good left in Joe Tobet, it may be the surest way o'
bringin' him back to straight ways o' livin', ef we can coax Grace to
leave him for a while."

"I'm afraid I can't give a thought to Joe's salvation," Rosamund
declared.  "But Grace--oh, she's too fine to be left there!  I should
like to give her one winter of comfort!"

"Well, you haven't got a holt of her yet," Mother Cary reminded her,
"an' it wouldn't be but half comfort for her, the outside half,
anyways, away from her man.  But I can't see what anybody could do
better than to keep little Tim and Yetta up here out o' harm's way, and
maybe save Grace Tobet an' Joe, too.  Land's sake, dearie, you must be
quite well off!"

It seemed to come to Mother Cary suddenly, and was the first spark of
curiosity Rosamund had ever known her to show.  Until now her wisdom
had seemed all-embracing; but that a young woman, that Rosamund, who
had lived so quietly in her house all summer, could carry out a
suddenly formed plan of buying a house and sheltering three
people--this was evidently quite outside of her experience.  She looked
up with unwonted surprise in her face.  Rosamund bent and kissed the
wrinkled pink cheek.

"Dear, dear Mother Cary," she said, "I am so well off that I could
probably buy every house at the Summit, and build as many more!  I am
so well off that I have never in all my life, until this summer, had a
chance to find out how well off I am!  I am so well off that I did not
know how poor I have been, nor how much people can need the wretched
mere money, nor how very, very little it can really do!  I have only
begun to find out what life is made of, and so I'm not well off at all!"

Tears came into her eyes as she spoke, and she turned her head away;
but Mother Cary's hand was stretched towards her, instantly.  Presently
she said, in the low tone which was the tenderest and sweetest of all:

"Dearie child, when the young folks come an' tell me things like you're
tellin' me now, I reckon there ain't anybody in the world as well off
as me!  An' I'll tell you jest what it is makes you do it--it's because
I'm so happy!  An' I'll tell you jest what makes me so happy.  I let
Pap take keer o' me, an' I try to take keer o' him an' jest as many
other folks as I can!  That's the whole of it!"  After a pause she
added, "You're goin' to do jest the same as me, both in keering for
someone, an' in bein' took keer of!"

Rosamund's eyes opened wide; she paled a little and pressed her hand
against her trembling lips.  "I don't know," she whispered.  "I'm
afraid!  Oh, I'm afraid!"

Mother Cary patted the hand she held, and knew too much to speak.
Their thoughts, in the silence, wandered far; came back and dwelt upon
the things that were, the things to be; there is no way of knowing
whether they went hand in hand, but after a while Mother Cary said:

"Dearie, I wouldn't tell him, if I was you, about--about all you have,
the money an'--you know!--I wouldn't tell the doctor yet a while!"

Rosamund drew her breath sharply, and her face flamed; she was too
startled to answer, but in a moment she left her place on the bench and
knelt beside the old woman, hiding her face on the knees where so many
had found comfort.  Mother Cary smoothed her hair, and after a while
began to talk, almost as if to herself.

"There's a friend o' mine sometimes spends her summers up around here;
she's married to a eye doctor--that's how come Yetta got sent up here
to me.  Her husband knew Doctor Ogilvie down in the city.  She told me
there never was one they thought more of, down there; they said he
found out more about nerves than anybody else in the world, and he used
to work day and night and in between times, trying to discover more.
They said there never was such a one with little child'en; he could
almost make 'em over new, seemed like.  They said he never cared
whether folks could pay him or not for what he did--all he cared for
was the curin' of 'em.  I can well believe it, too, for many's the time
I see him almost starved without knowin' what's the matter with him,
and he ain't a mite particler about his clo'es.  Well, he worked an' he
worked; and one day my friend's husband, that was one o' his friends,
went into his little room where he kept his bottles and things, and
found him layin' on the floor.  They thought he surely would die, but
praise the Lord, that wasn't to be; only, he had to give up his work
down in the big horspital.  I often think on what that must 'a' been to
him.  I reckon it must 'a' been worse than it would be for Pap to give
up a raisin' them white hogs o' his he's so proud of.  Anyway, he come
up here, an' he got well!  And now he says he hasn't got time to go
back there again--there's too much for him to do up here all the time.
So he jest rides around the country with that Rosy horse.  Somebody
asked him once why he didn't buy an automobile.  He said for one thing
he hadn't the money for it; and for another, he needed White Rosy to
remind him where he was going!"

Mother Cary stopped to laugh; Rosamund raised her head, with an
answering smile that was half tears.

"Land sakes," Mother Cary went on, "I do believe if it wasn't for Rosy
he'd sometimes forget to come home!  When they get to one o' the houses
where he visits, Rosy stops and turns her head around; ef he don't say
anything to her, there she stands; but if he tells her he don't have to
get out there that day, Rosy jogs along to the next place!  I'm real
fond o' humans, but sometimes I do wish't they all knew as much as the
doctor's Rosy!"

This time Rosamund joined in the laugh.  But the old woman had more to
tell.  "Time was when I might 'a' wondered how come he stays on here,
him bein' the great doctor he is; but I'm so old now that I know too
much to wonder about anything any more!  There's folks in this world
that never can find any work to do, and there's folks that makes work
for themselves, and then again there's folks that are so busy with the
work right at hand that they never get time to find out whether they're
workin' or not.  That's Doctor Ogilvie's kind.  He's so busy workin' up
here in the mountings, that he never stops to think about whether he is
doing the work he likes best or not; it's just work he has to do,
because it's here to be done, and that's all there is to it for him.
He works so hard at it, inside his own head, that he forgets most
everything else.  Land, I remember the time he sat up with me all night
long, workin' over Milly Grate's baby that had the membranious
croup--dipthery, he called it.  Come mornin', an' he told Milly the
baby'd get well, he suddenly went out and sat right down on the
doorstep; come to find out, he'd brought two babies into the world the
day before and driven twenty-two miles and walked about a dozen--and
forgotten to take a bite to eat!  Another time, somebody sent a little
boy over the mounting for him in a hurry; he was at a house where a man
had broke his leg, and White Rosy was waitin' for him at the gate; but
when he heard how bad off the little girl was he'd been sent for,
didn't he jest set out and run all the way there, forgettin' that there
was such a thing as a wagon to ride in, and White Rosy still a waitin'!

"And he boards with the Widder Speers, where it ain't likely she can
make him very comfortable, she bein' well past eighty; but he found out
soon after he come up here that she would have to be moved to--the
place where nobody likes to go!--she not having any support; so he
boards there, an' she doesn't have to leave her home, that her husband
built for her when they was married, and where her only son died.  You
might hunt the world over, honey-bird, without findin' any better man
than Doctor Ogilvie!  But, somehow or other, ef I was you, I wouldn't
let on to him that I had as much money as you say you have.  Money's a
dreadful stumblin'-block to some people!  And you never can tell which
way men folks'll jump!"

It had been long since Rosamund, trained in self-control as she had
been, was so keenly aware of intense embarrassment.  Her first impulse
was to feel affront at Mother Cary's taking so much for granted in her
relations with the doctor; but no one could really be angry with Mother
Cary.  She was abashed that the old woman had divined more than she
herself had been aware of; and then there arose the doubt that she had
so often felt of the doctor's personal interest in herself or her
affairs.  She yielded to the maiden's inevitable longing for
reassurance.

"What makes you think," she whispered, her cheek against Mother Cary's
hand, "what makes you think that he--would be--interested?"

"Darlin'!" Mother Cary cried, "John Ogilvie thinks a heap o' you--but
he ain't got hardly a suspicion of it yet--any more than you know how
much you're goin' to care for him!"

Then, with the usual coincidence, the object of their talk came into
view, driving White Rosy toward the little green gate, Yetta on one
side of him and Tim on the other; they waved to the two in front of the
house, but Rosamund sprang to her feet and fled indoors.




X

Rosamund awoke the next morning with her mind joyously full of her new
plans; but it was little Tim who suggested that which crowned them.
Tim was always the first member of the household, after Father Cary, to
go out of doors in the mornings; to-day he brought back a tight handful
of stemless blossoms to present to Rosamund.  Dewy and rosy-cheeked, he
had never before appeared as much the baby as on this morning, standing
in front of her with his feet apart, holding up his floral offering.

"It was all ve pretty flowers 'at was awake," he announced.  "Here--I
'ikes you!"

"Land!  I hope he ain't been in my geraniums!" said Mother Cary, from
the stove; but Rosamund grasped the chubby hand, with its blossoms, and
kissed it.

"They are beautiful, Tim!  I 'ike you, too!  And Tim, how would you
like to live with me all the time?"

He stared at her for a moment.  "Oh!  O-o-oh!  Is you gonin' to 'dopt
me?"

Mother Cary, with an exclamation, turned quickly to watch the two;
Rosamund met her eyes over the boy's head.  Her plan was coming to
birth.

"Do you want me to, Tim?" she asked.

The child's lips began to quiver.  Then he dumped himself down upon the
floor, and howled.  "Want my White Lady!" he cried.  "Want to 'dopt my
White Lady!"

Swiftly he was lifted in Rosamund's arms.  "Good for you, Tim!  Good
for you, old man!  I'm glad you know your own mind!" she cried.

She gathered him up, threw herself into a big rocking chair, set him
astride on her knees and rocked him wildly back and forth, down until
his curls nearly touched the floor, then up again, up in a bubble of
laughter and kisses, Timmy forgetting his tears to shout with glee,
down and up again, down and up, the child screaming with joy.  Father
Cary and Yetta coming in from the barn to breakfast, stood in the
doorway laughing, Yetta wondering a little at Miss Rose's unwonted
exuberance.  Mother Cary had already taken her place at the table, and
was laughing in sympathy with them.

When Rosamund stopped, breathless, with aching arms, Tim still demanded
"More!  More! do it 'den!"

"Land's sakes, honey-bird, what ails ye?" Mother Cary cried.  "I never
suspected you _could_ be so lively!"

For reply Rosamund looked at Yetta.  "When Tim adopts the 'White Lady,'
and I go to live with them, will you come, too, Yetta?" she asked.

"Is that a conundrum?  I ain't much good at riddles!" Yetta declared.

Rosamund laughed; she would have laughed at anything to-day.  "Not a
riddle--an answer, Yetta!  You and Timmy, Mrs. Reeves and I, are all
going to live together in the brown house at the Summit!  What do you
think of that?"

"Sho', now!  That's the very ticket!" said Mother Cary.  "How come you
didn't think o' Mis' Reeves yesterday, lamb?  But--ain't she held by
that Mis' Hetherbee?"

"Yes, she is; but I think we can persuade Mrs. Hetherbee to let her
come."

"Gee!  I'd be glad to get away from that old one, if 'twas me!" said
Yetta, in an aside which the others thought best to ignore.

"Pap," said Mother Cary, "if so be you'll put the harness on Ben, Miss
Rose and me'll drive over an' begin cleanin' the house this mornin'!"

The old man put down his knife and fork, looked from his wife to Miss
Randall, and back again.  "It do beat all how you women-folks jump into
the middle o' things the minute you get started," he said.  "The house
ain't even empty yet!"

"Land, I forgot all about them Marvens," said Mother Cary.  "No matter!
It gives us all the more time to get good an' ready, honey-bird!"

Rosamund very soon began to realize that she needed time.  First of
all, she sent for her man of business, an excellent person who lacked
imagination, and was later found to disapprove of purchases of little
brown houses or of anything else that could never bring interest or
increase in value.  But his disapproval of that investment was as
nothing to the objections he made to another.  It was not until
Rosamund reminded him that her twenty-fifth birthday had come and gone,
releasing the Randall property from all trust and making it now her
own, and declared that if he refused to obey her directions she would
be obliged to ask someone else to look after her interests, that he
reluctantly consented to it.

Then there was the delicate matter of bringing Eleanor to consent to
her plans.


DARLING ELEANOR [she wrote]: I have decided that Timmy must be adopted.
I make the announcement first of all, because I know that if I did not
mention him at once, you would skip all the first part of my letter
until you found his name, and only read on from there.  And I have a
proposition which needs to be presented right end foremost.  So--Tim
_must_ be adopted.  He has his heart set upon it; and he has turned out
to be such a darling little boy.  He cannot be sent back to the
Charities, to be looked over and refused by people who would not
appreciate him, anyway.  Doctor Ogilvie says that he must stay here
another year, if he is to be made entirely well; but unless he has the
best of care after that, and is made happy, he will not live to be the
good and useful man we should like to see him.  Doctor Ogilvie is a
great believer in the curative powers of happiness; and you know he is
a very good doctor.  Well--I have already made over to Tim some money,
to be held in trust for him until he is twenty-five.  The entire
interest is to be given, until said time, to the adopted parent of said
Tim, according to said agreement, for the use and maintenance of said
parent and said Tim, the entire amount to be paid over to him
twenty-one years after the execution of the deed of trust.  I do hope
you are properly impressed by that legal phraseology, Eleanor darling.
I put in all the 'saids' I could, just as the lawyers do.  I want you
to see what a fine and wonderful thing it is for Timmy, Timmy the waif,
to be the subject of anything so impressive; and the sum of money I
have given him will provide simple comfort for him and his
parent-by-adoption; only, of course, I must be sure that his parent is
a person whom I can trust to spend it as it should be spent, and so to
bring up the boy that he will be worthy of his--let's call it his
inheritance--when he finally receives it.  So it has all been done
subject to one condition.  Unless that condition should be fulfilled,
the child will have to go back to the Charities; I had a great
discussion about it all with Mr. Leeds, my lawyer; and he only
consented to draw up the paper subject to that condition.  It is
that--oh, Eleanor, don't say 'no'!--it is that you will adopt little
Tim, let him fill that empty place in your heart, teach him to be a
good man, and--I shall spoil it if I write another word, dear White
Lady, sweet White Lady, White Lady that Timmy loves!  See this blur,
Eleanor--it is where he has pressed a kiss, to send to his White Lady.
R.


To this Eleanor replied, "I have your letter.  I must think."  Rosamund
tried to be satisfied with that for a while; but as the days passed and
Eleanor wrote nothing more, and as Cecilia must be persuaded and her
trustees interviewed, she sent her sister a night letter, begging her
to join her in New York immediately.  She told Ogilvie and the others
that she was going to buy furniture for the house, which was true
enough.

There was that in the interview with the lawyers that put Cecilia into
a most complaisant state of mind; when she thought of Rosamund's having
put the greater part of the Randall income at her disposal she could
not find it in her heart to show disapproval of anything else that
Rosamund might choose to do.  The only protest she made was at the gift
to the little waif.

"Pure Quixotism, my dear, never gains you a thing.  It is the most
utter madness I ever heard of."

"Well, it will gain Timmy something, and Eleanor something; and you
know very well, Cecilia, that I shall never miss it."

"We won't discuss it," Cecilia said, "but I am sure that not even
Colonel Randall would have done anything so wildly impulsive."

Rosamund could find very little to say to that; she knew well enough
that nothing but her faith in Eleanor could make it seem anything but a
hazardous experiment.  Mother Cary had seen nothing but good in the
plan, but here in New York idealism seemed out of place; what had
appeared fine there looked foolish here.  She was beginning to doubt
the excellence of her plan, when word came from Eleanor that Mrs.
Hetherbee was back in town.  Rosamund called at once, presenting
Cecilia's cards with her own, as the first move in the little social
campaign that she foresaw.  Eleanor, in her white gown, looked
strangely out of place in Mrs. Hetherbee's florid apartment that
overlooked the Hudson, and had every splendor known to apartments, even
to an up-and-down-stairs of its own.

Eleanor kissed her, then held her off for a long look.

"Rose, Rose!  How can you tempt me so?" she cried.  "It is only a
scheme for giving the money to me!"

"Eleanor, tell me the truth.  Did you and Tim fall in love with each
other at first sight, or not?"

"Ah!  Little Tim!"

"Precisely!  Little Tim!  Would you deprive him of such an opportunity
as this?"

"Oh, you would never take the money away from him, Rose--now?"

"But it is not his, yet!  It never can be, unless you will take him for
your son--for your own little boy, Eleanor!  Think of it!"

"I do think of it!  I haven't thought of anything else."

"Except, my dear, that you, too, will benefit by the plan!  So you are
trying to refuse.  Don't be selfish, Eleanor!"

"Selfish?  To deny myself what I want most in the world?"

"You and Tim seem to know your own minds!  When I asked him if _I_
should adopt him, he plumped down on the floor and yelled for his White
Lady."

"Rose!  Don't make it so hard!"

"It is you who are making it hard!  I have grown very fond of Timmy,
and I should hate, just hate to see him go back to the Charities.
Think of the poor mite being scrubbed up and dressed in a clean striped
gingham, and brought out to be inspected by possible adopters!  Think
how he will feel when they say, 'Oh, I don't think we want a little boy
with hip disease!' or 'Haven't you any--er--prettier children?'

"Oh, Rose!"  Eleanor put her hands over her eyes, while Rosamund drew
her down to one of Mrs. Hetherbee's Louis Quinze settees.

"Eleanor," she said, seriously, "let us admit, if you want to, that I
am giving the money to you.  Of course it will be practically your own
until you have had Tim twenty-one years.  I have such faith in what you
will do with him that I give the whole amount to Tim, outright, after
then.  I have such faith in the son he will be to you, that I am
willing to let him have the joy of taking care of his mother after that
time.  Do you suppose I would give him money, if he were going to a
stranger?  Cecilia calls me Quixotic, but I assure you I am not as far
gone as all that." Eleanor was weakening.  "It is a great deal of
money, Rosamund," she said.

"Oh, if that's all that's troubling you!  It does not seem much to me.
Besides, I owe the world something!"

"Ah!"  Eleanor put her hand to the girl's cheek, turning her face until
she could look into her eyes.  "Rose, what else has the summer taught
you?"

Rosamund's eyes widened a little.  "We have no time to talk of that now
while Timmy is waiting for his mother!"

"His mother!  Oh, how you tempt me, Rose!"

"Listen, Eleanor!  I have bought that little house at the Summit that
the Marvens lived in.  Mr. Marven is cured, and they have gone back to
the city.  I am going to live in it this winter, with you and Tim and
Yetta; I have already sent down to Augusta for my old Mammy Susan and
her husband, Matt, to meet me there two weeks from now.  The Charities
will not let you or me or anyone else adopt Timmy without a year's
probation first.  Come with me for this winter, and see how we all feel
about it when the year is out.  Come as my housekeeper.  Put away your
selfish pride, White Lady--and let your salary be what Timmy's interest
would be if you had already adopted him.  A year will help us all to
wisdom perhaps."

Eleanor, with head bent, and hands clasped in her lap, thought for a
long moment.

"I am asking you to take too much responsibility upon yourself, I
suppose!" Rosamund said at last, slyly watching her friend.  Eleanor
turned at once, swift to deny.

"How can you insinuate such a thing!  Are they open, at the Charities
building, in the afternoon?"

Rosamund threw her arms about the White Lady's neck in a
half-strangling embrace.  "You darling!  Yes, we will go there at once!
I told them we'd be there this afternoon!"

"Rose!" Eleanor cried.  "How could you?"

"Oh, I knew you could never in the world send Tim back to them!"

They forgot Mrs. Hetherbee until they had signed the provisional papers
of adoption for the child, and were on their way uptown in Cecilia's
new limousine, which she had loaned Rosamund for the afternoon.  It was
disconcerting to find that Mrs. Hetherbee had no intention of releasing
Eleanor; but Cecilia allowed herself to be persuaded to join in the
campaign.  When at last Cecilia sent for a society reporter who had
never before succeeded in penetrating to her, and gave out the
interesting item that she was to dine, _en famille_, with Mrs.
Hetherbee on the twenty-second, the little lady capitulated, even
adding her blessing.

To Cecilia, admiration was an incense always acceptable; Mrs. Hetherbee
amused her, and one had to do something to amuse one's self.  There was
nothing exciting in Rosamund's shopping expeditions.  The city might
have been deserted, so few of their own friends were in town.  Some
lingered at their country places, others were in Lenox for the hunting,
or still abroad.  The effect of New York's social emptiness was to draw
more closely together than was possible during the busier season the
comparative few who for one reason or another were in town.  There was
more time for lunching together and going afterwards for a spin toward
the Westchester hills or over to one of the Long Island golf courses;
and for one of the week-ends, which were torrid with the humidity of
late September, they stood out to sea aboard one of the steam yachts
that were beginning to bring their owners back to the North River.
Sometimes a longing for her mountains would sweep so strongly over
Rosamund that she would have a sense of unreality, as if she were in a
strange land, among strange people, instead of having just returned to
the familiar noise and glitter of New York.

One morning, when they had been shopping about for things that refused
to be discovered, and clothes which should be simple enough for the
brown house, and Cecilia had refused to go farther until she had had
something to eat, they went to their favorite lunching place, now
curiously deserted except by people who seemed to have come from
another world, who spoke in strange accents and stared about them as if
still under the spell of the man with the megaphone.  In a corner of
the overdecorated room near a window which was still shielded by awning
and window boxes from the Avenue's glare, Cecilia sank back, weary, and
frankly out of sorts with everything.

"It is a most horrible time of year for shopping," she said, after she
had ordered their luncheon with great precision.  "There is not a thing
left in the shops.  I wonder what they do with the clothes that were
left over?  Does somebody wear them, or do they just throw them out, or
what?  Or is it because you are hunting for such queer things,
Rosamund?"

Rosamund laughed.  "But they won't be queer in the mountains, Cecilia,"
she said.

"I am glad I shall not have to look at them," Mrs. Maxwell replied.
"But if you are going to do the peculiar, I suppose you may as well be
consistently peculiar all the way along.  Only, don't expect me to like
it, nor approve of it; and don't think I'm encouraging you in it.  I am
going about with you because someone has to; I think you are foolish,
_very_, and I really do _NOT_ believe even Colonel Randall would have
approved of your going off like this!"

Hunger and fatigue had worn on poor Cecilia's nerves; but if she had
dreamed of having any other audience than her sister, the scolding
would have been subdued.  Flood and Pendleton, finishing their luncheon
in a distant corner, had seen the two and made their ways towards them.
The sharpness of Cecilia's tone seemed to amuse Marshall.

"Dear me, Cecilia," he said, so close behind her that she fairly
jumped, while Rosamund smiled, "what's going off?"

Cecilia's eyes looked dangerous, and Flood, laughing, came to the
rescue.  "Come off with us, won't you?" he asked, so genially that for
the first time Rosamund felt some warmth of response to his smile.  "We
thought of running up Westchester way for the afternoon; won't you come
with us?"

His lover's quick perception told him that Rosamund was not averse to
the interruption of the _tête-à-tête_, and he looked at her rather than
at Cecilia for response.  "There's a bit of woods back of Pocantico
that always reminds me of those Virginia places where the leaves remain
pale green, and the sunlight comes through and touches the ferns; you
know!"

His own eloquence rather abashed him; but Rosamund's tired face
flushed; his words recalled to her the very scent of the woods;
suddenly, there overlooking the Avenue, amid the vibrating undertone of
noises, in the place of all others where the wealth of the metropolis
and its cosmopolitanism that is unlike any other cosmopolitanism
manifests itself most impressively, she was homesick for the mountains
and her friends there.  She could have cried out with longing; and
Flood's offer of a glimpse of woods was to her what the blossom is to
the man in a hospital.

"Oh, yes!" she said, leaning towards him with a little air of
eagerness.  "Oh, yes, do take us!  I'd rather get out to the woods than
do anything else in the world this afternoon!"

Flood's face reddened deeply with the satisfaction of having scored at
last.  He and Pendleton drew up chairs and chatted while the two women
disposed of their skillfully combined luncheons.

"I say, Flood, make her promise not to desert us again," cried
Pendleton.

"It is rather brave of you, Marshall, to talk about desertions!"
Cecilia remarked.

Pendleton grinned.  "I haven't deserted you, Cecilia," he said.  "I
retreated!  You know I'm afraid of you, Cecilia, when you're in a
temper."

Flood was beginning to look distressed, but Rosamund smiled at him.
"Let them squabble, Mr. Flood!  I want to tell you about Timmy!"

Flood's look brightened.  "Ah!  The little chap we bumped into!  Yes!
And do tell me about Ogilvie.  Didn't you find him a good fellow?"

She told him of her plans for the child and for her winter; Flood
listened, saying little.  It put him to shame that she should be doing
everything for the two waifs, but her doing so only set her on a higher
throne in the heaven of his longing.  So intent was he on listening to
every word, catching every intonation, watching every fleeting
expression, that he was unaware of her not answering his question about
Ogilvie.

At last Flood was driving his own car northward out of the city.  A
hope that fortune would continue further to smile upon him had prompted
his asking a third man, who came up to speak to them, to join their
party, so that he could release his chauffeur for the afternoon; and it
was either an undefined wish to be rid of Cecilia for a few hours, or
else a latent sense of gratitude, which prompted Rosamund to take her
place beside him, smiling divinely--or so he fondly thought--at him,
and roguishly at Cecilia and her attendant swains.  Cecilia thoroughly
enjoyed having two men to herself, especially as Marshall had been none
too faithful since their parting in Virginia, and the situation offered
an opportunity for discipline.  The third man was benignly unaware of
complications, and Rosamund openly laughed at Pendleton's expression of
disgust.

