The Man Thou Gavest

Truedale looked at Lynda in blank amazement. “I’d forgotten about the sister,” he said, inanely.

“I think, dear, we’ll have to go home. I remember once when we were quite little, Brace and I, mother had taken me for a visit and left him at home. He sent a letter to mother—it was in printing—‘You better come back,’ he said; ‘You better come in three days or I’ll do something.’ We got there on the fourth day and we found that he had broken the rocking chair in which mother used to put him to sleep when he was good!”

“The little rowdy!” Truedale laughed. “I hope he got a walloping.”

“No. Mother cried a little, had the chair mended, and always said she was sorry that she had not got home on the third day.”

“I see. Well, Lyn, let’s go home to him. I don’t know what he might break, but perhaps we couldn’t mend it, so we’ll take no chances.”

Truedale and Lynda had walked rather giddily upon the heights; the splendour of stars and the warm touch of the sun had been very near them; but once they descended to the paths of plain duty they were not surprised to find that they lay along a pleasant valley and were warmed by the brightness of the hills.

“It’s—home, now!” whispered Truedale as he let himself and Lynda in at the front door, “I wish Uncle William were here to welcome us. How he loved you, Lyn.”

Like a flood of joy memory overcame Lynda. This was how William Truedale had loved her—this luxury of home—and then she looked at Truedale and almost told him of the money, the complete assurance of the old man’s love and trust. But of a sudden it became impossible, though why, Lynda could not have said. She shrank from what she had once believed would be her crowning joy; she decided to leave the matter entirely with Dr. McPherson.

After all, she concluded, it should be Con’s right to bring to her this last touching proof of his uncle’s love and desire. How proud he would be! How they would laugh over it all when they both knew the secret!

So the subject was not referred to and a day or so later Betty Arnold entered their lives, and so intense was their interest in her and her affairs that personal matters were, for the moment, overlooked.

Lynda went first to call upon Betty alone. If she were to be disappointed, she wanted time to readjust herself before she encountered other eyes. Betty Arnold, too, was alone in her sister’s drawing room when Lynda was announced. The two girls looked long and searchingly at each other, then Lynda put her hands out impulsively:

“It’s really too good to be true!” was all she could manage as she looked at the fair, slight girl and cast doubt off forever.

“Isn’t it?” echoed Betty. “Whew! but this is the sort of thing that ages one.”

“Would it have mattered, Betty, whether I was pleased or not?”

“Lynda, it would—awfully! You see, all my life I’ve been independent until I met Brace and now I want everything that belongs to him. His love and mine collided but it didn’t shock us to blindness, it awakened us—body and soul. When that happens, everything matters—everything that belongs to him and me. I knew you liked Mollie, and John is an old friend; they’re all I’ve got, and so you see if you and I hadn’t—liked each other, it would have been—tragic. Now let’s sit down and have tea. Isn’t it great that we won’t have to choke over it?”

Betty presided at the small table so daintily and graciously that her occasional lapses into slang were like the dartings of a particularly frisky little animal from the beaten track of conventions. She and Lynda grew confidential in a half hour and felt as if they had known each other for years at the close of the call. Just as Lynda was reluctantly leaving, Mrs. Morrell came in. She was darker, more dignified than her sister, but like her in voice and laugh.

“Mollie, I wish I had told you to stay another hour,” Betty exclaimed, going to her sister and kissing her. “And oh! Mollie, Lynda likes me! I’ll confess to you both now that I have lain awake nights dreading this ordeal.”

When Lynda met Brace that evening she was amused at his drawn face and tense voice.

“How did you like her?” he asked feebly and at that moment Lynda realized how futile a subterfuge would have been.

“Brace, I love her!”

“Thank God!”

“Why, Brace!”

“I mean it. It would have gone hard with me if you hadn’t.”

To Truedale, Betty presented another aspect.

“You can trust women with your emotions about men,” she confided to Lynda, “but not men! I wouldn’t let Brace know for anything how my love for him hobbles me; and if your Con—by the way, he’s a great deal nicer than I expected—should guess my abject state, he’d go to Brace and—put him wise! That’s why men have got where they are to-day—standing together. And then Brace might begin at once to bully me. You see, Lynda, when a husband gets the upper hand it’s often because he’s reinforced by all the knowledge his male friends hand out to him.”

Truedale met Betty first at the dinner—the little family dinner Lynda gave for her. Morrell and his wife. Brace and Betty, himself and Lynda.

In a trailing blue gown Betty looked quite stately and she carried her blond head high. She sparkled away through dinner and proved her happy faculty of fitting in, perfectly. It was a very merry meal, and later, by the library fire, Conning found himself tête-à-tête with his future sister-in-law. She amused him hugely.

“I declare,” he said teasingly, “I can hardly believe that you believe in the equality of the sexes.” They were attacking that problem at the moment.

“I—don’t!” Betty looked quaintly demure. “I believe in the superiority of men!”

“Good Lord!”

“I do. That’s why I want all women to have the same chance that men have had to get superior. I—I want my sisters to get there, too!”

“There? Just where?” Truedale began to think the girl frivolous; but her charm held.

“Why, where their qualifications best fit them to be. I’m going to tell you a secret—I’m tremendously religious! I believe God knows, better than men, about women; I want—well, I don’t want to seem flippant—but truly I’d like to hear God speak for himself!”

Truedale smiled. “That’s a common-sense argument, anyway,” he said. “But I suppose we men are afraid to trust any one else; we don’t want to—lose you.”

“As if you could!” Betty held her small, white hand out to the dog lying at her feet. “As if we didn’t know, that whatever we don’t want, we do want you. Why, you are our—job.”

Truedale threw his head back and laughed. “You’re like a whiff of your big mountain air,” he said.

“I hope I always will be,” Betty replied softly and earnestly, “I must keep—free, no matter what happens. I must keep what I am, or how can I expect to keep—Brace? He loved this me. Marriage doesn’t perform a miracle, does it—Conning? please let me call you that. Lynda has told me how she and you believe in two lives, not one narrow little life. It’s splendid. And now I am going to tell you another secret. I’ll have to let Lynda in on this, too, she must help me. I have a little money of my very own—I earned every cent of it. I am going to buy a tiny bit of ground, I’ve picked it out—it’s across the river in the woods. I’m going to build a house, not much of a one, a very small one, and I’m going to call it—The Refuge. When I cannot find myself, when I get lost, after I’m married, and am trying to be everything to Brace, I’m going to run away to—The Refuge!” The blue eyes were shining “And nobody can come there, not even Brace, except by invitation. I think”—very softly—“I think all women should have a—a Refuge.”

Truedale found himself impressed. “You’re a very wise little woman,” he said.

“One has to be, sometimes,” came the slow words. And at that moment all doubt of Betty’s serious-mindedness departed.

