The Cottage of Delight: A Novel

That night strange, dazzling dreams fell to John's portion. If by his hard work he was enabled through the day to keep his old life out of his conscious thought to any extent, it was often otherwise when he slept, and to-night, following the shock he had had that morning, he was living only too vividly over the period in which he had known Tilly. Again he was entranced by her illumined face and thrilled by her mellow treble voice as she read from the Bible that first night of his acquaintance with her. Again he and she were on the lonely, moonlit mountain road together. He felt her loving pressure on his arm, and as by the light of heaven caught her tender, upward glance. Then she became his wife—actually his wife. They were on the train together—in the cab at Ridgeville, and then in that cottage of dreams and delight, shut in from the uncomprehending world without.

Then he awoke and, like the hail of javelins from an omnipotent enemy, the tragic facts of his existence hurtled down upon him. Smothering a cry like that of a wounded beast in a jungle, he found his pillow wet with tears which he had shed against his will or knowledge—tears of joy, or tears of grief, which were they? He sprang from his bed and stood before the window of his boxlike room.

"It is my yellow streak again," he muttered, wiping his eyes and grinding his teeth. "It can't down me awake, and so it coils about me in dreams. Be a man, John Trott! Life was never made for happiness. It was for pain, struggle, and conquest."

He heard a sound in Dora's room. He wondered if anything was wrong, and as an anxious mother might have done, he listened attentively. He heard a low, rippling laugh, followed by prattling tones. The child was talking in her sleep. Her dreams must have been pleasant, for her lilting voice rang out again.

"It is beautiful on you, Betty! Maybe brother John will get me one, too. Then we can wear them to the church sociable, eh, Betty?"

"Brother John!" he echoed, softly. It was sweet and vaguely comforting to know that the little waif relied upon him even in her dreams. He crept into her room on his tiptoes, bent over Dora, and looked at her. What an angelic, spritelike creature she seemed in her white gown and golden hair! How delicate and refined her features and tapering hands! In the half-light he saw that she was smiling. Smiling! She had never smiled like that in the old house at Ridgeville. She had begun to smile and laugh and jest under his love and care, and he told himself that it should always be so.

He went back to his bed, turned his damp pillow over, and laid his head on a dry spot. As he lay trying to sleep, the visions of his dream began to hover over him, and, wincing and writhing with pain, he cried:

"Be a man, John Trott! It is your yellow streak again. Kill it now, or it will down you in the end!"

PART II

CHAPTER I

Ten eventful years of toil and struggle for John Trott went by. True to the prophecy of Cavanaugh and other practical men, he succeeded. Step by step he rose till, on the death of Mr. Pilcher, he became an equal partner with Reed in the business. He and Dora still lived with the McGwires in the old house, which was now kept for roomers only. John could have well afforded to give Dora a more expensive home, but both he and she had become inseparably attached to these first friends of theirs in New York.

Dora, a tall, slender girl of nineteen, while not exactly pretty, was quite attractive. John had sent her to a select school for young ladies, and the polish and education she had received had not spoiled her. She was not ashamed of the fact that she and John had once been what they were. In fact, the McGwires knew all the circumstances connected with their clandestine flight from the South, and guarded well their secret.

Not once, even indirectly, had either John or Dora heard from their former home. Dora had almost entirely forgotten it, and, while John could not possibly do so, it had become like a dream of blended joy and pain which he persistently put aside. But at times a grim certitude fixed itself on him, that, having once loved, he could never love again. He never met a marriageable woman, no matter how attractive or willing she might be to receive his attentions, without feeling the presence of a certain barrier of contrast to an ideal embedded in his tragic past. There was a vast store of love and tenderness in him, and this he poured out on his foster-sister. He was a natural man and yielded to sensual temptations, but always with the after-result of feeling vaguely soiled and lowered, and was in continual strife with his passions. To-day they were conquered, to-morrow they held temporary sway. And there was a rebuke, always a rebuke which no reasoning could set aside—a rebuke rising out of the mystic sanctity of the short union between him and his bride. "Tilly!" The very name crept upon him unawares as from the exquisite mental pictures he was always trying to suppress. "Tilly!" He caught himself applying it to Dora, a slip of the tongue, which, better than anything else, revealed to him the psychic bonds between him and a personality lost to him forever. Once Dora asked him if he thought, by any chance, that Tilly might have died. He started, reflected for a moment, and then answered in a way that was a surprise even to himself. "No, she's living," he said. "If she were dead I'd feel it."

"That is no criterion to go by," answered Dora, who had become quite religious and was now a member of the Methodist Church. "Do you know what Harold would say about that?"

"Harold might say a lot of absurd things about it"—John smiled indulgently—"but he is no criterion, either."

"Well, I'll tell you what he'd say, and it is my opinion, too," the girl went on. "He'd say that the very intuitive feeling you say you have—your firm confidence of her existence, is due to the fact that she has passed from this plane of life, is now on another, and that she is always with you in spirit because she loved you once, still loves you, and wants to protect you. Don't you see how pretty that is, brother John? She has become, as Harold would say, your guardian angel, your very conscience. When you are tempted to do wrong she restrains you; and when you actually do something wrong she has a way of rebuking you through your intuition."

This argument displeased John, as all such theories did. He claimed, with many of his rather materialistic friends, that to believe in a blissful life to come only rendered one less useful in the present, and was a strong proof of innate selfishness in the individual who was seeking it for himself alone.