They had passed out of the place side by side, while Flood went ahead
to see to the car.  "What's the matter with its little nose?" Rosamund
laughed at Pendleton.  "All out of joint?"

"You are perfectly disgusting, Rosamund," he replied in a most
matter-of-fact tone, quite as if he were saying the sun was warm or the
car was there.  "Your manners have become contaminated, and your
complexion has suffered, and you are a most disagreeable person.  I
hope you'll be stout before you are thirty!  There!"

Rosamund's laugh was so frankly merry that Cecilia turned on a quick
impulse of repression.  Rosamund ought to know better than to laugh
aloud in the door of a restaurant!  But Flood was beside them, the
other man might misunderstand a sisterly admonition, and Pendleton's
raised eyebrows of disgust quite satisfied her.  She allowed herself to
be helped into the tonneau, happy in her own situation.

Flood knew better than to attempt small talk; he divined that he could
better make himself felt by saying nothing than by saying the wrong
thing.  They passed swiftly northward out of the city, following upland
roads that gave enchanting glimpses of the river and of nearer gardens;
after an hour or so he brought his car to slow speed.  They were beyond
Sleepy Hollow, in woods of new growth, ferny depths, scarcely touched
by sunlight, roadsides where pale asters set themselves like stars.

"Isn't it like Virginia?" Flood asked.

Rosamund only nodded; but presently she almost whispered, "I love it!
Oh, I love it!"

"You are really going to spend the winter there?" Flood asked.

"Yes," she told him.  "It somehow seems like home to me."

He knew that he must move carefully into her thoughts.  "I understand
how that can be," he said, after a pause.  "There was a place in Idaho
that used to make me choke every time I passed it; I never knew why,
until one day an English fellow happened to say as we rode by, 'Jove,
there must be trout in that brook!'  Then I knew it made me homesick,
because every boy has something in him that makes him want to fish.  I
had wanted to, worst sort, when I was a youngster--though I was born in
an inland city, and never had a chance to.  It just made me homesick
for the boyhood I ought to have had!"

Rosamund looked at him in amazement.  Subtlety and imagination from
Flood she had never foreseen; her own imagination was fired at once,
and her face flushed a little with shame at what she had thought of him
before.  Flood looked straight ahead, but he was more keenly aware of
the girl beside him than she of him.  His heart was pounding as if he
were setting out on a race; and indeed he beheld a stake before him as
clearly as ever in his life.  She answered, and he knew that he had
scored; at last he had made her aware of him!

So well had they progressed by the time they had got back to town that
he felt he could dare to say, before he left her, "I want to know those
Maryland and Virginia woods of yours better, myself."

He wondered afterwards whether he had said too much.




XI

After the Westchester afternoon there were two dinners with Flood as
host; and do what she would, she could not altogether escape his daily,
almost hourly attentions, without wounding his feelings and her own.
He did nothing she might not accept without in the least seeming to
bind herself by any obligation; the very intensity of his love urged
him to caution.  But when he suggested to Cecilia that, since her
sister had decided to go down by train, he should perhaps be going as
far as Washington on the same day, he would have divined Cecilia better
if he had not been so absorbed in his dreams of Rosamund; for Mrs.
Maxwell's ambitions had enlarged since early summer, and she did not
hesitate to divulge his plan.  Rosamund was to have taken the
Congressional; instead, she slipped away at nine o'clock; so anxious
was she to put distance between herself and Flood, that she would not
even wait for Eleanor.

On the way down, she wondered at something in Cecilia's expression when
she had made known her intention of running away from Flood's
companionship, but there was too much else in her mind to permit of her
spending much thought upon those she had just left; there was a warmth
in her heart as of the traveler's returning to the land of his
affection.  She had called New York her home for most of her life, and
lived in the mountains three months; yet behind her she left little
that she loved, and before her lay smiling fields of imagination; and
she found the vision sweet.  She planned the placing of the furniture
in the little house, made out a list of the things that should go in
each room, and wondered what she had forgotten.  She was carrying
little presents back with her, and she took them out of her bag, opened
their boxes to make sure they were quite right, put them back into
their wrappings, and with the pencil on her chatelaine wrote messages
on each.  Only for Ogilvie she had no gift; she had spent more time in
hunting something for him than in choosing her dining-room furniture,
and had come away with--nothing!  There was really nothing in all New
York that she could take back to the doctor!

When he met her at the little station in the October darkness of early
evening, she looked about for Yetta and Tim.

"I thought you would bring the children to welcome me!" she exclaimed,
and was glad that she had it to say.

But the doctor, who was walking beside her with her small hand bag,
only said, quietly, "No, you didn't!" and Rosamund's cheeks burned as
he helped her to her place behind White Rosy.

He asked her about her days in the city, but she had little to say of
them; what interested her now was the new home she was going to make.
As they approached it she peered through the darkness at the little
brown cottage, and they stopped for a moment to make sure that Mother
Cary's light could be seen from there.  She told him that Mrs. Reeves
was going to be with her, and that she had arranged with the Charities
to keep Timmy for a while longer; of the possible adoption she said
nothing, having bound Eleanor also to silence, ignoring the question in
his eyes.  When she spoke of her hope of having Grace live with them,
the doctor's face became grave.

"It would be the best thing in the world for Grace, in one way, and
perhaps for you; but--I am not thinking of anything specific--but Joe
Tobet, if angered, might be a dangerous enemy.  If he should resent
Grace's defection, and blame it on you----"

Rosamund laughed.  "Oh, but I am not in the least afraid of any Joe
Tobets, you know!" she said.  "What on earth could he do to me?"

"I suppose you mean what could a man of his class do to injure a woman
of yours?"

Her face flushed a little.  "Well, what if I do?"

"I think you'd find that he is unaware of class distinctions.  He
certainly would not regard them.  He might be vindictive; he might make
all sorts of trouble for you, and is sure to for Grace."

"Oh, but that's just the point!  I want to protect her from him!"

"It is not your place to!"  But then he turned towards her, and she
knew he smiled through the darkness.  "Play Lady Bountiful, if you
will, but do take my advice and let poor Grace work out her own
salvation."

She had no answering smile.  "Oh," she said, "I thought you were above
such phrases."

"Well, I thought so, too; but I'm not above anything when it's a
question of danger to--you."

The slight deepening of his tone was enough to make her hold her
breath; but she would not let emotion affect her desire to make her
intention clear to him.

"I do not believe there is any danger," she said, "but if there is I
think I cannot regard it.  I--I am not sure I can make you
understand--but I want to!  It is not just an idle whim that makes me
stay here this winter; it is not because I am tired of other things,
things I've always had.  I have been restless, I confess, but it is not
restlessness that has made me decide to stay here.  I have no theories
of life.  I'm afraid I've rather scorned the people who have; but
somehow I know that I have something to do here.  I cherish the belief
that I have.  I have never had any special thing to do, before, you
see!  So even if I knew that there was danger in my living in that
little brown house, and having poor Grace with me, I should ignore the
danger, because--well, because there is something for me to do here,
and I am going to try to do it."

They were down in the valley by this time, Mother Cary's lamp twinkling
far above them; there was light enough from the starlit sky for her to
see that he had taken off his old cap, worn out of deference to her
arrival, and that he ran his fingers backward through his hair, as
always when he was troubled.  He did not reply until they turned into
the shadow of the wooded road and Rosy was climbing the last half mile
of their drive.

"God knows, there's work a-plenty for every comer," he said.  "It is
not for me to tell you to keep out of it.  But I hadn't thought of it
in that way--for you."

"Perhaps I ought to tell you," she said, "that I can help in another
way.  I have heard Mother Cary talk about the people farther back in
the mountains--the people you see, but that only come out, she says,
when the 'summer folks' are gone.  Grace has told me about them, too.
I--I have some money at my disposal--I know where I can get a good
deal.  I thought perhaps you might--and Grace--use it in some way--you
would know how, wouldn't you?"

The thought of her deception, if such it was, made her hesitate in her
speech; but her disappointment was quick and keen that he did not at
once accept her suggestion.  When at last he spoke, his voice sounded
tired, and she did not understand his answer until she had pondered it
that night in her own room at Mother Cary's.

"I am afraid," he said, "that even with what you think is a good deal,
we should need another miracle of the loaves and fishes."




XII

In the weeks before they moved into the cottage, there were moments
when life presented itself to Rosamund in more difficult guise than she
had dreamed it ever wore.  Hitherto, it had been easy enough for her to
take up her abode in one place or another, as fancy led her; in New
York, in Georgia, in Europe, there were always people to smooth the
way--servants to make everything ready and comfortable, mother or
sister or one person or another to set in motion the many wheels of the
household clockwork.  She had never given a thought to the machinery of
life; it had seemed as simple as to breathe the free air.  Not even
Cecilia's warnings had touched upon the rudimentary difficulties she
found she had to meet.  Before the furniture arrived, there was the
first cleaning of the little house to be done, and no one to do it!
The summer people and their servants had departed; the hotels were
closed; the mountaineers held themselves haughtily aloof from domestic
service.  Eleanor would have known, but Mrs. Hetherbee kept her from
day to day; and Aunt Sue was taking her own time in leaving Georgia.
Grace Tobet and Yetta were always ready to do what they could, but they
were as untrained as Rosamund herself in the methods of doing things as
she had been used to having them.  Yet they were the only ones she
could find to help her, and she spent her days in a toil so
unaccustomed as to leave her breaking with fatigue.  She was ashamed to
find how inadequate she was for such elemental things; and disgust at
her own limitations, added to aching fatigue of body, left her little
able to stand against the opposition she was beginning to encounter
from everyone.

Pa Cary, gentlest of souls, became set in disapproval as firmly as the
doctor; and some undivulged, disquieting information increased
Ogilvie's first distrust of the plan.  At last even Mother Cary
somewhat shamefacedly agreed with them.

"I don't know as it wouldn't be better to shut up the house and stay
right here with us, honey," she said.  "Pap keeps tellin' me it ain't
safe for ye there alone, jest women and children.  I reckon that
colored man wouldn't skeer anybody off.  There's rough people in the
mountings.  They're used to folks summerin' here; but Pap says, what
with all this talk of the Gov'ment's men bein' around, some are sayin'
you know too much about the doin's o' this part of the country."

Rosamund knew the futility of expressing her indignation.  She only
felt that her die was cast, arrangements irrevocably made, that she
must go on.  Surely it was innocent enough to spend a winter in the
mountains, to keep a waif of a girl out of harm's way, and give healing
happiness to a child and a beloved woman.  That her heart held other
motive only the secret flaming of her cheeks attested.  She told
herself that the mountain people could not be so foolish as to
disbelieve their own senses, and determined to prove herself to them.
In time they must come to believe in her honesty and sincerity of
purpose, in her friendship for them and her loyalty.  It was largely
their distrust of the world beyond their close horizon that held them
in bondage to their own passions.  To enlighten them, to free them,
would be well worth while for anyone.  She said as much to Ogilvie, who
nevertheless continued to shake his head and warn her.

With the departure of the last "foreigner" the mountaineers were more
frequently seen.  During the summer Rosamund and Yetta had walked miles
on the strange, dimly marked paths through the woods, paths as vague
and deserted as if trodden only by timid wild feet trembling towards
secret drinking places; never had they met another soul upon them.  But
now, occasionally, they encountered lank women or timid children, who
peered with half-frightened eyes out of the depths of slat bonnets, and
sometimes said "howdy" in passing.  The Allen children no longer ran
away at sight of her, and their mother, now well enough to be about the
house, watched eagerly for Rosamund's visits; she had hopes of making
more friends among the women, through Mrs. Allen and Grace Tobet.
Several times, too, Mother Cary had visitors; and a little school in
the valley drew children from the hillsides in varying numbers.  As she
went back and forth between the little brown house and the Carys', the
people she passed stared at her curiously; the women, she thought, were
not unfriendly, but the men seemed distrustful and surly.

"Why do they look at me in that way?" she asked Grace Tobet, on an
afternoon when they were hastening homeward in the twilight.  "The men
all look at me as if I were some hateful thing--a spy, perhaps, or a--a
snake!  It hurts me to have them look at me in that way!  No one ever
did before!  I don't deserve it!"

But before Grace could reply a thing happened that hurt Rosamund far
more, that shook her to the depths of her pride and courage.  Something
struck her upon the arm, something that stung and bruised--a stone,
thrown from the wood-side bushes with accurate aim.  She cried out with
physical pain and pain that was also mental, and sprang towards Grace.
Someone moved off up the mountain, careless of the crackling
undergrowth.

Grace had her arms about Rosamund on the instant, and her answering cry
was almost as quick.

"What is it?  What ails ye?" she besought the trembling one within her
sheltering arms.

Rosamund's breath was coming in little sobbing gasps.  "Oh--o--oh!
Something--struck me--a stone, I think!"

From the wan spiritless creature that she usually was, Grace flashed
into a wild passion of anger.  Often before she had reminded Rosamund
of a sodden leaf, wind-blown and colorless; now she was a flame, vivid,
devouring, like the hot blasts that mow down the mountain forests.

"I'll KILL anyone that harms ye!" she cried; and raising her voice to a
shriek called to the woods that hid the thrower of the stone:

"Come out!  Come out in the open!  Coward!  Ye coward!  Come out here
and let yerself be seen!"

A jeering laugh answered, and Grace would have sprung in pursuit; but
Rosamund grasped her.

"No, no!" she cried.  "Don't, Grace!  Don't!  Let him go!"

The mountain woman, panting, fiery, would have broken away from the
restraining hands; but Rosamund, inspired, cried:

"You wouldn't leave me here alone?"

And as a forest creature, quick to defend her young, is quick to
caress, Grace forebore vengeance to hold her friend in a closer embrace.

"He struck ye!  You come up here to live with us, and make friends with
us, like Doctor Ogilvie, and they go and say you spy out on them!
Oh--" her voice echoed from the mountains--"I'll KILL anyone that harms
ye!"

"Don't say that!  Perhaps he did not mean to----"

"He meant it, whoever it was!  Stones don't fly up from the ground, do
they?  I know--I know what they say, the lazy cowards--I know, I've
heerd 'em----"

She paused; a new terror came into her eyes.  "Miss Rose!  Miss Rose!
Don't ye go thinkin' 'twas Joe throwed----"

Suddenly her head dropped upon Rosamund's shoulder, and the straining
arms held her more closely.  "Miss Rose, even if 'twas Joe----"

"Grace!  Oh, hush!  You don't know what you are saying!  You must not
think that--it couldn't be true!"

"Couldn't it?  You never saw my baby.  _He_ came home drunk, 'struck by
lightnin''--that's what they call it, so's not to lay blame on
themselves.  He fell on her.  That's how 'twas.  She was a-crawlin'
over the sill to meet him--her daddy.  An' he fell on her----"

"Put away those thoughts, Grace!  Put away that memory!  Grace--look at
me!  You must--not----"

"I'm lookin' at ye.  That's what makes me remember.  It ain't much to
you, maybe, to be friends with me.  But it's a heap to me, to be
friends with you.  Oh--" she threw her arms above her head, and her
bitter cry rang out.  "Oh, curse the stills!  Curse 'em, curse 'em!
First 'twas my baby, an' now--if anyone harms you, even so be 'twas
Joe, I'll kill him!"

It was a devotion undreamed of.  Their friendship had progressed
insensibly.  There had been long talks, when Grace's apparent
simplicity had made it easy for Rosamund to open her heart, as far as
in her lay; and she had been glad enough to feed the other's hunger for
knowledge with tales of the things she had seen in the world, as Grace
called all that lay beyond the barrier of the mountains.  Yet it had
been, as Grace herself had rightly said, not a very large part of life
to Rosamund; all the stranger was the revelation of what their
friendship meant to Grace.

It was long before she could bind Grace to secrecy; for Grace believed
that safety lay in making known the dastardly attack of the afternoon.
Rosamund denied that actual danger could exist, that the attacks--if
such there might be--could possibly go farther; and she very well knew
that if to-day's were made known it would put an end to all her plans
for the winter, now progressed so far.

Yet all that night she lay awake.  It was a dreadful thing to know
herself suspected, distrusted, perhaps hated; why, she asked herself,
could the mountaineers not read her innocence in the very fact of her
remaining openly among them?  They did not suspect Ogilvie; why, then,
should they look upon her innocent self as a spy?

But morning found her with all terrors gone.  Pride of race and
knowledge of good intentions had come to sustain her.

In gold, in gems, it is friction which produces brilliancy; in the
finer grades of humanity it is opposition, anxiety, suffering, even
misfortune, which bring out inherent noble qualities that might else
remain undiscovered.  The fine courage of high race Rosamund had always
possessed, but it lay hidden within her until the sting of an unseen
enemy brought it to light.  Fatigue and doubts and half-developed fears
fell from her in the night; with the coming of the day she found
herself strong in courage, in resourcefulness.

Ogilvie met her, later in the morning, coming from the post office at
the Summit, and White Rosy stopped of her own accord until Rosamund had
seated herself in the buggy.

"You look less tired," he said.

She laughed.  "I'm not tired at all!  I feel as if I could move
mountains, even these mountains; I believe I could even move the people
on them!"

He looked at her more keenly, and wondered what had caused her elation.
His anxiety for her--and something else--was too great to permit of a
smile in answer to hers.

"It is never too late to mend your ways!" he suggested.  "I hope it's a
change of mind that's making you so pleased with yourself!"

She laughed again, merrily.  "It may be a change of mind," she said,
"but it isn't a change of intention."

She waited for his question, but he only looked grimly at White Rosy's
joggling ears.

"Don't you want to know what I mean?" she asked.

"Yes," he said shortly.

Rosamund glanced at him.  "Dear me!" she remarked, and was provokingly
silent until, at last, he turned towards her.

"Please!" he begged.

"Let's talk of something else," she said, and turned her face away from
him to hide her dimples.  "I don't in the least want to bore you with
my affairs.  You've been so kind!"

At that he shook his head, tumbled the old cap into the back of the
buggy, and ran his fingers through his hair.  He heaved a deep breath,
and said, in the helpless tone of the bewildered male, "Oh, Lord!"

Then she turned towards him and laughed aloud.  "I won't tease any
more," she cried.  "You and Father Cary almost frightened me, for a day
or two, with your warnings and forebodings.  Last night I was ready to
give up the brown house and telegraph Mrs. Reeves not to come.  This
morning I have telegraphed her to hurry!"

His face became more stern.  "I don't like it.  I don't approve of it.
You may take my word for it, there will be trouble if you go to live in
that place, an unprotected household of women."

"Oh, but we shall not be an unprotected household of women!  We are
going to have good old Uncle Matt, my old nurse's husband!  Surely I
told you?  Although," she thought to herself, "if old Matt saw a man
with a gun I believe he'd crawl under the bed!"

The doctor looked a little relieved.  "Well, that is the best thing
you've planned yet," he said.  "I had intended coming twice a day and
taking care of your furnace myself; but Matt--did you say the man's
name was Matt?--will be on the spot."

"Mercy!" she exclaimed.  "I never once thought of the furnace!"

"I imagined as much," he said, dryly.

"Oh, well," she retorted, as he stopped before the brown cottage, "you
would never have remembered to come!  White Rosy would have had just
one more thing on her mind!"




XIII

The result of Rosamund's increased determination was that, by the end
of the week, a curiously assorted household was taxing the capacity of
the cottage almost to the utmost.  Grace Tobet, however, was not there.
Rosamund had many long talks with her about other things; the poor soul
had been miserably uneasy since the episode of the stone-throwing, and
besought Rosamund to release her from her bond of silence.  But that
their friendship might bring trouble upon herself she denied, and when
Rosamund tried to persuade her to take shelter in the brown house she
would do no more than shake her head or raise the girl's hand to her
own cheek in caress, or look off to the hills with unseeing eyes
tear-brimmed, as on the first day she had spoken of her baby; and
Rosamund could not urge her farther after that.

"It's often that a way," Mother Cary said, when Rosamund told her about
it.  "It binds 'em to a place faster than ropes could.  You can break
through most anything you can see, honey-bud; it's the things you can't
see that you can't get away from.  And they holds you all the tighter
when they're the things you useter have and haven't any
more--'specially little child'en."

Eleanor, too, had a word to say on Grace's side.  "Can't you see,
sweet, that if she leaves her Joe, she will be admitting his
unworthiness?"

"But since he plainly is unworthy----?"

"What he is has very little to do with it.  It is what she must believe
him to be, as long as she can."

"How can she believe him to be anything that is good?  He killed their
baby--and you know very well that she has had to go through the woods
all alone at night to warn him when the Government men are out."

Eleanor shook her head.  "We don't know that, Rose.  And as long as
Grace stays with him and says nothing, we can't know it.  She is
keeping that fact from being knowledge--if it is fact.  Don't you see
that she just has to hold on to that vague 'if'?"

"But she cannot possibly love the man, Eleanor!"

Eleanor looked at her curiously, and for some hidden reason which she
could not define Rosamund's heart, under that long look, began to beat
faster.

"Ah, Rosamund, which of us can understand love?" Eleanor asked.  After
a pause she added, "I have wondered sometimes whether they really and
truly love--the people who question 'why'!"

Rosamund was beginning to be afraid of the turn the conversation was
taking.  "Oh, Eleanor!" she exclaimed, somewhat impatiently, "your
subtleties are beyond me!"

While they talked, Tim had been tramping back and forth on the front
veranda of the house, himself the horse of a little iron wagon that was
one of his new toys.  He was seldom willing that Eleanor should waste
time in uninteresting conversation with grown-ups.  He had taken her
for his own; and Rosamund, Yetta, Mother Cary--everyone who had
ministered to him before--were all but forgotten.  Eleanor must now do
everything for him; nothing less than complete possession could satisfy
his hungry little heart.  And Eleanor's hunger for Tim went beyond his
for her; as she talked, her eyes followed him, her look brooding upon
him as if he were new-born and her own.

At Rosamund's last exclamation she laughed, and bending towards Timmy
on one of his turnings, gathered him into her arms, in spite of his
indignantly protesting squirms and thrusts.

"My subtleties, indeed!" she said, while burrowing for kisses under the
curls on his neck.  "I'm the most elemental creature alive!  I'm
nothing more than a mother hen!"

"Matt chopped ve chicken's head off wif a ax," said Tim, "an' it hopped
an' hopped an' hopped.  An' Sue took all its fevvers off.  But chickens
don't catch cold.  An' anyway its head was gone."

"Mercy!" said Rosamund.  "Matt ought not to have let the child see
that!  And I do wish he wouldn't be so--so explicit!"

They laughed, but Eleanor could not ignore the opportunity for a lesson
in good manners.  She had tried in vain to impress it upon Tim before;
now she repeated, "You must call her _Aunt_ Sue, Timmy!  I call her
that, and Miss Rose does.  You want to be polite, too, don't you?"

But Tim knew what he wanted; he had thought it out for himself.  "She
ain't," he said, frowning.  "An' I don't want her.  I got a muvver."

"Oh!  The darling!" cried Eleanor, and let him swagger back to his
march with the wagon.

So the boy was provided for, and Eleanor daily gained in health.
Ogilvie was delighted.

"Just let it go on for a few months," said he, "and she'll forget she
has any eyes.  Pity she'll have to go back to work, though," he added.

He had been away for a few days, on some consultation, and so could
notice the change in her all the more for his absence.  They were
driving through the golden woods; the first heavy frost had fallen the
night before.

Her breath fluttered a little as she answered.  "She will not have to
work any more--not as she used to--if she decides really to adopt
Timmy," she said, palpitating in wonder as to how he would take the
disclosure of her gift and what it implied.

He turned quickly to look at her, all interest.  "So that's what Flood
meant!" he said.

She returned his look rather blankly.  "Mr. Flood?  What on earth do
you mean?"

"I stayed with him in New York, you know.  He told me the kiddie's
future was provided for, but he was too modest to tell me how.  That's
one of the things I like about him--his modesty.  He's a fine fellow,
Flood is."

It was something more than disconcerting to have her generosity
attributed to someone else; that he should give the credit of it to
Flood, of all people, was plainly provoking.

"Did he give you to understand that he had done the providing?" she
asked.

"Why, no!  I've just told you he was too modest!"  Then, perhaps at
something in her look of disdain, he understood.  "Oh, I see!  I'm sure
I beg your pardon!  It is you who are doing it?"

She did not reply nor look at him, but flushed deeply.

But he did not seem to think it mattered either way.  "Well, it'll be
the best thing in the world for them both," he said.

So there was to be no word of praise for herself!  She forgot to wonder
at his unquestioning acceptance of the fact that she should have enough
to spare for such a gift; it did not occur to her until afterward that
he must have known of her fortune all along.

In her disappointment and dismay she spoke with a little tremor of
anger which did not escape him.

"I suppose you think it is no more than I ought to do!" she said.

He ran his fingers through his hair.  "Well!  Is it?" he questioned.

She did not reply to that, and he asked, "You will not miss what you
give, will you?"  By his tone he might have been asking, "Well, what of
it?  What's money good for, anyway?"