Brace joined them presently. He looked as if he had been straining at a leash since dinner time.

“Con,” he said, laying his hand on the light head bending over the dog, “now that you have talked and laughed with Betty, what have you got to say?”

“Congratulations, Ken, with all my heart.”

“And now, Betty”—there was a new tone in Kendall’s voice—“Mollie has said you may walk back with me. The taxi would stifle us. There’s a moon, dear, and a star or two—”

“As if that mattered!” Betty broke in. “I’m very, very happy. Brace, you’ve got a nice, sensible family. They agree with me in everything.”

The weeks passed rapidly. Betty’s affairs absorbed them all, though she laughingly urged them to leave her alone.

“It’s quite awful enough to feel yourself being carried along by a deluge,” she jokingly said, “without hearing the cheers from the banks.”

But Mollie Morrell flung herself heart and soul into the arranging of the wardrobe—playing big sister for the first and only time in her life. She was older than Betty, but the younger girl had always swayed the elder.

And Lynda became fascinated with the little bungalow across the river, known as The Refuge.

The original fancy touched her imagination and she put other work aside while she vied with Betty for expression.

“I’ve found an old man and woman, near by,” Betty said one day, “they were afraid they would have to go to the poor-house, although both are able to do a little. I’m going to put them in my bungalow—the two little upstair rooms shall be theirs. When I run down to find myself it will be homey to see the two shining, old faces there to greet me. They are not a bit cringing; I think they know how much they will mean to me. They consider me rather immoral, I know, but that doesn’t matter.”

And then in early October Brace and Betty were married in the church across the river. Red and gold autumn leaves were falling where earlier the roses had clambered; it was a brisk, cool day full of sun and shade and the wedding was more to the old clergyman’s taste. The organist was in his place, his music discriminately chosen, there were guests and flowers and discreet costumes.

“More as it should be,” thought the serene pastor; but Lynda missed the kindly old woman who had drifted in on her wedding day, and the small, tearful girl who had wanted her mother.

CHAPTER XVII

There are spaces in all lives that seem so surrounded by safety and established conditions that one cannot conceive of change. Those particular spots may know light and shade of passing events but it seems that they cannot, of themselves, be affected. So Truedale and Lynda had considered their lives at that period. They were supremely happy, they were gloriously busy—and that meant that they both recognized limitations. They took each day as it came and let it go at the end with a half-conscious knowledge that it had been too short.

Then one late October afternoon Truedale tapped on the door of Lynda’s workshop and to her cheery “come,” entered, closed the door after him, and sat down. He was very white and sternly serious. Lynda looked at him questioningly but did not speak.

“I’ve seen Dr. McPherson,” Conning said presently, “he sent for me. He’s been away, you know.”

“I had not known—but—” Then Lynda remembered!

“Lynda, did you know—of my uncle’s—will before his death?”

“Why, yes, Con.”

Something cold and death-like clutched Lynda’s heart. It was as if an icy wave had swept warmth and safety before it, leaving her aghast and afraid.

“Yes, I knew.”

“Will you tell me—I could not go into this with McPherson, somehow; he didn’t see it my way, naturally—will you tell me what would have become of the—the fortune had I not married you?”

The deathly whiteness of Lynda’s face did not stay Truedale’s hard words; he was not thinking of her—even of himself; he was thinking of the irony of fate in the broad sense.

“The money would have—come to me.” Then, as if to divert any further misunderstanding. “And when I refused it—it would have reverted to charities.”

“I see. And you did this for me, Lyn! How little even you understood. Now that I have the cursed money I do not know what to do with it—how to get rid of it. Still it was like you, Lynda, to sacrifice yourself in order that I might have what you thought was my due. You always did that, from girlhood. I might have known no other woman could have done what you have done, no such woman as you, Lyn, without a mighty motive; but you did not know me, really!”

And now, looking at Lynda, it was like looking at a dead face—a face from which warmth and light had been stricken.

“I—do not know what you—mean, Con,” she said, vaguely.

“Being you, Lyn, you couldn’t have taken the money, yourself, particularly if you had declined to marry me. A lesser woman would have done it without a qualm, feeling justified in outwitting so cruel a thing as the bequest; but not you! You saw no other way, so you—you with your high ideals and clear beliefs—you married the man I am—in order to—to give me—my own. Oh, Lyn, what a sacrifice!”

“Stop!” Lynda rose from her chair and, by a wide gesture, swept the marks of her trade far from her. In so doing she seemed to make space to breathe and think.

“Do you think I am the sort of girl who would sell herself for anything—even for the justice I might think was yours?”

“Sell yourself? Thank God, between us, Lynda, that does not enter in.”

“It would have, were I the woman your words imply. I had nothing to gain by marrying you, nothing! Nothing—that is—but—but—what you are unable to see.” And then, so suddenly that Truedale could not stop her, Lynda almost ran from the room.

For an hour Truedale sat in her empty shop and waited. He dared not seek her and he realized, at last, that she was not coming back to him. His frame of mind was so abject and personal that he could not get Lynda’s point of view. He could not, as yet, see the insult he had offered, because he had set her so high and himself so low. He saw her only as the girl and woman who, her life through, had put herself aside and considered others. He saw himself in the light such a woman as he believed Lynda to be would regard him. He might have known, he bitterly acknowledged, that Lynda could not have overlooked in her pure woman soul the lapse of his earlier life. He remembered how, that night of his confession, she had begged to be alone—to think! Later, her silence—oh! he understood it now. It was her only safeguard. And that once, in the woods, when he had blindly believed in his great joy—how she had solemnly made the best of the experience that was too deep in both hearts to be resurrected. What a fool he had been to dream that so wrong a step as he had once taken could lead him to perfect peace. Thinking these thoughts, how could he, as yet, comprehend the wrong he was doing Lynda? Why, he was grieving over her, almost breaking his heart in his desire to do something—anything—to free her from the results of her useless sacrifice.

At six o’clock Truedale went downstairs, but the house was empty. Lynda had gone, taking all sense of home with her. He did not wait to see what the dinner hour might bring about; he could not trust himself just then. Indeed—having blasted every familiar landmark—he was utterly and hopelessly lost. He couldn’t imagine how he was ever to find his way back to Lynda, and yet they would have to meet—have to consider.

Lynda, after leaving her workshop, had only one desire—she wanted Betty more than she wanted anything else. She put on her hat and coat and started headlong for her brother’s apartment farther uptown. She felt she must get there before Brace arrived and lay her trouble before the astoundingly clear, unfaltering mind and heart of the little woman who, so short a time ago, had come into their lives. But after a few blocks, Lynda’s steps halted. If this were just her own trouble—but what trouble is just one’s own?—she need not hesitate; but how could she reveal what was deepest and most unfailing in her soul to any living person—even to Betty of the unhesitating vision?

