The Man Thou Gavest

“Sir—Mister Truedale.” The sheriff had evidently been sorely perplexed as to the proper beginning of the task he had undertaken.

“I send this by old Doc McPherson, not knowing any better way.”

(Jim’s epistle was nearly innocent of punctuation, his words ran on almost unbroken and gave the reader some trouble in following.)

Truedale read and reread this amazing production until he began to feel his way through the tangle of words and catch a meaning—false, ridiculously false of course, but none the less designed as an explanation and excuse. Then the non-essentials dropped away and one bald fact remained! Truedale sank back in his chair, turned off the electric light, and closed his eyes.

“Tired, old man?” Kendall asked from across the hearth.

“Yes. Dead tired.”

“You’ll travel easier when you get the gait.”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Take a bit of a nap,” Lynda suggested.

“Thanks, Lyn, I will.” Then Truedale, safe from intrusion, tried to make his way out of the maze into which he had been thrown. Slowly he recovered from the effect of the staggering blow and presently got to the point where he felt it was all a cruel lie or a stupid jest. There he paused. Jim was not the kind to lie or joke about such a thing. It was a mistake—surely a mistake. He would go at once to Pine Cone and make everything right. Nella-Rose could not act alone. Tradition, training, conspired to unfit her for this crisis; but that she had gone from his love and faith into the arms of another man was incredible. No; she was safe, probably in hiding; she would write him. She had the address—she was keen and quick, even though she was helpless to cope with the lawlessness of her mountain environment. Truedale saw the necessity of caution, not for himself, but for Nella-Rose. He could not go, unaided, to search for her. Evidently there had been wild doings after he left; no one but White and Nella-Rose knew of his actual existence—he must utilize White in assisting him, but above all he must expect that Nella-Rose would make her whereabouts known. Never for a moment did he doubt her or put any credence in the conclusions White had drawn. How little Jim really knew! By to-morrow word would come from Nella-Rose; somehow she would manage, once she was safe from being followed, to get to the station and telegraph. But there could be no leaving the girl in the hills after this; he must, as soon as he located her, bring her away; bring her into his life—to his home and hers!

A cold sweat broke out on Truedale’s body as he lashed himself unmercifully in the still room where his two friends, one believing him asleep, waited for his awakening.

Well, he was awake at last, thank God! The only difference between him and a creature such as good men and women abhor was that he meant to retrieve, as far as in him lay, the past error and injustice. All his future life should prove his purpose. And then, like a sweet fragrance or a spirit touch, his love pleaded for him. He had been weak, but not vicious. The unfettered life had clouded his reason, and his senses had played him false, but love was untarnished—and it was love. That girl of the hills was the same now as she had always been. She would accept him and his people and he would make her life such that, once the homesickness for the hills was past, she would have no regrets.

Then another phase held Truedale’s thought. In that day when Nella-Rose accepted, in the fullest sense, his people and his people’s code—how would he stand in her eyes? A groan escaped him, then another, and he started nervously.

“Con, what is it—a bad dream?” Lynda touched his arm to arouse him.

“Yes—a mighty bad one!”

“Tell it to me. Tell it while it is fresh in your mind. They say once you have put a dream in words, its effect is killed forever.”

Truedale turned dark, sorrowful eyes upon Lynda.

“I—I wish I could tell it,” he said with a seriousness that made her laugh, “but it was the kind that eludes—words. The creeping, eating impression—sort of nightmare. Good Lord! how nerves play the deuce with you.”

Brace Kendall did not speak. From his place he had been watching Truedale, for the firelight had betrayed the truth. Truedale had not been sleeping: Truedale had been terribly upset by that last letter of his!

And just then Conning leaned forward and threw his entire mail upon the blazing logs!

CHAPTER XI

For Truedale to await, calmly, further developments was out of the question. He did, however, force himself to act as sanely as possible. He felt confident that Nella-Rose, safely hidden and probably enjoying it in her own elfish way, would communicate with him in a few days at the latest, now that things had, according to White, somewhat settled into shape after the outlaw Lawson had taken himself off the scene.

To get to the station and telegraph would mean quite a feat for Nella-Rose at any time, and winter was in all likelihood already gripping the hills. To write and send a letter might be even more difficult. So Truedale reasoned; so he feverishly waited, but he was not idle. He rented a charming little suite of rooms, high up in a new apartment house, and begged Lynda to set them in order at once. Somehow he believed that in the years ahead, after she understood, Lynda would be glad that he had asked this from her.

“But why the hurry, Con?” she naturally questioned; “if people are going to be so spasmodic I’ll have to get a partner. It may be all right, looked at financially, but it’s the ruination of art.”

“But this is a special case, Lyn.”

“They’re all special cases.”

“But this is a—welcome.”

“For whom?”

“Well, for me! You see I’ve never had a real home, Lyn. It’s one of the luxuries I’ve always dreamed of.”

“I had thought,” Lynda’s clear eyes clouded, “that your uncle’s house would be your home at last. It is big enough for us all—we need not run against each other.”