At that she turned to him, head lifted, eyes aflame.  "I suppose you
are one of those people who think that we ought to divide everything
equally--number the people and give them equal shares--so many pennies
apiece!"

He laughed good-humoredly.  "O Lord, no!  If the wealth of the nations
were equally divided on a Monday, it would be back in the pockets it
was taken from by the first Saturday night!  The smart ones would get
it all back again."

"I am not one of the--'smart'--ones.  But I suppose it wouldn't matter
if I went hungry----"

Whatever she had hoped for from that, his reply was certainly
unexpected.  He looked at her for a moment, then put his head back and
roared--laughed until the woods rang, until White Rosy turned her head
to look at him, until Rosamund, her anger melting, laughed with him.

"Oh, I say!" he cried at last.  "I'm awfully sorry!  Miss
Randall--you'll forgive me for being so utterly stupid, won't you?"

"I did want you to praise me," she admitted, dimpling.

Instantly he became serious.  "To praise you would be like praising the
sunlight, or the blessed rain, or any other of the crowning works of
God Almighty," he said.

"We were talking of Timmy," she reminded him, not quite truthfully, but
grasping at anything that might turn him from that strain, "and Mr.
Flood!"

The ruse succeeded.  "Flood!  Yes.  He's a big man."

"I don't think I quite realized that you were such friends!"

"I like him," said Ogilvie.  "I like him mighty well.  He's a chap
who's not afraid to be fine.  I tell you, it was a surprise to me to
find him that sort--Benson Flood.  You know, the name seems to suggest
bonanzas, show and glitter, crudeness, perhaps a little--well--not what
he is, anyway."

"But, surely, you have only seen him--twice, three times, isn't it?
How can you possibly know all that about him?"

He smiled.  "Oh, men don't always have to _learn_ each other, as they
would lessons, you know.  I know what Flood is as well as if I had
known him for years--and I like him as well, too!"

She looked at his enthusiastic face a little wonderingly.  "Women are
not like that," she said.  "We--I don't think we--believe in our
friends, as men do!"

"Oh, come now!  Why don't you?"

"Because we don't.  And because we don't deserve it.  Why, you talk
about Mr. Flood, who is certainly a new friend, to say the least, as if
you would make any sacrifice for him!  Women wouldn't do that for each
other."

He could not guess that her touch of bitterness was due to her new
humility--the humility she was so rapidly learning through her
experiences here in the mountains; certainly he was far from seeing
that he had himself done much to teach it to her, even during the past
hour, when he had seemed to look upon her wealth as of small
significance; now he was putting far more emphasis upon the fineness of
character of Flood, the man she had so lightly esteemed.

"I fancy Mrs. Reeves would have something to say to that," said Ogilvie.

"Oh, Eleanor!  Eleanor is my exception, of course!  We all have our
exceptions.  But aside from Eleanor, there is no one else for whom I
would make a sacrifice; yet you would do so for Mr. Flood, wouldn't
you?"

Now he was rumpling his hair until it stood on end.  "Why, yes, I
suppose so!  Yes, of course," he said, as if he were wondering where
the talk was leading.  Then he put it aside, and turned towards her.

"How little you know yourself!" he said.




XIV

Before long there were ominous signs in the Tobet cottage.  Mother Cary
would shake her head whenever Grace's name was mentioned.

"It's bad now, land knows!" she said.  "But it'll be worse, come
spring.  It ain't for me to deny that them the Lord sends He looks out
for; but a body can't help wonderin' sometimes, at His choice o' the
places He sends 'em to.  Yet it's a livin' wonder how things do work
out, honey."

The doctor openly berated Joe, and the two would have come to blows but
for Grace's pleadings; afterwards he told Rosamund that Mother Cary had
roundly scolded him for his interference, which of course ended the
little influence he had over the man.  Joe, indeed, swore that he would
'hurt' him if he found him again in his house, and it was only at the
brown cottage or the Carys' that he could see poor Grace and give her
what help he could.  Tobet had also, of course, forbidden his wife to
hold communication with 'the stranger woman'; but Grace knew his ways
and times well enough to go occasionally to both her friends' houses.
She herself could not have told from which she derived more comfort.

For a while Rosamund was unaware of any further evidences of the
mountaineers' distrust; then, in the third week, came the most
disquieting thing that had yet happened.

Their evenings at the cottage were usually placid enough.  Rosamund had
engaged the services of the young teacher of the district school to
give lessons to Yetta, who, with the mental avidity of her race, was
fairly absorbing knowledge, and rapidly acquiring the speech and manner
of the world.  She worshiped Rosamund, and tried to copy her in
everything; she was urged onward, too, by her awakened ambition to
sing, it being understood that her general education must be well on
the way before the promised singing lessons should begin.  The girl
would have spent hours at her books, but Ogilvie had forbidden her
reading at night; and Rosamund would read aloud to her for an hour or
two after the lamps were lighted.

To-night Yetta had begged, as usual, for a later bed hour, and for once
had been indulged.  The wind had blown from the east all day, bleak and
cold.  Rosamund had been more and more restless with each passing hour,
and now had a longing for company which made her lenient with Yetta.
But at last the girl had reluctantly gone upstairs; and after a while
Rosamund went up, too, in search of Eleanor.

She had not been the only one in the house to be made restless by the
wind; Tim had been cross all day, and even Eleanor was glad at last to
see him safely tucked into bed.  But, having done so, she had scarcely
taken her place on the opposite side of the table from Rosamund and
Yetta, than a little white-clad figure appeared in the doorway.

"O Timmy!" Eleanor had cried, protesting.

"Well, I forgot to God-bless Pa Cary," said Tim, as if that justified
his reappearance.

"Tim!  Go right back to bed!" said Eleanor, with a conscientious
attempt at sternness.  Tim hesitated, wavered on the threshold, and she
gained in courage.  "Go back at once!" she said.

His under lip began to tremble.  "I can't God-bless wivout somebody to
say it to!" he said, and Eleanor got up, took him by the hand, and led
him up to bed and his devotions.

Since then she had not come down again, and when Rosamund went in
search of her it was to find her on her knees beside Tim's bed, asleep,
her pale gold hair mingling with the yellow of his, her arms across his
little body, one of his hands on her cheek.

Rosamund crept downstairs again, the loneliness of a moment ago
pressing now upon her heart like a pain.  The sitting-room was warm and
cosy, with its open fire and the lamp with a yellow shade; but it was
empty, for all that.  She crossed the room to the window that faced the
valley and rolled up the shade.  Through the wind-swept air Mother
Cary's light twinkled brightly on the opposite mountain; that was a
home, too.  It added to her sense of loneliness.  She went back to her
place by the table, her thoughts wandering--from the happy two in the
room overhead, to her plans for Yetta; from Ogilvie, to Flood; from the
present----

But, gradually, insensibly, into her mental atmosphere, there crept a
shadowy, indefinable influence, something malevolent and strangely
disquieting.  She had never known fear; but as she sat there she
shuddered, became cold with an unearthly chill, as if some premonition
of horror were laying its clammy hand upon her.  She said afterward
that she felt herself in a cloud of dread and apprehension such as one
might feel before the apparition of something ghostly or uncanny.  It
was intolerable.  She must shake off such mental cowering, and forced
herself to turn towards the window through which Mother Cary's light
could be seen, thinking the friendly beacon would reassure her.

Then, although her heart seemed for an instant to stop beating, she
sprang up; but her knees refused their burden, and she sank again into
her chair, leaning forward with straining eyes, clutching its arms; for
the light on the mountain was blotted out by a hideous thing, a white
face set in shaggy hair, a sneering face, a face where drink and hate
and fear had set their marks.  As she sprang up and sank down again the
wicked glare of hate turned into a more frightful leer; then the
creature raised a horrid fist, shook it towards her--and vanished into
the night.

It was Eleanor who came running downstairs at the cry she tried to
choke back.

The two kept watch through the night, and morning found Rosamund shaken
and feverish, but firmly determined to lay aside her dread, and at all
hazards to keep her friends in the city in ignorance of it.

She shuddered at the thought of what the newspapers would make of it,
and of Cecilia's raging, and Pendleton's taunting comments.  She and
Eleanor, in the reassuring daylight, tried to laugh away each other's
fears; and both agreed that they would not be frightened away from the
brown house; they agreed, too, that Ogilvie must not know.

But to keep the doctor in ignorance of what had happened was not so
easy as Rosamund had hoped.  He had many opportunities of hearing
rumors that did not reach her; if he had not constantly persisted in
his warnings it was not because he no longer feared for her, but
because it seemed best to watch, rather than to warn.  He went to the
cottage every day on one pretext or another; if it was not fear alone
which took him there, he admitted to himself no other reason.

It was not altogether because he was too busy with his mountaineer
patients, as Mother Cary had told Rosamund, that he had remained among
them; now and again he had consulted his friends, and his vigorous
enjoyment of the days as they passed also told unmistakably of his
recovery; but another year of mountain practice would doubly insure his
safety in going back to his investigations in the confinement of the
laboratory.  Meanwhile he had thrown himself into the work here with
ardor, as he must always do with work or play; but now just at the time
when he was beginning to think of his return to the city there came
into his thoughts an influence as disturbing as it was novel.

Early in the summer one of his classmates, the Doctor Blake who was
Mother Cary's old friend, had come from the city for a visit of a day
or two, and to him Rosamund's name was unmistakably well known.  He had
seen her, too, in town.  There could be no mistake; she was the only
daughter of old Randall, the "king" of Georgia pine.  It seemed to
Blake a wild freak which kept such a girl here in the mountains, away
from her kind, a freak to be distrusted.  He watched Ogilvie rather
keenly when they met Rosamund at Mother Cary's that afternoon, but it
was evident that Ogilvie was master of whatever emotions he might have
towards her.  As a matter of fact, her money counted no more in his
estimate of her than a scar on her cheek, or a strand of gray hair, or
an ignorance of German would have counted.  He knew himself for a man,
and more; he knew, as they who possess the embryo of greatness never
fail to know, that he had that to offer which all her money could not
buy; the belief that she, too, knew as much was fast becoming the
essence of life for him.

The thought of her filled his days and half his nights.  Her swinging
step along the frozen roads, the tired child nestling in her arms, the
cadence of her voice as she greeted him, the look of shy withdrawal
that he sometimes surprised in her eyes--all would set him inwardly
trembling, longing, worshiping.  Yet love was new to him, and he
feared; inexperience had left him with nothing for comparison.  He
could not know how far to venture.  Masculine instinct warned him to
display to her the brightest plumage of his mind and heart, and their
walks and drives together were full of talk and intimate silences; but
of that which was uppermost in his desire he feared to speak.

Yet his fears no less than his love made him keen to notice every shade
of expression on her face, and on the morning after her fright at the
hideous vision at the window he saw at once that something was amiss.
He had been over the mountain earlier in the day to set a man's broken
arm, and several things had made him more than usually suspicious that
the underworld of the woods was stirring uneasily.  A storm of some
sort was certainly in the air; the people showed themselves distrustful
even of him, and the very children shrank into reserve at his approach.

Rosamund had walked across the valley to Mother Cary's, to confide to
her the strange disturbing happening of the night; then she had gone
home again, hoping for that day to escape Ogilvie's keen eyes.  The
tale had been most disquieting to the old woman, and when Rosamund had
gone, she sent Pap to the main road to hail the doctor as he passed.
She had been bound to secrecy, but she could at least, without breach
of trust, send him a message.

"You tell Doctor Ogilvie that I say when wolves are out, lambs 're in
danger.  Jest that; don't say another word.  Ef he's all I take him for
he'll understand."

Pap repeated the message word for word and the two men looked into each
other's eyes for a moment, in a look that told far more than the
message; then Ogilvie whipped up White Rosy with unprecedented
emphasis, and the old mare gallantly responded, as if she knew that an
emergency prompted the unaccustomed touch.  Ogilvie was sure that one
glance at Rosamund's face would tell him whether she were the lamb
Mother Cary had in mind; and the girl's pale cheeks, that flushed so
treacherously when he entered the brown cottage, disclosed the secret
she would have kept.  But Mother Cary must not be betrayed, and he
greeted her as if he suspected nothing.

"I saw Aunt Sue at the clothesline," he said, "so I used the doctor's
privilege and just walked in!  Tell me if I'm in the way."

She turned a large chair towards the blaze in the fireplace and moved
her own a little back, as if to credit her bright color to the heat of
the flames.

"Doctors are always welcome," she said.

But that did not satisfy him, and with characteristic directness he
pursued the question.  "Am I not welcome as a friend, too?"

She bent forward to reach the tongs, and lifted a glowing ember.
"You're welcome in every rôle!  But you are very formal to-day, aren't
you, in spite of your just walking in?  Why?"

She was always mistress of herself when she could tease.  Ogilvie,
however, would not respond to her levity.

"Because doctors may prescribe, and friends may advise; as it happens,
I want to do both!"

She sat up very straight and looked at him mockingly.  "Dear me!" she
said, in the dry tone which usually provoked all his Scotch
combativeness.

But to-day that, also, he ignored.

"Where are Mrs. Reeves and the children?" he asked.

"Eleanor has taken Tim on a hunt for nuts, and Yetta is at her lessons."

He frowned.  "Which way have they gone?"

"I have not the least idea."

"Have you seen Grace lately?"

"I have not," she replied.  "Pray don't mind asking about anything you
want to know!"

He would not notice her flippancy even to frown.  "Because," he said,
"she is not at her own house, nor the Allens', and she has not been to
the Carys' since yesterday morning; if she has not been here either,
there is only one thing possible--or at all likely----"

At last Rosamund became serious; if Grace had gone into the woods it
could, indeed, mean but one thing.  "Oh, dear!" she cried.  "Does that
mean--do you think?--that Joe is out again?"

The doctor nodded.  "And has been for several days.  The trouble is
coming to a head somewhere.  I wish I knew where.  The very air is full
of it, and these people are so mysterious that even I cannot get
anything definite.  Pa Cary says they all believe there are spies
about."

At the word, Rosamund's hand went to her throat, and her lips paled.
"Oh, then----" she began, and stopped.

Ogilvie leaned forward and laid his hand on the arm of her chair.

"Then?" he repeated, looking closely at her.

His intentness forced the tale from her.  He listened without
interrupting, and when she had finished, sat for a while in deep
meditation.

At last he drew a long breath, rose, took a turn or two about the
little room, and came and stood before her, frowning.

"You shall not stay here," he said.

Of all words he could have chosen none more unfortunate.  A tone of
fear, a phrase of hidden tenderness, even an appeal to her own sense of
the futility of braving the hovering danger--almost anything but the
words and tone he used would have induced her to submit to his wishes;
but this imperative command of words and voice touched off some quick,
foolish spark within her.

"Ah, but that is precisely what I am going to do," she calmly declared.
"They will find out sooner or later that I am not a spy.  I shall
remain here until they do."

Unconsciously, as once before, her name escaped him.  "Rosamund," he
cried, "I cannot stand it!  I cannot bear to think of your being in
danger!"

If she heard, she gave no sign of it.  "I do not believe there is the
slightest danger," she said, "but what if there is?  I have taken up my
life here; there are always difficulties to be overcome whenever one
wants really to do anything.  Why should I run away from my share of
them?"

He had turned toward the fire, his arm resting upon the mantel-shelf,
and his forehead upon his clenched hand.

"I wish I could make you understand how it is with me," she went on.
"I have chosen, deliberately chosen, to take this way of living.  I
have come here to stay, for a time anyway.  You would tell me, I know,
that I could have the same little family somewhere else.  I know I
could; but I am not staying only on their account, any more than I am
for a mere whim of my own.  The place is more my home than any I have
ever known since I was a little girl.  I love it, and I see so many
things to be done, things I can do; and I want to do them.  I don't
always know how, but I am learning.  These mountain people are
distrustful of everyone; but all wild creatures can be tamed, if one
has patience.  When they have learned to trust me I can help them.  I
am not going to be driven away.  Besides, when all else is said, I
don't see the need of it!"

"You had warning last night.  Whoever that ruffian was, his coming here
meant no good to you."

For a while she was silent, and when she spoke he looked at her, and
saw that there were tears in her eyes.

"Oh, I cannot argue it out," she cried.  "Of course, you can array fact
upon fact to prove me wrong and foolish.  Oh--Doctor Ogilvie, be fair!
Credit me with a purpose!  I have never before had a chance to go on in
a simple, clearly defined line of action.  It would not seem very much
to most people, I suppose--merely to stay here, to live in this little
cottage with Eleanor and the children.  But it's the only real life
I've ever known, as far as I can remember.  I was dropped into this
place by accident, and I found something to do.  What is more, I found
myself among real people.  It is not much--but to live my own
life--that is what I want!"  In her emotion she stood before him,
straight and purposeful.  "Won't you give me credit for the strength of
it, and not believe me merely willful?"

He was deeply moved; she laid her own in the hand he held out to her.
"I will credit you with everything that is brave and good," he said,
with utmost seriousness.  "If you are really determined to remain here,
I will not interfere.  If this is what you choose, I will try to
believe it is the best thing for you--the only thing."

Her earnestness had fanned in his heart an altar-flame of worship and
new faith; its glow shone in his eyes, and her face paled under his
look.  In the tenseness of the moment there could be no speech, but it
seemed as if their souls sped toward each other on a bridge of
understanding.  They were hushed before the vision of great elemental
truth; and although later they came to believe that they had been
deluded, that vision of truth remained as having passed between them, a
revelation and a message.

Afterward, in the hours when doubt and pain and loneliness were her
companions, she often wondered what the outcome might have been; but
she could only wonder, for at the highest moment of their silent
communion there sounded a well-remembered view-halloo, and a quick turn
of the head showed the flash of a big red car that was stopping before
the house.

With a low cry she drew away the hand that had been held in his, turned
from him, and for an instant hid her face in her two palms, needing the
moment to recall her soul from the heights.  When she turned at the
sound of steps upon the veranda Ogilvie was gone; she stooped to pick
up his worn brown cap, left unheeded upon the hearth, put it quickly
into a drawer, and turned the key in the lock.




XV

The revulsion of feeling was so sharp as to demand all the effort she
was capable of making to move at all.  Her self-control had never
before been so severely tested; the strain was so great that she forgot
to smile, until Pendleton, drawing off his gloves and toasting his back
at the fire, which he first took pains to rearrange with as serene
assurance as if it had been his own house, said:

"Dear me, Rosamund!  Why this exuberant gayety of welcome?"

It was easy enough to laugh, and she felt secretly grateful for his
nonsense.  She had almost forgotten the time when she had found such
banter on her own part a veritable shield and buckler.

"I'm stunned with joy, Marshall," she laughed.  Then, turning to Flood,
"Have my woods brought you?"

He flushed with joy that she should have remembered their talk on the
Pocantico ride.  "Your woods and what's in them," he told her.  "I've
brought down a couple of young dogs, and we thought we'd try for some
shooting before the snow.  That's due any day now, isn't it?"

"Yes, the season has been unusually late, they say.  But, Mr. Flood,
you must not try to do any shooting around here!"

"Why not?" Pendleton put in, raising his eyebrows; he succeeded in
trying to look teasing only so far as to appear malicious.  "Tame
birds, Rose?"

She ignored his impudence.  "You'd get me into greater disfavor than
ever," she said, speaking to Flood.  "You know there are said to be
illicit stills in these mountains; there have been some lawless things
done within a year or two, and the Government is watching the people
here, or so they believe.  They are distrustful of everybody--my poor
innocent self included."

"I hope there's nothing unpleasant?" Flood asked, looking disturbed.

"No!  Oh, dear, no!  But there might be, if you went about in the woods
with your guns, and were known to be my friends."

"Your fears are quite groundless, my dear," said Pendleton.  "We were
not going to stop here, anyway, but Flood hesitates to disillusion you.
There's no hotel in your neighborhood, you know."

"I'm so glad!" she cried, and then joined the two men in their laugh.
"Oh, Marshall, you're always making me absurd!  You know perfectly well
what I mean!  I had horrible visions of your being murdered in the
woods; naturally, I'm not glad there's no place for you to stay!  I
wish I could put you up here, but----"

"Certainly!" said Flood, to her expressive pause.  "We understand how
impossible it would be.  Fact is, we thought we'd run down to Oakleigh
for a few days, and we found we wanted to come a bit out of the path
and call on you!  Hope you don't mind?"

To her surprise she realized that she was really very glad to see them.
She had within the hour been declaring that she had put away the old
life, yet here were these two dropped from the skies of chance, to
remind her of it; and she was undeniably glad to see them!

It ended in their staying to the midday dinner, when Aunt Sue surpassed
the standard of her own fried chicken and beaten biscuits, and Matt
could be heard turning the ice-cream freezer all during the first part
of the meal, and Tim had to be suppressed by Eleanor because he would
persist in trying to describe how the chickens they were eating had
hopped and hopped and hopped when Matt had chopped their heads off.

It was the first time Flood had met Eleanor, and it was immediately
evident that she impressed him very much.  His look was upon her more
than upon Rosamund; he watched her every move with a light of pleasure
in his eyes, and his manner toward her was exquisite--holding something
of the deference of a young man toward a very charming, very old lady,
something of the tenderness of a physician toward a courageous patient,
something of a courtier's manner toward a queen, a little of the look
of the lover of beauty at something unexpectedly lovely.  And since
Eleanor was neither old nor ill nor yet a queen, it must have been her
loveliness, fragile and gentle and rare, that had attracted him, since
attracted he so plainly was.

He would look from Eleanor to Rosamund from time to time as if trying
to convey, silently, to the woman whom he held above all others how
lovely he found her friend; and Rosamund, understanding and liking him
for it, drew Eleanor out of the little tiredness of manner that was apt
to fall upon her before strangers, and Flood brought the color to
Eleanor's cheeks when he noticed how Timmy had blossomed under her
care.  Indeed, the little boy, with the quick adaptability of babyhood,
might have been petted and adored all his life, so complacently did he
accept his new mother's care and ignore the comments of Flood; for the
moment he was absorbed in the celery family which he had spread out
before him on the tablecloth.

"It's me an' my muvver," he said to himself, as he arrayed a short
stalk and some longer ones before him, "an' it's Miss Rose, an' it's
Yetta, an' it's Matt.  An' vey ain't any Sue!"  Tim could not be
prevailed upon to accept Aunt Susan, apparently feeling that in order
to repudiate the relationship which he thought her title of courtesy
implied he must repudiate her entirely.

After dinner Rosamund managed so that a rather reluctant Flood and
Eleanor should be led off by Tim to inspect the chickens.  Pendleton
was by no means disdaining to pay homage to Yetta's black eyes, and for
a while Rosamund watched the two with amusement.

It was the first opportunity Rosamund had found for measuring the
girl's improvement.  It was amusing to see how well Yetta had learned
to imitate Eleanor's manners and her own, how seldom she lapsed into
the speech of the streets, yet how much of her native quickness and
assurance she had retained.  She was never at a loss for an answer to
Pendleton's banter; and Pendleton, soaring to farther and farther
heights of absurdity, was enjoying himself immensely, when Rosamund
decided that Yetta had had enough, and sent the girl off to her lessons.

"Now what did you break it up for, Rose?" Pendleton protested, adding,
"It's wonderful how jealous all you women are of me!"

She laughed.  "Marshall!  Your absurdity is only exceeded by your
modesty!"

"Oh, I know my worth," said he, folding his hands and looking down,
with his head on one side.  Apparently he never tired of playing the
clown.

"Tell me about Cecilia," said Rosamund.

"Ah, dear Cecilia!  She's looking very well this autumn, very well
indeed.  And young!  And slim!  I admire dear Cecilia's slimness
exceedingly.  It's a monument to perseverance and self-denial."

Rosamund understood, and smiled with him.  "Her letters have sounded
very happy, so I've taken it for granted that things have gone well
with her," she said.

"Well, you're responsible for that, aren't you?  'Pon my word, if
Cecilia had money enough--or I had--to make her contented----"  He
sighed.  "But Cecilia's up to something.  She doesn't seem to--er--to
care as much for my company as she did.  Why, Rose, would you believe
it, she even sent down word to me the other day that she had a
headache!"

"Perhaps she had," Rosamund suggested.

"Oh, no.  No.  If she had, she would have let me see her.  I'm good for
headaches.  No, it wasn't that.  Besides, it was the very day after
Flood told her he was coming here, and asked if she had any messages
for you.  No.  Cecilia's up to something."

He wilted sideways in his chair, and tried to look pensive and
pathetic.  Rosamund watched him, amused as always, and not in the least
understanding what he was trying to imply.

Suddenly he leaned toward her.  "And you're up to something, too,
Rosy!" he said, as if throwing the words at her.  "What's your game in
staying down here, anyway?"

She flushed angrily.  "Marshall!  You go too far, you know!"

"Oh, come along, don't get mad!" he said.  "What's your little game?
Are you staying up here to draw old Flood on, or is it something else?
I won't tell!"

She felt herself enveloped in a hot wave of anger and disgust, as if
the fetid breath of some foul creature had blown toward her.  She
sprang from her chair and went swiftly toward the long window, and
throwing it open stepped down to the piazza.