Presently Lynda retraced her steps. The calm autumn night soothed and protected her. She looked up at the stars and thought of the old words: “Why so hot, little man, why so hot?” Why, indeed? And then in the still dimness—for she had turned into the side streets—she let Truedale come into her thoughts to the exclusion, for the moment, of her own bitter wrong. She looked back at his strange, lonely boyhood with so little in it that could cause him to view justly his uncle’s last deed. She remembered his pride and struggle—his reserve and almost abnormal sensitiveness. Then—the experience in the mountain! How terribly deep that had sunk into Truedale’s life; how unable he had been to see in it any wrong but his own. Lynda had always honoured him for that. It had made it possible for her to trust him absolutely. She had respected his fine position and had never blurred it by showing him how she, as a woman, could see the erring on the woman’s part. No, she had left Nella-Rose to him as his high-minded chivalry had preserved her—she had dared do all that because she felt so secure in the love and sincerity of the present.

“And now—what?”

The bitterness was past. The shock had left her a bit weak and helpless but she no longer thought of the human need of Betty. She went home and sat down before the fire in the library and waited for light. At ten o’clock she came to a conclusion. Truedale must decide this thing for himself! It was, after all, his great opportunity. She could not, with honour and self-respect, throw herself upon him and so complicate the misunderstanding. If her life with him since June had not convinced him of her simple love and faith—her words, now, could not. He must seek her—must realize everything. And in this decision Lynda left herself so stranded and desolate that she looked up with wet eyes and saw—William Truedale’s empty chair! A great longing for her old friend rose in her breast—a longing that not even death had taken from her. The clock struck the half-hour and Lynda got up and with no faltering went toward the bedroom door behind which the old man had started forth on his journey to find peace.

And just as she went, with blinded eyes and aching heart, to shut herself away from the dreariness of the present, Truedale entered the house and, from the hall, watched her. He believed that she had heard him enter, he hoped she was going to turn toward him—but no! she went straight to the never-used room, shut the door, and—locked it!

Truedale stood rooted to the spot. What he had hoped—what trusted—he could hardly have told. But manlike he was the true conservative and with the turning of that key his traditions and established position crumbled around him.

Lynda and he were married and, unless they decided upon an open break, they must live their lives. But the turning of the key seemed to proclaim to the whole city a new dispensation. A declaration of independence that spurned—tradition.

For a moment Truedale was angry, unsettled, and outraged. He strode into the room with stern eyes; he walked half way to the closed—and locked—door; he gazed upon it as if it were a tangible foe which he might overcome and, by so doing, reëstablish the old ideals. Then—and it was the saving grace—Truedale smiled grimly. “To be sure,” he muttered. “Of course!” and turned to his room under the eaves.

But the following day had to be faced. There were several things that had to be dealt with besides the condition arising from the locking of the door of William Truedale’s room.

Conning battled with this fact nearly all night, little realizing that Lynda was feeling her way to the same conclusion in the quiet room below.

“I’m not beaten, Uncle William,” she whispered, kneeling beside the bed. “If I could only see how to meet to-morrow I would be all right.”

And then a queer sort of comfort came to her. The humour with which her old friend would have viewed the situation pervaded the room, bringing strength with it.

“I know,” she confided to the darkness in which the old man seemed present, in a marvellously real way, “I know I love Conning. A make-believe love couldn’t stand this—but the true thing can. And he loves me! I know it through and through. The other love of his wasn’t—what this is. But he must find this out for himself. I’ve always been close when he needed me; he must come to me now—for his sake even more than for mine. I am deserving of that, am I not, Uncle William?”

The understanding friendship did not fail the girl kneeling by the empty bed. It seemed to come through the rays of moonlight and rest like a helpful touch upon her.

“Little mother!”—and in her soul Lynda believed William Truedale and her mother had come together—“little mother, you did your best without love; I will do mine—with it! And now I am going to bed and I am going to sleep.”

The next morning Truedale and Lynda were both so precipitate about attacking the situation that they nearly ran into each other at the dining-room door. They both had the grace to laugh. Then they talked of the work at hand for the morning.

“I have a studio to evolve,” Lynda said, passing a slice of toast to Truedale from the electric contrivance before her, “a woman wants a studio, she feels it will be an inspiration. She’s a nice little society woman who is bored to death. She’s written an article or two for a fashion paper and she believes she has discovered herself. I wish I knew what to put in the place. She’d scorn the real thing and I hate to compromise when it comes to such things. And you, Con, what have you that must be done?”

Truedale looked at her earnestly. “I must meet the lawyer and McPherson,” he said, “but may I come—for a talk, Lyn, afterward?”

“I shall be in my workshop all day, Con, until dinner time to-night.”

The day was a hard one for them both, but womanlike Lynda accepted it and came to its close with less show of wear and tear than did Truedale. She was restless and nervous. She worked conscientiously until three and accomplished something in the difficult task the society woman had entrusted her with; then she went to her bedroom and, removing every sign of her craft, donned a pretty house dress and went back to her shop. She meant to give Truedale every legitimate assistance, but she was never prouder or firmer in her life. She called the dogs and the cats in; she set the small tea table by the hearth and lighted just fire enough to take the chill from the room and yet leave it sweet and fresh.

At five there was a tap on the door.

“Just in time, Con, for the tea,” she called and welcomed him in.

To find her so calm, cheerful, and lovely, was something of a shock to Truedale. Had she been in tears, or, had she shown any trace of the suffering he had endured, he would have taken her in his arms and relegated the unfortunate money to the scrap-heap of non-essentials. But the scene upon which he entered had the effect of chilling him and bringing back the displeasing thought of Lynda’s sacrifice.

“Have you had a hard day, Con?”

“Yes.”

“Drink the tea, and—let me see, you like bread and butter, don’t you, instead of cakes?”

They were silent for a moment while they sipped the hot tea. Then, raising their eyes, they looked suddenly at each other.

“Lyn, I cannot do without you!”

She coloured deeply. She knew he did not mean to be selfish—but he was.

“You would be willing even to—accept my sacrifice?” she asked so softly that he did not note the yearning in the tones—the beseeching of him to abdicate the position that, for her, was untenable.

“Anything—anything, Lynda. The day without you has been—hell. We’ll get rid of the money somehow. Now that we both know how little it means, we’ll begin again and—free from Uncle William’s wrong conceptions—Lyn—” He put his cup down and rose quickly.

“Wait!” she whispered, shrinking back into her low armchair and holding him off by her smile of detachment more than by her word of command.

“I—I cannot face life without you,” Truedale spoke hoarsely, “I never really had to contemplate it before. I need you—must have you.”

He came a step nearer, but Lynda shook her head.

“Something has happened to us, Con. Something rather tremendous. We must not bungle.”