“Keep my room under the roof, Lyn.” Truedale looked at her yearningly and she—misunderstood! “I shall often come to that—to you and Brace—but humour me in this fancy of mine.”

So she humoured him—working early and late—putting more of her own heart in it than he was ever to know, for she believed—poor girl—that he would offer it to her some day and then—when he found out about the money—how exactly like a fairy tale it all would be! And Lynda had had so few fairy tales in her life.

And while she designed and Conning watched and suggested, they talked of his long-neglected work.

“You’ll have time soon, Con, to give it your best thought. Did you do much while you were away?”

“Yes, Lyn, a great deal!” Truedale was sitting by the tiny hearth in his diminutive living room. He and Lynda had demanded, and finally succeeded in obtaining an open space for real logs; disdaining, much to the owner’s amazement, an asbestos mat or gas monstrosity. “I really put blood in the thing.”

“And when may I hear some of it? I’m wild to get back to our beaten tracks.”

Truedale raised his eyes, but he was looking beyond Lynda; he was seeing Nella-Rose in the nest he was preparing for her.

“Soon, Lyn. Soon. And when you do—you, of all the world, will understand, sympathize, and approve.”

“Thank you, Con, thank you. Of course I will, but it is good to have you know it! Let me see, what colour scheme shall we introduce in the living room?”

“Couldn’t we have a sort of blue-gray; a rather smoky tint with sunshine in it?”

“Good heavens, Con! And it is a north room, too.”

“Well, then, how about a misty, whitish—”

“Worse and worse. Con, in a north room there must be warmth and real colour.”

“There will be. But put what you choose, Lyn, it will surely be all right.”

“Suppose, then, we make it golden brown, or—dull, soft reds?”

Truedale recalled the shabby little shawl that Nella-Rose had worn before she donned her winter disguise.

“Make it soft dull red, Lyn—but not too dull.”

Truedale no longer meant to lay his secret bare before departing for the South. While he would not acknowledge it to his anxious heart, he realized that he must base the future on the outcome of his journey. Once he laid hands upon Nella-Rose, he would act promptly and hopefully, but—he must be sure, now, before he made a misstep. There had been mistakes enough, heaven knew; he must no longer play the fool.

And then when the little gilded cage was ready, Truedale conceived his big and desperate idea. Two weeks had passed since Jim White’s letter and no telegram or note had come from Nella-Rose. Neither love nor caution could wait longer. Truedale decided to go to Pine Cone. Not as a returned traveller, certainly not—at first—to White, but to Lone Dome, and there, passing himself off as a chance wayfarer, he would gather as much truth as he could, estimate the value of it, and upon it take his future course. In all probability, he thought—and he was almost gay now that he was about to take matters into his own hands—he would ferret out the real facts and be back with his quarry before another week. It was merely a matter of getting the truth and being on the spot.

Nella-Rose’s family might, for reasons of their own, have deceived Jim White. Certainly if they did not know at the time of Nella-Rose’s whereabouts they would, like others, voice the suspicion of the hills; but by now they would either have her with them or know positively where she was. For all his determination to believe this, Truedale had his moments of sickening doubt. The simple statement in White’s letter, burned, as time went on, into his very soul.

But, whatever came—whatever there was to know—he meant to go at once to headquarters. He would remain, too, until Peter Greyson was sober enough to state facts. He recalled clearly Jim’s estimate of Greyson and his dual nature depending so largely upon the effect of the mountain whisky.

It was late November when Truedale set forth. No one made any objection to his going now. Things were running smoothly and if he had to go at all to straighten out any loose ends, he had better go at once.

To Lynda the journey seemed simple enough. Truedale had left, among other belongings, his manuscript and books. Naturally he would not trust them to another’s careless handling.

At Washington, Truedale bought a rough tramping rig and continued his journey with genuine enjoyment of the adventure. Now that he was nearing the scene of his past experience he could better understand the delay. Things moved so slowly among the hills and naturally Nella-Rose, trusting and fond, was part of the sluggish life. How she would show her small, white teeth when, smiling in his arms, she told him all about it! It would not take long to make her forget the weary time of absence and White’s misconception.

Truedale proceeded by deliberate stages. He wanted to gather all he possibly could as a foundation upon which to build. The first day after he left the train at the station—and it had bumped at the end of the rails just as it had on his previous trip—he walked to the Centre and there encountered Merrivale.

“Well, stranger,” the old man inquired, “whar yer goin’, if it ain’t askin’ too much?”

And Truedale expansively explained. He was tramping through the mountains for pure enjoyment; had heard of the hospitality he might expect and meant to test it.

Merrivale was pleased but cautious. He was full of questions himself, but ran to cover every time his visitor ventured one. Truedale soon learned his lesson and absorbed what was offered without openly claiming more. He remained over night with Merrivale and stocked up the next morning from the store.

He had heard much, but little to any purpose. He carried away with him a pretty clear picture of Burke Lawson who, by Merrivale’s high favour, appeared heroic. The storm, the search, Lawson’s escape and supposed carrying off of Nella-Rose, were the chief topics of conversation. Merrivale chuckled in delight over this.

