The Man Thou Gavest

then she crossed the name out and scribbled “Your doney-gal.”

It was early in the third week that Bill Trim came whistling down the trail, on a cold, bitterly cold, November morning. He bore a load of “grateful gifts” to Lois Ann from men and women whom she had succoured in times of need and who always remembered her, practically, when winter “set.”

Bill was a half-wit but as strong as an ox; and, once set upon a task, managed it in a way that had given him a secure position in the community. He carried mail into the remotest districts—when there was any to carry. He “toted” heavy loads and gathered gossip and spilled it liberally. He was impersonal, ignorant, and illiterate, but he did his poor best and grovelled at the feet of any one who showed him the least affection. He was horribly afraid of Lois Ann for no reason that he could have given; he was afraid of her eyes—her thin, claw-like hands. As he now delivered the bundles he had for her he accepted the food she gave and then darted away to eat it in comfort beyond the reach of those glances he dreaded.

And there Nella-Rose sought him and sat beside him with a choice morsel she had saved from her finer fare.

“Trim,” she whispered when he was about to start, “here is a letter—Miss Lois Ann wants you to mail.”

The bright eyes looked yearningly into the dull, hopeless face.

“I—hate the ole ’un!” confided Bill.

“But yo’ don’t hate me, Bill?”

“No.”

“Well, then, do it for me, but don’t tell a living soul that you saw me. See, Bill, I have a whole dollar—I earned it by berry-picking. Pay for the letter and then keep the rest. And if you ever see Marg, and she asks about me—and whether you’ve seen me—tell her” (and here Nella-Rose’s white teeth gleamed in the mischievous smile), “tell her you saw me walking in the Hollow with Burke Lawson!”

The dull fellow shook with foolish laughter. “I sho’ will!” he said, and then tucked the letter and dollar bill in the breast of his shirt. “And now, lil’ doney-gal, let me touch yo’ hand,” he pleaded, “this—er—way.” And like a poor frayed, battered knight he pressed his lips to the small, brown hand of the one person who had always been kind to him.

At sunset Bill halted to eat his supper and warm his stiffened body. He tried to build a fire but the wood was wet and in desperation he took, at last, the papers from inside his thin coat, they had helped to shield him from the cold, and utilized them to start the pine cones. He rested and feasted and later went his way. At the post office he searched among his rags for the letter and the money. Then his face went white as ashes:

“Gawd a’mighty!” he whimpered.

“What’s wrong?” Merrivale came from behind the counter.

“I done burn my chest protector. I’ll freeze without the papers.” Then Bill explained the fire building but, recalling Lois Ann, withheld any further information.

“Here, you fool,” Merrivale said not unkindly, “take all the papers you want. And take this old coat, too. And look, lad, in yo’ wandering have yo’ seen Greyson’s lil’ gal?”

Bill looked cunning and drawing close whispered:

“Her—and him, I seed ’im, back in the sticks! Her—and him!” Then he laughed his foolish laugh.

“I thought as much!” Merrivale nodded, with the trouble a good man knows at times in his eyes; but his faith in Burke coming to his aid. “You mean—Lawson?” he asked.

Bill nodded foolishly.

“Then keep yo’ mouth shut!” warned Merrivale. “If I hear yo’ gabbing—I’ll flax the hide o’ yo’, sure as I keep store.”

CHAPTER XIII

A month, then two, passed in the desolate cabin in the Hollow. Winter clutched and held Pine Cone Settlement in a deadly grip. Old people died and little children were born. Lois Ann, when it was physically possible, got to the homes of suffering and eased the women, while she berated the men for bringing poor souls to such dread passes. But always Nella-Rose hid and shrank from sight. No need, now, to warn her. A new and terrible look had come into her eyes, and when Lois Ann saw that creeping terror she knew that her hour had come. To save Nella-Rose, she believed, she must lay low every illusion and, with keen and deliberate force, she pressed the apple of the knowledge of life between the girlish lips. The bitter truth at last ate its way into the girl’s soul and gradually hate, such as she had never conceived, grew and consumed her.

“She will not die,” thought the old woman watching her day by day.

And Nella-Rose did not die, at least not outwardly, but in her, as in Truedale, the fine, first glow of pure faith and passion, untouched by the world’s interpretation, faded and shrivelled forever.

The long winter hid the secret in the dreary cabin. The roads and trails were closed; none drew near for shelter or succour.

By springtime Nella-Rose was afraid of every living creature except the faithful soul who stood guard over her. She ran and trembled at the least sound; she was white and hollow-eyed, but her hate was stronger and fiercer than ever.

Early summer came—the gladdest time of the year. The heat was broken by soft showers; the flowers bloomed riotously, and in July the world-old miracle occurred in Lois Ann’s cabin—Nella-Rose’s child was born! With its coming the past seemed blotted out; hate gave place to reverent awe and tenderness. In the young mother the woman rose supreme and she would not permit her mind to hold a harmful thought.

Through the hours of her travail, when Lois Ann, desperate and frightened, had implored, threatened, and commanded that she should tell the name of the father of her child, she only moaned and closed her lips the firmer. But when she looked upon her baby she smiled radiantly and whispered to the patient old creature beside her:

“Miss Lois Ann, this lil’ child has no father. It is my baby and God sent it. I shall call her Ann—cuz you’ve been right good to me—you sholy have.”

So it was “lil’ Ann” and, since the strange reticence and misunderstood joyousness remained, Lois Ann, at her wit’s end, believing that death or insanity threatened, went secretly to the Greyson house to confess and get assistance.

Peter was away with Jed. The two hung together now like burrs. Whatever of relaxation Martin could hope for lay in Greyson; whatever of material comfort Peter could command, must come through Jed, and so they laboured, in slow, primitive fashion, and edged in a little pleasure together. Marg, having achieved her ambition, was content and, for the first time in her life, easy to get along with. And into this comparative Eden Lois Ann came with words that shattered the peace and calm.