“One thing looms high. Only one, Lyn.”

“Many things do, Con. They have been crowding thick around me all day. There are worse things than losing each other!”

“No!” Truedale denied, vehemently.

“Yes. We could lose ourselves! This thing that makes you fling aside what went before, this thing that makes me long—oh! how I long, Con—to come to you and forget, this thing—what is it? It is the holiest thing we know, and unless we guard it sacredly we shall hurt and kill it and then, by and by, Con, we shall look at each other with frightened eyes—over a dead, dead love.”

“Lynda, how—can you? How dare you say these things when you confess—Oh! my—wife!”

“Because”—and she seemed withdrawing from Truedale as he advanced—“because I have confessed! You and I, Con, have reached to-day, by different routes, the most important and vital problem. All my life I have been pushing doors open as I came along. Sometimes I have only peered in and hurried on; sometimes I have stayed and learned a lesson. It will always be so with me. I must know. I think you are willing not to know unless you are forced.”

Truedale winced and went back slowly to his chair.

“Con, dear, unless you wish it otherwise, I want, as far as possible, to begin from to-day and find out just how much we do mean to each other. Let us push open the doors ahead until we make sure we both want the same abiding place. Should you find a spot better, safer for you than this that we thought we knew, I will never hold you by a look or word, dear.”

“And you—Lyn?” Truedale’s voice shook.

“For myself I ask the same privilege.”

“You mean that we—live together, yet apart?”

“Unless you will it otherwise, dear. In that case, we will close this door and say—good-bye, now.”

Her strength, her tenderness, unmanned Truedale. Again he felt that call upon him which she had inspired the night of his confession. Again he rallied to defend her—from her own pitiless sense of honour.

“By heaven!” he cried. “It shall not be good-bye. I will accept your terms, live up to them, and dare the future.”

“Good, old Con! And now, please, dear, go. I think—I think I am going to cry—a little and”—she looked up quiveringly—“I mustn’t have red eyes at dinner time. Brace and Betty are coming. Thank heaven, Con, Betty will make us laugh.”

CHAPTER XVIII

Having agreed upon this period of probation both Lynda and Truedale entered upon it with characteristic determination. There were times when Conning dejectedly believed that no woman could act as Lynda was doing, if she loved a man. No, it was not in woman’s power to forego all Lynda was foregoing if she loved deeply. Not that Lynda could be said to be cold or indifferent; she had never been sweeter, truer; but she was so amazingly serene!

Perhaps she was content, having secured his rights for him, to go on and be thankful that so little was actually exacted from her.

But such reasoning eventually shamed Truedale, and he acknowledged that there was something superb in a woman who, while still loving a man, was able to withhold herself from him until both he and she had sounded the depths of their natures.

In this state of mind Truedale devoted himself to business, and Lynda, with a fresh power that surprised even herself, resumed her own tasks.

“And this is love,” she often thought to herself, “it is the real thing. Some women think they have love when love has them. This beautiful, tangible something that is making even these days sacred has proved itself. I can rely upon it—lean heavily upon it.”

Sometimes she wondered what she was waiting for. Often she feared, in her sad moments, that it might last forever—be accepted this poor counterfeit for the real—and the full glory escape her and Truedale.

But at her best she knew what she was waiting for—what was coming. It was something that, driving all else away, would carry her and Conning together without reservations or doubts. They would know! He would know the master passion of his life; she, that she could count all lost unless she made his life complete and so crown her own.

The money was never mentioned. In good and safe investments it lay, awaiting a day, so Truedale told McPherson, when it could be got rid of without dishonour or disgrace.

“But, good heavens! haven’t you any personal ambitions—you and Lynda?” McPherson had learned to admire Conning, and Lynda had always been one of his private inspirations.

“None that Lynda and I cannot supply ourselves,” Truedale replied. “To have our work, and the necessity for our work, taken from us would be no advantage.”

“But haven’t you a duty to the money?”

“Yes, we have, and I’m trying to find out just what it is.”

And living this strange, abnormal life—often wondering why, and fearing much—three, then four years, passed them by.

It is one thing for two proud, sensitive natures to enter upon a deliberate course, and quite another for them to abandon it when the supposed need is past. There was now no doubt in Truedale’s heart concerning Lynda’s motive for marrying him; nor did Lynda for one moment question Truedale’s deep affection for her. Yet they waited—quite subconsciously at first, then with tragic stubbornness—for something to sweep obstacles aside without either surrendering his position.

“He must want me so that nothing can sway him again,” thought Lynda.

“She must know that my love for her can endure anything—even this!” argued Conning, and his stand was better taken than hers as she was to find out one day.

It seemed enough, in the beginning, to live their lives close and confidentially—to feel the tie of dependence that held them; but the knot cut in deep at times and they suffered in foolish but proud silence.

Many things occurred during those years that widened the horizon for them all. Betty’s first child came and went, almost taking the life of the young mother with it. Before the possible calamity Brace stood appalled, and both Conning and Lynda realized how true a note the girl was in their lives. She seemed to belong to them in a sense stronger than blood could have made her. They could not imagine life without her sunny companionship. Never were they to forget the grim dreariness of the once cheerful apartment during those days and nights when Death hovered near, weighing the chances. But Betty recovered and came back with a yearning look in her eyes that had never been there before.

“You see,” she confided to Lynda, “there will always be moments when I must listen to hear if my baby is calling. At times, Lyn, it seems as if he were just on ahead—keeping me from forgetting. It doesn’t make me sad, dear, it’s really beautiful that he didn’t quite escape me.”

“And do you go to The Refuge to think and look and listen?” Lynda asked. For they all worried now when Betty betook herself to the little house.

“Not much!” And here Betty twinkled. “I go there to meet Betty Arnold face to face, and ask her if she would rather trade back. And then I come trotting home, almost out of breath, to precious old Brace; I’m so afraid he won’t know he’s still the one big thing in the world for me.”

This little child of Betty’s and Brace’s had made a deep impression upon them all. It had lived only three days and while it stayed the black shadow hanging over the mother had made the baby seem of less account; but later, they all recalled the pretty, soft mite with the strange, old look in its wide eyes. He had been beautiful as babies who are not going to stay often are. There were to be no years for him to change and grow and so loveliness came with him.

“I reckon the little chap thought we didn’t want him,” Brace choked as he spoke over the small, cold body of his first-born, “so he turned back home before he forgot the way.”

“Don’t, brother!” Lynda pleaded as she stood with Truedale beside him. “You know the way home might have been longer and harder, by and by.”

“I wish Betty and I might have helped to make it easier; for a time, anyway.” The eternal revolt against seemingly useless suffering rang in the words.

And that night Truedale had kissed Lynda lingeringly.

“Such things,” he said, referring to the day’s sad duties, “such things do drag people together.”