But he let Dora have her way, and why shouldn't he? Indeed, he was almost sure that she and Harold were falling in love with each other. Harold was preaching now in a small church on the west side of the city, and his mother and sisters and Dora were diligent helpers in many ways.

"I'm becoming sure," Mrs. McGwire said, with a smile, one day to John as they lingered at the breakfast-table after Betty and Dora had left, "that Dora and Harold are very much in love, and I'm glad of it. A minister ought to marry early, and your sister, of all girls, is the one I'd want for him."

"So it is like that, is it?" John said, resignedly. "Well, I have no objections, I'm sure. I want her to be happy."

CHAPTER II

Harold had never been one to give in to embarrassment. Life was too serious and needed too many corrections to justify him in losing time or emotion in that way, so without change of color, or quickened pulse, he went on. "I have reason to believe, Mr. Trott, that Dora reciprocates my feeling, and you may be sure that it has given me great happiness. She is wrapped up in my work, and I know of no woman who would so readily adapt herself to the routine of a minister's career. The only thing bothering us both has been—"

For the first time Harold hesitated.

"Go ahead," said John, awkwardly, and quite unaware of what was forthcoming.

"You see, I know what she has been to you all these years," Harold resumed, "and we both know, too, what your religious, or lack of religious, views are, and it has pained me to think that perhaps you would prefer as Dora's husband a man of—well, a man whose views were more in accord with your own than mine can ever possibly be."

Not knowing what to say, John hung fire. He had always been outspoken where his views were directly challenged, and, despite the delicacy of the present crisis, he had nothing to take back. All things being equal, he really would have preferred to have his protégée marry, if she married at all, a man whose calling he could be proud of. He had ridiculed parsons as the most parasitical of all men, and yet here he was about to hand over to one of them the only human treasure he possessed.

"I see you understand me," Harold half sighed, "and I am not so full of religious zeal as not to sympathize with you. I don't see how a man can live without more faith than you have, but I admire your firmness of conviction in what you think is right. You may call yourself an atheist, Mr. Trott, but you really are not one. A great man has said that there are no atheists—that every man who does good, defends goodness, and contends against evil of any sort has as good a god as any one. I don't agree with him fully, but I know that what you did for Dora, full of despair as you were at the time, proves that you had divinity in you. That act was godlike and had to have a source outside of mere animal instinct."

John was touched. He held out his hand. "Let all that pass, Harold," he smiled. "I am sure that Dora loves you, and I want to make her happy. You are her choice. You have a right to her."

"I thank you," Harold responded, with his first touch of emotion. There was silence for a moment, then Harold said: "There is yet another matter, Mr. Trott, and both Dora and I are worried over it. It belongs to a little secret of ours. We have not even told my mother yet, and we dread doing so. Mr. Trott, I have just received an appointment to a desirable post among the missionaries in China."

"China!" John repeated, his honest mouth drooping, his eyes taking on a dull fixity of gaze.

Harold shrugged and nodded. "I thought that would pain you, and so did Dora, but there is nothing else to do but to tell you about it frankly. The heads of the work prefer men with wives, and Dora has her heart set on aiding me in the Orient."

The smoldering embers of John's antagonism under its threatened blight flared up. His blood flowed hotly to his brain. He knew that the separation would be for years if not for all time, and how could he be expected to submit calmly to such a heartless course? Could Dora find it in her gentle nature to desert him like that after all they had been to each other?

"I see that you are hurt," Harold sighed, softly, "and I am more than sorry, Mr. Trott."

John's anger was dying down; a cool breath of sheer despair and resignation seemed to blow over him. How could he live on alone? he wondered, and yet the thing proposed was the logical outcome of many natural circumstances and had to be borne.

"I believe," John answered, "that the missionaries, once they leave, do not return to America frequently?"

"No, they are all poor people, Mr. Trott, and the money saved from such costly traveling expenses can be well used in other ways."

"We'll let that pass," John said, "and come to something else. I have put by a little money to be given or left to Dora, and—"

But raising his hand, and flushing freely now, Harold checked him.

"Don't speak of that, Mr. Trott, please!" he urged. "Dora mentioned something of the sort to me. She said you had thrown out some hint of it recently, and she and I talked it over. We both decided that we'd rather not let you do anything of the sort. You are a young man yourself, and have already done a thousand times more than your duty to Dora. Indeed, we'd both feel very unhappy if you carried out such a plan. You laugh at men of my calling and say they are grafters, but it is really not as you think. Most of the missionaries I've met are poor men, and they are willing to remain so. It would be an absurdity for Dora and me to accept help from you, when our organization is pledged to see that superannuated ministers and their wives are cared for as long as they live."

John was about to speak, vaguely pleased by the manliness of Harold's words, when Dora suddenly came in. Her face was flushed, but her eyes were steady. She stood by Harold's side, who had risen, and smiled half fearfully at John.

"Well, have you told him?" she asked Harold.

He nodded, and put his arm around her waist.

"I mean, have you told him about China?" she went on, anxiously.

"Yes"—with a smile—"and that we simply will not let him give us any of his hard-earned money."

"No, indeed, brother John," Dora cried. "Not a penny of your money will I take after all you have done for me. You must get married—you must be sensible and find you a good wife. You will need all the money you have, too. It is bad enough—my leaving you like this—without taking your savings. We simply won't hear to it, will we, Harold?"