In Marg’s private thought she had never doubted that her sister had often been with Burke Lawson in the Hollow. When he disappeared, she believed Nella-Rose was with him, but she had supported and embellished her father’s story concerning them because it secured her own self-respect and covered the tracks of the degenerate pair with a shield that they in no wise deserved, but which put their defenders in a truly Christian attitude.

Marg was alone in the cabin when Lois Ann entered. She looked up flushed and eager.

“How-de,” she said genially. “Set and have a bite.”

“I ain’t got no time,” the old woman returned pantingly. “Nella-Rose is down to my place.”

The warm, sunny room grew stifling to Marg.

“What a-doing?” she said, half under her breath.

“She’s got a—lil’ baby.”

The colour faded from Marg’s face, leaving it pasty and heavy.

“Burke—thar?”

“He ain’t been thar all winter. I hid Nella-Rose and her shame but I dare not any longer. I reckon she’s going off.”

“Dying?”

“May be; or—” and here Lois Ann tapped her head.

“And he—he went and left her?” groaned Marg—“the devil!”

Lois Ann watched the terrible anger rising in the younger woman and of a sudden she realized how useless it would be to voice the wild tale Nella-Rose held to. So she only nodded.

“I’ll come with you,” Marg decided at once, “and don’t you let on to father or Jed—they’d do some killing this time, sure!”

Together the two made their way to the Hollow and found Nella-Rose in the quiet room with her baby nestling against her tender breast. The look on her face might well stay the reproaches on Marg’s lips—she almost reeled back as the deep, true eyes met hers. All the smothered sisterliness came to the surface for an instant as she trembled and drew near to the two in the old chintz-covered rocker.

“See! my baby, Marg. She is lil’ Ann.”

“Ann—what?” whispered Marg.

“Just lil’ Ann for—Miss Lois Ann.”

“Nella-Rose” (and now Marg fell on her knees beside her sister), “tell me where he is. Tell me and as sure as God lives I’ll bring him back! I’ll make him own you and—and the baby or he’ll—he’ll—”

And then Nella-Rose laughed the laugh that drove Lois Ann to distraction.

“Send Marg away, Miss Lois Ann,” Nella-Rose turned to her only friend, “she makes me so—so tired and—I do not want any one but you.”

Marg got upon her feet, all the tenderness and compassion gone.

“You are—” she began, but Lois Ann was between her and Nella-Rose.

“Go!” she commanded with terrible scorn. “Go! You are not fit to touch them. Go! Dying or mad—the girl belongs to me and not to such as has viper blood in their veins. Go!” And Marg went with the sound of Nella-Rose’s crooning to her child ringing in her ears.

Things happened dramatically after that in the deep woods. Marg kept the secret of the Hollow cabin in her seething heart. She was frightened, fearing her father or Jed might discover Nella-Rose. But she was, at times, filled with a strange longing to see her sister and touch that wonderful thing that lay on the guilty mother-breast.

Was Nella-Rose forever to have the glory even in her shame, while she, Marg, with all the rights of womanhood, could hold no hope of maternity?

For one reason or another Marg often stole to the woods as near the Hollow as she dared to go. She hoped for news but none came; and it was late August when, one sunny noon, she confronted Burke Lawson!

Lawson’s face was strange and awful to look on. Marg drew away from him in fear. She could not know but Burke had had a terrific experience that day and he was on the path for revenge and any one in his way must suffer. Freed at last from his captivity, he had travelled across the range and straight to Jim White. And the sheriff, ready for the recreant, greeted him without mercy, judging him guilty until he proved himself otherwise.

“What you done with Nella-Rose?” he asked, standing before Burke with slow fire in his deep eyes.

Lawson could never have been the man he was if he were not capable of holding his own council and warding off attack.

“What makes you think I’ve done anything with her?” he asked.

“None o’ that, Burke Lawson,” Jim warned. “I’ve been yo’ friend, but I swear I’ll toss yo’ ter the dogs, as is after you, with as little feelin’ as I would if yo’ were a chunk o’ dead meat—if you’ve harmed that lil’ gal.”

“Well, I ain’t harmed her, Jim. And now let’s set down and talk it over. I want to—to bring her home; I want ter live a decent life ’mong yo’-all. Jim, don’t shoot ’til yo’ make sure yo’ ought ter shoot.”

Thus brought to reason Jim sat down, shared his meal with his reinstated friend, and gave him the gossip of the hills. Lawson ate because he was well-nigh starved and he knew he had some rough work ahead; he listened because he needed all the guiding possible and he shielded the name and reputation of Nella-Rose with the splendid courage that filled his young heart and mind. And then he set forth upon his quest with these words:

“As Gawd A’mighty hears me, Jim White, I’ll fetch that lil’ Nella-Rose home and live like a man from now on. Wipe off my sins, Jim; make a place for me, old man, and I’ll never shame it—or God blast me!”

White took the strong young hand and felt his eyes grow misty.

“Yo’ place is here, Burke,” he said, and then Lawson was on his way.

A half hour later he encountered Marg. In his own mind Burke had a pretty clear idea of what had occurred. Not having heard any suggestion of Truedale, he was as ignorant of him as though Truedale had never existed. Jed, then, was the only man to hold guilty. Jed had, in passion and revenge, wronged Nella-Rose and had after, like the sneak and coward he was, sought to secure his own safety by marrying Marg. But what had they done with Nella-Rose? She had, according to White, disappeared the night that Jed had been tied in the cave. Well, Jed must confess and pay!—pay to the uttermost. But between him and Jed Marg now stood!

“You!” cried Marg. “You! What yo’ mean coming brazen to us-all?”

“Get out of my way!” commanded Burke, “Where’s Jed?”

“What’s that to you?”

“You’ll find out soon enough. Let me by.”