The afternoon of the second day Truedale reached Lone Dome and came upon Peter, sober and surprisingly respectable, sunning himself on the west side of the house.

The first glance at the stately old figure, gone to decay like a tree with dead rot, startled and amazed Truedale and he thanked heaven that the master of Lone Dome was himself and therefore to be relied upon; no one could possibly suspect Peter of cunning or deceit in his present condition.

Greyson greeted the stranger cordially. He was in truth desperately forlorn and near the outer edge of endurance. An hour more and he would have defied the powers that had recently taken control of him, and made for the still in the deep woods; but the coming of Truedale saved him from that and diverted his tragic thoughts.

The fact was Marg and Jed had gone away to be married. Owing to the death of the near-by minister in the late storm, they had to travel a considerable distance in order to begin life according to Marg’s strict ideas of propriety. Before leaving she had impressed upon her father the necessity of his keeping a clear head in her absence.

“We-all may be gone days, father,” she had said, “and yo’ certainly do drop in owdacious places when you’re drunk. Yo’ might freeze or starve. Agin, a lurking beast, hunting fo’ food, might chaw yo’ fo’ yo’ got yo’ senses.”

Something of this Greyson explained to his guest while setting forth the evening meal and apologizing for the lack of stimulant.

“Being her marriage trip I let Marg have her way and a mind free o’ worry ’bout me. But women don’t understand, God bless ’em! What’s a drop in yo’ own home? But fo’ she started forth Marg spilled every jug onto the wood pile. When I see the flames extry sparkling I know the reason!”

Greyson chuckled, walking to and fro from table to pantry, with steady, almost dignified strides.

“That’s all right,” Truedale hastened to say, “I’m rather inclined to agree with your daughter; and—” raising the concoction Peter had evolved—“this tea—”

“Coffee, sir.”

“Excuse me! This coffee goes right to the spot.”

They ate and grew confidential. Edging close, but keeping under cover, Truedale gained the confidence of the lonely, broken man and, late in the evening, the hideous truth, as Truedale was compelled to believe, was in his keeping.

For an hour Greyson had been nodding and dozing; then, apologetically, rousing. Truedale once suggested bed, but for some unexplainable reason Peter shrank from leaving his guest. Then, risking a great deal, Truedale asked nonchalantly:

“Have you other children besides this daughter who is on her wedding trip? It’s rather hard—leaving you alone to shift for yourself.”

Greyson was alert. Not only did he share the mountain dweller’s wariness of question, but he instantly conceived the idea that the stranger had heard gossip and he was in arms to defend his own. His ancestors, who long ago had shielded the recreant great-aunt, were no keener than Peter now was to protect and preserve the honour of the little girl who, by her recent acts—and Greyson had only Jed’s words and the mountain talk to go by—had aroused in him all that was fine enough to suffer. And Greyson was suffering as only a man can who, in a rare period of sobriety, views the wrecks of his own making.

Ordinarily, as White truly supposed, Peter lied only when he was drunk; but the sheriff could not estimate the vagaries of blood and so, at Truedale’s question, the father of Nella-Rose, with the gesture inherited from a time of prosperity, rallied his forces and lied! Lied like a gentleman, he would have said. Broken and shabby as Greyson was, he appeared, at that moment, so simple and direct, that his listener, holding to the sheriff’s estimate, was left with little doubt concerning what he heard. He, watching the weak and agonized face, believed Greyson was making the best of a sad business; but that he was weaving from whole cloth the garment that must cover the past, Truedale in his own misery never suspected. While he listened something died within him never to live again.

“Yes, sir. I have another daughter—lil’ Nella-Rose.”

Truedale shaded his face with his hand, but kept his eyes on Greyson’s distorted face.

“Lil’ Nella-Rose. I have to keep in mind her youth and enjoying ways or I’d be right hard on Nella-Rose. Yo’ may have heard, while travelling about—o’ Nella-Rose?” This was asked nervously—searchingly.

“I’ve—I’ve heard that name,” Truedale ventured. “It’s a name that—somehow clings and, being a writer-man, everything interests me.”

Then Greyson gave an account of the trap episode tallying so exactly with White’s version that it established a firm structure upon which to lay all that was to follow.

“And there ain’t nothing as can raise a woman’s tenderness and loyalty to a man,“ Greyson went on, ”like getting into a hard fix, and sho’ Burke Lawson was in a right bad fix.

“I begin to see it all now. Nella-Rose went to Merrivale’s and he told her Burke had come back. Merrivale told me that. Naturally it upset her and she followed him up to warn him. Think o’ that lil’ girl tracking ’long the hills, through all that storm, to—to save the man she had played with and flouted but loved, without knowing it! Nella-Rose was like that. She lit on things and took her fun—but in the big parts she always did come out strong.”

Truedale shifted his position.

“I reckon I’m wearying you with my troubles?” Greyson spoke apologetically.

“No, no. Go on. This interests me very much.”