After that something new throbbed in their lives—something that had not held sway before. If Betty looked and listened for the little creature who had gone on ahead, Lynda listened and looked into what had been a void in her life before.

She had always loved children in a kindly, detached way, but she had never appropriated them. But now she could not forget the feeling of that small, downy head that for a day or so nestled on her breast while the young mother’s feet all but slipped over the brink. She remembered the strange look in the child’s deep eyes the night it died. The lonely, aged look that, in passing, seemed trying to fix one familiar object. And when the dim light went out in the little face and only a dead baby lay in her arms, maternity had been called forth from its slumber and in following Betty’s child, became vitalized and definite.

“I—I think I shall adopt a child.” So she had thought while the cold little head yet lay in the hollow of her arm. She never let go this thought and only hesitated before voicing it to Truedale because she feared he could not understand and might cruelly misunderstand. Life was hard enough and difficult enough for them both just then, and often, coming into the quiet home at the day’s end, Lynda would say, to cheer her faint heart:

“Oh, well, it’s really like coming to a hearth upon which the fire is not yet kindled. But, thank heaven! it is a clean hearth, not cluttered with ashes—it is ready for the fire.”

But was it? More and more as the time went on and Truedale kept his faith and walked his way near hers—oh! they were thankful for that—but still apart, Lynda wondered. It was all so futile, so utterly selfish and childish—yet neither spoke. Then suddenly came the big thing that drove them together and swept aside all the barrier of rubbish they had erected. Like many great and portentous things it seemed very like the still, small voice in the burning bush—the tiny star in the black night.

Truedale had had an enlightening conversation with McPherson in the afternoon. The old doctor was really a soft-hearted sentimentalist and occasionally he laid himself bare to the eye of some trustworthy friend. This time it was Truedale.

Up and down the plain, businesslike office McPherson was tramping when Conning was announced.

“Oh! come in, come in!” called McPherson. “You can better understand this than some. I’ve had a devil of a day. One confounded thing after another to take the soul out of me. And now this letter from old Jim White!”

Conning started. It had now been years since Pine Cone had touched his thought sharply.

“What’s the matter with White?” he asked.

“Look out of the window!”

Truedale did so, and into the wall-like snow which had been falling all day.

“They’ve been having that in the mountains for weeks. Trails blotted out, folk hiding like beasts, and that good old chap, White, took this time to break his leg. There he lay for a whole week, damn it all! Two of his dogs died—he, himself, almost starved. Managed to crawl to the food while there was any, and then some one ploughed through to get Jim to organize a hanging or some other trifling thing, and found him! Good Lord, Truedale, what they need down there is roads! roads! Roads over which folk can travel to one another and become human. That’s all the world needs anyway!” Here McPherson stopped in front of Truedale and glared as if about to put the blame of impeded traffic up to him. “Roads over which folk can travel to one another. See here, you’re looking for some excuse to get rid of your damned money. Why don’t you build roads?”

“Roads?” Truedale did not know whether to laugh or take his man seriously.

“Yes, roads. I’m going down to Jim. I haven’t much money; I’ve made a good deal, but somehow I never seem able to be caught with the goods on me. But what little I’ve got now goes to Jim for the purpose of forging a connecting link between him and the Centre. But here’s a job for you. You can grasp this need. I’ve got a boy in the hospital; he caved in from over-study. Trying to get an education while starving himself to death and doing without underclothes. You ought to know how to hew a short cut to him, Truedale; you did some hacking through underbrush yourself. If I didn’t believe folk would travel to one another over roads, if there were roads, I’d go out and cut my throat.”

The big man, troubled and as full of sympathy as a tender woman, paused in his strides and ejaculated:

“Damn it all, Truedale!” Had he been a woman he would have dissolved in tears.

Truedale at last caught his meaning. Here was a possible chance to set the accumulating money free. For two hours, while the sun travelled down to the west, the men talked over plans and projects.

“Of course I’ll look after the boy in the hospital, Dr. McPherson. I know the short cut to him and he probably can lead me to others, but I want”—and here Truedale’s eyes grew gloomy—“I want you to take with you down to Pine Cone some checks signed in blank. I know the need of roads down there,” did he not? and for an instant his brows grew furrowed as he reflected how different his own life might have been, had travelling been easy, back in the time when he was at the mercy of the storm.

“I’d like to do something for Pine Cone. Make the roads, of course, but back up those men and women who are doing God’s work down there with little help or money. They know the people—Jim has explained them to me. They’re not ‘extry polite,’ Jim says, but they understand the needs. I don’t care to have my name known—I’m rather poor stuff for a philanthropist—but I want to do something as a starter, and this seems an inspiration.”

McPherson had been listening, and gradually his long strides became less nervous.

“Until to-day, I haven’t wished your uncle back, Truedale, since he went. He was a poor, inarticulate fellow, but I’ve learned to realize that he had a wide vision.”

“Thank you, Dr. McPherson, but I have often wished him back.”

Once outside McPherson’s house, Truedale raised his head and sniffed the clear, winter air with keen enjoyment. A sense of achievement possessed him; the joy of feeling he had solved a knotty problem. He found he could think of Pine Cone—and, yes, of Nella-Rose—without a hurting smart. He was going to do something for her—for her people! He was going to make life easier—happier—for them, so he prayed in his silent, wordless way. He had a new and strange impulse to go to Lynda and tell her that at last he was released from any hold of the past. He was going to do what he could and there was no longer any dragging of the anchors. He wanted her to help him—to work out some questions from the woman’s point of view. So he hurried on and entered the house with a light, boyish step.

Thomas, bent but stately, was laying the table in the cheerful dining room. There were flowers in a deep green bowl, pale golden asters.

Long afterward Truedale recalled everything as if it had been burned in his mind.

“Is Miss Lynda in?” he asked, for they all clung to the titles of the old days.

“Not yet, Mister Con. She went out in a deal of a hurry long about three o’clock. She didn’t say a word—and that’s agin her pleasant fashion—so I took it that she had business that fretted her. She’s been in the workshop all day.” Thomas put the plates in place. They were white china, with delicate gold edges. “Hum! hum! Mister Con, your uncle used to say, when he felt talkative, that Miss Lynda ought to have some one to hold her back when she took to running.”

“I’ll look her up, Thomas!”

Conning went up to the workshop and turned on the electricity. A desolate sensation overcame the exhilaration of the afternoon. Lynda seemed strangely, ominously distant—as if she had gone upon a long, long journey.

There was a dying fire on the hearth and the room was in order except for the wide table upon which still lay the work Lynda had been engaged with before she left the house.

Truedale sat down before it and gradually became absorbed, while not really taking in the meaning of what he saw. He had often studied and appreciated Lynda’s original way of solving her problems. It was not enough for her to place upon paper the designs her trained talent evolved; she always, as she put it, lived in the rooms she conceived. Here were real furniture—diminutive, but perfect, and real hangings—colour and form ideal, and arranged so that they could be shifted in order that light effects might be tested.