But Marg held her ground and Lawson waited. The look in his eyes awed Marg, but his presence enraged her.

“What you-all done with Nella-Rose?” Lawson asked.

“You better find out! You’ve left it long enough.”

“Whar is she, I say? And I tell you now, Marg—every one as has wronged that lil’ girl will answer to me. Whar is she?”

“She—she and her young-un are up to Lois Ann’s. They’ve been hid all winter. No one but me knows; you’ve time to make good—before—before father and Jed get yo’.”

Lawson took this like a blow between the eyes. He could not speak—for a moment he could not think; then a lurid fire of conviction burned into his very soul.

“So—that’s it!” he muttered, coming so close to Marg that she shrank back afraid. “So that’s it! Yo’-all have damned and all but killed the po’ lil’ girl—then flung her to—to the devil! You’ve taken the leavings—you! ’cause yo’ couldn’t get anything else. Yo’ and Jed” (here Lawson laughed a fearless, terrifying laugh), “yo’ and Jed is honourably married, you two, and she—lil’ Nella-Rose—left to—” Emotion choked Lawson; then he plunged on: “He—he wronged her—the brute, and you took him to—to save him and yourself you—! And she?—why, she’s the only holy thing in the hills; you couldn’t damn her—you two!”

“For the love o’ Gawd!” begged Marg, “keep yo’ tongue still and off us! We ain’t done her any wrong; every one, even Jed, thinks she is with you. Miss Lois Ann hid her—I only knew a week ago. I ain’t told a soul!”

A look of contempt grew upon Burke’s face and hardened there. He was thinking quick and desperately. In a vague way he realized that he had the reins in his hands; his only concern was to know whither he should drive. But, above and beyond all—deep true, and spiritual—were his love and pity for Nella-Rose.

They had all betrayed and deserted her. Not for an instant did Lawson doubt that. Their cowardice and duplicity neither surprised nor daunted him; but his pride—his sense of superiority—bade him pause and reflect before he plunged ahead. Finally he said:

“So you-all depend upon her safety for your safety! Take it—and be damned! She’s been with me—yo’ followin’ me? She’s been with me, rightful married and happy—happy! From now on I’ll manage lil’ Nella-Rose’s doings, and the first whisper from man or woman agin her will be agin me—and God knows I won’t be blamed for what I do then! Tell that skunk of yours,” Lawson glared at the terrified Marg, “I’m strong enough to outbid him with the devil, but from now on him and you—mind this well, Marg Greyson—him and you are to be our loving brother and sister. See?”

With a wild laugh Burke took to the woods.

CHAPTER XIV

Two years and a half following William Truedale’s death found things much as the old gentleman would have liked. Often Lynda Kendall, sitting beside the long, low, empty chair, longed to tell her old friend all about it. Strange to say, the recluse in life had become very vital in death. He had wrought, in his silent, lonely detachment, better even than he knew. His charities, shorn of the degrading elements of many similar ones, were carried on without a hitch. Dr. McPherson, under his crust of hardness, was an idealist and almost a sentimentalist; but above all he was a man to inspire respect and command obedience. No hospital with which he had to deal was unmarked by his personality. Neglect and indifference were fatal attributes for internes and nurses.

“Give the youngsters sleep enough, food and relaxation enough,” he would say to the superintendents, “but after that expect—and get—faithful, conscientious service with as much humanity as possible thrown in.”

The sanatorium for cases such as William Truedale’s was already attracting wide attention. The finest men to be obtained were on the staff; specially trained nurses were selected; and Lynda had put her best thought and energy into the furnishing of the small rooms and spacious wards.

Conning, becoming used to the demands made upon him, was at last dependable, and grew to see, in each sufferer the representative of the uncle he had never understood; whom he had neglected and, too late, had learned to respect. He was almost ashamed to confess how deeply interested he was in the sanatorium. Recalling at times the loneliness and weariness of William Truedale’s days—picturing the sad night when he had, as Lynda put it, opened the door himself, to release and hope—Conning sought to ease the way for others and so fill the waiting hours that less opportunity was left for melancholy thought. He introduced amusements and pastimes in the hospital, often shared them himself, and still attended to the other business that William Truedale’s affairs involved.

The men who had been appointed to direct and control these interests eventually let the reins fall into the hands eager to grasp them and, in the endless labour and sense of usefulness, Conning learned to know content and comparative peace. He grew to look upon his present life as a kind of belated reparation. He was not depressed; with surprising adaptability he accepted what was inevitable and, while reserving, in the personal sense, his past for private hours, he managed to construct a philosophy and cheerfulness that carried him well on the tide of events.

It was something of a shock to him one evening, nearly three years after his visit to Pine Cone, to find himself looking at Lynda Kendall as if he had never seen her before.

She was going out with Brace and was in evening dress. Truedale had never seen her gowned so, and he realized that she was extremely handsome and—something more. She came close to him, drawing on her long, loose, white gloves.

“I cannot bear to go and leave you—all alone!” she said, raising her eyes to his.

“You see, John Morrell is showing us his brand-new wife to-night—and I couldn’t resist; but I’ll try to break away early.”

“You are eager to see—Mrs. Morrell?” Truedale asked, and suddenly recalled the relation Lynda had once held to Morrell. He had not thought of it for many a day.

“Very. You see I hope to be great friends with her. I want—”

“What, Lynda?”

“Well, to help her understand—John.”

“Let me button your glove, Lyn”—for Truedale saw her hands were trembling though her eyes were peaceful and happy. And then as the long, slim hand rested in his, he asked:

“And you—have never regretted, Lyn?”

“Regretted? Does a woman regret when she’s saved from a mistake and gets off scot-free as well?”

They looked at each other for a moment and then Lynda drew away her hand.

“Thanks, Con, and please miss us a little, but not too much. What will you do to pass the time until we return?”

“I think”—Truedale pulled himself up sharply—“I think I’ll go up under the eaves and get out—the old play!”