“Well, sir, Burke Lawson and Jed Martin came on each other in the deep woods the night of the big storm and Burke and Jed had words and a scene. Jed owned up to that. It was life and death and I ain’t blaming any one and I have one thing to thank Burke for—he might have done different and left a stain on a lady’s name, sir! He told Jed how he had seen Nella-Rose and how she had scorned him for being a coward, but how she would take her words back if he dared come out and show his head. And he ’lowed he was going to come out then and there, which he did, and he and Nella-Rose was going off to Cataract Falls where the Lawsons hailed from, on the mother’s side.”

“But—how do you know that your daughter kept her word? This Lawson may have been obliged to make away with himself—alone.” Truedale grew more daring. He saw that Greyson, absorbed by his trouble, was less on guard. But Greyson was keenly observant.

“He’s heard the gossip,” thought the old man, “it’s ringing through the hills. Well, a dog as can fetch a bone can carry one!” With that conclusion reached, Peter made his master stroke.

“I’ve heard from her,” he half whispered.

“Heard from her?” gasped Truedale, and even then Greyson seemed unaware of the attitude of the stranger. “How—did you hear from her?”

“She wrote and sent the letter long of—of Bill Trim, a half-wit—but trusty. Nella-Rose went with Lawson—she ’lowed she had to. He came on her in the woods and held her to her word. She said as how she wanted to—to come home, but Lawson set forth as how an hour might mean his life—and put it up to lil’ Nella-Rose! He—he swore as how he’d shoot himself if she didn’t go with him—and it was like Burke to do it. He was always crazy mad for Nella-Rose, and there ain’t anything he wouldn’t do when he got balked. She—she had ter go—or see Lawson kill himself; so she went—but asked my pardon fo’ causing the deep trouble. Lawson married her at the first stopping place over the ridge. He ain’t worthy o’ my lil’ Nella-Rose—but us-all has got to make the best o’ it. Come spring—she’ll be back, and then—I’ll forgive her—my lil’ Nella-Rose!”

From the intensity of his emotions Greyson trembled and the weak tears ran down his lined face. Taking advantage of the tense moment Truedale asked desperately:

“Will you show me that letter, Mr. Greyson?”

So direct was the request, so apparently natural to the old man’s unguarded suffering, that it drove superficialities before it and merely confirmed Greyson in his determination to save Nella-Rose’s reputation at any cost. Ignoring the unwarrantable curiosity, alert to the necessity of quick defense, he said:

“I can’t. I wish to Gawd I could and then I could stop any tongue what dares to tech my lil’ gal’s name.”

“Why can you not show me the letter?” Truedale was towering above the old man. By some unknown power he had got control of the situation. “I have a reason for—asking this, Mr. Greyson.”

“Marg burned it! It was allus Marg or lil’ Nella-Rose for Lawson, and Nella-Rose got him! When Marg knew this fur certain, there was no length to which she—didn’t go! This is my home, sir; I’m old—Marg is a good girl and the trouble is past now; her and Jed is making me comfortable, but we-all don’t mention Nella-Rose. It eases me, though, to tell the truth for lil’ Nella-Rose. I know how the tongues are wagging and I have to sit still fo’—since Marg and Jed took up with each other—my future lies ’long o’ them. I’m an old man and mighty dependent; time was when—” Greyson rose unsteadily and swayed toward the fireplace.

“Gawd a’mighty!” he flung out desperately, “how I want—whisky!”

Truedale saw the wildness in the old man’s eyes—saw the trembling and twitching of the outstretched hands, and feared what might be the result of trouble and enforced sobriety. He pulled a large flask from his pocket and offered it.

“Here!” he said, “take a swallow of this and pull yourself together.”

Greyson, with a cry, seized the liquor and drained every drop before Truedale could control him.

“God bless yo’!” whined Greyson, sinking back into his chair, “bless and—and keep yo’!”

Truedale dared not leave the house though his soul recoiled from the sight before him. He waited an hour, watching the effect of the stimulant. Greyson grew mellow after a time—at peace with the world; he smiled foolishly and became maudlinly familiar. Finally, Truedale approached him again. He bent over him and shook him sharply.

“Did you tell me—the truth—about—Nella-Rose?” he whispered to the sagging, blear-eyed creature.

“Yes, sir!” moaned Peter, “I sho’ did!”

And Truedale did not reflect that when Greyson was-drunk—he lied!

Truedale never recalled clearly how he spent the hours between the time he left Greyson’s until he knocked on the door of White’s cabin; but it was broad daylight and bitingly cold when Jim flung the door open and looked at the stranger with no idea, for a moment, that he had ever seen him before. Then, putting his hand out wonderingly, he muttered:

“Gawd!” and drew Truedale in. Breakfast was spread on the table; the dogs lay before the blazing fire.

“Eat!” commanded Jim, “and keep yer jaws shet except to put in food.”

Conning attempted the feat but made a pitiful showing.

“Come to stay on?”

White’s curiosity was betraying him and the sympathy in his eyes filled Truedale with a mad desire to take this “God’s man” into his confidence.

“No, Jim. I’ve come to pack and go back to—to my job!”

“Gosh! it can’t be much of a job if you can tackle it—lookin’ like what you do!”

“I’ve been tramping for—for days, old man! Rather overdone the thing. I’m not so bad as I look.”