It was no wonder Truedale had often remarked that Lynda’s work was so individual and personal—she breathed the breath of life in it before she let it go from her. Truedale had always been thankful that marriage had not taken from Lynda her joy in her profession. He would have hated to know that he interfered with so real and vital a gift.

But this room upon which he was now looking was different from anything he had ever before seen in the workshop. It interested and puzzled him.

Lynda’s specialties were libraries and living rooms; there were two or three things she never attempted—and this? Truedale looked closer. How pretty it was—like a child’s playroom—and how fanciful! There was a fireplace off in a corner, before which stood a screen with a most benign goblin warning away, with spread claws, any heedless, toddling feet. The broad window-seats might serve as boxes for childish treasure. There were delectable, wee chairs and conveniently low stools; there was a tiny bed set in a dim corner over which, on a protecting shield, angels with folded wings and rapt faces were outlined.

“Why, this must be a—nursery!” Truedale exclaimed half aloud; “and she said she would never design one.”

Clearly he recalled Lynda’s reason. “If a father and a mother cannot conceive and carry out the needs of a nursery, they do not deserve one. I could never bring myself to intrude there.”

“What does this mean?” Truedale bent closer. The table had been painted white to serve as a floor for the dainty setting, and now, as he looked he saw stains—dark, tell-tale stains on the shining surface.

They were tear-stains; Lynda, who so joyously put her heart and soul in the ideals for other homes, had wept over the nursery of another woman’s child!

For some reason Truedale was that day particularly open to impression. As he sat with the toy-like emblems before him, the holiest and strongest things of life seized upon him with terrific meaning. He drew out his watch and saw that it was the dinner hour and the still house proved that the mistress was yet absent.

“There is only one person to whom she would go,” he murmured. “I’ll go to Betty’s and bring Lynda home.”

He made an explanation to Thomas that covered the situation.

“I found what the trouble was, Thomas,” he said. “It will be all right when we get back. But don’t keep dinner.”

He took a cab to Brace’s. He was too distraught to put himself on exhibition in a public conveyance. Brace sat in lonely but apparently contented state at the head of his table.

“Bully for you, old man,” he greeted. “You were never more welcome. I’ll have a plate put on for you at once. What’s the matter? You look—”

“Ken, where’s Betty?”

“Run away to herself, Con. Went yesterday. Goes less and less often, but she cut yesterday.”

“Has—has Lynda been here to-day?”

“Yes. About three. When she found Betty gone, she wouldn’t stay. Sit down, old man. You’ll learn, as I have, to appreciate Lyn more if she isn’t always where we men have thought women ought to be.”

Truedale sat down opposite Kendall but said he would take only a cup of coffee. When it was finished he rose, more steadily, and said quietly:

“I know it’s unwritten law, Ken, that we shouldn’t follow Betty up without an invitation; but I’ve got to go over there to-night.”

“It’s dangerous, old man. I advise against it. What’s up?”

“I must see Lyn. I believe she is there.”

“Rather a large-sized misunderstanding?”

“I hope, Ken, God helping me, it’s going to be the biggest understanding Lynda and I have ever had.”

Kendall was impressed—and, consequently, silent.

“I’m sure Betty will forgive me. Good-night.”

“Good-night, old chap, and—and whatever it is, I fancy it will come out all right.”

And then, into the night Truedale plunged—determined to master the absurd situation that both he and Lynda had permitted to exist. He felt like a man who had been suffering in a nightmare and had just awakened and shaken off the effect of the unholy dream.

CHAPTER XIX

Lynda, that winter day, had undertaken her task with unwonted energy. She had never done a similar piece of work before. In her early beginning she had rather despised the inadequacy of women who, no matter what might be said in defense of their ignorance regarding the rest of their homes, did not know how to design and plan their own nurseries. Later she had eliminated designing of this kind because so few asked for it, and it did not pay to put much time on study in preparation for the rare occasions when nurseries were included in the orders. But this was an exception. A woman who had lost three children was expecting the fourth, and she had come to Lynda with a touching appeal.

“You helped make a home of my house, Mrs. Truedale, but I always managed the nursery—myself before; now I cannot. I want you to put joy and welcome in it for me. If I were to undertake it I should fail miserably, and evolve only gloom and fear. It will be different—afterward. But you understand and—you will?”

Lynda had understood and had set herself to her work with the new, happy insight that Betty’s little baby had made possible. It had all gone well until the “sleeping corner” was reached, and then—something happened. A memory of one of Betty’s confessions started it. “Lyn,” she had said, just before her baby came, “I kneel by this small, waiting crib and pray—as only mothers know how to pray—and God teaches them afresh every time! I do so want to be worthy of the confidence of—God.”

“And I—am never to know!” Lynda bowed her head. “I with my love—with my desire to hear God speak—am never to hear. Why?”

Then it was that Lynda wept. Wept first from a desolate sense of defeat; then—and God sometimes speaks to women kneeling beside the beds of children not their own—she raised her head and trembled at the flood of joy that overcame her. It was like a mirage, seen in another woman’s world, of her own blessed heritage.

Filled with this vision she had fled to Betty’s, only to find that Betty had fled on her own account!

There was no moment of indecision; welcome or not, Lynda had to reach Betty—and at once!

She had tarried, after setting her face to the river. She even stopped at a quiet little tea room and ate a light meal. Then she waited until the throng of business men had crossed the ferry to their homes. It was quite dark when she reached the wooded spot where, hidden deep among the trees, was Betty’s retreat.

There was a light in the house—the living room faced the path—and through the uncurtained window Lynda saw Betty sitting before the fire with her little dog upon her lap.

“Oh, Betty,” she whispered, stretching her arms out to the lonely little figure in the low, deep chair. “Betty! Betty!” She waited a moment, then she tapped lightly upon the glass. The dog sprang to the floor, its sharp ears twitching, but he did not bark. Betty came to the door and stood in the warm, lighted space with arms extended. She knew no fear, there was only doubt upon her face.

“Lyn, is it you?”

“Yes! How did you guess?”

“All day I’ve been thinking about you—wanting you. Sometimes I can bring people that way.”

“And I have wanted you! Betty, may I stay—to-night?”

“Why, yes, dear. Stay until you want to go home. I’ve been pulling myself together; I’m almost ready to go back to Brace. Come in! Why—what is it, dear? Come, let me take off your things! There! Now lie back in the chair and tell Betty all about it.”

“No, no! Betty, I want to sit so—at your feet. I want to learn all that you can teach me. You have never had your eyes blinded—or you would know how the light hurts.”

“Well, then. Put your blessed, tired head on my knee. You’re my little girl to-night, Lyn, and I am your—mother.”