“Oh! how splendid! And you will—let me hear it—some day, soon?”

“Yes. Business is going easier now. I can think of it without neglecting better things. Good-night, Lyn. Tuck your coat up close, the night’s bad.”

And then, alone in the warm, bright room, Truedale had a distinct sense of Lynda having taken something besides herself away. She had left the room hideously lonely; it became unbearable to remain there and, like a boy, Conning ran up to the small room next the roof.

He took the old play out—he had not unpacked it since he came from Pine Cone! He laid it before him and presently became absorbed in reading it from the beginning. It was after eleven when he raised his tired eyes from the pages and leaned back in his chair.

“I’m like—all men!” he muttered. “All men—and I thought things had gone deeper with me.”

What he was recognizing was that the play and the subtle influence that Nella-Rose had had upon him had both lost their terrific hold. He could contemplate the past without the sickening sense of wrong and shock that had once overpowered him. Realizing the full meaning of all that had gone into his past experience, he found himself thinking of Lynda as she had looked a few hours before. He resented the lesser hold the past still had upon him—he wanted to shake it free. Not bitterly—not with contempt—but, he argued, why should his life be shadowed always by a mistake, cruel and unpardonable as it was, when she, that little ignorant partner in the wrong, had gone her way and had doubtless by now put him forever from her mind?

How small a part it had played with her, poor child. She had been betrayed by her strange imagination and suddenly awakened passion; she had followed blindly where he had led, but when catastrophe had threatened one who had been part of her former life—familiar with all that was real to her—how readily the untamed instinct had reverted to its own!

And he—Truedale comforted himself—he had come back to his own, and his own had made its claim upon him. Why should he not have his second chance? He wanted love—not friendship; he wanted—Lynda! All else faded and Lynda, the new Lynda—Lynda with the hair that had learned to curl, the girl with the pretty white shoulders and sweet, kind eyes—stood pleadingly close in the shabby old room and demanded recognition. “She thinks,” and here Truedale covered his eyes, “that I am—as I was when I began my life—here! What would she say—if she knew? She, God bless her, is not like others. Faithful, pure, she could not forgive the truth!”

Truedale, thinking so of Lynda Kendall, owned to his best self that because the woman who now filled his life held to her high ideals—would never lower them—he could honour and reverence her. If she, like him, could change, and accept selfishly that which she would scorn in another, she would not be the splendid creature she was. And yet—without conceit or vanity—Truedale believed that Lynda felt for him what he felt for her.

Never doubting that he could bring to her an unsullied past, she was, delicately, in finest woman-fashion, laying her heart open to him. She knew that he had little to offer and yet—and yet—she was—willing! Truedale knew this to be true. And then he decided he must, even at this late day, tell Lynda of the past. For her sake he dare not venture any further concealment. Once she understood—once she recovered from her surprise and shock—she would be his friend, he felt confident of that; but she would be spared any deeper personal interest. It was Lynda’s magnificent steadfastness that now appealed to Truedale. With the passing of his own season of madness, he looked upon this calm serenity of her character with deepest admiration.

“The best any man should hope for,” he admitted—turning, as he thought, his back upon his yearning—“any man who has played the fool as I have, is the sympathetic friendship of a good woman. What right has a man to fall from what he knows a woman holds highest, and then look to her to change her ideals to fit his pattern?”

Arriving at this conclusion, Truedale wrapped the tattered shreds of his self-respect about him and accepted, as best he could, the prospect of Lynda’s adjustment to the future.

Brace and Lynda did not return in time to see Truedale that night. At twelve, with a resigned sigh, he put away his play and went to his lonely rooms in the tall apartment farther uptown. His dog was waiting for him with the reproachful look in his faithful eyes that reminded Truedale that the poor beast had not had an outing for twenty-four hours.

“Come on, old fellow,” he said, “better late than never,” and the two descended to the street. They walked sedately for an hour. The dog longed to gambol; he was young enough to associate outdoors with license; but being a friend as well as a dog, he felt that this was rather a time for close comradeship, so he pattered along at his master’s heels and once in a while pushed his cold nose into the limp hand swinging by Truedale’s side. “Thank God!” Conning thought, reaching down to pat the sleek head, “I can keep you without—confession!”

For three days and nights Truedale stayed away from the old home. Business was his excuse—he offered it in the form of a note and a bunch of violets. Lynda telephoned on the second day and asked him if he were quite well. The tone of her voice made him decide to see her at once.

“May I come to dinner to-night, Lyn?” he asked.

“Sorry, Con, but I must dine with some people who have bought a hideous house and want me to get them out of the scrape by remodelling the inside. They’re awfully rich and impossible—it’s a sort of duty to the public, you know.”

“To-morrow then, Lyn?”

“Yes, indeed. Only Brace will be dining with the Morrells; by the way, she’s a dear, Con.”

The next night was terrifically stormy—one of those spring storms that sweep everything before them. The bubbles danced on the pavements, the gutters ran floods, and fragments of umbrellas and garments floated incongruously on the tide.

Battling against the wind, Conning made his way to Lynda’s. As he drew near the house the glow from the windows seemed to meet and touch him with welcome.

“I’ll economize somewhere,” Lynda often said, “but when darkness comes I’m always going to do my best to get the better of it.”

Just for one blank moment Truedale had a sickening thought: “Suppose that welcome was never again for him, after this night?” Then he laughed derisively. Lynda might have her ideals, her eternal reservations, but she also had her superb faithfulness. After she knew all, she would still be his friend.

When he went into the library Lynda sat before the fire knitting a long strip of vivid wools. Conning had never seen her so employed and it had the effect of puzzling him; it was like seeing her—well, smoking, as some of her friends did! Nothing wrong in it—but, inharmonious.

“What are you making, Lyn?” he asked, taking the ottoman and drawing close to her.