“Glad to hear it!” laconically.

“I’ll put up with you to-night, Jim, if you’ll take me in.” Truedale made an effort to smile.

“Provin’ there ain’t any hard feeling?”

“There never was, White. I—understood.”

“Shake!”

They got through the day somehow. The crust was forming over Truedale’s suffering; he no longer had any desire to let even White break through it. Once, during the afternoon, the sheriff spoke of Nella-Rose and without flinching Truedale listened.

“That gal will have Burke eatin’ out o’ her hand in no time. Lawson is all right at the kernel, all he needed was some one ter steady him. Once I made sure he’d married the gal, I felt right easy in my mind.”

“And you—did make sure, Jim? There was no doubt? I—I remember the pretty little thing; it would have been damnable to—to hurt her.”

“I scrooged the main fact out o’ old Pete, her father. There was a mighty lot o’ talk in the hills, but I was glad ter get the facts and shut the mouths o’ them that take ter—ter hissin’ like all-fired scorpions! Nella-Rose had writ to her father, but Marg, the sister, tore the letter up in stormin’ rage ’cause Nella-Rose had got the man she had sot her feelin’s on. Do you happen to call ter mind what I once told you ’bout those two gals and a little white hen?”

Truedale nodded.

“Same old actin’ up!” Jim went on. “But when Greyson let out what war in the letter—knowin’ Burke like what I do—I studied it out cl’ar enough. Nella-Rose was sure up agin blood and thunder whatever way yo’ put it—so she ran her chances with Burke. There ain’t much choosin’ fo’ women in the hills and Burke is an owdacious fiery feller, an’ he ain’t ever set his mind to no woman but Nella-Rose.”

That night Truedale went to his old cabin. He built a fire on the hearth, drew the couch before it, and then the battle was on—the fierce, relentless struggle. In it—Nella-Rose escaped. Like a bit of the mist that the sun burns, so she was purified—consumed by the fire of Truedale’s remorse and shame. Not for a moment did he let the girl bear a shadow of blame—he was done with that forever!—but he held himself before the judgment seat of his own soul and he passed sentence upon himself in terms that stern morality has evolved for its own protection. But from out the wreck and ruin Truedale wrenched one sacred truth to which he knew he must hold—or sink utterly. He could not expect any one in God’s world to understand; it must always be hidden in his own soul, but that marriage of his and Nella-Rose’s in the gray dawn after the storm had been holy and binding to him. From now on he must look upon the little mountain girl as a dear, dead wife—one whose childish sweetness was part of a time when he had learned to laugh and play, and forget the hard years that had gone to his un-making, not his upbuilding.

CHAPTER XII

Truedale travelled back to the place of his new life bearing his books, his unfinished play, and his secret sorrow with him. His books and papers were the excuse for his journey; for the rest, no one suspected nor—so thought Truedale—was any one ever to know. That part of his life-story was done with; it had been interpreted bunglingly and ignorantly to be sure, but the lesson, learned by failure, had sunk deep in his heart.

He arranged his private work in the little room under the eaves. He intended, if time were ever his again, to begin where he had left off when broken health interrupted.

In the extension room over William Truedale’s bedchamber Lynda carried on her designing and her study; her office, uptown, was reserved for interviews and outside business. Her home workshop had the feminine touch that the other lacked. There were her tea table by the hearth, work bags of dainty silk, and flowers in glass vases. The dog and the cats were welcome in the pleasant room and sedately slept or rolled about while the mistress worked.

But Truedale, while much in the old home, still kept his five-room flat. He bought a good, serviceable dog that preferred a bachelor life to any other and throve upon long evening strolls and erratic feeding. There were plants growing in the windows—and these Conning looked after with conscientious care.

When the first suffering and sense of abasement passed, Truedale discovered that life in his little apartment was not only possible, but also his salvation. All the spiritual essence left in him survived best in those rooms. As time went by and Nella-Rose as an actuality receded, her memory remained unembittered. Truedale never cast blame upon her, though sometimes he tried to view her from the outsider’s position. No; always she eluded the material estimate.

“Not more than half real,” so White had portrayed her, and as such she gradually became to Truedale.

He plunged into business, as many a man had before him, to fill the gaps in his life; and he found, as others had, that the taste of power—the discovery that he could meet and fulfil the demands made upon him—carried him out of the depths and eventually secured a place for him in the world of men that he valued and strove to prove himself worthy of. He wisely went slowly and took the advice of such men as McPherson and his uncle’s old lawyer. He grew in time to enjoy the position of trust as his duties multiplied, and he often wondered how he could ever have despised the common lot of his fellows. He deliberately, and from choice, set his personal tastes aside—time enough for his reading and writing when he had toughened his mental muscles, he thought. Lynda deplored this, but Truedale explained:

“You see, Lyn, when I began to carve the thing out—the play, you know—I had no idea how to handle the tools; like many fools with a touch of talent, I thought I could manage without preparation. I’ve learned better. You cannot get a thing over to people unless you know something of life—speak the language. I’m learning, and when I feel that I cannot help writing—I’ll write.”