For a moment Lynda cried as a child might who had reached safety at last. Betty did not check or soothe the heavy sobs—she waited. She knew Lynda was saved from whatever had troubled her. It was only the telling of it now. And presently the dark head was lifted.

“Betty, it is Con and I!”

“Yes, dear.”

“I’ve loved him all my life; and I believe—I know—he loved me! Women do not make mistakes about the real thing.”

“Never, Lyn, never.”

“Betty, once when I thought Con had wronged me, I wanted to come to you—I almost did—but I couldn’t then! Now that I am sure I have wronged him, it is easy to come to you—you are so understanding!” The radiance of Lynda’s face rather startled Betty. Abandon, relief, glorified it until it seemed a new—a far more beautiful face.

“All my life, Betty, I’ve been controlling myself—conquering myself. I got started that way and—and I’ve kept on. I’ve never done anything without considering and weighing; but now I’m going to fling myself into love and life and—pay whatever there is to pay.”

“Why, Lyn, dear, please go slower.” Betty pressed her face to the head at her knee.

“Betty, there was another love in Con’s life—one that should never have been there.”

This almost took Betty’s breath. She was thankful Lynda’s eyes were turned away; but by some strange magic the words raised Truedale in Betty’s very human imagination.

“I sometimes think the—the thing that happened—was the working out of an old inheritance; Con has overcome much, but that caught him in its snare. He was ready to let it ruin his whole future. He would never have flinched—never have known, or admitted if he had known—what he had foregone. But the thing was taken out of his control altogether—the girl married another man!

“When Con came to himself again, he told me, Betty—told me so simply, so tragically, that I saw what a deep cut the experience had made in his life—how it had humbled him. Never once did he blame any one else. I loved him for the way he looked upon it; so many men could not have done so. That made the difference with me. It was what the thing had done to Con that made it possible for me to love him the more!

“He wanted the best things in life but didn’t think he was worthy! And I? Well, I thought I saw enough for us both, and so I married him! Then something happened—it doesn’t matter what it was—it was a foolish, ugly thing, but it had to be something. And Con thought I had never forgiven the—the first love—that I had sacrificed myself for him—in marriage! And no woman could bear that.”

“My poor, dear Lyn.”

“Can’t you see, Betty, it all comes from the idiotic idea that men—some men—have about women. They put us on a toppling pedestal; when we fall they are surprised, and when we don’t they—are afraid of us! And all the time—you know this, Betty—we ought not to be on pedestals at all; we don’t—we don’t belong on them! We want to be close and go along together.”

“Yes, Lyn; we do! we do!”

“Well—after Con misunderstood, I just let him go along thinking I was—well, the kind of woman who could sacrifice herself. I thought he would want me so that he would—find out. And so we’ve been eating our hearts out—for ages!”

“Why, Lyn! you cruel, foolish girl.”

“Yes—and because I knew you would say that—I could come to you. You—do not blame Con?”

“Blame him! Why, Lyn, a gentleman doesn’t take a woman off her beastly pedestal; she comes down herself—if she isn’t a fool.”

“Well, Betty, I’m down! I’m down, and I’m going to crawl to Con, if necessary, and then—I think he’ll lift me up.”

“He’ll never pull you down, that’s one sure thing!”

“Oh! thank you, Betty. Thank you.”

“But, Lyn—what has so suddenly brought you to your senses?”

“Your little baby, Betty!”

“My—baby!” The words came in a hard, gasping breath.

“I held him when he died, Betty. I had never been close to a baby before—never! A strange thing happened to me as I looked at him. It was like knowing what a flower would be while holding only the bud. The baby’s eyes had the same expression I have seen in Con’s eyes—in Brace’s; I know now it is the whole world’s look. It was full of wonder—full of questions as to what it all meant. I am sure that it comes and goes but never really is answered—here, Betty.”

“Oh! Lyn. And I have been bitter—miserable—because I felt that it wasn’t fair to take my baby until he had done some little work in the world! And now—why, he did a great thing. My little, little baby!” Betty was clinging to Lynda, crying as if all the agony were swept away forever.

“Sometimes”—Lynda pressed against Betty—“sometimes, lately, in Con’s eyes I have seen the look! It was as if he were asking me whether he had yet been punished enough! And I’ve been thinking of myself—thinking what Con owed me; what I wanted; when I should have it! I hate and despise myself for my littleness and prudery; why, he’s a thousand times finer than I! That’s what pedestals have done for women. But now, Betty, I’m down; and I’m down to stay. I’m—”

“Wait, Lyn, dear.” Betty mopped her wet face and started up. She had seen a tall form pass the window, and she felt as if something tremendous were at stake. “Just a minute, Lyn. I must speak to Mrs. Waters if you are to stay over night. She’s old, you know, and goes early to bed.”

Lynda still sat on the floor—her face turned to the red glow of the fire that was growing duller and duller. Presently the door opened, and her words flowed on as if there had been no interruption.

“I’m going to Con to-morrow. I had to make sure—first; but I know now, I know! I’m going to tell him all about it—and ask him to let me walk beside him. I’m going to tell him how lonely I’ve been in the place he put me—how I’ve hated it! And some time—I feel as sure as sure can be—there will be something I can do that will prove it.”

“My—darling!”

Arms stronger than Betty’s held her close—held her with a very human, understanding strength.

“You’ve done the one big thing, Lyn!”

“Not yet, not yet, Con, dear.”

“You have made me realize what a wrong—a bitter wrong—I did you, when I thought you could be less than a loving woman.”

“Oh, Con! And have you been lonely, too?”

“Sweet, I should have died of loneliness had something not told me I was still travelling up toward you. That has made it possible.”

“Instead”—Lynda drew his face down to hers—“instead, I’ve been struggling up toward you!! Dear, dear Con, it isn’t men and women; it’s the man—the woman. Can’t you see? It’s the sort of thing life makes of us that counts; not the steps we take on the way. You—you know this, Con?”

“I know it, now, from the bottom of my soul.”

It was one of Betty’s quaint sayings that some lives were guided by flashlights, others by a steady gleam. Hers had always been by the former method. She made her passage from one illumination to another with great faith, high courage, and much joyousness. After the night when Lynda made her see what her dear, dead baby had accomplished in his brief stay, she rose triumphant from her sorrow. She was her old, bright self again; she sang in her home, transfigured Brace by her happiness, and undertook her old interests and duties with genuine delight.

But for Lynda and Truedale the steady gleam was necessary. They never questioned—never doubted—after the night when they came home from the little house in the woods. To them both happiness was no new thing; it was a precious old thing given back after a dark period of testing. The days were all too short, and when night brought Conning running and whistling to the door, Lynda smiled and realized that at last the fire was burning briskly on her nice, clean hearth. They had so much in common—so much that demanded them both in the doing of it.