“It—it isn’t anything, Con. No one wants trash like this. It fulfils its mission when it is ravelled and knitted, then unravelled. You know what Stevenson says: ‘I travel for travel’s sake; the great affair is to move.’ I knit for knitting’s sake; it keeps my hands busy while my—my soul basks.”

She looked up with a smile and Truedale saw that she was ill at ease. It was the one thing that unnerved him. Had she been her old, self-contained self he could have depended upon her to bear her part while he eased his soul by burdening hers; but now he caught in her the appealing tenderness that had always awakened in old William Truedale the effort to save her from herself—from the cares others laid upon her.

Conning, instead of plunging into his confession, looked at her in such a protecting, yearning way that Lynda’s eyes fell, and the soft colour slowly crept in her cheeks.

In the stillness, that neither knew how to break, Truedale noticed the gown Lynda wore. It was blue and clinging. The whiteness of her slim arms showed through the loose sleeves; the round throat was bare and girlish in its drooping curve.

For one mad moment Truedale tried to stifle his conscience. Why should he not have this love and happiness that lay close to him? In what was he different from the majority of men? Then he thought—as others before him had thought—that, since the race must be preserved, the primal impulses should not be denied. They outlived everything; they rallied from shock—even death; they persisted until extinction; and here was this sweet woman with all her gracious loveliness near him. He loved her! Yes, strange as it seemed even then to him, Truedale acknowledged that he loved her with the love, unlike yet like the love that had been too rudely awakened in the lonely woods when he had been still incapable of understanding it.

Then the storm outside reached his consciousness and awakened memories that hurt and stung him.

No. He was not as many men who could take and take and find excuse. The very sincerity of the past and future must prove itself, now, in this throbbing, vital present. Only so could he justify himself and his belief in goodness. He must open his heart and soul to the woman beside him. There was no other alternative.

But first they dined together across the hall. Truedale noted every special dish—the meal was composed of his favourite viands. The intimacy of sitting opposite Lynda, the smiling pleasure of old Thomas who served them, combined to lure him again from his stern sense of duty.

Why? Why? his yearning pleaded. Why should he destroy his own future happiness and that of this sweet, innocent woman for a whim—that was what he tried to term it—of conscience? Why, there were men, thousands of them, who would call him by a harsher name than he cared to own, if he followed such a course; and yet—then Truedale looked across at Lynda.

“A woman should have clear vision and choice,” his reason commanded, and to this his love agreed.

But alone with Lynda, in the library later, the conflict was renewed. Never had she been so sweet, so kind. The storm beat against the house and instead of interfering, seemed to hold them close and—together. It no longer aroused in Truedale recollections that smarted. It was like an old familiar guide leading his thought into ways sacred and happy. Then suddenly, out of a consciousness that knew neither doubt nor fear, he said:

“You and I, Lyn, were never afraid of truth, were we?”

“Never.”

She was knitting again—knitting feverishly and desperately.

“Lyn—I want to tell you—all about it! About something you must know.”

Very quietly now, Lynda rolled her work together and tossed it, needles and all, upon the glowing logs. She was done, forever, with subterfuge and she knew it. The wool curled, blackened, and gave forth a scorched smell before the red coals subdued it. Then, with a straight, uplifted look:

“I’m ready, Con.”

“Just before I broke down and went away, Brace once told me that my life had no background, no colour. Lynda, it is of that background about which you do not know, that I want to speak.” He waited a moment, then went on:

“I went away—to the loneliest, the most beautiful place I had ever seen. For a time there seemed to be nobody in the world but the man with whom I lived and me. He liked and trusted me—I betrayed his trust!”

Lynda caught her breath and gave a little exclamation of dissent, wonder.

“You—betrayed him, Con! I cannot believe that. Go on.”

“Yes. I betrayed his trust. He left me and went into the deep woods to hunt. He put everything in my care—everything. He was gone nearly three weeks. No one knew of my existence. They are like that down there. If you are an outsider you do not matter. I had arrived at dark; I was sent for a certain purpose; that was all that mattered. I began and ended with the man who was my host and who had been told to—to keep me secret.” Truedale was gripping the arms of his chair and his words came punctuated by sharp pauses.

“And then, into that solitude, came a young girl. Remember, she did not know of my existence. We—discovered each other like creatures in a new world. There are no words to describe her—I cannot even attempt it, Lynda. I ruined her life. That’s all!”

The bald, crushing truth was out. For a moment the man Lynda Kendall knew and loved seemed hiding behind this monster the confession had called forth. A lesser woman would have shrunk in affright, but not Lynda.

“No. That is not all,” she whispered hoarsely, putting her hands out as though pushing something tangible aside until she could reach Conning. “I demand the rest.”

“What matters it?” Truedale spoke bitterly. “If I tell how and why, can that alter the—fact? Oh! I have had my hours of explaining and justifying and glossing over; but I’ve come at last to the point where I see myself as I am and I shall never argue the thing again.”

“Con, you have shown me the man as man might see him; I must—I must have him as a woman—as his God—must see him!”

“And you think it possible for me to grant this? You—you, Lynda, would you have me put up a defense for what I did?”

“No. But I would have you throw all the light upon it that you can. I want to see—for myself. I will not accept the hideous skeleton you have hung before me. Con, I have never really known but five men in my life; but women—women have lain heart deep along my way ever since—I learned to know my mother! Not only for yourself, but for that girl who drifted into your solitude, I demand light—all that you can give me!”

And now Truedale breathed hard and the muscles of his face twitched. He was about to lay bare the inscrutable, the holy thing of his life, fearing that even the woman near him could not be just. He had accepted his own fate, so he thought; he meant not to whine or complain, but how was he to live his life if Lynda failed to agree with him—where Nella-Rose was concerned?

“Will you—can you—do what I ask, Con?”

“Yes—in a minute.”

“You—loved her? She loved you—Con?” Lynda strove to smooth the way, not so much for Truedale as for herself.