“Good!” Lynda saw his point; “and now let’s haunt the theatres—see the machinery in running order. We’ll find out what people want and why.”

So they went to the theatre and read plays. Brace made the wholesome third and their lives settled into calm enjoyment that was charming but which sometimes—not often, but occasionally—made Lynda pause and consider. It would not do—for Con—to fall into a pace that might defeat his best good.

But this thought brought a deep crimson to the girl’s cheeks.

And then something happened. It was so subtle that Lynda Kendall, least of all, realized the true significance.

Once in the early days of her secured self-support, William Truedale had said to her:

“You give too much attention, girl, to your tailor and too little to your dressmaker.”

Lynda had laughingly called her friend frivolous and defended her wardrobe.

“One cannot doll up for business, Uncle William.”

“Is business your whole life, Lynda? If so you had better reform it. If women are going to pattern their lives after men’s they must go the whole way. A sensible man recognizes the need of shutting the office door sometimes and putting on his dress suit.”

“Well, but Uncle William, what is the matter with this perfectly built suit? I always slip a fresh blouse on when I am off duty. I hate to be always changing.”

“If you had a mother, Lynda, she would make you see what I mean. An old fungus like me cannot be expected to command respect from such an up-to-date humbug as you!”

They had laughed it off and Lynda had, once or twice, donned a house gown to please her critical friend, but eventually had slipped back into suits and blouses.

All of a sudden one day—it was nearing holiday time—she left her workroom at midday and, almost shamefacedly, “went shopping.” As the fever got into her blood she became reckless, and by five o’clock had bought and ordered home more delicate and exquisite finery than she had ever owned in all her life before.

“It’s scandalous!” she murmured to her gay, young heart, “an awful waste of good money, but for the first time, I see how women can get clothes-mad.”

She devoted the hour and a half before dinner to locating an artistic dressmaker and putting herself in her hands.

The result was both startling and exciting. The first gown to come home was a dull, golden-brown velvet thing so soft and clinging and individual that it put its wearer into quite a flutter. She “did” and undid her hair, and, in the process, discovered that if she pulled the “sides” loose there was a tendency to curl and the effect was distinctly charming—with the strange gown, of course! Then, marshalling all her courage, she trailed down to the library and thanked heaven when she found the room empty. It would be easier to occupy the stage than to make a late entrance when the audience was in position. So Lynda sat down, tried to read, but was so nervous that her eyes shone and her cheeks were rosy.

Brace and Conning came in together. “Look who’s here!” was Kendall’s brotherly greeting. “Gee! Con, look at our lady friend!” He held his sister off at arms’ length and commented upon her “points.”

“I didn’t know your hair curled, Lyn.”

“I didn’t, myself, until this afternoon. You see,” she trembled a bit, “now that I do not have to go in the subway to business there’s no reason for excluding—this sort of thing” (she touched the pretty gown), “and once you let yourself go, you do not know where you will land. Curls go with these frills; slippers, too—look!”

Then she glanced up at Conning.

“Do you think I’m very—frivolous?” she asked.

“I never knew”—he was gazing seriously at her—“how handsome you are, Lyn. Wear that gown morning, noon and night; it’s stunning.”

“I’m glad you both like it. I feel a little unusual in it—but I’ll settle down. I have been a trifle prim in dress.”

Like the giant’s robe, Lynda Kendall’s garments seemed to transform her and endow her with the attributes peculiar to themselves. So gradually, that it caused no wonder, she developed the blessed gift of charm and it coloured life for herself and others like a glow from a hidden fire.

All this did not interfere with her business. Once she donned her working garb she was the capable Lynda of the past. A little more sentiment, perhaps, appeared in her designs—a wider conception; but that was natural, for happiness had come to her—and a delicious sense of success. She, womanlike, began to rejoice in her power. She heard of John Morrell’s marriage to a young western girl, about this time, with genuine delight. Her sky was clearing of all regrets.

“Morrell was in the office to-day,” Brace told his sister one evening, “it seemed to me a bit brash for him to lay it on so thick about his happiness and all that sort of rot.”

“Brace!”

“Well, it might be all right to another fellow, but it sounded out of tune, somehow, to me. He says she is the kind that has flung herself body and soul into love; I wager she’s a fool.”

Lynda looked serious at once.

“I hope not,” she said thoughtfully, “and she’ll be happier with John, in the long run, if she has some reservations. I did not think that once; I do now.”

“But—you, Lyn? You had reservations to burn.”

“I had—too many. That was where the mistake began.”

“You—do not regret?”

Lynda came close to him.

“Brace, I regret nothing. I am learning that every step leads to the next—if you don’t stumble. If you do—you have to pick yourself up and go back. If John learned from me, I, too, have learned from him. I’m going to try to—love his wife.”

“I bet she’s a cross, somehow, between a cowboy and an idiot. John protested too much about her charms. She’s got a sister—sounds a bit to me as if Morrell had married them both. She’s coming to live with them after awhile. When I fall in love, it’s going to be with an orphan out of an asylum.”