"No," the other answered, firmly. "We'd be acting a lie if we teach others that poverty and humility are a blessing while having a nest-egg of our own."

"Now hear from me." Dora tried to speak with amusing lightness. "While you were here, Harold, exploding your bomb, I've been telling your mother. She is down in her room, crying her heart out. She takes it very hard. It has been the pride of her life that you are a minister, but she never dreamed that she'd miss hearing you preach every Sunday of her life, and help you with your work besides. That's the mother of it, and this is really the hardest blow she's ever had."

There was a sound of a dog barking down-stairs. It was John's pet fox-terrier, Binks.

"He is after a rat," Dora said, forcing a smile to her set face and somehow not wanting to meet the eyes of the stricken man.

"Yes"—John rose—"it is time for me to take him out. He stays in too much." John knew that he was expected to say more on the other subject, but all at once his tongue had become tied. An indescribable despair incased him like walls of sinister darkness. The young couple seemed to feel his mood and to be baffled by it, standing in the presence of his disappointment as if conscious of actual guilt in causing it. Neither said anything, and John got his hat and descended to his dog.

They heard him whistling to Binks as if nothing unusual had happened. They heard the yelping animal scampering up the basement steps to meet him. Creeping wordless, and hand in hand, to the stairs, they saw John bend down and take the dog in his arms. Binks was licking the side of his face, and John seemed unconscious of it. The mute watchers heard the front door close after him. Dora turned back into John's room. She was wiping her eyes. Harold took her into his arms.

"Don't, don't, dear!" he said, tenderly. "It can't be helped, you know. He will suffer—another will suffer, but it has to be. We all bear a cross of some sort or other."

"I know it," she continued to sob, "but it is terrible. Harold, I have never seen such a look on his face as was on it when I came in the room just now. He looked as if he had lost every hope in life. I didn't think I'd ever wound him like this. I used to tell him that he and I would be near together always—if he married or if I married. You see, I know he counted on it, for he mentioned it frequently. Wasn't that pitiful—taking Binks up that way? I could almost hear him sob."

"You are too sentimental, dear," Harold answered, trying to disguise his own emotion, which perhaps Dora's melting mood had elicited. "You soft-hearted women are always attributing your own feelings to men. He'll soon get over it. Besides, a man as young as he is ought not to become a confirmed old bachelor, and this very separation may drive him into a happiness as normal as yours and mine is going to be."

"I hope so—oh, I hope so!" Dora whimpered, still wiping her eyes. "If he should remain unhappy here I am afraid I'd not be wholly content away from him."

"He'll marry, don't worry," Harold said, kissing her again. "He's bound to do so. He is too fine a man to pass his life in loneliness."

CHAPTER III

The time dragged slowly for John. He saw a few persons eying him with mild interest as the brother of the bride, but most of the others were occupied in exchanging jests or greetings with this or that acquaintance as their heads met over the backs of the seats. To while away the time, and for the sheer love of it, a man who was a sort of leader in church singing suddenly began to sing a well-known revival hymn, and the others joined in lustily. John detested it. He had heard it during his isolated childhood at Ridgeville, later at Cranston, and here it was a strident requiem over the bier of his last hope. He was inclined to self-analysis, and he wondered if any of the audience could imagine the dark and rebellious state of mind that he was in. He was not jealous of Harold, he did not begrudge Dora's happiness or desire to curb the festive mood of the people around him. He was simply in despair and could see no way of escape. He tried to think of going back to the office the next day and plunging into work, but how could he do so without some aim in life? Dora had refused financial aid from him. Of what account were his past earnings or those of the future?

The singing was brought to an abrupt end. Mrs. McGwire, who had stationed herself at the street door, suddenly cried out, "They are coming!" and a fluttering silence brooded on the room.

Dora and Harold, accompanied by Mr. Kirkwood, entered the adjoining Sunday-school room from the street with the playful intent to deceive the audience, who were watching the front, and the McGwires all hastened through a doorway near the pulpit to greet them. Betty, a tall, dignified young lady in a becoming street dress, ran across to John.

"Will you come speak to them now, or afterward?" she asked, smiling.

"Afterward," he answered, flushing under the composite stare of the whole room and irritated by being made so conspicuous.

"But you won't have a very good chance then," she advanced. "You know there will be an awful rush at the carriage. You'd better come now."

He complied. He found Dora and Harold in the arms of Minnie and her mother. Both of the latter were weeping.

"I'd cry, too," Dora said, smiling sadly up at John, "but it would leave streaks of wet powder on my face. I am to be a pale and interesting bride. I'm sorry to leave you, brother John."

"Never mind, Sis," he said, bravely. "Everything goes in this life." She leaned toward him, and he kissed her. He was still a crude man and shrank from caressing even Dora in the presence of others.

"We'll meet again," she said, confidently; "don't let yourself believe otherwise."

"All right, I won't." He forced himself to smile.

"Ten o'clock!" cried out Mr. Kirkwood, who was ready at the door. "You mustn't miss that train. I'm going in to take my place. Come right in, Brother McGwire."

"Then this must be good-by, darling John," Dora whispered. "I know you won't want to push through the crowd to us afterward."

"Good-by—good-by," he said, and then he shook hands with Harold. "Good-by, Harold," he said. "I'm leaving her with you."

"I'll do my best, Mr. Trott," Harold said, feelingly. "She is a treasure and I am robbing you. God knows I wish it could be without pain to you."