“Yes! I found her in my cabin one day when I returned from a long tramp. She had decked herself out in my bathrobe and the old fez. Not knowing anything about me, she was horribly frightened when I came upon her. At first she seemed nothing but a child—she took me by storm. We met in the woods later. I read to her, taught her, played with her—I, who had never played in my life before. Then suddenly she became a woman! She knew no law but her own; she was full of courage and daring and a splendid disregard for conventions as—as we all know them. For her, they simply did not exist. I—I was willing and eager to cast my future hopes of happiness with hers—God knows I was sincere in that!

“Then came a night of storm—such as this. Can you imagine it in the black forests where small streams become rivers in a moment, carrying all before them as they plunge and roar down the mountain sides? Dangers of all sorts threatened and, in the midst of that storm, something occurred that involved me! I had sent Nella-Rose—that was her name—away earlier in the day. I could not trust myself. But she came back to warn me. It meant risking everything, for her people were abroad that night bent on ugly business; she had to betray them in order to save me. To have turned her adrift would have meant death, or worse. She remained with me nearly a week—she and I alone in that cabin and cut off from the world—she and I! There was only myself to depend upon—and, Lynda, I failed again!”

“But, Con—you meant to—to marry her; you meant that—from the first?” Lynda had forgotten herself, her suffering. She was struggling to save something more precious than her love; she was holding to her faith in Truedale.

“Good God! yes. It was the one thing I wanted—the one thing I planned. In my madness it did not seem to matter much except as a safeguard for her—but I had no other thought or intention. We meant to go to a minister as soon as the storm released us. Then came the telegram about Uncle William, and the minister was killed during the storm. Lynda, I wanted to bring Nella-Rose to you just as she was, but she would not come. I left my address and told her to send for me if she needed me—I meant to return as soon as I could, anyway. I would have left anything for her. She never sent for me—and the very day I left—she—”

“What, Con? I must know all.”

“Lynda, before God I believe something drove the child to it; you must not—you shall not judge her. But she went, the very night I left, to a man—a man of the hills—who had loved her all his life. He was in danger; he escaped, taking her with him!”

“I—I do not believe it!” The words rang out sharply, defiantly. Woman was in arms for woman. The loyalty that few men admit confronted Truedale now. It seemed to glorify the darkness about him. He had no further fear for Nella-Rose and he bowed his head before Lynda’s blazing eyes.

“God bless you!” he whispered, “but oh! Lyn, I went back to make sure. I had the truth from her own father. And with all—she stands to this day, in my memory, guiltless of the monstrous wrong she seemed to commit; and so she will always stand.

“Since then, Lynda, I have lived a new piece of life; the past lies back there and it is dead, dead. I would not have told you this but for one great and tremendous thing. You will not understand this; no woman could. A man could, but not a woman.

“As I once loved—in another way—that child of the hills, I love you, the one woman of my manhood’s clearer vision. Because of that love—I had to speak.”

Truedale looked up and met the eyes that searched his soul.

“I believe you,” Lynda faltered. “I do not understand, but I believe you. Go away now, Con, I want to think.”

He rose at once and bent over her. “God bless you, Lyn,” was all he said.

CHAPTER XV

Two days, then three passed. Lynda tried to send for Truedale—tried to believe that she saw clearly at last, but having decided that she was ready she was again lost in doubt and plunged into a new struggle.

She neglected her work and grew pale and listless. Brace was worried and bewildered. He had never seen his sister in like mood and, missing Conning from the house, he drew, finally, his own conclusions.

One day, it was nearly a week after Truedale’s call, Brace came upon his sister in the workshop over the extension. She was sitting on the window-ledge looking out into the old garden where a magnolia tree was in full bloom.

“Heigho, boy!” she said, welcoming him with her eyes. “I’ve just discovered that spring is here. I’ve always been ready for it before. This year it has taken me by surprise.”

Brace came close to her and put his hands on her shoulders.

“What’s the matter, girl?” he asked in his quick, blunt way.

The tears came to Lynda’s eyes, but she did not shrink.

“Brother,” she said slowly, “I—I want to marry Con and—I do not dare.”

Kendall dropped in the nearest chair, and stared blankly at his sister.

“Would you mind being a bit more—well, more explicit?” he faltered.

“I’m going to ask you—some questions, dear. Will you—tell me true?”

“I’ll do my best.” Kendall passed his hand through his hair; it seemed to relieve the tension.

“Brace, can a man truly love many times? Perhaps not many—but twice—truly?”

“Yes—he can!” Brace asserted boldly. “I’ve been in love a dozen times myself. I always put it to the coffee-urn test—that settles it.”

“Brace, I am in earnest. Do not joke.”

“Joke? Good Lord! I tell you, Lyn, I am in deadly earnest—deadlier than you know. When a man puts his love three hundred and sixty-five times a year, in fancy, behind his coffee-urn, he gets his bearings.”

“You’ve never grown up, Brace, and I feel as old—as old as both your grandmothers. I do not mean—puppy-love; I mean the love that cuts deep in a man’s soul. Can it cut twice?”

“If it couldn’t, it would be good-bye to the future of the race!” And now Kendall had the world’s weary knowledge in his eyes.

“A woman—cannot understand that, Lyn. She must trust if she loves.”

“Yes.” The universal language of men struck Lynda like a strange tongue. Had she been living all her life, she wondered, like a foreigner—understanding merely by signs? And now that she was close—was confronting a situation that vitally affected her future—must she, like other women, trust, trust?

“But what has all this to do with Con?” Kendall’s voice roused Lynda sharply.

“Why—everything,” she said in her simple, frank way, “he—he is offering me a second love, Brace.”

For a moment Kendall thought his sister was resorting to sarcasm or frivolity. But one look at her unsmiling face and shadow-touched eyes convinced him.