Lynda laughed and gave her brother a hug. Then she said:

“Our circle is widening and, by the way Brace, I’m going to begin to entertain a little.”

“Good Lord, Lyn!”

“Oh! modestly—until I can use my stiff little wings. A dinner now and then and a luncheon occasionally when I know enough nice women to make a decent showing. Clothes and women, when adopted late in life, are difficult. But oh! Brace, it is great—this blessed home life of mine! The coming away from my beloved work to something even better.”

The pulse of a city throbs faster in the winter. All the vitality of well-nourished men and women is at its fullest, while for them who fall below the normal, the necessity of the struggle for existence keys them to a high pitch. Not so in the deep, far mountain places. There, the inhabitants hide from the elements and withdraw into themselves. For weeks at a time no human being ventures forth from the shelter and comparative comfort of the dull cabins. Families, pressed thus close and debarred from the freedom of the open, suffer mentally and spiritually as one from the wider haunts of men can hardly conceive.

When Nella-Rose turned away from Truedale that golden autumn day, she faced winter and the shut-in terrors of the cold and loneliness. In two weeks the last vestige of autumn would be past, and the girl could not contemplate being imprisoned with Marg and her father while waiting for love to return to her. She paused on the wet, leafy path and considered. She had told Truedale that she would go home, but what did it matter. She would go to Miss Lois Ann’s. She would know when Truedale returned; she could go to him. In the meantime no human being would annoy her or question her in that cabin far back in the Hollow. And Lois Ann would while away the long hours by story and song. It seemed to her there was but one thing to do—and Nella-Rose did it! She fled to the woman whose name Truedale had barely heard.

It took her three good hours to make the distance to the Hollow and it was quite dark when she tapped on the door of the little cabin. To all appearances the place was deserted; but after the second knock a shutter to the right of the door was pushed open and a long, lean hand appeared holding a lighted candle, while a deep, rich voice called:

“Who?”

“Jes’ Nella-Rose!”

The hand withdrew, the shutter was closed, and in another minute the door was flung wide and the girl drawn into the warm, comfortable room. Supper, of a better sort than most hill-women knew, was spread out on a clean table, and in the cheer and safety Nella-Rose expanded and decided to take the old woman into her confidence at once and so secure present comfort until Truedale came back to claim her.

This Lois Ann, in whose sunken eyes eternal youth burned and glowed, was a mystery in the hills and was never questioned. Long ago she had come, asked no favours, and settled down to fare as best she could. There was but one sure passport to her sanctuary. That was—trouble! Once misfortune overtook one, sex was forgotten, but at other times it was understood that Miss Lois Ann had small liking or sympathy for men, while on the other hand she brooded over women and children with the everlasting strength of maternity.

It was suspected, and with good reason, that many refugees from justice passed through Miss Lois Ann’s front door and escaped by other exits. Officers of the law had, more than once, traced their quarry to the dreary cabin and demanded entrance for search. This was always promptly given, but never had a culprit been found on the premises! White understood and admired the old woman; he always halted justice, if possible, outside her domain, but, being a hill-man, Jim had his suspicions which he never voiced.

“So now, honey, what yo’ coming to me fo’ this black night?” said Lois Ann to Nella-Rose after the evening meal was cleared away, the fire replenished, and “with four feet on the fender” the two were content. “Trouble?” The wonderful eyes searched the happy, young face and at the glance, Nella-Rose knew that she was compelled to confide! There was no choice. She felt the power closing in about her, she found it not so easy as she had supposed, to explain. She sparred for time.

“Tell me a right, nice story, Miss Lois Ann,” she pleaded, “and of course it’s no trouble that has brought me here! Trouble! Huh!”

“What then?” And now Nella-Rose sank to the hearthstone and bent her head on the lap of the old woman. It was more possible to speak when she could escape those seeking eyes. She closed her own and tried to call Truedale to the dark space and to her support—but he would not come.

“So it is trouble, then?”

“No, no! it’s—oh! it’s the—joy, Miss Lois Ann.”

“Ha! ha! And you’ve found out that the young scamp is back—that Lawson?” Lois Ann, for a moment, knew relief.

“It—it isn’t Burke,” the words came lingeringly. “Yes, I know he’s back—is he here?” This affrightedly.

“No—but he’s been. He may come again. His maw’s always empty, but I will say this for the scoundrel—he gives more than he takes, in the long run. But if it isn’t Lawson, who then? Not that snake-in-the-grass, Jed?” Love and trouble were synonymous with Lois Ann when one was young and pretty and a fool.

“Jed? Jed indeed!”

“Child, out with it!”

“I—I am going to tell you, Miss Lois Ann.”

Then the knotted old hand fell like a withered leaf upon the soft hair—the woman-heart was ready to bear another burden. Not a word did the closed lips utter while the amazing tale ran on and on in the gentle drawl. Consternation, even doubt of the girl’s sanity, held part in the old woman’s keen mind, but gradually the truth of the confession established itself, and once the fact was realized that a stranger—and such a one—had been hidden in the hills while this thing, that the girl was telling, was going on—the strong, clear mind of the listener interpreted the truth by the knowledge gained through a long, hard life.