"Nevermind; that is all right," John answered.

Mrs. McGwire and Minnie, a plain, rather gawky girl, went to the first row of seats in the church, sat down, smiled knowingly at some friends in the rear, and John and Betty followed. Some one at the organ played a wedding march, and Harold and Dora came in and stood before the waiting preacher.

It was soon over. The organ groaned mellowly, and Harold led Dora down the aisle to the vestibule. The congregation followed like stampeding cattle. John was left alone, the McGwires having hurried out through the Sunday-school room to get a last sight of the pair as they entered the carriage.

John met Mrs. McGwire outside as the carriage was disappearing down the street. She said she and her daughters were going to stay awhile to attend to the flowers and some other gifts, and he went home alone. The massive door was locked, and, opening it with a pass-key, he entered the hall. He heard Binks barking in the back yard and he went down to him.

"They didn't want you there, did they, Binks?" he said, taking the dog in his arms. "You'd have made a row, wouldn't you? Well, she is gone, old boy—you don't realize it now, but you will later, when you miss the feeds and nice baths she gave you. She used to buy choice morsels for you. I know, for I've seen the bones lying around."

The remainder of that day he spent in sheer torment, strolling about in the parks with Binks, and when he returned home he found Betty and Minnie alone in the parlor. Their eyes were red from weeping.

"It is on account of the way mother is taking it," Betty explained. "She's gone to bed with a headache. The excitement of the wedding kept her up, but she has gone to pieces since they left. Really, Harold was all she had in the world. Min and I didn't count."

John could think of nothing to say, and he went on to his room. There were some blue-prints and calculations awaiting his attention on the big desklike table in his room, and he took them up to look them over, but laid them down again.

"What is the use?" he muttered. "My God! what is the use of anything? Money? What do I care for money? What could I do with it if I had millions?"

That night when he was about to go to bed he looked into Dora's room. She had left it in perfect order, but somehow it seemed as barren as a room for transient guests in a hotel.

"Dear, dear Sis," he said, with a lump in his throat. "When you and I used to get up before day in that old ramshackle home—you in your rags, and I in my overalls—we didn't dream that all those things would happen and draw to an end like this. There is nothing for me to look forward to—nothing, absolutely nothing, but you will find peace, contentment, and happiness. Well, that is enough. It was worth it, Sis. I'm out of it, and it is only my yellow streak that is whining."

The room, in its tomblike silence and inanimate reminders, oppressed him sorely, and, closing the door that he might not, even by accident, glance into it again that night, he started to undress for bed, when Binks began loudly barking down-stairs. Then he heard Betty trying to quiet him.

"What is the matter with him?" John called down from the head of the stairs.

"I think he wants you," Betty laughed. "I can't pacify him. He keeps jumping up and down, pawing the floor, and crying like a baby."

"Unfasten him, please, and let him come up," John answered.

Immediately there was a swishing, thumping sound on the stairs and Binks rushed into John's room and began to lick his hands and whine. Although he was ready for bed, John sat down in a big chair, took the dog into his arms, and fondled him like an infant. Binks seemed to understand, for he became restful at once. John was not conscious of it, but he sat with the animal in his lap for nearly an hour. Suddenly he became aware that it was late, and he put on his bath-robe and slippers, with the intention of taking the dog down to his kennel, but Binks, as if reading his mind, ran under the bed and remained out of sight. Stooping down, John saw a pair of small eyes gleaming in the shadow.

"Poor little devil, he's lonely, too!" John muttered. "Say, Binks, come out—let's talk it over. You want to sleep with me to-night, eh? All right, we'll keep each other company."

It was as if the little animal understood, for he came out readily, wagging his stubby tail, and began to stand on his hind feet and lick his master's hands. "All right, all right." John took him up in his arms, bore him to his bed, and placed him on the side next to the wall. And, as if fearful that John might change his mind, Binks snuggled down between the sheets, his snout on his paws, his eyes blinking almost with pretended drowsiness.

"Sly old boy!" John laughed, softly, and, throwing off his robe and slippers, he closed his door and lay down by the dog. His strong arm touched the sleek coat of his pet and somehow the contact soothed him. With a tightness of the throat, his eyes suffused with restrained tears, he told himself that absolutely all had not been taken from him, for Binks was left.

CHAPTER IV

"Well, tell him, then, that I won't see him," John ordered, impatiently.

The girl left and came back. "He wouldn't give his name," she said, "but he said to tell you that he was an old friend and was very anxious to see you—that he hasn't seen you for about eleven years."

"Eleven years—an old friend!" John said to himself, aghast. "Who could it be, unless—" The girl was waiting, and he said, "Tell him to come in, please."

The girl went out and ushered in a gray-haired, gray-bearded old man who walked with a cane and was so bent downward that, under a broad-brimmed straw hat, John did not at once see his features. The stenographer retired to her workroom in the rear, and the visitor came to John.

It was Cavanaugh, who now removed his hat and exposed his face to view, a face gashed with deep lines, and fairly shrinking under a sort of awed timidity.

"I'm afraid I'm not welcome, John," he faltered, his wrinkled brow mantled with red, his old, fat hand checked in its impulsive movement forward and falling at his side. "I ought not to have come like this, but I couldn't help it. I was in the city, and wanted to see you for a lot of reasons."

"That's all right, Sam," John answered, extending his hand and trying to divest himself of the visible effects of the shock he had received. "How did you find me? Sit down."