Pendleton followed as calmly as if nothing had been said to arouse her;
but she was spared an answer, even a look, for Eleanor and Flood were
coming back to the house, Flood declaring that it was time for their
adieux.

Rosamund was glad; she had been unexpectedly glad to see them, but now
her pleasure was gone.  She felt sick at heart, and wanted to be alone.
Yet her pride sustained her until they were gone; she stood on the
veranda to wave farewell to them as if nothing had happened, one arm
about Yetta's shoulders, framed against the background of the little
brown house that Flood thought so inadequate a shelter for a creature
so beloved and so rare.

Flood felt that he had been discretion itself.  He had learned his
lesson, and was now too anxious for ultimate success to risk alarming
her; but every move she made, every look, every tone had been as meat
and drink to his longing.

On their way back past the Summit his mind and heart were full of her,
from her first silent greeting to the last glimpse of her with her arm
across the child's shoulders.  How like her unerring taste, he thought,
to have chosen as friend so exquisite a creature as that Mrs. Reeves;
and how right Mrs. Reeves had been in all her praise of Rosamund!  It
had seemed to him to-day that her face had been more than ever full of
dancing play of color; certainly her cheeks had flamed when she had
come out of that long window to meet him.

But Pendleton broke in on his dreams.  "Our Rosy was looking
exceedingly blooming," said he.  "Wonder what's up?"

He managed to throw something of insinuation into his tone.

"Oh, shut up, you ass!" said Flood.

Whereupon Mr. Pendleton raised his eyebrows, smiled, and proceeded to
whistle the "Merry Widow Waltz," which he knew Flood detested, for one
immortal hour.


Later in the evening, when Tim and Yetta had been long in bed, Rosamund
and Eleanor were in the sitting-room before the fire, the table with
its yellow-shaded lamp drawn up between them.  Since the night of
Rosamund's fright the shades were kept drawn at night; now the room, in
its seclusion, was warm and cosy with the sense of home.  Eleanor
smiled over a garment of Timmy's that she was mending; she stopped,
from time to time, to look into the fire, laying the work in her lap as
if it were a task over which she loved to linger.

Rosamund sat back in her big chair, her eyes partly closed, deep in
thought.  The day had been full of crowding emotions.  She mentally
recalled first one and then another, trying to marshal them into some
sequence of cause and event.

On the last moments between herself and John Ogilvie she dwelt least;
even in memory they were too palpitating.  It is only after surrender,
or after loss, that a woman loves to dwell upon such moments; before,
they hold too much of fear, not to call forth the feminine withdrawal
of the unwon.  His looks she dared recall; his pale intensity, the
flame in his eyes, the fear and anger there as she described the wicked
face at the window, his look before he left her, when Pendleton's step
was already on the veranda.

That brought her thoughts to Pendleton, to his insinuations and the
slight leer in his look.  She shuddered all the more because she knew
that, a few months before, she would have parried his impertinence with
a laugh, instead of with the scorn and anger she had not been able to
hide to-day.  She was at least that far from the old life, the old
state of mind!  She knew now how intolerable she would find the people
who had seemed only commonplace before!  Looking back, secure in her
new life in this purer air, she could say to herself how much she hated
their suspicions of everyone, their petty gossip, their searching for
hidden, unworthy motives in every least action, their expecting the
base to emerge from every innocence, their smiling, flattering faces.

She was glad, she told herself, so glad to be away from all that--all
the more glad because she could remember the time when it had not
especially displeased her.  Yet in fairness she reminded herself that
Flood was different.  He had been very nice, indeed, to-day--and he had
liked Eleanor.  It spoke well for him that Eleanor, too, liked him!
She looked across at Eleanor's tenderly brooding face, and smiled; how
suitable it would be, she thought, if Flood and Eleanor--that would
relieve herself of Flood's intentions.  It was the first time she had
been willing to admit that she knew what they were--and intentions on
Flood's part would be quite delightful if Eleanor were their object----

So her thoughts passed, from one thing to another, until, suddenly, as
if a shot had broken her dream, her heart stood still with fear, then
seemed to leap into her throat.

She and Eleanor were on their feet in an instant, hands grasping hands,
startled eyes searching each other's and then turning toward the door.
This time it was no stealthy presence which had crept upon the house to
peer in at the window.  Even while they held each other, there in their
safety before the fire, something stumbled across the piazza, fell
against the door, cried out, seemed to fall farther, as if at the limit
of strength--and was still.

Even the negroes in the kitchen heard the noise, and came running in
with scared faces.

Rosamund moved quickly and quietly to the door, silently slid back the
bolt, and flung it open.

There was no lurking enemy to surprise.  Instead, a huddled form lay,
as if crushed, before the doorsill.  Between them they managed to lift
it and bear it upstairs.  All the way up Eleanor, though trembling and
very white, carried her full share of the burden, and kept saying over
and over to Rosamund:

"It's all right, sweet!  Don't be frightened!  It's all right, sweet!
Don't be frightened!"

And Rosamund was saying over and over, on sobbing breath, "O Grace!
Poor Grace!  O Grace!"

They laid her on a bed and undressed her.  The poor cut feet were
soiled with blood and seemed frozen; the forehead beneath the pale
strands of hair--those pathetic strands of the woman in whom pride and
vanity are dead--was cut and bruised; on her body they found larger
bruises.  They bathed her, and wrapped her in clean linen, and made her
as comfortable as they could.  Aunt Sue and Eleanor exchanged looks,
and shook their heads.  They sent Matt after the doctor.  Then Timmy
called out, and Eleanor went to him.  Aunt Sue said something about
more hot water, and descended to the kitchen.

Rosamund knelt beside the bed, and presently Grace fluttered back to a
dim consciousness.

"Miss Rose!  Miss Rose!" were her first words, uttered in a tone of
fright.

"Yes, dear!  I am here," said Rosamund, laying one of her cool hands on
Grace's forehead.

Grace closed her eyes as if satisfied.  "I had to come," she whispered.
"It wasn't only for me."




XVI

The doctor promptly, in his most professional manner, turned Rosamund
out of the room as soon as he got there.  He preferred the old colored
woman even to Eleanor as assistant; and he showed no sign of
remembering that night in the Allen house when Rosamund had fought
beside him, through the heavy hours, for a woman's life.  When he
closed the door of Grace's room upon her, she was keenly hurt; she
could not know that while he worked over poor Grace he was recalling
every moment of that earlier scene, viewing it now through the glamor
of his later knowledge of her.

Aunt Sue was installed as supreme power in the sick-room.  Grace's life
hung by a thread for days, and before the doctor could be sure that all
would be well the disquieting news of Joe Tobet's arrest came to
disturb them still further.

Snow lay deep over everything before Grace came down among them, a pale
wraith of a woman, but with a deepened sweetness of expectation in her
face.  They feared to tell her of Joe's predicament, but knew afterward
that it would have been better to do so; for she was to discover it in
one of those unforeseen, brutal ways that so often accompany the
disasters of the poor.  One day a shivering small boy brought a note to
the back door, and Grace herself happened to be the one to take it in.
It would have been less cruel to give her a coal of living fire.

The folded paper was soiled, as if it had been passed from hand to
hand.  Its pencilled words were:


"You or she told Youl be got even with Curs you JOE."


Grace waited to speak of it until the doctor came.  Then her dignity of
manner was a revelation to Rosamund, who had yet to discover that
elemental passions can sometimes be as silent as the ages that create
them.

Grace looked unfalteringly at Ogilvie as she spoke.  "Where have they
got Joe?" she asked.

Rosamund exclaimed, and motioned to him not to reply; but he was wiser
than she.  His answer, as simple and direct as her question, gave no
evidence of surprise.  "In the city.  The jail is stronger there."

"Will they let him out?"

"The evidence may not be enough to hold him.  He is awaiting trial."

"Will we know if they let him out?"

"I think so."

Then she gave him the soiled paper, which he read and passed on to
Rosamund.  "He wrote that," she said.  "Miss Rose hadn't ought to be
here when he gets out."

She gave Rosamund a look of agonized tenderness, then left them.
Presently they heard her walking in her room upstairs, up and down, up
and down.  Ogilvie shook his head when Rosamund asked him to go up to
her.

"She must work it out alone," he said.  "She's strong enough."

But Rosamund, uneasy, went to Mother Cary.

"Yes, she's strong enough," the old woman said, when she had heard all
about it.  "Land!  She's got to be!  An' she's jest got to fight it out
by herself.  Don't you try to cross her, honey, nor say anything to
ease her, 'cause that ain't the way to treat hurts like that.  Joe's
her man, an' she'd lay down her life for him, ef 'twas only her own
life; an' I reckon even ef she thought 'twould save his soul she
couldn't 'a' found stren'th to tell on him.  Yet that's what he thinks
she done!  Eh, me!  The contrairy fools men like him can be when they
sets out!"

"He's not worth her caring for!  He's not worth it!"

"Land, no!  I shouldn't think he was!  But that ain't got a mite to do
with it!  Women folks don't care for them they ought to care for, jest
because they ought to; nor they don't stop carin' when they ought to
stop, neither.  An' Joe bein' her man, she can't give a thought to
whether he's worth it or not; she's jest got to go on lovin' him."

"But, oh!" the girl cried, "shouldn't you think his distrust would make
her loathe him?  To know herself a true and faithful wife, and to be
distrusted!  Oh!"

Mother Cary's eyes were very bright as she looked out of the window
across the snowy field to where Pap was cutting down a tree for
firewood.  She took one of Rosamund's hands in hers before she spoke,
and patted it.

"Yes, I reckon distrust must be about one of the hardest things to set
down under," she said.  "I know somethin' about it, 'cause time was
when I distrusted Pap, though 'twas before we was married, o' course.
I distrusted Pap's love, like poor Joe distrusts Grace's.  I thought he
couldn't possibly love me enough to last for ever an' always, me bein'
crippled up like I be; an' I thought it wasn't fair to let him try.  So
I up an' run away.  I tried to get to the station an' so back to the
city.  It was a long ol' walk for me, an' I had to hide all one night
in a barn.  But betwixt walkin' an' hobblin' an' crawlin' I got to the
station at last; an' there was Pap a-waitin' to take me into his arms,
which he did then an' there, good an' strong.  I ain't never tried to
get far from 'em sence!"

Rosamund was afraid to break the thread of the story by a question, and
the old woman mused a while before she went on.

"I reckon there's a door o' distrust that most of us have to open and
pass through an' shet fast behind us, before we get to the place
where's only content, an' love, an' trust.  It ain't confined to jest a
few; 'pears to me most everybody has to go through it."

Again she paused, while the girl waited.

"When your time comes, honey--an' I hope it will come, 'cause you can't
rightly feel the glory tell you know the shadder--when your time comes
to feel distrust, or have it felt against you, jest you do as your Ma
Cary tells you!  You take a firm holt o' your heart and your thoughts,
an' don't you let 'em turn all topsy-turvy!  You jest take a firm holt
on 'em an' wait.  WAIT!  Don't run away, like I did; 'cause they ain't
any more Pap Carys in the world!  It ain't everybody you'd find ahead
of you at the station, waitin'.  You jest remember that it ain't but a
door, even though the doorsill does seem dretful wide.  It'll shet
behind you, when the right time comes, an' you'll find yo'self
a-standin' in the land o' content.  That's the best dwellin'-place
there is, I'm a-tellin' you!"

Rosamund had not been alone with John Ogilvie since the afternoon,
three weeks earlier, when Flood's automobile interrupted them; but
during the interval she was conscious of an uplift of the soul, a new
serenity.

One of the great memories of her life was of an hour of her childhood
when for the first time a revelation of something beyond her childish
world was vouchsafed to her.  She had been awakened at night by a touch
of light upon her face; the full moon shone through her window, and its
rays had called her from sleep.  In her little bare feet she slipped
from bed and went toward the casement, drawn by the moon-magic to look
upon the beauty her early bedtime had left undiscovered.  Great dark
masses of cloud floated across the face of the golden disc, black on
the side that hung over the shadowy fields and woods, but shining with
a marvelous radiance where the moonlight touched them from above.

The child had watched them floating, forming, massing, until they had
passed away to the horizon, and left the moon, a floating ship of
light, far, far up in the sky, dimming the brilliance of the stars.
She had crept back to her little bed with a new sense of things
hitherto undreamed of in her childish imaginings, yet never again to be
entirely lost--a sense of majesty, of order and immutability, of
strange beauty, and of the Greatness that kept watch while she, a
little child, safely slumbered.

The hour left its mark upon her entire life; and now once more such an
impression of security, of beauty, and perhaps of destiny had been laid
upon her in the moment when she had faced his soul through John
Ogilvie's eyes.

There was no need to hasten further revelation.  Indeed, she did not
wish for it.  She was more than content to rest for a while in the calm
of unspoken assurance.  It was enough, as much as the hours would hold,
until they could grow used to it and expand to the greater glory that
was to come.

Ogilvie, too, had something of the same sense of uplift.  He, too, had
had his revelation.  But, man-like, he would have grasped at once at
something more definite, more dear, if he had not, with a lover's
keenness of intuition, seen that Rosamund was satisfied to wait.  He
had no fear, no misconception; he felt, rather, a reverence which
forbade his hastening her toward the avowal which would bring the
surrender he so ardently desired.  The same force of love which made
him long for it, made him also too tender to urge it.  His coming to
the brown cottage every day was too much a matter of custom to be
remarked upon.  There were Eleanor and Grace, Yetta and Timmy to talk
to, as well as Rosamund; and he fell into the way of arriving in time
for the mid-day dinner, just as Tim fell into the way of waiting for
him with the announcement of what good things Aunt Susan was going to
give them to eat.  Rosamund teased Ogilvie about it a little, but
Eleanor, the ostensible hostess, remembered the ancient person with
whom he lived, took pity on him, and kept him as often as she could.
Indeed, Eleanor, like Mother Cary, regarded him as an overgrown boy,
very much in need of maternal attentions; if she suspected the state of
affairs between him and Rosamund, she tactfully gave no sign of it.  So
Ogilvie came and went as naturally as if he were a member of the
household, and his daily sight of Rosamund lent him patience.

But always he was on the watch for signs of the distrust that still
muttered against "the stranger woman."  Grace's taking refuge in the
brown house had affected the mountaineers in two ways.  One
faction--for so strongly did each side feel that there were, indeed,
definite factions--held that Rosamund had only offered her the shelter
which any woman would have given to another in such sore need, and
declared that all of Grace's friends were bound to Rosamund by the
obligation of gratitude.  The other faction, and perhaps the larger,
held that if Grace had not actually betrayed her husband to the
authorities, she had run away from him and so failed in her duty of
hiding him, and that Rosamund shared her guilt, if, indeed, she was not
directly responsible for it.  Mother Cary, whom all adored, came in for
a share of blame, for being friends with the guilty ones, and even the
doctor, though he was known to be faithfully in sympathy with all his
mountain patients, and though no one suspected his integrity toward
them, found many faces turned away from him which had hitherto shown
only confidence and affection.

That Rosamund was aware of the state of things he could only guess; she
gallantly denied any uneasiness, although there were many evidences of
the bad feeling against her.  They were only trivial things, little
annoyances, surly answers, eyes that would not see her; yet they told
their story with unmistakable plainness.

It was while things were in this unsettled state that she was surprised
by a second visit from Flood and Pendleton; not, this time, in the car,
for the roads were impassable.  They drove up in the only sleigh that
was for hire at the Summit.

Pendleton had hardly got out of his great fur coat before he opened
fire; he had evidently come primed.

"What's all this about arrests and moonshiners, Rosamund?" he demanded.
"Cecilia's very uneasy.  Had a letter from her day before yesterday,
saying she'd come herself if she could do any good, and wouldn't I run
up and look around a bit.  So here we are, both of us, because Flood
wouldn't be left behind!"

"That wasn't quite fair of Cecilia," Rosamund said, flushing angrily.
Pendleton had promptly got on her nerves with the alacrity that only an
old friend is capable of.  "I thought I had made it plain that I mean
to be let alone."

"Oh, please!" Flood, the peacemaker, besought them; and Rosamund had
come to like his helpless "Oh, please!" so well that she smiled at him,
though her eyes were still bright with anger.

"I say, Pendleton," he went on, "you're always trying to fight with
Miss Randall."  Pendleton only grinned at him.  "Really, Miss Randall,
we haven't come to interfere, not in the very least, I assure you!
Mrs. Maxwell did write; but we wanted very much to see you.  That is
why _I_ came, anyway!"

So far he dared venture, and at the very bathos of his distress
Rosamund laughed, and peace reigned again.  She told them of Tobet's
arrest, and that his wife was now a member of her household.  She
declared that there remained no possible danger, with Joe out of the
way.

Pendleton appealed to Eleanor; and Flood, too, gave her a questioning
look.  She could not hide her anxiety; but that she was not afraid to
admit it gave Flood a feeling of security that he would have missed if
she had shown herself, like Rosamund, inclined to deny the danger.  For
Flood believed that the newspaper accounts of trouble present and to
come must be the smoke of some fire; yet he feared only a possible
unpleasantness for Rosamund, rather than any actual danger.

Ogilvie came in while they were still discussing it.  To-day there were
no traces of tell-tale emotion to be hidden.  He had seen the sleigh
before the house, guessed who were within, and now showed himself
unaffectedly glad to see Flood.  Rosamund inwardly trembled lest
Ogilvie should express himself on the subject of the mountaineers'
suspicions; she could not know that a look, passed between himself and
Flood, was enough to set Flood on the alert.

She talked feverishly while they were at dinner, and her heart sank
when, afterwards, Pendleton announced that he was hit with an idea.  He
was standing at the window, taking in the white sweeps and stretches of
snow, the black trunks of the leafless trees, the dark pyramids of the
spruces, the more distant shadow of pines.

"Jove!" he cried.  "Just look at those slopes for skiing and
tobogganing!  It's better than Davos!"

Then he turned from the window, his hands deep in his pockets, and
stood in front of Rosamund, his head on one side, tipping backward and
forward from heels to toes.

"I say, Rosy," he said, "the best way you can convince us, and poor
dear Cecilia, that you are safe up here is to let us stay for a while
and see for ourselves!"

Rosamund flushed; he was so wilfully provoking.  "Marshall!  How can
you?  You know very well I can't have two men in my house!  Why do you
want to make me appear so inhospitable?"

Flood, too, looked as if he would like to express himself forcibly.
"Oh, I say, Pendleton----" he began.

But Ogilvie, apparently, saw something of good in the suggestion.
"That's a capital idea, Mr. Pendleton," he said.  "Stay up here a
while, and see for yourselves.  I'll be very glad to put you up, if
Mrs. Reeves will invite us over to dinner once in a while!  My landlady
isn't much of a chef!"

Flood had turned to him quickly, with a keen look of questioning.
"Could you really, old man?" he asked.

"Bully!" Pendleton cried, grinning at Rosamund.  "Bet I can beat you in
a snow fight, Rose!"

But Rosamund, biting her lip in dismay, would not look at him.

"I can snow-fight!" Tim announced.  "I know how to make a snow man,
too!  My muvver showed me!"




XVII

It ended in their remaining ten gala days.  Flood telegraphed for the
implements of winter sports, and got them the next day.  They opened
them on the brow of the hill, and Pendleton, who took it upon himself
to be master of ceremonies, "dared" Rosamund to lead off on the skis.

"What for is vey long sticks?" Tim asked.  And when he saw Miss Rose
walk off on them he shrieked, and hid his face in Eleanor's skirts.

The entire household had come to look on.  Matt and Sue stood at the
corner of the cottage, he leaning on a snow-shovel to keep him in
countenance, Aunt Sue with one apron over her turbaned head and her
hands rolled up in another.  Grace, as white as the snow itself, sat
bundled up in rugs on a sunny corner of the piazza; Ogilvie had seen to
that.

Eleanor and Rosamund were in scarlet caps and long blanket coats.  When
Pendleton had fastened on her skis, Rosamund threw aside the coat, and
stood, a figure of white against the vaster white, save for the red of
her cap and the warm brightness of her hair and face.

She had known many Alpine winters, and was as much at home on skis and
snowshoes as in a ball-room.

She turned away from the interested little group to look across the
unbroken slope gleaming in sunlight that kissed it to a rosy glow in
places, in others turned its frozen crystals to a myriad sparkling
points of light.  In the hollows and under the shadow of drifts and
pines the snow looked blue.  She knew where the fields lay, now under
their blanket, patterned by fences in the summer.  The road wound off
to the left, then down, down----

It was only a step or two to the crest of the hill; the leap would be
glorious!  She turned a laughing glance over her shoulder; Eleanor,
Ogilvie, Flood, were watching her intently.

"I dare you!" Pendleton cried again; and she was off, off in one
splendid rush and leap, a leap that carried her out and down, far down.

Again Timmy shrieked, and Yetta fell on her knees.  Eleanor's face
flushed in admiration, and Pendleton called out,

"Good girl!  Never knew you to take a dare!"

It was a phase of her new to the two men who loved her.  Ogilvie had
seen her in many situations, Flood in more; each believed that he knew
the full excellence of her, yet, oddly enough, neither had thought of
her as this wild, boyish, graceful creature of the out-of-doors.  The
sudden discovery of it came as a shock to both; for both were by nature
men of the open, notwithstanding the fact of Flood's accumulated
millions and Ogilvie's eminence in the laboratory.  Now, in their
surprise, they stood above, on the edge of the slope, and watched her,
each thrilling, each showing his emotion in his own way.

Flood, in his surprise, had called out, then thrust one clenched fist
into the other palm with a resounding smack; but in a moment his face
took on its expressionless mask--expressionless save for the gleam from
the half-closed eyes.

Ogilvie had made no sound; he stood perfectly still, with out-thrust
under lip, the corners of his eyes wrinkling to a smile; his face wore
something of the indulgent, restrained look of a mother when she sees
an adored child perform some wonder, yet refrains from praise of that
which is so intimately her own; his first move was to run his fingers
through his hair.

The two stood there as if spellbound until Rosamund reached the valley
and waved up to them.  Then Flood and Ogilvie turned, and met each
other's eyes.  There was something of a shock; instantly each looked
away again, with an unspoken feeling of apology, as if he had looked
upon a disclosure that was not meant for him.

Neither analyzed what he had seen; until that moment neither had
suspected that the thought of Rosamund might be living in the heart and
desire of the other.  Instantly each put the suspicion aside, as if it
were an unworthy one; yet, through the hours that followed, it
persisted in returning again and again.  Each man acknowledged that if
it were true of himself, it might well be true of his friend; but each
tried to assure himself of its impossibility, even while admitting
that, if it were true, there could have been nothing of unfairness on
the part of the other.

From their first meeting on the mountain-top Flood and Ogilvie had
intuitively liked each other.  Through a knowledge of varied types of
men, they had learned to look beneath the surface; each recognized in
the other many qualities to respect.  Men are by nature
hero-worshipers, from the time that they look with covetous admiration
on the policeman's brass buttons and the motorman's thrilling power,
through the period when they worship the home league's star pitcher and
third-base-man, the captain of their college foot-ball eleven, and on
to their political enthusiasms.  There is far more of pure hero-worship
in the friendships of men than the world gives them credit for.  Flood
and Ogilvie had met on a mountain-top, and on a height their friendship
was to remain.  Each saw in the other "a splendid fellow"; neither
would have admitted in his friend the least shadow of baseness.  So,
after the unforeseen disclosure of that look, each man felt generously
on his honor to appear unaware of any possible feeling on the part of
his friend toward Rosamund, even going so far, in his heart and hopes,
as to deny that such might exist.

But while this ardent liking existed between Flood and Ogilvie, there
was something far different between each of them and Pendleton.

Pendleton liked Flood.  He liked him for the virile strength of his
personality, as well as for his possessions; he knew him only in his
hours of leisure, and might not have liked him so well, nor at all, if
he had known him only when he was engrossed in business.  But toward
Ogilvie he could not disguise an antagonism which would have shown
itself openly if he had been more courageous, and which as it was,
appeared in countless small spitefulnesses.

To the man who does nothing there are no creatures less interesting
than those whose every moment is taken up with affairs.  Between the
deliberate idler and the man of absorbing occupation there can be
nothing in common; indeed, there often arises more or less antipathy.
The business man is apt to retain a hearty disrespect for the idler; to
him, the man of leisure must always appear an anomaly, an excrescence,
a parasite of civilization.  And even when the worker has developed
toward the plane of the connoisseur, the collector, the lover of sports
and arts, he seldom does more than tolerate the man who has begun where
he finds himself only toward the end of an active career.

Yet Flood found Marshall amusing and likable enough.  He was perfectly
aware of Pendleton's qualities of the sycophant, the flatterer, the
gatherer of crumbs from the rich man's table.  He thought of them
rather pityingly as a natural outgrowth of the life of that class in
which Pendleton was so much at his ease, and regarded them leniently
because he believed that there was also to be found in that class so
much that was desirable, so much that he himself coveted.  He was
willing to accept its evil with its good, its defects with its
excellence; if it had brought forth a Pendleton, it had also borne the
perfect flower that was Rosamund.