“No bridges for us, here and there, over which to reach each other,” thought Lynda; “it’s the one path for us both.” Then her eyes grew tenderly brooding as she remembered how ’twas a little child that had led them—not theirs, but another’s.

The business involved in setting old William Truedale’s money in circulation was absorbing Conning at this time. Once he set his feet upon the way, he did not intend to turn back; but he sometimes wondered if the day would ever come when he could, with a clear conscience, feel poor enough to enjoy himself, selfishly, once more.

From McPherson he heard constantly of the work in the southern hills. Truedale was, indeed, a strong if silent and unsuspected force there. As once he had been an unknown quantity, so he remained; but the work went on, supervised by Jim White, who used with sagacity and cleverness the power placed in his hands.

Truedale’s own particular interests were nearly all educational. Even here, he held himself in reserve—placed in more competent hands the power they could wield better than he. Still, he was personally known and gratefully regarded by many young men and women who were struggling—as he once had struggled—for what to them was dearer than all else. He always contrived to leave them their independence and self-respect. Naturally all this was gratifying and vital to Lynda. Achievement was dear to her temperament, and the successes of others, especially those nearest to her, were more precious to her than her own. She saw Truedale drop his old hesitating, bewildered manner like a discarded mantle. She grew to rely upon his calm strength that developed with the demands made upon it. She approved of him so! And that realization brought out the best in her.

One November evening she and Con were sitting in the library, Truedale at his desk, Lynda idly and luxuriously rocking to and fro, her hands clasped over her head. She had learned, at last, the joy of absolute relaxation.

“There’s a big snow-storm setting in,” she said, smiling softly. Then, apropos of nothing: “Con, we’ve been married four years and over!”

“Only that, Lyn? It seems to me like my whole life.”

“Oh, Con—so long as that?”

“Blessedly long.”

After another pause Lynda spoke merrily: “Con, I want some of Uncle William’s money. A lot of it.”

Truedale tossed her a new check book. “Now that you see there is no string tied to it,” he said, “may I ask what for? Just sympathetic interest, you know.”

“Of course. Well, it’s this way. Betty and I are broke. It’s fine for you to make roads and build schools and equip the youth of America for getting all the learning they can carry, but Betty and I are after the babies. We’ve been agonizing over the Saxe Home—Betty’s on the Board—and before Christmas we are going to undress all those poor standardized infants and start their cropped hair to growing.”

Truedale laughed heartily. “Intimacy with Betty,” he said, “has coloured your descriptive powers, Lyn, dear.”

“Oh, all happy women talk one tongue.”

“And you are happy, Lyn?”

“Happy? Yes—happy, Con!”

They smiled at each other across the broad table.

“Betty has told the superintendent that if there is a blue stripe or a cropped head on December twenty-fourth, she’s going to recommend the dismissal of the present staff.”

“Good Lord! Does any one ever take Betty seriously? I should think one of those board meetings would bear a strong family resemblance to an afternoon tea—rather a frivolous one.”

“They don’t. And, honestly, people are tremendously afraid of Betty. She makes them laugh, but they know she gets what she wants—and with a joke she drives her truths home.”

“There’s something in that.” Truedale looked earnest. “She’s a great Betty.”

“So it’s up to Betty and me, now,” Lynda went on. “We can take off the shabby, faded little duds, but we’ve got to have something to put on at once, or the kiddies will take cold.”

“Surely.”

“We think that to start a child out in stripes is almost as bad as finishing him in them. To make a child feel—different—is sure to damn him.”

“And so you are going to make the Saxe Home an example and set the ball rolling.”

“Exactly, Con. And we’re going to slam the door in the faces of the dramatic rich this Christmas. The lambies at the Saxe are going to have a nice, old-fashioned tree. They are going to dress it themselves the night before, and whisper up the chimney what they want—and there is not going to be a speech on Christmas Day within a mile of that Home!”

“That’s great. I’d like to come in on that myself.”

“You can, Con, we’ll need you.”

“Christmas always does set the children in one’s thoughts, doesn’t it? I suppose Betty is particularly keen—having had her baby for a day or so.” Truedale’s eyes were tender. Betty’s baby and its fulfilled mission were sacred to him and Lynda.

“Betty is going to adopt a child, Con.”

“Really?”

“Yes. She says she cannot stand Christmas without one. It’s a rebuke to—to her boy.”

“Poor little Bet!”

“Oh! it makes me so—so humble when I see her courage. She says if she has a dozen children of her own it will make no difference; she must have her first child’s representative. She’s about decided upon the one—he’s the most awful of them all. She’s only hesitating to see if anything awfuller will turn up. She says she’s going to take a baby no one else will have—she’s going to do the biggest thing she can for her own dead boy. As if her baby ever could be dead! Sometimes I think he is more alive than if he had stayed here and got all snarled up in earthly things—as so many do!”

Conning came close to Lynda and drew her head back against his breast.

“You are—crying, darling!” he said.

“It’s—it’s Betty. Con, what is it about her that sort of brightens the way for us all, yet dims our eyes?”

“She’s very illuminating. It’s a big thing—this of adopting a child. What does Brace think of it?”

“He adores everything Betty does. He says”—Lynda smiled up into the face above her—“he says he wishes Betty had chosen one with hair a little less crimson, but that doubtless he’ll grow to like that tint better than any other.”

“Lyn, have you ever thought of adopting a child?”

“Oh!—sometimes. Yes, Con.”

“Well, if you ever feel that you ought—that you want to—I will be glad to—to help you. I see the risk—the chance, and I think I would like a handsome one. But it is Christmas time, and a man and woman, if they have their hearts in the right places, do think of children and trees and all the rest at this season. Still”—and with that Truedale pressed his lips to Lynda’s hair—“I’m selfish, you seem already to fill every chink of my life.”

“Con, that’s a blessed thing to say to a woman—even though the woman knows you ought not to say it. And now, I’m going to tell you something else, Con. It’s foolish and trifling, perhaps, but I’ve set my heart upon it ever since the Saxe Home got me to thinking.”

“Anything in the world, Lyn! Can I help?”

“I should say you could. You’ll have to be about the whole of it. Starting this Christmas, I’m going to have a tree—right here in this room—close to Uncle William’s chair!”

“By Jove! and for—for whom?”

“Why, Con, how unimaginative you are! For you, for me, for Uncle William, for any one—any really right person, young or old—who needs a Christmas tree. Somehow, I have a rigid belief that some one will always be waiting. It may not be an empty-handed baby. Perhaps you and I may have to care for some dear old soul that others have forgotten. We could do this for Uncle William, couldn’t we, Con?”

“Yes, my darling.”

“The children cannot always know what they are missing, but the old can, and my heart aches for them often—aches until it really hurts.”