“You hardly are the woman to whom dregs should be offered,” he said slowly, and then, “But Con! Good Lord!”

“Brace, now I am speaking the woman’s language, perhaps you may not be able to understand me, but I know Con is not offering me dregs—I do not think he has any dregs in his nature; he is offering me the best, the truest love of his life. I know it! I know it! The love that would bring my greatest joy and his best good and—yet I am afraid!”

Kendall went over and stood close beside his sister again.

“You know that?” he asked, “and still are afraid? Why?”

The clear eyes looked up pathetically. “Because Con may not know, and I may not be able to make him know—make him—forget!”

There was a moment’s silence. Kendall was never to forget the magnolia tree in its gorgeous, pink bloom; the droop of his strong, fine sister! Sharply he recalled the night long ago when Truedale groaned and threw his letters on the fire.

“Lyn, I hardly dare ask this, knowing you as I do—you are not the sort to compromise with honour selfishly or idiotically—but, Lyn, the—the other love, it was not—an evil thing?”

The tears sprang to Lynda’s eyes and she flung her arms around her brother’s neck and holding him so whispered:

“No! no! At least I can understand that. It was the—the most beautiful and tender tragedy. That is the trouble. It was so—wonderful, that I fear no man can ever quite forget and take the new love without a backward look. And oh! Brace, I must have—my own! Men cannot always understand women when they say this. They think, when we say we want our own lives, that it means lives running counter to theirs. This is not so. We want, we must choose—but the best of us want the common life that draws close to the heart of things; we want to go with our men and along their way. Our way and theirs are the same way, when love is big enough.”

“Lyn—there isn’t a man on God’s earth worthy of—you!”

“Brace, look at me—answer true. Am I such that a man could really want me?”

He looked long at her. Bravely he strove to forget the blood tie that held them. He regarded her from the viewpoint that another man might have. Then he said:

“Yes. As God hears me, Lyn—yes!”

She dropped her head upon his shoulder and wept as if grief instead of joy were sweeping over her. Presently she raised her tear-wet face and said:

“I’m going to marry Con, dear, as soon as he wants me. I hate to say this, Brace, but it is a little as if Conning had come home to me from an honourable war—a bit mutilated. I must try to get used to him and I will! I will!”

Kendall held her to him close. “Lyn, I never knew until this moment how much I have to humbly thank God for. Oh! if men only could see ahead, young fellows I mean, they would not come to a woman—mutilated. I haven’t much to offer, heaven knows, but—well, Lyn, I can offer a clear record to some woman—some day!”

All that day Lynda thought of the future. Sitting in her workshop with the toy-like emblems of her craft at hand she thought and thought. It seemed to her, struggling alone, that men and women, after all, walked through life—largely apart. They had built bridges with love and necessity and over them they crossed to touch each other for a space, but oh! how she longed for a common highway where she and Con could walk always together! She wanted this so much, so much!

At five o’clock she telephoned to Truedale. She knew he generally went to his apartment at that hour.

“I—I want to see you, Con,” she said.

“Yes, Lyn. Where?”

She felt the answer meant much, so she paused.

“After dinner, Con, and come right up to—to my workshop.”

“I will be there—early.”

Lynda was never more her merry old self than she was at dinner; but she was genuinely relieved when Brace told her he was going out.

“What are you going to do, Lyn?” he asked.

“Why—go up to my workshop. I’ve neglected things horribly, lately.”

“I thought that night work was taboo?”

“I rarely work at night, Brace. And you—where are you going?”

“Up to Morrell’s.”

Lynda raised her eyebrows.

“Mrs. Morrell’s sister has come from the West, Lyn. She’s very interesting. She’s voted, and it hasn’t hurt her.”

“Why should it? And”—Lynda came around the table and paused as she was about to go out of the room “I wonder if she could pass the coffee-urn test, on a pinch?”

Kendall coloured vividly. “I’ve been thinking more of my end of the table since I saw her than I ever have before in my life. It isn’t all coffee-urn, Lyn.”

“Indeed it isn’t! I must see this little womanly Lochinvar at once. Is she pretty—pretty as Mrs. John?”

“Why—I don’t know. I haven’t thought. She’s so different from—every one. She’s little but makes you think big. She’s always saying things you remember afterward, but she doesn’t talk much. She’s—she’s got light hair and blue eyes!” This triumphantly.

“And I hope she—dresses well?” This with a twinkle, for Kendall was keen about the details of a woman’s dress.

“She must, or I would have noticed.” Then, upon reflection, “or perhaps I wouldn’t.”

“Well, good-night, Brace, and—give Mrs. John my love. Poor dear! she came up to ask me yesterday if I could make a small room look spacious! You see, John likes to have everything cluttered—close to his touch. She wants him to have his way and at the same time she wants to breathe, too. Her West is in her blood.”

“What are you going to do about it, Lyn?” Kendall lighted a cigar and laughed.

“Oh, I managed to give a prairie-like suggestion of openness to her living-room plan and I told her to make John reach for a few things. It would do him good and save her soul alive.”

“And she—what did she say to that?”

“Oh, she laughed. She has such a pretty laugh. Good-night, brother.”

And then Lynda went upstairs to her quiet, dim room. It was a warmish night, with a moon that shone through the open space in the rear. The lot had not been built upon and the white path that had seemed to lure old William Truedale away from life now stretched before Lynda Kendall, leading into life. Whatever doubts and fears she had known were put away. In her soft thin dress, standing by the open window, she was the gladdest creature one could wish to see. And so Truedale found her. He knew that only one reason had caused Lynda to meet him as she was now doing. It was—surrender! Across the moon-lighted room he went to her with opened arms, and when she came to meet him and lifted her face he kissed her reverently.

“I wonder if you have thought?” he whispered.

“I have done nothing else in the ages since I last saw you, Con.”

“And you are not—afraid? You, who should have the best the world has to offer?”

“I am not afraid; and I—have the best—the very best.”