But to Ogilvie Pendleton was altogether an abomination; he could see no
good in him; his very palms itched to smite him!

They were fortunate in their weather.  It seemed as if nature,
satisfied with her latest marvel, were holding her breath.  Every day
of their ten was brilliantly clear and cold and windless.  Their voices
rang far across the white silence of valley and mountain in that hushed
atmosphere.  The frozen snow crunched even under Timmy's little
trudging feet; and the mountain people apparently felt that it was
useless to lurk among the spruces when every step they took told where
they would be hidden.  They came from far and wide to stare at the
strange antics of the "foreigners," and grinned at Rosamund, more
friendly than they had ever been before.

Pap drove Mother Cary across the valley to look on at the sports;
Rosamund called her attention to the new friendliness of the other
spectators.  The old woman smiled rather grimly.  "Land!  No wonder!"
she said.  "Nobody could suspicion those young fellers were spies,
cuttin' up sech capers as them, sliding down hill head foremost on
their stummicks, an' prancin' around on slappers.  I never saw such
goin's on, myself--and John Ogilvie one of 'em!"

They laughingly compared notes afterward, and decided that Mother Cary
had been quite scandalized by their "capers;" Ogilvie admitted that she
had been very severe toward him the day after her drive across the
valley.

But for themselves they were glorious hours.  Rosamund threw aside the
burden of care that had enveloped her during the past weeks, and became
as merry as a child, more gay and joyous, than Ogilvie had ever seen
her.  She skimmed down the slopes on her toboggan with Tim holding on
behind her, his curls blowing out in the onrush of their swift descent;
and she would carry him back up the hill again, "pick-a-back," to show
him how strong a horse she was.  She could outdistance them all on
skis, but Ogilvie proved himself the best on snowshoes--thanks to his
boyhood in northern Vermont, although Flood, who had faced many a
blizzard on the plains, was not far behind him.

On the last day of the joyful ten Flood had gone with Rosamund on
snowshoes across the valley to carry something to Mrs. Allen.  Snow had
fallen during the night, and every bough of pine and spruce and fir had
its burden of downy white.  The two paused, when they had come past
Father Cary's wood-lot, to look down upon the valley.

They stood for a moment or so without speech.  Flood looked from the
snow-covered fields to the face beside him, as if to compare one
loveliness with another; then he drew a deep breath.

"Well," he said, as they went on again, "I'm sorry to be leaving all
this!"

For a moment she did not reply; she looked up at him once or twice, and
he divined that she had something to say which she did not quite dare
to put into words.  They had become very good friends, thanks to the
freedom of the out-of-door life of the past days.  He laughed.

"Go on, please!  Don't mind saying it!  I haven't any feelings!"

"Oh," she protested, laughing, "I was not dreaming of hurting your
feelings!  I was only thinking how--how curious it is that you
should--should care so much for what you are going back to."

But he did, nevertheless, show himself a little hurt at that.  "Why
shouldn't I like it?" he asked.  "Do I seem such a savage?"

"Oh, precisely not!"  Her mood was kind.  "You are not a savage.  You
are very nice--I'm very glad I've found out how nice you are.  But
that's just what makes me wonder, you see, how you can like it!"

"Like being nice?"

"No--of course not!  Like what you're going back to.  New York.
Cecilia!  Oh--all of that--you know what I mean, don't you?"

"Why," he said, a little puzzled, "I'm afraid I don't see anything
wrong with it--with your 'all of that!'  Do you think I ought to?"

"Oh, it isn't so much what is wrong with it.  It's only that it doesn't
satisfy--does it?  It is chaff--husks--a bubble--it has no substance."

He considered it for a moment.  Then he submitted: "Has this?"

"Well, at least this has substance.  It isn't empty."

"Isn't it?" he asked.  "Do you know, I should just have reversed that
opinion.  I should have said there was a good deal more in the life
you've deserted this winter than in the life you're choosing to live
here!"

She laughed.  "Perhaps I've reverted!  Or perhaps we are in different
phases of evolution!  You have reached your--we'll call it your New
York--and I have passed through it and come on to something better.  Or
if that sounds impolite we'll say that I have reached it and tumbled
down again!"

"Oh, there's no impoliteness in the truth!  You are generations,
infinite ages, ahead of me!"

She made no answer to his humility, and for a while neither spoke
again.  Their talk was, of necessity, largely broken by intervals when
all their attention was needed for the task in hand.  The light snow
made the going uncertain; they were taking the shorter way home, along
the upper slopes, instead of crossing the valley, and they had, more or
less, alternately to feel their way and to rush swiftly on across
possible dangers.

At the crest of the last slope Rosamund paused, and they turned to look
back at the way they had come.  Flood watched her with eyes of
devotion, as she stood there with her head thrown a little upwards,
breathing deeply, her face warm with her delight in the beauty of the
scene before her.

"How lovely it is!" she said, in the vibrating tone that always
thrilled him.

"Yes, it is lovely," he said, "but only for a time.  It is too much
like the real thing!"

"Isn't it the real thing?" she asked, surprised.

He laughed, and shook himself a little.  "I mean the real thing that I
used to know, the drifts on the plains, sleet in the face, the numbness
in your feet that tells you they're frozen--that's the real thing!
Believe me!"

She looked up at him, interested.  "And you have really felt that?"

"Oh, yes," he said.  "I've felt it--but it's a long time ago.  I'm glad
it is, too.  A very little of it satisfies.  Nowadays my real thing
is--well, what you called a while ago, New York, though that's only a
manner of speaking, you know."

"Yes, I know.  We've talked back in a circle!  I am still wondering why
you like it as you do!"

They had crossed their last hummock, and had come to the place not far
from the brown house where Matt now spread rugs and cushions every
morning; but no one was there to greet them.  Far down the long slope
of white they could see Eleanor and Tim, moving slowly over the crust;
Yetta was already at home on snowshoes, and her crimson-clad figure was
skimming over the snow-covered fields.  Apparently she was playing a
game of ball with Pendleton--something they had invented for
themselves; Ogilvie, also on snowshoes, was with them.

Rosamund sent a clear Valkyrie call down to them.  They all looked up,
and waved.  Ogilvie moved closer to Pendleton's side, and the game of
ball went on.

Rosamund threw herself down on one of the blankets, and Flood took his
place beside her.  She still wore her snowshoes, and sat with her knees
drawn up, her arms clasped about them, boy fashion.  She was watching
the others at their game down below, but Flood looked no farther than
her face.

Suddenly she became intensely aware of the man beside her; she could
not tell how the change came, or whether there were a change at all,
except in her intense consciousness of him.  She did not turn to look
at him; she did not so much as tremble from her position; but slowly,
as if the blood were retreating to her heart, her face grew white.

Flood saw the change in her face, and knew that he was the cause of it.
His heart beat triumphantly faster.

"Why did you say that you wonder at my liking--New York?" he asked.

She tried, vainly, to speak.

"You know what it represents, to me.  It's something better than I ever
had before.  It's friends, it's music, and art, and the whirl on the
Avenue.  It is 'up and on'--and--Rosamund, don't you know what it is
above all else?  It is you."

He had meant to say a great deal, when this moment should have arrived;
he had often wondered just how it would come, when he should find
courage where they two should be.  He had tried to teach himself the
words he thought would be most sure to move her, words that would best
disclose the fullness of his faith and his desire; yet now that the
moment for speaking was upon him he reverted to the man that was his
inmost self, forgetting his practiced phrases, not speaking the words
he had rehearsed, but telling his longing in short, rushing sentences
of pleading, voicing to her silence the cry of the strong soul to its
chosen mate, the appeal, even the demand, of the man who had won a high
place to the woman who could lead him up to even greater altitudes of
the spirit.  He pleaded as a man who has much to offer, but who is yet
begging for the crowning gift.  Unconsciously he disclosed his own
greatness of soul, while making her understand that he held her
supreme, beyond all that was beautiful, above all that was high.

Before he was done speaking, her head had bent itself until her face
was on her knees.  Never had she felt herself so unworthy; never had
her humility been so great.  Yet when he paused, she did not answer;
even for his last strong appeal she had no word.  He had shown her the
depths of his heart, and hers was shaken to its own depths.  But yield
she could not, turn to him she could not.  It was as if two great
elemental forces met, and clashed, and refused to combine.  She could
not altogether repudiate his appeal, yet she must be true to the
stronger one which held possession of her heart.

As he watched her in a silence that seemed still to vibrate with the
strength of his words, she raised her head to look at the figures now
coming toward them up the long slope.  Suddenly she saw that Ogilvie
stopped short, and, apparently at some word from Pendleton, looked up
toward herself and Flood.  He took a hesitating step or two, came on at
a wave from Pendleton; then he turned away, leaving the others to
return without him.

Some silent message had come up the mountain to her; Rosamund had found
her answer to poor Flood.  The others were out of sight for the moment
behind a low growth of pine; only Ogilvie was visible as he made his
way along the other ridge, taking his steps heavily, seeming suddenly
to have become weary.

Rosamund watched him for a moment; then she turned her white face,
pitiful with the knowledge of the hurt that she must give him, toward
Flood.  He must have read something there, for, startled, he bent a
little closer; then, following her look, he glanced from her to
Ogilvie, and back again.  Her eyes did not waver from him, and when
they had to answer the question in his, the paleness left her face, and
a great wave of color flooded it.  He held his breath, and his unspoken
question must have become imperative; for she nodded, her parted lips
refusing to form words.  Then, withdrawing her look, she hid her face
in her arms.

Neither of them ever realized that she spoke no word at all.  Her reply
had been too well-defined to need speech.  Flood understood.




XVIII

The morning after the departure of Flood and Pendleton, Eleanor and
Rosamund went out to the veranda for their usual after-breakfast
"breath of air," and stood arm in arm, looking over the long slopes
which had been the theater of their wonderful ten days' sport.
Apparently the same thought came to them simultaneously.  They looked
at each other and smiled.

"Did you ever see any place so empty?" Eleanor asked.

Rosamund shook her head.  "I never did," she said.  "Isn't it absurd?"

"It's like being in a room when the clock stops!" said Eleanor, and
Rosamund laughed.

"Isn't it curious how much of the city feeling those two brought with
them?  Before they came I felt as if New York were miles--oh,
continents--away.  This place was home, the center of the universe.
Now--well, now this is 'way off in the country'!"

Eleanor laughed understandingly.  "I know!  And yet not once while they
were here did we do anything we should have done in town!  No one so
much as mentioned bridge!"

"It must have been Marshall's presence," said Rosamund.  "Certainly Mr.
Flood never suggests town to me!"  She flushed, remembering what their
last talk of New York had led to.  He had taken it so well, proved
himself so completely the master of his emotions, shown her so gently
that he held her blameless and still supreme, that she had never liked
him so much as after having shown him how little she liked him!

Eleanor looked at her curiously, for she suspected something of what
had passed the day before; but she had cause to look at her wonderingly
more and more, in the days that followed, days which, for Rosamund,
soon became filled with mixed emotions.

"I want to see my doctor," Tim said at dinner one day.

The three women looked at one another as if it had just occurred to
them that Ogilvie had not, indeed, been to the brown cottage that day,
nor the day before, nor the one before that.  Nearly a week in fact,
had passed since the departure of the two men, and not once in that
time had White Rosy stopped before the house.

"Why, he has not been here since Mr. Flood left!  He must be ill," said
Eleanor, trying to speak as if the idea had just occurred to her.

"No, he ain't," said Yetta, always willing to give information.  "I saw
him driving around by the other road yesterday.  He ain't sick."

"Why, it's five days since he was here," Grace said.  "He must 'a'
forgot you, Timmy!"

Tim's lip began to tremble, and he turned to the ever ready Eleanor to
be comforted.

It had been a week of restlessness for Rosamund.  The visit of Flood
and Pendleton had recalled enough of the old familiar atmosphere of
cities to make the solitude of the mountains seem strange.  She had
been so sure that the new life was the best one!  Now she was disgusted
with herself to find that something of the old restlessness had
returned.  She told herself, with increasing determination, as the
empty days wore on, that she had become dissatisfied with the pleasant
monotony of the new life because a breath of the old one had blown
toward her.  For her admission to Flood, drawn from her unawares, as it
had been, even before Ogilvie himself had demanded it, gave her a
self-consciousness which was hard to bear.  But apparently her secret
was to remain with Flood.  Ogilvie did not come to claim it.  It had
long become his habit to stop at the cottage whenever he passed there.
For the first few days of his absence, she was only sorry that he did
not find time to come.  She could have no doubts of him.  For weeks she
had been happily sure that he was only waiting for a sign from her to
put into words what his eyes and manner were always saying.  To have
doubted him would have been to doubt the foundations of the world.

But gradually she became anxious at his prolonged absence.  All sorts
of womanish fears began to crowd upon her.  Although for a long time
she had heard no mutterings of trouble from among the mountaineers, yet
now she imagined all sorts of horrors, with Ogilvie as their victim.
When Mother Cary told her, one day, that the doctor certainly must be
sick, her fears went beyond bounds.  She knew herself to be his own,
she believed him to be hers; courageously she ignored her maidenly
hesitancies, and went forth to meet him.

All night she had lain awake nerving herself to seek him out; but when
morning brought the hour of their meeting she forgot everything save
her anxiety for him.  She had convinced herself that he was in trouble,
and staying away so that no shadow of it should fall on her.

She knew which way White Rosy would bring him.  It was snowing, but she
put on her warm red coat and cap, and went quietly out of the house,
walking down the road toward the Summit, to meet his sleigh on its way
to the valley.  She waved to him when he came in sight, but apparently
he did not see her; as he drew nearer she waved again, and called.

He answered, for such a greeting had passed between them many times
before, and was not to be ignored.  But when the sleigh stopped beside
her she cried out at the drawn whiteness of his face.

"Oh!" she cried, her hand over her heart, "you are ill!"

But he managed to smile, and threw aside his worn old fur rug with an
inviting gesture.  "Ill?  Not a bit of it!  Let me give you a lift to
the cottage!"

Mechanically she took her place beside him, and he urged White Rosy on.
She looked at him with anxious eyes and parted lips, feeling all the
while as if she were in some bewildered dream, where the real was
unreal, where everything was distorted--like itself, yet strangely
unlike.

Always before they had talked as fancy led them, or were comfortably
silent; now he was so unlike himself as to manufacture small-talk,
commonplaces, nothings.  There was no reference to his not having been
to the cottage, no hint of having missed her, no least word, in fact,
of anything personal between them.  He talked on, almost feverishly,
without looking at her, while she sat there numbly, dazed at the change
in him, but wounded far beyond other thought or speculation.

He stopped the sleigh in front of the brown house, and she got down
without looking at him; and still without speaking she went inside.  He
had not so much as suggested her driving on with him, as she had done
half a hundred times before!

Grace, in a deep basket chair, was smilingly watching the pretty group
before the fire--Eleanor, teaching the two children how to pop corn,
with Tim on her knee vigorously shaking the wire basket.  They looked
up as Rosamund entered, and at sight of the girl's face Eleanor put
Timmy quickly down from her lap and jumped up, with a little anxious
cry.

But Rosamund blindly, unheeding, went past them and up to her own room.
She closed the door and locked it, and made some incoherent answer to
Eleanor's entreaties.  She never knew how long she sat there, silent,
motionless, without removing her hat or coat, dumbly trying to control
the mingled shame and longing that surged through her.  Vainly she
searched through her memory for an explanation; she had done nothing to
offend him, no least thing that should estrange him.  Even now she
could not believe that he would wantonly hurt her; her faith in their
love had rooted itself too deep in her heart to be easily disturbed.

At last she called upon her pride for help, only to find that pride
itself lay sorely wounded.  But it was that which enabled her at last
to lay aside hat and coat, to bathe her face and rearrange her hair,
even to dress herself in her most becoming gown--that sure refuge of a
suffering woman!--and go downstairs to meet Eleanor's questioning,
anxious eyes.  It was not until Ogilvie came back later in the day, for
a hasty call at an hour when he knew the entire household would be
assembled, that anger came, mercifully, to her relief.  She saw that he
wished to make it seem as if he had always come at that hour, as if his
visits were habitually that far apart; she understood that he was
determined to make it impossible for her to ask wherein he suspected
her of offense.  He meant to give her no opportunity to explain or
demand explanation; instead, he was taking this way of turning back the
hands of the clock.  He was deliberately withdrawing from their
intimacy, putting their friendship back upon a plane of formality.  It
would seem as if he were trying to show her that his feelings had
changed.  Yet she had faced her own love too frankly, in her heart's
secret communings, to be able to deny it now.  She could only, in an
agony of shame, tell herself at last that she had been deceived in his.

The days that followed were full of misery for her.  All her life she
had been the center of a little world of love and admiration.  For the
first time some one had turned from her; the pain of it was not
lessened because the one who spurned her had come to hold first place
in her heart.  Yet such was her attitude that not even Eleanor dared
say a word which might touch upon the subject ever so remotely.
Eleanor did, indeed, watch her with yearning eyes, and Rosamund,
sensitive in her suffering, believed that she talked of her with Grace
and Mother Cary; but it was only by their avoidance of Ogilvie's name
that they showed any suspicion of what was in her heart.  Had Eleanor
dared to speak, Rosamund would not have been able to silence her; for
she needed every atom of her strength to appear unconscious and natural
whenever Ogilvie came.  She would not avoid him.  She could only be
feverishly gay before him; and Eleanor noticed how much more grimly his
face set itself after each visit.

The weeks passed, quickly for the rest of the household, slowly enough
for Rosamund.  She took long walks with Yetta; as Grace grew in
strength she went with them, taking them to call on her mountain
friends, who had shown themselves more friendly toward Rosamund since
they had watched her at play--and since the arrest of Joe Tobet, always
a disturbing personality.  They came to see Grace at the brown house,
where Rosamund made them feel at home, and gave them coffee and cake
and talked to them about their children, and loaned them patterns,
which she bought for the purpose, and which Eleanor showed them how to
use.  Rosamund's greatest comfort lay in the fact that she was coming
to be of use to them, thus fulfilling the desire which had been her
excuse for remaining among them.

For other exercise she had no desire; she could not put on snowshoes or
skis without recalling a time which she was trying to forget; besides,
she had no heart for play.  And soon even the walks became not
unalloyed pleasure.  Although no further warnings had come, either to
herself or Grace, and although the mountain people continued to show
themselves more and more friendly, Rosamund was conscious of a feeling
of uneasiness, a dread of ominous, unseen horrors hovering near, of
stealthy presences following her, of eyes peering at her from the
leafless undergrowth or through the branches of the scrub pine.  She
tried to persuade herself that it was all a part of the foolish
imaginings of a timid woman, yet had to admit that she had never been
timid before; gradually the feeling of uneasiness became almost
unbearable, in her increasing nervousness.

She welcomed the relief of Christmas, although it was Eleanor who went
to New York for their Christmas shopping.  Rosamund resolved with
herself that she would not leave the Summit until she had overcome the
vague fear that was now present with her whenever she left the house.
She would conquer that, or find out the reason for it, even though the
relations between herself and Ogilvie were at an end forever.  So she
sent Eleanor in her place, reigning alone for two weeks in the house
which had come to seem more Eleanor's than her own.

Eleanor returned on Christmas eve, all prepared to be a most munificent
Santa Claus.  It was only after the tree was trimmed, and they had
filled bulging stockings for everybody--including the Carys and John
Ogilvie--that she had a moment alone with Rosamund.

At last, however, Grace went upstairs, and Sue and Matt beamingly bade
them good night; Tim had not yet awakened with the first of his
repeated demands to go downstairs and see whether "Santy" had come.
Eleanor threw herself wearily into a big chair, and Rosamund perched on
its arm.

"Well, who did you see, and where did you go, and what did you do?" she
demanded.

Eleanor laughed.  "I saw Mrs. Maxwell, for one, and she was looking
exceedingly pretty and youthful."

"Was she in a good humor?"

"Well, she invited me to luncheon!"

"Oh, then she was!  I suppose she had gotten my Christmas check.  I've
sent to Tiffany's for some emeralds for her, besides.  She'll get them
as a surprise, to-morrow morning."

"Emeralds!  How munificent you are!"

Rosamund laughed.  "I'm afraid I'm only following the line of least
resistance, Eleanor!  Cissy's an angel when she's pleased.  But didn't
you see her more than once?"

Eleanor's pause was scarcely perceptible.  "Mr. Flood asked us all to
dinner at the Ritz," she said.

"How nice of him!  You and Cissy--and Marshall, I suppose?"

"Of course!"

"Then you saw them together.  Tell me, Eleanor, do Cissy and Marshall
really care for each other, do you think?"

"Oh, my dear!  Don't ask me such a question as that!"

"Why not?  I've wondered sometimes whether they would marry, if there
were more money between them.  I'd like Cissy to be happy; but, of
course, she'd have to be happy in her way!"  She thought for a while,
then added, "Marshall intimated that 'dear Cecilia' was setting her cap
for Mr. Flood!  What do you think about that?"

"I don't think anything at all, and it's bed-time," Eleanor answered,
trying to rise.

But Rosamund's arm across her shoulder restrained her.  "Not yet!  I
want a long talk.  I have missed you so dreadfully, old precious!"

Eleanor reached up for the hand on her shoulder, and looked up into the
girl's face.  "I didn't miss you, sweet!  I took you with me!"

Rosamund laughed, more joyously than in weeks.  "Oh, what a lover-like
speech from Eleanor!" she cried.  "Who has been coaching you?"

It was the most innocent of questions; but instantly Eleanor's usual
whiteness vanished.  A wave of pink crept up from her throat to her
cheeks, to her temples, to the line of her gold hair.  Rosamund
watched, amazed beyond expression.  Then Eleanor sprang up.

"We really must go to bed!" she cried.

But Rosamond had her by the shoulders.  "Eleanor!" she gasped.
"Why--Eleanor--who?"

But Eleanor had broken away, and was running up the stairs, leaving
Rosamund to a bewilderment which ended in a little gasp of
understanding and delight.




XIX

The first weeks of the new year passed rather drearily.  Christmas had
been a day of disappointment for her, although she threw herself into
the carefully planned festivities with a feverish gayety.  The Carys
had come across the valley to see the tree, and before dinner-time
every gift had found its way to the one it was intended for, except the
big net stocking which the children had filled for the doctor.  He had
promised Tim to come that morning; yet the day passed without him.  He
sent word that he was called over the mountain; yet, legitimate though
the excuse was, Rosamund became gayer than before--for anger always
acted as a goad to her self-control.

After Christmas his calls grew farther and farther apart; sometimes a
week passed without his coming at all.  When they met upon the road
their greeting was cheerful enough--too cheerful!  Eleanor watched her,
wondered, and said nothing.  Rosamund was aware that something new had
come into her friend's life, and rejoiced, for Eleanor fell into the
way of wanting to go for the mail; or if any one else brought it, she
would take the letter that was addressed to herself in a characteristic
handwriting that Rosamund knew, and ran off with it to read it alone.
Had it not been for Grace's growing need of her, and for the new
friendliness of the mountain people, Rosamund would have deserted the
brown house, for a time at least.  But the increasing confidence of her
neighbors was unmistakable; and she told herself that she would remain
throughout the winter, if only to prove John Ogilvie's forebodings
wrong.

But all the while, as time passed, more and more, on her walks and in
her own house at night, she was becoming haunted with that feeling of
being watched and followed.  She spoke of it to no one.  Grace alone,
her most constant companion, might have offered some explanation; but
Joe Tobet's trial was approaching, and Grace was in no condition to be
needlessly alarmed.  Mother Cary was showing herself increasingly
anxious about Ogilvie; and the teething grandchild kept her away from
home much of the time.  So Rosamund confided in no one; but especially
whenever she was out alone, or towards twilight, she was possessed by
the sense of a shadowy something watching, following, haunting her.  It
amounted to an obsession, a fear that was all the more terrifying
because it could not be faced.  She tried to persuade herself that it
was a trick of overwrought nerves, a wild phantasy of the imagination;
and the better to convince herself of that she laid little
traps--sprinkling fresh snow over the path to the house, for one thing,
only to find a man's footprints on it in the morning.

When the time came that she would wake in the night in horror, from a
dream of something unseen creeping upon her out of the dark, she knew
that she must somehow find and face the elusive presence, whatever it
might be, or become utterly unnerved.  Moved by the impulse of a
frightened creature at bay, she had tried to do so before, but in vain;
now, however, in her determination she laid a plan which was more
likely to succeed.

There were two ways from the brown house to the post-office; by the
road it was a countryman's long mile, and until the leaves fell she had
not discovered that there was a shorter way by one of the hidden paths
worn by the mountaineers.  This little path ran along beside the
highway at times, though higher up on the mountain-side, so that anyone
walking upon it could look down, unseen, on the road; now and again it
cut across turns, through woods, often with sharp turnings to avoid
some bowlder or fallen tree.

Although at the thought of it her heart beat with something more
closely related to fear than she cared to admit, Rosamund determined to
take the little frozen path, and when she felt the presence lurking
back of her to turn, at one of the points where the path bent aside,
and, her movements hidden by the nature of the path, to retrace her
steps and face whatever was following her.