Cavanaugh took the proffered chair. John pitied him, for his hands crossed on the top of his cane quivered with intense excitement, and his eyes swept the room with the slow awe of a beggar in the house of a prince.

"Mostly by accident," he answered, "and putting two and two together, and reasoning it out like a one-horse detective on his first job. John, I know I've done wrong, but—"

"Forget all that, Sam," John said, more at ease. "Don't think I've forgotten you. You are the one friend in the world that I really cared for down there, and it was my intention to get at you sooner or later. I thought, however, that I was considered dead to you and everybody at Ridgeville."

"You are—you still are," Cavanaugh said. "It is like this, John, and in a way your secret is still safe, for I won't give it away. You remember Todd Williams. He is in the firm of Williams & Chelton. They set up in dry-goods after you left. Well, last fall he was on here buying goods, and when he came back home one day after meeting—we belong to the same church—he called me off to one side like, and said, said he:

"'Sam, an odd thing happened to me on the Elevated train while I was in New York,' and with that he went on to say that while he sat reading his paper a feller got in and sat in front of him that was the exact image of you. He said the likeness was so great that he came in an inch of speaking to the feller, but, remembering the news of your death, he let it pass. Then he asked me if I thought there could have been any mistake made about you and Dora being in that wreck. I told him I thought not, and left him, but I'm here to confess, John, that from that minute my mind wasn't fully at rest. Hundreds of times I rolled it over and over in my thoughts—at night in bed, at work, in meeting, at meals with my wife—everywhere. Always, always I was wondering if you might be still alive, fighting your fight and making good away off som'ers. I told my wife how I was worried and she made light of it—said she herself often saw resemblances to folks in new faces. Then I guess I would have dropped it, but for one little, tiny thing that popped into my head one night while I was listening to a long-winded prayer during a revival. Well, sir, like a flash of blasting-powder this thought came to me. You left our town in the dead of night, and it was reasonable to suppose that you did everything you could to keep folks from knowing who you was and where you was bound for. Didn't you?"

"Yes," John nodded, and sat waiting.

"I thought so," Cavanaugh continued. "So you see, when the list of the lost was printed, and your name and Dora's, and your age and hers, and the town you was from, was given, the question come to me, who was it that reported them things so accurate after that awful disaster? You wouldn't have been handing your name and the child's about amongst strangers on the train before the accident, and if your bodies was burned up, all your belongings, papers, and the like would have been destroyed, and— Well, you see what I mean?"

John started and stared steadily. "I see it now, Sam, but I never thought of it before. I suppose everybody else overlooked that point but you."

"Yes, I'm the only one," Cavanaugh answered. "Well, John, after that, instead of being dead to me, somehow you got alive again. I don't want to talk like a sniffling old woman, John, for you are older now, but I loved you like a son, and the hope that you was alive and doing well up here made me powerful happy. You see, until your trouble come like a clap of thunder, I was almost living for you and your interests. I wanted us to establish a business between us that you could carry on after me and my old lady was gone, so, when I began to tote about the idea of you not being dead, I could think of nothing else, till—well, till I come here and found your name in the directory. You were the only John Trott in it, and was a contractor, and I knew I'd run you to your hole."

"I'm glad you did, Sam," John answered. "I've always wanted to see you again, but didn't know how to bring it about with absolute safety to my plans. I'd cut out the whole thing down there, and it seemed best to forget it—best for me and for Dora. She was so young when she was down there that she has almost forgotten the worst features of it—about—about her aunt and other things, I mean."

"I was going to inquire about her," Cavanaugh said. "Is she well and all right?"

John explained briefly, and heard his old friend sighing. "And so you are all alone now, not married—no one with you at all."

John nodded. "Oh, I'm all right. I'm 'neither sugar nor salt,'" he quoted an old saying. "Don't worry about me, Sam. I'll get along some way or other."

There was silence between the two for a few minutes. It was as if the old man were wondering what further information he might be at liberty to give pertaining to the past. Presently he cleared his throat and said:

"Your ma is still alive, John. Jane Holder is dead. Lots and lots of things that you don't know about have happened down home since you left. As soon as Jane Holder died your ma quit living in that old house. She pulled up stakes and drifted about some. She stayed awhile in Atlanta, then in Nashville, and finally came back to our town and moved out in the country. She was—was befriended—a nice woman and her husband sort of—well, I suppose they sort of took pity on her, and—"

"Stop, Sam!" John's face was dark and twisted from inner agony. "Please don't mention her. For Dora's sake I've been trying to think of her as never having actually existed. I don't blame her, you understand. She is living her life and I'm living mine. I don't blame people for their natures or characteristics. Such things come at birth. My father was one thing—she was another. But I've fought down my past, torn it out like an unwholesome dream. I may be mistaken, Sam, but it seems to me that I ought not to talk about all that now. I've fought to acquire a new life, and to some extent I have won it. What lies before me I don't know, and I don't greatly care. I'm still young in years and strong of body and mind, but I feel actually old. I suppose you have some sort of faith still. I have none at all. Dora has it, and it has made her contented, happy, and useful. I am glad she has it. I wouldn't take it from her. Tilly—Tilly used to—"

The name was spoken impulsively, as if some subconscious force or habit had assumed control over a tongue well bridled till now, and with tight lips John suddenly checked himself and sat flushing under the old man's kindly stare.