Again Truedale kissed her.

“And when—may I come home—to stay?” he asked presently, knowing full well that the old home must be theirs.

Lynda looked up and smiled radiantly. “I had hoped,” she said, “that I might have the honour of declining the little apartment. I’m so glad, Con, dear, that you want to come home to stay and will not have to be—forced here!” And at that moment Lynda had no thought of the money. Bigger, deeper things held her.

“And—our wedding day, Lyn? Surely it may be soon.”

“Let me see. Of course I’m a woman, Con, and therefore I must think of clothes. And I would like—oh! very much—to be married in a certain little church across the river. I found it once on a tramp. There are vines running wild over it—pink roses. And roses come in early June, Con.”

“But, dearest, this is only—March.”

“I must have—the roses, Con.”

And so it was decided.

Late that night, in the stillness of the five little rooms of the big apartment, Truedale thought of his past and his future.

How splendid Lynda had been. Not a word of all that he had told her, and yet full well he realized how she had battled with it! She had accepted it and him! And for such love and faith his life would be only too short to prove his learning of his hard lesson. The man he now was sternly confronted the man he had once been, and then Truedale renounced the former forever—renounced him with pity, not with scorn. His only chance of being worthy of the love that had come into his life now, was to look upon the past as a stepping stone. Unless it could be that, it would be a bottomless pit.

CHAPTER XVI

The roses came early that June. Truedale and Lynda went often on their walks to the little church nestling deep among the trees in the Jersey town. They got acquainted with the old minister and finally they set their wedding day. They, with Brace, went over early on the morning. Lynda was in her travelling gown for, after a luncheon, she and Truedale were going to the New Hampshire mountains. It was such a day as revived the reputation of June, and somehow the minister, steeped in the conventions of his office, could not let things rest entirely in the hands of the very eccentric young people who had won his consent to marry them. An organist, practising, stayed on, and always Lynda was to recall, when she thought of her wedding day, those tender notes that rose and fell like a stream upon which the sacred words of the simple service floated.

“The Voice That Breathed O’er Eden” was what the unseen musician played. He seemed detached, impersonal, and only the repeated strains gave evidence of his sympathy. An old woman had wandered into the church and sat near the door with a rapt, wistful look on her wrinkled face. Near the altar was a little child, a tiny girl with a bunch of wayside flowers in her fat, moist hand.

Lynda paused and whispered something to the little maid and then, as she went forward, Truedale noticed that the child was beside Lynda, a shabby, wee maid of honour!

It was very quaint, very touchingly pretty, but the scene overawed the baby and when the last words were said and Truedale had kissed his wife they noticed that the little one was in tears. Lynda bent over her full of tenderness.

“What is it, dear?” she whispered.

“I—I want—my mother!”

“So do I, sweetheart; so do I!”

The wet eyes were raised in wonder.

“And where is your mother, baby?”

“Up—up—the hill!”

“Why, so is mine, but you will find yours—first. Don’t cry, sweetheart. See, here is a little ring. It is too large for you now, but let your mother keep it, and when you are big enough, wear it—and remember—me.”

Dazzled by the gift, the child smiled up radiantly. “Good-bye,” she whispered, “I’ll tell mother—and I won’t forget.”

Later that same golden day, when Kendall bade his sister and Truedale good-bye at the station he had the look on his face that he used to have when, as a child, he was wont to wonder why he had to be brave because he was a boy.

It made Lynda laugh, even while a lump came in her throat. Then, as in the old days, she sought to recompense him, without relenting as to the code.

“Of course you’ll miss us, dear old fellow, but we’ll soon be back and”—she put her lips to his ear and whispered—“there’s the little sister of the Morrells; play with her until we come home.”

There are times in life that stand forth as if specially designed, and cause one to wonder, if after all, a personal God isn’t directing affairs for the individual. They surely could not have just happened, those weeks in the mountains. So warm and still and cloudless they were for early June. And then there was a moon for a little while—a calm, wonderful moon that sent its fair light through the tall trees like a benediction. After that there were stars—millions of them—each in its place surrounded by that blue-blackness that is luminous and unearthly. Securing a guide, Truedale and Lynda sought their own way and slept, at night, in wayside shelters by their own campfires. They had no definite destination; they simply wandered like pilgrims, taking the day’s dole with joyous hearts and going to their sleep at night with healthy weariness.

Only once during those weeks did they speak of that past of Truedale’s that Lynda had accepted in silence.

“My wife,” Truedale said—she was sitting beside him by the outdoor fire—“I want you always to remember that I am more grateful than words can express for your—bigness, your wonderful understanding. I did not expect that even you, Lyn, could be—so!”

She trembled a little—he remembered that afterward—he felt her against his shoulder.

“I think—I know,” she whispered, “that women consider the effect of such—things, Con. Had the experience been low, it would have left its mark; as it is I am sure—well, it has not darkened your vision.”

“No, Lyn, no!”

“And lately, I have been thinking of her, Con—that little Nella-Rose.”

“You—have? You could, Lyn?”

“Yes. At first I couldn’t possibly comprehend—I do not now, really, but I find myself believing, in spite of my inability to understand, that the experience has cast such a light upon her way, poor child, that—off in some rude mountain home—she has a little fairer space than some. Con, knowing you, I believe you could not have—lowered her. She went back to her natural love—it must have been a strong call—but I shall never believe her depraved.”

“Lyn,” Truedale’s voice was husky, “once you made me reconciled to my uncle’s death—it was the way you put it—and now you have made me dare to be—happy.”

“Men never grow up!” Lynda pressed her face to his shoulder, “they make a bluff at caring for us and defending us and all the rest—but we understand, we understand! I think women mother men always even when they rely upon them most, as I do upon you! It’s so splendid to think, when we go home, of the great things we are going to do—together.”

A letter from Brace, eventually, made them turn their faces homeward. It was late July then.