At first she thought the Thing must in some ghostly way have divined
her purpose; all the way to the Summit she knew that she was
unfollowed.  But on the way back, scarcely had she turned into the path
when her heart gave a leap.  There was the sound, so detestably
familiar of late, of a stealthy footstep, which stopped when hers did,
and which came on, quietly, relentlessly, when she started forward
again.  Nerving herself to courage, she walked quickly on until she
came to a place where the path turned sharply; there for a moment or
two she paused, to let the pursuer gain upon her, then quietly and
quickly retraced her steps.

The ruse was successful.  She could hear the footsteps come on, the man
plainly unaware of her returning.  Suddenly she stepped a little out of
the path and waited.  The man came nearer, was opposite her--and with a
cry, her hand on her heart, she faced--John Ogilvie.

For a long minute they stared at each other.  She could scarcely
believe the evidence of her eyes, yet it was surely Ogilvie.  "Is it
you who have been following me?" she gasped.

His shoulders drooped as guiltily as a schoolboy's caught in mischief;
he looked at her dumbly, wistfully.

"I--it--Yes!" he stammered.

For a moment she could not speak, so amazed was she.  When she did, he
flushed deeply at the scorn in her voice, but at once grew pale again.

"Has it amused you to frighten me?" she demanded.

He took off his cap, and ran his fingers through his hair in the old
perturbed gesture.  There was a pale intensity of yearning on his face,
a dark gleam of hungering pain, something of the bewildered misery of
the lost child, an agony of renunciation with none of that exaltation
which makes renunciation beautiful.  Despite the sharp cold of the
closing day he looked hot, disheveled, as one hard pressed.  His breath
came quickly and painfully, as if he had been running a race.  Every
vestige of color left his face as he stood there, his look not
faltering from hers.

"Oh, how could you do it?" she cried, tears starting to her eyes.

"I didn't think you knew," he said, hoarsely.

"Not know?  Not know!" she gave a little laugh that was half a sob.  "I
have gone in terror--for weeks!"

"I am sorry," was all he found strength to say; and it seemed as if the
words could scarcely pass his lips.

In the sudden revulsion of feeling she was becoming shaken with anger.
He saw that she misjudged him; but she had never seemed to him so
beautiful as in her scorn and anger and resentment.  The appeal of her
beauty only added to his distress.  The moment was as tense as that
earlier one when their hearts had been disclosed; but now no one came
to break the spell.  Instead, Rosamund turned, and walked away from him.

He had believed, during these weeks, that he had schooled himself to
silence and restraint; but she heard him call, hoarsely, chokingly,

"Rosamund!  I had to--know you were safe!  I had to--see you!"

Then, for her, the world threw off the horror that had befogged it for
weeks, and once more opened to light and life.  Anger, resentment,
doubt, all--all were swept away at his cry, were as if they had never
existed.  She heard the love in his voice, and with a little answering
cry of her own she turned and ran toward him.  Shyness and restraint
had no place in this new happiness.

In a moment she would have been in his arms, for they were opened
toward her.  But before she had quite reached him he threw them upward,
across his face, as if to shut off the sight of her, and with a cry she
could never forget turned and ran, stumbling down from the little path
to the highway, crashing through the bushes, running, running, in the
desperate haste of a man fleeing from temptation, over the frozen ruts,
sometimes stumbling, almost falling, recovering, running still--running
away from her.

She could never tell how she got back to the cottage, how she found her
way to her own room through the blind agony of the hour.  What stood
between them she could not surmise; yet now she knew, beyond all doubt,
that he loved her.  His cry still rang in her ears.  There might remain
wonder, distress, sorrow, even separation; but doubt had been forever
swept away.

Somehow she got through the evening, and, later, slept.  She awoke
before dawn as if someone were calling; and, as in answer, she slipped
from the bed and went to her window.  She thrust her feet into her
fur-lined bedroom slippers; the heavy coat she used for driving lay
across a chair; she fastened it around her, and turned the full collar
up about her bare white throat.  The air was very cold, but so still
that it held no sting.  Over the sleeping whiteness of the valley, the
snowy steeps of the lower hillsides, the dark crests of the mountains,
myriads of stars shone with a pale radiance more lovely far than
moonlight.  Mother Cary's lamp burned, small and clear, on the side of
the opposite mountain, which at night seemed so like a huge crouching
beast; little farmsteads in the valley and the nearer cottages were
alike dark and slumbering patches of shadow.  She watched the steady
brilliance of a planet pass towards the horizon and sink over the
mountain.  A star fell.  After a while, from somewhere far away, a cock
crowed.  The earth was waiting for the day.

Then a subtle change began.  The stars grew dim; the sky deepened its
blue, and again slowly paled.  The western mountains were faintly
crowned with light, and under the base of those to the eastward shadows
gathered more closely.  Again a cock called, and was answered from near
at hand.  Over the eastern mountain tops an iridescent wave of color
spread upward.  So still was the air, so silent lay the earth, that it
might have been the expectant hush of creation, the quiet of some new
thing forming in the Thought which gives love birth.  Dawn was there;
and through the stillness something stirred, or dimly echoed; almost a
pulse it seemed, or the first faint throbs of life.  Then gaining
strength, or coming nearer, the sound came up to her more clearly.  She
knew where the road lay, white on white; along its winding lift
something was moving.  Surely the sound came from there!  Nearer, more
clearly, beat upon beat, she heard it.  At last she made out the form,
and watched it with straining eyes and heart that yearned toward it.

From some night errand of ministration his old white mare was wearily
bringing him homeward.




XX

Yetta, a pretty girlish figure in soft gray, was leaning on the rail of
the box, lost in the absorption of her first opera.  For three or four
exciting days they had been in the city, and Yetta felt as if she had
been swept into fairyland.  Everything was wonderful.  Miss Randall had
blossomed into a princess in marvelous raiment.  The most beautiful
lady in the world, Miss Randall's sister, had taken her to shops and
bought her various garments as fine as Miss Randall's own.  She had
been whirled about in warm, closed automobiles.  Footmen at whom, less
than a year ago, she would have been pleased to smile, had opened doors
for her while she haughtily passed through, outwardly oblivious of
their magnificence.  Miss Randall's friends, while they asked various
questions about her as if she had possessed neither eyes nor ears, were
mostly very kind and gentle to her.  It was wonderful, and Yetta felt
that the greatest day of her life had been the one when Miss Randall,
coming down to breakfast, had surprised them all by declaring that she
was going to New York that afternoon for a week or two, that Yetta was
to accompany her, and that neither Mrs. Reeves, nor Grace, nor Timmy,
nor Aunt Sue, nor Matt must divulge to a soul among their neighbors
that she had gone, because she would be back before they had had time
to think twice about it.  And the crowning glory of it all was this,
that to-night she was in the great Opera House in a box, leaning out
toward the stage, and listening, listening, listening!  She was
certainly herself, Yetta; but it seemed as if she must also be someone
else--someone in a lovely soft gray gown to whom Miss Randall's
friends, coming into the box from time to time, bowed formally, as if
she were a lady, and asked how she was enjoying herself; and quite
secretly, though with all the intensity of her soul and her imagination
she knew it, she was still another person who should, some day, be
there on the stage, charming these hundreds of people as she herself
was now bewitched, by the joy and beauty of a voice--her voice,
Yetta's!  But to-night it was enough to be a fairy princess!

Rosamund had not stopped to speculate upon Yetta's readiness for the
great experience until they were on the north-bound train, on the day
after her last encounter with Ogilvie.  Her own need had been too
pressing to admit of any other speculation or demand.  She knew, when
she turned back from the window after her vigil of the dawn, that she
must get away for a time, away from the very thought of him, if she was
to be able to continue to think at all.  So she had bound the remaining
members of the household to secrecy, and, with Yetta, started for New
York.

The girl was really presentable, she thought.  A child of no other race
could have adjusted herself so quickly to the new demands; she believed
that Yetta was now ready for a wider horizon, for she spoke and moved
so well that Rosamund was sure even Cecilia's fastidiousness could find
little fault in her.  She meant to give her a glimpse of the larger
world, to have her voice "tried" by a competent critic, and then to
return to the little brown house, perhaps with a governess for the
girl, someone who could do more for her education than the little
school-teacher.  At any rate, the trip would give her time to recover
herself, to think, perhaps to decipher something of the puzzle of John
Ogilvie's conduct.

So, to-night, Yetta was listening to her first opera, and Cecilia was
chattering away at her side, their friends coming in from time to time
to greet the returned one.  It all seemed as unreal to Rosamund as to
Yetta, so sudden had been the transposition.

Pendleton came late into a box across the semi-circle; Cecilia shrugged
and pretended to be unaware of him.  It was the first time Rosamund had
seen him since her return, and she was beginning to wonder with some
amusement whether he had transferred his attentions from Cecilia of his
own accord or at the lady's suggestion, when she saw him hastily borrow
his hostess's glass, take one look through it, and dart from the box.
She knew what was coming.

"Rosy!" he cried, with his familiar impertinence, only grinning at
Cecilia, who in turn just raised her eyebrows and became absorbed in
the aria.  But he, unabashed, bent over Rosamund.  "Rosy!  It can't be
you!  And--by all the saints, is that, is that the creature who yelped
at Benny a few short months ago?"

"Be quiet," Rosamund whispered, laughing, in spite of herself, at his
nonsense.  "Don't be so absurd, Marshall!"

"Absurd!" he cried, in mock indignation.  "Is it absurd to greet the
dawn?  Here we've all been living in the darkness of your absence, and
now you're back at last, and you tell me not to be absurd!  I like
that!"

At his voice Yetta had turned for an instant to smile a recognition.

"Good Heavens!" he whispered, "what have you done to her?"

"It's nothing to what I am going to do," Rosamund told him.  "But you
are not to make love to Yetta, my dear Marshall; I'm not going to have
the child told she's beautiful.  Who knows but she might take you in
earnest?"

Pendleton grinned cheerfully, and drew a little chair to her side.
"All right, my dear," he said, "I won't say 'boo' to her!"

There were other visitors off and on, but for two acts he flagrantly
deserted the woman he had come with, and sat back of Rosamund's chair,
talking over her shoulder.

"How's Eleanor?" he asked.

Rosamund thought of Eleanor in the quiet room in the brown house, while
she was here, with the song of the goose-girl in her ears--and her
heart warmed as our hearts are apt to warm toward those we have left
behind.

"Eleanor is well, and lovelier than ever," she told him.

Pendleton screwed up his face.  "You aren't the only one who thinks she
is lovely, old lady!  If you don't watch out she'll spike your guns
with Benny!  He followed her around like Mary's lamb when she was up
before Christmas; and I've known too many men and women in my time,
Rosy dear, to believe they found nothing better to do than to sing your
praises!"

Rosamund looked at him, and smiled tantalizingly.  "Oh, we all know how
experienced you are, Marshall," she teased him.

"Why don't you ask after Flood?" he pursued, ignoring her taunt; she
smiled, and meekly said, "Well, how is he?"

"Bloody-thirsty!" he said, in a sepulchral tone.

"What?" she laughed.  "What on earth do you mean?"

"Fact.  He's had a lust for killing, a sort of Berserker rage against
everything and everyone, ever since we got back from your place, except
while your Eleanor was here.  Finally he got into a regular fury with
me, said he'd do various things to me--sort of speech you'd expect from
a navvy, you know.  Queer how those fellows revert.  I told him to go
west and shoot wild beasts, and, d'you know, he took me at my word!
Now what do you think of that?"

Rosamund was greatly amused.  "I think everyone ought to take your word
with a grain of salt," she said.

He shook his head at her with mock reproach.  "What makes you so
incredulous, Rose?" he asked, sadly.  "It's a lamentable trait in a
woman!"

"I, at least, don't fly into rages with you," she retorted.

At that, he put on an air of intense depression.  "It's well you
don't," he said.  "Two rages on your account are enough."

"On my account?  Two?"

"Oh, yes, yes, wholly on your account.  You little know, Rosamund, what
I've tried to do for you!"

"Marshall, you are too absurd!"

"Now there's that lamentable trait of yours again, Rose!  Really, it's
time you came down from your mountains, if that's what they do to you!"

"Oh, well, Marshall, I'll believe anything you tell me!  What have you
been doing now?"

He drew his chair a little closer to hers, and lowered his voice to a
more confidential tone.  "Rosamund, I'm a misunderstood man," he said,
mournfully.  "Whenever I try to do anything for you, people seem to
turn against me.  Now there's Cecilia--look at those shoulders, will
you?  Did you ever see anything so frigid?  Make me feel as if there's
a draught on my neck, just to look at them.  That's the way she treats
me, ever since I told her to let Flood alone, because he's your
preserve!"

Rosamund laughed; the mystery was made clear.  "Good gracious,
Marshall!  You never did that?"

But he pretended the utmost seriousness.  "That wasn't all," he
declared.  "One day I tried to jolly Benny along, cheer him up a bit,
you know!  He'd been so awfully down.  I tried to tell him something
about the best fruit hanging high, that there was nothing like
perseverance, and all that sort of thing.  He told me to mind only my
own business.  Yes, he really did, Rose!  Wasn't it perfectly shocking
of him?  I told him it was, and he said he'd like to knock some sense
into me.  That's when I suggested his going off and shooting things."

"You had a fortunate escape," she said dryly.

"Yes, hadn't I?" he agreed.  "But something disagreeable always happens
when I try to do you a kindness, Rose!  There was that chap Ogilvie; he
seemed to turn against me from the moment I put him wise."

At the unexpected mention of the name, her heart seemed to stand still;
but a flash of insight warned her that she was upon the clue to the
mystery that had so tormented her.  She managed to smile at Pendleton,
and to ask, "How was that?"

"Oh, that last afternoon, you know, you've no idea how well you and
Benny looked, seated up there on that red blanket.  I called Ogilvie's
attention to it--awfully hard to make conversation with a fellow like
him, you know.  I said something about you and Flood being well suited
to each other, and he seemed rather surprised, and actually had the
nerve to ask me what I meant.  The way he spoke, or something, put it
into my head that he--er--he--well, that I would be doing you a good
turn by telling him a thing or two.  I did."

"What?" she managed to ask, to his dramatic pause.

"Oh, I believe I said that you and Flood must be finding it very good
to be together these few days; that of course nothing had been
announced yet, and something of that sort.  I remember he said I must
be misinformed, which quite provoked me.  A fellow doesn't like to be
contradicted, you know.  What?  I assured him I was in a position to
know, and threw in a word or two about your--er--millions being joined
to Benny's, or something of that sort.  Most combative chap, Ogilvie!
Tried to tell me that a woman of your type would not be likely to stay
up in the mountains so far from a fiancé.  'Pon my word, I almost
thought the fellow must be really hit, himself!  I said he probably
hadn't had much experience with women of your type; never can tell what
freak you girls will take to next.  Oh, we had quite a word or two, I
assure you.  Ended in his being huffy.  Wouldn't walk up the hill
beside me, and all that, you know.  What?"

Rosamund was never more grateful in her life than to the unsuspecting
man whose coming into the box ended Pendleton's chatter.  During the
rest of the evening she dared not let herself think of his revelations.
On the way home, however, she made herself sure of the truth of part of
them.

"What happened between Marshall and Mr. Flood?" she asked Cecilia.

Mrs. Maxwell gave an exclamation of impatience.  "Oh, my dear!
Marshall has been altogether too insufferable!  Mr. Flood has spoiled
him.  He got to the point where he thought he owned Mr. Flood.  Oh,
yes, there was a fight, of course."  She raised her eyebrows towards
Yetta, who, opposite them, was peering out at the receding
street-lights with eyes still bright with wonder.  Rosamund, catching
the signal, said,

"It is perfectly safe to talk."

Then Cecilia, rather more circumstantially than Pendleton, told her of
the triangular quarrel.  "And now," she said, "Marshall is absurd
enough to think I mind his dangling after that Mrs. Halley!  She's
welcome to him!  Did he happen to say where Mr. Flood had gone?"

"He said he had gone west to shoot things," Rosamund told her, and
Cecilia became very thoughtful.  Later, while Rosamund was undressing,
she came into her room, and said,

"Rose, the Whartons have asked me to go on their yacht to the
Mediterranean.  If you are sure you will not need me for a month or two
I believe I'll go."

They talked for a while of plans, with no mention of Flood.  Rosamund
had small difficulty in adding the sum of two and two; it was plain
enough that her sister had accepted the hint of the defeat of any hopes
she might have had, and now was aiming somewhere else; but Cecilia, in
a blue negligée, her hair down and her cheeks still delicately flushed,
looking intently at the toe of her silver slipper, was bewitchingly
pretty, and she had not the heart to laugh.  When Rosamund announced
her intention of leaving New York next morning, Cecilia, in turn,
ignored any suspicions she might have had.  She even offered to keep
Yetta for a week, to take her to the master who was to hear her voice,
to find the suitable governess and to send her back in the governess's
charge before she sailed.  She had taken a strange liking to the girl;
perhaps the adoration in the black eyes had something to do with it.

Then, at last, Rosamund was alone.  Do we ever, she wondered, look back
upon our doubts and misunderstandings, when once they are dissolved,
with anything but scorn and disgust for our own stupidity, our
blindness?  Pendleton's part in the affair was too mean to be given a
second thought.  Such people, she supposed, there must be, content to
feed upon the crumbs of society, winning their way by their very
silliness, which amuses more by its vociferous nonsense than by
inherent wit.  She could dismiss him as a meddler, knowing him too well
to credit him with worse intentions; he was not bad at heart, and she
knew that he would not have been merely spiteful toward herself.  He
had meant her no harm.  It was her own part in it, and above all
Ogilvie's, that were hard to think about.  It was not for the woman to
move with courage high enough to overcome misunderstandings; it was
Ogilvie who had failed there.  He at least had known what Pendleton had
said, while she had been unaware of it.  After that hour of wordless
revelation, she asked herself, how could he have doubted her?  In their
walks and drives she had been so sincerely herself with him, had given
him so many opportunities of knowing her character--even, she
blushingly told herself, of knowing her heart.  Was it possible that
any man, after that, could so misunderstand her as to believe her
capable of such deception?  How could he have believed her engaged to
Flood?  Yet she realized that if he did indeed believe it, he would not
have pressed his own claims.  Whatever his feeling for her, he would
not have tried to win her from the friend whom he placed so high, whom
he knew to be so worthy a man, for whom he had told her that he would
make any sacrifice.  She was sorely wounded; yet there was that quality
in her blood which refused to be vanquished.  It would have been
natural enough to scorn him for his doubt, to punish him for his
neglect, to condemn him for his lack of courage, when a word or two,
scarcely a question, would have made everything clear between them.  To
blame him, she told herself, would be the easier way.  But her courage
was higher than that.  Beyond every other consideration, she knew very
well that she must give precedence to the love that was in his heart
and hers.

She recalled Mother Cary's words, "I reckon there's a door o' distrust
most of us has to pass through, before we can stand in the land where
there's only content, an' love, an' trust."  Her heart warmed anew to
the wise, tender old woman whose wisdom was large and loving enough to
illumine every shadow.

She fell asleep pondering upon it all, and carried the same thoughts
with her to the train next morning.  She left New York before Yetta was
awake, having said farewell to a very drowsy and very charming Cecilia.

It seemed strange that here the busy life of the city could be rushing
on, crowding and grinding and shrieking, while there, in her mountains,
as she knew so well, only quiet stretches of snow and lines of black
pines and bare treetops, only the sun and the stars, only the few
slowly moving people, an old white mare bringing home a tired man, the
call of the man or boy crossing the fields, the lowing of cattle from
the barnyards--only these made up the world!  Here every second was
crowded with activity; the deeper workings of human hearts were drowned
in noise.  There, nothing ever hastened; life matured normally, like
the winter wheat; grew slowly, and to a largeness impossible in the
cities.

She had forgotten that the trains, in winter, were less frequent.  She
missed the last one, and had to spend the night in Baltimore, and make
a late start the next morning.  She had been thinking, thinking, during
every waking moment since the hour of Pendleton's disclosure, and in
the station she bought an armful of papers and magazines; even pictures
of criminals, financiers and actresses were better company than her own
thoughts!  There was no Pullman car on the train in winter, and she
welcomed the changing company of the day-coach; but passengers happened
to be few, and she was soon forced to take up her papers.

She was no exception among the women of her sort; newspapers made
uninteresting reading.  She looked first with a slight distrust at the
flaring headlines on the front page, then turned to the social notes.
Those exhausted, an advertisement or two caught her attention; and then
there seemed to leap at her the words: "TOBET FREE."  She read, almost
at a glance, the short paragraph which followed.

"The Federal authorities have failed to obtain sufficient evidence to
convict Joseph Tobet, of Long Mountain, of the charge of illicitly
distilling the so-called 'White Lightning.'  Tobet had been under
suspicion for some months, and was arrested last October, but the
charge against him has been dismissed, and the man was set at liberty
yesterday."

The paper dropped to her feet.  She wondered what effect this would
have upon Grace, and remembered the note of warning.  But, just from
New York as she was, such doubts or fears seemed too utterly trivial to
be of account.  Joe might threaten, Doctor Ogilvie might shake his
head, and Grace, poor soul, might tremble; but the arm of the law was,
after all, a sure protection.  There was really nothing that Joe could
do; and she dismissed the thought of him for the more welcome one of
Ogilvie.

The day before, her impatience had been boundless.  She had not doubted
that she should seek him out at once, as the most courageous thing to
do, tell him what Pendleton had said, and of Flood's absence in the
West; that, she told herself, would surely be enough.  He would then
understand.

But to-day, as she drew nearer the end of her journey, her resolution
faltered.  He had been stupid; his doubts had wronged her; his
restraint, if such it had been, was unfair to them both, and had stolen
something from their love which there would never be time enough to
replace.  It was not the woman's part to offer apologies; it was the
man's part to have faith, or, at the very worst, to seek explanation.
If he could so deny himself, if her love was so small a thing to him
that he could bring himself to do without it, was it for her to urge it
upon him?

Her revulsion of feeling went still farther.  Life, she told herself,
was after all pretty much the same, wherever it was lived.  To give
happiness to Eleanor and Tim, to care for Yetta--that was what had
justified her spending the winter in the mountains; she could have done
as much in town.  If she had not found sincerity of purpose and
singleness of aim among her earlier friends, it was because she had not
learned to look for it.  She had only chosen the easier part, not the
higher; it was easier to be sincere and simple in the mountains than in
town where life was more crowded.  It was she who had been at fault in
not finding in the old life what was more plainly to be seen in the
new; she was so small a creature that she could not reach high purpose
through confusing interventions, but must have it laid before her in
bareness and singleness.  And what was, in truth, her feeling for this
man who could so readily doubt her, or, at the very least of his
offending, hold himself aloof from her through any consideration
whatever?  Aside from his belief in her baseness, had he not been
willing to sacrifice her for his friend?  Would not love, such love as
she felt herself worthy of receiving, have put aside without a thought
of misgiving anything and everything but the glory and necessity of its
own demands?

All the way her mind was busy with such problems of its own making.
The journey seemed long.  She told herself that her impatience was only
to end it, to reassure herself by the sight of him; yet the impatience
was there.  It was mid-afternoon when she alighted, remembering her
last return.  She wondered whether White Rosy would be there, and bent,
on her way down the car, to look along the platform.

But the only familiar form was the important person who combined the
functions of station master, storekeeper and retailer of news.  He
grinned when he saw her, and came towards her with unusual alacrity.

"Well, I declare," he said, "got the news a'ready, have ye?  Bad news
sho'ly does travel fast!"

She stood still and looked at him.  His eyes brightened still more when
he perceived that he was to be the first to inform her.

"Why, ain't ye heard?" he cried.  "Yer house was burnt down to the
groun' las' night.  Thought ye was in it, the doctor did.  That's how
he so nigh got killed."




XXI

There are some hours of human experience so intense with suffering that
they return, again and again, living themselves over in the memory,
arising in the small hours of the night--haunting specters of pain,
meeting us unexpectedly in an unguarded moment of solitude to open and
reopen the wounds they have left, following us on through the years
with a recurring vindictiveness of pain almost as keen as when it was
first inflicted.  Joy, happiness, exaltation of spirit, return only in
new guises; they, too, make their impression upon the memory, but
otherwise.  The shock of loss, the agony of parting, the fear and dread
of the suffering of loved ones, the bitterness of self-reproach, the
message of loss--these are the things that return and return again; and
of such as these were the hours of that afternoon to Rosamund.  Not
only on that first night, once more in the small upper room at Mother
Cary's, but often and often during her after life did the shock and
agony of those hours return to her.

Past the form of the station master, gloating in his satisfaction at
being the first to tell her the evil news, she had seen Father Cary's
familiar form descending from his wagon.  She scarcely remarked his
surprise at her being there, his disappointment that Doctor Blake and
the nurse had not come on that train, his helping her into the wagon,
and his description of the events of the night before.  The drive past
the dull little houses and the store, the closed cottages, the big
hotels with their uncurtained windows staring like eyeless sockets, the
woods, the glimpses of the path where she had faced John Ogilvie; the
turn at last toward the brown cottage she had come to love so dearly;
the blackened, smoking hole that alone remained of it; then the half
mile farther to the house where Ogilvie lay--those were the moments of
most intense pain, because of their suspense.