"I was going to mention her," Cavanaugh put in, his honest eyes falling to the floor, "but didn't know exactly how you'd feel about it. Oh yes, I still believe in a great Supreme Power that works for eternal good. Shall I tell you about Tilly?"

John was silent. His face had grown rigid and even pale. His lips quivered. "I think I know two things about her," he finally said. "Somehow I feel sure that she is alive and married to Joel Eperson."

Cavanaugh nodded slowly. "Yes, my boy; she finally took him, but it was not till four years after the report of your death. I see her and Joel off and on from time to time. It will do no good to open old wounds now, but I'll say this, John, and that is that your wife's constancy to your memory, and Joel's faithfulness to her through all her trouble—the death of her ma and pa, and—and some other things—has given the lie to every statement ever made that men and women don't actually love each other. If Tilly had had the slightest hope that you were living she'd have remained single till the end of time. She never considered that court edict as right. Oh, I wish I could—could tell you all I know on that line, but it would do no good now."

"No, we'd better drop it," John said, heavily. "It will do no good to go over it. I've regarded it as a dead issue for eleven years."

"That may be," Cavanaugh said to himself, "but he is stunned, actually stunned. I see it in his face and hear it in his voice. Poor boy! Poor boy!"

"Before dropping the subject I will tell you one thing more," the old man said, aloud, "and that is that they have two children, a boy of about six and a little girl of four or five. They are sweet little tots and are a great comfort. They are images of their mother, and I love 'em."

"Tell me this—tell me this, Sam," John said, and it was as if a great anxiety rested on him. "I want to know this. Of course, you'll see that it is no affair of mine, but I'd like to know if Eperson is providing well for Til—for his wife and children. Sam, she has suffered a lot through no fault of her own, and most of that suffering came through happening to meet me up there at Cranston and that silly boy-and-girl fancy of—of hers and mine. She deserves an easier time from now on, and that is why I'd like to know how she and Eperson are financially situated."

Cavanaugh drew his scraggy brows together. His color deepened to red in his cheeks. "I wish I could make a good report on that line," he answered, awkwardly, "but I can't give you the best of news. Joel is not to blame, though. I'll say that. He simply belongs to the class of men that come, as he did, from landholders and slave-holders. Such men are highly honorable, but they simply don't know how to make ends meet."

"Then they are poor, very poor?" John said, grimly.

"Yes, very poor," was the reluctant answer. "I'm not blaming Joel. He has done the best he could. I've never seen a man work harder. If he had been stingy and grasping he'd have made better headway, but he is always doing for others. Old Whaley died insolvent, and Joel took care of the widow and paid out big doctor's bills trying to save her life, through a long sick spell, and when she passed away he paid all the funeral expenses and put up a nice stone over the two graves. He doesn't own any land of his own, but rents a few acres here and there from year to year. He has to buy his supplies on credit at a high rate of profit, and is always up to his eyes in debt. Huh! John, you fellers that can work in a fine office like this, wear clothes like you've got on, and ride home in a comfortable car, reading your paper or smoking—I say, such as you have little notion what an easy berth you have compared to fellers like Joel Eperson. That is the sort of a thing that shakes my faith in the Almighty a little mite sometimes, but I don't let it get hold of me. In any case, Joel is blessed by having the wife he got. She is the most patient little mother that ever lived. I've never heard her complain. I did hear her say once, though, when I happened to pass along where she was at work in the cotton-field and stopped to chat a minute—she told me that she didn't ever worry about what would happen to her and Joel, because they could die and be done with it, but she did trouble about the children. She is so anxious for them to grow up and get an education and be useful in life, and she doesn't see much hope of it."

"You say she actually works in the field?" John exclaimed, with a shudder and a darkening face.

"Not always, but sometimes when Joel is away or sick, or when the crops are suffering for immediate attention. You know labor is high and cash is generally paid, and Joel hasn't the means to hire help at the time he needs it the most. Take cotton-picking, for instance. If the staple isn't taken from the boll in time the weather stains and ruins it. It is at a time like that that Tilly helps. But don't let it fret you. She told me, with that sweet smile of hers that I used to love so much when me and you was boarding with her folks, that outdoor work was good for her. But Joel objects to it. I saw him come out in the corn one day and take the hoe away from her and send her in the house. I never saw a sadder look on a proud man's face.

"'She will do it,' he said to me, almost groaning, as he spoke. Joel got confidential that day. He talked free-like, as men do when they reach the very bottom of ill luck. 'I thought,' said he, 'that I was doing right in marrying Tilly, for she was all alone in the world and unprotected, but you see what I've brought her to. I had hopes then— I have none now. Things never take an upward turn for some men, Cavanaugh. They head downward, and they pull everything they touch with them. They marry wives and make them suffer. They bring children into the world to suffer, and they go on that way till the earth receives their useless remains, and that is the end of their dreams.'

"I tried to cheer him up, but I couldn't. I wish, John, that I could tell you about his unselfishness as to one thing in particular, but I reckon I'd better not. It would do no good. I see from your looks that all this is going hard with you."

"No, nothing is to be gained by it, Sam," John said, shrugging his shoulders. He looked at his watch. "You must go to lunch with me," he said. "I want to see as much of you as possible while you are here."

"I am agreeable," Cavanaugh said, with a touch of his former ease of manner. "It seems like old times once more, my boy."