“And so, you see, Miss Lois Ann, it’s like he opened heaven for me; and I want to hide here till he comes to take me up, up into heaven with him. And no one else must know.”

Lois Ann had torn the cawl from Nella-Rose’s baby face—had felt, in her superstitious heart, that the child was mysteriously destined to see wide and far; and now, with agony that she struggled to conceal, she knew that to her was given the task of drawing the veil from the soul of the girl at her feet in order that she might indeed see far and wide into the kingdom of suffering women.

For a moment the woman fenced, she would put the cup from her if she could, like all humans who understand.

“You—are yo’ lying to me?” she asked faintly, and oh, but she would have given much to hear the girl’s impish laugh of assent. Instead, she saw Nella-Rose’s eyes grow deadly serious.

“It’s no lie, Miss Lois Ann; it’s a right beautiful truth.”

“And for days and nights you stayed alone with this man?”

The lean hand, with unrelenting strength, now gripped the drooping face and held it firmly while the firelight played full upon it, meanwhile the keen old eyes bored into Nella-Rose’s very soul.

“But he—he is my man! You forget the—marrying on the hill, Miss Lois Ann!”

The voice was raised a bit and the colour left the trembling lips.

“Your man!” And a bitter laugh rang out wildly.

“Stop, Miss Lois Ann! Yo’ shall not look at me like that!”

The vision was dulled—Nella-Rose shivered.

“You shall not look at me like that; God would not—why should you?”

“God!”—the cracked voice spoke the word bitterly. “God! What does God care for women? It’s the men as God made things for, and us-all has to fend them off—men and God are agin us women!”

“No, no! Let me free. I was so happy until—Oh! Miss Lois Ann, you shall not take my happiness away.”

“Yo’ came to the right place, yo’ po’ lil’ chile.”

The eyes had seen all they needed to see and the hand let drop the pretty, quivering face.

“We’ll wait—oh! certainly we-all will wait a week; two weeks; then three. An’ we-all will hide close and see what we-all shall see!” A hard, pitiful laugh echoed through the room. “And now to bed! Take the closet back o’ my chamber. No one can reach yo’ there, chile. Sleep and dream and—forget.”

And that night Burke Lawson, after an hour’s struggle, determined to come forth among his kind and take his place. Nella-Rose had decided him. He was tired of hiding, tired of playing his game. One look at the face he had loved from its babyhood had turned the tide. Lawson had never before been so long shut away from his guiding star. And she had said that he might ask again when he dared—and so he came forth from his cave-place. Once outside, he drew a deep, free breath, turned his handsome face to the sky, and felt the prayer that another might have voiced.

He thought of Nella-Rose, remembered her love of adventure, her splendid courage and spirit. Nothing so surely could win her as the proposal he was about to make. To ask her to remain at Pine Cone and settle down with him as her hill-billy would hold small temptation, but to take her away to new and wider fields—that was another matter! And go they would—he and she. He would get a horse somewhere, somehow. With Nella-Rose behind him, he would never stop until a parson was reached, and after that—why the world would be theirs from which to choose.

And it was at that point of Lawson’s fervid, religious state that Jed Martin had materialized and made it imperative that he be dealt with summarily and definitely.

After confiding his immediate future to the subjugated Martin—having forced him to cover at the point of a pistol—Burke, with his big, wholesome laugh, crawled again out of the cave. Then, raising himself to his full height, he strode over the sodden trail toward White’s cabin with the lightest, purest heart he had carried for many a day. But Fate had an ugly trick in store for him. He was half way to White’s when he heard steps. Habit was strong. He promptly climbed a tree. The moon came out just then and disclosed the follower. “Blake’s dawg,” muttered Lawson and, as the big hound took his stand under the tree, he understood matters. Blake was his worst enemy; he had a score to settle about the revenue men and a term in jail for which Lawson was responsible. While the general hunt was on, Blake had entered in, thinking to square things, while not bringing himself into too much prominence.

“Yo’ infernal critter!” murmured Lawson, “in another minute you’ll howl, yo’ po’ brute. I hate ter shoot yo’—yo’ being what yo’ are—but here goes.”

After that White’s was impossible for a time and Nella-Rose must wait. In a day or so, probably—so Burke quickly considered—he could make a dash back, get White to help him, and bear off his prize, but for the moment the sooner he reached safety beyond the ridge, the better. Shooting a dog was no light matter.

Lawson reached safety but with a broken leg; for, going down-stream, he had met with misfortune and, during that long, hard winter, unable to fend for himself, he was safely hidden by a timely friend and served by a doctor who was smuggled to the scene and well paid for his help and silence.

And in Lois Ann’s cabin Nella-Rose waited, at first with serene hope, and then, with pitiful longing. She and the old woman never referred to the conversation of the first night but the girl was sure she was being watched and shielded and she felt the doubt and scorn in the attitude of Lois Ann.

“I’ll—I’ll send for my man,” at last she desperately decided at the end of the second week. But she dared not risk a journey to the far station in order to send a telegram. So she watched for a chance to send a letter that she had carefully and painfully written.