The story was simple enough.  The little household had gone to bed
early, and toward midnight Grace had awakened with a whispering fear of
smoke.  She roused the others, and Eleanor had bundled sleepy Tim in
blankets, thrown other bed covering out of a window, and gone quietly
down with Grace.  Matt and Sue, wild with fear, rushed out ahead of
them, shouting, and their cries aroused the nearest neighbors.  Country
folk come quickly to a fire, although there is seldom anything to do
but watch and surmise; a small crowd gathered in an incredibly short
time, and a few things were rescued from the blazing house.  In spite
of the pleading of the women, Grace stayed to watch the flames,
wringing her hands, and calling Rosamund's name.  Eleanor was half
frantic herself, with the alternate efforts at calming Timmy and
beseeching Grace to go away.  But Grace, loving and faithful, was
crying at the loss of the house and the things in it that had seemed to
her so beautiful, and that were so dear because they belonged to
Rosamund.  She could not be persuaded to leave, but stood wringing her
hands and saying, over and over,

"Oh, Miss Rose!  Oh, Miss Rose!"

[Illustration: "A small crowd gathered in an incredibly short time."]

After the first alarm, Aunt Sue became calm enough to tell the
questioners that all were safe, that Miss Randall and Yetta were in New
York.  But the man who was urging White Rosy up the long road from the
valley, the man who, at last, came running, stumbling, panting up to
the little band of watchers, who heard Grace Tobet calling a beloved
name and sobbing, did not wait for explanation.  He looked among them
for one face, and found it missing; then he rushed into the blazing
house.

There were brave men who, for the sake of all he had done for their
women and children, went after him; there were strong arms to bear him
to the nearest shelter, and loving hands to tend him.  It was not long
before Mother Cary came, bundled up in the wagon beside her big
husband, to take command of everything.

So short and simple a story of a ruin so great!  Rosamund sat dumbly in
the kitchen of the little house where Ogilvie lay, while Mother Cary
told her, braced beside her on the little padded crutch, her tender old
hands smoothing the girl's hair, the sweet old voice speaking words of
courage and hope.

"Pap's done telegraphed for Doctor Blake," she said, "him that's his
friend, him that sent Yetta up here.  He's an eye doctor, but he'll
know everything to do for everything else as well.  We reckoned he'd
come on this train.  That's how come Pap was there to meet it.
Howsomever, he'll be here before the day's out, you mark me; an' he'll
say jest what I'm sayin'--John ain't goin' to die.  He's a goin' to get
well."

Rosamund looked up at her, and the old woman understood.  "I wouldn't,
ef I was you, darlin', honey!  No, now don't ye go thinkin' that a way;
it ain't that he's burnt so bad, 'cause he ain't.  Hair grows quick,
an' that did get sco'ched a leetle mite.  I reckon all ails him is thet
he breathed in the smoke."

Half-remembered tales of horror passed through the girl's mind, and she
hid her face in her hands.

"Oh, well, honey, ef you goin' to take on about it, maybe you better
jest come to the door and peek in at him.  I guess when all's said an'
done you got more right than anybody else."

"Ah, no," Rosamund cried, "no, I have not!"

But Mother Cary touched her cheek.  "Honey, he wouldn't 'a' gone into
the house that a way ef so be it he hadn't 'a' thought all he loved
best in the world was there.  A body don't go into flames for nothin'!
An' it wasn't no ways like the doctor to lose his head--now was it?
You come right along in here with yo' Ma Cary."

As long as she lived Rosamund could recall that room--the dingy white
walls, the oval braided rug upon the floor; the tiny looking-glass and
little corner washstand; the bureau with its characteristic assortment
of shaving things, a stethoscope and a small photograph in a plush
frame of a woman dressed in the fashion of thirty years before; the
bedstead of turned yellow wood, the bright patchwork quilt over the
feather-bed--and Ogilvie's form lying there, his flushed face, his
heavy breathing, his restless hands.

The woman who was watching beside his bed arose, and Rosamund crossed
the narrow space.  She bent over him a little, put out her hand, but
shrank back, restrained perhaps by the fear of an emotion which
threatened to be too strong for her.

She turned, went blindly from the little room, and Pa Cary led her out
to the wagon.  If he talked to her on the way to his house she did not
hear him.  Tim saw them coming, and ran to meet her.  The pressure of
his warm little arms about her neck, in the "tight squeeze" that he
usually reserved for Eleanor, did more than anything else to bring her
back to a normal state of mind.

But after his first embrace, Tim wanted to go to the stable with Father
Cary.  Eleanor was standing in the little familiar doorway, under the
overhanging roof made by the upper floor.  She waited, as if
spell-bound, while Rosamund walked slowly up the path to the house; it
was the look on the girl's face that held her back, for her heart was
reaching out in sympathy.  At last Rosamund stood before her, and they
looked into each other's eyes; then Eleanor opened her arms wide, and
with a sob drew Rosamund to her.

"Oh, my sweet, my Rose!" she cried, her tears on Rosamund's cold cheek.
"I knew!  I knew!  I knew it was John!  But he'll get well, darling.
He will live for your sake!"

But Rosamund went past her into the house, looked about the little
familiar room as if she had never seen it before, and seated herself in
a chair near the table.

Eleanor took off her hat and unfastened her coat as if she had been a
child, instead of the stricken woman that she was; Rosamund looked up
at her in a dumb agony of appeal.

Eleanor repeated the story she had already heard from Father Cary; at
the end she paused, hesitated, and said,

"But there is one thing more that you've got to know, Rose.  The house
was set on fire."

Rosamund looked up at her, as if waiting.

"Oh, don't look like that, my darling!  Try to understand!  Someone set
fire to the house--it's so cruel to have to tell you!"

Suddenly Rosamund's face changed from its blankness to a look of horror.

"Then--if--I--had gone away, as he wanted me to--Oh!  Eleanor, then he
would not--"

But Eleanor's arms were around her.  "Don't, Rosamund!  Don't let
yourself do that!  There's not one of us could live and be sane, if we
dwelt on our 'ifs'!"

"But it is true!"

"It is not true.  It is not!  Because there was no 'if'; there could
not have been!  You had to stay; you had to obey your own reasoning,
not his.  We all have to decide for ourselves.  It is when we don't,
that we get into trouble.  I can assure you of that, I of all others.
I married because I was told it was the best thing to do--but you must
forget I told you that!"

At least it brought Rosamund to a thought of something else.
"Eleanor!" she exclaimed, her hand reaching out towards her friend.

But it was not the moment for Eleanor to think of herself.  "Rose,
listen to me," she said.  "Someone set fire to the house.  There is no
doubt of that.  Now you will have to make up your mind what to
do--there will have to be an inquiry, they say."

"Why?"

"Why?  Because the people who look after those things will want to find
out who did it.  They will want to fix the blame."

"But I don't understand!  It is my house!  What difference does it make
to anyone else?"

"And you don't care?"

Rosamund arose, and mercifully burst into tears.  "Oh, Eleanor!" she
sobbed, "how can you ask me that?  Do you think I care for the mere
loss of a few sticks and stones and things, when he----"

Again Eleanor's comforting arms were around her, and Eleanor's hand on
her hair.  "Oh, you darling!  I knew you'd say that!  I knew you would!
They cannot do anything without your consent!"

Apparently in relief from some doubt or fear, she even laughed.
Rosamund looked at her in amazement.

"What on earth do you mean?" she began.

But before there could be time for explanation the door opened, and
Father Cary brought his little wife into the room in his arms, and set
her down in a chair.

Mother Cary always brought an atmosphere of happiness with her, but
this time, it seemed to Rosamund, she was also the personification of
all that was angelic and beautiful, a messenger of hope, a bearer of
glad tidings.

"Well," she began, as soon as Pap had set her down and unbundled her,
"they come!  My, that young woman knows jest how to go about things!  I
been nursin' all my life, seems like, and that girl can't be more than
twenty-five; but the way she took a holt o' things did beat me!  My!  I
wasn't one bit worried at leavin' him with her, not one bit!  An'
Doctor Blake's goin' to set up all night."

She smiled into Rosamund's beseeching eyes.

"Doctor Blake says they ain't a doubt but he'll be all right in no
time!" she said, and mentally asked forgiveness for stretching the
truth.  "He says his eyes ain't hurt a bit, far as he can tell, an'
it's only the smoke got into them, that's all.  An' anybody knows that
ain't much!  Land!  Think how many smokin' chimblys there be, an'
nobody givin' a thought to 'em!"

It was not until after supper, when Tim had been sent to bed, rather
joyful than otherwise in his excitement over the return to the Carys',
and Eleanor was trying to put him to sleep by telling him a story, that
Rosamund went upstairs to the room that had been Yetta's, to be alone
with her thoughts.  She was never one of those, usually members of a
large family, who can take council with themselves while others are in
the room; she needed solitude, if she would adjust herself and set the
chambers of her mind in order.  Now she had much to think of, for the
events of the past three days had been incongruous enough.  She smiled
as she remembered that, scarcely forty-eight hours before, she had been
sitting in an opera box listening to Pendleton's inanities; but there
was no smile when she thought of Ogilvie.

Presently she was aware, through the silence, of a timid hand on the
door.  She had scarcely had time to do more than speak to Grace, who
had sat, through the earlier part of the evening, as if turned to
stone; now something told her she was there.

Grace, white and wan, came over the threshold and threw her arms about
her friend, resting her head on Rosamund's shoulder.  For a few moments
they stood so, clasped in the sympathy that women convey to each other
in that silent manner.  Then Grace released herself a little, looked
into Rosamund's face, and whispered.

"Miss Rose, he did it!"

Rosamund's thoughts had been of Ogilvie alone; for a moment she did not
understand.  Then Eleanor's words came back to her; and all the while
she protested, she knew the truth of what Grace said.

But, out of pity, protest she must.  "Oh, no, Grace!  No!  Don't think
that!  Don't let yourself think it!"

But Grace, even whiter than before, met her eyes steadily.  "I don't
have to think it," she said, quietly.  "I know it.  You know it, too."

At the agony in the poor creature's eyes Rosamund forgot all her own.
"No," she cried, almost aloud.  Their lowered voices in the silence of
the house seemed to add to the horror of it.  "No, I do not know, and
neither do you!  Don't say it, Grace.  Don't think it.  Grace!  Oh, my
poor, dear Grace!"

But Grace shook her head impatiently, as if it were not the time for
sympathy.  She clasped Rosamund's two hands, looked at her intently,
and said, "Miss Rose, I tell you I don't have to think; I know!"

Rosamund gasped, but Grace went on.  "I saw him from my window, an' Rob
Tobet and Nels' Dunn were with him.  They were skulkin' in the shadow,
but I made 'em out.  It was the first time I'd seen Joe, since--the
first time, and to see him that a way!"

"Grace!" Rosamund cried.  Grace might have held her hand in a flame,
and seemed to suffer less.  Rosamund thought it was more than she could
bear to witness.  But Grace went on ruthlessly,

"They were watchin' and watchin' the house; an' after a while I saw Joe
wavin' his arms at the other two, an' then they went off.  It wasn't
very long after that--maybe half an hour or so--that I smelled smoke.
An', Miss Rose, when we got down an' out, I saw what nobody else seemed
to take any notice of--I saw three corners of the house all blazin' up
at the same time."

Rosamund had drawn her down to the side of the bed; now Grace paused,
grasped Rosamund's hand, bent towards her, and whispered, hoarsely,

"Miss Rose, houses don't catch on fire that a way less'n somebody sets
'em!"

They looked at each other mutely for what seemed an eternity, sharing
and accepting the horrid significance of it.  At last Rosamund, shaking
off the spell with a sharp indrawing of the breath, drew Grace to her,
held her, everything else forgotten save that here was an agony greater
than her own.

For a long hour they sat there talking, planning.  Grace was torn
between her sense of righteousness and her love for Joe, fanned anew as
it was by his present need of her protection.

"I thought I had stopped carin' for him," she whispered.  "But
this--this ain't like the--other thing--you know what I mean.  That
didn't hurt anybody but himself, and it wasn't anybody else's business,
not the Gov'ment's nor anybody's.  But this is different.  They--they
hang for this, I reckon!"

Rosamund shuddered.  "Grace, no one must know of it!  No one must know!"

"I heard Pap Cary say they was to be an inquiry."

"It is my house.  I can stop anything of that sort.  I have no
insurance on it, and there will be no one to press the inquiry if I
don't.  No one must know, Grace."

For a moment Grace looked at her.  Then she said, "But what if--_he_
dies?"

Rosamund had forgotten her own anxiety in Grace's.  Now, with a little
moan of pain, she hid her face in her hands.

"That's the way," Grace whispered, hopelessly.  "You're bound to see it
different, when it's your own man."

They sat in silence for a while, each so occupied with thoughts of her
own love as to forget all else.  Presently Grace stood up, as if to
admit that there was nothing further to be said.  "Well," she sighed
hopelessly.

But Rosamund stood up, too, and laid her hands on Grace's shoulders.

"No matter what happens, Grace, nobody must know that Joe was so much
as seen near there."

"But supposin' Doctor Ogilvie----?"

"Not even then," Rosamund said, with white, trembling lips.  "He has
given all his thought to saving life.  Do you think he would want--?
No!"

But Grace shook her head.  "I think Mis' Reeves suspicions," she said.

"She does," Rosamund said, "and she has already been warning me against
the investigation.  I know she wants to shield Joe."

But Grace's conscience was made all the keener by her reawakened love.
"Well, I'm goin' to tell Ma Cary," she said.  "She knows more'n all of
us put together."

They stopped at Eleanor's door, and the three found Mother Cary alone
in the room that was kitchen and dining-room and confessional, as need
arose.  Pap had gone back to the doctor's house, too anxious to remain
away.

Mother Cary heard all Grace had to tell, asked a few questions of her
and Eleanor, then sat with her worn old hands clasped in her lap,
thinking it over.  Grace's attitude was one of hopeless waiting.
Rosamund watched her, pitying; grief brings no outward beauty to the
lowly, she thought, yet much--how much--of that beauty of soul which
perishes not!

At last Mother Cary spoke.  "Miss Rose is right," she said, looking at
Grace.  "Nobody must know what we know 'ceptin' jest our own selves.  I
wouldn't even say a word of it to Pap; 'cause the better men folks be,
the more they hold on to the letter o' the law.  An' fur as I can make
out, this here is one o' the times when the letter o' the law is better
forgotten.  Tellin' on Joe ain't goin' to help Doctor Ogilvie any, that
I can see, nor anybody else; an' there's jest a chanct that keepin'
silence may help Joe."

"But Joe did it," Grace said.  "I reckon he's man enough to take his
punishment."

"I reckon he is," Mother Cary agreed.  "He's a-takin' it right this
minute, too, knowing what his act has done to the doctor.  I sure do
believe that's all the punishmint Joe needs.  The other kind would be
different, 'cause what he's done is done.  I ain't never had time to
puzzle out the whys an' whyfors o' lots o' things, punishmint among
'em; but one thing I know, an' have known ever sence the dear Lord
entrusted me with little child'en o' my own.  When punishmint is jest
hittin' back, it don't do anybody a mite o' good.  Less'n it helps 'em
not to do it again, it ain't any use whatsoever.  Better jest leave it
in the hands o' the dear Lord, Who sees further'n we can, ef you ain't
sure it's goin' to help, not hender.  An' tellin' on Joe ain't goin' to
help the doctor nor Joe neither, 'cause Joe ain't the kind that
punishmint helps."

Again there was a silence, until Grace moved a little, unclasped and
clasped her hands, and spoke.  "I must go back to my own house," she
said.

Rosamund, startled, was about to protest, but Mother Cary nodded.  "Of
course," she said, "he'll be needin' you awful bad now, honey."

And in spite of Rosamund's pleading, Grace refused Eleanor's offer to
go with her, and took her way, alone, through the night, down the
mountain, to her dark, lonely little house.  Afterward, Rosamund often
marveled at Mother Cary's allowing it, even urging it, for usually she
was the gentlest of souls, protecting everyone, careful of everyone's
comfort; and surely Grace was now in no condition to go.

But no more than Grace herself did Mother Cary hesitate.  She hobbled
about the kitchen, packing a little basket of food; she had Eleanor
bring in one of Pap's lanterns, and lighted it; she bade Rosamund make
Grace some tea, and forced the trembling creature to drink it; and at
last she opened the door for her.

Grace started out, but came back into the room to kiss them, and they
saw that she was smiling; it had been long since poor Grace had smiled!

"I'll go up to my chamber and wave the lantern when I get there, ef
all's well," she told them.  "An' I can always see your light, Ma Cary!"

They watched, standing shivering in the doorway, until her lantern
disappeared at the bend of the road.  Tim, aroused by their voices,
cried out, and Eleanor went to him.

Mother Cary and Rosamund began to straighten the room, putting away the
boxes and pails that had been opened for Grace's basket.  Rosamund was
so intent on her thoughts that she would not have noticed that her own
cheeks were wet, if she had not seen Mother Cary's eyes brimming with
tears.  After a while she cried,

"Oh, I don't see how she can walk that far, and at night, too!  Why
wouldn't you let her wait for Pa Cary?"

The old woman shook her head.  "Honey," she said, "ef all is as I make
it out to be, Grace won't go all that way alone and un'tended.  The
woods around here have years an' eyes, an' ef her foot stumbles,
there'll be someone there to hold her up, you mark my words."

"Oh, she is not strong enough!" the girl still protested.

Then Mother Cary leaned towards her, took the white hand in both her
own, and asked, "Honey, ef 'twas _your_ man, wouldn't _you_ go?"

Rosamund threw back her head with a sob, and Mother Cary opened her
arms.




XXII

Fortunately for Rosamund the succeeding days were so busy that she had
but little time to be alone with her thoughts of Ogilvie.  The morning
after Grace's departure, Father Cary had come home with disquieting
news.  Pneumonia had set in; but Doctor Blake would stay at the Summit
until the crisis was passed, and he had sent for another nurse--the one
who was at the head of his own private hospital, Pap proudly told
Rosamund in a pitying attempt at reassuring her.

She had, first of all, to make some arrangement for Yetta.  Cecilia
rose to the occasion and found the suitable governess, who proved to be
an elderly woman to whom Yetta took an immediate liking.  Miss Gates
had been something of a singer in her day, and she had a family of
nieces and nephews that she was helping to bring up, all of whom were
musical.  She took Yetta with her to stay at their house until other
plans could be made.  Cecilia had, indeed, shown energy and good
judgment, and something more; she sailed for the Mediterranean to join
the Whartons at Algiers only after she saw Yetta installed in the Gates
home--having been so good-natured as to let the yacht go without her in
order to do so.

Matt and Aunt Sue were sent back to Georgia.  Secretly they were quite
reconciled to going, for they were to stop in Baltimore and replace
their burned wardrobes with entire new ones, with which they looked
forward to dazzling their friends in Augusta; but Sue felt obliged to
use the prerogative of the negro servant to make a grumbling protest.

"I suttinly wouldn't 'a' journeyed 'way up to dis yer Gord-fo'saken
corner ob de yearth," she declared to Rosamund, "whar dey ain't nothin'
but a passel o' Yankee white trash, ef I had 'a' known I was a goin' to
see my best Paisley shawl what Miss Lucy done give me when she was
ma'ied bu'nt up wid flames befo' my ve'y eyes.  Et don' do nobody no
good traipsin' aroun' dis yer way, nohow.  You better come along back
home wid yer Aunt Susan, whar you b'longs at, chile."

After they left, the routine of life was simple enough; yet the days
were laden with what anxiety, what care, what fears, and trembling
hopes!  Yet living as she was on news from the doctor's house, Rosamund
was not altogether oblivious of what was passing in the hearts of her
friends.  She went every morning to the Tobet cottage, sometimes with
Eleanor, sometimes alone.  For several days Grace watched and waited
for one who did not come.  But at last Rosamund made a suggestion,
which in a day or two brought its return.

"You know the little boy who brought that note to us at the brown
house, last fall," she said to Grace.  "Why not give him a note to Joe?"

"What to say?" Grace asked.

"That whatever happens, no one shall suspect him.  Tell him you have my
word, and Mother Cary's, for that."

"I'd be afraid to write words like those," Grace said.  "They might go
to the wrong one--and then no need to tell!"

"Then say them over to the boy, and make him remember them," said
Rosamund; and that was the advice which Grace, in the desperate
necessity of her heart, followed.  A few mornings afterward, when
Rosamund came in sight of the cottage, Joe was leaning against the
door.  He went inside when he saw her, and Rosamund turned back.  She
told herself that in Grace's place she would want no visitors for a
while.

But she had not gone far before Grace came hastening after her.  She
threw her arms about Rosamund's neck.

"I got my man back," she whispered.  "I'm prayin' every minute to the
good Lord, Miss Rose, that you'll get yours back, too, all safe an'
sound."


But the secret of Eleanor's heart was not so readily disclosed,
although Rosamund suspected, from the number of telegrams and letters
that were coming, and from Eleanor's frequent look of abstraction, that
she was beginning to have a good deal to think about.  But how far
matters had progressed, she did not suspect; for Eleanor's heart was
troubled as it had never been, and she would not add to Rosamund's
burden of care by confiding her own.

That she was suffering could not escape the keen eyes of Mother Cary,
however.

"Ain't you troubled about somethin', dearie?" the old woman asked, one
day when Rosamund and Tim were out of doors, and dinner was cooking,
and they two were alone.

Eleanor looked at her dumbly; a quiver passed over her face, seeming to
leave it whiter than ever.

"Land!" said Mother Cary.  "Don't look that a way, honey!  No wonder
little Timmy used to call you 'White Lady'!"

She seated herself in the little chair with the legs that Father Cary
had sawed off to suit her, and drew another up beside it.

"Now you come set down here by your Ma Cary, lamb, an' tell me what's
the matter."

Eleanor seated herself, and put her hand on the old woman's lap.

"I am in trouble, Mother Cary," she said.  "But it cannot do any good
to talk about it."

"Well, it cert'n'y don't do one mite o' good to let it eat in, dearie.
It don't make you die any sooner, much as you'd like to sometimes, when
trouble is real bad; it don't make you forget; nor it don't show you
any way out.  It jest makes the way seem longer."

"That is true," Eleanor said.  Then she pondered for a while.
Presently she asked, "Do you remember Mr. Flood, Mother Cary?"

"The rich gentleman that run over Timmy?  Yes, lamb, I always remember
them I like."

Eleanor smiled.  "He did run over Timmy, didn't he?  Or run into him!
So indirectly I owe him my precious baby!"

"And now he wants you to pay him?" the old woman asked.

"Put it that way!" Eleanor replied.  "But I cannot pay him, Mother
Cary--not as he wants me to!  I--I may become blind, some day."

Mother Cary's hand tightened over hers.  "Ain't your poor eyes any
better?" she asked.

"Yes.  Oh, yes, they are better.  But I am afraid.  Think of burdening
a man with a blind wife!  And--and he is such a splendid man, Mother
Cary!  He deserves the very best."

"I ain't doubtin' it.  He's John Ogilvie's friend, and that's enough to
satisfy me that he's worth a good deal."

They sat in silence for a while; then Mother Cary said, "Darlin', I'm
a-goin' to tell you a little story.  I ain't takin' it on me to advise
you; but I jest want to tell you how, though you wouldn't guess it,
maybe, I was once in the same kind of a shadder you be in now."

"Do tell me," Eleanor said.

"Well, when I was a little girl, lamb, I fell an' hurt my back, an'
when I got better, two or three years afterward, I couldn't do nothin'
but scrabble aroun', not even as good as I can now.  An' I growed all
crooked.  It didn't make much difference for a while, I was that glad
to be movin' at all.  But as I growed up an' the other girls began to
go places, an' I couldn't an' wasn't asked to, it did seem to me I jest
couldn't live at all.  There wasn't anythin' to look for'ard to.  Then
my father died, an' I went into the tin shop.

"It wasn't nice work, an' the big machines like to scared me to death
at first, 'n I got cut, 'n once one o' the girls near me got some of
her fingers cut off.  In winter I had to go before light in the mornin'
an' stay workin' till long after dark.  Then I had sech a cough, an'
one spring I had to quit work.  The doctor, he asked me if I hadn't any
kin in the country, an' I not knowin' what he was aimin' at told him I
didn't know o' none 'xcept Ma's own aunt 't I'd never seen nor wrote to.