They lunched together and afterward went to the small hotel where Cavanaugh was staying, got the old man's valise, and went to John's home. Cavanaugh was put into Dora's old room and given to understand that it was his as long as he remained in the city. For a week the two friends were constantly together. John took the time off from business, and, with Binks trotting between them, the physically ill-mated and yet mentally congenial pair took long walks together. And not since Dora's departure had John felt so soothed and comforted. A spiritual force of some sort seemed to radiate from the bent old man that for the time almost regenerated his companion. John had discovered that Cavanaugh loved him as a son and regarded him with an ardent mixture of pride and ecstasy, as a son restored from death to life. Sometimes, in their ascent of an incline in their strolls, the old man would quite unconsciously catch hold of the arm of the younger, and in speaking he often held John's hand in one of his and gently stroked it, as if unconscious of what he was doing. At times, for no particular reason, he would lower his voice into an almost confidential whisper. However, it was on the last night of his stay, before his departure the following morning, that John was permitted to see even more deeply into Cavanaugh's heart. They were in Dora's room. The old man was undressing for bed when suddenly he sat down, locked his toil-hardened fingers between his knees, and lowered his shaggy head, as if buffeting an unexpected wave of despair.

"I want to tell you something, John," he said, in a shaky voice. "And I don't want you to forget it as long as life stays in you. I want you to know that no days in all my existence have been as happy as these with you. Not even my honeymoon, John, and that is saying a lot. I can't tell you about it. When I try my tongue fails, my throat fills, and my eyes stream with tears. You'll never regret being so good to me. God won't give you cause to ever regret it. What is ahead of me seems mighty short. I'll be dead, I guess, too soon for me to ever think about coming to New York again, and I know how you feel about going down there, but I'll take a sweet memory to my grave with me, John, and that is that you, with all your up-to-date success and education, treated me as sweet and gentle as a dutiful son would an old, unpolished, plain father that he loved and respected. You are lonely and unhappy, and I see no way to help you. That hurts. That hurts deep down in me! I hate to go away and leave you like this, never to see you again. What I told you about—about the little woman that was once your wife struck you a deadly blow between the eyes. You thought you had counted on her marrying again, but I reckon, after all, you hadn't really done that. I see—I understand. You have been all these years holding her in your heart, somehow, as yours in spirit if not in body, and now for the first time you are trying to look the facts in the face. I've noticed that you don't sleep sound. I hear you stirring about in the night."

John made no denial, and the fact that he did not do so proved to Cavanaugh that what he had said was true.

John rose and started to his own room. "I'll have you up in time for your train," he said. "Get a good sleep. You will need it before starting on a long journey like yours. Good night."

"Good night, my boy, good night," Cavanaugh said.

From his own room, where John sat smoking in the dark, he saw the light go out in Cavanaugh's room. He listened, expecting to hear the bed creak as it always did when the old man got upon it, but now there was no sound. There was silence for nearly half an hour, and then the telltale creaking came. John understood. Had he had a watch and a light, he could, to a second, have timed one of the saddest and most unselfish of prayers.

"Poor, dear old Sam!" he muttered, and began to undress for bed.

CHAPTER V

Across the river in a bluish haze towered the Palisades, and on either side of him in the distance jutted out from the shore he was on long, slender, gray and yellow boat-houses with their pile-anchored floats. On his right at the water's edge was a group of Italians, picnicking together. There were the four heads of two families, stocky laboring-men, fat housewives, and young girls and boys. They had made a fire of driftwood on the rocks, and John could see a great pot of something stewing, and smelled the aroma of coffee and broiled sausages. The boys and girls had put on foreign-looking bathing-suits and, with tiny water-wings under their arms, were splashing about, trying to learn to swim.

"Binks, old chap," John said, aloud, as had become a habit of his, "there are some deep holes where those silly people are. Those kids may get beyond their depth. I hope the men can swim."

The Italians had a guitar. Some one played it, and native songs were sung. They were very happy. John told himself that it might be some sort of reunion of close friends or relatives. There were so many shouts of merriment in Italian, loud commands to the children from their mothers, and joyous retorts from the bathers, that John failed to hear a shrill cry of alarm from their midst. It was Binks, indeed, who suddenly pricked up his ears, barked, and began to run toward the picnickers. At first, absorbed in reflection, John paid no attention to the dog's antics, but, as Binks continued to bark excitedly, he stood up and looked toward the bathers. The children now ashore were screaming, women were shouting, waving their hands, and with their clothing on the two men were wading out into the water which from the passage of a great steamer was rolling like the surf of an ocean. That the men could not swim John saw at once, and he ran down the shore toward them.

"For God's sake, meester, save her! save my daughter!" a man screamed. "Me no swim! Dere, dere!" and he pointed to a pair of water-wings floating in a circle of bubbles thirty feet from the rocks.

John was a good swimmer, and, throwing off his coat, he plunged in at once, but Binks, who had been taught to spring into water and fetch back such things as sticks or a ball thrown in, and had sighted the water-wings, was several yards ahead of him.

"Dere, dere! My God! she's up de third time!" shrieked the girl's father. "Catch her, meester, catch her! It's de last time—de last time!"

On a curling swell John saw the girl's head and shoulders above the water. She was going down again, and a great rolling wave was close upon her. John saw that he could not reach her in time, and he saw something else that filled him with horror. Binks, with the captured water-wings in his mouth, was within the girl's reach, and she grasped him and dragged him under. There was a gurgling struggle, widening rings filled with bubbles floated on the swaying water, and nothing was seen of the girl or the dog.