"Unbeknownst to me the doctor he wrote up here an' found out 't Aunt
Marthy was a-keepin' house for her husband's nephew, an' she wrote back
't I was to come up an' spend the summer in the mountains.  I cried at
first, for I hadn't ever seen the country an' I didn't know Aunt
Marthy, an' I was jest afeared to come.  But the doctor he put me on
the train, an' when I got to the station over there it was most
dark--'bout as dark as it is now, I guess.  There was a man on the
platform, 'n I thought he was the biggest man I'd ever seen.  When he
come up to me he said, 'Why, you _are_ a little mite!  Guess they
haven't been feedin' you much where you come from.'  He had a big quilt
in the wagon, an' he jest wrapped me all up in it an' lifted me in like
I was a baby.  I was that tired an' scared, an' I hadn't ever been
taken keer of before, an' I jest up an' cried.  He didn't ask me what
was the matter, but he jest laughed at me an' made fun o' me, an' said
if I acted like a baby he'd treat me like one, 'n he patted my hand, 'n
tucked me all up, 'n talked to me all the way home.  When Aunt Marthy
met us at the door an' he carried me in the house in his arms, he said
to her, 'Well, now, Aunt Marthy,' he said, 'we've jest got a baby to
keer for, an' I'm a-goin' to help you do it.'  An', honey, there hasn't
been a day sence then that he hasn't taken keer o' me.

"There never was a summer like that one; seems like I never had been
alive before.  I never knew before how spring come, but I found out
that year, Jim showin' me the first bluebirds an' bringin' in flowers.
I jest thought he was next to God A'mighty, honey, an' I never once
give a thought to me bein' a woman an' he bein' a man.  I hadn't never
had none o' the good times girls have, an' I guess I had come to forget
I was a girl.  By the time end o' summer come, Jim had gotten in the
way o' carryin' me out with him everywheres, out to the barn, out to
the wood-lot, out to the fields where he was a-workin'.  I had grown
strong enough to get aroun' like I do now, but Jim jest carried me
'roun' like he'd done that first night, an' Aunt Marthy 'n he wouldn't
let me do a mite o' work.

"Then, when I'd got real well, I said somethin' one night about goin'
back to the factory.  We was at supper, an' Jim he jest put down his
knife an' looked at me a minute.  Aunt Marthy reached over an' put her
hand over his, an' then he got up an' went out.  I was that scared, not
knowin' what I'd done, an' Aunt Marthy told me I'd better go out an'
find him.

"So I up an' followed him, an' he was a-standin' outside, lookin' so
big against that yaller sky, an' straight an' tall with his arms folded
on his chest, a-frownin', with his lips drawn in like he does when
somethin's upset him right smart.

"I touched him on the arm an' said, 'Jim!' an' with that he turned him
right aroun' quick.

"An' then, after a bit, he set me down an' held on to my hands, an'
told me how he wasn't goin' to let me go back to the city any more, 'n
how it was goin' to be.  I told him I wasn't fit for him, bein'
crooked, an' he jest laughed at me an' fixed it all his way, 'n called
Aunt Marthy out 'n told her.  She laughed at him an' told him he was
more of a baby 'n I ever was.  He always was that bright an' willful,
an' he didn't give me a chance to say anything.  But the more he
talked, the more I found I loved him, an' the more I loved him the
harder I made up my mind 't he shouldn't tie himself to a cripple.

"So that night when they was asleep, I got up an' took the money I had
for my ticket home, an' I started to walk to the station.  You know how
far that is.  By time mornin' come I wasn't halfway.  I went into an
old barn an' hid all day.  I heard 'em callin' me, an' I saw Jim go by
on horseback, an' other men, too, huntin' for me.

"Lat the nex' night I started for the station again, an' I got there
jest about daybreak, thinkin' I'd be in time for the early mornin'
train.  When I got up on the platform, there was Jim a-waitin'!  Course
I jest set right down an' cried, but Jim he made me understand what
he'd been through while I was hid, an' talked to me so right then and
there that I never once after that doubted in my mind but what it would
be right for me to marry him.  An' honey, I haven't ever had reason to
doubt it since.  I scarcely ever remember bein' a cripple, 'xcept when
I do get good an' mad sometimes at not bein' able to get aroun' as spry
as other folks.  Sometimes I think it's been a real comfort to Jim, an'
better 't I was so.

"There's some folks as can't be happy 'nless they're doin' for somebody
else; an' when it happens to be a man, an' he can do for what's his
own, he's boun' to be a good deal better off than ef he had to go
a-huntin' for somethin' to take up his mind.  It grows on 'em, too.  I
don't ever regret bein' a cripple; my bein' helpless has been sech an
occupation for Jim!"

The door had opened while she was saying the last words, and Timmy
burst in, joyous and cold, to climb into Eleanor's lap and begin to
pour forth an account of the mild adventures of his walk.  But Eleanor,
taking off his coat and leggings, hushed him.  Mother Cary looked up at
Rosamund and smiled.

"So you and Timmy had a fine walk, did ye?  Well, I'm real glad.  It'll
do you good to get out, honey-bud.  I was jest tellin' Mis' Reeves
how-come Pap and me got married!"

"I'm goin' to get married to my muvver when I grows up," said Tim.

Rosamund smiled back at Mother Cary; but her smiles had lost their old
merriment.  The old woman went on:

"I was jest a-sayin' how Pap built this house for me jest like I wanted
it, an' we come into it when we were married.  Aunt Marthy lived here
with us tell she died.  Pap's made my flower beds every spring, an'
I've planted the seeds.  Seems like it's been that a way in everything.
Pap does most o' the work, but I never get a chance to forget how glad
he is 't I'm here.  Whensoever he comes in all worned out, he always
knows where to find me, me not bein' able to get far away; 'n I've
never seen the time 't he didn't feel fresh an' strong again after he'd
set an' talked a spell, an' had a bite o' somethin' I'd fixed for him.
I ain't never been afeared to show him how much I loved him.  When the
children was little 'an toddlin' aroun', they'd run to meet him an'
hang aroun' him, but he always looked over their heads to me first.
When John was married an' went away, an' I felt so bad, Pap jest used
to laugh at me; an' when Lizzie got married, too, an' went off with her
husband, Pap jest said he'd have me all to himself again.  The time
when the child'en were little was best to me, but I know the best time
to Pap is whenever he can find somethin' to be a-doin' for me."

The sweetness of her words seemed to fall on them all like a blessing;
for a while no one spoke; but to Rosamund, watching Eleanor, it seemed
as if the lovely face were slowly melting from its usual sadness to a
rosy glow.  As she looked, Eleanor put the child down from her lap and
knelt before Rosamund.

"Rose, my sweet," she said, her voice a song of love and tenderness,
"would you think me deserting you, if I went to New York to-morrow?"

Rosamund half divined something of her meaning; she took Eleanor's face
between her palms, looking into the eyes that were glowing as she had
never seen them.

"Eleanor!" she cried.

Mother Cary gave a low laugh of delight.  "Here, Timmy," she said, "you
come with Ma Cary an' see what I got in the pantry!"




XXIII

During the first week of Ogilvie's illness Rosamund went once or twice
to the house at the Summit where he lay.  Doctor Blake had heard the
story of the fire, and in the deliberate courtesy of his manner
Rosamund suspected a veiled distrust; she imagined that he was
wondering, whenever he looked at her, what manner of woman it was for
whom Ogilvie had risked his life, and whether she were worthy of his
possible sacrifice.  She told herself that she would have felt the
same, in his place; while, in her humility, she secretly reiterated her
own unworthiness.  But she knew herself guiltless of actual blame or
wrong-doing, and found it hard to endure Doctor Blake's scrutiny, which
seemed both to accuse and weigh and find wanting.  Yet even that was
easier to bear than the tolerant manner of the young woman in the white
dress and coquettish cap, who came out of Ogilvie's room to assure her,
with the tolerant air that seems to be an attribute of street-car
conductors, policemen and trained nurses, that there was really no
immediate prospect of change in the patient's condition, as pneumonia
had to run its definite course.

For all the longing of her heart, and for all the courage with which
she started out, Rosamund allowed herself to be snubbed into retreat.
Mother Cary alone braved the authoritative one whenever she pleased, or
whenever Pap would take her across the valley; and it was on the ninth
night after the fire that she did what Rosamund and Ogilvie always
declared to be the most merciful and courageous act of all her
beautiful life.

"Now," she said, after supper, when Pap had gone out to the barn to
harness the horse for his nightly pilgrimage, "Now, honey, this bein'
the night when he'll come to, or--when he'll come to, surely--don't you
think he ain't goin' to come to, 'cause he is--and you're goin' over
with Pap to be there!"

Rosamund rose from her place beside the table, her hands clasped
against her heart, pale, then flushed, then pale again.

Mother Cary looked up at her.  "Darlin', come here to yo' Ma Cary," she
said, and, when the girl knelt beside her, she put her arms about her
and laid her withered, soft old cheek against Rosamund's hair.

"Honey," she said, "Ma Cary knows how you're feelin'!  You're a young
maid, an' by words unasked; but he's your man, an' you're his woman, in
the sight o' God and the knowledge o' your own hearts.  Ain't it so?
Yes--but don't cry, my lamb!  Don't cry like that!  This ain't the time
to cry.  Look at me, dearie!  That's right!  Well, I didn't tell you to
go, before to-night, because I knew 'twasn't for the best; but now your
place is over there, alongside o' him.  Let him open his eyes on you,
ef so be it he is to open them knowin'ly in this world again.  An' ef
he ain't to be permitted to do that--then, my lamb, it's for you to be
there to close 'em.  There!  That's right!  Put it all back--grief
keeps, an' maybe you won't need it, after all.  Sho'!  Hyear me
talkin'!  Why, I jest downright know you won't need it!"

Rosamund lifted her white, white face.  "But----" she began.

"I know what you're thinkin'," Mother Cary said.  "I once thought that
a way, too, befo' Pap made me see what was right.  Put all sech doubts
away from you.  Your love an' his love are worth more than that.  Look
Ma Cary in the face, lamb, an' tell me--ain't they?  There, there, now
don't let the tears rise up again.  You ain't got time for tears
to-night."

"But the nurse--Doctor Blake--what will they--Oh, how can I?"

"It'll be all right with Doctor Blake.  He knows you're comin'!  An' as
for the nurse, she's a paid hirelin', and you're his woman.  Jest you
bear that in mind, honey--hurry, there's Pap's wheels!"

So it came to pass, in that critical hour before dawn when souls so
often waver upon the threshold of life, when John Ogilvie's breathing
became less labored and his eyes opened--tired, to be sure, but with
unmistakable consciousness in them--it was Rosamund who was bending
over him, while the strange woman in the white gown and cap looked at
him, felt his pulse, smiled as if satisfied, and went out and closed
the door behind her.  It was Rosamund whose eyes smiled into his with
the pitiful, brave effort of trying to make believe that there had
never been any danger at all to frighten her.  His hand moved toward
her, his lips formed her name; and it was Rosamund's warm palm which
closed over his hand, and her cheek which rested against his as he went
to sleep.

[Illustration: "It was Rosamund whose eyes smiled into his."]




XXIV

It was late April, and the snow was gone from the mountains save in a
few sheltered places under some rock or overhanging tangle of roots.
In the valley the apple trees were abloom; in the woods the dogwood was
falling; the roadsides were turning from mellow brown to green, here
and there carpeted with violets; a line of emerald showed where some
willows caressed the stream.  Great puffs of cloud floated slowly
across the deep blue of the sky, their cool shadows passing reluctantly
over the plowed fields, the few bright patches of wheat, and the brown
ribbon of road--gray in summer and lately white with snow--that wound
up from the lowland.  Even the weather-worn buildings bore signs of
spring.  Barn doors were thrown back, and little calves tied in the
barn yards protested their infant loneliness; while from upper windows
of the houses, windows that had been kept closed during all the long
winter, flapping curtains waved outward to the breeze.

Two months and more had passed since the night when John Ogilvie
returned to consciousness to find the face he loved bending above him,
and on this particular morning Father Cary had driven Rosamund to the
post office at the Summit, on his way to sell a calf, and she was
taking a leisurely homeward way, reading, as she went, the handful of
letters the mail had brought her.  Every now and then the betraying
fragrance of arbutus lured her from the road to little excursions among
the trees.  Sometimes she looked up at the flash of a brilliant wing,
or stopped to listen to an outburst of bird-music.  It was plain to be
seen that she was living in the hour; the present satisfied; she was
taking it as unquestioningly as a child, caring neither to hasten its
passing nor to hold it back.  To past and future she was giving no
thought; the moment was enough.

She smiled often over her letters.

Yetta's was a pæon of joy.  She had been for two months under the care
of the governess chosen by Mrs. Maxwell, working hard at all her
lessons, devouring them, Rosamund thought--and going twice a week to an
advanced pupil of a great master for singing lessons.  She wrote that
she had just received a letter from Mrs. Flood, saying that when the
master declared her ready to study in Paris or Berlin, she would make
it possible for her to go.  "How funny it seems," she wrote, "to call
dear Mrs. Reeves by that name!"

There was a long envelope from an architect, enclosing various
blue-prints which she tried to unfold, but which so resisted the breeze
that they were soon put back for later inspection.  There was a thin
letter from Cecilia, bearing a foreign stamp, which Rosamund read more
than once, with varying emotions.  It ran:


DEAR ROSAMUND:

Your letter has made me very happy.  I had no right to expect anything
from Colonel Randall's will, although he was always so good to me that
I thought of him as a father.  But I was hurt, and it would be foolish
not to admit that I was disappointed, when I found that he had left me
nothing.  So was mamma; it was not easy for us to be dependent upon
you.  I don't mean to hurt you in saying that.  Especially now!
Because, Rose, dear, you have made me see that my stepfather was right
when he left everything to you.  He could trust you!

You have really been magnificent.  Your gift--for that is what it
is--will make the world a different place for me.  I had to go to bed
for two days after I got your letter.  I was overcome!

Now I do hope you won't be too much surprised, dear, and I don't want
you to disapprove.  I suppose you know that Mr. Flood sent over his
yacht, the Esperanza, so that it would be ready for Kiel.  But perhaps
you don't know that he told Marshall to make use of it until he wanted
it himself.  Well, he did; it was nice of him, wasn't it?  So Marshall
brought it to Algiers, and the Whartons--and I--saw a good deal of him.
It is all over now, so I may as well confess that Marshall and I were
very unhappy for a time.  We didn't have five thousand a year between
us!  But when I got your letter, and the papers--and the note from the
bank--oh, Rosamund, you will never, never know how the world changed
for me.  And we were married yesterday, at the American Consulate in
Lisbon, and I am your happy, happy, happy sister,

CECILIA PENDLETON.


Rosamund held the letter to her heart, when she had read it; it was all
just as she had hoped.  She wondered what Ogilvie would say--but that
could wait!

The last letter was in Eleanor's handwriting.


MY OWN DEAR ROSE:

Your letter told me nothing that I was not prepared for.  But I don't
know how to put into words even a small part of my hopes for you.  John
is--excepting my own dear husband--the best man in the world.  You will
be happy, and proud, as I am happy and proud; we both send our love,
and wish we might be with you on that beautiful morning that is coming
so soon.  But we cannot, for almost as soon as we get back to New York
from this lovely Columbia Valley we shall have to sail for Europe.  So
we can only send our love, my darling; and Timmy is sending something
else by express.

I am so happy that I cannot help wondering whether this is really
myself; yet ever and always, sweet, I know that I am I--YOUR ELEANOR.


Rosamund had kept that letter to read last; and as she folded it back
into its envelope there were tears in her eyes, so that for a moment
she did not see the familiar figure of a white horse, that was coming
upon her with the gentle ambling trot that White Rosy fell into when
her master was in one of his absent-minded moods.  It was a sort of
up-and-downness of a trot, one of Rosy's great achievements.  Ogilvie
always said that it was worthy of everyone's admiration, since it made
a remarkably good effect with the minimum of effort.

When she had come up to the place where Rosamund waited, White Rosy
stopped of her own accord, edged toward the side of the road, and began
to nibble at the young green things already burgeoning there.

Ogilvie looked, without speaking, at the girl waiting for him at the
roadside.  She was not smiling, yet her whole look seemed a smile.  She
was standing with her chin uplifted, her eyelids a little drooped; he
thought she was the most beautiful thing in all the beauty of the
spring-kissed world.

"Don't move!" he said.  "I just want to look at you!"

Then slowly the smile came.  She turned her head away to look at him
roguishly, sideways.

"Is that all you want?" she asked.

"No!" he cried, explosively; and with a little bubbling laugh she
sprang up to the empty place at his side, and turned her face towards
him.

Presently he asked, looking off to the mountain with a very casual air.

"Have you seen Grace to-day?"

Rosamund looked at him anxiously.  "Not to-day!  Isn't she well?"

"Oh, I thought you might like to see her.  I'm on my way there now," he
said.

"Oh, do you remember," she asked, "the first day you took me there?"

"Do I remember?" he repeated.  "I remember a good many things."

"Don't tease--be serious!  Do you remember, that was the first of all
our drives together, and this is----"

"Well, not quite the last, I hope!"

"No!  But--the last--until there will be a difference!"

"It's a difference I welcome, sweet!" he declared; and at the look in
his eyes she put up her hands to ward him away.

"No, no!  Not now!" she said, in one of the sudden shy reserves that he
adored, for all their tormenting him.  "I want to tell you about my
letters."

He read them, smiling with her over each one; but there was no time for
comment then, for they were stopping before the Tobets' house, and
White Rosy was looking inquiringly around at them.

Ogilvie led the way into the cottage.  It seemed strangely quiet.  Joe
came from the inner room, grinned at them in a friendly way, and
Ogilvie motioned to Rosamund to go in.

The quiet, the presence of Joe at that time of day, something in the
doctor's manner, all made her pause; Ogilvie held the door open for
her, but he was looking at Joe as men look when they understand each
other.

"Oh!  What is it?" Rosamund breathed, and he turned to her, still
smiling.

"Go in," he said.  "It's the loveliest sight in God's world, isn't it,
Joe?"

The smile left Joe's face, but not his eyes.  "It be," he agreed,
emphatically, and began very vigorously to rattle the stove.

Within the darkened room Grace lay; and although the little place was
decked with its gayest of quilt and curtain, although Grace's face
shone with a radiance as of heaven itself, Rosamund saw only the wee
brown head in the hollow of her arm.

She went slowly forward, awed in the presence of the newly awakened
soul in such a tiny form.  Grace smiled up at her.

"Joe says he's that glad he favors me!" she whispered, and nestled her
cheek against the downy head.

Such simple words, and so momentous an event!  Just humble pride that
the father of her child rejoiced in his son's likeness to his mother!
A cheek against a baby's forehead, an old agony forgotten!  The
master-marvel of all creation sleeping upon the breast so lately wrung
in torture!  Such innocence, such purity, blessing and cleansing the
house of all sin and sorrow, of shame and bitterness!  God's breath in
the new life, His ever recurring purpose of Love redeeming!

Rosamund could find no fitting words before the miracle.  The joyous
words of an ancient song echoed in her heart, "Mine eyes have seen Thy
Salvation!"

But she was far from ready for her own _Nunc Dimittis_.  The future
drew her, life was welcoming her to its fulfillment.  She kissed the
pale, smiling mother, went swiftly from the room, past the two men whom
she saw through a blur of tears, and out to the road where spring was
waiting.

There, presently, Ogilvie joined her.  Her look deeply stirred him.
Her eyes were darker than he had ever seen them, darker than he thought
they could be--or was it, he wondered, that he lost the sense of their
color in sounding the promise that welled up from their depths?  The
promise he read there was a reflection of the revelation of those
moments in Grace's room.  So might Mary's eyes have looked when she
bowed before the angel.  For a moment they looked silently at each
other; then, with a little sobbing indrawn breath, she withdrew her
gaze and he took his place beside her.

He urged White Rosy's reluctant feet toward a rough wood-road that led
up the mountain.  For a while neither spoke.  The air was full of
little fitful pauses and quickly blown breaths of fragrance.  A white
petal fluttered from somewhere and caught, trembling, in her hair.  A
bee passed so near their faces, in his eager quest for sweetness, that
they drew quickly back.  Against the blue of the sky a hawk circled
slowly, with no visible motion of pinion, seeking in vain in the
unfolding life of earth for something dead to feast upon.  The woods
were hushed, and from their moist recesses faint vapors rose,
wraithlike spirits of departing winter, and melted off in the warm
sweetness of the air.

After a while they came to an open space, the scar of some old fire,
from which they could look across the great plain below, back toward
the Summit and the blackened spot that had been Rosamund's cherished
home a few weeks before, and down upon the roof of the little house
that sheltered Grace and her baby.  White Rosy stopped, looked down at
the faint green of the fields and whinnied; then she took up her
roadside feasting.  "See that bluebird," Ogilvie presently said,
pointing.  "See the blue flash of his wing!  See--ah, there's his mate!"

They watched the flight of the bird until his mate had lured him out of
sight.  Then Ogilvie turned to her.  "Rosamund," he said, "I have
something to tell you--something to ask."

She smiled at him.  "Something more?"

"Oh, there will always be something more!  There always is--human love
being not only human!  But--I have had an offer of a professorship--a
new chair that has lately been given in the University of the North."

He paused, as if waiting for a question from her; but she said nothing.

"You will go with me?"  It was scarcely a question; she smiled,
remembering how he always took for granted that she would do his will.

"Of course," she said, quietly.

"It would mean great things for me," he went on, as one reading from an
open page.  "The university, the quickening life there; the unlimited
power to search out; everything to work with, and then--success,
success and--fame!"

He paused, and drew a deep breath or two before he went on.  When he
spoke again a new quality had come into his voice.

"But what if I do not go?  What if I give it up?  What if I stay here?"

He turned to her now, his eyes burning with his question; for, this
time, question indeed it was, and not the old demand.

"Will you stay with me?"

Her look grew softer, holding almost the reassuring sweetness of a
mother.  It was as if she wished to smile away his doubt.

"Of course," she said, again.

She had long since come to know that he was the least given to
expressing his feelings when they were most deeply stirred.  The very
intensity of his emotion seemed to bind him.  Now he looked at her, and
he flushed very deeply; yet still he made no move to embrace her.

"You are made for the highest and best, Rosamund.  I am offering you
only the commonplace!"

She looked off over the valley with unseeing eyes.  She, too, had her
vision.

"'Only the commonplace!'  What is that, John?  Is it life, and love,
and service?"

"It may be," he said, and drew her to him.

She felt for his hand, and let her own creep under its warmth.
Together they looked again at the familiar scene before them, colored
now with their own dreams.  Presently, recalling something of an
earlier time, she said.

"It's the land of content, John!"

He repeated the words, as if their music, but half understood, sounded
sweet in his ears.  "The land of content?"

"They are Mother Cary's words," she told him.  "Aren't they like
her--so quaint and true, and so wise!  She told me once that we must
all know doubt and pain and sorrow, if we would cross the threshold of
happiness, into the land of content."

He said nothing; but she knew from his look that he was sharing her
vision.

"Cecilia--Eleanor--they think they know it, too, I suppose--poor dears!"

Ogilvie threw back his head and laughed.  Then he looked at her with a
smile in his eyes--the smile, half tenderness and half pity, that we
give to a beloved child who thinks he has just discovered a new truth.

"And you are the only one who knows anything about it?" he teased.

"Oh, you, too!" she said.

"Thanks!  I'm glad you let me in!"  But he grew serious again.  "Do you
know," he said, "I have a suspicion that your land of content is
wherever love is?"

She brushed his shoulder with her cheek.  "I shouldn't wonder!" she
said.


But White Rosy was not interested in such speculation.  Evidently
having decided that dinner was more to be desired than the view, she
set off down the road, at her briskest trot, toward the valley.  They
laughed; but neither would have thought of restraining White Rosy when
she had taken the control of affairs upon herself.

"But I hate to come down from the high places," Ogilvie protested.
"She's an old tyrant, a materialist!"

He had brought from the intensity of his emotions all a lover's
clamoring to prolong the hour alone with the beloved.  His visions now
went no farther than the sweet reality beside him.

She laughed back at him.  "I'm not going to let you offend her, though;
I want to keep her always on my side.  And we can take our high places
with us!"

That turned him serious again for the moment.

"Are you sure," he asked her, "that you can be satisfied to remain
here?"

"Here, or anywhere----"  She paused, and he, reassured, smiled at her.

"Go on," he urged.  "Go on!  You were going to say something very nice
to me!  I want to hear it!"

But she looked curiously embarrassed.  "I--I was not going to say
anything of the kind!  I was thinking of--something!"

Then she took her courage firmly in hand.  "John," she said, "did you
guess that--that it was I--who--gave that professorship?"

His eyes opened wide.  "Why, no!" he said.  "Did you?  Well, now, I
think that was a very good thing to do!  How did you happen to think of
it?"

"Oh--it was a sort of thank-offering--and a sort of experiment."

He looked around at her.  "Oh!  It was!  Well, don't you try any more
of your experiments on me!"

"John--have you known, all along, about--about my horrid money?"

He looked at her quizzically.  "Well--yes.  I knew.  Oh, I knew, of
course!  But--it isn't one of the things that counts, is it?"

He smiled at her, sure of her agreeing.  She drew a long breath.

"No," she said, "it doesn't seem to be one of the things that count."

There seemed to be no further need for words; neither spoke again until
White Rosy stopped before Mother Cary's gate.  Then Rosamund turned her
face toward Ogilvie.

"To-morrow!" she said.

His lips trembled.  "To-morrow," he replied, "and all the to-morrows!"



THE END











End of Project Gutenberg's The Land of Content, by Edith Barnard Delano