A wail of despair rang out from the shore; men, women, and children ran to and fro, screaming. John was soon over the spot where the girl and dog had disappeared, and, exhausting the air from his lungs, he dived down as far as he could. He kept his eyes open, and moving from him in the murky depths he could not quite reach for lack of breath he saw the blue dress of the girl. That Binks was in her dying clutch he well knew. The buoyancy of John's body raised him to the top sooner than he wished, and when he appeared with nothing in his grasp the screams from the shore were louder than ever.

"Again! again! meester!" the father yelled, "farther up. O God! O God!"

Again John dived. This time he went quite to the bottom and crawled along from rock to rock, keeping himself down by the clutch of his hands. But to no avail. He saw nothing and was fairly bursting for lack of breath. The progress upward seemed endless, and when the surface was reached he was almost dead from exhaustion. But he dived again and again. Binks was drowning, he kept thinking, and there was little else in his mind. When he had dived unsuccessfully a dozen times a man arrived in a rowboat from one of the boat-houses with a rope and grappling-irons. Taking John into the boat, the two began to drag the river over the fatal spot. The man held the oars and John the rope.

"She's been under fifteen minutes," the boatman said. "There is little chance now, even if we get her up. My God! what fools those greasers are! Eating, drinking, and singing while their kid was going down!"

John had time to observe the group on the shore now. The mother of the girl had fainted, and the other woman was fanning her as she lay on the rocks, unsheltered from the sun. The children, in their wet suits, stood crying lustily.

"We can't do anything now," the boatman said when another five minutes had passed. "She is done for, but we'd as well keep on the job to satisfy 'em. The tow has taken her out, most likely."

Ten minutes more. Even the group on the shore seemed to have given up hope. However, the irons caught. It might be a rock, John thought, but the object yielded gently. "Hold! Not so hard!" John ordered. "You might pull it loose. I've caught something!"

Carefully he drew in the rope. He saw the blue dress through several feet of water, and, reaching down, he caught it with his hand. A moment later and the drowned girl, with Binks clutched in her death-grip, was drawn into the boat.

A scream of joy from the reviving mother of the girl rent the air. Having been unconscious of the passage of time, she evidently thought her child might yet be alive. As the boatman gently pulled toward the rocks, John disengaged Binks from the stiff fingers, and held him in his lap.

"Poor mut!" the boatman said. "She choked the life out of him. They are always like that—they will grab at a floating chip. Turn the girl's head down, will you, and let the water run out? There may be a speck of life left, but I think she is as dead as a mackerel."

Putting Binks aside, John obeyed. The girl's face was purple, her lips foaming. The rocks reached, the two Italian men, their yellow faces stamped with agony, were ready up to their waists in water to take the girl ashore.

John knew nothing about what is called "first aid to the drowning," and so, with his dead pet in his arms, he climbed up the rocks. Men were gathering from the two boat-houses. He heard somebody say, "There is a cop and a doctor!" The screaming women, the sobbing children, the awed questions of spectators just arrived, fell on closed ears, as far as John was concerned. Picking up his coat, he wrapped it about Binks and bore him homeward. Looking back, he saw the doctor examining the body on the rocks. John sat down alone in the sun. He told himself that he would let his clothing dry on him as he walked homeward. But what was to be done about the body of his pet? He couldn't take it home with him, and he knew of no burial-ground for dogs. He sat down on the shore to think it out. His mind was in a queer jumble of resentment and resigned despair. How could Binks actually be dead? How could he go home without him? And yet the wet, limp object with the bulging, glazed eyes and distorted muzzle was all that was left of the loving, vivacious animal to which he had been so warmly linked.

The doctor was coming back. He passed John, and then paused. "Is that the dog she drowned?" he asked, bending down sympathetically and stroking the animal's coat.

"Yes. How is the girl?" John asked.

"Dead," was the answer, and the doctor stood erect and walked away.

For several hours John remained on the shore. He saw the Italians bearing the girl's body away, followed by the women and children. Then a thought came to him. There was a dense strip of sloping wooded land between the river and the nearest street, and in the midst of it stood a tall oak. At the foot of this tree he would bury Binks's remains. The oak would be a landmark that he could easily single out again. He found some newspapers, and, wrapping up the body in them, he dug a grave and put his pet into it.

The sun was going down above the New Jersey cliffs when the rite was ended. The great disk was as red as living coals of fire. A tree with shooting branches and stark trunk three miles away was clearly outlined across its face. A big excursion-steamer bound for Albany was passing. The surface of the river was sprinkled with sail-boats and varicolored canoes. From somewhere on the water came the clear, joyous tones of a cornet. Some player was putting his soul into his music. John walked down to one of the boat-houses. Men were fishing from the float. At a crude bar he bought a cigar and lighted it. He asked about the fishing of one of the fishermen and apathetically listened while the man talked of rods, reels, lines, sinkers, and bait. John did not want to go home. The thought of the hot, close, and lonely house, in his present frame of mind, was repellent. He wondered if he was giving way to sickly sentimentality, for he had a desire to pass that night in the wood in solitary vigil over the grave of his loved companion.

Presently he shrugged his shoulders and started homeward. "Be a man, John Trott!" he said, with closed lips. "Why shouldn't Binks die?—everybody has to die sooner or later. What does it matter? The only thing that matters is to bear your burden like a soldier and a man."

CHAPTER VI